The waitress's brown glittered as she stared at the little bundle of red hair crawling all over Dean. The man just sat there accepting his role as caretaker and furniture. The look on the waitress Rita's face screamed biological clock. Dean cocked one of his green eyes at the waitress who was doing her best to act out an instant family dynamic. This cute little girl, who was the obvious embodiment of his love for her mother, was a chick magnet. This little girl showed women a softer side of him that appealed to a woman's need to love and be loved. The irony was he no longer needed this function. Mary patted her hands on the flat plastic menu letting the Rita know that she wanted a glass of milk and orange juice. Rita giggled and waited. Dean ordered a bowl of cereal for Mary and the largest breakfast platter he could find. Sam nodded at the waitress that he wanted one too. Rita batted her eyelashes at the two of them and bounced away. Mary turned her focus back to the window.

"I think I am going to call her Midget." Sam looked at the little girl who was pointing out the cars going by.

"It seems right." Dean looked down at the menu then flicked it forward. Mary turned and patted Dean's face with her open palm. Then she tried to squirm out of the booth.

"Where do you think you are going?" Dean looked her in the eyes.

"Beware the midget is escaping." Sam mock yelled.

Mary turned and glowered at her uncle. Her face contorted and the little girl tried to look older. It was the look that he had seen on Lilly's face every time he tried to convince her to leave. Dean rolled the little girl onto her back and took away her ability to maneuver. Mary pouted and crossed her arms simply waiting. Dean moved her back into the booth next to the window. Rita returned with a tray of drinks then proceeded to set them down. Leaning over the table Rita managed to flash Dean as she set the cups with lids in front of Mary. Mary focused her eyes on the woman and smiled. Dean couldn't help but notice the change in demeanor. Even for a child this little girl seemed fiercely protective.

"Where Mommy?" Mary turned to Sam and demanded. Sam and Dean shot each other looks and Rita huffed off back to the bar.

"You really are your mother's daughter aren't you?" Dean looked down at the little redhead.

"Not Mommy." Mary watched the waitress closely.

Dean considered the little girl for a moment. What would he have done if he had sensed a threat to his parents? How would he have gotten in the way? Would he have been so slick? The little red head crawled in his lap as Rita the waitress tried to make another pass and failed to gain any ground. Mary just sat there in Dean's lap cheerfully nibbling on her jam and toast. Dean just accepted the invasive behavior and went with it.

"Did you know?" Sam asked looking at Mary.

"No." Dean considered the question. Lilly had been his focus for the past few years. He had spent most of his waking time trying to track down Gabriel. The overly flamboyant ass-hole had stolen her away. The woman he loved had been pregnant, given birth, and raised their child inside a world of fiction.

"I wonder if she did." Sam seemed to consider all of the events.

"I don't know. I have been doing the math… she would have been a month or two along when she was taken. And Mary's age lines up. It means that the ghost hunt we went on…" Dean ran over the numbers again.

The little girl next to them picked up pieces of peeled oranges and shoved them into her mouth. Her little hands wrapped around the cup with a lid. Dean had to grab the cup before it slipped from her hands. Mary just smiled proud of her father the hero who saved her juice. He just held it for her to drink from the straw. Mary crawled up into his lap then curled under his arm. The little girl seemed to know when her father seemed lost. Dean wrapped an arm around the little girl, and pulled her in. He wondered what he first word had been. How many times had the little girl fallen before she learned to walk? What is her favorite bedtime story? The little girl yawned and began to nod off.

"We should go back to the room. I think we wore her out." Dean put money down on the table and slid out of the booth with her.

Her little arms wrapped around his neck. The soft point of her nose nuzzled into his neck. Mary hummed in little broken melodies as she fell into sleep. The little bars of music swam in his head trying to connect with anything he recognized. The notes connected slowly to various songs then let go. Dean couldn't help but wonder if it was just a melody of her own. Then the notes locked into place, sped up, then became the song his mother had sung to him. Dean began to hear the tone of his mother's voice as she had soothed him as a child. The song of a simple and innocent request for a girl to come out to play filled him. Quickly the little girl's half aware humming matched his own. Dean caught Sam's confused expression out of the corner of his eye.

"Okay. I can accept that the only woman you would settle down for was half angle. I can accept that the dicks with wings kidnapped her. I can even accept that she was pregnant and might not have know. I can accept that you have a daughter. But, I am drawing the line at her being able to hum The Beatles on key in her sleep." Sam put his foot down in the middle on an impossible situation.

"Good genes." Dean thought about Sam's reaction. "It was the lullaby Mom sang to me."

The pain in Sam's eyes was familiar. It was the look of a child who had never known a parent. It was a man who knew of lost birthdays. Holidays stolen from him flashed behind his eyes. The image of their mother standing at the kitchen sink flashed in front of his eyes. Sam seemed to push the emotions of loss down into a darkness. Dean tried to comfort his brother patting him on the back with his free hand. Sam just nodded, then continued on to the hotel room. Sam pulled the thin plastic door key out the familiar clicks of locks letting go comforted them both. Mary's little body shifted trying to become more comfortable. The white wood bunk bed in the corner looked like the bed of a child with siblings. The comforter on the bottom bed was pushed back and bundled up into a ball. The thick velvet curtains blocked out most of the light. Dean placed the little girl in the small bed, then pulled the blanket over her.

"What are you going to do?" Sam asked Dean.

"I don't know. I don't want this for her. She deserves a pillow that is hers, and cute little bed. She deserves painted walls, and little stuffed animals." Dean sat in one of the tacky red stuffed chairs.

"You know things are going to keep looking for you." Sam said flatly.

"I know, but I don't want her to live like this." Dean leaned forward resting his head in his hands. "I don't want her to have to heat up soup at night alone in a motel room. I don't want her to have to wonder if her parents are coming back. I don't want her to ever learn that the monster under her bed killed one of us. I don't want her to learn how to clean gun before she learns how to ride a bike."

The panic bore down on him. This little girl's future stood there right out of reach. Dean watched as her body rolled towards the wall. She pushed the blanket up against the wall and buried her face in the creases. Dean watched Sam watch Mary move around on the bed. Sam sat down on the foot of the bed, his shoulders hunched forward. They each seemed to consider the room. Dean closed his eyes and tried to pull up the image of his room. It was the place he went when the reality of his life was too much to bare. The small room filled with light and toys. His wooden bed had meant so much to him. Dean could remember the rocket ship sheets and blue curtains. This girl deserved a memory like that. He wanted to give it to her. Dean wanted to give her back the life.

"You're considering leaving." Sam broke into his thoughts. It wasn't a question. Sam was simply reading his face. It was the knowledge you gained after sharing a room with someone for many years.

"I was. I don't want this for her. And, Lilly has never understood that a normal life was better. That woman was always too stubborn for her own good." Dean considered how to tell her. His head swam with possible scenarios. Many of them involved an argument, some of them involved a polite smile. None of them seemed to end with him simply getting his way. So Dean decided to work with something that never fought with him. As the little girl slept Dean pulled out his Colt to clean. The simple act of pulling it apart allowed Dean to consider the pieces of his life. Each piece built up working together to form a single machine with a focused purpose.

Dean tried to pull the pieces of his life together, clean them off, and work towards a single goal. He had Lilly back. She wasn't hurt. She wasn't dead. She was trying to regain her ground, but Lilly bounced back from worse. They were off the grid again. The angles couldn't find them. The demons weren't looking anymore then normal. But now there was Mary. There was a little girl without an older sibling to guard her. This was a little girl who couldn't be left in a motel room. She couldn't form full sentences let alone try to defend herself. So Dean tried to imagine her life on the road wondering where her parents were. The nights he had stayed awake wondering where his father was and what he was hunting. It was an awful state of loneliness not being able to experience the stupid normal rituals of families. Dean ran the cleaning cloth over the polished chrome exterior.