A/N: Just a warning-there's an argument between Sam and his parents in this chapter that gets pretty heated. Hurtful words are thrown around on both sides.

It was close to midnight, and John had driven almost straight through. Mary had tried to remind Sam once an hour or so to let them know if he wanted to stop, only to be met with "I'm fine" each time. They arrived at the apartment building managed by a former hunter friend of theirs. Their new apartment was small, but perfect for their current needs. The manager had worked with them on hunts before, so they were confident that Sam would be taken care of if they needed to leave on a hunt. There were two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen, and a living room. John went up to check the apartment while Mary sat in the car with a sleeping Sam.

As John walked up to the apartment, Mary stared at Sam. She knew what she and John were doing was completely unfair to Sam. It wasn't the first time that Sam had fought them on moving or being away. The fighting was bad enough, but the pain in Sam's eyes every time she told him his life was being uprooted or Mom and Dad were letting him down yet again drove a spike through her heart. Sam didn't think Mary understood, but she did. He was twelve, and wanted a stable life. He wanted friends, and just wanted his parents there with him. He was old enough now to take care of himself, but he didn't want to have to do it all the time. She understood all that completely.

The problem was, as always, Dean. Every time she thought about quitting hunting and being a full time Mom for Sam, she'd feel guilty for considering abandoning the hunt for Dean's killer. So on and on they went, a vicious cycle causing nothing but pain and misery for all of them. Mary reached a hand into the backseat where Sam was sleeping and pushed some of his shaggy hair out of his face.

"I'm sorry, baby."

John came back out and told Mary the place was safe. Sam, who was still half asleep, didn't put up much of a fight when Mary woke him up. Sam went straight to the couch in the living room of the apartment and fell asleep. The next morning, he reluctantly helped Mary unpack their meager possessions. They didn't have much, so the job was done before lunchtime. As Mary fixed them all lunch, she noticed Sam writing something.

"What are you working on, honey?"

"A letter." Sam said.

"Letter to who?" Mary asked, curiously.

"A friend." Sam said shortly.

Mary sighed; so Sam was still upset. "Sam, you can't send that letter."

Sam gripped the pencil in his hand. "Why not?"

"Because your mother said so." John answered, walking in the door from coming back to get groceries.

"It's too dangerous, Sam." Mary said. She watched John tense up; he hated explaining things to Sam, who John believed should listen to them simply because they were his parents.

Sam put down his pencil and closed his notebook. "Fine."

"Sam…"

"It's fine, Mom." Sam said evenly. "I get it. No friends."

"I'm sorry, Sam…"

"Please stop saying that." Sam said. "Please just stop. It doesn't help."

"Enough. I've had enough." John said, jumping in. "Sam, this is getting old."

"What's getting old?"

"Your bad attitude towards me and your mother. You do this every time we have to move. You know it's coming, yet you still act like it's a complete surprise."

"Because it was!" Sam shouted. "You guys promised me that we'd stay this time. One year. You swore to me, and you broke that promise."

"Yes, Sam, we did. Your mother and I investigated that place and thought it would be safe enough to stay. We did that for you. Unfortunately, it wasn't as safe as we thought. I'm sorry that it didn't work out, but moping and making your mother feel guilty is not going to help anyone."

"I'm not trying to help you. And maybe you should both feel guilty, since obviously I can't trust a word either of you says."

"Watch your tone with me, boy." John said. He had nowhere near the patience Mary did for Sam's attitude.

"So I shouldn't expect you two to keep your word? I should just say 'yeah, sure, Mom, Dad, it's totally fine that you got my heart set on being able to have some friends and a normal life for once and then took it away'. Is that what you want?"

"Yes, actually. That is what I want. Along with a much better attitude from you."

"Fine." Sam said, grabbing his notebook and heading back to his room.

"Samuel, I mean it. This stops now. You can be as pissed off with me and your mother as you want, but you will keep a civil tongue in your mouth. That means answering us when we ask you a question, no eye-rolling, no sarcasm, no anything other than answering the question. Understood?"

"Understood."

"You seem to forget, Sam, but you are still a child here. Our child. You are too old to be throwing tantrums. You will respect us whether you want to or not."

"Funny how I'm a child when it's convenient for you." Sam said defiantly.

Thrown by Sam's continued attitude towards him, John asked, "What exactly does that mean?"

"When it comes to doing what you tell me to do when you tell me to do it, then I'm a kid. But when it comes time for me to do stuff I should get to do because I'm a kid, then I'm too old."

"What kind of things, Sam?" Mary asked, speaking for the first time since John had gotten involved. "What kinds of things do you want to do that your father and I haven't let you do?"

"I've never had or been to a sleepover because I can't keep friends long enough. I've never had a birthday party with anyone other than the two of you. Every time I ask if we can take a trip anywhere, we can't go because you two get a hunt or say it's too dangerous. If I want you to come to something at school or just be home with me, same thing. You might say yes, but you give it up the second someone might be dying."

"You are absolutely unbelievable." John seethed. "I'm so sorry that your mother and I saving people's lives gets in the way of what you want, Sam. It's nice to know we have such a selfish son."

"John…"

"No, Mary. He needs to hear the truth." John turned back to Sam. "What's with the gaping mouth, Sam? Can't take the honesty?"

"I'm selfish?" Sam asked. "I'm sorry it's so bad for you and Mom to have a kid who actually needs his parents around. I didn't realize it was so hard on you. I didn't realize I asked to be your kid."

"Here's another truth, Sam." John said, and Mary grabbed his arm to beg him not to continue. John shook Mary away from him. "Your mother and I used to love coming home to you after a hunt. It made everything we did worth it. Now? All we feel coming home is dread."

"What?"

"You heard me. Dread. We get a pit in our stomach at the thought of coming home. Because every time we do, you are upset about us not being there for you in some way or another. I don't know why you seem to think that you need to remind me and your mother what awful parents we are to you. We get it, Sam. You get the short end of the stick here. But here's the problem. When I do get home, every single time, I try to spend time with you. I offer to take you fishing, I offer to go to a movie with you, I offer to do anything that you want to do. But you are so pissed off with us that you turn it down. You'd rather bitch and moan and complain about the nine times we aren't here for you than enjoy the one time that we are."

Sam said nothing, not willing to admit that John had a point. John usually did offer to do something with him when they got back from a hunt. But Sam was so used to being let down that it was hard to trust that John meant what he said. John's admission hurt. As angry as he usually was with his parents nowadays, he never dreaded them coming home.

"Anything else to say, Sam?"

"No." Sam answered quietly.

"No, what?"

"No, sir."

"You know why your mother and I fight." John said. "And anytime you're wanting to complain, just remember that."

"For Dean? Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know. Because when he died, he took the both of you with him."

John grabbed Mary a split second before she landed on Sam. She had launched at him the second Sam had mentioned Dean. Sam stepped back, shocked at his mother's sudden turn on him. Gone was the guilt from Mary's face, replaced with the look of an angry, fierce, protective mother. But, as Sam noted, the protectiveness wasn't there for him. It was turned against him.

"How dare you. Bringing your brother up in an argument about you getting what you want. Your father's right. You're nothing more than a selfish, inconsiderate child."

Tears glimmered on the edge of Sam's eyes, that he refused to let spill.

"Now we were going to give you a choice about this. But you just lost that choice. So, here's what's going to happen. You are not going back to school."

"What?"

"You are not going back to school. Public school, that is. You are going to be homeschooled from now on."

"No!" Sam begged.

"Yes. You don't get a choice anymore. Because maybe, just maybe, if we take away what you love, you'll understand at least a fraction of what it's like for me and your father day in and day out when it comes to your brother. You are going to be homeschooled. When one or both of us is home, we will check your work. You will keep your grades at the same level they are in public school, or there will be consequences. When we're not home, Jesse will check on you every day and make sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. If he tells us that you're not, there will be consequences. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You will stay in your room. You will have your books for the assignments you are working on then and that's it. When you're done, we will take those and you will have nothing but your bed and linens and a notebook. Which you will use to write lines that we will give you, as many times as we tell you to write them. Got it?"

Sam merely nodded. His mother had never been this angry with him, and it was frightening for him. He tried not to be scared of her, but he couldn't help it.

"Good. Let me make something very clear here, Sam. I was willing to work with you until you brought up your brother to try and hurt me and your father. That's where your line is. And while you may think that what we're doing now is cruel, if you cross it again, you will not like us in ways that you never dreamed were possible. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Now get your ass to your room and stay there. And think about the fact that you have a mother and a father out here who do the best that they can to help other people and be there for you too. When and if your attitude towards me and your father drastically improves, we will talk about you being able to do anything other than staying in your room."

"Go, Sam." John advised, still holding onto a fiercely shaking Mary.

Sam turned and ran towards his room, abandoning the notebook on the counter. John released Mary when he heard Sam's door shut, and only relaxed the slightest bit when he saw she wouldn't chase after him.

"You okay?"

"No." Mary said. "No, I'm not."

"I can see that. You did good though."

"I don't need you to tell me that." Mary snapped, then immediately regretted it.

With Sam out of the room, the momentum of the argument was fading, and the first bit of guilt was starting to take hold. She'd seen the fear in his eyes. She and Sam had been so close when he was younger. When she was home, he would crawl into bed with her and snuggle into her side at some point. He would playfully squeeze between his parents when they were kissing, telling John that these were 'my mommy's kisses, not yours.' His eyes would light up when the car appeared in the driveway, and he would eagerly run for his mother first, then graciously allow his father to have his own round of kisses and snuggles.

Where was that little boy now?

Mary knew the answer, of course. He was buried under years of broken promises and relocations and disappointments, most of which she and John had caused. Sam was still a little boy at heart, one who wanted his Mommy and Daddy to be there. He saw other kids his own age that had at least one stable adult in their lives, and he just wanted a piece of that for himself. To know that when he woke up, someone would be there. Sam had been dead on in his assessment. When Dean died, he had taken Sam's parents away from him too. Something Bobby had said to her years earlier floated back to her memory. It was the first time after telling Sam the truth about what they did and the supernatural that they'd left him with Bobby to go on a hunt. Sam had been having nightmares, and Mary had been upset that Bobby hadn't told them.

"He can always call me if he needs to talk, Bobby."

"A phone call can't hug or hold him, you dumb idjit. That's what the kid wants. He wants his mommy and daddy to chase the monsters away."

That summed it up for Mary. He wants his mommy and daddy to chase the monsters away. But they'd let other people do that for Sammy for far too long, and Sam had almost given up on asking them to help.

"Mary?"

"What?"

"Do you want to go talk to him?" John asked.

"No. Not right now." Mary said. "We all said some pretty rough things. Let's take a little time, and we'll go see him in a while."

"There was truth in what we told Sam, though. Mary, this nasty attitude of his has to stop. It doesn't help anything."

"I know." Mary said. "I know that. I do. But there's got to be something we can do to help him. He's hurting so badly and he has no real way to let it out."

"Let's finish lunch and take him some. If he'll talk to us then, and be civil about it, we'll hash it out. If not, we'll wait a little."

"Civil? Was telling him that we dread coming back to him civil, John?"

"Was I wrong?" John asked. "You said it yourself the last time we were on a hunt. That you don't look forward to coming home anymore."

"That doesn't make it any less cruel to tell him that." Mary said. "And I don't appreciate you using something I told you in confidence to hurt him."

"You're right. I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry. And I'll tell him I'm sorry."

Mary nodded. "I just hope he'll hear us."

In his sparse room, Sam couldn't help the tears now. How had things gotten so bad so fast? He was twelve years old. And all he wanted was to be twelve. Why was that so bad? All he'd been doing when the fight started was writing a letter to Abby. One he would probably have never mailed in the first place. In the corner, Sam spotted a photo in a frame, one that he normally kept on his nightstand. In it, he was just a couple of days old, and it was the only picture he had of his entire family. Mary was on a hospital bed, his dad stood her, and on the bed, holding onto a newborn Sam, was a beaming Dean. Mary had told him at three years old, when he'd started asking questions about the mysterious boy in the family's photos, that Dean had loved the picture, so Sam took it as his own. He crossed the room and picked up the photo, scowling at it in his hands.

"I hate you." he said. "You took my mom and dad from me. I hate you."

He wanted to throw the picture, break it, burn it, anything to get it out of his sight. But he was afraid of incurring his parents' wrath even further. He'd already lost his ability to go to school and have friends because of what he'd said about Dean in the kitchen, and he shuddered to think what they would do if he destroyed one of the only two photos left of Dean. So instead, he shoved it back into his duffel bag and sat back on his bed, allowing himself to feel miserable and dream of his younger days, just like Mary was doing in that kitchen at the same moment.