Chapter Four:

After cleaning up the kitchen, bathroom and as much of Sari's room as they could, the three Winchesters found themselves back at Missouri's house. Missouri had just looked at the three of them, mentioned she was going to bed and to clean up their mess when they were done, and had taken off up the stairs to her bedroom.

Dean whirled on Deanna then. "Take your jacket off." he said gently, but in a tone that offered no room for argument.

Deanna eyed him carefully for a minute, before sliding forward on the chair with a groan. "I'm not getting out of this, am I?" she asked.

"Nope." Sam said, sitting down next to her with a glass of water. "It's best to just do what he says when he gets that tone of voice."

Deanna smirked wearily at him, and then gingerly reached over for the backpack leaning against the doorway, pulling out clothes and heading for the back bedroom. Dean noticed she was still limping, and made a mental note to take a look at her leg when she came back. He plopped down into the chair Deanna had just vacated, and ran a hand over his face.

A gentle nudge against his shoulder turned his attention to Sam.

"You okay, man?" Sam asked quietly.

Dean shook his head. They didn't talk about these kinds of things. They didn't do chick-flick moments. And here he was, the Almighty Dean Winchester, feeling like he was going to break down. In between seeing the old house, watching Sam turn blue, and seeing his sister go through a window for the second time, the walls that usually kept all of his memories and emotions from others seeing were crumbling around his ears.

He took a deep breath. "I'm good." he said, pointedly not looking at the thin scratches and purple rings around Sam's neck.

"Do you actually believe that?"

Dean looked over at Sam, feeling a small smile creep up on him. "I will if you will." he said.

Sam rolled his eyes and sagged back against the chair, muttering something that made Dean smile for real. If Sam could still snark at him like that, then he was probably going to be fine.

A few minutes later Deanna limped back in, a box of first aid supplies and a sweatshirt in her hand. She was wearing soft, black cotton shorts, and a light pink tank top. Dean nodded approvingly. The less amount of clothes he had to fight with, the better. He took the first aid kit from her and set her down in the chair.

After pulling glass from her arms and legs, and wrapping her ankle, which she'd only sprained, thank God, Dean moved up to start combing through her hair.

"You're lucky." he said, feeling the protective streak he only felt for Sam flair up when she leaned into his touch. "I think your jacket and jeans pretty much kept the glass from getting to anything important."

Deanna nodded slightly, eyes closed and breathing calm while Dean continued his examination. He lifted her hair up, and noticed a small tattoo on the back of her neck. He touched it gently, running his fingers over the crescent moon and the two stars.

"You didn't tell me about this." Dean whispered.

Deanna didn't even open her eyes. "Contrary to what you might think, I don't tell you everything." she said, a small smile gracing her lips. "I know you don't tell me everything."

"Course I don't tell you anything. I didn't think you were real until about twelve hours ago. Sue me." Dean said, still looking at the tattoo. "Why a moon?"

Deanna shrugged. "I went in with a friend to get her nose pierced, and it was a drawing that one of the artists had done. He said he hadn't done it for any reason, other than the night before he'd felt like he'd almost been compelled to draw it. And he did. I was just kind of drawn to it. I don't know why."

Dean let her hair fall back over her neck, covering the moon. "Dad used to call you his Moon Girl." he said so quietly that if Sam and Deanna hadn't been paying attention they probably wouldn't have heard him. "He called you his Moon Girl, and Sam and me his Shining Stars."

"I don't remember that." Deanna said.

"It was a long time ago. I can't even remember why at this point." Dean said, pulling away from her. He started packing up items into the first aid kit, blatantly ignoring both of his siblings.

Deanna was the first one to speak and break the silence. "Do you want to know what my earliest memory is?" she asked, speaking to no one in particular. When no one answered, she continued. "I remember waking up in a hospital. My body hurt, and everything was cold. There was a strange lady asleep by my bed, and I knew, even then, that even though I wasn't sure of anything, I was certain that she wasn't my mom."

Dean sat down in a chair and pulled it around so he could straddle it and look at her face. Sam was watching her intently. Deanna carried on, staring at the floor.

"I started freaking out, and I woke her up. She tried to calm me down, but I have this very clear memory of thinking she was doing it all wrong. The song she was singing was wrong; the way she smelled was wrong...I didn't know why, and I couldn't-can't- remember what would be right, but I knew she was wrong. I knew there should be mommy and daddy and brothers. And that the nice people who came in to talk to me were not them. Later all I understood was that mommy was dead, and that daddy and brothers were gone. That they'd left without me. I remember I cried. I didn't understand why they were gone. I was fairly sure they wouldn't have left without me."

Dean took a deep breath after she'd finished speaking. "You don't remember anything before that?" Sam didn't remember their mother, he was only six months old when she was killed, but at least he had memories of their father. Dean could remember the times before hunting, however vague they were. But to have no memories of anything...to have your earliest memories be fear, pain and confusion...

That almost seemed worse.

Deanna shook her head. "No. I have this vague sense that there should be memories there. And they have names. Mom, Dad, Brothers. But aside from you...and now Sam, they're just...blobby shapes in my memory. I know they should be there, but they're not."

Knowing that Sam was listening, and finding that he didn't care, Dean ran a hand over his face and then took the plunge. "That night, I remember waking up to mom screaming. I can remember running from my room and down the hall. Dad was standing there, and there were flames coming out the door. He had Sam in his arms, and I can remember this very clearly. He told me 'Take your brother outside as fast as you can. Now, Dean. Go!' And I went. I ran out the door and into the front yard. Dad had gone back inside, to get you and mom I thought."

Deanna had raised her eyes and was staring at her twin. Dean continued, ignoring the sympathetic looks from his siblings. It was then he realized he was the only one who actually knew what had happened that night. "I watched Sam's bedroom window explode. I heard you scream. And then you stopped. Dad came running out of the house and picked Sam and me up, and raced away from the house. The rest of his room exploded then. I was...I don't have the word for it. But when Dad told me that you and Mom were gone, that it was just us from then on, I shut down. I don't think I talked to anyone, not even Sam, for about two months. And that's when the dreams started."

"I remember those." Deanna said, smiling. "I remember the people who'd taken me in, the Warren's, were throwing me a birthday party. I have clear memory of them asking who I wanted to invite, and telling them Dean and Sammy. I'd pretty much given up on Mom and Dad by then, but I knew you guys wouldn't have left me willingly. I just wanted you boys back. I wanted you guys more than anything. And that was the first night I dreamed of you."

"I knew you weren't real." Dean admitted. "Dad had told me over and over that you and mom weren't coming back. And over time, it just got to be something that I accepted as part of my crazy life. The more things I saw and did, the less strange it seemed. I never even questioned it."

Deanna nodded. "Honestly, I didn't think you were real either. Until we were fifteen. Do you remember when you got clawed open by a wampus?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Annie...I don't even remember the wampus."

Deanna smiled. "I do remember you used to call me that." Dean's ears turned red. "But I remember the wampus. I had a dream that you had gotten hurt. Clawed up so bad. I saw you in the hospital...in my dream."

"I remember." Sam finally spoke, voice raspy. "It was the first time you'd had to have surgery. The first time Dad wasn't able to patch you up himself."

Deanna nodded. "I saw a logo for a Michigan hospital in the dream. I called the hospital. They told me they had admitted a Dean Winchester, fifteen, after being clawed up by an animal attack." Dean's eyes widened. "After that, every time you told me where you were or what you were hunting, I'd look into it. And every time I found evidence of you and Sammy and Dad."

Deanna reached over and dug through her backpack, looking for something.

"Are you saying you've been tracking us since you...we...were fifteen?"

Deanna raised an eyebrow, mimicking her older brother. "Yeah. I was always a few steps behind you. I've never been able to catch up to you guys. Until now." She tossed a worn, leather book at Dean, similar to their father's journal, and sat back down.

Sam leaned over as Dean flipped through it in awe. She had everything. Documentation of hunts she wasn't even around for. To most people it would look like random dates, random places, and random articles about missing people or animal mauling. Dean and Sam could see otherwise.

"You got my transcripts?" Sam asked, looking up at Deanna.

"Not all of them." Deanna admitted. "Some of the schools had privacy policies...but most of them would fax them to me, no questions asked."

Dean glanced over the pages, seeing Deanna's delicate handwriting swirl along the pages. He was amazed at the amount of work that had gone into it.

"Just because you guys were positive that I was dead, doesn't mean I wasn't interested, and didn't want to know what was going on." She whispered. "I was trying to find you."

"What did the Warren's think about this?" Sam asked. Dean seemed to have forgotten how to speak.

"Valerie and Daniel were always honest with me. I knew they weren't my parents, and they made sure I knew that. They had only met Mom and Dad once, but they remembered the 'adorable twins' and the 'precious baby'. Apparently, and this is only what I know from Warren's, when I got thrown through the window, I landed in their yard. They didn't find me until the next morning, and had no clue who I was until I woke and up started screaming for my brothers. By then, you guys had already left. They totally encouraged me to find you guys."

Dean glanced over at her. "I want to know, how'd you meet Jenny and the kids?"

"Sari is in my tap class. I offered to take her home one day when Jenny just moved here, and just about had a stroke when I saw the house." She shrugged. "I'd been keeping tabs on it anyway, but I hadn't known they'd moved in. Scared me half to death."

Dean nodded. "Seems like one hell of a coincidence."

"It does, doesn't it?" Deanna agreed. "That was what I thought."

Dean nodded, and the three kids were silent once more. Finally, Dean looked up at her again. "How'd you know we were here? When you showed up on the doorstep next to me, you weren't surprised to see me."

Deanna smiled. "I met Missouri when I was ten. We were in the grocery store, and this woman walks right up to me and says, 'Oh, hi. Good to see you alive and not dead. How're you doing, Deanna. Does your twin know you're alive?' I was pretty freaked out. Eventually she explained what was going on, and I've been friends with her since."

"Nice. That sounds like Missouri." Dead muttered, knowing she could probably hear him.

Deanna smirked. "Anyway, when you two showed up here, she called me. And I think you guys know the rest of the story."

Dean shook his head, a smile on his face. It'd been a long time since he'd felt as comfortable as he did with Deanna, with anyone but Sam in a long time. As she got up to make some coffee, and replaced the ice in Sam's water, Dean continued to look through her journal.

In the back was a familiar obituary stapled to a few newspaper articles and a police report. "You know about St. Louis?" he asked incredulously.

"Yeah." Deanna said, turning around and frowning at him. "I have to say, you scared the hell out of me. Valerie Warren's niece, Rebecca Warren, calls me up and tells me about her brother, and how he's been framed for murder. And while I'm flipping out about it, she says, 'Oh, don't worry. My friend Sam from Stanford and his brother Dean helped out.' So I looked into it and had her send me the information she had, and low and behold, I suddenly find an obituary for a serial killer, with a picture and everything, named Dean Winchester. Had Becca called me two days earlier, I probably would have shown up in St. Louis myself."

"You know I didn't kill those people, right?" Dean asked, looking at her.

"Yeah, Becca set me straight. But don't you ever do that again." She pointed a finger at him and gave him her most serious look.

Sam had been sitting quietly the whole time, staring off into space. Deanna finally turned her attention back to him, frowning slightly when she had he hadn't moved since she'd replaced his water.

"Sammy?" she asked cautiously. Dean immediately followed her gaze.

"Dude. You okay?" Dean asked, touching Sam's arm. Sam jerked as if he'd been burned, sloshing water every where.

"Huh?" he asked.

Deanna shared a concerned glance with Dean. "Dude, you've been staring at the wall for the last ten minutes. Are you sure you're okay?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I...I just have a bad feeling is all."

"Bad feeling about what?" Dean asked.

"I...I don't know." Sam thought for a moment. "We need to go back to the house."

"Why?" Deanna asked. "Missouri said the house was clean. Mission accomplished."

Sam turned pleading eyes to Dean, knowing his older brother wouldn't say no to him, would move the planets in fact if it was in his ability to do so.

Dean sighed, knowing when he was beat. "Stake out it is." He sighed. "But dude, if this turns out to be nothing, you're riding in the trunk to the next job."

Sam smiled softly, and then turned to Deanna. He wanted her approval as well. She just shrugged her shoulders, and reached over, slipping on the sweatshirt she'd brought out earlier. "Just let me get my shoes."

Sam gingerly stood up, seeing Dean watching him out of the corner of his eye. He had no idea what they were about to walk into, had no idea if the pulling sensation he felt towards the house was something malevolent, trying to draw him out to his death or attack his family...

But seeing Deanna walk in, looking every part of a strong Winchester in her boots, shorts and hoodie, loading up coffee for them, and seeing Dean arm himself with his favorite glock and a knife strapped to his boot, Sam couldn't help but think that while they stood between him and the world, nothing could hurt him.

Author's Note: Okay, so we should be back on track. Thanks guys for being so patient with me. :)