So this is the final version of chapter 6. I'm hoping to have next chapter in a week.

The Winchesters, as you know, are not mine and I do not get any profit from writing.

The story is AU, completely AU in relation to Sam/Jo. It will be somehow linked to the first scene in which we met Ellen and Jo in the show, but it will not be exactly that way because my characters DO know each other.

I hated reunions. I used to hate them when I was younger and the Winchesters left for whole summers, leaving me behind, tearing me off from the recurrent illusion of being one more in the family. I hated them more than ever when they left again two weeks after my first real kiss with Sam. I hated them with all my soul when John found tracks of the demon who killed Mary for the first time in a long time and dragged them to California before Sam started his last year at high school.

You would say I hated saying goodbye to them, but I didn't. What I loathed the most was seeing them again. Not knowing if they would ever come back. Checking my e-mail every hour and carrying my cell phone with me everywhere for two months just in case something wrong happened, only to be rewarded with some short, dull e-mail from Sam every three weeks, at best. Feeling the tension in my stomach when they did call to say they would reach the Roadhouse in a couple of days. Being nervous to the point of sickness when I saw that damned black car approach, then extremely relieved when the three of them got off and I could check none of them was badly injured. Listening to jokes only they could understand. Being, in the end, inevitably charmed by them every single time because, as much as it hurt, I did not have any right to be mad at them. I was not part of the family. Just an insignificant accessory they could perfectly do without.

John would behave the way he always did with me and he would soon have me eating out of his hand. Dean would pester me to the point I would lose that façade of pretended indifference towards them. Sam had traditionally used the puppy eyes on me, and moved on to hidden kisses in the storeroom after the thing with us started.

I hated, above all, how weak that made me feel before them. I had assumed a long time ago they would always be physically stronger than me. But not stronger in every sense of the word. I wanted to be a hunter, not the silly little girl who waves goodbye from the doorway.

I hated how the very moment Mom announced they would be there the following day, I already knew things would turn out as they always always did.

I am actually quite good with faces. You have to when the family business is a bar. And, specially, when the other family business involves other kind of activities, like mine did. I could perfectly see in my mind the most detailed form of the features of many regulars, and not-so-regulars of the Roadhouse. However, the exact faces of three men who lived with me for years kept avoiding me. I mean, of course I remembered what they all looked like, but not with the accuracy of others. I had observed them closely day after day, but then again, when I met them after some time away, they always looked somehow different from the mental image I had formed. They always appeared taller, stronger, fiercer, more confident, and much more handsome than I could even recall.

That day everything seemed familiar, but still had a hint of novelty in it. I saw the car approach from the windows in the bar, instead of watching anxiously from the doorway. I concentrated my morning efforts on drying glasses to help Mom, maybe to have a small chance of looking if only a bit older before their eyes. The moment I heard the purr of the Impala, everything seemed to go slow-motion.

John was the first to open the door, thick beard and noticeably grayer hair than one year before. He hugged me tight and dropped a fast kiss on the top of my head and everything was finished before I even had time to think what I wanted to say. He talked to Mom, tired voice and scarce words, for some minutes. He was soon on his way upstairs, leaving her with a hint of sadness in her eyes for a second, and I wondered if it was true. If they ever had something.

Sam was next, and she was soon all over him.

"Oh, god, how much have you grown up, Sam Winchester?" She looked at him from head to foot. "And what the hell have they been feeding you? You are too thin. Much thinner, ain't him, Jo?"

I nodded, staring, but keeping my composture. He had always been tall, even a little gawky. When he left, he was about Dean's height. One year after, Sam was certainly taller than him. Thinner or not, he did look more muscular than I had ever noticed him being. And I had noticed him a lot.

"Thinner, yeah." I answered.

"Tomorrow I'm gonna... You can't just... Really, don't they know you're growing?" she rambled, waving her hands, "You know I'm not much into cooking, but tomorrow I'm gonna prepare my special stew, so you can have your first decent meal in a year."

His eyes searched mine with that naughty look we used to share when we were kids plotting some mischief. He hugged Mom so she wouldn't see him rolling his eyes at me with one of his trademark smiles.

"Thanks a lot, Ellen," he managed to say, trying to cover my soft giggle with his voice.

Dean was the last one entering, darker hair and sadder eyes than the Dean in my memory. I experienced the joy of being greeted with a punch in my arm.

"How's things, kiddo?", he smirked

"I am sixteen, you know?", I snapped back.

"I do. So how's things, sixteen-year-old kiddo?", he ruffled my hair, trying to get to bother me the most in as little time as possible.

Now, that, that was my Dean. I snorted and slapped his hand away from me, while I realized how much I had missed them.

Sam was upstairs without any of us noticing he was missing, probably just seconds after Dean opened the door. I was going to call him for help against his brother when I saw he was not there anymore.

Later, sitting in the dirty steps outside the bar, Dean talked.

"It's nothing personal, you know?. They are mad at each other. That's all."

"And which team are you in?", I raised an eyebrow, hoping I could get some more information.

"There are... There are not teams in this. It's just a stupid row. Sam has this silly idea of going to college and being 'normal'. Huh, 'normal', what do you think?" it was not really a question, so I just nodded for him to go on. "It'll be over soon. He'll listen to reason. He will."

"So you're in John's team?", I winked at him, trying to ease the tension.

"Yeah," he said, and took a long sip of his beer

"Me too."