Hunter Becoming Hunted, Supernatural, Keeper!Verse, PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural (Keeper!Verse)
Title: Hunter Becoming Hunted, Part 1 (of 2 likely)
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean, Dana, John
Word Count: 4692
Rating: PG-13,for violence to a minor, vague recollections of childhood abuse
Summary: As Dana approaches her 13th birthday, Dean struggles with getting older...at least until Sam gets hurt, and something chases Dana at school. Then all he can do is try to keep his family alive.
A/Ns & Warnings: Well, this started out to be desertskies requested Christmas fic...then something happened and it changed...morphed...and apparently started a new series.
Dean didn’t understand how life came to be this…how he ended up living in an actual house in a town he once swore he’d never return to with a daughter who was turning 13, and sometimes seemed more like 23.
He watched her getting ready for school in the morning and could feel his age settle over him. Her dark hair hung down her back, neatly braided this morning. Her skin was the color of a perpetual tan, her eyes the same green as Sam’s. She felt his eyes and smiled at him. “Want me to make breakfast, Daddy?”
Dean smiled and shook his head. “No, Dana. Coffee’s good.”
She nodded and went back to making her lunch. She’s fussy about food, and won’t eat the school cafeteria’s food because she’s convinced that there are trolls in the kitchen putting germs in the food to make everyone sick. He doesn’t argue, because he hasn’t been to the school in a long time. Sam handles the school stuff. Sam handles the homework issues and making sure Dana gets to school and home, even now that Dana’s really too old for Uncle Sammy to walk her both ways.
Sam just isn’t as visible. Dean knows he’s checked the school out though, and he feels it must be safe. Dean knows that Dana can handle herself too, even though she hasn’t been tested in a real situation. Dean had put his foot down, and unlike the puppy debacle, he’d actually won this time. His daughter would keep her childhood, as long as he could protect her. She knew about the stuff out there, she understood what Dean and his father and even Sam did when they went away…and that knowledge glittered in her eyes sometimes.
But no hunting. Not until she was sixteen at the earliest…and then only if it was something she wanted. She was going to be good at it. She was tall, thin, fast and knew how to fight. Her aim with a gun or crossbow was deadly. Her knife handling was sloppy, but Sam had promised her they’d work on it over Christmas break this year.
Dean drank his coffee and tried not to worry about Sam. He’d been due home the night before…and with the run in he’d had the month before…
“He’s okay.” Dana said abruptly, turning to him with a distant look on her face. “He’ll be here soon. Says he’s sorry…and he’ll explain.”
Dean smiled. Then there was that…those gifts that had nothing whatever to do with the physical training Dean and Sam and their father had put her through. “Tell him he should have called.”
She chuckled and nodded. “He knows.”
The connection between his daughter and his brother had grown as she did, and as her ability to use her gifts grew, it was going to be harder and harder to keep her out of the fight. Already half the hunts they went on were because of things she saw.
“So…have we decided on that birthday party?” Dean asked when she finally came and sat down.
She quirked her head to the side and looked at him. “Would it be okay…Nevermind.”
Dean could tell she wanted something, and was willing to not even ask because it would make him uncomfortable. “Go ahead and ask Dana. I promise I’ll consider it, whatever it is.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Well, I don’t want a big party. I don’t…I’d rather have something more intimate.”
Dean smiled. Her use of words sometimes surprised him. It shouldn’t, after all she had been in advanced classes for years. “Okay. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Just me, Kathy, Josie and Beth. I want a slumber party Daddy.”
Dean sucked in a breath, understanding her hesitation now. A slumber party was a lot different than thirty kids in their living room for a few hours. A slumber party was kids in their house overnight, where there were secrets…hell, their secrets had secrets all their own.
Dean nodded and took her hand, kissing it lightly. “Okay, baby. When Uncle Sam gets home we’ll talk about it. See what we can come up with.”
“You mean it?”
“You have to ask?” Dean looked at her, knowing full well she could read his sincerity without even trying.
“Just being polite. I gotta run, I’m walking with Ross and Beth today.”
“Those boys still giving Ross a hard time?”
She grinned and shook her head. “Nope. I taught him how to land a roundhouse, and he broke two noses. They leave him alone now.”
“Don’t forget your homework.” Dean said with a shake of his head as she kissed him goodbye. “Have a good day. Love you.”
“Love you too Daddy.” She waved from the door and he couldn’t help but smile.
He had a beautiful daughter who was somehow a hundred percent Winchester and yet…he sighed and remembered the pink stage, the girly lace phase…At least she had developed a taste for good music.
The phone rang and he got up to answer it. “Yeah. Dad. Where are you?”
Dean walked back for his coffee. “What? How? No. I’ll be right there. I just have to…call the garage, and…he told Dana-Never mind. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Sam had somehow managed to lie to Dana. That was a first. It also was frightening. That Sam felt he had to. Dean called the manager of the garage to let him know both John and Dean would be late and pulled on his boots. Stubborn as Sam was about the whole doctor thing, Dean knew it had to be bad if he’d let himself be taken to an ER.
John met him when he came into the ER, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “He’s in surgery. They’ll be a while.”
“What the hell happened?”
John shook his head. “I’m not sure. He called me at around 1am, asked me to come get him.”
“Where?”
“A park downtown. When I got there he was barely conscious, bleeding everywhere.”
“Do you know what the damage is?”
John shook his head. “He didn’t argue with me when I said I was bringing him here. He only made me promise not to call until after Dana left for school.”
“Stubborn fuck.” Dean muttered. “He was due back last night. It was supposed to be a business trip. The bookstore sent him to San Francisco to look at an estate collection.”
“I doubt this was because of any average book.”
“How’d he keep this from Dana?”
John shrugged. “I didn’t think he could. I’m surprised she didn’t wake up screaming when it happened.”
Dana knelt in the grass to tie her shoe. That was the first inkling she had that something was wrong. Her knee tingled where it touched the grass, like the ground was trying to tell her something. She cocked her head and looked at the patch of grass under the flagpole.
There were too many people around her, she couldn’t concentrate. She finished tying her shoe and stood up to scan the faces and area around her, just like Papa taught her. Nothing seemed out of place, but nothing seemed right either.
She reached out for Sam, but couldn’t find him. That made her uncomfortable. “Hey Dana!”
She looked up and waved at Kathy and Josie got off their bus to join her and Beth. “Give me a sec guys.”
Dana fished her cell phone out of her pocket. She stared at it for a minute. There was nothing obviously wrong. Her father would think she was insane if she called to tell him the ground felt wrong. She shook her head and put the phone away. She’d just pay closer attention.
“Is everything okay, Dana?” Josie asked and Dana smiled.
“Sure. I just forgot to tell my Dad something. I can tell him later.”
“Did you ask him about the party?”
“Yeah, he said we’d talk about it when Sam gets home tonight.” As far as the outside world was concerned, Sam was Daddy’s boyfriend. The truth had to stay a secret. That was part of the hesitation over the party. The warning bell rang and Dana looked up. “See you guys in math class.”
They scattered to their various homerooms and Dana tried not to obsess over the nagging feeling in her gut. It was gym class second period when she decided that ignoring the feeling had been a bad idea. She was the first one out of the locker room and into the gym.
The smell of sulfur on the air set her on edge. She knew the smell well enough. Uncle Sam had given her a good understanding of the smell and what it meant. Unlike the bulk of the Catholic school, the gym was a relatively new addition, not on consecrated ground. That left it more open to…whatever this was. She looked around her warily. She didn’t see it, but she could sense it.
Dana reached for her phone before she remembered in was in her backpack in her gym locker. There wasn’t much at hand for a weapon. She swallowed and tried to relax, get a good reading on it…there. She squinted at a place near the bleachers.
“I know you’re here.” Dana said. It moved, stuttered across the floor until she lost it near the boy’s locker room. This was not good. She started to head back to her locker, to her phone, but the rest of the class was pouring into the gym and Mrs. Gaylen was blowing her whistle.
Dana spent the whole period watching for it, but it was gone. Or she hoped it was. When class was over, she darted into the locker room and changed, barreling out of the locker room and out the nearest door to pull her phone out.
Before she could dial, she saw it again, it charged her…spinning her around and leaving a long, bloody welt on one leg. She managed to dial her father’s number, but it dumped her immediately to voice mail. “Dad. There’s…a…demon, I think. Here at the-Ow! The little shit is trying to…Ow!” Dana lowered the phone and started running, aiming away from the school and hoping the thing would follow. The last thing she needed was some demon-thing eating her friends “I’m leading it away from the school Dad. I’ll call again when I-OW!”
Dana flipped the phone shut and concentrated on running, with the thing on her heels.
“Dana.” Sam stirred and Dean jumped.
“Sam?”
His face was bruised, swollen, his lower lip marked by two stitches. Sam’s one eye opened and slowly focused on Dean. “Dana…trouble.”
Dean shook his head. “Dana’s at school Sam, she’s fine.”
Sam swallowed with difficulty. “Phone.”
Dean pulled his phone out of his pocket. He’d turned it off when they’d come to get him to tell him Sam was out of surgery. He thumbed it on and waited for it to warm up. “Followed me.” Sam said. “Tried to lose it.”
“Shh… Sam, it’s okay. You need to rest. Let me-“ Dean frowned as his phone showed him he’d missed a call. He pressed the button for his voicemail and his face paled when he heard her voice. “Shit. Sam, what is it?”
“Hunter.” Sam reached for his hand. “Like us…understand?”
Dean nodded. “Is this what did this to you?”
Sam nodded. “Caught me off guard. Tracked me from Frisco.”
“Okay…I have to go find her.”
Sam squeezed his hand as he started to pull away. “She’s running…north…from the school…headed for…cemetery.”
Good girl, Dean thought and nodded. “I’ll be back.”
Sam let him go and Dean ran from the room. A demon was chasing his baby. Dana was unarmed, and running. Probably hurt. He stared at his phone as he got into the Impala. He didn’t want to call her and distract her if she was fighting for her life…but he desperately wanted to hear her voice. Instead, he dialed his father’s number. “Where are you? Dana’s in trouble.” Dean steered out onto the street and headed toward the school. “Shit, no I’m closer. I’ll get back to you.”
Dana could feel the blood running down her arm and her leg, but ignored it. She had to keep moving. She had no doubt her father would find her, especially once she’d felt Sam again. That wasn’t as relieving as it should be. She could tell he was hurt…scared even…scared for her. She hadn’t thought far enough ahead to be afraid, she was stuck on moving and keeping a step ahead.
She still couldn’t actually see the darn thing, but whenever she slowed down, it bit or scratched, so it was corporeal, at least to some degree. She tried to place what it might be…but Sam hadn’t started teaching her about the different kinds of demons. She only had the images from his head, and that was less helpful than one might think.
She was nearly to the cemetery gates. It was moving faster now, working to catch her before she got onto consecrated ground. She wasn’t sure she’d be safe there, but she’d be safer than she was out here.
It was growling now, one claw like hand scratching down the back of her leg and she kicked back and out, earning a satisfying yelp before she pushed through the gate and into the cemetery. Dana, let me see it.
Sam’s voice in her head startled her and she turned back to scan for it. Nothing to see. She watched the gates rattle, then looked down at the mark on her calf from when it first caught her.
How bad?
Dana shook her head like he’d see it, but she knew he felt it because she could feel his. Your father’s on his way.
She heard the gates rattle and looked up, her jaw dropping even as Sam’s voice in her head was screaming at her to run. The thing coming through the cemetery gates was taller than Sam, it’s skin red and black, it’s body hard and terrifying. She stumbled a little getting turned around to run, then she was moving, racing, her legs pumping under her and carrying her deeper into the cemetery. Sam? She couldn’t feel him. She didn’t like that.
Sam?
She spared a glance behind her, then shook off the fear. Papa always told her that panic is what killed people. Daddy was coming, all she had to do was stay ahead of it…it…whatever it was.
Dana slid around a tree and leaped the small stream the cut the cemetery in two. This way made her have to go uphill, but she knew this part of the graveyard better. She pounded up the hill and just as she crested it, she felt Sam in her head again. Where?
Dana looked and wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t alone, and it was already across the stream. Fuck….keep moving, baby. Just keep moving.
That was her plan, but she wasn’t sure she could keep up the pace. Her right leg was covered in blood now and her feet ached with the pounding she’d already given them. What is it she asked as she flew past graves from WWI and down toward the little outdoor chapel. Sam?
She got the distinct impression that Sam was talking to someone, probably her father. The image of the thing chasing her flashed through her and the word “Harrier”. If she wasn’t sure she’d die, the word would have frozen her to the spot. Harriers were a nasty sort of demon. She didn’t know exactly, but she knew the word from Sam’s nightmares, even if he managed to keep the rest of the dream hidden from her. Anything that frightened her Uncle Sammy that much was not something she wanted to face, particularly not alone.
Bad? she sent as she leapt over a broken bench near the chapel. Beyond the chapel was the newer part of the graveyard, where her grandmother’s grave held an empty coffin.
Run, Dana…just head for the gate near 8th street. Your father’s almost there.
Dana was starting to have trouble breathing and her vision was blurry. She could see the gate, but she could hear them behind her. They were closing in as her wounds pulled at her and her stamina wavered. She was almost there. The sound of the Impala was never so welcome. Her hands closed on the bars of the gate and her eyes went wide as she felt something grab her backpack, one long claw scraping down her back as she shrugged her shoulders to free herself of the straps.
She screamed in pain and yanked the gate open, throwing herself through it and toward the Impala and her father.
“Dana! Down!”
She threw herself into a forward roll, getting herself out of his line of fire and moving her closer to the car. He fired six, seven shots into the one holding her back pack as she got the back door of the car open and crawled inside. Five more shots rang out and then the car was moving. Dana closed her eyes and panted against the leather, afraid to move. “Dana? Come on baby, talk to me.” His hand came up over the seat to touch her and he cussed when it touched warm blood.
“’M okay, Dad.” Her heart was racing and her lungs and legs burned, and she was bleeding all over the leather, but she was okay. Okay, Sammy….okay…
“Hold on, baby. Just hold on.”
Dana wasn’t sure what he was talking about. She was cold, shivering. That seemed funny, somehow, after all that running. She should be hot and sweating. Well, she was sweating, just cold. “Dana? Talk to me.”
She tried to look at him, but everything was dark. “Dana!”
“I need some help here!” Dean yelled as he carried the lifeless body of his daughter into the ER.
“Here, bring her here,” a nurse called, pointing to a gurney. “What happened, sir?”
He shook his head. “She…she was attacked.” He ran a hand over his face before he realized it was covered in blood. “She’s my daughter…she was attacked…” He looked up as a kid in a doctor’s coat joined them and started checking Dana’s injuries. There was no way this kid was old enough to be a doctor.
“Okay, let’s get her into Exam room 3, type and cross match.” The boy-doctor turned to Dean. “Can you tell me what did this to her?”
Dean watched her go, then blinked. “What? No…I….she called…I found her like this….” Because there was no way he was telling this boy that a demon had done this and he’d killed the mother-fucker with six shots in the head. “She’s…just make her okay.”
“She’s lost a lot of blood, sir. I’m going to go examine her. I need you to stay out here.”
Dean nodded dully and ran the hand back over his face. The smell of his baby’s blood was nauseating and he pulled the hand away, staring down at it, then at the blood that covered his shirt and jeans.
“Dean?”
He turned at the sound of his father’s voice, shaking as John’s eyes registered the sight. “Where’s Dana?”
“She’s…the doctor is looking at her.” Dean felt light headed and his knees gave way as his father touched his elbow. “God…Dad, there was so much blood…she…the bastards…she…” He shook his head and tried to wrap his mind around the image in his head of his little girl shrugging off the biggest fucking Harrier he’d ever seen.
Granted, he’d only ever seen three, but he’d thought they were among the bigger-“Dean?”
John was squatting beside him, turning Dean’s face toward him. “Shit, Dean, stay with me.”
Dean blinked and took a deep breath. “I’m okay. I’m…holy shit.” He looked up at his father. “Harriers, Dad. Two of them.”
John sucked in and pulled his hands away from Dean as if somehow the name alone could conjure one. “Did they…I mean…” He couldn’t vocalize the thought though…not his baby, not his beautiful granddaughter.
Dean was shaking his head. “No…no…she ran, Dad….they caught her just as I got there. She’s cut up, but she’s…not that.”
John sighed in relief and stood, pulling Dean up with him. It was bad enough that he knew what the damn things were capable of, that both of his sons bore scars from Harriers, and now she would too. “Let’s get you cleaned up while we wait.”
John sighed wearily as he dropped into the chair by Sam’s bed. Sam’s eyes opened instantly. “They’re moving her into a room on the children’s ward. Dean’s with her.”
Sam nodded. “How’s Dean?”
John smirked, because Sam obviously already knew how Dana was. “He’s a wreck. He’ll be better once she comes out of the anesthesia.”
“She’ll be fine.” Sam said, his eyes going distant for a moment before snapping back. “She did really good.”
John nodded. “Yes, she did.”
“We have to find this bastard.” Sam grimaced as he shifted. “He didn’t use a Harrier when he attacked me. Not sure what it was, actually.”
“We’ll find him.” John said, stifling a yawn. All the adrenaline had left his body after the doctor had come out of the exam room and told them that Dana would be fine…She’d have scars to tell the story, but she’d be fine. He’d left Dean to deal with the police and sat with Dana while the hospital worked on getting a room ready for her. Now he was just drained, and feeling his age. “Right now we need to concentrate on getting you and Dana back on your feet.”
Sam was already drifting, the steady drip of drugs in his IV pulling him under. John let his own eyes slide closed and tried not to imagine Dana in the hands of one of those…things.
Her first thought was that it was entirely too warm in the room, which was nice considering that her last thought had been about the cold. The room felt…different though, not like hers. She opened her eyes slowly. Her father was dozing in the chair next to her bed. She was on her side, and her back felt…thick. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was and why.
Then she remembered the way her back had just split under the claw of that demon, the way she had screamed and her father had killed it dead. Moving slowly in part because she hurt and in part to let her father sleep, Dana peeled back the sheet that covered her to get a look at her leg. The little demon had ripped her up pretty good, and she had a mess of bandages to show for it. Thick white gauze circled her entire thigh and there were smaller bandages over her shin and calf.
Dana
She smiled and leaned into the caress of Sam’s mind. I’m okay.
She felt his pride and blushed, sending back a wave of dismissal and reaching out to feel out the extent of his injuries. She was worried. He was blocking her to some degree and that couldn’t be good. I’ll get out of bed right now and come find you.
Not that threats ever worked with Sam. I’m good, Dana. Just need time. I’ve been hurt worse.
Dana sighed and rolled her eyes, then realized Dean was looking at her. “Daddy.”
He was on the bed in and instant, his hands drawing down her uninjured arm. “You scared me, baby.”
She smiled. “I was pretty scared to.” He looked like he’d been crying. She’d never seen her daddy cry. “I’m okay.”
“I know. I-God I am proud of you Dana.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it. “You did everything right. You led it away from people, you headed for sacred ground. You kept your head.”
She beamed under the praise. “I was scared when it was a little one…then there was the big one and Sam was afraid…I ran…I just ran.”
Dean smiled. “I know. You did good.”
“Is Sam okay?”
Dean’s smile dimmed. “He will be. He was hurt pretty badly.”
“By that thing?”
“I don’t think so. I think it was something else.” Dean kissed her cheek. “You should go back to sleep.”
Almost as if his suggestion had reminded her she was tired, she yawned. “Want to see Sammy.”
“Soon, baby. Soon.”
It was actually two days, when the hospital released her and let Dean wheel her into Sam’s room before taking her home. It was two days where either Dean or John was in her room, at her side, and whoever wasn’t with her was with Sam.
They all knew it wasn’t over.
They all knew this could be the end of normal for them…all of them. They all knew, and none of them said it out loud.
Sam smiled and laughed and made Dana feel a little better about his injuries and her own. His went a little deeper, and he was going to be kept a few more days. It wasn’t until Dana ran a hand over the right side of Sam’s face and whispered, “I always liked you better this way,” that Dean realized the glamour was gone. His eyes fell to Sam’s wrist, then up to his eyes. Sam shook his head minutely and Dana kissed his cheek.
“Okay, little lady, it’s time for you to go home.”
“I wanna stay with Sam.”
John saw the stress in Dean’s face and intervened. “Sam needs to rest so he can come home too.”
Dana pouted, but Sam must have told her to go because she rolled her eyes, but settled back in the wheelchair. Dean’s nerves were shot to hell, and he’d only slept a few hours each night…and he hadn’t been home since he brought Dana in. Missouri had taken the dog home and picked up the mail, and their standard defenses should still be intact, and…
“Dad?”
Dean shook himself and moved them through the hospital lobby. “Yeah, Dana?”
“Why did they…I mean…why did it happen?”
Dean sighed. “We think someone followed Sam home from his business trip.”
“Someone?”
“A hunter.”
“Like us?”
“Except playing on the other side.” It meant there was a price on their heads. Though whether that was just Sam and Dana, or all four Winchesters neither he nor Sam had been able to determine.
“Those things that were after me…the Harriers…that’s what hurt Sam when he was little, right?”
Dean helped her into the car and nodded, hating that she had to know that, that she was a part of this whether he wanted her to be or not. “They’re servants to…other demons and the people who serve demons.” The very thought of what they might have done to her…knowing what they had done to Sam…what they would have done to him after they’d bled him that night…Dean breathed in slow and deep to keep the nausea down.
Dana was quiet on the ride home and settled onto the couch to watch television while Dean made them some lunch. “What are we going to do, Dad?” she asked abruptly, looking up at him from the couch.
“We’re going to find the bastard and kill him.” Dean said emphatically.
“And after that?”
He froze, didn’t look at her. “What do you mean?”
“They aren’t going to stop coming.” She rose up on her knees on the couch, looking at him, but he could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t seeing him. “There’s more…he’s…just one.”
He crossed to her. “Tell me what you see, Dana.”
She stared into space for a minute, then her eyes snapped back to Dean’s. “We have to run, Daddy…just as soon as we can. We have to go. They’re coming.”
There was something in Dana’s eyes that Dean wasn’t used to seeing. It chilled him to the bone as he nodded in agreement with her. She was afraid, and Dana was never afraid of anything. And she was right. They were going to have to run. And soon.
Title: Hunter Becoming Hunted, Part 1 (of 2 likely)
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean, Dana, John
Word Count: 4692
Rating: PG-13,for violence to a minor, vague recollections of childhood abuse
Summary: As Dana approaches her 13th birthday, Dean struggles with getting older...at least until Sam gets hurt, and something chases Dana at school. Then all he can do is try to keep his family alive.
A/Ns & Warnings: Well, this started out to be desertskies requested Christmas fic...then something happened and it changed...morphed...and apparently started a new series.
Dean didn’t understand how life came to be this…how he ended up living in an actual house in a town he once swore he’d never return to with a daughter who was turning 13, and sometimes seemed more like 23.
He watched her getting ready for school in the morning and could feel his age settle over him. Her dark hair hung down her back, neatly braided this morning. Her skin was the color of a perpetual tan, her eyes the same green as Sam’s. She felt his eyes and smiled at him. “Want me to make breakfast, Daddy?”
Dean smiled and shook his head. “No, Dana. Coffee’s good.”
She nodded and went back to making her lunch. She’s fussy about food, and won’t eat the school cafeteria’s food because she’s convinced that there are trolls in the kitchen putting germs in the food to make everyone sick. He doesn’t argue, because he hasn’t been to the school in a long time. Sam handles the school stuff. Sam handles the homework issues and making sure Dana gets to school and home, even now that Dana’s really too old for Uncle Sammy to walk her both ways.
Sam just isn’t as visible. Dean knows he’s checked the school out though, and he feels it must be safe. Dean knows that Dana can handle herself too, even though she hasn’t been tested in a real situation. Dean had put his foot down, and unlike the puppy debacle, he’d actually won this time. His daughter would keep her childhood, as long as he could protect her. She knew about the stuff out there, she understood what Dean and his father and even Sam did when they went away…and that knowledge glittered in her eyes sometimes.
But no hunting. Not until she was sixteen at the earliest…and then only if it was something she wanted. She was going to be good at it. She was tall, thin, fast and knew how to fight. Her aim with a gun or crossbow was deadly. Her knife handling was sloppy, but Sam had promised her they’d work on it over Christmas break this year.
Dean drank his coffee and tried not to worry about Sam. He’d been due home the night before…and with the run in he’d had the month before…
“He’s okay.” Dana said abruptly, turning to him with a distant look on her face. “He’ll be here soon. Says he’s sorry…and he’ll explain.”
Dean smiled. Then there was that…those gifts that had nothing whatever to do with the physical training Dean and Sam and their father had put her through. “Tell him he should have called.”
She chuckled and nodded. “He knows.”
The connection between his daughter and his brother had grown as she did, and as her ability to use her gifts grew, it was going to be harder and harder to keep her out of the fight. Already half the hunts they went on were because of things she saw.
“So…have we decided on that birthday party?” Dean asked when she finally came and sat down.
She quirked her head to the side and looked at him. “Would it be okay…Nevermind.”
Dean could tell she wanted something, and was willing to not even ask because it would make him uncomfortable. “Go ahead and ask Dana. I promise I’ll consider it, whatever it is.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Well, I don’t want a big party. I don’t…I’d rather have something more intimate.”
Dean smiled. Her use of words sometimes surprised him. It shouldn’t, after all she had been in advanced classes for years. “Okay. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Just me, Kathy, Josie and Beth. I want a slumber party Daddy.”
Dean sucked in a breath, understanding her hesitation now. A slumber party was a lot different than thirty kids in their living room for a few hours. A slumber party was kids in their house overnight, where there were secrets…hell, their secrets had secrets all their own.
Dean nodded and took her hand, kissing it lightly. “Okay, baby. When Uncle Sam gets home we’ll talk about it. See what we can come up with.”
“You mean it?”
“You have to ask?” Dean looked at her, knowing full well she could read his sincerity without even trying.
“Just being polite. I gotta run, I’m walking with Ross and Beth today.”
“Those boys still giving Ross a hard time?”
She grinned and shook her head. “Nope. I taught him how to land a roundhouse, and he broke two noses. They leave him alone now.”
“Don’t forget your homework.” Dean said with a shake of his head as she kissed him goodbye. “Have a good day. Love you.”
“Love you too Daddy.” She waved from the door and he couldn’t help but smile.
He had a beautiful daughter who was somehow a hundred percent Winchester and yet…he sighed and remembered the pink stage, the girly lace phase…At least she had developed a taste for good music.
The phone rang and he got up to answer it. “Yeah. Dad. Where are you?”
Dean walked back for his coffee. “What? How? No. I’ll be right there. I just have to…call the garage, and…he told Dana-Never mind. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Sam had somehow managed to lie to Dana. That was a first. It also was frightening. That Sam felt he had to. Dean called the manager of the garage to let him know both John and Dean would be late and pulled on his boots. Stubborn as Sam was about the whole doctor thing, Dean knew it had to be bad if he’d let himself be taken to an ER.
John met him when he came into the ER, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “He’s in surgery. They’ll be a while.”
“What the hell happened?”
John shook his head. “I’m not sure. He called me at around 1am, asked me to come get him.”
“Where?”
“A park downtown. When I got there he was barely conscious, bleeding everywhere.”
“Do you know what the damage is?”
John shook his head. “He didn’t argue with me when I said I was bringing him here. He only made me promise not to call until after Dana left for school.”
“Stubborn fuck.” Dean muttered. “He was due back last night. It was supposed to be a business trip. The bookstore sent him to San Francisco to look at an estate collection.”
“I doubt this was because of any average book.”
“How’d he keep this from Dana?”
John shrugged. “I didn’t think he could. I’m surprised she didn’t wake up screaming when it happened.”
Dana knelt in the grass to tie her shoe. That was the first inkling she had that something was wrong. Her knee tingled where it touched the grass, like the ground was trying to tell her something. She cocked her head and looked at the patch of grass under the flagpole.
There were too many people around her, she couldn’t concentrate. She finished tying her shoe and stood up to scan the faces and area around her, just like Papa taught her. Nothing seemed out of place, but nothing seemed right either.
She reached out for Sam, but couldn’t find him. That made her uncomfortable. “Hey Dana!”
She looked up and waved at Kathy and Josie got off their bus to join her and Beth. “Give me a sec guys.”
Dana fished her cell phone out of her pocket. She stared at it for a minute. There was nothing obviously wrong. Her father would think she was insane if she called to tell him the ground felt wrong. She shook her head and put the phone away. She’d just pay closer attention.
“Is everything okay, Dana?” Josie asked and Dana smiled.
“Sure. I just forgot to tell my Dad something. I can tell him later.”
“Did you ask him about the party?”
“Yeah, he said we’d talk about it when Sam gets home tonight.” As far as the outside world was concerned, Sam was Daddy’s boyfriend. The truth had to stay a secret. That was part of the hesitation over the party. The warning bell rang and Dana looked up. “See you guys in math class.”
They scattered to their various homerooms and Dana tried not to obsess over the nagging feeling in her gut. It was gym class second period when she decided that ignoring the feeling had been a bad idea. She was the first one out of the locker room and into the gym.
The smell of sulfur on the air set her on edge. She knew the smell well enough. Uncle Sam had given her a good understanding of the smell and what it meant. Unlike the bulk of the Catholic school, the gym was a relatively new addition, not on consecrated ground. That left it more open to…whatever this was. She looked around her warily. She didn’t see it, but she could sense it.
Dana reached for her phone before she remembered in was in her backpack in her gym locker. There wasn’t much at hand for a weapon. She swallowed and tried to relax, get a good reading on it…there. She squinted at a place near the bleachers.
“I know you’re here.” Dana said. It moved, stuttered across the floor until she lost it near the boy’s locker room. This was not good. She started to head back to her locker, to her phone, but the rest of the class was pouring into the gym and Mrs. Gaylen was blowing her whistle.
Dana spent the whole period watching for it, but it was gone. Or she hoped it was. When class was over, she darted into the locker room and changed, barreling out of the locker room and out the nearest door to pull her phone out.
Before she could dial, she saw it again, it charged her…spinning her around and leaving a long, bloody welt on one leg. She managed to dial her father’s number, but it dumped her immediately to voice mail. “Dad. There’s…a…demon, I think. Here at the-Ow! The little shit is trying to…Ow!” Dana lowered the phone and started running, aiming away from the school and hoping the thing would follow. The last thing she needed was some demon-thing eating her friends “I’m leading it away from the school Dad. I’ll call again when I-OW!”
Dana flipped the phone shut and concentrated on running, with the thing on her heels.
“Dana.” Sam stirred and Dean jumped.
“Sam?”
His face was bruised, swollen, his lower lip marked by two stitches. Sam’s one eye opened and slowly focused on Dean. “Dana…trouble.”
Dean shook his head. “Dana’s at school Sam, she’s fine.”
Sam swallowed with difficulty. “Phone.”
Dean pulled his phone out of his pocket. He’d turned it off when they’d come to get him to tell him Sam was out of surgery. He thumbed it on and waited for it to warm up. “Followed me.” Sam said. “Tried to lose it.”
“Shh… Sam, it’s okay. You need to rest. Let me-“ Dean frowned as his phone showed him he’d missed a call. He pressed the button for his voicemail and his face paled when he heard her voice. “Shit. Sam, what is it?”
“Hunter.” Sam reached for his hand. “Like us…understand?”
Dean nodded. “Is this what did this to you?”
Sam nodded. “Caught me off guard. Tracked me from Frisco.”
“Okay…I have to go find her.”
Sam squeezed his hand as he started to pull away. “She’s running…north…from the school…headed for…cemetery.”
Good girl, Dean thought and nodded. “I’ll be back.”
Sam let him go and Dean ran from the room. A demon was chasing his baby. Dana was unarmed, and running. Probably hurt. He stared at his phone as he got into the Impala. He didn’t want to call her and distract her if she was fighting for her life…but he desperately wanted to hear her voice. Instead, he dialed his father’s number. “Where are you? Dana’s in trouble.” Dean steered out onto the street and headed toward the school. “Shit, no I’m closer. I’ll get back to you.”
Dana could feel the blood running down her arm and her leg, but ignored it. She had to keep moving. She had no doubt her father would find her, especially once she’d felt Sam again. That wasn’t as relieving as it should be. She could tell he was hurt…scared even…scared for her. She hadn’t thought far enough ahead to be afraid, she was stuck on moving and keeping a step ahead.
She still couldn’t actually see the darn thing, but whenever she slowed down, it bit or scratched, so it was corporeal, at least to some degree. She tried to place what it might be…but Sam hadn’t started teaching her about the different kinds of demons. She only had the images from his head, and that was less helpful than one might think.
She was nearly to the cemetery gates. It was moving faster now, working to catch her before she got onto consecrated ground. She wasn’t sure she’d be safe there, but she’d be safer than she was out here.
It was growling now, one claw like hand scratching down the back of her leg and she kicked back and out, earning a satisfying yelp before she pushed through the gate and into the cemetery. Dana, let me see it.
Sam’s voice in her head startled her and she turned back to scan for it. Nothing to see. She watched the gates rattle, then looked down at the mark on her calf from when it first caught her.
How bad?
Dana shook her head like he’d see it, but she knew he felt it because she could feel his. Your father’s on his way.
She heard the gates rattle and looked up, her jaw dropping even as Sam’s voice in her head was screaming at her to run. The thing coming through the cemetery gates was taller than Sam, it’s skin red and black, it’s body hard and terrifying. She stumbled a little getting turned around to run, then she was moving, racing, her legs pumping under her and carrying her deeper into the cemetery. Sam? She couldn’t feel him. She didn’t like that.
Sam?
She spared a glance behind her, then shook off the fear. Papa always told her that panic is what killed people. Daddy was coming, all she had to do was stay ahead of it…it…whatever it was.
Dana slid around a tree and leaped the small stream the cut the cemetery in two. This way made her have to go uphill, but she knew this part of the graveyard better. She pounded up the hill and just as she crested it, she felt Sam in her head again. Where?
Dana looked and wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t alone, and it was already across the stream. Fuck….keep moving, baby. Just keep moving.
That was her plan, but she wasn’t sure she could keep up the pace. Her right leg was covered in blood now and her feet ached with the pounding she’d already given them. What is it she asked as she flew past graves from WWI and down toward the little outdoor chapel. Sam?
She got the distinct impression that Sam was talking to someone, probably her father. The image of the thing chasing her flashed through her and the word “Harrier”. If she wasn’t sure she’d die, the word would have frozen her to the spot. Harriers were a nasty sort of demon. She didn’t know exactly, but she knew the word from Sam’s nightmares, even if he managed to keep the rest of the dream hidden from her. Anything that frightened her Uncle Sammy that much was not something she wanted to face, particularly not alone.
Bad? she sent as she leapt over a broken bench near the chapel. Beyond the chapel was the newer part of the graveyard, where her grandmother’s grave held an empty coffin.
Run, Dana…just head for the gate near 8th street. Your father’s almost there.
Dana was starting to have trouble breathing and her vision was blurry. She could see the gate, but she could hear them behind her. They were closing in as her wounds pulled at her and her stamina wavered. She was almost there. The sound of the Impala was never so welcome. Her hands closed on the bars of the gate and her eyes went wide as she felt something grab her backpack, one long claw scraping down her back as she shrugged her shoulders to free herself of the straps.
She screamed in pain and yanked the gate open, throwing herself through it and toward the Impala and her father.
“Dana! Down!”
She threw herself into a forward roll, getting herself out of his line of fire and moving her closer to the car. He fired six, seven shots into the one holding her back pack as she got the back door of the car open and crawled inside. Five more shots rang out and then the car was moving. Dana closed her eyes and panted against the leather, afraid to move. “Dana? Come on baby, talk to me.” His hand came up over the seat to touch her and he cussed when it touched warm blood.
“’M okay, Dad.” Her heart was racing and her lungs and legs burned, and she was bleeding all over the leather, but she was okay. Okay, Sammy….okay…
“Hold on, baby. Just hold on.”
Dana wasn’t sure what he was talking about. She was cold, shivering. That seemed funny, somehow, after all that running. She should be hot and sweating. Well, she was sweating, just cold. “Dana? Talk to me.”
She tried to look at him, but everything was dark. “Dana!”
“I need some help here!” Dean yelled as he carried the lifeless body of his daughter into the ER.
“Here, bring her here,” a nurse called, pointing to a gurney. “What happened, sir?”
He shook his head. “She…she was attacked.” He ran a hand over his face before he realized it was covered in blood. “She’s my daughter…she was attacked…” He looked up as a kid in a doctor’s coat joined them and started checking Dana’s injuries. There was no way this kid was old enough to be a doctor.
“Okay, let’s get her into Exam room 3, type and cross match.” The boy-doctor turned to Dean. “Can you tell me what did this to her?”
Dean watched her go, then blinked. “What? No…I….she called…I found her like this….” Because there was no way he was telling this boy that a demon had done this and he’d killed the mother-fucker with six shots in the head. “She’s…just make her okay.”
“She’s lost a lot of blood, sir. I’m going to go examine her. I need you to stay out here.”
Dean nodded dully and ran the hand back over his face. The smell of his baby’s blood was nauseating and he pulled the hand away, staring down at it, then at the blood that covered his shirt and jeans.
“Dean?”
He turned at the sound of his father’s voice, shaking as John’s eyes registered the sight. “Where’s Dana?”
“She’s…the doctor is looking at her.” Dean felt light headed and his knees gave way as his father touched his elbow. “God…Dad, there was so much blood…she…the bastards…she…” He shook his head and tried to wrap his mind around the image in his head of his little girl shrugging off the biggest fucking Harrier he’d ever seen.
Granted, he’d only ever seen three, but he’d thought they were among the bigger-“Dean?”
John was squatting beside him, turning Dean’s face toward him. “Shit, Dean, stay with me.”
Dean blinked and took a deep breath. “I’m okay. I’m…holy shit.” He looked up at his father. “Harriers, Dad. Two of them.”
John sucked in and pulled his hands away from Dean as if somehow the name alone could conjure one. “Did they…I mean…” He couldn’t vocalize the thought though…not his baby, not his beautiful granddaughter.
Dean was shaking his head. “No…no…she ran, Dad….they caught her just as I got there. She’s cut up, but she’s…not that.”
John sighed in relief and stood, pulling Dean up with him. It was bad enough that he knew what the damn things were capable of, that both of his sons bore scars from Harriers, and now she would too. “Let’s get you cleaned up while we wait.”
John sighed wearily as he dropped into the chair by Sam’s bed. Sam’s eyes opened instantly. “They’re moving her into a room on the children’s ward. Dean’s with her.”
Sam nodded. “How’s Dean?”
John smirked, because Sam obviously already knew how Dana was. “He’s a wreck. He’ll be better once she comes out of the anesthesia.”
“She’ll be fine.” Sam said, his eyes going distant for a moment before snapping back. “She did really good.”
John nodded. “Yes, she did.”
“We have to find this bastard.” Sam grimaced as he shifted. “He didn’t use a Harrier when he attacked me. Not sure what it was, actually.”
“We’ll find him.” John said, stifling a yawn. All the adrenaline had left his body after the doctor had come out of the exam room and told them that Dana would be fine…She’d have scars to tell the story, but she’d be fine. He’d left Dean to deal with the police and sat with Dana while the hospital worked on getting a room ready for her. Now he was just drained, and feeling his age. “Right now we need to concentrate on getting you and Dana back on your feet.”
Sam was already drifting, the steady drip of drugs in his IV pulling him under. John let his own eyes slide closed and tried not to imagine Dana in the hands of one of those…things.
Her first thought was that it was entirely too warm in the room, which was nice considering that her last thought had been about the cold. The room felt…different though, not like hers. She opened her eyes slowly. Her father was dozing in the chair next to her bed. She was on her side, and her back felt…thick. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was and why.
Then she remembered the way her back had just split under the claw of that demon, the way she had screamed and her father had killed it dead. Moving slowly in part because she hurt and in part to let her father sleep, Dana peeled back the sheet that covered her to get a look at her leg. The little demon had ripped her up pretty good, and she had a mess of bandages to show for it. Thick white gauze circled her entire thigh and there were smaller bandages over her shin and calf.
Dana
She smiled and leaned into the caress of Sam’s mind. I’m okay.
She felt his pride and blushed, sending back a wave of dismissal and reaching out to feel out the extent of his injuries. She was worried. He was blocking her to some degree and that couldn’t be good. I’ll get out of bed right now and come find you.
Not that threats ever worked with Sam. I’m good, Dana. Just need time. I’ve been hurt worse.
Dana sighed and rolled her eyes, then realized Dean was looking at her. “Daddy.”
He was on the bed in and instant, his hands drawing down her uninjured arm. “You scared me, baby.”
She smiled. “I was pretty scared to.” He looked like he’d been crying. She’d never seen her daddy cry. “I’m okay.”
“I know. I-God I am proud of you Dana.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it. “You did everything right. You led it away from people, you headed for sacred ground. You kept your head.”
She beamed under the praise. “I was scared when it was a little one…then there was the big one and Sam was afraid…I ran…I just ran.”
Dean smiled. “I know. You did good.”
“Is Sam okay?”
Dean’s smile dimmed. “He will be. He was hurt pretty badly.”
“By that thing?”
“I don’t think so. I think it was something else.” Dean kissed her cheek. “You should go back to sleep.”
Almost as if his suggestion had reminded her she was tired, she yawned. “Want to see Sammy.”
“Soon, baby. Soon.”
It was actually two days, when the hospital released her and let Dean wheel her into Sam’s room before taking her home. It was two days where either Dean or John was in her room, at her side, and whoever wasn’t with her was with Sam.
They all knew it wasn’t over.
They all knew this could be the end of normal for them…all of them. They all knew, and none of them said it out loud.
Sam smiled and laughed and made Dana feel a little better about his injuries and her own. His went a little deeper, and he was going to be kept a few more days. It wasn’t until Dana ran a hand over the right side of Sam’s face and whispered, “I always liked you better this way,” that Dean realized the glamour was gone. His eyes fell to Sam’s wrist, then up to his eyes. Sam shook his head minutely and Dana kissed his cheek.
“Okay, little lady, it’s time for you to go home.”
“I wanna stay with Sam.”
John saw the stress in Dean’s face and intervened. “Sam needs to rest so he can come home too.”
Dana pouted, but Sam must have told her to go because she rolled her eyes, but settled back in the wheelchair. Dean’s nerves were shot to hell, and he’d only slept a few hours each night…and he hadn’t been home since he brought Dana in. Missouri had taken the dog home and picked up the mail, and their standard defenses should still be intact, and…
“Dad?”
Dean shook himself and moved them through the hospital lobby. “Yeah, Dana?”
“Why did they…I mean…why did it happen?”
Dean sighed. “We think someone followed Sam home from his business trip.”
“Someone?”
“A hunter.”
“Like us?”
“Except playing on the other side.” It meant there was a price on their heads. Though whether that was just Sam and Dana, or all four Winchesters neither he nor Sam had been able to determine.
“Those things that were after me…the Harriers…that’s what hurt Sam when he was little, right?”
Dean helped her into the car and nodded, hating that she had to know that, that she was a part of this whether he wanted her to be or not. “They’re servants to…other demons and the people who serve demons.” The very thought of what they might have done to her…knowing what they had done to Sam…what they would have done to him after they’d bled him that night…Dean breathed in slow and deep to keep the nausea down.
Dana was quiet on the ride home and settled onto the couch to watch television while Dean made them some lunch. “What are we going to do, Dad?” she asked abruptly, looking up at him from the couch.
“We’re going to find the bastard and kill him.” Dean said emphatically.
“And after that?”
He froze, didn’t look at her. “What do you mean?”
“They aren’t going to stop coming.” She rose up on her knees on the couch, looking at him, but he could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t seeing him. “There’s more…he’s…just one.”
He crossed to her. “Tell me what you see, Dana.”
She stared into space for a minute, then her eyes snapped back to Dean’s. “We have to run, Daddy…just as soon as we can. We have to go. They’re coming.”
There was something in Dana’s eyes that Dean wasn’t used to seeing. It chilled him to the bone as he nodded in agreement with her. She was afraid, and Dana was never afraid of anything. And she was right. They were going to have to run. And soon.