Yay, guys! Summer vacation is here! For the next 9 weeks, I ain't gonna do anything but obsess about Sam, lol!

This chapter took forever to write, sorry about that! It is way too long, even if I deleted like half of it... still, these things needed to be said and dealt with so that I can move on with the plot. Also - I did a lot of research for this one! Celtic gods, cursed diamonds... I tend to obsess about these things, I want to make them as real as possible.

So here you go, 4500 words of dialogue. XD Don't know where it all came from. Hope you like it, and if you do - please review!

An hour later, they lay side by side on Jackie's bed.

She was wearing her favorite pajamas, loose pants, and an oversized T-shirt with pictures of My Little Ponies, but Sam was naked under the sheets. He'd taken a shower and his bloody clothes were now in the washing machine. His hair was still wet, he smelled like her strawberry shower gel and she couldn't stop staring at him - at the way his chest rose and fell as he breathed, the way his dark hair fell to his forehead.

He had almost died, all because of her.

Just thinking about that felt like a sword through her gut.

"I'm so sorry," she said, and he turned to look at her.

"Why are you sorry?"

"I didn't see you get hit. I didn't realize-"

"Hey, it's okay."

"No, it's not. It's not okay. If something happened to you-" she had to pause, to take a breath before she could continue. "If something happened to you, I couldn't take it. I would rather die a thousand deaths, than watch you get hurt ever again."

He was silent for a couple of heartbeats, then gave her a small smile.

"I'm okay," he said. "I'm fine, really. You don't have to worry so much."

Jackie let out a trembling sigh. "I thought… I thought I'd lost you."

"Yeah, I know how that feels."

He turned to his side, so that he was facing her, and laid his hand gently on her shoulder - still careful to touch her, still scared that he'd cause her pain. Jackie's heart swelled, it filled her ribcage so that it was hard to breathe. She hadn't known anyone could be this kind, this gentle with her. She hadn't thought she'd be able to let a man see her like this.

This broken. This vulnerable.

After Joe had left, Sam had carefully helped Jackie up from the floor and carried her into the bathroom. With gentle and slow hands he had undressed her - he had removed her blood-soaked tank top, her torn yoga pants - and drawn a bath. He had bathed her as if she was a child. He had washed the clotted blood and the dirt off her matted hair, had carefully lathered her aching body, her trembling limbs, and when the bathwater had turned red from the dried blood, he had changed it and started all over again.

Jackie had been too tired, too shaken to protest.

It had just felt too good - to let him take care of her. It sure was something she wasn't used to.

Sam's hand moved to her neck, to gently cup her cheek, his thumb brushed her lips. "You still hurting?"

"I'll survive," Jackie replied.

"You sure?"

"I'm sure, alright. You saved me."

He was silent for a small while after that, and Jackie watched how his eyes seemed to change color, from greenish to a darker shade of brown as his face turned serious.

"About that… I think I need you to tell me what happened."

"Ah." Jackie bit her lip, shifted under his touch. "Where do I start?"

"From the beginning?" Sam asked. "I mean - it's not like we have anywhere to go. Joe said you needed to stay in bed for 24 hours."

"If I'm to stay in bed with you for 24 hours I can think of things far more enjoyable than talking," Jackie said with a sigh.

"Hey - Joe said that we're not supposed to-"

"And you always do what you're supposed to do?"

"Mostly."

"Well, I don't. I'm all for breaking the rules, babe."

"You're avoiding the subject," Sam said. "Again."

"And what's that subject? That we are in my bed and I want to make love to you so bad that my head is gonna explode if we don't-"

She had laid her hand on his chest while speaking and was now teasingly moving it down, and his pupils dilated in a way that told Jackie he wasn't immune to her touch.

But he took her hand, his fingers gently entwined with hers.

"You need to rest," he said.

"Not as much as I need for you to fuck me."

"No way am I gonna do that and break your bones," Sam said, his voice so low that it sent a shiver through Jackie's spine. "Say what you want, but to me, that's not a turn-on."

Jackie rolled her eyes at him, but couldn't really deny that he had a point. She really didn't want to call Joe and tell her that she had a broken hip bone again. She imagined Joe would tell her to fuck off, and that grace wasn't meant to be used to heal injuries caused by idiots having sex, and she'd have to heal herself slow and painful - and it would take fucking weeks before she'd be able to have sex with Sam again.

Which would no doubt be enough to kill her.

"Fine." She resigned. "But tomorrow you're mine."

"Let's make a deal. You answer every single one of my questions, and if you do, we'll have all the sex you could possibly imagine tomorrow."

His words might have been teasing, but the look in his eyes was so dead serious that Jackie couldn't turn her eyes away.

He wanted answers. And if she wasn't going to tell him to leave, if she wasn't going to end this thing now-

It's time girl. Time to dive headfirst to the deep end.

She gripped his hand on her own, and let herself fall into the way he was looking at her. His oh-so-familiar smell of cotton and old books, a hint of her strawberry shower gel, surrounded her like a blanket and she felt safe. His warmth under the sheets was like the hearth of her old home, and she wanted it, she wanted all of it, she wanted to live with him forever, she wanted to wake up every single morning to this sight, his broad shoulders, his head on the pillow next to her, that tousled hair, those color-changing eyes, the small smile on the corner of his mouth. She wanted to inhale his scent deep into her lungs in her sleep, and when waking up. She wanted to taste those lips on hers, to feel his arms around her body, his hands on her skin so gentle and so rough at the same time, she wanted to taste the groans that left his lips when he made love to her - to her only, and to no one else - she wanted to have him inside of her core as he was inside of her heart and her mind, wanted it and needed it as she had never needed before. She wanted to fucking marry him. She wanted to have her morning coffee with him every day from this day to eternity, she wanted to kiss him goodnight every night for the rest of her life. She wanted to see him grow up and grow old, and even if it would kill her to see him die one day, she wanted to be there on that day too - and he'd be old and wrinkled but she would still think he was the most beautiful man ever to live on this Earth - and she would hold his hand when he died because she didn't want to miss even that moment, not even that.

But for any of that to happen - she needed to start talking.

"Then ask." she finally said. "Ask, and I will answer."

He was silent for a while, holding her tiny hand in his own.

"What happened today? Why was the golden attacking you? Why didn't you just teleport away—"

"That's what you want to hear?"

"Let's start from there."

"I can't teleport if I'm hurt." Jackie shrugged. "I fucked up. I didn't know there was gonna be a golem, and it surprised me. I barely managed to get here, thinking I'd be able to get the blade from my safe and kill it…"

"What was that blade? I've never seen a weapon like that before."

"Oh, it's just an-" she paused.

Just a magical blade - she wanted to lie but stopped mid-sentence.

No more lies. No more.

"It's an angel blade," she said, her voice so silent she barely heard it herself.

"An angel blade?"

"Yeah. Angels use them."

Sam's eyes widened. "You're telling me angels are real? That they truly exist?"

"All the stories are true, babe." she breathed. "You should know that."

"Yeah… but angels?"

"They're nothing like you'd think," Jackie said, turning her eyes away, thinking about Castiel as he had been the first time she'd seen him - a being of light and terror and heavenly power that had brought her to her knees and shaken her with fear, unlike anything she'd experienced before or after.

But how was she going to explain that to Sam? How do you explain something that's beyond words?

"They are fierce." She finally continued. "And ruthless. They are magnificent like nothing you can imagine."

"Then… that weapon of angels? How did you get that thing?"

"It belonged to my mother."

There was a small silence after that, as Sam took in her words.

"Was your mother an angel?" he asked finally, and Jackie felt the weight of his words as the weight of his life in her hands.

Would Castiel really do what he had once threatened he would? Would Cass kill everyone Jackie told about Mom, about the secrets of Heaven that were not for mortals to know?

But if she didn't tell Sam-

No more lies. He saved your life. He deserves to know.

"My mom was a fallen angel, who became a human. Or almost a human."

"A fallen angel? For real?"

"Yeah, believe it or not."

Jackie thought about the story Mom had told them about her grace, how she had refused to give it all up and had held tight onto a tiny shrapnel of it through her rebirth as a human, through her years of growing up - until the day Joe had been born and it had been passed on to her. Jackie had never heard of another fallen angel who'd been able to pull off a stunt like that and was still impressed by it.

Maybe that was why Cass had always had a soft spot for Mom too. Why Cass had let them live, even after Heaven had sent him to kill them all.

She had always wondered what had happened between her mom and Castiel, but Mom had never told and Cass never would. Typical angels.

Whatever it had been, It hadn't helped mom in the long run. Humans had done Heaven's work for the angels at the end when they had burnt Jackie's Mom as a witch.

And Cass had done nothing to stop them.

Humans and angels - both murderous dicks. Jackie had spent most of her life hating both species.

"How does an angel fall?" Sam's question brought her back to the moment. "And why?"

"For love. Why else?" Jackie said. "My mom fell in love with someone, and angels aren't allowed to have those feelings. So she fought and she ran and she fell and was reborn as a human in the French countryside some 400 years ago. And when she was 17 she found the one who had made her fall in the first place, and 9 months later Joe and I were born."

In Sam's eyes, there was still a look of astonishment, as if he couldn't really believe her words - but he smiled, and in that smile, there was everything Jackie had ever wanted.

"Your mom rebelled against Heaven for love?" he asked. "No wonder you're such a badass."

"Hah!" Jackie laughed. "No, it's not because of that. Joe is the one who's taken after our Mom. I - well, I'm like our Dad. Red hair and all, though he had a huge beard - which I luckily didn't get."

Sam grinned at her words.

"So, your dad - he was a human?"

"No, babe. My Dad was a god."

Sam's eyes widened.

"God?"

"Not God. A god. I'm sure you've heard from them - pagan gods. That word sucks though."

"What was his name?"

"Taranis."

Even that word had power, it tasted like storms and lightning and iron. It had been so long since she'd said it since she'd even thought about him. She didn't even know if he was alive anymore.

But still, she missed him. She missed his strong arms, his booming laughter, the way he had raised her up into the air, the way his massive beard had tickled her skin when he had held her in his arms.

He might have been a god, but to her, he had been a dad. It still hurt that he had left them.

"Taranis?" Sam was asking. "The Celtic god of sky and thunder?"

"You're such a geek," Jackie said. "Who even knows that stuff?"

Sam made a small laugh. "I read."

"I know. That's why I love you."

"But for real? Your dad was a god and your mom a fallen angel? You're kidding me, right? That's just-"

"Nuts?" Jackie raised a brow. "Tell me about it. I'm pretty sure Joe and I are unique. At least I have never met anyone like us."

"I wasn't gonna say nuts."

"Then what were you gonna say?"

"Awesome," Sam replied and leaned closer to give her a small kiss. His lips brushed her gently, his breathing fell on her lips, his scent filled her lungs and she wanted nothing more than for him to pull her close, to push her down and roll on top of her, to have his narrow hips between her thighs, those hands on her skin-

"Sam-" she made a throaty breath, the need awakening inside of her belly.

But his hands stopped, he broke the kiss and took a deep, ragged breath.

"We really shouldn't do this."

Jackie groaned.

"You promised me all the sex I could imagine if I answered your questions."

He pulled away, retreated to his side of the bed, and even if Jackie saw he wanted her, that he needed her too he mastered that wanting better than she did.

"I said tomorrow. Besides, I still have some questions for you."

"What, still? I already told you frickin everything." Jackie protested. "I've never told anyone about my parents. Never. And you're telling me you need more?"

"About what happened today-"

"Come on, not that-"

"I need to know. What was it that you were doing? Why did the golem attack you? I know they don't hurt people without being sent to do that. So - who sent it and why?"

Jackie so didn't want to talk about this.

It was one thing to reveal her past, her messed-up family, even the secrets of Heaven - those were things that she hadn't chosen, that perhaps were the founding rocks of her being, but were not her fault.

It was another thing entirely to talk about the things she had chosen to do. Her failures, her fuck ups, her shame, her guilt.

The blood in her hands.

"I was searching for this," she said, resigned, picking up a small velvet pouch from her nightstand. She opened it carefully and took out the diamond - it was pitch black, the size of a grape but far heavier than a stone that size should've been.

Sam raised a hand, as if wanting to touch it, but Jackie stopped him.

"No, it's cursed! You want to have bad luck for the rest of your life?"

Sam pulled his hand away. "What is it?"

"It is the Black Orlov," Jackie said and held the precious stone on her palm. "It's been cursed since it was stolen from India by a Jesuit cleric in the early 19th century. It was the eye of Brahma in a holy statue - really, people should know better than to go messing with statues of gods! Anyways, since then, all the owners have met unfortunate deaths or other tragedies. In 1932, diamond dealer J. W. Paris took a swan dive from a skyscraper, as did Leonila Galitsine-Bariatinsky and Nadia Vygin-Orlov in 1940. After that, the diamond disappeared for a long time. I've been searching for it for ages - almost lost hope after hearing the rumor that it had been cut down to pieces to break the curse - but luckily it turned out not to be true."

"Luckily?" Sam raised a brow.

"Yeah, lucky for me," Jackie said. "It took a long time, but finally I found this old lady in Prague, who had been keeping the diamond in her safe for decades. Of course, the curse still affected her - her husband died, her two kids killed themselves, her house burnt down-"

"But she wasn't killed herself?"

Jackie shrugged. "The curses work in mysterious ways. Maybe she suffered more this way."

"Won't you get the curse now?" Sam asked after a while.

"No, I don't think so. It's said to only affect humans."

"And you trust that?"

"Well, it's not like I'm going to keep the darn thing - though it is pretty. But I already have a buyer."

Sam was silent for a rather long while after that. He looked at the precious stone on Jackie's palm, his eyes now almost as dark as the diamond.

"So, you stole it," he said. "And now you're gonna sell it, and keep the money."

The tone of his words told Jackie just how he felt about that, and for the first time in centuries, Jackie felt something like shame, like remorse.

She desperately wanted to lie her way out of this, but-

No more lies. No more.

"Yeah."

"That's what you do for a living. You steal other people's stuff and sell it? All this-" he glanced around the luxurious room. "All this is paid for by stolen goods?"

"Not all," Jackie said, unable to meet Sam's eyes. "I mean… I do other stuff too."

"Like what?"

"Spying." Jackie shrugged. "Finding people or things that are lost. Taking care of other people's problems for them. Basically, I'll do almost anything, if someone is willing to pay for it."

Sam was silent for a long while after that, he turned his eyes to the ceiling, his jaw clenched tight. Jackie wanted nothing more than to touch him, to cup his cheek with her hand, to smooth the hard line of his lips.

But she didn't.

She'd come clean like Joe had told her to do - and now Sam couldn't even look at her.

First, you almost got him killed. Then you tell him all this crap-

If he leaves you now, you can't blame him.

"Why?" he asked, after a small eternity. "Just… why?"

Joe had asked her the same question, so many times. And she had never been able to give an answer to that.

She had never been able to live a safe life, a normal life. The danger had always called to her, the need for something exciting - the dark alleys, blood, and violence, the adrenaline rush of breaking the rules.

Maybe it was because she was flawed from the moment of her birth. She'd gotten no grace, only chaos. Maybe it was because she'd spent centuries trying to escape silence so that she wouldn't have to listen to her memories, that she would never have to care for anyone or anything at all.

But the worst part was-

"Do you know what's the worst part about immortality?" she asked, after a long silence, after realizing Sam wasn't going to say anything before she answered his question. "Let me tell you. It's boredom. You have no idea how boring everything gets after centuries. There are only so many new languages you want to learn, only so many hobbies you want to try, so many PhDs you want to get. For someone like me, it's torture."

Sam made a snort, gave Jackie a sideways glance.

"You know what normal people do when they get bored?" he asked. "They watch a movie, read a book— They don't go stealing cursed diamonds and picking fights with a golem."

Everything he said was true, but still, his words hurt her like a punch to the gut.

"Well I guess I'm not normal. Told you that from the start, though."

"I didn't mean it like that."

But he had meant it, Jackie knew - with the same gut-wrenching certainty, she knew that he wanted to be one of those normal people himself, that he wanted a life where there were no fallen angels or golems or god spawn or cursed diamonds, or anything that would put his life in danger-

And how could she blame him?

Maybe he had known from the start that she wasn't normal. But she had known from the start that she wouldn't fit in his life. She had known he'd be wise to run away from her, and it was still true, now more than ever.

"You're angry with me," she said, still gripping the diamond, her fingers clasping around it, the sharp edges of the rock cutting into her palm. "Good. You have every right to be."

Sam's throat bobbed.

"A little."

"I'm sorry. I don't want us to argue. But I don't know what you want me to say. This is my life. This is how I've always been."

"I just don't want you to die." He replied, his voice suddenly throaty and dry like it was hard for him to even get the words out of his mouth. "I can't watch you die. I just can't. I never want to see you in that kind of a situation, ever again. Jackie, I-"

He couldn't finish that sentence. He cleared his throat, stared at the ceiling as if his life depended on it.

"Since you told me you were immortal-" he went on after a moment. "I… Well, I guess I thought I'd be the one who got to spend the rest of my life with you. That I'd be the one to die, and you'd be the one to stay behind. I thought I was lucky. That I'd never have to lose you, I'd never have to say goodbye. But it isn't so, is it?"

Jackie had sudden difficulties in swallowing. The words got stuck to her throat and she tasted tears.

"No, it's not."

"You can die too," Sam said. "And I can't take it. I can't be with you if you keep on doing these things. Taking these kinds of risks. I just can't."

And she felt her heart breaking.

A dagger in her windpipe. A crushing weight on her chest.

So, this is how it ends. This.

All air left her lungs, as she took that in.

That he had been ready to die for her, that he had saved her life. That he had heard about her parents, about her past and had accepted it all, had kissed him after she had told him all that, but-

But he couldn't live with the fact that she was a thief and a scoundrel, who lived from one adrenaline rush to another.

"I'm sorry." She said, her voice thick with tears. "I'm so sorry, Sam."

"I love you." He replied. "I fucking love you more than anything. How do you think I'd feel if you died?"

At that moment he sounded so young that Jackie almost couldn't take it.

"People die, Sam." she breathed. "You can't live your life thinking that you can stop it from happening."

"No, but you can choose the way you live. You can either go chasing insane risks, searching for trouble - or you can stop doing that shit and start living like a normal person."

His words made her feel like she was swallowing something sharp that was cutting her insides to pieces. She was blinking furiously, trying to keep the tears from falling, but they poured to her cheeks nevertheless, tasting like blood and salt and bitterness.

Had it really been only this morning that she had laid on his arms in his bed, sunshine on her face and such happiness in her heart?

It felt like a million years ago now. But didn't time always slow down, when your heart was breaking?

The bird she had so hard tried to keep, had flown away.

"Are you breaking up with me?" she managed.

"I don't want to."

"Then don't. Please, Sam-"

And she hated it that she was begging, hated it, that somehow he had taken away all her cool, all her groove, all her awesome self-confidence and she had become this pathetic, whimpering idiot - begging a guy not to leave her.

Pathetic.

But the fact was that she was ready to lose it all, lose her spunk and her soul and her money and her wits and every fucking thing he asked of her. She would gladly lose it all, if only she didn't have to lose him.

"I promise." she breathed. "I'll stop doing this shit. I will stop the stealing, and the fighting, all of it."

His throat bobbed. He still wasn't looking at her, his gaze was fixated on the ceiling and Jackie saw how his chest rose rapidly as he took a sharp inhale.

"I don't want you to give things up because of me," he said. "I don't want you to stop doing things you want to do. I just-"

"Please, Sam." she pleaded, her voice thick with tears that were now falling to her cheeks, to her pillow. "Please, don't leave me. I can change, I can-"

"How could I leave you?" he breathed, his lips slightly trembling. "I can't live without you. I can't even think about living without you."

"Nor I without you. You are my everything." she breathed, and finally - finally he turned to look at her again. And then his hands were on her shoulders, in her hair, and he was kissing her through the tears, his lips pressing tight on hers, and she opened herself for him, opened her lips to let his tongue enter, and the sounds he made were the dry, throaty sounds of wanting, of need - and not just the need for sex, but the need for something much bigger, much more profound.

He needed her to be everything to him.

Jacke threw the damn stupid cursed diamond to the floor, so that it wouldn't touch Sam, not even accidentally - and buried her fingers in his hair. He pulled her near, and she felt his skin hot as burning coals under the sheets, against her own shivering body.

"I'll never leave you." he breathed into the kiss. "I'll be damned, but I can't-"

"Sam-"

"I love you. I fucking love you. Don't you ever die on me, Jackie, don't you ever-"

She kissed the tears off his cheeks, licked them off, her tongue tracing the line of his jaw, of his sharp cheekbone. His chest was heaving under her touch, and she needed him like she needed the air she breathed.

"If you still want me to-," she said, breaking the kiss. "I'll come to Stanford with you."

And I'm back naming the chapters after songs I've listened recently. It's always the easy way out when I can't think of a proper title.