Chapter 3: The House of the Rising Sun

Morgan woke up, and for a second she thought she was going to find her mother in the driver's seat of the car. The teenager was laying across the back seat, her head on the pile of linens from her bedroom. She had almost said, Good morning, Mom, before she realized she was in the car with her alleged father and uncle. She wasn't even sure if she believed it, but at this point she'd take whatever family she could get, and the note from her mother identifying her father and the uncanny resemblance to the teenager with her mother at the county fair were some overwhelming evidence. The teenager curled up a bit further, happy that she decided to wear leggings and a longsleeve in the spring weather. When she sat up, her dog shifted so it's head was on her lap. Morgan looked up at the front seats, noticing that Dean must've been alone with his thoughts and the quiet metallica emanating from the stereo for a while since Sam was dozed off in the passenger seat.

"That is quite the shiner considering it's day two," Dean commented as he looked at her through the rear view mirror. Morgan reached into her backpack and put on her Cincinnati Reds baseball cap, pulling the brim down slightly to make sure that her black eye was slightly covered.

"Can I ask you a question?" Her voice cracked as she spoke.

"Sure."

"Do you know if I'm really your kid?" she inquired, part of her hoping he was going to say yes. She knew the truth, but she was wondering if he really knew. Dean sighed.

"It's possible. She was my girlfriend for a little while. We'd see each other maybe once a month when our parents were hunting together. One day, we were supposed to go on a hunt together, but my dad told me to forget about it, and I never saw her again till a couple years back when she asked me some questions. She was having a demon problem. I mailed her an anti-possession charm, but she didn't tell me about you," Dean told her, keeping his eyes on the road. Morgan reached into her shirt and pulled the little silver charm out, rubbing her thumb over it for a moment, remembering what her mother had said about it. I know it seems small, but this will protect you. Listen to me, I don't ever want to see you without it.

"You gave this to her?" Morgan asked. He glanced back at the charm before his eyes went back to the road.

"Yeah," he sighed.

"I guess she got the tattoo and gave this to me." Morgan spoke softly, looking at the charm for a moment longer before putting it back in her shirt where it wouldn't remind her of her dead mother.

"Did she ever tell you anything about me?" Dean asked after a long bit of silence. Morgan nodded.

"She had your picture in the livingroom longer than I can remember. Couple more of them on the flashdrive she gave me for my birthday this year. Money was tight this year so she gave me a flashdrive with every picture she had from before me, and then pretty much every picture she took documenting my childhood. If you want to see them…?" Morgan had realized she was rambling a little too much.

"Maybe some other time."

"Well, other than the pictures, she always told me I looked just like you. I mean minus the hair, that's kind of obvious," Morgan joked, making dean chuckle quietly.

"You definitely got your mother's in that department," Dean chuckled. Zoey made a little boof sound, like she wasn't in full bark mode yet. Dean glared at the animal from the rearview mirror at the dog.

"You may want to make a pit stop soon," Morgan told him, knowing that Zoey probably had to go to the bathroom.

"Yeah, yeah, okay," Dean grumbled as he started looking at road signs for a stop he wanted to get off at.

"You really don't like dogs do you?"

"No." Morgan laughed at Dean's discomfort, but he knew as well as she did that he couldn't just leave the dog behind. It would be especially cruel since her mother just died, taking away what little normalcy Morgan had left. It wasn't long before he found a suitable stop and began to slow down, veering into the far right lane to get off at the exit. Sam woke up at the sudden change of pace as they followed the main road for a mile or two until they stopped in a small down, parking the car at a little local diner.

"You and Sam can walk the dog, then put her back in the car before coming inside. I'll grab a table," Dean instructed them, handing Sam the car keys. Morgan shrugged off the sense of the alpha male controlling her before grabbing Zoey's leash and taking her out of the car. She looped the leash around her wrist before using her free hands to pull up her leggings a bit and straighten her shirt. She looked down at her high tops, making sure they were still tied before walking with Zoey at her side and Sam in tow. They didn't say much, just the alleged uncle watching over his alleged niece as she walked her dog to a patch of green so the animal could do her business before they got to go eat lunch.

When Zoey finished her business, Morgan and Sam walked the dog back to the car and put her in the backseat, leaving the car window cracked before they locked her in and went into the diner to sit find Dean. He was sitting in one of the booths, drinking a cup of coffee and looking at one of three menus as the table. Sam sat next to Dean on one side of the booth while Morgan sat on the other side, by herself. The teenager couldn't help but start fidgeting, her fingers folding the bottom corner of the paper menu as her foot started quietly tapping away at the linoleum tiled floor. She sighed, rolling her head around, cracking it before looking forward. After that, it was like a gateway to her rolling through and cracking whatever joint she could. Her wrists, her elbows, her back, her knuckles, etc. When she was finished, Morgan looked over her menu and saw that the two men were staring at her.

"What?" She snapped. They both shook their heads.

"Nothing," Sam stated quickly as he and his brother got back into reading the menus. A waitress came over and gave them a warm smile. The woman was pretty, young, and thin, wearing a yellow diner uniform and her blonde hair up in a curly ponytail. Morgan rolled her eyes as she saw the big red hearts in Dean's.

"How're ya'll doing this fine day?" She asked them, sweetheart's voice and smile like a ray of sunshine that was starting to get on Morgan's nerves, but she let it go when she realized it only got on her nerved because Dean was ogling the poor woman.

"We're doin' great, darlin'. On a roadtrip to move pipsqueak over here back home to Nebraska," Dean told her, Sam and Morgan knowing he was lying. She knew they were going to Kansas.

"That's nice," she told them with a smile. "Now, what can I get y'all?" she asked, pulling out a pen and paper to take the orders down. The waitress looked right at Morgan, waiting for a response. The teenager just gave the menu one last glance over and looked back at the waitress.

"Can I get a bacon grilled cheese with fries and a chocolate shake?" Morgan, asked, her sweet tooth kicking in. She would've satiated the sweet desire earlier, but she fell asleep before she could break into the large tupperware container of chocolate chip cookies that she had made the night before.

"You sure can, sugar. What about you sir?" The waitress asked Dean.

"I'll have a bacon cheeseburger with fries and a coke, sweetheart," Dean gave her a smile that Morgan was beginning to realize must've been his calling card judging by the way Sam rolled his eyes.

"And you?" The waitress asked Sam, her southern charm unwavering. There was a thought that crossed Morgan's mind that maybe Dean's slight flirting was one sided, and that maybe this sweet woman was just trying to get a good tip. She was trying to make a living in a small town after all. But she was only fourteen, she could be wrong.

"I'll just have a caesar salad and a diet coke, thanks." Morgan studied the two boys, probably as much as they were studying her, the stranger that was sleeping in the backseat of their car.

"Alright! I'll have those out in a jiffy," She smiled, giving Dean a wink. Morgan groaned quietly, Sam chuckling to himself as Dean looked proud of himself with the little ego boost that the woman gave to him. Morgan pulled out her phone and started playing sudoku, trying to avoid an awkward conversation with her alleged family. But then, the same question she's had for a while that she wasn't allowed to ask her mother and now couldn't ask her mother was eating away at her insides. She shut her screen off and set the phone on the table. She did exactly what her mom told her to do when she wanted to ask a question and be taken seriously so she could get a serious answer. She sat up straight, folded her hands together, and gained a stoney face that she was often reminded that she had whenever she was being inquisitive.

"There's somethings I need to know," Morgan began, remembering the box she found in her mother's closet. The box that was set aside for her in the event of her mother's death. "Monsters are real, we're on the same page?" She kept her voice low, knowing that if other's heard, they could either be monsters themselves or think that the trio was crazy. Sam and Dean shared a look, like they weren't expecting her to ask that question so blatantly, though it was clear she knew about demons considering recent events.

"Yeah, were on the same page," Sam told her. "Demons you've seen, but Werewolves, Vampires, Ghosts, Djinn, Shapeshifters, Witches, Familiars…" Sam stated, making Morgan feel discomforted that there were so many things that could be what goes bump in the night.

"Jefferson Starships… I named them, no big deal… Well, those are extinct now…" Dean smirked, a small laugh fighting its way past his lips.

"Did you just say… Jefferson Starships?" Morgan raised an eyebrow in a mix of confusion and distaste.

"Long story short, be glad those bastards are extinct. Hybrids of Vampires, Wraiths, and Shapeshifters," Dean explained. Morgan still had an expression of confusion.

"...And you decided to name them Jefferson Starships?" Morgan inquired hesitantly. Sam was just quietly laughing to himself as Dean slipped into a sillier persona with a proud smirk at what he named the rather dangerous sounding monster.

"In my defense, I named them after the band, Jefferson Starship from 1974 because they are horrible and hard to kill," Dean explained to her in all seriousness before the smirk creeped back onto his face. Morgan tried not to laugh, but a small and quick exhale escaped her nose and she tried to hold in her laughter.

"So, Monsters are real, basically anything I can think of is real," Morgan looked at them, the two men nodding. "Okay, so you guys are what? Monster hunters?" She started tapping her foot again. She was starting to realize the trend of that now. The more and more her mind would wander, the more she stressed herself, the more she was overthinking one too many thoughts, she would tap her foot or kneed and wring her hands. She would fidget or shake or wiggle. She couldn't sit still. She calmed herself.

"Yeah. When I said your mother and I would see each other on hunts, we weren't hunting animals. We were hunting monsters," Dean explained, looking over his shoulder for a moment, grinning at the waitress doing a balancing act with their three meals. Morgan leaned forward for a moment.

"I'm I going to get to-" Morgan was going to ask if she was going to get to hunt, but Dean cut her off with his greeting of the waitress.

"Thank you so much, darlin'." He smiled as he received his burger.

"Please, call me Holly," she implored with a prize winning smile. The woman served Sam and Morgan their food before walking off to tend to her other customers. Morgan was in mid sip of her chocolate shake when she noticed a piece of paper hidden in Dean's napkin.

"What's this?" the teenage asked as she snatched the folded up piece of paper that was hiding slightly under Dean's napkin, beneath the side of his plate. The two men looked at her expectantly as she unfolded the paper. Morgan rolled her eyes as she sloppily threw the piece of paper at Dean. "Second day ever with my dad and the most memorable experience is you finessing a pretty waitress," Morgan half complained with a smirk as Dean beamed with slight pride and Sam burst into laughter as he grabbed the paper from his brother, having to see the name and phone number for himself.

"Get used to it, sweetheart. Occupational hazard," Dean told her with a smile as he ate a fry.

"Of being a hunter?" Morgan asked.

"Of being me."

A/N: High! Don't forget to please REVIEW! :)