Author's Note: This is part 1/4. It came out infinitely longer than I anticipated. I hope you guys enjoy!

"Did you hear about the fight this morning?" Dianna, a girl in Hannah's math class asked the girl beside her.

"I heard there was a fight. What happened?"

"Well that new kid, you know the oldest Winchester, who thinks he's all bad ass and whatever. Well, he decked some little 8th grader and hit Mrs. Tilly." Hannah's head jerked up. Dean had been expelled from many schools for fighting. Kids would say something about Sam, who was now a little overweight and looked more like a ragamuffin than a real boy, or they would make a comment about how he was a teacher's pet, when really Sam just wanted to show his intelligence. She had spent countless hours trying to teach him humility. This was the first time Dean had ever hit an adult. Hannah swallowed hard and tried to not look like she was paying attention to the girls sitting in front of her.

"He hit Mrs. Tilly?" the other girl asked incredulously.

"Square in the stomach."

"He's expelled."

"Yup. I'm glad of it too. We don't need poor riffraff like the Winchesters in our school." Hannah blinked away her sudden embarrassment and put her nose back into her math homework.

That afternoon, Dean was waiting for her two feet off of school grounds. He stood there with his binder in one hand, pencil behind his ear, and his feet crossed leaning against the fence post.

"You need to go get Sammy." He said when she reached him.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Nothing." She gave him a pleading look. "Nothing." He repeated more adamantly. She sighed and looked down at her feet. She really wished Dean wouldn't bottle things up, but he was going to—again. She sighed heavily again and adjusted her book bag on her shoulders. Dean watched her and felt guilty for not telling her. He wished he didn't cause so much trouble. Why couldn't he just go into a school and learn and be done with it? Why did he always let some punk ruin his time at school? Maybe he should quit and get his GED. Maybe it was just people he wasn't good with.

"I hit a kid." He said after walking a little ways. He decided that he owed his little sister that much. "I hit him so hard that his mouth bled. Stupid little kid deserved it. He picked on Sammy. Called him fat. Called him other names too." Dean said softly. He couldn't look her in the eye. He couldn't stand to see disappointment in her eyes. The two weren't very close, but he certainly respected her opinion. "No one calls Sammy names. No one." Hannah nodded understanding his reasoning. Although she didn't agree with his method of handling the situation, she most certainly approved of standing up for Sammy. "A teacher got in the way and I accidentally socked her in the stomach too." Dean looked up and sighed. "I liked Mrs. Tilly. She treated me right. I didn't mean to hit her. I can't even go back in there and apologize to her. I really wanted to too. She didn't deserve to be hit." That was the closest thing to regret that she had ever heard from her eldest brother. "So, I'm expelled. I guess next year you and I will be in the same grade." He said with a heavy sigh. She didn't have a chance to say anything because Sam was walking towards them. Sam joined the others and said nothing. Sam always had something to share after school. He was the Winchester that absolutely loved to learn, so for him not to say anything was more telling than Dean's expulsion.

The three Winchesters walked back to their less than pristine apartment. Dean went to his and Sam's room and shut the door, and Hannah assumed that he had turned on his walkman and would be holed up in that room for the next several hours. Hannah went to the small kitchen and started to make a snack. When she turned around, she found Sam sitting at the counter with his head down and tracing the cracks and grooves in the wood with his small chubby fingers. She touched his hair and he looked up, hazel eyes filled with tears. She set down the peanut butter crackers, which were Sammy's current favorite snack, in front of him. Sam looked at the snack, he looked up at her and tears overflowed his hazel eyes and he pushed them away.

"No. I'm not hungry."

"But Sammy."

"I'm not hungry!" he yelled and ran to the bathroom and slammed the door. Hannah took a deep breath and rested her head on the counter. One brother mad at himself and brooding and the other so self conscious that he wasn't going to eat, what was she supposed to do? She wasn't an adult. What if Sam quit eating all together? It wasn't like they had the money to put him in a rehab facility for anorexics. She guessed she just wouldn't let it get that far. She would put Dean to work on a way to make sure Sam ate and kept it down.

She picked her head up and looked at the phone. She had to call their father. She had to tell him that Dean was expelled. There was no other choice. Hoping that their father was away from the hotel room and wouldn't be there to take the call, and she could just leave this unpleasant news with the desk clerk, she dialed the number. To her dismay and disappointment, their father picked up.

"Yeah."

"Dad, it's Hannah."

"Sam okay?" Hannah did everything in her power to not sigh out loud. Their father's first response was to ask how Sam was. Not how Dean was, not how she was, but how Sam was. Their father was always so concerned with the youngest Winchester. Their lives revolved around two people, one dead, one very much alive. Revenge and protection of Sam was the mantra that had been pounded into her head since she could remember. Dean was the only one of them that remembered their mother, and remembered life before the monster that took her.

Because of this, she and Dean were on top of Sam all of the time. Between the two of them they knew every step he took, how much he ate, slept, studied, drooled, everything. She actually memorized what he was wearing every single day, just in case she had to fill out a missing person's report. Not that the police would be helpful if something demonic and supernatural took him, but just on the off chance, she knew. Sometimes she worried that they coddled Sam too much and that he would grow up and expect the whole world to be looking out for him. But then again, there were nights where she could feel something was there, waiting and watching, and she was positive that it wasn't waiting for her or Dean—it was waiting for Sam. She always got the feeling that something was watching and waiting for him to grow up. Sometimes she wished Sam would stay 12 forever.

"Sam is fine."

"Then what is the matter?"

"Dean got expelled."

"Damn that boy!"

"Dad."

"I can't leave for a week without that boy getting into trouble. Sometimes…" John Winchester stopped before he said something he would regret, and Hannah was glad. She had heard him say some very not nice things TO Dean and she really didn't want to hear what he would say without the boy in front of him. Hannah didn't have a violent bone in her body, but when her father spoke poorly to Dean she wanted to grab the nearest blunt object and do some target practice with her father's head. Dean was closer to her father than John Winchester.

"Dad, he was defending Sammy. He was following orders." John was silent on the other end and Hannah knew she had said the right combination of words to dispel her father's wrath. "I'm going to call Bobby and see if he can keep us for a while. Dean needs to be in school. He only has two years left. I don't want him to stop, because I'm afraid that he won't finish school."

"He will finish school even if I have to take a belt to him." Hannah shook her head trying to understand the man that was her father. Once again, he seemed a day late and a dollar short. John didn't understand what discouragement did to Dean. No amount of threatening or physical pain would make him do something Dean didn't think there was any point of trying.

"I'll call Bobby."

"Tell Dean we will talk about this when I see him."

"Are you going to see us for Thanksgiving?"

"Hannah."

"I know, there are other people that could loose their lives or people they love, the supernatural doesn't stop for the holidays." She repeated. She knew the words, understood them, but they still bothered her. Yes, there were other people out there that had loved ones that sat around the dinner table and enjoyed a finely prepared meal, but they were a family too. Didn't the four of them deserve a family meal, even if it was a TV dinner? She was proud of herself that she hadn't allowed herself to get her hopes up, but there was still some small part of her that felt empty. They said goodbye and she looked around the empty apartment. For the life of her she couldn't figure out why every male in the family was so head strong and ready to jump. Days like today she wished she had a mother to go to and ask questions. She wanted someone who would tell her it would be all right.

She looked at the phone and found herself hoping beyond hope that Bobby would take them in.