(A/N: Just became a fan of Supernatural, watched up to the latest episode in three weeks. It was a long and emotional month! Trying my hand at some fanfiction for it. Starting off with my first ever gender-bent fanfiction! Hope you enjoy.)

Chapter One- Defeat

Sammy sat in her second class of the day. She hated Saturday classes. It was a large lecture hall where the professor was so old he wouldn't have been able to learn their names had he wanted to try. It was a necessary class though. This was on the list of needed courses for the law degree she was going for. Of course, she had always known, deep down at least, that this was the job she would pursue. Sammy had grand ideas of the world she lived in, ideas of things could be better. Mostly, she wanted to help people. She knew also, in the back corner of her mind where she kept thoughts she didn't want to look too far into, that this quality was bestowed upon her by her father.

That was something she would never admit to her older sister though. Sitting in this class now she didn't have to worry about Deanna. Her sister was off hunting with their father and the two hadn't spoken in over three weeks. That was unusual but Sammy had been busy with finals coming up. Putting her mind back to her work, Sammy scribbled notes as the professor mentioned things that would be brought up on the test. Sammy only had a few finals to go then she would be handing off records to the six schools she had applied for early enrolment for. The Bachelor Degree would be a nice start, but she wanted more. She was looking for the fast track of a Master and PhD degree. Sammy had applied to schools where they had programs combining the two programs to a shortened one. In just another five short years, Sammy could be applying at a law firm.

The professor slowed his ramble, glancing at his watch, then up to the crowd of unrecognized faces. "Time's up. I'll see you all for your final." The smile was an ancient one, creeping into the crack's of his face.

Sammy wondered, with all his years, had he ever seen just what was out in the world? Probably not. He wouldn't be sitting around teaching the history of law making to a bunch of kids if he knew the real law and order of the world, the one that sat on the veil of most human imagining.

Packing up her things, Sammy was the last to leave. That was normal. She always felt that odd sense of being on the outside of things, not quite in with the rest of the crowd. And that was fine. Or so she told herself. Slinging the green military grade bag over her shoulder she felt the books and the small laptop clank against her back and headed out at the back of the crowd. She went back to the senior apartments, a few blocks away from the main school buildings.

She pushed open the door and dropped her bag next to the hall table, keys on top of the table. "Jess?" The lights were all off, but the shades were open to the afternoon sun.

"Kitchen!" The higher pitched tone of Sammy's roommate and girlfriend sounded out.

Sammy strolled in, rolling up the plaid sleeves of the blue and green shirt she wore over the gray t-shirt. "Hey baby." Sammy stepped up behind Jessica, who was at the stove, flipping grilled cheese sandwiches. She wrapped her arms around the other woman and kissed her neck.

"Figured you'd be hungry." Jess smiled, lifting the spatula up and turning so that Sammy could find her lips.

"Totally. That class is draining." Sammy pulled out a chair in the little space between the kitchen and small living room area where they kept a two person table and collapsed in it. She folded her arms on the table top and dropped her head atop her arms.

Sammy could hear her girlfriend moving about the kitchen, getting plates down and drinks out but she couldn't get herself to look up. Summer would be here soon and she was absolutely thankful for that much needed break. Seeing bare feet from the corner of her eye, Sammy tilted her head slightly and found Jessica looking down at her, a plate in one hand and a glass in the other.

"Beer?" Sammy sat up suddenly, taking interest in the glass.

"Nope, that's all gone. Just apple juice. It's all we had left." Jessica smirked and set the plate and cup down. "Don't you remember drinking it all up on us last night?"

"Honestly?" Sammy turned her lips into the frown and her eyes went wide, in the look both Jess and her sister described as the 'puppy dog' look. "Nope."

Jessica just sighed and went for her own food. They were almost done with everything, eating quietly except for the occasional odd remark about nothing in particular, when a knock sounded at the door. They both looked at one another oddly, and then Sammy put down the crust of her grilled cheese.

"I'll get it." She peeped through the hole and saw the back of a head, one that had nearly military grade short hair but still managed to look feminine. She frowned, thinking that it couldn't be who she thought. Tugging the door open, she watched the female turn around quickly and found herself looking into the large grin of her older sister. "Deanna? What are you doing here?"

"It's Dean...bitch." She pushed her way into the apartment, kicking off muddy shoes in the hallway.

Sammy figured she should just be happy the that shoes were coming off at all. "Oh bite me, jerk."

Dean had her hands tucked into a pair of baggy jeans. "Don't tempt me." The look she had on her face was joking, but it quickly dropped to a more serious frown. Sammy remembered this look. It was the same look Deanna had worn when telling a twelve year old Samantha that their dad wasn't going to be there for her birthday again because he was taking out a clan of vampires. It was the look of someone who had something of equal import and ass-sucky-ness to tell someone else. "Dad and I met some interesting new people and uh, well now he's missing."

"Missing? You mean shacked up somewhere with a couple of his closest friends? Jim, Jack, and Jose?" Sammy folded her arms over her ample chest, not liking where this was going, but ready to stand adamant against going anywhere.

"No, I mean, gone. Just disappeared. One of those things pushed two fingers to his forehead and they disappeared." Dean pulled her hands from her pocket and fell into the same offensive stance, arms over significantly more compact breasts.

"Well what do you want me to do about it?" Sammy leaned, trying to look around into the kitchen. She could see Jessica also leaned over and glancing into the hallway, probably looking for some explanation to the persons standing just inside the door.

Dean sighed and shook her head. "I don't know. I just can't do this alone."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Both? Damn it, Sammy I don't know where to go from here. I have his journal, I have contacts I've never spoken to, and I have you. If you've got a better option for me I'm all ears." Dean put her arms out in a sarcastic shrug.

Sammy rolled her eyes and shook her head, bangs falling over her eyes. She brushed them aside. "No. I don't have anything."

"Samantha, who is it?" Jessica called out from the kitchen table, pushing the chair out to get up.

"Just a second!" Sammy turned her eyes quickly on her sister. "Just give me until the morning."

Dean watched her for a long minute of silence, pursed her lips, and then nodded. "Okay. I'll be back at eight." Dean peered down the hallway and into the kitchen, gave Jessica a little wave of her hand. When she turned back to Samantha she had a grin on her face, one that put little wrinkles in the corner of her eyes. "She's cute there Sammy."

Sammy just looked at her sister flatly.

"Fine." Dean held up her hands and backed up to the door. "Eight. Sharp." She pushed open the door and disappeared.

"So, who was that?" Jessica was still glancing down the hallway as if she could see Dean.

"My older sister, Deanna." Sammy looked at her plate and frowned, not feeling hungry any longer. "Um, we're having a bit of a family situation. My father has these...binges with alcohol and he's gone missing. I have to go with Dean tomorrow and go looking for him."

Jessica looked at Sammy and her face slowly fell into a frown. "Tomorrow? You have finals in four days, Sammy. You have to be here Thursday."

"I know, Jess. I'm not stupid."

"That's not what I was saying-"

"Well I'm not throwing my future away, I just have to help my sister."

"Yeah, I get that. I just wanted to make sure your head was in the right place. I saw how you talked about Deanna early on, when you weren't sure about this whole school thing."

Sammy narrowed her eyes and picked up her plate. "Well, my head's in the right place, trust me." She dumped the last pieces of sandwich away and put the dishes in the sink.

That night Jessica and Samantha lay in bed together, silence slightly awkward, and Sammy sought for something to say. She should probably apologize for getting snippy. Or reassure Jessica that she would be back by Wednesday. Sammy could tell Jessica was looking at her, lying on her side towards Sammy. Sammy was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She rolled over and caught Jessica's eyes.

It was Jessica's smile that finally broke Sammy. She smiled back slowly, brushed the wavy hair from her own face and spoke up. "Look, I'm sorry I snapped at you, but I will be back Wednesday. Dean just..." Samantha breathed in deeply, trying to word things carefully because she hadn't told Jessica about the true family history. "Dean doesn't handle these things well alone."

"Alright, it's fine." She moved closer to Sammy, curling up with her now. "Love you, Sam."

"I love you, too Jess."

It was seven when Sammy sat up quickly in bed, panting and trying to escape the nightmare. Jessica had been bleeding in her arms and then the flames burst around them. Sammy could feel Jessica melting away in her arms but couldn't feel pain from the fire herself. Blinking quickly she looked around the room and found the bed next to her empty. Sammy jumped up, shaking the rest of the dream away.

"Hey, Jess?" She called out putting her feet on the carpeted ground and standing up. She turned for the little bathroom in their room and pushed the door open. Nothing. Sammy turned about, confused. Walking around the rest of the small school apartment, she came up empty.

"Damn it." Sammy found herself back at the bed. She fell back on it, sprawling her arms above her.

Samantha screamed. She jumped up immediately on the bed scrambling to reach Jessica who was pinned to the ceiling, blood pooling across her lower abdomen and a silent scream formed on her face. Sammy's hands were on Jessica's shoulders when the fire sprang out, fanning about the ceiling and encompassing Jessica. Sammy yanked as hard as she could, but Jessica remained stuck, mouth moving in pained yelling but no noise escaping. As the fire licked her own hands, Sammy couldn't make herself leave the inferno.

Something else pulled her free. She felt arms wrap about her and she was suddenly thrown through the open doorway. Dean's face came up next to hers and Sammy yelled for Jessica. Dean wouldn't let her get to the woman on the ceiling though. The last Sammy saw of her girlfriend was the blackening remains crisping above their bed, tatters of clothing smoking as they fell to the floor.

She noticed the tears only once they were outside and Deanna was herding her into the Impala. Sammy wiped them away from her cheeks and when she brought her hands back down she found she'd only replaced tears with streaks of blood.

"Sam... Sammy, look at me. Come on Samantha, you need to focus on me." The car engine fired up, noisily, and it almost drowned out the raging fire in Sammy's head. She tried to focus on Dean's voice. "I'm getting you out of here, then we're going to talk."

Sammy blinked heavily, panic seeping through her in waves. She leaned back in the seat, putting her hands over her face, not caring about the blood right now. She was mostly trying to breathe.

***

Dean wasn't sure what to do with her sister. Samantha could barely breathe as they pulled into the parking lot of the motel where Dean was staying. She helped Sammy inside and onto the edge of a bed but didn't know where to go from there. Dean had never been a great emotional support to anyone, and she was suddenly wishing she could be a bit more like her sister right now. Dean wasn't even sure what to say. The image of Jessica on the ceiling was seared into her mind as well, bringing back memories of when Dean had seen their mother in the same position, above Sammy's crib.

Opening up the fridge, Dean pulled out a couple of beers, popped the top and tossed one back. She handed the other over to Sammy who made a face but took it anyway. When both bottles were empty, which happened fairly quickly, the two girls found themselves across from one another just looking in disbelief.

"I wanted out of this life, Deanna. That's why I left. I was going to be something, someone else."

The words hurt Dean, making her chest restrict uncomfortably. She had always felt like Sammy was running away from her, hadn't liked who and what Dean was. These words only seemed to confirm it. "Look, we just need to find dad and then he can help us straighten all this out. First though, you really need to shower." Dean hoped her words were soft, because caring is what she was aiming for.

From the look on Sammy's face, Dean wasn't so sure she'd gotten it across that way. "How do you expect us to find him?"

"He left me the car, the journal. He didn't have time to grab anything more than a silver blade before that thing zapped him away to God knows where. But we have his journal, so we'll start with what you're best at." Dean smiled at her sister. "Research."

Sammy was shaking her head slowly back and forth. "Not here. I can't be here."

Dean nodded just as slowly. "Alright, fine. Let's get cleaned up then we can go."

"Fine."

As Sammy got herself cleaned up Dean took the time to recheck her weapons, make sure the salt rounds were loaded into two shotguns, and pack up the other things. She desperately needed to do some laundry, but that would have to wait until she was able to get them a few states away and into some new town.

They were out of the motel in twenty-three minutes, on the road in twenty-five and sixteen long hours later they were pulling into a small town with a cheap motel.

"How many beds you need?" The girl behind the counter glanced between Dean and Sam, obviously making some assumption Dean wasn't keep up with.

"Two, we're sisters." Sammy spoke up, taking lead on this interaction. Dean was famously not good with her own sex, preferring the easy way she was able to talk to men.

They got into their room and both took up beds, Dean taking the one closer to the door as usual. It wasn't a back of the mind decision, despite how long she'd been doing it. Samantha was her younger sister so it was up to Dean to take care of her. Looking over at the younger woman, Dean was at a loss though.

"Can I see his book?" Sammy held out her hand and looked at the tan bulging notebook next to Dean.

Glancing down at it, Dean lifted it in her black painted nails and glanced back up to her sister. "Yeah, here." She reached across the way and watched Sammy take it. Sammy's fingers were longer, nails painted pink. Sammy was also taller than Dean by a few inches. Sometimes, her younger sister liked to put on high heeled boots just to look even taller than Dean.

Dean watched her sister flipping through pages that their father had pieced together over the years, looking for something Dean had missed more than likely.

"What did the creatures look like? The ones that took dad?"

"It was only one. He looked human." Dean shrugged. "He had short messy brown hair. Looked like he hadn't shaved in a couple days, frowned a lot. His eyes were blue. About as tall as me and he was wearing a brown trench coat over a suit."

Dean watched Sammy frown and keep flipping through the book. "Any ideas on what it could have been?"

Dean shook her head. "Not a single one. That's part of why I came to you. You're um, well you're better at the research than I am."

Samantha didn't argue with that one. Instead, Dean watched her shut the book and look at her phone. "I need a laptop, I'll have to look more into the lore behind these things. Just, you, any details you can remember."

"Right. I've got one in the car. One sec." Dean jogged out to her black Impala and popped the backseat open. There was a computer case sticking out from under Sammy's hunting bag. She snagged it and turned back, looking at the door of the motel room. She could see Sammy's silhouette headed for the bathroom and Dean stood outside for a few minutes. She knew how Sammy would be feeling, having watched this murder actually take place, as Dean had watched their mother twenty years ago. The pain of watching that hadn't lessened for her, so she knew the raw pain of it for Sammy would be awful right now.

Walking back in, she found the bathroom door partially opened, and Samantha was bent over the sink, cupping her hands and collecting water in them. Dean watched her splash it over her face and when she came up, the look was heartaching. Samantha looked lost.

Coughing a little, Dean made sure she wasn't facing towards her sister. "I uh, got the laptop." She spoke loud enough so that Samantha would hear her over the running water. "You think they got free porn in this joint?" She threw up a wicked grin and turned towards her sister finally.

Samantha shot her a glare of disapproval. "You're not doing that while I'm in here."

"What else am I going to do while you're playing history nerd?"

The frown combined with the low furrowed brows always got to Dean, maybe more so than the perfect puppy-dog eyes Samantha had. "You could help," Samantha snipped.

Dean pursed her lips, lifted her eyebrows, and then shrugged and dropped the thoughtful expression. "Yeah. What do I do? There's only one laptop."

"I brought some books along. They're in my bag by the bed. A few are on ancient lore so I'm sure you'll come across something about these creatures in there. You were the one that saw him, so you'd have a better idea of what to look for anyway." Samantha was typing on the computer as she spoke now.

Rolling her eyes, Dean went around to the other side of the bed and lifted up the backpack. It was heavy as hell. "What the fuck, Sammy, how many books do you carry in this thing?" Dean dumped the contents on her own bed and found out. Five. There were five books, two of them were quite large, and one was literally falling apart at the binding. She moved that one carefully over on its own space.

"Just what I need. There are essential reading materials to a job like ours."

Dean just scoffed out a laugh. "Yeah, I've done fine so far without picking up too many of these things."

It was quiet for a moment, making Dean look up at her sister. Samantha had that frown again. "I'm surprised you actually know how to read, really."

"Shut up." The words were dragged out a little, sort of combining the them in a sing-song way, while still managing to have a flat tone about them. It was something Samantha had always laughed at. Dean lay down on the bed, on her stomach facing Sammy and started flipping through the books. Considering it was something they'd never seen before, she started on the older book, hoping that something to the description she had in her head could be found in its pages. Time was running out for their father, and she would not forgive herself if they didn't get to him.

"He's still alive, Dean."

"What?" She looked up from the book, having found squat so far.

"Dad, he's still alive. We would know if he wasn't." Sammy was giving her a soft sad look.

Feeling suddenly like she should be the one to be giving comfort and was an ass for not doing so, Dean nodded. "Yeah, I know Sammy. Don't worry about it. The answers are in here somewhere."

"Have you two had any luck on the demon that killed mom... and Jess?"

Dean's eyes flicked back up again to look at her. Slowly she shook her head. "Not really. We thought we were close once, but it ended up being a literal dead end. House full of ganked demon shells." Dean shifted on the bed, yanking her jeans up with her. "A couple of hunters had passed through just before us, following the demon's death trail. They didn't get anything from the demons about something as powerful as the one from that night."

"As powerful? So we're thinking he's not just the average demon?" Samantha frowned again, half closing the laptop and putting her full attention on Dean.

She felt scrutinized under this new line of questioning. The demon had always been a sore topic considering how long they'd been looking for the freak. Dean nodded with those pursed lips again. "About eight months back, we read up about another case like ours, tracked down some lower demon who told us what we were hunting would kill us, we couldn't stop it because it wasn't something we'd ever faced before." Dean shrugged. "So yeah, something new, but still demon and we're going to kill it Sammy."

"If we can find dad. Both trails are running cold already." The defeat in her voice annoyed Dean.