John wasn't sure what he was going to do. He hadn't done anything to approach Addison even though his son had already gone back to school. He just sat in his truck outside her apartment and thought about what he was going to do.
Addison herself never came back outside and John wasn't sure what apartment was hers. Sam had only gone outside one other time and that was when he was leaving to get on a plane. John hadn't called his other son yet, mostly because he wanted to see her before he got Dean involved. The only thing stopping him was the baby. That was probably the largest curveball that he could have ever expected.
He wouldn't have this surprised had he found her body. He tried looking into her, she was obviously using her real name if they had it at the hospital, but all he could find was that she was enrolled in classes at a local college but hasn't resigned for any new classes and seemed to be taking the current semester off. He couldn't find the apartment number and he couldn't find the name of the man she just had a baby with either. He was guessing it was his name on their apartment and all of their utilities. If he spent a little more time here looking, he was pretty sure he could find everything he needed.
John decided to wait it out until he could get her alone. Mostly so he could have more time to think about what he was going to do, he knew he was angry, he wanted to bust in there and drag her back on the road where she belonged. But at the same time she had a baby now. She's 18, not 13. It wasn't a change he had ever thought about dealing with because up until a two weeks ago, she was dead. She obviously wasn't wanting to talk to him and he didn't want her to run again, that seemed to be something she was good at.
He had half the mind to call Sam and demand some answers. He didn't really think that would go very good considering the way they left things. John was tired of fighting with his son and decided to leave it alone. He would get answers from his daughter. He just needed to make sure not to alert her until he was ready to confront her.
000
Aella wasn't a loud baby, but she made sure to make herself known. She woke Spencer and I up around the same time each night and him and I took turns depending on what she needed. It wasn't until we had her home for two weeks that things started going downhill. The nightmares came back with the force of a tidal wave and I stopped producing milk. We ended up having to get regular baby formula for her. Of course, the doctor blamed it on stress.
I couldn't describe the feeling that came with this new turn. I couldn't even do the most basic thing of motherhood right. Not to mention, Spencer and I weren't really talking between him going to work and the two of us taking care of Aella. I could tell that the nightmares were getting on his nerves though, so when he was home I tried staying awake, so he could sleep. I wasn't sure if he could tell though.
That's how I ended up in front of the coffee pot at five o'clock in the morning. My fingers shook as they moved to the start button and my eyelids felt like lead. Aella had just fallen back to sleep after waking up for the third time. Spencer managed to sleep though most of it though. I wasn't sure how considering the crib was in our bedroom.
"Thanks for making coffee." I felt Spencer's lips against my cheek causing me to nearly jump out of my skin and almost knock him out. His hands rested on my hips and I felt him pull me into him. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I couldn't help the anxiety that was eating away at my chest. It was only getting worse.
"You're welcome." He was quiet for a second, just standing there, letting the silence build between us. It was almost like he was waiting for something. When it didn't come, he sighed and moved away from me. He made a cup, making me one as well.
"When's the last time you had a full night of sleep." He asked tiredly.
"Not since we brought her home, when's the last time you had a full night's sleep?" I took a sip of the hot liquid after I said the words
"You know what I mean." He said. I didn't reply. We were quiet for another few moments and I could tell there was a kind of awkwardness between the two of us. It was unsettling. There hadn't been an awkward moment between us since we first met. "You can't just not sleep." I shrugged. "It's only going to make things worse." Spencer said. I was saved by the sound of Aella waking up and crying. Spencer went to move towards her, but I beat him to it.
Aella's crib was inside our bedroom, mostly because it just didn't make sense to have her anywhere else, not when our lease was going to be up soon, but we had other reasons to. It was another reason I've been staying up. Spencer still wasn't convinced that she wasn't going to have any issues. SIDS was a really big concern he had and pushed onto me as well. The two-week-old hadn't shown any signs of anything but we were just trying to be careful.
I couldn't tell who she really looked like. Spencer said she looked more like me, but I could see some of him there. Spencer was right behind me when I made it into the bedroom. She was flat on her back with her tiny arms flailing, her eyes screwed shut. She didn't stop crying when I pulled her into my arms.
"I just changed her." I told Spencer.
"I'll get some formula." He replied. I flinched at the word formula. His hand rubbed my shoulder, telling me that he saw it. He left and when he came back he had a bottle, handing it to me. "I already checked it." I nodded and gave it to the screaming baby who gladly took it. Cutting off the sounds that came from her little mouth. It didn't matter how tired I was, it made me smile. I felt Spencer behind me again. It was odd, he was far more touchy-feely with me since she came home than before. I wasn't sure why, but I was a little worried that if I asked, he would stop.
"It's not your fault." He said, referring to the formula.
"You're wrong, if I could just chill the fuck out then it wouldn't be a problem."
"You don't know that, nothing about the pregnancy was normal. This could be a product of that." He said softly, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. I shook my head and turned my full attention to the newborn. "Maybe you could talk to someone." He said it carefully.
"Spencer-"
"Just talk to Sam about the nightmares Addison. That's all I'm asking. You obviously can't deal with it yourself. If that were the case, you wouldn't be having nightmares. Staying up all night so you don't wake up screaming is just as unhealthy if not more than just having the nightmares." I chewed on the inside of my lip.
"I don't know, I don't want to unload all my crap onto him, not when I just came back into his life. He doesn't need to worry about me." I said, Spencer was quiet. It gave me a weird feeling. I turned around to face him. Normally, he wouldn't just stop talking about something. His face didn't help my feeling. "What?"
"I mentioned it to him." He said. "I told him that you have been having nightmares and what they were about." Spencer said it carefully, but he didn't sound guilty about it. He didn't look it either.
"You what?" I gave him an incredulous look. His words didn't register for a long second.
"Addison, you need to talk to someone and think your brother is a good place to start." He defended.
"Okay, you can tell that to me, but you have no right to just…. just tell him my….my." I couldn't think of a word.
"I don't have a right?" He asked, "I've been waking you up and calming you down from your nightmares for the last five years. I know that it's hard for you to talk about it but if you don't acknowledge that you have a problem, which you have, the next step is to try and fix it Addison." I opened my mouth to cut him off, but he silenced me. "You haven't done anything to try and make the nightmare situation better except staying awake, do you have any idea the negative health benefits to not sleeping?" For a second, I thought he was going to go into the risks, but he took a deep breath and seemed to restrain himself.
"Addison, you have a problem, a much bigger problem then you are willing to accept. I love you, but I can't watch you go backwards, not when I've helped you get to this point. How is our daughter ever going to learn how to deal with her problems when you won't confront yours?"
He was making direct eye contact with me and I couldn't think of anything to say. I didn't have a defense to help myself, and his comment about Aella hit below the belt. It didn't take long for Spencer's phone to make an obnoxious noise. It seemed to defuse the bomb in the room. Spencer sighed.
"Are you leaving?" I asked softly, turning away from him, Aella still dinking her milk like nothing was wrong.
"Yeah. I need to be there in an hour." His voice was clipped.
"You want me to drop you off?" I asked, watching him grab his 'go bag' from the closet.
"I'll take the subway." He said, putting his bag on the bed and going back to the closet and grabbing what he was going to wear today. I nodded and sighed. I didn't like the idea of him going back to leaving town so soon, but at the same time I knew that we were lucky he was able to get any time off. Especially with what was going on with Gideon.
Spencer wouldn't tell me everything that happened but from what I saw on the news, the case he was on while I was waiting for my operation went south. Six agents that were involved ended up getting killed due to an order that Gideon gave. Gideon wasn't talking to anyone and frankly, Aella was a lot of work.
By the time Spencer was about to leave, Aella was done eating. I had moved to the couch, neither Spencer or I said anything towards each other. Before he leaved, he stopped in front of me crouching down. He pressed his lips to Aella's forehead. He smiled at her for a long second, then glanced up at me.
"Love you." He said.
"I love you to." I responded.
"Talk to your brother. I just need you to try." He stood up, leaning over to press his lips to my head.
"Okay." He stopped, leaving his face buried into my hair.
"Okay?"
"Yes…I'll try but-" I was cut off by his lips. Aella ended up getting a little squished between us. She didn't seem to mind. He pulled away a few seconds later. "You need to go to work."
"I love you. Get some sleep!" He moved to the front door.
"Tell that to your daughter!" I replied. "She doesn't sleep, I can't sleep." He rolled his eyes and left. Part of me wanted to sleep but the other part didn't have time. The apartment needed to be at least picked up and we were almost out of food. I wasn't sure if taking Aella out was a good idea, I wasn't sure how she would be around other people, hell, I wasn't sure how I was going to be around people.
About a year or so after knowing Spencer and trying to get off drugs, I had a really hard time being around large groups of people, like almost having panic attacks. They went away for the most part but being around large groups of people still made me a little uneasy. Simply because you never know what people are going to do, it wasn't anything weird, at least I didn't think it was. According to Spencer, there was a problem with it.
It took me about half an hour to get ready to leave. I managed to get a five-minuet shower and started a load of laundry. I got Aella's things together and my things as well. I didn't realize until that moment just how many things that Spencer and I had bought for her. The thought of carrying all of this down and back upstairs along with groceries sounded awful. Not that I had a choice.
"Okay, lets go." As I opened the front door, closing it behind me, I was slightly put off seeing the woman who lived across the hall from also leaving her apartment, this was something that I had been dreading. Mrs. McKinley has given me plenty of crap for living with Spencer without the two of us being married. Not that she ever had anything negative to say to Spencer. Most of the time, at least before I found out about to Aella, I could deal with her, but for the last few months I just haven't had the patience to deal with her. I didn't say anything, or even looked at her as I locked the door. Aella was sleeping soundly in her car-seat carrier. I was hoping it would remain that way though our entire trip.
"Babysitting?" Mrs. McKinley questioned, her lip turned into a permanent frown.
"Nope." I smiled tightly and passed her. Spencer had the idea that I just be really nice to her and not let her words bother me. I took that as, 'limit all interactions with her to less than five seconds', that's my definition of 'nice'.
I was a little happy that she didn't respond not wanting to deal with her. The stairs weren't as bad as I thought they might be. I just wasn't as fast as I normally would've been. Hopefully the store wouldn't be very busy, the fast I could get home the better.
0000
John watched his daughter leave the apartment with a baby car seat in her arms. He debated on going to her then. But he decided against it, something about her face and the fact that he wasn't sure where she was going made him feel a little reproachful. This was also a good time look around her place and see just what he was dealing with.
He waited until she was gone for a few minuets before getting out of his truck. He made his way into the building, hoping that there might be some last names on the mailboxes, so he could figure out where she lived. He was out of luck because there weren't. John looked around, there wasn't anyone at the front desk, the only other person was an older woman who was also checking her mail.
"Hey," he said, grabbing her attention, "I'm looking for my daughter's apartment, I'm trying to surprise her but I'm not sure what one is hers." The women smiled at him.
"Well, I've lived here for about twenty years, if you give me a name I might be able to tell you which floor they're on." She smiled, "it's so nice to see caring fathers these days."
"Addison Winchester, blond hair, she's got a tattoo on her chest." He said, remembering the symbol he'd seen on her as she was leaving. The woman's smile seemed to disappear rather quickly.
"She's your daughter? And you're allowing her to live on her own, with a man? They're not even married!" John automatedly changed his mind on wanting to speak with her.
"She's an adult." John said in a tough voice. Calling her an adult was weird for him. He had to remind himself that she was 18, she'd be nineteen in less then six months. "I just need her apartment number."
"4B, forth floor." She said curtly, "you outta talk some sense into her, I saw her leaving with a baby today. No way it can be hers. She's skinnier than a poll, has been since she moved in. But from the way their living it's only a matter of time. God forgives but she shouldn't be adding kids into her mess. I mean, you let her get the devil's symbol on her chest?" The woman shook her head at John like she was disappointed in him. She continued to speak but walked around him and left the building.
John sighed, not wanting to deal with her again. He quickly moved up the stairs to the fourth floor, hoping that he could get inside before the lady came back. He found the building under secured, and easy to access, he figured his daughter would have been hiding in a more 'out-of-the-way' kind of place, not in plain sight. He found the door and looked around to make sure no one was coming. It didn't take him a more then 30 seconds to unlock the door and make it inside.
The first thing he noticed were the bookshelves. They were lined with books, some of which weren't even in English. John had a hard time deciding if they belonged to his daughter or if they were the guy's that she seemed to be pretty 'close' with. Some were medical, some were mathematical, other he couldn't tell. He did manage to find the lore books that all seemed to be clustered together. He figured that those were hers and the rest were his. He looked like a nerd.
John moved around the apartment, there weren't many personal things around, no photos on the wall, no knickknacks, not anything other than books. The place wasn't very big at all and John quickly found the end of it. The bedroom sported a plain white crib, a full-sized bed, another bookshelf, and a dresser. It seemed like every space on the outskirts of the room was being used. He noticed a few pictures on the one nightstand and there was a huge pile of clothes on the floor in the corner of the room next to the closet door. There was also another closed door that looked like it would go into the only bathroom in the entire apartment. John didn't spend much time in here, he left and moved back into the living room. He sat down on the couch and leaned back, waiting for Addison to get home.
What do you think is going to happen?
How is Addison going to react to John?
What did you think of her and Spencer's fight?
How bad is her problem?
Do you think she has PTSD or do you think there's more to the story then trauma, something more...supernatural?