[u][b]NATALIA[/b][/u]

The moment she saw Dean flinch at her harsh words, Natalia knew she went too far but in her state she couldn’t even bring herself to apologise. Instead she just made a mental note to try and remember in the morning when she was sober. The only thing she didn’t feel the need to apologise for was telling at them all to get out of her room when Mika tried to be the consoling and controlling mother in the situation by telling her to not to lash out at Dean. As they started to exit her room, she knew she had hurt the lot of them in her drunken outburst, she could see how Sam wanted to refuse and stay with her in particular, just like he did that night at the asylum when Dean wasn’t even sure she was trustworthy to keep with them. It was one reason she almost found Sam to be her favourite brother. Instead all she could do was stop Cason from leaving at the very last second, listening to herself begging him not to leave her alone when mere moments ago that’s all she wanted. To be left alone.

She didn’t want to let go of Cason’s arm, she found herself strangely feeling clingy which wasn’t in the slightest bit a normal characteristic for her. [i]‘what sober couldn’t say huh Nat?’[/i] she thought to herself as she watched Cason stop, turn and run his hand down to make her hand go into his own. “I don’t care....” she mumbled back at his retort about it not being a good idea. Hells, she knew it was a terrible idea and that her brothers would absolutely detest her wanting Cason with her over them, but she was hardly in the right mindset right now. Or was she? She stared at the floor as Cason walked over to the door and quietly closed, she presumed in an attempt to be discreet so not to cause more drama with Dean but she couldn’t let herself focus on that right now. As he walked back toward her slowly, she could practically feel the caution he was taking radiating off of him, making her slowly look up at him. She shrugged at his question about whether he should know why she picked him over her own family. “I don’t know why....sure you started this, but....you’re also the only one who didn’t yell at me like a child. You’re the only one who didn’t push me into giving answers I didn’t want to give...and...” she paused mid sentence to take a deep breath and use the back of her wrist to wipe the remaining few tears that fell silently down her already tear stained face. “I don’t know...there was a...a... familiarity to your actions toward me just now. It’s calming in a way, like..I've felt you do that before to me. I don’t know, I don’t think I’m making any kind of sense right now....” She told him as she managed to finally make full eye contact with him. 

“I’m terrified Cason. Terrified they’ll treat me like I’m chipped glass about to shatter any moment all over again from the pressure on that chip. So I guess... I just need you to stay with me. Make sure I stay put, I at least trust you to rat me out if I do anything stupid.” She admitted, finally letting him know she may trust him on some things a bit more than she previously let on. Maybe there was something to him like Annabeth had mentioned before, it was just taking her to finally open up to everyone in the room for her to actually see it. “as for your other observation? I am exhausted. I’m not one for being openly vulnerable like this...it’s taking it out of me.” She said one last time with another sigh escaping her lips. It was a couple of minutes before she made herself get up off the chair and walked over to the bed to lay on, deciding if she did pass out from exhaustion, it was better to do so on the bed than sitting upright on a chair. Looking back at Cason, she thought about the question that was swirling around her head over and over again, the one she was desperate to ask him but didn’t know if she should ask him. “Cason...?” she began to ask them talked herself out of continuing, “..never mind”. 

She pulled her hooded cardigan type garment she was still wearing right around her small frame in an attempt to hug herself, afraid to admit that she did want to be held right now. Pulling her feet and knees right up to her chin, she stared at the bland covers on the bed. 

[u][b]MIKA AND SAM[/b][/u]

Sam let Annabeth cling onto his arm as they exited the room, also seeing just how deflated she was feeling about everything she had heard just now. Yet there was also something comforting about that for him as it told him Annabeth clearly had some kind of attachment to Natalia already that she was feeling anything about this whole debacle. He also knew they had to do something about the information overload they all heard, and that didn’t even include the harsh truth Nat spat out at Dean about his time in Hell. He had thought the same thing as his sister, but he had the experience to know you don’t just say shit like that to Dean. The firmness of his brother’s final words before they all filed out the room also didn’t go amiss on him. Dean was more pissed than he was letting on and he had to give his brother credit for not absolutely ripping into Natalia, instead choosing to go down the almost disappointed paternal route of ‘this will be discussed when you’re sober’ instead. He knew if this was himself in Natalia’s shoes, Dean wouldn’t have been nearly as forgiving as he was tonight with her. Silently, he placed his hand over Annabeth’s hand and gave it a reassuring light squeeze but whether it was for her reassurance or his own he couldn’t fully say. He watched on as Dean pulled Mika out of the room by her arm, an action he was all too used to seeing with those two. 

“I don’t know Dean, we all know she’s capable of either of those options but if I were to take a gamble on what we’ve seen of her state? I’d like to trust she’ll go to bed and sleep all of this off. She certainly needs to, I know she's been venomous with her words before, but tonight was something else.” Mika replied to Dean when out of earshot. She thought over everything they had witnessed, a hand to her lips as she pondered their next actions on how to deal with Natalia. It was clear she was worried about the youngest Winchester, and everything they were finally told had left a haunting stain on her mind, just as it had with the rest of them.

She was then about to say something when she looked up and saw Cason closing the door and not exiting the room, an action that made her raise an eyebrow in curiosity and confusion. “well that’s an interesting change of events” she remarked, then looked back at their remaining group that was outside. “the way I’m seeing this, we have two options. 1) we take it in turns to stay up in one of our cars to watch her room to make sure she doesn’t go all Houdini on us or 2) we trust that she’ll stay in the room and if she does try to leave Cason will have the sense to rat her out to us. I know we don’t particularly like or trust the guy but there’s no denying how soft he is around our girl in there. I could have [i]sworn[/i] I saw a look of guilt or sympathy and empathy on his face in there. Almost like..he knows more about her story than he’s letting on.” She explained her earlier observations, her tone showing her rare maternal motherly side. 

“She didn’t flinch when he touched her, another interesting action I noticed. So putting all of that together I trust that he’ll stop her from escaping or if she does, he’ll risk experiencing your wrath Dean to rat her out and have us go looking for her. So my money is on option 2, rather than option 1.” She said looking at him whilst gently rubbing her hand up and down his upper arm. “She’s got a point Dean” Sam spoke up, having silently listened to everything Mika was saying. “I don’t like him being in there over me, but Mika has made some very valid observations. She’s not the mother of our group for nothing” he commented with a sad smile creeping into his lips briefly before disappearing again. Sam’s words made Mika look down with slight embarrassment and a sense of humbled thanks toward him. She was used to him seeing her as his pseudo sister in law, but wasn’t used to him calling her the mother of the group. Yet she could see his logic, especially when she thought back to when she lectured Cason in the crypt for hitting on Natalia. It was a perfect example of her going into ‘mom mode’ and needing to protect the youngest of their group. 

“so what do you and Anna say? Agree with me and Sam or disagree?” she asked Dean softly, keeping an hand on his arm which proceeded to sliding her other arm through his, wanting to be the voice of reason but also wanting to be simply Dean’s girlfriend who was supportive of him. She knew what Nat said to him must have hurt like a ton of bricks hitting him, as there was no denying Nat had a [b]very[/b] sharp tongue when she was hurting or angry (or in this case: both). There was just [i]something[/i] about how Natalia was behaving that told Mika Natalia wouldn't try and run off on some suicide mission. If the girl wanted to go on some suicide revenge mission, surely she would have done it by now?