I don't know why I never finished this story, I've had the chapter saved for months, so here you go;-)
Blood And Needles
Chapter Two: Truth Is Like A Needle To The Heart
Sacramento, California
Sam and Dean watched Aria's every move intently as she crossed the room towards them, holding two glasses of water in her hands. She held out one to each of them, and she didn't miss how both of them hesitated for a long moment before taking it from her. They sat beside each other on the black couch, as if they didn't know what else they could do at that point, and she moved to sit opposite them on the edge of the table. She glanced between them slowly, almost wary, because she couldn't predict how they were going to react to anything she was about to tell them. She knew a lot more than they did, she could tell that just by looking at them, they had no idea of anything that had happened in the past, and she had a strong feeling that they weren't going to like it. Her eyes found Dean's, and he held her stare for a long moment, as though they were both making an attempt to figure the other one out without needing to speak.
Sam knew that they both knew much more than they were letting on, that was obvious. Dean had to have known something, or else why would they be there? He had to have known something about her, there had to have been some reason for him wanting to go there so badly. But him, he didn't have the first clue where to even start. Dean and Aria were definitely in on something, clearly her more than him, but he was completely in the dark. And he didn't like it. "Will one of you please tell me what the hell is going on here?" he asked, his voice was calm but impatient. He wanted to know. He wanted answers. He deserved answers. "How did you know our dad?" And then he turned to Dean. "Why did you think she was his daughter?"
Dean never tore his eyes away from her, he watched her every little movement or reaction, as if trying to catch her out. He observed her stance change at the questions, and he could see her clear reluctance to respond. Whatever it was that she wanted to tell them, it wasn't going to be good. That much he could tell. What she had told them, it had shocked him. He hadn't been expecting it, at all. "I thought you were his daughter." he admitted quietly, maybe more to himself than to her, as if in some sense of realisation to himself. But even he heard the hurt in his own words. Maybe it was disappointment, or something worse. He didn't know. But she had been right, whatever he had been thinking, whatever had been going on in his head since they had left that motel room, it had more than definitely been wrong. Dean now appeared just as shocked as his brother. He didn't know what was going on there, he didn't know who she was or why she looked so much like their mother, he couldn't understand it.
Aria shook her head slowly, almost sorrowful. "No," she told him softly. "I'm not his daughter."
"So, why do you look exactly like our mom?" Sam asked her, he just couldn't work it out. "Why have we never met you before? You're saying we all have the same mother, Aria, why have we never been told about you before?" But then he turned to Dean, accusing. "How the hell did you know about her? How long have you known about her?"
Aria dropped her forehead to rest against her palms for a moment, her elbows digging into her thighs with the force, and she breathed out a long sigh. Where was she even supposed to start? She didn't know how much Dean knew, or how he knew it. She held the truth, and the truth was going to hurt them. "I didn't want to be the one to tell you any of this." she almost whispered the words, and Dean wasn't sure that she had actually been talking to them. Reluctant, she faced them again, composing herself a little. "I was born and gone before you were even an idea, Dean. That's the truth. Your mom had me, and then I was adopted."
Those words seemed to insult him, they brought a defensive frown to his face. That didn't make sense. "No." He shook his head at her, he couldn't believe that. Not for a second. "She wouldn't do that. No way."
"Aria," Sam pressed, curious. He appeared much more put together than his brother. "If John Winchester isn't your dad, then who is?"
"I don't know," she replied, and there was a tone to her voice that made her sound genuinely vulnerable, as though the thought of it all truly did upset her. "And neither did she."
But that was enough for Dean, his defence changed to anger. "Don't you even dare suggest—"
"I'm not suggesting it, Dean." she snapped, a little too forcefully. She wasn't going there. "I know that she wasn't a slut, okay? I know that she didn't ever cheat on your dad." She stopped and lowered her voice a little. "Mom was attacked. She was attacked by someone, and it left her with me."
Sam and Dean stared at her, as though they didn't know how to react to what she had just told them. The words silenced them. Sam stared at her, eyes wide, but she could tell that he believed her. She could see the pain in his eyes as he looked at her. Sam didn't know how to process what he was being told. He wasn't sure that he actually wanted to process it. He didn't want it to be real, any of it. What was he supposed to think about that? Where was he supposed to go from there? "Are you..." He shook his head, he couldn't even say it. "Are you saying that someone raped her?"
Dean managed to face her once again, and all he saw in her eyes was their mother. All he could see as he faced her was his mother. She was almost identical to what he remembered her to look like. She was the spitting image of the woman in the few photographs of her they still possessed. The thought that someone could do that to her, it made him feel sick. He didn't know what to say. What could he say? In truth, Dean didn't know what he had been expecting to happen when they got there. Whether he thought it was going to be some big emotional meeting with the sister they had never even seen before, he didn't know. Whether he had been expecting her not to know, for her to think they were crazy, for her to throw them out, unable to accept it, he didn't know. Every possibility had crossed his mind on the drive there, every single on but that. Whatever he had been expecting to hear, whatever he had thought to be the truth, he hadn't even imagined that it could have been something so dark, something so evil. It hurt.
Aria cleared her throat and looked down at her hands, twisting one of her rings around her finger as if to distract her from the conversation. "One night, she was walking home, it was late, you know, dark...and some guy...he grabbed her. And he pulled her into some back alley somewhere...and..." She stopped, as if she couldn't bring herself to say more, and took a small breath. It was horrible to even think about, it pained her every time it crossed her mind. She couldn't imagine what her mother had been through, she didn't want to. "Your dad found her, he got the guy, but...not fast enough. She found out that she was pregnant, but she wouldn't have an abortion. Apparently she used to say that it wasn't her baby's fault the father was a monster. And then she had me, and she gave me up for adoption. She couldn't face it. And I don't blame her for that, I really don't. Not for a second. But once I was gone, one I'd been adopted, that was it." She sighed. "Your dad told me she always regretted it. She wanted a baby. Couple years later she had one." She glanced to Dean as she spoke. "And then, four years later, she had another." she finished, looking from him to Sam.
Sam frowned at her, he couldn't even process what he was being told. "How do you know all of this?" he asked her, genuinely curious. He couldn't imagine how she had found any of it out. If she knew, why hadn't they been told? Why had they never had the chance to meet her before? Why hadn't she called them, or at least tried to find them? Why hadn't she ever wanted to tell them? He didn't imagine for a second that she was lying, the likeness she had to their mother was too much of a coincidence. It had to be true. This girl was their sister, and she was a stranger. That wasn't right.
"Your dad told me." she answered quietly.
But Dean wasn't accepting it. He looked angry, hurt, betrayed. "No." he said firmly, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was in denial. "No, I can't believe this. You're lying to us."
"Why would I lie to you, huh?" Aria countered. "What possible reason could I have to lie to you? I can prove it."
They both watched her curiously as she pushed herself up from the table and crossed the room towards her desk. She pulled out a set of keys from the pocket of her jacket and lowered herself down to unlock the drawer that Dean had been working on when he had been caught. She rummaged around inside of it for a moment before she stood up again, and she moved to sit down on the table again. In her hand there were a few pieces of paper, old and worn, yellow in colour, but Dean almost felt sick at the writing he so easily recognised on them. He knew where they had come from, before he even had to ask. "Where the hell did you get those?" he asked her, as if accusing her of something.
"John gave them to me." she answered, and she handed them to him as she spoke. His eyes scanned them, there was no denying it. They had been torn from his journal, and Dean knew exactly where. He had read that book enough times to know where there were pages missing, and he had always wondered what he had been trying to hide from them. Now he knew. The words on the paper confirmed every single word of her story in his own father's writing. "He ripped them out of that old brown book he always had with him. He said that he needed to tell me something. He was on his way back from a hunt in Jericho when he got here, some woman in white deal or something, he skipped town in the middle of it. That's how I knew something was wrong." She shook her head as he thought back. "Something was wrong with him. He was different. He was on edge, like he was panicking. Running from something, I don't know. He didn't have the book with him, but he had those pages. He gave them to me, told me I'd need them one day when you two came knocking on my door demanding answers. And that was the last time I ever saw him."
Sam looked up from where he was now reading over the words. "Wait," He stopped her. "So, you already knew? Before that happened, before he showed up that day, you already knew who he was? You already knew about all of this?"
Aria nodded slowly. "Yeah, I knew him." she admitted. "I met him when I was ten. I'm not sure exactly what he expected to find, I think he assumed I was going to be some kind of monster, you know, judging from where half of my DNA came from. But he seemed surprised when he saw me, I swear I thought he was going to cry. But one day he was just there, standing on the doorstep, I didn't even know who he was at the time. My parents called the cops, they got rid of him." She glanced between them, and she could see that they were listening to her intently, as though they really did want to understand. "But, before he went, he gave me a letter, before they took him. He told me not to open it, not until I was old enough to understand."
"And, you opened it?" Dean pushed.
"No." She shook her head. "Not until I was sixteen. We were moving house, I found it while I was packing, I hadn't even thought about it since that day. I called the number he'd left on it, and he showed up again. I got to know him, I guess. He told me who he was. I mean, I found out everything that day. He told me about everything that had happened, who mom was, what she was like, what happened to her that night. He told me about little Sammy, brainiest little nerd in his class. He told me about Dean, his little badass troublemaker. He told me what you all did for a living." She scoffed, thinking back. "I thought he was crazy. I never believed him. I told him to go, that I didn't wanna see him again. But then...something happened. Something I couldn't explain, and I called him again, he came, he saved me. And I've trusted him ever since." She stopped and sighed, remorseful. "I just wish I'd gotten to say goodbye to him."
"Wait," Dean stopped her again, frowning. "How did you know that he was dead?"
Aria shrugged. "I took an educated guess." she muttered. "He used to call, first day of every month, he never failed, not once. And after that day he showed up with those pages, I never heard from him again." She stopped herself, and her face became solemn, almost as if she didn't want to ask her next question, but she needed to know. She had wanted to know for a long time what had happened. "What was it? That demon?" Both Sam and Dean nodded at her, as though they didn't want to answer, remorseful. She nodded to herself. "I knew it would be."
"This still doesn't explain how you knew about her." Sam said, looking to Dean with a frown. "I mean, you've never even mentioned the idea of us having a sister, why did you suddenly bring it up now? How long have you known?"
Dean looked away from him. "A few weeks, I guess." He shrugged. "Dad told me, when we were at the hospital, after the demon thing. The night before he died he said he had to tell me something. He said there was a girl called Aria, that I needed to find her, I needed to meet her, that we needed to meet her. I looked her up, and I recognised her face." He looked up at her, and his face fell softer. "I could see mom in her. And I knew. I just knew."
"All this time?" Sam pressed. It hurt him a little that he hadn't mentioned it. He had been carrying it around with him all that time, and he hadn't so much as mentioned her name to him. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
"I don't know, Sammy." he sighed. "I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how I was supposed to mention something like that. It's not something you can just drop into a conversation, is it? The other night, when we were talking about tattoos, I thought, you know, he was right. We needed to meet her. And we came here. I just didn't know that the truth was so..." he trailed off and pulled a hand down his face. "Dark."
"I'm sorry." Aria said to him, and her eyes were nothing but sincere. "I really am, Dean. I wish that I didn't have to tell you this. God," She huffed a bitter laugh. "I half wish you'd never even walked through that door." she admitted. "I never wanted you to know about it. I wanted to find you, I really did. I thought about it so much. But I never did, because I didn't want to tell you this. I didn't want you to have to know what had happened to her."
"It's not your fault, Aria." Dean said quietly. "None of this is your fault. I'm sorry that he left it for your to tell us. You didn't deserve that. He should have told us about you years ago." His face changed at that point, he didn't look like he was still in the room with them. He was somewhere else. He looked as though he was on the verge of a breakdown, and she honestly couldn't blame him. "Look, we should go." Sam opened his mouth to protest, but one look at his brother's face silenced him. He needed time, he needed time to process and he needed time to deal with what they had been told. Before any of them could take it further, they all needed to accept what had happened. Truthfully, he knew deep down that it needed to sink in. It was all too much to take in at once.
Aria seemed a little less surprised by his comment, and nodded slowly as she pushed herself to stand, the same as they did. She wasn't going to argue, she was a little surprised that they had managed to sit there for as long as they had. A part of her had expected them to walk out the door. Dean reached the back pocket of his jeans and pulled something out, handing it to her. "Here." Aria glanced back at him and frowned at the notes in his hand, as if to ask him what it was. "For the tattoos." he clarified.
"Oh." She nodded in realisation and took them from him. "Right, thank you. Um, just let me get you some change—"
"Oh no," Dean stopped her, shaking his head. "You're good."
Aria raised her eyebrows at him. "Come on, I'm not charging you two hundred dollars for two little tattoos, Dean."
"Well, that's what I'm paying you." he countered, the hint of a smug smile on his face that told her it was absolutely pointless trying to argue with him. Yet, as much as he pushed it back and covered it all up, she could see the burning pain behind his eyes, she could see how much the truth had hit him, and she could see that he was struggling to keep it all together.
"Thank you." she said. "Oh, and something else you should know." There was a small smile on her face. "For the record, I didn't design your tattoo."
Sam frowned at her. "What?" he pressed. "Then who did?"
They both watched as she shrugged out of her leather jacket and held out her left arm. On the inside of the top of her arm, in the middle of the many different pieces of ink there, she had exactly the same one. "Your dad helped me with that."
Dean gave a soft sigh as he looked at it, he wasn't quite sure what to say. There were so many things that he wanted to say, so many things that he wanted to ask her, but he just couldn't, not yet. "Hey, tell me something, honestly, are you happy here?" he asked her, genuine. "I mean, this life, is this what you want?"
Aria regarded him for a moment, and then she nodded, a smile on her face. "Yeah," She nodded again, confident. "Yeah, I'm happy." She reached behind her desk and pulled out two sheets of paper, handing one to each of them. "After-care. Tells you how to look after it until it heals." she instructed. "Make sure you follow it, alright?" she added, looking more towards Dean than Sam with her comment. "Number to the store is on there, too. Just in case."
Sam and Dean both nodded. They knew what she meant. "I'm glad we met you." Sam said to her, and there couldn't have been more sincerity to his words.
Aria nodded. "Yeah, me, too, Sam." She smiled. "I'm sure I'll see you around." They both nodded and turned to the door. They all knew, it wasn't the last time they were going to see each other. "Oh," She stopped them. "Just so you know, you come back within a month and you get a free recolour on your tats. Wouldn't want them to fade, would we?"
Dean smirked at her. "Count on that." he said. "We'll be seeing ya," He paused in the doorway and looked back to her with a smile. "Sis."