My Little Girl

Chapter 42

Skylar's sprawled across the front seat of the Impala, her head resting in her father's lap, his hand running through her hair continuously as he looks through several newspapers. Sam and Grayson were asleep in the backseat, Sam laying across the seat and Grayson laying in the floorboard. Skylar suddenly jerks in her sleep and Dean looks down at her as she rapidly blinks. 

"You okay?" He whispers. Skylar nods and pulls his leather jacket farther up on her shoulders. 

"Yeah." She says. "What are you doing?" 

"Just looking through the paper." Skylar sighs and sits up. 

"It looks like you're looking for a job." She says. "Dad, we just finished a job like two hours ago." 

"Adrenaline's still pumping, I guess." He shrugs. "Go back to sleep, peanut." Skylar sighs and chews on her bottom lip for a moment before taking a paper from him and grabbing a flashlight from the globe compartment. "What are you doing?" 

"Helping you look." Dean sighs and studies her for a moment before looking back at his own paper. He glances over every few moments, finding her biting lip in concentration, her eyes squinted slightly. When Dean looks over again, he finds her blinking rapidly and rubbing at her eyes. 

"What's wrong?" He asks, making Skylar look over at him. She gives him a small smile and shakes her head. 

"Nothing." She tells him. "M' eyes're jus' tired." She slurs slightly. "M'fine.

"Skylar, do you have a headache?" She nods after a moment. "You're vision's blurry, isn't it?" Another small nod. "Did you know your speech just slurred?" 

"I'm just hungry." She says before shaking her head rapidly. "Tired. I'm just tired. I'm fine." Dean sighs and holds his arm out. Skylar scoots closer and lays back down, her head resting in Dean's lap. Dean hums lightly, running his finger lightly from her forehead to the end of her nose, watching as her eyes slowly slip shut, the teenager asleep within minutes. 

Dean pulls a small notebook and a pen out of the inside pocket of his jacket that was draped over his daughter and makes a talley next to each symptom of her tumor that she's just experienced. He looks back down at her with a sigh. It's been two months since they visited Doctor Taylor and he can see Skylar slowly deteriorating in front of him. The radiation doesn't seem to be working, it only makes Skylar sick. She hardly has any appetite any more and has lost twenty pounds in the last few weeks. 

When Skylar wakes up again, she finds that they're pulling into the driveway of an old farm house. She rubs her eyes tiredly and looks to her father. "What are we doing here?" 

"Three bedrooms, two baths, one homicide." He says. "This place is gonna sell like hotcakes." 

"That doesn't answer my question." She mumbles as her dad gets out of the car. 

"Old guy was found dead in a locked room and locked house." Grayson tells her, the teens getting out of the car as well. 

"So we're thinkin' ghost." She guesses. Grayson nods as the two follow their fathers up the steps of the house. 

The four walk into the kitchen, looking through the empty cabinets. Dean spots a square patch on the wall and walks over to it. It looks like there was a whole or something there at one time that had been covered with plaster and painted over.

"Hey, check this out." He says before knocking on the wall. 

"Hollow." Skylar hums, walking over to her dad.

"It's probably a dumbwaiter. All these old houses had them."

"Know-it-all." Dean mumbles as his brother walks away. Skylar laughs quietly as Sam turns around with a furrowed brow.