Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author's Note: Part two...there may be a part three, or I might just make the next bit it's own self contained chapter. Don't know. Not that it really matters anyway.

He peeks his head around the curtain and sees Maya resting against her sister's shoulder, Rachel's long fingers steadily working through the other's wet and tangled curls. They don't speak, don't say a word, and for some reason that only adds to the foreboding sensation growing within Dean's chest.

Reluctantly, after heading back to the waiting area, he pulls out his phone and speed dials Sam, part of him really hoping that his brother won't even answer, this being a bit much to explain. But, of course, he does, sounding tired and drained, completely beat. "Hey," he says in such a pathetic tone it makes Dean want to slam his head into the wall.

For a moment he doesn't respond, unsure of what to say at all, let alone how to say it. He decides to takes the easy way out, avoidance. "How's it going?" he asks, trying to sound casual. "How're things there?"

Sam sighs, long and loud. "I don't know. I think we're gonna have to make a decision soon. He's still on life support, but…" he trails off, something catching his attention. Dean cringes, knowing that he must have heard the Dr. So-and-So, report to wherever stat. Dr. So-and-So. "Where are you?" Sam asks, sounding merely curious at first. Then, when he doesn't respond immediately, a more concerned tone floods the line. "Are you in a hospital?"

"Uh," he sputters, "Yeah. But listen, don't worry, okay? Everything's fine."

"Everything's fine?" he asks, voice perking with a panicked sort of interest.

"Yeah, yeah, really. She's okay," he rushes to get out.

"Who's okay? Dean?" He can almost see his little brother's expression, furrowed brows and wide, anxious eyes.

"Maya," he utters simply, only mildly surprised to hear the foreboding silence that follows.

"What happened?" he asks too slow, too clear to be anything other than thinly veiled, barely controlled panic.

"She been acting weird lately?" he asks, partly because he really wants to know, partly just to further stall.

"Dean, what happened?" he repeats, more commanding.

"Nothing, really," he tries, downplaying it with a forced air of nonchalance. "She's fine, really. She just fell, at the park," he finishes, conveniently leaving out the bit about the car.

"Well, how bad was it? I mean, why'd you take her to the hospital if it was nothing?"

Of course, Dean thinks, of course he wouldn't just buy that. Because with their unfortunate expertise in the areas of homemade remedying and their abilities to easily determine what's ER worthy and not – broken arm, sure; busted ribs, eh, hard to say; couple of stitches, break out the sewing kit – there'd be no way Maya would end up here if it were truly nothing. "Well," he stutters, collecting his thoughts, forming them into haphazard words. "I didn't really…take her, I mean…the ambulance did."

"Ambulance?" And there again, Dean can just see his brother's face, eyebrows high and cocked in a shocked sort of explain that please way.

"You know how civilians are," he says, term rolling off his tongue without a hint of irony, despite he himself now being one. "They panic. Someone called 911."

"But why?" he inquires, genuinely confused. "Was she bleeding? Is she hurt?"

Dean sighs into the phone, "No, I already told you," but stops mid sentence when he hears Sarah's voice in the background – Who? Was who bleeding? Who's hurt? Sam?

In a flash, she's on the other end, "Dean, what's going on?" sounding in a weary and worried tone.

He waits to answer, listening to Sam talking in the background, filling her in. All he chooses to add into the mix is yet another assurance that, "She's okay."

"How okay?" she asks, deep and calm, in a tone identical to that of Rachel's earlier.

"Might have hurt her knee. They did some X-rays, but it's probably just a sprain."

"I want to talk to a doctor," she states simply.

"Yeah, okay, they've been wanting to talk to you." He gives her the number for the hospital, tells her the name of the doctor in charge, and asks to speak to Sam again.

"Seriously man," he starts, Dean cutting him off before another what happened? falls from his lips.

"She accidentally hit John with the soccer ball and freaked out. I mean, really, she flipped. Started running and it was raining, and she wasn't watching where she was going. And she almost got hit by a car. Or maybe did…a little."

"Maybe? A little? Dean, how does someone get a little hit by a freakin' car?"

"Well, I don't think she did, and it was in a parking lot so he wasn't going fast anyway. And she's fine," he blurts out in a single breath. Sam doesn't respond, and he takes that to mean that he's thoroughly digested the information, Sammy being the kind of guy who spews out useless question after useless question when things aren't yet sunk in. So he broaches a new topic, calm and sincere and genuinely needing to know, he asks, "What's up with her, man?"

And it isn't until that very moment, when Sam says, in a voice too sad and too lost, "I don't know," that Dean realizes that knot in the pit of his stomach means something after all.

000

It's just a sprain, nothing an ace bandage and some rest won't fix. And though Maya's none too pleased to hear that she'll have to miss out on soccer for a while, she seems downright ecstatic to get the hell out of the hospital – just like any self respecting Winchester would be.

It's early evening by the time they get back, an entire day wasted on cold rain, fat tears and unnecessary medical treatments. So they all try to relax, wind down a bit and forget about the awful events of earlier. Ava puts a movie on for the kids, orders a couple of pizzas and heads upstairs to her husband.

"Sam called," she says, making her way into the bedroom where Dean escaped to immediately after getting the girls through the door. She sits on the bed next to him, hand casually rising to the back of his head, fingers combing through his closely cropped hair, only now beginning to gray. "He should be here in a few hours. Sarah's staying in New York."

He makes a noncommittal grunt of acknowledgement and leans against her, shutting his eyes as he breathes in her familiar and soothing scent – vanilla and …something else, something purely Ava.

"They must have given Maya something pretty good," she says, a lighthearted lilt to her voice. "She's already out and the movie's barely been going for five minutes."

"She's a lightweight," he says simply, sleepily. "It's only Roxicet."

Ava remains still and quiet for a moment, completely calm before suddenly shifting gears, dropping her hand from his head and saying, "She's been having nightmares." Dean looks over at her with a confused expression, obviously not following a word she's saying. "When Sam called," she explains, "that's what he told me. She's been having nightmares and they must be pretty bad because they've been keeping her up and her grades have been suffering and she's been way more moody. And she won't talk about them at all."

She takes a breath, then says, slow and serious, "Sam…he's pretty freaked. He thinks they might be…he thinks that she might be…like us. He said he doesn't know what else would cause this, cause her to shut down like this. Because she's not talking to them at all, and really," she goes on, voice gaining speed and hitching up an octave, "she's been awfully quiet with us too. Like last week when I asked her about this boy at school who John said she has the hugest crush on, and all she did was shrug, didn't want to talk about it, or gush, or even deny it, which any ten-year-old would so do. She just shrugged." She stops for a beat, glancing at Dean, scary contemplative look on his face. "I don't know," she starts again, "maybe he's just being paranoid. He's got to be paranoid, right? I mean, something's obviously wrong, and I'm not saying the alternative is exactly great, you know, trauma or something. I'm not saying that I want it to be that, her having nightmares about something that happened to her that we just don't know about. God, that'd be awful. But this? It can't be. Right?"

She waits for an answer, patience being a learned necessity when dealing with Dean Winchester, and watches as his fists jam into his shut eyes, hands then slowly rising up to his scalp as though he's rubbing away all that was just said. "Jesus Christ," he mutters absently.

He rises from the bed and she follows, heavy on his heels, practically waiving her arms around in nervous excitement as she pleads, "It can't be though, right? The demon's dead and gone, so…it's not that. Right?"

He turns swiftly to face her, almost knocking her over, not realizing she was that close behind him. Grabbing her arms to steady her, he says, seemingly strong and sure, "No. It's not that."

000

Maya sleeps through the movie, head volleying back and forth between John and Rachel's shoulders. She doesn't eat any pizza, doesn't have any soda – a longed for treat for the girls, Sam and Sarah, well, Sarah really, being rather strict when it comes to sugar in their diets. She doesn't want to wait up for her dad to arrive. And she sure as hell doesn't want to talk about anything.

To be fair, Dean doesn't really want to talk right now either, too afraid of what he might hear. He puts her to bed around eight, Ava doing nothing more than offering up the obligatory, "Love you, goodnight," as they ascend the stairs. No sweet dreams or sleep well, or one of many ridiculous jokes about bed bugs and remembering to call the exterminator.

"How's your knee?" he asks when she returns to the guest room – pink and flowery with two twin beds that have been made up for the girls since forever – after changing into a T-shirt to sleep in and brushing her teeth.

She hobbles over to the bed, covers already drawn back for her, and eases herself in before saying, "Fine."

"Doesn't hurt?"

She shakes her head, leaning back into the pillow.

"You need anything?"

"No," she says with a yawn. And though he wants to ask, wants to make himself ask, the troubling questions – You having nightmares? What are they about? You ever see a man with yellow eyes? – all he does is pull up the covers, plant a kiss on her head, and breathe a small sigh of relief.

Sam gets in around ten, takes a cab to their house and tells Dean to go pay the driver – him having left all the money with Sarah – while he gives Rache a hug, asks her what she's watching, and says, in typical Dad fashion, "Five more minutes, then go to bed."

She starts to complain, point out that it's Saturday and she's fourteen for crying out loud, and…but Ava takes over, saying, barely even to him, eyes steadily transfixed on the TV, "It's almost over. Don't worry about it. Now move," and shoos him away.

Dean's sharp and terse when he comes back in, beckoning Sam into the kitchen where he grabs two beers, thunking one in front of his brother, and says, "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

And, of course, Sam knows what he's talking about, knows that Ava told him what he had said to her on the phone. So when, "Tell you what?" tumbles from his mouth, it's with a bite as opposed to bafflement.

"Tell me what?" he repeats through tight angry lips. Then, in a low vicious whisper, "Tell me that your daughter might have some kind of connection to a demon we killed fifteen years ago."

Sam grits his teeth, speaks in an equally quiet and wrathful tone. "She is not connected to any demon."

"But she's having psychic visions?" he asks with a disgusted smirk before raising the beer to his lips.

"I never said – "

"Then what are the dreams about, huh?" he interrupts, struggling to keep his voice low enough that the others in the house don't hear.

Sam drops his eyes, fiddles with the label on his bottle before saying simply, "I don't know. She won't talk to me."

Dean leans back in his chair, trying to appear casual even through thickly tense and knotted muscles. "Well, you better as hell figure out a way to get her to talk, Sammy, because this is serious."

"You think I don't know that?" he nearly shouts, only lowering his voice upon catching Dean's eyes flashing up towards the door, a questioning, did they hear? look. "She's my daughter, Dean," he says in a low hiss.

Eyes flashing a brief display of hurt, Dean responds with, "It's not just about her and you know it," forgoing the lecture his heart yearns to give, about family being family no matter what and him not being capable of loving Maya more, even if she were his own.

"Bullshit," he challenges, eyes mere slits.

Dean leans forward, whisper creeping out of his throat again. "You should have told me."

"What's the matter, Dean? You worried if this happens to my kid it might happen to one of yours too?" he asks, rising swiftly.

"Hey, fuck you!" His voice booms, echoing through the kitchen, and he's sure Ava and Rachel heard, being just in the next room, but he can't quite bring himself to care. "I love that kid and you know it. And for the record, Sam," he says, voice becoming more steady and controlled, "I have every right to be worried about my own kids and about what could happen to them. Doesn't mean I care any less about yours."

Sam turns his back, silently pacing for a moment, thinking…about what to say, what to do. "She in bed?" he asks meekly, still refusing to face his brother.

"Yeah."

000

The Winchesters had always prided themselves on being stealthy, a learned and necessary trait among men in their profession. And it's really rather ironic, and astounding, that they can manage to pull it off so well, what with one of them being an oblivious, often times bumbling child, and the other a relatively uncoordinated, huge footed giant. But they manage, when it comes down to it, to loom around undetected.

Which is how Sam is able to glimpse from the hall the two ten-year-olds nose to nose in bed, hear snippets of their low and rumbling whispers, without either being the wiser.

"I won't tell anybody," John says, child's sincerity coupling his words.

"I know," Maya responds in her typical know-it-all fashion.

But no matter how sensitive the boy often is, his cousin's commonly hurtful tones no longer phase him, being old enough and wise enough to see them for what they are, a mere cover. He goes on, "I tell you everything."

And she rolls over, turns her back on him as she says, "Yeah, well, you're a big girl."

"You sound like my dad," he mutters, flipping onto his back and crossing his arms beneath his head.

"Your dad doesn't call you a girl," she says plainly. Then, with a smirk and a giggle, "Not to your face anyway."

He throws his hip into her, nudging in a playful chide, and her giggles increase, if only for a moment, before fading to nothing. "He says it to your dad," he quips, just to fill the silence.

Sam smiles to himself, finding that habit of Dean's almost endearing through the eyes of a child.

The silence in the frilly little guest room, and by extension that spilling out into the hall, grows greater, as absence of noise always seems to do when one strains to hear for too long. He thinks of his wife, trapped in a world of awful endless noise, whoosh of the ventilator and beeps of monitors. Ever present ICU nurses and aides whispering around every corner. The heady absence of her father's voice even as he lies in bed beside her. He hadn't wanted to leave her back in New York, hadn't wanted to abandon her to her own suffering and her own heart wrenching decisions. And truthfully, he hadn't really needed to either, both agreeing that Maya would be safe and well cared for with Dean and Ava, no matter what the trouble was.

But there was something all too familiar about their situation, the morose looking doctors and deathly still body in bed, being run by machines, kept alive by nothing more than desperate hopes and prayers. Sam hadn't been good in hospitals since his father's death some fifteen years before. Every room he enters, ever corner he turns, eliciting a sickening roiling in his gut, an intense apprehension that maybe, just maybe, someone he loves will inexplicably laid out before him. Dead. Gone. Left, without a word.

He told Sarah he was just worried about their daughter – and he was, is. But he didn't tell her the real reason for insisting on leaving. He couldn't bear to be reminded of losing his father, couldn't bear to watch her lose hers.

He sighs softly, turning to leave, not wanting to disturb the children he was sure were on their way to sleep. But he stops suddenly when Maya's voice reaches him, a soft and delicate whisper cutting through the silence of the night. "Sometimes I have dreams."

John doesn't respond, but Sam can hear a heavy shifting on the bed. Peering in once more, he sees his nephew turn to face Maya's back, a small hand grasping her shoulder lightly.

She knows what the gesture means. Calm and caring support, no overly interested, invasive demands, no hauntingly curious sort of desire. Just support. And love. "Bad dreams," she goes on, talking not being a problem when no one requires her to do so.

"Oh," he says simply. "Well, dreams can't hurt you," he utters, repeating the words his father had shared with him so many times before. It never even occurs to him that his mother had never made that claim, never even agreed with the sentiment when his father shared the advice.

She scoffs in response, a harsh psh that hangs heavily in the air.

"Maybe you watch too many scary movies," he tries, knowing full well the inclination of his cousin to do certain things she knows she shouldn't – view a film deemed inappropriate for kids her age, climb a tree she's forbidden from approaching, stealing Rachel's makeup despite being told she's not old enough to wear any – all just to prove she can.

But she shakes her head, pillowcase crinkling beneath her as she says, "No, that's not it. It's not like that."

And he asks, "What do you mean?" Because the few times he had really bad nightmares, movies were most often the cause – typically movies she'd made him watch. Except of course for the Alice in Wonderland fiasco, his mother sharing with him her favorite book in nighttime installments that sent his sleeping mind into panic-filled delusions. He dreamt of creepy talking rabbits for months afterward, wondering, if one could tell time, a task even he had yet to master, what else could bunnies be capable of?

"They're not about movies," she says, voice low and soft but with a biting edge. "Or monsters. Not really." Because, though there often were monsters in her dreams, they rarely terrified her most.

"What are they about then?" John asks in innocent singsong.

Outside the room, Sam stops breathing, wills his heart to stop pounding in his ears so he can better hear her answer.

It takes her a minute to respond, the long moment spent anxiously deciding if she really wants to put this out there or not. But of everyone she's ever known, John's the least judgmental, and perhaps the most trustworthy. So… "Once," she breathes out slowly, "I saw my dad die."

John sighs deeply. "That sucks."

"He got stabbed," she goes on, realizing that, now that it's out there, she may not be able to stop the details from flowing. "Uncle Dean was there. And some old guy, he chased after the man who did it." She stops abruptly, surprised at how easily the words came out, frightened at how clearly she's able to recall.

John gives her shoulder a quick squeeze, says, "But that won't happen," in an attempt to comfort her, soothe her ragged breathing, her too quick pulse.

"No," she replies, barely a whisper, almost lost amid choking tears. "It already did."