Disclaimer: I own nothing. SM and CW do.

Author's note: I don't really know what to say here. So...

... enjoy.

Dean Winchester

"Shit… go away, Dean, I mean it!"

"Just open the door."

"No! God damn it, go away! You're making it worse!"

I cringed at the noise coming from the bathroom on the other side of the door. I stepped back, finally getting the picture, and wondered into the room.

I plopped down on the bed.

"How is she?"

Sam's brow was deeper than usual as he stared at me over his laptop where he was sitting at the little table across the room. I sighed as I rubbed my hands together and shrugged.

"Do you think we should take her to the hospital?" I asked him, "She's been like this for the past week. Hospitals have medicine, right?"

Sam's eyebrows rose, "Yes, Dean, hospitals have medicine."

I ignored his patronizing tone and stared at the bathroom door.

I had really thought Bella wasn't going to come with us. She had just stared at me for I don't know how long until she jumped down from her tailgate and turned her back towards me. I had thought I screwed up, said something wrong, until Bella slammed her tailgate closed and turned, shoving her duffle into my chest with a roll of her eyes, demanding that I 'put it in the trunk already'.

She had been with us for a little over a week now.

It seemed that this time around things were going to be different.

Bella only sat in the backseat of the Impala.

Bella didn't flirt.

Bella shared a bed with Sam now.

There was definitely no 'funny business' going on between the two of them, but it didn't hurt any less.

She was here, but at the same time, she wasn't. I missed her.

But I took it – it was my fault that things were like this in the first place.

The past week, though, a lot of things have been happening…

The nightmares have come back – more brutal and more intense. To the point that I am in the actual room and get to see a dark figure behind Bella before she is brutally thrown to the ceiling.

And Bella's been getting sick.

Every day – without fail – she'd have her head bowed to the Porcelain God's or having me pull over on the side of the road.

The nightmares were the easiest part, I think – they were easier to fight off when I woke up. All I had to do was look over at Bella and see that she was still there. I kept that in mind. Along with that it was easier to protect her if she was with Sam and me.

But the throwing up… that was harder.

I hadn't realized how much I had built Bella up in my mind until I saw her bloodshot eyes and heard her gagging in the bathroom. Vulnerable.

I had only ever seen Bella vulnerable once. And even then, she had been closed off, cold.

It was something you didn't associate with Bella. She just didn't do vulnerable.

Hell, she pulled her gun on us and threatened to 'blow us the fuck away' if we didn't leave her alone the first time Sam and I tried to check on her.

It didn't help that I heard her and Sam whispering in the bathroom to each other last night; while they thought I was sleeping. Bella telling Sam that she was worried, she hadn't been sick in five years, and that being sick shouldn't be possible for her. And Sam telling her that she needed to go to the hospital.

Of course, she shot him down and ended the conversation before they both settled into the bed beside mine.

The confusion I felt over what Bella was saying to Sam was almost overwhelmed by the jealousy I felt over her confiding in Sam instead of me.

I barely got any sleep lately.

"Anyway," Sam closed his laptop and slapped his thighs, "We can't do that. Bella doesn't want to go to the hospital and we can't force her."

"Yeah, I know." Stubborn woman.

"Alright, kids." Sam and I turned to see said woman coming out of the bathroom wiping her hands on a small towel, "Let's go find me something to eat before we hit the road."

And what my woman wants, my woman gets.

The scrape of the chair beside mine against the floor indicating Bella was back from the bathroom had me looking up to see her sitting down and taking in her soup that I had ordered. Feeling my stare, she looked up and gave me an awkward smile in thanks.

I sighed and went back to looking through my paper.

Frustration was becoming my best friend.

"Oh." I looked up to see Bella with her spoon mid-air, her fist to her closed mouth, her eyes shut tight and her face in a grimace, "No. No. No. No. No."

I was going to ask her if she was okay, before she let her spoon drop back into her soup with a plop as she pushed the plate away. She turned her head towards me and took deep breaths. When she opened her eyes, Sam had crackers and Sprite in front of her.

"Are you –"

"Don't." Her eyes and voice cut me before she turned to Sam, "Thank you."

I bit the inside of my lip and went back to my paper.

Everyone was quiet with the exception of Bella munching on her crackers, Sam typing away on his laptop, and me flipping through the paper.

I remember when there was a time that the silence between three of us was normal, comfortable even – right now though, I wanted to bang my head against the table from all the awkwardness.

Finally having enough of the silence, I put my paper down and spoke.

"Not a decent lead in all of Nebraska." I looked at Sam, "What do you got?"

"Well," Sam sighed, not taking his eyes off his laptop, "I've been scanning Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota… Here," He finally looked up, pointing at his screen, "a woman in Iowa fell 10,000Ft. from an airplane and survived."

Bella let out a whistle.

I discredited the account and Sam agreed, so he continued to scan his laptop while I playfully brought up Sarah. He blushed and Bella giggled, making me feel just a little better. But of course, Sam being Sam, shot me down.

"Okay," He said a little later, "Manning, Colorado…"

Bella jerked her head up at the name and looked at Sam with rapt attention.

"Man by the name of Daniel Elkins," Bella started chocking on her crackers and I reached over to pat her back as Sam continued on when Bella waved her hand at him to continue, "He was found mauled in his home."

"Elkins?" I questioned slowly as Bella's eyes started watering, "I know that name."

"We gotta go."

Mine and Sam's heads jerked up as Bella stood so fast, she knocked her chair back on the floor. She was shaking, vibrating, as she stuttered.

"We – we have to go."

"Wait, what's going on?"

"Now – now. We have to go now."

"Bella."

"Now, Dean!"

I jerked back as Bella jerked her arm out of my grasp and she glared at me before she grabbed her jacket off the floor from the fallen chair and grabbed the Impala keys from the table before stomping out of the dinner, almost shattering the glass door from how hard she knocked the door into the wall.

Sam and I looked at each other with wide eyes, not knowing the hell that was about.

Only to be pulled from our shock by the sounds of tires squealing out of the parking lot.

There was three hundred miles between Nebraska and Colorado.

Bella covered it in three hours.

And Sam and I could do nothing, but sit back and wait it out. Bella wasn't giving us any information but I was picking something's up.

First was Daniel Elkins – she knew him.

His name was in Dad's book. I knew that if Bella had spent time with Dad, then she must know who Daniel Elkins was. And by the reaction she gave about the news of his death, I knew I was right.

And it was obvious that Daniel Elkins was important.

Second was the text messages.

At random intervals, she would get a text before slamming on the breaks right before passing a cop car and another text that made her speed back up. Never once did I see her phone.

And when I asked who she was talking to, she wouldn't answer.

When I asked any kind of question, she wouldn't answer – well, that was until she got fed up.

"Damn it, Isabella, stop with the silent treatment. Tell me where the Hell you are taking us!"

Finally, Bella's eyes snapped towards me. She glared.

"Shut. Up." She growled.

My head jerked in surprise. "Excuse me?"

I was getting tired of her treating me like I was no body.

"I said SHUT! UP!"

I opened my mouth to argue but was promptly cut off by her.

"I mean, really Dean," She looked out the windshield and back to me, "Since the moment I met you, I have followed you all over God's Green Earth without so much as a question, so for once… can you do the same? Trust me, for once. Just Shut up!"

Any argument I had ready to spew from my lips, died.

The screeching of my tires pulled me out of my thoughts and I bit my lip to not reprimand Bella on her driving.

Looking up, I noticed that we were outside of a darkened cabin.

And Bella was running to it.

Sam and I glanced at each other through the mirror before following after her in a jog. By the time we caught up Bella already had the door open, a set of keys I didn't even know she owned hanging on it, and was inside rummaging through the house. Sam and I took out our flashlights and started looking around the place, deciding to leave Bella to do what she needed to do on her own.

"Do you think this guy, Elkins, was a player?"

Sam said after he found the salt ring and I found a journal that looked a lot like Dad's.

"Definitely."

I could hear Sam come up behind me and soon he was looking over my shoulder.

"That looks a hell of a lot like Dad's."

"Yeah, but this dates back to the sixties."

Bella's voice coming from down the hall had me and Sam following it.

"That's because he taught your Father everything he knows. Everything I know."

We came upon Bella inside a bedroom – it was untouched, unlike the rest of the house. Like the rest of the house, it had a cabin feel, but instead of the obvious male feel to the house, this room had a feminine feel – purple covers and light purple curtains.

There was no TV but there was a shelf filled to the brim with books. There were no art work, but there was a wall filled with various knifes, swords, and machetes. There was a filled closet, a bedside table with a lamp, and a bed with Bella sitting on it.

I moved closer to her.

"Bella?"

Her head was bowed and she was looking down at her lap. There was a picture frame in her hands.

As I sat beside her, she sniffed and clutched the frame tighter.

I looked closer and felt my heart drop.

The picture was taken right outside on the front porch. Four people were in it.

Bella was in it. Bottom step and in the middle. She sat there, arms crossed on her legs and her eyes squinting at the camera as her hair whipped around her from the wind. Above her left and a few steps up was an older man, that I guessed was Elkins – he stood there with a beer in his hands and a small smile on his face, but it was clear in his eyes that he didn't like pictures.

The two other occupants in the picture are what shocked me.

Bobby Singer leaned against the porch beam on the top step with a beer to his lips and a hand in his pocket.

And right beside Bella, shoulder to shoulder with her, was John Winchester.

My Dad.

He wasn't looking at the camera, his head turned to look off to his left but his arms were crossed like Bella's were and he too was squinting.

And it was in that moment that I really realized Bella knew my father.

She knew Bobby.

And she knew Daniel Elkins.

A tear drop hit his face. Bella was crying and she spoke in a quiet voice.

"He's old… retired. I was supposed to be here, Dean, I told him I'd be back. I – I was supposed to be here."

The more she talked the more she became hysterical.

"Damn it!"

She threw the picture frame and punched the bed, before standing and pushing past Sam, going into the house. I gaped after her and when I went to stand I saw something on the bedside table.

It was another picture.

It was of a woman in a hospital gown and a baby in her arms as she sat by a window and the sun bathed down on them.

In the corner of the worn picture written cursive were the words:

Isabella Marie Swan

09-13-1983

The woman in the picture was her mother.

I heard Bella start to frantically rummage around the first room Sam and I checked around, and decided to leave the living room where I was staring at even more pictures of Bella.

All of them were candid's.

One she was sitting on the front porch, strumming her guitar as she looked down at it.

Another one was of her sitting out on the lake out back with a fishing pole in her hand.

She wasn't looking at the camera in either of them. She wasn't even smiling.

But each had something in common.

Peace. Tranquility.

Each one of them showed Bella at peace. Just being herself. Just breathing.

Coming into the ransacked office, Bella was in the center of it, holding the empty wooden box that looked like it once held a classic revolver and its bullets. Her eyes were a little wide and she was white knuckling it.

I heard a creek and a groan before it snapped in half and it tumbled to the floor, out of Bella's hands.

"Oh my God, what have I done?"

It didn't seem like Bella realized I was there. And I was about to announce myself, before she cut me off with a rant that got my full attention.

"I was supposed to be here. Oh my God, it's gone. I was – I was supposed to be here. God damn it, John, why couldn't you just pick up your fucking phone?"

My interest was piqued as my eyes trailed after her pacing form as she muttered to herself.

"Bring John back… it'd take weeks, months maybe… that's what I told him. I told him I'd be back. Get John. Bring him here. Give him the Colt. Simple, Easy – that's what I told him. Promised him. Now it's gone. He's gone. Oh my God, what have I done?"

Sam chooses this moment to announce us.

"Hey, we gotta go, we've been here too long."

Bella swiveled around and stared at me with wide eyes as I continued to look at her. Her face fell, resigned, as she realized I had heard every bit of what she just said.

It seemed like everything had been leading up to this point. To Bella.

Her past was catching up to her. She knew it. And I knew it too.

It was time for her to fess up, if she liked it or not.

Because her past had caught up with her present.

And if there was one thing that was dangerous in this line of work, it was the unknown.

And we needed to know. Now.

Bella looked away from me, tucking her head down after giving Sam a curt nod and going to walk past me.

Sam was already outside.

My hand shot out and grabbed her forearm to stop her. She didn't look up at me.

"I'm going to ask you a question and you're going to be honest with me."

I needed to know. Everything. Her past. What we were dealing with here. Just everything.

"No more lies. No more omitting. No more hiding."

Her breathing quickened. She knew it was time.

"I want the truth."

But at this moment, nothing mattered more than this one simple question.

"Are you okay?"

Bella's eyes cut to mine.

She stared long and hard, searching for whatever she could find inside me.

Honesty. If I actually cared. Who knows.

She looked away and her chin quivered.

"No, Dean, I'm not."

Author's Note: You thought he was gonna ask about her past, huh? Didn't ya?

Anyways, So we've reaching, I guess you can call it, a boiling point for Bella and The Winchesters. This is what its all coming down to. Bella's story.

Like Dean said, nothings more dangerous than the unknown. And it seems only Bella is in the know. She holds all the answers they need and its time to fess up.

And it seems Bella has no verbal filter when she's panicking. She let a lot of things slip.

Next chapter will be a rough one.