Friends, Lovers, or Nothing

Sam Winchester

Driving past the welcome sign into Mystic Falls seems eerily familiar. I know I've been here before. But it was during my time without my soul. I can't really remember it but there is that feeling of déjà vu surrounding the town.

It's weird, but every now and then I get flashbacks of the life I lived before. Especially when I go back to the places I was and see the people I met. Just hearing this girl's name brought up memories, and not the worst ones. The last time we went into a town I had been to before we found out that basically I was an evil whore. I slept with almost half the town and I just left the people involved in the case for dead. Hell, I even tried to burn their bodies.

This time around, I don't feel that same sense of dread or evil. I don't know how I was when I was here, but I definitely wasn't the complete asshole I've been hearing about.

There's something about going to this girl—this witch—that makes me feel a little intimidated. When Dean first mentioned finding her to try and lock down Purgatory, all I could see in my mind was an image of her silhouette surrounded by fire.

Something in me just knows that she's a force to be reckoned with.

The way Dean talks about her supports this idea even more. From what he's said, she's tough and a fighter. He says she was one of few people that could actually put me in my place in the short time we knew each other. When we went to fight Crowley, she fought hellhounds and took care of all the monsters left over. He says she helped us then without us even needing to ask, so hopefully this time she'll help just as easily.

The first place we go to find her is this bar/restaurant called the Mystic Grill. Dean says she's a bartender here but when we get there she's nowhere to be seen. The place is packed. It's a Friday night so I suppose it's to be expected. From what I've seen of this town this is probably the only place they've got to just hang out. The cautious eyes of the crowd glance towards us when we first enter but then just as quickly as they are there, they turn away. It's as if they recognize us and know we're not a threat. That's weird.

We decided to ask someone at the bar if Bonnie's come in yet. If they remember us so well they must remember that we spent the majority of our time in town with her.

There's a blonde sitting there waiting to pick up her take out order when we come over. Physically, she looks pretty young, but there's an air about her that says she's older than she appears. She turns towards us and the look in her eyes suggests she knew we were walking up to her but she's surprised to see our faces.

"I knew you guys would roll back into town eventually" she says with a bright smile on her face.

"Excuse me?" I say before I can even stop myself.

She ignores me completely and keeps talking.

"Are you guys looking for Bonnie?" she asks with wide eyes.

"Yeah we are, umm, Caroline, right?" Dean says.

"Right," she says with a nod and the smile gets bigger. "Bonnie doesn't work tonight."

"Oh, is she at the boarding house?" Dean asks her.

"No," she replies and gives me a strange look out of the corner of her eye. "But I can take you to her. I'm heading over to see her now" and right as she says this her order comes up. "Let's go."

"You don't think that was a little crazy," I say when Dean and I get into our car. We're about to start following that Caroline girl but the whole transaction to me seemed weird.

"Yes and no," Dean says from the driver's side. "We met her before, she's one of Bonnie's friends. Obviously she can tell that if we're back it's because we need Bonnie's help again."

"And she's automatically oh-so-welcome to bringing us right to her?" I question. "Come on Dean, there's got to be something going on here."

"Probably not," he says. "Look, you don't really remember it, but the people in this town are weird. Half of them, Blondie included, are vampires. But not the ones we've seen before. She doesn't even feed from humans. We're fine" he says.

"Seriously, Dean" I say, "I know you're a little on edge because of everything with Castiel, but how are you going to turn around and have full trust in these things?"

"Sam, there's nothing to worry about. Bonnie and her friends don't even know about the things going on with Crowley. They have no reason to lie to us. And Blondie was more distracted with how cute she thought we both were last time around to even try to be a threat" he says and keeps on following the girl.

"So you think that because she thought we were cute, she's just gonna take us to Bonnie?"

"No, I think that she's going to take us to her because Bonnie trusts us and by extension, so does she."

"Sure" I say with a scoff. If we get attacked by Vampire Barbie I'll remember this.

We're only on the road following Caroline for ten minutes when we pull up to a darkly lit house. It's at the center of a suburb so probably not the perfect place to try and kill people. It looks familiar but Dean doesn't seem to recognize it at all. Caroline runs out of her car and towards us in less than a second.

"Wait here and then in about five minutes knock on the door" she says leaning over the car.

"Why?" I ask.

"We're having a girls' night so it'll be easier if I go in by myself and you ease your way in" she says.

"Are you kidding me?" I ask in disbelief. "Are we still in high school?" I ask her with a laugh. I turn to Dean for his reaction but he doesn't even question it.

"Five minutes" Caroline says again and speeds into the house.

"You mind explaining that?" I ask Dean for the first minute of our wait.

"What?"

"You didn't even question the fact that she wanted us to wait in the car because of 'girls' night'. You have to admit that's outrageous. We're dealing with a bunch of little girls" I say and shake my head.

"Lisa had girls' night. It's just what women do" he says and there's a distance in his voice. "She'd go crazy anytime I tried to come home in the middle of it."

"Oh" I say and turn back towards the house.

Dean hasn't mentioned anything to me about what happened with Lisa and Ben so him saying this much is a miracle. I wish that he'd tell me more. I wish he would just open up to me and let me know how he's feeling about everything. Before I let Lucifer take over my body and jumped into the hole, I made Dean promise me he'd go to Lisa and Ben and live a normal life. A year and a half later, I woke up in Bobby's panic room with Dean there. I want to know what made him leave them. I need to know what brought him back to this life. Dean says I shouldn't scratch on the wall in my mind for my own good but I want to know the things I've forgotten.

The sound of the car door opening gets my attention.

"Time's up" Dean says from outside. I jump out of the car and follow him towards the door.

"What are we supposed to say to her?" I ask Dean before we knock on the door.

"We're just gonna say we need her help" he says and knocks. "It's as simple as that."

The woman that answers the door is gorgeous. With her long dark hair, caramel skin, and olive eyes, I'm a little taken aback at first. When I try to imagine her in my mind, I'm constantly hit with fire and her silhouette but never her actual face. She's beautiful and small. I can feel myself towering over her just standing in the doorway. My eyes drift down to her lips and suddenly I remember a chaste kiss we shared the last time I saw her.

"Thanks" she had said when we made it to her home. We were pulled in front of a house that I hadn't seen before but she said it was her Grams.

"Don't mention it" I said and I looked back towards her.

She had just killed more monsters in ten minutes than we ever had in one night and I couldn't help but feel respect for her. And not just her as a hunter. Her bare legs were glowing in the moonlight and every part of me wanted to rip my jacket off of her to see the rest of her body. She had wiped the blood from beneath her nose before and she looked as beautiful as ever. I wanted to claim her in that moment. I wanted that power in her to be made mine. Right there, outside of her home, for anyone to see. She turned towards me again and it was like she could read my mind. Her gaze went down to my mouth and she licked her bottom lip. She looked back up into my eyes and I could tell that soon I was going to get what I wanted. Unfortunately, she proved herself to be stronger than me and simply said goodbye. I was more than a little disappointed but right before she hopped out of the car from the passenger side she grabbed me and gave me a quick, but passionate, kiss.

I'm stuck staring into her eyes when I hear her speak.

"I thought we made a deal that you guys wouldn't come back to this town" she says pointedly.

"That deal kind of went out the window when Meg got involved" Dean says. "Besides, we're not here hunting this time. We need your help."

She stares at him for a second and then back at me. The look in her eyes shows something unknown. It's as if she's trying to figure me out.

"Come in" she says after a moment.

Outside of Caroline, there's one other woman in the room. In a way, she vaguely resembles Lisa. She's got long dark hair and dark brown eyes. She's taller than Caroline and Bonnie but like both of them she's beautiful. She turns to Bonnie and gives her a look when she's done eyeing us.

"Please, take a seat. I'll be right back" Bonnie says and she takes the two women into her kitchen.

I don't know what she did but we can't hear a sound coming from that room. There's not even a door but somehow the second they walked into the room it's like someone hit mute on their sound. It must be a spell.

Within a few minutes, Bonnie comes back into the room alone. I glance into the kitchen and it's empty.

"So what brings you boys back to Mystic Falls" Bonnie asks and takes a seat across from us.

"Crowley" Dean says quickly.

"I thought you said he was taken care of" she says and turns to me. Again she stares deeper into my eyes than most people would and I can tell she's really looking for something.

"We were wrong," I say and I stare back. I find myself getting a little caught up staring into her eyes. "Dean says you helped us with him before, can you do it again?" I ask her.

She eyes me questioningly for a second after that. She seems confused by what I said and then I realize I started the sentence with 'Dean says'. She keeps looking into my eyes for what's probably nothing more than seconds but it feels like so much longer. She looks at Dean for a moment than turns back to me. Other than the fact that she's searching for something in me, her gaze seems different every time it's turned towards me. She doesn't look at me the way she looks at Dean. Even in some distant part of myself I feel a connection that I can't fully explain. We continue to stare at each other until Dean clears his throat.

"When did you get your soul back?" she asks ignoring my question.

I'm surprised at first but I guess I shouldn't be.

"Almost two months ago" I say.

"Looks like you're still in one piece" she says with a smirk.

"Yeah," I say. "I barely have any memory of the last year and a half of my life but I'm still in one piece." I don't know why I just said all of that. There's something about this girl that makes me want to tell her everything that I know. It's unexplainable. She just ignores it though and moves on.

"So why are you still looking for Crowley?" she asks and looks between the two of us.

"He's still looking for Purgatory. We just want to stop him and kill him for good" Dean announces.

"How did he get away?"

"He had a little help from the inside."

"Who?"

"Castiel" Dean says and you can hear the disappointment in his voice.

Bonnie just looks at him with disbelief in her eyes.

"So you've got an angel and a demon working together. What do you want from me?" she asks. "Do you just want me to find him for you so that you can stop him?"

"No," Dean says. "We were hoping you could help us keep the door closed."

"How…" Bonnie starts and then begins shaking her head. She looks at Dean and then me and says "Once they finish the ritual, I won't be able to stop them. No matter what we do."

"So what can you do?" I ask gaping into her eyes.

"She can destroy it" a new voice says and we all turn to face who it is.

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