The night air was thick and heavy, clinging to your skin like the memory you were trying to outrun. It was useless.

Every time you closed your eyes, they were there. The wide, panicked brown of the little girl’s eyes, the way a single tear had traced a clean path through the grime on her cheek right before… right before your hand, the hand you controlled, the hand she trusted, drove the knife into her chest.

A shiver, violent and deep, wracked your body. It wasn’t from the cold, though the metal steps beneath you leached the warmth from your jeans. It was a phantom chill, the ghost of a trauma that had only happened twelve hours ago.

Sam and Dean were asleep in the adjoining room. You could hear the faint, even rhythm of Sam’s breathing through the thin wall, and the deeper, occasional rumble of a snore from Dean. They were your rock, your found family, but tonight, their proximity only made the isolation feel sharper. You were an outsider to their peace, a contaminated thing that didn’t deserve it. You were supposed to be on their team, a fellow hunter, a protector. You’d killed a child.

It was a demon, you told yourself, the mantra looping in your skull. A black-eyed son of a bitch that had jumped you before the exorcism could even begin. It used your body like a puppet. It wasn’t you. But it was your fingers that wrapped around the hilt of the blade. It was your arm that thrust forward. It was your voice that laughed, high and cruel, as the light went out of a sweet eight-year-old’s eyes.

You’d killed monsters before. You’d seen things that would make other people scream forever. You and the Winchesters had ended creatures that deserved nothing less. But you had never, ever, taken an innocent. Not a child. Not the one person you were there to save.

The cigarette between your fingers had burned down to the filter, the acrid smoke doing nothing to calm your nerves. You didn’t even smoke. You’d just found the pack in the glove box of the Impala, a forgotten relic from one of Dean’s one-night stands, and the desperate, primal need to do something had taken over. The ember glowed a faint, angry orange in the oppressive darkness, mirroring the flickering neon sign of the "Stars & Stripes Motel" above your head.

The crunch of gravel on the pavement made you flinch, your head snapping up. The motel door creaked open, spilling a sliver of warm, yellow light across the cracked asphalt. Dean stood there, silhouetted in the doorway. He was wearing a t-shirt and his jeans, his hair gloriously mussed from sleep. He wasn’t carrying a gun; his hands were empty, hanging loosely at his sides.

His gaze found you immediately. He didn’t look surprised, just… resigned. Like he’d known he’d find you here.

“Hey,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that was somehow both rough and soothing.

You looked away, staring down at the smoldering cigarette. “Hey.”

He took a step out, pulling the door quietly shut behind him, plunging you both back into the intermittent glow of the neon. He didn’t approach right away, just stood there for a moment, letting the silence settle. He was giving you space, a courtesy you didn’t deserve.

“Thought you quit,” he finally said, nodding towards the cigarette.

You managed a shrug that felt weak and unconvincing. “Decided to take it up.” The lie was thin, brittle. It would shatter if he poked it too hard.

Dean took a few more steps, his boots making soft sounds on the pavement until he was standing at the bottom of the stairs. He looked up at you, his green eyes unreadable in the dim light. “Yeah. You don’t look like a woman who’s joyfully taking up a new hobby.”

You didn’t answer. I’m fine was the standard lie, the Winchester motto, but it felt like a poison on your tongue. Saying it now would be an insult to the girl, to the memory of her trusting face.

He sighed, a soft exhale of air. “Can’t sleep, huh?”