Chrys woke up slowly the next morning, wincing. Her eyes ached, and her sinuses were stuffy. She was still tired, but she felt better than she had in a long time. Sam was back, and she could feel it now, deep down in her soul, the reality and firmness of him being alive and next to her. He was alive.

Which meant Dean had done something colossally stupid.

She cracked an eye open to see Sam lying next to her, still deeply asleep. She resisted the urge to touch his handsome face, his strong cheekbones, that stubbly jaw. She didn't want him awake just yet, even if his presence was filling the cracks of her broken heart.

She gently slipped out of bed, taking care not to disturb him. She pulled on a pair of patterned leggings and a black tunic quickly, flipping her hair out of the collar. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and her cell phone, then slipped out the door quietly.

She lit up, then typed out a quick text to Dean.

"Get the hell out here, Winchester. I have words for you."

She smoked in silence for a few minutes before the door right next to hers was opened and Dean emerged, grumbling and pulling his jacket on. He came to lean against the wall next to her. "What do you want, Summers?" he asked, holding his hand out.

She handed him the pack and the lighter without a word. It must have been bad. She'd only seen Dean smoke a couple of times, right after Sam had died. It was a reaction to stress, and since God knew she didn't have a great reaction to stress herself, she didn't say a word about it.

He lit up and passed the stuff back to her, coughing a little. "Well?"

"Wanna tell me what happened?" she asked softly. "What did you do?"

"What makes you think I did something?"

She chuckled. "Dean, don't even start with me. We both know you did something stupid to get him back. Tell me what it was, so we can deal with the fallout."

He was silent for a while, and she let him think. She had time to wait.

"All right, so when Sammy went into the pit…"


When Dean finished speaking, Chrys let the silence settle over them as she tried to absorb. He'd told her everything. The Campbells, the Alphas, the heavenly civil war, being turned into a vampire. The fight with Lisa, being Death for a day, the wall in Sam's mind.

And, most importantly for her, the love of her life walking around soulless for a year and a half.

"Jesus fucking Christ," she breathed out, leaning back against the motel again.

He huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, that about sums it up."

She took a deep breath and looked at him closely. "Why didn't you call me? I could have helped."

He signed "I was worried, C. I knew as soon as I laid eyes on him that he was off. I didn't want… I…"

Interpreting his silence, she rolled her eyes. "You thought that you might feel the need to kill him? If he came back too wrong?"

His continued silence was all the answer she needed.

She moved to step in front of him so she could meet his eyes. "You really think you could have? Even if he was… Wrong?"

He shrugged. "Honestly? I don't know. But I didn't want you to have to be there if you didn't need to be."

Chrys thought about being angry for just a second before dismissing the idea. She was still too mellowed out from Sam's return and copious amounts of good sex to be mad. So she stepped forward to wrap her arms around Dean's neck and hug him hard. He hesitated, then hugged her back just as fervently.

"Thank you, for being sure before you told me," she whispered into his warm neck. She wasn't sure she could have done what Dean had done, live with the uncertainty and the fear. She would have lost it.

He held her tight, then relaxed and let her step back. "Yeah, yeah," he said gruffly. He sobered a little. "Listen, Chrys, that wall in his head isn't a guarantee. It's like seventy-five percent. We gotta keep him from trying to figure out what happened while his soul was in the cage."

Chrys nodded. "Okay. We'll have to tell him some stuff, but I doubt he'll be chomping at the bit to have that come crumbling down."

She'd been hoping for a smile, but Dean was still somber. "C, I'm serious. He did… He did some fucked up stuff before he got his soul back. Stuff that's not gonna sit well with him now."

Chrys understood. Her man had quite the hero complex, and when put together with the patented Winchester Guilt and Martyr Complexes…

"He'll try to make amends. Or at least apologize."

Dean nodded. "And if that wall comes down, I don't know what'll happen. But he probably ain't gonna come through on the other side."

"All right," she said firmly. "So we'll keep him from asking questions. If he insists, I'll kick his ass."

Dean chuckled. "That's my girl."


Dean watched as Chrys slipped back into her motel room, then leaned back against the wall and heaved a sigh.

He was glad that they had her with them again. He'd missed her sharp tongue and her willingness to put them in their places.

He had absolutely intended to go talk to her as soon as Sam had his soul back. His brother had just stolen his car and beaten him to it.

He felt a little guilty about not calling her before, but not that guilty. He'd been telling most of the truth when he'd told her that he hadn't called her to protect her. He had been trying to protect her.

But he'd also been protecting himself.

Because if he hadn't been able to get Sam's soul back, one of two things would have happened. Either he would have been willing to kill Sam, and Chrys wouldn't have, or he wouldn't have been able to, and she would have. Either way, there would have been one hell of a fight.

No, it was definitely better that she hadn't known until now.


They were sitting in a diner after breakfast, Chrys and Sam on one side and Dean on the other. Chrys was absentmindedly playing with the fingers of the hand that Sam had placed on her thigh.

I missed this. Not just Sam, although he had obviously been most of it. But the lifestyle that hunting required soothed some restless part of her soul. The diner food and the hours in the car and the shitty motel rooms and the saving people. The underlying righteous purpose to it all. She'd missed hunting.

The calm, slow life she'd built without Sam had been nice, but that was all it had been. Some part of her had been unfulfilled. Some part of her had been holding its breath, biding it's time. Some part of her had been certain that Sam was on his way back to her.

So in a little diner in the middle of God knew where, with his big hand warming her leg, Chrys accepted that she would never be anything but a hunter.

She was refilling her coffee when Sam spoke. "So, I think I found us a case."

She raised her eyebrows, but didn't stop what she was doing. "Where?"

"Hang on, hang on, hang on," Dean snapped. "You just got vertical, man!"

Sam stared at him. "Dean, I've been back for days. Yeah, I'm ready to work.

Dean was frowning. "Well, a few more days of… Whatever the two of you have been doing can't hurt. Let's take it easy."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Right, because that's what you did when you got back from hell."

Chrys smacked him on the arm. "Rude," she said mildly. "What's the case you found?"


Sam was watching Chrys sit on one of the beds, looking through a lore book. She'd been having trouble wrapping her head around the idea that they were chasing dragons. "Our life is weird," she reflected softly, turning the page.

He huffed out a laugh. "Yeah."

They're lying to me.

Something was wrong. The way Bobby had reacted to his presence, the way Dean and Chrys shot furtive looks at one another, when Dean said it "hadn't worked out" with Lisa and Ben. Something was wrong, and they were all lying to him about it.

Strangely, he suspected Chrys the least. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew the woman like the back of his hand. He knew she wasn't lying to him the most. She was definitely lying, but she wasn't telling the biggest lies.

That honor was Dean's.

"Hey, Chrys?" he asked, feigning casual.

She looked up and smiled, and it was like the sun was rising for him. Before he could bring himself to enact the plan he'd thought of, he was standing, crossing the room, and bending to kiss her thoroughly. She responded immediately, opening for him, raising a soft hand to lay along his jaw.

This. This was his biggest clue that something wasn't right around here. Maybe he would have believed Dean, or Bobby, or even Chrys. But Sam didn't think anything could ever prevent him from knowing how long it had been since he'd had his hands on Chrys. He'd always know how long it had been since he'd had his hands on Chrys.

So something was up, because the first time he'd touched her when he'd gotten back felt like a very, very, very long time.

Dean had said he'd been gone for a year, and maybe that would account for it. But if it felt like forever since he'd touched his woman, and if Bobby was acting like Sam had killed his puppy, and Dean and Chrys were no being very subtle about keeping secrets…

Something was definitely up.

So instead of laying her down and having his way with her, like he wanted to do, he pulled away and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Are you hungry?"

She blinked, then chuckled. "No, but I'm sure you are." She started to stand. "You stay here in research mode, I'll go get you something to eat."

When she was almost to the door, he couldn't help himself. He grabbed her arm, spun her until she was against him again, and kissed her hard. She melted beneath his hands, and he held her tight, relishing her softness.

She moaned a little and pulled away, blue eyes sparkling. "What's gotten into you?"

He shrugged. "I missed you."

She smiled. "You don't remember hell. You can't possibly know for sure you missed me."

He nodded somberly, keeping eye contact. "Of course I did. I'll always miss you when we're apart, beautiful."

She rolled her eyes. "Corny." She reached up to kiss him briefly again, then stepped out of his embrace. "Stay here, I'll be back."

She left, and he felt a brief pang of guilt for lying to her. Not enough to stop lying to her, but he did feel bad.

Reminding himself that his little family had started the whole "lying" trend this time, he flipped his phone open and dialed Bobby's number. May as well start with him.

Bobby answered on the first ring. "Sam. Where's Dean?"

Sam had to tamp down the hurt that the question brought up. "Hey, um… He went to see your friend." There was an awkward pause, then, "Hey, look. I'm trying to figure out where this thing lairs up. Little help, maybe?"

"What are the parameters?"

"Caves, basically. But there's nothing around for miles."

"So, less literal, then. What else you got local that's cold, dark, and wet?"

Why the hell didn't I think of that? "Huh. Well, uh, there's no subway lines. Sewers, that could be it." He smiled. "Thanks."

"All right," Bobby said shortly.

"Wait, wait, Bobby," Sam said quickly before the other man could disconnect the call. "Um… Are you all right?"

Bobby sounded surprised. "Yeah, of course. Why? What's wrong?"

"Besides the way you've been acting and talking? Nothing." He let the heavy silence rest for a moment, then, "Is there something I should know?"

"No," Bobby said firmly. "All you need to know is where Godzilla's holed up."

Sam wasn't convinced in the least. "Bobby, what happened this last year?"

"It had its moments. No more than usual. It's got nothing to do with you, Sam. How could it?"

Please. "Right, 'course."

"Call me if you need anything."

Before Sam could reply, Bobby hung up. He frowned at the phone, then searched his mind for another answer.

Cass.

He closed his eyes. "Castiel, um… I'm back. So, if you got a minute-"

The sound of flapping wings, then, "Sam. It's so good to see you alive." The angel approached to hug him, but Sam sat, avoiding his touch.

"Um, look… I, I would hug you, but-"

"That would be awkward," the angel said firmly, moving to sit across from him on the other bed.

Sam ran his hands through his hair, hoping this would work. "Um… Was a crazy year, huh? I, I just talked to Bobby. He… He told me everything that happened."

This had to work. Castiel was the only one who would tell Sam the unflinching truth, and he needed that. He needed to know why his brother, his father figure, and his woman were treating him with kid gloves.

"Frankly," Castiel said, without missing a beat, "I'm surprised that you survived. I was begging Dean not to do it."

What? Do what? "Yeah, no, I can understand that."

"You know, it's a miracle it didn't kill you."

Still confused, Sam smiled tightly. "Yeah, yeah, it's a miracle, all right." We gotta cut to the chase before Chrys gets back.

There was a beat of silence, then, "So, how does it feel?"

Sam frowned. "What?"

"Well, to have your soul back, of course."

Shock cascaded through Sam, and his mind kicked into overdrive. "Right. You mean 'cause I was walking around with no soul. Uh… Really good, Cass. I'm real good." What the fuck? "You know what, though? I'm, I'm just a little hazy on a few of the details, though. Um… You think maybe you could… Walk me through?"


Chrys came back to the motel room, absentmindedly basking in the way she could leave Sam alone for a while and not be in crippling pain, and munching on a French fry. She'd gotten him a salad, because who knew what he'd eaten when he was soulless. Time to get back on track, handsome.

When she opened the door, it was to Castiel frowning, facing her on one of the beds. Sam's shoulders were tense, and he was looking away from her.

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened to protest, a protest that would be way too late, when Sam turned around.

His eyes were dark and stormy, but he gave her a smile that was genuine enough. "Hey, beautiful."

Uh-oh.


**Hi, I'm back! I'm sorry about such a long time between updates. My work had a big fundraiser (which was a HUGE success), but it made my mental state a total wreck. Then a friend of mine has been going through something really rough, and I've been trying to be there for her. THEN I finished two of my stories, and they straight up drained all of my creativity. But I'm back, and I missed the hell out of you guys!
**Feedback gives me the warm fuzzies and keeps me going.