So here we are at the end. Hope this ties the big things up for you. :)
BrySt1- What a coincidence, that's pretty much how I feel when you review! :D
JoBethHarvelle- I was rather proud of Dean in that chapter. :) We'll see, I need to take a break from this for a little while to concentrate on school, but I'll definitely be back! This was way too much fun to pass up.
Ellen's yelling woke Amelia up.
Opening her eyes, Amelia watched the room spin around for a few seconds before it cleared up.
"You idiots!" Ellen had the three men backed into a corner. "She's hurting, sick, burned, and you make her drink a truth serum? Couldn't wait five minutes cuz, what, you were scared half-dead Amelia was gonna stab you in your sleep? God, you're such men!"
"I," Amelia cleared her throat. "Wuz my idea," she offered, weakly, from the couch.
Ellen glared at her. "You've clearly been around them too long. Piss poor thinkin' I'd expect from Dean. Sam, I thought you'd have a heart at least. Jo!"
Jo stepped forward.
"Keep yelling at these mouth-breathin' ass-wipe dick-thinkin' excuse for hunters."
"Sure thing, mom," Jo smiled grimly and took over.
Ellen walked over to Amelia, and knelt down by the couch.
"How're ya doin', sweetie?" Ellen gave her a sad little smile, sharp contrast to the drill sergeant yelling she had just employed.
Amelia closed her eyes. "Hurts," she admitted.
Ellen laid a soft hand on her forehead. "You still have a little fever, I think. How're your arms?"
She grimaced at the thought. "Hurt like hell."
The older woman ran her hand through Amelia's hair. "You're gonna be all right," she said, softly. "Not gonna trust those idiot men for a long while, though. Can you sit up for me?"
Supporting Amelia with a hand on her back, Ellen helped her sit up.
"D'ya feel like a shower, maybe?"
"Yes please," between the sweat, vomit, and blood Amelia felt like she was swimming in refuse.
"All right then, up you go," Ellen helped her stand, and with tiny, shuffling steps, Amelia made her way up the stairs and into the bathroom.
Jo had Dean backed into a corner in the kitchen, her eyes flashing in anger, Dean glancing about wildly for an escape. Sam and Bobby had made a run for it, disappearing until the women calmed down.
Ellen sat her down on the edge of the tub, and carefully pulled Amelia's stained sweatshirt over her head. She reached for the hem of her t-shirt, but Amelia shied away, her face coloring.
"Hun," Ellen laid a soft hand on her cheek, "I've patched up a hundred hunters, and seen more people butt-naked than a Playboy photographer. It's nothin' I ain't seen before."
Ellen slowly eased her t-shirt up, and Amelia moved her arms through one at a time, gasping at the slight pressure of the fabric against the burns.
"We'll wrap your arms up so they don't get wet," Ellen told her, and pulled out a box of saran wrap, covering her hands and arms so the bandages didn't get soaked in water.
Amelia felt like a robot with her fingers and arms virtually immobilized.
"I'll undo your jeans. You can try shimmying out of them on your own if you want me to leave."
She nodded, seizing the offer of privacy.
"Alright then," Ellen turned on the water. "Gimme a holler if you need anything."
Ellen closed the door behind her, and Amelia slowly worked her way out of her jeans, using her hands as little as possible. She managed to get out of her bra, but left her underpants. There was no way she could get out of them without her fingers.
Then she slowly stepped into the shower, keeping her tender arms away from the water. They wouldn't get wet with the plastic around them, but the pressure of the water falling on them would still hurt.
Amelia just stood there, letting the water wash away the sweat and smoke, and the smell of the panic room that still clung to her. It would take her a while before she could go back into the panic room, or stomach the smell of it. She put a blob of shampoo on her head, and managed to work it into her hair a little bit with her two least-burned, plastic-coated fingers, letting the water rinse it out. She didn't try soaping down her body, quite aside from her mangled hands, any movement of her head made the world tip around her, and she didn't want to knock herself out in the tub. Not a good way to go.
She could have stayed in the shower forever, but her legs started to shake from the exertion of standing for so long, so she nudged off the water with her knee, and carefully climbed out.
Ellen had put out a huge, fuzzy towel for her, and she wrapped herself up in its wonderful softness, sitting down on the toilet seat.
"I'm done," she called out, and Ellen soon reappeared, carrying a change of comfy clothes.
"Hope you don't mind going braless," the older woman told her. "Didn't think you would want to try tag-teaming that."
Amelia's face turned bright red, but she gave Ellen a tiny smile in spite of her embarrassment. Ellen smiled back, and helped her into the clothes, even closing her eyes so she didn't see anything.
"You need to eat somethin'," Ellen told her when Amelia was fully dressed again, in baggy warm clothes. Ellen took off the plastic around her arms.
"Yea, I guess," Amelia sighed.
That's how she ended up sitting on the edge of the bed in the spare bedroom with Jo feeding her toast and chattering quietly away about something totally random. Amelia didn't mind the noise, even if she didn't listen to the words, and tried to concentrate on not throwing up the few pieces of toast she managed to eat.
After a large glass of water and another dose of painkillers, Jo and Ellen bundled her into the bed, not giving her a chance to argue.
"Someone'll be here, in case you have a dream, or need somethin'," Ellen told her, smoothing her wet hair back from her face. "Anythin' at all."
"Night Lia," Jo smiled, "see you when you wake up."
Amelia, already half asleep, just grunted at them.
She spent the next two days in bed, feverish and sick. The other hunters changed the bandages on her arms and kept her drugged up so she didn't feel too much pain. They all took shifts at her bedside, even Dean, so night and day she was never alone.
The drugs made her dreams worse, and she could barely catch an hour of sleep before someone shook her awake because she was tossing and turning in her sleep.
Bobby would sit in the armchair set up at the foot of her bed, reading from a book and sipping whiskey for hours on end. She would watch him, sometimes when he thought she was sleeping, laying half dead with her eyes barely cracked open. He would mutter his way through ancient Latin texts, when he thought no one was paying attention, sometimes inputting very colorful Latin phrases of his own.
It sounded like home.
Ellen came in sometimes when Bobby had the watch, sitting down in the other armchair with her own ancient book. Too often to be a coincidence. They read in silence, not even acknowledging each other half of the time.
"Y'know," Amelia told Bobby one time, after a particularly strong dose of painkillers, "you should grow a pair and take Ellen on a date or somethin'."
She had grown tired of watching two potential couples in the house dancing around each other, and since Dean and Jo didn't seem to be moving anywhere in a hurry, she decided to try her luck with Ellen and Bobby. Jo and Amelia had discussed it before, Jo knew her mother needed someone else in her life besides her daughter, and Amelia thought that Bobby could use someone to soften him out a little.
"What?" Bobby squinted his eyes up at Amelia.
"Ellen and you," she mumbled. "You're both old, cranky hunters. It's perfect."
He just stared at her blankly until she fell asleep again.
Sam and Jo ended up with the worst hours, very early morning, when her nightmares were the worst. Both soon became expects on picking up the signs and waking her up in time. They were only human, though, and sometimes fell asleep only to wake up to Amelia's screams. Thankfully, Sam already had experience in trying to calm her down during a panic attack. Jo soon learned the hard way.
Dean had the afternoon, though Jo usually kept him company anyways. Amelia relished the opportunity to watch them interact, and plotted ways to bring them together. Mainly, it just seemed like they needed time. Time around each other, time to test the waters. Amelia slept, and watched, and observed.
One time when Amelia's was mostly lucid and Dean had the watch by himself, he closed his book and looked at her, clearly about to say something serious.
"What you said, about your father," he started, and Amelia glared daggers at him.
"Dean Winchester," she growled, though it came out half slurred and not very threatening, "if you ever bring that up I swear to God I will carve Justin Bieber lyrics into your car."
"Fair enough. I just wanted you to know that if you hadn't already burned his bones, I would have beat the shit out of his ghost and sent him all the way to Lucifer's cage myself." Fire smoldered in his green eyes.
"Fair enough," she echoed, eyes drifting shut.
That's as much of an apology as she ever got from him. Though as Dean apologies went, it was pretty decent. It meant he would look past the demon blood, have her back in a fight. Maybe even cared for her, in a big brother sort of way.
On the third morning, her fever broke. Ellen had woken her, and gone downstairs to grab her some breakfast. Before she returned, Amelia decided that she hated the bed and climbed out. Her legs quivered under her weight, weak from spending so much time off of them, but she kept her feet. It felt wonderful to stand, and she would have skipped into the hallway had her legs been more steady.
As it was, she shuffled out of the darkened room, squinting at the lights. She almost turned back at the stairs, but steeled herself. Her left hand had not been burnt as badly, and didn't hurt nearly as much. So she kept her left hand on the railing, and took the stairs one step at a time. By the bottom, she was gasping for air, but smiling in victory.
"Amelia!" Ellen scolded her when she wandered into the kitchen. "You're supposed to be in bed."
"I've been in bed," Amelia argued. "For like the last week. I got hungry."
Ellen wanted to be mad, but she at the moment she was more concerned with getting Amelia to eat something. The girl had hardly eaten anything since the demons had kidnapped her, and she looked like a skeleton.
Amelia happily ate her way through a bowl of the obligatory chicken soup and a few pancakes she swiped when Ellen wasn't looking.
"Feel up for a shower?" Ellen asked when she finished.
"Are you telling me I smell bad?" Amelia wrinkled her nose up, and realized that she probably did smell after two days of fever. "Actually, don't answer that. Yes, I would love a shower."
They repeated the process of getting her into the shower. This time, however, Amelia felt brave enough to use the soap, and after scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing, finally got herself clean to her satisfaction. She managed to half dress herself on her own, and Ellen came in to help her finish. T-shirt and jeans today, no sweat pants.
"I actually feel human again," Amelia grinned. "Think I could crash on the couch? Getting a little tired of the bedroom."
"Hun," Ellen patted her shoulder, "you have a few more Amelia's-word-is-law days built up. Whatever you want."
Amelia looked a little sheepish, but certainly didn't protest that. Soon, she curled up on the couch, laughter and talking faint in the background, accentuated by Ellen occasionally whacking a Winchester with a spoon. Bobby sat in the creaky chair at his desk, barking at them to be quiet and let him research.
Amelia's arms still hurt like hell, and she knew the demons hadn't given up even with Meg in the pit, but she couldn't help smiling as she drifted off to sleep.
The hunters were overprotective, vengeful, volatile, and obsessed. Each one had an arsenal in the trunk of their car, and wouldn't hesitate to shoot first. They had spent years of their life researching and training to figure out how to kill things better.
And they were her family. Each one would rush to rescue her or defend her, from demon, ghost, or person. They were close knit, loyal, self-sacrificing, and caring.
They had accepted her into their family. And she was home.
I'd like to thank everyone who's read this story. Like I said way back when, this is my first fanfiction, and it has been a great, if crazy, experience. I've definitely learned a few things (the goal of putting up a new chapter every other day was a bad idea). I haven't been in the fandom for too long so I wasn't sure what to expect, but everyone has been so positive in their reviews and I haven't received a single negative comment. I've honestly been blown away by the amount of people who have read my story and told me they loved it, so thank you again. You guys are awesome. :)
Like I said before, I'll be putting up a couple epilogue chapters, mainly consisting of happiness and warm kittens, so be sure to check back in a few days!