A little respite here for you guys. Thanks for all the awesome reviews on the last chapter, that one was super intense for me to write and I'm so glad you guys enjoyed it. :)
BrySt1- Yay! I'm glad you're excited and that you liked the last chapter so much!
JoBethH- No kidding, I had a lot of respect for Amelia after that last chapter. He doesn't feel too bad, I don't think. It's not like he actually got a chance to hurt her.
wantertogondor- Thank you so much! I've been trying to get across the totally creepy factor of the demons, I'm glad it's working. Haha, glad I can help!
Amelia woke up in the parking lot of the prison, cradled in Sam's arms as he carried her.
The first thing she noticed was the pain in her head, and a second later she noticed that she was screaming at the top of her lungs, Sam vainly trying to comfort her. To cut off the scream, she snapped her jaw shut, clacking her teeth together jarringly.
"You're gonna be ok," Sam told her. "You're gonna be ok, Amy."
Her face, a sticky mess of blood and bruises and tears, bobbed in the air. The shifting view she had of blue sky directly above and the earth in the peripheral nearly made her throw up. But once in her system, the demon blood could not be expelled until entirely absorbed, so she just dangled in the air with her stomach roiling. She shut her eyes, tightly, and prayed for it to be over.
She heard the creak of the Impala's door, then Sam sat her carefully down. For that, she half-opened her eyes, and scooted herself along the back seat a few more millimeters. Sam helped her in a little further, then surprised her by sitting down beside her.
"Pills and water, Dean," he called out. "Do you have any broken bones?" he asked her, studying her face and limbs.
Amelia started shaking her head, then the world spun around her like a carnival ride, and if not for the demon blood, would have puked all over Dean's precious baby. It's worth nothing that this was the only time she was actually thankful for the blood. Sam held her from tipping over, and propped her up against his shoulder.
"No," she mumbled. At least, she didn't think so. The headache drowned out almost every other sensation in her body.
"She might have a concussion, but it's impossible to tell with the blood in her system screwing everything up."
"I have broken bones," Dean reminded Sam, and handed him bottle of water and a bottle of pills. He proceeded to study Amelia with narrow eyes in a way that made her very uneasy.
"Not..." she cleared her throat, and Sam gave her a sip of water, "not gonna blow my brains out in your baby, are ya Dean?" she chuckled weakly. Humor, the last defense of the hopeless.
With a dark expression on his face, Dean said, "course not. I'd take you outside first."
Sam cuffed him on the head with his bitch face on full power.
"Drive, motel, now. Amy," he turned back to her, "we're not going to hurt you. I promise. We're going to take you to Bobby's," he explained for Dean as much as her, "and we're going to get you sobered up. Then we can talk about this, but right now we're going to make sure you're ok."
He gave her shoulder a tiny squeeze that reminded Amelia way too much of Meg's touches. She started shaking, and again would have vomited but for the blood.
"Here, take these," Sam fished a couple pills out of the bottle, and displayed them before her on his palm, distracting her for the moment.
Trying to steady herself, Amelia let him drop them in her mouth, and took another drink of water to wash them down, dribbling water out of her mouth.
The water felt glorious. It started to wash away the taste of blood in her mouth, and she realized just how thirsty she was. As a bonus, it also distracted her from the imminent freak out, panic attack, or cryfest that loomed on the horizon. On the drive to the motel, Sam helped her drink the rest of the bottle and tried wiping some of the blood off her face without much success.
"Here, put this on," he helped her into one of his gigantic sweatshirts. "It'll hide some of the blood if someone sees us."
With an arm under her shoulder, she tried not to concentrate on the touch, he helped her out of the car, then lifted her up again to carry her to the motel room. He didn't seem to have much trouble carrying her, she must have lost quite a bit of weight.
"Is my motel," Amelia slurred. "'Ey, 'is my room..."
Dean opened the door.
"Hope you didn't mind us barging in, we had to check out everything," Sam told her as he carried her inside.
"What'vr." The invasion of her semi-personal space was pretty far down on her list at the moment.
He sat her down on the bed, and it took all her willpower not to collapse into the wonderful blankets and sleep off the horror.
"Dean, grab her stuff. I'll see if I can get you cleaned up and patched up." He started to walk into the bathroom, but Amelia interrupted him with a slurred word he couldn't make out.
"Sher," she mumbled again, then cleared her throat. "Shaow-werr."
"You can't even stand up, Amy," he tried to dissuade her.
"Show-wer," she insisted, and lurched to her feet. "Got blood err'whur. Cen too stand."
She took a shaky step, and he shook his head, snagging her elbow to help her walk.
"Don't lock the door in case you pass out," he told her as she stepped into the bathroom, and started to close the door.
"Shurr," she gave him a blank smile, and shut the door.
She managed to turn the water on without a problem. As she started to strip off her bloodsoaked clothes, though, her numb fingers couldn't seem to grab anything. Maybe not one of her best plans after all. But the shower looked so wonderful, and she wanted to feel clean and human again.
Jeans off, sweatshirt off, flannel shirt off. Her fingers failed completely after that, so she clambered into the shower still wearing her t-shirt and underclothes. When the water hit her, Amelia couldn't help but let out a strangled gasp as every bruise across the front of her body lit up in pain.
But the water rinsed off the blood, the dirt, the memory of the demon's groping fingers on her body. She tilted her head so the water hit her face, and rinsed all the way down her body. The water around her feet turned red-brown from all the blood that trickled off her body. Again and again, she rinsed out her mouth with the warm, soothing water, finally getting rid of the last taste of blood that remained. The warmth soothed the edge off her headache and the drugs started to take affect, leaving the headache very painful, but almost bearable.
After maybe ten minutes the water ran clear, and though Amelia was still a long way from feeling clean, she turned off the water and stepped out. Her backpack had magically appeared just inside the doorway, and her fingers worked a little better now, so she stripped naked, toweled off, and pulled on a new change of clothes. She almost felt like a human again.
Her hand rested on the doorknob, ready to go out and face the music, when she noticed blood trickling from an indentation in her arm. Brow creasing, she turned back to the light and studied the wound. Something appeared to be buried in her arm.
Rooting around in her backpack, she pulled out a small knife, and proceeded to do minor surgery over the sink. After making a tiny incision, Amelia was able to ease the foreign object out.
Five seconds later, Sam crashed through the door in response to her sobbing, or laughing, he couldn't quite tell, but certainly something hysterical and disturbed.
Amelia sat on the edge of the tub, one arm cradled tight against her body, staring at a small, red object laying in her palm.
"It's a tooth," she looked like she was about to throw up. "In my arm, Sam, was in my friggin' arm. A tooth. Incisor, I think. God, I could hurl."
"Alright, then," he took the tooth from her hand and tossed it in the wastebasket, "let me get a good look at you."
He started to feel her head for the bump he knew would be there, but she jerked away.
"Don't touch me," she yelped, cowering away from him against the wall, hand raised to protect her face. "Just... don't touch me."
"I'm not going to hurt you, Amy," he said in his best soothing tone, taking a step back. "You know I'm not going to hurt you. It's me. Just me."
She took an unsteady breath, and forced her hand down, making herself settle back down on the edge of the tub. She couldn't steady the wild beating of her heart.
"I know," she said, her voice shaking, "I know, but... just, please. I can't take it, not now."
She hated the way her voice cracked as she pleaded with him.
Sam looked down at her in a sad way, but slowly nodded his head. "Alright. We should get going, then. Can you walk?"
She grabbed the handicap bar to pull herself to her feet, and walked unsteadily out of the bathroom. Dean had all her things packed up and moved out of the motel room already. He sat on the bed, head in his hands, injuries bound up but glanced up when she came out.
She saw the bruises that covered his face as he looked at her in something close to revulsion.
Hangman is coming down from the gallows and I don't have very long.
Styx echoed through her mind. And to her horror she realized that she was mumbling the words out loud.
Without a word, Dean stood and walked out the door.
"Dean's driving the Impala. Do you mind if I drive your car, so it doesn't get left here? You're entirely free to criticize my driving."
Sam was entirely selective in what he chose to comment on. Probably just concerned with getting her to Bobby's before she snapped. Nothing wrong with that, she wasn't feeling any too steady at the moment.
Recalling her previous experience with head motions, Amelia verbally told him she didn't mind, so he snagged the keys off the bedside table.
Soon, Amelia sat in the passenger seat of the Firebird, head leaned to the side so she didn't rest against the huge bump on the back of her head. After sliding the driver's seat back as far as it would go, Sam started the car, and followed Dean out of the parking lot.
"Look, Amy, I'm so sorry about what happened. I remember everything Meg said, when she was possessing me. I remember you exorcising her. How much it hurt you. You have to know that I would never hurt you."
"I know," Amelia said, for not the first time. Not a word about the fire, apparently. Saving that for later.
"I just... I keep on remembering the way you looked when I touched you, in the bathroom. I'll keep my distance, if you want-"
"It's fine," Amelia snapped, lack of sleep, supernatural roofies, and four days of trauma catching up with her. "Seriously. It's fine, Sam. It wasn't you, it was that bitch Meg, I get it. She possessed me once, too."
Sam gave her a very strange look.
Oh yea, she hadn't mentioned that before.
"First time I ran into the demons, said they tossed me down a staircase? Yep, they actually burned my tattoo off, possessed me for a bit, then forced me to drink demon blood." Amelia knew she was rambling, but she couldn't get her tongue under control. "I'll be fine," she kept talking, "you don't have to act any different-" she just bit down on her spiteful tongue.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Sam finally just sighed.
"Look, you saved me from having a demon wear my skin, I'll never forget that. Now's not the time to talk about it, though. Why don't you try and get some sleep?" he sighed again, and she didn't argue with him on that one. She hadn't had a decent hour of sleep in god-knows-how-long.
After curling up as comfortably as she could with her bumps and bruises, Amelia drifted slowly off to sleep. The last image she remembered was Sam slouching in the driver's seat, hand on the wheel, staring off down the road, a thoughtful, worried expression on his face.
Sam woke her up after a few hours with a burger and a few bottles of water. She drank the water, but couldn't muster much enthusiasm as she nibbled on the burger. Apparently the demon blood took away her appetite.
She didn't wake up again until Sam turned off the highway towards Bobby's house.
Wiping drool off her lip, Amelia sat up slowly, trying to focus her eyes.
"How're you doin'?" Sam asked, looking at her.
After swallowing, trying to clear her throat, Amelia shrugged one shoulder, and grabbed another water bottle.
"Look, detoxing off the blood is going to be hell," he explained. "Fever, hallucinations, pretty standard withdrawal I guess, but the hallucinations are bad. Everyone you love lying to you."
"Awesome," Amelia whispered, letting her pounding head rest against the window.
"It shouldn't take too long, you haven't been on it for very long. Probably a day, tops."
"How'd you know so much about it?" she asked him, suddenly suspicious. "I couldn't find anything in Bobby's books."
Sam's lips pressed together. "Personal experience."
He pulled up in front of Bobby's house, and Amelia tossed the door open, slowly getting out. The sun hurt her eyes. She felt about one hundred and three years old. The porch looked a mile away.
Then Bobby walked towards her with an expression she had never seen on his face, and she somehow felt very small as her heart tap-danced in her chest.
"Ya idjit," he snapped, and then he wrapped his arms tight around her, and she could smell whiskey and grease and everything she had ever hated, and it took everything in her not to recoil.
"Ya idjit," he told her again, voice gruff.
Slowly, she raised her weak arms and grabbed on to him like she was drowning.
"I'm so sorry Bobby," she choked out into his shoulder, "I- I'm sorry, I'm sorry." It seemed so weak, but what else could she say?
"Yer gonna be alright," he patted her on the back, holding her tight. "We'll figger it out. Yer gonna be fine, Amelia."
He held her tight for half a minute, until her shaking quieted down a little. "But let's getcha sobered up, huh?"
Amelia took a quavering breath, and nodded, releasing him. They escorted her down to the panic room, bare but for the bed in the middle. Fear starting to rise in her, Amelia stepped in, hugging herself for warmth, but still shivering in sudden cold.
"Sam toll'ja what t'expect?"
"Yea, hallucinations and shit." She glanced around the bare room, and had a thought.
Amelia spun on her heel, causing the world to tip around her, but she kept her feet as she leveled her best glare at them. "You can't come in until this is over. Any of you."
Sam looked confused, and Bobby's eyes narrowed, his hand on the door.
She turned on Dean, who lurked in the background, the dark look still on his face. "Keep them out. No matter what happens. You saw me- you saw what I can do. It can be bad enough after nightmares, if I'm awake and hallucinating- I need to know I'm not going to hurt anyone. Keep. Them. Out."
Dean nodded once, and in that matter at least, Amelia trusted him entirely.
"I'm sorry you have to go through this," Sam apologized, and they stepped back. "I'm so sorry Amy."
Amelia jumped when the door swung shut with a loud crash, and the lock on the outside pushed into place.
"See ya on the other side," Bobby told her, mournfully, and then she was completely alone.
Wrapping a blanket around herself, Amelia fell into the bed and rested her weary head on the pillow. Might as well get some more sleep if she was stuck in the room. Not like she had to worry about hiding the fires anymore.
Brief chance to catch your breath before we plunge back into it in the next chapter! Hope you enjoyed it. :)