Chapter 5

Lily got up again and was moving restlessly around the room. "I don't have any pictures of my family in the house. I haven't been able look at them yet. There are days, still, I don't know how I can keep breathing! But I do… because of Sam and Dean. The boys haven't said whether they want a picture of their dad, either. I still can't really talk about what happened after we got back from Disney. It's like our family history begins in January. We're all three different from what we were. Sometimes I think we should change our names… Start completely new, but that doesn't honour our families…"

She turned back around and gave them a tremulous smile. "I'm gonna go start dinner, now. I was going to have something simple, but you'll stay and I'll feed you. I make seriously good chicken cutlets. They're pan fried, Sam, but I use olive oil and I'll make you a big salad."

"Lily," Sam murmured, looking at her with pity and sorrow on his face. "You don't have to make us dinner. We'll take you out. We'll talk about something else."

"That's a nice offer, but no, thank you," Lily said softly. "Dean promised my boys you would keep me occupied and cooking for me is a distraction. Besides, how often am I gonna get a chance to cook for three men who don't always get a decent meal? I have to show off my skills!"

Dean looked a little embarrassed by Lily's comment. "You heard that?"

At that, Lily started to chuckle, "Yeah. I suppose I should be embarrassed, but I'm actually flattered that my boys think I'm in the same league as the women you would normally hit on." Turning her back on them, she asked, "Hey, does that make me a MILF?"

Dean was about to give a flirty answer, but he caught the look Bobby gave him.

Lily went into the kitchen, thankful that she had hit the butcher shop on her grocery marathon. "Come on, talk to me while I work. Otherwise, I'll have to put on music and I'm pretty sure Dean's ears will bleed if I do. The CD I have in right now is Air Supply."

The three men followed her again into the kitchen and sat again around the table. Lily was moving around in the kitchen in a way that told them she knew what she was doing.

For only the second time Bobby spoke to her. "Tell us about your boys. How old are they again?"

Lily turned and beamed at him. "Oh man, don't get me started! If anyone offers me a chance to brag on my boys…" She returned to her work on the meal. "Sam is thirteen. He turns fourteen in July. Dean turns thirteen, like he said, in two weeks. They're less than a year apart. Irish twins they're called."

"Sam is artistic and funny and protective. He calls himself the 'Man of the House'. He's very responsible and protective of me and, despite how close in age they are, of his little brother. He was really always like that, by the way. All of this just brought that out in spades. He's quick on his feet and likes working with his hands. He's like his dad in that he's mechanical. The only problem is he doesn't know how to use tools very much. Mark was supposed to handle that. They didn't get any time…" She paused for a moment, and then continued, "Sam is saving up for a car. He wants to restore one."

"What kind of car does he want?" Dean asked.

"Well, he wants a muscle car, but at this point, anything," Lily replied. "Dean told you he was smartest, so he has a pride thing going on and he's also conscious of the fact that he's the 'baby of the family'. He has to prove to himself and others that he's no baby. His sense of humor, which both of them are regaining, is riotous! He was the one that got Sam and me to start laughing again. We make sure that he laughs, too. He feels way too much responsibility for everything, even more so than his brother. His fighting skills are seriously good. Actually, both of them are good at hand to hand."

"Is he smartest?" Dean asked. He was smiling and Sam just rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, he's considered 'gifted', but both of them are pretty smart."

Lily continued to move around the kitchen, taking things out of the fridge and out of drawers. There was no wasted motion. "I heard Dean tell you I'm hell with a knife. I am. But they're probably as good." She turned and looked at them again. "Did you see the knives they were carrying?" All three men nodded.

"They're the youngest scouts in the area with permission to carry a knife that big," Lily sighed. "They're the ones that train the Wolves in Cub Scout troops around the city in that skill. If the Cub Scout wants to carry a knife to camp, they have to do that section in their books. If the parents request them, Sam and Dean will go to their house and go over the techniques and safety issues. Then they, as well as the parent or den leader, will sign off on it. We all carry knives at all times."

The men were all examining her to see where she kept her knife and she laughed again. She bent down and retrieved a small, thin, silver knife from her shoe. She showed it to them and then put it back. She turned to the sink and rewashed her hands. "We had all of our shoes specially made, including the boots the boys were wearing. They're still growing, so that can get expensive... Anyway, the knives we put in them are specially made as well. I have a silver one in the right and an iron one in the left. They're puny, but sharp as hell."

She glanced back at them and took a breath, suddenly nervous, "I should probably tell you there's a gun under the counter here," she noted, gesturing to a shelf under the island behind her. "One of you should come over and see. Safety's on. I saw Dean reach under before he left the room earlier."

Dean had a serious look on his face as he came around the far side of the island and looked. There, on the shelf was a shotgun. He slowly pulled it out to examine it. The gun was a work of beauty and craftsmanship.

"This is a Remington 1100 TAC 4! What the hell?" Dean was looking at her with a curious, but sort of shocked face. "What's it loaded with?"

"Regular 12 gauge shotgun shells," she replied. "No way would I put salt rounds in that. There's another gun hidden as well. It has salt rounds. Look up under the shelf." Dean leaned over and spotted the other gun. It was older, rougher looking and the barrel had been sawed off. There were two clips holding the gun in place. The other pair of clips was empty. "Since you walked over the welcome mat, Dean judged you to be human. Or he would have pulled out the other one," Lily noted, nodding at him once. "There are guns stored all over the house and about once or twice a month we drill to practice getting at them fast. Not all of the guns are strictly legal, and they have to be hidden from sight." She smiled at them. "If you spot one, assume it's loaded."

All three men looked at her with slightly horrified looks on their faces.

Lily averted her gaze, concentrating on preparing dinner for a long moment. "Anyway…I know what it sounds like," she murmured. "Their childhood was ripped from them. I allow them to play with guns and knives and they have serious fighting skills, but do they, or rather, can they, play well with others?" She paused again. "That's also what this camping trip is about. Their scout leader is their counselor's partner and I allow him to know certain things about our recovery, but only because he would understand and know how to help the boys. We're using this and other outings this summer to see if the boys can safely go back to school."

"My boys are now officially deadly and we need to make sure they can handle the stress of middle school – which in my opinion is no place for children," Lily continued dryly. "I don't want to get a call telling me they beat the crap out of some idiot kid that didn't recognize the danger."

While she was talking, Lily finished cooking the dinner, made a salad and set the table. She got drinks for everyone and plated the food, then served it to the three men. Lily watched them attack her food and was rather pleased with their obvious enjoyment. She had made a salad for Dean and watched him ignore it.

Lily got up and went to the refrigerator, pulling out a jar, then shook it and brought it back to the table. Grabbing Dean's salad, she spooned some of the contents of the jar over it as a salad dressing.

"Dean, do you like sweet and sour?"

"What? Like Chinese food?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Yeah," he said with a shrug.

"Will you do me a favor and try that salad now?"

Dean gave her a disagreeable look and speared a small amount of lettuce on his fork. He took a bite, and then he started eating the rest of the salad in the bowl. "It's okay, I guess."

Sam and Bobby were just sitting there watching him. Sam was pretty sure that was the first time he'd ever seen Dean eat lettuce, outside of a hamburger. Lily just went back to her own meal, hiding the grin on her face.

After dinner, the men helped Lily clear the dishes and clean up the kitchen. They then moved back to the living room and sat down again in the same places as before.

Sam was watching her move around the room checking windows and the door. It was still light out, but she was obviously securing the house.

He took a deep breath. "Lily? Can I ask you something?"

She looked at him and nodded.

"Why have you been answering all our questions and giving us so much information? We're… complete strangers. You're obviously very cautious, but you let us into your home and you've told us so much. And some of it is really personal!"

She looked at him and nodded. She had a serious and intense look on her face. She moved over and sat down on the chair. "Because he told me I should. He told me to treat you like brothers. He said that you would be there for us and I should never hesitate to tell you anything. He told me that you would become very important to me and the boys."

"Who?"

"Chuck."

Dean was surprised and confused, "He told you we would meet up with you? What? Like two years ago?"

Lily shook her head, "No, more like two weeks ago."