AN: You reviewers (and other readers) are wonderful! :) Here's another chapter featuring a little more of the Sam/Nora dynamic, well the Season 6 Sam/Nora dynamic, anyway. Enjoy! - Hannah


I startled awake the next morning after feeling something hit my foot which was poking out from under the covers. I pulled my foot in, fully intending on going back to sleep.

"Time to get up."

I groaned and opened my eyes at hearing the intonation in his voice. Sam was already dressed and ready to go. Dean snored in the next bed over. The clock on the nightstand read 5:30.

"Too early," I groaned.

"Meet me outside in five minutes," he countered, not even acknowledging my comment.

I pulled the covers over my head and Sam pulled them back, bending his legs so he was closer to my face.

"I mean it, Nora. Five minutes."

"Fine," I snapped, pushing the covers off and swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

"Cas dropped this off for you," Sam said, handing me the bag that had been left at Bobby's in the rush to get me out of there.

"When did he bring that?" I asked, rubbing my eyes and stretching my arms over my head.

"Middle of the night."

I smiled. It was a nice gesture and one that meant Castiel couldn't be too annoyed with me. He got frustrated and snappy with us when things weren't going well in Heaven, but he rarely stayed in a bad mood for too long. For whatever reason, he had a soft spot for us when it came down to it and at this point, we had been through so much together that Castiel was an honorary Winchester.

"Get moving," Sam said when I just sat there, temporarily zoning out of it.

I snatched the bag and headed into the bathroom to change and pull my hair back out of my face before splashing it with water. I headed outside to see Sam stretching out his calves against the side of the motel room and I halfheartedly joined in. The sun still wasn't up, so it was still a bit brisk and the street lights were still on.

I wasn't looking forward to running with Sam for god knows how long at some unreasonable pace, but that wasn't why I felt hesitant. My interactions with Sam since after the djinn situation had been confusing. He was distant one minute, then angry, then relaxed and calm the next. On some level, I felt like Sam had always been attuned to my feelings. Dean and I had always been close because we spent so much time together, because he had from the time I was very young, assumed an almost parental role in my life. Sam and I were always close because at his most basic core, he understood me and was sensitive to the way I saw the world. And I was attuned to him as well, as well as I could be with being so young. Dean was like a father but Sam had never shown any interest in being that for me. He let Dean handle me when I misbehaved. He only raised his voice or uttered some sort of threat when it was really warranted. Sam had always been there to make Dean see my side of things when he got all riled up though.

But since Sam had come back he seemed just the opposite. We were so out of tune with one another that it felt like most of the interactions caused a rub, sometimes painful, sometimes just a small irritation, but there was undoubted friction. Sam finally looked at me while he was stretching his arms above his head.

"What?" he asked as I stared at him blankly.

"I'm exhausted. Did you have to get me up so early?" I asked, mirroring his stretches.

"I was up," he answered, "And you weren't sleeping well anyway- tossing and turning all night."

I blushed, a little embarrassed that I had been having bad dreams. I wasn't used to sharing a room anymore. If Sam noticed that I was embarrassed, he didn't seem to care.

"And anyway, it's supposed to be a punishment. You wouldn't hate it nearly as much if I let you sleep in."

I had to admit, he had a point there. The running wasn't even a big deal. I did it for fun on my own sometimes. The punishment came more from the fact that I had no choice in the matter... and that it was 5:30 in the morning.

"I want you to keep up with me. We'll stop along the way and do some basic workouts."

"Sounds like a dream come true. What are you, some crazy workout fiend now?"

"I've always liked working out. It's good for you. You and Dean should try it."

Sam had always enjoyed running and being generally healthy, but I could tell just by looking at him that he had been taking it a little more seriously since coming back from hell. He was clearly in better shape, stronger and faster, which I saw for myself when he started running.

"I run pretty often, actually," I answered, attempting to match his pace, though it was hard with his legs being so much longer than mine.

"Probably because you're grounded so often."

"No, because sometimes I just like to run. It clears my head."

Sam didn't answer me and we fell into an almost comfortable silence for quite some time. For me, it was not out of choice, but because my lungs were burning and I couldn't have kept up with a conversation if I tried. Sam just looked straight ahead while he ran as if I wasn't even there with him. His breathing was easy and even as he ran. I just felt like I was going to die, but I kept up with him as best as I could.

"You're out of shape," he commented.

"Well, maybe because I'm not grounded as much as you think I am."

He looked at me briefly with a look that was similar to surprise.

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean anyway? Jerk!" I shot at him in between breaths.

"It means both you and Dean have been enjoying that apple pie life a little too much."

"Sorry we couldn't all be out hunting with a bunch of strangers, spending our free time working out and hiding away."

"Watch it," he snapped.

"You know, you used to find my sarcasm funny," I said quietly.

"Did I?"

I nodded.

"I guess you're losing your touch."

I was grateful to be on our way back to the motel room. Sam had slowed down enough that I could breathe comfortably, but my legs felt like jello and I couldn't wait to collapse on the bed.

"Is it going to 5:30 tomorrow morning, too?" I asked.

"I'll make it 6:00 if you can make it back to the room before me."

I didn't answer him before breaking out into a sprint. We were still a ways away from the motel, but within a ten minute run. As I broke through the trees and came to the parking lot, I didn't see Sam in front of me or to my side. I smiled and figuring Sam was somewhere behind me, I slowed as I near the door. I stopped, throwing my arms in the air when I saw his form leaning against the hood of the Impala with a smirk.

"Unbelievable," I grumbled, "Where did you even go?"

"I know a short cut."

"What the heck!"

He shrugged and walked towards the door, but I shoved past him and walked through first. He may have won, but there was no way I was going to let him shower first.

"You know, it wasn't even fair. You're like gigantor and I'm a slow runner. You cheated, you jerk."

I jabbed him in the side and scowled because Dean was occupying the bathroom before collapsing in a heap on the bed, not caring that I was covered in sweat. I just hoped for the sake of the next guest that this place actually changed the sheets.

"What did you call me?" Sam asked, standing at the foot of my bed.

I set myself up on my elbows so I could look at him.

"I didn't mumble. A jerk, Sam. I called you a jerk. You dangle 30 minutes of extra sleep in front of me and then you cheated. That's the definition of a jerk!"

Suddenly, I felt Sam's hands wrap around my ankles as my feet were pulled up in the air, eliciting a quick scream. He held me dangling upside down in the air in front of him.

"You want to repeat that, kid?" he said.

"Put me down!" I shouted.

"Take it back."

"No, put me down!"

He let me go for a fragment of a second and I put my hands out to avoid falling face first into the ground, but he had stopped me in time and was now pulling me up and down like he was lifting a weight, my ponytail resting on the floor each time he lowered me.

"Sam, stop it!" I complained.

"No, you're a good work out. Just the right weight," he answered with a laugh.

"Sammy Winchester, you put me down right now!"

"What the hell is going on out here?" Dean asked as he came out of the bathroom, his expression very confused as he looked at us.

"If I wanted a weird chick flick sibling bonding moment, I'd turn on the Lifetime Movie Network," he snapped when he finally adjusted to the situation that was playing out in front of him.

Sam chuckled as I attempted to free myself by reaching my arm around my back in attempted to punch him in the leg. Dean started laughing too.

"He's got you in a pretty vulnerable position, doesn't he kiddo?" Dean said, taking a step in our direction.

"If you come near me with any intention of tickling me or doing anything other than helping me down, I will punch you in the balls."

Dean laughed and put up his hands in surrender.

"Alright, well can the two of you get showered and dressed then? Your big brother is hungry and there's a hell of a lot of guns to clean before we hit the road."

Sam let go of one of my ankles and grabbed a hand instead, successfully putting me on a feet.

"I've got shower first," he announced, taking his things and going into the bathroom.

"Damn it, Sammy!" I said, sitting down on the bed and folding my feet underneath me.

After Sam closed the door, Dean was looking at me though he had a newspaper in his hands.

"How was that?" he asked.

"I don't know what's gotten into him. He's acting all stupid and annoying like you."

"I think I'm a little too mature for yours and Sam's nonsense, Nora. How did the run go?"

"Aside from me not being able to breathe and him basically calling me fat twice, it was fine."

Dean raised his eyebrow.

"Apparently you and I are both out of shape," I explained.

"Oh, is that so?"

"Yeah, I mean, I know you've put on some weight, but I haven't."

"Hey!" Dean shot back at me and I smirked.

"Sammy's words, not mine," I answered, arms raised.

The bathroom door opened and Sam came out, showered and dressed.

"My body is a temple," Dean said, patting his stomach and eliciting a big laugh from me.

"Sure," I replied

"Temple of ruins, maybe," Sam commented

I burst out in laughter and Dean shot me a look.

"Go get in the shower, Nellie, you smell."

"Yes sir, Chubby Checker, sir."

Sam let out a laugh, "That nickname has got serious potential."

I headed for the shower, grateful that although my brothers could be hard asses, they usually moved on from things quickly.


At the diner, I slipped into the booth and Sam slipped in beside me. When the waitress came to take our order, I rolled my eyes in anticipation of Dean's merciless flirting. Then I remembered Lisa, which meant Dean wouldn't be a total pig even though the young waitress was beautiful, with pale skin and light brown curls, wearing the stereotypical diner girl uniform.

"Hi my name is Mairead, I'll be taking care of you three this morning."

"That's a beautiful name. Isn't that Irish?" Sam asked.

She nodded, "Yeah, it is. My mother is Irish, born there actually."

"I took an Irish literature course when I was at Stanford. I remember a particularly intriguing character by the same name."

The girl's cheeks were red, probably because of the way that Sam was staring at her. Dean held the same confused face as me while we watched him continue to talk with her. Sammy was heavily hitting on this young woman and he was being real smooth about it.

"Uh, well, anyway," Dean interrupted after a few additional exchanges, "I'll have a coffee and the special."

"Oh right, of course," she answered, embarrassed.

She took down Dean's order and then mine, turning to Sam next.

"What's your favorite item on the menu?" he asked.

I put my head down on the table unable to handle listening to it anymore with a straight face. Sam ordered what she suggested and thanked her before she took the menus and walked away. Dean waited until the girl walked away.

"What the heck was that, lover boy?"

"Yeah, since when do you try to pick up chicks at diners? I thought that was Dean's job."

"I have a girlfriend. When was the last time you saw me pick up a girl at a diner?" Dean defended.

"You used me to pick up diner girls for years Dean. You used your sweet, innocent baby sister to pick up chicks. One year of being a decent gentleman does not erase those years, but seriously Sam? Real classy."

"We're not heading out until after you clean the guns. I've got a little time to kill," Sam said, putting us back on track.

My mouth dropped as the words came out of Sam's mouth.

"You are disgusting," I said.

"Nora just lost all respect for you, Sam, but man, what a proud day for me. Finally, I know that my years of mentoring have paid off and my prized student is trying to pick up a girl during breakfast. Consider me impressed."

Dean had a ridiculous grin on his face and his hands were resting behind his head.

"You two are idiots. Please explain to me why you're proud of Sammy for shamelessly hitting on a girl at breakfast, but if a guy looks at me the wrong way or in any way at all, you flip out?"

"Because you're not allowed to kiss a boy until you're thirty. Looks lead to kissing which will get you pregnant."

"Teenage boys only want one thing, Nora," Sam said distractedly as his gaze was on Mairead as she was bringing over our drinks.

"Same thing as adult boys, apparently," I said, gesturing to Sam.

"Good point, Nora. You're never dating. Pretty simple solution," Dean replied.

"Yeah, that sounds fair," I answered, pulling my mug of coffee closer and taking a sip.

My brothers were protective, a word I had come to occasionally equate with ignorant and sexist. To some extent I found it funny, mostly because they were fairly clueless regarding my experiences with boys. Other than Jack, there had been just two other boys I had ever kissed. One kid in first grade and another boy I dated last year at school. The first had gone to the school near Bobby's and had happened during one of the longer stints that I stayed with him. The other was just a boy that had few classes with me. Not that either of those were by any means serious, but I still couldn't believe they thought I had never kissed a boy. I had just turned sixteen, not three.

We left the diner and headed back to the room after Sam insisted on paying in order to score a few more conversational exchanges with Mairead. Sam said he was going to run errands and headed out, leaving us at the room, which was obviously not-so-secret code for going to hook up with his new waitress friend. After two hours of gun cleaning, with Dean inspecting each piece before he deemed it acceptable, Sam had returned and we were finally on the road. They had decided on dropping me at home before continuing on to whatever hunt was going to be next.

"How are those translations coming along?" Dean asked.

The Impala had been steadily heading towards Indiana for just under four hours before I got bored of translations. It was unfortunate that I didn't get car sick, so I wasn't exempt from continuing. I had been staring out the window, watching the trees blue past while trying to tune out the sound of Led Zeppelin and my brothers' conversations.

"They're coming."

"Your pen hasn't moved in the last four songs," he said in an accusatory tone.

"I'm thinking about the words before I translate-," I started, but Sam turned around.

"Nora, don't strain yourself trying to come up with a believable excuse. Let me see what you've got so far."

I shut the book with my papers inside and passed them up to him. Dean stressed completeness, Sam stressed accuracy.

"Are we stopping for gas soon?" I asked, "Or at least for a bathroom break?"

Dean groaned.

"Sure thing, right away, princess. Let me get right on that."

"Go ahead, joke about it. You know holding in your pee causes UTIs," I replied.

"How pleasant. I'll stop when I can. We don't have very many options right now," he answered.

Dean was right. We were in the middle of nowhere driving down some deserted highway in between Indiana and Wisconsin.

"Are you guys going to stick around for a while or are you just dropping me and running out of town?" I asked. They had been very minimal in giving me their plans. As of right now the plans consisted of: Get in Impala, Drive home.

"Well, I really should stick around and make your grounding the most miserable experience of your life, but we've got to keep working," Dean said.

"You don't even have a case yet!" I argued, "You guys can stay until you find something. Ben's birthday is coming up anyway. Sam can stay in the guest room."

"Maybe you shouldn't worry what we're going to do and focus a little more on translating these correctly."

Sam gave me a look that illustrated he was unimpressed and passed the papers back to me covered in slash marks. I shut up and looked over the corrections, most of which were nit-picky little mistakes, if you could even call them mistakes. I would call them differences of opinion. Regardless, I worked on making them perfect until Dean finally pulled up outside a gas station.

"We're not breaking again until home so make the most of it," Dean said before he got out of the car to fill the tank with gas.

Sam joined him, both of them leaning against the car while talking. I put my book to the side and slid out taking a moment to stretch my arms and legs. I headed to the bathroom first, pleased that it wasn't the most disgusting I had been in. As the mirror wasn't busted or filthy, I checked my appearance. I looked exhausted, which wasn't surprising considering the last 24 hours consisted of restless sleep, angel transport and a Sammy Winchester work out session.

Inside the gas station, I headed straight for the candy, grabbing peanut m&m's and then walked to the coffee station, settling on their original house roast before grabbing for a cup.

I felt a hand come down on top of mine before I could take a cup from the stack.

"It's two in the afternoon," Sam said.

"And?"

"You don't need coffee at two in the afternoon."

He held out a bottle of water for me and I grumbled. Even though it was crappy gas station coffee, I had my heart settled on it.

"Sam," I protested.

"You drink coffee now, you won't be able to fall asleep tonight."

"Yeah? So? I'm grounded remember? It's not exactly like I have any plans for tomorrow."

"We're going running in the morning. 5:30, remember?"

I felt a small smiled creep across my lips.

"So you guys are staying then?"

"Just until we find a case."

"Cool!" I said, taking the water bottle from him and heading to the cash register.

"Why are you so excited? You're grounded."

I shrugged.

"So? Grounded or not, I'd rather have you two around. It's not like I love you any less because I got yelled, just like you guys don't love me any less when I screw up, right?"

I looked at him when he didn't answer right away.

"Huh, yeah, right," he said nudging me towards the door.

As I slid in the back seat of the Impala, I poured a few m&m's into my hand and passed the rest up to Dean. I saw him smile in the rear view mirror before he looked up to meet my eyes.

"Thanks, kiddo."

"Welcome," I said, pulling the book back into my lap.

On one hand, I hated the translations. On the other, I occasionally came across exciting things- demon exorcisms and random rituals. Then it became fairly interesting and less of a punishment, which was why I was fairly quiet and engaged for the duration of the rest of the trip.

As we came into the town limits, closing in on our neighborhood, I was having trouble concentrating. Coming home meant seeing Lisa, which meant apologizing, if she would even accept one. The last time I had seen her was when I had left for Bobby's after lying to her. If all had gone according to plan following that, I would have been on my way home now with Dean and Sam none the wiser about the whole thing.

Lisa was getting dinner ready and Ben was sitting on the couch watching a movie when we came through the door. Ben called out a hello, but didn't move from his spot on the couch. Lisa smiled as Dean came close to her, hugging her with an arm and giving her a quick kiss on the lips.

"It's good to see you, Lis," he said.

"I'm happy you're home, Dean," she answered, kissing him again before noticing Sam and me standing just a few feet away.

I waved, silently, and Lisa's face held a neutral expression as she nodded in my direction. I left my bag where I was standing and went to see Ben.

"Hey Sam," I heard Lisa say, "Glad you're staying with us. Finally get to know the brother Dean and Nora rave about. I've got the guest room made up for you."

I sat down on the couch next to Ben and let out a sigh, putting my feet up on the coffee table.

"How mad is your mom?" I asked.

"Not that mad," he answered.

"That's good. How have you been?"

"Good. Tired. Practice is tough."

I nodded, settling myself beside him.

"How much trouble are you in?" he asked.

"I'm grounded- indefinitely. Here's a piece of advice for ya, if you're going to lie, make sure you don't get caught."

Ben smirked at me. The TV was switched off and I looked up to see Dean standing behind us with the remote in his hand.

"Grounded means no TV, Nora."

"Yeah, well, that's why I wasn't watching it," I answered.

Dean gave me a look which clearly said I should shut my mouth before he responded.

"Yeah, well, your bag doesn't belong sitting in the middle of the hall either. So go take it upstairs before dinner."

I turned towards Ben, rolling my eyes, "I'll be back."


Conversation at dinner was centered on Ben's football practices and Lisa and Ben getting to know Sam, which was fine by me. I mostly sat in silence, listening to the rest of them talk while eating my dinner. When things were wrapping up, Lisa stood, taking plates from Dean and Sam with her into the kitchen. Dean nudged my arm so I stood up, taking the rest of the plates with me and following Lisa into the kitchen.

Lisa put the dishes in her arms in the sink and turned to look at me as I placed the plates on the counter.

"Lisa, I'm sorry," I blurted out, "Like, really, really sorry. I shouldn't have lied to you. You didn't deserve that. If it makes you feel any better, Dean grounded me for like an eternity."

"Yeah, an eternity where I have to uphold it," she said, "I appreciate the apology, Nora."

"Did I ruin this? Do you hate me now?"

"No," she laughed lightly, "I would be some kind of hypocrite if I hated you for lying to me. I was a little surprised because I thought we had an understanding that I was the cool one - apparently not. And I hate myself a little for falling for it, but I don't hate you, Nora. Not by a long shot."

"Wish Dean and Sam felt that way," I answered.

"You're talking about your brothers, right? You're lucky they didn't just kill you on the spot," she said with a smile.

"Well, as long as you're not mad at me…"

"You do the dishes and we'll call it water under the bridge," Lisa said.

"I think that's more than fair," I answered, moving towards the sink. She pulled me into a quick hug and I squeezed her back before she left the room and I started on the dishes.