Disclaimer: I do not own anything Supernatural, all I own are my stories and the characters you haven't heard of.
Hey people, thanks for the favouriting, some RnR would be lovely too, let me know how I'm doing? Xx
Oh, and I know I didn't mention it before, but the correct pronunciation of 'Maryla' is with the 'Mari' part of 'Maria' with 'lah' on the end. It's a real name. It's Polish.
*
Maryla knocked on the motel door, room 220, shifting nervously from foot to foot. She really didn't want to have to do this, but she really had no choice. It was why she'd called them. She hadn't seen them since the night with the vampires, and that had been just over a month ago. Well, she'd called Sam. She was really hoping it would be him to open the door. But mostly she was hoping whoever opened the door would do it quickly.
Dean opened the door, obviously expecting someone else, seeing as the bite of donut that he was eating fell out of his mouth on to the floor, and he gaped at her, mouth wide open. She looked awful. Her skin was all pale, and she had huge purple circles around her eyes. She looked like she was wasting away.
"Uh. Hey, Maryla." he got louder when he said her name, alerting Sam to the fact that it wasn't the pizza guy, and then, because he didn't know what else to say, he asked, "How are you?" Sam got up to join him.
In reply, and mostly because she couldn't hold it in any more, Maryla threw up on his boots.
"Whoa!" both Sam and Dean jumped back.
"I... I'm really sorry." she said, straightening up, and staring at the mess she'd made. Dean grabbed some towels, and put them over the trail of sick, and held out his hand to help her across the threshold.
For the first time since the three had met once again a month ago, and for the first time in almost six years, Dean and Maryla touched. And, of course, there were still sparks.
Hell, it was more like an electric shock from dropping a hair dryer in a bathtub full of water. As soon as she was on solid ground again, they let go of each other like... well, so quickly that Maryla fell back on to Sam's bed, and Dean fell through the open door to the bathroom.
"Are you all right?" Sam asked, coming over to the red head. He crouched down beside her as she started to shake her head, still laying down.
"Whoa. Bad plan." she murmured, and stopped moving. Dean, deciding he wouldn't be able to take the smell of sick, decided to tackle the mess, "I...I dunno what's going on. I can't eat, I can't sleep, it's crazy."
"So, not all right, then." Sam said. She smiled a little, and then noticed what Dean was doing, and jumped up.
"No, Dean, I'll do it. I mean, I made the mess, you shouldn't have to clean it." she said, swaying slightly, her curly hair sticking out at crazy angles. Dean just looked at her, 'She even looks pretty when she's ill.' he thought, despite his earlier thoughts.
"What are you gonna do? Faint in it face first?" was what he said out loud. Sam sat her back down again, before she got angry. She didn't though. She just surrendered, and moved up to the head board.
"You got salmonella, or something?" Sam asked. She shook her head.
"Been to three specialists, none of them know what the heck is going on." she sighed.
"Think it's some kind of hoodoo?" Dean asked, heading in to the bathroom to wash his hands. She shrugged.
"Would I be here if I didn't?" Sam looked at her.
"That hurts my feelings." he informed her, putting on his puppy dog face. She giggled at him, then stopped short. She jumped to her feet and ran for the bathroom Dean was just leaving. He dodged out of her way this time.
She came back out ten minutes later to see Dean laid back on his bed, listening to Sam's iPOD, as Sam was looking at something on his computer.
"Hey." Sam greeted, "Come here." she obliged and he proceeded to go through the list of medical things that could be wrong with her, checking out her symptoms. Nothing fit perfectly.
"So, now what?" Dean asked, from his observation point.
"Now, we sleep, wait until tomorrow, and if she's no better, try another doctor." Sam said.
"You want the bed?" Dean offered, looking at Maryla, who looked like she was about to fall asleep standing up.
*
She was awake. Again. It was 3am, and she'd been waking every five to ten minutes since they'd decided to go to sleep. She was in Dean's bed, in a pair of Sam's boxers and one of his t-shirts, while he was asleep on the floor, and Sam was on the other bed, snoring like a chainsaw. She should have been asleep too, but she couldn't. Her stomach was aching so much, especially when she tried to lay on her front or side, which was a bitch, because she usually slept on her front or her side. There was something else nagging her subconscious, wanting her to stay awake.
She rolled to lay on her back, to see if that would help. This time, however, it didn't.
"Oh, bollocks." she jumped up and ran for the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
Dean rolled over and looked at the door, wishing he knew what to do to help her, and that he hadn't pretended he was still sleeping. He'd been 'watching' her. Which, in Dean terms, meant that he was pretending he was asleep, while listening to see if she was OK, which would have been easier had Sam not been snoring quite so loudly.
A few minutes later, the sounds of her being sick had died down, and the sound of the flushing toilet had gone and all was quiet for a moment. Then there was a loud thud and a crashing sound. And then a gushing sound.
"Dude. Wake up!" Dean jumped up, shaking Sam awake.
"Wha?" Sam yawned. Then he noticed that his brother was frantically banging on the door to the bathroom, shouting Maryla's name. And that Dean was standing in a puddle, "Aw, dude, you need to control your bladder."
The next thing he knew, Dean had broken down the door to the bathroom, and was slipping around on the tiles.
"Sammy! Call 911!" Dean cried, sliding across the floor on his knees to Maryla's side. Sam rushed to see what was happening, dialling as he moved. He didn't like what he saw.
Maryla was laying, unconscious, in a puddle of water. Water that was turning from a slight pinkish colour, to a deeper red around her head. Dean lifted her gently, ignoring the pool of toilet water around them, holding her in his arms so that she didn't drink any of the water, and trying to wake her up.
*
Mary 'LaCross' woke up 36 hours later in a hospital bed, attached to a breathing machine, and heart monitor, and an IV. And with Dean Winchester laying next to her, his arm across her midriff. He jumped awake as soon as she woke.
"Hey." he said, his voice in that 'I-just-woke-up' gravelly man stage, "You're awake."
"Uh. Yeah." she replied, not really sure what to say to that. Then she smirked a little, "Since when have you been Captain Obvious?"
He smiled, just glad she was awake.
"What happened?" she asked, looking a little lost. He watched her for a minute.
"You decided you really hate toilets, and that the best way to display your loathing was to take one out. Using your head." he said, matter-of-factly.
"I nutted a toilet?" she asked. He raised an eyebrow, "To nut. In British terms, means to head butt someone or something."
"Yeah. As you collapsed. You didn't mention that you hadn't been able to eat or drink anything for almost a week." A disapproving look flashed across his face, "Anyway. So, yeah. All I heard was a thud, which was you collapsing, a cracking sound, which was your head cracking the toilet bowl in half, and a gushing sound, which was the toilet water breaking free."
"Oh." was all she could say. She stretched her fingers. Which was quite hard to do. With her right hand, anyway. She had a cast on it, and it really hurt to move, "Owa." She grabbed it with her left hand.
"Oh, yeah, and you used your hand as a crash mat and broke it in five places. And you have six stitches in your head." he added, taking her left hand away from her right, "And the doctors were amazed that you hadn't thrown up your internal organs."
"Stitches? I thought they used that head glue on head wounds now?" she replied. Sam came in bearing coffee.
"Hey. You woke up. The doctors weren't sure you were gonna make it. Any brain damage?" he asked, handing a coffee to Dean, who slid off of the bed and in to the arm chair by the window.
"Not that I can tell. But then, my brain was probably damaged at birth, according to you and what you used to say about my taste in music." she replied, sitting up a little.
"We're gonna take you to Bobby's. If we keep you there, in a padded room, you might not damage yourself any more." Sam said, smiling at her comment.
"Because it was intentional the first time." she retorted, her voice oozing sarcasm. Sam laughed.
*
"Holy crap in Heaven! What the hell happened to you?" Bobby cried, watching her get out of the car. She looked like a twig with a cast on. And red wool wrapped around the top. Dressed in someone else's, someone who was a million sizes bigger, clothing.
"Always a pleasure, Bobby." She leaned against the Impala for support, hoping Dean wouldn't tell her off for it.
Dean came round to her side of the car, took one look at her, and swept her in to his arms. And almost dropped her. He'd overestimated how much she weighed.
"Geez, Mari, I knew you'd lost weight, but this is ridiculous." he murmured to her. She leaned her head against his chest, enjoying the warmth, and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
"We don't know, to answer your question. We have no idea what is going on." Sam answered Bobby's question.
"Well, let's get her to bed." Bobby suggested. Maryla stiffened in Dean's arms. There was something about sleeping that she couldn't quite remember.
"Hey." Dean said gently, carrying her up the stairs, "Want me to stay with you?" he looked at her with concern, and nearly fell flat on his face, because he missed a step.
She burst out laughing, and didn't stop until he set her on the bed.
"You gonna be OK up here?" Bobby asked, leaving as she nodded, "Holler if you want anything." Sam followed after him.
Dean hesitated at the side of the bed.
"You want me to stay?" he repeated his earlier question.
"No." she replied, an 'I can take care of myself' attitude in her voice. He turned to go, "Yes." she said it so quietly, he turned to make sure she'd actually said it.
"What?" he asked.
"Stay?" she looked at him, eyes filling up with tears, "Please?" He dropped on to the bed beside her.
"Hey, it's OK." he said, taking her in his arms, "It's OK."
"It's not OK. They can't figure out what's wrong with me. I'm gonna die again. Aren't I? And this time it's not gonna be my choice. Oh God. I don't want to die again. If I die again, does he get claim to me again? I don't want to die. Dean." she rambled, tears coming full flow. He didn't have a clue what she was talking about, but he pulled her in to his arms anyway.
"Whoa. Shh." He held her as close as he possibly could, without her becoming a part of him, gently rubbing her back. When she still didn't calm down, he turned to what had always been his last resort with her.
"So close, no matter how far, couldn't be much more from the heart, forever trusting who we are, and nothing else matters.
I never opened myself this way, life is ours, we live it our way, all these words I don't just say, and nothing else matters.
Trust I seek and I find in you, every day for us something new, open mind for a different view, and nothing else matters.
Never cared for what they do, never cared for what they know, but I know."
By the time he got round to singing the second verse, she was asleep in his arms. He sighed gently, and shifted his position. Her hand shot out, taking hold of the front of his shirt, keeping him with her.
"I'm not going anywhere." he told her, thinking she'd woken up. When she didn't respond, he glanced down at her. She was still asleep, a tiny smile on her lips. He kissed her forehead, and settled down on the pillow.
*
Dean had woken, and found he really needed to pee. Whispering assurances to Maryla's sleeping form that he'd be back in a minute, he still had trouble breaking her hold on his shirt.
On his way back, he ran in to Sam, who looked surprised to see him.
"Dude, I thought you were with Mari?" Sam said, looking confused.
"I needed to pee. Not a crime." Dean responded.
"No, but dude, I swear, you were just in her room." Sam said. The brothers looked at each other long enough to hear Maryla talking sleepily to someone.
"De, no. Not tonight. I'm too tired." Both brothers shot in to the room.
"Whoa!" Dean shouted, coming face to face with his naked self, "What the hell?" The thing, whatever it was, snarled at the brothers, and took a swipe at them, before disappearing.
"What the hell was that?" Dean asked, then he glanced down, and whipped the covers from where they'd fallen on the floor, and covered the now naked Maryla with them. He glanced at Sam, who was blushing slightly.
Bobby burst in, shotgun aimed.
"What was all the yelling for?" he demanded. His gaze settling on the elder Winchester, who was kneeling trying to wake Maryla.
"Something took on Dean's form, and was trying to seduce her." Sam explained.
"Rape her more like. She's almost comatose." Dean interjected angrily, his hand running gently along her face. She murmured something unintelligible, and took his hand with her broken one. He traded her hands, holding her unbroken hand tightly.
"So, something took on Dean's, which is a man's form," Dean shot Bobby a look that asked if he was trying to be Captain Obvious now, which Bobby ignored, "And tried to have sex with our girl?"
"Yeah. I guess." Sam said.
"Has she had any trouble sleeping?" Bobby asked.
"Yeah, she doesn't want to sleep. She's not sure why, but she said she just doesn't want to." Dean replied.
"I think I know what we've got." Bobby said, "And someone needs to be with her at all times now."
"What have we got?" Dean asked. Bobby glanced at Sam, who had figured it out almost as soon as he had.
"Incubus." they said in unison.
*
The song, in case you didn't know, is Nothing Else Matters by Metallica. Which I do not own.
Thanks. x