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The tone in John Winchester’s voice when he told them that they were leaving left a bitter taste in Dean’s mouth that had nothing to do with Sam’s anger but a feeling of leaving something behind. Things are supposed to go this way, even if it has so many times that he can’t even keep track anymore. For once, Dean had made friends with the civies. He knew them. He trusted them. Heck, he’d even helped out a few. He knew that the jobs called them all over the place, but for some reason he’d started to hope that they could have a base of operations like Bobby has.
Bobby still hunts, but he always comes back to his salvage yard. The Winchesters? The only constant they’ve had was Baby, dad, and dad’s obsession.
When he should do is finish packing up and heading on to the next town where dad had found another lead on the Yellow Eyed Demon that had killed their mom. That’s what Dean should do. Instead, he finds himself turning down roads and taking turns that can only lead him to one place. Even when he parks on the street, he could easily keep on driving. The road will eventually bring him to where he needs to be. He can just keep driving with Sam in the passenger seat. He can. He can just pretend that the past few months (nearly a year) never happened at all.
“Dean? What are we doing here?” Sammy finally speaks up after all of the driving. He’s probably getting tired of the silence and wanting a heart-to-heart. Or maybe think of a reason why they don’t have to move on yet again.
Dean doesn’t blame his brother. He doesn’t want to move on yet.
He goes ahead and gets out of the car. He just wants to talk to one person before leaving. One person to explain…well, everything. “Eh, I just want to drop something off. Go on back to sleep.” Dean tells his brother. If he had been more awake, Sam would have went on and on with the questions. As it was, he just turned his head and fell back asleep.
The sun hasn’t risen yet. An early start for a drive, and hopefully one that he can take a bypass next to Bobby’s before following dad on across the state. John expects to meet up in Ohio in four days. Four days should give him plenty of time to drive up there to ask for a favor. He doesn’t need that much sleep.
He cuts into the back part to poke his head by the kitchen door. It was only a slight chance that Piper would be up at the time, but he knows how she is about her baking. He doesn’t have many memories of his mom, but he thinks she would like the care-taker Halliwell. “Piper?” He calls into the kitchen where he can see the young brunette beating on some type of round dough thing.
She turns around, a hand going to her mouth and eyes widening in fear before going to recognition. “Dean?” She whispers out, “What are you doing here?”
A smile slowly forms on his lips as he makes an exaggerated eye sweep from her head down to what he can see through the door’s windows. “Admiring the view.”
“Stop.” She playfully admonishes him, trying to pretend that she wasn’t blushing. “Come on in.” She opens the door before going back to beating on the thing he had seen her fighting with earlier. “I’m trying out a new bread recipe. I’ve made something like…Oops. I’m babbling again.”
It didn’t bother him. Not really. It seemed…normal. It was normal being with her. Like being home after a long journey. Dean liked hearing her babble about how her day went. I liked feeling like he was a part of something. “I don’t mind.” His smile was sad, because some part of him knew that this was going to be the last time that his life would be like this.
She stops whatever she’d been doing to throw the dough thing into a bowl before putting a small towel over top of it. They look at each other, but she’s the one that ends up breaking the silence. “Want some coffee?” Piper has to stop herself from babbling again just to push the sadness in the air to the side.
“Sure.” Dean tells her, careful to keep his voice down. He doesn’t want an audience for this. Especially not her grandmother. Mrs. Halliwell was a fierce woman known in quite a few circles.
Of which a few of them crossed the Hunter community in a lot of odd ways.
She sets the mug in front of him before taking the seat across the table. “Now…what’s going on Winchester?”
“Job in Ohio.” Dean tells her, not wanting to go into more detail than that, but knowing that he would have to for her to understand. “Dad got a lead.” He reaches out when it looks like all of the sunshine in her has faded into the clouds. “We’re going on the road again.” His hand holds onto hers, as if a part of him was wishing that he could hold onto this life just as easily.
Piper nods, understanding but not wanting to, before closing her eyes for a moment. When she opens them back up, the sadness seems to be gone. “Okay. I get it.” She tries to pull her hand back, but he grabs it tighter.
At her question look, he lets go. “Sorry. I just…” Piper reaches forward and grabs the hand he just released hers from.
“I get it.” She squeezes his hand tighter. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to leave.” The words force themselves out as he looks into her eyes. This isn’t what he had planned when he got here. Time is running out. “I need you to…Piper, Sweet-P, I need you to…” He suddenly stands up to start pacing around the room. “I can’t…Your family’s like a magnet.”
Piper cautiously stands, not moving from her spot behind the table. “What are you talking about?” Dean never had a reason to be nervous. Even when the psycho classmate tried to knock him out with a hair dryer (she was possessed by a ghost, but whatever) he had remained calm. This wasn’t calm. Nowhere near.
He finally pauses, seeming to become aware of how he had to be quiet. “The shapeshifter. The ghost. The weird slime monster thing. I still don’t know what that was. They just keep coming after you and your family. You are like…a magnet for the supernatural.”
Piper softly smiled at that, going up to lay her head against his chest. “It let meet you, Dean. Even if…” Her voice catches, but she pushes the emotion to the side. Now is not the time for emotion to overwhelm her like it has a bad habit of doing. “Even if I never do get to see you again.”
Dean is the one to pull her back, but still keep ahold of her shoulders to better look at her face as he decided that he couldn’t put this off, no matter how much he wanted to. “Call me if…” His words failed him, but he hoped that Piper would be able to understand. He can’t, refuses, to imagine what would have happened all of those times if her and Sam hadn’t decided to become friends.
There was a good chance that all three of the Halliwell sisters wouldn’t be here, but as victims to the monsters that call the night their home.
Piper tried to smile, she really did, and it came off as forced as she tried to make the mood just a bit lighter. “If we’re ever attacked by a smile monster?” she asks, referencing one of the things that Dean had brought up. She doesn’t remember that attack that well, but she remembers being afraid.
It was probably fear that has blocked most of that memory, but she does remember feeling safe.
Dean joins her and adds a soft chuckle to her forced lightheartedness. “You know what I mean.” He really hopes that she does.
“Yeah, I do.” Piper agrees with him, even if she only partly understands. She knows what it’s like to worry about others. She’s the worrier in the family for a reason.
Dean reaches his right hand into his pants pocket to pull out a piece of paper. This was his back-up plan. “Here.” He holds out the paper until she takes it.
With a confused expression, she waves the small paper piece. “What is this?” To her, it was something unexpected. Dean said to call him in case anything odd happened. Who else would he trust for someone to call when the ghosts rose from their graves?
“Bobby’s number.” Dean’s second father and the only other person that he could trust with this. A back up plan, which Sammy always complains he goes in without. If they can’t get ahold of him, they would be able to get Bobby.
The forced lightheartedness is completely gone as Piper’s expression switches to one of wariness. “Why do I need this? I already have your number.” She has heard stories of Robert Singer, and how well he hunts down the monsters that prey on humans. At least, she’s heard the stories that Sam and Dean have been willing to tell her at various times.
Dean tries to go for reassuring, but fails miserably. “Just in case.” This isn’t some con on a layman to let them have access to the crime scene to look for clues. This was making sure that someone that he cares about won’t have their back against the wall without any way of escaping. A backup plan for someone else, but a backup plan nonetheless.
“Dean…” Piper begins before ending, unsure of what she could say to that. The past year had been a strange one. Not long after her and Sam became friends, everything just seemed to get weirder and weirder.
Dean reaches out a hand, and gently pushes a wayward strand of hair back from her face. “I need you to have options, Sweet-P.” More than one person guarding her back, as it was.
“Options?” She asks, a cross between incredulity and a fear that was tightly ingrained. “You’re scaring me.” She wasn’t so much worried for herself, but for what his words were implying.
Dean was expecting there to be more attacks like the ones that had occurred. Only this time, he wouldn’t be around to give them a helping hand.
“I hunt the supernatural, babe.” He tells her, and all of her fears were gaining evidence to make them even more worrisome. “You need to be able to contact a hunter just in case anything comes calling.” There’s a difference between hearing the inner voice whispering the fears, and someone on the outside confirming them.
“You really are leaving this time…” Dean wouldn’t be nearly as concerned if it was just another hunting trip before heading back to San Francisco. He never was worried, unless he truly felt that there was a danger to someone that he cared about.
Someone that he loved.
“Yeah, Sweet-P.” He uses the nickname that he came up with on a whim to bring back just a bit of her smile. “Saving people.” Dean begins the motto, certain that it would at least bring up some happy memories. “Hunting things.”
Piper knew what he was doing, but still had the small shy smile form on her face as she ducked her head. “The family business?” She finishes the phrase as a question, looking up through her eyelashes.
Always the flirt, Dean winked while saying, “My motto.”
A sudden rush of fear has Piper reach out before he gets the chance to turn away. “Stay safe.” She orders him, knowing how he has the very bad habit of putting himself in the line of fire to save someone else. He’s put himself between her family and danger enough times for her to be able to see the pattern. Dean needs to be reminded that his family cares about him just as much as he cares about him.
Even long-distance family.
Her order seems to amuse him, but his look isn’t condescending when he keeps his gaze on her. “I’ll try.” Not a complete promise, but the most that anyone could expect of someone who thinks a good time is hunting down a ghost that’s been electrocuting people.
She lets go of his hands, but stays close enough to still feel his body heat. “I mean it.” Which she hopes that he’ll understand, but knowing that he probably wouldn’t.
How can you tell someone that you feel as if a light will go out in your world if you know that they are no longer alive in it?
It’s an impossibility, and this moment isn’t for last minute declarations. This moment is for wrapping up what was, with reminders of the lessons that they learned on their shared part of each of their separate destinies.
Dean slowly threads his fingers in her hair, and bends his head so that his lips are just a breath’s length between them. “You worry too much, darling.” He whispers, letting her close the gap between them.
The kiss was a mix of everything that neither of them could say. Worry. Fear. Hope. Longing.
Love.
Still, they both eventually had to pull away and look into each other’s eyes for just another moment to add to their shared memories. Piper followed Dean to the door, and watched him until he faded into the darkness. She heard his car pull out before letting the loss hit her.
She smothered her sobs, so as not to wake the others in the house. The bread was ready on the table for everyone by breakfast. If anyone noticed her red eyes, no one commented on them.
Dean…Dean pulled the memories deep inside when he could take them back out to smile about whenever the loneliness creeped up. He was doing this job to keep people like Piper safe. He was giving her a chance at normalcy, even if him and his little brother would never get it.