Alexa slipped away from the bickering couple, taking solace in the silent, frozen landscape.
She could remember playing in the treetops with the other small children, so very long ago. Closing her eyes, she could almost smell her mother's fragrant perfume, her father's scruffy hands covered in the remains of hard day's work.
Home wasn't far, just a short trek up the mountain. Outside of the little town of Cameron, there was an ancient dirt road that lay in the shadow of the forest. The snow never melted away completely, and the house that it led to had long since been forgotten by the people of Cameron.
Alexa never recalled those first years after her death fondly- This new life was a Hell of her own creation. Those zealots had run them out of town, cursing and wailing.
And they left me behind.
Sam called out to her, a note of worry clung to his voice. She turned back to them, and he beckoned for her to come.
"It's not far." she called. "I can walk." She sounded frail and tiny in the frosty woodland. Even she didn't believe herself.
"You're coming with us" Dean rumbled. He left no room for argument. With a sweeping motion, he ushered her into the glossy car, while he and Sam played jester.
Apparently I'm a three-year-old. Am I so very hopeless that even these two pity me?
Dean watched as Alexa fumbled with the rags that covered her skeletal frame in the back seat. Her being there didn't unnerve him as much as he thought it would, but Sam was going out of his tiny mind.
"Not so sure now, are 'ya Sam?"
"Shuddup" Sam murmured. They stared at her through the back mirror as the Impala roared to a start.
She caressed the dark leather mindlessly, looking grayer and grayer as the sun slipped over the white-rimmed mountains.
Dean nudged the sleek black car out of the snow and onto the dirt road. He groaned at every jolt his baby took. Alexa shared a quirky smile with Sam, more surprising than beautiful. This seemed to calm Sam's frayed nerves, after the beating that he'd taken. in the depth of his mind he still wondered over their sudden loss of all common sense.
One voice, sounding suspiciously like John, continually told him to blow her away.
"No good can come of this, Sam." John wheedled. She looked too out-of-place here, too vulnerable. It would be like shooting a deer lost in a hedge maze.
"She's dead already, long dead. Let her rest." his father soothed him. Sam waited for that other voice to pop up.
"Mom's on her lunch break, kid."