Opening Notes:

This story picks up with Lia Butler. The entire time that Dean was in Purgatory, so was Lia, but when Dean got out, Lia did not. She was in Purgatory a few months longer. The way Supernatural is written, season 8 should technically be set in 2014-2015 when you factor in the year Dean spent with Lisa after the apocalypse and then the year Sam spent alone while Dean was in Purgatory. I'm choosing to only factor in the year of Purgatory, making it 2014. If you would like to see who I am using as the face claim for Lia, look up Melissa Benoist, and for Maggie (who will come in shortly), India Joy Eisley. For now, that's all you need to know so let's get on with the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or anything in it, I do own Lia, Maggie, and Maureen.

Chapter 1: Shouldn't Come Back

Air. All she could smell was the sweet, sweet, scent of air. The air on Earth was different than the air in Purgatory, sweeter, sharper, more familiar. Walking through the woods, Lia was extremely disoriented. She had no idea where she was, what day it was, or even what year it was. After walking for a while, she comes across a small convenience store. Luckily it was open twenty-four hours a day. As she pulls the door open, she catches a glimpse of her appearance. There was dirt everywhere, her hair was complete chaos, and frankly she looked like a zombie.

The ding of the bell on the door alerts the cashier that someone was there so he looks up, nearly dropping the magazine in his hand when he sees the woman who had just entered. "Um, miss, are you alright?"

Lia immediately picks up on the accent of the kid and determines that she is somewhere in the Northeastern part of the country. "I'm uh, I'm lost. Can you tell me where I am and what day it is? And um, where the nearest pay phone is?" she asks, stuffing her hands in her pockets.

To her surprise, her fingers wrap around some crumpled bills and a piece of plastic. She pulls them out and examines them while the cashier gapes at her, gauging what to do. To her surprise, she had nearly $80 in cash and an old credit card, one that she was hoping still worked.

"You're in Maine. It's February 5th, 2014. Are you sure you're alright? Perhaps you should let me call you an ambulance, you don't look so good." the cashier responds. He looked to be a college student. His eyes indicated he hadn't had much sleep and the three empty Styrofoam cups next to him indicated he was running on caffeine.

February of 2014? Fuck! I've been, for all intents and purposes, dead for almost two years! she thinks to herself. "I'm fine. I just need some food and directions to a motel and I'll be all good."

"Well if you've got money, buy anything you want here and I can call you a cab to get you to the nearest motel, a girl like you walking alone out there at this time of night is just asking for trouble." the guy, Ryan, at least that's what his name tag claims, tells her, brushing a strand of his moppy brown hair out of his face.

"I do. Thanks. I'll um, go pick some stuff out." Lia says, turning around. She catches the clock for the first time and discovers that it's a bit after midnight.

She walks around and picks up a cheap T-shirt that read "I ❤ Maine" and some yoga pants with the same inscription on the ass. She then picks up two candy bars, a bag of trail mix, a packaged deli sandwich, two bottles of water, and an energy drink. With all of that in hand, she heads to the desk and pays for her stuff.

After waiting around for twenty minutes, the cab that Ryan had called shows up and takes her to the closest motel. There she gets a room, showers, eats, and gets some sleep. The next morning she decides it was time she try and contact someone. Unfortunately, Lia really had no one. She was a foster kid since the age of nine, her mother was, for most of Lia's life, an alcoholic and drug addict. Her mother, Maureen, had driven drunk one night with her and her sister, Maggie, in the car and promptly crashed. That hospital visit was the last straw for the state. They took her and her sister away as soon as the hospital released them. She never saw her mother again. Maggie had then died when Lia was fifteen and from that day forward, Lia was truly on her own.

The only person that popped into her head was Dean Winchester. For years she had heard about the Winchesters. They were infamous in the hunter community. Some hated them and some praised them. Lia had never met them and never made up her mind about them. But down in Purgatory, Lia met Dean. Being the only two humans, they stuck together and eventually formed somewhat of a team with a vampire named Benny and an angel named Castiel. Dean had told her once that should she get out without him or should they get separated and she needed help to call his brother, Sam. He had written down three phone numbers on a scrap of paper that he had with him and gave it to her. Please let it still be in my jacket, she thinks to herself, scooting off of the bed and walking over to pick her jacket up off of the small coffee table.

To her relief, she pulls out the dirtied, crumpled, slip of paper. The numbers were faded but thankfully still legible. She tries the first one but finds it disconnected. After a few rings on the second number, Lia almost hangs up, but before she does, she hears a voice on the other end that stops her.

"Hello?" the voice says.

"D-Dean?" she questions, recognizing the familiar sound.

"Who is this? How did you get this number?" Dean says. His voice was hard and he sounded slightly angered.

"It is you." Lia says, letting out a sigh of relief. "It's me, Lia."

There's a pause on the other end. She almost thinks he'd hung up.

"Lia?" he says, sounding entirely shocked.

"Hi."

"You're out? How? Are you okay? Where are you?" he asks, now rapidly firing questions at her. He'd gone from angry to concerned in the blink of an eye.

"I'm alive. As for okay, I'm not so sure. I'm uh, at a motel in Maine." she says.

"Catch a bus to Lebanon, Kansas. I'll pick you up."

"What? No way, you don't need to do that. I'll be fine." Lia says. She hadn't intended for that, she just wanted to see if she could get through to anyone. She didn't want to burden him with anything.

"Lia, you just got out of Purgatory after almost two years. You're alone and lost. Get your ass on a bus to Lebanon and I'll pick you up, got it?" Dean says, his tone making it clear that he wouldn't be taking no for an answer.

"Fine. I'll find a bus station and call you to let you know when I'll be there."

Dean then gives her his cell number and says he'll be waiting outside for her with his car, an old Chevy Impala.

After hanging up, Lia heads out. She asks the motel clerk for directions to the nearest bus station and then walks the few miles to it. When she gets there, she buys her ticket. When she finds out it would take almost a day and a half and required her to switch busses, she calls to let Dean know the time to expect her. After that, she buys a bottle of water and a bottle of pop from one of the vending machines along with a bag of pretzels and a pack of Reese's. Lia boards the bus a half an hour later.

Thirty-five hours later she is stepping off a bus in Lebanon, Kansas. Lia had called Dean when she switched busses to give him a better estimate as to when she'd be in Lebanon. When she walks out of the bus station, she almost immediately spots Dean Winchester leaning against the hood of his car, waiting for her.

When he looks up and locks eyes with her, his face lights up and he stands upright.

She's not sure what hits her but she runs to him, throwing herself into his arms.

Dean catches her and wraps his arms around her tightly. "I can't believe you're alive." he mumbles into her hair.

"Me either." Lia replies, her words muffled against his chest. She wasn't exactly sure why, but she was clinging to Dean for dear life. He was the first familiar face she'd seen in such a long time.

"Let's get you home and cleaned up, okay?"

She pulls back a bit at the word 'home' and tilts her head up to look at him. "Home?" Lia questions.

"Sammy and I have a home base now and you're staying there with us." he says, as if it were obvious.

"What? Dean no, I-" she begins to protest only to have him cut her off.

"It wasn't a question, Lia. You're coming. I'm not leaving you completely alone." Dean says firmly, his piercing green eyes boring into her hazel ones.

With the tone of his voice and the way he was looking at her, she knew he wasn't going to let her go.

"I let you go once, I'm not doing it again." he says before taking her head in his hands and pulling her into a kiss.

She's momentarily stunned, completely caught off guard, but Lia wraps her arms around his neck and kisses back.

When he pulls back she asks, "What was that?"

"Something I should've done a long time ago. Now come on, let's go home."

Lia was silent the whole car ride. She felt Dean throw glances at her every so often, but she just sat staring out the window. When Dean pulls up to what he called 'the bunker' and gets out of the car, she just sits there frozen in her seat. What am I doing? I shouldn't be here.

Dean was heading for the door when he realizes he didn't hear Lia's door. He spins around and tilts his head slightly in confusion when he sees her still sitting in the Impala. He walks over and opens her door, saying, "This is it. Come on, let's go in."

"I uh, I don't think I should be here. This wasn't a good idea. I should um, I should go." Lia manages to say. She was second guessing herself and growing increasingly nervous. Other than the time she'd spent with Dean in Purgatory, the two knew almost nothing about each other. She was pretty much a stranger.

"What? No. No, you can't leave." Dean says, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion.

"Dean, I can't. You and your brother don't need me screwing things up with you guys, changing your dynamic. Sam just got you back a few months ago, right? And you guys have this place now. I'd just screw things up, cause more problems. You don't even know much about me. I'm… I'm, for all intents and purposes, a stranger. I shouldn't be here. I probably shouldn't have even called." she says, having gotten out of the car.

As she turns to walk away, Dean grabs her wrist and spins her back towards him. He looked to have a few tears in his eyes. "No. I just… I just got you back. No. You can't leave. Please, Lia, don't go." Dean pleads with her, his grip on her wrist tight enough that she couldn't wriggle out of it.

"Dean…"

"Lia, please. You won't screw things up, alright? You couldn't. And you are not a stranger. I spent nearly a year with you in Purgatory. Besides, what could possibly be so bad about you that I don't know?"

With the look he was giving her, she didn't know what to do. There were many things about her and her past that could and probably would send him running, but there were probably things about him that could do the same for her. "You'd be surprised." she mumbles.

"Whatever it is, I don't care. I care about you, Lia. I never thought I'd see you again, but now you're standing here, alive, and I can't lose you again, I just can't. Just come inside. Take a shower, eat, get some sleep, and we can talk more tomorrow."

"Does your brother even know about me?" she asks. The flicker of an expression that crosses Dean's face tells her that Sam did not know. "That's what I thought." she adds and goes to turn and walk away again.

This time Dean steps in front of Lia, stopping her once again. "Lia, wait."

"What, Dean? Can't you see that this won't work?"

"What won't?" Dean says, his voice now taking on an eerily calm tone.

"This." she states, not sure what he was trying to get her to say.

"What do you mean by this?"

"This. Me living here, hunting with you and Sam, and…" Lia trails off, not able to say what it was that she was truly scared of.

"And what?" he asks, his voice still strangely calm. It was as if he knew what she was trying to say but wanted to make her say it anyway.

"And us." she mumbles almost inaudibly.

Dean nods and bits his bottom lip, stepping back a bit. "You don't want to be with me."

"Dean…" she trails off, not sure how to say what she was thinking. It wasn't that she didn't want to be with him. It was that she knew he didn't want to be with her, at least not the real her. He couldn't. Too much baggage and emotional damage. No one in my damn life has ever wanted me, so how could he?

"No. I get it. Why would you want to be with me anyway?" he says. She could see him putting walls up, growing defeated.

"No, Dean, it's not you. It's me. You don't want me. Trust me, you don't." she replies.

"That's not up to you, Lia. That's up to me. I get to decide if I want you or not, and I do." Dean says. His tone had changed again, grown firmer.

"No, you don't."

He steps closer and takes one of her hands in his. When she tries to pull back, he tightens his grip. "Yes, I do." he insists, his eyes boring into hers.

"No… No… W-why?" she says, shaking her head. How could he want me?

"If I have to explain why I want to be with you, we'll be here for hours. Just say you'll stay." he says. He'd come even closer, to the point where his face was only a few inches from hers.

Seeing as he stood a good five or six inches taller than her, Lia couldn't help but find herself staring at his lips. And when looking at Dean Winchester's lips, all she could think about was kissing them, again, and again, and again. All the doubts and precautions in her mind melt away and she raises herself up on the tips of her toes to press a kiss to his lips before saying, "I'll stay. For now."

She hears him sigh in relief as he wraps an arm around her waist. "Good. Now let's go inside."

She nods and he leads her to the door, opening it and pulling her inside. She wasn't sure what she expected, but what she sees isn't it. Just from the stairs she could tell this place was massive, old, and beautiful. "Wow." she mutters.

"Wait until you see the whole place." he responds.

As the two walk down the stairs Dean calls for his brother. "Sammy! Come out here."

Sam surfaces a few minutes later. She wasn't sure what she had expected from him either, but again what she sees isn't it. Though she'd heard about the Winchesters before, Lia had never met them or seen their pictures prior to Purgatory. Sam was taller than Dean by maybe two or three inches, his hair was much longer, and he seemed to be a bit more built than Dean.

"Who is this?" Sam asks, looking confused.

"Alright, this is probably something I should've said back when I got back from Purgatory but-" Dean begins only to be cut off by his brother.

"Purgatory? Is she another vampire like Benny?" Sam asks, clearly cautious of her.

"He knows about Benny and not me?" she asks, stepping back slightly to look Dean in the eye.

"Can we all sit down please?" Dean says.

"No." she and Sam say simultaneously, both giving Dean hard looks.

"Jesus, alright. Sam, this is Lia. She's not a vampire, not anything supernatural. She was in Purgatory when I got there. And Lia, yes he knows about Benny, but that's because he had to. He met him." Dean explains.

"Another human in Purgatory? How could you leave that out, Dean? And how could you leave her there?" Sam says.

"I did not leave her there." Dean says firmly, stepping closer to Sam, his face temporarily flooding with anger.

"He tried to get me out. But when Castiel fell back, I did too. It wasn't his fault." she says, sensing that a fight was going to break out between the two brothers.

"Okay. Why the hell didn't you say anything, Dean? How could you not mention there was another human? Let alone a girl that you very clearly care about." Sam says.

He had a point. If Dean had told Sam about Benny, why wouldn't he have mentioned her too?

"I couldn't. It hurt to even think about her. I thought she was gone, that I couldn't get her back, and that was my fault. But that doesn't matter because she's here now and she's staying with us." Dean insists.

"Alright. I'll let it go." Sam relents, raising his hands slightly in surrender.

"Okay, I'm going to go see what clothes I can find for you and get some stuff set up. Sammy, can you show her the kitchen?"

Sam nods and Dean walks off, leaving Lia alone with Sam, who was studying her.

"What?" she asks as she watches his eyes search her body, lingering on her face.

He bites his bottom lip, much like Dean had outside, before saying, "Nothing."

"You want to ask something." she states.

"How old are you?"

"How old am I? That's really what you want to know?"

"Oh believe me, there's a lot I want to know, but for now, yes." he replies.

"What year is it again?" she asks, realizing she wasn't sure how old she was.

"2014. February of to be exact."

"I'm uh… I'm 29 then. Fuck. I'm old." she says. She'd missed two birthdays in Purgatory.

"29? You're not old. You're young, younger than both Dean and I. How old were you when um…" Sam says, trailing off.

"When I killed a Leviathan and landed myself in Purgatory?"

"Yeah, that." he responds.

"27. It was May of 2012 and I have an October birthday so I missed two." she tells him.

Sam was about to say something else when Dean walks back in. "What are you two still doing in here? I said show her the kitchen and this ain't the kitchen."

Sam shoots her a look saying that he intended to talk to her more later and then says, "Sorry."

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up and get some food in your stomach." Dean says, extending his hand to her.

With a glance back at Sam, she takes Dean's hand and lets him lead her towards a bathroom.

Without a doubt she'd be talking to Sam more later. She couldn't quite explain it, but she felt drawn to him somehow. Something told her that the two of them were very similar.

"So this place is nice." she says as Dean leads her down the hallway.

"Yeah, it's got a long history. I can explain it to you more later. For now, you need some food, a proper shower, and some sleep." Dean says.

He stops outside a doorway and motions for her to go in. "This is the best shower in the place. I managed to find a pair of sweatpants that had shrunk and the smallest shirt of mine that I had and put it in there."

"Thanks, Dean." Lia says.

"Alright, I'll be back in the living room." Dean states.

Dean then walks back to the living room where Sam was still standing.

"You've been back for months, Dean, months, and you never even mentioned her, not once." Sam says.

"Sammy, don't." Dean warns.

"No. I don't get it, Dean. You clearly care about her, how could you not say anything? Not try to get her back at least? You just left her."

"I did not leave her." Dean says, venom seeping into his words.

"But you did. Maybe it's not your fault that she fell back, but you knew she was there and you did nothing about it."

Sam had a point, Dean had told himself the same things over and over again ever since he'd gotten that call from Lia. Ever since he'd gotten back from Purgatory himself, he'd beat himself up over losing her. He'd never gotten to tell her how he felt, there was not time or place for romance or feelings in Purgatory, and then he'd lost her. So now he wasn't going to let it happen again, he wasn't going to lose her.

"And now, all of a sudden, she shows up and you take her in just like that? What do you even know about her, Dean?"

Lia was walking back to ask Dean if they had any other soap but she stops in her tracks when she hears Sam ask, "What do you even know about her, Dean?"

She steps back against the wall so that neither brother could see her if they looked but she could still hear the conversation.

"Sammy, don't." Dean warns yet again.

"Do you even know her last name?"

The look that floods Dean's face tells Sam that he didn't know. "You don't. I get that you spent a year in Purgatory with her, Dean, but you've got to understand where I'm coming from here. We know nothing about her and I mean just the fact that she was in Purgatory alone raises some flags. Leviathans weren't easy to kill, how did she do it?"

Sam's already suspicious of me. I knew I shouldn't have even come in, I knew it, Lia thinks to herself.

"Dammit Sam, stop. You're right, okay? You're right." Dean begins.

That was all Lia needed to hear, she didn't care to hear anything else Dean had to say. She walks back to the bathroom and quickly showers. She then changes and walks off to find a bedroom, hoping she could fall asleep or at least pretend to be asleep before either brother noticed.

By walking away, Lia missed the important part of the conversation.

"You're right. I see where you're coming from, okay? But what happened to benefit of the doubt? Innocent until proven guilty? Stuff like that. She's a hunter, Sam, she's going to have a past, but I couldn't just leave her out there alone. Right now, she needs to get some sleep and get adjusted to being on Earth again, we can find out more about her after that. Be nice, would you?" Dean tells his brother.

"Alright, alright. I'll be nice. But I don't trust her, not yet."

"Good. I'm going to go see if she's doing okay." Dean states and then heads towards the bathroom.

When he doesn't find her there, he checks the bedroom down the hall. Inside he finds Lia passed out on the bed wearing his old shirt and the sweatpants, which she had cut into shorts. He smiles and shakes his head slightly. He then grabs a blanket out of his room and drapes it over her before heading back to the living room.

The clock in the room read 12:30 and Lia figured that both brothers should be asleep so it would be a good time to sneak out. She didn't have a phone or a car, she didn't even really know where she was, but she was pretty sure she could find her way back to the bus station on foot. From there, she'd get a ticket to New York, where she should have gone in the first place.

Just as she was about to step foot onto the stairs, a voice stops her in her tracks.

"Where are you going?"

A light clicks on as Lia turns around. She finds Sam getting off of the couch and walking closer to her.

"Can you just go back to sleep and forget that you saw me?"

"Not a chance. What are you doing?" Sam says.

"Leaving. I never should've even called Dean in the first place. I don't belong here. You're already suspicious of me, it's only a matter of time before Dean decides I'm worthless anyway." Lia tells him, trying to keep her face emotionless.

"You heard us earlier."

"I did. But that doesn't matter. I really should leave. I have somewhere I need to go anyway."

At that, Sam steps in front of her, blocking the stairs up to the door.

"Sam, move."

"No. I'm not letting you do this to Dean. Yes, I am suspicious of you, but being a hunter you know you would be too if you were me. That doesn't mean I don't want to get to know you. I do. But you can't leave. If you have somewhere to go, we'll all go."

"Sam-" she begins only to have the younger Winchester cut her off.

"Lia. I'm not letting you walk out this door so you might as well give up and go back to bed."

She sighs and says, "Fine. Where's the kitchen? I'm not going back to bed."

Sam directs her to the kitchen, where she spends the rest of the night.

"Sam says you tried to leave last night." Dean states the next morning, walking into the kitchen around eight.

"I told you this wasn't a good idea, Dean."

"Talk to me then, don't just try and sneak off in the middle of the night. Where do you need to go?"

"New York."

"What's in New York?" Dean asks, taking a seat across from her.

"I have an apartment there. There's probably no water or electricity there now, but I own it." Lia explains.

"We'll all go then."

She was about to protest but the look on Dean's face told her he wasn't going to change his mind no matter what she said.

"Fine."

"We'll leave in an hour then. I'll go let Sammy know."

Great, this is so not what I wanted. As soon as they find out who I really am, about my past, they'll go running. They don't even know my real name.

A/N: I hope you liked the first chapter! I was a bit nervous about starting this fic but I think I've got the jitters worked out and am excited about continuing it. Maybe let me know what you think?