𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐍

𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐘-𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

He kept his distance while she dressed. Sam brought tea from the gas station just down the road and hit the shower.

"You know," Katherine begins in a murmur, gripping the hot mug with both hands, leeching whatever heat she may from it. "They say as you're dying...your memories flash before your eyes. Some scientists think it's because of the...electrical impulses to the hippocampus, the part of the brain that's associated with memories. I don't think it's a subconscious effort, I think it's people genuinely thinking of the best times of their life. Because I was right there...I felt everything. I wasn't...remembering the best times of my life, I was thinking of everything I didn't have the chance to do." Her eyes wander to Dean's hands wringing themselves. "I wouldn't get to tell you all the things I was too stubborn to say. I wouldn't...see my family again. Wouldn't be able to hunt with you any more." Shy blue eyes lift up to his. He forces himself to smile, to swallow the lump in his throat.

"Of all the things to think about, you choose to cry over the chance you'll miss out on bruises and broken bones and concussions," he replies equally as soft.

Lovers trying not to get caught.

"As long as I'm with you," she hums. Her eyes flit from his. Retreating. Wondering if she should— "I meant what I said, you know."

"Yeah," Dean murmurs, brows furrowing. His heart feels so full it might burst. "Yeah, I do. Katherine, I—"

"Shh."

"No. No, I won't." Dean shakes his head. "I'm in love with you." Katheirne's blue eyes fill with tears, and she looks away from him. "I'm so sick of running from it. I just...I just wanna be, you know? I wanna be with you. And I know I fucked up before, bad. Maybe I'm a dumb son of a bitch for not knowing how to make it up to you, still."

"You shouldn't talk about your mother that way," Katherine says into her mug.

Dean stares at her. "I love you, Katherine Louise," he proclaims. Her breath hitches in her chest, and she can't help but look at him. At the truth blazing in her eyes. "You're the only one with something holding you back."

She scoffs. "What, because I say I love you and you say you love me, I have to immediately call Charlie and break up with him?"

Dean's eyes bug. "Why not?"

Her eyes pop right back. "Because I just died and he has no idea! Because I don't break up with people over the phone!"

The shower cuts off. Katherine turns her knees away from Dean, and he stalks into the kitchen.

Trouble in paradise.

"Maybe we're not good for each other anyway," she hisses to him. Dean throws her a look. Seriously?! She shrugs wildly at him. "We always fight—"Dean violently gestures to the shower, and Sam emerges with a billow of steam behind him.

So that's the end of the discussion.

A few days pass. It's a lot of hovering, a lot of spying. Sam picks up on the fact that they're both mad at each other, but he doesn't know why. Well, he can figure. He did, anyway, when Katherine chirpily answered a phone call from Charlie and promised she'd be coming to see him again soon.

Katherine displayed her talent of knife-throwing a few times, barely shearing the smallest fraction of an inch off of Dean's hair. Sam knew it was a way to channel whatever frustration she harbored for his older brother. Maybe some kind of revenge for shooting her in the chest. She joked about it a few times.

One night, Sam pulled Dean from bed and confronted him about his suspicions that Dean had made a deal. Much to the older brother's surprise, Sam wasn't pissed off. He said he would help.