Universal Blanket Disclaimer: See Chapter One
Here's chapter three! I tried to put it up yesterday, but Fanfiction was acting up. Please, if you like this story, review and let me know! Thank you so much!
She smiled, but winced, "Yeah, but I don't seem to remember who you are."
"We met about a year ago. I'm Sam." He said, relieved to see at least someone he knew, someone that didn't try to spritz him with holy water every five minutes.
She sighed, looking uncomfortable, "Man, don't I hate I forgot you?" She whispered under her breath before looking back at him, "I'm really sorry, but I...um...I was in a car crash eleven months ago. A year before that, I was assaulted and got a concussion. It's weird, but I sort of forgot the year between those incidents. The memories are just gone. So no, I don't remember you. I think I wish I did though."
Sam cursed his still rotten luck, "Shit, I'm sorry. You have amnesia?"
"Yeah, I do. The doctors aren't sure if my memory will ever come back." She bit her bottom lip, "Why are you sitting out here anyway?"
"My car broke down. I was just going to wait here until morning so I could get it fixed or get a new one." Sam said honestly.
She looked thoughtful, "Hey, you want to come crash at my place?"
"Really?" He said, stunned. The entire time he had been back he had been alone. Most people seemed to be scared off by his depressiveness and large size.
She shrugged and motioned for him to walk with her, "Come on, you can't stay out here. My house is just down the block."
"Really? I mean, are you sure?" He said incredulously, still not believing her offer.
Isabel nodded, "Yes, really. I'm not afraid of you." Sam felt something wet rub up against his hand and Isabel giggled when he jumped, "I think Ion likes you." She said, referring to the massive yellow Lab at her feet.
Sam eyed the huge dog warily, "I'm glad."
She giggled, and it made Sam's heart stop. The sound was so beautiful, he would give anything to hear it again. "Sam! He won't bite!"
"You sure?" Sam asked, looking down at her.
She smiled at him, tugging on the leather leash, "Yeah, Sam, I'm sure. He's gotten too old to do any real damage anyway. I think you two are similar, gentle giants."
"How do you know I'm gentle?" Sam said, remembering that he was...had been...the devil's vessel.
She shrugged, "I'm a good judge of people. Plus, I'm pretty sure the me from before would have kicked your ass if you tried anything. That stuffs all muscle memory, right?"
"I think it is. Wait, you're saying you were different before?" Sam said, stopping.
"I think I was. I'm not sure, but I have a tattoo now. I mean, I'm a school teacher! I would never get a tattoo!" She said, throwing up her hands.
"You got a tattoo?" He said, eyebrows raised.
She laughed, "Yeah! Two of them! I couldn't believe it! One is like a pattern on the middle of my back, and the other one is on my shoulder and says 'Love' in some foreign language. It's surreal!"
Sam joined her laughter, "I have one on my chest, but that was definitely something I chose to do."
Isabel looked at his chest like she could see through his shirt and see the anti-possession tattoo there.
She blushed, "Sorry! I'm just having a hard time imagining you with a tattoo!"
Sam smirked at her, "You know, most people could say the same about you."
She nodded, "I know, but still, you're not a bad guy. I can tell. Otherwise, I wouldn't be taking you back to my house." She looked up at the sunset and started walking, "We should get going. Things get kind of creepy around here in the dark."
"Creepy? How so?" Sam asked, getting into step with her.
Isabel shrugged, "There are these neighborhood kids who get a little crazy when the sun goes down. They've been pretty quiet recently, but that's just because there are like four cop cars driving up and down the street every night. They always get onto me for staying out late."
"Oh, so it's just normal creepy?" Sam said.
She raised an eyebrow at him, "As opposed to...un-normal creepy?"
Sam blanched and scratched at the back of his neck. "Um...yeah! Sorry, it's just a family joke."
Isabel stopped, and smiled at him shyly, pushing in a segment of white gate, "This is it." If Sam had ever wondered what the dream house in the back of his mind looked like, he knew now. She was blushing again, "I know, it's a little white picket fairytale, but it's home. I grew up in this neighborhood and after my accident, I kind of wanted to come back. It just felt...right." Sam followed her up the steps to the porch. It had a swing. Sam marveled at it. He heard her giggle again, "You know, that's the very first thing I fixed up. I love it. We can sit out here later if you want."
"Really?"
"Yeah, the cops are fine if I'm out on the porch, but only as long as I'm with Ion." She said, fitting the key from the lanyard around her neck into the lock.
A cheery voice broke the silence as she struggled with the old lock. "Isabel! Darling!"
Isabel sighed unhappily and rolled her eyes but turned around to look at a woman on the porch next door. "Mrs. Drake, how are you?"
The woman was older than Isabel, maybe in her mid to late forties, "Oh, dear, I'm just lovely. Grace brought the kids down. Grace said she wanted to see you. She was so thrilled to hear you were back! Oh, did I mention John-David came home too? He's dying to take you out to dinner. Would you like to come have dessert with us?"
Isabel put on a very convincing look of remorse and stunned Sam by putting her arm through his and taking a step closer to him, "Sorry, but I've already got plans with Sam tonight. I think having Grace over for lunch tomorrow would be fun though. Would you please tell her?"
The woman smiled, but was obviously disappointed, "Of course, dear. You two kids have fun tonight!"
When the woman went back into her house, Isabel lunged back to her door, "We've got to hurry, or she'll come back out with John-David."
Sam laughed and followed her inside, "So she's an overzealous mom?"
Isabel nodded, "Definitely. I think she's been trying to set me up with John-David since before I could walk. It's gotten to be really, really old." She nudged off her shoes and unclipped the dog from his leash, who bounded away. Something started to beep and Isabel hurried over to a keypad on the wall next to the door, an alarm system.
Looking around, Sam was struck by the homeyness of the house. It was by no means massive, but the way it was set up made it seem much larger. He looked out the window and out onto the street and was filled with dread when he saw something in the window sill. About a centimeter in diameter, a clear tube ran across the window and into a hole in the wall, and back out to the next window. The tube was filled with what was almost certainly salt crystals. "Isabel, what is this?" He asked, playing dumb. If she was a hunter, than once she realized who he was, she was bound to try to kill him.
She came over to him, looking around his shoulder, "I think it's salt. I don't know. My mom says it's to keep pests out. I never heard of anything like it, but I don't have any problem with ants so I guess it works." She didn't seem to be lying and put a hand on his arm, "Come on, you must be hungry and tired. You look like you've been on the road for a while."
"I have." Sam admitted, following her to a white, but practical kitchen, with a cut out behind one of the counters looking out unto a very cozy looking living room.
She had her head stuck in the stainless steel refrigerator, "I need to go to the grocery store. Do you mind if I make you a sandwich?"
"That's fine." Sam said, and the little silver phone she had set on the center island started buzzing.
Isabel pulled out of the fridge, holding a precariously balanced stack of plastic bottles and glad containers. She let the stack topple onto the counter and grabbed her phone, "This is Isabel." She had a bored look on her face, "Danny, come on. I'm fine. It was just another day." She looked surprised and annoyed at whatever the man on the phone said, "How the hell did you know about that?" She looked angry, "Would you please butt out? I don't need twenty-four hour supervision! I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself!" Yeah, she was definitely pissed, "Daniel! I'm only five years younger than you are!" She pulled the phone away from her face, looking aghast, "You are such a jerk! You're just angry because you're going to be thirty next week. I am not a child, Daniel, and I'm not going to be treated like one. Stop calling me every day. Tell Mom I love her." She snapped the phone closed and looked at Sam apologetically. "Sorry about that."
"Your brother?" Sam inferred.
She nodded, wincing, "Yeah, is it that obvious?"
Sam laughed at her face, "I have an older brother, so, yeah. It's pretty obvious."
"Well, damn. I was hoping to pull off normal for a few more hours." Isabel said, pulling out four pieces of wheat from the bread box on the counter. "Don't worry, as long as he doesn't know you're here, he won't bother actually showing his face. He likes to keep his distance." She was shoving her body into getting the plastic lid to go back on the bread box.
"Should I be worried?" Sam said, closing the container for her, earning a smile of appreciation.
"Nah, he's just super over protective since my accident. Apparently we fell apart while I was getting tattoos so he's just paranoid about 'keeping' me now." She made air quotes with her fingers and returned to spreading mayo on two of the bread slices. "Mustard or mayo?"
"Mayo." Sam answered.
The questions continued for the next ten minutes, and the sandwiches in front of Isabel grew. For her small size, her sandwich ended up being the same size as Sam's. She began putting it away efficiently, looking more like an eater at an eating contest than a tiny little blond. Sam was totally engrossed in watching her eat.
Upon seeing Sam's mystified look, she grinned, "My Mom always told me not to be afraid to eat what I want in front of guys, and...well..." She had the cutest expression on her face under her pink blush. "What can I say? I'm a fan of Scooby-Doo." Sam burst out laughing, nearly losing a bite of sandwich he'd taken. Her jaw dropped in indignation. She whacked him on the arm with her hand, "Jerk, don't laugh at me!" She kept swatting at him until his laughter wound itself down.
"I'm sorry!" He said, holding his hands up to protect his upper arm from her assault. "It's just..." He stopped, and the mood in the white kitchen was suddenly serious, "I'm a fan too. Most adults..."
She smiled again, amazed at how easy it was to smile around Sam, "Aren't into it anymore? Yeah, I know. I have the most amazing time with my little brother Jesse when he comes to visit. He gives me a reason to watch Scooby-Doo again."
"You have a little brother too?" Sam asked.
Isabel shrugged and squeezed an eye closed, "I sort of have two of them. They're adopted, but, yeah, they're my little brothers. They spend a weekend with me every once and a while, so I can get to know them."
"You don't know them?"
Isabel looked a little depressed, "My mom only recently adopted them. The two of them are something I forgot after my accident. It's been kinda hard trying to reconnect with them, but the three of us get along really well, so it's not as bad as it could have been." She laughed it off, "Apparently, I was a pretty awesome sister. They text me constantly." She moved off the barstool and started putting the sandwich fixings back in the fridge, stopping to polish off a bag of chips.
Sam finished his sandwich quickly, and began washing the dishes in the sink. "Your house, what I've seen of it is really nice."
She closed the pantry door, "Yeah, I've been fixing it up. Of the interior of this house, I did the kitchen first though, I'm happiest when I'm cooking, so it just made sense to have at least one sanctuary finished." She blushed, "That's not to say that I can cook well. I just really like cooking."
"Amazing." Sam whispered to himself, watching her denim covered ass when she bent over to put up the mayonnaise.
"So, what's up with your brother?" She asked innocently, "You haven't mentioned him."
Sam jerked his eyes from her body, "Um...I'm sort of dead to Dean now."
She cocked her head to the side, "Why's that?"
After a few moments of careful consideration, Sam decided to tell her as much of the truth as he could without scaring her to death and getting the cops called, "I got into a relationship he didn't approve of, and I...I said yes to a question Dean didn't approve of which cause me to skip out on him. I haven't talked to him in over a year. I'm pretty sure he's happier with me gone."
She put her hand on top of one of Sam's, "I'm sure that's not true." The look on her face was honest, "Come on, you still want to sit on the porch?"
He nodded, "Yeah, I do." The dog growled at him from his bed in the entry way and Isabel swatted him on the nose as they walked by.
"Sorry about him. He's nearly as protective as my brother." She sat down on the porch swing and pulled her knees up to her chest, patting the spot next to her, "Sit, your legs are longer, you get to do the manual labor."
Sam obliged her command, and examined the white beams of her porch. More tubes filled with salt lined the fencing, and at the opening for the steps, followed the wood down to the porch and across the crease of the top step. Whoever her mother was, she was in no way ignorant about demons. The idea of keeping the salt in tubing had actually never occurred to Sam, and it seemed a rather simplistic way to protect permanent residences. It would be especially effective in protecting people who didn't know what it was truly for.
Isabel sighed, "It's so pretty out here, you know, even though it's the suburbs. My mom would sit and watch the stars with me when she was home." She gave Sam an odd look, "You aren't really going anywhere, are you? You're just wandering."
"How?" Sam said, gapping like a fish at her.
She shrugged, "Just the feeling I get from you. You seem...tired."
"I am." He said quietly.
Isabel shifted next to him, and put a hand on his upper arm. "Stay here."
"What?" Sam said, legitimately dumbfounded.
Isabel took a deep breath, looking uncertain, "I can't help myself sometimes. I like taking care of people. I would have become a nurse, maybe a doctor, but you have to hurt patients sometimes. I couldn't do that, so I teach. You're lost. I know the feeling. My family helped me through the madness, but you don't have anyone. If you just keep doing whatever you have been, you're going to get yourself killed. Stay here."
"I couldn't mooch off you." Sam said, still trying to understand her words.
She nodded, "Okay, that's fine. I'll help you get a job and then you can pay me rent. I'm not certain what happened to you, but I woke up one day to find a year of my life missing. The last thing I remembered was being held by...some freaky as hell man. I didn't remember my brother finding me and saving me. When I woke up, I thought I was still there. They had to keep me on Haldol for a week so I wouldn't try to kill myself. I think you're in a similar place, and I want to help you. Will you let me?" Her blue eyes were studying his face, open and expressive. They were telling Sam that if he said no, he would still have a bed for at least one night.
Sam remembered what had happened the last time he had lived with a woman. But Isabel wasn't Jess. Besides, she apparently already had someone who cares about her secretly demon proof her house. It would be easy to live with Isabel, she liked the same things that law student Sam liked, she had a heart so open she was bleeding kindness, she had a house out of a dream, and made sandwiches like nobody's business.
Stunning himself, Sam found his mouth moving of it's own volition, "Okay."
Isabel smiled widely at him, getting off the swing and holding her hand out to him, "Well alright then! Let me show you your new room."
Don't forget to review!
-Jenn
Some Hearts By: Carrie Underwood
"I've never been the kind that you'd call lucky,
Always stumbling' around in circles.
But I must have stumbled into something.
Look at me, Am I really alone with you?
I wake up feeling like my life's worth living.
Can't recall when I last felt that way.
Guess it must be all this love you're giving.
Never knew never knew it could be like this."