Author's Note: I'm currently at college. I'm trying to get myself adjusted with going to classes and doing my homework. Also these updates might not always be quick or frequent. I plan on having like 4 or 5 chapters to this. Thanks for reading! Also thanks february bliss and RockChixl4tx for reviewing. Enjoy. Chapter 1 has been sent to my beta, it might change depending on what she does with it.
Baby Steps
03:00 AM
An hour had passed and they started shivering. He moved his hand from hers and rubbed her arm nodding his head to the old maple Victorian doors. They moved inside quickly the doors warmth passing through them.
Rachel moved into the kitchen and flipped on the lights catching the dimmer and lowered it as not to hurt their eyes. It wasn't time to stir up trouble between them. She moved swiftly to the other side of the kitchen starting up the coffee pot and then moving towards the new steel fridge. Dean stood in the doorway awkwardly, his arms holed up tightly in the leather jacket, eyes slowly scanning the room. The cabinets are cased in white, the top row each consisting of a glass window with iron rods to guard it. The counter tops are black marble contrasting with the white walls and cabinets of its surroundings. A large black marble slab lay in the middle, hoisted up buy maple cabinets, the sides unfinished rough to the touch. In the empty patches of fall hung antique pans, dried herbs, and small paintings of food or gardens. The walls remained white behind these objects; unlike them it hadn't aged with time.
"Coffee?" Before he could answer she slid a mug over to him already filled. The cup stopped just short of the unfinished counter top.
"Thanks." The mug stat on the table, his worn hands slipped around the old mug. Neither sat down instead silently choosing to stand and sip their fingers back to warmth. If people thought December was cold in New England, they obviously never stayed till well into January. The month school kids dreaded – no holidays, vacations or time off in general. A solid month with nothing but work or school or life in general – she hated January. The death of everyone in her family all revolved around thirty-one days in the coldest fucking month of the year. Figures he would show now after she'd been so long with out him. Four years and no sign of Dean or any Winchester for that matter and just when she thought she would die without him he comes back.
She stared off into her mug, the cream and coffee swirling around creating a tiny whirlpool in the center. She'd always envisioned he'd come back. The last time she saw him was four years ago. Two weeks after the death of Sam. He'd always come in times of desperation (for him) or when he needed help with a particular hunt. But this time was different. She looked up at the man across the counter from her his hands wrapped tightly in his hands perched over the counter seemingly in the same mindless internal banter.
Dean continued to stare into his rapidly emptying mug. The bottom almost visible through the dark murky liquid. The silence was slowly killing him. Even as much as he hated fumbling over his words he hated this particular silence. He had never been good with emotions, not like Sam had been and maybe that was part of the reason he envied his younger brother. He had to do it this time, he had to push past the fact that a good chunk of his life he was unable to tell her or anyone what it was that he needed them to understand.
"I'm done." His words were abruptly dropped on her. She looked up confused as if trying to pretend that Dean Winchester had in fact not just said these words in front of her.
"What?"
"I'm done, with all of this." His arm flied past him motioning to the invisible whatever behind him. He took a deep breath and pressed on further. "Hunting."
She ran a hand through her hair nervously; trying to take the so few words he said that held such a tremendous reason. The words that had flown effortlessly out of Dean Winchester's mouth (the self-proclaimed eternal hunter) hung around her weighing her down probably more than him.
"And I mean it. Every word." He interjected into the silence that had fallen between him. Her mouth was slightly open and eyes open wide (a deer in the headlights kind of look).
"A-are you serious?" She choked her own breathing the words barely exiting her mouth. He couldn't possibly be serious. The only thing that would make him stop hunting the answer was death and nothing else.
They sat in silence again. Each reliving the previous minutes that had just passed them by. Suddenly the soft pitter patter of tiny feet could be heard on the creaky old maple staircase. Dean turned his eyes away from Rachel and towards the entry way into the kitchen just in time for a three year old boy with dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes dressed in batman pajamas (the feet also sown in) with his thumb in his mouth and a light blue blankie dragging on the floor behind him. His eyes half opened still encased in sleep.
"Mommy, I think there's somethin' under my bed."
