Title: Nothing and Everything

Part Two: Retribution

Chapter 39

~~~~~~~~~~

Dean was at the end of his rope. His family was in danger, living in motels in the area, moving to a new one every few days, a thing he knew Jo was humoring him on since Gwen and Sam had had no incidents at the house the entire time. Sam was right, but Dean couldn’t go back there yet. He had to talk to the one person he thought could tell him if there was real danger there. He banged a fist on the door.

It opened. Chuck blinked, glance going from Dean to Sam and back. “Guys. Hey.” He was as nervous as he always seemed, if not a bit more so in Dean’s opinion. “What, um, what are you doing here?”

“Tell us you’ve been having visions.”

“Please, Chuck. Do you have anything,” Sam asked. “Anything current?”

“Oh.” He opened the door so they could come in. “I’m sorry. I’ve been vision free since you and Gwen got married, Sam.”

“What does that mean?” Dean looked around the living room. It was too neat and orderly, making it despairingly obvious that Chuck hadn’t been working on anything.

Chuck shrugged. “It means I’ve had no visions. I don’t think it means anything, Dean.”

“Doesn’t no visions mean the end of the Winchester gospels? That’s what you said the books were. Does it mean we’re all gonna die?” The words, the fear, poured from his lips. “My brother, my wife…my son? Gwen? All of us? Tell me, Chuck. I have to know. I have to. I need to know if we can go back to the house. ”

With a sigh, Chuck sat in a chair. “Look guys, they come in cycles sometimes. There’s nothing and then suddenly everything is there all at once. It’s how it is. I could be crippled over in a minute, a day, a month, or a year with migraines and visions. I can’t lead you to any information here.”

Dean covered his mouth with a hand that shook. He could feel himself sliding back into panic mode, feel the now familiar signs that he was going to leave here, drive back, and move them again. It’s the same process that had been happening. Every time he thought about losing them all, he packed up Jo and Jack and took them to a new motel. Sam and Gwen he couldn’t do anything about, as they refused to leave the house. If he could’ve packed them up as well, he would have. “I don’t know where else to go. We just don’t have what we need to stop this thing and it’s gotten personal, real personal. It killed Ham and Ronnie. It went after Jack and Ellen. He tapped into Mick’s mind…. What the hell do we do here?”

Sam sat on the couch. “You wrote up until right after the wedding?”

“Yeah.”

“Could we see the work from just before Mick’s disappearance?”

Dean wasn’t sure what good it’d do them. On the drive, Sam had thought there might be something in the text that Chuck had written and they’d missed. Looking at any manuscripts had been Sam’s plan all along.

Chuck hesitated. “It’s not a good idea.”

“Why not,” Dean demanded, heart pounding hard in his chest, feeling like it was going to explode. “You hiding something?” He swallowed hard past the lump that seemed to be growing in his throat. His shirt was beginning to feel damp against his skin.

Sliding his hands into his pockets, Chuck’s shoulders rose and fell in a slow shrug. “There are other points of view now, not only yours. I’ve got Jo and Gwen. Castiel sometimes. Occasionally even Ellen and Bobby. It got big, really big, after you guys saved Jo. If it was you two, sure, but I have to think of the others. I don’t know how they’d react to their points of view being read.”

“I think they’d understand.”

“Jo maybe. I know you told her about them. Did you tell Gwen about the gospels, too? Or Ellen?”

Without another thought, Dean pulled his gun and pointed it at Chuck. “Bring out those manuscripts.” It wasn’t that he wanted to shoot Chuck. He didn’t. He just wanted to do something that would prod him into doing what Dean wanted him to do.

Chuck held up his hands, palms facing Dean. “Are you going to shoot me, Dean? Over manuscripts? Really?” His gaze was too clear, too all-seeing, and not at all what Dean was used to from Chuck. It was like when his dad used to look at him, knowing Dean wouldn’t do whatever Dean was saying he would. It was a parental look and it started to freak him out after only a few seconds.

I’m losing my grip, he thought, and aimed carefully at Chuck’s shoulder. He had to be imagining that look. “If I have to.”

“Okay, okay. I still don’t think it’s a good idea.” He gestured towards the kitchen. “First lower cabinet closest to us in the kitchen. They’re chronological from the bottom up.”

Sam brought them to the table and set them down.

Dean put away his gun and reached for the top one, only to have Chuck lay a hand on it before he could pick it up.

“Please. If you have to do this, read from the beginning. Get it in sequence.”

“We already know what happens.”

“Then why read them at all?”

It was a question neither he nor Sam answered. Sam reached for the first one passing pages to Dean and finally into a stack beside Dean as he speed read through the pages. Hours passed, Sam finishing before Dean and sitting still in his chair with a dazed expression. He knew how he felt. Either Chuck’s writing was getting better or the events were still too fresh for both of them because he’d even teared up a little at the description of Gwen’s accident and then of Sam’s agony over it.

Dean finished the last few pages and hurled the final manuscript across the room, pages falling like large snowflakes. “Castiel! Get your feathery ass down here now!”

~~~~~~~~~

The summons was insistent and Castiel could no longer ignore Dean. Really, he didn’t have to anymore, did he? His part in Death’s timeline was over and he was back overseeing the Guardians. He was, however, surprised as to where Dean and Sam were located. They were at Chuck’s house and that was actually Chuck with them. At least, he thought it was Chuck. He could be wrong. Just because the past times he’d met with his Father He’d been Chuck didn’t mean He was currently Chuck.

“Hello,” he said, lips parting, wondering what was going to happen. Dean was angry about something and he saw that Sam didn’t seem pleased either.

Dean crossed his arms. “I can sort of understand when Death blindsided you in that meeting. He gave you no choice right then. Even I can see that. He gave you information and silenced you, made you helpless unless you wanted to die. I can get why you stayed silent then. I can understand why you didn’t come to us. I can even understand Abigael not helping when Sam called her down.” He gestured back and forth between himself and Sam. “We get it, Cas. The whole thing with Gwen? You couldn’t do anything. Neither could Abby. We understand. We can get past it because things have worked out.”

Castiel could see the lie in Dean’s eyes and the truth in Sam’s. They were both pissed with him, yet were trying to hold it back. He wondered if it might be prudent to get Gwen and bring her here to referee for him.

“As for Death? Yeah, he uses people to get things done. It’s who he is and what he does. Apparently, he uses angels too. He’ll use anything, anyone to keep his precious order.”

Castiel lifted his chin slightly, waiting for the rest.

“Here’s the part I’m scratching my head about. You went back and willingly said you’d help Death. Death. The same asshole who did all that to Gwen. You agreed to help him long-term? What the freakin’ hell were you thinking?”

His attention fell to the manuscripts on the kitchen table and the pages strewn about the room. Since it was apparent Chuck (God?) had put it all on paper, they’d read it, and it must contain something about himself, Abigael, and Death, perhaps the question was rhetorical? He answered anyway. “I had no choice. I looked at everything, as he’d suggested I do, and I saw that was the only real option available to me.”

“You could have talked to us.”

“And said what?” He shrugged. “Would you have listened if I told you what was necessary to keep the balance of the world? Would you have understood if I’d told you I was going to have to keep information from you and that you’d have to stand by and wait for the right time to act? Would you have accepted that or wanted to rush out and save the world immediately? Would you have thought about the bigger picture or just what was affecting you right then?”

“You kept information from us.”

“But I never lied about it, Dean. There was never a point I had to outright lie to you. I was tasked with aiding Death in order to keep the balance of the world intact in the end of this. Did I keep information out of your reach at times? Yes. Did I avoid you? Yes. Do you know who was cleaning up after the creature all these months so that everything would work out the way it needed to? Me. I’ve been busy with him. Look around the world, Dean. What do you see? Do you see order?”

“No.”

“Do you see anything except chaos? When balance is wrong, the world is too and the balance right now is so skewed in one direction, that he must be taken care of soon. Look around yourself. Tell me what you see. Is there order? You have your wife and son in hiding, fearing for them, for Sam and Gwen, for Ellen, Bobby, and yourself. What are you waiting for? Why are you running? Why are you afraid? Why are you here? Why aren’t you bringing him down as we speak?”

“Because we don’t have everything we need to stop him!”

He stepped close, staring into Dean’s eyes. “You do have what you need, Dean.” He knew they did, as he’d returned the journal himself. Couldn’t they see that they had everything? “Go home, then bring him down and end this.”

With a long stare at Sam, then Chuck, he left while Dean was still trying to compose a reply.

~~~~~~~~~~

“How did you and Bill do it, Ellen?” Dean downed the shot in front of him. The confrontation with Castiel hadn’t gone the way he’d thought it would -- except for when Cas had bugged out in a second. That was usual business. The rest, however? He’d felt betrayed by learning Castiel had been keeping things from them, yet Cas had seemed so certain they had everything they needed and that he’d been in the right in his actions. That righteous certainty reminded him of when he and Castiel had first begun to interact. Cas had shown that certainty then, too.

Maybe they did have everything and they just didn’t have it put together right?

She slid her own empty glass back and forth between her hands. “Do what?”

They were at Bobby’s kitchen table. Dean had dropped Sam off at the house and gone to see Ellen. Jo and Jack were still at the motel he’d left them at before going to see Chuck and when he’d dropped Sam off, Gwen had come out to the car. She’d told him that Jo was planning on talking to him about moving back to the house since reports had been coming in of attacks in southern Nebraska that fit the soul stealer’s pattern.

“You lived in the same location, worked in the same location for years and nothing came after you until the day Sam and I showed up.”

Ellen started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are, sweetie. That’s a naïve and somewhat arrogant thing to assume.” Reaching out, she touched his cheek for a few seconds. “Never thought I’d think of you as naïve. Do you have any idea how many times I packed Jo off for one reason or another because I saw something heading right for us? Her stint in summer camp wasn’t because I wanted her to get in touch with nature. We’d had plenty of trouble long before you boys showed up.”

“You did?”

“Sure did. You didn’t bring us anything that hadn’t already been brought one way or another.” Her smile was wry. “Not quite the scourge you thought you were, are you Dean?”

Sighing, he tapped a finger to his glass. Ellen poured another shot. “You went back home those times.”

“Sure. And so will you.”

He wished he had her certainty. “Dad, Sam, and I never did.” Their home had been destroyed.

“That was a different set of circumstances. You’ll box up this son of a bitch and be back home before you know it.”

“Maybe.” He shook his head. “We can’t go to Jo’s reunion now, though. That’ll make her happy.” While she’d filled out the forms and sent in their money, she’d continued to grumble at least once daily. It was beginning to try his nerves. Surely high school hadn’t been that bad for her? She’d made it sound like there’d been daily teasing and fights, with nothing good at all.

“Why can’t you go,” Ellen asked in a reasonable tone. “You already paid. Why waste it by not going?”

Turning his head, he stared at her. She raised her brows right back at him in mute question. “The soul stealer. He’s still out there.”

“He’s out there whether you go or not. Can’t do anything about him until he surfaces again anyway and you’ve got Sophie on it.”

“You really think we should go?” It did seem sort of reckless, though how was going to her reunion any different from working cases out in public like they kept doing?

“I do.”

“That’s like saying ‘let’s split up’ in a ‘B’ horror movie. Bad idea.”

She placed a hand on his. “Dean, we’ve got this. Bobby and I’ve got all the hunters we know on alert --”

“The ones he hasn’t killed yet.”

Ellen went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “ -- and Sam will move full speed ahead on whatever he’s been putting together. Gwen’s been monitoring reports from here to Nebraska and back. Looks like he’d heading back to Colorado again. We’re doing all we can. I think you and Jo can take four days to go to her reunion. We know where to find you if we need you.”

“I just feel like there should be more we can do to find him.”

What more was there? He hadn’t told any of them about the monsters that had contacted him and Sam both, pleading for help. There was something poetic about monsters turning to hunters for help against a monster. They had nowhere else to turn, so they came to Sam and Dean Winchester. They placed their hopes on them, much like the angels once had. Dean should’ve enjoyed telling them all no, but….

Castiel was right. He knew it. When the balance was wonky, as it was right now, the world was wonky. It was a ton of wonky that needed fixing.

“You can’t. Go, have fun, get drunk, make fun of her former classmates, and get it through her thick skull that those issues she had with all of them are long gone.”

“Is that an order?”

“You’ll do whatever you want even if I tried to make it an order. It’s a strong suggestion.”

They packed for Jo’s reunion three days later. Even Dean’s paranoia had lessened on seeing evidence that the soul stealer was heading away from them.

The Impala was ready, goodbyes had been said, and they were ready to go. Dean picked a tape from the box, started the car, then popped that tape in, giving Jo a glance and flirtatious grin.

Def Leppard’s ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ began to play. She stared at the stereo a beat, started to smile, then caught herself, and looked out the window, waving at Gwen and Jack. Their son was already distracted by the toy in his hands and Dean tried not to be offended at how fast they’d been dismissed from Jack’s mind.

He’d remember them at bedtime, however. “Here we go,” he said in the sort of cheerful tone he would’ve smacked himself for using were he Jo, but Jo merely stared out the window. An hour down the road, she unbent enough to get into a discussion with him on the recent cases they’d all worked and the probability that Sam was up to something.

“The last time you two spent that much time in the garage you were making that Trickster box.” Opening her bottle of water, she took a long drink and recapped it. “What’s he doing out there?”

They’d built the soul stealer box, added most of the symbols. Sam had then started in on some project he said wasn’t important. “Not sure. He says it’s an experiment.”

“And you let him be that vague?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“You’re not curious?”

“Nope.” Yup. He was insanely curious, but if Sam was making something for the baby, he didn’t want to discourage him by butting in. He’d share when he was ready to. It was killing Dean not to be nosy, too. “It’s good for him to have a hobby besides running and research.” Which reminded him…. “Gwen ever get back to running?”

Amusement crossed her face. “She and Dr. Ames are having a difference of opinion about her workouts. Doctor wants her to keep her workouts light and Gwen…. Well, you know her. Dr. Gwen is already driving the doctor nuts. Did you hear her ask me if you’d done a background check on her already? She wanted to know if Dr. Ames really has a medical degree.”

Dean smiled at that. The women he knew really all did do whatever the hell they wanted. Gwen would take whatever advice she thought was good from what Dr. Ames said and disregard the rest.

“She’s already planning the birth, too. She had Sam write down a list of his picks for a birth mix and was busy combining their lists earlier this morning, making sure each of them would have equal play time during the birth.” Jo shook her head. “Man, at her weeks I was still trying to figure out if I was really okay with being pregnant and was scared I’d break him when he came out.”

He didn’t doubt Gwen would have her birth plan in place long before it was needed, with variations for every possible thing that could go wrong -- including premature birth or late birth. Dean kept Jo talking and when they reached the motel, she fell silent, teeth dragging along her lower lip. She both wanted to be here and didn’t at the same time. He, however, was stoked for this, determined to have a good time while they waited for the soul stealer to show himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The boxes he’d been making weren’t hidden. Sam hadn’t been keeping them from view, he simply hadn’t told Dean what he was doing and Dean hadn’t asked. If Dean had even come in the garage, he would’ve seen them and probably understood quickly what Sam was trying to do.

He finished with the smallest one and smiled at a job well done before turning to the soul stealer prison. He’d finished the symbols on it, certain now that he knew what each one was for.

His phone rang. Sophie’s number. “Hey, Sophie, what’s up?” He swiped a cloth over the box.

“I’ve got something, Sam.”

“Something.” For a second, he didn’t know what she meant, but as she went on, he did and thought the timing couldn’t be better.

“Yeah. Dean said to call when I found him. You did too. Remember? It was while Gwen was still in the hospital.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“He killed a nest of vampires, but missed one. She was new, hiding, scared anyway of her new existence. She heard him talk about how he was going to take care of two hunters this week in a public display of his power. I guess he’s a chatty one. Doesn’t mind talking to his victims as he works them over. I know where he’s going.”

He set the rag down. “Where?” The location she gave made his blood suddenly feel icy in his veins and he let loose a curse. “Damn it!”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“He’s headed right for Jo and Dean. That’s Jo’s hometown.” As far as he knew, they were the only hunters there, which meant the soul stealer knew about the reunion. How had he found out? How long had he known about it?

“What the hell are they doing there?”

“Jo’s class reunion.”

“Tell me you’re kidding. A building full of innocent people in with them? That won’t end badly.”

He tapped his fingers on the workbench, thinking. It put a crimp in his plan to move it up, but it was still doable, not to mention that he had to. Ready or not, he had to go with what he had and pray it worked. Castiel had seemed sure they had what they needed, but Sam wasn’t so certain. “Okay, Sophie, here’s what we’re going to do. Where are you right now?”

“In a little shithole motel about an hour away from you. Why?”

He explained and when he was done, she whistled. “You’ve got some big balls to try that.”

“Yeah, well, let’s just hope it works.”

He hung up and reached for the smallest of the Trickster boxes. The timing on this was going to be tight and Sam said a silent prayer that it all worked out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was with great misgivings that Atropos had finally accepted Balthazar’s constant offers of a drink. Lachesis approved. Not of Balthazar exactly, but of Atropos having something that might possibly be called a date. Clotho had merely shaken her head and told Atropos to get her work done first. As if she’d be negligent of her duties! Not once had she neglected her work.

Lachesis said that was the problem. She never neglected anything.

She’d gone and had a surprisingly good time -- enough of such that she’d accepted his offer of lunch later that week. They’d had two lunches, four breakfasts, and three dinners thus far and now here she was, sitting on an overstuffed couch in a mansion somewhere on earth, trying not to spill her drink and remain sitting upright while Balthazar nuzzled her neck and breathed things in her ear that made her composure begin to slip.

It was with great reluctance that she admitted to herself that she liked him.

“Do you know what I like about you,” he asked, fingers tucking her hair behind her ear, his lips touching her earlobe.

“I’m female,” she replied, very aware of his reputation.

“That goes without saying. No, what I like is that you’re a strong female, unafraid to be the full bitch her job requires.”

“That’s an interesting compliment.” She sipped her drink and set it back down.

“I don’t mind a touch of danger.”

“I’m not easy,” she warned him, refusing to relax.

“Believe me, darling, none of you are easy. You all take effort.”

“No, I meant --”

“I know what you meant and let me assure you that I will still fear you in the morning.”

She felt herself begin to lean towards him. “I could make something very bad happen to you.”

His lips made a tour up her neck to her cheek, so close to her mouth that if she turned her head, their lips would touch. “I thrive on the danger of your wrath.”

“I have to go,” she protested, reaching for her clipboard. “I have --”

He plucked it from her and looked it over. “Nothing on your schedule for several hours. No meetings, no deaths to arrange…. Darling, I’m hurt you didn’t pencil me in.”

“You disconcert me,” she blurted out.

“Ahh, but that’s a good thing.” The clipboard was tossed aside with a complete disregard for the papers on it.

“How? How is that good?”

“It is. Go with it, darling.”

She was enjoying herself, she realized. His kisses were coaxing, touches gentle, and she almost didn’t hear his question that ruined the mood.

“So, what’s going on,” he slid a hand beneath her blouse, “with Castiel and the Winchesters?”

Atropos drew back. “What?”

“You know.” He was trying for casual, only she saw the glint of calculation in his eyes.

Fooled. He’d fooled her. She’d thought he was interested in her and here he was trying to get information from her. Her cheeks flared with heat. She’d been stupid to think that maybe he liked her. “You thought you’d pump me for information.” Her shove barely moved him. She should’ve known better than to take Lachesis’s advice and try dating, especially with Balthazar. “All you really want is information. I should have known.”

“Actually, I thought I’d just pump you. Information would be a pleasant bonus.” He slid one hand along her leg.

Atropos crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “You’re slime, Balthazar.”

“And you’re an uptight, vindictive, capricious bitch. It’s good we’ve no illusions of each other, don’t you think?”

“Truly despicable.”

“Stop, I’m blushing. Enough with the compliments, Atropos darling. There doesn’t need to be an exchange of information here, though I am insanely curious about Castiel’s antics these past months and what is up with his pet humans.”

“It’s classified. Need to know only.”

“And I don’t need to know.”

“Exactly.”

“Shame.” He dropped a kiss to her shoulders. “I could be of assistance.”

“Doubtful,” she said in as scornful a tone as she could manage.

“Very well.” He seemed to dismiss the idea of her telling him anything. “Now where were we….”

She blinked and looked around. “You’re not going to keep pushing for information?”

“Should I? You’ve been clear that you won’t share. I can accept that.”

“No. You don’t accept things like that. I know you. You push and dig and --”

“I’ve spent more time on you than anyone, Atropos. You said no, so I’ll accept it to continue to spend time with you.”

She weakened and let herself believe it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dean was on to Jo the second she suggested they get out and walk around the reunion location grounds. He’d humored her with a drive by, but wasn’t about to fuel her paranoia any further.

It was an old grade school for crying out loud! She’d told him how the district, hurting for money, had sold the building to Heather Holt’s dad when Jo was in junior high. Dean found that unusual. Jo had shrugged and said that the Holt family always did things like that. Artie Holt had taken the building as an office building and she’d suffered through countless field trip tours for various classes the rest of her school years.

The reunion was in the gym section. There’d be at least two outside entrances plus the inner doors. She had no reason to worry about exits.

“You want to visit your dad’s grave? Take some flowers?”

“No,” her tone took on an annoyed cast, “I want to get out and walk around the old grade school.”

“How about we swing by the old Roadhouse property, see what the new owners are up to?” New wasn’t exactly the word for them since they’d bought the property years ago now.

“No.”

“Drive by your old house?”

“No.”

“Show me the town, Jo,” he coaxed.

“You’ve seen the town. It’s small, it’s hick, and it’s the mouth of hell.” Shifting in the seat, she corrected herself before he could comment. “I mean the armpit of hell.”

He sighed and, at the next stop sign, he made an exaggerated sniff out the open window. “I don’t smell any sulfur. If it’s anything to do with hell, there’d be sulfur.”

“Just wait,” was her gloomy reply.

Dean wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. Was she actually serious about the sulfur? He drove on into a town he knew somewhat from when he and Sam had frequented the Roadhouse. They’d always meant to do more than drive through and never had. Stopping at the Roadhouse had been their priority since it had been such a new thing for them to realize there was a network of hunters out there and places they congregated. Ellen had put them up with beds out back and a hot meal if they’d asked nicely. He’d gotten the feeling that the meal was more because they were John’s boys than anything else, especially at first. Then later, they’d somehow become family to her. She’d welcomed them and he was glad she had.

Jo gestured at the park on the right. “I kicked Tommy Hinshaw in the balls by that gazebo on a field trip once. He was out of school for a few days and when he came back, he had a different class schedule than mine.”

“What’d he do to you?”

“I took care of it.”

Which didn’t answer the question and was a typical Jo answer. “Uh-huh. Days. Must’ve been some kick.”

“He totally deserved it. I even told my mother about it, okay?”

“Damage control?”

She shot him a dirty look, then relented, features relaxing in amusement. “Maybe a little. I had had detention once that quarter already.”

“You wild thing you.”

“I hated that school, Dean. Hated the kids. Couldn’t wait to graduate and be done with them, then went off to college and…still didn’t fit in.” She frowned. “The odd girl out.”

“You know, if you really want to turn around and go back we can. Screw the money.”

“We’re here now. Be a waste of a tank of gas if we go.”

Nicely practical. He heard the hesitation in her words. She was considering his offer and he was finding it hard to reconcile this hesitant Jo before him with his fearless wife. “Let’s get some food, have a quiet meal.” Stretching his arm out, he slid his fingers along her thigh in a slow caress. “Go back to the motel….” When she looked at him, he waggled his brows at her.

A smile blossomed slowly on her lips, fading only when they passed a huge monstrosity of a house set back from the road a bit further than the rest. “That was Heather Holt’s house.”

“Vulgar display of wealth.”

“Yeah, well…. Her daddy owned about half the town at one point. Artie Holt went round and round with mom for years on various business owner regulations. She usually won, though. I always wondered what she had on him. Mom was like the only one who ever beat Artie in an argument.”

“Maybe he had a thing for her.”

Her lip curled. “Eww.”

Dean chuckled.

They had a quiet meal in a restaurant on the edge of town that hadn’t been there when Jo had lived there. She didn’t recognize anyone and when they got back to the motel, he watched her begin to lay things out for the reunion. She was obsessing over the details, muttering under her breath.

He laid his head back against the pillows he had piled against the headboard, recalling the day he’d met her and Ellen. Jo had been feisty and fierce, a beautiful petite package. His attention turned back to where she stood at the table, gaze drifting down her and back up. Dean got up and went to her. “You’re not the only one having a walk down memory lane, Jo.” He stepped close behind her, grasping her hips in his hands, waiting for the moment she’d relax the barest fraction back against him.

“Oh?”

“You know,” he began, one hand leaving her hip long enough to brush her hair from her neck so he could press his lips there, “Sam and I stayed here once.”

“It’s the only motel in town. Of course you stayed here.” That moment of relaxation occurred.

“Mmm-hmm.” He grazed her earlobe with his teeth and slid a hand around to her belly, pressing her back against him and feeling her push back against him in return. “Do you have any idea the sort of naughty dreams I had about you? The things I’d dreamed of doing with you right here in one of these beds…or in that camper Ellen kept out back behind the bar.” He remembered one dream that had left him aching upon waking. If he hadn’t had that fear of Ellen back then, he might’ve actually gone looking for Jo after that dream.

She turned her head for a kiss, but he avoided her mouth, teasing with almost-kisses. Jo opened her eyes. There was a vulnerability to her gaze that he hadn’t seen in a very long time. It made her seem younger. “I think I can guess.”

“Can you?”

She turned to face him and slid her hands up his arms, placing them on his shoulders. “Let’s make those dreams come true.”

Dean set about giving her one good memory of her home town.