Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own Supernatural or its characters. Maria, George & Nelly Lauerman, Lindsay the sandwich artist, and Karla Hein are mine, however.
Under Normal Circumstances
Chapter 3: A Difficult Childhood
Dean lay awake for hours that night thinking.
He had a daughter. Karla was dead. Maria was alive. She was here, in this town, somewhere. Her mind was innocent, her heart was unbroken. Whoever she was, she was perfect. She was his daughter, and even though they'd never met, he already loved her as only a father could.
Cas had said she was destined to leave everything behind, to hunt demons, but Dean couldn't bear to think of that. He and Sam had had a difficult childhood; they were screwed up. But Maria was not. She knew nothing of demons and monsters, had never experienced a hunter's hell life, and Dean was not about to ruin that naïveté for her.
Dean had only just fallen asleep when Sam woke. He took this time while Dean slept to search Maria's name again. If Maria believed she was truly the Lauerman's child, how the hell were they going to convince her otherwise?
Sam clicked to Maria's facebook page once more, this time without interruption. He scanned over her wall, smiling at the childish camaraderie and laughing at the girl's sharp wit. He browsed through her pictures and found exactly what he had expected: a photo of a girl, her two brothers, and her mother gathered around Mt. Rushmore; an album dedicated to silly pictures taken of friends on a local beach; a snapshot of her school's track team showing off their second places medals; a sweet photo of a young man with his arm wrapped around Maria. Her life really was perfectly normal. A tinge of envy crept into Sam's heart.
He sighed, closed his laptop, and pushed back from the desk he'd been sitting at. He looked back to find Dean still sleeping peacefully. Sam moved to stand at the foot of his brother's bed.
"Hey, Dean, get up."
When Dean didn't wake, Sam ventured over to the window and pulled the curtains open, letting the bright morning sunshine envelope the room. "Dean, come on, get up. Let's get going."
Finally Dean opened one eye and murmured something about Sam being one pesky snot-nosed son of a bitch. Sam just smirked and grabbed his duffel bag, carrying it into the bathroom with him.
Dean stuffed the torn-out page from the hotel's phonebook into his jacket pocket. The brothers grabbed some grub at the nearby McDonald's and started their search. Still, they didn't speak except to suggest a new direction. Neither man knew where they were going or what they were going to do when they got there, but they knew they had to go somewhere.
"We're not going to her house, Sammy."
"Why not?" Sam asked innocently.
Dean scoffed. "What would we say when we got there? 'Hey, you don't know us, but our angel-friend told us you're my daughter and that we're supposed to take you away from her to gank monsters.' Yeah, Sam, that'll get her to believe us."
Sam held up his hands in surrender. "Well, we've got to do something."
"Let's grab some lunch and we can decide where to go from there, okay?" Dean suggested, already taking the lead and driving the car towards the Subway they'd passed by three times that morning in their endless circling of the town.
The place was empty when they got there. The only other people were the workers. Sam stepped up to order first from the short red-haired girl at the counter. He was just telling the girl he wanted just lettuce and tomato on his sandwich when he noticed the second worker coming to take Dean's order. The tall, dark-haired girl flashed a smile at her customer and asked him what he wanted. Sam nearly did a double-take when he recognized the focused eyes, the charming smile, and the nametag on the uniform.
"Is that all" the ginger worker asked Sam for the third time.
Sam shook his head to regain focus on the situation at hand. "Yeah, and his sandwich too. Make them both combos," he answered, grabbing two bags of potato chips off the counter.
Dean paid for both their sandwiches with money he won the week before from a game of pool and took a seat at the table. Sam sat without touching his food, watching the girls chat behind the counter, while Dean immediately dug into the sub.
The dark-haired girl glanced at the clock on the wall. "Well that's if for my shift. See you later, Lindsay."
"Bye, Ria!" the shorter worker shouted as her friend bowed into the backroom to put away her apron.
Sam suddenly went into action. "Let's go, Dean."
"What? Why?" Dean asked through a mouthful of cold-cut turkey and ham.
Sam leaned down to whisper, "Because I think that girl was your daughter."
Author's Note: Chapter three is now up! The ball is officially rolling. Please enjoy! Feel free to read, review, comment, criticize-praise is cool too, just sayin'-share, or whatever else floats your boat!
~Lynx
