Note: Hey babes <3 Thanks for the love!

This chapter is another of those requested by @gkjnrtg, who wanted to see Anna's reactions to the boys' earlier deaths in the series. So this one is about 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked. SPOILER ALERT for that episode.

Also @naghoster, there's some Bobby in here for you <3

Anna is nine years old here.

Exactly Like Being Alone

Dean was going to die tonight.

Anna lay in her brother's lap, staring at his sleeping face. He had his eyes closed, lashes spread against the skin of his face, and he was breathing deeply and slowly. He looked at peace, and it made Anna want to cry. She knew where he was going tonight. He would never be at peace ever again.

But Dean deserved peace. Dean deserved the best.

She was surprised when he started to frown in his sleep.

"Dean?" she asked softly from his shoulder. "It's okay," she murmured and reached up with one small hand to touch the side of his face. "It's okay, Dean."

Dean startled awake, nearly throwing Anna off of his lap as he sat straight up in his chair. His breathing was heavy and fast now, nothing like it had been just a minute ago. That was that. Dean's last taste of peace was gone. Anna looked shyly down at her hands. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "If I was bigger, I would've saved you."

"Hey," Dean said gently, his eyes still hazy from panic and sleep. He touched the bottom of her chin, and Anna took the hint and looked him in the eyes. "You got nothin' to be sorry for. Anyway, we still got some time, Rugrat. I ain't dead yet."

"But Ellen is coming," Anna said, and her chin began to wobble. "I won't see you anymore." Her eyes welled. "Dean, please don't go," she requested pitifully. "I'll do anything, just don't go to Hell."

Dean had to clear his throat, making a suspiciously wet sound as he blinked at the ceiling before looking at his sister again. "Anna, I don't have a choice," he explained softly. "You know that. And you know why you gotta go with Ellen. This whole thing is too dangerous for you to be anywhere near it."

"I can't go," Anna whispered. "What if I never get to see you again?"

With that she started to cry. She tried to muffle her tears for Dean's sake. He was dying already. He didn't need her piling up her sadness on top of his own.

But the idea of Dean vanishing from her life was unfathomably painful. How could he be here today and gone tomorrow? Just like that. Anna was unable to even imagine her life without her oldest brother. He was her role model, her teacher, her best friend, and her parent all rolled into one fun-loving, gentle guy.

He was her hero. And heroes don't die. They can't.

"I'm sorry, Anna," Dean said, his eyes damp but cool. "But you have to go with Ellen. I will fight to the last second, I swear," he promised. "I will do everything I can to come back to you. And if I can't..."

Anna's wet face crumpled a second time at those words. "You have to."

"If I can't," Dean said again, "then Sam and Uncle Bobby are gonna take care of you, alright? Just like we talked about."

"Sometimes when I stay with Uncle Bobby, I miss you so much it hurts in my stomach," Anna said, staring at her hands in her lap. "But you always come back," she said tearfully. "What am I s'posed to do when it hurts like that and you can't come back?"

Dean took a deep breath in her ear and let it go. "It's gonna hurt for a while," Dean said. "But you're gonna be a kid and run and play and grow. And eventually it's gonna-" He stopped talking for a second and bit his lip, making a suction sound with his mouth by mistake. "It's gonna hurt less and less," he told her.

"I don't want you to go," Anna said and sniffled. Her hand was so small against his face when she pressed it there, like a flashlight beam in an expanse of blackened wilderness.

"I don't want to go," Dean told her. "But if I have to, Rugrat, then you just know that... I love you."

Anna nodded, her throat clogged and ache-y. "I know," she whimpered. "I love you too, Dean." She pressed her lips together tightly, trying to forget her tears. But they curled up in her eyelids again and got comfortable– they refused to be left behind.

There was nothing more to say. But Dean grabbed his sister under the arms and pulled her so they could hug. He put his hand tenderly on the back of her head, cupping it to his shoulder with the same gentle care with which a person holds a chirping, frightened baby chick.

"You'll be okay," Dean said in a hoarse voice.

"What about you?" Anna rasped.

Dean didn't say anything.

()()()

"It's midnight," Anna said in a tiny voice, her bare feet freezing on the tile floor.

Ellen turned around and made a sorry face at her. "I'm sure they'll call soon, Honey."

"But..." Anna didn't finish her sentence. She couldn't. Her voice was gone. Her green eyes were wet already. She had a feeling. A terrible feeling.

The phone rang.

Jo came over to stand behind Anna with her hands on her shoulders while Ellen grabbed the phone off its hooks.

"Bobby?" she said into the receiver.

Anna held her breath, tears already sliding down her face. Whether the news was good or bad, she was sure to cry hard.

"Oh my god," Ellen said, pressing a hand to her mouth.

She was shaking minutely, and Anna knew. She just knew. Her stomach hurt like there was a fist clenched tightly around her organs. "No," she whimpered.

"Sweetie, I'm sorry," Ellen said and held the phone away from her mouth for a moment.

Anna's mind went blank, and she breathed shallowly and fast. She didn't have words, but they wouldn't have been necessary. Her eyes were overflowing now, dripping tears without her consent.

Jo crouched down beside her and gently pulled her to her chest. "It's okay," she whispered, her own voice rough with pain. "It's okay, Sweetheart."

But it wasn't. It wasn't okay. Because Anna didn't want Jo or Ellen. She wanted Dean. She wanted Dean's warmth and his stubbly chin and his voice in her ear saying it was okay. She wanted to smell gun oil on a leather jacket and feel a big hand on the back of her head. She wanted to feel small and protected in the way that only Dean made her feel. She wanted her brother.

And Dean was dead.

So how was anything okay?

Jo was holding her tightly, and Anna was glad that she had a shoulder to hide against while she cried.But she felt bad about the mess she was making on Jo's shirt. She eventually pulled away and turned around, sniffling non-stop as her breath hitched again and again.

"You sure, Bobby?" Ellen was asking into the phone. "She's more 'an welcome here. Alright."

She hung the phone up with a high sound, and then she crouched in front of Anna. "I'm sorry," she said gently. She reached out and tucked Anna's tear-damp, sticky hair behind her ear. "I am so sorry, Sweetie."

Anna just stood there, shoulders hunched in defeat, body shaking with grief. Her eyes were burning, and tears just kept coming, slipping out and down her face. Her stomach hurt so deeply that it had her hugging herself, trying to get at that unreachable ache. But it couldn't be found or touched, and it certainly couldn't be soothed. Dean was gone. Dead. Burning in Hell.

Anna couldn't look at Ellen's sympathetic face any more. She turned around and ran past Jo to the bathroom out back where she started throwing up before she made it to the toilet. She knelt in her own vomit and felt that agony in her midsection try to remove itself from her small body with force. Her body turned itself inside out, but the feeling remained fixed in her center.

"Dean," she sobbed in a small voice as she continued to shake. Her voice was broken up, split into pieces by the blade of her whimpers and sobs as she shouted, "Dean!" again and again.

She stood up on shaky legs and nearly slipped in her own vomit. The stench attacked her, and it only fueled her sudden rage. "It's not fair!" she cried, her face wet but her eyes finally drying. She kicked hard at the wall of the bathroom, and it didn't even hurt. Her foot was thrumming with a numbing sensation. She lashed out again and again, using her fists and her feet and eventually throwing her entire body against the walls.

Her body finally grew so exhausted and weak that Anna collapsed.

She could feel her heartbeat in twenty places throughout her body, but her chest felt hollow.

Her eyes stung again, and the waterworks started again. She wanted to scream some more, punch or kick another wall, throw herself at the one who'd killed her brother and show no mercy. But she couldn't even move. She was pinned to the floor by an invisible weight.

Her body began to suddenly kick and shake, and she let out a high pitched wail. This was the way she'd thrown tantrums when she was only three years old, and here she was, six years later, still getting so overwhelmed by her emotions that her body had nowhere to put them.

She used to put them on Dean. And he always took them. He always looked her in the eyes and guided her through them, held her until the worst had passed.

But this time, Anna was alone. She was laying on the floor in Ellen's bathroom, vomit sinking into her clothes and skin, shaking and crying like an infant fresh out of the womb getting their first glimpse of this terrible, frightening world.

()()()

Sam was quiet. Anna had been too on the drive from Ellen's to Bobby's. But Sam's silence was different from hers. Sam was quiet like he hadn't thrown his tantrum yet.

Bobby seemed to notice it too. He was watching Sam like he was waiting for the tears and vomit.

But none came. Sam just walked around the house with a dark look in his eyes. He barely looked at Anna or Bobby. He pulled books off the shelves and stuffed them into a duffel bag. He spent a lot of time on his laptop, not wasting time on food or dreams.

Anna didn't distract him. She knew what he was trying to do. But she did stay close whenever she could. When Sam was on the computer, she sat on the other side of the table and wrote letters to Dean in her notebook. She wrote about all the pain she couldn't get out any other way, and she made sure Sam was within arm's reach while she did it.

"I love you, Ladybug," Sam said sometimes without prefix. But he didn't ruffle her hair or give her hugs or kisses. He looked like he didn't know how to touch her or anyone else anymore.

Sometimes Anna touched him instead, putting a hand against his face or resting against his stomach. He rarely reciprocated, but he always gave her an agonizing smile afterwards.

Bobby made breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and he brought it to them wherever the Winchesters were. "Eat," he would command Sam, who barely glanced at each plate of food when it appeared in front of him. Then he would come over to Anna and say something more gentle. "Growin' girl needs to eat," he often told her when her stomach hurt so bad that she refused her meal.

Anna gave in every time. She listened when he told her to take a shower or change out of her pajamas or ride with him into town to get supplies. She ate her meals when he asked her to, and she drank water and juice when he put it in her hands. She accepted every hug he gave her with gratitude, and she even let him hold her while she cried a couple of times.

But she didn't talk to him. She stayed quiet except for a word or two every once in a while. Usually those words were spoken to Sam. And usually Sam gave her few words back.

One day, she woke up to a note on her stomach.

Anna,

I'll be back as soon as Lilith is dead. I promise. Listen to Bobby.

Love you,

Sam

That was the day she went fully numb. The world looked like she was watching it on a screen, and her hands looked like those of a mannequin in a storefront. Bobby's voice was wordless when he spoke to her, and her food was tasteless on her tongue. The only thing that remained was the hole that had been carved in her chest that last day she saw Dean. She couldn't feel anything all the way, but there were still those hints of grief, and they were still more than able to knock her off her feet.

"Uncle Bobby," she asked softly that night, standing in the threshold of the kitchen in her purple pajamas.

"What's a matter?" Bobby asked, setting aside his bottle of beer.

Anna shrugged one shoulder and sat down at the kitchen table. "Can we make cocoa?" she requested. "I don't wanna go to sleep." It was the most she'd said in a while.

Bobby looked concerned, but he nodded slowly. "C'mere, then, I'll show you how it's done." He pulled a chair over to the stove, because Anna was small for her age. "Come on," he encouraged and patted the chair.

Anna stood up and walked slowly over to climb on top of the chair.

"We're gonna melt the chocolate first," Bobby narrated and put an empty pan on the stove. He turned the burner on, using one hand to make sure Anna was a safe distance away. "There you are, Button," he murmured as he handed her a bar of chocolate.

Anna unfolded the corners like she was opening a birthday present and didn't want to rip the paper. She broke off each square separately and watched it fall into the pan. The small sound each of them made when they hit the metal of the pan's bottom reached her ears with a delay. Her hands were mechanical as she saved the last square of chocolate and brought it to her mouth. She looked over at Bobby for permission.

He smiled at her. "Go ahead," he said with a playful look of exasperation.

Anna's smile was crooked, but she bit into the chocolate. The sweetness was a much needed shock to her system, and when she looked at her hands again, they looked more human.

"Uncle Bobby," Anna said when her chocolate was gone and they were both left to watch brown pooling in their pan. "Do you miss Dean?"

Bobby was quiet for a second. "I think you know I do, Anna."

"Me too," Anna whispered. "I miss him so much I can't feel right anymore."

"I know that feelin', kid," Bobby told her. "I wish you didn't have to know it like I do."

Anna pursed her lips tightly and watched the chocolate melt in the pan. It spread like a puddle in the driveway during a rainstorm, and she was mesmerized by the sight. She didn't want to know this feeling either. She didn't want anybody in the whole world to have to know this feeling.

"Look, I know it don't seem like it, but this is gonna get better," Bobby said with a confidence that Anna wished she could trust. "We're in the thick of it right now, but this ain't all there is. Just seems that way right now."

"I don't know," Anna admitted. "Every day feels like the same thing. It always hurts, and we aren't doing anything. It feels like it's gonna be like this forever. Unless Sam can get Dean back."

"Don't be thinkin' about that," Bobby told her sternly. "You know your brother's gone, and he ain't about to come back."

"But Sam did," Anna said quietly, ashamed to be talking this way. Her eyes were damp all of a sudden. "I miss Dean so much, Uncle Bobby. We're breaking apart without him."

"Like I said," Bobby said and grabbed a whisk to stir the chocolate, "We're in the thick of it. There's gonna be one day you wake up and the world's in color again, Sunshine. That day just might be a long time comin'."

"I can't wait anymore," Anna said. "I wish I could have gone with Sammy."

"Your brother needs some time to get himself sorted out," Bobby told her gently. "And you need some time too. From now on, we're done sittin' around the house all day. We're gonna get you to school next month, and maybe I'll even let you study some lore. Whaddya say to that?"

Anna shrugged. When Dean was here, she'd been adamant about getting to learn about hunting and join in every chance she got. She didn't get any chances, really, but she was constantly asking for them. Now, hearing Bobby's invitation, Anna didn't feel even the barest hint of excitement. If anything, she felt tired.

"I guess so," she said.

"Don't get too excited," Bobby deadpanned. He poured milk slowly into the chocolate in the pan, whisking the mixture all the time.

"I think I don't want to."

Bobby looked over at her and set the milk on the counter. "You don't wanna what?"

"Go to school and learn about hunting. I don't want to. Dean died b'cause of hunting. Sam's gone b'cause of it. Hunting just makes my stomach hurt now."

Bobby looked saddened at her proclamation. But he nodded. "Then I won't be givin' ya any lore books, Button. We'll just focus on math and reading. How's that?"

"I don't want to do that either."

"You gotta do something," Bobby told her and turned the heat down.

Anna looked at the bubbling hot chocolate and swore she could see her reflection in it. But she didn't look like herself. She looked like the already shed skin of a little girl with blonde hair and green eyes. She looked like somebody else.

She wanted to say that she couldn't. She couldn't do anything. But she knew what Bobby's answer would be, and she knew that he wouldn't understand. She couldn't do anything, because Anna was still holding her breath and waiting for this feeling to go away. She was waiting for Dean to come back, or maybe she was just waiting for her own turn to disappear. But she was waiting, and she had to keep waiting, because there was just no way she could do anything real while she had this awful feeling in her chest.

Bobby set down two mugs on the counter and let Anna pour the hot chocolate into them. "Good job," he encouraged when she'd finished.

They both sat down at the table, and Anna retreated back into her head. She was tired now, maybe from talking, maybe from thinking, or maybe just from living.

"How's it taste?" Bobby asked when he watched her take her first sip.

It was good, she supposed. But Anna just nodded. The sweetness was a pleasant distraction, but that's all it was. It couldn't really fix anything. It couldn't bring Dean back. It couldn't even bring Sam back. It couldn't answer her questions or fill that hole in her chest. It couldn't even help her sleep through the night, because it couldn't chase away her nightmares.

Only Dean could have done that. And Dean wasn't here to sing her back to sleep or let her lay with him even though she was too old. Dean wasn't here at all. And neither was Sam.

It was just Bobby and her now. And as much as she loved Bobby, being without the boys still sometimes felt to Anna exactly like being alone.

La Fin