Chapter 50.

Of all the things about the young hunters that had impressed Dean, the biggest would have seemed the smallest to them. It was how they went to find Lydia to tell her all that had happened. it showed respect for the victims they were fighting for. It showed concern and diligence and a very good sense of priorities. He had expected them to leave after supper, but now he felt they would stick around until they knew what help Rowena could offer.

He watched them go, not bothering to go with them. It was their case. As they left the garage, he felt like an old man, watching the future go on without him.

He knew he wouldn't mention that to anyone. Sam and Cas reacted badly to any hint that he wasn't fully committed to the future and even Sarah would look at him with those piercing, perceptive eyes and ask questions whose answers he didn't know and some whose answers troubled him too.

He went to the kitchen and filled a cup with strong coffee. The ladies were good at keeping it brewing and they wouldn't begrudge him a share. He didn't mind his bunker being overrun with females, because they all happened to like him and none of them were the prissy kind of women who constantly complained about the oafish ways of men. The only reaction he ever got to leaving a copy of Busty Asian Beauties around was an amused look and a roll of the eyes.

He sat at the table with his coffee, not to avoid anyone, but just to take a moment alone before he had to be the Dean they all wanted to see again. Early in his life, he had discovered that the performance went better if he sometimes managed to spend a few minutes without the mask.

He assumed that Cas would be with Jules, preparing for his meeting with Jack. She calmed him and she helped him to think things through. Sam, he hoped, was with Eileen. He frowned a little at the thought. He wanted them to be together, because she gave Sam everything he needed and there was a light in his eyes that dwindled and perished if he spent too much time away from her. Even so, knowing that he would be trying to talk her out of the honeymoon was dispiriting, although the other possibility was worse, that he was simply not telling her at all.

It was not his place to interfere. Every time he tampered in his brother's life, he caused trouble and he would never have tolerated Sam's interference in his, but the urge to fix things for Sammy, to make sure he didn't sabotage his own happiness, was overpowering.

In the same way, he wanted to drag Jack out of Heaven and take him to Cas now, to tell him that he was wrong that he had failed at everything. He would hate it if someone did that to him, forcing a confrontation for which he felt unready and ill-prepared. Here he was, making the same stupid mistakes he always made. He was tired of getting everything wrong.

He went to check the food supplies and found one shelf of the refrigerator filled with pies, labelled as cherry, apple and blackberry and apple. There was a note beside them. "From Jack and Sarah, with love." He grinned. There was something so weird about the supreme being using his powers to sneak pies into his kitchen and it also meant that Jack had helped to bake the pies, because the Nexus wasn't a big enough gift, apparently. "I love you too, kid." he said, then remembered that Jack would hear him and felt awkward about it.

He heard footsteps behind him and turned, expecting to see Jack. Charlie was there instead. "Rough day?" she said.

"No, everything went well." he said.

"It could still be a rough day." she said.

"Yeah, but it wasn't. Asher and Michael did great. I just ..." he gestured to his coffee cup, "I needed a coffee." He watched her face. She was family. She didn't buy any of it. "It's been a day." he said, "Not good, not bad. I just needed a minute before facing everyone again."

She smiled. She believed that. "You want me to disappear?" she said, "Because I'm happy to go back to the hot librarian."

He smiled a little himself. "It's going well, between you too, then?"

She shrugged. "It's going okay. Of course, a lot depends on where she ends up going."

"Well, we're thinking keep her close, in case she needs us." he said.

"I like your thinking." she said, "Do you think I have a shot?"

"Oh yeah. I mean, she's pretty clever, so she already knows you're awesome and she seems to like you. I think you could be great together."

She poured herself a coffee and they sat together at the table. "What are we gonna do about you, Dean?" she said.

"I'm fine." he said, the words out of his mouth before he remembered that they never worked on Charlie. "I mean, given time, I will be fine. Look, after we deal with Lydia's future, I'm gonna spend some time at Sioux Falls. Try to help Cas. Talk with Bobby. Get out of Sam and Eileen's way for few hours, maybe more."

"What makes you think you're in their way?"

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I have a pretty interventionist approach to my brother's life and they are both so understanding about that, but they shouldn't have to be and if he really doesn't want a honeymoon, that's between them and nothing to do with me." He drank some of his coffee and added, "Even though I know I'm the reason he wants to turn it down."

"Who offered it to him?" she said.

"Jesse and Cesar, a hunter couple we know. Well, ex-hunters. They got out. They have this place in New Mexico. They're great guys and when I told them Sam's getting married, they offered a couple of weeks at their place. They even have a giant horse he can ride."

"Sounds perfect." she said.

"That's what I thought. But he has this crazy idea that I can't be left alone."

"Crazy." she said, "Because seeing him get married will only make you happy."

"Of course." he said. They locked eyes for a moment, each one well aware of what wasn't being said. "It's all I want." he said, trying to convince both of them.

"I know." she said, "He knows it too. I suppose he wonders whether it's likely to make you think about your own situation."

"I have no 'situation' at all." he said.

"Very much my point."

"But I'm not lonely. The bunker is full of people I love. And Anael."

"Don't be mean to her. We get it, you haven't forgiven her, but she's not your worst enemy."

He nodded. "True. She's one of my best enemies. She's like Crowley. You can have a drink and a laugh with her and she'll only try to kill you when she really, really feels like it."

She sipped her coffee, partly, he suspected, to hide a grin.

"What?" he said.

"Nothing." she said, "I just love you."

"Right back at ya, kiddo."

"We'll talk Sam into accepting the invitation."

"Not my place or yours. That's why I need to back off. I tell myself I meddle for all the right reasons, but the outcome never seems to be that great and he's getting married! Time I stopped treating him like a kid."

"You stopped that a long time ago, but you can't stop treating him like a brother. You shouldn't. He still needs his brother. He just may need a reminder that you're not alone and that none of us will let anything happen to you."

"Sister, things happen to me."

She laughed. "Yeah, they do, but if they happen to you when he's in New Mexico, they'll have to get past a lot of us first. Your family got pretty big. You both need to remember that."

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. To hear her, of all people, talk like that, touched his heart. She had died for him and now, when she should be chasing after her own happiness, she was getting all protective over him. "Don't lose your Pegasus because you're worried about a broken-down old donkey." he said.

"If my Pegasus doesn't understand my love of that pretty amazing donkey, there's nothing there I want anyway." she said.