Deja made her way across the dark parking lot to the small bar that was just outside the town of Hibbing, Minnesota, running a hand through her hair as she stepped into the smoky and slightly packed room, looking around for one of the two people she'd come to meet.

And it had been far too long since she'd last seen them.

At first, she didn't see either of them, which confused and upset her for a few heartbeats considering she had just seen the empty Impala outside and knew that at least one of them were here. Then, as she looked over by the pool tables, a familiar short brown haired young man walked out of the men's restroom and she smiled at the sight of him, making her way over to him as he came to a stop at a two-person table with a lone beer on its surface by the pool tables. She cleared her throat just before she reached him, taking the opportunity to catch him off guard since he hadn't seen her yet.

"Yeah, Justin Timberlake totally sounds better than AC/DC," she said as if she was talking to someone else while she casually walked by him. Dean whipped around, immediately jumping to the defense of his precious music.

"That is a sin—" he started to accuse, eyes going wide as Deja turned back around to face him with a rapidly growing grin, biting on her lower lip to try and stifle it. Dean's entire posture changed, and he gave her a warm smile, eyes lighting up. "Deja! You made it!"

Deja laughed as she was quickly pulled into a bear hug, returning it briefly before she pushed away. "All right, Dean, I'm happy to see you too, but I like breathing, you know," she laughed, and he held her at arm's length, warm hands placed just above her elbows.

"I didn't expect to see you here already," he commented.

"Well, you said you were headed to Hibbing, Minnesota, so here I am."

"Still, you've been gone…quite a while. It must have been one hell of a hunt—the last time we saw you it was still the middle of April." Dean released her from his grip, taking a seat at the table they were standing beside. Deja took the other seat.

"And now it's almost June, I know," she said with a sigh, waving her hand dismissively. "I said I'd get in touch again when I was done with the case—it just turned out to be a little more complicated than I originally anticipated."

Dean frowned. "You know, I told you if you needed help to call us."

"I know, I know. I didn't need help, it was just long-term…and busy," she said with a slight smile.

"What was the case? I remember you said someone you'd helped before was in trouble."

Deja nodded. "Yeah, vengeful witch coven found her again—at least what was left of the witch coven. Had to take her across several states to get her away from them and deal with them. It felt like a traveling war zone, honestly."

"Vengeful witch coven, flight across country, war zone vibes—now I want details. And I definitely wish you would have called us for help," Dean said with furrowed brows. Deja laughed.

"Sorry, but I'm keeping this story to myself. And don't worry, Dean, I handled it. I do have a life outside of you two Goonies, and I can take care of myself—I've been doing that since I was thirteen," she said with a roll of her eyes.

"Still, it gives me a little more peace of mind—hearing you had an entire vengeful coven after you while you were on your own is not something I want to hear when we didn't hear anything from you the entire time," Dean told her.

"Again, Dean, I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself. You just haven't seen me in action—real, undaunted hunter mode—for a while. There were the ghosts in the asylum, which you and Sam pretty much handled on your own, I was just a little tag along, Children of the Corn take two, and a reaper we couldn't fight. Put me in the arena with a tangible, physical monster, or a demon, or a witch, and you're playing my game," Deja said with a small smirk.

"Pfft, excuses," Dean scoffed teasingly, a slight smirk curling the corner of his lips upwards.

"I'll remember that the next time you need my help, Ken."

"I'm sure I'll be just fine, Barbie."

"Don't think that makes us a couple."

"Why not? I'm sure Sam thinks we bicker like one," Dean returned with a wink.

"I like to think of what we do as banter—trust me, my bickering sounds a lot different than this," Deja returned with yet another a roll of her eyes. "Speaking of Sam, is the youngest Winchester back at the motel you guys are staying at? I was hoping to see him, too."

Dean's smile faltered. "You didn't see him outside? He was ready to go and went to wait in the car until I was done in here…"

Deja frowned as well, her instincts gradually kicking in to tell her something was most likely wrong, especially since Sam and Dean were on a hunt right now. "No, he wasn't. From what I could see, he wasn't in the car, either."

Dean stood up sharply, moving back towards the door with Deja following close behind him. "You guys are on a hunt, right? What do you know already?" Deja asked seriously as Dean pushed his way outside, pace quick.

"People have been going missing here more than anywhere else in the state, the most recent guy was taken from a parking lot—Sam thinks it's a phantom attacker," Dean said stiffly, hurrying down the line of cars to the Impala. Deja hadn't been able to see it when she pulled into the parking lot, since she'd pulled in closer to the bar, but their father's journal was sitting on the back of the Impala, unattended. Deja looked around on the ground for signs of a struggle, but the parking lot was concrete and gravel, so there wouldn't be drag marks on the ground.

One of the rare times she wanted a parking lot to be nothing more than an open muddy area.

While Deja checked the surrounding area, Dean looked inside the Impala on the off chance that Sam was just lying down in the back out of sight. Obviously, there was nothing, as he slammed the door quite forcefully, panic starting to fall across his face.

"Dean, breathe—let's start looking," Deja said seriously, glancing down the rest of the line of cars in the parking lot, which wasn't much. There weren't that many places he could have gone. There was the woods behind them, and the open road in front of them with another sparsely populated parking lot across from then.

Dean ran a hand down his face, making a visible effort to calm down and think first. "Right, he couldn't have gone far," Dean reasoned, getting in the Impala and pulling out two flashlights, one of which he handed to Deja. Together they searched both the parking lot they were in and the one across the street before they went into the woods, going deep enough the street lights behind them with still no sign of Sam before they returned to the parking lot. A group of bikers were leaving the bar, and Dean clicked off his flashlight, rushing over towards them as he pocketed the device.

"Hey, you guys been outside around here, in like the last hour or so?" he asked one of the couples in the group. The woman shook her head and muttered a simple no before they continued readying their bikes to leave, and Dean looked at Deja with real panic and worry on his face now that they had come up empty handed. He turned away, back towards the parking lot they already knew was empty.

"Sam!" he shouted, whipping around towards the bar and the road. "Sammy!"

Deja looked up at the streetlights, hoping that maybe the local authorities had been worried enough to place some traffic cameras outside this particular bar.

They were in luck, but not much. There were two cameras, but neither of them were facing the direction of the Impala or the general area Sam must have been snatched.

"Dean," Deja stated, gesturing up at the cameras when he looked her way. He spared them a glance, giving her a distracted nod as he paced to where one camera was pointing while Deja paced to the other.

They wouldn't even be able to see the Impala in the cameras' peripherals.

"Sam?" she barely heard Dean say quietly, and her heart broke to see him looking so lost and panicked. She hurried over to him, and he met her at the edge of the parking lot.

"We can ask the local authorities to let us look at the camera feeds, but that will have to wait until morning. I'm sorry, Dean, I just…I don't know where else he could be," Deja told him, running a hand through her hair.

Dean growled low in his throat at the thought of having to wait until morning to continue looking for Sam, but they both knew that with that being their only lead, they didn't have much of a choice. "Damn it…Damn it," he said again, a little louder, one hand on his hip while the other pounded his thigh in frustration before he turned back to Deja. "Have you already booked a room somewhere?"

"No, I was waiting to see where you two were staying," Deja admitted. Dean nodded, heaving a sigh.

"We haven't picked somewhere to stay yet either."

"Then let's do that now, and once we're settled in we can look more into phantom attackers in case that's what's going on here. One step at a time, okay?"

Dean stared at the ground for a second, jaw flexing before this wall seemed to go up and he gave another nod, a much stiffer one this time. "Right," he said curtly, walking away towards the bar. Deja turned to follow him. "Let me find a phonebook, and then I'll know where we're staying."

Deja's brows furrowed. "Why a phonebook?"

"Sam and I have this thing, if we get separated, go to the first motel in the phonebook, ask for a Jim Rockford."

"And you're the one signing in as Rockford so that if Sam shows up, he can find us…smart. Let's go, then."

******************************

After they'd gotten rooms in the motel Dean picked out, Deja went to his room with her stuff to set up their research shop for the night. They dug through the internet at the motel's little kitchen table, the silence between them deafening in Deja's opinion. Despite how uncomfortable she was with Dean's silence, she knew why he was being quiet and didn't blame him for it, and as a result didn't complain about it or bring it up. She let the silence remain, filled only by the clock on the wall, the occasional click of laptop keys, and each other's breathing.

After several long hours at the laptop, Deja snuck a peak at Dean. His expression was stoic, fixated on the laptop in front of him, but there was a droop to his eyelids, and a slight glaze he kept blinking away. She watched him continue to struggle with staying awake a little longer out of the corner of her eyes before she refused to sit inactive anymore.

Sighing softly, Deja rose to her feet, shutting her laptop and placing a gentle hand on Dean's shoulder. "It's late, Dean. You should get some sleep."

Dean grunted, eyes still glued to the laptop. "I'm fine."

Deja' pursed her lips, giving his shoulder a slight squeeze. "No, you're forcing yourself to stay awake."

"I said I'm fine," Dean repeated, annoyance clear in his tone.

Deja took his gruffness in stride, closing her eyes and taking a small breath before comfortingly rubbing his shoulder just slightly. "You need your rest to look for Sam, Dean. You can't help him if you run yourself into the ground. Sleep—we'll go to the local authorities as soon as their office opens and we'll have a lead then, okay?"

Dean let out a slow sigh, remaining quiet for several long moments before he suddenly straightened and shut his laptop as well, and Deja dropped her hand from his shoulder. "All right, fine…I'll make an attempt. No promises though," Dean stated, rising from his seat and making their research mess semi-presentable.

"As long as you try," Deja said with a shrug, moving for the door. "I'll see you in the morning, Dean."

"Night," was his distracted reply, but she was willing to take it, slipping out the door and staying outside for a few moments, simply staring at his motel room and hoping that he really did try to sleep.

******************************

The next morning, after a quick stop for two cups of coffee, Dean and Deja went together in the Impala to the Sheriff's department. Dean looked like he'd actually slept the night before, so Deja didn't push the subject, sipping on her coffee and finishing it not long after Dean entered the station. Dean was the one who went inside, since it was his brother that was missing, choosing the guise of Minnesota law enforcement working a missing person's case while Deja waited on a bench in the park across the street from the station. Since it was so early, there weren't that many people around, so the only thing to keep her occupied was the sound of birds and a few early morning joggers while she picked absentmindedly at her empty cup.

Finally, after what felt like hours sitting there, Dean appeared, clapping her on the shoulder before he sat down next to her on the bench. "The sheriff is looking at the traffic feeds now. She won't let me look at them with her, but she is going to show me what she's got if she finds anything."

"Is she at least going to let you help look for him?" Deja asked, turning slightly so she was facing him.

"I don't know…we'll see if we're going to have to strike out on our own on this one…" Dean murmured, leaning back in his seat on the bench. He was trying to look relaxed, but all of his body language screamed of tension. Deja placed a hand on his knee.

"Hey…wherever Sam is, he'll be all right till we find him. He's capable, you know that."

"He's my responsibility—he shouldn't have gone missing in the first place," Dean muttered, still tense.

"You can't control everything, Dean. Especially with this job. Things happen out of our control all the time. That doesn't mean we can't catch up and get control again, though. No one tracks faster than a hunter with the law at their disposal."

"Unless you're bogged down with paperwork," Dean replied under his breath.

"She had you file a missing persons report?"

"Yeah, she had me fill one out."

"Well…such is the price for easy access. It'll pay off," Deja said quietly, removing her hand from his knee. Dean glanced down at its sudden absence, but he didn't say anything about it, sighing and staring out across the mostly empty park.

It stayed quiet between them while they waited for the sheriff, Deja scooting closer to Dean at some point for warmth when the air got a little too nippy for her taste. It was while she was leaning against him, people watching with him despite the few occupants in the park so early in the morning, that the called out to Dean from behind them.

"Greg, I think we got something," the sheriff said, holding a few pictures up high as Dean and Deja both rose to their feet and turned to face the woman. Her footsteps stuttered slightly to see Deja, a small frown flickering across her face. "And who's this?"

"I'm Deja, Blake. Greg and Sam are friends of mine, I was with them last night when Sam went missing," Deja said before Dean could speak, holding a hand out for the sheriff to shake.

"Greg didn't mention there was another witness," the sheriff said suspiciously. Deja easily brushed it off.

"I saw no more than Greg did. I was paying while he was in the restroom, and Sam went outside to wait in the car. We looked for him together, didn't find anything." She shrugged. "Nothing new to add to Greg's story."

"Anyway, what did you find?" Dean asked, cutting into the conversation before any more questions could be asked and Deja had to keep track of more lies. The sheriff turned her attention to Dean once more, handing him the small stack of photos she had in her hand. Deja shifted so she could look at the photos as well while he flipped through them, still standing rather close to Dean for warmth.

Was it always this chilly in Minnesota?

"These traffic cams take an image every three seconds as part of the Amber Alert Program. These images were all taken around the time that your cousin Sam disappeared."

"This really isn't what I'm looking for," Dean stated after a few moments when all they saw was open road and passing cars, frown deep and the stress visibly rising with each passing second.

"Just wait, wait, next one," the sheriff assured him, gesturing for him to flip to the next page. He did, and the picture was of a rust bucket of a small camper pulling out of the bar's parking lot. "This one was taken right after Sam left the bar. Look at the back end of that thing."

Dean glanced at the sheriff before looking down at the picture again, and she continued talking. "Now look at the plates."

Both Dean and Deja leaned in, spotting the brand-new plates attached to the back of the falling-apart camper. "Those plates look new, it's probably stolen," Dean assessed, surprised.

"So, whoever's driving that rust bucket must be involved," the sheriff finished. Dean looked away as a van passed, it's engine's squeal grating on Deja's ears and making her wince.

"Hear that engine?" Dean asked, expression one of utmost attention. Deja looked at him in confusion, wondering what he was getting at.

"Yeah…" the sheriff replied slowly.

"Kind of a whining growl, isn't it?"

"Sure."

Dean watched the van go by a few seconds longer, shaking his head slightly. "I'll be damned…"

Deja felt like Dean had just had some sort of great revelation, and she wasn't privy to it because she was missing some vital piece of information. She couldn't very well ask what it was, though, with the sheriff standing right there, so she held her tongue and resolved to wait until they were alone to ask.

"So, we've got a lead," the sheriff said, snapping Deja's attention back to her. "We know what direction it's going, so we can check the other traffic cams along its route to see where it went. It will take a while, though, so we know where to check. We might be looking after night falls."

"I don't mind, so long as we find Sam," Dean told her, easily falling back into a business as usual attitude. The sheriff nodded.

"You don't mind waiting a little longer while I track its route, do you?" the sheriff asked.

"Not at all," Deja assured her, giving the woman a small smile as she took the papers back from Dean and headed back to the sheriff's department. Deja turned to Dean, expression serious. "All right, you had a revelation—what did I miss?"

"We talked to a kid who witnessed the last disappearance before Sam vanished, and the kid said that he heard a whining growl when Jenkins—the victim—was taken," Dean explained.

"So…not a phantom attacker, just some psychos kidnapping people?"

"Probably," Dean said with a sigh, looking away. Deja grimaced at her word choice, reminding herself Sam was probably with them.

"Well…that's good news, right? I feel like Sam has an even better chance against regular people than a phantom attacker," Deja said, trying to give him a little hope to hold onto.

"Yeah, maybe," Dean muttered, rubbing a hand over his chin. Deja let out a slow breath.

Patience. There was no way Dean was going to relax while Sam was gone—he was going to worry until his little brother was safely under his watch once more. "Come on…we've got some time to kill before she sees us again."

******************************

Later that night, after the sheriff had plotted out the course of their rust bucket suspect, Dean, Deja, and the sheriff all got in the sheriff's car and started driving the route, trying to find where the camper went since it was their only lead. The first full day since Sam had disappeared was quickly drawing to a close, and so far they had nothing more to go off of. It was dark out by now, so they could hardly see the woods around them, which caused Deja to think that perhaps they should be turning around soon.

They were almost at the end of the trail, though, so she wasn't going to speak up yet. Maybe if they didn't find anything obvious tonight she'd suggest they return tomorrow when it was easier to see their surroundings and spot anything unusual.

"Okay, the next traffic cam is fifty miles from here, and your pickup didn't pass that one, so…" the sheriff, who was of course driving, stated. Dean glanced at her from the passenger seat (Deja was the lucky one sitting in the back like a criminal).

"So, it must have pulled off somewhere. I don't see any other roads here," Dean murmured, looking out the dark window despite the fact he would have a hard time spotting any back roads.

"Well, a lot of these backwoods properties have their own private roads," the sheriff told him.

"Great…" Dean muttered. Deja leaned forward to speak through the divider that kept criminals in the back.

"Yeah, where my family and I lived, you had to really look to see the way to our house—the path was really hard to spot. Especially in the winter, fall, or at night. We lived in a two-story on the edge of town, in a clearing in the woods."

Nobody made a comment, a small silence filling the space in the car as the sheriff looked at something on her personal computer. Dean, however, turned to give her a curious look, and it seemed like he was about to ask something before the sheriff spoke up.

"So, Gregory?"

"Yeah?" Dean asked, turning back to her.

"I ran your badge number. It's routine when we're working a case with state police. For accounting purposes and what have you," she said casually, and in the back, Deja grimaced at her tone.

Shit, Dean, you're caught.

"Mhm…" Dean hummed, eyeing the sheriff warily.

"And, ah…they just got back to me." Deja sighed as the car started to pull off to the side of the road. They were in trouble, now. "Says here your badge was stolen. And there's a…picture of you."

The sheriff turned the computer around so Dean could see, and Deja shifted in the back to get a glimpse as well. On the screen was a man that was not only larger than Dean, but also African American.

Dean licked his lips and went into a half-hearted, soft-spoken excuse. "I lost some weight…and I have that Michael Jackson skin disease—"

"Really?" Deja stated, cutting him off before he made more of a fool of himself. The sheriff was already unbuckling, clearly upset.

"Okay…would you step out of the car?" she asked Dean tersely, hand on the door handle before Dean stopped her.

"Look, look, look…" Dean said quickly, and the sheriff turned her attention to him at his serious, slightly desperate tone. "If you want to arrest me, that's fine. I'll cooperate, I swear. But first, please…let me find Sam."

"I don't even know who you are. Or if this Sam person is missing," the sheriff accused, and Deja had to speak up.

"He wasn't completely lying, if that's what you're wondering, and he's not a bad guy," she pitched in, leaning against the iron mesh separating her from the front. "He really is related to Sam, really does take care of him. He's just trying to find him before something bad happens. What's the average, seventy-two hours to find someone after they go missing, or something like that?" she said pointedly.

"Why would I listen to you? You could be lying too for all I know," the sheriff returned sharply. Dean commanded her attention again with one sentence spoke with deadly seriousness.

"Look into my eyes and tell me if I'm lying about this," he said quietly and evenly.

"Identity theft? You're impersonating an officer," the sheriff returned.

"Desperation," Deja countered. Dean cut her off once more.

"Here's the thing, w-wh-when we were young…I pretty much pulled him from a fire."

Deja leaned back in her seat, staring at Dean's silhouette in the darkness of the car. She hadn't known that fact…that the older Winchester had pulled the younger from a burning building. Had that also been the night their mother died? There was a slight shake in Dean's voice that told her it was possibly a traumatic memory he was referring to, one Dean kept buried and didn't talk about, like Deja kept her story buried and well-guarded.

But when she pictured it, she wasn't seeing a young Dean pulling a little Sam out of a burning building. She envisioned a little girl racing out the front door of a house that was ablaze far faster than it should have been, dragging a few bags with keys in hand as she jumped into her father's car and peeled away like hellhounds were on her tail. It was close enough to what had been emerging from the back of that rapidly burning house.

She was picturing what perhaps should have been. She shouldn't have been alone when she ran. There should have been someone there to pull her out of the fire. She should have had an older brother watching out for her that night, like he had every other time things went wrong up until a few months before that nightmare.

Dean continued, and Deja heard him distantly, like she wasn't in the car but standing in the clearing watching the house burn down, a stark contrast of the heat of her burning life and the cold air clashing across her skin.

"And ever since then I've felt responsible for him. You know, like it's-it's my job to keep him safe."

Deja heard every wobble in his voice, every tremble and raw vulnerability he let show in an effort to convince this officer to let him be an older brother, to protect his little sibling.

Like Hayden should have been there to protect her.

What she wouldn't give for her brother to have loved her as fiercely as Dean loved Sam. Perhaps he would have been there for her that night. Perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps she wouldn't have ended up so alone and broken and unloved, perhaps she would have felt more self-worth, perhaps she wouldn't have ended up as fucked up inside as she really was and didn't let the Winchesters see because she didn't know how they'd react to that darkness inside her…perhaps everything would have changed for the better.

"I'm just afraid if we don't find him fast…" Dean continued, and Deja looked up as his voice trailed off, struggling to keep her own emotions at bay just a little longer. His voice was hoarse as he spoke again, and it seemed he was trying to hold back some emotions of his own. "Please. He's my family."

The sheriff shook her head, staring out the window in front of her. "I'm sorry. You've given me no choice." Dean's expression seemed to shatter, like he was watching his world slip through his fingers like smoke, and Deja's throat closed. "I have to take you in."

Deja couldn't bear the look on Dean's face, so she turned to face the sheriff, her tone pleading and desperate, warped by the emotions she was trying to hold at bay so she could retain her composure. "Then at least let me keep looking for Sam, please—I really am a friend, I haven't impersonated anyone, and he has gone missing. We have to find him!"

"You're not off the hook either, you've got aiding and abetting hanging over you. I'm taking you both in…" Deja leaned her head against the iron mesh in front of her, heart pounding. So close, and Sam was going to slip right out of their reach. It would probably be too late to reach Sam by the time they managed to get out of jail.

Up front, the sheriff sighed, shaking her head as she started to put her seatbelt back on. "After we find Sam Winchester."

Deja's head snapped up. Dean's relief was palpable, as he seemed to almost melt into the passenger's seat, and Deja collapsed against the back seat with a relieved sigh of her own.

The car settled into an awkward silence as the sheriff pulled back onto the road, but Deja didn't pay the car's other two occupants much mind, staring out the window on her right and watching the rain from the storm outside beat against the glass surface shimmering with water. The silence meant she had nothing to distract her, and with nothing to distract her, she quickly started to sink into her thoughts.

A dangerous thing, and never something she wanted to do when there were others close by. But the emotions and memories stirred up by Dean's pleading for the sheriff to let him find Sam were too much at once for her to hold at bay for long.

Maybe there was a time when Hayden had cared for her as passionately, before everything had gone to shit and her entire life had gone up in literal flames with magic and screams. She wanted to believe there was, wanted to cling to the memories of her older brother being her protector and comforter when their father wasn't home, wanted to cling to the memories of Hayden tucking her in at night and rescuing her from the people who picked on her at school no matter where her family lived. It had been hard enough always being the new kid with how much their family had moved around, but no matter where they went she had never fit in. Hayden and her father had been her constant…until Hayden grew distant, until Hayden moved out, until Hayden seemed to fade away…

Until he stopped being her older brother one day.

Deja bit her knuckles to use the pain to distract herself before her mind could go there, realizing as she was pulled from her thoughts that she had hot tears slipping quietly down her face. She didn't move to wipe them away, just focused on the pain and on not making any noise as she silently prayed that the two people in the front seat didn't catch her drowning in old wounds.

*****************************

Deja had been quiet ever since the sheriff had found out Dean wasn't with the state police, and he was rather sure it had nothing to do with them being caught. She hadn't so much as shared an opinion or even spare the conversation a short comment or quip.

He had, however, caught sight of her crying silently in the back seat, biting her knuckles to stifle any noise, when he looked in the rearview mirror.

He hadn't dared draw attention to it in the car, unable to help but think of how the only times he'd seen her cry was when he was dying.

So what had triggered those tears?

He didn't bring up the topic even when they were alone in the Impala headed back to the motel after what felt like a long night of finding nothing. However, when he parked the car and they both got out with Deja silently making a beeline for her room, all he could see was the opportunity slipping away, and he reached out and grabbed it before it disappeared entirely.

"Do you want to have a couple of beers before you turn in for the night?" Dean asked, simply trying to get her to pause long enough for him to convince her not to retreat into her room yet.

Deja turned around, rubbing her arm and not quite meeting his gaze. "I'm not feeling up to it tonight, Dean. I think I'm just going to turn in for the night," she said quietly.

"I, uh…" Dean said as she started to turn away, his hesitation catching her attention again. Swallow your pride for five seconds, Winchester, don't let her walk into that room without talking. "I could use the company, tonight."

Deja looked back at him with what was probably supposed to be her usual teasing smile, but it was far too broken, not even a spark of her real smile reaching her eyes. "Dean, I've already told you you're not going to get me into bed that easily."

Dean smiled faintly. He appreciated that she was trying to be cheerful, if only for a moment, to lift his own spirits, but the attempt was depressing when it was clear to him her heart wasn't all the way in it. It didn't have the light-hearted banter and care in it that it usually had. It was just a ruse she put out trying to convince him that she was fine.

"That's not what I meant," Dean said gently, only further saddened by the fact she still wasn't meeting his gaze, like she was going to erupt into tears again if she did. What had happened? What had he missed? "I just want to share a few beers with someone, I'm not asking for anything more."

Deja looked away, back towards her room, and as Dean stared at her back his heart sank at the thought that she probably wasn't going to come no matter what he said, and she was going to retreat for the night just to pretend it hadn't ever happened in the morning, and another opportunity to figure out the puzzle that was Deja Floy would pass him by. As would a chance for him to ease her burden for once.

Deja turned back to him, giving him a slight nod. "All right…but only for a little while."

"That's all I ask," Dean said, giving her a genuine but still small smile, holding the door open for her as they walked into his room.

Dean grabbed two beers out of the mini fridge in the room, opening both and placing one in front of Deja where she sat on his bed. She had a knack for always sitting on his bed, never Sam's, even though it was clear this time whose bed was whose since Dean's was the one that was actually slept in. Dean himself pulled out the chair at the kitchen table, angling it so that he could face Deja before he sat down and took a slow drink from his beer. Deja sipped quietly on her beer, eyes distant as she still looked somewhere other than at him.

After a few moments of silence where Deja didn't speak and Dean let her believe he was simply enjoying the company, he decided to break the ice, starting small instead of attacking her with the question of why she was crying right out of the gates. He wasn't even sure he should ask since she'd tried so hard not to make a sound.

She was trying to hide it with how she folded her hands, but her teeth had drawn blood from her knuckles. He'd glimpsed the markings.

"You know, I, ah…I've never heard you talk about where you grew up before. Two-story house in the woods on the edge of town, huh? Sounds nice," Dean said carefully, watching her closely to make sure he didn't cross some line he didn't know about.

It was times like these he was reminded how little he really knew about her.

Deja cleared her throat, nodding as she twirled the bottle lightly in her hands. "It, ah…wasn't where I grew up, per say. Just the last house we lived in. We moved around a lot."

Dean nodded. "Military family, I remember. Active service, then?"

"Yeah, he was active at the time. We had to move around a lot," Deja murmured.

"Good memories?" he asked.

Deja flinched, and Dean cursed inwardly, even though he had no idea what line he'd crossed until she managed to speak. "Not enough," she said hoarsely, taking a long pull on her beer.

The last house they lived in. Shit, right…it must have been where her family was killed.

Damn it, Dean.

He wasn't used to seeing her this vulnerable. He'd caught glimpses of it when she'd bring up her past to give him some advice, or when he'd been dying, but he hadn't seen this much vulnerability. He could see her cracking even now, putting up a wall and trying to withdraw for protection, and he didn't even know her that well.

Not as well as he would have liked, anyway. For all the time they'd spent together, and how comfortable he'd grown to be around her, he didn't know her as well as he should have.

Chances were he was just going to keep fucking up if he kept beating around the bush, so Dean did his best to go right to the heart of the issue without being painfully direct.

"Listen…I'm not good at the whole…emotion sharing thing…" he started, and to his surprise, Deja cracked a weak smile.

"That makes two of us."

He paused, staring at her for a moment. "Well…that makes me feel a little better," he admitted, setting his beer on the table and leaning forward. "But…I saw…earlier, and I wanted to know if there's anything I can do."

Deja looked up at him—finally—and to his surprise her eyes suddenly shone, tears barely held back. Since it was out there that he'd already seen what was on the other side of the wall she was trying to put up, it simply crumbled, a few tears leaking past her control.

She didn't tell him why she'd been crying.

She didn't tell him what was hurting her so badly right now.

Despite the fact she was rapidly unraveling before him for reasons he wasn't privy to, she didn't break down sobbing.

"Make me forget," she whispered softly. "I remembered, but I don't want to. It's easier to forget. Just make me forget…"

Dean left his beer on the table, coming to sit beside the suddenly fragile seeming woman before him and putting an arm around her shoulders.

"I'll do my best."