Can We Talk

Summary: This story is about the five moments that changed the course of Sam and Hayley's lives that always started with; "Can we talk?"

Warnings: fluff, smidge of angst, Bobby's death mentioned, friends to lovers, slow-ish burn.

W/C: 5.6k

Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, OFC (Hayley) Mentioned: Bobby, Jody, Donna, Alex, Claire, The Fitzgeralds.

Pairing: Sam Winchester x OFC (Hayley)

Notes: Set season 8 onwards.

A/N: I tried to write this in omniscient third but it didn't work out how I wanted. I changed it to limited third but there's probably still a sprinkling of omniscient third left here too. Also, I have intentionally switched between both character POV's in each scene.


"Can we talk?"

That's the way it usually started. The answer was always yes, and what followed usually changed the course of their lives.

Sam and Hayley had become fast friends when they first met in Bobby Singer's kitchen, having more misfortune in common than two eight-year-olds had any business having. Hayley had been dumped at her Uncle Bobby's by her junkie mother, Sam, by his revenge-obsessed dad. Hayley had never met her father. Sam's mother was dead. It had helped both of them to have someone who understood, someone to talk to.

"Can we talk?" Hayley had asked when they were sixteen before asking Sam, who was already dreaming of Law school, to help her file for emancipation. When the judge granted it, Sam believed - for the first time - that he could be something more than his father, and it was freeing in a way he could never have imagined. Hayley's literal/legal freedom carried her away from Sam, but only physically. They stayed in touch, and she occasionally visited him at Stanford when she passed through. They were both looking for their place in the world. For Hayley, that meant being on the move. For Sam, that meant, for once in his life, staying put.

Life always drew them back together eventually, though.


The backstreet bar was so small it could barely be called that. It was more like a hole in the wall; dark, musty, with the stench of old men and filled with so much smoke, Sam didn't want to stay inside any longer than he had to.

Though it had been eight years since they'd seen one another, Sam recognized Hayley immediately, even though her hair was long and a chocolatey shade of brown instead of the short, light blonde he remembered. A new nose piercing and a few tattoos on her arms didn't detract from her smile, which, though not pointed at him, radiated kindness and warmth, reminding Sam that, for a time, that warmth had been the only good thing in his life.

That was why he hesitated to approach her. He wasn't bringing good news, and as soon as he delivered it, that smile would descend into misery. He wanted to give her a moment longer of peace - and himself a second more to relive the memories of the times that kindness had been directed at him - before she noticed him.

For her part, cleaning glasses behind the bar, Hayley could be forgiven for not spotting the looming giant standing by the door right away, as the smoke in the room was so thick, most of the patrons couldn't see beyond the person immediately next to them. Large as he was, her friend wasn't a man who demanded attention. In fact, he quite often shied from it. But once she finally caught sight of him, she grinned brightly, until he shoved his hands in the pocket of his jeans and shuffled toward her almost reluctantly. Hayley was familiar with that apologetic posture, was unaccustomed to not being met with a beaming smile and an enveloping hug, and when she understood what their absence meant, her grin fell.

"Hey, Sam," she said, and her smile that time was fleeting and small, "you grew up."

He'd been about to say the exact same thing to her, and it made him chuckle because somehow, it would have sounded lame coming from him. "That's what happens when you don't see someone for a while, stranger," he said, leaning over the bar to meet her halfway in a semi-awkward hug. "Can we talk?"

Hayley called out she was taking a break to no one in particular and led Sam through the rarely-used kitchen. No one ate there anymore; the stench of cigarettes and body odor was not the most appealing of aromas to be surrounded by while chomping down on a ten-dollar steak.

The alleyway, littered with cigarette butts and large, overflowing dumpsters, smelled marginally better than the bar but still wasn't the location Sam would have chosen to tell Hayley this news. However, he wasn't going to prolong the situation by asking her to go somewhere else, and in the grand scheme of things, what did the location matter? The outcome would remain the same.

The door closed behind them, and she took a seat on an old chair that was more rot than wood. Sam seemed to be wrestling with something, so she patiently waited while he took the deepest of breaths, searching. Hayley had always viewed Sam as a formidable warrior; he'd told her the stories of both victories and failures, but watching him try to make himself appear smaller, shoulders hunched, hands still in his pockets, was unsettling. His unannounced appearance was enough for her to know something was wrong, but it seemed only yesterday the Winchester's had prevented the apocalypse. Surely there couldn't be another one looming.

This would be a moment they both carried with them for the rest of their lives. Hayley would remember this day as long as she lived, where she was, what she wore, the words Sam used. Sam would look back on it with a weird sense of fondness in the years to come, knowing this was the moment that planted the seed for their relationship to grow to what it eventually became.

So, in the end, the heartbreak was unavoidable. The way in which Sam delivered it was what mattered, and as long as he didn't deliver the news in a song and dance, he couldn't get it wrong.

"Bobby's gone," he said with a heavy sigh. "He passed a week ago. I'd been trying to track you down, but I was too late. I'm sorry."

Of all the things she could have thought about, her mind worked backward, trying to figure out where she had been? What had she been doing while her Uncle was dying? She recalled seeing a missed call from an unknown number, and guilt numbed her.

"It's not your fault," she said, out of reflex and a reminder to herself more so than Sam. She had no idea whether or not Sam held any blame. She only knew her Uncle, and the selfless life he led had a short shelf life. "How did he…did he suffer?"

Hayley recalled asking the same question of the police officer who informed her of her mother's death; the only difference this time was that she hoped that the answer was no. Hayley knew the hunting life, so she wasn't asking if Bobby had been in pain. That, unfortunately, was a given. She was asking if he'd suffered, in the sense of, had he been ripped apart by some monster and bled out or possessed by a demon so that he was aware but not in control?

Sam had expected the question. It was the morbid detail every victim of loss wanted to know when they lost someone unexpectedly. He shook his head vehemently, "No, no. He died in a hospital. Dean and I were with him."

It was partly true. Bobby hadn't suffered; a bullet to the head courtesy of Dick Roman had put him in a coma. She didn't need to know he'd run from his reaper and ended up a spirit with unfinished business, tied to the boys by Dean carrying his flask. The information wouldn't bring her peace or comfort, so Sam omitted it. Sam didn't mention that his brother and Cas had disappeared when Dick exploded, mainly because he didn't want to burden her further with that fact, and he was also afraid that she'd insist on helping find them. Though she'd dabbled in hunting before, this life really wasn't for her, and Sam had made a promise to Dean not to look for him, after all.

She nodded, and her shoulders slumped with relief, but her eyes darted back and forth, her mind in a distant memory of Bobby making a big deal of passing down his secret banana bread recipe. She'd begged him for years to show her, and when the old man caved in, they spent the afternoon hunting Sioux Falls for 'the perfect bananas'. It took two years for her to work out that the reason Bobby had been reluctant to give her the recipe was because he used it as an excuse to entice her home every once in a while. Now there was no home to be enticed back to, and the realization hit her like a ton of bricks.

Sam saw her fold in on herself, and he rushed to kneel at her feet. "I'm sorry," he whispered as she wept into his shoulder. "It's going to be okay," he promised, not knowing if it were true but feeling responsible for the weeping woman.

The wet concrete had seeped into the denim of his jeans by the time her sobs subsided, but neither of them moved from the embrace for a long time.

Eventually, when his joints ached, and Hayley seemed to have run out of tears, he asked, "Hey, wanna get out of here? Grab some dinner?"

She nodded wordlessly, head still buried in his shoulder, and he had to be the one to pull back enough to wipe her tears. Soon enough, they found themselves in a small diner with sticky floors and faded leather booths. They reminisced about the man that raised them both and toasted in his honor. Then, when the owners shut off the lights and locked them out on the street, after a lingering hug and promises of being just a phone call away, they went their separate ways once again.


A few years later, Hayley, 'Agent Carter', strolled onto a crime scene in Wisconsin, flashed her Ginko's-courtesy badge at the locals, and took charge. If she acted like she belonged, as Bobby had taught her - "you can get anywhere with a badge and a confident attitude, kid." - then everyone would believe she did. Forty percent of hunting was getting into places she wasn't allowed to be, and her Uncle's advice had never steered her wrong.

A rookie deputy, who she'd already chewed out for trampling her crime scene, timidly lifted the tarp covering the corpse. She'd barely crouched to examine it when someone from behind her called. "Agent Carter, you know these guys, Agents Tyler and Sambora?"

Fortunately, the squeamish deputy holding the tarp wasn't looking at her, so the panic that swept through her went unnoticed. It was one thing to deal with local law enforcement, but agents trained to detect bullshit was another matter altogether. She'd only been hunting for a few years, and she'd been lucky until now. However, when she whirled to face them, the panic dissolved to relief.

Agent Carter stood, turning in a way that made her hair swish around her shoulders like a shampoo commercial, and both men were caught off guard. Dean's smile oozed confidence, and he was so clearly going to play the flirty angle. Sam was seemingly able to read his brother's thoughts in his expression, and he silently willed him not to go there with a tight smile and subtle roll of his eyes. She smiled at them, more friendly and inviting than one might expect given the circumstances, and Hayley watched them size her up.

Sam frowned slightly as if there was a niggling thought he couldn't quite put his finger on. It hadn't been that long since she'd last seen Sam, but enough time that his hair had grown a few inches. It had been longer since she'd seen the eldest Winchester, and he'd aged like fine wine. They were instantly recognizable, but apparently, the same could not be said of her. She supposed it stood to reason. She looked pretty different from when either of them had last seen her. Her hair was blonde again, there was a little more weight on her face, and her piercing was gone - too hard to sell the image with it in. Though, she couldn't deny she was a little hurt that that was all it took for Sam, of all people, to fail to recognize her.

It was undoubtedly the context. They wouldn't expect to find her here, of all places. They must not know that she'd taken up hunting after her Uncle died. Hayley knew she could never fill his shoes, Bobby had been more to the community than a mere hunter, but she'd felt a sense of duty. Someone had to take up the slack he'd left with his passing, even if just a portion of it.

"Agent Carter," Dean greeted her as he approached with a self-assured, 'I belong here' bow-legged strut. "What do we have here?" he asked, gesturing toward the covered corpse at their feet.

He was good; she had to give him that. Hayley wasn't about to make things easy on him, though. Dean had played his share of pranks on her when they were kids, and besides, she was annoyed they still hadn't recognized her, even this close up.

"Can we talk, Agents?" she asked pointedly, beckoning them over toward a police cruiser and, hopefully, out of earshot of the other officers.

Sam had an uneasy feeling as they followed her, it was written all over his face, and she pondered how he managed to convince real law enforcement. Or perhaps it was the knowing look in her eyes and something about the way she'd said 'agents' that caused the expression.

Dean asked, "Wanna tell me what this is about, Agent Carter?"

"Well, let's see," she said, a hard set to her features, "there are the mass murder charges, grave desecration, impersonating an officer of the law, credit card fraud…and that's just in three states."

Dean's stomach seemed to drop to his ankles with his thick swallow, but he quickly recovered. He gave his most charming smile and a long-suffering sigh. "Ah, I see what's going on here. You're mistaking us for those two brothers who went on the murder spree a few years ago. Honestly, you'd think they'd give us different partners after the fifth or so time someone on an assignment called to turn us in," he said, leaning in conspiratorially, "but I swear the lieutenant just thinks it's funny."

Sam could see she wasn't buying it and reached into his pocket. "Speaking of, you're welcome to call our office if you'd like," he said with a polite smile, pulling out a business card.

Hayley took the card dutifully and studied it. The number, she knew, belonged to Garth. The card was identical to the one she carried in her own pocket. She looked between the two, stern expression still in place, waiting for them to see her. Really see her.

Sam's unease hadn't lessened, but the cause was beginning to shift, and he looked at Agent Carter as steadily as she looked at him. She hadn't believed a word, and it was obvious he could tell, but he was waiting for her to make a move before revealing anything else. His eyes creased at the corners, and they seemed to ask the question he wasn't airing; 'have we met before? You look so familiar…'

Dean, meanwhile, was evidently growing increasingly uncomfortable with the staring contest they were engaged in. He looked back and forth between the two of them, desperately trying to get Sam's attention subtly. What the hell was Sam doing, acting so suspicious? If she were an actual Fed, they'd be in serious trouble. Even Dean's flirting might not be able to salvage things if Sam didn't get with the freakin' program.

"Look, if we're stepping on your toes," Dean interjected, hands raised, "we can back off. Maybe there was some sort of mix-up at Headquarters."

Hayley could see Dean was finally starting to sweat, and, satisfied, she decided to take pity on them. "Calm down, Winchester," she said with a grin, slapping Dean playfully on the shoulder. "I'm busting your balls, idjit."

Dean blinked at her. He looked at her as closely as Sam had been, and recognition dawned.

"Wow," he said, a smile creeping across his face, "Hayley Singer. Goddamn." He shook his head and looked her up and down. "You certainly grew up."

Neither Sam nor Hayley failed to catch his suggestive tone, and Sam stepped in before Dean could say something worse. "That's what happens when you don't see someone for ten plus years, Dean," he reminded him with an apologetic smile to Hayley.

The apology in his eyes was on his own behalf, now, instead of Dean's, and she accepted it when she smiled and said, "Well, seeing as we're all here, shall we work this one together, boys?"

Sam nodded without even a glance to Dean to get his thoughts on the matter. Now that he knew who she was, Sam was so happy to see her.


Destiny, fate, or coincidence intervened three times, and Hayley and the Winchester's appeared at the same job; a ghoul, a salt and burn, and a vetala. The other six times, before the relationship dynamic changed again, Sam had explicitly asked for Hayley's help.

The bunker was the base of operations. Hayley would meet the boys there, leaving her car in the garage before traveling together in the Impala. It saved on gas and parking, and of course, it meant Dean got to pick the music. Whenever they returned, if it were late or they'd driven for an extended period of time, Hayley would spend the night. No one likes to overstay their welcome, though, so Hayley always made sure to be up and gone by midday the following day.

Dean had been the instigator of the next important moment, as it had been his idea to ask Hayley to move into the bunker on a more permanent basis. He had thought about it once or twice while they'd worked together, and once he realized his brother had more than a professional interest in her, it made total sense to give Sam the best shot at happiness he could. Besides, Hayley was practically family, and Bobby would have wanted the boys looking out for her.

The morning was ticking away, and soon after breakfast, Hayley would leave the Men of Letters Bunker. So Sam was prolonging breakfast as much as he could. He'd taken his time making his smoothie while she had devoured a stack of pancakes and teased him for his 'clean' living.

"C'mon, Sam," she coaxed, waving a forkful of pancake in his face from across the table, "I've never seen you eat something 'naughty'," she concluded with full-on air quotes. "I promise I make the best pancakes."

A bold statement that Dean quickly backed up.

"She's not lying, dude," Dean chimed in on his way past the kitchen door. He'd already made a not-so-subtle point of leaving them alone, so Sam didn't have an audience.

"Go on," she begged, pouting, "for me."

The pout was too cute to deny, not that he would have ever denied her anything. Sam feigned a sense of confidence to distract from the puddle of mush her pout made him into and grabbed her hand along with the fork. He imagined it, he must have, but it felt like a shock went through him at the touch of her hand, or maybe it was a static shock.

He guided the food to his mouth and unexpectedly hummed around the chunk of pancake; it really was good.

"See," she said, sitting straighter, a proud smile smoothing out the pout. She leaned closer and lowered her voice, "don't tell Dean, but they're vegan pancakes, totally healthy."

"Except the half-pint of syrup he drenches them in," he chuckled, unable to stop staring at her proud smile.

Later, standing outside her room, he tried to find that same fake sense of confidence, but he was so nervous he thought he might throw up. He raised his hand, ready to knock, and while he took a deep breath to prepare, she pulled it open. A duffle bag slung over her shoulder, and a larger one she'd been holding fell to the floor as she stumbled back and yelped in surprise.

"Shit, I'm sorry," said Sam, "I was gonna knock…" taking a step forward with his arms raised in an attempt to steady her before she fell, he tripped over the bag she'd dropped. Rather than save her, he managed to throw the whole two hundred and twenty-pound weight of his body directly at her. Effectively doing the opposite of what he'd intended and knocking her on her ass. And, in an effort not to land on top of her, he twisted his ankle and landed so hard on his shoulder he damn near dislocated it.

"Oh god, Sam, are you okay?"

Except wanting to die from the sheer embarrassment, he was fine, and as soon as he convinced her that he was, they both almost coughed up a lung from laughing.

There was no way he could possibly make any more of an ass of himself, and he still hadn't explained his presence, so sitting right there on the floor, watching Hayley blot tears of laughter from her eyes, he asked, "Can we talk?"

Those anxiety-inducing words sobered her fast, and it hadn't been his intention to sound so serious, but it was serious. He was about to change their entire relationship, and that wasn't a decision he had taken lightly.

"Sounds like it's a good thing I'm already sitting down," she quipped, but it fell flat in her tone.

Sam took a deep breath. It shouldn't have been as hard as it was, but at that moment, he knew it was because he felt something so strongly for her, and it scared him half to death.

In some ways, Hayley was like Dean. There was always an underlying itch to be on the road; staying put in one place too long sometimes felt like growing soft. For a moment doubt overtook him. What if what he was about to do wasn't as nice a gesture as he hoped it would be? What if she was more like Dean than he realized, and putting down roots wasn't a plan she had for her future?

"Dean and I have been talking, and well…" Nervousness got the better of him, and he had to laugh to clear the emotion away. "We, um, we like having you around, not just for hunts but here too, and we thought maybe you could stay?"

She looked at him for the longest time, so long that he thought maybe she'd hit her head when he'd knocked her down.

"Permanently," he elaborated. "Make this your home, too?"

Luckily they were still on the floor because she threw herself so hard at him, arms looped around his neck, that she knocked him flat on his back.


The town was irrelevant, but the possession case had been a tough one for them all. A young girl couldn't be saved, and the three hunters each walked away with bruises and a wound that required stitches. Once the blood had been cleaned off, and with fresh clothes on their backs, they all stalked off to the nearest bar to drown their sorrows the best way they knew how.

Dean found a target within fifteen minutes of entering the bar, and he left Sam and Hayley in the booth to catch his prey.

It wasn't an unfamiliar scenario; they were predisposed to being drinking buddies. They often made a game of it, watching Dean work his magic and dubbing the words he exchanged with whichever pretty girl took his fancy.

But this particular night, the mood wasn't right for games, and the quiet was born of reflection. What could they have done differently? How could they do better next time? What if they had tried this instead of that?

Hayley observed Sam across the table while he stared into a void and peeled the edge of the label from his beer bottle. His expressive eyes clouded with regret. He felt personally responsible for their failure.

"Can we talk?" Hayley asked with a heavy sigh.

She hadn't asked because there was a particular subject she wanted to discuss; she simply didn't want the silence of their thoughts to devour them. The question had the desired effect of pulling Sam from the toll of his memories.

He flashed a rueful smile, and the gesture transported her back to the hours before when he'd given her a similar one. He'd lain unconscious on the floor with Dean worrying over him, begging him to wake up. Hayley had been immobilized by panic, staring at Sam's limp body and wondering if the force of the demon's power throwing him into the wall had been the last his body could handle. When he'd finally come around, he'd given her the same smile.

The torment she wrestled with took control of her face and caused Sam's brow to crease with concern. Forever the comforter, he slipped a hand over hers, squeezing gently to bring her back to the room.

"Hey," he said softly. A single tear slipped from her left eye, and Sam rushed to switch sides and sit beside her. He thumbed it away before it traveled to her lip. "Hey, hey," he lulled, "talk to me, what's wrong?"

She hadn't intended to discuss any heavy subjects, but at that moment, with Sam's large body shielding her from the rest of the bar, his warm hands cupping her face to keep her focus solely on him, she decided it was time to speak a truth she'd been holding back.

"Today really scared me," she began, "there was a second that I thought you were done for, and it…" She sighed the longest sigh and grimaced when she continued, "I don't want to make an ass of myself here, but I can't keep ignoring it either."

"Ignore what?"

"This whole thing isn't working for me anymore," she admitted.

Sam forced himself to swallow the taste of bile, berating himself for not seeing it sooner. Hunting was a burden; it took its toll on everyone, and today had been the last Hayley could endure. He dropped his hands and twisted to face forward so she wouldn't see the hurt and disappointment so clearly etched on his face.

She saw it regardless, and panic pinched her breath temporarily while she raced through her thoughts of Sam knowing where the conversation was heading and preparing himself to reject her. He had to have known how she felt, or so she thought. She flirted with him; she favored him over Dean when it came to working together, sharing a bed, or any other task that involved choosing a Winchester. So he had to know, right?

Sam had short-lived notions of there being something between them, something more than colleagues or friends, but he always talked himself down before he did anything about it. The disappointment he felt wasn't directed at her; it was at himself that he hadn't taken any of the million opportunities to tell her how he felt because he'd been afraid. Afraid of rejection, scared of giving her his heart and ultimately the control to break it. But now, any chance of her feeling the same or loving her and losing her was gone.

He reached for his bottle across the table, took a long drink to give himself a moment to figure out what to say. He contemplated telling her then that he felt something more than friendship for her, that he wanted to explore where that could go, but it wouldn't have been fair of him, not when he assumed she was telling him she'd had enough. He didn't want to potentially manipulate her into staying.

"Screw it!" she declared, and with a newfound blast of confidence, she used a not so gentle grip under his chin to turn his face to hers to better crush her mouth to his.

Sam had been so convinced she was telling him that she was leaving it took him a full fifteen seconds or so to register what was happening, and before he could react, she'd pulled back.

His expression was one of pure shock, as if someone had thrown ice-cold water in his face, and it evaporated the confidence Hayley had as if they were in the humidity of New Orleans at the height of summer.

"If that was totally out of line, just say the word, and I'mma pretend it never happened, and we can go back to being hunting and drinking buddies; just keeping each other company while Dean screws his way through all fifty states," she rambled and raised her glass as if to toast. "Okay, great." she clinked her bottle against his when he didn't move to do the same, and she swallowed the remaining three quarters in loud breathless gulps.

"Not okay," he finally managed to say.

"I'm sorry, Sam, I shouldn't have…"

He didn't allow her to finish the apology, following her lead; an overzealous forceful pinch of her chin turned her face to his so he could kiss her again. Hayley, more prepared than he had been, reacted instantly. She twisted her body to him, put her hand on his cheek, and relaxed against him. She tasted like beer, and her tongue was cold when it met Sam's, but it didn't matter because she also tasted like possibilities and happiness.


Life took the inevitable twists and turns, some good and some not so good but Sam and Hayley remained together. Chuck was eventually defeated, and life slowed down, so much so, Sam finally allowed himself to believe there was a future beyond apocalypses and evil. The possibilities were endless.

Especially so when they were surrounded by their family and friends celebrating the birth of Garth's fourth child. Jody, Alex, Claire, and Donna had made the trip to the bunker to join the Fitzgeralds, Cas, Jack, Dean, Hayley, and Sam.

Sam watched the scene propped against the library door, a glass of eighty-year-old whiskey in hand, a content smile glued to his lips. Everyone was happy, and he'd never felt more at peace. Yet, he was increasingly frustrated.

He'd made three plans for his proposal, and each time something had gone wrong; Hayley got sick; only the flu nothing serious, but still plan one was out. Plan two; Baby broke down a few miles from their destination, and Dean had to rescue them, so plan two's mood was ruined. Plan three; a vamp nest needed taking out, and Dean had been injured, almost fatally, so, until today, the focus had been on Dean's recovery.

Hayley's schemes were also ruined. The first plan had been ruined by a two-day storm that wreaked havoc on Lawrence. Her second had been thwarted by Sam inviting Dean and Cas to dinner with them. After that, she decided she didn't need a plan; the right moment would present itself eventually. Like now.

Hayley walked toward Sam, a smile that matched his own on her lips, but there was a deeper meaning than pure happiness behind her eyes that made Sam wonder what she would ask. Before she could, he kissed her. He'd never been one for public displays of affection, but he didn't care; her smile required a kiss, and he was loath to deny any of his urges when it came to her.

"Ew," Dean called out, "get a room."

They pulled apart laughing, and without a word uttered, they collectively flipped Dean off. His jesting smile beamed back at them, though it went unnoticed as the couple only had eyes for each other.

They stared at one another; love and admiration reflected back, and simultaneously much like the rude gesture toward Dean; they asked, "Can we talk?"

Another chuckle shared, and in an attempt to break the nervous tension he felt, Sam kissed her again. In anticipation of another request for them to 'get a room' from Dean, Sam decided that was probably the best location for their talk. He took her hand, and without question, she followed.

This was it.

This was the moment he'd been waiting for; there didn't need to be fancy dinners or a meaningful location of fond memories shared. He just needed Hayley. And she had decided the same.

Ever the gentleman, he allowed her to enter the room first, and he followed after silently closing the door behind them.

While his back was turned, Hayley prepared herself. She thought she'd be anxious, but all she felt was excitement.

Shock took Sam's breath when he turned back to face her. Hayley was in the middle of the room, on one knee, her earlier smile broader but tinged with a hint of nerves. In her hand, a small velvet box held out to him, and the light glinted off the polished platinum ring.

"Sam, will you marry me?" she asked.

"NO!" he yelled. Perhaps too aggressively, and her smile quickly fell. Sam rushed closer and dropped to his knee so close there was not a breath of air between them. "I was going to ask you! You can't ask me," he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the princess cut diamond ring that had been metaphorically cutting a hole in his pocket for months. "Hayley, will you marry me?"

It was a running joke for years to come about who asked who. Dean always insisted it didn't matter, that he'd been the catalyst to start their relationship as he'd been the one to suggest she move into the bunker.

And so the argument went, round and round.

Nevertheless, it always ended the same; Hayley pinned beneath Sam squirming to get away while he tickled her breathless and then kissed the air back into her lungs before whoever was present - usually Dean - told them to get a room. They'd stare at one another for a beat and then ask, "Can we talk?" which was code for something that required very few words.


End