[h3] Annabeth [/h3]

Anna stood from the bed almost as soon as Sam left, walking up to the vault to listen to what was happening in the rest of the house.  When she heard Sam’s large and heavy footsteps walking up the house stairs, she sighed.  She had promised him she wouldn’t leave the vault.  But she really wanted to know what was going on upstairs…and after hearing the blast from what sounded like the same thing as back at the hotel, her heart skipped a beat and she slipped through the gap in the door and up the stairs.

Coming face to face with Natalia, Anna stopped in her tracks, “Oh um…Hi…um…Please don’t yell for Sam. I just needed to breathe…”

Cason flinched, backing up from Anna.  He pulled the knife he had been holding, and held it out to her with his bloody hand up in front of her face.  Bobby shot up from his desk at the same moment, pulling his pistol from its holster and holding it at his side, hammer pulled.  She took a deep breath, smelling Cason’s blood and fighting the urge to attack him.  When she exhaled, she was fine, no white eyes, no intense thirst, “Cason…I’m not going to hurt you.  I’ve been down in that stupid basement for hours.  After Sam came down to talk to me…I’m fine.”

She dropped her shaking hand at her side, and quickly shoved it into the pocket of her shorts, “What happened up here?”

“What didn’t happen up here…”, Bobby muttered, putting the hammer back down and tossing the pistol on his desk, once he realized she wouldn’t be much of a threat they couldn’t handle.


[h3] Dean Winchester [/h3]

“Shhh…I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you, sweetheart…”, Dean cooed to Mika, rocking her as he held her.  He pulled her further onto his lap, moving her legs to straddle his hips so he could look at her face better.  He pulled his hands up to her face, brushing her hair away gently and looked into her eyes as best he could, through her guilt.

“Look at me.  I’m right here.  I saw red, and for that…I’m sorry, alright?”, he cooed, following her eyes around with his own, his nose high in the air to let her know that he was just there to try and smooth things over, “You um…you need to hear some things, and they are things you’re probably not going to like, but they need to be said.  Tonight proved that to me more than anything.”

He paused, wiping her tears away with both his thumbs as he held her face, leaning forward to kiss her nose, “Just listen…”

Dean proceeded to explain to Mika slowly how Esme had found him, drunk and suicidal, fighting at a bar.  She brought him home for what he had assumed was a hookup, and he begged her to kill him then, or at least help him along.  When she refused, and after he sobered up, they talked.  She calmed him, presumably with her powers that he didn’t know she had at the time.  She was his comfort, and he loved her.  He was honest with Mika about the fact that they had no closure, and he had kissed Esme willingly at the bar, and that a small part of him still loved her.

“But you need to know…that I have never, and will never put another person above you.  I did, for a while, because I had to…for my sanity.  But we’re here, now.  Not there.”, he finished, taking a deep and shuddered breath as he rubbed her cheeks.