“Johnny, go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep,” Johnny protested, even though his eyes were begging to be rubbed and he had to force down a yawn. They'd been driving for several hours, and he finally had fallen asleep in the back of the Impala, expecting to get to Colorado Springs by sunrise. However, just a little bit after midnight, they'd stopped and checked into a hotel for the night. His father, Dean Winchester, was apparently too sick to continue the drive, and Sam, Johnny's other dad, helped Dean over to their hotel suite while Grandpa carried drowsy Johnny.
“Yes, you can. Now lie down.” Grandpa’s voice took on a little bit of an edge, just enough to show the boy that this was a serious request, and he really meant it.
John Ryan Winchester accepted the blanket that Grandpa held out to him, and then closed his eyes, but not two minutes passed before he popped them open again. “Grandpa, where’s Dean?”
“Dean is resting in the other room of the suite. He’s not feeling well and you can’t bother him right now.”
“Because I might get sick too?”
“That’s doubtful, but you just stay right where you are.”
“What about Sam?”
“Sam is with Dean. Everything’s going to be fine. Now go to sleep.”
Somewhere between arguing again and trying to think of a reason to stay up that Grandpa would believe and accept, Johnny did fall asleep, and his room was completely dark when he woke up. For a few moments, he was disoriented and confused, like the first few moments upon waking anywhere. He heard a noise coming from the other room, something like mewling, and he jumped out of bed and ran towards the door.
Johnny turned the knob and pushed the door open. Grandpa was washing a knife in the sink of the kitchenette, Sam was putting bloodstained towels into a plastic bag, and Dean lay on one of the beds, propped up a little bit by pillows, with a tiny bundle in his arms.
Johnny started to duck back out when he saw Grandpa, but Grandpa only said, “It’s all right now. You can come in.”
“You got skinny again,” Johnny said, as he ran to the side of the bed. He pointed at Dean’s stomach, which had noticeably shrunk in a matter of hours. “How did you do that?”
“You don’t want to know, son,” Dean said. “But sit up here with me “ don’t bump me, though, I’m fucking sore “ and I’ll show you something.”
Grandpa muttered something about the cause of Dean’s pain.
Johnny climbed up onto the bed, very carefully, and stood up on his knees. He looked down at the bundle and saw a small head, covered on top with short, fine brown hairs. “This is Mary Charlotte Winchester,” Dean explained. “Your little sister.”
“She’s too little,” Johnny pouted. “I wanted a sister big like me so I could play with her.”
“I’m not pushing a five-year-old out of my ass,” Dean argued, earning him a dirty look and a “Watch it around the kids” from Sam. “Everybody starts out little like this. She’ll grow. First she’ll crawl, and then she’ll walk, and then she’ll get into your stuff, and then she’ll Super Glue a bottle to your hand, and then she’ll eat the last of the Lucky Charms and not buy any more, and then-” Dean stopped when he was hit in the head with a balled-up sock - trajectory origin: Sam.
“Can I hold her?”
“Sure.” Dean showed Johnny how to position his arms, and then he carefully brought the wrapped-up blanket closer. Mary Charlotte’s tiny face twisted and turned a brighter pink, and she started to scream, but when Dean laid her in Johnny’s arms, with his own hand just under her head to help hold it up, she quieted, and looked up at her big brother. “Looks like she found her Superman already,” Dean said.
“Where?” Johnny looked around, but didn’t see anybody else.
“You.”
Mary was soft and heavy in a lazy way, like a warm bean bag. She had big blue eyes, and itty-bitty fingers with the tiniest of fingernails at their tips. Johnny leaned down and kissed her forehead, which made her briefly close her eyes. “That means I have to po ““ portect her, right?”
“Sam and I will watch her now, but yes, you’ll help. And when she’s older, she’ll need you even more.”
Johnny just watched the baby in awe. She wasn’t there yesterday, but now she was, and she was their baby. And she might have been Sam and Dean’s daughter, but she was his sister, and nobody else’s.
“We need to get back on the road,” Grandpa said. “I know you’re tired, Dean, but we need to get you out to that clinic in Colorado Springs before an infection sets in.”
“Shit, Dad, I’m not sitting in a car for six hours. Sam’ll get me some antibiotics. It’s not like with Johnny. Nothing tore this time. And she’s a little bit smaller than he was.”
“You tore my blanket when I was a baby?” Johnny demanded.
“No, I didn’t.” Dean looked up at Grandpa and waited for a response to his original protest of getting up and moving around so soon.
“We’ll see how it plays out,” Grandpa said gruffly. “If you start getting sick, you’re going to the clinic.”
Mary squirmed and started to cry again, so Dean took her back, and Sam brought over her bottle. “I gave Johnny his first feeding, so you can give Mary hers,” Sam said. “It’s only fair.”
“Considering I did all the work,” Dean shot back.
“Dude, I was holding you up for an hour. And you’re not exactly light.”
Johnny looked from one father to the other and then back, bewildered. “Why’d you do that?” he asked.
Dean and Sam both shut up and focused on the baby. “Never mind,” Sam eventually said. “We’ll explain it when you’re older.”
After her meal, Mary fell asleep, and Sam laid her down in a small fold-up crib. Johnny sat by the side of the crib with a picture book on his lap.
“Aren’t you tired?” Sam asked. “You didn’t sleep for very long.”
Johnny shook his head. “I have to stay up in case the bad demon comes to get her,” he said.
“Oh? And what would you do then?” It would do no good to try to explain to Johnny that the demon wasn’t going to come after Mary, that newborns weren’t generally its targets. He knew just enough to disbelieve it.
“Then I’d yell for you and Dean.”
“Listen, it’s all right. I’m going to watch her right now so Dean can get some rest and you need to go back to bed, too. Tell you what. There are two beds here, so you can sleep on the one on the other side of the crib. Dad can have the sofa bed.”
Johnny yawned. “Okay,” he said, and let Sam tuck him in. He watched the crib until he fell asleep, though, just in case. She was his baby sister, and he was going to keep her safe.
Story Notes:
A follow-up to The Well. Same continuity, five years later. One-shot.