Note: hang on. what day is it? oh, it isn't saturday? my bad. hehe

here's another chapter. this one was inspired by @__silversprings.

Anna is fourteen

Drive and Drive and Drive

Anna closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Holding it, she felt her face scrunching against her will, creating lines in her skin that no doubt were easy to see. She had to stop. She exhaled slowly, the corners of her mouth turning down, and she heard herself let out a small sound.

She was in the school bathroom, sitting fully clothed on the toilet, her denim skirt spotted with little dark marks from the tears that had already fallen. She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her flannel and then realized there was toilet paper right next to her. She was such an idiot, and she sniffled and struggled not to cry even harder.

But she'd just about cried herself out. Her eyes were burning, and her body was achingly tired from head to toe.

The bathroom door swung open, but Anna didn't hear it close, which was odd considering that it usually made a loud noise when it did.

She sniffled again, trying to keep it down. The last thing she needed was for it to be Mila coming in and for her to catch Anna feeling like this.

"Anna?"

Anna frowned and was startled into standing up, her OSIRIS sneakers squeaking against the bathroom floor. That was Dean.

"You in here, kiddo?" he called.

"Yeah," Anna mumbled, her voice tackling itself for a chance to echo in the small restroom. "Just a second."

"You okay?" Dean asked her, his voice just the tiniest bit closer. But the door still hadn't closed, so she knew he hadn't come all the way inside. It was probably for the best considering that this was the gender neutral bathroom at a high school, and Dean was in his thirties.

Still, Anna found herself longing for a warm, safe hug, and instead of staying behind a minute to dry her face, she opened the stall door, straightened her clothes, and stepped out. At the sight of her brother, her chin pressed itself into a checkerboard of sadness, and her eyes watered hotly again.

"Hey," Dean said gently. "What happened?" He opened one arm to her, the other still holding the door open.

Anna went willingly, tucking herself against her brother's side and hiding under his arm. Dean turned them so they were in the hallway instead of the bathroom. Fortunately there was nobody around, because school had been over for nearly half an hour.

"What's wrong?" Dean asked again.

Anna shook her head. She didn't want to talk. She just wanted to be safe.

Dean said, "Okay," and squeezed her gently against him. "It's alright," he promised quietly.

And Anna was. She was safe.

"Can we go?" she requested, her face hidden against Dean's shoulder.

"Yeah, come on," Dean said and pulled her back. He looked pained as he held her face in his hands. He rubbed tears off her cheeks with his thumbs. "Come on," he said again and guided her down the hall with a hand between her shoulder blades.

"Wait," Anna murmured. "I left my backpack in my locker. I'll meet you in the car."

"You sure?" Dean asked.

Anna wanted to say 'no.' She wanted to hide inside her brother and avoid all the potential prying eyes she would come across. Instead, she said, "I'm sure," and turned to go down the hallway. It was another moment before she heard Dean start moving too.

She was quick about getting her things from her locker and heading back outside. She didn't want to run into anybody she knew– God forbid she run into Mila– nor did she want to spend any more time inside the school building than she absolutely had to.

The Impala was a welcome sight, and the leather seats were an even more welcome feeling beneath her as she settled in and tossed her bag in the back seat.

"You wanna tell me what happened?" Dean requested and shifted the car into drive.

"No," Anna said shortly. "I don't wanna talk or cry or anything anymore, okay? I just want to drive. Please."

Dean gave her a slow, understanding smile. "I can do that," he told her. "But when you change your mind, I'm ready to listen."

"Thanks," Anna mumbled and looked out the window. The car accelerated smoothly, and everything around her vibrate with the movement. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the glass. Her stomach felt strange– not painful or even nauseous, just strange– and her eyes were still overheated from all the crying she had done.

The air inside the car was warm and still. She could smell that someone had eaten a burger here recently, and Dean's usual scent of sweat, beer, gun oil, and the barest hint of cologne was clinging as it always did to every surface inside the car. Beneath her fingers, the denim of her skirt was rough and cool, and against her temple, the glass of the window was smooth but equally cold.

It was only after they'd driven for nearly an hour that Anna shifted in her seat so she could look at her brother. Dean was fixated on the road, his eyes that type of absent that they often were when he was driving. He looked content, though, rather than his usual brand of stressed out. Anna smiled softly, and Dean suddenly turned his head and caught her.

"Gonna get whiplash," he teased and reached over to ruffle her hair.

Anna made a face and pulled her head away, nearly bonking it against the window pane.

"You wanna talk now?"

She shrugged. She wasn't sure that she did want to talk, but she certainly wasn't as averse to the idea as she had been before. So she said, "I guess so."

Dean pulled over in the next turn off they found, and both Winchesters stepped out of their respective doors then closed them at the same time while making the same face, squinting in the bright light of the low sun and pressing their lips together thoughtfully. They each stepped around to the front of the car and slid onto the hood with different levels of ease.

"So whose ass is gettin' kicked?"

Anna tilted her head and looked sideways at her brother, her mouth twitching in a reluctant smile. "No one. But Mila Numan is the jerk of the day. And possibly the century."

"Her again, huh?" Dean nodded and put a hand warmly on the back of Anna's curly head. "You know she's just a little shit, right? You gotta stop lettin' her get to you."

Anna looked down at her lap and chewed on the inside of her bottom lip. "I usually don't," she said. "It's just... You know how Sam took me to that dance last week?"

"Yeah," Dean snorted happily. "I still got that picture. You were cute as a button-"

"Shut up, Dean," Anna said and rolled her eyes.

"What about it?" Dean asked then, his smile disappearing.

"All day today, Mila kept coming over to me and saying how dumb it was I went with my brother. She kept saying all this shit about Dad. Like... like he left, and he was a deadbeat, and I was pathetic 'cause Sam was all I could scrape up." Anna could feel rage bubbling nauseatingly in her stomach as she recalled that particular insult. Sam was a hell of a lot better than Mila's own dad who'd come begrudgingly to the dance with her. "I almost decked her," Anna admitted. "But then I just felt... I don't know... Like it wasn't worth it. And I know everything she said is a bunch of bullshit. But it just reminded me of when he died, you know? How I couldn't feel anything for a while, when I burned Halloween, and all that. I can't stop thinking about it, and it sucks. It really sucks." She set her jaw and squeezed one of her hands into a tight fist. She could feel her fingernails making dents in her skin, but she didn't take much notice.

"Hey," Dean said in a gentle but deep voice.

Anna turned just her head so she could see him. She pressed her eyebrows together in her hope that he could somehow make her feel better.

"Dad loved you," he said. "And he was proud of you. He didn't want to leave you behind."

Anna opened her mouth, ready to defend herself, to say she already knew all that. But Dean got there first.

"I know you know," he said placatingly, moving his hand in a calming gesture. "I'm just sayin'. It's been a long time since then. You're not eight years old anymore. Those same fears you had when you were eight don't have to scare you now. You can't let 'em."

Anna frowned and turned her head again so she could stare at the material of her skirt and think. Dean was right. Maybe when she was eight she'd felt abandoned. But now she could remind herself that Dad had been cornered. He'd done what he felt he had to. Maybe at eight years old, she'd believed that being orphaned meant being alone. But now she knew that her family could survive without John Winchester, rocky as the road to this point had been.

"I'm sorry, Rugrat. I really am. I wish you could have a dad. I wish you could have gone to that dance with him. But you're a smart kid. You know Mila's wrong."

Anna bit hard on the inside of her lip again and nodded, her eyes burning. She looked at Dean again and quickly nodded her understanding.

"Come here," he said again and lifted his arm.

Anna slid carefully over, her skirt making a low sound against the hood as she moved. She settled under Dean's arm and leaned into his side. She could smell sweat and beer on his flannel shirt, and she closed her eyes to try and live inside that scent for a while.

"You wanna ride a little more?" Dean offered.

"Long as you wanna drive," Anna said, "I wanna sit in the passenger seat."

La Fin