A/N: So, this is actually another follow-up to Glass Lives and takes place after Shards (of us). I figured a little break from the sadness might be nice, though, so I'm posting it now instead of putting it up right after those two chapters.

Pain Is Pain Is Pain

Anna is fifteen

The guilt was still a constant in her life.

It throbbed behind her eyes and in her chest like a migraine or a broken rib. It reminded her, day in and day out, that she was not the normal, innocent high school kid that Kate was best friends with and her teachers expressed concern about. She felt like a fraud in her own life, more so than she ever had before.

Nobody knew what had happened a few weeks ago except her family. She'd explained to Kate in very vague detail, but she hadn't been able to explain how it all rested on her shoulders. She was trying not to believe that it was her fault anymore, and part of that meant refusing to say that it was. Sam and Dean had each tried to convince her that she didn't deserve to carry any guilt over her mother's passing, but it was difficult. Anna still felt like she'd been the catalyst for everything. The guilt was still a constant in her life.

Just a few nights ago, she'd had her big cry. She'd hung onto Dean for hours, and eventually she'd fallen asleep. She'd woken the next morning with both boys wrapped around her and a blanket covering the three of them. She figured Sam must have walked out and been concerned about them getting cold. She'd felt both loved and guilty, and she'd cried a little more, doing her best not to wake them up.

They'd finally caved and taken a hunt yesterday, but only because it was just twenty minutes from the bunker and they could be home tonight and tomorrow night and every night for as long as the case lasted.

For that very reason, Anna knew that what she was about to do was very risky. She knew that, and the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she was trying, subconsciously, to get herself caught. But the boys weren't technically supposed to be home until tonight, and if something happened to keep them in Dispatch overnight, they wouldn't be home for even longer.

She wasn't even sure whether she was hoping they would stay longer, or be home sooner. She wasn't even sure whether she wanted to get away with this, or get caught. She wasn't even sure if she wanted to do this, or call Sam and start crying over nothing. She wasn't sure of anything, and that was exactly the way she'd felt when she pulled the dumbest move of her life and risked everything to go meet Chloe, the move that had wrecked everything.

The thought scared her, but not as much as the thought of feeling this way for the rest of her life did. She couldn't keep the guilt. And as far as she could see, there was only one way to alleviate it. She had to get revenge and take down the one that was truly responsible for everything. Abaddon. But to get to Abaddon, she needed help, and there was no way in hell that Sam or Dean would bring her anywhere near their red-headed enemy even if they knew where to look.

There were very few options when she got right down to it.

So, Anna spread the ingredients before her and went about putting together a summoning spell.

She felt a bit ill prepared as she struck the match, but it was too late to turn back. And anyway, it wasn't like the demon on the other end of her spell was all that dangerous. Just a smartass obnoxatron with an accent. She dropped the flame into the bowl and stepped back, being careful not to scuff the lines of her devil's trap she'd created out of rice krispies. There hadn't been any better materials available that she could sweep up without the boys ever noticing it had been there. Plus, if they saw an empty cereal box in the cupboard, they might think she'd eaten today.

As the flame hit the rest of the ingredients, a reddish light emitted from the bowl with an airy sound. Anna looked up to see a short man in a black suit standing before her. She swallowed and waited for him to turn around.

"Hi, Crowley," she said seriously, hands twisting nervously into one another behind her back. She itched to pull the demon-killing knife out of her boot, but there was no reason. She didn't know why she felt so unsafe when it was only Crowley. She'd just never summoned anything by herself before. It was rare that she ever be alone with a demon, angel, or monster at all, Castiel excluded. She knew how to hide her nerves, though, so she clenched her jaw and locked her knees.

Crowley pivoted around to look at her. "Cub," he greeted, sounding and looking surprised. He made a face and turned in a circle, looking around the room in confusion. "Where's Squirrel? And Moose?"

Anna cleared her throat, trying to ignore his implication that she was some kind of child in need of supervision- even if she was, in some ways, still a kid and did, under some circumstances, still need to be supervised. "They're not here," she said evenly, her voice strong.

"They're not... here," Crowley repeated slowly and with caution. "Is this a trap?"

"You're standing in a trap, Crowley. Why would I need to set another one?"

"You really summoned me? Just you?"

Anna scoffed, offended. "Are you kidding me right now? Just me? I can recite an exorcism or stab a demon as well as the next Winchester, Crowley, so you might think about modifying your tone."

"My tone," Crowley half-shouted. "You might think about the way you're speaking to the King of Hell, Little Girl."

Anna rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, yeah, I owe all the respect in the world to the demon king. So, you sign on the dotted line when some lowlife trades his soul for ten million. I'm not impressed."

Crowley stared at her, face slightly red. "Teenagers," he finally said and sighed. "You might have chosen another demon to throw a tantrum for. I'm a busy man."

"Yeah, I'd like to know what exactly it is you're busy doing, Crowley, because my brothers have been calling you almost every night waiting for you to say you've got your hands on something helpful and you've given us shit for answers."

"Is that what this is about? You might try learning a bit of patience." His voice raised in volume as he continued, "It's not like I'm picking up ketchup at Costco, I'm looking for the bloody First Blade. There'll be a bit of a wait."

Anna huffed angrily and shook her head. She couldn't argue with his point very well. After all, she didn't know how to get to the First Blade. Thanks to her having been shoved as far from the hunt for Abaddon as possible by two overprotective giants dressed in flannel, she hadn't even known it existed until now. But it was probably a weapon capable of killing Abaddon. That was what it sounded like. Anna had thought that the Colt would be able to take her out, though, and they wouldn't have to get nearly as close to use that as they would to use a blade of some kind.

"Let me help you look for it," she offered. "Give me a job to do."

"I've no interest in an intern."

"I'm not asking for a fucking internship in Hell, Crowley. I'm offering to help you find the Blade or Abaddon or something. She killed my mother. I think you can trust me to help you take her out."

"Trust. This isn't about trust, Sweetheart," he patronized. "This is about the target you'll be painting on my back. You'd love to see Squirrel stick a knife in my eye socket, wouldn't you?"

Anna rolled her eyes at his dramatics and stepped a little closer to the devil's trap but was, again, careful not to scuff the line of cereal. "You think I'm gonna tattle on you? Seriously? Because I have two things to say to that: Grow up, for one. And second, stop thinking of me as a little kid. Use your brain."

"That was three things."

At the petty tone of voice he'd used, Anna cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "Again, grow up. I'm fifteen, not five, and I'm not stupid enough to tell Sam or Dean I did anything with you. You wouldn't be the only one they got pissed at."

Crowley stared at her for a moment, then seemed to drop all pretenses. "I'm done playing your little game. Tell me outright what you want."

"To get to Abaddon," Anna stressed, leaning forward with a desperate look in her eyes. "Please, Crowley."

"And why, hypothetically, would I give you a job to put you anywhere near that black-eyed skank?"

"Because," Anna said, her voice softening and her eyes filling. "She killed my mother. And I can't take it knowing she's still out there. Nothing can get better until she's gone."

Crowley stared at her with a strange look on his face. Anna blushed a little. She couldn't believe herself, getting vulnerable in front of a demon. He looked uncomfortable, and she was just embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "You're right. I never should have called you. Helping people isn't exactly your thing. I guess I just thought..." She looked up at him, saw that she had his attention, and knew she had the perfect opportunity to persuade him. "I guess I just thought that since you got a glimpse of what it's like to be human, you might show some empathy. I mean, all that guilt you had pourin' out of you that day in the church..." She swallowed, trying to blink back her tears before they could fall. "I feel guilty too. But I can't shake it off like you got to. I'm still human. And I keep thinkin' it's stupid that I feel so guilty, because it's not like I had much control over what happened. You know, they manipulated me." She shook her head, trying to stop her own rambling or at least stop crying. She used her palms to wipe the tears off her cheeks. "This was a bad idea," she thought aloud. "I'll let you go."

Crowley remained silent as he watched her clear a small opening in the outer lining of the devil's trap. By the time Anna looked up, he was gone.

()()()

She spent most of the rest of the day in the library, staring at the rice krispies on the floor and trying to find the energy to get a broom and clean them up. She had to do it before the boys got home, but she couldn't seem to make herself stand. Instead, she laid her head down on the table and watched vines she'd seen a hundred times. None of them made her laugh, and eventually she started crying. She saw the time and realized the boys could be home at any second, so she got down on the floor to clean up the rice krispies, but she didn't have a broom or a trash can, and she didn't think she could convince herself to stand up to get either one.

When the bunker door squealed open a couple rooms away, she had undone the devil's trap but was still sitting on the ground, surrounded by grains of cereal, and crying. She didn't envy her brothers, walking in on that sight. They both looked so confused, but they handled it surprisingly well.

"Uhm... Anna..." Sam carefully took her wrists. "Let's get you out of this crap," he said gently and pulled her to a standing position, dusting cereal off her clothes before guiding her out of the mess. Rice krispies crunched beneath their feet as they walked, and Anna sniffled and pulled one arm out of Sam's hold so she could wipe tears off her face.

Dean cleaned up the cereal with an old broom Anna wouldn't have known where to find if her life depended on it. It took almost ten minutes because she'd used a whole box to make that stupid devil's trap, and she could hear him stepping on them now and again. She wondered if there was any possible way to explain her way around this one.

"So, uh, Runt..." Dean finally said once the trash can was full of cereal and the broom was leaning against the wall in the corner of the library. "If you don't mind my asking, what were you doin' on the floor covered in cereal?"

She didn't have an answer, so instead she settled for saying, "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize. It's just... you know, it's not like you to..."

"Sit on the floor covered in cereal." She sniffled. "I had a reason... I don't know."

"Okay," Sam said. Anna was surprised at how quickly and easily he was willing to drop this, but she was grateful nonetheless. "Well, other than that, how was your day? Did you eat anything?"

Anna shrugged evasively because no, she hadn't eaten anything. But that seemed wildly irrelevant to her what with the guilt and the sadness and the embarrassment over having been found on the floor surrounded by rice krispies after having cried in front of Crowley, of all people- well, not people per se.

Dean patted her on the shoulder and gestured toward the doorway to the kitchen. "Come on then, kiddo. I'll make you dinner."

Anna didn't feel like eating, but Dean probably knew that, so she didn't bring it up. She just followed him to the kitchen, rubbing discreetly at her red-ringed eyes and hoping it wasn't too obvious she'd been crying. Not that both her brothers didn't already know, but she still didn't want to look pitiful. It reminded her of days gone by, days when her biggest concern was whether their next motel room would have the channel that played Blue's Clues and whether her father would be home tonight, or tomorrow night. John didn't come home any night anymore, and Anna was long past her Blue's Clues days. But there was one constant left from those days, and that was Dean. She blinked tiredly down at the floor as she trailed behind him just like she always had as a toddler.

In the kitchen, she sat quietly at the table and traced the lines of the wooden table with her pinky finger. It was soothing in the strangest way, and she let herself get lost in the simplicity of it. Again, she found herself feeling somewhat like her younger self, and the thought had her picturing her old stuffed frog, the one she'd destroyed after John's passing. In hindsight, she couldn't help but think that she'd burned her childhood with Halloween that day at Bobby's. She'd even said, at seven years old, that she didn't think she should have it anymore because she didn't have parents anymore. Little had she known, her mother had been alive, just hidden away. She hadn't been an orphan. But now she was.

She didn't realize she'd worked herself to tears again until she felt Dean's hand on her back. He was crouching beside her, looking both confused and sympathetic. "You gotta get outta your head, Anna," he said gently. She nodded, because she knew that, and wiped her eyes with her fingers. "Maybe we shouldn't have left you here all day."

Anna shook her head. That was the last thing she wanted him to think even if maybe it was true. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't be summoning demons behind their backs. "I was fine all day. I don't know why I keep frickin' crying."

Dean didn't say anything in answer to that, just ran a hand over her frizzy curls. "God, your hair's a mess," he commented idly.

"It's always a mess," Anna grumbled. He liked to say that every so often. Fortunately for her, Sam was more often the butt of his jokes when he wanted to make fun of someone's hair. Anna's curls could be crazy, but she usually took pretty good care of them. The rest of the insanity was somewhat out of her control, so the teasing she got was both milder and less frequent than the teasing Sam got.

"Five minutes, I could fix it-"

"Don't even think about it."

Dean smiled fondly and ruffled her hair. "There's my girl. If you change your mind, offer's open."

"I won't change my mind." She pulled her feet up onto her chair and watched him go back over to the fridge. It was, again, just like old times as he put together a grilled cheese sandwich. There was the smell of butter melting in a frying pan and the sound of it sizzling into the bread. She was transported back in time to when she wore pigtails and overalls, jumped in mud puddles and did cartwheels on motel carpets. The memories didn't turn dark this time, but they left a pleasant nostalgic feeling in her chest as Dean set a plate in front of her. "Thanks," she murmured.

Dean didn't bother answering, instead just dropping into the chair across from her with a beer in his hand. "So, aside from dumping cereal all over the floor, what'd you do all day?"

Anna shrugged tiredly. She firmly believed that the trick to telling a good lie was to stick as close to the truth as possible, but she could hardly do that after having summoned the king of hell to the library. Instead, she just kept it simple. "Read that book Kate gave me."

"Yeah? Bet that took you five minutes. You know, you're supposed to be cool like me, not geeky like Sam."

"I can hack both." She was half-tempted to throw in a joke about him giving her a beer and then she could be cool again. But since the bar last week, she didn't feel inclined to push her luck. She'd been let off pretty easy because she was hurting and had been at the time. There was no reason to bring that back up, though.

Dean hmphed and took a swig of his beer, watching as she pulled a corner off her sandwich and ate it. "You didn't, uh..." Anna looked up at his hesitation, and he cleared his throat. "You didn't spend the whole day obsessing over Abaddon, then?"

Anna's eyes drifted back down to her plate, but she shook her head. It wasn't quite a lie, but it certainly wasn't the truth either, and it made her stomach twist into knots. They'd been nothing but good to her for weeks- really, her whole life- and she'd been nothing but trouble since finding out her mother was alive. Hell, they'd found her on the floor, surrounded by rice krispies, and they'd let it go because she was upset. They deserved so much better from her, but Anna didn't correct herself. Summoning a demon wasn't the same as researching Abaddon all day, even if she had done that too for a few hours this morning. Getting Crowley involved was another kind of obsession, but... Nothing came of it anyway, she told herself. He left. No harm, no foul.

The lie left a sour taste in her mouth. She picked at the crust of her sandwich, eating crumb-sized pieces until it grew cold.

"You gotta eat it, kid. You're wasting away."

"Dramatic," Anna mumbled. But she forced the sandwich down, bite by bite or, at times, crumb by crumb. Dean was trying, so she should too.

()()()

The following morning, the boys set out for the short drive to Dispatch again after her many reassurances that she would be fine by herself and stay away from any research on Abaddon. Anna sat down in front of the breakfast Dean had made her as a way of guaranteeing she would eat while they were gone, and felt her stomach turn at the smell of the eggs.

She pulled her phone out of her hoodie pocket and texted Kate. Wanna come over? They just left and I feel like shit. It was about as honest as she'd been with anyone in a while, and it made her feel a little jittery with the vulnerability of it. But this was Kate. Her answer came just a few seconds later.

I'm at Mila's dumb party, remember? A second later, Sorry, I really wish I could. Tomorrow?

Anna sighed and typed out, It's fine it's not your fault. Ig I'll see you monday.

So not tomorrow?

Idk

Did you get caught up in school work while you've been home?

Some, she answered while her stomach twisted. She really needed to get the rest of her missing assignments done before Monday. Sam had been really helpful all last week, but the second the boys had left yesterday morning, her brain had shut down. She wasn't confident that she would be able to get anything else done without somebody sitting there nudging her back to attention every time her mind drifted. She was so not looking forward to going back to school on Monday. Do you have math and french notes for the week? I don't wanna catch up just to be behind on this week's stuff.

Yeah, I'll send 'em. Uh... Mila's mom is talking to me.

Go I'll see you monday. She set her phone down, picked up her fork, and stirred her eggs around on her plate.

She was just bringing the first forkful of eggs to her mouth- dreading the weight they would leave in her stomach- when she had to drop it to the table with a short scream. She scrambled a little, palms hitting the underside of the table several times before she came up with a small handgun and pointed it at the figure that had appeared seemingly out of thin air into the kitchen.

She had the gun pointed at his head before she recognized the demon in front of her.

"Crowley," she sighed, her whole body relaxing. She realized the irony, in hindsight. Who relaxes when they realize that they're in the company of the King of Hell? Her life was weird."God, you're worse than Cas," she grumbled, then leaned down to reholster the little gun under the table. Her body suddenly tensed again. This didn't make sense. She crossed her arms over her chest. "What are you doing here? I thought, after yesterday..."

"I had no plans to return," Crowley admitted, stepping toward the counter and plucking an M&M out of the candy bowl there. He dusted it on his jacket first, as if it would somehow be too dirty for him to eat, then popped it into his mouth. "Peanuts," he grumbled. "That's disgusting." He cleared his throat and looked back at Anna. "You're little show of... mourning the last time I was here moved me to make a little offer."

Anna frowned at his wording. An offer? That sounded like a deal... and she knew better than to let herself even hear the terms. "If you're talking about a sign away my soul type of offer, Crowley, then you should just go back to Hell."

Crowley looked at her like she was insane. "Do you think I'm suicidal?" he asked for the second day in a row. "You asked for help getting to Abaddon... and I have a job for you."

()()()

The stone walls were dull in color and rugged in texture. They gave one the feeling of being claustrophobic despite that the walkway was plenty wide. The light came only from torches perched at the tops of the walls. It made Anna think of video game backdrops like that of Fate. But this wasn't Fate. It was Hell.

She looked around, nodding as she took it all in. Then she turned to Crowley with an expectant look. "Now what?"

Crowley narrowed his eyes at her. "Is that all? No quivering in fear? No crying?"

"What, jagged stone walls and torches for light? It's not scary. It's just an aesthetic, Crowley. Relatable as hell, honestly." She snickered. "Literally."

"Show a little class, Cub." He made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. "You're in Hell. In the company of the King, no less."

"I know where I am and who I'm with, Your Lowliness," Anna deadpanned. "And, you know, who I'm not with... is Abaddon. So stow the shit, and let's talk game plan. Do you have a tracking spell, the blade Sam and Dean have you looking for? What are we doing?"

Crowley stared dully at her for a moment before speaking, with surprising softness. "I'm not bringing you to Abaddon."

Anna shook her head, confused. "I know that," she said. "I thought, you know, we were gonna locate her, and then we get the boys here, and-"

"You think it's that easy?" Crowley growled. "We'd have taken the bitch's head off weeks ago."

Feeling suddenly standoffish at Crowley's new tone, Anna crossed her arms over her chest and backed up a step. "Did you take me here so you could jerk my chain, or what? You said you were gonna help me with this Abaddon thing."

"I said that I had a job for you." It was clear by his reddening face and raised voice that Crowley didn't like Anna's demeanour. But that was alright. It immediately changed when he started yelling, and she shrunk a little, hard as she tried not to lose any of the confidence or anger in her stance. "A job, mind you, which is related to the retrieval of the First Blade, one of the few weapons on this planet I would recommend taking into a fight with a bloody Knight of Hell."

Anna stood there breathing heavily for a minute before finally thinking of something to say. "What is it?"

Crowley's fury seemed to take a back seat as he shifted and frowned. "What?"

"The job," she repeated, frustrated and impatient. "What is it?"

His posture changed again, but this time he seemed to be regaining some composure. He then seemed to puff up a bit more. Anna wondered what the hell he wanted that he needed to get defensive about it. "I need you to exorcise a demon."

For a second, it didn't even register to her that he'd really said those words. Then she snorted. He couldn't be serious. "What?" she asked when he just kept looking at her, appearing a little annoyed now.

"You heard me, Cub."

If the nickname was supposed to get her back in line somehow, it did the opposite. Anna laughed again, a little spitefully this time. "You can't exorcise your own demon? Afraid to hear the Lord's name?" she taunted. Crowley flinched when she said the word, though, his eyes flicking a mean shade of red. It made her nervous, though she forced her expression to stay neutral. "Come on, Crowley," she said instead, forcing a casual tone. "You expect me to believe that you need my help to get a demon out of a person? I mean, why would you even want to pull a demon out of a person?"

"Not all demons in Hell are exactly on my side these days," Crowley pointed out with venom. "And yet... I can't exactly go around torturing and exorcising them as a means of getting to Abaddon because I told the Winchesters that I would. Do you have any idea how it looks for me to be working with your family?" he said, nose wrinkling in rage as he tried to keep his voice quiet while getting angrier and angrier. "There's a war on. I can't have every demon this side of the afterlife knowing I've got a trio of hunters in my pocket."

It made sense, in theory. If Abaddon was warring Crowley for the throne in Hell, his working with hunters would look bad. And exorcising one of your own because you needed to in order to help the Winchesters retrieve a weapon would certainly look questionable. But she wasn't buying it anyhow, and she certainly wasn't satisfied with what he was asking her to do. For one thing, exorcising a demon as a means of getting to Abaddon had no obvious connection to Crowley's work with Sam and Dean. It could look like he just wanted to take her out because she was challenging his seat on the throne. For another thing, exorcising one fricking demon? Anna could do that in two minutes. Reciting latin she'd had memorized by the time she turned ten was hardly a job to get excited about, and Crowley had promised her a shot at Abaddon.

Well, he hadn't. But she'd thought she was getting one. And that pissed her off.

"You cooked this up just to fucking patronize me," she accused in a low, quiet voice.

Crowley looked away and scoffed. "I think I have better things to do than make you feel useful, Cub."

"You're full of it."

"And you're treading thin ice. I could snap my fingers, and-"

"And I'll exorcise the shit out of you, Crowley." Rage began to color Anna's vision the way it had that night she found out her mother was alive. No more than a day or two from the night her mother had died. The feeling brought her back to those moments when she'd still had choices, still had a mother. It was the same kind of blindsiding anger guiding her now that had been guiding her when she hopped in a cab and went to Lawrence. That very thought made all the rage disappear from her stance before she could say another word. When she spoke again, it was quiet and pained. "I didn't want to feel useful," she said. "I wanted a chance to do the right thing instead of fucking everything up. I wanted to wipe out the demon that killed my mother so this voice in my head would shut the hell up. So all the guilt would go away. If you're not gonna give me that, then take me home. Please."

Crowley looked at her evenly, his eyes betraying no emotion. "Fine," he said. A snap of his fingers brought them back to the library. "This is the last time I do anything out of any sense of humanity," he grumbled before disappearing again.

Humanity. Anna stood wrecked in the silent bunker's kitchen. The day had hardly started. Her breakfast sat on the table, cold. She laid down on the cold floor, one arm stretched above her head with her cheek resting on it, and tried not to think about anything at all. She let every muscle in her body relax and tried to remember how she'd ever found the energy to get out of bed this morning, tried to remember why she'd summoned Crowley and given herself hope of being able to help with anything or do anything right, tried to believe it was entirely stupid for her to summon him at all because she knew that was what either of her brothers would tell her about it. Not that they would ever know. Anna didn't know by what miracle they'd been able to look her in the eye after she messed up the way she did with her mother, but she wasn't asking for it to occur a second time. She would just keep today's five minute trip to Hell locked away in her own head. She would eat those stupid eggs on the table and take a really long, really hot shower and do her math homework as if any of it was helpful. She would tell herself, disbelievingly, that it wasn't her fault, wasn't her fault, wasn't her fault, because that was step one. Anna hoped to everything she couldn't believe in that she would reach step two sometime soon. Tomorrow would be nice. Today would be a miracle.

Her phone rang in her pocket. Jody. Anna pulled it out, lay it down beside her head on the floor, and accepted the call.

"Hi," she said quietly.

"Hey, kiddo."

Anna's body grew a little heavier, going limp against the floor. She could so not do a conversation right now. "Do you need something?" she asked, like anybody ever needed anything from her. When they needed something, they called Sam or Dean. When they thought she needed something, they called her.

"Actually, I just got off the phone with your brother," she said and didn't specify which one. Not that it mattered. They were always together. She'd probably spoken to both of them. "You never called me back."

"Oh. I'm sorry," she said and rolled onto her back. "I guess I kinda forgot we talked in the first place."

"Not too surprising. You were half asleep."

"Yeah," was all Anna could think to say. Jody, I love you, but please hang up, she thought as hard as she could and prayed that it would somehow reach the Sheriff from miles away. She really needed some time to lay on the floor without thinking or speaking or listening or anything, and she could hardly do that with Jody on the phone.

"I take it you're doing better. Dean said you were."

"I guess." In some ways, it was true. In others, not so much. But Jody had said better, not good, so it wasn't really a lie.

"Also said you could probably use some conversation."

Babysitting was probably a more accurate word. This call was sounding more and more like a check-in with every passing second. Anna was probably failing said check-in. "Yeah, I guess."

"You sound tired."

"I am. Are you?" Anna realized very quickly that it was a little weird for her to ask that.

"Am I tired?"

"Yeah."

"I'm always tired."

"Same. What'd you have for breakfast?"

"Grits. Are we doing this?"

"I thought you wanted to have a conversation."

Jody laughed audibly over the line. "Guess that's not what I had in mind."

"Like there's any more exciting conversation than breakfast and sleep deprivation."

The line was quiet for a second. Anna felt the mood change before Jody actually spoke and cemented the alteration. "You asked me why you were so sad."

It didn't take long for Anna to understand what she was talking about. But all she could say was, "Oh."

"And you said you felt guilty."

There was only one sentence left in Anna's head, and she didn't want to say it, but she did anyway because it was all she had. "I shouldn't have said that." She knew exactly the kind of response it would elicit, and she hated herself for still saying it, but it was officially too late not to.

"Of course you should." Anna hated that she'd wanted to hear those words almost as much as she hated that they didn't help at all. "But I've been thinking about it."

Bone tired, Anna closed her eyes so she didn't have to use any more energy looking at the ceiling. "And?"

"Do you remember back when we first met? The zombies?"

Anna frowned, eyes popping open. "I mean, I was like ten or eleven, so it's a little foggy, but yeah."

"And you remember my family? How they...?"

More softly this time, "Yeah."

"I think guilt is just part of it."

"You lost more than me."

"You don't compare grief," Jody said with such venom that Anna felt shame burn in her gut.

"You're right," she said immediately. "I'm sorry."

But somewhere, she still believed she hadn't lost enough to feel like she did. How do you grieve what you never had? It was ridiculous, in some ways, that Anna still had to ask herself that question when she'd been grieving what she'd never had for just about her whole life. How many times had she lay in bed at night, crying and crying, because Kate's mother had been so sweet at a sleepover the night before or because conference night hurt in the weirdest way sometimes or because she'd spent too long looking at the picture of Chloe that she kept in her desk drawer? Jody was right. You don't compare grief because a lot of painful things are hard to put into words and even harder to quantify. You don't compare grief because pain is pain is pain is gut-wrenching pain.

"Stop asking why you're sad." Anna had stopped asking. But she hadn't stopped wondering. Maybe the guilt would feel different now that she knew. Maybe it would go away. There she went, asking for miracles again.

"Okay," she said, feeling strangely better. She sat up, energy invading her shell. "But if guilt is part of it, maybe you could give me a helpful hint on how to make it stop?"

Jody was quiet for a long time, and Anna began to wonder if she'd struck a nerve and made the sheriff hang up. Finally, she heard a, "Sorry."

"Thank you," Anna said, knowing it was the wrong answer. Somehow, Jody had helped her, even if the conversation had been an all around painful endeavour for both of them.

The silence cradled her for a minute before Anna stood up and moved to sit down at the table. She looked at the cold eggs on her plate and wondered how she was going to get them down. She thought about her math homework and wondered if she could get another week off school, knowing full well that she couldn't.

Pain is pain is pain, she thought. Nothing was made better, but it wasn't worse.

In the quiet of the kitchen, she took a bite of her eggs and suddenly smiled warmly.

Crowley, of all people, had made her a job just so she wouldn't be sad or guilty or upset. She wasn't sure whether to feel flattered or offended that the King of Hell cared about her feelings, but for some reason she couldn't stop smiling about it. Maybe it was funny.

Whatever the reason, Anna took another bite of her breakfast and smiled a little wider while she ate. In tangled up, indirect manner, Crowley had still managed to make her feel better for a second.

La Fin

I wanted to mention that pretty soon I'm going to switch to posting weekly on Saturdays instead of posting daily. I had a backlog of chapters to post, because I've been posting on another site for a long time now. But after a few more chapters, this one will be caught up, and after that I can only post once a week. I would love to post more often, but unfortunately I'm a full time student as well as working a part time job, so I just don't have the time for more than that.