CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Day 45

'Day Off'

Dean, Andie and Sam had been traveling for about a week and a half on their way to Chicago to drop off baby Charlie. It was becoming a very repetitive lifestyle. They all had to pack into Dean's Impala, Sam and Dean in the front, Andie and Charlie in the back, so as well as being repetitive, they were also cramped.

On top of that; they were staying in another crummy hotel. Andie forked out the extra cash to get a crib for Charlie to sleep in but that was about the only perk the motel had to offer. The room was small as always, two single beds and a moth-eaten sofa, but it was all they needed for the couple of days they were in town. They were currently in Mason City, Iowa heading towards Illinois. It was quite a lively town compared to where they were used to staying. There were actually places to go and things to do.

Andie had spent the first afternoon in Mason City scoping out their surroundings and picking up supplies. It was on that walk she'd seen a flier for a town fair in East Park. Thinking that it might be nice for Charlie to see something other then the inside of the Impala or a bad motel room; she decided that the morning before they left she'd take him to see it.

After Andie had showered and changed into jeans and a vintage t-shirt; she came out of the bathroom into the living room slash bedroom slash kitchen that was their motel room to see Sam and Dean sitting on the floor with Charlie and one of his wind-up toy cars. By the looks of the line of tape stuck to the carpet and the guilty look on both of their faces; Andie assumed they'd been racing.

"Well, I see you're all having a productive day." She mused walking over to them.

"Morgan, you gotta see this kid." Dean said excitedly; the guilt fading rapidly off his face.

Andie let the annoyance of Dean calling her by her surname pass as she was slightly intrigued as to what they were doing.

Dean knelt on his knees and grabbed Charlie and the car. He put Charlie on all fours and held him still with one hand while he wound up the toy car. Dean looked up at Sam. "Ready?"

Sam held is finger expectantly over the timer on his watch. "Yeah...go!" he hit the timer.

Dean released Charlie and the toy at the same time. Andie watched, less then impressed at first, but Charlie crawled swiftly across the floor towards Sam. She had to admit; it was pretty cool.

"Woo!" Sam cheered when Charlie crossed the finish line. "Beat his old record. 6 seconds!"

Charlie pulled himself into a sitting position at Sam's feet and laughed; as if he knew they were all playing a pointless game. Sam held both of the baby's hands and helped him stand up. "Nicely done; buddy."

They weren't positive how old Charlie was; but he was old enough to play around with so Andie assumed around 10 months to a year. He'd been with Sam, Dean and Andie for about couple of weeks now and was definitely getting more comfortable in their presence. And they were getting more accustomed to having him around.

"Well, as fun as this is." Andie said getting to her feet. "We're going to get going." Sam stood up and handed Charlie to her.

"Now, why you gotta take this kid to a fair?" Dean asked, also getting to his feet. "He's not gonna remember it."

"I know." Andie admitted. "But it'd be nice for him to have something to do. I mean; other than inane, moronic racing." She looked to Dean. "Why, you wanna come?"

"To a fair?" Dean asked skeptically. "Y'know, with all the demons I've killed; putting a ping pong ball into a clowns mouth probably won't do much for me."

"Now that's not the right attitude." Andie said with a grin. She turned to Sam. "Come on; we should all go. It'll be fun."

"I am kinda sick of this room." Sam confessed.

xxx

Twenty minutes later, the four of them were at the East Park fair. It was a relatively small event with elderly women showing off their sewing and jam creations, incredibly easy children's games and more pamphlets then one needed in a lifetime. Dean had been complaining but once he had a stick of cotton candy in his hand; he was silent.

Andie and Dean were immersed in a conversation about where they should eat lunch and Sam was about to put in his two cents when he saw a girl sitting at a booth up ahead of them. She was gorgeous. She was sitting on a deck chair surrounded by books. She was reading with a book in her lap with her golden blonde hair falling over her shoulder and swaying slightly in the breeze. He was so busy looking at her he didn't realize Dean had asked him a question.

"Sammy." Dean slapped him on the shoulder.

Sam snapped his head towards his brother. "What?"

Dean's eyes fell on the blonde girl reading. "Oh, I get it." He nodded.

"She's selling old books from the church." Andie read the sign taped to the fold-out table in front of the girl. "Might have something we could use."

Dean shoved Sam in the direction of the table. He stumbled, but recovered quickly and shot an angry glare back at his brother. Dean shrugged as he, Andie and Charlie continued walking along. Sam tried to look nonchalant as he scanned the old books. Many of them didn't have titles; just leather bound covers, but all seemed to be ancient. Sam spotted a maroon leather novel sticking out of a pile of books and pulled it out. Opening it; he saw that it was a collection of exorcism testimonies. Seeing as how a lot of the demons he and Sam had let out of the Devil's Gate embodied humans; exorcism was becoming a regular act in their lives.

"Not very holy, huh?" a breezy, female voice spoke up in front of Sam.

Looking up, he saw the beautiful woman who had been reading standing before him smiling. He noticed she had sparkling blue eyes and abnormally straight teeth. "Ah, yeah, I guess." Sam replied, returning her smile. He could see she was wearing a stick-on name tag that read 'Ellie'. "How come you're selling all these books?"

"The church needs money." Ellie told him. "Although; it always needs money. We have one of these fairs twice a year. I've been selling the same books for about four years." She laughed lightly. "You're like my eighth customer ever."

Sam smiled. "Well, in that case, I won't let you down." He handed her the exorcism book.

---

Andie and Dean were further up the line of stalls at a caramel stand that Dean insisted they stop at. Andie agreed with the stipulation that he carry Charlie for awhile. He may have been small but after an hour he weighed a ton. Andie laughed at Dean's ability to hold the infant and stuff his face with caramel at the same time. Then Dean spotted an ice-cream stand and was forced to sit down to eat.

Andie bought herself a plain vanilla cup of ice-cream while Dean opted for chocolate covered chocolate ice-cream with chocolate sprinkles. They sat at a plastic table and chairs where Dean held Charlie on one knee and ate with one hand. Andie tried to have a conversation with him but it was practically impossible; she was laughing too much. Charlie was sticking his hand in Dean's bowl and sucking on his hand. Somehow; he got more ice-cream in his hair then in his mouth.

---

Ellie handed Sam his exorcism book. "Y'know; I think we have more books like this in here somewhere." She gestured to the boxes of books behind her. "I'd be more then happy to look for you." She smiled sweetly at him.

Sam smiled back. "Sure." He said. "I'm Sam, by the way."

"Ellie." She replied, turning sideways and grabbing up one of the boxes on the ground. "So, are you an exorcist or do you just like scary books?"

Laughing lightly, Sam shook his head. "No; not an exorcist." He told her. "Just interested."

Ellie nodded and heaved a bunch of books out of the box in front of her. She turned to Sam, apparently getting an idea. She turned and heaved another box of books up beside the one she was looking through and beckoned Sam to come over to her side of the table. "You may was well make yourself useful." She smiled at him.

---

Dean and Charlie were finishing up his ice-cream while Andie was looking over the map she'd brought with them. The plan was to get to Anamosa by this time the next day so they had to leave that afternoon with a stop over in Waverly that night purely for sleep.

"Alright so if we leave at around four..." Andie mused as she looked over the map. "Then we should get to Waverly at around midnight. We could leave there at about ten and head to Anamosa."

Spoon feeding Charlie some more ice-cream, Dean had a thought. "Y'know, if Sammy drives us to Waverly and I sleep the whole way there; I can just take over. Then we don't have to stop."

"Are you sure? It's a long way." Andie looked up at him and smiled. Both Dean and Charlie had almost identical patterns of ice-cream all over their faces. "I can't talk to you when you look like that." Andie threw up her hands and laughed.

"Like what?" Dean challenged her.

"That!" she laughed as she reached for her shoulder bag; which was rapidly becoming both her purse and Charlie's baby bag. She retrieved a packet of cleaning wipes and pulled one out. She beckoned to Dean. "Come here."

Hanging onto Charlie, Dean leant forwards and let Andie wipe the ice-cream off his face. If she was willing to take care of him like this; he wasn't going to stand in her way. He wasn't going to pretend that he didn't like the attention from her.

Andie finished cleaning Dean and started on Charlie; he'd managed to get it into and onto everything he touched. She cleaned him as best as she could and then turned back to Dean. "Hang on." She'd missed spot on his cheek so she reached over and cleared it off easily.

"Get it?" Dean asked.

"Yeah." Andie said, slowly retracting her hand.

They held each other's gaze for a few seconds.

"Huh-bah!" Charlie yelped, slamming his hands down onto the table. One hand hit the side of Dean's ice-cream cup and spilled the remaining contents all over Charlie. He laughed crazily and tossed his head back into Dean who cracked with laughter at Andie's shocked face.

"He was waiting for me to clean him up to do that!" She said, breaking into laugher as well.

---

A half hour and a clean baby later, Dean and Andie were bored with the fair. Sam was still with the beautiful blonde and, rather then interrupt them, Dean and Andie were trying to make their own fun. They were sitting in a couple of patio chairs that were for sale out the front of a large, ancient caravan that was also on the market. The man selling the items was as old as his caravan and had fallen asleep in his chair. Dean had Charlie on his lap and his legs up on the fold out table in front of the patio chairs. He had invented the game that they were currently playing; although it involved abusing Andie's telekinetic power.

The game was that she had to move an item on a person walking by, like a hat or item in their hand, and Dean had to guess what that item was. Since it was a breezy day; it proved to be a challenging task to guess what Andie had been moved and what fell of its own accord.

Though the game provided a solid ten minutes of enjoyment, they both grew weary of it as there were so few people at the fair. Dean suddenly spotted something they hadn't tried yet. He got to his feet and grabbed Andie by the forearm. "Come on." He urged as he yanked her along.

Rather then question him; Andie just went along with it. Dean pulled her towards a photo booth, a popular choice for adolescent teenage girls judging by the examples on the side of the cubicle. Andie was reluctant at first but Charlie seemed so excited that she didn't want to put a damper on the boy's fun. The three of them managed to squeeze into the photo booth. Dean handed Charlie to Andie while he put some coins in the machine. It sprang to life blaring some kind of carnival music and a video camera image of Andie, Dean and Charlie appeared on the screen ahead of them. A comical voice gave them the instructions that they had fourty-seconds to pose with the camera taking a picture every three seconds. The first few were just random shots of Andie and Dean trying to figure out what was going on, the next few were them just screaming with laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation, but finally they got the hang of it and struck a few poses. The obligatory silly face was first, ugly face was next, scared after that, overly happy and then screaming at nothing. Charlie, who had been giggling the whole time, became the focus of a few shots before the comical voice announced they only had one photo left. Dean took a chance and kissed Andie on the cheek. She was less unexpected then she expected she'd be and managed to make a mock dreamy face. Next they chose ten of their favourite photos to print. The kissing one turned out to be quite funny. Charlie was looking up at them both from Andie's lap and reaching for Dean's chin while he gnawed on his other fist. Dean and Andie were musing over their chosen pictures when the screen door of the booth flew open causing them both to scream.

It was Sam.

Carrying a pile of books in his arms he looked down at the three of them. "I've been looking everywhere for you." He was annoyed.

"You were talking to the hot blonde." Dean reminded him as he followed Andie and Charlie out of the booth. "We didn't want to interrupt; it's been awhile for you." He smirked.

"Har-har." Sam retorted.

Andie eyed the stack of books. "Wow; she saw you coming."

Sam looked confused. "What?"

"She conned you into buying all that." Andie laughed.

"For your information she gave me these free of charge." Sam held up a piece of paper. "As well as her number."

"Atta boy, Sammy." Dean playfully punched his brothers' shoulder as the four of them headed for Dean's Impala. "Next time we swing by; you can give her a call."

Sam saw Dean's sarcasm head on. "The point is I got it; didn't I?"

"Whatever helps you get through the night." Dean grinned.

The three of them went back to the motel and packed up their stuff. Sam drove out of the motel driveway with Andie sitting beside him as Dean and Charlie, strapped securely in his car seat, fell straight to sleep in the back. Andie and Sam sat in a comfortable silence as the sun set; both relishing in the fact that they'd enjoyed a whole day with no demon attacks; no exorcisms, no kidnapping attempts or near-death experiences. And they both knew, for different reasons; that days like these weren't going happen all that often.