A Pardon for Promise-Breakers

Note: I've never successfully written a story in this format but I figured I'd try it. This flashes between different ages (Anna at 4, 7, 9, 11, and 14) with some reflection at the end. And the story idea arose when I realized how often I type the words "Anna didn't care for promises" or something of the sort. I don't know how many stories I've published here with that phrase but I keep catching myself writing it. So I thought about why I thought Anna would hate promises so much and BAM, I wrote a story. Okay, that's my skinny. Also my apologies because this could probably use more editing. But without further ado:




A Pardon for Promise-Breakers


"Daddy?"


John turned from the counter, startled by the small voice behind him. "Hey, Peanut," he greeted, his voice low and quiet in the early morning. "What are you doin' up so late?"


Little feet pitter-pattered across the floor as Anna hurried across the small kitchen toward him. John scooped her up in her Daddy's Little Princess pajamas, and smiled softly when she snuggled into his shoulder. He remembered a few years after Mary died, thinking how he would have liked to have a daughter. He'd imagined different circumstances. But the feeling was the same. The little girl in his arms was as sweet as he'd dreamed and had the same power of wrapping him around her little finger.


"You getted back quicker than last time, Daddy," Anna whispered in his ear. But she whispered the way all four year olds whisper-- by making their voice breathier, but not quieter.


"Well, that old ghost saw me coming," John whispered back, and used one hand to tuck a stray curl behind Anna's ear. "And he knew he didn't stand a chance. It didn't take me long to kick his ass."


Anna giggled when John used his free hand to make a fist and pretend-punch at the air. "I miss you, Daddy," she said, growing somber again. She leaned up and kissed his chin, covered in five o'clock shadow. It didn't escape John's attention that she hadn't put the word in past tense. Was it possible to miss someone even as you were in their arms?


The inquiry reminded him of one day a few months after Dean was born when he and Mary had a fight, and tried to go to sleep in the same bed that night as if nothing had happened. He remembered lying there thinking he could feel her slipping away from him, even as he held her. He remembered the ache he felt as she left him without moving an inch. You didn't have to physically walk away to leave. It was just more final that way. And John knew that these days he was rarely present, even when he was home-- home being wherever his children were.


"I missed you too, Peanut," he said, hoping the correction wouldn't go unnoticed by the four year old. Because if there was anyone left in his life who he didn't feel slipping through his fingers, it was his little girl.


"Are you stayin' today?"


"Of course I am," John said, but he didn't know for sure. If he found a hunt, he would head out. If he found two, he would put Dean on one and figure out which one of them Anna would be safer with.


"Promise?"


John hesitated. "I promise." The smile on Anna's face made it worth it, even though he had a hunch she would be disappointed by the end of the day because of that promise.


"Dad? We headin' out early or something?"


John looked over as Dean stumbled into the room, rubbing sleep from his eyes. It made him look ten again instead of twenty-three. "Nah," he answered, reveling for just one moment in the calm that had somehow been achieved in their small family for a few minutes in the early morning. It felt good as long as it lasted, and John wondered, not for the first time, just what he was playing at, making these kinds of moments so rare in the eyes of his children. "Haven't spotted any hunts yet."


"Daddy's stayin' today, Dean!" Anna piped up, chipper and loud-- too energetic when the sun was just beginning to creep above the horizon line.


"Pipe down, Anna," John said simply, and she instantly quieted with a murmured apology. She settled her head on his shoulder and the atmosphere was warm as Dean passed by them to pour himself a cup of the coffee John had been preparing before Anna walked in. "You talk to Caleb?" he asked his eldest and moved to sit at the table in the kitchenette. He set Anna on the table in front of him and fixed the Cookie Monster socks that were sliding off her feet.


"Yes, sir. Says he's on a poltergeist in North Dakota, but if he catches wind of anything, he'll shoot us a call."


John nodded, and accepted the cup of coffee his son handed him with a short nod of gratitude.


Dean settled in the chair opposite his father, and revelled in the first sip of strong, black coffee. His hair was ruffled from sleep and he wished somewhere in the back of his mind that he'd just stayed in bed. It wasn't easy convincing himself to get up these days, let alone to be the charismatic foundation for his family's well-being. With Sam gone, Dean was facing a major loss he hadn't quite expected.


Anna turned around on the table and crawled across it until she was in front of her brother. Then she scooted off the table and into his lap, nearly making him spill his coffee. "Mornin', Runt," he said through a smirk.


"Good morning!"


Dean leaned back a little at the loud exclamation so close to his face. "We either gotta get you a muzzle, or get us some earmuffs," he said, emphasizing the point with a poke to Anna's rib cage that made her squeal with laughter and wrap her arms protectively around her stomach.


"I'm not a puppy, Dean."


"Not with all that messy hair, you're not." He snuck in another gulp of coffee, trying to find the energy to interact with a four-year-old for a few more minutes.


John cleared his throat from opposite them. He was holding a newspaper now. "Local Man Drowns on Dry Land," he read and turned the second page of the paper so Dean could see the photo accompanying the headline.


"Sounds like a witch."


"Or a desperate water spirit," John tacked on, his eyes reminding Dean not to assume you know what you're after before you've seen enough evidence. That could be lethal in their line of work. In fact, they'd lost a friend to that very mistake only last month. He could see in Dean's expression that he'd caught the silent reprimand. "I'll head out in an hour."


"Just you?" Dean questioned, trying not to sound as skeptical as he felt. Witches-- he stopped his own thought and corrected himself. Anything capable of drowning a man on dry land was powerful enough that the person hunting it ought to have reliable backup.


John nodded curtly. "You'll look after your sister here until the rent runs out, then meet me up in Mass."


"Yes, sir," Dean said, biting his tongue against every warning he wanted to spit out.


"Make sure she works on her Latin. She's gonna get that down if it takes the rest of my damn life to teach it to her."


Dean didn't point out that John was not, in fact, the one tasked with teaching her. "Yes, sir," he said instead, and the silent grudge he started holding against John the day that Sam left grew another millimeter in size.


John stood, drained the coffee from his cup, set the mug back down, and headed to the bathroom.


"He said he would stay today." The downtrodden, miserable voice drew Dean's attention to the little girl still sitting in his lap.


But what could he do? Dean didn't like their father's decision to leave so soon after he agreed not to either. He certainly didn't like that John would be hunting anything dangerous on his own. But there was nothing that could be done to change John's mind. Not lately. Not since Sammy left.


Dean looked down into wide green eyes that bore a surprising similarity to his own. He saw his father's weakness in those green eyes. John got smashed, stumbled upon a woman who looked like Mary, and he lost himself. Of course, out of that came a little girl who Dean was grateful to have in his life as a grounding force, a reminder that there was still a rainbow at the end of the storm and a light at the end of the tunnel.


"We'll be alright for a few days." And after that time had passed, John would return, make one more false promise to his innocent young daughter. Dean would patch the wound left behind in the time it took for John to return, and the cycle would repeat itself until the day Anna learned that John's best wasn't good enough. Dean only hoped he could postpone that day until Anna was strong enough to bear its weight for the rest of her life. "And you'll see him again before you know it."


God, but Dean hoped that when Anna finally did realize John was a liar, she wouldn't associate the white lies Dean told on his behalf with that understanding. He hoped he wasn't ruining his own track record for John. Anna was the only one he had left whose relationship with him he had yet to damage. She was the only one who'd yet to leave him. If he could do right by her the way he'd always tried to do for Sam, maybe she wouldn't feel the need to run from him.


"I miss him," Anna said quietly, and she wrapped her arms around Dean's neck. Dean finished his coffee and wrapped one strong arm around the little girl's back. For as long as he could he would be her anchor of truth in a storm of lies.


()()()


Anna pulled her hand out of Sam's as they walked toward the yellow house on the corner. It was unbelievable, really, them making her stay with someone while they tracked down a wendigo after she was part of a hunt for one just last year. Of course, she'd been sick at the time-- too sick to be anything but a problem in that hunt-- but that was all the more reason for her to get a second shot at a wendigo hunt in Anna's mind.


She stopped at the gate and squinted past the sunlight in her eyes to examine the walkway, her gaze tracking up to the front door. There were potted plants outside and the walkway was clean, the lawn neatly trimmed. It was a nightmare.


"I don't wanna stay here," she said for what had to be the twelfth time in a span of as many minutes.


Sam sighed way above her head, and Anna frowned. She wasn't trying to be in the way, but it seemed she always was no matter what she did. Maybe if they would give her a chance to be helpful once in a while, she wouldn't always be right under their feet. "You won't be here long, Anna. Just for a few hours. We'll be back by midnight."


"That's long," Anna whispered and clutched Halloween tightly to her with her left arm. The stuffed frog took the rough treatment without complaint, in fact looking rather bored, as if he was squeezed and thrown all the time. Actually, that wasn't far from the truth. "It's gonna be dark then."


"You'll be sleeping half the time we're gone, Ladybug. You'll hardly notice."


"I'm 'apposed to sleep in this place?!" Anna asked, astounded as she squinted up at her older brother's face. "But- but what if somethin' comes?"


That got Sam's attention. He hadn't realized she harbored the same kinds of fears he remembered facing as a child. He was under the impression that Anna, having grown up being told no lies about the family business, was relatively fearless when it came to just that: the family business. She never seemed to be scared. In fact, Sam had noticed over the past few months since his siblings came to get him that Anna's vulnerabilities mostly had a lot more to do with their father being gone than with the daily dangers that came with hunting.


He squatted down by his little sister in the middle of the walkway. "Dean and I are going to take out the only monster anywhere near this place. You don't have to worry about anything coming to get you. I promise."


Anna looked at him with serious, wonder-filled eyes. "Daddy always says you can't know if there's another monster until he shows himself, and then sometimes it's too late. That's how come you gotta be alert all the time."


Sam kept his face calm even as his blood boiled at the implication that John was already turning Anna into a soldier at just seven years old-- or six even, since he'd been gone since only a month after Anna turned seven. He couldn't help but be curious just how different Anna's first seven years were from his own. He could be sure that he and Dean never accompanied their father on actual hunting missions-- even to question witnesses or sneak into buildings and offices- as much as Anna joined him and Dean for the same things.


Dad doesn't know everything, Sam wanted to say. Dad only says that because he doesn't know how to be a father. Dad just wants to control your life the way he controlled mine and Dean's, and the only way he can do that is be instilling fear in you. And trust me, baby sister, you don't want the kind of life that Dad is trying to give you. It's nothing but a cold and calloused means of survival. You will never stop being afraid.


But how can you say even one piece of that to a little girl who's gazing up at you with innocent green eyes because she hasn't been burned the way you're afraid she will be? How do you say that to the freckle-faced child who has yet to lose faith in her father, who still calls him a hero because she's only ever focused on the best sides of him? How do you tell the child whose kind, mostly unharmed heart you would die to protect that one day, the world is going to bury her smile six feet under, and the man whose every word she clings to now is going be the catalyst on Volcano Day?


"Sammy, didn't Daddy tell you that?"


He told me. He told me a lot of things when I was too young to understand just how wrong he was. But here he was, forced to come up with some answer that would comfort his sister without painting their father as a villain in her eyes too soon. "He told me," was all he could think of for a moment. "But he only means that for when you're by yourself. When there's someone else to protect you, you don't have to be ready to fight all the time."


"Is that why you brought me here?"


Sam smiled. She was a smart kid. She would go to college some day, he was sure of it. He sure as hell wasn't letting her become a full-time hunter like him and Dean. Anyway, by the time she was in high school they surely would have killed the damn demon who did this to their family. And when that was over, they would be able to rest, and then they could settle down and Anna could  have the childhood Sam had always longed for. She would be safe. When she was sixteen, she would worry about acne, essays due at midnight, and drama in her giant group of friends, not about how to hide the bruises she got hunting the werewolf last weekend or how to convince the nurse that she really felt fine so the school wouldn't try calling her father and find out he was two states over "on business."


"Exactly," he answered her question. "Catherine is going to keep you safe while we hunt the wendigo, and then we'll come back and get you."


"Promise?"


"Cross my heart and-"


Anna reached one small hand up faster than a bolt of lightning and covered Sam's mouth with it. "Don't say it," she whispered, leaning in with wide eyes like she was telling a precious secret. "That's what Lexi said too."


Sam made a mental note to ask Dean who Lexi was. But he had a feeling he knew the answer. More than likely she'd been a hunter who tried working a case with them while Sam was at school. Hunters were a dime a dozen in some places. In others they were rarer than precious metals. The Winchesters had met up with other hunters in the middle of working cases at least a few times a year for as long as Sam could remember. A lot of times, they weren't trained as well as John had trained his kids. Sometimes they died. But if Lexi had been a casualty on a hunt in the last couple years and had left an imprint in Anna's mind, Sam wanted to know the story there.


"Okay. But I promise."


"Make Dean promise too, 'kay?"


"You got it."


They walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. "Sammy?"


"Mhm?"


"Daddy's comin' back, right?"


"Sure he is." The fire burned in the back of his mind, but he wouldn't let his little sister see it. His anger toward John Winchester was purely his own. He wouldn't let it poison little Anna.


"Soon?"


"I hope so." He didn't mean to deflect her questions, but he had to go. It was beginning to grow dark already. It was six o'clock, at least.


The door swung open, and Anna shuffled behind Sam's leg to peer shyly up at the woman who stood before them. She had kind brown eyes and curly hair the color of strong coffee fresh from the pot-- the way Dean liked his first thing in the morning. It made Anna like her a little bit right off the bat. "Hi, Sam," the woman said, her voice calm and cascading like a waterfall. "And this must be Anna. You know, she reminds me of your father." Her eyes wrinkled at the corners when she smiled, and Anna blinked up at her with curious eyes. "Except she didn't inherit any shyness from him."


"That's for sure," Sam agreed. "Anna, this is Catherine."


Anna used both arms to hug her stuffed frog tightly to her chest. "Well, now we know one another," Catherine said sweetly. "But I'm afraid we've skipped someone in our introductions." She pointed at the stuffed animal in Anna's hands. "Who's this?"


Anna shifted nervously from one foot to the other, but she answered quietly. "His name is Halloween."


"Halloween," Catherine grinned. "Now isn't that a nice name. What made you pick it?"


Anna bit her lip, then wrinkled her nose and leaned forward to tell Catherine like it was a secret Sam didn't already know, "He tells very good scary stories."


"Isn't that nice. Maybe he'll tell me one later. You think so?"


"Not at night, or you'll never ever fall asleep!"


"Guess I'll just have to take your word for it then," Catherine admitted with a sigh. "What do you say we let your brother go hunting, Anna, and we can go inside and make some cookies?"


Anna perked up at the mention of cookies, but she was still slightly shy, leaning against Sam's leg. She looked up at her brother and Sam crouched down again like he had in the walkway earlier. "Be good, alright?" Anna nodded. She was always good. "We'll be back real soon, Sweetheart, I promise." The repeated promise made Anna relax a little, and she hugged Sam tightly around the neck for a second before taking the hand Catherine held out to her and walking inside.


Sam and Dean were hunting something far more sinister than a wendigo that night. It captured them and hid them away in its lair. They were found two days later by the hunter Catherine found in her address book the first morning after they didn't come back. By the time they returned, Anna was sick with worry, refusing to eat or sleep. She had been terrified they would never come back. Like father like son, the old adage went. But not in the case of the Winchesters. No, they learned from the mistakes John made.


Anna's faith shifted that day and rested far more heavily on Sam's and Dean's shoulders than on John's.


()()()


Anna stood barefoot on Bobby's front porch, toes curled over the bottom of the railing while she leaned over the top of it and waved. Her blonde curls were tousled and thrown by the warm afternoon breeze. In the distance, the Impala disappeared from sight. At nine years old, she'd been in this position on this porch about ten times in the last six months.


"Come inside, Anna. There's a storm comin'."


The little girl turned her head at the sound of Bobby's voice, but didn't move for a moment. She stared instead at the dirt road leading away from the salvage yard. For a few seconds, she let herself believe they were due back today rather than having just left. And for those few seconds, she felt pretty good. Then she blinked and the road was as empty as ever, and she didn't feel so good anymore. Anna stepped off the porch railing and toward the screen door with her shoulders drooping.


"Uncle Bobby," she started, ducking under his arm and through the screen door he held open for her. "Did they really used to stay behind like I do?" She followed him to the kitchen where she figured they would start on dinner. "Dean says they did. Only Sam won't tell me about it, and I don't believe 'em." She sat at the table and waited for Bobby's answer.


"I can't say I know what you mean, Anna."


"I mean with you. Did Dad leave them here a lot? Or did he take them with 'im?"


Bobby set a block of cheddar cheese and a big pyramid-shaped cheese grater in front of Anna on the table and said nothing.


"You can tell me," Anna insisted. "I won't get mad."


"I ain't worried about you gettin' mad. You know you oughta listen to them two. They might be a coupla grade A idjits, but they also want what's best for you. A little trust goes a long way, you know."


Anna shrugged, eyes downcast as she started picking at the seam of the plastic wrap on the cheese. "Only as far as you can carry it," she said quietly.


Bobby glanced sideways at her. "Not when it comes to family," he corrected, a sternness appearing in his voice. He grabbed a knife off the counter and cut the plastic wrap off the block of cheese for her. "Get to work on that, will ya? I'd like to eat today."


"Yes, sir," Anna mumbled and started grating cheese with fervor.


It was ten minutes later while she stood next to Bobby at the counter that Anna broached the subject a second time. "They won't leave me behind a lot longer, right?"


"You're a dog with a bone, huh, kid?"


Anna shrugged. "If you say so." She picked up one foot when her sock hit something wet on the floor, frustrated at the feeling it created for her foot. "Ew," she grumbled under her breath. But she wasn't distracted for long. She looked back up at Bobby. "When you don't answer, does that mean I'm wrong?"


"Sometimes," Bobby admitted, moving farther away to stir something on the stovetop.


Anna followed him, not to be ignored. "You think they're gonna keep leavin' me here?"


"I doubt they will much longer."


"Really?" Anna asked, her eyes lighting up.


Bobby stared intently at the contents of the saucepan in front of him. If only Anna realized what she was getting into becoming a hunter, she wouldn't be half as eager. If only she knew how badly they all wanted her to keep that bright-eyed look and innocent way about her, maybe she wouldn't fight so hard every step of the way when they tried to protect her from the evil in the world.


"You're gettin' bigger," he told her. "And you've been training more lately. Don't rush things."


Anna frowned again. She hated to hear that. How was she ever supposed to get anywhere if she didn't step on the gas pedal? "But you said-"


"I know what I said, Anna."


"Well then I don't care about the rest."


"You will one day," Bobby informed, and he looked her dead in the eyes so she might see that he was sure of himself, confident in his words. "And you'll be mighty sorry then that you rushed into hunting now."


"They won't leave me so much," Anna repeated, steadfastly ignoring all the rest. "You promise?"


Bobby turned off the stove and looked down at the girl. "Asking for a promise is asking for disappointment, kid."


Anna glared a hole in the back of Bobby's head as he picked up the pan and moved it toward the table. But she wasn't angry. She was confused.


()()()


Dean looked up from the shoe he'd been about to take off when he heard the tell-tale trail in Anna's voice that meant she was lying. "Mind repeating that?" He had to be sure before he lit into her, after all.


Anna looked over from her seat on top of the table, laptop open in her lap. "I said nothing happened." Bingo. Nose twitch.


"Tell me what you did. Now."


Anna's eyes widened as she tried her best to play innocent though she was anything but. "I don't know what you're talking about."


Dean narrowed his eyes at her, standing up from the edge of the bed. He'd gotten back not five minutes ago and he was dead tired. All he wanted was to take off his shoes, change out of his suit, and crack open a cold one. Instead, here they were in the start of what he hoped would be a short stand-off before the discovery of a hopefully very small secret activity.


"I'm not in the mood to play games with you, Anna. So spill."


"Promise not to get mad first?"


Dean raised one eyebrow and crossed his arms. "You have ten seconds."


"Just promise."


Dean rolled his eyes. He was definitely going to get mad if she felt had to bargain with him so he wouldn't. But she was only eleven so whatever it was it couldn't be that bad, and if it would get him to that beer sooner- "Fine. I promise. Out with it."


"I may have broken the bathroom mirror." Dean's shoulders sagged with relief. That wasn't so bad. "And stabbed myself with one of the pieces." He tensed. "It's not that bad!" Anna hurried to reassure him.


Dean was already right in front of her, though, throwing the laptop she'd been holding onto the bed behind him. "Where?" It was a demand, and Anna mumbled a response. "I'm not asking again, Anna."


"You said you wouldn get mad."


"Anna Grace, I want an answer, and I want it now."


Anna sighed. "It was just my hand."


No sooner had she finished speaking than both her wrists were held tightly in Dean's grasp. Her left was soon abandoned while Dean pulled the messily taped blood-soaked gauze off her right palm. "There's still glass in here," Dean ground out, frustrated. "And I think you need stitches."


"Yeah, well, it ain't easy working with your nondominant hand."


Dean fixed her with a dark look. "I'll take care of it," he said simply. "But from now on, you're gonna be forward about it when something like this happens."


Anna nodded even as Dean turned away to go get the first aid kit. She sighed. So much for not getting mad.


()()()


Cheese that had melted to a pizza box was long since cooled and hardened. The sodas in paper cups with flimsy plastic lids were going flat beside the half-eaten pizza on the table in the library. On the ground was a piece of pepperoni, orange grease puddled around it. A chair was tipped over, several books on the floor around it. The worst part, though? The spatter of blood on the wall next to the table.


Anna sat against the wall opposite the mess and didn't move to clean it up. She felt frozen with fear and abandonment. And it wasn't fair to feel that way, she knew, when they were gone to deal with something that was so much bigger than her. But the catastrophe that brought her to this moment had been nothing short of petrifying. And just like that, they'd turned tail and left her behind.


How could anyone be forced to sit surrounded by debris and have no part in putting the building together again?


Of course, this wasn't quite the same thing. Anna just wanted a hand in taking down Crowley and his minions once and for all. And Castiel, relatively graceless and basically cut off from heaven, had been taken along despite his weakness while Anna, at 110%, was shoved behind a protective wall of big brother one second and told to 'stay here' the next while her family hurried to take care of the latest life or death crisis.


Anna forced herself to her feet and let her body work in automatic while her mind wandered through the injustice of it all. She cleaned up the remains of their dinner, tossing the pizza in the trash instead of the fridge even though they didn't waste food. Who wanted even the smallest memento by which this night could be remembered? Books were placed neatly back into shelves, the chair replaced at the foot of the table, and the blood scrubbed from the floorboard through a half-hour of labor and Mr Clean.


It was true that Anna could've waited for Castiel to return with her brothers and he could've zapped the stains away with a single touch, even low on grace as he was. But she couldn't bear to see Sam's blood on the wall, even in such small amounts. The library was cleaner than it had been for a while by the time she finished cleaning up. But it didn't feel good.


Anna felt like she was feeding herself an illusion of correctness. By making the room presentable, she was wiping away the memory of Sam's head hitting the wall, of Castiel being grabbed by the throat, of Dean bodily shoving her to the side just in time to avoid getting jumped by two demons trying way too hard to look cool in leather jackets, of Crowley promising to destroy whatever he had to if it meant hell could stay an open party.


Anna collapsed onto the armchair in the far corner of the library. It was well after midnight, but she wouldn't sleep a wink until her family was back. They hadn't so much as texted a single word since they left an hour and a half ago. That fact wouldn't have been so concerning if the last words she heard before they left hadn't been a promise to call as soon as they could. Anything could have happened.


Sam had been hit in the head before they left but other than that, they'd been alright. Hadn't they? Everything had happened so quickly that there was no way she could be 100% sure. What if she'd missed something critical? What if everyone she needed more than she needed oxygen was dead? What if they'd doomed her to be the last man standing?


She sat silent, worried, angry, and guilty though she couldn't decide what for, until she dozed off around 4am.


The bunker door swinging open was the sound she woke to just a couple of minutes later. She hurriedly checked her phone, thinking she must have missed it when it rang, thinking she must have been asleep for hours by mistake. But there wasn't a single notification.


A million nightmares flashed through the forefront of Anna's mind. She bolted to her feet and had to brace a hand against the table when she swayed, exhausted. She raced toward the stairs to meet them at the bottom. They must be hurt, or they would have called. They must have been held up somehow and prevented from communicating with her.


But they looked alright when they trudged slowly down the stairs. A little bruised from a fist-fight maybe, tired from no-sleep and a lot of adrenaline definitely. But they were okay.


The realization cut a hole in Anna's stomach. She was fourteen years old. She didn't hold a lot of people to the things they said they would do. She didn't get hurt over broken promises and she rarely made them herself. She didn't place her faith in much of anyone or anything. She didn't let trust build without years of proof that it would stand on a sturdy foundation. But if there was anyone on the planet that she had put her faith in wholeheartedly, you could take your pick between Sam and Dean.


Maybe it wasn't such a big deal that they forgot to text her and ease her mind. But it sure as hell felt like a careless move considering how much she cared and how serious their gazes had been when the promise was made.


There was something so sacred about a promise to say the words 'I'm okay,' and the unspoken sidecar promise that the only thing that could keep you from saying those words would be if you weren't okay.


The benefit of the doubt was owed everyone until it was proven that your doubt was deserved. "What happened?" Anna asked, the words falling out of her mouth in a rush like a large, foaming waterfall. "Are you guys okay? Where's Cas?"


"One question at a time, huh?" Dean said, huffing a laugh. He had those extra wrinkles on his face that only appeared when the fatigue was enough to make him drop but he was determined to stay standing until he knew it was safe to relax. He slung an arm over Anna's shoulders and hugged her briefly. "We're alright, the sonsabitches have been taken down for now, and Cas is outside. Said he needed a minute."


"He's okay, though?" Anna asked, feeling more guarded with every moment she realized that they'd really just forgotten her.


"Yup."


Sam, right behind Dean, stopped at the foot of the stairs and released a heavy sigh. "You cleaned up," he acknowledged.


Anna nodded, but she felt less welcoming now that she knew there was no one in the world whose promises she could trust.


()()()


Anna held no penchant for promises. She never bothered with a pinky swear or a 'cross my heart and hope to die.'


She knew better than to think anyone's word was reliable. She knew better than to think honor still meant anything to people today. She did know one thing, though.


People who promise you exactly what you want to hear generally mean very well. Even those who can't keep their promises but make them when they know you need to hear them are people worth keeping in your life. Because they want to see your fear or pain ease for just a moment, even if it means disappointing you or facing your anger later.


Maybe her perspective on the issue was warped. After all, she still disregarded every promise made to her with an eye roll or a begrudging thought. But there was something comfortable and pleasantly innocent about finding a way to see the best in people who are trying their best to give you that comfort and let you maintain that innocence.


La Fin

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