A/N: This is crappy, but I love, love, love Pac-Man Fever and I love, love, love Charlie and I just had to write this. I own nothing. Sorry for all the grammar/spelling mistakes.
"Come on, let's get you into bed."
She grumbled and pouted all the way towards the bedroom where Dean was steering her with his warm hand on her back.
"But..."
"Na-ah, no buts, just come on, take five and then we'll let you go."
"Oh, come on..." she whined, but walked where Dean was pushing her anyway. She trusted him, and Sam who was walking behind them.
The hallway was long, the walk felt like the green mile, because all she wanted was to go away back into her own life again, and not to sleep ... but at the same time this felt right. It felt right to stay for a while, for just a few minutes to get the ground beneath her feet to stop swaying. Her arm hurt a little where Sam, as she had been told, stuck a needle in and she scratched the itch, but the ache stayed. She felt tired, drained, shaky. Exposed. All her secrets were out in the open now. Her whole life laid bare before Sam and Dean and it was scary. But if there was anyone, anyone at all, she would want to know about her, it was those two. They were all so alike. Parents dead, and them struggling through life the best they could. Minus the real monsters on her part, but monsters in video games were real to her, so... yeah...
"Here you go, highness."
She startled and looked at the bed, that was waiting for her to have some rest. She sat down on it and ran her hand over the neatly done covers.
"Memory foam, Charlie, memory foam."
She smiled and watched Dean crouch before her, while Sam crossed his arms at his chest and leaned at the door frame.
"Listen, just sleep for a while, you can't drive right now."
"Yeah, I know," she sighed, "fine." rolled her eyes and flopped down to bed.
"'kay kiddo."
"Hey Charlie..."
Sam's voice made her wince, it was laced with pain, and the rest of Sam wasn't looking all that awesome either.
"Ya know, you don't have to lie to us."
Ugh, that stung. It felt as if she was a small kid being yelled at by ... don't go there.
"I didn't lie, Sam ... I just ... withheld info."
"Withhold info, then."
"'s my life."
"I know it is, believe me I know, just..."
She saw it then. In Sam's eyes, in Dean's. They saved her, they risked their lives for her, they knew her now, her life, they knew almost everything about her now and ... they weren't judging her. Pitying her. They weren't angry or sad for her or at her, they weren't doing anything, but being there. Only and just that.
"I didn't mean to ... withhold info."
"'s fine Charlie, it's your life, you're right, just ... get some sleep, alright."
"Yeah..."
She swallowed down the feeling that somehow she failed them, but the little smiles she got first from Sam when he turned around and walked down the hallway and then from Dean when he got up from the crouch and went after his brother, made her feel warm all over. Like everything was a-okay, no hard feelings, all good.
-:-
She lay in bed; on the memory foam that Dean had been so happy to point out and listened to the boys talking, Dean probably filling Sam in to what had happened. Their voices were murmurs, muffled by the hallways and thick walls, but she could hear the words mom, video game and fear so clearly the words were painful stabs into her mind.
Mom...
She hid her face in the unfamiliar pillow and sucked down the sudden sadness that came out of nowhere and sucker punched her in her belly. She didn't want to cry again, once was enough thank you very much.
-:-
So she rested; in an unfamiliar bed, on unfamiliar sheets, under unfamiliar cover, hiding her face into an unfamiliar pillow, in an unfamiliar room, but she felt safer and more at home, than she had ever felt before in any familiar room.
She sighed and punched the pillow, and saw something from the corner of her eye. There was something leaned to the lamp on the table, a small paper, yellowed and old. She leaned towards it and picked it up. A picture. A woman and a kid. Dean probably. And his mom. She had been beautiful. No wonder the boys were ... uh, like they were.
She put the picture back. It was too private, even after everything she went through with Dean today. The boys lives were complicated, were sad and crazy and as the books hinted codependent and insane and intertwined in the most tight ways and it hurt her to think too much of it. The boys would be okay, as long as they'd have each other, they would be fine. She had to believe that, or else the worry would eat her alive and it wasn't hard to worry about them ... they were her friends. More than just that.
She turned around, away from the door and hugged the pillow. The guys would watch her back; they wouldn't let anything happen to her. The pillow smelled of Dean, the room smelled of Sam a little too and she closed her eyes. She just needed five minutes of rest. Just five minutes and then she'll go ... let go.
The End