Well, this is it. The motel Sam and Dean are staying at. This will be the first time I've seen them in months.
The drive across the country, three days long, gave me plenty of time to think. The pictures from the phone, though deleted, kept poking at the back of my mind. It only took that amount of time to realize I care about Sam and Dean more than I would like, and that it's just going to do more harm than good trying to cut them out of my life.
Bracing myself, I open the door and climb out of my car. I glance at my phone again. Room 143, the text from Dean says. I start walking in the room's direction.
I pass the Impala on the way. I rub a hand along its hood lovingly. I really did miss it, the steady hum as it drove along back country roads, the soft music playing just loud enough to hear, sleeping with my head on Sam's shoulder…
Suddenly the back door opens and a sleepy Dean slides out.
"Dean?" I ask in surprise.
"Hey," he says sleepily, yawning and stretching his arms. Once he finishes, he walks over to stand in front of me, not quite sure what to do.
Ah, fuck it. I throw my arms around him and hug him tightly. I did miss him. A lot.
"You were right," I mutter into Dean's jacket.
"I usually am," he says, and I pull back from the hug to give him a playful punch to the gut.
"I mean, you were right about being with people you care about. I was starting to feel… lost, I guess." I run a hand through my hair. "Without you and Sam."
"So you missed us," he states.
"I'm not saying that," I scoff. "I'm just saying that it's better to be backed up by people I know."
"Uh-huh. I'm sure that's all," he says, throwing an arm over my shoulder as we start walking towards the motel room.
"Why were you sleeping in the car?" I ask.
"Oh, Sam texted me and told me not to come back to the motel room at about one in the morning last night. It's brother code, gotta stick to it."
"So that means…?" I know exactly what it means.
"Yeah." He casts me a sideways glance as if to check I'm all right.
We reach Room 143 and Dean knocks on the door. There's about a ten second wait before the door cracks open and Sam is standing there in nothing but his jeans.
I feel a little bit of fear, just enough to make my heart beat a little faster, but not the huge rush of panic I'd felt when I was with them before, so that's good. I guess my time away must have let my memories of hell fade enough for me to stop associating Sam with it. Instead, I'm surprised to realize I feel excited and happy to see him again.
"Sorry," he says. "One minute."
He closes the door again and I feel a prickle of jealousy replacing the warm feeling I was having a moment before. We wait a little longer and then the door opens again and a girl a couple years younger than me, dressed in a short skirt and high heels, walks out past us. She looks a little uncomfortable by my and Dean's presence. Her lips are red and swollen and she has a hickey on her neck, so it's not exactly hard to guess what she and Sam have been up to. She gives Sam one last quick glance and a smile before continuing on her way towards the main office of the motel.
I clear my throat uncomfortably, feeling a little bit hurt. He knew I was coming, couldn't he have tried to be a little more sensitive?
"What's up?" Sam asks, talking to Dean. He still hasn't looked my way yet.
"Eva's here," Dean says, frowning at his brother disapprovingly.
"Oh yeah," he says, glancing at me for a fraction of a second.
"Aren't you at least going to say hi?" I ask after an uncomfortable pause.
"Are you going to attack me with a knife again?" he counters, finally turning to me with a disapproving frown.
Tears prick at my eyes and I turn away so he won't see. Okay, that was kind of fair, but it doesn't make it hurt any less.
"Come on, Sammy, we haven't seen her in four months," Dean says. "Don't be an asshole."
"I'm the asshole? She said she hated me," Sam says, his voice wavering. "You told me that much."
"God dammit, Dean," I mutter.
"Like it was a secret?" Sam asks me angrily. I don't shrink back like I would've four months ago, and he stands a little taller, like my lack of fear has given him permission to be intimidating again. "You made it clear I'm the entire reason you left, so I don't even know why you would come back now."
I bite my lip at his harsh words. I wasn't expecting him to be this angry. Dean shifts uncomfortably at the tension between us, and Sam just crosses his arms and watches me carefully.
"Why did you come back, Eva?" he asks tiredly.
I sigh. "It's complicated."
"You're not back for me or Dean, then," he concludes.
"I never said that," I growl.
"You didn't have to."
"Okay," Dean interrupts awkwardly. "Let's just go in and talk about why Eva is here." He pushes me and Sam into the room and closes the door.
There's a charged silence, so Dean goes to the mini-fridge and gets three beers.
"Here," he says, passing them to us.
I set mine on the windowsill and Sam sets his on the table behind him, completely uninterested in drinking at the moment.
"Suit yourselves," Dean says with a shrug, cracking open his bottle and taking a glug.
"So what's the 'complicated' reason you're here?" Sam asks.
I take a deep breath. "I found some stuff about the baby."
"The baby," Sam says blankly. Dean looks just as unaware of what I'm talking about.
"My baby," I say to clarify. "The baby that you and I conceived together."
Sam's expression goes from guarded and tense to shocked. "What?" he asks. "How?"
"Here," I say, going over to the computer on the table and opening it up. I open a new browser tab and type in the name of the article I'd seen, the first one announcing the miracle pregnancy.
"Read this. From seven months ago," I say, turning the screen towards Sam and Dean.
They lean in to read it. "I don't see how this is necessarily… your baby," Sam says after he finishes.
"Yeah, that was the first part," I say, pulling up the second article from a few days before. "Now read this."
"Okay, this does seem unusual," Dean admits as he's skimming through it.
"It's a girl," Sam says softly, more to himself than us. He smiles.
Dean glances at him with raised eyebrows. "Um, yeah."
I try not to grin over Sam's awe of finding out the gender of our baby as I ask, "Any reason somebody would want the child of a Winchester? I mean, your family line… Vessels for Michael and Lucifer, descendants of Cain and Abel, Men of Letters…"
Dean shrugs. "Any and all of the reasons? I don't know."
"How do we find out who took her? And why?" I ask.
"Uh," Sam says, idly scratching the back of his head. "Tracking spell?"
"A tracking spell? We don't have anything of hers," I say.
"We have her two parents," Dean says slyly.
"Huh," I say, nodding. I shut the computer. "Well, that's a start."