"Mary."
Her eyes snapped open suddenly and she sat up with a start, head slamming into the top of the car. Hand rising to her forehead, Mary let out a string of curses, pushing hair out of her face as she sat back in her seat.
Dean chuckled lowly, looking at her. "You alright there?"
Mary said nothing, glaring at him. If anyone was to be blamed, it was her father. After all—he had been the one to wake her. "We there yet?" She asked groggily, blinking to clear her vision, the haze of sleep still covering her eyes.
"Not yet," Dean replied, eyes going back to the dark road ahead of them before they darted to her once more. "You okay, baby?"
"Besides a throbbing head and a crick in my neck, yes." Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she looked out of the car's window, pulling at the ties of her sweatshirt. The moon shone through the thicket of trees, casting an extra light on the world below, cut in half by the highway they traveled alone on.
"I mean, did you have a nightmare. You were shaking in your sleep."
"What? Oh. Yeah."
There was a pause.
"Well? Do you want to talk about it?" Her father asked slowly, knowing that if Mary was anything like him—and she was, more than he would have liked—she wouldn't want to talk about it. Dean was very easily okay with this; Elle had always been better at talking than he was.
"No." The answer was short, simple, and to the point. Inwardly, both sighed in relief. Talking wasn't really either of their best feature. Now, if you asked either of them to find and fix the problem in a car, they could have it fixed and done with within minutes of your asking.
Silence lapsed over them again, Mary leaning her head against the cold window as her eyes started to flutter shut once more. Some old rock song played in the background; sound so low she could barely tell what it was, regardless of hearing her father hum it in the background. The low purr of the impala was a dull mute inside the cabin, an almost lullaby to the both of them due to years spent in the old car. Mary was almost convinced that the day the car died, she would as well. If not her than her father.
Dean's head nodded along with the beat of the song as he hummed to it, soft enough not to disturb Mary next to him. The poor girl had inherited his habit of not being able to sleep well after hunts, rather getting nightmares than much needed and well deserved sleep. Among other bad habits she had inherited from him, this was usually the one that affected her most.
Looking over at her for a moment, he watched her right hand fiddle with the strings of her fading maroon hoodie, one an English teacher had given her when she moved away from the school. Mary wasn't one for sentiment, but this was one of the few things she had managed to hold onto after all these years.
Reaching out, he captured a hand in his own, large one encompassing her smaller hand. Smiling to himself, he noticed how her hand was always cold, something she had inherited from her mother. Even if Mary was ninety-nine percent Dean, one percent of her was still her mom.
Actually, Dean thought. Take away the dark blonde hair, green eyes and jawline; you'd get mostly Elle's looks. Eleanor would be so proud of her.
Mary's eyes met his own after a second, smiling at him softly before Dean's eyes went back to the road. Just another day on the hunt.