**There is an obnoxiously long author's note at the end... Feel free to ignore, it's mostly rambling, lol.
Sam just waited Chrys out while they went to bed that night. He knew something was on her mind, and she would talk when she was ready. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching him silently as he pulled on a shirt after a shower.
"So you really had no urge to stay?"
He turned and raised his eyebrows. "What?"
She tilted her head at him, and the way her hair spilled across her shoulder entranced him. It probably always would. "Did you mean it? When you said that you didn't want to stay in that… Alternate universe, or whatever it is?"
He came to sit next to her on the bed. He didn't touch her, just looked over at her. "No, I wouldn't have stayed there."
"Why?"
He really thought about it for a few moments, then shook his head. "I mean, what I said was true. We don't mean the same thing there, and Dean and I aren't even related."
She nodded and leaned against him to rest her head on his shoulder. "Okay," she said softly.
He smiled a little. "And you aren't there."
As he expected, she leaned back and rolled her eyes. "Kiss ass."
He grinned and looped an arm around her to pull her close. "Yeah, but I'm serious, beautiful." She looked at him, leaning as far away as she could with his arm around her, an eyebrow cocked. He gave her a winning smile, and she huffed.
He brought his other hand up to cup her face and he sobered. "Chrys, I'm not kidding. Even if everything else had been the same, if you hadn't been there, I would never have stayed. Not without you."
Her blue eyes widened as she stared at him. "Sam, I was just teasing."
He smiled a little. "I wasn't."
Her face softened, and she leaned forward to press her lips to his. "I know," she said softly against his mouth. "I know, I'm just being bitchy."
He moved down to nuzzle her neck. "I like the bitchy."
She tilted her head to the side to give him more room, making the deep, possessive part of him damn near purr in satisfaction. "That's because you're maladjusted, Sammy."
He used his natural speed to catch her off-guard. He picked her up, tossed her down onto the bed and pinned her there with his weight. She automatically pulled her legs from beneath him and wrapped them around his waist as he nipped at her neck lightly. "I'll show you maladjusted," he muttered darkly.
He felt her smile. "Well then, get to it."
Chrys was frowning as they walked back to Bobby's car. They were working a case where several men who worked at a cannery had gone on what could only be called murder sprees, then claimed to have no memory of it. They were on their way to the warehouse now to investigate.
She was irritated because she and Sam had been cut short that morning, so her skin felt too tight, and she was too aware of the way her stupid fed suit rubbed against her. Maybe I should rethink my stance on underwear.
She was also irritated because there was a man she'd never seen before standing next to Bobby.
"I don't even know why you have a driver's license," the newcomer was saying.
Dean grinned. "Well, look what the cat dragged in." He hugged the man.
Sam did the same, clapping the older man on the back. "It really is good to see you, Rufus."
Rufus saw Chrys and whistled low. "I don't believe that for a second, not if you've got this gorgeous creature hanging out with you three miserable cusses."
Chrys smiled slowly. "You know, I like you, Rufus."
"Yeah, yeah," Bobby growled. "Why don't you two get a room?" Chrys laughed, and she felt warmth spread through her as Sam wrapped his arm around her.
Dean was smiling. "All right. We all pack a snack?" When everyone nodded, he started toward the cannery. "Then let's see what we can see."
Chrys pulled the big shotgun out of the trunk, slammed it shut, and followed the men into the building. Pistols were more practical, but the shotgun spoke to the dramatic part of her soul.
They walked in and scanned the room. It was quiet and somehow echoey at the same time, in the way that big industrial buildings often were.
When a door opened Chrys swung around to see a pretty, short woman walk in. Her eyes met Dean's with surprise.
Dean tensed. "Gwen?"
Gwen nodded. "Dean."
An older bald man came in behind her. Dean raised his gun at him and began walking forward. Chrys walked around Bobby and Rufus to back him up.
"Welcome to next time," Dean snarled.
Sam caught him and lowered his gun arm. "No, no, no, no! Hold on!"
"I said I'd kill him!"
Chrys nodded, came to stand next to them, and raised her own gun. "Good enough for me."
"Chrys," Sam snapped. "Not helping."
"Didn't mean to."
"I take it you all know each other," Rufus said dryly.
"He's our grandfather."
Chrys raised her eyebrows and let fury wash through her. "Your grandfather?" She had heard quite a bit about Samuel, so she kept her gun raised and cocked it. "This is, indeed, next time, then."
"Chrys!"
A hand on her shoulder had her turning to look at Bobby, who was staring at Samuel evenly. "Down, girl," he muttered softly, and she lowered her weapon. She tended to listen when Bobby spoke. "What are you doing here?" he asked Samuel.
"We're working. You?"
"None of your damn business!" Dean shouted. Chrys nodded.
"Sam," Bobby said softly. "Take Dean for a walk."
"Why doesn't Chrys have to go?" Dean sputtered.
"Go." Bobby's tone brooked no argument, and Sam dragged him out.
Chrys stared Samuel down when he met her eyes. Dean had told her exactly what had happened in that warehouse, when Samuel had left her best friend and her soulmate to die at the hands of ghouls. Sam may have been able to forgive his grandfather, but Chrys held her grudges close to her heart, and was usually unwilling to let them go.
"So," Bobby began. "You're Samuel."
Samuel smirked. "You must be the guy pretending to be their father."
Chrys raised her gun again. "You're gonna wanna watch your mouth," she said softly, coolly. "I'm a little trigger happy, and I don't take pot shots at Bobby very well."
Sam was walking back in. He put a hand on the small of Chrys's back, then took his other hand and gently lowered the gun. She let him, but only because if she wanted to, she could have shot his grandfather before Sam could have stopped her.
"You're looking well, Sam." Samuel's little nod made Chrys see red a little. I may have anger issues.
"Save the small talk, all right?" Sam snapped. Well, at least he has them, too.
"You seem different."
"I got my soul back," Sam said coldly. "No thanks to you, I hear."
"You hear?" Samuel scoffed. "You don't remember."
"He remembers enough," Chrys growled, still very willing to shoot him.
"I, uh, really hate to break up this little circle of love," Rufus said firmly. "But why don't we talk shop, huh? How about you tell us what it is you're hunting?"
"A creature from Purgatory," Samuel supplied reluctantly. "She calls herself Eve."
"Eve?"
"Yeah. They call her 'mother.' She was here about ten thousand years ago. Every freak that walks the face of the earth can be traced back to her. And she's back."
"How the hell do you know all that?" Chrys asked hotly.
The smug look on his face had her grip tightening on her gun again. Yep, definitely anger issues. "You don't know half the things that I know, girl."
"I know that you'd throw your family to ghouls. I think I know just enough, thanks," she spit.
Gwen, silent until then, turned to look at Samuel. "You what?"
He didn't even spare her a glance. "They lied to her."
Chrys met Gwen's eyes. "Why don't you go ask Dean what he did?"
She left the room, and Chrys looked over at Samuel. "Be very careful about how you conduct yourself. I'm a lot meaner than these boys." When he snorted, she smiled coolly. "Go ahead and test it. I wouldn't mind putting a bullet in you in the least."
Before he could reply, there was a gunshot from where Dean and Gwen had been talking just outside the room. When they got there, Gwen was dead, and Dean was gone.
Bobby and Rufus were trying to call on their contacts to find out what they were facing. Chrys stood just behind Sam and Dean, waiting for their grandfather to come out of the bathroom.
When he did, he sighed as he saw them. "What?"
Dean shrugged. "Nothing. I'm just wondering how you sleep at night."
"Like a baby," Samuel replied with a tight smile. "Thanks for asking."
"You fed us to Crowley," Dean snarled.
Samuel nodded. "True, but what am I gonna do about it now? Do I blame you for wanting to kill me? Of course not, Dean. What I did was…" He shook his head. "But I'm not apologizing. I did what I did. I don't cry over spilled blood." Chrys snorted.
"So," Sam said incredulously. "You really can just go on, like…"
Samuel advanced on Sam. "Just because you're Dr. Jekyll at the moment doesn't mean you can get all high and mighty. Don't forget, we spent a year together."
Chrys pushed Sam aside and stood in front of the brothers. "I am just about done with your attitude, Campbell," she snapped.
"Yeah? What do you plan on doing about it?"
"Well, killing you was at the top of the list," she said cheerfully. Before she could say anything else, however, she saw the goo coming from Samuel's ear.
She flung her arms out to her sides and shoved the brothers back as Samuel pulled his gun. She jumped a little and kicked it out of his hand as he fired. The shot missed, and he shoved them aside and ran away.
"Shit!"
"Chrys, are you all right?" Sam asked, concern clouding his hazel eyes.
"Hey!" Bobby and Rufus ran in. "I heard a shot."
"It's Samuel!" Chrys snapped, angry with herself for not seeing it, and angry with Sam for… Well, something, anyway.
"We're going to be needing our guns back now, Bobby."
They were searching for Samuel when Sam and Chrys got separated from the rest of the group. A huge door slid closed behind them.
Sam whirled and slammed his hand on the door. "Dean! Dean!"
There was banging on the other side of the door, too. "Sam! Chrys! Dammit!"
"Dean!" Chrys said loudly. "We're going to go around, okay?"
"Be fucking careful! Got me, Summers?"
Sam saw her smile a little. "Yeah, yeah, softie, meet us there."
They started walking, and Sam kept an eye on her out of the corner of his eye. His woman was angry and on occasion unpredictable, which was usually hot, but she had that gun in her hands, and it was making him nervous.
Not that the gun isn't hot, he thought idly as they made their way down the hall.
Samuel came around the corner, knocking Sam out of his thoughts. He raised his pistol. "Don't move."
"Sam," Samuel said. He looked over at Chrys. "And… I never got your name, did I?"
"You don't need it," Chrys said softly, danger soaking every syllable. "Put that gun down, Campbell."
Samuel met Sam's eyes. "What are you gonna do, son? You're not gonna shoot me, you're not gonna let her shoot me. Your own family?"
Sam snorted. "Yeah, I wouldn't go with the family thing. Try again."
"Mary's still my daughter," Samuel said, taking a step closer.
"I said don't move!"
"You're still named after me." Another step closer.
Chrys cocked her shotgun.
Samuel was smirking. "Appears to be our moment, Sam. You still want to know about your summer vacation? I'll tell you all about it. You're dying to know, huh?"
Sam shook his head. "Actually, I'm good. Made a promise to the lady."
"Yeah?" Sam took another step forward. His last step.
Before Sam could even process the fact that he'd come closer, Chrys fired. Sam blinked, shocked, and turned to look at her.
Somehow, in her cold fury, she had become even more beautiful. She was tall and striking, her dark hair clouding around her face. Her jeans were tight, and the leather jacket she wore made her look hard and edgy. The (literally) smoking gun in her hands only added to the image.
She was lovely, and she was his.
"I got to say, I never figured Rufus for the religious type."
They were standing at Rufus' funeral. Chrys was quiet, letting the men reminisce around her. She'd known the man for just over an hour, she had no stories or memories to offer. So she stayed silent.
"So, what happened?" Sam asked. He kept an arm tight around Chrys, which was comforting. She'd been worried he would be angry with her about killing his grandfather, but so far he'd given no indication that he was.
"It was Omaha," Bobby said somberly. "It was my fault, and he never let it go."
"Well, he should have," Dean said vehemently.
Bobby looked at him evenly, and the emotion in the older hunter's eyes pinged at Chrys's heart. "You don't know what I did, Dean."
Dean shook his head. "Doesn't matter."
Bobby was scowling. "What do you mean, it doesn't-"
"I mean," Dean interrupted, "at the end of the day, you two are family. Life's short, and ours are shorter than most. We're gonna spend it wringing our hands? Something's gonna get us eventually, and when my guts get ripped out," he gestured to the rest of them, "just so you three know, we're good. Blanket apology for all the shit that anybody's done all the way around."
Chrys smiled. "Some of us have pulled a lot of crap, Winchester."
"Well, clean slate."
They drank to that.
Sam watched Chrys get ready for bed that night, after the very long day, and knew, again, that she had something on her mind. She didn't want to talk to him about whatever it was, but there was something bothering her. So he'd wait her out again.
She smiled and crawled into bed next to him. She'd taken to wearing his t-shirts, making that possessive part of him purr. He wrapped her in his arms and pressed his lips to her forehead. "Long day," he said against her skin.
She sighed and nodded. "It really was." She looked up at him then, all big blue eyes and dark hair framing her pale face. "So, just so we're clear. You're not mad about me offing your grandfather?"
He thought about it, then shook his head. "No."
Her eyes narrowed. "Like, at all? You're not angry, at all, that I shot him? This isn't going to be one of those things you bitch at me about in the future?"
He chuckled. "I do not 'bitch' about anything, one, and two, no, it's not."
She just stared at him. "You're really all right? We're really… All right?"
He cupped her face and kissed her gently. "Chrys, I don't… I don't know if I could have done it. And he would have killed us. You made the right call, did the right thing. No, I'm not mad."
She cuddled closer, pressing her face into his neck. "Yes, you could have."
"You think so?"
She nodded. "Because it was me. You would have killed him if you thought he was going to hurt me."
He let that roll around in his head for a while, trying to figure out what to say. By the time he realized that she was right, he would probably put a bullet in anyone who was going to hurt her, she was already asleep.
**I'm so sorry for the delay in this chapter, guys. A week ago, I decided to take a break from writing and read a few new stories, to refresh myself, and as an exercise to improve my own work... And I promptly got sucked right into at least 15 new stories, which I read and loved. Promptly after *that,* I went into kind of a downward spiral of, "These are so good. I can't write like this. Why would anyone want to read what I write when these stories are available?" So I avoided writing my stories and reading the stories I usually keep up with by just freaking devouring other fanfiction, to procrastinate. That was a fun week, let me tell YOU. Luckily, my husband (who is known in my family as the Patron Saint of Husbands), saw this and suggested I go through and read some comments/reviews of my stories. He thought I should revisit what the people who actually read my stories think of them. And, because he is a stone cold genius, it worked like a charm. So here I am, again, thanking you guys for being here. The fanfiction community has become a huge part of my life in a very short time, and I can't tell you how beautiful it is to me. You guys are amazing.
**Special shoutout to infinity_dreamchaser, peddlergirl, Samsgirlfriend, beckini, and Happygoddess2003. You guys have been with me from the beginning of my journey here, and it's beautiful, and I freaking love you people. 3
**Feedback gives me the warm fuzzies and keeps me going.
