"Why do I have to talk to him?" Deanna muttered to Cas as they peeked from behind the motel curtains to see Sam sitting by himself next to the soda machine. He wasn't crying, so that was a good sign, Deanna supposed, but he did have a kind of vacant look in his eyes.
"You're human. You understand these things," Cas whispered back. She leaned her head forward a little more to catch another glance of Sam. Deanna shooed away a thought about Cas looking cute while she was focusing so hard. "Heartbreak."
"Honey, have you seen me?" said Deanna, waving her hand up and down her body and choking down a little laugh when Cas' eyes followed. "I've never had my heart broken in my life. And even if I had, I can't remember it anyway. You're like a gazillion years old and know the chemical make up of Saturn. You go do it."
"You're his sister."
"You're annoying," Deanna shot back. She looked out the window at the forlorn figure of her brother, and felt herself soften. "Especially when you're right, damnit. Fine, I'll go talk to him but you owe me."
Cas seemed to sag with relief, hearing that.
"Anything you want," said Cas.
"Oh sweetheart, think about it a little longer than that," said Deanna. "Anything I want is a long and well thought out list, and I guarantee you don't want to do more than half of it."
"I guess you'd have to ask," said Cas, and hold up a fucking second. Deanna narrowed her eyes at Cas.
"Was that a come on?"
Cas widened her eyes in a show of false innocence only betrayed by her there and gone spasm of a smile. Deanna let a slow grin steal across her face, and leaned forward a little farther, halving the space between the two of them. Cas neither moved backwards nor forwards.
"Knew you'd warm up to me," said Deanna. Cas reached out and tucked Deanna's hair behind her ear, letting her hand rest on her face a moment.
"I must have loved you," said Cas after a second. "So much."
It was like a bucket of cold water being poured on her. Deanna took a hurried step back and Cas let her hand drop. It was obvious to Deanna that the damn angel knew she'd messed up somehow, but just couldn't understand what she'd done. Well, she was right about one thing. Deanna was far better equipped to talk to Sam than Cas was.
"I should go talk to Sam," said Deanna.
"Did I-?"
"You're fine, Cas. I'm just not interested. In fact, I kinda hate your guts," said Deanna. Cas stared back at her, uncomprehending. "I was fucking with you, Jesus. You think I give a single shit whether or not you like me? I just thought it would be funny to see you squirm. Get over it."
Cas' eyes got squinty and angry as she looked at Deanna. Her chin jutted forward as she grit her teeth and her hands balled up, and God Deanna knew she couldn't remember a damn thing but she was pretty sure she'd never wanted to kiss a fool so damn much in her entire life.
"You're lying," she said.
"Yeah, well," said Deanna. "I don't know much about myself, but if that doesn't sound like me."
And with that, Deanna made her way out the motel door, slamming it behind her. Cas didn't bother trying to follow her out, which was fine. It wasn't as if Deanna wanted her to anyway.
Sam looked up as Deanna got halfway towards him, and then looked back down just as quickly, clearly willing her away. No such luck, Deanna thought to herself as she sat down next to him on the pavement and tried not to think of all the gross shit that had probably happened in this exact spot in this scuzzy motel… Right, Sam, Deanna reminded herself. She could shower off the germs later.
"So," Deanna started. "First serious break up?"
"Not even close," Sam said, still not looking at her. "And it wasn't like that with Eileen."
"Because you didn't like her like that?"
"Because I knew something like this would happen," said Sam. "Not… not the getting hurt part. The screwing up part. I knew I was going to mess it up."
Deanna looked back toward the motel room.
"Must run in the family," she muttered to herself. "You know the best way to fix a broken heart?"
"Tequila," they both said at the same time. Deanna pushed him gently at the mocking tone he said it in, and was glad to see something relaxing in his shoulders.
"You, uh, gave me this talk when I was eighteen," said Sam. "Lenore. She was a vampire, and she broke things off with me because I told her I was going to end up a hunter whether she liked it or not, and to get used to it. I got upset and I called you, and you hauled ass from some research library in Minnesota with a bottle of tequila and Dracula on DVD. We got drunk and spent the whole night calling vampires losers."
"Wow, I'm awesome," said Deanna. Sam rolled his eyes and hunched forward again, as though he were trying to look smaller. "C'mon kiddo. I'm pretty sure Eileen just needs space. She almost died. That's gotta mess a person up."
"She trusted me and I let her down," said Sam. "And I don't know how to fix that."
"Maybe you can't," said Deanna. "But, hey, if she loves you, she'll forgive you anyway. It was a mistake, Sam. I don't know you, but I know enough to say that if you thought for a second anything like that would have happened, you never would have gone after that hunt."
"You don't get it," said Sam. "Eileen doesn't trust people. She- I'm all she's got. Well, Mildred too, but-"
"You're family," said Deanna, when Sam seemed lost for words. Sam nodded, and finally his eyes started to look shiny, and Deanna spared him the embarrassment of his big sister seeing him cry by pulling him in for a hug. "Well, then she'll come back. When she's licked her wounds and can think about what happened with her head on straight, she'll come back."
Sam nodded against her shoulder, and Deanna squeezed a second before letting go and looking straight ahead, giving Sam the privacy for a few tears if he needed them. Then they sat in silence, until Sam took a shaky breath and Deanna turned to look at him.
"We're in a fight," he said. "You and me."
"Well, I'd apologize, but," Deanna said, playing off the uneasiness with a smile. "It'd be kinda useless considering I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."
"Not that kind of fight," said Sam. "I mean, the right and the wrong of it isn't that… simple. It's kind of nice, you not knowing. I don't have to pretend to be so angry at you. Don't get me wrong, I am angry. But mostly I'm just tired, now. And I don't know what to do. Everything's a fucking mess."
"Vodka's cool, too."
"And this is what I get for asking our resident alcoholic for advice," Sam said with a start stop stutter of a laugh. "Or not asking, I guess."
"I was just making sure you were okay," said Deanna. "Cas is the one who's, like, worried sick about you. She was twisting her hands all in knots, trying to figure out if you were alright and she practically made me come talk to you. You sure I'm the one she was married to and you're not just trying to pawn her off on me so you can get it on with Eileen?"
And just like that, Sam had gone from cautiously friendly to completely unamused. If the bitch face Deanna got in response to that question wasn't proof they were siblings, Deanna didn't know what was.
"So you're still into her, huh?" he said, cutting through the bullshit with a knife. "No memories, no mind control, and you still want her."
"A bit," Deanna said. Sam raised an eyebrow. "A lot."
"Well, I guess that solves that mystery," he muttered to himself. "You genuinely do like her. No strings on you."
"Yeah, three cheers for me," said Deanna. "Not that it matters."
"Why's that?" Sam asked.
"C'mon," said Deanna. "Just because we fell in love once doesn't mean it's going to happen again. Hell, I'm half convinced it didn't even happen the first time. She just walks around wondering what the fuck she even saw in me. Hate to break it to her, but I'm not whoever that other version of her fell in love with. I'm just me, and I don't need to hear how she probably liked me in a past life. Must've. But you know, not now. And I'm not going back, so…"
"You telling me this too?" Sam asked after a second. "Because… I'm sorry, but I do want the old you back, Deanna."
"I don't," said Deanna. "No offense, kiddo, but you're kind of a mess and I'm going to take a wild guess that your childhood plays into that. Which means my childhood plays into my whole deal, and no thank you to that. I like being able to sleep at night."
"There's good stuff in there too," Sam pointed out. "People you love. Mom, Dad, Bobby, Charlie-"
"It doesn't matter," said Deanna. "We don't know how to get them back, anyway."
"Yeah, I guess we don't," admitted Sam. "But I'm going to keep looking."
Deanna shrugged and looked back toward the motel room where she could see the curtain flutter suddenly and knew Cas had been watching them.
"You do what you need to do," said Deanna.
"So about that vodka…" said Sam.
Sam wasn't exactly okay after this little chat, but he managed to drag himself and Deanna and Cas off to Bobby's where they were asked to stay while Sam got back into hunting for a while with whoever he could scrounge up on his network that wasn't attached to the Men of Letters in some way or another. Meanwhile, Deanna and Cas were left at the mercy of a pissy Bobby.
Cas and Deanna took to figuring out Bobby's moods and trying to prevent the crankiness as much as possible by adjusting themselves accordingly. In other words, they knew when to get out of the house and leave Bobby the fuck alone. Usually that meant Deanna stole his toolbox and worked on a truck she had picked out to try and get up and running again and Cas would wander off by herself God knows where.
About six weeks and two brief visits from Sam later, Cas started coming back from her walks early in order to see Deanna at work. If Deanna started making sure her clothing was a little tighter on her when this happened, well that was her fucking business, thank you very much. Unfortunately, Cas seemed much more interested in what she was doing than how she looked.
"Why fix it?" Cas asked, nodding towards the truck while Deanna took a water break. "No one we know will want it."
"Why not?" asked Deanna. "It's something to do. Keeps my head busy. I like to think of it as me time."
"I see," said Cas, as though she didn't see at all and was chalking it down to another quirk of humanity's.
"You know those long ass walks you take?" asked Deanna. "This is my version of that, okay?"
Cas shrugged and muttered something.
"What?"
"I haven't been taking walks," said Cas.
"Meditating?"
"No, I-" Cas frowned to herself a moment as though unsure she should go on. Deanna caught a glimpse of the look Sam used to get when he'd been caught red handed stealing candy from Deanna's secrets stash in the kitchen. The fact that she could make a cosmic being feel guilty made Deanna a little light headed.
"Spit it out, Cas."
"Bobby has a garden. Or he used to, I mean," Cas muttered. "I was fixing it. I didn't think it would be a problem."
"It's not. Relax, this isn't the Spanish Inquisition," said Deanna. Cas brightened slightly at that, then glanced at the car before turning her head to look over her shoulder and back at Deanna again.
"Do you want to see it?" she asked, sounding almost shy.
The first thing Deanna thought when she saw what Cas had done with the patch of land she'd found- must have been Bobby's garden before an angry witch had landed him in a wheelchair with an injury even Cas couldn't fix- was that Cas had actually managed to make it look pretty nice with whatever the hell she'd been doing.
The second thing she realized had her bending over laughing.
"What?" Cas demanded, sparing a glance for her poor damn flowers like they might get offended.
"Cas, these are all weeds," Deanna managed to get out, before practically doubling over laughing again. Dandelions, and those tall white flowers that grow on the sides of highways, and just about every goddamn kind of vine seemed to be coexisting pleasantly in the garden under Cas' careful hand. It was the funniest fucking thing Deanna had seen in weeks.
"They're pretty, hardy, and local," said Cas. She crossed her arms defensively. "And I like them."
"You made a weed garden," said Deanna, between bursts of laughter. "God, I love you."
The second the words left her mouth Deanna felt like she'd been hit with a ton of bricks. Bits and pieces of herself started taking shape again, and fragments of moments came back to her, bouncing across her mind with a vengeance. It was enough to send her to her knees, bile rising in her throat. Deanna swallowed hard, and forced herself back up.
"Jesus Christ, Cas," she said in awe, unable to believe that she had somehow fucking forgotten her incredible wife, and Jesus there were about fifty uncharitable things she'd thought in the past few weeks that she wished she could take back this fucking second. She frowned when she realized that Cas was staring frozen at where Deanna had been kneeling moments before.
"That shouldn't even count," said a voice that tickled at the edges of Deanna's recently recovered memories. "You were making fun of her."
Deanna spun around.
"Gabriel."
"The one and only," he said back, still looking at Cas like he was trying to figure something out. "I mean, repression is practically programmed into your blood, and you got through on a loophole."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Deanna evenly. "But I do know that if you don't fix whatever the fuck you did to Cas this fucking second I am going to run you through with a wrench."
"Not that it hasn't been entertaining," Gabriel continued, ignoring Deanna. "And you were this close to pushing her away like you were supposed to."
"You've been watching us?" Deanna asked, cottoning on to what Gabriel was going on about. "Nothing better to do?"
"Last time I left Cas alone for a second she got herself cursed by a witch," said Gabriel. "Believe it or not, princess, you're not the only one who cares about her."
"Right. Because there's nothing like lies and manipulation to say I…" Deanna started trailing off. "I love you. That was the trigger?"
"I'll give you this, you're not as dumb as you look," said Gabriel. "I got into your head, remember? It took you, what, eleven years to say it the first time around?"
Deanna didn't really have anything to say to that because, uh yeah, it had. And there were about a million good reasons for that.
"Baggage. Which you helpfully removed," said Deanna sarcastically. A few more pieces to the puzzle of how Gabriel worked slid into place, and Deanna sorted through a couple more tricks he had up his sleeve. "And every time I felt nauseous when I tried to think about what Cas was or trying to find anything that had to do with her past, that was-"
"Written into the binding spell on the rock," said Gabriel. "Protection against asshole hunters figuring out there was an angel in the outfield. Theoretically."
"Maybe you're not as dumb as you look," said Deanna, vaguely remembering it was not a good idea to antagonize an archangel and going ahead and doing it anyway. "So you gotta know by now, no matter what you do it's gonna end up the same way."
Gabriel finally stopped looking at Cas and gave Deanna his full attention. It felt like recognition as an equal, almost. It also made Deanna feel like ice was running through her veins, because even though he was wearing some normal looking guy, this was a being old as dust and what did he care if he snapped his fingers and she was gone? Cas was the only thing truly keeping her safe from him, as infuriating as Deanna was sure Gabriel found that. If she died, Cas was going to be dragged right along with her.
"You're going to destroy her," said Gabe. "But if that's what she wants, mazel fucking tov. I'm not a babysitter and Castiel isn't a child."
"Right. That line would work better if you weren't so obviously a control freak."
"Takes one to know one," said Gabriel flippantly. His eyes slid back to Cas, and his eyes softened, if only a fraction. "But I think, Deanna, that we can both do the right thing."
With that and a snap, he disappeared and Cas unfroze. At first she just looked confused at how Deanna had gone from kneeling to standing without having moved, and then her eyes widened and before Deanna knew what was happening Cas' arms were around her shoulders squeezing tight.
"I didn't know how much I missed you," Cas said. "I'm sorry for-"
"Me too," Deanna said, breaking off the apology. "I was being an asshole."
"You were being cautious," Cas corrected, pressing her lips to Deanna's neck, and whoa they were not doing that outside next to a bunch of weeds (no offense to Cas, but Deanna did not want to wake up with a rash where the sun don't shine, thank you very much). Besides, Deanna had some important stuff to get out.
"I talked to Gabriel," Deanna said. Cas stiffened. "We need to break it, Cas."
Cas took a step back, her expression guarded. After a few seconds, Deanna felt Cas' thoughts flowing back into hers, a tentative hello. She poked at Deanna's mind as though asking a question, and Deanna reached out to take her hand.
"I'm not tying us together, okay?" said Deanna. "Because… he's right, damnit. If I can't trust you to stick around, I'm not worth sticking around for."
"I'm not trapped, Deanna."
"Exactly," said Deanna. "So maybe it's time we got rid of the chains, huh?"
"But you still…" Cas started, swallowing hard. "I am still… wanted?"
"You're not the sharpest knife in the tool shed, are you?" Deanna said, regretting it when Cas recoiled from her. Deanna squeezed her hand. "Every fucking second, Cas. I couldn't stop wanting you if I tried. And Gabriel gave it a pretty good shot."
Cas took a deep breath and started the spell. Bit by bit, Deanna felt Cas slip away and the familiar panic welled up inside her, but this time she told it to shut the fuck up. Gabriel could go fuck himself, but if he had proven one thing with his dumb test it was that there was a lot more holding her and Cas together than a spell.
It broke, and Deanna felt her ears pop and her eyes start to water, the sizzle of electricity running through her and then dissipating. She smiled at Cas.
"Still here, right?" Deanna said softly. Cas nodded, but her eyes were closed and she didn't start breathing until Deanna took her face in her hands and leant forward to kiss the tip of Cas' nose. "Yep, still here."
Cas opened her eyes and pressed up to catch Deanna's lips, winding her arms around her waist, and pressing a hand up the back of her shirt, and well… maybe a rash wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
The buzzing of her phone had Deanna stepping back with a sigh and glaring at her brother's name.
"What?" she snapped when she picked up. Sam was quiet for a second.
"Deanna?"
"Who did you think you were calling?" she asked. And then. "Oh shit, yeah. Memories back. Me again. Hi."
"Well, that makes this… different," Sam said. "Fuck. Okay, we need to go to Kansas."
"I thought we were avoiding that state."
"Just trust me," said Sam. "And leave Cas with Bobby. Just in case."
He hung up and texted her where to meet him. Deanna said she was on her way and then took a nice long hour of reuniting with her wife before actually leaving because Sam could go screw himself with his stupid vagueness. Cas didn't much like being left behind, but Deanna could be damn persuasive if she said so herself.
It was a long drive to Kansas, and Deanna spent the whole of it trying to figure out what the hell she was doing there. Every time, she came up with one answer. Sam wanted to go home and talk things out, and Jesus she wasn't ready for that. Still, she wasn't going to let her dumb brother do it alone.
The coordinates she pulled up to were at the side of a highway, middle of goddamn nowhere and the first thing she saw when she parked was in the distance there were two men standing next to what looked like a funeral pyre. Something seized in Deanna's throat, and she slammed the door on her way out of the car.
"Sorry, baby," she said patting her car gently in a brief apology. She walked slowly to where her brother and her father were busy searching for more wood to put on and Deanna remembered that god damn night where her father had sent her off looking for twigs and stone. Enough to build a body with.
And now enough to burn a body with.
"What are we doing?" Deanna asked, as if she didn't know. Sam jumped, spinning around from where he had been picking up wood. He looked away from her to avoid meeting her eyes.
"What we should have done twenty years ago," John answered. Deanna nodded and looked to the fire, where the body was wrapped tight. "I asked what she wanted Deanna."
"I know," said Deanna. Because Mary had asked her that once. Just once. Break the spell and let me rest in peace. And Deanna had nearly fucking lost it. Then her mom had held her and told her she was sorry, and that she should never have said something like that in the first place. That she was so damn sorry for putting that responsibility on Deanna's shoulders for even a second. "I didn't get to say goodbye."
Now it was John who wouldn't meet her eye. He and Sam finished building the pyre, and poured gasoline over it. Soon enough it was getting dark and there was nothing left to prepare. Just a body to burn.
"Let me do it," Deanna said when she saw her father struggling to get out his lighter. She wasn't sure if the look he gave her was frightened, proud, or angry, and at this point she was too fucking tired to try to unravel what the hell her dad was feeling. The truth was she knew he could do it himself, and maybe she was trying to spare him the pain of having to burn the love of his life. Or maybe she was claiming Mary Winchester as her responsibility because when she thought of what her dad had done, Deanna's skin still crawled and her stomach clenched up in knots.
Deanna thought she should have felt more, watching her mother's body go up in flames, but all she felt was relief. Mary Winchester had died twenty years ago, and this was heartbreaking but it wasn't the earth shattering realization that it had been when she was fourteen. So Deanna turned, and pulled her brother into a hug, because one look at his shaking shoulders was enough for her to realize that it wasn't the same for him. This was Mary Winchester's funeral and Sam was falling apart.
"I'm so sorry, Sammy," Deanna said. "I should have told you. I should have called. I should have… I can't take it back, but I'm damn sorry."
She felt Sam nod, and felt deep in her bones that she was forgiven. Or at least that this was the start of it. It was something like catharsis, she supposed.
And if she stole her brother's phone and sent a quick 'He needs you' to a certain hunter before replacing it, well he could forgive her for that someday, too.
Deanna pushed Sam off with an order to get into the Impala, surprised when he went without some kind of snarky comeback. Then she collected herself and turned to look at her father.
"This don't make it right," she said. "I hope you know that."
"Is there a way to?" John asked. Deanna didn't say a thing. "That's what I thought."
He dug around in his pocket until he found whatever he was looking for. Deanna stayed where she was, wanting something from her father and hoping whatever he was getting would fill that awful gaping wound inside her. That something missing that she never thought too closely about, for fear of being sucked into the emptiness of it.
"She wanted you to have this," said John. Deanna looked down to see her mother's wedding ring glinting in the light off of the funeral pyre. "She said she hopes you're happy."
"Thank you," said Deanna, taking the ring from him. John flinched when she touched him. "You gotta know who I'm going to give this to."
"Yeah, well, I'm only doing this because Mary asked," said John. "I will never be okay with you and that thing."
Deanna closed her hand around the ring.
"Yeah, well," she said. "Have a nice fucking life, I guess. Try to be a better man, dad."
"Stop," John said when Deanna tried to turn, and she hated herself for listening. For letting the overwhelming nature of everything that was happening have her default to following orders like she was still some scared fourteen year old. "You know you don't get out of the Men of Letters so easy, right? Especially not after the stunt you pulled to escape questioning."
"Is that a threat?" Deanna asked flatly.
"It's a warning," John corrected. "You're still my daughter, Deanna. Take care of yourself."
Go fuck yourself.
"You too," Deanna said out loud. She turned away from him, walked back to the car and didn't look back once. When she got behind the wheel, Sam turned to look at her.
"You okay?"
"Hell no. And neither are you, and neither of us feels like talking about it so let's cut it out while we're ahead," said Deanna. Sam looked taken aback, but kept quiet through Deanna starting the engine and them heading back on the road, pointed toward South Dakota.
"And Cas is-"
"Still very flexible, thank you for asking," said Deanna. She smiled at the brief grossed out look on her brother's face. "She's dealing. We're both dealing."
"Good for you."
"Hey Sam," Deanna said, sensing the returning bitterness in her brother's voice. "Thing's are going to get better, okay? And I'm here for you this time. Promise."
It took a moment, but the anger drained out of Sam's face.
"Okay. Okay," he said. "Mom's dead."
"Yeah."
"And I hate it. It's not fair."
"Not even a little," said Deanna. "Life ain't."
Sam leant his head against the window and closed his eyes. After a while, Deanna figured he was asleep so she turned the radio down and kept her eyes pointed forward.
"I'm glad you're here," Sam said quietly over the quiet murmur of voices on the radio. Deanna allowed herself a small smile.
"Me too, Sammy," she said. "Now get some sleep. You need it, kiddo."
A little while later, Deanna heard Sam's snoring start up. A buzz on his phone nearly startled him awake, but ended up not being quite loud enough to rouse him. Deanna picked up the phone to see a message from one Eileen Leahy.
'I'm on my way.'
Deanna let out a sigh of relief.
"Things are gonna work out," Deanna said out loud, setting the phone back down. "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But they will. You and me, we're gonna learn from our mistakes, Sam. We're gonna figure out how to do things right, and we're gonna get better at all of this. At being people. And when all is said and done… it's gonna work out."
Sam just kept snoring, but that was neither here nor there. Deanna had said her piece, and if the universe had any fucking decency it would be listening. And driving in her car at two in the morning with her brother at her side, and her wife waiting for her to come home, well… that wasn't nothing.
Hell, it was everything.