2002

They met up for coffee as planned at the little café in New Orleans. Kat flashed him a winning smile when he walked through the door, stirring the extra sugar into her espresso. She needed all the energy she could get -it was just one of those days. Dean slid into the booth opposite her, leaning across to kiss her cheek tenderly.

"You finally got away from him, huh?" Kat teased.

Dean grinned, "Yeah he let me do this one on my own. Got a call down in Washington, I guess. Still avoiding your mother I hear?"

Kat groaned. "She phoned him?"

"Again, yeah."

"What'd she want?"

"To know how you were doing. Where you were. The usual."

"What'd John say?"

"That you were fine and no he didn't know where you were."

"He didn't ask you?"

"I just told him you were fine."

"So… he doesn't know?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't care if he does."

Kat smiled adoringly, giving him a quick peck. "Well I've missed you."

The waiter dropped by to get their orders, looking a little disappointed when he saw Dean sitting there. Dean ordered a black coffee, a cheeseburger and some fries and Kat reassured the waiter that she was still quite happy with her espresso.

"What, making plans in case I didn't show?" Dean joked, watching the waiter walk away.

"Maybe," Kat joked. At Dean's look she innocently added, "Babe, he isn't half as interesting as you."

"And espresso?"

"Today's one of those days."

Dean leaned over, kissing her. Kat was quite happy to kiss him back. Unaware that the waiter had been eyeing her up whereas Dean was not so oblivious. They pulled away, a little breathless and uncaring of anyone who was around them. Kat listened to Dean tell her about his solo hunt and how he had managed to impress his father for once with some fast thinking. Of course it was short lived when it turned out there was the monster had a back-up with him. Kat laughed along with Dean and the waiter dropped off their meal without a second glance at either of them.

Dean was about to take a bite from his burger when his cell phone rang out. Kat took the opportunity as soon as it presented itself to her. In an attempt to hear his caller, Dean turned away and Kat reached over, taking his burger and helping herself to a nice bite. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry; she was. But stealing food from Dean had to be the best game there was to play. He hung up, turning back towards her and Kat innocently nibbled on a fry.

Dean took one glance at his burger and shot her a dirty look. "Can't you order your own food?"

Kat pretended to consider as she reached over and stole another fry. "Nah. Yours tastes better."

"It's the same food."

"No," Kat corrected, smirking. "It's your food."

Just Breathe

(March 2009)

Alyssa's in the middle of a regular day sometime in March when everything changes.

Again.

In a matter of seconds she's gone, out the back and shirking her clothes into the nearest dumpster before hopping into her recently overhauled car and speeding all the way out of Minnesota, a pair of looming black eyes haunting her in the rear view mirror. She does her best to be kept in the hunter's loop, but tries to keep herself relatively scarce for the most part.

It's obvious something is going on, but it isn't something she can pinpoint. Recently demons had been crawling around everywhere and she was starting to feel like a hunted rabbit chased from one den to the next. Ellen had called in a few favors to get her this car, and maybe it was just her paranoia, but Alyssa was starting to think they were beginning to recognize it. It was a plain old white car; it blended in everywhere and nearly so often that when she went grocery shopping she usually had to wander around the parking lot a good ten minutes before figuring out which car was hers. On top of it, she was making it a habit to change her license plate in every state she passed through to try and reduce her chances of being noticed.

Something big was going on, that was for sure. She wondered how Sam was doing, where he was and if he was somehow involved with whatever was going on. Because if he was in trouble, then it definitely meant that Alyssa was in trouble. Or at least that seemed to be a quickly forming pattern. It never meant anything good either. She spent the next several days driving, spending the warmer nights tucked in safely within her car.

Last time she had spoken to Ellen, she and Jo were back together and covering some of the possessions that seemed to be going on continually. Alyssa was grateful to phone and let her know that there was another one back in Minnesota. As she pulled into a small town in Wyoming nearly a week later, the hairs on the back of her neck started to rise. She changed her mind and decided that it was a better idea to simply keep driving. So she did.

She was barely outside of the town outskirts, headed to the nearest rest stop for a much needed break, when there a soft fluttering sound. From the corner of her eye she spot movement and glanced over, screaming and slamming on the breaks when she realized there was a man sitting in her passenger seat. The force of her sudden stop drove her chest into the steering wheel -enough force to bruise but not enough to do any other damage. The man sitting beside her however… she pulled back with a grunt, expecting to see that he had been thrown from the vehicle but he was still sitting there undisturbed.

"I apologize for startling you," he said, tilting his head to the side. His words were oddly formal. "You are Alyssa Jones, yes?"

Alyssa could only stare at the stranger, unsure of what answer to give. "Depends," she finally hedged, undoing her seatbelt. If the force of gravity couldn't do anything to him, she doubted she would have a better chance. Running wasn't much of an option, but it was better than driving with this guy.

"You are the only one who can save him."

"Save who?"

"He needs you."

"Look, I don't care who needs me! I don't care who I can save. I don't know you -and I sure as hell don't trust you. Now get out of my car!" she hit her seatbelt, ready to flee when he calmly opened his door and stepped out. She could only stare in shock.

"You need to come with me."

"Excuse me?"

"There is no time if you are to save him."

"Save who?!"

"Sam."

Sam? That didn't make any sense. He was certainly better off on his own than anything else. "Who are you?" she demanded instead. Suddenly, she regretted having denied Ellen's offer of putting a secure weapons stash in the vehicle. If she had a gun… it was unlikely to have made a difference, but she might have felt a little safer. Until of course it didn't work and then she would probably be more panicked than she already was.

"Who are you?" she repeated dimly, staring at him.

"I am Castiel, Angel of the Lord."

She couldn't help the laugh that bubbled from her lips as she stared at the man in a trench coat with his neat and tidy hair. He didn't look like any angel. "What kind of a joke is this?"

"It is not a joke," he repeated sternly, frowning at her.

Alyssa stared at him in shock before getting out of her car and walking around to stand a little closer to him. It was a good thing this was late at night and this highway was practically deserted or there would have been several accidents already.

"You're a real angel?" she inquired, looking at him curiously.

"Yes."

He looked so plain…

"Is this… a host?" she asked, gesturing at him vaguely.

"A vessel, yes." He was watching her curiously, his deep blue eyes seeming to pierce her very soul.

Alyssa had a million and one questions to ask, one in particular that started with why. It was probably something everyone had wondered at some point, to some extent. But she didn't ask it. "Sam needs me?"

Castiel paused, a smile edging onto his face. "You believe," he murmured, intrigued.

Alyssa blushed. "What's going on?"

Castiel didn't waste time, instead simply reaching over and placing his fingers on her forehead. It was a peculiar sensation, with no beginning and no end. The next time Alyssa opened her eyes, she was standing in front of a motel in the middle of Castiel-knows-where. She staggered with the sudden shift, trying to regain her balance from the sudden shift. She stumbled inside, seeking shelter from the drizzle that was slowly soaking through her clothes.

She didn't talk about it much, or really share that she had a religious background. She had stopped believing a long time ago, around the time that Jess had died. But really, it did make sense considering that demons existed. Curious, she made her way down the hall. She hadn't seen the Impala outside. What had that angel meant about being the only one who could save him? Was Sam okay -was he even here?

She stopped, realizing there was no way for her to know if Sam was here when one of the doors swung open. Alyssa watched as a short woman made her way out, laughing softly at something someone else said. The next second there was a taller man at the doorway, leaning down and pressing a kiss to her neck. It felt like a ton of bricks had been dropped on, one of those hilarious moments from a child's cartoon that wasn't such a great feeling, when she realized. It was Sam. The shorter woman pulled back with another laugh, touching his face tenderly before turning and walking down the hall. Briefly, they made eye contact, she and the other woman, and Alyssa was rewarded with a sneer as the woman kept on down the hall.

She looked at the door, where Sam was standing, his eyes wide with surprise as he stared at her. "A-Alyssa."

It wasn't as though they were dating or anything, she reminded herself stubbornly. They were just… friends. A part of her felt like falling apart and crying at the stupid luck of the world -that the man she was -that the man she adored was always with someone else and never her. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

She offered a fleeting, strained smile in response. "So, who was that?"

"She's… no one. Look, what are you even doing here? How'd you find me?"

"Well certainly not by looking!" Alyssa snapped, harsher than she intended. She had to stop and swallow back whatever pained responses she had. She threw her arms around him instead. Thank god he was okay.

"Aly…"

She pulled back quickly. "You're okay right?" she asked, casting a concerned look up into his eyes. He looked okay.

"I'm okay," he said softly, smiling almost uncomfortably. "How did you find me here, anyways?"

"Coincidence," she replied before she could stop herself.

Sam paused, "Do you… want to come in for a bit?"

Alyssa nodded and he led her inside. She wasn't quite prepared for the mess of the room and belatedly realized that the bed was in more of a mess than just that of a person sleeping. Pointedly, she looked away and sat down on the chair closest to the door.

"How've you been?"

"Worried," she told him honestly. "I thought… something might have happened to you."

A scowl flashed across Sam's face and was so shortly there that Alyssa wondered whether she had imagined it or not. "Well you were the one who called Kat on me, aren't you?"

"Wha-what? I -I was just worried."

"You're the only one who could have called them," Sam persisted, sitting down in the other armchair, facing her. There was a hardness in his eyes that she wasn't accustomed to seeing, and it was a little bit scary when he was looking at her this way. As though… as though they were strangers. "Well thanks for that, because Katherine tailed me all over the country for the rest of the summer."

"I was worried!" Alyssa protested numbly. "I didn't want you to-to die doing something stupid!"

"Something stupid like bringing my brother back?!" Sam shouted.

Alyssa fell silent, drawing back against her chair. She had never seen Sam like this before.

"Which I couldn't do by the way, but Kat got in her head that it was her responsibility or something -as though she owed anything to Dean! He never wanted her with us, that day, but I thought she was good back up." Sam shook his head. "She got careless, Alyssa. She was following me for weeks, and I went out on this hunt and… it got her before I did."

"What?" she gasped, staring at him as he turned away from her. "What do you mean Sam? I didn't send Kat to hunt you or anything -I was worried after that message. So worried, for you." Hesitantly she reached towards him.

"Kat's dead because of you," he growled.

She felt as though she had been slapped. "It was… her choice," she replied numbly.

"If you hadn't told her anything she wouldn't have been following me!"

"Sam," she pleaded softly, gazing at him pleadingly.

It wasn't her fault. It didn't make her feel any better that the kind woman she had met over the summer was dead, but it wasn't her fault. She had only shared her concerns. If Kat had been concerned enough to continue following Sam, then that was Kat's choice. And it was a red flag that something was wrong with Sam. But there were so many things that were screaming that something was wrong with him, from the way he avoided talking about the woman, the way he seemed so on edge… the way he had yelled at her.

"I'm sorry, okay?" she whispered, taking a deep breath, reaching towards him. "I didn't know. I was scared, Sam. You took off, you left that really strange message. If I had known…"

Sam pulled away from her entirely, the tenseness washing from his body. "Dean doesn't know. And you can't tell him."

Alyssa looked at Sam in alarm. "What?"

"Dean; he doesn't know about Kat. You can't tell him."

"What do you mean -Sam, he's dead."

"No. He came back."

"B-but… how?"

"Angels," he sighed, turning back towards her and sagging into his chair. He smiled apologetically at her. "I'm sorry Alyssa, everything's so screwed up right now…"

"It-it's okay…" she agreed tentatively, watching him closely.

"Dean came back in September. We've been kind of keeping it low. But thing's have been crazy. I'm sorry for… I'm sorry," he murmured, leaning forward. "Kat was like a sister to me. I-I don't know if you knew that and sometimes… Sometimes Dean calls her and he thinks I don't know, but I do, and he can't get a hold of her and…" Sam sighed heavily.

"Crazy how?" she whispered, staring at him.

So Sam told her everything. And Alyssa wished he hadn't. What had Castiel wanted her to do? Save Sam? Save him from what, exactly? Hell? He was a little busy with saving the world, or trying to. Alyssa did the only thing she could think of, with a lot of hesitancy, wrapping her arms around him. She had missed him. Even if he… He was still her friend. And she had no doubt that she would hear more about Kat, later. Hopefully, later. She didn't even know what to do with those feelings or anything. So for now, she wasn't going to worry about them.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone, hope it's been good for you. :)