Chicago, Illinois, 2003

Illinois Boarding School For Girls

The rain came down harder than ever as the figures, three of them—clad in heavy suitcases and slick rain gear—made their way down the stone steps of the boarding school dormitory and to the waiting Impala at the front of the school. On closer inspection, the Impala was a sleek black, four-door—the engine putt—putting loudly. The rain beat hard on the windows and slid down the trunk as it was wrenched open by one of the figures. He was followed by two slighter ones—obviously girls, very similar in shape and stature. They each carried a suitcase, the larger figure put a backpack and duffle bag in the trunk, the girls followed suit with their bags and then he slammed it down with a clang. Anyone observing would know he was clearly agitated about something. He placed a large hand on the back of one of the girls, and yanked the left backseat door open, she climbed inside and was followed by her sister. The man took his hood off to reveal a scruffy face, bushes eyebrows hanging over squinted eyes and hard lines sprawling from his nose. He took a deep breath and opened the driver door and got in with a slam. In a squeal of gas and smoke, the Impala drove away, disappearing into the night as if it was never there.

Bobby's Salvage Yard, 2006

Savi's POV

"Molly, fuck off," Savannah huffs as Molly launches a paper airplane at the back of Savi's head yet again. She brushes it off her shoulders and it falls to the floor below, joining the other twenty or so odd ones all crushed together on the floor.

Molly lets out a frustrated sigh and flings herself back onto her bed, almost launching her laptop onto the floor with the force of her bounce. "I don't think I can do this much longer."

Savi sucks air into her cheeks and lets it release with a pop. She puts her pen down and closes her book…Ancient Spirits of the 12th Century. "Me either, dude."

For the last three weeks the girls had scoured Bobby's place for any kind of lead on the current case that Dean and Sam were hunting. Some kind of sick freak monster that is persuading children to let them into their home, so she can murder their parents. The boys are up in Medford, Wisconsin at the moment, about five hours from Bobby's and have been stuck there for a while. Savi and Molly have been unceremoniously dumped off at Uncle Bobby's, doing research. Which Savi hates, but Molly should love. Apparently not today.

Savi presses down on the crumpled airplane papers with her shoe and kicks out from her chair.

"Come on," she says.

Molly looks up from her hands. "Where are we going?"

"On a fucking adventure."

"But Dean said…"

"Not that kind of adventure," Savi rolls her eyes. "We're going to get some ice cream. I'm hot."

It's 11:30pm on a July summer night, and the room is stuffed with too much hot air. Bobby is asleep on the couch downstairs, but the girls can escape through the window on a rope ladder they fashioned when they were twelve.

Molly's face breaks into a grin, her freckles moving up on her cheeks, her dimples showing. If Savi and Molly are identical twins, then Molly is definitely the prettier one. She's plain enough to hide in a crowd but focus longer on her and her beauty starts to come out—warm green eyes, deep dimples in her cheeks, freckles smattering her small nose, long eyelashes. Savi just scares people. It probably doesn't help that her wardrobe is all black, or that she already has tattoos half way up her arm—a bunch of Latin phrases and skulls (Savi knows she's weird). But she also dyes her brown-blonde hair raven black and lines her eyes in deep eyeliner. She's not a fan of jewelry either, but she does wear the ring her mother used to have, the one John had given her when he proposed. Molly adorns a necklace of her mother's. But that's it.

Savi rummages under her bed and pulls out the rope ladder. Molly goes to open the window and let in even more hot air. Carefully they swing the ladder out of the window and release it into the night. Once secure, Savi heads down first, followed by Molly. They hide the ladder behind the trellis and slip into the junkyard. Once Savi has hot-wired a 2003 Honda—a skill she picked up from Dean—she slams on the gas and her and Molly speed off into the night.

It's quiet in the car. It has been like this between Molly and Savi since Dad died a few months back. The car crash, Dean almost dying, Sam and Dad fighting and then Dad suddenly collapsing on the floor was enough trauma to warrant to Dean that the girls needed a break. So, he and Sammy dumped them off at Bobby's and went on hunting themselves. The girls were recruited for research—safely over 100 miles away from any monster that could get at them, and in the protective hands of Bobby. Besides complaining about research, discussing it or chatting with Bobby, the girls didn't do much else talking.

The car is quiet and Savi likes it that way. It gives her time to think and process. Gives her time to lay her thoughts out in the road in front of her, quiet the constant noise in her head. The truth is, all four Winchester siblings are broken. Sam looks heartbroken and lost and just wants to talk about it, Dean wants to break, hunt and kill things, Molly wants to be left alone in her room to cry and Savi…what does Savi want? She wants Dad. Wants Mom. But she can't have them, so she keeps her mouth shut and says no thank you, she's fine.

The Honda pulls into the parking lot of Dairy Queen and the open sign blinks lazily, the D not lit up. Savi cuts the engine and the girls jump out of the vehicle. Inside, the air condition is blasting hard enough that Savi shivers in her short jean shorts and tank top. Molly burrows into her sweater…that's Molly always thinking about things like that. She's basically Savi's mom most days. There's one guy behind the counter, leaning against the ice cream machine and looking half asleep. Savi leans on the counter and snaps her fingers. "Hey."

The guy jumps up, startled and gazes over at Savi, his eyes brimming with annoyance. Savi has that effect on most people, if she wants to come across that way, and she usually does. "Ice cream?" Savi says, almost in a question of what the fuck are you waiting for.

"Yeah," the guy says, huffing into his hand. "A cone or?"

"Yeah just vanilla."

"I'll have a fudge Sunday," Molly says.

The guy takes about ten thousand years to get their ice cream, but once they do they go off and sit outside, licking at the frozen treat with greed.

"I hate this town," Savi remarks.

"You hate everything," Molly says. She leans her cheek into the palm of her hand and furrows her eyebrows at Savi, trying to figure her out.

"Lets just go somewhere," Savi says, finishing her ice cream and dropping it into the trash can.

"Dean'll kill us," Molly says, but Savi can tell there's a yearning in her voice, a wanting. She agrees, just isn't brave enough to say it. "Bobby'll kill us."

"Bobby's a whimp," Savi retorts. "He gets it. If we leave he won't try to find us and drag us back."

"But he won't cover for us," Molly says. "If Dean finds out and calls, we are dead."

"Dean is on a case five hours away."

"And expecting calls every day at ten, on the hour and with any new research."

"We'll make some shit up about how we can't find anything," Savi says. She waves her flip phone in the air. "I have a cellphone you know. We can still call him."

"Where do you want to go?" Molly asks, leaning forward, interested.

Savi's quiet for a moment. She looks out at the harsh light of the dairy queen sign, the soft head lights paving the high way. Any where but here. Anywhere that we aren't staying still. I need to move. I need asphalt under me or I think I'll go insane. Instead she says something else, but its not exactly a lie.

"Let's go home," Savi says. "Let's go visit Mom."

Molly's POV

As soon as Savi says Mom, Molly's heart clenches up into a fist. It feels like a rock in her chest, bobbing up and down with her lungs as she breathes rapidly to fight off the tears. She knows Savi hates it when she cries.

"Yeah," she manages to get out, her voice thick. Savi shoots Molly a small smile and throws her the keys.

"Wanna drive?"

"In this dump? All the way to Kansas? It's at least ten hours."

"We'll nick another one from a gas station if this one starts to die," Savi says, shrugging.

Savi seems antsy, rearing to go or she will blow. Molly obliges and gets in the car. She doesn't mention they have none of their stuff with them, and Bobby will kill them for stealing one of his cars—even if it's a shitty car at best. But she pushes down on the gas and coasts out into the road. Savi relaxes as soon as they hit the highway, a lax smile playing across her lips. She closes her eyes and leans her head against the headrest of the passenger side door. Molly has to admit, it does feel nice to move. They are so used to being on the go, all their lives, that when they stay in one to place for long it doesn't feel right.

"We should call Bobby when the sun comes up," Molly says. She does feel bad, Bobby has been nothing but good to them these last six weeks or so. Dean and Sam weren't in the capacity to parent the teenage girls through their grief, and you could tell Bobby wasn't keen on the idea either, but he listened to them, made breakfast and dinner for them, let them have their privacy and played good music.

"Yeah," Savi says sleepily. "Wake me up when you want me to drive."

Molly isn't tired, so she lets her mind wander. She still remembered when Sam and Dean dropped them off, how heavy the night had been on her back, how she could hardly get out of the car. Her body was filled with so much wanting for her father, she didn't know where to put it. And she hadn't stopped crying since they'd burned him.

Her father was ashes.

Six Weeks Earlier

The Impala coasts into Bobby's neighborhood when Molly is hit with a lightening feeling. It's been years. She hardly remembers Uncle Bobby. Had to have been before the Boarding School era since she'd seen him. She couldn't have been older than nine, ten? She remembers John fighting, her and Savi packing their bags in a hurry and Dean pushing her, her sister and Sam into the car, locking to doors and telling them all to shut up and stay quiet. John was drunk, so Dean drove, through the night. Sam and Savi slept, but Molly didn't. After that was two years of reckless hunting, almost a frenzy from John and more of an urge to find the thing that killed Mom. Sam was a teenager by then, fifteen, sixteen, acting up and making things even more tense.

Dean would go off on hunts by himself, he distanced himself from everyone. Sam told Molly he was just trying to figure out where he fit in the world, separate from Dad. Who was he as a hunter? Sam also said Dad respected Dean's wishes to find himself or whatever but wanted Sam to be a soldier. Sam also told Molly he was doing the exact same thing to her and Savi. By keeping them home, and 'safe.' Sam equated it to prison. Molly didn't mind staying back in the motel room with Savi. They watched SpongeBob and ate instant noodles and went to bed late. But when Dad came home drunk, or Sam and Dad or Sam and Dean were fighting, that's when Molly thought the motel room was a prison. Anyways, it all culminated in The Night that made John finally listen to Bobby and stick Molly and Savi into a Boarding School when they were twelve for two years, until they screwed that up as well.

The Impala pulls into the salvage yard, and Bobby's house looms in the dark. Molly still sees the memory of fire everywhere, and for a few seconds Bobby's crisp white house is enveloped in it. Then she blinks, and it was just a house, and this is just a normal night, and her heart is still breaking.

Sam and Dean get out of the car and grabs Molly and Savi's bags from the trunk and plops them on the ground. Molly's movements out of the car feel like molasses. She doesn't want to go. She doesn't want to leave her brothers, her protectors. She understands Dean and Sam are now more than desperate to kill the demon, that has now indirectly taken the life of their father. And they know that Dean felt responsible, even though he never says anything. But Molly is seventeen. And she wants to kill this thing as well. Of course, she does, so why aren't her feelings valid? Dean's face is set in stone though, and she doesn't want to question him. Sometimes, he scares her.

"Okay," Dean says, voice gruff and deep. Savi bends down to pick her bag, and seeing Molly's fingers shaking, grabs Molly's as well.

Sam pulls Molly into his shirt. She tries to smell him, the familiarity of home, but all she smells is the remains of smoke and ash-of her father. She stumbles back. Sam catches her by her shoulders and pulls her close. Leaning into her he whispers into her ear, fierce, "We'll find it and we'll kill it."

She's not sure if he's trying to reassure her or what, but she nods and forces a smile onto her face, but as soon as Sam turns away to hug Savi it droops like glue. Savi hardly hugs Sam back and when Sam pulls away, his eyes fall on Dean. Dean is leaning against the car, looking at his shoes. He clutches the keys; the car is still running.

Got it, Molly thinks. There will be no good-byes.

"You call," Dean says suddenly. He talks to Savi. He always does when he's telling instructions. "Every night at ten on the hour, you call. You're late, we're coming to see what's going on. Don't run away. Listen to Bobby. He'll take care of you. We'll call if we have a case and need help with research—remotely," he adds on. "I'll contact you if…" he drifts off and Savi, her voice snark, finishes for him.

"Until you have further instructions. Got it. Sir, yes sir." Her voice is bitter and the equivalent to spiting on Dean's shoes. The air tightens. Sam shifts uncomfortably. Dean is absolutely still.

Silence stretches on, and Molly knows Dean is doing it to exert control. It's working. Savi is starting to look uncomfortable. She grips the bags and lets out a deep sigh.

"So," Molly says to break the silence.

Dean ignores Molly. "Get inside," he says to the air in front of the girls. They don't question it. Sam gives a small wave and Dean meets eyes with Molly, they turn soft and they share a moment. Molly gets it. Keep Savi in line. But also, please be safe. You too. She tries to say. You too.

They walk on their own to the door, Bobby opens it and his face softens. His eyes fill with recognition. Molly remembers a younger version of the man standing in front of her. Leaner, less tired looking, but it's Bobby all the same. He's wearing worn jeans, a plaid shirt and a baseball cap. Hunter's uniform. But his face is soft, his eyes are kind. He takes Savi's bags instantly and ushers them inside. He waves Sam and Dean off and then shows the girls to their room. Molly remembers it. Finds the books on the shelf—the first three Harry Potters. Shakespeare. Old school notebooks. Savi finds the rope ladder under her bed and snorts. Bobby makes them pizza and hot chocolate. They don't talk other than, "You want another one?" But when Molly and Savi are making their way upstairs Bobby calls out to them. They halt on the stairs and look down.

"If ya'll need anything I'll be in the living room. Just ask. Any time of day or night. Doesn't bother me. I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. John was a good guy, he loved you kids very much." Bobby blinks and then clears his throat. "Go on now, get some sleep."

"Yes, sir," Savi says, but it's soft and a sign of respect. She's tired. So is Molly.

That first night they sleep in the same bed, not saying anything, but arms touching. It's an anchor in a sea of grief. The only thing keeping them from drowning.