Chapter 9
Elizabeth sat at Dean's bedside and watched his eyes drift shut. His fingers held hers tightly for a long moment, but at last his grip loosened. His face relaxed into sleep, the years and cares falling away until he looked more like a little boy than a grown man.
He'd said he loved her, and she believed him. She knew he meant it, but she also knew the drugs had dropped his inhibitions as well as alleviating the pain he was in from his injuries. Maybe one day, Dean would repeat the words to her sober, but until then, she would pretend that it hadn't happened.
She hoped Sam hadn't heard. She absolutely didn't want Dean to be teased about it and did not put it past Sam to give him all kinds of grief. She'd heard the "Bitch-jerk" exchange between them often enough to know the two didn't pull many punches.
She looked back at the doorway where Sam stood, his phone in his hand. He looked worried, but not desperately so. Apparently, she looked desperately worried because Sam looked up from his texting and gave her a smile.
"Don't worry about Dean. He's had so much worse than this it isn't funny. Any other time he'd be driving home right now, swearing and chasing Tylenol with Jack Daniels," Sam assured her. He shook his head. "Truly, I don't know why he's taking the easy road now."
"Maybe because the doctor thinks you or somebody like you beat the crap out of him," Elizabeth answered. "He pretty much got the ultimatum to stay overnight in the hospital where the staff can make sure nobody else tries to beat him to death or the doctor was going to call the cops."
Sam frowned and crossed the short distance to the opposite side of Dean's bed. He pulled up a rolling stool from the corner and sat. "You know what happened, right?" Sam sounded anxious. "You saw everything."
"Sam, what I saw is immaterial. No doctor in this hospital is going to buy the story that Dean got run down by a team of horses pulling a wagon full of flour barrels," Elizabeth answered. "And a lie always sounds like a lie even if it makes much more logical sense than the truth. At least the doctor's letting us stay with him."
"You know you can go home and rest whenever you want. I've got it here," Sam offered.
"Maybe in a little while."
Sam sat on the stool in silence for several minutes. He let out a deep breath and looked at her with soulful eyes. "Lizzy, I know Dean has feelings for you. But you need to know some things about him, about us. He's never going to settle down. We can't. I tried once, a long time ago. It ended badly. Maybe some of those circumstances are behind us now, maybe not. But the truth is, we don't know how to settle down. I've never had a home or a real family with aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents. I've made my peace with that."
He paused and looked at Dean's sleeping form. "But I don't think Dean ever has. He remembers a time when we did have a home. I think he really would like to have it again. He just doesn't know how. He's never had a serious relationship with anyone. I'm not sure he can do it. It might be too late for him. For both of us."
Elizabeth forced herself to blink back tears. Someone had to be strong enough to carry them all. Someone had to know how to hope. "He's told me the short version of your story," she replied. "I may never know it all. The truth is I probably don't want to know it all. But I promise you this, I won't ask any more of Dean than he is able and willing to give. Whether we part company tomorrow or at the end of our lives, I will be on his side, doing whatever is best for him. If that means letting him go, then I will even if it breaks my heart to do it. If that means loving him for the next hundred years, I'll do that too. Where I come from, we don't play around with love. It's serious business."
"So no booty calls?" Dean whispered from the bed.
"You are supposed to be sleeping." Elizabeth felt the blood rush to her cheeks. She hadn't meant for him to hear that, not yet at least. "And no. I don't do booty calls."
"Damn. All the same I wish you'd stay." His voice was light, but his eyes pleaded with her and his fingers reached for hers again.
"Of course I'll stay, sweetie." She bent over him and kissed him lightly on that cupid's bow of a mouth, running a hand over his cheek where a hint of stubble was just barely beginning to break through. "Now sleep."
He sighed and relaxed again, but his fingers kept hold of hers.
-0-
Sometime into the night, she converted the guest chair into what turned out to be a very uncomfortable bed and a nurse brought her a thin blanket and plastic covered pillow. When Sam came back from a vending machine run to see her settling in, he declared that he would just head back to the apartment and relieve her in the morning.
Around midnight, the nurse came in to check vitals and change the bag on the IV. "Elizabeth Coleman. What in heaven's name are you doing here?" she asked as Elizabeth sat up on the edge of the chair.
"Dean's my neighbor." She'd known Tameka Johnson for years and doubted her explanation would suffice.
Sure enough, the nurse shook her head. "Uhn uhn, girl. That ain't going to get it. Does your mama know you're down here staying in this boy's room?"
"Well," Elizabeth began, but knew she couldn't lie. "No. My mama doesn't know and don't you go calling her. Dean took a bad fall and didn't have anybody else to stay with him for the night."
"What about that long-haired, lanky thing running the halls? The desk nurse said he was this one's brother. I think she's been trying to strike up a conversation with him," Tameka laughed.
"Yeah, well, you know how much good men are in hospitals," Elizabeth played it off.
"I agree with that one, but still you don't need to be here, a young single woman like yourself with a goodlooking man like this. People are going to talk," Tameka warned.
Elizabeth nodded. People had already begun to talk. Her co-workers knew she was seeing someone, but until Billy had come by running his mouth the day after the Guthrie Elbert incident, they didn't know who. Now that Tameka Johnson had seen them together, it was pretty clear that the cat wouldn't be in the bag much longer.
She sighed. She was going to have to call her mother before somebody else did. She didn't even want to think about how her daddy was going to take knowing his daughter was interested in a ghost-hunter passing through town. She shuddered at that.
She lay back down and tried to sleep, taking comfort in Dean's even breathing. It felt right to be there though. No matter how it looked to the rest of the world, she felt comfortable being the one at his side when he needed her.
He coughed and groaned, clutching at his side. She was up in an instant. "Oh man that hurts like a son of a bitch," he moaned, taking shallow breaths. "Shit." He pressed the button for the pain pump at least five times. "Crap, crap, crap." The steady stream of gasps and curses faded away as the pain relief hit his system.
After several minutes, he finally began to unclench his jaw and relax again. "That's better. Remind me not to cough again, okay?" he asked. She agreed and kissed his forehead. Then she ran her fingers lightly over the crease between his eyes and began to smooth out the crinkles at his temples. "That feels really good. Thank you." His lids dropped once more, his eyelashes lying dark against his cheeks.
It wasn't right for a man to have eyes that beautiful, she thought to herself. Or a mouth that perfect. Even the light dusting of freckles across his cheekbones only added to his gorgeousness, giving him just a hint of boyishness to counter the sexiness of the five o'clock shadow on his cheeks. Before she could turn her attention to the muscular body that lay only lightly draped by the thin hospital blankets, she forced herself to turn away and sit back down again. Tameka was 100% correct. She had no business being in the room of such an incredibly desirable young man.
She picked up the phone to call Sam and ask if he could come relieve her a bit earlier than expected. But before she could dial, a figure in white entered the room. She'd only seen nurses dressed like this one on old television shows. Everything from the woman's hat to her dress to her hose to her shoes was stark white.
She stood up and walked to Dean's bedside again. The woman took his pulse and felt his forehead with the back of her hand. When Elizabeth noticed that the nurse's hand glowed white as well, she began to panic. She glanced all around the room for a shaker of salt.
"Shit, this is a hospital," she whispered to herself. "They don't believe in salt."
But the nurse only smiled at her. "I haven't been able to check on a patient like this in a very long time," she said in a quiet voice. "He's resting comfortably and I'm sure will be well on the mend by morning. Good night, my dear."
The figure walked toward the doorway but faded into nothingness before she ever reached it.
-0-
The rest of the night passed uneventfully, but that didn't mean Elizabeth got a bit of sleep after their night visitor. When Sam came in at five o'clock, she filled him in on everything, gave Dean a kiss on the forehead, and somehow made the half hour drive home without falling asleep.
Back at her place, she took a short, warm shower, then threw herself into bed, shivering against the chill of the sheets for a few minutes before sleep finally overtook her.
She woke a few hours later, still tired but feeling restored enough to go back to the hospital. As she was dressing, her phone rang.
"Hey, sweetie. You ran off on me." It was Dean.
"I didn't want to wake you. You were finally resting again."
"The doctor just came by. He said they're going to let me leave here in a while. I didn't want you to drive over here and me not be here. If you were going to come back. I mean I wanted you to come back, but you don't have to since I'm leaving. Not that you have to come. Because you don't. But I still want you to. But I'm leaving."
She decided he still had plenty of pain-killer in his system and interrupted his rambling. "Of course I was coming back. I was just getting ready. Call when you leave and I'll make lunch for you and Sam. You've got to be starving."
"Man, yeah. Lunch sounds great. Can we have spaghetti? I really want some spaghetti."
"I will make you spaghetti. Just call me when you leave, okay?"
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
-0-
Three hours and one pot of spaghetti later, Dean and Sam walked through her door, Dean with a noticeable limp and a big white bandage on the back of his head. He held his left arm close to his chest. He eased into a chair at the table and gave her a wincing smile.
"Are you going to live?" she asked.
"Maybe. My ribs hurt like a son of a bitch," he sighed. "I need a shower, but I am starving."
"Fortunately for you both, I have made lunch." She loaded Dean's plate down with spaghetti and green beans along with a piece of garlic bread. He sat very straight in his chair but began to wolf down food like he hadn't eaten in days.
"Hey, what about me?" Sam asked as she fixed her own plate and sat at the table.
"Oh, I'm sorry." She passed him an empty plate from the cabinet. "There you go."
"You're not going to feed me?" Sam asked in mock disappointment.
"She doesn't love you," Dean responded with a smirk, his mouth full of food.
"Who's to say I love you?" She couldn't believe the way it felt to string those words together, even as a joke.
"You made me spaghetti and kept the nurses off me last night. If that's not love, then what is?" Dean replied.
"I'm just going to take care of myself then," Sam mourned. But within seconds he too was shoveling food in like it was going to vanish.
"I don't know how you two manage to keep yourselves in groceries the way you eat," she remarked after refilling Dean's plate. Sam was also on seconds.
"We buy cheap crap for us. But Scooter gets the good stuff." Dean sat up even straighter. "Shit. Scooter. We've got to let him out and feed him."
"I'll do it." She reached out her hand and Sam passed her his keys.
She walked down the hallway and could hear Scooter bark as she put the key in the lock. "Hey, boy! She ruffled his ears as he reared up on her legs, his little front feet just above her knees. She hooked his leash on his collar, expecting him to drag her to the door to go outside to relieve himself. But instead he paused and stared at the kitchen window. He gave a low, throaty growl and a short sharp bark, then snorted and walked into the hallway. A flash of white passed by the window frame, but so quick she almost missed it.
She walked with Scooter outside and went around the end of the apartments to the grassy area next to the parking lot. From there, she could see Dean's kitchen window, but there was no sign of anyone near. In fact, large holly bushes grew up right beneath all the windows on the ground floor, planted as a deterrent against people breaking and entering. No one could have gotten to that window without crawling over five feet of stickers and thorns.
"I am imagining things, Scoots," she declared to the little dog who was relieving himself copiously on the grass.
He sighed and shook a little as he stepped away from the grass and onto the sidewalk back toward the apartment. "Do you want to go in already?" she asked.
The little white dog looked across the parking lot at the black Impala in its parking place, then back at her, his little button nose twitching. Then he pulled her back toward the front door of the apartment building. "I guess you want to see your boys," she said with a laugh.
They walked back to her place, and as she opened the door, a flash of white crossed the kitchen window. "What the hell?" she declared as Scooter began to growl and bark. She unclipped the lead from Scooter's collar and the two of them ran across the room. She hopped onto the counter, her knees on the edge of the sink, and raised the window. She wanted to look out, but a screen blocked the way. She fiddled with the screws that held the screen locked into place on each side, Scooter growling.
"What are you doing?" Dean got up and limped toward her.
"There's something out there. I'm going to see what the hell it is." She decided she'd need a screwdriver to break the screws loose.
"No. Don't." Dean held his hand out toward her. "Close the window, Lizzy."
"I keep seeing something white outside the window. At your place and just now here," she declared. "Whoever this perv is, I'm going to catch his ass."
"Slow down, please, Lizzy," Dean put his hand on her arm. "Did you stop to think that maybe that window and that screen are what's keeping it out there? If you open them, it's like rolling out the welcome mat."
Lizzy stopped fiddling with the screws. Then she lowered the window sash and turned so that she sat on the edge of the counter, facing him. At this height, her face was level with his. "What do you think is out there, Dean?" she asked, staring him straight in those green eyes.
His eyes were honest as he answered. "I don't know. But you've seen it and I've seen it. The fact that Scooter barks at it, tells me it needs to stay out there. Maybe it's got something to do with Ranulf's place or the hardware store or that damned team of horses. But I trust Scooter's instincts. Whatever it is, it isn't good."
Scooter sat back on his haunches and looked up at her with his sweet face. He was calm again, which meant that whatever was there had gone. She didn't doubt for an instant that Scooter meant to protect them, though. No matter what was outside, this little seven pound dog was going to protect them all.
Speaking of all, "Where's Sam?" she asked. The dishes had been cleared from the table and since they weren't in the sink, she had to assume they'd actually put them in the dishwasher.
"He went back to our place for his laptop. He wanted to see if he could find out where that horse team came from. Maybe it's connected to all the rest of this craziness in your town," Dean walked closer until he stood right against the counter before her so that her knees were on either side of him.
"My town wasn't crazy until you showed up," she teased.
"Maybe your town needed a little Winchester in it," Dean replied. Then he put his hand on her thigh. His fingers were warm through the fabric of her yoga pants.
It was so unusual looking at him straight in the eye this way. Normally, he stood several inches taller so that she was always looking up at him. His pupils were still a little dilated. Funny how years of working with drug addicts had attuned her to all kinds of signs that someone wasn't straight. So she knew Dean was still a bit on the loopy side.
When he moved in to kiss her neck, she knew she should stop him. But when his hand went up under her shirt to the small of her back, her good intentions took a walk. He pressed against her, his chest against hers, his fingers in her hair, his mouth roaming down her neck and across her shoulder. Then both his hands went beneath the hem of her t-shirt and around her waist as his lips found hers.
Every nerve in her skin fired at once as she kissed him. Everything about him was so perfect, so strong, so beautiful. She felt like the sexiest woman on earth in that moment. She wanted nothing more than to give in to the desire that coursed through her, but the little sane voice in her head started to alarm. He's not sober. He's got broken ribs. Now's not the time. Sam might be back at any second. Scooter is watching.
Nothing from the sane warning voice got through the rosy sweet touch of Dean's hands and lips until she felt her shirt began to slip up her body. She eased it down again and pulled her mouth away from Dean's. Her lips felt lonely, so she kissed his neck and whispered in his ear. "Now's probably not the best time for this. Sam will be back any second. Besides those ribs need to heal a little more, okay, sweetie?"
He sighed and pressed his forehead against hers. She thought he was going to back down, but instead he whispered in her own ear, "I'm just fine." Then he flicked the lobe of her ear with the tip of his tongue. "I think you're the one who needs more time."
He kissed her neck again, then reached up to cup her breast in his hand. Every warning her mother ever gave her raced through her mind and she knew she had to do something fast or her first time with Dean was going to be on a kitchen counter.
He's not sober! her little voice screamed at her and she knew the voice was right. No matter how good it felt, this wasn't the time or the place or the circumstances. The idea of having a first time with Dean thrilled her, but she owed it to him to make sure that he wouldn't look back on it with anything but happiness. No guilt, no embarrassment, no morning-after regrets.
"Hey, I'm an old fashioned girl, remember?" she reminded him. "No booty calls."
He sighed. "No booty calls." He took a deep breath, deeper than he intended apparently because he winced in pain. "Oh shit that hurts so bad."
"Come sit down, okay?" She hopped off the counter next to him. "You want to lie down on the couch?"
"Only if you sit with me," he replied. He eased himself onto the couch and lay down on the injured side. "Believe it or not, it makes it easier to breathe," he explained after he'd settled.
"You have way too much experience with injury," she declared. "We need to work on making your life safer."
"I'm safe enough right now. Sit next to me," he ordered. So she pulled up a big floor pillow and sat next to him. His fingers played in her hair until his breath grew even again and she knew he'd gone back to sleep.
What was she going to do with him? This was exactly what she'd known would happen. She'd fall in love and things would get serious and physical and she'd have to be the bad guy and shut him down. Otherwise, she'd just get her heart ripped out when he left again.
She hadn't meant to fall in love so hard, so fast. But deep inside, she knew it would happen from the instant she'd met the incredible force of nature that was Dean Winchester.