Disclaimer: I don't own SPN.

So…hi! Welcome to what I hope will be the first full-length fic over more than one episode that I actually finish! I will warn you, it does diverge from canon around S2 but it does follow the Apocalypse plotline at around S5, with some of my changes. But I hope to switch things enough to keep y'all entertained!

And yes, I know that Dean doesn't drop the f-bomb in the show. But we all know that's the damn show and their language restrictions ;)

Chapter 1. Monsters with Issues

"Come on, Lou! You know you can't hide from your big brother!"

Louise Winchester skidded around the corner, panting heavily and desperately trying to put as much distance between her and that monster as possible. Because it might be wearing her brother's face but it was not Dean. And Louise couldn't let it grab her!

When she was certain that she'd finally managed to outrun it, she leaned against the brick wall of a nearby building, wheezing and trying to choke in breath. She once again thanked her weird ass abilities, which were the only reason she had been able to sense the twisted, hideous essence inside the shifter pretending to be Dean – otherwise, he'd have easily nabbed her and she'd end up just like Sam!

'Sammy!' Louise thought hopelessly. The shifter had taken great pleasure in gloating that he'd managed to capture her baby brother and that he was going to kill Sam as slowly and painfully and messily as possible and Louise's only hope was that he'd wait until he had her before killing Sam.

'I have to plan my next move,' Louise thought. She wasn't much of a planner – she took after her older brother more than her younger one, after all – but Sam and Dean's lives depended on her not losing her head and getting herself snatched as well!

Well, technically she wasn't Sam and Dean's sister. She was their cousin; daughter of Catherine Winchester, who was their father's older sister. But Louise had never known her father, who had fucked off out of their lives as soon as he'd known that Cathy was pregnant (at least, that was what John had told her) and left John and his wife Mary to support Cathy. John had been more of a father to Louise than her own and that hadn't changed when he'd taken her in after that fire all those years ago that had claimed Mary and Cathy, even though he'd turned into a complete hardass who'd treated them more like soldiers than children.

'What am I doing?' Louise thought. 'Why am I thinking about Mom and Aunt Mary? How am I gonna save Sam and Dean?'

Louise tugged at the sleeve of her purple leather jacket; something that she'd been doing for years. According to Dean, purple was a 'weak, girly colour' and he had mocked her more often than not for wearing it but it had been her mother's; one of the few things to survive the fire, and only because Cathy had been forgetful enough to leave it in the Impala that night. Louise remembered that rare night when John had been drunk enough to talk about Cathy and she'd learned that her mother had been 'huge on leather since her big brother got one of his own'.

"You never saw her without one from the age of fourteen," John had chuckled drunkenly to eight year old Louise, who was hanging onto his every word. "She loved rock music as well, so she'd dance around and wave her jacket in the air as she sang – and, mind you, she couldn't sing to save her life – and all you could do was just put up with it." He sighed, his eyes shining sadly. "I miss them, Lou. Cathy and Mary. God, I just miss 'em so much…"

That was the first and one of the only times Louise had ever seen him so vulnerable. Maybe that was why she tended to respect him more like Dean, rather than rip at his throat like Sam had a habit of doing…

'Focus!' Louise chided. 'One of these days, you're gonna get killed while you daydream!'

She had to find somewhere safe. Once she had sanctuary, she could figure out a plan to save Sam and Dean and then they could deal with the shifter together! Becky's wasn't an option; the shifter had just nearly murdered Sam's poor friend, so not only was Becky likely to turn her away by association but her house was still a crime scene and after years of impersonating officials, Louise didn't want to push her luck with the authorities.

After a few more minutes of recovering, Louise decided that she'd better get a move on and head back to the sewer to scout and plan her next move. Rounding the corner, she crashed into a blonde woman and staggered back.

"Crap!" she cursed. "I'm sorry – Becky?" she blinked. Becky grinned at her but Louise suddenly stiffened. If she frowned and concentrated…there! She could feel something dark and horrible inside the blonde, even if she couldn't see it!

"Hey, Louise!" the shifter said. "Fancy seeing you here!"

Louise smiled shakily.

"I'm in a bit of a hurry, Becky," she said. "So I'm just gonna go…y'know, lots to do!"

She hadn't even made it two feet away before the shifter grabbed her wrist.

"You know what I am," the shifter mused. "Somehow, you can tell I'm not Becky."

"Yeah! You're an ugly ass freak with issues!" Louise snapped. She tried to pull out her silver knife but the shifter was too fast; an explosion of white went off in her head before giving way to black.

When Louise awoke, she first noticed that it was dark. She was squashed into a small space with barely enough room to move and when she tried to climb to her feet, she found that her wrists were tied tightly behind her and her ankles were also bound. When her tongue picked up the taste of cloth, she realised that she had been gagged too.

'Now what?' Louise thought in resignation, leaning against the wall behind her. She appeared to be in a small closet of some sort and, considering that it had been 'Becky' who had knocked her out, she hazarded a guess that she was in Becky's house. But why had the shifter brought her here? Why not take her to the sewer, where it was hiding out?

From outside the closet, she could hear muffled voices. She recognised one as Becky's and, to her horror, she realised that the other one belonged to Sam (though she was also relieved that her baby brother had gotten free). She tried to shout a warning but all that came out was a muffled 'mph!'

So that was why she'd been brought here. If the shifter was going to kill them all and it was wearing Becky's shape then it would be a lot more convenient to keep her here rather than go all the way back to the sewer to fetch her and risk Sam escaping. But where was Dean?

Louise winced when she heard a dull thud of glass and she strained her ears for another sound but heard nothing, so she groaned and leaned back against the wall. The silence was even worse than the sounds of fighting. At least with fighting, she knew that Sam was alive. With the silence, she didn't know whether Sam was dead or not!

'For your sake, you son of a bitch, Sammy had better be alive!' Louise thought furiously.

The silence was eventually broken by footsteps approaching her closet. Louise stiffened, ready to fight back against the shifter, and when the door opened to reveal Dean she didn't know whether to be relieved or horrified. A quick check let her know that it was the latter.

"Hey there, Lou," he chuckled. "C'mon, Time for walkies."

He bent down to untie Louise's ankles and Louise took the chance. She lashed out, kicking the shifter in the face, and she tried to stagger to her feet and make a run for it but her bound hands made that action difficult. The next moment, the shifter was gripping her by her long, dark hair and yanking her to her feet, his face twisted with rage.

"You bitch!" he hissed. Louise shouted an insult back through her gag and tried to wriggle free but the shifter had too tight a grip on her hair and simply pulled hard. Louise felt her eyes begin to tear in pain but she didn't give up her struggles. She couldn't go quietly to her death!

"Oh, will you give it a rest?" the shifter groaned. He drew back his fist and punched Louise in the face and while Louise blinked rapidly and struggled to stay conscious through the pain, the shifter dragged her into the living room. Louise sucked in a breath when she saw Sam lying on the floor next to the pool table, his hands bound in front of him, and Sam's eyes widened almost comically.

"Louise?" he exclaimed.

"The junk in my trunk, I swear," the shifter chuckled. "Say hello, Lou."

Louise felt the shifter pull the gag out of her mouth. She decided to borrow from her older brother's very extensive vocabulary.

"Bite me."

Sam snorted. The shifter pulled even harder on Louise's hair and then threw her to the ground. Louise instinctively tried to extend her arms to break her fall but her hands were tied behind her and so she crashed into the ground painfully, the breath being forced out of her lungs.

"Are you okay, Lou?" Sam said immediately.

"Been better, Sammy," Louise wheezed as the shifter grabbed her and turned her over. He arranged them so that it looked like Sam was trying to protect her.

"How touching," the shifter remarked, going to pour himself a glass of whiskey. "The sweet younger brother trying to protect his delicate cousin from their big bad brother. I must say, though, I'll be sorry to lose this skin. Dean's got a lot of good qualities." He took a drink and then picked the knife up and stabbed it into the pool table. Sam and Louise exchanged looks and nodded. Only one of them would get to use the knife to free themselves and it was better that Sam did; Dean knew all of Louise's moves, while Sam's time at Stanford away from them might now prove to their advantage.

"Now," Louise whispered. Sam lashed out and kicked the shifter and took advantage of his brief surprise to jump up and use the knife to saw at the ropes tying his wrists together. Sam and the shifter grappled and Louise tried to free her hands but groaned in frustration when she couldn't. Why couldn't her hands have been bound in front of her? It was always easier to free her hands when they were tied in front! She heard a crash in the next room and winced.

"If you're pushing my baby brother around then there'll be hell to pay!" she bellowed. The front door suddenly banged open and Louise nearly laughed in relief when she saw that it was Dean, with Becky behind him.

"Hey!" Dean shouted into the next room. There was a bang and two gunshots and then dead silence.

"Sam!" Becky cried. After a moment, Dean staggered out of the next room and grinned weakly at Louise.

"Where've you been, Lou?" he said, bending down to untie Louise.

"Getting my ass kicked," Louise said dryly, accepting his helping hand. "Nice timing, Dean. Perfect hero's entrance."

Dean smirked.

"What can I say?" he shrugged. "I'm just awesome like that." He winked and opened his mouth again.

"No!" Louise said. "You're not Batman!"

Dean deflated, looking dejected. Louise couldn't help but burst out laughing and hug Dean, punching him on the shoulder to add enough 'manliness' so that he wouldn't push her away.

"Okay, fine," she said. "You're Batman."

-LW-

"So, Lou, what have we learned from this?" Dean said mockingly as they packed their weapons into the Impala, while Sam said his goodbyes to Becky.

"That we're a completely fucked up family?" Louise said brightly. Dean rolled his eyes.

"That's nothing new," he said.

"That you make an extremely good psychopath?"

"We already knew that too. Though I look terrible in orange."

"That you should never be allowed anywhere near a sharp object again?"

"Fucking hell, Louise!"

"What do you want me to say, Dean? That we're a completely messed up family with a tonne of issues and how Sammy was more like our son than our brother at times?" Sam had told Louise everything that the shifter had told him and she had been beyond pissed. "That shifter shouldn't have stuck his ugly nose into our business but he did and now we have to deal with all the crap he brought up!"

"No, we don't!"

"We do, Dean! Sam told me everything he said and you're not a useless freak! I know you think that about yourself and you're wrong, Dean, and it kills me that you think like that!"

Dean just gave an exaggerated sigh, pissing Louise off since this was his way of avoiding difficult subjects, and he pulled out a map – which, of course, only resulted in the two of them bickering over whether to go north or south. Louise knew that he was trying to distract her from the previous topic but she enjoyed fighting with Dean over something like this, even if he was infuriating her, and so she played along.

"Keep in touch!" Becky called. Louise realised that Sam was approaching them, having finished his conversation with Becky, and Dean took the chance to snatch the map away from her. She shot him a bitchface and got into the backseat of the Impala – apparently Sam had 'brother privileges', despite the fact that Louise had claimed shotgun when John was gone ever since forever.

"What happened to Zack?" Louise said, shooting an irritated look at Dean and leaning over the front seat to point at a town somewhere in Minnesota.

"Cops are blaming this Dean Winchester guy for Emily's murder," Sam smirked. "They found the murder weapon in the guy's lair and Zack's clothes stained with her blood. Now they're thinking that the surveillance tape was tampered with."

Louise sniggered. Dean rolled his eyes and Louise took the chance to snatch the map away from him, giving him a smug smile.

"Too bad that we've gotta leave, really," Dean said as they left St Louis. "Not every day you miss your own funeral."

Sam and Louise just snorted.