"Mira, are you ready?" Amelia Winchester called to her daughter who was still getting ready in her bedroom.
"Coming, Mom!" Mira shouted back. She checked herself in the mirror, her shoulder-length dirty blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun. She licked her lips quickly before applying another coat of bright pink lipstick. She grabbed her purse and exited her room, closing the door softly.
"Awe, look who's pretty!" Amelia smiled at her daughter.
"Homework done?" Mira's father, Sam, came from around the corner.
"Of course, Dad!" Mira rolled her eyes. She always got her work done on time, with a 4.0 grade point average, she'd settle for nothing less. Sam smiled and kissed his daughter on the forehead.
He looked over at his wife, "Should we go then?" They smiled at each other and grabbed hands.
Mira was the eighteen year old only child of Sam & Amelia Winchester. She couldn't be happier. Her life was wonderful, she had no complaints. Her parents had been married happily for just over twenty years, she made fantastic grades and was getting a full ride to her dream college Harvard University. Every two weeks her family went over to her uncles' house for dinner. Sam's brother, Dean, had two children, Luke, who was nineteen and Johanna who was six.
Sam walked up to the round door of Dean's house and knocked lightly. Dean answered the door and smiled, "How's it goin' little brother?" He laughed as he pulled Sam into a tight hug, "Amelia, it's good to see you." He kissed her cheek and looked over to Mira, "How's it going squirt?" He laughed and rubbed her cheek.
"Where's Cas?" Sam asked Dean.
"He's away for the night, he'll be back. Come in." Dean ushered them in.
The family walked in to see Luke sitting alone on the couch, headphones in and nodding his head to the beat of his music, it was so loud they could hear his music muffled.
"Luke!" Dean said as he shook his son's shoulder, "Turn off your music for a second."
Luke, incredibly handsome, pulled out his ear phones and brushed his blonde hair away from his face revealing beautiful golden eyes. "Hey." He said simply and flopped back on the couch.
"Happy birthday, Luke." Sam smiled at him and handed him an envelope. "The big nineteen." Luke smirked and opened it to see a check for fifty dollars.
"Thank you," Luke said as he got up hugged both Sam and Amelia and nodded at Mira. They'd never been that close, despite their parents constant hoping.
"Lukie, Lukie, Lukie!" Little Johanna ran up to her brother and grabbed at his leg.
"Awe, what's going on Jo?" Luke suddenly lit up as he lifted his six year old sister up on his lap.
The little girl laughed and pulled at his nose, she had a high pitched voice and she couldn't pronounce her R's or her L's correctly, "I'm not Jo silly that's a boy's name! I'm Johanna."
Luke laughed, "I know, Johanna." He looked down and saw that his sister's shoelace was untied, "Uh oh, we better fix that." Johanna laughed as Luke tied her shoe lace.
"Well, the food's not gonna eat itself." Dean interjected.
The family sat down and had a wonderful dinner, laughing and sharing stories and being a typical American family. They discussed Mira's college plans, and the fact that Luke hadn't had any plans yet. After dinner concluded, Dean asked if Luke and Mira could take Johanna outside. Luke nodded and Mira begrudgingly agreed, knowing she'd have to talk to Luke, when she did, their conversations were always awkward.
Johanna ran free outside, playing with a bouncy ball and singing one of her favorite songs. Luke sat on the porch's steps and motioned to the step above his for Mira to sit.
Mira sat down and let out an exasperated breath. Luke grabbed himself a beer, and looked at Mira, "Want one?"
Mira shook her head, "No, I don't."
"You don't drink?" Luke looked at her in a disapproving way.
"No, it'll lower your IQ."
"Oh my god, you're one of those people." Luke rolled his eyes.
"What? Someone who's concerned for her well being and future? Oh so horrible." Mira's amount of sarcasm was overwhelming.
"Nah, you're just a prude." Luke met Mira's eyes with a smirk.
"I am not a prude."
"Drink?"
"No."
"Smoke?"
"No."
"Drugs?"
"No."
"Virgin?"
"Y- None of your-I just- bitch, I might be."
Luke laughed and took another sip of his beer, "Miss Harvard called me bitch!"
"Just because you're a year older than me doesn't mean you're allowed to suddenly become the teasing-older-cousin."
Luke smiled, "Sure I can." He downed the rest of his beer and opened another one, "So you have a boyfriend?"
"Just the SAT." Mira said, "I don't have time for all that, gotta keep up the grades. What about you?"
"Just this one girl, she's not important."
"Well if she's your girlfriend I would think she's important."
"You would think." Luke rolled his eyes. "You know-" Luke was cut off by the high pitched cry of Johanna. "Oh god. Go inside and get bandages, I'll go take care of her."
Mira nodded and walked toward the door. As she entered the house she could catch a bit of her family's conversation.
"Dean, do you ever plan on telling…Luke at least… the truth?"
There was a long sigh, "I don't think I can, Sammy. You gotta realize that."
"I do, but I feel like they have a right to know."
"Sam, do you really want your daughter to end up like you? Out on hunts, unhappy, borderline alcoholic, yearning for the day she could be free from all that? I would never want that for Luke or Johanna. But Sammy it's your decision."
"Dean, I'm not going to tell her to become a hunter, I'm just going to tell her a bit about our background you know-" Mira had slammed the medicine cabinet too loudly and it caused Sam to stop talking.
"Shit." Mira murmured under her breath.
Amelia came from around the corner, "Mira, are you okay honey?"
Mira smiled an unconvincing smile, "Yeah, yeah I'm good." When Amelia gave her a questioning look Mira said, "Oh, I'm just getting bandaids, Johanna fell down."
"Oh, alright, Mira." Amelia said, "Well, you better go ahead and give them to her." She sent her a weak smile and walked back into the dining room. Mira quickly went back out on the porch to hear Luke comforting Johanna.
"Hey, it's not even that bad. It's not that bad, I'm gonna take care of you."
Johanna let out a clearly fake cry, she loved the attention. "Hey," Luke said, "Don't cry, who's my favorite girl?"
"Johanna."
"Yup. And who's super strong?"
"Johanna." She smiled.
"Alright, well let's get you a band-aid." Mira handed Luke the bandage and he put it on lightly.
"Mira, kiss it!" Johanna looked up at Mira. But when she said it, it sounded like "Mi-wah." Mira laughed and bent down and kissed her little cousin's flower bandage.
"Hey, Mira!" Sam called from the porch, "You ready to go?"
Mira shouted back a yes and looked at Luke, "Happy birthday." She hugged Johanna, grabbed her bag and left.
The car ride home was a quiet one, they all sat in silence. Sam turned on the radio, flipped from channel to channel, couldn't find a decent one and turned the radio off again. He sighed and looked at Mira in the back seat through the rearview mirror, "Mira, I know that you heard Uncle Dean and me talking."
Mira saw no use in lying, "Yeah, but it didn't make much sense to me."
Pulling into their driveway, Sam looked at Amelia with concern on his face. Amelia grabbed his hand in a reassuring way, "It's going to be fine." Mira sat down in the living room and watched her father slowly sit down on the couch next to her.
"Mira, I've been meaning to tell you this for a long time…. I think that you're old enough to understand, and I want you to know that I trust you."
"Dad, just get on with it, please." Mira's curiosity grew more and more with every word Sam spoke.
Sam let out a deep breath; a single tear ran down from his eye. He quickly brushed it away and cleared his throat. "When I was six months old, my mother died in a house fire. Not an ordinary house fire. It was caused by… demons."
Mira furrowed an eyebrow, "Dad, demons? Really? Like The Exorcist? If you're just trying to tell me a horror story I-" She had stood up to leave.
Sam grabbed her hand, "No, Mira, please. Just please listen to me." That's when Sam told her everything, everything from selling souls, to suicidal teddy bears, to Bobby and to Crowley and to being possessed by Lucifer. After a long winded description, Sam took a deep breathe and looked at his daughter, "Well?"
Mira couldn't meet his eyes. It was all so much to handle. "Damn." Was all she could think to say. She had been silently crying the whole time and now her face was tear stained and weak, "Dad… why?"
"Why what? Sweetie, why are you crying so much?" He wrapped his arm around her.
Mira pushed away, "How could you do that, Dad, though really?" She was crying more and her voice started shaking. "One day you woke up and just said, 'Hey! Screw that! Screw tons of innocent people getting killed! Screw it, you know it's just not my problem anymore!'" Her voice kept rising, "Goddammit, how?! I know if I did that I couldn't live with myself."
Sam tried to stay calm hoping his daughter would calm as well, "I did it for you! I wanted to get married and have kids. There are other hunters out there."
"Not enough obviously though right?!" she was pacing the floor and moving her arms wildly as she continued to rant, "There are still so many demons and ghosts and witches out there, they're every where!"
"And hunters are every where too Mira, you've got to know that."
Mira was panting now, "You know what, everything you've told me is a lie. You claimed we were normal and that you used to be a sales agent," she swallowed and took a deep breath, "Fuck this. I'm out." She took off out the back door, kicked her flats off and started running through her back woods. She'd stop eventually, but for right now she just needed to be alone. From behind her she could hear her dad shouting her name over and over. She just kept ignoring him and wouldn't stop till she heard one thing that caught her attention, "Almira Rene Winchester. If you stop and listen to one thing I have to say then I won't follow you." She suddenly stopped in her tracks. She didn't turn around, but Sam knew she was listening. "I just want you to know that I love you, Mira. That's why I did this." When she heard Sam turn the other way, she walked on.
Mira walked to a convenient shop across from where they lived. She had stopped crying but was out of breath from running away. Sitting down at a picnic table, she pulled her phone out of her pocket. Four missed calls, two voice mails. She rolled her eyes as she played the first voice mail from her dad, "Mira, I realize-" She pressed delete before she could even hear the whole message. She played the next one, it was from her mother, "Mira, I understand that this must be hard, and I respect your decision. But if you ever, ever, for any reason want to come back, Dad and I will always be home, and you can always come home. I mean always. I love you." Mira dropped her phone onto the table and buried her face in her hands. What now? Was all she could think. Her phone rang and she grabbed it and saw it was her dad. She rolled her eyes and answered it, "Dad, I don't care. I just-"
She was cut off by Sam's urgent scream, "Mira, come home now it's about mom. Now." He hung up and panic raced through Mira's mind as she ran home.
Once she arrived home, she stopped dead in her tracks. She couldn't comprehend what was happening, her house was on fire. "WHERE'S MY MOM?" she screamed at the firemen with tears beginning to flow again. She looked at all the firemen and kept repeating it, each time her voice a little weaker. Sam, who was crying too, ran up to Mira and hugged her tightly, but she just kept saying, "Where's my mom? Oh god, where is she?"
They stayed there for a while, crying and hugging till Mira broke away. "Dad, I'm leaving. And I'm sorry I said what I said, I didn't mean it. I'm not coming back. I want to- I need to-stop this. I need to do something." Sam didn't argue with her. He watched her leave and called to her, "I love you."
"I love you too, Dad." She said as she walked away. She never looked back.
Luke sat on the porch in the same spot where he'd been earlier that evening. Dean had gone to comfort Sam and he'd stayed here to watch Johanna. He counted the stars, trying to clear his mind. He heard someone coming. He sat up quickly and saw his cousin, "Mira?"
"I'll have that beer now."