It was nightfall when Dean's eyes snapped open and, based on the clock on the dashboard, he had slept well over five hours. As he looked around he realized that Bela had stopped to get dinner, as the Impala was stalled in front of a drive-thru window and she was shamelessly flirting (to try and cure her boredom, probably) with a pimply and scrawny kid who couldn't have been older than seventeen. Bela said something that Dean didn't bother to try and make out and the kid blushed and laughed, his glasses tipping to one side ever so slightly as his nose twitched.

Bela and the kid traded off a greasy bag and a crisp bill and soon she was sliding out of the drive-thru, completely oblivious to Dean's eyes blinking at her in the dark.

"I was starting to get the impression that you were allergic to carbs."

Bela would've jumped in surprise if the sound of Dean's groggy voice didn't send an arousing shiver down her spine, and she had to actually clear her throat to recover herself. Dean, thankfully, didn't notice, and instead reached down to unravel the paper bag of food, pulling out a cheeseburger and an onion ring, shoving the latter in his mouth whole.

"I was hungry, and it was either the burger joint or The Road Kill Grill. I went with the obvious choice," she didn't have to see him to know that Dean had the same repulsed expression on his face that she had when she passed the restaurant a mile and a half back. "Even so, I do happen to appreciate a good hamburger."

Dean stared back at her in disbelief and stopped half-chew to reply. "Oh, really?" He asked flatly.

"Yes, really," she replied, her British accent piquing on the first word as she breathed a laugh. Dean sucked in a low breath against his will, he couldn't help but think how cute she had sounded at that moment. "There was this place down the road from my primary school that my nanny would take me to every Wednesday after she picked me up. I loved it; they had the best burgers and fries. I eventually stopped going, though."

Dean frowned. "If you loved it so much, then why'd you stop going?"

"Because my father found out about our little Wednesday afternoon indulgences and fired my nanny on the spot," she replied, and he couldn't help but detect a hint of sorrow—or was it disgust?—in her voice, no matter how straightforward she had tried to sound.

For a brief moment neither of them talked, but then Dean swallowed down a chunk of cheeseburger and eyed Bela's profile, or what he could see of it in the darkness of the car.

"Who is your dad, anyway?"

Bela didn't answer him right away. She just kept driving down a long road, her breathing quiet but going at an otherwise steady rhythm, and for a second Dean thought she hadn't heard him, even though there was no chance in hell that she hadn't. He was about to open his mouth and change the topic when suddenly, in a quiet, child-like voice that didn't lack for pure disgust and simultaneous terror in any way, Bela said,

"A monster."

And at that moment, Dean understood. Or, rather, he understood as much as someone who hadn't ever been in her kind of position could. He felt sympathy, yes, and a whole lot of anger, for sure, and he had a full mind to demand that she tell him where her son of a bitch father was so that he could track him down and kill him himself, but then Bela spoke out in that small, scared voice again, tearing Dean out of his thoughts.

"Was. He was a monster."

"So he's dead?"

"If I'm lucky, he's more than that, and he's currently rotting in hell."

He fought off the urge to brush away the tear that he could see sliding down her face, as it shimmered in the moonlight, and instead said, "For what it's worth, if I could go downstairs and kill him again, I would."

She let out a sad chuckle. "I know."

Dean thought better than to ask about her mom, sensing that Bela didn't have that much of a positive relationship with her, either, and instead finished off his hamburger in silence.

He watched as she tried to subtly polish her tears away, and by instinct, an instinct that he quietly cursed himself for, he stopped her hand before it reached her face and he slid his fingers between hers, soaking up her smeared tears on the back of her hand with his thumb. She looked at him, weary, and he smiled, hoping that she could make it out in the dark.

She did, and she smiled back.

He thought back to when Bela paid him and Sam for saving her life from the ghost ship, and how he called her damaged. He regretted those words, because if he'd only known what he knew now, the reason why she was so...Bela, then maybe their relationship would have progressed at a much faster pace than it had.

He had to admit, though, that they had come pretty far from staring at each other down the barrel of their guns. Now they were holding hands and brushing away tears and sharing deep, dark secrets and, he had to admit, he liked it. It made him feel normal, like he wasn't a supernatural-killing machine with deep familial problems and a tendency to cut off any and all romantic relationships that required anything more from him than just sex.

It didn't help that with Bela everything felt natural, too. Like how it was instinct to reach out and take her hand in his, how it was instinct to brush her tears away and damn them all to hell; how it was instinct to tear her father apart limb by limb, although he was pretty sure that he, and any other person with a heart, would have done that for any woman who's father could do something so monstrous, so scarring.

"What are you thinking about?" Bela asked him, her voice sounding more normal than earlier.

He blinked and smiled as she gently turned his hand on its back and lazily traced a never-ending circle around his palm with her index finger. His hand was growing clammy from the contact, but they both ignored it.

"That waitress back at the diner," he joked, letting out a low whistle. "The rack on that one, I'll tell ya."

Bela shoved him lightly in the shoulder before resting her hand back in his. "You're a pig," she said, although her tone was affectionate. "You give Johnny Bravo a run for his money."

Dean slid his eyes in the opposite direction. "Why, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, Ms. Talbot."

"Yeah, sure you don't," she giggled, and it was the sweetest thing that Dean had ever heard.

They drove for another forty minutes or so, looking for any open motels and subsequently failing, until they came up on an RV park that was, according to the man working the toll booth, exclusive to RVs only. This was where Bela came in again—much to Dean's slight concealed jealousy—not-so-subtly brushing her fingers against the toll booth worker's arm and batting her long brown lashes, making sure that the moonlight caught her eyes so that her story of her and her "brother"—yes, brother, much to Dean's embarrassment and Bela's amusement at said embarrassment—needing a safe place to sleep for the night would have a higher chance of being believed. Five minutes and a lot of unnecessary skin-to-skin contact later and the worker was directing them to park between two RVs at the far end of the lot, beaming at Bela's exaggerated thanks.

"You better watch out. That kind of behavior can drive a man to obsession." Dean joked once they had both gotten settled in their makeshift beds: Dean sprawled out uncomfortably across the front seat and Bela curled up underneath Dean's favorite jacket in the back, respectively.

"I'm not worried. If he tries anything I have you to protect me, and if that doesn't work out, which I wouldn't doubt, I stashed a gun underneath the passenger seat in case of emergency." She quipped lightly, smiling as she envisioned Dean's eye roll and smirk despite himself.

"I like a woman that comes prepared."

"Is that supposed to be a sexual joke?"

"I—uh, that's not—"

Bela laughed. "I'm only toying with you," she said, smiling up at the roof of the car. "Now, go to sleep."

"I just got done sleeping for seven hours straight. My sleeping schedule's kind of screwed up right now."

"It was screwed up before then, too," she rolled her eyes. "Suit yourself, then. I'm going to sleep."

"Sweet dreams, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite and all that jazz, princess," Dean said in a sigh as he tried to settle in his seat, his hands folded behind his head in an improvised pillow.

Bela was too tired to give him a wordy reply, so all he got in response was a breathy hum as she pulled his jacket tighter around her body, her head nuzzled against the inside of the collar, which smelled unmistakably like Dean; like leather and black coffee and, vaguely, like Irish Spring body soap. It was an odd combination and probably would have smelt weird on anyone else but it just suited him, and it cloaked an overwhelming sense of comfort around Bela's lithe body as she dozed off to sleep, simply smiling and smelling like Dean bloody Winchester.