Disclaimers and such in first chapter.

Buffy and Willow were busy people—with the shops, with their real jobs, with Dean. Corinna followed her orders to the letter, and her orders were to keep Sam away from Dean. When she was on duty, she did not stray from Dean's room, not for food, not to stretch her legs, not for anything; if she needed supplies, she summoned someone from the bedroom door.

Sam was left on his own. He didn't think it was intentional. They just didn't know what to do with him. They weren't used to having hunters underfoot. It was Kellie, the girl from the sidewalk that first day, who finally fixed that.

Kellie was a part-time student, as well as part-time shopgirl downstairs, part-time cleaning service and cook for Buffy and Willow, self-proclaimed "errand girl 42," and full-time Slayer (she was, in fact, the "oldest," in terms of training, of the babies, which made her the unofficial third-in-command of the Cleveland contingent). He'd gotten used to seeing her in the apartment at all hours, since she apparently had free run of the building, but it wasn't until she commandeered him and the Impala that they actually spoke. The first time, it was a grocery run—stocking the apartment, the gym, and buying some things for Mrs. Haya in payment for the use of her allotted parking spaces in the apartment building next door—but grocery runs were only once every couple of weeks, with the exception of perishables; Willow preferred to shop for those on her own.

Kellie came in one afternoon about a week after Sam had mailed off the DNA tests, saw him staring blindly at the TV with the volume cranked up to drown out the sound of Dean's delirious yelling, and promptly dragged him downstairs to the gym. She pointed him towards a punching bag, sat back, and let him try to destroy it. The next day, when she found him in the apartment again, she dragged him down to the shop and made him stay there for her entire shift. If he went close to the stairwell door, she whacked him on the back of the head (twice she used books). The third day she threatened to chain him to a table in the library. The fourth day she dragged him next door to help clean Mrs. Haya's apartment, and took an unholy glee in watching him nearly have a heart attack when he found out the hard way that Mrs. Haya was half snake-demon.

He got the hint. After that, he made sure he wasn't in the apartment when Kellie arrived. It was just easier.

At first, he spent all his time in the library, browsing through the massive occult collection, taking notes for the day they hit the road again. It was a refreshing change, actually, to have so much information on hand, a feast after the famine. He could have filled twenty books the size of Dad's journal with what he found; he settled for typing it all in, so he wouldn't have to listen to Dean bitching later about his handwriting.

Slayers came in for training two or three days a week, according to a fluid schedule that barely deserved the name. The older ones, the ones who had gotten out of high school and audibly gritted their teeth every time they were referred to as "babies," were as likely to show up in the morning before the shops opened as in the evening. The end of the school day brought in the real babies, packs of middle- and high-schoolers who skittered through the library on their way to the gym, shooting curious, dagger-sharp looks at Sam—looks that usually resulted in a crop of giggles. He didn't need Kellie's sly remarks to know that half the babies had developed massive crushes on him. He was just glad Dean wasn't awake to see it, because Dean would needle him over that forever.

In addition to training, Slayers and Watchers all showed up on Tuesday nights—not for training per se, but for Meeting, which every one of them pronounced with a clear capital M. From what Sam had pieced together, it was when they got together to compare notes, to try to track any buildup of supernatural forces that could cause problems. He had the impression that they'd overlooked encroaching evil in the past by not keeping an eye on such things. Corinna stayed late on Tuesdays to watch Dean, and Sam usually got stuck minding the store.

He didn't know what made them change their minds and invite him one week, but he suspected it had more to do with Kellie than Buffy or Willow. They'd been trying to keep him away from most of the Slayers—to spare him further indignity at the hands of the babies, maybe, or to prevent those crushes interfering if Alex's powers resurfaced. He wasn't sure. He had a hard time reading Buffy.

Kellie was waiting for him the library at six-thirty, just like they'd arranged. Sam wasn't sure why he needed an escort in, since nobody had ever questioned his right to be in the gym, and there weren't any more guards at the doors tonight than there were at any other times. "Sit down anywhere," Kellie told him, hitting a switch. Panels in the wall shared with the library slid back, revealing a massive whiteboard with a list of names—Slayers' names, he realized, and a tally of—of dead things?

"You guys keep count?"

She shrugged and picked up a marker. "Lets us keep track of weird increases," she said, adding her latest totals to the board—five vampires, two demons, one "unknown sighting."

"Unknown?" he asked.

"There's always a few strays we don't recognize. I give the Watchers a description, they play librarian, usually we figure out what it is."

"And if you don't?"

"Long as it's not hurting anybody? Keep an eye on it, but pretty much leave it alone otherwise."

He could just imagine what most hunters would say to that. Dean had enough trouble with the idea that supernatural might not equal evil; left to his own devices, he'd still destroy first and dissect motives later. Most hunters wouldn't do that much.

People started trickling in—women, mainly, but a lot of them were older than the Slayers he'd met, old enough to be his mother; a few looked old enough to be grandmothers. The Slayers were easy to pick out, because they did exactly what Kellie had: they went straight to the whiteboard and added their own tallies. God, they were young, so young... Sure, he and Dean had started out younger, but they'd been raised to hunt; Sam had never known anything else before he ran away to school. How did these little girls manage the jump from normal to Slayer?

There were older women, too, and—to his surprise—seven men who sat in a group with those older women, off to the side. "Watchers," Kellie whispered, shoving a bottle of water at him when he opened his mouth to ask a question. He had the distinct impression she'd just ordered him to shut up. Dad would have loved to have her for a kid.

There were more people than he'd thought; the gym took up most of the second floor, twice as much space as the library, and by the time the clock on the wall struck seven, it was packed. Sam recognized a few of older ones, the ones who worked in the store or helped out with cleaning the apartment. They were the only ones who weren't shooting him curious sideways looks.

"All right, everybody, shut up!" Buffy shouted—he hadn't even seen her come in—and the room went quiet. "First things first, we have a visitor tonight." Every eye in the room turned to him. He did his best not to squirm under the sudden attention. "This is Sam Winchester. His brother Dean's sick, magically, so they're staying here until Dean gets better."

No mention of their possible relation to Buffy. He wondered if it was intentional.

"Sam and Dean are hunters," Buffy went on. "If you want to ask Sam questions about the kind of stuff he's fought, how he's fought it, compare demon notes, I'm sure he won't mind. On the other hand, if I hear about you making asking him out into a dare, you'll have me to deal with. You treat him professionally, like you would a visiting Slayer, is that understood?"

Jesus. When she wanted to, the woman gave orders just as sternly as Dad.

Wait—they made dares out of getting dates?

A blonde in her early twenties raised her hand—and waved it, as if she had a very urgent question. "Buffy, what if we actually want—"

"Nora, you stay the hell away from him." The room erupted into laughter. "For the rest of you— Oh, just behave, will you?"

So that was Nora. Kellie had warned him about her. So had Mrs. Haya. And Willow. And—well, he'd lost count.

"Will, you want to give the Watchers' report?" Buffy stepped out of the way for Willow, who began talking about an upcoming vampire holiday and lunar cycles. After that, the Slayers began reporting on their past assignments and arguing—in the vicious, cutthroat way only teenage girls could—over their next assignments.

Years of hunting in secrecy, of never daring to mention the "family business," made the openness of Meeting as bizarre to Sam as any creature he and Dean had ever fought. Even in a so-called "safe" place like the Roadhouse, hunters spoke guardedly, in codes and shorthand, to protect themselves and the occasional non-hunter who wandered in looking for nothing more magical than a beer.

Now he was watching two teenagers—who had to be cheerleaders in their normal lives, there was no way those overly-perky little girls could be anything else—arguing over a kill, and who got the points, and the finer distinctions of evil things. And the rest of the room? They were bored.

Dad would have had them all running laps around Cleveland by now, or doing enough sit-ups to cripple an Army unit. Buffy and Will just let the argument play out until it looked like they might actually start fighting, at which point Buffy snapped "Split it evenly" and Willow made the appropriate notation on the whiteboard. "Anybody else got anything?"

When no one did, the Watchers retreated to the library; the youngest ones—probably the ones with homework to do and school in the morning—left in a giggling group. The remaining Slayers, college age and older, separated into knots of four or five to spar. He realized with a start of shock that they were practicing group tactics; one would play Slayer, the others enemies. Sam wasn't sure he liked the implications. It made sense, in a sick kind of way—if he knew he had to fight superheroines, he'd probably attack with a group too, just to up the odds—but he didn't like it.

They were amazing fighters, though. Sam had never seen anything like it. The skills he'd learned were nothing compared to what the Slayers were demonstrating. It wasn't just speed and strength, either. There were moves in there he couldn't even recognize, and between Dad, Dean, and the other hunters in his childhood—well, he wasn't exactly ignorant on the topic.

The idea came to him when Nora did a blurry flippy-thing that he could hardly even follow, and that only one of the other Slayers (Kellie, and odd how much he felt a sense of pride about that, like she was his Slayer) managed to counter it. Sam turned it over in his head while they continued to spar, and by the time they stopped for the night, he'd convinced himself it was a good idea. "Kellie," he began, hesitantly, when the others were gone and he and she were cleaning up the gym, "can I ask a favor?"

"Like I'm gonna tell the boss's kid no?" she asked, laughing, as she ripped open a case of water and started refilling the fridge.

"Train me."

She froze. "What?"

"Train me." She kept staring at him, so he added, "In fighting."

"You want Slayer training?" she asked incredulously. "Sam, don't take this the wrong way, but you couldn't—"

"I know, I know, I don't stand a chance of getting as good as you guys, but— Dad raised us to always look for the advantage. Just sparring with you would help my fighting skills."

Kellie's eyes darted toward the door, undoubtedly checking to see if Buffy could overhear. "I don't know, Sam—"

"It could save my life someday," he cajoled. "And—"

"And it would give you something to keep you busy," she finished.

He couldn't quite meet her gaze. How had she gotten to know him so well? Finally he nodded. "Yeah. That too."

"I'll talk to some of the girls," she said finally. "Get a group of varied skills, so we can find out where you are in relation to us. Sound good?"

"Sure."

"You'll probably be fighting the babies a lot. Especially to start."

Babies. Little girls with starry-eyed crushes and the ability to break a man's wrist in a single move, given free rein to have their hands all over him. He managed not to grimace. "I expected as much."

"God. You really are serious about this."

He forced a smile. "Winchesters don't joke about hunting or fighting."

"I'll have to ask—"

"Don't bring Buffy into this."

She gave him a look. "Sam, whether or not she's your mama, she's the Primary. She's kinda in charge, you know? Anything I—"

"She'll think she has to help. I—" He stopped, searching for a decent argument. "Parents make shitty teachers, Kellie. Especially if it's life or death. It—it just doesn't end well."

Kellie tilted her head and studied him a moment. "Sounds like the voice of experience."

"It is."

"Mm-hm." She thought a moment. "I have to at least tell Willow. If I explain, she won't tell Buffy. Besides, one of them needs to know." He hesitated. "Sam, it's their playground. They get to make the rules. And I don't want them pissed at me. The Slayers are all I've got."