Note: hey my loves. thanks for being such total darlings last week. i missed you guys so freakin much

this one is from a request by an AO3 reader who asked for something inspired in some way by the song "The 30th" by Billie Eilish. I got the request right after the song came out last year, but I tried a good five times to write this thing and it never felt right.

I put the song on repeat one more time today, and the words finally flowed. It's short, but I hope it's satisfying.

Anna is nineteen.

If

The nightmare never ended, Anna supposed, stared dead-eyed at the wall in a hospital waiting room. Everything was bland around her, people just blurs, just part of the background. The voices didn't make sense, and the smell of antiseptic had become her new normal.

Nineteen years old now, and she felt seven years old again with a white wall staring back at her. It wasn't the wall doing it. It was the lonely feeling. The calm rhythm of her own slow thoughts, the way her vital signs hid her fracturing mind. It was exactly what she'd felt one million– no, twelve years ago.

God, it had been twelve years. Twelve years since Dad.

She'd been terrified then. She was terrified now.

So, was she here now? Or was she in the year 2006, just a week shy of her eighth birthday? What was there to separate that moment from this?

Nothing but time... and time didn't mean half of what everyone pretended.

A hand on her shoulder made Anna jump halfway out of her skin. "Kate," she breathed in relief after a minute. "Hey."

"Hey," Kate said softly and sat beside her. Their knees rested against one another, warm and human. "They're gonna be okay," Kate promised impossibly. "They always are."

Anna smiled a little, looking over at her friend. That was what she was supposed to believe.

Sam and Dean were... Well, they were the Winchester Brothers, the best hunters on the planet, the guys who saved the world. They were Sam and Dean.

But now Sam and Dean were in the ICU with tubes down their throats and God only knew what else. Her smile fractured. Anna used to buy into that phrase– that we always are that her brothers liked to throw around so much. It wasn't a real answer, wasn't really proof of anything, wasn't even true if they were honest with themselves.

Nothing was okay, never had been. It wasn't before tonight and it wouldn't be after.

"I saw it," Anna whispered, staring at the white wall again. "I saw it, like, a whole minute before it came out of the trees. But I thought I was imagining it, because we were all so on edge. I fucking saw the thing, and I didn't do anything about it, because I didn't believe myself. And that's what Dean is always fucking telling me."

"A, calm down," Kate pleaded, grabbing one of Anna's hands. It was cold, and Kate's was burning hot.

Anna didn't pull away. She just stacked her other hand on top. She was shaking from head to toe, and her chest hurt like hell. "If I lose them today..." she couldn't breathe well enough to even finish her sentence. She looked at the white wall, and it was dark enough to drown in.

Maybe she was drowning in it. Her lungs certainly seemed to think so.

How many times had Anna taken a good look around and realized there was no way she could keep this up?

"If," Kate said firmly. "If, Anna. If."

For the life of her, Anna didn't know why that helped. But it helped. "If," she repeated, tears filling her eyes. Her chest fucking hurt. But she could breathe again.

She looked at Kate's brown eyes and let out a shuddering sigh. Kate would always look like a teenager to Anna. But Anna looked like a teenager to herself too. They were, technically, but they were old now, rotting in their own skin.

"I didn't think..." Anna shook her head. Her voice was deceptively calm this time. She could have stepped right through that damn wall, she was sure of it. And she on the other side would be the year 2006, the final beep of John's heart monitor, and Dean choking his way back to life. "I thought they would have seen it too."

Kate just looked at her, eyes speaking volumes that Anna didn't have the capacity to analyze. "It doesn't matter," she insisted. "It's all just if."

Anna's whole life was if. Problem was, half the damn ifs came true just as she managed to convince herself they wouldn't. Ifs were starting to feel an awful lot like whens.

She exhaled, her heart falling right out of her mouth. "I'm fuckin' scared, Kate."

()()()

It was hard to believe those still figures were her brothers.

Dean was more vulnerable than Anna ever wanted to see him, pale faced and dressed in blue scrubs that barely fit over his biceps. It was impossible, which was how Anna knew it was real.

"If," she whispered to herself and squeezed her brother's hand. "If, if, if." Dean's monitor was sharp in her ears, saying when, when, when. "If," Anna whispered one more time.

She leaned down and gave her brother a kiss on the forehead, feeling the wrongness of it in every inch of her body. Dean leaned down to her level, he pressed hope to her head, and he held her hand. But he would never remember the timid way she touched his face, scared to find him cold and withered beneath her fingers. She took a deep breath at the warmth of his face, the way his stubble scratched her palm.

"If," she whispered one more time, and her whole face crumpled with the need to cry.

Dean wasn't dead. But he could have been. And he could have been standing beside her if she'd given him a warning. Or if they'd waited one more day to go into the woods. Or if they'd never taken this hunt in the first place, or if Dad had never put a gun in Dean's hands or Mary never died or Azazel never offered-

But it was all just if. And Jody was with Sam, waiting to trade places when Anna asked. So, she put her hands in her pockets and took a measured breath.

()()()

Sam in a hospital bed was an unfortunately familiar sight, especially considering Winchesters didn't do hospitals.

"Tell me what I'm missing," Anna asked him softly, sitting in a chair beside his bed.

His fingers were warm and hers were cold. It felt opposite somehow.

Sam always shaved his face clean, but he had a five o'clock shadow now. It made her feel cold and distant, the iceberg watching the Titanic come closer and closer, watching all those people.

"I don't know what to do," Anna admitted. "I know I'm an adult or whatever, but... I don't understand." She blinked back tears and swallowed, thinking about white walls. "Why do we do this?" she asked breathily, and there was, of course, no answer.

Anna shook her head. Sitting up, leaning down to see her brothers, it was wrong. Sam and Dean in separate hospital rooms was wrong. Anna split between the two of them was wrong. The strongest men on the planet in hospital beds was wrong.

"If," she reminded herself forcefully. "If," and the tiny word broke in half.

Anna got off the chair and lay on her back on the floor. It was cold, but she was smaller than her brother again. They were all safer that way.

"Don't die, Sam," she requested softly. "Or I swear I'm goin' back to 2005 and calling do-over on this whole damn life."

()()()

Two greens and a hazel. They were all still. Still like the last short beep before man and machine parted ways.

Anna didn't know how they kept making it. But she told Dean he looked like crap, read Sam the entirety of Looking for Alaska because he had no choice but to listen. It was all just if, and for once it seemed like things would stay that way. They would stay if.

La Fin