Chapter One: Unknown Lies And Untold Secrets

Throughout his life, there were not a lot of times that Dean Winchester could remember lying to his little brother. Sure, he'd avoided the truth sometimes or told a couple of white lies in his best interest, but that was it. He could probably count on one hand the amount of times that he had outright lied to his face, and even then he had only done it because, at the time, he had thought it to be the best move, or in some way to protect him. There were even less times that he had kept secrets from him, unless he knew that it was something that was really going to upset him, he would usually tell Sam anything that he asked, he would tell him anything that he thought he had a right to know. But some things were different. Sometimes, there were things that just couldn't be told. Whether that was because the right time never came around, or it did and it was missed, or because the subject was too painful or damaging, it didn't matter, eventually those obstacles didn't matter anymore. Things like that had to come out in the end.

There were certain things in the world that just could not, no matter how much heavy though was put into it, be put into words. There were things that just couldn't be said, that couldn't be expected to be understood straight away. Finding a way to word things like that was one of the hardest things anyone could be expected to do.

Dean had been racking his brains for the past twenty-four hours about how he was supposed to tell Sam what he knew he should have told him years before. He knew it was going to hurt him, hurt him that Dean had never told him or that he had never been given the chance to know, but it was too late to go back and change decisions that had been made, no matter how much he wished he could. By this point, the best thing he could think to do was just come right out to his brother and say it, tell him everything and take the fight that was bound to come with it.

With a deep, apprehensive sigh, Dean pushed open the door to the motel room he and his brother were currently occupying. Sam, not to Dean's surprise, was, as usual, sitting surrounded by books and papers. His laptop was open on the bed in front of him as his tired eyes darted from left to right in his continuous research. Since he had found out about Dean's deal, just three days earlier, he had been exactly the same. Dean didn't know how he was supposed to go about it, whether he was supposed to stop him or just let him get on with it. He didn't know what was best anymore. But, right now, that wasn't the most pressing thing on his mind. The deal could wait.

"Hey." Sam muttered as the door closed behind Dean. He didn't bother to look up from his laptop as he spoke, far too deep in concentration.

Dean gave a short nod in his direction and shrugged off his leather jacket. He draped it over the back of one of the chairs and took a deep breath, it was now or never. He couldn't put off telling him forever, he'd already left it four years too long. And Sam wasn't going to be happy about it.

"Look, Sammy," Dean sighed. "You're not gonna like this," he began slowly, never able to bring himself to face him as he spoke. "And I'm sorry for this, I am, but you need to know something. There's no other way I can say this, and I need you to hear me, okay?"

Sam dropped down the pen that he had been twiddling between his fingers and frowned at him, looking completely lost. He slowly closed his laptop and nodded. There were only so many things that Dean could be serious about, and a part of him expected, maybe even hoped, that it would be something to do with his demon deal.

"Okay?" he replied, raising his eyebrows in wait of Dean's response.

Dean wet his lips and looked down at him, green eyes meeting hazel for a moment. "Sam," he paused a second, anxious of his brother's reaction, and sighed. "We have a sister."

Nothing was said, the room filled with a heavy silence. Sam just stared at him, his eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. His eyebrows were furrowed together in confusion, because there was no way that Dean had just said sister. No chance. He must've heard him wrong.

"A sister?" he repeated incredulously, almost feeling like laughing. He figured that the three days he had gone without sleeping was beginning to have an effect on him. He had to be hearing things.

There was no way that Dean would keep something like that from him, no way, he just wouldn't. Sam slowly pushed himself up from the bed and moved to stand in front of his brother, his eyes never leaving him as he did. He knew his brother, and sure, sometimes he would keep something from him, but that was only in, what Dean thought, his kid sibling's best interest. But there wasn't a chance that he could think there was a way to justify hiding something as big as that, or could he?

Dean just nodded. "Yeah," he cleared his throat. "We have a kid sister." he said quietly. "And, we need to go and get her, you see -"

"A sister?" Sam said again, this time a little more forcefully, not seeming to have registered it the first time. But Dean just nodded again, saying nothing. "And, you know this how, exactly?" he pressed, not sure that he was going to like whatever his brother was about to say.

There was no shock in the way Dean spoke, there was no emotion. He didn't speak as though this was something new to him, as though he was still trying to register the information like Sam was. He spoke about her as though he had already known she existed. Like it wasn't anything shocking or out of the ordinary to him. Sam could tell, Dean had already known.

Dean sighed, he was clearly hesitant to tell him anything. "Dad told me." he answered, almost reluctantly.

"Dad told you?" Sam was more than confused now, the thought that their Dad had known something like that and he had never told them about it, he didn't know what he was supposed to think. But then something else hit him; their Dad had been dead for over a year, Dean had known this whole time and never breathed a word. "When?" Dean's eyes were fixed on the floor, he didn't answer him. "When, Dean?" Sam pushed, his voice hard, demanding an answer from him.

Dean's eyes finally met his again, he looked as though he was nothing but ashamed of what he was about to confess. But Sam already felt betrayed. "Just over four years ago." he muttered.

Sam ran a hand through his hair, he didn't know what to think, never mind what he was supposed to say. "And, what, you never thought to mention this?" he snapped, his voice raised. "After everything you and I have been through, you never once brought it up? You never thought that maybe, just maybe, I'd want to know that I have a sister?!"

"Sammy -" Dean went to stop him, but Sam wasn't having it. He was angry.

Sam realised something else; two of those years Dean had been on his own with their Dad. Sam didn't know what they had been doing all that time, he had never told him much about those years he was at Stanford. "Have you met her?" he asked, not giving Dean a chance to interrupt him. He wanted answers.

Dean nodded. "Yeah, Sammy, I met her." he sighed. Sam could see that he wasn't proud of himself, and that only made him think that there was more to it that Dean wasn't telling him. But Dean seemed to be in a hurry to something, he didn't seem to feel they had the time to talk about it. He was on edge. "Look, I'll explain everything on the way, I promise, but -"

"On the way?" Sam repeated, frowning at him. "On the way, where? Where are we going?"

Dean sighed, defeated, he was going to have to tell him, there was no way around it. Even he had been shocked when he had found out where she was, and he knew her. There was no telling what Sam was going to think about it. "Nevada." he replied simply. "She's in prison." And that was it, Sam's eyes went wide. "Look, Sam, you're angry, you've got a right to be, but trust me, it's a long story. I promise I'll tell you everything, but we have to go. We've let out a demon army, we don't have time to mess around here. We need to get her before these demons make their damn move."

"No, Dean." Sam stood his ground. He wasn't having it. "I want to know." he said bluntly, not seeming to care about anything else. "What's her name? You know, how old is she? What's she like?"

Dean released a deep breath, it was obvious they weren't getting anywhere soon. It wasn't like he blamed Sam for wanting to know about her, he had been just the same when he had first been told about her, but that was a long time ago. That was when Sam should have been told, too. It wasn't fair to have it this way. It wasn't fair that Dean had known and Sam hadn't. And if it had been up to him, he would have been told at the same time.

"Her name's Natalie Scott, and she'll be twenty-two now. She's two years younger than you. She's, uh, she's nice." Dean gave a half smile, he didn't know what he was supposed to say, how he was supposed to describe her to him. "She's a bit of a tearaway, always has been, good at getting herself into trouble with the cops. Her upbringing was a little, shall we say, rough. But, she's smart, you know? She's tough, brave, definitely has my looks," he added lightly, making an attempt at getting his brother to crack a smile. "But, she's stubborn as hell, can definitely hold her own." He shook his head slowly. "She's one of those people, she acts like she couldn't care less but, she'd do anything to help someone who needed it."

Sam listened to him, he couldn't understand it. There was nothing but fondness in Dean's voice as he spoke about her, he could see that he obviously cared about her, a lot. There was something about the look on his face; filled with regret and sorrow, that made Sam think something had gone wrong between them. He figured it must have done, or else why would they not still be together?

"You sound like you know her pretty well." Sam said bluntly, he didn't even try to hide the accusation in his tone. Dean knew this girl, and he knew her well enough that it told Sam they hadn't just spent a weekend together.

Dean shrugged, acting as though it wasn't important. "Kinda," he replied. "We spent some time together a while back, not a big deal."

"Some time?" Sam repeated, he couldn't understand why Dean didn't want him to know, unless he knew it was going to bother him. "How long is 'some time', Dean? A week? A month? Two moths?"

Dean shook his head, and sighed. "Couple of years." he muttered, he now sounded ashamed of himself, because they both knew it wasn't fair.

Sam blinked, taken aback. Dean had spent two solid years with their sister, he had been with her all that time and he had never once mentioned her name. "You spent two years with our sister and you didn't think to even tell me that we had one?" Sam's voice was low, he didn't sound angry anymore, he sounded hurt. "What the hell, Dean?"

There was something else bothering him, perhaps more than the fact Dean hadn't told him. He wanted to know why Dean hadn't told him about her. There must have been a reason, even after Dad, that had stopped him. It was clear that Dean cared for her, and he assumed that she must have cared about him to spend two years hunting with him. Something had happened with them. He couldn't work out why Dean would allow her to walk out of his life. Unless, he hadn't.

"Why did she leave?" Sam asked him, almost hesitantly, a knowing look on his face. He could tell that Dean didn't want to tell him about what had happened, it was obvious, but he needed to know, a part of him felt guilty that he hadn't been there to see it first hand. He knew the fact that he had left didn't excuse Dean keeping it from him, but he had to feel partly responsible.

"We had a fight." Dean shrugged simply. "It didn't work out, and she left. There's nothing more to it. I figured it was just easier to leave it at that."

There was a sadness in his eyes, like he hadn't wanted to think back to that time. If she had turned her back on him and left, there was no question that it still hurt him to think about. Sam could tell when he had come back from Stanford that Dean was still hurt about him leaving in the first place, no matter how hard he worked to cover it all up. There weren't a lot of things he could keep from his younger brother, despite how good he thought his poker face was.

"Why now?" Dean looked up at him at that question, not following. "Why do you wanna go find her now? It's been, what, nearly two years?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't know, Sam," he sighed. "Because, I got a year to live. I don't wanna leave you here with no one."

That statement hit Sam like a punch in the face. "Are you saying that she's supposed to be some kind of replacement to you?" he asked, sounding insulted at the thought.

"No, no, I'm saying," Dean stopped, shaking his head, he didn't know what he meant. "You needed to know about her, Sam. And time's running out for me to tell you. I get that I should have told you about her years ago, but I can't change that. So I'm telling you now, because you deserve to know."

Sam moved to sit down on the edge of the bed with a deep sigh, it was too much for him to take in at once. "How did she even end up with you in the first place?" he asked, genuinely curious. "I mean, did she come find you or did you find her?"

Dean shook his head. "She was only seventeen when I met her. Her Mom died, so she called Dad, I think she'd only met him a couple of times before that but, still," he shrugged. "Dad dragged us down there to get her, told me everything on the way there, said he was just gonna help her out and we'd be gone."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "So, what happened?"

"He went to meet her, ended up bringing her back to the motel with him, told me that I was supposed to train her up and make her a hunter. And, I agreed." Sam looked a little surprised at that. "I mean, Dad was starting to bail more and more the older I got, and I didn't feel right having her out on her own somewhere, especially with her record. So I took her with me, and eventually we started hunting together." He looked down, thinking over his next statement carefully. "A couple weeks after she left, I got that voicemail from Dad, that's when I came to get you."

"Dean, this girl is twenty-two, right? She's been out of this for two years now." Dean raised an eyebrow at him, as though he wasn't following. "We've just opened the gates to hell and started a friggin' war, you have a year to live, and you wanna pull her back into that?"

Dean looked down for a moment. He knew it was selfish, he knew it was going to be dangerous, but it had to be better than where she was now. Honestly, he missed her. He had always missed her. And, this time, he'd had enough. He knew he at least had to try with her, even if she didn't want to see him.

"She's a good hunter, Sam." Dean stated simply. "She knows what she's doing out there. Hell, she saved my ass enough times in the past."

Sam shook his head. "That's not what I meant."

"I know," he muttered. "But, I wanna make it right, Sam. And, face it, she's your little sister, too. You should know her. She's a good kid. She doesn't deserve to be where she is."

Hell, that was another story he was going to have to tell, he was going to have to explain why she wasn't just in prison. He was going to have to explain why she had ended up on lockdown in a prison psychiatric ward, about how they were going to have to break her out of maximum security without getting caught themselves. Dean knew there were a lot of things that Sam still wanted to know. He was going to want to know about the fight they'd had, about the two years they had spent hunting together, about why she had left. He was going to ask how they even had a sister in the first place, what had happened between her and their Dad. And Dean knew he was going to have to explain it all.

But, despite how Sam felt, even Dean didn't know what they were supposed to do when they actually came face to face with her. He wasn't completely sure that she would talk to him, he had a good idea that she wouldn't be overjoyed to see him again. But finding her was something that they had to do, and Sam knew it, too, even if he was still a little wary.

"So, whaddaya say, huh?" Dean coaxed, a small smile on his face. "You in?"

Sam sighed, clearly defeated, and looked up at him. "Which prison is she in?"

At that, a grin spread across Dean's face.