We found Joe a few miles out of town. If Mitch hadn't been with us, it would have been a lot harder. He was able to smell the werewolf and we could follow the trail he left running down the road.
Sam killed him.
Dean and Mitch help Sam dig a hole, but they won't let me help them, they tell me I look like shit. First I try to shrug it off, but I'm tired as fuck.
So, even though I don't really want to leave Mitch alone with the two hunters who still don't really trust him, I give in. I sit in the car and decide to take a nap while they bury the body.
I wake up when the car starts moving. But I decide to keep my eyes closed, my head still leaned against the window, my arms slung around myself. I'm simply too tired to engage right now.
For a while, it's quiet. It's almost weird to sit in the Impala without Dean's music blaring out of the speakers.
"Is she okay?" Mitch speaks in such a low voice, I assume he really does think I'm asleep. " I mean, yesterday must have been so fucking hard for her."
Neither Dean nor Sam answer.
"I remember my wife's first birthday after her death, her not being there just hurt so much.
I can't see their faces, my eyes are still closed.
Dean speaks quietly as well: "Yesterday was Maya's birthday...?"
"Yes. You guys didn't know that?" There it is again, the accusing tone he had when he confronted Sam earlier, thinking the younger Winchester was my father.
"No," both Winchesters say sheepishly.
Mitch scoffs and keeps talking: "I mean, I know how much Amélie" - it feels so good to hear someone say my full name, I realize how much I've missed it - "loves birthdays. They always celebrated both of theirs as big as their situation allowed. I was pretty sure, Amélie would just bury herself in her bed..."
"I did." Speaking softly, I open my eyes and see them all looking at me. Dean looks back at the road before I have to remind him to.
"I did bury myself in my room," just saying my room felt wrong. I have never had my own room and I barely live at the bunker, "my bed. But since I can't fucking sleep, even if a few hours of unconsciousness sound like the best thing to ever happen to a person, I forced myself to get up. You know, as normal people do. And then, we had a nice little fight, the whole family just yelling, so I just thought, fuck it, and went straight back to bed."
Sam is about to say something, but Mitch is quicker. "You okay, Pumpkin?"
I smile at him and nod. "Yeah, I am." And right now, that is actually true.
Dean stops the car in front of the entrance to the bunker's garage to get out the key and open the gates. Before the older Winchester can even leave the car, Mitch unfastens his belt and opens the door. He gets out of the car and I hurry to follow him.
He comes over to my side of the car before I'm even outside. There's a gentle rain drizzling down onto his face. He looks like he knows that he's about to break my heart.
"I'm sorry, Pumpkin, I can't stay. There are those three little pups down in Florida, I told you about? Chelsea, Link and Adam? They need me."
He told me about them in the car. Three teenagers who just got bitten. I know they need help. They need him.
"I need you too."
I hear the Impala's two front doors open and shut and know that Sam and Dean are watching us.
Mitch pulls me in for a hug and strokes the back of my head. "No, you don't, Pumpkin. You got those two fine gentlemen. And, most importantly, you got yourself. You don't need me."
I squeeze him as hard as I can, shaking my head into his chest, taking in his familiar smell. Freshly cut wood, chocolate, and the aftershave we got him for Christmas.
"But I'll write anyway, okay?"
He lets go of me and I nod, trying not to cry again. "Okay, maybe those three do need you a little more than I do. But I'll be expecting daily updates and check-ins okay?"
Mockingly saluting me, he answers: "Aye, aye, Sir!"
And then he gives me a quick kiss on my forehead, the same way he always does when saying goodbye, and whispers "Love ya, pumpkin."
And with that, he turns around and walks away.
"You too." I know my voice is barely audible, but I also know that he heard me. And even if he hadn't, he knows what I said, it's what we always say when we leave each other.
I sigh, wiping away the rain that gathered around my eyes and most definitely is not actually tears, and turn around to face the brothers.
"Can we please just get inside?"
They nod, Dean opens the garage door and we get back into the car.
"Dean?"
Sam is already gone, somewhere else in the bunker, but I stayed behind while Dean parked the Impala and took his stuff out of the trunk. He turns around to face me. "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry for what I said. You know, earlier, about Mitch being the closest thing I have to a father. That's not true."
He doesn't answer and I let a few seconds pass before I continue. "It's just that he's been there for us ever since those Leviathans got Heiner. He saved our asses more than once and helped Maya control herself." I shrug, trying to explain why Mitch is so important to me isn't as easy as I thought it would be. "He was always there for us and we just didn't have anyone else, so..."
"I get it. He's kinda like your Bobby."
"Our what? Oh, Bobby Singer?"
He nods and I think about that analogy for a few seconds. I think about the things I know about Bobby from the books and have to smile. "Yeah, I guess that fits."
"Well, that probably means I'm my father."
"No." I don't even have to think before answering to that stupid idea. "You're not your father. You're my father. And a good man."
I shake my head which is probably futile because he's looking at the ground. But I do it anyway, I have to. He really shouldn't believe I'd think of him the same way I think of his father.
After a few seconds of silence, I speak up again. "You know, I was kind of disappointed when I met you."
He lifts his head back up to face me, looking a little hurt. "And why is that?"
"Well, you were never supposed to be this... this good, this nice." I shrug. " I wanted to hate you. I did hate you. I came here to tell you how much I hated you and how little I cared about you or you leaving me."
"You flew halfway across the earth to come see me to tell me you don't care about me?" There's about half of a smile on his face.
"Yeah, I guess I wasn't thinking very clearly..." I chuckle and the smile spreads to the other half of his face.
"It's just, that I lost everyone I cared about and everyone who cared about me. I mean, Maya died and I didn't hear anything from Mitch and I'd been tortured for a while," here, he flinches and I want to remind him, that I'm okay, but I'm pretty sure he'd know that would be a lie, "and living on my own for the first time ever, and I guess I just wanted someone. Anyone who'd give a fuck about me, not even necessarily in a good or nice way. And I knew I could find you if I wanted to, so I did."
With another tiny smile spreading on my face, I think back to a few weeks ago. That anger I'd been carrying with me ever since I can remember, the newer anger towards my mother, and the one burning the brightest, the anger I still have in my heart, directed at the people who took Maya from me. But that one emotion that had accompanied me all my life was the hatred I felt for my father. But when I met him...
"And then I met you, and you're... you're nice, and funny even, at least sometimes, and you risk your life to save others and you genuinely didn't know I existed and I just... I was kind of disappointed."
I sigh and look back up to Dean. "Thank you. For giving me a chance to get to know you. For proving me wrong. I don't hate you. I really don't."
Hesitantly, he reaches for my shoulders and pulls me closer to him. And I let him, even take a step towards him and wrap my arms around him and hug him.
He smells really good, I hadn't noticed before. I smell his leather jacket and catch a whiff of whisky, but there's something else.
He smells warm. There's no better way to describe it.
And I feel safe, hugging him.
There, standing in the garage, my arms wrapped around Dean's waist, his crossed behind my shoulder blades, I try out the word for the first time.
Quietly, only in my head.
Scared to even think it too loudly.
Because I never thought I'd ever say it.
To anyone.
Dad.