Chapter 6

Dean watched her duck her head as she searched the bag, the light gleaming on her hair, burnished copper, spilling over her shoulders. He was nervous, he thought uncomfortably, with no idea of exactly what it was he was nervous about.

"We should, uh, go out … celebrate or something," he continued, not sure where he was trying to go with this line of thought, but feeling the need to do something, something semi-normal, something that other people might do if a job went reasonably well. He thought of the little restaurant with the incredible steaks and realised belatedly that he wanted a repeat of that, just talking. Just being with someone he could be himself with.

"Sure," Ellie said, nodding distractedly. "Tomorrow, okay?"

"Uh …" he hesitated for a moment. "What's wrong with now?"

Ellie looked up, raising a brow at him. "You'll have to celebrate on your own, then," she said. "Sorry, I hate to be a party-pooper, but I'm seriously done."

He squashed the moment of disappointment, shaking his head. "S'okay, we can do it tomorrow," he told her lightly, looking at his watch. It was past three a.m. anyway.

It'd been her voice, out there in the park tonight, and he wasn't enough of a liar to try and tell himself that he hadn't been fighting his fears that he was going to get there too late. That was a part of the restless itch he could feel , he thought uncomfortably. Another part was the mix of anticlimax and relief that the end of any job brought, both of them still alive, a feeling that they shouldn't take that for granted, should get out there and do something, feel something to mark the occasion. He was tired too, he knew. The restlessness was just more powerful than the tiredness was.

He finished his beer and looked at the bathroom.

"You leave any hot water?" he asked, getting to his feet and lobbing the bottle into the trash.

"Didn't use any hot," she told him cheerfully, pulling out a comb and running it through her hair.

Cold shower. Maybe that would take the fizz out of his blood, he thought, closing the bathroom door behind him. It was hot enough that the idea held a certain appeal, in one way, if not others. He pulled off his jeans and stepped into the tub. The scent of her soap, or shampoo, wafted around him and he reached for the cold tap, turning it on full, shivering at first as he shifted under the torrential flow of water then revelling in the way it sucked the heat from his skin, sluiced the dried sweat from his hair and body. Tipping his head back and closing his eyes, he let the water thunder over him, driving thought and feeling out completely.

Whether it was the beers or the shower, or the final letting go of the tensions of the last couple of days, he didn't know, but most of the restless feeling was gone when he turned the water off and got out, pulling his towel from the hook behind the door and drying off.

He could wait 'til tomorrow to go and do something normal, he decided, brushing his teeth and running impatient fingers through his hair to get it lying more or less the way it was supposed to. He could keep the flickers of arousal that still sparked through his nervous system under control. He could pretend that it was business as usual, nothing had changed, nothing was going to change, it was all good, here in the 'hood.

Opening the door, he saw that Ellie was already curled up on the sofa, the television off, the lamp on the nightstand still on for him. He'd forgotten to take anything clean into the bathroom with him and he padded on bare feet across the floor, feeling the grit in the carpet beneath his soles with a grimace of distaste, the towel wrapped around his hips flapping against his knees.

Glancing at the sofa, he found a clean pair of boxers in his duffel and dropped the towel, pulling them on next to the bed. He threw the towel over the chair and flopped onto the bed, reaching over to turn off the lamp.

The room wasn't dark. Not with the ambient light of the city shining in through the uncovered windows. He could see the furniture, could see Ellie lying on her side, the light sheet that was partly drawn over her rising and falling from shoulder down to waist, and up to hip, then scrunched up over her legs, her bare feet vaguely visible at the end of the sofa.

Lying on his side, he looked at that landscape and let his thoughts drift.

It could've gone bad, he thought uneasily. If the monsters had decided to kill her as soon as they'd gotten her, he would've been too late to do anything. He hadn't pushed the warning feeling he'd gotten because he hadn't wanted to think about it too much. He would've listened to it if it'd been Sam he'd been hunting with, or probably anyone else, he admitted unwillingly. He'd've pushed anyone else. And what the hell did that mean? If she'd died tonight, it would've been another death on his head, blood on his hands, because he hadn't … because he hadn't wanted to seem like he was … what? Worrying about her? Feeling anything for her?

He rolled over, restless again at the thought. Was he, he wondered? Feeling something for her that was more than just a colleague, more than just the pretty damned normal responses any red-blooded male might have spending this much time this close to her?

Images crowded his mind's eye, flashes from the past few days that seemed contradictory – the way she'd looked in the bar that first night, almost unrecognisable, sparking a reaction that he hadn't acknowledged then but which flooded through him again now; the limp sprawl of her body in the park when his flashlight had picked out the blaze of her hair; her face bare, freckles just visible, in the long tee shirt, looking too young, until she smiled; a smooth shoulder, colouring with bruises, and over it, as he'd spread the cream across her skin, he'd seen the swelling curve of her breast from above, barely covered by the low neck of the singlet pulled down at one side – but weren't.

Pieces of someone he'd known for a while. Pieces that kept spinning him around, not sure of the emotions they were conjuring. Pieces that he thought he shouldn't look at too hard because there was something about her, something that could make him feel peaceful and sure of himself at one moment, and that spiralled uncertainty and a nervous tension through him the next. He guessed that was some kind of feeling for her. He twisted over on the rapidly-warming bed sheets at that thought.

The room was hot and getting hotter, and he pulled back the cover, kicking it free of his feet and rolling onto his back, his eyes opening by themselves, forcing him to stare at the shadowy ceiling.

"You asleep?" he asked, turning his head to look at the sofa.

"Mmm?"

She sounded on the verge of sleep, had probably been asleep, he thought disgruntedly. He couldn't sleep.

"What's wrong?"

Her voice was more awake, and he felt a slight shiver, at odds with the heat surrounding him, too aware that in that in this semi-dark cocoon of heat in the middle of a city that didn't give a crap about him, he wanted to talk.

"Did I wake you?" he procrastinated, unable to even turn his head to look over at her.

"No," she said from the darker shadow of the sofa. "It's too hot to sleep."

"Yeah."

"Dean?"

He closed his eyes. "I keep trying to forget," he said, the words coming out slowly. "You know?"

She didn't answer but he could feel her listening, could feel a strange sense of expectancy, but not pressure. She knew the basics already, the fallen angel in Egypt had told her. Somehow, that made it easier.

Do you really think that a little heart-to-heart, some sharing and caring, is gonna change anything? Hmm? Somehow... heal me? I'm not talking about a bad day here. The things that I saw... there aren't words. There is no forgetting. There's no making it better. Because it is right here ... forever. You wouldn't understand. And I could never make you understand.

He'd said that to his brother, and at the time, he'd thought he could leave it at that, could learn to live with the memories that he could sometimes bury, sometimes not. It'd been less than a month later that he'd told Sam a little more. And even less time than that when the source of his shame had come out, driven by a self-comparison with the children whose lives had been mangled by their own family.

He knew that had been a mistake. It hadn't lessened the way he'd felt about himself and it had fractured the relationship he'd been trying to rebuild with his little brother, although he hadn't known that until later. That confession had stabbed him in the back when Sam had thrown his weakness back at him, driven by the blood and the siren's poison and all that had gone wrong between them, their secrets and lies.

He swallowed uncomfortably, wanting a glass in his hand, pushing that thought impatiently aside. She'd seen the nightmares.

"Sam chose Ruby," he said. "Chose a demon over me."

For a moment he couldn't say anything else, shocked by the way that'd come out. He'd thought he could tell her about the nightmares about Hell.

There was a soft exhale from the sofa.

"We – uh – when you left, it was getting worse and worse," he continued, stumbling a little over the memories. "We locked him up, in Bobby's panic room, trying to – fuck, I don't know – dry him out, but he got out. And he went looking for Ruby, and by the time I found them –"

He told her about the confrontation in the motel, the words rushing out now. Told her about Zachariah and being trapped in the angel's room. Told her about Cas and the angel's help that had come too late.

"He was standing in front of the altar and Ruby was saying somethin' to him, I don't know what but she was laughing and Sam – Sam looked like – he – it was too late, Lilith was dead and her blood opened the cage and –"

Another shiver rippled down his back. He'd killed the bitch and grabbed his brother and tried to pull him out but the light had been getting brighter and brighter, and the sound, a high-pitched whine that'd been turning into a screech, had been just about turning their brains to mush.

"We were in that convent one minute, then on a plane, over Ilchester, and there was a – this – uh – beam or pillar or something of light that nearly knocked us out of the sky," he said, his face screwing up at the memory of it.

"Did he go back to the blood, after?" Ellie asked softly.

Dean shook his head. "No. I don't think so," he said, uncertainly. "Rufus and Ellen and Jo got caught up with the first horseman, War, and we – we went to help out and I think he was feeling it then, not so much the physical side. That's when we split up."

He couldn't look at her. The question he needed the answer to remained locked inside, deep inside.

"The blood didn't change Sam," Ellie said quietly, and he heard a rustle as she sat up on the sofa. "It … builds on whatever's there, it develops everything."

Some part of him had known that, but hearing out loud was like a slap. He wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that Sam never would've abandoned him before he'd started drinking it, but he couldn't say that because even as he thought it, he knew it was a lie.

"He's not a monster," he said instead.

"No, he's not," Ellie agreed. "Jess was killed when it seemed like he was never going to go back to hunting," she added thoughtfully. "I wonder how much further back he was being manipulated, pushed into a certain mindset."

The idea took his breath away and he lay on the bed, silent, the years flashing by, too fast really for him to see them clearly, too fast to be able to pick out moments that might have been crucial, might have been a push or a nudge from something that wanted his brother uncertain about himself, or his life … or his family.

"I can't trust him, now," he told her, hating himself for that admission, knowing it was the truth. He didn't think it was just the kick-in-the-gut reaction of what'd happened.

"It's not over, Dean."

Scowling at the ceiling, he said, "I know that. But –"

"He needs you and you need him," she cut him off, and he heard the rustle of the sheet that covered her. "You know that, and you know he's already floundering, with what happened, how he was … played, manipulated."

He did know that. He didn't want to admit it, but he knew it. Bobby's living room flashed into his memory and he screwed his eyes shut, not wanting to relive that moment, unable to stop it from replaying against the darkness.

No, damnit! No. I gotta face the facts. Sam never wanted part of this family. He hated this life growing up. Ran away to Stanford first chance he got. Now it's like déjà vu all over again. Well, I am sick and tired of chasing him. Screw him, he can do what he wants.

You don't mean that.

Bobby's voice had held a hush of shock that prodded him into realising that he had meant it. Every word. His heart had been breaking.

Yes I do, Bobby. Sam's gone. He's gone. I'm not even sure if he's still my brother anymore. If he ever was.

The old hunter had told him Sam was drowning and he'd known that too. Hadn't wanted to look at it, but he'd known it.

"They can get to us too easy if we're together," he said to Ellie, his voice a little thicker than usual. Clearing his throat self-consciously. Forcing back his memories and the prick behind his eyes at the feelings they'd brought with them.

"Maybe they can," she agreed softly. "That's a risk you have to take. You're stronger together, Dean."

What can I say? I don't break easy.

The angel had just smiled at him. Oh, yes ... you do. You just got to know where to apply the right pressure.

"No. We're not. Sam's my weak point, Ellie," he said, his voice low. "They know it."

Another rustle from the sofa and then she was there, by the side of the bed, her hair loose and brushing over his chest as she sat down next to him, her face ghostly in the faint city light.

"Everyone knows that, Dean," she said to him, leaning closer. He could smell the light scent of her, soap or shampoo, her own scent and he felt his heart beat a little faster. She smelled good.

"That's never stopped you before," she continued, looking down at him.

He wriggled higher against the pillows behind him, too vulnerable lying flat on his back with her leaning over him. Not vulnerable, he corrected himself, as he shifted a bit further away, not just vulnerable.

"It was Sam's choice," he said, struggling to find the arguments that'd been so clear just a second before. "He wanted to stop hunting, figure out what was happening to him."

"Do you think he will?"

"I – I don't know," he admitted reluctantly. That was the truth. He had no fucking idea if his brother could figure it out, but he couldn't help.

She was silent for a few moments, turning her head to look through the grimy window at the buildings on the other side of the street, giving him her profile. Too much of her profile, he thought, his gaze jerking back up from the swell of her breasts under the thin singlet. A flush of heat spread through him and he looked away.

She probably wouldn't say no. Sam's voice in his head again, and the combination of the memory and the too-recent view sparked a deeper involuntary shiver.

"Ellie –"

"Can you –" she said, over his tentative question, then stopped, turning away from him, sliding off the edge of the bed and looking back. "Sorry, what were you going to say?"

For a moment, he felt sure he could say it, ask, then the moment passed and he looked away, shaking his head. "Nothing. Nothing important, what were you going to say?"

"Can you live with yourself if Sam does need your help and you're not there?" she asked.

He dragged in a deep breath. She'd seen it, he didn't know how. The worst of the things he'd refused to think about. She'd seen it and just dumped it out in the open, in his face where he couldn't ignore it.

He couldn't. It hadn't even taken Bobby's nasty crack about being a princess to know that no matter much he'd wanted to let Sam sink or swim on his own, he couldn't.

And that hadn't changed, he realised. But at the same time, he didn't want to rescue Sam again. If his little brother even needed rescuing. He'd felt at peace, mostly, the last few weeks. Getting up every morning, knowing what he was doing, not having to explain himself or justify his actions or even fight over the hot water he used. That had changed things. And he hadn't been able to find the place in his heart … his soul … where he could look at what had happened and accept it.

The mattress dipped a little, and he looked up, eyes widening as he stared into Ellie's eyes, no more than a couple of inches from his, his heart slamming hard into his rib cage as he felt her breath over his lips then the touch of her mouth on his, the kiss searing through his thoughts and wiping them out, his eyes closing involuntarily as the pressure on his lips increased.

Then she was gone and he opened his eyes, blinking at her. "Wh-what was that for?"

She was standing by the side of the bed and she smiled. "To stop you from churning through your guilt and get your head clear," she told him.

He closed his mouth, belatedly aware it'd been open. If she thought that was going to help his state of mind, she was sorely fucking mistaken, he thought dazedly.

"Just set it aside, Dean," Ellie continued, walking around the end of the bed to the sofa and sitting down. "Let it go and get some sleep."

He watched her lie down on the sofa, shrugging the sheet back over one shoulder.

There was no way he could sleep now. His mouth was tingling and the sense memories of her body, pressed against his in the subway carriage, had come back with a vengeance and he rolled onto his stomach, stifling a soft groan at them.

His brain was dragging back all those moments, those moments of the last couple of days when they'd been too close, he realised. That shocking low voltage charge that had hit him, and he'd thought, her, when he'd worked the cream into her shoulder. The way she'd looked, in that black outfit, cool and elegant and so out of his league, he'd thought, but she'd been in jeans and tee shirt when they'd gotten back and she made him laugh, and he'd made her laugh and it wasn't forbidden, or anything, but it would be dumb. It would wreck something he didn't want wrecked. Something he couldn't afford to screw up.

Then what? Why was he suddenly so fucking aware of her? Why had just touching her sent a jolt from his fingers to his groin? And what was the deal with the crocotta's voice?

His thoughts were churning around aimlessly. He closed his eyes and stopped trying to force away the images that came in the darkness. If he had to spend the night being tortured by his imagination it was a lot better than being tortured by his memories, he thought vaguely, letting the fluxing heat build in him without trying to ignore it.

"Dean, oh …oh … don't stop."

Her arms were wound around his neck, her body arching up to meet him with every long, slow thrust, shuddering as he withdrew. It felt … it felt like nothing else he'd experienced. It felt safe. It felt like he'd come home. He looked down into her face.

"Open your eyes, Ellie, I want to see you," he murmured against the satiny skin of her throat, pushing in deeper, harder, shivers racing down along his nerves as the sensations continued to centre, to concentrate unbearably.

She opened them for him, the dark auburn lashes fluttering as one long leg slid over his back. He looked into jade irises, flecked with gold, rimmed in dark blue, the pupils hugely dilated as she came closer, stroke by stroke, to reaching orgasm. He bent his head, his tongue slipping between her lips at the same time as he filled her up. She clutched at his shoulders, pulling him deeper.

"Uh … oh faster now, deeper now, Dean."

The words, the huskiness of the desire in her voice, her half-opened eyes staring at him … he didn't know which it was, or whether it was all of it, but he groaned as he fought desperately for control. He took a deep breath and began to move faster, harder.

"Tell me, say it," he whispered against her ear. "I need to hear you say it."

"I love you, Dean." She looked up at him and he felt her coming around him, rocking him hard deep inside of her. He trembled on the edge and then fell, shaking uncontrollably as he held her tightly, thrusting reflexively as he came, and came, pulsing through him into her and not stopping, his vision greying out at the edges.

"Dean?"

He frowned as she seemed to ripple and dissolve under him. He could hear her voice, from far away, but she was here, under him, her body relaxed, her arms holding him, he was inside of her, deep in her warmth.

"Dean? Come on, wake up."

His brows drew together more tightly as she disappeared from beneath him, and the dream dropped away completely as consciousness took hold, squeezing his eyes shut when he realised he'd lost the last fragments.

"Yeah?" He opened an eye, meeting the same pair of eyes that had, so recently, been unfocussed with desire and satiation. His body reacted to them. He sighed inwardly.

"No bodies found in Central Park last night – or anywhere else with a matching MO."

She smiled at him. He wriggled upward into a sitting position, grateful to see that he'd at least pulled the covers over himself at some point.

"Good. Great." He looked around, rubbing the heel of his hand against his eyes. "Any coffee?"

She put a tall cup on the bedside table, steam still rising from the lid. A cellophane-wrapped piece of apple pie joined the cup. He looked at the pie, then back to her, one brow lifted questioningly.

"You wanted to celebrate," she reminded him, turning away and gathering her notebook and pen from the sofa. Her bag was sitting on the end. He noticed that she was dressed, her hair drawn back in the familiar long braid, not a strand out of place now. She'd been up for a while, he thought.

"Yeah." He picked up the cup and sipped the steaming fresh coffee, feeling the jolt from the caffeine hit his veins. "I was thinking of someplace –"

"I hate to celebrate and run, but I've got to get going," she interrupted, glancing around the room carefully, then going to the table to pick up her own coffee. Carrying it to the end of the bed, she looked at him as she sipped it. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

That explained the bustling around and the fact that the linen from the sofa was gone, he thought, his gaze flicking around the room. Her stuff, as little as it'd been, was gone as well. He looked at her, then down to his cup. "Uh, nothing. Where are you going?"

"Alaska," she told him, her attention on prising the lid free from her coffee cup. "An old friend is having a problem, so I'm getting a flight this morning."

"Just like that?" He lifted an eyebrow.

"Well, yeah." She looked at him curiously. "What's the matter?"

He shook his head. He didn't know why it bothered him, didn't know why he suddenly wanted to tell her not to go. He didn't have the faintest idea of what the hell was going on inside his head. "Nothing."

She finished her coffee and tossed the cup into the trash can. Walking over to the big leather bag that sat at the end of the sofa, she picked up her boots and sat down.

Dean watched her, lifting the cup and swallowing another mouthful of the ambrosial coffee as he tried harder to wake up. "You think I should find Sam?"

"I think you need to be clear on how the consequences of not being around are going to impact – not just you, but Sam and everything's that's going on," she hedged, looking at the floor.

"He made his decision."

"Does that change anything?"

He looked at her sharply. "You want me to keep going back, apologising for something I didn't do?"

Sighing, Ellie shook her head. "No."

"Then what?"

"Just be honest with yourself about how it's going to feel, down the line."

It was going to feel like crap, down the line. It already felt like crap, he thought, turning away from her and grabbing the pie, tearing the cellophane from it. He looked at it for a moment then put it back on the nightstand, setting the coffee beside it.

Just a short break, he thought, flicking a sideways glance at her. Just a bit of time to himself, to think about what he wanted. Never going to happen, he realised. Whatever had been meddling in his life, it wasn't interested in what he wanted or what happened to him. God has work for you, Cas'd said.

"Question?" he asked, turning back to Ellie.

"Yeah, sure." She looked sideways at him as she pulled on her boots.

"Are you … uh … happy?" He caught a fleeting expression of something crossing her face before she ducked her head and stood up. It was gone before he could identify it.

"Yeah, mostly happy." She looked away from him, out through the window behind him. "What about you?"

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, wry and rueful, he hoped. "Yeah, mostly happy is about right."

She nodded and picked up her bag, slinging it over her shoulder.

He tried to think of anything else to ask, to talk about, to keep her around for a few more minutes at least. The words were jammed up in his throat and wouldn't come out. He didn't need anyone. Didn't need the comfort of company, or the ease of being himself, just talking, just being.

"See you sometime." She turned and walked to the door, closing it behind her firmly.

For a few seconds, he sat there, staring at the closed door, his pulse pounding against the base of his throat. He did need people, he admitted to himself. Not many of them, but someone he could trust. Someone who wouldn't let him down when he needed them the most.

"Sometime soon," he said to the empty room.