Epilogue

The need for a mad-dash pack and clean of the motel rooms passed when the sheriff indicated he would let them off the hook. At the same time, Mae floated in and out of consciousness, belying the need to help her or find someone who could.

At the motel, once he had deposited Mae on her bed, Dean changed out of his dirty and batter clothes while Sam began packing their gear. Dean also knew he should get Mae cleaned up before they left. She was covered with grime, blood, and whatever she had been throwing up. Not only did she smell unpleasant, it couldn't have been comfortable as it all dried.

He felt sketchy digging through her clothes to find something clean, he tried to take it on as a strictly business endeavor. As clinically as possible, he undressed her, made sure there weren't any injuries that needed to be treated immediately, and finding none, quickly redressed her in jeans and a t-shirt.

In short order, however, they had all evidence of the hunt cleared down from the walls and all their gear packed away between both cars. They agreed Sam would drive Mae's car back and Dean would take her in his, with Sam following. Dean rousted her enough to get some direction to her house.

They were headed somewhere outside of Wilsall, Montana, which was perhaps nearby if you counted adjoining states nearby because it was a six or seven hour drive. Hours seemed like days with Mae in the state she was in. So, they were off to Wilsall. Neither had heard of the town before but were able to find it on the map. They'd drive through what remained of the night and get there by midday. There were a few bigger towns and cities along the way. But Dean was eager to get somewhere safer where they could make certain she was okay.

They'd never dealt with something as strange and confusing as a double possession, nor had they seen a reaction like hers. Sure, she responded to the holy water and the exorcism the same way, but the smoke and ooze were new to them. Although, Dean thought, he shouldn't have been surprised by how exhausted she was considering what she went through physically. It would be interesting to find out what it was like being possessed, from a hunter's perspective. Maybe it would help them get better at hunting demons. Although, after this, he wasn't in the mood to test out that theory.

Dean couldn't imagine where she called home. She didn't live in a tiny town, she lived outside of it, which was somehow not what he pictured. He couldn't put her in a big, busy city either. A woman like her might be able to fit in living in a big city but not a hunter. And he couldn't put her in the suburbs either. How could you hide all the things a hunter needed to hide around all the stay-at-home moms, kids, and nosy neighbors. But they did, he supposed. It was an interesting puzzle to try to solve.

6 hours and one pit-stop later, they were at Mae's house. She lived several miles outside the small town, where the pavement ran out and isolated enough that you could hardly see neighbors from her house. Rural was the right word for the location. They were surrounded by trees, not dense enough to be considered a forest and the house faced a pretty spectacular view of the mountains, separated only by grassy expanses. Dean had seen a small river or creek running near the house but wasn't sure if it came through the property at all. He wasn't even sure how much of the area was hers. There was a garage and a shed on the property, from what he could see from the driveway.

The cottage house with early Appalachian architecture was almost quaint looking from the outside. He almost wouldn't have believed it was hers if her keys didn't open the front door. Inside, he found himself in a sunny, vaulted, foyer with large newel posts and railing leading upstairs. To the left was the family room, with a comfortable looking sofa and chair and a stone fireplace with a TV mounted above it. There were oversized windows that let abundant sun into the room. It was homey.

There was a dining room, with a table that seemed larger than what Mae would need or use. The stone fireplace rapped around to the kitchen. In there was a huge wood butcher block in the center and plaid curtains over the window. Again, all very cute and normal.

There was a bathroom with a shower downstairs and two locked doors. Despite their curiosity, they stayed out of those. Dean moved upstairs, hoping to find her bedroom so he could get her out of his car and somewhere more relaxing. There he found another bathroom and a room that screamed hunter, as it was packed with books and other oddities. But no bed. The last room on his search was the master bedroom. Another room with bright windows, colors, and coziness.

The bed was huge, a California king and it was piled high with pillows and blankets. No thin haphazard excuses for blankets or questionable comforters. No pillows that you didn't want to think about who had slept on them and there were more than she needed, more than two people needed. It was perfect. He knew exactly why there were so many, even if all but one ended up thrown to the ground around the bed. It was about having your own anything.

Dean went back out to the car and pulled the slim, pretty woman out and carried her upstairs and placed her on the bed. He left Sam to take care of everything else, understanding that they would be staying at her place for at least a day. Sam didn't mind. It might have been the nicest place they'd stayed.

Back upstairs, Dean frowned at her. He was back to the conundrum about what to do with her now that he had her home. He could have left her in her clothes but that didn't seem particularly comfortable and she didn't tend to wear street clothes to bed. "You are not allowed to be mad about this."

Dean said as he eased her into a sitting position so he could get her tee shirt off, leaning her against his body. He realized perhaps for the first time he wasn't thinking about sex, not a lot anyway, as he undressed her with no help from the redhead. It was just his luck that Mae came to, at least part way, finding herself topless and in his arms. With a frail, almost imperceptible movement she tried to bat him away. "Hey, Grabby!"

"Don't get excited, Red, I'm just getting you ready for bed. This isn't any more fun for me."

He corrected, it wasn't much fun considering how those wide bruises were starting to look over her arms and torso. Her wrists showed reddening marks that would become dark purple in no time, all in the shape of his fingers. It was bad enough he did consider taking her to the hospital for a moment. Since, hospital visits were few and far between for them, she would have complained were she in any position to complain.

"Least you could do's by a girl a drink." She mumbled and was slurring by the end of the sentence before slumping into Dean's arms.

With a sigh he eased her head off his shoulder to ease her back down. He helped back down to the mattress before he started to undo her jeans. It almost had him laughing. He couldn't recall ever undressing an unconscious woman before or doing anything with a non-responsive girl. It wasn't a particularly rewarding experience. Moving lower, he took her shoes off for her, socks too before stripping her pants off.

And he somehow found himself both amused and more than a little surprised by what he saw. There was an angry rooster tattoo on the inside of her left ankle. He wondered how he'd missed that before but then in the throes of the spell, he'd missed the snake on her thigh and her thigh was much close to the parts he'd been interested in. Dean wondered how many tattoos she had since they kept popping up. Of course, there weren't a ton of others places she could hide one. He wanted to know why she picked the ones she had. Damn, he had missed her.

She must have had some sort of pajamas somewhere, he thought. It was her house after all. He took to examining her room with more explicit purpose. It was only partially influenced by his need to snoop through her things. He cast a glance over his shoulder, just to check to see if she was still sleeping, not that he was worried about it. Dean reassured himself that he was only making certain that he was taking care of her.

After asserting that she was safely asleep, he let his eyes wander of the warm honey colored façade of her dresser. It was, just like other parts of the house deceptively feminine. Not girly but womanly. Not that he expected her to have decorated from the Guns and Ammo catalog but the delicate glass perfume bottles, knickknacks and, oddly enough, a few pieces of nice jewelry he had never seen her wear. There was a side of her that was not a hunter at all. He could imagine worse things about her life besides being a real girl.

Smirking at the thought, he opened one of the small red containers and sniffed at the creamy, light pink lotion. Strawberry. Nothing stopped the curving of his lips as he closed his eyes. No matter how much she might have changed, there were some things that were the same and reassuring. He always remembered that softly alluring scent of her strawberry shampoo that she used growing up.

It brought up one of his happiest memories of her, when things were simple, and the only tension was anticipation. They were in love then. And her hair smelled like strawberries. She didn't smell like strawberries anymore. They'd spent days together and nothing she had smelled remotely like strawberries. Except now, he found this unused bottle of strawberry lotion. He held the tub up to his nose once more to take in the familiar scent before closing it and returning it to its spot on the dresser.

He sniffed at some of her other perfumes and lotions she kept there. It was intimate, perhaps due to the nature of the items, but not particularly personal. Those items could have existed in any house, used by any woman. The only thing that delineated the area as something unique was the old photo, probably 15 years old.

Mae, with her hair cut in a messy cap of red stood with a toothy grin alongside Bobby and Sam.

He didn't remember the exact reason the photo had been taken or where they were. Dean frowned slightly. Mae was cute and she looked quite happy, but he wasn't there. They had taken pictures together. And despite her lopsided grin or pale arms draped over his little brother's shoulders or even what he thought was genuine happiness, he couldn't help but wonder where he had been or why she had kept this particular picture.

Dean could not deny the desire to find even one picture that she had kept of him or of them together. But there wasn't one in her bedroom. He had yet to search the rest of the house, but he didn't really want to know if she had simply erased all trace of him from her life. There was every chance that before she had come to find them in Oregon that she had not only accepted never seeing him again but wanted it that way. There was every chance that she still didn't want to see him.

During all the time that passed, she was still his first love and possibly his one true love, he thought. That notion had always left the door open just enough to harbor some small hope that they would find each other again. He had always thought that it was perhaps because she was the first girl he had ever felt anything for. Maybe that was part of it. He didn't have that many loves to compare things to, but he did know that Mae was still special.

Now, he was in the unique position where he could find out if there was nothing left. Or if that hope existed for her too. He wasn't sure what they would be—friends, lovers, family—but he knew that he needed her. Casting a glance back at her sleeping form he sighed before deciding to let it rest.

He stopped snooping over the curios and trinkets on her dresser and started going through her drawers. That wasn't snooping, he told himself, as he was actually looking for pajamas. Still, he was perplexed by the amount of lacy underwear the woman had considering he only remembered her wearing black or white cotton panties and bras, all very practical. The top draw of her dresser was half regular girly type underwear and the other was her plain cotton ones. Who the hell had Mae become in their time apart?

He went through her other drawers, finding bras, t-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, tank tops and finally in the second to last drawer was pajama tops and bottoms. Grabbing the first pair he could find, he went back to Mae and propped her up, using his body to support her. "Alright, arms up, Red."

Sluggishly, she responded to his request and she lifted her arms so he could quickly put her in the clean pajama top. It had somehow gotten easier to simply talk to her while he dressed her. It just made things seem less weird, made him less nervous. "Good girl. You can lay down now."

He lay her back down and this time he didn't refrain from pressing a kiss to her forehead when he leaned down over her. "It shouldn't have taken this much for us to get here, should it? I mean how screwed up are we? I don't want to be this screwed up. I can't tell you what's going to happen but… I need a friend like you. Whatever else happens, Mae, I need you back."

He feathered his fingers through her long hair. Mae looked so pale, more than usual. It was a sickly pale, like all the blood had left her body, made more apparent by the coppery frame of hair that surrounded her face. Dean touched her face, worried that she was so cold. Her freckles were more noticeable as were the tiny scars that littered her arms, legs, hands, and everywhere else. They weren't that noticeable unless you were looking. There were larger ones too that spread long light lines over her skin. They were a familiar sight. His body held a similar assortment although they didn't blend into his darker skin.

She looked smaller than she was suddenly. Now that the demons had been exorcised and the angry lettering of the spell had vanished from her skin, they were safe, and things could go back to the way they were before. He hoped. Rationally, he knew nothing was the same as it was even a few days ago. He felt like he hadn't just tipped his hand, he had fouled up the entire game. No matter what she said about spell sex, it still felt wrong and left him feeling like they might not get things back on track. His mouth twisted in a disappointed grimace as he looked at her prone form.

Dean paused, the frown lines on his face deepened. Her shirt had ridden up and her panties had slid down just enough to expose the beginnings of another tattoo. This one appeared to be floral. He could see an assortment of green leaves and bright bursts of colorful blooms these flowers seemed to extend from hip to hip across her lovely skin. While this was yet another part of her body he should have noticed more, he did know this was a more recent addition since the last time he saw this area of her body, it was an arching scar, healed but still raised and an angry shade of pink.

He would have had to move her underwear to see more or find the scar the ink covered, and both scar and art disappeared too low beneath her cotton underwear for him to be able to claim he hadn't groped her if he investigated. She was right, he hadn't thought about the time she had come back to him. After she was hurt and had recovered, she came after him, before she left him again. That week was supposed to be a thrilling week and having her with him was a bonus. But nothing went as planned and she slipped away.

Back then, he had tried to ignore that scar, for her and for him. He didn't want her to be self-conscious, after all scars came with the territory and he didn't think its appearance took anything away from his attraction for her. But he didn't want the guilt over the whole situation to drive him crazy either. He wanted to pretend things were the way they were before she got hurt. Better even because they had just a little more freedom now that they were older. He'd been 18 and while she was still 16, during her recovery she had done whatever her school required to let her graduate early. So, they were free and clear. But he supposed the whole situation spooked her because she left after they exchanged some angry words.

With a sigh, he grabbed the bottoms from the bed and slid them on swiftly. It was a bad idea to linger with her, at her house, and with all those memories. There were so many things he would have done differently, if he knew then what he knew now. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Now, he was thoroughly exhausted, and his mind was wandering too far. Between the job, the demons, and the drive, he was longing for a good, long sleep. Hopefully, Mae wouldn't kick them out once she was in a better state.

Now that he had her in her pajamas, he tucked her into the big lush bed. It had been a long day, made longer still by having to take care of Mae. Not the act of taking care of her so much as the fact that she needed someone to take care of her. It didn't help that his leg was still killing him. Most of the blood had stopped flowing but his pant leg was caked in a combination of wet and dried blood.

Even as that weary, post-case exhaustion began to take over his body, he knew he needed to deal with the wound first. Dean toed off his boots, finding his sock had absorbed a lot of the blood that had ran down his calf. He took his over shirt off, followed by his gray tee shirt and finally his jeans. Clad only in a pair of boxer briefs and his socks, he hopped over to her bathroom, trying not to track blood all over her rug or wood floors. As reassuring as it was disturbing, her fully stocked first aid supply was easy to locate and from the looks of it, well used.

While he could have gotten Sam to take care of the injury, it was quicker to tend to his own wounds. For something that seemed to come out of nowhere, he took note of just how shallow the cut really was. It wasn't even deep enough to need stitches, he saw after having cleaned it. The woman was all the more impressive for her control and planning even if he didn't know why exactly she had stabbed him. His eyes drifted up to the mirror to watch Mae sleep for just a moment. That girl sure as hell knew more than she let on about this whole situation. "Damnit Mae…"

He stopped looking at her and went back to patching himself up. Fortunately butterfly bandages were more than enough to hold the wound together and some gauze and tape would take care of the rest. It would have been more appropriate, he supposed, to go downstairs and sleep on the couch. Maybe he could fight Sam for it. He found it strange that she didn't seem to have another bed or somewhere else to sleep but it was possible she never had guests. But what if she needed something more, he thought. What if something worse happened to her? It was more convenient, based on that logic to stay with her and try to get some sleep there. Plus, her bed looked more comfortable than any sofa or motel bed he'd seen.

Mae woke, overcome with a wave of nausea and confusion. The room was dark, but it smelled so familiar. It smelled like home. It made her wonder if the whole thing hadn't been just some horrible nightmare. But her head, her body and everything else told her otherwise. The brief assessment reminded her why she woke up and assuming she was really at home, she went sprinting into the bathroom.

Dean followed not too far behind. Again, she was throwing up, but this wasn't that horrible mix of blood and black ooze, it was mostly bile. Not that it made her feel any better. But Dean did. He had knelt beside her, pulling her hair away from her face and rubbing her back. It was reassuring in the strangest way she thought. She wasn't sure what made her know it was Dean, she just did.

"Empty?" He asked when it seemed like she was done. Mae just nodded and he scooped her up into his arms. He flushed the toilet and lowered the lid then he sat her back down. Brushing her hair out of her face, he tried to give her a relieved if not slightly amused smile. "There you go Red. Want some water?"

She nodded, accepting that she could hardly do anything more to embarrass herself in front of him. Dean was an oddly attentive nursemaid. He didn't seem to notice the way her eyes locked on him as he filled the tumbler she kept by the sink. He hadn't looked this at ease since they'd met back up, she thought. The tension that knotted his shoulders together seemed to disappear so did the small lines that framed his eyes and mouth.

"Here." he said, pressing the cool glass into her hands, "Feelin' better?"

She shook her head as she stared into the water. "No… well, actually a little. Mostly I feel like I got drunk at the worst frat party ever."

"Yeah, well you got double teamed by two strangers and ended up barfing in two different states. I'd say you have a pretty good assessment of the situation." He teased as he pushed a few stray locks of hair behind her ear.

She took a sip of the water before swishing it around her mouth, leaning over and spitting in the sink. He kept his hand on her waist as she stood and when she sat back down. It seemed a little too intimate, so he moved his hand to rub her arm. "I will say this Mavis, you've got balls."

It made her laugh even as she shook the compliment off. "I just… c'mon you would have done the same thing."

"That's how I know."

She looked away, although he saw the little way her mouth turned up. "Hey," She said rather abruptly, "you still have my necklace."

He did and he'd kept it on since she'd given it to him. It had tangled together with the amulet he wore. He reached down to pull them apart before taking hers off. "Yeah I do." He placed necklace in her open hand, "Guess it kept me safe, except from you."

That made her grin, just a bit. "I stabbed you because I thought it would make you a less attractive vessel and it seems to have worked. Besides, you totally could have avoided being stabbed but you took the bait."

True enough, he thought. Even as he'd kissed her, he knew it was too good to be true. How was he supposed to resist it though? Without the spell, he always had a nagging desire to kiss her and knowing what he knew now, he'd still kiss her. "I'm not exactly sure how much willpower you think I have."

The playful bickering was perfect, his ministrations were perfect and if they lost the part with demons, this was how she imagined being with him again would be like. Well, there would have been less vomiting too but the parts that were fun and sweet, where he was kind and watch and she didn't have her guard up all the time.

Something was still off. She squinted as if taking note of him for the first time. "Why are you in your underwear? And why were you sleeping in my bed in your underwear?"

"I don't know sweetheart, maybe because you stabbed me in the leg, threw up in my car and oh yeah, you totally got possessed. It's been a long day and I was tired, and you have one bed. You're lucky you, me, and Sam weren't up here."

Her face scrunched up. "I threw up in your car?"

"No, you came close though." He reached up to comb his hand through her hair. "I'm going to count it if you bitch about me just trying to sleep for a few hours."

His teasing aside, she did feel bad for stabbing him and leaving him to take care of her like this. "Right. Sorry about that. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, nothing but scrapes and bruises...aside from the knife wound. Don't worry honey, I'll be fine in a couple of days."

She blushed and looked away. "You can stay here. If you want, I mean."

"I wasn't about to leave before you were feeling okay enough to kick us out."

Her lips curved softly. "Really?"

"What do you think, that I'm a total ass. Besides, this might be the nicest place I've ever been allowed in, so I figure if I stay long enough, I've got squatters rights."

"Hopefully I'll be better before then. But, I mean, you can go if you want."

"What?"

"If you boys need to get on the road and look for your dad or whatever. Don't think you have to stay just because I got hurt."

Maybe, he thought, she hit her head harder than they assumed. "Mixed signals here Mae. Do you think I'd just drop you here and bail?"

All the sudden she felt caged by him kneeling in front of her in the bathroom. "I'm not dead. I'm not insanely hurt, and I can take care of myself. It wouldn't be weird if you took off. I'm used to people leaving."

There was something about the way she said that last part, that she said it at all that annoyed him and no matter how ill she might have been feeling, he had to say something about it. "How far up your ass is your head?"

His tone took her aback because even when she had offended him a little or hurt his feelings, his voice had stayed even and although she might have been reading it to it, compassionate. But this time it turned to exasperation.

"Excuse me?" she said.

"Mae, I am not trying to re-fight the fights we've had, but more often than not, you're the one doing the leaving."

It was a road she never should have gone down with Dean, not now at any rate. "I… that's not… when I… I…"

He didn't let her stuttering attempt at an explanation stop her. "I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, okay? But you did leave Bobby, you left me… and you spent so much time pushing us away that eventually we took the hint. As stubborn as I can be, I got the hint that you didn't want me around. Right now, all of that's in the past and it is what it is, but you must know that I don't want to leave you, I never did."

"I- I'm sorry." Her head dropped down as she pressed her lips together. "I'm not really...I'm not totally feeling like myself. I'm a bit scattered, I guess. I don't want to fight, really."

"It's okay, I get it. Believe me, I do but like I said, it's in the past and now… and I still meant what I said before; I'd like us to be close again."

Her eyebrow arched as she tried to steer the conversation somewhere else. "Wait, is that code for sex?"

Even her deflection into humor failed because he spoke seriously. "Not if you don't want it to be."

That made her blush comeback full force, hot against her already pale cheeks. "Really? Because that's just… not like you at all."

"Sex isn't all I think about when I think of you. Maybe you thought it was just the spell or whatever but what I said in Idaho was completely what I feel. I want to see if maybe this can work. It wouldn't be the worst thing for us to have, I don't know, a relationship. So, yeah, it wouldn't be just sex."

Her lips pressed together as he squeezed her knee and looked deep into her eyes. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Because you're not just a woman. You're part of my family, not in the creepy way. Sex isn't the only thing I think of with you. I love you."

Her heart fluttered a bit, but her stomach had a hallow feeling. "Dean…"

He had no idea why he said it, aside from the fact that it had always been easy to tell her how he was feeling. But he watched the unconcealed fear wash over her face when he uttered the 'love' word. He didn't backtrack per say but he tried to clarify, to keep her from bolting. "Mae, you don't have to say anything. You don't have to do anything, just know that… you're an important part of my life, no matter what."

She didn't know what to say to that. It was a strikingly confession and one she was in no way prepared to hear. Even after everything that had happened, even when he was aware of some of her more conspicuous flaws, he still cared. Realizing that did little to explain the why since she wasn't sure she could have made the same compassion in his place. It left her wordless.

Dean wasn't sure what he expected, telling a woman that he'd spent all of a week in the past three years that he loved her, while she sat on a toilet after having possessed. There was no way, even in a perfect fantasy that it went over well, he thought. And now he couldn't just kneel in front of her and stick around for the inevitable rejection, he pat her knee again before he stood. "Okay, if you need anything, just let me know."

She grabbed his hand. "Dean...you don't have to, you know, leave… if you don't want to."

He wasn't certain why she was offering that, and lord knew he wanted to stay but there had to be a catch. "Do you want me to stay?"

Looking away, she was quite too long for comfort before she looked up at him. Her pale eyes captured something much younger and innocent than he knew she was or had ever been. She held his hand in hers as he stood in front of her. "You know when we were kids, sometimes I'd have nightmares and… and you'd let me crawl into bed with you?" He nodded, "And nothing was weird about it. I'm sure you just though I was an annoying kid, but it was better than listening to me cry all night or whatever. But it just made me feel... safe. And um, I'm a little shaken up. I could use a little safe."

It was perhaps the most honest she had been about what she needed, what she wanted, without putting some promises she made to herself or John Winchester or anyone else first. Maybe it was because she was feeling so raw and worn down. Maybe it was because she and Dean had shared so many emotionally bare moments recently.

It wasn't 'I love you' or anything close but Dean took it. Maybe, just maybe, she asked him to stay because she was comfortable enough with him to be vulnerable with him. That wasn't something he wanted from a great number of women. Hell, it wasn't what he wanted from most people but because this was Mae, he wanted it with her.

He considered the unspoken request for only a moment more. "Can we go back to bed now?" He asked as he pulled her to her feet.

"I, uh, I need to shower I think."

Now, Dean grinned, leered. "I'm more than willing to help you with that."

The smile she gave him was soft, humorously exasperated as she placed a hand to his chest and marched him back out of the bathroom. "Nice try, handsome." She said as she closed the door.

Still, the smile remained on his face as his gaze remained fixed on the door until he heard the shower start. He needed clothes. If he was going to share her bed, he was going to need to put something more on.

Alone now, she rested her head against the cool tile even as she let the heat of the water shower over of her back and surround her. She felt cold and unusual. That was the word for it, she felt unusual. When she told Dean she was shaken, it was only the tip of the iceberg. Mae wouldn't go as far as saying she didn't feel like herself, but she didn't feel quite right.

She knew she wasn't still possessed. But lingering, vague impressions of what happened swirled around her mind. Realistically, she couldn't have been possessed for more than 30 minutes, maybe 45 tops. Nothing was particularly clear, but she did remember trying with all her might to regain any bit of control. Any part of her mind or body that she could seize, she tried with all her might and she hoped it helped the boys, at least a little.

Stranger than her lack of clear memories of the event however were the memories that weren't hers at all. They were cloudy but she now had a jumble of memories surrounding things she had never done and places she had never been. They were confusing and conflicting, like nothing she had experienced before. Nothing she could do would change it and obsessing wouldn't help her feel better.

She finished washing and turned the shower off. She re-dressed and headed back out to her bedroom, finding Dean, now wearing his previously discarded shirt, turning down the corner of her bedspread. "Hey there. You're looking better."

Mae nodded as she moved towards the bed so she could get back in bed again. "I'm exhausted."

They crawled into bed together before turning out the lights. The next few moments were rather awkward as they tried to shift and get comfortable sleeping together. Exhaustion helped but Dean found that his body was a little more interested in her than the situation called for. He tried to curtail his reaction to her when she finally turned and curled against his body. Now was not the time for his heart to start pounding or his blood to start flowing.

He wasn't turned on exactly, but her body felt right as she pressed up against him. She was warm, soft, and curvy. "Is this okay?"

"Absolutely." He said with a tight throat.

If he could, he would concentrate on sleep. Her head on his shoulder and hand over his heart was as comforting as it was nerve-racking. He did not do this sort of thing. He did not take care of sick girls or cuddle with them in their plush beds so they could feel a little safer. Mae was the only woman he'd ever spent the night with in a strictly platonic way. Ever.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her a little closer. It was nice to be free of any spells or fights. Despite knowing his brother was downstairs, it felt like they were alone in their own little world with no judgments about what they were supposed to be doing or how to handle this. She nuzzled him just a bit and he turned his head to the side to kiss her forehead. "Get some sleep baby."

"However long you want to stay here, you can stay."

The invitation to stay was far more enticing than it should have been, he though. He recognized it at the olive branch it was. "Do you want me to stay?"

"Do you want to go?"

"Do you want me to go?"

"You stayed so far."

He knew a wiser man would have kept his mouth closed, took the invitation of a place to crash for a day or two while they found their next gig. But he wanted just a little more. "You can't say it, can you?"

"Say what?"

"That you want me to stay. You said I could, but you never said you wanted it."

"I said you didn't have to go."

Dean didn't move, like she thought he might, but he didn't respond. She didn't want to want him, and she didn't want to need him, but those feelings were threatening to bubble out of her. Exposing that particular vulnerability was hard but she knew she could only push him so far before he actual left.

"I find having you here... it's been kinda nice, hasn't it? Aside from all the other parts that weren't."

"You drool."

Her lips curved. "I do not. You snore. And you're kinda gassy."

"Well I can see why you'd want me to stay." He said as he started rolling away from her to get out of bed.

Mae grabbed his hand, mild panic in her frame. "Dean. Stay. Please? I want you to stay."

A/N- That's a wrap on Waiting for a Coincidence. I'm ready to rock and roll on the next set of updates. I've restructured Why Won't You Stay, addressing the flow issue I didn't like before. So, the next installment will be chapter 3 of Why Won't You Stay, which will close that story out. Then we'll pick things up in the new story Swing Your Heartache. Stay tuned!