Dean felt hot beneath the stiff collar of his white shirt, stifled by the plain black tie. Twice his hand had automatically gone up to pop his top button and loosen his tie, once at the church and again as they stood at the graveside, just before the lightening had lit up the darkened sky and the crack of thunder had heralded the coming downpour. Each time Sam had wordlessly stopped him.

Back at the Impala, with a disturbingly silent Harry shepherded into the back seat and all three of them soaking wet, Dean finally got the chance to loosen his fucking collar. He tugged at it, his frustration and anger making his fingers clumsy, the top button of his shirt pinging off to ricochet along the window.

"Fuck!"

He took a couple of calming breaths as he let his hands rest on the steering wheel.

"We going back to the house? Katy's mom, she..." She'd taken Dean aside, sheltering him beneath her umbrella, her small hand grasping onto the damp sleeve of his jacket as she'd invited him back with a ragged smile that fell far short of her tear filled eyes. "She asked," he told them.

Sam swivelled in his seat. "Harry, do you want to go?"

Sam's question didn't get an answer. Harry was turned away from Sam, staring out the window, his face set. Looking through the rear-view mirror, Dean was pretty sure that not all the moisture on the older man's face was from the rain.

"Maybe we should get out of these wet clothes first, huh?" he suggested. "See how we're doing after that."

He saw Harry give a stiff nod, still not looking at either of them.

Harry didn't say a word on the drive back from the cemetery. Sam had made a couple of attempts to get him talking but gave up after he didn't get any kind of a response.

Dean knew it couldn't have been easy for Sam standing at the graveside. It must have brought back memories of Jessica, maybe of their dad. Dean couldn't let his mind go there -- refused to let it. He had to focus on the present instead, and the present revolved around Dr Harry Ballard.

Harry, whose hand was shaking so badly it took at least three tries to unlock his door.

Sam slipped out of his jacket, hooking it over the back of a kitchen chair. "Why don't I make us all some coffee?" he offered, fingers combing back his wet hair.

Dean reached into the inside pocket of his own sodden jacket and pulled out the silver flask that contained the remnants of his last bottle of Jack. There wasn't much in it, just enough to give each of them a taste. He threw it to Sam who caught it deftly.

"Won't hurt to liven it up a little."

Sam's eyes rested on Harry for a moment before he nodded. "Guess not."

"C'mon, Doc." Dean gave Harry an encouraging pat on the shoulder. "Let's you and me get outta these wet clothes while Sammy gets the coffee going," he said, steering him out of the kitchen. Harry's continuing wordless compliance worried Dean. The man could be an irritating, belligerent bastard one moment, uncertain and childlike at the next, but this silence was new and disturbing.

Harry's room on the top floor of the house was modern and spacious, the view through the large windows spectacular, even on a day like today.

"You should get out of those wet things," Dean told him. "Want me to get you a towel?"

"I'm not a child!" Harry finally snapped, his back to Dean.

"Hey!" Dean held up his hands, backed off a step. "I'm just trying to help here."

When Harry spoke again, his voice was barely there. "She was... I liked her."

"Yeah." Dean rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. He had liked her too. "I know."

"D-do you ever wish, imagine you had the power to bring them back?" Harry asked him, still not turning around. "I did, once. I-I thought that if I touched her..." He stretched out his hand and Dean could see it was shaking badly.

"Harry?" Dean reached out and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. He didn't do this, couldn't. Couldn't let someone else's pain tear open his own. He moved his hand further up Harry's shoulder before squeezing gently. "Hey, man, you shouldn't..."

He wasn't expecting Harry to suddenly turn, move so close. Wasn't expecting the fingers that anchored themselves into his clothes, tugging the two of them even closer together. The press of lips, clumsy and soft against his own caught him totally off his guard. A voice in the back of Dean's mind screamed out to him, dirty, bad, wrong, but was drowned out by the pounding of his own heart as Harry's tongue, desperate and awkward, pushed against his mouth.

For a moment he just stood there, but then his hands came up to tangle in Harry's thick, damp hair as he took over the kiss.

Dean swallowed Harry's gasp of realisation, registered the moment when he relaxed his fisted grip on Dean's shirt and let his hand trail upwards to rest against Dean's jaw, his unease and uncertainty disappearing as they lost themselves in each other.

"Everything okay up there?"

Sam's voice hit Dean like a bucket of ice water and he pushed frantically out of Harry's grasp, moving away, putting distance between them as he fought to get his breath back.

"Dean?" Harry stared at him wide eyed, his confusion and embarrassment mirroring the way Dean was feeling.

He shook his head, still backing slowly towards the door, knowing he had to get away. "We can't... I can't, I'm sorry!"

He raced down the stairs, snatching up the keys to the Impala from the kitchen table.

"Dean! What the hell..?"

Sam's voice trailed after him as he slammed out the door, heedless of the rain as he weathered a storm of his own.

~Fin~