Piper smiled sunnily when she heard the rumble of an engine coming down the driveway. She was excited to see her brother-in-law. She'd missed his sweet, clever demeanor. Sam was still her best friend, and who else was going to gang up on Dean to make him eat a vegetable once in a while with her?
Despite Dean's misgivings, she was determined to forgive and forget. Sam hadn't had a soul when he'd attacked her, and now he did. As far as Piper was concerned, it was pretty cut and dry.
Still, she was the only one who walked out to the front porch to greet Sam as he left the car. Garth was getting out on the other side.
Piper grinned. "Two of my favorite men!"
Garth returned her smile with ease. "Hey, Smalls. Lookin' good."
She hugged him fiercely when he got to her. "Back atcha, Fitz."
Garth pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek, then whispered low in her ear. "Talk to Sam. I think he needs you."
Piper blinked, then nodded. As Garth walked past her, already hollering for Bobby, she let her gaze rest on Sam. His shoulders were rounded in on themselves just a little, subtle enough that she probably only noticed because she'd known him for so long. His smile was tight, and there was guilt heavy in his hazel eyes.
She sighed and and stepped down the stairs toward him. "Sam-"
"I'm sorry," he interrupted, blurting it without preamble.
Piper shook her head and approached him. "Stop it, that wasn't you."
He looked miserable, but didn't try to avoid her when she got close, so she put it in the "win" column. "But it was me, Ppie," he protested softly. "I… I mean, look, Cass told me. Everything. And I-"
"I'm gonna stop you right there," she said gently, reaching up to cup his face. "Sam, Death didn't just restore your soul, he put up a wall to make sure you don't remember everything that was done to you. It might be the only thing keeping you upright." Sam opened his mouth to interrupt again, but Piper forged ahead. "Look, I get that it's not really that black and white, I do. But Sam, we fought so hard to get you back." She smiled, and was unsurprised to feel tears gather in her eyes. "We love you. What's done is done, and I'll help you make amends however I can for whatever you did, but not if it's something that might bring that wall down, kay? Because it's not worth you. Nothing is."
xxxxx
It took a lot out of Dean to just watch through the little kitchen window as Piper pulled Sam into a hug. In his head, he understood that it was Sam, and Sam would die before he hurt Piper.
On the other hand, Sam was the one who'd hurt Piper.
"Can't say that don't make me uneasy," Bobby said gruffly from behind him.
Dean kept his eyes on the pair in the front yard. "I don't like it either." He glanced over at his father figure. "But if Piper forgives him…"
Bobby sighed. "Then we're gonna have to do the same. Dammit."
Dean made a face. Piper was going to be the sweet, loving woman she was, and she was going to forgive Sam. It didn't matter to her that Sam had tried to murder her to avoid having his soul returned to him.
It sure as hell mattered to Dean, though.
As much as he wanted to be relaxed and trusting around his brother, as much as he'd done to bring that brother back, Dean couldn't get the image of Sam standing over a prone Piper out of his head. He was trying to get back to where he'd been, but it wasn't happening.
He'd finally gotten to the point where something came before Sam. It had just taken almost losing Piper to get there.
xxxxx
A few hours later, after doing dishes, Piper was exhausted.
She had enlisted everyone's help to make chicken enchiladas, determined to plow through the awkward silence blanketing her family. She was also set on getting her husband to stop exuding cold hostility toward his brother.
It had not worked, and now she was washing dishes by herself to get out of the weirdness.
She felt his presence behind her and smiled. "Is it going any better in there?"
An almost involuntary sigh left her lips when Dean's arms came around her. "Still weird."
"You could fix that, you know."
He kissed her temple gently. "Come to bed with me."
She rolled her eyes. "Dean…"
"Come on, Pipes, you still need rest. Sam can finish up in here."
"Dean, I was healed by an angel. I don't need rest."
"Please?"
The soft, gentle pleading in his voice would always be able to crumble her defenses. She pulled her hands from the soapy water, dried them off, and let him lead her upstairs. She gave both Sam and Bobby a weary smile on the way, but said nothing. She'd tried more than once to start a conversation during dinner, to no avail. She would try again the next day.
She followed Dean into the bedroom. Once in, she gently closed the door behind them and turned to look at him. She smiled. "Stay with me?"
He nodded, and they undressed in a silence rich with the comfort of being together for so long. Once they were in pajamas, Dean got onto the bed, leaned against the headboard, and smiled at her. "Come here, kitten."
She climbed on and turned so he could gather her close and press her back to his chest. She leaned back and gently ran her palms down his arms circled around her. The feeling of peace that flooded her when she was cuddled up to her husband never failed to surprise her.
He hooked his chin over her shoulder. "I… I gotta talk to you."
She turned just enough to press their cheeks together. "Okay, what's up?"
He was silent for a while, and she let him be. He'd always come to her when he was ready, and not a moment before. From the night they'd gotten together to the night he'd proposed, and this would be no different.
"Look, Pipes… I…" He sighed. "Listen, I know I've been… Kind of a jackass, when it comes to getting Sammy back, and… I… I get that I was wrong."
Piper frowned and tried to turn, but his arms tightened around her until she couldn't. "Dean, what-"
"I just… I've been trying to look after him my whole life, kitten. And it took…" He swallowed hard. "It took what happened to see that I was wrong. Sam's… Sam's a big boy, he can take care of himself, mostly, and he's… He's not the most important thing anymore."
Piper was quiet for a while, digesting what her husband had said. It was… It was a rather heady feeling, being the object of Dean Winchester's focus, the center of his world. She had known, of course, that she was important to him. They were married, for fuck's sake.
It was one thing to know it, though, and quite another to hear her reticent husband say it out loud to her.
Slightly overcome, she leaned back against him and fought the tears that were trying to gather in her eyes. "Oh, Dean."
He squeezed her a little. "Love you," he whispered gruffly.
She smiled. "I love you, too, handsome." She sniffed hard. "All right, all right, are you ready to wrap up this chick flick moment?"
She felt his demeanor shift, and the wolfish grin pressed to her shoulder. He ran a gentle, warm hand down her side, until his fingers were very, very softly tracing her inner thigh through her sweats, making her shiver and bite back a whimper. "What did you have in mind, kitten?" he whispered low in her ear.
"Oh, I have faith you'll think of something."
xxxxx
A few days later, after giving Bobby a gruff goodbye, dispatching Garth to deal with an angry spirit in Idaho, and giving Monster extra cuddles (which Dean would deny to his dying day), they were on the road again.
xxxxx
Dean flipped through the missing persons leaflets and pretended he was paying attention to them while he checked out Piper's ass in her Fed suit pants. Glad I got that locked down, he thought, smug.
Sam was smirking. "Dean, quit checking your wife out, we're working a case."
Piper turned and smiled, and Dean felt his heart beat harder. "Yeah, you," she said, her eyes sparkling. "Give me those."
He handed the leaflets over easily, then wrapped an arm around her waist while she actually looked through them. "Well, whatever it is, it's got a type," she said thoughtfully.
Sam nodded. "Other than that, though, these women actually have nothing in common. Different jobs, different friends, different everything. So, what's the connection?"
Dean shrugged. "No idea."
Before they could go further, a blonde, well put together woman approached Sam with a saccharine smile. "Agent Roark? It's so good to see you again."
Sam smiled, bewildered. "It… Yeah, yeah, it is."
The woman gestured to a man who sidled up next to her. "Oh, you remember my husband, Don?"
Sam nodded. "Of course, right. Um, hi."
She leaned toward him conspiratorially. "So, you're back 'cause it started again, right? The disappearances?"
"Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, right. So, um, if either of you two hear anything, please, let me know."
The woman turned her sights on Piper and Dean, then. Dean had subtly taken his arm back, and was now standing next to his wife. He plastered a professional smile on his face as the stranger essentially undressed him with her wide eyes.
"Oh, oh, is this your new partner?"
Dean had to stifle a grin when Piper stiffened. "Partners," she said stiffly. "The three of us are… Collaborating on this case. Nice to meet you."
Dean, wisely, decided to just nod in greeting.
"Of course," the woman simpered. "Nice chatting with you Agent Roark."
Sam nodded. "You, too."
The woman touched Sam's arm, left her hand there a beat too long, then was ushered out of the restaurant by her husband.
Dean started to chuckle. "Man, she was cougar-eyeing the shit out of you."
"I… I think Samuel and I have worked a case in this town."
xxxxx
"One of dad's rules," Dean snarled. "'You never use the same crapper twice.'"
Piper sighed and watched the brothers argue. It was fairly useless to try to talk to either of them when they got like this, so until it started to look like they were going to go after each other, she would just sit on the sidelines.
"Everyone uses the same crapper twice," Sam insisted.
"Not us." Dean rolled his eyes at the implied joke in his words. "You know what I mean."
"Okay, look. This creature is still walking around 'cause of me, right? I mean, I let it go. Dad also said, 'you finish what you start.'" Sam took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, I get it."
Dean raised his eyebrows. "Do you, now?"
Sam nodded earnestly. "Yes. You're afraid I'll stroll down memory lane and I'll kick this wall in my head so hard, hell comes flooding through, right? And then all of a sudden, I'm some drooling mess on the floor."
Piper scowled. "It's not a joke, Sam. We're worried."
Sam held his hands up in surrender. "Okay. I know. But listen, what's happening here right now, it's because I messed up somehow, in some big way. So every person who gets taken, every person who dies? That's on me. I have to stop it. And you'd do the same thing."
Dean met Piper's gaze, then heaved a sigh. "All right. Pipes and I will follow up with the brunettes. You see what you get from the cops."
xxxxx
"Sam, answer the phone, damn it! I found the connection between the missing chicks. They all banged the same dude. You. It's you, Sam. The texts, the victims, all of it, it's a trap for you. Call me back."
Dean was frowning as he hung up the phone and started toward the car with Piper. "We shouldn't have taken this case," he fumed. "We should have sent Bobby those coordinates and been on our damn way."
Piper slid her hand in his as they walked. "Well, we're here now, so let's figure out what it is we're hunting." She took a deep breath, and he could almost see her shift from supportive wife mode to hunter mode. "All right, so Sammy bangs everything that moves and makes eye contact while he's here with Samuel. They find whatever monster it is that they're hunting. It's either got offspring or family of some sort we didn't know about, that are seeking to avenge its death, or they weren't one hundred percent sure how to kill it, and it survived the attack. Now, whoever's or whatever's coming after us is taking the women Sam slept with to lure him into a trap." She looked up at him. "Did I get everything?"
Despite the situation, he grinned. "God, it's hot when you summarize."
She smirked. "You're just easy, handsome."
xxxxx
This is what happens when you just let them walk into traps, Piper lectured herself as she tried to fight her way out of the Arachne's web. Next time, you tie them up and leave them in the motel room so they can't do anything reckless.
The monster that had taken them, that had a beef with Sam, was talking, distracting Piper from her bid for freedom. "You gotta admit, I look good, Sam. Well, except for your little souvenir." He pointed to the scar on his forehead, pretty clearly a bullet wound.
Sam was nodding. "You win. I'm here. Let Brenna go, this has nothing to do with her."
The Arachne scoffed. "You come back around, start hanging out with my wife, and you think this has nothing to do with her? But then… You thought I was out of the way, right? I got to say, you get a hell of a lot wrong, Sam, like that thing you threw me to. You thought it was here to feed."
Piper winced. "She was here to breed."
The monster pointed at her. "Ding ding ding, we have a winner." He turned back to Sam. "That thing was playing the mating game, and I guess I fit her profile… Me and all those other poor bastards. She bit us to turn us into what she was."
Piper felt her bonds loosening, just enough so she could reach the knife in her belt.
"By the time you pulled that trigger, I wasn't human. Not anymore. So bullets didn't hurt me much. Oh, and neither did fire."
She cut herself free enough that her feet could touch the floor. She kept her eyes on the monster as he ranted, hoping that he would distract himself enough that she could get loose.
"So after you left, well, we ran. Me? I hid for months, nearly starved. But you know what kept me going? Every night, I dreamed about ripping your throat out. I thought I was sending you a neon sign."
Piper was free, but she didn't move for fear of bringing the thing down on her. She didn't even look at the Winchesters, just kept her eyes on the monster and waited for her chance.
"The text? Taking all those girls you screwed? I was kicking so much sand in your eye, I couldn't figure out why you weren't getting it! Then Bren tells me you've got brain damage. It's just too good." He started to chuckle.
Sam sounded pained. "Where are they, Roy… The women?"
Roy's smile was ugly and mean. "Scattered… In the wind. They're like me now. You killed one monster, you made so many more. Congratulations. The only question is, do I kill you… Or turn you?"
Dean, who had apparently also gotten himself free, flung himself at the Arachne with a shout. Piper barely restrained from rolling her eyes as she dove for the machete along the wall.
"No!" Brenna was shouting. "Roy, stop!"
Pipe turned to see Roy with his hand around Dean's throat, holding him up in the air. Piper's vision went red, and she found herself crossing the distance and decapitating the bastard before she could really process what was happening.
Brenna had freed Sam, and Dean fell to the ground coughing. Piper sighed and surveyed the damage.
"You know, I really hate spiders."
xxxxx
"You okay?" Dean asked, for what felt like the thirteenth time since they'd returned to their motel room.
Sam shrugged. "You were right. We shouldn't have come back here."
Dean almost winced, and spent a moment wishing fervently that Piper was out there with him instead of in the shower. She was much better at things like this.
"Well, you did kill, uh… Spider man." Fuck, I need Piper for this.
Sam looked at him incredulously. "So, you're suggesting what I did back there was a good thing?"
"I'm just saying-"
"What?"
Dean groaned and ran a hand through his hair. "Sam, you got to understand that all that crap last year, all of it, none of it was you'
"Let's be crystal clear, okay?" Sam interrupted, venom in his voice. "It was me."
There was nothing Dean could say to that, and he knew it. Mostly because he was still having a little bit of trouble forgiving Sam. The "it wasn't you" crap was just him parroting Piper.
"Well, can I get you anything?"
Sam snorted. "What are you now, my waitress?"
Dean scowled. "I'm just trying to make you feel better. Don't be a bitch."
"Yeah, I'm fine.
It was Dean's turn to snort. "Yeah, you look fine." He took a deep breath. "All I'm saying is everything's gonna be okay."
When Sam looked at him this time, he reminded Dean so much of the lost little kid he'd raised that his heart ached for a moment. "I don't know, Dean. If I did this here, then who knows how many oth-"
Sam didn't get any further before he collapsed to the floor, screaming.
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.
**Look! A chapter! A *long* chapter! It's like I'm a real, honest to Chuck fanfiction author. *whaaaaaaat*
