The impala stays under a tarp beside the garage.

Lisa wonders sometimes why Dean keeps it, because just looking at it seems to cause him pain. Some nights she catches him outside just staring at the car, like maybe if he looks long enough and hard enough it will have some kind of answer for him.

She isn't sure what his questions are, just like she isn't sure what happened to him before he came back to her. She never asks and he never offers and on the nights that he stands out there staring at the car like its stolen some part of him she can admit to herself that she doesn't want to know.

He is unfailingly good with Ben.

They play catch in the yard and Dean makes it to all his little league games and they play video games at night and go to see movies on the weekend and Dean gets him to help make pancakes for them on Saturday mornings.

She finds it surprising. Dean was a bad boy when she'd met him and despite what she's learned since he's still crude and gruff and rough around all his edges. He's been on the road his whole life and it seems weird that he should be so good at taking care of a kid but he seems to already know all the things that she's still figuring out about being a parent.

Its not fair but sometimes it makes her a little bit jealous. Of Dean for already knowing the right thing to say or do. Of Ben for having more of Dean then she does.

"I practically raised my little brother." He says, when she asks him about it. And she wants to press him about that. About where his brother is now. If they can meet him. Why he hasn't mentioned him before now... but there's a look on his face as the words leave his mouth that she can't even describe and she remembers back then... a tall man with a warm smile that stood for just a moment beside the impala years ago and offered them time to talk.

And then Ben is there and demanding a guitar hero rematch and the moment is gone with the look and the boys are away and in their own world again and she's left feeling weak and afraid for reasons she can't even explain.

Lisa doesn't consider herself a particularly religious person. Her mother claims to be a retired catholic and her father would just as soon not be anything but they always went to this small Lutheran church when she was growing up and it seems like an important thing to give Ben, even if he decides not to bother with it when he's older. There's a stability to a church community and a support system and its something she needs, especially now.

When she asks Dean to join them its one of the few times they argue.

"Its not really my thing." He says.

"I know you don't believe...." She tries to protest, to tell him its not about that and it doesn't matter and she just wants him to come because its important anyway.

"Oh, I believe." He tell her, and there is something dark and ugly in his face that she hasn't seen before. "Belief ain't the problem. The problem is that He's taken everything from me and I haven't got one thing – not one damn second left to give Him."

And the worst part about it isn't the barely controlled rage she sees there. Its the feeling that what he's saying is real and literal and true.

She doesn't ask him again.

He never asks things for himself, which is why she takes notice when one Saturday he tells her he has to leave for a few days and asks if she can take Ben to baseball in his stead. Its the first weekend of May and she agrees readily until he walks outside and pulls the cover off the Impala and she's running after him in a panic before she even decides to take a step.

"You're not going to... is there something...?" And she can't find the words because even now she's afraid to know and voicing the question means accepting whatever answer comes.

He looks confused for a moment, and there's that hunted anguish in his eyes, closer to the surface than its been since the night he showed up on her doorstep.

"What? Oh..." He seems to realize what she's worried about at the same time she realizes that's not what this is about. It should be comforting that he's not running off to fight some monster somewhere but its not, because that means that whatever this is that has him leaving is something else, something maybe that can't be fought. "No. I'm not... I promised I wouldn't. I just need to get out... drive for awhile." He sounds vague and far away and there's a sheen to his eyes that makes her heart hurt.

"Ok." She manages at last, and forces herself to let go of his arm even though she wants to grab him and hold on. He's not really with her though, clearly already wherever he's going and she doesn't know how to reach him there.

She wonders as he drives away who he promised to not fight anymore, because she knows he's never promised her anything.

The impala doesn't go back under the tarp afterwards, but he still doesn't drive it. Once a week he washes it, and tunes the engine and sits behind the wheel. And always he gets out again and locks the door and walks away and every time he does she's surprised.

One afternoon she gets home to find him sitting in the passenger seat, the glove compartment open surrounded by maps and receipts and papers she doesn't want to exam too closely. He's got something small in his hand, attached to a worn leather band and he's staring at it like its the most precious thing in the world.

She hesitates for just a moment before walking over, hand falling carefully on his shoulder. He looks up but doesn't seem to see her for a moment until his gaze clears and he searches her face for some sign.

She can't begin to guess if he finds it.

"I though I threw it away." He says at last. "But it was here all along."

"I like him." Ben tells her.

"Me too, sweetie." She assures him or maybe herself. "Me too."

"He's not going to stay, is he?" Ben looks sad, but resigned and strangely not disappointed. Lisa wonders sometimes if he understands more about things than she does.

"I think we just got him on loan." She agrees. And it hurts to say it less than it hurts to think it.

NOTES:

Unbeta-ed and unedited and un-everything but I just needed to get some angst out.

OMFG that episode made me cry and make little pitiful pathetic sounds and grind my teeth and eugh! And also I feel terrible for Lisa & Ben, not because I like them so much but because you just know they are going to suffer for this somehow because female leads on this show have the life expectancy of a fruit fly and Ben is cute and I cannot see that resolution ending well and also because YOU KILLED SAM YOU BASTARDS and even if he's sort of maybe back and then YOU KILLED CASTIEL YOU BASTARDS and then brought him back to go fly back up to heaven and be an angelic jackass or whatever and YOU KILLED BOBBY YOU BASTARDS and ok that at least ended as well as it could but still NOT OK.

And also Chuck as god. Which I cannot decide if I love or hate but does make a disturbing sort of sense.

And also the impala.