Disclaimer: Winchesters are not mine.
A/N: There's some language in this one, sorry if that offends anyone. Also, whoever left me the review "I am so pissed I'm not even logging in. I can't believe you. Rawhg." Totally made me laugh :) Thanks! Furthermore, there are so many random references in this chapter, it's almost embarrassing. Have fun finding them all!
We got to a motel. I didn't remember coming inside, but the bed and I became fast friends. I lay there for hours. Sam and Dean didn't try to offer small comforts, didn't try to coax conversation out of me. They let me be, and I lay there, following the few scattered pieces of memory as far as I could. It was like following a piece of string, slowly running my hand along it as I wondered where it would lead me. Only, the memories would always lead to the same place: pain.
Hot pain, crackling pain, headache pain. If I pushed too far all I would get was pain. If I pulled back soon enough, then sometimes I would be rewarded with another hazy fragment. Sometimes if I just lay there in a stupor, I would get a feeling and then the memory attached to that feeling would filter into focus. There was no rhyme or reason; it just happened. Sometimes I would pass out, sometimes I would just drift.
At one point I floated back to reality, only to find the most beautiful pair of green eyes hovering above me. "Are you a Disney princess?" I asked dreamily. The eyes blinked once and then the rest of the face snapped into focus as my brain caught up with itself.
"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ," I uttered loudly, flailing to the edge of the bed away from the owner of the eyes. "Not a princess. Not a fucking princess."
"I don't know Sammy, I kind of like her better when she's on drugs," Not Princess said with a smirk. Where was I? How did I get here?
I staggered off the bed, slapping away his hands. "Don't you fucking touch me," I yelled at him, wheezing as I spun wildly. It hurt to breathe, and my gun was gone, so where was my knife? It wasn't at my hip, and I couldn't see it, which meant I had to get out of here. It wasn't safe. I had to run. I had to find Finn.
Finn. Who was that? I knew him, I did. He was just out of reach, just past the fuzziness of untouchable memories.
"Riley," Dean snapped. I whipped my head back towards him, eyes frantically wide. He was inching closer to me the way someone does with an injured animal.
Dean.
Dean was safe.
Dean meant I was safe.
Whoops. I had just yelled at him, using some less than stellar language. Why the heck hadn't I recognized him in the first place?
I stilled my body, straightening out of my defensive stance and loosening my balled fists. "It's okay. I remember," I murmured, suddenly lightheaded. "I remember." There was an apology tucked into those words somewhere. I hoped he understood. Dean took another slow step towards me, but I shook my head. I didn't want his help. I didn't want him to touch me. I just wanted to lie down again.
I moved around him, breaking my no touching rule when my chest constricted and refused to inflate again. Wobbling dangerously sideways, I locked my fingers into Dean's forearm for support. Lord have mercy, I was dying. But then something inside me kicked it back in gear, and I started breathing again. Releasing Dean's arm, I eased myself onto the bed again and flung one arm over my aching eyes.
I could feel their worried stares. I could feel them, but I didn't care or do anything to alleviate their concern. I knew it was selfish of me. Sam and Dean had come when I needed them, come when I had no one else. They had dropped everything to come find me, and they deserved more than a psychotic half-zombie.
"Sorry," I muttered at the ceiling, more or less in my right mind now. I kind of wished I was high on pain meds again. At least then the horrible jagged pain in my side would stop, and the knowledge that my mind was damaged wouldn't be foremost in my thoughts, egging me on. But no. I needed to remember what had happened. And to do that, I needed my mind sharp, regardless of how bad it hurt.
I hated being helpless, hated it with a burning passion. "Fuck," I spat out vehemently, wanting to hit something. Instead, I promised myself that it was the last time I was going to swear in front of them. There was no call for it, and it was just vulgar.
But the helplessness was still there, taunting me from the depths of my muddled memories. "Fuck," I repeated, just as violently as before. Okay, that was the last time I was going to swear in front of them. Really for reals this time.
"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Dean asked me. I think he was maybe just trying to break the tension, because he had worse language than I did, and we both knew it.
"I learned it from you," I informed him grumpily. "You think I had a potty mouth in the pre-Winchester era of my life? I did not."
"Well…can't argue with that," he admitted, sounding a bit mischievous. "Guess I just have a way of corrupting the ladies, eh, Sam?"
"Real classy, Dean," Sam said with no real heat in his voice. "She's only…"
"Nineteen," I volunteered, still shielding my eyes with an arm.
"...nineteen. She doesn't need to hear that crap." Ah, Sam. Ever the gentleman.
"Oh, come on, Sammy. Lighten up. Live a little." Dean subsided into silence, but his ploy had worked. I no longer felt like I needed to hit something. Sam said something else, but I wasn't really paying attention anymore. Just listening to their banter had pulled me back from the edge.
I pulled my arm off my face and sat up. My ribs sent a plethora of pain signals to my brain, reminding me that I need to work on slow, smooth movements over the next few weeks.
"How'd I get to the hospital?" I asked.
Dean shrugged, digging through his duffel bag. Sam looked up from his laptop, frowning. "Someone found you, I guess. They must have taken you to the emergency room. Dean and I tracked your cellphone's last known location, which was the beach, and then we started checking local hospitals for Jane Does matching your description. No one could tell us anything about who brought you in."
Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. I comforted myself by sticking to a rhythm. The adrenaline and fear had burned through the last of my pain med haze of happiness, and I was feeling every bit of the four fractured ribs.
Breathe in. We don't know how you got there. Breathe out.
Breathe in. What the hell did you get yourself into? Breathe out.
Breathe in. What do you mean you don't remember? Breathe out.
Breathe in. Well, what do you remember? Breathe out.
It was a nice rhythm, sans the Winchester interrogation. When I got tired of their questions—which seemed to swing from mild disbelief to full-on incredulity at the extent of my gaps in memory—I just stopped answering. It's not like I could answer anyhow. Breathe in, breath out. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim, swim.
I found it hysterical that now, of all times, I was taking advice from an animated fish that had severe memory problems. Good Lord, I was out of control, and I wasn't even on pain meds yet.
Sam and Dean pushed at me, but eventually they grew tired of my silence and shifted their attention elsewhere. I tuned them out, reviewing what little information I knew.
I had washed up a beach with four fractured ribs, a head injury, and mild hypothermia. I had called Dean. Someone had found me and taken me to a hospital. Then Dean had arrived and promptly stolen me from the hospital.
But there was more. There had been someone with me on that beach, I was sure of it. Yet I couldn't remember. The last couple of months were kind of hazy as well. Something was nagging at me, though. I was missing something, but I didn't know what. It just felt like a part of me was…gone. For now. Sometimes tiny snatches of memory came back. Little snippets, words. Sometimes it was a half-remembered conversation. Other times it was a memory of a solid presence beside me. Either way, I wanted whatever it was back.
And if there was anything I'd learned from the last few years, it was that I was pretty good at fighting for what I wanted.
I let out a sigh, bringing my arm up slowly and shoving it under the end of the pillow. Then I turned my cheek into the soft material and tried to let everything drop out of focus. It didn't work. A couple minutes later, I sat up.
The remote to the TV was just sitting on the small dresser between the beds, so I plucked it up and turned the whole thing on. I clicked through the channels, frowning inattentively. Then I ran into a certain man in a bowtie, and I settled back to watch. "Bowties are cool," I announced to no one in particular. Both Winchesters completely ignored me, and it was almost nicer that way. Made it easier to pretend that I hadn't almost died. Again.
"Dean," Sam said quietly, just seconds after I watched a blue box sail into a fissure in time and the credits appeared on the screen. I glanced over at Sam, and Dean looked up from the bed, pulling out a headphone from his ear and pushing a button on his phone.
He swung his long legs off the bed and was at Sam's shoulder in a mere second. "Looks like we got a werewolf, two counties over," Sam said quietly. Geez. Sam had only been at it for a few hours. He was good. He was really, really good. It usually took me hours upon hours to even find a possible case, much less narrow down what it might be.
If Dean was fazed at the mention of a werewolf, it didn't register in his tone of voice. "You want to take care of it, or do you want me to?" I imagined Sam and Dean chasing down Jacob Black from Twilight, and the thought made me want to giggle. Then I sobered. There was no way a werewolf was as nice as the guys from Twilight. Werewolves were probably vicious and bloodthirsty, not cuddly with great abs.
There was silence and then the soft slap of fists into palms. Rock-paper-scissors. I would bet my left kidney on it. And since it was rock-paper-scissors, I already knew who would be staying. Or going.
Whichever thing they deemed worse, Dean would do, because Sam had told me once that Dean had yet to win against him. Back then I couldn't decide if that was by choice, or if Dean was just really bad at the game. I still didn't know. But then again, the two weren't always mutually exclusive. Dean was kind of funny like that when it came to Sam.
A quick glance to the left proved me right, and Dean had once again lost with his continued choice of throwing the scissors sign. Sam stood up, gathering his stuff and grabbing his bag. He gave the TV a weird glance, and I gave him a snooty "don't judge me" glance. That made him smile, at least. Then he was gone, and both brothers walked out into the parking lot.
I didn't hear the Impala start up, though, which made me wonder how exactly Sam intended on getting two counties over. But then again, he was a resourceful fellow, and I was sure he'd be fine.
Dean appeared in the doorway again, leaning one strong shoulder inside. "I'm going to run to the store. Don't go anywhere."
I waved the remote at him, not bothering to look up. I didn't intend to go anywhere. I had a bed, and I had the BBC America channel. I didn't need to move for a month.
His head and shoulder disappeared out of my peripheral, and a few seconds later, I heard the swarthy rumble of the Impala engine.
By the time I heard the same comforting rumble again, I was already in a Sherlockian coma. "Just tell us how he did it," I grumbled at the TV as I heard the familiar squeak of the car door opening. I tried to turn my scowl into something welcoming. It's nice to see you. I'm just over here mourning over fictional characters. How was your day?
When Dean walked through the door, my face was entirely neutral, and I tried to act natural, as if I hadn't just experienced emotional trauma at the hands of a TV show. Regardless of my emotional status, Dean held up a bag of popsicles and a six pack of blue Gatorade. "Got the essentials," he said cheerfully.
I screwed up my face even though I was perfectly happy with his purchases. I was never one to turn down popsicles, and I knew Gatorade had all sorts of good stuff in it like electrolytes and sugar—stuff people usually need when they almost die. Besides, blue was my favorite flavor anyhow. How Dean knew that, I had no idea.
But really, who goes out and buys popsicles and Gatorade for a trauma patient?
Dean cast a knowing look over his shoulder, kind of grinning. "What, you think this is the first time I've taken care of a sick kid before?" He was a mind reader. He had some kind of weird mind juju, I just knew it.
"I'm not sick. I'm just broken," I said, pointing it out with the sincerest of logic. Mind juju that, Dean Winchester, I called silently.
Dean ignored me and went on. "I practically raised Sammy. I mean, I love the kid, but my baby brother is a total bitch when he is sick. But the one thing that never fails? Gatorade. And popsicles."
That's actually two things, I wanted to point out, but it wasn't worth the effort. Dean pulled a bottle free of the plastic rings and twisted the cap off with a small crack. Then he walked over and extended it to me. I took it from him, trying to use the least possible amount of movement, and I took a sip, liking the way it trickled down my throat without burning. Dean reached over to the dresser between the beds and pulled the bottle of pain meds out of the drawer. Dang it.
Shaking out two ugly pills into his hand, Dean paused, double checking the label on the bottle. Then he shook another one free of the bottle and held them out to me. I gave his hand a mutinous glance, but he didn't even blink. I didn't want them, even though the pain was starting to get to me. I wanted to be able to think. Pain or operational mental faculties—I weighed the options in my mind with great care. Okay, I'd take them. Today. Just for today.
I scowled to tell Dean I wasn't happy, and then I tossed the pills back with another mouthful of Gatorade. Dean rose from his crouch, apparently satisfied. Turd.
It took a while for the meds to kick in, but boy did they do a good job. I didn't really notice when things stopped hurting, everything just seemed to fade from my mind. I let out a small giggle, thinking it funny when the weird stain on the ceiling was shaped like a cephalopod. That reminded me of something. Something I had to ask Dean.
But first, I needed to itch my nose. I did so and noticed a bandage on my hand, crossing my palm. "Hey," I called out demandingly, "what happened to my hand?"
Dean let out a sigh that I could hear from all the way across the room. "You tell me, Riley. You tell me."
I scoffed. "Can't," I said glibly. "Don't remember it a tall." The stain on the ceiling distracted me from further annoyance at Dean, though. "Do cephalopods have noses?" I asked, wrinkling and itching the tip of mine yet again.
Dean didn't answer. I tried to roll onto my side and look at him, but all I managed to do was awkwardly angle myself and get all out of breath. Things were spinning and whirling, and I decided it was best to just lie still before something too wild happened.
Dean got up and came over, staring down at me with a look that belonged back at the hospital. "Uh-oh, Mister Grumpy Face is here," I said, pointing an accusatory finger up at him. "Go back to the hospital, Grumpy." He would fit right in with all the other Grumpy Gills and Pants there.
"Go to sleep, Riley," Dean said, sounding tired. But I wasn't tired. No siree.
"I can't! The sky's awake, so I'm awake," I informed him, very matter-of-factly. Then I smiled my best smile at him. He didn't smile back. Fine, I'd go to sleep, just to make him happy.
But first. "What about Finn?" I murmured. Finn, Finn, Finn, Finn, Finn. Who was that again? And why did I care? It felt like I should care, but I couldn't remember why.
"Still don't know who that is," Dean said quietly, touching a hand to my forehead and then my cheek. His skin was cold, and I didn't understand why he was touching me, so I batted his hand away. Or at least I thought I did. I might have just waved a hand about in the air for all I knew. Dean frowned down at me. "With all those meds I just gave you, you should be out like a light."
I shrugged. Whatcha going to do about it? I had a high tolerance or whatever.
"Out like a light. That's a funny saying, you know?" I said conversationally. "Like, first there's a light, and then you just flick the switch, and it's gone. Out." Dean gave me a weird look, but I hastened to explain the funny part.
"It's like their eyes. There's a light, you know? Then, cichgh"—I drew my thumb over my throat, miming death—"it's gone. Like turning off the light." Dean's face got very serious all of a sudden, and I kind of realized something. "Wait," I murmured, rubbing at my eyes tiredly. "That's not funny. That's sad."
Wasn't it? I couldn't remember. "Well, it's kind of funny," I rationalized, not really understanding why I had originally thought it funny but sticking to my guns anyway.
"Jesus, kid," Dean said grimly.
I recoiled, offended. "No, I'm Riley. 'Sides, 's not my fault if you donnae like my jokes." Then I frowned, confused as to why my words were coming out slurred. "Wait, on' more. Knock kno' who's th're—" I began, barely able to contain my giggle when I knew I should be waiting for the punchline to laugh.
"Alright, that's it. We're calling it a day, Short Round," Dean said, suddenly bundling me over on my side, and pulling the blankets out from under me. I thought about complaining, but a second later they draped back over me. Woah, talk about tricky. Tricky. That reminded me of another joke.
I worked my hand free of the layers of blankets, raising it for no reason other than to inform him I wasn't done yet. "I got 'nother joke," I said weakly, my voice starting to sound funny even to my own ears.
"Not happening, kiddo," Dean said gruffly, fighting my arm back under the blankets.
Your loss, I wanted to say, but my eyes slid shut and my mouth followed suit.
