Chapter 4: Lying Instead of Trying

November 1, 2005

Just outside of Jericho, California

Ellie decides that California is a lot less gloom and doom once the yellow-gold of the sun is floating over the land at the right angle; like a brush stroke of paint on an empty canvas. The trees inhabit each side of the intrusive and loud road. They stretch up high to deny and cover the pavement's existence, opening towards the blues of the sky. Through a break in the indifferent trees, surrounding mountains peak through, seeming to go on forever in Ellie's eyes. Yet, the further away the ridges are, the more fake they look to the girl; like static on an aged motel TV screen. If they get to stay here for a little while Ellie hopes she might begin to see all of the colors Sam paints California in, but she doesn't know it for a fact that it is possible.

She will lose him again on Monday to his dark apartment, college classes, nameless girlfriend, and the friends she was never allowed to make. All Ellie wants them to be is a family again, the flicker of the one she saw before college was in question; after she stopped smelling smoke and remembering things she wasn't supposed to each time she closed her eyes to induce sleep, after she figured out how talking worked again since the night in November of 2002, after Sam and Dean began smiling at her instead of turning away, after she called John "Dad" for the first time by accident, but it stuck, and after she began hanging around Sam every chance she got because his words are formulated in a way that when he speaks to uncertainty each syllable is punctuated, and she believes every word.

Sighing at her thoughts and wishes, Ellie places her chin on the frame of her open window. The Impala is humming; Baby always sounds like whatever is under the hood is far more powerful than the little car can hold. She stays stitched together regardless; though, and the anxious energy within only leaks out at certain intervals. Baby makes Ellie feel safe, but right now she is causing the girl's teeth to clank together uncomfortably, so Ellie lies an arm under her head to lessen the blow.

Being exposed directly to the whipping winds and natural state of the road leads Ellie to see that what was some rain and chills at Stanford last night was apparently an angry storm in Jericho. It's funny how weather works, how it decides to erupt in a specific area while leaving other places dry. Dean eases up on the gas for once and drives a little more slowly than usual to steer clear of debris and trees that look about ready to croak. The cleanup crew has yet to start on the road they're driving on since it is a less-traveled, back road.

The seatbelt is digging into Ellie's stomach since she is practically hanging out of the car, and it is constricting her more than she'd like it to. She extends the elastic to make it seem like she is a lot bigger than her body really is. Holding it there, her right arm drapes over the frame of the Impala, bent at the elbow through the down window. The force of however fast Dean is going combined with the stillness of everything else shoves Ellie's arm back each time she attempts to straighten it. She bobs her arm up and down to ride out the current of the wind, twisting her fingers around and transfixed by it all.

She makes an attempt to grab at air by clenching her fist, but she feels nothing. Not even when the nine-year-old lets it go.

"Shouldn't Ellie be in school right now?" Ellie hears Sam begin to question Dean. "What exactly does she do for school anyway?" When her oldest brother doesn't reply right away, Ellie watches Sam slide his eyebrows close to each other so little lines appear on his face. He does that when he's thinking hard about something and she's surprised he doesn't have a headache from it. Sam rustles around in his seat to face Dean with a type of disbelief-realization in his eyes. "You know that's illegal, right?"

What's illegal? Ellie floats and swivels her limbs back into the vehicle. She doesn't understand why Sam thinks they went so wrong as to break the law. All she knows is of Dean and John trying to do good.

"What?" Dean sounds equally confused, voice all high and airy. But he must get it in the next second because he levels out and rips his eyes away from the road for a moment. "No, Sam, Jesus . . ." Dean grips the steering wheel, gliding around a left turn. "We're hunters, not barbarians, okay? And I know it may not always seem that way to you, but it's true."

It seems like Sam is about to say something but it never comes. Instead he mumbles a "Yeah, sure. Whatever." and it ends there.

"If you gotta know, Dad signed her up for some online thing. They send her work every week."

Ellie puffs out air from her mouth, crashing back into her seat with a thump. She whines, "It's dumb."

"Can't exactly argue with you there, sweetheart, but it is necessary." corrects Dean. He adjusts his mirror to look back at her and she rolls onto her side, using her seatbelt as a makeshift, thin pillow. When she is certain Dean has his attention back on the road, Ellie slips around on the seat for a few seconds until she is mostly upright again. The seatbelt holds back her movement a lot, but Dean and John force her to wear one.

Ellie uses the wind to sweep her messy bangs out of her line of vision and rotates her hand to individually tap every finger on her right hand on Baby's interior. Sam is on his silver flip phone at this point and it catches some rays of the sun while against his ear. Ellie can only hear his part of the conversation. She wonders for a brief moment if it is his to-be-named girlfriend, but his voice doesn't soften like his eyes did the first time he mentioned the other life force in his shadow of a home. Then, Sam asks about a "John Winchester" and the call has to be for the case.

It must be too hard to dial up home – even if it is a new home – because old habits die hard. Ellie is struggling to imagine Sam's hand twitching over scrambled digits and sleeping with his phone under his pillow in case it made a sound. He was the one supposed to call; though – after he left . . .

"JERICHO 7" Ellie spots on a passing, black sign, outlined in white bold letters. That means they're close. The lower the number, the better; that's what she's learned, anyhow. She's not sure how long miles are, or what makes up time and distance. It's all different, yet the same. Somehow.

There's music flowing out of the radio, but there always is, so it is merely background noise to the nine-year-old these days. Sam presses a button and snaps his phone closed. He turns in Dean's direction. "Alright – so there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue. So that's something, I guess."

"Why would he be there?" Ellie asks. She leans as far forward as her seatbelt permits, fingertips dancing on the back of Sam's seat. Some days the hunter who took the young girl under his wing is referred to as John in her mind; other days it is Dad. Right now is a John time because he has been far away for so long. Ellie wonders why he's chasing ghosts in sad places without them when there is the possibility to be whole again with Sam.

Dean narrows his eyes his brother's way but the manner of how he delivered his words say otherwise. It's the same way he speaks to the strangers that they want something from; calm and collected, yet sincere. Almost as if he's borderline selling something, and if Ellie didn't know any better she might buy into it if he told her that there were Chupacabras on Mercury. "He wouldn't be. Think of it as a, uh," Dean's mouth turns sideways for a moment before dragging itself back down. "precaution."

She considers it. "Like a seatbelt?"

"Uh, sure. Yeah." He thinks, pressing himself further into the road noise and asphalt. "We're close to finding Dad, just narrowing down our options." Dean tries to catch Ellie's eye in the rearview and she knows Dean wants to confirm that she understands. "One less place to look."

The sun stops catching on trees and suddenly the road extends out into an sullen, echoing canyon. Tips of the mountains fade the blue sky into a thin yellow and a river crosses through the large mounds of rock, stitched together by a two lane bridge meant for cars. Ellie observes her eldest brother perk up at the change of scenery because caffeine can only get him through so many forests and miles.

Dean grins, holding his teeth between his lips, "Check it out." He guides the car off on the shoulder, rolling up the windows, and lets her run to a stop when he eases off the gas. Ellie unbuckles and can faintly smell Sam's shampoo from where she is leaning over his shoulder to get a look at what they pulled over for. Squinting through the windshield and faint sun, she spots a handful of cop cars strung across the bridge much like the neon "CAUTION" tape present as well. Some people in uniform are patrolling the pavement, and Dean kills the engine and whatever whispers that are left of the song on the radio.

Ellie braces her chin on Baby's front seat upholstery, directly behind Sam. He stirs from his focused people watching when Dean reaches across him to gain access of the glove compartment, flicking the latch open with a finger. It spits out a tin box with a scratched surface and pale yellow tint. He slides through photo ID badges of many occupations before finding an appropriate one for the situation.

Dean purses his lips and ducks his chin in while reading over the badges one last time. "Huh." He hands one over to Sam. "Alright, Sammy; let's go."

Sam rolls his eyes. "It's Sam – "

"Sure, Samantha." Dean's eyes collide with Ellie, who looks at him through eyelashes and unruly hair, almost expectantly. A cherry red Nintendo Game Boy appears in his hand suddenly, and Ellie tilts her head and pushes her face around to wonder just when her brother pulled it out of its resting place in the glove box to hide from her. He angles it over the back of the front seat toward the nine-year-old, "Here you are, Your Highness."

She smiles, taking the electronic device. "Thank you."

"Remember: keep the volume at a minimum and – "

" – don't let anyone see me." Ellie finishes, already lying down on her back against the bench seat while she holds the Game Boy over her abdomen. Her sneakers are in the footwell and her toes wiggle when Dean pushes at her sock-covered feet. She can no longer see Sam from her position, but he must look some form of miserable from the way Dean addresses him.

"C'mon, Sam, lighten up. It's Halloween."

"Halloween was yesterday!" Sam calls after him in an annoyed reminder, but the squeak of shifting weight in the Impala and the slam of a car door highly indicates that Dean did not hear a word.

Ellie stares into the darkened screen and reflection of herself through the glass of the Game Boy she still has yet to turn on. "Do you really hate being called 'Sammy'?"

"What – El – Ellie; you – you know it's not like that – " He stumbles around in speech, words frantic as if he's trying to erase, but the paper ripped and now the mistake is even worse.

But the girl gets it, for right then. "It's okay, Sam. You don't have to lie to me."

Her Game Boy screen is still lifeless. She can only slightly make out the curls at the ends of her brother's hair and his bright eyes, but she can still sense him clenching his jaw and moving a bunch of molecules around with his chest. The air hums. Promising something.

"I'm not lying," Sam's words are careful, as if they have to be or else he is afraid that no one will listen: "I just – " An interruption – always an interruption when it comes to the fractured relationship between Sam Winchester and his baby sister – comes when Dean thumps on the glass of the driver's side window.

With his attention on Sam, he lifts the top half of his body upwards, eyes widening, and spreads out his arms. "Dude!" The impatient nature of his tone causes Ellie to lift an eyebrow.

Sam sighs, heavy and frustrated. He turns around but Ellie is already waiting for him. "Later, okay?" the offer is gentle.

She doesn't reply because the Game Boy flutters to life, but he exits the car anyways.

Ellie Winchester (Blackwell) threw her old life away because she was faced with no other choice. She surely would have self destructed otherwise, and she spent the better part of a year floating through the motions; but the Winchesters took her in and brought the young girl back. It's why she refers to Sam and Dean as her brothers and John as her dad if he sticks around in one town for long enough, or if she gets a longing to hear his threadbare voice over the speaker of a telephone. Ellie has moved on to the acceptance stage of how she sees people, and everything else before that can get pushed further away than the stars.

However, Ellie Winchester remains nine-years-old. There are a lot of things she has not seen because they are more the behind-the-scenes of the job. She hasn't killed a monster or ever had to directly face one straight on. She's only handled a pistol enough times to count on one hand when John got in those rare, stupid-drunk moods to teach her something new instead of locking her up in the motel room. Sometimes, Dean helps her tie her shoes because she cannot seem to get the knots as sturdy as he can and Ellie still enjoys running around on playgrounds, and eating ice cream, and asking questions, and ponies, and whatever else nine-year-old girls like. It's only right now that she is stretched out in the back of a 1967 Chevy Impala playing Pokémon on a Game Boy while her older brothers pretend to be people they aren't so they can get leads on why a person died unusually when they shouldn't have.

No one would believe them if they didn't lie. And even then some people are still skeptical.

Which is why she half-startles when her eyes catch something out of their peripheral and she glances up from her silent Pokémon battle to see someone peering into the car through the sealed window. It's a Deputy Sheriff wearing Aviators that block out his eyes and a tall brown Sheriff hat. Ellie freezes, allowing the Game Boy to slide to the floor mat. She is sure that he has seen her – how could he have not? – but then he is walking away and Ellie is trying to catch her breath between her teeth.

"Why do you have to step on my foot?"

"Why do you have to talk to police like that?"

The familiar and genuine spirits of Ellie's brothers' voices as they approach are what cause her to snap out of whatever hold she was in. They are muffled by the protection Baby has to offer, but she could still tell that Dean asked the first question and Sam the second one. It doesn't exactly sound like the police encounter went according to plan due to their bickering, but it still went, she guesses. Leaning down, Ellie picks up the dropped Game Boy on the floor – seeing that she lost the battle – while Dean reminds Sam like it is the most obvious thing in the world that the authority doesn't actually know what is going on here.

"We're all alone on this," Dean reminds his brother. He opens the car door and fills the Impala with his voice and presence. "If we're gonna find Dad, we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves."

The two Winchester brothers settle into the car and Ellie flips off her gaming system. She spots the Sheriff Deputy from minutes prior on the long bridge conversing with the police officers Dean and Sam had spoken to. Her jaw clenches when the man gestures their way.

"De," she forms, softly. "I was quiet but I think one of them saw me." Dean and Sam exchange wary looks. It's not a catastrophic problem, but a variable that brings questions as to why they're hauling a nine-year-old cross country in the middle of the school year. Why they brought her to a crime scene. Questions they don't want to answer.

Dean swallows and looks at the authoritative figures on the steel bridge. It is clear that there are eyes on the three of them and Baby. He breathes, "Alright, buckle up, kiddo. Looks like it's time to get the hell out of dodge."

November 1, 2005

Jericho, California

The rest of the drive to Jericho is short lived and Ellie spends it slowly munching on the leftover chips from that morning. By the time they pull up alongside the curb where many shops are glued together, the sky has grayed and the air is buzzing. It is almost as if a type of gloom hangs over the town, dangling and ready to pour down at any given shift.

Leaving Baby to wade through the rumbling atmosphere, Ellie skips down the sidewalk a few feet to where Dean is inserting a few coins into a parking meter. A group of teenagers walk by laughing and pushing at each other loudly. In the distance a BEEP! of a car locking can be heard. Ellie feels Sam come up behind them when Dean speaks: "I betcha that's her." She follows his attention to across the street where a girl is carrying a stack of pink papers, taping them to buildings and such as she goes. They're chasing a lead received on the bridge because apparently the victim had a girlfriend, who was the last person to speak with him before his disappearance. Ellie is unaware of names and specifics, but this girl looks like she could fit the description.

"Yeah." replies Sam, soft like hot chocolate and piano keys pressed with minimum pressure.

When the three of them come to the diagonal lines of the crosswalk Dean reaches for Ellie's hand. She steps back. "I'm not a baby . . ." she grumbles at the cracks in the sidewalk.

"You embarrassed to be seen with me?" questions Dean with a smile lurking at the edges of his mouth. He pokes Ellie in the ribs, and she jumps from her muscles tingling and curls into herself. "Huh?"

Ellie squeals when Dean moves to poke her again and she nearly crashes into Sam. "No! I just want to know when I don't have to hold your hand anymore."

Dean compresses his lips. "Hmm . . ." He takes ahold of Ellie's left hand in a quick swipe and a wink. "When you're taller than me."

"But I'll never be as tall as you!" The young girl carries a whine to her voice by the time they step onto the black-and-white candy cane crosswalk. Dean waves at a car that stopped to let the three of them pass through, practically yanking his little sister along.

"Exactly."

It's then that Ellie realizes how distant Sam is being and she twists her head over her shoulder to look back at him. The usual is Dean and her – Dad on occasion – but Sam has been a ghost on a faraway island the past two years, and Ellie does not know how to react to someone she was once so close to. He seems sad but still manages a smile when their eyes meet.

"You must be Amy," Ellie hears Dean greet the girlfriend of the missing person. She swivels her head back around and Dean keeps his tight, anchoring grip on her hand.

The girl is on her tiptoes taping one of her pink papers to the brick of a closed shop; it is a missing person's poster. She settles back on her heels when she is done, looking a bit unsure, but, nonetheless, confirms that she is indeed Amy.

Dean does not seem fazed by her hesitation, instead he steps a bit closer with Ellie still linked to him and uses his salesman voice, "Troy told us about you. We're his uncles." he claims. Taking his free hand, Ellie watches him point at each one of them while he continues. "I'm Dean, that is Sammy, and this is Troy's little cousin, Ellie."

Amy squints her eyes at them. "He never mentioned you to me." She turns and begins walking away along a high, dark fence. The wind catches the brunette hairs not included in her loose ponytail.

Ellie feels the pull and is aware of limbs and joints moving as Dean tugs her after Amy. He chuckles dryly. "Well, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much. We're up in Modesto." He lies so easily, almost as if the lie itself doesn't know what it truly is, and Ellie half-wonders if he ever hid the truth from her about something that mattered. Not that she would know, anyway. Dean has a whole list of make-believe lives he has if he ever gets in a jam. Her favorite is the one with the white-picket fence, and apple pies in the morning, and playing fetch with a Golden Retriever in the backyard, mainly because she just wants a dog. But that simply isn't a part of the family business. Never was.

Sam's voice is over Ellie's shoulder and then it wraps around her as he moves in front to gain attention. "So, we're lookin' for him, too, and, well, we're kind of asking around . . ." His words rise up in a kind-of-question and they have stopped walking at this point. Amy doesn't say anything, and the nine-year-old girl guesses it is because she doesn't know who they are, and her brothers are being a little pushy, and maybe she won't speak about Troy because she would rather him appear to them with a wide smile declaring he only got lost than explain who he is, if he is anything at all anymore.

People walk by and their presence brushes over Ellie's short hair and the surface of her skin in faint displacements of air. Cars creep up and down the streets with occasion hums of engines and slams of doors. The wind rocks the town back and forth, and Dean's fingers twitch within Ellie's as Amy decides whether or not she wants to reply to Sam, or slap another missing person's poster on the concrete.

Another girl about Amy's height and age sides up to her. She has posters tucked under her arm and was distributing them further down the sidewalk. She asks Amy if she is okay, most likely because it was a weird moment to walk into, and things seemed tense and bothersome. Amy says she is fine.

Sam places his hands in his pockets, shifting, "Do you mind if we ask you a couple questions?"

The questions lead the five of them a few buildings down to a quiet diner, making the conversation less uptight and formal. They sit in a booth by a window with white lace curtains, which is the main source of light in the diner since outside the clouds are dark and rolling. Amy and the girl who was also handing out posters, who has since been introduced as her sister – Ellie thinks her name is Robyn? – sit across from them with their backs towards the door. They both are wearing dark-colored makeup and have some piercings on their faces, but Ellie doesn't think they look ugly or anything. She finds herself staring at the leather bracelets on Robyn's right wrist and the silver necklace shaped like a tree hanging off of Amy's neck.

Ellie ends up smashed between her two overgrown brothers on their side of the booth, but she reverts from complaining when their waiter sets down a cup of orange juice – a beverage she couldn't have at the grubby gas station. The straw is a bendy one and even though she bites down too hard on it while drinking like she always does, she still has fun discovering each way it can twist.

She's playing with Sam's straw wrapper by folding it over on itself as many times as it can go when Amy begins explaining her last interaction with her boyfriend. "I was on the phone with Troy, he was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and, he never did . . ." Amy sounds sad and Ellie feels sad for her. She knows how broken promises and empty phone calls feel, and she gives the woman a weighted smile.

"He didn't say anything strange or out of the ordinary?" asks Sam in his usual soft and gentle way.

"No." Amy shakes her head. "Nothing I can remember."

Ellie nudges Dean because he is blocking the exit from the booth. She mouths: "Bathroom." He nods and angles his body so that she can crawl out. The young girl passes an elderly couple eating what she figures is their dinner because Dean told her once that old people like to eat earlier than everyone else. When she drifts past the kitchen to get to the bathroom, she hears bells dinging and sizzling from the grill. All of the smells combined make her a bit lightheaded and uncomfortable, and she pushes into the women's bathroom with a huff.

The bathroom isn't too terrible and she is the only one in there the whole time. The water may mostly run cold and the paper towels are a bit soggy, but she has been in grosser bathrooms before. Before leaving, she takes a look into the mirror for a second, tying her jacket around her waist because she is beginning to get warm. She ruffles around her hair so that it looks more alive. It is light brown but starting to carry traces of blonde she doesn't understand. She pushes her bangs up to get a good look at her eyes and they are still the brown shade they always are, a white ring settles around them from the bathroom light.

Afterwards, Ellie walks back to the booth and Dean pulls her up back into her spot. Robyn is describing something.

"It's kind of this local legend." Her hands are spread out and open on the wood surface of the table in a natural talking gesture. "This one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like, decades ago." Ellie bites down on her lower lip and scrunches her face a little bit. She knows it's part of the whole thing, what they do and everything, but she doesn't always like to hear about people dying. "Well, supposedly, she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up? Well, they disappear forever."

No one ever truly disappears into nothing.

They just go somewhere else where the people that knew them don't wander to.