Chapter 2: Bloodlines
Morgan had finished showering maybe fifteen minutes ago, but she couldn't bring herself to leave the warm water. The water swirling around the drain was no longer red from the blood she had to clean off of herself. She could hear muffled conversations from the other side of the shower wall in the living room. From what she could make out, she knew Sam and Dean were arguing about what to do with her. After she stabbed those two men, they snuck her out of the hospital and brought her back to her home just a couple towns away from where she and her mother had crashed. She just stood in the water, not wanting to hear them bicker more about whether or not she was actually Dean's daughter. Sam was convinced, but Dean thinks he and her mother were smart about the event that probably led to her conception, which hearing about made Morgan cringe. In all honesty, it grossed her out that he kept bringing up her conception, but it didn't affect her much. She was rather emotionless as she tried to not think about the fact that her mother just died, how she just stabbed two people, wondering whether she was going with them, or they were going to leave her to fend for herself. She didn't mind that, she was already about to look for a job and no one knew yet that her mother was dead so maybe she could spin it that her mother was a shut in, but she knew no job at her age would be able to pay the bills and feed her each month.
When Morgan finally decided to take her aching body and step out of the shower, she shut off the hot water and moved to the bath mat, wrapping herself in the towel that was hanging on the back of the bathroom door. She dried herself off and combed through her hair as it began air-drying. She was slow to put on lotion, trying to keep herself together. She just wanted the routine to feel like normal. When she got to her face, she had to go slow, careful not to press too hard on her black eye or the stitches on her cheek. Instead, the teenager brushed her teeth and proceeded to put on the clothes that she brought with her into the bathroom. It was a pair of pajama pants with teenage mutant ninja turtle faces and pepperoni pizza slices over light blue and a black long sleeve before looking at herself in the mirror. As much as she was looking to make sure she got all the dirt and blood off in the shower, she was also looking for similarities between her face and her father's, and there was a shocking abundance.
From the cheekbones to the eyes, right down to the jawline and nose. She even shared his faint freckles. Her's were most noticeable on her nose. She even had his smile, but with fuller lips like her mother's. The main difference between the two of them was that she had her mother's straight, thick, chestnut hair. She could still hear them arguing, so she just gave up and opened the bathroom door, dropping the bloodied clothes into the hamper in her room. Her dog, a greyhound-pitbull named Zoey just trotted behind her, following her into the bedroom before sitting down by the door, like a guard dog. Morgan walked over and gave Zoey a good scratch behind the ears before taking a deep breath and inching out into the hallway, listening in for a moment.
"She's your kid, Dean. We can't just leave her here," Sam yelled.
"You think I don't know that? What the hell are we supposed to tell her about what we do for a living? Oh yeah, monsters exist. What kind of life is that? Her mom obviously didn't want that for her so why drag her into it?" Dean fought back. Morgan barely flinched. After the demons, she wasn't sure if anything else was going to surprise her.
"She's already in it! You heard her on the phone! You saw her in the hospital! They kill her mom, what else are we supposed to do? There are hundreds of monsters out there that we've crossed that would love to get their hands on her!" Sam just kept yelling at him.
"We take her to a relative. She'd be happier with them than with us," Dean tried to convince Sam.
"She'd be safer with us! Besides, do you really think she had anyone else? When her mom went to the hospital in the first place, the only person she called was Bobby and he's gone! Dean, I think we're all she's got," Sam slipped out of his yell. He sounded like he really cared, and it almost made Morgan feel a bit better about the day she's had. Almost.
"You're right. So we take the kid in, but what if she wants to go to school? We're gone the majority of the time," Dean stated.
"There's a school near the bunker, we take some time off to get her settled, then she can just bring herself to and from school. Put a hex bag in her backpack or get Cas to put those enochian cloaking symbols on her bones like he did for us back before the whole Apocalypse deal. Besides, we can always coordinate other hunters from the bunker like Bobby used to do from his kitchen," Sam stated, sort of making up a plan as he went along. "We can just make it up as we go and hope for the best. That's pretty much what dad did and look how we turned out." When Sam finished, Dean laughed.
"You're right," Dean smiled. Morgan studied that smile, it triggering memory of the photograph her mom had in the livingroom that Dean had probably seen by now. In a frame was a photograph that Morgan's mother always told her was of her father and her at the county fair. It was a teenage boy with the biggest smile on his face and his arm around a girl, her mother, as the two of them were holding cotton candies in front of a ferris wheel.
"So… You're taking me with you?" Morgan said as she creeped out from behind the wall. Both Sam and Dean looked at her with guilty expressions, knowing that she must've been listening in. Dean smirked slightly when he saw her TMNT pajama pants.
"Well, we can stay here for the night, it's been a long day for everyone. We'll head out first thing in the morning, so I suggest you pack up whatever you wanna take tonight-" Dean started but Morgan interrupted.
"And Zoey?" She asked, and Dean looked at her for a moment, like he really wanted to say no.
"Oh yeah," Sam said with a smile on his face, elbowing Dean. "Definitely bring the Dog," Sam told her.
"Well if I'm leaving, and if you guys want to add anything to it, I'm gonna do some laundry and as soon as it's started I could make dinner?" Morgan offered, trying to find things to take her mind off her mother. If she didn't have something to do, she was afraid of where her mind would go.
"We're good on the laundry front, but we could always go get dinner," Sam told her but she shook her head.
"If I'm leaving tomorrow, I wouldn't want to waste the food. Just went grocery shopping like... two days ago," Morgan told them awkwardly before walking over to her room and grabbing her laundry basket. Her dog just trotted behind her and followed her around the house and she took the basket of dirty clothes down to the basement where the laundry machines were. Once the load started she went back upstairs and looked through the fridge for things to make for dinner. Her immediate reaction was to pull the chicken and broccoli from the fridge, fixing them both up the way her mom taught her. Seasoning the chicken and the broccoli with olive oil and whatever was in the grinder her mother told her to use. She preheated the oven and wiped down the mess she made on the counter before the oven beeped and she put the pan in the over, setting the timer.
"A teenager that cooks and cleans… I think I've seen everything," Dean mumbled as he peaked into the kitchen to check on her. Sam laughed.
"Of course your kid can cook," Sam joked as the two of them turned on the tv, watching the news.
"Naturally," Dean grumbled. Morgan enjoyed listening to them, but her mind unconsciously tuned them out. Her mind went adrift as her body went through the motions of what she always did when she was upset. Her mother always used to poke fun at it, but it was always therapeutic. The fourteen year-old pulled out granulated sugar, brown sugar, butter, vanilla, eggs, flour, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips. She was baking chocolate chip cookies. As soon as she poured it all in, the timer on the oven when off, forcing her to pause and pull out the sheet pan with the chicken and broccoli. She flipped the chicken and seasoned the other side before sticking the pan back in for the rest of the time and started mixing the cookie dough. When she was rolling the balls out of the dough, she popped three or four in her mouth. She continued on like that until she covered two large cookie sheets with cookie dough balls. As soon as the dinner was ready, she stuck the cookie sheets into the oven and set the timer. Then she heard the timer downstairs go off for the laundry so she rushed down to the basement and turned over the first load and started a second as the food cooled. When she got upstairs, she made plates for the boys and herself. She used the serving tray her mom always told her was courteous to use and carried the three dinner plates plus two beers and a diet coke into the living room so the boys wouldn't have to get up. Without a word, the three of them sat and ate dinner.
"What smells so good?" Dean asked, sniffing the air like a sweet toothed hound dog.
"Chocolate chip cookies," Morgan answered. The two of them gave her funny looks. "What? Baking is therapeutic," she explained as they just shrugged and continued on eating their dinners. At this point, Morgan's long tresses hadn't dried, but the hair was at a point that made her feel slightly awkward as the shirt under her hair was slightly and uncomfortably damp, per usual. She sighed and just waited for the cookie timer to go off. The three of them were done with their dinner at that point, so she just cleared the plates and brought them with her when the timer when off. She left the dirty plates in the sink when she grabbed the oven mitts and pulled the two pans out of the oven. She decided to leave the oven on as she cookies cooled on the pans. The teenager put herself to work, doing the dishes, turning over her laundry once again and folding the clothes that came out of the drier. The third load was washing, the second load was drying, and she took the first load upstairs to her room where she left them on her bed. She went back to the kitchen and measured out all of the ingredients again. She mixed everything together once again and started putting the cookies she already made on a plate. This time, the cookie dough balls filled four big pans. She stuck two into the oven before whistling for her dog.
Zoey got up from her spot by the kitchen door and trotted over to her food bowl. Morgan poured the dog food into the bowl and gave the greyhound-pitt a good scratch before washing her hands again and walking over to the mess she made on the counter. This time, before cleaning up the powdery, buttery mess she made, the teenager grabbed the bowl and started eating what was left of the dough. She made a little too much, as there was just enough left to make maybe five more cookies, but she had filled all the cookie sheets in the house, and she didn't feel like waiting on five more cookies. She scraped the bowl clean and consumed the contents. She just continued her laundry process, taking pans out and putting the other two in, wiping down the counter, turning over laundry, bringing folded clothes upstairs, packing her entire life into duffel bags and suitcases, only taking what she knew she couldn't live without.
Amidst her packing, she found herself in her mother's bedroom. She grabbed her mom's old Ohio State University sweatshirt, smelling it for a moment, coming across the scent of her mother's that she had often taken for granted. She took in that smell of lavender scented fabric softener, dove soap, and a hint of some Lilly Pulitzer perfume that they found on sale at a TJMAXX store. Her eyes watered, a few tears streaming down her face before she decided wipe her eyes and start rummaging through her mother's things to see if there were any pictures or other items she could take with her so she's have some semblance of her mother. Some way to hold onto her, and then she found something behind shoes, purses, and old shopping bags filled with flip-flops and swimsuits since her mother stored things that way when it wasn't the season to use them. Morgan found a box, one that housed her mother's old prom dress. But when Morgan opened the box, there was no dress to be seen. The teenager took one look at the context and closed the box. She rushed through the closet, grabbing old necklaces, shirts she was known for borrowing from her mother, and a photograph of her mother with Morgan's late maternal grandfather. When she was finished, she piled it all on top of the box and brought them all into her bedroom. The dog sat down in front of her doorway and Morgan just rolled her eyes at the overprotective dog and she shut the door and locked it behind her.
"Oh my god," Morgan whispered to herself as she sat on the floor, pulling a letter out of the box. It was her mother's handwriting, Morgan's name written on the back of the letter, addressing her. She traced her fingers over the ink before setting the letter aside, and looking into the box. What confused her, was that there was a couple leather bound journals, some canvas bags of miscellaneous dried plants, bones and powders, vials and small jars of various powders and liquids, a rosary, a bible, and laying across the bottom of the box was a machete and a silver knife. This specific set of objects sent her mind reeling. Her immediate reaction was to grab the letter and tear open the seal, reading the contents. Morgan's heart began pounding in her chest as she felt the weight of the world drag her into a state of anxiety about the life surrounding her. She put the letter back in the box along with her mother's purse and the bloody knife from her attack in the hospital and pulled out some duct tape. Once the box was closed and secured, she set the box aside with the other three bags she was taking with her. The moment her room looked barren and her outfit for traveling was folded on top of the desk she was leaving behind, the fourteen year old put her two large duffel bags and her backpack by her bedroom door before she crashed onto her bed. Her dog scratched the door open and hopped up onto her bed, laying at her feet. The sleeping teen left Sam and Dean to sleep on either stretch of the large 'L' couch in the living room.
Morgan,
If you're reading this, I'm probably dead and your Uncle Bobby or a friend of his has come to collect you. If you're reading this, I'm so sorry that I'm not around to protect you. If you're reading this, something's after you. It's very difficult to explain and your upbringing has left you ill-prepared. I had hoped to keep you out of this life, but the life has pulled you in whether I wanted it to or not. But your lineage puts you in danger from many things out there that wish to hurt your father, like whatever has killed me and is after you now. Hopefully, these books and items I've left for you and your Uncle Bobby will identify what is after you and save you from whatever it is. I promise, you're going to be okay, I have friends who will protect you. You have family who will protect you.
Don't trust anyone but your Uncle Bobby and who he tells you to trust.
I love you so much,
Mom
P.S. I once told Bobby that I'd tell him who your father was, "over my dead body." Tell him that you're father's name is Dean.