Somewhere far away she heard a ringing. She wasn't sure at first if it was in her head or in reality. The annoying sound kept on and on, growing louder and louder until she woke up. She stared around, trying to get her vision in focus. Her phone was lit up on the nightstand, the vibration moving it around in circles. She reached for the phone and looked at the name on the screen. Phil. Fuck. Her night out suddenly came rushing back to her and all the drama that had led up to it. She faintly remembered Dean carrying her to his room. She looked wildly around but he was nowhere to be found.

Trying her hardest to focus despite a pounding headache, she answered the phone.

"Hello?"

There was silence on the other end. She knew he was there though and she could tell that he was furious.

"Hello?" she tried again with even less resolve.

"I'm surprised you answered the phone. I've only been calling for thirty minutes now."

"I—I'm sorry I must've—"

He scoffed thickly.

"Whatever bullshit excuse you were coming up with just forget it. I know exactly what's going on—you've been out with him all night long. You're in his room right now, aren't you?"

"I—"

"Aren't you!?"

"Yes. Yes, Phil, I'm in his room."

The silence grew so loud it made her headache even worse.

"You'd better be waiting by the elevator in two minutes. It's your last chance."

The line went dead. She stared at her phone for several moments in disbelief. Finally, she came to her senses and pulled herself out of the bed. She noticed she was still wearing the same clothes from the night before. She went over to the mirror and met an awful sight: her hair was messy, her makeup was smeared and she had serious bags under her eyes. She wiped at her eyes and tried to tidy herself up the best she could before dashing out of the room.

She could see him standing by the elevators at the end of the hallway. His arms were crossed. The look in his eyes was purely venomous. Besides the anger he was emanating she could tell he'd had a long night too. He looked tired. If she didn't already feel bad enough, that made her feel worse.

He just stared at her for a long time. With each moment that passed she became more and more fearful of what he was going to say. He finally drew a deep breath and when he spoke it was in a low, calm voice.

"Explain yourself."

"I—"

"Let me explain it for you."

Dean's gravelly voice cut in out of nowhere. He was approaching them from the other end of the hallway, his flat blue eyes locked on Phil. He walked past her without a glance and stood in front of her as if he were a shield against Phil's anger.

"It's very simple. You made her feel worthless. That's a bad feeling to feel for someone who's in love with another person. She tried to escape that feeling of low self-worth by going out to a bar and drinking it away. And I was there to protect her. End of story."

Phil glared at Dean.

"So you were there to protect her, huh? Then tell me why you let a former addict walk into that bar in the first place?"

Dean shrugged.

"She's a grown woman. I'm not going to tell her not to drink."

Phil laughed but he didn't look amused.

"It was so you could take her back to your room, wasn't it? Get her drunk enough to make the same mistake she made several years ago."

Dean said nothing but his eyes said it all. Phil was heading down the wrong path.

Still smiling that eerie smile, Phil pushed past Dean and looked into Aidan's eyes.

"So is that what this was about? You got all upset and went out drinking to nurse your wounded pride? I don't buy it. I want to hear your side of the story."

"I—I was afraid it was over between us. I couldn't think straight. I made a bad decision to have a drink to calm myself down. One led to two, two to three, and so forth, and I was too drunk to take myself back to the hotel, so Dean let me stay in his room. He's telling the truth. He was there to protect me the whole time. He scared off some pervert who was giving me a hard time and he protected me from who knows what by staying with me."

"So he's some kind of fucking hero? I know this guy. I know all about the kind of stuff he's done and you're going to have an awful hard time convincing me that he didn't use you last night just like he's done before."

"Dean didn't do anything, Punk."

It was Daniel approaching them now.

"Yeah, and how the hell do you know?"

"Because I followed him back to his room last night when I saw them walking into the hotel. He put her to bed because she was too drunk to stand up. She was afraid of what you'd think if she came back to the room like that."

"So she slept in another man's room?! A man who I know she kissed not more than a month ago and worse she's slept with him in the past. Am I crazy for being suspicious?"

"You should have been there."

Dean uttered the statement in a low, deadly voice.

"What are you trying to say?" Phil asked, closing in on him.

"You should have been there. She's been terrified of telling you the truth about her past because of what you might think of her. You said she disgusted you when you found out about some of the details of her past. She's heart broken and all you're worried about is some stupid drinking episode and where she fell asleep last night—and none of that matters. What matters is you upset her and you turned her away. Instead of being a man and talking to her, you turned her away. Anything could have happened last night, but it's all on you."

The two men stood toe to toe and nearly nose to nose. Daniel looked like he was preparing himself to break up a fight. Suddenly, Phil took a step back. He turned to Aidan, taking her hand.

"I'm glad you're ok. We have a lot to talk about. Let's get out of here."

She blinked at him in disbelief.

"Sure."

She glanced back at Dean. The expression on his face was unfathomable.

As they walked away, she felt like something was very wrong. She wanted to go back to Dean and tell him thank you for what he'd said, for what he'd done the night before. She knew though that there was no going back. She looked at Phil who seemed oddly calm.

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to the room and we're going to sit down and talk. We haven't been talking nearly enough lately and I think that's the source of all of our problems, and a lot of that is my fault."

"So you're not mad?"

He stopped and looked her in the eye.

"I'm upset. But we can fix this. Don't you agree?"

He leaned in and kissed her on the lips softly.

"I still love you, you know. That never changed."

She felt her eyes growing hot with tears.

He smiled and put his arms around her.

"We're going to be okay. I promise."