A/N: Based off of 5x16, when Sam ran away to Flagstaff, and Dean thought he was dead.

Bones (School Year of 1997-1998)
By Sam Winchester

Bobby picked me up from Flagstaff, Arizona and brought me back to my dad and my brother in Middle-of-Nowhere, Arizona, where my brother sat on his bed with a very downtrodden look on his face, and I stood, leaning against the wall, arms folded defiantly, as my dad tore us both a new one, and punished nineteen-year-old Dean like he was a six-year-old and Dad took away his favorite toy by revoking any and all freedom privileges until further notice. Then Dad turned to me and fixed me with a cold hard started to yell again, threatening me with mostly empty promises.

"What?" I shouted back. "What are you going to do to me, Dad?" Dean groaned, hiding his face in his hands, not daring to look at either one of us.

"Don't test me, Sam," Dad growled ferociously.

But I'm not afraid of him, so I got right up in his face and said, "Or what, you'll kick me out?"

Dean threw himself back onto his bed dramatically, and Dad growled again, turned around and slammed the door behind him as he left shouting, "Neither of you are allowed out of there for the rest of the night."

We heard clinking in the rundown kitchen and Dad yelling at Bobby because yelling is scientifically proven to make him feel better, or something, when Dean said to me, staring at the ceiling, "Nice going, Sammy," and rolled over onto his stomach and went to sleep.

This whole dramatic family affair all happened because during our short, albeit eventful, stay in Arizona in December, our dad took a business trip the week before winter break, leaving moments after I told him how monumentally unhappy I was that we had to move yet again for his stupid job. Dad, half out the door and brimming with excuses, was fed up and said simply, "Well, Sammy, if you don't like it, then you can move out!"

So move out is what I did, mostly just to prove a point, but also because I'd been on the edge of running away since the beginning of my freshmen year in high school. I snuck past Dean while he was asleep, and walked, took a bus, and hitchhiked far enough away that Dean wouldn't look for me.

I crashed the first place I found, after buying enough of the essentials –mostly cheese-puffs and soda – to last me for two weeks, and let the reality of the fact that I was on my own, no Dad or Dean breathing down my neck, wash over me. My heart pounded with the thrill of freedom when I realized for the first time in my life, I could do whatever I wanted.

I crashed in a tiny abandoned trailer with one light bulb and a wet, musty couch, and a barely functioning TV, but with a VCR and two or three tapes of Dean's favorite moves, so I went to bed and embraced my new life.

The next morning I was woken by a scratching at the door, and even though my previous life had taught me to be wary of any and all scratching, because at the very least it's rats, I opened the door with a squeak, and got the surprise of my life.

A very mangy, very thin dog came running in through the door, pushing me aside and jumping up on the couch. I think he might have been some kind of retriever or something. He was looking at me curiously, like I just got here out of nowhere and he didn't really feel threatened by my presence in the least.

"Do you live here, boy?" it occurred to me, sticking my hand out tentatively for him to sniff. He just licked it and shoved his whole head under my palms before I decided if I actually wanted to pet him or not.

He was such a friendly dog, and so thin, so I went to find us some pizza. When I came back in, the dog, who I decided to call Bones, was jumping all over me, like I was an old friend.

"Hey, come on, Bones," I said, pushing his head down gently so he would get off of me. "I got us a treat."

I fed half the pizza to him and ate the other half. When we were finished, I fished around for whatever money I had left, and walked to the pet store to buy dog supplies, a leash most importantly so he wouldn't run off and get hit by a car when I tried to bathe him later.

And that's what I did. I dragged an old garden hose that I was surprised even worked behind the trailer and did my best the wash Bones's matted hair, and he licked me on the face, either as a thank you, or a "please stop brushing me, Sam."

That's basically how I spent two weeks, playing with Bones, watching bad movies on a cracked TV screen, eating junk food, before Dad came home and Dean hit the panic button, which had Dad calling every one he's ever talked to, including Bobby Singer, a man who used to be like our uncle until he and Dad had an argument that almost ended with the police showing up at Bobby's doorstep.

And it was Bobby who knocked at my door to pick me up. "I'm here to take you home, son," he said.

I crossed my arms indignantly. "How'd you know I was here?" I asked.

"I got my ways, kid," Bobby said. "Come one, your daddy's worried sick about you."

"Yeah right," I grumbled, casting a forlorn look at Bones, who was sitting on the couch looking at me and Bobby, wagging his tail a little.

Bobby gave me a look that I couldn't quite read, maybe because he didn't really know how to explain what he wanted to say without upsetting the natural order of things. Finally, he just sighed and said, "Look, Sam, it's no secret that me and your old man aren't on the best of terms, but if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that he worries about you."

"Whatever," I said, and I followed Bobby to his car so he could drive me home. "Wait!" I said suddenly, stopping with my hand on the car door. "What about Bones?"

"Who?"

"The dog, Bobby," I explained impatiently. "I can't just leave him here."

"I'll take care of that," Bobby said at once, and I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that.

Bobby drove me home just for me to be enveloped in two separate pairs of arms in two separate suffocating hugs, and told by two separate angry voices that they both thought I was dead, but they're glad I'm okay, and two Sammy-I-swear-to-God-if-you-ever-run-away-again empty threats. Dad even gives Bobby a grudging thank you, and when I'm in my room, listening to Bobby's car sputtering away, and Dad swearing loudly at nothing in the other room, I think of the dog and grainy cowboy movies, and I wished I was still in the beat up trailer with no one breathing down my neck, and only a stray dog to worry about.