Chapter 8: The House That Built Me

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it,

this brokenness inside me might start healing.

Out here its like I'm someone else,

I thought that maybe I could find myself.

If I could walk around I swear I'll leave.

Won't take nothing but a memory

from the house that built me.

-Miranda Lambert

Dean was sitting up in bed with the laptop nestled on his lap. Shelby had woken early that morning, mentioning something about going for a run before she hopped in the shower. She had been running a lot lately, since her and Dean had started talking and acting, for the most part, like nothing ever happened. He was okay with that. Maybe that wasn't a good thing, but Shelby and him were alike with the fact that they weren't good with a lot of chick-flick moments, for lack of a better word. Sometimes Dean thought maybe that wasn't the best thing for them, but it worked, and that's all that mattered.

Sam was up as well. Dean glanced at his brother. Since Shelby had come around, he had been quiet. Dean also noticed he hadn't been sleeping well at night. Currently, his baby brother was slouching in the chair at the kitchenette table, drawing furiously on a notepad. He had been doing that a lot lately too.

"So Sammy, I found a couple of cases. You mind hittin' Route 66? There's been a couple of weird drownings in a town in California. There's another one out in-"

"Do you recognize this tree?" Sam interrupted. Dean moved his eyes from his laptop screen to Sam's dark drawing slowly, slightly annoyed at how rude Sam was being. Staring at the crude drawing he realized that he did recognize it, but he wasn't sure from where. Shelby decided to walk in at that moment. Sam put the sketch pad down and cleared his throat. The awkwardness was rolling off of Sam in waves. Shelby didn't notice. Dean admired Shelby's sweaty body, clad in only a sports bra and green shorts, her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail. Dean could see the tattoo she had recently acquired, a quote from some book series her and Sam had read as kids.

-TOL-

"What do you think Dean?" Shelby asked as she walked into the motel room. They had just gotten off of another hunt, simple salt and burn. Shelby was slowly coming around. They had been sleeping in the same bed now. Her nightmares weren't as bad. She had been reading a lot. He noticed it helped her. Dean looked at her tan face a bit longer before following her hands. They pulled the loose-fitting tank top up to reveal the right side of her ribcage. On the side, still red from the ink gun, was an intricately carved sentence. It had a lightning bolt beside it.

"Happiness can be found in even the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light." Dean read it a couple of times, admiring the artwork that went into the font. He looked up at Shelby's face and saw the joy in it. He smiled.

"I love it, baby. It looks great." Shelby smiled. She had been rereading the Harry Potter series for a while now and this quote hit her deep. It was from Dumbledore. It was such a true statement, and it meant a lot to her that Dean loved it, even though she could tell he didn't know where it came from.

"Good, because you were the inspiration. You've been my happiness in these dark times. You've helped me overcome a lot of my own demons. You've helped me turn on the light." She ended her small speech with a smile, still standing in front of the bed. Dean jumped up and grabbed her softly, before kissing her deeply. He pulled away after a few moments and spoke breathlessly.

"No more chick-flick moments." He put his lips softly onto Shelby's smiling ones for just a moment before she pulled away.

"So what does this count as? Soft-core porn?" Dean threw his head back and laughed heartily, making Shelby's giggle turn into an obnoxious laugh. He dragged her down onto the bed and started kissing her again, neither speaking a word for the rest of the afternoon.

-TOL-

"Hey guys. You find another hunt yet? I'm itching for one" Shelby said lightly as she moved to grab a water bottle from the fridge. She stopped at the table where Sam was sitting.

"Hey, I know that tree." Sam and Dean looked at the brunette surprisingly.

"You do? From where?" Sam asked quickly. He needed to know why he kept drawing this tree and where it came from. Maybe he could help... Shelby gulped down some of the water before setting it back onto the counter and heading for Dean's leather jacket. She reached in the inside pocket and grabbed John Winchester's journal out of it and flipped to the back. After searching a few pages, Shelby grabbed a paper-clipped Polaroid from the yellowed pages and handed it to Sam. It was the picture of John, Mary, Sam, and Dean. They were in front of their old house. Sam could tell they were all leaning against the black Impala. The gnarled tree was standing alone in the front yard behind them. Dean hopped out of bed and walked over to Sam. He leaned over the chair that his brother was sitting in and looked at the picture. He didn't remember it being taken. He was so young back then. His parents looked so young. So happy.

"Dean, Shelby, we need to go back to Kansas."

"Why?" They asked in unison. Sam wasn't sure how to tell them about his dreams without at least one of them flipping their lid.

"I keep having this dream. I've been remembering it in bits and pieces. There's a woman trapped in this house. Something is keeping her in there. We need to help her. I kept seeing this tree. I couldn't remember where it was from." Shelby nodded her head. Dean stood a few feet back from his brother.

"What do you mean you've been having dreams? What kind of dreams?" Dean looked to Shelby, like she might have that answer. She just raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders to Dean. She was just as curious.

"Well, dreams, visions maybe, they've come true before. I don't know man. I just have a bad feeling about this. Come on, just humor me." Sam was getting flustered, this was not how he wanted this conversation to go. Shelby nodded to him and grabbed her duffel bag from the floor. She headed towards the bathroom.

"Just let me shower and change and I'll be ready. It can't be more that an 8 hour drive from here."

"Wait, you're okay with this? This doesn't seem at all a little weird to you?" Dean asked heatedly. How could she just trust him?

"Yeah." She was way too relaxed about this! Dean turned back to his brother.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's really going on." Dean crossed his arms over his chest. Shelby rolled her eyes and turned back towards the bathroom. Sure, it sounded a little weird to her, but she knew Sam had been in a sour mood for a while, so she was going to "humor" him, as he said.

"You can stay here if you want ya pansy. If you don't trust him, trust me. We're going to Kansas when I get out of the shower." Sam tried to hide his smirk from Dean. It didn't work. He was worried about his brother. Shelby slammed the bathroom door. Once the water came on and they could hear her singing, Dean turned back to Sam and waited for an explanation.

-TOL-

The next morning, Dean slowly pulled up to his old childhood home. He took a deep breath and wiped his sweaty hands on his black suit pants. He heard Sam get out of the car. He jumped slightly at the soft touch of Shelby's hand on his thigh. He tore his eyes away from the quaint house.

"Dean, are you okay? You don't have to go. You can stay here."

"I promised myself that I would never come back here." He grabbed her smaller hand tightly. She squeezed as hard as she could. Dean squeezed back.

"Hey, look at me. Dean. Baby, you can do this. You're strong. I believe in you. Your brother needs you. I don't have that connection to him like you do." Dean felt his chest swell with courage. She had enough bravery for the both of him.

Dean wandered away from Jenny and Sam looking through old family pictures and memorabilia. Shelby followed a few steps behind him. She was curious about the house that Dean started his life in. Dean made his way up the oak stairs.

"You know, I fell down these damn stairs so many times. My mom used to always wax them, I hated walking around barefoot when I was little, so I'd always be wearing socks. Drove my mom crazy." Dean smiled and looked back at Shelby. She had a look of wonderment pointed towards him. Dean felt heat rise to his face and continued up the stairs. He pointed to the very end of the hallway.

"That back bedroom was mine. I spent so much time in there trying to learn how to play the guitar. My mom helped a lot too, she bought me this miniature guitar for my fourth birthday. She had a knack for that kinda thing. She could sing too. Not as well as you though." Shelby slapped his arm.

"Don't disrespect your momma Dean Winchester. I'm sure she had the voice of an angel. And you never told me you play the guitar."

"I'm no better at it now than I was at four. " Dean said with a small smile. Shelby grabbed his arm. He stopped and looked back at her. Her eyes were shining so bright in the dimness of the hallway.

"I can understand why you would want an apple pie life now. I mean, if I grew up in a home like this I'd definitely wanna go back." Dean was quiet for a minute before Sam yelled upstairs. Jenny had some strange news about this old house.

The trio came out of the house in a semi calm frenzy. All minds were reeling. The boys were arguing back and forth in the car. Dean's hands were gripping the wheel so tight his knuckles were turning white.

"Boys, we need to treat this like any other case."

"It's not just any other case, Shelby!" Dean closed his eyes when he felt a sharp smack on the back of his head.

"You need to calm down, Dean. Being angry is not going to help us solve this!" Shelby smirked when they were quiet.

"We need to question some of your dad's friends and your old neighbors."

An hour later they found themselves outside of a local psychic's house-turned-voodoo-shop.

"Well, this makes sense now. There was a journal entry about going to Missouri to find answers. I always thought it was the state dad was talking about." Dean said. Shelby looked at Dean for a second. She grabbed his hand reassuringly. He was nervous. She could tell by how hard he was gripping her hand.

"Dean, everything will be okay." Dean tore his eyes from the house they were walking up to and looked at Shelby. He smiled at her, and it actually reached his eyes.

"Only because you're here. I don't know if I could do this without you, Princess." Shelby smiled and squeezed his hand.

Missouri welcomed the boys and Shelby into her home graciously. She remembered the boys, from what John had said about them so many years ago, and seemed very intrigued with Shelby. Missouri told the trio what John had come to see her about so many years ago. That helped a little bit, but didn't really answer any questions they had.

"Well, maybe you could come help us get rid of this evil spirit?" Shelby questioned. Missouri eyed her for a while before answering.

"I'll help. There's no need for that family to be in any danger. Poor things. Though I would like to ask you a few questions." Shelby looked at Dean, then Sam, with a questioning look. They each shrugged, they had no idea what Missouri would question her about. Shelby looked back at the psychic and nodded. Missouri stood up and grabbed her hand, pulling her off of the couch and into the hallway. Shelby followed her all the way down and into the last room on the right. It was a library, with floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with old books. Shelby looked around with wide eyes, she had always wanted a library like this. She could spend hours in here.

"Boys, don't go touchin' nothin' ya hear me? I still got that spoon ready." Shelby didn't hear anything from the other room, but she smiled widely just imagining Dean's face at the premature accusation. Missouri lowered her voice and turned back to the girl in front of her.

"Now, where're your parents girl?" Shelby was confused, shouldn't this woman be able to read her mind? She had read what Sam and Dean had been thinking about earlier.

"Dead. Hunter's life, ya know?" Missouri nodded. Shelby looked down at her feet, shuffling a bit. She was uncomfortable under the older woman's scrutiny.

"I have heard of the likes of your kind before. Never have come into contact with one though." Shelby was even more confused. What was this crazy woman talking about.

"Now I can't read your mind, girl. But I can read your facial expressions. I'm not crazy. Didn't your parents ever tell you what you are?"

"My mother died when I was five. My dad and I just kept on with the life after that. He never said anything about me being an alien or anything." Shelby finished with a small laugh about her alien comment. She cracked herself up. She was also trying not to freak out.

"That would explain it. That's somethin' your momma was 'sposed to tell you. You're daddy prob'ly didn't even know 'bout your true heritage." Shelby's ears started getting warm. True heritage? Was she insinuating that her mother cheated on her father?

"My mom would never be disloyal to my dad! They loved each other!" Shelby started to turn away from Missouri. She was done here. She could hear rustling in the other room.

"You don't back down from a challenge do ya? Always so brave in battle. People ever ask how you moved a little too quickly away from an attack? Or how you took down somethin' that woulda been hard for a grown man twice your size to deal with comfortably?" Shelby stopped and thought about what this woman was saying. How would she know that if earlier she said she couldn't read her?

"I can't read supernatural beings sweetheart." Shelby turned, wide-eyed at the woman grasping onto her arm.

"Everything okay in here Shelby?" Dean walked in, hands behind his back. He didn't get a bad vibe from this fortune-teller, but when he heard muffled yelling, he instinctively reached for his gun and readied himself to protect his girl.

"Yeah. She's just pulling some creepy mind reading over here." Shelby pulled out of Missouri's grasp and walked past Dean and into the living room to sit next to Sam. She was freaking out. She hoped the boys couldn't tell.

-TOL-

Later that night, Dean was picking up the mess that the poltergeist had caused. Sam was going through more pictures that they had found in the attic. Shelby was having a discussion with Missouri. She had a little time to adjust to what the woman had said to her earlier that morning.

"So what am I?"

"I don't know if it's my place to say." Shelby could feel her ears heating up again. She took a deep breath.

"Listen, I need to know. In this life, if someone figures out that I'm not human, or have a family member that is something that goes bump in the night, I'm on any sane hunters hit list." She was worried. What if she was something bad? Maybe she had a curse and hadn't triggered it yet? A million things were running through her head.

"Maybe you should do some research on Norse Mythology. It's an interesting subject. Lots of good versus evil." Missouri spoke mysteriously. Shelby felt her heartbeat quicken. She wasn't willing to tell Missouri what she was really feeling about this situation.

"Fine. Thanks." Missouri smiled coyly, ignoring the rudeness coming from the younger girls mouth. She understood why she was angry, but this girl needed to figure it out on her own. She gave her enough clues.

The trio was sitting in the Impala, camped out in front of Jenny's house. Sam had a bad feeling about the state that they left the house in. Something still felt off. Shelby was resting her head on Dean's shoulder in the front seat. Sam was sitting quietly in the back, eyes never leaving the white house.

Shelby was thinking about what Missouri had said that morning, about her being a supernatural being. That was not good. She hunted these things. She couldn't be one. What would Dean say? He had made it clear on many hunts that no matter whether you were good or bad, you were still a monster. And monsters had to die. They hurt people. He still felt the heeby-jeebies around Missouri, but she couldn't physically hurt anyone with her supernatural abilities.

Shelby couldn't imagine what Dean would do or say if she ever told him about what she was, if she ever did find out. She thought about Sam for a second, he was much more open minded about a lot of things, and she had witnessed that open mindedness on some hunts. She was usually on Dean's side, it's a monster, it must be killed. The tables were turned now. If Dean found out, would he slay her? She didn't know if she could do that to Dean.

"Guys!" Sam's yell brought her out of her thoughts and jolted her into battle mode. The trio bolted to the house as fast as possible. The lights wouldn't work when they got inside, so they maneuvered as best they could with what little moonlight came through the blinds. Dean grabbed Jenny and Shelby grabbed Ritchie from Dean's old room. She ran by Sairie's room on her way out. A burning figure was standing in the doorway, blocking Sam and the girl from escaping.

"Hey, dick-wad!" Shelby yelled to grab the things attention. That small, half-second distraction was all Sam needed to feel safe enough to pass by. They made their way downstairs and towards the front door.

"Shelby, here, take Sairie." Sam shoved the girl into Shelby's arms and started back upstairs.

"Sam! What in the hell are you doing?! We need to get out of here!" Shelby yelled at him.

"I have to try and see if I can-" Sam was cut off when something grabbed his ankles and pulled him down. He got dragged backwards and out of Shelby's sight. She gripped tightly to the children in her arms and turned out the door. Dean and Jenny were waiting anxiously outside. Jenny grabbed her kids and hugged them tight while Dean grabbed Shelby's shoulders. He kissed her hard on the forehead before pulling away.

"Where is he?" Shelby grabbed Dean's hand and dragged him back towards the house.

"It's got him. I don't know what it is." Shelby had tears running down her face. If Sam was gone... Dean charged forward and made it to the door first, just as he ran in, the door slammed hard in front of Shelby. She rubbed her face where she hit it.

"Dean!" Dean turned around to the closed door. It wasn't locked but it wouldn't open.

"I can't get it open!"

"Just go, I'll be right behind you. Be careful!" Dean turned around at Shelby's words and ran through the house, looking for his brother.

Shelby turned around and sprinted for the Impala. She threw open the trunk and grabbed her sawed off shotgun filled with salt rounds and an axe. She slammed the trunk closed and ran through the small crowd of people that had gathered after hearing all the commotion.

"Move!" She yelled rudely. She shoved a man twice her size out of her way. He fell roughly to the ground with a shout of pain. God, she hated people. She finally made it back to the door and tried kicking it open. It barely moved. She swung the axe as hard as she could and the door splintered. It only took her a few times to cut open a hole big enough for her to fit through. She ran through the house, shotgun at the ready.

She came into the living room. She gasped at what she saw. Sam was being held up to the wall by some unseen force, Dean was standing next to him, a look of shock on his face. She followed his eyes to a blonde woman in a white nightgown. She was beautiful. Shelby recognized her immediately.

"Mary." She looked at Dean and Sam, both had red-rimmed eyes. They didn't say anything. Mary turned towards Shelby slowly.

"Thank you Shelby. You've saved my boys more times that I can count. You're so very courageous, it's rubbed off on them." Shelby didn't know what to say really. She stayed quiet while Mary turned back to her sons. She explained what had been happening in the house and how she could fix it. She kissed each man on the cheek, wiping both their tears away with her thumbs. She turned back to Shelby.

"You keep them safe, you hear?" Shelby nodded.

"Yes, ma'am." Mary turned away and looked at the ceiling.

"Mary! Just so you know, your boys turned out to be great men. I don't know what I'd do without them." Shelby felt a couple tears running down her face. Before Mary left, for good, she deserved to know what great men her husband had raised. Mary smiled before she screamed to the evil entity in the house. She burst into flames and flew up into the ceiling. Sam fell to the ground. Dean helped him up. Shelby came over to the brothers, who were hugging each other tightly. She wished she had a camera.

Dean looked up at her and opened his arm, asking her to join them. Sam welcomed her warmly to the circle. They cried together. Each for their own reasons. One for not being able to save his mom all those years ago, one for being the reason she's gone, and the other out of happiness, that she had met two boys that had a great mom who gave her life for them, twice.

After clearing everything up in town, the three were on the road again. Sam had fallen asleep in the back seat. Shelby looked over at Dean. He felt her stare.

"Ya know if you take a picture, it'll last longer." Shelby smirked and slapped Dean's arm lightly. She let her hand slide down to his jean-clad thigh.

"Dean, you did really well back there. I'm so proud of you. I don't know what I would have done if I were to ever see my mom again."

"Well, I probably couldn't have held it together if you hadn't have been there." Dean stopped the car, waiting for a red light to change. He looked over at Shelby. He was so confused about everything that was going on. Why would Missouri need to talk to her alone? And what about these weird dreams Sam was having? Shelby leaned into him and kissed him softly. He leaned into her soft lips and reveled in the feeling. All his worries went away. He loved Shelby for that.

They both jumped when the car behind them honked. The light had changed. Dean and Shelby shared a laugh as he pressed the gas pedal. Shelby scooted a little closer and lay her head on Dean's shoulder.

"Everything's going to be okay."

"I know."

"I love you."

"I love you too, Princess."

-TOL-

As you can tell I'm obsessed with HP too. Also TVD, which might show up in later chapters.. Maybe, cause who doesn't love a cameo from our favorite badboy vamp? Anywayyyyyy thanks for reading and please review! They fuel my writing fire! Thanks as always, Gooseygirl