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Lisa is the type of woman that has the patience of a saint. She knew when Dean showed up he would be coming with a shit-load of baggage.
He didn't talk much beyond the first night after Ben was asleep and Dean had drunk a couple of beers. He had explained that the world was going to end, but he and Sam and their Uncle Bobby had stopped it, and that Sam was dead now, all of it in a gruff voice that told of the grief he was going through more than he ever would.
For the first week, Dean insisted on sleeping on the couch. Both because he wanted to make sure anything that tried to come in would go through him first and because he didn't want to wake either of them up with his nightmares. Knowing Dean, Lisa had to wonder what he dreamed about that was bad enough for him to admit to having nightmares.
After that, Lisa poked and prodded until he agreed to just sleep in her bed. She stopped any argument with a firm, "I'm a mother, Dean. I can handle being woken up in the middle of the night."
***
It was few nights later when she woke to thrashing on the other side of the bed. Dean was calling out to his brother, his face scrunched up in pain. When she finally got him awake and aware, he had tears in his eyes.
This continued for about a month. She wouldn't be woken up every night, but there didn't seem to be a pattern of any kind, though most seemed to be about Sam and occasionally Bobby. During the day, Dean went to work for a mechanic, helped Ben with his homework, and helped around the house. They had sex a few times, but there was nothing special about it. Sometimes, Lisa would stay up and read, carefully watching Dean from the corner of her eye. It was during one of these times she learned not all of his dreams were violent enough to affect her. He just twitched and grimaced for as long as she was awake.
Another time, Dean whispered the name 'Cas'. She wondered if it was some other woman he had known. When he moaned the name, Lisa blushed and buried her nose back in her book, but looked back when he whimpered as if in pain to find he was crying. Realizing her mistake, she quickly woke him. Sometimes he would talk when he woke, provided short answers to her questions, but when she asked about this 'Cas' he clammed up and refused to talk beyond muttering something about 'dicks with wings'.
***
She got an answer a week later in regards to who Cas was.
It was the worst one yet. Dean was tossing his head back and forth and shaking violently, muttering, "No, Sammy, nonono. Sammy, please, no." She attempted to shake him awake, but he flinched away and started shouting, "Cas! Cas, please. Help me, please! Cas!"
There was a sound like the beating of wings, and suddenly there was another man in the room. He had dark hair and the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen, wearing a rumpled suit and a tan trenchcoat. Despite his appearance, though, he held himself with barely contained power, and Lisa backed up against the head board as far as she could. "Who are you?" she demanded. "What do you want?"
He barely glanced at her before moving quickly to Dean's side - and sitting on just the edge of the bed - where the man was still shaking and whimpering. "Dean," he called, and even his gravelly voice held power. "Dean, wake up."
Dean gasped as his eyes shot open, squinting as he tried to focus on the man next to him. "Cas?" He gripped an arm and pulled himself up. "Cas, man, what are you doing here?"
"I heard you call out for me. You would not wake." Cas searched Dean's face, and the two men watched each other for a long moment before Dean's face crumpled again. Cas wrapped his hand around the back of the hunter's neck pulling him close.
Dean sobbed into the tan coat, a hand twisted into the fabric. "I miss him, Cas. I just miss him so much."
"I know, Dean. I know." The arm not holding Dean's face against his shoulder ran up his bare arm until it rested over the handprint scar. Lisa watched everything with interest, and nearly fell out of the bed when she saw it matched up perfectly with the hand of this stranger in her room.
He pulled back from Dean slightly, brushing fingers across the other man's forehead. Dean became limp immediately, slumping against the slighter frame. Cas untangled himself from Dean, and laid him back against the pillows, then turned to leave.
"Wait," Lisa called out. The stranger turned back and looked at her as if he just noticed she was there. "Who are you?"
His head tilted inquisitively. "My name is Castiel. I'm a... friend... of Dean's." Lisa didn't mention the way he hesitated. Poor guy looked awkward enough. "I have to go," he said. Looking back at Dean, he continued, "He will sleep peacefully tonight." He nodded once, and then was gone.