Home

"Showers free." I announced, exiting the crappy motel bathroom. I wore my average clothes; scruffy combat boots, worn out jeans with holes starting to form in the knees, and a red tank top. My jacket was flung over the arm chair and I was towel drying my damp hair, the water making it look more brown than blonde. I plopped down on the couch beside Sam, furiously rubbing my wet hair dry. Dean was on the shared laptop, looking for a new job to keep them occupied. I sold my old beat up laptop at a pawn shop last week when they were running short on cash for the motel room. It wasn't like I ever used it nowadays since they had Sam's much newer better working model. I glanced over curious since Sam was drawing. In the few months I'd known him, I had never seen him spend time drawing. It just never seemed like anything he'd be interested in. I had tried drawing once but was a complete disaster at it. Sam seemed surprisingly intent on drawing some kind of tree. And it wasn't one of those crappy little trees little kids put on they're art projects and assignments. It was a full scale on tree that stretched across the page with its long thick droopy branches. I glanced up at his face but he didn't even notice, to busy sliding his pencil across the page.

"I've been cruising some websites." Dean announced, leaning back in his seat. "I think I found a few candidate for our next gig?" I glanced back at Sam before turning to Dean. What would we be dealing with next; a ghost? Werewolf? Human hunting maniacs, I finished with a clinical smirk. "A fishing trawler found off the coast of Cali, it's crew vanished." Interesting but I just wasn't feeling it. "And uh, we got some cattle mutilations in West Texas." I raised an eyebrow, who would waste time killing a few cows. "Hey." Dean suddenly said. I noticed how Sam was still focused on his tree drowning so I nudged his foot with my own. Sam's head snapped up startled. He gave her a look for interrupting his thoughts and I gave him one back. "Am I boring you two clowns with this hunting evil stuff?"

"Hey, I was listening!" I protested with a scowl.

"Just keep going." Sam muttered, quickly turning back to his drawing.

Dean tried his last resort. "And here, a Sacramento man shot himself in the head...three times!"

I raised a finger, "I choose that one!" I said immediately. Maybe it was a demon, but why three times? Or possibly a pissed off ghost that had an agenda from life that carried over into death. Dean's attention was focused on Sam staring intently at his tree. "You okay there, Sammy boy?" I asked cautiously. I knew people could really get into what they were doing but it was just a tree, there was one almost like it at the park they passed.

Dean got up to wave a hand in front of Sam's face. "Any of these blowing up your skirt, pal?"

But Sam seemed to finally make a connection with his picture. "Wait, I've seen this!" I fell back into my seat, looking curious as Sam stood up quickly, searching through his duffle bag.

Dean stood up and followed, "What are you doing?"

I abandoned the motel towel, curiosity driving me to come look closer. "I would hope you'd recognize a tree you drew and have been staring at for an hour." I commented, taking a seat on the bed next to the duffle.

"Not because I drew it, I drew it from a dream." Sam explained, shifting through his duffle bag.

I raised an eyebrow. "And you're going to find dream answers in your duffle?" The first thing I did after I wake up from a dream wasn't drawing it out and then searching for it.

Sam glanced up before looking down. "Because I've seen it before I had the dream." He pulled a picture out from the side pocket. It was a picture Dean had gotten from that pile of information about me he grabbed from his friend, whoever that was. It was a picture of the family when I was two, when we were happy. It was of the five members of theyre family standing in front of a tree in the front yard with wide grins. He put the picture and the drawing side by side on the bed. I glanced between the two but couldn't tell why he was so into it. But Sam had come to a realization, "I know where we have to go next."

And that was when I made the connection, saw the dots forming as I glanced between the two trees. They were exactly the same, the drawing was of the tree in the background of the picture. Already it was like I knew what he was thinking before he said it. I was winching and begged, "Please don't tell me what you're thinking you're thinking?"

Dean apparently hadn't figure it out just yet. "Where?" He asked.

Sam looked up eyes wide. "Back home, back to Kansas." I felt myself pale and shook my head, Kansas had been the one state she'd avoided for nearly fifteen years.

"So not happening, I haven't called Kansas my home since I was like, seven." I crossed my arms in a huff. Seven was the age she started being passed from state to state. Seven was the age she left Kansas and never looked back, being the age she truly realized she'd been abandoned by the one that was suppose to protect and raise her.

"Where'd that come from?" Dean asked more curious than anything.

Sam held up the picture. "Alright, um, this photo was taken in front of our old house, right?" I raised an eyebrow, that didn't explain why he was so adamant about going to Kansas of all places. "The house where mom died?" Dean and I shared the same look of confusion before looking back at Sam. So Sam pushed on, "And it didn't burn down, right?"

"Of course it did." I said. Then I thought for a moment, I had always assumed it had burned down. But what if it hadn't, what if the structure itself was still standing after the fire. Then I got conflicted, the feeling echoing on my face. "Didn't it?"

"It did, but not completely." Sam said, getting excited. "They had it rebuilt after the fire." I shivered at the thought of someone living in the home where my mother died, was murdered while trying to protect her children.

"So what the hell all you talking about?" Dean asked, getting straight to the point as always. Even I had to admit I was curious as hell.

"And how weird is it gonna sound?" I asked seriously.

Sam started to pace, still holding tightly onto his picture and drawing. "Okay look, this is gonna sound crazy but..." It's been sounding crazy for the past five or ten minutes. "The people that live in our old house," that thought, that more people were there now, still gave me the chills. "I think they might be in danger."

I blinked, glancing to Dean and then back at Sam. "Okay, random anyone?" It wasn't often one of them randomly decided someone they didn't even know it ever contacted was in some serious danger, danger they couldn't get out of unless a hunter was there.

Dean took a seat with a serious look on his face. And so he asked, "Why would you think that?" Did he keep tabs on the house or something and noticed something going on?

Sam started to stutter before he managed to say, "Look, just trust me on this, okay?" Of course I trusted him, he was my brother but this was just weird.

"Sam, are you okay?" I stood up putting a hand to his forehead trying to feel for a temperature. But he swatted me away dismissively, saying a muttered 'yeah'.

So while I was trying not to feel and do like a mother bear, something I didn't even know I had in me, Dean tried things a little harder. "Trust you? Even you know that's weak. You gotta give us a little more than that."

I stepped away from the bed. "Especially if it's going to take us, what, four hundred miles from here." But even so that wasn't the longest time they've driven in a day.

Sam shook his head hesitant. "I can't really explain it is all."

Dean scoffed cause that wasn't going to fly with him at all. "Well tough, I'm not going anywhere until you do." So I made myself comfortably by sitting back on the bed, we weren't going anywhere without an actual reason.

Sam sighed deeply. Dean was growing impatient. I glanced between the two, starting to play with my nails. But I stopped to pay attention as Sam hesitantly started to explain. "I have these nightmares." He said it like it was some big secret, it wasn't.

Dean nodded, "I've noticed."

"Kind of hard not to notice when you're thrown to the floor." I commented scowling in remembrance. The Winchester trio had gotten closer than most siblings during these past few months of traveling together. I usually just fell on top of one of the brothers on the bed and fell asleep within seconds. It was surprisingly soothing with an increasingly familiar heartbeat in my ear. I've taken to sleeping where Dean is since Sam sat up so startled a few nights ago that I woke up as I flipped, flopping onto the floor from the sudden movement.

But then Sam slowly finished his sentence. "And sometimes...they come true." I swear my jaw dropped a little.

"...Come again?" Dean asked, looking just as stunned.

I forcefully swallowed hard, closing my jaw. "Are you sure?" Maybe it was just a fluke. She normally didn't believe in coincidences but she was willing to consider it this once time. "Look...I dreamt about Jessica's death," he hesitated again. "For days before it happened."

Dean and I shared a startled look. I slowly stood, "You can't possibly know someone's about to die before it even happens. That some psychic mumbo jumbo. And unless you have something you never told me, I don't think that your a psychic."

Sam looked away, it was true that he'd never dreamed like that before the Jess incident. And anything he knew about psychics, they didn't randomly get they're abilities in adulthood, it grew as they did. Dean was just as in denial as ever, "Sam, people have weird dreams all the time." Just a few nights ago, I had a dream I was being chased by a shark...on land. "I'm sure it's just a coincidence." He slowly sat on the bed beside me.

But Sam was furiously in denial about it. "No, I dreamt about the blood dripping, her on the ceiling, the fire, everything and I didn't do anything about it cause I didn't believe it." Who would believe a crazy dream like that? "And now I'm dreaming about our house, about some woman inside screaming for help." But why would he be dreaming of some woman whose only connection was living in they're old house. Then again, why was he having dreams like this at all, I thought. "I mean, that's where it all started, this has to mean something." He looked hopeful and scared at the same time.

I felt helpless, unable to do anything under his look. I didn't like that feeling, being unable to help. "I don't know." Dean muttered, looking overwhelmed, feeling just as helpless as I did.

I chewed lightly on my lip, a worried habit from childhood. "There has to be something to this," I muttered under my breath.

Sam sat on the bed across from them. "This woman might be in danger." He said firmly. I understood that but we had to be reasonable here, these visions or whatever they were, they just weren't natural. I mean, to dream of death before it actually happened. "I mean, this might even be the thing that killed mom and Jessica!" He looked more excited at the thought that all this could end.

"Alright, just slow down would ya?" Dean snapped, trying to think rationally about this. I watched from the bed across from Sam as Dean stood and started pacing the small room. "I mean, first you say that you've got the shining?" The Shining was a book I'd once read by Stephen King. It was about some kid that had psychotic visions or something. "And then you say we've gotta go home." Kansas was my first home, and I couldn't even remember it, being so young when everything happened. "Especially when," Dean stopped suddenly.

"When what?" Sam demanded.

Dean hesitated so I stepped in. "You can't just stop off there, what were you saying?" I looked at him intently, not letting him off that easily.

Dean took in a heavy sigh before finally answering. "When I swore to myself that I would never go back there." He admitted sadly. I turned sullen, turning my gaze back to the floor. Maybe the Winchester's, rather they were raised Winchester or not, were similar.

Sam startled softly, not giving up. "Look, we have to check this out." As much as I hated to admit it, we just couldn't let people die without getting involved to help. "Just to make sure." 'Just to make sure'. I repeated in mind.

Dean sighed in resignation, "I know we do."

I imitated the sigh, "I'll start packing the bags." It looked like they were leaving yet another dead end town.

Several hours later, I stared up from the back window of the Impala at the house standing before us. It looked beautiful, I could almost imagine our family growing up in it. I turned sullen, remembering the tragedy that happened to our family within it twenty two years ago. Sam hesitated about climbing out. "Everyone gonna be alright?"

Dean looked sick but pushed it back. "Let me get back to you on that." He muttered. Looking up, he could still feel the heat of the flames, the screaming and glass shattering, Sammy in his arms and the presence of Chris beside him. I was sullen as I slowly climbed out of the car, feeling numb as we walked up the drive.

Sam looked at his brother and sister before firmly knocking on the door. He seemed to be the one with the least emotional turmoil going through him, being so young he couldn't remember a single detail about what had happened so it didn't really effect him other than the sadness of never knowing his mother. Dean, being the eldest, could practically remember it all like it was yesterday. I could barely imagine all to real of the sudden overbearing heat and flames that had overtaken the house that night.

I was pulled from my thoughts as the door swung open. In the doorway was a young woman in her mid-twenties with long blonde hair and brown eyes. She looked very familiar to me but I just couldn't place a face with a name. Sam stepped back into me, looking startled, as if he'd seen the woman somewhere before to and didn't expect her.

The woman clearly looked confused about why three strangers, one very familiar stranger, was standing on her porch. "Yes?" She asked.

I straightened up, trying to put myself into the mindset that this was any other job in the world. "We're here on official business, miss."

"We're with the Federal," Dean took it up to himself to come up with their lie.

Sam interrupted. "I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean and sister Chris." I looked up at him startled, they rarely if ever actually went with the truth of who they were. "We used to live here." If you could call it that, other than that night, I couldn't remember this place. "You know, we were just driving by and we were wondering if we could come and see the old place." I didn't know why he thought a woman would let three strangers into her home.

"Winchester." The woman repeated starting to smile. "Yeah, that's so funny. You know, I think I found some of your photos the other night." I raised an eyebrow, never having thought anything had survived the fire.

"You did?" Dean asked, sounding just as surprised as I felt.

The woman nodded, "I'm Jenny."

And just like that, I realized why she looked so familiar. "Oh my God!" My eyes widened. Dean and Sam looked at her, startled by her sudden outburst and Jenny looked confused. "Jenny 'Jen-Jen' Tinkeler, from New York, New York high school?" (A/N: not sure it its a real high school, probably not but just go with it anyway.)

Recognition lit up in her eyes. "Only one person has ever called me Jen-Jen! Is that you Chrissy!" I nodded, she'd been the only person to ever get away with calling her that. Jenny squealed, pulling me into a hug just like she used to do when they were children.

Dean and Sam shared confused looks as I wrapped my arms awkwardly around Jenny, just like I used to do. Dean coughed to get they're attention, "Excuse me, Chrissy?"

"Jen-Jen?" Sam asked, fighting a confused grin.

Jenny and I pulled apart, I awkwardly patted down my jacket. "This is Jenny, we used to go to the same high school when I was fourteen. I hated her."

Jenny laughed, "But I followed you around before you punched out that senior guy that kept trying to get in my pants."

I groaned, remembering that guy briefly. "Did he ever go to jail like we thought he would after I moved?" Jenny and I used to make bets of how long it'll take after high school for him to get arrested.

Jenny looked sheepish as she shrugged. "He did for about a year just after graduation, and then...I kinda married him."

My eyes widened in disbelief. "The hell?" Last time she left, Jenny had been avoiding him like he had the plague or something. Now they were married? Damn, the things you miss after being moved from place to place all your life.

"Don't be so surprised." Jenny said. "We divorced a year ago, he got into some bad stuff I didn't want around our kids."

Y-you have kids?" I stuttered. Here I was, twenty six with no romantic interest, traveling the country with my two brothers hunting for the father that gave me up years ago. It made me feel almost...inadequate, but I guess I could put those feelings aside. After all, I did risk my life to save total strangers, that had to be worth something.

"Yes, would you like to come meet them?" Jenny didn't wait for an answered before disappearing into the house. I shared a look with Sam and Dean before we cautiously followed. The walk led us to the living room where a seven year old midget girl with Jenny's eyes sitting at the table doing what looked to be homework. There was a two year old in one of those floor cribs, clinging to the rail and bouncing up and down. He was chanting 'juice' over and over again, reminding me why I always thought as myself not being good with kids. I always felt awkward with them, unsure what to do. All I knew was weaponry and candy. I may not know much about kids but I knew enough to know candy makes them insane and probably wasn't smart to give a four year old a knife.

"That's Ritchie." Jenny smiled proudly. The three Winchester's took up the bulk of the kitchen. "He's kind of a juice junkie." She paused to unlatch the childproof lock on the door and pull out a soppy cup with orange juice. She handed it over to Ritchie who eagerly started to suck. "But hey, at least he won't get scurvy." Scurvy was some disease if you didn't get enough vitamin C, which could often or not be found in juice. Jenny put her hand on the shoulder of the little girl in pigtails who glanced up. "Sari, this is mommy' friend from high school, Chris. And her brothers, Sam and Dean. They used to live here."

"Hi," Sari said shyly in a quite voice.

Dean grinned and waved. "Hey, Sari." Sam smiled kindly, hands tucked in his jacket pockets.

I coughed slightly, "Nice to meet you, Sari." I muttered, feeling awkward and shifting on my feet.

"So you just moved in?" Dean asked, appearing to make conversation. But I knew different, he was fishing for information.

Jenny nodded smiling, "Yeah, from Wichita."

I raised an eyebrow curiously, "What were you doing in Wichita?" Last I remember, Jenny had been swearing she was never leaving New York. She had always been a city girl at heart, loving the city that never sleeps. Now here she was playing single soccer mom with two kids of her own; house, yard, and white picket fence included.

"You got family here or..." Dean trailed off.

Even before she answered, I knew what her response would be. She used to be quite the chatterbox so I knew within the first ten minutes or so of our meeting that her only relative was her mom that she lived with. Jenny's smile turned awkward and weak. "No, I just uh...needed a fresh start, that's all." Looks like she wasn't living the charmed life she insisted she would grow into after graduation. "So new town, new job-I mean, as soon as I find one." Looks like the apple pie life wasn't such a peach after all. "New house." I spent my life worrying over if I would manage to save the life of whoever this week. She worried about paying the mortgage to keep a roof over her kids heads.

"So how you liking it so far?" Sam asked.

"Well uh, all due respect to your childhood home-I mean I'm sure you had lots of happy memories here." Jenny said. Dean smiled weakly. I couldn't even muster that much and Sam didn't even try. Our past was always a sore subject. Jenny may had thought we were best friends. But even she never knew I grew up from foster home to foster home. "But this place has its issues."

I turned concerned, "Issues?" Issues could mean a lot of things, it didn't necessarily make this they're kind of case. But it didn't exactly rule it out either.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked after a glance at Dean and I.

"Well it's just getting old." Jenny explained, running a hand through Sari's pigtail. "Like the wiring, you know?" I raised an eyebrows, funny how that was the first thing she thought of, bad wiring. "We've got flickering lights almost hourly." Sounded like a typical spirit to me.

"Oh that's to bad. What else?" Dean asked in the same hurried breath.

I gave a little half grin, "Anything that really...stands out?" I was feeling awkward, this case a little to personal, hit to close to home for comfort. Actually, this kinda was our home, even though it hadn't been in over twenty years.

"Uh, sinks backed up, there's rats in the basement." Jenny said, rats, never a good thing. Then Jenny seemed to realize what she had said and paused in thought. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to complain."

I slowly nodded, "No problem." It wasn't like they had any real attachment to this place. None other than the sorrow of knowing they're mother died in the land they now stood on.

"Have you seen any rats?" Dean asked, not offended at all. "Or have you just heard scratching?" Invisible rat scratching sounds, classic MO for a spirit.

Jenny looked startled, as if she hadn't thought about it until now. "It's just the scratching, actually." I shared a significant glance with my brothers again.

"Mom?" Sari looked up looking worried. Jenny didn't hesitate before kneeing at her side. "Ask them if it was here when they lived here." I looked at the little girl confused, what if what was here?

"What, Sari?" Sam asked kindly.

Sari looked down scared before glancing back up. "The thing in my closet." She whispered. I narrowed my eyes, most little kids are scared of the thing in they're closet. But we knew that sometimes, the thing in your closest was really there.

Jenny immediately consoled her daughter. "Oh no, baby, there was nothing in they're closets." She looked up at Sam, Dean, and I. "Right."

"Right." I repeated numbly. This house...it was just becoming to much for her.

"Of course not." Sam agreed.

"She had a nightmare the other night." Jenny explained, fooling with her daughter's clothes. Adjusting them, keeping her hands busy.

Sari protested loudly. "I wasn't dreaming!" Sounding sure of herself. "It came into my bedroom and it was on fire!" Sam and Dean looked startled, I felt myself pale a little. Fire...just like a fire that happened here twenty two years ago. Dean and Sam walked to the door, heading down the steps. I stayed inside briefly for goodbye's.

"Hey, Mrs. J, I got your computer online and working." A young man hopped down he stairs. He stopped as he noticed them. "Oh, Sorry. I didn't know you had company."

"It's no problem." Jenny straightened up. "This is Derek Matthews, I'm paying him to help out around the house, get my things settled and all. Derek," she put a hand on my shoulder. "This is my best friend when we were kids, this is Chrissy!"

"...Chris, actually." I corrected. Jenny had been the only one to call me Chrissy and I haven't heard that name since.

Derek wiped his hands on his jeans, before holding it out. "Nice to meet you, Chris." He had that shy boy next door smile thing going on. He didn't know what the first thing he noticed about her was. Maybe it was the scruffed up biker boots, or the jacket that looked a size or two to big. Maybe it was that tuff of blonde hair that fell into her eyes, or maybe it was the green eyes that seemed to hold secrets he could only guess at. But as soon as those thoughts entered his mind, they were gone as her hand took his. It was smaller than his, tanner, but calloused as well like she did heavy work. But he thought nothing of it as they pulled apart.

"It was nice seeing you again Jenny, and meeting you Derek but," I jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. "I really should be going." I left the house as quick as I could with one final thought. 'Damn, I was a sucker for blue eyes.' Derek had blue eyes. I abandoned the thought as I met Dean and Sam at the car.

"So I didn't just hear things?" Sam was saying. "She really did say a figure in fire."

"Well I'm pretty sure we're not all hearing things." I said, leaning against the car.

"So that woman Jenny, sweetheart here old friend, that was the woman in your dreams?" Dean made sure. We wouldn't know considering we weren't the psychic in the family.

"Yeah." Sam said. "And you hear what she was talking about?" Like they could ignore it. "Scratching, flickering lights, both signs of a malevolent spirit."

"Yeah, well I'm just freaked out that your weirdo visions are coming true!" Dean exclaimed loudly, shaking a hand in the air.

I shrugged, "He's not the first psychic in the world. It's just weird that it's randomly starting now." Most psychics she knew usually showed signs in early childhood.

"Well forget about all that for a minute." Sam was starting to panic, pointing up at the house. "The thing in the house, do you think it's the thing that killed mom and Jessica!"

"I don't know!" Dean shouted, feeling frustrated. Like everything was running out of his control.

I pushed myself between them. "Boys, take a chill pill or two! Losing our cool isn't going to help us save that woman and her kids!"

"But what if it came back, after all these years?" Sam asked, eyes wide. "Or maybe it was here this whole time?" I raised a skeptical eyebrow. Other than our fire, nothing else had happened here.

"What reason would a demon have for hanging around for twenty two years?" I asked. It was to much of a stretch for her.

"Exactly." Dean agreed. "It's probably something else entirely." He spread his arms. "We don't know yet!"

"Well we do know that these people are in danger!" Sam pointed up at the house. "We have to get them out of that house!"

"We will before something happens!" I said firmly, refusing to see someone I once cared for die.

"No, I mean now." Sam said, just as firm. He used the same tone she had as they stared the other down, separated by nearly a hundred pounds of muscle and a foot of height.

"And how you gonna do that, huh?" Dean demanded, looking at him like he was an idiot. "You got a story that she's gonna believe?"

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Sam demanded.

I looked at the house. "We do what we have to."

At the local gas station, my lunch was a bag of chips. I ate slowly as we talked about the case. Dean was telling Sam he needed to chill out. "If this was any other case, what would we do?"

Sam sighed as I stuck another large piece in my mouth. "We'd try to figure out what we were dealing with. We'd dig into the history of the house."

"Exactly," Dean said. "Except this time, we already know what happened." How could they not, it was they're own history after all.

"But remember, together we weren't even ten yet." I said, hoisting myself back to sit on the hood of the car. "How much can we really depend on memory?"

Dean shook his head, leaning on the car beside her. "Not much. I remember the fire...the heat." He stopped for a moment. "And feeling Chris holding onto the back of my shirt, I got her as I carried Sam out the front door."

I looked at him curious, the sibling that remembered the most of the night when everything changed. "You did?" Sam asked. Apparently Sam never knew that little fact.