And there's a lot that happened in the middle that Dean has a hard time talking about. What he made Ben do when Lisa was going to die from that demon; what he almost did to Lisa when he was turning into a vampire. What Cas did when he sucked up all those souls, taking out the wall in Sam's head, killing all those people. It took him a while to learn how to get over what Cas did, but he got there, he thinks. Liking Meg is part of that. He doesn't know how to explain any of that to her and have it fix anything, so maybe he just shouldn't say anything.

Because he can't solve that problem, if that's what's really bugging her, and he can't see a way around that. He sighs, hanging his head, tapping his finger against the table, and then he comes up shaking his head.

"I know what you mean. There've been times... I was gone somewhere and came back, and Sam would seem so different, you know?" When he went to Hell, or when Sam came back without his soul, and then Purgatory.

"And that was just one year. Knocked me for a loop every time. I didn't know what to think about him for a long time. You know, this is what he would be if I wasn't around?" He lets that hang kind of awkwardly, and then he makes a face. "He'd put an iPod thing in my car?"

He calms down again, still holding onto a part of that smile, if only to try to lighten the mood at least a little.

"I can't imagine what it's like to see how much has changed all at once."