Chapter 2

~~Le Chapter 2~~

Max’s mouth dropped open and she looked at Dean in surprise. Dean just shrugged.

“We just weren’t careful enough, I suppose. It is up to him. He knows..and that is all that matters.”

Max sighed and slumped down in her seat. Dean just sat beside her and said, “Go talk with him. You lead a normal life, along with Sam. If that fails we will have Bai go and talk with him.” Dean’s green eyes were dark with unknown emotions.

“What am I supposed to say?” Max demanded of her brother. “I don’t know what to do with this!”

“I don’t know.,” he muttered. “What did you say when you told your kids?”

Sam scoffed. “Use your brain, Max. Use your knowledge of Danny to help you figure out a way to tell him this.”

Max gave Sam a look. “Shut up, Sammy,” she snapped, then stood up and paced across the room. “Listen, Danny,” she turned to her nephew.

Danny sat there glaring at the table. “Why should I?” ‘Why couldn’t I be born into a normal family?’ he thought.

“Because we’re your family. We know better than you.” Max ran her hands through her hair. “I know that it’s possible to still be normal and be a hunter at the same time. I’ve been doing it for years. So has your mom!” She sighed. “As much as I hate to say it, you don’t have to join us. You just have to believe us.”

Danny sighed. “Whatever. This is out-of-the-normal for me. Why do you expect me to think that my life is anywhere close to yours right now? I don’t believe in nightmares, I have seen too much of a harsh world to know better. Right now, I could care less about this.” His hands fisted on the top of the table, “Mom told me about what she has gone through. None of you have managed to hold that much pain and suffering inside of you!”

Sam let out a tense breath. “No, you don’t seem to understand, Daniel. We have pain inside of us, that no one else knows about. It compares to your mom’s, but we all have a pain that is deep within us. You haven’t experienced life as much as we have to get it.”

“We were all hurt,” Max added. “Some of us more than others.”

Dean muttered, “We have one single hurt in us. We have harvested that inside of us for years- almost our entire lifetimes. It is something that one is not likely to forget, nor is it something that you have experienced.”

“Though you will never experience it, losing a parent is something that is a tremendous emotional burden on a child.  I was just a little baby, Max- two, and Dean- four. We were all still dependent on her, just like you are with yours,” Sam said, still looking out the window, his voice tense.

Danny just listened, as he continued to glare at the table.

“I barely remember her....” Max looked down, twisting her hands together nervously. “All I remember is the screaming that night.”

“I remember being terrified. Dad hadn’t explained anything to me, just told me to take you three and run. I was the one who carried Sam out, and the one who led out Maxine and Leslie from the house. I..have al...always man..managed to protect them, just as Mom would have wanted me too.”

“Too often Dad would be gone - hunting. We were left on our own too many times.” Max sat down abruptly.

“Dean was the one who looked after us all. ‘Shoot first, ask questions later.’ Dad always told him that, and it became the motto of our childhood,” Sam said softly, turning to face his nephew.

“So you lost your mom..and your dad was never there? Not having a Dad there every day, to watch you grow, to support you? I do that every day. Your Dad must have had some reason to not be there, don’t you think?” Danny replied back softly, his gaze traveling to Sam, before going to Dean and then Max.

“His reason was killing things!” Max said loudly. “He didn’t have time for us because he was busy destroying monsters. We lived in motel rooms, we barely stayed anywhere for more than a month!”

“He used the fuel of his wife’s death to put himself into a new way of life! One that consumed him!” Danny half shouted, “Mom told me about how many nights there were you be in a hotel room, eating cereal because he wasn’t there to help give you a better meal!”