MIAKODA

Currently, Life was a bit shit.

Miakoda wasn't dying physically – even with the onslaught of disease that had started to creep across America that had abruptly stopped (thanks, Winchesters) – just mentally under the amount of mid-terms she had to grade.

Why did she think being a Professor for these guys was a good idea?

Part of her wanted to say something sappy but right now, if she had to see another fucking paper with the three essays that they had to write, Miakoda actually might cry. Having a mistletoe and wolfsbane bath would hurt less.

Getting up from the kitchen table – not even the comfort of her books would do with this, the sooner the better – Miakoda cracked her back. She cringed at the smell of her shirt. She'd spent the last two days basically sitting at her table, grading.

Was she a sadist? Miakoda wasn't sure.

Did she want these done as soon as possible? Damn right.

Deciding to head up for a shower, she booked it. Twenty minutes later – because she fucking could – Miakoda came out, patting the ends of her hair dry, clean and slightly less stressed. A frown came onto her face when the sound of a familiar purr of an engine entered her hearing range.

The Winchesters, what would they want?

Deciding that grading wasn't exactly important at that moment, Miakoda left everything on the table and moved over to her movie cabinet. Grief was strong in the Impala and there was only one heartbeat.

"Oh fuck…" Miakoda shut her eyes. Chucking on a Disney film for a bit of humour, she waited for – leather, gunpower, engine grease – Dean to make his way up to the door before she got up.

She gave him a sad smile before gesturing him in. Miakoda took the duffel bag from him and set it on the bottom of the stairs. "Coat and shoes off, then living room. You can update me in there."

The Hunter moved on autopilot – canvas jacket came off and his boots were nudged where her own booties were. Guilt and grief she noticed were prevalent. She herded him into the living room. Dean collapsed like a marionette with their strings cut onto the sofa, frame tight and tense. Miakoda touched his shoulder for a brief second before nipping into the library and grabbed a decanter – she felt kind of fancy when she noticed it – and two tumblers and brought them back to the living room.

"What's gonna happen now," she said quietly, telling rather than asking the worn soldier in front of her, as she poured him two fingers worth of scotch, "is that you're gonna have that drink, tell me what happened, then you're going to have a shower, stay in my guest room till you get back on your feet and then follow through with what your brother made you promise him, okay?"

Green eyes, slight red rimmed, stared at her. "What makes you think I made him a promise?"

"I was a big sister once." Miakoda shrugged, sipping at her drink herself. "If it brought them peace, I'd've done anything for them."

"What happened?" Dean asked, avoiding the elephant in the room for a while longer. She'd let him.

Miakoda gave a bitter smile. "It was put down to arson. Whole family died in a fire in '99; I was 16."

"Fuckin' hell."

"I won't say I'm over it, still hurts every now and then, but it's…bearable, I guess. What did you promise him, Dean?"

He swallowed half of his drink, steeling himself. Miakoda watched the side of his face as he warred with himself – his stubbled jaw clenched and his brow furrowed. She let instinct drive her, setting her hand on his bare forearm in support. Dean seemed to stare at it in slight confusion. "I said I'd get out of this life, of Hunting, but I don't know how Koda. This life, this is all I've known."

Absently, Miakoda realised that she liked the way he said her name, deep and slightly husky. "Start small. First thing's first, let's do what I said earlier, let's get you back on your feet before planning for the future." She squeezed his arm before giving him space, curling up in the corner of the sofa. "Get it out, tell me what happened."

Dean stared at her for a minute, like he was trying to understand her. Miakoda felt her Wolf press in her ribs, like all she wanted to do was offer physical touch. He didn't seem to be able to take touch at that particular moment.

Dean went to open his mouth and Miakoda held up a finger. "If you say 'why are you helping?'" her shitty version of his voice made him smile a little, "you will get slapped in your very pretty face?"

"You think I'm pretty?" he tried to flirt with her and Miakoda raised an eyebrow. "We stopped the Apocalypse."

"Thanks for that."

"You're welcome." He chucked back the rest of the alcohol in his glass before she nudged the decanter over towards him with her foot. "So, God's real. So are Angels and Archangels and the Fates and they all had a Prophecy between Lucifer and Michael who would be the end of the world…"

For the next hour, Dean told her what had been happening with him and his brother over the past few months since they'd met. All of the shit of getting the rings from the Horsemen – "Yes, the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" – and how he struggled not to just say yes to Michael for this all to be over and for Sam to come out of it alive. How it all ended where it began for the Winchesters, in Lawrence, Kansas, except Sam and their little half-brother Adam, are in the Pit in Hell and Dean was on his own. Again.

"You'll probably hate yourself for a long time." Miakoda murmured after a while after he finished. "You'll sit awake and wonder why did it have to be your brother and not you? But from what I got from the meagre interactions that I had with your brother is that, Dean, he was as stubborn as you probably are when you make a decision. If he made the decision, to take Lucifer and Michael to Hell, in his own right of mind which, from what you've told me, he seemed to be, you gotta respect that. As much as you'll throw shit and yell, it was your brother's decision."

"Did you?" he gruffly said into the glass.

She hummed a nod. "The youngest wasn't even a year. So yeah. I still do. We were a close knit unit, we were probably the physical embodiment of 'It takes a village' and when the firefights got the fire put out, I didn't even have a photo for a reminder. They discovered that whatever had started the fire had some sort of accelerant, which was why it burned hot enough to not enable the kids to get out."

"My mom died in a fire." Dean gave her in response. "I was 4, Sammy was 6 months. I carried him out."

"Supernatural or?"

"A demon."

Miakoda rested her temple on her fist that was propped up by the back of the sofa. They'd relaxed back into the sofa, facing each other. "Was that was got you all into Hunting?"

"Dad wanted to gank the fucker that killed Mom, it consumed him. But he got the bastard in the end."

She held a hand out, pointing softly, "I have a feeling that I wouldn't like him."

Dean snorted harshly. "Not many people liked my Dad. Even Sammy and I did at one point."

Miakoda glanced at the clock for a time check. "Want some dinner? Like actual home cooked shit and not fast food?"

"I would kill for some."

She clapped her hands together once before near falling off the sofa, leading the way into the kitchen. "I've had some chilli cooking all day, put it on around mid-morning. All I have to do is the rice."

After getting the rice out of the pantry, along with the rice cooker, a stock cube and the sift off the rack, Miakoda handed the stuff to Dean where he stood near drooling into the pot of chilli on the stove. "Two cups of rice into the rice cooker and wash it till it becomes clear; makes for fluffier rice."

"Yes ma'am." He seemed happy enough to help out as she got a couple of bowls out along with spoons.

"Why does your table look like a warzone?" Dean drawled from where he was washing the rice, having glanced at the table.

"Don't look at my shame." She teased, putting the stock together for the rice as the kettle finished boiling. "It was mid-terms week. I'm about 90% there with marking but fuck, is it like Mount Doom at the moment."

"Don't you have like other people to help though?"

"Yeah, unfortunately for my brain, I thought it would be a great idea to try and have them all done by the weekend. Whilst everyone else will probably take next week to do them."

"Were you a nerd in school, Prof?"

"I'm a 27 year old, with two Doctorates to her name, working near full time at an Ivy League because I want to rather than need to. What do you think?"

He breathed a laugh a little and put the lid on the rice, putting it in the microwave. Miakoda put the time on and they moved back into the living room. "What's your other one in?"

"I wanted to be Evy Carnahan from The Mummy. It came out a few months before the Fire and my older brother and I used to spend hours digging around in the forest where our house was. I did enough units for it to be a double major, decided 'fuck it, let's do both' and spent a year in Cairo getting some field experience and got my Doctorate."

"Did you find Hamunaptra?" he drawled, relaxing back into his spot again.

"Yeah, as well as the Book of the Dead." Miakoda replied, completely serious.

Dean blinked.

"No!" she chucked a pillow at him. "We spent a few months in both the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. But fuck, do I get why Anakin hates sand so much." Her response made him laugh. "I have the DVDs of both of them."

"I haven't seen them in years."

Mind made, Miakoda padded over to the TV, took out Bolt which had had Miley Cyrus and John Travolta singing the credits song on low volume and got out The Mummy. As she was finishing doing that, the microwave went and they moved into the kitchen to get food.

"I think I might actually start to cry." Dean near whimpered as she handed him a bowl of steaming rice and chilli.

"The extra salt really adds something to the beans." She nodded, knowing from experience when the survivor's guilt hit her hard some days. "There's sour cream in the fridge, along with beer if you want it."

She left him to it and moved back into the living room, finishing setting up the film. Miakoda pulled the blinds as it was already getting dark and flicked the lights off. Dean must have seen them go off as he switched the kitchen ones off too.

"I always forget how good these films are. Oh thanks." Miakoda smiled as he held a bottle of Smirnoff Ice out to her from where she sat curled up in her spot.

The rest of the night was spent, giving commentary to the film's progression and what they actually got right.

"So were the Medjai actually real?" Dean asked, collecting the bowls wordlessly, moving into the kitchen.

"Uh huh." Miakoda nodded, following him. She put a pot over the top of the chilli, put the rice back into the microwave, covered up as well.

"You cooked. You sit." Dean gently smacked her hand away as she went to help dry, causing her to relent.

"They weren't necessarily employed to stop white people from doing stupid shit like raising an evil high priest and his evil girlfriend who would try and take over the world, but they were real. They were sort of like police men of the time – during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, which was between 2050BC and 1710BC was when they as a unit were at their strongest. Around that time, ancient Egyptians hired to be their gauchos – like cavalry -, infantry and explorers in case of spies and stuff. There's no further evidence though on them from 1189-1077BCE so no one really knows what happened to them."

Dean had finished rinsing the bowls and had turned his back to the sink, as he dried them, listening and watching Miakoda answer the question. She talked a lot with her hands, he noticed, when she wasn't in front of crowd and had her 'professor' hat on, standing in front of him in tapered navy joggers and a warm University crewneck that looked like it swamped her. Miakoda would get along with Bobby. And Sam.

Miakoda caught the wave of grief that had become reinforced and rested her chin on her fist. "Come on, I'll show you to the guest room."

He wordlessly followed, either too tired to fight or just knowing better than to protest. Dean grabbed the duffel from the bottom of the stairs and followed her up them.

Miakoda pointed to a dark varnished door directly at the top of the stairs. "Main bathroom."

They turned onto a long stretch of hall, that had a bit of natural light coming in from both the roof window and another little porthole window at the end of the hall. Three other dark doors greeted them. She pointed down to the furthest, "Mine." The middle, "Linen cupboard – extra sheets, blanket, towels." Then finally the left one, "The guest. Betcha it'll be comfier than any motel."

She pushed open the door and a room of neutral tones – not 70s atrocity – greeted Dean. The queen sized bed had warm yellow-cream sheets and a whitewashed headboard with several accent pillows, sitting on top of a cream and white fluffy rug. The bed was bracketed by matching white washed little side tables, both with lamps to warm the room a little more. It was probably another version of heaven for Dean.

Miakoda squeezed his arm. "Get some sleep, Dean."

He dropped the bag on the end of the bed and felt a weight lift off of his shoulders. "Why did you do this?"

She'd stopped in the doorway, leant against it, watching him. "Because you've taken care of so many people without getting any thanks in return, now let someone else take care of you."

There was an indescribable look to his face as he stared at her from where he sat on the end of the bed. Miakoda shrugged. "I tend to mother hen people, including my tutorial classes, which can sometimes look weird to people. But, you have a promise to uphold to your brother, this," she waved to the room in was in with a finger, "this is the first step. I'll see you down stairs in the morning."

"Thank you, Miakoda." This kind of care-taking, Dean realised with a metaphorical punch to the gut, he only experienced at Uncle Bobby's when he was a kid.

"No thanks necessary, but you're welcome, Dean." Miakoda nodded to him and let the door close with a quiet click.

As she lay in bed that night, Miakoda could feel the Pack Bond click into place and her Wolf settled happily as Dean settled in for the night. She had a feeling that it wouldn't be an easy night but she'd help him all the same. As much as he'd let her.