Chapter Text
There was the heavy click of a gun being cocked, but it wasn’t the one in her hand.
“Woman, what the hell are you doing in my house?” Bobby asked. Lou nearly sagged in relief.
“Fixing a mistake,” the woman said through gritted teeth. She turned towards Bobby slightly, face morphing into a frightening approximation of a smile. “Ellie Stanton. Friend of John Winchester.”
Bobby huffed. “John was no saint, but I don’t think you’re his kind of crazy.”
Ellie cackled. “Only had to be for one night,” she said. Her gaze snapped over to Lou again. “Azazel always had a soft spot for Winchesters. You were his favorites.”
“John slept with you?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah, not that he remembered a damn thing in the morning,” Ellie sneered. “He was drunk off his ass. Kept calling me Mary, crying, apologizing. Whoever she was, he missed her.
“That’s how you got your name, sweet thing,” she said to Lou. “I thought it would be fitting, for a Mary to destroy him and everything he loved.”
“Lou,” Bobby said. “There’s a phone there on the desk. I want you to call the cops.”
“Don’t you move, brat,” Ellie snapped. “I’ll shoot you dead.”
“Not if I shoot you first,” Bobby grunted. “Lou. Phone.”
Lou took one shaky step towards the desk before the room exploded with noise and pain rocketed through her ribs. She stumbled and caught herself on the edge of the desk, hand flying to her side. Touching it didn’t make it feel any better.
Bobby was at her side in half a second. “How bad is it?”
“I don’t know,” she said shrilly, yanking her hand away for him too look. He visibly sagged with relief.
“It’s just a graze,” he said. “Didn’t go through anything ‘cept skin.”
“Hurts like a bitch,” Lou whimpered, and he laughed.
“Yeah, usually does.” He fumbled around for a second before shoving a rag into her hand. “Put pressure on it. I’m gonna go find some bandages.”
He had to step around Ellie’s crumpled body to get to the bathroom. Lou wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
“Who’s John Winchester?” she asked as Bobby disinfected the wound. It distracted her from the sting of the alcohol.
“Your daddy, apparently,” Bobby said. “Good hunter. Colleague of mine.”
“She said Azazel liked him.”
“Not John,” Bobby corrected. “His boy Sam. You met him.”
“Sam?” she choked. It was a moment before she could get her throat to work properly again. “Sam was my brother?”
Bobby paused for a moment, like he was trying to figure something out. “When I told you he was dead,” he started. “I was…not wrong, but. I wasn’t totally right.” He looked at his hands, then looked her in the eye. “Sam’s alive, Lou. He’s fine.”
“But you said he was dead,” she said. “I don’t understand.”
“His brother Dean—you met him too—he did a stupid thing. Brought Sam back.”
“And he’s okay?”
“Sam is. Dean is in a world of trouble.”
“What did he do?”
Bobby sighed. “Sold his soul to a demon.”
“Like the one that chose us?” Lou asked. The books around her seemed more sinister now than they had before, absurdly.
“Kind of, yeah,” Bobby said.
The news that there was more than one demon shook her to the core, and shut her up for a good long while.
Once she was bandaged up and resting uneasily on the couch, Bobby took care of Ellie. Lou didn’t know what he did with her body, but it wasn’t lying in the study doorway anymore so she was grateful. Bobby was gone for a good hour or so, and Lou didn’t move in his absence. She just sat there, thinking. Worrying.
When he came back, he was dusty and looked grumpier than usual, but she couldn’t help herself.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.
“’Scuze me?” Bobby asked.
“What are you going to do with me?” she repeated. “I’ve been poisoned. I have demon blood in me. My biological mother was crazy, and I brought her here, she broke your window—“
“How’s that your fault?” Bobby asked.
“It’s all because of me,” Lou whispered.
“No it ain’t,” Bobby said. “I can’t fault you for it any more than I can fault Sam.”
“But I can’t stay here,” Lou said. Saying it made her feel sick. She couldn’t stay here, but she didn’t have anywhere else to go.
“Why’s that?” Bobby asked. He settled against the edge of the desk, arms folded in front of him.
“I just can’t,” she said. Tears welled up and she scrubbed them away. “Bad things happen around me.”
“You really are a Winchester,” Bobby snorted. “Melodramatic, all of you.”
“But—“
“I don’t have any problem with you staying here. It’s a big house. Gets lonely sometimes. And you said yourself on the way, you don’t have anywhere to go, do you?”
Lou was quiet for a moment, save for her sniffly breathing. She shook her head.
“Do you want to leave?” he asked. She paused, then shook her head again.
“Fine,” he said. “Room’s yours. Clothes are yours, for now. We’ll see if we can find something better when you’ve healed some more.”
Lou kept herself composed long enough to stammer a thank you and leave the room. She made it about halfway up the stairs before she couldn’t see through the tears and had to stop. Silent sobs kept her hunched over, a hand over her mouth and her eyes streaming.
For the first time in weeks, she was crying because something was going right.