Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.
Bobby looked up from the mountain of spell books when his daughter started to talk in her sleep.
"Beth Ann, sweetheart, you cannot fight the darkness within. Try as you may, but nothing is going to stop it. It will surface – soon! You're in run with the Winchester's, and you found your father, I hear. How delightful that must be. They will get the boy killed! Reckless baboons, they are. Let them kill little Robert, dear, his throne belongs in Hell with me!"
Beth startled awake, nearly falling from the couch. "You alright, kiddo?" Bobby asked as she jolted up. He was hunched over his old oak desk, an array of old musty books scattered about as he flipped through pages.
"M'okay." She grumbled, yawning as she stood up and stretched.
Bobby glanced at her doubtfully, "Can I ask ya something?" already he felt like he should've just kept his mouth shut, but something she'd said in her sleep bothered him too much.
"Smack 'er to me."
"He's not…darkside, is he?...Your son?"
Beth was caught off guard at first, but she smiled. "He's as darksided as any other normal seven year old boy." She grabbed Bobbys steaming cup of coffee from the desk, took a sip, then her face puckered in surprise. "Old man, is there any coffee in this cup of alcohol?" The perplexed expression on Bobby's face made her laugh out loud. Sam and Dean stumbled into the library with bedheads and squinted eyes. "What's funny?" Dean ruffed, voice still thickened with sleep, with his casted leg he gimped over to the desk. Beth held the coffee out to him, "Here, this should pucker you up." He took the cup and shot her a tired smile, took a gulp, and then done a spit take across the room. "That's straight up tequila!" he coughed.
Bobby reached across the desk and snatched he mug from him, "Give me that." He held onto his cup and returned to the books, sipping occasionally.
Kris waltzed into the room balancing four mugs of steaming coffee in her hands, "Thanks." Sam said, taking his cup. They lounged around for a while in silence washing down the morning breath with caffeine. "Find anything, Bobby?" Sam asked. His long arm was around Kris as she rested her tired head on his shoulder, sipping from her mug.
The old man was silent for a moment, sipping tequila, and then clapped his books shut. "I got nothin' on how to kill these Leviathan." He pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, then turned his head up to look at the kids. "Borax and decapitation will only slow them down and piss them off." For the first time in his life, Bobby Singer was stumped.
"So what are we gonna do?" asked Dean.
Bobby glanced at Beth, "Well, we can go to Florida and check out that Crowley kid."
Beth looked like she was smacked across the face, "Absolutely not." she said, arms crossed.
Sam's brows furrowed in confusion, "Crowley kid?" he glanced around the room as everyone looked at him. "Am I missing something?"
Bobby was driving to the outskirts of town, Beth rode along with him and the boxed head that sat between them in the cab. Neither one of them were much up for chit chat. The girls had finally warmed up to Bobby. He had noticed in the last couple weeks that even though he wasn't there for them in the last 23 years – they took up and turned out to be just like him, much to his displeasure.
Kris was the study bug that always had a spell book to her nose, she probably knew every kind of monster out there and how to trap and kill it. She was fluent in Latin, French…It made him sad knowing that she should be at Harvard, but instead she lived with her neck out on the frontline since the first hunt. Beth was a whole different story. She grew up with the Singer legacy of alcoholism and – quite frankly, not giving the slightest damn. Shoot first, ask questions later. She also inherited his bad attitude, that trait alone made the bond between the two of them difficult. They acted too much alike, of course they'd butt heads.
"Bobby, I get why you want to meet him." Beth broke the silence. "You have to understand that I am not letting my boy in on this world, not any kind of shape or form, I refuse it."
"I'd say the same for you, but look atchya now." Bobby bit off. He pulled over to the side of the road at the bridge, grabbed the box from the seat, carried it out to the edge, then he chucked the box into the ravine and returned. Beth's jaw was clenching, "You left us." She mumbled. "You don't know a damn thing."
"I know more than you think I do." Bobby argued.
"Ugh!" Beth huffed like a teenaged girl, "You broke my mom when you left, Bobby, you left her with two babies and a broken heart!" she raged, her voice rose in anger. "Then she got with that ex-marine asshole, and all he done was barked her around like a dog!" Tears glazed over in her eyes but she did not let them fall. "When he got drunk, he was an even bigger dickhead, and Kris and I had to two dog his ass every time he got froggy enough to smack her around, Bobby!" She punched the windshield as hard as she could, the glass spider-webbed around her fist. "You broke all of us." Beth's voice cracked. She pulled her fist down and began to pick tiny shards of glass from her shaky bleeding knuckles. "When we used to ask her questions about you, she used to tell us the stories of how the two of you hunted together. How you gave her a family. How Bobby friggin Singer was the best thing to ever happen to her. I don't know what she saw in you, now that we've met."
Bobby looked at his daughter, guilt stricken. "Beth, you have to underst-"
"I understand that your job was more important than your family." She stuck him.
Bobby sighed as he pulled the truck up to a gas pump. "Are you done yappin?" he asked. Then he grabbed her busted hand and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. "Let's get a couple beers, then you can boozer nag at Dean when we get back to the house. He seems to be the only one you can get along with round here." She let out a chuckle as he tightly wrapped her hand. "It's funny to watch him go, he's too easy to wind up." She shrugged, "Besides, at least he understands." she then randomly asked, "Why didn't you ever write back?" they walked together inside the filling station. "You did get my letters, didn't you?"
Bobby glanced at her hesitantly, "Yeah, I don't write letters." At the fridge he grabbed a case up and hauled it to the register. After he was rung up, Beth stepped up to the counter, "Pack of Marlboro red shorts, please." She ordered.
Bobby froze.
Lucille poured a splash of holy water onto an old rag found in the floor of the truck, she used it to wipe the drying blood splatter from her face. They had pulled up to a filling station after taking out a Ned Head in Montana. Bobby gazed at her, the corners of his mouth pulled upward, "Nice work back there." he said. She lowered the rag from her face and pierced him with sparkling ocean blue eyes, a toothy grin lit up her face. "A vicious hunt always gets the blood flowing, Bobby." She leaned into him and swiped his bloody cheek with the rag. His chest fluttered at her closeness. "Thank you." She said, pecked the cheek she cleaned, and then stole his truckers cap from his head. She leaned back into her seat and adjusted the cap over her long mane of dark blond curls, then returned to cleaning the blood from herself. Bobby thought she was beautiful.
As he walked toward the shop to pay, she called out behind him. "Hey Bobby, Marlboro red in the short pack, please!"
"Ay old man, are ya just gonna stand there all day? Come on, the brewskies gettin' warm." Beth waved a hand in his face, and Bobby snapped back from memory lane. "Yeah, I'm expecting Jody." Bobby said, it was the first thing that could he could think of. "She's takin a likin to cookin me dinner when you kids go out huntin." Beth pulled the cigarette from her mouth, "Whoo-Hoo!" she yelped as they walked back to the truck, she bumped her hip against his and broke out in an awkward dance. "Old daddy-o has a date!" she squealed.
"Shut up, ya guppy."
Kris and Beth wrecked Bobby's closet. Kris tossed another flannel over her shoulder, "Dad, do you have any other style besides lumberjack?" she asked. Bobby walked into the room, "What are yens doing?" he gapped at the piling mess. "Y'all are cleaning this up."
"Ah-ha!"
Beth turned around, a mad grin on her face and a suit in her hands. "Kris, find the dress shoes." She high stepped around the piles of clothes and shoved the tuxedo into Bobby's hands. "Go, put that on! Jody will be there in like – half an hour, and brush your teeth!" she spoke in a rush.
His face scrunched, "What the Hell?" was all Bobby could muster.
"I found 'em! Oh god, these need to be polished." Kris said from the other side of the room. "And they smell, ugh!" She grabbed a bottle of cologne from a dresser top and began to spray the insides of them.
Beth stood up tall next to Bobby with a grin so big her face could break, she slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't ask questions, just follow your heart." The twins shared a girly giggle and Kris shoved the freshly polished shoes into his arms. Cologne tickled his nose and he sneezed. "Bless you – and don't step on her toes!" Kris gushed.
Together the sisters shoved Bobby out into the hall and toward the bathroom. He dug his feet, but the girls managed enough strength to keep him on their path. "What in God's name –"
"We sent Jody a text from your phone." explained Kris.
"Yeah, dinner at that new five star restaurant they just opened on the other side of town." Beth told him.
"What?"
"Don't freak out, Dad, she said she'd be there."
"Unless you're going to stand her up! Make her cry?" Beth acted outraged.
"That'd be a crying shame. Jody is such a nice lady, and nice ladies shouldn't have to cry."
They made it to the bathroom, gave him a shove, and sent him stumbling inside. "And trim that facial hair, you look like a mountain man." They pulled the door shut on his surprised face and shared a fist bump.
"How you doin, little sister?" Beth asked over a beer as the two of them stargazed on the hood of her car. Bobby was off to sweep Jody off her feet. That left the four others to find something to hunt. Sam and Dean were inside the house looking for a kill, and they were being obnoxiously slow about it.
Kris pulled the bottle from her mouth, swallowing down a mouthful. "We're the same age." she said with bitter beer face, Beth laughed at her. "Technically, you were born the next day. So I am your big sister." They had had this conversation many times throughout the years. "An entire fifteen minutes older." Kris rolled her eyes. "Which means fifteen minutes wiser." Beth countered, tipping the top of her bottle at Kris in a you-know-it way. They clanked bottles and drank together. Beth knew that Kris knew that she knew exactly what she was talking about. There was no more time to be beating around the bush, though.
"You've got two more years, Kris." Beth stated.
Kris frowned, "I know." she tipped her beer back and drank deeply, until the bottle was gone, and then she twisted open another.
"Is this why you've been banging Sam?" Beth grinned, trying to lighten the mood.
Kris choked on her beer and sputtered, "We haven't went that far, not yet." her face flushed as she took another drink.
Beth watched in astonishment as she gulped the booze, normally the kid could only sip half a beer and be done with it. Kris was acting stranger with every passing month, she tried to hide it, but Beth could sense the fear that her sister was feeling.
"I'm gonna get you out of this, Kris, I promise."
"There is no way out, a deal's a deal." Kris smiled up and pointed to the draconis constellation – the dragon. "I'm alright, I finally got to meet Dad - and two years with him is better than none."
They heard footsteps around the junkyard and drew their guns, but it was only Dean dragging his casted ass toward them. "Everything's cold. Come on, it's a hunters night in!" A small smile grazed his face. "We're going to bake pie and watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly." They hopped off the car, Kris grabbed the beer, and Beth wrapped an arm around Dean to steady his sloping stance. "Seriously Dean, we need to give you an intervention, this Clint Eastwood obsession isn't healthy." His lips pulled higher as he threw his arm around Beth's shoulders and leaned into her as she helped him back to the house. "Have you been on this dudes laptop, Beth? Exa – erotica is his obsession." They laughed.
Jody gasped as Bobby stepped on her toe, again.
They were dancing. The night had went well for Bobby, and the thought of proposing popped up in his mind more than once, but he kept his mouth shut. Surely she would reject him, a woman like Lucille could do way better than a beat up hunter with a drinking problem. She deserved more than that. Lucille gasped and stepped back in her heels, her red ball gown flowed back with her. "Ow, Bobby! My toe…" Bobby sputtered and Lucille chimed with laughter. She flashed him that toothy grin again, her blue eyes shining brighter than ever before as she took his hand and fell back into step, coaching him in his dance moves. They were supposed to be on the job, undercover, but they had gotten caught up in the moment.
Dean and Beth waited around in the kitchen as the pies baked. "How long!" Dean groaned.
Beth sipped whiskey sour from a rock glass and chuckled, "With cooling time, another hour, maybe."
Deans eyes widened. "I could go down into town and buy me some pie by then!"
"Had I not broke your pedal leg." She giggled, buzzing. "Besides, that convenient store stuff is disgusting." She said. "Do you even read the label on that crap? It's disgusting. Fake pie!" she rambled.
Dean frowned. "Hey – what's your kid like?" he suddenly changed the subject. Something Crowley related was a must on the hunting list, he had to check it out. Beth leaned off of the counter and took the seat across the table from him, she stared him dead in the eye. "Do you know what it's like to have a child, Dean? I think you do." A smile pulled at the corners of her lips, there was a knowing look in her eyes.
Dean didn't speak for a long time, and then, "What makes you-"
"Just answer my question." She said.
"Yes." It was always a constant on his mind, he knew that boy was his, but Dean couldn't bear the thought of giving his kid the same life he grew up in. After Lisa had almost been killed, when Ben was put at stake - again, Dean knew that he had himself into the hunting game too deep. He refused to let his son be haunted by the monster life. The kid deserved better.
Beth raised a brow, "Oh, and why isn't ole Daddy Dean there, teaching them to play ball, or shoot off a glock?" a smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth. The glass she had been drinking from went flying across the room and shattered. "Ben is safe with his mom, where he should be." Dean said hardly. She propped an elbow on the table and rested her chin in her palm. "Then you know exactly why I don't feel comfortable with this subject." She said, "It's none of y'alls business. He's safe with his Nan, where he should be." He was pissed, Beth could see that. "Listen, im sorry about-"
"Yeah, awesome…it doesn't matter." Dean waved off.
Beth had to argue that. "It does."
There was a sudden loud sound of music that caught the two's attention. Kris appeared in the archway, a smile plastered to her face, "Come on, you two." she was swaying with a bottle of red wine in hand. "Stop squabbling like children and come join the party." she tipped the bottle to her mouth and done a waltzing dance walk back into the sitting room.
Beth stood up, she stuck out her hand to Dean. "Let's dance, gimpy." Dean glared up at her and took her hand. Sam and Kris were doing some sort of tango across the room when they joined them.
"Is it just me, or is Kris acting strange, ya know, kinda reckless?" Dean asked lowly, placing his hands on Beth's hips as they fell into step together. They danced in one spot, swaying and stepping back and forth, side to side. Beth glanced to her sister and noticed the happy smile and the giggles that escaped her as Sam dipped her back. Beth couldn't hold her smile, "She's got Hell Hounds breathing down her neck." she told him. Then she gasped, "Ow, Dean!" he had stepped on her toe. "Opps." Dean sputtered, he stepped back from her. Beth laughed and stepped to him closely, "Let's just…not step." to his surprise, she wrapped her arms around his neck and placed her head against his chest.
The closeness between them was something new to Dean, but he didn't have any complaints and tightened his hold on her as the music changed and he was full on Swayze with Baby in Dirty Dancing. "You know,' Dean began to slow down their sway, ', if you don't tell us about your kid, we will track him down ourselves." Beth stiffened under his hold and stepped back, Dean was caught off guard when he seen that her eyes had went completely red. "You Winchester's just don't know when to stop." She flicked her hand, and within a second Dean was flung back into the couch. He grunted and tried to move, but he was being held still.
"Sam!"
Beth whirled around and with another swipe of her hand, the other brother was flung away from Kris and into the couch next to Dean. Kris grabbed hold of her, "Beth, stop!" she didn't hear her as she turned hard eyes on Dean and Sam.
"Let them go, Beth, you have to fight it off!" Kris began to yank her by the arm with extreme force, trying to pull her into the Devil's trap, Beth jolted to and fro, still – she held steady and her eyes burned with Hell fire as she closely approached the boys.
"You will not hunt my son!" she yelled. The voice was not hers, an underlying evil growled beneath it.
The wine bottle made a messy explosion, the lights went out, and flames grew alarmingly high underneath the mantel to leave the room glowing from the fireplace. The tension around the place was tight, nobody said a word, Kris had abruptly stopped her efforts. Even the music on the record player had stopped. You could hear a pin drop.
Sam broke it. "Beth, listen, -" His voice was suddenly silenced with a snap of her fingers.
"No, you listen, Winchester. You would not believe the kind of hassle it really is to keep a child safe from you cold blooded hunters and the garrison."
"That's calling the kettle black." Dean snarled.
"Beth, stop it, let them go and we can all calmly talk about this, right Dean?" Kris said desperately, she looked at the brothers helplessly. Then, she began to back up – in a frantic turn, she searched the bookshelves for one specific title.
"Yeah." He agreed, his eyes that had been hard on Beth flickered, realizing that he had gotten his hopes up, he was going to have to kill her. "The pie is gonna burn if we stay here all night!" He stalled for time. She laughed, but she did not release her strong hold. With another snap of her fingers, the oven began to beep. "No, im not letting these two numb nuts loose until they get it through their thick heads that I will not let them get to him." The air around her went dark again like it did the morning they went out to breakfast, and the bar in Kentucky. Dean thought quickly, then he remembered the abundance of alcohol she drank.
"Come on, Beth, let's go get trash drunk again, for old time sake." Dean suggested.
With a swipe of her hand, he crashed into the ceiling, "Hey!" she held him there.
"No, Dean."
She did not see Bobby approach her from behind with a cast iron skillet, with a hard smack across the head, Beth crumpled to the floor, knocked out cold. Dean dropped from the ceiling with a painful crash, he grunted out and Sam had to sprint over and help him up. "What the Hell!" Dean boomed, he looked down at the twins, gun pointed, as Kris rolled an unconscious Beth over face up. "She didn't mean to do that." Kris told him defensively, then took a pair of cuffs and locked Beth's hands together.
"Balls…" Bobby muttered, then turned on Kris. "What is she?"
Kris let out a grunt as she grabbed Beth under the armpits and dragged her to the couch, "It's a long story, ugh!" she tossed Beth on the sofa and grabbed a throw blanket. "Dad, I need some chains…and do you have any more wine?"
They sat in the kitchen, "So you're saying – Beth goes all…Queen of Hell if anything threatens the spawn?" Sam calculated. "Hey, his name is Robert." "Sorry, if anything threatens Robert?" Kris shrugged, "Pretty much, but there's also that motherly instinct, ya know.", she filled her wine glass up to the rim, turning the bottle upside down. "Soon after she gave birth, we began to notice that she developed these - special abilities, and as the years go on…well…they get stronger."
Sam's eyes glanced over to the archway, watching as Dean and Bobby wrapped Beth in a fleece cocoon of iron. They made a ruckus as they moved the couch into the trap. Kris turned a thick spell book over to let him read, her index finger poked at a certain recipe. "I've been researching for almost eight years now, and this is the only thing I can find that pulls her out of her darkside." Kris rubbed her face with her hands. "A damn sleep coma spell." She managed a little laugh. "I was going to put her to sleep, but Dad seems to've remembered moms old method."
"How could I forget, that damn iron skillet was that womans weapon of choice." Bobby said as he and Dean joined them. "It worked on ghost and dickbags, and dickbag ghost." He and Kris shared a warm laugh, both remembering.
Bobby's eyes bulged as Lucille was slammed across the kitchen by the malevolent spirit. She let out a pained cry as she smacked the wall and hit the stovetop, she awkwardly twisted as she tried to get up.
"Lucille!"
"Bobby, the bones!" she yelled frantically. "In the back lawn!" he turned and made a run for the back door.
Suddenly the spirit appeared in his face, it grabbed him by the neck, choking him. He fought hard, but he had dropped the fire poker. Then, just when he thought he was going to pass out – an iron skillet was swung an inch from his face, and he dropped to the floor, gasping. "Nice save." He managed to croak out, then began to cough. Lucille smiled down at him kindly, then stuck out her hand to him that wasn't holding the pan. They stumbled toward the door, "Let's get to the easy part before she comes back, think you can make it?" she asked. "I think I can manage." he said, then, "Hold onto that skillet."
As they dug the graves up, the spirit of the husband appeared and sent them flying. "Time for some biscuits and gravy, you dickbag!" Lucille charged, holding the cast iron skillet above her head.
"So you're saying we're gonna have to keep her roofied up on dream root until she snaps back into human?" Dean asked, looking up from the book. Kris nod, "For about a month or so. She'll be alright after that. I've learned that if we dreamwalk into her dreams with her, it's much easier to talk her down. Right now she's in Hell."
"Literally – in Hell?" asked Sam.
Kris shrugged, "I'll let you know in two years." the corners of her mouth frowned in a slight grimace. "The first time I tapped inside her head this early she was in there having a screaming match with Crowley, like a divorced couple fighting over custody rights of my nephew." She forced smile. "The more I dreamwalked with her, and rationalized with her to fight it out, she went back to her happy place."
"Alright, so right now she's knocked out on queen of Hell business – wait…in that story she told us, Crowley told her that he would be seeing her." Dean said, having heard enough, he slid the book away from him. "So why didn't you tell us this from the start?" he hobbled over to the window seal and snatched up the cooled pie. "That Beth was rocking a baby carriage with Crowley?"
Kris found an interest of staring at her wine. "What else was I supposed to do, sell out my sister?" she bit off in outrage, "They might be monsters in your eyes, but they are my family." she stood up and finished her glass off, then picked up the book, rudely interrupting Sam's page flipping. "I'm gonna go mix up this hoo-doo crap. It won't be long before she wakes back up, and it won't be pretty, either." She looked at Dean. "So, If you'd be kind enough to not shoot her again..." she left then.
Bobby glanced at his trapped up daughter sleeping on the couch, he looked back and forth at the boys, finally resting them on Dean's. "You've got the first week of roofies." He told him. Dean looked at him defiantly, "Why don't you go first, you're her dad." Bobby's eyebrows raised, "Do as I say, boy. You aint got nothin else to do, with that casted leg on the job, you'd be at a disadvantage." He said, then added, "Besides, the body heals best while at rest, ya Idjit." Dean pushed himself from the table, "Alright, fine." he'd already been to Hell once, he could handle it. He walked to the sitting room and sat next to Beth on the edge of the couch. He had his gun in hand, cocked and loaded, finger on the trigger.
Holy friggin plot twist. :)