Stay With Me (Hold My Hand) ⋆ SPN

5. Cedar, Iowa

A few weeks had passed since Abby had gotten her sprained her right ankle and she had decided it was all better because it didn't hurt except when she tried to bend it one way or the other, but now Dean yelled at her to "slow down" whenever she tried to run. It was unfair, if he didn't want her to run, why did he and Sam walk everywhere so fast? How were Abby's nine-year-old legs supposed to keep up with them?

The Winchesters had spent the weeks in a town in southern Iowa where Dean and Sam had been hunting a ghost in an abandoned school. They stayed for a few days longer than they needed to, however, because Abby had begged and begged her big brothers not to make her leave.

"Please, please don't make us leave yet Dean," Abby had said when Dean had told her they were leaving in the morning. "Just let me stay until the end of the week! That's it I swear," she had said, looking up at her big brothers with wide eyes. Like countless times before, Dean gave in to her puppy-dog-eyes act.

"Okay, okay. Just until Friday then we're out, alright," Dean had grumbled.

"Why do you want to stay so bad?" Sam asked Abby later that night. 

Abby hesitated, biting her lip and looking down at her pajama-clad legs. "I... kind of made a sort of friend," she said quietly.

Sam wasn't sure how to respond. In the years before he went to college but after his mother's death, Sam had always tried to not make friends because he knew they would leave eventually and Sam would never see them again. But when that had happened Sam had already done plenty of growing up which Abby hadn't gotten the chance to do quite yet.

"I'm sure we can stop by here some other time, to say hi," Sam offered, lightly bumping his baby sister's shoulder. She grinned up at him.

"Ya think?"

"Definitely," Sam said, pulling her into his side.

~

Abby was writing in her notebook when she was jolted out of her thoughts by her brothers getting into the car.

"We've got a hunt in Wisconsin," Dean said as he started the car.

"Oh. Okay," Abby said quietly, trying to pick her train of thought back up as the car started down year another road.

"What are you writing?" Sam said, turning around in his seat so he could look at Abby.

"A letter," Abby replied. Sam peered at the page of writing which was surprisingly neat for a nine-year-old, especially one related to Dean.

"Pretty long letter."

"Mhm," Abby replied, still trying to focus on her writing.

"Is it to your friend uh... Haley?" Dean said, recalling what Abby had told him about the girl she had become close with when they were staying in Iowa.

"Yeah. You think we can send it when we get to Wisconsin?"

"Course we can kiddo," Dean answered, grinning at his sister through the rearview mirror. Abby gave a small smile in response and went back to her letter. She was glad she could send the letter because she really wanted to tell Haley she loved the book Haley had lent to her, Are You There God, It's Me Margaret. She also missed her friend, because though Sam and Dean were alright to talk to, she knew they weren't quite as interested in what Abby wanted to talk about as Haley was.

~

The Winchesters spent what was, in Abby's opinion, way too long in Wisconsin. But they saved a kid who Abby thought wasn't the absolute worst so she couldn't be too grumpy about it. Just a little. Sam and Dean had quickly found another hunt, by way of a man Dean and John had helped before calling Dean up to tell him about a mysterious airplane crash. Abby's response to this information, though, was something that Sam and Dean were surprised by and unsure of how to handle.