A/N: Okay you guys and gals. This chapter is the one that really started this story. This story and Raindrops on Winchesters (the sequel to this one). Fair warning-This chapter does not give us a happy exactly happens to Ellie is internationally vague in this chapter, but it's spelled out in more detail in the sequel.

Eighteen Months Later

Ellie never got to ask her question.

After completing the hunt, John got more excited than anyone had ever seen him. Ellie had a natural talent for this, and John regretted having never used her for hunts before. Sure, she'd researched for him, but she'd never been in the field. That was changing.

For a few weeks, John tried to be more understanding of Ellie. Principal Adams invited her to join the school. John could see Ellie had real talent, and had a real shot at a much better life than he could offer. But Ellie shocked him by flatly turning down the offer.

"No thank you sir. I belong with my family."

Ellie did ask to finish out the semester, another three weeks, and John was more than willing to allow it. But things turned sour again. Two failed leads concerning the thing that had killed Mary put even more emotional distance between John and his children. That distance in turn put a strain on the relationships between Sam, Dean, and Ellie as well. Sam and Ellie fought more often than they had before due to John's tightening restrictions. Dean was constantly put in the middle of fights between his two younger siblings and between his brother and father. He started to leave more often, just like his father.

It was an ugly cycle, and there seemed to be no way out of it.

Suddenly, John changed his mind. He came home and told Ellie that she was going on a hunt with another hunter and his son. But Ellie didn't like the son, Grady Wells, so she refused to go. Only after her first spanking in months did Ellie leave.

Things cycled downward again.

Ellie came back from the hunt…different. She wouldn't talk to anyone. She had nightmares every single night for more than two months. She told no one what had happened on the hunt, only that the monster had been killed and that's 'all you need to know'.

Then came the night of the big blow up.

Sam and Dean were out. Dean was on a date and Sam was doing whatever it was that Sam usually did when John allowed him some grain of freedom. John was at a bar, attempting to drink his sorrows away and, as it never did, it wasn't working. Ellie, who claimed that she didn't feel well, had stayed behind in the room and was supposed to be sleeping.

Ellie called the bar and asked her father to come home. It was an emergency and she needed to talk to him, and talk to him right now, before Sam and Dean got home. She tearfully recounted the news that she knew would break her family apart.

"I'm pregnant."

In a drunken rage that John would never quite clearly recall, words were said. Well, screamed was probably a much more accurate description. When he found himself standing over Ellie with his fist raised, John had felt sick to his stomach and left the room.

As he sobered up, John regretted his actions, and made up his mind to go back to the room and set things right with Ellie. This was fixable. He'd promised Ellie that they'd all stay together, and he knew that if Mary had been alive, she would have put him in an early grave for the way he'd treated Ellie. So he came back.

And the worst thing that had ever happened to John Winchester finally happened.

Sam came running out of the room with a note. The note was lengthy, but basically boiled down to I'm sorry I let you down, I left so you could move on with your life. John tore up three states looking for the missing Ellie, only to get a teary phone call from his friend Jim Murphy.

Ellie had committed suicide. Two days after leaving the hotel room, she'd gone to a bridge a few miles from Jim's house and jumped off.

Now, as he sat in the motel room drinking his wounds away, John thought about what exactly he'd done. He'd always felt responsible for Mary's death, even if, deep down, he'd known it wasn't his fault. But this one was all on him. For weeks, Sam's sobbing and Dean's bitterness was background. The three of them were barely alive.

Somewhere a few states away

As John, Sam, and Dean mourned Ellie's death, no one in the small town thought much about the dirty, ragged teenager that they knew was living in the ally in town. The town had a problem with runaway teens, so no one really checked into who she was. She would dumpster dive for food late at night, sleep a little bit at a time, and repeat the process again the next day.

She had lost track of the number of cities she'd been in. She wasn't even sure anymore how long it had been since everything happened. It felt like weeks. Her belly growth was steady, though there were days when she was certain that she wasn't actually pregnant.

A few kind souls tried to give her money, food, or shelter, but she pushed them away. Despite her father's treatment the night she ran away, she she still held his lessons close to heart. Don't trust anyone. Stay alert at all times.

It was exhausting. And with the baby inside her, it was even worse.

There were a few nights that she'd been to a shelter. It wasn't so bad. It kept her fed on more than scraps, and kept her dry and warm for the night.

Tonight she hadn't been so lucky. The temperature was falling fast, and she had nothing but the clothes she had on to keep her warm.

Go call Bobby. He'll take you in.

No, she decided. She knew right away how that conversation would go. Bobby would hear her out, try and convince her that her father hadn't meant a word he said, and she and her baby would be thrown right back into the life. Pastor Jim also crossed her mind. She knew the kindhearted pastor would take her and her baby in. She knew he'd support her, help her finish school and get on her feet. She also knew that he wouldn't make her hip back to her father. In fact, he'd probably insist on her not going. But here would make her talk to him.

Every time she thought of her father, she thought of how angry he'd been. The image of him with his fist in the air raised to hit her produced more nightmares than any monster she'd ever seen. If her father truly thought of her as no better than someone he might get in a fight with, then she'd never bother him again.

The one haunting thought she had? The one true regret in the entire thing?

Her brothers.

Sammy had been her best friend since before they were born. There wasn't a single memory she had that Sam wasn't in. They had started school together, gotten in trouble together, gotten boo boos and broken hearts together. She knew that Sammy's heart was broken, and she wished there was a way she could fix it. Fix it without going back anyway.

And Dean. While John may have been her "real" father, Dean was really her father. Dean was the one who patched up the boo boos she and Sammy got. He was the one who soothed her through the nightmares and the broken hearts. He had taught her how to tie her shoes and ride a bike and outrun even the fastest bullies. He hugged and kissed her constantly, even with his 'no chick flick moments' rule in place, because it was what she needed.

If Sammy's heart was broken, she was quite certain that Dean's was shattered.

But at least the two of them had each other, she thought. She knew that Sam and Dean would never have treated her the way her father did, no matter the circumstances, but she didn't even want to chance the two of them being disappointed in her. Better to leave and let them get on with life.

Before she had any more thoughts, a strange sensation overtook her. Her stomach was…fluttering? She briefly remembered watching a butterfly as a small child, and the fluttering sensation reminded her of that. It took a moment fir her to realize what was going on, but when she fix, the first smile she'd had in weeks came to her face.

"Hi, little baby. Are you saying hey to Mommy?"

The fluttering came again, and this time she let out a full laugh.

"I feel you. I hope you're warm enough in there."

She talked to the baby a few minutes longer, laughing every time she felt it moving.

"I don't know whether you're girl or boy yet, so I'm just gonna call you Bunny for now. You like that?"

She took more fluttering to be a yes.

"So listen, Bunny. I'm gonna do my best to try and find a place for us to go. I won't be selfish and keep you if it means you have to live on the streets like this. I want you to have a family that loves you and takes good care of you. Even if that means it can't be me."

The tears were starting again, and she wiped them away. It's time to grow up.

"I wish we could go back to Grandpa John. I think he'd really love you if he gave you a chance. But I don't think we can ever go to him. It's just us now, Bunny. So you go to sleep and Mommy'll be here to keep you warm and safe, okay?"

She knew she had to pick a new name for herself. Ellie Winchester was dead, and she needed to stay that way. It came to her that night in a dream.

Though she'd never known her own mother, she'd long since gotten over her hatred for her. When she woke up from a dream where her mother was rocking her baby in a rocking chair, she made the decision.

Her new name would be Mary Campbell.

FINIS