After being pulled through Ladow's Supermarket with an excitable and nutritionally knowledgeable new little sister, the Winchesters were finally heading toward the checkout line. Olivia had stocked up on meals for the next three days - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - that were either favorites of the two men or hearty but healthy choices she insisted on to keep them all in good shape.
"You always groan, but then you eat all of it," she had chirped when she was loading the cart with vegetables. It had been a while since either of them had a home-cooked meal, so even the healthier items that she had bought looked appetizing.
The ride home was amiable, and Olivia filled them in on crucial facts that they seemed to have forgotten: she was fine with spiders, scorpions, clowns, and snakes, but she was deathly terrified of frogs, her favorite color used to be red but it changed to silver after a few too many dealings with Hell, her left big toe was bent strangely from when Sam accidentally broke it when she was four, her favorite food was sushi, and-
"I've never been on a date," Olivia said matter-of-factly. Dean screeched the Impala to a stop at the entrance to the bunker and both he and Sam turned around to face her.
"How is that possible? You're a Winchester," Dean asked incredulously. She rolled her eyes and glared at her two big brothers playfully.
"Yes, I'm a Winchester with two over-protective big brothers who look like bodybuilding thugs and carry around knives and guns," she said in a deadpan tone and raised one eyebrow. The two men looked at each other for a second, then both nodded in agreement, mutually deciding that that sort of behavior sounded like something they would do.
"Good. No dating," Sam said, getting out of the car and heading for the trunk where they stored the groceries.
"Men are scum. Don't you ever forget that," Dean instructed, pointing his finger at his sister as if to scold her. She leaned forward and made to bite his finger with a smile, and he jerked it away in time.
"So you've told me a bunch of times," she said, getting out of the car with the few bags she had placed in the backseat with her, "And I try to tell that to the women you two date, but they don't listen." Dean opened his mouth to offer a rebuttal but thought better of arguing with her, so he just went to help Sam carry in the groceries.
The three entered the bunker, and Olivia wasted no time in grabbing all of the bags from her brothers' arms and dashing to the kitchen, her tiny figure almost lost in the pile of groceries. Alone once again, Sam and Dean chuckled as they walked back up to the library. Sam's chuckle turned into a cough, though, and Dean's worried expression returned with a vengeance. But before he could say anything, Olivia yelled from the kitchen, "Dean, don't bug Sam about the trials! He's a big boy! But Sam, I will skin you if you hide anything from us!"
After staring in the direction of the kitchen for a moment, Sam asked, "Is she psychic too?" Dean shook his head with a small grin.
"I think this is what Mom meant by 'woman's intuition' or something," he replied, and the two sat down at the huge table after each grabbing a book that even remotely had to do with locating a missing Tablet… or Prophet.
The two sat in companionable silence, only interrupted by Sam's occasional cough followed by Dean's worried glances or by a loud noise of some sort coming from the kitchen, for a good while. Over an hour passed until they heard another yell from the woman running rampant with food.
"Dinner is almost ready! Wash your hands!" she called, and the brothers looked at each other in both confusion and disbelief.
"Did… she really just tell us to wash our hands?" Sam asked.
"I mean it! I better hear a sink running in less than a minute or you get nothing!" she threatened, and they heard the door to the kitchen swing open. Immediately, the intoxicating smell of fried chicken and spicy cajun rice wafted into the library, just as she had promised, and, with a quick look between the two, they bolted to the nearest bathroom to wash their hands. They returned to see platters piled high with crispy golden chicken and freshly baked biscuits, bowls filled with the promised greens and red beans and rice, and plates, silverware, and cans of beer right next to their abandoned books. Olivia took the plate next to Sam's book and began to spoon a large mound of greens onto his plate.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! That's a lot of-" Sam started, but Olivia pointed her spoon at him.
"You'll eat it, Samuel Winchester, because I steamed it in holy water and that might help your cough," she said fiercely, and Sam raised his hands in surprised surrender. She continued, spooning one more heaping helping onto his plate, "Vegetables and holy water - best two curatives for any ailment I can find, except for tea."
Dean bit his lip to hold back his laughter as Olivia placed Sam's plate back near his book. She then picked up Dean's plate and went straight for the red beans and rice, making sure to get a lot of beans in each scoop, and said casually, "Yuk it up all you like, Dean, but you were having trouble pooping on the way up to Maine, so I want to see all of these beans gone by the time you're done." Sam couldn't help snorting at how casually she revealed the inner workings of Dean's bowel movements, and the two sat at their respective places, both slightly humbled by how diligently this strange "sister" of theirs was leaping into taking care of them and a little unnerved that this stranger knew them so well.
Both brothers grabbed seconds and thirds of the juicy chicken and the fluffy biscuits (though Olivia apologized for having to use the "ones from the tube" because she didn't have fresh dough ready) and dutifully cleared their plates of the mandated foods. Olivia did not partake in as much of the food as they did - opting only for a decent helping of the greens and the red beans and rice, a single biscuit, and one chicken breast - but happily watched them as they devoured her food.
"So," Dean asked as he bit off another section of meat from his chicken leg, "what have you been doing with us that we can't remember?"
Sam nodded and asked, "Yeah, I mean, have you always been hunting or were you kept in the dark too?" Olivia wiped her mouth with her napkin before answering.
"Well, I didn't know about what you and Dad were doing until Sam started hunting too. I mean, I was suspicious when I would get on the bus to go to school and Sammy wouldn't even though we usually went to the same one. Dean kind of wanted to keep me away from it since I was the youngest, but Sam, you told on me to Dean and Dad when you found me going through their books and maps one day," she said, spinning her fork by the tines in her food as the two men listened and ate. "Sam, you were really upset, especially when Dad said I should start coming with you guys, but then Dean said that I could work with Dad and Bobby to be the researcher. That way you wouldn't have to hide things from me anymore but I wouldn't be put in danger."
Sam and Dean shared a look. That did sound awfully like something they would do. Their father would have wanted all hands on deck, Sam would be upset that his little sister would become another of their dad's "good little soldiers", and Dean would have been the one to find the middle ground while still mostly taking Sam's side in order to protect his younger sibling.
Olivia sighed, "That's… how it went for a while, at least…" A ding sounded from the kitchen and, seemingly grateful for a reprieve, she dashed from the table to the kitchen. The opening of the door allowed a cinnamon-apple scent cascade into the library, and the brothers nearly began to drool despite all of the food they had already consumed. Olivia returned with the pie, still steaming from the oven, and placed it on a little potholder at the edge of the table furthest from the brothers.
"Finish what's on your plates before you get dessert," she ordered, "We'll have leftovers, but you already started it so you'd better finish." Sam only had a small hill of rice to finish and Dean had some greens and beans left, so Olivia continued while they ate and eyed the pie. "The arrangement went fine, for a while. I became fluent in Gaelic and Old Norse and did the homework on the monsters, while you all did the hunting. Until Sammy wanted to go to college… and bring me with him so I could get an education too."
With their mouths full, both brothers pointedly avoided looking at each other. Olivia stared at the pie. "Dad was… not happy. He kind of… locked me in my room for a few days so I wouldn't leave…"
At this, the brothers' heads whipped around to stare at her. Dean barked, "What?!" spraying food on the table, as Sam's eyes widened. She didn't look away from the pie.
"He sent you away on a mission, Dean, and kept me holed up in my room after Sam left. You were really mad at him when you found out later on, but you had no idea," she said quietly. "I finally learned Sanskrit, though."
"Dad seriously did that to you?" Sam asked.
"To protect me, he said," she answered, still not looking at them. "But while I was in there, I got an idea. I asked Dad if I could shadow you at Stanford and protect you. He didn't like that at first, but when he realized that Sam didn't take any gear and he had no way of protecting himself, he let me go. I think Dean probably talked him into it a little bit too."
She perked up a little as she began to cut the pie and continued, "So I went up to Stanford, got a job as a waitress, and watched your back. I got an apartment near your dorm so I could be near you."
Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose and asked, "So you stalked me for three years?"
"If you asked Dad, I was protecting you. If you asked me, yes, I stalked you," she said, plating two large slices of pie and passing them to the men. "How else do you think you got through three years of college without having to fight any monsters?"
The younger Winchester Brother opened his mouth to answer but… he had none. Even if he didn't remember her existence for one reason or another, he also didn't ever recall having to fight otherworldly monsters in between exams or while he was dating Jessica. He looked over at Dean, who was nodding along as if this made sense. Olivia cut herself a smaller slice and placed it on her own plate.
"Basically, my job ever since Dean came to get you has been to keep you two from ripping the other apart and keep you from being dead for too long. Between you two idjits, selling souls, dying, coming back, demon blood addictions, the apocalypse, ANOTHER brother, going to Hell again, the Leviathans… it's been a full-time job," she said, taking a bite of her pie while the brothers listened, enthralled by how she knew so much. "I dragged Dean to the hospital when the Impala crashed. I called Bobby and Ellen to help us with Jake. I called Dad to help you kill Azazel. I tried fixing the Colt before Ruby showed up," Olivia revealed before gagging a little at mentioning the demon's name, "I never liked her, Sam, and I have since questioned your choice in women."
Dean smiled behind his bite of pie and Sam rolled his eyes. "What else?" Tears began to well up in her eyes before she fiercely wiped them away and stifled a sniff with her wrist.
"I helped you bury Dean and tried to keep you from drinking yourself to death, Sammy," she whispered brokenly, and both of the men felt their hearts bruise a little bit at the emotion in her voice. "I… I tried to keep you from the demon blood, Sam, but you… you…"
"What, Olivia?" Dean asked.
"Sam… pushed me down the stairs to get me out of the way. I wouldn't let you leave the motel and blocked your way and… you kicked me down the stairs," she murmured, this time letting a tear slide down her cheek. "I was so happy when we were sent to that plane and you got cleaned up, Sammy, but… dammit, you two keep fighting and splitting and I don't know what to do!"
She angrily cut herself a slice of the pie and began to demolish it until it looked more like cobbler as she continued, "You two split up right as the Apocalypse started, leaving me trying to pick up your pieces, hunting overtime to try and keep you out of danger, but even that didn't work. You two aren't the only ones who've been to Hell…"
"What?" Sam questioned, worry echoing in his words. Olivia nodded.
"Death didn't just hand you the ring, Dean," she whispered. "I… made a deal. Not for my soul, I still have it, I promise," Olivia paused in her smashing to hurriedly assure the older of the two brothers, whose eyes narrowed in anger, "But, well… It was a long year. The Four Horsemen got to play with a new little doll for a while, let's leave it at that."
"We can't just leave it at that, are you-" Sam started, but he noticed her crying again, ignoring him.
"I came back a little while before Sam did and Castiel helped to heal me. Dean, you made sure that I stayed behind to recover, but I snuck out to help you with the Leviathans," she said, smashing even harder than before and rushing her words, "And Death almost took me back in exchange for Sammy's soul, but Dean talked him out of it, and then the Leviathans happened and Dean and Cas got sent to Purgatory and Sam left hunting and I kept trying to hunt on my own because I didn't know what to do and I just-"
Dean placed a hand on her shoulder to keep her from breaking the plate. Furious tears poured down her face as she jammed a heaping helping of apple pie mush into her mouth and cried, "We're all we have. We're family. And you two keep pushing each other away and putting people's lives at risk, including your own. We're here. We have a job. We may not like it, but we're some of the only people who can do it! But we can only do it together. We need each other more than you two like to admit. And I love you two more than anything. But you need to stop fighting with each other and communicate! Please!"
Her heartbroken sobbing became muffled by another hunk of apple smush being inserted in her mouth, and the two brothers looked forlornly at each other. They both knew she was right - their squabbles and hurt and mistrust had put the entire world in danger many times, and it kept happening. Sam sighed and took his last bite of pie, and Dean squeezed Olivia's shoulder again before taking another bite of his own. The three sat there - their little sister sobbing and the brothers eating pie slowly and thinking - for a while longer.