Firefly – Chapter 29
By: Suz Mc
Sam had just finished the best shower of his lifetime. Or, at least one that was right up there in the top five. It was five o'clock in the afternoon and his internal clock was just starting to reset itself after being up for almost forty-eight hours straight. He wasn't caught up on sleep by a long shot, but at least he wasn't a "zombie boy" like Dean had called him last night.
He poured antiseptic over the cuts on his stomach and the sting burned away the relaxed buzz that great hot shower had given him. Wide awake now, he popped on a butterfly here and there, bandaged himself, and got dressed. His clothes from the night before were a filthy mess and he rolled them into a ball to save for the next laundry opportunity.
Cautiously, he cracked open the door to find the rest of his family still passed out in a heap on the other bed. The contrast between them would be frightening to anyone who didn't know them. A stranger would think Dean was some wild transient who'd snatched the little girl from her suburban bedroom. Emily was a soft, gentle little thing wrapped up in a Cinderella blanket. Dean was dirty and bloody from the battle to save her life, holding onto her with one rough arm. Anyone who didn't know them would never imagine that they fit together, but they did.
Knowing that Dean would want to get moving, Sam leaned over quietly, knowing better than to touch him after he'd spent hours swinging away at enemies. "Dude, wake up. It's your turn for the shower."
Dean's eyes opened slowly at first, then popped wide, assessing and evaluating before remembering where he was. He checked on Emily, pulling her hair back to look at her face. He felt her forehead and leaned his face close to check her breathing.
"You look like hell, go take a shower and clean up. When she wakes up you'll scare the crap out her looking like that. We need to check your shoulder when you get out. Should have done that when we got here." Sam settled in a chair and propped his feet up on the edge of the bed.
Still looking down at his daughter, Dean said, "So you think you're the boss of me?"
"According to Dad, now I am."
Dean slid off the bed, careful not to disturb Emily, and pushed a pillow against her back to take his place. "That'll be the day."
"Yeah, whatever. Go get in the shower, you reek."
Dean stretched his arms wide, trying to cover the wince of pain from moving his wound. "Stay with her while I'm in the shower. Don't go outside or anything."
"No, Dean, I thought I'd trip off to the mall." He reached over to grab his phone and started searching for Bobby's number. "Of course I'm not going anywhere."
"No, really," Dean said, reaching over to cover Emily's exposed foot with her blanket, "sit over there with her so she won't be scared if she opens her eyes. I don't want her to think she's alone."
Being alone was Dean's major weak spot and he didn't want Emily to feel it. "Sure," Sam said, moving his chair right beside Emily's side of the bed.
Dean was still hesitating, wandering between the bed and the bathroom. "She's been out a long time. Do you think she's okay?"
"I think it's the longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep she's gotten in a couple of weeks. She probably needs it, Dean."
"You don't think maybe Dad over did it, do you?"
"No. I think she's fine." Sam looked down at Emily and she did look fine. Her face was puffy from sleeping so hard but her color was good and she looked completely healthy, just asleep, like any other kid taking a nap. "Dad said she wouldn't remember yesterday, so maybe she's on some kind of rewind. He wouldn't have done anything to hurt her."
"I know." Dean turned to dig some clean clothes out of his bag. "I wonder if she'll be, you know, fixed when she wakes up. Like if she'll be able to talk."
"No way to tell, Dean." Sam watched Dean nod, agreeing with him, but hoping that the new and improved almighty John Winchester whammy had repaired Emily's broken spirit as well as her arm. "Look, if she's still out when we get finished with your shoulder, then you can try to wake her up. Okay?"
"Okay." Dean had to pry himself away from the room before disappearing into the shower.
Now it was just Sam and Emily. He looked down at her hand, remembering the sparkling ball of fire that had formed in that tiny palm, the ball of fire that ran a demon out of her host and back to hell for the next ten years. For a few seconds, Sam watched her hand, relaxed and empty, and tried to resist. He couldn't. His pulse quickened as he picked up that limp right hand and placed it flat against his own. It only took one brush of palms for the buzz to travel between them and he pulled away. Emily shifted against the pillow, her brow wrinkling briefly, but she settled once their right hands separated.
Shit.
He'd known it would still be there, but he'd stupidly hoped her curse would be different. Okay, Dad. What the hell do I do now? John Winchester had given him his marching orders to take care of Dean and his daughter. Said that Sam knew things that could help them. Well, if there was one thing Sam Winchester knew it was what it was like to have demon blood fuck up his life. He knew what it felt like to be a freak on such a level that it scared the crap out of his own brother. What he didn't know was how to stop it, ever. Sure, he could choose not to power up his stupid demon tricks, but it was still there, itching inside his body and tempting him over and over. But he was an adult, a grown man who knew what he was dealing with when his ability had reared its ugly head. A four year old wasn't going to be able to hold onto those reins and she was born to be hurt, maybe to be hunted by both sides.
How was he going to fix that, for Emily or for Dean? Dad had finally trusted him with Dean and he didn't have a clue how to do the job. Sam could picture his father's face with that sarcastic twist saying, "You got it, kid. Figure it out." Could have passed on a little more info, Dad. Thanks.
"Is she still asleep?" Dean came out of the bathroom after the world's record shortest shower, wearing his jeans, no shirt, and his body was still half wet.
"Dude, I told you I'd be right here. You had time to dry off." Sam got up from his chair and began to fumble with the first aid kit. "Chill out."
Dean looked slightly embarrassed but recovered to annoyed quickly and set to rubbing himself dry with the towel hanging around his neck.
"Sit down and try not to cry like a girl." Sam focused on examining Dean's wound and pulling out the few tiny fragments of metal that were still in his wounds. The holes had been torn wider so it was easy to get a grip on the broken pellets.
"Girls are tough, asshole," Dean said through gritted teeth. He held himself firm against the tugging but let out a rough grunt as Sam got around to pouring antiseptic into the wound.
"Tougher than you." Same plastered a large square of gauze over the weird pattern of holes. "All done. You'll live."
Dean tugged a clean t-shirt over his head, carefully sliding his wounded arm through the sleeve. He watched Emily sleep from his place across the room for a while before getting up again. "Sam, do you think I should get her checked out by a doctor? I know Dad said she was okay, but—"
At that moment, Emily began to squirm and stretch, dislodging the blanket from her body. Her eyes fluttered open and closed, offended by even the single dim light bulb in the bedside lamp.
"Hey, Cutie Pie." Dean covered the distance in one step, planting himself on the bed beside her and sliding one arm under her back.
The little girl was dazed and disoriented, looking around the strange room and finally focusing on her Dad. He was familiar and she used both hands to climb up into his arms. One of her hands slid under Dean's sleeve to grip his scar. Sam had watched her do that over and over and every time the soothing effect it had on both of them was a powerful thing.
Dean cupped her face with one hand, smiling broadly down into her eyes. "I'm so glad to see those pretty eyes. You've been out for a long time, sleepy head. You feel okay?"
Sam held his breath while Dean stared down into her little face, waiting and hoping for a response.
None came.
Emily merely snuggled up against Dean's chest, silently saying hello. With sadness dimming his smile, Dean hugged her close and said, "You're okay. We're all okay." He pulled her back just a bit, covering his disappointment. "Look who showed up while you were asleep? Uncle Sammy and his dumb cowboy boots."
Sam eased in beside them, making sure to make his connection through his left hand. That seemed to be the safe circuit for him and Emily to touch without setting off some electric shock. "Hey, Em. I missed you."
The little girl was still trying to wake up and stared at him hard, almost afraid. It didn't take a genius to see she was trying to figure out where the hell she was and how she got here. Those big brown eyes were looking up at him, wanting an answer.
Then, she broke out into an enormous smile, genuinely happy and sparkling glad to see him. That smile brought a relief to Sam that he hadn't felt in days.
"Sammy, grab that bottle of water over there." He put it into Dean's hand and he held it up to her mouth, only to have her look annoyed and grab it away to hold herself. "I know, you're no baby. Sorry," Dean said, laughing the whole time.
Emily was gulping down the water and Dean pulled it back to slow her down a little when she noticed her newly healed forearm. That look of fear and confusion returned again and she seemed off balance. For a long time, she twisted her arm back and forth, clearly not understanding why the thing that hurt her so much was no longer there.
Sam kept waiting for Dean to say something, anything to explain it away. He'd always been the cool liar, the one able to think on his feet and weave some web of bullshit just convincing enough to distract you from your doubt. Sam was no stranger to lying, but for most of his life Sam had prized the truth and judged his brother defective because he had such an affinity for lying, an affection for it, even when it wasn't necessary.
Dean kept up his silence, flicking his eyes back and forth between that perfect arm, Emily's growing disturbance, and Sam. He wanted to be bailed out. He didn't want to lie, not to Emily. He was going to commit quite a few lies of omission with his daughter, but he just didn't want to tell her an outright lie. At least, not yet.
Batter up, Sam.
"Dr. Wallace used some great medicine on your arm last time, didn't he?" Sam held her arm gently, running his fingers over the spot where the horrible burn used to be to show her it wouldn't hurt anymore. "While you were asleep, I checked it out and it was gone. No more owie."
"Owie? Are you kidding me?" Dean said, laughing at Sam's attempt at speaking kid. He leaned over into Emily's ear. "He's such a dork boy. Owie. Can you believe that?"
That seemed to satisfy Emily, even though she kept flexing and touching her arm like she knew something big had happened, something as big as the moment her skin was burned away. She took the water bottle back into her hands and started draining it again.
"I'm going to go get us something to eat." Sam got up from the bed, grabbing his wallet and the keys from the nightstand between the beds.
"I think the girl needs a bath, dude." Dean picked her up and started carrying her toward the tub. Before Sam made it out the door, he said, "Meet us in that park across the street. How's that sound, Cutie Pie?"
She was smiling again and shook her head up and down. Even as contented as she seemed, Sam couldn't miss the tight grasp she still had under Dean's sleeve. She wasn't giving up the firm hold she had on the one constant in her life. Emily's exterior scarring was gone but no one could blow away the invisible marks that fire and her mother's gruesome death had left on her, marks left by a demons and humans.
"Come on, kid. We can make a mess and somebody else has to clean it up." Dean was babbling to her, talking about stupid things like how easy it was to put blue food coloring into shampoo to screw around with your little brother's hair but how bad it was when you messed up and made your Dad's hair blue instead. How he was so glad she was awake so they could try out the swings because he really wanted to and he'd look like a weirdo swinging all by himself.
"Sammy! Get pie!" The water started running, drowning out the one sided conversation that was making his long tortured brother so crazy happy.
"Sure." Sam closed the door and went to find pie.
***
Dad had told the truth. Emily didn't seem to remember anything that had happened at the hands of those freaks. Even when she saw that wadded up nightgown that was supposed to be her shroud, she had simply looked at it and looked away. He was still going to burn it, just on principal.
They'd picked up their rhythm exactly where they had dropped it in the diner when Emily had picked pie over that stupid bread pudding. Emily had gone straight to an old style merry go round, jumped on board, and patted the railing as an order to start spinning. Dean had started off slow, scared that she'd lose her balance but daredevil girl wouldn't stand for that long. With a big smile on her face, she had wrapped her fingers tightly around the bars and leaned her head back into the wind. It was a clean kind of happiness, the kind you could have before you'd gotten bloody and dirty over and over again. He'd never be able to feel it again as strongly as Emily did at this moment with her still damp hair swinging around in the wind, but he could get close by seeing it on her face. He couldn't be clean again, but he could be less dirty than before.
The Impala rumbled into the lot behind the swings and before Dean could stop the merry go round from spinning, Emily had jumped off, landing square on her feet, and taken off toward Sam. His daughter being connected with Sam just added to how good he felt at this particular moment. Sam was carrying a large pizza box and a bag, but Emily rushed over to take the bag in her own hands to help. Sam practically had to double over to get close to her but he did and said something that made her grin a mile wide. Dean was going to have to bring up a subject he'd been avoiding but it was only fair to Sam to give him an option. The way Sam and Emily were enjoying each other while they spread out stuff on the picnic table, was making him less nervous about bringing it up.
"Did you get it?" Dean threw one leg over the bench and grabbed the beer Sam pointed at him.
Emily answered his question by pulling out two pie-shaped Styrofoam boxes and sliding one his way. From the looks of it, they were having dessert first. Why the hell not?! Any hunt you walk away from is a good one and deserved a celebration.
Sam didn't like pie and moved on to his pizza. "I told Emily you're a pie stealer and she'd better eat it first before you got your hands on it."
"He's right, Emily. I'm a pie stealer. " Dean made a weak grab for her pie and she jerked it away and put it down on the bench between her and Sam. "Good thing you're faster than Sam. He was always pie deprived and full of pie envy."
"He's got pie issues, Em. It's embarrassing sometimes." Sam wrapped his arm in a circle around her. "Eat quick. I'll guard the perimeter."
"It's just a few months until National Pie Day, Emily. January 23. Better than Christmas." Dean's pie was just a memory now.
"You're making that up."
"Google it, dude. National Pie Day on which we commit random acts of pieness."
Emily's attention to the pie talk faded as she dove into her pizza. For a few minutes, they just sat there in the park, eating pizza, being together. The only thing that would make them stand out from any other family would be the gun stuffed neatly in Dean's belt. Playground or not, he was going to have his damn gun.
"Oh, almost forgot!"
Sam was off his seat and jogging to the car after something. When his brother was out of earshot, Dean leaned over toward the half eaten pizza Sam had dropped on his napkin. "Hey, Emily, hand me Uncle Sammy's pizza."
She looked at the pizza and back at Dean, then raised her eyebrow in a conspiratorial expression that made him proud. Quickly, Emily picked it up and shoved it toward him and we back to her own piece that had little more than crust remaining. Meanwhile, Dean folded the remains of Sam's slice into a wad and crammed it into his mouth. Stealing Sam's pizza required stealth and a big mouth.
It didn't take long for Sam to return and fix his eyes on where his pizza used to be. "Hey? Where's my…never mind." Sam opened up his hand and held out Emily's blue iPod he'd rescued from the ruins of a burned apartment in Austin. "I think this is yours. It's charged up and I got ear buds that are Emily sized."
The little girl grabbed it from his palm, jammed the buds in her ears, and ran her fingers over the touch wheel to find a song and set the volume. For a few seconds, she was lost in her own music, thrilled to have something from her old life salvaged into the new one. When she was satisfied with her settings, she launched herself into Sam's grasp, squeezing a hard thank you around his neck.
"You're welcome, Em."
Emily let go of Sam's neck, slipped off the bench, and wandered a bit away from them, listening and changing songs, head bouncing with the music.
Sam came around to Dean side of the table, easing down beside him to watch Emily wander around in the dimming sunlight.
"It's great that you found that. Thanks," Dean said, taking a long drink from his beer.
"You might not thank me when you see what's on it."
Dean drew in a long, breath. "What?"
"Taylor Swift."
"No way."
"Way. And it gets worse. Hannah Montana. Rascal Flats. Dixie Chicks. Jonas Brothers."
"God, no."
"And the musicals."
"Are you kidding me?"
"Hairspray. High School Musical one, two, and three, and—"
"Stop! I just ate!" Okay, he'd embraced the princess movies because she liked them but the music was going to be another story. Dean watched Emily happily grooving to whatever vile, distasteful tune she was listening to and he shook his head and took another drink. Sam was laughing and it made him wish he'd eaten the rest of his pizza.
"It's not all bad, there's actually some pretty cool stuff on there, too." Sam leaned back across the table to grab his own beer and one more slice of pizza.
"By whose standards?"
"Mine."
"Good God. Flit boys, screeching girls, and emo. Wonderful."
"Yeah, knew you'd be thrilled."
Sam was grinning a mile wide. What an ass. But Emily was happy with her music and he'd just have to deal with it. She was listening and exploring around the edge of the green, looking at some pink flowers sprayed across bushes rimming the park. "Sam, was there a song called 'True Colors' on there."
He thought for a moment. "Yeah. I think it's on a playlist called 'Emily's Night Music.' Why?"
"Calley said it was her favorite song."
"Calley said?" Sam's puzzled look gave way to understanding as he remembered Dean's nighttime visit from Calley's spirit. "Oh."
True Colors. It was one of the three things Calley had been able to tell him about Emily before she moved on. Blue Kool-Aid, princesses, and "True Colors." Things from before Dean that Emily should be able to hang onto now. Maybe she was listening to it now in this strange place with an equally strange daddy she was getting to know.
Dean let the silence go on for a moment or two then decided to stop putting off his talk with Sam. "There's something I need to talk to you about."
"Shoot."
He cleared his throat as his last means of procrastination. "Now that we've got things settled down, I've got to start thinking about what to do next for Emily. I've got to figure out how to make a home for her."
"What about what Dad said? Samuel's place in Lawrence?"
"Probably worth a try, but that's not what I'm getting at." Dean needed to do this looking at his brother so he could read what Sam really felt instead of just what he said. "My life is about to change and I don't have a clue what that's going to mean. I don't want you to feel like you have to make the same decisions. Just because my life is changing, doesn't mean you have to make the same choices, Sam. I'll understand if you don't want to be part of this."
"So is this the part where you kick the dog following you around so it'll go on back home?" Sam's look was serious, almost hurt.
"No." This was going all wrong, as most of his heart to hearts with Sam went. It was the reason Dean hated potential chick flick moments. They sucked. "Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I'd like better than you backing me up so I don't screw this shit up with her. I just don't want you to feel like you have to do it. I mean, maybe this is your chance to do something else, too. Maybe this is your kick in the ass to get out of this life."
"Maybe it's yours."
"Maybe." Reading Sam was getting harder as he got older. He'd tucked away that bleeding heart he used to have pinned to his sleeve long ago. "Look, all those years ago, I dragged you away from college and Jess now I don't want to be changing your life all over again just to suit me. If it's not for you, I understand."
Sam's look was almost disgusted and he shook his head at Dean like he was an idiot. Turning back toward the playground, toward Emily, Sam said, "Well, that was eloquent, dude, but I think I'll stay. If for nothing else than to hear that kid force you to listen to High School Musical in the Impala."
"Then you're gonna have to stick around forever, bitch, because that's not going to happen."
Sam looked over at his brother and grinned. "Jerk."
Dean grinned back and checked that conversation off his mental to-do list then turned away to find Emily still playing near the edge of the trees. The ear buds were still firmly in place. She'd settled on a song and the wires trailed down into her pocket. Her hands were waving around in the air over her head and at first he thought she was just playing and dancing with the music in her head. Then he noticed the small twinkling lights popping up around the edge of the woods. They floated in the air, drawn into the space over Emily's head, blending into a gleaming mass of light.
The fireflies bunched into an enormous ball, flashing in the air. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny insects glowing and moving in the breeze, responding to the whim of the four year old's fingers. When she swayed her hand to the right, they followed, then back to the left. Up and down, they moved obeying Emily's fingers. If she stretched her arms wide, the ball grew larger. When she moved her hands around in circles, the fireflies rushed to keep up with her direction.
Emily was controlling them, keeping them there to do what she wanted simply by moving her hands.
Dean felt an ice cold fear settle in his chest as he watched Emily's power manifest itself out in the open. This wasn't tied to Amora or her connection to Emily's conception. This was all under Emily's control and Dean couldn't stop the avalanche of disappointment, of terror, that began to rumble through his mind while he watched Emily control a swarm of fireflies and realized what that implied.
"Sam."
"I see it." Sam's voice said it all. He understood what this meant and all the heartache and hardship power like this would mean for Emily. He didn't wait for Dean to try to verbalize his fears. "I think it's the first time she's realized she can control things. The other times were just accidents she didn't connect. Now, she knows."
Emily drew an invisible heart shape with two fingers and the swarm conformed to her will, forming a shimmering heart against the darkened trees.
Dean swallowed down his bone dry throat. "Is it the light or the fire she's controlling?"
"Do you want to hear all of my theories on this, now that I'm seeing it? Now that we saw what happened with the demon?"
"Yeah, Sam. Now's a good time, since she's making her own Light Bright in front of me."
Sam didn't respond to his sharp tone, just launched into his speech like a professor giving a lecture. "I think she can control light and fire, but she can't create it. If it's there and she's in the middle of an intense emotion, she can tap into that somehow. She's really happy right now."
The fireflies began to twirl in two different circles and spin as Emily danced around below them.
"She created it and set Amora on fire, Sam."
"I don't think she created anything. Demons manifest as smoke and where there's smoke—"
"There's fire. God. She drew it out of her and threw it back." Emily had burned the host alive and Amora had fled. She had no idea what the parasitic relationship of hosts and demons meant. All she saw was someone about to kill her Uncle Sammy and her Daddy and she'd killed an innocent human being. She couldn't possibly understand what had happened and it wasn't her fault, not really, but it didn't matter. Someone was still dead. He felt his stomach rising up into his throat.
"Yeah," Sam said, his voice calm and low. "She was terrified and it gave her the strength to do it." Sam fell silent, trying to get his thoughts together before he finished his theory. When he continued, his voice was grim. "I think there's more, more she could have done to the demon."
"Like?"
"Destroy it, not just send it packing."
"Sam, this is a four year old, not some freakin' demon assassin. Do you hear how stupid that sounds?" It was stupid. So Emily had some weird pyrotechnic mojo. So what? That was where it ended. Parents taught kids not to play with matches and this was the same deal.
"Dean, her ability is like any talent, any skill. She has to learn to use it before it reaches potential. Like mine." Sam was talking about Emily's tricks like she'd just discovered she could play piano or decipher blackboards full of calculus. "I had this thing inside me and couldn't expel demons until someone showed me how to do it and I practiced to get the feel of it. If Emily hadn't had the power to kill that demon, she wouldn't have been a threat, like the book said she was. Given the right training, I seriously think she's got the power to kill a demon, Dean, not just expel the thing, kill it. It goes way beyond anything we've ever seen."
"You're wrong, Sam. She can't do that." Sam had to be wrong. Please, God, let him be wrong.
"These are the kinds of accidents that happen when demons experiment with humans. I ought to know."
"Shut up." Accident. Experiment. He didn't want to hear those words ever again.
Dean couldn't stop staring at Emily as she explored her new ability and learned more every second. She could make the lights dim and brighten. He wondered if they were pulsing in time with whatever song played in her tiny ears. He wanted to rush over and pull her hands down to her sides and tell her to cut that shit out and never do it again.
"Dean." Sam's voice was harder than before and it dug into his ear. "Any time now, she's going to turn around and look at you to see how you feel about what she's doing. Don't have that terrified look on your face when she does."
"What?" Dean forced himself to look away from Emily. Sam's expression shook him almost as much as what Emily was doing with her little hands on the edge of the forest. It was like he'd regressed years into the past, back to that day on some back road when his older brother had dropped a bomb into his life by saying, "Dad said I might have to kill you, Sammy."
"Don't let her see that look because it's going to scare her, Dean. Just don't."
Dean fought through the memory of what he'd said to Sam that afternoon all those years ago and tried to stay in the now. "Maybe that's what I should do, Sam. Scare her so bad she'll never do that again and then this may not be a problem." God, he didn't want to do that but if it would keep her safe, keep her from the near disasters that nearly ate Sam alive…
"You know it won't, Dean. You know it." Sam looked back at Emily while she changed the swarm of fireflies into two spinning cyclones. "She's going to have a freak label slapped on her forehead eventually, anyway. Don't let it come from you. It's too hard to take. Don't let it come from you. She's going to have both sides hunt her if it gets out and she can't fight back if she thinks that you think she's a freak. Just don't, please."
That's what he'd done to Sam. His psychic crap. Telling him he'd become less than human. He'd made it twice as hard for Sam to fight back. Dean watched Sam's face, watched him relive those words, watched him see himself in Emily and feel the pain that was coming her way.
Just like Sam predicted, Emily turned toward them and set her bright little eyes on her father. Her smile was timid, as if she couldn't fully commit to being happy until she had his approval. Dean looked at that hopeful, loving face looking to him for support and he forced his mouth into a smile and waved at her. He swallowed his fear and covered the panic and smiled. All of Emily's trepidation melted away and she grinned widely. With a quick flick of her fingers, she scattered the fireflies on their way. As she ran to her father, the tiny lights melted back into the trees.
When she got close enough, Dean scooped her up into his arms and squeezed her tight. He didn't' have a clue how to protect her from this thing that was brewing inside her own body, but he'd have to figure it out. He had to fight it with normal. He had to fight it in a different way than how he'd tried with Sam, so Emily wouldn't wear those same scars he'd left on Sam. He could see all of Sam's scars now as he joined them to lean against the swing set. He wanted to apologize, but words just didn't seem adequate. Dean would have to prove himself to Sam with Emily.
"How 'bout we play until it's too dark to see, Cutie Pie?"
She was still smiling this excited, completely thrilled to be alive smile as he plopped her backside into a swing and started pushing.
TBC