Chapter 12 Early in the Morning


Forest Edge, Oregon

Sam looked up as Tricia walked into the kitchen. Adrienne's fingers closed around his hand, pulling at it to drag the spoon to her mouth. He dropped his gaze to his youngest daughter with a smile as she slurped the pureed chicken and pumpkin off the baby spoon. He was pretty sure she had her uncle's food appreciation genes.

"How's Ellie doing?" He loaded the spoon again and offered it to Adrienne.

Tricia shook her head slightly, putting the brown paper sack of groceries down on the counter. "She's better. Kind of."

Scooping another mouthful from the bowl for Adrienne, Sam wondered how long it would take for his sister-in-law to heal. What had happened in Santa Barbara had brought everyone down. Whether they realised it or not, admitted it or not, Ellie and Dean were at the centre of their close-knit community and their pain was felt and worried about by every hunter, every Watcher and nephilim living here. He'd seen Ellie a week ago, before another hunt had taken him out of state. The casts had just been cut off and he'd been shocked at the changes in her, the physical changes and the emotional ones, understanding his brother's fears.

She hadn't regained the weight she'd lost in the hospital. Her skin was waxy, too pale. Her hair, short and spiky, made her look thinner, sharper, and her eyes had been haunted, filled with pain when she'd looked up at him, a small, lost smile hovering on her mouth. She'd been limping around, unwilling or unable to start the long process of regaining her strength and agility, the level of fitness and suppleness that almost defined her physically, a feline grace that had kept her safe on a lifetime of hunts.

"Did you get a chance to talk to her?" He scraped the last of the puree into the spoon and gave it to Adrienne.

"A little," Tricia said, unpacking the last of the groceries and putting them away, then turning to him with a helpless expression. "She talks around everything. She never used to do that, Sam. It was always up front and centre with her, even if she was admitting to her own mistakes. I can't recall a single occasion she wasn't straightforward."

"I know," he said, lifting Adrienne higher against his chest as he wiped her face.

Dean had said it as well, admitting he didn't know how to talk to her, couldn't figure out how to get her to deal with what had happened. He'd told him Ellie had felt guilty: about being there, about working, about not protecting the baby, but a few weeks later, it was as if that conversation had never happened.

His brother had tried everything he could think of. He'd called Francis Monserrat and the monk had flown into the country and stayed with them for several days, talking to Ellie, to no avail. He'd called Laney and asked her about Ellie's close friends, but Laney hadn't known much more than they had; a certain network of people, not all of them. Dean thought Kasha might have gotten through, if she'd been alive. Katherine and Seb were trying to organise to come out, but wouldn't make it for a week or two. He'd called Cas four days ago, and the angel had speeded the physical healing immediately, but hadn't been able to touch Ellie's emotional state, and the conversation Cas'd broached with Ellie had ended up leaving things worse, apparently. The angel had tried to talk to Ellie about God and she'd stormed away from him, locking herself in the basement for two days after the conversation.

"I thought you'd be there longer," Sam said, tucking Adrienne into the crook of his arm and picking up the bowl and spoon, carrying them to the sink. He deposited the dirty dish and turned around, leaning back against the counter.

"So did I," Tricia said, a slight edge to her voice. "She blew me off to go to the dojo and do some training." She smoothed out the empty sack and folded it up. "I think it might have been a mistake to let Cas heal her. If she'd still been physically healing, she might have taken more time to sit and think, instead of trying to exhaust herself getting back into hunting shape."

Sam frowned. "I thought the problem was her feeling guilty about hunting?"

"That's what Dean said, but now it seems like that's what she's planning on doing—getting out in the field again."

They looked at each other, neither willing to say aloud the thought in both their minds. Sam dropped his gaze, his face screwing up. If Ellie put herself at risk, and something happened, it would kill his brother.

"What did she say to you?"

Tricia shrugged, putting the bags away and walking around the counter to him. "A lot of it was kind of rambling, from one thing to the next. She said she wasn't a fit parent." She made a face at the memory of that part of the conversation. "At one point, she was talking about not feeling whole anymore, not herself anymore. She said she didn't deserve anything she had. I don't know, Sam, she's working her way up to something, but I couldn't get through to her at all."

"How was she with John and Rosie?" he asked, handing Adrienne to her when she held out her arms.

"Good. A little bit distant here and there, but warmer with them than with anyone else." Tricia lifted her head, meeting Sam's eyes with a worried expression. "She doesn't go near Dean."

"I know."

"He doesn't do anything about it, Sam," she said, her frustration evident in her tone. "Just acts like he deserves it. I wanted to slap her when I saw it, wanted to slap both of them."

Sam's mouth twitched into a rueful smile. "Yeah, I know that feeling."

They walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs, Tricia settling Adrienne for a sleep, Sam leaning against the doorway, watching her in silence. When the door was closed, he followed her downstairs again, going out to the raised deck at the back of the house, hearing the shrieks of Marc and Laura somewhere in the big garden. He leaned against the porch rail as Tricia sat on the bench swing.

"He does feel like he deserves it, Trish," Sam said. "It's not rational, but he's got it in his head the nephilim are after him, and Maggie wanted revenge on him, and so it's his fault that it all happened."

"What?!" She scowled at the floor. "God, what a mess."

"Yeah." Sam turned to lean on the railing, looking out over the valley without seeing it. "They need to get clear with each other, somehow. They used to be able to do it easily, at least when one of them was hanging onto reality."

"Well, you'll have to talk to him again, Sam, because Ellie is definitely not interested in talking to anyone."

Sam's forehead creased. "You asked her about it?"

He was surprised. Most of the time, Ellie was rational and a compassionate listener, a compelling conversationalist. There were occasions, however, when his sister-in-law could strip paint from the walls with invective, if she was feeling uncharitable, or defensive. He knew he wouldn't have had the courage to get into that conversation with her. Tricia's answering smile was a little strained.

"She was relatively gentle with me. Told me not to be ridiculous; she wasn't doing anything to Dean and they were both fine," she said.

Sam sighed. They really were a lot alike, Ellie and his brother. Tricia was right. He'd have to talk to Dean about it. He glanced at his watch.

"Was Dean still at home when you left?"

She nodded. "Sam, I was thinking…it might be the only way they're going to deal with this is if they're forced to spend time together, alone."

He looked at her, thinking about it. "Yeah, but how do we organise that?"

"We could take the kids, maybe go down to Mexico for a few days over Thanksgiving?"

The holiday was next weekend. It wouldn't seem too contrived, he thought. They'd taken John and Rosie along on a lot of their getaway weekends, to the beach or the cities when they had the hankering to go. He nodded.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." He straightened and walked to her, cupping her face in his hands as he kissed her. "A great idea. I'll go talk to him."


Sam looked around the house, hiding his surprise as he followed Dean to the kitchen. The air smelled faintly of furniture polish and carpet cleaner, every surface was spotless, the floors gleamed and the window glass sparkled. In the kitchen, every counter was polished, the stove tops and appliances scrubbed and the smell of lemon even stronger. Dean opened the fridge and pulled out two beers, handing one to Sam, and Sam glimpsed the immaculate interior of the appliance, fresh produce packed neatly, every food group represented.

"Uh, no complaints, Dean, but you guys get a cleaner?"

His brother closed the fridge door and shook his head. "No. This is what Ellie's doing at the moment."

Sam looked around. "Really?"

"Last week, that's nearly all she was doing," Dean confirmed. "Cleaning. Morning to night. To the middle of the night. Sometimes, all night."

He gestured toward the back door, and they walked out to the porch, sitting down in the big plantation chairs.

"The reason?"

"She said she wanted to be useful," Dean said, knocking the top from his bottle and tipping the bottle into his mouth.

He swallowed, then shook his head, his expression bleak. Sam thought he looked worse than he had a few days ago. He looked like he had in 2011, he realised, when worry and doubt had been eating at him and Ellie had been gone.

"How're you doing?"

"On a scale from one to ten, I'd say about minus fifty," Dean admitted.

"That good, huh?"

"Yeah." He rubbed a hand over his forehead, the gesture expressing both his fatigue and frustration. "I don't know what I'm doing, man."

Sam drank another mouthful to hide his surprise at his brother's honesty. Over the past six years, they'd gotten closer; much closer in some ways than they'd been since they were little kids. But even with that increase in trust and intimacy, Dean hadn't ever been open about what was going on with him, had always had to have it pulled from him, through careful questioning, or provocation.

"I thought you were working through this stuff with Ellie?" he asked.

"So did I. But it's not working," his older brother said shortly, turning. "I thought it was just guilt, you know? Just wrong place, wrong time stuff. It doesn't seem that way now. I don't know…she says it was bad luck, no one's fault, just bad…everything…but she doesn't look at me anymore—"

His voice cracked and he stopped, turning away, liftin the bottle for another mouthful of beer. From the corner of his eye, Sam saw the distinctive movement, his chest tightening with recognition.

It had taken him a long time to remember what he'd known as a child; the depths of his brother and how vulnerable he was. He didn't know why he hadn't seen it more clearly when they'd been hunting together; too wrapped up in his own anguish and concerns and issues, he guessed. He had seen it, from time to time, and each time it had come as a kind of surprise, that his hard-case brother felt so deeply, could be wounded so easily, but it hadn't really been until Dean had screwed up his relationship with Ellie and nearly lost her completely that the memories of his childhood and the man he'd spent nearly every day with for seven years had come together, meshing into the person he knew now.

It hadn't been until he'd pushed the spear into Lucifer's heart, and the old anger, the demon blood fury from Azazel's blood, maybe, had burned out along his veins and arteries and from his soul, that he'd been able to see how much he loved and needed his older brother...how their past had given them a bond that nothing could really touch or break or destroy.

Looking back over the years, Sam knew Dean had fallen in love once. Just the once, and forever. And he would—he was—dying slowly being cut off from that, forced into pretending that everything was fine when absolutely nothing was, when the woman he'd given all of himself to was shutting herself further and further from him.

"You can't let her shut you out, dude," he said. "You can't let her run this show like it's only how she feels that's at stake."

"She's not doing it deliberately, Sam." Dean shook his head. "She's struggling."

"I know. I know that," Sam said, choosing his words carefully. He didn't want to alienate either of them, he wanted to get through. "But it doesn't change what's happening, doesn't change what it's doing to you."

"I'm—I can deal with it." Dean looked down at the bottle in his hands. "For as long as it takes."

"No, you can't." Sam glanced east, his gaze resting on the roof of the building they used for training, over the rail and behind the trees. "You can't because it's not going to stay the same or get better. It's going to get worse, going to get harder the longer you two pretend that everything's alright."

"Sam…" Dean's voice dropped, his gaze on the floor. "The doc told her she can't have more kids."

"Oh…man, I'm sorry." Sam studied his brother's profile. "How are you with that?"

Dean shook his head. "I'm…actually, you know, I'm okay with it." He lifted his head, gesturing widely. "This was…I didn't think…I didn't think I'd get any of this, it's like a bonus. I didn't even think I'd get Ellie, you know." His smile was self-conscious. "I know you like a big family, but I'm really okay with my family the way it is. But she…she, uh…she took it harder than I thought she would."

Sam chewed on the side of his lip, his eyes on the garden beyond the railing, trying to imagine the pain that had forced this level of honesty from his brother. "What do you mean?"

"When…uh, when we found out about the baby," Dean said slowly. "It was kind of a shock, we weren't trying or anything. Took us both a while to figure out how we felt about it." He closed his eyes. "Losing him…uh, that was…we had a name…and, I guess, I could understand her feeling, how she, um, felt about that."

Sam listened to the emotions that lay beneath his brother's struggle to find the words, turning away as he saw Dean's throat working with the effort of keeping the feelings down.


Dean ran a hand over his face, stopping to swallow a mouthful of beer, his eyes closing while he took in a deep breath and wrestled the emotions back under control. In the past few weeks, he knew he'd come close to coming undone, not sure of what he was doing, how to deal, how to help Ellie. The weight and mass of emotion held behind his walls was growing and nothing was getting easier. He wasn't sure trying to explain any of it to Sam was going to help, but he needed someone to listen to him and the person who usually did wasn't, anymore.

"It wasn't like we would have…I don't know…I didn't think she'd want to start trying again…"

He hadn't thought that she'd wanted any more kids, hadn't thought that not being able to have any more would be more devastating than losing the child they'd so nearly had. "But she started to pull away and I…"

"Maybe she didn't know what she wanted, until she couldn't have it?" Sam said.

"Maybe." Dean looked away, wiping a hand over his eyes again. He wanted to ask her, wanted to hold her and feel what she felt, take it into him so it wasn't so bad for her. "That's worse, isn't it? I don't know."

"Trish mentioned Ellie's started training again?"

Dean shrugged, finishing his beer. "Yeah, I guess so."

"She wants to start hunting again?"

Dean put the empty on the floor and glanced at Sam. He hadn't thought about it. "I don't know," he said. "She didn't say."

"And if she goes out, and maybe isn't as careful as she usually is, or as well-prepared, or a bit more reckless?"


Dean was silent. Sam chewed on the corner of his lip, waiting for him.

"She wouldn't…no, Sammy, she wouldn't do…anything…" he faltered, his gaze falling.

"I'm not saying she would do it deliberately. Anymore than what she's doing now is deliberate," Sam said, too aware of the minefield he was walking through. "I'm just saying that with the way things are now, there's room for error."

Dean dropped his head into his hands.

"Dean, you have to say something. You have to get through to her."

Looking at the stillness of his brother, the rigidity of his body in the chair, it suddenly dawned on him what Dean was afraid of, why he wasn't pushing back at Ellie as hard as she was pushing him.

"Dean? You're afraid she'll leave? If you push?"

His brother lifted his head, his face drawn and his eyes dark. He didn't say anything, but the expression in his eyes was enough.

"She won't," Sam said, holding down a rush of relief at figuring it out. "She might threaten to, but she won't."

"How do you know that, Sam?" His uncertainty at the assertion was written all over his face.

Sam smiled, shaking his head. "Because she loves you as much as you love her, jerk. Could you leave her?"

Dean shook his head, and shifted in the chair, his expression darkening. "She did leave. Has left. Before. And she's different now, Sam."

"No, she's not," Sam said. "She's burying her crap and trying to pretend that none of it matters to her, but it does matter, it's all that matters, nothing's changed. Dean, the thing is, at the moment, both of you are scared to do anything, but one of you has to get objective again, look at what's going on clearly again. And I don't think it's going to be Ellie; she's not dealing with her grief. So it has to be you."

Dean leaned back, his gaze cutting to the side. He would think about that, Sam thought, there was nothing else he could say to speed the process along.

He finished his beer. "I came over to ask if the kids could come down the coast with us next weekend. Trish wants to get a last beach weekend down south while the weather holds."

Dean frowned. "Next weekend's Thanksgiving."

"Yeah, but we figured that you guys probably weren't going to do anything for that this year." Sam got to his feet.

"Yeah, I guess not." Dean rose, reaching out to take Sam's bottle. He shrugged. "It's okay with me. I'll check with Ellie and call you later."

"Okay." Sam put out his hand, resting it on his brother's shoulder as Dean started past him. "Seriously, don't let this go any further."

"Yeah."

Dean looked unconvinced but at least he was thinking about it now, Sam thought.


As he had every night for the past couple of weeks, since Ellie had been home with them, Dean watched her surreptitiously as she went through the evening routine, giving John and Rosie their baths, making dinner, clearing up, reading to them and tucking them into bed. She seemed almost—not exactly, but almost—comfortable with them, almost the same as she'd always been, cuddling and kissing them and making jokes with them, tickling them to get them to giggle unselfconsciously with her. Her gaze skated over him, when he stood near, or when he was kneeling on the floor of the bathroom, towelling the kids dry, or taking plates from her as she dished out their food, or leaning over to kiss John goodnight.

It wasn't that she pretended not to see him, he thought, watching as she did it again. Just that he could've been a piece of furniture, or a part of the wall, indisputably there but not important.

And Sam was right. That cool and unthinking dismissal was reaching down his throat and ripping out his heart, piece by small piece, every time she did it, whether she meant it or not.

He followed her down the stairs, his palms clammy at the thought of telling her how he felt. Even at the thought of telling her about Sam's offer. His imagination fed him previews of how the house would feel with John and Rosie gone, only the two of them there, nothing to bind them together, nothing to stop her from withdrawing from him completely, not seeing him, not acknowledging him at all.

At least with the kids there, she talked to him, or near him, at any rate, and answered him when he spoke to her. If they were gone…would she still do that?

Or would he disappear completely?

He couldn't understand how they'd gotten to here, again. They'd been here once before, when he'd withdrawn from her in the pd of his fear. She'd broken through that, forced him through it. Was the same thing happening now? Was he supposed to break through the walls she'd raised around herself and demand that she make a choice? Sam said one of them had to overcome their fear and break through to the other. And that she couldn't, so it had to be him. But fear was gnawing at his guts all day long and he wasn't sure he could ignore it long enough to force the issue.

They slept in the same bed at night, and he'd wondered how it was that they hadn't touched, when sleep took away their thoughts and armour, but he always woke on his side, and there was always a big gap between them, her back to him, lying at the far edge of her side. His pain and bewilderment with what was happening between them had killed any spark of desire stone cold, even when he could hear her moving in the night.

She turned at the bottom of the stairs and headed for the kitchen and he followed her, wiping his hands on his shirt, and licking his lips and trying to ignore the flutter in his throat.

"Uh, Ellie?" He stopped near the doorway, and watched her rinse the plates and glasses, stacking them in the dishwasher. She looked over her shoulder at him, not quite meeting his eyes, looking somewhere over his left shoulder.

"Mmm?"

"Sam dropped by, um, earlier. He and Trish are going down the coast next weekend and they wanted to take John and Rosie with them for the three days."

Ellie turned off the tap, pivoting around to face him, a small crease appearing between her brows. "Next weekend is Thanksgiving."

"Yeah," he said. "They figured we weren't going to be doing that this year."

The crease deepened. "Weren't we?"

"Um, well, with…ah, you know, you being injured," he stumbled through the words, wishing he'd thought about the explanation a little more before he'd opened his mouth.

"Right." Her gaze dropped and he couldn't read her expression. "I guess it would be a fun trip before the weather starts to get too cold."

"Yeah." He made an effort to keep breathing, to look normal. "So, uh, I can call Sam, tell him it's okay?"

She turned away, turning the dishwasher on. "Sure, yeah."


Sam hung up the phone and leaned back in the chair. "All okay. We'll get the kids Thursday afternoon and take off."

"Good. What happened with Dean?" She'd been busy all afternoon and most of the evening and hadn't had a chance to ask. "What did he say?"

"He's worried that Ellie will leave if he forces a confrontation." Sam saw her look of disbelief and shrugged. "Yeah, I told him it wasn't going to happen."

"Why would he think that?" she asked. "After all these years, after everything they've been through, why would he think she'd do that?"

"I don't know," Sam said. His breath caught when the old memory rose in his mind. It hadn't been real, that memory, but the effect had been the same on his brother, real or not.

Everyone leaves you, Dean. You notice? Have you ever wondered why? Maybe it's not them. Maybe it's you.

His mother's voice, but not Mary. Zachariah had used his tricks and he'd seen Dean's face, seen the way the words had sliced through him.

"I think, maybe, that's what he's most afraid of," he said, the knowledge falling into him.

"But, Sam, that doesn't make sense. He has to know that she wouldn't, any more than he could."

"That's what I told him, but I don't know…maybe the miscarriage really has changed everything."

"No," Tricia contradicted, her voice certain. "It hasn't. It's distorted everything, but she loves him and John and Rosie; she's just afraid of losing them."

"That would be ironic, wouldn't it?" Sam said, making a face. "How do people get themselves into these knots?"

"Fear. Lack of communication. Insecurity," she said with a long sigh. "The usual suspects."

"I don't get that, not with them," Sam's brow creased up. "Or with us for that matter."

"Don't kid yourself, it could happen to us, it can happen to anyone." Tricia got up from her chair and walked over to him, settling into his lap and linking her hands behind his neck. "All it takes is one bad moment, one bad thing to start the doubt, and when it happens to both people in a relationship, it's almost impossible to break free of it."

He heard the warning in her voice and slid his arm around her. "Personal experience?"

"Vicarious, but yeah. My best friends in college were in love with each other, and then her dad died. She withdrew from the grief, but she couldn't express it to him, and he gradually felt like it was something he'd done wrong. Within three months, they couldn't be in the same room, both of them hurting so badly, and not knowing how to fix it."

Sam's heart gave a hard double-beat. "Did they work it out?"

Tricia shook her head. "No, they couldn't get past the fear they'd lost each other somehow, couldn't find a way to recognise it wasn't real. I didn't understand it then. I talked to them both for hours and hours, and couldn't get through."

"But that's not going to happen to Dean and Ellie…" Sam said uncomfortably.

"I hope not. They're strong, and they're not young and stupid, but it could. If one or the other of them doesn't get a handle on it." She leaned her head against his shoulder. "When you love someone this deeply, it hurts that much more, and for some people, just getting away from the pain is more important than figuring out what's happening."


Dean stood on the front steps, watching Sam's taillights go up the drive and through the gate, hearing Ellie turn away and go back inside the house. He stayed until the evening chill penetrated his clothes, then walked back inside, closing and locking the door behind him, his gaze travelling automatically along the traps and wards, glancing up at the ceiling and along the windowsills. Checking the protection was as natural as breathing.

He hesitated in the hall, wondering what to do. A buzzing mix of tiredness and anxiety filled him and he wanted a drink, maybe two or three. He turned for the living room, feeling a sneaking relief when it was empty and went to the long sideboard that served as their liquor cabinet. He pulled out the bottle and a glass and filled it, carrying both to the low table in front of the sofa and sitting down.

It might've been his imagination, but he felt as if the tension in the house had gone up to eleven the second Sam had pulled away. He leaned back against the sofa, one hand cradling the glass. He was supposed to be getting his shit together, getting it together so that he could get them back to where they were supposed to be, instead of miles from one another and getting further every minute. He wasn't sure how he was going to do that.

Lifting the glass, he closed his eyes as the whiskey slid down his throat, fire and comfort and bite all in one. The last few weeks had been a nightmare, an ongoing nightmare he still hadn't looked at properly. His brows drew together as he remembered what Ellie had said to the nephilim, to draw the half-breed's attention off him.

"Your father told us all about it. The circle and the nine and the way back in. The sacrifice of the children to prevent Lucifer from ever being able to regain Heaven's halls. And the key to the circle that he and Baraquiel destroyed."

He hadn't been paying much attention to the words at the time, more preoccupied with how to kill the firstborn and get them out of there alive. And since then, he hadn't even thought of it…too much worry about Ellie, about them…

The sacrifice of the children? What did that mean? Whose children? And the key to the circle…he hadn't heard the Watchers talking about a key. He straightened, wondering how much more there was to the story she hadn't told him about and if any of it had anything to do with what was going on now.

Leaning forward, he picked up his glass and finished the whiskey. Had the Watchers sacrificed their children to prevent the nine from ever being able to form the circle? He picked up the bottle, pouring a fresh inch into his glass. He startled when Ellie appeared in the doorway.

"I thought I'd take the truck into Corvallis tomorrow, get a few things," she said as she walked in, her gaze a little past him. It dropped to the bottle on the table, then lifted to the glass in his hand, an expression flickering over her face then gone.

He put the glass down. "I can take you in."

"No. Thank you, but it's fine. It's going to be a finicky trip. Lots of stops. I can do it."

The rejection was plain, and it stirred a small spark of anger in him. "What did you mean when you told Maluch that the children had been sacrificed to prevent Lucifer from getting into Heaven?"

Ellie's gaze fell to the floor and she stilled. She was thinking something up, he thought, or trying to think of a way to sugar-coat it. He saw her jettison the idea a second later, her face smoothing out as she looked straight at him.

"The Council decided the only way to prevent Lucifer from ever being able to regain Heaven was to kill two of the firstborn so there never could be nine to build the circle. The Watchers drew straws and Amaros and Azazel's children were chosen."

He stared at her, trying to absorb all the implications of that act. Beyond that, it got worse…why hadn't she told him about it earlier?

"You knew this. And you didn't tell me."

"Baraquiel and Bezaliel told me in July, when everyone was here. I didn't think it would be a good idea for the hunters to get the impression that they were dealing with people who could kill their own children. That kind of thing tends to incite factions. And we didn't need factions."

"But you didn't tell me." He stood up, walking around the end of the low table. "Or did you think I would be one of the ones inciting the hunters against the Watchers?"

Ellie's gaze shifted to the doorway. "I thought it was safer if no one knew until we'd all worked together a bit longer."

"Why didn't you tell me, Ellie?" He could think of a few reasons, but he needed her to say it.

"I didn't know how you'd take it," she said, her gaze moving back to him.

"It's November, sweetheart. Were you ever going to tell me?" he asked. "Or maybe it's just one of those things I don't need to know, like the key you mentioned."

"What do you want, Dean?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and lifting her chin.

"I want to know why you're keeping secrets…why there are things that apparently are too sensitive for me to know about?"

"It wasn't a secret. Bezaliel told me in August about the key. You were off hunting that ghoul nest with Trent and Katherine, and then we went to California," she said, her tone sharp.

It had been a secret, and he'd thought they didn't have any between them. "You know me better than anyone, Ellie. You couldn't figure out I wouldn't have told anyone, if you'd asked me not to?"

Her expression smoothed into neutrality. "I know you have strong feelings about kids being sacrificed, Dean, even in the name of the greater good. And I know sometimes you will put the truth before everything else, even if it's not strategic in the long run," she said. "So no, I didn't how you'd react to that information or what you'd do with it."

There it was. Out in the open. "Nothing, if you'd asked me not to."

"Anyway, you know about it now. All of it." She turned away, walking toward the door. "And I want to get going early in the morning, so I'm going to bed."

"Ellie."

She stopped and waited, not looking back at him.

"Never mind."

He watched her disappear through the door, heard her footfalls cross the hall and go up the stairs. So much for being able to have an objective conversation, he thought wearily. She didn't trust him, but he'd known that, known the trust that had once existed had gone after Seattle and although it had been rebuilt over the years, it wasn't the same as the way he trusted her.

In everything but leaving, he amended as he picked up his glass and tossed back the whiskey. The liquor's fire lit up his throat and stomach but left him cold. He retrieved the bottle and returned it to the cupboard, then turned for the kitchen.

I'll take that sleep now, thanks very much, he decided, walking through the downstairs rooms and checking the doors and windows, the sigils and lines.

He came to the bedroom as Ellie emerged, a pillow in her arms, and glanced past her to the bed, then back, lifting one brow.

"I've been having some trouble sleeping," she said. "Thought I'd use a guest room tonight."

His stomach plummeted; at the lie, at what she was doing, at the way things were escalating so fast he couldn't keep up. He had two choices, so far as he could see. He could keep lying to himself, pretending this was all temporary and things would get better in the morning. Or, he could accept it wasn't going to be okay, and do something about it. He didn't want to do either, but he couldn't take any more of the lies.

"Ellie, if you want to leave, just pack up and do it," he said.

Some emotion flitted over her face, beneath her control, but it was too fast for him to see what it was.

"Is that what you want?"

"This isn't about what I want, this hasn't been about what I want for weeks now." He gave her a tired shrug. "It's about what you want. You make the choice. You want to give up on me, on us? Go ahead. I can't keep fighting you to save us."

He stepped past her and walked to the edge of the bed, sitting down and pulling his boots off, dropping them by the nightstand. Next to the door, Ellie stood, her back to him, arms still wrapped around the pillow.

"What do you want?" she asked.

He froze at the softness of her voice, trying not to feel the little flare of hope. "I want you to see me again. I want you to want me again."

Her shoulders hunched up, her head ducking, then she walked away from the door, her footsteps fading down the hall.

He closed his eyes, sucking in a breath to quench the acid taste of pain. And so much for being honest.

Getting to his feet again, he unbuckled his belt and stripped off his jeans and socks, then his shirt, leaving the clothing heaped in a pile on the floor beside his boots.

He pulled back the covers and rolled under them, turning off the bedside lamp and reaching for the pillow she'd left behind. He buried his face in it, breathing in her scent, his chest tightening and his throat closing. How was he supposed to get through to her, he wondered miserably, without every attempt cutting him into smaller and smaller pieces?


The room was still dim when Dean woke, looking around groggily, eyes half-shut from not enough sleep…not enough sleep that hadn't been punctuated by nightmares.

The clock on the nightstand showed eight o'clock, and he rubbed a hand over his face, knuckling his eyes. The house was silent, perturbingly so with the absence of John and Rosie's early morning routine, the thunder of their feet and their high-pitched voices filling every space. He wondered if Ellie had left for Corvallis, then wondered if she would come back.

He pushed back the covers and shivered in the cold air, pulling on his clothes fast and deciding he'd have a shower later, after he'd turned the furnace on. Downstairs, he headed for the kitchen, intending to make a pot of coffee on his way to the basement. He stopped at the doorway, seeing the white outside, the silently falling snow through the windows, and Ellie sitting at the table, legs drawn up and one arm resting on her knees, her gaze fixed on the falling flakes. The room smelled of fresh coffee, and he walked past the table to pour himself a cup, turning back and leaning back against the counter as he watched her discreetly over the rim of his cup.

It was still a slight shock to see her hair, short and spiky instead of the long spill or the braid down her back. He wasn't a big fan of short hair on women, but he had to admit he liked it on her. It showed off the delicacy of her features, her small ears and the curve of her jaw, the long, graceful line of her neck, made him ache to kiss her on the exposed nape, to see her pulse race under the thin skin in the hollow of her throat.

He swallowed a mouthful of hot coffee, cutting off those thoughts.

"Snow too deep?"

She nodded. "Came in sometime around midnight, hasn't stopped since." She picked up her cup. "Roads are closed from here down to the valley."

Through the window, the garden was completely covered, bushes and shrubs and table and chairs featureless mounds of white. She would've tried, he thought, the pickup was four-wheel drive and had chains, but it would've been a long, noisy, slow grind down.

Lifting the cup, he finished the coffee and put the cup on the drainer, then headed out of the kitchen to the basement. They had plenty of oil and a couple of cords of wood leftover from last winter. They'd be warm at least, no matter how long the snow lasted.

When he came back up, Ellie had lit the fire in the living room and was curled up in an armchair, reading. He returned to the kitchen and got himself another cup of coffee, carrying it to the table. Watching the snow falling, he thought about how to talk to her.


She came into the kitchen while he was still sitting there, coffee cold in his cup. When he looked at her, the words came out without thought.

"Were you going to come back, Ellie?"

Standing at the counter, Ellie refilled her cup. "I don't know."

No sugar-coating today, he thought. Bitterness filled his mouth, making him swallow.

"Is it that easy for you to give up on everything? On John and Rosie? On me?"

For a moment, he thought she wouldn't answer, then she turned, her eyes cold. "Is this what you planned, you and Sam and Trish? Some time alone so you could get me straightened out?"

He blinked, his anger wiped away by the accusation. "What?"

"Forget it," she said, walking out of the kitchen. Dean remained at the table, staring sightlessly at his cold coffee. Had Sam and Trish taken the kids to give them the time to get themselves sorted out? He lifted his head, blinking at the brightness outside. It didn't matter. They didn't bring down the storm, and Ellie would've gone if she'd been able to.

He got up, tipping the cold coffee into the sink and turning off the nearly empty pot. She'd looked at him more in the last twelve hours than she had in the last three weeks, he thought. That was some kind of improvement.

He walked down the hall, turning into the living room and stopping as he registered its emptiness. Basement, he thought, turning around again.

She was sitting at the long table, a pile of books to one side of her, the laptop open and glowing in front of her, her expression absorbed, when he came down the stairs.

"I didn't plan anything," he said, coming to a halt at the foot of the stairs. She didn't look up at him.

"Doesn't matter."

He crossed the space between them, and leaned against the metal shelving, unsure of what he was doing, or how hard he'd have to push. "Didn't you tell me once that you grieved and let go and got on with your life? That you didn't let grief tie you into knots by not dealing with it?"

She lifted her head and turned to him, the small crease between her brows. "You think I'm still grieving, is that it?"

"Aren't you?" He swallowed. Wasn't that what the problem was? "Because I'd like to know what's going on if you're not."

"Nothing's going on, Dean," she said, her gaze returning to the screen. Cold radiated from her; the ice walls she'd drawn up around herself weeks ago, her emotions so tightly held down and away from him, from herself, it was like talking to a complete stranger.

With anyone else, he'd have withdrawn as well. He couldn't with her; couldn't distance himself, couldn't take the cold silences, couldn't just let it go. He was trapped by the way he felt as surely as a wild animal in a snare.

"Bullshit!" Anger drove him across the room to the table, and he slammed his hand down on the end, her books and computer jumping. "Tell me!"

Ellie didn't even glance at him as she pushed the chair back and got up, walking fast to the stairs.

He hesitated for a moment then took off after her, catching her halfway up, his hand around her wrist pulling her to a halt on the step above him. "Stop, Ellie. Please? Just stop and tell me what's happening?"

"I thought you were sick of fighting me?"

He looked up at her, exasperation rising. "I am sick of fighting you. I'm sick of not knowing what's wrong. I'm sick of feeling like everything good, everything I wanted, is falling down around me and not knowing why or how to fix it."

"Then give it up. Let me go," she said.

"No." The word came out a deep, low growl. He wasn't going to let it all get fucked up without a reason, without an explanation.

"Dean, are you happy here? Happy with this life? Your life? Now?"

"At this particular minute, no," he admitted warily, not liking the change in direction. He wanted a linear conversation. He wanted to know what was happening. "But otherwise, yes, you know that."

She sank down onto the step. "In the hospital, you said we would be strong enough to handle this together."

His heart skipped a beat at the memory. That was where it'd all started to go wrong. "Yeah."

"Then why did you bring everyone else into it?" When she lifted her head to him, his chest tightened. Her eyes were too bright. "Why didn't you trust we were strong enough and ask me yourself?"

"I—" He floundered, thinking back, the memories tangled up with emotions that were still scaring the hell out of him. "I couldn't get through to you. I thought you might find it easier to talk to someone else. I couldn't make you talk to me."

"You didn't ask me what I felt," she contradicted. "I thought you didn't want to know how deep the pain had gone."

The ice had gone, without warning or fanfare. Tears slid down her cheeks and a spreading chill was seeping through him. "I did ask you, Ellie."

"No, you didn't. I kept waiting for you to ask, but you never did." She wiped her hand over her face, shaking her head. "Then Trish came over to talk, and Tamsin, and Francis arrived—and even Cas for god's sake, as if I needed to talk about God's fucking plan then…and you didn't."

She stood, pulling her wrist from his grip, not looking at him now, her gaze on the steps under her feet. Her shoulders were stiff with tension, and he wanted to reach out, but she was already turning away.

"Ellie…"

He couldn't remember now, what he'd done, what he'd said. He remembered her silences. He remembered her looking through him and past him, and feeling her withdrawing from him. "I couldn't reach you. I tried to but you wouldn't let me in."

"Is that how you remember it?" She leaned on the staircase railing, her back to him for a moment, waiting for an answer, then she continued up the stairs.

He didn't have an answer. He had asked her. He'd asked a million times to tell him what was going on with her. Had asked her to let him in. He saw the door at the top of stairs open and close and he couldn't move.


Three hours later.

Dean sat in the living room, watching the flames in the fireplace without seeing them, numb and uncertain of everything.

"I called you six times, Dean."

"And I almost called you back about a hundred."

"Good to know."

Almost wasn't good enough. Not even close. Had he done that with Ellie? Almost asked, but not. Almost given himself to her, but not quite? He looked at the glass in front of him, resting his head against his hand.

He'd been scared. He remembered that. Fucking scared to hell at her fragility, at how close she'd come to dying, at the seemingly endless well of grief she'd felt. Holding her hand, feeling her fingers bite around his when the doctor had come in and told her.

"I'm sorry," the doctor said, his gaze moving from Ellie to himself then back, the expression on his face sincere and pained.

Dean watched him turn around and leave the room, and Ellie's fingers loosened a little on his. He hadn't known half the medical terms the doctor had used but he'd gotten enough to get the gist. Ellie's uterus had been too badly damaged. No more kids.

"I'm sorry," she'd whispered, and he hadn't known if she was just repeating what the doctor had said, or saying it to him or saying it to herself. She'd been staring at the floor.

"Are you…are you…disappointed, Dean?" She still hadn't looked at him, and he'd frowned, not sure what she'd meant.

"I guess, a little," he'd said, tilting his head to see her face, see her eyes. "I don't know."

He didn't know what he felt about it. He hadn't had the time to think about it.

"Do you…do you…do–?"

She started to ask but been unable to finish. He'd felt the shaking of her body through the side of the bed, then she turned away from him, drawing her legs up against her stomach, burying her face in the pillow, and he'd tried to get close to her, tried to hold her but she'd been keening, curled in around herself, her body shuddering as emotion overwhelmed her.

He'd drawn the covers over her, sitting down in the chair next to the bed, and waited, thinking her grief was over the loss of their son.

No more kids. But they had John and Rosie. And he had her. And wasn't that all right? Wasn't that all he wanted? But maybe for Ellie, it wasn't okay. It wasn't enough. He didn't know how she felt about losing the possibility forever because he hadn't asked her.

He came in to take her home, and she was sitting in the wheelchair that hospitals always insisted had to be used to get to the front door, staring at the floor. He tried not to look at the swollen eyelids, the way her fingers were plucking restlessly and aimlessly at the jacket she'd had on, the sharp jut of her collarbones against the high-necked jersey top.

"Ready to go?"

She lifted her head, her eyes meeting his, and for a moment, just a fleeting second, there was a look of utter hopelessness on her face, darkening her eyes from jade to emerald. He froze, his heart pounding against the base of his throat as fear constricted his chest. Then it had gone, and she turned away, her mouth twisting into a grimace.

"Yeah. Why not," she said, her voice low and harsh.

That stopped him as well, but there was a movement from the door and he turned to see the young doctor gesture to him from the hallway. He walked out, glancing back over his shoulder at Ellie, her frame still and her gaze on the floor.

"Look, she's going to be up and down for a while," the doctor said. "The hormones that are a part of the pregnancy take a couple of months to be cleared from the system. They affect her emotions, her thoughts—don't be surprised if she has mood swings."

He frowned, casting a sideways glance into the room. "She's entitled to a bit of moodiness, don't you think?"

"Sure, of course." The doctor held his hands up placatingly. "We offered her some medication to help flatten out the peaks and troughs, but she wouldn't take it. I just want you to know that if it gets…unmanageable, or if you're worried about her, there is medication that will help."

"Right. Okay." He turned away from the doctor and returned to Ellie, picking up the small overnight bag. He wasn't going to give her pills to make her think everything was okay if she didn't feel it was. Fucking asshole doctors.

"Dean…do you…?" Ellie said, so softly he almost hadn't heard her.

"What?" He crouched down beside the chair. "What is it?"

She shook her head. "Never mind. Nothing."

"It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay," he said, swallowing as he'd looked at her. He felt it. The first stirrings of the ice wind that would come to surround her as her face lost expression, her eyes cool and empty.

"I'm just glad you're alive," he said. "Glad I didn't lose you."

Had that been the wrong thing to say? It had been the truth. It had been all that had mattered to him. It was still all that mattered to him.

He stood, walking to the hearth and tossing another couple of logs on the fire, then walked out into the hall, turning to go up the stairs.

She wasn't in their bedroom and he almost turned around, wondering if she'd returned to the basement. Something in the silence of the house tugged at his instincts and he walked along the hall to the guest room at the end of the house. The door was closed, but not locked, and he opened it hesitantly, peering into the dark room. The blinds were down and the curtains drawn.

She was lying on the bed, her back to him.

"Ellie."

She didn't respond and Dean stood in the doorway, uncertain if he wanted to stay or go.

After a moment, she said, "Go away, Dean."

"No." He didn't think he being contradictory for the sake of it. He didn't want to give up on them. He walked to the bed, sat down on the edge. "I can't go away. I won't leave you alone. I didn't ask you what you felt. At the time, I—the only thing I cared about was that you were alive. I didn't—I didn't know what you were feeling wasn't just about the—what had happened—to the baby."

He waited, listening to her breathing, hearing the faint catches in each breath.

"You were right. What you were going through—looking at the way you were feeling—Ellie, it scared the hell out of me. I know it was different for you, but I lost a child too." He sucked down a deep breath, swallowing over the emotion that rose with that. "And I know the hormones and everything made it harder for you, but I didn't know how much harder."

It hadn't occurred to him before, all his energy bent on Ellie, but he hadn't grieved either, hadn't looked at his loss. "All I could think of was that—it seemed like what we had wasn't enough for you, and I didn't know how to make sense out of that, because that's not the way I feel. So long as you've been there, I could get through anything. That—it's—I've always felt that way. I thought you felt that way too."

She didn't answer, didn't move, and he wasn't sure if she understood what he was trying to say or not. Stark in his memory was the sight of her, curled up tightly in the hospital bed, and he felt again the helplessness of not knowing how to help, not knowing why it was ripping through her so deeply.

"You told me we'd get through it together and then you chickened out on me, Dean, you left me alone to deal with everything."

The ice was back again, freezing him out. He didn't know what to say to that.

"If you want to talk, then talk. Or let me sleep."

"I'm trying." His throat closed and he swallowed hard. Getting it out, figuring it out, it was close to impossible, what he felt, what he thought. It had never been easy, even when he'd felt her love wrapping right around him. Now, it was like facing a field of razor blades and knowing he'd be in pieces long before he got to the other side.

"Why didn't you tell someone else, at least?" he asked.

"I didn't want to tell anyone else," she said, her voice strained. "I wanted you."

He closed his eyes. He knew, better than anyone else, maybe, sometimes there was only one person in the world you could tell things to—and if they didn't want to listen, then you were shit out of luck. He'd always known she was that person for him. He hadn't considered it ran the other way as well. Ellie had always had friends—close friends—she'd talked to. At least, he'd thought so.

"I just didn't know—I didn't know that not being able to have kids would hurt you so much." His hands curled into fists with the effort of not reaching out to her.

"Why didn't you ask?"

"Because I thought I knew what was wrong, I thought your grief was about losing the baby—"

"Paul!"

He flinched back from the shocking anger in her voice, anger at him, or at herself, or at God—he didn't know.

"He had a name!"

"Ellie, he's gone…"

Inside, he was shrivelling up; with her anger, her pain, and his own.

"I know that," she said, and her voice had dropped again, low and bitter now. "And I…I can't…I can't…ever…ever have—"

She stiffened, shoulders and back tensing, and he laid down next to her, not touching, not yet, just wanting to be closer.

"Did you want to have another baby?" he asked.

"I don't know what I wanted. I don't—it doesn't matter if I did or I didn't because I can't—" she said, her voice thick and raw, cutting him to the bone.

Her shoulders were shaking, the bed trembling under him. He reached out and touched her shoulder, the flinch under his fingers but leaving it there, his jaw tight against the old instinctive reaction to leave her alone. She didn't move away, didn't move at all, and he edged closer, until he could put his arms around her, his body fitting along hers.

"Aren't we enough, Ellie? John and Rosie and me? Aren't we enough for you?" he asked.

Her grief in the hospital, how torn apart she'd been—and still was—he'd tried to work it out, tried to make it fit, but he hadn't been able to. So long as she was there, that was all he needed. It was scaring him it might not be that way for her.

"You said…you were disappointed, when I asked you about not being able to have more."

The moment came back to him, his discomfort and uncertainty to what she was asking. He recalled what he'd said. He hadn't known how to respond to the question, hadn't realised what she was asking. Without warning, the pieces he'd missed, hadn't seen, fitted together.

"Ellie, I didn't even know what you meant when you asked me that." He lifted himself onto one elbow, looking over her shoulder at her profile in the near-darkness. "I didn't mean I was disappointed with you. Or with our family. I don't care that we can't have more kids, I don't. I care about you, I care about the kids we've got, I care about us being a family and being together."

He was babbling, he could hear it, but he didn't care. Under his arm, he felt her exhale, long and slow, her ribs sinking as the tension ran out of her.

"I wanted you to ask me, Dean. I wanted you to hold me close and tell me it didn't matter, that it was nothing to you, that you still loved me even though I was broken and in pieces," she whispered.

He ducked his head, his cheek resting alongside hers. "Listen to me. You're not broken, you're not. And it doesn't matter, Ellie."

"Of course I love you." His arms tightened around her. "I can't stop loving you."


The room was getting darker. He couldn't see his watch. Not that it mattered. For the first time in weeks, he was holding her, and she was letting him, and he thought they might find a way past this.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" he asked. "You know how bad I am at this stuff."

He'd been turning the question over and over for the last half hour, unable to work it out. She'd led him through countless events in his past; she knew how long he took to work this kind of crap out on his own.

"I didn't have the courage to ask." Her sigh brushed over his hand, curled around hers. "It's going to sound lame, but I needed you to get it right by yourself."

"Ellie…it's me…how'd you not know what I was feeling?" His chin was over her shoulder, he could hear the soft pulse in her neck against his ear. "You know what I'm feeling before I do, most of the time."

"Most of the time…when everything I need isn't on the line, and I'm not feeling a hair's-breadth away from falling apart," she corrected. "I feel like half a woman, Dean, like the part that I always took for granted, the part that kind of makes me a woman, has been cut away."

She let out her breath. "I couldn't tell you and I couldn't ask for help. I was terrified that you might say no."

He closed his eyes. "Well, that made two of us."


Finding out along the way, what it takes to keep love living.

The line was from a song, and it kept running through his mind, as he thought about the way the relationship he had with the woman lying next to him had played out over the years.

At first, he'd thought they'd be able to figure things out easily, both of them wanting it so much, the way she'd known him so well. He'd been wrong about that. Nothing was easy and the deeper they'd gone, the harder it had been when things went wrong. When things were going right, it was as easy as breathing and so—he didn't even know how to describe it—exhilarating? Soothing? Intoxicating? Comforting? Fuck, all the above and a hell of a lot more. But things never went right all the time. And probably less so in their life than other people's.

Bit by bit, they had made it through the misunderstandings, and the mistakes, and the forces of the universe lined up against them, and he'd thought they'd come to a place where they didn't have to wonder what they felt about each other. Most of the time, that was true. Most of the time, he only had to look into her eyes to see how she felt, to feel it against him, an electric warmth that went right through him. But when something really bad happened, they lost that faith in each other, somehow.

When he'd been caught in the nightmares of having to kill her, he'd withdrawn without realising what he was doing, trying to protect her from his thoughts, trying to keep them going without even knowing he was destroying them. And then this…not getting a chance to mourn together over their lost child, divided first by their guilt, then by fear, and finally feeling a conviction that what they'd had had somehow been lost or shattered and there was no way back.

None of that had been real, just projections on both their parts of what they were afraid of…of losing each other. It had felt real and it'd had teeth and claws that had felt real and maybe that was always going to be there as well, because needing so much meant fearing just as much.

"Ellie?"

"Yeah?"

"You know how much I love you, right?" He licked his lips, picking through the words, needing to get it right. "You know how much I need you?"

"Why did you tell me to leave?"

"Fuck, that just came out…I don't know why, but I wanted to bite my fucking tongue off to take it back." He pulled in a deep breath, shaking his head slightly. "It felt like…I wanted you to make a choice. To get us unstuck from where we were. I didn't think you would."

"And if I had?"

"Would you have?" He held his breath as he waited for her answer, a frisson of fear spiralling down his spine. Another fear; that she could leave, might leave him.

"For a while, maybe," she said, her voice unsteady. "And yeah, I could see that we weren't getting anywhere, the way it was."

"I would have come after you, if you had," he said, but even as he said it, he realised he didn't know that, didn't know for certain if it was true. Once he would have. That first time, he would have. Then he'd learned that she could leave and not come back. Not for a long time.

"I don't think you would have, Dean," she said, turning her head a little. "Somewhere inside of you, there's still a part that doesn't believe in me."

He froze against her, against the words. "That's not true."

"Yeah, it is." She turned in his arms and he moved back a little so that she could roll over to face him. "You know it."

And there's a still a part of you that's afraid, afraid to ask too much, afraid to push too hard, even though the need for answers eats at you. That's interesting. That you don't trust completely the way she feels about you. I'll have to remember that. It was true. The shifter-witch had seen it in him. He'd felt it himself, watching her pain, feeling it as an indictment; he wasn't enough for her, his love wasn't enough to get them through.

"Why?"

"I don't know," he said, closing his eyes. "Because I want it too much? Because I don't deserve it? I don't know, Ellie."

"I've killed for you. I've died for you. How much more proof do you need, Dean?"

His face screwed up. "It's not about proof."

"Then what is it?" She slipped her arms around him. "What is it that'll convince you you can trust me to love you no matter what happens?"

What was it? That sense she could leave, when he knew he never could.

Dean, she was very clear about it. She wanted you to know that she was alive. She told me to tell you that she loves you. But she won't be back. Not while Heaven is hunting you. Castiel's voice, in an old house on what was arguably the worst night of his life. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"You can leave, you have before. To protect me and Sam, you left and you didn't come back for years," he said, feeling his way through the thoughts, hearing her indrawn breath. "I got why you did it but it never felt right to me."

Ellie was silent for a long moment. "It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, Dean."

"I know, I know that," he said, willing her to understand the difference he saw. "And I know why you felt it was so important but…I couldn't have done it. I couldn't've left you, and gone on alone, not even to protect you."

"You have done it. With Lisa and Ben," she reminded him. "You made the decision for them."

He'd asked Cas to remove their memories of him, not to protect them but to force himself into never being able to return. They'd been as vulnerable as they'd ever been, they just didn't know it.

"I didn't love Lisa, Ellie." He tilted his head back. "I did it to shut that door between us forever, to save them from my weaknesses."

"You think I'll do that again, if the right situation comes up?" Ellie asked. "Leave you and John and Rosie?"

"I don't know." He could feel her tension, thrumming between them. "That's just it. I don't know."

Ellie looked away, her voice thickening. "Then I'll have to live with that, because I don't know of any way to convince you I won't." She pulled against his arms, trying to roll away and he tightened his hold, pulling her closer to him, knowing that she was hurting from that admission. It was the truth but it had still hurt her.

"Don't. Don't pretend that this doesn't all hurt like hell and that you're fine," he said against her cheek. "Don't be angry because I don't know something about you, even though I want to know it, I want to feel it."

She lay still against him, and he could feel her heartbeat where his arm crossed her back, booming against her ribs.

"Don't think I'm not every bit as scared as you are right now," he continued softly. "Our past sucks, Ellie, and it's got too many things in it that make it hard to remember what's important. Doesn't mean we give up. Doesn't mean we don't keep trying. Doesn't mean I don't love you, and need you and want you."

Under his arm, she relaxed, the booming thumps under his arm steadying a little. His heart beat slowed down after a moment. It was too fucking easy to scare someone. To lose someone. To let someone be lost.

"I missed you," she said, her eyes searching his. "The last few weeks there was this aching hole where my heart used to be. I could see you trying, trying to find a way back for us, but I kept thinking that it was gone, because you wanted something I couldn't give you anymore."

He stared at her. "I wanted you."

She nodded, her eyes screwing shut. "It wasn't a rational thought. I kept trying to ask you how you felt, but I couldn't make the words come out. I kept wanting to touch you, because there are never any misunderstandings between us when you're inside of me, never any lies then or fear or doubt. I can feel how you feel so clearly. I couldn't do it though, I'd try and this image would appear, of you turning away and I'd freeze up."

He kissed her very gently, feeling her freeze as his lips touched hers, and then kiss him back tentatively. The knot in his chest loosened. He looked at her and watched her eyelids lift slowly, her eyes soft.


The room was black. Outside, night had fallen, and they'd been in here most of the day. He was hungry but he didn't want to move, didn't want to leave. He kissed her lightly; butterfly kisses along her jaw and down her neck, her arms tightening around him.

"Tell me how you feel about me," he whispered, his lips grazing her ear. She shivered, pulling away from him a little as she searched his face, his eyes.

He could only ask a question like that in a place like this, where no one else could possibly hear him, where no one else could know how much he needed the answer, in her words, in her eyes.

"I was in pain, and I opened my eyes, and above me there was a boy, almost a man, but still a boy. He had deep green eyes and they were filled with tears. His hands held me, and I could smell his scent; strange smells I hadn't smelled before. I could hear him talking to someone and then there was horrendous pain, and the boy's hands held me. When I came to, he was holding me, and he put me down in a chair and covered me with a blanket. And I couldn't forget him, couldn't forget his eyes or the way his hands felt, strong and caring somehow, or the way he smelled."

The memories were in her eyes and his breath stopped in his chest.

"When I saw him again, he was a man and I didn't know him, until I saw his eyes, saw this same thing in them, this caring thing. It scared me because I thought I'd never see him again and he'd already taken a place inside my heart. I knew I loved him and I would always love him, no matter what happened. I didn't know why but I knew that was the way it was." She leaned closer, her lips brushing softly over his.

"Maybe that was destiny, or maybe it wasn't. I always thought it was just you, who you are, inside, that boy who cried because he knew how much it was going to hurt the little girl and he wanted to take the pain into himself so that she didn't have to feel it. Sometimes it feels like I'll die from loving you so much, like there isn't enough room in my body to take it all."

She'd never told him the details of that memory before. He remembered the moment, his memory bringing a tremble to his frame. She kissed him through it, not a light kiss, a wanting kiss, a hungry kiss, a needing kiss.

Pressed hard against him, the words and that longed-for intimate touch flooded him with desire too long suppressed. Dean moaned her name against her neck, felt her hands slide under his shirt, stroking his skin, and shuddered, need and love and want driving them both with a desperate craving to make up for the last few weeks of fear and doubt.


The kitchen was warm, the range fire still going despite being neglected for hours. They buttered bread and covered the pieces with ham and pastrami, lettuce and sliced tomatoes, cheese and mustard and onion, cutting the sandwiches in half and setting them onto plates and carrying them to the living room where the rekindled fire burned brightly.

Dean finished the food and licked his fingers, looking across the low table at Ellie. She was right…again. When they were making love, there weren't any misunderstandings or lies or doubts or fears. They could see each other clearly, feel each other's feelings, know each other's thoughts. They were completely transparent.

"You know, the first thing that happens when something goes wrong with us is we stop touching each other," he said, leaning back against the edge of the sofa.

"I know." She finished her sandwich and picked up a serviette, wiping her mouth and fingers. "If something's wrong, the first thing I seem to want to do is hide how I feel from you…and that's not possible if we're intimate."

"So…if I notice you're acting weird, what I should do is carry you up to the bedroom and start undressing you?"

She burst out laughing, and he grinned, pleased with himself because he hadn't heard her laughing since before Santa Barbara.

"I guess that's one way of dealing with incipient problems," she said, wiping her eyes. "Not sure I can manage quite the same act, but I'll keep it in mind."


Dean opened his eyes slowly, the warmth and heaviness in his body bringing a smile as he remembered that the nightmare was over, and it was morning, early in the morning, and she was lying next to him, beautifully familiar silky skin soft under his fingers.

The room was warm, the furnace doing its job, and he pushed the covers aside, leaning over her side, his lips and tongue tracing a path over her bare skin, tasting everywhere he could reach, relief edging his desire, a sense of disbelief lighting up his arousal. She stretched out a little under his tongue, and he felt the response deep inside, igniting a fire through his nerves, drawing a soft groan from his chest.

He moved down her body as she rolled onto her back, hands gently pushing her thighs apart, feeling the heat between them, another shudder rippling through him. Seeing her, hearing her soft exhale, touching her, tasting her…thin cold light lighting her skin in bars of pale gold as the sun lifted behind the mountains and shone through the half-open blinds, and she tasted sweet and golden, thick and warm on his tongue, over his lips.

Feeling the precise moment she woke, chest rising suddenly with a hissing indrawn breath as her hips lifted and he felt the hum inside her, smiling as it escalated, tongue lapping as she moaned and tightened and throbbed around him. He could have spent all day there, with his tongue rasping softly over her, holding her hips down as she arched up again, her scent and taste intoxicating, his pleasure in seeing and feeling hers expanding through him like breaking waves, building his own desire in exponential leaps and bounds.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, pupils huge and dark, the light throwing the shadows of her lashes across her cheek, and she held out her hands to him, sliding them up his arms and over his shoulders as he moved up her, entwining them around his neck to draw his head down, her lips parted, wantonly needing him, pulling him against her.

Nothing and no one can take this away from us, he thought incoherently as he slid into the warm wet he'd created, pushing through her swollen muscles to deep inside. They just had to remember that, when things got murky everywhere else, this was theirs, pure and unadulterated and perfect and if they were okay here, they would be okay anywhere else.

The thought lasted a bare second before it was swept away by feeling, sensation thundering through him and lifting and dropping him, need and want and love holding them together tightly, rhythm and pace aligned, carrying them along until the world narrowed to the rising pleasure radiating outward in increasingly powerful tremors, the unbearable yearning ache of almost-there, almost-there, her soft cries and his deep groans, getting closer and closer until they met and everything disappeared, no more breath, no more sound, just feeling.


The fire blazed in the living room, the only source of light in the big room. On the thick rug in front of the hearth, Dean looked down at Ellie, sprawled comfortably over him, her cheek resting against his chest, her skin lit to gold by the firelight dancing over it.

"Come on, tell me. Guaranteed no-holds-barred turn-on?" Ellie looked up at him.

He laughed. "You, getting undressed in front of me."

"That's it?"

"You asked," he said, grinning at her. "It's not that complicated. Beautiful, naked woman I love…I'm there."

"Fantasy then?"

"You, getting undressed in front of me." His smile widened at her expression. "You seeing the pattern here?"

"Yeah, I'm seeing I was right about you being inhibited," she retorted.

He lay back, pulling her on top of him. "Nah, nothing to do with inhibitions, just well and truly happy with what I have."

She looked into his eyes, smiling. "That makes two of us."

"Does that mean you're not going to tell me your ultimate turn on and favourite fantasy?"


"You want what?" Ellie turned around in the kitchen and looked at him.

"Pie," he said, his expression innocent. "That can't come as a surprise to you."

She shook her head. "It'll take about an hour."

"No problem." He sat down and smiled.

"And you're helping," she added quickly, going to the pantry.

"Always wanted to learn to make pie."


They sat at either end of the long sofa, legs entwined. Zeppelin was playing quietly on the stereo, a playlist of the ballads and songs that Dean had put together a while ago, imagining a moment like this. Outside, the snow had started falling again, everything in the garden hidden under the thick cover, just mounds and curves and delicately outlined shapes, a fantastic art show by Mother Nature for their viewing pleasure.

Ellie tipped her head back over the arm as his fingers kneaded and massaged the muscles of her feet, the foot rub sending warm and contented messages back to her brain.

Dean's mouth curved up in a wry half-smile as he felt the tensions dissolve in her, her body loose and unselfconsciously relaxed, fingers curled softly like a child's in sleep. The smile disappeared when he thought about the conversation they'd had, that final piece of trust he couldn't find in the way she loved him.

"Did Cas ever tell you all the times I asked him to take me to you, when you left after Raphael?"

Ellie was silent for a few minutes, and he wondered if she would answer him. Then she lifted her head to look at him.

"No. I didn't see Cas until 2011. Bobby told me what you were doing, how you were going in Indiana, and then later on," she said, the small crease back between her brows.

Typical of the angel, he thought, with less rancour than he'd expected. Heaven had been meddling…or maybe Cas just thought his friend was less likely to find out about the deal with Crowley if he was stuck in suburbia, retired, than if he'd been with Ellie.

"He wouldn't tell me where you were, and by the time I found out, we were pretty much at the showdown with the devil," he said, looking down at his hands, at her feet.

"I thought it was only going to be for a few months, maybe six." She shook her head. "If I'd known it would be nearly two years, I don't think I would have left."

He looked at her. "Why?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "I wanted to protect you, and Sam, keep you off their radar until you could figure out a plan to circumvent their plans. I didn't want to lose you."

"I thought—Cas said you told him you wouldn't come back until Heaven stopped hunting us," he said uncertainly.

"Technically, yeah," Ellie said. "Michael told me that Lucifer was on a timetable; six months to the prophesised day they would face each other on the field of battle." She lifted her hand in a vague gesture. "I thought it would be over then."

"It was over then."

"Yeah. But I was too late anyway," Ellie said, closing her eyes. He saw an unidentifiable emotion pass over her face.

If he'd waited, a bit longer. If he hadn't been so sure that she'd lied to him. If she'd come to the door in Cicero instead of watching from down the street…if, if, if.


The water in the tub slopped over the edge with every incautious movement, and Dean peered over the side, looking at the wet floor. "Should we put some towels down or something?"

Ellie stretched up and back, causing another wave to roll over the edge. "Sure, yeah, in a minute."

He dragged in a breath as she moved her hips, rocking slowly forward and back. "It's, uh, tiled, uh, sure it'll … ooh … be … okay,"

She didn't answer, tipping her head forward and looking down at him, moving faster and sending more water over the edge. "What?"

"N-n-nothing."


"Why don't you make this all the time?" He cut into the steak with a butter knife, lifting the piece and savouring the different tastes that exploded over his tongue, his eyelids fluttering shut.

Ellie smiled. "It's filet mignon and I don't want to see it thrown over the floor. In a couple of years, it'll be on the regular menu."

"What'd you do to it?" He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"A few things," she prevaricated. "Secret recipe."

"We don't have secrets from each other, remember?"

"We gotta have some secrets. How am I going to remain mysterious and alluring if I tell you all my secrets?"

He looked at her for a long moment. "Ellie, your smiles are mysterious and alluring, you don't need anything else."

She grinned at him delightedly. "How long did it take you to come up with that?"

He laughed. "That one came straight from the heart. You like?"

"Yeah, I like."


Ellie woke. "Dean, was that a car?"

"Hmmm? No, come back to bed," he murmured. She looked down at him, the corner of her mouth lifting.

"I'm in bed," she said dryly. "Wake up, I think that was a car."

He opened one eye, focusing on the clock on the nightstand. "It's four o'clock."

"In the afternoon. What time did Sam say they'd be back?"

"I don' remember," he muttered, rolling onto his back and throwing an arm over his face. "Uh…Sunday. Afternoon."

"That's today," she said, swinging her legs out of the bed. "Come on, sunshine, weekend of debauchery is over. Time to be parents again."

"You can take care of it, can't you?" He rubbed a hand over his face, peering around bleary-eyed. "I need about twenty more hours sleep."

She laughed. "Hey, it wasn't me who kept complaining how much catching up we had to do."

"Yeah but it was you who turned me inside out every single time." He rolled onto his side and sat up slowly. "And who was it couldn't keep her hands off me once we got to bed?"

"That was fifty-fifty," she said, pulling on her jeans. "Maybe sixty-forty. I can't help it. You're irresistible."

Dean yawned widely. "I'm not going to argue that."

She walked past him and he reached out, catching her hand. "Before we go down there, and face the masses…" He pulled her on to his lap, kissing her hungrily, deeply. "Just marking my place."

Her expression was surprised, her eyes very wide and green, and he grinned. "That's good, now you look like you've just been kissed."


Sam closed the bedroom door to Laura's room quietly and followed Tricia down the stairs. They walked into the kitchen, and Tricia started unpacking the bags as Sam got a beer from the fridge.

"Well, it seems to have worked," he said, twisting the top off and swallowing a mouthful.

She grinned widely at him. "Yep, I'd say so. Actually, I'm so relieved I can't even describe it."

"Did Ellie mention anything to you?"

"No," Tricia said, raising her brows at him. "What about Dean? He say anything to you?"

"Nada," Sam shrugged. "The main thing is that they're okay with each other."

"Yeah." She put the bags away in the pantry and stretched. "You know, we could do with a weekend of no children and unabashed sex."

"We could," Sam agreed immediately. "And Ellie did offer."

Tricia grinned at him. "Pick a weekend and I'll ask her about it tomorrow."