"Just like that?" Darla asked, leaning heavily against the back counter as she listened to Mer recount the story. "Didn't exchange numbers, addresses—nothing?"
Mer shook her head. "Nope."
"Then how did you two find each other again?" Darla questioned.
"Total fluke," Mer answered, taking a bite of her banana split. "We ran into each other that next summer in California."
Darla was scrutinizing Dean in a way he didn't much like. "A fluke, huh? You might wanna take a look at this boy's face because that's not what it's saying," she observed, wagging a finger at him.
"What do you mean?" Mer asked Darla, her expression curious. Then, she turned to look at Dean, brow knit in amusement. "Dean…?"
"I might have…looked you up," he admitted, cheeks on fire.
"What?" Mer questioned, eyebrows flying upward. "You never told me that."
"I thought I'd never have to," Dean replied, shooting Darla a look.
Darla simply laughed and drifted back toward the kitchen.
"You looked me up?" Mer asked again.
"Yeah," Dean fessed up. "We were in Davis on that case and I just…I don't know. Something told me I couldn't leave without seeing you again." He swallowed hard. "You know, at first I just went to campus, thinking I might run into you by chance. Then I might have…snuck into the registrar's office and looked up your address."
Mer's eyes opened wide. "You what?" A smile was slowly spreading across her face. "Why didn't you ever tell me that?"
Dean shrugged, still uncomfortable with his admission.
"Dean, I'm not putting you on trial here," Mer assured him. "And even though I love to tease you, I'm not even trying to do that. I just wanna understand."
"I never had any friends," Dean confessed after a few silent moments. "Hanging out with you in Denver that time felt like as close as I had ever gotten. It was nice, I guess."
Mer gazed at him in complete understanding, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Well, I'm glad you did a little investigative work," she told him sincerely. "Where would we be now if you hadn't?"
Dean smiled over at her. "So, you don't think I'm creep of the century?"
"I mean, not because of this," Mer replied jocularly.
They finished up their sundaes soon after, paid, and said good night to Darla.
When Dean opened the diner door and the cold met them, he instantly moved to put an arm around Mer. They walked that way to the car, and before he let her go he leaned down to kiss her. They broke apart and climbed into their respective sides of the Jeep.
As he drove them back out of town, Mer sat noticeably silent beside him. Dean stole several glances at her, hoping it might spur her to speak. He had made up his mind to say something when she finally spoke.
"Dean, what's going on with you?" she asked, point blank.
"Wh-what do you mean?" Dean stammered, caught completely off guard.
"You're acting…different," Mer told him. "Kinda weird, if I'm being honest."
"Is this because of the whole 'me looking you up' thing?" Dean questioned.
"No," Mer replied with certainty. "God no, Dean, that was ages ago. I'm talking about tonight. You're saying all these things—about taking me out, about what you'd do if things were different. You're kissing me in the parking lot." She let out a soft sigh and ran a hand through her auburn hair. "I'm just used to knowing where your head's at and since you've gotten here I haven't had the slightest."
Dean was decidedly silent, staring straight ahead at the road, his jaw clenching and unclenching. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replied rigidly.
"I know this has always been ambiguous," Mer went on, clearly not going to let it drop. "Ever since that first drunken hookup, I feel like we've had some sort of silent agreement that we're friends first. I'm no idiot, I know that we're more than friends in some ways, but you've never talked like this." She glanced down into her lap and then over at him hesitantly. "If something's changed for you—"
"Nothing's changed," Dean interjected. Then he fell silent, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. He cleared his throat softly. "Sorry," he uttered. "A year's a long time to go without someone, and I-I guess I got a little carried away—I forgot that I can just be around you, you know? I didn't mean to confuse things."
"There's no need to apologize," Mer reassured him, hands folded in her lap. "It's just…" She bit the inside of her cheek, getting the sinking feeling that his feelings for her might be the least of her worries. "Dean, do I need to be worried?"
"Worried?" Dean asked, snorting. "W-what do you mean, worried?"
"I just…have this feeling. You're here with me but you're a million miles away, one moment to the next. You usually talk to me about what's on your mind, but I feel like I've only been getting half the story," Mer explained.
"Listen," Dean said, turning to look at her. "You've got nothing to worry about, Mer. I swear. A lot's gone on in the last year that I'm not sure how to talk about, okay? I'm trying." His hands were gripping the steering wheel tightly by this point.
"Okay," Mer resigned softly, angling her head to look out the window.
They rode the rest of the way home in marked silence, both succumbed to their own thoughts. The silence persisted as they clambered out of the Jeep and into the house. Dean went immediately to the kitchen, pouring himself a finger of whiskey, while Mer went into the bathroom to take off her makeup.
"You want one?" Dean questioned.
"No, thanks," Mer answered. "I'm pretty full from the ice cream."
Another long silence ensued, Mer going about her nightly routine around the cabin, Dean sitting at the breakfast bar with his back to her as he slowly drained his nightcap. Mer crossed by him to fill a glass of water at the sink. When she turned, back against the counter, to sip it, Dean caught her eye before hurriedly averting his gaze. To his utmost surprise, he heard her laugh. He looked up to see her grinning to herself, stifling laughter still.
"What?" he asked.
Mer shook her head. "Are we fighting?"
"Don't think so," Dean admitted, grin spreading across his face.
"I don't think either of us know how to be around the other anymore," Mer observed jocularly. "We're so intense all of the sudden."
"We've been through some shit this past year," Dean reminded her with a humored expression. "I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm learning to be human again."
Mer laughed again, a reassuring sound. Her expression softened as she sobered. "You know I just want you to be okay, right? I give you a hard time, but it's just because I care."
"Yeah, I know that," Dean responded, smiling down into his now empty glass. "I keep coming back here, don't I?"
"I'm glad you keep coming back," Mer told him as she strode out of the kitchen with her water glass, intending to set it down on her nightstand. "Telling Darla that story tonight got me thinking…it was at least a one in a million chance it would have ended up like this."
Dean nodded thoughtfully. "The way you told it tonight made me see that night from your perspective," he said.
"Do you remember it differently?" Mer wondered, pulling the covers back on her bed and fluffing her pillows.
"Not really," Dean replied. "I just…" He cleared his throat abruptly, realizing he was getting straying toward the deep end. "For you, it sounded like any other night. For me, it was the first night maybe ever that I felt like I was just some normal guy."
"And that's a good thing?" Mer wondered, taking a seat on her bed and looking at him curiously.
"Mer, believe it or not, that's all I've ever wanted," Dean confessed in a tone of near-shame.
"Really?" Mer asked, astounded. "You want to be the Vince Carver of that story?"
"Well, maybe not him, exactly," Dean admitted with a chuckle. "I wanna be the guy who goes out for a couple beers on the weekend…who plays pool for the fun, not the money…whose biggest worry is chasing down some low-life trying to take advantage of a friend."
He let out a soft sigh. "Sitting with you up on that overlook and talking like we did…that was the first time I felt like someone gave a damn about what I had to say, even if I wasn't talking about much of anything. I realized that that was what it was like to have an actual conversation with someone—that wasn't about monsters and guns and which run-down motel we'd be checking into next. You know, I…I finally understood why people put down roots, made friends."
Mer was listening intently, despite her searching expression. "I wish I remember more of that conversation," she admitted softly after a few beats.
"I told you things I'd never told anyone," Dean told her frankly. "But I'm not surprised you don't remember. I mean, it was pretty mundane stuff…" He swallowed hard. "The way you talked, the things you asked me…it was the first time I thought that the things I was feeling, the things I wanted—a place to call home, a sense of who the hell I was—weren't such horrible things to want."
Mer watched him carefully from her perch on the bed. She was never one to take pity, but he could tell she was fighting back a sympathetic look for his sake.
"You know, I never wanted to think of my dad as a bad man," Dean admitted, feeling his conviction shaking even as he said it. "That he was doing the best he could. That he was just messed up after losing my mom. But now that I'm looking back, you know, what the hell? I never had a chance—he never gave me one."
He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him as a sick realization hit. "Actually, the last thing he gave me was a chance…" His chin wobbled and he couldn't even rally the strength to stop it. "He gave his life for mine, Mer. So I could do what with it? Go on following this messed up path he raised me on?"
Mer was up, padding across the wooden floorboards to reach him. Then her arms were around him and his resolve was gone; he sobbed into her shoulder with no restraint.
"I'm so tired, Mer," Dean cried miserably. "Couldn't he see I was done?" It seemed his walls were caving by the second. "I wasn't worth saving. He shouldn't have done it."
"Well, I'd say I'm a pretty biased judge of that," Mer murmured, her voice heavy. "I don't know what I'd do if I found out you weren't out there somewhere—that there was no possibility I'd ever see you again."
This only made Dean cry harder, knowing the awful truth he was keeping from her.
After an indistinguishable amount of time, Mer slid a hand down the length of Dean's arm, finding his hand. She pulled him up, supported him as he stood, and guided him over to the bed. Dean sat down and let her help him remove his boots, his jeans. He lay down in her bed, his tears having dried, but still in the throes of insurmountable grief.
Mer quietly moved throughout the cabin, locking the front door, drawing the shades, checking to make sure the fire in the stove was under control. The lights went out one by one and then Dean felt her climb into bed beside him. He felt the warmth of her at his back and the tethering effect of her arms snaking around his chest. She tucked her chin over his shoulder, her breath warm against his cheek. He reached a hand up to find one she had placed just over his heart, intertwining their fingers.
Dean squeezed her hand. "I feel like I spend all my time just trying to get back here." He swallowed hard past the gradually shrinking lump in his throat, balking at the idea of what he wanted to say next. "When I was coming up the road yesterday, I thought, 'this must be what coming home feels like.'"
Mer was silent for a beat, and he thought he'd really screwed himself. Then, in a feather-soft voice thick with emotion, she replied, "This is your home." She said it as matter-of-factly as if she had told him a thousand times before.
Dean rolled over and took her face in his hands, kissing her in a way that felt markedly different than all the times he had before. When he finally pulled way, neither of them spoke; but something about her silence told him she knew everything he wanted her to.
