Author's Note: Here's the next chapter! I don't really have that much to say. Thanks JainaSolo! I always look forward to your reviews! Anyways…on with the show!
Chapter Three: Learning
Dean felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as he watched Dani turn to go back into her bedroom, but it was Sam who spoke up first.
"Dani, wait!" he said.
Dani spun back around to face them, eyebrows raised in question.
"You knew our dad?" Dean asked.
At that, Dani's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as she stared at the two young men, who were now both standing, staring intently at her. She looked from one to the other and back again several times before she managed to find her voice.
"John's your father?" she asked.
"What, you can't see the resemblance?" Dean quipped, spreading his hands wide for effect.
Sam ran a hand back through his hair, "I can't believe this. Did dad ever mention her to you?"
"No!" Dean snapped, glaring at his brother.
"Why would he keep her a secret?" Sam went on.
Dean shook his head, bracing both hands on his hips, "I don't know."
"Please stop speaking about me like I'm not standing right here." Dani hissed at the two, earning a pointed look from both.
"So, you're telling us that our father never told you about us?" Dean demanded.
"He said that he had two sons, but we never discussed it in depth, no!" Dani exclaimed, coming out of her doorway and rejoining them in the living room, yet again. She didn't appreciate being snapped at and she was beginning to lose her composure.
"What's your full name?" Dean demanded, apparently not picking up on her irritability.
"Danielle Chatham." Dani supplied.
Dean turned again to Sam, "Does the name Chatham ring any bells for you?"
"Not one." Sam answered, tossing his head back and looking toward the heavens.
"This is unreal." Dean said, shaking his head again. Yet another mystery of their father's making. God only knew, there weren't enough of them already to go around!
"In a way, it makes sense." Sam said as Dean turned to face him, "I mean, think about how long it was before we found out about Missouri."
Dani's face brightened, "You know Missouri?"
"You know Missouri?" Sam and Dean asked in perfect unison.
"Okay, listen," Dani said surrendering to them for what felt like the thousandth time that night and sitting down on the couch while the boys remained standing, "You're dad found me right after my grandmother had died. She was the only family that I ever really had. That was three years ago. I never understood what it was that was happening to me when I would get my feelings; I thought that I was losing my mind. But, John did understand it. So, he helped me. He taught me a little bit about the darker sides of this world and he took me to Missouri, who helped me learn how to properly handle my…ability."
"I need a beer." Dean said, trying to let all of this new information sink into his brain.
Dani pushed up from the couch and went into the kitchen again, opening the refrigerator and pulling out a long neck bottle of Bud Light.
"And what about the gun?" Sam asked.
"John gave me that gun the day he left; last time I ever saw him. He had taught me how to shoot a good time before as what he referred to as 'sta…"
"Standard procedure." Dean and Sam jumped in to supply for her.
"Yeah," she said smiling as she twisted the cap off of the beer and tossed it into the nearby trashcan, "He told me that I was going to need something to protect me in my life and that he was glad that he could at least give me a start."
The memory of his father handing him a .45 to ward off the monster that he had thought to be lurking in his closet suddenly flashed to the forefront of Sam's mind. He could see his father giving this otherwise naïve and innocent young girl a lethal weapon as a sign of affection for her. It was just who John Winchester was. She must have actually meant something to their father. He looked over at Dean, and from the stoic expression on his older brother's face, he could tell that he was thinking along those same lines. Suddenly, Dani's laughter brought them both out of their thoughts and back into reality. She handed Dean the beer and continued to laugh as she watched him down half the bottle in one swallow.
"I can't believe that I'm standing here with John Winchester's sons." She laughed, covering her nose and mouth with both hands, "It's just so surreal!"
"I can't believe this." Dean said, rubbing one hand up and down his face, then back over his head.
"I'm sorry." Dani said, the laughter dying from her voice and she held her hands up in what appeared to be a gesture of complete and utter helplessness, "Is it some horrible crime that I know your father?"
"No." Sam said, offering her a comforting smile, "No, it's not horrible. We just…don't always know why our dad does some of the things that he does."
"Well, I only knew him for a short time, but he never struck me as the type who was big on explaining himself." Dani said.
"You got that right." Dean agreed, though the aggravation was still more than evident in his rough voice and he took another drink from his bottle. He had always been the perfect little soldier; never questioning orders; never stopping until he had finished the job; never asking for anything. Couldn't their damn father fill them in on something just for once? Just once!
"Look," Dani said, crossing over to Sam and putting her hand on his forearm in an almost maternal manner, "I think…we've all had a long night. Let's try and get some sleep and…we'll talk about this some more in the morning."
Sam looked at Dean and raised his eyebrows in question. After a moment, Dean shrugged and nodded his head as he sat back down on the sofa.
"All right," she said, giving Sam's arm a gentle squeeze, "I'm just gonna get you some blankets."
When she reemerged from her bedroom with a pile of blankets and a couple of pillows, the brothers had moved her coffee table out of the way and folded out the pull out bed. She handed her armful over to Sam and turned back toward her room.
"Goodnight guys." She said as she shut her door.
Dani fell back against the closed door and covered her face with her hands. John's sons were camped out in her living room. She had not seen this coming! She had felt a vaguely familiar sensation in her belly when she had met them at the diner, but she hadn't really given it much thought. She had simply dismissed it as nothing more than a commonplace physical attraction. Shaking her head in frustration at the mistake, she pushed herself away from the door and peeled her shirt up over her head, discarding it carelessly to the floor; soon to be followed by her blue jeans. With a heavy sigh, she slipped into the bathroom and turned on the faucet, hoping that a nice hot shower would help clear her mind so she could maybe catch some sleep.
After half an hour of letting scolding water beat into her aching muscles, working at the tension knots in her shoulders and back, she stepped out of the shower. As she toweled herself off, she let the exhaustion from the day's events settle in. She thought about being on her feet serving food to assholes all day; thought about her little scuffle with Eddie, then about going into the Godforsaken house and she felt what little bit of energy she had left drain out of her. She thought of John and all the bitter memories of being abandoned by someone she had respected came crashing back into her mind, making her want to break down into tears. She thought about Dean's curt manner in dealing with her unwanted presence at the Wyatt place and almost laughed out of incredulity rather than humor. It had been so similar to John's behavior; she was surprised that she hadn't made the connection right then and there. But, then she had had other things going on in her head at the time.
Not wanting to think about it anymore, or anything for that matter, she slathered on some lotion and ran a comb through her wet locks before slipping into her favorite blue pinstriped pajama pants and light weight long sleeved gray tee shirt. She crawled wearily into bed and collapsed. It wasn't more than five minutes later that she was lost in a deep sleep.
The harsh shrill of her alarm clock tore Dani harshly from her slumber, her eyelids fluttering open, she slapped her hand down on the offending object and gazed around the bedroom. The early morning twilight had cast the entire room and everything in it in a luminous pale blue. She snuggled down a little deeper beneath her warm comforter, wanting nothing more than to curl up in her soft bed and fall back to sleep. But, the knowledge of her two houseguests came flurrying tauntingly in the back of her mind and she kicked the covers off of her legs with a groan and climbed out of bed.
She staggered groggily to the bathroom and muttered a stream of curses under her breath as she ran a hand back over the massive tangled bird's nest that was on top of her head where her hair should have been. She knew better than to go to sleep on wet hair, but she had been too damn tired to dry it. She ran a brush back painfully through it; the end result being a frizzy, puffy mess. She quickly tied it back into a sloppy bun at the nape of her neck and brushed her teeth.
When she finally came padding into the living room, she was surprised to find that her pull out couch had already been folded back up; the blankets lay neatly folded at one end with the pillows stacked on top of them and the coffee table was back in its rightful place. They had woken up…and cleaned. Oh God, she thought with sudden dread, they were morning people. She hated morning people. Her eyes panned over to the kitchen, where she spotted Sam, clad in a fresh pair of jeans and blue hooded sweatshirt. He was sitting at her small round breakfast table, sipping coffee and tapping away at his laptop. Dean was…making scrambled eggs? He too had changed, now wearing a clean pair of equally tattered jeans as the ones he had worn previously, a dark gray tee shirt, and a deep maroon button up open with the sleeves rolled up. He threw her a glance over his shoulder.
"Morning, kitten." He said, his voice deep and rugged.
Dani's eyebrows drew together at the nickname as she wondered where the hell it had come from. Shaking it off, she rubbed a hand at a knot where her neck and shoulder met. "Good morning." She replied, her own vocals still crusty with sleep. She breathed in deeply the scent of fresh brewed coffee and went into the kitchen to pour herself a cup from the pot that they had already taken the liberty of making.
"Hope you like cheese eggs," Dean said, "they're my specialty."
"Specialty meaning the only thing he can cook without burning." Sam joked, looking up at Dani with a smirk.
Dani chuckled into her coffee as she made her way over to join Sam at the table. "I hope you guys weren't too uncomfortable last night. I know that thing is harder than a concrete slab." She said, sitting down in the only other chair the table had to offer.
"Oh, trust me," Sam grinned, "we've slept on worse."
Dean set a plate of eggs down in front of each of them before hopping up onto the kitchen counter with his own plate. Sam snapped his computer shut and pushed it aside, making room to slide his breakfast a little closer to him.
"Thanks for letting up crash here, by the way." Sam said, after swallowing a mouthful of eggs.
"Don't even worry about it." Dani replied automatically with a dismissive wave of her hand.
"Yeah," Dean added from across the room, "and, uh, we're sorry about grilling you about our dad last night."
"It's okay." Dani said, looking down into her coffee with a small smile, "I understand why you did it."
"Well, now that that's out of the way," Dean exclaimed, clearly uncomfortable with apologizing for any reason, he hopped down from the counter and clapped his hands together with enthusiasm, "you wanna help us figure out what's going on with that ugly old mansion?"
"I can tell you what's going on with that ugly old mansion." Dani said, turning her bright blue eyes to his pretty green ones, "Nothing good."
"Dani," Sam said, drawing her attention to him, "you know our dad. You know what we do. So, you should also know that we're not gonna leave until this thing is taken care of."
"So, you wanna give us a hand or not?" Dean asked, narrowing her options down to the simplest of terms.
Dani shoved another forkful of eggs into her mouth and took her sweet slow time chewing. Once she finally did swallow, she blew the air out of her lungs, closing her eyes and shaking her head in resignation, "Just let me call into work."
Dean and Sam shared two matching triumphant grins as she pushed herself up from her chair to retrieve her cordless phone. She returned to the kitchen a little less than an hour later, fully clothed in another pair of snug blue jeans, a pale yellow tight fitting zip up hooded sweatshirt, and brown hiking boots. She had also twisted her hair into two braids on either side of her head and pulled a cream colored toboggan down over it. The three of them shared a look, letting everybody know that they were all ready to get started, so Sam slipped into his dark blue coat, tugging the hood of his sweatshirt up over the neck at the same time Dean pulled on his brown leather, flipping the collar up in the back. Dani shrugged into her pea coat before wrapping a scarf that matched her hat around her neck. Sam opened the door and motioned for Dani to go through ahead of him.
"So, where do we start?" Dani asked as she slipped into the backseat of the Impala.
Dean started the ignition as Sam peered over the top of his seat at her and said, "We figure we'll go back to the library."
"Haven't you done that already?" she asked.
"Well, yeah, but we were just looking for facts about Thatcher Wyatt." Sam replied.
"Now, we're gonna see what we can find out about the house in general." Dean finished for his brother.
"Okay," Dani nodded, taking it all in, "And then what?"
"Then," Dean said, "we go back tonight and toast the sucker."
Dani shook her head and leaned forward, bracing her arms over the middle of the top of the bench seat in front of her, "It's not gonna be that simple."
"Why not?" Dean said, glancing back and forth between her and the road.
"I told you," Dani told him, leaning even further forward, "there's more than one spirit in that house."
"Yeah," Sam said, twisting around in his seat so that his back was to the door and he could face Dani more comfortably, "but how many of them are malevolent?"
Dani leaned back with a sigh, "I don't know. I can't tell."
"Well, then, for now, we stick to the typical plan. Find the remains, torch them, wave bye-bye, have a beer." Dean chimed.
At the light sounding tone of his voice, Dani bolted upright in her seat again, "Listen, the only thing I can tell you for sure…is that there are a whole lotta bad vibes in that place. Whatever it is that's hanging out in there, it's evil, and I don't use that term lightly. It sounds cheesy, but in this case totally appropriate."
Dani looked at her again, her big blue eyes pleading for him to heed her warning and he felt himself wanting to put her at ease. "Okay," he said, his tone softening, "we'll see what we can find out and then we'll form a more solid plan."
Dani stared at him for another moment, her gaze searching his face for comfort; for reassurance; for anything to give her a little peace of mind. Finally, she nodded her head and slumped back into the backseat.
Five minutes later, they came to a stop across the street from the public library. After climbing from the car, they trotted across the road, Dani one step ahead of the guys with them flanking both sides of her. Dani cast a glance at them over her shoulder and stifled a laugh. They were both scanning the surrounding streets in both directions with stony expressions on their faces and with the way they were tailing her so closely; they looked like bodyguards. She found it mildly amusing to say the least. At the same time the three of them went springing up the front steps of the library, a pretty brunette in tight black pants and a dark purple zip up jacket came bounding through the doors. She stopped when her wide brown eyes landed on Dani.
"Dani! Hey!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, hey." Dani said, drawing to a halt. Sam and Dean paused as well, both standing with their hands shoved deep in their pockets. The door to the library opened again and a teenage boy with stringy blond hair hanging down in his eyes came hustling out, his shoulders hunched forward, hands buried far down in the pockets of his own brown canvas jacket. He stopped when he couldn't get past the girls and looked up, his blue eyes darting across the faces of all four of them, flickering back and forth between Dani and the guys before settling on the brunette.
"You wanna get outta my way?" he spat.
Dani's friend narrowed her eyes at him, "Why don't you just go around us, Tommy? There's a whole lot of stairs and we don't take up that much room."
Tommy took two steps around her, bumping his shoulder into her back as he seethed, "Bitch."
Dean and Sam both kept their eyes on the kid as he descended the library stairs, sizing up whether or not he posed a potential threat. He threw a glance back at Dani's friend, his narrowed blue eyes burning with undisguised dislike.
"Ass!" the girl called after him before turning back to Dani, "What a dick."
"He has his good points." Dani said in defense of the rude young man.
"Yeah, yeah. So, Dani," the brunette's eyes flickered back and forth between the two brothers, "how did you wind up being escorted by these two good-looking guys?"
"They, uh, they're family friends." Dani said, "Sam and Dean, this is my friend, Liv."
"Hi." Dean said, with a jerk of his chin.
"Nice to meet you." Sam said, ever the polite one of the two.
Liv flashed them each a flirty smile, before turning all of her attention back to her friend, "Listen, Dani, I saw Eddie earlier…"
"Whatever he has to say, I'm not interested." Dani said, cutting her off before she could finish her sentence.
"I know that." Liv stated, "And I fully agree with you. I just wanted to let you know that he's looking for you." Her eyes again darted to the two guys, then back to Dani, "I just don't want him to catch you by surprise, because you know it'll get ugly if he sees you with another guy. No offense boys."
Dean and Sam shared a look, each one thinking back to the scene that they had witnessed in the diner the day before.
"So," Dean drawled, turning his intense gaze to Liv, "Dani had some guy hassling her?"
Dani shot him a pointed look, "It's nothing, Dean."
"Yeah, right, it's nothing!" Liv exclaimed, "Her ex-boyfriend is kind of a psycho."
"How so?" Sam enquired.
Dani was fighting the urge to slap herself in the forehead, or better yet, slap all three of them. What right did they have to pry into her personal affairs? None!
"He was just crazy possessive when they were dating. He went off the deep end if another guy so much as looked at her." Liv explained.
"Thanks, Liv!" Dani snapped.
Liv looked at her, compassion and concern evident in her deep chocolate brown eyes, "Well, it's not like you would have told them."
"That's because they don't need to know." Dani countered.
"What if Eddie decides to show up at some point?" Liv said, trying to rationalize with her friend, "Don't you think they have the right to know that he might flip out on them?"
"Wait, wait, wait," Sam interjected, "what do you mean 'flip out' on us?"
"You're with Dani." Liv said simply, as though that were all the explanation that should be required.
"Okay, look!" Dani more or less shouted as her nerves reached the end of their rope, "You guys don't need to worry about Eddie or me! If he shows up, I'll deal with him. Now, can we please do what we came here to do and stop discussing my past relationship drama, despite how daytime television interesting it may seem?"
Dean pressed his lips together as tightly as he could in attempt to suppress the laughter that was threatening to erupt from his throat; Sam covered his mouth with his hand with the same objective. Liv just stared at Dani in a way that suggested she thought her friend was in serious denial. She pressed her hands against her temples and took a deep breath, her expression changing to one of tenderness and affection.
"I'm sorry, Dani." She said, rubbing her hand over Dani's arm, "You know I just worry about you."
"I know." Dani nodded, the anger draining out of her voice. Liv Donohue had been her best friend from the first moment she had arrived in this tiny little town; despite the fact that she regularly told her that she was insane for moving there to begin with.
"All right. I gotta get to work, anyway. Call me later, okay." Liv said.
"You know I will." Dani said.
"Okay." The brunette pulled her friend into a quick hug, then pulled away, "I'll talk to you later."
"Bye."
"It was nice to meet you boys." Liv said, flashing another insinuating grin, "Hopefully, I'll see you again."
With that, she turned and went skipping down the steps and across the street. Dani spun on her heel and fixed both Dean and Sam with a sharp look. As though snapping to attention, Sam reached over and jerked the door to the library open for her. Dani rolled her eyes before stomping through it. As soon as she was actually in the library, Dean and Sam burst into a fit of laughter. After a minute, they got themselves under control and joined her.
"If I read one more sentence, I'm gonna go cross eyed." Dani said, letting her head drop onto the open book on the table in front of her.
Dean had his chair tilted back on its hind legs with a book opened up in his lap. He pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes, trying to clear his vision. Sam was perched up on the ledge of a nearby window, chewing absently on the cap of his pen as his eyes scanned the page of his book. They had been in the library for close to four hours by that point, and they had still found nothing of any use. They knew that the house had been built in the early 1800's; 1803 to be exact. The last tenant of any note had been none other than Thatcher Wyatt, but he had only lived in the house for a year before abandoning it for England. He never sold it though. The house always passed to the next of kin, but no one ever moved into it. When the last of the family line died, it passed on to the county, but by that point it was in such bad condition that they just declared it condemned. It had been steadily rotting away ever since. They were all beginning to grow frustrated from the lack of details that they could find about that damned house.
Suddenly, Sam pulled the pen from his mouth with a triumphant pop and said, "Here's something. The name of the guy who built the house was Odius Hughs."
Dean and Dani both stared at him blankly for a moment.
"I didn't say it was something huge," Sam said, "I just said it was something."
Dani chuckled quietly, then eyed the stacks upon stacks of books that were piled haphazardly at the edge of their table. "No. That's something, Sam." She said, pushing up from the table, "I'll go see what I can dig up about this guy."
"Yeah," Dean said, snapping his book closed, "Since Sam found this Odius guy's name, he gets rewarded. With a break. We'll go and grab some lunch and bring it back here. What do you want, Dani?"
Dani groaned and stretched her arms back over her head, "I don't care as long as it's greasy and fattening."
"Can do." Dean said, grabbing his coat from the back of his chair and tossing Sam's to him. They headed out of the library as Dani disappeared back into the shelves.
After scanning the card catalogues and bookshelves, she returned to the table with three more books, each one roughly the size of an encyclopedia. She scanned the index and then flipped to the pages that she needed. Half an hour later, she was halfway through the relevant section of the second book when one of the paragraphs practically jumped out at her from off of the page. She sat up straighter in her seat, the pace with which she was reading doubled, and she began making speedy notes on the piece of scratch paper at her side. Then she read a sentence; one single sentence that put everything into perspective…and sent a chill through her down to her very soul.
"Oh, my God." She breathed aloud.
Author's Note: That's it for this chapter, and yes, I know that it was kind of slow. But trust me when I say that it is about to pick up. Promise. Oh, and please, please, please, review!