Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the movie or real life, only my own character.

"Ruth, can you get Judy up please?" Lorraine, Ruth's adoptive mother, called to her from the kitchen. Ruth walked down the hallway to her little sister's room, opening the door and turning on the light.

"Mom said to get up," she called before walking towards the kitchen. She could hear Judy moving around in the bed before small footsteps started following her. When they got in the kitchen, Ed was also in there.

"Morning dad," Ruth said as she sat next to him.

"Morning, girls," he said after taking a sip of coffee. Ruth took a mug from the middle of the table and poured herself some coffee as Lorraine brought a stack of pancakes over to the table and sat on Ed's other side.

"Don't forget about that lecture we have this afternoon," Lorraine reminded her husband as everyone started getting their own pancakes, Ruth helping out Judy.

"Can I come?" Ruth asked, looking between her parents eagerly. Ed and Lorraine exchanged glances, looks that Ruth had been very familiar with. "Please?"

The Warren's had adopted Ruth when she was three years old. Her parents had abandoned her because they said she was "too different." When the Warren's heard what her birth parents cited that she'd done as a toddler, they knew they needed to help her. Like Lorraine, Ruth was a clairvoyant. The only problem is that her gift sometimes had a mind of its own and was far more intense than what Lorraine experienced most of the time. She'd been with them to investigate a couple of haunted places in her later teen years, but some of her experiences made Ed and Lorraine concerned for her safety, both physically and spiritually. Now at 25, she wanted to try to help them more. Ruth felt like she would have more control on the way her gift worked, but she would never truly know if she didn't test things out. Her parents were going to give a lecture at a university later that afternoon, and she'd heard the lecture plenty of times before, but she still wanted to go. Something about this particular lecture called out to her, like she needed to be there.

"Fine, you can come," Ed said to his oldest child with a small smile. "You'll have to stay behind the stage, though."

"Thank you!" Ruth said, jumping out of her seat to give her father a quick hug.

Ruth always found the questions people asked at those lectures to be boring, or stupid. Her parents took the bad questions like champions – way more level-headed than she ever could. The people that came to their house to see the artifact room weren't always nice, either. Anyone ever asked about was the Annabelle doll since her parents had worked on that case. And the house in Amityville. Even though Ruth hadn't been there for that, she could feel the things that had happened to her mom there. The exorcism, the poltergeist activity, all of it. She'd talked to her mom about it not long after they'd gotten home from it but wouldn't dare say anything to her dad. It would make him worry too much and he was already worried about Lorraine with her gift. Adding to that worry didn't sound like a very good idea. She always felt drawn to Annabelle, too, since they'd brought the doll home in 1968, but neither of her parents knew that. After a while she was able to ignore the feeling, but it was stronger when her parents were away. She knew Judy didn't have the same gift as her or their mother, and often wondered if she resented her for that. Sometimes they would get into arguments over nothing, but Ruth knew sometimes it was about that.

One day, Ruth was outside with Lorraine, Judy, and their Nana, feeding their chickens. She heard Ed walking out of the house before Lorraine did and looked over to see him coming up to the gate. She half-listened to the conversation between her parents before Lorraine followed her husband over to their car. She could tell just by their body language that whatever they were talking about had to do with a new case. She hadn't been anywhere near a haunted place in months, and she wanted to go with them this time.

"Can I go with you?" Ruth asked her dad after Lorraine walked back into the house. "Please?"

Ed looked away from Ruth and sighed before giving her a serious look.

"Fine," he said, Lorraine coming up behind him.

"What?" she said, looking over to her oldest daughter.

"Dad said I could go with you this time," Ruth said with a grin, crossing her arms in satisfaction. Lorraine gave her husband a stern look but didn't protest before getting into the front seat of the car.

At the house Father Gordon had asked them to check out, Ruth was trying hard not to act bored. It only took her walking into the house to know that there was no paranormal activity going on – it was just an old house. And the young couple who lived there were just scared because of some old pipes and creaky floorboards.

"Can I start doing this stuff more with you guys?" Ruth asked when they were on the way home. "We all know about my gift, but I never get to use it. If I don't get to use it, how can I get control of it? I want to be able to help people, too."

"Ruth, we've talked about his," Lorraine said sternly. "I know you want to work on your gift, but it's too dangerous for you. You could get hurt."

"Like you couldn't?"

"For you it would be worse."

"Your mother's right," Ed said, glancing back at Ruth. "We can't let you just walk into some place that's haunted and expect you to come out of it safe. At least not every time."

"Why not? I'm an adult, I can make these decisions on my own."

"Ruth, no," Lorraine looked back at her, deadly serious. "I cannot allow you to put yourself in that much danger."

Ruth decided not to argue about it further just yet and sat in the back seat silently until they got home. She would have to talk to them in the morning to give all them time to think clearly about it.

"Ruth, we have talked about this time and time again. You are not going to start working on cases with us," Lorraine said the next morning, even more sternly than the previous night. "If you want to come with us for these lectures, that's fine. But I'm not going to allow you to put yourself in danger like that."

"You know you're being a huge hypocrite about this," Ruth shot back, trying not to yell.

Ed had gotten himself out of the argument early on, knowing what he had to say wouldn't be very important, and that it would be the same thing Lorraine had to say on the matter. "You go into these places all the time. You're risking your own neck to save people! Why can't I do the same?"

"You don't have a good hold on your abilities," Lorraine countered. "I do most of the time. And I don't want to see you hurt."

Ed could hear footsteps going down the hallway before hearing the front door open and close a little too loudly. It wasn't long until Lorraine walked into the kitchen, rubbing her temple.

"What are we gonna do, Ed?" she said, sitting at the kitchen table with him. "She's been asking about going with us on cases more and more. I'm just not sure what to do about it anymore."

"I don't either," Ed admitted, taking his wife's hand. "And she was right last night – she is an adult now. It should be up to her if she wants to get into this with us. I don't want her to just as much as you don't, but maybe it's time she did."

Lorraine gave him a steady look and thought about what they would do about Ruth. She knew Ruth would eventually find a way to do things on her own if they didn't let her go with them on cases – she'd done it before as a teenager. But her experience back then was enough to scare her off from doing things on her own again.

"I guess she can go with us on our next case," Lorraine finally gave in. "But that means she needs to start coming to every lecture we give, too."

"I'll go find her and tell her," Ed said with a small smile as he stood from the table. He knew where Ruth probably was – she enjoyed climbing trees even in her 20s. He found her in the tree next to the driveway, singing quietly to herself. She did that when she needed to calm down. "Hey," he called up to her, giving her a smile when she looked down at him. "You mother and I have been talking about you going on cases with us."

Ruth tried not to seem interested, but Ed knew her better than that. After a moment she climbed down the tree to face her father.

"What did mom say?" she asked, refusing to look him in the eye.

"She's just worried about you in those situations," Ed said, making Ruth look him in the eye. "And so am I, but I think I've convinced her that since you're an adult now you should be able to make those decisions yourself."

"So, what's the catch?" Ruth asked with a small smile. She could just tell by his tone of voice that there had to be a catch to this deal.

"You have to start going with us to lectures," he said with a bemused expression. "All of them."

Ruth hugged her father tightly, catching him off guard a little. She was grinning when she faced him again and started back into the house.

"Is she still mad at me?" she asked Ed as they walked through the front door.

"Of course not," Ed replied, closing the door behind him. "Just protective. And worried."

Hello good readers! For now this is the only chapter I will submit - I am already up to Chapter 4. I will post the other chapters if I get decent feedback about this chapter. Until then, I'll look forward to reviews!