Chapter 29

What was that all about? Nadia asked, still taken aback by Aidan's reaction to Dean.

"How many times do I have to tell you? I feel what you feel. Hell, even Sam noticed the weakness I feel towards Dean."

You love him too?

"Of course not! But I do feel a...fondness towards him. Because of how strong your feelings are, I can't help but be affected by them."

Oh, was all Nadia could think to say. She wasn't sure how she felt about someone else caring about Dean the way she did; even if it was still, fundamentally, her.

"Nadia?" Sam asked cautiously.

Dean shot him an annoyed look. "Of course it's her, you idiot. Can't you tell?"

Sam looked confused, "She looks exactly the same to me."

Dean was confused and uncomfortable with the realization that he was the only one who could see the difference in her. He brushed it off, "Are you okay?"

She looked slightly annoyed, "I told you I'd be fine and I'm fine. It doesn't hurt, it's just...odd."

"Could you hear us talking to her?"

"Of course. I can still see and hear everything," she looked at him like he was talking crazy.

"So, what is she?" Sam asked.

"Like she said, she's a demon with a conscience. Only for her, she's half conscience where I'm half demon." Sam leaned back with what appeared to be relief. "She won't lie to you," she glanced back and forth between the two brothers. "I know when she's lying. She wouldn't get away with it. Not as long as I'm here."

"Yeah? And how long's that gonna be?" Dean asked bitterly.

She looked unwaveringly back at him, a mixture of anger and sadness on her face. "If it's up to me? For the rest of my life. Otherwise? Well, I guess that's up to you."

The arrogant look melted off Dean's face and he looked away. Sam glanced back and forth between them, growing more and more uncomfortable and desperate for a change of subject. "You obviously didn't kick her out, so why'd she take off so fast?"

She glanced at Sam and then looked pointedly at Dean, "Because my feelings for you made her uncomfortable." The car lapsed back into an awkward silence until Dean turned the ignition and pulled back onto the road.

"Was that really necessary?" Aidan growled.

Nadia crossed her arms and slouched in the seat, looking out the window. "You can be angry and bitter all you want but your not gonna make it seem like it was easy for me to leave. I made that deal for the same reason you made yours," she told Dean without taking her eyes from the scenery flying by.

Nadia stayed with Sam and Dean in the same room they'd been at for the last couple weeks and they immediately started comparing notes. Nadia told them about the sickening and frightening presence she'd felt on the road in Florida and Dean talked reluctantly about his dream. "They're coming for us?" Sam hadn't heard any of what had scared Dean so badly that he'd called Nadia; but now he understood. "Who?"

"If I knew, do you really think I'd be sitting in a hotel room twittling my thumbs?" Dean snapped.

Nadia reached out to touch his arm to calm him but stopped herself and dropped her hand in her lap. "Do you think they're connected?"

Sam shrugged one shoulder and looked from Nadia to Dean. "All I know," Dean said, "is that the look on your face when you just told us about Florida, is pretty damn close to the look I saw in my dream. You were terrified." It wasn't an apology for the way he'd acted in the car, but it was close. He wasn't looking at her like she'd betrayed him; he just looked sad, like he'd lost something. That was almost worse.

Sam was sitting in a chair across from Nadia and Dean who were sitting far apart on the bed. Nadia looked at Dean, "It felt like whatever this thing is...it can get me anywhere." Dean reached out automatically to pull her close but changed to a pat on the back instead.

Sam looked annoyed and tried to change the subject. "Well, we still have a killer to catch before tomorrow..."

"Oh yeah. Do you know who it is yet?" Nadia glanced from Dean to Sam.

"The wife." She nodded. "What we don't know is why."

Nadia looked confused, "Wasn't her husband killed? Sounds like reason enough right there."

"Yeah," Sam tipped his head from side to side like he didn't believe it. "Something else must have happened to make her snap. I mean he was in a comma for two weeks. One that he wasn't about to come out of; so why didn't she start killing sooner?"

"Hope?"

Dean shook his head. "If she knew he was going to die, which is what the doctors kept telling her was guaranteed; then she would have wanted revenge right away."

"People who are in situations like that tend to hold onto hope for a long time." Nadia argued. "Besides, the smart thing to do would be to wait until he actually is dead, before she started risking going to prison for the rest of her life. I mean, what if some miracle happened and he woke up?" She looked down at her hands as she picked at her fingers, "She still wouldn't have been able to be with him," she added softly.

"Yeah, well not everyone thinks through things like that so thoroughly," Dean replied surly.

Dean's attitude was starting to wear on Nadia. It was amazing how fast things could change from wanting to comfort him, to wanting to smack him upside the back of the head. "What did you find at her house?" She turned pointedly to Sam, ignoring Dean.

"Nothing, really. She had one picture of Emmett on her nightstand but that's about it." Sam replied.

"No, she had a whole room full of his things and baby stuff. It looked like it was going to be a nursery before all this happened," Dean added.

"Is she pregnant?" She grimaced at the picture she formed in her head; a pregnant woman slitting people's throats.

Sam and Dean both shook their head and Sam added, "Not that we could see." Nadia's eye squinted as she looked to her left. "Oh, I know that look," Sam smirked. "You're on to something..."

"Maybe... Did she ever give birth?"

Sam looked at Dean, who shook his head. "Nope."

"Where's your phone?" she asked Sam.

He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Why? What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that she had a miscarriage...and it pushed her over the edge." She opened his phone and then realized that she had no repertoire with anyone at the hospital and handed it back. "Call the hospital and see."

Sam glanced at Dean who was looking at Nadia with that same dumb look of awe he used to watch her with; but before she could see it, he turned away. Sam rolled his eyes and dialed. Nadia couldn't sit still any longer, so she walked out into the hall and headed outside.

The door opened behind her almost as soon as she'd closed it, "What are you doing? There is something after you," Dean growled. "Are you stupid?"

Nadia spun around. "Stop calling me stupid," she said icily and continued down the hall. He followed without another word. Once they were outside, she walked across the parking lot and sat at a picnic table. He hovered, unwilling to sit down near her. "Why are you even out here? You could have called and had Sam come talk to me."

He didn't answer but did stubbornly sit down across from her. After five minutes of silence, he asked, "Is she in there right now?"

She stopped doodling with her finger on the table like she had been and looked up at him. "Yes. She always is, Dean, and always will be. So get used to it." She brought her glare back to the table top.

He watched her stare intently at the peeling paint on the table. She was even more beautiful than the first time he'd seen her, but something about that scared him. Her hair was still long and shiny and he was nearly overwhelmed with the urge to feel it between his fingers again. When Aidan wasn't taking the controls, her eyes were still that amazing, haunting green he couldn't get out of his head. She licked her lips distractedly and he couldn't stop staring at them. Each feature he saw looked the same but simultaneously different. She looked...more powerful, more appealing, and more dangerous. Maybe it was just in his head, he thought to himself. He knew she was different, knew what she was capable of, so maybe he made himself see what wasn't actually there. Maybe he made himself see her differently because he couldn't bear the thought of her killing all those men and still being her.

It took him awhile to realize that she'd shifted her focus to him. "I missed you," she said softly.

He blinked and looked away, standing up, he said, "We should go back. See what Sam found out."

He started to stand and she suddenly couldn't handle all the anger she'd been burying. She stood, "What do you want from me?" she said through clenched teeth. He stopped and stared down at the table beneath his hands. "Do you want me to say I'm sorry? I'm sorry, Dean. Do you want me to tell you that walking away that day was the hardest thing I've ever had to do? Well, it wasn't. It was the second hardest thing I've ever done in my life. The first..." her eyes started to sting, "was letting Aidan kill those people." She paused to let him absorb her words. "But I did it. I made that deal and I have done everything I could to keep myself while doing it. If those; murderers and rapists and child molesters lives are what I had to pay to keep you alive... Then that's what I'll do, time and time again."

His head snapped up. "They were people!"

"The things you kill, how many victims did they take? One? Five? Twenty?" She searched his eyes, "I did my research, Dean. Those 675 inmates at San Quentin killed over 1,500 people. That's just the trail of dead bodies they left behind them, not counting those whose lives they ruined. Their other victims still have to deal with what happened to them everyday. Your victims, they leave behind people who know that what took the people they love from them is something that they could never have seen coming. Could never have protected them from. But those left behind by those prisoners, they know that they lost them to a human being. Not something supernatural or unstoppable. Something that can only be killed with silver or deterred with salt; they live everyday thinking that they weren't good enough. That their husbands, wives, children, are dead because they couldn't protect them from someone just like them. So you tell me, what classifies someone as a person? And how far do they have to go before they become a monster?" She stared hard at him, "I'm not telling you that what Aidan and I did was right or good or easy; I'm telling you that what we did was as just as any killing can be."

He tried to hold onto as much anger as he could but most of it was gone. Sam was right, she was good at the important speeches. "So having someone you love killed by a ghost or a demon or a werewolf is better?"

"No! But it is easier. Say for example, your mother is murdered..." She realized too late that her hypothetical situation was all too true for them both, but pressed on anyway. "You're automatically-as a normal, completely in the dark about what is really out there, person-going to assume the killer is human and you're gonna start blaming yourself. If I'd only come home earlier, if I'd just gave in and installed that alarm system, if only, if only... But, oh, then you find out that she was really killed by your demonic relatives... That changes things a bit, don't you think? Who would've seen that one coming? So there goes all your what if's or I should of's."

"People still blame themselves." He looked hard at her and she knew that he was trying to point out the fact that she'd trained and done everything she could of to get revenge and justice on those who killed her family.

"Yes, and they always will, not matter what the killer is. But they... Your dad, me, Bobby, we all know deep down that there's nothing we could have done. We didn't know what was out there. And as a result, we spend the rest of our lives trying to make sure that no one else has to live with that knowledge."

He didn't know how to argue that, so he played the card he knew best; guilt. "You shouldn't have done it."

"You think I wanted to? Taking their lives was hardest thing-"

"I'm not talking about that. I never asked you to make that deal."

"Dean, I am so sick of this argument." Fury was building in her again. "I should've just let you die then, right?"

"Yes."

"No!" She slammed her fist down on the table and fire shot out in all directions. It lasted only a split second, but it left a radiating burn pattern on the wood. Dean flung himself back and fell over the bench seat and onto his back. She stared down at her hand and the charred area beneath it in surprise. She wasn't surprised by what she'd done, but more by the fact that she almost expected it to happen.

"Let me talk to him," Aidan said.

No. Nadia continued to stare down at the table. She slowly pulled her hand away and let it fall to her side. I don't need you adding to whatever anger he already has towards me...

"It's not anger. Besides, you need to take a break. As much as I love the destruction of someone else's property, you almost turned that picnic table and him into charcoal."

Nadia closed her eyes and sighed, Maybe you're right.

"Of course I am. Now," she shoved her way into Nadia's body and took over, "watch me work my magic."

Dean was staring at the table in shock and when he finally looked at Nadia, he scrambled away on his elbows and heels when he realized it wasn't her anymore. "Get out of her."

She sighed and stepped over the bench Nadia'd been sitting on so that she could walk around to him. "Weren't you listening? That's. Not. Possible." She squatted down at his side and he watched her wearily, ready to roll away at any second. He glanced back at the table, accusingly and she rolled her eyes. "That wasn't even me, just f.y.i."

"Right."

She reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt before he could even process it and pulled him towards her so that he was sitting upright. "You know she thinks you're mad at her? That you hate her?"

He dropped his eyes and swallowed before glaring uncomfortably back at her. "What do you know?" She raised one brow mockingly. "Oh, right," he reluctantly added.

"But I know that you're just scared." He tried to huff the comment off with a laugh but it wasn't convincing. "You're afraid that because of you, she is no longer who she used to be. You're afraid that you made it possible for me to come forward. You think everything is your fault," she studied him closely, like he was a science project. "Everyone leaves. Isn't that your philosophy on life? Well it seems you are too blind to notice what is literally right in front of you."

"And I'm supposed to believe that a demon is rooting for the happy ending?" he looked her up and down and tried to pull her hand off his shirt.

She closed her eyes and took a deep-very annoyed, but trying to stay calm-breath. "Why is it so hard to understand?"

"Right, the whole conscience thing."

"Yes," she opened her eyes.

His eyes narrowed, "It's more than that. I've met a lot of demons in my life-granted, I haven't really done much setting down and having a heart to heart or anything-but I've never met one capable of anything but hate and death."

She leaned closer so that she was only inches away, "Really? You've met a half human-half demon before? Well, that's quite a secret to keep from your girlfriend," she smirked.

"Boy, you all really do have such arrogance..."

"Really," she smiled, "I'm arrogant?" He stared back with a smirk. Her body relaxed and she looked him over admiringly, "You know, it's no wonder she feels so strongly about you. You are very...appealing," she smirked and slid her free hand down his neck.

"Don't touch me!" he knocked her hand away.

Aidan could feel fury welling up from Nadia and she was starting to tug her back inside. Just cool it for a sec. Trust me.

Nadia snorted, "Yeah okay." She tugged harder but Aidan held on tight.

If this doesn't work, I'll come back on my own. Nadia could feel the truth in her promise, so she forced herself back. Not happily, but she did it. Aidan smiled seductively and leaned closer, they were almost touching and Dean pulled his head back. "I'm not an idiot, Dean. I know this is what you want. You want her back more than anything; to have, to hold, to grope. She wants it too." She groaned, "Do you know how many of her little fantasies I've had to live through these past few weeks? It wasn't all bad though," she shrugged, "you're quite...impressive."

"Does that count as a threesome then?" he sneered.

She laughed. "I want to show you something," she whispered in his ear.

"Well I don't want to see it."

She smiled brightly, "That wasn't at all convincing, Dean. But that isn't what I was referring to." She reached out and cupped his face with her free hand and closed her eyes.

Images started flashing through Dean's head; confusing, nauseating blurs of color and sound. Finally they steadied and focused. He was watching through what he immediately knew were Nadia's eyes, as she cried and gasped for air beneath water. At first he thought she was drowning but then he realized she was in the shower, curled up under the falling water. He could feel the distress and sickness she was feeling. That was after this... he heard a voice that he figured must have been Aidan's and watched as the picture changed. It was like watching a movie without a screen; it was just played through his own mind.

Now Nadia was walking down an alleyway in the dark. She was fighting against a pressure in her head and was distinctly annoyed by it. It was warm outside and the air smelled like rain; but she didn't seem to notice anything. She was absorbed in thoughts about him. He saw himself the way she saw him. He was strong, funny, sarcastic, and arrogant. She'd said so before, but she really did love his cocky smirk. He was overwhelmed by the despair and longing he felt but a sudden, sharp pain fogged up their heads even more. Two men were attacking her, she was afraid. He was furious. He could hardly stand it any longer; he wanted to kill them with his own two hands. She suddenly sat up, hitting the first man in the chin and slammed her elbow into the nose of the second. It suddenly became hard to breathe and she started to panic but before she could, a voice yelled in her head and she totally relaxed. The quick change in thought direction made her feel free but then she noticed that she was still fighting. Only she wasn't fighting anymore, Aidan was. This was the first time she'd come out so completely. Dean couldn't help but be glad and thankful for her presence at that moment. Her watched her kill the men and didn't feel an inkling of remorse or horror at her actions. But she did. Does, Aidan reminded him with a flash of Nadia curled up on the bathroom floor sobbing.

And after San Quentin…? The movie changed again. Nadia was on a motorcycle? He shook off that surprise and focused on what was happening. She climbed off and took one step before a crushing amount of pressure forced her to her knees. She tried to hold it in but it was too much; she pulled back her hair and wretched beside cement stairs. It felt like her skeleton was shaking inside her muscles and she gasped for air. All she could think was, What did I do? Aidan pulled them away so fast he nearly got whiplash. Her voice was stony as she looked him straight in the eye, "She did not do that, I did." She paused, "She couldn't have done it herself."

His voice sounded weak, he could still feel that last wave of guilt and grief. "She did. In Montana."

She licked her lips and looked away and then back. "When you saw him hurting that boy, were you planning on letting him walk away alive? Would you have let him continue to live, even in prison?" She studied him closely. "When you saw those perverts attacking Nadia, I could feel the wrath in you. You would have killed them too if you'd have been there. But you weren't, so I did." She paused, "The point is, people do things that are out of the norm for them when they are pushed. When they see no other way. Love can make someone better but the loss of it can destroy them." She leaned back and sat on her heels and finally released him. "She is stronger than anything you've ever come up against; but her humanity makes her vulnerable. You make her vulnerable," Nadia was a bit stunned by her words and her actions but she tried to take over again at the change in topic. She was afraid that Aidan was pushing him away further. "But you also make her strong." She smirked, "I pity the fool who'd ever threaten you. She'd tear them apart..." She recalled his thoughts from when he was watching Nadia being attacked, "With her own two hands."

"Why are you so pro-relationship?" he had to ask again.

She smirked tiredly. "Besides the conscience thing? I do have some selfish reasons." She smiled, "As I said, you make her strong; which means you make me strong. And with some unknown scary-as-hell thing out to get her-and therefore me-we could use the strength."