A/N: Hey! Sorry, been busy with writing my own book! It's sort of going well…

Anyways, this is the second last chapter, and as I start back at uni next month (AAAAAAH THIRD YEAR! :O), I'm hoping to get the final chapter up before that!

And, on a completely unrelated topic, anyone seen Planet of the Apes yet? Tom Felton was amazing…=P

And the Hogwarts Express just passed my house! Yeah, it's a real train and goes by my house a few times a day. It's so cool, but they've changed the colour now…it's black!

Enjoy!

Chapter 9 – Guts.

"So, Adam? How were things at home? With your mom and Steven?" The policewoman asked gently as the blonde youth ignored her and continued to fiddle with the frayed edges of his hospital blanket. "Adam?"

His eyes slowly focused on her and he blinked a few times before muttering, "Huh?"

"I said, how were things at home with your mom and Steven?" She repeated herself slowly. She knew he'd had a hard time lately, but if he could answer her questions, everything would be moving a lot quicker, and he could hopefully recuperate at home with his brothers.

"They were…ok."

"Ok?"

"Sorry, but I really don't want…can we do this later?" His eyes began to slowly flutter shut as a yawn escaped.

"I'm sorry, but now is really the best time. We can arrest Steven Singer on the grounds of kidnap with attempt to harm a minor, but unless you testify, he may get away with a short while in jail, or even community service." She explained.

"I don't want to testify." Adam stated firmly, eyes now firmly open, "I just want it all to go away."

"I understand that, Adam. But it would go away a lot quicker if you testify. He won't be able to harm you otherwise."

"He didn't mean it. That nurse said…what was it? Yeah, he was 'mentally unstable', so he didn't really know what he was doing, was he? As far as he was concerned, he was just helping the woman who treated him all those years ago. My mom was never to know he was a nutt- insane person." Adam muttered, shocking the woman as he'd only spoken a few words to her since she'd entered his room an hour ago.

"I understand that, Adam, but this whole thing could completely spiral out of control. Steven may get away with a light sentence or something else, as I've already mentioned and there's talk about placing you in a home or-"

"Excuse me?"

The policewoman could have kicked herself. Repeatedly. She knew the boy would have found out at some point…only she wasn't too sure she was the ideal person to have broken the news to him. His brothers would have been better. Or a doctor.

"Um…what I mean to say is-"

"They want to put me in a home? Why?" The teenager demanded angrily. "I'm fine with Sam and Dean!"

"That's the problem actually," she sighed, "You are under eighteen, therefore you can be placed in the care of the state, and you were seriously harmed whilst under Sam and Dean's care. Add that to the fact that neither of them hold a stable job with a reliable income, and the fact that they appear to live in motels and travel on the road a lot-"

"So what?" Adam didn't care that he currently sounded like a petulant five year old on the edge of throwing a massive temper tantrum, "They love me, and I love them. Does it really matter about the other stuff?"

"It appears it does. You're better leaving this discussion for later on, I believe someone is coming to talk to you about all this. I'm here to talk to you about Steven."

Adam sighed wearily, "Fine. What do you want to know?"

"How were things, up until your mother's death?"

"Sometimes good; sometimes bad." Adam shrugged, "We got on mostly, until he had some beer, or was just in a bad mood."

"Did he drink a lot?"

"Yeah. He could quite easily go through a six-pack a day. More depending on if he'd been sacked or not."

"Did that happen a lot?"

"Yeah, he couldn't hold a job, so he'd maybe last a week or a month, and then he'd be sacked and he'd come home angry and drunk."

"What happened then?"

"He'd drink some more, yell at mom, yell at me, and drink a bit more…" Adam trailed off and shrugged.

"Did he ever hit you?" The woman asked cautiously, noticing Adam tense.

He nodded, "And mom too."

"Adam, I'd like for you to tell me about the day your mom died. Can you do that?" She glanced down at her notepad, the pages rapidly filling up as the boy talked. She scanned over her notes, giving Adam a moment to think.

"I…I came home from school. I remember it was a nice day, sunny and quite warm and I stopped to talk to Mrs Smith…she's one of our neighbours, she's really nice. She offered me to stay…afterwards, but I wanted to find my dad."

"What did you find in the house?" She recognised Adam's attempts at trying to move the conversation away from Kate Milligan, so she subtly moved it back.

"The hallway was all messed up, and so was most of downstairs…I never went upstairs until…afterwards."

"Where did you find your mom?"

"She was…she was in the living room. On the floor." A shadow moved over his face. "There was blood everywhere, and she was breathing all funny. He had his hands around her neck and she was choking. She tried to hit him but he stopped her…" he gulped.

"How did he stop her, Adam?"

"He hit her. He wouldn't stop…he just kept hitting her and hitting her…she was screaming and there was blood everywhere, and then she stopped screaming and he just looked at me. He just looked at me and then he ran off, and I didn't know what to do! I just sat there, on the floor beside my mom and I couldn't look at her, that'd make it more real, you know? And then I felt for a pulse, like she'd shown me, and there wasn't one, and I couldn't remember much CPR but I tried and then I was screaming and…and…and….Mrs Smith came in when she heard me and she must of phoned for help cos the ambulance and the police turned up and…and…and-" He burst out into noisy sobs that shook his whole body, whilst the policewoman stared in shock.

That poor child had witnessed his mother's murder and been kidnapped by the very man that had done it. She gave him a moment to calm down, the odd hiccup escaping and the tears still flowing slowly down his pale face.

"Adam, you have to testify against Steven." The boy shuddered at his name, "Don't you see how dangerous he is?"

"No, I can't! I don't want to. He's not right in the head! So, can't you…put him somewhere and fix him? He was ok when he wasn't drunk, please! And he didn't try to kill me, he tried to push me to Dean but he slipped!" Adam begged, his eyes filling with tears. "I don't want to go up there in front of everyone and tell them what happened, I can't do it again! Please!"

"You want him to be institutionalized?" At Adam's nod, she frowned, "I suppose that would work, but it's really not up to me. If you really don't want to testify, then I can talk to his doctors…but the decision to commit him lies with them. If they think that he was in his right mind when everything occurred, then I can arrest him. If you don't testify, then he might not end up in jail."

"Can you just talk to them, please?"

"I'll try. And Adam? Thank you for telling me everything. I know it was hard, but I'm sure it was a relief to get it all off your chest. I'll let you rest now, you're obviously still in a lot of pain. Then you can get back to being with your brothers, okay?" She smiled at him as a fond grin appeared on his face at the mention of Sam and Dean, and she left him on the bed, passing the brothers on the way out.

"Is he ok?" The smaller one demanded.

"Yep." She nodded, smiling at his worry, "He told me everything, cried a bit. He won't testify."

"He won't testify?" Dean repeated incredulously.

"Nope. Seems dead set on it. He's arguing that Steven wasn't in his right mind, therefore he can't be held responsible for his actions."

"That makes sense, I suppose." Sam interrupted at Dean's growl. "He will be too shy to go up in front of the court and everything."

"He's a great kid, watch out for him, ok?" The policewoman smiled, before the smile fell away to be replaced by a frown, "Oh, and someone from Social Services will be along shortly to talk to both of you, and Adam himself."

XXX

"Hello, Sam and Dean Winchester? I'm Miriam Woods from the Social Work Department. I'm here to talk about Adam Milligan."

Sam, Dean and Bobby jumped up as the woman entered the room.

Miriam gazed curiously at Bobby before demanding, "Robert Singer? Could you please wait outside, I'd like to talk to you afterwards, if possible?"

Bobby nodded and left the room in search of a nice, strong coffee.

"Hi," Miriam repeated, sitting down beside the two men, "I just want to talk to you about your brother-"

"You're not going to take him away from us, are you?" Dean asked quietly.

"Not unless that's the best option for the both of you and him. Now, how would you say your relationship was with Adam? Do you get on well?"

"Yeah," Dean nodded, "Sam helps him with his homework and stuff, and I was teaching him how to fix a car the other day."

"That's good. Would you say you fought a lot?"

"No more so than any other family. We prank each other a lot." Sam smiled politely, as Dean nodded in agreement.

"That's great, so you'd say you had a good relationship with him, then?"

"Certainly. He's an amazing kid, really funny and easy to get along with."

"And you only found out about him quite recently, am I correct?"

"Yeah, we found our dad's…diary…and we discovered we had a younger brother, so we tried to find him."

"Any idea why your father never told you about Adam?" Miriam tilted her head curiously.

Sam and Dean shared a brief panicked look, unnoticed by Miriam who was scribbling in her notepad.

"Uh, not sure. Well, Sammy and I are really close, so I'm guessing he'd maybe think it was best to keep Adam with his mom."

"Even so, it's rather curious to why he never at least introduced him to you. Spent holidays with him and such like."

"Well, as I said, I'm guessing Dad just thought it was for the best. As soon as we found out about Adam, we drove straight to Windom."

"And that's when you found out about Kate's death, am I correct?"

They nodded before Sam replied, "Yeah, it was about a week afterwards, I think, and he was living on his own in the house…we introduced ourselves and he came with us."

"Right. So how did he end up being kidnapped by Steven Singer?" The woman asked, suspicion lacing her voice.

"Adam wanted to go to the shop," Dean answered, "Me and Sammy always take it in turns, we didn't let Adam out without supervision because we didn't know him too well and with his mom's death and everything, we thought it'd be safer. But he reminded us he was sixteen, therefore an adult, so we said we'd let him go to the shop, down the road to get some milk, and if he did that fine, then we'd trust him more to go out and stuff…but then he was kidnapped."

"And Robert Singer is the brother of the man who kidnapped Adam." She referred to her notepad, "Doesn't that worry you in the slightest?"

"Not at all." Sam replied politely, inwardly gritting his teeth, "We've known Bobby all our lives, and he's never once hurt us in any way. We'd trust him with our lives."

"Ok. So, how does Adam's education work? It says here that you both are travelling on the road a lot."

"We grew up that way, with our dad, and Sammy went onto go to College, so it can be done. When Sammy had a big test coming up, I'd go with dad and he'd stay with Bobby so he could study. Bobby's like family to us. He is family."

"So, if Adam were to stay with you, would you have him stay with Robert…Bobby…like Sam did?"

"Yes, if possible." Sam nodded.

"Right. I know that Adam was hoping to go to medical school to become a doctor, like his mom. Would you be willing to support him in that?"

"His mom was a nurse, not a doctor," Sam corrected her politely, "And yes, we would support him in whatever he decided to do after finishing school."

"That's great. Well…I think that's everything for now…" She glanced down at her notepad before looking back up at them, "If I have any further questions, I'll let you know, but otherwise, that's me. Thank you for your time, and I hope everything goes well." She shook their hands before leaving the room.

Bobby entered seconds later with a, "How did it go?"

"Not sure. Some of the questions were weird, and it felt like she was judging us the whole time." Dean sighed.

"She was though. We have to answer right or Adam will be shoved god knows where…"

XXX

"Hello, Adam, I'm Miriam Woods, I'm from the Social Services Department." The middle-aged, frizzy haired woman announced as she stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.

Adam jumped and gazed curiously at the woman before growling, "Sam and Dean have never hurt me, I'm staying with them, so you can just go away!"

The woman stared at him before chuckling, "Adam, I do not want to take you away from your brothers, I'm just here to analyse the situation and see what's best for all the parties involved, ok? I don't just take children away from their families, and even then, I only do it when it's the best option available, ok?"

Adam scowled before nodding. "What do you want then?"

Miriam sat down on the single plastic chair situated beside Adam and took out a notepad and a fountain pen. "I just want to ask you some questions, ok? If you can't answer some, that's fine. I understand you've already talked to the police today, I'm sorry that you're going through so much at the one time."

"Yeah, can you just start so that we can get this over with? I'm tired and sore." He whined.

She smiled at him, "Sure. What's your relationship with your brothers? Do you get on better with one compared to the other?"

"I get on with them both really well. Sam helps me with school work more, he was at College for a bit. I want to go to college soon."

"That's good, Adam," She wrote something down on her notebook before looking back up at him, "And what about Dean?"

"He's great, he taught me how to protect myself from bullies, and he always has time for me. He let me help with fixing up the Impala – that's his car – and he said he's going to teach me to drive when I'm all better."

"That's great. Do any of you ever fight?"

Adam rolled his eyes, "We're brothers. Of course we fight." He looked up as the woman frowned, "No, not in a bad way. Just like normal kids fight with their brothers and sisters, like we change the channel when Sam's watching history stuff, or we hide Dean's car keys. It's all pranks."

"I used to do similar stuff with my sister. It's quite fun, isn't it?"

Adam managed to not roll his eyes this time. He was finding it hard to believe that the frumpy woman in front of him knew the meaning of the word 'fun'. Nevertheless, he nodded and waiting for the next question.

"Do Sam and Dean ever hit you? Like Steven used to?"

"No! They'd never do that. They hug me a lot. I have nightmares most nights, and Dean said Sammy used to get them a lot after his girlfriend died – that's why he left college – so he knows what to do with me."

"What are your nightmares about?"

"Mostly what happened to my mom and about Steve and that."

"Where do you live with Sam and Dean most of the time?" The social worker suddenly asked, and Adam frowned knowing that they'd now hit the important questions. The ones that'd determine where Adam would end up living."

"Motels mostly. We sometimes stay with Uncle Bobby."

"Uncle Bobby?"

"Yeah. Well, he's not our real uncle. I think he was friends with my dad. He looked after Sam and Dean a lot when they were kids. Their mom died when Sam was a baby, so Bobby looked after them when dad had to work."

"Do you like Bobby?"

"Yeah! He's amazing. He looks like he'd be a real nasty guy, but he just calls everyone 'idgits' and he's a great cook. Dean loves his pies."

"And if you're not at Bobby's, you said you lived in motels. Why is that?"

"Well, Sam and Dean move around a lot for their jobs. And there's loads of motels, I like it. It's like always being on vacation." Adam grinned.

"What do they work as?"

Adam bit his lip, quickly working out a cover-story. If he told her about the monsters, he'd been joining Steve in the loony bin. "Uh, basically odd jobs, really. They quite often just help people."

"Uh huh." She nodded slowly, causing Adam to think that she didn't quite believe him. "And what do you eat if you're in these motels? They don't usually come with food, are they not self-catering?"

Adam nodded, "We eat fine. We're always near a mall or a convenience store, if not, there's always fast food." He smirked at the woman's shocked looked. Oh, this was too much fun! He sighed, realising he shouldn't joke too much, "But I'm only allowed that as a treat. Sam's on this weird healthy eating thing, so he's been buying loads of fruit and stuff. It annoys Dean, but when I started, all the junk food went out, so we're all on it now." Ok, so it wasn't completely true, but a little white lie never hurt anyone…right?

"That's good. As long as you're getting a healthy, nutritional balanced diet. You're still a growing boy, after all. What about school? If you move around a lot, how does your education work?"

Adam froze. He'd forgot about that particular question. He'd been up all night creating appropriate answers, and he'd completely forgot about the whole education thing.

"Your brothers mentioned earlier that you were wanting to go to college? Become a doctor like your mom?"

"My mom was a nurse," Adam corrected the social worker, "And yeah, I want to be a doctor. I like helping people."

"Well, how do you expect to achieve that if you're travelling on the road with your brother?"

"I…I…don't know." Adam nearly burst out crying. He had been so close to living with his brothers permanently, and with one question, he'd screwed it up so spectacularly, he might as well be packing his bags now.

"That's ok, Adam. Well, I think that's all the questions I have for now. Thank you, and I hope you get better soon." She scribbled down something, smiled at Adam one more time before leaving the room as Adam snarled and threw his head back on the pillow, ignoring the tears threatening to fall down his face.

XXXX

A/N: Oh, I am a cruel, heartless individual. Right? =P

Right. This is the second last chapter….and it was a long one! And the final chapter will be like an epilogue type thing. It will be set a while after this one, and I'll start writing it soon.

Please review, I'm receiving a lot of author/story alerts etc, but not many reviews. Thanks to everyone who does review, especially TheLadyPendragon and Ellie Clemons, amongst others. You are the ones who continue to leave amazing reviews, and it's to you who I keep on writing. Thanks! =)

X

P.S. Chapter title Guts is by All Time Low…their new album Dirty Work is amazing and I was listening to it as I typed this!