There were times (and they were often) when Chrys thought it was a real shame there weren't more women in the hunting community.

There were some women, of course, and every one of them whom Chrys had met was strong, smart, and tough. She got along famously with most of the female hunters they came across.

In times like the days after Bobby was killed, however, she thought it would be nice if there more women in her network. Or, at least, more people who were a little less emotionally constipated, anyway.

The hunting community, though they worked side-by-side with the possibility of death every day, tended to treat it as something that could be wholly ignored. Oh, sure, they'd take a drink to honor a fallen hunter (or to celebrate the fall, depending on how well-liked he or she had been), and if they were close, there would be an attendance at the hunter's funeral, but there was no real acknowledgement. No one grieved out loud, they just went through the motions.

Two days after they got to Rufus' cabin, Chrys went to Bobby's room, determined to do something. She couldn't handle the stillness of grief anymore. She knew that Dean and Sam were different, that they were okay with waiting to take action. They needed to wallow, especially Dean. He was never going to admit how much Bobby's loss had hurt him and Chrys knew it. He needed this time of quiet and motionlessness to process his feelings.

Chrys, on the other hand, needed to move.

Opening the door to Bobby's room was harder than she'd thought it was going to be. She stood in front of it for long minutes, staring at the flaking, dried out paint. It was an old door, solid wood instead of the cardboard nonsense used in modern houses. She wondered when she'd gotten an opinion on how doors were made. She thought it was probably something to do with Bobby. The thought hurt.

It also spurred her on, somehow. She opened the door slowly, as if waiting for an attack. She got what she was waiting for as the scents of sweat and motor oil and gunpowder washed over her, inexplicably painful and immeasurably comforting at the same time.

Oh.

The room was dark, which was to be expected. There wasn't a lot of natural light in Rufus' old cabin, and Bobby hadn't been the kind of person to open the curtains to let sunshine in, anyway. There were some clothes on the dresser in the corner, clearly tossed there at the end of a long day. Bobby's duffel lay open on the dresser, too, with clothes and papers and a couple of books spilled out around it. The bed, taking up the middle of the room, was neatly made, which surprised Chrys for no reason she could put her finger on.

A remnant from the days of being married, she thought sadly. Bobby deserved so much better than this life.

She tried to shake her melancholy thoughts as she stepped into the room. She let her eyes fall closed and absorbed the room for a moment, letting everything sink in before she turned and walked toward the dresser decisively.

Once there, she stacked the papers to be sorted through later. It was a mix of old, crinkly paper and new, crisp printer paper. The books she stacked, too, in a separate pile. She took the clothes and put them all in the basket in the other corner to be taken downstairs and washed. As much as it hurt, as much as it felt like it would be getting rid of Bobby, they just weren't in a position where they could throw away good clothes. Even if they were Bobby's.

With all of that done, she looked through the stack of books (this bag must have been so heavy) until she found a thick, leather-bound journal. She stared at it for a few beats, scared again of touching something that was Bobby's, something sacred and special.

Get your head out of the clouds, she told herself briskly as she picked up the address book. This has to be done, you know it and they know it.

She took the address book and, no matter how harshly she told herself to stop being ridiculous, she couldn't help handling it as if it were delicate, precious, as she walked back downstairs and into the kitchen.

When she passed through the living room, she stopped to stare. Dean was sitting on the couch, in front of the coffee table. He was glaring at his cell phone, which was placed neatly on the table. Chrys knew he'd sent the numbers that Bobby gave them to Frank that morning, but she hadn't realized he was already expecting results. Frank was crazy, no doubt, and really really good at hacking and gathering information he had no business having access to, but he wasn't that good.

She wasn't going to tell Dean that, though. No, she thought Dean needed to focus on something, anything else. The loss of Bobby was always going to hit each of them hard, of course, but Dean was different. As much as he'd have liked to pretend differently, Dean felt the most of any of them and he always had. It was what had made it so hard for him to settle with Lisa during the year they'd been without Sam, what had made him seek Chrys out and keep her close. As much as he'd be loathe to admit it, or as much as it would have made his life easier, Dean was an exceptionally feeling human being. Bobby's death was undoubtedly affecting Dean the deepest.

So, though she wanted to try to shake him and bring him up out of his grief, it wasn't the way Dean operated. She let him be and went into the kitchen.

She set the book down on the kitchen table and glanced out the window at Sam. He was sitting on the back porch, staring out into the forest from one of the rocking chairs there.

Sam, she knew, would be okay faster than his brother would. Sam was out there, quietly processing, working through his grief, getting to a place where he'd be able to function. Quite suddenly, even though she knew she wanted to notify Bobby's hunting contacts of his passing, where Sam was seemed like the best place to be.

She left the address book where it was and went outside.


Sam wasn't surprised when Chrys came outside to sit with him. He opened his arms and she settled in his lap quickly. He wrapped himself around her and pressed his lips to her hair, letting his eyes fall closed as he savored her weight in his arms and her scent overwhelming his senses. Her closeness was overwhelmingly comforting.

Sam had never lived without knowing that Bobby was somewhere, near or far, worrying about the Winchesters in the back of his mind. He'd never hunted without knowing that, if they got into a jam, Bobby would move Heaven and Earth to help them out of a bind. He'd never… Hell, he'd never done anything without knowing Bobby would be there for him, not from the moment he was conscious enough of life to know that people were around who cared about him.

He was slowly coming to terms with the change. Being at the cabin was helping. It was quiet here, tranquil. As he rocked in the chair a little, pulling Chrys tighter against him, he was grateful they had the chance to be there, away from the world for a while. Even if Dean was just staying there under the guise of hunkering down to wait for Frank to get back to them. Rufus' cabin, for all of the memories he had of hunting and researching and fighting there, was a good place.


Dean was staring at the cell phone he'd placed on the coffee table. He'd given Frank the numbers (four five four eight nine four five four eight nine four five four eight nine over and over in his head, his mind clinging fiercely to the last thing Bobby would ever say to them) that morning, and he was certain he'd hear back that day. The next day at the latest.

When Chrys plopped down onto the couch next to him hard enough to jar him, he finally blinked back to awareness. He realized, with a dull sort of interest, that it was dark outside. The aches and pains of sitting in one place, in one position, for as long as he had been were making themselves known. His eyes were a little bleary (when did that happen?) and his belly was aching and gurgling with hunger.

To his utter and complete surprise, Chrys pushed a plate of pizza into his hands, nudging his stomach with it until he took it. Sam came into the living room next and handed Dean a beer, then sat in the armchair next to the couch closest to Chrys. He picked up the remote for the small television, turned it on, and started flipping through channels.

Dean blinked. "Uh…"

"Shut it, Winchester," Chrys said easily, without heat. "We're gonna eat this shitty pizza, drink this shitty bear, and watch shitty television until none of us can move."

"Uh…"

"Shh," Sam admonished. An old western was on, and Dean perked up a little when John Wayne came on screen.

He wondered, briefly, what the hell the other two thought they were playing at. Like he didn't know what they were doing, taking care of him. Like he didn't know he'd been turning to work as an unhealthy coping mechanism, obsessing over that damn phone. Like they weren't being fucking obvious.

"Stop it, Dean," Chrys said softly. "Just eat."

Dean did as he was told.


Four hours later, Sam snapped a picture on his cell phone of Chrys leaned over against Dean's shoulder, drooling onto his shirt as she slept. Dean, himself, was out like a light, too, and his arm had come up to wrap around Chrys. Sam chuckled and saved the photo, delighted at the opportunity to tease both of them later for cuddling out in the open.

Squishy on the inside, he thought fondly.

And if there was a tiny, tiny voice in the back of his head whispering thoughts of jealousy and unfaithfulness and suspicion, he chalked it up to Lucifer's influence and ignored it.


- Apparently, I'm not over Bobby's death, so we needed two whole chapters to be sad bout it. Back to the story next chapter, I promise.