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Connor startled awake, and stayed still for a moment, staring into the darkness of the motel room. Then a sudden flash of light blazed outside, momentarily turning the windows into bright white rectangles. A couple of seconds later, a massive thunderclap exploded, so powerful the window panes shook in their frames.
Connor winced as the thunder struck, clutching his comforter. He blinked to clear his sight of the afterimages imprinted in it by the lightning, and took a breath. It was just a storm – a bad one, from the intensity in which the rain and wind were beating against the windows, but still, just a storm.
A small noise that had nothing to do with the chaos outside drew his attention. He turned his head toward the bed his two younger brothers shared. In the feeble light, he noticed the covers shifting.
"Shhhh, Sammy," he heard Dean's hushed voice. "It's just the storm."
Connor turned on his side, more awake now. Another flare of light shone through the curtains, and then thunder boomed, rattling the windows. A car alarm went off somewhere in the street.
This time when the noise died down, Connor recognized Sam's whimper when it came. He threw the covers aside and went over to the other bed. Dean raised his head to look at Connor as he bent over them, but Connor couldn't see Sam at first; the four-year-old was buried deep under the comforter and in Dean's arms.
"He got scared," Dean whispered.
Connor nodded and reached to pat Sam's hair. "It's okay, Sammy, the thunder can't hurt you."
Sam mumbled something and shook his head. Dean glanced down at him, and then back up at Connor. "Can you get the lights? Maybe he'll be less frightened."
"Sure," Connor turned to the lamp that stood on the nightstand between the two beds and flicked the switch. Nothing happened. He tried a few more times, and then realized that the bathroom light he had left on for the kids, was off now.
The room was also cold – he hadn't noticed it before, but standing around in nothing but his pajamas, his body was starting to shiver. So the heater was out too.
Connor made his way to the room's door, almost tripping over something on the floor that he couldn't make out in the dark, and tried the light switch by the door – no dice. He peered through the peephole; the hall outside was gloomy, illuminated only by emergency lights he could barely spot at the edges of his view.
Connor stumbled over to the phone and dialed.
"Front desk," came the flat-toned voice from the receiver.
"Um, hi, I'm in room forty-two, and the electricity-"
"Yes, we know," the woman cut in. "The power's out in the entire street, nothing we can do about it but wait for the power company to get it back up. If you want to demand compensation or a refund, you'll have to take it up with the manager in the morning. I'm not in a position to authorize it, sorry."
She sounded tired and fed up; Connor wondered how many guests had already called her about the blackout, even at – the squinted at his watch – twenty past three in the morning.
"I understand," he said. "We'll wait. Sorry to bother you."
"It's no bother," the woman replied. She sounded less irritated now, gentler. Maybe she realized that a thirteen-year-old kid calling the front desk at this hour, meant there wasn't an adult with him to do it. "Listen, if you need more blankets until the heaters come back on, let me know, okay?"
"I will. Thank you."
Connor disconnected the call and went back to the bed, almost tripping again over whatever it was that was left in the middle of the floor. Probably Dean's sneaker. "Power's out because of the storm," he told his middle brother.
"Yeah, I figured that much," Dean replied.
"Let me get the flashlight," Connor said. Finding anything in his messy duffel was a chore under normal circumstances, and in the dark it was a real pain. The irregular bursts of lightning that came through the windows didn't help much, but he was able to finally recover the flashlight and turn it on.
He stood up just as more lightning flashed, followed by a thunder; although it was still loud, it sounded somewhat less so than before. Dean looked down at where Sam was cowering inside the covers and reached to rub his back.
Connor took a seat on the edge of the bed and leaned over his baby brother. "Hey, Sammy."
Sam stirred and lifted his head to look at Connor. Connor smiled at the tears glistening in the kid's eyes.
"Did the storm scare you, buddy?" He asked.
Sam nodded and sniffled.
Connor slipped closer. "You're safe here, Dean n' I are gonna take care of you. Okay?"
Sam nodded again. "It's loud."
"Yeah, it is. But it's going away now."
Sam turned away from Dean so he could regard Connor without twisting his neck. "How do you know?"
Connor smiled and wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulders, pulling him closer. "When there's lightning, I count."
"Count what?"
Just then, lightning flashed, and Connor started counting aloud, "One, two, three, four, five-" he was cut off as thunder roared. Sam winced and burrowed into Connor's side.
Connor waited for him to look back up, and said, "We count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder, and then we divide it by five, and we know how many miles away the storm is."
Sam's forehead creased in thought. "Can I try it too?"
"Of course you can."
Sam started to smile, and then frowned. "I don't know how to divide."
"But you can count, can't you?"
"Yeah."
All of them turned their heads as lightning flared, and Connor cried, "Now! Count!"
"One! Two! Three!" Sam sat up excitedly as he called the numbers out loud. He reached eight before thunder sounded, a lot weaker than before.
"How much was it?" Connor asked.
"Eight!" Sam said, eyes wide and eager.
Connor nodded. "Dean, can you do the division?"
"You seriously askin' me to do math in the middle of the night?!" Dean grumbled, and Connor chuckled.
"Fine, I'll give you a pass. It's a little over one and a half, Sammy. It means that the storm is over a mile and a half away now. Get it?"
"Yeah," Sam didn't look frightened anymore as he looked at the window. "I wanna do it again!"
"We'll have to wait till there's another lightning."
"When is that gonna be?"
Connor laughed. "If I knew that, I'd be making a shitload of money on the National Weather Service."
"What?" Sam was frowning at him again, and Connor gently tweaked his nose.
"Never mind. You want to try and go back to sleep?"
"No! I wanna count the thunder!"
Connor glanced at the window and back at Sam. He had managed to get the kid to stop being scared of the storm, but at the cost of riling him up; it could be a while until he calmed down enough to get back to sleep, three-thirty in the morning or not.
The storm was dying down – Connor could hear that the wind and rain were not as intense as before. Sam might not have too many more thunderclaps to count until it was completely gone.
"Tell you what," he said. "You don't need to be sitting up to see the next lightning when it comes. Lie back down under the covers so you don't get cold, and we'll wait for it, and then you can count it. Okay?"
Sam considered, and then nodded. "But I want you to stay here and help me divide."
"Sure, buddy. Scoot over."
Connor put the flashlight on the nightstand, and Sam and Dean moved to make room as Connor slid under the comforter. He lay with Sam snuggled into his side, between him and Dean, and pulled the covers over all three of them, nestling them in the warmth.
"Now settle down, there you go," he told Sam. "And no talking – you have to be quiet to be able to hear the thunder."
"But I'm gonna see the lightning first, and I don't need to be quiet for that," Sam retorted.
When did that kid become so goddamn smart? "But if you talk and get distracted, you wouldn't notice the lightning. It's already getting weaker. So you need to lie down and keep quiet. Understand?"
Sam thought it over, then nodded. "Yeah."
Connor smiled and hugged him closer, then glanced over at Dean. "You good, buddy? Need another blanket?"
"No, I'm fine," Dean snuggled against Sam's other side and slid a little deeper under the covers.
A bolt of lightning threw its light through the windows, but it was considerably dimmer than before. Sam rose on his elbows as he saw the lightning, and started counting out loud. This time it took so long for the thunder to be heard – also considerably weaker, like the lightning – that Sam lost count; smart as he was, he hadn't mastered the numbers past ten yet.
"It was sixteen," Dean offered after the thunder died down.
Sam looked at Connor, who said, "So the storm is over three miles away."
"That's really far," Sam said.
"It is. Lie back down."
Sam did, settling again in Connor's arms. Connor ran his fingers through the kid's hair, stroking slowly and repeatedly. Eventually, he managed to lull Sam back to sleep. Dean's breathing attested that he had followed in Sam's footsteps, and Connor allowed himself to close his eyes and begin his descent to sleep's embrace. A flash of light, that Connor could register through his closed eyelids, followed by louder thunder interrupted the process. It wasn't sixteen this time. Nine? Ten? Twelve tops. Was the storm turning back, or intensifying? Connor adjusted his position so his face, as calm and soothing as possible, would be the first thing Sam and Dean would see if thunder, or anything else, woke them.
If there was indeed another lightning, neither of them saw it; as the storm waned into steady rain, all three Winchesters boys were fast asleep.