Firefly – Chapter 6

By: Suz

Sam had returned to find Emily sliding a bright green color across the pages of her coloring book. Spread out over a low, wooden coffee table were several printed coloring books, all featuring princesses or other fairytales. He was glad they were the sanitized Disney versions of royalty and not the morbid Grimm tales he'd tangled with as a hunter.

Ellen's office had the feel of a sanctuary. It was a much more comfortable place to hang out than the barroom on the other side of the wall. Ellen's messy desk was over to the side but a fat, overstuffed sofa and chair took up most of the room and it gave Emily a place to get lost in her artwork.

The little girl had yet to acknowledge him in any direct way, but she'd obediently followed him from the building confrontation between the other two adults. She seemed more willing to take the risk of being with a stranger than stay with raised voices and tension. Emily had walked into the room, plopped down on a floor pillow, and started coloring. Her eyes and hands were completely focused on a butterfly sitting on Snow White's hand.

"Snow White, huh?" Sam said, easing down on the sofa beside where she sat. Her head was right beside his knee and he had to resist the urge to pat those curls. "Is that a green butterfly? Cool."

Almost obsessively, she continued filling in the butterfly until every empty space was bright green. Once finished, she moved on to making a squirrel hot pink. After a few strokes, she stopped, dropping her crayon into the fold of the book. Grabbing an orange crayon, she picked up a Little Mermaid coloring book and opened it up in front of Sam. She flipped to an empty page, put the crayon on the table, then returned to her own picture.

"You want to share? Thanks," Sam said, pleased that she'd made some contact. Rubbing the color across the beige-toned page, he spent the next few minutes in silence, trying to share Emily's quiet world.

Maybe she was his niece, maybe not. Right now, it didn't matter who she was and it didn't take a psychic to know this kid was desperately in need of someone to help bring her back to the world. Dean had suddenly, out of the blue, decided to declare this little girl his own. It was almost unsettling to watch the speed at which his older brother had handed over his show-me-the-facts card for a birth certificate with his name on it. Sam had seen the moment on Dean's face when he switched gears from calculation to decision. Dean had studied the little girl's face with such intensity, almost scanning and processing information like a machine. Then all of Dean's features had softened at once, right before he told Emily he was her father.

Emily was pressing the color into the page so that every stroke was thick and shiny. Each image was nearly three dimensional with color. The trees surrounding Snow White were now becoming orange with purple apples.

"I had a friend who was an artist and she said it was boring to paint things the colors they were supposed to be," Sam said, grabbing another crayon from the pile in the center of the table. "We're not boring, are we?"

She didn't stop her work or appear to hear him at all. The sun over Snow White and her hot pink squirrel friend was turning a soft shade of lavender.

The door creaked open slowly. Dean pulled himself into the room a piece at a time, first peeking his head inside as if he were waiting for permission. Sam waved him over, privately enjoying the sight of his brother intimidated by a silent four-year-old girl. Trying to fake normalcy, Dean walked into the room and stopped beside Emily's spot on the floor.

"So," he said, fumbling with his hands in his pockets. "We're coloring?"

"Emily, he's a genius," Sam said, pointing toward the empty spot on the sofa.

Dean took his place on the cushions, leaning forward on his elbows. "This not-too-funny ape is my little brother and he's just jealous because I'm the good looking one." He leaned in for a stage whisper. "Let's not rub it in that we're prettier than he is."

Ellen had been standing at the door and Sam caught a quick glimmer of sadness in her eyes. It moved on swiftly as she let go of her control over Emily. "It looks like you have this well in hand, Gentlemen. It's Sunday so the bar's closed tonight. Should be quiet," she said, warmth obvious in her voice despite the sadness. "I'm going into town for a while. Just pick whatever rooms you want upstairs and make yourselves at home."

"You're leaving?" Dean's voice was a little too high, a little too panicky.

"You'll do fine," Ellen said, grabbing her purse from behind her desk. "I'll be back soon. There's Kool-Aid and PB&J in the kitchen. She seems to like that."

"Me, too, kid," Dean said, putting his hand on Emily's head, only to have her pull away. His hand stayed still in the air, then disappointment curled his fingers closed and he put his hand back in his lap. Emily stayed focused on her coloring book and had begun to add her own elements to the drawing. Tiny red flames were being pressed into the corners of the page, surrounding the princesses.

Sam could see the excitement drain from his brother's eyes and Dean's shoulders slumped a bit in defeat. Dean had accepted Emily so quickly but that feeling was clearly not running both ways. Dean continued to stare at the back of Emily's head, his confident posture crumbling.

Ellen cleared her throat from her spot at the door. When they looked up at her, she mouthed the word, "Patience," and left.

With their safety net out the door, Sam searched to find a way to help his brother. His older brother was a fixer but this fix wouldn't come easily or quickly. Dean had committed but had no idea how to start. "You know what, Emily?" Sam said, ignoring the disturbing flames she was building up with layer upon layer of color. "When I was your age, this guy here, your dad, took care of me when our dad couldn't. He still won't let me pick the music we listen to in the car, but I can always count on him. So can you."

Sam smiled at his brother and the gratitude he saw didn't need words. Sam got up then, deciding to give Dean privacy to find his own way to reach Emily. "I'm going to get the stuff out of the car," he said. "See you two later." And then they were alone.

After Sam left the room, Dean felt the heavy silence pressing down around them. Emily had moved on to another page, apparently oblivious to the uncomfortable tension. Dean envied her insulation.

He leaned back against the cushions, watching as Emily created her own artificial sanctuary. The flames on her drawing didn't shock or disturb him. It was her way of telling everyone what had happened to her in the only way open to her. Dean understood that and saw it for the positive release it was.

Still a hundred different scenarios were playing through his mind about those flames and the nightmare that had destroyed Emily's world, all of them evil. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, trying to shove those thoughts out of his head. Right now, he had to be in the moment with this little girl.

"Emily," Dean said, not expecting her to respond, "I know you miss your mom and I can't replace her. Nobody could do that. I can't undo what happened either, but I want you to know you're safe with me. I'm going to do my best to get this right, whatever that means."

The child just kept on coloring. Dean decided to believe she understood him and let her keep going as he watched over her shoulder.

***

No matter where they stayed, the Winchesters had set supplies that came in from the Impala. Dean's gun and Dean's knife were never far from his pillow. Sam was less paranoid and was content to stow his weapons in his duffle bag under the bed. The shotguns and other supplies came in on an as needed basis.

It took Sam two trips to haul the supplies and personal gear upstairs. With the mysterious circumstances surrounding the attack on Emily, "as needed" seemed to apply to the situation. Sam had grabbed an extra bag and stuffed it with a flask of holy water, a box of salt, two shotguns with regular and salt rounds, and what used to be called Ruby's knife. It had stopped being Ruby's knife years ago.

Sam dropped Dean's heavy bag onto the bed in the room at the top of the stairs. Dean always preferred point in any operation and his control issues would be satisfied if he could be the one to monitor comings and goings on the stairs. His burden now lighter, Sam shoved open the door to the next room, let the bags fall, and flopped down on the bed. His body bounced heavily before it settled into the comfort.

He could feel the sleep easing up through his body and closing his eyes. After the last job, the drive, and the family bomb that had exploded downstairs, Sam Winchester needed to sleep. He needed to ignore the urge to open his laptop and start digging around for the Austin Fire Department's report on Calley Rail's apartment fire. He needed fight the desire to google Calley's name and find her picture on the net. He desperately needed to sleep instead of tracking down Lindsey Deaton's phone number.

"Shit," Sam muttered to himself, reaching one long arm down beside the bed to yank his laptop onto his stomach.

It didn't take long to get where he needed to go. Years of embracing his lawless hacking skills made local government files little to no challenge at all. The report and photos popped up too almost quickly for him to prepare.

Arson. It wasn't a shock to see those words, but the point at which the blaze originated was disturbing. He saved the file for later and continued. Scrolling down, he found another shocker. Two fatalities. Quickly, he cross referenced the coroner's report. Calley's body was identified and the cause of death wasn't some quiet suffocation from smoke. She'd burned alive along with the body of a Jane Doe. When the photos rolled up onto the screen, Sam jerked himself erect on the bed.

The charred bedroom filled up the screen, black and crisp in its horror. Burned dolls and stuffed animals sprawled across the remains of a twin bed and a small suitcase leaned against the wall like some oversized charcoal brick. In the center of the photo lay two blackened bodies. They weren't side by side as if two people had struggled to free themselves from the room and passed out. They were entwined, one on top of the other, with the hands of one melted around the other's throat in a death grip that fire couldn't force apart.

Sam sat the laptop down on the bed and took a moment to put himself in that room. Emily had been in that room. She'd seen that battle to the death, almost to her death. One of those bodies was her mother. He closed his eyes against the flood of his own memories of another mother surrounded by fire, of Jess roasting over his head. No one should have that in their mind, especially not a little girl.

"Hey." Dean's voice came from the door, startling Sam away from the macabre photograph and his memories.

Snapping the lid closed, Sam said, "How's everything going?"

Dean walked into the room, exhaustion heavy in his steps. "Ellen came back and she's giving Emily a bath," he answered, easing down on the edge of the bed. "I tried to get her to eat but she kind of, I don't know, ignored me."

"Smart girl," Sam said, watching his joke fall flat when Dean refused to even fake a smile. "Look, Dean, you've just got to be—"

"Patient. I know," Dean answered, sharply. Rubbing his temples with one hand, he softened his voice as he said, "She's scared of me."

"She's scared of everybody, Dean," Sam said, slinging his legs off the bed and landing his feet on the floor.

"She's not scared of Ellen."

"She's been with Ellen for a week and, if you notice, she just barely lets Ellen touch her. Give it some time," Sam said, watching the failure written across his brother's face. "Just let her come to you."

"Yeah," Dean answered in a near whisper. Turning his attention to Sam's hastily closed laptop, he asked, "What did you find?"

It was going to be business for a while. Sam grabbed up the machine and opened it. "The fire marshal's report says arson," he said, flipping away from the gruesome photo and back to the report, "but look at the flashpoint of the fire."

Dean leaned closer to the screen, "Inside Calley's body? Like someone poured something in her and set her on fire?" He was trying to be professional but he couldn't help the emotion that punctuated his voice.

"No, like the fire started inside the body of the Jane Doe, not Calley," Sam answered, reaching over to click to the next page. He thought it better to get it over with quickly.

"Jesus." Dean whispered the word toward the computer screen, taking in the horror. His eyes focused on the bodies twisted together in mortal combat. "Which one is which?"

"I think Calley's hands are on the other woman's throat."

"Where was Emily?" Dean kept his eyes fixed on the screen, until Sam clicked away to the report.

"The fireman pulled her from behind the bed under the window," Sam said, keeping his voice as level as possible.

"What the hell happened in there, Sam? Who was the Jane Doe? Was Calley trying to fight her off? Was she after Emily or Calley?" Dean had reached to click back to the photographs and Sam stopped him.

"I think we have to go there to find out, Dean." Sam closed the browser. "There's only so much we can get from here."

Dean stood up and began to pace. "Emily saw all of that," he whispered as if he were talking to himself.

Sam watched Dean stalking around the room, trying to process what he'd seen. He wanted to tell his big brother that Emily would be okay, that she may not have seen it all, that maybe she was so young she wouldn't remember at all, that she might have been unconscious already from the smoke. He wanted to say those things while Dean paced around the room silently trying to formulate a plan to fix Emily.

But, it would have been a lie. No kid could ever be okay after that. She'd learn to live around those horrors in her head, but they'd be there always, affecting who she was and how she felt about life. Dean knew it, too. Emily now belonged to the nightmare club they'd shared since they were children.

Sam cleared his throat, and started typing again. "I was going to try to find a picture of Calley," he said, beginning his online search.

Dean yanked a chair over beside the bed and watched the screen over Sam's shoulder.

"Okay, I think this is her on this MySpace page," Sam said, not looking up from his work. "It's tagged on…must be one of her friends pages…here…it says 'The Divine Miss Em and Mama Calley in Galveston'." Sam let the large photo fill up the screen.

Instantly two bright smiling faces popped onto the screen. They were on the beach with a brilliant blue sky behind them. Emily was smiling with her cheek pressed against Calley's face, her hair in a messy ponytail blowing around in the wind. Calley's hair was a light blonde and raining down around her face in waves. Her blue eyes were happy and alive. Calley's smile was a mirror image of Emily's, all teeth and happiness with nothing held back. A small hand was resting on Calley's neck and the two of them were tangled up in each other's touch.

Dean ran a finger across the screen. It was the kind of photo that couldn't be staged. It was just a wonderful moment caught by accident that said everything good about the people in it.

"Look at that. They were happy." Dean said it as if he were relieved to know Emily had once been happy.

"Do you remember Calley now that you see her face?" Sam asked, watching Dean study the photograph.

He shook his head. "Damn it, I should be able to remember sleeping with this woman, Sam. I mean, look at her. How could I be drunk enough or stupid enough to not remember her?"

"Maybe you didn't sleep with her, Dean. It is possible you didn't."

Sam barely got the words out when Dean spun away from the laptop and snatched two handfuls of his shirt. He yanked Sam up until they were almost nose to nose.

Dean's voice was nearly a growl. "I'm going to say this one time. Don't ever bring that up again. You hear me?!"

"Dean, you need to find out—"

Dean shook him with one sharp jerk. "Shut up, Sam! The freakin' subject is closed. Permanently!"

Sam watched the anger in his brother's eyes slow fade from a boil to a simmer as he loosened his grip and let him go. Until that moment, Sam hadn't realized the desperation Dean had attached to holding on to Emily. His attachment wasn't tenuous; it was permanent.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam said, trying to express his deep regret. "I wasn't trying take this away from you, man."

"Nobody is taking her away from me," Dean said, standing up and heading for the door. He looked away, trying to shake off the anger and pull his voice back to normal. "I'm going to see if Ellen's finished. Emily has to go back to the clinic in the morning so when we get back, you and I can make a plan."

"Yeah," Sam responded, trying to settle himself after the confrontation. "I'll see what else I can find."

Dean didn't say anything else, just nodded and headed back into the hall.

Sam made himself comfortable and returned to his typing after saving the photo of Emily and her mother.

****************

Dean tried in vain to walk silently over the wooden floor in the hallway. Damn creaking floorboards popped with his every step. It was midnight and after only an hour of sleep, he'd popped awake and had to check in on the little girl who had his name. Hours earlier, he'd watched her kneel beside her bed, say a prayer inside her own head, then crawl under the covers. It was a ritual she must have done with her mother, the mother who was ashes now, and Emily was hanging on to it. Ellen had been there with him but she backed out of the room, leaving him to kiss the little girl goodnight as she stared up at him silently.

He'd almost touched her forehead with a kiss but he'd stopped when he got close enough to see the tension wrinkle Emily's face. She didn't have to be touched by anybody she didn't want and that included him. He'd whispered, "Night, Cutie," and pulled away.

He eased the door open, sliding his head inside to grab a quick look. He'd only been her father for the past nine hours and he was overwhelmed by the need to protect her, to see with his own eyes that she was safe and sound. They had very little information to go on to figure out what had burned through Emily's life, which meant the enemy had the advantage. Tomorrow, he and Sam could start to piece things together. Dean Winchester was a novice at parenting, but he had a Ph.D. in tracking down evil sons of bitches that set fire to mothers and children. Every time he'd looked at the gauze wrapped around Emily's tiny arm, he felt rage flame up in his gut. He was going to find the bastard and kill it, and then Emily would be safe.

He stepped over the salt line he'd poured at her door before he'd turned in, scanning the shape on the bed. Moonlight poured through the window, puddling on the floor just before it reached Emily's bed. It took a moment to adjust his eyes and translate the wad of blankets and sheets into an empty bed. Quickly, he looked through the open bathroom door to find it empty, as well.

"Emily," he called out in a rough whisper as he moved into the bedroom. She hadn't gone down the stairs because she would have passed his room and he would have heard. "Emily, where are you?" His movements changed as he quickly walked across the room, panic erasing his need for stealth.

The salt line at the window was intact and the window was shut tight. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears and he was heading back toward to hall to get Sam when he almost stumbled over a small foot sticking out from under the bed. Dropping to his knees, Dean yanked back the quilt that dangled over the edge of the bed.

Wide-awake little girl eyes stared back at him from beneath the bed, and he let out all of the air he'd been holding in his lungs. Fear and relief smacked into each other as one vacated his body and the other rushed in.

"What happened, Cutie?" Dean said, crouching down to check her over. "Did you fall out of bed? You okay?"

Emily was huddled under the bed, head on a pillow, clutching a fuzzy blanket with Disney princesses on it. She hadn't fallen out of bed, he realized. She was hiding.

Much easier to defend a small space than a large one, right kid?

That was the kind of logic Dean Winchester could wrap his brain around.

Dean, eased himself down to the carpet, propping himself up on one elbow. "You and the princesses like it down here, huh? Looks kinda cozy."

She was curled into a tight ball now, both arms wrapped around the blanket and crossed over her chest. That still unexpressed terror played behind her eyes and Dean was certain a crowbar couldn't pry her out from the shelter of her hiding place. He was more determined than ever to find the freaking monster who'd put that look in her eyes.

Tonight, that would have to wait.

Reaching up onto the bed, Dean yanked down a pillow and the quilt and stretched himself out across the floor. "You know, Emily," he said, fixing his eyes on the ceiling, "I'm used to sharing a hotel room with your Uncle Sammy because we travel around a lot. It's kinda weird to be in a room by myself." He glanced over at Emily, who was still intently watching his every move. "Except that I don't miss Sam snoring and talking in his sleep about clowns," he said. "You don't snore, do you?" He paused, then shook his head as if to supply Emily's answer. "Didn't think so."

Throwing the covers out over his legs, he settled in on the floor. "Would you mind if I stayed here with you and the princesses tonight till I get used to the quiet? That be okay?"

Her nod was so quick he almost missed it. It was the first response she'd made, the first time she'd reached back to him in any way. That small movement filled him up with a fierce joy and rebuilt his faith that he could make this right for her. Dean lay there on the floor, putting himself between Emily and whatever might try to reach her through the salt and darkness.

"Emily," he whispered, looking over to her in the shadows, "you don't have to worry. Anything that comes would have to get through me and nothing gets through me." Dean smiled and winked at her, then closed his eyes so she would see it was safe to go to sleep.

He opened his eyes many times over the next hours and finally found Emily's closed at around two in the morning.

TBC