Sitting on the bed, I raised my head slowly, tears in my eyes. So many thoughts, so many feelings. I didn't want to move, but I had to move. I didn't want to leave Kara, but I had to leave Kara and if I fought Dean anymore… Kara was right, he'd probably ground me forever. I was so, so mad, but also so scared of not getting to spend more time with her before we left. I hadn't told her how I felt about her. I couldn't leave without telling her and texting it to her wasn't enough. I needed to be there to see her reaction, to know if she felt the same way.

My stomach ached and my face was hot. I felt a little shaky with all the feelings flooding me. I just stared at Dean, unable to answer him, unable to explain. I barely understood what was going on inside me as it was and it felt like those emotions were the only real thing.

Dean's face darkened when I didn't answer and he practically growled at me. "Well?"

I forced myself to answer. "Not really?" I mumbled, dropping my eyes.

Dean frowned and grabbed my hairbrush off my desk. Shit! I stood up in a rush and slid sideways away from him and away from the bed. He shook his head at me.

"I'm done with your attitude, little girl," he said. "I'm done with the disobedience. I'm done with the disrespect, and when I'm done with you, you will pack this room and you will straighten up and fly right!"

Anger spiked, overriding my fear of losing Kara for just one moment. I set my jaw and raised my chin in defiance. "If you keep flying right, you only end up flying in circles," I shot back at him.

His eyes narrowed, and then he was advancing on me, his hand clenched hard on the hairbrush. Immediately regretting my rashness, my eyes widened in panic. I backed up and backed up until I ran into the wall. There was nowhere left to go. Dean stopped in front of me and leaned his hands against the wall over me, glaring down at me. I shrank into myself, feeling tiny and vulnerable under his angry gaze.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, looking him in the eye for once.

He scoffed. "I don't believe you," he said.

"No, really," I whimpered. "I… I lost my temper…"

"Like always," he broke in. "Any time you're not getting your way, you throw a fit. Every. Single. Time."

I chewed on my lip, unsure how to answer that. I mean, I didn't do it every time, just when I was upset or when I thought something wasn't fair or when I was angry, but it probably wouldn't be smart to point that out right at this moment.

Dean's eyes flicked back and forth between mine, and I cringed a little more. "Dad…"

"No. I don't want to hear it. Get your shorts off and go stand by the bed. Now."

I slipped out from under one of his arms and went to the bed. He turned and followed me, watching me as my hands shook while I undid my shorts and let them fall to the floor, stepping out of them. I stood there in my pink cotton panties and wrung my hands, exposed and defenseless.

He sat on the bed. "Over my lap."

"Dad, you don't have to do this. I talked to Kara and…"

"Not one more word, little girl, or I'll add ten more to your count. Get. Over. My. Knees."

I whimpered a helpless sob and put myself over his lap, knowing he was making me do it instead of just pulling me over his lap himself to enforce the fact that he was in charge and that I obeyed him.

With no warning, he brought the hairbrush down on my butt hard and I shrieked. He'd never started out this hard before, not with the brush. He almost always used his hand first and finished with the brush. I shrieked again with the second smack and pulled my pillow to me, burying my face in it. He didn't pause, bringing the brush down again and again. I was crying in seconds, the sharp, stinging smacks overcoming any will I had not to cry. I wailed into the pillow, the pain building and building on my bottom. I couldn't even get enough breath to apologize, to beg him to stop. I could only cry.

And then he did something really mean. Instead of moving the brush all over my butt, he would stop and land several smacks in exactly the same spot, the pain building on itself until he moved to the next spot. He did this over and over on the extra sensitive spots where my butt met my thighs. I cried and kicked my legs, but then he brought the brush down hard on the backs of my thighs.

"Stop kicking," he ordered, pausing for just a moment. "Unless you want more of that. Got it?" Miserable, I dropped my legs but didn't say anything. He smacked my sensitive thighs again, one on each. Oh my god, it hurt! "Answer me," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," I cried out, lifting my head from my tear-soaked pillow. He started up again, the hairbrush falling and falling. I forced myself to hold my legs still despite the pain, twisting my ankles in agony, wishing I'd never started the war with him, that I'd just packed the room and told him what was wrong and why I didn't want to leave, even if it didn't change anything. My bottom was so, so sore and all I could do was twist my ankles in circles and sob.

Finally, he stopped, and I felt him drop the brush on the bed beside me. He slid me off his lap and put me on my feet. Unsteady, I wiped my eyes with my fists like I was three, hiccuping and trying to stop crying.

"Corner," he said, his voice harsh. He pointed to the corner by the closet.

"Yes, sir," I whimpered, worried that if I didn't answer, he'd pull me back over his lap. My butt throbbing, I obeyed, placing myself in the corner, standing straight with my hands behind my back like I was supposed to. He let me stand there for a long time and the only movement I dared to make was to wipe my eyes every once in a while as the tears kept falling of their own accord. My throat was tight with regret.

Eventually, he asked, "Are you done now, or do I need to keep going?"

I cleared my throat, trying to make my voice work. "I'm done," I squeaked.

"You're going to do what I tell you without any smart ass remarks or straight out temper tantrums?" he asked.

I nodded and added, "Yes, sir."

"You are going to behave. You screw this up, I'll keep you grounded to your room until we leave. And you'll get a spanking with this hairbrush every time you mouth off. You got me?"

My heart leapt in panic. Kara! "I won't screw it up. Please don't ground me again. Please, Daddy?" I begged into the corner. I could almost see him brandishing the hairbrush. My bottom throbbed in protest.

His voice softened then. "Come here," he said.

I turned from the corner. He was still sitting where I'd left him on the bed, the hairbrush beside him. Based on the tone of his voice, I was pretty sure he was done spanking me, but I wasn't certain until he opened his arms. Then I almost ran to him, burying myself against his chest. He shifted me so I was sitting on his lap and held me close to him. I breathed in his scent, and snuggled against the softness of his shirt and the hardness of his chest underneath.

He rubbed my back as he held me. "I didn't want to do that, Jessie," he told me softly. "I warned you over and over, I explained why we have to move, I tried to comfort you, and you kept pushing me. You gave me no choice."

I shoved my face against his shirt. "I know," I mumbled.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked. I shook my head. "You sure? It might help."

I swallowed hard and turned my face to the side so I could talk without a mouthful of cloth. "I don't want to lose Kara," I admitted, my voice barely audible. My stomach twisted, the emotional pain inside me almost as intense as the pain in my butt from the spanking.

"Sweetheart, we don't have a choice," Dean said, his hand still rubbing my back. "I'm not being arbitrary. If we stay here, something else will come for us."

"You told me that already," I responded, looking down at my lap. "But it doesn't make it hurt less."

"I know," he told me, kissing the top of my head. "You can be hurt," he added. "You can even be angry that we have to go, but you are not allowed to take it out on any of us. You need to do what you're told, even if you're mad about it, or you'll be right back over my lap." His voice hardened on the last part and I shivered a little. This had been nowhere near my worst spanking, but I didn't want another like it.

"Are you going to let me see Kara before we go?" I asked, my heart pounding. It felt like everything rested on his answer.

"If you behave and do as you're told, yes," he said.

"Thank you," I breathed. "I'm sorry I acted like that. I'm sorry I fought you and took it all out on you. I shouldn't have done that."

"Don't let it happen again," he said and kissed the top of my head again. "Are you ready to get down?"

I shook my head and buried my face against his shirt again as the tears started back up. He held me against him for a long time.

Eventually, I climbed off his lap, looking at him from under lowered lids, uncertain of what to do next, whether I should start packing the room for real this time or what. He sighed and glanced at his watch.

"It's late," he told me, getting to his feet. "Go get ready for bed. Tomorrow is a new day and you can start packing then."

My eyebrows drew together and I looked up at him with hopeful eyes. "You work tomorrow?" I asked.

"Yes, but Lisa doesn't."

I took a deep breath and rubbed my hands against my thighs, nervous about asking the next question. I had to, though. "Can Kara come over and help me pack?"

Dean straightened, seeming taller than usual somehow, and looked down at me. "No," he said. "But if you're good all day and you do what Lisa says, Kara can come over for dinner and spend the night, if her parents say it's okay."

I let out the breath. "Okay," I said. Dean smiled at me and ruffled my hair. I went to get ready for bed.

I woke up before anyone else did the next day. The first thing I did was check my butt. It was a little sore, but more like someone had run sandpaper over it than anything else. No more throbbing at least. The little pain I had would probably clear up before the day was out, as long as I didn't throw any more temper tantrums. I flushed at the thought. I had really let my anger and hurt run rampant the day before. I hadn't even tried to control it.

What would Sam think? He'd spent all that time teaching me ways to control my temper, and I hadn't even tried. I'd just exploded without thinking about the consequences until Kara had pointed them out to me. I dropped my head, ashamed, and went to get ready. I'd make up for it today. I had to so I could see her.

By the time Lisa came up to wake me, I was already busy. I'd packed my duffel with a week's worth of clothes and my backpack with things I needed for the trip. Then I'd started in on my room. Books were first because they were easy. I'd filled five book boxes with the contents of my bookshelves, and then I'd packed my trinkets and the few collectibles I had.

As a result, the room was a shambles when Lisa opened the door. Her eyes widened at the progress I'd made. "Wow, Jessie," she said. "How long have you been up?"

I turned away from the box on my bed to look at her. She was still wearing pajamas. I squinched up my face in thought. "Uh, I think 5 am?"

She looked around the room. "Well, looks like you're going to need vacuum-seal bags for your bedding and some more boxes for your clothes." She looked around the room again. "I think you might have made more progress this morning than Ben did all day yesterday."

I leaned against the headboard. "He's got more stuff than I do," I said. "Most of my stuff was those books." I pointed to the boxes.

"All right. Well, come down to breakfast," she said.

"Okay," I agreed. "If I finish my room today, can I help with the rest of the house?"

Lisa looked surprised. "Sure," she said, turning to leave the room. "I guess your Dad really got to you last night."

I flushed, glad she wasn't looking at me. "Yeah, that's one way to put it." And I followed her downstairs.

I did finish with my room not too long after that. Most of my school supplies went into my backpack and the rest of the stuff on my desk I just tossed into a book box. Clothes were easy and Lisa helped me pack my extra bedding into bags that when vacuum sealed, made them much smaller in bulk. I was left with the furniture, the bedding I was currently using, my skateboard and safety stuff, and my duffel of clothes for the rest of the week. My room was pretty much barren and it made me sad, so I abandoned it and went downstairs to help Lisa pack the kitchen.

When Dean got home, he took a look at my room and got a progress report on my behavior from Lisa. Since I'd been good all day, he let me invite Kara over. I bounced up and down and texted her to come over. She asked if Liam could come too, but Lisa wasn't happy with Ben's progress on his room and said no. Apparently Ben kept getting distracted by his stuff and then played with whatever or read whatever until Lisa read him the riot act. I wasn't upstairs but I was pretty sure he got a spanking too based on the faint sounds I heard from the kitchen. She must've left his door open or I would never have heard it.

Yeah, neither of us wanted to leave, but Ben was a bit more subtle about his rebellion than I had been. And mine was over.

Kara came over as soon as she could and joined us for dinner. Lisa and I hadn't packed everything in the kitchen so Dean had made us burgers and tater tots for dinner. Kara and I chattered away at the table to each other, our voices in whispers. We weren't talking about anything important or secret, it just didn't feel right to interrupt the entire table with the gossip she was spilling about the rest of the neighborhood kids. We had to stop though when Lisa told us that whispering to each other at the table was rude and we should talk to everyone. That limited down our topics considerably, and Kara, of course, asked where we were moving to. Dean told her that for her safety and the safety of her family, he couldn't tell her that. She nudged me under the table to let me know she wanted to talk to me about it later.

When we finished dinner, Lisa and Dean went back to packing, but they let Kara and I go do whatever we wanted. She'd brought over some fashion magazines from her house, so we went up to my room to go through them, stretched out on the beds on our bellies and talking about whether we thought the girls were pretty and if the clothes were realistic. Mostly, for me, they weren't. No one wears a dress on purpose on a hunt, and I felt like I needed to be able to protect myself at any moment even if we weren't hunting. Too much had happened at this point for me to really feel safe. Angels and demons could show up anywhere, regardless of the sigils Cas had burned into my ribs, not to mention the huge variety of other monsters that were out there.

But I wasn't really thinking about that now. Shoved together on the bed, my left socked foot kept rubbing against her right socked foot, and she just rubbed back, playing footsie with me while we flipped through the pages. I felt warm inside, my face flushing with happiness and an intense sensation I couldn't really identify.

Kara turned a page to reveal a huge fairy tale-looking dress and sighed, tracing her finger over its outline. "So, where are you moving to?" she asked, not looking at me.

I wanted more than anything to tell her, but I knew Dean was right. It was safer for her and her family not to know, so I lied. "West," I said, moving my hand over close to hers on the page. "St. Louis, Missouri. Dad wants us in a bigger city where the bad guys might have a harder time finding us." A tear fell from my eye, landing on my forearm. I ignored it.

She swallowed. "That's not that far away. I could come visit you."

I moved my hand away from hers. "Sure," I said, glancing at her out from the side, hoping she wouldn't notice. Her eyes were full of tears. I could see them hovering over her bottom eyelids. "If Dad and your parents say it's okay." I looked down at the page again. She'd stopped tracing the dress, and I moved my hand over to cover hers. "I don't think my Dad will say it's okay, though, since I'm not supposed to tell you where we're going."

She sighed and closed her eyes. The tears fell with two little plops onto the blue fairy tale dress. Then she turned suddenly and grabbed me, hugging me to her. It was awkward because I was on my belly and she was on her side, but somehow she made it work. I slid us around clumsily until I was lying on my back and she was cuddling me from the side, her head nestled in the hollow of my shoulder. The magazine fell to the floor.

"Jessie," Kara said, her voice breaking, and I knew what was coming next.

"Wait," I whispered to her and kissed the top of her head. "Don't say anything yet. I have to tell you something."

She hugged me close. "It won't change what I'm going to say."

"It might," I replied. I took a huge breath. "Okay, so when I was eleven, there was a fire at my house…"

I spilled everything about me. Everything. I left Sam and Dean's secrets and troubles out of it, but I told her about Sam and Dean finding me in the forest after my parents died and how they had adopted me. I told her all about the fires and Gabby and all the girls that had died because I'd refused to serve her. I told her how I'd accidentally gotten Alice killed, along with a bunch of kids and nuns whose only sin was being near me when Gabby ripped open my furnace at the school because Zachariah, an angel, had blocked it. I told her about running away to fight Gabby because I just couldn't wait any longer and how Bree had died and Vinnie had suffered until we could go back and rescue her. When I was done, I told her about Drake and the only kiss I'd ever had and why it had happened. I told her about the nightmares and the drinking, and about how hard it was to keep my temper with the furnace burning inside me, always burning, always pushing. She held me close the whole time, her head pressed against me. Sometimes she'd ask a question or make a gentle, comforting comment, but she mostly stayed quiet just listening.

When I was done, I dropped into silence and worried about how she was going to take the whole story while she traced patterns on my belly with her fingertip. Finally, she lifted her head, supporting herself on her elbow and looking straight at me.

"I am so, so sorry you went through all that, Jessie. But it wasn't your fault. Most of it just happened to you, and the rest of it, you handled the best you could," she told me. Then she tilted her head, her eyes filling with tears again. She dashed them away. "But how could you think any of that would change the way I feel about you?"

I opened my mouth to reply when someone knocked on the door. Kara and I broke apart guiltily, sitting up and grabbing at the magazine on the floor. Kara got it first and plopped it in her lap just as the door opened. Dean looked in on us, his expression suspicious.

"Keep this door open," he said.

I frowned. "You never made me keep it open before," I objected. "It's just Kara."

"Don't argue with me," he said, his eyes snapping. "The door stays open."

"But whhhyyyyyyyyy?" I whined at him.

Kara bumped me with her shoulder at the same time Dean said, "Because if you were straight and Kara were a boy, that would be the rule. But Kara's not a boy, and you're bisexual and thirteen years old. It's basically the same thing, so you will keep this door open or Kara goes home. You get me?"

I flushed and muttered, "He's like the KGB…"

Dean rolled his eyes at my comment. "Just keep the door open, okay, sweetheart?"

"Yes, Dad," I replied, looking up at him. "The door stays open."

He gave me an approving smile and looked at his watch then. "Time for you two to get ready for bed. Jessie's gotta be up early to help pack."

"Okay, Mr. Winchester," Kara agreed. "I'll go change in the bathroom." She got to her feet, shot me a meaningful look, grabbed her bag, and left the room.

Dean and I looked at each other. "You're lucky I'm not making you both sleep in sleeping bags in the living room," he told me. "I'll be back to say good night." He turned and left.

I changed quickly into my Eeyore nightshirt. I'd outgrown the old one, but Sam had gone on the Internet and found me a new one before he'd gone to hell. I plucked at the picture of Eeyore and wondered again why Sam didn't seem to want anything to do with me.

Then Kara was back and all I cared about was her. We got into my twin bed, me against the window seat. Dean came in a few minutes later, kissed me on my forehead, ruffled Kara's hair, and left us to sleep, door wide open. We waited until we heard him go downstairs and started talking again.

She wanted to know all about my fire, how it worked, what I could and couldn't do with it. She wanted to know more about Bree and how she'd trained me. She asked me for details about Gabby and Vinnie and how I'd eventually killed the goddess.

A while later, we heard Dean and Lisa coming upstairs to go to their room, and we shut up and pretended to be asleep, waiting anxiously until we heard Lisa's little snores coming from their room.

Kara sat up in bed. "Can you show me?" she asked.

"Show you what?"

"Your fire, dummy," she replied. "You said you have a firepit in that shed in the back, right?"

I blinked at her. "I mean, yeah, but if Dad catches us, I'm dead and you're going home. We probably wouldn't see each other again. I'm not supposed to tell people…"

"Come on," Kara urged. "Please? For me?"

I sighed. I couldn't say no to her, not now when we had three days left before we were gone. "Okay," I whispered, reluctant. "But be quiet."

I don't think I'd ever snuck anywhere as quietly as we did that night. It was easier once we were downstairs, and these stairs didn't make the creaks and groans that the ones at Bobby's house did. But Dean was normally a light sleeper and really hypervigilant. If we made one noise that didn't sound like normal house sounds, we were going to get caught. But we didn't. We made it out the back door and to the garden shed without waking anyone.

Once we were inside, I shut the door but opened the little windows so we'd have ventilation for what I was about to do.

"If Dad catches us," I told Kara, rubbing my hands together anxiously, "I'll get my ass blistered. I'm not supposed to light fires without permission or without an adult manning the fire extinguisher." I pointed to it.

She picked it up. "I can handle this. What do I have to do?" It took a couple minutes to walk her through how the fire extinguisher worked. Then I took a deep breath.

"Ready?" I asked her.

She smiled. "Ready," she said. I turned to face the fire pit and opened my furnace. "You're glowing," she whispered. "It's beautiful."

I flushed from her praise and extended a tendril towards the pit. I didn't do anything special or fancy. That wasn't the point of the demonstration. I set the tendril on top of the top log and set it on fire, not allowing any of the rest of the pile burn. Once about half the log had burned to ash, I pulled the fire back into me and turned to look at her, my heart in my throat.

Her expression was full of wonder. "It was you," she said, her eyes wide.

Confused, I tilted my head. "What was me?"

"That house fire," she said. She stumbled backward, leaning against the wall like her legs wouldn't hold her. "You pulled it into you to put it out, to save the family trapped in the house. Then you ran and that's why we couldn't find you after. You scared my mom so bad."

I couldn't look at her and I dropped my gaze to the dirt floor. "It was too much for my furnace to hold for long. I thought I might lose control of it. I had to run, to find something that was safe to burn, so no one would die."

She crossed the garden shed in two short steps and put her hands on my cheeks, lifting my face so I was looking at hers.

"I love you, Jessie Winchester, and I think I always will." Then she kissed me, softly at first and then harder. My eyes closed and our arms closed around each other as our lips met again and again. Then her tongue softly touched my lips. I opened them and extended my own tongue to meet hers. Heat suffused me along with more of that confusing sensation that burned like both excitement and fear.

"I love you too," I whispered against her mouth. She slid her hands into the hair at the nape of my neck and pulled me against her, hugging me with all she had. I could feel sobs shaking her body.

Then she said, "Oh my God, Jessie, look!"

I opened my eyes and they widened in shock. We were standing in a glowing, pulsing globe, and I knew instinctively that my aura had expanded somehow, enclosing her in with me. Hurriedly, I checked my furnace and it was just a tiny bit open, the flame inside it throbbing along with my heartbeat. I closed it gently and the glow died out.

Kara and I broke apart and looked at each other, neither of us sure what to say. Then I sighed, sadness crawling across my chest..

"We better get back inside before we're missed," I said gently. Her shoulders dropped and she took my hand while we snuck back into the house and up to my room, not missed at all.