Lilly sleeps harder than she should. After fighting with John, reasoning with him, making him swear that he won't go after the vampires if he finds them, believing, after everything, that his word is worth shit, she still sleeps. She remembers calling Sam's cell, dragging the same promises from him, only slightly more convincing. She remembers going back to her room, knowing she couldn't stay awake any longer; remembers managing barely to call Sloane and check in, update him.
She told them to wake her at noon, but she can tell from the light that it's well into the afternoon and her stomach clenches immediately. She fumbles to the window and yanks the curtain aside, unable to calm her heart even when she sees the Impala, the truck and the rental, all there, side by side.
A shadow passes closer and instinct hurls her back away from the window. Her head whips around to the sound of the knock on the door. Sleepy cobwebs refuses to blow off and it takes her a second. Vampires wouldn't knock. Wouldn't fight during daylight. Everyone is here. OK good. OK. Her mind stalls. Another knock on the door. She shakes her head awake and makes her way to the keyhole.
John Winchester stands in the doorway. Tall and scraggly. Imposing. Looking nervous and holding a coffee. She opens the door a crack, adjusts the straps of her tank top and clears her throat.
"Yes?" She tries to sound like he hasn't busted her sleeping on the job.
"Coffee." He lifts it to her eye level. "Peace offering."
She unclasps the chain from the door and steps back. He hands her the coffee and she shows him to the cruddy little table, inviting him to sit. She catches him staring when she turns to take her own seat.
"That's a bit creepy."
"Sorry. You just…" John actually looks stunned, at a loss for words. "Your shouler...the tattoo. Your mother, she had…she said she got it in school."
Lilly doesn't know what to say to that. She thought they had an agreement, tacit, unspoken. Laura/Mary whatever, she doesn't come up. Ever. But the great John Winchester stands before her actually speechless, bewildered, looking, hurt, and she thinks back to facing her brother for the first time in an ER examining room six months ago, the bottom dropping out from her world and she throws him a bone.
"That's where I got mine." She turns her head, her back still to him, speaks flatly, quietly, "It's from Oxford. The rowing team, not the Legacy." She didn't lie to you about that.
She's about to launch into a nasty little speech, wondering aloud why she should give a fuck about comforting this man, but the look of relief on his face just short circuits it. They'll be plenty of time for recriminations, she supposes. Makes more sense, strategically she thinks to herself, convinces herself, to keep the peace while the hunt is on.
"What time is it?" Her cellphone is on the nightstand.
"Almost five." John takes his seat across from her and she pulls her legs up into her chair, gratefully sips at her coffee.
"I slept ten hours? "You let me sleep ten hours?"
"You must have needed it. We tried calling you around noon, but you were pretty out of it." He smiles at her, kindly she thinks and she's surprised to find herself comfortable.
"I guess." She looks at him suspiciously, "What did you do while I was … out?"
"Research, mostly. Dean and I drove around trying to find more feeding sites. Sam was still hacking county records."
She stares at him with a look she knows works on liars. He doesn't flinch. "Honest." He raises his hands.
She continues to stare, "Why aren't you yelling at me for wasting a day?"
"You've got our backs, I'd rather you be sharp." He answers bluntly.
She keeps her gaze on him for another moment, then relents. "Fair enough." She drinks more heavily from the paper cup. It's bitter, worse than the stuff at the hospital, but she doesn't care. "Thank you for the coffee."
"Pretty awful, isn't it?" He smiles. He looks like Sam. Handsome. He might have had a kind face once.
"Vile, actually, but I'm used to worse. The rubbish in the ER keeps me alive."
Silence. Awkward. The kind where you could hear the clock ticking, if there had been one. John finally clears his throat, "The boys will be here in a second. Went for food across the street. We have some information, not much – since we didn't go anywhere." He leans heavily on the last phrase. "Except for the bar Elkins was at, the night he was killed."
She nods. She cocks her head to her side first and decides she believes him, but then she nods. The silence is becoming more and more oppressive, especially since they spend it trying not to stare at each other.
"How's Nick?" He ventures.
"Are you making small talk?" She regrets her disbelieving tone, tries to smile it off.
"I'm trying." He laughs a little.
"You rather suck at it." She jokes.
"I'm out of practice." He looks uncomfortable.
Oh god, she can't stand this. She can't understand why, but right this second she has no desire to be a bitch. She deliberately relaxes her shoulders. "Nick is fine, thank you. He's been a bit of a house husband since last month. He dislocated his shoulder on his last hunt."
"He's OK?" John sits up straighter.
"Fine. He'll be fine. I think he's enjoying just playing daddy."
"How old is Issabelle now?"
"She just turned two." Lilly smiles, gets up and walks to her phone. She flips it open and scrolls to some pictures of her, hands it to John.
"She's really cute." John's face actually lights a bit.
"She's a terrorist." Lilly purses her lips in mock seriousness and sits back down. "Right now her favourite game is 'testing mummy's will to live'."
John laughs, really laughs, "Dean was nightmare at that age. He got into everything. Dug in his heels, just 'cause he figured out he could. I don't think Mary or I slept more than two hours for a year." He stops when he realizes what he's said.
"What was Sam like?" She moves right through it, for her sake not his.
"Shorter." John chortles a little, smiles fondly, "He was stubborn, he wanted to know everything. He couldn't read yet, but he'd sit around pretending, with a book twice the size of him in his hands. He even managed to memorize it after a while. Dean used to read it to him every night until Sam started busting him about the parts he skipped."
They laugh, tension broken, but only for a second.
"Why are you being so nice to me?" It sort of slips out of her before she realizes.
He takes a deep breath, and says the very last thing she expects, "It wasn't fair, what we did. But we did the right thing. To protect you. All three of you. We tried to do the right thing to protect you."
"Protect us from what?" She demands, insists.
"The demon. The demon that killed your mother, that came for Sam that night."
Lilly's mute with rage, with fear, with such a disquiet coursing through her it almost makes her shake. In her life, she's honestly never wanted to know. Has ignored the why's of her mother's leaving. Accepted that she just didn't want her daughter, her life. Had made peace with it. But now…now. Before she can ask the any of the thousand questions ready to spring from her, John goes on.
"I need this gun, Lilly. I need to end this. For them. I want them to be safe. I want them to get on with their lives. And whether you believe me or not, I want them to know you. She would have wanted it."
"How the hell do you know what she…" Her rage flares like a fireburst, but it has nowhere to go.
Sam and Dean are at the door.
