Firefly – Chapter 10
By: Suz Mc
Three hours of sleep was a good number. He'd gotten by with less than that before. Dean should have stayed upstairs, sacked out with Emily and the princesses, but every time he'd managed to doze off, Calley's face was there begging him to get his ass back to work. She wasn't going to give up so he'd eased himself out from under Emily's grip, and then went to his room to get showered and dressed. Dean had kicked himself for not making sure she was settled the first time before he left her. This time, he was sure Emily was sleeping deeply enough to last so it was time to satisfy the remnants of Emily's mother still calling in his head.
"Resistance is futile, huh, Calley?" he said out loud, tapping the keys on Ellen's computer.
Sam was still snoring like crazy when he'd walked past his room to come downstairs so Dean had left him there. Little brother was going above and beyond to help him get to the bottom of Calley's death. Sam's life was going to change as drastically as Dean's and sooner or later, they would have to jump into a deep discussion about those changes.
The chair at Ellen's desk was pretty sweet and for a second or ten, Dean closed his eyes while waiting for the machine to boot. Losing sleep when you had adrenaline rushes to compensate during a hunt was one thing, but full time kid maintenance was a whole new animal of exhaustion. Of everything Dean had learned in the past couple of days as a dad, one of the most startling revelations was that John Winchester deserved a freaking break from everybody's never ending bitching about his parenting skills. The man's wife burned up before his eyes, he didn't have a clue to explain it, he was stuck with a four-year-old and an infant and was on his own, twenty-four seven. Their dad made a mess of their childhood, but he could have dumped them and taken off into the sunset to follow his obsession. He didn't. Dad kept them together. That had to count for something.
Dean had decided to officially give John Winchester a pass.
An annoying ping signaled Dean's eyelids to open when the screen came to life. He leaned closer to the desk, trying to avoid the padded comfort of Ellen's chair so he could focus. Without hesitating, his fingers led him to the gallery website. Calley's paintings were still there, the beautiful and the inexplicably disturbing side by side.
His intention was to get a closer look at the mark Calley had painted on Emily's portraits. But he didn't go to those paintings. The smoky, violent images of Calley's descent into torment sucked him in and he couldn't help but get lost in them. He could still feel her touching him, he could hear her pleading with him for help, he could see her wrists tied and bruised and the sting of it wrapped around his skin.
When he'd seen the paintings before, Dean had stopped looking when the remembering started. Now, he owed it to her to look. He'd been part of the torture. He should damn sure try to piece together the story for her.
Depravity seemed to sell. As Dean found the section for the Rare Calley Rail Smoke Period paintings, he found only two still marked as available. According to the gallery listings, there had been a bloody bidding war for the others but these were still on the battlefield. Collectors were lined up to put little pieces of Calley's torment on their walls.
Demons torturing humans could be reasoned. They were fucking demons, after all. What human beings did to each other defied understanding. Rich bastards were taking the most terrifying moments of another human being's life and tacking them up on their walls to brag about to other rich people. Even if they didn't know the particulars of the horror movie Calley had put on canvas, any idiot could see they were about brutality and fear. What twisted soul would want that hanging in their living room? It was sickening and Dean wanted to translate the map of destruction Calley had left for him to follow from those canvases, then hunt each painting down and burn it so no one could get their perverted jollies from her pain.
Calley only showed pieces of herself in each painting, never a face, just disembodied parts of herself being used. Maybe that was her survival mechanism, detachment from the reality she was forced to feel and watch from inside herself. He'd borrowed a page or two from that playbook himself. In the unbearable agony of Hell, he'd retreat into a place where he was a watcher instead of piece of meat. Then, they'd see what he was up to, like his head was transparent as glass, and do something pleasant like show him Sam shooting himself in the head and they'd have his full attention again.
Dean ordered the pieces by date, walking through each nightmare with Calley. He hated those men using her, and then he remembered he was one of them and it was just too heavy to take on and still keep thinking. With a great effort, he shoved those feelings to the back of his head to be killed with some whiskey later on in the bar.
The last three paintings wrapped up Calley's violent encounter with a demon. The night at Getty's watching Dean hunched over the pool table. A dingy motel room with Dean's hands digging into her waist. His hands were rougher back then, before his extreme body makeover courtesy of an angel, but his ring was the same, no way to deny who those hands belonged to. He wanted to grab those hands and pull them off of her but they were there, permanently. She had been soft and he was hard and if Calley had thought it focal enough to paint, it must have hurt. Everything else in those paintings was painful so this must have been, too.
The final painting showed Amora's brutal exit from Calley's body. It was the only painting that showed her entire body. There was some sort of scaffolding, maybe an oil well, towering over her as Calley arched up from the dirt, retching out grainy curves of smoke from her mouth. The collector who took that prize home for display probably thought it was some metaphor and would stand around it with his artsy friends each trying to out do each other using long words and nonsense phrases to describe what Calley was trying to say.
The clothes in the painting matched the skanky outfit Amora had dressed Calley in the night Dean met her. He couldn't help but wonder if while he was sleeping off his booze and anger, Calley was laying in the dirt, spitting out a demon, needing someone to save her.
He lost track of time staring at the screen, putting the pieces together. If Emily was his child, and she was, then Calley was pregnant in this painting, left in the middle of nowhere, discarded and filthy, when the demon bitch moved on to a fresh body.
"Why didn't you wake me up if you were ready to talk?" Sam's voice was hoarse from lack of sleep as he shoved the door open and came into the office. He looked like he'd rolled out of bed and straight down the stairs.
Dean deftly clicked away from the window framing Calley's misery and shoved an extra chair in Sam's direction. "Morning, Sunshine," Dean said, shaking off the feel of walking with Calley through her possession. "Never gonna get Prince Charming to kiss you looking like that."
"Funny," Sam grumbled, folding down into the chair. "You've had less sleep than I have. Jerk. You can't be this awake at five a.m." Sam grabbed Dean's still warm cup of coffee and downed it without asking permission.
"It's because I'm a superhero, remember? We look good all the time and we don't need sleep, just a bat nap every now and then."
Sam scrubbed his face awake with his hand and ignored Dean's smartass comment. "Bobby called after you went to bed," he said, shutting off the small talk and getting down to the work at hand.
"What did he find out about the mark?"
Now it was all business. Sam filled his brother in on the high level of demon protection Calley was using and how Bobby was surprised it had failed.
"How the hell would she be able to find something like that?" Dean didn't presume to know anything about Calley Rail's life but finding something this obscure in the world of demonology wasn't just something you'd google.
"Not a clue. Bobby had a hard time finding out what it was and he's like a freaking Wikipedia of demon crap. He says he needs the demon's name to find out more but he hasn't been able to translate it yet from—"
"Amora." Dean said the name like it was a curse. "That's the bitch's name."
"How did you find the name, Dean?" Sam was leaning forward, wide awake and in tune.
"From Calley. Calley told me last night when she showed up in my bed," Dean said, letting that bomb explode on the floor. It was going to take a coffee infusion to get through the next story and Dean pushed himself out of the chair and headed for the kitchen.
"In your what?" Sam was following, talking the whole time. "What the hell are you talking about? Like a dream or--?"
"Or, like her spirit hung out here so she could warn us to protect Emily." Dean set himself to coffee making duty and decided not to wait for Sam's endless flood of questions. "She said the demon's name was Amora and it was in her for a while then ripped out of her."
"Back up a minute, Dean," Sam said, standing behind his brother so closely he had to be shoved out of the way for Dean to fill the pot with water. "Calley's spirit showed up in your bed?"
"Catch up, Sammy," Dean said, pouring in the water and snapping the lid closed. He dumped in the scoops of coffee and hit the on switch.
"Are we talking angry spirit here or unfinished business spirit?" Sam was still fixated on the fact that there had been a visitation one room over from his own.
Dean watched as the coffee began to drip through. Looking away from Sam was sometimes the easiest way to carry on a conversation. "Well, if she'd wanted to kick my ass, I wouldn't have been shocked, but she didn't. She just wanted to help and be sure I was going to protect Emily from the demon." He paused, seeing her face again. "She was just a mom trying to take care of her kid."
"What else?" Sam backed up a little and found a seat.
Laying out the details like it were any other case, Dean said, "Calley wasn't thinking too clearly. You know how spirits can get. She was in pain, desperate." The chill of her skin shivered against his flesh again. "She said the thing was after her again and she had tried to find me. Said Amora wanted Emily and that she had made a mistake."
"Maybe it's what Bobby said, that Calley must have made a mistake on one of the marks and that's how the demon got to her," Sam offered, putting the limited pieces of their collective puzzle together.
"Could be," Dean answered, still watching the coffee stream and wanting it to move faster. "But she also said someone gave them up, betrayed them, and she said something about followers."
"Human accomplices? Demons love those Hell worshipping types."
"If there is a human accomplice, they're gonna die, too." Dean said it with a blunt edge to his tone. It was a given. No possibility of parole or mercy from the sentence he planned to hand out.
"What happened to her after she told you those things?" Sam spoke to Dean's back, letting his brother look at the job of coffee making and not at him.
"She told me Emily likes blue Kool-Aid, not purple, and her favorite song is 'True Colors." Dean turned around toward Sam and huffed a sad puff of laughter. "That's all I know about her, my own kid. Princesses, blue Kool-Aid and some song I don't know. What other stuff does she like or not like or need that I don't have a clue about?"
"You know the important stuff, Dean," Sam said, worrying that his brother was beginning to drown in the sea of things he didn't know about being a parent. "You know that she's scared and she needs you. That other stuff, you'll learn. It doesn't matter." Dean was leaning against the counter, holding the edge so hard he could almost snap it off. "You're great with scared, needy kids. One of your few good qualities." Sam expected a smart reply but only got silence in response.
Finally, the pot was full. Dean poured, then handed a cup to Sam. His body sank heavily into a chair and he held the cup tightly, warming away the chill of Calley that lingered on his hands. "When Calley couldn't hang on anymore, when the pain was just too much, I told her to let go and she did. It was kinda like when Dad left. That light. Her face…she looked like she was peaceful, happy to feel whatever was taking her."
Sam jumped when the phone in his pocket vibrated and rang at the same time. Prying it from his jeans, he flipped it open quickly.
"Hello? Bobby? I didn't expect you to call back so soon," Sam said, shaking his head at Dean. Bobby was evidently on a caffeine induced research binge. Sam was listening intently, waiting for a break in the spew of information Bobby was flooding him with. "Wait, Bobby. We've got the name. It's Amora." Sam listened some more.
"What's he saying?" Dean got up, leaning his ear closer to Sam to try to hear.
"Hold on a second. Let me put you on speaker so Dean can hear, too." Sam poked at a few keys and set his phone on the table. "Go ahead, Bobby."
"Hey, Dean."
"Hey, Bobby," Dean said, easing back into his seat. "What have you got?"
"Well, I'm a little more ahead of this train than I thought. Got the translation, so I had the name 'bout an hour ago. You just confirmed it. This is one bad bitch, boys. 'Bout a two millennium old female demon with some epic bad habits."
"And why would I expect it to be anything less?" Dean reached over to the counter and grabbed a pen and paper to take notes. "What's her story?"
"I don't know how your lady friend crossed paths with Amora but I doubt it was by chance."
"Why do you say that, Bobby?" Sam leaned closer to the phone, trying to keep his voice quiet.
"Okay, here's the lore I've got so far. The legend goes that Amora was the demon consort of some monster level demon down in Hell, a demon that hasn't revealed his name, which is some big badge of honor to be such a badass that no one will say your name. Anyway, Amora has this freaky sadomasochistic desire that she likes to satisfy by riding human women and getting human males to abuse the host. Kinda kills two birds with one stone. She gets the thrill of feeling the pain and also gets to inflict it on the poor woman's meat she's in at the time."
Dean felt the cold falling over him again as Bobby's voice jumped out into the room.
"Anyway, seems she got a little haughty with her comings and goings from Hell and tried to pull some kind of coup on her sugar demon. He got pissed and when the dust settled, he punished her but good. Instead of just locking her up, he decided the best torture would be endless restrictions and rules that she would have to try to unravel to be free. Hundreds of conditions that had to be met for her to walk the earth or possess a human to get off."
"Keep her so occupied with details she wouldn't have time to make any more trouble?" Sam said, a troubled look on his face.
"Bingo. Here are a few of the conditions that I was able to find. She has to be summoned by humans, can't just pop up like a gopher any time she wants, and can only be summoned once every ten years. After that, she's only got a short time topside and she—"
"Wait, Bobby," Dean said, doing some quick math in his head. "That timetable doesn't cut it. If some freak summoned Amora recently, and she can only pop out every ten years, how could she have possessed Calley in 2007? Even my math skills can figure that one out."
"Not sure, kid. I'm just reporting facts, not doing the checking."
"Dean, Calley was twenty-six when she died, right?" Sam was doing some math of his own.
"Yeah."
"That gas explosion she and her friends were in was when she was sixteen. That's ten years. What if that explosion was a demon light show and four teenaged girls screwing around with the occult brought her out?"
"You think your girl had tangled with this demon before?"
"Sam, are you trying to say you think Calley brought this thing on herself? I don't believe it," Dean's tone was taking on a defensive note. He wasn't willing to change Calley's status from victim to participant.
"Guys?"
"Hold on, Bobby," Sam shouted at the phone. "Dean, I'm not saying it's her fault, I'm just looking at the timetable here. It fits."
"Okay, let's say you're right and four clueless Texas teenagers are able to call up a two thousand year old demon, which doesn't make sense, but for the sake of argument, let's make that the truth," Dean said, tapping his pen on the paper. "It still doesn't add up because it would have been before the ten year mark for Amora to be back in 2007 to be inside of Calley."
"This demon possessed the dead girl?"
Still ignoring Bobby's voice coming from the phone, Sam looked at Dean and dove into an unpleasant explanation. "She could have been if we were the ones who let her out."
Dean sat silently for a moment, processing Sam's theory. After a moment's analysis, he covered his eyes with one hand.
"The Devil's Gate. Son of a bitch!"
Dean's fist hit the table with such force that the cell phone bounced up then clattered back to the surface.
"Will somebody freakin' talk to me here?!"
Bobby's words echoed through the room and Sam turned his attention back to the disembodied voice. "Sorry, Bobby. Yes, Calley was possessed by the demon in '07 and that's where Dean—" Sam cut off his story abruptly. This wasn't his story to tell.
"Dean, if you want me to help with this, spill it. Everything. Now."
Bobby's voice could be as commanding and demanding as their dad's had ever been. When he threw down a gauntlet, it hit hard. They needed his help so Dean opened his mouth and started talking. "The demon possessed Calley and found me in a bar in Texas and I slept with her. She had a baby, my baby, Emily. She's here with me and I've got to figure out if that smoky bitch wants to kill her, too, okay?"
Dead silence filled up the room as Bobby digested the lump of information Dean has crammed into the phone.
"Are you sure about this, Boy? Did you have a test or something?"
If Sam had been able to grab the phone and shut off Bobby's question, he would have. Too late.
"I'M FUCKING SURE WITHOUT A FUCKING TEST and the next person who asks me that is—" Dean cut himself off and stood up as if to grab the phone and sling Bobby's voice across the room.
Sam stopped his hand before Dean could destroy the phone and Dean replaced the motion with pacing around the room.
"Bobby? You still there?" Sam said, hoping he would be.
"I'm still here."
Bobby's voice wasn't angry or adversarial. It was the father's voice Sam wished his own father had used.
"All right, Dean. Then I'm glad for you, Boy. I'll help you figure this thing out."
Bobby's instant acceptance diffused Dean's anger and he sat back down. "I'm sorry, Bobby. Thanks."
"Okay, back to business. Sam, you could be right about the Devil's Gate snafu. If Amora was let out of the gate it might have taken a while for her to be retrieved but, going by the rules, she could still come back on the ten year timetable."
"Bobby, is there some bigger picture to this game Amora's pimp demon set up?" Dean had calmed back down and was scribbling notes on his paper.
"That's the good part. Seems if Amora can meet all these hundreds of teeny tiny requirements and get to the final page of this massive rule book, she walks free."
"And she's spent the past couple thousand years trying to do just that?" Sam asked.
"Give that boy a prize!"
"And if we know these rules, we can screw up her plans, right?" Dean was still scribbling. "Just download me a copy and I'm on it."
"Did you really expect it to be that easy?"
"No, but I thought I'd throw it out there, just in case."
"According to what I dug up, even she didn't know all the rules, which made it pretty hard for her to follow them. They were recorded in four books and those were hidden in four different corners of the world. She had to wait for some dumb bastards to find them and start performing stupid human tricks by summoning her before she could get a look at them."
"God…not a scavenger hunt," Sam said, an audible groan in his voice.
"Any clue where we could get our hands on this bestseller, Bobby?" Dean had finished scribbling on the paper and paused waiting for some guidance from the phone.
"No. But, I did find a couple things about her that might help. Amora's only allowed sixty days out when she's conjured from Hell."
"Great, the bitch has an expiration date and it's almost up this time," Dean said, jotting down '60 days' in his notes.
"She can only possess women who are not virgins but have never had a child, no living parents, and they can have no 'tears, holes, or unnatural markings' on their bodies. Your girl fit that bill, Dean."
"Yes," Dean answered, deciding not to offer any details about Calley's body. He'd seen every inch of her and she had been scar, piercing, and tattoo free.
"And, Amora can only possess a host one time. Which means if she had your friend when you met her, she wasn't trying to wear her this time. She was after something else."
"Emily?"
"I don't know. You're just gonna have to dig for that one, Dean. But I can tell you one thing, the demon wouldn't be wasting limited time on vacation from Hell to stop by and catch up for old time's sake. There's a reason and you'd better find it quick."
"Bobby, I'm leaving for Austin today. Call me if you find anything else," Sam said, easing the phone back into his hand. "Thanks for the help."
"Any time. Dean, bring the kid around. Soon, okay?"
"Sure thing, Bobby," Dean answered. "Thanks."
"If I were you, I'd keep it quiet about where she is until this is settled. If Amora's got some dumbass cult trying to hold on to her, they might be trouble."
"Got it. Later, Bobby."
"Later."
Sam folded the phone closed and slipped it back into his pocket. "We need that book," he said, rising from his chair and heading for more coffee.
"Start at the crime scene then go after Lindsey Deaton," Dean instructed, rubbing his temples. Three hours was not enough sleep after all and his head was throbbing. His temper fit with Bobby hadn't helped soothe his brain, either.
"Ellen got her tag number so I'm pretty sure I can track her down. Let's find out about that exploding slumber party." Sam sat back down at the table, examining his brother. Dean was staring down at a phrase he just written on the page. "The perfect one? What does that mean?"
Drawing in a deep breath, Dean kept staring at the phrase like it had poured out of the pen without his active participation. "Something Calley, I mean Amora said to me that night in Beaumont. She said, 'I knew when I saw you, you were the one I needed. The perfect one.' When I first remembered that I thought it meant she knew I'd do the shitty things she wanted me to do to Calley. But now, it feels like something else."
"Like she was looking for you for a reason?" The bad feeling Sam had carried for the past two days was bouncing around with more gusto in his gut.
"I don't know," Dean said, folding up the page and handing it to Sam. "I do know we need that freakin' book or at least someone who knows what's in it so we can get a few steps ahead of the bitch."
Sam rose from his chair and enjoyed a long stretch. "I need to get moving and on the road," he said, pushing his arms out in front of his body and feeling his tired joints pop. "Still need to finish some ID before I go. Can you get me a couple of new badges?"
"Sure," Dean answered, bending his head back to look up at Sam. "It feels weird sending you off like this. I should be going with you but I should stay with her, too."
"You're right where you should be for now," Sam said, leaning backward to loosen up the tension in his spine. It felt odd and strangely cool to be in the position Dean usually occupied. Sam found himself in the rare mode of protector for Dean and his new family. "And contrary to popular opinion, I can actually work a case without your supervision."
"That's so cute," Dean said, a lighter lift to his voice. "Shaggy wants to run a case."
"Right, Velma. You keep telling yourself that." Sam headed toward the door. He had his hand on the door when he stopped. "I'll find out what we need to stop all this. I promise you."
"I know you will, Sammy. I wouldn't trust anybody else."
Sam nodded and left Dean to his coffee.
****
Sam was so focused on packing he didn't notice Emily slip into his room until she was standing beside the bed. Quickly, he zipped his duffle bag closed so she wouldn't get an eye full of the weapons he'd already put away.
"Hey there, Em," he said, smiling at her. "Did you have a good time shopping with Dean?"
She was holding a small brown bag in one hand and a huge plastic bag from Toys R Us in the other. Gently, Emily pushed the smaller bag that contained Sam's requested costume-shop badges across the bedspread then pulled out an enormous box from the other bag to show him.
"Cinderella Barbie, huh?" Sam asked, just barely stifling a laugh at the thought of Dean lugging this most unmanly box around the toy store. "Did your daddy buy you this?"
She nodded, eyes bright and excited.
He took the box from her and began to try to open it for her. "He gave me one kinda like it once," Sam said, watching her expression take on a puzzled look. He pulled out his pocketknife and kept to his task. "But that's another story for another day."
Emily climbed up on the end of the bed, patiently watching as her doll was being liberated. Sam pulled, cut, and unraveled the ten thousand fasteners holding Cinderella Barbie onto the cardboard. Finally, after he'd decided that there was some special spot in Hell for the Mattel packaging department, Cinderella was free and Emily happily took her into her arms.
Playing with her new doll seemed to be her only focus, so Sam just let her stay while he finished packing. He talked to her about the right way to pack a bag so he didn't have to iron the shirts and what order things went in so the heavy stuff was on the bottom. He left out the part about where and how to stow the weapons.
Occasionally she would look at him or the bag as if she was hearing his lecture and didn't find it completely boring. Sam had saved one item from the bedside table to show Emily before finishing the packing.
Sam moved his bag to the floor and eased down on the bed beside Emily. It made him happy that she'd felt comfortable enough to stay with him while she danced her doll around on the bed.
Holding a worn picture frame, Sam said, "Emily, I want to show you something." He leaned over as she turned her attention away from the doll. "This is a picture of mine and Dean's mom and dad. This is John," he put his finger against an image of his father in uniform, "and this is Mary." He let his finger linger against the mother he didn't remember. To him, she was just a story, except for three minutes with her spirit before she left him once again in a blaze of glory.
Just like Emily's mother.
The little girl took the picture frame out of his hand and looked at it like she did everything else – like she was memorizing every detail. It was funny to connect someone like John Winchester with a little kid, but Sam had seen his father stare at things that intently, committing mounds of research, symbols, and lore to memory. He could solve puzzles and make connections it would take others weeks to complete because of that focus. Emily was zeroed in on John's image. Maybe she saw her own eyes in his. Sam couldn't be sure.
"That would make them your grandparents," Sam said, wondering if she even knew the concept of grandparents. He gently took the photo back and slipped it into his bag then retrieved another frame that was lying face down on the table. "They died a long time ago, so I carry that picture with me everywhere I go because it's like they're with me and that feels good."
There were those eyes again, practically staring through him. "I found this picture of you and your mom online," Sam said, putting a delicate gold frame in Emily's hands. "I thought you could keep this with you and it would be like she was with you, too."
It was the same photo he'd found for Dean two days ago. Calley and Emily on the beach in Galveston. The little girl held it for a long time, touching it and absorbing the image in her hands.
For a second, he was afraid he'd made a mistake. Sam was sure she was about to burst into tears and that was the last thing he'd wanted. He should have checked with Dean first.
"Emily, it's okay if you want to put it away for a while," Sam said, trying to gauge her reaction.
Then, she turned her face toward him and gave him a big smile. Not the timid, half smiles she shown him before, but a huge, happy one. The relief spread all over him as Emily reached out one tiny hand toward him. Reaching back, Sam took her hand in his, enjoying the moment with her.
As she held her hand against his palm, Sam felt the momentary joy fade. The fears he'd been ignoring about Emily began to bloom again as her little hand rested against his skin. The tingle between them grew slowly, a warm connection that slowly flamed until there was nearly a buzz at the point of contact.
He wanted to scream at how completely unfair it was to have this land on a little kid's shoulders. Sam had been an adult when it had smacked his life sideways. This was a four year old. The cruelty of it crackled in his head, making him angry and sad at the same time.
Closing his fingers around hers, he stayed connected. For a few seconds, Emily locked eyes with him, her expression a combination of fear and fascination. John Winchester's eyes, again. Wonder what he'd think of this? Not only was his son filled up to the brim with demon power he barely kept a lid on but now his maybe granddaughter was a freak, too. He wouldn't like it and he'd be putting out more warnings to Dean about it like he did years ago to stop it.
But John Winchester wasn't here running this show and Dean wasn't in the room either and Sam had to rule out the worst-case scenario.
"You feel it, too, don't you, Sweetie?" Sam covered her hand with both of his. The tingle between them took on a vibrating tone, the heat radiating up his arm. Emily jerked her hand away and looked at it strangely, as if it wasn't even part of her body.
Emily hadn't asked for this any more than he had. Calley hadn't asked for it. Dean hadn't asked for it. There was no way to tell what "it" was, but it was here. Sam knew about "it" because he could feel it. Whatever other worldly energy had been planted inside Emily; it was like the scalding blood that flowed through his own veins.
Sam didn't wait for Emily's permission. Reaching out, he scooped her up against his chest and she didn't resist. "Don't be scared, Em. I understand," Sam said, trying to stop the break in his voice. "It's in me, too." Resting his head against hers, Sam felt her hug a little tighter. The buzzing connection was gone since she'd taken her hand out of his and he was certain she didn't understand what that kind of power meant.
He hated himself for what he was about to do but the burden of this knowledge was on him already and he had to know it all. One handed, he fumbled in his bag, wrapping his fingers around a silver flask. It was sickening. The thought that he may be about to hurt the little girl trusting him enough to hold her close. The rough edges of the screw top twisted between his fingers and Sam let the water spill out to soak his hand.
The tremble ran from his hand and through his body as Sam reached up to touch the back of Emily's neck. Compassion made him hesitate before he touched her. One touch, one sizzle could be the end of everything for Emily, for Dean, for all of them.
Pressing his eyes shut tight, Sam muttered a prayer that he was wrong and touched his damp fingers to Emily's skin.
The liquid dripped down, sliding across her soft neck and running away. No smoke. No demon. No pain from holy water. Thank you, God, for one ounce of mercy. Sam squeezed her little body close and felt the dread ooze from his body.
Emily was just a little girl with some weird energy. That he could deal with. That could be managed, but his heart ached knowing Emily would eventually figure it out. If anyone else figured it out, she'd have a freak label printed across her forehead. He was going to postpone that as long as possible. Men like Drake would want to hunt her, just like they hunted him.
Emily finally broke the embrace and pulled back to bore her gaze right through him. She had confusion and questions, but Sam just couldn't answer them. Blessings were few and far between but Sam counted her silence as one on this day. If she could speak he would have sworn her to silence and made her a party to more secrets kept from her own father, at least for a while.
Sam would have to find the words to tell Dean that his new precious answer to his pain may have demon tooled powers running through her veins just like her freak uncle. Top that off with, "Oh, by the way, I'm running that paternity test you didn't want," and Dean was likely to give him a Drake-styled beating and split with Emily, never to be seen again.
Moving her around to sit in his lap, Sam said, "I've got to go away for a few days so I need you to promise me something, okay?" She'd grabbed Cinderella from the edge of the bed and was hugging her tightly. "Stick close to your dad and do exactly what he tells you to do."
She nodded, not taking her eyes away from her doll. Her expression was calm, as if the last few minutes had never happened.
Sam took her chin between two fingers and turned her face toward him so he could look into her eyes and be sure she understood. "Really, Emily. If your dad says run, you run like crazy. If he says drop, you hit the floor. And if he says hide, you hide and don't move or make a sound until he or Ellen or I come to get you. Don't obey anybody else and if you feel that weird scared feeling in your tummy, get away, all right?"
Dean had drilled those things into him from the time he could understand words. It didn't matter how old either one of them got, if Dean yelled 'drop' or 'run', Sam would obey without questioning. Every time. That blind trust had kept him alive on more than one occasion.
In response, Emily took his hand again and squeezed until the tingle came back then let go.
"Dude, did Emily give you the stinkin' badges?" Dean walked into the room, coming over to them both. He saw the doll in her lap and grinned. She reached up and squeezed his hand then looked over to Sam, wonder and questions swimming around in her eyes.
"Yep. Thirty minutes of finessing this plastic and I'll be Austin FD and a Texas Ranger," Sam said, looking away from Emily's confused expression at not feeling the tingle when she touched Dean's hand. "Holograms are already finished."
"Emily, your Uncle Sammy is the Picasso of fake ID," Dean said, oblivious to the new connection between Emily and Sam. "Wish he'd been that good when we were trying sneak into bars."
"Dean."
"Oops," Dean said, picking up Emily, Cinderella, and all. "Fake ID is bad when you're a teenager, Cutie Pie. Very bad." He turned toward the door, with Emily balanced in the crook of his arm. "Let's go check the oil in Ellen's car before Sammy leaves."
Sam could hear Dean talking down the hallway.
"You need to know how to do this stuff, Cutie Pie. Tire pressure, too. Always know how to take care of your own car so some grease monkey looking for a quick buck won't jerk you around. When you're old enough to drive I'll build you a—"
Sam went to the window and waited for the two of them to appear in the backyard beside the car. Dean had set Emily on her feet and though he couldn't hear what he was saying to her, his brother was saying a lot. The hood of Ellen's Honda was yanked upward, and Emily stood on top of a concrete block, leaning in to see something Dean was pointing at on the engine. When Dean Winchester talked "car" with you, it meant he thought you were worthy.
"I'd love to hear what he's saying to her," Ellen said, easing her way beside Sam at the window.
"He's telling her your car is a foreign piece of crap." Sam smiled down over the scene in the yard while Dean pulled the dipstick and wiped it on a rag.
Ellen laughed, not seeming insulted at all. "He's an American made kind of guy, isn't he?" To Sam's silence, she added, "Something wrong?"
"A few things." Dean was pointing to the full line and showing Emily how to put the stick back into the oil. He was telling her not to be cheap with oil or gas if you didn't want to turn your motor into junkyard material.
"Having second thoughts about the test?"
"Third and fourth and fifth but it's done now." The oil must have been okay, so Dean had pulled out the air filter and he was frowning, pointing at it, causing Emily to frown, too. Sam would be stopping to get a new one.
"One call to Mike and it can be undone and you can leave it alone, Sam," Ellen said, sounding relieved at the prospect of calling off the paternity test. "He wasn't crazy about doing this behind Dean's back to begin with but he agreed to it as a favor to me."
"I bet he wasn't, but it needs to be done." Emily was following Dean around to each tire, watching him check the air pressure.
"He has your number and he'll send the results to your cell," Ellen said, not offering any further argument.
"Good. Is he going to tell me what to do about the results once I get them?" Same asked as he watched Emily screw the tire pressure gauge onto one value and wait as Dean read the numbers.
"You're on your own with that one, Sam." Ellen put her hand over Sam's as it rested on the windowsill.
Dean wiped his hands on another towel and moved over to the Impala, yanking up her hood. He was excitedly pointing at things on his baby's engine, telling Emily why the Impala was the queen of automobiles. The little girl was hanging on his every word, holding up Cinderella Barbie so she could worship at the automobile altar, too.
Sam didn't have to hear what he was saying. He'd heard it all before.
"I'm worried about Emily," Sam said, turning to look Ellen in the eye.
"She's actually much better now that she and Dean are bonding. We'll see Mike again tomorrow but I can see how much more animated she is."
"That's not what I mean." He wasn't going to delve into the secret buzz he and Emily had shared when she held his hand earlier. No need to sound that alarm yet. "I think that demon may have done something to her."
"Like what?" Ellen was on alert now. "Something more than the burn?"
"Not sure," Sam said, taking in the instant worry on Ellen face. "But keep an eye on her, on both of them, until I get some more answers."
"Sam, if you know something, don't you think you should tell me?"
He wasn't going to lie. Editing wasn't lying. "I'm just trying to be careful. That's all." Sam walked away from the window, and picked up his bag. "Thanks for letting me borrow your car. I'll bring it back in one piece."
"Just bring yourself back in one piece, Sweetie." Ellen came to his side and delivered a soft kiss to his cheek. "Don't worry about them. They'll be fine here."
Sam shouldered his bag and headed for the stairs. He had a long road ahead of him with no shotgun to share driving and way too much time to consider the decisions he was making behind his brother's back.
TBC