By the time the Impala had pulled into the motel parking lot all three of its occupants were wide awake and dead silent. Dean cut the engine and started to open his door when a cold voice from the backseat stopped him.
"We need to talk," Ellen hissed.
"Sammy," Dean suggested quietly, "why don't you head into the room and help Jaye pack up? Maybe make sure she's all right, too, ok?"
Sam nodded, pushing the door open and practically running into the room Dean had pointed to. The older man made sure the room door was closed and locked before he stepped out of the car and headed for the other room they'd rented.
"Where do you think you're going?" Ellen asked, following him.
"If you're gonna kill me, I'd rather you not do it in the car. Poor baby's seen enough of my blood in her lifetime. I don't want to scar her." He pulled the door open and stepped in, flipping on the lights. "So, how much of the past couple of days do you remember?"
"All of it," Ellen muttered, shutting the door.
"I was afraid you were going to say that," Dean sighed as he started walking around the room and packing up his things in his suitcase. "What do you want to talk about?"
"You even have to ask? How could you do that to me?"
"I didn't do anything!"
"You let that thing manipulate me."
"I didn't have a choice," Dean defended, "it wasn't gonna let me off easy."
"What are you talking about?"
"Before I could make the deal, it threw something else into the pot. It offered you up. I tried to back out, I really did, but it wouldn't let me pick and choose what I got. You have to believe me, Ellen. I wouldn't have done it unless I didn't have a choice."
She stared at him, appraising him, looking for holes in the story. "You seemed awfully happy for someone who didn't want to do it."
"What was I supposed to do?"
"Try not taking advantage of me. Try keeping your distance. Try not getting our daughter's hopes up that mommy and daddy can work things out and we can be a happy family. Any of the above would have been great, Dean."
"I didn't take advantage of you-"
"You slept with me."
Dean rolled his eyes. "I didn't sleep with you. I mean, we were in the same bed, yeah, but we didn't sleep together. We're not gonna have to introduce Jaye to her little brother or sister anytime soon, so I don't see what the problem is."
"The problem is you. You just can't give up on it. Jaye talks about you like you're a saint, but she doesn't even know the half of it, does she? She has no idea how selfish you are."
"I'm selfish?" he barked, "that's a laugh. Just because I wanted my daughter to be safe, that makes me selfish?"
"Manipulating people for your own twisted ends makes you selfish."
"Are you still on that? Man, Ellen, you have no idea how wrong you are. Maybe part of it was for me, sure, but not all of it, not by a long shot."
"Who was it for, then?" she asked, "Jaye? Because getting her hopes up and then ripping her family apart is such a good thing?"
"No. It was… it was because of you, ok?"
"Me? How did I possibly benefit from you working with a demon to make me fall in love with you? How did you taking advantage of me help?"
Dean sighed, hanging his head. "Because you really did love me," he said softly, "you promised."
"You're sick. None of it was real."
He nodded. "Yeah, I know. But I didn't think that mattered."
"How could that not matter? In what twisted universe could that not matter? What could have possessed you to do what you did?"
"I didn't want to break your heart," he whispered, turning and heading out of the room and into the parking lot as the pounding rain slowed to a light drizzle.
o0o0o0o
"They stopped yelling," Jaye noted as she folded up a shirt and tucked it into her suitcase, "think mom killed him?"
Sam shook his head, glancing out the window to see Dean standing in the rain and looking up at the cloudy sky. "Stay here," he muttered, heading out the door and into the darkening night.