What up, my amazing SPN family. So many of you have written to me about losing loved ones right now. My heart truly goes out to you all. Grief is a bewildering thing, because it hurts so incredibly badly and makes you numb all at the same time. And there's no fix but to simply go through it. It feels like your heart is being peeled apart, layer by layer. I wish I had more than a virtual hug and a story to give to every one of you, but it's all I have, so I pray to Castiel that it helps. I'm back to working thirteen plus hour days, so I might get infrequent with posting again. Please know that I'm still writing. I'll post as often as I'm able to. I won't forget about you. Always Keep Fighting, and I'll keep writing my way out of my own grief too. Lots of love.
In this story, Natalie is 8. Please see profile page for disclaimer.
Natalie pursed her lips as she attempted to add a level to her house of cards. She moved slowly, carefully, gently bending the cards just enough to get them to rest against each other in her quest to make the tallest house of cards ever. She had developed this interest, recently having seen a group of frat boys in a YouTube video. She obviously could do better than them, and had been making it her goal to do so. Besides, Uncle Sam was working on his laptop so she couldn't play on that, and what else was there to do while crappy daytime TV was on? The laptop was life, and since that wasn't an option, she'd settled for cards.
Her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, she finished off the second level of the card house. She hardly dared breathe, lest she knock her creation over. She was so absorbed in her task, she'd completely forgotten what Sam was working on. So she wasn't really paying attention when Sam made a weird sound.
"Something wrong?" Dean asked from his perch on his bed, where he was checking his online dating profile on his own laptop.
"This is…weird," Sam muttered, still absorbed in the screen.
"Like random-ad-for-what-I-was-just-thinking-about weird or like us weird?"
"The first thing, sort of," Sam said, scrolling down. "It looks like there's a bunch of little charges on our credit card statement for the month. Like a 1.99 here and there, but like twenty in a row. Over several days."
Natalie felt her blood turn to ice. She suddenly remembered what Sam was doing. He was going back and erasing their credit cards, hiding the electronic trails and all that junk that kept them in the clear for their fraudulent activities. She suddenly shot bolt upright, scattering the cards she'd been so carefully working on. Both Sam and Dean looked at her in surprise.
"You okay, squirt?" Dean asked. He knew how hard she'd been working on that card house, so something must have seriously spooked her. Natalie swallowed hard, and tried to summon the very small amount of chill she had left.
"Yup. Yeah. Great. I'm great, thanks," she said in a rush, before hurrying over to her uncle. She didn't see Dean's eyes narrow suspiciously as she went- she had a much more pressing concern. "Hey Uncle Sam," she said, trying to act casual. "Can I see your laptop for a second?" She reached tentatively towards the computer.
"Not now, Bug, I gotta figure this out," Sam said, gently nudging her hands away. Natalie started to fidget.
"But…um…I forgot to…" she was about to say 'finish my homework', but Sam always knew when she was lying. "…do something that…needs…doing," she finished lamely as she reached for the keyboard again. She couldn't admit what she'd ACTUALLY forgotten to do- they'd kill her.
With a patient sigh, Sam took a hold of her hands and moved them away again. "Bug, stop," he said gently but firmly. "You can finish whatever it is later."
Oh no, she couldn't. Her mind raced. She had to get to a computer before Sam figured this out. Dean was on his own laptop, and there was zero chance of getting her paws on that when he was 'checking his messages'. Could she go through their phones? Well, of course, but not fast enough to erase things now that Sam had seen them. Her only recourse was Sam's computer, and it had to be NOW. She pulled a chair up right next to Sam, ignoring his now irritated sighs.
"Maybe I can help," she said anxiously. "Lemme see."
"Natalie," Sam said in a warning tone. "Stop, now." He shifted the screen away from her slightly, his eyes never leaving it. "Dean, do you have any idea what these charges might be?"
Before Natalie could make another desperate attempt at distracting Sam however, she suddenly felt herself rocketed upward. She gave a small squeak of surprise. She lost track of her equilibrium for a moment as she was spun around and unceremoniously plunked back down to earth. She gulped hard again, as she suddenly realized that she was standing face to face with Dean, who had yanked her out of her chair and looked less than amused.
"What did you do?" he asked her in his sternest tone. Natalie's eyes darted around the room suddenly, trying to find anything to land on other than her father's face.
"Um…" she mumbled, starting to sweat. Sam, who had been almost as surprised as she was upon her sudden relocation, looked at her with wide and slightly judgmental eyes.
"Bug, did you have something to do with this?" Sam asked, gesturing to the screen. Natalie's eyes darted back to Dean, who was starting to expel smoke from his nostrils. She pointed meekly at the laptop.
"Okay, there's a CHANCE that's not me," she said bravely. Dean scowled and shook his head.
"Nope," he said firmly. He pointed at her. "Don't give me that. I know that face."
"What face?"
"That face you're making. It's your guilty face. I know it was you. What did you do?" This time, Dean's voice took that spine-chilling 'just 'fess up now' tone.
Natalie swallowed hard and opened her mouth, knowing she was well and truly caught, but before she could come clean, Sam uttered a noise of surprise. "Wait, hang on," he said, the irritation in his voice becoming painfully clear. "These are charges on Facebook." Natalie pinched her eyes shut for the onslaught she knew was coming.
Dean had been leaning down, right in Natalie's face, but that proclamation made him stand straight up. "On FACEBOOK?!" he roared, causing Natalie to flinch and her eyes to fly open. Dean's eyes bore into hers like lasers. "You were on FACEBOOK?! CHARGING SOMETHING?!"
Natalie opened her mouth again, but Sam beat her to it. "It's Candy Crush!" he exclaimed- not as loud as Dean, but definitely not quietly. "You've been playing Candy Crush on Facebook, and buying things with one of our credit cards!" Sam stood up and joined his brother, both of them standing shoulder-to-shoulder, facing the child.
Natalie couldn't have felt smaller, having these two giants towering over her, glaring at her and demanding an explanation. She nervously twisted her foot into the carpet. "I…" she began. "It was just a fun game-"
"'Just a fun game'?!" Dean yelled, loud enough to bring the walls of the motel down. "Natalie Grace, you are EIGHT YEARS OLD, and you not only got on FACEBOOK, but you've been spending MONEY on it, and you're trying to get yourself out of hot water with 'just a fun game'?!"
Sam clamped a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Hey, hey," he murmured quietly. "Take it down a notch." Unfortunately, that had the exact opposite effect on Dean.
"SAM, SHE'S GOT A PUBLIC PROFILE ON A SOCIAL MEDIA SITE AND YOU'RE TELLING ME TO TAKE IT DOWN A NOTCH?!"
Sam threw up his hands in surrender. "Okay, bad choice of words," he said bracingly. "Let's just take a breath and deal with this." Dean turned his death glare on his brother and took a short inhale just to shut him up. Sam gave him the 'are you serious' bitch face. "Try a breath where you actually inhale air," Sam said snarkily. Dean just rolled his eyes and turned back to Natalie.
"How long have you been online?" he asked her, his voice full of steel.
"Um…since…since I was in school."
"SINCE SCHOOL?!"
"Breathe, Dean, breathe," Sam instructed, sounding like a Lamaze coach. "Natalie, how did you get online at Bobby's when you were at school?"
"Oh, man, I can't WAIT to tell Bobby this one," Dean interrupted, snorting in clearly unamused derision. "He's gonna blow a gasket."
"I didn't do it at Pops' house!" Natalie exclaimed, wide eyed. If they told Pops, she was going to get killed the next time they were in South Dakota, even harder than she was about to be killed right now.
"Then where did you do it?" Dean barked.
"You hacked a school computer, didn't you?" Sam said, for once catching up quicker than Dean. Natalie shrugged and looked at the floor.
"It wasn't THAT hard," she mumbled. Dean rounded on Sam suddenly.
"See? I TOLD you school was a bad idea," he said, fuming. Sam gaped at him, exasperated.
"Dean, stop venting your spleen on me for two seconds, okay?" he shot back. "What I want to know is how she's been playing this game for two, nearly three years now, presumably spending money this whole time, and we've never noticed it." Both boys turned their iron gazes back on the squirming child. When she didn't offer up an explanation, Dean barked at her again.
"Hey. Your uncle asked you a question, little girl."
"Um…well, I…started playing cause I was bored at school…" That earned her a huge bitch face from Sam. Okay, get off THAT topic quickly. "…and it was just really fun, so I kept doing it when I started back on the road with you. After I was done with Hunter Homeschool stuff, sometimes I would play on your computers. And the…the credit card stuff was because I watched Uncle Sam when he was getting rid of the other credit card charges and I thought that I could do it too and it would be really good practical lessons." She tried to put a big smile on her face. "So I was REALLY practicing important stuff that I'll need to know when I'm hunting. Right?"
"Yeah, that's a big nope," Dean snarled. He leaned back down into her face. "So. You've been erasing your…" he couldn't believe the words coming out of his own mouth. "…fake credit card tracks online for two years now, but more importantly, you have a profile on Facebook. Little girl, do you have any idea how DANGEROUS that is? Someone could have easily found you."
Despite the fact that she was in waist-deep shit, Natalie looked outraged. "I didn't use my real name!" she said indignantly. "I know better than that!"
"But you apparently didn't think you'd get caught, huh? You didn't know better than that?"
"Well, I didn't get caught for two years."
"Oh, SO not helping your case right now. You watch your tone, little girl."
"Bug, did you ever talk to anyone online? Accept friend requests or anything like that?"
"No, never! I just…I just used it to play Candy Crush," she said. Dean's eyes swung to Sam's, and he was rewarded with a nod. Natalie was telling the truth. "I just…I really like the game and when I'm done with my homework and there's nothing good on TV and you guys aren't here…"
"Natalie Grace Winchester, that does NOT justify you having a freakin' Facebook profile to play a game."
"You have your dating profiles!"
"That is different."
"How?"
"Because I said so, that's how."
"That's not fair!"
"You are not in a position to argue with me right now, little girl," Dean snarled back, effectively making her clamp her lips shut. "You are in a WORLD of trouble."
Sam cleared his throat, trying to take control and get Dean's blood pressure down before he blew another gasket. "Bug," he began calmly. "You know it was very irresponsible to use our credit cards to buy stuff in an online game. You know that, right?"
Somehow, that quiet, disappointed tone from Sam made Natalie feel worse than Dean yelling at her. Her face falling into lines of misery, she looked down at the carpet. "I…I didn't think that it would be a big deal, 'cause we don't have to pay the credit card stuff, and it was only a little bit," she said, squirming and blinking rapidly to keep the tears away.
Sam sighed heavily. "Natalie, it wasn't a little bit. You spent $172 this month on it."
Both Natalie's and Dean's heads whipped around to Sam upon hearing that. "WHAT?!" they yelled in tandem. Dean's furious gaze snapped back to his daughter, who was now trembling and had turned liquid paper white.
"I am going to KILL you, kid," Dean growled.
"I…I didn't know it was that much!" Natalie squeaked, her eyes looking like a wild, cornered animal. "Please, I really didn't know! I lost track of how much 'cause I was getting so far in the game! I just…I didn't…" She couldn't finish the sentence. Her eyes darted back and forth between the brothers as if trying to analyze who would reach her and strangle her first.
Sam held his hands up to both of them. "Hang on, hang on," he said, trying for that diplomatic tone again. "No one is gonna get killed today." He glared at Dean, silently willing him to take control of himself. Once he was satisfied that Dean wouldn't make good on his threat, he looked down at his niece again. "But Dean is right. You are in BIG trouble."
Dean pointed in her face. "Two weeks, no computer at all." Natalie gasped at the horror of her punishment. "You're doing everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, by book. That includes schoolwork, research, lore work, everything." He put his hands on his hips. "AND you're gonna delete your Facebook account."
Natalie was absolutely gobsmacked. She couldn't have closed her mouth if she'd wanted to. But before she could plead, beg, throw herself on the mercy of the court- whatever- Sam spoke again.
"Uh, Dean," he began gently. "You…you can't really delete a Facebook account."
Dean snorted. "Of course you can. You just…you hit delete and it goes away."
"Dean, that's not how it works."
"Well, then you find the button that makes it disappear and you do that, Sam!"
"Dean, you can't delete a Facebook account. I mean, technically there are ways to 'delete' it, but the information is still there and if you dig hard enough, you can find it." Sam cocked an eyebrow at Dean, sending him silent thoughts. Dean could read them like a book. Natalie, with her ridiculously stupid ability to make computers sit up and beg for her, would be able to reactivate it the second she was out of lockdown.
"Fine, whatever," Dean snarled, throwing his hands up. "All I know is stuff disappears off the Internet all the time, like I find something one day and the next it's gone. Can't we make it do that?"
"Dean, nothing ever really disappears off the internet. You know that, right?" It was Dean's turn to look gobsmacked. Sam rolled his eyes, turning back to Natalie. "Bug, we really need you to understand the seriousness of what you've done. You can do your schoolwork out of books for the next two weeks. We will figure it out."
"But…but," she began, trying to find something to latch on to in order to help her desperate argument. Two weeks without the computer was definitely up there with two hundred years in hell. "But what about that book report that I'm supposed to do on 'To Kill a Mockingbird'? I need a computer to type it out," she begged lamely.
"You can write it out by hand."
"But that will take FOREVER!"
"Well, you're going to have a lot more free time now that you're not allowed to play Candy Crush, aren't you?" Dean said, a wicked touch of sarcasm creeping back into his voice, replacing the flat-out rage. Natalie stammered, hemming and hawing even though she knew she truly had no way out.
"But…but I'll just DIE," she whimpered to Sam, as pathetically as she could, complete with puppy dog eyes. Surely they wouldn't commit this act of heinous child cruelty.
"I'm sure your instinct to survive will kick in shortly," Sam said, uncharacteristically sarcastic himself.
*SPN SPN SPN*
It only took three days for every Winchester to regret how it all went down.
Natalie felt that her entire world had been stripped away, not having access to her beloved computer obsession. She had built 47 card houses at this point, using every deck of cards that she could get her hands on, cursing a blue streak when they fell, and getting into more trouble with Sam for THAT. Her hand was cramped from writing lines and wasn't sure she'd ever get the taste of motel soap out of her mouth.
She had always been a big fan of reading, but when she was forced to do it exclusively rather than recreationally, it took on a different feel to her. She found herself getting bored very quickly- even with the lore books. She would get so frustrated that she'd abandon the books wherever she happened to be reading them at the time, changing locations and selecting another book, willing it to capture her imagination and attention. But it never worked and the motel room was starting to look like a ransacked library.
On day three, both boys were working on their laptops, doing research for their current case. Dean had ordered her to stay on her couch, far away from the small table they were sharing, but the sound of the clicking keyboards were drawing her- like a man dying of thirst to a glass of cold water. She subconsciously kept moving towards them, creeping off the couch to get another piece of paper or a book and planting herself closer and closer to the boys, until they noticed and shooed her off. After the fifth time, Dean had had enough.
"Alright, Natalie," he said, snarling. "That's it. We're gonna have to do something about this. Your addiction to this damn machine is insane, kid."
Natalie's eyes went wide. She wouldn't put it past Dean to put a life ban on the laptop for her. "But I didn't touch it! I didn't even try!" she said pleadingly.
"Yeah, but you keep creeping over here. You're drawn to it like a fly to a pile of-"
"Dean!"
"Anyways, it ends now."
"Wh-what does that mean?"
"It means you go find something constructive to do. Go play with your Legos."
"But I'm bored with my Legos. I can put each set together in like three minutes. I've been timing myself."
"What about your action figures?"
"They're not fun right now."
"What, do you need to get them drunk or something for them to be fun? Go play with them."
"But Dad!"
"What did I just say?"
Natalie heaved as much of a sigh as she dared to and drug her feet back towards her couch. Grumpily, she pulled Batman, Iron Man, and Black Widow out of her backpack and tossed them onto the coffee table on top of all the books and cards and junk. She picked up Black Widow- her favorite Avenger- but nothing fun came to mind, no new stories or situations that she could act out. She began wondering if Black Widow would lift Thor's hammer in the final Avengers movie. And of course that reminded her of the hammer in Candy Crush. UGH all she wanted to do was play a little bit. What was so wrong with that? With a mournful sigh, she lowered her forehead onto the coffee table. What would Black Widow do if she couldn't play her favorite game?
Black Widow wouldn't take this lying down. Black Widow would make her OWN game. And it all suddenly came to Natalie. She could do that. She could absolutely do that.
Bolting upright, Natalie dove for her backpack. She dumped the entire thing upside down. What she was looking for might very well be at the bottom of her bag, so why dig?
Sam cleared his throat loudly from the table. "You will clean that up when you're done, right?" he asked in a friendly tone that fooled no one.
"Yes, sir," Natalie answered back, already sorting through the detritus. She found three…four…five quarters. That wasn't going to be nearly enough. She bit her bottom lip, thinking. Couch cushions! Couch cushions were usually full of them, right? She spun around and tossed her blankets and pillows to the floor, then heaving the couch cushions off.
"Bug, what are you doing? Other than making a huge mess?" Sam asked with a sigh.
"I'm looking for quarters."
"For quarters?" Dean asked, finally looking up to see the destruction his child was causing. "What do you need quarters for?"
"For my new idea of what to do when I can't play on the computer!"
"Oh. Well, good then," Dean said. "Glad you came up with something. Put the room back together once you're done," he finished, going back to the laptop. He could feel Sam's bitch face coming at him full blast, but he didn't care- the kid was occupied with something constructive.
After a couple minutes, Natalie finally gathered up enough quarters to satisfy herself. She asked for permission to run to the front lobby of the motel, and after gaining it, returned with her pockets bulging. "Hey, can I get a tool out of the tool kit?" she asked Dean, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
"Sure. Don't blow anything up," Dean said, still absorbed in his work. He was only vaguely aware of the pattering of running feet, the zip of the canvas, and a strange tiny clattering sound. What did make him sit up and take notice was the sudden crash that echoed around the small room.
Dean jumped a mile and spun towards his daughter, his heart going a thousand beats per minute. Before he could say anything though, he saw her raise a hammer over her head and bring it down on the coffee table with another resounding THWACK!
"Natalie Grace Winchester, what the hell are you doing?!" he roared, springing out of his chair and storming over to her, Sam right behind him. Natalie looked up at him with wide innocent eyes, as if she was unable to understand the issue. Dean looked at the coffee table. There were M&Ms scattered all over, and apparently she was trying to smash them with a hammer.
"Are you…did you make a…a live action Candy Crush game?" Dean stammered, torn between a desire to skin her alive or laugh so hard he'd puke.
"Yeah!" she said excitedly, her grin wrapping around her face. "I got a bunch of M&Ms from the vending machine in the lobby, and I'm using the hammer to crush them. This is WAY better than the computer! Thanks for the idea, Dad!" She raised the hammer again, with both hands this time, determined to smash that one little blue fucker she'd been trying to get on the last try.
A mixture of unintelligible noises erupted out of both boys. Before Natalie knew what was happening, the hammer was out of her hands and she was a good five feet from the table, being held under the arms and in the air by her father. She added her voice to the cacophony, loudly complaining about them making up their minds about her constructive activities as they argued with her about said activities.
"Hold on, HOLD ON!" Dean shouted over all of them. Natalie craned her neck to look at him over her shoulder, while Sam stood there holding the hammer away from all of them. For the thousandth time, Dean briefly contemplated what his life had become. "Okay, there's a really simple solution here." He set Natalie down on the floor and turned her towards him. "Gather up all your candy." Natalie's eyes went wide and she opened her mouth to protest, but Dean held up a finger. "Hold your horses and just do it. Trust me." He gave her a little wink. This caused Natalie's face to light up and Sam's to implode. She quickly gathered up the candy. Dean leaned forward and plucked the hammer out of Sam's hands, then turned back to his daughter. "Alright. Go lay a towel down in the bathtub, climb in, and crush your candy in there."
"YES! Thank you Dad!" Natalie squealed, taking off for the bathroom.
"DUDE!" Sam roared at his brother. "What the hell?!"
"Dude, we got eleven…ELEVEN…more days of this to get through. If she's happy and distracted by smashing M&Ms in a motel bathtub instead of burning the world down, then I'm handing her the damn hammer." Dean followed Natalie into bathroom determinedly while Sam just stood there with a helpless look on his face.
"We're not gonna last two weeks," Sam mumbled to the now empty room.