Dean sat back in the confessional booth, gently laughing about his womanizing ways as he laid them all out to the Father behind the separator. Perhaps it was the feeling of being partially hid in the shadow that made him really look back to his life and seek within himself. The confession that had started simply as a joke of sort or as a tool in achieving the objectives of this case turned quite serious quite fast.

"So anything else on your mind, Agent Altman?" the good Father prompted, given Dean's silence.

"What if I said I didn't wanna die? Yet. That I wasn't ready," Dean replied, and saying it out loud made him almost want to stop this conversation then and there.

"Are you expecting to?" the Father asked.

Dean smiled grimly to himself. "Always," he said. "The life I live, the work I do, I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key into the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later I'd go out the same way that I live, pedal to the metal and that would be it."

"But now?"

"Now, uhm," Dean breathed slightly heavily, remembering everything that has led up to this moment right here in the now – the Mark of Cain, his demon days, his lapses in control, and most importantly, Cain's fateful prophecy. "Recent events made me think I'd be closer to that than I thought," he continued. "And I don't know there's things! There's people, feelings that I'd want to experience differently than I had before or maybe even for the first time." As soon as those words left his mouth, for some reason her face popped into his mind. Her beautiful, fresh faced self, laughing with no restraints at something irrefutably stupid. The flashes of memories bombarded him in just split seconds – the memory of her feel against him, her scent, her smile. Just everything about her.

"Go a little deeper perhaps. Maybe with Gina?" the Father said bringing him back to the confessional booth.

Dean closed his eyes briefly for a moment. "I'm just starting to think that maybe there's more to it all than I thought."

He was a senior freshly enrolled in another new high school right along with Sam when he met Y/N. She was a freshman in a few of Sam's classes, and somehow or the other Dean had been the one to get the closest to her. He didn't have a choice honestly. If he had one, he never would have let himself get attached, but he had felt like he had found his twin soul – someone he felt incredibly in sync with, so effortlessly. Someone who understood him without even trying to be understood. He felt more like himself with her than he had ever hoped to.

They'd been here for about three or four months now but in truth, it felt like he'd been here forever, and Y/N had gotten entwined in their lives as if she'd always been there. In Sam's and Dean's life that is. John of course didn't know about her because Dean knew exactly what his dad would say about forming attachments.

John was on a nearby hunt that day, a simple salt and burn hunt. Sam was doing his homework on his bed at the motel room. Dean lay side by side with Y/N, sharing the same walkman and listening to some tunes by Led Zeppelin, because it was a well-established fact that Zeppelin ruled.

He looked over at Y/N, making up his mind to come clean to her. "There's something I need to tell you, Y/N."

She looked at him and saw the intensity in Dean's eyes. It scared her in some deep instinctive level that for some reason, she just didn't want to know. "Whatever you're going to say…will it change this, what we have right here?"

Like always, she was perceptive to what Dean was thinking and it slightly astounded him pretty much every day. "It might," he replied honestly.

"Then I don't want to know," she dismissed it altogether and lied back down next to him.

He chuckled. "Hey Y/N, you in love with me or something?" he asked hoping to tease her.

"Shut up," she smiled, her eyes still closed and half listening to the song that was playing through their shared headphones.

He looked over at her and for a moment stared because she couldn't see him doing so. "You sound like you are," he teased some more but there was a tiny little hope in him that maybe, just maybe she'd admit to it.

"You're my best friend, Dean Winchester, and you know it," she said crushing any hope of that but it didn't exactly hurt as much as he thought it would.

She was special to him with or without anything more than just friendship. What they had, for however long it lasted, was perfect. He couldn't ask for more.

The case was finally done with and they had managed to lay the vengeful spirit of Sister Isabella. Sam was in the driving seat cruising the Impala down the highway. He looked over at his brother. "You know you were in that confessional a long time," he spoke up. Dean looked at him only to awkwardly smile and glance away without a word.

For some unexplainable reason, the mentioning of his confession triggered another flashback to the past. It unnerved him how clear the memories were given that it was almost two decades ago. Except he remembered everything. He remembered too much.

The case was finally done with and they had managed to lay the vengeful spirit of Sister Isabella. Sam was in the driving seat cruising the Impala down the highway. He looked over at his brother. "You know you were in that confessional a long time," he spoke up. Dean looked at him only to awkwardly smile and glance away without a word.

For some unexplainable reason, the mentioning of his confession triggered another flashback to the past. It unnerved him how clear the memories were given that it was almost two decades ago. Except he remembered everything. He remembered too much.

Dean was at Y/N's doorstep. Sam had headed on back to the motel but Dean had wanted to walk her to her home where she lived with her grandmother. She was rifling through her bag for a her keys. Failing to find them in there, she handed over the bag to Dean's empty hands and turned out her jean pockets. Dean was obviously laughing at her silly antics as always and his eyes rested on a flask peeping out from her open bag.

What the hell? He wondered silently to himself. Did Y/N have a drinking problem? He pulled out the flask while she was distracted searching for her keys and saw another suspicious looking container. He pulled it out thinking, Oh God don't let this be drugs or something… He opened the container to find a soft fine white powder inside and he groaned, making Y/N turn around. Her eyes widened when she saw what he had in his hand.

"What the hell are you doing? Don't you know you aren't supposed to go through a girl's bag?" she hissed.

"Do you freaking have a drug problem?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Really, Dean? Just taste it and see."

He pulled back hesitantly but she urged him once again, and he did. "This is salt," he said looking at her with the most confounded look on his face.

She sighed. "Sit down," she said, lowering herself to the seat on her front porch. "I suppose it's time you knew." Dean already kind of knew exactly what she wanted him to know and he was feeling a little giddy inside. "I'm a hunter, Dean," she told him. "Well not me exactly, but my parents are. That's why they aren't ever around. They hunt ghosts, demons, ghouls, vampires, werewolves…all those things in the horror flicks that scare the shit out of you."

Dean just stared at her, unable to decide on what to say or how to explain to himself how this was even happening. Y/N was a hunter from a hunter family? What were the freaking chances?

"Helloooo…Earth to Dean. Did you hear anything I said?"

"Yeah," he said. "I heard you."

"Why aren't you saying something then?" she asked. Then she shrugged, wrapping her arms in front of her in a defensive pose. "Shouldn't you be screaming, or running or something?"

He didn't say anything. He just opened up his backpack and pulled out a flask of his own. "That's holy water." Then came a container with salt. Then he pulled out a knife with a gleaming blade. "This baby right here is made of pure silver."

It was her turn to gawk at him as if he had grown two heads. Then she smiled a little smile full of awe and surprise. "What are the chances? I mean what are the freaking chances, Dean? You're a hunter."

"I'm a hunter," Dean agreed. "That's actually what I wanted to tell you that day before you stopped me."

All of a sudden her hands were wrapped around him in an unexpected embrace. "You have no idea how relieved I feel right now!" she pulled back, and they were just inches apart. He could have almost kissed her, except of course he didn't. "I have someone to talk about this with. I can tell you literally everything now. No more secrets."

Dean felt relieved too. He had just given another part of himself to Y/N and it hadn't backfired on him either. A part of him felt like maybe this was all just meant to be…if you believed in that kind of thing. "No more secrets," he agreed grabbing her for another hug.

They had stayed like that for a while, both of them silently wishing it could be like this forever. It couldn't be though. John dragged Sam and Dean out of that town in the dead of night without warning saying they weren't safe there anymore, and he didn't even get to say good bye to Y/N. He tried calling her after they settled somewhere else but she hadn't picked up and soon enough, her number became out of service. Dean convinced himself that maybe for Y/N what they had wasn't as special as it truly was for him. Maybe she let go even though Dean couldn't. Eventually, he tried to forget as well.

"Look man," Sam's voice broke Dean out of his trip down memory lane. "All I'm saying is I'm your brother. If you ever need to talk about anything or anybody, you got somebody right here next to you."

Dean closed his eyes. "I have some unfinished business I should take care of, Sammy. It's been twenty long years overdue."

Sam glanced at him, his brow creased with worry. "Twenty years?"

"Y/N. I need to find her. We left a lot of things unfinished and I really need to – "

"Hold it right there, Dean," Sam interrupted him. "It's been a really long time now. Y/N's probably living some apple pie life, a nice ordinary human life. What would you even say to her now, after all these years? Sorry I disappeared without a word, I went hunting for some ghosts and demons?"

Sam's logic was irrefutable, except he didn't know what Dean did. Dean had never gotten the chance to tell him about Y/N's hunter background. Except, what if she was leading some apple pie life? She was probably married with a couple of kids, living a life away from all the hunter crap like she always said she wanted to do. What right did he have to go barging in disrupting all of that? Sam was right. Dean nodded his agreement and stared out the window as they drove away.

The bunker was quiet that day when Dean walked into the library. He'd just woken up, and his only objective was to fix himself some breakfast. He saw Sam sitting at his laptop as usual with a phone in his hand. Probably looking for a cure again, Dean thought shaking his head and walked to the kitchen.

He was just getting everything on the plate when Sam barged in. "What was Y/N's last name?"

This was random, Dean thought. Even for Sam. "It's Y/L/N. Why?" he asked raising a brow and trying to see where Sam was going with this.

"This is very random," Sam said, "An very weird too but I was going through one of Bobby's phones today."

"What's weird about that? You do that once in a while. How is this connected to Y/N, anyway?"

"That's the thing, Dean," Sam said handing over the phone to Dean's hand. "Just listen to this."

Dean took the phone and pressed the phone to his ear, listening intently to a female voice flow. "Hey, Bobby, it's me, Y/N Y/L/N. I've come across a coven of witches in Nebraska and I could use your help for this one. Call me when you get this." She was short and to the point. There were a lot of questions flying around in Dean's head. How did Y/N know Bobby Singer? Was she still hunting, twenty years in, when she pretty much swore she wouldn't? Should he call her?

"Should we call her and see?" Sam asked. "And what the hell, Dean?! Y/N's a freaking hunter? Did you even know?"

"Yeah, I knew," Dean replied to Sam's shock. "I'm not going to call her, Sammy."

"Why the hell not, Dean? Weren't you just saying the other day that you wanted to? Did you change your mind?"

"Nope," Dean said. He wasn't going to risk her hanging up on him and avoiding him. "I'm not going to call her," he continued. "I'm going to find her and talk to her face-to-face when she can't run away from it." For the first time in days, Dean found himself smiling. It was genuine and even Sam could see there was hope mingled in there.