A/N If you are reading the story before reading the entire Cassie and Dean series, please consider starting at the beginning with The Decision. Thanks.

Remembrance

Chapter Two

Since my family was brought into the world of the supernatural because of an incident where my grandmother was burned to death in the ceiling of her home; we have been involved in that realm. It is not something I could tell my friends about only my family knew and now my husband knows about our life as people who deal with the paranormal. Well along the same lines some of my family members have gifts, special gifts. I have a sixth sense for knowing when evil is around as well as a strange connection to my Dad, my uncle Sam has prophetic visions, my cousin Bethany can read others thoughts as well as her father, Joshua. Sam's daughter, Sarah was asthmatic as a child, yeah I know it isn't a gift but she seems to have some sort of healing power now despite her former weakness, she is still a bit delicate but the sweetest young lady you will ever meet. The gifts tend to jump around in our family which would be normal if we were a normal family. I am not sure why I brought all that up except to say that my cousin, Michael Dean Winchester, Mike, had a gift of a different sort. A gift for getting in trouble and since I was intrigued by his antics I usually got in trouble along with him. Uncle Sam insisted he took after my Dad, his namesake.

Michael was the problem child in our family though I still don't really understand why. He had Gabe and me to hang around with as far as being near his age. He just seemed to want to start trouble. From time to time I would follow him just to see what he would do next. Once when I was around seven he was close to six; he got tired of waiting to use the bathroom so he decided to go outside of our house to "pee pee." I followed him thinking he wouldn't really do that out of doors, but he did I stood there as he had his back to me and I could hear the urine as it hit the ground. I turned to go back inside and ran right into my Dad. I know my face was beet red, even though I didn't see anything. I admit I was curious though. My Dad moved so I could go back inside the house. I watched out the door as Dad tapped him on the shoulder but Michael didn't turn around until his pants were zipped. He looked at my Father as though he had done nothing wrong. My Dad took a walk with him I am not sure what was said but knowing Dad it was a lecture about not exposing one self in the middle of the back yard or in front of the girls. I should have been warned of his attitude then, but my sixth sense must have been out of whack because I loved my cousin. He was just a kid, right?

What I learned: Following Mike is an iffy situation.

James decided that maybe this little journal of mine wasn't such a bad idea he was reading how much of a brat I was as a child. I am not sure how I feel about that yet. Do I really want my children to know how I was as a young person? Maybe I will make a time capsule for it and bury it in the yard? I will decide later, so far it is therapeutic just to get some of these things out on paper.

Back to Michael, I wish my gift had worked earlier on the day I really needed it. The other children were in the house eating ice cream but Michael and I were supposed to be in the back yard playing. Unfortunately we ended up in our front yard climbing the largest tree on the block. We had planned to cross over from the tree to the balcony and surprise everyone inside. No, I wasn't fearless but I was with Mike I guess he kind of made me feel I could do what I wanted at times. Our plan didn't turn out so well, when Dad and Uncle Sam came back from the store I was seating on the porch where Mom had instructed that I stay. Aunt Missy was at the ambulance with Mike who had a broken arm.

"Jessica Marie, tell me you weren't up in that tree with Mike."

"I was, Dad"

"You are grounded for two weeks, absolutely nothing fun, period. Do you know you could have been paralyzed?"

"What's that?"

"Not walking, using a wheelchair, it means it was a very bad idea, young lady," he said with fear in his eyes; something I had never seen in his face before.

He shook his head then looked at me strangely.

"What?"

"Dad, something isn't right don't let them leave with Mike in that ambulance."

"Why?"

"Dad, I just know, tell Uncle Sam, hurry," I said with my voice shaking.

He ran to tell them. After they left for the hospital in the car they checked the ambulance and found a nail in the right front tire. It was a good thing I stopped them they could have had a blow out on the highway, which could have led to "Final Destination" all over again.

Dad just looked at me, "Go get your shoes so we can go to see about Mike, okay," he said.

Mom stayed home with the younger kids, Gabe and I rode with Dad.

"I knew you and Mike would get in trouble," Gabe whispered to me from the back seat.

"Why didn't you tell someone," Dad asked though he was still looking straight ahead.

"What?" Gabe responded surprised that Dad had heard him.

Dad repeated the question.

"Uh, I don't know," Gabe said as he leaned back in the seat and crossed his arms trying hard to disappear.

"Maybe you should be grounded too for withholding information"

"What I didn't do anything."

"That's the problem," Dad said but he didn't repeat the threat about grounding him.

I smiled to myself.

At the hospital Mike looked upset.

"Hey," I said as I walked in the room while Uncle Sam, Aunt Missy and Dad talked outside in the hall and Gabe began to flip the channels on the television.

"Hey," Mike said.

"I'm sorry you got hurt."

"No sweat I'll be fine," he said though I could tell he was in pain.

"Dad says you could have been paralyzed well either of us if I had fallen."

Paralyzed sounded funny on my tongue.

"Yea, he is a grown up they always want us to be afraid to do anything they don't agree with," he said with a frown.

I disagreed but I didn't say it aloud. I knew our parents were pretty cool about things, I just knew it. I didn't get any feelings or warnings about Mike at that time but I felt bad for the way he was viewing his life and family.

What I learned: Mike had anger in him that I needed to be watchful for.

Because of the fact that the Demon that killed my grandmother was still very much alive despite years of trying to get rid of it we were all home schooled, at least until we were high school age. We took turns meeting at Aunt Missy and Uncle Sam's or they came to our house. My mother and Missy split the duties of instruction as well as the fun stuff. We were like a commune in ways because we were together every day my cousins and I may as well have been siblings. Besides Michael and Sarah, Uncle Sam had twin sons one named Jordan Samuel, Jordan died when before he was a year old; some sort of crib death. The remaining son is Timothy Jackson, we call him Jack. Uncle Sam still thinks he has some sort of mark on him because of the things that happen to those around him. But I will go into more of that later.

When I was ten we took our first real vacation that included a plane ride. My mother had finally located some relatives that lived in San Diego. Now when our family went places it was never just Mom, Dad and us three kids. It was always the entire Winchester Clan including: Joshua, Bethany and Jon Jon if they weren't with their mother. I am not complaining it was fun to always have so many options for playmates.

I loved Bethany; she was a Mega Girl, petite, pretty and always lady like. I had a tendency to be Tom Boyish at times but not around her. She brought out he true girl in me, I wanted to be like her so much. Of course I was taller early on and never, how do you say, blossomed the way Mags did; I was gawky or it least I felt it. My dark brown hair tended to be wavy and my green eyes seemed dull to me. Bethany knew how to make me feel pretty like her. Maybe it was just because she accepted me as I was.

We had our first disagreement when I realized she liked Tanner our twelve year old neighbor who I liked too. We were talking on the plane when I realized it.

"And Tanner's blue eyes just lit up when I kissed his cheek," she said with a giggle.

"What?"

"Yes, it was hilarious the way he grinned."

"Uh, I like Tanner," I mumbled.

"Oh."

I bit my lip and crossed my arms over my chest.

My Dad looked over at me.

"Something wrong?"

"Nothing," I said with a pout and a shake of the head.

He looked from me to Bethany then went back to conversing with Uncle Sam.

"I didn't know," Bethany said with the proper amount of remorse in her voice.

"It's okay..," I started.

"But he asked me to be his girlfriend," she said.

"What? You can date for four more years," I said louder than I intended.

Uncle Joshua leaned around Dad and Uncle Sam.

"Bethany Ann do we need to talk?" he asked as we both turned red with embarrassment the entire section was staring at us now.

"No Dad," was all she said as she rolled her eyes at me while both tried not to laugh.

It turned out Tanner was kissing more than one girl in our neighborhood so we both "blew him off."

My mother hadn't seen the cousin, Robert Ryan, since she was a little girl. I was a little surprised that he was a tall brunette with green eyes like mine. We rarely spoke of race in our family though I had seen photographs of both sets of my grand parents. I knew our family was different; we were a serious rainbow. Things only got more interesting when we met Robert's Hispanic wife and their two children: Juan and Vanessa. We visited for a week during which time Uncle Joshua met his future bride, Alicia. I guess it helps to look like a surfer guy in California.

TBC

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