Chapter One - Child Endangerment

"C'mon . . . five minutes."

Checking around the room to make sure that it was really empty, Sam opened the window a little wider, before he lifted eight year old, Madison through it. He followed her lead through the motel room she had been staying in with her father, grabbing a backpack for her to stuff her things into. His older brother, Dean had no idea where they went, so he had to be quick. They had already been on the road with Madison for the past three days, so he thought it was about time that they took her back to the last place she called home to at least get a change of clothes or something that was familiar to her.

"Looks clear." He shut off his flash light, handing the bag over to her. "Grab some clothes. I'm gonna look around." He gave her a smile, before he made his way across the hall to her father's bedroom. It looked pretty ordinary, but when he pulled open the closet and pushed aside all the clothes, he found the usual hunter gear, maps and research. He collected them all up, taking any other weapons he found under the mattress and stashed away in cupboards around the house.

"Check the freezer." Madison jumped down from the table, after successfully zipping up her backpack overflowing with clothes and a ragged brown teddy bear tucked under her arm.

Sam pulled open the freezer door, smirking at the sight of the salt shotgun rounds stashed away in there. "Hey, I forgot to give you something of your father's." He knelt down in front of her, pulling the fog watch out of his jacket pocket. "I think he would have wanted you to have it."

Madison brushed her fingers across the inscription on the back, reading 'Until the end of time.'

"My Mom gave it to him before I was born." She popped open a button on her jacket, stuffing it inside. "I could just stay here." She suggested. "Dean doesn't like me very much anyway."

"You can't stay here anymore, Madison. Your Dad wouldn't want you to be alone. Dean wouldn't want you to be alone either. It's not safe. C'mon, we should get back." Sam threw the rest of the salt shotgun rounds into his bag, taking Madison out of the motel room the way they came in to avoid the manager.

He gave her a moment to say goodbye to the place that she had called home for the past four months or so, before they got back to the motel they had been staying at, finding Dean still fast asleep. He put his finger to his lips as they tiptoed back inside, getting Madison set up in his bed to sleep, while he took the couch.

The next morning, they packed up their things, leaving for Wyoming. The unusual newspaper reports from the area had them convinced that a shapeshifter had taken up residence there. Sam didn't want to go since there was no evidence to say that their father was there, making the car deathly quiet the whole way as the Winchester brothers still weren't talking.

"Lock pick?" Dean held his hand out to his brother, catching the kit as his brother threw it to him. They had finally arrived in Wyoming, deciding to check out the first victims house according to the newspapers. The door was sealed up with police crime tape, which was easy to cut through, but the lock took a little longer to get open. "Geez... shoulda hired a maid."

Sam stepped through the door, taking a look at the mess in the front room. "Papers said his remains of skin, teeth and hair were found in there." He continued through to the kitchen, finding more blood splatter. "What exactly are we looking for here?"

"Anything that points to the shapeshifter theory." He glanced over his shoulder at the car, making sure that Madison had stayed put. "What do you think you're doing, Sam? Do you really think that fetching teddy bears is going to make it all better? She's just a kid."

"Yeah well, I don't see you do anything for her."

"We should have ditched her at Bobby's or the nearest foster home three counties back." Dean argued, abandoning his search of the room to look at his brother. "This... what you're doing... taking her on hunts, training her... it's ridiculous. She's just a kid."

"We were just kids when Dad started us on all of this." Sam pointed out to him, looking at the pictures pinned to the fridge door.

"Would you stop bringing Dad up? I loved the guy, but maybe he wasn't exactly thinking clearly about raising his kids into hunting demons. We were just kids, Sam. We lost our Mom and our father was more interested in finding the thing that killed her then raising his kids right." Dean finally let his true feelings out, giving his younger brother a confused look as he continued to stare at the photos on the fridge. "What?"

"This guy..." He pointed to the one in the middle. "This is his house. He was the first to die. These three here, died within a few days. These two on the end are still alive... as far as I know. Dean, these are all the victims."

"So the killings aren't random? Shapeshifter with a grudge." Dean sighed, moving the fridge magnets off the photo, so he could pick it up. "I freaking hate shapeshifters." He shuddered, stuffing the photo into his pocket. "We have to ditch the kid. A shapeshifter's too dangerous."

"Ditch her where? We don't exactly know anyone in Wyoming, Dean. She's staying with us."

"She has the chance to be a regular kid. The longer she spends with us, the more corrupted she's gonna get. Hunters have short life spans as it is." Dean tried to put it simply for his younger brother. "She's just a kid, Sam. Why are you trying to force this on her like Dad forced it on us? We didn't have a choice, she does."

"Following the patterns of the murders, someone else is gonna die tonight. We don't have time to stand around and argue about this. She's staying with us, while we work this case." His younger brother stormed out of the house, making his way back to the Impala. He ditched his weapons back in the trunk, slumping back into the passenger seat, waiting for his brother.

"So where to?" Dean finally returned to the car, not liking this plan for a second.

"Morgue. We need to see the bodies."

"We can't take a kid into the morgue with us." Dean motioned over his shoulder, hoping Sam wouldn't subject her to that so early on. "Let's find a motel, ditch our stuff then make our way over to the morgue. We've still got a few hours left. We just have to find the remaining two people in this photo, find what's killing them then kill it ourselves. C'mon Sam, we've done this a hundred times before."

"Alright," He snapped, motioning to the road. "Let's get going then."

Madison stayed quiet in the back of the car, waiting patiently in the back, while Dean booked them a motel room. She had been through the same process before with her father, making her miss him even more. She grabbed her bag as soon as they had a room, following the Winchester brothers inside.

The walls were a sickly pea green colour, spreading out across the floor and furniture against all of the walls. It wasn't overly light, but she could see straight through to the bland kitchen to the two large double beds in the middle of the room with spotted green sheets. The lamps either side of them were red and the pillows had a tartan strip running across each side. It didn't really match the rest of it, but she could already tell that the motel owner had no taste from the style of the curtains against the two windows.

Dean ditched his duffel onto the first bed, taking a look around the motel that would be home for the next few days. He handed his younger brother some cash from his pocket, expecting him to get them some food.

"Don't forget the pie." He warned him, taking a seat on the end of his bed.

He waited until his brother was really gone, before he turned to look at the child curiously looking at the paintings on the walls. She had her backpack high on her shoulders, clutching her teddy bear tightly in her little arms. He didn't understand why his brother saw just another hunter when he looked at her. She was still practically a baby and needed to be protected from things like this.

"Seen one motel room, seen em all, right?" He finally broke the silence, talking to her directly for the first time in three days. He had been avoiding her since her father died, not wanting to admit that his own father might have suffered the same fate. "We can stay here for a few days, if you want. I remember how it was moving from place to place all the time."

"Because of your Dad?"

Dean nodded his head, ushering her closer towards him. He rolled up the long sleeve of her sweatshirt, checking on the graze she had on her elbow. "It's almost healed. Does it hurt?" She shook her head from side to side, making her pigtails whip around her shoulders. She had been tying her hair herself over the past few days, but she hadn't exactly got the hang of it yet. "You can take your bag off if you want."

Madison turned as he lifted the heavy bag off her shoulders, setting it down on the bed beside him. "What are you hunting?"

"Well, we think it's a shapeshifter. Did your Dad ever come up against a shapeshifter?" He caught a slight head shake from her, before he pulled out his father's journal to show her the lore on shapeshifter's. He tried to leave out as much gory details as possible, telling her the basic weaknesses should she ever run into one.

"How can you tell it's a shapeshifter?" Madison queried, clutching her teddy bear tightly in her arms.

"Usually from the way they shed the old skin. We dealt with one before in Missouri that was framing men for the murders of their wives or girlfriends. We found it's lair in the sewer with piles of the old skin, hair and bones. It can copy anyone it sees, so it's kinda hard to tell when you're looking at them. Their eyes have a white glare to them in a video camera, animals can detect them and they're allergic to silver, but that's all we know so far."

"Are they always bad?"

Dean shrugged his shoulders, closing up his father's diary on his lap. "All the ones I've met have been bad. Demons are demons as far as I'm concerned. Every one of those sons of bitches deserves to put down." He searched his pockets as his cell started to ring, snapping it open to answer it. "Sam, what's up? They all out of pie."

"No, I saw sirens. There's been a attack. A few blocks over from the motel. Dean, bring the ID's."

Dean snapped his phone shut, replacing his father's journal to his bag. He pulled out his spare cell phone from the side pocket, handing it over to the child in front of him. "Lock the door behind me. There's salt and iron in my bag. Don't open the door for anyone other than Sam or me." He warned her the same way his father used to warn him every night he went on a hunt, feeling a shiver running down his spine as said it.

He waited outside until he heard the click of the lock, before he left to meet his brother at the next crime scene.

Madison scrambled onto the bed that Dean had claimed, taking a peek inside his bag. She found the canister full of salt, various loose bullets in the bottom and every kind of knife she could have imagined. The bag was basically the same set up as her father's, only his duffel wasn't so ragged. He could never hold down a full time job since he was always on the move, but he worked as a mechanic when he could, spending most of his money on his beloved truck or new supplies for hunting.

His truck was with Bobby Singer now and the last of his supplies had been added to the trunk of the Winchesters as though the man never even existed.

"Here." Dean handed his brother one of their police ID's from his jacket, making sure that it had his picture in it, before he let it go. "Are you sure this is our thing?" He caught sight of the young woman being wheeled out of the store on a gurney.

"Victim says she was attacked by her clone, while she was trying her dress on in the back." Sam rolled his eyes as his brother's eyes immediately lit up. "Dean, c'mon... focus. Cops thinks she's crazy, but it looks like our shapeshifter was here."

"And she saw herself?"

"Yeah." Sam followed his brother's gaze, realising he had spotted her clone stood in the crowd of looky-loos at the edge of the crime tape. "She's one of the girls from the photo. What do we do? We can't shoot her in front of all these people. Dean." He hissed his name, but his brother had already slipped under the crime tape as if he owned the place. He flashed his badge at the officers on the scene, strolling right up to the woman, scaring her off the second they made eye contact.

Dean forced his way through the crowd, chasing her down the alley. He couldn't even keep up with her for five seconds and she was in heels. "Son of a bitch." He reached the end of the alley, panting as he watched her climbing up the fire escape like a bionic woman. "Damn it."

"You lost her?" Sam came running up behind him, looking up as his brother pointed up the fire escape.

"Son of a bitch is fast. She's probably going to the hospital to finish the job she started."

"I'll go." Sam holstered his weapon. "No offence, Dean, but you don't exactly have the subtle touch. Find out everything you can about the other girl in the photo. She's probably our shapeshifter if she's the only one left."

"Man, why me?"

A few hours later, Dean returned to their motel room, nodding to his brother sat at the table, before he cast his eyes towards their beds. He frowned at the child who was sprawled out on his bed of all places, holding her teddy bear close with her thumb in her mouth as she slept.

"Son of a... Did you get a chance to talk to our victim at the hospital?" He asked is younger brother, dropping the keys to the Impala on the table.

"Yeah, she only saw herself." Sam tapped away at the keys on his laptop, continuing with his research on the college friends. "She was supposed to meet her friend, Ella for a shopping trip, but she never showed up. She thinks something's been after her for weeks. What'd you find out?"

"I think we might have a killer among friends situation here. Ella used to be a fat girl." Dean playfully raised his eyebrows, showing him the old picture of the young woman. "She might be our shapeshifter. Her friends and family report that she practically lost the weight overnight. And get this, she was adopted. All her friends went off to successful colleges, leaving her at home with dear old adopted Mom. She managed to magically lose the weight, but she couldn't make, Tray Thompson like her."

"What?" Sam finally glanced round at his brother, frowning as he realised he had a heart shaped diary in his hands. "You stole her diary?"

"Yeah. Her Mom let me take a look around her bedroom. Everything's in here." Dean dropped to the end of the other bed, reading through another page. "I think she's definitely our shapeshifter. She talks about how she discovered what she could do and how she was going to make her so called friends pay for everything they did to her." He flipped through a few more pages, before he tossed it over his shoulder. "Now we just have to find her and put a silver bullet through her heart."

"Have you still got some?"

"Yeah." He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, looking at Madison asleep on the next bed. "How long has she been out?"

Sam shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. She was out when I got back. Did Ella's Mom give you any clue as to how we can find her?"

"No, but she's probably going to hang around the hospital to finish the job she started on that boyfriend stealing whore, Cassie." He directly quoted her diary again, pulling his gun out of his jacket to check that it was loaded. His favourite custom engraved 45 calibre colt pistol with ivory grips, given to him by his own father after he shot the bottle tops off every target at age nine. "I'll take first shift at the hospital. Make sure the kid eats something as soon as she wakes up."

"The kid has a name. And she just lost her Dad, you could try being a little more sympathetic to her."

"I'm sympathetic." Dean grabbed the blanket from the end of the bed, unravelling it across the sleeping child. "Just make sure she eats something, okay? She wouldn't eat that sandwich you gave her earlier because you didn't cut the crusts off." He pointed out to him, collecting up the keys to his Impala. "Shame on you, Sam."

"C'mon man, how am I supposed to know that?"

Dean grinned at his younger brother, making his way out to his car. He made his way straight over to the hospital, tempted to stop by the cafeteria from the scent of the home cooked food being served behind the counter, but he had a job to do. He found the ward that Cassie was being treated on, finding an officer posted outside the room, only the man had fallen asleep on the job.

"Figures." Dean rolled his eyes, pushing the door to the patient's room open.

He couldn't see her right away because the curtain was closed around her bed, but he could hear a strange tapping noise. He pushed his jacket aside to hold the handle of his gun in his waistband, slowly reaching out to grab the curtain in front of him. He swung it open in one swift motion, covering his hand over his mouth at the sight of what was left of boyfriend stealing, Cassie.

The tapping noise he heard was her blood dripping onto the floor. She looked as though she had been mauled by a wild animal and no one had even noticed.

"Sammy, it's me." He got through to his brother's voicemail outside of the hospital. "Ella got to Cassie. This chicks seriously hyped up on PCP or something. I'm gonna head over to her Mom's place, see if she shows up. Call me if you find anything."

Dean left on another reckless solo mission, leaving Sam in charge of babysitting at the motel.

"Can you eat just one slice of pizza for me?" Sam took the pizza box over to Dean's bed, setting it down in front of the child. "Just one, you haven't eaten anything in a while. You've gotta keep your strength up, Madi." He held the box a little closer to her, smiling as she picked up one piece. She peeled off the pepperonis first, flicking them into the box. She took off the chillies and things next, leaving the pizza crust and cheese. "You don't like pizza?"

Madison shook her head slightly. "I don't like pepperoni."

"You're not allergic to anything, are you?" He decided to check, just in case they fed her something by accident. She shook her head, licking her lips as some of the melted cheese missed her mouth. "Here..." He grabbed one of the napkins from behind him, wiping her sticky little fingers for her. "You know, when my brother and me were little, we used to live off spaghetti Os and cap'n crunch."

"Pizza and peanut butter jelly sandwiches." The child related to him. "Did you know my Daddy?"

"No, not really. Bobby said he met him a few times on some hunts, but they didn't know each other that well. The thing about hunters is that they're kinda solitary." Sam tried to explain to her, moving on to sharpen the next knife from his bag, now that he had gotten her to eat something. "My Dad never really took me out with him when I was a kid. Not solo anyway, Dean was always there to watch my back. When I was about your age, he either left me with Dean in some dingy hotel room like this or with Bobby. He wanted me to hunt with him and Dean, but I left for college."

"Why'd you come back?" Madison gave him a curious look.

"Dean." He sighed softly, shoving his knife into his belt. "He came back for me after our father went missing. I finally got hunting out of my life and he's sucked me back into it, because he doesn't want to do it alone. I'm starting to think that we're never gonna find our Dad though."

Checking the time on his watch, Sam anxiously looked at his phone, wondering why his brother hadn't checked in with him yet.

"Hey Madi, put your shoes on, we've gotta go look for my brother." Sam instructed, collecting up his things from the bed.

Madison crawled towards the edge of the bed, leaving sticky pizza handprints as she climbed off the bed. She hurried across the room for her sneakers, sitting herself on the floor to pull them on. They had velcro straps to them, so she didn't have to ask Sam to help her with them.

"Here." Sam handed her one of the sharpened knifes. "It won't kill a shapeshifter, but you can hurt it with that. Tuck it into your belt."

Madison tucked the knife into the belt of her jeans, resting her t-shirt behind it. She still had on the same tattered jeans, but she switched her butterfly t-shirt for a long sleeved navy blue one just like Sam's. She followed him out to the car, taking the passenger seat rather than the back, since it was just the two of them. She stayed in the car while Sam went to speak with Ella's mother, finding out that she had directed his brother to her father's closed down art studio, where Ella liked to go after work.

Sam cautiously pulled up outside the building, seeing a flickering light inside. He grabbed a gun from the duffel, holding the door open for Madison to slide out of the car, before they both made their way towards the building.

He crouched below one of the dirty windows, slowly taking a peek inside. He could see various candles lit all around the trashed studio inside, along with his brother tied to a chair. He ducked as soon as he spotted another figure in the room with him, hearing her muffled voice as she spoke to his brother.

"This isn't personal, Dean. I've got nothing against you personally. Or your brother. I just wanted to get on with my life. You're the ones sticking your noses in where they don't belong." Ella shouted at him, turning to primp her hair in the shattered mirror against the wall.

"If you're gonna keep talking my ears off, you might as well just kill me now, bitch."

Ella glared him in the mirror, turning on her heels to slap him square across the face for that remark. "You know, maybe I've got this all wrong, Dean. Maybe I should take it personally and wipe out that little brother of yours?" She grabbed the collar to his jacket, examining him like a science experiment. "Might be fun to take on being you for a while. Shame about the packaging, but that Sammy's a real treat. I'm gonna enjoy tearing him up, piece by piece."

While his older brother flinched in his restraints from another strike to the face, Sam found a way into the back of the studio, sneaking inside with Madison behind him. He gave a signal to her to wait, while he crept out of the shadows with his gun drawn.

"Step away from my brother!" He ordered, surprising both, Ella and Dean.

"Sammy, nice of you to join the party." Ella took a slight step away from her prisoner, playfully raising her hands at her sides in a surrender pose.

Before he had the chance to pull the trigger, she appeared at his side, smashing him into the wall. She cracked his arm over her knee in the next split second, making him drop his gun. He tried to swing at her but she moved so fast, all he hit was air.

"Shoot her, Sam!" Dean helplessly struggled in his restraints, watching his brother being beaten by the super fast shapeshifter.

"Don't take this the wrong way," She laughed as she smacked him across the jaw, grabbing a handful of his hair as he struggled to get up from the floor. "But you fight like a girl." She kicked him in the face with her heel, before she dragged him across the floor by the collar of his shirt towards the shards of mirror on the ground.

"Sam!" His older brother tried desperately to break free from his restraints, squinting the second he saw a shadowy figure in the distance. "Madison?" He made sure that Ella was preoccupied, before he ushered her over. "Sam should not have brought you here."

Madison pulled the knife from her belt, ignoring his stubbornness to cut him free from the ropes holding him down. He snatched the knife from her to do his other arm himself, since he was stronger and needed to get to his brother. He pushed her aside as soon as he was free, running for his brother, before Ella slit his throat.

"Ahh, you are gonna pay for that you jerk!" Ella held the slash to her arm from his knife, stabbing his younger brother's arm with a piece of glass, before she took him down.

The shapeshifter held her hands tightly around Dean's throat while he was on the ground, digging her talon claw nails into him as she tried to choke the life out of him. He tried to pry her hands away from him to breathe, but she was too strong. He looked around for anything he could use, but his gun was clear across the room. The knife was just a few inches out of his reach and his brother wasn't doing too well after his head had hit the table.

It was hopeless.

He heard a piercing gunshot sound a few seconds later, seeing blood gushing from a hole that had appeared in Ella's head. He felt the talons around his throat becoming looser as she struggled to her feet, stumbling around in her heels, before a second shot was fired.

Still gasping for breath, he managed to tilt his head back before the next shot left the gun, widening his eyes at the sight of Madison wielding his gun. The eight year old squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she pulled the trigger a few more times, finally piercing Ella's heart with one of the silver bullets.

Dean watched the shapeshifter fall down, making sure she was really dead, before he rolled himself over. He left his brother to get himself up, while he cautiously made his way over to the shooter, gently prying the gun from her little hands.

"It's okay, it's okay..." He set the gun down on the floor, gently reaching his arms out to her to hug her. She hesitantly took a step closer to him, dropping her little head to his shoulder. It was something he had always wanted his own father to do so many times when he was a kid, but his old man was always more concerned with the job then making sure that his boys were okay.

End of first chapter. I forgot to mention from the start that this would be an AU (alternate universe) story, but the characters, Sam and Dean will pretty much be the same as they are from seasons one and two. I hope you've enjoyed the story so far.

Thank you for reading, please review!

~ Holly