They were working a relatively simple vengeful spirit case when Piper started to get a pounding headache in her temples. She ignored it and worked through the pain. The last few weeks had been extremely stressful, with Sam running around soulless and Dean seeming bound and determined to get that soul back come hell or high water, no pun intended.

As they spoke to the victim, she felt goosebumps break out up and down her back, making her shiver. She assumed it was another symptom of stress, both because of the last few weeks, and because of the very recent occurrence of Sam damn near just coming out and saying that he thought the victim was a slut in front of her grieving parents. God give me patience.

When they were back at the motel, trying to find information on the girl they thought had come back as a ghost, she got cold, and her throat began to ache. She didn't think much about it, just wrapped herself in Dean's coat (which always seemed warmer to her, no matter where they were or how warm her own coat was) and kept researching.

Dean was trying to lose himself in the case, working with a fervor she hadn't seen in quite a while. He wanted to forget that Sam didn't have a soul, and that by all accounts so far there was nothing they could do about it. So she did everything she could to help him, pushing away at her own exhaustion to try to find this damn ghost.

xxxxx

Dean was absorbed in research. He was avoiding the fact that his brother was some sort of soulless goddamn robot by letting himself be absorbed in the case. He'd barely even looked at his wife all day, not because he didn't want to, but because the tightness around her eyes reminded him of the situation they were in. So he didn't meet her eyes, and the most contact he'd had with her all day was to place a hand at the small of her back when they left the victim's parent's house.

Which was why, when her breathing hitched, he barely noticed.

When she pulled his coat around herself, he didn't look up.

It wasn't really until he had a question for her that Dean realized that something was wrong.

He thought that she had the cemetery records on her side of the table, and looked up to ask her about them. At which point, of course, it felt like a bucket of cold water was splashed over his racing, panicked mind.

He frowned. "Pipes."

She looked up and blinked at him. Her face was pale, except for two spots of color high on her cheeks. Her just this side of red hair lay limp against her temples, parts of it wild where she'd been running her hands through it in an attempt to comfort herself that was as familiar to him as everything else about her was. She'd been doing it since she was sixteen.

When she was sick.

"Yeah?" she asked, and that made more alarm bells go off in his head. Piper wasn't a "yeah" kind of woman, she was a "yes" kind of woman. She was "how can I help you" instead of "what do you want." It was one of the things he loved about her, and it should have tipped him off when she'd slipped into his own informal way of speaking earlier in the day.

God dammit, Winchester.

He stood and came around to crouch next to her chair, ignoring his brother staring at the two of them for a moment. He brushed a lock of hair off of her forehead, frowning when he felt heat baking off of her, and stared into her eyes. They were too bright and feverish, and it made him frown harder. "Pipes, baby, why didn't you tell me you were sick?"

She blinked. "Um, oh. I… I dunno, we were busy. It didn't really matter."

Shock had his eyebrows shooting up. "Didn't really… Kitten, of course it matters!"

She flinched away from his shout, and guilt made his stomach turn. Another sign she was sick. If Piper was feeling well and he yelled at her for no reason, she'd tear him a new one, not jerk away from him. Piper never flinched.

"Dean," she said reproachfully. "We don't have the kind of job where we can call in sick anymore." She smiled. "It's just the flu, handsome. I'll get some cold medicine and power through."

He shook his head and stood. He took her hands in his and tugged until she was sighing and standing. She leaned into him, pressing her face into his chest. He brought a hand up to cup her head, savoring the way she felt against him for a moment, before he looked over at his brother.

"Sam, case is yours."

Sam's eyebrows rose. "Really?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah. Whatever. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, but it's a ghost, you got this. I'm gonna go take care of Piper."

She huffed. "I'm fine."

He looked down at her pretty, stubborn face. Her hazel eyes were narrowed, but she was swaying a little on her feet, and she had a death grip on the lapels of his coat that she had wrapped around her. He smiled. "Yeah, you look real fine." He looked over at Sam. "We'll be in our room. Call if you need help."

The words but don't need help rang in the air as he grabbed his and Piper's cell phones and their room keys to shove them into his back pocket. Then he knelt in front of his wife and scooped her into his arms, bridal style (which was a bit of a struggle because he wasn't as young as he used to be and Pipes was a little heavier now that she was dead-weighting it in his arms).

She whimpered in protest, but her breathing was a little labored and she pressed her face into his shoulder. "Dizzy," she muttered thickly.

"I know, kitten, I've got you."

He carried her to their room and somehow managed to get them inside with the door locked behind them. He set her down on the bed (more gratefully than he was willing to admit) and sat next to her. He reached up and pushed her hair out of her face again, marvelling at how she could still make his heart trip in his chest when she leaned into his touch. "Come on, kitten, let's get you into bed."

He gently pulled her into a sitting position, smiling when she leaned forward and pressed her face into his shoulder. He gently pushed his jacket off of her and she whined. "Cold," she whispered.

"I know, but you have a fever. Come on, let's get you cleaned up." She hmphed, which was so unlike her it made him grin. "I forgot how hostile you are when you're sick."

"Screw you, Winchester."

He laughed and brought her close to press a kiss to her sweaty forehead, loving her.

xxxxx

Piper felt like everything was happening outside of herself. Like she was in a bubble that was thin enough to see and speak through, but not really get through. Fever, her mind provided, but she just laid back and watched the world happen around her for a while.

Dean had wrapped her in one of his clean t-shirts and tucked her into bed. The cold medicine he'd given her was making her drowsy, so she sat up against the big pile of pillows her husband had bullied from the front desk and watched him order takeout.

When he hung up the phone, she felt her lips tilt up into a smile. "You're ridiculously good looking," she mused.

He looked up and grinned at her. "You're fun when you're out of it, Pipes."

She snorted. "I'm always fun." She thought about it for a beat. "Or maybe not. Maybe not with our lives."

He came to sit next to her on the bed again, one big hand resting on her knee. Even through the blankets and the fever, she felt his warmth bake down onto her leg. He tilted his head to look at her closely. "What are you talking about?"

She smiled, tickled that her taciturn husband, Dean "I Don't Have Feelings" Winchester, was asking her what she was talking about. She cringed internally. Oh, God, I really am out of it. "I just mean that we live… Really hard lives. It's hard to be easy-going or laid-back when your brother's soul is in hell with the devil." She wrinkled her nose. "And he hit on me."

Dean frowned. "The devil?"

For some reason, Piper's tired, sick mind found that hysterical. She tossed her head back and laughed, and it felt like she laughed for a long time before she calmed down enough to answer his question. "No," she gasped, "Sam. Sam… Propositioned me."

Dean's face became cloudy, and Piper became overwhelmed with the need to lean forward and run her thumbs along his cheekbones, trying to clear away his scowl. "What are you talking about, he 'propositioned' you?" he growled.

"He asked if I wanted to have sex with him and the hippie chick."

"What?"

"I said no," she said thoughtfully, still touching his truly incredible face. "You're the only person I want to have sex with, and I don't think the hippie chick was my type."

He stared at her for another moment, then closed his eyes, shook his head, and leaned toward her to press a kiss to her cheek. "You should get some sleep, kitten," he murmured against her.

She nodded. She was tired. "Okay."

He scooted her down and rearranged the pillows so she was on her side. She took a deep breath, feeling better than she had for two days. "Dean?"

"Yeah, Pipes?"

"Are you gonna come to bed?"

There was a beat of silence. "In a minute."

She drifted to sleep before she could reply.

xxxxx

Piper slept for the next two days, and Dean watched her like a hawk.

He secretly enjoyed taking care of her while she was sick. He made sure she took steaming hot showers, took her medicine, and drank her body weight in water and broth each day. She let him, and was never quite as out of it as she had been that first day. She was just grumpy and tired, and he loved her all the more for it.

Dean sometimes felt like all he did was lean on Piper. Sam being soulless, after Sam had died in the pit, Sam being addicted to demon blood, Dean just getting back from hell, Dean being scared of going to hell. Before that, before he'd been willing to admit that he was leaning on Piper, after his father had died, and they'd been on the search for revenge.

Through all of it, she'd stood next to him, weathered the storm with him, fought by his side. He sometimes looked at her, while they were researching or eating or any number of mundane tasks, and felt like he was drowning in love for her. Not that he'd ever admit most of this out loud, but if Piper looked at him that day and said, "I want to move to Canada and become fishermen," Dean would probably just go ahead and follow her up north.

He was always following Piper.

But in these rare instances, when she was sick or upset, he got to take care of her for a change. It made him feel useful, like maybe she wasn't getting the short end of the stick all the time when it came to their marriage. Like, if it came right down to it, he could come through for her, too.

He was also good at taking care of sick people. He'd taken care of Sammy enough through childhood that he was an expert. Plus, Piper was a hell of a lot more fun to look at than Sam was, pale and sick though she was.

So Dean took care of his sick wife for two days. He made her sleep all day in his t-shirts, he pumped her full of food and fluids and medicine, and he spent most of those days watching TV on the bed, letting her feverish little body curl against his and shiver.

xxxxx

Piper woke up on the third day feeling remarkably better. She was on her side, her head pillowed on Dean's warm, firm chest. She could tell that her fever had broken because she was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, making her wrinkle her nose in disgust. Ew.

She got out of bed gently and slowly, trying not to wake him. When he continued sleeping, she smiled triumphantly and snuck into the bathroom to take a shower and try to tame the mess her hair had become.

When she was done, she felt even better, though she was still exhausted. She was hungry, too, for the first time in days. But when she came out of the bathroom, the bed, with its tangled sheets and her ruffled husband buried in it, was too inviting to pass up. So she pulled one of her own t-shirts on, thank you very much, and crawled back in next to him.

He turned to pull her close, burying his nose in her hair and breathing deep. "You smell good," he murmured.

She smiled and kissed his chest. "I imagine I haven't for a couple of days," she said softly, feeling a blush warm her cheeks.

He rearranged them so she was lying on his chest, smiling down at his handsome face. He cupped the back of her head and brought her down for a slow, lazy kiss, sending warmth spiralling down through her. "You were fine," he assured her against her lips. "Besides being a little extra mouthy, you were great."

Her mouth dropped open, and he laughed. "I was not mouthy!"

He grinned and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "Pipes, I love you, but you are the worst when you're sick."

His warm teasing, the easy way he'd said "I love you," and his happy smile had tears trying to well up in her eyes. She tamped them down through sheer force of will, because he would think she was actually upset, when she was anything but.

She put a pout on her lips and narrowed her eyes when he laughed again. "All right then," she said archly, sliding away from him. "I was feeling much better, and I was thinking we might indulge in some… Extracurriculars, but if you think I'm the worst, then I wouldn't want to subject you to-"

She didn't even finish her taunt before he bucked his hips and pinned her to the bed. She gasped and closed her eyes slowly as he nuzzled her neck and her back arched of it's own accord. "Dean."

He smiled against her neck. "As long as you're feeling better, tell me about this hippie chick."

xxxxx

Dean insisted on one more day of rest before they hit the road. So Piper wallowed in the day, spending all of it in bed with him, watching TV, screwing like rabbits or just cuddling in silence, soaking one another in. There weren't many days like this anymore, and she was going to bask in it.

xxxxx

Dean watched Piper get dressed the next morning with a smile. She looked a lot better, with healthy color in her cheeks and a bounce back in her step. She was ready to get back to it.

He wrestled with the guilt he felt, assuring himself that this was the best option.

If I don't die, she's going to murder me.

He had figured out a way to get Sam's soul back. Piper was going to hate it, and she was probably going to disembowel him if he came through on the other side, but he had no other choice. Dean was finally willing to admit that Piper was right, he had a touch of tunnel vision when it came to Sam.

Once Sammy's got his soul back, everything will be fine, he assured himself.

He just hoped she would be able to forgive him for the stupid, dangerous, reckless way he was going to try.

xxxxx

Hi, beautiful readers! Here are my notes:
I own only Piper Finley, the original character. I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters. (heartbroken).
Reviews, comments, and kudos give me life and keep me going.
And, as always, thank you for reading, you beautiful, beautiful people.
**Hi, I'm back. I missed you guys. I don't even have a good excuse for why this update took too long, except anxiety/depression/apathy/bleh.
**I felt the need for a little fluff for Dean and Pipes.