The Angel, The Hunter and The Nephilim (Destiel x Daughter)

49. Poison

Leah can hear voices through the very intense foggy headache she's experiencing when she finally wakes up. She blinks and shields herself from the strong light when she realizes she's really warm - and something's restraining her hand.
Oh no. Not again.
"Is she awake?" she hears a girl's voice ask. Leah blinks again.
"The light is too strong," she whimpers, she can't get any more sound out. Her throat feels like something had been on fire and she choked on it. "Dad?" she wheezes and opens her eyes to see Dean sitting beside her, smiling warmly. "There you are, kiddo."
Leah blinks again and tries to sit up. Cas stops her. "No, honey, you gotta let us help you." He presses a button on the bed and her back is elevated so she's sitting a little.
Claire is sitting on a hospital bed right beside her with an IV bag on a stand. She smiles shortly. "You look like hell."
"You really do, honey. What the hell is all this?" Dean asks jokingly, referring to the very intense, out-of-character smokey eye makeup his daughter is donning. Leah snickers weakly. She looks over at Claire again, and she's smiling, but looks like she has something on her mind.
It all comes back suddenly. Seeing her dads in the living room - she doesn't remember what she said, but she knows it was something stupid. Then the cold bath, and the vomiting. She brings her hand up to her throat.
"I'm sorry about that, kiddo, but you drank way too much last night. I had to make you throw up, and it was bad. You didn't need your stomach pumped, but you're gonna be feeling like this for a few days, I'm afraid."
"God, dad, I'm so sorry," she whispers, and Dean and Cas shake their heads in unison. "Don't worry about it. You learned your lesson. We'll talk about you drinking again when you're thirty."
Claire lets out a chuckle, and she's helped out of her bed by Cas, who lets her take his place beside Leah. "I'm sorry if you feel like I pressured you last night. It wasn't supposed to go this far." She reaches for Leah's hand.
"No, it's fine, I went too overboard. It was fun while it lasted," she replies. "Now we know what not to do, right?"
"Yeah, I guess we do," Claire laughs. "I think I'm still a little buzzed," she whispers. Leah laughs but ends up with painful coughs instead. That's when she notices the tube in her nose. "God, what is this?" she asks and tries to pull it out.
"No, no, no," Dean says and stops her. "That's staying in until your doctor gives his okay."
The next moment someone knocks on the door and a nurse sticks her head in. "Hey, there are some more Winchesters here to see you," she proclaims cheerfully. Cas walks over to the door and he's run down by Sam and John. Sam immediately stops in his tracks and stares down at Claire, while John comes over to the bed, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder. He looks at his granddaughter with a loving smile.
"We gotta stop meeting like this, kid," he says. Leah laughs and coughs again. "Yeah, that's probably for the best."
"Claire? What in the-" Sam begins, but he interrupts himself, he's just beside himself with confusion.
"Hi," she says and chuckles.
"Yeah, we probably should have told you, these two got up to some trouble last night," Cas says and looks from Sam to his daughter and then at Claire, his arms crossed but with a kind gaze. The young girl looks down at the floor and then back at her friend in the hospital bed.
"Wait, you guys know each other," Leah points out, her voice wheezing. "I didn't think about it until now. How the- when did you meet?"
Claire glares up at Cas again immediately. Everyone in the room turn to the timid angel in the trenchcoat.
"It's a long story," Cas stutters. "We'll talk about this later. Leah is getting discharged soon."
"Yeah, the discharge papers are right around the corner, I think. We've been here for about 12 hours now. They just had to wait for you to wake up on your own," Dean says, looking at his wristwatch.
"Yeah, but is it safe for me to leave? I'm super dizzy," Leah proclaims and tries to sit up, and when Dean tries to stop her, she brushes him off.
"I'm seeing stars," she continues and falls right back at the pillow again.
"That's why you're staying in bed the rest of the day. You're gonna rest. You had us worried, honey, you gotta calm down," Dean says calmly and strokes her hair back. She sighs and looks away from him, and up at Claire instead.
"Let's just have an alcohol free party sometime instead," her friend says with a devious smile. Leah snickers and looks up at Cas, his face is worn and concerned as usual when he looks at his daughters. She turns to look at John instead, and he smiles warmly back at her. "I could volunteer for babysitting," he laughs. The two girls laugh with him.

Dean, John and Leah drive home alone in the Impala Dean picked up while she was in a medically induced coma, which she found out about upon being discharged. Sam and Cas are driving Claire home in Sam's car to figure out more about her and what happened. Leah is not clear on the details yet, she's having enough trouble trying to concentrate on not soiling the backseats of the car in her vomit. Dean would kill her if that happened.
John, who's sitting right next to her for assistance, pulls her in and tells her to close her eyes and lean against him. Dean throws glances at them from the rearview mirror. He's disappointed, Leah can tell. He had one night where he could unwind and not worry about his teenage daughter being safe, just having a friend over. But, as it usually does, it ended in a hospital stay and him having an even tighter leash on what she does from now on.
The first thing that happens when Dean comes to her side of the car and opens the door for her, is him having to dodge being covered in vomit. John holds her up from behind making sure she doesn't fall while she's heaving her guts out all over the driveway. When she's done she's looking more pale than usual. Dean wipes her mouth with his sleeve and cups her face with his hands. "It's okay, Leah. We're gonna get you to bed. I'm gonna put a bucket in your room, and we're gonna watch over you until you fall asleep. Okay?"
Leah nods and groans and Dean gets her out of the car and holds her over his shoulder. John comes over for assistance. They help her off with her shoes in the cold December noon and support her up the stairs to her bedroom. The bathroom floor is still wet from when Dean tried to wake her up last night, so while he tries to help his very hungover daughter get into her pajamas, John empties the bucket and throws a towel over the wet mess on the floor before he joins his son and granddaughter, placing the bucket in her lap in the bed.
And as he looks at Leah sitting up in her bed trying to throw up so she doesn't have to be so nauseous and Dean sitting beside her, his arms protectively supporting her, he thinks about how much he's missed since he was killed by Yellow Eyes so many years ago. This was the girl he hunted with for over a month, he killed the monsters who abused her when she was a child, she showed no emotion when decapitating vampires, and she left the hospital without anyone noticing, when she should have stayed there for days. She powered through, which baffled and amazed him.
And then she was suddenly his granddaughter, like overnight. He never made the connection, because she used the name Ellie. And she had no last name. Neither did he when hunting, he just came up with one every new place he went.
Now she's reduced to a sobbing, vulnerable little girl clinging to her dad after she screwed up, and Dean's trying to fix it, he's trying desperately. He thinks back to the day they met again for the first time in 11 years, Dean was in despair because his daughter was terrified of him, and John tried his best to help. It's been so long since they were last a family, and it looks so different now from when it was just him, Sam and Dean on the road. Now Dean is married and has a child. Sam was left by his pregnant wife, who is god knows where. He has a great-grandchild.
And Mary isn't here. She would have loved to see her sons grow up and have families of their own so she and John could have the retirement of their dreams, watching their grandchildren grow up. But she's gone.
John walks over to the chair beside Leah's bed and sits down in silence. Dean looks up at him and sighs, and then he kisses the top of his daughter's head. "It's gonna be okay, Leah. Everything is gonna be fine. Just rest."
He puts the empty bucket on the floor beside him and helps her lay down and tucks her in. Leah starts crying again, she's so remorseful, she apologizes over and over. Dean is sitting on the bedside stroking her hair away while he shushes at her.
"It's okay, Leah," he says again, and he starts singing to her, which he rarely does. John listens attentively. Leah closes her eyes and sobs while her dad sings Fix You by Coldplay, one of her favorite songs to listen to when she's really depressed. She doesn't know how he knows, but he's kept more up with her than she thinks. Clutching his hand, she listens to his voice while she drifts off to sleep.