"You can do this," Sam whispers to himself, glancing once more over his shoulder to the craptastic stolen car of theirs parked on the side of the road about five houses away. He sees Dean's arm rise out of the driver's side window to give a thumbs up and Sam rolls his eyes. This sucks.
Turning back to the front door of Lou's childhood home, Sam raises a fist to knock on the door and pauses. His arm shakes with nerves but he forces himself to knock three times. Once it's done he drops his arm, stands a little taller, and panics on the inside when the door cracks open.
"Hello!" a smiling woman greets warmly as she looks at him. "You must be Sam!"
"H-hi," Sam nervously smiles back.
"Damn, you're tall," she comments, looking up at his height.
"Yeah," he huffs back, unsure of what to say. "So I've been told."
"You make me look like a midget!" she laughs, standing at only about five feet. "Come on in."
She stands aside, letting Sam into the house. Looking around he realizes it's the exact same layout as Lizzy's house but it looks completely different. There's stuff everywhere. Books, toys, school bags, it's a cluttered mess.
"Sorry, didn't pick up today," she excuses. "The kids were making me nuts after school and I never got the chance."
"Kids tend to do that," Sam brushes off. "It's fine."
"I'm Jane, by the way," she holds her hand out to him.
"Nice to meet you," Sam smiles back and shakes her hand while really looking at her. Blue eyes and blond hair; this must be where Lou got them from. Other than that, he doesn't see much of a family resemblance. Then Brian walked into the room.
"Hi there," the man calls out while walking over with his hand out. "I'm Brian."
"Sam," he greets and shakes another hand. There it is. Despite the darker coloring, he has Lou's nose, her eye shape, her entire bone structure. She looked just like her father.
"We're so glad you could come," Brian explains. "We have reservations to this great little place a few towns over and we'd hate to miss them."
"You ever been to Ronaldo's?" Jane asks.
"Nah," Sam smiles back. "Can't say that I have."
"I hear it's great," Jane smiles.
"Well, there's money on the table for pizza. Emergency numbers are on the fridge," Brian explains while pointing into the kitchen from where they're standing in the hallway. "The kids shouldn't be too bad. Derek usually just plays with his Legos and Lou will have Lizzy so they'll be plenty occupied."
"Just keep an eye on them," Jane warns. "They tend to get themselves into trouble with a lack of supervision."
"I can only imagine," Sam remarks, assuming the two girls are a lot like the two women they turned out to be. Jane and Brian look at Sam questioningly with his comment. Right, he's not supposed to know them yet. "I mean, um, Christy already warned me about them a little. Said they were great kids, just kinda high energy." What a save!
"Well she certainly got that right," Brian agrees as they hear the side door opening.
"We're here!" a small girls voice shouts out as a young Lizzy rounds the corner and nearly plows right into Sam. She stops in her tracks and looks straight up to him with a scrunched up face. "Who are you?" she wonders loudly.
"That's Sam, remember?" Cathy tells her as she joins the group with Paul. "Christy couldn't make it."
"Oh yeah," Lizzy recalls as she immediately changes her focus. Looking up the staircase she bellows out, "Louie!"
"Lizzy!" they hear another voice shout back. "I'm up here!"
With that Lizzy is pounding her feet up the stairs as fast as they will take her, hauling her sleeping bag and backpack along.
"Wow," Sam remarks with a grin after seeing how excited Lizzy was to hang out with Lou… which she already did at school and all afternoon. They never changed one bit.
"Yeah, you'll get used to it," Jane laughs off while dropping a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Anything else you need?"
"Nah, I think I can manage," Sam answers.
"Alright, we'll be back around ten or ten-thirty I'd say," Paul explains. "It is still a school night after all, right teach?" He jokingly elbows Cathy, earning a fake scowl in return.
"Sounds good," Sam tells them. "Go have fun."
"Will do," Brain grins as he ushers the group outside to leave. Once he's left as the only adult in the house, Sam sighs in relief. Tough part one, done. Now he has to go get tough part two done; meeting Lou.
He begrudgingly climbs the stairs, listening to the girl's chatting voices going a mile a minute as he does. Once at the top of the stairs he peers into the bedroom at the end of the small hallway. He sees a boy sitting on the floor engrossed in his scattered Legos. Must be Derek. He looks like he'll be an easy kid to watch.
A few steps more and he's standing in the doorway of Lou's bedroom. The two girls are digging through a big pink toy box with what looks like frilly clothing, plastic jewelry, and sparkly accessories in it.
"Hi Sam!" Lizzy loudly greets when she sees him in the doorway. She smiles up to him, her front tooth missing, and Sam can't help but grin. Her smile, sans a tooth, is still the damn same. Lizzy never lost her youthful side, being goofy at times and always overly excitable. She's definitely brought a brightness to his and Dean's lives with her presence and now he gets to see that same brightness at its beginning.
"Hi," Lou says a little calmer. "Want to play dress up?"
Looking at her, studying her, he realizes how much he's missed her. Her eyes are so bright, just like every time she'd be excited over something or have good news to share with him when she was older. She also smiled just like she did when happy over just about anything. God damn, it was her through and through, no matter the age.
"Do you wanna?" Lizzy asks, breaking his train of thought with her excited question.
"Um, nah, that's ok," Sam declines as nicely as he can through a struggled voice, but regrets doing so the minute the two girls look at him disappointed. Their saddened faces melt his heart completely.
"Please?" Lou begs up to him, her blue eyes peering up hopefully as she walks over to him. "Christy always does." She takes his much larger hand with both of hers and tugs hard, attempting to pull him over to the box of princess outfits and accessories.
"No, no," Sam starts to more forcefully turn them down as Lou pulls him to the floor. "This stuff is for you guys. Plus, there's nothing my size in there. And… I'm a boy." He sits on the floor Indian-style between the two of them because what choice did he have at this point.
"But you have hair like a girl," Lizzy rebuts as she stands up and walks behind him with some hair elastics on her wrist. She pokes fun of him, just like adult Lizzy does. She uses her pink, glittery hairbrush and starts combing through his locks, studying and planning how she was going to go about his makeover.
"Thanks," Sam caustically returns as Lou joins Lizzy and suddenly Sam find himself at the mercy of two very determined little girls who were clearly going to get their way.
"You think he's ok so far?" Lizzy wonders aloud as she and Dean stand before the front door.
"I'm sure he's fine," Dean brushes off as he knocks.
"Yeah, you never saw Louie and me as kids. We ate babysitters for breakfast."
As soon as the statement leaves her mouth they hear a raucous scramble on the other side of the solid door. They recognize Sam's voice as it's warning and asking them not to answer the door themselves since they don't know who it could be. He already sounds frenzied as the two little girls start yelling and screaming to him to open the door and see who it is.
The door opens halfway and Dean busts out laughing immediately.
"Jerk," Sam responds, his hair in a multitude of ponytails and braids. Lizzy covers her mouth, trying to block the smile she can't stop from forming. "I hate you, by the way," Sam tells her with disdain as his arm gets pulled by an unseen force, jerking his upper body a little.
"Aw, no you don't," she grins. "You still love me."
"No I don't. I hate both of… well, you," Sam repeats as the girls pop their heads out the door.
"Hi!" little Lizzy nearly shouts, excited to see the new people at the door. "Who are you guys?"
"We're friends of Sam's," Dean says to both girls, now dressed in princess clothing. "I'm Jack. This is Elizabeth."
"That's my name!" young Lizzy shouts excitedly while jumping up and down.
"Small world," Elizabeth, as she is going to go by for the night, forces a smile. Her eyes are transfixed on the tiny Lou she remembers so well. She looks happy and healthy and just so good, just like she should.
"People call me Lizzy though," young Lizzy explains.
"You two mind if my friends come in and hang out too?" Sam checks in with the young girls.
"Sure!" Lou tells them, pushing the door all the way open to let them in. "We're gonna order pizza soon! You can have some!"
"Awesome," Dean comments as he steps inside and looks around, Elizabeth following after him.
"Elizabeth, do you paint nails?" Lizzy asks up to her, the little girl clearly attaching herself to the woman already based alone on sharing a name. "We did makeup and hair and clothes, but we need manicures."
"Sure," Elizabeth tells her, feeling the surreal experience becoming more and more comfortable as she stands in the house she knows as well as her own. She's always felt at ease in Lou's house and around Lou and that feeling comes right back when she steps inside the still happy household. This is turning out to be much less scary than she'd assumed it'd be.
"Louie! Elizabeth is gonna paint our nails!" Lizzy shouts out loudly, running up the stairs as she does to grab their supplies. Lou joins her quickly and for a few seconds the three hunters get some peace.
"I'm gonna get you off the hook for a little bit I think," Elizabeth smiles to Sam.
"Thank you," Sam gratefully returns, already overrun by the small tornadoes.
"Hey, Sammy," Dean calls from behind him. Sam turns to look at him and is immediately greeted by Dean's phone in his face. With the click of a button, Dean has proof of Sam's embarrassing moment saved on his phone.
"Such a fucking ass, dude," Sam complains while reaching quickly out to snatch the phone from him, Dean sharply pulling it out of reach just in time.
"You think I'm just gonna let this golden opportunity go?" Dean asks incredulously. "Have we met?"
"You know, I always wondered what it would be like to be an only child," Sam remarks while looking to Elizabeth. "Seems like more fun."
"Wow, are you two aware that you revert to children the second you're around them?" Elizabeth comments while pulling Sam to sit on the couch. She begins taking out the girl's handiwork in his mop for him. "Hard to say no to us, isn't it?"
"Impossible," Sam complains. "You guys are cute and evil."
"Yes we were and it's a deadly combo. You shoulda seen the first babysitter we had. Let's just say after one night with us, she never came back."
"Oh you bad asses," Dean patronizes her, earning a joking glare back.
"Alright, I'm gonna do some manicures and talk to them, see if there's anything I can get outta them that I don't already know," Elizabeth explains while still working on Sam's hair. "Someone check on Derek and the other order pizza."
"I call pizza," Dean says quickly and Sam sighs.
"I already dealt with Thing One and Thing Two," Sam complains to Dean with annoyance. "You're turn."
"Nah, I already called it," Dean smirks while walking into the kitchen as Sam sulks a little in his seat.
"You better order at least one cheese," Elizabeth yells to him as footsteps are heard pounding down the stairs.
"Yes! Cheese pizza is the best pizza," little Lizzy confirms for them.
"It's the only one I like," Lou informs the group as they walk through the living room to sit at the kitchen table with their big box of nail supplies.
"It's the only kind any kid likes," Elizabeth remarks, knowing how true her statement is. She did enough babysitting in her own day to know that as fact.
"Ok then, one cheese, one sausage and pepperoni," Dean smiles as he reaches for the phone.
"Gross," Sam quietly says. Elizabeth laughs at the disagreement.
"De, ah, Jack!" Elizabeth quickly covers her mistake. "How about one cheese, one pepperoni? That makes everyone happy." Again, her babysitting experience is coming in handy. She knows how to get a solid compromise out of kids… or adult brothers for that matter.
"I thought this was my job?" Dean gripes to the group.
"Just order the pizza already, Jack," Lou complains exaggeratedly, much like she always did in her adult life, and Lizzy nods her head in total agreement while sitting next to her, much like Lizzy always did in her adult life. Dean shutters with the Twilight Zone version of the girls he knows already.
"Whatever," Dean grumbles after a second, knowing the two were going to somehow win anyways, and starts dialing the phone as he was told to.