Note: Hey, loves. Sorry I know it's a little later in the day again. I keep trying to finish this one longer chapter I've been working on in time for Saturday, but then I keep realizing on Friday night that there's not a chance in hell it's going to be done in time... so I write something less time-consuming.

I did have all of today to work on this, though, so I tried to make it good, and while it isn't long, it isn't insanely short either. This was for a request from MaddyWinchester2000. Stating the prompt would give too much a way, so I'll just let you read instead ;)

Also thank you to Musicpotterhead for again helping me figure things out when I basically lost all ability to write.

Thank you for every vote and comment. Every kind word means the absolute world. I love you guys. Be good to yourselves.

And enjoy this chapter, set after Pain is Pain is Pain (which, in case you've forgotten, is the third installment of Glass Lives). Anna is, therefore, fifteen.

This Side Up

"Hey, Rugrat." As he spoke, Dean's heavy boots moved into the room and over toward her. Anna liked that sound. It felt home-y, especially when it echoed against the bunker's high ceilings. It felt somber to her today, though. Most things felt somber lately. "How you doing?" he asked and took a sip of coffee.

Ignoring his question, Anna instead turned the screen of her laptop so he could see.

Dean squinted at it, setting aside his mug and reaching for the computer. He was probably expecting an email or grade report from the school-- she'd been getting stuff like that from her teachers and the school's guidance office almost non-stop since her mother. Anna saw the moment he realized what it was. His face smoothed out, and his eyes flicked up to her and then back down at the computer as he bit his lip.

"This is a case," he said.

Anna looked at him like he was an idiot. "No shit." That earned her a dull look, though whether it was for the sarcasm or the swear word, she didn't know. "I figured it's gotta be time," she said. "I can't stay here forever."

"Another couple weeks couldn't hurt," Dean disagreed.

He was being gentle, and Anna hated it. She knew she'd been fragile for a little while now. About a month, actually. Four weeks and change since Lawrence. It was a strange, disorienting thought, and she quickly put it behind her. Maybe she did still need to be handled with care.

"I don't need another couple weeks," Anna said, moving her laptop back around to face her so she could scroll through the article she'd pulled up. "This chick was found under the golden gate bridge, and her eyes were missing. From the pictures it doesn't look like an angel kill, but I guess you never know." The way she stared steadfastly at her screen without tossing even a glance in Dean's direction, it was blatant avoidance. She knew it, and so did Dean. And he wasn't throwing her a rope. He was just staring at her, staring so hard she didn't need to see him to know he was doing it. She could feel his eyes on her. "What?" she finally asked, throwing herself back in her chair and turning her head toward him. She gestured sloppily at her laptop screen. "Why are you giving me that look?"

"I'm not givin' you any kind of look, Rugrat." When she continued to look at him, making it clear that wasn't enough of an answer, Dean continued, treading carefully, "It's just, you know, I think you're rushin' into this."

Under the table, Anna bent her knee so she could rest her sneakered foot against the leg of her chair. She totally wasn't fidgeting. She turned to look at her laptop keyboard instead of at Dean. It was a familiar feeling, the half-embarrassment of being given serious, unbidden attention. As usual, she transformed it almost-consciously into something more like annoyance. "How is a month rushing?"

Dean looked tired, like he didn't want to do this. Anna didn't blame him. She didn't want to have this conversation either. She certainly didn't want to have an argument about it. But it felt like they were backsliding. It had felt that way ever since they'd gotten to the bunker, and it had gotten even worse recently. When she turned fourteen, she'd been really starting to hit her groove as a hunter. She'd learned how to use and clean nearly every weapon in their arsenal, even if she wasn't great at using most of them yet. Her aim had been steadily improving-- and it still was, thanks to the shooting range downstairs. She'd still been sloppy in hand-to-hand but getting better all the time. But her progress had all but stopped when they found the bunker. Home-base for the boys had become home for her, and Anna missed her regular training sessions and infrequent but at least almost-consistent opportunities to join actual hunts. All of which had stopped completely since her mother died.

"Anna, you haven't touched a gun in four weeks," he said reasonably. "You can't expect to just pick one back up and be ready to hunt. You have training to do before you get back in the field again."

"Not like you're in any hurry to let me do that either," Anna snarked before she could stop herself. She barely resisted the urge to kick the table leg.

She listened to Dean take a calming breath. They were officially entering argument territory when he had to measure his breath like that. "Running headlong into a hunt won't help anything," he said. "All it's gonna do is get someone hurt."

"You act like I said I'm taking my gun and going myself. You'd be right there, and I could go down to the shooting range and practice before we left."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"Then what is?" Anna snapped. "What, you think I'll get all sad and weepy in the middle of the big showdown, or something?"

"No. I think you'll be throwin' yourself into one thing so you can ignore another."

"It's been a month. I've thought about nothing else for a month."

"I know. But you haven't talked about anything. You're still just as quiet. You still don't eat. You still don't sleep."

"I didn't ask for a therapy session."

"No, you asked for a hunt. And we're not doin' that until you're in a better place."

"And if I'm never in a better place?" Anna said quietly, staring absently at the f on her keyboard. Three straight lines. A long one, a medium one, a short one. F for family. A family with three members. In some cases, that meant complete. In Anna's case it meant three orphans, clinging hard to one another, making each other into people they shouldn't have to be.

"Don't. You will be. If you want to start training again, we'll work back into it, and then..." He made an ambiguous gesture with his hands and then picked his coffee cup back up and leaned back to take a sip.

"Then in another month, I get to pick up my gun?" Her hands were shaking and her eyes were burning, dangerous and scared. Her rage was cornering her. Again. "Then six months or a year from now, then I get to kill the bitch that killed my mother?" She finally dared to look right at her brother, and she could see that his face had gone flat in that terrifying way it did when he was about to explode. "I'm not waiting that long, Dean," she warned. She didn't know if she looked pitiful or intimidating with her watering, angry eyes, but she knew she must have been a sight.

"You're not goin' anywhere near that black eyed bitch, Anna," was the answering promise, thin and low and sure.

She'd known it was coming. Neither one of her brothers had let her dwell too long even thinking about Abaddon yet. They'd been careful to chop their words when she asked if they had any news. They'd been even more careful not to call Crowley or do research on anything pertaining to Abaddon with her nearby. They were keeping Anna as far from Abaddon as possible at all times.

And all Anna wanted was to see the fucker's eyes go dim.

"Well, nobody else is in any hurry to wipe her off the map," she bit out. She felt a bit like some kind of threat, shaking with rage, her eyes wet and bloodshot. But she felt more like a mess.

And of course that would be what Dean saw in her. Because he didn't back down. He stood up instead, his chair scraping the floor noisily but not in any tune of anger or panic. "Saturday's a good day for a movie, don't you think?" he suggested casually. "Think I'll have Sam find out what's playing."

Anna clenched her jaw, trying to think of a word to say to that. It was despicable, but it was very Dean, and she didn't know what she'd expected of her brother. When things got heated, this was where he often turned. And heated they were considering that Anna couldn't even come up with a coherent thought outside of the boiling in her brain and arms and eyes.

Dean looked at her, raised one eyebrow in an innocent, casual question.

And Anna finally came up with something to say. "Fuck you."

It was as if the power of her own words didn't hit her until after she'd said them. They'd just appeared in her head and she'd watched them fall out of her own mouth. But she didn't feel like she'd really been the one to say them. She didn't really feel like she'd been the one to run toward her mother like a lost, angry little girl either. She had a hard time associating herself with any of what she'd been and done and felt in the last month. She'd felt too much and thought too much. It was hard not to let it spill over sometimes.

When she dared to look Dean in the eyes, it was because he was sitting again. She realized when she saw his face that he didn't look angry. But she couldn't tell what the look on his face meant, so relief didn't so much as touch her. A hurt Dean could be twice as lethal as a plainly angry one.

"I'm not risking you or Sam or anybody else lettin' you try this hunt while you're still this pissed. And I'm absolutely not gonna watch you run into a brick wall trying to kill a demon nobody can get in their sights."

Anna could feel herself drying out. Her eyes, her heart, even her anger. Usually this was the part where she really exploded. But today it was the part where she got tired and deflated like a beach ball left in the sun.

"I know you're angry. You have every right to be angry. But letting that rage call the shots... that's how bad shit happens. You know that," he said, and the words were haunting only because Anna did know that. Now more than ever.

Rage had stolen everything from her. Or it had been the reason that she'd stolen everything from herself. She was still working out the kinks on that one. She gave a sliver of a nod.

"Now you don't want to talk?" Dean said tersely.

Anna sighed, straightening her leg under the table. "I don't know what I want," she admitted, then instantly contradicted herself, saying, "I wanna kill Abaddon, but you wouldn't let me kill a spirit at this point."

"Hold on, Rugrat. Back up. Why do you think you need to kill Abaddon?"

Anna gave her brother a look like he was the stupidest person she'd ever met. "You have to ask me that?"

"I know she killed Chloe," Dean said, his mouth moving carefully around her mother's name. "But that doesn't mean you have to kill her. That just means she hurt you."

"It's not about me," Anna said. "It's about her."

Dean frowned. "Abaddon?"

"No." She knew she couldn't say Chloe's name, so she didn't try. She let Dean deduce the rest.

"Your mother."

Anna's fingers curled and her foot shifted back to the leg of her chair. She felt colder than she did tired now. But the anger didn't come back. It stayed hidden. "She's dead," Anna whispered. "And she didn't deserve it. So, yeah, I gotta kill the hell out of Abaddon."

"Why you?" Dean insisted, leaning closer. His voice was low but impassioned. Like when they were in a small-town diner, two tables from a single mom and her two toddler kids, talking about the ethics of killing a person whose dark was beating their light. "Why do you have to kill her? So long as she ends up dead."

"Because," Anna said, like it explained something. But the only reason it sounded like an answer to her was because she had a hundred endings to that dependent clause in her head. Because then it's fixed. Because then I did something right. Because then I'm not a fucked up kid, then I'm a hero who made a mistake and came full circle. Because I need it, I just need it.

"Because why?" Dean pushed again. "Because you feel guilty? Because it hurts? Anna, nothing you do to Abaddon is gonna fix what you feel about Chloe. You can't undo one day with another. What happened was terrible, and I wish to hell and back it never happened, but it did. And no one can reverse it."

Her anger started to stir again, but this time Anna reigned it in. She knew it was only there because Dean was right, and she didn't want him to be. "I don't have to reverse it," she said, her voice trembling no matter how hard she tried not to let it. "I just have to even it out."

The look in Dean's eyes changed. But it wasn't like moving from anger to sadness. It was like pupils dilating in the light. It was like what he was looking at had changed, not like the feeling had. And just like that, he suddenly said what Anna had been hoping he wouldn't. "It wasn't your fault," he told her simply, honestly.

"That's bullshit."

"No, it isn't," Dean insisted. He was leaning closer again, trying to see her eyes, but Anna wouldn't let him. What little she had still to keep secret, she would. And the ache in her eyes belonged only to her for as long as she could keep it. "You know how demons work."

"Yeah," Anna whispered. It didn't make her feel better, though. "Maybe that's why I need to kill her."

"You don't."

Anna just looked at her brother. She let her eyes do the talking, giving up her last secret. Not only was she angry, not only was she guilty. She was tired. Dead tired. Bone tired. Like a skeleton rolling in its grave. She was so, so tired. So tired that sometimes she forgot she wasn't thirty, but fifteen.

"Why can't you just let me be like you?" she demanded. But she didn't know what she was really asking any more than Dean could. Was it a question about self-destruction? About anger? About mistakes and self-sacrifice? About guilt and coping mechanisms? Anna didn't know. But she wanted an answer.

"Because," Dean said. And he probably had a hundred endings to the clause in his head, but Anna didn't have access. "But you're not hunting any demons until you can get out of your head about what happened."

"Dean."

"I'm serious."

She hadn't doubted that. But it didn't change the flash of indignance that appeared back in her gut. If anything, it strengthened it. This feeling was more familiar than the rage that had clouded everything minutes ago, though. And in its familiarity, Anna found control. She found her feet. And she straightened her leg under the table. "So what about the case?"

"We went over that."

"So I can't go on one stupid hunt? Even with both of you right there? What do I usually do anyway? Read a bunch of lore and stand behind Sam with my gun out. How much harm can I do from there?"

Dean didn't appear to like her attitude, but he looked like he was still being cautious. Anna again wondered how fragile he thought she was. And what kind of fragile? Fragile like a package to be held this side up, or fragile like a case of nitroglycerin on a hot day?

"No," he said. "You can't go on this one hunt."

"But-"

"I don't want to hear it. You've pushed your luck enough for one day."

"Come on-"

"And if you ever swear at me again, you won't like what happens next, little girl."

"Dad-" Anna started indignantly, determined this time to make herself heard about something or other. But she'd barely said the one word before she stopped. Frozen. And suddenly the hunt didn't matter. Suddenly nothing mattered except what had just come out of her mouth. Because she couldn't believe it had just come out of her mouth.

"Did you just...?" Dean's shock was apparent.

And though it was nothing more than surprise-- no judgement, no anger, no confusion, nothing but stripped, innocent surprise-- it made Anna's cheeks burn. She almost denied it, almost said, Did I what? I didn't say anything? I said your name. But they both knew differently. They both knew what she'd just called him. And both knew it had come out unplanned and unconscious. It had come out like a secret let slip to a friend of a friend or a childhood nickname used on a grown woman in public. It had come out like an easy accident. A little scary. Very embarrassing. Maybe inevitable.

Anna opened and closed her mouth, trying to think of an explanation. But none was needed. She just wanted one. For herself, for Dean. She didn't know who for. It wasn't like they didn't both know how and why it had happened. But... but shit. She couldn't think of an explanation, and her next option was an escape route.

But she'd only started to stand when Dean spoke again. "Come on, Rugrat. It's okay. It's not the first time you ever called me that."

If he'd expected that to make it better, he'd been sorely mistaken. Anna's whole face went so pink she could feel the change in temperature. "What?" she squeaked.

Dean laughed, but she didn't think it was funny. "Well, it's been a while. You called me that before you ever called Dad that, Runt. And when you were a toddler up until you turned four or five, it just came out sometimes."

Anna shook her head at herself and her brother. Brother. Not father. She wanted to be able to reply like a normal person, but she couldn't. Her face was burning and she had an overwhelming urge to cover her face however possible. She wanted to disappear, but not in the way she usually did lately. Not out of guilt but out of humiliation. "No," was all she could say to Dean's anecdote. "I wanna pretend it never happened. It didn't happen."

She gave in to the temptation and covered her face with both her hands, hunching over the table. A mantra in her head went I hate myself, I hate myself. It had been truer in other moments-- even just ten minutes ago-- but it surfaced in this one.

"Anna, it's okay," Dean promised. He sounded like he thought she was overreacting. Like she was making a big deal out of something that wasn't a big deal.

"No," she mumbled.

It was a big deal. It was a big deal because he wasn't her father no matter how much he acted like it sometimes or how much John had tried to make him be sometimes or how much she thought he was sometimes or how much... how much she wanted him to be sometimes. And she did. She wanted him to be sometimes.

And she didn't know why. She didn't know if it was the orphan thing, or the teenager thing, or the hunting thing, or just because Dean was Dean. But sometimes she wished he was her father. It would be easier, she thought. But that thought always ended in a rainstorm of shame, because in wishing for one dad, she was betraying another. And she did love John. She loved him and she missed him, and she wanted him to be her father too. But it wasn't fair that she didn't get to have one at all. And Dean was there.

But she didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to think about it, so she wouldn't think about it.

"I'm sorry," she said into the wood of the table. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Dean ruffled her hair, casual and affectionate. "Don't be, Rugrat. It's okay," he insisted.

Anna shook her head again. She almost apologized again, but she stopped herself just in time. At this point, it would only make things more embarrassing.

"It's okay," Dean said again.

"That's what you get for telling me I can't do shit," Anna told him defensively. But the joke fell flat with even herself. She made an irritated sound and grabbed her laptop. She had to go. By tonight, things would be normal again. She could actually, truly pretend it had never happened. But now? Now things were weird.

She tried not to look too much like she was fleeing as she left the room. If Dean thought she was running and still upset, he would follow her. Or he would sic Sam on her. And Anna couldn't do a 'talk' about this. She wasn't ready. She might never be.

()()()

Listening to his sister's sneakers scuff their way around the corner into the hallway, Dean let his carefree smile give way to a number expression.

He understood how it had happened. Especially since they'd just argued circles around each other, him doing everything in his power to protect her and keep her from self-destructing, and then he'd started scolding her about her language. It had all been very... parental? He tried not to think the word, though.  Dean was good at being the oldest, but he was nobody's father. Or at least he was nobody's 'Dad.'

Yeah, maybe Anna had called him that once or twice as a baby. But she'd only done it when she was first learning to talk, not after that. He remembered one or two occurrences of it pretty vividly. It had been stranger than strange as a twenty-year-old to hear a kid call him 'da-da,' and he'd tried hard to pretend she was just babbling, even though she'd been too smart a baby for that. Because he couldn't be a dad.

It was too much weight. And not because of the responsibilities. He'd had that on his shoulders since he was four years old. But because of the faith that meant someone was putting in him. The image he had to uphold for them. The innocence he had to defend. The perfect person he had to pretend to be. He didn't want to see any kid let down like that. Definitely not Anna.

"Hey." Dean turned to watch Sam walk into the room, holding a tablet in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. "You seen Anna? I just got another email from her math teacher."

"Yeah, she just went to her room," Dean replied, and Sam headed off down the hallway after their sister. Dean picked up his coffee cup and took an aggressive sip. "Why couldn't she call him 'Dad'?" he grumbled. Now he had all this shit to think about.

La Fin