AUTHOR'S NOTE: My Muse is on a roll! Thanks to everyone who left a review! Once again, the medical stuff is only partly based in fact. Content warning for fluff and feels at the end of the chapter.

~ ~ spn ~ ~ spn ~ ~

The phone ringing woke Daddy up. He sat up, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand. "H'lo?" He mumbled into the receiver. "Oh, hey, Dad. What did you find out?" He stretched his spine, looking over at my body. "Oh no, she did? Is she gonna be okay?" He listened for a long moment. "Yeah, that's probably for the best. Did Sam find out anything?" He stood up and walked over to the drink carrier, pulling out one of the cups and taking a sip. He made a face, but then took another big swallow. "Oh, he does? And she's good?...did she say she can help us?" He drank more of the cold coffee. "That's good to hear. When can she-okay, great. I'll see you soon. Yeah, bye."

Daddy walked over to the bed and sat down, taking my hand. "Charlie, I don't know if you can hear me, I think you can. Imani's gonna sit the rest of this out, she was really worn out after they left. Uncle Bobby talked to a friend of his who is a psychic who agreed to come help out, her name is Pamela. Hopefully she can get you back in your body." He touched my cheek with his fingertips. "I can't wait to talk to you, baby. You've gotta fight and come back to me."

The rest of the day, Daddy watched TV or read parts of the Harry Potter book out loud. The nurses came in a couple of times to check the machines and ask how he was doing. He left the room at one point and came back with his hands full of snacks from the vending machines. He sat on the bed next to me eating potato chips and pretzels while he watched episodes of 'Doctor Sexy, MD'.

Eventually there was a knock on the door. Daddy sprang up, wiping his hands on his jeans, the empty bags falling to the floor. "Come in," He called. He grabbed the remote and turned the TV off.

The door opened, and Grandpa John walked in, followed by a thin woman.

"Dean, this is Pamela Barnes, Pamela, my son, Dean Winchester."

Pamela was pretty, with long dark hair, wearing a black t-shirt with a leather vest over it. She had a big silver pendant around her neck, dangly silver earrings, and a couple of leather bracelets on her wrists.

"Nice to meet you," She shook Daddy's hand as she looked him up and down. "My God, Bobby didn't tell me that you Winchesters were all so handsome."

Daddy blushed slightly.

She turned to Grandpa John. "I mean, we've got the patriarch over here who's well on his way to becoming a silver fox," She smiled at him, tilting her head, and then looked back at Daddy. "And you, you're as handsome as all get out."

Daddy rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I wouldn't say that-" He said modestly, but his eyes twinkled and the corners of his mouth turned up.

Pamela gestured at his head and then his body. "Sure, you've got the couple days' stubble and the rumpled hair, it's all very sexy. You could be moonlighting on some runway, y'know?"

Daddy squared his shoulders, looking pleased with himself. "Well, if you say so." He glanced down at her shirt and then back up to her face. "Ramones?"

She chuckled. "Hell yeah, I saw 'em at CBGBs back in the day. One of the best damn live shows I've ever been to."

"I gotta say, you're not-we weren't-quite expecting-this." He looked her up and down again, slower, smiling when he met her eyes.

She threw her head back and laughed. "Yeah, I get that a lot. Just because I don't look like Stevie Nicks with gauzy dresses and elf ears don't mean I'm not the real thing. Bobby vouched for me, didn't he?"

Grandpa John nodded. "He did say you were...unconventional."

She meandered over to him, leaning close. "Take me out for a drink sometime and I'll show you just how... unconventional I can be." She winked at him.

Daddy cleared his throat. "So, uh, did Bobby let you know what's going on with Charlie?"

Pamela walked over to the bedside. "Yeah, and I talked to Imani as well. She's powerful, and a good woman, Sam snared a keeper." She looked down at my body. "So this is the kiddo?"

Grandpa John walked over to the other side of the bed and took my hand to give it a squeeze. "Hi Charlie, how are you doing?" He cupped my cheek with his hand. "This is Pamela, she's going to help you."

I wondered if I could communicate with her the way I did with Imani. I said, "Pamela, can you hear me?" She didn't respond. I didn't feel her energy or anything. I tried concentrating on gathering my energy and giving it to her, but it just disappeared.

Pamela had a battered leather messenger bag on her shoulder, and she shifted it onto the bed and opened it. "What I have is a spell to anchor Charlie's soul in her body. Kinda like when you have helium balloons on strings and you don't want 'em to blow away, so you weigh them down? It's a quickie spell, it'll get the job done, but later we should check on her etheric cords and make sure they're all holding fast."

"And this spell will make her wake up, and she'll be okay?"

"It'll get her soul back in her body and she'll wake up, but as far as being okay- didn't Sam say that she's got a brain injury?"

Daddy's face fell. "Yeah."

"So, I can't make any promises with that."

"All right, what do you need for us to do?" Grandpa John asked.

She rummaged around in the bag, bottles clinking. "You stand at her head," She directed Daddy. "And John, you'll be at her feet, but keep an eye out for the door. We don't want anyone interrupting us."

She pulled a leather pouch out of the bag and set it on the bed. She rubbed her palms together and bowed her head, murmuring something. She lowered her hands and held them over my body, palms down. "I call on the elements of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit to assist us in our time of need. Please provide protection as we attempt this ritual."

She picked the bag up and took out a small bottle with a stopper. "This is holy oil, if you can put a little dab where I tell you." She handed the bottle to Daddy. Then she pulled the covers down off of my body.

"First dab goes on top of her head." Pamela said.

Daddy tilted the bottle onto his fingertip and touched the top of my head. Pamela removed a clear oval stone from the pouch and placed it on my head, murmuring something.

"What's that?" Daddy asked.

"Quartz crystal, for the crown chakra. I'm going to be putting a gemstone on each chakra to get them in alignment. You know what they are, right?"

"Uhh...some new agey thing?" Daddy asked.

Pamela huffed. "They're the energy centers in the body and if they get out of whack bad things can happen."

She placed different colored gemstones on parts of my body, like my forehead and my heart. Then she said, "All right, Dean, you put your hands on the top of her head, and John, you put your hands on her feet. We need to create a family connection."

She raised her hands up, palms out, and said, "I call in protection from the earth and the sky, for this body and soul before us. I call Charlie's soul back into her body, which is her home on this earth. Her heart and soul will be safe in her body, and she will be protected and connected to her family. I bind her soul into her body, that it will wander no more. This I ask of the elements. So mote it be." She slowly lowered her hands.

I started to feel funny- like my whole body was buzzing. "What-what's going on?" I asked. I felt a pulling sensation then, almost like I was going underwater, and my ears were ringing. Everything went gray and I felt like I was moving on an escalator.

I began to feel my body- the pinch of the needle in my arm, the pressure of the sheets on my legs, the weight of the stones on me, the ache in my muscles.

I could hear a woman's voice murmuring. There was something hard and heavy on my forehead, and it was hot and felt like it was vibrating. It was lifted away.

I opened my eyes- the room seemed very bright, and the light felt like it was stabbing me in the eyes. I made a sound in the back of my throat as I scrunched my eyes closed.

"Charlie?" Daddy asked anxiously.

"Too bright!" I whimpered.

I heard quick footsteps and then someone took my hand. "The lights are off." Daddy said. "Charlie-?"

I opened my eyes again and looked up- Daddy was standing above me, watching me with concern. "Daddy?" I said hoarsely. My throat felt dry.

"Oh God, Charlie!" Daddy said with relief. "You're awake!"

Grandpa John moved next to Pamela, who was watching me.

"Wait-can you-can you move? Wiggle your fingers." Daddy said.

I held my hand up and wiggled my fingers. Everything seemed a little blurry.

"Oh, thank God!" Daddy leaned down and grabbed me up in a hug, and I hugged him back. "Ow," I muttered.

He pulled back, looking me in the eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Everything hurts." I said, squinting my eyes.

Pamela began to pick up the rest of the stones and put them back in her bag.

Grandpa John leaned down to hug me. "There she is, good to see you back, darlin'." He kissed my forehead. When he stood up his eyes were wet. "Thank you." He said to Pamela, his voice husky.

"Charlie, this is Pamela, she helped us." Daddy said.

"I know, I could see and hear everything." I said. "Uh, thanks."

Pamela smiled at me. "Nice to meet you, kiddo, glad I could help."

I looked at Daddy, propping myself up on my elbow. "Can I have something to eat? I'm starving."

They all laughed.

"She's Dean's girl, all right, thinking with her stomach." Grandpa John ruffled my hair. "I'll go tell the nurse she's awake."

Pamela hefted her bag onto her shoulder. "Well, I'll get out of your hair. Keep me up to date on everything."

"All right. Thanks for everything, Pamela." Grandpa John said gratefully. Both he and Daddy shook her hands, and then we all said goodbye and she and Grandpa John left at the same time.

Daddy raised the head of the bed so that I was propped up, and then sat down on the bed, looking at me. "I'm so glad to see you." He smiled.

"It was scary, Daddy." I said.

"Do you remember what happened?" He looked into my eyes.

I nodded.

"We can talk about it later if you want."

Grandpa John came into the room, followed by a nurse. "Well, this is good!" She said when she saw me. "What have we got the lights off for?"

"She says the light hurts her eyes." Daddy reported.

She checked me over and pressed some buttons on the machines. "I'll be back to draw some blood, and I'll see if Dr. Washington is still here, so he can examine you." She removed a folded piece of paper from her clipboard and handed it to me. "Here's a menu, you can order whatever you want."

I opened the menu and scanned over it quickly. "I want a cheeseburger with french fries and mac an' cheese and chicken nuggets and a Coke and some pudding and... this apple cobbler." I said.

The nurse laughed. "You can't order all that, hon. One entree and two sides and a dessert."

"Oh. Okay."

"When can she go home?" Daddy asked.

"After she's been checked out, if things look good."

The nurse left the room, and Daddy ordered my meal. He hung the phone up and turned to me, leaning down to hug me again."How are you feeling?"

"I just feel stiff. An' my hip kinda hurts."

"Yeah, you scraped your hip and thigh on the street when you fell, do you remember, you were wearing your leotard and tights? The tights got all ripped up and they had to cut them off." Daddy told me.

"Oh, I liked those tights, they were pretty." I said sadly.

"I should've made you change out of your leotard into jeans before letting you play, you wouldn't have scraped your leg up." Grandpa John said with chagrin. "That's on me."

There was a knock on the door, and the doctor followed by the nurse. "Hello, hello, I hear someone is finally awake!" He said, turning the lights on.

"Aah!" I squinted my eyes as the overhead lights flooded the room.

The doctor came over to the bed. "Hello Charlotte, I'm Dr. Washington. What is wrong?"

"The lights-they hurt my eyes." I told him.

"What does the pain feel like?"

"What d'you mean? It hurts!"

"Does it feel like burning, stabbing, throbbing-?" He raised his eyebrows.

"It's like- like the light is stabbing my eyes."

"Hmm." He nodded. "Well, I'm sorry, but I'd like to examine you and do some tests, with the lights on."

"How long will it take?" Daddy asked.

"Oh, just a few minutes. And the nurse can bring her some medicine for the pain." He nodded at the nurse. "All right, let's get you unhooked, so that you can get out of bed for me." He stepped back, and the nurse unhooked the IV line and the other equipment.

"Stand up for me." Dr. Washington walked over to the opposite corner of the room.

I got out of bed, feeling a little unsteady. He told me to walk to him. I did so, with him watching me. Then he told me to walk back to the bed. "How are you feeling, young lady? Any pain?" He asked.

"Just my head." I said. "My muscles feel stiff an' my leg hurts."

"Yes, you scraped your leg during the fall, it's healing well." He said. "Now, I want you to walk toward me again, but this time, don't look at your feet. Look at me."

I raised my head, squinting my eyes again, and looked at him. I realized that he looked funny. He had a light around him like Imani had had, when we were in the veil!

I walked over to him, and then turned to look at the nurse. She had a light around her too! I held my hands out in front of me- I was surrounded by light as well. Was I seeing auras?

"Charlotte, what is wrong?" Dr. Washington asked. "Do you feel like you're losing your balance?"

"Uh-no, I just-felt weird for a sec." I said quickly.

He walked over next to the bed. He told me to stand in front of him and had me do different exercises, like hop on one foot and try to lift my foot up with my eyes closed. I kept almost falling over. Then he had me sit on the bed and looked in my eyes with a light, which made my head hurt.

"All right, we're done." He turned to Daddy. "Charlotte does have what appears to be a concussion. The treatment for that is rest and quiet. I can write you a note to get her out of PE class and any sports, and give you a list of accommodations for her school."

"She's homeschooled, Doc." Daddy said.

"Well, that's less paperwork for me then." Dr. Washington smiled. "You're going to have to limit screen time if she uses a computer, and reading may be difficult for her at first as well. She should take frequent breaks from her schoolwork, and very limited TV and electronic games at first. No physical activity for the first few weeks, either."

"I guess that means no gymnastics?" Grandpa John asked.

Dr. Washington shook his head. "No, not for a while." He looked at the nurse. "Pull some blood for another CBC, and I'll write an order for a CT scan in the morning. If everything looks good, she can go home tomorrow. You can get her some medication for her headache too. Charlotte, it was good to meet you finally, and I'll see you tomorrow." He left the room.

"All right. I'm going to hook your IV up again, so I can get the blood from there." The nurse said to me.

I turned my head away from her, and Daddy came over to the side of the bed. He took my hand. "Squeeze my hand if you need to, and look at me." He said.

I looked up at him. He had greenish light around him. I glanced at the nurse- the light around her was yellow mixed with red. I closed my eyes as she drew blood from my arm.

"All right, we're all done here. You want the lights off, hon?" She asked.

"Yeah." I opened my eyes. She cleaned up the wrappers and plastic and threw them away, and then turned out the overhead lights.

I looked at Daddy again. The light around him was still there, but it seemed dimmer in the low light. I looked over at Grandpa John- he had a bluish-green light around him. I held up my hand again. The light around my hand was bright pink.

"What is it, Charlie?" Daddy asked.

I looked up at him. "I can see colors." I said quietly. "Colors around people. Like when I was in the veil with Imani, y'know?"

"You mean auras?" Grandpa John asked.

"Yeah."

Daddy and Grandpa John looked at each other, doing a 'talking without words' thing like Daddy did with Uncle Sam all the time. Then Daddy looked back at me. "Did you notice this when you woke up, or just now?"

"No, I mean, when I woke up-things looked kinda funny. The light was hurting my eyes a lot. When the lights got turned on, I could see them." I explained.

Daddy ran his hand through his hair. "Well, that's one more thing we've gotta figure out."

"You let us know if anything changes, understand?" Grandpa John said in a serious voice.

There was a knock on the door. A woman wearing a uniform and a hair net came in holding a tray filled with covered dishes. "I have a meal for Charlotte Winchester." She read off of a slip of paper. She had grayish-blue light around her.

Daddy cleared the tray table off, and the worker set the tray down. "Here ya go. Call the number on the receipt if there's any issues." She said tiredly.

Thank you." He said to her.

"You're welcome. Enjoy." She left the room.

Daddy and Grandpa John were both looking at me. "Did she have a light around her too?" Daddy asked.

"Yeah, it was kinda like gray, mixed with dark blue. It wasn't shiny." I said. I took the cover off of the plate- there was a small burger with a serving of french fries next to it. There was a small bowl of mac and cheese, another small bowl with chocolate pudding, tiny containers of ketchup and mustard, and a carton of apple juice.

"You want some help with that?" Daddy opened the carton and put a straw into it, and then removed the lids off of the smaller bowls.

I took a couple bites of the burger- it was barely warm, and dry. The fries were floppy and almost cold. "They're not salted." I complained.

Grandpa John chuckled. "Hospitals don't like to give out salt, because of all the heart patients. When I was in the hospital for my broken arm, they put me on the heart diet and everything was bland."

My head was starting to hurt again, and I felt sick. I leaned my head back on the pillow and pushed the tray away.

"You lose your appetite, kiddo?" Daddy asked.

"My head hurts. An' my tummy feels yucky, like I'm gonna throw up."

Daddy picked up the apple juice. "Drink some of this, it's cold. You want me to ask the nurse for some ginger ale?"

I took a sip and shrugged.

Grandpa John came over to the side of the bed and fiddled with the wall light that was above me. He made the light dimmer. "Does this help?"

"Yeah, thanks." I rubbed my eyes. It seemed like all the sounds were bothering me- the beeping from the machines next to my bed, the air blowing through the vents, the people talking in the hallway.

Daddy pulled the tray away from the bed. "You can rest if you want to."

I closed my eyes. The low light in the room felt good and I started to relax. I heard Daddy and Grandpa John moving around the room and then they talked quietly for a few minutes.

Suddenly, there was an abrupt knocking that startled me. The door opened partway, and a voice called, "Knock, knock!"

I opened my eyes and winced, being startled made my head start pounding. I squinted my eyes again.

Daddy stood up quickly and walked around the bed as a man came into the room. He was wearing a blue uniform and pushing a cart that had bouquets of flowers and gift baskets on it, with several balloons tied to the side. The balloons swayed and bounced, getting in front of him.

"Delivery for...Charlotte Winchester?" He read off of a clipboard, pushing the balloons aside.

"Yes?" Daddy folded his arms. "From who?"

The man held out the clipboard. "I dunno, sir, I just deliver stuff. Sign here."

Daddy took the clipboard and scrawled his name, while the deliveryman detached three balloons from the bunch and held them out. "Here ya go, kid, come get 'em." He smiled at me, stepping toward the bed. I blinked- he seemed to be surrounded by a dull, muddy light. I rubbed my eyes, and everything got blurry for a moment.

Daddy moved in front of him. "I'll take them." He took the balloons, and the man handed him an envelope.

"Well, enjoy!" The man said, and backed out of the room, pulling the cart.

"Who're they from?" I asked happily, as Daddy brought the balloons over to the bedside. He handed them to me- one was a shiny silver star shape, one was a pink and yellow flower, and the one in the middle was bigger, in the shape of a bear. The bear was wearing a shirt that said, "Get Well Soon".

Daddy opened the envelope and pulled out a card. "Dear Charlie, we miss you, get better soon so you can come and play with us, love Macy and Cara." He read out loud.

"Aww, that was nice!" Tears filled my eyes. I looked over at the bear and the mug on the small table. "Can I see them?" I pointed.

Grandpa John brought them over. "The bear is from Addi, her Dad brought it. And Imani brought you the mug yesterday."

I picked up the mug. The plush monkey had clips in its arms and could come off of the mug. I clipped it onto the arm of the teddy bear. "It's so cute!" I sniffled, as tears dripped down my face.

"Why are you crying, Charlie?" Daddy asked.

"I-I dunno-when- when my mom was having her treatments, people used to bring flowers and stuff at first, but then they stopped. And no one ever noticed me, I was scared and upset-but then I felt bad 'cause I wanted attention and I was s'posed to give all the attention to my mom-" I started crying harder, which made my head hurt worse.

"You thought if people brought you gifts, that meant they noticed you?" Grandpa John asked. "You wanted them to see you too?"

"Yeah-but that was selfish of me." I sobbed.

"No, it wasn't." Daddy said gently. "You were scared and alone, and there was no one there for you. We're here for you now, baby girl." He sat down next to me and put his arms around me. I turned to him, clutching at him, and he pulled me into his lap."It's okay, sweetheart. I'm here, and I'm gonna take care of you. I gotcha, it's okay. You rest, I gotcha." He murmured. I slid my arms around him and burrowed into his flannel shirt, and felt his strong arms around me as I cried. My head was throbbing, but I gradually fell asleep.