Welcome to my new fanfiction!

In this chapter of the story, Dean is 18, Haley is 16, and Sam is 14. (This will change in future chapters though as the first is only a prequel).

Hope you all enjoy, thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Saving Grace

Chapter One: Haley Grace Winchester: Prequel

January, 1997 — Boulder, Colorado

It had started out as a normal, standard day for the Winchesters. There hadn't been anything too special or out of the ordinary about it—nothing had seemed different, there had been no signs to indicate what was to come, and nothing there to give the small family a warning of the tragic loss they were soon to experience that fateful night.

It had been a Saturday, just a typical, cold Saturday in January. It had been raining hard—thick and perpetual drops of water that tapped down loudly against the thin glass windows and roof of the small motel room. The rain had been pouring down for the whole week that they had been there, and over the past couple of days the wind had started, harsh and unforgiving to anyone who should walk through it.

A young, brown haired girl rounded the corner of yet another deserted street, speeding up her fast pace until she was once again sprinting down the pavement. She glanced back over her left shoulder, making sure that the road was clear, before she ran across it to the other side. Her heartbeat became gradually faster until she could feel it thumping forcefully against her burning chest. She blinked hard to expel the rain drops from her long eyelashes, giving her wide and bright green eyes a better focus through the wet streets, the ground shining slightly under the dim glow of the street lamps. Her long and light brown hair, with pink and blue streaks running through it, was pulled back and stuck to her head as a result of the amount of rain that had fallen over it in the past couple of hours. Her tracksuit jacket, navy blue but looking almost black with the dampness, stuck to her tanned skin.

The teenage girl running through the rain was Haley Winchester. A sixteen year old girl who was known for having no past and no future—just another one of those kids that every teacher she'd ever had assumed had fallen through the cracks, who had never done anything with her life. Sure, she had made it to sixteen without ever having a straight-A report card, or even a few As on her report card, in fact, she had no future at all when it came to education as far as she were concerned. In her mind, the quicker she was suspended or thrown out of school, the better the situation was for everybody involved.

Although, that wasn't to say that she was dumb. She was pretty smart when she put her mind to it, but she didn't always like to show it. She wasn't a kid who had ever put too much thought into her education—or her own future for that matter—always standing by the fact she didn't need a bunch of pointless qualifications and a future career goal if she were so adamant about heading into the family business.

It wasn't as though she was a bad kid, sure, she had gotten herself into trouble now and again, but how many teenagers didn't? She'd been through her stage of rebellion when she had streaked her hair and pierced her nose, she was over it. When it came down to it, the only thing that she really cared about was her family—her small, slightly dysfunctional, kind of crazy, family.

Haley slowed herself down as her eyes fell to the motel in the distance. She could make out the blurred lights coming from the neon blue sign above it, and through the windows of the occupied rooms. She jogged closer before she slowed down, walking over the parking lot as she headed towards one of the doors. She wiped a hand down her face, dripping with rain, before she headed inside.

The warm air of the motel room was a shock to her body as she came in from the icy rain and cold winds outside, hitting her at once. A short laugh came from the other side of the room as she closed the door behind herself. "My god," A deep voice muttered slowly, a note of amusement present as he spoke. She looked up to the source and smiled. He straightened himself up slowly from where he had been halfway through taking a beer from the refrigerator and kicked the small door closed with his boot, shaking his head to himself as he looked over her. "I don't understand why you insist on jogging in the rain, Hales." he said simply, looking at a loss. "I mean, if you're going to torture yourself, you could at least do it when the weather's nice." he quipped.

Haley rolled her eyes at him. She was so used to the constant bombardment of jokes and wise cracks from him, she just went along with them. "Very funny, Dean." She smirked a little as she walked further into the room. Her brother, Dean, was only two years older than her, but a lot of the time he acted as though it were so much more. Haley and Dean had a pretty simple relationship; they either got on or they didn't.

There were times where Dean acted like he was her dad, the overprotective and watchful nature of his would take over completely and he would act like it was his mission to keep her safe, as though everything else in the world was some kind of danger towards her. It was the mood he got into mostly at any given chance of some male attention for her.

Then there were the times that they would argue, the way that most siblings did from time to time, when they wouldn't speak to each other at all. It never lasted long, a few hours at the most usually, but sometimes, when they got really mad, it could last so much longer. They would refuse to look at each other, refuse to speak to each other unless it was some snide remark to just provoke the other further. On the rare occasion that Dean and Haley got into fights, everyone else would just take a step back and think it better to let them get on with it and sort it out between themselves. No one wanted to be caught in the crossfire of that.

But, the majority of the time, the mood that the two of them seemed to be in pretty much every day, was where they were like best friends, rather than brother and sister. They would get into childish little arguments and fights, they would laugh and joke between each other—the way that any friends did together. They would talk with each other about anything, skip school together and get into trouble with each other, and they would always fight together. That was the way that they had always been. They would defend and fight for each other in a heartbeat, no matter how wrong the other one was. They would trust the other with their own lives, never giving it a second thought.

Dean just smiled at her and set his beer down on the side as he poured out a mug of coffee. He held it out to her as she peeled off her soaking wet jacket and draped it over the back of a chair before she took the mug from him. "You look freezing, Hales." Dean commented. There was a small hint of concern in his voice, something that he would do anything to hide, but it was something that she could always pick up on.

It wasn't like her going out jogging every now and again bothered him, as far as he were concerned if she wanted to torture herself like that, fine. It wasn't even the fact that he didn't think she were capable of defending herself if something happened, because he was more than sure that she could. The thing that bothered him was that if something happened to her, he wouldn't have been there to protect her. Despite how tough he knew she was, and how well she could fight, there was always the feeling in the back of his mind that she was still a kid, and that she could still get hurt. However much he played it off, he still worried about her—he always would.

Haley chose not to answer that one. She took a drink of the coffee and looked around the room slowly before she turned back to Dean and raised an eyebrow. "Where's Sam?" she asked him curiously. She usually came back to the two of them having an argument, bickering between themselves over nothing, often sparked up out of pure boredom.

Haley and her younger brother, Sam, had a similar relationship to what she had with Dean. The two of them were just as close, but sometimes in a different way. Haley would be the one who Sam would go to first with any problem that he had, whether that was with school or hunting or otherwise. She would help him with his schoolwork, even when she made no attempt to do her own, and she had been the only one that Sam had ever talked to about college, or wanting to do something in the future that wasn't hunting. A part of him had expected her to be angry, the way he knew Dad would have been, but she hadn't. She had been all for him working towards something else if that was what he wanted. He counted on her to support him with whatever he needed, which, along with Dean, she always had done. He had always trusted her with whatever he had told her, and unbeknown to her, he had always looked up to her in the same way that he looked up to Dean.

In a way, Sam had often considered Haley and Dean to have the role of the mom and dad that he had never really known. They had always put him first, made sure that he was okay before they bothered about themselves. Being the youngest, Sam had always depended on them to be there for him, the way he knew Haley depended on Dean. He had never once doubted that either of them would protect him from anything that wanted to harm him, or that they would sacrifice everything for him, they way that he knew he would do for them. And he trusted them both with his life.

Dean nodded towards the bedroom door behind her. "He's in his room." he replied simply. "Doing some homework or reading a book or something, I think." He shrugged, Sam's educational activities usually had him at a loss. "Not sure."

"Well, I'm not surprised that he couldn't concentrate in here when you're playing that crappy music so loud." Haley countered, nodding over at the radio currently playing some rock song that she had heard all too many times in the past couple of days since Dean had located a rock station.

Dean shot her a glare as she turned it down. "Come on, you love this band and you know it." he retorted, turning the music back up even louder just to prove his point, a grin spreading across his face as he did.

Haley breathed out a short laugh and shook her head slowly. "You're an idiot, Dean." she muttered, her tone light and playful. "You know that, right?"

"Oh," Dean quirked an eyebrow at her and smirked. "You think so, do you?" he challenged, smirking even harder as he stepped forwards.

Haley narrowed her eyes at him before he made a move and wrapped an arm around her neck, grabbing her in a headlock. "Dean!" she yelled over the music. "Get off me!" She laughed and elbowed him in the ribs, making a lame attempt to fight him off her. He had always been too strong for her, unless she were fighting properly with intent to hurt him, which she didn't unless they were training, Dean always won.

They stopped their fighting at the sound of a door opening behind them. They both turned, Haley still in Dean's hold, to see Sam standing in the doorway of his room, seemingly coaxed out by the amount of noise the two of them had been making. He looked between them slowly and raised an eyebrow, momentarily debating with himself whether he really wanted to ask. He was so used to the two of them acting like kids, he just didn't get involved anymore. He couldn't help but smile, taking some comfort in the thought that they could let go of the amount of responsibility they placed on themselves everyday and laugh together. He knew how much they worried about him, about Dad, but they covered it all up, because that's what they'd been trained to do. They pushed everything down and ignored the pain.

"What the hell are you guys doing in here?" Sam gave a short laugh as he crossed the room towards them. Haley shot a punch to Dean's arm as he finally let go of her, turning back to face Sam. "And is one of you going to pick up some food? I'm starving." he pressed, looking between them for a reaction. "You know, Dean, some of us are still growing."

Haley laughed at that, she and Sam getting nothing more than a light smack on the back of the head from Dean in response. Despite what their Dad did for a living, and despite the job that they were trained to do, sometimes when the three of them were alone they were like a normal family. It might not have been the same as every other kid they went to school with, but when they laughed and joked around with each other, it felt normal. They were okay when they were together, because they were a team.

"I'll go pick up some food." Haley said lightly as she reached out and turned off the radio. She picked up the remote and turned on the tv, shooting Dean a look that dared him to challenge her.

Dean paused and raised an eyebrow at the insignificant movie playing on the small tv, they'd all seen it before, the standard motel channels always repeated themselves. He didn't know it then, but it was a movie that he would never be able to watch again because every single time that he would see it—everytime he would see the bad acting or hear the bland dialogue—it would spark up the same grievous thought; 'that was the movie playing on tv the night that Haley died.'

"Leave your brother alone while I'm gone." she smirked up at Dean as he handed her a twenty.

Dean just grinned at her. "You kidding?" he countered, raising his eyebrows at her as though her comment was nothing but ridiculous. She rolled her eyes and grabbed her jacket from the back of the couch, that one much more suitable for the lousy weather outside, and pulled it on. "Hey, I don't mind going, you know," Dean offered, his voice genuine. "You should get a shower before you catch pneumonia or something." he added seriously.

Haley gave a small shrug, gesturing to her rain soaked clothes. "I'm already wet, I might as well." She smiled. "Besides, there's no point in us both getting ill, right? I don't think I can cope with you having your man-flu again." she retorted. Dean shot her a glare, shaking his head slowly. "Come on, you were bad." she argued before he had a chance to deny it.

Sam nodded. "Haley, I'm dying. Sam, do this, Hales, do that, this is the end." he mocked, grinning up at him. Before Dean even had the chance to argue with either of them, Sam turned and headed back to his room. "You're the best, Haley." he called back over his shoulder before the door slammed closed behind him.

Dean let out a laugh at him and turned back to face Haley. "Be careful, alright?" he warned. "A lot of crazy people go jogging at night, you know."

Haley smiled at him. It was his usual way of telling her to keep herself safe without sounding like he actually cared. In his head, if he added some lame joke at the end of it, it sounded like he was just kidding around, rather than giving the impression that he actually worried about her. But they both knew different, she wasn't sure why he even bothered sometimes.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, love you too, Dean." she quipped.

Dean just smiled at her. "I mean it, Hales." he added, all aspects of joking gone from his voice.

Haley looked up at him and nodded seriously. "Course." she replied. "Won't be long."

With that, she gave a bright smile, the last one that Dean would ever see, and turned to the door before she left the room—left the room and headed down the street, unknowingly walking towards her death.

Haley sighed lightly as she headed over the parking lot. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself in a lame attempt to shield herself from the icy wind, making a mental note that next time she wouldn't be so nice and that she would let Dean go on the food run. The sky above her was now black, the dark clouds threatening nothing but more harsh rain. She walked a little quicker, her arms folded tightly across her chest, and thought about something other than the cold rain running down her face. She fastened her jacket to the top of her neck and audibly sighed as a loud jolt of thunder crashed above her in the sky.

She slowed down as her eyes fell to a man standing in the middle of the street ahead, looking straight at her. She glanced back over her shoulder and frowned, the streets around them were completely deserted of people other than the two of them. His hands were hidden in his jacket pockets, a small but malicious smile on his face as though he were waiting for her. He looked to be in his forties, with short brown hair and a worn jacket. For a second, she contemplated turning around and walking the other way, something about him unnerving her slightly, but she shook her head and snapped herself out of it. She cleared her throat and looked away from him, heading on down the street and passing him quickly without looking back.

Within a couple of seconds she could hear heavy footsteps behind her, growing gradually louder until she could feel the presence of someone walking right behind her. Haley held her breath and slowed down slightly, just to see what he would do. Not to her surprise, he did the same, keeping the same short distance between the two of them. She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face him, and a smile grew on his face as she did.

"You know, a pretty young girl like you shouldn't be out all alone at night in the rain," he said to her simply, glancing up and down the deserted street casually. "Anything could happen."

Her fists clenched at her sides, ready for a fight if that were the way it turned out. "Why are you following me?" she asked, keeping her voice hard, refusing to let any sign of fear or vulnerability slip through into her words.

The man seemed to ponder on his answer for a few seconds, pulling a face as he thought about it. "'Why' is never a good question to ask, Haley," he replied flatly. "You'll never get the answer you really want to hear." Haley took a wary step back from him the second that he'd said her name. It was never a good sign when the creepy stalker guy knew your name. Something in the back of her mind screamed at her to turn and run, to not stop until she was back at the motel room, but she stood her ground, determined not to let on that she was scared. "Where's your Daddy, Haley?" he pressed, taking a step forwards to close the gap she had created.

Haley narrowed her eyes, if he wanted her Dad she could take a guess that there was a good chance he wasn't human. She had no weapons on her, no knife, no gun, nothing—if he tried anything, she was pretty much screwed. "He's nowhere near here," she muttered. "Why?"

In truth, she didn't know where her Dad was. She had an idea of where he was, if she needed to find him it wouldn't have been impossible. They knew where he was hunting, they knew what he was hunting, but he never specified where he was staying, and she wasn't sure if that was out of habit, obsession or just straight up paranoia. It's not like she would have told him even if she had known, she wasn't stupid. If the guy wanted to find her Dad, it was probably to kill him, or to get revenge, it was a rare thing for it to be something good.

"Because," The man began brightly, his voice cheerful. "I've been hearing all sorts of concerning rumours that he's currently trying to hunt me down, can you believe that?" She frowned at him, unsure of how to take that comment. "Seems he wants a little revenge after I, uh, burned your Mom."

Haley's head snapped up to look at him at that, her eyes wide. It felt like he had punched her in the face, as though the words had been knocked clean out of her mouth. There was a rush of anger through her, a panic and fear that she had never felt before. The only thing she knew about the thing that had killed her Mom was that it was evil. A level of evil that her Dad never associated with the other things he hunted, as though this guy was a whole new mountain of horror. There was a protective feeling in her at his words, something that she shared with their Dad. At the thought she was standing face to face with the thing he had spent so long looking for, all she wanted to do was kill it. To finally have the revenge that their family had wanted for so many years, but she didn't know what to do.

"You what?" she breathed out, the words hardly forming in her mind, like the shock had stunned her to silence. She looked him up and down slowly, he didn't look all that dangerous, he just looked like a normal guy. "What are you?"

The man smiled slightly and closed his eyes. He opened them again to reveal them as a pale yellow colour. He stared at her for a couple of seconds before he blinked again and they returned to their normal colour. He took another step forwards, leaning down slightly. "I'll ask you again," he pushed, his voice turning hard and threatening. "Where is your Dad, Haley?"

Haley hadn't been gone from the motel room for more than ten minutes when Dean's cellphone rang from his jacket pocket. He let out a long, tired groan and turned down the volume of the tv before he pushed himself to his feet. He crossed the room and pulled the phone from his jacket, almost sure that it was going to be his sister calling from the diner because she'd forgotten what he'd wanted or something. "Yeah?" he answered, thinking nothing of it.

"Dean." A voice said simply. It was their Dad. Dean immediately picked up on the urgency and seriousness in his rushed tone, and the Impala's engine being pushed to it's full speed in the background. "Where are you?" he demanded before Dean had the chance to ask him what was wrong.

"At the motel." He frowned in confusion, it wasn't like their Dad to sound the way he did then. "Why?"

Dean had never heard him sound like that. There was something like panic in his voice, a fear that something was going to happen that was already out of his control. "I need you to get your brother and sister, and then you salt the windows and doors, now." he instructed, his voice sharp and warning him not to argue it. "None of you leave that room until I get back, understood?"

"Wait, what?" Normally Dean would have left it at that, he wouldn't have had anything else to say on the matter, but something sent a harsh wave of panic through him. "Dad, Haley's not here."

Dean heard him sigh, and then mutter something under his breath, from what he could hear, their Dad now sounded genuinely worried. "Where is she?" he urged.

He shook his head slowly, like their Dad expected him to know her exact location every hour of the day. "I don't know, Dad," He paused, not sure what to tell him. "What's going on?"

"There's something...and you...it's..." He heard him begin to say something, an attempt to answer him and explain what was happening, but the line cracked and muffled his voice to a point that Dean couldn't understand what was being said, where all he could hear was static. And then it went dead.

"Dammit." Dean muttered to himself as he dropped the phone back down to the table. He pulled a hand down his face and released a deep, calming sigh. "Sammy!" he yelled over towards his brother's room as he headed to the small kitchen part of the motel room.

Sam emerged from his bedroom to find Dean rummaging through the cupboards desperately, like he'd lost something that his life depended on finding. "What's up?" He frowned, sensing the panic in Dean's usually calm voice.

Dean pulled out a tub of salt and slammed it down on the counter in relief. "Salt the windows and doors, now." he said bluntly. "Don't move until I come back, okay, Sammy?" he instructed as he pulled on his jacket. "You don't let anyone into this room unless it's me, alright?"

"Dean," Sam shook his head slowly. "What?" But Dean had already ran from the room and slammed the door closed loudly behind himself without bothering to give an answer.

Dean ran through the heavy rain and stopped in the middle of the street, looking up and down it helplessly as he thought of what to do. He made the most obvious choice and turned in the direction of the closest diner, where he assumed Haley would have gone. He sprinted through the streets, his mind jumping to nothing but the worst possible scenarios of what could have happened to her. There wasn't a lot of things in the world that scared him, but something that freaked the hell out of him was the thought of something happening to Sam or Haley, because he didn't know what he'd do if anything were to harm them. He came to an abrupt halt as he rounded a corner, feeling sick at the sight in front of him. Haley stood in the middle of the street, a man behind her with an arm around the front of her neck and a knife pressed hard against her skin. A smirk spread over the man's face at the sight of him, a dark look in his eyes that unnerved Dean more than he thought anyone were capable of.

"Let her go." Dean seethed, his tone low and threatening, almost murderous. He took a step closer to them, a hard glare on his face that promised he wouldn't hesitate in killing him. "Now."

"Hm," The small smirk held on the man's smug face, growing wider as he tightened his hold of her. "I can't do that, I'm afraid." he replied, mock apology in his tone.

Dean clenched his fists and took another couple of steps closer, watching him warily. He looked down to Haley who was trying and failing to make herself look as though she wasn't scared. Being honest, he wasn't sure what to do, he didn't know who the guy was, if he were human, but he wouldn't hesitate in making an attempt to rip his head clean off his shoulders to find out. As far as he were concerned, if anyone so much as harmed a hair on her head, it gave him a free pass to beat the life out of them. There was an anger in him that he didn't often experience. But to have someone standing with a knife pressed to his sister's neck, it made him see red.

"Dean." A steady voice sounded from behind him, pulling him from his homicidal thoughts.

Somewhere out of nowhere, their Dad seemed to appear. Dean had never been able to understand how he did that, if something important happened, or something went wrong and one of them were in danger, he just seemed to appear, no matter where he had been or what job he had been working, every time he had been there, as though he had some kind of sixth sense about them. There was a look on his face that didn't fill Dean with confidence. Normally their Dad would have been the one he looked to for a sure answer, the way to fix the situation, but he looked just as worried as Dean felt.

"Get your hands off my daughter." he said bluntly, coming to a stop beside Dean and staring the man straight in the face. His voice consisted of pure anger and hatred, a frown on his face that no one would question. "Right now."

"Hales," Dean's voice cracked at her name. He locked eyes with her, momentarily taking away some of her fear. Just for a few seconds, it was only Haley and her brother, no one else—no monsters, no bad people, nothing evil in the world—because Dean's eyes always promised that he could protect her from anything, no matter what happened, he wouldn't let anything get her. He'd always promised her that, even when he didn't say anything, and she had never doubted him.

It felt something like fear, but not a fear of dying, and not even a fear of what was going happen to her if she didn't die—it was a fear of the look in Dean's eyes. She could see how hard he was trying to think of a way to help her, the strain in his eyes as he searched her face for some kind of sign, something to let him know that she was okay, that they'd make it out of this one, like they always did. But it was different that time. Because deep down, they both knew that it was the last time they would ever look each other in the eye—neither of them realistically thought that she was going to make it out. But Dean never gave up hope like that, he fought and fought until the last remaining glimmer of hope was extinguished, until there was no other options that he could think of. Haley tried to hold his stare, not wanting to look away, because when she was standing there and looking straight at him, she felt okay. Even knowing that he wasn't going to be able to save her this time, she felt okay because he was there. And he never looked away. He never let his intense and focused stare falter, not even when the fear and the unshed tears showed themselves. He didn't look away as their Dad took a small step towards her and the knife was pressed even firmer against her neck.

And then, just like that, in that one brief second that he watched the blade of the knife leave her neck and disappear into her stomach, the look of sheer and unforgiving pain in her eyes, her face, everything, he knew it was all over. And Dean knew that he had been the last thing she had seen before she had died.

The rain poured down over them, but Dean couldn't feel it anymore. He couldn't feel anything. He didn't want to feel anything. She was gone. In a second, in the blink of an eye, they were both gone, leaving him staring ahead in shock at an empty street. He couldn't even think to form words, there were no words—everything in his head seemed to stop right then.

He eventually managed to tear his eyes away from the spot she had been standing and summon the strength to look over at their Dad. His jaw was clenched tightly, a look of complete loss and anger in his expression. There was water trailing down his face, whether it was just rain or mixed up with tears, he couldn't say, but the broken look in his eyes gave him a good idea.

And then something hit him, hard, like a punch to the gut, a thought that sent a sick, dreading feeling to the very pit of his stomach—he was going to have to go back to the motel room and tell Sam what had happened. He was going to have to explain why he hadn't protected her, like he had always promised he would. He was going to have to tell him that his big sister, the girl that Sam had looked up to his whole life, the one who he had trusted with everything, the one who had adored him and would have done anything for him—she was never coming back.

Dean clenched his jaw. He could feel the lump in his throat and the tears stinging in his eyes. He held his breath, feeling like he couldn't remember how to breathe at that point. He didn't know where he was supposed to go from there. What was he supposed to do? Aside from Sam, Haley had been the one thing in his life that had given him any kind of hope. She had been everything to him, she had been anything that he needed her to be, and over the years, that had been a lot. She had been his witness, someone who had seen him at his best and fixed him at his worst, his partner in crime, the one who had stayed up all night with him when he needed someone there, the one who had cried with him and never judged him for it when their Mom's birthdays rolled around, someone who knew when he was smiling even when it was dark, his teacher, his student, his defence attorney, even his shrink. She had been his best friend. And he would have killed anyone in a second to save her life. There had been something about her, she had always seemed to know what had been good for him. No matter what the situation, or how bad anyone else was feeling, whatever he had been going through or no matter how crappy life seemed to be, everything was okay when she was around. She could never fail to return a smile to his face. She had always had a way of making things seem okay, even when they weren't.

And he needed her now, more than ever before.

He stood silently for a few seconds and finally blinked the tears from his eyes, feeling them almost immediately being washed away as they mixed in with the thick raindrops already running down his cheeks.

That was the last time that Dean Winchester ever thought he would see his sister. But he was wrong...