Thank you for your comments so far, they've been very encouraging! Sorry for the delay on this, writing a background for an original character that involves an established character is actually really hard! But I hope it works :)

Erin couldn't remember the last time she had been so tired; physically and emotionally. Dean had fallen asleep several hours before and while she should have been able to join him in slumber, the chair that matched the couch was uncomfortable at best. Plus she found herself checking on Dean every hour just to be certain that he was alright.

And every time she did, she felt that familiar twinge in her stomach, the squeeze of her heart when she looked at his sleeping features. He was so calm, so without worry when he slept. His whole expression changed when he awake. The small boy that he mirrored when he was dreaming bore little resemblance to the war torn man that awoke.

It was nearing four a.m. when she stood and walked the short distance to him for the upteenth time that night, turning off the not yet sounding alarm on her dying phone as she did. The battery was quickly diminishing and she hadn't remembered to bring the charger.

She was growing extremely familiar with the small cabin, the faint smell of dust and wet wood from the logs that lined the walls, but she wouldn't miss it when they left. Having no experience with injuries and healing, Erin had little idea of how long Dean would take to heal. Days? Weeks? Months? But it wasn't the company that made her want the time to pass quickly, it was the feelings he stirred in her with a simple glance.

Sitting on the coffee table, she tucked her hands between her legs and looked at him, listening to the sound of his deep breaths. She remembered their fight so clearly. They had only known each other for all of three weeks but she knew he was different. Different from every other guy she knew but also so different from the guy he tried to be.

After the incident with the demon and Dean quietly explaining that monsters really did exist, she needed to know more. She quickly came to understand him when he told her of his past, vaguely, but with the major plot points in place. His mother had been killed when he was young and he and his brother took after their father in seeking revenge, which gradually turned into taking out that need for revenge on every other god forsaken creature they could find.

She understood that need for revenge all too well. And she'd tried to tell him, tried to explain that it didn't matter if it was a monster or a human that caused the pain, revenge would never fill the gaping hole that loss left in its wake. But he had been far from open to her sympathy. He took it as pity and told her that she didn't know him enough to pity him. As if she needed more time with him to find more reasons. She knew he was messed up. She saw her own vulnerability in him.

"You think you're the only one who's been hurt, Dean? You think you're the only one who's lost someone?" Her words had come out with more force than she'd intended but she was quickly growing tired of the wall he put up around himself.

His response was at an equal velocity.

"Oh yeah, that's what I think. Do you even understand what Sam and I do? Do you have any clue what kind of crap we see in a month? I get that other people are hurting and you know what? Sometimes I don't care. Sometimes I've just had enough with this whole freaking world hurting."

"And that's reason enough to block out people that care about you? Is that why you push people away?"

"You bet it is! People die, don't you get it? People that I care about, they die. It's as simple as that."

"That's not simple, Dean! That's ridiculous. Everyone dies. It has nothing to do with your or demons or whatever, it has to do with life. It's natural. So what? You really think that's reason enough to pack up and run away at the first sight of an emotion?"

He'd turned, walked to the door, pulled it open and without a glance over his shoulder, slammed it so hard that she felt the walls shake. And suddenly, her house felt cold and lonely. She'd listened to the Impala starting up and revving away, and that was the last thing she remembered of Dean Winchester.

Erin watched the same sleeping man and wondered if he'd changed at all. She'd never meant to feel things for the guy that walked into the bar that day, and she'd never expected to find him so against the idea. He seemed totally okay with a one night stand but the thought of something more, something that involved feelings, was out of the question. He'd been so used to watching people that he loved die that he'd grown accustomed to pushing people away for their own safety - and his own sanity.

Inhaling slowly, she shifted forward onto her knees, a hand resting gently on his exposed arm. The sliced t-shirt still surrounded his shoulders and front but his back, save the area covered by bandages, was open to the crisp air. Even though she meant to wake up, she immediately pulled the blanket up to cover him fully.

"Dean," she whispered. He stirred but didn't open his eyes. His eyes tightened and she assumed his body had become stiff because he hadn't moved at all in his sleep. She was unsure if it was normal or something he did on purpose when he was injured. "Hey, Dean."

"Yeah." His voice was hoarse and raw. She stood and walked to the table where she'd left the bottle of water she'd found in her car on the trip outside for fresh air at about midnight.

She walked back to him and crouched in front of him again. "Here." His eyes, still heavy, barely opened and focused on the bottle. One side of his lips curved into a tired smile. He adjusted slowly, still cautiously aware of the stitching and bandages, and propped himself up on his right elbow. She held the bottle to his lips and he tipped his head back. Erin watched him drink, wondering how hard it was for him to not only accept help, but without complaint. After a moment he shook his head and she set the bottle on the coffee table.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. I'm gonna change your -"

"Yeah, no problem." He pushed himself up to a sitting position, wincing.

"Sorry."

Dean smiled at her as she sat next to him on the small couch. "You really don't have to apologize." At her own exhausted smile, his fell. "You haven't slept, have you?"

The amount of energy it took for her to keep her eyes uncrossed was apparently more evident than she would have liked. "Not much," she lied, remembering every second of walking around or sitting somewhere in the confining building. "But I'm fine. I'm gonna start with your neck." She set the items she'd need on the low table and slowly began peeling away the bandages.

Electricity had apparently just become useful when the cabin was built because the system was far from ideal and the low voltage bulb that hung in the middle of the cabin did little to light it. But she saw enough.

The bandaging revealed the stitched wound and it looked good - not perfect, but good. It was healing and opening, which she was thankful for. Her fingers brushed the short hair behind his ears as she moved and her attention faltered. His hair was longer than she remembered but not my much. He obviously kept it well trimmed, yet it now had a more boyish look with longer untouched spikes. It looked soft and playful; which went against the stoic and stiff appearance he tried to portray.

"Look okay?" he asked distantly, his focus obviously on trying to keep himself awake and upright more than his cut.

"Yeah, it looks good. I think it's healing."

"Good."

His deep voice echoed in her ears and she wondered if it was the lack of sleep that was causing her to over-notice everything about him. She was the type of woman that went to bed at nine o'clock every night and was asleep by nine thirty, so it was no surprise that her mind was struggling. Deciding that it would be easiest to stay awake if she could concentrate on something else, she said the first thing she could think of.

"Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah."

She sighed, carefully removing the last of the bandage before reaching for the gauze and unwinding it. "Do you remember the last night we talked… that I said I understood where you were coming from?"

His hesitation was deliberate, as if he was trying. "Yeah, I guess I do."

"I wasn't kidding."

Dean's shoulders rose slowly and fell even slower as he blew out a breath. "Okay."

Erin began placing the bandage over the stitching after a moment of letting it breathe. "See when I was 8, well actually when it was my Birthday and I turned 8, my Mom and I were gonna go to my favorite restaurant." She paused to see if he was paying attention. A few seconds passed and he turned to her as much as he dared to with the wound, curiosity in his tired eyes. She cleared her throat. "Well our car wouldn't start so we took a bus. I remember it being totally empty except for the driver. And then at one stop a guy came on. I could tell my Mom wasn't comfortable with him when he sat behind us. I didn't think anything of it but it didn't make any sense for him to pick the seat behind us when every other seat was available.

"Anyways, after a few minutes he stood up and he had a gun and he demanded my Mom give him her purse. She gave it to him and kept begging him not to hurt us." She hadn't expected the vivid memories that accompanied the story she had long ago buried. Talking about it now opened up every door she'd deliberately slammed shut.

"And?" Dean's voice was gentle, soft.

"And after he took her wallet, he tried to get off the bus but he saw that the driver had called 911." Her voice stopped and she swallowed hard against the hated emotions she felt in her throat. "He got so mad and he just… he just started shooting." Her hands slowed and fell to her side as she finished with the dressing.

Even though he knew that his back still needed attention, Dean shifted and sat facing her. She kept her eyes from his and jumped when she felt his hand rest over hers. "M-My Mom… she got shot in the head twice. I watched her die right in front of me."

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She sniffled and breathed unsteadily. "They never caught the guy." Her eyes slowly rose and met his. "I understand that helpless feeling. Knowing that someone you care about died because of you… that doesn't go away. And that desperate need for revenge, it doesn't help. It just eats away at you and before you know it, it totally consumes you." Erin was amazed by the honesty in Dean's eyes. Even though he said nothing, she knew that he was understanding everything she said. "So, yeah, I understand you."

He nodded slightly but didn't respond.

"And I also understand that you can't let it rule you. You can't push people away because you think you'll get them killed. It took me a long time to realize that it wasn't my fault. That just because I was there and I was the reason that we were on that bus… it wasn't my fault." She remembered heaping blame on herself, hating herself more and more every day when she thought about how they never would have been out. Many years passed before she saw that forcing people who cared about her out of her life did little to ease the loss. It only made it worse.

"Yeah," Dean said with a sigh. She could almost see him thinking, trying to place her story in his mind and where it belonged in reference to him. "You'd better get back to it." His smile was small but genuine as he turned away and angled his back to her.

Erin felt no disregard in his dismissal and she smiled to herself. The facade that Dean wore was slipping away and he didn't seem to care. Maybe it was the fever he was fighting, maybe it was from the stress of the last day, or maybe he was genuinely tired of forcing himself to be stronger than he was.

Not that he was weak, she thought. Not by any stretch. He was the strongest person she knew, but he used his strength to portray a careless front. Something in her longed to know everything about him even though she knew he would never tell her. He cared enough for her to call for help but she doubted she would ever mean more to him than that.

The bandaging on the burn came off just as easily and the red and calloused skin looked good, all things considered. She quietly relayed what she saw to him and he nodded, saying that it felt better too.

"You could become a nurse," he said as she worked.

She gave an abrupt laugh. "Oh. Yeah."

"Why not?"

"I just don't want to." She didn't voice the sentence that followed in her head. Mom was a nurse.

She rebandaged the burn and glanced at her watch when she finished. "4:27," she read aloud.

Dean shifted again, facing her. "You need to get some sleep."

Everything in her screamed in agreement. "I know, but I… can't." She glanced around the familiar room. "There's no where to lay and -" She stopped when he started to stand. "What are you doing?" Obviously still unsteady from the blood loss, he froze and stared straight ahead. She stood, grabbing his arm. "Dean, what are you doing?" She gently pushed him back down.

He closed his eyes tightly and smiled. "I'm gonna go sleep in my car… if I can get to it."

"What? No you're not. Don't be an idiot."

His eyes met hers. "I think the word you're lookin' for is gentleman."

Her lips curved when she understood what he was doing. "I'm not letting you sleep in your car so I can get the couch. I'll be fine, I'm not the one who's healing. You need all the comfortable sleep you can get."

"Believe me, my car is a lot more comfortable than this couch."

She smiled. "Well thanks so much for offering to let me sleep on the uncomfortable couch then."

He responded by lifting himself just enough to push his hands into the pocket of his jeans and hold up a small set of keys. "You wanna take the car then?"

"I have my own car, Dean," she said with a mix between a chuckle and a scoff.

He shrugged carefully and gave in. "Alright. Well don't say I didn't try."

She shook her head. "I won't." Erin stood, lifted the blanket that had been pushed to the side of the couch and shook it gently, placing it over Dean when he laid down. "Sleep well."

His eyes were closed and she could tell he was already fighting sleep. "Yeah, get some sleep yourself." His words slurred as he fell back into unconsciousness The effort used to stand up had apparently been too much for him.

But it was the gesture that counted and she appreciated it. Erin walked to the chair and sat down, surprised to find it more comfortable now. Or maybe her body was tired enough to accept anything as comfort. She sank into the bulky cushion and leaned her head back, crossing her arms over her chest. Listening to Dean breathe, she recounted what she'd said to him and realized that she had told him what she specifically kept from everyone else she met. No one knew about her past, not even the people that had adopted her. They only knew that her mother had died.

She kept the truth buried but somehow unlocking the facts and sharing them with someone made her feel as if a weight had been lifted. It took her far too long to get over what happened, to really realize that blame didn't always have to settle on her. She didn't know if Dean would take anything she said to heart but she sincerely hoped he would.