Title: Futures Past (working title)
Author AtticusFinchFan
Rating: K+
Summary: Deanna Winchester, Sam's daughter, carrying on the family business…with Sam and Dean's help, of course. One case they come in contact with hits close too home for Dean and Sam, and help's them realize that the more things change, the more things stay the same.
A/N: Un beta-ed (for now)
6 hours, 49 minutes, and 21 seconds down, a helluva lot more to go. Deanna cast a bleary eyed glance in her uncle's direction. They'd talked since getting in the car, a lot actually. They had just not talked about what she knew he wanted to talk about. He caught her staring and smirked. "Ya tired, De?"
She shook her head a bit then moaned at the pain that created in her head. "Yes." She pinched the bridge of her nose in hopes to alleviate some of the pain. "I haven't been sleeping well for a couple weeks." She squeezed her eyes closed and lowered her head.
"Weeks?" She could hear the disbelief in his voice and smirked slightly.
"About 3 to be exact." Deanna raised her head and turned her attention to focus on her uncle.
She could see worry crease her uncles rather sharp features. "Has this got anything to do with Bloody Mary? Anything at all?"
She shook her head truthfully. "No. My insomnia has nothing to do with Bloody Mary. That didn't do anything."
"Those cuts on your arms aren't nothing, Deanna." His retort was quick, without the exclusion of even a second. She knew it was going to start sometime, but why now when she was half asleep? Why not later, after she got some sleep?
Deanna sighed in resignation and slid her hand slightly slowly up her arm. "She was going after my friend, what was I supposed to do?" she struggled to remain impassive. In truth she had been quite scared terrified. Breaking and smashing every and anything that moved with anything she had around her and trying hard not to screech and scream in fear. Unfortunately, she had been so mixed up in trying to get Mary, which she did, that she didn't realize she had left her arms bare and now had a ton of tiny (and not so tiny) shards of glass sticking out of her arms with blood dripping from open wounds made by shards that flew by her as she continued on to the next mirror and the next.
She had spent most of that night sobbing as the numbness died away and left her in excruciating pain. She had never wanted to come home and curl into her dad and uncle's arms as much before as she did that night. But she also knew that she even attempted to come home with her arms in the state they were she would get a stern talking to. Even sterner than she was getting now.
"You could have stopped your friend from saying it in the first place." His voice was rising. This wasn't good.
"Kali had said it even before I had gotten to that isle."
"I thought your dad and I raised you to be smarter than that, Deanna. Especially coming from the background that you have." he smacked the steering wheel with his fist as his brow creased in frustrated fury.
"And how the hell would I explain it to Kali without having her think I have completely and utterly lost it! Would I say, "Oh, and by the way Kali, if you go by any mirrors don't say Bloody Mary three times cause you could die." She knows I'm a little nuts, but that would have made her think I was off completely off my rocker!"
"Good!" Her uncle exclaimed. "You should have let her! If she can't understand you completely then you shouldn't call her a friend."
Now he was telling her who she should and shouldn't call a friend. "Look!" she snipped. "Just because you've alienated every friend and almost every relative you've ever had doesn't mean I have to." Her eyes grew wide, her hand snapped over her mouth and the car slowed down considerably as her uncle's foot fell completely off the accelerator as he turned extremely wide eyes on her. That had been a low shot, she knew and she knew he knew it. God, how had she gone from feeling so high on frustration and anger to being so low down on guilt and regret in a matter of seconds?
Deanna looked down after a couple seconds and sighed. "I'm s-sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
The car was dead silent for 15 minutes and 36 seconds before her uncle spoke, she had been counting. "No, no, you're right."
She looked up, if not in shock, than in curiosity. Had she heard him right?
"Don't look at me like I've grown a second head, De. I'm serious." He was smiling. He was actually honest to god, smiling. "You and your dad are all I have left and trust me, I have no idea why you two have stayed with me this long. After all the things I did to you two over the years."
She shook her head, dumbfounded as they came. "No, you di-"
"Yes I have, De, and don't try to tell me otherwise. I took your dad out of school when he was younger, a brighter future ahead of him than I ever had when I was his age, and made him do this with me. This became his life, and his life he had wanted got lost in the shuffle."
"But he wan-"
"Let me finish, Deanna." he cut in. "Then I do the same thing to his daughter, make her come on these runs with me since before she could remember. If I could take it all back, De, I probably would. Your father had such high hopes for you when you were a baby, college or university and a family. I had to step in and mess it all up...again. Your grades suffered, your personal life suffered - hell, I've ruined both your lives..." he turned to her for a split second. She bit back on a gasp when she saw tears glisten in his eyes. "But you two, thick headed idiots stick by me like two lost puppies."
After a couple minutes to digest what her uncle had just divulged, Deanna smiled despite the unshed tears in her eyes and said, "and we always will."
Her uncle laughed a bit and bowed his head and wiped his eyes. "And you won't ever know how much you two idiots mean to me...because frankly, kid.." he sniffed hard and raised his head. A smile once again played with the corners of his lips. "I won't ever let you find out."
She smirked. -I think I have uncovered your secret, Uncle Dean.-
"Whoa!" he exclaimed with a laugh as he looked down at the speedometer. "I better lay my foot on the gas before your dad starts thinking I've gone soft."
She laughed. This Winchester family had more secrets, twists and turns than the Winchester mystery house, that was something she could easily attest to.