There was a sound, and then again. The phone was ringing. Why was the phone ringing? What time was it, and why was the phone ringing? Not quite awake, Brenda groped in the dark around the nightstand, knocking things aside in her blind search for the offending device. The question of who could be calling in the middle of the night drifted sluggishly through her head.

Her fingers found the phone and not bothering to lift her head from the pillow she glanced at the caller ID. Of course, she thought, unable to fathom how she hadn't known without looking. She made no attempt to hide her irritation when she answered, skipping "hello" in favor of, "Whatever it is could have waited until morning, Dean."

"I know," Dean's ragged voice stammered at the other end of the line, "it's late."

"It's closer to early." she informed him. "Have you been drinking? Did you drunk dial me?" In the clear light of day, fully conscious, she would have been disappointed. Dean sobering up had been the one good thing to come from the fallout to his family. As it was, woken from a sound sleep, with work in the morning, she was just pissed.

"No," he denied the accusation and then amended, "well, not much. I'm not drunk. I just...can I come over? I need to talk. I mean, I really need to talk."

Talk? Was he serious? Now? After everything? Now he wanted to talk? "See a therapist, Dean." she said sarcastically, "I'm not biting on that line, not again."

Dean winced. He couldn't blame her for what she was thinking. She'd learned what expectations to have of him because he'd been the one to teach her. "OK, I deserved that." he admitted, "but this isn't that. I'm not trying to sweet talk my way back into the house, or the bed. I screwed that up and there's no going back. I get that."

"I'm hanging up, Dean." she said flatly.

"No, wait!" he burst out. Words flew from his lips in a desperate attempt to keep her from ending the call. "Look, everything in my life just keeps getting crazier, and I can't stop it. I can't even understand half of it. I can't keep doing this alone. I just can't. I have to talk to somebody. Sam's dead. Mom's god knows where. Dad's not...doing good. You're all I've got left. Talk, just talk, that's all, I swear, Baby, please."

Brenda pinched the bridge of her nose. She should just hang up. She knew this. Every ounce of common sense she had impressed this fact upon her. Give Dean Winchester half a chance and he could charm you into or out of anything before you knew what hit you. It was a lesson she had learned the hard way, eventually. Don't say anything, just hang up, an inner voice urged her even as she heard herself saying, "You don't have me, Dean, not anymore."

That wasn't so bad, the voice reassured her. That's the perfect place to punctuate with a click.

"Look," she explained as she ignored the voice demanding to know why she was still talking to him, "I hope you can get yourself back together, you and your dad both, but I just can't keep doing this with you. It's too hard. We tried and it didn't work out. At some point, I have to take care of me."

Dean felt the only remaining link to the last time his life had felt something like normal slipping from his grasp, a single, fragile thread that threatened to snap at any second. "You're not wrong," he confessed miserably. "You didn't deserve what I put you through for the past...well ever." He was desperate now, a man slipping downhill, frantically grasping at whatever he could reach in hopes of slowing the descent. "I don't have the right to ask you for anything, and I'm not. I'm not asking. I'm begging. If you still care about, even a little bit, can you please just do this for me?"

Brenda couldn't be sure, but she thought he might be crying. She wasn't sure what to do with that. The Dean she knew dealt with emotional drama in two ways, anger, and humor. She'd spent years learning to navigate that. Now, he sounded so broken, and that blindsided her. She didn't have a map for this situation. "Damn you, Dean Winchester," she muttered, frustrated. "And damn me for ever agreeing to go out with you." she added.

This, she told herself, this is why you just hang up. This is why you don't give him even half a chance and now it's too late.

"I know, and you're right." Dean seized on the opening. "I'd do anything to fix us if I could, but I can't. That's on me and I'm gonna be kicking myself for it for the rest of my life. You gotta believe me, I wouldn't be bothering you if I had anybody else I could go to. Please, I'm begging here. I can't be alone right now."

Silence hung heavy on the line. She did still care. She'd understood when Dean had had to move back home. She still understood it. She just accepted that John's problem was not one that would be solved in a weekend, or a week, or maybe not ever. How many times had she waited for Dean to come back from where ever he'd wandered off to? Just how long was she supposed to wait for a man that may not be coming back at all this time? It wouldn't be fair to Dean to let him think the door was still open when it just wasn't. She was done.

"Baby," Dean's voice broke into her thoughts, "please."

He was definitely crying she realized, and that's probably what broke her resolve. "You are not staying over, Dean." she told him firmly. "I mean it. Do not show up with a suitcase, or a change of clothes. If you have so much as a toothbrush on you, you don't get past the front door. Are we clear?"

"Yeah, I get it." he hastily agreed, on guard against doing anything to screw this up, "no over-nighter, check,"

"And don't ring the bell." she added, "I'll watch for you. I don't want Little John to wake up and get the wrong idea."

That stung, but Dean endured it without complaint. He figured he had it coming, less than he deserved really. "yeah, OK," he swallowed hard, choking down the emotion. "Hey, Brenda, thank," the line clicked as he was speaking. By the time he said, "you" it was to dead air. All things considered, it had gone better than he had expected.