A/N: I admire your trust in me. Only two people were worried about Dean and if he makes it. I really do admire your trust and you can be lucky that this was written already or I might have changed it. :)

Thank you for all your lovely reviews!

Chapter 11

Dean had been right. The bullet went straight through his lower body and surprisingly hit nothing vital on the way. After 5 days he was released from the hospital.

He still hurt everywhere but he couldn't deal with all the attention on his person any longer.

His brothers had visited him in the hospital and even the Chief showed up.

He had been in contact with Levesque, telling him about his dislike for Dean, lulling him in, making him feel safe. Fact is, the Chief might hate Dean, but he would never betray his son. And it had worked out in the end.

Lilly had made her statement and John Cena was able to build a solid case against Captain Levesque and his crooked cops. She would be fine and in the media she was celebrated as some kind of hero, an upstanding citizen.

Dean watched the news with her, and the couple of interviews she did. Some were on the internet and he could watch them over and over again. He missed his little doll but he did the right thing. He couldn't give her a life, any life, and especially not a life she maybe dreamed of. He was no boyfriend material. He was broken and scarred on the inside and the outside.

Two weeks after his release from the hospital he took a new job for the government.

Roman and Seth just looked at him. "I have to take this job. Its four weeks give or take. I call you when I get back."

"You are an idiot Dean. You are not healed up. You are running away from your feelings. That is what you do. Why don't you go to Lilly and try that thing? At least TRY for fucks sake."

"Like you try with Claire? Or Roman tries with Dani? We are all the same when it comes to women. I need to go. Take care guys." And with that he left with his little gym bag.

8 weeks later

Lilly was restless tonight. She zapped through the TV channels but nothing caught her attention. She tried to read a book but she had to read one page like five times so she put it away again. After running up and down her apartment for another ten minutes she gave up.

She was nervous and on edge and wouldn't calm down until she did what her gut told her to do.

She grabbed her purse and her car keys and walked out.

It was after 11 pm the streets of Manhattan finally emptied a little and she made the way over to Brooklyn in good time.

Her GPS navigated her through the many streets until she arrived in front of a rundown building.

She cut the engine and got out, carefully checking her surroundings, pepper spray in hand.

"Well, well, look who we have here. Hello Ma'am." Lilly saw Charles and his boys walk over from across the street.

"You are here for Jon?" "Yes." She answered. "Well you are in luck. He is back the first night in two month. Favored his left shoulder when he walked in though…" Lilly's eyes widened. He was hurt? That explained her restlessness.

"Could you…take care of my car? Like watch over it?" "Sure, don't worry. This is my block. It is safe."

"Thank you." Lilly wanted to give him money, like twenty bucks but Charles raised his hands. "No way. You are Jon's friend, you are mine. You have no idea what he does for us all the time. I will not take money from a lady. Can't stop the dickhead to throw money our way at the youth center or at the school, but I sure as hell will refuse to take money from you. Jon is a good guy and you are his friend. If you ever need something you come to me. Now go in."

Lilly did that and this new information was bouncing around in her head.

Jon gave money to the youth center and the school? Like he cared about the kids here? Wow.

Lilly climbed the stairs and knocked on his door.

It took a while until she heard the looks turn and she found herself face to face with his gun.

"Lilly." He said and didn't move. After about ten seconds Lilly became annoyed. "Do you want to stare at me all night? Can I come in?"

Dean opened the door and let her walk in. She stopped inside and took a good look at him. His chest was bare and his hands were bloody. When he walked past her she could see a gush on his back between his shoulder blades.

"What happened?" she asked following him into the bathroom where he tried to put stitches in his back with the help of two broken mirror shreds. But the wound was located right there where you can hardly touch yourself.

"I will help you if you tell me what happened." He didn't react and still tried to do it himself.

Lilly walked over and pulled the needle out of his hand and stepped away.

"I will not go away just because you ignore me. Go into the living room, the light is better there. Move that ass Dean. Come on."

He did and sank down in front of the couch so she could sit on it and work from there.

"You know how to do stitches?" "I know how to sew."

"Fucking great." Dean mumbled. "And I saw them stitching up our dog after the castration all those years ago. It will not be pretty but I guess you don't care about pretty. Did you numb it?"

"Yes. Just stitch it up. Twist through it, knot, done."

Lilly cleaned up the wound again after putting on a pair of gloves.

"Tell me what happened while I sew."

"It was a job. Someone put me through a wooden table. A shard cut me open. Nothing bad. I will live."

Lilly was hesitant at the first knot but he didn't flinch and she finished with 10 stitches. Not pretty but it would hopefully do. She put a band aid on it and got rid of the gloves.

When Dean wanted to get up she stopped him, looking at the new scar at his lower back. When he turned around she could see a matching one on the front. "What happened there? That one is new."

"Happened during your rescue. Orton shot me. No biggie."

"No biggie? You got shot and didn't tell me? No one told me? Wow, you are all a bunch of assholes. I came here tonight because I was restless. I had the need to come here. And guess what? You are back for the first time in 8 weeks. If you wouldn't have been here I wouldn't have had a single way to contact you. But you are here. And you are hurt. Somehow I felt that I guess."

"Yeah, well, sometimes people have these vibes." Dean put his med kit away, cleaned up his hands and returned with a black shirt on.

"Look Lilly, what do you want? As I explained, I was put through a table today. And I just returned from a mission 3 days ago. I am beat."

He was so distant but she wouldn't let him slip through her fingers again.

"That's fine. We can lie down, you can get some rest." She decided to be bold and ignore his attempts to push her away.

She walked into his bedroom and stepped out of her shoes, her jeans and her shirt. She searched through his t-shirts until she found one long enough to cover her and put it on. It was just over her ass. With that she climbed into his bed…scratch that, on his mattress and looked up to him. He was standing in the door way. Arms folded and he looked grim.

"I don't want you in my life Lilly. I told you, you are a good woman, I am really sorry if I hurt you with this, but I have no place for you in my life."

"Yeah, because you are too busy to die out there. Look…Jon. Let us try this. For a while. Give it a fair shot. If it doesn't work out, it's fine. I will leave you alone then. And if it works out, you let me in. You let me help if I can. Please. You can't decide for me what I want. I want you. It may be a mistake, but it is one mistake I have to make then. Sometime you have to touch the stovetop even though everyone tells you it is hot. Come here. Get some rest."

She could see that some stuff came through to him. He was thinking about this.

"We will need to do this day by day. I never had a relationship. Like ever. I had whores and one night stands. And for the last four years, except for you not even real sex. Just a blowjob every now and again because I couldn't stand their hands on me. With you it was different right from the start. But that doesn't mean I am not fucked up about this. I will probably blow this Lilly. Because I have no idea how this works."

"Okay. Fair enough. For tonight it works like this. Take your jeans off, get in bed with me. Shut your eyes and try to rest. Good?"

He huffed. "I can do that."

His jeans came off and Lilly noticed he was commando underneath them. "Okay, ass, put on some boxer shorts and come here."

He grinned now but put on some underwear, switched off the lights and crawled into bed beside her.

"What now?" he whispered into the dark. "Eyes shut and rest. Turn away from me and I will put one arm around you." "Why can't you turn away from me and I spoon you?"

"Because your dick would be in the way." He had been semi aroused when he had stood there naked and as much fun as sex was with him, she didn't want this tonight. She just wanted to feel him alive beside here.

"Tonight I just want to feel your heartbeat on my hand. Please." He turned and felt her creep closer to him.

"Plus, you have been away in action, I don't want to turn my back on you right now." "Fair enough." He mumbled.

"Sleep Jon, I will keep the nightmares away."

And he slept. For the first time in weeks he could sleep longer than an hour and he didn't have any bad dreams. Somehow Lilly really kept those nightmares away.