"You were...really quiet."

It was Dean's attempt at a compliment, really...maybe something rooted in a little bit of very deep thoughts...of recent behaviors...no, no, just...just tonight.

Dean promised himself he wouldn't spiral.

Katherine wipes the spray of blood from her face on her jacket sleeve, runs her knife blade against the dead vampire's jacket, and tucks the machete into its holster at her hip. "We, uh...were hunting creatures with super hearing," she says to Dean, moving towards one of the other beheaded vampires at the foot of the stairs.

She and the Winchesters just slaughtered a nest of twelve vampires. It took a week to get intel on them after one of her contacts gave her a heads up about a nest acting up in Fayetteville, preying on college kids. Naturally, she went.

Anything to get her mind off of what the djinn gave to her. What it took...what it didn't.

And here Dean is. Spiraling.

"Kind of essential to keep quiet," Katherine continues, grabbing the vampire's body by the ankles, and drags it to the center of the basement with the other one.

"No, I know," Dean says, nodding. "I just meant, like, in general."

Katherine throws the legs down with a sigh. "Are you going to help me get rid of these bloodsuckers, or should we Dr. Phil it right here?" She asks, planting her hands on her hips. Dean presses his lips together and moves for the nearest corpse.

Upstairs, Sam is making quick work of the three dead vampires.  

 Dean grabs the next body and drags it towards the center of the basement. "You sure you're okay?" He asks her.

"Yeah," she grunts, picking the last corpse up. 

Before this, she had been completely aware of her surroundings. Now, she steps in a trail of blood and she lets out a heavy defeated sigh. "Friggin' peachy."

When it's all said and done, Katherine drenches the bodies with accelerant and tosses a strip of matches onto the pile. Immediately, flame engulfs the corpses, and she and Dean move upstairs to help Sam finish the job.

Halfway through the drive back to their motel in another county, Katherine is struggling to keep her thoughts on anything but the djinn. It's all she's been able to think about lately...even when she tries to think of Charlie.

Even as he's on his way to see her. He's coming to her, and she can't even give him the time of day.

It hasn't even been two weeks since what the djinn did to them. The effect of the djinn on her has yet to be seen by the brothers. She was quiet for those days, seemed to avoid conversation if it wasn't light. She smiled sometimes, joked seldom. But she hasn't been the same. The Winchesters have the same question itching at their minds, but they don't ask. If they know Katherine, she'll talk about it when she's ready. Perhaps she's still processing everything.

Dean didn't further discuss his dream world with either of them. So Sam really has no way of gauging how much of an impact something like that would leave.

Dean's hand hesitates over the radio, warring thoughts bloodying his mind. It's a battlefield in that skull of his. Persistent thoughts of leaving the young woman to her own, cordial and safe... And then there are those completely opposite. Demanding and fierce, honest, prying. To insist she say something to him.

Before he can change his mind again, Dean picks the radio up and presses down on the side button. "You okay?" He asks, glancing in his rearview mirror. Her headlights glow warmly, and the cab of the car is nothing more than darkness. But from that darkness and silence comes her voice, low and dulcet, and most of all, tired.

"I'm fine."

Dean lets out a soft sigh. He can't help but kick himself, thinking he's the cause of her distance. In some ways, he is. She's trying to distance herself from the Dean she knew in her dream world. Two sets of memories, so difficult to forget. His laughter and easy smile. The way he was with the kids. Oh, how he doted on that Gracie.

Katherine's lip quivers. 

"I just miss talking to you," he says. "You seem different. I'm worried."

She hesitates. "It's...a lot to take in," she murmurs, then releases her button to let out a soft sigh. Dean waits patiently. "After what the djinn did...what I saw...it's hard to get back to the Hunter's Life, you know?"

Dean pauses, only for a moment. "What was it like?" He asks. "What did you see?"

Katherine purses her lips, and Dean's heart swells with hope, and fear. Suspense. He glances into his rearview mirror again, almost as if he's expecting to see her face. "I don't know if I'm ready to talk about what I saw."

After a moment, Dean nods, then presses down on his side button. "S'okay," he tells her. "I, uh...I can give you all the time you need. I just...I'm always here for you."

"Yeah," she says, then smiles briefly, softly. "Yeah, I know."

Katherine holsters her radio. Staring at the tail lights of the Impala, the memory of the warm glow of the motel room is triggered in her mind, and it's everything she can do to only recall it once more.

Dean had just been in the middle of another one of his infamous self-loathing festivals. His eyes seemed brighter, greener, from the red stinging at the whites. Blaming himself for her being with Charlie.

The thought of him just hours away tugs at her stomach like a violent riptide. She'd never felt so guilty. Both for what she dreamt, and her feelings now. She hasn't shared them with anyone. Hell, she'd been hesitant to even think it. But that dream that spanned days, really only lasting a few hours, planted those sweet, false memories, and made her life that much more complicated. As if hunting creatures of the night wasn't difficult enough. 

She doesn't know why she's so drab about the whole thing. It could never happen. Dean has always made it perfectly clear that is the exact opposite of what he wants, even if he does want her like he says.

But still, it tears her up inside, like some ravenous caged wolf. She never sees Charlie. She loves him dearly, of course. His gentle, doting touch. His sweet smile and soothing voice. She's never once heard him frantic. He knows exactly what to say, and how. But to keep him on this fishing line for what could be the rest of their lives...having ties to someone who has removed themselves so far off of the grid...what kind of life would she be asking Charlie to live?

Images of the bank robbery in Milwaukee flash before her eyes. She remembers, viscerally, how she reacted to seeing Sam and Dean's faces on her television screen. What would Charlie do if he saw her mug on the nine o'clock news?

She's infiltrated his life in very personal aspects, and that makes the both of them easy targets for anything on Katherine's tail. Charlie doesn't have the training that she does, or Sam or Dean. If he found out she were held somewhere against her will, he'd go out of his mind. And likewise. If anything ever happened to Charlie on her account...

She white-knuckles the steering wheel at the thought. She'd been so selfish and stupid, thinking anything like this could work. As if hunters before her hadn't attempted to have at least half a life. A significant other. It all ended horribly. Usually with blood and guilt.

Charlie has a chance, Katherine reminds herself. He has options. You've already decided. You did a long time ago. You decided before you even drove into Haley.

Seeing Dean the way he was the other night, subjecting himself so at Katherine's mercy, emotionally, physically...it stirred something inside her. Made her eyes sting. Pride. Passion. She didn't even have a word for what she felt when she looked at Dean. But it was almost tangible, so intense...impossible to ignore, especially after what the djinn revealed to her. Her innermost desire.

Do you want to be happy or do you want him?

Even as she saw Charlie's face light up in baggage claim at the sight of her, she wasn't sure what her answer would be.

It was easy, though, when it was just them. The moment they were in her motel room, she forgot all about the djinn, and Dean and Sam.

Is she a bad person?

"I missed you," Charlie whispers, his lips brushing against the shell of her ear, holding her close. She twists at the hip, burying her face into his warm bare skin, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. 

"I've been meaning to come by," Katherine murmurs into his chest. "Dean's so plugged into everyone else...it's hard to have a few days without him getting another case."

His fingers run over the tip of her shoulder, down her arm, lingering on a bruise. He'd done this just a little while before. Found all the bruises, all the patchwork stitch jobs...he could tell which ones Katherine did and which ones a Winchester did. He didn't want to know which one, didn't have the courage to ask. He'd hoped it was Sam, though.

"Why do you like what you do?" He asks. 

"Because I get to help people," she answers.

"You helped people at home," Charlie murmurs. His large, dark eyes bore into hers.

Katherine takes a long, shaky breath, eyes dancing across his dark skin as she thinks. She makes her eyes follow her finger, tracing up and down the hills and valleys of muscle. "There are a lot of doctors," she begins. "There aren't a lot of people who do what we do...and someone has to."

His fingers dance over her hip. "All the...all the scars, the pain...it's all worth it?"

"Yeah. Some of them are kind of cool." He gives her a flat look, but she's wearing a cheeky smirk. "Uh, there's this bar Soph and I used to go to in New Haven, and the owner said it was haunted but she didn't believe her, so one night after close I went by and all this freaky shit was happening. Toilets flushing by themselves, lights flickering, glasses falling." Katherine animatedly nods. "Got thrown into the mechanical bull, cracked three ribs."

"Katherine, I don't think our ideas of 'cool' are the same," Charlie sighs, dropping his head onto the pillow. She presses her lips together. "You went by yourself?"

Katherine shrugs, turning onto her back, and holds her hands up to the ceiling. "Had nobody to go with. I dislocated this finger once." She taps her left ring finger. "Was pretty gnarly."

Charlie holds his hands up, too. His arms are much longer than hers, hands much wider. "I once took a nail gun through the palm." He flips his right hand around and shows her the scar. "I was drunk."

Katherine hums, lips pressed into a thin line. "You told me that. Idiot."

Charlie grins. "Yeah...wasn't my brightest decision." He turns his head to look at her. She does a double take, then drops her arms. "What?"

"I just miss looking at your face." She reaches over and tucks his chin between her thumb and forefinger. "I miss being with you."

It's something of a haven, being in Charlie's arms. She's never been held quite like it before. His arms are like a vice around her ribs, but...she likes it.

It feels like he's holding her together.

Katherine got to keep Charlie to herself for one day. Just one. She kept asking if there was anything Charlie wanted to do while they were together, before their company joined them. She lay between his legs as his arm came around her shoulders and she scrolled on her computer for anything relatively fun to do in town. 

She melted when he said he just wanted to hold her. So he did. All day. And she was quite content with it. 

Six AM. Six. That's when Sam called her.

"If you're calling me at this ungodly hour, you'd better be dead or close to it," Katherine croaks.

Sam's laugh is barely audible over the sound of wind and the roaring engine of the Impala. "We're headed back to you," he says. "Charlie still in town?"

"Mhm." His fingers twitch at her hip. "How far away are you?"

"Two hours."

"Jesus," Katherine sighs. She hears Dean's voice, a low, untinelligible rumble. Something stirs in her gut. 

"Dean says wants to get breakfast."

"So get something on your way in."

"No, Dean—"

"C'mon, lemme talk to her," the eldest Winchester chirps. There's scratching. "Heey, Kitty Kat."

"Dean," she sighs, propping herself up on her elbows.

"Can you and Charles meet us at that cute little diner just outside of town in about an hour and a half?"

"No."

"Why?" He squawks, genuinely affronted.

"Because it's six in the morning and we're tired. Charlie's still asleep, anyway."

"Like that guy needs more than ten minutes to get dressed before he walks out of a door."

Katherine sighs heavily.

"C'mon," Dean says, the play in his tone dropping some. "We wanna meet him. What's yours is ours, all that shit."

She snorts. "You said that when you ran out of toothpaste."

"Well, I still think it's stupid we have different toothpastes."

She stares at the horrible wallpaper of her nicer motel room. "Because you insist vibrant peppermint is somehow superior to radiant mint."

"Wha—it is!"

"And that's why we don't share toothpaste. And you squeeze from the middle."

"I do not!" Dean cries. "That's Sam!"

"What?" The youngest Winchester asks from the passenger seat. 

"Squeezing the damn toothpaste from the middle."

Sam blinks at him before turning his attention to the faded blacktop in front of them. 

"See!"

Charlie stirrs beside Katherine. She sighs, pressing her thumb and forefinger into the thin bones of her brow. "I'll call you later."

"See you in two hours." 

She hangs up, sets her phone on the night stand, and drops her head to the pillow. Wipes her hand on the sheets, ridding herself of the sweat she found herself plagued with every time she came clsoe to Dean. Whenever she spoke to him.

"Who the hell was that?" Charlie asks, voice thick with sleep. She feels him stretch out beside her.

"Sam and Dean," she replies in a murmur. "They want us to go to breakfast with them."

Charlie moans a little. "What time is it?"

"Shh." She blindly paws at his mouth. "Sleepy time." A smile tugs at Charlie's lips underneath her fingers before he kisses them.