Recently, I have been very invested in Supernatural, thus, resulting in the birth of this story in the wee hours of the morning when I should have been sleeping. Considering the length of this TV show, I cannot say with the utmost confidence that this fanfic will ever be truly completed. I will come back to it from time to time and drop a new chapter, but for the most part it will remain uncomplete. Writing this is more therapeutic to me than anything, such as watching Supernatural has been.
Besides, nothing really ever ends, right?
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Supernatural, nor do I take any credit or profit from any of the ideas previously existing in the universe. The creative concept behind Supernatural belongs to its rightful owner. The only aspect I take ownership of is my original character.
Chapter 1: The Night Nobody Talks About
November 14, 2002
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Ellie Winchester wasn't a Winchester, at least if one were to consult the blood circulating throughout her veins. For the first six years of her life she had wrote Ellie Blackwell on her school papers – sometimes forgetting the date in its entirety – but no one talks about that anymore. No one mentions the night she erased her last name with legal documents as her house glowed bright like the sun, only it was nighttime and everything felt upside down. Her parents and little brother were pressed against the ceiling of their respective bedrooms, gutted like pigs; and John Winchester was too late.
The attack was completely random, and strayed away from the usual pattern of the demon with honey eyes that John had been relentlessly pursuing for years piled upon years. Ellie's father was a former hunter and personal friend of John Winchester, and the pair were working a case in Ellie's hometown of Allentown, Pennsylvania. There was a vengeful spirit ripping out its victim's organs and stashing them in obscure places, like some kind of twisted up Easter egg hunt. It was a simple salt and burn, but, nonetheless, left the two hunters carrying images in their minds that would later flash through their dreams like lightning.
Azazel only committed the crime he did to get a jab at John Winchester because it was awfully irritating for him to have to cover up his tracks every time he had a little fun. The demon liked to be messy and he'd decorate the world in red if he could, but instead he had to go through some kind of ridiculous clean-up routine, or else he'd have someone he considered a "low-grade hunter" knocking at his door by the next sunrise. The son of a bitch was persistent, he'd give him that. All in all, Azazel found enjoyment in making some pigs squeal while he slit their throats, and nothing could quite beat witnessing the spiritual anguish work across John Winchester's face as the hunter watched it all go down in flames, even if Azazel did let a scrawny little kid get away.
John's heart was almost as heavy as the journal containing everything he was aware that the universe could produce – which he kept stuffed deep inside his jacket pocket – and while he sat in the back of an ambulance with a six-year-old Ellie Blackwell, he did not miss the way she was watching her house while firefighters were desperately trying to extinguish the blaze. A reflection of flames settled in her speckled, brown eyes and the remaining Blackwell reeked of cheap cigarettes; the ends of her shoulder-length hair were singed and strands crumpled. John Winchester noticed how the little girl disregarded the paramedics before her as they were checking her body for any injury. Ellie treated them like ghosts as her features turned stony and the tears on her cheeks began to dry up. John used his voice in substitution of Ellie's to tell people what he knew – yeah, he lied a little here and there, but what hunter doesn't? – and he found it progressively difficult to do so since he didn't even know the simple variables, such as what Ellie's favorite color was.
So, John Winchester knew what he had to do because he could not find it within himself to see the kid be swept away to an orphanage, or dropped off with some distant relatives she never knew existed.
Some phone calls were made, fake ID's flashed where they were needed, and by the end of the month Ellie Blackwell became Ellie Winchester.