George stood over her mother's open grave, the flickering flame engulfing her mother's body reflected in her eyes, in her hands were a book of matches and a can of kerosene and on the ground beside her was a canister of salt. Dean was on her left and John and Sam were on her right, the two of them gazing at the burning corpse while Dean stared at George's illuminated, tear streaked face. Dean wrapped his arm around George's shoulders and steered her away to the car.

"C'mon George, Sam and dad can fill the grave back up"

"I'm fine Dean" George hiccuped and squirmed, trying to get out of his grasp.

Dean hated seeing George like this, it made him feel guilty as hell, made him feel like he wasn't doing enough to protect her. He hated it though, he hated feeling like he had a responsibility towards her, and he knew that if she found out she would probably be very pissed about it. On other occasions it was actually a small comfort, after all the only other people he felt like he had an automatic obligation towards were Dad and Sammy, and it was comforting to know that he at least had it in him to feel passionately about a person who wasn't family, it was actually nice to think of George as family. He knew it was something right out of a cheesy romance novel but it made him feel warm inside, not only the thought of marrying George but the thought of settling down and actually having a future which wasn't lonely and didn't consist of hunting. He loved hunting and sleeping around but sometimes he liked to believe that there was some way he could have a happy future, not that he was unhappy now, and it seemed like George was his only way out. When he was with her he was capable of forgetting everything to do with hunting, he forgot all the other girls, and all his mind was able of focusing on was her lean body, her fiery red hair, the green of her eyes and her intoxicating scent.

"Did you, uhm, tell your dad about Mr. Eckley?" They had gotten to the car, George was sitting in the front seat facing the open door while Dean had his arm on the roof of the car, his forehead resting on his arm and he gazed down at her through worried eyes.

"Yeah, we're going to exorcise him after school tomorrow"

"Can I help, or watch, or something?"

"Don't you have to pick your brothers up?"

"I can swap chores with Micah" she shrugged "Besides, they can always walk home alone or go to one of their friends' houses or something. Dad will understand"

"You haven't told your dad anything right?"

"No, but I have a feeling he knows something's up. I mean he gave me this right?" George pulled out her necklace from beneath many folds of clothing and fingered it fondly.

"True." Dean gestured for George to move over and let him sit, she ended up sitting in his lap after realizing that the seat wasn't wide enough for both of them to sit side by side. "You seem to like this" Dean smirked and kissed her shoulder.

"You're comfortable to sit on" she smiled and rested her head against his "I'm exhausted" she murmured.

"You should have let us do the digging"

"It's my mother's body Dean, my responsibility" she frowned even though he couldn't see it, and Dean sighed knowing that there was no point in arguing with her.

**

George threw herself down onto the bed, letting out a long sigh. Her body was aching all over, her arms, her legs, even her ass. Maybe she shouldn't have worked so hard, but she couldn't just stand around and watch Dean and John digging up her mother's grave. It was her fault they were there, her fault they were digging up graves in the middle of the night, the least she could do is help out, even if it meant her body would ache all over afterwards.

She stared up at the ceiling of her room, trying to erase the image of her mother burning up in a coffin, trying to forget the way she drenched her mother with kerosene and salt, and the way she lit the match and dropped it into the open grave. She shuddered and closed her eyes, forcing herself to remember that it was for her mother's sake, that if she hadn't done it her mother would still be roaming the halls of the house across the street all alone with no one to talk to and no way of making her presence known. It must be terrible, being confined to a single area, having your freedom stripped from you in such a crude way. George firmly believed that death was supposed to give you peace, she wasn't a firm believer in god or heaven or hell, but she knew that dying was probably better than living in a wretched, polluted world.

She dragged herself out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom, stripping along the way. She filled up the tub and lowered her body into the hot water, relaxing her muscles and closing her eyes, letting out a long sigh of relief. Her mind wandered to Dean again, she smiled as she remembered what he had done at lunch today. They had sat down at their regular table, Ash had brought a book with him, Zack and Erin had their walkmans, and Xander had his sketchbook and drawing supplies. George knew that this was their way of coping with the horror of sitting with the jocks and cheerleaders, yesterday all the cheerleader's had talked about was the upcoming sale at the mall and the jocks were having a milk drinking contest, and whoever lost had to recieve a wet willy by the winner. What was worse was that they all kept throwing glances at Dean and giggling, George caught Erin and Xander mimicking them and Zack pretending to gag, Dean had obviously caught this too because he was holding in laughter most of the time.

Jean and her posse approached the table, Erin and Xander let out a groan, Ash buried himself in his book, and Zack just blinked boredly and took out his walkman.

"Hi Dean" she said in a high pitched voice.

"Hi" he said, his voice lacking enthusiasm.

"You know" she dropped herself down onto his lap and smirked slightly "Miranda says you gave her quite the show yesterday"

"What?" Dean cocked an eyebrow, a confused look on her face.

"She says it was the best she's ever had"

"What are you talking about?" Dean's confusion seemed to have increased.

"Oh Dean you don't have to act like you don't know, don't worry I'm not mad at you" Jean winked and teased his ear with her tongue, Dean jerked away from her and placed his hand on the waistband of his jeans, right between his knife and gun.

She smiled, obviously mistaking this as a good thing, and pulled out a chair, she picked up the backpack which had been on the chair and held it up.

"Which loser put their bag on my chair?"

"That would be me" Dean said coolly.

"Well, could you please take it?" she gave him a sweet smile.

"Nope, I put it there, and that's where it's going to stay" Dean smiled pleasantly at her, while Jean narrowed her eyes in his direction.

She moved to the next chair, finding a couple of books stacked on the seat, she growled and moved to the next and the next. Finally, after she had pulled out all of the chairs around the table, she walked off with the rest of her cheerleader friends following in her wake. George spun around to face Dean, a childish grin on her face.

"You owe me" Dean said giving her a slightly cynical look and popping a spoon of chocolate pudding into his mouth "I was this close to fucking her" Dean put his finger and thumb together.

"On the contrary, I don't owe you anything. Now, we're even" she smiled and winked, her eyes trailing over the spoon in the chocolate pudding, and then went into a long discussion with Xander on the best way to erase charcoal.

She smiled to herself, she was grateful to him, if he hadn't done what he had done they would have had to endure another long lunch with the biggest airheads in Kansas, she often said that they belonged in California, living their lives on the beaches of Los Angeles, not torturing high school students in Kansas. She reached for her razor, then decided that she was too lazy to shave right then and there, so she closed her eyes once more and was fast asleep after a couple of seconds.

**

Dean and George had agreed to go to school together that morning, George had asked Erin to come but he just muttered something about not being physically capable of waking up so early and scowled at the ground. George cocked an eyebrow but made no other visible reaction to this strange behavior, Dean caught them arguing in hushed tones afterwards but he got the feeling that if he had asked what was going on he wouldn't have gotten an answer anyway. Sam was excited about going to school with Keith and Josh that day, so excited that he woke up and hour early and made Dean wake up fifteen minutes later. He was a little worried about Sam, he seemed so happy about having friends and about staying in the same place for so long, but Dean knew that this wouldn't last, and even though he was happy about having George too, he wouldn't let himself get too worked up in fear of having his heart crushed when they left and never came back. He wanted to tell Sam to do the same, but he knew he would never understand. Josh, Keith and Emerson ran out of their house, laughter apparent on their faces, they exchanged greetings with Sam and started tugging him along the sidewalk.

"Where's George?" Dean asked.

"Oh, she fell asleep in the bathtub and woke up late" this caused the three of them to burst into another fit of laughter.

"We should wait for her then"

"Come on, we aren't little kids. We can go to school by ourselves"

"Actually you are-"

"I told you to wait you little shits" George growled, exiting the house.

She was wearing a black hat, a black hooded jacket and a pair of faded jeans. Her hair was still wet and she looked like she hadn't slept in days, she yawned as she approached the group and kicked Dean's foot gently.

"Morning"

"Rough night?" Dean cocked an eyebrow and smirked, an amused twinkle in his eyes.

"Shut up" she shoved him before threading her arm through his and began walking towards the school, she put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, her body going slightly limp.

"Do you want me to carry you?" Dean raised an eyebrow and amused smile creeping up onto his face.

"Would you?" she yawned and nuzzled into his arm and he chuckled.

Dean could feel the heat of her body against him, and her wet hair was making his jacket a little damp. He didn't mind though, it felt a little nice, he didn't know what having a girlfriend felt like but if he had to guess he'd say it would probably feel like this. And even though he wasn't big on the commitment front he had to admit it felt very nice, but maybe that was only because it was George, he didn't know and in all honesty, as long as the feeling was there, he couldn't care less. She started humming, it took Dean a while to place the song but he eventually identified it as I Put A Spell On You by Creedence Clearwater, he snorted and wrapped his arm around her shoudlers and she leaned into him, burying her head in the crook of his arm.

"I put a spell on you, because your mine" Dean sung in her ear, George smiled.

"You better stop the things that you're doing." She sung back.

"I said 'Watch out!' I ain't lyin', yeah!" they sung together "I ain't gonna take none of your foolin around; I ain't gonna take none of your puttin' me down; I put a spell on you, because your mine. All right!"

"You have a pretty decent singing voice Winchester" she smiled up at him.

"Back at you Fogerty" He smirked.