Sam went down the stairs, heading for the kitchen, but stopped for a moment when passing the archway to the library.
A few books and a newspaper had fallen off one of the tables.
He kept his guard up as he moved to the kitchen, not sure what to expect. There seemed to be a change in the air.
Castiel nuzzled against Melissa's neck for a moment before he began to untangle from her.
Both leaning on the wall, they managed to get back to their feet, breathing still quickened by the exertion.
He pulled her close, pressing a gentle kiss to her mouth before embracing her, pulling her wet hair aside to look down at the scars patterned down the right side of her back. His fingers touched the raised surfaces delicately. "It won't be much longer."
The Impala swung to the side of the road, parallel parking on the calm suburban street.
Dean shifted to park, and looked over to Lita. She looked concerned.
"That's my dad..." she said.
"Where?" Dean asked.
Lita pointed to the front porch two houses down. "Right there, with Antonio. I told him not to call..."
Dean nodded, and turned to face her directly. "Look, I'm gonna level with you: I don't know the guy, never met him, but I lost my dad. He died years ago, saving my life. My dad was an asshole, to be honest, but if I could get just one more day with him, I'd take it... that said, you don't have to do this, I'll take you back to Robertsville, if that's what you want... But I don't think he came all this way just to meet up with your cousin."
Lita looked into Dean's eyes for a moment before leaning forward, and pressing a kiss to his lips before grabbing her purse and getting out of the car.
Dean sat, watching her with what he was sure was a dumb expression, until a few feet from the hood, she motioned, beckoning him to follow.
As she passed shrub at the edge of the neighbor's yard, the older of the two men on the porch caught sight of her, and cut his conversation short, coming down the steps.
He met her in the middle of the yard, paying no mind to Dean, who held back. He caught her face with both hands, kissing her forehead and knocking her hijab loose on accident before wrapping his arms around her shoulders and rocking slightly. Dean couldn't make out what Lita's father was saying, but he was sure he'd be able to make an accurate guess.
A short time later, inside the house, Dean sat uncomfortably on a sofa as an older woman with dark eyes wearing a rosary passed him a cup of coffee. He took it, thanking her with a small smile.
"You get kidnapped by demons, you get free, and the first person you call is Antonio?" Lita's father said loudly in the kitchen.
Antonio sat down in a close by armchair, "So, you her boyfriend, then?"
"No," Dean chuckled. "No, just a hunter."
"Hijab threw you off, huh?" Antonio asked, smirking.
"A little, I guess." Dean admitted.
Lita was loudly reminding her father of things he had said as she left for college.
"Don't worry about her dad, he's just glad she's okay. He won't give you any trouble. Unless you make her cry, anyway. Poor girl got stood up for the prom, the guy shows up a week later to take her out, he yells at the kid and makes him apologize to her." Antonio laughed, "It was pretty brutal, but that guy was a jerk."
Lita's voice came from the kitchen again, "He's not my boyfriend, dad!"
Lita's father walked into the room as Dean and Antonio looked up. He said something in Spanish and Antonio shook his head. The older man turned to Dean. "I'm sorry about all the yelling. This has been a rough couple of days for me... Thank you, for keeping my daughter safe."
"Of course," Dean answered. "I'm just glad to know she's got a family to get back to. Some folks I've helped haven't been so lucky."
Dean shot a guilty look at Lita, who was leaning in the kitchen doorway, her scarf far looser than usual, a bit of her hair showing.
"I don't know if she sees it that way." he replied quietly. "She's decided from here she's going straight to Europe to hunt monsters."
"I'm not hunting, dad! I'm doing what I can to support the ones who are!" Lita said.
"You can't tell me you aren't going to hunt. You know what these things are when you see them. That's why you were taken, isn't it?"
Lita looked at the floor. He father turned back to Dean. "Lita is a brilliant young woman with a fine mind, and a terrible gift. I hate to think your efforts have been wasted, but she's not likely to stop running into danger any time soon. She does what she pleases, she always has... What else can I do, huh?"
Dean shrugged. "Train her? Give her a weapon?"
Lita shook her head. Antonio burst out laughing. "We tried that. She won't do it, she's too much a pacifist."
"I give up." her father said, "She's going to Europe. I can't stop that. She won't learn to fight, she's like that Mister Rogers, wants to believe the best of everyone..."
"I wish I had that kind of faith in people." Dean said softly.
Lita's father turned in his chair to face her. "Will you at least come home and see your mother before you go? Please?"
Lita looked up and nodded.
Not much later, she walked Dean back to the Impala. He passed her a slip of paper.
"What's this?" She asked.
"My email. And my number. Well, numbers, three of 'em." Dean said. "I just figure it might be good to be able to get in touch with other hunters, you know, or maybe if you get bored in Spain and come back for a visit or something."
Lita chuckled, "Right. I'm sure that's why."
Dean smiled slightly and pulled her scarf to cover more of her hair. "Okay, fine, I need to know you're okay, okay? So just let me know when you get settled. And if it's been three months, and I don't hear from you... Please don't make me get on a plane, I hate flying."
Lita smiled and nodded. "I won't make you get on a plane... Thanks for convincing me to talk to my father."
Dean gave her a quick hug, and watched her walk back to the yard. After she was out of earshot, he muttered to himself just before he got in the car. "I would so give up bacon for you."
Castiel was sitting in the library once again when Dean came down the stairs, some time after Melissa and Sam had both turned in for the night.
"Burning the midnight oil, huh, Cas?"
"Research. Blood vessels and lungs are very delicate items." Castiel said, not looking up from the book until Dean came close enough to see it himself as he set his bag on the table.
"Yeah, gross and gooey, too." Dean muttered. "What's the case?"
Castiel looked Dean in the eyes. "Your sister... We need to talk, Dean."
"Crap." Dean said, sitting down. "She's still avoiding you?"
"No, that issue has resolved. Very well, in fact-"
Dean cut him off, "So what's wrong?"
"The scars on her back. I've found a way we may be able to remove them." Castiel said, avoiding his eyes. "I'll need your help."
Dean nodded. "Okay, what do you need?"
Castiel swallowed, not something he usually did. "I'm very sorry to have to ask this of you, Dean... I need you to physically remove the scar tissue. I'll keep her unconscious and relieve the pain while I heal her in bursts, replacing the muscle and skin with new flesh."
Dean's face had fallen as Castiel spoke, and he shook slightly, as it became apparent what was being asked of him.
"I'll understand your reaction, Dean. The scarring runs too close to her lung, there's a risk of puncture. Sam doesn't have the experience you do, or I would ask him. He already knows, if you want to speak to him about it, but Melissa may not be able to handle hearing the details."
Dean leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He wanted to bury his face in his hands, but all he could do was stare at them.
For ten years, he had tortured souls, and sometimes he could still feel the blood between his fingers.
"You want me to pick up a knife... and carve into her, my sister, the way my dad did, and not even tell her what's happening?" Dean's voice broke. "For her own good, right?"
"Dean, this is not the same. Not at all." Castiel reached for his shoulder. "This would be to help her, and with her consent."
Dean shook Castiel's hand off his shoulder and stood quickly, picking up his bag, and making a rapid pace toward his room. "I can't do this."
Castiel got up immediately and followed him. "Dean, wait."
Dean kept walking. "I'm sorry, I can't."
Castiel caught up to him and grabbed his upper arm, not far from where he had caught hold of him in the middle of torturing someone in Hell years before.
The abrupt contact made Dean drop his bag, but Castiel didn't stop walking, dragging his friend further down the hall.
Castiel rounded a corner and stopped at Melissa's door, letting go of Dean, and motioned for him to stay quiet. He turned the knob and gently pressed the door open, revealing the room.
The light was on and a small antique radio from some dusty corner of the bunker was tuned to an AM talk station, despite the late hour, and Melissa was asleep, rolled tightly in her blankets.
Dean wasn't sure what Castiel's point was, but from the doorway, his eyes were glued to Melissa's face.
He had noticed sometimes, when Sam was asleep, his face completely relaxed, that in his features he could see traces of the face Sam had had as a small child, and now he wondered what Melissa had looked like then.
Dean turned back to Castiel as Castiel pulled it shut again, and guided him back down the hall the way they had come. "She is terrified now, of darkness, silence, and being alone. That's why as she was coming out of it, she couldn't let go of you. Her other senses were dulled, most of her mind was still there, experiencing complete emptiness. If it happens again... Even temporarily... Her fear will likely consume her, turning her into something unrecognizable, and very powerful. And then, she'll get loose."
Castiel was suddenly holding Dean's bag, reaching it out to him as they reached Dean's bedroom. "Please consider what I've told you, and we can speak about it again in the morning."
He recognized the broken look inside Dean's eyes as he took the bag, and went through the door.
Sam wandered into the kitchen fairly early, finding Dean at the table with a cup of coffee, still in his robe.
"Hey, when'd you get in?" Sam asked.
"About 4 a.m." Dean replied.
"Did you sleep at all?"
"No... Not after talking to Cas."
Sam nodded. "Yeah, I knew that wasn't going to be easy for you to hear. Sorry. I thought you'd be back later, I was going to try to talk to you about it."
"Tell me you don't agree with this." Dean said firmly.
Sam's body language became defensive. "I was against it, at first. But she doesn't have a lot of options... Cas has been trying to get dad's makeshift curse off of her for years, he can't do it, and he can't keep her knocked out, heal her, and cut the scars out too."
Dean shook his head. "No... C'mon, Sam, cutting it out of her? And he said not to talk to her about it."
"You think she's going to take it well if one of us, or even Cas says, 'Hey, let's just slice these out of you, so you can die like a normal person?'" Sam asked, trying to keep his voice down.
"Yeah, why not strap her down to a table while you're at it, just like dad did?" Dean blurted, his voice full of frustration.
"Good morning, Sam." Castiel's voice came from the doorway.
Dean put his elbow on the table, and rested the side of his face in his palm, shading his eyes with his fingers, shaking his head.
"It might be for the best if this discussion was quieter." Castiel commented.
Sam shrugged, getting back to the task of fixing his own coffee. "Sorry."
Dean slammed his hand down on the table and jumped out of his chair, disappearing through the doorway.
Melissa woke to the feeling of fingers gently twisting in her hair.
"You haven't been sleeping deeply. You're not resting well." Castiel's deep voice was quiet in the still room.
She rolled over, curling close against him, where he lay fully dressed on top of the blankets.
"It'll get easier. Maybe I'll go for a walk today, get some fresh air, balance out the melatonin and all." she murmured.
"You don't have a sufficient amount to balance it. There are good reasons for humans to sleep in the dark." Castiel said softly.
Melissa shook her head against him.
"I'll get you a working lamp from one of the unused rooms." Castiel offered. "It won't be as healthy for you as having the light off, but it will be better than this."
Melissa shifted to lay on her back, the dark circles under her eyes more obvious.
"Thank you for stopping me yesterday... you were right, I didn't want to do that... Not like that, anyway... after, I did... At the time, I just didn't see any way around it." Melissa said softly.
"Dean is back." Castiel said, putting an arm around her. "He needs some time, though. What I've asked him to do will be very difficult for him."
"Then maybe he shouldn't do it."
"I don't trust anyone else with this."
"What about Sam?"
"No. I trust Sam completely, but there's a certain skill, a training Dean received... He spent a decade doing this, he's very practiced. Sam is not."
"So, he was a doctor or something? Or is this a spell?" Melissa asked.
"Melissa, please, don't ask. And I don't recommend speaking to him about this. He may approach you, but I promise you, it's a conversation that will only upset you both."
"You don't want to tell me how you're doing this, you don't want to tell me what Dean was doing that makes him right for helping you, anything you do want to tell me?"
Castiel inched his face close to her ear and whispered.
"That sounds pretty, but I don't speak 'angel.'" Melissa said.
Castiel smiled. "It loses something from Enochian, but a rough translation would be, 'I enjoy the resumption of the sharing of flesh with honeybee.'"
"Honeybee?"
"Your name is Greek in origin and means honeybee." Castiel explained. "I'm very fond of bees, you can ask your brothers."
Sam waited until Dean had to reload before walking into the firing range.
"Come to talk me into that bullshit plan, Sammy?" Dean asked, popping bullets into his magazine.
"No. I don't have to. Eventually you'll cave." he said, coming through the door and leaning his back against the wall.
"Why's that?"
"It's the only way to help her."
Dean slid the magazine home and racked it before setting it down on the bench. "You don't know that."
"I know if there was some foreign object in my body, something that would do that to me, you'd cut it out of me in a heartbeat. You've stitched me up, pulled bullets out of me, gotten covered in my blood, and it doesn't faze you. You don't even hesitate. So don't tell me you can't do this."
"This is different!" Dean barked.
"How?... Because dad did this?... Because of how he did it?... How do the circumstances, which you weren't even around for, change whether or not you help her?" Sam yelled.
"I want to help, believe me, but this, this is... She's a mess from it, Sam! And that's a mess I can relate to. Dad did to her what I did to people in Hell... He was there almost a hundred years, and he wouldn't pick up a blade to get off the rack, but he'd do this, this!... and not to total strangers, but to his own child!... God, I feel sick..." Dean said, rubbing his forehead and leaning, facing the wall near Sam.
"I'm not here to convince you, Dean... I want to help." Sam said, standing, turning to his brother. "The only reason I was against it in the first place was because I knew what this would do to you. So, what can I do to make this easier?"
"I told you everything, a long time ago..." Dean said, shaking his head.
"You mean when you said that you got to the point where you liked it?" Sam said quietly. "That's not you. The guy I know, who held that poor girl for the better part of two hours so she wouldn't feel alone, even though it made him uncomfortable... That's who you are. You're not some sadistic bastard that's going to regress to who you were during forty years in Hell."
"What happens if I go too far?" Dean questioned, more for himself than Sam. "What if I cut into her, and for some reason, Cas can't heal her?... What if something happens and she wakes up on the table like she did when dad was putting those scars there in the first place?"
Sam's brow furrowed. "What? Did she tell you about it?"
Dean shook his head. "No, she, um... she fell, tore her shirt, and I saw the scars. She was struggling when most of those cuts were made, they're jagged, and they didn't heal well, because she probably hid them. Cas said that dad put something in the cuts, that's why he can't undo it."
"I'm sorry, Dean. I really hope this is the last time you get called on to clean up one of dad's messes, but we can't leave her like this." Sam pulled Dean into a tight hug. "I'll be right there, I'll help you with anything you need to get this done, and if you're scared you'll snap, I'll be watching for that, too. But we have to have your help on this one, and you know it."
Sam pulled back, his hands on Dean's arms.
"She can't feel it... She can't feel it, and she can't wake up. I need to know that's not going to happen. I can't make her go through that again... Cas has to focus on healing her, we need a back up plan... If she wakes up, I'm out."
Sam nodded, "I'll find a way to make sure it happens."