Chapter 31

Nadia and Dean had somehow gotten stuck doing the prep work for tonight. Actually, there wasn't really a somehow about it, the reason was simple; Sam. She still wasn't sure exactly what his excuse was for why he couldn't go with her, why it had to be Dean; but she was grateful. Mostly anyway. There was still a part of her that hated it because Dean's constant cold shoulder was wearing her thin and, with Aidan constantly nagging her too, she wasn't sure how much more she could take before she really snapped.

"Alright, I've looked all around and I think this is the perfect spot. We can see the exit he'll take and we'll have a clear view of whichever direction Rebecca comes at him from." Dean was tense as he looked out over the full parking lot behind the hospital and did his best to ignore the fact that Nadia was standing just behind him.

She'd been standing there for five minutes waiting for Dean to make his way around to the spot. She clenched her teeth and closed her eyes to keep herself from physically lashing out. "Glad you agree, seeing as how I called you five minutes ago saying that very thing," she replied through her teeth.

He barely glanced back at her, "Just wanted to be sure."

"No, you wanted to find someplace better yourself and then come here and tell me I'm an idiot. Again." He continued looking out over the landscape and ignoring her. Her eyes drilled angrily into the back of his skull, she couldn't hold it back anymore. "Why did you even call? Why did you insist I come here?" Dean looked like a statue as his whole body tensed and he fought the urge to turn around and face her. "Look at me, Dean! If you wanted me here just so that you could hate me to my face, then I commend you on your execution. It's more than obvious to me and everyone else." He didn't so much as flinch at her words. She closed her eyes and sighed heavily as all the fight went out of her.

A scorching hot gust of air pelted Dean for length of a heartbeat and he unfroze. He turned to look accusingly at Nadia but instead of finding her glaring at him, her head was down and she looked utterly defeated. He blinked and his tense shoulders dropped with the near-uncontrollable urge to reach out to her.

It is an odd feeling; breaking. On one hand there is relief at not caring anymore, no longer worrying. But on the other; there is the terrifying reality that you don't care anymore. "I thought that just being around you no matter how you felt about me would be enough but... I don't...it isn't." She stared at the crumbling pavement beneath her feet, "I give up," she looked up at him. "I can't subject myself to this," she waved a hand toward him, "anymore." She avoided looking at him, her voice melancholy and defeated, "As soon as I'm done with Rebecca, I'm out of your hair." When she looked at him it wasn't with the hope that he would break and plead for her to stay, she looked at him like she was giving him a gift in her promise.

Dean blinked and watched her, unsure what to say in response. He felt dry and hollow inside as she looked at him and blinked a tear down her cheek. He didn't move to stop her when she turned and walked away. He stared after her and felt nothing. No pull to chase her down. No gut-wrenching need to apologize and make it all go away. In stead he only felt vindicated; like everything he'd thought was finally coming to pass and fighting it all was futile. The sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows throughout the parking lot that he was once again staring out over. It was only a matter of time now; before Rebecca came...and Nadia left. He ran a hand back and forth over his head and let out a gust of a sigh and waited.

Nadia was walking aimlessly down the street away from the hospital; her hands deep in her pockets and her shoulders slumped forward. Aidan had been quiet for the longest time since she'd gotten to Colorado and the silence suddenly seemed deafening. This is better, right? Things will be easier without all the pinning; just like you wanted.

"No. This is bad... For all of us."

People Nadia passed looked at her uneasily as she walked by, heat radiated off her body as she glared straight ahead. She was too focused on being mad at Aidan and Dean to really see them or their reactions to her. Oh right, I forgot about the big bad wolf skulking around out there waiting to tear me apart Nadia growled inside her head.

"And now we're on our own."

She smiled wryly. Well, let's see what we can do. Bring it on cause right now I think I could take out the entire U.S. Military without breaking a sweat.

"Yeah, that's the attitude, brazen stupidity," Aidan replied dryly. "Going after this thing without even knowing what it is-what it's capable of- is suicide."

Nadia ignored Aidan, shoving her into the back, dark corner of her mind. If he's going to treat me like a monster, than I might as well just be one. She glanced around with the sudden urge to break something or set something on fire; but before she could, her phone rang. Sam. She sighed and answered. "What?"

Taken aback by the hostility in her voice, Sam forgot what he'd called to say. "Um... Is everything okay?"

She leaned back against the building behind her and glared across the street. "Peachy." A man walking passed stared at her, wondering what she was so pissed about. She caught his eye and glared at him as he walked by. She watched his back as he sped up to but more distance between her and himself but he suddenly stumbled and fell forward. She smirked and refocused her energy on Sam's voice.

"Are you busy or something? I can call back-"

"No, I'm fine," she snapped. "What were you going to say?"

He was quiet for a few beats and then cleared his throat and started, "Well, I just called to see how things were going...but apparently they're peachy so..." He pressed his lips together and stared at the carpet of the hotel room. "Hey if this is about something Dean did, well, he's an idiot."

"I know," she replied coldly.

"Okay, what the hell happened?"

Nadia clenched her teeth, fighting the fiery retort she had on her tongue. "Nothing," she sighed. "I'm f-" a sudden ear-piercing ring made her drop the phone and press her hands to the sides of her head. Barely muffled, she dropped to her knees and gnashed her teeth together just before the windows all down the block exploded tiny shards of glass out into the street. Sam jerked the phone from his ear and stared at it. He held it away and called out to Nadia but she was curled up on the sidewalk, blood dripping from between the fingers she had pressed over her ears. All of her thoughts turned from what the hell? to wishing with every ounce of her being that she was somewhere else, anywhere else.

She felt like she was free falling until she slammed and bounced off something considerably softer than the sidewalk she'd been on. The sound had stopped and she cautiously opened her eyes. Sam was leaning back across the bed across from her, up on his elbows and staring at her with impossibly wide eyes. She blinked a few times and carefully pulled her hands away from her ears thoroughly confused. She slowly sat up and looked around her, "What happened?"

Sam stared back at her in shock, the phone still in his right hand. "How did you get here?" He blinked a few times, "You came out of nowhere. Literally, you just fell onto the bed out of thin air..."

She looked at him just as surprised as he was. "I... I...thought it."

"Thought what?"

"Being here." She shook her head in an effort to clear it. "Something happened, on the street... There was this sound and the windows exploded. It was so loud," she touched the blood that was still trailing from her ears and looked down at her fingers.

"It's them," Aidan breathed.

"Who?" Nadia asked out loud.

"What?" Sam asked.

Nadia glanced over at him, "Not you."

"Not me?"

"Who's them?" she asked Aidan.

"What? What are you talking about?" Sam asked, completely confused. "Not me or you? What them? Who's them?"

Nadia slammed her hands down on the bed, "Everybody just shut up!" She sighed heavily and looked at Sam, "I wasn't talking to you. Aidan, who's them?" Understanding lit up Sam's eyes and he leaned closer as if he could hear what Aidan had to say if he just got close enough.

"Them. The same...whatever from Florida. Didn't you feel it? Just before all the drama? It felt just like before only it got overshadowed by all the glass and blood. But it was definitely the same creepy vibe."

You're right. Nadia thought back to a few minutes ago when she was talking to Sam on the phone and too angry to really pay any attention to the slow and sneaking panic feeling that was sliding over her.

"Duh."

She looked up at a very impatient Sam, "It followed me here. From Florida."

His brows popped up, "Wait this is the same thing from there?" She nodded. "How'd it find you so fast?"

She huffed and rolled her eyes. "I think the question is more like, 'what is this thing and what does it want with me?' Because I've gotta tell you, I'm not getting a 'let's be friends' vibe from this thing."

Sam looked down at the floor to collect his thoughts and then grabbed his phone. "Dean should be able to make it here and back before Rebecca gets to the hospital," he started dialing.

"No," Nadia said simply and the phone flew out of Sam's hand and she caught it before it hit the wall behind her.

He looked at her in astonishment. "What are you doing? Why don't you want me to call Dean?"

She tossed his phone onto one of the pillows on her bed and looked blankly back at him. "Because he won't care."

His brows pulled together, "What are you- Look Nadia, I know he's been acting like a jerk lately but he'll care. This is you we're talking about." She looked away and sighed. She stood up and walked over to him and put her hand on the side of his head. She showed him what had happened between her and Dean back at the hospital, leaving nothing out. He sat frozen in surprise at her new ability until she pulled away and walked silently back over to the bed. "Wow. That was...weird." He noticed the sorrowful look on her face and licked his lips as he tried to think of what to say. "Nadia, he loves you," he said softly.

"Wrong tense of the word there, Sam."

He furrowed his brow and pulled his mouth slightly to the side. "Do you still love him?"

"Of course." She swallowed and looked away. "But I'm the one that changed. He loved me pre-Aidan, pre-deal with the devil," she glanced up and smiled wryly. "I changed and he stayed the same. I can't ask him to feel the same way about me as he did before all that."

Sam laughed mirthlessly, "He didn't change?" He watched her as if daring her to agree with the question. "Nadia, this Dean now, is familiar; but the one that I saw after you came along or after you left? I've never seen that Dean before. You changed him completely. This is comfortable to him, it's what he knows. That's why he's too stubborn to go back; he doesn't think he deserves it. He doesn't think he deserves to be happy. He's used to the distant and torturous lifestyle we grew up with. You make him uncomfortable; and I don't mean that in a 'you have another being inside you head' kind of uncomfortable. I mean that he's uncomfortable in a 'holy crap this is changing my entire outlook on the world' kind of way." He paused briefly, "I don't care what he says or how he acts," he walked over and grab his phone back, "all that matters is what he does when I make this phone call." He dialed and held tightly to the phone as he brought it to his ear. Dean must have answered then and Sam watched her as he spoke, "We have a problem. That thing that's after Nadia is here. Yeah, it just attacked her a little bit ago." He smiled at her as he replied to some unheard question Dean asked, "Yeah, she's fine but I think she should stay here at the hotel room. I know, so what do you want to do?" He waited while Dean talked. "Alright, see you in a minute." Sam disconnected and dropped the phone onto the bed, "He's on his way."

"Of course he is; I'm just another damsel in distress he feels obligated to rescue." She replied dryly.

Sam rolled his eyes, "You two were made for each other."

The corner of Nadia's mouth twitched, "I'd love to believe that you're right, but I just don't think you are."

Nadia was in the bathroom washing her face when Dean came through the door of the hotel room. She glanced toward the closed bathroom door but didn't make a move to open it and walk through it. She had no urge to see Dean again; at least not for awhile. Sam and Dean's voices came faintly through the door. "What happened?" Dean asked as soon as he came in.

Nadia had chosen to show Sam what she'd experienced so that when Dean asked that very question, she wouldn't need to be the one to answer it. "She was walking down the street-I was talking to her on the phone-and suddenly this really, really high pitch ringing started. She curled up into the fetal position on the sidewalk unable to move..." Nadia couldn't help but smirk at Sam's effort to describe everything in a way that he hoped would appeal to Dean's feelings towards her, without trying to be too obvious. It was a little amusing. "All the windows exploded, like literally exploded out into the street. Glass rained down all over her and the sound was making her ears bleed. Then, as suddenly as it all started, she literally appeared out of thin air and landed right there." Nadia could practically see the look on Sam's face as he pointed to the bed where she'd landed minutes ago.

"What do you mean, out of thin air?" Dean asked.

Nice try Sam, but he really doesn't care too much about how I am. He's too focused on the whole thing about me being even more of a freak than he already thought... Teleportation? Why not, she can already form fire at her fingertips and show me her mind in my own...

"Oh, suck it up," Aidan groaned.

There was a long pause in Dean and Sam's conversation. "She's fine. Nice of you to ask." Guess I'm not the only one who noticed.

"Don't look at me like that, Sammy. Of course she's fine; you'd be a little more of a wreck if she wasn't."

"And what about you? How would you be? Would you even care?"

Nadia flinched and turned away from the door, not really wanting to hear the answer. She sat on the edge of the tub and tried not to hear as she listened. "Where is she?"

Sam was quiet for a beat of two. "In the bathroom." He paused, "Are you really this screwed up? That you think this is better?"

"Sam, I'm not getting into some psycho-babble bullshit. We have a job to do; Sheehan's getting out in 20 minutes." There was the sound of movement before Dean continued, "You stay here and I'll be back as soon as Rebecca's locked away in the back of a squad car."

"No."

"What?"

"I'm not staying here."

"Sam," Dean warned.

"The choice is yours. You can leave her unprotected or you can stay; but I'm not. I'm going down to the hospital. So what's your decision, Dean?" The challenge was implicit in Sam's voice as he repeated his earlier question, "Would you care?"

The room on the other side of the bathroom door was silent and Nadia held her breath waiting to hear the answer. She'd thought she truly didn't care anymore what Dean thought about her, what he felt for her; but in that moment she realized that would never really happen. She still cared. She cared very much about what he had to say in response to Sam's question. She nearly fell forward as she strained to hear. She slipped off the edge and caught herself and knelt when the hotel room door opened and closed. She waited for any indication of who was on the other side of the bathroom door; had Dean stayed or were they both gone? Then again, even if Dean stayed, what she'd said earlier still rang true. Dean was a perpetual knight in shining armor. No matter whom the damsel or what their past was like, he couldn't help but do the right thing.

Silence.

Not a sound came through the door as she waited and listened. Slowly, she realized how much she had wanted to hear an impatient growl of frustration or "Did you fall in?" from Dean. She sank to the floor, unable to hold herself up any longer. She barely felt a reassuring nudge from Aidan before a loud; "We are so screwed," sounded through her head.