June

I stood outside the card shop, staring into the big picture window where brightly colored Dr. Seuss figures frolicked alongside the pale, serene Hummel statues and stuffed animals eyes followed wherever I went. The thing that had my eye though, the thing that outshone it all was a little red-headed rag doll stuck in the front corner of the display, dressed in tiny jeans and a flowered shirt, her long, curling yarn hair flowing over her little cotton shoulders. It looked just like me, except her eyes were blue.

A crash behind me startled me out of staring and I turned to see Dean trying to manhandle a mattress into the bed of Bobby's truck in front of the thrift store a block down. I gave the rag doll a final look and jogged down the block to help. By the time I reached him, he'd managed to get the mattress settled and had grabbed a piece of rope. Without being asked, I took the other end of the piece of rope and helped him secure the mattress into the bed.

"There you are," Dean admonished as we worked together. "I told you to stay close."

"I wasn't that far away. I was just down there," I pointed to the card store with a wistful expression. "Besides, the thrift store is boring and dirty and you were just buying a mattress for Bobby and it's in the middle of the day. Nothing bad happens here."

Dean snorted as he finished off his knot. "Got any more excuses?" he asked wryly.

I ignored that. "When's Bobby getting back?"

"No idea," Dean said shortly, and we got in the truck to head back towards Bobby's place.

After Sam left us, Dean had called Bobby and told him everything, including that we were going to head back to him, but Bobby had argued and told Dean that with the damn apocalypse happening, Dean needed to be out hunting, not babysitting him. Bobby said that the doctors were going to keep him there another week or two to heal, get him some physical therapy, and then send him home. He said that he didn't need any help and for Dean not to come. Annoyed, Dean had hung up on him, and then we'd headed here, to Sioux Falls, and started working on Bobby's house.

Bobby's old farmhouse had two stories, all the bedrooms were on the second story, and none of it was handicapped accessible. Dean had made it his mission to get it ready for Bobby, so we'd spent the last six days working together building a wheelchair ramp to the porch, adding rails in the bathroom around the toilet, and moving things around so that Bobby would be able to live in his house. The amount of research material Bobby had in the rooms on the second story of his house was astonishing, and now, of course, it was all neatly stacked in piles in his kitchen and library, thanks to yours truly. We'd moved his couch from where it was in front of the window to replace it with a bed so that Bobby would have a place to sleep at night. It was the only place that it would really fit. Making sure Bobby had a bed was one of the last things we were doing before leaving town.

Resting my head on my arm on the door, I stared out the open window at the trees and sky as the old blue truck bounced and bumped over the ruts in the road. The woods around the car smelled of early summer, green and fresh, and I closed my eyes as the wind blew over me and thought about Bobby. When I opened my eyes again a minute or so later, the scenery had changed to broken down cars and rusted metal, and we were turning into Bobby's yard.

Dean and I unloaded the mattress and I helped him wrangle it up the ramp we had built and into the house. While he settled it onto the frame we'd put in, I hunted through the house to find Bobby's store of sheets and blankets. The ones on the bed in his room were so worn that you couldn't even tell what pattern used to be on it. Plus, it didn't seem right to put used sheets on his brand new bed. Finally, in the very bottom, back corner of the last closet that I looked in, I found a pile of sheets and blankets. The sheets were printed darkly with tiny, tasteful shapes. The blankets were clean, dry, and soft, but the top layer of both piles had a thick layer of dust, like Bobby hadn't touched them in years. I wondered if he'd been using the same set in his bedroom since his wife had died.

I yanked a set from the middle of the pile, figuring they'd be the cleanest, gathered Bobby's pillows off his bed, and ran back downstairs to find Dean leaning against Bobby's desk and drinking a beer. I scampered past him to put the sheets on the bed, but the sheets didn't fit. They were too large, which made sense. The whole reason we'd gone to buy a new mattress was because the one upstairs wouldn't fit here. I frowned and yanked on the corners of the sheet futilely as if that would somehow make it shrink just a little.

Sighing loudly, I whirled around and pointed back at the fitted sheet hanging limply off the side of the mattress. "Now what?" I asked, a little annoyed with the half smile Dean was wearing as he watched me.

"Now I show you how to make a bed with military corners," Dean said, putting his beer down on Bobby's desk and rolling up his sleeves.

Half an hour later, the bed was made up with two fresh flat sheets and a blanket. We'd folded up a heavier blanket at the bottom of the bed in case Bobby needed it, but it was getting warmer by the day and before too long, it would be downright hot. Dean and I moved around the house and straightened some things up. I even stripped Bobby's old bed and brought the laundry down and took it to the washing machine.

Dean stopped me. "Leave that. We need to get on the road soon and he has other sheets."

"We haven't shopped yet," I pointed out, turning from the washer. "You drank all his beer and he's got almost nothing left in the pantry." I didn't point out that I'd drank some of Bobby's beer in the last few days and that his whiskey supply was just a little lower than when we'd gotten there. Guilt flushed through me, but I shoved it away. Dean had never told me I couldn't drink. "We need to go restock his food so that he doesn't starve."

Dean smiled at me, dropped his arm around my shoulder, and led me to the car. On the way back into town, we passed the card store. The red-headed rag doll popped back into my mind. "Dean?" I said as we pulled into the parking lot. "I have an idea…"

Two hours later, when we pulled away from Bobby's for the last time, he had a ramp, a bed, his books, a fully stocked pantry and fridge, and a little red-headed rag doll waiting on his bed to keep him company when he finally got home.

July

I will not go to forbidden websites. I will not go to forbidden websites. I will not go to forbidden websites. I wrote over and over at the table of the motel while Dean poked and prodded at his new laptop, swearing the whole time. I looked up at him from under my bangs and flushed at the angry look on his face as he glared at the screen. Sam had taken the laptop, so after a couple weeks, Dean had gotten another one, but he hadn't set it up with the same nanny software that Sam had, and he hadn't mentioned anything to me about where I wasn't allowed to go, although he'd take it with him when he went on hunts.

But then last night, he'd put me to bed and gone out to fleece some money out of some unsuspecting bar patrons. I'd found the laptop bag when I'd gone to get the plastic bottle of whiskey I'd started keeping in my duffel bag so that Dean wouldn't notice his missing. I tried to resist, but I couldn't. The same thing that egged me to drink egged me to open the laptop and find that bitch. Besides, the sooner I found her, the sooner I could stop drinking to sleep. I was already having to drink more than I had when I started. So, I pulled the laptop out and set it up.

When he'd gotten back, I'd been deep in the hunters' forum trying to find any hint of Gabby, searching for information on weird cults and fires. It was my last resort. I'd jumped and shut the laptop when he opened the motel room door. He didn't even yell at me. He just hauled me out of the chair, pulled me over to the bed, and started spanking me. I was crying hard when he was done, and then he'd made me stand in the corner while he went and looked at the browser history. He'd been frowning when he shut the laptop and told me to get my ass in bed. I didn't have a chance to take the couple of swallows I'd been taking to sleep.

He woke me up a couple of hours later because I was screaming in my sleep and made me get in bed with him. He held me close and soothed me, telling me that this was why I wasn't allowed on those sites. I was too exhausted and ashamed to argue, to tell him that the nightmares weren't from the sites. I didn't want him to know what I'd been doing. I didn't want him to know how broken I was or he'd never let me find Gabby, never let me kill her, and I thought that might be the only thing that would let me sleep soundly again.

He fell asleep before I did, holding me close to his wide, warm chest. I snuggled into him and cried into his t-shirt, trying not to shake hard enough to wake him up. Eventually, I fell into a light doze with my face nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, my dreams dark and angst-filled, but at least not terrifying. I woke when he tried to slide out from under me, and so he'd taken me to breakfast and told me that I'd be writing lines after I finished my training.

"Call Sam," Dean growled out suddenly.

I looked up from the lines, my hand still moving automatically to write the words over and over. I was getting to be a pro at this stuff. "What?" I asked, confused. I'd been calling Sam at least once a week. He was moving from place to place, still. Working odd jobs, mostly at bars and motels, and not hunting at all. He always sounded tired when I talked to him.

"Call Sam," Dean repeated, getting up from the table with a scowl and getting a beer from the mini-fridge. "Find out what he was using to keep you off those sites and then get him to walk you through setting it up."

I flushed again. "But then he'll know that I…"

"That you what? Went to site you know you're not allowed to? Yeah, he will," Dean said, raising his eyebrows at me as he took a swig of his beer. "Now, Jessie."

Sighing, I put my pen down, went to get my phone, took Dean's seat, and dialed the phone. I dropped my head into my palm and put the phone to my ear.

"Hi, honey." Sam's voice sounded a little tinny through the phone, not the normal rolling tones I was used to. I missed him bad.

"Sam," I whispered and then paused.

"Jessie… You ok?" he asked, his voice concerned. "Is Dean ok?"

I swallowed and glanced up at Dean, who was watching me with his arms crossed over his chest. I cleared my voice. "Uh, yeah. Dean wanted me to call you because I screwed up and now he needs to know what that software you were using was, the one that kept me off the sites you didn't want me on…"

Sam didn't say anything for a second. "Jessie," he said finally. I could hear the frown in his voice. "You know better."

"I know," I said quietly. "I'm already in trouble. Dean's not happy."

"Neither am I, young lady. How many times do we have to go over this with you? You know what sites you're not allowed on. Just because I'm not there doesn't mean that you can go all over the Internet and look at anything you want. You may think you're old enough to handle it, but there's a lot out there that you are just not ready to know. Do you understand me?"

I listened to him scold me for another two minutes, mumbling "I know," and "I'm sorry," when he paused until he finally relented and told me the name of the software. I followed his instructions on downloading it. Then Dean came over and stood behind me as Sam walked me through setting it up, making sure I was on Dean's log in while I did it.

And then we were done.

"All right, honey," Sam said softly. He wasn't mad any more. "You be good and say hi to Dean for me, ok?"

I glanced up at Dean and slid out of his chair, moving to my bed on the other side of the room. "Sam?" I whispered into the phone. "Do you think you'll ever come back?" Sam didn't say anything. "Sam?" I asked after a few seconds.

"I don't know, Jessie," he said roughly. "But not for now."

I fought the tears that were threatening to fall. "But I miss you," I said, my voice cracking.

"I miss you too. You be good for Dean. Stay off those sites." His voice evened out a little now that he was back on normal ground.

"Yes, Sam," I whispered. "I love you."

"Love you, too, squirt," Sam said, and then he was gone.

I hung the phone up and got to my feet. I turned around to head back to the table and ran right into Dean, who enclosed me in his arms and held on tight.