Disclaimer: The characters of Supernatural do not belong to me. The original character of Evelyn Winchester does.
A/N: So, this story is tied to one of my first Evy stories, Life After Death. This story contains spoilers for that story and Sensitive Souls are the Strongest.
Next to the date headings, in italics, are the titles of the episodes in which each scene takes place.
1997
Dean was tired. For the third week in a row, Dad had left him in charge of Sam and Evy. Sam was hitting his teenage years with big, ugly strides, and even the usually sweet and docile Evy was hitting the terrible twos a couple years too late. As Sam brushed his teeth in the bathroom, Evy was lounging around in the living room. Dean knew it was irrational, but it pissed him off.
"Pick up your stuff." he said shortly.
Evy, who was sitting in front of the couch and seemed to be playing with every single toy she owned, looked at Dean and threw him the best version of the Winchester glare Dean had ever seen. Dean attempted to hold his tongue. Evy was even more sensitive than Sam had been. Her feelings were easily hurt, and Dean didn't feel like dealing with a pouty Evy. He said again in his best patient-yet-serious voice,
"Pick up your stuff."
"No."
Dean, who had started to turn and go hurry up Sam, stopped short and stared at Evy, too shocked to be angry. "What did you say?"
"I said no." Evy repeated. "Ask me nice."
Dean's shock quickly wore off. He pointed at Evy's toy pile and said, very slowly and with no doubt about how serious he was, "Pick them up. Now."
Evy stood to her full height, which was almost exactly half of her big brother's. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking remarkably similar to an angry John Winchester.
"No. You get bossy when you gets mad. I been good all week. There's no reason for you to be mean. Asks me nice, and I do it."
Dean suddenly didn't feel frustrated or angry anymore. He was holding in laughs. His baby sister, who didn't even come up to his knee, was staring him down without any fear at all. Dean decided to try one more time.
"Pick up your stuff."
"No."
Dean sighed. "Please pick up your stuff, kiddo."
Evy's face immediately changed from determined to the sweetest smile she could give to Dean. "Okay!"
Dean shook his head as Evy immediately went to picking up her toys. She put each of them carefully in the corner of the room, then put on her socks and shoes and waited patiently on the couch to go with Dean to take Sam to school. Dean walked over and kissed Evy's cheek to smooth things over, grateful that her forgiveness was still that easy to buy. Happy he still had one sibling he could boss around, Dean called up to the bathroom.
"Sam! Hurry it up!"
2006-The Benders
"No."
"This is not an argument." Dean said. "You are not coming with me. Stay here."
"No." Evy repeated. "Sammy's in trouble. I'm going with you to get him."
"We don't have time for this." Dean said. "Sit down and stay here. Now."
"I said no, Dean." Evy repeated again, crossing her arms over her chest. "If there's no time for this, then stop arguing with me and let me go."
Dean's lips thinned into a frustrated glare. Evy had been back with him for five months exactly, and Dean had forgotten how stubborn she could be. Deputy Hudak was waiting for the two of them in the hallway, and Dean decided it would be easier to just give in.
"Fine. But you stay with me and don't go anywhere. I mean it. You wander off and I'll keep you in the Impala for the next six months."
"Deal. Let's go."
May 2009-When the Levee Breaks
"We don't have the right to do this, Dean!"
"We don't have a choice." Dean said. "You really want him to keep doing this?"
"No, of course I don't…"
"Good. Then it's settled."
"No. It isn't." Evy said. "There has to be a better way to do this."
"He will be dead." Dean said. "He will die if we don't do this. Do you get that?"
That had gotten Evy's attention, and she knew Dean was right. She also knew Dean would take Sam somewhere else to do this if she fought it too hard. Dean had made it clear-find some other way to do this, and I'll do it. Give me another idea, and I'll do it. As hard as she tried, Evy couldn't do it. So, with a heavy heart, Evy followed Sam and Dean down the stairs. Her heart clenched when Dean locked the door, and she was trying to fight tears as she listened to Dean talk. Her sadness soon turned to anger.
"Strong?"
"Yeah."
"This is about as far away from strong as you can get. Try weak. Try desperate. Pathetic. Baby girl can barely walk and she's stronger than you right now!"
"Shut up, Dean."
Dean turned to Evy and started to say something, but she mowed over him and cut him off.
"Sam is not weak. None of us are. You weren't here for months. You don't know what you going to hell did to us. Us, not just Sam. So you don't get to be a jerk to Sam just because he dealt with it in a different way than you did."
"Different? What the hell are you…"
"And another thing, Dean." Evy said. She had been sitting on the bottom of the stairs. The constant dull pain in her leg was throbbing again, and she wished she could take the cane that was sitting upstairs in her room and beat Dean around the head with it so he could share some in how she was feeling. "Sam started drinking the demon blood to deal because of you going to hell. You did that on your own. So you don't get to blame him for all of this. Some of it's on you too."
Dean's lips were thinned, a sign that he was frustrated. He wanted to ream Evy for bringing all of this up now, in front of Sam, when they were trying to get him to cooperate. But she surprised him again.
"Good. Good. Now that we've established that. can one of you open this door please?"
"No." Evy turned towards Sam, her eyes full of sadness and regret. "No, Sammy, we're not letting you out."
"What?" Sam looked betrayed, and Evy had to step back to stop herself from succumbing to the temptation of opening the door to the panic room.
"I said no. We're not letting you out, Sammy. Dean might be wrong about blaming all of this on you," Evy shot a pointed glare in Dean's direction, "but he's right. You're not you."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you left me." Evy said. "You left me for Ruby. Sammy, you never would've done that if you'd been in your right mind."
Sam swallowed. If he couldn't reach Evy, he had no hope of convincing Dean or Bobby to let him out.
"I'm sorry. I really am. But until you're free of this stuff, you have to stay."
"Cricket, come on…"
"Let's go, Dean."
Evy started up the stairs first, cringing slightly as Dean put a hand on her back to assist her up the stairs. Sam was screaming behind them, and she did her best to block out the sound. She expected Dean to say something to her when they reached the top of the stairs, but he simply put an arm around her shoulder.
"You did the right thing."
Evy just wished she could be sure.
May 2014-Stairway to Heaven
Evy heard the doors to the bunker open and walked to the entrance. Sam and Dean were back. She had opted out of going with them, having just moved back with them from college. It was a hard adjustment back to the hunting life, and she wanted to take it slow rather than jumping back into everything. From the sounds she could hear in the hallway, Sam and Dean were in some kind of fight. Great, she thought.
"So, uh, Dean, we gonna talk about this?"
"About what? Yeah, I lied. But you were being an infant."
"Wow. Even for you, that apology sucked."
"Oh, I'm not apologizing. I'm telling you how it's gonna be."
"Dean, that blade…"
"That blade's the only thing that can kill Metatron, and I am the only one who can use it. So from here on out, I'm calling the shots. Capische? Look, until I jam that blade in that douchebag's heart, we are not a team. This is a dictatorship. Now, you don't have to like it, but that's how it's gonna be."
None of Dean's heightened senses from the mark of Cain could've prepared him for the fist coming at his face. It knocked him flat on the floor, and in his surprise, he felt a kick to his side. It took one more kick before Dean realized that it was Evy beating him up.
"Sam, stay out of this." Evy said, and Dean saw Sam back up. She knelt down to where Dean could see her. "And you, stay down until I tell you you can get up."
"This…"
"Shut up, Dean. This is the same crap all over again. I don't give a damn what that tattoo on your arm says you can do. We work as a team."
"I can…"
"We will kill Metatron. All of us. Together."
"No…"
"You do not call the shots in this family. I don't know why we go through this every few years, but you do not run this family. It's all or nothing."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that if you keep up this damn head honcho attitude, you'll be handling this all by yourself. Sam and I are gone. Is that what you want?"
Dean pushed himself up off the floor, but Evy pushed him right back down with her foot.
"I said, is that what you want?"
"No."
"Then you're gonna stop this jackass routine, and you are going to work with us. Got it?"
"Got it."
"Good." Evy pulled her foot back and reached a hand down to help Dean up.
"Damn, kiddo." Dean said, rubbing his cheek to let out the sting. "When'd you get so strong?"
"I've always been that strong, Dean." Evy said.
"I don't remember you being quite this strong."
"Maybe I was holding back." Evy replied.
Dean nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe."
January 2019-Prophet and Loss
Evy was pissed. Not for the first time in their lives, Dean seemed determined to kill himself, not caring what it did to anyone else. But as much as she might want to, she couldn't kick Dean's ass for trying this again.
Not from heaven.
"Okay, Sam. Let's go home."
"What?" Sam asked, amazed.
Neither of them could see, but Evy said the exact same thing at the exact same time. "What?"
"Let's go home. Maybe Billie's wrong. maybe. But I do believe in us. I believe in all of us. And I'll keep believing until I can't. Until there's absolutely no other way. But when that day comes-if that day comes-Sam, you have to take it for what it is. The end. And you have to promise me that you'll do then what you can't do now, and that's let me go. And put me in that box. You too."
Cass had come out form wherever they'd been, and Evy knew he saw her. Cass offered her a brief smile, before turning back to Sam and Dean.
"You're gonna live, Dean. No matter how I have to do it. You're living."
Evy headed back up to heaven, her mind churning as to how to stop this. Ever since her death a few months earlier, Sam and Dean both had become reckless. Sam had already attempted suicide once. Evy knew she didn't have much time. Chuck had basically given her a free ride in heaven, but Evy didn't know how long that would last. A plan formed in her mind, and three days later, she was standing in a hospital operating room.
"Who are you?"
Evy looked at the operating table and smiled. A younger version of herself was there. The doctors were cutting out her appendix. But standing next to the bed was exactly what Evy was looking for.
"Hey there." she said. "What's your name?"
"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
"Well, I'm gonna bet that your name is Evelyn. And that you have two brothers named Sammy and Deanie."
"How'd you know?"
"Because that's my name too." Evy said. "Come here, sweetie. I have a job for you."