AN-Thank you for continuing to read my story. This is taking place between episode 1 and 2 for Season 6. Unfortunately for those of you who want Sam interaction sooner, it's going to be a little while because Dean's not just going to take her hunting with him again when he can leave her in safety with Lisa. Don't worry, though, an unexpected situation will force the matter sooner rather than later.

Also thank you for reviews and extra thanks to my beta WaywardDaughter18 for catching the typos and inconsistencies my eyes just flit over.

Kara and I leaned against the fence in front of her house, watching the smaller figures of Dean and Lisa work through the final steps of setting up the moving truck for the trip. They had to load the Impala onto a trailer that they had attached to the back of the moving truck. Dean was under the Impala disengaging the drive shaft so the transmission wouldn't be hurt during the trip. Lisa was loading some final things into the back of her car. Dean hired someone we didn't even know to drive the truck up over the weekend, and he had them dropping it off in a shopping center parking lot about a half hour away from our house so the person couldn't tell anyone where we were.

I sighed and leaned back against Kara. "You're going to text me, right?" I asked her.

She reached up and ran her fingers through my loose hair. "Yes," she whispered.

"This is it, though," I told her, still watching Lisa and Dean, afraid to look at her. My throat locked up, but I struggled through the next part anyway. "You can date other people. We can't exactly be together if we're never going to be near other each again."

I heard a soft sob behind me, and she buried her face against my neck, kissing me there. Tears came to my eyes too, and I just let them fall. "I'm sorry, love," I whispered and turned, pulling her into my arms.

I hated goodbyes and I was sick to death of them. Kara and I had spent as much time as we reasonably could together over the last few days. I'd spent the night at her house and she at mine. We stayed up all hours talking, kissing, and cuddling. We had to keep the door open at both houses, but we weren't doing anything. Not really. We were too sad, seeking comfort and love from each other before my inevitable departure. Last night, we hadn't slept at all, barely talking, just laying together staring at her ceiling or walls.

Now, it was six in the morning and leaving was more and more imminent. Kara wound her fingers through my hair, pulling lightly and pushing herself against me as hard as she could, sobbing. My arms tightened around her and I buried my face in her hair, holding her to me, not caring that my breath was cut off the tiniest bit.

The only time I'd ever been this sad was when someone I loved died, and it felt the same way. Especially since I knew I'd never see her again. Dean would make sure of that, just to keep her safe, and for once I agreed with him. If we weren't here to protect her, then it was the only way. Tears fell against her neck and I felt them against mine.

God, it hurt.

Then Dean was there behind me, his hands gently on my shoulders. "Come on, sweetheart. It's time to go."

I sucked in and let out a deep breath as Kara let me go. "I don't want to," I told him, looking into Kara's sad brown eyes.

Dean kissed the top of my head. "I know."

I let Kara go and then just leaned forward and kissed her gently on her lips one last time. In response, she put her hands on the sides of my face and held me there, pulling me into a much longer, firmer kiss. Our tears intermingled where our cheeks met, waterfalling off to each side. I think she might have done more, but Dean cleared his throat.

She let me go immediately, turning away so Dean wouldn't see her tears, as if there was any doubt that we'd both been crying for what seemed like forever.

Dean put his arm around me and steered me towards the moving truck. I followed his lead, turning to get a look at Kara one last time. She raised one hand and then turned and ran into her house.

Dean pulled me a little closer to him to comfort me. I turned my head to look up at him and noticed a white van in Sid and Carol's driveway. The thing that made me notice it was that there was a rusted spot on the driver's side back panel that was shaped a little like a bird. And then it struck me as strange that it was there at six fifteen in the morning, especially when Sid and Carol had both been killed by the djinn that had tried to kill Dean.

"Dad?" I said and when he looked at me, I pointed at the van. "What's that?"

Dean glanced over at it and gestured towards the magnetic signs stuck to the sides of the van that read Magnuson's Contracting. "Looks like contractors. Probably there to get the house ready to be sold."

I blinked as we passed the white van, closing in the moving truck and cars. "At six fifteen on a Friday?" I asked, looking back at the van. Rust speckled its back bumper too. "And it's not in the best shape…"

"They probably just wanted to get the work over with," Dean explained, as we walked up to the truck. He opened the door for me. His voice changed, becoming both harder and strangled as he fought against guilt and grief. "And no one lives there so they can start work when they want to."

I shrugged, accepting his explanation, and looked into the truck cab. It was clean but smelled a little like diesel. You could never totally get rid of the smell of diesel if your truck ran on it. I hated the smell, but got in anyway.

It was only three and a half hours or so to Battle Creek so my duffel had been relegated to Lisa's car, but my backpack was sitting on the floor of the cab. I'd filled it with books, my PSP, and PSP games, like I was going on a month's vacation instead of a three hour drive. Dean's ugly green cooler was stuck on the floor between the seat and the cab's console.

There was a step to get up into the cab, but it was uncomfortably high for me. There were also no handles to grab to pull myself up. I hated being short. I tried to put my foot on the step, but that really put me off balance and I wasn't really as in shape as I had been before we went after Gabby, having lost muscle and fat before we figured out that I needed to eat more and regularly to feed my furnace now. Also, aside from skating, I hadn't really been exercising, not the way I'd used to. Old me would have been able to maneuver herself into the truck. Now me was a little stuck.

"Need a boost?" Dean asked, sounding amused. Normally, it would have pricked my temper that he was amused, but I was too sad.

"Yeah," I admitted, and he put a hand under my butt and boosted me up and into the cab. "Thanks, Dad," I added as I settled into the seat and put my seatbelt on. He smiled at me and closed the door.

It was the middle of June and the truck windows were open. I turned a little, leaning my elbow against the door, and gazed at the old house through the driver's window. Dean's white truck waited down the driveway by the garage and Ben was sitting on the top of the porch steps, his elbows resting on his thighs, hands hanging between his legs. I couldn't make out his expression but his body and movements were stiff.

Lisa came up on Dean's side of the cab and turned to go get Ben, but when Ben saw her coming, he unfolded his arms and gripped the small ledge that was part of the top step like somehow that would keep him from leaving. Lisa went over and talked to him. I could hear her voice but not what she was saying. Her tone was firm but kind. He said something back, his tone sulky. She shook her head and said something else, her tone the same as it had been. Ben sighed and let go of the step while he said something else in an angry tone. Then he got up and stalked past her, turning past the truck cab to go to her car. His face was tight, lips pressed together, nostrils flaring, eyes hard. He didn't even look at me.

I knew Ben didn't want to move and he'd been embroiled in his own rebellion against it from the moment they'd told us. He took a long time with any task they gave him, he stayed silent unless someone spoke directly to him about something, and he kept out of sight as often as possible so he wouldn't be given anything else to do, trying to hold us up as much as he could without actively sabotaging the plan or resisting the way I had initially. But he hadn't had anyone to talk sense into him the way Kara had for me.

I tried talking to him, tried to make him see what Kara had pointed out to me and trying to get him to see Dean's point that Dean was trying to keep both us and the people who knew us from getting hurt again. Ben just called me a traitor and told me to get lost, his voice venomous, so I'd held up my hands in surrender and gone back to filling in the fire pit with dirt.

Ben was mad at everything. I knew how that felt and I knew that there was no reasoning with him. He was going to have to work through it on his own. Hopefully he'd manage that before Lisa and Dean got tired of his attitude and sulking.

Then Dean climbed into the cab and we were on our way.

I didn't feel like talking, so I did what Dean always did when he didn't want to talk and turned the radio on to the local classic rock station. Then I pulled a book out of my backpack and opened it, staring down at the pages, but not reading anything. Every once in a while, I turned a page so Dean would be less suspicious, if he was even paying attention. I felt completely empty and numb, even while grief was eating me up somewhere deep in my heart. Every once in a while a tear would fall on a page and I'd wipe it away.

It sucked that this was our first road trip since we'd settled down.

After probably about an hour, Dean reached into the cooler and pulled out a bottle of water. He opened the lid and held it out to me. I raised my head to look at him, accepting the water.

"Drink that," he told me, his eyes still on the road. "You've been crying practically since you woke up this morning."

"More like since I went to bed last night," I muttered.

His eyebrows shot up. "You and Kara didn't sleep last night?" He glanced at me, assessing, before looking back at the road.

I shrugged. "Not really."

He sighed. "All right, then you're drinking another one after that one. Then we're going to stop and you're going to sleep in Lisa's backseat."

I groaned and slunk down in my seat. "I don't wanna," I told him, then drank more of the water. Once I'd started drinking, I'd realized I'd been thirsty for a long time. "You're making me move. You can at least not make me do anything else that I don't want to today."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, that's not how it works, kiddo, and you know it." He reached over and ruffled my hair. I let him. "You need your sleep."

I sighed and looked up at the cab's ceiling. "People go without sleep all the time and it doesn't hurt them," I pointed out. "You and Sam barely used to sleep, and even now I know you stare at the ceiling for half the night." I'd interrupted him enough times because of nightmares that I knew that was true.

Dean lost his casual tone. "Jessie, you're going to go sleep in Lisa's car. You're exhausted and it's making you more upset than you would be normally. It's your choice whether you do it with or without a sore ass. You getting me here, little girl?"

I slumped down further, dropping my empty water bottle on the floor. "Whatever," I said. "It doesn't matter anyway."

Dean made an exasperated noise and handed me a second bottle of water. When I finished that one, we pulled off at an exit for a bathroom break. Then Ben and I switched. He went with Dean, even managing to climb into the cab without help, probably through sheer stubbornness considering how he was still sulking.

At my request, Lisa got my duffel out of her trunk and handed it to me. Then I climbed into her backseat and lay down, using the duffel as my pillow, just like I used to sometimes when we were still hunting. Lisa's backseat wasn't as comfortable though. The seatbelt clasps dug into my sides and back. I couldn't just shove the ones I wasn't using into the crack between the back of the seat and the seat itself.

Lisa got in the front and turned to watch me get settled. "You doing okay?" she asked.

"I guess," I answered, not looking at her. "Dad wants me to sleep because it's good for me or something even though I don't want to."

"Well close your eyes and try," she said, turning back around and starting the car. "At least you're not still mad the way Ben is. I don't know what to do to make it better."

I closed my eyes. "Don't look at me," I said. "I tried talking to him and he told me to leave him alone. He didn't even try to explain or anything."

"Well, it's not your problem to fix, sweetie," she said. "Rest now." Then she turned the radio to alternative rock and pulled out of the parking spot to follow the truck.

Her car didn't make the same rumble as the Impala, but the sound of the road under the wheels was similar enough to lull me to sleep pretty quickly, especially since I'd been awake for more than 24 hours. Time became meaningless then as I became lost in confusing dreams, a mishmash of fire, fights, and fun with Vinnie, Alice, and Kara.

I awoke when the car slowed down and angled right. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. "Where are we?" I asked Lisa, my voice gruff with sleep.

"Dean signaled to pull over at this exit," she told me, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. "I'm just following him."

"How long was I asleep?" I asked, unbuckling the seatbelt I'd been wearing and scooting forward to look out the windshield.

"Maybe an hour and a half," Lisa said, following Dean into a McDonald's parking lot and pulling the car into a parking spot near the truck, which Dean had parked across several spaces. Luckily the parking lot was pretty empty.

"So we only have an hour to go to Battle Creek," I asked.

Lisa's face turned concerned as she watched Dean get out of the truck cab and Ben getting out the same side, looking mutinous. "Uh, yeah, about," she said as she got out of the car, shutting the door behind her.

Concerned myself now, I got out on the passenger side so they'd be less likely to notice me and banish me back into the car. Lisa's doors didn't squeak and I closed it quietly.

While I was getting out of the car, Dean had grabbed Ben by the upper arm and pulled him over to Lisa. Ben's face changed a little, worry pinching his brow even as he sulked. Dean looked down at Ben and shook him a little by the arm.

"Tell her," Dean ordered. Ben gave Dean a quick glare and yanked his arm out of Dean's hand. Dean let him. "Now, Ben," Dean snapped.

"What's going on?" Lisa asked, her eyes wide with worry and apprehension. I moved closer to the front of the car so I could see better. "Ben?" Ben dropped his head and stared at the ground, pouting and angry at the same time.

Dean looked down at the top of Ben's head. "You gonna spill it or am I?" he asked, his tone a warning.

The worry eased from Lisa's face as she realized that Ben was just in trouble with Dean and nothing really bad had happened. Her brows drew together now and her voice was stern. "If he has to tell me, young man, you'll be in even more trouble."

I had enough experience with choosing the hard way that I hoped that Ben would take the easy way out and just tell on himself. His expression hardened for just one moment and then eased a little, and I knew he'd made the right choice.

I was wrong.

"You both can go fuck yourselves," Ben snapped and turned on one heel to stomp back to the cab. I gasped. Actually all three of us did. Ben did not use that language or speak like that to anyone, not even his friends, well except me and that may have been my fault.

Ben got about five steps before Lisa snapped out, "Benjamin Isaac Braeden! You stop right there, young man."

Ben actually stopped, probably out of habit, and he didn't really have the temper issues I did that would have made me ignore her. She stalked up behind him and whirled him around so he was facing her. He stumbled a little. She bent, grabbed his chin, and looked him square in the eyes.

"Tell me now," she ordered and I was so glad I was on the other side of the car and not the one in trouble. She let go of his chin.

"From the beginning," Dean added, but now that Lisa was taking care of it, he just crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a hip against the car to watch.

Ben's eyes flitted to Dean for just one second before they landed back on Lisa. "Mom, I… he…" Lisa's eyebrows shot up and I knew that she was quickly losing her patience with her son. Ben could tell too and he swallowed and started over. "D-d-dean was telling me about all the things that would be okay when we got to Battle Creek, like I'd make new friends and they probably had a good baseball team I could join…"

"Basically trying to make him feel better since he's been sulking for a week," Dean added. Ben shot him a quick look and then dropped his eyes to his shoes, his pout growing.

"Yeah, I guess, but anyway, he was telling me that we were moving to keep Liam and the rest of my friends and our neighbors safe, and all the good things that we'd have in the new neighborhood."

"And you were agreeing with me," Dean added. "And then you said…?"

Ben's head dropped and his voice got softer. "U-u-until you ruin it a-a-gain, a-a-ass… hole."

Lisa's lips tightened and she stood up straight, her entire body tense. "Benjamin! What have I told you about respect? Not to mention kindness and empathy? That's not even getting into your language. You know you're not supposed to use those words! Don't you?"

Ben put his hands behind his back and kept his head down, taking a small step backwards. "I can… I can express my feelings, but I can't be mean about it and I'm supposed to consider other people's feelings before I talk."

"And?" Lisa prompted, crossing her arms under her breasts and tapping her toe at him.

Ben winced. "No swearing," he all but whispered.

"How do you think Dean feels about us having to move? Huh? Do you think he likes upending all our lives and moving us away from our friends and family? Do you really think he'd do that to me, to you, to Jessie with how she feels about Kara, if it wasn't for a damn good reason?"

Ben sniffled. "No," he whimpered.

"Do you actually think that he ruined our lives, making us move from there? Would you rather have him have never come into our lives than have us move together to a new city?"

Ben started crying. "No."

Dean shifted then and the expression on his face changed a little. He uncrossed his arms and rubbed his hands on the sides of his jeans.

"Then this attitude had better stop right now. This is not what any of us wanted, including him, and I won't have you taking it out on him or me anymore," she scolded. "And you can look forward to getting your mouth washed out when we get to our new house. Now get your butt in the cab."

Ben swallowed hard, turned, and ran to the truck cab. Lisa followed him, determination in her stride. Ben climbed into the cab and Lisa followed after. I stared after them, watching while someone rolled up the windows.

I felt bad for Ben, getting his ass handed to him in the cab of our moving truck.

Then I turned my head and saw Dean. He was leaning against the car, his arms over his chest, pinching the bridge of his nose with his right hand. He looked lost and dejected… he looked guilty. My heart broke and I rounded the car and pushed my way under his arms, hugging him around his waist.

"It's not your fault, Dad," I urged. "You couldn't have predicted that we'd be attacked by djinn. It's like when Gabby found me and ripped open my furnace. It's not your fault."

"If I hadn't been living with Lisa and Ben…" he started, then stopped abruptly, straightening. He took a deep breath, but there was still pain on his face.

He gently unwound my arms from his waist and then picked me up and set me on the car hood. He tilted my chin up so I was looking at him. "My guilt is not your job to undo, sweetheart, but I appreciate you trying." He pulled me into his arms and held onto me.

Lisa and Ben took longer than I expected and by the time they got out of the cab, Dean was brushing my hair into some semblance of neatness. I hadn't brushed it since the day before. He braided it quickly down my back and secured it with one of my scrunchies. Lisa had taught him how.

Ben's face was wet with tears, his eyes red, and he was sniffling as he approached Dean. Dean handed me-+ my hairbrush and turned towards Ben, who stopped in front of him and stared down at their feet.

"Look him in the eyes," Lisa said, moving up behind Ben.

Ben reluctantly raised his head to meet Dean's eyes. "I'm sorry I said what I said," Ben murmured barely loud enough to hear. "It's not true and it was wrong to say it. I'm sorry I've been acting like a brat the last few days. I'm sorry I swore at you and called you a bad word."

"It's okay, Ben. I accept your apology," Dean said and pulled Ben into a tight hug. Ben wrapped his arms around Dean and held on tight.

Lisa tilted her head towards the McDonald's. "You wanna take a break, get something to eat? It might help all our moods."

Dean nodded, still hugging Ben. "Sounds like a plan." But he held onto Ben until Ben let go.