Chapter 16

Dean and I found out about a professor at the local University who taught classes on Native American Legends so we decided to see if we could find any information about the deity we were dealing with.

"Professor Narez?" I asked, knocking on his open office door. Dean was close behind me. Narez looked up from his computer and waved us in.

"How can I help you?" He asked as we sat down in front of his desk.

"We were wondering what you knew about the Cherokee legend of the sun's daughter." Dean said.

"Which one?" The professor chuckled. "There are so many variations of it."

"The one where she lures mortal men to chase after her beauty and they follow her right off a cliff." I said. Professor Narez nodded.

"Yes, that's a good variation of it. The only one where she's beautiful, anyway. Usually she's really ugly and, like the sun, when people look at her they have to squint." He said and I nodded. I had read that online. "What did you want to know?"

"Did the Native American's ever tell a way of summoning a deity like the sun's daughter?" He got up and walked over to his bookshelf, scanning the titles.

"There were many rituals that they would perform, mainly dances like the ever popular rain dance," he pulled a book off the shelf and brought it back to his seat before opening it and flipping through the pages. "There are also many totems, like statues, that were used as symbols for gods and deity's. They each had their own totem."

He showed us the book and pointed to the left page which had the picture of the totem for our deity.

"How does it work?" Dean asked.

"Well, according to the Cherokee tribes, they'd start with a ritual dance for the god or whoever they were trying to interact with and then make a sort of paint out of natural herbs and river water. They'd use the paint and draw the symbol near an offering of their freshest fish. The tribe's shaman would then call upon whoever it was they were summoning."

"Is there any way that it could be reversed? Make the god or deity go away?" I asked.

"Smoke peyote, take a wild trip in a steam hut and try to convince them to leave." He said, chuckling. Dean and I glanced at each other. As amazing as smoking peyote sounded, we doubted it'd be easy to convince her to leave.

"That's it?" Dean asked. Professor Narez shook his head and went back over to his bookshelf and pulled out another book.

"There's another ritual the natives would perform. If it was performed correctly then you would essentially capture it so you could force the god back to wherever it came from." I smiled as he showed us a page from the book he had just gotten.

It looked like it required drawing the symbol of the totem, a fire, an offering, some herbs and a little blood. Nothing we couldn't handle.

"Is there a way we could get a copy of this page?" I asked. He nodded and took it, turning to his scanner and printing a copy for us right then.

...

"So how are you?" Dean asked as we walked out of the building. I glanced at him suspiciously as we got into the Impala.

"Fine?" I replied. He sighed as he started the car. We were off to find some of these herbs.

"I meant, how are you with everything that's happened lately?" He reiterated. I shrugged.

"Okay, I guess."

"You guess?" He asked skeptically.

"I mean, well, considering everything that happened I could be a lot worse." I said. I could have lost you too, I thought to myself. He turned into a grocery store parking lot and quickly turned into a free spot right in front. He turned off the engine and pulled out the key and then turned to look at me. I stopped taking off my seatbelt mid-process and tilted my head to look back up at him.

His eyes flickered downward for a quick second before returning to my eyes. I could see my reflection in his pupils and noticed how dilated they were. He gulped and started to lower his head closer to mine. My heart started pounding like crazy in my chest and I couldn't believe if this was actually happening.

His mouth opened slightly and I closed my eyes, ready to finally feel his lips against my own…

Dean's cell went off and I jumped in my seat, smashing my nose into his chin.

"Shit," I cursed, pulling away and covering my nose with my hands. Dean quickly pulled out his cell phone from his jeans and looked at the number. He glanced at me with wide eyes before he answered his phone.

"Dad?" I sat up and turned to him. "Yeah, we're fine."

Dean looked up and we caught each other's eyes but he averted his eyes a second later. I felt my face grow hot as it probably turned about three-thousand shades of bright red. I squeezed my eyes shut trying to prevent an onslaught of tears. I couldn't believe what was just about to happen. I mean, I'm 94% positive we were just about to kiss. I pushed it out of my mind and touched my nose gingerly, tuning back into Dean's conversation with John.

"A deity. We're trying to get together some stuff so we can perform a ritual later tonight. It should take care of it." Dean mimed writing on a piece of paper so I opened the glove box and shifted through the crap before I found a pen and an old receipt. I handed them to Dean. He looked around for a flat surface and I sighed as I turned my back to him, indicating for him to use my back.

I felt the pressure in between my shoulder blades so I swept my hair to one side so it wouldn't get in his way.

"Yeah, we'll definitely meet up there. Three days, got it." I turned back around once the pressure left my back and saw Dean hanging up the phone. He smirked.

"Looks like we're meeting up in Washington this weekend." I tried to smile as he got out of the car and started to make his way into the grocery store. He stopped before he passed through the automatic doors and turned to me with a questioning glance. I took a deep breath and sighed, trying to calm my nerves. I checked my nose in the rearview mirror to make sure there wasn't any blood or anything and finally got out of the car.

It was good to know that John hadn't abandoned us. I should have known that he didn't, but it was hard to be sure, especially with the way he had left. I just couldn't help but hate John for not waiting two freaking minutes-

"You okay?" Dean asked as he grabbed a basket and handed it to me. "You look angry."

I shot him a look that clearly said 'don't fuck with me' and brushed past him with the list of things we needed.

I wondered how long we'd stay with John before we split up again.

And I also wondered where things would have gone in the car if John hadn't called.

...

...

We had managed to find all the supplies we needed and we found a good place in the middle of nowhere where we could perform the ritual without any interruptions. We had also come to the silent understanding that we weren't going to talk about what had happened earlier. I started mixing everything together for the paint and then used the picture we had of the totem to copy the symbol onto the giant flat rock we had set up by.

Dean was starting a fire and he unwrapped the fish we had managed to catch from the river earlier. He set it in the middle of the symbol and stepped back.

Okay, so we had stolen the fish from someone else who had caught it, but it didn't matter. We didn't have the time to catch our own fish anyway; we had to be in Washington in three days. Which meant if we didn't finish tonight then we'd probably be screwed. And besides, I left ten bucks in replacement which is way more than he would have sold the fish for.

"Rose," Dean said suddenly. I looked up at him from the rock, my heart starting to beat faster. I tried to remind myself not to get my hopes up. "I've kinda been a mess lately."

"Yeah," I said softly. "I noticed."

"There's something you don't know." He told me, averting his eyes. I narrowed my eyes at him in question. What the hell was he talking about? My eyes widened slightly; was he going to tell me that he had feelings other than familial ones for me?

"You can tell me anything, Dean." I told him. He nodded, still not looking at me. He exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I've been seeing someone," he said.

My heart plummeted to the ground and I stared at Dean in shock. How could I not know that?

"For how long?" I asked. My voice was shaking but Dean didn't seem to notice. I couldn't help but wonder why everything in my life was turning to shit. Did Dean know that I loved him? Was he doing all of this just to hurt me? I couldn't tell anymore.

"It's been a while," he admitted. He cleared his throat and finally turned to look at me. I could see his eyes brimming with tears and all my previous thoughts of him hurting me flew out the door. I moved so I was standing in front of him and I picked my heart back up from the ground. "But uh," he cleared his throat, "she broke up with me. Right after everything that happened."

"I'm sorry, Dean." I told him honestly. As hurt as I was, I could tell he really had feelings for this girl. "Did you, uh… did you love her?"

He stared at me for a second, hesitating to answer. He dropped his head. "Yeah."

We stood like that for a few moments. I was thinking about Dean in a relationship. It hurt because I wanted to be the one to make Dean want to be serious. I wanted Dean to be serious about me, and I wanted him to love me. And now this happened? Some bitch broke his heart. She obviously hadn't known what she had. I tried to think of times when he had been missing for long periods of time, but couldn't think of any besides when John sent him and Sam off on research jobs.

My hands clenched in anger; I would have never hurt Dean. I wouldn't have ever let him go.

Dean cleared his throat, pulling me from my internal rant and he looked up. All traces of what had just happened were gone; no tears or sadness. Now it was all business. Pretty soon I was going to run out of energy trying to keep up with Dean's switching emotions so quickly. I was all ready starting to go numb from everything else.

"What next?" Dean asked. I watched him for a moment, making sure he'd be all right and trying to convince myself that I'd be all right. I shook my head and looked over the papers we had copied earlier. Of course Dean wouldn't be all right, but he was just going to pretend he was.

I pulled out a knife from my old book bag and went to stand over the fish. Dean stepped forward and held his hands out. "Whoa, hold on,"

I turned to him with the knife raised to the stitches that were still on my arms.

"What?" I asked. "You want to use your blood? I thought I was doing us a favor since I'm all ready hurt, but if you want to cut your arm then go for it."

I held the knife to him and he glared at me as he stepped forward to take it. I shrugged and walked off the rock, letting him take my place. He kneeled down and raised his arm over the fish and put the knife right up to his skin. A second later he was running the blade through his skin and blood was dripping down. He stood and jumped off the rock.

"And now?" He asked. I sighed and looked over the paper. I shook my head.

"Now we wait." I said, taking a seat on the ground. He stayed standing for a minute before he sat down next to me. I pulled out some gauze from my bag. We always had a large supply of it and I had brought some with us since I knew we would need it. He took it from me, not letting me take care of it for him but as soon as he started wrapping up his cut the ground started shaking.

"Is this an earthquake?" Dean asked over the rumble. I nodded, bracing myself as the giant rock split in half. The fish fell through the crack and Dean and I glanced at each other. Suddenly I thought of something.

"Dean, close your eyes," I told him.

"Why?" He asked. I rolled my eyes.

"Do you want to go chasing after her off a cliff, too?" I asked sarcastically. His jaw clenched and he sighed aggravatingly before shutting his eyes tightly. Light started shining through the crack in the rock and the earthquake subsided. I shielded my eyes from the blinding light.

"Why have you trapped me?" I heard a celestial voice. I squinted my eyes and looked up above the rock. It looked like a miniature display of the Northern Lights, only really, really ridiculously bright.

Now came the ridiculous task of trying to convince this bitch to go home.

"You're killing people," I said, "you have to go back to where you came from."

"I was brought here to find my suitor."

"You won't ever find your suitor among mortal men." I told her, pleading. "Humans can barely look at you without being blinded. Don't you want someone who could love you for who you were, not just because you're exceedingly beautiful?"

She continued to hover over the rock but it felt like she was observing me.

"Why won't you look at me?" She asked. I was still squinting through my fingers. I chanced a peek over at Dean but he was standing with his back to her, eyes clenched shut and his jacket over his head. I couldn't help but think that was a little much, but I digress.

"You're too bright, I'll hurt my eyes." I told her. The light started to dim and I slowly brought my hands away from my face. My breath caught in my throat; she was so beautiful.

"Wow," I murmured.

"What?" Dean urged.

"Don't look Dean," I warned.

"I'm not, Rose," he snapped back, "but what's going on?"

"Isn't there anyone of your own kind that would be with you?" I asked her, ignoring Dean.

"They're just as beautiful as I am. They don't find me as extraordinary as mere mortals do." I nodded. I could definitely understand that. "But you,"

Me?

"What about me?" I asked.

"You are beautiful for a human woman. I've never seen a woman as beautiful as you." I blushed. Um, wow? This had to be the strangest supernatural encounter. Ever.

"Really?" I asked. I was a little skeptical. Okay, maybe a lot skeptical.

"And you have many men who love you." I narrowed my eyes at her. What?

"I have men who care for me, they're my family." I started to realize that my heart was beating faster than before. I felt like with all this random heart rate spikes I should probably see a doctor.

"No, a man named George loves you,"

George? I racked my brain trying to remember a George. The guy from my prom? He's the only George I remembered, but I only knew him for a few hours.

"A man named Henry loved you," my heart broke.

"Who's George?" I heard Dean ask. "Who the hell is Henry?"

I said ignored Dean and took a deep breath. I was done with being nice. Nice got me nowhere and nice sure as hell wasn't going to make Dean fall in love with me. "You can't stay here anymore. You have to leave."

"You don't want to know the other man who loves you?" I shook my head.

"No!"I yelled. "Leave! I'm ordering you to leave! Go back where you came from and stop killing people! I forbid you to ever come back!"

She started to grow brighter and brighter and even brighter than before and I quickly covered my head, clenching my eyes shut, so I wouldn't get blinded. I heard her scream until it eventually grew softer and softer. I peeked through my arms and saw darkness.

"Rose," Dean said quietly, "she's gone."

I fell onto my ass and let out the breath that I didn't realize I was holding.

"You okay?" He asked. I nodded. "How did you know what to say to make her leave?"

I shrugged. "I had no clue."

He smirked as he helped me up. "Winging it, I like that."

I chuckled slightly and patted the dirt off my butt. Dean rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat.

"So," he said, awkwardly. "Who are George and Henry?"

I glanced at him, shooting him a questioning look. Why the hell did he care?

"Well, I'm not quite sure about George but," I paused. I didn't know anything about Henry, except for one small fact. I looked down at my shoes and shuffled them in the dirt. "Henry's my father."

...

...

Ooh! This chapter is full of angst.

First off I'd like to thank each and every one of the readers who left me a review since the last chapter. That was an awesome amount to get in only three short days.

Secondly, I'd like to wish a happy 20th birthday to Uberlots4Evr. This chapter is my birthday present for you.

And thirdly, my present to all my other reviewers is... another chapter today!