A/N: Apologies for the delay. I took a little extra time to work out some plotting issues further down the road, and I am also currently editing Sync to fix all the typos and occasional formatting issues. 40-something chapters down, only 80-something to go . . .
Thanks to everyone who has favorited/followed thus far! Shout-outs to Batmanx, ForTheLoveOfEmmett, The-Knight2000, Ninja Violinist, Sage of Wind Dragons, jkmp28, Drakkillus Darksunn, and sonyavasquez for their lovely reviews!
April 13th, 2027, Missoula, Montana, 7:30 p.m.
The front door slammed closed, and Faith stomped her way into the kitchen. She dropped her beat-up workout bag onto the tile floor as she was rushed by Reggie. She scratched the German Shepherd between his ears, breathing in deeply though her nose. "My God, what is that smell? Is that . . . Did you . . .?"
Dean looked up from the kitchen table where he was balancing the accounts for the garage in a faded red ledger. "Chicken parm," he answered her unspoken question. "Got off early, figured you'd be hungry after you finished with class."
"Yeah." As Faith continued to scratch Reggie, her arms lifted to show a pair of giant sweat stains beneath her armpits. "The kids felt like mutiny today. No one wanted to work, no one wanted to run, so I had to work them extra hard." She gestured towards the oven. "What time?"
The man glanced at the clock on the microwave. "Fifteen? Twenty? Something like that."
"Cool." Faith gave the dog one final pat on the head, smiling at him absently. "I'm gonna hit the shower."
Stretching, Dean closed his account book. He crossed the floor to the fridge and pulled out the broccoli in preparation for steaming. The stairs in the old house creaked in protest as the Slayer tackled them two at a time. Dean smiled to himself. Some things, at least, never changed.
Faith came charging back down the stairs fifteen minutes later, having traded her sweat-stained workout gear for jeans and an old University of Montana t-shirt that Sam had gotten her a few years ago. Her wet hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she had scrubbed the makeup off of her face. In the fluorescent light of the kitchen, she looked younger than her forty-six years.
"You're a hero, Dean Winchester," she said, sliding onto one of the barstools at the kitchen table. Faith stared down at the plate awaiting her: a sizable portion of steamed broccoli, a twisting pile of spaghetti, and the glorious chicken parmesan itself.
"Here." He passed her half of a key lime, then perched on the barstool across from her. "Go to town."
The Slayer squeezed a fine line of lime juice over her broccoli and ripped into her meal. The two ate steadily without speaking until Faith's plate was almost empty, when she finally surfaced for air. "You sure you shouldn't be the one working at the diner?" she joked, pausing with a piece of broccoli stabbed on her fork.
"Ha, please," Dean scoffed, mid-bite. A wad of half-chewed chicken and spaghetti bulged against the inside of his cheek. "I'll take my cars over your whiny-ass waitstaff any day."
"Fair enough." Faith reached for her glass of water and took a quick sip. "So Caro called me on my drive home."
He raised an eyebrow at the mention of his sister-in-law. "Everything okay with her and Sam?"
"They're fine," she hurried to reassure him. "Caroline was just wondering if I could pick up Livvy and Rachel from school tomorrow and take them to the doctor, since it's my afternoon off. She got asked to work a twelve at the hospital last minute, and Sam's last class doesn't wrap up until five. I thought I'd take the girls and Reg to the park after, if you want to join."
Considering, the hunter tilted his head to one side. "What time's the doctor?"
Faith fished out her cell phone to check through her text messages. "Livvy's at one, and Rach is at one-fifteen. Accounting for the doctor running late, I figure we'll be out by two."
"Huh." Dean thought, running through the next day in his mind. There was that new cruiser that Sheriff Simmons wanted back in commission, not to mention the old Pontiac that he needed to start rebuilding. "Tomorrow's gonna be long, but I can probably take a late lunch and meet you for a bit."
"Post-doctor ice cream cones?" the Slayer guessed. It was kind of his tradition with his nieces, and she rarely saw them as excited as when it came time for a trip to the ice cream parlor with Uncle Dean.
"You got it," he confirmed with a smile.
Faith speared her last bit of broccoli. "All dessert and no vegetables. No wonder those girls love you so much."
The hunter's smile broadened into a wide grin. "Can you blame them?"
"Very funny." The woman hopped off of her stool and rinsed her dishes in the sink. As she slid her plate into the dishwasher, she said over her shoulder, "Speaking of loving things . . ."
"Your Mr. Perfect finally wander into the diner from off the street?"
Rolling her eyes dramatically, Faith knelt beside her gym bag and began rummaging through it. "Not quite." Her hands closed around a stack of DVDs, and she pulled them out. "Marge at the diner was cleaning out her daughter's bedroom, now that Frankie's gotten herself off to college. Thought you might want these." She set the stack on the table in front of Dean.
His eyes widened as he took in the title along the spines. "Doctor Sexy? Is this . . . Is this all of Doctor Sexy, MD?"
The Slayer clapped him on the shoulder. "Happy Birthday, Kansas."
Dean continued running his fingers over the DVD cases. "It's May," he pointed out, his gaze locked on the glistening pearly whites of Dr. Sexy's gleaming smile.
Shrugging, Faith said, "Well, I thought about holding onto it until January, but you know me. Patience isn't exactly my middle name." As she realized that all dinner conversation was now effectively derailed, the Slayer added, "So . . . should we start with the pilot?"
Without looking up, the hunter nodded furiously. "Yes."
Decision made, they worked together to quickly clean up the dishes and put away the leftovers. Once the kitchen had been restored to its usual state of hygiene, Faith and Dean retired to the living room. While the Slayer stepped into the mudroom to dump a cupful of dog food into Reggie's bowl, Dean cued up the first season of Doctor Sexy, MD. Longnecks in hand, they then claimed their habitual seats at either end of the comfortable leather couch. The couch, along with the large flat-screen TV, was one of the few luxuries in the otherwise shabby house.
"One episode," said Faith warningly, unscrewing the cap from her beer. She kicked her bare feet up onto the tooth-marked coffee table.
Dean pulled two blankets out of the wicker basket near his end of the couch and tossed one over to her. "Two," he bargained.
"One," repeated the Slayer, even more firmly this time, as she shook the blanket out to cover her legs.
"Fine," he accepted the inevitable. "We can do one tonight. And then one tomorrow?"
In response, Faith fished one of Reggie's half-mauled tennis balls from between the cushion and the arm of the couch and threw it at Dean's chest.
Snickering, the hunter blocked the tennis ball with the back of his forearm. "Missed me."
"You never quit, do you?" the Slayer grumbled. She searched for another tennis ball, but came up empty-handed.
"Shhh." Dean clicked 'play' on the TV remote. "It's time for Doctor Sexy."
Despite her initial protestations, an hour and a half (and two episodes) passed before Faith finally detangled herself from underneath the slumbering German Shepherd and rose from the couch. She stepped into the kitchen to rinse out her beer bottle, and then dropped it into the recycling can near the end of the counter. Passing back through the living room on her way to the stairs, Faith stopped to whistle for the dog. "Come on, Reg. Time for bed."
"Already? It's not even ten."
As she walked past Dean's end of the couch, the Slayer reached out and ruffled his hair. "And I've got work at eight. You wanna run in the morning?"
Dean caught her wrist and pushed her away. He might have settled down and started eating vegetables on a regular basis, but he was in no way crazy enough to join her, Caro, and Sam in their ridiculous passion for early morning exercise. "In your dreams, psycho. In your dreams."
In the end, however, it was his dreams that caused a problem. Dean startled awake a hair after two, his heart racing. Cold sweat dripped down the back of his neck. He lingered in the darkness, struggling with himself and breathing deeply in an attempt to slow his heart, before giving in to his panic.
Leaving his bed, the hunter padded quietly across his floor and down the upstairs hallway to Faith's bedroom. After knocking twice, he entered. The Slayer was fast asleep, lying diagonally across her queen-sized bed with Reggie taking up the bottom third of the bed.
"Hey." Dean took two steps further into the room. "Hey, wake up." When she did not move, he flickered the lights on and off a handful of times in their prearranged signal to prevent someone from earning themselves a knife or a gunshot wound to the gut. "Faith. Wake up."
Without opening her eyes, the woman yanked a dagger from beneath her pillow and hurled it at his head. Dean dodged to the side, and the knife imbedded itself in the wall, a foot above the light-switch and two inches to the left from where his shoulder had been seconds previously.
"You missed. Again."
Eyelids still scrunched shut, Faith groaned. "Hit the lights."
Flicking the lights off, Dean plunged the room back into darkness.
"You have another dream?"
"Yeah."
The Slayer straightened herself out in the bed, nudging the German Shepherd over to the far side and making space for Dean. She held up the edge of the comforter with her right arm. "What're you waiting for?"
Dean joined her beneath the covers, scooting over until their shoulders bumped. Closing his eyes, he listened to the regular sound of her breathing. "Thanks," he said after a long minute.
Faith's hand reached for his, and she tightened her fingers around the bones of his hand. "Who died this time?"
This was the cost of coming to her. He had to actually answer her questions. The hunter exhaled. "You."
Rolling onto her side, the Slayer stared at him in the darkness. She did not relinquish her hold where their fingers were linked together. "I'm not dead, you idiot," she said gently. "And I'm not dying, either. But if I did . . ."
Dean recognized this thread of an old conversation, rehashed many times over endless long drives. "No foolhardy Winchester heroics," he finished the sentence for her. "I'd let you go. And you'd do the same for me."
"Exactly." Leaning down, she kissed him once lightly on the lips and then turned over onto her back. The Slayer fluffed her pillow a little and wriggled to find the most comfortable position, sandwiched between the man and the dog. In an even softer voice, she said, "It's okay, Dean. I'm right here. And I promise, I'm not going anywhere."
"I'll be fine in the morning," Dean grumbled from behind his closed eyelids. He hated nights like this. Even if Faith sought him out nearly as often as he sought her, he still hated that sometimes he was no braver than a little kid, seeking reassurance that the nightmare had not been real.
"I know." She gripped his hand tighter. "I'm still here."
And, listening to the soft in-and-out, in-and-out of her breathing and the muffled whuffing of Reggie as the dog's paws twitched in some doggie-dreamland, Dean finally allowed himself to relax enough to follow the darkness down into sleep.
April 13th, 2015, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 6:45 a.m.
The rumbling of train tracks outside his window pulled him back to reality, like a rubber band snapping into its original position. Dean turned onto his side to find the mattress next to him empty. In the other bed, the gargantuan form of his younger brother was snoring.
Right on cue, the wave of frozen loneliness crashed into him. For a half-second, Dean had to remind himself of the proper way to breathe. She wasn't there. She had never been there. It was only another dream.
The hunter rolled out of bed and reached for the half-empty pint of Jack on the nightstand. He downed a large swallow, wincing at the burn in the back of his throat. After shoving his cell phone into his jeans pocket, he retreated into the bathroom.
The door safely locked behind him, Dean sat on the closed toilet lid. He scrolled through his recently dialed numbers until he found the one he was looking for.
"Hey. This's Faith. You know what to do."
He listened to the voicemail message another two or three times before he set the phone on the counter and stepped into the shower. Dreams were fine and all, but now he was awake. Time to get moving.