A/N: This chapter is more about the development of character and the way they relate to one another as opposed to actual action. Just so you know.

Both of the brothers had been silent for the hours following the encounter with their father. Thankfully the shorter one, Dean, was blaring the music. None of them were actually tired. Valerie was still on edge, though she'd reverted her weapons back into the jewellery she always wore. Her fingers were tapping on her leg, a slight relief from her ADHD.

She knew that both of the brothers were trying to figure out what she was, why their father would want them to take someone that wasn't a human. If she wasn't human, then it meant she, rather it, was something they should be hunting. And yet, she had saved them from the Daeva. She had been able to fight something that none of them could see, which marked her difference. Sam knew that Dean no longer saw a young woman in the back seat. Dean saw a monster. Neither of them were sure what she was, so the older Winchester kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror, fists tightly wrapped around the steering wheel.

It led to an awkward mixture of emotions.

The song, whilst familiar to the brothers, was foreign to the demigod sitting in the back. As it finally faded out, a new song starting up, her shoulders relaxed slightly.

"It's all the same, only the names will change," she started singing along, her eyes focussed out of the window. The street was empty, no other cars, no homes lining it. There was barely light as well, which Valerie preferred. Seeing the stars was the thing that she loved about camp, compared to living at home with her mum.

"I'm wanted dead or alive," her voice increased in volume at the end of the chorus. The brothers exchanged a look, surprised that she knew the song. When it ended, the older Winchester turned the music down a little bit, his green eyes gazing at the girl in his back seat once again.

"You like Bon Jovi?" he questioned, realising it was the first words he'd directed at the demigod. The girl jumped slightly, her eyes immediately darting to the drivers seat. She couldn't really see him properly though.

"Yeah… my brothers often played Bon Jovi at camp," Valerie responded with a shrug. Her heart sank at the thought of her siblings, even her brothers. Perhaps they had always been at odds with one another, but they were still family, and knew she would do anything to protect them.

"So you have a couple of siblings?" Sam questioned, trying to keep the conversation going. It was simple light small talk. Similar to the conversations she'd had with her father over the past few weeks.

"Used to," she murmured, though the brother's still caught on to what she said. They exchanged looks with one another, both confused. Before they could delve further into her life, she decided to turn the tables by asking her own question. "What about you, just the two of you? John was never real specific about things…"

"Sounds like him," Sam muttered. Dean shot him a look, though he knew that his brother was right. That Sam had a point. "But yeah, it's the two of us."

"Your name is Sam right? And you are?"

"Dean," the man responded, Valerie nodding in response as she took in that information.

"So dad knew that you weren't human, Valerie?" his brother asked, though there was a certain hesitance in his voice. The blonde bit her lip as she nodded, trying to formulate a proper response in her head. In the time she had been with John, he'd practically ordered her to never say what she was. But if she was going to be travelling with his sons, all of them supposed to be looking after one another… how could she not?

"Yeah, he saved me from a demon. Apparently it had summoned me, I was sitting there tied to a chair with no clue what was going on when he walks in and starts talking to the thing. I guess that it explained what I was, based on the fact that it was complaining that it couldn't possess me… then I stabbed her. Your father decided to take me with him after that," she shrugged her shoulders at the end of her mini rundown of the past week.

"You stabbed it?" Sam asked, disbelievingly. The demigod in question tilted her head to the side, wondering what he was aiming at.

"The possessed chick was fine?" she offered innocently, tilting her head to the side. Dean laughed aloud at what the girl had said, trying to imagine how that had gone down. Especially because their father wouldn't have abandoned a person once they had been injured, if they weren't some kind of a monster.

"So you're used to demons and other monsters then?" Dean questioned, though Sam could hear the unvoiced 'being one yourself' that he had tried not to say aloud.

"Demons… no, I honestly didn't believe your father when he first explained that to me. But monsters I'm all too familiar with," her voice darkened at the end when she mentioned monsters. "The line between hunter and hunted are usually a bit too close for comfort."

"You're saying that those monsters hunt your kind?" Sam asked, looking over his shoulder at the blonde girl in the back disbelievingly.

"They've been doing that for millennia," she admitted, not bothered by the turn of the conversation. "My first experience with a monster was a hellhound, found me when I was 9… I was lucky that a satyr was there with a convenient sword."

"So first you see the Daeva and now you tell us you can also see hellhounds," Dean muttered under his breath.

"I don't expect you to see them, the mist usually hides monsters from mortals. It's why I was surprised when I found out there were actual mortals that had become hunters," the blonde responded calmly, though her fingers were all twitching and fidgeting.

"The mi-"

"Why do you keep saying mortals?" Dean interrupted his brother, his eyes glancing back at her once again before refocussing on the road that was in front of them.

"Oh no worries, I'm not some immortal being. But mortals are like… human?" she offered. "My dad's an immortal. I'm half human though… roughly speaking…"

It was true, being a daughter of Ares. But she supposed being a legacy as well meant that she was a little less than half human.

"So what is he?" the hunter asked her and she cringed at the direct question.

"A god," she answered, trying to make it look like she didn't mind telling them. "Like… not the God with a capital 'G' and all that, just a small 'g'. A pagan one if you want to be specific."

"You're telling me that pagan gods can have kids?" Dean questioned, raising his brow. In his experience, they tended to be too busy killing people and eating sacrifices to bother having kids with the humans. He noticed the look of confusion on the demigods face at his question.

"Well… yeah… they used to have heaps of kids," Valerie responded, tilting her head to the side.

"What happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said used to, why don't they have heaps anymore?" Sam questioned, turning around in the chair to look back at the blonde girl. He didn't miss the way that her face dropped at the question, looking down into her hands.

"Well… they got overrun by monsters," the demigod in the back fought to keep her voice steady as her mind jumped back to the images of what had become of the camp. It was a shame. Beyond that it hurt her. It had been the only place she had ever felt safe, and it was gone. "Without a place to train demigods, it means that a lot of them never learnt to fight. Easy pickings."

The last words were muttered darkly as her blue eyes shifted out of the window once again. It was quite obvious to Sam that she was done with talking, so he shot his brother a look before he could even try to open his mouth and keep digging.

Valerie ended up being the first to fall into the temptation of sleep.

It was quiet. Eerily still. Valerie gripped the bow in her hands tightly, her eyes scanning the area around her.

This wouldn't last long.

Valerie almost immediately knew where she was. The Battle of the Labyrinth. This was inside camps borders, shortly before the fighting had broken out. She'd started out with Apollo cabin, spending the beginning of the battle as an archer up in a tree. Perhaps she was a coward, perhaps she wasn't truly a daughter of Ares.

The biting sound of metal clanging made her cringe, but she tried to straighten herself out as she aimed an arrow at an enemy. Another demigod, one that had been her friend. That was a long time ago though.

The arrow hit its target, Valerie biting her lip and blinking to fight against tears that were threatening to form. Was it wrong to mourn for a traitor? Especially if they were mislead?

Valerie could understand where they were coming from. In her own way, she had been close to joining Kronos, but she knew that that would only end in destruction. Even if they had been betrayed by the gods, even if they didn't care about their kids, the titans would only be worse. An apocalypse was something that Valerie was all too keen to avoid. It was unfortunate that the traitors didn't realise that an apocalypse was the only possible outcome of the titans regaining their power.

Fighting back the emotions, she kept going through the motions, not allowing herself to process what she was doing.

War was not something great. Something she could never say aloud being the daughter of the God of War. But she would not regret thinking it, because it wasn't great, there was nothing beautiful about it.

People were injured. Dying. Dead. Perhaps, in future, people would say the fallen had fought heroically and the survivors were heroes. The truth was they were all murderers. But should they be counted murderers in this situation? After all, if they didn't kill the others, there was no way around the fact that they would be killed instead.

Reaching back to her quiver, she cursed as her fingers couldn't find anymore arrows. That was bound to happen, which was exactly why she always carried more weapons than just a bow and an arrow. A bonus was, any weapons she picked up she'd be able to use. There were some helpful skills that came with being a child of Ares. Beyond that, if she saw that someone was about to stab her, she might just have enough time to turn it into a toy sword.

Though at the pace this war was going at, it wouldn't be as simple as it was during capture the flag. At least there were rules to that. No maiming and no killing.

It slowed things down a bit.

People were more conscious of their swings and making sure that the harm wouldn't be too great. That was out of the window by now.

Drawing her sword, she jumped between Travis and an unclaimed camper that she knew she had seen in passing over the years. 'Shame,' she thought to herself as she stabbed him.

"Thanks," the son of Hermes had yelled once he realised what had happened.

"All good," she threw back, stumbling backwards as she attempting to block the swing of another blow. The monster she was dealing with was a lot stronger than her, so she knew that she needed to outmanoeuvre it. If she kept going with these close calls that she could barely block, she'd be dead within a few minutes. It cackled, obviously very aware of the predicament the demigod was facing.

"What in tartarus did I do to deserve this?" she mumbled quietly, keeping her eyes trained on the enemy she was facing.

That was her first mistake.

A sharp pain brought her out of her focus, blue eyes widening as the daughter of Ares saw the sword that had gone through her back.

A gasp escaped her throat as she shot up, hand to her stomach and head scanning the area frantically. This definitely wasn't the car that she had fallen asleep in.

She didn't have a clue where she was. The room had walls that looked like they were in desperate need of some paint, old furniture, including another single bed.

"Hey?"

Valerie launched herself off her bed, taking a defensive situation with the wall to her back. It was the taller man she had met yesterday. John's son, Sam. Her eyes closed as her fists clenched, a deep breath escaping her mouth. Sam in turn gave her space as he watched her, it took a few minutes until he saw the telltale signs that her body was starting to relax again.

"Your names Valerie, right?" he said softly, catching her attention when he was sure that she had snapped out of what came over her. He didn't doubt for a minute that she suffered from something like post traumatic stress disorder.

"Yeah…" she answered, trying to keep her voice steady. It didn't work, which made her stomach clench. He probably thought she was more of a joke than a demigod. For Hades' sake she thought she was more of a joke than anything else so how could someone else not think the same?

"I'm Sam," he introduced himself properly. They had skipped the whole introductions last night, so she felt it was kind of sweet that he was trying to catch up with that now. The blonde nodded, biting her lip and allowing herself to drop, sitting back on the bed.

"When did we get here?"

"Late, Dean and I figured we couldn't just leave you in the car," he offered, an almost joking smile on his face as he moved towards her. Rather than sitting on the bed next to her, he sat on the bed opposite her. It was another gesture that the demigod appreciated. She didn't want to accidentally stab him after he had been nice to her.

"So…" her voice trailed off, unsure where she was going with the sentence. Sam gave a sympathetic smile.

"I have a question about last night if that's alright?"

"Shoot," she responded calmly, glad that he hadn't tried to ask her what her dream was about. There was no way he didn't know about the nightmare, based on his almost immediate response to her waking up.

"You said 'the mist', I was wondering what you meant by it," as he asked her, she smiled, remembering that he had tried to ask before his brother had spoken over the top of him in order to get to the bottom of what she was. Of why she spoke the way she did. Valerie took in a large breath of air, running a hand through her hair, before looking up at him again.

"Uh… it's like this… veil I suppose?" she offered, realising how lame her explanation was. "Its a force that twists what mortals see, so they remain oblivious to monsters and all that kind of thing. So instead of seeing me use a bow and arrow, mortals would usually see me using a gun. And instead of the monsters they normally see ordinary people… which is weird cause you guys saw nothing."

The silence was back for a while, the two sitting. Neither were really sure how to continue conversation and escape the feeling of awkwardness.

"So there's a lot of humans that are hunters?" Valerie broke first, looking at Sam with her head tilted to the side. She was hoping he'd indulge her questions now that he and his brother had their one's answered.

"Not that many," Sam admitted. "Usually people who have worked out these monsters exist through personal experiences, or grew up with parents that were hunters."

"Which are you?" she asked, it was an innocent question. But at the way his Adam's apple bobbed, she had a feeling that it was an extremely personal question. One that he'd rather not answer. "You don't-"

"Both," he admitted, looking down at his hands and away from her.

So much for that moment of bonding.

The door swung open loudly. Both Sam and Valerie's eyes both shifted to the door, where the older Winchester stood, takeaway in his hands.

"Bought us some breakfast," he announced, watching as his brother and the girl moved towards him, all of them sitting down around the coffee table where Dean had dropped the food, pulling things out of the bags he gave them to the respective people as he announced what it was. "Egg white McMuffin for Sammy, they don't have breakfast salads sorry, and a sausage and egg McMuffin for you."

While Sam rolled his eyes at his brother's antics, Valerie couldn't help the smile that spread on her own face.

She knew that she could at very least get to like being around them.

A/N: Thank you for everyone who has read this, and those who have liked/followed/reviewed the story! Another chapter will be coming soon, which will actually focus on a case, though I haven't decided whether I'm going with one from the tv show or an original one yet. Still I hope that you liked the exploration of the character, and the development of relationships that this chapter had!

PrincessMagic: I'm glad that you're enjoying the story, I hope you also enjoyed this chapter!

Guest: I'm very glad that you've enjoyed it so far! Thank you for your kind review!

Guest: I hope that you also enjoyed this chapter, and with any luck the grammar is still on point... One day I'll invest in a beta-reader to double check that, but your review is helpful feedback that it seems to be alright!