CHAPTER 4

The inside was not what he expected. At all.

Not in a millions stinkin' years.

Dean didn't know how long they sat like that, Anna crying and Dean wiping her tears. All he knew was that she'd eventually calmed, and they stood wordlessly together before she grabbed her keys to unlock the door.

He'd had to do it for her in the end; her hands were still shaking too much to aim properly.

They walked in together, with his arm around her back and her leaning into him. It felt natural, as if they'd been this close to each other for years, as if they were accustomed to the mutual touch. It wasn't expected - he had thought her dead for months, and before that they'd never really gotten past hugs, but they fell easily into the togetherness. It just seemed right.

He closed the door behind him when they crossed the threshold, and automatically went to lock it. He blinked. There were four locks. The door knob itself, a dead bolt, a bigger deadbolt, and a heavy metal latch with a chain.

He paused to give her an incredulous and somewhat amused glance. She gave him a watery half-smile back, and he locked everything.

She flipped the light switch on in the entryway and led him through the wide open space. The walls were white, spaced evenly with large windows and no paint, but the place was not devoid of color. The dark hardwood floor matched the table against the wall, and the wine colored area rug made the place warm and somehow soft. Frames on the walls showed life drawings of people in various period dress, and as he followed her through the dining room into the kitchen he saw that the dining table had no chairs but benches instead with cushions the same color as the rug and decorative candles. Wine red, deep brown, and warm off-white swirled through out the house, a theme that made the place seem comfortable, safe, familiar. It felt like Anna. It felt like...like a home.

But none of these details were what made his eyes bug and his mouth gape.

The second the light turned on he could see the lines. Thick, white lines traced every window, the front door, and every air conditioning vent. It was salt; plastic tubing filled with salt. Even the windows themselves were...different. They might've been stained glass the way the panes were divided, but they had no stain, only patterns, intricate and beautiful, but recognizable; protective symbols, sigils, devil's traps, pentagrams, with each window bearing the same word in the center, barely decipherable amidst the design: christo. Holy crap, this place is a demonic bomb shelter...He nearly stumbled as she brought him through the dining room into the kitchen, the sight of so much protection stunning him. It took him a moment to refocus enough to take in the new room.

The kitchen was the only room so far with paint on its walls. Soft cream yellow melted into a light mocha as the kitchen morphed into a living room complete with a large L-shaped couch and what looked like a fifty-inch wide screen TV above a tiled fireplace. A small desk with a computer was set off to the side near the opening that led to the stairs on the other end of the living space.

The salt-tubing lined the fireplace as well, and it was odd how they didn't look awkward at all, instead seeming like decorations. Are those surround sound speakers in the ceiling? Holy heck...He could see that the stairs turned at a sharp angle, leading to the second story of the house.

"Wow..." he breathed, and then he realized Anna was looking at him. They were standing next to the island in the kitchen, still holding hands, but she was looking at him uncertainly, almost fearfully, and it confused him for a moment. It was like she was waiting for his opinion, his approval. He smiled an assuring smile at her, and she seemed to relax.

The house was very quiet. They stood there, and it occurred to him that he didn't really know what to do next.

Apparently, neither did she. Oh well, he thought; at least she's still holding my hand. He immediately felt childish at the thought, and had a sudden image of a pimply seventh grader at a school dance wondering what to say to his date. Aw man...

"So how you been?" he blurted and immediately felt like hiding inside the fridge. The look she gave him was full of exasperation; he was strongly reminded of Sam.

Feeling like a massive idiot, he was about to blurt something to cover up his lame conversation starter when he noticed that there was something red on Anna's face. He blinked. The red trickle went down the side of her face and matched the color of the lines on her left arm exactly, mixing with the rising blotches of purple.

Anna seemed to react to the sudden panic in his face, because she mirrored it.

"What? Dean, what is it?!" He grabbed her and pulled her to the kitchen table, sitting her in a chair and leaning anxiously to examine the cut on her head just as he managed to remember how to form words.

"You're bleeding! Oh my god..." Anna's tensed shoulders slumped at his words, and he vaguely noticed her roll her eyes at him. Again, he was reminded of Sam.

"Dean-"

"I'm so sorry, I didn't think I hit you-"

"No, it's-"

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my-"

"Dean!" He found his wrists were kept from moving by her strong hands, "Stop it," Okay, really strong hands and arms. And she was using that voice that made him think of his dad. "Calm down. You didn't hurt me. Stop freaking out." She forced his hands away from her head and looked at him. He was a bit taken aback by the way her arms flexed when she did that. It was actually really attractive.

"What - then how did you...?" he asked, perplexed. She sighed at him. What, are you stinkin' channeling Sam right now?

"Angry spirit," she supplied, "Threw me around a bit." She shrugged. Dean felt like he'd just blown a gasket, or maybe had a heart attack, but either way he wanted very badly to start yelling, and so was therefore surprised by how very calm and normally volumed his voice was when he responded.

"You - you were hunting?" His words were quiet, almost conversational sounding. Anna sighed again.

"Yes." There was silence for a small second.

"With who?"

"Nobody."

"Alone?"

"Yes, Dean. I've been hunting for almost five months." The silence lasted longer this time.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Look," she stood and reached around him into the cupboard by the fridge and pulled out a first aid kit, "I'm fine. I'll just clean up and then we can talk okay? I think we have a lot to talk about." Um, understatement of the century, and where the heaping heck do you think you're going?

She got about half a step away before he deftly swiped the box from her hand. He glared at her, and pointed to the couch.

"Sit." She rolled her eyes again, but started to grin. She strode obediently to the couch while he followed. He was sure he caught her saying the words 'silly' and 'cute' under her breath.

He had to struggle not to smile; her grinning made him happier than he'd been in a long time, and he was again struck with the realization that she was here; he was here, and she was alive, sitting on the couch, looking at him with her dark eyes and her lips slightly parted and her hair falling perfectly around her face...

"Are you gonna sit down or stare at me all night?" Dean blinked himself out of his reverie, shaking his head to clear it as he moved to sit beside Anna, opening the kit and rummaging for what he needed to clean the cut on her head.

They were quiet for a while. It seemed that neither of them knew exactly where to start. Dean decided to go for it.

"So," he began while he wiped the trickle of dried blood away from the skin of her cheek, "uh..." He forgot what he'd been about to say. Dangit. He immediately felt like an idiot again.

"My parents are gone," she said rather suddenly, her eyes staring past him at nothing, her face blank save for the slight furrowing of her brow. He started at the tone her voice had taken. It was soft, not hesitant, but very nearly flat, as if she were merely mentioning that she'd forgotten that she needed to change a light bulb.

"What, uh, what do you mean 'gone'?" he asked, finding his own voice had softened considerably. She still didn't meet his eyes, and he continued to clean the scrapes on her arm.

"I woke up about a week after," she said in that same soft voice, and he knew she meant after she'd been sort-of-killed by the demon, "and the house was quieter than usual. My mom's usually up early and making noise. I went to wake my dad up. He never hears the alarm. I knocked on their door, but I figured he was just still asleep." Dean could see it all happening in his head; Anna waking up confused, knocking on the door to her parent's bedroom, opening it when no one answered...he glanced at her face quickly, noting her still unfocused eyes that looked more wet than normal, and he pressed his lips in a tight line, hating that she was obviously remembering something painful.

"I went in, and I didn't really get it at first, ya know? It took me almost a full minute to realize the red on the walls was blood, and the room was cold because the window was shattered. I tried not to scream; I didn't want to scare my brother. I went and got him from his room, made him go to the neighbor's house before I called the police. My parents weren't there," she added, and she finally met his eyes, her face still oddly blank, and it hurt him to see her like this, "just the blood. And sulfur, but I found that. The police didn't notice. Nobody notices anything anymore," she surprised him by suddenly looking livid, and he felt his own expression melting into one of concern, but he didn't interrupt; he sensed she needed to tell him this way, without stopping.

"Ever since...since I came back, it's like something broke the barrier, and everything that never existed in my world suddenly found a way in. And this town, this place is a magnet for anything evil. Just this month I've salted and burned forty-seven bodies of angry spirits just in Riverside County. I've taken down two revenants, a witch, and a werewolf."

Dean was finding it very hard not to freak out. An image of Anna standing small and breakable in front of a massive, snarling werewolf flashed in his mind, and Dean had to close his eyes and focus on breathing normally to keep himself calm, she's fine, she's not hurt, she's okay.

"Tonight I had to go after my own grandmother," she whispered. Dean's eyes flew open, and he suddenly had a sensation of tasting something bad in his mouth as he kept his hands on Anna's shoulders, not sure what else to do while she kept talking.

"She was hurting people," Ana's voice cracked for the first time, faltering, "My grandpa and his new wife. I had to stop her," She looked up at Dean again, her expression morphing until she was pleading, almost begging him to understand, "I was the only one that knew how, that she was afraid of birds, that she was connected t-to the locket, and that 'Happy Birthday' was h-her favorite song..." she was gripping his sleeve with her left hand, struggling not to cry, he could tell, "and I just...I just did it. I stopped her. And she's gone." Anna closed her eyes then, and Dean wanted to pull her into a hug, and tell her it was okay and that he understood, but he knew there was more to say, and he couldn't do anything until she was done, because she needed to tell him as much as he needed to hear it.

"And Brian..." Anna was crying in earnest now, sobbing between her next words, and Dean recognized the name of Anna's best friend, recalled how she loved him like her own family, and he knew what was coming, "h-he was helping me so, so much...he worked at th-the hospital...nurs-sing..." more sobbing, she wiped at her face with one hand, but the tears kept coming, "he-he cleaned me up after hunts, never asked me w-why...I told him not to ask...and his sister v-visited him with-with her b-baby, and I didn't, didn't think, I-I didn't know..." Dean was holding her close now, and it was breaking him as she cried heavily into his shoulder, sobbing the phrase 'six-months-old' over and over again. He knew what had happened; the six-month-old child, probably sleeping near his mother at Brian's house, wherever his house was, and the shock of a stranger near the crib, the scream of a woman pinned to the ceiling, the heat of the fire that would have burned the house to the ground with everyone inside...

"A-a-all of them! His mom and d-dad and him and his-his sister and the, the ba-by..." she couldn't make anymore words, she was crying too hard, and Dean found that he wanted very badly to cry with her, hating what she'd been through, hating that he hadn't been with her while it was happening, hating that she was broken and he had no way to fix it.

* * *

Anna remembered as she cried.

She remembered seeing her parents the night before they disappeared, remembered having to explain to Josh that his parents were gone, knowing they were dead but unsure how to let her brother know, she remembered the life insurance company visiting and receiving the money, using it to protect the house, to buy guns, to buy salt, and to pay for Josh to go to school.

She remembered singing 'Happy Birthday' with her grandma when she was little, remembered when she'd received the locket for Christmas, remembered promising never to lose it or break it.

She remembered getting the call that Brian's house had burned down, that everyone had been killed, turning to gaze in shock at his guitar still in the living room of the house that was hers now, his guitar that was like another limb for him, his guitar that he'd forgotten when he'd been over two days before to babysit her brother. She remembered how even Josh had cried when she told him, how he'd fallen asleep with his arm around the guitar by his bed, how she'd taken it that night to a dirt lot and burned it, crying and hating herself but knowing that she wouldn't be able to do it later if he came back, a transparent spirit charred and dangerous in death as he would never have been in life.

She pressed her face into Dean's shoulder and balled for all she was worth, hating herself for her weakness but so incredibly grateful and even happy that Dean was there, his arms around her, holding her and kissing the top of her head and stroking her hair as he murmured assurances in her ear, his voice calming and loving and so safe. She had missed him so much, had worried so much, had been so sure she would never get to see him again, that it might've all been in her head, that she might just be insane...

And suddenly she was grabbing his face and kissing him, kissing him like she wanted to kiss him that day when she sent him with Sam, kissing him like she should have when she'd last had the opportunity, kissing him because she wanted him and needed him and loved him and…

And he kissed her back, and he was eager but gentle, and her face was wet but the tears were over, and he twisted his fingers into her hair and held her against him, and in that moment she didn't care that she was dirty and bruised and scared, because she was totally and irrevocably happy that Dean was here with her, the way it should be. She forgot that her brother was spending the night at his friend Conner's house again, she forgot that her parents and best friend were gone and her life was a mess, she forgot it all because nothing else mattered, not demons or spirits or brothers or friends, because there was Anna and there was Dean and there was nothing else, because they were nothing without each other anyway.

* * *

The door was thick and hard. When she knocked, the sound seemed to echo strangely, and it made her head hurt more.

She breathed heavily, trying to make the world stop swaying, and she moaned softly, waiting for the door to open. Please...just open, please. The sound of a lock turning nearly brought her to tears, she was so relieved.

The door was open a few seconds while Brian stared at her with his mouth slightly open. Tall and built, he was wearing his work out clothes, obviously just home from the gym, and his body showed that he spent plenty of his time there. His dark hair was messy and his dark eyes were wide as he took in the sight of Anna swaying in his doorway, blood coming down her face and seeping into her shirt. Then everything moved very quickly at once.

"Oh my GOD!" Brian cried much too loud, and she barely had time to wince before Brian was picking her up and carrying her swiftly across his living room, the door slamming behind him, cussing so intently Anna might have taken offense had she not been distracted by the pounding in her head. Brian laid her down on the couch, then swept around the room, up the stairs, through the kitchen, back into the living room carrying gauze and alcohol and towels and a pot - what's with the pot? - and water bottles and some sharp objects that didn't look very fun.

"Bri...Brian." Please don't freak out, please, please don't throw a fit.

"I know Anna, I gotcha, gosh you're so stupid, why do you do this to me, what the heck were you doing, oh man you're bleeding a lot, it's okay honey, I'm here, you're okay, I've gotcha, you're such an idiot, I can't believe this, hey stay with me Anna, open your eyes, that's right, good girl, dangit you're such a jerk!"

Anna would've thrown something at him, by her head was hurting a lot.

"My head hurts...lot." Dude, shut up already.

"I know, I know Anna, I'm gonna make it stop, I don't think you need a hospital, but dangit if you keep this up I swear one day I won't be able to fix you up, does that hurt, I'm sorry, you need stitches, where's my suturing needle, here drink this," he gave her a bottle of what she could've sworn was tequila, "that's it, okay this is gonna hurt and I'm sorry honey, why do you do this to me, show up bleeding on my doorstep, nearly gave me a stroke, why do I put up with you, drink some more, aw please don't do this anymore, you're my best friend Anna and I love you and everything but gosh you bleed in waterfalls, stop moving."

"Brian," she managed to grab his wrist, her vision swimming awkwardly while her brain began to haze from the tequila. He paused in his frantic monologue, meeting her eyes with as much concern and frustration and love as any father or brother or friend could only imagine having. She focused for just a second, and looked at him with the look he said should be illegal, the look that he could never say no to, the look that she'd given him every other time she'd come to him bleeding or bruised.

"Thank you," Anna said. Brian closed his eyes and nodded, and as Anna closed her own eyes, she heard him speaking to her as she passed out.

"Anything for my best buddy...god you're so stupid…" and he kept up a steady stream of profanity while he stitched her head up...

Anna drifted from her dreaming, feeling her self waking up, sensing the sunlight behind her eyelids, but she fought to stay asleep. She wanted to stay in the dream, where Brian wasn't dead, where it wasn't her fault, where she wasn't alone.

She gave up, giving in to the morning. With eyes still closed, she frowned, stretching, and froze.

This didn't feel like her blankets.

Too small, her back was against something, there shouldn't be so much light.

And she could hear a sizzling sound coming from somewhere to her left.

She bolted up right, eyes flying open, hand reaching automatically for the handgun on her bedside table, and she brought it up aiming...

No gun. She had no gun in her hands, and she was on her living room couch, aiming without a weapon at the salt outlined window.

She dropped her hands and groggily assessed her surroundings. She looked down at herself, seeing a blanket draped over her, and she tried to remember why she wasn't in her bedroom. She turned blearily toward the sizzling sound to see Dean hovering over a frying pan in the kitchen, the smell of what was undoubtedly bacon reaching her. Memories of the night before washed over her, and she felt the same sense of safety and relief and piercing emotion that she had then. She sighed, and rubbed at her eyes, trying to wake up.

"Dean? You cookin'?" He turned and grinned a bit sheepishly at her, and dangit if he didn't look incredibly attractive holding a spatula.

"Well, trying; it's been awhile since I've cooked anything. Bacon and eggs okay?"

She grinned at him, climbing off the couch and going to examine his efforts, which looked incredibly appetizing. She realized she was starved.

"Awesome," she replied, hugging his side momentarily before going to grab plates from the cupboard.

* * *

It was ten'o'clock when they sat to eat.

Dean couldn't stop smiling.

It felt incredibly weird to be eating a breakfast he actually cooked in an actual house at an actual kitchen table with a girl he could actually see himself living with. On second thought, weird didn't even cover it.

But at the same time, it felt so incredibly relaxing, and he couldn't find it in himself to worry what they would do next or if they could keep this up or anything, because he couldn't get his mind to work past the fact that Anna was sitting across from him eating his cooking.

Apparently, his temporary blissfulness made him temporarily stupid too.

"So what happened?" The question popped out of his mouth without him meaning it to. No, don't ask that, you idiot! I didn't mean it, Anna, I don't want to know.

"What do you mean?" she looked at him quizzically, chewing her bacon.

"In Ohio, after I left. What happened?" Shutup! What am I doing? Please don't answer, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot...

She froze, mid-chew. Then swallowed, staring at her plate. She didn't look angry or uncomfortable, just surprised. Dean meanwhile, was inwardly blowing gaskets again.

"Are...are you sure you want to know?" She looked at him, and what is that look, it that skepticism? Worry? Concern?

Dean's head nodded of its own accord. No. Please, no. I don't, really. Anna looked at him, long and hard, then she shrugged and started talking casually, eating her food and acting like this was a conversation as normal as the weather.

"It was fine for a while. I mean, I was scared, but mostly only because I was afraid something might happen to you and Sam. I kept thinking something was gonna go wrong, like there was something right in front of my nose that I was missing. Then it just kind of clicked in my head; I dunno how I knew, but I realized the room number was 22 and I just knew that was bad news, like some psychic warning or something, I guess. But it was too late of course," Dean was beginning to feel slightly sick, watching Anna talk so calmly about it, eating at the same time, "The demon was already there. The cell phone died and the lights went out, and then the ceiling and floor cracked, breaking the devil's traps. The salt lines got blown around and I thought I knew where it was so I started shooting, but it happened too fast, and I never actually saw it. Threw me around a lot," Anna said holding her last piece of bacon, shrugging again. Dean felt like he may never have any desire to eat ever again, "and then it started to tear me up from the inside, you know what I mean. It was over pretty quickly, so it wasn't that bad."

Dean heard himself make a kind of choking sound, and Anna looked up at him.

"I mean, of course it was awful," she amended, looking somewhat alarmed at whatever expression was on his probably stark white face, "but it wasn't drawn out or anything. I knew I was going to die, though, and I was mainly just sad that I wouldn't see you again. I was afraid to die alone," she was staring off into space again, and Dean was struggling to keep breathing, trying desperately to keep down the four bites of breakfast he'd taken before she told this story, "and then you were there. And I wasn't scare even though I knew I was dying, because you were there with me. You said you didn't know what to do, but I didn't expect you to; I just wanted you to stay with me. You carried me outside, I think....I remember being inside of the car. Then I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't say what I wanted to say. I think that was the worst part. I guess that was when I died. I woke up in my bed, though. It was like I'd never been gone. I thought it was all a dream, at first. But I still had this..."

She pulled his necklace out from her shirt, the bronze amulet hanging innocently from the black leather cord. Dean was still working through the flash of memory he'd gotten when she talked about herself dying. He was trying not to pass out or cry out, trying to stop sweating and clenching his fists, trying to ignore the full plate of thoroughly disgusting-looking food in front of him. He recognized the necklace for what it was, what it would've meant to her these last five months, because it was the same thing her necklace had been for him.

Knowing she'd kept it gave him something, made him feeling some warm emotion that allowed him to calm down and feel okay again.

He met Anna's eyes and saw her small, concerned smile.

He got up, walked around the kitchen table, and wrapped her in his arms, feeling that he might never let go.