Anna

She opened her eyes to the familiar grey ceiling of the Impala. She'd been with the boys for just under a week. She was glad that her visions tended to warp time more than Tartarus already did. She wanted to savor this time she had with them.

The last vision, the hospital was too much for her to bear, so she'd tried to interact with it as little as possible. But her time in Hell, then in Tartarus, was shattering her mind, and lucidity was harder and harder to come by. By the end of the hospital hallucination, she was struggling to remember that she wasn't actually in the world of the living. That her reality was dangerous and filled with acidic air, flaming water and monsters coming after her from every direction, at all hours.

Anna knew she was crazy. The daughter of Athena was clinically self aware in that respect. But what she couldn't handle was the questioning of her world. She was crazy, but not so much so that her whole identity was gone. She was a demigod. Not an insane mortal. Right?

Her hallucination had temporarily broken, an attack of monsters sending her into a collision of battle. The only thing that confused her was the fact that Eleos was missing. The loss of her sword was crippling, especially because she couldn't remember losing it. But like always, she'd survived, scavenging weapons from anything she could lay her hands on and managed to kill the last monster by stabbing it through the chest. Then she dragged herself to a new hiding place where she could be safe. Anna was tired, and had allowed herself to sink back into her mind rather than fighting off her visions.

That was when Sam had appeared in front of her. He'd been in Tartarus with her. And it was all wrong. She went to her visions, not the other way around. It had been that way ever since the bright light she'd climbed and fought through ages ago. It had been hot and cold and bright. It had been clean but also tainted, both salvation and damnation. It had burned her with sensations when she'd gone through it. Anna doesn't remember much of what she saw on the other side of it though. The hospital delusion had started up not too long after the light, and besides there had been that cloudy cotteny feeling in her head. It had been hard to think for a while. Then the Winchester brothers had hijacked her dream, and the feeling had slowly begun to drain away. Ever since the last monster attack, she'd been feeling more and more herself again.

She knew that however long it had been since she fell had twisted her, broken her psyche.

She resolved to visit with Eris once this next bought of hallucinations broke. The goddess of discord had been delighted by the turmoil Anna caused simply by surviving the monstrous pit for as long as she had. The goddess had even guided her to the relative safety of a swamp. She only had to worry about killing a drakon once a day and keep guard over the two rising golden bubbles within the massive abandoned hut. She'd been warned against destroying whatever was reforming inside there, and because she didn't have a massive death wish, she listened to Eris.

Music washed over her as the last vestiges of her dream faded away. It had been an odd dream, nothing more than vague flashes of iridescent light and harsh cries in a language she didn't understand or even recognize. It just sounded old. Which was strange, because she spoke even the ancient languages now. She'd spent far too much time blindfolded in the palace of Nyx not too.

She scoffed out loud as she recalled her time in the Palace of Night.

'Tourist.' She thought scornfully. Meeting the primordial embodiment of night had been a strange experience. She'd been utterly delighted that she and her children had been added to the tour of Tartarus. Honestly, the things Annabeth comes up with. The goddess said she'd even renovated her palace to include a hotel. Anna was a less than consenting guest for a period of time. But it had also been one of the safer spaces she'd lived in in the pit. It helped that she'd named her favorite weapon after one of Nyx's children, flattering the ancient goddess.

"Morning sunshine." Dean called back softly to her. Anna looked over to the elder Winchester brother. She wanted to let herself get dragged into the dream, to embrace the vision. But Anna also knew if she did, that was a good way to get killed. And Anna wasn't going to die until she found a way out. Not if she could help it.

Having the brothers back, even if it was just inside an insane hallucination, was simultaneously heartbreaking and motivating. They looked so different. Dean was missing that scar on his face, and his whole expression had grown harsher, and he'd grown more tired. Sam's hair was longer, the bangs gone. It still hung in his eyes though. He'd lost the little kid look, less of a puppy dog. Both of her friends looked like they'd gone a few rounds with the universe and lost. It was strange, because before the light, she'd always seen them they way they'd looked before she'd jumped.

"Hungry Anna?" Sam asked, already holding up a bag of take out. She silently took it from him, opening up the bag and looking inside. It contained the usual grocery store breakfast sandwich they gave her every morning. She was grateful to her subconscious for not picking something she actually loved. She couldn't take it if they'd given her something like pancakes or blueberries and have it turned to ash in her mouth. She just picked at the edges of the cardboard tasting bread. She set it aside quickly.

"You gotta eat Anna. You're skin and bones." Sam chided her softly, watching through the rearview mirror. Obediently she picked up the sandwich again, taking another bite before setting it aside. She swallowed, not really tasting anything. She looked outside the window, enjoying the lack of red sky and acid air. It felt so real. The blue skies, and the cool rain, and the sweet smell of grass. Even the harsh smell of gasoline was better than the poisonous air of Tartarus. They'd been driving for days, staying in the car for only a few hours at a time, moving slowly. The boys kept stopping, pulling over into the sunshine and convincing her to get out of the car. They waded in an ice cold river, hiked up a hill, saw some silly roadside attractions. They took her on picnics, they snuck into a little county fair and went to go and pet some goats in the petting zoo. The other night they watched the sunset, sitting on the hood of the Impala. Anna liked those moments. She didn't like stopping in the towns so much. Never sure if the people around her were part of the hallucinations or were monsters. She was sure she'd caught sight of one or two, but so far nothing had been an issue. She tilted her head to the side, observing distantly the passing scenery.

She sits up suddenly. It wasn't just trees and grass and fields and cows they've driving past. They were driving through South Dakota. They were taking her to Bobby.

"No." She says forcefully. The car stalls for a moment, before resuming its previous smooth forward moment.

"No." She insists again, trying to grab control of her vision. It's what she did whenever her head tried to take her someplace she didn't want to go. Bobby was one of those. Camp was another. She only let herself stay with the boys this time out of weakness. The boys were to transitory, always on the move. It hurt less that way to see them. People were ok, and Anna had grown lonely in the years she'd spent alone in the Pit. She missed the world above. But she knew seeing a place she thought of as home would break her completely. She would finally die.

"No." She insisted again, gripping her hands in her hair. It was clean, for the first time in a long time. She'd had it washed during the hospital dream, but with the boys she'd gotten nicer soap for some reason. So it was soft.

'Off topic.' She scolded herself. She was focusing, trying to retreat from the dream. She'd always been able to leave before. But now, she couldn't. She was stuck.

"No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." She chanted to herself softly, shaking her head. She was rocking, her whole world shifting from beneath her. Air stuttered out from her lungs in sharp uneven movements as Anna started to hyperventilate. She was suddenly aware of the fact that the car was pulled over, and both of the brothers were with her.

"Anna, Anna what's wrong?" Sam was asking her gently, even as Dean carefully navigated her out of the car. She was gently settled on the ground, her legs stretched out in front of her. Sam was holding her arms above her head, opening her airways up. Dean crouched directly in front of her, gently instructing her to breath, demonstrating slowly. Anna matched him as best she could, yanking her hands out of Sam's grip. The fear and panic beating wildly in her chest settled.

The final remnants of the fog she'd been living under since being moved into the hospital suddenly lifted. Clarity broke through her clouded head, like a lightning strike, and she let out a broken sob, pulling herself away from her friends, unsteadily getting to her feet. She held her arms out in front of her, studying the way sunlight filtered through the air. Light danced on her skin, her unhealthily pale skin glowed red as light filtered through the blood vessels in her finger tips. She spun around to face Sam and Dean. Tears streamed down her face.

"This is real." She whispered roughly. A statement. Fact. Hope bloomed in her chest, a burning sensation inside of her as she looked to her friends. A cautious smile broke out over Dean's face.

"Yeah, Anna. Yeah it is."

"I'm out?" She asked in wonder, her knees weak beneath her and she collapsed onto the gravel they'd pulled over onto.

"Anna!" She ignored the two concerned cries as she ran her hands through the stones, ignoring the mildly uncomfortable feeling of gravel digging into her knees. She sobbed as she let the dirt fall through her fingers, even as she turned to look in wonder at the grass growing in the field they pulled over next to.

"Oh, gods. Oh gods. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out." She sobbed, even as laughter rippling out of her chest. She looked up at her friends.

"You're real?" She whispered to them, hands over her mouth, her breathing stuttering out of her chest unevenly. She didn't even wait for them to answer. She just launched herself into their arms, hugging them tightly to herself.

She'd done it. She was free.