Bobby's

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

May 2nd, 2006

"I went to where they lay..." Slowly she placed the yellow tulip onto the grass, while she settled on her knees.

"Where tulips and hummingbirds play...where silence stays, a poem in hand, and you in mind, I found tranquility.." Her voice began to thicken with emotion, and in her heart she could feel the sadness swelling inside.

"We live, in different spaces, in different times.." Softly, she placed her palm open on the spot next to the flower, emitting an energy into the soil where just underneath lay a the body of her child. The blades of green grass grew richer in color and taller by a couple of inches, and with it, a couple of dandelions bloomed. A smile pulled at the corners of her lips.

"My love for you has overgrown, and stemmed into green, and blues in the sky, in heights so high it's impossible to forget your beautiful smile..the one you gave me forever to hold before you went..away to lay.." Her eyes stung with tears she refused to drop.

"...I miss you baby. Mommy loves you." She sniffed, raising her hand to her lips to kiss it before placing it back onto the ground.

"You always go out there." As Rory stepped through the back door, she was met by the grungy voice of her father. She snapped her neck to the left where she found him at the counter, leaning with a beer in hand, watching her quizically.

Clearing her throat she steaightendd her posture and swept a few strands of her behind her ears.

"No I don't." She answered. Bobby kept a set expression as he looked at her.

"Every month around this date, you come around if you're not already here, and you step outside, with a beer and a New Testament and you kneel in that spot near the corner where that last patch of grass is and you pray." He spoke. Rory looked down at the half-empty beer in her grip and then at the bible tucked under her arm.

The words backed up in her throat.

"You never used to do that until sometime last year." Bobby voiced.

"...I-"

"You know I'm not a stupid man." Bobby blinked.

She knew. If there was anything she knew in this life, it was that her father wasn't a stupid man.

"Tell me."

But he was wrathful.

"Ariel." She took a breath, putting her words into order before she spilled them.

"...I had a miscarriage."

Motel

Oakdale, Wisconsin

May 30th, 2006

She decided to stay. Just for a little bit.

Her heart wouldn't allow her to leave them, not after they'd nearly risked their lives to save hers, yet again. She couldn't let her anger towards Dean stop her from being the person they could always rely on, from being their partner, their family.

"..I told my dad about Noah and the accident." She told Sam as she and him say comfortably on the couch of her motel room eating takeout Chinese with chopsticks while watching an old time movie that neither one of them were really interested in. They were more interested in catching up with each other.

Dean had decided it was best he gave them their space while he hit up the town's local bar.

"Wh-...what did he say?!" Sam answered with a mouthful of noodles as his face filled with shock.

Rory chuckled softly, keeping her eyes on the television.

"Well at first, nothin' nice...I don't think he's ever cursed that much." She grimaced at the memory.

Sam chortled under his breath.

"That's not funny. He really tore me a new one. And Dean better not come around for a while if he wants to keep his pack intact."

"His 'pack intact' who are you Cat in the Hat?" Sam cackled earning an eye roll.

"Shut up, you know what I mean. That message was from dad personally too, so you'd better warn him."

"So Sioux Falls is off limits?" He grinned, all too amused by the situation.

"Sioux Falls is off limits." Rory dug into her food again, sticking her chopstick through a piece of chicken as silence fell around them again.

It was always comfortable with Sam. It offered her safety that she so desperately needed some days.

She took a deep breath and exhaled, holding her box of takeout with her utensils hovering over.

"...He cried."

The smile slipped slowly from Sam's lips and he turned to look at her. Rory could feel his gaze, but refused to meet his stare.

"He cried. For me. For Noah...really hard too, like...like he'd broken down or something."

Sam frowned deeply as Rory kept her gaze forward.

"I never realized how much of a toll it took on him..me being a hunter, and growing up and leaving him all the time just to do the job. It...it sucked for him. And it killed him to know that I nearly died and he found out a year later." She shook her head, pain and guilt striking her eyes. She set down her food in her lap and took a moment to gather herself.

"After I told Dean...I started to feel the guilt of keeping Noah a secret. It was building up. It was eating me alive. I saw what it did to you, and him, and it made me angry at myself knowing what it would do to my father. It makes me angry knowing what it'll do to John, or Mary.."

"You can't let it take over Rore–"

"I know. But it did...it is." She admit honestly.

"That's why I can't stay with you guys–"

"No it's why you should stay." Sam cut her off causing her to turn her head to him.

"You gotta stay Rore. You can't let the guilt and pain take over your life, and you can't avoid Dean forever. This is something you too need to do together." She scoffed, feeling the bitterness fight to get a better hold of her.

"We were supposed to do a lot of things together." She admit sending her gaze down to her fingers where the played with one another.

"...You still can." Sam spoke up.

Rory let his words sit and resonate with her.

Sam had knocked out on her couch, too lazy to go back to his own room and feeling comfortable enough to stay the night in Rory's. The exhaustion had taken him by surprise, both of them, but Rory's wouldn't allow her to sleep.

She had too much on her mind.

Three times she knocked, and after a minute or two and no response, she felt it was best to walk away from her attempt. As she went to turn her back, the click of the door caught her attention, and sooner or later, Dean had come into view sporting a blunt facial expression and tired, sleep filled jade green hues.

Rory swallowed, feeling her entirety surrender to the look he fed her. Even after time apart, their feelings for one another were still strong, and annoyingly present.

His brow raised in question.

"...Everything okay?" Dean shifted on his feet, clearing his throat and eyeing her over, trying not to let his breath get caught in his throat at the sight of her slender legs and toned arms as they wrapped around each other for comfort.

Rory took a deep breath as the build up in her chest began to overwhelm her.

"I hate hating you..." She admit, breaking her silence.

Dean seemed shock at the revelation, unable to register what she'd said he blinked and opened the door a bit wider so that his whole body could come into view. Rory looked down at her hands, playing with her fingers.

"I hate..not having you to talk to. I hate being angry at you. I miss-"

"I can't do this." His voice sliced through her sentence causing Rory to come to an abrupt stop. Her eyes snapped onto his and she could see it then, the hurt and pain and anger that he felt towards her. The same look he'd given her when she told him-

"What do you mean?-"

"This." He gestured between the both of them with a doubtful expression.

Rory frowned.

"Look we can be cordial, we can hunt, but we can't-...I can't..." Dean struggled hard to get it out, the pain and animosity towards her. He hated feeling it every morning when he woke and every night before bed. But every time he went to try and better their issues, the thought of his son kept him from doing so.

He just couldn't get over it.

Rory fixed her lips to speak.

"But-...don't you wanna fix this?" She breathed, finding it hard to ignore the tightness in her throat that felt like it would strangle her any moment.

Waiting for his answer was like waiting for rain in a drought. She tried to read the millions of emotions passing through his eyes as he tried to put the right words together.

But Dean couldn't settle on any, except-

"I can't." He shook his head slightly, his eyes beginning to sting with tears. He couldn't help but become emotional over the subject that was their relationship, and their son, and all that came between that.

Rory felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. She blinked repeatedly.

"I-..." Not giving her the chance to respond, he shut the door leaving Rory to stand alone in the night with nothing but her thoughts.

She stared at the door with glassy eyes, with the lone tear slipping over the edge and down her face. Sniffing she reached up and swiped at her cheek, nodding slowly as she accepted the possibility that maybe there was no fixing them.

Maybe they were just broken.