Last fourth of July sucked.

Well...Dean couldn't really say that. It would hurt Sam's feelings. But really, it did suck. Like...worse than the Yankees losing to the Mets. They had all the Roman candles, all the...Dean didn't even know what they bought, really, but sucked on account of a few things:

1. Finding an unoccupied field to blow shit up is actually really hard.

2. Even if you find an unoccupied field, it isn't always unoccupied. Check for barns, or they will catch fire, and then you'll have to bail after lighting the first firework because the field was not, in fact, unoccupied, and the farmer is pissed and the livestock are everywhere.

3. No Katherine Louise.

But here she is, walking through Sophia's front door this fourth of July, looking particularly happy. She's smiling, which makes Dean smile, even though he knows it isn't because of him.

It's because of Charlie, who walked into the house right after her, smiling down at her as she beamed up at him, continuing some conversation they'd been engaged in before.

"Why didn't you guys tell me you were going for a run?" Sam demands from the kitchen.

"Have you ever heard of 'alone time,' Sam?" Sophia quips. "You can go for a run with them tomorrow."

Sam has that pouty look. "Well...well tomorrow's going to be a recovery run for them, because they were gone for, like, ever."

"You should've been awake," Katherine chirps. "Nobody runs between the hours of nine AM and six PM in this state. It's called heat stroke."

Sam makes a face at her. "How far did you go anyway?"

"Ten miles," Charlie replies.

"That's, like, half a marathon," Dean squawks. Then he takes on a speculative expression, eyes tracking Charlie all through the kitchen. "Does your family do holiday marathons, Charlie?"

"No," he scoffs, grabbing two glasses from the cupboard. Katherine makes herself at home face-down on the floor.

"Holidays exist for casseroles," she says.

"Grace makes the best cheesy potato casserole," Sophia wistfully sighs.

The front door opens and slams shut. "Nobody panic!" Chris shouts. "I got..." He holds up two fists of twelve packs. "The beer."

Dean points at him. "Now we're talkin'."

"Kit, could you maybe get up from the floor?" Charlie requests.

"I'm stretching," she replies.

"You're just laying there. You're a roadblock."

"If you can't see all almost-six Five Dollar Foot Longs of me then there's a problem."

"Good run?" Chris asks with a grin, stepping over Katherine's calves.

"That's a description," she mumbles into the floor. Charlie hauls her up by the elbows and she sighs. "My legs feel like Jell-o."

"Well un-Jell-o them," Sophia says. "We have too many Jell-o shots for you not to take them."

"So where exactly are we shooting off the arsenal in your backyard?" Sam asks, gaze fixed on the pyramid of explosives.

"There's a pasture right outside town that everyone goes to," Chris replies. "We donate whatever fireworks we want and the fire department blows them up in a controlled environment. It's a win-win."

Sam's head snaps to the side, and with a pale face and bugged eyes, he asks, "A pasture?"

Dean grins. "A pasture."

Katherine glances between the two. "Is this going to turn into some weird church joke?"

"No," Sam scoffs. "No. Pastures are just...a touchy subject." His lips are still gray.

She blinks. Chris takes the Winchesters in. "You set a pasture on fire, didn't you?"

"It was only the barn," Sam whispers.

Dean makes a wincing face. "Part of the pasture, too. I don't think we should go back to Fulton, Tennessee for a few decades."

"O-kay," Sophia croaks. "Are...are the cows okay?"

"I think so?" Dean shrugs, looking genuinely thoughtful. Katherine puts her face in her hands. "Okay, in my defense, a gust of wind knocked the firework over after I'd run away, and we didn't see the barn until it rocketed into it, and the whole thing caught on fire—" Sophia holds a hand up.

"I don't...want to be an accomplice to a crime." Dean nods once and rolls his lips into his mouth.

Charlie looks down at Katherine. "So you light things on fire?"

She shrugs. "Regularly. Mostly corpses."

Chris spits out his beer. "Jesus."

"Okay, to be fair—" Sam begins. "—they're evil corpses."

"Misguided?" Katherine tries, wincing.

Sam acquiesces with the side-to-side bob of his head. "Fine."

"Astray," Dean hums. "So, uh...who's on grill duty?"

Charlie and Chris usually hung out together. Sophia once made a joke that they, actually, might be the ones in a relationship.

She's staring at Katherine intensely today, inspecting, as they lay out by the pool they put in just last month.

"I can feel those eyes boring into my soul," Katherine says. Her arm is draped over her eyes, the sun warming her toes as she rests on one of the reclining chairs.

"Nu-uh."

"Uh-huh. You've been looking at me weird all day. What do you want?"

Sophia turns to face Katherine, seated on the edge of her chair. "Charlie's okay with you hanging out with Sam and Dean?" She quietly asks.

Katherine sighs and sits up herself. She thinks about it for a moment, gnawing on her lower lip. "He hasn't said so," she begins. "But I think even if he was, he wouldn't...say anything." Shaded blue eyes dart to Sophia's face. "Why? Has he said something?"

"Hmm?" Sophia's eyes bug. "What? No. I just...wonder sometimes." The girls are quiet for several moments. "Really, i just find it a wonder. Charlie trusting you around someone like Dean."

"What do you mean by that?"

Sophia's lips twitch in amusement. "Well...you've seen him." She shrugs. "Charlie's a guy, not an idiot. He's seen Dean, too. Chris said if it was me in your shoes, he absolutely wouldn't be okay with it, especially if there was a past relationship."

Katherine's temper flares. "What, Chris is just running his mouth to Charlie when I'm not here, and when I am, it's all smiles and excitement for the Winchester brothers?"

Sophia blinks at her friend. "I wouldn't say 'running his mouth'..."

Katherine's eyebrows raise and her mouth turns thin before she speaks again. "No, just offering a bro some 'friendly advice.'"

Sophia sighs, rolling her head back. "Kat, you can't really be mad at Chris for wanting to protect Charlie, can you?"

"No, but I can be mad at Chris for even insinuating I'd do anything to hurt Charlie," she seethes. "Charlie is everything to me."

"If Charlie is everything to you, what is Dean?"

Katherine decides it's best to remain silent. She's just staring at her best friend, enraged, wondering how today came to this.

Unable to hold her tongue any longer, Katherine takes half of a breath. "It doesn't really matter, does it," she finally spits. "Because I'm not engaged to Dean, or you, or Chris. I'm engaged to Charlie. I chose Charlie." Katherine pushes herself up and stalks towards the back door.

Sophia is left gawking. "Engaged?!" She shrieks. "Katherine!"

"Sam!" Katherine shouts into the house, storming for the spare room. "I'm going for a run!"

Sam, sat on the sofa with a beer, looks at his watch. It hasn't even been three hours since she and Charlie got back. "You already went for a run today!"

Chris and Charlie trade mirrored expressions of confusion. From the kitchen, Dean's intense emerald gaze is on Katherine the whole way up the stairs. His eyes dart to the back door as Sophia comes barreling through. Chris pushes himself up from the sofa and starts over to the door, intercepting Sophia on her way to the stairs.

"Kat!" She calls.

"What happened?" Chris asks, resting his hands on her shoulders. Sophia leans around his to stare at Charlie.

Stare. Meaningfully. Dean has an eye for what a gaze holds, especially one that comes from a woman. He can't put his finger on just what this one means.

Charlie sighs and stands up. "I'll go talk to her." He calmly starts up the staircase, leaving Sam on the sofa.

"So we're not going for a run," he hums.

"Probably not," Dean sighs, moving for the refrigerator. "Need another?"

"Mmm...nnnn...yes."

Charlie gently raps his knuckles against the door and opens it a moment later. Katherine is pulling the royal blue t-shirt from this morning over her head. Matching eyes snap his direciton as he closes the door behind him.

"Why are you so angry?" Charlie asks.

"What has Chris been saying?" She retorts.

Charlie's eyebrows twitch. "Chris?"

"Your buddy downstairs."

He might've chuckled. "About what?"

"Me." She picks her shorts up from the floor and tugs them on. "Cut the shit. I know the generalities."

Charlie collects his thoughts for a moment. It's something Katherine often liked about him, but in this moment, she hates it. How he always pauses before he speaks. It's like he's hiding something, or trying to soften the blow.

"Does it matter what he says?" Charlie asks.

"He's supposed to be my friend," Katherine grumbles, searching for a fresh pair of socks. "And I've just been told—unintentionally—that he's whispering in your ear—" Charlie laughs this time. He's never been afraid of storms...especially not the one Katherine Louise just threw his way with just a look. "Why are you laughing?"

"Chris doesn't whisper in my ear," Charlie says, beginning to approach her.

"What does he say about me being on the road with the Winchesters?" Katherine demands. She squares up to Charlie as he stands just in front of her. "With Dean?"

Charlie's dark eyes rake over her face. Flushed, tanned cheeks, flared notrils, unruly blonde hair, wild cobalt eyes. Her chest is heaving with quiet rage, but the more seconds that pass, the more Charlie simply looks at her, those eyes calm from anger to sadness.

"What does it matter?" Charlie quietly asks, fingertips catching on her palm. "If you're good, then I'm good." Her eyes twitch speculativelty. Charlie takes a short breath. "I know it's over with you and Dean. You know it. Dean can fight against it all he wants, but deep down, he knows it, too. What does Chris know about any of that that I don't?" His head tilts a fraction, fingers reaching up to her face. "You and I chose each other. You've had a thousand chances to leave me, and you haven't. There's a reason."

"Maybe I'd just feel bad," Katherine breathes as his fingertip runs along the countour of her jaw. "You're a nice guy."

Charlie smiles. "You feel bad about all sorts of things, but you still do what you want, don't you?"

"Quit trying to seduce me."

"Trying?" He chuckles. "I'm not familiar with the term."

Katherine, having felt a change in the air and his posturing, lazily blinks at the man in front of her. "We're fighting and you have a hard-on?"

"We're not fighting," Charlie hums. "We're having a discussion. And you're very attractive."

"Don't try to distract me, Charlie, I'm really upset about this."

"Again with the 'try,'" he hums. "You want to talk? Let's talk."

"I want to know what Chris is saying to you."

"Why, so you can go yell at him? You already know what he's saying, or you at least have an idea," he sighs. "Besides, I can't remember all the nuances. It's all he wants to talk about lately. I'm beginning to think he wants to take you from me." Katherine rolls her eyes as Charlie backs her up to the bed, hands at her hips, legs crossing one another's. "Let them talk. They clearly don't have anything else to fill their time. When you take the time out of your busy monster-slaying schedule to come see me—" her knees hit the side of the bed and she falls back, Charlie on top of her. "—do we talk about who Sophia might be talking to at work?"

"She's a boob implant researcher. She doesn't talk to anyone at work."

Charlie grins. "Humor me."

Katherine tightly crosses her arms over her chest and heaves out a sigh. "No, we don't."

"Because we have more important things to talk about, right?"

She makes a face. "Because who gives a fuck about who Sophia talks to at work?"

"Exactly." Charlie kisses her cheek.

"But they give a fuck about who I talk to at work."

"I don't," Charlie says against her skin. "Are you engaged to Sophia? Or Chris?"

"No," she mumbles.

Charlie's lips brush against the shell of her ear. "Dean?"

A shiver rolls down Katherine's spine. "No."

"Then this is an increasingly moot point. All I care about is you breathing. There are a few things under that umbrella, and none of which can happen without this." He rests his hand on her chest, rising and falling at regular intervals. Her heart, though, beats like a drum underneath her ribs. "Anything Chris says to me about you goes in one ear and out the other. Promise." Charlie kisses her mouth. "He's usually drunk, too—"

"I don't want to talk about Chris anymore," she breathes, and wraps her fingers around the back of his neck.

Charlie grins. "It's about time you caught up."

Charlie was always very good at diffusing conflict, but especially good at defusing Katherine. She could never figure out what it was, but he always knew which wire to clip, and it wasn't always with the 'sex' card, though it did prove to be a very effective tool. Oh, the things he said while he was inside her.

She always hated dreaming about it, because when she woke with a pulse between her legs, she only had her own hands to remedy the problem, and they didn't come close to Charlie's. Once, she calculated how far of a drive it would be to feel those hands on her, and decided that six hours was far too long, and a phone call would have to do.

Charlie liked those phone calls a lot, but he liked her in his bed more.

She's sitting beside him much later, as the town is starting to gather in the firework field, and she's still thinking about what makes Charlie Taylor so special. He's smiling at someone else, laughing, his thumb brushing the inside of her wrist, when it hits her.

Charlie has never once tried to control her. Never told her what to do, even if he thought it was for her own good. He didn't tell her she couldn't hunt anymore. He didn't tell her she couldn't see Dean anymore. He might tell her what's for dinner when she comes into town, or that she shouldn't wash all of her clothes in one load...

She's never appreciated it before because she's never thought about it before. Really, it shouldn't be something to sing praises about, retaining her freedom. But all the men in her life told tell her what to do. Her father. Nick. Dean.

So she didn't care at all when Charlie Taylor stood up after the fireworks show, dragging her with him, and after one-too-many-drinks announced to the entirety of Haley that Katherine Louise would be his wife come next summer.

She would let him tell her that.