Dean woke early the next morning as he always did, looking around drowsily as he deftly untangled his limbs from Elizabeth's. Sam was sitting at the table, already dressed for the day and scrolling through websites. "Hey," Dean greets, his voice rough from sleep. "What's up with the, uh, Archer situation?"

"Busted lip and a bruised ego, so I doubt he'll be starting shit for a while," Sam answers, shutting the laptop and turning to face his older brother. "He thinks all women should kneel at his feet and beg for the chance to kiss his boots." Dean scoffs at that, running a hand over his face. "He obviously doesn't know our Liza as well as he thinks he does."

"Yeah, she'll have him for breakfast if he keeps it up, and I'll let her do it, too." He stands, pulling off the shirt he fell asleep in last night and missing the frustrated look Sam sends his way.

"When are you two going to admit you have feelings for each other?" The question catches Dean off guard, the older man's mouth opening and closing a few times before he finally settles on a simple what do you mean answer. "I mean…." Sam trails off for a second before getting a smug little half-smile. "What's her favorite color?"

"Purple," Dean answers automatically, not needing time to think about it. "But it has to be lilac or she won't have anything to do with it."

"And who's the one that came up with Liza as a nickname for her?"

"I did when I was younger and couldn't say Elizabeth." He saw no point to the questions so far, continuing to dress while Sam thought up another one.

"Favorite dessert?"

"It's a tie between cherry cheesecake and hot fudge sundae."

"Favorite flower?"

"Azalea."

"What's her perfume?"

"She doesn't like perfume, but she has that Warm Vanilla Sugar body wash that smells amazing. Are these questions supposed to mean something, Sammy?"

"Yeah, the fact that you don't have to think about any of those before you answer is what a serious boyfriend would be able to do."

"A guy that's known her since she was six months old could do it too."

"Apparently not, because I didn't know about the perfume thing or her favorite flower." Dean scowls, shaking his head and disappearing into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. Sam seemed to be purposefully annoying him this morning, and Dean was already fed up with it. So what if he knows things about Liza that Sam didn't? If she wanted to date, then she could ask him herself, but he knew she wasn't the settle down type just like him.

"Stupid," Dean mutters under his breath, holding his toothbrush under the water for a few seconds before squeezing some toothpaste out on it.

"Archer and I are going to get breakfast."

"Alright." Not long after he heard the door to the room shut, the bathroom door opens and Liza shuffles inside with a fresh change of clothes and her body wash. She sets everything down on the back of the toilet, seeming not to notice Dean was even there as she began to undress. "Uh…. Liza?" She looks at him, her hazel eyes still foggy with sleep.

"What," she asks, starting the water so it had time to warm up while she peeled off her dress, bra, and panties. Dean watches her with widened eyes, taking in the curves she usually hid under baggy clothing. She was on the heavy side, but he thought it suited her better than if she had been stick-thin; it's Liza, she can't be model thin just like she can't have blue eyes or a calm demeanor, it wouldn't be right if she did.

He shakes those thoughts away, looking back in the mirror to brush his teeth with his eyes at a good enough angle that he wouldn't be able to see Liza's silhouette through the shower curtain. Averting his eyes wasn't as effective as he had hoped it would be, the scent of her favorite body wash almost enough to make his mouth water. She always smelled like freshly baked cookies; that pleasant scent that fills a kitchen just as the cookies reach the best point where they're perfectly baked and you want to pull them out and devour them all at once.

He hisses in slight discomfort, readjusting his pants and trying to think of anything except the woman showering not three feet away from him. Puppies, Dean thinks rapidly, puppies and kittens and that stupid painting Bobby has hanging up in his guest bedroom with a bowl of fruit and that weird random monkey.

Just as he was beginning to calm down, the water shuts off and he has to scramble out of the bathroom to keep from seeing her without any clothes on again. Why hasn't Sam come back yet? Logically, he knew that it would impossible for Sam to have gotten the food so quickly, but it kept Dean's mind occupied until Liza stepped out of the bathroom again.

"You okay," Liza asks, pulling her hair back in a ponytail, an easy smile on her lips and lighting up her face. The truth is, Dean wasn't sure he was okay, not when she was standing in front of him with that concerned smile that would've made the fucking birds sing if they were in a Disney movie. It's seriously unfair that one woman could be so adorably cute in a pair of shorts and a Batman sweater.

"I, uh…." He trails off with a shrug, taking in the smooth curve of her calves and the toned muscles of the thighs that her shorts emphasized. Liza laughs, a soft and breathy sound like the wind sighing through the trees. He could listen to it for hours and never grow bored. Dean shakes his head abruptly, trying to force the thoughts out of his mind so that he could focus on something other than the growing urge to throw her on the bed and not leave the room for the rest of the day, Sam be damned. "F-Fine," he finally manages when her laughter abates, scratching the back of his neck.

"If you say so." He keeps his gaze focused on her shoes instead of following the soft curve of her neck like he wanted to, noting the small flecks of blood that have darkened the pink of her Converse.

"Uh, Sammy went to get us some food."

"I figured." Her shoes move as she walks over to the table to grab her purse, Dean's eyes slowly trailing up her legs and to her ass. It was relatively small and matched her hips, and Dean remembered how Bobby used to joke that she was all bones when she sat on his lap as a kid. Dean smiles at the memory, remembering her lop-sided pigtails and the Strawberry Shortcake overalls that she only took off for a bath or bedtime.

"Hey, what happened to those overalls you used to love?" His gaze flicks up to her face in time to catch the tail end of a wry smile.

"Uncle Bobby cut out the front of them and framed it when I outgrew them. It kept me from losing the last present my dad gave me." And now that Dean was thinking about it, he remembered seeing that very same picture frame hanging over her bed at Bobby's house when he was a teenager, glass protecting the bright pink fabric that Liza had fought tooth and nail to keep.

"You don't talk about your dad very much."

"I didn't know him." She shrugs like it was no big deal that she never really got to know her father, and maybe it wasn't for her. Christopher Mayson wasn't absent like John, but he had trouble bonding with his daughters even before his wife died.

"He was a pretty cool guy." Dean only had vague memories of the blond man—an obsession with all things Egyptian, the high school chemistry teacher in Lawrence, and a John Wayne impersonation that always made Dean laugh. After the fire, when his father was trying to pull the pieces back together, Dean would curl up between Christopher and Dana as old westerns played on the TV and the babies napped.

"Are you feeling okay?" It takes him a moment to realize that while he had been thinking about Liza, she had moved from the table and was now standing in front of him. "I know this case has to be hard on you, harder than it is on Sam since you're the only one old enough to remember it."

"Uh, it's hard, yeah, but I'll work through it like I do everything else." He shrugs, wondering if it was too early for him to have a beer while they waited on the others to get back. "What about you? Are you still shaken up about last night?" He'd seen red when he walked in last night and saw the way that Archer was man-handling her, he'd wanted to tear the man's lungs out with his bare hands.

"I'm fine, I can handle Archer." She shrugs, eyes straying to the mini-fridge with longing and restraint. "He's just another dick and he'll get what's coming to him eventually."

Sam and Archer show up a few minutes later with a grease-soaked breakfast, the talk turning to the case at hand and who they needed to go talk to. Dean noticed with a smirk that Archer's eyes never strayed from Liza's face when he looked at her and his lips were bruised and swollen. Liza did a number on him last night and Dean couldn't be prouder of her if he tried.

While the others talk, Dean holds his cup of coffee in both hands, letting the warmth spread from the very tips of his fingers throughout the rest of his body as his thoughts turn to memories, faded and worn like an old photograph. They were memories he hadn't thought about in a long time, memories of long days spent with his mom, comforting her as she cried, but he didn't know why.

The memory that stands out the most is from that night, the night where everything went to hell, but was so perfect for a brief moment. His dad had come home, had been happy to see him again, and his mom had seemed to be on the path to forgive John for whatever it was he had done. It was the last night that John treated Dean as a child instead of a soldier, the last night John looked at Dean without alcohol-fueled rage in his eyes.

"Dean?" He comes back to reality with a start, Elizabeth waving a hand in front of his face with worry in her eyes.

"Yeah," he asks, voice breaking slightly. He clears his throat, taking a drink of his coffee before speaking again. "What is it?"

"We were about to leave for John's old job," Archer supplies, throwing their breakfast leftovers in the trash.

"Great, let's get goin'." He stands, throwing the full, but now cold, cup of coffee in the trash and leading the way out to the Impala. Sam doesn't hesitate to get in the back with Liza, forcing Archer to occupy the front seat next to Dean as a way all of them could keep a close eye on him.

It isn't until he looks in the rearview mirror in order to back out that he realizes Liza is wearing makeup, something she rarely bothers with. Is she trying to impress someone or is she going through one of those girly phases? He didn't know, he didn't want to know, but he stuck by his opinion that she was beautiful with or without that stuff on her face. It made her feel good about herself, so who was he to tell her otherwise?

Forcing the thoughts away and focusing on the task at hand, Dean slips into the role of big brother and protector as he drives away from the motel and further into town.