Disclaimer: The characters of Supernatural do not belong to me. The original character of Evelyn Winchester does.
Chapter Three
Dinner and Bedtime
Though Evy's request for pie earned an eye roll from Sam, they both took her for pie and spent the rest of the day with her. Dean ran around the yard chasing her, grabbing her and flying her through the air. Sam took her to his room, where he sat her on the bed and played Finding Nemo for her. Though he had dreaded watching it when it was her favorite movie growing up, he relished watching her see it for the first time again. Dinner had been an interesting adventure. Evy wanted to help, but Sam couldn't find anything in the bunker other than some junk food, the ingredients for the monkey sandwiches, and some days old leftover pizza. So an impromptu family trip to the grocery store became the bulk of their afternoon. While there, an older woman in her sixties approached Sam.
"Is she your daughter?" she asked.
Sam, who had been looking at some fruit juice for Evy, jumped. "I'm sorry?"
"Is she your daughter?" the woman repeated.
She nodded towards the end of the aisle, where Dean was holding Evy and planning something. What exactly, he couldn't tell, and he was absolutely certain that he didn't want to know. Sam smiled and chuckled, then turned back to the woman.
"Yes. She is." Sam said.
"She's absolutely adorable." The woman said. "She looks just like you. You're a lucky man."
Sam hadn't thought of himself as lucky in a very long time. He smiled and said, "Thank you. I am a lucky man."
Sam finished getting dinner and left, Dean holding the bags and Evy clinging to Sam. Sam had a sudden burst of inspiration, and stopped at Goodwill to get a couple changes of clothes for Evy and a set of PJs. She helped Sam with dinner, more so than Dean, who tried to eat everything before it was ready. A couple hours later, around 8:30pm, as Sam finished with giving Evy a bath and changing her into her PJs, she started to yawn. She leaned into Sam's shoulder heavily.
"Sammy, I'm tired." She whined.
Sam sighed and patted her back. This was the part of the day he had been dreading the most. If he could, he would keep her up the entire four days. He wanted to hold her, talk to her, make her laugh, enjoy as much time with her as she could. But that just wasn't possible. So Sam scratched her back and said softly,
"Let's put you to bed, huh?"
Evy nodded and let Sam pick her up and carry her to bed. You must be exhausted. Sam thought. You stopped letting me carry you to bed when you were three. Sam took her down the hall and into the bedroom right next to his. He showed her where he was sleeping, then went in the room he had briefly set up for her. He wished he could've done more with it, but all he had had time for was making the bed and putting in Beanie, which he had dug out of a box of Evy's stuff that he kept in his bedroom closet. Sam laid Evy down on the bed, and tucked her in.
His heart ached as he tucked her in. He had numbed himself to his grief for Evy. He'd had to in order to halfway function. Sam found it ironic that the person who had caused him the most joy in the world had also caused him the deepest, most profound heartache. When Evy was finally settled in bed, she looked up and smiled at him. Sam took one long moment to take everything in. He brushed her hair away from her face, and wished for a minute he could stop time.
"Good night, Cricket."
Evy yawned. "Good night, Sammy."
"If you need me, call out, okay? I'll be here in two seconds flat." Sam assured her.
Evy nodded. "Will you stay?" she whispered. "Till I go to sleep?"
Sam smiled. Exactly the request he'd been hoping for. "You bet."
Evy smiled. She grabbed Sam's hand and put it on her belly, then turned on her side with her back to Sam. Sam smiled and took the hint, lifting up the back of her pajama shirt and gently scratching her back. Less than five minutes later, her breathing was long and drawn out. Sam stood up, kissed her cheek, and finally left the room. He walked out towards the kitchen, more memories playing in the back of his mind.
Sam was frustrated. They had been at the hospital for a day and a half. The doctors were growing more and more concerned with Evy's condition. It wasn't deteriorating, but it was not improving either. She was just asleep, and refusing to wake up. Her heart rate, temperature, and everything else was completely normal. Her reflexes were good. No one could figure out what was going on.
Sam read to her, sang to her, even tried shaking her awake when the doctors weren't looking. Nothing was working. He was entering his second night in the hospital. Dean, Bobby, and John had come for most of the day. John had repeated his instructions to Sam, then headed out.
The sun had long since gone down. Sam was sitting next to Evy's bed, reading to her again, when he was interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. When he looked up, Sam saw one of the nurses with a brown bag in her hand. She was a kind looking woman, with long brown wavy hair. She looked only a few years older than Sam.
"Hey, sweetie, are you okay?" she asked.
"I don't know." Sam said. "Are you taking her for more tests?"
The nurse laughed. "Sweetie, I meant you." She said. "I came to check on you. Are you okay?"
"Oh." Sam was startled. He'd been so wrapped up with Evy that he hadn't expected anyone to ask about him. "I'm okay. Just worried."
"Have you eaten today?" she asked.
"Um…" Sam had eaten, but only bits and pieces.
The nurse smiled. "That's okay. That's what I thought." She handed Sam the brown bag. "My brother fixed this for me for dinner. You take it."
"What…" Sam looked inside. "Is that…?"
"Peanut butter and bananas." She said. "He's been making them for me since I was little."
Sam laughed. "I thought I was the only one." Sam nodded towards Evy. "She loves them."
The nurse smiled. "You eat, sweetie."
"What about you?" Sam said. "I can't take your dinner."
"You can and you will." She said, pushing the bag towards him.
Sam laughed. There was something familiar about the nurse. She felt like a kindred spirit, someone he was connected to in some way that he couldn't explain. He took the bag from her and smiled appreciatively.
"Thank you." Sam said.
"You're welcome." She said. She glanced at Evy then back at Sam. "You are a very good brother. Has anyone ever told you that?"
Sam stopped midbite and looked at the nurse thoughtfully. The truth was, only one person had told him that lately.
"She does." Sam said, pointing at the bed. "All the time."
"She loves you." The nurse said. "She loves you and wants you to know that."
"Yeah." Sam suddenly looked sad. "I used to take it for granted. Now that she hasn't said it in a whole day, I miss it."
"You know," the nurse said, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, "I'm not really supposed to say this, but your sister's going to be okay."
Sam looked up at the nurse with unshed tears in his eyes. "How do you know?" he asked.
"Trust me, kiddo." She said. "She'll be back soon. She's just taking an extended nap."
"Sam!"
Sam was startled out of his daydream by Dean's voice. He had made it all the way to the kitchen, and had been so wrapped up in his memories that he had no recollection of making the trip there. Dean was looking at him concerned.
"You okay?" he asked. "I called you like six times."
"Yeah." Sam said. "Sorry."
Sam sat down at the table, running his fingers through his hair. He hadn't realized how tired he actually was until he sat down with nothing else to think about. Dean went to the fridge and grabbed a beer, then set one in front of Sam too. No one said anything, both of them still too flabbergasted to know what to say. After a few minutes of silent contemplation, Dean finally asked,
"Sam? You okay?"
Sam took a long, slow drink of his beer before answering, and Dean waited patiently. Was he okay? How was he supposed to answer that question? He'd dreamed every day for Evy to come back. Now she was, in a way, but not permanently. Sam was grateful, but he was also pissed. What kind of cruel twist of fate would do this to him? Bobby's words from years earlier floated to the front of Sam's mind, and made him have to take a deep, ragged breath. She's the love of my life. How many times do I have to kill her? Sam had lost so many people already. He hadn't thought it was possible, but he'd lived through losing Evy. Halfway lived through it, anyway. Every day was a struggle. Fifteen minutes of peace would vanish when he'd suddenly remember something Evy had said or done. Though he relished the fact that he still had clear, vivid memories of her, both as a child and an adult, the memories always caused the constant dull pain he'd become accustomed to to sharpen. Sam began to speak, using the opportunity to sort out his own feelings.
"I lost her once."
Dean narrowed his eyes in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"I lost her once." Sam repeated, staring intently at his beer bottle. "She was…two, maybe three, I don't remember exactly. You and Dad were on a hunt, me and Evy were staying at Bobby's. She was really, really hyper." Sam laughed humorlessly. "She needed to run off some energy, so I took her to the park. I had to go to the bathroom about thirty minutes after we got there. I took her to the family one, and I told her to put her hand on the bathroom sink and don't move it until I come out."
"And she did?" Dean guessed.
"Yep." Sam confirmed. "I couldn't have been in there more than, two, three minutes, but she got antsy and left. I found her back on the other side of the park. She'd gotten impatient and gone back to play where we'd been before."
"Wow." Dean said. "What'd you do?"
"Yelled at her. Mostly." Sam said. Dean caught Sam's hidden meaning behind 'mostly' and said nothing. "Anyway, she was crying, so I picked her up and took her to a park bench and just held her for probably ten, fifteen minutes. I didn't want to let her go." A tear escaped down Sam's cheek. He waited another few seconds before speaking again. "The reason I was so crazy when she died, was because my brain kept thinking about that day at the park. And I kept thinking that, maybe, if I just let myself feel the pain, the worry of losing her, that, maybe after a few minutes I'd find her again."
Dean wasn't sure how to respond.
Sam sniffed, and when he spoke again, his voice was breaking. "Dean, I don't know if I can let her go again."
This time Dean did know what to say. "Maybe we shouldn't."
Sam finally looked at Dean. "What do you mean?"
"I'm saying maybe we shouldn't send her back." Dean said. "Maybe we should keep her. Raise her."
"Dean…" Sam said.
"Think about it." Dean said. The idea had been floating in his head all day, but he hadn't wanted to say anything in front of Evy. "Think about all we'd be saving her from. You going to Stanford. Watching Jess die. Watching me and you die. Sam, we'd be saving her from Lillith."
Sam wanted to object, but found that he couldn't. Dean had a point that Sam honestly hadn't thought about. All the bad things Evy had been through in her life would be erased if they didn't send her back to face them. Dean could tell that Sam was thinking seriously about it, but both their thoughts were cut off by a bloodcurdling scream coming from down the hall.
"LET ME GO!"
Both boys raced down the hall towards the room Sam had just put Evy down to bed in less than half an hour earlier. Sam flung the door open and flipped the light on quickly. Dean came behind him, gun drawn. But the only other person in the room was Evy. She was kicking and thrashing on the bed, still screaming and crying. Dean holstered his gun, and Sam flew next to Evy. He sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed Evy's arms, calling her name loudly. It took five times of yelling her name for Evy to wake up. She fought Sam at first, until she realized it was him. When she realized she was safe, she crumpled into a heap in Sam's arms, sobbing.
"Shh." Sam cooed. "Sammy's here. You're safe, baby. Shh."
"Sammy." Evy managed between sobs.
It sickened Sam when he realized he could feel her tears underneath his shirt. "You're safe. Shh. It's okay, baby, I'm here."
Evy continued muttering something, but she was crying so hard Sam couldn't make it out. When she had calmed a little, Sam's heart dropped when he realized what she was saying. "Want my Sammy. I wanna go home."
Sam shut his eyes tightly. When he opened them, tears were streaming down his own face. She wanted the Sam she knew, the version of him twenty years earlier. Sam looked to Dean, who was also crying softly. They both realized what they had to do. It killed them, but it was necessary. Sam spoke first.
"We'll get you home, Cricket. I swear. We'll get you home."
Evy continued to cling to Sam and cry. Dean eventually sat with them, offering the occasional pat on her back. When she had calmed to only hiccups and the occasional sniffle, her head still resting on Sam's chest, Sam wiped her face and decided to broach the subject of the nightmare.
"Cricket? You want to tell me what you were dreaming about?"
Evy firmly shook her head.
"Please? It might make you feel better." Sam prodded gently.
She said nothing for a few seconds, then said, "Fire. I was in a dark room, there was someone in there with me. Then the room lit on fire. I was trying to call you, but there was no sound…"
Sam was shocked. Dean was too. Evy had told them about having this dream right before Jess died. But she'd been twelve when that happened, years after being in the hospital. Was this a side effect of the time travel? Either way, it meant one thing. If it continued, she would continue to relive all the bad things they wanted to protect her from. Sam held her closer to him, rocking her slightly. When he noticed her eyelids were getting heavier, he asked gently,
"You ready to go back to sleep?"
Evy pushed back from Sam slightly. She sat up and looked to him first, then to Dean. She was still breathing hard. Her watery eyes hurt both Sam and Dean's hearts, and what she said next almost made them both start crying again.
"Can I sleep with you?" she asked softly.
Sam kissed her cheek and pushed her hair out of her face. "Of course you can." He stood and picked her up, blanket, Beanie, and all, and prepared to take her with him to his room.
"Deanie?" she asked.
Dean stepped beside Sam. "Yeah, kiddo?"
"Will you come too? Till I go to sleep?" she asked.
"Sure thing, short stuff." Dean said, planting another kiss on her cheek. A thought occurred to him. "I've got an idea. Sam, take her to my room."
Sam was curious, but walked down to Sam's room. Dean followed right behind them. Dena went to the corner of his room and pulled out the large leather recliner he kept there. He pulled it next to the bed and turned it sideways. He motioned for Sam to sit down as he went to his closet and pulled out a large fleece blanket. Dean sat down on the edge of the bed and placed a comforting hand on Evy's back.
"There. Now Sam can hold you while I fight off the monsters. How's that?"
Both men breathed a sigh of relief when Evy smiled and nodded. "Thank you, Deanie." She said sweetly, in between a yawn that escaped as she talked.
"You're welcome, baby girl." Dean said. "I love you. Sweet dreams."
"Love you 'oo." She said, yawning again.
As Dean wrapped the blanket over Sam and Evy, Sam scratched her back, the rhythmic motion making her fall quickly into a deep sleep. As Dean turned out the lamp and laid down in his own bed, Sam kissed the top of her head.
"Good night, my angel." He whispered.
