My family isn't perfect. Okay? I accept that, I acknowledge that. Always has been, and probably always will be. My mother died when I was a baby, and my father, being the batshit crazy asshole that he was, decided to hunt down the thing that killed her. He moved us out of Lawrence, Kansas and raised in motels across the country, never staying in one place longer than a few weeks. He raised us like a drill Sargent. That's an ex Marine for you. And we fought. A lot.

Dean was the most accepting of our new lifestyle, even more so than me, and this lifestyle was all I've ever known. But Sammy hated hunting. He wanted to be a normal family who lived in a normal house and who had normal jobs and lives. While I always said what he wanted was boring, I secretly agreed with him. Hunting sucks sometimes. But the thing is, I wasn't vocal about my displeasure and dissatisfaction with the hunting lifestyle. Sam was.

Dad is this real tough, no nonsense kind of guy, and he takes the phrase "My way or the highway" very seriously. He flat out told Sam one time, that if he didn't want the hunter's life, he must not've wanted to avenge Mom. That was his thing. This was all a way to avenge Mom and get back at the thing that killed her. And if you didn't want to be a part of that, you didn't love Mom. Any time Sam asked a question Dad didn't like, or he said some crap about going to school or a museum, Dad was on Sammy's back like stank on shit. This caused a lot of fights, practically every time we went to a new town.

But all that? That was child's play compared to the fight they had when we all found out that Sammy had been accepted to a college in California. The fact that he'd even applied had Dean and Dad pissed enough to not talk to Sam for two days. But then… Then the screaming happened. Every night, for a whole week! Dean and Dad versus Sam. Sam wanted to go to college and lead a normal life, and Dean and Dad wanted him to stay and fulfil his responsibility to Mom.

I tried to stop their screaming at first. It scared me, how angry they all were. I'd never seen them this angry. And they all had this look in their eyes, like they were about to kill each other. They only had that look when they were killing monsters, and it was honestly terrifying to my twelve-year-old self. But when I tried to tell them to stop, they all snarled at me to go to my bed and try to sleep. Of course, motels are generally one room things, so no matter where they were in the apartment, I could here them. I cried myself to sleep every night they fought.

Finally, it all ended. Dean had left the room to go get a drink, and Dad and Sam were just staring at each other near the bathroom. I was worried. They usually didn't stop screaming until the motel person banged on the door telling them to shut up. And this wasn't a peaceful silence. It was an angry silence. Something bad was gonna happen.

"Alright." Dad said, quiet, low, and angry. "You want to go? Go of to college, get a degree, marry a girl, get a house with a white picket fence? The whole deal? Then go! Go, and never come back!"

"Fine." Sam said, and his voice was devoid of emotion. "I will." Sam stood up so forcefully that the chair clattered to the ground. He stormed over to where we kept our bags, grabbed his, and started throwing his things into it. His anger was clear in every move he made, and was etched in to his face.

I sat up, sniffling away the tears, watching for a moment as Sam packed his things. "Sammy?" I finally said. He looked at me, and as soon as he saw my teary face, all the anger washed off of him.

"Yes, Gwen?" He responded, pausing his packing for a second.

"You're coming back, aren't you Sam?" I asked, giving him a wounded puppy dog look. "You won't really leave forever, right? You'll be back by next week, won't you?"

Sam didn't answer for a second, and when he did, I wish he'd stayed silent. Forever. "No, Gwen. I'm not coming back. I have to go." Fresh tears streamed from my eyes as he spoke. "No, Gwen, don't cry. It'll be okay, I promise."

"No it won't!" I yell. "My brother is leaving me and he's not coming back! It won't ever be okay!"

Sam held his arms open for a hug, and I crawled into them like I was a baby, and sobbed into his shoulder. "Shh… Shh, baby. It's okay."

"But I'll miss you…" I whimpered.

"I'll miss you too, Gwen." Sam told me. "But we have each other's numbers. We can call each other. Just because Dad and I are fighting doesn't mean I can't talk to you, alright?"

I sniffled a little and nodded. Sam held me for a few more moments, before letting me go and getting back to packing. Once he was packed, he gave me one last hug, and as he walked out the door, he said to me,

"Remember Gwen, I'll call you."

Guess what he never did?

Once I realized he wasn't going to call me, I did everything in my power to get in contact with him. I called his cell several times, sent him about a million texts, emailed him, everything! But he never responded. After about a year and a half, when I called him, I got a message telling me he'd changed his number. That hurt even worse than him leaving in the first place.

Dean and Dad pretended that he'd never even been there, and told me to just forget about him. And after about two years of crying and pouting over it, I did. I forgot about Sammy, pushed him to the back of my mind, and threw myself into hunting. By that time, I was fourteen, and Dad was beginning to let me go on hunts with him and Dean, even though I spent most of the time in the car, while they went and killed the things.

Until three weeks ago. I'm fifteen now, and Dad sent Dean and I on our own to a hunt in New Orleans. I thought it was stupid to go hunting in a city recently plagued by a hurricane, but we did what Dad said. Once we'd finished the job, we went to call Dad and tell him about it, but we couldn't reach him. He was AWOL. Wouldn't answer the phone, and that was about the only way to reach him.

We're currently on our way to Stanford, where Sam was at college. Dean decided to bring him in on the hunt to find Dad. I'm still epically against that decision, but I'm not the one driving.

"You alright, Gwen?" Dean asks as we drive through the night.

"I'm fine, Dean." I tell him. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"We're about to see our estranged brother that we haven't seen in three or so years." Dean says as if this would be obvious. "And you and him didn't leave on the best of terms."

"We left on perfectly fine terms." I respond. "Sam just went and ruined it."

"And if I recall correctly, you were mad as all hell about that!" Dean says, looking at me. "I need to know you're not gonna rip his ass to shreds once we see him!"

I roll my eyes. "I won't kill him. Or do any sort of bodily harm to him. I got over him not wanting anything to do with me ages ago." Dean gives me a skeptical look. "What? He's gonna treat me like we're not family? Fine. I'll do the same to him."

"So you do hold a grudge?" Dean asks.

"A small one."

"But you still hold one, and I don't want that getting in the way of anything."

"How are you not holding a grudge at him over this?"

"I do, I was just as mad at him as you are! But we need to put that aside so we can find Dad!"

"We can find him on our own!"

"Are you telling me you don't miss him?" Dean asks. "Besides. He owes us."

"I don't miss him, and I plan on never missing him."

"I don't buy that for a second."

"You don't have to."

"Aw, c'mon, Gwen! Play nice! It's all I'm asking!"

"I'm willing to play nice!" I snap at him. "I'm willing to play as nice with him as I would with any stranger."

"But he's not a stranger, he's your brother!"

"He was my brother. He made it clear he wanted nothing to do with me."

"Hey, he never called us either!"

"But he promised he'd call me!" I stress this fact because it is literally the only reason I still hold on to this grudge so much. "A man is only as good as his word, Dean. Dad told us that."

"Well, Dad ain't here right now, is he?"

"No, he's not, so we should be out finding him instead of talking to a man who doesn't want the slightest to do with us!"

"Christ, Gwen, really?! You're just being childish!"

"Oh, really, I'm being childish?" I ask sarcastically. "My reasons for being mad are just as valid as yours are!"

"My reason is that Sam is skipping out on his responsibility to Mom and Dad. What's yours?"

"Sam had a responsibility to this family. He was just as much a part of it as any of us, and he had no right to just drop us like a hot rock just because you couldn't keep all that testosterone in check!"

Dean just groans, and blasts his AC/DC on the radio, signaling the end of the conversation. I look out the window, and pull the blanket up to my chin and try my hardest to fall asleep.

When we reach Sam's apartment, it's three thirty. I haven't slept a wink, but I pretend with all my might that I am so Dean will just leave me be. He sees right through it.

"You wanna come in with me?" he asks. I shake my head. "Figured. I'm gonna grab myself a beer. Be right back with Sammy, okay?" I nod, and get out of the car to go lie down in the back. As I lie down, I stare into the darkness, thinking about nothing. I close my eyes, and think about a tennis ball bouncing back and forth. It calms me, and I'm almost asleep by the time Dean comes back. I hear two voices, and I don't care enough to pay attention to them. I wanna sleep. But I catch a couple of sentences before I go under.

"So how bad has her Winchester temper gotten?" Sam asks.

"Talk to her when she wakes up, and find out for yourself." Dean answers.

"Is it that bad?"

"Well… Yeah. In her mind, you broke some sacred promise, and she plans on holding it against you for the rest of your life."

I hear Sam mumbling his response, but I've already slipped under the surface, into sleep, and I don't catch his words. I sink into the darkness, and don't wake up for what feels like a long, long time.