Chapter 1: Decisions:

Three years. Three long and not-too-easy years. Dean had been busting his ass in parts and finally managed a decent promotion. Vice President of Parts and Labor. It had a nice ring to it, and the sizable promotion helped too. He was in charge of all the parts and labor departments for the four dealers that Craig Roberts owned, and was third in command (below Craig and the VP of Sales, Jeff Daniels). It was a happy night at the Collin's house when Dean broke the news.

Sammy was busy finishing up his homework while Dean was cooking mashed potatoes on the stove. The new house was a lot nicer than the pool house-not that the pool house had been bad by any means. Last year Dean had managed to save enough to get a place a bit further from his boss and a bit closer to Sammy's school. It was a small house with almost no yard in a block of identical tan ranchers, but it was home. It was nice to actually have a stable place. Dean scoffed at himself for half a second, thinking of how only a few years ago he'd been completely different under their father, that a car had somehow been the closest thing he remembered to a permanent address. He shook his head to remove the thought and called Sammy for dinner.

"Hey Sammy, dinner!" Dean carried the mashed potatoes, meatloaf, and green beans to the table, carefully stepping over the dog as he set them down.

"Coming Dean!" The two still used their real names in private, even if everyone else knew them as Mark and Jared.

"Smells good." Sam smiled, helping himself to a slice of the meatloaf as Dean grabbed the gravy and started drenching his. Felix's ears perked up at the sound of chairs sliding and the mutt was soon at Dean's leg begging for a scrap. Dean had found the pup a few months prior outside of work. One of the guys had seen it looking for scraps by the dumpster. One thing led to another and Dean had taken the mangy thing home and ended up with the third in their tiny family, not that either brother minded.

"I got news at work today."

Sam's ears pricked up, "Good news?"

"I guess…" Dean smiled, "They promoted me to VP of Parts and Labor!"

"Holy shit!" Sam punched his brother's arm from across the table, "I told you they were going to."

"Well, you were right, as usual brainiac."

Sam grinned, he knew Craig liked Dean, and with him busting his ass even more than Sam had been at school it was clear that his brother was going to get a promotion sooner or later. "I just got another acceptance letter, this one is from Stetson."

"That's the one you shadowed at a few months ago, right?" Dean took a bite of the potatoes-needs more paprika next time.

"Yeah. They seemed really good." Though I still kinda want to go to Stanford. Sam inhaled deeply as he looked directly at Dean, "Um… can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, what's up? Girl troubles again?" Dean waggled his eyebrows.

"No." Sam rolled his eyes, "Kim and I are fine. Even if she is currently beating me out for valedictorian by a measly four hundredths of a GPA point." He remarked with a slight huff.

"Then what is it? Because I told you, I'm here for you-as long as it isn't any of the whole 'the talk' type stuff. We've got DSL for that."

Sam scrunched his nose as he pulled a patented bitchface, "Dean, I know what sex is. What I wanted to ask was…" He took a breath as he steeled himself, "…could we try hunting again?"

Dean was silent, his fork suspended in midair as he processed Sam's question. "Sammy I promise I'm not angry at you, but why the fuck would you want to go hunting?!" Dean nearly shouted in disbelief.

"I don't really know why…" Sam rubbed his arm, "About a month ago I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like I was at a crossroads. I'm about to go off to college, and while I definitely love the life you've helped make here, I kinda wonder what it would be like to try hunting again. Not like how it was with dad, we could still help fight evil and help people… But without getting yelled at or beaten up. We could choose what we wanted to do; just kinda something for weekends or when we get breaks…"

Dean placed his hand on his forehead and slid it back so that it rustled his short hair as he leaned forward and exhaled. "Look, I get where you're coming from. You're thinking about what you want to do and you're not entirely positive if you made the right choice about your future, so you're thinking about how it was in the past-how you were a good hunter, other variables excluded." Dean paused as Sam nodded, "But what you said, that isn't a hunter's life. I'm not just talking about dad. Hunters aren't part time. It's a way of life, roving the country and breaking all sorts of laws to help people-and often not getting there soon enough to help them all, you know that-we lived it after all. Beyond that, there's the fact that we finally have some fucking stability and a clean record here, you aren't exactly in fighting shape." Dean gestured at his brother. Dean was understandably hesitant-even with the physical therapy Sam still has a limp.

"I get that…" Sam said, "…but I just want to help people."

"And you will. Probably more than you would as a hunter. You want to be a public defender, right?"

"Yeah."

"Tony's cousin is a defender. Guy had 143 cases last year; one of his other friends had almost 300. Even if you lose half of them, which would be pretty piss-poor as far as lawyers go, that's still 70 people a year whose lives you save."

Sam smiled, conceding that his brother had made good points, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Damn Skippy." Dean nodded, his blood pressure finally dropping back below 200.

Sam rolled his eyes, "Do you think we could still talk to some of them though? Like Pastor Jim or Bobby? I know we didn't when dad was still looking for us, but now…"

Dean chewed his bottom lip, Sam always had a plan in mind when he asked for anything, and while Dean didn't know what exactly it was his little brother was trying to do, but he was fairly certain that saying 'yes' would be bad. Then again, the only reason they hadn't reached out was that Dean was trying to live a clean civvie life and hunter contacts tended to get messy… But a phone call or two wouldn't hurt, so long as the two didn't get involved beyond talking. "Okay. I still have their old numbers, but honestly they might not work anymore. And IF-and it's a big if-they talk about hunting you have to say no. We aren't doing that anymore. It's a social call and nothing else. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Good. We'll call tomorrow. Because if Bobby's still does work I don't feel like getting an earful for the rest of my Friday night."