I'm learning that what I am is something more than I can plan.

– Half Alive, RUNAWAY


People took Andrew Gallagher for a slob, a good-for-nothing stoner, an unemployed college dropout who lived in a dusty van, but that wasn't really him.

In high school, he'd been deemed one of those 'gifted' kids, or whatever. Aced every exam. Got offered places at all the colleges he applied to. As Andy grew up, he learned that intelligence was the be-all and end-all of his self-worth; if he didn't get an A on a test or answered a questioned wrong in class, what good was he? Certain there was no alternative, he constructed the façade that would define his teenage years: effortlessly genius - that was the idea - and his family, teachers, and peers all bought right into it.

Of course, Andy was careful never to let them see the sleepless nights sick with stress, or the way he acted like a hermit, never affording a second to enjoy his youth. When he started at Harvard, it should've been the proudest moment of his life, but it was a symbol of everything that had been forced upon him – this identity of 'genius' that he'd never asked for – and he resented it.

He couldn't keep up with being gifted. He dropped out. Got high a few times too many. Learned that life wasn't about grades. Found a girlfriend. Broke up with her. Couldn't hold down a job. Barely had a penny to his name. At a glance, it seemed like he'd hit rock-bottom, but Andy was the happiest he had ever been.

When he discovered his mind-powers last year, that was a gift. And he intended to take it seriously. No mind-controlling his friends, no using it for anything more illegal than avoiding his student loan debt, no going out of his mind with newfound power.

Everything was working out fine until Dr Jennings died.

Now being gifted was threatening to ruin his life. Again. All of a sudden, there were more people like Andy, and they were all unwittingly part of some demonic catastrophe. Great. Dean promised him they were taking care of things, but in all honesty, Andy was pretty sure they were as freaked out about this as he was.

The Winchesters, to his surprise, turned out to be pretty cool.

Sam wasn't unlike him. More uptight, sure, but a smart dude and a fellow psychic. Despite the thousand reasons Andy had to be suspicious of him, having someone to relate to was kind of nice.

Sam's gift was the ability to receive premonitions of people dying in horrific ways. Which sucked. And the girl – Caden, her name was – had started getting those same premonitions in the midst of accusing Andy of murder. It had been a weird day for everyone.

In the county office, Andy had his head in a file of medical records. Caden was sitting across the table from him, while Sam and Dean used the fax machine a couple rooms down the hall. As she flipped through a stack of papers, Andy could tell by her absent gaze that her mind was elsewhere.

'Find anything?' he asked.

Caden's eyes snapped up. 'Huh? Oh, uh, no. Not yet.' She brushed back a strand of wavy hair that had worked free from her ponytail, and stared back into the papers. Then, suddenly, she prompted, 'You mentioned you went to Harvard?' Her tone suggested she wasn't really asking, just seeking some distraction from her own troubles.

'Yeah, I mean, for a little while,' Andy answered with a shrug. 'Never liked it much.'

At that, Caden's interest piqued, her eyebrows shooting up in disbelief. 'Wait, for real? You didn't like Harvard?'

'I dunno, college was just what everyone told me to do. It never felt like my choice.' There was no bitterness in Andy's voice; he'd long since made peace with that. In genuine curiosity, he added, 'Do demon-hunters go to college?'

'Sam did. Stanford. He was going to be lawyer,' answered Caden, with a slight glint of pride at her brother's academic career.

'Was? He changed his mind?'

'Yeah,' she said, growing pensive. 'Our Dad, he hated that Sam wanted to go to school; he raised us to hunt, and I guess he just didn't want to hear anything else. But Sam was always his own person.'

Andy gave a nod of understanding; he could certainly empathize with chasing an identity of one's own. 'What about you?'

'I'm going to Stanford next September,' she grinned a little sheepishly, but the expression fell into downheartedness almost as soon as it had arrived. Dejected, she added, 'I mean, maybe. I deferred enrolment.'

'You don't sound so sure.'

Caden took a moment to note his comment, absentmindedly fidgeting with the watch around her wrist. An almost regretful tone came into her voice when she eventually replied, 'I thought I was sure. Then with all this demon stuff, and Sam dropping out, things got complicated.'

Another beat ticked by as Andy debated whether it was fair to say what he was thinking. In high school, he'd known kids who would have killed for a college place – obstacles be damned – and yet this girl sitting in front of him was talking about Stanford so dispiritedly that it hit a little close to home.

For better or worse, he went ahead. 'Listen, it isn't my place to say anything, but are you going to college because you actually want to go? Or are you going because you want to be your own person and Stanford just happens to be how your brother did it?'

Caden froze, unreadable, and Andy feared he'd spoken out of turn until the faintest flicker of understanding crossed her eyes. Quietly, as if afraid to say it, she admitted, 'I don't know.'

Beside them, the door flew open, and Caden collected herself in an instant – clearly something she was used to doing. Sam and Dean both walked in, arms filled to the brim with documents and files on the mysterious Holly Beckett. Andy had never really cared about who his birth parents were, but now that he was about to find out, he felt a little ill.

'It's true,' Sam slid a file across the table to him. 'Holly Beckett was your birth mother and Dr Jennings oversaw the adoption; you have a solid connection to both of them.'

Well, shit. There it was.

Dean joined them at the table, pulling up a chair beside Caden, who was decidedly ignoring her brothers' concerned glances. To Andy, she asked, 'Do you have any enemies?'

'Enemies? No, I- I mean maybe, but not like murderous enemies, and no one with mind control.'

'Then I have a pretty good guess at who the killer is,' Dean spoke up. 'Holly gave birth to twins.'

Andy felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. 'Twins?' he sputtered.

'Yeah. A brother.'

'…Shit,' was all Andy could say. A brother. He had a twin brother. That discovery was overwhelming enough as it was, but as he realized what Dean was implying, his stomach dropped all over again. 'I have an evil twin.'

'You went to the Gallagher family, and your brother went to the Weems family from upstate,' added Sam, reading from an adoption record in his hand.

An evil twin. An evil psychic twin. 'What's his name?'

'Ansem Weems. He has a local address.'

'He lives here!?'

Dean handed him a piece of paper from the stack he'd placed on the table. 'Recognize him?'

Bracing himself for whatever earth-shattering fact was about to be thrown at him next, Andy looked down at the document: it was his twin brother's driver's license, and the little ID photograph did nothing to calm Andy's astonishment.

Ansem Weems was none other than Webber, his friend, or maybe acquaintance or, more accurately, co-worker of his ex-girlfriend Tracy. And now they were twins. Well, technically they'd always been twins, but- shit. Webber was his evil psychic brother. 'Oh my God,' Andy croaked. 'I know him.'


'Cay,' Dean pulled her aside, motioning Sam and Andy on ahead.

Caden was still reeling, but there were greater things at stake; the four of them had finished up their research, armed with a plan to confront Ansem Weems (or 'Webber', as Andy called him), who was – presumably – yet another person connected to Yellow Eyes. She didn't understand how or why or even if she fell into that number, but if there was one thing Caden did not have, it was the luxury of time to dwell on her own problems. For now, the best she could do was seek solace in the fact that she was too young to fit the patten and that her mom hadn't died in a house fire when Caden was six-months old.

But then again, Ash had found only one individual in Oklahoma who matched that description, despite there apparently being two.

The door clicked shut behind Sam and Andy, leaving Caden in silence with her oldest brother. Under the fluorescent lighting, the dark circles below his eyes were stark. Dean was tired, anxious, their dad's old leather jacket sitting askew on his shoulders.

'Cade, you don't have to go after Webber with us.' A troubled undertone tested his stoicism as he looked at her with those worried eyes.

'What? I'm not sitting this out,' she protested. 'We have bigger problems than me getting one premonition. Let's just find this guy and deal with the rest later.'

'You having a premonition is one of the bigger problems.'

Guardedly, Caden shoved her hands into her pockets. 'You seem pretty okay with Sam going after Webber.'

'Like hell I am,' replied Dean matter-of-factly, 'but he wouldn't listen.'

'You wanted to go against Webber alone!? Dude, he can mind control you.'

'I can handle Webber,' came his flippant retort.

'No, you can't,' she insisted, dumbfounded by her brother's recklessness. 'You couldn't even fight off Andy! I watched someone get hit by a bus because of Webber and he could do the same thing to you. You're not going after him without me.'

Whatever counterargument he could come up with to that, Caden didn't care; it was times like this that made her grateful for picking up the Winchester steadfastness. Dean only meant to protect her but arguing that he ought to singlehandedly confront Webber was foolhardy. He would get himself killed.

She fully expected him to keep pushing, but all Dean said was, 'Am I not allowed to worry about you?'

Caden felt the momentum stolen from her. To hear him actually say that mid-debate in spite of his own stubborn nature caught her off guard more than she'd expected. 'I'm fine,' she assured, but the waver in her voice suggested otherwise.

'It isn't the demon, Cay. You probably just had a psychic ancestor and it got passed down to you,' Dean's tone softened into reassurance. 'You don't fit the pattern.'

She cast her eyes downward, staring into the gray-carpeted floor. Clairvoyants did exist and, although details were admittedly scarce, nothing she knew about her blood parentage ruled that out. But, still, it did nothing to explain her immunity to Andy's mind powers, or even why she had shared Sam's demonic premonition, of all things.

I don't fit the pattern. In a perfect world, that would be enough to ease Caden's mind.

If only Ash's search had flagged Webber.

Caden hated that she had to ask, hated that it would only make her brother worry more, but she wasn't fine and couldn't be until she had an answer. Cautiously, she questioned, 'Webber doesn't fit the pattern either, does he?'

Dean hesitated. 'I couldn't find anything.'

Shit. 'Then maybe there isn't a pattern and-' Caden didn't need to finish the sentence, they both understood: and that means I could be one of them.

He shook his head. 'No, we don't know that Webber's connected to Yellow Eyes. Not for sure. We could show up at his address and find a totally normal dude.'

He's probably normal. It doesn't say anything about you. The exact same rhetoric he'd handed Sam, and it was just as transparent now as it had always been. Yet Caden found herself desperate to believe it. Sweep everything under the rug and forget this was happening. Kid herself into thinking it would be okay.

So, Caden forced down her panic, willing a flimsy half-smile onto her face. 'Right, yeah. Maybe Bobby can find out if my birth father had psychic blood.'

Dean's expression was enough to betray that he didn't buy her feigned optimism. He opened his mouth as if to say something more, but a flash of conflict crossed his face, and he seemed to decide against it. Instead, gently, he reached out and pulled her into a hug.

An unexpected gesture, but as he wrapped his arms around her protectively, Caden didn't push him away. She was freaked out to hell about all this, no matter how hard she could work to conceal it. Besides, she'd learned how to construct that guarded façade by watching Dean do the exact same thing; of course he could see through it, and it was almost a relief that he did.

'We'll get through this, Caden Jay,' he promised. 'We will.'

She didn't say anything back, too afraid that if she were to break down her walls even a fraction more, she'd lose control of what came through. Every single fucking thing she'd been holding inside, the Colt, their father, Yellow Eyes, her premonition… it was too much.

So, in spite of it all, Caden leaned into her brother, allowing herself to feel safe for just a moment more.


Dark clouds rolled in to obscure the moon as night fell over Guthrie. In the Impala, the atmosphere was just as tense; Sam was on edge, nervously picking at the cast on his injured arm while Dean pushed the speed limit to Webber's address.

'Webber shows up one day, like, eight months ago, and acts as if he's my best friend in the world,' Andy was rapidly explaining. 'He was kind of weird, like he was trying too hard, you know? And all he ever wanted to do was hang around with me or my friends.'

Dean commented, 'He must've known you guys were twins.'

'Then why would he change his name? Why not just tell me the truth?'

'And why start killing people connected to you?' added Caden.

Andy shook his head as if to say hell if I know, but his puzzlement was quickly replaced by alarm.'Maybe he's working his way up to killing me.'

'We don't know-' Dean interrupted, only to find himself cut off when Sam let out a sudden cry of pain, clutching at his head with both hands. Dean tensed, glancing back and forth between the road and his younger brother. 'Sammy?'

Sam's hands were fisted in his hair as he doubled over. Caden leaned over the seat to touch his shoulder, but an all too fresh memory of how her first premonition had been sparked made her draw her hand back and brace for the worst.

For a second, it seemed as if nothing would come of it.

Then the pain slashed through her skull like a knife. Caden gasped in shock, her hands flying to her forehead. In the darkness, there was a dam. The waitress from the café they'd been in that morning – Tracy, she remembered – stood on the edge, and Caden could feel her terror as she stared into the churning water below.

Dean slammed on the brakes and pulled the car over, but flashes of vivid imagery were flying past her eyes too intensely now to notice.

Water rushing loud enough to deafen. There were tears hot on Tracy's face. She took a step forward off the edge of the dam, and Caden felt as if she was the one falling while Tracy hurtled down. Dean was yelling something, but the water was so impossibly thunderous in her ears that she could barely hear him. Tracy hit the river.

And just like that, the headache was gone, the premonition receding away.

Caden's heart pounded in her chest. Her car door had been flung open and Dean was leaning through it, holding her shoulders like he had back in the gravel parking lot. In the front seat, Sam was already coming back to reality, wide-eyed as his own panic ebbed away. Dean asked what they'd seen, but Caden's brain felt like it was going a hundred miles an hour in thick fog. She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her face into her hands.

Sam, voice unsteady, but practiced enough in recovering from his visions to fight through a sentence, said, 'That waitress from the café is going to jump off a dam.'

Andy exclaimed in horror, 'That waitress- Tracy!? There's a dam, like, three minutes away; we need to get over there!'

Dean didn't move.

Caden willed herself to open her eyes. 'Dean, go,' she urged. The vision had an immediacy about it that Caden couldn't explain. If they didn't get there now, Tracy would die. She was sure of it.

Her brother stayed, deliberating for another beat before he finally jolted into action. Caden pulled her door shut and they sped off toward the dam. There was no time for even a passing thought to herself; at the speed Dean was driving, Andy's predicted three minutes would be closer to one. As they hurriedly devised a plan, Sam kept sending worried glances over his shoulder at her. Caden pretended not to notice.

'That's Webber's car,' Andy pointed out the window as they came up on the dam. The interior lights were on, eerily illuminating two figures inside. Dean took note and parked the Impala a short distance away, the closest they could get without being conspicuous.

As the four of them crowded round the trunk, Caden did all she could to clear her muddled head. She was in no state to fight, but with Webber mere moments away from murdering someone, what choice was there but to power through? In hushed voices, they talked through the plan one final time: Sam, Caden, and Andy would confront Webber, while Dean stayed safely out of sight in the surrounding underbrush, aiming his weapon from afar in case things went south.

Sam picked his gun from the weapons compartment but paused before he handed Caden hers. 'You sure you're all right for this?'

'Yeah, I'm sure,' she insisted, taking her weapon from his hand. 'Let's go.'

He didn't stop her from taking the gun, but still his expression remained thoroughly unconvinced. 'You could go with Dean; I can handle-'

'Let's go,' Caden emphasized. In truth, she wasn't convinced either, but if there was ever a time to put off dealing with a personal crisis, this was it. She and Sam could have their heart-to-heart later.

'Yeah, okay,' he acquiesced and reached back into the trunk of the Impala to grab a roll of duct tape. 'I'll get Webber out and you restrain him.'

Caden nodded a got it, taking the tape, and making for Webber's car. Dean settled into his hiding spot as she, Sam, and Andy stole through the shadows. An abundance of caution was necessary; if Webber saw them coming before they were ready to strike, it was over.

As soon as they were close enough, Sam smashed through the driver's side window. Shards of shattered glass drew blood from Webber's face, but he didn't even blink as he stared up at Sam nonchalantly.

'Get out of the car!' Sam bellowed and threateningly levelled his handgun. On the other side of the vehicle, Andy was racing to get Tracy out the passenger seat.

Webber narrowed his eyes at Sam. 'Maybe you should be aiming that gun at yourself, huh?' Cockily, he smirked, and Caden felt the same tug on her mind as when Andy had attempted to use his powers against her. Webber's command was stronger, harder to ignore, but Sam remained unfazed; he pulled back and punched him hard in the face. Webber recoiled with a yelp, stunned, as Sam threw open the door and wrestled him out onto the asphalt.

Caden was ready; she had to act now, before Webber could get his thoughts straight enough to try something else. She taped his mouth – he couldn't mind control Tracy if he couldn't speak – and moved to tape his hands together, but a sudden shout behind her grabbed her attention. Caden risked a glimpse away just in time to see Andy hit the ground, hands pressed against a wound on his head. Tracy stood over him with a bloodied rock held aloft, her face a picture of helpless terror at what she'd done. How!?

Webber was frighteningly quick as he seized Caden's moment of confusion to yank his hands from her grip. He ripped the tape off his mouth and faced her in triumph. 'You really think I need to talk to do this?'

Swiftly, Caden pulled her gun from her waistband, aiming it straight at his head. 'I'll bet you need to be conscious.'

'I'm not afraid of you, kid,' Webber laughed. 'I'm not afraid of anything.'

'Yeah? Maybe you should be,' growled Sam, steadying his own weapon.

Subtly, Webber's gaze shifted away, his casual stance remaining carefully unaffected; had Caden not had such a keen presence of mind drilled into her growing up, she may not have even noticed. Sam caught it too, but before either of them could react, Tracy was upon them, spurred by Webber's silent instruction. With a solid, painful thud, she struck Sam with the same rock she'd used to injure Andy.

Sam collapsed onto the asphalt, unconscious. A jolt of fear at how badly he might be injured shot through her, but then Tracy was raising the rock to strike it against her and-

'Tracy, stop, please!' Andy pleaded helplessly from the ground, blood seeping from the gash on his forehead.

Tracy ignored him, her frightened eyes fixed on Caden.

'STOP!'

It was a command this time. Caden could feel the strength in it. The rock dropped from Tracy's shaking hands as she stared at Andy, aghast.

An impressed expression came over Webber, only for a second, but it unsteadied his focus just long enough for Caden to step toward him and draw back her fist ready to knock him out. Then – damn it, he's quick – his composure returned, and Tracy brushed past, silently walking between them before Caden could throw her punch. That sick, triumphant grin settled back on his face as Tracy stepped up onto the dam's ledge.

The premonition was still all too fresh, fractured images of Tracy falling into the dark, deadly waters below. With her brother still unconscious and Andy on the ground with a head wound, only Caden was left to save Tracy's life.

She let the punch go; Webber would surely send Tracy to her death if Caden threatened him. Silently, she prayed that Dean would intervene and take Webber out from the safety of his hiding place – things were going bad fast, and Caden was beginning to fear it was beyond what she could handle alone. There was nothing she could do but run after Tracy and grab her by the arm, pulling back with all the power she had. Tracy resisted, vehemently fighting her grip and digging her fingernails into Caden's hand hard enough to draw blood.

Andy was staggering to his feet, glaring murderously at his twin. 'You twisted son of a bitch!' he snarled and leapt at Webber.

'Back off, brother,' Webber warned as Andy grabbed him by the shirt, 'or Tracy's gone.'

'No! You let her go!'

Webber laughed sharply. 'You can't control my mind, Andrew. Doesn't work on people like us. Now get the hell off me or she's jumping.'

'Okay, okay,' he stepped away, holding up his hands in reluctant defeat. 'Just don't hurt her.'

But Webber only pushed harder; Tracy doubled her efforts, fighting tooth and nail against Caden to stay on the ledge.

'Don't be mad at me, okay? I know it's all wrong. I didn't mean for it to get like this,' Webber said it as if he was apologizing for nothing more severe than serving someone the wrong drink.

Andy shook his head in horror. 'You're insane.'

'No, no, I just wanted us to be together. Like brothers.'

'If you kill my friend, so help me, I will never consider you my brother.'

'But Tracy is trying to come between us,' Webber pressed, voice suddenly growing dark, dangerous. 'Dr Jennings? Our birth mother? They separated us! What was I supposed to do!?'

'You learn you have a twin, you call them up, go out for drinks! You don't start killing people!'

In the midst of the action, Caden could see Sam blearily raising his head. Thank God, he's okay.

'I wanted to tell you for so long, Andy, but he didn't let me,' Webber continued. 'He said I had to wait until-'

'Who?' Andy interjected.

Webber stared at his twin like he'd just been asked whether the sky was blue. 'The man with the yellow eyes.'

No. The world seemed to freeze around her, Caden's blood turning to ice in her veins. No, no, no.

'He came to me in a dream. He said I was special, and that he's got big plans for me… for both of us. He's the one who told me I had a brother.'

'And he told you to kill Dr Jennings and our mom?'

'THEY SPLIT US UP!' he thundered. Then, suddenly, he quieted, the deadly expression dropping from his face.

Tracy stopped fighting to jump off the dam.

Webber was staring off into the bushes behind the road, right at-

Dean.

Andy didn't waste his opportunity. In one frantic motion, he grabbed Sam's gun from where it had been dropped on the asphalt and shot at Webber. Fear tested his aim and the bullet flew right past, missing. Webber didn't even flinch.

But adrenaline was not a hunter's downfall.

Caden levelled her gun at Webber's head. She pulled the trigger.

She did not miss.


Everything after shooting Webber was a blur. Sam got back on his feet, promised he was okay. Andy did his best to explain it all to Tracy. Dean emerged from his hiding place unscathed.

Webber, of course, died.

Caden shot him right in the skull; he hadn't stood a chance. The sun rose as he bled out onto the asphalt.

Dean said that the instant Webber realized he was there, he was nearly mind-controlled into killing himself. Had she not pulled the trigger when she did, her brother wouldn't be alive. When Caden looked at it like that – objectively – there had been no choice: she'd had to shoot.

But no amount of objectivity could make this any less horrific. Caden was eighteen-years-old and she'd just murdered someone. Killing monsters was one thing, but a human being… her entire world had been scarred. Permanently.

And the visions. God, she did not want to think about the visions right now, but everything was twisted up together, woven with the same thread.

Sammy, you know, with these visions he gets, he's… different. There's a lot we don't know. But things could go bad, and if they do, you two have to save him. Nothing else matters. If you can't save him, you… you need to kill him.

Saying Sam wasn't dangerous had been so easy. So easy to truly believe it – and Caden still did truly believe it – but if their dad had been alive today to see Caden share her brother's demon-sent visions and then kill someone in the span of twelve hours, he would have said the same thing about her as he had about Sam. As the sound of that gunshot still rang through her mind, Caden had to wonder if he'd have been right.

Morning brought with it an armada of police and paramedics. Conveniently, Andy mind-tricked their concerns away. He was dealing with everything surprisingly well – shaken, exhausted, but looking ahead with an optimism that Caden wished she knew how to have.

As the last of the ambulances drove away, Sam handed a scrap of paper to Andy. 'Here, I wrote down my cell. If anything comes up, call me, all right? You don't have to be in this alone.'

'Thanks,' Andy replied and slid the paper into the pocket of his canvas jacket. 'I'll see you guys around, I guess. Good luck with the demon hunting.' He paused for a second, then added, 'And good luck with college, Caden. If you go, I mean. I hope it works out.'

Caden mustered a half-smile. 'Yeah, me too.' But college seemed a million miles away. Are you going to college because you actually want to go? Or are you going because you want to be your own person and Stanford just happens to be how your brother did it? For that, in truth, was the crux of it, and a thought for another time.

They said their goodbyes and parted ways, each of them with a changed world. Sam kept looking at her out the corner of his eye as they walked in silence to the Impala, and Caden could tell he was trying to avoid asking whether she was okay. She and Sam had always been alike; sometimes growing up, it felt like the two of them against the world. Against Dean and their dad at times, too. They were each other's support in shared hardships, and Sam would want to be there for her through this.

Caden just needed space to come to terms with it all first.

An urgent call from Ellen Harvelle turned the drive back to Bobby's into a detour to Nebraska. Caden knew better than to protest, but all she wanted was to be home, to fill Bobby in on everything and let him figure out whether Emmanuel – her birth father, whose late brother was Caden's namesake – had any kind of psychic blood. Until then, her mind could not be at rest; not while Yellow Eyes had a hand hovering over her past.

Hours into the journey, Caden found herself rudely kicked from her thoughts as a marker pen collided squarely with her face. In the front seat, Sam looked away in mock innocence.

'Ow,' she scowled, grabbing the pen and throwing it right back.

Sam caught it with his good hand. 'You said you wanted to draw on my cast.'

'Yeah, but you don't have to throw the pen at me.'

He shrugged and launched it at her again. This time, she caught it mid-air. 'Sam, I was just joking around, I'm not gonna-'

'No, no, you were right. It does look boring like this.'

He was extending the figurative olive branch, she realized, as he referenced their conversation from a few days prior. It dawned on her that this, despite the circumstances, was the first time since Dad died that they'd all been on okay terms with each other. Letting that go unnoticed seemed… careless.

Caden accepted the figurative olive branch, a genuine grin finding its way onto her face. It felt good. Really, really good.

'Oh, what was that?' she said cockily. 'Did you say I was right?'

Sam smirked. 'Don't get used to it.'

So, Caden doodled on his cast – a collection of goofy-looking Star Wars characters, and a wholehearted destruction of her earlier promise to not draw anything dumb – while Sam called her out for being a terrible artist. Dean turned the music up way too loud, and the three of them laughed and joked together for the first time in weeks as warm autumn sun streamed in through the windows.

Everything was messed up – beyond messed up. But not this. Not them.

Maybe, together, they'd be okay.


Thank you so much for reading and favoriting/following this story.. It makes me beyond happy that people are finding joy in reading Against the Wind.

This chapter was a lot of fun to write! It's exciting to be getting into some of the central themes and plot threads, and I really hope that I can write them in a compelling way. I've been intentionally sparing with information on Caden's backstory, not because I want to hide it from you, dear reader, but because I want to reveal details only as they become relevant.

Please do leave a comment - I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback. As always, I post writing updates and general ATW content on tumblr at cadenwinchester. Thank you again, and I'll see you soon for chapter 5.