Chapter One

This is the story of Sam and Dean Winchester, after the events of seasons one through nine. Only one thing has changed; Dean was not killed by Metatron at the end of season nine. Instead, under the influence of the First Blade and the Mark of Cain, Dean beat and tortured his enemy until Sam arrived to see his brother about to kill the angel, his eyes black as any demon's. Sam managed to get Dean not to kill the angel, and Castiel was able to put Metatron safe behind bars in heaven. However, Dean was so far gone from humanity because of the evil in him that Cas and even his own brother could not bear to be around him anymore. Dean was left alone by the only two people he had left, and he was able to give Crowley the Blade to stop himself from getting any worse. Dean Winchester continued to hunt on his own, but he was unstable and almost wanted to die. Cas and Sam have been hunting both together and apart since then, and Castiel has been struggling to piece heaven back together as well as deal with his constantly waning stolen grace. While Sam still checks up every once in a while on his brother to make sure he's not dead, the two Winchester brothers have not seen each other in nine months.

However, that is all about to change.

Castiel dug furiously through heaps of towels and cast-off clothes, searching for the ringing phone buried underneath. Sam had made him buy a cell phone so they could communicate better, but Cas constantly struggled with finding the small black rectangle that apparently held so much power. On top of that, it was humiliating. What pathetic kind of angel had to use human electronics to communicate?

Well, he did. Sam hated it when Cas would just appear and disappear at will as angels often did. He would much rather talk over the phone. However, his friend needn't worry. Castiel was struggling more and more to complete simple angelic tasks like that with his stolen grace waning yet again. Resisting the urge to swear angrily like he had often heard Dean do, Cas finally dug out the phone and answered, almost more to stop the irritating ringing than to speak to Sam Winchester.

"Took you long enough, Cas," Sam snapped on the other end. He sounded worried and agitated, and Cas instantly forgot about his own struggles.

"Is something wrong, Sam?" he asked, concerned.

"Well..." Sam sighed. "I'm in some deep shit, Cas. I'm somewhere in Illinois, and I've got some pretty powerful demons on my tail. I fought them a state or so back, and I've got a pretty good head start on them, but Cas, I didn't even manage to kill one! I'm slipping."

"Do you need assistance?" Cas reached inside him, hoping to find enough power to teleport to Sam's side. However, he was completely drained, and he would have to wait until Hannah, his lieutenant, arrived with a bit of grace to tide him over. His loyal followers had been regularly sapping bits of their power to keep their leader alive. However, it could be hours, maybe even a day, before Hannah returned, and this system would not work much longer. He needed a long term solution, but it sounded as if Sam had enough problems already.

"I'm alright, Cas," the youngest Winchester sighed. "I just...it's not me these demons are after. I happened to run into them, but they're headed for a hunter who is currently residing in Illinois."

"What hunters do we know are living in Illinois?" Castiel asked, thinking hard. "The only one I know of is...no."

"I'm afraid so, Cas," Sam said quietly. "I'm headed to his place now, to warn him."

"Sam, are you sure that's a good idea? We have no idea what he's like! It's been nine months since we last saw him."

"Cas, I can't just leave him undefended," Sam sighed across the phone. "I'm not even an hour from his place."

"I can try and get to you," Castiel offered.

"Cas, you're already weak," his friend said. "Worry about yourself for now. I'll call once we're okay."

"Sam...just be careful, okay?"

"I will."

"And, well...say hi to your brother for me."

The phone clicked dead.

Sam was nervous.

It was funny. He had faced armies of angels, demons, vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, wendigos, djinns, and countless other monsters. He didn't get nervous before hunts anymore; they were as natural as breathing to him. Something that wasn't natural to him? Not being with Dean.

God, these past nine months had been hell! Any time something funny happened, or when Sam needed somebody to help him out, he would turn to Dean...and he wouldn't be there. It was almost worse than when Dean was dead. When Dean was dead, Sam had one mission: get him back. But now, now Dean was still here, alive, walking the same earth as Sam was, there for him to go to... but he was choosing not to. And it was all kinds of awful. He missed his big brother so much, missed driving all day in a car to the same five albums non-stop. He missed the nights at bars, watching Dean hitting on anything female that moved. He missed his brother's sarcastic, juvenile sense of humor, missed arguing and teasing each other, missed working together, missed the thrill of a hunt with a brother by your side. Cas was great and all, a good friend and always valuable on a hunt, but he could never be Dean.

But now, now that he sat parked outside a cute little two-story home with a neat lawn and a nice paint job, he was crazy nervous. He would never have believed this was where Dean was living if it weren't for the familiar, beloved black Impala parked in the driveway. That car put a lump in Sam's throat, bringing back memories of intense arguments driving down a moonlit highway, or songs from before they were born being belted off-key by two brothers, or just sitting on the hood, beers in hand, looking up at the stars. Dean was there, inside that house, Sam knew for sure. If he knew anything about his brother, it was that Dean Winchester would never leave that car behind.

Sam got out of his rental car and walked up to the front door, heart pounding. He didn't have long to get in there and warn Dean about the incoming demons, but his brain was screaming at him not to go in there. Who knew what awaited him? Sure, Dean sounded normal on the phone. But Sam still carried that vision of Dean, bloody Blade in hand, his face twisted into a mask of cruel hatred and fierce enjoyment, eyes black as night. Demonic. If that was the Dean that awaited him inside this cute little house...that would be worse than any demons on his tail.

It was a little after two in the morning, and the house was silent. The whole cute little neighborhood was silent, actually. Sam couldn't wrap his head around the fact that his badass big brother lived here. And he was surprised by how little security there was. Sam picked the lock pretty easily and slipped into the house through the front door, shutting it quietly behind him.

From little shafts of moonlight peeking through cracks in the shades, Sam could make out the general layout of the first floor. He walked through a nice living room, past a bookshelf (Dean reading?), then past a nice island bar (now that was more like Dean), to the wooden staircase. The house wasn't overly furnished or decorated, but it was nice. Simple and elegant, color-coordinated, neat. Not at all like Sam would have envisioned Dean's house. In fact, Sam was starting to wonder if Dean was even here.

Then something leapt on top of him from behind, sending him toppling to the ground.

Sam grunted in pain as his head smacked against the wooden floor, stunning him for a few moments. There was a weight on his back, not as heavy as Dean. It was too light to be a full-grown man, and judging by the leg that had him trapped in a headlock, a slender, smooth, pale leg, this was definitely a woman. Sam should have been able to throw her off, even with the element of surprise she had on him, but this woman knew what she was doing. She had her weight expertly balanced on him to pin him down, and on top of that, Sam felt a cold circle of metal worm its way to the base of his skull. A gun. His heart was beating hard, his mind racing, his blood cold. Whatever he was expecting, it was not this.

"Who are you and what the hell are you doing in our house?" the woman snarled. Her voice was cold and dangerous, not betraying even a tremor of fear.

Sam was thinking hard. How to explain this? "Look, I think there's been some kind of mistake..." he tried, desperate to reason with whoever this was that had him held at gunpoint, defenseless and unable to fight back.

The ominous click of a gun being loaded reverberated through Sam. "I said, who are you and what the hell are you doing in our house?" this terrifying woman asked in an even colder, slower voice.

Sam was running out of ideas. He was starting to think how pathetic it would be for this to be how his life ended when a voice, low and husky and thick from sleep called from the top of the stairs, "The hell is going on down there?"

Sam's heart literally skipped a beat. Then he found his voice. "Dean?!" he cried, half relieved and half terrified.

There was a moment of silence, and then the familiar voice, the one Sam would know anywhere, cried, "Sam? Is that you?!"

Despite himself, Sam found himself laughing in relief. So this wasn't the wrong place. The woman pinning Sam down gasped, and the gun was withdrawn from his head. A second later her weight was gone, and he heard her speaking in an entirely different voice, a concerned, apologetic one, "Oh my god, you're Sam Winchester? His brother? Oh, god, I am so sorry...I had no idea..."

Sam picked himself up off the ground while the woman hovered nearby apologetically, seemingly wanting to help but unsure if she should. Sam ran a hand through his hair. "It's fine, don't worry about it," he sighed. "It's..."

His voice trailed off as he finally saw the woman who had taken him down. She stood in a patch of moonlight, wearing a lacy tank top and shorts and nothing else. And she was beautiful. Five six or so, slender but in a lean, fit sort of way, fair-skinned, with no shortage of curves, made all too apparent by her skimpy clothes. She had gentle blond curls that glowed almost silvery in the moonlight all the way down to her shoulders, and they were wild and unbrushed. She had a pretty face, open and kind, with big, gorgeous blue eyes, and she wore no makeup. She must have woken up as he broke into the house and slipped down the stairs and somehow gotten the jump on him, a Winchester. She was good. And...she was disarmingly pretty.

Sam averted his eyes, trying not to realize how close and barely-dressed she was. "It's fine," he muttered again.

Thankfully, in that moment, Dean reached the bottom of the stairs, providing a welcome distraction. Sam looked up and, to use a cliché he hated, saw tunnel vision. All of the sudden, his brother was all that mattered, all that existed.

Dean looked good. Like, really good. Nothing like the messed-up guy Sam had left months ago, a pale, worn, dead-eyed, violent, borderline-psychotic guy. His brother looked almost younger, as if he had aged backwards. His face looked less lined and tanner. His eyes, a bright green, had light in them once again, and he was more clean-shaven than he had been the last time Sam had seen him. Dean was wearing only a white t-shirt and boxers, so Sam could tell that Dean was in even better shape than he had been before. Dean had always been built athletically, tall and broad-shouldered and muscular, but the muscles in his arms and chest were larger and more defined. He had been working out, and getting some sun, too. The circles under his eyes were all but gone. He had clearly been sleeping before the noise downstairs woke him. He looked...well, he looked better than he had in years. Sam had not been expecting such a healthy-looking Dean, full of life once more.

Dean had eyes only for his little brother as well. They were shiny in the moonlight, probably with tears. "Sam...?" Dean asked in almost-disbelief. It physically hurt Sam, the disbelief and shock in his brother's expression. Dean simply could not believe that Sam had returned, that Sam wanted to see him again. Why had Sam left his brother again? How?

"Hey, Dean," Sam said quietly, and just like that the tension between them, the uncertainty and pent-up hurt and anger and pain and angst dissipated. Dean's face broke into a grin, and then the two brothers crossed the floor in a couple of steps and embraced. Actually, Dean embraced Sam at first, while the younger brother hesitated, unsure if he should dare try to hug his brother. But Dean didn't seem angry, just overjoyed to see Sam. The feeling of Dean's arms around Sam was so familiar, so reassuring even after all this time, that Sam couldn't stop the lump that built in his throat or his arms from going around Dean. They hugged each other so tightly Sam wasn't entirely sure he was still breathing. Over Dean's shoulder, Sam saw the woman smiling at them, looking as if she might cry.

Sam pulled away first, and the brothers quickly composed themselves. "Sam, it's...it's good to see you," Dean said with a smile.

"Yeah, it's...it's good to see you too, Dean," Sam replied. Why was his throat so tight? Why couldn't he stop smiling?

"I didn't know you were coming," Dean said. "Otherwise I would have been, well...dressed at least."

The blond woman laughed, and Sam glanced over at her again. Dean followed his gaze, and Sam watched as his brother's face literally lit up. "Oh, right. I should introduce you two," the elder Winchester smiled. "Sam, this is Julie Carters. Jules, this is Sam."

Julie Carters stuck out a hand to shake Sam's. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she said in a warm voice. She had a pretty smile. "Dean has told me a lot about you and it's...it's good to finally meet you."

"All good things, I hope?" Sam asked with a nervous laugh. How could he expect his brother to have anything good to say about him after he abandoned Dean to deal with his problems alone?

Dean laughed. "Of course. I wouldn't turn my girlfriend against you before she even met you!"

Sam blinked. He guessed he had known ever since he saw a beautiful woman in her pajamas in Dean's house that something was going on, but the thought of Dean having a steady girlfriend...it was crazy. "So...she's your..." Sam said slowly.

"My girlfriend? Yeah," Dean laughed, putting an arm around her shoulders. "What did you think she was, my nanny?"

"You could use one," Julie laughed, leaning into him. Sam stared at the grins on their faces, the ease at which they interacted, how they seemed to gravitate towards each other. It was mind-boggling for him.

Dean seemed to realize for the first time that Julie was in a tank top, shorts, and nothing else. "Oh. Uh, Jules, why don't you, uh-"

"Put some clothes on?" she laughed. "Yeah, I will. I'll be right back. Meanwhile, you should find out why Sam had to break into our house in the middle of the night and almost get himself killed." She shot Sam a grin over her shoulder before disappearing up the stairs.

Sam stared after her, and then gave a low whistle. "Wow."

"I know," Dean sighed. "She's amazing. Still not sure how I got her."

"You deserve somebody like her, Dean," Sam said quietly. Dean didn't reply for a moment, unable to accept that he was worth the love of someone like her in his true Dean Winchester fashion. Then he turned to Sam and prompted, "So why did you feel the need to break in here in the middle of the night?"

That was right. He was here to warn Dean, not just reunite with his brother. Sam took a deep breath and launched into a quick explanation of the incoming threat.

By the end of Sam's explanation, Dean had already reached into a cupboard in the pantry and pulled out two huge bags of salt. He tossed one to Sam, who caught it, gasping a little as the heavy bag knocked the wind out of him. "Well, Sammy, come on!" Dean said. "We don't have much time, and we've got work to do."

Sam shook his head in wonder. Where was the broken, twisted Dean he had imagined for the past nine months? How had he gotten to this level of stability? How was he...well, Dean?

The answer appeared a couple minutes later, as they finished salting the place. She had gotten dressed and brushed her curls. They now framed her face in pretty blond spirals, curling gently against the collar of a tan hunting jacket she wore over a dark t-shirt and jeans. Julie Carter's combat boots thudded as she skipped the last two steps of the stairs. She walked over to the two brothers, depositing a duffel bag full of knives and guns at their feet. She said in a down-to-earth tone, "Well, boys. I see you salted the place, and we have devil's traps under every rug at every door. We should be set. Now...what brought you here, Sam? What is hunting us?"

Sam blinked. Then he slowly turned towards his brother, anger building in him. "You...you told her?"

Dean winced. "Sam..."

"I can't believe you! You told her about hunting? Dean, you've got to be kidding me!"

"Sam, just listen to me-"

"No, Dean! See, this is why I can't trust you; you can't even keep one secret! I never told Jessica, in all the years we were together, but you feel the need to tell every girl you sleep more than once with that we hunt monsters in our spare time? No, Dean. I can't do this. I'm so tired of you-"

Sam didn't know how it happened, but he found himself once again on his stomach on the cold, hard floor, with a knee pressed into his back and a hand pressing his face down. "Okay, Sammy," he heard Julie say from on top of him. Again. "Listen up. Your brother did not tell me he was a hunter. He did not tell me about hunting at all. Now, going off of that and the fact that this is the second time in the ten minutes I've known you I've put you on the floor, and you're supposed to be one of the greatest hunters alive, what does that make me?" Sam mentally kicked himself. Of course. "Come on, Sammy," she teased him. "Dean tells me you're pretty sharp. Put it together."

"You're a hunter, too," he sighed.

"And we have a winner!" Julie was off of him in an instant, and this time she felt comfortable enough with him to grab his arm and help him up. She was grinning, but not in a malicious way. Her eyes were teasing, but her smile was genuine. Behind her, Dean was trying not to laugh.

"Hope I didn't hurt you too much," his brother's hot, kickass hunter girlfriend smirked.

"You didn't hurt anything, just my pride," he muttered. She laughed. Sam looked at her, and felt a little swell of pride and something else. He had made her laugh. He couldn't help but smile, and Julie grinned back. "One more thing," he said, braver now.

"Yeah?"

"Don't call me Sammy," Sam said. "Only he gets to call me that."

"Point taken," Julie said respectfully. Sam looked over and saw Dean really, truly smiling.

"Dean, Sam and I can guard the house fine on our own," Julie said, surprising them. "Why don't you go get dressed and meet us back here?"

"Good idea," Dean smirked. He leaned down and kissed Julie before going upstairs. That kiss made Sam stare. It wasn't a long, lingering, making-out kind of kiss. It was the kiss your father gave your mother before going to work. A short, sweet kiss, a little expression of love.

Dean was in love. That thought finally hit Sam, like a ton of bricks. That was how his brother wasn't a wreck. He was in love.

There was a brief pause as Sam processed this. "Sorry about taking you down the first time," Julie said lightly.

Sam decided to try and wrap his head around the idea of Dean in love later. He smirked. "Only the first time?"

Julie laughed. "Yeah, well, the second time you deserved it. You wouldn't shut up long enough to let Dean explain, so..."

"So you judo-flipped me onto the floor. Again."

"Pretty much." They both chuckled a little, and then stood in silence. Sam didn't know this woman, and he had no idea what to talk about. They had two things in common: hunting, and Dean. He could talk about the demons hunting them with her, but everything in him was begging for answers. How was Dean? How had he been in all this time apart? How did they meet, how long had they been together, how did Dean Winchester settle down with a girl?!

"So, uh...you and Dean, huh?" Sam tried lamely.

Julie smiled a little. "Yeah, me and Dean. I hope...I hope it's not weird for you. I know it's been a while since either of you have really settled down with somebody..."

"It's not weird," Sam assured her. "And...yeah, I guess it has been a while. So...he's told you a lot then, huh? About us about our pasts?"

"Everything," she replied. Sam couldn't stop a quick expression of disbelief from showing on his face. Dean wasn't really the touchy-feely type. He didn't talk about the past, or how he felt. He acted tough and pushed on and buried his pain in beer and hunts and one-night stands.

"I know you probably don't believe me when I say he told me everything, but he did," Julie said after a moment. "Sam...when you left Dean-and I'm not saying I don't get why you left, because he told me that, too, and he firmly believed you did the right thing-but when you and Castiel left your brother, it destroyed him. He had given up the Blade and was hunting alone when I met him, about three months after the fact, and he was a mess. A self-hating, borderline-suicidal mess who buried himself in hunts so he didn't have to think. Or feel."

Sam wanted to tell her to shut up. Never mind. He didn't want to hear what Sam's abandonment had done to Dean. He just wanted to be happy that Dean was okay now. "What...what happened?" Sam asked quietly. "What changed?"

"Well." She hesitated. "When I met him...it was on a hunt. A demon had me pinned, and it was about to cut my throat, and he killed it."

Despite himself, Sam smiled. "That's Dean alright."

"Yeah," she smiled slightly, lost in thought. "My uncle and cousin and I, we let him stay with us for a bit. He went on another hunt with us, and in the process, he took a crazy risk. Used himself as bait when he didn't have to. Could have died. Should have died. Got his arm cut pretty bad before I killed the werewolf about to eat his heart out. He didn't need to take that risk, and that's when I realized...he almost wanted to die."

Sam's blood ran cold. If Dean hadn't been fortunate enough to find this girl, if she hadn't saved him...what would have happened to his brother? Sam knew the answer. He would have destroyed himself.

"So, that night, while I was stitching Dean up...I got on him. About being reckless, about trying to get himself killed. I asked him what could possibly make him think that he didn't deserve to live, and then...he told me."

"Told you what?"

"Everything. Who he was, although I had already guessed that, and everything that's happened to you guys over the past few years. He told me about the Mark and the Blade and you and Castiel leaving him and how he gave up the Blade and just wandered around, killing things and waiting to be killed, and then..."

"And then?" Sam prompted.

"I comforted him. He told me how tired he was of being alone. And then...we kissed."

Sam blinked. "Wait. So you're telling me he told you all this before he slept with you?"

Julie smiled a little. "Uh, yeah."

"Wow. He must have really loved you."

Julie was the shocked one this time. "Oh, no. I don't think he loved me yet." Sam smiled knowingly. "Or at least, he didn't realize it yet. It was another couple days before we even...you know..."

"Before you even what?" Sam asked, all wide-eyed innocence.

"Before we had sex, okay?" she snapped. He laughed, and she punched his shoulder lightly. "Shut up. Anyway, we stayed with my family a few more days, and then we hunted together, and then we settled down here."

"How long has it been?" Sam asked.

"Over four months we've been living here," she said.

"Wow." Sam looked around at this house, trying to imagine Dean living here, coming home from work to kiss his beautiful girlfriend like on an old black-and-white family TV show. It was mind-boggling. Sam was reminded strongly of Dean's time with Lisa and Ben, but this Julie was nothing like Lisa. Well, she was pretty, and female, but that was where the similarities ended. "He must really love you," Sam said slowly, trying to wrap his mind around the idea once more.

Julie smiled a little. Before she could reply, Dean reappeared, saying, "Are you guys talking about me behind my back?"

"I was just agreeing with Sam on how you take longer to get ready than I do," Julie smirked.

"One of us has to look beautiful," he fired back, grabbing Julie's waist and pulling her in so he could kiss her, long enough for Sam to feel awkward standing there. When the happy couple finally pulled apart, Sam felt comfortable looking at them again. Dean was decked out in his leather jacket over a dark button-down shirt, old, dark jeans, and his good old combat boots. He looked like his old hunter self, shedding this settled-down Dean as easily as a change of clothes. "Alright, Sam. I'm assuming the demons didn't arrive while I was getting dressed?" Sam raised an eyebrow and looked around at the quiet, almost peaceful house around them. "Well then, I say we get out of here."

"What?" Sam asked, confused.

"Well, Sam, this is kind of our home," Julie said. "And we really don't want it trashed in a fight against some demons. And, more importantly...we have friends around here. They're just people, and they would have no way to defend themselves if demons came to town."

Sam felt awful for not thinking of the innocent civilians around them. "Right. Okay. Well then, let's get out of here, try to draw them away from-"

The windows rattled as a fierce wind blew all around the house. Dark smoke clouded the windows, blocking out the moonlight, as demons hurtled through the air around the house. Sam and Dean raised their salt-filled shotguns, and Julie reached for a silver angel blade.

"I think it's a little late for that," Dean muttered as the three hunters prepared for a fight.