Interference

Sam and Dean stood watch outside Lauren's room as she slept; Angel had fallen asleep in the chair beside her bed. Sam seemed to be overly concerned about his appearance, and Dean called him on it as he was slicking down his hair for the umpteenth time.

"Dude, what are you doing?" he asked.

"Nothing, why?" Sam replied.

Dean just shook his head.

"Dean?" Sam asked. "How long was Lauren awake before I came in? Things seemed…tense."

"Just a couple minutes," Dean answered. "She's been basically in a coma for days after having been attacked by something supernatural, how did you think she'd feel? Of course, waking up to my face at her bedside should have done her wonders," Dean snickered. Sam shot him a look, to which Dean replied, "Hey, I am the better looking brother!"

Sam just laughed, "Whatever dude. Why did you tell her about what we do? I thought that was a no-no, especially for you!"

"Sam, I never said a word; I'm not sure what the hell's going on here, but we've got to figure it out and soon. Is the demon after the kid, luring you in, what?"

"I have no idea, but there's a college across the river," Sam said, shaking his head. "I'm going to head over there and see what I can dig up, check out a few things I've been thinking about."

"Take the kid with you, alright?" Dean called as Sam poked his head in the room to see if Lauren had woken up yet. Dean didn't want to be alone with Lauren again, but he didn't want Sam to suspect anything either. And looking at Angel only reminded him that Lauren had moved on since she'd left him, and that just stirred up more emotional crap than he was ready to face today.

Sam and Angel walked out of Lauren's room a few minutes later. Suddenly, Angel ran up to Dean and hugged him around the knees. As he bent over to separate her from his pant legs, she whispered in his ear, "Thanks for watching over my Mom for me," and smiled sweetly.

"That's what I do," he grinned back at her, but the smile disappeared as soon as she turned back to catch Sam's hand and head out of ICU. "Freak!" he said to himself after they'd turned the corner out of site. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for whatever was to come, and walked into Lauren's room.

"Dean," Lauren's face brightened, but Dean brought a hand up, shook his head no and said, "shhh."

"Don't shush me," she said defiantly.

"I already told you, we have nothing to talk about," he said emphatically.

"That's bullshit, and you know it," Lauren said, her anger equaling his own. "I need you to know what happened, and why."

Dean sat down, resigned that this was not going to go away.

Lauren began, "First of all, I didn't want to go. I loved you; you had to have known that much, in your heart, in your head". Dean refused to look at her, his head down, studying the laces on his boots, waiting for whatever else she had to say. "The situation with Sam was bad enough, with hiding my feelings for you from him while he was getting ready to go to school. I didn't want to hurt anyone, you know that."

"Yeah, we talked about all that then," Dean replied. "But after you split, why didn't you ever tell him?"

"I never talked to him again after that Dean. Besides, you're his brother, if one of us was going to say anything, don't you think it should have been you? But then, that's what you do, protect Sam at all costs. You could never stand to see him hurt, which is great, but you cripple him as much as you protect him Dean; why can't you see that?"

"You don't know Sam; you don't know me. Don't sit there and act like you know anything about us, because you don't!"

"I watched that whole dynamic with you and Sam before he left for school. Even then, you were always telling him what to do, who to talk to, who he could be friends with. You made him feel like you and your dad were the only people in this world he could trust Dean. What kind of a life is that, anyway?"

"Did Sam tell you that?" Dean asked her, "Because you never met my Dad. You don't know anything about him."

"You have no idea Dean," she sighed. "I can't believe that you really think I would just walk out on you, after everything we had been through together, the life we'd talked about sharing, unless I had a damn good reason. I always told you everything; you were the only one I felt I could really trust. You were always there for me, my lifeline, the only thing that kept me sane after…" her voice trailed off.

Dean heard her voice crack and knew she was talking about the rape and its aftermath. He got up and walked to the window.

"Do you remember when you gave me this pendant?" she asked. The only answer she got was a nod. "Do you also remember that I gave you an amulet a few months later, just before I left; something that would protect you from emotional turmoil and physical danger?" Dean's hand found the amulet still hanging from his neck.

"Didn't help much with the emotional turmoil," he said dryly. "I think you should get a refund."

Lauren sighed, running her fingers through her hair in frustration before continuing. "Did you ever wonder why I gave you that amulet?"

"You said something about how you didn't feel right keeping the one I gave you without me having some sort of protection of my own. That you were worried something bad was going to happen to me and you were acting really weird. But then, I guess you already knew it would be the last time I'd see you."

Lauren continued with her story. "I was worried something bad was going to happen to you Dean. I had been to your house about a week before that to see you. I had a surprise for you, only you didn't answer the door, your dad did."

"What are you talking about?" Dean asked.

"Your dad invited me in, said how glad he was to finally meet me and that you'd told him so much about me."

"Lauren, I never mentioned our relationship to him," Dean responded.

"I know that now," Lauren said quietly, "but I didn't know it then."

"Tell me," Dean said.

"Your dad started going on and on about how much he and Sam needed you; that you were the anchor of the family, and that if anything happened to you, it would be awful and he just couldn't live through losing one of his sons after what had happened to your Mom. He brought out this book and started telling me stories about ghosts and spirits and all this stuff that you hear about when sitting around a campfire in scouts trying to scare your friends or something. I thought he'd been drinking, to be honest with you, because what he was telling me made no sense at all. Then he asked if you had told me about this stuff and I told him no and that I was sorry about your mom, but I just didn't believe in that kind of thing. Then he opened the book to a page about this one kind of spirit that leaves this certain kind of marking on its victims when it attacks them. Your dad said that these things that your family hunts figure out weaknesses in those that would kill them, and uses those weaknesses against them. He said that one of these things would find out about me, and use your feelings for me to kill you, and probably kill me in the process."

"Well, my dad's a little crazy sometimes," Dean chuckled uneasily, looking away again.

"Yeah," Lauren said, "I thought so too. But then your dad told me that you were in the hospital because of one of these things and said if I didn't believe him to go see you and look at your back. Dean, the wounds you had matched the picture in the book EXACTLY and whatever it was had damn near killed you."

Dean looked at her then, but said nothing. Lauren went on. "When I asked you how you'd gotten hurt, you made up some stupid excuse about falling on a pick axe or something. I felt horrible because you had given me that pendant and now something awful had happened to you. That's when I gave you the amulet. And that's when I knew that I had to leave."

"I looked for you," Dean said. "We have a lot of connections; you disappeared entirely."

"Your dad was waiting for me when I got home that night Dean. He made all the arrangements, helped me get set up in another place, arranged to have the house sold, helped me disappear. Still, I had my cousin keep his eyes open, since he was with the police department. Then a couple years ago, he called me. Told me you were dead. I went to your funeral Dean. I saw your body in that casket. I wondered where Sam and your Dad were, what had gone wrong, where the amulet was and why it hadn't protected you…" she began to cry softly.

Dean looked at her now. "Why didn't you just come talk to me, tell me what my dad had told you, give me a chance to explain, hell, give us a chance to work it out?"

"Would you have let me leave if I'd talked to you first?" she asked quietly.

He thought for a second, then shook his head, "No," he said firmly.

"And I loved you too much to be the reason you didn't live to see another birthday, or Sam graduate from college, or whatever else would make you happy. I loved you too much to risk your life, or anyone else's…"

Sam Winchester picked that exact moment to clear his throat. Dean and Lauren looked up, startled to see him standing in the doorway.

"Dean," he said, his voice low and barely controlled. "Can I talk to you outside?"

Brother vs. Brother

"We're not finished Dean," Lauren began, but Dean cut her off.

"No, I think we really are," Dean said.

"Sam, wait…" Lauren said, mostly to Sam's back as he left the room in a huff, Dean close behind him.

"Mommy," Angel bounded into the room, "the doctors say you get to go home!"

"That's great, honey," Lauren smiled through the tears starting to form in her eyes.

Dean followed Sam out of Lauren's room into the hallway, but Sam kept walking. "Where are you going, Sam?" Dean asked. Sam just kept walking until they had gotten outside the hospital.

"Look man," Dean said, but Sam grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him up against the wall, hard.

"Shut up, just shut up! I am so sick of the sound of your voice anymore, always telling me what to do, and the lies, and…"

"Sammy…" Dean began.

"Stop calling me that Dean! I'm not a kid anymore. I'm not this fragile little thing you need to keep protecting! I'm a man, a grown man. I can handle more than you give me credit for. How could you do it, Dean?" Sam asked. "How could you do it? You knew how much I liked her then, how much I still like her. And then the vision. We had nearly a day in the car for you to tell me you were screwing her behind my back and you said nothing!"

"I wasn't screwing her behind your back Sam. You said yourself that nothing ever happened between you. You weren't together, and I don't really want to talk about this right now," Dean replied evenly, his jaw set.

"You don't want to talk about it? You don't want to talk about it! I don't give a rat's ass if you want to talk about it or not Dean. I bet you two just laughed it up, didn't you? Poor little Sammy, he has no idea. When did it start, huh? Those nights I passed out first, did you just make sure you got out of her room before I woke up? What an idiot I was!" Sam practically spat.

"It wasn't like that Sam. You had already left for school; Dad was off hunting all the time. I got lonely."

"You got LONELY?" Sam exploded. "Well, hell, that's a good reason to betray your brother, you got lonely."

"Sam, what the hell has gotten into you? Did Ellicott come back when I wasn't looking?" Dean's attempt at humor only fueled Sam's rage.

"I'm done; I am so done with you! And you had the nerve to call me selfish!"

"Sam, I'm sorry. I never meant for it to happen. I never meant to hurt you. You had already left for school, asked me to look after her. It was hard; but there came a point where we just couldn't fight our feelings anymore, you know? She seemed to understand and accept me, just like I was. She didn't want all the other stuff that girls usually want. She just wanted me, as is, no conditions. She didn't ask me to change, she didn't ask a bunch of questions when I'd take off with Dad. She'd just be there when I got back. She's the one woman I could be myself with Sam," Dean looked him square in the eye. "I loved her man."

"Loved or love?" Sam asked, releasing his grip on Dean's shirt and turning away from him. Dean just sighed. "Well, I guess that explains how she knows about what we do," Sam said.

"No, we have Dad to thank for that!" Dean answered.

Sam whirled. "What? Dad would never do that!"

Dean said, "Yeah, I didn't think so either. But apparently, he did. He told Lauren that our relationship would get me killed and she hauled ass. I went to her house one day, all set to... And she was gone. I never saw her again."

"All set to what Dean?" Sam asked.

"It doesn't matter, it's ancient history now. But I never saw her again until you found her in the stairwell at her office building. And that's the truth. Nothing has happened between us since then," Dean said. "This is just another job we have to do, that's it. Lauren and I are done. If you want her, I'm not standing in your way."

Sam snorted, "Mighty kind of you there Dean, but I don't think Lauren's the least bit interested in me at this point, do you?"

"Come on," Dean said. "Are we square now?"

"No Dean, not even close. But we have a job to do. Let's get back inside."

They re-entered the hospital and walked back to ICU. Suddenly, they saw Angel being led away from them by a doctor and several nurses rushing to Lauren's room, alarms sounding. "What did you do to my Mommy?" Angel screamed, trying to pull away from the doctor's firm grip.

"Hey!" Dean yelled as he ran toward them, Sam close behind. "Let her go!"

The doctor released his grip on the little girl, turning to look at Dean and Sam as Angel buried her face in Sam's shoulder, crying. "You're too late!" he grinned, his eyes black as the night sky. "You're too late!" He disappeared down the stairwell before the brothers had a chance to fully process what had just happened.

"Lauren!" Dean yelled, rushing back to ICU, but the shades to her room were drawn and a crash cart was being rolled in. A male nurse blocked Dean from entering the room. "Damn it!" Dean swore, punching the wall outside Lauren's room before turning his back against it and sliding down to sit on the floor, burying his head in his hands, his head ringing with the sound of the machines and medical personnel yelling out orders, trying to save Lauren's life.