Leaving, Part Two

Who: Dean and Thia
Where: Osbourne Residence
When: late morning/early afternoon

Lullaby had finished picking up the glass and everything in her bedroom, cleaned up as much of the random debris as she could, and packed up a few things to take to Billy's. She hesitated on a lot, not sure what she was comfortable bringing and what she wasn't. Because she had so few possessions, she felt like if she packed up everything, it would be like she was leaving forever. She didn't want to do that. So, after she picked up the picture frame she'd knocked over when she'd first been attacked by one of the shadows, and righted it on her nightstand, she stood back, and decided to leave it there. The picture of her and Journey would stay. So would the picture of she and her parents. She left some clothes in the drawers, she left a few things in the ruined wardrobe. She dragged it out as long as she could without feeling too overwhelmingly guilty.

Then, she went in search of Dean, and she really hoped that she didn't do anything stupid. She was already feeling clingy, she could feel it there, beneath the surface. Annnd she really probably couldn't be doing that right now. Just because she was feeling really off about this entire thing, and she really didn't want to leave, didn't mean he had to know that. He'd only worry or something. And yet she was also highly aware that she sucked really badly at hiding things in general, especially when it came to hiding things from him. Heading downstairs, she didn't really have that long of a search, finding him in the hallway, cleaning up. She leaned against the wall, and didn't announce her presence right away. Instead she stood there, and watched him.

This had taken him hours - and that wasn't even an exaggeration. He'd swept up the glass, and the bits of plaster, and more glass, taken down the boardings, swept up some more glass - thirty odd shattered mirrors gave you a whole lot of glass. Really. And the number of bullet holes? Yeah, there was daylight showing through some of them. But, he'd eventually finished and he turned, spotting Thia. "You must have been moving quietly," he observed, leaning against the broom.

She smiled faintly. "Practicing my stealth ninja routine." she answered him. She also realized she had no idea what else to say right then. 'By the way I'm leaving' didn't work for her. And they had to go upstairs to clean the bathroom, but she didn't want to bring that up right away either. Her other option that she wasn't doing was going over to him and hugging him and not letting go. Yeah that wouldn't at all be suspicious.

"So, this look any better?" he asked her, looking around at the room. "Or just tidier devastation? Personally, I'm going with that one. But maybe bullet ridden is the new look in interior design and I'm missing something..." he suggested, going with light hearted for now. He liked light hearted after the weirdness of yesterday.

She made a show of looking up and down the hallway. "Yeah...tidier devastation." she agreed, making a little bit of a face at him. "But you've done a really good job with it? It's nicely tidy devastation." she told him. "So...good job. You get a cookie." she told him. Not that he'd eat a cookie if she gave him one. Or, maybe he would. She'd test the theory, if she didn't think that it was wholly her avoiding everything.

"Well, that's something at least," Dean told her, heading over to her since he'd noticed that she was staying over there. He didn't like that, especially not today. He wondered what to start with - 'so, my friend's left town', or the more positive 'hey, so I have a car now...'

She resisted the urge to reach out and tug him the rest of the way over, so she could hug him. Right now she didn't know if that would be weird or not, and she didn't really want to start behaving oddly for no reason or whatever. Or alright, she had reason, but she didn't think she could tell him just now. They had so much else to do anyways, and she wanted to kind of...she wanted to sit with him and talk to him when she told him so she could say proper goodbye and everything. She didn't know when she'd get to it, and she recognized that she was avoiding like there was no tomorrow...but she was going to keep doing that for the moment. She looked up at him, watching his eyes. Maybe she should give him the hug anyways. People hugged each other all the time, right? And if she kept it short or something, maybe he'd just chalk it up to her being weird, or a girl or something. She managed to keep herself in check, though, even if it was done by fidgeting with the sleeves of his shirt, tugging them back up over her hands properly. "Would you eat a cookie if I got you one?" she asked.

"Probably not - unless you asked me very nicely. Because I'm at your beck and call, remember - which might mean you can get me to do things that I'd normally moan over," he teased, smiling a little. "So - did you text Joshua?" he asked her.

She smiled a little bit at that. "Then I'm gonna make you eat a cookie." she decided, and she reached out to take his hand, letting herself do that. She laced her fingers through his, and started to lean back, to tug him along by use of her body weight. "Yeah I did. He's okay, says he got scratched on the back, sent me a picture. It's messed up his tattoo a little. I don't know much about scarring over tattoos though, so maybe it'll be fine."

Dean allowed himself to be pulled, the way he always did. "Hmm, no, I don't know much about that either. Makes me think - if you're going to get one, maybe you should think about, y'know, choosing a place where you're - that's not going to get scarred easily," he suggested.

What, like my inner thigh? crossed her mind, but she really didn't figure that would be appropriate to say, therefore she didn't. "Any ideas on where that might be?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at him as she led him into the kitchen. She only let go of his hand to lean across the counter to pull the cookie jar forward and she peered inside. "Oreo or chocolate chip?" she asked, after assessing the selection inside. She looked back at him so she wouldn't miss his answer.

Oh yeah, a few ideas sprang to mind, but he'd walk over hot coals before saying any of them. "Dunno, just... Yeah. Erm - which is smaller?" he asked, redirecting onto the cookie subject instead. He'd take whichever cookie was smaller. He never had preferences when it came to food, other than quantity-based ones.

"...depends. Oreos are thicker, chocolate chips are wider." she said, and she took out one of each, to hold them up so he could pick one. She might even eat the other one, just because. "No ideas on where I could get a tattoo that would be less likely to get scarred? Liiike...the bottom of my foot? Oh! Or I could shave my head and get it on the back of it." she added, grinning at him. She said it just to see if she could get a rise out of him. He hadn't liked the idea of her dying her hair, after all.

Dean looked at the thick layer of cream in the smaller cookie and reached for the other one, taking it and pausing for a moment before biting into it, chewing and swallowing. Just like everything else, it tasted bland and slightly off, he felt the texture of it more than anything else. At least food didn't seem to be actually making him sick anymore. Not even nauseous lately. It made a welcome change. He was half way to taking another bite, hoping to get this over and done with quickly when she started in about her hair and his face dropped, his expression a picture, though he didn't actually say anything.

She grinned impishly at him. "What, not keen on that idea?" she asked innocently, reaching out to poke him in the stomach because she could. She also did in fact take a bite of her cookie. It was always weird for her to eat anything since she'd all but stopped since her death. But...cookies were in fact good, and she could use a little something good in her day today. Really she could. Even if she was getting a little bit of a pang, thinking about having a bit of fun with Dean right now, and it was all going to end really shortly.

Dean shrugged. "Bald headed women always look weird," he told her, brushing it off. In truth, he liked her hair, and he had to resist reaching out to touch it, something that was on his list of things he regularly resisted. He'd been disappointed when it'd become clear that her hair had gone back to being shorter again - he'd been liking the slightly longer hair as she'd grown it out. Of course, he didn't feel he could tell her any of that, so - generic covering it was.

"I dunno, Sinead OConnor pulled it off. But maybe that was just because she was famous. Oh and the chick from Empire Records looked okay too. But, maybe you're right. Maybe it's just not for me. I don't really have much of an option though for where to get it. I could get it on my ankle or something, or the top of my foot. Kinda like here?" she asked, pulling her foot up to point at the top of it, mid-arch but off to the side. "It would also depend I guess on what you come up with. Any ideas yet?" she asked.

"Hey - you asked me that like, last night," Dean pointed out. "It's all nag, nag, nag with you, isn't it?" he teased, poking her in the side a little. "First cookies, now art... It's a good job that I like you so much, you know that?" he told her, setting the cookie down on the counter and scanning round until he found a pen and a scrap of paper.

"Hey, you could have had inspiration strike while I was asleep." she pointed out. "It's possible, you're the artist." she added. Then she pushed herself up on the countertop, finishing her cookie, and she put the jar back. "And I know, I'm terrible. All I ever do is order you around...force feed you cookies...demand random artwork...I'm just really really lucky you like me as much as you do." she agreed wholeheartedly. Even if she was grinning at him playfully. "Ooh. Do I get artwork right now?" she asked.

Dean glanced over. "Maybe," he told her, before lowering his head, hunched over the page as he started to draw. The lines were swift and smooth, he'd clearly had an idea in his head. The centre of the design was a simplified angel, her wings lifted away from her body, the wingtips curling into a design of shadows that twisted away, becoming a delicate and intricate spiral design that filtered out rather than stopped. He paused, then added in a little more where he wasn't happy before taking a step back and pushing the design over to her.

Lullaby grinned as he started to draw, and she watched him while he did it. She even shifted, sitting sideways on the counter, one leg curled in front of her, the other still dropped off to the side. She swung it lightly back and forth as she smiled, seeing the design unfold. Yeah, he'd thought about it. When he pushed the design to her, she picked it up, and smiled brightly, quite clearly happy with it. "I love it!" she declared immediately. She kept smiling as she studied it, really just appreciating the design in general. It was lovely, and cuteish at the same time, and of course, wholly original. Something just for her that no one else could have.

Dean twisted the pen round between his fingers. "Yeah, well, good - cos that's all I got," he said, brushing it off, but actually very happy that she'd liked it. He'd been mulling it over for quite a while now, wanting to reflect how he saw her in the design. She probably didn't see that though, she'd probably just see it as a pretty picture - and it wasn't like he was going to disabuse her of that any time soon. He wondered if that was weird and creepy - that he'd let her go and have something that permanent put on her body, which had so much more of a deeper meaning to him than it ever would to her.

She was still smiling, and she abruptly pulled him over, putting her arms around his neck to give him a tight hug. "It's perfect. Now we just need to figure out where it goes, and get money, and my ID, and it'll be all set!" she said. Cuz yeah, those were just small things. Really. She didn't care, she had a nice excuse to hug Dean at the moment, and she was good with taking it. And possibly keeping him there a few moments longer than absolutely necessary. But! She didn't kiss his cheek, which she thought he deserved. She reigned that in.

He drew her in, hugging her back, smiling past her shoulder for a moment before he pulled back, schooling his expression again. "Well, your ID is at Caleb's house - he called this morning to say that he and his brother have to leave town for a while, like straight away. So he said that he'd left your ID in his car and left the car for me to use whilst he was gone," Dean added, honestly still surprised about that - the whole thing really. Caleb going, the car - everything. It seemed so sudden.

Her eyes widened. "Really? It's here already?" she asked, blinking a bit. "And you get a car?" she asked. "That's...huh." she said, shaking her head. "Really cool? Only not so much that Caleb's leaving, but randomly getting a car is neat." If you have a car, maybe you can come visit me. If you want to. she thought. That...almost made her feel ever so slightly better, even if it didn't really touch on her main internal upheaval over the whole thing. But it was something.

"Yeah, I just have to pass my test now," Dean agreed. "It's going to be weird though, with him gone. I mean, I don't know that many people or anything. Not that I knew him well really, but we were getting there - or I thought we were. I dunno - I think you're probably the only person who really knows me here, I guess," he said, reaching for her hand, then catching himself and diverting slightly to pick up the pen again instead.

She was watching his face, so she missed the change of destination for his hand. Her smile turned a little sad, and she felt a pang again. "That's just because you couldn't get rid of me." she said. And...fuck. Caleb left today, and I'm leaving tonight. ...or today, I'm not supposed to be late. But I'm still leaving. I don't want to though. In fact, if I could think of any way to get around my needing to be at Billy's to help Maddie and everything, I would. But there isn't really anyone else, is there? And, because he was close, and she was less able to resist, in her current mindframe, she tugged him back over again, hugging him. And yes, it was a clingy sort of hug, but she didn't really care.

Dean didn't really expect to be clung to because of that, so though he went with it - of course - it was with an air of surprise. "I'm okay, really - it'll just be weird," he assured her, patting her on the back a little. "Anyway, he promised to keep in touch and everything, so, yeah."

"That's good." she said, not letting go just yet, but she did after another few moments. Everything's okay. You're fine. she told herself. Stop being weird. That was easier said than done, really. When she let go, she kind of looked down, and she brought the design over again to look down at it, basically to give herself something to do, or look at, that wasn't him. She recognized she should say something, but she didn't.

Dean watched her, quietly, for a moment, then touched her arm, leaning down and in a little to look closer, waiting for her to look at him. "Are you okay?" he asked her, frowning slightly.

No. she answered silently. She bit at the inside of her lower lip, and forced a little bit of a smile, and her eyes up on his. It took a moment longer than it should have, even if she could feel him getting closer and everything. "We um. We still have to go upstairs." she said. Which was also awful and on her mind, and god, should she tell him before they went up there? That was going to be traumatic no matter what, and she considered telling him again that she'd do it. She didn't mind. But should she tell him, then have them go clean up the evidence of her having died on him? Which was worse? That, then hitting him with 'I'm leaving'? She didn't think either way was especially fair, or tactful. Neither one seemed to be the clear right choice. She'd go for telling him she had something to tell him and he could pick now or later to hear it, but she knew he wouldn't go for later. The second he knew there was Something Going On, he'd want to deal with it right now.

"Thia, what's wrong," Dean asked, jumping on the pause and stumble there and growing more concerned. Sure, he didn't like the idea they had to face his bathroom either, but that didn't make sense with the sudden cling when they weren't anywhere near talking about that at the time. No, the bathroom seemed more like a distraction she was clutching at.

"Can we talk about it later?" she asked. "After?" she met his gaze, and held there. She'd rather talk to him after that was over with, and they didn't have to deal with it, then something else hanging over their heads. Or...whatever. she was projecting. She didn't want to deal with that, then have the bathroom thing hanging over her head. She'd rather tell him when she could say goodbye properly. Not tell him, have something terrible to attend to, then leave. You know, you're probably blowing this up in your mind. It's something you don't want to do. You really really don't want to. But that doesn't mean he'll take it badly. You're projecting. Stop it. she told herself firmly.

No - we can talk about it now. Tell me what's wrong, Thia! Dean's heart was hammering now and he had this sudden feeling of dread. What was it that she had to say that she couldn't? What had happened in the last, god, what - four hours, max, since he'd last seen her? And without her having left the house, since he'd been in the hall all that time. He wanted to pry it all out of her, but wondered if that was too much ask.

She winced internally. The lines had kicked up, of course. She'd been meaning to not be behaving strangely, then she'd gone and done it. Yeah she really was shit at hiding anything. Especially when you do stupid things like cling. That really has something to do with it you know. she chastised herself. "Everything's okay." she told him first. "Nothing's...it's okay." she attempted. "No one's hurt, everything'll be fine." Or that was her story and she was sticking to it. For now. She didn't know about later. Later like when she was at Billy's, probably feeling miserable and out of place.

Dean didn't completely buy that. At least, not the first bit. And that 'everything'll be okay'? Yeah, that generally meant that things weren't okay now. "Thia - tell me what's wrong," he said in the end, promising himself that if she fobbed him off one more time, he'd drop it for now. But he couldn't not push.

Lullaby gave a bit of a pained look. She didn't want to talk about it now. Of course, she didn't really want to talk about it ever because she'd prefer to not be doing it at all. If absolutely nothing else, she didn't want to talk about it in the kitchen. So, she slid down off of the countertop to the floor, not sure what the hell she was going to do. "Let's go upstairs." she said first. She still had her drawing with her, and she held onto that, planning on putting it in her room in her notebook-journal to take with her. She supposed she hadn't actually decided yet if she was going to tell him now like he'd asked. ...or, well. Demanded, it hadn't been a question.

Dean suppressed a growl of frustration, instead pushing back off the counter and crossing to the storage cupboard, grabbing a handful of black rubbish bags and some more cleaning products. Fine - if she wanted to avoid shit and go clean the bathroom, it'd just have to be done quickly - and then he wasn't going to let her avoid for a moment longer. "Come on then," he told her, looking across as he headed out of the kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time.

She felt like she'd done something really wrong then, but followed along anyways. Again, she was struck with the fact that there really wasn't a good way of doing this. Either way it was going to suck. Up the stairs she went, though she detoured into her room to put the drawing away first, then she followed into the bathroom. Now the decision had been made, she supposed. He'd taken it to mean that she was saying they needed to go upstairs to do this. She wasn't going to correct him now. Absently, while she walked through the closet, she was figuring that she'd just conveniently forget Hennabean when she left. She'd kind of stayed with her castle, so their game of putting her back and forth between each other's rooms at random had fallen by the wayside for now. He'd just have to keep her. Then she walked into the bathroom again, and she looked around again. Yeah...this was just a fucking mess. And Dean was now pissy as well. "Is there anything I can say to make this slightly less awful right now?" she asked.

Dean was thrusting still damp, bloody clothes into a bag as she walked in and he looked round as he added his boots in with them. What - this room, or that fact you won't talk to me about what's up? Dean thought, but he shook his head. "No - let's just... get this done, okay?" he asked, actually asking this time rather than demanding.

She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. "Okay." she said. Then she walked over, picked up a sponge and some spray cleaner, and stepped into the bathtub. She started to spray down the walls, thinking what they really needed was a garden hose. Just...stand at the door, spray the entire room down, then mop up the pink water. She was doing her work cleaning, but she kept looking over at him her attention more there than on the blood.

Dean threw the the bag of ruined clothes into a corner and grabbed another, sweeping bits of mirror into it, adding the towel that was in the floor to the mix. It was blood soaked and filled with mirror shards, he was fairly sure that it wasn't savable.

She kept wanting to say things, but didn't. What would she say? She didn't really have anything, and he'd just said she couldn't make it better, so she just kept her attention on him, and did cleaning things. She sprayed down the inside of the shower and wiped it down with her sponge, then got out of it and turned the shower on, directing the spray at the walls. She had to stand on the tub ledge to do it, but whatever. She was going to have to wash her feet, too, she noted, considering they were bare, and now tracked through dried blood. She glanced at the floor, and wondered if she shouldn't just direct the spray there. "I'm going to just get water on the floor there." she said, before she did it, so he could tell her no, or okay. It wasn't her bathroom.

"Don't worry about it - this place is a mess anyway. Bit of water won't hurt," he cleaned up told her, finishing on the last of the mirror and starting to clean up the sink, wiping off the bloody handprints, determinedly focusing on just getting this done and over with so he could find out what the hell was going on. It helped, in a way - it took away a lot of the potential trauma of this nightmare, horror-movie room.

She did it then, stepping back against the wall to direct the spray out onto the floor. She didn't let it go on too long, but enough to soak it and give a little bit of a puddle for them to work with. Then she shut the spray off entirely and stepped down off of the tub ledge. She eyed the toilet seat, and sprayed that with her cleaner, and wiped it down with her sponge. Then she looked around for a towel or something, so she could start mopping up the floor. She found one that had some blood on it anyways, and got down on her hands and knees to do that.

Dean had a great ability to focus - if there was something that needed doing, he'd do it, quickly, efficiently and to the exclusion of everything else until it was done. So the bathroom got cleaned up as best they could in what seemed like no time at all. He looked round to check they were done and, when he was happy that they were, he turned to Thia. "Right - so. You had something to tell me," he said, expectantly.

She looked around once more too then pushed herself up onto the countertop, partially perched on the edge of the sink, and turned the tap on, so she could wash the blood off of her feet. That didn't take long, though, and she made sure there wasn't any pink left in the basin before she got back down again, walking over towards the door. "C'mon." she said. "Let's not talk in here."

Dean wasn't looking happy as they headed out into the closet and he sat down, shuffling back. He was still worried as all hell about what was going on, and nervous too boot. What was it that she couldn't just come out and say? What had happened?

Following him into the closet, she shut the bathroom door behind her, and stayed by the door, looking down at him for a moment. Did she ever not want to have this conversation. Pushing off of the door, she went to go sit by him, facing him. There was enough light from the ajar door to his room so they could see each other. "Billy came to talk to me today." she said. "Earlier...asked me to do a favor for him." she said. "And I guess...I'm going to go stay there for a while." And I don't want to. At all. Really really not. I like it here and I don't want to leave you because remember how no one looked after you while I was dead? What're they going to do when I'm not here for longer and what happens if you go away and I'm really really not happy about any of this.

Dean looked at her, his mouth ajar slightly. She was going away? She was leaving? "Oh," he said, his voice quiet. He licked his lips, dampening them. "Erm... What was the favour?" he asked. "Just... That you - I mean... Why?" he asked, thinking back to his conversation with Oz and wondering if this was a set up, or just an odd coincidence.

"He said that with Maddie being pregnant and everything and with the wedding coming up and her not dealing so well with being in this century that she needed help and he's working all the time and..." she trailed it off, watching him very, very closely. "So he wants me to go stay there, so I can help her." she finished. I don't want to. Did I mention I don't? I feel like I have to, but...

"Oh." There was that word again. "I guess - that's nice that you'll do that." Maybe coincidence, he decided. It made sense. He told himself that he wasn't allowed to be stupid about this. It wasn't like she was going far - just a few miles up the road. And her moving in here had always only been until there was somewhere better for her. And he'd just got used to this, having her around. And if she wanted to go then he wasn't allowed to try and stop her. He had no right. "When are you leaving?" he asked, his voice hollow.

"I can't really say no..." she started, watching the blackness spread out from him. And his tone was off when he said that last bit. She'd heard it before, of course, just...not that often. So it wasn't good to hear now. Though if he was ecstatically happy about it, that probably wouldn't have felt very nice either, but still. She got a little closer, not sure if she should or not, but wanting to. "Today. I promised Billy I wouldn't be too late. He's already taken off, he said he'd come get me, or Sophie could bring me out."

"Oh, right - it's, er... It'll be quiet here without you," he said, wanting to tell her that, yes actually, she could have said no. Easily - it was a word. No. Simple. One of the shortest, easiest words there was.

She gave him a faint, quirked half smile that didn't last very long. "Cuz I'm so loud." she said. "You'll just have to find other ways to avoid your homework." she said. And to randomly tell stories with, and spend time hiding in the closet with and building castles with and you can stop any time here now, Lullaby. You're going to make yourself cry. And you? Aren't going to do that. She crawled over closer to him though, sort of half reaching for him, even if she wasn't sure for what. A hug? Maybe. She wanted to go curl up on his lap for a little while, but didn't do that unless he put her there, really.

He did just that, pulling her in. He'd got too used to this, he knew, just having her here with him. But if he was losing it, he was going to take what he could while he still had it, and so he pulled her in, settling her down into his lap, holding her to him. "I'll have to text you - and then you'll be forced to reply and so will I and all of a sudden it'll be hours later and my homework still won't be done. Or I'll randomly stop by in my new car and you can tell me what a clapped out piece of shit it is," he teased, trying to be positive about this. She deserved his support.

She was glad when he did it, and she drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as she settled, relaxing against him. What he said made her smile a little again. "Yeah, you'll have to. I'll be" lonely "bored and everything. So I'll need the distraction from teaching Maddie her way around electronics and stuff. So you'll have to text me. Otherwise you might become a good student or something. And you'll have to come by with your car. Maybe we can make it less shitty or something. Or I guess, more it would be you would do that, and I would offer moral support. And maybe like...something to hang from your rearview mirror."

"Just not fuzzy dice, kay?" Dean told her, not really caring whether she got him anything at all. Or whether the car was shitty. Just that - she wasn't going to be here any more. And he'd have to go to her - which was fine, except... They wouldn't get to do this any more. It wouldn't be the same. "Did you want to take the castle with you? I can finish it off and I'm sure we can get it out to the car..." he offered.

She didn't really want to think about taking things with her. Unless it was him. Could she take him with? That was a big fat no, as well as spectacularly unreasonable, and weird, and dependent, and a whole host of other not so good things. She leaned her head back against his collarbone, and thought about it, eyes sliding over to where the castle was. Did she want the castle? She'd already decided Henna was going to be staying with him. "Can't pick up her whole kingdom and move it. The people would be traumatized." she said finally. Then, slightly quieter. "She lives here." And she meant more than just her bunny.

Dean closed his eyes and held her more tightly for a moment before he made himself stop that. She could have said no, even if she said she couldn't, if she'd really, really not wanted to, she could have said no. And if he asked her to stay - would she feel trapped? Would he be guilting her into staying? She could make up her own mind and he didn't have any right. "You'll always have a home here, Thia. And, I mean - you're room's sort of ruined right now, so, y'know... Maybe I could fix it up and..." Was she coming back? She hadn't said whether this was permanent or not, had she? But, if Billy could have a room here, so could she, damnit.

She felt better when he held her like that. She also closed her eyes, and turned slightly more towards him. Couldn't she just hide here for a while? Put it off? Because she didn't want to leave. She didn't want to leave by any stretch of the imagination. She still felt like she had to, though. Him saying she'd always have a home here helped some. He wouldn't say that unless he meant it, and it wasn't like she could miss the fact that he wasn't dealing with this fantastically well either. When he talked about her room, she smiled a little bit. "You'd fix up my room?" she asked. "That'd be neat. I'd like that." she decided. He didn't have to or anything, but if he wanted to, she'd be all for that.

"Blues and stars on the ceiling, right?" Dean checked, knowing that that was right. He'd have to talk to Sophie, but he was thinking that maybe he could swing a few favours. "I could do that - but you'd have to agree to it being a surprise. You wouldn't get to see it until it was finished," he warned, smiling a little at her calling it her room.

"Blue with stars on the ceiling." she confirmed, smiling some more. "You have a good memory, don't you. And okay. I agree to it being a surprise. If I come by, I'll avoid it entirely and won't peek or anything." she promised. The more they talked, the better she felt about it. Making plans like that, like she was going to be coming back and she'd even have something nice to come back home to...that helped quite a bit. She reached down and hooked her pinky finger with his. "Pinky swear." she added.

Dean hooked his little finger around hers. "Cross your heart?" he added, knowing it wasn't at all necessary, but if she was going to be five, then so was he. And it was better than dwelling on the 'if' in that statement.

She smiled, and with her finger still hooked with his, she brought them up and crossed an x over her heart. "Cross my heart." she said. She didn't add the rest of it, because that? Was just amounts of inappropriate she wasn't ever going to delve into. Then she laced her fingers through his and hugged his arms around her again. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, having one of those moments where there were a million things on her mind to say but she was having trouble landing on a single one.

Dean didn't say anything for the longest time, until he couldn't not say things any longer. "I - I don't want to crowd you or anything, but - would it be too much to ask you just to - I mean, whether we're talking or not... To just, like, text me every day, just to let me know you're okay? And if there are any problems - anything at all - promise you'll tell me straight away? And if you ever need anything - you know where I am." And I'll miss you.

"I'd like that." she said honestly. "Maybe before you go to sleep? So, we'll know that everything's okay up til then?" she asked. She'd feel a lot better if they did that. Then she smiled a little. "...and if you were bored other times you could text me then too. I don't wanna...I don't want to crowd you either, but you wouldn't be crowding me, I'm..." I think I miss you already. Which I'm sure is just sad. "And same for you, with the problems thing, and you'll come see me sometimes? Since you'll have the car?" she asked. And she hoped she didn't sound as pathetic as she thought she did, but yeah, she probably had.

"I have my test on Monday - now I've got a decent reason to pass it first time," Dean promised. "And you could never crowd me," he added. At least, not by text - he didn't have to worry about invisible walls by text. He just didn't get hugs either.

She laughed a little, finding herself playing with the cord on his wrist. "Then you'll probably get a lot of those." she said. "And yes. Good plan. Pass the first time. I like that idea." she decided. Hadn't you been meant to sort of let him go? You're doing so terribly well with that. She'd do it later. Like, when he found other things to do and drifted himself. Or something. Even if the thought had her feeling a wash of sadness again. God did she ever not want to leave.

"But - Sophie can run you up tonight, right? I mean, you don't have to leave just yet, right?" Dean asked. "I was thinking that, maybe - with the shadows gone and everything. We could..." He grappled for something, a good idea, anything. "Go for a walk, or something."

And Lullaby was damn well going to latch right the hell onto that. "I don't have to leave right now." she said. "I said I wouldn't make it too late, but it's not that late right now. So...yeah. Let's go for a walk." she said. Funny how she didn't stand up though. She would in a second. She just wanted to stay where she was for a few moments more. "We kept meaning to anyways, and haven't." she added belatedly. Of course, their lives had been stupidly crazy for too long now and that was why they hadn't. If another crisis hit, she was hoping that Billy and Maddie decided immediately to head back here. She didn't want Dean dealing with crises on his own. He didn't take care of himself when things happened. She made him sleep, or take a few minutes to breathe, all that stuff. God, you're going to take care of yourself while I'm gone, right Dean? You have to. Please remember to do that.

Dean didn't have a problem with her not getting up straight away. "We keep meaning to do a lot of things that we don't do," he agreed, still holding her there, though in theory, he'd let her go if she tried to move. Really he would. "Maybe this'll work better for us - we can organise things, I can come pick you up - we'll have a purpose," he suggested, telling himself that that didn't at all sound like 'date' and he didn't mean it like that and even if he did - which he didn't - she wouldn't take it that way anyhow. It was just friends having an agenda to do things.

"Yeah." she agreed. Though she thought they didn't do what they planned to do because they kept getting interrupted by massive stupidity. That was always something to watch for. But yeah, maybe if they actually had to plan to spend time together, they'd be better about actually following through with things. "I think that sounds good. I've got places to show you, y'know." she said, knowing full well that he did know. She leaned her head back and tilted it slightly towards his. "Of course, you know I'll run out of places to show you pretty damn quick." she added. "So, be prepared to brainstorm on things to do together." she informed him. Yep. Still not getting up.

"Ahh, but I'll have a car," he pointed out. "So we can expand the whole thing about places to see. You can educate me in the whole American road trip thing. Totally alien concept, but I'm willing to learn..."

That made her giggle a little bit. "You've had to have been on a road trip before." she said. "It entails...getting lost at least once, one car-fight, lots of junk food, a lot of music switch ups, probably awful motel rooms...and--" she paused there. "I was going to say that we couldn't do that but actually now we probably could. We'd just need funding." she said. "There's three places I can think of for road-trip destinations. Maybe four."

"Thi - I come from a country where you can drive from one end to the other in a day. Except the traffic's so bloody bad that nobody wants to. The furthest road trip I've been was up to Scotland when I was a kid to visit my dad's best mate and his family for a holiday. That's it. And there's wasn't so much fights as me being told I wasn't allowed to beat Scott's head in for asking 'are we there' yet every two miles. The trip took like five hours, so no motel rooms - in fact we don't have motels really. And mum doesn't believe in junk food - not that I'm really a junk food person anyhow - you might have noticed..."

"You know I did notice that." Lullaby said. "You'd have to suffer through a little bit. I know it'll be difficult. And if we wanted to take a really long road trip we'd have to go down state. There are concerts down there, or we could go to Illinois and go to a theme park or something. That would be a properly long trip. Other than that we've got Appleton in Wisconsin which is a four hour drive, and like...Canada...which is about three and a half, I think. Mackinac Island, but that's only summer time, and the main reason to go there is novelty, and fudge, so you'd only wanna partake in the novelty. There's the Paulding light, if we just wanted something close and suitably weird." she mused, rambling a little. Then she paused. "Okay I get your country is small, but you have no motels? Where do people sleep?"

"Hotels or b'n'bs generally, but not that kind of 'park outside your room' shit that you get over here. Random things at the side of the road. Generally, you plan things in advance, there's no real stopping off on a whim. You don't need to - where you stop is generally where you wanted to get to anyhow." He paused. "What's the Paulding Light?" he asked, since it was the only one that didn't sound like a place - or if it was, it was a really weirdly named place.

"This little weird thing that Unsolved Mysteries did a segment on way back in the day." Lullaby said. "There's this little ghosty light that appears and no one knows what it is. It's got shifty colors, and is just generally weird. People have tried to chase it down, of course, but people still don't know what the hell it actually is. It's more a day trip though, not necessarily a long road trip. Might be fun though." They'd be gone overnight, but she was okay with that. He wasn't going to be in the next room anymore, just in case. No more sleeping in the closet. No more crashing with him, not unless things got bad again and they came here. Which again...she was hoping that was the plan.

"That sounds interesting - in a freaky weird way," Dean agreed, "And day trip's good," he added - because, really, he hadn't actually been thinking that any trip would ever be an overnight one until she suggested it. Not that he had a problem with it, in theory, it'd just... That would be something new.

"Well just about everywhere I said could possibly be a day trip, depending on what time we left in the morning." she said. "And how much time we wanted to spend hanging around our destination. If we only killed a few hours wherever we went, then that, Wisconsin and Canada could all be done in a day." she explained. She was back to playing with the cord on his wrist. They'd been meant to go for a walk, really they had. But she kinda liked making plans to do things with him instead, it made her feel less like she was leaving and she'd just not see him anymore.

"I'd have to see how Sophie and Oz felt about me being away over night..." he told her. Because he knew his mum would veto it straight away. But his mum wasn't here. And she'd also veto him learning to shoot as well. He should learn to be independent - sooner the better. That was a good argument, right? Responsibility and stuff?

She nodded. "And I'd have to ask Billy and Maddie." she said. Which sounded weird to her. But she'd have to check. She wouldn't just...take off and not ask or anything. And she'd never take off without saying anything first. "You know if we were going to be taking any kinds of road trips...we'll probably need to do it before the snow flies. Because when that happens? You'll need to re-learn how to drive anyways." she informed him, teasing just a little.

"Then we have, what? A month? How about next weekend?" he asked her, eager to actually put something definite in place before she left. Before she left and he had to go back to school. They could arrange something, get away from Marquette - it'd be great. He just had to pass that test.

"Maybe a month." Lullaby said. Then she smiled, looking back at him a bit. "Next weekend? Sure. 'Course, you realize that neither one of us has that much money, right? Or, you know I don't. I think the rest of what I did have should go towards my ID." Which she still wanted to be able to see, so she could find out what her last name was now, and everything else. "You gonna get that stuff tomorrow?" she asked. "Or Monday, when you're all licensed driver man?"

"That depends on the weather, or whether I can get a lift into town. If it's raining and I can't? You're waiting til Monday. Can you do that? Be all patient?" he teased. "And as for money, don't worry about it - I get my allowance from home at the beginning of the month, so I'll be flush again for a while. I think I can stretch to stuff as long as you don't want all the bells and whistles."

"You know, I think I can be all patient." she mused thoughtfully, as if she really had to figure that one out. Actually it reminded her that she needed to text Caleb. Which...she'd do later. Or something. "I can be good at being patient. So sure. I'll do that. And I've never been a fan of a lot of frills, so y'know, I think we're good there too." she decided. She really had to figure out a way to make actual money. That? Would be good. "Or I can rob a bank, up to you."

"I say no to the bank robbing - this time. Maybe next time, eh?" he suggested. "I got this. It'll be fun," he told her. Anyway, he was thinking that he would be spinning his mum a tale of how his boots got ruined in some major disaster accident (though not the actual truth there) and he needed new ones in the hope she'd send him something extra anyhow.

Smiling, she hugged his arms around her tightly again, and didn't say what crossed her mind. "I ever tell you you're the best?" she asked. "In our history together, and all, have I mentioned that bitty fact?" She knew she told him things all the time, but there was a lightly playful undertone to her voice--just so she didn't kick up his usual reaction to compliments.

"Yeah, you might have done - and I still hold you need to get out more," Dean teased back at her, giving her a light hug. He rested his chin on her shoulder for a moment, then looked across at her a little. "So... We were going to go for a walk," he pointed out. Not that he'd shown any inclination toward moving at all.

"Mmhmm." she agreed, nodding slightly and looking at him as well. "We were." And witness their not doing that. In fact, neither one of them had shown any inclination to move. Lullaby was happy right where she was, and if Dean had wanted to move, he certainly could have. It wasn't as if she presented much of an obstacle for him, now was it? He moved her around all the time.

"Wow - enthusiasm," he joked, prodding her in the side. He wondered if she was as disinclined to moving as he was. It seemed that way, but he did feel that he should be making more of an effort to actually doing something here. Not that he wasnted to, but - it was the right thing to do. "Come on," he said, sighing slightly as he shuffled her forward and encouraged her up.

She made a little protesty sound, but moved, because he moved her. "But you're nice and comfy." she told him, shifting forward to reach for the hoodie she'd ganked from him before. She'd need it if they were actually going to be going outside and everything. It wasn't that warm out there and all. Not like it was in here, where there was Dean-heat to leech off of and a nice enclosed space for them to occupy. You know that's probably the best argument ever for going with this walk business. she told herself, recognizing that her opinions on the matter were a tad bit off from where they should be.

Dean raised an eyebrow and kinda half settled back down again. "We - we don't have to go if you don't want..." he told her, feeling like he should be insisting right now. Just because. But, really - if she didn't want to, then that was her choice, right? Something like that anyhow.

She turned towards him, and tugged the hoodie over her head. She had the urge to do something but didn't, and then smiled at him. "We probably should go for a walk." she said, though she maintained that where they were was pretty awesome. "If nothing else, if we're not here to bug about me leaving, I can stick around for a little while longer...I'm not really ready to leave quite yet." she admitted. Or y'know, at all. She still felt like she couldn't say no, though. Billy and Maddie had done a lot for her, so...yeah.

Dean was a little disappointed, though he was careful not to let it show as he got to his feet. "So - when you leave, is the hoodie leaving with you?" he asked, holding out his hand for her. He was holding her hand today. She was going, he was allowed that until then.

She smiled when he offered her his hand, and she took it, taking the help up. Usually it was her who stood up then held her hands out for him, so it was a nice change. She kept hold of it, also of a mind that she wasn't going to be letting go until she had to. She laced her fingers through his for good measure. "Is it allowed to?" she asked him. She was giving him just a little bit of an impish smile. "I promise I'll bring it back eventually." she added. "Or, I could switch it out. Like, borrow this one for a little while...bring it back and steal something else..." Which was an idea she was good with, for reasons she didn't especially feel like overthinking.

"Switching it out sounds... acceptable," Dean told her. More than acceptable to him, though he wasn't going to say that. She didn't need to know - shouldn't know - that he liked her wearing his clothes. "Come on, let's go," he said, deciding that doing something, like walking, now was a good plan.

"Yay, sanctioned theft." Lullaby said playfully, starting to tug them along since they were leaving. Even if she would have been perfectly happy to just shut the door, sit right the hell back down, and stay there. But sure. Outside, a walk by the lakeshore...she wasn't overthinking that either. "You realize you're going to get your shirts back smelling like Girl, right?" she asked over her shoulder, starting them down the stairs.

Yes, oh hell yes! Dean shrugged, like it didn't bother him either way. "They can be washed," he reminded her, but there was humour in that. "I mean - you don't think I'm gonna be wearing dirty clothes now, do you?" he teased as they hit the bottom of the stairs and headed out.

"Well, of course not." she said, tsking and sticking her tongue out at him. She drew in a deep breath of the fall air when they got outside, and she tilted her head up to gaze at the sky as they walked, pretty much trusting Dean to tug her out of the way of any random obstacles in her path. "But they might retain inherent girl-ness to them or something, depending on how long I've had them. I mean, your shirts smell like Boy when I borrow them." she told him. Or less like Boy and more like Dean. There was a difference, though she'd noted that there was a distinct sort of boy-scent. It was different for each one but there was something kind of familiar about it regardless.

"You sure you're just not not used to whatever Sophie uses to wash my clothes yet?" Dean asked. He'd never really given the whole scent thing much thought. At least, not enough to know about whether it lingered on clean clothes. Usually Thia was wearing her clothes when he got anywhere near them - or his clothes. Or something like that. Anyway - he wasn't exactly going through her drawers having a good sniff, and the borrowing thing wasn't going both ways now, was it? He should probably stop thinking around about now, he decided. His clothes would look good on her and they'd come back smelling of her. Yeah, he should just stop thinking about now.

"Pretty sure." she said. She grinned at him, starting to pull him along faster as they headed towards the water. "Soooo...where's your first destination going to be when you get your fabulous new crappy car?" she asked. "You'll be a free man and everything, able to go wherever you want. Y'know..cuz there are so many places to go in Marquette." she said, smirking. "But should you happen to want to go there, you could. It'll be easier to go to some of the woodsy places I wanted to take you." she said thoughtfully. "Like Wetmores. Or we could go climb sugarloaf if we're feeling industrious. Wetmores first though." she decided. "It's pretty and there's about a hundred and ninety less stairs."

Dean frowned a little. "Stairs - I though Sugarloaf was a mountain?" he asked, knowing full well that his first destination when he passed was going to be her house - god, that sounded strange. His house was her house. Only not anymore.

"It is. It's just got stairs up one side." she said. "And the term 'mountain' might be a tad misleading." she added. "I mean, it's one of the highest places, you can see for miles and everything, but it's not like...snow capped with mountain goats or people needing climbing equipment littering the sides of it or anything." she explained. "But there's...like two hundred eighteen steps going up one side. There's a trail up the back too but I haven't been up that way in ages. I usually just like to go to look out at everything. There's like...a nice area at the top with benches and stuff."

"I think I'd prefer the trail - stairs up a hill, mountain, whatever, seems like cheating to me. And less fun." He paused and looked over at her. "When you do that phasing out thing - how do you move? Do you still walk, or are you just... Can you just be somewhere else when you come back? And, if you walk, do you make any sound? If you're not really there, but you 'tread' on a twig, would it break?" he asked her.

Lullaby thought about it. "I don't really know that much...when I practice, I've just sort of practised phasing out and holding it. I...well, I don't do a whole lot without you there." she admitted, and wondered if that was strange. "I could try right now, and we could find out." she said. "I could phase out, run, and you could tell me if you hear anything, and we'll see if I actually can run, or if I get far before I phase back in." she mused. "Want me to try?"

Dean gave her hand a little squeeze, his only suggestion that he may just be a little nervous about it. "Now's as good a time as any," he said, shrugging slightly. He'd been thinking about it, and he'd realised that when she'd told him that she'd been practicing alone, that had stung just a little. He hadn't recognised it at the time, because they'd been in the middle of a fight, but later, he'd thought about it. It was stupid, he knew - of course she was going to practice. And he didn't have a hold over her, or any right to demand to always be there. Nobody could have that. And it made sense she'd be practicing. But still - they'd had a thing once where they'd do all of this together. He wondered if that didn't hold true anymore. Possibly this was an attempt to claw some of that back. A futile attempt, he figured, since he wouldn't be seeing as much of her anymore.

She squeezed his hand back, and gave him a little smile. "Okay." she said. "...see you in a second then." She slid her hand from his, and concentrated on not being there. It was weird, any time she did it, though generally when she did it was just sitting in her room, and all she did was phase out and see how long she could hold it for. She moved a little bit when she tried it, just not far and not often. She always felt a little strange doing anything major without Dean there with her, so she hadn't done anything major. When she felt it, that kind of weird shift in her being, she tried to take off running. Or what felt like running.

Dean froze as she left - not because she'd left, but because he was listening. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sounds around him. It was quiet here, so he wasn't overwhelmed. He could hear the breeze in the trees; the light noise of traffic out on the main road; the ever-present hum of electricity; countless other small noises that were always there around where people lived. But no sounds of her walking, not suggestion that he was anything but totally alone.

She sensed more than felt that she was in fact, moving, and it was like a rush forth of her consciousness as she moved fast up through the trees, not getting too far before she phased back in, whirling back to face Dean. She looked around, and laughed a little. "Hey--I'm over here." she said. And she was. She was actually a little farther up than she had initially figured, and she stepped back a moment, hand up to her head, as a bit of a headrush hit her. "Woo..." she said, laughing a little before she shook her head. "Did you hear me?"

Dean opened his eyes again the moment she reappeared, hearing the sound of her twirling around, seeing her and starting toward her almost before she'd finished turning to face him. "Okay - so that's officially a 'no', stealth-girl," he told her. "I couldn't hear you at all - so unless we get Oz out here to test the theory, I think it's safe to say that you're silent."

She was grinning at him, waiting for the headrush to pass. There were little sparks in her vision, but that was about it. She put both arms up in the air triumphantly. "I am a ninja!" she declared. "Go me! And I can move...I tried to run, so I guess I can move as fast as I can move as a person, maybe?" she suggested. "That's handy."

"Are you tired?" Dean asked her. "Does it tire you? Or is it just like running like that as well? Do you get out of breath from it? We should test your stamina sometime," Dean said as he reached her, all these questions and ideas popping into his head. It was okay to talk about it now - it wasn't like last time, they weren't discussing whether he should shoot throguh her or not.

"Um..." she thought, automatically stepping closer to him, taking his hand as he reached her. "Actually? It's really weird. I don't feel out of breath, but I've kinda got a headrush going." she said. "It's kinda ebbing right now, but yeah. So...I dunno what that means, if it means it takes energy, which would stand to reason, or if I just haven't been out running for too long or something." she shrugged. "I think we'll have to test it out a lot more to figure that out." she decided. "Maybe see how far I can get. If like...like automatic doors will open if I pass in front of them or if motion detectors won't read me."

"You should test that when I'm not around," Dean suggested, refusing to give any time of day to the whole exploring this together thing. He was just being ridiculous. "Cos - is the head rush passing because it passes. or is it passing because of me?" he posed.

She thought about that. "Good question." she said. "I dunno. I mean, I'm starting to run lower on energy. Most of what I picked up from the orphanage has been spent. Not all of it or anything, and we know you sustain me." She paused for a second, then frowned at him a touch, head tilting to the side. "...wouldn't it be kind of...not good to do that without you around?" she asked. "I mean...we kinda do this stuff together, don't we? And even discounting that, say it does burn my energy, and I'm at Billy and Maddie's, and decide to take a run in the woods to see how far I can get with the phased out thing, and it does burn me down. I...thought you were really spectacularly unhappy with the idea of me burning out everything I've got. You were the one who told me I wasn't allowed to run myself down far enough to see what happened."

He gave her a Look. "I didn't mean you had to go out and run a marathon or anything, Thia. But we don't know if this takes up energy for you or not, or if that was just a headrush as a side effect of, say - your body finding out it's in a different place from where it was a moment ago. or something. Like dizziness. I mean, the shadows thing doesn't seem to tire you out at all, so maybe this doesn't either. I think it'd be a good idea to find that out, that's all. For the record, though - I'm still set against you running yourself down just to see what happens." And yes, we do this together.

"That shadows thing I have to try not to do." Lullaby said. "It happens on it's own, this I have to try to do." she said. She also noticed that he didn't say anything to her kinda-question about them doing this sort of stuff together. Maybe they didn't anymore, and she hadn't realized. Or maybe he didn't want to anymore or something, she didn't know. It gave her a pang, and she stepped back from him a moment, glancing away. "Well, let me try it again, and just...don't come too close until I can tell for sure if I really have drained myself some. I'll be a minute." she said, concentrating on phasing out before he had a chance to answer her--which she realized was unfair of her.

"O..." Dean started, but she was gone and he didn't finish the 'kay' part, or the rest of the sentence. He didn't know where she was, he had no idea if she was looking at him, if she could hear him. That made him twitchy in a way he couldn't quite define, but he made himself stand still and wait. Be good and just see what happened.

She took off running again, and probably ran farther than she necessarily should have, and actually, her concentration slipped a little before she was ready to phase back in, which had her tripping. She dropped to her hands and knees, feeling the bite of earth scraping against the heels of her hands, and she thought she now had a hole in the knee of her jeans, but she wasn't really hurt. The abrupt shift though, that had the headrush going, and she stayed where she was for a second, before she sat down, trying to figure out what the feeling she was having was. Was it abrupt energy drain? Was it really her system just trying to catch up with the weird there-then-here of it all? It was really weird having 'run' but not, to not be out of breath at all, but be seeing snow in her vision as she tried to orient herself to where she'd left Dean.

Dean heard her fall as she reappeared and instinctively took a couple of steps toward her, before he stopped himself. This was a test, wasn't it - he needed to stay over here. As much as he hated it, but he did it. "You okay?" he called, loudly, unable to keep the concern out of his voice, not really trying all that hard.

She didn't hear him so much as she could see he'd said something, and he looked a little worried. "I'm okay." she called, hoping he heard her--and chances are, with him, he would. "Just...gimme a minute." she added on the end there. She started to brush her palms on her jeans to get the dirt off, seeing little scratches but nothing major, and she turned her concentration inwards. Okay. Did she feel more drained? The headrush was still there but ebbing like it had before. So maybe that wasn't connected either way. Maybe she just had to get used to the shift, or she had to learn to do it slower. Was there a slower? Was there a transition between there and not there? Because if there was a fade, then maybe she could avoid the headrush all together. Of course, that was going to take one hell of a lot of practice. She'd figure it out. She was determined to. Drained. Okay, energy. She wished there was some kind of gauge. Like some surefire level that she could look at to be sure. To her, she felt like maybe she was lower than before. So, in theory, it burned some of her energy to do it. Just...not like the mirror walking thing did. Not nearly like that. But probably something.

Dean did that, but he felt twitchy and unsettled as he waited, shifting position slightly time and again, his eyes never leaving her, though he didn't try and speak again - he'd never been a fan of shouting, it sounded far, far too loud in his ears. And she couldn't hear him unless he did, or unless she looked over and... Hopefully she'd come back in a minute.

She waited for a few long minutes, really trying to get it figured out. The headrush died back, and so that went back to normal. But yeah. She figured it had drained her a little. Okay. Satisfied that she'd figured it out properly, she pushed herself back to her feet, and started back over to him. "I think the headrush thing might be like you said. Physical. And I think it drains me some to do it, but not that much." she said, once she was closer and she figured if he answered her back, she would be able to read him properly at least.

He joined her half way, coming forward to meet her as soon as they had the 'result'. She didn't look hurt from her fall, and she'd said she was okay, so he wouldn't let himself hover like a bloody mother hen. "Good - that's... that's good to know," he told her, giving her a little smile.

She nodded. "Yeah." she agreed, then gave a little quirked half smile. "I just need to keep my concentration going, I guess." she said, holding up her hands before she put them back down again. She glanced down at her leg and peeked in the hole in her jeans to her knee, which was dirty, and bleeding a little, but she'd had worse scrapes in her life. She'd been a tomboy, she lived with scraped knees as an eight year old. She brushed some of the dirt away, then stood straight again. "So, that's settled." And now she didn't quite know what to say. And she still felt weird and unsettled, and she didn't want to, especially not right before she was going to leave. And, okay, they were out for a walk so she wasn't leaving right this second, but still.

"You'll be careful, won't you?" Dean asked, after a long pause. "About the energy thing? With me not around? You won't over do it?" he checked. He'd not thought about it that way, not until this minute. What if she did actually need him - really need him? he'd suggested it to her before, but he knew how much she hated it when he referred to himself as a battery. But - without him, and being so far out of town... Was there even enough negative energy around Billy's place to sustain her? "And I'll come over - lots. I promise," he told her, wondering if he'd get in trouble if she connected those two things.

"I promise I'll be careful." she said. She stepped closer to him, and took his hand, even if about two seconds ago she had decided she wasn't going to this time. His worried thing sort of soothed the sting a bit for her. "I won't over do it. And I'll be very disappointed if you don't come over lots." she added. Then she paused, pretty much most of her hurt feelings drifting to the back of her mind in light of other emotions. "I'm going to miss you." she told him seriously. That was another one of those statements that she hadn't necessarily meant to make, but there it was. Spoken before she thought about it properly. If she'd given herself time, she probably would have been thinking that it was weird of her, or clingy, or something.

Dean didn't say anything for a moment, then he nodded once. "You too," he told her, a little awkwardly, not quite meeting her eyes, not knowing where to look. He gave her hand a squeeze and swayed his weight onto his back foot, then forward again - not actually going anywhere as he remembered he wasn't doing the whole jumping away and overreacting thing anymore. Or, well, he was trying not to.

Sometimes, Lullaby looked at Dean and knew exactly what was going through his mind. And other times, like right now, she didn't. She watched how he sort of pulled back, then not, and she saw how he couldn't quite look at her. And the pause, then just a nod and two words. But there was the squeeze of her hand. It didn't really add up right. All in all, most of what he'd done right then weighed in on the negative category, so she slipped her hand out of his again, and started walking, but she stopped and looked back over her shoulder at him to let him know she was waiting for him. She didn't say anything, because she didn't want to put him on the spot. She didn't want to be clingy, or anything like that. She just figured she'd give him space if he wanted it. 'Course, he'd be getting a lot of that. She was leaving.

He hadn't expected her to do that - to just walk away and he'd looked up in surprise as she did so, not moving because of that. And so he was still just standing there as she turned round, the surprised question still on his face as he wondered what he'd done wrong now.

She saw he was looking confused, and searched for something to say. "I didn't mean to put you on the spot." she said. "I didn't...you didn't have to--just...sorry." she said, stumbling over her words, and hey look! Now she was having trouble looking him in the eyes. Wasn't the ground fascinating? Hey, there was a leaf. It was a pretty color.

"You - you didn't put me on the spot," he told her. "I didn't - you know, I know you don't expect that whole bounce back of comments thing. I didn't - that is... I didn't mean it like that. I wasn't just... saying things. I - I wouldn't do that anyway. Even if I didn't know you hated it. Which I do. I wouldn't - I wouldn't just say something just because I thought that it was something someone wanted to hear."

She watched him sort of stumbling through his speech, and wondered what was really tripping him up. And why he couldn't just say something simple like he'd miss her, or whatever. Why he'd gone into that sort of uncomfortable state thing he did. She wound up not saying anything for a few long moments. "How about we start over." she said. "Dean, I'm going to miss you. I hope you come visit me a lot, and I hope you won't mind if I text you all the time, because suddenly not seeing you all the time is going to be...I'm just going to miss you."

Starting over didn't help for Dean - in fact, it was tantamount to torture since it put him right back where he'd been and taking another run up that particular hill wasn't going to make it any easier for him. So, he didn't attempt it - he'd said he'd miss her, she didn't need it hammering home. "I don't mind if you text me all the time," he told her instead.

And this right here, is why you need to get your head straight about everything, Lullaby. she told herself. Because he can't even do something like tell you he'll miss you. Maybe he won't. The best you got was 'you too'. Which isn't anything at all, is it. Oh, and he won't mind if you text him a lot. Right. So...let go. Her mind slid down, down on a spiral she didn't especially want it to go, but it did anyhow. And she was back to where she'd started, feeling awful. She stood there, and looked at him for a long moment, then nodded, and turned again. "...we continuing?" she asked, glad again that he couldn't read her bad moods like she could read his.

Dean felt like he'd fallen far short of the mark again as he nodded, silently and started to wak off, keeping his hands to himself. he felt like he should say something right now, but was held back by the fear that if he ddi, she'd just think it was just words. Anyway, surely she'd know that he'd miss her - that much was obvious. Some things were just obvious - there didn't need to be spelled out.

She didn't say anything either, as she walked, trying to shove everything back. Usually they talked about things, but this, she didn't even know where to start with. It was a Dean-thing. One of those Dean-things that she just had to deal with and move on. There weren't that many of them, she could do it. It just sucked at the time. Plus, she knew she was already in a down frame of mind to begin with, so...maybe she was just prone to it right this second. So, she wasn't going to put that on him, or try to talk to him when she could read pretty well what was there in the first place. It just made her sad, but that wasn't really his fault. So, there was repressing going on. Again, she told herself that she didn't want the last bit of time spent with Dean to be...whatever this was. So she was going to have to fix it, she just needed a minute to figure out how, and to shove everything her heart was kicking up back again.

Dean slowly curved them round, heading more toward the lake than before, still looking for something to say, but rejecting everything he came up with as lame and pointless. He'd ruined the mood entirely, he knew, and once it was gone, it was really hard to get back considering the fact that she was leaving, which was depressing in and of itself. "You going to be okay with them? I mean, like - do they have a computer? Are you going to be able to keep up with your classes and stuff?" he asked.

"I asked Billy, and he says they don't have one, but he'd make some calls...not quite sure what that meant." she said. Because she didn't, and she hadn't pushed. The internet costed money, after all, and while it wasn't like he was going to have to feed her or anything, that was still an expense. Plus, he was going to be working all the time, and there was the wedding, and the eventual baby...was he even going to be able to afford for her to be around? She bathed and stuff...washed clothes... She didn't really realize that she had skipped over the first question.

"You - you can have mine, if you want. I mean, I can use Sophie's so it's really no problem," Dean offered, not liking the idea of her being stuck out there on her own. God, this was shitty - why couldn't they have found that she, like, needed him around always to give her energy then... Then you'd be acting like a clingy stalker, stop being so fucking stupid, you're acting like she's moving to another bloody country, not five miles up the bloody road - half your friends back home live further than that away and you never thought twice about it, he told himself firmly.

"Dean--I am not taking your computer." she said firmly, looking over at him like he might've grown another head. "Thank you, it's very sweet of you, but it's yours, plus, you keep in touch with your friends in England with that, I can't just cart it off for classes." she said. "Maybe I can come over like...once a week or something and do all my assignments then." she suggested. "Then Billy wouldn't have to pay for more stuff he doesn't need anyways, and all that." she added. Yeah she still felt weird about it. If it had already been in place, she wouldn't have, but anyone getting something specifically just for her...that was what made her twitchy.

"And I told you - I can use Sophie's. It's right next door and everything. I can still keep in touch with people - and then so can you," he pointed out, since it hadn't escaped him that she talked to his friends on there as well. And she'd probably want to keep doing that. And whilst the idea of her definitely coming over once a week was appealling, he didn't like the idea that she'd spend all that time studying. He'd have to leave her to it and that'd be harder than not having his own computer.

"I'm not taking your computer." Lullaby said. "It wouldn't feel right. Computers are...that's expensive, and it's yours, and just no. Again, thank you, but I can't." she insisted. She really just couldn't entertain that idea. Hell, she barely used the thing now because it was so firmly in her brain his, regardless of the fact that he'd told her on multiple occasions that she could use it whenever she wanted. "I'll figure something out."

"It'd just be a loan - until something got sorted out or..." You came back, if you come back. "Or whatever. And hey, you're taking my clothes, so... I don't mind, really," he told her. "Anyway, Andy'd give me an earful if you went away."

Fuck, Andy. She hadn't managed to talk to him that much lately, and knew she was kinda sorta avoiding. "Clothes are slightly different than your computer and anyways, your clothes I've promised to switch out, not keep for an extended period of time. So there'd be rotation involved. You wouldn't actually miss anything for that long. But the computer...I'd just feel bad about it." she said, sighing. "I'll figure something else out, or come over and do it all in one shot or something. I appreciate the sentiment, but I really couldn't justify it to myself to take it. So...Andy'll just have to live, won't he? I'm positive he'll survive without me." A few unpleasant thoughts tried to rise up but she kicked them back down again.

"If you change your mind - the offer stands," Dean told her as they emerged out onto the beach. Maybe if she had to start coming over to do work he should just not be there or something. or be hideously busy. Because if not, he'd just want to distract her. Which she'd probably get pissed about. He just - he wanted that when she came over it was to see him, not to do work and - he was probably being totally selfish here. "But okay," he agreed, reluctantly.

She paused as they hit the rock beach, and she almost reached up to steady herself on Dean, but at the last second didn't, and she just hopped a few paces out towards the water. She didn't mind if she got her jeans wet or anything, and she pulled the sleeves of the borrowed hoodie up a bit so she could wash her hands. Then she cupped some water to wash her knee off too, since it still had dirt and blood on it. "Tell Andy if he crabs about it that I'll get back to him sometime or something?" she suggested. Maybe if he thought she was less available to talk, he'd kinda...find something shiny and go wander off to deal with that.

Dean sat down on the rocky shore and watched her, not getting closer, since it would involve taking his trainers off and things. It made him think of going swimming with her last week and for a moment he almost suggested that they go for a dip right now - except it was hardly the weather and the water was probably freezing anyhow. And they didn't have kit with them. But still - tempted. He didn't though as he drew his knees up slightly and rested his arms on them.

She looked back at him and saw he'd sat down. So, their walk ended here, she guessed. That was okay with her. She washed her hands one more time, then her knee, before she walked back over. "Did you answer me and I didn't hear you?" she asked, looking a little guilty about that. She hadn't been looking at him, after all. So, it was possible he had and she'd missed the entire thing. Or, he just hadn't said anything. She also stayed standing for a moment, sort of half wondering where to sit, so she glanced around like the ground was magically going to tell her where she needed to be.

He shook his head and looked up at her. "No - you weren't looking at me. You wouldn't have heard me if I did, so I figured I'd wait til you were done," he explained, looking just fine with that. "Which you are, so - I'll tell Andy whatever you want me to tell him." And putting the guy off about Thia? Would be a pleasure. A guilty one, but a pleasure non-the-less.

She nodded, then decided she couldn't very well hover over him for ages, now could she? So she sat down next to him, and brought her knee up, tugging the hole down so she could peer at her knee. "Tell him whatever." she said. Then she brushed some dirt from the scrape. "You know it's been a while since I skinned my knee." she said. The last time she'd done it had been because of Joshua's curse thing, and he'd ditched it, taking her with him. That little incident had ended with a kiss though, so slightly better than current. She looked back at Dean just to be sure she wouldn't miss anything though.

Dean banished the first thought that came into his head and instead flickered his gaze down to her knee. "Doesn't look too bad though," he commented, looking back at her again as he spoke.

"It's not." she said, then turned her eyes on him again and smiled. "I'm a tough girl." she informed him. After all, she'd bled out on him the other night, now hadn't she? She didn't think she'd cried. And she'd had her throat ripped out by vampires, and she'd been shot through. She'd dealt with a whole lot of pain in the past few weeks. More than she'd ever dealt with in her entire life put together. And weren't those depressing thoughts? Horribly, awful depressing thoughts, which she was pushing back again. "I can take it." she added on the end, like she was really pulling off some great feat.

He wondered if it would scar. She had scars on her face now, but he was sure they wouldn't have scarred for him, but they were there. Would this simple injury scar? or was it just that her facial wounds had been open when she'd died. He didn't know how that worked, how careful she'd have to be. if every knock and scrape ended in a scar, then... he knew he couldn't really wrap her up in cotton wool, but the instincts were there. "Yeah - you can take it," he told her, belatedly.

Okay, what aren't we talking about? she asked internally, of course not saying that aloud. She'd noticed the kind of late answer. "...what's on your mind?" she asked, because that was more acceptable, and hey, maybe they would talk about whatever it was. She could hope. Or, he'd dodge, and maybe they'd talk about something else. She wasn't sure what she was going to do quite yet. But she had her full attention on him, and she waited to see what he'd say.

His eyes ticked back up to meet hers. "I was wondering if it was going to scar," he admitted after a moment, knowing there was no point in trying to hide it. He may as well be honest about things. Or, well, this thing anyhow.

She looked thoughtful for a moment. "You know, I don't know?" she said. "I guess it didn't occur to me that it might. But it could, huh? Everything I heal does. I'm trying to think if there's anything that hasn't, since I died. We'll just have to make sure nothing happens to me like that until after my knee's better, so we can see." she said. ...you said we. Will you stop with that? Especially now?

We could just not have anything happen to you at all, ever, Dean thought, but he knew that that was just unrealistic, even for his tendancy toward wishful thinking. "Have to treat you with kid gloves," he agreed, bumping her very lightly with his shoulder - extra lightly, as if to prove his point, though it was physical contact - something that had been missing since she hurt herself. Before then, even.

She smiled at that, and laughed a little, reaching out to poke him in the ribs. "Yeah I guess so. But you know I think I could handle a normal-caliber knock, you know. I mean, I was already bleeding and everything..." she playfully lifted her leg up and across as if to show him, like he'd missed it. "I'm sure I could handle a shoulder knock without bruising."

"Oh, I dunno, y'know - sometimes I don't know my own strength," he teased, lightly, loving the laugh - it made him think that they were getting back on track again, and he hadn't wanted to part on a bad note.

She put her leg back down, and continued smiling at him. "I think I'm tough enough! C'mon...try it." she encouraged, holding her shoulder out and everything. She reached up and traced an X on her shoulder. "Right there."

Dean lowered his head a little and looked up at her, raising an eyebrow, smirking a touch. "Maybe I don't trust you - you're gonna move out the way and I'll go flying," he joked.

She giggled, grin impish. "Would I do that to you?" she asked, fluttering her eyelashes at him. "I'm an innocent little angel, I would never trick you like that." Which didn't in any way mean she wouldn't trick him in other ways, or tease him in other ways, which she had of course planned to do. She also had a stray thought, but batted it away before it could take root.

"No - you'd just trick me in other ways," Dean observed, going off her wording as he bumped her shoulder on the tail end of speaking when possibly she wouldn't entirely be expecting it - the timing, of course she'd be expecting the move.

She giggled, which perhaps ruined the effect she'd been going for, since when he did knock her shoulder, she immediately dropped back onto her back, swooned like he'd knocked her out. But yeah, the effect didn't quite come off because she couldn't stop smiling, and she giggled a little again.

He rolled his eyes as she flopped backwards, all giggles. Leaning back a little, he set his hand by her head and leaned on it, looking back at her half over his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah... you're all hurt and stuff," he said, lightly. It was nice, in a way, to joke about this kind of thing - it was nice to know that they could play like this and have it not be so serious about getting hurt, not have those impacts. It helped.

"I am! I am terribly wounded!" she cried dramatically, going so far as to hold her arm up over her forehead. "There could be a mildly pink mark!" she added, turning her head to look up at him, peeking out from under her arm. She just liked latching onto something to be playful about. It always helped her to shove everything else back where it wasn't going to pop up again. So she was all for it.

He raised an eyebrow again. "Does this mean I'm going to have to carry you back to the house now?" he asked, though he didn't make any move to go anywhere. "If you're that badly injured..."

She made a show of thinking about it. "You might." she told him. "I mean, my shoulder is vital to my walking process." she decided. "Isn't it to yours? I might not be able to make it. Then I'd just have to lay here all night on this rocky beach, and maybe the water would kick up, and then I'd be cold and wet and laying here with my awfully damaged shoulder. With the possibly pink mark. That really would have faded about two seconds after the pressure was gone, but who's counting?"

"Well, maybe you hit your head on the way down there - it was such a long way to fall, after all. And the aggravating factor of your already there knee injury... Who knows what could have gone wrong. Aaaaaand I couldn't possibly abandon you to the cold and the wet - what kind of a best friend would I be? But, then again, you're a big girl. i'm sure you could probably find your way back before Sophie sent out the rescue party."

Lullaby was giggling again, and she let her arm drop down above her head then she slid it beneath to prop it up. "I could have a concussion. And with the shoulder and the knee...yep. I'm just totaled. Plus, you're right, you couldn't abandon me like that. I'd have to lay here, all despondent, and crows would start circling. I'd have to sing that song 'nobody likes me' and everything and no one wants that. I'm deaf I can't carry a tune." she finished, smiling up at him affectionately.

"You can't? See - now there's another thing i never knew about you," Dean told her, dropping down a little and resting on his elbows, higher up than her by a little as he looked over. "I'll have to add 'can't sing' to all the other little bits I'm collecting."

"It's an important aspect to me." Lullaby said sagely, having another few distant drifting thoughts. "I can't sing, I can only dance if I'm too close to the speakers so I can feel the bass...or if it's loud enough that I can feel it. And that's not even sure fire or anything, though generally works. The bass beat is like the heartbeat to a song. But then again, I don't actually have that many opportunities to dance, so really, it's not a loss to the dancing world or anything." She said. She used her free hand to reach out and poke his ribs lightly again. Because he'd moved and she could without moving much. "What else is in your mental file folder of tidbits about Lullaby?"

"Hmmm, let's see," Dean said, looking up at the sky for a moment, hanging his head back and stretching his neck out a little as he thought. He rolled his head back round to look at her. "She's small and easily portable. She has a wicked sense of humour. She's kind - and she secretly gets followed around by little woodland creatures who are all so disappointed she won't sing to them," he told her, turning teasing at the end - and ignoring the twist in his chest as he thought just how little she'd actually looked like she was 'just sleeping' when she died. Fucking Disney.

She laughed again, and really covered for the fact that she kinda had the urge to reach up and play with his hair. She should get over that someday. She was also having the thought that intermittently drifted across her mind that it was absolutely insane that he hadn't had a girlfriend back home. Occasionally he did things that were just...effortlessly attractive. Then she shoved those thoughts aside, and attempted to concentrate on the conversation. "Not a princess, I keep reminding you." she said, poking his side again. "And see there? A totally new argument against it!"

"I thought that every girl secretly wanted to be a princess? And here's you, always so dead set against it. Maybe I should add that into the list - 'not like other girls' and 'staunch anti-royalist'," he suggested, squirming out of the way of her poke a little as it tickled slightly.

"Definitely add those to your list. Especially that first one." she told him. Then that grin turned impish. "Did that tickle?" she asked. And she did it again, only this time she made a proper move to tickle him, just a tiny bit instead of just poking him. She hadn't previously because they'd been in positions where one of them was exhausted. They weren't now! She for one was feeling mildly strange. Like there was a light headache forming, but she was ignoring the shit out of it.

He definitely moved then, laughing and pulling away, slipping down from his position on his elbows and doing the standard flinch-and-twist of a tickle victim. "No, yes - yes, that tickles! Stop it!" he exclaimed, laughing.

She thought that was the best thing ever. Dean really needed to laugh more. She decided that right this instant, and she rolled towards him, onto her knees, so she could tickle him with both hands. "But you're laughing! So obviously, that must be a good thing!" she said cheerfully. She was screwed if he retaliated. She just made high pitched squeaky sounds and fell over when people tickled her. It was probably the world's fastest way to utterly incapacitate her.

"No! Not a good thing - definitely not a good thing," Dean managed, between laughs, his smile unaccountably wide as he curled up on his side in an effort to avoid wandering hands. He'd always been massively ticklish and he managed to retain just enough wherewithall to know it would be a Bad Idea to fight back. He would, if it came to it but... Maybe she'd just stop. That'd be good - right?

"I don't knooowwww!" Lullaby singsonged, still laughing herself, and while his curling on his side took away some of her ability to tickle him, that didn't actually mean she stopped. Because where would be the fun in that? And she planned on stopping, sure she did, just...not right this second. Because it was entertaining, and they needed entertaining. Or she did. She figured he did too, and he could always get her back ridiculously easy.

She wasn't stopping. And his sides and cheeks were beginning to ache, so he reached out and pushed her away slightly, then tickled her ribs for a second, before drawing back again. "Stop it," he said, warningly, hoping the threat of retaliation would do it.

The threat really didn't do it, the tiny second of tickling her did. When he did that, she squeaked, immediately stopped as she curled up into a ball instantly, and literally fell over. She automatically reached for his hands to hold onto them, so he couldn't do it again, even if she was having trouble stopping laughing. "Okay I give!" Yep. Totally giving up immediately, if the tables were turning.

He took her hands, not trying for any more tickling - it had just been a last dash attempt anyway. He knew better than to get into a tickling match with her. Cos, there'd be loss of control, and rolling around and - yeah, not going there. "Thank you," he told her, formally, but with a touch of knowing humour behind his eyes.

She was still laughing a little intermittently, not trying to get her hands back when he took them. "I had no choice. And now you've found my most glaring weakness." she said. "But you're welcome anyways!" she added cheerfully. then she smiled at him, that affectionate, sweet sort of expression that showed up now and then. A lot more often before she'd died, but it made an appearance right then. She liked hearing him laugh, she liked seeing him smile, and sure, she'd cheated, but still. There was still a little spark behind his eyes.

He held onto her hands for a moment longer, then let them go, leaning back once more. "Guess we should get back," he said, reluctantly, after a minute. He didn't know what the time was - there was little point in him wearing a watch, after all, but he knew she'd have to be leaving sooner or later.

But I don't want to. went through her mind. But...if he was cutting it short now, then maybe it was time for her to go. Before the timer went off, or...something. So she nodded, but didn't get up right away. Instead, she just looked at him for a long stretch of moments, trying really really hard not to let herself get sad and upset again. To keep that pushed back behind whatever walls she'd put up to safeguard herself.

"It's only a few miles up the road," Dean reminded her - or both of them, really. He needed to tell himself that as much as ever, though mostly it was him berating himself for being clingy. Maybe he'd give Joshua a ring and arrange that beer - get out, see other people, not get focused in on how Caleb had left town and Thia was leaving the house. He shouldn't, couldn't and wouldn't cling, just because he'd grown up with a wide circle of friends and here he'd not found it that easy. And maybe he should persevere with the group thing, even if he'd kinda decided against that yesterday. He still needed to get together with Isaac to talk fades, at least. He could fill the time that'd stretch with her not there. He could. And the rest - she wasn't that far, he'd be driving, he could still see her, talk to her. For the first time, he really wished she wasn't deaf.

She nodded. Yeah, she knew that. It just seemed really far away. And she couldn't really do anything. She'd be stuck out there. It'd be her and Maddie what...most of the time? Billy'd be gone. It was then that the trapped feeling started to settle in on wholly different terms. It was like a weight in her chest, and she pushed herself up, looking out at the lake for a few moments, just to cover what was going on in her head. "I know." she answered him belatedly. Overdramatic as it was, it felt like everything was slipping away. Or maybe everything was staying right where it was supposed to be, and it was her that was slipping. That was actually more likely, now that she thought about it. She looked at the water, felt the headache and vaguely ill sensation and blamed it on her emotional discontent, then pushed herself to her feet, holding her hand back to offer to Dean.

He smiled a little as he took her hand and got to his feet. "And you'll tell me if I call you too much - right? If I start to bug you? I've kinda got used to having you right next door, so you might be getting some weird texts..." he warned her.

She abruptly hugged him, arms going around his middle for a tight, probably ungodly clingy type of embrace. But, with everything just under the surface, she just...didn't bother stopping herself. "Shut up, Dean." she mumbled. "There's no such thing as too much or bugging me, I'm going to not be here anymore, and you're not the only one who's gotten used to having someone right there all the time." she continued, not entirely certain she was fully coherent, if she was forming her words well enough. But...she figured he'd get the gist of it regardless. "I'm going to miss you, okay? So...contact me whenever you want to. I'll feel a lot less stuck out in the middle of nowhere with only a cranky witch for company and no one to really talk to." Though she didn't really mean talk in the literal sense. She meant everything. She wouldn't have her best friend there with her anymore, and that? Was going to suck. That was going to suck a lot. She really was used to him just...being there. Across the hall, whenever. Either if it was for something serious, or just a whim. Everything in between. Okay let go now. she told herself. Even if she didn't.

He should have seen that coming, but he didn't - at least, not in its intensity and he wavered on his feet a little, caught off-balance by the hug. Centering himself once more, he returned the hug, dropping his head, his mouth nearer her ear so that he'd know she'd hear him. "Gonna miss you too, Thia," he admitted, finding the words easier to say when she wasn't looking right at him.

She really, really needed to hear that. So, when she did, it helped, in some fashion. So did the fact that he said it in her ear, so it wasn't just that he said it, but she heard him properly. She hugged him tighter, and started working on pushing everything back again. Okay, breathe, deal, and let go. Seriously. Ease up. Keeping hold of him here isn't stopping you leaving. All it's gonna do is make him pull away. Because if you stay here, then the timer's going to go off. Trust me on this, it will, and you don't want that. Not right now. That would make everything feel so much worse. So...let go. She eventually did, it just took more effort than she would have liked. And when she did, she didn't so much let go entirely, as she pulled back enough to look at him, and she gave him a little smile. It was a sad smile, but she managed it. A few things crossed her mind to say, but she didn't latch onto any of them. Instead, she just found his hands, and gave them a squeeze. Then, she turned them back towards the house, feeling like if she didn't leave here soon, she was going to have an even harder time, so she'd better get moving.