Disclaimer: Supernatural and all related materials do not belong to me. I'm only borrowing them, without asking: ) to write this story.

A/N: If you haven't read The Boogeyman, Race to Kill, The Burning Family, From the Ashes, or Werewolf Territory you should read them before reading this fic. They all are part of the series my sister Katie and I are writing. If you go to my profile now, you'll find them. But if you have read those read on then review. Afterwards I strongly suggest reading Posinchik88's fics.

Next Time

Chapter One

One year and seven months ago, Brookeville, Iowa

"Shoot." Will gasped. Athena's hands shook and her sister wrapped her arms around her.

"We've got to shoot the damn thing." Autumn shouted in Athena's ear. Autumn steadied her sister's grip on the gun aimed it for her. "Just pull the trigger."

It's impossible, to most people, for a cloak to strangle then devour it's owner. But those people don't do what we do. The people who doubt that, that day I was nearly strangled by a living cloak, then shot through the heart by my girlfriend and still lived to tell the tale don't pop ghosts for a living. They've never stared down the throat of a werewolf, or been suspended in air over a flight of stairs by an angry spirit. They've never slept six inches from their girlfriend's armed overprotective sister, on the floor of a haunted Victorian manor in the country of Maine. But that's for the best, if everyone believed in this stuff, I'd be out a job, I never would have met Athena Daemon, and I sure as hell never would have left her behind to lead a demented cloak away from her and her sister, Autumn.

"Shoot." Will ordered, he was turning blue and his fingers were ripping at the black material of his captor. Athena put pressure on the trigger. She felt the release of the bullet and dropped to the ground when the cloak flew off and blood blossomed over Will's left breast.

"Oh God." she sobbed into her hands.

Autumn Daemon loses her cool over the dumbest things. I once saw her break down in tears for walking into a pillar on a college campus. But when it counts she is almost always calm, cool, and collected. I thank my stars everyday that as I soaked my clothes with my own life force she could keep her cool in the face of death. Autumn had been hurt by a man before and because of that she'll never fully trust any man. There will always be a dark cloud in the back of her mind that says he's just buying his time and looking for an opening to hurt her. Autumn was like an old saddle when I found her. She was already broken in, she'd rode the rough road and survived. She was beaten, scarred, and wore. Nothing like Athena. Athena Rhea Daemon, Autumn's kid sister by four years, was fresh and new. She was so young and naive. I relished the chance to get to break her in, to show her the world. But I messed that all up.

"In the car. Now!" Autumn ordered Athena after hauling Will's limp body in the backseat of her mustang. For the first time ever she didn't complain about the white leather seats she put his bleeding body right on them. Athena scrambled in shaking and crying. "Put pressure over the wound. Watch his heart beat and breathing. If anything stops or gets really slow tell me." Autumn slammed the door and climbed in the front seat.

"Where are we going?" Athena questioned. Autumn didn't look back as she burned rubber leaving her dog in the motel room. There wasn't room, and he'd be in the way. She had to save Will now.

"John told me about a woman. She'll be able to help. Try and stop the bleeding." Autumn wrestled off her t-shirt and tossed it to her sister. "Don't worry, baby. I'll take care of everything."

That was my girls. I loved them both. Athena was my best girl, she was the love of my life. She was the only girl I ever imagined spending the rest of my life with. Autumn, was so much older than both of us. In her eyes burned a fire no one could ever touch. She was ready for everything, she could fix anything. As long as Athena and I were with her we were in the best of hands. She respected me and trusted me with her sister's heart. I left them to protect them. I have to believe that.

January 4th 2007, on the road somewhere between Washingtown, Idaho, and Raining Cloud's Hunter's Resort in Montana

"Here, lunch." Dean handed her a Mt. Dew and over cooked rubber hot dog.

"Oh, convenient store food how I missed you." she cooed at the meal.

"You're a little twisted aren't you?"

"I'd like to think there's a little something wrong with all of us." she agreed. Dean didn't want to push the conversation but this was the most she'd spoken since she swore she'd kill her sister.

"You know they're going to expect us to have things worked out." he flicked the car in reverse and left his parking place.

"Yea, and Athena expected Peter Pan to take her to Never Land until she was fifteen." she dismissed, though he had no idea what her point was.

"You should burn that thing." he indicated to her necklace, made from the hair of a fallen werewolf.

"If Rafael comes back and starts wrecking havoc on innocent people I'll burn it, until then it will stay where it is." Autumn's fingers curled around the silver bullet at her throat and she stuffed the hotdog in her mouth.

"Whatever." he gave up talking with her for a few miles. Silence settled thickly in the car and slowly he saw Autumn's barriers dissolve.

"After the Demon, I'm going to get the girls. I don't want to ruin what time I have left hunting, by starting something with you and have it blow up in my face. I enjoy our hunts too much to split because we got awkward." she explained. Dean turned down the radio, to show he was listening but didn't talk. Talking was bad, every time he spoke she shut down. "If it didn't blow up, you would stick around to help with the girls. You're not that guy. Hell, if it didn't blow up that would go against everything I know about you. Dean, you're a one night guy and I don't do that."

"So you've only ever been with guys who stuck around?" he asked a little disbelieving, and way off her point.

"No, I've only ever been with Billy-Jack." she corrected.

"You have very bad tastes, you know that?" he shook his head. "An abusive alcoholic, and a dead werewolf."

"And a guy who sleeps with everything that moves, and a few things that don't?" she muttered under her breath and Dean let it slide.

"You tell Athena you want to get the girls?"

"No, I'm not telling her until I get all the details worked out. I know I'm going to get them, but where I'll be living and that stuff, I don't know about."

"What about Billy-Jack, you going back to him?"

"Trap me in an abusive relationship once shame on you, trap me twice I'll kill myself." she took a swig of her pop and twisted the lid back on.

"That's exactly the parenting those girls need." he teased but she glared at him.

"They need parents that are going to stick around, and not beat the hell out of them. That's why I'd have to cut you out if we made it that far."

"What?"

"Dean, you're not the kind of guy whose going to want to be tied down by three little girls, who will more likely than not need serious counseling." she pointed out.

"That would depend on their mother." he tried a little of the Winchester charm.

"Right," Autumn rolled her eyes and looked out the window. There hadn't been notable scenery since a car load of high school kids and mooned them that morning.

"Autumn, if we try 'us' and we make it to that bridge I wouldn't mind playing Uncle Dean full time. Those girls need a man in their life that isn't a total whack job."

"Father daughter dances, and show'n'tells and endless hours of just one more story you would do that? You would get up in the middle of the night when they had nightmares and wanted you to just stay with them until they fell asleep? When the kid on the bus stole their book bag you'd take them to the kid's house and talk to his dad?" Dean shrugged.

"Our girls wouldn't need me to get their backpack back. They'd know to hit the kid."

"Oh, so you would take the day off work to go in and explain to the principle why Kendra decked little Timmy?" Autumn asked sarcastically.

"Sure, they're not going to be little wussy girls." he grinned. "We'll teach them to stick up for themselves. Little Timmy wants to play doctor, he'll be looking for his balls in Kelly's jar of marbles." Autumn laughed.

"You'd be a great dad." she shook her head.

"I would be. I raised Sammy, he turned out alright. Heck, he's even smart. Dad never cared much about grades, as long as we were getting by." Autumn had to give him that.

"Would you quit hunting?" she asked. He was quiet for a long time. "You wouldn't have to quit just as long as you'd be home when I needed you. When they all get the flu, or for their birthdays and Christmas."

"Autumn, we've not crossed the first bridge and you're miles ahead of us." he looked away from the road to see her. Her hair was cropped close to her face, almost able to reach her shoulders at its longer parts, her eyes were constantly soaking everything in holding life captive in their sparkling color. Dean's eyes trailed down her neck and took in her form, she had an hourglass figure though, you couldn't tell it the way she had herself layered right now.

"Okay, what's bridge number one?" she took a deep breath and released it slowly. Was bridge number one the fact that she didn't trust him to stick around or that neither of them wanted to risk their friendship if they were going to lose each other in the end?

"Is it worth it?" he asked. Trust he could build, faith he didn't know about.

"In my head, I've risked everything a thousand times for it. But, I don't know Dean, this isn't prom. We aren't like the rest of the world. We let emotions get in the way on a hunt someone can get killed. So even if we don't blow it…" she trailed off.

"Even if we don't blow it, we won't let the other risk it." Dean filled in.

"Yea, so what do you think?"

"I think, after the other night, things have already started with or without us, so we might as well give it a shot. What's the worst that can happen?" Dean reached for her hand and Autumn flinched. "I'm not going to hurt you, ding-dong."

"Yea, I know." That's what Billy-Jack said though, she thought.

In the mustang several miles ahead of their older siblings

"No, Marc's mom was killed by vampires on the hood of her car while he slept in the passenger's seat. It really messed him up. Red took him in and he and Will were best friends." Athena said braiding a strand of hair the kept falling in her eyes.

"So he's a hunter?" Sam asked.

"Nope, he's a tracker. He can find anyone, anywhere, even aliens in other galaxies."

"Could he find the Demon?"

"Maybe, but he won't. Not unless Autumn asks him. He'll do anything for her, I swear she's a freak magnet. Your brother included." she shrugged off her coat and adjusted the heating vent.

"You aren't a very nice girl." Sam teased.

"Well, nice girls finish last, and I plan to finish first." she unbraided the strand and started twisting it back into a braid.

"Think they're killing each other yet?" he glanced at the rearview mirror as if he could really see them.

"Nope, right about now Autumn is trying to rationalize everything and Dean is treating it like a big joke."

"Are we going to make it there today?" Athena checked the time.

"Yea, in about a hour we'll turn off on the exit. We'll twist and turn until our ass is up our nose then pass the red barn, two wooden fences, and a pig farm," she bobbed her head and watch the braid dance. "About that time we'll start seeing signs telling us to turn back. We ignore them and four miles in we reach a big sign that says Welcome to Raining Cloud's Hunters Resort."

"How did my dad ever find this place?" Sam laughed.

"He sniffed it out. Warm bed and cold beer, any hunter can find that. It's part of the job description."