Chapter 49: Aftermath

Once Gordon's head and body were lying separately on the floor, I no longer had the incentive to stand up. Sam and Dean didn't need me. They were fine, Gordon was dead and oh… I was kinda woozy… I collapsed back down against the wall, putting a hand to my still throbbing neck. It was definitely wet and slippery. When I looked at my fingers, I saw they were covered in blood. No wonder I'd found it hard to get up.

Dean had staggered out of the hunks of concrete that had fallen on him. His hair, his face and his clothes were all sprinkled with a light coating of grey dust. All I could think was that I hoped there wasn't asbestos in that wall. That was all that was going through my head until Sam was at my side, putting his bloodied hand to my bloodied neck. Then I laughed.

"Can't even keep the blood in your own body, Sam!"

"I'm fine," he said, moving my hair out of the way and tilting my head so he could get to my neck properly.

I was dimly aware of Dean stumbling over, though I couldn't really see his face. He was sort of blurry. "You just charged a super vamped out Gordon with no weapon. That's a little reckless, don't you think?"

I laughed again, and Sam even smiled slightly. "Hold here," he told Dean. I could now see his face a little better, as he shifted around to where Sam had been and held his own fingers to my neck while Sam disappeared from my limited view.

"Is he leaving?" I asked Dean. "Why's he leaving me?"

While his one hand was pressing hard against my neck, his other was stroking my hair back from my temple. His calloused hand felt nice and warm, brushing against my skin. "It's okay, sweetheart. He just went to get something for your neck. Sam wouldn't leave you."

"We had a fight," I mumbled. It seemed like days ago, but it was probably only an hour. I'd been so mad, but I was having trouble remembering why. "I yelled at him."

Still keeping those fingers tight on my wound, Dean moved a little, his face coming down closer to me as he pressed a kiss on top of my head, being careful not to move me. "That's okay. He's a big boy, he can handle it."

"I'm so mean…" I mumbled. How could I yell at Sam when he was being hunted by a vampire psychopath? Sure, he'd said… something… but whatever it was, he had an excuse to be a little cranky.

Dean just chuckled. "You're a freakin' marshmallow, kid."

I didn't really understand what he meant by that, and I was too sleepy to ask. I just sat still for a while, letting him hold me and brush back my hair and get my blood all over him, which was real nice of him. I had no conception of time, just pain, but it seemed like ages before Sam came back. Dean moved out of his way, and he balled up something in his hand so he could squish it against my neck.

"Looks like he ripped her throat open a little," said Dean. "Hospital?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed.

"No!" I let out a faint little squeak of protest. "No, not hospital!" If they took me to a hospital, my Dad would have to be contacted, because of the insurance. Then he'd call the boys and they'd have to tell him everything, and he'd worry, and he didn't need that. He was already concerned enough about me being away and hunting all the time. Why upset him by telling him Gordon had turned into a vampire and tried to rip out my jugular vein?

"You're losing a lot of…"

"No!"

"Okay," Sam cooed, speaking to me very softly, while he wrapped another piece of cloth around my neck. "Okay." I felt his arm go under my knees and another slipped behind my back as he lifted me up.

I tried to get my feet down onto the ground, as I figured he was trying to help me stand. I was pretty sure I'd be able to stand up, if I just had a little help. But Sam's hands were gripping onto me firmly and he wouldn't let me try.

"No hospitals, but don't move, okay? Just keep your head back and don't try to do anything."

"Like this?" I asked, resting my head against his chest. I could hear his heart beating, still quite fast, and even through his shirt, I could feel that he was very warm.

"Yeah," he said. "Dean… the Colt…"

I might have drifted out of consciousness for a minute or so, because the next thing I knew, I was outside. I was still pressed up against Sam's torso, and it felt very peaceful. Very safe. I'd be okay there, I was sure. But what about when he put me down? Dean said something about my throat being ripped, didn't he?

"Sam? Am I gonna die?"

"No."

He wasn't normally a liar, but he might not be honest, if he was trying to keep me from being scared. "Please don't lie…"

"I'm not lying. You'll be okay. I promise."

"I'm sorry I yelled at you…"

"You were right. Okay… I'm gonna put you in the car now, so this might hurt a little. You okay?"

I nodded, although I didn't really want him to put me down. Somehow, I felt like I definitely couldn't die if he was holding onto me, but once he put me in the car and jumped into the front seat, I'd be all by myself, and who knew what could happen to me? Maybe we'd hit a bump and whatever was wrong with my neck would get worse and all my blood would come out and maybe they should take me to the hospital…

But he didn't leave me. Once I was in, he got in beside me, holding me upright with one arm and letting me rest my head against his other. I think I fell asleep.


My dreams were really weird, and scary, but I couldn't remember them after. Just the feeling of fear and running and running because something chased me. Then there was a lot of pain, in my chest and my neck and I thought I might be awake.

When I opened my eyes, I saw I was back in the motel, but not on the gross mouldy mattress I'd been sleeping on. I was in Dean's bed, all tucked in neat and safe. The curtains were closed, and the room was dark, but I could see the sunlight coming through from outside.

It was starting to come back to me. Gordon had bit me, and the pain of fangs digging right into my neck came right back. I put my hand up and felt the painful spot. Some kind of dressing had been put there, so all I could feel was that smooth waterproof bandaid stuff.

Where were Sam and Dean? When I opened my mouth to call them, nothing came out, so, with a lot of effort, I forced myself to sit up. I got one foot out from under the covers, and then the other. They both slipped down onto the ground and then suddenly, everything went blurry and black.


I woke up again. This time, I could tell I wasn't alone. There was a hand on my hair, right by my temple. It wasn't moving much. Every now and again, whoever it was moved their thumb just a little. It was nice, soothing. My eyes were open, or so I thought, but I couldn't really see. Everything was all blurry and weird black dots were floating in front of my eyes.

Turning my head to try and see who was sitting next to me, I got a vague sense of shape and colour. Slowly, the dots started to fade away and things got more in focus, a little at a time. It was Sam, sitting on a chair beside the bed, and holding a book with one hand while he kept the other in my hair.

"Sam?" my voice sounded really faint and weak, which was just the way I felt.

He put his book down immediately, and turned in his chair so he was facing me. His hand moved, pushing some of the hair back from my face. "Hey, Sweetpea."

I stared at him for a second, in absolute shock. He used to call me that all the time. For two or three years, that had been my nickname. My dad took us camping, and we'd gone exploring and found this big field full of flowers. Little bully that I was, I'd made Sam help me decorate my hair with them. Dad had laughed when we came back, because they were mostly weeds, but I thought they were pretty anyway. My favourite had been this cute little bright purple one. There mustn't have been any pink ones. Dad said it was called a Sweetpea, so Sam had started calling me that. Until a few years later, when Dean heard him and started laughing his ass off.

Sam's favourite flower was a yellow one, and Dad didn't know what it was called. I took some back home, pressed in between pages of a book. Mrs Dalton, who took care of me sometimes, said it was a Sun Drop. I liked the sound of that, so I called him it.

I had forgotten all about the flowers. Now I smiled as I looked up at Sam, and he frowned, moving his hand out of my hair, and shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Oh God, Ellie, I'm sorry. I haven't called you that in years, I don't know why I just… I was thinking about the field before and it slipped out…"

"S'okay Sun Drop," I muttered. I knew that Sweetpea was often a somewhat intimate term of endearment. But I knew Sam didn't mean it romantically. He hadn't seen me that way when he was nine and he didn't now either.

"Sun Drop…" Sam smiled. "How do you feel?"

I felt like I'd been hit repeatedly with a brick. "Fuzzy… Why you sit there?"

"Didn't want you to wake up and try walking again. You passed out."

"Why'm I so dizzy?"

The hand he had quickly removed before went up to my forehead, as he checked my temperature. He did the same on my cheek, feeling my skin with the back of his fingers. "You lost so much blood," he told me, as his hand shifted back up and into my hair. "So you need to take it easy for a while, okay? Til your body makes some more."

"You killed Gordon…" I had a vague memory of it, Sam pulling razor wire as hard as he could, taking off Gordon's head. He'd cut into his palms. "Your hands…"

The fingers of his right hand were still curled in the hair on my temple. But he held his left palm up to show me. There were a lot of scratches and scrapes and it looked very sore, but he was obviously okay to use it, and the blood was gone.

"It hurt?"

He nodded. "Little. What about your neck?"

"Stings. 'N my chest hurts."

"Yeah… Remember those ribs you didn't crack in Massachusetts? Might be one cracked now."

It must have happened when Gordon had slammed me against that wall, crushing me between the weight of the concrete and his own body. Something about that thought process brought another memory back to my mind and I was suddenly filled with adrenalin. I tried to leap up out of the bed, overcome with a sense of urgency. Gordon was dead but Dixon was still out there.

But Sam was ready for me, and he was immediately upright, grabbing me by both shoulders and guiding me down, forcing me to stay. "Ellie… Shh… What's the matter?"

"Dixon!" I squeaked, still trying to get up. "He…"

"It's okay," Sam said, his voice low and soothing as he kept holding me down. "We didn't forget. Dean's looking for him."

Knowing Dean was out looking helped calm me down, and I stopped trying to fight my way out of bed. They'd talked about it while I was out, and decided Dixon was a serious threat and worth worrying about. They cared about him threatening me.

Seeing I was calm and quiet, Sam took his hands off my shoulders. Rather than taking the chair again, he sat beside me on the bed, turning his whole torso so he could see my face. He smiled slightly, then leant forward to brush the hair back from my face again. My damn hair! Maybe I should have cut it even shorter.

"M'sorry," I said, wondering if he'd rub his thumb gently along my temple like that if I had a little pixie cut. Probably not. "M'sorry I yelled at you."

Now he frowned. "No. No… you were right. I'm sorry. I thought you were reckless… I didn't… You were so brave, I didn't notice how scared you were. Of course you're scared. I'm sorry."

"S'just… I'm used to monsters wanting to kill me, ya know? Not… Not…" Trying to make me like them, and obsessing about me and believing I was their soulmate and touching my face, and… creepy shit like that.

"I know," said Sam. "I'm sorry."

"What if Dean can't find him?" I asked.

I'd never known anybody who had a vampire tracking them before. Everyone knew you had to kill them right off, otherwise they'd get your scent, and you'd have to be on the lookout, all the time, every day, in case they came for you. What if he got himself together a nest?

"Then we'll take precautions," Sam said. "We'll look into protection. Garlic and crosses aren't a thing, but… We'll find something else. I promise."

I really believed him. If it was possible to protect me from Dixon, Sam would figure out how. Then I remembered something awful and gave an involuntary squeak of fear. "My dad… We gotta tell my dad."

"Yeah, I know. I've been thinking about that. Do you want me to tell him? I mean… we were supposed to have your back, and we didn't, so…"

I shook my head. None of this was my fault, but it wasn't Sam or Dean's either. They had been where they were supposed to be. It was Gordon that caused the problem, not them. "Not your fault." Although… I really wouldn't mind having someone else break this news to my father. Give him time to calm down before he started yelling at me that this was bound to happen and he was right and I should come home and all the rest of it. "What would you say?"

"The truth. I'll tell him what happened and how amazing you were, and how Gordon turned up. Then I'll just explain he might come after you, but we've got your back. For real, this time."

I tried to smile. I felt like that was what my face was doing, but it was hard to say when I was so out of it.

"I'll promise Bobby that we'll try to take as much care of you as you do of us."

That was sweet, given that they were both huge beefy guys feared by monsters across America, while I was more a sort of competent, but comparatively weak sidekick. In terms of watching out for one another, I was definitely getting the better deal.

"But, maybe Dean will find him, anyway," I said, trying out this idea as I said it. "How far could he have got the way he was?"

Those dimples burst onto his face, framing his smile like deep little craters. If I'd been drunk and able to move, God knows what would have happened, but weak and fuzzy like I was, I just stared at his smile, letting it fill me up inside. Sure, I had one vampire stalking me, and another had just tried to rip my whole throat out. And my father was going to have proof I was too weak and girly to hunt. But hey, Sam's smile existed, so the world couldn't be that bad after all. No wonder little me used to call him Sun Drop. He was made of actual sunshine.

"Maybe," he said. "You know you're starting to slur? You're really tired, aren't you?"

I nodded. Every word I said was a struggle to force out of my mouth. At least he was onto me now, and I could stop pretending like I was okay to talk.

"How about you get some more sleep? I'll be here if you need me."

"K. Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Can call me Sweetpea if you wanna. I know you don't mean it… you know, like that."

In that moment, staring up at his dimpled smile, I actually wouldn't have minded if he did. Not that I was specifically wanting it or anything… Obviously… It was just an idea worth entertaining, casually. It would never happen, but there were definitely things in the world that would be worse than Sam calling me Sweetpea and meaning it the way people usually meant it.

"Maybe I'll just call you Pea," he said. "Cos you're so small."

"M'good height. You're a giant."

He laughed, and bent down closer to me, which for him was a long way. He planted a little kiss on my temple, very sweet, very brother-like. Then he got up. "Get some sleep, you miniscule sweetpea."

"Big giant sun drop," I muttered, my eyes already starting to close. I could hear him laughing at me as he left the room.


Dean did not find Dixon. The next time I woke, several hours later, he was back, breaking the news that he'd seen no sign of the vampire. The two bodies in the warehouse had made the news, minus the information that the victims' heads had been torn off. That was probably a bit much for most civilians to hear.

He had brought me back a bucket of chicken as consolation, and very generously helped me eat it. The next day, he checked us out of the dingy, mouldy-ridden motel and dropped Sam and I off somewhere a little more comfortable. Not a classy place, like in Atlantic City, but a nice motor inn, where we could open the curtains, and the beds were less like boards. He drove off to go looking again, while Sam settled me in a new bed, since I was too exhausted from the move to even move my legs properly.

According to Dean, I probably ought to have had a transfusion, but since I'd been so insistent on not being taken to a hospital, they had done the best they could. They'd nearly cracked and taken me to the ER when I passed out in the car, though. They demanded I take a few days to rest, stay in bed, do as I was told and let myself heal. There was that potential cracked rib to worry about too. When I complained, Sam reminded me that I always told them I was in charge of their wound treatment and recovery and they had to obey me for their own good. He had a point, so I shut up and let him do everything for me. Meanwhile, Dean would spend his days scouting the warehouses and factories of Albany, looking for Dixon.

He never found him, and finally, Sam and I agreed the time had come to call my father. I chickened out, unable to bear speaking to Dad and being told this whole thing was predictable and inevitable and I needed to go home.

Sam took his cell outside to make the call for me. I sat in bed for ten minutes, worriedly picking at the dirt under my fingernails and wondering if my father would drive to Albany right away and drag me back, kicking and screaming, cracked rib or not. Finally, Sam came back in, his face very pale. He sat down heavily, letting out a huge sigh, and frowning deeply.

"Are you okay? What did he say to you?"

"Nothing I don't deserve," Sam said, which could not possibly have been true. "He'll call tomorrow, when he's had time to calm down."

"Did he yell at you!? Sam, if he blames this on you I swear… OW!"

I had risen half up out of bed in my indignation, and had to fall back down onto the pillows again, clutching at my chest. At least the need to get me lying down flat again and help me take some painkillers distracted Sam.

Dean was with us the next day, having finally agreed to my request that he stop looking for Dixon. It was futile. He had probably left Albany to lick his wounds for a while, and it was possible we'd never even see him again. Wounded as he was, he'd be an easy kill for some other Hunter.

I made the boys sit on the bed with me and play cards. Then I bullied them both into getting into the bed on either side of me to watch some movies. Dean wondered what the point was if Sam and I were just going to talk all the way through, but it only took a few pouty faces and reminding about my terrible wounds to get my own way. We did talk all the way through, though.

Finally, Dad called. I took three deep breaths before I answered it and then turned on my maximum level of good cheer.

"Hi Daddy!"

"Don't Hi Daddy me, girl. What the hell were you thinking?"

"It was a solid plan, Dad. Everything would have gone fine if Gordon hadn't…"

"Yeah, well it didn't go fine, did it!? This is exactly the sort of thing I was afraid…"

"I thought you were afraid of me getting my head split open again, not vampire stalkers!" I said, cutting him off the way he'd done to me.

"Yeah. Well this is worse than anything I imagined. And a father can imagine a lot, Ellie."

I pulled a face at the phone. Dean was still sitting beside me but Sam had taken the opportunity to go to the bathroom. With my right hand holding the phone, my left was sitting limp on top of the blankets and I felt Dean's hand slip on top. He just left it sitting there, a silent show of solidarity while my father yelled at me.

"I thought you were gonna calm down before you called…"

"This is calm! I knew it. I knew I couldn't trust those two…"

"Dad, did you yell at Sam?" I asked, and I hoped my voice sounded even half as furious as I was.

"I told him that…"

"Don't you ever do that again!" I warned him. "Sam and Dean have done nothing but look out for me and if you dare be anything but grateful, I'll…" I didn't actually know what I'd do. Punch my father in the face? Maybe… I couldn't rule it out. "Just don't!"

"Ellie, you listen to me…"

"No, you listen to me! I am an adult, Dad! I am a grown up! You don't get to decide how I live and you don't get to call me and yell at me just because things don't go right! There's a vampire stalking me, Daddy! Another tried to rip my throat open! But I'm fine, thanks for freakin' asking!"

There was a series of spluttering sounds on the other end of the line and then "Ellie, if you think I am ever gonna stop caring about my daughter, you can…"

"Caring would be saying sorry this happened, it sounds scary, are you alright, how can I help?" I reminded him, already starting to cry, even as I was shouting. It was true. He hadn't even asked if I was okay. If he was really worried about me, shouldn't that have been the first thing he said? "So I don't know what this is, but don't you try to paint it like concern!"

Sam had come back into the room, and he rushed over to the bed, sitting back down on my other side and quickly getting an arm across my shoulders.

My Dad's voice had gone from angry to something I couldn't even define. It was sort of flat and dead. "Alright. I'm sorry, kiddo. I should have asked how you're doing. I…"

But I was way too mad. I had gone past the point where I was interested in apologies. "Save it! It's obvious you don't think I can do this, so why do you even bother to call and check in!? What are you just waiting for me to fail big enough so I have to come home?"

"Ellie…"

"If you start caring how I am, you better call Dean! I'm not gonna answer!" I yelled, before pressing the hang up button and throwing the phone down onto the blankets. It bounced, and fell off the end of the bed, but I didn't care.

I was too busy sobbing.


A million bajillion thankyous to my friend Em, who rose to my emergency challenge to help find a good nickname for Sam to call Ellie. SHE HIT ME RIGHT IN MY FREAKIN' FEELS, YOU GUYS!

I would strongly recommend googling to find out what Sweet Peas and Sun Drops look like, cos they're both super pretty. The story about the field and camping comes from a Special Chapter I wrote for Tumblr, which I cannot link here. But you can search Tumblr for the username "winchestersplusone" and then look at the Masterlist to find ALL the Special Chapters. This particular one is called "Sunny".

We did an extensive survey of flowers that might have been in that field. Not gonna lie, there was a brief period where Ellie's childhood nickname was nearly "American Hogpeanut". Cos it was just so wrong it was almost right!