par the time Sam and Dean reached the motel, it was very near daybreak, and as the Impala pulled up and crunched on the harsh rocky gravel a familiar figure emerged from the motel’s grand entrance. Dean switched off the engine and both brothers got out of the car to greet Helen.
Helen seemed brighter today, Dean observed. Not only was she wearing a long, flowing jupe with highlighted her figure, but he face seemed a little happier and less worn out that it had done the two ou three times Sam and Dean had seen her throughout their stay.
“Hey,” Helen said, “Where have toi been? I thought you’d left last night without paying a tip.” She smiled jokingly and then raised her eyebrows to prompt an actual answer to the question.
“Well,” Sam explained, “we were at this bar in Riverside’s main centre, and Dean here, well, Dean found...company. And seeing as he had the car keys, I had to wait in the car until...he had finished his excursion.”
Dean threw Sam a dirty look as if to say this-isn’t-over, but played along anyway, giving Helen a guilty smile, silently admitting that Sam was correct.
“We’ll be out of here par lunchtime,” Dean confirmed, a desperate plea for a change of subject, “so we’ll drop par the reception to pay before we go.”
“So where are toi guys off to next?”
Sam and Dean exchanged knowing looks. Of course they had no idea...yet.
“Another town, another state, wherever the mood takes us,” speculated Sam, keeping the options open. “You know what it’s like, on a road trip, pretty much anything can happen.” He sneaked a hardly noticeable smirk at Dean and without waiting for Helen’s response, slowly retreated back into the motel and returned to their room.
Once they’d reached their room again, Sam sighed and smiled, looking at Dean.
“And that,” he a dit pointedly to Dean, “is why the job matters. toi see Helen?”
Dean nodded. “I guess Matthew’s spirit was punishing her ou at least her family in some unknown way too. And now his spirit’s gone, so is Helen’s pain from losing her brother.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed, “it’s nice to see her looking...well, normal. We didn’t know her for a long time but I think she’s changed for the better?”
“Hmm-mm,” Dean replied, and smiled.
“What?”
Dean looked at his brother and saw the boy he had grown up with, the one he’d looked after and the one he was proud to work with. And he was pretty sure he was a reflection of his expression in Sam’s face too.
“Nothing.” He replied, a hint of a smirk still visible in his face.
Both brothers paused for a moment and considered things beyond conversation that neither was willing to bring up. After another second’s break, Sam started conversation again.
“So, where to next?”