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Dean thought of her as the Garden Lady and though he have never exchanged more than a wave with the elderly woman as he jogged past her place five times a week, he knew a number of things about her. She loved her garden and weeding was not a chore but a joy. Every plant was carefully tended. Her garden was far bigger than what she could possibly consume. Seriously, she could have fed herself from a plot a quarter that size.
She was a widow and retired if she had ever worked. She wore her wedding ring even in the garden but she was quick to clean it. Dean had never smelled a live man in her tiny house, but occasionally he could smell mothballs and male. Dean was pretty sure she had kids and grandkids (and possibly great grandkids); she returned from every holiday smelling of happy babies. She was a devout Catholic, often humming or singing hymns as she tended her plants, in Latin if needed. It took Dean a couple weeks and a light conversation with Sammy about Pastor Jim to realize that her singing wasn't bad or off, she was simply singing the alto/harmony part of each song instead of the melody.
Dean always ran the trail that edged the back of her property fence so he could see how the plants were supposed to develop. She had started the habit of leaving a glass of ice water on the corner fence post for him and would sometimes chat with him about how this plant or that plant was doing in the current weather. The knowledge could be useful. Sammy was talking about having a garden next year. Dean wanted to get back on the road and hunt the supernatural. He had never zoned while on his run. He was thinking of many things with each footfall. (Sandburg was pretty sure that since he was paying attention to his heart rate as well as everything else that he couldn't concentrate on any one sense, even hearing, since his heart rate would automatically slow down and snap him out of any zone.) He spiked at least once a day, but with the exercises with Sammy suggested by Sandburg, and those mentioned in his mother's books, he was improving rapidly.
Sam was trying to follow the example of previous Hawks and Hawkers; keeping a house and protecting a smaller territory from the supernatural. Dean wanted to be more proactive than that.
There was also the niggling feeling and mystery of how Dean had managed to escape Hell. His memories were thankfully fuzzy of that time period, as were his memories of waking up and stumbling his way to Bobby's and then Sam's presence. Dean only remembered great pain during that time. He had vacillated between spikes of multiple senses and then zones. Knowing what he now knew, it was a sheer miracle that he had managed to get his broken and over stimulated body to safety.
Today as Dean approached Garden Lady's property, there was no ice water on the fence post. The rich loam of her dirt didn't smell moist; she hadn't watered today. Dean didn't think that it was any holiday but he had never been good at keeping track of those things. Dean was never one for ignoring his instincts and his instincts told him something was wrong. He cranked up his hearing and placed one hand on her wooden fence, hoping that the roughness under his touch would prevent a hearing induced zone.
Dean couldn't hear any movement and then a soft prayer, "Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name." A shaky sob interrupted her plea. "Please, please send someone to check on me."
Dean jumped the fence and ran for the back door. He couldn't smell blood, but he could smell pain and only her, no strangers. He banged on the door. "Garden Lady!? Garden Lady! Are you there?" He was already looking around the garden for something he could use to smash through the window and open the door. Hey, that stone dog would be perfect.
"I'm here," the Garden Lady tried to shout. Dean wasn't sure if a regular person would have been able to hear her, but if she thought that she had called for help she probably wouldn't be upset or frightened or suspicious of his sudden appearance. "Help me, please!" Thank you, Father, she whispered.
Dean smashed the door window and unlocked it from the inside. He hurried through the house, grabbing the cordless kitchen phone on his way to the bathroom and the Garden Lady's too fast heartbeat. "It's Dean," he called. "The running guy." He knocked on the bathroom door. "Can I come in?"
She gave a watery chuckle. "Please and call an ambulance."
Dean was dialing 911 as he opened the door. She was on the floor in her nightgown, stuck. Even through her pain, she was horribly embarrassed to be caught undressed. Dean smiled at her and with a feather-light touch examined her. Broken hip and so very cold. Summer might be in full swing outside, but between the AC and the cold floor, she had taken a chill. He conveyed all of this to the emergency dispatcher, along with her road address.
"Where are your blankets?" he asked her.
She directed him to a closet down the hall. He grabbed the warmest blanket and wrapped her tight, oh so gentle so as not to jostle her and cause more pain.
"Loretta," she said softly. "My name is Loretta."
Dean offered her his best flirtatious grin. "I'm Dean. It's so nice to meet you."
The dispatched asked a question over the phone and Dean reluctantly relayed it. "They want to know how old you are. I know better than to ask a woman's age, but medical people? Pfft."
She rewarded him with a pain filled smile, but told him, "Seventy-eight."
"Any drugs?"
"High blood pressure." She pointed to the bathroom mirror. "In the medicine cabinet."
The paramedics would want that, so Dean grabbed it while he had time. He also grabbed the handful of different types of vitamins and supplements. "They want me to go outside and direct them in," he told Garden La-eh- Loretta.
"Please don't leave me," she whispered.
Dean could understand her fear. It close to lunch and she had obviously fallen before breakfast. He told the dispatcher that the back door was open… for certain definitions of open. He stayed with her and held her hand and listened to the sirens quickly approaching. "You got family you need called?" he asked her.
"A daughter and two sons. My daughter is a nurse at the hospital." Loretta frowned, her mind not working a full capacity. "I think she's working the day shift today."
"Do you have a cell phone?"
"Yes. It's off, charging in the bedroom."
He heard the back door open and other people stepping on the glass mess he had made. "This way," he called. He gave Loretta's hand one last squeeze and then scooted out of the bathroom and out of the way. He followed the hallway to the bedroom and found the phone. While he was waiting for the paramedics to strap Loretta to a backboard and put her on the gurney, he made the bed. The bedroom wasn't neat, per se, but it wasn't cluttered either. A framed picture of Loretta and a frail old man graced the bedside, both of them smiling. Dean found her old-lady purse and stuffed the prescriptions, the phone and the charger and the picture inside. As healthy as Loretta apparently was, a broken bone was not going to lend itself to a quick recovery at her age.
He handed the purse off to the more mature paramedic (the other one looked like she was barely eighteen) and promised to lock up behind him. He waved at Loretta one last time as she was lifted into the ambulance. Then he spotted the slight reflections of light buried in the carpets. Dean, but especially the paramedics had tracked broken glass all over the house. He didn't like the idea of Loretta eventually returning to the house to possibly injure herself again. He painstakingly picked up every shard. When he returned to the kitchen and the bulk of the mess, he found the reason why the paramedics were willing to leave someone obviously without a key alone in a house; a Sheriff was crouched in the middle of the glass pieces, examining the stone statue.
"That goes outside, by the pink flowers," Dean told her as he dumped the handful of glass into the kitchen garbage.
She stared at him. She was about Bobby's age, decent looking with sharp eyes. Her name tag read 'MILLS.' "Who are you?"
"Dean. I live at Singer's junkyard."
"What were you doing here?"
"I run the back trail," he nodded past the garden and the chest high fence, "almost every day." It was the common part of the trail to every other path Dean ran during the week.
She raised an eyebrow. "The junkyard is almost twenty miles away."
"That's why I didn't get here until the afternoon."
She nodded slowly. "How did you know something was wrong?"
Sheriff Mills was relaxing in degrees so Dean looked around until he found the broom and dustpan. He could sweep and talk at the same time. He wasn't too worried about a background check. Sam had worked hard on his fake identification. Dean didn't bother to carry his driver's license or cell phone when he ran. According to the state of South Dakota, he was Dean Smith. That's all Mills would find… hopefully. "Loretta normally leaves me a glass of ice water about the time I run by, even if she's inside. No water and it looks like she didn't water her garden either, today. So I knocked on the backdoor to check and heard her yelling." He motioned to the stone dog. "That was the fastest way in."
Mills nodded and turned to put the statue back where it belonged, also getting out of Dean's way so that he could sweep up the last of the shards. He could smell discarded food in the garbage bag and so he drew it out of the can and tied it tight. Loretta had garbage pickup tomorrow. Dean could drag it out to the road now.
By the time Dean returned to the house, Mills had found a hammer, nails and a scrap of wood from Loretta patching the fence to keep out the rabbits. She covered the broken window and locked up behind them.
She offered her hand to Dean. "It was good to meet you," she told him as they shook. "Thanks for taking care of Mrs. Granger. She's good people. Her canned goods keeps the homeless shelters well stocked all winter."
Dean didn't have anything to say to that. This conversation had pretty much exceeded his capacity for 'normal.' Mills watched him run through the garden and hop the fence. Dean took off at his normal smooth pace and put Mills, Loretta and everyone else far from his thoughts. He didn't mind helping in the little ways, but he was made for more. He was born for kicking supernatural ass. The sooner he got a handle on this Sentinel stuff and left, the better for all involved.
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Dean didn't tell anyone (re: Bobby or Sammy) about the incident. Bobby found out because Sheriff Mills had stopped by to confirm at least Dean's place of residence. If Sam found out, he didn't let Dean know. Dean still ran past Loretta's house every day, to ensure that nothing happened to it while she was in the hospital. He had managed to ignore the garden for a couple days before the droopy plants got to him. Loretta had the garden hose right there, so he hopped the fence and watered the garden. The next day, the plants looked better but still not recovered. So he watered again. Dean watered every damn day and wished that he could just let it go, but he kept remembering about what Mills said about what would happen to the fruits of this labor. He couldn't let the least fortunate starve if it meant only an hour out of his day, and it wasn't like he had anywhere to be. When a stray weed popped out of the ground, Dean plucked it and threw it on Loretta's compost pile because, well because.
Dean hadn't meant to be around when Loretta saw her garden for the first time since her fall, he had just happened to hear Loretta and another woman arguing about it as he approached the property.
"Mom, no. I haven't had the time to look at it. It's been a dry summer, I'm sure nothing's alive."
"I want to see."
"Mom, I don't want to see you disappointed or upset."
"I want to see."
"Mom. If you see it, you'll try to do something, try to save it and then you'll stress your fracture."
"Lauren. I'm not going garden, I just want to see."
"No, you'll see and you'll wonder how much you can salvage and then you'll guilt trip me into doing something."
"Lauren. Let me see my garden."
Dean had to chuckle about the immoveable force of Loretta Granger. He picked up his pace so that he could see her reaction to all the living and productive plants. He wasn't disappointed. Lauren looked gob smacked and Loretta's hands were clasped together and her eyes were shining as she sat in a wheelchair. Lauren was the very image of her mother at fifty-ish, kind eyes and strong, competent hands. She was rarely surprised like this. "Maybe Luke or Mark?" she wondered.
"No. Your brothers took care of all the bills –household and hospital- but they wouldn't have thought to hire someone to water and weed my garden. And they would have warned you."
"Mr. Talbot?" Lauren suggested.
"David can barely take care of his own garden, let alone mine." Loretta spotted Dean over the back fence. "Dean! Did you do this?"
Dean shrugged. "I was by here every day anyways. It didn't take much to water a couple plants."
"Thank you. Thank you so very much. You even weeded some too."
"Welcome."
Loretta was all smiles. "Now come in here and pick everything that's ripe. It's near rotting on the vine."
"Mom, no." Lauren groaned. "I don't mind the garden and cooking but you know I hate canning."
"Lauren," Loretta started up in that same determined voice.
"Actually," Dean spoke up. "I've got food allergies and my brother's been wanting to learn how to can to accommodate them. What do you say to using your produce and know-how and me and my brother's labor? You get to do what you normally do with it."
"Deal. But you are taking home your fair share. Lauren get my canning recipe book and a pen and paper and Dean, you call your brother and have him stop at the homeless shelter on Twelfth Street. Lauren will have to call them and tell them that he's picking up all of the empty jars. Dean, come in the gate and start picking."
Dean was chuckling as he eschewed the gate further down the yard and jumped the fence. "I'm going to need your phone to call Sam, first."
"You know where the phone is," the old woman told him archly.
Dean didn't argue as he headed for the house. Loretta grabbed his wrist on his way by. "Thank you. I can't tell you how much this means to me."
"You want me to wheel you into the house?" he offered.
Loretta gave him a stern look. "No. I want to sit here and appreciate my garden. It's… exactly what I need."
Lauren returned outside with a thick binder and the requested pen and paper. Loretta started a grocery list. "Dean, what are your allergies? We might as well work around them. Can't have you getting ill in the middle of canning."
"Pretty much all pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Anything too acidic and processed gives me problems as well."
Loretta hmmed. Loretta had never used any manufactured chemicals on her garden as far as Dean could tell.
"You need the phone," Lauren offered.
Dean smiled and followed the woman into the house. A quick phone call to Sam and his baby brother was stupidly thrilled at the idea of learning how to can from someone experienced. He had put in enough hours to be able to leave the newspaper office early and he knew where the homeless shelter was. He was on his way before they ended the call.
Lauren took the phone and dialed the shelter. She informed them that Sam was coming.
"Six and half feet of floppy hair and puppy smiles," Dean described for her.
Lauren smirked and passed it on. She grabbed onto Dean's wrist before he could escape back out to the garden, just like her mother had. "You're the one that found her, aren't you?"
Dean nodded.
"And cleaned up the glass and took out the trash."
"I was the one that broke the glass," he reminded her.
"Thank you. So very much. It scares me how long Mom could have waited before we realized that she was in trouble. Jody told me that you just happened to notice that she hadn't watered her garden."
"Jody?"
"Mills."
"Sheriff," Dean realized.
"She's an old friend of mine. Thank you for being observant and seeing a need and responding to that need."
Dean was blushing. He had received less heartfelt thanks for saving people's lives. "I think your mom's calling me," he lied. "She wants me to start picking right away."
Lauren let him go. Loretta was waiting. She wanted him to pick the green and yellow beans first. She might not be able to do much of the canning, but she could surely clean and tip-n-tail the beans while everyone else was busy. Lauren came outside to accept the grocery list and to kiss her mother on the cheek. Dean resigned himself to a long day of following orders
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Dean sprawled in a living room chair, a glass of water in one hand and a still hot slice of zucchini bread in the other. Lauren had returned to the house with bags and bags of groceries from the store but also freshly slaughtered chicken and chicken and duck eggs and goat's milk and butter from down the road. He hadn't had butter since he had returned from Hell and it tasted delicious.
He was exhausted. The rest of them were still going strong. Loretta had taken a nap in the middle at her daughter's insistence but other than that, he was the weakling. Lauren might not like canning, but she knew it well enough to direct the brothers. Thanks to Loretta's garden and experience they had over a hundred mason jars of canned beans, chicken and vegetable soup, pickles, tomatoes and a type of homemade V8 that was really closer to V20. The drink was surprisingly delicious and used up less than perfect vegetables of all shapes and sizes, pureed, strained and then canned . Dean could hear the air being pushed out of the sparkling glass jars as they sealed one by one.
A hand on his shoulder startled him out of the zone. Dean shrugged at his brother's questioning look and took a bite of the now-warm bread. He had always thought that zucchini bread had sounded too healthy to be delicious but Loretta had proved him wrong. Sam wandered back to his conversation with Lauren and Loretta. The nerd had shown up with the boxes and boxes of canning jars from the homeless shelter but also a spiral notebook to write down recipes and instructions from canning. He was cheerfully picking the women's brains. He had kept up the easy dialogue throughout all of the cleaning and cooking and thankfully had distracted them from Dean's fugues and random spikes.
Dean heard the oven door open and close again and could smell yet another loaf of zucchini bread and also something that smelled of chocolate. That was Lauren. She had cooked and baked the vegetables into things that could be frozen and then used later by either her family, Dean's family or the homeless shelter.
"He has PTSD," Lauren stated quietly. If Dean hadn't been a Sentinel, he wouldn't have heard her.
"Yes," Sam answered. His heartbeat didn't change, he truly believed it. "But the running is helping. He's getting better. He just needs time."
"Send him my way whenever," Loretta offered. "We're going to need to can again in a couple of days."
Dean heard the heavy crinkle of aluminum foil.
"I'll plan on it," Sam promised.
"Here," Lauren offered. "Zucchini brownies, to tempt him. He needs to up his calorie intake. He's thin as a rail."
"He's normally runs past here about noon, so he's not eating lunch. Do you think I could tempt him to eat with me?" Loretta asked.
"Probably not yet. But he'd never turn down a cookie or two, as long as his stomach was cooperating."
"Lemonade?" Lauren suggested.
"Too acidic and strong," Sammy told them. "Keep with the water. Pie is his weakness."
Dean would normally be upset that they were talking about him, but he was too tired and Lauren and Loretta were too good of cooks.
"It's too late for strawberry rhubarb and too early for apple unless you pay for them through the nose at the farmer's market. What about peach?" Loretta asked.
"He'd eat peach."
"Then I'll have a peach pie for him come Wednesday when you return for more canning. You can take your share of today home then."
"Thanks. He'll love it. I better get him home."
"You take care of him."
"I will."
Sam appeared before Dean. He took the half eaten piece of zucchini bread out of Dean's hand and added it to the rest of their food booty. He handed the empty glass of water to Lauren and then helped Dean stand. He ushered Dean out the door and to the passenger's side of the Impala. Dean fell asleep before they pulled into Bobby's driveway and he didn't really remember being guided to his bed.
But he slept. Oh, he slept so well.
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