HOME (part 1) chapters 37-42
37.
Friday morning, Sam looked at Dean…acting all antsy. Not like he usually acted when he was at home in the bunker. Usually it was the only place he could truly relax. But Dean's behavior was anything but a mystery to Sam.
"Hey, Dean," Sam tried to get Dean's attention.
"Yeah, what?" asked Dean, obviously completely distracted.
"Go to her," Sam said directly.
"What?" Dean asked as if he had been too distracted to hear what Sam had said.
"Lisa, you dumb stubborn fuck; go to her; it's where you need to be right now," Sam said looking at Dean with a very caring look in his eye despite the "dumb fuck" comment. That was just brotherly teasing and Dean knew it.
Dean appeared to visibly let go of some of the tension in his shoulders. "Yeah?" he asked, "but I can't leave you here with your leg; you're on crutches for Christ's sake Sam."
"I called Charlie," said Sam. "She and Dora and Scarlett will be here tomorrow."
"Charlie's gonna be here?" Dean asked with a bit of a hopeful expression.
"Look man," Sam said, "I know Charlie’s yours, but - "
"She is not 'mine' in any sense of the word!" protested Dean.
"She totally would be if she weren't gay," said Sam with a raised eyebrow.
"Okay, true," smirked Dean, "but don't let Dora hear you talking that way; she'd kick your ass."
"Don't think I don't know it," laughed Sam. "Charlie said they'd like a break and they wanted to come help out. It'll be good. Dora said she can't wait to take out some aggression on the shooting range."
Dean's mind reeled a bit thinking about Sam and Charlie sitting around talking about him. Almost made him nervous enough not to leave. Almost.
"You okay with little scar-face running around?" asked Dean. "It's not like you can exactly keep up with her," Dean pointed out.
"You really oughtta call her Scarlett," scolded Sam, "and yeah; she'll be good. It'll be good to have a kid around," Sam said. His face softened a bit and Dean knew he meant it. Sam was good with kids. And in spite of the endless shit that Dora gave Dean, she had always been unusually caring and sweet with Sam. Dean knew Sam would be in good hands.
"Get the fuck out of here," Sam said, struggling a bit to hobble over to Dean and give him a hug. Dean hugged back and whispered, "Thank you Sammy, I mean it; for everything."
"No sweat," said Sam breaking into a smile.
38.
Dean looked downright giddy as he packed his bag. He was going to hang around for a night to see Charlie, then follow Sam's instructions and go where he needed to be.
Before he finished packing (which never took Dean very long at all), Dean went down the long corridor to one of the bunker's back storerooms. He remembered seeing something there in a carefully labeled and stored box full of their grandfather Henry's possessions. He found the box quickly and rummaged around until he felt what he was looking for down in the bottom corner. He pulled it out and opened the faded black velvet clamshell. It was a ring. Looked like it was from the early '30's and had a very cool, almost futuristic art deco design. Silver in color (Dean had no idea it was platinum) with three small rectangular, flat-topped diamonds. Dean had wondered what the hell jewelry was doing in this box full of photos and papers until he had found a photo, months earlier, of his grandmother, looking young and beautiful and wearing that ring. He shoved the faded box into the pocket of his canvas jacket.
39.
Saturday night, Dean and Charlie sat kicked back around the big table in the main hall. Dora was putting Scarlett to bed after scooping her up out of Dean's lap where she had been curled up with Dean's arms around her slowly getting sleepy, worn out from a long day of hide-and-seek in the labyrinth of the bunker. Dean had a whiskey and Charlie had coffee. Dean had gotten a rather flabbergasted Charlie caught up on everything that had happened in the last few weeks and now they were laughing over Dean's re-telling (for a second time and with even more embellishment) of how he saved Garth from the renevant.
Sam had begged off early. He was truly exhausted and he was probably asleep before Scarlett.
With Scarlett successfully put to bed, Dora strolled through saying, "you two girls have fun catching up...I'm going to go shoot something," and she turned towards the firing range.
"Don't put holes in my walls with your lousy aim," teased Dean.
"You mean any MORE holes, Annie Oakley?" she teased right back.
Dean laughed at the insult and tossed back a "Fuck you, Dora".
"You wish, princess," Dora responded, raising a middle finger to Dean, then she turned on her heels and walking towards them. She walked right up to Charlie and climbed onto her lap, facing her and straddling her on the chair. Then she leaned in, kissing Charlie, soft at first, then with incredibly intensity. Charlie wove her fingers through Dora's hair and slightly moaned beneath her. Dora could do that to Charlie, make her forget they weren't alone; make her forget everything. Charlie turned 10 shades of red when she heard Dean clear his throat. The red color deepened when Dora leaned in closer and whispered something incredibly filthy in Charlie's ear about what she planned to do with her later. A small gasp escaped Charlie as Dora smiled wickedly over her shoulder at Dean who suddenly blushed when he realized he had been staring. Yup, Charlie had basically married the female version of Dean and damn if this wasn't completely hot. Dora liked to play the possessive card in front of Dean. But they all knew where they stood with each other and everyone was good with it.
"If you weren't such an exhibitionist, I wouldn't be looking, you freak," Dean said, smirking at Dora as she caught his eye on purpose.
Dora, regarded Dean over her shoulder, still straddling Charlie, and said, "If you weren't such a pervert, you'd be able to look away."
Dean forced a fake, sarcastic smile, but he didn't refute it. He couldn't.
"NOW I'm going to go shoot something," said Dora as she abruptly got up. Charlie slumped in her chair, breathless.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That good, huh?" asked Dean when Dora was out of the room.
"Yeah," said Charlie, trying to get her breath back, "that good."
"Here," said Dean, sliding his glass across the table to Charlie. Charlie took it and downed what was left.
"Okay, better now," she said sliding the empty glass back over to Dean who refilled it about a third of the way.
When Charlie's color had returned to her normal alabaster, Dean asked, suddenly more serious, "So, what's it like?"
"What's what like?" Charlie replied.
"You know; one person; forever; like you and Dora?" asked Dean.
A huge smile spread across Charlie's face, "Honestly?" she said, "it's awesome."
Dean played with his whiskey glass, "The normal life? The wife, the kid....you like it?" he asked.
Charlie gave him an extremely skeptical look, "I don't know why you're asking me about a normal life. Honestly Dean, I have a wife from another dimension."
Dean huffed, "Yeah, I guess that's true."
"But it's good Dean, I mean, it's really good; to know that that person loves you unconditionally...you know, the way Sam loves you, only with sex." Charlie smiled at him.
Dean looked at her, surprised. He'd never really thought about it that way. He and Sam were just, well, they were he and Sam. He would not feel right if Sam weren't around. He hadn't felt right for the past seven years without Ben & Lisa either though, come to think of it. Charlie was onto something.
Dean absentmindedly swirled his finger around the edge of his whiskey glass. Charlie looked at Dean with affection and thought he could almost turn a girl straight. Almost.
"I think she's the one," Dean said quietly. He'd never admitted this to another human being, though he was pretty sure Sam knew it anyway.
"Oh my God...Dean, are you going...are you going to ask Lisa to marry you?" Charlie almost squealed.
"Shut up, okay?" Dean kept his voice quiet. "I haven't told anyone else. I don't even know how to start doing something like this." He looked at Charlie and all of a sudden she thought he looked so vulnerable and unsure of himself.
Charlie tried to be serious, tried to stop smiling, but she couldn't. Just the idea of angsty, fucked-up Dean Winchester with the weight of the world on his shoulders actually having someone he could have something real and solid and lasting with was enough to make her want to jump up and down. She loved him and she really and truly wanted him to be happy.
"You'll know how and when to ask," Charlie reached out and put her hand on his arm. "Hot piece of ass like you, she'd be crazy to say 'no'." Charlie smiled, trying to lighten the mood.
But Dean looked more nervous that happy.
"What is it?" asked Charlie.
"It's me...you know...I'm not exactly 'husband' material," he said, eyes down.
"I think you need to let her decide that," said Charlie. She got up and walked around the table to lean down over Dean’s chair and hug him tight from behind. He wrapped his arms around Charlie’s and leaned his head back against her. "You know I love you, bitch," said Charlie.
"I know," said Dean. "You too."
40.
The next morning, Dean walked through the main hall of the bunker with his duffle bag over his shoulder. Sam was sprawled out in a chair at the table reading...researching something, no doubt. His brother was such a dork. He had his injured ankle up on a chair next to him with an ice pack on it. Sam would never get himself an ice pack. It must have been Dora.
"You headed out?" Sam asked, not looking up from whatever he was reading.
"Yup," confirmed Dean. "We won this one, Sammy, time to go collect my reward," Dean said suggestively.
Sam continued to appear buried in his book. "You got the ring?" Sam asked.
Dean froze. "How did you...have you been talking to Charlie?" Dean raised his voice. (He thought it was pretty much impossible for Sam and Charlie to have talked, since Charlie had been up late with him and Sam was up too early to have run into her. Charlie wasn't an early riser. Especially not after the way Dora had basically been fucking her with her eyes in front of Dean the night before. Yeah, Charlie would be tired today. Dean knew he should have talked to Sam first, but he was none too sure what Lisa would say and having to admit that sort of rejection to Sam, if it went that way, was more than he could deal with.)
"I didn't have to talk to Charlie," said Sam, turning around in his chair to look at Dean. "I know you, Dean. Hell, I bet I knew you were going to ask her before you did."
"I wish you'd stay out of my head sometimes," groused Dean.
Sam smiled. "Look, if you can get her to take your sorry ass, we'll make this work."
Dean looked down at Sam, slightly stunned. He really hadn't thought much beyond just asking Lisa. "What do you mean?" he asked cautiously.
"I care about Lisa too Dean," Sam responded, "Can't you see you're better when you're with her? You sleep better, you smile more, you bitch at me less, you..." Sam could go on and on, and he planned to.
"Okay, I get it," said Dean, rolling his eyes. Sam took mercy on him and stopped listing Dean's flaws.
"All I'm saying is that Lisa and Ben, they're as much your family as Charlie and Garth and I am," Sam stated it like it was the most obvious fact in the world, "so I think it's good if you make it official."
Dean hadn't planned it, but he reached out and ruffed up Sam's hair which got him a "Dude, get OFF me!" from Sam who swatted at his hand, but Dean didn't listen, he wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulders and bent down to kiss the top of his head quickly as he said, "Thank you, Sammy." Dean let go and stood up.
Sam turned around in his chair to look up at Dean. Amused at what, for Dean, was a monumental display of affection. He thought Dean's eyes looked a bit wet. Actually, he felt his own eyes stinging a bit. "Bring her home, okay?" Sam asked softly.
Dean was definitely choked up and all he could do was nod and put his hand on Sam's shoulder, giving it a squeeze before he headed for the door.
41.
Dean drove away from the bunker feeling so light he could hardly believe it. His mind would not stop working. It was a long drive, but he had plenty to plan. True, he had just left home, but he was also driving towards home and couldn't believe how lucky he felt to have both.
He picked up his phone to call Ben. He had something he had to ask him.
42.
Dean was singing to himself as he turned the key in the lock of Lisa's front door. He couldn't stop smiling. He pushed the door open thinking about how badly he needed Lisa wrapped around him right this second. But he wasn't greeted the way he'd been thinking about for the past day of driving. (And what he'd been thinking about involved a lot of re-adjusting himself in his jeans as he drove.)
The smile drained off his face when he looked up from the door to find Lisa, in the living room, shotgun pointed directly at him.
"What the fuck, Lis'?" he started, "Are you okay? C'mon, put the gun down," he was absolutely sure he must have made a wrong turn and gone back in time or some shit...Lisa had her memory restored, she KNEW him, what the fuck was going on? All he knew was that having a gun pointed at you was never good. He wanted that to stop right now.
"Where's Garth?" Dean asked. Maybe he'd know what the hell was going on.
"He's at the motel," said Lisa flatly, "I told him I didn't need a babysitter."
Great, Garth wasn't going to be able to shed any light on this situation.
"Okay, just put the gun DOWN," Dean said, more forcefully this time.
Lisa lowered the gun. She looked so pale, like she might faint. Her hands were shaking slightly.
She had tears in her eyes as she closed the distance between them and reached up, slapping Dean on the face. Dean was in total shock, but he managed to haul her into his arms and he let her struggle against him until the fight started to leave her. When she finally stopped moving, Dean let her go and she walked over to the couch and sat down, glaring at him through her tears.
"What do you remember?" asked Dean. He had got to figure out what happened between the time he left for Tulsa and whatever the fuck this was.
"I remember everything," Lisa looked down at the floor. "Us...our great weekend...the best year of my life...the possession...almost killing Ben (at that tears start to flow a bit harder)...bringing you home a couple weeks ago...the incredible sex we had...getting my memory back...you leaving to find Charlotte…” Dean was completely confused. If she remembered everything, why was she not all over him? Why were they not in bed with a lot less clothes right now? It was all Dean could think about the entire drive back from Tulsa. He cautiously sat down next to her on the couch and she actually pulled away, putting more space between herself and Dean. She fucking PULLED AWAY. "What's going on here Lis'?" Dean asked.
"Lisa," she corrected him. "My name's Lisa."
"Okay," Dean said slowly, "what's going on here, Lisa?"
"Look Dean," she started, "I loved you. I wanted a life with you. But you threw that away, and you've thrown it away more than once."
Dean was dumbfounded, "Uh, not to point out the obvious, but before I left for Tulsa, we were definitely in this together," he could not hide his confusion. "We were in it for the long haul."
Lisa raised an eyebrow "You? In it for the long haul?" she asked with a touch of mocking in her voice.
"Yes," continued Dean, getting a bit of a sarcastic tone in his voice without meaning to because this was starting to hurt, a lot, "any memory of, oh, I don't know, you telling me, 'you're the only one that ever mattered'?"
Lisa looked down, "Yes. I meant that," she said quietly. Dean felt a small rush of not-quite-total-devastation-after-all. "I just think that after all that's happened, all we've been through, we have to take it slow."
'Slow?' thought Dean. He'd barely been able to keep his hands off himself on the drive from the bunker to Lisa's thinking about her as the mile markers seemed to pass by so much more slowly than he had wanted them to. He took a deep breath. "Okay Lis', I mean, Lisa." he began, "Maybe we both need a little time to think. I'll get a room out at the Courtesy and I'm going to ask if I can come by and talk to you tomorrow. Can I do that?"
"Yes," said Lisa quietly, not even looking at him and with a lot less enthusiasm than Dean had hoped for. He got up to head for the door, head spinning. This is not the way he thought today would go.
"Dean?" Lisa said as Dean turned the doorknob on the front door, "Yeah?" he asked, not turning around to look at her. "Please don't run," she said in a whisper.
Dean still couldn't turn around to look at her or he thought he might completely lose it. He said, "I'm not running anywhere," as he walked out onto the porch.
Next - chapters 43 - 45
Friday morning, Sam looked at Dean…acting all antsy. Not like he usually acted when he was at home in the bunker. Usually it was the only place he could truly relax. But Dean's behavior was anything but a mystery to Sam.
"Hey, Dean," Sam tried to get Dean's attention.
"Yeah, what?" asked Dean, obviously completely distracted.
"Go to her," Sam said directly.
"What?" Dean asked as if he had been too distracted to hear what Sam had said.
"Lisa, you dumb stubborn fuck; go to her; it's where you need to be right now," Sam said looking at Dean with a very caring look in his eye despite the "dumb fuck" comment. That was just brotherly teasing and Dean knew it.
Dean appeared to visibly let go of some of the tension in his shoulders. "Yeah?" he asked, "but I can't leave you here with your leg; you're on crutches for Christ's sake Sam."
"I called Charlie," said Sam. "She and Dora and Scarlett will be here tomorrow."
"Charlie's gonna be here?" Dean asked with a bit of a hopeful expression.
"Look man," Sam said, "I know Charlie’s yours, but - "
"She is not 'mine' in any sense of the word!" protested Dean.
"She totally would be if she weren't gay," said Sam with a raised eyebrow.
"Okay, true," smirked Dean, "but don't let Dora hear you talking that way; she'd kick your ass."
"Don't think I don't know it," laughed Sam. "Charlie said they'd like a break and they wanted to come help out. It'll be good. Dora said she can't wait to take out some aggression on the shooting range."
Dean's mind reeled a bit thinking about Sam and Charlie sitting around talking about him. Almost made him nervous enough not to leave. Almost.
"You okay with little scar-face running around?" asked Dean. "It's not like you can exactly keep up with her," Dean pointed out.
"You really oughtta call her Scarlett," scolded Sam, "and yeah; she'll be good. It'll be good to have a kid around," Sam said. His face softened a bit and Dean knew he meant it. Sam was good with kids. And in spite of the endless shit that Dora gave Dean, she had always been unusually caring and sweet with Sam. Dean knew Sam would be in good hands.
"Get the fuck out of here," Sam said, struggling a bit to hobble over to Dean and give him a hug. Dean hugged back and whispered, "Thank you Sammy, I mean it; for everything."
"No sweat," said Sam breaking into a smile.
38.
Dean looked downright giddy as he packed his bag. He was going to hang around for a night to see Charlie, then follow Sam's instructions and go where he needed to be.
Before he finished packing (which never took Dean very long at all), Dean went down the long corridor to one of the bunker's back storerooms. He remembered seeing something there in a carefully labeled and stored box full of their grandfather Henry's possessions. He found the box quickly and rummaged around until he felt what he was looking for down in the bottom corner. He pulled it out and opened the faded black velvet clamshell. It was a ring. Looked like it was from the early '30's and had a very cool, almost futuristic art deco design. Silver in color (Dean had no idea it was platinum) with three small rectangular, flat-topped diamonds. Dean had wondered what the hell jewelry was doing in this box full of photos and papers until he had found a photo, months earlier, of his grandmother, looking young and beautiful and wearing that ring. He shoved the faded box into the pocket of his canvas jacket.
39.
Saturday night, Dean and Charlie sat kicked back around the big table in the main hall. Dora was putting Scarlett to bed after scooping her up out of Dean's lap where she had been curled up with Dean's arms around her slowly getting sleepy, worn out from a long day of hide-and-seek in the labyrinth of the bunker. Dean had a whiskey and Charlie had coffee. Dean had gotten a rather flabbergasted Charlie caught up on everything that had happened in the last few weeks and now they were laughing over Dean's re-telling (for a second time and with even more embellishment) of how he saved Garth from the renevant.
Sam had begged off early. He was truly exhausted and he was probably asleep before Scarlett.
With Scarlett successfully put to bed, Dora strolled through saying, "you two girls have fun catching up...I'm going to go shoot something," and she turned towards the firing range.
"Don't put holes in my walls with your lousy aim," teased Dean.
"You mean any MORE holes, Annie Oakley?" she teased right back.
Dean laughed at the insult and tossed back a "Fuck you, Dora".
"You wish, princess," Dora responded, raising a middle finger to Dean, then she turned on her heels and walking towards them. She walked right up to Charlie and climbed onto her lap, facing her and straddling her on the chair. Then she leaned in, kissing Charlie, soft at first, then with incredibly intensity. Charlie wove her fingers through Dora's hair and slightly moaned beneath her. Dora could do that to Charlie, make her forget they weren't alone; make her forget everything. Charlie turned 10 shades of red when she heard Dean clear his throat. The red color deepened when Dora leaned in closer and whispered something incredibly filthy in Charlie's ear about what she planned to do with her later. A small gasp escaped Charlie as Dora smiled wickedly over her shoulder at Dean who suddenly blushed when he realized he had been staring. Yup, Charlie had basically married the female version of Dean and damn if this wasn't completely hot. Dora liked to play the possessive card in front of Dean. But they all knew where they stood with each other and everyone was good with it.
"If you weren't such an exhibitionist, I wouldn't be looking, you freak," Dean said, smirking at Dora as she caught his eye on purpose.
Dora, regarded Dean over her shoulder, still straddling Charlie, and said, "If you weren't such a pervert, you'd be able to look away."
Dean forced a fake, sarcastic smile, but he didn't refute it. He couldn't.
"NOW I'm going to go shoot something," said Dora as she abruptly got up. Charlie slumped in her chair, breathless.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That good, huh?" asked Dean when Dora was out of the room.
"Yeah," said Charlie, trying to get her breath back, "that good."
"Here," said Dean, sliding his glass across the table to Charlie. Charlie took it and downed what was left.
"Okay, better now," she said sliding the empty glass back over to Dean who refilled it about a third of the way.
When Charlie's color had returned to her normal alabaster, Dean asked, suddenly more serious, "So, what's it like?"
"What's what like?" Charlie replied.
"You know; one person; forever; like you and Dora?" asked Dean.
A huge smile spread across Charlie's face, "Honestly?" she said, "it's awesome."
Dean played with his whiskey glass, "The normal life? The wife, the kid....you like it?" he asked.
Charlie gave him an extremely skeptical look, "I don't know why you're asking me about a normal life. Honestly Dean, I have a wife from another dimension."
Dean huffed, "Yeah, I guess that's true."
"But it's good Dean, I mean, it's really good; to know that that person loves you unconditionally...you know, the way Sam loves you, only with sex." Charlie smiled at him.
Dean looked at her, surprised. He'd never really thought about it that way. He and Sam were just, well, they were he and Sam. He would not feel right if Sam weren't around. He hadn't felt right for the past seven years without Ben & Lisa either though, come to think of it. Charlie was onto something.
Dean absentmindedly swirled his finger around the edge of his whiskey glass. Charlie looked at Dean with affection and thought he could almost turn a girl straight. Almost.
"I think she's the one," Dean said quietly. He'd never admitted this to another human being, though he was pretty sure Sam knew it anyway.
"Oh my God...Dean, are you going...are you going to ask Lisa to marry you?" Charlie almost squealed.
"Shut up, okay?" Dean kept his voice quiet. "I haven't told anyone else. I don't even know how to start doing something like this." He looked at Charlie and all of a sudden she thought he looked so vulnerable and unsure of himself.
Charlie tried to be serious, tried to stop smiling, but she couldn't. Just the idea of angsty, fucked-up Dean Winchester with the weight of the world on his shoulders actually having someone he could have something real and solid and lasting with was enough to make her want to jump up and down. She loved him and she really and truly wanted him to be happy.
"You'll know how and when to ask," Charlie reached out and put her hand on his arm. "Hot piece of ass like you, she'd be crazy to say 'no'." Charlie smiled, trying to lighten the mood.
But Dean looked more nervous that happy.
"What is it?" asked Charlie.
"It's me...you know...I'm not exactly 'husband' material," he said, eyes down.
"I think you need to let her decide that," said Charlie. She got up and walked around the table to lean down over Dean’s chair and hug him tight from behind. He wrapped his arms around Charlie’s and leaned his head back against her. "You know I love you, bitch," said Charlie.
"I know," said Dean. "You too."
40.
The next morning, Dean walked through the main hall of the bunker with his duffle bag over his shoulder. Sam was sprawled out in a chair at the table reading...researching something, no doubt. His brother was such a dork. He had his injured ankle up on a chair next to him with an ice pack on it. Sam would never get himself an ice pack. It must have been Dora.
"You headed out?" Sam asked, not looking up from whatever he was reading.
"Yup," confirmed Dean. "We won this one, Sammy, time to go collect my reward," Dean said suggestively.
Sam continued to appear buried in his book. "You got the ring?" Sam asked.
Dean froze. "How did you...have you been talking to Charlie?" Dean raised his voice. (He thought it was pretty much impossible for Sam and Charlie to have talked, since Charlie had been up late with him and Sam was up too early to have run into her. Charlie wasn't an early riser. Especially not after the way Dora had basically been fucking her with her eyes in front of Dean the night before. Yeah, Charlie would be tired today. Dean knew he should have talked to Sam first, but he was none too sure what Lisa would say and having to admit that sort of rejection to Sam, if it went that way, was more than he could deal with.)
"I didn't have to talk to Charlie," said Sam, turning around in his chair to look at Dean. "I know you, Dean. Hell, I bet I knew you were going to ask her before you did."
"I wish you'd stay out of my head sometimes," groused Dean.
Sam smiled. "Look, if you can get her to take your sorry ass, we'll make this work."
Dean looked down at Sam, slightly stunned. He really hadn't thought much beyond just asking Lisa. "What do you mean?" he asked cautiously.
"I care about Lisa too Dean," Sam responded, "Can't you see you're better when you're with her? You sleep better, you smile more, you bitch at me less, you..." Sam could go on and on, and he planned to.
"Okay, I get it," said Dean, rolling his eyes. Sam took mercy on him and stopped listing Dean's flaws.
"All I'm saying is that Lisa and Ben, they're as much your family as Charlie and Garth and I am," Sam stated it like it was the most obvious fact in the world, "so I think it's good if you make it official."
Dean hadn't planned it, but he reached out and ruffed up Sam's hair which got him a "Dude, get OFF me!" from Sam who swatted at his hand, but Dean didn't listen, he wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulders and bent down to kiss the top of his head quickly as he said, "Thank you, Sammy." Dean let go and stood up.
Sam turned around in his chair to look up at Dean. Amused at what, for Dean, was a monumental display of affection. He thought Dean's eyes looked a bit wet. Actually, he felt his own eyes stinging a bit. "Bring her home, okay?" Sam asked softly.
Dean was definitely choked up and all he could do was nod and put his hand on Sam's shoulder, giving it a squeeze before he headed for the door.
41.
Dean drove away from the bunker feeling so light he could hardly believe it. His mind would not stop working. It was a long drive, but he had plenty to plan. True, he had just left home, but he was also driving towards home and couldn't believe how lucky he felt to have both.
He picked up his phone to call Ben. He had something he had to ask him.
42.
Dean was singing to himself as he turned the key in the lock of Lisa's front door. He couldn't stop smiling. He pushed the door open thinking about how badly he needed Lisa wrapped around him right this second. But he wasn't greeted the way he'd been thinking about for the past day of driving. (And what he'd been thinking about involved a lot of re-adjusting himself in his jeans as he drove.)
The smile drained off his face when he looked up from the door to find Lisa, in the living room, shotgun pointed directly at him.
"What the fuck, Lis'?" he started, "Are you okay? C'mon, put the gun down," he was absolutely sure he must have made a wrong turn and gone back in time or some shit...Lisa had her memory restored, she KNEW him, what the fuck was going on? All he knew was that having a gun pointed at you was never good. He wanted that to stop right now.
"Where's Garth?" Dean asked. Maybe he'd know what the hell was going on.
"He's at the motel," said Lisa flatly, "I told him I didn't need a babysitter."
Great, Garth wasn't going to be able to shed any light on this situation.
"Okay, just put the gun DOWN," Dean said, more forcefully this time.
Lisa lowered the gun. She looked so pale, like she might faint. Her hands were shaking slightly.
She had tears in her eyes as she closed the distance between them and reached up, slapping Dean on the face. Dean was in total shock, but he managed to haul her into his arms and he let her struggle against him until the fight started to leave her. When she finally stopped moving, Dean let her go and she walked over to the couch and sat down, glaring at him through her tears.
"What do you remember?" asked Dean. He had got to figure out what happened between the time he left for Tulsa and whatever the fuck this was.
"I remember everything," Lisa looked down at the floor. "Us...our great weekend...the best year of my life...the possession...almost killing Ben (at that tears start to flow a bit harder)...bringing you home a couple weeks ago...the incredible sex we had...getting my memory back...you leaving to find Charlotte…” Dean was completely confused. If she remembered everything, why was she not all over him? Why were they not in bed with a lot less clothes right now? It was all Dean could think about the entire drive back from Tulsa. He cautiously sat down next to her on the couch and she actually pulled away, putting more space between herself and Dean. She fucking PULLED AWAY. "What's going on here Lis'?" Dean asked.
"Lisa," she corrected him. "My name's Lisa."
"Okay," Dean said slowly, "what's going on here, Lisa?"
"Look Dean," she started, "I loved you. I wanted a life with you. But you threw that away, and you've thrown it away more than once."
Dean was dumbfounded, "Uh, not to point out the obvious, but before I left for Tulsa, we were definitely in this together," he could not hide his confusion. "We were in it for the long haul."
Lisa raised an eyebrow "You? In it for the long haul?" she asked with a touch of mocking in her voice.
"Yes," continued Dean, getting a bit of a sarcastic tone in his voice without meaning to because this was starting to hurt, a lot, "any memory of, oh, I don't know, you telling me, 'you're the only one that ever mattered'?"
Lisa looked down, "Yes. I meant that," she said quietly. Dean felt a small rush of not-quite-total-devastation-after-all. "I just think that after all that's happened, all we've been through, we have to take it slow."
'Slow?' thought Dean. He'd barely been able to keep his hands off himself on the drive from the bunker to Lisa's thinking about her as the mile markers seemed to pass by so much more slowly than he had wanted them to. He took a deep breath. "Okay Lis', I mean, Lisa." he began, "Maybe we both need a little time to think. I'll get a room out at the Courtesy and I'm going to ask if I can come by and talk to you tomorrow. Can I do that?"
"Yes," said Lisa quietly, not even looking at him and with a lot less enthusiasm than Dean had hoped for. He got up to head for the door, head spinning. This is not the way he thought today would go.
"Dean?" Lisa said as Dean turned the doorknob on the front door, "Yeah?" he asked, not turning around to look at her. "Please don't run," she said in a whisper.
Dean still couldn't turn around to look at her or he thought he might completely lose it. He said, "I'm not running anywhere," as he walked out onto the porch.
Next - chapters 43 - 45