Note: Thank you, as ever for the kind comments and lovely votes and for even just clicking on this story and reading it!

MAJOR SPOILERS for episode 14.13 "Lebanon" AKA episode 300.

This chapter is for maggir253, who wanted a rendition of the episode "Lebanon" with Anna in it. I made some changes in writing this in terms of the episode placement and therefore the characters involved. This is set in season 10 (about midway through) and instead of wishing for Michael out of his head, Dean is wishing for the Mark off his arm. Bam, we get John instead. The other details of the episode remain much the same, except that there is, of course, no Mary because she has not returned from the dead yet.

Any recognizable dialogue or plot is obviously from the show, and I stake no claim to it. There are some scenes in the episode that I didn't include despite that they were powerful and important in the episode because I didn't want to write scenes from the show down verbatim. I only included scenes that changed significantly with Anna in the story. Quite the opposite of my usual, this chapter turned out shorter than I anticipated (but it's still over 11k words, so it's not really short, per-say).

You'll be able to see what's different and what's the same, but I wanted to throw these things out there so nobody thinks I just didn't watch the episode lol.

I hope you all enjoy this, and maggir253, I hope it's what you envisioned, or at least that you love it (I'm sorry that it took me three weeks to get it done)! Expect some happy and a healthy dose of sad. Anna is sixteen.

Something Will Grow, You Know

"I can't believe you're infiltrating a shop in Lebanon. This is the most boring place on the planet." With a sudden burst of energy, Anna perked up in her seat. "Can I go?"

"No," came two unimpressed voices from the front of the car.

She slumped. "Lame." Outside the car windows, a cool February morning was unfolding. It was a small town without much to do, and the streets were mostly empty. Anna recognized three teens on the bench as kids in her grade, but she didn't really know them, so she paid them no mind. Most of the kids in her classes at school were convinced that her family worked for the CIA or something, and she tended to just let people believe whatever they wanted.

In the school parking lot, Anna smirked at the emptiness that her brothers failed to notice-- though surely they would have seen it if they hadn't been preoccupied with their case, being world-class hunters as they were. It was February 7... AKA Skip Day to the students of Lebanon High. Only a gaggle of Freshmen would attend classes, and they would catch on pretty quickly to what was going on and ditch before the day was out.

Keeping up appearances, Anna made sure to look annoyed as she closed the back door to the Impala and slung her backpack over her shoulder. As the car roared away, she grinned slyly and walked around the back of the school building to where Kate was waiting for her.

"Hey," Kate greeted and grinned. "Best day of the year!" she said and fist-pumped.

"I know. Where we goin'?" Anna asked. "Café? I've only had one cup of coffee today."

"Well, yeah, then. You're scary on low caffeine."

"Sweet. I stole twenty bucks from Dean's wallet, so I'll cover you."

Kate shook her head. "I can't believe you sometimes."

"He woulda given it to me anyway. I just didn't want to make it obvious that we weren't going to school today. They somehow still don't know about Skip Day."

"Well, you've only lived here two years."

"So have you."

"And my mom doesn't know either."

"Yeah, but your mom is your mom. They're supposed to be young and cool." She frowned, reassessing. "Well, they think so anyway."

Kate laughed. "I mean, cool is relative, and when you put them in the context of guardians. Yeah. They're cool."

"Oh my god, Katie. Stop with the big words. It's eight o'clock in the morning."

"Shut up," Kate drawled. "Where's the party today? Did you ask Ethan?"

"Same as last year. But Levi's in charge of it this time."

"Should be a lot of alcohol."

"Precisely my thought."

"Do you wanna go to it?" Kate asked with a little dread in her voice.

Anna shrugged one shoulder. It had only been a few months since the dreaded night of Timber's party and everything that came after. She was, in fact, still suffering the consequences of her actions from that night and the days that followed. Every time she went to Kate's, she received a handful of texts that made her feel like an infant, asking what they were doing or whether she was where she'd said she would be. She, fortunately, had finished her grounding a few weeks prior and no longer had to fork over her phone every day when she got back from school. But she could still feel the shame over everything, and she preferred to stay away from the party scene for now. If the look on Kate's face was any indication, she felt the same way.

"We could just get coffee and hang out."

"We do that every time we ditch."

"You say that like we ditch weekly."

"We do. It's just usually during study hall."

"Yeah, but whole-day hookie? I've only done that once outside of Skip Day, and you weren't there."

"Ah, right. When you were trying to become a full time delinquent."

"Hunter."

"'S what I meant."

Anna elbowed her friend in the side. "It's been a helluva year, now that I think about it. I mean, the shit that's happened since last February?"

"I know, between the two of us, we would make one hell of a coming of age film."

Anna tried to picture that and laughed. "Dude, can you imagine. Your parents divorce, my mom gets killed by a demon, we sneak into a bar and get dragged out by the collar, don't learn our lesson, and then, like, six months later, we're back at it with the crazy ass party your dad made you go to. And now... Skip Day!"

"Hey, you know, this kinda feels like the end scene they cut to after all the crazy shit happens. The kid's, like, magically happy and positive now, and they're going to this fun thing."

"I don't feel the magic, but true."

"Me neither. You know what that means?"

"It means we need coffee," Anna said resolutely.

"Yep."

They started down the sidewalk into town and Anna grimaced. "So glad you got your license and are more responsible than ninety nine percent of American teenagers."

"Why, so I can cart you around?"

"Yes! Come on, don't tell me you loved rushing back here and waiting for exactly the right moment to come around the back of the building at the end of the day to look like you were at school last year."

"Hey, if they don't suspect anything, it's not that hard to play it off."

Anna laughed out loud. "Yeah, says the kid that got caught sneaking out because you buckled when your mom asked where you were going."

Kate bit her tongue, fighting a smile. "Shut up. Shut uuup," she repeated when Anna kept laughing. "I was- It was- Whatever."

"It's just, like, the most predictable question you'll have to answer."

"I had an answer ready, too," Kate snorted. "I just panicke- Oh my god," she suddenly said, speaking of panic. "Is that Dean's car?"

"Oh, yeah, they're in town," Anna shrugged. "But they're working a case, so they'll be distracted."

"Okay, there's so much wrong with that. But mostly-" Kate leaned close to Anna's face, looking horrified. "There's a motherfreaking ghost in Lebanon?"

Anna chuckled. "You said motherfreaking. What does that even mean?"

"Focus!"

"Yeah, I don't know. They didn't tell me much. It'll be fine. They're on it, and I think they're just looking for a cursed object in one of the local shops, so nobody's dead or anything."

"Well, that's comforting."

"Should be," Anna said with a casual shrug. "Kate, they're literally taking preventative measures. Getting some crap out of the wrong hands before any harm can be done. That doesn't happen much in hunting. So, let's just be grateful... And also maybe stay off of this street and go to the diner instead?"

Kate was agreeable and they turned off to head for Main St. and the diner there. "Do you think the Kickback actually sells coffee?"

"Iced coffee. I tried it once, remember? At that weirdass Halloween party they threw."

"Oh yeah, and it tasted like mangos."

"Yep. We could just get Monster, though, if you want. Then we don't have to walk all the way down Main Street. We can just hit the Kickback and then chill in the booth."

"Honestly, we don't even have to hide. Ollie knows Skip Day. He went to Leb."

"True."

As they swung the door open to enter the Kickback, they were hit by the smell of fruity drinks and cigarette smoke, an interesting combination to be sure. The joint was already filled with teenagers, some of whom Anna recognized immediately, others she didn't think she'd ever met. "Dude, this is why Skip Day is awesome. No hiding, but it's still badass."

Kate rolled her eyes. "The no hiding thing sucks a little fun out of it."

Anna wrinkled her nose. "A little," she agreed, though. "Ollie!" she cheered as they stepped up to the bar. "Your finest purple Monster, if you please."

"Well, if it ain't my two favorite caffeine addicts." Ollie's brown eyes were dully amused as he turned to swing open a fridge door and tossed two cans of purple Monster at the girls. Each caught one with ease.

"Thanks, man," Kate said, and Anna handed him a twenty dollar bill.

"There's a free booth in the back," Ollie told them, having to shout to be heard over all the kids in the room. He seemed to be in a hurry, already backing away from the bar. He handed over two bills, a ten and a five. "Better move fast, though."

They did, weaving past full tables and booths until they found the empty one. It wasn't in the corner, but it was near the back. It also happened to be quieter there than things were at the front of the room, which Anna considered a perk. The girls slid into opposite sides of the booth, dropping their bags on the seat beside them.

"We talk too much," Kate said after a couple minutes had passed without either of them saying anything. "I can't think of anything I haven't told you."

Anna grinned. "Mood. I don't think there's anything I haven't told you either. Not recently."

Kate shook her head. "Lies. I totally saw you makin' eyes at that skater boy yesterday."

"I spaced out."

"Yeah, more like got lost in his eyes."

"Shut up," Anna said, blushing furiously as she slouched in her seat. "I like skateboards. I wanna learn someday."

"Yeah, you also want to learn to ride a motorcycle, but I've never seen you stare into any biker dude's eyes for half an hour."

"That's an exaggeration."

"Yeah, but you're still obsessed."

"I am not. Shut up."

"Girl, you're sixteen. You're allowed to have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Explore a little."

"I'm okay," Anna said, still blushing. "I'll just live vicariously through you. How's Arya?"

"That was the opposite of a smooth subject change."

"Kate! Oh my god. I do not have a crush on a random skater boy, okay? I don't."

"I didn't say you were crushing on him. I said you made eyes at him. But now I know you are crushing on him."

"Stahp, oh my god."

"Anna, you could talk to him, at least."

"I don't want to."

"Yeah, you do, you're just nervous."

"No, I don't. And even if I did, he'd probably end up dead the second Dean found out I spoke to him."

"That's a good point," Kate allowed and took a drink of her Monster. She looked absently out the window for a minute. "Look, I'm not trying to be weird or embarrass you, but you really should talk to him if you see him around. Come on, what have you really got to lose? And there's no reason to think you'd even have to introduce him to your family. Just befriend him or something."

Anna shrugged evasively.

"Why are you being so weird about this?" Kate asked in genuine confusion. "I mean, seriously, I've never seen you get this quiet about anything before. You're allowed to have a romantic relationship."

"What's romantic at sixteen?" She cut herself off and looked at Kate with a slightly apologetic expression. "No offense. I mean, you and Arya... hot stuff, totally," she waited for Kate to laugh before she did.

"Shut up. Seriously. Why don't you want to even talk to him?"

"Oh my god," Anna said in genuine surprise, pointing out the window.

"Stop changing the subject," Kate said with an eyeroll.

"No, seriously. Oh my god. That was the Impala."

"Anna-"

"No, that was the Impala and Dean wasn't driving it. Somebody stole my brother's car!"

Kate frowned and looked out the window, she could see the car disappearing down the street. "Oh my god, you don't think-"

"It's Skip Day. Everything crazy happens on Skip Day, and it's always a teenager that does it."

Kate grimaced. "Well, I guess we're goin' to the party after all."

"Yeah, hurry!" Anna urged and snatched her backpack off the seat, ready to save Baby.

()()()

"I'm gonna kill her," said Max's mother, looking tired in her irritation.

"Does Max have a phone?" Dean asked.

"Or do you have any idea where you might have gone?" Sam asked.

"She's supposed to be in school," the kid's mother answered.

Sam couldn't help but smile faintly. He knew the feeling she was experiencing, and it surprised him that he could compare himself to a parent like that. Dean, of course, but... he didn't often consider himself in quite the same role.

"Skip Day," another employee in the restaurant said. He was wiping his hands off on a towel as he stepped up to the counter behind Max's mother.

"What day?" Dean asked in total confusion.

"February 7th-- that's skip day. Kids ditch school. Some of them head out to this old house on Route 36, throw a party. It's a small town, man," he said when he saw the disappointed and slightly annoyed look on Dean's face. "Kids gotta blow off steam."

Sam had adopted the same look as his brother, though, and the employee couldn't know why. They were both realizing that Anna, like this Max kid, was probably at the house on route 36, and that things were about to get complicated and potentially dangerous considering that there was a box filled with cursed objects in the backseat of the car. And if there was alcohol at this party-- which there undoubtedly would be-- then who knew what would go on with those artifacts. Somebody could get hurt. Suddenly, their mission wasn't just to get the car back. It was to save a bunch of high school kids from getting hurt, and potentially make things really awkward for their sister in the process.

()()()

"Dude, it's loud from out here," Kate exclaimed as they ran through the grass toward the gravel driveway of the old house. "Hey, there's the car."

"Good. But who the hell stole it?"

"I don't know, but they have to be inside."

"And they probably still have the keys. God, it would be merciful for me to find them. Dean would kill anybody who put their hands on Baby."

"You don't have to tell me. You remember the look he gave me when I asked if I could drive it."

Anna bobbed her eyebrows as she recalled that memory. "Let's go in, see if we can figure out who did it before my brothers track this place down and everything's blown."

Kate shook her head. "Dude, we're like Nancy Drew if there were two of her."

Anna grinned. "Cooler. We're like Betty from Riverdale if she was a realistic character."

Kate laughed. "What about our lives is realistic? Aside from my parents' divorce?"

"Good point. On mission, though."

They hurried to the front door of the house and entered casually. Ethan and a girl Anna recognized but whose name she didn't know were standing in the front entryway talking and holding Red Solo cups. He waved to the girls as they walked in. "Beer's in the next room."

"Cool cool," Anna said with a nod. "Beer's cool. What about car keys? Anybody come in bragging about stealing a car?"

Ethan looked at Anna like she'd grown a second head. "No. But that's sick, though. Who stole a car?"

Kate gave him a look like he was being an idiot because he was. "We wouldn't be asking if we knew," she informed him.

"Let's just look," Anna suggested, getting antsy. "Someone'll know."

In the next room, people were scattered, talking. On one couch sat Max, who Anna knew only from English class, and a kid she often saw Max hanging out with. Her name, though, escaped Anna. "You know that kid?" she asked Kate, watching as the girl held out an old-looking stuffed bear in front of her.

"Stacy, or Max?"

"Stacy, I guess. That bear looks pretty old, right?"

"Yeah, so?" Kate seemed to catch on then, as her eyes went wide. "Oh my god. No. No no. You said we didn't have to worry about the artifacts. You said they would take care of it."

"Yeah, and they were probably in the process of doing that when some kid stole the freaking car!"

"Shouldn't we, like, call Sam or Dean, then?"

"We don't need to. Look, we can just, get the objects and the keys back to the car... and they'll find it themselves, and they don't need to know we were here. Nor does Dean need to know Stacy or Max or whoever the hell stole the car is responsible. Cause if he does, they're dead."

"Okay, so, game plan?"

"Well it would be great if we could do this discreetly."

"Which means...?"

"I don't know how to plan around that. It's just what Sam would say." Kate gave her a bitch face and Anna shook her head. "Okay, okay," she said to herself and tilted her head back and forth as if thinking through the nuances of a plan. "Yeah. That should work." She looked at Kate and grinned one of those thousand watt grins that absolutely meant trouble. "I have an idea."

"Hey, uh, Stacy, right?" Kate greeted pleasantly, if a little awkwardly, as she stood in front of the two girls on the couch. As expected, they both looked up, giving her somewhat strange looks, as if they didn't know why she was talking to them. But neither looked particularly irritated which she took as encouraging. "And Max?" Both nodded to indicate she'd gotten their names right. "I'm Kate. I've seen you guys around. I just wanted to say: Relationship Goals. You're the cutest couple on campus, if you ask me."

Behind the couch, Anna watched and nodded with a grin, silently telling Kate that she was doing a great job.

"Oh," Max reacted and looked both a little pleased and a little startled. She exchanged a look with Stacy as if she didn't know how to respond.

Stacy smiled politely. "Thanks," she said with an awkward nod.

"Pizza!" somebody yelled from the next room, and both girls stood up, the stuffed bear gratefully abandoned on the couch.

"I'm starving," Stacy said as a way of excusing herself. "Haven't eaten all morning." She stepped away and Max followed her, giving Kate a seemingly genuine smile as she went.

"That was so awkward," Kate griped with a humiliated blush as she stepped forward along with Anna toward the couch. On a table beside it sat a crate filled with other old crap, none of it recognizable to either of them.

"Yeah, well, it worked, didn't it?" Anna asked distractedly. She hesitated before picking up the bear, knowing that if it was cursed, even touching it could have dire consequences. But Stacy had been holding it and she seemed okay, so Anna took the risk and just picked the thing up long enough to shove it into the crate. "See anything else that looks suspiciously old around here?" she asked.

Kate mumbled, "You mean the twenty-five year old janitor?"

Anna looked up and, in fact, noticed that one of their school's janitors was standing across the room, dressed like everybody else, talking to a group of kids. He passed alright for a teenager, so anybody who didn't recognize him wouldn't have known. But Anna found it disgusting, and she knew Kate did too. "Ew, no. I mean missing artifacts, Katie. What the hell?" She shook off her disgust and picked up the crate. "The keys aren't here."

"She probably hotwired it. Dean wouldn't leave the keys in the car anyway."

"Good point. Alright, let's go."

She was halfway to the door with the objects when Ethan suddenly turned a corner in the house fast and bumped right into her with surprising force. "God, Anna, there's some crazy freaking ghost clown in the bathroom! Swear to god."

Anna's eyes widened, more in dreadful understanding than fear. "What are you talking about?" she asked hastily. "A clown?" It was one of the weirder possible outcomes of messing with one of these artifacts, and she did not like the sound of that. The only time she could recall clowns getting involved they'd been hunting a... Rakshasa. She thought. She'd been eight years old at the time, so she couldn't remember perfectly. But if he'd said it was a ghost, it could just have been attached to an object, which meant she had to find whatever that object was, douse it in salt, and burn it to ash.

"This is insane," Kate grumbled, as if she could already tell this had something to do with the cursed objects, and she probably could. But Anna was about ten steps ahead.

"I'm gettin' the hell outta here! Seriously! That thing tried to fucking kill me!" Ethan announced and started to run again, a wild look in his greenish-blue eyes.

"Ethan, hang on," Anna tried, hoping to get more information from him. But he was already running for the door, pushing past everybody in his way. And a familiar redhead, Mila Numan, was following him.

"Ethan!" she yelled after him. "Ethan, what the hell?!"

But the kid was spooked, and Anna heard the door slam behind the two of them just a few seconds later. "This is so not good," Kate muttered.

"Keep that hunter's pessimism, Katie. It comes in handy," Anna said and thrust the crate of objects into her friend's arms. "Don't touch any of these, and don't let anybody else touch them. I'm gonna see if there's something out that shouldn't be."

She shoved past people, wishing she could do this when there weren't a hundred teenagers in her way. On every surface, she was just seeing red solo cups half filled with alcohol and the occasional phone that had been set down. Nothing creepy and old. She had just caught sight of an worn-looking wooden box on a table several feet from her when she heard the commotion on the other side of the room, and she grew instantly tense.

"FBI! Everybody out! Let's go! Move! Move!"

"Oh my god," Anna muttered with an eye roll as people raced past her to get outside and away from the two men they thought were federal agents. She wondered vaguely how many of these kids would recognize her brothers even in their panicked escape and believe from then on that her family worked for the FBI. Simultaneously, she couldn't help but be amused by how little effort the boys were putting into this, Dean's gun pointed directly at the ceiling and Sam not even pulling his badge out until there was only one kid other than her and Kate left in the room watching them.

"Thank god," Kate groaned once the other kid had gone.

"What the hell, Anna? Skip Day? Really?"

Anna looked over her shoulder at Dean with an affronted look. "I didn't invent it," she said with an attitude. "Here." She tossed him the cigar box. "I'm pretty sure Ronald McDonald is attached to this."

"Well, what were you waitin' for then? Halloween?" he asked and handed it to Sam who knelt by the fireplace and set it down on top of the ashes at the bottom.

"Why would I have a lighter right now?" Anna asked sardonically, giving Dean a look like she'd never seen him act so stupid.

Dean opened his mouth as if to respond but came up short and just bobbed his eyebrows in acknowledgement. He then smirked, watching Sam at the fireplace squirting lighter fluid over the box. "A serial killer clown. This is like the best worst thing that's ever happened to you. Cause, you know, you love serial killers but you hate clowns."

"Yeah, I got it," Sam snapped in a voice that clearly said, Not helpful, Dean.

The lights in the room started flickering and Anna groaned. "Now would be good, Sammy." The lighter flickered with fire several times but refused to light all the way. Sam continued to mess with the wheel of the Zippo, trying desperately to get it to turn on correctly.

Kate's sudden squeal had them all turning in her direction in time to see a freaky ass ghost clown standing in front of her and tilting its head sideways. Anna lurched forward, but Dean was closer and took the crate from her hands. "Get outside, Kate. Now," he ordered, and there was only a tiny spark of hesitation in her eyes before Kate did as she was told and ran around the corner toward the front door. Setting down the crate, he began backing carefully away from the clown, one arm held behind him to push Anna back as well.

In a second, though, both were thrown, Dean landing on the couch on his back while Anna hit the floor, her elbow connecting with the leg of the couch. She couldn't help but think how unfair it was that Dean had gotten such a cushiony landing while she hit the floor so damn hard. Both looked up, preparing for an encore, but were grateful to see that Sam had finally gotten the lighter to cooperate. The ghost clown went up in flames with a final scream, revealing four teenagers standing behind him; Kate, with an awkward and apologetic smile stood beside Stacy, Max, and a boy whose name Anna thought might be Eliot, all of whom looked shocked and a little horrified. These reactions were to be expected, but when Anna realized that they were looking between her brothers and at her in confused fear, she realized how weird this was gonna be.

"Uh..." Sam started awkwardly, then looked at Dean and Anna in turn.

"Hey!" Dean greeted as if this could be played off.

Each of the teenagers in the doorway had allowed their gazes to rest on Anna, though. She shrugged and sat up a little, cradling her sore elbow. "Well, this is awkward."

()()()

Sitting on the front steps outside while her brothers talked to the other teenagers, Anna let Kate maneuver her elbow around until she believed that there would be nothing more than a little bruise. "What would you do if it was messed up anyway?" she asked as Kate let her arm go and both set against opposite porch rails, the toes of their shoes touching. "Still about a decade away from that medical degree."

"I know you deal with this crap a lot, A, but you could at least pretend to be a little freaked out about the fact that a ghost clown just went all Anakin in front of us."

"Anakin. Nice. Never even thought of that. Hopefully he doesn't come out the other side as Vader, though. Now that would be freaky."

"Anna, seriously."

Anna sighed. "Sorry," she said with more sincerity. "You've seen it before. And it's just normal to me by now, I guess."

"Yeah, I know. It's fine. Think they're gonna make you go back with them?"

"They will if we're still out here when they're done giving Couple Goals and Eliot 'the talk'."

"Are they actually together? Cause they would be cute."

"Yeah, they would be."

"We should talk to them more. Find out if they're a thing or not."

Anna shrugged. "I guess," she said even though she generally found it exhausting to be around other people. "Man, Eliot always looked at me weird when we passed each other, and it makes sense now that I know he thought my family was a bunch of serial killers."

Kate laughed. "Well, most of the school thought they were CIA agents, but I think half the crowd  from earlier was still sober enough to remember them as FBI agents now. So..."

"So it's either gonna get better or worse... Good thing I don't care that much."

Kate gave her a knowing look, and Anna pretended not to notice. "You wanna wait for them or just go back to the Kickback?"

"My backpack is still there," Kate said. "But we should at least wait so they know where you're going. And hopefully I can get a promise not to tell my mom."

Anna grinned. "Nobody's telling your mom."

"It's one of those weird adult things. You never know."

Anna had to admit she had a hard time predicting Sam and Dean's behavior sometimes when it came to the trouble she and Kate got into on occasion. Half the time, she would expect them to be fine with something and then they'd not only bust her ass over it, but they'd tattle on Kate too, insisting that her parents 'deserved to know' or some shit. The other half, she'd get all worked up thinking that she was about to die and then they'd just want to talk to her and Kate managed to walk away relatively unscathed. It was often unpredictable as to which way they would go.

"Yeah, I don't know," Anna admitted just before the door to the house creaked open.

The three kids stepped out first, and the girls stood up to let them pass down the steps. Anna tried to ignore the strange-- almost awe-inspired-- look that Eliot gave her as he walked by her. He received an elbow to the side from Stacy for it, and Anna was grateful for that as well as for the kind smiles she got from each of the girls as they left with Eliot. She recognized the still-freaked looks on each of their faces, but at least they all knew the truth now... if that could be considered a good thing.

"So," Anna said a little uncomfortably. "Do I have to go home?"

Sam opened his mouth to give an answer that Anna was pretty sure would have been 'yes,' but Dean spoke first. "Not unless you want to," he said, obviously knowing full well that Anna would rather stay with Kate and hang out-- something she'd barely had the chance to do for weeks now. Anna caught the way Sam looked to read to argue as well as the sharp look Dean gave him that was surprisingly effective in cutting him off short.

"Seriously?" she asked hopefully.

"Yeah, we'll drop you off in town," Dean offered, slinging an arm over his sister's shoulder. Anna grinned and secretly relished in that arm over her shoulder. Sometimes having her ruffled and being dragged into headlocks and sitting squished between her brothers on movie nights... all of it could make her feel childish. But sometimes, like now, it just felt nice, made her feel like things were okay. And really, as weird and hectic as this morning had been... Anna felt good. They were sailing smooth waters for today. And one day... in the midst of the Mark of Cain chaos and angel bullshit... one day of smooth sailing was long overdue. That, right there, was the beauty of Skip Day.

()()()

"John Wayne Gacy's ghost," Dean said and took a swig of beer. "Well, that's one for the record books."

"Dean," Sam said simply, staring at one of the artifacts they'd gotten from the store earlier.

"Hm?"

"I think this is it."

Recognizing the truly optimistic and excited tone of Sam's voice, Dean felt his own hope building. "The pearl?" he asked, recalling what Sam had said about the thing earlier in the day. It was supposed to give you what your heart desires, which meant it should be the perfect cure for the Mark of Cain.

"Yeah," Sam said predictably.

"Let's do this then." Dean stood up and walked toward his brother.

"Wait a second. Don't you want Anna here?"

"No no. That's half the reason I told her to stay in town, man. If the mojo works like you say and the Mark goes away, great. If not, why get her hopes up?"

"I guess," Sam agreed. "You don't want to wait for Cas either?"

"No, like I said, if it works, great. If not..."

"Okay," Sam said and held the pearl out to Dean on a brown cloth.

Dean accepted it and, after looking at it for a moment, looked up at Sam. "So, what do I...?"

"I- I don't know," Sam admitted. "I guess you just hold the pearl and think about what your heart desires?"

"The Mark off my arm. Got it."

He closed his fist tightly around the cool, small pearl, enclosing it there as he clenched his eyes shut. He wasn't sure just how to go about thinking the Mark off his arm, so he just focused on it, on the feeling of rage and his deep desire to be free from it.

The room was plunged into sudden darkness, and Dean could tell the difference even with his eyes closed, so he opened them. The red emergency lights that had only been light a few times since they moved in, and only on some of the worst nights of their lives, were the only source of light in the room now. And worse, he couldn't see his brother.

Movement behind him had him turning just in time to see somebody throw a punch at Sam, who moved out of the way only to be hit by a gun the stranger was holding onto. Seeing Sam land on the floor, Dean surged forward to take his place and swung at the man before him, but all he received for his trouble was a handful of bruises and a place on the floor next to his brother. The familiar click of a gun cocking caught his attention, and Dean looked up in time with Sam, both their gazes tracking from the gun to the man holding it.

"Don't you move," a low voice rumbled. It was a command, and neither Dean nor Sam was about to ignore it with a gun stuck in their faces.

As suddenly as they'd gone out, the lights in the room turned back on, and the red of the emergency bulbs flicked out. Bathed once more in warm artificial light, the room filled with an air of shock rather than danger as Dean and Sam looked up at the not-so-strange stranger.

"Dad?" His surprise and awe was audible, but there was equal surprise visible on John's face as he lowered his gun.

"Dean? Sam? What in the hell?" He turned, looking all around the room, and the boys both stood up from the floor. It didn't take long until their father was facing them once more, though, and Dean felt it like a shock to his system all over again. This was John Winchester standing upright and alive in front of them. It was impossible to process. "Sammy. Aren't you supposed to be in Palo Alto?"

"Palo Alto?" Sam asked in utter confusion.

"What happened to you?" John asked. He looked at Dean as if having a realization. "Where's your sister?"

"She's with a friend," he excused as quickly as he could. "Dad. What year is it?"

John looked confused, and Dean couldn't blame him. It must have seemed like a strange question for a man who, as far as they knew, had never time traveled before. "2003," John answered lowly.

Sam shifted in his place. "It's 2015," he corrected.

"No," John answered, but it wasn't denial so much as it was shock. "How?" he asked, wasting no more time.

"We uh..." Sam scratched the back of his head in a gesture Dean recognized from their childhood. The scene already felt old. Just the three of them standing in one room, John looking exactly like he had in 2003, a few years before his death. "I think we summoned you," Sam finished.

"You boys better tell me what the hell is going on right now."

A while later, in the kitchen, they all sat at the table with whiskey in their hands and John took a sip from his glass. "So," John said. "You saved the world."

"More than once," Dean confirmed.

"Then it's all true. God, the devil, you boys smack in the middle. Now you live in a secret bunker with an angel. And Anna is a teenager."

"Yeah, cause that's the weirdest part about all this," Dean smirked, and his smile softened when John returned the expression.

"But yeah," Sam added. "You got that all right."

John nodded his understanding. "And you've done this time-travel thing before?"

"A few times. Actually, uh, our grandfather, your dad, he's the one who helped us find this place. I think he'd be real happy to know you're finally here."

"Right," John said with that same little smile on his face. "Man of Letters."

"Yeah," Sam said softly, and Dean could hear him preparing some kind of offering. Strange how he'd almost forgotten the distance between Sam and their father over the years. He wondered if Sam was still feeling it, or if it felt somehow as though everything was okay after all this time. "We're legacies because of you."

John smiled at Sam, chuckled a little, and set his glass down on the table, staring at it for a second. "So you've, uh, you've been busy."

"A little bit," Sam chuckled.

"I- I don't. I- I just wish that I had been there to see it," John admitted, looking surprisingly emotional.

"Dad, none of this would've happened without you," Dean assured. It was something John needed to know. After all, their whole lives had been designed after what he'd taught them. In every way. And it wasn't just about hunting. It was their values, their desire to put family first, and their outlook on people and the world, on right and wrong.

"No, it's good. It's fine," John said surely. "I went out takin' out Yellow Eyes. I mean, that was the point, right? I mean, get the thing that killed Mom..."

"Yeah," Sam murmured. "Yeah."

"So, your sister," John said after clearing his throat. "She's seventeen?"

"Sixteen. It's- It's only February," Sam corrected.

John nodded again, looking emotional again. It seemed like a record, Dean thought, seeing their father look like this so many times in one day. Hell, in one conversation. "And she's... she's okay?"

"She's... she's a good kid."

Dean nodded along with his brother's assessment. Of course, Anna wasn't that simple, but she was a good kid.

"And, uh, does she-?"

"Sammy!"

Dean swallowed hard as Anna's voice echoed through the bunker, young and carefree. She didn't sound like that often, and... well, things were about to get highly complicated. But he looked at John, saw the way his expression changed, his eyes filling, and he knew Anna wasn't the only one about to experience the shock of a lifetime.

"Is that-?" John began to ask in a rough whisper.

Both boys nodded, and John stood up, turned to the doorway.

Anna appeared around the corner with her backpack slung over one shoulder and the sleeves of her hoodie pulled up to her elbows. She'd already kicked her shoes off, which somehow served to make her look even younger, and her hair fell over her shoulders in messy, tangled curls. She looked at home, secure... and vulnerable. "Guess what-!" she was saying excitedly as she stepped through the doorway.

But her words ended as abruptly as her feet. She seemed to hit a brick wall the second her eyes landed on John. And yet it also seemed to take her a second to realize who she was looking at as, at first, she just stared, a small frown on her face. But the moment it hit her was clear. And she seemed not to have any concerns that the man in the kitchen wasn't really her father. But the way her face just transformed... it hurt Dean to watch, and he wasn't the one whose eyes she was meeting.

The glint in her eye, the one Dean always thought to be hope, seemed to brighten. And he felt it like a crushing weight. Because he was hopeful too. He knew Sam must be as well. And that was damningly dangerous.

None of that hurt so much, though, as the way his heart cracked as Anna's eyes filled while she watched John step forward. Or the way it fragmented when she whispered, "Daddy?" just before John wrapped her in a bear hug the likes of which Dean remembered as a rare but comforting occurrence from his childhood.

He was startled by Sam nudging his arm, but he followed his brother's gesture that they leave the room. They both couldn't help but comfort their sister with a pat on the shoulder as they passed, though.

()()()

She was tucked her father's chest, and it was all Anna had ever wanted. But it made no sense.

She felt her dad's hand on the side of her face as he pushed her hair back, and then he pulled her gently back. He stared at her face, maintaining the same expression of emotional... pride?

"H-how the-?" She curtailed her swearing and instead just repeated, "How?" Embarrassed, she realized she must be crying when John used his thumbs to wipe tears off her face.

"It was a cursed object your brothers found. It summoned me by mistake. I- You grew up," he said with a tearful smile.

Anna laughed wetly. "What... what year are you from?"

John smiled genuinely at the sight of her laughing. "2003," he said. "You just turned five. So this is a little... unbelievable."

"You're telling me," Anna said, her eyes welling again. This was just insane. Her father stood before her, and he was smiling and making her smile. He was strong and yet gentle and he was just as she remembered him but... more somehow. She watched, then, as his heart seemed to break inside of his eyes, all while he was looking at her.

"God, Peanut, I'm sorry," he said seriously, his hands on either side of her face.

Anna could feel the weight of one million apologies inside of the one he offered, and she could feel the same weight in the hands on her face. "Dad," she said, her knees nearly giving out just at being able to say the word. She made herself smile, and it felt sweet if nothing else. "The only thing you have to apologize for is leaving Dean in charge." She was able to smile more genuinely when that made John laugh, his hands falling away from her face and staying on her shoulders instead. "No, really, he's bossy."

John chuckled, and his smile faded slowly. The same distant and powerfully sad look returned to his eyes within seconds.  "There's so much I was gonna teach you."

Anna pursed her lips so she wouldn't cry. Crying once was enough. She didn't want John thinking she was a total baby. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. "I know how to hunt," she said cautiously. She wasn't yet really any sort of hunter, but she did know how. She'd gotten a lot of accidental practice as a kid, too.

John's eyes seemed to only get sadder, and Anna wondered how she could already be getting this wrong. "I'm not talking about hunting, Anna."

Of course, he wasn't. Anna smiled, and it was real but it was painful. "It's okay, Dad," she said. "Really. I'm okay." And for the first time, maybe in her whole life, it was really, completely true.

()()()

"What's all this stuff for?" Anna asked, hopping up to sit on the counter and propping her forearm on Dean's shoulder. She leaned in to read the piece of paper in his hand and saw a variety of food, what could be ingredients, and the predictable word beer that appeared on every shopping list her brother ever made.

"It's a casserole our Mom used to make," Dean explained. "I figure, uh- I don't know. Dad said it would be nice."

"Oh. Cool. So, you're going shopping?"

"Yep. Soon as I'm sure I didn't forget something."

"Tell Jackson I said hi. No pun intended." She smirked at her own joke.

It was how she greeted Jackson every time she saw him, which was remarkably often considering she basically got dragged home by the collar anytime she mentioned alcohol since the incident last year. But she also tended to end up shuffling into the liquor store behind whoever did their spontaneous shopping trips, because she jumped at every opportunity to get the hell out of the bunker.

"Funny girl," Dean deadpanned and stepped away from the counter. Anna's arm lifted away from his shoulder and she grinned at the bitch face he was giving her, because there was a smile behind it just like always. "Get off the shelf," he said then and grabbed her forearm to pull her down. "I just cleaned in here this morning."

"God, you're neurotic," Anna grumbled and pulled the sleeves of her sweater over her hands.

Dean scoffed, sporting an over the top offended look. "Whatever," he said after a moment. "I'm gonna go get all the ingredients for this thing. You seen Sam?"

Anna shrugged. "I think he's with Dad, but I don't know. I'll find him," she offered and tried not to be annoyed at the hand that tousled her hair as she passed her brother.

On her way down the hallway, Anna nearly bumped right into Sam. "Hey, Dean's lookin' for you. I think he wants you to go shopping with him. Where's Dad?" she asked, and couldn't help the grin that took over her face a second later. "God, that's surreal."

Sam didn't smile, though. "He's in the library." He had a dreadful look on his face, and Anna got the feeling she knew where this was going. "Anna..."

"No. No no no. Don't pull your pessimistic, hunter bullshit right now. This is good. It's the only good thing that's happened in years. Hell, in my whole life."

"You don't even know what I was gonna say."

"Yeah, but you have that look on your face," Anna argued, her face tight with anxiety.

"I'm not saying anything, Anna. This is great. It's just that... you know, we should be enjoying this for now, but you need to be prepared."

Anna frowned, but it was more about confusion than dread this time. She crossed her arms, still a little defensive. "For what?"

"You know how this ends," Sam told her gently, but the words still drove a knife into her stomach. She did know, but she'd lovingly murdered the part of her that kept trying to think about that inevitable ending. "Time travel is tricky, and it always messes with something. There's no way this lasts."

Anna grit her teeth. "You don't know that," she said briskly, trying not to let her eyes water while she was standing in front of her brother. Anyway, getting upset over that possibility was admitting defeat. Nothing would happen to their father now that they had him. This was all she'd ever wanted, and Anna would protect it with her life.

"Anna-" Sam said and caught her arm as she went to walk by him. Anna looked back at him, and she was frustrated at how she felt vulnerable more so than angry."Hey. Enjoy this, okay? But just... just don't let yourself be blindsided either."

"I won't be," Anna insisted, but it still sounded like denial. Even she thought so.

She moved on down the hallway, and felt her resolve harden a little, just to the point that she was able to smile genuinely as she stepped into the library.

"Hey," she greeted softly and stepped around the tables to stand next to her father by the bookshelves. He'd already stopped looking at all the books, though, when she walked in. "Find anything mind-blowing?" she asked and ran her fingers over the binding of a lore book she'd scoured through a couple nights ago trying to find a cure to the Mark.

A cure to the Mark and a pearl that grants you your heart's desire and their father coming back by mistake. It all made sense suddenly enough for the gentle smile to fall right off her face, her heart hitting the soles of her feet. This was really not supposed to happen. But she shoved that thought away. How often did things that were really not supposed to happen come up? Fighting their way out of nightmarish ordeals was the Winchester game. They always made it out somehow. They would this time too, and they'd bring John with them.

"I don't think this... bunker... is the most mind-blowing thing I've seen since getting back," John admitted. "I mean, look at you, you're..."

"Sixteen. Yeah."

"And the boys..."

"Are still children," Anna finished for him a second time.

John smiled a little, and Anna could see a glint of amusement in his eyes that reminded her of Dean and Sam at the same time. Maybe they were all a little more similar to their father than she ever would have thought. "You know, you look a lot like your mother did."

Anna swallowed hard, remembering last year in sudden vivid detail. "I know," she said as quickly as possible and then bit her tongue so she wouldn't say any more. She turned to look at the bookshelves again, but she knew good and well that she was only being more obviously avoidant by moving like that. Of course, her father didn't know her that well, so he might not pick up on that the way Sam or Dean would have.

"You know?" John repeated in a strange voice.

"Yeah," Anna said just as briskly as the first time.

"You want to explain that?" John asked with just a hint of some tone that brought her back to her early childhood. He was being her father, and it made her heart soar. It was all she'd ever wanted, which was a funny thing to be thinking about her father getting authoritative.

Anna shifted her weight and wrapped her arms around herself. "Do you... want me to explain that?"

"Unless you're talking about that old picture I have... Yes, Anna, I want an explanation." John's arms were crossed over his chest and he looked big, but not threatening. It reminded her of the way Dean stood when he lectured her, and Anna felt something funny furl in her chest. All these similarities were so blatant to her, and it was beautiful and saddening at the same time. She wondered why, in all these years without him, she'd never just asked about him. Maybe she just thought she should have been able to remember on her own, having been just shy of her eighth birthday when he died. It was hard to say.

"No, I- I met her. Kinda. I saw her."

"How is that possible? She made it clear to me when she left that she wasn't going to come back."

"I know that too," Anna said with a disheartened sigh. "She called Dean. Last year. Played a long game so they wouldn't know what was up, said she wanted to see me. They stalled for a while, but she got fed up. Turns out she... turns out she was possessed by a demon that worked for this bitch- er- demon named Abaddon. She figured if she could get her hands on me, Abaddon would be ecstatic."

"And she did it?" John asked, surprisingly stoic in all of this.

"Yeah, it was my bad." She wasn't surprised when that remark made her father frown in confusion. "I- I kinda... I freaked out when they suddenly spilled this story about my mother and how she wasn't dead. I was- I was angry... and maybe a little scared," she added in a mumble. "They wanted to be cautious. Dean thought there was something weird goin' on, but I just ditched school and found my way to Lawrence and she... she played me, Dad. And now my mom really is dead."

It was difficult admitting to her tremendous mistake in front of her father. She wanted him to think she was a good kid, but she also wanted him to know her. He could decide, with the truth in the back of his mind, what he thought of her. That didn't make it any easier to tell him she'd screwed up so badly. Anna still couldn't think about that particular failure without growing slightly nauseous and feeling shame well in her chest. She was surprised when a hand fell warm and strong on her shoulder. She looked up and met the whiskey brown eyes of her father, full of genuine empathy.

In a husky voice, John said sincerely, "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

Anna didn't know what to say to that, too startled at the fact that he didn't think worse of her for it. She just nodded slightly, her eyes doing the talking for her.

"Anna," John said after clearing his throat. "How old were you when I...?"

That old familiar gut-punch made its predictable return, and Anna swallowed hard as she recalled every foggy memory of the days around John's death. "Can I tell you that? I mean it breaks every sci-fi movie's rules of time travel." At the blank look she received, Anna straightened her spine a little. "It was a long time ago, Dad."

John didn't say anything, but Anna was struck by the look on his face.

"So, you're having Dean make casserole?"

"Was his idea," John chuckled. "You know, the boys tried to make it once, a long time ago. Before you were born."

Anna grinned, "Bet that went well."

"Yeah," John laughed.

They both quieted, and Anna felt the urge to step closer, to hug him again, to be wrapped up safe and sound again. But she had all the time in the world, she was trying to tell herself. She had her father, and she wouldn't let him go.

"Dad?" He looked over at her, and Anna smiled the biggest, sincerest smile she'd been able to summon in most all her life, just for John. "I missed you," she whispered. She wasn't sure what she'd expected to come out of it, but she was grateful when it earned her another one of those bear hugs.

()()()

"Hey," Anna greeted and jumped up from her spot at the table in the map room. The bunker door squealed shut behind Sam and he followed Dean down the stairs to meet both Anna and John. "What happened? You were gone forever."

"Yeah, we, uh-"

"How are you bleeding?!" she interrupted Dean and tried to look at his face, but she was a lot shorter than him, and he wasn't helping her out by bending down. Instead, he put a hand on her shoulder and just held her in place for a minute, and when he looked at her, there was a silent message in his eyes telling her to chill out so he could explain. Anna looked between her two brothers, both noticeably bruised and cut up, and she knew with sudden, dreadful clarity... that it was already time for the rug to be yanked from under her feet.

()()()

"A temporal paradox?" John repeated, squinting as he tried to recall facing anything like it in the past.

"That's what Sam called it," Dean replied. "Egghead." John chuckled. It was so much like the dynamic he remembered between them. "Basically, uh, if you don't go back, Sam never gets back into the life and Anna... she..."

"What?"

Dean looked sick, and John knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he would be going back, leaving his sons again, leaving his daughter again. "There's no trace that she even exists. Sam think she would just fade away."

"Okay. I mean, me versus your sister? That's not even a choice," he said the obvious thing. "Does she know?"

()()()

There was a bluish light reflecting off the faucet in the kitchen. Anna stared blankly at it as she said, "No."

"Anna, it's not that simple. It's just like I said. He has to go back."

"No!" she yelled, eyes breaking away from the light so she could look into Sam's eyes. "I don't care if it looks bad. It always looks bad. There's something else we can do."

"Not without risking you," Sam shot back in as calm a voice as John had used earlier.

Anna felt her hands curling into fists at her sides. She couldn't argue with his logic. And she knew that between letting her blink out of existence and returning their Dad to his rightful timeline... Well, they weren't about to sacrifice her. The knowledge of what tonight would look like now heaved through her, a wheezing cough of inevitability. She'd seen her father, hugged him twice, spoken to him, told him a little bit about her life, watched him feel sorry for her, observed his mannerisms and committed his face and voice to memory. She'd decided he was here for good and yet she'd mentally documented every aspect of him that she could, because deep down, she'd known. She would be saying goodbye long before she was ready.

"How?" she asked, trying to sound calm rather than devastated. Sam and John knew how to do it. Surely Anna had inherited something of that ability. Not so much. She just sounded a little dead, which was rather ironic, and also a lot like how Dean often sounded in her position, like he was masking pain with nothingness.

"Uh, the, uh... the lore is pretty clear. We just have to destroy the pearl and all of this unwinds. Dad goes back and so does everything else."

"And he won't remember anything," Anna said dully, a fact that had somehow shaken her a bit more than she already was.

"No," Sam confirmed. "Nothing."

She heard the way his voice had broken on the second word, and Anna realized something. Sam had spoken Dad for quite some time earlier that day, probably sorting out a lot of past regrets and hurts. She didn't remember much from before her father's death, but she did know he and Sam used to fight. A lot. She wondered what Sam was losing in John this time around. What Dean was losing in their father tonight.

"And we have to," she said, clenching her jaw.

Sam just looked at her, and their eyes were telling similar stories as they each grit their teeth against years of aching finally brought to a crescendo of grief.

She didn't wait for him to invite her. Anna just stepped forward with sudden energy and wrapped her arms tightly around Sam's waist. It didn't take him long to return the hug, and it was one of the tightest ones they'd ever shared-- and they'd shared a lot-- as their fingers dug into one another's shoulders and they each tried to simultaneously hide in and shield the other.

()()()

Dinner was ruined, but not because the food was bad. The casserole was great. Or it looked great, anyway. Anna hadn't eaten a bite. None of them had really made much of a dent in their food, in fact. And the room was silent outside of the quiet clanging of forks against plates. A dinner that had seemed like a picture perfect fantasy just a handful of hours ago as Anna stared at a shopping list over Dean's shoulder, had turned into a slightly awkward and very unhappy affair.

After nearly ten minutes of their dining like this, John finally set his fork down. "Alright," he said with the kind of finality Anna rarely heard. "Near as I can tell, we have two choices. Alright, we can think about what's coming, or we can be grateful for this time we have together. Now me..." He leaned down, caught Anna's gaze with his own, and winked. "I choose grateful."

His effort was successful in making her smile, but Anna still wanted to cry.

"So, to whatever brought us together," John said. "We owe you one. Amen."

"Amen," the three of them echoed in reply.

As if a spell had been cast, or a hex removed, the table came to life.

()()()

She'd been wrong, and the thought absorbed Anna's mind as she stood stiffly between and slightly behind her brothers, wishing in the strangest way that this part was already over, that she didn't have to witness the moment that her father left again but could just go back to living without him. God, she hoped desperately that she would be able to convince herself this day had been a dream when she woke up tomorrow.

Because, after all, she'd been wrong to think that this could work out somehow. They didn't ever just make it. They forced themselves to accept that the worst, most difficult ending was the only one left that wouldn't destroy all of what little the world had left, even if it cost them the only thing they'd ever wanted. Family. Whole and free. And, somehow, they grew from it. They had no other choice.

"You all take care of each other," John ordered with tears in his eyes. He looked at each of his kids, one at a time, something meaningful in his eyes each time.

Anna wished him dead for the first time in her life. She couldn't look at him. She didn't want to look at him. She wanted this part to be over.

"We always do," Sam said, and that was true.

"Good to see you, Dad," Dean added.

Anna could hear the way they both were trying not to let themselves crack under everything, and she could hear the way it happened anyway. Maybe it was her turn, but Anna stayed silent. She had nothing to say. She wanted it to be over. She didn't want to say goodbye.

"Yeah," John rasped, tears leaking down his face. Anna wondered when she'd become the most stoic person in the room, the only one not crying. "I am so proud of you boys," their father added, and it was obviously true if the look on his face was any indication. He pulled both of them into a hug at once, and Anna watched, feeling like an outsider and feeling like that was the only place she could be right now. But the boys were released and then there were hands on either side of her face. "And my girl." She didn't try to do anything but breathe and hang on when she was enveloped in the third and final hug from her dead father. "I love you," John said softly, pulling back. "I love you all so much."

Both the boys were crying, and Anna felt a hitch in her chest like her body was instinctively trying to do the same, but she didn't cry.

"I love you too," Dean said beside her.

Sam wiped tears off his own face with the back of his hand.

John sighed a heavy, miserable breath. "Okay," he said. "Okay. I'm ready." John took a deep breath, smiled for the three of them, looked right at Anna, and winked. Instead of making her crack a smile, grateful and full as last time, it was this time the catalyst for a sad, pathetic little twitch of the lips that was accompanied by her eyes finally filling with tears. But none fell. "Sammy," came the prompt.

Anna closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the transition between the moment her father was there and the moment he wasn't. The pearl's destruction wasn't loud, but she heard it distinctly, the crunch of material laden with power but weak as wet paper beneath a simple wooden bowl.

She opened her eyes, and there was nobody. She was an orphan again. So things were as they should be, except for the prolonged scream inside her head at the moment.

The cry of This isn't fair! that she knew was going nowhere fast.

Anna stood in the silent heartbreak of the room and wondered if there was even a word to describe how she was feeling. Devastation? It was true but not right. She'd just faced such an upheaval, her world tossed on its head. Dad, alive, real, strong, solid, just as she'd always tried to remember him. His voice low and somehow kind, his eyes brown and miles or maybe years deep, his face... Anna tried to stuff it all down, blur it once more, make things go back to being as they had been, unclear, hazy, sad, but just like always.

Was there a word for the feeling of upside down? Or for feeling like your world has been turned upside down? Or like you're crying upside down, tears welling in the crevice of your top eyelid rather than the bottom one, and spilling like sticky yellow paint into your hair?

She was the first one to leave the room, and she did it without speaking, without even twitching a muscle in her face. She did it while she was still upside down because once she righted herself and the tears turned clear, dripping properly down to drip off her chin, she couldn't let them see her. She was nobody's fool. She knew the boys hurt too. She knew they probably hurt more than she did, though she couldn't imagine it. After all, they'd known him before. They were losing a whole person twice over. Anna was just missing her opportunities again. Missing her chance to have and know her father, just like she'd done last year when she met her mother. And both times, it came down to her in one way or another.

What a poetic life she led.

()()()

In 2003, John jerked awake to the ringing of his phone on the dashboard of the car. He reached out tiredly for it, accepted the call, and put the phone to his ear. "Hi, Peanut," he said around a smile. "What are you doin' with your brother's phone?" A second later, his smile softened. "Dean. No, I'm okay... I just had one hell of a dream... Yeah. No, it was a good one... I'm on my way back. I'll see you soon."

He put his phone back down on the dashboard of the car and stared out the windshield, his eyes someplace distant, someplace where his children were grown.

La Fin