I Am the Hero of This Story (I Don't Need to be Saved)
Title: I Am the Hero of This Story (I Don't Need to be Saved)
Author:shangrilada(Kira)
Summary: Kylie's had a big three years.
Word Count: 9,989
Warnings: The beginning is the saddest part. I promise. Some rape talk, not a lot else.
Author's Note: So here is your outline of the first three years. Hopefully there will be a lot of places where you are like DAMN IT WAIT PAUSE I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED HERE. And you will, children. You will. Patience. For now, just let Kylie tell you a story (and go ahead and tell me in the comments which of these you want illuminated the most.)
She knows, she knows, that she should not have been old enough to remember, and that fact haunts her. Like a ghost.
**
Kylie has two friends: her dad and her big bloodhound puppy, Bowser. Daddy named him, but Kylie picked him out, and when she curls up on the floor with her head on her his stomach she feels her dad and she feels herself. She's two--ALMOST three--and most of the time she wonders who Kylie is, really.
She does know that her parents are going to a big fancy party. She lives in Los Angeles where the famous people are, and one time her mom said that was Billy Ray Cyrus at the grocery store and Kylie said "Who the hell is Billy Ray Cyrus?" and got a time-out. But her dad laughed.
Her parents aren't famous, not to everyone else, at least, but they still go to fancy parties. She knows that's where they're going because her mom is wearing the long spiky earrings that feel cold when she kisses her cheek goodbye.
Daddy picks her up. He gives her a tight squeeze and swings her legs around.
"When we get home we'll have cake," he whispers. Kylie's birthday is next week but her dad says birthdays should last more than one day. Dad sneaks out of bed once Mom is asleep and then sneaks cake out of the fridge and into Kylie's mouth.
Kylie kisses him so hard he says "Ouch!" which is just a game they play.
His cheek scratches her a little. "Ouch!"
"See you soon, angel."
**
Kylie's not an angel. She knows that now.
She also knows Daddy wouldn't see her soon.
**
Uncle Matt's the one who babysits, because Cool Aunt Christa is so cool but she's in San Francisco. Uncle Matt brings toys every time and acts like it's been months since he's seen her when really it's been like three days. She should count Uncle Matt as one of her friends, but he and Mommy are best best friends and Kylie doesn't share with her mom the way she does with her dad. Mom doesn't let her have cake at midnight, so.
Kylie and Uncle Matt play ponies and pounce on Bowser when he tries to eat Spitfire. The phone rings, and Matt pretends to pick Kylie up by the scruff of her neck, like a little puppy, on his way to answer it.
His voice changes, and he sounds serious.
But not that serious.
The policeman, she finds out later, was very unclear. There's been an accident.
"Come on, Kyler." He hoists her up on his hip. He always pretends she's heavy when she is actually very unhappily short. "We gotta go get Mom and Dad."
"They're at a party!"
"Yeah but they broke their car! We're gonna rescue them."
"BRAVE BRAVE KYLIE!"
"To the car!"
He buckles her into her carseat--she has a special Uncle Matt carseat and off they go. The streets are sparkly and splashy where it was raining before, but it isn't raining now. Maybe after they bring Mommy and Daddy to their party, Uncle Matt will take her home and put her in her pink rain boots and they can jump around.
Or maybe they'll bring Kylie to the fancy party for once, and she'll wear her Pretty Pretty Princess earrings because it's about time she got to wear those outside, MOM. Honestly.
"Kylie," Matt announces. "I do not know where we're going."
"Exploring!"
"It certainly looks that way. We ride!"
Kylie kicks her feet and looks out the window.
The car stops, suddenly, and her foot hits the back of Matt's seat. There's bright red lights and people standing around and where did they come from? There's white smoke coming from somewhere and something metal flashing over and over in the twirling lights. It smells like when Daddy burns hamburgers.
"Oh my God."
Matt doesn't sound like Matt.
"Oh my God. Holy shit. Kylie, don't look. Don't look, baby. Kylie, look at me." He turns around. He's crying. "Kylie, look at me."
She doesn't. She looks out the window. She sees blood and broken dolls.
She sees her carseat, her un-special, everyday carseat, shattered and thrown onto the street.
She whispers, "Ouch."
**
She doesn't know how long it takes. Maybe it's a few minutes and maybe it's days.
She's at Uncle Matt's first but then she cries and cries and Matt says, "No, baby, you're right, you're so right," and then they're back in Kylie's house. People come and go all the time and she hides under the kitchen table and wraps her arms around a leg and closes her eyes. They can still see her, but when they try to talk to her Matt makes them go away, and Kylie doesn't want to get up and go anywhere else because that would mean she has to get up.
A lot of the time, Uncle Matt sits with her and holds her and doesn't make her get off her post. He carries her to the bathroom when she nods at him and he feeds her oatmeal baby spoon by baby spoon.
She has hard, uncomplicated feelings. Bowser whines and nuzzles her hand.
Aunt Christa must have been here for a long time. Those clicks must have been her pretty shoes. That's what those were. She didn't ever look. But she's here now, wrapping herself around the same table leg and running her fingernails all soft up and down Kylie's spine and being quiet.
After a long time all she says is "I love you so much," and Kylie cries until it hurts.
**
If there was a funeral, no one told her.
She's pretty glad about that, now.
**
Uncle Matt is gone sometimes during the day, but Aunt Christa is always here. A few times on the phone Christa has to go, "No, this is her sister," because people think she is Kylie's mom.
SO when Christa tries to bring her a grilled cheese, Kylie snarls at her like Bowser does with fucking strangers and runs and hides in the shower.
She smells butter and cheese sizzling over and over again. She's so hungry. She crawls out of the bathroom eventually, and there is a hot sandwich waiting for her.
She eats it in four bites and tells Christa it was gross.
"Do you want some grape juice?" Christa says. She's sitting across from Kylie, chin resting on her hands, hands resting on the table. She is big serious red eyes. "Get the taste out?"
Kylie nods, and when Christa brings it she pours it out on her pretty shoes.
Christa says, "Huh. That was smart."
"I fucking hate you." She wants a time out. She doesn't care. She doesn't care.
Christa steps out of her shoes and sticks them in the sink. "I fucking love you."
After Christa's asleep on the couch (that's where they both sleep) Kylie climbs up the counter to open the fridge, gets the jug of grape juice, and pours some into all of Christa's shoes laid out by the door.
She checks on them in the morning, and there they are, still filled with grape juice. Matt would have thrown them all away and not said anything about it and she would have grabbed them and done them again. Mom and Dad would have put her in time out and whispered about what did they do wrong.
Christa, apparently, filled up Kylie's pink rain boots with grape juice.
Kylie giggles and claps her hand over her mouth.
**
Some number of nights later she shakes Christa awake in the middle of the night. Christa rolls over, drags a hand over her eyes, smiles at her a little. "Nightmare, honey?"
She shakes her head. She didn't sleep. She can't sleep on this couch anymore. It smells like Bowser now instead of Mom's perfume. "I want to sleep in my bed."
Aunt Christa nods like it isn't a big deal even though it is a huge deal, Aunt Christa, and she picks Kylie up and grabs her sheep blanket and brings her upstairs. Christa is much smaller than Mommy, but she's Mommy and Matt's big sister. Why is she so small.
Maybe she's sick.
Kylie should be taking care of her.
It's Kylie's first time upstairs and her first time in her room and it makes her cry so hard. Nobody's moved anything. Christa sits on the bed and holds her arms out and Kylie dives into them. Christa is skinny and warm.
Christa buries her face in her hair. Kylie's hair is a mess because she won't let anyone do it. She wants bantu knots like Christa.
"Want a story?" Christa says.
Kylie nods. "We have to sit on that side." Mom sat on the other side.
Christa scoots over and lets Kylie pick out a book. She chooses one Matt brought that she never read. Christa gathers it up, and while she reads to her, she eases the broken twists out of Kylie's hair and ties it into knots.
**
It's like that for a long time, just Kylie and Bowser and Christa and Matt, a lot. In October, Kylie asks for her birthday, and Christa bakes her a big funfetti cake and sings her "Happy Birthday" even though really she's been three for four months. She asks Kylie how old she wants to be, but Kylie chooses three. She likes the number three.
Aunt Christa doesn't go to work and Kylie doesn't go to preschool, so they go to the beach a lot and watch a lot of movies. LA is warm always and Kylie likes to build sandcastles. It hurts to like things. But she kind of likes it. Hurting feels good. Liking things feels good.
A few times, she accidentally calls her "Mommy." Not because Christa is her mother now or something, but because she forgets that Christa isn't real Mom, Mila-Mom, when she sees her from behind or from a funny angle or when Christa holds her hand in just the right way. Christa doesn't make a big deal out of it.
Around Christmas she has a nightmare that makes her shiver and crawl away from pictures in her head. She runs downstairs to the couch where Christa still sleeps and shakes her by the elbow.
"Mommy."
Christa stirs and sits up. "Okay, baby, bad dream?" She puts Kylie on her lap and puts her arms around her, kisses her. She's bony, small, smells like her shampoo.
"Mommy," Kylie says, and she means it.
**
Somewhere in all of this, Gramma dies. Kylie hadn't seen her in years.
Mom cries when she thinks Kylie is sleeping and Kylie makes cards and slips them under her door.
**
Sometime in February Christa-Mom sits her down and says, "How about a move?"
"How about we move to the kitchen? I'll bring glitter glue."
So they do, but Mom still says, "I think we're gonna move upstate, okay?"
"Where's upstate?"
Christa makes a shape with her glitter glue.
"That's California!"
"Uh-huh. Here's us. And here's where we're gonna go." It's almost all the way at the top.
"Where's San Fasisco?"
"Right here." It's close to the far away dot.
"What's its name?"
"Santa Rosa. Pretty, huh?"
"Yes."
"What do you say?"
"How come?"
"My friend found a job for me."
"Working with sick brain people?" That's what she did in San Fransisco.
"That's right."
"How come now?"
Mom smears the glitter glue with her finger. "Your grandma was really sad. I want to see if I can make other people be less sad."
"Can Uncle Matt come?"
"You know what? It looks like he's gonna."
"Can Bowser come?"
"Of course!"
"Are there beaches there?"
"Yes."
"Then okay."
**
Kylie hates Santa Rosa.
It's cold. Beaches don't matter when it's cold. There aren't any famous people here. There are quiet streets and gray days. Mommy's working now. Their house is too big for them. Uncle Matt lives twenty stupid minutes away. Bowser misses his friend who lived next door. Next door lady now says Bowser is too loud. She has to go to stupid preschool and she cries and kicks people and doesn't have any friends.
Stupid Santa Rosa. She cries for warm beaches and real life.
She stays inside a lot because it's stupid and cold and she twirls around when Mom plays pretty music so Mom takes her to the ballet. Tall beautiful girls stretch out and stand on their toes and spin faster than Kylie could ever think. She thinks about twirling siren lights and bad dreams and when she gets home she cries for magic and music. She begs Mom to take her back to the ballet, so she does, three times.
For her fourth birthday she gets to start lessons and she squeezes her mom so hard she says, "Ow!"
**
Mom helps so many people. They come to her sick and they talk to Mommy and get better. So many people call her all the time. She is happy. She writes notes to herself and cooks Kylie big dinners and asks her all about preschool and insults the mean girls in her class with her. Some of her patients are kids so her office has toys and sometimes after preschool Kylie gets to come play while Mommy finishes paperwork.
Patients aren't supposed to come then but sometimes people show up, and one of the shows up more than one time. He smells like coffee and a leather couch and he sits across from her Mom and twists his hands and talks about his brother Sammy and about other stuff. Some of it is stuff about rape. Mom does stuff with rape, which is when someone hurts you really bad even though you said no. Mom's job is helping them and she's the best at it.
The first time the man comes in he smiles and sits on the floor with Kylie after he talks to her mom. "Is this your daughter?"
"Uh-huh. Kylie, this is Dean. Remember Sammy? This is his brother."
Kylie has never met Sammy but all the time he leaves toys for her. She comes in and there's a new toy and Mom says, "Look what Sammy brought for you!"
"Hey, that reminds me." Dean reaches into his pocket and takes out a present wrapped in the paper Sammy always uses. "He told me to give this to you."
She tears the paper off. It's another pony. It's Spitfire who she already has from back home, but it's the thought that counts. So.
"I just LOVE Sammy," she says.
"He's pretty fond of you too, kid."
"He's never even met me."
"Well, your mom must talk about you a lot."
Mom groans. "You're gonna get me in trouble. I'm supposed to sit here all personality-less and shit and just nod while my patients talk."
"Yeah, see, Sam didn't want that."
"I swear, the kid fucking tricks me, too. I think he's all talking about himself and then I realize, no, we're having a damn conversation, when did this happen? Why am I telling you about my dog? Sam, man, I swear."
Dean says, "That kid."
"That kid."
Dean makes the pony nuzzles Kylie's hand. "You should come visit sometime, meet him for real. He likes visitors."
"Maybe I will or maybe I won't," she says, because it's not up to her. She doesn't have a driver's license.
"We'll make you green beans."
"I love green beans!"
"So does Sammy. Look at that."
Kylie kicks her feet and smiles as Dean gets up to go. He kisses Mom on the cheek and she rolls her eyes.
"Is that your boyfriend?" Kylie says when Dean's leaving. She hasn't had a boyfriend since the one right after they moved here who made he cry and one time he threw her down the stairs and Mom sprained her wrist. Kylie kicked him so hard and he didn't come back and afterwards Mom held her and said, "No one is ever going to treat us like that, no one in the whole world, not ever again," and Kylie asked if that was rape and Mommy cried and said no.
"Nah," Mom says. "He's just my friend."
"Then why does he kiss you!"
"'cause he's a goofball."
"He should be your boyfriend. He's nice."
"I don't want a boyfriend."
"But if you don't have a boyfriend then how will you get married?"
"Who says I want to get married!"
"It's just what people do."
"Well Dean isn't married. And neither is Sam. And neither is Matt."
"But Matt has a girlfriend. Does Sam have a girlfriend?"
"Sam might have a boyfriend. It's complicated."
"Does DEAN have a boyfriend?"
"I don't think so."
"Does DEAN have a girlfriend?"
Mom laughs and circles something on her paper. "I don't think so, Kylie."
"So."
"So just because he doesn't have a girlfriend I should marry him."
"He brings me toys."
"If I married every man who brings you toys I'd have to marry Uncle Matt, did you think about that?"
"You're weird."
"You're weird."
"Your FACE is weird."
"I aaaaam...all done here! Look at that! Let's go home and introduce this Spitfire to your other Spitfire."
"We can tape them together and have a FOUR-LEGS SPITFIRE!"
"See, I told you, you're totally weird." She hoists Kylie up on her back.
"You're weird for not getting married."
Mom spins around with her. "I don't need to get married. I've got all the company I need."
**
Kylie has two friends: Sammy and her big bloodhound, Bowser.
Sammy is really sick. A lot of Mom's patients are sick in their bodies too because being sick in your head is really taxing, Mom says, but Sammy is really really sick. He has bad asthma and can't breathe and he can't get out of bed so much, but when he does it's pretty great at playing freeze tag (which Mom says doesn't work with just two people but hello ponies are people too, Mom) and making brownies.
Because Sammy is so sick she gets to come over all the time now while Mom and Dean and their friend Cas take care of him. When she's going to be over for a long time, Dean sets up a special pillow and blanket on Sammy's bed so she can take her naps there. She has to take off her sweater before she gets into bed with Sammy because Bowser's hair makes him sneeze and she has to wash her hands because Sam's allergic to a lot of foods, which means that if he eats them he has to have a shot, which happened one time and Dean clung to Cas while Kylie hugged on and Dean gave him the shot and Mom petted his hair. They're a whole army for Sammy
Sometimes Sammy says things that don't make any sense. Sometimes they're scary--for him, not for Kylie, because Kylie's tough--but a lot of the time they're just silly.
"There are shapes that never stay still," he says. They're lying on their backs on the bed while Mom and Dean are off flirting somewhere, whatever. Cas isn't here today. Some times he isn't, although he and Sammy are totally in love and kissing all the time, it's so obvious.
Kylie makes squares and triangles with her hands and holds them above their heads. Sammy has his oxygen mask on, which is good. Sometimes he won't wear it. It's a good day, Kylie thinks.
She says, "Okay but what about shapes that stay still though? Like feet and stuff." She swings her feet up in the air.
"Your feet are moving! You're so full of shit!"
"Sammy LOOK," she says, and she holds them super still. "Look, they don't have to move. Look."
"What kind of a shape is a foot, anyway."
"A YOU SHAPE," she says, and then she tickles him with her feet until he's out of breath from laughing and he wrestles her down and kisses her cheek through the oxygen mask.
"You're my best friend, Kylie."
"You're my best friend too. Forever?"
"Uh-huh."
"How long are you gonna live? 'cause breathing."
"I think I'll be here for a while. But it's okay if I do die. I'm just going to Dead Jessica." Dead Jessica is in heaven waiting for Sammy. He sounds very sure and Kylie likes the sound of it and she likes the pictures of Dead Jessica so she doesn't question this.
"I don't want you to die though. Because what about the best friends thing."
"We'd still be best friends. Forever, Kylie."
"Even if you die or I grow up and get big."
"Exactly."
"Do you think I'll be big someday?"
"I dunno. Your mom is pretty short."
"Mila-Mom was bigger than her."
"Was she as TALL AS ME?"
"You're a tree trunk."
He makes a noise like an elephant.
"A TREE TRUNK. God, Sammy."
"Let me see some ballet."
"Okay!" She gets up and shows off all her different positions. First position, second position, third position, on and on and on. She knows them all.
She says, "You know what? Tree trunks are a shape that stays still."
Kylie is good at two things: ballet and Sammy.
Sam's feeling good enough to get up and make her some dinner (Kylie can't have her favorites here, like peanut butter sandwiches and cheese and crackers and stuff, but that's okay) but he stops in the hallway and whispers, "Kylie. Come here."
"Do you need help?"
"Shh shh shh, no." He picks her up when she gets to him and points around the corner. "Look."
Mom and Dean are kissing!
KYLIE SO CALLED IT.
**
So it turns out Dean and Mom have been dating all secretly for a while. Mom says it wasn't a secret, Kylie just wasn't paying attention. Yeah whatever.
"Then how come Sammy didn't know either?"
"Sammy totally knew."
"He laughed at you guys kissing with me."
"Maybe he just thought it was funny."
Kylie thinks about it. "You are pretty short for him."
"Imma smack you."
**
What's weird is that Dean and Kylie's mom have been all kissy-face for like months now, and they're over at Dean and Sammy's house like all the time, so yeah, what's really weird is that Dean's never been to their house.
It's not like there's much there, and now that Kylie has the Winchesters' house (because there is a spot on Sam's bed for her, therefore it is hers) she doesn't know why anyone would ever go there either, except to see Bowser. They have two cats who are special cats that Sam isn't allergic to, but Sammy's so allergic to Bowser that he can't even come and run around in their backyard--and Sam gets all upset what if he got into the garden and twists and twists his hands--so they go home to see him and Kylie hugs him so hard and falls asleep holding him like a big pillow.
Bowser is her knight in shining armor, and before Sammy he was the prince to her princess, so it's very confusing when Dean finally comes to her house to pick up Mommy and bring over some cookies Sammy made and Bowser goes up to see him, well-trained, sweet big boy Bowser, and Dean's all of a sudden in the corner of the kitchen with his knees up and his arms over his head.
Uncle Matt's here to babysit and e tugs back on Bowser's collar and frowns a little watching Dean, kind of worried and kind of Kylie, what is your mom doing with this guy, and what's she's doing right now at least is crouching in the corner and talking to Dean all soft, running her hand up and down his shin.
Kylie drops her doll on the floor (whatever, doll) and runs across the kitchen and plops down next to Dean.
Mom says, "Kylie..." But Kylie's seen this. She's seen this a hundred times on her best friend, who sometimes flinches at light and sudden noises and nothing at all. She knows this. She's never been this close to Dean before, not really.
She never thought he and Sam looked much alike, but now she does.
She rests her head against his arm. "You're safe," she says. "Close your eyes and pretend you're with Sammy."
It takes a long time, but Dean eventually uncurls enough to kiss Kylie on the cheek and then Christa really hard on the lips.
"I love you," he tells Christa, and the way she smiles, slow and whole-face and Mommy you are beautiful, makes her think maybe this is the first time.
And then he says, "I love you, Kylie," and that is absolutely the first time.
And, holy shit, you know? Because she loves him too.
**
Kylie has three friends: Sammy, her big bloodhound, Bowser, and Dean.
That same night she's cold and sick to her stomach with high fever and oh God this is so bad when is Mommy getting home, uncle Matt is sweet and lovely and warm blankets but where is Mom, and then there she is, patient and nervous and then dripping sweat and shaking like her hands do sometimes and then Dean is back, hi Dean, fix us, and he talks to them for a long time and tells them demons and angels are real and there was something in the water.
"Does this mean Sammy's really going to be with Dean Jessica?"
Mom's frowning, shaking her head a little, getting up and pacing, what's wrong, Mom? but Dean pulls her up in his lap. "Absolutely. And me too someday. That's the most important part."
"I THOUGHT so."
"You're a smart cookie, Kybot."
That's a goofy nickname. She loves it. "Can I have a cookie?"
"Of COURSE." He heads to the kitchen and she hangs onto his shirt. Bowser's in the yard. It's okay. Dean watches him through the window for a few seconds and Kylie tugs on Dean's shirt until he looks at her instead.
"Can I have a cookie shaped like a ghost?"
"Ghosts just look like people!"
"Then make a gingerbread man, good GRACIOUS, Dean."
"God, you beautiful girl. Let's do it. Find gumdrops."
They make gingerbread ghosts!
Mommy even eats one while their fevers go down. They were sick from whatever was in the water. It had something to do with demons. That's pretty uncool. Dean says Sammy's sick at home but Cas has him.
"Can we give him a gingerbread ghost?"
"Nah, eggs and butter in this."
"Sammy's allergic to ghosts."
"That's pretty valid, Kylie."
"Man."
"Man?"
"I just LOVE Sammy."
"Me too, Kybot."
"So."
"So what?"
Oh come on, Dean, that means there's nothing more to say, "SO."
"You got it, kid. So." He looks up at Christa. "How are you?"
"I have to see a wendigo," she says. "Before I'll believe this. Fetch me a wendigo."
"I can show you a picture of Sam and a dead chucacabra."
She thinks. "I accept. God, this is fucking..."
Kylie says, "God, mom, it's just a THING."
"Ha. Maybe you're right." She plops down in a chair at the table and fiddles with the bottle of glitter sprinkles.
Kylie says, "So," and opens it for her.
Christa kisses him and spends the rest of the fever curled on his lap.
"You know what?" Dean whispers, once she's asleep. "I think I'm gonna marry her someday."
"Ooh, yes please."
"Want another cookie?"
"It's past bedtime though."
He breaks off an arm--ouch!--and slips it between her teeth. "I won't tell."
Dean.
Well.
So.
**
It's probably so bad to say this, but the night Sam wakes up so sick is maybe the worst night of Kylie's whole life (and yeah, she knows what she's saying there).
Sammy wakes up sick all the time, sometimes because his medicine is too strong and it hurts his stomach and sometimes because he had a nightmare and he's so scared and can't breathe and sometimes when he's all calm but still just can't breathe because his asthma just does that sometimes. Kylie sleeps in what is supposed to be Sammy's room but Sammy can't go up the stairs very often anymore so he has a bed in the living room and they got a bed just for her that has a fairy painted on it and she sleeps in here, but the thing is that it's right above Sammy and Cas's living room bed and she can hear him some nights when he coughs a lot and somehow tonight he wakes up and he's not coughing at all.
She doesn't know what that sound is, she's too far away, it's this groaning sobbing choking and then she's down the stairs and she still doesn't know what it is and she can still barely hear it because Mom and Dean are running down the stairs and everyone's yelling and Kylie moves to the corner and for the first time ever, because not when he cries things that don't make sense and not when he yells and throws things at people who aren't there and not when he is bleeding from cuts she doesn't know how he got, but now, right now, for the first time ever she is afraid of Sam.
He's so sick and he's making noises like an animal and like he might die and she is scared of him.
A bad friend.
**
Sammy comes home from the hospital after a couple of weeks (Kylie has to go back to school, which is stupid, especially because it's stupid kindergarten) with a bag called an LVAD that reminds Kylie of Mom's big medicine bad but it's not that heavy, but Sam has to carry it all the time because it's attached to his chest with a bunch of tubes and stuff.
"Does it hurt?"
"Nope. After surgery it did but not anymore."
"What does it do?"
"It helps my heart do its job until I get a new one. It's a best friend for my heart."
"Like me!"
"Except I don't ever want a new best friend."
This bag is kind of ugly. "Can I bedazzle this?"
He laughs and laughs and she's scared his heart is gonna stop but it doesn't and then he says yes, of course she can, and they bedazzle together.
**
Kindergarten is even worse than preschool. Stupid Cara trips her and she falls down the stairs and she's all "it was an accident!" to Mrs. Kay and then she's totally laughing to her stupid friends.
Her ankle hurts but Dean says it's not broken. He wraps it up tight and it doesn't hurt as much. "How'd you know how to do this?" she says.
"We got hurt sometimes on hunts. Had to know how to patch each other up pretty good.
"Whoa, that's cool."
He kisses the top of her head and says no dancing for two weeks, ugh, what?
Later she hears Dean whispering, "I don't understand, why don't they like her?" to Mom and he sounds like he's maybe gonna cry.
**
Kylie and her mom have Christmas Eve at Matt's house with his girlfriend Rachel, who Kylie can tell doesn't like kids but still likes her, so that's okay. She doesn't know how to play pretend, but she asks Kylie polite questions about which of her dolls are the big sisters and which are the little sisters and Kylie appreciates it. Matt stretches out on the floor to play with her while Rachel and Christa set the table. Kylie found out recently that Sam and Matt are both twenty-eight and born two weeks apart and she likes that. They're both the best at playing with her.
Matt does voices for Soarin' and Applejack and marches them across the floor. Bowser nuzzles his hand and flops down on the floor behind then so he can rest his head on Matt's shoulder.
"Is Dean still afraid of him?" Matt says.
"Uh-huh, but he likes him too. He's afraid of him and likes him all at the same time." Dean's afraid of dogs because it means something, Kylie knows that now. Something bad happened to him with demons and dogs. Demons are really, really bad.
"How do you like him?" Matt says.
"I like him in lots of ways. Silly question."
"Ha, I mean how much."
"Oh, plenty." She wiggles Fluttershy around on her side. "He came to career day at my school and he told them about fixing cars and he brought everybody nuts and bolts! But Mrs. Kay took them away because apparently they are a choking hazard seriously are we three."
"Nope!"
"Exactly."
"Four and a half."
"Yes!" Almost exactly.
"What do you want for your birthday?" It's a silly question because it's Christmas and she's getting presents in the morning, but if she says something he already got her he'll be super happy.
"A new tutu and a Tonka dump truck. I also want Lego castle and a pretty collar for Bowser and a heart for Sammy. And a baby sister."
And sure enough Matt says, "Maybe you're getting some of those tomorrow."
"I hope it's the Lego castle then, and the heart and the baby sister."
Matt kisses the top of her head.
They have honey ham and green beans and cheesy potatoes for Christmas Eve dinner and Kylie is just in socks and Mom tickles her foot under the table and then acts like she doesn't know why Kylie's laughing, kids these days, and before Matt leaves he gives her one present to open tonight and says he hopes she likes it.
It's Lego castle.
Maybe she'll get the others tomorrow.
**
At Sammy and Dean and Castiel's house she gets her tutu but that's it, and seriously, did she not drop enough hints about that dump truck? Oh well. Six months until her birthday.
Sam can probably wait that long for his heart, everybody says. He's not getting worse right now. He has bad days and bad weeks and everyone gets nervous that that's just how it's going to be from now on, but then it's over and he's back to how he was, which is very sleepy and in bed a lot and very happy and cuddly. Sam calls it being a delicate flower. Mom calls it conserving his energy and rolls her eyes at Sam and Cas when they're together.
Sammy gets warm socks and a bathrobe to wear in bed and he's so happy, and Cas gets t-shirts with slits cut in the back for his wings and that makes him very happy too.
Dad gets a watch with words in the inside that he doesn't let anyone see and he just rests his head against Mom's shoulder and Mom gets earrings and squawks about how much they must have cost and Dean no you have to return these and Dean kisses her for a long time and snaps them on her ears.
And then there's one envelope left and it has Kylie's name on it and she thinks maybe they shrunk down a heart or a sister or a Tonka truck.
But no, it's three nights of tickets to the Nutcracker for everybody and she hugs her knees and even though they can't have a fire because of asthma she feels so, so warm.
**
Kylie misses her first mom and her dad lately. It comes in waves. It's just February and that isn't important for any reason special reason, it's not a holiday and it's not when they died and it's not anybody's birthday, but maybe that's what's so hard right now, that there are these totally normal days and they're not even here for them. They're not just missing the big things, they're missing going to the grocery store and driving Kylie to ballet (they've never even seen her do ballet) and sitting by the window and racing rain drops with her.
She doesn't want to get out of bed, so Mommy brings her laptop upstairs and they watch Tangled and eat popcorn.
"Sometimes all you can fucking do is just eat some popcorn," Mom says, and Kylie throws a piece into the air and catches it in her mouth.
**
A few days after that, it's Tina's birthday at school, and Kylie bites into a cupcake and that's the last thing she remembers.
She wakes up all bruised from hitting the floor, and she's dizzy and itchy and sick to her stomach. There's an IV coming out of her hand and it looks like the tubes Sam has in his chest. Whoa.
She seems her mom through the window. She's talking to some doctor, looking at a chart. She always does this. Kylie goes to the doctor for an ear infection and as soon as they get there Mom gets all bossy like she's actually an ear doctor too.
Someone shifts around in the chair next to her. "Hey, sweetpea." It's Dean!
"Hi."
"Want some apple juice?"
she nods and he holds the cup for her and she slurps through the skinny straw. "What happened?"
"Does your leg hurt?"
"YES. How did you know!"
"You got an EpiPen, kiddo. The nurse at your school was so quick with it. I'm gonna send her a fruit basket." This is like Dean's go-to thing to say but Kylie isn't sure he's ever actually sent one. It's like when Sam cries about invisible spiders, maybe.
"Like Sammy?"
"Just like Sammy. And your uncle Matt."
"And my mom." She remembers. (She never forgot.)
Dean looks through the window and frowns a little. "Your mom?"
"Mila."
"Gotcha. Can I sit with you?"
She nods, and Dean climbs up on the bed next to her and she tucks into his side. He smells his auto shop and also like Sammy.
"My skin hurts," she says."
"Yeah? On your arms?"
"Uh-huh. The sheets scratch it."
"Damn sheets."
"Exactly, Dean."
And then she's crying and she doesn't know why, and Dean's rubbing her back and saying, "Aw, honey, I know, it's okay. The medicine does this, Sammy always cries, it's okay. Oh, sweetheart..."
She pushes her face into his side and cries some more.
**
But really it's okay. She gets allergy tests (she's not even allergic to peanuts, just like every other nut, and Sammy gives her this long really boring explanation about how peanuts aren't nuts and Kylie pretends to fall asleep on him) and she gets a little purse for her EpiPens that she can wear across her body like Sam wears his LVAD. He sits with her and uses the practice one to show her how to do it, and after that she runs around fake-stabbing everyone in the leg.
Sam's not so good today. He's in bed with Dean, propped up on a whole load of pillows, resting on Dean's shoulder. He has the oxygen mask on and he's white like a not-real-ghost and his eyes are all droopy. Dean's rubbing circles on his back and every once in a while he turns his head just a little to kiss Sam's forehead and mumble something that makes Sam relax his shoulders and nod a little.
"Matt and Mila were like that," Mom says, when Kylie comes into the kitchen to sit with her. She slides her bowl over and Kylie helps her snap the ends off of green beans.
"Like best friends?"
"Uh-huh. They just had their own little world, those two."
"Not you?"
"I don't know. I loved them, but I was always going somewhere else. Maybe I let them know it too much. Your mom was always calling me a snob."
"You have grape juice shoes. You're not a snob."
"Do they make you happy, honey? Sam and Dean?"
"Of course."
"Yeah?"
"I think...I think maybe I want to love lots of people so then I'll be more like them."
"C'mere." Mom hoists Kylie onto her lap and kisses her cheek. "They've got a lot of love, huh?"
"They could spread it around more if you ask me."
She laughs. "You've got a point there."
"But we get some so it's okay."
"We deserve that, huh?"
Kylie nods and chews on a bean. "I have my own little world just us, Mom."
"That's the best part," she says, and she picks up Kylie and dances around the kitchen with her. She's a bad dancer and Kylie loves her so much.
**
Sam turns twenty-nine in May but they don't do much for it because he's really sick now. At first Dean was angry and Cas was cuddly but now it's the other way around a lot and Cas growls and looks through medical journals and Dean curls up on the bed with Sammy and they both talk quietly to Christa while she checks Sam's monitors and his oxygen tank. It looks like a hospital here now.
They stay here about the same amount of nights they stay at home, and a little bit before Kylie's fifth birthday Mom has pancakes with her back at their house and says, "How would you feel about moving in with Dean and Sammy and Cas?"
"You know what?"
"What."
"That would be really convenient because I am always forgetting stuff."
"Right? I do the exact same thing. I'm like well, fuck, I guess I'm not updating any files today because I left my laptop at Dean's and apparently I'm too lazy to drive ten minutes."
"You're really lazy." Kylie brought her her juice in bed today. Lazy.
"I'm about to be really full of pancakes after I eat yours up."
Kylie folds up a huge piece and crams it in her mouth.
"Don't choke."
Kylie doesn't choke because seriously, she's not three.
"So that would be okay? We could start kind of gradually, just moving stuff over there. Matt might take this place. His apartment's kind of small for two people and a dog."
"And a dog?"
Oh.
"That's the thing," Mommy says. She plays with Kylie's fingers on her fork.
"Bowser can't come."
"They're both pretty scared, and Sam is so allergic."
"He couldn't come and stay outside?"
"We don't want to do that to him. Uncle Matt will take good care of him, and we can visit all the time. He already spends a ton of time with Matt and Rachel anyway."
Kylie sniffles and feeds Bowser some of her pancake.
"It's tough, huh?" Mom says.
Kylie nods, staring down at her syrup.
"He reminds you a lot of LA, huh? Of being with your parents?" Mommy doesn't beat around the bush, Dean always says.
"Y-y-yeah."
"That makes a ton of sense, baby. It would be a big step, living without him."
"A good step or a bad step?"
"I wish I could tell you this is some kind of lesson I want you to learn."
"It's just a thing."
Christa fixes one of Kylie's twists. "Uh-huh."
"Promise we'll visit him all the time?"
"I promise."
"How come we're moving now? 'cause of sick Sammy?"
"That's a big part of it. Dean and I have been talking about doing it for a long time, but kind of like it was just this thing in the future, but Sam really needs someone around all the time now and I can shift appointments around to be there when Cas and Dean can't be."
It's cool how Mom talks to her like she's a grown-up and all, but that was kind of long and boring. She takes one more bite of her pancakes, says, "All done," and brings her plate to the sink where her Mom's started the dishes. Mom nudges Kylie's stool out from under the table so she can help.
"Does this mean you're gonna get married?" Kylie says.
"Hmm."
"HMMM? Answer the question, young lady."
"I'd say at this point there's a better chance that we will get married than that we won't get married."
"How many percents?"
"Maybe seventy."
"Oh, it should be more than that."
"You think?"
"I want a baby sister like now."
"Well, I'm not pregnant, so it's not gonna happen for like a year at least. At LEAST."
"I don't even understand why you're not pregnant because you guys have sex like a lot."
"I never should have told you what sex was."
"I told Stanley Gerkins at school and he said I'm lying."
"Well, the good news is with a name like Stanley Gerkins he'll probably never find out."
"Have a baby."
"Maybe."
"It should be soon because then me and the baby will be the same difference as Dean and Sammy."
Mom lifts her up by the shoulders and kisses her. "We'll see."
"Okay, get married, though. I need a new dress."
"Oh, you need one, huh? For all your soirees?"
"You're a soiree."
"You're using too much soap."
"I am NOT," Kylie says, and she claps her hands together and smiles as bubbles rain down.
**
Moving in with the Winchesters is a way bigger change than Kylie thought. It used to be Dean hardly ever picked her up from school, but now it's just as likely to be him than Mommy. She's there at funny times of the day like after lunch on half days when the house is quiet and Sam is sleeping and she plays Yahtzee with Cas. She can open the fridge and have a snack without asking. It's her fridge!
Maybe the weirdest part, though, is that sometimes she's alone with Sam when everyone else is at work (Cas takes odd jobs Sam says, and Kylie doesn't know what that means but she likes to say it). Supposedly Sam is the one babysitting her. Yeah okay.
Time alone with Sam. She feels bad for the billions of people who never get this.
They're lounging on his bed while he paints her toenails and she goes through his cooking shows super-fast on mute to make sure they're not making anything today that's gonna scare him. He doesn't like mallets or meat tenderizer or yeast and he really doesn't like rice. He likes a lot of the stuff he's allergic to. He's weird and perfect and she doesn't forget things about him because they're her favorite things.
"Hey Sam?"
"Uh-huh. I'm doing this toe purple." He has to breathe between every few words.
"When I get older maybe we can get married?"
"I'm already married!"
"Yeah, to two." Sammy gets to go see Dead Jessica sometimes now and he says someday of course Kylie can meet her and he says that Dead Jessica has a ring that matches his and Cas's. They're all three married. One time she asked Sammy if Cas and Jess were in love too and Sam said yes but it took him a little while. "Who says you can't marry three!"
"Whoever marries you should be just for you."
"Why?"
He blows on her toes and she giggles. It's hardly any air, though. "Because I want them to have lots of time to paint your toenails and stuff."
"I'll paint yours." She tugs his sock off.
"Okay. Don't do blue."
"I know, Sammy."
"How's that dogface Mary Ellen from dance class? Still a dogface?"
"Yes. YES."
"Uh-oh. What'd she do."
"Called me a bad name."
"God, what a dogface."
"Exactly."
"What name?"
"How old do I have to be before we can get married?"
"Kylie..."
"I don't want to talk about it, okay?"
"You're beautiful, and you're the sweetest person I've ever met, and she's just jealous because you're a better dancer than everyone in that damn class."
"I'm gonna get to go to the city soon for better lessons."
"Yeah?"
"Uh-huh when I turn six. It's a better company but you can't join unless you're six. And you have to try out but I'm gonna get it."
"I know you will."
"So. How old?"
"How old's your mom?"
"Thirty-one but she's not married."
"So thirty-two, then."
"Are you still gonna be alive when I'm thirty-two?"
"Nah."
"Well I can marry you in Heaven like Dead Jessica."
"Good idea. C'mere. You can do my other foot later." He hauls her up and kisses her cheek.
"How long are you gonna live, Sammy?"
"It's tough to say."
"Maybe not long, huh."
"Yeah, maybe not long." He rubs her back. "Depends if I get a heart. If I do I'll live for a nice long time."
"How long?"
"Well, that heart will last me another five or ten years, and then I can get another one."
"So you could get like a bunch more and live until I'm thirty-two."
"Sure, baby."
"What if you don't get one?"
"Then not so long, maybe."
"Like a year?"
"I hope so," he says.
"So not really then."
"Probably not."
"Are you scared?"
"Uh-huh. You gotta take care of them for me, okay?"
"I will."
"Don't be scared, baby, okay?"
"I am scared."
"I know. Me too."
"Does it hurt?"
"Right now? Yeah."
"No, dying."
"Oh. Nah. I've done that before, remember?"
"Uh-huh. And Dean went to Hell."
"Ky? What do you know about Hell?"
"Nothing. It's just a word. It's just, like, a thing."
He shakes his head. "It's not."
"What do you mean?"
He flops down on his stomach and tugs her down with him. "Not my story, kid. He'll tell you when you're ready."
"I'm ready!"
"Well. When he's ready."
"Can I ask him?"
"Yeah. Yeah, you can ask him."
She crawls onto his back and kisses his shoulder blade. "I love you."
"You."
"I don't think dying is just a word either."
"Me neither."
"So."
He nods and cries a little and she pets his hair.
**
She doesn't get a chance to ask Dean for a long time because stuff moves really quickly all of a sudden but then it's the middle of the summer and they're in the hospital cafeteria and Dean got her a turkey sandwich and now he's shaking all these sugar packets and putting so many in his coffee and he says, "Okay, honey. There's something you should know."
It's just them here. Mom and Cas are upstairs in the waiting room.
He takes a deep breath. "When I was twenty-eight, Sammy got killed in a hunt by a bad guy. You know this part, right?"
"Uh-huh. He went to Dead Jessica."
"Exactly. But back then I didn't know that. I just knew that he was gone and I was scared and alone and I missed him so much. I hadn't ever..." He shakes his head a little. "I couldn't deal with not having him around. I'd been looking after him my whole damn life, you know?"
"Yes."
"And then...well, baby, you know what it's like to lose someone."
She knows what it's like to lose your whole world. "Yes."
"So I panicked, and I got Sammy that, but in return I had to go to this place called Hell."
"Okay."
"It's...it's a scary place, Kylie. It's full of demons--"
"Oh, demons are bad."
"Uh-uh. And the demons there are the worst ones. And their job is to turn the people down there into demons too." He rubs the back of his head and plays with the label on his coffee cup.
"How do they do that?"
"So they hurt people over and over again for a long time, and then when they don't...when it hurts too much and they can't do it anymore, they can stop getting hurt and hurt other people instead."
"When it hurts too much when girls are mean to me sometimes I kick them."
Dean smiles at her but he looks all sad.
"Um. Am I gonna turn into a demon?"
"Nah, it only happens down there. And it's a lot worse than kicking. Promise."
"Okay good."
"So they ask you all the time if you want to hurt people instead of being hurt anymore, and people say yes because they just want it to stop."
"That makes sense."
He looks up. "Yeah?"
"Of course."
"It's not very nice, though."
"I mean yeah but the world isn't so nice always, come on, Dean."
He reaches his hand to hers and plays with her fingers. "So I said no for a long time but then eventually I said yes. And I hurt a lot of people, Ky."
"Oh."
He nods. He's not looking at her anymore. "I didn't want to...I talked to your mom and I told her I couldn't keep this from you anymore. I didn't want you living with me and not knowing this fucking...thing that I have in me."
"What do you have in you, though?"
"Just that I made that choice. I can't..."
"Okay but you're not a demon, right?"
"No."
"'cause like salt and holy water and stuff."
"Good girl! Right."
"So then it's just this thing that happened in Hell. Like everybody else was doing it too. Like sometimes, okay, sometimes my mom goes to parties with her friends and she comes back and she smells like smoke and I'm like MOM YOU SMOKED and she's all guilty and she's like I only do it when I'm around all my friends who smoke, and that is PEER PRESSURE, Dean, but like, even if it's not her behaving like a very SELF-POSSESSED person not to mention not like a DOCTOR exactly, it's not like she's smoking all the time and it's not like she would have done it if she were alone. So."
Now he's watching her. "Kylie."
"I mean so probably my mom should find better friends but like it's not like you went to Hell 'cause you wanted to."
"I made the deal. I chose it."
"Well would you do it again?"
"Now I know he'd go to Jess."
"But you didn't. So."
"So."
"What I'm saying is it's not like you're going around beating up people now. Just monsters. They deserve it."
"God, Kylie." He clears his throat. "You're this amazing little thing."
"Thank you. But no, I think you're good. I'm glad you're not a demon because they seriously sound like assholes."
"Want to see something?"
"Is it like proof that you're a demon because don't do that to me right now."
"Oh shut up, squirt. It's a secret, though, okay?"
She nods, and he hands her a little box. She opens it and inside is the prettiest ring in the whole world, holy shit.
"Is this for Mommy?"
"Uh-huh. I'm gonna ask her as soon as stuff's settled down some. You think she'll say yes?"
"Duh."
"Heh. Good."
She gives the box back even though she wants to put the ring on so much. "Does this mean I call you Dad?"
"That's why I wanted to tell you all this. I couldn't...have you call me that--if you want--if you didn't know all this shit."
"So I'm supposed to?"
"Hey, no. You can call me whatever you want. I'd love if you did. No pressure."
"Iiiiiii don't know, Dean."
"That's okay too."
**
Sammy's new heart is named after a girl named Allison and he gets a tattoo of her name on the inside of his wrist, where Kylie's mom takes his pulse. Kylie runs her fingers over it and says, "You should get a tattoo of my name."
"Give me an organ and I will."
She grabs the skin of her stomach, goes "Blehhhhh" and dumps something invisible on top of Sam. He writes her name in Magic Marker super big all the way across his belly.
**
It takes him a long time to feel better because of all the new medicine and stuff, but by the beginning of the school year (stupid first grade) Sammy's well enough to play with her on the beach a little after school and he isn't all pale all the time and Dean's shoulders stop looking all tensed up whenever Sam's not an arm reach away and Mommy is smiling more and working hard and showing off her pretty ring and everything is perfect and great until one day Sam gets a high fever and so does Cas and then Cas leaves. He just leaves, and Sam cries and cries what if he's dead and Kylie holds him and sings the lullabies her mom did after her parents died.
By the end of October he's not back yet but Sam's a little more okay, cooking and getting out of bed again and smiling at Kylie, and one day Mom is throwing up and two days later she and Dean are having this all of a sudden wedding and then a month later oh surprise we're pregnant and come on, Kylie isn't stupid, yeah yeah, stomach flu, she's seen like any movie ever, but she is stupid HAPPY and she gets to go to the ultrasound and she is with Mom and Dean when they find out it's twins and they say "Look, Kylie. Look at your brother and sister" and everything is so, so great.
And then Cas comes home, and Kylie's pretty pissed at him, and Sam's all confused and upset but she pushes and pulls on him until they work it out and it looks like everything's going to go back to normal except even better than normal because two babies, but then way too early--right on Sammy's birthday, isn't that weird? huh--there are two babies, two tiny little babies, in incubators at the hospital with tubes all in them and they can't take them home.
Mommy cries all the time and Sammy takes care of Dean and everything stops, all of a sudden, because these babies are so small.
Emilia--Emmy-Jess--the one who looks just like Mom, is way smaller, but Jude, all light skin and soft hair and Sammy Sammy Sammy all over--is the one who can't breathe.
"Please get well," she whispers. "Please get big. Your mommy and daddy love you so much."
**
For her sixth birthday, Cas flies them all to Hawaii. It's a little late, a week after, because they had to wait until these two squirmy things lying on a beach blanket with their floppy hats were big and strong enough, but now they are a month and a half old and chubby and happy and Kylie loves to hold both of them on her lap at once and kiss them all over and then she likes to leave with Mom (who still cries so much, and everyone worries all quietly) and run towards the water as fast as she can and scream with Sammy scoops her up and throws her in, and at night she and Dean feed the babies bites of snow cone and watch Sam stand in the water with Cas on his shoulders spinning him around and telling him that they're flying.
"This is the damn life, huh, Kylie?" Dean says.
"Did you ever think you'd get this?"
"No way."
"Me neither," she says. He kisses the top of her head.
**
And now that night she wakes up from a nightmare, sweaty shrieking crawling broken dolls and blood and that car seat and she breathes hard and wet. For almost a minute she doesn't know where she is, but then there's that moon and there's Jude's soft little crying and okay, it's Hawaii, this is safe, this is okay.
This is the life.
She runs across the hall as fast as she can and stands at the foot of the bed. Her mom is curled up around her pillow. Even asleep she looks so sad.
So Kylie goes around to the other side of the bed and puts her hand on his wrist. He jerks a little and opens his eyes.
She says, "Dad? I had a bad dream."
And he picks her up and takes her outside and they name the stars.
Author:shangrilada(Kira)
Summary: Kylie's had a big three years.
Word Count: 9,989
Warnings: The beginning is the saddest part. I promise. Some rape talk, not a lot else.
Author's Note: So here is your outline of the first three years. Hopefully there will be a lot of places where you are like DAMN IT WAIT PAUSE I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED HERE. And you will, children. You will. Patience. For now, just let Kylie tell you a story (and go ahead and tell me in the comments which of these you want illuminated the most.)
She knows, she knows, that she should not have been old enough to remember, and that fact haunts her. Like a ghost.
**
Kylie has two friends: her dad and her big bloodhound puppy, Bowser. Daddy named him, but Kylie picked him out, and when she curls up on the floor with her head on her his stomach she feels her dad and she feels herself. She's two--ALMOST three--and most of the time she wonders who Kylie is, really.
She does know that her parents are going to a big fancy party. She lives in Los Angeles where the famous people are, and one time her mom said that was Billy Ray Cyrus at the grocery store and Kylie said "Who the hell is Billy Ray Cyrus?" and got a time-out. But her dad laughed.
Her parents aren't famous, not to everyone else, at least, but they still go to fancy parties. She knows that's where they're going because her mom is wearing the long spiky earrings that feel cold when she kisses her cheek goodbye.
Daddy picks her up. He gives her a tight squeeze and swings her legs around.
"When we get home we'll have cake," he whispers. Kylie's birthday is next week but her dad says birthdays should last more than one day. Dad sneaks out of bed once Mom is asleep and then sneaks cake out of the fridge and into Kylie's mouth.
Kylie kisses him so hard he says "Ouch!" which is just a game they play.
His cheek scratches her a little. "Ouch!"
"See you soon, angel."
**
Kylie's not an angel. She knows that now.
She also knows Daddy wouldn't see her soon.
**
Uncle Matt's the one who babysits, because Cool Aunt Christa is so cool but she's in San Francisco. Uncle Matt brings toys every time and acts like it's been months since he's seen her when really it's been like three days. She should count Uncle Matt as one of her friends, but he and Mommy are best best friends and Kylie doesn't share with her mom the way she does with her dad. Mom doesn't let her have cake at midnight, so.
Kylie and Uncle Matt play ponies and pounce on Bowser when he tries to eat Spitfire. The phone rings, and Matt pretends to pick Kylie up by the scruff of her neck, like a little puppy, on his way to answer it.
His voice changes, and he sounds serious.
But not that serious.
The policeman, she finds out later, was very unclear. There's been an accident.
"Come on, Kyler." He hoists her up on his hip. He always pretends she's heavy when she is actually very unhappily short. "We gotta go get Mom and Dad."
"They're at a party!"
"Yeah but they broke their car! We're gonna rescue them."
"BRAVE BRAVE KYLIE!"
"To the car!"
He buckles her into her carseat--she has a special Uncle Matt carseat and off they go. The streets are sparkly and splashy where it was raining before, but it isn't raining now. Maybe after they bring Mommy and Daddy to their party, Uncle Matt will take her home and put her in her pink rain boots and they can jump around.
Or maybe they'll bring Kylie to the fancy party for once, and she'll wear her Pretty Pretty Princess earrings because it's about time she got to wear those outside, MOM. Honestly.
"Kylie," Matt announces. "I do not know where we're going."
"Exploring!"
"It certainly looks that way. We ride!"
Kylie kicks her feet and looks out the window.
The car stops, suddenly, and her foot hits the back of Matt's seat. There's bright red lights and people standing around and where did they come from? There's white smoke coming from somewhere and something metal flashing over and over in the twirling lights. It smells like when Daddy burns hamburgers.
"Oh my God."
Matt doesn't sound like Matt.
"Oh my God. Holy shit. Kylie, don't look. Don't look, baby. Kylie, look at me." He turns around. He's crying. "Kylie, look at me."
She doesn't. She looks out the window. She sees blood and broken dolls.
She sees her carseat, her un-special, everyday carseat, shattered and thrown onto the street.
She whispers, "Ouch."
**
She doesn't know how long it takes. Maybe it's a few minutes and maybe it's days.
She's at Uncle Matt's first but then she cries and cries and Matt says, "No, baby, you're right, you're so right," and then they're back in Kylie's house. People come and go all the time and she hides under the kitchen table and wraps her arms around a leg and closes her eyes. They can still see her, but when they try to talk to her Matt makes them go away, and Kylie doesn't want to get up and go anywhere else because that would mean she has to get up.
A lot of the time, Uncle Matt sits with her and holds her and doesn't make her get off her post. He carries her to the bathroom when she nods at him and he feeds her oatmeal baby spoon by baby spoon.
She has hard, uncomplicated feelings. Bowser whines and nuzzles her hand.
Aunt Christa must have been here for a long time. Those clicks must have been her pretty shoes. That's what those were. She didn't ever look. But she's here now, wrapping herself around the same table leg and running her fingernails all soft up and down Kylie's spine and being quiet.
After a long time all she says is "I love you so much," and Kylie cries until it hurts.
**
If there was a funeral, no one told her.
She's pretty glad about that, now.
**
Uncle Matt is gone sometimes during the day, but Aunt Christa is always here. A few times on the phone Christa has to go, "No, this is her sister," because people think she is Kylie's mom.
SO when Christa tries to bring her a grilled cheese, Kylie snarls at her like Bowser does with fucking strangers and runs and hides in the shower.
She smells butter and cheese sizzling over and over again. She's so hungry. She crawls out of the bathroom eventually, and there is a hot sandwich waiting for her.
She eats it in four bites and tells Christa it was gross.
"Do you want some grape juice?" Christa says. She's sitting across from Kylie, chin resting on her hands, hands resting on the table. She is big serious red eyes. "Get the taste out?"
Kylie nods, and when Christa brings it she pours it out on her pretty shoes.
Christa says, "Huh. That was smart."
"I fucking hate you." She wants a time out. She doesn't care. She doesn't care.
Christa steps out of her shoes and sticks them in the sink. "I fucking love you."
After Christa's asleep on the couch (that's where they both sleep) Kylie climbs up the counter to open the fridge, gets the jug of grape juice, and pours some into all of Christa's shoes laid out by the door.
She checks on them in the morning, and there they are, still filled with grape juice. Matt would have thrown them all away and not said anything about it and she would have grabbed them and done them again. Mom and Dad would have put her in time out and whispered about what did they do wrong.
Christa, apparently, filled up Kylie's pink rain boots with grape juice.
Kylie giggles and claps her hand over her mouth.
**
Some number of nights later she shakes Christa awake in the middle of the night. Christa rolls over, drags a hand over her eyes, smiles at her a little. "Nightmare, honey?"
She shakes her head. She didn't sleep. She can't sleep on this couch anymore. It smells like Bowser now instead of Mom's perfume. "I want to sleep in my bed."
Aunt Christa nods like it isn't a big deal even though it is a huge deal, Aunt Christa, and she picks Kylie up and grabs her sheep blanket and brings her upstairs. Christa is much smaller than Mommy, but she's Mommy and Matt's big sister. Why is she so small.
Maybe she's sick.
Kylie should be taking care of her.
It's Kylie's first time upstairs and her first time in her room and it makes her cry so hard. Nobody's moved anything. Christa sits on the bed and holds her arms out and Kylie dives into them. Christa is skinny and warm.
Christa buries her face in her hair. Kylie's hair is a mess because she won't let anyone do it. She wants bantu knots like Christa.
"Want a story?" Christa says.
Kylie nods. "We have to sit on that side." Mom sat on the other side.
Christa scoots over and lets Kylie pick out a book. She chooses one Matt brought that she never read. Christa gathers it up, and while she reads to her, she eases the broken twists out of Kylie's hair and ties it into knots.
**
It's like that for a long time, just Kylie and Bowser and Christa and Matt, a lot. In October, Kylie asks for her birthday, and Christa bakes her a big funfetti cake and sings her "Happy Birthday" even though really she's been three for four months. She asks Kylie how old she wants to be, but Kylie chooses three. She likes the number three.
Aunt Christa doesn't go to work and Kylie doesn't go to preschool, so they go to the beach a lot and watch a lot of movies. LA is warm always and Kylie likes to build sandcastles. It hurts to like things. But she kind of likes it. Hurting feels good. Liking things feels good.
A few times, she accidentally calls her "Mommy." Not because Christa is her mother now or something, but because she forgets that Christa isn't real Mom, Mila-Mom, when she sees her from behind or from a funny angle or when Christa holds her hand in just the right way. Christa doesn't make a big deal out of it.
Around Christmas she has a nightmare that makes her shiver and crawl away from pictures in her head. She runs downstairs to the couch where Christa still sleeps and shakes her by the elbow.
"Mommy."
Christa stirs and sits up. "Okay, baby, bad dream?" She puts Kylie on her lap and puts her arms around her, kisses her. She's bony, small, smells like her shampoo.
"Mommy," Kylie says, and she means it.
**
Somewhere in all of this, Gramma dies. Kylie hadn't seen her in years.
Mom cries when she thinks Kylie is sleeping and Kylie makes cards and slips them under her door.
**
Sometime in February Christa-Mom sits her down and says, "How about a move?"
"How about we move to the kitchen? I'll bring glitter glue."
So they do, but Mom still says, "I think we're gonna move upstate, okay?"
"Where's upstate?"
Christa makes a shape with her glitter glue.
"That's California!"
"Uh-huh. Here's us. And here's where we're gonna go." It's almost all the way at the top.
"Where's San Fasisco?"
"Right here." It's close to the far away dot.
"What's its name?"
"Santa Rosa. Pretty, huh?"
"Yes."
"What do you say?"
"How come?"
"My friend found a job for me."
"Working with sick brain people?" That's what she did in San Fransisco.
"That's right."
"How come now?"
Mom smears the glitter glue with her finger. "Your grandma was really sad. I want to see if I can make other people be less sad."
"Can Uncle Matt come?"
"You know what? It looks like he's gonna."
"Can Bowser come?"
"Of course!"
"Are there beaches there?"
"Yes."
"Then okay."
**
Kylie hates Santa Rosa.
It's cold. Beaches don't matter when it's cold. There aren't any famous people here. There are quiet streets and gray days. Mommy's working now. Their house is too big for them. Uncle Matt lives twenty stupid minutes away. Bowser misses his friend who lived next door. Next door lady now says Bowser is too loud. She has to go to stupid preschool and she cries and kicks people and doesn't have any friends.
Stupid Santa Rosa. She cries for warm beaches and real life.
She stays inside a lot because it's stupid and cold and she twirls around when Mom plays pretty music so Mom takes her to the ballet. Tall beautiful girls stretch out and stand on their toes and spin faster than Kylie could ever think. She thinks about twirling siren lights and bad dreams and when she gets home she cries for magic and music. She begs Mom to take her back to the ballet, so she does, three times.
For her fourth birthday she gets to start lessons and she squeezes her mom so hard she says, "Ow!"
**
Mom helps so many people. They come to her sick and they talk to Mommy and get better. So many people call her all the time. She is happy. She writes notes to herself and cooks Kylie big dinners and asks her all about preschool and insults the mean girls in her class with her. Some of her patients are kids so her office has toys and sometimes after preschool Kylie gets to come play while Mommy finishes paperwork.
Patients aren't supposed to come then but sometimes people show up, and one of the shows up more than one time. He smells like coffee and a leather couch and he sits across from her Mom and twists his hands and talks about his brother Sammy and about other stuff. Some of it is stuff about rape. Mom does stuff with rape, which is when someone hurts you really bad even though you said no. Mom's job is helping them and she's the best at it.
The first time the man comes in he smiles and sits on the floor with Kylie after he talks to her mom. "Is this your daughter?"
"Uh-huh. Kylie, this is Dean. Remember Sammy? This is his brother."
Kylie has never met Sammy but all the time he leaves toys for her. She comes in and there's a new toy and Mom says, "Look what Sammy brought for you!"
"Hey, that reminds me." Dean reaches into his pocket and takes out a present wrapped in the paper Sammy always uses. "He told me to give this to you."
She tears the paper off. It's another pony. It's Spitfire who she already has from back home, but it's the thought that counts. So.
"I just LOVE Sammy," she says.
"He's pretty fond of you too, kid."
"He's never even met me."
"Well, your mom must talk about you a lot."
Mom groans. "You're gonna get me in trouble. I'm supposed to sit here all personality-less and shit and just nod while my patients talk."
"Yeah, see, Sam didn't want that."
"I swear, the kid fucking tricks me, too. I think he's all talking about himself and then I realize, no, we're having a damn conversation, when did this happen? Why am I telling you about my dog? Sam, man, I swear."
Dean says, "That kid."
"That kid."
Dean makes the pony nuzzles Kylie's hand. "You should come visit sometime, meet him for real. He likes visitors."
"Maybe I will or maybe I won't," she says, because it's not up to her. She doesn't have a driver's license.
"We'll make you green beans."
"I love green beans!"
"So does Sammy. Look at that."
Kylie kicks her feet and smiles as Dean gets up to go. He kisses Mom on the cheek and she rolls her eyes.
"Is that your boyfriend?" Kylie says when Dean's leaving. She hasn't had a boyfriend since the one right after they moved here who made he cry and one time he threw her down the stairs and Mom sprained her wrist. Kylie kicked him so hard and he didn't come back and afterwards Mom held her and said, "No one is ever going to treat us like that, no one in the whole world, not ever again," and Kylie asked if that was rape and Mommy cried and said no.
"Nah," Mom says. "He's just my friend."
"Then why does he kiss you!"
"'cause he's a goofball."
"He should be your boyfriend. He's nice."
"I don't want a boyfriend."
"But if you don't have a boyfriend then how will you get married?"
"Who says I want to get married!"
"It's just what people do."
"Well Dean isn't married. And neither is Sam. And neither is Matt."
"But Matt has a girlfriend. Does Sam have a girlfriend?"
"Sam might have a boyfriend. It's complicated."
"Does DEAN have a boyfriend?"
"I don't think so."
"Does DEAN have a girlfriend?"
Mom laughs and circles something on her paper. "I don't think so, Kylie."
"So."
"So just because he doesn't have a girlfriend I should marry him."
"He brings me toys."
"If I married every man who brings you toys I'd have to marry Uncle Matt, did you think about that?"
"You're weird."
"You're weird."
"Your FACE is weird."
"I aaaaam...all done here! Look at that! Let's go home and introduce this Spitfire to your other Spitfire."
"We can tape them together and have a FOUR-LEGS SPITFIRE!"
"See, I told you, you're totally weird." She hoists Kylie up on her back.
"You're weird for not getting married."
Mom spins around with her. "I don't need to get married. I've got all the company I need."
**
Kylie has two friends: Sammy and her big bloodhound, Bowser.
Sammy is really sick. A lot of Mom's patients are sick in their bodies too because being sick in your head is really taxing, Mom says, but Sammy is really really sick. He has bad asthma and can't breathe and he can't get out of bed so much, but when he does it's pretty great at playing freeze tag (which Mom says doesn't work with just two people but hello ponies are people too, Mom) and making brownies.
Because Sammy is so sick she gets to come over all the time now while Mom and Dean and their friend Cas take care of him. When she's going to be over for a long time, Dean sets up a special pillow and blanket on Sammy's bed so she can take her naps there. She has to take off her sweater before she gets into bed with Sammy because Bowser's hair makes him sneeze and she has to wash her hands because Sam's allergic to a lot of foods, which means that if he eats them he has to have a shot, which happened one time and Dean clung to Cas while Kylie hugged on and Dean gave him the shot and Mom petted his hair. They're a whole army for Sammy
Sometimes Sammy says things that don't make any sense. Sometimes they're scary--for him, not for Kylie, because Kylie's tough--but a lot of the time they're just silly.
"There are shapes that never stay still," he says. They're lying on their backs on the bed while Mom and Dean are off flirting somewhere, whatever. Cas isn't here today. Some times he isn't, although he and Sammy are totally in love and kissing all the time, it's so obvious.
Kylie makes squares and triangles with her hands and holds them above their heads. Sammy has his oxygen mask on, which is good. Sometimes he won't wear it. It's a good day, Kylie thinks.
She says, "Okay but what about shapes that stay still though? Like feet and stuff." She swings her feet up in the air.
"Your feet are moving! You're so full of shit!"
"Sammy LOOK," she says, and she holds them super still. "Look, they don't have to move. Look."
"What kind of a shape is a foot, anyway."
"A YOU SHAPE," she says, and then she tickles him with her feet until he's out of breath from laughing and he wrestles her down and kisses her cheek through the oxygen mask.
"You're my best friend, Kylie."
"You're my best friend too. Forever?"
"Uh-huh."
"How long are you gonna live? 'cause breathing."
"I think I'll be here for a while. But it's okay if I do die. I'm just going to Dead Jessica." Dead Jessica is in heaven waiting for Sammy. He sounds very sure and Kylie likes the sound of it and she likes the pictures of Dead Jessica so she doesn't question this.
"I don't want you to die though. Because what about the best friends thing."
"We'd still be best friends. Forever, Kylie."
"Even if you die or I grow up and get big."
"Exactly."
"Do you think I'll be big someday?"
"I dunno. Your mom is pretty short."
"Mila-Mom was bigger than her."
"Was she as TALL AS ME?"
"You're a tree trunk."
He makes a noise like an elephant.
"A TREE TRUNK. God, Sammy."
"Let me see some ballet."
"Okay!" She gets up and shows off all her different positions. First position, second position, third position, on and on and on. She knows them all.
She says, "You know what? Tree trunks are a shape that stays still."
Kylie is good at two things: ballet and Sammy.
Sam's feeling good enough to get up and make her some dinner (Kylie can't have her favorites here, like peanut butter sandwiches and cheese and crackers and stuff, but that's okay) but he stops in the hallway and whispers, "Kylie. Come here."
"Do you need help?"
"Shh shh shh, no." He picks her up when she gets to him and points around the corner. "Look."
Mom and Dean are kissing!
KYLIE SO CALLED IT.
**
So it turns out Dean and Mom have been dating all secretly for a while. Mom says it wasn't a secret, Kylie just wasn't paying attention. Yeah whatever.
"Then how come Sammy didn't know either?"
"Sammy totally knew."
"He laughed at you guys kissing with me."
"Maybe he just thought it was funny."
Kylie thinks about it. "You are pretty short for him."
"Imma smack you."
**
What's weird is that Dean and Kylie's mom have been all kissy-face for like months now, and they're over at Dean and Sammy's house like all the time, so yeah, what's really weird is that Dean's never been to their house.
It's not like there's much there, and now that Kylie has the Winchesters' house (because there is a spot on Sam's bed for her, therefore it is hers) she doesn't know why anyone would ever go there either, except to see Bowser. They have two cats who are special cats that Sam isn't allergic to, but Sammy's so allergic to Bowser that he can't even come and run around in their backyard--and Sam gets all upset what if he got into the garden and twists and twists his hands--so they go home to see him and Kylie hugs him so hard and falls asleep holding him like a big pillow.
Bowser is her knight in shining armor, and before Sammy he was the prince to her princess, so it's very confusing when Dean finally comes to her house to pick up Mommy and bring over some cookies Sammy made and Bowser goes up to see him, well-trained, sweet big boy Bowser, and Dean's all of a sudden in the corner of the kitchen with his knees up and his arms over his head.
Uncle Matt's here to babysit and e tugs back on Bowser's collar and frowns a little watching Dean, kind of worried and kind of Kylie, what is your mom doing with this guy, and what's she's doing right now at least is crouching in the corner and talking to Dean all soft, running her hand up and down his shin.
Kylie drops her doll on the floor (whatever, doll) and runs across the kitchen and plops down next to Dean.
Mom says, "Kylie..." But Kylie's seen this. She's seen this a hundred times on her best friend, who sometimes flinches at light and sudden noises and nothing at all. She knows this. She's never been this close to Dean before, not really.
She never thought he and Sam looked much alike, but now she does.
She rests her head against his arm. "You're safe," she says. "Close your eyes and pretend you're with Sammy."
It takes a long time, but Dean eventually uncurls enough to kiss Kylie on the cheek and then Christa really hard on the lips.
"I love you," he tells Christa, and the way she smiles, slow and whole-face and Mommy you are beautiful, makes her think maybe this is the first time.
And then he says, "I love you, Kylie," and that is absolutely the first time.
And, holy shit, you know? Because she loves him too.
**
Kylie has three friends: Sammy, her big bloodhound, Bowser, and Dean.
That same night she's cold and sick to her stomach with high fever and oh God this is so bad when is Mommy getting home, uncle Matt is sweet and lovely and warm blankets but where is Mom, and then there she is, patient and nervous and then dripping sweat and shaking like her hands do sometimes and then Dean is back, hi Dean, fix us, and he talks to them for a long time and tells them demons and angels are real and there was something in the water.
"Does this mean Sammy's really going to be with Dean Jessica?"
Mom's frowning, shaking her head a little, getting up and pacing, what's wrong, Mom? but Dean pulls her up in his lap. "Absolutely. And me too someday. That's the most important part."
"I THOUGHT so."
"You're a smart cookie, Kybot."
That's a goofy nickname. She loves it. "Can I have a cookie?"
"Of COURSE." He heads to the kitchen and she hangs onto his shirt. Bowser's in the yard. It's okay. Dean watches him through the window for a few seconds and Kylie tugs on Dean's shirt until he looks at her instead.
"Can I have a cookie shaped like a ghost?"
"Ghosts just look like people!"
"Then make a gingerbread man, good GRACIOUS, Dean."
"God, you beautiful girl. Let's do it. Find gumdrops."
They make gingerbread ghosts!
Mommy even eats one while their fevers go down. They were sick from whatever was in the water. It had something to do with demons. That's pretty uncool. Dean says Sammy's sick at home but Cas has him.
"Can we give him a gingerbread ghost?"
"Nah, eggs and butter in this."
"Sammy's allergic to ghosts."
"That's pretty valid, Kylie."
"Man."
"Man?"
"I just LOVE Sammy."
"Me too, Kybot."
"So."
"So what?"
Oh come on, Dean, that means there's nothing more to say, "SO."
"You got it, kid. So." He looks up at Christa. "How are you?"
"I have to see a wendigo," she says. "Before I'll believe this. Fetch me a wendigo."
"I can show you a picture of Sam and a dead chucacabra."
She thinks. "I accept. God, this is fucking..."
Kylie says, "God, mom, it's just a THING."
"Ha. Maybe you're right." She plops down in a chair at the table and fiddles with the bottle of glitter sprinkles.
Kylie says, "So," and opens it for her.
Christa kisses him and spends the rest of the fever curled on his lap.
"You know what?" Dean whispers, once she's asleep. "I think I'm gonna marry her someday."
"Ooh, yes please."
"Want another cookie?"
"It's past bedtime though."
He breaks off an arm--ouch!--and slips it between her teeth. "I won't tell."
Dean.
Well.
So.
**
It's probably so bad to say this, but the night Sam wakes up so sick is maybe the worst night of Kylie's whole life (and yeah, she knows what she's saying there).
Sammy wakes up sick all the time, sometimes because his medicine is too strong and it hurts his stomach and sometimes because he had a nightmare and he's so scared and can't breathe and sometimes when he's all calm but still just can't breathe because his asthma just does that sometimes. Kylie sleeps in what is supposed to be Sammy's room but Sammy can't go up the stairs very often anymore so he has a bed in the living room and they got a bed just for her that has a fairy painted on it and she sleeps in here, but the thing is that it's right above Sammy and Cas's living room bed and she can hear him some nights when he coughs a lot and somehow tonight he wakes up and he's not coughing at all.
She doesn't know what that sound is, she's too far away, it's this groaning sobbing choking and then she's down the stairs and she still doesn't know what it is and she can still barely hear it because Mom and Dean are running down the stairs and everyone's yelling and Kylie moves to the corner and for the first time ever, because not when he cries things that don't make sense and not when he yells and throws things at people who aren't there and not when he is bleeding from cuts she doesn't know how he got, but now, right now, for the first time ever she is afraid of Sam.
He's so sick and he's making noises like an animal and like he might die and she is scared of him.
A bad friend.
**
Sammy comes home from the hospital after a couple of weeks (Kylie has to go back to school, which is stupid, especially because it's stupid kindergarten) with a bag called an LVAD that reminds Kylie of Mom's big medicine bad but it's not that heavy, but Sam has to carry it all the time because it's attached to his chest with a bunch of tubes and stuff.
"Does it hurt?"
"Nope. After surgery it did but not anymore."
"What does it do?"
"It helps my heart do its job until I get a new one. It's a best friend for my heart."
"Like me!"
"Except I don't ever want a new best friend."
This bag is kind of ugly. "Can I bedazzle this?"
He laughs and laughs and she's scared his heart is gonna stop but it doesn't and then he says yes, of course she can, and they bedazzle together.
**
Kindergarten is even worse than preschool. Stupid Cara trips her and she falls down the stairs and she's all "it was an accident!" to Mrs. Kay and then she's totally laughing to her stupid friends.
Her ankle hurts but Dean says it's not broken. He wraps it up tight and it doesn't hurt as much. "How'd you know how to do this?" she says.
"We got hurt sometimes on hunts. Had to know how to patch each other up pretty good.
"Whoa, that's cool."
He kisses the top of her head and says no dancing for two weeks, ugh, what?
Later she hears Dean whispering, "I don't understand, why don't they like her?" to Mom and he sounds like he's maybe gonna cry.
**
Kylie and her mom have Christmas Eve at Matt's house with his girlfriend Rachel, who Kylie can tell doesn't like kids but still likes her, so that's okay. She doesn't know how to play pretend, but she asks Kylie polite questions about which of her dolls are the big sisters and which are the little sisters and Kylie appreciates it. Matt stretches out on the floor to play with her while Rachel and Christa set the table. Kylie found out recently that Sam and Matt are both twenty-eight and born two weeks apart and she likes that. They're both the best at playing with her.
Matt does voices for Soarin' and Applejack and marches them across the floor. Bowser nuzzles his hand and flops down on the floor behind then so he can rest his head on Matt's shoulder.
"Is Dean still afraid of him?" Matt says.
"Uh-huh, but he likes him too. He's afraid of him and likes him all at the same time." Dean's afraid of dogs because it means something, Kylie knows that now. Something bad happened to him with demons and dogs. Demons are really, really bad.
"How do you like him?" Matt says.
"I like him in lots of ways. Silly question."
"Ha, I mean how much."
"Oh, plenty." She wiggles Fluttershy around on her side. "He came to career day at my school and he told them about fixing cars and he brought everybody nuts and bolts! But Mrs. Kay took them away because apparently they are a choking hazard seriously are we three."
"Nope!"
"Exactly."
"Four and a half."
"Yes!" Almost exactly.
"What do you want for your birthday?" It's a silly question because it's Christmas and she's getting presents in the morning, but if she says something he already got her he'll be super happy.
"A new tutu and a Tonka dump truck. I also want Lego castle and a pretty collar for Bowser and a heart for Sammy. And a baby sister."
And sure enough Matt says, "Maybe you're getting some of those tomorrow."
"I hope it's the Lego castle then, and the heart and the baby sister."
Matt kisses the top of her head.
They have honey ham and green beans and cheesy potatoes for Christmas Eve dinner and Kylie is just in socks and Mom tickles her foot under the table and then acts like she doesn't know why Kylie's laughing, kids these days, and before Matt leaves he gives her one present to open tonight and says he hopes she likes it.
It's Lego castle.
Maybe she'll get the others tomorrow.
**
At Sammy and Dean and Castiel's house she gets her tutu but that's it, and seriously, did she not drop enough hints about that dump truck? Oh well. Six months until her birthday.
Sam can probably wait that long for his heart, everybody says. He's not getting worse right now. He has bad days and bad weeks and everyone gets nervous that that's just how it's going to be from now on, but then it's over and he's back to how he was, which is very sleepy and in bed a lot and very happy and cuddly. Sam calls it being a delicate flower. Mom calls it conserving his energy and rolls her eyes at Sam and Cas when they're together.
Sammy gets warm socks and a bathrobe to wear in bed and he's so happy, and Cas gets t-shirts with slits cut in the back for his wings and that makes him very happy too.
Dad gets a watch with words in the inside that he doesn't let anyone see and he just rests his head against Mom's shoulder and Mom gets earrings and squawks about how much they must have cost and Dean no you have to return these and Dean kisses her for a long time and snaps them on her ears.
And then there's one envelope left and it has Kylie's name on it and she thinks maybe they shrunk down a heart or a sister or a Tonka truck.
But no, it's three nights of tickets to the Nutcracker for everybody and she hugs her knees and even though they can't have a fire because of asthma she feels so, so warm.
**
Kylie misses her first mom and her dad lately. It comes in waves. It's just February and that isn't important for any reason special reason, it's not a holiday and it's not when they died and it's not anybody's birthday, but maybe that's what's so hard right now, that there are these totally normal days and they're not even here for them. They're not just missing the big things, they're missing going to the grocery store and driving Kylie to ballet (they've never even seen her do ballet) and sitting by the window and racing rain drops with her.
She doesn't want to get out of bed, so Mommy brings her laptop upstairs and they watch Tangled and eat popcorn.
"Sometimes all you can fucking do is just eat some popcorn," Mom says, and Kylie throws a piece into the air and catches it in her mouth.
**
A few days after that, it's Tina's birthday at school, and Kylie bites into a cupcake and that's the last thing she remembers.
She wakes up all bruised from hitting the floor, and she's dizzy and itchy and sick to her stomach. There's an IV coming out of her hand and it looks like the tubes Sam has in his chest. Whoa.
She seems her mom through the window. She's talking to some doctor, looking at a chart. She always does this. Kylie goes to the doctor for an ear infection and as soon as they get there Mom gets all bossy like she's actually an ear doctor too.
Someone shifts around in the chair next to her. "Hey, sweetpea." It's Dean!
"Hi."
"Want some apple juice?"
she nods and he holds the cup for her and she slurps through the skinny straw. "What happened?"
"Does your leg hurt?"
"YES. How did you know!"
"You got an EpiPen, kiddo. The nurse at your school was so quick with it. I'm gonna send her a fruit basket." This is like Dean's go-to thing to say but Kylie isn't sure he's ever actually sent one. It's like when Sam cries about invisible spiders, maybe.
"Like Sammy?"
"Just like Sammy. And your uncle Matt."
"And my mom." She remembers. (She never forgot.)
Dean looks through the window and frowns a little. "Your mom?"
"Mila."
"Gotcha. Can I sit with you?"
She nods, and Dean climbs up on the bed next to her and she tucks into his side. He smells his auto shop and also like Sammy.
"My skin hurts," she says."
"Yeah? On your arms?"
"Uh-huh. The sheets scratch it."
"Damn sheets."
"Exactly, Dean."
And then she's crying and she doesn't know why, and Dean's rubbing her back and saying, "Aw, honey, I know, it's okay. The medicine does this, Sammy always cries, it's okay. Oh, sweetheart..."
She pushes her face into his side and cries some more.
**
But really it's okay. She gets allergy tests (she's not even allergic to peanuts, just like every other nut, and Sammy gives her this long really boring explanation about how peanuts aren't nuts and Kylie pretends to fall asleep on him) and she gets a little purse for her EpiPens that she can wear across her body like Sam wears his LVAD. He sits with her and uses the practice one to show her how to do it, and after that she runs around fake-stabbing everyone in the leg.
Sam's not so good today. He's in bed with Dean, propped up on a whole load of pillows, resting on Dean's shoulder. He has the oxygen mask on and he's white like a not-real-ghost and his eyes are all droopy. Dean's rubbing circles on his back and every once in a while he turns his head just a little to kiss Sam's forehead and mumble something that makes Sam relax his shoulders and nod a little.
"Matt and Mila were like that," Mom says, when Kylie comes into the kitchen to sit with her. She slides her bowl over and Kylie helps her snap the ends off of green beans.
"Like best friends?"
"Uh-huh. They just had their own little world, those two."
"Not you?"
"I don't know. I loved them, but I was always going somewhere else. Maybe I let them know it too much. Your mom was always calling me a snob."
"You have grape juice shoes. You're not a snob."
"Do they make you happy, honey? Sam and Dean?"
"Of course."
"Yeah?"
"I think...I think maybe I want to love lots of people so then I'll be more like them."
"C'mere." Mom hoists Kylie onto her lap and kisses her cheek. "They've got a lot of love, huh?"
"They could spread it around more if you ask me."
She laughs. "You've got a point there."
"But we get some so it's okay."
"We deserve that, huh?"
Kylie nods and chews on a bean. "I have my own little world just us, Mom."
"That's the best part," she says, and she picks up Kylie and dances around the kitchen with her. She's a bad dancer and Kylie loves her so much.
**
Sam turns twenty-nine in May but they don't do much for it because he's really sick now. At first Dean was angry and Cas was cuddly but now it's the other way around a lot and Cas growls and looks through medical journals and Dean curls up on the bed with Sammy and they both talk quietly to Christa while she checks Sam's monitors and his oxygen tank. It looks like a hospital here now.
They stay here about the same amount of nights they stay at home, and a little bit before Kylie's fifth birthday Mom has pancakes with her back at their house and says, "How would you feel about moving in with Dean and Sammy and Cas?"
"You know what?"
"What."
"That would be really convenient because I am always forgetting stuff."
"Right? I do the exact same thing. I'm like well, fuck, I guess I'm not updating any files today because I left my laptop at Dean's and apparently I'm too lazy to drive ten minutes."
"You're really lazy." Kylie brought her her juice in bed today. Lazy.
"I'm about to be really full of pancakes after I eat yours up."
Kylie folds up a huge piece and crams it in her mouth.
"Don't choke."
Kylie doesn't choke because seriously, she's not three.
"So that would be okay? We could start kind of gradually, just moving stuff over there. Matt might take this place. His apartment's kind of small for two people and a dog."
"And a dog?"
Oh.
"That's the thing," Mommy says. She plays with Kylie's fingers on her fork.
"Bowser can't come."
"They're both pretty scared, and Sam is so allergic."
"He couldn't come and stay outside?"
"We don't want to do that to him. Uncle Matt will take good care of him, and we can visit all the time. He already spends a ton of time with Matt and Rachel anyway."
Kylie sniffles and feeds Bowser some of her pancake.
"It's tough, huh?" Mom says.
Kylie nods, staring down at her syrup.
"He reminds you a lot of LA, huh? Of being with your parents?" Mommy doesn't beat around the bush, Dean always says.
"Y-y-yeah."
"That makes a ton of sense, baby. It would be a big step, living without him."
"A good step or a bad step?"
"I wish I could tell you this is some kind of lesson I want you to learn."
"It's just a thing."
Christa fixes one of Kylie's twists. "Uh-huh."
"Promise we'll visit him all the time?"
"I promise."
"How come we're moving now? 'cause of sick Sammy?"
"That's a big part of it. Dean and I have been talking about doing it for a long time, but kind of like it was just this thing in the future, but Sam really needs someone around all the time now and I can shift appointments around to be there when Cas and Dean can't be."
It's cool how Mom talks to her like she's a grown-up and all, but that was kind of long and boring. She takes one more bite of her pancakes, says, "All done," and brings her plate to the sink where her Mom's started the dishes. Mom nudges Kylie's stool out from under the table so she can help.
"Does this mean you're gonna get married?" Kylie says.
"Hmm."
"HMMM? Answer the question, young lady."
"I'd say at this point there's a better chance that we will get married than that we won't get married."
"How many percents?"
"Maybe seventy."
"Oh, it should be more than that."
"You think?"
"I want a baby sister like now."
"Well, I'm not pregnant, so it's not gonna happen for like a year at least. At LEAST."
"I don't even understand why you're not pregnant because you guys have sex like a lot."
"I never should have told you what sex was."
"I told Stanley Gerkins at school and he said I'm lying."
"Well, the good news is with a name like Stanley Gerkins he'll probably never find out."
"Have a baby."
"Maybe."
"It should be soon because then me and the baby will be the same difference as Dean and Sammy."
Mom lifts her up by the shoulders and kisses her. "We'll see."
"Okay, get married, though. I need a new dress."
"Oh, you need one, huh? For all your soirees?"
"You're a soiree."
"You're using too much soap."
"I am NOT," Kylie says, and she claps her hands together and smiles as bubbles rain down.
**
Moving in with the Winchesters is a way bigger change than Kylie thought. It used to be Dean hardly ever picked her up from school, but now it's just as likely to be him than Mommy. She's there at funny times of the day like after lunch on half days when the house is quiet and Sam is sleeping and she plays Yahtzee with Cas. She can open the fridge and have a snack without asking. It's her fridge!
Maybe the weirdest part, though, is that sometimes she's alone with Sam when everyone else is at work (Cas takes odd jobs Sam says, and Kylie doesn't know what that means but she likes to say it). Supposedly Sam is the one babysitting her. Yeah okay.
Time alone with Sam. She feels bad for the billions of people who never get this.
They're lounging on his bed while he paints her toenails and she goes through his cooking shows super-fast on mute to make sure they're not making anything today that's gonna scare him. He doesn't like mallets or meat tenderizer or yeast and he really doesn't like rice. He likes a lot of the stuff he's allergic to. He's weird and perfect and she doesn't forget things about him because they're her favorite things.
"Hey Sam?"
"Uh-huh. I'm doing this toe purple." He has to breathe between every few words.
"When I get older maybe we can get married?"
"I'm already married!"
"Yeah, to two." Sammy gets to go see Dead Jessica sometimes now and he says someday of course Kylie can meet her and he says that Dead Jessica has a ring that matches his and Cas's. They're all three married. One time she asked Sammy if Cas and Jess were in love too and Sam said yes but it took him a little while. "Who says you can't marry three!"
"Whoever marries you should be just for you."
"Why?"
He blows on her toes and she giggles. It's hardly any air, though. "Because I want them to have lots of time to paint your toenails and stuff."
"I'll paint yours." She tugs his sock off.
"Okay. Don't do blue."
"I know, Sammy."
"How's that dogface Mary Ellen from dance class? Still a dogface?"
"Yes. YES."
"Uh-oh. What'd she do."
"Called me a bad name."
"God, what a dogface."
"Exactly."
"What name?"
"How old do I have to be before we can get married?"
"Kylie..."
"I don't want to talk about it, okay?"
"You're beautiful, and you're the sweetest person I've ever met, and she's just jealous because you're a better dancer than everyone in that damn class."
"I'm gonna get to go to the city soon for better lessons."
"Yeah?"
"Uh-huh when I turn six. It's a better company but you can't join unless you're six. And you have to try out but I'm gonna get it."
"I know you will."
"So. How old?"
"How old's your mom?"
"Thirty-one but she's not married."
"So thirty-two, then."
"Are you still gonna be alive when I'm thirty-two?"
"Nah."
"Well I can marry you in Heaven like Dead Jessica."
"Good idea. C'mere. You can do my other foot later." He hauls her up and kisses her cheek.
"How long are you gonna live, Sammy?"
"It's tough to say."
"Maybe not long, huh."
"Yeah, maybe not long." He rubs her back. "Depends if I get a heart. If I do I'll live for a nice long time."
"How long?"
"Well, that heart will last me another five or ten years, and then I can get another one."
"So you could get like a bunch more and live until I'm thirty-two."
"Sure, baby."
"What if you don't get one?"
"Then not so long, maybe."
"Like a year?"
"I hope so," he says.
"So not really then."
"Probably not."
"Are you scared?"
"Uh-huh. You gotta take care of them for me, okay?"
"I will."
"Don't be scared, baby, okay?"
"I am scared."
"I know. Me too."
"Does it hurt?"
"Right now? Yeah."
"No, dying."
"Oh. Nah. I've done that before, remember?"
"Uh-huh. And Dean went to Hell."
"Ky? What do you know about Hell?"
"Nothing. It's just a word. It's just, like, a thing."
He shakes his head. "It's not."
"What do you mean?"
He flops down on his stomach and tugs her down with him. "Not my story, kid. He'll tell you when you're ready."
"I'm ready!"
"Well. When he's ready."
"Can I ask him?"
"Yeah. Yeah, you can ask him."
She crawls onto his back and kisses his shoulder blade. "I love you."
"You."
"I don't think dying is just a word either."
"Me neither."
"So."
He nods and cries a little and she pets his hair.
**
She doesn't get a chance to ask Dean for a long time because stuff moves really quickly all of a sudden but then it's the middle of the summer and they're in the hospital cafeteria and Dean got her a turkey sandwich and now he's shaking all these sugar packets and putting so many in his coffee and he says, "Okay, honey. There's something you should know."
It's just them here. Mom and Cas are upstairs in the waiting room.
He takes a deep breath. "When I was twenty-eight, Sammy got killed in a hunt by a bad guy. You know this part, right?"
"Uh-huh. He went to Dead Jessica."
"Exactly. But back then I didn't know that. I just knew that he was gone and I was scared and alone and I missed him so much. I hadn't ever..." He shakes his head a little. "I couldn't deal with not having him around. I'd been looking after him my whole damn life, you know?"
"Yes."
"And then...well, baby, you know what it's like to lose someone."
She knows what it's like to lose your whole world. "Yes."
"So I panicked, and I got Sammy that, but in return I had to go to this place called Hell."
"Okay."
"It's...it's a scary place, Kylie. It's full of demons--"
"Oh, demons are bad."
"Uh-uh. And the demons there are the worst ones. And their job is to turn the people down there into demons too." He rubs the back of his head and plays with the label on his coffee cup.
"How do they do that?"
"So they hurt people over and over again for a long time, and then when they don't...when it hurts too much and they can't do it anymore, they can stop getting hurt and hurt other people instead."
"When it hurts too much when girls are mean to me sometimes I kick them."
Dean smiles at her but he looks all sad.
"Um. Am I gonna turn into a demon?"
"Nah, it only happens down there. And it's a lot worse than kicking. Promise."
"Okay good."
"So they ask you all the time if you want to hurt people instead of being hurt anymore, and people say yes because they just want it to stop."
"That makes sense."
He looks up. "Yeah?"
"Of course."
"It's not very nice, though."
"I mean yeah but the world isn't so nice always, come on, Dean."
He reaches his hand to hers and plays with her fingers. "So I said no for a long time but then eventually I said yes. And I hurt a lot of people, Ky."
"Oh."
He nods. He's not looking at her anymore. "I didn't want to...I talked to your mom and I told her I couldn't keep this from you anymore. I didn't want you living with me and not knowing this fucking...thing that I have in me."
"What do you have in you, though?"
"Just that I made that choice. I can't..."
"Okay but you're not a demon, right?"
"No."
"'cause like salt and holy water and stuff."
"Good girl! Right."
"So then it's just this thing that happened in Hell. Like everybody else was doing it too. Like sometimes, okay, sometimes my mom goes to parties with her friends and she comes back and she smells like smoke and I'm like MOM YOU SMOKED and she's all guilty and she's like I only do it when I'm around all my friends who smoke, and that is PEER PRESSURE, Dean, but like, even if it's not her behaving like a very SELF-POSSESSED person not to mention not like a DOCTOR exactly, it's not like she's smoking all the time and it's not like she would have done it if she were alone. So."
Now he's watching her. "Kylie."
"I mean so probably my mom should find better friends but like it's not like you went to Hell 'cause you wanted to."
"I made the deal. I chose it."
"Well would you do it again?"
"Now I know he'd go to Jess."
"But you didn't. So."
"So."
"What I'm saying is it's not like you're going around beating up people now. Just monsters. They deserve it."
"God, Kylie." He clears his throat. "You're this amazing little thing."
"Thank you. But no, I think you're good. I'm glad you're not a demon because they seriously sound like assholes."
"Want to see something?"
"Is it like proof that you're a demon because don't do that to me right now."
"Oh shut up, squirt. It's a secret, though, okay?"
She nods, and he hands her a little box. She opens it and inside is the prettiest ring in the whole world, holy shit.
"Is this for Mommy?"
"Uh-huh. I'm gonna ask her as soon as stuff's settled down some. You think she'll say yes?"
"Duh."
"Heh. Good."
She gives the box back even though she wants to put the ring on so much. "Does this mean I call you Dad?"
"That's why I wanted to tell you all this. I couldn't...have you call me that--if you want--if you didn't know all this shit."
"So I'm supposed to?"
"Hey, no. You can call me whatever you want. I'd love if you did. No pressure."
"Iiiiiii don't know, Dean."
"That's okay too."
**
Sammy's new heart is named after a girl named Allison and he gets a tattoo of her name on the inside of his wrist, where Kylie's mom takes his pulse. Kylie runs her fingers over it and says, "You should get a tattoo of my name."
"Give me an organ and I will."
She grabs the skin of her stomach, goes "Blehhhhh" and dumps something invisible on top of Sam. He writes her name in Magic Marker super big all the way across his belly.
**
It takes him a long time to feel better because of all the new medicine and stuff, but by the beginning of the school year (stupid first grade) Sammy's well enough to play with her on the beach a little after school and he isn't all pale all the time and Dean's shoulders stop looking all tensed up whenever Sam's not an arm reach away and Mommy is smiling more and working hard and showing off her pretty ring and everything is perfect and great until one day Sam gets a high fever and so does Cas and then Cas leaves. He just leaves, and Sam cries and cries what if he's dead and Kylie holds him and sings the lullabies her mom did after her parents died.
By the end of October he's not back yet but Sam's a little more okay, cooking and getting out of bed again and smiling at Kylie, and one day Mom is throwing up and two days later she and Dean are having this all of a sudden wedding and then a month later oh surprise we're pregnant and come on, Kylie isn't stupid, yeah yeah, stomach flu, she's seen like any movie ever, but she is stupid HAPPY and she gets to go to the ultrasound and she is with Mom and Dean when they find out it's twins and they say "Look, Kylie. Look at your brother and sister" and everything is so, so great.
And then Cas comes home, and Kylie's pretty pissed at him, and Sam's all confused and upset but she pushes and pulls on him until they work it out and it looks like everything's going to go back to normal except even better than normal because two babies, but then way too early--right on Sammy's birthday, isn't that weird? huh--there are two babies, two tiny little babies, in incubators at the hospital with tubes all in them and they can't take them home.
Mommy cries all the time and Sammy takes care of Dean and everything stops, all of a sudden, because these babies are so small.
Emilia--Emmy-Jess--the one who looks just like Mom, is way smaller, but Jude, all light skin and soft hair and Sammy Sammy Sammy all over--is the one who can't breathe.
"Please get well," she whispers. "Please get big. Your mommy and daddy love you so much."
**
For her sixth birthday, Cas flies them all to Hawaii. It's a little late, a week after, because they had to wait until these two squirmy things lying on a beach blanket with their floppy hats were big and strong enough, but now they are a month and a half old and chubby and happy and Kylie loves to hold both of them on her lap at once and kiss them all over and then she likes to leave with Mom (who still cries so much, and everyone worries all quietly) and run towards the water as fast as she can and scream with Sammy scoops her up and throws her in, and at night she and Dean feed the babies bites of snow cone and watch Sam stand in the water with Cas on his shoulders spinning him around and telling him that they're flying.
"This is the damn life, huh, Kylie?" Dean says.
"Did you ever think you'd get this?"
"No way."
"Me neither," she says. He kisses the top of her head.
**
And now that night she wakes up from a nightmare, sweaty shrieking crawling broken dolls and blood and that car seat and she breathes hard and wet. For almost a minute she doesn't know where she is, but then there's that moon and there's Jude's soft little crying and okay, it's Hawaii, this is safe, this is okay.
This is the life.
She runs across the hall as fast as she can and stands at the foot of the bed. Her mom is curled up around her pillow. Even asleep she looks so sad.
So Kylie goes around to the other side of the bed and puts her hand on his wrist. He jerks a little and opens his eyes.
She says, "Dad? I had a bad dream."
And he picks her up and takes her outside and they name the stars.