A/N: I'm totally not in a zoom class that I should be paying attention to instead of posting this right now... why would you think that...

Old, and It Fits

Anna is eighteen

"So, yeah," Kate finished with a sigh. "College is intense but kinda hilarious, and I think I'm gonna fail my chemistry class. How are you?"

Anna smirked. "You won't fail, Kate. You're buckets of smart... If that's a way people talk."

"Well, I'm not gonna do well, and that's as bad as failing."

"Are you kidding me? Remember that class I failed to prove a point?"

"How could I forget? My life was in as much danger as yours when Sam found out."

"Nobody's life was in danger," Anna said with an eye roll and moved so she could lie on her back on her bed with her head tilted upside down over the edge of her mattress. "Sam's a total teddy bear. As I was saying, though, he was far less pissed when I got a C than when I had an F."

"Okay, so there's a minor difference. I want an A. I really want an A."

"I know you do, but it's your first semester, so cut yourself a little slack and trust that you're smart enough to do this shit."

Kate went a little quiet the way she always did when Anna started complimenting her. "Thanks," she said softly, then abruptly cleared her throat as if trying to eliminate the imaginary awkwardness. "So, you said you had a crapfest to talk about?"

"Not a crapfest," Anna corrected and sat up abruptly, the blood that had rushed to her head making her feel a bit dizzy. "I'm just getting kinda restless. Not all of us have bats in our dorms and hard chemistry classes to occupy ourselves with."

"You've been hunting full time. That's ten times more exciting than NYU."

"Is it?" Anna challenged. "I feel like I'm not doing anything. I've been training more than I've been actually hunting, and I'm ready for more than that. I'm beyond ready. I'm itching for it."

"Okay, well, not to be a dick, but maybe you should trust the two experienced hunters to know when you're ready."

It wasn't meant to hurt, and it shouldn't have- for that very reason if nothing else. But it did. "I have experience too," she said more defensively than intended. She tried to backtrack, but she felt a bit flustered. "I- I get- I get what you're saying," she amended, trying to slow down and think through what she wanted to say. Her teenage years up to this point had been riddled with lectures on respect and arguments that could have been avoided altogether had she simply been better at thinking before she spoke. "I don't want to be the kid anymore, Kate," she admitted, her tone falling somewhere between vulnerable and frustrated. "I know how to shoot and run and fight and stab and hunt. I can do all the things I need to do. I have been since I was a kid. Granted, not as much as they did as kids. But still."

"But is taking it slow such a bad thing? Like you said, you may have been in the life since you were a kid, but you didn't start to really train beyond self defense until we graduated."

"Okay, but all I'm saying is, I graduated literally forever ago, and I still haven't been out on a real hunt yet. I mean, we've done some spirits, and I took the head off a vamp last week, but... I just feel like I'm not goin' all in like I expected, you know?"

"Have you mentioned it?"

"Sorta," Anna mumbled. She picked at the hem of her hoodie and sighed. "I keep getting the same look. It's like every time I say I'm ready, they use it as proof that I'm not. Like I'm overeager or something. And there's a lot of next-level crap going on that they won't let me in on even though I'm out of school."

"What kind of next-level crap?"

"That's the thing. I don't know. Ever since their mom came back last year, things have been weird. I'm starting to think they've kept more from me these last five years than I realized. I mean, I know about the British Men of Letters, but sometimes I wonder if I only know because I was implicated. It's like they keep shoving me out of everything they possibly can. They finally agreed to train me to be a hunter, but I'm not doing anything important."

"You said you've been on ghost hunts, which is a weird sentence by the way."

"Yeah, but even then it's like I'm just there so they can say they've let me hunt. I helped Sam with the research and I took a turn shoveling out the grave, but the second things start to look hairy, I get pulled behind somebody and protected. It's infuriating."

"That does sound annoying," Kate admitted. "Maybe you just need to prove somehow that you can do the hard stuff. I mean, obviously be safe about it, but you're a capable person, and the only reason they're not seeing it is because you're their little sister. You have to find a way to tell them that you're more than that."

Anna thought about that for a minute, twisting a stray thread from her sweater hem around her finger and letting it unravel again. "I think you're right," she said. "I have to prove I'm not a kid anymore. Show them I'm a hunter, not a tag-along."

"Okay, I don't really like the way you sound now. You're using your 'I have a bad idea' voice. We're not in high school anymore, Anna. And I'm not there to bail you out."

"Speaking of bailing me out," Anna said, completely ignoring the first chunk of Kate's reply. "If I tell the boys I'm visiting you, you'll cover for me if they call, right?"

"What? Why? Why do I need to cover? Where are you actually going?"

"I don't know yet," Anna said around a grin. "I have to find a case first."

"You're gonna go on a hunt by yourself?! Even Sam and Dean always hunt together."

"Yeah, but they've hunted alone before. Dean used to do it all the time when I was a little kid. And he would only have been in his early twenties, so not that much older than I am now."

"Don't you think a few years makes a lot of difference when it comes to this kind of stuff."

"Maybe," Anna admitted with a shrug. "But I can do this, Kate. I know how to hunt. I'll go in smart, and I'll play it safe. If I'm not sure that I can do something, I won't try it. I promise."

"There's no way for me to stop you, is there?"

"No. Cover for me?"

"Yeah, fine. Look, I have to go to class. But if you get yourself killed, I'll bring you back to life."

"Considering how much you mean to me, that's a much better threat than threatening to kill me."

"I know," Kate said smugly. "But seriously. Be careful. And stay perfect."

"You too, Katie."

"See ya."

Anna hung up and tossed her phone onto her bed, immediately moving to open her laptop and search for strange deaths in neighboring states. The closest case she could find that looked to be anything more than a vengeful spirit was up in the Northeastern state of Vermont. A flurry of bodies had turned up after a recent snowstorm- and who was still getting snowstorms in March?- and while three of them had seemed to be casualties of the sub-zero temperatures, two of them had turned up with their hearts missing. The assumption was that they'd been attacked by animals, but Vermont was better known for its deer population than its bear population, not that it didn't have a few of those too. Anna felt a rush of tension-laced excitement run through her. She was about to hunt a werewolf. By herself.

()()()

"So it's lookin' like we're gonna be a few more days. Sorry, kiddo."

Anna leaned back in the driver's seat of the beautiful '68 Mustang Cobra she'd been gifted when she turned eighteen and sighed. She was already six hours into her drive to Dorset, Vermont, but she'd stopped for gas at a fill-up station and taken Dean's call there. She couldn't let them hear the car running, or they would know she wasn't at home like she'd said she was. It wasn't that she was scared, per se. She was an adult now, after all, so she couldn't be told what to do anymore. But she knew her family felt differently in that department, and she saw no reason to alert them to her plans and end up in the backseat on her own hunt.

"It's fine," Anna said, trying not to grit her teeth in frustration.

It was true that she had plans for how to spend the next few days now, and in fact, the boys being gone longer than planned was only playing right into her hand. But they didn't know she had plans. They thought they were just leaving her at home like a kid, exactly as they had when she was still a high school student, and all Dean could offer was a lame apology.

"But, uh... I think I'm gonna go see Kate," she said decidedly.

"What? Why?" Sam's voice crackled through the speaker of her phone. Great, so she'd been on speaker all along. That was nice to know.

It was a surprising reaction. She'd gone to visit Kate during her friend's first semester at college, and they'd been totally fine with it, only demanding a certain number of texts and phone calls so they knew she was safe during her time travelling there and back. "What do you mean 'why'?" she asked, her annoyance coming through clearly this time. "She's my friend, and I'm bored. I thought I'd spend the weekend with her."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Sam told her.

Anna caught the bewildered look on her own face in the rearview mirror. "Why?" she asked, not bothering to hide her frustration or confusion anymore.

"B- uh- Because."

"Okay, well, I'm sorry. But 'uh, because' isn't enough of a reason for me. So you're gonna have to do better."

"Hey, watch the disrespect."

Anna rolled her eyes and clenched her jaw at the reminder. Eighteen years old, and she was still the kid who had to watch her mouth around her elders.

"Okay, listen, Anna, we have reason to believe that the Men of Letters are targeting hunters."

"What?" Anna frowned. "Hunters like who? Is somebody hurt?"

"A few have been killed," Sam admitted quietly.

"They've been going after hunters while they were working cases, making it look like they just slipped up, so maybe they wouldn't go after you. I don't know," Dean said. "But there's no reason to take a chance, so you're gonna lay low-"

"Lay low," Anna snorted. "If somebody's targeting hunters, then I should be helping you find them."

"No."

"But-"

"No, Anna. You're not ready yet. We'll talk about this when we get back. For now, just stay home."

"That's ridiculous-"

"Hey. There's nothing ridiculous about it. We just want you safe." There was that familiar puddle of guilt forming in her stomach."And right now that means staying at the bunker. You can't be out here, Anna. Not right now. Promise me."

Anna let the silence hang between them for a moment. The last thing she wanted to do was agree to this. And it wasn't just because she felt they were being overprotective and ridiculous in more ways than one. It was also because she was already too far into her trip to Vermont to turn back. When she said the words, she would be lying, something she despised. Regardless, she had to say it, or this phone call would last forever, nobody willing to give up.

"I promise," she finally muttered, and the puddle of guilt expanded.

()()()

In Dorset, there were two feet of snow on the ground. It made Anna want to curl her fingers into the fluff and pack it firmly to make snowballs, throw them at Kate or Sam or Dean and squeal when they threw one back. But she was by herself, and there was as much about being alone that sucked as there was that felt great.

Having her own motel room was odd. Apparently, you were supposed to be twenty-one to rent a room, so she had to pull out a fake ID earlier than anticipated. The clerk looked suspicious, but Anna had a mature enough demeanor that no questions were asked outright. Either that, or the clerk just appreciated that she paid in cash and didn't want to take a chance on losing the income.

Anna laid the salt lines as soon as she'd locked the door behind her, her duffel lying open and abandoned a few feet from the door. Rather than leaving it at that the way they usually did, she drew protective sigils on sticky notes and stuck them to the door and on each wall. She even referenced the journal Sam had given her for a few more wardings to put up. When she'd finished, Anna surveyed the room with a careful eye. She'd been feeling ill at ease and vulnerable since hearing the news that hunters were being targeted. She may not be considered by most to be a full time hunter, but she'd been on plenty of hunts in her day- a few of them worked with larger groups of hunters- and with the kind of talk that tended to go around about the Winchesters, she knew anybody interested would be thrilled to get their hands on her...

Much as Anna hated to admit it, she knew she was the weakest of them, not because she wasn't strong, but because she wasn't experienced. She was young, and she could be reckless or messy at times. As long as she was on her own, she would have to play it extra safe. She could fight off anything that came after her, but only by playing it smart. She couldn't afford to make any of her usual mistakes.

The room looked good, though, and it made her feel just a smidge safer. She knew better than to let her guard totally down, but she felt like she could chance actually sleeping for a good four or five hours so long as she kept her gun close and her knife closer. Anna was still dismayed at her own inability to wake up with her gun in her hand like her brothers always did. She lacked the instinct they had, and it was beyond frustrating. Now, it was more than an irritation, though, it was fear-inducing. Anna only hoped that the anxiety would be enough to make her sleep light tonight.

()()()

"I was a friend of Gwen's," Anna lied brazenly to the kindly man with graying hair and crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. He was Miranda's father, single, and she'd charmed her way into his good graces by simply making eyes and offering her condolences. Grieving parents often warmed up to kids like that, because they had protective instincts firing off left and right, but they had no child left to protect. All that nurturing had to go someplace, even if it couldn't come out to its fullest potential. Anna hated to take advantage of it, but she was only here so she could find out where the hell the werewolf that had killed this poor guy's daughter had gone off too, and so she didn't feel quite so guilty for lying to him.

"From school, I presume?"

Anna smiled a little tightly as her mind reacted with annoyance. Gwen had been a Junior in high school, and Anna had gotten her diploma months ago. Did she really look that young? Maybe she hadn't needed to draw all those sigils. Maybe she looked enough like a useless kid that- And woah. She needed to focus. That was her real problem. "No, I'm not local," she said, forcing her smile to soften. Why was she so bad at this? Sam usually did the talking. She was so used to playing the Agent's kid, wandering around and seeing if she could find anything helpful because she was practically invisible to the people they were talking to. "We met by dumb luck," she finished with a nod. Before any more questions could be asked of her, she tapped her fingers against the table in front of her. "Sir, do you know what really happened? Everybody at the police station kept talking about wild animals, and... I don't want to bring up anything painful," she said more gently as she saw his eyes drift downward and grow damp.

"That's alright. We all need some closure. But you don't want to know what happened to her," he said resolutely. "It was an animal attack."

"But it's so strange," Anna said, frowning at the tabletop before looking back up at Gwen's father. "I've never ever heard of anything like that even close to here. And the man at the police station said something ate her heart. Where could you go around here to find an animal like that?"

The man shook his head, looking so deeply troubled that Anna felt guilty. She was doing good, she reminded herself. She wondered if the boys ever felt like this and if they had when they were younger, or if they'd always been professionals. There was a time she would have simply assumed that they were both too professional. But Anna was beginning to realize just how much could change in a person as they aged while at the same time beginning to see how human and messy a person could be as they grew into adulthood. It made her feel less sure of such assumptions. Sam and Dean were impressive people, but they were people. And there she was, off-topic again. But it didn't matter, because Gwen's dad was still struggling to answer her.

"Sir?" she prompted gently. "I'm sorry if I said something-"

"No, that's alright," he assured, holding out a hand as if to brush off the apology. "You want answers. We all want answers. Gwen went out to a dance at the high school. But they found her body-" He cleared his throat, and Anna watched his eyes grow wet again. "She was in a parking lot on the other side of town."

Anna fought the urge to groan. This was information she'd already had, and it was unhelpful. She knew where Gwen had been at the start of the night, and she knew where the body had been found. But Gwen hadn't been killed at the school, and it was unclear how she could have been killed in an abandoned gas station parking lot.

Werewolves didn't often kill in urban areas, but it wasn't out of the question, and, in fact, they'd seen it before. But where would the wolf actually be? She needed its location to find it. With a sudden thought, she fought the urge to groan again, this time thanks to her own stupidity. It wasn't about one or the other. It was about connecting the two places.

How had Gwen gotten from the dance to the parking lot? Why had every victim been found in the parking lot even though there'd been no reason any of them should have been there? This werewolf was thinking ahead, bringing its victims to a place there would be no one around. That meant a few things.

This wasn't a pure blood. It wasn't purely animal, hunting out of the woods and killing by some carnal instinct. It was a human that had been turned, and it was thinking, pre-meditating. These killings weren't random, and the location wasn't the issue. Anna had choices now. She could either wait in that parking lot for the wolf to show, or she could figure out who it was and track the sucker down. But one option meant the wolf might have time to kill again, and the other meant she might be able to stop it before it had the chance.

"You say she was at a dance?" Anna asked, feeling like her brain was suddenly illuminated. It felt good thinking her way through this. Not only had she figured something important out, but she'd figured it out on her own. Now she just needed to find and kill the sucker. So, you know... the hard part. But she felt good about it. "Who'd she go with?"

"What does this have to do with anything?" Gwen's father asked. "The dance isn't important now. She's gone."

Anna nodded sullenly. "I understand that, Sir. But what if she wasn't attacked by an animal? What if there's more to it? I'm worried about this. I want to make sure no one else gets hurt. And I want to do right by Gwen." She was beginning to feel like Betty from Riverdale in her acting. Why would this guy give her any information when she was just a teenager- a minor, he had assumed- trying to start up her own investigation over something that should be left to the authorities? As expected, the man began to shake his head, slowly at first and then more decidedly.

"You should go home," he said. "Keep safe from all this. Give your parents a hug. Sometimes life is short and sad, and that's all you need to get out of this."

For the third time in under ten minutes, Anna fought the urge to groan. She'd never realized how much she needed the boys just for pragmatic reasons. She simply wasn't old enough to conduct these interviews effectively. But she was all she had, so she reluctantly put the thought away and went with option two.

()()()

Sitting on the far side of the abandoned lot, she felt vulnerable in a totally different way than she had back in that motel room as she drew sigils and poured out salt lines. She felt vulnerable because she was quite literally waiting for a monster to show up and bare its teeth.

Werewolves were straightforward kills compared to some. Anna's gun was loaded with silver bullets, and if she could get a clear shot, she would be able to take it out without even getting close. No rituals, spells, or even grave desecration and fire. It seemed almost easy in those terms.

But Anna also knew that, in reality, werewolf hunts often turned out to be anything but easy. Werewolves had insane strength paired with mostly human minds. They could be both smart and brutal, a dangerous combination. More than that, if forced to get close in a fight- the very reason she was currently carrying not one but two silver knives on her person- one ran the risk of being bitten, a fate worse than death. It was one thing to have your heart ripped out of your chest- instant death- and another to be bitten and turn into a werewolf. Of course, there was a cure, but it was hardly guaranteed to work, and Anna was hunting solo, so... there would be no cure made of for her were something to go wrong. God, but that would be a shitty phone call for the boys to get. She didn't let herself think on it any further.

Anna leaned back against the brick of the building behind her and shivered with the freezing night air. Her cheeks and nose stung with the cold, and her fingers were numbing inside her thin winter gloves. But at least it wasn't windy or snowy outside. Just cold. And, of course, there was snow on the ground beneath her. She'd come underprepared for the elements, and she'd already suffered enough to learn her lesson. Next time she hunted in February in the Northeast, Anna would bring a big puffy jacket and snowpants. For now, the cold soaked into her jeans, and she shivered under her hoodie and jacket.

"I'm gonna be here all night," she grumbled to herself as the moon grew more and more visible in the dark sky. The cycle was right, one more clue she'd had that she was hunting a wolf.

It was around eleven when she began to hear noises from far off in the distance. Anna ducked around the corner of the building and turned her head just far enough to see whatever happened with one eye. She waited with bated and visible breath as the sounds moved closer. Somebody was screaming and crying. The voice sounded young.

Anna heard an inhuman growl just as the creature came into her sight. It was hard to see anything with just an old street light to go by, but it was clear immediately that this was your typical werewolf. It's eyes were animalistic, an unnatural shade of yellow, and it's fingernails were far too long and black giving the appearance that it had claws.

It was all she needed, and she stepped around the corner with her gun raised and at the ready. "Hey, fugly!"

The wolf turned with a roar, and Anna would have fired without a second thought... if not for the kid it was holding in front of itself. The boy made a rather convenient shield for the wolf. "Let him go," she commanded, trying for authority. It didn't seem to make an ounce of difference to the creature standing ahead of her. It opened it's mouth to show it's fangs and roared at her. The boy it was holding struggled in its grip, whimpering and begging for it to let him go. "You think you're tough, big guy," she goaded. "Then let him go and come at the big scary human girl!"

The werewolf tilted its head. Anna was struck not for the first time by how human it looked. If not for the claws, the teeth, and its strange eyes, no one would have been able to tell the thing was a monster. Well, that and its kill streak.

"You scared?" she taunted.

It looked like the thing wasn't going to take her bait, but then it threw the kid it had been holding on the ground and charged forward. "Run!" Anna demanded of him, and she saw him take off. She cocked her gun and fired, but the wolf was already practically on top of her, and her shot hit it high. She had to get the heart to kill it, and she'd missed.

The weight of the thing as it crashed into her and knocked her into the ground, flat on her back, was crushing. She struggled to even breathe in those first seconds after hitting the pavement, but as soon as her mind came back under her control, Anna was struggling to get out from under the wolf and get to her gun.

It got up on its knees to take a swipe at her, probably planning to claw her heart out, but Anna got her hand on the handle of one of her knives, having realized that her gun was no longer her best option. She didn't have time to get a good hold on the knife or even to really aim, so her arm came up sloppy, and the blade slashed a deep gash in the werewolf's chest, but it didn't get to the heart. The wolf cried out in what sounded more like a war cry than a whimper of pain. Anna scrambled out from under it as it fell backwards, her heart racing in her chest. At least it was still there to pound away. She only reached her hands and knees. The wolf caught her by the ankle and yanked. She couldn't help the shout that escaped her mouth, nor could she help the panic that blinded her momentarily as she struggled to hold onto her knife as she hit her chin on the pavement and was dragged a few feet, her arms and face dragging along the plowerd pavement on the way.

"Shit," she murmured when the movement stopped. Her arms burned, mostly from the friction as the padding of her jacket had stopped her from being scraped up, but her chin felt disconcertingly numb yet somehow stung at the same time. She rolled onto her back and saw the terrifying sight of the werewolf towering over her. It seemed endlessly tall from her position on the ground. But Anna inhaled and pushed upward in one fell swoop, silently thanking Sam for making her do yoga with him all those years. It was not easy to get up from being flat on your back, but when you knew a hundred ways to do it, it wasn't quite as bad a challenge.

The monster was rearing down on her at the same time Anna came up, so when she thrust her knife into its chest, finally sinking the necessary silver into its heart, all six and a half feet and two or three hundred pounds of werewolf collapsed onto her with a roar loud enough to make her ears ring. Anna let out a helpless yelp as the weight seemed to tackle her to the ground for a second time. But this time it was dead weight. She craned her neck so her head wouldn't hit the pavement, but that was all the control she was able to gain over their landing. She hit her back, and the wind was knocked out of her from front and back at the same time. It took her several minutes to find her breath correctly.

Her whole body was shaking minutely with the adrenaline- or its fading- as Anna began to feel more aware again. She saw the stars above her, twinkling like there wasn't a thing in the world to worry about. Anna's arms began to burn hotter, and she became acutely aware of the throbbing pain and wetness on the bottom of her face moving onto her neck. Her chin was probably scraped badly, and she just couldn't wait to get a look at it.

First thing was first, though. With herculean effort, Anna shoved the werewolf off of herself to flop next to her, dead as a doornail. She then collapsed back to the ground on her back. It was freezing cold, and she felt like shit, but being horizontal felt good for the moment. She looked sideways at the werewolf's dead eyes.

"You know, you're my first solo hunt," she said almost conversationally. She then laughed, but she was out of breath and it sounded almost pained. "You did a good job," she added, looking back to the sky and nodding seriously. She felt a little like anybody who saw her would think she was crazy, but she didn't care. She knew the thing couldn't hear her. There was just nobody else around to tell, and that was strange. "I get to walk away fine but with a battle scar. I mean, it would've been nice if you'd fucked up something other than my face." Anna planted her hands on the pavement on either side of herself and shoved upward into a sitting position. She looked back down at the werewolf's face. "I hope you don't mind if you leave you here," she said. "But I gotta drive home tomorrow, and you deserve to be left to rot overnight like you left all those innocent people, so, you see, there's a principle to it all."

Anna crawled slowly to her feet, beginning to feel aches in more places than just her face as the adrenalined wore off and the cold seeped deeper into her. She collected her gun and checked that she had both her silver knives. With one final glance to the dead monster behind her, Anna grinned big. "I'm a hunter," she announced, then felt guilty for being so happy about something so serious. She cleared her throat and frowned to look- and feel- more serious. "I'm a hunter," she said. "And nobody else is gonna die at the hands of that thing."

She nodded once firmly, feeling old in the best way.

()()()

She'd had to stitch her own stupid chin shut.

Worse, it had swollen up overnight, thereby busting some of her stitches. She'd woken up at four in the morning- after barely sleeping three and a half hours- with her neck and chest covered in blood. She'd had to press ice to her chin for the next two hours, and the swelling had barely gone down enough for her to fix the stitches. She pressed the ice against it again and looked in the mirror exhaustedly. She had dark circles under her eyes, and the dark bruising on her chin only matched the bruises that littered her back, legs, and shoulder blades. She ached just about everywhere.

But her face was the part that she couldn't hide. Screw hiding it, it was inconvenient and uncomfortable as all hell. She couldn't even drink water, because it hurt so badly just to move her mouth more than a millimeter. She'd barely been able to swallow Tylenol half an hour ago, and that was just starting to kick in. She sincerely hoped it would be enough, because she couldn't take anything strong and be good to drive or even protect herself were something to happen. Whatever the medication, pain pills never failed to make her sleepy.

"Worst hunt ever," she groaned to herself, sitting on the counter a few minutes later and trying to force herself to keep holding the ice to her face no matter how uncomfortable it got. It sucked being alone and hurt. It sucked harder being alone and hurt and not having anybody know she was alone and hurt, because that meant there was no end in sight. But aside from the self pity, Anna had pressing problems to deal with. She needed to get the hell out of town. Today.

She'd had no intention of staying another day for multiple reasons. Reason number one was that she'd left that thing's body just lying in the parking lot, and she didn't want to be around in case that kid she'd saved started talking to the cops. The second and equally important reason? Anna had a 24 hour drive to make to get back home, and she would be seriously pressing her luck if she waited another day before heading out. Sure, most of the point of taking this hunt was that the boys would know about it and take it as a reason to trust her to hunt with them. But she wanted to beat them home, show them a scrape and a bruise, and brag about a monster well-hunted, not get caught out sneaking away and lying like a kid.

Anna pulled the towel-wrapped ice away from her face and groaned as she looked at the little spots of blood on the cloth. She wished she could freeze time at midnight last night. She'd felt sore but triumphant, like she'd won her valiant battle and everything was going to plan. Now she felt like a failure at best and a kid who should have listened to her family at worst.

She'd saved a life last night, though, and reminding herself of that helped a little. Anna tossed her makeshift ice pack to melt in the bathroom sink and went about gathering her things to head out. For now, the painkillers had kicked in, and she had to at least drive for a good ten hours today before quitting or she would stand no chance of getting home before the boys.

Things looked bleak anyway. Really she would need to make the whole drive in a straight shot to get there in time- they'd said a few more days over two days ago- and Anna knew she wasn't capable of driving 24 hours in her current state.

She tossed her duffel in the trunk but stuffed the bottle of Tylenol in her pocket. She wanted it close.

()()()

Anna walked into the bunker almost thirty hours after leaving Dorset. She felt like a zombie. But the worst part? She'd gotten a phone call ten hours prior... a phone call from a couple of pissed off tall guys demanding to know where the hell she was. She was walking into a warzone, and Anna knew it. She'd tried to prepare herself for it, but she knew this was going to be bad.

She was right.

"What the hell could you have possibly been thinking to not only leave the bunker right after we told you not to, but to go hunting?" Dean demanded of her the second she was in their sight. "Halfway across the country, no less." He was walking toward her fast and angry, but he somehow managed to move even faster when he noticed the injury to her face.

"What happened to you?" Sam asked urgently, getting to her at the same time as Dean.

Anna begrudgingly submitted to all the hands that were suddenly on her face, tilting it this way and that so that her chin could be examined. "S'fine," she insisted, but she couldn't even talk right because it freaking hurt. "Just... hit my face in a parking lot." She didn't tilt her head up to look at them, because she couldn't quite manage it with all the embarassment in her system. She'd gone to all the trouble of proving herself, and somehow she'd only managed to throw herself right back into the role of little sister getting into trouble. Just her eyes flicked up to look between the boys, and she was left nervous by the furious looks on both boys faces.

"Lucy, you've got some 'splainin' to do," Dean quipped, but his tone wasn't light.

"I'd say so," Sam added grimly. "Do you have any idea what kind of risk that was?"

Anna shrugged one shoulder even though she knew that being dismissive wouldn't help her here. "Come on, no one was gonna come after me," she assured, trying to sound light-hearted. Neither one of their expressions budged in her favor. In fact, Dean's eyes darkened.

"That exact attitude is the problem here," he told her. "You think you're invincible, huh?" he challenged. "You could've been killed, Anna."

"Well, I wasn't," she said flippantly.

Sam scoffed openly at her. Her response seemed only to have further enraged both him and Dean. She was good at doing that. She often intended to reassure and wound up making things worse. "No, but you were hurt. You don't see how it could've been worse?"

Anna looked at Sam with the first hint of contrition in her eyes. There'd been a moment the other night when that werewolf had her pinned, and then again when it had her by the ankle... she'd thought she was a goner. She'd been able to shove it aside, get her knife, and fight for her life, but she'd felt a true terror during that fight. Not only would she have died painfully if that wolf had bested her, but she'd have died alone, and her family would have had no explanation.

"I know it could've been," she said seriously. "But it wasn't," she continued more sharply. She could feel her temper rising. "That's the whole reason I left in the first place. I'm capable of hunting a stupid werewolf without getting myself killed, and I don't get why you're so convinced I'm gonna get myself killed every time I step foot outside the bunker."

"You're tellin' me you went all the way to Vermont to take on a werewolf by yourself to prove a point? To prove you could be trusted? Because I gotta tell you, kid, lying ain't exactly a tried and true method for gaining trust."

Anna glared at Dean, but she knew he had a point. There were things she hadn't thought out before leaving. She had a way of being reckless, of making choices before she'd gone through all the possible consequences in her head. She should have thought about the possibility that she could have been killed before going. It might have stopped her. She should have thought about how the boys would actually feel when they found out what she'd done. If she'd tried to imagine it, she would have realized that they would be far from proud or pleased. She would have seen this anger coming and understood it.

"No, and it's worse than that," Sam added, narrowing his eyes at her with pure disappointment there. It made Anna's stomach hurt almost as much as her chin did. "You didn't just lie. You risked your life on multiple counts just to prove a point. Even after we told you there was someone targeting hunters, even after we told you to play it safe, you went right ahead and did what you wanted, because you were so tired of being left at the bunker. If you want to be treated like an adult, then you should act like one."

Anna didn't even bother trying to hide the hurt in her face. She felt thoroughly chastised. But she also felt insulted, personally and harshly. Sam knew she'd struggled with feeling like she had a place in the world of hunting since she was a kid. He knew how badly she wanted to be one of them, and he knew how hard she'd worked to be treated as such. Maybe he was right, and she'd made a bad choice. But Anna still wanted to punch him for throwing salt into all her old wounds. Maybe the reason they still hadn't healed was because everybody kept picking at them. Maybe she couldn't get over being treated like a kid because at every turn she was reminded that she still was and would always be the kid.

"Fine," Anna said softly. "I screwed up." She jutted her chin out slightly in that stubborn way she always did when she felt certain she was right. She'd made up her mind over the course of these last few days, and she wouldn't have it changed. A few years ago- hell, probably even just last year- she would have taken Sam's words and swallowed them, let them feed into her complex. She'd have let fester the idea that she was the baby and nothing more, helpless, hopeless, in need of protection. "But you know what?" she said, eighteen and feeling every side of the age. "I saved a kid's life, and that felt pretty damn good. I'm sorry I scared you. I am. Maybe you don't realize I feel the same fear every time you walk out the door."

Just like that, the moment was transformed. Sam looked like his heart ached, and Dean looked like he wasn't sure whether he wanted to throttle Anna or hug her. It was somehow just like every time she'd ever gotten in trouble and yet completely different. She felt older again, old in a way that was painful but old in a way that fit.

"I'm sorry," Sam told her carefully. "I didn't mean..." He cleared his throat. "I hear you, Anna. I really do. But the thing is, as much good as you did today, you went out there for the wrong reasons. And you got hurt. And if things had been just a little different..." He said it like the possibility pained him. It probably did.

"You don't do this anymore," Dean added seriously, catching and holding her eyes. "I get it's hard for you, but this doesn't happen again."

Anna held his gaze for a second, still looking unhappy, but she nodded. She'd had no intention of making solo hunts a habit. She'd had some regrets about the whole ordeal even before coming home, as a matter of fact. "Okay," she said. She felt like she was holding her breath as the tension in the room slowly melted. It became clear that the conversation was over, and she made to move past the boys. "If we're done here, I'd like to go sleep for a freakin' year."

La Fin