[h3] Anya [/h3]

Anya smiled up at Sam, echoing Nat’s look to him as she basically told him the same thing that Anya did. Sam and Anna needed to talk, even if it was awkward. Even if some hard truths came up, and even if they ended up closer, and reconnected…it was good for them. She reached her hand up and squeezed Sam’s hand on her shoulder as she stepped away from him and followed Natalia. If ever there was a time that Anya wished she could talk, it was this one. She wanted to tell Nat that she was a lot tougher than she looked, and she could handle whatever she would throw to her. 

Instead, she pulled her phone, ready to type anything she needed to, to defend herself. Nat didn’t seem to be coming at her super aggressively. Instead, she seemed to be looking out for her wellbeing. So, she simply nodded and followed her up the stairs and over to Nat’s car.

As she stood there, her eyes scanning over all of the things in the trunk, Anya pulled her phone up and typed a message, “I think knowing how to use a knife and how to use my smaller frame to get someone off me is good enough, maybe. At least I won’t be alone. I have a little bit of self defense under my belt, but obviously, I’ve never dealt with demons.”

[h3] Anna [/h3]

Anna walked through the corridors with her arms crossed, winding through the echoing halls that used to be her home. As she passed one of the familiar doors, she stopped and stared at it for a moment. The sign was still there that Dean had made during one of his many ‘housewarming’ moments, when they had all first moved into the bunker. Her name was neatly written in sharpie across a plank of wood, nailed to the old oak as if she had never left. She brushed her fingers over the doorknob and then opened the door, stepping into the room. To her surprise, nothing about the room had changed. Her blankets were still piled neatly at the foot of the bed, Sam’s flannel she had slept in the night before they took her to Colorado still laid across them. 

There were frames with pictures of the three of them during happier days, and one photo that glared like a beacon, now…with Sam and herself, huddled up in Bobby’s lot. Dean and Mika were nearby, their stiff pose showing that they were posing for the photo, while she and Sam were a bit more relaxed, as if caught off guard by Bobby holding a camera at them. Anna’s eyes flooded with tears as she ran her finger across the top of the photo frame, and she quickly reached up and whisked the tears away, in case Dean walked in.

She stepped over to her dresser, opening the top drawer and smirking fondly at how neatly her collection of Sam’s clothes were situated inside, as if he funded her entire pajama collection with a ‘boyfriend tax’. She closed the drawer with a sigh, and looked over the top of the dresser, at the small collection of rings and other jewelry that lay in a bowl there. A memory flashed through her mind, of Sam, on one of the nights he was particularly sick. He sat in her room for hours, and eventually fell asleep curled up at the foot of her bed. She had taken all of her jewelry off and tossed it into the bowl on the dresser, so she could sponge cold water across his burning face, to help him sleep.

She fished out one of the rings, and turned it over in her hand, quickly dropping it back into the bowl as if it electrocuted her. It was an ‘if we survive this’ engagement ring that never actually made it to becoming official. After a year of watching Esme and Duke love each other, being quite literally the perfect married couple, Anna couldn’t even touch the ring.

Anna quickly moved to take her jacket off, tossing it at the foot of the bed, before walking around and sitting on the edge of the mattress, pushing her hair back with both hands and then rested her head in her hands as she took a deep breath. None of this was fair. Losing Sam wasn’t fair. They were supposed to make it to the other side of all of this…

But her dying changed everything…overnight.

[h3] Dean [/h3]

Dean jumped up as soon as Lexi did, and he tapped the table in front of Cason, brushing his fingers across Anna’s back in a brotherly small encouragement. He then turned and walked almost at pace with Anna, until she passed him, walking down the corridor while arguing with Cason. With a sigh, Dean watched her with his eyes, and then as she turned the bend toward her room, Dean glanced down at Lexi.

“So, let’s hit the armory and grab what we can. Angel blades might be good, but you also look like you need a breath.” He explained, reaching out and brushing a strand of Lexi’s hair away from her face. He tilted his head toward the deeper part of the corridor and pulled her with him briefly with his touch. As they walked deeper into the halls, Dean reached down and picked up Lexi’s hand, squeezing it tightly, “If you need to vent, feel free to vent. I know my sister can be a lot, and there’s a lot of tension around, right now. We haven’t all been around each other for a while…people change and feelings are a bit tense.”