Chapter 21:

I opened my eyes, squinting up into the bright clear, blue sky. That was funny, I didn't remember being outside. I stretched my limbs out, feeling the tickle of lush green grass underneath me. I could smell it when I breathed in. Almost like it was freshly cut. Just the way our lawn used to smell right after Mom had cut it. But this grass wasn't short. It was long, curving to my body like a hug.

I sat up, getting a better look around of where I was. It was a field, surrounded by great big trees, full with green leaves. Strange, I couldn't remember ever being in this place before.

"Anna?" a voice spoke out behind me, soft, surprised, and sounding melodious like an angel. I sat completely still, my mouth dropping open slightly. "Anna, is that you?" the voice said again. I slowly turned around, getting to my feet. Several yards away stood a woman, wearing a long, white dress that billowed at the bottom from the breeze. Her long, wavy hair blew around her face gently. That face. I knew that face. I knew that voice.

"Mom?" I asked, my heart jumping into my throat. Tears pricked into my eyes as I looked at her. Her lips turned into a smile as her arms reached out for me. "Mom!"

I ran forward to her, throwing myself into her arms.

~ . ~

"What do you mean, she's in a coma?" John demanded angrily, Sam standing beside him in the bed that he lay.

"I'm sorry, sir. But your daughter sustained very severe trauma to her head. The brain was swelling at an alarming rate. Inducing a coma was out best option. It will allow her body to heal without putting anymore stress on the brain than there already is."

Sam looked down at his John who clenched his jaw.

"How long will she be in this coma?"

"It's hard to tell. Some patients it will only take a few days, some, months."

"And my son? Dean? What about him? He's in a coma too? Is he going to be okay?"

"Well, he sustained serious injury: blood loss, contusions to his liver and kidney. But it's the head trauma I'm worried about. There's early signs of cerebral edema."

"So what can we do?" Sam asked, worried.

"All we can do right now, is wait. We won't know Dean's full condition until he wakes up, and Anna just needs time to heal."

"Alright, thank you, doc." John said. The doctor nodded and turned to leave the room as John ran a hand down his face.

"We'll find someone, Dad. If the doctors won't do anything, then we'll have to, that's all. I don't know, I'll find some hoodoo priest and lay some mojo on them."

"We can look. But I don't know if we're going to find anyone, Sam."

"Why not? I found that faith healer before."

"That was one in a million." John sighed. "Where's the colt?"

Sam looked at him in disdain.

"You're children are dying, and you're worried about the colt?"

"We're hunting this demon, and maybe it's hunting us too. That gun may be our only card."

"It's in the trunk. They dragged the car to a yard off of I-83."

~ . ~

I laid in the grass with my head resting on mom's arm while we looked up into the sky. There were some white puffy clouds forming and rolling by, but the sun never seemed to be shielded by any of them.

"You shot your brother?" Mom asked in disbelief.

"It was an accident." I said, but for some reason, I couldn't help but laugh. Mom chuckled beside me. She turned her head to look at me, and I stared into her chocolate brown eyes. I had missed her eyes.

"My baby girl." She said. "You're so beautiful. When did you grow up so fast?"

"I'm almost twelve." I grinned, then it faded into a frown. Mom saw, and reached over with her other hand, rolling onto her side to stroke my cheek comfortingly. "It's been so long since I've seen you."

"I know, honey." Mom soothed. "But I've always been there, even though you couldn't see me. I've always been watching over you."

"Why can't I see you?"

"Well, it's difficult to explain. Sometimes when people die, they come back as ghosts, or spirits and sometimes they can be seen. But, I'm not a ghost or a spirit. I only get to watch you from up there." she pointed up to the sky.

"What's up there?" I asked.

"Heaven." she smiled at me. I looked away, fiddling with my fingers.

"When Daddy came to get my from the police station the day you were - when he picked me up . . . I asked him where you were and he said that you went to heaven. Most of the time I thought he just told me that because it was easier than saying you died, or maybe it was to make me feel better that you were somewhere good. I don't think I ever actually thought it was real, though."

"It is real, and it's wonderful. There's no pain, or suffering. There's peace, love, comfort."

"Do you like it better than earth?" I asked, looking over at her. She smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling slightly.

"There is no way to compare heaven to earth. They are two completely separate things. Of course, I would never have left you if I had a choice, you know that. The moments before my death, all I could think about was you. Who was going to take care of you, what was going to happen to you, would you know that I loved you more than anything else in the world and always remember that. Then I felt guilt for not being able to stay with you." I could feel tears pricking in my eyes. "Then, I was in heaven, and there was no guilt, no fear, and no pain. I knew you would be okay, and I knew you would be loved."

~ . ~

Sam walked into Dean's hospital room carrying a brown paper bag. He looked at his brothers lifeless form on the bed with all the tubes and hoses sticking in and out of him.

"Hey. I think maybe you're around. And if you are, don't make fun of me for this, but um, well, there's one way we can talk." Sam said awkwardly, pulling out a Ouija board from the bag. He went over to the floor at the end of Dean's bed and set the board up. He put his hands on the planchette and said, "Dean. Dean, are you there?"

He waited a moment before it moved to the word 'yes'.

Sam laughed and sighed with relief.

"It's good to hear from you, man. It hasn't been the same without you, Dean." he paused. The planchette began to move again as Dean spelled out the word 'hunt'. Sam asked him what he was hunting, and when he read the response 'reap' he leaned back slightly. "Well, if its naturally here on its own . . . there's no way to stop it."

He looked into the board, then said, "There's gotta be a way. We'll find a way."

Sam paused again.

"Hey, Dean. Have you seen Anna at all? Is her spirit there with you?"

Dean responded with 'no'.

"The doc put her in an induced coma." Sam wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "I can't lose you, Dean. I can't lose her either. I won't lose more family."

~ . ~

I ran my hands through the grass, relishing in the softness of it. I had never felt grass so soft.

"What is it like to live in heave? What do you do all day?"

"Well, heaven doesn't really have time. You see, time works differently up there. It's all like one long day. You never sleep, because you never get tired. You don't have to eat, though it is possible to do so. It feels like any need you could ever have, is always met. You never 'need' anything. But you can want things. Most of the time, I read. I read all the books you've been reading. Sometimes I come across old friends, or I visit with Nana."

"Why isn't Nana here?" I asked.

"I was allowed to come. I'm here to comfort you, to help you through this time before you move on, or back to where you came from."

"What do you mean?" I looked around, suddenly realizing that with all that was happening, I had no idea where I was, and I hadn't even asked. "Are we in heaven now?"

"We aren't in heaven right now." Mom answered.

"Then where are we?" I asked confused.

"I guess you could call it 'the in between'." she winked. "You're not dead."

"But, I'm not alive, either?" I guessed.

"No, you are. However, your hovering over a fine line of both."

I opened my mouth slightly.

"So, am I going to die?"

"When the time is right, we will know."

~ . ~

Sam sat at the edge of Dean's bed with his face in his hands. He would do whatever he had to, to get his family back. But at the moments, things weren't looking to good.

Beside him, Dean gasped suddenly, and Sam jumped. Dean's eyes were wide open and he was struggling to breathe through his tubes.

"Help!" Sam yelled. "I need help!"

~ . ~

John walked into Dean's room, relief washing over him. The deal that he made with the demon had worked. That was one child saved. The demon wouldn't let him save Anna. One soul, for one soul. He had also spoken to the doctor about Anna, and he said her brain had already started to cease swelling, and was positive she would make a full recovery.

He also knew that if something were to happen, Dean would do whatever it took to make her better.

"How you feeling?" He asked Dean, stopping beside his bed.

"Fine, I guess. I'm alive."

"That's all that matters." John replied. He felt regret wash over him. He didn't want to have to say goodbye to Dean. He didn't want to have to say goodbye to any of his children. Especially Anna. Young, impressionable Anna, who could do so much with her life if she got on the right track.

"How's Anna?" Dean asked, almost as if sensing that he had her on his mind.

"She's doing okay. The doctor said the swelling stopped, but it can be a few more days before there is any significant improvement."

Dean shook his head.

"She shouldn't have even been there." He said. "If she stayed behind with Sam and I, we could have dropped her off at Bobby's and she wouldn't even be here."

"I know." John agreed. "But she did, and she's here. But she'll wake up, and she'll be fine."

"Yeah." Dean said softly.

Sam came into the room and talked with John for a moment, before he left to get coffee for him. John turned to Dean, a strange look on his face.

"You know, when you were a kid, I'd come home from a hunt, and after what I'd seen, I'd be, I'd be wrecked. And you, you'd come up to me and you, you'd put your hand on my shoulder and you'd look me in the eye and you'd... You'd say 'it's okay, dad'." He paused. "Dean, I'm sorry."

"What?" Dean asked.

"You shouldn't have had to say that to me, I should have been saying that to you. You know, I put, I put too much on your shoulders, I made you grow up too fast. You took care of Sammy, you took care of me. You did that, and you didn't complain, not once. I just want you to know that I am so proud of you"

"This really you talking?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it's really me." John said with a slight chuckle, then he sighed, his face getting serious again. "I want you to watch out for Sammy, okay? And Anna."

"Yeah, dad, you know I will. You're scaring me."

"Don't be scared, Dean." He said, then leaned over and whispered something in his ear before pulling back. He held eye contact with a shocked Dean for a moment, before turning and leaving the room.

~ . ~

"That could, there." I said, pointing to the one right over our heads. "It looks like a pirate ship."

"The Jolly Roger, maybe?" Mom asked, poking me in the side. "You used to love Peter Pan, remember? You'd run around your room at night, jumping off your bed and singing 'you can fly' until I was forced to lay with you until you fell asleep."

I smiled as the memory came back.

"You know, I forgot about that until now."

"Oh, it lasted for a few months. Almost every night. Eventually I had to take the movie away from you because you were just so obsessed with it."

"And then I became obsessed with Mulan." I laughed.

"Yes. But having you run around the backyard doing, well, you called it karate, but it sure didn't look like it, was much easier than having you run around your room at nine at night."

"I loved those Disney movies."

"You sure did." Mom smiled.

I pulled some grass up from the ground, rolling it into a ball in my hands. Mom was laying on her side, watching me.

"You know, I-" I stopped short, my mouth opening in shock. I wrapped my hands around my stomach, feeling as though there was some invisible force pulling on it. "What-"

Mom sat up beside me, taking my face in her hands.

"It's time, Anna." She said gently, kissing my forehead.

"Time? For what?" I asked. "Ooh!" the force pulled again.

"To go back, darling."

"But, what? No, I don't want to go back! I want to stay here with you! I have so much more I want to tell you!" I objected, the force of the pull making me double over. "I'm not ready to leave you again!"

Tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn't leave her. I had only just gotten her back.

"We'll be together again, someday. But not today." She said, pulling me in for a hug. "You have to go back. It is not your time."

"I love you so much," I sobbed into her.

"I love you too, darling. Now go, your brothers are waiting for you. They need you more than I do, right now. I'll wait for you."

"Okay." I whimpered, still holding onto her. Her body began to flicker, and then she was gone.

"Mom." I whispered.

"Anna?" Two voices said from beside me where I lay in bed. Sam and Dean's faces appeared above me, worried, yet relieved. I blinked, tears slowly rolling down my cheeks.