Chapter 9

Lawrence, Kansas

Dean walked up the hall slowly, Bobby's presence chill beside him. He could even smell the mix of whiskey and wool, gun oil and gasoline that'd wafted around the man from the first moment he'd met him. The scents brought the memories back more fiercely than the sight of him did.

"You know what the levis are doing, Bobby?" he asked.

"Don't remember." The apparition shook its head. "It'll come back. I remember it was important to get that number to you; had to do with their end game, but the details are gone."

Dean blew out a frustrated exhale. Like so much of the information they'd come by, it meant more waiting.

By the front door, Ellie and Missouri were still talking, both of them in voices too low to hear; both of them, he realised, in postures of tension. For some reason, the sight of them brought back the vehemence of the ghost's few words to Ellie earlier.

"Bobby, what you said to Ellie, about telling someone something – what'd you mean?"

Bobby flickered and vanished, the air warming noticeably. Dean looked around the empty hall, brows knitting together. "Seriously?"

He kept walking to the front door, stopping beside the psychic, his gaze on Ellie as she walked across the porch and down the steps.

"Don't be a stranger," Missouri said, and he turned to look at her. "If you need help, just call."

He nodded his agreement. If he'd thought of her earlier, it would've taken away at least some of the doubts he'd had.

"And you look after her," Missouri added, her gaze shifting to watch Ellie get into the white pickup. "She's gonna need someone at her back."

Following her look, he asked, "Is that a – uh – a feeling or a premonition?"

Missouri shook her head. "I don't know, honey." She pursed her lips and shrugged. "Not the way I see this stuff."

Turning away, he walked down the steps and past the old VW, his thoughts scattered. He would look after Ellie as far as she would let him. But given everything, that might not be very far.

Getting into the pickup, he leaned forward, slipping the key into the ignition and turning it. The engine came to life and he twisted around to reverse back into the street. On the passenger side, Ellie's face was turned away, her shoulders hunched.

"You alright?" he asked as the truck rolled slowly backwards.

"Fine."

Fine, he thought, swinging the wheel and u-turning to go back the way they'd come. Sure. Whatever it was that Ellie and Missouri had been talking about, it'd had an impact, he thought.

"I think there's a motel, uh, couple of blocks over –"

"Yeah, there is," Ellie said. "That'll be good."

The Traveller's Rest motel was still open. Just off the 10, in the tangle of suburban streets, the L-shaped single storey brick and timber motel was trim and painted, the paved parking lot clean and almost empty. Dean stopped in front of the short arm of the el, next to the sign advising it was the office. More than just the office, he thought, it looked like a residence. Mom and Pop joint. Whatever. Couldn't be worse than the place they'd stayed the night before.

He got out of the truck and walked to the sliding glass door, hearing the passenger door of the truck open and close behind him. A muted alarm sounded somewhere in the back and an older teenaged boy emerged from the rear door as they came up to the counter. He was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a faded black tee shirt and ripped jeans, long black-dyed hair falling over half his face and a stud in one nostril.

Dean stared at the boy as he leaned against the counter. There was something in the kid's face, some familiarity. He tried to push aside the unsettling sensation of déjà vu.

"Help you?"

"Need a room–"

The kid looked from him to Ellie, mouth curving in a not-so-subtle smirk. "Just the one?"

"Two rooms, please," Ellie cut in, her tone frost-laden. Dean saw the kid's smile drop away.

"Adjoining or separate?"

"Separate," Ellie said.

"Adjoining," Dean said simultaneously.

Ellie turned her head to look at him, her expression as cool as her voice'd been.

"Just a precaution," he said. "If anyone we don't want to see turns up."

The teen turned to look enquiringly at Ellie. With an audible sigh, she nodded at him.

"Adjoining."

The boy looked at the computer screen under the raised counter. The hair and jewellery were different, but there was something naggingly familiar about him, Dean thought. Something that reminded him of the past, of his brother –

"It's, uh, Mike, isn't it?" he asked.

The kid looked up and pushed his hair back from his face. "Yeah."

"How's your little brother? Uh –" Dean dug around in his memories for the name. "Asher? And your mom?"

For a moment, the boy stared at him, brows drawing together and eyes narrowing. Then his eyes widened abruptly. "Mr – um – Bonham?"

"Right." Dean grinned. "It's – uh – Dean."

Beside him, he heard Ellie let out a small huff. He'd just screwed his current alias, he realised, but he didn't care.

"Y'know, I figured the name was bogus," Mike said, grinning. "Ash's good. He's, yeah, on the track team at the Junior High here. Mom's fine too."

"Long way from Wisconsin?"

"Yeah, we – uh – moved – 'bout four years ago." He waved a hand generally around the office, his expression twisting into exasperated fondness. "This place was a good deal, and Mom wanted to be closer to family."

He shot a wary look at Ellie. "Some fuckin' freaky time, right?"

"This is, uh, Ellie," Dean said. "She's – uh – she does what we do."

"Really?" Mike smiled at her, the wariness vanishing as he pushed the long lock of hair back from his face. "That's cool."

Dean watched her mouth tuck in at the corners. "Not so much."

"Right," he said, wondering if it was such a good idea to've shared. "Yeah. But all good? No, uh, after-effects?"

He found himself still wishing there'd been a way for Mike to remain ignorant of the dark side of the world.

"No," Mike said, looking down self-consciously. "I had, you know, some bad dreams for a while, but they didn't last. After we moved here, it all felt like a bad dream, kind of. Ash didn't remember anything about it, and Mom just thought he'd been sick and got better and that was the end of it."

He gave a sheepish shrug. "I wasn't gonna talk about it with anyone," he said. "Where's your little brother?"

"Uh, he's in Montana," Dean told him. "Looking for jobs."

"Huh. You're still doing the same – um – stuff then?" Mike said, looking from him to Ellie and back.

"Yeah, still the same stuff." Dean slid a sideways look at Ellie. She was leaning against the counter, her gaze on Mike, but unfocussed. "Uh, not to cut anything short, but it's been a helluva day –"

"Sure," Mike said quickly. "I – uh - got two adjoining, queens, cable and internet. Checkout's at ten. That do?"

"That'll be fine," Dean said, reaching for his wallet.

Mike shook his head, holding up both hands. "No, no way, man. On the house."

He lifted a book from the desk below the counter, finger tapping the open page. "Still need a sign-in."

Turning away to get keys from the bureau behind him, he shot a quick glance back at Dean over his shoulder. "You're not – uh – working here, right now, are you?"

Dean shook his head, watching Ellie fill in the registration details with their current aliases, transposing two of the digits of the pickup's plates without missing a beat. "Nope, just passin' through."

She signed and pushed the book back to Mike, taking the keys he handed her. "Thanks," she said, turning to Dean. "If you'd like to catch up, I can move the truck and, um, get settled?"

"Uh, no. I'll do it." Taking one key from her, Dean lifted a brow at Mike. "We could, maybe, get a beer in about fifteen?"

"Yeah, that's cool," Mike nodded, smiling. It was the smile that was familiar, Dean realised. Still the same as when the kid'd been eleven or twelve.

"Rooms Fourteen and Fifteen." The boy pointed out through the glass door in the direction of the end of the motel's longer arm. "At the end. Can't miss 'em."

Leaving the office, Dean walked around the front of the pickup and got in, hearing the clunk of the other door.

"Uh, you know, about the rooms, I wasn't trying to –"

"I know," Ellie said. "M'just tired."

"The levis might have a hard time following us, but Crowley –"

"I know, Dean," she repeated. "I'll do the lines and make sure the door's bolted and everything else. It's perfectly okay for you to catch up with Mike – I'm going to crash."

He started the pickup and drove across the lot, parking in front of the second-from-last room.

"You take Fourteen," he said as he turned off the engine for the second time. "I'll take the one on the end."

"Sure." Ellie leaned back in the seat, unwilling to move again so soon. A vague gratitude that he knew the kid running the motel filled her. She couldn't face the prospect of attempting any conversation with him right now.

He was just trying to look out for her, she thought, eyes half-closing in the dim wash of light from the motel's walkway. Just trying to make sure she was still frosty, aware of the potential dangers … and, she recognised, it was times like this, fatigued and her mind and heart in a mess, that his vigilance was most important.

She wouldn't consider Missouri's speculation about Michael, she decided, eyes screwing shut tightly as the woman's words returned. She hadn't loved him, not the way she loved the man beside her, but he hadn't deserved the death that'd been served to him, and she'd never be able to consider that it was a plan, something he had to suffer to see her moving on – goddammit, it'd been her mistake that'd killed him.

"Ellie."

Dean's voice broke through the tangle of memory and thought and she opened her eyes, wiping a hand over her face to hide her expression from his too-astute gaze.

Inside the cab, every window had fogged and the temperature had dropped faster than the cessation of the pickup's heater could account. Dean was staring past her, and she turned around, eyes widening as she watched lines being drawn through the moisture, leaving an unmistakable symbol on the glass. Her mood soured instantly as she recognised the kanji representing love.

恋

Behind her, Dean said, "Is that … Japanese?"

She closed her eyes and swore silently at the ghost in the car with them. He was making everything that much harder. Stop pushing me, Bobby, she thought acidly. Get your goddamn fingers off my back.

"No idea."

"It's Bobby, right?"

"I guess," she said, grabbing the door handle and pushing the door open. The kanji was fading, the outside air evaporating the moisture on the glass.

Yanking her bag out and slinging it over her shoulder, she pulled her room key from her jacket pocket and walked to the door. A glance backward showed Dean standing next to the pickup, his gaze on the now-clear window.

"You going to back to the office?" she asked, more to distract him from Bobby's manipulations than interest, as she pushed the room key into the lock and twisted it.

Dean started. He nodded slowly, glancing at the lit building and back to her. "That was – uh, we ran into them back in '05. Shtriga was working their town, and, uh, it took his little brother."

Ellie pushed the door open, dropping her pack just inside the threshold before turning back to him. It explained his uncharacteristic forthrightness with the boy, she thought.

"You got it?"

He nodded, his gaze cutting away and dropping. "We – uh – I – used – Mike as bait."

In his voice, there was a wealth of guilt and regret.

"They have to be feeding, don't they?"

"Yeah." He grimaced, staring at the ground.

"There were other kids? They all recovered?" Ellie asked. "And that boy's little brother?"

He nodded again – reluctantly, she thought – keeping his gaze on the pavement.

"Then it was a win, wasn't it?" she pressed. "You did your job."

It'd worked, she thought, but he'd hated himself for it anyway, hated using a kid, exposing him to the nightmares of their world no child should have to know.

"I –" Dean started to say and stopped, shoulders slumping as he let out a breath. "I just want to make sure he's okay. He was – uh – he was right up the sharp end, you know."

"Sure."

It wasn't her place to offer him reasons and comfort anymore.

"Uh, you hungry?" Dean asked.

"No." She shook her head. "I'm beat. I'll see you in the morning."

"Yeah." He shifted from foot to foot, his expression ambivalent. "Uh, Ellie, I – yeah. Okay."

She watched him turn away, heading back across the parking lot. Every now and then, she'd followed up on some of the victims or their families. She knew he needed to reassure himself about what he'd done.

Walking into the room, she picked up her pack and closed the door, locking it and slipping on the chain. Every second of the past few days hit her, her knees sagging, forehead bumping lightly against the doorframe.

Maybe she'd been wrong, all this time, she considered. Maybe what he should be doing was something else, living out his life differently. Maybe that's what she was supposed to have learned; that they weren't right together, that he'd always feel guilt and regret over what he'd done and what he did and that he needed to be someone else.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. She thought that might've Katherine's voice, chiding her. He hasn't yet worked out what it is he wants. He might never work it out, but that still won't stop you from loving him.

Tension throbbed in her temples and behind her eyes, bringing spiking pain to her shoulders and neck and a tight, choking sensation to her throat. Pushing off the door with a determined effort, she picked up the pack and dumped it onto the end of the neatly-made bed.

Protection. Shower. Meditation. Sleep.

They'd help rid of her of the confusion, she decided, pulling out a canister of salt and small screwdriver from her bag and prising the lid off. Get her head back to some kind of clarity, without the conflicting anxieties that were driving her nuts.

She moved slowly around the room, running a line across the threshold and the window sills, unscrewing the air-con vent and the bathroom exhaust vent and running lines across them as well.

Tossing the empty canister into the trash can, she drew out a bottle of vinegar from her bag and grabbed four saucers from the room's kitchen supplies, filling them with the pungent liquid. One went into the north corner. The other three went into the other corners, each protecting a cardinal point; one with added iron filings, one with a pinch of hawthorn and vervain ash, the fourth with several slivers of bone. No fetch or spirit could cross the invisible barriers they formed. The sharp smell of the vinegar in the room's still air was a small price to pay, even she hadn't been completely inured to it now.

What if that is what he needs, she wondered, the question circling back to her as she walked to the bathroom. It was clean and bright and she turned on the taps in the shower recess. What if this whole time, you've been kidding yourself?

Being with him, riding with him, talking to him and listening to him … it'd been all too familiar, and far too comforting. It'd not only brought up her memories, but had been a constant reminder of exactly what she'd lost. It'd screwed up all her defences. Doubt and uncertainty had been worming their way back into her thoughts, making her question her decisions. She'd been catching herself wondering what he was thinking, what he was feeling.

What if what he'd done had been subconscious? An instinctive response to get out of a relationship that was tying him to a life he doesn't want?

They'd been over this ground too many times to pretend it wasn't a possibility, maybe even a probability. It was even feasible that no matter how much he'd convinced himself that he loved and wanted her; somewhere deep, another part of him knew it wasn't what he needed.

Stripping off her clothes, she left them in an untidy pile on the floor and reached for the end of her long braid, pulling off the elastic and untangling the skeins of hair with her fingers.

It was a devilish quadratic equation where both answers could be equally right, and there was no way of telling which one was. She couldn't even ask him. She didn't think he'd know.

Everything changes, girl. All the time. And what changes usually has somethin' to do with how we're looking at ourselves and the world.

What the hell did that mean?

The shower pummelled her as she stepped under it, its liquid heat penetrating her muscles and relieving the knots and cramps, assuaging the pain in her head as she relaxed into it.

The question was the answer, she thought, picking up the soap and slowly lathering it over her skin. What it meant was that no matter how much she loved him, or he thought he loved her, he could do it again – would, probably – do it again, when the pressure of what he was trying to be became too much and his subconscious started looking for another out.

Dean didn't know. She was sure of that; sure he believed in what he'd said.

Sometimes what we do don't reflect who we are, but only the place we're at. Lost. Confused. Afraid of what we want and how much we need it.

He'd been lost. Caught between his grief and the might've-beens and all the things he hated about the life in which he'd been raised. He'd loved this life once, the skills and strength needed, but not for a while and she'd known that, she thought tiredly. She'd convinced herself he'd had enough time and space to think it through, get clear in his head, figure a way to get to her if it got too bad.

Well, he didn't, she reminded herself, a chill snaking up her spine despite the heat of the water.

On some level, he'd known what he was doing. If she hadn't been there, would he ever have told her? Would it've been like it was between him and Sam, a life filled with secrets and lies, making a mockery of trust and love and everything she'd thought she'd found with him?

Don't throw stones, that interior voice warned her softly. There's plenty you haven't disclosed to him either.

None of those would affect his trust in her, she argued, a part of her understanding the futility of the argument even as she scrubbed at her skin harder.

Maybe they would. The voice wouldn't shut up. You told him the bare bones of what happened to Michael, not the way it's never gotten any easier, that grief and guilt.

He knows, she thought. He had enough incidents of grief and guilt to know exactly.

Under the cocooning flow of the water, memories slipped in; memories of talking together, in the quiet darkness of a room … under thin sunlight on a mountain's edge … in the moonlit interior of the car … the tight confines of a cave … memories of dealing with the past … and the vividly powerful sense memories of what they'd done, before or after those talks, needful and desperate sometimes … sometimes quiet and deep as a still mountain lake …

Another shiver rippled through her as she soaped between her breasts, this one filled with heat and a deep ache. Her skin was sensitive, one of those side-effects that affected a certain percentage of those in her condition. Shutting out the images and the rapid-fire sensations that flooded her mind and tormented her body, she ruthlessly banished every thought and concentrated on getting clean.

"You mind if we talk out here?" Mike asked as he extracted two beers from a small fridge under the desk. He threw a glance over his shoulder at the door that led into his family's home. "I'm manning the office tonight, and my mom hasn't been sleeping real well; she could use the quiet."

"No problem," Dean said, taking the beer offered and knocking the top off. "Nothing wrong?"

"Nah, she just works too hard." Mike prised the cap off his beer and chugged a mouthful. "So … is … um … Ellie your girl?"

Dean tipped the beer into his mouth, taking his time to swallow it. He wiped his mouth. "She used to be."

"Oh. Sorry, man." Mike pushed his hand through his hair, lifting it off his face. "You, uh, stayed friends, huh?"

"Yeah, not really." And the prospect of any kind of friendship was lookin' pretty fucking slim. "I –"

He turned away, shrugging. He didn't want to get into that crap with the kid. "I fucked it up."

In the reflection of the black glass of the office's doors, he could see Mike behind him, eyes widening.

"Not – uh – something I want to talk about."

"Sure, got that."

He glanced across at the teenager. It was pretty damned clear Mike didn't get it, but then he was having a hard time getting it himself, so that probably wasn't surprising.

"Uh, so Asher's on the track team," Dean said, trying to remember what the boy'd said before. "How 'bout you? You figured on what you're doing next?"

Mike shrugged. "Nah. Mom needs the help here. I'm working over at a record store as well, part-time." He took another pull of his beer and shrugged. "I'll work it out sometime."

Dean ducked his head, hiding a faint smile. He wanted to tell the kid not to take too long with the figuring out part, but he didn't think he was qualified to give anyone life advice.

"You get any fallout from what happened?" he asked instead, not sure of what he wanted to know. "You sleeping okay?"

Mike looked over the top of the bottle he held and tossed back the flopping hair. "Most of the time, yeah." His gaze shifted away. "Like I said, uh, before, it's like a dream you had when you were a kid, y'know? I don't think about it."

"But sometimes … you do?"

Nodding, Mike admitted, "Yeah. Sometimes I do."

Dean leaned against the counter, swallowing a mouthful of the cold beer. He'd been driven, that job. By memories so powerful he hadn't been able to shut them out. By fear. By his hatred of the creature that'd come so goddamned close to taking his brother and had brazenly worked in plain sight, taking all those other kids.

"It was real, wasn't it?" Mike said, his voice low.

"Yeah," Dean agreed readily. "I wish you didn't have to know that. Wish there'd been another way to kill it."

"I don't."

"What?" Dean turned to look at him, not sure he'd heard that right. Wasn't the kid messed up because he knew what was out there now?

"I don't wish it didn't happen," Mike said, tipping his bottle up and gulping down the beer that gurgled out. "I wish it hadn't gone near Asher, fuck yeah, I wish that, but the rest? I was pissin'-my-pants-scared that night, but I was angry too, y'know? Glad I was there, helpin' to take it down."

Remembering the resolute determination in the kid's face when he'd changed his mind, Dean didn't doubt him.

"Afterward, I guess I kind of forgot about it for a while. Ash came home, our place started making a bit more money, things got back to normal … I had a few dreams, but what kid doesn't have nightmares, right?"

Staring down at the floor, Dean hoped most kids didn't have nightmares like that. He remembered his childhood dreams too damned well.

"What changed?" he asked.

"Mom sold the motel and we moved out here," Mike said, taking another gulp of his beer. "I thought, guess I thought, well, that's all over and done with now, and I'd never think about it again."

He set his bottle on the counter, staring sightlessly at the office's glass doors.

"Maybe it was a part of growing up," he said, shaking himself a little as he looked back to Dean, his voice rising in pitch as he continued. "I don't know. It just hit me one day. You know, how many kids'd been hospitalised through that time, how many died, how many could've died. I couldn't talk about it – I mean, shit, how the hell d'you even start a conversation about something like that? – and I couldn't get it outta my head, not for a while."

Dean watched as Mike ducked his head, his throat and cheeks reddening with what he plainly saw as an admission of weakness. He wanted to tell him it was okay, but Mike cleared his throat and picked up his beer. "I couldn't remember what you'd said about it."

Not much, Dean hoped. He couldn't remember what he'd told the boy either.

"Uh, it was just … for a while there, I was a bit nuts," Mike said, giving him a sheepish grin. "Was driving my mom nuts too."

"About what?"

"Trying to find out more about people like you and your brother," the teen admitted. "The more I thought about it, the more I realised what you'd done, how many lives you'd saved, how fucking unbelievably lucky we were you were there, back then."

That stabbed through Dean like an icepick, his fingers curling around the bottle hard. "You weren't lucky," he said, his voice little more than a growl. "It was my fault that thing was still breathing, had been takin' kids for sixteen years 'fore it got to your town, 'stead of being dead."

He forced himself to release the bottle before it cracked in his hand, pushing it along the counter. How the hell was he supposed to tell this kid, he wondered? Truthfully, the answer came back immediately.

"My dad – he – he was a hunter," he said, glancing at Mike, and back to the black reflections of the office window. "Raised me and Sam to be the same."

He tipped his head back, dragging in a breath. "That's – uh – it's a long story, that. He was hunting that monster in Wisconsin, back in '89. He would'a killed it, but it – it must've backtracked him somehow, got wind of us …"

Now, he understood the wild-eyed fear that'd been in his father's eyes. Now, he understood the blistering anger that'd swallowed him whole back then, the reason his dad had told him not to leave the room, the danger he'd put his brother in when he had.

"… it came after my brother, got in when I'd gone out –" he cut himself off, wiping over his face with both hands, rubbing off the sudden clammy sweat on the legs of his jeans. "My dad came back in time, but he didn't kill it – couldn't risk firing so close to Sammy."

Turning to look bleakly at Mike, he said, "So it got away – and it kept taking kids' lives. Because I hadn't been there, like I was supposed to have been."

Mike stared at him. "1989? How old were you?"

"Ten." Dean grinned humourlessly at him. "Not the point. It was my job. Like it was my job to make fucking sure me and Sam got it when we were in Fitchburg."

"Ten? Dude, you're kidding, right?"

"No." Dean closed his eyes. "It wasn't 'luck' we were there, Mike. My dad sent us. He knew – he knew I needed to finish it."

Memories swam behind his closed lids, the room in Fort Douglas, the blast of the shotgun, Sammy looking pale and fragile in his father's arms; the motel room in Fitchburg and Mike's teeth chattering softly, the shadow that'd leaned close to the boy and had dropped onto his brother when he'd fired at it.

"Mike," he said, opening his eyes and look at the teenager. "I used you, man. Used a little kid as bait. That's what this job is, what this life is –"

To his surprise, Mike's eyes narrowed and his chin rose defiantly. "That's not how I remember it."

"You were too young to remember any of it," he said, the argument reflexive.

"You told me I could help," Mike said, staring at him. "I told you no way. Then I thought about it. And I offered."

Dean shook his head. "It wasn't much of a choice, kid."

"That's the one part of this whole thing I never regretted, so don't go tryin' to make out it was something else. Alright?"

Looking at the boy's pugnacious expression, Dean lifted his hands. "Alright, I'm not. Don't ask me to be happy about it."

"No, you think about it," Mike said, walking around the end of the counter. "I've done a lot of thinking about it. You put yourself right in my place. Your little brother, who you've looked after, wiped up, shared all your stuff with since the kid was born, gets sick, real bad, real quick, with the same thing that's already killed a couple of kids in your town –"

Mike stopped, drawing in a breath. "You can see your mom is barely holding it together, she's so fucking worried about losing him – and you know how bad it's gotta be for her if – if anything happens to him. And you had this dream, see? This dream about a-a-a thing that came into the bedroom and was leaning over your little brother and you're tryin' to kid yourself that was nothing, just a dream, not real, but Asher, he got sick right after you dreamed it, so sick he had to go hospital right away. Then, these guys turn up, and they tell you – we know what's doing it, but we need your help."

He shook his head. "I was scared I was crazy. I was scared you were crazy. I was fucking terrified neither of us was crazy and it was all real, but that was the only option I could figure gave me any hope for saving Asher."

His chest hitched as he tried to pull in another breath, his eyes shining under the cool fluorescent light.

"And – you know – bam! It worked. It came for me, and you and your brother bust in there like-like-like fucking Batman and I went over the side and under the bed … I saw it grab your brother, then it was gone. Just some black rag lyin' on the floor."

Batman? Dean thought bemusedly. His memory of the situation was the usual blur. He could recall the tension he'd felt, his concentration on making sure of his aim, knowing the kid was there; he could remember too the spiralling rage at the witch when it'd turned on his brother. Beyond that, there wasn't much.

"Fuck!" Mike let out his breath in a savage exhale. "Fuck, I had no idea how bad I needed to say this out loud."

Pushing back the flopping black forelock with one hand, he turned to Dean. "See? The way I see it, you saved me. You saved Asher. Our whole family, 'cause I guarantee ya, my mom would'a turned into a basketcase if she'd lost him."

He let out another shaky breath. "And all those other kids. D'you think that town could've survived if all those kids had died?"

Dean returned the boy's stare levelly. Ellie would've told him the same thing, he thought. Had tried to. Sam too. And Bobby.

He reached for his beer, and finished it, tossing the bottle into the trash can in the corner.

The kid might've had a point, he allowed to himself, looking across the dark lot toward the lit rooms on the other side. A small point. He'd spent so much time going over and over the damage he'd done – or thought he'd done – he'd never really looked at the outcomes for everyone else.

"You wanna 'nother beer?" Mike asked, doubled over in front of the small fridge.

"Yeah." Dean turned around and leaned on the counter. "Why not?"

Two hours later, Dean lay on his back on the queen size bed, the covers shoved to one side, staring at the white ceiling. He'd run the lines and stripped when he'd gotten back to the room; no longer hungry, his body aching for rest. But sleep was out of the question, everything that'd happened in the last few hours a seething cauldron of thought, memory and feeling.

It was a win, Ellie'd said. You did your job.

Not the right way, he'd thought back then, and still felt ambivalent about, despite Mike's vehemence on the subject. Using a kid as bait for a monster – hell, even letting a kid know about what was out there – was not the way he'd wanted to see himself.

If we're here when the police get here, we're going to be questioned and detained and we'll lose the trail.

That memory came out of the dark without warning, stabbing at him and he sat up, rubbing both hands over his face, noticing the air'd cooled in the room, but too restless to pull the covers back over himself.

It'd been the first time he'd questioned his father's decision. Not the last, but the first time he'd seen his father put the hunt over the needs of a person, and it'd changed the way he'd seen John Winchester.

Rationally, it'd been the right call. More lives could've been lost. But each time he'd made a decision like that … leaving someone behind, or putting an innocent at risk … he'd felt it chip away a little more of himself. Those few parts he'd liked.

You think I don't want to help him? I'm just being realistic. I mean, hell, we're doing him a favour.Dean, if we want to question the guy, you can damn well bet the demons do, too.

Realistic. Yeah, he thought. Reality demanded decisions that weighed heavily against the things they'd supposed to've been fighting for, the line between them and the things they fought thinning out year by year.

Now, you find your reasons to get back in the game. I don't care if it's love or spite or a ten-dollar bet.

Or … if you don't want this life … you find a town you like the look of, get a job, be someone else.

Jesus, seemed like everyone wanted him gone, he thought, getting to his feet and pacing across the width of the room in frustration. He couldn't leave, was no one getting that?

He stopped by the side of the room's small table, staring blankly at the wall.

Couldn't.

Swinging abruptly for the bathroom, he crossed the room in a couple of strides, pushing the door open and bending over the sink without turning on the light. He twisted the cold tap, filling his hands with the rush of water and dowsing his face in it.

Ellie. Sam. Cas. Meg. Bobby, now. The levis and the demons and the monsters that hid in the shadows and the people who died, just from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The path you're on is truly in your blood. You're a hunter. The angel's round, vapid face appeared in his mind's eye, his expression half-amused, half-intent. Not because your dad made you, not because God called you back from Hell, but because it is what you are. And you love it. You'll find your way to it in the dark every single time and you're miserable without it. He remembered all the details of that alternative life Zachariah had planted in his mind – remembered the frisson that'd hit him when he and Sam'd fought the ghost.

Dean, let's be real here. You're good at this.

He threw his head back, sucking in a deep breath, his hands gripping the sides of the sink ferociously. Was he? Sometimes it sure as fuck didn't feel that way.

Because it is what you are. Was it? What he was? Was it all he was?

Angel'd been full of shit, he thought, letting his head fall forward and reaching out to turn off the tap. Had stunk up every room he'd ever been in.

He'd made his share of mistakes, bad decisions, fucked-up choices, he acknowledged readily, wiping the water from his skin with the back of his arm. He'd gone toe-to-toe with monsters of every kind – vamps and werewolves, ghosts, demons, angels and multi-dimensional entities. He was the one still standing, he reminded himself. Zachariah was dead. Or whatever happened to a celestial frequency when it'd had an angel sword shoved through its brain. He'd given up and he'd let people down, but never deliberately. He'd never sacrificed someone through a lack of care or indifference.

He grabbed the towel from the rail and dried his face, the nap of the material catching on the two-day growth. Only two things had ever run him. Taking care of his family; and saving as many people as he could from whatever was preying on them. His father had blown the first option when he'd made the deal with Yellow Eyes. Sam'd done the same thing when he'd jumped in the hole with the devil.

It didn't matter anyway, he thought, running his knuckles over his chin and jaw and down his throat. He couldn't step out, become someone else. He didn't …

…want to.

Lifting his head, he stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink.

I know what I want. But I can't have it, not the way you live.

The way I live, he thought. Yeah.

His memories of the first few years after they'd left Lawrence were indistinct, some parts clear and vivid, others little more than ghostly shapes of things that might've happened, or that he'd been told of, later on. But what he did remember was the urgency, the intensity of his father's instructions, the constant reminders that he had to be strong, had to be brave, had to think first, had to keep his brother safe … and he remembered, even when he'd been scared to death, how it'd felt to know they were protecting people. Saving them. Killing the things that'd lived in the shadows.

Family business, he'd told his brother.

He'd been dying in that little house in Indiana, trying to be someone else. Someone normal. Had let it happen, tried to make it happen. Burying his memories and himself and not all from the endless grief of losing Sam and Ellie, having nowhere else to go; some of it, he knew, had been from a genuine desire to forget the past completely.

It'd been later, after Sam's return, he'd realised how much it'd hurt, that need to kill who he was in order to be acceptable to someone. To have a normal life.

His fist flashed out, and he pulled the punch at the last instant, but the mirror cracked under the impact, his knuckles leaving a smear of blood over the glass.

Not loved for you, never for who you are, he thought, turning out of the bathroom and pacing back across the room. Not even knowing you. Wanting someone who looked the same but was someone else. Something else.

He might've even accepted that, he considered, stopping mid-stride beside the bed, if he hadn't known what it'd felt like to be loved by someone who'd seen him as he was – all of it – the scars and wounds and weaknesses as well as the things he'd once been proud of, had liked. Someone who saw him as he wanted to be.

He glanced involuntarily at the closed door on the other side of the room.

Why?

Why'd he taken what he needed most, what he wanted most, had looked for his whole fucking life … and thrown it away?

His hands were curled into fists. He wanted to punch more than a wall to ease the rush and flux of the agonising frustration. Wanted to beat the living shit out of something.

It wouldn't help. Wouldn't change anything. Would almost certainly render him useless in the morning. Head down as he sucked in a deep breath, he forced himself to loosen his hands, to breathe through the iron bands of tension that'd tightened every muscle. He wasn't a kid anymore.

There were no answers he could find. Not right now, in any case, he thought. And his plate was piled high with other crap. Shuffling to the bed, he sat down, his gaze locking onto the silver flask sitting on the nightstand.

Bobby was here. He'd stayed.

Relief. Worry. A renewal of the ache of loss he could've done without. All of them inextricably entwined with the rage and frustration, despair and doubts that'd been dogging him since the old man had passed.

He could've called Sam, he thought, staring at the flask. Should've called him, probably. Told him. But he wanted to see his brother's reaction, unfiltered by long-distance lines and airwaves. They both knew the possible outcomes of Bobby's choice. He didn't want to think about that. He thought Sam would raise it anyway.

The knowledge that he could've found this out months ago was still rattling around accusingly. They'd been in Kansas a lot over the past couple of months. Someone smart would've thought to pay a visit to a psychic living in the state, one they knew and could trust. That someone clearly wasn't him.

Fatigue hit him without warning, taking the restlessness and drowning it. Tipping backward to the pillows on the bed, he rolled over to his right, gaze still fixed on the flask. He didn't want a drink. Not to blunt the pain of Bobby's sacrifice; or blur his thoughts to some bearable level. Not even to take the edge off the thrumming ache in his body when he thought of the woman in the next room.

The time they'd spent together in the last couple of days had been up and down, he thought, but there had been ups, had been moments when it seemed possible … and she was less than fifty feet from him, and he wanted her. Needed her, he admitted with knitted brows and a huff of frustration.

Not going to happen.

The flask sat there, mute and inanimate and the temperature in the room remained stable. Bobby was either taking a nap or had nothing particular to say to him, he thought, twisting around onto his back. Not a surprise. He shunted his awareness of arousal aside and forced himself to think about what'd transpired over the past four hours.

All kinds of weird.

There had been a lot of undercurrents, he remembered. A helluva lot of undercurrents. Between Ellie and Missouri. Between Ellie and Bobby. Undercurrents he'd seen but hadn't been able to get a handle on. Missouri's face, her expression of shock, then disappointment, both quickly hidden, popped into his head. What'd the psychic seen?

From the smack he'd gotten, at least some of Ellie's feelings, he thought, rubbing the back of his head reflexively. That didn't make the shocked expression any more understandable. Or did it? Women stuck together, he knew that.

He'd taken Ellie's hand and that familiar charge had crackled through his nerves. Missouri'd felt it too, he recalled, maybe through his hand, maybe Ellie's. In his mind's eye, he saw again the older woman's eyes widening, her mouth dropping open. She'd felt something, alright.

Then there was Bobby's cryptic comment and the way Ellie'd looked away.

Tell who? Tell him what? He closed his eyes, trying to remember the details, but he hadn't been paying enough attention to them, had noticed their importance only after they'd occurred. Behind his closed lids, he could see the intensity of Bobby's stare … he couldn't imagine what unfinished business the ghost might've had with Ellie.

The desire to get up, do something … say something … make something happen … returned, fizzing through him and he rolled onto his stomach, pushing the pillows out of the way, letting out a small groan as he looked around the dimly-lit room again.

He wanted to talk to her, make her listen, ask her about what Bobby'd said … wanted to talk to the old hunter's spirit and find out what the hell was going on … wanted to get in the car and drive somewhere … 'cept it wasn't the car, not his car, and he had nowhere to go. There was fucking nothing he could do or say or otherwise right now and trying to make something happen wouldn't help anyone.

But he couldn't rest, and sleep was a long fucking way away.

I don't think the tablet's what Roman's after. It might be important, maybe long term, but I think he's trying to find whatever it was Lucifer hid from them that's keeping them from multiplying.

Dick was dicking around in everything. Genetics, food production, distribution … and back to Lucifer and what he'd been up to before humanity'd arrived, like an evil fucking kid with too much time on his hands. Had Crowley somehow gotten wind of Dick's obsessions? There wasn't much the demon didn't know about, if he was interested, he considered. The King of Hell's about-face on their agreement seemed to support the idea. He might've been looking for Cas, but sending his flunkeys everywhere wasn't a very smart way of doing it – and no matter how he felt about Hell's current ruler, he couldn't accuse him of being dumb. How'd they located the hospital so quickly? Keeping an eye on Sam? Or were they after the devil?

Rubbing a hand over his face in frustration, Dean let out a gusty exhale. Everyone's motivations had been easy to pick only a few years ago. He lay back, gaze returning to the ceiling. The levis and Crowley weren't the only looming problems. The Alpha vamp was still in the game and they'd never bagged the first werewolf either. Uriel, Gabriel and Raphael were dead, Michael trapped in the Cage and Lucifer god-knew-where, but both Bobby and his brother'd said there were still two other archangels unaccounted for and Cas wasn't going to be alright for a long time.

He looked at his watch. Two o'clock. He was going to be refried fucking crap if he didn't shut down his head and get some sleep soon. Checkout was at ten. If he was lucky, he'd get five or six hours and a shower in the morning. In his duffel there was a half-bottle of sleeping pills. Years out of date now, but worth a shot, he decided. He couldn't lie here and stew all night.

He woke abruptly three hours later, the room still in darkness. It took a second to identify what'd brought him out of sleep. The sounds from the other room weren't loud, but they were steady. They'd been going on for some time. His head was filled with the cotton-wool fuzziness of the tablets, he thought that was why it'd taken so long to penetrate.

He was off the bed and at the connecting door before he realised he'd moved, stumbling as he stopped to listen again. For a moment, he couldn't hear anything, and he wondered if it'd been a dream, or something. Then he heard the rasping again and eased the door open.

Ellie's room was dark, the curtains drawn, only a sliver of pale light coming from the parking lot through a gap at one end. The faint and acrid scent of the vinegar tickled his nostrils. He closed his eyes and listened.

The jagged, repetitive sounds, punctuated by harsh, indrawn breaths, were coming from the bed.

She was crying.

Crying.

He hesitated on the threshold, peering into the dim room, all his instincts yelling at him to move, to hold her and wake her and let her know he was there, that she wasn't alone. It took every particle of self-control he was capable of to restrain that insistent compulsion, to think about what he could do instead of just doing.

When he'd met her, she'd seemed self-contained. Competent. Hunting alone and not in need of anyone's protection. At the time, he'd been relieved, working with someone who could take care of themselves, someone he didn't need to waste time watching over and being prepared to save. Those hunts had reminded him of earlier times. Better times. It'd taken years to discover that under her iron-clad armour and capability, there was vulnerability, rarely acknowledged. It'd taken longer to realise she'd let him see her moments of weakness because she'd trusted him. Had needed him. It'd given him a certainty, about himself, about his life, he hadn't felt for a long time, not since his father had made a deal and left them.

Taking a couple of steps into the room, his eyes adjusting to the lack of light, he saw her on the bed. She was moving restlessly, the covers tangled around her legs, her shoulders shaking. When she twisted over toward him, he saw her eyes were closed, her cheeks gleaming in the thin light.

He crossed to the bed, bare feet soundless on the carpet, and slipped his arm beneath her shoulders, holding her against him as he brushed the tears from her face with his fingertips. Doing it, being able to do it, filled him with a pain that tightened his chest. He hadn't realised how much he'd needed to do this with someone.

"Ellie, wake up." Under her lids, her eyes were moving, fast, from side to side. Her lips were parted, her breaths coming in whooping mouthfuls. "Wake up, you're dreaming. Wake up, Ellie."

"Dean …"

"Yeah, it's me," he murmured, cradling her more closely when she leaned into him. His heart was pounding against his ribs, loud in his ears, her scent filling his airways, so familiar it didn't seem possible he could've lost it. "I got you."

Her breathing slowed and, against his arm, he could feel her pulse easing, his steadying in sympathy. Her fingers curled into his tee shirt and he ducked his head, resting his cheek against her hair as she shivered with the aftermath of whatever she'd been seeing. It wasn't so much to ask, was it? Being able to hold her like this? Have what he needed back, even it was just for a few moments?

It was selfish, he admitted, eyes closing with the feel of her hair against his skin. Selfish and dumb, 'cause she wouldn't thank him for seeing her like this now, or for trying to be what he'd once been to her.

"S'okay," he told her, his voice little more than a low rumble in his chest. The same instincts that'd clamoured at him before to hold her until she woke, were hammering at him to let her go and move away before it was too late. In a minute, he told himself, he'd let go in a minute.

"S'just a dream."

He loosened his grip when Ellie startled against him, her eyes snapping open, getting wider when she looked up at him, focussing as awareness returned. Her expression spasmed in recognition and he knew he'd left it too long.

She jerked out of his arms, rolling away across the width of the bed and turning to the opposite wall. Dean froze, his skin goose-fleshing where her warmth had been a second before.

"You, uh, alright?"

With her back to him, he could barely make out her sharp nod. The loose spill of her hair shivered over her shoulders, the movement caught in the stray light from the lot.

"Yes. I'm fine."

Didn't sound fine, he thought, reaching out involuntarily. "C'mon, Ellie. You sure as hell know I'm not going to think worse of you for freaking out about a goddamned dream."

As his fingers touched her shoulder, she twitched away again, squirming further from him over the tangle of bed linen.

"I'm not tryin' to–" he cut himself off, pulling in a breath. "Let me help where I can, okay? Just as a friend?"

There was a half-choked noise from the other side of the bed and she looked over her shoulder at him.

"Help?" she asked. "You want to know what I'm dreaming about, Dean? Why I'm crying in the middle of the night? You can't guess at that one?"

Her tone was incisive and he flinched back from it. "Ellie, I just –"

"No," she said, and the edge disappeared from her voice, leaving it flat. She shook her head. "Th-thanks for waking me. But p-please … don't ever do it again. I can't – I thought – God, don't you g-get it?"

Her voice cracked and she turned away from him, curling into herself.

"I can't stand you so close."

He could barely hear her and what she'd said took a moment to sink in, drying out his throat and mouth in slow reaction.

"Sorry."

He got to his feet. Turned around. Walked across the room to the connecting door. Went through. Closed it quietly behind him, his thoughts stuttering in snapshots until he reached his bed.

There was no mistaking what she'd said. No way to think of it as a temporary setback or something that might change.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the dark window in front of him, he forced his lungs to inflate and deflate, concentrating on that one task.

Ellie drew her legs up, wrapping her arms around them and closing her eyes tightly. She was aching for the respite of tears, her chest and throat and head thick with them, but they refused to flow, jammed up inside along with the emotions that wouldn't die, the doubt and anxiety that circled endlessly, without resolution.

In those first few moments of returning consciousness, warm and held, the scent of him surrounding her and his voice like an anchor in the dark, it'd seemed as if it'd all been one despairing, hopeless dream, swept away with wakening, something to be forgotten.

Reality had kicked in like a pile-driver, with an impact that'd shaken her down to the bone.

She'd wanted it to be real, she admitted, her head tipping back as she tried to breathe through the accompanying wash of pain. Had wanted that with every particle of her being. For that split second, when she'd known full well where and when she was, she'd hesitated, needing that comfort so much the temptation to keep pretending had torn her apart with the contradictions.

How the hell was she going to live without having that ever again? How the hell could she live with herself if she tried to pretend what he'd done meant nothing?

Done this before, haven't you? The voice in her mind had reminded her. Lived day to day, telling yourself you'd forget, in time, that one day it wouldn't hurt so damned much, one day you'd be able to forget about him completely.

A few weeks too late and he'd chosen someone else, a whole new way of life, and all she'd been able to do was to walk away. It hadn't been much of a choice, she knew, but the end result had been the same. And she'd asked him to wait a few days, just a few short days … and he'd gone with someone else. Maybe not looking for anything permanent, but not looking at what he'd had either.

Burying her face in her arms, she focussed on breathing, in and out. She didn't want to keep making the same mistake, over and over.