Welcome to my story! It's a sisfic. If that's not your bag, I guess I just lost you. Have a nice day anyway. For those of you who met Callie Winchester in my multi-chapter story "A Simple Kind of Life," I hope you'll enjoy this two(?)-shot (I just typed "shit" by mistake and truly hope that's not a hint at things to come). That story explores the whys and wherefores of Callie, who she is and how she came onto the scene. This one won't explain those things, so, briefly: John fathered a baby girl with a hunter who died when the baby was 4 months old. Dean was 13 and Sam was 9, and John being John, they kind of had to step up and be more than just garden-variety brothers to Callie. I like to explore relationships, especially the sibling kind. That's my favorite aspect of the show, and now that I've dipped a toe into SPN fanfiction, that's become my favorite thing to read and write about. If you would please leave some feedback, I would very much appreciate it. I am kind of easily distracted by shiny things and random objects, I tend to get too little sleep, and I just got a puppy … so if I don't get reviews, it's entirely possible that I will just completely forget I started this thing! Also, I'm an editor, and I'm nitpicky about everything I read during the day. But come nighttime, when I do my writing-for-fun, anything goes. Forgive any mistakes and know that I (probably) know better. Carry on…

I shifted the strap of my duffel bag to my other shoulder. It was heavier than it should have been, considering I didn't own that much stuff, and of the stuff I did own, I had only packed the essentials. I had wanted to get as far gone as possible before they noticed that I'd taken my belongings. If they thought I'd just gone for a walk or something, they wouldn't start tracking me until later, when I didn't come back. If, however, they found that I hadn't left empty-handed, they'd hit the road immediately and probably find me before I could get where I was headed.

Stanford, that's where I was headed. To my brother. To Sam.

I hadn't laid eyes on him in two years. I'd been nine when he left, and my last visual memory of him was his back as he walked away, blurred through my tears as I sobbed in Dean's arms—safe but restraining, because he knew I would have bolted after Sam and clung to him like a desperate puppy, and things were already hard enough.

He'd kept in touch with me and Dean during those two years by phone, after a fairly long period of zero contact. I guess he didn't want us to try to talk him into coming back, which I totally would have, pulling out all the stops, shamelessly and without a speck of pity. Begging, guilt tripping, threatening, whatever it took. It was fair game, I felt, after he'd abandoned us. Dean took a different approach once he was finally able to speak to Sam without being a jerk. He acted like everything was just fine, bluff and breezy and casual and so not what he was really feeling. Dean had trouble being hurt. Anger he could do, but hurt? It was unfamiliar and unwelcome. Sam hadn't spoken to Daddy, though, not since that horrible night, the fight that had sent him packing. I couldn't blame him.

Daddy was pretty much what had pushed me out the door, too. Sam would get it. He would take me in, at least for a few days, give me a break from the other two Winchester men before I had to go back and face the music. (That music was bound to be loud and painful, but I'd weighed the pros and cons and seeking sanctuary with Sammy had won out.)

The Winchester name was not wasted on me. I'd managed the bus ride with no trouble (I'd actually been in such a snit when I left that I'd briefly contemplated hitch-hiking, but the consequences of that weren't worth the risk, and I'm not even talking about possibly being picked up by a child molester or murderer, but what my dad and brothers would do if they found out I'd done something so stupid). I'd asked for and received kid-friendly directions from a fairly-not-possessed-looking lady at the bus station, and I'd walked the nearly three miles to Sam's apartment by myself. Best part? No black '67 Impala had pulled up alongside me as I trudged along with my ever-heavier bag and expelled two furious men who had driven all this way with the exclusive purpose of killing me.

Yeah, yeah, I've been told I exaggerate. But trust me, there's no such thing as exaggeration when it comes to angry Winchesters, and what sets Dean off is worry (check) and what sets Daddy off is (among many other things) wasted time and disobedience (double check).

It took a while and my shoulder ached from the duffel straps, but at last Sam's building loomed in front of me. It was dark by now, and as I stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the squares of orange light shining through apartment windows, my courage and sense of righteous purpose were sort of wilting.

My stomach was in knots as I slipped my cell phone out of my pocket. I'd made sure to turn the GPS off because DUH. I flipped it open—it wasn't a cool phone, just a functional one, just for emergencies—and started to press the Sam speed-dial combo.

And then I heard him.

His voice was one of several mingled together, but it stood out to me like a spotlight at midnight. I would've been able to pick it out of a crowd of hundreds, thousands. The people heading toward me were about a block away, chatting and laughing casually together, two girls (one brunette, one blonde) and two guys (one of them, the tallest one, my Sammy). Sudden panic gripped me and I stepped off the sidewalk and ducked down between two cars parallel parked at the curb. I held my breath as their voices came closer.

"You sure you don't want to come up and hang for a while?" a girl's voice asked.

"Aw, sorry, Jess, really shouldn't," answered the other girl. "I have bio at eight and I haven't even cracked the book for the exam. Mark, you driving me home?"

"You live two blocks away," a male voice complained teasingly. "This is why you don't wear six-inch stilettos to Thirsty Thursday."

My heart pounded. They were awfully close now, and I could hear keys jingling.

"Fine, I gotcha. Later, Jess. Winchester, I guess you won't be skipping class in the morning, huh?"

"You never know, Mark."

"Right. The day you cut a class is the day—whoa. Hello?"

Dammit. Two pairs of shoes—red heels and beat-up Converse—stopped directly in front of me. It's all I could see of them from my crouching position between the cars.

"What's up?" Sam's voice asked his friends from a little farther away.

"There's a kid. What are you doing down there, kid?"

I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my lip, contemplating making a run for it. This is not how I had planned to see my brother again after two long years. I didn't know why I had decided to hide in the first place, but now that I'd been discovered I was pretty sure I'd never been so mortified in my eleven years.

I started scooting backwards out from between the cars and toward the street. Then I shoved myself up from my squatting position and turned to run, muttering a "sorry" as I darted blindly into the street. If I could keep my face hidden maybe Sam wouldn't have a chance to even—

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

A car horn blared as a souped-up Honda swerved around me, coming so close the wind blew my hair away from my face. I screamed. And then I was caught by the arm.

"Are you okay?" the guy they'd called Mark asked me, his eyes wide. Next to him, the brunette in the heels was looking just as shocked as I felt.

I didn't answer; didn't feel like I could form words. I pulled my arm out of Mark's hold and nodded, not daring to look as Sam and the blonde girl started toward us. "I'm fine, I gotta go!" I said in a panicky voice.

And maybe that thing I said about knowing Sam's voice in a crowd of thousands was true for him, too. Because he hadn't even gotten a decent look at me yet when my name rang out, his tone stunned and questioning. "Callie?"

I didn't actually decide to run, but my feet must have. The street blurred under them as I fled away from the group of college students standing on the curb. Well, apparently not all of them were still standing there after I started my sprint, since about five seconds later a pair of rock-solid arms caught me around the waist and lifted me in the air to halt my progress. I felt myself being swung around in a half-circle before my feet met solid ground again. And I looked up into the disbelieving eyes of my big brother Sam.

Sam's girlfriend's name was Jessica. She seemed nice enough, but I wasn't sorry when she excused herself to the bedroom (they shared a bedroom! I made a mental note) to study. I think it was actually an excuse to give us some time to talk. I hadn't yet answered a direct question, and he had peppered me with them all the way up from the street to their apartment.

"How did you get here?"

"Are you okay?"

"Why did you run?"

"Do Dad and Dean know you're here?"

As soon as the door shut behind Jessica, Sam did what I'd been hoping he'd do since coming face to face with him down there in the middle of that embarrassing scene. He pulled me into a tight embrace. He was so tall—even taller than he'd been two years ago, and that was saying something because he was tall then, and I had been much shorter—my head only came to his midsection. He rested one of his huge hands on the back of my head and it was all so comfortable and so familiar and so missed that I had to bite my lip to keep from crying.

The hug lasted a long time, and I think he was as reluctant to let go as I was to be let go. Finally he stepped away, holding me by the shoulders and bending down slightly to make direct eye contact.

"Callie, you have to give me something to go on here," he said. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head and fear instantly flooded his eyes. "What do you mean no? Are you hurt? Are Dad and Dean—Callie, please, answer me."

"They're probably not looking for me yet," I said in a small voice. "You'd probably be the first person they'd call if they knew I was gone."

"What? Why did you leave, Callie?"

You did, I thought but did not say. I shrugged instead.

Annoyance flashed on his face. "That's not an answer. They don't know you're gone? When did you leave? Oh, God, Cal, I gotta call Dean."

"No!"

I grabbed his wrist as his phone came out of his pocket. He looked at me questioningly. "Cal, I have to! He's going to freak out when he realizes you're not there, he's gonna—"

"Sammy, please."

He plucked my hand from his wrist and walked me over to the couch, sitting down and pulling me down next to him. "What. Is going. On."

"I hate living with them!" I blurted. "Daddy is on my case all the time and he's mean to me even when he's not drinking, and Dean won't let me do anything or go anywhere and he's turned mean since you left, too, and he sides with Dad like he never did before and it's like I'm this burden all the time. I don't have any friends because I'm only in school a few weeks at a time and they won't let me live with Bobby for good and I just wanted to see you and get away from them." When I finished my little outburst I was breathless.

Sam studied me carefully for a few moments. But when he said my name, I knew I hadn't won my case. "Callie. I am happy to see you. You have no idea how happy I am to see you," he started, and this wasn't going in a good direction because there was a big BUT coming. "But" (see?) "Dean and Dad are going to be worried sick about you. I have to tell them you're here, so they'll know you're safe."

"But they'll come get me! I just want to stay with you for a little while. A few days."

"They will probably come get you, yeah. And they're going to be really damn mad, Cal, you do know this wasn't the way to go about solving that part of your problem, right?"

"I don't care," I said, but my stomach clenched a little at the emphasis he put on how mad they'd be, even if I knew I had it coming.

"I will call, I will try to talk Dean into letting you stay with here for a couple of nights. But then you have to go back. You know that."

"You don't want me?"

"Callie, you know that's not the issue."

"I know."

Sam's phone buzzed and we both stared at it for a few moments. I looked at him pleadingly, and he looked back sympathetically, but he answered it despite my best puppy dog look (which I'd learned from him, after all). I chewed my lip as I listened to the one-sided conversation.

"Dean. Yeah, she's here. I was about to call you. About twenty minutes ago. Dude, I know, I said I was going to call you. As soon as she told me what was going on. She's fine. No, I'm not telling her that. Dean, listen, if you want to yell at her yourself, I can give her the phone; she's sitting right here."

At that, I cast a look of horrified betrayal at Sam, who shrugged and kept talking. "She wants to stay here for a couple of days and I told her she can. Look, it might help smooth things out. Everyone needs to calm down. I know. I know! Yes, Dean, I get it. She made a really dumb move, but if you come get her tonight it's just going to…"

Sam broke off, then shot a glare at his phone. "Jerk hung up on me."

"What did he say?" I asked hopefully, even though I could tell from the angry buzz that had filled the spaces between Sam's words on the phone call that Dean was beyond pissed.

"Well," he said, "I'm sorry, sweetheart. He's on his way."

My shoulders slumped. I was so dead.

Shall I continue?