I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted any of this. I was going back through some old writing as I was realizing that I needed to get caught up on Supernatural so I could watch the last few episodes live. (I got behind in season 14 somewhere around episode 7 and had to wait for them to come to Netflix and then I just haven't gotten around to it again.) Anyway, I'm going to finish posting this whole story within the next few weeks. After that I may start a spin off fic from Raised from Perdition, depending on how season 15 goes once I finally get caught up. Again, I wrote this is 2015 so it is taking place then. Hope you enjoy.
Dean raised the shotgun
and emptied both barrels into the Chimera’s lion face. It shuddered, writhed,
the other two heads screaming, then shook itself and lunged toward him. He
quickly reloaded, slamming two more shells into the chamber. The first blasted
off the best’s goat head. It stumbled,
staggering to its knees as Dean finished it off with a final shot that cut the
snake in half. He nudged the chimera
with the toe of his boot. The snake tail
was still twitching, but the rest of it didn’t react. He wiped the blood from his hands on his
jeans and walked over to where Dani crouched against the wall. She grinned at him through the blood and
grime on her face, her eyes bright with adrenaline.
“Not bad little lady,” he said, offering her a hand up.
“You’ve kind of got a knack for this.”
“Thanks,” she said. She took his hand, but winced as he
pulled her to her feet, one of her legs buckling.
Dean’s face clouded with worry as he noticed the dark red
stain spreading across the upper leg of her jeans. “You’re bleeding. Was that the snake?” he asked, helping her sit
down again.
“No, the lion scratched me,” she said, her voice tight. “Is it bad?”
“Nothing a few stitches won’t fix,” he said after a quick
inspection of the injury. He pulled off his jacket and then the plaid shirt
underneath, and started to tie that one around her leg to stop the bleeding. “We’ll get you sewed up once we get out of
here.”
“You know how to do stitchces?” she asked.
“Sam’s better at it than me,” he said, finished off the
makeshift bandage. He looked up and
studied her briefly; she seemed reasonably all right. “Can you walk?”
She nodded. “I
think so, it just surprised me a minute ago.”
“Ok.” He started to help her up again, but paused when
his gaze caught on a flash of light glinting off a necklace that had slipped
out from under her shirt sometime during the fight. It was a small pendant with a celtic design,
an ancient good luck charm. Dean stopped
short, he’d seen a charm just like that a long time ago. It even had the same nick cut out of the top
where it had been damaged sometime in the past.
Something about the pendant nagged at the edge of his consciousness,
something he’d forgotten. “Where did you
get that?” he asked.
She looked down, startled, and then glanced back up at
him but he was still looking at the necklace.
“From my mom.” She took a deep breath.
“She said my dad gave it to her.”
Dean’s breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t just seen one of those charms
before, he’d owned one, pulled it out of an old druid’s attic after she’d been
murdered by banshees. And then he’d
given it away. He remembered the light
brown hair, the pretty blue eyes, the smile that lit up a room. He looked at Dani, looked hard. The same set
of the eyes, same shape of nose. He felt his stomach drop. Oh shit. That can’t be right. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” she answered softly, almost like she didn’t
want him to hear.
He
paused, quickly doing some mental math. “What was your mom’s name?”
“Suzanna Webster.”
Dean looked away, his gaze a long way off for what felt
like forever. Suzi Webster. That almost half a semester at the small town Texas
high school. The warm, spring nights
when he wasn’t hunting, together out at the ball field, in the back seat of the
impala… Was it possible? Yes. He was
young and stupid back then, he hadn’t been careful but, if it was true wouldn’t
Suzi have told him?
He
finally looked back up at Dani, questioning, and she nodded once. “Did you know?” he asked.
Dani shook her head, her lips pressed in a tight
line. “Not at first. I just thought you’re name sounded familiar
because of Winchester rifles. I don’t
know, something you said a little while back made me wonder, but I wasn’t sure.”
“Oh my god.” Dean sat back on his heels, reaching out a
hand to steady himself.
Before either of
them could say anything else Sam came in from the other room. “You guys ok?”
“Yeah,” Dean said, standing hurriedly. He didn’t look at
either of them as he pulled Dani to her feet, and then started out of the
room. “Let’s get out of here before this
place falls down on top of us. We should
be able to get to the bunker in a couple of hours and get her patched up.” He shrugged his jacket back on and stalked
out of the room, not turning to see if either of them were following.
Sam turned to Dani questioningly. “What happened?”
She just shook her head.
.
. .
Back in the bunker, Dani pushed herself up onto the
bathroom counter as Sam took a makeshift suture kit out of one of the cabinets.
Gingerly, she began peeling the blood soaked plaid from her leg.
“So what happened with you and Dean?” Sam asked,
sterilizing a needle with a lighter.
“I don’t know,” she said, not looking at him. “I know I’ve been saying this for days, but
I’m really going to get that bus this time.”
Sam nodded. “Get
back to a normal life?”
“Yeah, something like that. It’s been an interesting road trip though,
that’s for sure.”
“You ready?” Sam asked, pausing with the needle over her
leg.
Dani set her jaw.
“Let’s do it.”
.
. .
“Hey, how long have you been here?” Sam asked, looking up
from his computer as Castiel came into the room.
“Seven and a half minutes,” then without further preamble
he stated more than asked, “You’ve brought someone new to the bunker.”
“Good to see you too,” Sam said. “Yeah, a girl named Dani
Webster. We were supposed to be taking
her home after we helped her break a curse, but we kind of keep getting
distracted.”
Castiel nodded.
“Where’s Dean?”
“He’s in his room, but I’d leave him alone if I were
you,” Sam cautioned.
“Why?” Castiel
asked, pausing.
“I don’t know,” Sam shrugged and ran a hand through his
hair. “Dean’s been weird since we
finished with those chimera, but I don’t know what he has to be mad about. We got them, nobody died. I think something happened with Dani, but
neither one of them will say what.”
Cas sighed and nodded knowingly. “Perhaps I should speak to him anyway.”
“Whatever Cas.”
Sam waved a hand dismissively.
Castiel slipped into Dean’s room, ignoring the fact that
there had been no answer to his knock.
Dean sat at his desk, with a pair of headphones on. Despite them, Castiel could hear the music’s
muted blaring. Dean’s entire body was
tense and his expression hard and distant.
“Dean,” Castiel started.
Dean didn’t react. “Dean.” He
repeated, louder.
“What Cas?” Dean snapped.
“You seem troubled.”
He hesitated. “Is everything all
right?”
“No,” Dean said, jerking off the headphones and throwing
them down on the desk. “No, everything
is not. Apparently…” He forced out a breath, rubbing a hand across
his face. “Apparently I have a kid. A daughter, a grown daughter, with a girl I
dated for a couple months in high school.”
Cas just nodded.
“I thought maybe you’d found out about that.”
“Wait,” Dean held up a hand, before Castiel could
continue. “Are you telling me that you
knew about her?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?” he demanded, his expression a mix of
anger and hurt.
“Since shortly after I met you,” Castiel answered. “You were of great interest to heaven at the
time. We learned nearly everything about
you and Sam both.”
“And you didn’t feel the need to share this information
before now?”
“It never came up.” Dean looked like he was about to
start yelling at him, so he hurried on, holding up a placating hand. “And if I had you would have tried to find
her. It wasn’t time for the two of you
to meet yet.”
“What do you mean ‘it wasn’t time yet’?”
“Dani’s important in the grand scheme. Or at least she is if plans haven’t changed
since then. They said she has a vital
role to play in your family. I don’t
know the details, but I do know that there was a plan and that it was
considered vital that certain points needed to come about at certain times.”
For a minute Dean was quiet, while he tried to organize
his thoughts. He started to begin
several sentences without actually saying anything then he shook his head and
looked back at Cas. “Tell me one thing,
since you know so much. Do I have more
kids?”
“No,” Castiel assured him. “Though that is a wonder.”
. . .
“Hey,” Dean said, coming into the kitchen where Dani was
making a peanut butter sandwich.
“Hey,” she repeated cautiously, laying down the butter
knife.
“So,
I guess you and I need to talk.”
“Yeah, I think we
do” she nodded. “Can I start?”
He nodded.
“Ok,” she took a deep breath and shoved her hands into
her front pockets. “Look, I don’t want
you to feel like I expect anything from you.
I don’t need a dad, I’m grown, and I’ve been doing ok on my own for
years. If you want, I’ll go and you’ll
never hear from me again. But,” she paused. “I don’t need a dad, but, I don’t know, what
are the odds that we’d run into each other after all this time. So, since we
have met each other, I guess I’d like to get to know you a little bit. If that’s ok?”
Dean let out a slow breath. Her request was reasonable,
and somewhat tempered the nervous tension thrumming through him. This was new for her too, he could see in her
face that she wasn’t really sure what to make of all this either. But maybe they could work something out. “Of
course it’s ok,” he said. “Look, this all kind of came out of nowhere for me,
I’m still getting my head around it. But
I don’t want you to walk and never hear from you again. I’d like to get to know you too.”
