A Trickster's Daughter

Chapter 20: You Just Jinxed Us

February-ish 2008, Somewhere between Wichita and Monument

They'd all been driving for a few hours now with Dean going through every piece of music he had to 'educate' the young teen in the back seat. He was inordinately proud of himself when Maya told him she planned to get a few of his favorite AC/DC songs on her iPod next chance she got. However, they did into a bit of an argument when she didn't really appreciate Metallica the same way he did. He called her a heathen.

Maya huffed, rolling her eyes good naturedly as she looked out of the impala's windows at the passing scenery. She felt Puck nudge her arm with his nose to get her attention. Maya looked at him and he gave a huffed bark and patted her leg three times with his paw.

"Does the rat need to go?" Dean asked looking at Maya in the rearview mirror, and seeing her shake her head.

"No, he's just telling me my blood sugar's getting low and I need to eat something sugary." Maya rummaged through her backpack and pulled out an Oh Henry bar and began chowing down on it.

Dean scrunched his face in confusion, "Why?"

"She's hypoglycemic, Dean." Sam answered, but then saw the I-have-no-clue-what-you-just-said look Dean was giving him. "She's half-Trickster so she has a very high metabolism. She needs to eat a lot of sugar rich foods to keep from going into hypoglycemic shock."

"Oh," Dean nodded but both Maya and Sam saw from the look on his face that he really didn't get what that actually meant for Maya.

"If I don't eat enough candy I go into shock, and if my blood sugar doesn't get brought up, I will die." Maya explained as the look of realization dawned on Dean's face. "I'm not as resilient as my Dad, so a minor inconvenience for him could be potentially life threatening for me." She sighed leaning into the back seat and looked out the window again as she unwrapped another Oh Henry bar. She put the wrapper from the first bar into a pocket in her bag.

This was when a thought occurred to Sam. The Trickster loved his daughter above everything else, if his reaction in the time loop was anything to go by. So if Maya had met up with her Dad not long after, with the memory still fresh in his mind...why had he let Maya go anywhere on her own so soon? Two weeks wasn't a lot of time to get over something like that.

"Maya," Sam looked at the distracted snacking girl in the backseat, staring out the window. "You said you're Dad was really hurting after the time loop," Maya gave a noncommittal sound to say she was listening. "Then why did he let you go out on your own so soon after? Or go anywhere near us for that matter?"

Dean furrowed his eyebrows at Sam's question giving him a side-glance before returning his eyes to the road. Sam had a point and the tensing of Maya's shoulders did not bode well. Maya finished the second chocolate bar.

It didn't help that Dean couldn't help but think of Ben at that moment either. Even if he wasn't his, that was one awesome little dude. If it were Ben he'd probably have him locked in his house with Lisa until he could hunt down the son of a bitch that was threatening them. It sucked that what he did meant that just hanging around could be a threat to them.

"Yeah," Dean agreed with Sam. "If you were my kid I'd have your ass on lock down, let alone have it wandering around the country by itself."

Maya kept her gaze firmly looking out the window, not meeting Sam's gaze or Dean's eyes when they flickered to the rearview mirror. She fidgeted with the wrapper in her hands.

"Goldy," came Dean's voice in warning. Though it wasn't necessary as Sam began having a good idea of what was going on.

"You weren't supposed to go off on your own." Sam realized.