After an hour of sitting on the park bench across from the elementary school, the initial shock is beginning to wear off and the three have found themselves tossing out ideas as to how they should go about the situation they find themselves in.
"Hey. What day is it?" Lizzy questions, trying to formulate a true plan.
"Thursday," Sam answers, recalling the date on the newspaper.
"Lou always came home with Mom and me on Tuesdays and Thursdays because both of her parents worked late those days," Lizzy recollects. "So I guess I'll follow mom, Lou and myself when school gets out. You two can go after your own selves and see what's going on there."
"You're not going off on your own," Dean tells her determinedly. Lizzy doesn't respond with words. Instead she just looks at Dean with an expression that lets him know he's being overbearing once again. "Don't look at me like that, L."
"Don't be so over protective, Dean," she rebuts. "It's my family. They're really boring and we live in a quiet neighborhood where nothing ever happens."
"Right up until the night your parents got attacked," Dean rebuts with a solid arguing point. "And there are angels right on our asses."
"Lizzy, I hate saying it, but Dean's right," Sam adds in. "We have to be smart about this. I'm not too sure that splitting up is a good idea right now."
"At least not until we get some weapons," Dean tacks on, agreeing with his brother totally. "For now, we all stick together."
"So we just let John and, um, younger versions of you two go off and we don't follow them? At all?" Lizzy challenges.
"Pretty much," Dean answers. "We'll catch up to them later. Cas said to follow you, so that's what we're gonna do first."
"I'm not gonna win this one, am I?" Lizzy assumes once she sees the hard stance they're both taking on the issue.
"Not at all," Sam confirms for her.
"Fine," Lizzy grumbles, unused to not getting her way. With Sam and Dean she usually has their numbers and can get what she wants from them. Maybe they're right then.
The loud outdoor bell rings and takes the three hunter's attention away from the conversation for a moment. Soon enough, the side yard is flooded with screaming and running children climbing on playground equipment and chasing each other.
"Recess," Lizzy offhandedly announces as she stands up and looks both ways down the street. "Let's go."
"Where?" Dean asks her as she steps off the sidewalk and begins moving toward the recess yard.
"To go learn more about our former selves," she calls over her shoulder, never slowing her pace. Dean and Sam jump up and follow her as she makes her way across the street and around the chain-link fence marking the school's perimeter. She knows the area well and quickly finds the wooded space she remembered being at the back corner of the playground and ducks behind the thick bushes there.
"We look like pedophiles," Sam comments unhappily while kneeling on the grass and hoping that he's out of sight.
"We look like a lot of things a lot of times," Lizzy brushes off. It's true. They look suspicious whenever they're looking into any case. What's the difference now, really?
Lizzy spots and points to her younger self and Lou walking across the blacktop yard towards nothing in particular. They stroll side by side, Lou with a book in her hand as usual and reading while Lizzy spoke to her a mile a minute. "Who reads at recess?" she wonders aloud, hoping the offhanded comment will help ease the stress of what she's seeing.
"My nerd brother," Dean answers while nodding his head to a few feet in front of them. The three all look to see Sam sitting alone in the middle of a row of swings, engrossed in a book and avoiding all the other children. "Hundred bucks says he's still stewing over having to go to a new school today."
Lizzy's eyes light up when she spies the new kid off in the distance. She tugs on Lou's coat sleeve to get her attention and Lou lifts her head from her book. After Lizzy whispers into Lou's ear with a hand covering their conversation, they both look over in his direction and Lou nods. They quickly take off, jogging towards him with smiles on their faces.
"Hi!" Lizzy brightly yells to Sammy as they get closer to him. She sits down on a swing to his left while looking him over. "You're new, right?"
"Ah, yeah," Sammy timidly replies while lifting his eyes from his own book to meet Lizzy's for the first time.
"You have got to be kidding me," Sam mumbles from behind the brush, unable to fully accept what he's witnessing. "There's no way this happened."
"I'm Lizzy," the young girl informs him while pushing off the ground backwards to get the swing moving a little. "This is my best friend, Lou."
"Lou?" Sammy asks while making a weird face at her name.
"Yeah," Lou flatly says back to him. "Why?"
"Never heard of a girl with the name Lou before," Sammy shrugs off.
"It's short for Louise," Lizzy tell him matter-of-factly.
"Shut up, Lizzy!" Lou angrily shouts to her friend for giving away her real name.
"She always hated her full name, even then," Lizzy whispers to no one in particular, a small smile threatening to break through. She revels in the moment she gets to re-experience, though it makes her ache to have her best friend back in her life.
"I like the name Lou," Sammy says to her with a smile, clearly trying to recuperate from the slip up. "It's unique."
"Thanks," Lou bashfully says, picking at the binding of the book in her hand.
"I'm Sammy."
"What grade are you in?" Lizzy breaks in with her curiosity.
"Second," Sammy answers her while finally shutting his book.
"Who's your teacher?" Lizzy keeps prying.
"Um, Ms. Burnside."
"She's really nice," Lizzy lets him know. "You'll like her. She's…"
Lizzy's comment gets interrupted when a boy runs up behind her and pushes her in the back, making her fall forward off of her swing and onto the ground harshly.
Dean flinches with the sight out of instinct. Doesn't matter what time they're in or age they're at, he feels that tug in his soul to help her followed by the desire to pummel that little kid for what he did. Lizzy grabs his wrist, silently telling him to cool off when she recognizes his emotions.
"What the heck, Peter!" Lizzy shouts with fury as she gets up from the ground and sees who pushed her. As she brushes off her bare knees now covered in dirt and blood, Sammy stands up with an angry look aimed at the laughing bully. He drops his book onto the ground and tenses up his shoulders, ready to do what he can to help, but is highly surprised when Lizzy steps up and pushes Peter right back, making the bully only laugh harder with her weakness.
"Why did you do that!" Lou loudly yells, upset by what just happened to her friend.
"It's funny," Peter laughs.
Suddenly, Dean can be seen sprinting across the school yard right towards the group.
"Some things never change, huh?" Lizzy comments while nudging Dean with her shoulder.
Dean had been keeping an eye on his little brother, like always, and caught the rude and mean-spirited act as he did. He flies into the group of kids and shoves Peter, who is much younger and smaller than him, in the shoulders, making the kid stumble backward and trip over his own feet. Peter hits the blacktop butt first and looks up in shock.
"How do you like it!" Dean shouts to Peter as the bully gets back onto his feet.
"Get outta here, new kid!" Peter shouts back despite looking frightened while standing back up.
"You wanna try pushing me like that!" Dean retorts, stepping closer to Peter and eyeing him.
Peter takes a moment, looking between Sammy who is still staring daggers into him and Dean who's balled up fists look ready to fly. Before he can say anything or even run, Dean pushes him again.
"C'mon tough guy!" Dean tries, looking to invoke the kid a little more.
"Whoa!" an adult voice can be heard yelling. The entire group turns to face the teacher headed their way.
"Great," young Lizzy grumbles unhappily as the woman approaches with an angry face.
"Holy shit," Lizzy whispers, once more seeking the comfort of Dean's hand in hers. "Can't do this." He knows why immediately. The teacher marching over has the same dark and expressive eyes as Lizzy, along with the same body type, skin tone, even her gait. It's Lizzy's mother. Dean squeezes back, doing what he can to silently support her. He's already been through seeing his own mother again in the past and it was heartbreaking. He sympathizes completely with her, especially when he peers over at her pained expression. He might have to kill Cas for this one.
"What's going on over here?"
"Nothing, mom!" Lizzy embarrassingly says.
"Doesn't look like nothing," she returns while focusing on Peter and Dean. "Start talking, boys."
"This kid just pushed her for no reason," Dean points at Peter, ready to explain what's happening. "So I came over here to see how he'd liked it."
"He's lying, Mrs. Noonan," Peter claims, trying desperately to get out of trouble.
"Then why is my daughter bleeding?" Mrs. Noonan asks after seeing Lizzy's injuries.
"She just fell," Peter lies.
"No way!" Dean shouts out.
"Nuh-uh," Lizzy yells at the same exact time as Dean. "He pushed me for no reason."
"Alright Pete my boy, you know the drill," Mrs. Noonan tells him, pointing to the brick wall of the school building. Peter shuffles his feet to go take his punishment of standing against the wall for the remainder of recess. "Liz, go to the nurse and have her clean you up, ok?"
"Fine," Lizzy sadly says. She goes to leave, but pauses to turn back and smile at Dean, something sweet and earnest in her eyes. Dean just awkwardly smiles back while shuffling on his feet.
"And you," Mrs. Noonan focuses in on Dean. "Not even here two hours and you're already getting into trouble?"
"Sorry, ma'am," Dean respectfully apologizes just like his father had taught him to. "But that kid shouldn't be been picking on girls like that for no reason. It's not right."
Mrs. Noonan takes a long look at the new student with a stern expression, only breaking into a small smile towards the end of her silence.
"You know what?" she says to him. "You're right, he shouldn't have. But that doesn't mean you go picking fights. It's my job to intervene, not yours."
"She's so good," Lizzy quietly laments to no one in particular as a silent tear of pride and longing slowly rolls down her cheek. Her mother always had an unbelievable and solid understanding of people, especially kids. She knew how to deal with them based on pure instinct and she was damn good at her job. Lizzy held her mother in such high regard for moments exactly like this.
Seeing her tears, Sam drops a heavy hand onto her shoulder. His heart is absolutely breaking for her.
"You're right, ma'am," Dean says back. "I won't do it again, I promise."
"Also, you don't have to call me ma'am," Mrs. Noonan makes a disturbed face. "Makes me feel old. You think I'm old?"
Lizzy huffs a sad laugh at her mother's comment. So very like her to say such a thing. Breaking tension with humor; another thing she picked up from her mother.
"Not at all," Dean responds with the same suave smile he still uses to this day to get out of any and everything.
"Stick to Mrs. Noonan then," she tells him with the patented big, toothy smile that she passed on to her daughter. "Now go play. You only a few minutes left and I don't want you bouncing off the walls of my classroom the rest of the day."
"Thank you," Dean sighs, relieved to not be in any trouble. He smiles over to Sam before running off to rejoin the kickball game he'd been in the middle of.
Lizzy looks back over to Dean one more time after seeing him interact with her mother. As surreal, heart wrenching, and just awful in general as this experience has already been, Lizzy finds it actually heartwarming somewhere in the midst. Dean looks back and reaches out to wipe away some of her tears, hating seeing her crushed like this.
"You know that kid?" Lou asks Sammy, jerking her thumb in Dean's direction as he runs away.
"He's my brother," Sammy says with a hint of pride.
"Oh," Lou simply answers back, sitting into one of the swings with her book in her lap. "It was nice of him to stick up for Lizzy like that."
"He does that stuff all the time," Sammy explains while picking up his book, brushing it off, and dropping down next to Lou in another swing. "What're you reading?"
"Samantha Saves the Day," she says while holding up the book to show him the cover. "It's an American Girl book. They're really good."
"Ha," Dean reaches out and pokes Sam in the shoulder. "Samantha."
"Shh," Sam shushes back.
"It's like a really girly omen for the future," Dean pushes further.
"Shut up," Sam whispers back, desperate to not miss a word of their conversation. He never had long enough with Lou, so to see this previously unknown interaction is something he considers a gift. He won't let his brother ruin that for him.
"What you reading?" Lou asks as she tries to get a glimpse of the cover in his hands. Sammy holds out the quite hefty for a young child book for her to see.
"New England Ghost Files," he tells her, opening up to the page he left off on. "It's all ghost stories from this area, true ones."
"Sounds scary," Lou says with a worried face.
"It is, but it's cool," Sammy admits absently while diving back into the chapter he'd been working on. "Dean said it was good and that I should read it while we're here, so I'm giving it a try."
"Cool," Lou brushes off as she opens her own book. The two sit side by side silently, each engrossed in their own worlds, until the recess bell rings a few minutes later. Once she hears the sound, Lou calmly marks her page, closes her book and stands up. "Bye Sammy," she says and takes off running toward the class as it lines up. Sammy gets up also but keeps reading while slowly walking towards the school again. He's only interrupted for a few seconds when Dean runs past him, ruffling his hair.
"Jerk!" Sammy yells out to his brother as Dean gives him a taunting look before they all head inside to continue their day.
Lizzy turns away from the building and sits on the ground once all the students are inside. She brings her knees into her chest and hugs tightly, closing her eyes for just a moment in attempt to bring down her anxiety and clear out the last of her tears. She can feel the building tension inside of her. She's had a few panic attacks before and now would not be the time for another.
"Now we seriously need a plan," Dean announces, putting most of his focus on Sam while Lizzy takes a breather.
"Yeah," Sam answers as he tries to get himself out of the daze he's in. "A plan. Uh, we should head to Lizzy's house while no one's there. Look around, um, see if we can find out anything helpful."
"I agree," Dean says quickly, standing up and looking around the area to make sure they were alone. "And we probably need some kinda home base and weapons at some point, but without money that'll be tough. I only have a couple bucks in my wallet."
"Dad's in town," Sam reminds his brother. "We know he has a whole arsenal of weapons. Maybe we could borrow a few."
Dean looks at his brother with disbelief for a beat. "And how do you think we're gonna do that, Sam?" he asks while annoyed. "You wanna just walk up to him and say what? Hi John, I'm your son from the future, can I have a couple guns please. And some salt if you got it."
"We could steal them," Sam says simply, knowing that his idea was the opposite of simple. Dean looks at his brother dumbfounded.
"Let's call that our last resort," he rebuts while looking off in the distance for a parked car that no one would miss too much. "Stealing weapons from dad? Ha. Dude, he'd kill us."
"I never said it'd be easy," Sam says back before hearing it. Struggled breathing. He turns his head sharply to the side from his seat to see Lizzy curled up, forehead resting on her knees, and her back hitching erratically along with her attempted inhales. He immediately scoots over until he's right next to her and Lizzy reaches out to grab his forearm when she feels him close by. "Lizzy, you're fine."
Dean hears his brother's words of comfort and turns quickly to look down at them on the ground. Lizzy is balled up and shaking her head rapidly against her knees while digging her fingers into Sam's arm. Anxiety attack. It's been a long, long time since she's had one of these and Dean had only hoped she was done with them all together. Then again, this situation would make most people lose their cool.
"Not, not fine," Lizzy struggles without looking up. "No, no, no…"
"Hey, look at me," Sam calmly and soothingly asks of Lizzy and she lifts her head, her eyes meeting his. "You're ok. You have us and we'll figure it all out. You can do this."
"No, no. Nothing's… can't do it. No," Lizzy panics as she once again shakes her head no and drops it back onto her knees, her breaths continuing to come out broken and ragged. "Mom and Lou, no. I can't…"
Dean takes a seat on the ground in front of her, ready to bring her back down to Earth like he has in the past when this happens but Sam beats him to it. Having seen Dean do this before, he pries Lizzy's hand off of his arm and presses it flat against his chest.
"In and out, Lizzy," Sam says, pressing her palm hard against him. "Breathe with me, ok? You're alright. Dean's right here, so am I. You're not alone and together we can handle this, right Dean?" Sam looks to Dean with wide eyes, hoping to elicit his help.
"Of course," Dean tells her, running a hand through her hair and over the back of her head. "We can get through this. L, you're fine, more than fine."
Dean, shocked to see Sam handle her so well, surprisingly finds himself… angry? Odd, he thinks to himself as he sits in front of her, one hand grasping tightly to her free one and one hand on her knee to show her that he's there. He hates it, but he swears he feels a pang of jealousy at Sam's control of the situation, and control over her. Dean used to be the only one who could help her in times like this but now that Sam had grown close enough to earn that full trust she must have let him in completely. Dean should be happy about this, and he knows it, but something about it nags at him. Maybe those shifters hadn't been lying. Maybe they weren't trying to get him jealous so much as they were just plain telling the truth when they told him about Lizzy and Sam kissing. Once more he brushes aside the thought as best he can. They'd never do that. He knows they wouldn't.
"There you go," Sam encourages as he sees Lizzy's breathing finally start to even out. He covers over her hand on his chest with his own and closes his fingers around hers. "See, you're fine."
"Thanks," Lizzy forces out between breaths while her head is still lowered. She sighs aloud with the relief as it spreads through her and she turns her hand around, her palm against Sam's, and holds tight. "Sam-I-Am, thank you."
Dean reaches out to her, a hand cupping the side of her face and lifting it. She meets his eyes. "You back with us?"
"Yes," Lizzy returns. "I'm back, Hot Shot. Don't worry. Just temporary insanity."
"Well, you're allowed a moment of insanity on this one," he tells her with all honesty. "If you didn't lose your shit a little, I'd be concerned that you weren't human."
"Uh, I'm not," Lizzy huffs, recalling all that they'd just learned about her. "Or partially not at least."
"Yeah, don't remind me," he says back, holding a hand out to help her up.
"Sorry," she softly apologizes. She noticed how poorly Dean is taking the whole Nephilim link she has and she really should try and not bring it up if possible. He's had enough on his plate already.
"I know this is probably asking too much, but do you think you can handle taking us to your house?" Sam asks this with an empathetic look.
"I think so," Lizzy answers, brushing the dirt off her pants and standing tall. "I just need to get my head wrapped around all this. It just won't sink in, and seeing mom like that, and Louie with Sam… shit." Lizzy pauses to smile small up to Sam, happy he was able to help her like he did. Sam sheepishly smiles back but worries deep down if what he did was overstepping his bounds. Reeling Lizzy back in was Dean's job, but when he saw her in trouble he couldn't stop himself.
"I saw a shitty little Chevette across the street in that lot," Dean peers off in the distance. "I'll be right back." Dean quickly raises his eyebrows once and begins jogging in the direction of their intended transportation. Once he's gone, Lizzy finds herself staring at the brick school, specifically the third window in from the left.
"You really ok?" Sam checks on her after following her eye line and not finding what she's so fixated on.
"Not at all, dude," she responds in a faraway voice. "My mother is in there."
Sam keeps quiet, unsure of what to say.
"She was the best damn mother anyone could ever ask for," Lizzy tells him. "She didn't deserve what happened to her."
"Most of the people we lose don't," Sam tells her. "I wish you didn't have to go through this."
"Me too," Lizzy says, lingering on the window for just a few second more before turning back to him. "God damn it, Sam. This is…"
"Insane," Sam tries to finish for her.
"I was gonna say crazy."
"How about surreal?"
"Fucked up."
Sam lets out a small smile. "I like the last option."
"You know, I gave her that book," Lizzy changes the subject, her brain overloaded with all it just saw and switching from one topic to another. "I was obsessed with the Samantha series and made her read them. She loved them too."
It hurts just to look at her in the moment, her face addled with concern and body language still defeated from her panic attack. Seeing her so weak is not something Sam is used to. He hates it. Pulling an arm around her shoulders, he begins walking her out front to go meet Dean.
"You sure you can handle going home?" Sam asks down to her under his arm as they walk.
"I won't freak out again, if that's what you mean," Lizzy explains. "I got that out of my system for good."
"Ok, just…" Sam sighs. "If you need a break, or can't be in there, you gotta let us know."
"I'm fine, Sam. Shut up," Lizzy lightly returns, leaning her head against him and finding the comfort he's trying to give her.
"You really have been around us for too long," Sam tells her, hearing her words as if they'd come from Dean or his mouth instead.
"Far too long."