Note: Hey, Beautifuls 💜 You're all incredible and I love you so much. Every time I post, I feel the love in all your comments, and it means the absolute world.

So, guess what....

This bitch turned eighteen today! And I wanted to celebrate my eighteenth with Anna, even though our birthdays are five months apart lol. So, welcome to Anna's eighteenth birthday chapter 😉

Also, let's wish a Happy Early Birthday to our boy, Sammy, who turns 38 tomorrow (holy crap he's lowkey kinda old). It is my honor to be almost-birthday-buddies and a fellow Taurus with him.

Also, it's time to meet Madeleine, who has been mentioned but never introduced. She's Anna's girlfriend, and I figured it was time you guys meet her. And obviously, she wouldn't miss Anna's eighteenth.

Anyway, sorry for the very long note... enjoy the chapter :)

Who Cares About the Numbers?

"Eighteen, Beautiful," Madeleine whispered, soft and sweet in Anna's ear. Anna turned slightly toward the voice, feeling Maddie's lips almost brush against her jaw. There was so little space between them, she'd have shuddered if it was anyone else. Instead, she smiled a tiny and shy but pleased sliver of a smile. "You know what that means?"

"Mhm," Anna hummed, though it was a lie. She could rarely predict what Madeleine was about to say despite that they'd been together for almost three months now. It was part of what made her relationship with Maddie so satisfying. She knew her, but she didn't know her every thought. "We can get eloped now."

Madeleine leaned back and laughed, a genuine, high sound that made Anna's lips tug out into a broader smile. Sometimes she got these looks from Sam or Dean or even Kate when she started talking about Maddie, and it was like they couldn't quite believe she felt all the things she said she felt the way she thought she felt them. But Anna was infatuated. She felt like she never had met anyone like Maddie and she never would again. She felt like they didn't come any more perfect. She felt like she was experiencing what she hadn't felt with Ian in their two months of... well, she still wasn't sure what they'd been.

"I think your brother would kill me," Madeleine said, still smiling. Her canines were visible when she smiled for real, pressing lightly against her bottom lip, and Anna thought it made her smile that much more beautiful. Not to mention, Maddie rocked a red lipstick. They looked like polar opposites in some ways. Anna's hair was a stark blonde and curly while Maddie's was pin straight, thinner, and cut in a chin length bob. Anna wore very little makeup while Maddie almost always wore a full face of it. And somehow, they were still perfect together. Or at least they believed they were. And Anna was content to live in that for as long as she possibly could. She was content to turn eighteen with Maddie's name attached to hers-- she loved the way it sounded: Anna and Madeleine.

"Maybe," she said in reply. But there was no maybe about it, and she didn't even have to ask which brother Maddie was talking about. The boys would make it a group project if Anna and Maddie tried to elope. Dean would kill Madeleine and Sam would kill Anna.

"I was going to say, now that you're eighteen, we can take a romantic trip to Montréal. We're old enough to drink there, and we could detour while we're in Canada so you could meet my family."

The thought was tempting, but Anna couldn't commit to such a trip. Not yet anyway. "Much as I love listening to you say that word-"

Madeleine's smile twisted to the side, "Montréal," she interjected in her French-Canadian accent.

"-I have to wonder where the hell you think we'd find the money to go to Canada for a romantic getaway. Not to mention, Dean might be just as likely to kill you for that as for our elopement."

"You're still afraid to run away, even for a little while," Madeleine said softly, a thoughtful, somewhat surprised look on her face. The expression melted into a gentle but companionable smile. "T'es adulte." You're an adult.

"Une nouvelle adulte," Anna reminded her. A new adult. She still had to translate Madeleine's every word carefully in her head whenever she lapsed into French. But she loved it, too.

It was a piece of Maddie that both pulled Anna closer and drove a stake between them at the same time. Anna had been all across the U.S., but she'd never been to Canada. Madeleine had lived in Quebec until she was eighteen, at which point she'd graduated high school and been admitted to a college in Vermont. It just so happened that, during the summer before her first year there, while Madeleine had been taking a summer course and getting to know the campus, the Winchesters had worked a case, hunting a spirit at the very university Maddie was attending.

"We don't have to think about it now. We should be celebrating while we're together. We only have one morning, and we are celebrating your eighteenth birthday. Next to twenty-one, I think it has to be the most important year of a person's life."

Anna wrinkled her nose a little. She loved the intimate moments where it was just the two of them, but being the center of attention, even when she was alone with Madeleine, was enough to make her uncomfortable.

"Let's get coffee," Maddie suggested, standing up and grabbing Anna's hand to pull her up as well.

It was only a little after 7am, a ridiculous hour to be up and on a coffee date, at least in Anna's mind. But Anna had school at 8:00, and Madeleine had to be on a flight back to Vermont at 8:45 so she wouldn't miss her Friday morning classes tomorrow.

"I can't think of any better plan right now," Anna admitted.

She was far from being a morning person, but she felt energized as she walked beside Madeleine. She noticed that their palms were still touching, their fingers interlocked. It still made Anna giddy, though not in the same nervous and awkward sort of way it had when they'd first started dating and hadn't put any labels on what they were yet. Then, the touch had thrummed with possibility. Now, it held a note of comfort.

Looking at the sidewalk ahead of them, Anna thought about the upcoming Saturday, about what it would mean when she actually officially turned eighteen in two days. It made her feel a little more confident. Her spine straightened, and her fingers curled more tightly around Madeleine's.

She had no intention of getting drunk in Montreal with her girlfriend, especially when they'd only been together three months. It wasn't that she didn't believe they would stay together-- she had an almost frightening tendency to think of every relationship as something that would never end, and that applied to her platonic relationships as well as the romantic ones. It was just that... well, even in all the travels across the U.S. that she'd done, she'd had her family right there. She'd never ventured anywhere without them, not really. As much as she believed that eighteen was a good time to start taking her own steps into the world, she didn't think she had the same type of trust in Madeleine as she did in her family, trust that no matter what happened, she would make it out okay. And Anna was born expecting the worst case scenario. So romantic trips to Montreal would have to wait at least another handful of months.

But dates like this one... those Anna was hungry for. She wished they could be in close proximity all the time. Instead, a twenty-five hour drive lay between them.

As they walked down the sidewalk, Anna stepped a little closer without conscious thought, and she and Maddie almost tripped over each other, feet tangling. She giggled an apology, and Madeleine smiled broadly at her. It was the kind of smile that screamed limerence, the kind of smile that Anna had worn earlier when Madeleine had laughed at her joke.

They entered the café, and their hands fell apart so just their knuckles brushed together as they walked to the counter. They ordered macchiatos and walked back toward the airport as slowly as they could justify considering Maddie needed to be there in half an hour in order to get through security and Anna needed to head back across town to go to school in the same amount of time.

They reached the airport at 7:50, and Anna prepared herself for their begrudging goodbyes. It had been a beautifully calm morning, exactly the kind of maturely affectionate date she thought an adult should go on. They threw their coffee cups in the garbage outside the main entrance to the airport and turned to face each other.

"I wanted to do this last, but I guess we have to hurry now," Madeleine said before Anna could initiate a farewell. She reached into her tote bag and pulled out a small pink gift bag with a note attached. "You can read it later," she said softly. "But I wanna see you open the bag, okay?"

Anna looked up at Maddie with some surprise and some excitement in her eyes. "I told you, you didn't have to get me anything. I know you have to pay tuition, and-"

"It wasn't very..." she frowned, and Anna recognized the expression. She was trying to remember a word in English that she knew in French. Madeleine looked frustrated with herself. She snapped her fingers, trying to figure it out. She muttered, "cher," under her breath and quickly came up with what she was looking for. She said, "expensive. It wasn't very expensive. And it made me think of you," she added. "I bought it months ago. I wanted to save it for your birthday."

Anna smiled, forgetting entirely about the time. She pulled the bag open carefully and reached inside. Out came a small paperback book. It wasn't terribly thick, and the corners of the cover were just slightly worn, just enough to make it clear that she was holding a used book. Anna read the cover. "Jane Eyre," she said delicately. "Why do I know that title?"

"I spent twenty minutes describing in detail my outline for an essay I wrote about it."

Anna's face broke into a wide smile. There was already something so perfect about receiving a used book from her girlfriend for her eighteenth birthday. But when the memory of that day sprouted in her mind, the gift instantly carried more weight. It had been a pretty ordinary phone call between the two of them, but Anna had recited over and over to Madeleine that she would read the book sometime. She'd joked that Maddie might have to loan her a copy since Anna lacked the motivation to read half the books she already owned, even if she did usually enjoy reading.

She stared down at it for a moment and then looked up at Madeleine, green eyes shining wetly. "I wish you went to Kansas State," she said with miserable humor.

Maddie laughed out loud. "For you, I might transfer."

Anna's smile went soft. "You comin' back for Thanksgiving?"

"I don't know. It depends on whether my mother decides to stay at home or visit my grandparents."

Anna nodded. She couldn't stall the goodbye any longer. As it is, she would have to run the whole way to school and probably still wouldn't make it in time for the first bell, which meant she had to forge a signature even after she'd promised Dean this morning when he'd dropped her off that she would make sure to be to school on time. She tried to push that thought away too. It made her feel like a kid. And Maddie made her feel like an adult.

"I'll call you on Saturday," Madeleine promised.

She leaned forward for a kiss. There was only an inch or so difference in their heights, and Anna was glad for it. Ian had been three or four inches taller than her... but there were a lot of differences between her relationship with Maddie and the one she'd had with Ian, and Anna tried not to think about Ian at all anymore, so... She focused on the softness of their lips pressing together, and she suddenly wanted something else. She broke the kiss first and wrapped her arms tightly around Maddie's shoulders. She wished they had the time to sit together with their knees touching and get all tangled in each other. But they never had time to just be together.

"Bye," she said quietly, because they weren't at I love you yet.

"Bye," Madeleine said back. She sounded like her usual self, calm but sensitive.

Anna watched her disappear behind the glass doors of the airport and into the crowd of people headed for places she didn't know, then turned back toward the street and pulled her phone out of her pocket. It was 7:58. She couldn't get to school on time now, and she felt a bit melancholy like she always did when Maddie left after a visit.

Still, even the little ache in her chest felt more grown up than usual. She wondered if it was her age-- eighteen in two days, she still couldn't believe it-- that made her feel more mature than she ever had, or if it was Madeleine.

()()()

"Here he comes," Ethan grinned, not being subtle at all as he tapped Kate repeatedly on the arm and gestured to something past Anna's shoulder.

Anna's eyes widened. "What did you do?" she demanded, turning around to see past the edge of her side of the booth. Her mouth fell open when she saw what Ethan was so excited about. She looked back at her two friends with an expression of shock and a little horror. "You didn't."

"Come on, Anna," Kate said. "Ollie likes you. You've been coming here since you were fourteen. We barely said the word birthday before he was begging us to let him make a cake."

Anna sunk lower in her seat at the confirmation that the chocolate cake Ollie was carrying toward their table was for her. Her cheeks flushed as she heard him clear his throat. If they had a Happy Birthday song prepared, Anna was going to murder both Kate and Ethan.

She wrinkled her nose and blushed even harder as Ollie settled the cake carefully on the table in front of her. He opened his mouth and inhaled like he was about to start singing, and at Anna's wince, he started laughing. "Nah, I'm kidding," he said. "Happy birthday, kid, I hear ya like chocolate." He pulled a zippo from the pocket of his apron and looked around before using it to quickly light the candle. "Wish fast, and blow the candle out faster. I'm not supposed to be lightin' fires in my dining room."

Anna laughed and obliged by blowing the candle out quickly.

"That's what I get for insisting on starting a club for teenagers. Extra safety guidelines."

Poking at the frosting on the closest edge of the cake to her, Anna looked at Ollie with a mischievous glint in her eye. "You're gonna have to start servin' alcohol pretty soon. Age with your customers."

Ollie wagged a finger at her. "Keep it up."

Anna smiled around her finger as she licked the frosting off of it. "You really wouldn't change your entire business model for us, Ollie?" she asked, feigning hurt. "We've been loyal patrons for years."

"That ain't loyalty," Ollie quipped. He pulled the used candle out of her cake with his fingertips, careful not to touch the frosting, and said, "That's an addiction to caffeine."

Anna smiled wider. He wasn't wrong. As he started to walk away, she called after him, "Thanks, Ollie," and watched him wave a hand over his shoulder as if to say it was nothing. But it wasn't nothing. There was nothing like having a birthday to remind her how much the people in her life actually cared about her.

As if the cake wasn't enough on its own, Ethan cleared his throat next. "Since this is officially a birthday party now," he said. "You gotta open your present."

Anna's jaw dropped a second time. "We're not doing presents," she said dumbly. "I mean, we don't do them." They usually didn't. They wrote sappy or funny notes to each other, enough to earn a smile and a hug. But they didn't do material gifts. They never really had between the three of them, aside from offering to cover somebody's drink at the café or the Kickback on their birthday... which Kate had already done today.

"Eighteen's different," Kate informed Anna with a serious nod.

Anna couldn't deny that. She'd never felt so much fear and excitement over turning one year older as she did today, going from seventeen to eighteen. It just felt so big. It was a defining line, and she would be crossing it in her sleep tonight.

"I'm not eighteen yet," she reminded them, just as she had done all day long. Funny, because for the last two months or so, she'd been referring to herself as pretty much eighteen and driving her brothers insane with the insistence that she was basically an adult. But today, she'd been stricken by the nerves over becoming an adult, though she still felt somewhat excited too, and she'd been trying to savor her last hours as a seventeen-year-old.

"Semantics," Kate shrugged. She looked at Ethan and nodded. "So Alex, Ethan, and I all went three ways on this."

"Alex?" Anna repeated. She'd only known Alex since the start of the semester, and sure, they'd been fast friends, but she was already buying Anna presents?

"Yeah. Actually, she wanted to see your reaction, so I should probably record this so she doesn't kill me." Ethan pulled his phone out of his pocket and readied it so Anna was squarely in frame.

"Oh my god," Anna groaned and covered her face with her hands. "This just went from sweet to embarrassing. Why're you pointing a camera at me?" All of this was just a sign to her that whatever the gift was that they'd gotten her, it was bigger than anything she deserved. "I hope you guys didn't blow a bunch of money on me."

"Anna, I promise you, the second you see this thing, you're not gonna think about the money again ever."

"Stop teasing then," Anna said, planting her palms against the tabletop. She shifted so she was sitting on her feet on the booth seat, making herself a little taller. She poked at the frosting on her cake again and made a face at the camera as she licked the chocolate-y goodness off her finger. "What is it? You guys are killing me," she repeated when both her friends just grinned at her.

Kate reached into her backpack and pulled out a folder like the kind she kept schoolwork in. "All I can say is, I hope you don't have any plans for January 10th."

Anna made a face of total confusion. "What?" Talk about random.

Kate slid the folder over to Anna, and both she and Ethan were watching with anticipation as Anna pulled it to herself. She looked between them, savoring the moment for just a second. She couldn't contain her own jittery excitement or smile when she saw the looks on their faces.

Turning back to the folder, Anna flung it open and looked down at it. Peeking out of one side of the folder was a slip of paper. She reached for it in confusion. When she went to pull it out, she realized there were actually four identical slips, and they were thicker than paper. They were...

Anna's entire face went slack in shock. She couldn't think of a single thing to say as she stared at the tickets in her hands. Without her mind's permission, her mouth yelled, "What?!" so loudly that her friends both started laughing and making shh gestures at her at the same time.

Anna continued staring for a minute before she finally looked up at them. "These are real," she breathed. "These are for fucking real?"

"They better be," Ethan said. "Or we're all gonna be crying."

There were very few occasions in her life that Anna had wanted to scream over something good. But now was one of those times. Screw being an adult, she stood up on her booth seat and turned around to face the room nearly packed with what was the Kickback's Friday night crowd. "Yo, bitches! I'm goin' to a Fall Out Boy Concert."

Most people barely did more than glance at her and smirk in amusement. But Anna was so happy she couldn't have cared less what anyone had to say about it. She didn't even care when she looked back at Kate and Ethan to see them both laughing hysterically.

"I didn't think I could like you guys more than I already did," Anna admitted, breathless with excitement. "But I do somehow."

She finally sat back down in her seat and grabbed a spoon off the table to dig into her cake. She scooped up a bite and then set her spoon down on the table again without even putting the cake in her mouth. She stood up again, but this time on the floor and sat back down again almost immediately. "Sorry, I'm just wicked excited right now. I can't even sit like a normal person."

Eighteen was promising to be more fun than any other year of her life so far had been.

()()()

She woke up slow and quiet. Her body seemed to know it was Saturday-- she didn't feel like she needed to get up fast or be ready to face anything. She just took a long, satisfying breath, and stretched her arms above her head. It didn't even occur to her that it was her birthday until she reached for her phone to check the time and saw three texts already waiting for her, all of them birthday messages.

She smiled softly and decided to worry about actually sorting through them later. First, she needed her first cup of coffee of the day... her first cup of coffee as an adult.

She'd barely stepped into the kitchen before a very off-key but very heart-warming rendition of Happy Birthday started. Again, the attention made her nose wrinkled and her cheeks tinge pink, and she felt the urge to cover her face with her hands. But she resisted the urge and instead let Sam grab her shoulders and lead her to a seat at the table where Dean met them with a tall stack of pancakes that was positively decked out in whipped cream, strawberries, and chocolate. It was her favorite way to eat pancakes, but they always gave her shit for it. Not today...

Anna couldn't help the smile that graced her face. One more way in which she was the exception to her brothers' macho façades. She thought a sarcastic thank God as the boys finished singing and watched Dean stick candles shaped like a 1 and an 8 into the top of her pancakes. He picked up a zippo from the table and lit them.

Anna smiled and took in a breath to blow them out, but Dean's hand blocked her face. "Did you make a wish first?"

She gave him a look and shoved his hand away. She took in another breath, but his hand popped up in front of her mouth again, blocking her access to the candles. "Was it a good wish?"

Anna shot him another look, and Dean dropped his hand of his own accord. But when she took another breath, his hand shot up into her way again. "You only get one a year-"

"Dean!"

His earnest look fell away as he laughed at her and ruffled her hair-- something he was going to have to quit doing now that she was a freaking adult. "I'm kiddin', Rugrat. Blow out your candles."

Anna took in another breath, and when his hand moved again, she caught it before it could block her again and blew out both candles with one breath.

"Alright," Sam said. He plopped something on top of her head, and Anna reached up to feel what it was. She shook her head fondly as she caught sight of her reflection in the fridge. It was an aluminum crown that announced her the birthday girl. "We figured we should do our celebration early since your party's later-" He feigned surprise when Anna's face showed surprise and confusion. "What, you didn't know about the party?"

"I swear we told you," Dean played along. "Been plannin' it for a month now."

Anna looked between the two of them in a combination of exasperation and excitement. "Are you serious?" she asked. She couldn't even tell how much of what they were saying was true and how much was part of the bit.

"Better be some kind of party," Dean quipped, sliding Anna a fork as he sat down with plates for himself and Sam. "Be a shame if everyone drove from different states for nothing."

"Not to mention, we'd have to find something to do with all the food," Sam added.

Anna looked between the two of them in exasperation yet again. "You guys are on a roll this morning," she said. "Really, you should be a comedy duo." She pulled the candles out of the top of the stack of pancakes.

Dean reached for the plate of pancakes, and Anna grabbed at the empty plate he'd set in front of her. "Wait, I want the top one," she said excitedly. It had the most toppings on it, a stack of whipped cream, berries, and chocolate. She'd just die if she didn't have it.

"I think we know, Ladybug," Sam snickered at her, helping her scoop the top two pancakes onto her plate. It was a two person job since they were working with forks instead of a spatula.

"So, who's everyone?" Anna asked when they were all halfway through their food. The pancakes were so good, it was uncanny, and they'd all been so enthralled by the deliciousness that no one had even spoken for the first several minutes they'd spent eating.

"Jody and the girls, Donna, Cas... That it?" Sam asked, looking across the table at Dean.

"Mom's comin' too," Dean said. "Or she said she would. I don't know."

Somehow a nerve had been struck, but both her brothers were trying not to show it. Not that it mattered. Anna knew every mention of their mother made things a little weird for a minute, especially when she was in the room since she wasn't even Mary's kid.

"Anyway, before everyone gets here, I been meanin' to give you this," Dean said. He dropped a little stack of papers in front of her, held together by a staple in the top left corner.

Anna tilted her head sideways and looked down curiously at the top paper in the stack. "What's this?"

Dean tapped the papers with his finger. "Your first tax form."

Sam snorted and Anna gave Dean yet one more exasperated head shake. "Dude," she said, a plea for him to be straight with her for a second.

"That's adulthood, Rugrat, get used to it."

"Dude, leave her alone. We don't even file taxes," Sam defended. "You're gonna want to keep those papers, though, Anna."

Anna frowned thoughtfully and looked at the top page again. Her bewilderment grew when she caught the words 'motor vehicle' and 'registration' and 'driver' and she didn't look any further. "Hang on, hang on," she said, feeling her body go dumb with surprise just as it had last night at the Kickback with her friends. "This is not what I think it is."

"Depends what you think it is," Dean said before shoving a forkful of pancakes in his mouth. Around a mouthful of food, he added, "If you think there's a car under your name sittin' out in the garage right now... it actually is what you think it is."

Anna shook her head stupidly. "No. No, you did not."

Dean raised an amused eyebrow at her, and she looked at Sam.

He laughed out loud when he saw the look on her face. "Don't look at me, I just took care of the paperwork. Dean's the one that fixed the thing up for you."

"For real?" she asked, still in shock. Her pancakes sat abandoned in front of her, and when neither of the boys' faces registered even a hint of mockery, she realized that they were dead serious. She bolted out of her chair and toward the garage. She had to see this with her own eyes.

She stepped through the doors into the garage, and it was instantly clear which car had been fixed up for her. It was shiny and beautiful, parked right beside the Impala instead of lined up with the other vintage cars. "Oh my god," she breathed, stepping towards it at a slow, steady pace. "It's the Cobra." She felt like she could cry with joy. "It's so beautiful." She heard chuckling from behind her and turned to point a finger at Sam. "Don't pretend it's not the most beautiful car you've ever seen."

She heard but ignored Dean's indignant, "Hey!"

She spent nearly five minutes just circling the car, smoothing her hands over the hood and the doors. She opened the driver's door and sat down inside, but she didn't even close the door. She longed to hear the engine hum and feel the road under the tires, but there would be time for that later. For now, she had to do something else: She got out, closed the door, and grabbed both her brothers into the tightest group hug to ever exist.

"This is the best birthday ever."

And it was gonna be the best year ever. There was no way for it not to be. She already had the best girlfriend in the world, the best friends in the world, and the best family in the world. Not to mention, she had concert tickets to see freaking Fall Out Boy, her favorite band of all time. And now she even had a beautiful, shiny car, road-prepped by her insanely talented mechanic of a brother and (probably fake-)registered by her crazy smart geeky one.

Who cared about the numbers? Life was good.

La Fin