What's up, bitches?

Nah, I'm just kidding- This is a Charlie chapter! Requested by the one, the only Cookiemonstar1912. She asked for Charlie, and I quite literally cannot believe I've never posted a chapter with Charlie in it. I simply had to write this. That being said (written?), it took me almost a month to write and post this (*facepalm*), because writing incredible characters for the first time makes me very nervous (*sweats furiously*).

Okay, this note has been eclectic at best, chaotic at worst, but I started class this week, and it's late (early?), and I'm sleep-deprived, so please excuse it. (I promise the chapter is more coherent.)

And, of course, thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read, vote, or comment on the last chapter (and any before that). I appreciate you all more than I can say ❤️

This takes place directly after Something Will Grow, You Know (which is the chapter based on the episode Lebanon where John returns), so, as in that chapter, Anna is sixteen.

Run a Crooked Mile

Locker doors slammed shut around her, and Anna still stood with hers open. The bell had rung to signal everybody had five minutes to get to class, but she was in no hurry. She stood slouched against the cool metal of her locker and stared at the books stacked inside without making a move to pick any of them up. She couldn't seem to make the gears in her head turn enough to even think what her first class was or what she'd need for it.

What she really wanted was to go home and lay in bed all day. She hadn't gotten enough sleep, and she didn't have any food in her system. She was running on nothing but caffeine and will power, and Anna didn't have much left by way of will.

She pulled out all of her books and shoved them in her backpack, let it look like that was what weighed her down as muscle memory led her to her fourth class of the day. English. And, unlike last semester, she didn't share the class with Kate.

She hadn't done the homework, so obviously this had to be the one day the teacher gave out a freaking quiz. She scribbled out the most BS answers she'd ever seen in her life and prepared herself to get a zero whenever that quiz was passed back out. One glance around the room told Anna that half the class was as exhausted as she was, but most of them were probably hungover. She was probably being lumped in with them, presumed hungover after Skip Day. But, hey, so long as she wasn't the only one to fail the quiz, Anna would take it.

The day dragged on, and she barely managed to stay awake through her last period. By the time the final bell rang, she felt light headed from hunger after not having eaten all day, and she was in a very bad mood. All she wanted was to go home and sleep.

Kate was waiting for her in the hallway when she got out of class.

"Must be nice to end your day with a free period," she snarked and adjusted her backpack on her shoulder.

"It is nice," Kate replied simply. "What's wrong? You seem pissed."

"I'm not pissed. I'm tired. And hungry."

"I told you to eat lunch."

"Yeah, congratulations, you told me so."

Kate gave her a deadened look, and Anna took the hint. Stop being an asshole.

"Sorry," she offered unhappily. She used one hand to rub her bloodshot eyes. "You're right, I'm in a pissy mood. But I just need to get some sleep."

"I'm surprised you didn't sleep like a rock last night after yesterday. Man, I think I went to bed at ten."

After yesterday, but Kate didn't know that Anna's yesterday had been overshadowed by more unbelievable events than the ghost of a serial killer and a broken up high school party. Anna had no intention of telling her either. Not yet anyway. Maybe eventually, but only if she couldn't deal with everything without talking about it. And she had the feeling that this was the kind of thing she would end up keeping to herself solely because there wasn't another person in the world that could understand. Kate would try, and she would listen to as much or as little as Anna gave her. But it wouldn't help to just say she felt inside out if all Kate could give her in return was empathy.

"Yeah, I had a lot of caffeine, watched some Rick and Morty," she lied.

"That's a whole mood," Kate said as they stepped outside. "So, the week's finally over. You want to hang out this weekend?"

"I don't know. If Sam and Dean stay home then probably not, but if they're out hunting anyway then yeah."

"'Kay, well, text me." Kate stopped walking and unlocked the door to her mom's car. "I have to go see my dad on Sunday but that's just for the morning."

"Cool shit," Anna said, walking backwards toward the parking lot. "Stay perfect or else," she added with her signature smirk, tired as it probably looked compared with the usual.

"You too," Kate called as the distance between them increased. "And take a nap."

Anna mock-glared and started thinking about drinking Monster instead of taking a nap just to exasperate her friend. Knowing her luck, though, she would barely have time to step through the bunker's front door-- well, really, it was a totally and completely secret hidden door that nobody should be able to find if they didn't know exactly where to look but whatever-- before she was being shoved into her bedroom and ordered to get some sleep. For fear of that very fate, she would have to be careful not to 'cop an attitude,' not that sleep didn't sound pretty good to her at the moment.

The Impala was parked in the usual spot across the parking lot, and Anna started toward it with a world-weary sigh and pulled her phone out of her pocket when it buzzed. She was startled to see who the incoming text had come from. But her surprise melted into a dazzling grin as she read Charlie's message: Shouldn't stare at your phone in the parking lot. She lifted her head with bright, excited eyes to see that there was, in fact, a red-headed hacker sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala with a shit-eating grin on her face. With the kind of renewed energy Anna could usually only get from caffeinated beverages and punk-rock music, she headed for the car with a zip in her step, pocketing her phone on the way.

"You're a spotlessly good influence, Charlie," she quipped as she dropped into the backseat. The Impala's engine roared to life almost instantly as Dean turned the key.

"I try my best. So buckle your seatbelt," she ordered with a playfully stern look.

"Si, Dora," Anna quipped and didn't bother making the motion of buckling a seatbelt. She was sixteen and far too mature to be bossed around by somebody who wasn't even her- Okay, so thinking about authority figures of any kind was just a bad idea right now. After losing her father for the second time just yesterday, Anna didn't feel ready to be bossed around by anybody, and she figured in the silence of her mind that it was best for her to leave it at that. She sat back in her seat and pulled her backpack out of the footwell and onto her lap. "How are you here?" she asked, partially to distract herself and partially because she was legitimately curious.

"Oh, you know, hunting and... stuff," she trailed off, looking almost nervously at Dean before turning in her seat so she could look over the seatback at Anna. Dean gave her a strange look that made Anna wonder whether she'd missed something or if her brother simply didn't like the idea of their sort-of-sister hunting by herself. But Charlie was positively beaming as the car pulled out of the parking lot. "Did you read it?"

"The day you left," Anna answered without missing a beat. She and Charlie liked to trade comics whenever she came to visit-- sometimes novels, movies, or even albums by some of their favorite bands, though their taste in music clashed most of the time because Anna couldn't stomach Walking on Sunshine any better than Charlie could sit through Even Robots Need Blankets. "The characters didn't line up with the movie, but they made Barbara way more interesting, and we always stan a female protagonist."

"Yes, we do," Charlie interjected, then motioned with her hand for Anna to keep giving her review.

"Nerds," Dean grumbled from the driver's seat, but Anna ignored him completely and went on.

"The comissioner's got his head shoved way up his-"

"Watch it-"

She gave her brother a dark look in the rearview mirror to show she didn't appreciate that correction, but he held her eyes without wavering, so she gave in and looked back at Charlie. "It's better than any of the Batman comics I've ever read. And the moral questions are way more interesting too."

Charlie grinned, "I knew you would like it. Got all the feminist undertones you could ask for, and some of the cameos are incredible."

"Agreed," Anna said, then slid to the edge of the seat excitedly. "Prince-less, let's go," she demanded, waiting for Charlie's own review.

Charlie laughed aloud at the look on her face but said, "And speaking of feminist undertones-"

"Ain't nothing undertone about the feminist in Prince-less," she corrected, looking and feeling rather thrilled with herself for having introduced Charlie to it.

"You two," Dean mumbled again, probably feeling a little left out. But he wasn't doing a very good job hiding the smile on his face, so Anna took the opportunity to drag him into it.

"I told him to read both of them, and he wouldn't go near either one," she tattled to Charlie.

"She was talking crap about Batman," Dean said, sticking a righteous finger in the air even as he made a sharp turn with only one hand on the steering wheel.

"He's rich and pathetic," Anna said stubbornly and crossed her arms over her chest in an effort to show that she wasn't budging on the issue.

"Ouch," Charlie reacted and put a hand over her heart. "Never say that at a comic convention," she advised. "You'll be slaughtered."

"Oh, come on." Anna rolled her eyes.

"I'm not takin' her to Comic-Con until she has a proper appreciation for Batman."

Anna rolled her eyes a little harder. "Sam will take me," she said pettily from the backseat. Dean gave her a fondly annoyed look in the mirror, and Anna felt like she'd won even though he hadn't yielded to her opinions on Batman. "Sam read Batgirl," she added anyway. Dean rolled his eyes at that, apparently believing it to be inconsequential.

"Prince-less," Charlie reminded her. "The characters are unbearably cute."

"I know!" Anna practically squealed. "The dragon."

"The dragon," Charlie echoed.

"Okay, fangirls," Dean finally interrupted. "I told Sammy we'd pick up dinner. What do you feel like?"

Anna had forgotten her hunger and exhaustion until that very moment. She suddenly was longing for a meal. But she didn't know what she wanted to eat, so she looked to Charlie. She was their guest anyway, so she should really be the one to decide.

"What's good around here?"

Lebanon didn't have much by way of fast food aside from a handful of mediocre pizza places and the diner that let people order meals to-go. Well, there was a deli, too, and they made pretty good subs, but they were costly. Not that that mattered anymore since Charlie had given them a no-fail credit card. But they still didn't eat there much. A nice hot sub sounded pretty good at the moment, though. Anna stayed quiet. Dean was going through the list of places out loud in the front seat, and he would probably vouch for the deli or the diner, either of which she was down for. They usually went out a couple times a week, but this week had been a little weird. And after yesterday... they probably wouldn't have gone out tonight either if Charlie hadn't come to visit. Not with the loss of their father so heavy in the air.

"What do you think, Rugrat?" Hearing her nickname caught Anna off guard. She snapped her head up, not having realized she'd completely zoned out.

"Yeah," she said, hoping it was the right way to answer. "Great."

Dean gave her an odd look, but he didn't say anything. "Awesome. The deli it is."

Cool, except that the inevitable track of her thoughts back to John had made her feel like shit again.

"You alright?" Charlie asked from the passenger seat.

Anna looked up and nodded, trying to look like the question had surprised her and she was totally, one hundred percent fine. It was a wonder, she thought, that Dean wasn't hurting. Well, he probably was, on second thought. He was just better at hiding it than she was. And he was better adjusted. It took a lot to shake Dean. Although Anna would consider their deceased father time travelling from the year 2003 and then leaving again because the whole world's timeline was threatened by his presence to be a lot. But Dean had seemed to be at peace with everything in a wisened, mature way that she just couldn't understand, and he'd imparted some of that peace to Sam.

Neither of them had looked off this morning, and Dean didn't appear off now. But Anna had sensed yesterday that she was experiencing things differently than her brothers. John's return had meant something different to her than to them, and so had his departure. Maybe it was because she was younger, or maybe it was because they were older, or maybe it was because she was bad at coping, or because they were good at it.

"Is she acting weird?" Charlie whispered conspicuously to Dean.

Anna rolled her eyes in the backseat and tried to make it playful. It was a little touching that Charlie even cared, especially since Anna's problems probably always seemed small compared with everybody else's.

"Is this code for something happened at school?" Charlie continued, eyes darting over her shoulder to Anna in a way that made it clear she knew she was being heard by both the Winchesters in the car.

Dean knew. He had to know. But Anna knew he wouldn't get into it with Charlie standing right there, and she hoped he would leave it alone altogether. She had no desire to talk anything out, especially since her brothers seemed to be remarkably okay. She figured that in a few days she would be okay too. For the moment, she felt his eyes on her in the rearview mirror.

"Whaddya say, Runt? Do I need to kick someone's ass?" There was something to his voice that made it clear to Anna that he did, in fact, know exactly why she was upset but wasn't going to bring it up unless she wanted to. It felt almost performance-like keeping the secret, but it was theirs to keep, and there was no reason to bring down the mood over it when she was the only one who couldn't just get it out of her head.

"I'm just tired," she grouched with just the right amount of indignation to her voice.

"See, she's fine," Dean told Charlie and turned into one of the parallel parking slots in front of the deli. It was normally packed, but there were several empty spots today-- probably because half the high school crowd had gone straight home to sleep off their hangovers-- and Dean pulled easily into one of them. "Sandwich and a nap, she'll be good as new." He caught Anna's eye in the rearview mirror and winked. It was meant to communicate solidarity and confidence that everything would be alright, even if everything wasn't as simple as they were pretending for Charlie's sake. But it just reminded Anna of the way John had winked at her at dinner last night when things had started looking bleak.

She smiled and hoped it didn't look melancholy. A sandwich and a nap sounded nice. Anna was just so tired of the constant drift her mind kept making toward yesterday.

()()()

Charlie was an early riser, and the boys were almost always up early thanks to the schedule hunting kept them on, so Anna wasn't surprised to roll out of bed at 8:30 and find herself the last one to wake. But at least there was most of a pot of coffee waiting for her when she stepped into the kitchen, listening to the even cadence of three familiar voices talking in the library. She didn't feel like facing them without some caffeine in her system, so she simply sat down on the floor with her back to the cabinets and her knees pulled up in front of her and sipped slowly at her steaming black coffee.

It was surprisingly soothing to just sit in the comfort of their voices in an otherwise quiet morning. It felt calm and controlled in a way that Anna's life rarely was. It made her wonder whether losing John the other day should have kept her so down yesterday. This was the world she lived in, the family she still had, the home she'd been allowed to keep. She felt suddenly almost childish for feeling so much like the whole world had ended. John was her father, but he'd been gone all her life. It was painful enough to still grip her by the throat when she thought about it for too long, but she knew better than to think about it for too long. Yesterday had served as a reminder, but it shouldn't have been more than that.

Now, with Charlie visiting, Anna needed to put it out of her head. She took a slow, adoring sip of her coffee and breathed in and out, slow and conscientious.

She didn't catch the sound of footsteps until they were just on the other side of the kitchen doorway. But she had just enough time to register that those footfalls were too quick, too lightweight to belong to either of her brothers. "Hey, Charlie," she greeted, resting her head back against the shelf behind her and craning her neck so she could look up at Charlie. "Sorry," she said with an apologetic smile when Charlie nearly jumped out of her skin.

"No, that's fine. Cardiac arrest is a great way to start the day," Charlie quipped. She stepped over Anna's legs and refilled two coffee mugs.

"Who enslaved you already?" Anna asked in exasperation. Charlie was family, but she was technically a guest at the bunker for however long she opted to stay-- and Anna couldn't help but wish every single time that Charlie would just move in for good and except a name-change to Winchester, because there was plenty of room and things would be far less lonely with another human being around-- and Anna would make sure to wag her finger at whichever of her brothers had sent Charlie to refill his coffee cup.

"Don't act like I'm so easy to boss around. I do what I want when I want," Charlie answered brightly. She held the coffee pot out, though there was very little left in it, and Anna lifted her cup so Charlie could top her off.

Wouldn't that be nice, Anna thought, doing what you want when you want?

"It's Sam's cup," Charlie continued as she replaced the pot in the machine. "But I offered."

Anna nodded her understanding.

"Care to join the party, or is this some kind of morning ritual that's too sacred to break?"

Anna wrinkled her nose at the teasing, but hid most of the expression behind her coffee cup. "It's not a ritual," she explained fastidiously, "but I am having my own party down here, and I guarantee you it's way cooler than anything the old men are throwin' in the next room."

"Well, in that case," Charlie said exaggeratedly. She set down one of the coffee mugs she'd filled and sat down on the floor beside Anna with the other cup in her hand, being careful not to spill any coffee as she eased herself down.

"Seriously?" Anna asked with a slightly bemused smile.

"I'd hate to look like some kind of slave." Charlie kept a straight face as she took a sip of her coffee, but when she looked over at Anna, her face broke into a charming grin.

"Witty," Anna deadpanned.

"Wit is my specialty. That... and D&D."

It was Anna's turn to grin, and she did so with a contented air and a glint of pure amusement in her eyes.

()()()

"This is weird. You know, I don't think I've ever been shopping with another woman before."

"No kidding?"

Anna tried to shrug off the genuine disbelief in Charlie's voice.

"Not even when you were little?"

"Not even then," Anna echoed absentmindedly, thinking of shopping trips to the Salvation Army with her father and brother.

John had never had much interest in shopping, and he'd certainly had no interest in waiting for her to try things on, so Anna had often wound up with clothes that were a little too big and shoes that were a little too small. But somehow those trips were still fond memories for her. Dean had always had an uncanny skill for finding things Anna would fall in love with in any and all thrift stores across the country. She could recall a foggy memory of coming across a green tutu and dancing in it to Dean's Led Zeppelin tapes all afternoon back at the motel. She mostly only remembered because John had snapped a picture of her standing in their motel room in that tutu with a radiant smile on her face, and that picture had remained in the back of the Impala until they found the bunker. It lived in Dean's room now. She wondered vaguely if Charlie had ever seen it.

The memories left her feeling the strangest combination of nostalgic and depressed. She looked up from the t-shirt rack she'd been browsing through absentmindedly to see Charlie looking at her with an eyebrow raised. She'd been asked a question and completely missed it. "What?" she asked.

"I asked if you were okay. You've been a little spacey since I got here, and, like, I do not want to pry, you know," Charlie said, raising her hands briefly before letting them drop to her sides again. "But if you did want to tell me something, I might be able to offer something helpful in return."

Anna held Charlie's eyes for a moment. Awkwardly as that offer may have come out, she knew Charlie meant it. For a second, she considered spilling her guts. Charlie had lost her father as a child too. But what was Anna supposed to say? Orphan to orphan, you ever long to see your father so much you can't breathe? Beyond the inevitable weirdness that conversation would be dilluted by, there was the fact that Charlie didn't visit very often and discoloring what was supposed to be a good day with a pitiful cry-fest was not in Anna's playbook. She would sort her shit out once Charlie was gone. For now, she was going to enjoy herself if it killed her.

"I think you're conflating space-y with sleep deprived," she told Charlie and looked back down at the rack of shirts before her. "I do go to public high school, and you know what they say. All work and no sleep makes America's children conveniently compliant."

"Ha. And here I always thought women talked about makeup and Batgirl when left alone."

"You caught us," Charlie quipped as Dean slung an arm over Anna's shoulders and Sam rolled his eyes. "Discussing social issues. How dare we?"

"We must leave it to the men," Anna said in a delicate transatlantic accent.

Charlie smiled deviously. "They created the problems, they can solve them."

"That's just it, Charlie. They can't." It earned her a high five, and Anna felt rather victorious as she took in the reluctant smirks on her brothers' faces. "Okay, seriously, though, there's nothing here. I'm startin' to think thrift shopping is where it's at."

"T-shirt shopping is best done online or at Hot Topic," Charlie admitted.

"You spent twenty minutes over here and didn't find a single thing?" Sam asked incredulously. "What about that?" He pointed at a faded blue tee with a brand name written across the chest.

"It's twenty bucks for a two dollar shirt," Anna contended.

"Two dollars?" Charlie repeated. "I'm gonna start thrift shopping."

"What, you never have?" Dean asked, raising one eyebrow.

"I did when I was a teenager, but only a few times."

"Wow," Sam replied. "You know, I don't think I shopped anywhere else until I was in college."

Anna could sense where this was going. She was just waiting for one of her brothers to say something about their Dad's philosophy when it came to shopping. But neither of them did, and she decided that it was highly possible that their nerves were raw after yesterday too.

"Yeah, well, like the kid says, mall prices look pretty ridiculous when you can get a shirt for two dollars just by knowin' where to look."

Charlie looked between them with that look she sometimes got. Anna got the idea that the Winchester family history was something of a mystery to most of their friends, even those considered family. So whenever they revealed something new, however casually, that information became a puzzle piece that had to be slotted into place. It wasn't something she'd thought about much before, but Jody had asked her once what had happened to their parents, and Anna had realized that all three of them pretty much avoided talking about all things past and personal. She watched as Charlie straightened her spine a little.

"You better teach me where to look then."

()()()

"You're turning in early," Dean observed when Anna stepped into the library in pink and white polka-dotted pajamas and a heathered gray tanktop. It was only ten o'clock, so going to bed would, indeed, have been uncharacteristic of her, but that wasn't Anna's intent anyway.

"You kiddin' me? It's, like, Grandma hour. We're gonna watch Doctor Who if you want in."

"Well, actually," Dean said and stood up from his seat at one of the library tables, "this Grandma's goin' to bed." He paused at the threshold to kiss the top of her head and give her a hug. "Do yourself a favor and go to bed before midnight," he requested.

"Yeah, fine," Anna grumbled, but she lingered in the hug a moment longer before pulling away. Dean headed down the hallway, but Anna moved in the opposite direction to retrieve two beers for Sam and Charlie and a soda-- even though she felt very strongly that she should be able to drink now-- for herself. She headed back for Sam's bedroom-- he had a nice TV, a DVD played, and an armchair that Anna loved to curl up in when bingeing shows or movies.

Sam's head popped up as she walked in. "Dean comin'?"

"He went to bed like a total elder," Anna replied and tossed him and Charlie each their bottle of beer. "What season is this?"

"Five," Charlie answered and twisted the top off her bottle.

"Sick. First disc?"

"Yep."

"Sicker."

Sam gave her a look, but Anna ignored it in favor of crawling to sit between him and Charlie.

"Wow," Sam said.

"What?"

"You always sit in my chair."

"Well, yeah," Anna said glibly. "But, like, snuggles."

Charlie nearly choked on her beer, then set it aside. "Oh, come on," she said when Sam gave her a look. "Like you don't know how cute that is."

Anna wrinkled her nose at the word cute even as she tucked herself under Sam's arm and got comfortable.

They watched two episodes before quitting for the night and dispersing to go to bed. Anna slipped into sleep far more quickly than she usually did, and she dreamt of a hospital room in South Dakota only to wake up with her face covered in sweat and tears.

She rolled over and gripped her pillow tightly with one hand. Her heart slowed to its normal rate over the course of the next couple minutes, and she lay in a state of shaky calm, letting the darkness be her shield and keep out the rest of the world as she let her thoughts run around a little.

There was something so organized about John's return that made it feel more like a visit. One day, not even, and he was thrown back into 2003. One day, and they'd all gotten something out of it, a conversation they'd been missing for nearly a decade, or, in Anna's case, the restoration of a memory that had been fading. She could hear the sound of John's voice clearly again if she tried. She could see his eyes in her mind, a deep brown. She could feel his strength surrounding her when she recalled how tightly he'd hugged her. She'd felt so safe. Safe and sound in a world that seemed to her to take great joy in stealing all Anna's layers of security.

Rather than chase another nightmare, Anna closed her eyes and focused on how it had felt to be wrapped in her father's arms. Half an hour after waking, Anna drifted back to sleep, dreamless this time.

La Fin