Dean parked the Dodge Charger across the street from a small mom'n'pop style grocery store. Emma pushed the driver's seat forward as soon as her father left the vehicle and scrambled out before he could tell her to stay in the car. The road trip had taken a turn for the awkward ever since they'd picked up the amnesiac faith healer. Emma just hoped the stranger could do something to help Sam.
Inside the store, she made a beeline for the restroom. Three solid days on the road with barely a break had left her feeling nostalgic for the relative luxury of a motel shower stall. Even the gross mildew-stained one in Portland, Emma thought, or the one in Wichita with the gigantic spider in residence in a corner of the ceiling. She washed her hands and face at the sink, ran her fingers through her hair, and emerged from the restroom just in time to see her father stab a man in the chest.
Emma gaped at the shafts of light beaming from the man's wide open eyes and mouth, at the blood glistening on the blade of the knife. Before she could fully process what she was seeing, two more men crowded into the narrow aisle in front of Dean. Another brushed past Emma, heading for her father. He grinned ferally at her as he shouldered by, eyes as black and shiny as the back side of an eight ball. Demons, Emma realized, recalling the lore she'd read. She'd walked into a demon ambush.
The closest one turned his back on her as he passed by, clearly dismissing her as a threat. His mistake. Emma jumped on his back, clamped an arm around his neck, and squeezed. He bucked and flung himself backward, trying to slam her into the metal shelving, but she pushed off with her feet and hung on as the shelves crashed to the floor. More crashes came from the next aisle where Dean battled the other two demons. Frantically, Emma recalled what lore she could while she clung to the demon's neck. She'd once read an exorcism ritual, Latin words that hadn't made sense then, words she couldn't remember now. Holy water, she thought wildly. Salt. Her father's knife. As if on cue, the demon-killing blade clattered to the floor. Another crash echoed through the store as one of the demons flung Dean across the room.
"Dad!"
"Hold on!" he yelled, hurling himself back into the fight.
Taking the words literally, Emma clenched her arm tighter around the demon's neck, clasping her hands together to increase the force of her grip. He fought with the strength of desperation, with no concern for the damage done to his host, slamming her body into shelving, clawing at her, making her grateful for the layers of winter clothing she wore. In the end, though, the possessed body was only human. She felt the life go out of it when it sagged, limp as a plush toy in her arms. Emma spared a glance for her father. He'd been thrown to the floor again, but one of the remaining demons was beaming shafts of light from a howling mouth and a gaping wound that seemed to open spontaneously in the center of his chest. The other threw back his head with a roar, letting loose another cloud of black smoke as he fled.
It was only then that the body in her arms twitched, its slack mouth falling open to release its own foul black cloud.
"Emmanuel, you son of a bitch," her father breathed.
The bodies in front of him fell to the floor. Emma blinked. Instead of the faith healer, a tough-looking woman stood there holding his knife.
"Emmanuel? Yeah, not so much," she said dryly.
"Meg," her father snarled.
Watching the exchange, Emma realized she was still holding the third body in her arms. She released it and stepped back with a shudder as it joined the others on the floor, landing with a dull thud. The woman's hard eyes swept from her father to Emma and back again.
"Dean, Dean, Dean," she tutted. "You got a lot of 'splainin' to do. But first, who's the jailbait?"
"That's my daughter," he said coolly. His tone was conversational, Emma noted. It reminded her of the time she'd faced him across the threshold of a seedy Seattle hotel room with an Amazon blade concealed in her sleeve. She wondered if this Meg person realized just how dangerous he was when his voice carried that quiet, deadly calm.
His eyes flicked to Emma's, warning her to stay on her guard, stilling the half-formed impulse to ask questions, to move closer to him. Her mouth felt dry, her stomach queasy. Her pulse was throbbing in her throat, too hard and fast for the exertion she'd just put forth. It was an emotional reaction, she realized, her body's instinctive response to a fact that her brain was still trying to process: she'd just choked the life out of a man. A man possessed by a demon, Emma reminded herself. Control. She couldn't match her father's calm, but she could control the trembling of her body, the wild urge to laugh or cry or just cling to his side and never let go. Instead, she moved away from the corpse, picking her way through the tumbled shelving and scattered groceries.
Dean had hung the 'closed' sign on the door and drawn down the blind. He and the woman, Meg, were discussing Emmanuel. No, Emma realized with a jolt of surprise that almost stopped her shaking entirely. Not Emmanuel. Cas. The faith healer waiting outside in the car was the angel Castiel. No wonder her dad had been so tense on the drive east. Emmanuel's true identity raised a horde of new questions, but the look her father had given her meant they would have to wait. She made a conscious effort to shut down her emotions, clinging to the self-control she'd learned as an Amazon initiate.
Things didn't get any better with the angel and a demon sharing the back seat, and bad went straight to worse when they got back to Indiana, only to find Sam's hospital guarded by demons.
"Stay in the car," Dean ordered.
Emma wanted to argue, but her father leaned in close, his voice pitched low.
"You wait until I give the all clear. And if things go south, you get out of here, understand?" He pressed one of his cell phones into her hand, issuing rapid-fire orders.
"You still got that amulet I gave you? Good. Keep it on you. This goes bad, get out of here, get away, call Garth. Got it?"
She nodded, resigned. Sam was dying. Castiel didn't even know who or what he was. The demon Meg couldn't be trusted. Her dad didn't need anything else to worry about.
"Got it." Emma swallowed hard. "I'll wait in the car until you say it's safe."
She passed the time reading John Winchester's journal by flashlight, dozing off every now and then in spite of herself. When her father returned, Emma splashed holy water on him, just in case. Dean recoiled with a yelp of surprise, cold water dripping down his face, but then he nodded his approval of her paranoia.
"Good girl."
"Look, man, I get it. Meg's not our friend. We don't even have friends. All our friends are dead," Dean concluded bitterly. He opened the driver's side door, indicating the subject was closed for now. A few miles down the road, however, he pulled in at a convenience store. At Sam's questioning look, he indicated the teenager in the back seat with a tilt of his head.
"Just get us a six-pack and a couple bottles of root beer."
It seemed they had something more than Castiel or Meg to talk about. Which was amusing, Sam thought, since he was usually the one to initiate these roadside discussions, usually over Dean's objections. On the other hand, he had no idea what was going on with Emma. Even before his hallucinations and insomnia had landed him in the hospital, he'd been too invested in clinging to what was left of his sanity to pay much attention to the teen.
Dean and Emma were sitting on the hood of the Charger when Sam returned from the errand. He bit back the urge to chuckle at the sight and silently passed out the drinks before making himself comfortable, leaning against the fender. They drank in silence for a minute.
"Emma killed her first demon yesterday," Dean announced. He raised his beer in a mock toast, and Sam followed suit, clinking his bottle against Dean's. After a moment, Emma caught on and dutifully raised her own bottle to theirs to complete the toast.
Sam watched her, understanding dawning. It was one thing to know about monsters. Monsters, witches, demons, all the evil things that stalked a world mostly unaware of their presence. It was another thing to actually fight one to the death.
"How're you doing?" he asked, sympathetic.
"Fine. I'm fine," she bristled, causing his eyebrows to arch at her tone. Clearly she wasn't.
"Sorry. I'd be fine if it had been just a demon," she admitted, her tone plaintive. "But it was a person! I- I killed an innocent man."
"You didn't have a choice," Dean told her with his own gruff version of sympathy. "It could have killed me. Hell, it could have killed me, you, Cas... Then Sam would have died... You get it? You can't save everyone. You did the right thing."
"But why did it wait until that man was dead?" Emma's voice shook. "It could have come out of him any time, but it waited," she whimpered. "It just waited until I'd choked him to death."
"Because demons are evil bastards." Dean's tone was matter-of-fact.
"It might have been testing your strength," Sam mused, "but Dean's right. Demons are twisted. Human life means nothing to them, and if it thought it could make you feel guilty, well," he shrugged, "it would have taken pleasure from that."
"Yeah, like I said, evil bastards. The guy might have died, anyway," Dean added. "Demons burn through meat suits, use them up, wear them out. A lot of times they die, even if you manage to exorcise the demon. It sucks, but it doesn't do any good to beat yourself up about it."
"Yeah. It sucks." The teen's voice sounded very small. She sat huddled in on herself. If ever a kid needed to be comforted, Sam thought, this was a classic example. He pushed off the fender and stood, angling his body to face Dean. Sam tilted his head in Emma's direction, giving Dean a look that clearly said, 'go on...' But Dean shook his head.
Sam's brow furrowed. He gave Dean another look. Dean responded to his brother's prompting with a glare. Sam glared back. Dean finished off his beer in one long gulp, rose to his feet, and stalked off. Sam followed. Once they were several yards away from the car, out of Emma's hearing, Dean turned to face him.
"What?" he demanded, radiating belligerence.
"I don't know, I just think Emma could use some sympathy right now. The old 'suck it up, buttercup' speech is a little harsh, don't you think?" Sam asked.
"Oh, so now you're some kind of parenting expert?" Dean's voice dripped sarcasm.
"No, but come on, would it kill you to give the kid a hug?"
The words seemed to take the fight right out of his big brother. Dean still glared, but Sam could read the hurt in his eyes.
"You think I haven't tried, Sammy?"
Sam was silent for a moment. Battling hallucinations of Lucifer every day, he really hadn't had the energy to pay much attention to Dean's recent parenting efforts. It had to be tough, suddenly having a daughter to raise.
"Okay, well, this is all new for both of you. You've just got to keep trying," he offered, but Dean cut him off.
"Look, Dad wasn't all hugs and rainbows, but we turned out all right."
"Dad wasn't the most demonstrative guy in the world, yeah, but he still hugged us, Dean."
His brother scoffed.
"Not when you were Emma's age, he didn't."
Sam spread his hands, conceding the argument for now. Emma looked up as the brothers walked back to the Charger.
"I'm okay," she said firmly, lifting her chin. "But I don't want to have to stay behind all the time. I want you to train me to hunt. Like your father trained you." She looked from Dean to Sam and back again. "Please. I want to be ready, next time."
"I don't like it," Dean frowned. His voice was rough, a low rasp of disapproval.
"Why not? Because I'm a girl? Your dad let you hunt when you were even younger than me!" Emma protested, indignant at the perceived inequality.
"No, not because you're a girl," his big brother shot back, equally indignant. Then his voice softened. "Because you're my kid and I want you to have a normal life."
Emma shook her head.
"I'm not normal. And it's okay. I don't want a normal life."
"It wouldn't hurt to give her some training," Sam began, hesitant. He thought of Lisa's son, Ben, and how insistent Dean had been that the boy should never even learn to shoot. He'd been equally opposed to training their half-brother Adam. Sam expected resistance. Hell, he half expected Dean to throw a punch, but surprisingly, his big brother looked resigned.
"All right, Freak, we'll train you." Emma smiled and sat up straighter, squaring her shoulders, exhausted but triumphant, but Dean still had a bit of fight left in him. He pointed a finger at her.
"I said we'll train you. That means you obey orders. When I tell you to stay in the car, you stay in the car," he growled, sounding, to Sam, disconcertingly like their father.
"M'kay," Emma yawned.
Sam chuckled. Castiel had healed his body of every last effect of his days-long bout of insomnia; he felt rested and refreshed after his ordeal. By contrast, Emma looked ready to fall asleep right there on the hood of the Charger.
He grinned. The kid would realize what she'd agreed to soon enough.
"I'll drive."