Previously on Supernatural...
"It hasn't - That's - I'm not - " The blush darkened to full crimson until Dean finally barked, "Shut up, Sam!"
A light drizzle fell from the ink-black sky, chilling the air and peppering his skin with tiny droplets of ice. The asphalt was slick with oil and rain, reflecting the light from one lone streetlight in the center of the alley. Rats skittered among the Dumpsters and trash like red-eyed shadows, squeaking as they found a scrap of food or a fight.
He had gone twenty paces when he spotted the body. It was lying just inside the streetlight's puddle of light, barely touched by the rain. Hasn't been there too long, he thought, training his gun on the motionless form. This meant something was hunting in the area, and as the only other human in the alley, Dean was looking like the next possible target. For one terrifying moment he thought it was Sam or Castiel, but looking closer negated both options. It was too small to be his brother, and it wore neither suit or trenchcoat.
The second he stepped into the lamplight, several things were made clear about the body. It was a young woman, lying on her side with her back to him, her hair fanned out over the asphalt like she'd been brought down running. A darker puddle was visible beneath her body, shining dark red in the light and carrying a familiar tang of copper in the crisp air.
Carefully approaching the body, he crouched down and reached for her shoulder. He flinched when he felt the sticky blood soaked in the fabric of her shirt. Swallowing bile, he turned her over - and fell backwards on his rear, insides clenching with horror as he saw the girl's face.
Sightless silver eyes lolled in their sockets, staring at him with the glassy stare of the dying. "Why, Dean?" her bloodless lips rasped. "Why didn't you save me?"
He jolted awake to see the motel room barely lit with dawn's gray light, Sam asleep in the other bed, and no sign of Baby anywhere.
He hadn't taken three breaths before pulling on a pair of jeans and jamming his boots on, adrenaline sending him into overdrive as he imagined the worst. In less than a second he was grabbing a shirt and stumbling towards the door. If you can hear me, God, so help me, if anything's happened to her -
The door opened softly, and Dean looked up with fear and hope in his eyes. There was Baby in the doorway, clearly confused by his frazzled half-dressed appearance. "Dean, what's wrong?" she asked softly so as not to wake Sam.
"Where the hell were you?"
She held out her hands, loaded with a bag of donuts, a folded newspaper, and a tray of coffee. "I know you and Sammy need breakfast, so I went down to the store and got some." Depositing her load on the table, she wiped her hands on her jeans. "I thought I'd be back before you woke up - "
The rest of her words were smothered when Dean took the necessary two steps to pull her into a crushing hug. She tried to protest, but stopped when he buried his face in the crook of her neck and inhaled that familiar smell of the Impala's aged interior. "Jesus, Baby, you scared the crap out of me," he said, voice gruff with sleep and worry. "I thought something had happened to you."
"Well, I'm fine." Her hands rose to lay on his bare back and pat awkwardly to calm him down. "I'm fine, Dean. You can let go now." He did so reluctantly, now embarrassed by his overreaction. Baby picked up a cardboard cup and held it out to him, along with the paper. "Get some fuel in your tank and check this out."
Sipping the hot liquid, Dean looked at the article as Baby coaxed Sam awake with his own cup of coffee. It was a personal announcement in Valence's local section, detailing that the Christopher's Luxury Showroom was to have a black-tie affair that night to showcase "the latest line of luxury cars." Invitation only read the final line in the announcement. "Tell me you scored invites."
"Duh," Baby confirmed, extracting two envelopes from the pocket of her jacket. "Rachel wasn't manning the desk, so I managed to charm the boy working there into giving me a pair."
"A pair?" Sam repeated, sipping his coffee as he finger-combed his hair back. "You don't need one?"
"Not if I go in with Dean as his vehicular escort and we bring you in as a prospective client. That way nobody questions why we're poking around the showroom and asking questions." She gave the boys a self-satisfied grin. "Well? Good plan, huh?"
"Yeah," Dean nodded, incredibly impressed with her cleverness. "Good plan."
"So we've got the day to prepare," Sam remarked as he glanced at the assembled ingredients for the witch-killing bomb. "I can get started on the bomb. You two should go out."
"Out?" repeated Dean. "Out where?"
"Well, this is Baby's last day human, right?" Sam had a mischievous smile on his lips as he looked at his brother. "Shouldn't she go see as much of the world as she can?"
Baby gasped, her eyes sparkling with excitement as she looked from brother to brother. "Really? Can we?" she begged Dean, tugging on his arm like a child. "Please, Dean?"
Aw, crap, she's learned Sam's puppy eyes. Dean felt his resolve crumbling like the corpse of a phoenix victim. Something in her eyes just made him feel that if he said no, he'd feel worse for it. "Sure, why not. Let's take a walk."
When she plopped beneath a tree in the park and started yanking off her boots, Dean couldn't help saying, "Seriously?"
Baby looked up, the other boot in her hands. "What?"
The hunter shook his head with an amused smile. "Of all the things you could experience, you just wanna walk barefoot through a park?"
"I've always wanted to feel how grass feels." She wriggled her bare toes in the grass with a giggle. "Ohh, nice. I've always wondered what grass felt like before it's crushed beneath my tires."
He jammed his hands in his pockets, amazed at her childlike reply. "You're strange, you know that?"
"You're surprised?" The black-haired girl patted the ground beside her. "Come sit with me."
"Why?"
"I want you to just relax for a while, Dean. So for the next couple hours, we're not gonna talk about the case."
"So now you're Julia Roberts?" But Dean sat beside his Impala anyway. If he was being honest with himself, the idea that he could relax for a few hours was a tempting one. Inhaling slowly, he shut his eyes and listened to the peaceful hum of noise around them.
For several minutes, nothing was said. Then he felt Baby's hand press against his chest. His eyes popped open just as she pushed him down on the grass. "Wait, what're you - "
"Cool your jets, I'm not gonna assault you in public," she snickered, lying down on her back with a suitable distance between their bodies. "Sometimes you and Sammy look up at the sky. Show me what you see."
Dean looked up at the sky and tried to find the right words. "Well, um...see that one?" He pointed to one cloud, thin with a bulge at its base. "It looks like Ruby's magic knife, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," she said slowly, "kinda." Her arm lifted to point at another cloud. "That one looks like a rosary. And that one's a gun." She looked over at him with sparkling eyes. "Hey, this is really fun."
He didn't reply, too stunned what he saw in her gaze. He'd never had someone look at him like that before, not after they learned what the years and the job had done to him. Suddenly awkward, Dean purposely looked at the sky again, his hand moving to tear grass up by the roots. It gave him something to do that didn't involve looking at her. "So, have you...have you always been, like, conscious of stuff?" he asked gruffly, changing the subject.
"Nope," she said. "Like I told Sammy, it really happened after I became yours."
"So, since I was sixteen."
"Just about." Her hand touched his to halt the senseless murder of the grass between them, drawing his gaze back down to hers. "What's on your mind?"
"You." When she didn't seem to understand his answer, Dean tried to explain. "I mean, you've been smashed up, crashed into, possessed by ghosts - "
"Well, those possessions weren't fun times," she admitted. "But I'm made of tougher steel than most girls."
The light jest didn't break the serious look in Dean's eyes. "What I'm trying to say is, how can you have gone through all that, seen everything we've ever done, and not want to run as far away as you can?"
She looked like a cat regarding something puzzling and fascinating at the same time. "Because I know you," she said as if voicing an obvious truth. Scooting closer, Baby nudged her shoulder to his. "You're a good person, and you'd rather go through Hell again than let anything happen to your family. You try to save everybody you come across, and when you can't, it breaks your heart with guilt. I've seen you try to drown that guilt in a bottle, but I've also seen you get right back up and keep on trying to save people."
He swallowed thickly, tearing his stinging eyes away to stare at the clouds again. He'd had a lot of people say that to him over the years - Sam, Castiel, Bobby, dozens and dozens of their friends who had long since died - but when Baby said it, the words just felt right. Like she believed it herself and knew exactly how to say it so he'd believe as well.
Which, given what she just admitted, made sense. Baby had been his one constant, his one focal point of normalcy, in his entire messed-up life. Even when he'd been alone, she'd been there for him. She knew him better than John had, or Bobby, or Cas, or even Sam. Like she could see straight into his battered, broken, scarred soul and wasn't disgusted by what she saw.
"Besides..." Her smile was brilliant, like the sunlight falling on his face. "Who would pass up the chance to be a part of such incredible adventures?"
"Somebody sane," he deadpanned.
Baby scoffed. "Sanity is an overrated optional feature."
That startled a real laugh from Dean, short but hearty. Baby joined in as her hand covered his, and he moved his fingers to tangle with hers. After the laughter died away, there was nothing but a comfortable silence between them as they continued cloud-watching.
Then Baby said, "You had a nightmare, didn't you?"
That made him look over in surprise. She was still looking up at the sky, eyes searching for more fluffy cloud creatures. "When I came back, you weren't just freaked out, you were scared. I didn't want to say anything in front of Sammy." She gave him a look that held nothing but concern. "Want to talk about it?"
Dean looked back up at the sky. "Nope."
She squeezed his hand, but all she said was, "Okay."
They stared at the sky for several more hours, just watching the day go past. Neither felt the need to speak again.
Dean and Baby quality time. A beautiful thing, huh?
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