AN: Don't be mad. Remember how I have to make a living and pass university? Yeah, still happening. But at some point, I will keep working on this...
37.
She's running before she can think. There is only the pounding of her feet against the pebbled path, the sound of her breath in her throat. She runs effortlessly, hair streaming behind her in a banner of pale gold.
"Dean!"
She sees him turn in his seat, looking around.
"Dean!"
She sees the moment he spots her, standing and sprinting down the jetty with such force that the chair goes over, hitting the boards with a loud clack that shatters the calm of the blue air. She makes a sound of desperate happiness as she runs, seeing him getting closer…
Then he's facing her down the path. Both of them skid to a halt, stilling for a moment and drinking in the sight of each other.
He breathes her name, she can taste it… He looks just like she remembers, maybe a little darker around the eyes, some of the hope washed away, but it filters back as he stands there gazing at her, his face almost hungry.
And she wants him. Wants his eyes and hands and lips and the sound of his voice in her ears, against her skin. She wants his heart and his fears, wants that shoddy pick-up line he tried on her last night, wants his laughter, the shape of his smile and the way he looked at her and saw her.
But then there's fear in his face and he's running towards her. She feels a trickle of awareness up her spine and takes off too, waiting for the sweet collision when they'll hit each other, the feel of him…
Dean roars, "JO!" just as something grabs her waist and hauls her back. She screams and tries to struggle free, but the arms gripping her are as immovable as steel.
"Dean!" She screams again, trashes hard, reaching for him. "DEAN!"
He gets so close.
His fingertips almost graze hers. She feels the change in air pressure, the heat of his skin…
And then he's gone, as though he were never there at all.
Jo collapses in Harayel's arms, sobbing and raging. She shoves the angel away, betrayal written on her tear-streaked face. Seconds later she is in the sky, leaving a trail of black feathers in her wake.
Dean comes to with a start, sitting bolt upright and striking out with one hand while the other clutches the single feather in his palm.
The blow sends Emma across the room, fetching up against the wall with a small sound of pain.
Dean can't bring himself to feel sorry for her.
"You BITCH!" he rages. "What the hell was that!"
With a shaking hand, Emma pushes her dark hair out of her face and Dean gets up off his bed and takes a swift step back from her.
Though they're fading, he can still make out the Enochian patterns glowing on her skin, flowing over her brow, under her eyes and down her throat. As he watches, the light sinks slowly away, leaving her tired and tear-stained.
"If you'd have touched her," she whispered, "you never would have left there."
"What the fuck are talking about?" he demands.
"Any dreamer who touches a dead soul in the dreamscape doesn't come back. It binds you there. Your body would be in a coma for the rest of its natural life." A new wave of tears made its way down her cheeks, blurring the light that still seeped from her skin. "Dean, I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't!"
"Why not?" he breathes. "Why not, Emma? I might've been trapped but I would have been with her."
She shakes her head. "She's on her own path. And even if she'd stayed with you, and you with her, for all the time your body was alive…what do you think would have happened when it had died? You would have been thrown into your own Heaven. And where she is…there's no guarantee you would have ever found her again."
Dean swallows hard, feeling sick. "And now I'll never see her again anyway."
Emma leans her head against the wall, looking drained.
"That's not necessarily true," she murmurs, and Dean's heart finds its way into his throat.
"What do you mean?"
She holds his gaze, and in the strange light cast by the fading patterns on her face, they flare the color of crow wings.
"Remember the help I said was coming…"