AUTHOR'S NOTE: Happy Friday and Happy December, all! I'm hoping to sneak in some writing time over the next couple of weeks but can't promise I'll be publishing on a regular basis yet, so keep checking back- although I'm working on the next chapter already so you won't have too long to wait for that! The dream that Aly has in the beginning of the chapter is referencing my short story "He's So High". In that fic, Aly is 6 years old, Sam is 14 years old, and Dean is 18 years old. Thanks to Redheadlass for the idea and Edge_of_Clairvoyance for beta-ing.

~ ~ spn ~ ~spn ~ ~

Dean turned to me in the back seat. "Not a word about the week, kiddo, okay?"

I nodded. "Okay, Dean." Earlier in the week, Sam had needed to be picked up from a party and had acted funny, and gotten in trouble with Dean for some reason, but neither of them had told me why.

Dean held his hand up, his fingers curled in except for his extended pinky. "Pinky swear."

I held my hand up and entwined my pinky with his, and we shook hands. I felt a little confused as to why we had to pinky swear, since I knew that a pinky swear was for a secret that you could never never tell ever, but I'd do it since Dean asked me to.

Dean let go and turned to Sam. "All right, we ready?"

My brothers got out of the car and I walked between them, holding their hands, as we walked across the parking lot to Vesuvio's Eatery.

Dean opened the door of the restaurant and Sam went in before me. Daddy was standing near the counter, looking up at the large menu on the wall. He turned when the bell over the door jangled.

"Daddy!" I ran over to him and his face lit up as he leaned down, his arms out. I jumped into his arms and he swung me up onto his hip. "There's my girl!"

"Hi, Daddy! I missed you!" I said, throwing my arms around him.

"Missed you too, sweetheart." He kissed the side of my head.

He turned to my brothers."Hey, boys." He smiled at Sam and Dean. "How are things?"

"Fine," Sam said, and Dean said, "Going well."

Daddy walked over to the entrance to the restaurant, where a woman stood at a podium. She looked at Daddy. "Hi, table for 4?"

"Yes, and could we get a booth?" Daddy asked.

"Sure." The waitress grabbed some menus and we followed her to a booth. Daddy carried me, ruffling Sam's hair and patting Dean's back as we walked.

"I want to sit next to you, Daddy." I said. He set me down in the seat and I slid over, then he sat next to me. Sam slid in across from me and Dean sat on the outside.

Everyone was quiet as they looked at their menus. Then Daddy lowered his menu and looked at Dean. "I was concerned when I came home and you weren't there." His voice was stern.

Dean dropped his eyes to the table. "I didn't know you were going to be home so soon, I'm sorry, sir."

"You said Sam had a study group? Why is that the first I've heard of it?" Daddy's voice was uncompromising.

Dean's face colored slightly. "I, uh, I thought I told you." He said weakly.

"You didn't, Dean. And I need to know these things, so that I know where you all are." Daddy's face softened. "I just want to make sure that you're safe. I was worried when you weren't there."

"I'll make sure I let you know." Dean said.

A waitress came to the table. "Hello, my name is Wanda, what can I get y'all?"

Daddy looked at her. "Hi, Wanda, I'll have a cheese steak sub with onions and peppers, french fries, and a cup of coffee."

Sam's mouth turned down and he swallowed uneasily. No doubt he was remembering the junk food binge he'd gone on after Dean had picked him up from the party. The next morning his tummy hadn't felt good.

The waitress looked at me. "What'll you have, sweetie?"

"Could I have a kid's pizza with pepperoni, please?" I looked at Daddy. "Can I get a Coke?"

"All right." Daddy nodded.

"And a Coke, please." I looked at her.

"Sure thing." Wanda turned to Dean. "How about you, hon?"

"Hello, Wanda, I'll have the cheeseburger deluxe platter with extra onions and bacon and a Coke, please." Dean gave her a huge smile, and she blinked. After a moment she looked at Sam.

"Uh, I'll have a salad, please, with French dressing." Sam said quickly. "And a glass of water."

"Salad and water?" Daddy asked. "Why don't you throw in a crust of stale bread?" He chuckled. "You sure you don't want a pizza or something else?"

Sam shook his head, frowning.

The waitress collected the menus. "I'll be back with your drinks."

"What's wrong, Sam?" Daddy asked.

"Uh–" Sam looked queasy.

"He's had a sour stomach for a couple days." Dean explained quickly.

"Sorry to hear that, is something going around your school?" Daddy looked at Sam with concern.

Sam shrugged.

I got up on my knees and leaned over the table, pushing my paper placemat toward Sam. "Wanna play tic tac toe?"

Sam looked at me gratefully. "Sure." There were three tic tac toe boards on the place mat and we filled all of them.

The waitress brought our drinks to the table. Daddy patted my bottom as I reached for the tall glass. "Sit on your butt and use both hands." He said. The glasses at restaurants were usually too heavy for me and I had spilled my drink more than once.

I sat down and took a drink, then turned to him. "I want to sit with you."

"I don't know if there's enough room." He said.

I tried to climb into his lap, but he was right, there wasn't enough room for me. I scooted close to his side instead and he put his arm around me. "How was school, Aly?" He asked.

"It was okay. I got a award for knowing the most words in class this week!" I reported proudly.

"That's great, I'm proud of you." Daddy smiled at me. He looked across the table. "How about you, Sam?"

"Uh–it was fine."

"Did you get a grade on that big social studies report you did?"

Sam shook his head. "Mr. Wexler found evidence of plagiarism in his other class so he said he's going through all the reports with a fine tooth comb."

"That's too bad." Daddy said. "How is work, Dean?"

"It's going well." Dean said. Dean had quit school and was working "under the table" at a mechanic's. I didn't understand why he had to work under a table, Dean had said it was because of his age.

I put my arm around Daddy's tummy and snuggled into his side. "I'm glad you're home now." I didn't like that Daddy had to travel so much for his work and for hunting.

He squeezed my shoulder. "I'm glad to be home." He looked down at me, smiling again, and tweaked my nose.

I grinned up at him and looked across the table at my brothers, a warm feeling in my chest. The times that we were all together like this were the best times.

I woke up slowly, feeling comforted by the dream. When I was little I had always loved going out to eat with my family when Dad came back from a hunt.

I sat up, rubbing my eyes blearily-Dad was sitting in the armchair, a tablet balanced on his knees. He looked over at me and smiled. "Good morning, sweetheart."

"Morning," I yawned, tossing the covers back and scooting over to the edge of the bed.

He closed the tablet and stood up, placing it on the chair and coming over to me. "You look happy." He sat down facing me and cupped my cheek with his palm. "It's good to see." He hugged me.

I hugged him back. "I had a good dream."

He let me go and sat back. "Want to talk about it?"

"Just a memory of when you came back from a hunt one time. I used to love it when we would go out to eat when you'd come home."

He smiled. "I enjoyed that too. How are you feeling?"

"Kinda out of it." I rubbed my eyes again.

"That's probably because of the medicine." He said. "How's your ankle?"

"It hurts."

Dad took one of my hands. "I wanted to ask you-last night you said, 'if Jervis had let Dipper hurt me like he wanted, I wouldn't be here now'." He looked me in the eyes, his brown eyes full of concern. "You don't-you're not having, negative thoughts about-hurting yourself, or-suicide?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm not. I just- I was feeling all of the pain from the stuff in the dream, you know? It made me feel so bad."

He squeezed my hand. "I can imagine. I'm sorry that you've been holding on to those feelings for so long. I didn't know–" he looked down for a moment, and then when he raised his eyes he looked at me earnestly. "I didn't realize you had those fears about how we felt about you, and I can't help but think it's my fault, for not being cognizant of what you were going through. I'm sorry, Alyson." Guilt and regret crossed his features.

I immediately felt like crap for him feeling bad. "No, Dad, I'm sorry, I didn't say any of that so that you would feel bad."

He held his hand up. "I know, and I'm going to stop you right there. That's my screw up as a father, and you need to let me apologize without jumping in with your own. I'm a big boy, I can handle feeling guilty, all right? You don't have to try and make me feel better."

"Okay."

He raised his eyebrows as he smiled. "And I am sorry, all right? Moving forward, all we can do is talk to each other about how we're feeling and be honest. I can't say it's going to be easy for me but I'm gonna try."

"Thanks, Dad."

"Let's go get you some breakfast." He stood up, grabbing the crutches and holding them for me.

"One more thing...I know you were upset last night and you weren't thinking clearly, but it's very important that you take your healing seriously. If you put weight on your foot again, you will be in trouble, do I make myself clear?" His voice was stern.

I didn't want to find out what kind of trouble he was talking about, so in order to keep my butt out of the line of fire, I said, "Yes sir."

He put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes again. "I want you to come talk to me if you're feeling bad or having negative thoughts, all right? Or go to one of your brothers. Don't hold it in, understand?"

"Okay, Dad." I nodded.

Sam and Dean were at the kitchen table, and they both stood up when I came in.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Sam smiled at me. He leaned down to give me a loose hug around my shoulders, and then pulled a chair out.

"M'okay." I said.

"Good morning, short stuff!" Dean took my crutches in one hand and hugged me with his other arm.

"Good morning." I sat down and he put the crutches to the side.

There was a big bowl of eggs and a platter of bacon in the middle of the table.

"You want some toast?" Dean asked.

"Yes please." There was a plate in front of me and I started putting eggs and bacon onto it. Dean walked over to the counter and put some bread in the toaster.

Sam leaned over and lifted something off the floor-my school backpack. "I figured you could do some schoolwork while we're here."

"Yeah, right." I scoffed. "I'm not in school any more, so what's the point?"

Dad came over holding a steaming mug of coffee. "The point is, that you should keep up with your schooling."

What? I looked at him. "But I'm not even at that school anymore, how am I going to know what to work on?"

Sam's laptop was open next to his plate, and he turned it to show me the screen- there was a page up that said 'Curriculum Guide for the American Textbook Series'. "I found this, it's a web page for the textbooks that your school system used. There are curriculum guides for each book, and links to each teacher's syllabus for the year, so we can check on what your classes were doing."

"Oh, joy." I said sarcastically. This was so not fair!

"Hey, it's something to do, rather than just sit around watching Doctor Sexy all day." Sam said.

I glared at him. "Yeah, busy work!"

Sam picked up his mug and took a sip. "Not busy work, you need to be doing schoolwork. If we didn't have your textbooks I'd be looking into a home school curriculum."

I appealed to Dad. "I've just been through a rough time, can't I have a break?"

"Well-yes, but you know, if you were laid up at home with a cast, we would have gotten your schoolwork for you to do. You can start slow and see how things go at first." Dad said reasonably.

I frowned as I scooped up a forkful of eggs-I didn't want to suddenly have to do a bunch of schoolwork!

Dean brought my toast over and set it on my plate. "And we'll be able to watch movies and stuff in the evenings."

"Thanks." I said to him, picking up a piece of toast. "I figured you guys would want to do some training with me."

"We can still work on that." Dad said. "You can memorize the parts of a gun, like you had started, and then we can teach you how to take apart and clean one. I'd like for you to memorize some more prayers and start learning about herbs too."

I gave him puppy dog eyes. "Then can't I just work on that stuff and not do schoolwork?"

Sam chuckled. "Nice try, Aly."

Dad frowned. "Why are you so against doing schoolwork?"

I looked down at my plate. "I just-it won't be the same, by myself. And-it'll make me think about-about my friends, and-I'll miss them." Tears came to my eyes and I blinked them away-I didn't want to start crying again!

Dad patted my shoulder. "I understand. But if you work with Sam, that'll be different, won't it?"

I looked over at Sam. "Yeah, I guess. As long as he doesn't try to be too bossy."

Dean chuckled. "Sam, too bossy? I can't imagine."

"Shut up, jerk." Sam said, balling up his napkin and throwing it at Dean.

Dean caught it in mid-air and tossed it back at Sam. "Make me, bitch." They grinned at each other.

Calvin came into the room just then. "How's the ankle today?"

"It hurts." I dropped my eyes, unable to look at him.

"You want some medicine?"

"Yes, please." I said.

"All right, I'll get ya some. Keep it propped today. And I guess I don't need to remind you not to do that again?" He said firmly.

I peered at him through my bangs, feeling guilty. "No, you don't. M' sorry." I muttered.

"It's important that you take care of yourself, little lady." He said seriously.

"I know, I will."

He went over to a cabinet and took out a pill bottle, then got a glass of water. He came over to me and handed me a pill and the glass.

"Thanks." I said, and swallowed the medicine. I drank some water and set the glass on the table. Calvin left the room.

After I finished eating, Sam and I moved into the living room. He pulled out the books from my backpack and set them on the coffee table. Dean came in and sat down in an armchair with a paperback.

Sam started going through my social studies textbook. "Do you remember what unit you were on?"

"I think we were going to start learning about the Great Depression and that time period." I said.

He paged through the book. "I guess this chapter." He placed a sticky note in the book. "I can look it up online." He closed the textbook and put it in my backpack, looking through the books. "You've got your algebra workbook too, that's good." Sam grabbed another book.

"I hate algebra." I grumbled.

"It's not so bad." He set the algebra textbook on my lap. "Can you find where your last lesson was?"

I opened the book and flipped through the pages, thinking about how I would try to scramble my way through the class because my next one was choir, and I was usually excited to see my friends and sing. "Here." I said.

Sam looked at it and put a sticky note on the page.

"I don't even know why I have to do algebra, it's pointless." I grouched.

Dean spoke up. "Yeah, who remembers all that crap like sine and cosine?"

"That's trigonometry, Dean." Sam rolled his eyes. "And it looks like you remembered it."

"Yeah, but it's not like you're gonna use it in real life, ever!" Dean said.

Sam gave Dean a look. "Dude, you're not helping."

Dean laughed. "Nice bitchface, Sammy!"

That made me laugh.

Sam looked at me. "What are you laughing at? Huh?" He grabbed my arm and started tickling my side. I screeched and tried to pull away.

"Dean, help me!" I panted in between laughter, flailing my other arm at Sam.

Dad came into the room. "What are you-Sam, you shouldn't be rough-housing with her right now." He admonished. "She might hurt herself."

Sam let go of me. I gestured to my leg. "I've got it propped up, it's fine!"

"No arguing, young lady." Dad said firmly.

"Okaaay." I pouted for a moment, then got an idea. I leaned forward and looked into my backpack, pulling my music folder out. I opened it, taking out some sheet music. "I want you guys to hear this, can you look this up on the video channel?" I asked Sam.

He looked at the title page. "'Hymn to the Virgin' by Benjamin Britten. Sure, I can find it." He opened a new browser window and started to search. Dad came over to sit on the other side of Sam.

"Why is some guy writing a hymn about virgins?" Dean asked skeptically.

Sam huffed. "He's talking about the Virgin Mary, not Rhonda Hurley, Dean."

Dean smirked. "Oh, she wasn't a virgin by any stretch of the imagination!" He got a faraway look in his eye.

It dawned on me what he was saying. "Dean!" I objected as Sam said, "Oh my God, why do you have to talk about that?"

"What, I'm a red-blooded American male, I have needs, ya know!" Dean leered.

Dad rolled his eyes. "All right, Casanova, keep your pants on."

"Found it." Sam said.

"So, the cool thing about this piece is, it's sung by two choirs, one is a smaller choir. And you can split them up, like Ms. Brown said she sang it in a church where the smaller choir was at the back and it sounded really neat!" I explained.

"And Aly had the soprano part in the smaller group, the teacher said she was the resident Latin expert!" Dean beamed at me.

I felt my face get hot. Dad said, "Really?"

"Uh, yeah, we performed a couple pieces in Latin and the first one, everyone's pronunciation was so bad I had to speak up, so I taught everyone how to say things the right way." I said.

Dad laughed. "That's great! Who would have thought that you learning Latin would help for not only research, but in choir!"

"Okay, ready?" Sam pressed play.

We listened to the piece. When the last chords died out, Sam said, "Wow, that was… I have goosebumps."

"That was cool." Dean said.

"It was ethereal." Dad added. "You sang that? A high school group?"

I nodded. "When we performed it at the elementary school, the small choir was off the side of the stage hiding in the wings. A couple teachers told us afterwards that it sounded really good." With a shock, I remembered that after that performance was when I had gotten in big trouble with Dad. I felt my face get hot again and looked down.

"I'm sure you all did a great job." Dad said proudly. "I hope you can continue singing, wherever we end up next."

I looked over at him and gave him a small smile. It was nice to hear him say that–that he was supporting something I enjoyed doing. "I hope so too."

"Well, I'd like to work on Aly's school stuff." Sam said. He put all the books in my backpack and shouldered it, then grabbed his laptop. "I'll be in the bedroom." He left the room.

Dean shook his head. "He is way too into that."

"He's always been invested in Aly's education." Dad said. "And it's giving him something to do."

Dean got up and came over to sit next to me, grabbing the remote. "Well, I'll be in charge of Aly's pop culture education. Let's see if we can find a good movie." He turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels. "Oh, look, 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' is on!"

"Dean, we've seen that like a million times already!" I objected.

"Yeah, well, it's a classic, so shush."

I leaned over and tried to grab the remote from him. He put his hand holding the remote up in the air.

"Deeeean, give it!" I whined, trying to grab his arm.

He switched the remote to his other hand and held it out of my reach.

"Dad, help!" I looked over at Dad, but he was getting up.

"Dean, don't be mean. Let your sister pick what to watch when the movie is over." Dad said with a chuckle.

I humphed and crossed my arms.

Dean laughed, putting his arm down. "There's only about an hour left, you can deal."

I guess I fell asleep, because I briefly woke up when I felt movement next to me.

I heard Dad's voice say, "She asleep?"

Dean said, "Yeah, probably the medicine knocking her out again." His voice was amused. "She's a lightweight."

"At least she gets some good rest when she naps, she's still not sleeping well at night." Dad said. I heard footsteps. "I'll check on her after lunch."

"Alyson...Alyson, wake up." I felt someone patting my foot.

I opened my eyes and was met with a wall of plaid- Dad, Sam, and Dean were all standing on the other side of the coffee table. Sam had his laptop open in his hands and Dad was holding some papers that looked like they had been crumpled up and then smoothed out.

"Huh?" I mumbled, sitting up.

I rubbed my eyes and looked up at them. Dad and Sam were frowning and Dean looked serious-what was going on?

"What's up?" I asked.

"I got Ash to hack into your school's website." Sam said tightly. "He was able to get your teacher's answer keys for me, and he also got a look at your grades. Progress reports were due to come out the week that we left. And apparently you were getting a D in Algebra." He glared at me.

Dad held up the papers, shuffling through them as he read aloud from them. "A 'C'? A 'D'? 'Needs improvement'? 'Come see me'?" He raised his eyes from the papers and gave me The Winchester Glare. "Why didn't I know about any of these tests?"

I remembered how I'd get a test back, see the bad grade, and shove the paper down into the bottom of my backpack. My heart dropped into my stomach. "Uh-"

Dad crossed his arms over his chest. "Explain yourself, young lady."

To be continued…