Note: Hey, Beauties! Thanks for being so incredibly kind this week (and every week)! I can't count the number of times I read and reread comments and sat there grinning like an idiot. I genuinely appreciate all of you so much ❤️

I had this one ready ahead of time and was planning to post at a normal time of day, but I happened to be up past midnight... so I guess I just figured why not post now?

This week's chapter was a request from Cookiemonstar1912 who wanted to see Sam (after being resouled) finding out that he left Anna alone when she was sick. I tried doing this from Sam's POV (though still written in the 3rd person personal) because that made the most sense to me for tackling this prompt. I hope you all enjoy, and I hope I didn't butcher Sam's perspective.

I low key took the long way around with this one. What I expected to be a 2000 word chapter turned into almost 7000 words. But I think it turned out pretty well, so I'm not mad about it. Happy reading!

As in Grit Your Teeth, Pull Your Hair, Anna is twelve years old.

Fix Us

Sam knew his sister well enough to recognize the signs that she was coming down with something, even if she was too stubborn to admit to it... and she certainly was that. He woke up well before she did most mornings, but this morning he woke up to see her curled up on the couch watching some old western on the tiny, crappy TV in their motel room. That was sign number one, but he nearly let it slide. It wasn't quite right, after all.

Normally, if Anna felt sick enough that she couldn't sleep well and preferred to get up and sit on the couch watching TV, she woke up either him or Dean first so she could have some company. It was one of many things that still set her apart as the baby of the family, not that Sam considered that a bad thing. He wished more than anything that she would keep counting on him and Dean forever in all those little ways that she did. He would gladly get up at midnight to let her curl under his arm and watch Bonanza reruns. It was a lot easier than taking her to the basement of the local morgue and teaching her what the markings on a dead body meant.

Maybe she'd gotten up by herself because she was getting older and felt embarrassed about waking up her brother in the middle of the night. He didn't know, but he couldn't help but wonder if it was because she only had him right now.

Dean was off helping a couple of hunting buddies wipe out a nest, and he'd left Sam and Anna in Bridgeport where they'd been planning to stay a few more days anyway to make sure that the vengeful spirit they'd just laid to rest was really gone for good.

Sam's relationship with Anna was a lot different than Dean's, and he was fully aware of that. They had a more classic sibling relationship, though he acted every bit like a much older sibling and she every bit like a much younger one. Dean could be a lot like a father where Anna was concerned, and even where Sam was concerned at times but not to the same extent. Sam knew their sister didn't think of him as an authority figure the way she did their brother. He also knew that she respected him a lot more than he deserved given his history. But it was in Anna's nature to believe the best about people she was close to, so it was all he could do to live up to what she needed him to be. He suspected that respect she had for him was the only reason she'd been so agreeable and obedient the last couple days as they waited around without much to do.

Now, he sat in his bed and puzzled over the scene before him. Things had been a little weird all around since he'd woken up not so long ago with over a year of his life completely absent from his memory, a year in which his body had apparently been walking around doing unspeakable things while his soul cooked in hell. It seemed like the hits just kept coming as far as that year was concerned. He was retaining new horrific memories on a regular basis whether from cases coming back to haunt him, Cas spilling too much, or his own scratching at the wall in his head earning him a dribble of a memory leaking over the top of the wall. Things had been weird.

But his family had been a safe haven to all of that. Neither Dean nor Anna was treating him any differently. If anything, Dean had been more suffocatingly protective and caring and Anna more clingy and affectionate than usual. Sam got slowly out of bed and wandered over to the couch in his sleep pants and t-shirt.

"You're up early," he said once he could see that Anna's eyes were open and she was awake.

Anna craned her neck so she could see him and smiled sweetly. "I went to bed early," she said by way of explanation.

Sam nodded and began to reevaluate his whole ridiculous train of thought with a shake of his head. God, he had to stop overthinking everything. She'd been so bored yesterday that Anna had knocked out around nine. Of course she would wake up earlier than usual. And here he was questioning everything over it. "Why don't you get dressed," he suggested. "I'm gonna shower and then we can go get breakfast." He grabbed some fresh clothes from his duffel and headed for the bathroom.

Anna hadn't moved, but she murmured some kind of agreement and he figured she was waiting for the next commercial break or something.

He stepped out of the bathroom ten minutes later, though, to see her still sitting on the couch looking half-asleep. He tossed his old clothes onto his bed and frowned at her. Was she being difficult, or had he been right that she was sick... and why did he feel so out of his league? He knew how to handle either situation.

"Anna," he prompted. Her head popped up. "Breakfast?"

"Oh. Right." He watched her get off the couch and drop her blanket on the cushions. She was still in her pajamas, and she scurried across the room to her duffel quickly. She clearly hadn't made him wait intentionally.

"Do you feel okay?" he asked blatantly, though that wouldn't get him a straight answer under any circumstances.

Anna gave him a sideways look where she was crouched in front of her duffel. "Yeah," she said slowly. "Why?"

"I- You know, you just- Nevermind," he conceded and sat down on the edge of his bed to pull his boots on. He could feel Anna's eyes on him for another minute before she pulled some clothes out of her duffel and disappeared into the bathroom. She walked out with her hair looking a bit frizzy and very messy, but her daily routine to take care of her curly hair usually took at least twenty minutes, so Sam refrained from suggesting that she take care of it now. She also hated it when he tried to micromanage her, and he didn't want to start a fight with her.

Anna was pretty difficult to piss off, but once she got angry she was really hard to get along with or calm down.

He did feel the urge to pull her hair into a bun or a braid like he used to do when she was little and couldn't be bothered to take care of her own hair. He smiled vaguely at the memory. She used to squirm and chatter and whine every morning when he sat her down to do her hair. But he couldn't help but feel like that routine they'd had was part of how they'd managed to grow close so quickly again after he returned from Stanford.

"I'm done," Anna announced, and Sam looked up to see her tucking her shoe laces into the sides of her shoes instead of tying them. He didn't understand why she did that, but it wasn't his place to micromanage, so he didn't.

Clue number two came at breakfast.

They were seated at an actual table instead of a booth at the very back of the diner because Sam wasn't quite as paranoid as Dean about vantage points and possible threats at freaking breakfast. When their waiter set Sam's cup of coffee down in front of him, Anna tilted her head at him, seeming to weigh something before asking, "Can I try it?"

"You want coffee?" he snorted. "Black coffee?"

"That's how Dean drinks it," Anna said oh-so-innocently.

Sam suddenly wanted to see her reaction to taking a sip of black coffee, and it couldn't hurt her, so- "Sure," he said. "Why not."

The grin that graced Anna's face almost made him feel guilty. She picked up his coffee cup and blew on it before taking a careful sip of it. She looked thoughtful for only a second before the taste caught up to her and she stuck her tongue out in disgust. "Oh my god," she groaned and reached for her water glass. "That tastes like butt. He drinks that every day?"

Sam laughed outright at her and picked up a sugar packet from the table to put some in. "I don't usually drink it black either," he admitted. "Not unless I really need the caffeine." Once he'd dosed it up with cream and sugar, he passed it back to his sister. "Try that," he prompted.

Anna looked suspicious, but she took a small sip and her eyebrows popped up. "Wow. That's actually drinkable. What d'ya know?" She smiled broadly and pulled her feet up onto her chair so she could sit on them. It made her a little taller, and Sam knew she liked to sit that way but he also hated when she did it in public. Putting your feet on chairs in public places was rude. He gave her a look, but she didn't notice. She was a little too excited. "You know what this means?"

"What?"

"I'm basically an adult."

Sam shot her a bewildered look, but his mouth twitched with the beginnings of a smile. "Because you tried coffee?"

"Yeah. That's an adult thing," she reminded him and picked up the coffee cup to pose with it. "Do I look older when I hold it?"

It was pretty clear that she felt strongly about this, and Sam didn't want to shoot her down. He knew better than to laugh at her and make her feel bad. But she was being cute. He managed to dilute his reaction to a small amused smile. "At least sixteen," he answered her.

Anna's smile grew and she wrinkled her nose. "I'll take it," she said. "Wow. You know, soon I'm gonna be able to dress up like an FBI agent for cases and get into bars to hustle pool and-"

"Woah- Let's- Let's just slow down, okay? Coffee is one thing. Hustling pool? I hate to break it to you, Anna, but you're not stepping foot in a bar before you're of age."

Anna made a disbelieving face. "You and Dean did."

"Well, we... we grew up differently."

The look on Anna's face said she didn't have a clue what he could mean by that. Sam got it. He did. She was growing up on the road, taking small part in hunts now and then. As far as she was concerned, the only difference between her childhood and her brothers' was that she did school online and they'd enrolled in a long line of public schools. But their father had made very different rules for them and he'd overall been extremely lax about supervising them. He'd caught Dean once or twice in bars or clubs when he was very underage. There was that time in New York and that other time in Pittsburgh. Dean had caught Sam a couple times, but never their father. They'd both been drinking since age fifteen or sixteen, and as far as Dean was concerned, John had been sharing beers with him since he was seventeen.

Anna rolled her eyes and put the coffee cup back down in front of Sam, but not before taking one more sip. He hoped he hadn't started anything. He'd hoped she would at least wait until she was high school aged before she started drinking coffee. He had a feeling she was going to be as much of a coffee addict as he and Dean could be.

Her easy retreat was pretty atypical of Anna. She was hard to piss off, but she was easy to start a debate with because she was stubborn as all get out. Sam noticed there was some color to her cheeks that hadn't been there this morning. It could've been the caffeine, but she hadn't really had enough. His mind started going back to the idea that she wasn't feeling well. With the fade of her excitement, her face had taken on  a tired look again.

"Are you sure you feel okay?" he asked before he could censor himself.

Anna shot him a deeply annoyed look. "I'm fine," she grumbled. "Why would you even ask that?"

This time, Sam didn't doubt himself. He resigned to look for more signs that she might be sick but to do it without constantly asking her how she felt.

He didn't have to wait very long. She was sipping her water more often than she was taking bites of her actual meal. Not to mention, she'd ordered oatmeal. Both were uncharacteristic. Sam deduced that she had a sore throat. The tinge in her cheeks was probably fever, even if it seemed to be low grade based on how talkative she'd been a few minutes ago.

"Can we go back?"

Sam looked up in surprise. He wasn't even halfway through his meal, and neither was Anna. "Can I finish first?"

Anna looked miserable at the request, but she didn't say anything. She stirred her oatmeal with her spoon and looked across the diner absentmindedly. It made him feel a little guilty. If she really was sick, she shouldn't be made to sit in a public place and act like she was fine. But then again, she was old enough to know that she should just admit to feeling badly. She should really learn that nobody could read her as well as she could read herself-- even if Sam and Dean kind of could-- and she would have to speak up if she wasn't well enough to do something or else she was going to have a miserable time.

Dean would have probably made her stay there for the lesson, or he would have shared that bit of wisdom out loud. But Sam didn't feel equipped to have that conversation with an overtired twelve year old, and he felt too guilty watching her rest her chin on her hand like it was too heavy to stay up on its own. He was probably exaggerating it all in his head. At the worst, she probably had a head cold. One of the families of the victims they'd talked to for this last case had had a cold, so she'd probably just picked that up. But he had no way of knowing for sure that she didn't have some kind of flu or something, and he just plain felt bad looking at her.

"You know, I'm not that hungry anyway," he told her and pulled his wallet out of his pocket. "Just let me go pay and then we can leave."

He'd been expecting her to look relieved or grateful... but Anna looked surprised. It didn't take long for her expression to melt into gratitude, but Sam had seen the shock that preceded it, and it puzzled him. He was known for being a total softie. He caved all the time when Dean wouldn't, usually because he just didn't want to have to get all authoritative on her or because he felt guilty whenever her little face started looking upset in any way. Why would she look surprised when this was so clearly inside the boundaries of his usual pattern?

()()()

Anna stayed curled up on the couch for most of the day, not even questioning where Sam was going when he went to pick up dinner. He'd been hesitant to leave her alone, but she'd yet to admit to being sick and he'd yet to actually confront her about it.

He'd periodically walked over to check on her visually, making sure she didn't look any worse. But every time he went over to check on her, however conspicuous he was being-- there were only so many times in a day that you could get up to use the bathroom with looking a bit suspect-- she would glance sideways at him, looking confused. It had to be obvious to her what he was doing, and she usually had no problems calling him or Dean out when they got smothering. But this time, she just kept looking at him in confusion. It rubbed him the wrong way, the same way the incident at breakfast had.

Sam had decided that if she wasn't any better by tomorrow, he would be ready to officially call her on her bullshit. For tonight, he checked on her one more time before heading out to get some soup to-go from the diner, and was surprised when she didn't immediately question where he was going as he slid his jacket on. In fact, he had his hand on the doorknob and she still hadn't said anything when he finally spoke for himself. "I'm gonna grab some food. You be okay by yourself?"

Anna gave him another weird look. "Yeah," she answered in a strange voice. She sounded as if she didn't understand why he was asking. But she didn't sound indignant like she should have. She didn't remind him that she was twelve years old as if that was so old. She didn't even remind him that she wasn't sick and of course she could stay by herself.

"Call if something happens," he instructed like always. He still didn't get the usual, annoyed reply of I know or Nothing's gonna happen or, again, I'm twelve years old. I'll be fine. At the very least, it was confirmation she was sick, but Sam couldn't leave it at that. He was starting to really believe that there was something off not just with Anna but with their relationship. He felt her eyes on him as he left.

()()()

The ceiling was covered in water stains that were barely visible in the dim light of the motel room. Sam hated the sight of them. He always had. Who wanted the reminder that they were sleeping in an ill-maintained and possibly roach-infested shithole? He leaned over the side of the bed to flick off the lamp, but before his fingers could reach the switch, he caught sight of Anna's sleeping form. She looked so small. She looked young. He flicked the switch on the lamp, and the room went dark.

As he rolled back over onto his back, he realized that his mind hadn't turned off with the lights like he'd secretly hoped.

He felt ridiculous. There was nothing for him to worry about. He was closer with both of his siblings than he'd been in a long time. He just couldn't shake the feeling that something was off here, though.

He ran back through the day in his head and, again, felt a little ridiculous. So, Anna had given him some strange looks and given him some flat answers. She'd also been acting pretty sick all day, and that should have been enough of an explanation as to why her behavior would be a little off.

But no matter how many times Sam told himself that, he couldn't get his mind to turn off. His thoughts kept twisting and running in different directions, inevitably getting away from him no matter how many times he attempted to curb them. It was possible that she just missed Dean. She'd never spent much time away from him except for the four months where- Sam cut that thought off fast. The point was that Anna and Dean were close, and that relationship had probably been further cemented over the time Sam was dead and then the time when he was... not himself.

Not himself. Just like that, Sam understood. Something had to have happened while he was soulless to make Anna think he wasn't the same softie he'd always been. But what? What could he have possibly done to make her think he'd done a complete 180 even after he'd gotten his soul back?

He supposed he should just ask her. But Anna had been as determined as Dean not to let him know about anything that had happened while he was soulless. She was scared for him, and Sam appreciated that coming from both of his siblings. But he kept learning about all these awful things he'd done, and now he had to fear that he'd somehow damaged his sister's trust in him during that year as well.

Would the hits never stop coming? Well, maybe that wasn't the question anymore. Sam was starting to believe he knew the answer to that one. They wouldn't stop coming until that wall came down. And the wall would come down as long as Dean, Anna, or even Bobby had anything to say about it. The new question was whether he would ever be able to make up for everything he'd done. And that question had a more convoluted answer. You make up for one wrongdoing at a time. And some of them are worse than others.

For now, he had to figure out the exact nature of his crime against Anna, and then he could figure out how to mend their relationship. And he would mend it. He had very few people in his life that still believed he was basically good, still trusted him, and still needed him. Anna was one of the two most important people to him. He would prove that to her, whatever he had to make up for.

()()()

Sam woke the next morning to Anna sitting on the edge of the other bed, looking at him. For a second it was weird. Then he noticed the red in her cheeks, the bloodshot look to her eyes, and the blanket she had tightly wrapped around herself.

"I have a sore throat," she told him. "And a headache. And I think a fever."

Sam's foggy, tired mind took a second to catch up, but he registered a feeling of relief spreading through his chest. She was admitting to him that she was sick. Maybe he'd just been overthinking last night. Maybe they were fine. Maybe-

"Can we go to the store? I kinda want orange juice and soup. And I looked but there's no more normal Tylenol in the kit. It's all that super strong stuff, and Dean told me I can't use that for a sore throat and a headache."

Just like that, the relief was gone, replaced by a pang of hurt in his chest. "You called Dean?" he asked, sitting up against the headboard and using both hands to finger-comb his hair back out of his face.

"Yeah, don't worry, he was up. I texted to check first."

"Ladybug, why didn't you just wake me up?"

An expression crossed Anna's face as if she either hadn't thought to do that or she didn't understand why Sam thought she should have. Then her face turned a little regretful. She must have seen the hurt in his eyes. "I don't know," she said quietly, looking down at her blue and green socked feet that barely reached the floor.

It was Sam's turn to feel guilty. Whatever had made her feel like she couldn't come to him, it was on him, not her. "That's okay," he told her gently and threw the blankets off. "We can go to the store. Let me use the bathroom first, okay?"

"Do I have to change?" Anna asked.

Sam knew it was code for Am I going with you? But, in his mind, it was a given that he would take her with him if she was sick. True, it might be a little bit of a miserable trip for her, but he didn't like the idea of leaving his twelve year old sister alone while sick, especially if she was sick enough to actually admit to it. "You can wear your pajamas if you want to," he told her. "Nobody'll mind." The little smile Anna tried to hide made his heart feel lighter in his chest. He needed to have more faith in himself. He knew how to take care of his sister, and if he did that well enough then maybe she would go back to expecting it.

()()()

"Hey. I'm on my way back now. Man, Sammy, you shoulda seen it. We cleaned the whole nest out in, like, five minutes."

Sam's eyebrows popped up in surprise, but he wasn't going to admit to being impressed, especially since he and Dean could probably beat that record on their own if speed was what they were after. "Hello to you too," he said tiredly instead.

"You sound beat. What's up? Is Anna givin' you a hard time?"

"No, man, she's sick. I thought she called you this morning."

"Yeah, I know. I just meant she can be stubborn about meds and rest and crap, and you sound like she's put you through the wringer."

Sam shook his head and then realized Dean couldn't actually see him as they were talking on the phone. "No, she's been okay, actually. I just... I wanted to ask you something."

"Hit me."

"I've been noticing some, um, patterns. I'm starting to think maybe I did something, while I was soulless, and it made Anna think I- I didn't care or something." Dean's silence spoke volumes. "She's just been acting weird ever since she got sick. Dean?"

"I keep tellin' you not to poke at that wall, Sam. We don't know what it's gonna take to bring the whole thing down, and I just think you're better off not goin' anywhere near it. At all. Period."

Sam grimaced at the familiar warning, but he couldn't be deterred so easily. Not this time. "I hear you, Dean. But if I hurt her somehow or-" The thought was physically painful for him. He glanced across the room to Anna. She was sleeping on the far bed, and the TV was still playing an old Spongebob Squarepants episode. "I have to make it up to her. How am I supposed to do that if I don't even know what it is I did?"

"Sam, Anna will get past it." Dean must have heard Sam groan under his breath, even over the phone, because he added, "She will."

"Right. And until then?" The line went quiet. "Dean, she keeps giving me these confused looks every time I do anything for her. And she keeps expecting me to leave her by herself or make her take care of herself. What the hell did I do?"

"It wasn't you Sam."

"Fine," Sam allowed, because there was simply no arguing with Dean about that detail. "But what happened?"

He could feel Dean's hesitation across miles. But after a moment, there was an answer forthcoming. "Robot Sam could be a dick. You know that. But, look, if I tell you this, you leave it at what I tell you. You don't go scratching at the wall trynta remember. Is that clear?"

Sam didn't hesitate to agree.

"Guess it's about time you knew Anna's out an appendix anyway."

Sam's heart skipped a beat. "She got appendicitis?" She was in the age group most likely to come down with it, but he wouldn't have seen it coming anyway. How convenient that it would have to happen during the time he was soulless. "When?"

"It wasn't shortly before we figured out what was wrong with you. That you weren't you. Anyway, we were on a hunt. We thought she just had a stomach bug. Robot You was being kind of a dick the whole time she was sick. Basically just calling her a baby and stuff like that. Which, you know, she hates."

If this was the lighter part of his crime, Sam suddenly wasn't so sure he wanted to hear the rest. After all, that explained why she was confused to see him willing to nurse her through this bug. If he'd been a dick last time she was sick, why would she believe this time would be any different... even if he did have a soul now.

"I, uh, I went on a supply run. Left her with soulless you, and... I get a phone call. She woke up. Alone." Sam's stomach twisted into a tight knot. He'd left her alone. While she had appendicitis. "And in a lot of pain." He could only imagine her terror. She was twelve. "I raced back, brought her to the hospital. They took her appendix out. I called you ten, fifteen times from the waiting room. You didn't pick up. Next morning, you showed up at the hospital. You, uh... Well, it doesn't matter what you were doin'." Which basically meant Sam would be ashamed to know what he'd been doing. Had he gone out drinking? Found a woman to spend the night with? "You weren't there. I chewed you out. But, look, man, it wasn't really you. Anna knows that. I know that. Any confusion she's got right now, it's just the fever messin' with her. She'll come back around as soon as she's back on her feet. You'll see."

Sam didn't have the words to answer Dean with, so he didn't. He just sat in silence and digested all that information. He'd basically acted like a major douchebag the whole time she was sick and then, just when she'd needed him the most, he'd left her. And she'd woken up with an appendix that was ready to burst with nobody there to help her or tell her she would be okay.

Guilt began to eat at him as he realized what that must have been like for her. Sam had never had appendicitis. But Jess had gotten it not long after Sam had first asked her out. She'd mistaken it for a stomach bug, too. She hadn't even bothered going to the health center on campus. But her roommate had called the health center's emergency line just a couple days after Jess had first gotten sick because she was in so much pain she could barely move. She'd later told Sam that it had been some of the worst pain she'd ever felt in her life.

Sam couldn't imagine how Anna would have felt waking up immobilized by pain and completely by herself. He would have been terrified. And he was 27. Anna wasn't even half his age. That phone call Dean had gotten... Sam had heard the change in his brother's voice when he recounted it, and thinking about the kind of fear Anna must have felt... He didn't want to think about it anymore, but he knew he wouldn't be able to stop thinking about any of this for days. Weeks, maybe.

"Sammy..."

"I know," Sam said, trying to put some strength into his voice. He looked across the room at Anna again. Her pale blonde curls curtained her face, but he could tell she was sleeping peacefully just by her slow, quiet breathing and the way she hadn't stirred the entire time he'd been on the phone. He knew how Dean felt, and he knew what Dean was going to say. He knew his brother's stance on this whole business about his soulless self. But he didn't feel the same way, and he wouldn't no matter how many times Dean tried to convince him. "You know, I gotta be honest... It's insane to me that either one of you can even stand to be near me."

"Sam, you gotta understand-"

"Dean, I know what you're gonna say," Sam snapped. "I've heard it all. But I don't give a crap about the technicalities. Yeah, I was walking around without a soul, but I was still me. Stop making excuses for me."

"They're not excuses, Sam. You weren't you." It was an impasse that Sam recognized, and he knew Dean did too. This was the same wall they hit every time they spoke about last year. They simply couldn't agree. Dean was far too concerned about protecting Sam from everything, and Sam was more concerned with taking some responsibility, whatever guilt or pain that meant he had to take on with it. "Listen, I'll be back late tonight, but I'll talk to Anna in the morning."

"It's not her fault-"

"I know it's not her fault. I'm just gonna tell her it's really you now. Make sure she gets that what happened last year was a one time thing. But I'm tellin' you, man, that kid worships you. She doesn't believe for a second that the emotionless dickbag that hurt her was you. And neither do I. And someday, Sam, you're gonna buy that too."

Sam sighed. He was tired of all of this, tired of the guilt and the shame, tired of having to argue against himself all the time because his family refused to believe he could ever be guilty of anything. "No," he answered, letting every bit of that weariness echo through the phone to his brother. "I'll talk to her."

He could feel Dean's hesitation, but he could also feel the moment Dean gave in. "Fine." For a moment, there was only the sound of the Impala's engine rumbling on the other end. Then, "No more scratching, Sammy. I'll see you later."

"Yeah," Sam said. He hit the red x on the bottom of his phone screen and looked up at Anna again. He couldn't believe the lengths Dean kept going to defend his innocence when it turned out he'd neglected their own baby sister.

He watched Anna stir in her sleep and tried to fathom what must have been going through his soulless self's mind that he could have left her alone and vulnerable. Anna was the only person on the planet that Sam felt an urge to protect at all costs. He would fight for Dean, too, of course, at any cost. But it was different with Anna. She had an innocence and a vulnerability to her that Sam wanted her to keep. She was a kid, his kid sister. It was that simple.

()()()

"Hey," Sam greeted with a soft smile when Anna rolled out of bed a few hours later with a tangled mess of hair on her head but without the tinge of fever in her cheeks. It was probably temporary, just the Tylenol she'd taken after they went to the store this morning having taken effect, but if it meant she could get up and maybe feel well enough to have a conversation, Sam would take it. "Feel better?"

Anna let out a long breath. "Yeah," she said. "I'm tired, though."

"I bet. You slept for a while."

"I can't believe I slept in the middle of the day." Anna sat back down on the edge of her bed. "But my head doesn't hurt anymore, so it's fine, I guess."

Sam studied her for a second, trying to decide whether to broach the topic now or wait until later. He really wanted to be able to talk to her alone, though, and Dean would be returning before tomorrow. Later today Anna's fever could be back, and he wouldn't be able to talk to her if she wasn't feeling well enough. This was the best chance he would be likely to get. Maybe it was best to get it over with anyway... For some reason, though, Sam was dreading this talk.

As much as he wanted to understand Anna's side of this and reassure her that he was him now, he was also afraid of opening up wounds for his sister-- and, if he was being honest, for himself. But it seemed to him that it was now or never, so, "Anna, can I, uh- Can we talk for a minute?"

It was obvious that his sudden serious tone startled her, because Anna looked up at him with something like uneasiness in her green eyes. "About what?" she asked carefully.

Sam stood up from the table and went to sit on the edge of the other bed in the room so the two were facing each other, knees nearly touching because there was so little space between the beds.

"What's wrong?" Anna asked again, looking wary. Sam could see that she knew this was going to be a serious conversation.

"I just wanted to ask you something."

"Okay," Anna drawled, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

"Last year," Sam started and immediately saw the reticence enter Anna's eyes. She didn't want him to know about last year any more than Dean did, but she was generally a lot worse at keeping secrets than their older brother. So she tended to shut completely down when the subject came up. She seemed to think it was best to offer absolutely nothing of herself rather than giving out tiny details but refusing to reveal any real information. But Sam just wanted a little honesty, and because he already knew what had happened thanks to Dean, all he needed from Anna now was to know how she remembered it and if it was still weighing on her mind.

"You're not supposed to worry about last year," she reminded him, face turned slightly downward even as her eyes were tilted up at him.

"Anna, I already talked to Dean, okay? He told me something that happened. When you got sick."

"What did he tell you?" Anna asked quietly.

"That I was a jerk. That I made fun of you and I left you by yourself when you really needed me there."

Anna shrugged a little. "I'm okay," she mumbled. "Nothing happened."

"Right," Sam said sarcastically and shook his head. "You were in so much pain you couldn't move and you had to wait for Dean to get back instead of going straight to the hospital because I wasn't there. But sure. Nothing happened." He realized a little belatedly that, though it was himself that he was angry with, it was Anna he seemed to be taking it out on. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "I'm sorry, Ladybug. For yelling and for what happened a few months ago. I wouldn't do that to you. I mean, I can't even imagine what that must have felt like, and I'm so sorry that you had to experience it."

Anna's heart was bleeding out her eyes as she got up and sat down next to Sam. She put her hands on his arm and leaned up so she could see his face. "It wasn't you, Sam," she said resolutely. "I knew that even when it first happened. You weren't acting like you."

Sam looked up, face ridden with guilt, and caught his sister's eyes. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "You did not deserve that. Not in the slightest."

Anna looked down at her lap and scuffed her sock covered toes against the floor. "I guess. But you don't have to feel guilty," she added seriously, still not looking at him. "It's not something you would do." There was an air about her like she was processing things as she spoke, or maybe it was more like she'd spent a long time processing things and was now being very careful to communicate them right. "I mean, the fact that you feel bad about it already says that, right? You didn't have a soul. I keep thinking about it, and that basically means you weren't a person. You didn't need the things people need. You didn't even sleep. And you didn't feel anything. You didn't feel happy or sad or anything. You weren't a person. So you weren't you. And none of the stuff you did can count that way. You know what I mean?"

It was deep stuff coming from a twelve year old, but considering who this twelve year old was, Sam wasn't so surprised. "I know," he told her, voice going a little hoarse. He couldn't understand how this conversation had turned so quickly into her comforting him instead of him reassuring her.

"This whole time today and yesterday, you did all the things you used to do before. That's what you're really like," Anna said decidedly. "At first I kept getting confused, but it's just because I got used to you being... him. But I'm getting used to you being you again, Sammy. I promise. I'm sorry that I made you feel bad when it wasn't really you."

"No, don't- God, Anna, don't apologize. I'm sorry you ever got hurt like that." It took everything in him not to say Sorry that I hurt you like that, but since his guilt was only making Anna feel guilty, he had to refrain from expressing it out loud. "But, look, I just want to promise you that it's never, ever gonna happen again. You're safe with me, Ladybug. You always will be."

"I know, Sammy," she answered softly, eyes going a little dewy.

"Good," Sam said. Then again, "Good. Let's go get something for lunch while you're feeling a little better."

Anna scooted off the edge of the bed to stand and then grabbed Sam's hands to pull him up too. "No more soup," she pleaded. "I'm so tired of it."

"No more soup," Sam promised. "Dress warm."

"Yeah yeah yeah."

La Fin