Hey hey gorgeous SPN Family! How are you doing today? How are you liking season 12?
Here's another installment for you. This isn't a requested story, but one that I was inspired to write. I needed a little fluff after the drama of the last story, ha ha. I'm going to be getting back to requests soon- I've got several requests in the works, and they're going to be coming your way soon! If you will be patient with me, I promise I will give you your stories. If you've requested something, please know it IS in the works- it just takes me a very long time to write them. Keep them coming! I love hearing from you all!
Special thanks to Jenmm31- best beta ever. She just published the next chapter of "Growing Up, Winchester Style", and it's freaking fantastic. Go check her out!
You guys are my heart. Thank you for everything. Thank you for sticking with me. I can't tell you what it means to me. Love and hugs to you all.
A/N- in this story, Natalie is 8. Please see Profile Page for Disclaimer.
"Hey Dad- can you take a look at my light saber?"
Not the weirdest sentence he had ever heard from his daughter, but definitely up there. Dean swung around from the kitchen table when he'd been working on his laptop, looking for a new case. They'd just pulled into Bobby's late last night, fresh off their latest case. Natalie had been thrilled to get back, mostly to get to her toys that Dean and Sam wouldn't let her take on the road. As always, she had gone right for her purple light saber toy. She would have staged a huge Jedi battle in the middle of her room, but it was one o clock in the morning by that time. Dean had all but threatened to feed her to the buzzards if she didn't go to sleep right then and there.
The next morning, however, they were all greeted with the loud thumps of her shoes on the stairs and the sound effects of her purple toy light saber. She had asked for it as a gift on her sixth birthday, and Uncle Sam had delivered. She had gotten rather rambunctious a couple times while she was playing in motel rooms- most notably that time in Phoenix-and it got banned from future road trips. It was the first thing she dove for as soon as they got home, still being one of her favorite toys. She had been at it all morning, attacking any and all evil Star Wars villains that she could dream up that were apparently invading the house. After the first hour of the morning battle, Bobby had finally rolled his eyes and gone back upstairs to take a nap. Sam, under the pretense of cleaning the car, escaped the young Jedi's quest as well. Dean, however, didn't seem too bothered by her antics, and had been consistently working, looking for a new case, while the rebel attack continued all around the place.
Upon hearing her request, Dean reached out his hands for the toy. Natalie handed it to him, an anxious look in her eye. "What's wrong with it?" Dean asked, twisting the hilt around to look at it.
"I dunno. It just stopped working," she said.
"When was the last time you changed the batteries?"
"When it stopped working a couple minutes ago." Well, that made sense. Dean had wondered why she'd suddenly raced into the kitchen, searching through the junk drawer a moment ago. She must have been searching for some double A's. "It's not the batteries," she pressed, appearing to know.
"Maybe the light bulb thingy is burnt out."
"How do we fix that?" Natalie asked, assuming, as she always did, that Dean knew everything. Dean, who was far from knowing how to get to the light bulb thingy, didn't want to change his daughter's assumption. He schooled his face into a look that said Yeah, I totally know what I'm doing, and began searching the light saber, trying to find a button or a latch or something on the damn thing to pop open and see if it would give him a clue. When he couldn't find anything, he tried twisting the purple plastic blade part away from the hilt. It didn't budge an inch. He looked up to see his eight year old's large green eyes watching him incessantly, and he gulped, not wanting to fail her. Finally, he did what he did best- he yanked the damn thing apart. Natalie's eyebrows shot into her hairline in surprise, but she leaned forward, anxious to see if they could find the light bulb. Sure enough, it was there in the base of the toy. Dean unscrewed it, but it looked fine. No burn marks or broken filament. He gently shook it, and there was no rattling noise to indicate that the tiny bulb had blown. He pinched his lips together. Well, that was the end of his ideas.
He twisted the purple blade back onto the base, and handed it back to the kid. "Sorry, squirt, no idea. Why don't you ask Bobby?" Natalie looked at Dean like he was an idiot.
"Because he'll look at me like I'm an idiot," she said grumpily. Dean couldn't help but smirk at the irony of the moment. Natalie continued her explanation of why she couldn't ask Bobby. "He'd say something like 'What am I, Santa? I don't know how to fix toys,'" she said, doing her best Bobby impression. Dean grinned- she was getting good at that particular impression. Finally, he had to admit to her that he was clueless.
"Sorry, kiddo, don't know what to tell you," he said. Just then, Sam came inside, heading towards the fridge for a bottle of water. He was intercepted by the eight year old Jedi.
"Uncle Sam, can you look at my light saber please?" she asked, holding the toy out to him.
"In one second, Bug," he said, pulling out a bottle, and chugging half its contents in one gulp. Natalie waited patiently for him to at least swallow before holding the toy out to him again. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, and held the cold bottle to the back of his neck. He looked down, frowning at the little girl. "What happened?" he asked, looking at her quizzically.
"My light saber won't work," she explained again, frustrated. Sam plucked it out of her hands, and started to examine it. "We already changed the batteries, and Dad said the light bulb wasn't bad," she said anxiously, with the air of a concerned parent explaining to a doctor what was wrong with her child. Sam quickly met Dean's eye, and he knew they were both thinking the same thing. The toy had simply given out. Sam exhaled with a whoosh. That light saber was one of Natalie's favorite toys. This wasn't going to be pretty.
Sam gently handed it back to his niece, who was looking at him with wide, wondering eyes. Why wasn't Uncle Sam fixing it, or at least offering a solution? Before she could ask, however, Sam spoke up.
"Bug, I think your light saber has had its final battle," he said quietly. Natalie looked down at her favorite toy, then back up at Sam.
"You mean we can't fix it?" she asked, a touch of sadness in her voice. That sadness did both Sam and Dean in immediately. Neither brother could stand to see Natalie hurt or upset. Dean stood up from the table and walked over to her, his hands shoved in his pants pockets.
"We can get you another one, kiddo," he offered, knowing how much she loved it. Natalie turned her focus to him. He could see the dismay in her green eyes, and his heart twisted, wanting to make it better for his baby girl. Natalie, however, was shaking her head despondently.
"But it won't be THIS one," she explained, looking sadly at the saber. "This is the special one that you got me for my birthday, Uncle Sam." At that, she turned her face towards her Uncle, whose heart was breaking almost as much as her father's was.
"I know, sweetheart. But that's the way these things go. Toys don't last forever. And I think this one has lived a very long and full life," Sam said, recalling some of her more epic battles- namely the time she managed to trash that motel room in Phoenix with it in the grand total of five minutes that he and Dean had left her alone once. Natalie was clearly thinking along those lines too. Her face became very serious as she pondered what Sam said.
"You're right. If my light saber is dead, then we should bury it."
Dean wasn't expecting that. He shook his head, scrunching up his eyes. "We should do what now?" he said, thinking that there was no way he had actually heard her.
Natalie turned to him, a very serious expression on her face. Dean knew that look meant business. "We should bury it. No- actually, you know what we should do?" she said suddenly, her mind changing rapidly as it was wont to do.
"What?"
"My light saber needs to go out in style." All of the sudden, a wild, manic gleam appeared in her eye. Dean knew that look all too well.
"Hang on there, you little monkey. What are you thinking?" he asked warily, praying it wasn't what he thought it was.
*SPN SPN SPN*
Later that night, Sam was heading out the back door, pulling his coat on and gathering supplies from the kitchen. He was shaking his head, as he had been doing since the moment he heard the wild plan that his niece had concocted. He walked out the door, and saw his brother standing, watching Natalie. She was working diligently, with Dean just standing there, watching her. Sam walked right up next to his brother.
"Dude- you can't seriously be thinking of letting her do this."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Sam, for the last time- this is happening. Let it go, man."
"You're actually going to let her burn her light saber as a burial?!"
"No." When he heard that, Sam sighed with relief. It was short-lived, however. "I'm going to let her SALT and burn it as a burial."
"Dean- that's insane."
"Hey- come on. You're the one who always says that she's gotta 'work things out in her own way' and that we shouldn't 'stifle her creative nature' and all that Dr. Phil bullshit. She wants to give her favorite toy the proper send off."
"Yeah, but letting her play with fire?!"
"I am not letting her play with fire, you giant girl. I'm going to be here, supervising."
"You know that burning plastic is bad for the environment."
"You can't honestly tell me that you think a little girl burning one toy is gonna create a new hole in the ozone."
"Well, no, but..."
"Then shut your pie hole about it."
Sam huffed, frustrated, but he had to try once more. "That thing's got all kinds of electrical parts to it. We can't just burn it- we'll blow up the house."
Dean turned to Sam, his own expression of frustration across his face. "Seriously? Seriously Sam? You really think that I didn't think of that already?"
Sam looked a little sheepish. "Well-" and he trailed off. Dean pinched his lips together.
"Of course I thought of that, dumb ass. I made her give it to me, and I gutted the thing. It's just a freaking plastic shell, alright? Take the stick out of your ass, why don't you?"
Sam gave Dean his full on bitch face, and hefted the small fire extinguisher he had brought with him up so Dean could see it. "Well, I'm not taking chances."
"Fine, you sissy." Dean walked away from his daughter, muttering under his breath something about "freaking mother hen". He walked up next to his daughter. Natalie had been working on the funeral pyre all afternoon, carefully piling logs and sticks on top of each other. Dean had offered to help, but she had wanted to do it by herself. As he approached her, she heard him coming, and turned around. He could still see the touch of sadness in her eyes, even in the darkening night. When he reached her, he put his arm around her.
"How you doing, kiddo?" he asked gruffly, but gently. She just shrugged, and leaned her head into him. He rubbed her arm with the hand that was cuddling her in. "I know, it sucks. I remember once, when I was about your age, I left a set of Legos behind in a motel. There was no way that my Dad was going to go back and get them, so I didn't even ask." Man alive, Dean had been so mad at himself when he realized that he had left those blocks behind. He still remembered the anger and upset feelings, but of course, had shoved them down, even as a child. "I was really upset that I had forgotten those Legos. But you know what?" he asked her, looking down into her face. She turned her soft green eyes to his bright green eyes, wondering what he was going to say. "I still remember all the cool things that I built with those Legos, man. That never leaves you."
Natalie thought about what Dean said for a moment, looking down at the pyre. When she turned her face back towards his, she gave him her thousand watt smile, which always made his heart swell. "We did have some pretty epic battles," she said with a grin.
"Hell yeah, you did. Remember that motel room you destroyed with that thing?"
"Yup," she said, giggling, clearly enjoying the memory more than Dean or Sam ever would. "And you started teaching me how to bo fight with that saber."
"If that thing was real, you would've taken my arm off by now," he said playfully, teasing her. That made her laugh for real, and that was the song Dean had needed to hear. She reached out and patted the hilt of the saber, now resting on top of the unlit pyre.
"Well, that's why I need to send this off in the proper way. A Jedi-slash-hunter's funeral. I mean, hunters get salted and burned, and even Vader was burned after he died." Father and Daughter grinned identically at each other. The fact that Darth Vader had been given a hunter's funeral always made them smile in tandem. Dean squeezed her into him again, once.
"Alright. You ready to do this thing?" he asked.
Natalie looked around. "Is Pops coming?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm here," came the gruff voice from the porch. Grumbling, Bobby made his way down the stairs. He stopped next to Sam. "How the hell does she manage to talk us into these damn fool things?" he muttered. Sam just shrugged. Hell if he knew. Dean produced a lighter from his pocket, but Natalie quickly put her hand on his arm.
"Wait a minute," she said, looking around as if she expected another person.
"Why? What do you- DAMMIT CAS!" Dean roared as the angel appeared, directly behind his daughter, causing him to jump. He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled angrily. "Cas. Ten years, man. I've been asking you to learn the meaning of personal space for ten years."
Castiel blinked blankly at him, like he always did. Dean just threw up his hands in frustration. "What are you doing here, Cas?"
"Natalie wanted me here," he explained in his gravelly voice. He turned his attention to the child, who was beaming up at him. "Hello, Natalie."
"Hi, Cas. Thanks for coming."
"It's my pleasure. I'm sorry for your loss. My condolences," he said quietly, folding his hands together in front of him like he was at a real funeral. Natalie seemed to appreciate the gesture, giving him a big smile.
"It's okay," she said, then turned her attention back to the funeral pyre she had created. Dean shook his head. Of course she would want Cas here, too. He still felt a little silly, going through this entire thing, but this was his kid he was talking about. He'd walk the world over to get her the blade of grass that she wanted. She had all four of them wrapped so tightly around her little fingers that of course they would all be attending a funeral for a light saber. Dean focused, and tuned into his daughter, who had turned back to the group.
"Thank you all for coming," she said solemnly.
"Like we had a damn choice," Bobby grumbled, loud enough for all to hear. Natalie's eyes narrowed, and she turned her bitch face on Bobby, who actually wilted a bit under her glare. Damn, she was getting good at that. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Sorry," he mumbled. Natalie's face smoothed out, and she continued.
"As you all know, today, my beloved light saber entered into another realm. A realm where it shall become more powerful than anyone can possibly imagine," she said, quoting Obi Wan Kenobi.
Cas leaned over towards Dean and whispered. "I don't understand. Is the light saber going to become a sentient being?"
"No, Cas. Shh," Dean hissed, scolding the angel, who fell silent.
"I loved this toy, mostly because my favorite uncle in the whole world gave it to me." At this, Natalie looked at Sam and beamed. Sam returned the smile gently.
"He's her only uncle. How can he be her favorite?"
"Cas. Seriously. Shut it."
"So that being said, it deserves a proper send off. It deserves to die with dignity. And I can think of no better way that to give it a Jedi Hunter's burial." Natalie turned back towards the light saber on top of the pyre, her speech completed. She pulled a small salt shaker out of her pocket, popped open the top, and began pouring the salt all over the toy.
"Is this some strange human ritual that I don't know about? To salt and burn a beloved toy?"
"Cas. No. This is just...Natalie just wanted to do it this way, okay? Just roll with it, man."
Long Pause.
"Alright. I shall...roll with it."
"THANK you," the exasperated father said, closing his eyes in relief. He opened them again, just in time to see Natalie stepping towards him. He produced a small bottle of lighter fluid and a Zippo from his pocket. She held out her hand, her face lighting up.
"Can I do it?" she asked, a trace of excitement in her voice. Dean handed the container of fluid over.
"Be careful," he cautioned. Natalie took the lighter fluid, and carefully began pouring it on the pyre. Sam uttered a bizarre guttural sound at Dean that clearly meant "Are you out of your mind?!" which Dean ignored. He was watching her like a hawk, making sure she didn't accidentally drip fluid on her sleeves or shoes or anything. She did it perfectly, and Dean smiled, ever the proud papa. She held out her hand for the lighter. He held out his hand first, one eyebrow raised. She put the bottle of lighter fluid into his hand first with a bit of an eye roll. Once he had pocketed the container, then he handed her the lighter. "Be careful," he commanded again, keeping a better eye on this part. Natalie expertly flicked the lighter on, then quickly dropped it onto the pyre, and stepped back, just like Dean had taught her. They all walked backwards from the fuel-soaked pile as it caught fire spectacularly.
Natalie stood up on her tiptoes, watching the plastic curdle and melt in the flames. She gulped, and turned to Cas. "I'm really glad you're here," she said quietly to him. He put a comforting arm around her.
"Of course. I'm glad to be here with you. I am rolling with this," he said, thinking that those words would comfort her. She was too used to Cas's bizarre take on everything to be thrown by the statement. She reached up and squeezed the hand that was gripping her shoulder. She gently stepped away from Cas and back to Dean, putting her back to his front. He wound both his arms over her torso, pulling her close to him. She reached up, cupping his warm arms with her little hands, and leaning her head to the side again, grateful for the support he was giving her just by holding her. She was getting to be too much like him. She would clamp down on emotions, feeling that they were stupid or shouldn't be shown. But because she was so like him, Dean could read her like a book. He knew when she needed a little something extra, and his touch had always been soothing to her. Even though she'd never verbally ask for it, she craved it now. Dean leaned down and dropped a kiss on top of her head.
In this middle of this sweet, gentle moment, Sam had a horrible thought. He turned to Dean, terror on his face. "Dude- you said you got all the wiring out. Did you get the batteries out of the battery compartment?"
Dean turned to Sam, a look of genuine fright on his face. Just as Sam was about to pull the pin on the fire extinguisher, Dean rolled his eyes and snorted. "Of course, dill weed. I got the batteries out. How stupid do you-"
He didn't get to finish the sentence. All of the sudden, the toy on top of the burning pyre gave an ear splitting BANG! and began to emit all kinds of sparks and snaps as a giant mushroom cloud of fire erupted from it. Dean automatically reached down, gripping Natalie into his chest, and jumped back as far as he could, and the other followed suit.
"What the hell, Dean?! I thought you said you got all the dangerous stuff out of that thing?!" Sam yelled at his brother. Dean was just staring at the pyre, at a loss for words.
"I did! I gutted the hell out of that thing!"
"Well, clearly you missed something, ya idjit!"
"No I didn't!"
"Yeah, Dean, ya did."
"I did not!"
"He didn't." At the words from the child, Sam, Dean, and Bobby stopped arguing. Natalie was still pressed into Dean's chest, her feet dangling in the air. She turned her head so she could see all the men. "I filled it with fireworks."
"You did WHAT?!" All three of them yelled at the exact same time. Dean almost dropped her in surprise. Cas, who had watched the entire exchange in bemusement, spoke up.
"She said that she filled it with fireworks. Were you not listening?" he said, trying to be helpful. Dean turned his evil eye on the angel.
"Yes, Cas, we heard her-"
"Then why did you ask what she did? She just told you."
"Shut up." Dean turned Natalie around to face him. "Why the hell did you fill that thing with fireworks?"
"I wanted it to go out with a bang," she said innocently.
"That seems like a rather efficient way to do it," Cas added thoughtfully. Dean just pointed a warning finger in Cas's face. He took the hint, clamping his lips shut. Natalie wasn't done with her explanation, however.
"Also, there are fireworks at the end of 'Return of the Jedi', so I wanted fireworks too. I told you, it needed to go out in style."
"Where the hell did you find fireworks, Bug?" Sam asked, now that his lungs had started working and he could breathe again. She turned her face towards his and answered matter of factly.
"In the shed."
"I keep that shed locked at all times, missy," Bobby said. "How did you manage to get in?" To that, Natalie actually gave a scoffing laugh that sounded exactly like Dean. Bobby knew what that meant. He glared at her father. "Had to teach the kid how to pick locks, didn't ya?" Dean shrugged apologetically. Bobby snorted a laugh of his own. "Idjit."
"Natalie, you need to ask before you do something like that again, understood?" Sam said in a scolding tone. Natalie ducked her head down, abashed.
"Yes, sir," she said, but she didn't sound sorry. Sam fixed his bitch face at Dean, just as a set of color changing sparks exploded out of one end of the puddled mess of plastic that was now the topper to the pyre. Dean saw her eyes light up at the spectacle, and he couldn't be mad at her- not when it made her this happy. The scolding he had been about to deliver melted away with the remainder of the plastic, and he watched as she giggled, enjoying the light show.
"Well, it is a cool way to go, after all," Dean commented casually. Natalie giggled and wound herself back into his arms.
