AN: Sorry for the long wait. I've had to deal with a crisis this month and between that and a couple of normal, non-catastrophic but still time-consuming events that I needed to take care of, both my ability to write and the time I have to do it has been heavily affected. I'm sorry for that because I know that I had more time to dedicate in the past. My updates will continue to be slow for a while, but I promise, this is my favorite hobby and I will still get updates out. Thanks for the encouragement and continued expression of interest during the lapse. Eventually, I expect that I will have great expanses of time again to immerse myself (and thus you guys) in this world.

Thanks again for reading and for the reviews. It means a lot to me. I know I've been crap about responding (for the same reason I've been crap about writing), but I really appreciate all of you, both lurkers and reviewers.

Also, to the guest who suggested that Dean spanking me would motivate me to write more... yes, that, please. :)


Six days later, I was sitting at the desk in the kitchen just staring at the paper in front of me. I had my head propped up on my hand and I was swinging my feet while I read my last essay for Sam and Dean: What it means to think before I act. I'd done all the other essays they'd assigned me and read all of the essays to them, and they'd been happy with them. This one, though… I sighed and tried to shove the tears down. Bobby was off in the salvage yard accepting some new cars, so I couldn't really talk to him about it, and Sam and Dean's descriptions of what they wanted were leaving me completely baffled.

God, I was trying really, really hard and it wasn't good enough. The slow knot that had been forming in my stomach since lunch tightened and grew. If I couldn't get this right, they wouldn't let me come back. I rubbed my forehead and then dragged my hand through my hair, still fighting tears. I thumped my elbows onto the table and covered my face with my hands. What would happen to me if they wouldn't take me back? I had no idea. Homeless? In the hands of complete strangers with no idea how to take care of this fire thing I had? Bobby wouldn't let me stay with him, not long term. He'd said as much, multiple times. I swallowed against the lump, dug into my pocket, and pulled out my phone. I'd rewritten the essay again, added some sentences. I could only hope that they would be enough.

Dean answered the phone on the second ring. "You rewrite it again?" he said right off the bat. I'd called him just a half an hour before, and a half an hour before that, and an hour before that. I wasn't entirely sure what they were hunting right now, something about a ghost or a demon at a school making kids hurt other kids, but he'd been taking my calls at least.

"Yeah," I said. My heart pounding, I read him the sentences I had added, my voice quick, sharp, and breathless.

"No," he said patiently. "You're just repeating what you said before. You're just rewording the same things. Listen, Jessie…"

I'd already stopped listening to him, closing my eyes. His voice poured through the phone, but couldn't penetrate the haze in my brain. Again, I'd screwed it up again. They were never going to come get me. I was going to end up back in the woods, taking care of myself, or under the misguided care of someone who would have no idea what they were getting into. Elbows still on the table with my head propped up on my hands, tears dripped from my closed eyes onto the essay. My throat was closed and my head had started throbbing. I was frozen.

"Jessie? Damn it, little girl, you better not have hung up on me!" Dean growled into the phone, breaking through the fog a little.

"I didn't," I whispered through my closed throat. I felt like I couldn't breathe and the haze in my brain was thickening and turning red.

"You think you can do that?" Dean asked me in the tone of someone who was repeating a question.

I stared down at the table where my essay was, biting my bottom lip as hard as I could. I felt like I was being buffeted by waves. "What?" I asked.

"You think you can add that to the essay?" Dean asked more slowly this time, his voice beginning to sound a little impatient.

I lost it. I screamed into the phone. "I don't know what you want from me, god damn it! I tried! I tried and I failed and now you're never going to come get me." I started sobbing.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then Dean said in a soothing tone, "Jessie…"

"No!" I shrieked. I pulled the phone away from my ear and threw it at the wall as had as I could. It shattered, bits and pieces of plastic falling all over the stove and sink. Then I ran.

Bobby found me about a half hour later sitting against one of the trees in the yard, my back to the house. I had my knees pulled up to my chest and my head buried in my arms. He crouched down next to me and put his arm around me. "You've gone and done it now, kid," he said, pulling me towards him. I let go of my knees and wrapped my arms around his neck, which made him plunk unceremoniously on his knees in the dirt, but he didn't say anything. He just held me while I cried, rubbing my back.

After a little bit, when I'd calmed down a little, I asked, "What did I do?"

He sighed. "Two strikes," he said.

"Oh." After thirty seconds, I added, "What does it matter? I can't finish the stupid essay. They aren't coming for me anyway."

"Bullshit," Bobby said forcefully. "Those boys would never abandon you. They're trying to teach you a lesson, not get rid of you."

I didn't believe him. I let him go and got to my feet. "I can't get this essay right!" I said, looking anywhere but at Bobby. "They said that I can't come home unless I do the essays."

"Idjit," Bobby said, getting to his feet.

I'd only ever heard him say that to Sam and Dean, and it gave me pause because he only ever did it when they were being dense. I wiped my eyes and turned to look at him.

"Did you write the essay?" Bobby asked, taking my hand. I let him.

"Yeah."

"Did you do your best?" he continued, starting to lead me towards the house.

"Yeah, but I don't understand what they want from me. They keep telling me it's wrong," I wailed, dragging my feet.

We'd reached the steps to the porch. Bobby sighed and turned to me. "Did you listen to why it's wrong? I mean really listen and try to understand?" He looked me in the eyes. I opened my mouth to say I had, but he held up a hand. "Think about it."

So I thought, replaying the memories of the phone calls back in my head. I'd thought I'd listened to them, but now I couldn't remember anything they'd said. I couldn't remember what they'd said when they were telling me what they were looking for. "Uh," I said, dropping my eyes.

"Did you just hear that it was wrong and get upset?" Bobby asked me. "Did you stop listening to them after that?"

"Uh," I said again, staring at the scuff marks on my sneakers.

"Those boys will explain everything to you in different ways until you get it, but you have to listen to them, darlin'" Bobby admonished mildly.

I flushed bright red. I had to stop doing this to myself. I needed to think… oh.

Bobby saw the understanding cross my face. "Come on, you're calling Dean back. He's worried about you and not too happy about you hanging up on him." He took my hand.

As I followed him up the porch steps, I said, "Does he know I broke the cell phone?"

"Nope," Bobby said. "You can explain that to him, too. Then, you can write me my essay on why you should listen to Sam and Dean, since you've got a case study to work from now."

"Great," I muttered, following him into the house.


I called Dean on the kitchen phone and explained what I had done, my face red the whole time. He wasn't happy that I'd broken my cell phone in a fit of temper. He told me we were going to have to work on that in the future and that it tied into the whole thinking before I acted thing. I responded him I had two strikes now today, one for breaking the phone and one for leaving the house without asking permission from Bobby, and he got really quiet for a second.

"Don't get any more," he said. "I want to be able to come get you tomorrow."

I took a second to absorb that. It made me feel a little better, like maybe he'd been missing me as much as I'd been missing him. "Yes, Dean," I said with the tiniest of smiles.

After a couple of seconds, he sighed. "All right, look, I'm going to cut you some slack here because you've been trying so hard and because I know you need to write Bobby's essay about listening to us still." I perked up a little. "Get a pen and write this down. Thinking before you act means that when something happens or when you get an idea, you stop and ask yourself a few questions. You ask why you want to do it, what your options are, how much trouble you're going to get into, what it's going to do to other people, and if it's in your best interests. You got it?"

He'd said them slowly so I'd managed to keep up with him. "Yes, Dean," I said, setting the pen on the desk.

"Now take what you wrote and explain why you're asking yourself each of those questions, ok?" Dean asked. "You've already got most of it in there, like the how much trouble you're going to get into and a little bit of the what it will do to other people, but I want you to write down why you're asking each of those questions."

I sighed in relief. That was actually much easier. "Thanks, Dean," I said.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I said.

"You know, if you'd just listened to me…" he started.

"I know! I'm sorry. I got upset."

"Being upset doesn't mean that you stop listening to the people around you, little girl. You put that in Bobby's essay too, got it?"

My ears were red again. "Yeah," I said.

"Write Bobby's essay first," he said. "If you don't get this one done before we come get you, you can work on it on the road."

"Ok, Dean," I said. I sat down in the chair, put my elbow on the table and rested my head on my hand. "You are coming to get me tomorrow, right? You promise?"

"Yes, sweetheart. I promise. Do NOT get that third strike. Promise me," he said sternly.

"I promise, Dean. I love you," I said softly, feeling better than I had in days.

"I love you, too. We're going to go wrap up this ghost case we're working on now. We've got to stop a bus and burn some remains. I'll see you tomorrow. Be good."


After I cleaned up the cell phone, I dashed out Bobby's essay. I knew why I needed to listen to Sam and Dean. They had more experience than I did, they knew what was right and wrong, I'd get in trouble if I didn't, they knew how supernatural things worked, they had my best interests at heart and could judge them better than I could, they wanted the best for me, they loved me… By the time I was done writing, I had tears in my eyes as it was again brought home to me just how badly I'd been treating them by not doing what they said. I was worrying them unnecessarily and making their already hard lives more complicated with the shit I was pulling, on top of just dealing with my abilities. I hadn't even been trying the last couple of months, not really. I'd let my terror and grief over Gabby get the best of me. I put all that in the essay. Bobby was on the phone pretending to be an FBI agent supervisor or something when I was done. I handed it to him and went to sit on the couch in the living room to wait for him to be done.

After a couple of minutes, he came in and sat next to me. "You're missing a little bit," he said. When I tensed up, he added, "No, don't fly off the handle. I'm not telling you you're wrong. All of this is right, but you're missing something."

I took a couple of breaths. "Ok…" I said in a small voice, scared and a little upset. "What?"

"If you listen to them and do what they say, what happens?"

"I stay out of trouble?" I asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, and that means…"

"I don't know, Bobby. Jesus. Can't you just tell me?" I snapped.

"You wanna spend some time in the corner thinkin' bout this on your own?" Bobby shot back.

"No," I said, dropping my head.

He let me sit there for a minute before he went on. "Why are you here?" he asked.

"Because I screwed up and now they don't trust me anymore."

"So if you listen to them and do what they say, what happens?"

"They'll trust me again?" I asked.

"Exactly. They're training you to kill Gabby, right? So if they trust you and you're trained to hunt, and they can count on you when they need to, what do you think that means?"

I let that sink in, thinking about it, a faint hope beginning to rise. "They might let me hunt other things?" I looked up and met his eyes.

He nodded, his eyebrows raised. "Yeah," he said. "They might let you help do small things, little things, over time, and then when you can do those things, they'll know they can count on you and they might start asking you to do bigger things."

I was afraid to hope. "Really?" I asked.

"You shouldn't count on it, but it's possible. It's only if they can trust you, darlin'."

I threw my arms around his neck. "Thanks, Bobby," I said.

He hugged me back. "Don't tell them I said that or Dean will kill me," he said. I giggled into his shoulder.

"All right, how about we get some dinner and go see a movie," he said.

"Can we get some pie?" I asked, thinking about Dean.

Bobby let me go, and I climbed off his lap. "Sure, kid. We can get some pie."


I woke up when the bedroom door opened. I cracked an eye and saw two tall silhouettes in the doorway. Shrieking, I flew out of bed and into Sam and Dean's arms. They hugged me to them, one after the other. Then Sam flipped on the light and started laughing.

"What are you wearing, squirt?" he asked me, holding me an arms length away from him so he could see. Dean's eyes were dancing. I looked down at myself. I had Dean's red plaid shirt on with the arms rolled up so my hands were free and Sam's sweatpants with the bottoms rolled up so that my feet were free. The drawstring was cinched tight around my waist, but the clothes hung on me like sacks.

I pouted. "They kept me from having nightmares," I explained sulkily.

Sam laughed again at my expression, and Dean picked me up and hugged me. "You won't have to worry about that now that we're here," he said. "Get dressed and packed. We've got a case in Iowa we're headed to." He put me down. "Meet me downstairs in ten," he said. "I need to talk to Bobby."

Sam stepped out of the room while I changed and then came back in to help me pick up the wild mess the room had become over the week I'd been here. I asked him about the case they'd been on while we packed me up, and he told me all about how they'd gone back to a school that they'd gone to as kids because there had been a haunting. It had turned out that the kid who had tried to bully Sam while he'd been there had killed himself. His father had kept a lock of the kid's hair on the school bus. From there, the ghost of the kid had been possessing students and attacking bullies at the school. They'd chased him down and burned the hair to stop it. I was sad I had missed the hunt. It would have been neat to see a school that Sam and Dean had gone to.

By the time he was done with the story, we'd gotten all of my stuff packed. Sam shouldered my school bag and I carried my duffel down the stairs to meet Dean in the living room. Bobby was sitting at his desk, looking grumpily awake. It was only six-thirty in the morning, and the sun wasn't even up.

"You ready?" Dean asked me.

I nodded emphatically, dropped my duffel, and turned to Bobby. Walking around his desk, I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck. "I love you, Bobby. Thanks for everything."

He hugged me back. "You're welcome, darlin'," he said. "Try not to get sent back here, ok? Remember what I said and listen to those boys."

"Yes, Bobby," I replied. I went back around the desk and picked up my duffel. While Sam said good-bye to Bobby, I slid my hand into Dean's and leaned against him.

He kissed the top of me head. "Don't ever make me do this again, Jessie," he whispered to me, his voice strained with emotion.

I shook my head. "I won't," I said, but there was a nagging ache in my stomach as we went out to the car, knowing that he would send me away and wondering what I would do if he did it again and didn't let me come back.