Callie came back after not too long carrying the three plates of food. Leila's hash browns were nestled in the crook of Callie's elbow while Sam and Dean's rested comfortably in their hands. Leila spent most of the time between their food being delivered guzzling her water. It saved her from having to talk when Dean was clearly not happy with their waitress thinking Sam and him were Leila's fathers. As they ate, Callie came back a couple times. Refilling water and coffee. Not asking any more questions about adoption, much to Leila's dismay. Seeing Dean Winchester squirm was something she was going to look forward to ask long as they were stuck together—Leila hoped it wouldn't be that long, but if it was, she was going to find a way to enjoy it.

Leila finished her hash browns quickly. Slathered in ketchup no less. It was faster than she'd finished a meal in a long time. She'd even surprised herself. Dean had quirked an eyebrow in her direction before exchanging looks with Sam. Leila assumed it was a silent conversation relating to the one they had earlier when she wasn't supposed to be listening. Her stomach twisted and she tried her best not to think about throwing her breakfast back up.

Leila looked around as Dean finished off his special. She took a sip of water as her eyes followed another waitress around the restaurant. Buzzing around like a bee, the waitress moved quickly. Disappearing around the corner of the restaurant that the entrance was, she came back around and walked over to a corkboard at the side of the restaurant. Pulling a thumbtack from the board she pinned a poster as Leila took another sip of water.

And she promptly choked on it when she realized what the poster was. Wiping below her nose with her napkin, Leila met the eyes of Dean, who was staring at her like she'd grown another head.

"Did you see Tony Rydinger, Violet?" Dean asked, his eyes wide. "Jesus."

Ignoring Dean's comment, Leila looked at both of them quickly. Her hand smacked against the table quickly. She stood up. "We need to get out of here. Like... now."

"What the hell are you—"

"Now means not after you ask questions, Dean." Leila felt her forehead crease with panic. "Unless you'd like to go to jail."

Sam and Dean exchanged looks and got up from their seats. Stuffing his hand in his pocket as he got up, Dean dropped a couple bills on the table to pay for their meal. Leila ripped the poster off the corkboard as they headed to the door, running out.

"Are you going to tell us what's going on?" Dean asked.

"Get in the car," Leila said. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage, threatening to break out of her chest. Like she was in Alien. "Go means not here."

Piling into the Impala, Dean drove out of the parking lot like he was a part of the Indy 500. Punching the gas so hard the tires screeched when they turned out of the parking lot. Which Leila appreciated, but knew if it had been any other circumstance, she would've had to open a window to vomit out of. Chests heaved as Dean drove away from the diner, everyone trying to regain their breath. Leila was just thankful it wasn't just her panting. She'd done more running in the last couple days than she had the entire time she'd been in PE.

When they were far enough away from the diner, Dean turned to look at Leila in the backseat when he pulled up to a red light. "All right, what the hell was that?"

Leila held up the poster she'd ripped from the restaurant's corkboard. There was information in small printing at the bottom of the page, but three big, bold words stood out at the top. Missing: LEILA CONNORS. Along with a couple photos of Leila that were older than she wanted to think about. She didn't even look the same.

Dean snatched the poster away from her flimsy grip. After a moment, Sam took it away from him when the light was green. The pit in Leila's stomach grew as Dean drove. He eyed her in the rear view.

"You're only five four?" he asked with an eyebrow cocked.

Leila crossed her arms and scowled. "Not all of us can be giants, asshat."

"You're a runaway," Sam breathed.

"You didn't figure that out?" Leila asked. "What did you think I was doing in some ass crack motel on the edge of the city? Having a vacation by myself? A little teenage getaway?"

"I thought you were kicked out on the streets and needed help," Sam said. His tone had an edge of anger that Leila hadn't expected. "Not that you chose to leave. Why would you do something like that?"

Dean was the first to speak up, which Leila hadn't expected either. And with a calmer tone than she'd heard from him in the short time she knew him. "I'm sure she's got a good reason," Dean said. He looked in the rear view like he was silently saying or at least make one up. "We all do. Right, mister Stanford?"

Sam looked at Dean accusingly but chose to bite back whatever words Leila was sure were itching to spill from his lips. His hands crinkled the missing poster in his hands, knuckles white from how hard his fists were clenched. Jaw tight from keeping shut. Leila wasn't sure what she was in the middle of, but she knew it was nasty. Nothing good between brothers.

The car was eerily silent. Only the sound of the roaring engine could be heard. Dean turned the radio on, trying to drown out the silence. Heavy sighs were almost completely muted by Long, Long Way From Home blasting through speakers. An air of irony rose between the trio as the lyrics sang I could feel the tension, I was longing for home. Dean slammed a hand on the stereo again to keep it quiet. The blanket of silence fell over them once again. Irony was worse than cold silence—though only marginally. Leila gulped as Dean pulled into the motel parking lot.

Without a word, he stopped the car in front of the lobby and got out. Opening the door, Leila kept her eyes trained on whatever he was doing. The same clerk from the night before came out and Dean talked to him for a moment before dismissively waving his hand. The clerk turned around and Dean quickly tore something off the wall. Leila's eyes widened when she realized it was another missing poster. She'd caught her name as he walked out, stuffing the poster into his jacket pocket. Maybe it had been a mistake to stop where she had, she should've left Fairfax behind completely, not just gone to city limits.

Starting the engine back up, Dean pulled into the parking spot outside their room. Leila still had to make sure to check out of hers, but she wasn't sure when the best time would be. Probably before the maids made their rounds, really.

The trio walked into the room. Leila's head was hung low, like she was bracing herself to be scolded. Like a child. Unprepared for what was going to happen next. Sam and Dean weren't her parents, but the anger both their faces held was enough to send Leila's stomach shooting upwards into her throat. An exact feeling she'd intended to escape by leaving.

Dean took a moment to take his jacket off but spared no further beats. He looked at Leila. "All right, explain."

"What do you mean?" Leila's voice was quiet. Not confident. Full of fear. She hated that feeling. Of being small. Helpless. Unsure of what to say to make everything better. A nag at her mind that there was nothing she could do to make everything better.

"Dean, I think we should relax before having this conversation."

"Explain what the hell this is, kid," Dean said, tossing the lobby's missing poster in her direction. Clearly not on his brother's side. Finding his own side. "What all this is."

"I ran away," Leila said. She tried and failed to swallow the lump that formed in her throat. "I already admitted that so I don't know why you're interrogating me."

Dean's eyes rolled and his hands dropped to his sides. "There's more to it than that."

He took a step forward and grabbed Leila's wrist, she jumped with the motion but didn't escape his grip. Twisting her arm roughly to ignore the stitching. Leila's heart sunk when she realized what he was getting at. Tears threatened to spill. If there was any time she needed to keep those tears from falling, it was then. It was now.

"You think I didn't notice this last night?" Dean asked. "Sammy's easy to read, and you're like an open book, kid. The story's all over you. What the hell is going on?"

Leila looked up at Dean. Unbridled anger was all over his face. And she would admit, she was scared. Dean Winchester was a scary man. Demanding to know what was going on with her. Exposing the scars on her arms for the three of them to see.

"Dean, cut it out." Sam's voice was low.

"Shut up, Sam," Dean said. "Not helping."

"You need to calm down."

Sam might have looked in Leila's direction. She didn't know. Her focus was on how tight Dean was holding her wrist. Tight enough that he could probably feel how hard her heart was pounding and still didn't let her go. His fingers easily wrapped around the circumference of her wrist. Like she was a child.

"Cat scratched me," Leila said. Swallowing hard. She felt frozen in place with fear. Unsure of what would happen if she tried to free her arm from Dean's grip.

"Multiple times?"

"Yes."

"Different depths?"

Leila nodded. A sharp, quick nod. One that would've been missed if Dean had taken his eyes off her for even a moment.

"Bullshit."

"Dean," Sam said. "Stop."

"You don't wanna know, Sam?" Dean looked at his brother. "What the hell we've got into this time?"

"I'm a person," Leila said, tugging her wrist free when Dean's grip slackened slightly. "Not a situation. Thank you very much."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then don't talk about me like I'm not here." Leila looked at her hands.

"What's going on, kid?" Dean asked. His voice was softer than it had been before. Less anger struck his words. A calm in the storm. Leila hoped it wasn't a hurricane where there were more winds to follow after they left the eye.

"I'm not... good. At dealing with feelings... with my feelings," Leila said. She refused to meet Dean's eyes. Or Sam's. Or look at anything other than her own hands. Scratching at the skin on the back of her hand. "Took them out on myself."

"You..."

"Yeah." Leila had become so numb to the feeling that her tears of fear had begun to subside. No longer threatening to pour from her eyelids. "I just... dealing with stuff... you know, they don't tell us how to do that. We learn algebra and calculus but not the kind of stuff that helps you function on a daily basis."

Leila thought back to the bereavement counsellors visiting the school. Ninth grade, freshman year. The year that everyone looks forward to as a new beginning. A start to the rest of their lives. Where they would find out who they were going to be.

She didn't really know what bereavement counsellors were for when she walked into wood shop that day. Sure, she hadn't seen her old friend for a couple days. But it was flu season. Everyone was missing days. It happened every year. People were dropping like flies.

They all returned. Except Greg Halliday. Those women were there for him. Well. On account of him. Leila hadn't spoken to him since elementary school. She'd seen him around, sure. But talked to? Not when they were in different friend groups. Greg had friends and she... well, didn't. And that was okay.

"My partner and I," one of the counsellors said when the bell had rung and the class was seated. "Regret to inform you that, for reasons the family have chosen not to share, Greg Halliday has passed away."

They went on to tell Leila's class that they were going to be at the school for the next couple weeks. For anyone who needed to talk. To vent. Or just a shoulder to cry on. But that was about all they said about feelings and how people should be reacting. That's all they said about what grief was. How it worked. What it meant. They never talked about how to deal with it. What needed to happen if they started feeling the same way Greg had. It didn't take long for the cause of death to spread. Suicide.

Leila hadn't even known he needed help. He was always smiling and joking around. Laughing and enjoying his life. A regular class clown, with grades to boot. It was hard imagining him still. Silent. Dead. In the next life. Hopefully one he enjoyed better than the one he'd been given. Leila wished that much for him.

That was a story for another day. The Winchesters didn't need that clouding their minds from fighting the demons popping up everywhere. Not if Leila wanted to get out of there as soon as humanly possible.

"The kind of stuff that tells you what grief is," Leila continued. She wiped away a couple tears that fell from her eyes. "What happens when you don't know what your feelings mean and why nobody seems to like you when you haven't done anything wrong."

"High school sucks," Dean said. "Historically. For everyone. You're not the only one who hated those years."

"You get caught running away, you don't have to go back, Dean," Leila said. "That's the scarier part. If this fails, I still have to show up. And people will be even worse. Because I decided I was going to leave and I couldn't even do that. Nobody will give me the honour of pretending it didn't happen."

"That's..." Sam trailed off like he didn't know what to say. Leila didn't blame him. She wouldn't have either.

"Heavy," Dean finished. That was about right.

High school pressed like an anvil on her chest when it should have been a weighted blanket. It was going to kill her before it made her better.

"Look," Leila said. "I'm going to take a minute in there." She pointed to the room separated from the rest of the room. "Don't come in. I don't want anymore questions. And trust me when I say you don't want anymore answers." Leila stood up and straightened out her shirt. "Just... don't bring it up again. Cool?"

Dean managed a weak nod. "Cool."

"Do your research or whatever," Leila said. "And when I come back out, we're going to pretend this entire conversation never happened."

"Capiche."

Leila could hear how hard Dean had swallowed. It almost made her sit back down to make sure he was okay.

She wished she could stop checking on people who didn't give two shits about her.

Walking into the room, Leila shut the door behind her. She didn't have the energy to walk to the bed. Drained of any ounce of energy she might've had, Leila pressed her back against the door and slid down it. Knees pulled up to her chest, Leila leaned her head against the door. Numbness encased her in a cocoon she was going to pretend she could use to evolve.

"Did you really think it was a good idea to approach her that... directly?" Leila easily identified the slightly muffled voice as Sam's. "I mean, come on, Dean. Weren't you a little harsh?"

Tears slid down Leila's cheeks like they decided gravity kicked in. She didn't bother wiping them away. Not like she had anywhere to be until these demons were dealt with.

"It wasn't the best." That voice was Dean. Still not as angry as he'd been earlier. "I'll admit that. But she hasn't told us the entire story."

"She'll tell us when she's ready, Dean. If ever." Sam let out a loud sigh. "You really freaked her out. It was like bad cop and bad cop. You didn't give her a chance to calm down."

"What was I supposed to do?" Dean asked. "I don't know how to deal with this."

"For one thing, screaming at her's not gonna help," Sam said. "Just... pretend she's me. What would you do if you found out I had something going on like she does?"

"Take you for a drive," Dean said. "But that's you. Not her."

"It doesn't matter," Sam said.

Leila wished her dad had taken her on a drive when he'd found her that day with his gun. Rather than keep her cooped up. Beady eyes never letting her out of his sight for the rest of the week. Or the months that followed. She was under radar practically twenty four-seven. And she hated it. At least going for a drive meant she'd have been out of the house. Away from the suffocating feeling of being inside. Around people she didn't want to be near.

Driving—even with someone in the car with her as she'd only just got her first permit—was something that always felt freeing. It was a new setting. Windows down, music up. The world faded away. Driving meant that everything paused while the tires were on the road. Freedom from a discussion for a later date. A saviour in the form of a cheap hunk of rust Leila affectionately called "dumb bitch." Her parents weren't the biggest fan of her nickname, but Leila was always calling the car names so one might have well just stuck, right?

"I'll try, Sammy," Dean said. "No promises I won't screw it up."

That made Leila smile. Softly. Where the corners of her mouth turned upwards but didn't do much more than that. Effort was effort, even if it was just Dean Winchester. She could appreciate that for what it was. Mostly.

"We have other things to do right now, though," Sam said. "I mean, we've gotta figure out what this demon is."

"Don't tell me we're going to a library." Dean groaned.

"Unless you think the internet is going to help."

Dean grunted. "Fine."

"Leila?" Sam called. "We're going to the library. Do you want to stay here or...?"

Leila stood up and stuck her head out the door. "Stay here. I still have to check out of my room. Should probably get that done."

And shower, she didn't add. The sweat she'd woken up in with the first demon was beginning to seep into her nostrils. Even shitty motel soap was better than that.

Sam nodded. "We'll be back soon."

Dean gave her a two finger salute as he and Sam walked out the door. Leila waited until she heard the roar of the Impala's engine grow fainter before she went back to the room and dug out a new set of clothes. She hadn't brought that many, no, but anything that hadn't been on her while she stunk was enough for her. Going to the bathroom, Leila quickly locked the door behind her and stripped off her clothes. Leila hadn't grabbed the shampoo she took from her own room, so she took Sam and Dean's from the counter.

Someone would replace it, right? Sure. And if they didn't?

No one was going to complain that Leila had showered, she was sure.

Showering felt great. Leila scrubbed everything that had happened the night before off her. Taking her time to make sure she felt like there was no square inch that the demon had touched. Even if she couldn't shampoo Ruby out of her brain, she was damn well going to try. Careful with the stitching in her arm, Leila wash that lightly. She didn't even hiss at the small pinches of pain from the soap.

Taking her mind off everything was taken one step further when Leila started singing. Low, at first. Slowly rising as her shower continued. Paradise by the Dashboard Light did wonders for making Leila feel like she had no care in the world. Eventually, Leila was yelling the lyrics. The sting in her arm where the stitches were didn't even dampen her mood.

There was something to be said about a nice, long shower. One that made the outside world seem less important. That took away worries if only for as long as the curtain was closed. Blocked out everything that could possibly be bothering Leila. Putting her mind at war. Showers were the Christmas truce. A calm in the storm. Exactly what Leila needed—a moment to breathe.

She didn't know how long she had been in there when she finally turned the water off. Still singing. Not a care. Leila wished she could feel that way more often. Worries were the black plague of her mind. Taking a moment to herself was a doctor's mask; a long nose full of flowers to fight it.

Looking in the mirror didn't even bother Leila. Not at that moment. She didn't poke at her stomach because she ate breakfast. Didn't wonder whether the hash browns had made her weight fluctuate. No wrapping her hands around her waist while she sucked in to see if they could touch on both sides.

Leila just... got dressed. For the first time in a long time, Leila just got dressed. Without worrying whether there were any minor changes to her body. She still sang. Top of her lungs. Like the world was supposed to hear her bad Meatloaf cover.

Once she was dressed, she wrapped a towel around her wet hair. Untangling it would happen when it wasn't soaked. Was it the best idea? No. But Leila couldn't remember if she'd packed a brush or not. Unlocking the door while she sang, Leila walked out with her other clothes balled up in her hands.

Her eyes widened when she stared at Sam and Dean. Who were definitely not at the library. Voice squeaking to a stop. Her face heated up, cheeks burning all the way to her ears. "You're not supposed to be here."

"Library's closed," Sam said. Polite enough to at least pretend he wasn't laughing.

Dean, on the other hand, was having the worst time trying to keep a straight face. "You sing Meatloaf in the shower?"

Cue the burning getting worse. Leila was certain it was obvious how red her face was. She was well aware of how pale she was—it didn't help anything.

"Dude," Sam said, "Air Supply?"

"Shut up," Dean said.

Leila pointed to the separated room over her shoulder. "I'm going to go pretend this never happened. Cool?"

"Cool." Dean let out a laugh. Which, really, Leila was going to give him credit for trying not to. Some things had to be let out. If the roles were reversed, Leila would've been on the floor laughing at him. There was nothing she could really complain about.

Leila nodded and made her way to the room. Immediately hearing Dean erupt in a fit of laughter. Soft laughter came from where Sam was, too. Leila just had to keep walking. Avoid any more embarrassment.

It didn't feel the same as it did in school. Sam and Dean's laughter wasn't mocking. It was amused, humorous. Enjoyment wasn't a cardinal sin. Even when it was at Leila's expense. She understood the difference between laughing with and laughing at. Mostly. Sometimes. When she really thought about it and didn't let her brain take over with intrusive thoughts. That was the hardest part about it—the rational versus irrational. Which one was going to win the battle that day? Leila was probably lucky she was in a decent mood when it started. She was going to take that as a win. Even if when the more she thought about it, the worse it got. Time to turn her brain off. Right away. Shut that down.

Leila walked over to her backpack and started stuffing her clothes in. She was going to have to find a washing machine somewhere on the property or she was going to run out of clean clothes within the next day. Preparation was not her strong suit. There was a slight movement out of the corner of her eye.

When Leila made eye contact with the creature, she leapt onto the bed and let out a blood-curdling scream.

*****

[ a.n. ] 2020 jordin here. hope you enjoyed this new, revamped chapter. i'm really happy with how this rewrite is going and i genuinely hope you are too. 

until next time,
jordin