Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters you are familiar with (unless you've been following this story, in which case, I own one of them.)

Sorry it's taken so long, had a lot of craziness with work/uni/life/ideas rolling around in my almost empty head =D So I figured I'd give you two new chapters!

Hope you enjoy.

Dean knew he was dreaming. And he also knew he shouldn't have been dreaming, because he was supposed to be awake, and trying to stop Maryla from leaving in the 1968 Dodge Superbee Bobby had just returned to her ownership.

He knew he was dreaming, because he was five years younger, staring at a brunette Maryla, who was perched on the hood of the Impala dressed in only his shirt, which looked more like a tent on her and her stature of five foot one, watching as she stared off in to the distance, the morning fog around the trees, and the sun that hadn't even risen yet.

He even knew what he was dreaming about. He'd dreamt about it often enough, but she'd always been just out of his reach in all the other dreams. She'd always been just that step too far away. He'd dreamt about her every night after he'd been with any other woman, and he'd dreamt about her during those rare moments of respite in Hell.

He was dreaming about the morning after their first real night together. Which, of course, had been in the Impala. And my Lord, had it been some kind of a night. He'd always remembered it as one big blur that still seemed to pass by in absolute detail. Although how they'd ended up sleeping in the grass beside where the Impala was parked, he still wasn't quite sure.

He sat up carefully, trying not disturb her, and as he stood, he realized she was not dressed in only his shirt. She had his socks and boots on too. He leaned across the hood of the car, and kissed the hand that she was leaning back on. She jumped slightly, and opened her eyes to observe him. They were the same colour as the leaves on the trees around them, a rich, deep, and peaceful kind of green.

"You're up." he said, pulling her round to him. She smiled, and shook her head slightly.

"So are you." she replied, running her hand through his hair. He looked at her until he couldn't take it any more, and pulled her in to him, pulling her body up against his, taking her mouth in to a hard kiss that claimed ownership of the receiver, a kiss he knew from memory he'd use on her many a time when jealous of the guys she was interviewing. She responded in kind, and he found himself trying to rip the shirt off of her before he even knew what he was doing. He pulled back a little to steady himself, and settled for just looking at her again.

She shot him a quizzical look, and tipped her head to one side, a coy smile playing on her lips. He couldn't help but smile. And then he found himself kissing her again.

The dream changed a little. It shifted to an event a few weeks after that first night.

Some guy had been harassing her at the bar all night. True, she wasn't even supposed to be in the bar, but her accent made her sound a lot older than what she was. And she wasn't even dressed for the guy's kind of attention anyway. She was in a pair of slightly too big jeans, a racer back red top, and a pair of DC skate shoes that Dean loved to tell her made her look like a clown. The only thing she'd done all night that would have captured anyone's attention was dance like a fool to Stevie Knicks' Edge of Seventeen. Questionable, he knew, but she loved it.

When they left the bar to go back to the motel, he could tell something was up, so, for once, he was glad his dad had gone off on his own hunt.

"You OK?" he asked, closing the door behind them as she flopped on to one of the beds in their motel room.

"Why do guys think that's OK?" she asked, sitting up angrily. He knew the anger wasn't aimed at him, and looked at her sympathetically, and didn't say a word, "That kind of behaviour! Ugh!" she threw her hands up in the air.

"I don't really know." he said, leaning back against the door to watch her.

"You do it too, you know. But you've never done it to me. And you're not as creepy." she commented.

"I should hope not." he smiled. He loved watching her when she got dramatic about something. She was all arms and elbows, and hair flying around, and facial expressions. Her eyes narrowed, and she glared at him, trying to tell if he was making fun of her, or if he was just being his usual self.

With an exasperated sigh, she flung herself back to laying down on the bed. He went over to his bag and pulled something out.

"I have something for you." he said, approaching her.

"Is it sleeping pills I can overdose on?" she asked, eyes shut, annoyance the only tone in her voice.

"No." he said, and balanced it on her chest. She lifted her head and stared in shock at the ring box sitting on her.

"Dean..." she began, starting to freak out. He knew what her reaction was going to be, and immediately tried to calm her.

"Mari. Calm down. You know what we're both like. It's not like that. It's just something from me to you, because I wanted to get you something. Something that means it's you and me against the world." he said. She turned her apprehensive gaze from the ring box to him.

"I... What? Did you just propose in some weird as hell Dean way?" she asked. He went to say no, and then thought about it.

"I guess I did, yeah." he said, completely calm, not feeling like him at all, "What's it gonna be?"

*

Dean jumped awake to the sound of roaring laughter, and followed it outside.

When he got outside, he saw what the loud laughter had been about, as he watched the still stick thin beauty sprawl across the hood of her baby, arms and legs outstretched as she tried to hug her car. He couldn't help but laugh too.

She climbed down off her car and took a flying leap at Bobby, giving Sam the chance to catch a glimpse of something across her abdomen.

"What's that?" he asked, motioning to her lower half. She flushed a little red.

"Just something." she replied.

"You wouldn't say that if it wasn't something you're embarrassed about!" Sam declared, grabbing her and trying to see. In the end he ended up displaying the top half of it to the world, leaving Dean without a doubt what it was, and Bobby staring from Maryla to Dean, "Is that-" Sam began.

"It's something I got to remind me of something I figured would last as long as the damn thing itself." Maryla said, averting her gaze from Dean's eyes. He knew exactly what it was because he remembered the day she'd gotten it. The tattoo of his name across her abdomen. John had nearly killed her for that one, but had actually taken it out on Dean himself. Well, a little lower than her abdomen. If she hadn't lost so much weight, they wouldn't have been able to see it at all, it was that low. She pulled her joggers up and re-tied the string at her waist.

He wanted to touch her, to reassure her of... something, but whatever relaxed atmosphere had been between them during her run in with the incubus was now gone, replaced with the tension that had been there since he had first clapped eyes on her.

He ended up touching her anyway. She swayed unsteadily on her feet, and went to hit the floor again, but he caught her just in time.

"Looks like you're not leaving just yet." Bobby commented.