Bobby, Then

Dean was right on the money with his estimate. They arrived in Sioux Falls at six PM sharp the next evening. The sun was just disappearing below the horizon, but the sky was already dark, the thick blanket of clouds above them sealing out its light.

The early month of the year had snow falling from those clouds in peaceful swirls. Faith opened her window enough to poke her hand out the window and catch the falling snowflakes, which only lasted until Dean pulled veto power because of the draft and forced her to wind it shut again.

The house they pulled up at was nothing like she was expecting – she'd assumed it would be some secluded cabin, away from people, somewhere nobody would hear her scream. And it sort of was; there weren't any immediate neighbours, so the whole 'nobody would hear her scream' thing was accurate, at least – but it certainly wasn't a cabin.

Singer Auto Self Service Salvage Yard read the faded sign at the front of the property. Dean drove through the gates and Faith found herself looking at a weathered, two-storey house, surrounded by a sea of old rust-bucket cars, all in various stages of decay. The exterior of the house was covered in rusty hubcaps, which she supposed was a sort of design choice, though she just thought it looked unwelcoming. Like this was where things came to die.

As they climbed out of the Impala, Dean caught sight of the look on her face. "You don't need to look so terrified," he said, a mix between exasperated and amused. "Bobby doesn't bite."

A dog poked its head up through the cars filling the yard, a loud snarl ripping from its dripping muzzle. Faith froze at the sight of it and even Dean seemed to hesitate. The dog barked again, its wet snarl echoing across the thin blanket of snow filling the yard.

"Um, the dog might," Dean allowed nervously.

A sharp whistle cut through the night air and the three of them whipped around to see an older man in denim coveralls and a stained trucker's hat peering at them through the dark and the snow. Faith was half convinced the gruff-looking man was going to shoot them on sight. But to her relief, he seemed to recognise the car before either of the brothers and called out a gruff, "Dammit, Winchester, I told you never to show your face here again!"

Faith couldn't even enjoy being stood in the snow, her whole body locked and ready to run at the first sign of danger. It was dark, so she couldn't say for sure whether or not he had a shotgun with him, but judging by the state of his home, he certainly seemed the type.

"Relax, Bobby, it's just me and Sammy," Dean called back.

A beat of silence, perhaps filled by shock, then the older man shouted, "Well then, hurry up, ya idjits, and get ya sorry asses in outta the snow!"

Dean and Sam didn't hesitate to make their way to the door, Faith trailing after them gingerly. She watched as Bobby pulled Dean, then Sam into a brisk, no-nonsense embrace, clapping them firmly on the back and murmuring something too quiet for her to hear. She slowed her gait to give them extra time to talk. When she passed by the dog she saw it was laid underneath a makeshift roof made out of an old car door, protected from the snow. Its eyes were big and round, and if she wasn't so scared it would bite her, she might have tried to pet it.

"That's Rumsfeld," said that same, gruff voice, and Faith looked away from the dog to peer up the stairs at Bobby Singer.

"He's gorgeous," Faith told him, because she didn't know what else to say.

Bobby merely grunted and disappeared back into the house. Faith looked helplessly at Dean. "He's a teddy bear, I promise," the hunter assured her, following Bobby inside the house. Sam, at least, waited – for which she was grateful – and together they walked to the door, taking the time to kick the dirty snow from their shoes before stepping into the warmth.

A large fire was crackling in the hearth, heating the whole house with its warmth. Unsure what else she was supposed to do, Faith went straight for that fireplace, holding her icy hands to the flames and letting them warm her frozen digits.

As she warmed herself up, she took a subtle look around the house, assessing everything she could see from her place. Mostly, it was just books. Everywhere she looked, there were books piled upon more books. Most looked old and worn, some with dark cardboard covers and some made out of what looked disconcertingly like skin.

A desk sat off to the side, well-loved and frequently used, if the mugs lining its surface were anything to go by. Through the next room was a kitchen, in which Bobby was stood, pulling something out of a fridge covered almost completely by magnets.

When Bobby returned, it was with four beers in his hands. Faith tried not to look too desperate for it as she took hers with a quiet 'thank you' and twisted off its cap, drinking deeply. It wasn't a brand she was familiar with, but was pleasantly tart on her tongue. She could admit, in the privacy of her own head, how nice it was to do something so simple as drink a beer next to a roaring fire – even if their host was eyeing her with suspicion.

"She been checked?" Bobby asked, the first words he'd spoken since they'd come inside.

"Checked?" echoed Faith, blinking warily.

Dean sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling free a small flask. He unscrewed its top, then said to Faith, "May I?"

She frowned. "What?"

He gestured for her to take his hand. She reluctantly did as he asked. Holding her hand gently in his, he suddenly upended the small flask over her hand. She flinched in surprise, then stared at them in confusion. Bobby was peering closely at her dripping hand.

"Holy water," Dean explained. "Proves you're not a demon."

Her eyebrows shot upwards. "That was in question?"

"Can never be too careful, Miss…"

"Faith Bueller," she told him. "Sam and Dean have told me a lot about about you, Bobby."

Bobby's response was a grunt as he swallowed another gulp of beer, watching her like a hawk. Just when it began to grow awkward, he spoke. "Not that I'm not thrilled to see you boys – because, truly, I am," he murmured, a flicker of warmth appearing as he said it, "but what are you doing here? And what's with the stowaway?"

"She's a friend," corrected Sam. Faith sent him a grateful glance. "And it's a really long story."

"You're telling me," scoffed Bobby. "Last I heard you were off living it up at law school." He looked pointedly between Sam and Dean. "What changed?"

Dean took a seat on the corner of the desk and Sam settled down on the nearby couch like it were second nature. Bobby remained standing, and so did Faith, despite how tired she felt and how cramped her legs were from being folded in the backseat of the Impala all day.

Sam and Dean began at the very beginning of their own story, telling Bobby about their missing father and everything that had happened back at Stanford. With nothing else to do while they spoke, Faith slowly wandered the room, tracing careful fingertips over the spines of the hundreds upon hundreds of books filling the room.

Witchcraft for the Modern Age; A Brief History of South American Folklore; Voodooism and Its Applications Today; and Angels and Demons: A War Across Millennia were just a few of the titles she scanned. And she realised slowly that Bobby wasn't just a hunter – he was also a scholar.

She'd never been much one for books, herself. Faith's smarts were of the street variety, and though it had served her well enough in the past, she couldn't help but wonder if that was going to be a problem moving forwards.

"He'll turn up, boys," Faith heard Bobby saying to the brothers about their father. "You know how he gets; so focused on the hunt, everything else just blurs to nothing until it's done with."

"Yeah, well, we're gonna keep looking," said Dean, just a hint of an edge to his voice. Bobby took a sip of his beer and said nothing. "Anyway, few days back we were on a hunt in Baltimore – heard news of a building full of missing people, and when we went to check it out…"

He began to tell Faith's story. She only half listened, still reading the titles of all the books surrounding them. She didn't need to hear the tale again, didn't need to relive that night now when she already did every time she closed her eyes.

"The thing burned down the entire building?" asked Bobby, sounding stunned.

"We don't think that was its intention," said Sam, "but once the fire was started, it was impossible to control. The whole place went up in minutes."

Bobby made a noise of general disapproval and shook his head. "Damned spirits." He threw back another mouthful of beer like it was a shot of whiskey. "You manage to salt the bones?"

"Of course we did," said Dean in a tone of offence. "What is this, amateur hour?"

Bobby shot him what Faith could only describe as a look. Dean practically wilted where he stood, shooting the older hunter an apologetic look and tossing back some beer of his own.

"All right, so you dealt with the spirit and got the hell out of dodge," said Bobby bracingly. "Still doesn't explain the groupie."

Faith turned to scowl at him, and Bobby shot her a half-smile from underneath his thick beard. She wasn't sure what to make of the gruff old hunter, so she said nothing as she slowly made her way back towards them, cradling her cold beer close.

Sam and Dean turned to look at her expectantly. She realised they wanted her to take the story on from here. She didn't want to have to speak it all aloud, to relive something she just wanted desperately to forget, but Dean's look was expectant and she got the feeling that, in this business, there wasn't room for hurt feelings or delicate sensibilities. There was only the facts; only the next job.

"Nate – my boyfriend – we don't think he was killed by the spirit," she said, her voice even as she said his name – all the while, on the inside, it felt like her heart was splitting in two. "The blood in the apartment didn't track. And…there was a message, written for me – in Nate's blood."

Bobby didn't so much as bat an eye. "Saying?"

"The curse dies with you," she recited, ignoring the shiver that rattled down the length of her spine at the memory of those haunting words. Bobby lifted a hand to scratch absently at his wiry beard.

"Then, when we were at a motel last night, on our way here – Faith got jumped by a demon," added Dean, casting her a sweeping look as if expecting to find some damage he hadn't yet noticed, before he returned his attention to Bobby as though the look had never happened. "We put it down, but before we did, it made it clear it was there for her."

"A demon?" Bobby echoed in surprise. "Are you sure?"

"It bailed when we killed the vessel – and before you say anything, we didn't have a choice. It was either end him there or risk Faith's life," said Dean gruffly. "Point is, we saw it when it escaped. A black cloud of smoke – just like in the stories."

"The stories?" asked Faith. "Haven't you dealt with these things before?"

Three sets of eyes turned onto her. "Demons are rare," explained Sam.

"They're becoming more and more common, actually," said Bobby, peering at Faith critically over the lip of his beer bottle. "But the odds of one finding and attacking you, especially after the message left in blood…" he trailed off, lost for a moment in his thoughts. "What'd you say your name was again?"

She felt uncomfortably like something on display in a museum. "Faith Bueller," she said tentatively, as though there was a wrong answer to the question and hers might be it.

"Don't know the name. You don't come from a hunting family? Parents never had any dealings with demons in the past?"

"I never knew my parents," she told him with the emotionless void that had remained with her since childhood. You couldn't truly miss what you never had. "My dad died before I was born, and my mom was dead before I'd even turned one."

"How'd they die?"

It was a blunt question, not one that was usually brought up upon first meeting someone, but this wasn't any regular old situation. "Records say my father had a heart attack when my mom as only five months along, and my mom…she was murdered."

His eyes narrowed. "By who?"

"No one knows. It was a mass killing, about a dozen people including my mom, in an old barn. The leading theory is some sort of small-time terrorism, or maybe gang activity gone wrong, but it was so long ago now that it's a cold case. Nobody cares enough to look into it anymore."

Bobby cast a weighted look at Sam, who immediately pulled out his laptop from the bag strung over his shoulder. "I'll look it up." In moments he was tapping away at the keys, and Faith tried not to feel too uncomfortable knowing he was digging around in her distant past.

Bobby turned his attention back to Dean. "So, this girl's being stalked by demons, and you bring her here?"

Dean's expression folded in a grimace, but all the same he looked to her and Faith knew this was her shot. "Nate – he was killed because of me. I figure the least I can do is find the bastards who did it and put them down the same way. And maybe I can figure out why these demons are even after me in the process."

Bobby nearly spat out his beer. "You wanna be a hunter?"

The corners of Dean's mouth turned down, and he said nothing. Sam was the one to speak up. "We can't train her up on the road," he said before Bobby could even begin to protest. "It isn't safe, and not just because of her new demon tail. She needs somewhere off the beaten track."

"You're actually encouraging this?" Bobby spluttered, staring at Sam like he'd grown a third eye. "Sam, look at the girl. Don't tell me you actually think she belongs in this world."

Sam said nothing, and Bobby turned burning eyes onto Dean. Faith stopped breathing entirely as Dean obviously hesitated. She wanted the truth from him, she really did, but at the same time she wanted to hear that he thought she could do this. That he thought she was capable of it.

But she didn't actually think he would say anything kind. They'd come to an understanding, these last few days, but she knew he'd made up his mind on her decisions. Truth was, he didn't think she belonged in this world, and she got the feeling that if she told Bobby as much, he'd refuse to help her.

Dean had to know that here, right now, he held her entire future in his hands. One word from him would ruin her plans, would send her scattered into nothing, nowhere to go and no one to help forge the fire that had been ignited in her gut. She needed this – Bobby – someone to guide her. Otherwise she was under no illusions; she wouldn't last five minutes in this brave new world.

But, so help her God, she wasn't going to let that stop her.

Dean's forest eyes snagged on hers, and Faith stared at him, trying not to look desperate, or like she was begging. She stared at him and tried to look strong; like she was worthy of this job. Like she deserved a chance to do something that mattered. Dean spoke without dragging his eyes from hers.

"I think she's got nothing else," he said in that deep, gravelly voice. "And I think she won't be able to get a decent night's rest until she sends these suckers back to Hell."

Faith was the first to break their stare, looking down at her feet instead, if only to hide a tiny smirk of triumph. Somehow, at some point, she'd proved herself just enough to get this far.

"Besides," Dean continued conversationally. "I've gotten to know her, these past few days. There's nothing any of us can say to convince her to keep her nose out of danger. She'll be going after these things whether we help her or not, Bobby. I figure if we give her a hand, she might at least have a fighting chance."

Bobby stared hard at Faith. She stared back without blinking, holding his gaze, letting him search for whatever it was he needed to find. A long few heartbeats passed, enough that Faith's eyes began to burn with the need to blink, but she held fast. Eventually Bobby grunted and looked away, taking another deep gulp of beer.

"Fine," he said plainly, turning his attention to Dean, who seemed to be smiling just a little bit, though she couldn't for the life of her figure out what he found funny. "She can stay. But she'd better pull her weight. I'm not gonna go easy on her."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Bobby," Faith said firmly, and Bobby turned to look at her in surprise. Some of that fire in her belly formed into a righteous funnel, and she stared at Bobby hard. "Dean ain't my keeper. You're taking me in, not one of his things. I'm beyond grateful, but if you have rules, you say 'em to me – not to Dean."

She was pleased to see a spark of something like respect appear in his denim-blue eyes. A hint of a smirk flickered to life beneath that wiry beard of his. "Fair enough, kid," he said, shaking his head as he threw back some more beer.

Sam looked up from his laptop, having stayed quiet this whole time. Faith would have said he was just distracted, but there was a subtle gleam to his eyes that made her think he was taking a backseat and giving her the opportunity to earn this on her own.

"I can't find anything on a religious-terrorism attack involving a Bueller," he told them, a frown on his face.

"Oh, you wouldn't," blurted Faith, suddenly realising the issue. "Sorry, I didn't think to – well, she gave me my father's last name as a tribute. Her name was Jett. Emily Jett."

Bobby made a rasping noise and the three of them turned to look. His eyes were wide as he stared at Faith, and she felt her heart swoop like a bird in her chest. "Emily Jett," he said like an echo of her own words. It was strange, to hear her mother's name on another person's lips. She wasn't sure she'd ever heard that before. She hadn't even told Nate her real mother's name. "You've gotta be shittin' me," said Bobby flatly.

She gripped her the neck of her beer tight. "I'm definitely not."

"You knew her?" asked Sam, on alert. Even Dean seemed on the edge of his seat.

"I met her, once or twice," said Bobby wryly, his eyes roaming over Faith now, cataloguing her features with great care. She wondered if he was seeing any of Emily in her face, or the way she spoke and carried herself. "I ran across her path on a hunt here and there. There were less of us back then – it was a smaller community."

Faith felt like she couldn't breathe. "You mean…she was a hunter?"

"A damned good one," said Bobby, that respect in his eyes growing. He set aside his beer and moved over to a nearby filing cabinet. As he began to dig around inside, Sam spoke up.

"Found it," he declared, turning the computer screen around for them to see. "Emily Jett, killed in a mass murder case on farmland in Wyoming, 1982. She was found on top of supposed satanic symbols written in her own blood, the only one in the barn to die of blood loss. Everyone else in the room – about a dozen, all male – seemed to die of heart failure. A biological weapon was suspected, but no substantial evidence was ever found."

Thankfully there was no image of her mother in the article, only a shot of the exterior of a nondescript barn building and a photo of the lead detective on the case back in the day. Faith's grip on her beer tightened to near pain as Bobby finally retrieved whatever he was searching for and shut his filing cabinet with a bang.

"Well, I'm willing to bet it wasn't so much a biological weapon as it was a mass-vanquishing spell gone wrong," he said, setting what looked like an old, well-loved journal onto his desk and sitting down in the chair with a groan of its old springs. He began to hastily flip through the journal, keen eyes scanning each page before he flipped to the next one.

"Sam, is there any way you can find the crime scene photos from the incident?" Dean asked quickly. He glanced up at Faith and answered her unspoken question. "If we can find pictures of the symbols on the floor, it might give us some answers as to what happened in the barn that day."

Faith felt vaguely like she'd been slapped across the face and thrown off a cliff. She was lost in the painful, ringing free-fall, struggling to figure out which way was up. She threw back some more beer, wishing suddenly that it was something stronger.

"I can try," said Sam warily, "but it's a cold case – the records will be sealed. And my hacking skills aren't anywhere near sharp enough to get past the government's firewalls."

Bobby stood to his feet suddenly, extending a hand with a small polaroid picture held between two fingers. Faith just stared, unmoving, and Bobby took another step forwards, holding the polaroid out to her. "Would you just take the damn thing?" he demanded gruffly.

Faith was glad her fingers didn't tremble as she took it from him, breathing deep into her belly before flipping it over and peering at the photo on the other side.

The only pictures Faith had ever seen of her mother were ones from her past driver's licenses and the mugshot from when she'd gotten arrested on charge of disturbing the peace at a protest rally in Michigan. But none of those photos felt real, now that she was looking at this one.

Her mom was blonde, so either she dyed her hair or Faith got her dark locks from her father. She was pretty in an unassuming way, with the same straight nose and high cheekbones, and the same dimple in her cheek when she grinned. They looked similar, but not identical. It was like a piece of the puzzle was missing, and for the first time in a long time, Faith wished she had a photo of her dad to fill in the gaps.

Emily Jett was stood between two young men, neither familiar and both scruffy looking. The one on the left was white and had both a shadow of a beard across his jaw and an ugly trucker's hat sat atop his head. Faith guessed that was Bobby. On her mom's right was a younger black man with a glare on his face and a huge rifle slung over one shoulder. They were stood in the middle of a forest, surrounded by faded greens and browns.

"That's me and my old hunting partner Rufus with your mom," Bobby told her matter-of-factly. "We both got wind of a wendigo up in Washington, and when we ran into each other on the hunt decided to stick together to get it done. Rufus already knew her, but then he'd been in the business a lot longer than me."

Faith felt like someone had an invisible hand wrapped around her throat. "You hunted together?"

"Only for a couple days," Bobby shrugged. "Found out afterwards that she was fairly well known in the larger hunting community. Mostly because she had no partner – she hunted alone. It was nearly unheard of, of a woman, especially in those days."

"So you don't know anything about the case that got her killed?" asked Dean, then cast an awkwardly apologetic glance at Faith who just waved a dismissive hand. It was her mom, yes, but she'd never known the woman. She was really just one of many unmarked graves in Faith's past. She couldn't love who she'd never met.

(That was what she told herself, at least. But some nights of the year, her birthday or the day of her mother's death, she would lie in bed next to a snoring Nate and stare up at the ceiling, wondering if her mom was somewhere out there in the unknown, looking back at her. Love didn't care whether you truly knew someone or not. It didn't work on logic. So it was on those late, silent nights that she would admit to herself in the dark that she missed a woman she'd never had the chance to know.)

"Nothing," said Bobby, "but I heard about it when it happened. No specifics, just that a hunt had turned bad and she was gone. Had no idea she left a kid behind."

Faith kept her eyes on the photo, trying to come to terms with the fact that this hadn't come out of nowhere. She came from this world – a world of monsters and the hunters who fought them. One might even say it was in her blood.

"Well, I definitely can't access the crime scene photos," said Sam with a huff.

Dean frowned. "You can't break down the flame-wall?"

"It's a firewall, and no, that's not the issue," Sam snarked back. "The case files were never digitalised. They only exist as hard copies. We'd have to break into the precinct they're kept in and steal them."

"Or," said Bobby loudly, "I could just pull a few strings."

Dean blinked. "You know a guy?"

Bobby's smirk was small, subtle thing. "Don't I always?" Dean huffed a tiny laugh. "It'll take a while, but I can get the details we need."

Sam and Dean glanced at one another and Faith knew what they were going to say before they'd even opened their mouths. "We can't hang around, Bobby," said Dean apologetically. "Dad's still missing, and we've gotta keep on the trail before it runs cold…"

"Of course," said Bobby with a warmth Faith hadn't expected. She began to suspect that despite his crotchety disposition, Dean was right in saying he was truly just a teddybear beneath it all. "You need to find your old man. Who knows what he's gotten himself into this time? Faith'll be safe here, and we'll keep working the problem of her demonic stalkers in the meantime."

Dean nodded, reaching out to clap Bobby on the shoulder in gratitude. "Thanks, Bobby."

Bobby waved him away with a grunt, and Dean smiled. The interaction was so familiar, Faith's heart squeezed to witness it. Had she ever had that with anyone? The closest she'd ever been to a person was with Nate, but they were dating – he was even a little younger than she'd been.

She'd never had a parental figure in her life, not like these two boys seemed to have in Bobby. None of her foster parents were ever what she'd called parental-material (most were just in it for the support cheques they got in the mail every other week). She'd had social workers who every now and then had taken a vested interest in her case, but she'd been a difficult kid for even the most experienced worker to handle, and eventually even they'd gotten sick of her and moved on, labelling her the most lost of all causes.

She'd never had a Bobby in her life, and some small part of her wondered if she was about to. Fear welled like blood in a paper cut, and she shoved the thought into the far recesses of her brain, where it could gather dust without stressing her out.

Dean turned to Sam, who was still typing away at his computer. "C'mon Sammy," he said briskly. "We've gotta get going."

"You're leaving already?" Faith asked quickly, the words bursting out of her like an explosion. Dean turned to stare and Faith rolled her lips into her mouth, doing her best to keep from looking too pathetic. "I just…I thought you said we'd have dinner."

"You and Bobby will," said Dean simply. "Sammy and I gotta hit the road. I got a call from an old friend; she wants us to come down to Mississippi to work a job."

"He'll be working something all right," muttered Sam under his breath, but Faith was close enough to catch it. She wanted to press the issue, but just as quickly decided it wasn't any of her business. They were friends, but it was new – tentative – it wasn't her place to go demanding such personal details.

If Dean wanted to drive the thousand miles to Mississippi for a booty call, that was his prerogative. She certainly wouldn't be telling him the details of any of her exploits any time soon…

The thought was like a bucket of ice water. She wouldn't be having any exploits, not when the only person she could even fathom being with right now was Nate, and Nate was nothing but ash on the wind, and she was alone.

"Well, I'll walk you out. I've gotta grab my stuff, anyways," she said lamely as Bobby pulled Dean into a brisk hug and a solid pat on the back. Sam shoved his laptop back into his bag and was pulled into the same.

Outside the snow was falling harder now, and if Faith thought telling Dean to drive carefully would help, she might have bothered. Her shoes left imprints in the freshly fallen snow as they trekked their way back to the Impala, Bobby stopping to crouch by his dog and untie his chain.

Faith opened the back door of the Impala and pulled out her trash bag full of belongings. She twisted its top to keep the wet out and lugged it over her shoulder like Santa with a sack full of presents. She turned to Sam and was surprised when he held out his hand. "Phone," he ordered, wriggling his fingers impatiently.

Bemused, Faith handed over her phone. Sam took it, tapping away at the keys for a long few moments while Bobby appeared with his dog on a leash and Dean bent down to scratch the mutt behind his ears. Finally Sam handed the phone back, and as much as Faith didn't want to say goodbye, she was glad she'd be getting back into the warmth of Bobby's house soon – awkward though it was sure to be.

"I've put both my number and Dean's into your contacts, as well as our emails, in case something happens and we need to switch numbers," Sam told her. She opened her mouth to ask why they would possibly need to do that, but Sam kept speaking and she decided she'd figure it out soon enough on her own. "If you need anything, or even if Bobby's just driving you crazy…"

"I'll call," she said, and when she hugged him she held tight. He smelt like fresh herbs and writing ink, and somehow she thought it was fitting. "Thanks Sam. For everything," she said into his shoulder.

"See you soon," was all he said as he pulled away. She smiled up at him in final thanks then moved over to Dean, who was hovering nearby, breathing warmth into his cupped hands as snow swirled around his spiky brown hair.

"Sam gave me your number," she told him, stepping closer and huddling down in her loose knit sweater that really did very little to keep out the winter chill. "I'm going to use it, so you'll stay in contact, won't you?"

"You'll be fine with Bobby," said Dean. It didn't go unnoticed that it wasn't an answer to her question.

"I know I'll be fine," she said defensively. "I've survived worse things in my life than Bobby Singer."

"Thanks, kid," drawled Bobby from the back end of the Impala. Both Faith and Dean ignored him.

Faith took a deep breath and pushed up onto her toes to wrap her arms around Dean's shoulders. He was a little bit stiff, patting her awkwardly on the back, but she stubbornly held tight, soaking up the warmth he didn't even seem to realise he exuded.

"I just wanted to thank you for…for bringing me here," she said into his ear, noting distantly that he smelt like leather and gunpowder and sunshine – if such a thing could have a scent. "I don't know where I'd be right now if you hadn't taken pity on me that night."

"It wasn't pity, Fay," he told her, and to her surprise, his tentative hug turned genuine, strong arms wrapping tightly around her waist, pulling her against him like he meant it. She wasn't expecting the nickname, either, and though she didn't tend to like people shortening her name, she thought she'd make an exception for Dean – especially if it meant he wasn't angry with her anymore. "Maybe I recognised the hunter in you," he added as if to himself.

"I'm not a hunter yet," she huffed into his shoulder.

"There's still time, y'know," he said as he pulled away, and she looked up at him through the snowflakes caught in her eyelashes. "To stop going down this path, I mean. I understand the need for vengeance, I really do, but I can't deny that sometimes I wonder what it might be like to give it all up and just…leave," he admitted, so quiet that neither Sam nor Bobby could hear. The words were for her alone, and she gathered them close to her heart, where she knew she would treasure this piece of himself he'd given her.

"It's not just vengeance fuelling me, Dean," she assured him. "I've tried everything else, and now there's only this left. Maybe you're right. Maybe I do have hunting in my blood. Maybe I've been heading towards this from the start."

His eyes were sad. "What a sad thought."

Faith said nothing, glancing down at her feet, slowly getting covered by a thin layer of the falling snow.

"Don't ask me to give this up," she begged him softly. "I'm doing this. And maybe you're right, and it will kill me. But I couldn't live with myself if I don't at least try."

Dean ran his hand down the length of his face. He shifted his weight where he stood, eyes darting to her face, then down to the ground and back again. Though he said nothing, he made no move to step away.

"I'll see you again," she promised, because she suddenly realised that maybe she wasn't the only one reluctant to be parting. "Try not to miss me too much."

"Yeah," he said, voice gruff. "You grow on people. Like a fungus."

She smiled, reaching out thoughtlessly to straighten the lapels of his ever-present leather jacket, its shoulders now dusted with white. "I hope you find your father, Dean," she told him quietly, sincerely.

Dean smiled and nodded once, and so with a final attempt at a smile, Faith forced herself to step away. Scooping her garbage bag of belongings up from the snow, she hefted it over her shoulder again. She made her way carefully towards Bobby, who stood a few feet from the front of the Impala, Rumsfeld's chain wrapped around his hand.

Sam and Dean didn't hesitate to climb into their car. The engine turned on and the headlights pierced through the white darkness, the light stabbing hard in Faith's head. She lifted her free hand to cover her eyes.

Dean reversed out of the salvage yard, turning onto the main road and hesitating on the stretch of empty road for about five long seconds, before he put the Impala into gear and with a quiet growl of its engine, he and Sam were gone. And Faith was left standing in the snow with a man and a dog she'd known all of five minutes.

"C'mon, kid," said Bobby gruffly. "Let's get out of this cold."

He led the way up the small stairs, into his house. Its crackling warmth enveloped her like Dean's hug, and she sighed as she kicked the snow from her shoes in the open doorway.

"You cook?" Bobby asked as he shut the door after them. She shook her head – Nate was always been the cook out of the two of them, and before him, she'd just eaten whatever she could afford – or steal – at the time. "I can rustle something up. I'll show you to your room."

"I've got a room?"

Bobby seemed bemused. "Course you do. I'm not gonna make you sleep in the basement, am I?"

The whole situation felt disconcertingly like the first night at a new foster house, but Faith put aside the horrid, itchy feeling that realisation gave her and simply let Bobby lead her up a narrow set of stairs to the second floor of his home.

"Bathroom's through there," he said as they walked down a small hallway. "Only one, so we'll have to share."

"Not a problem," Faith assured him. She'd gone whole years getting by on public restrooms and gym shower stalls. She could handle sharing a bathroom with Bobby Singer.

"Your room's this one here," he said, pushing open a door to reveal a room piled high with boxes and junk, with a dust-covered bed pushed up against the wall. "Obviously, since the boys didn't bother to call and warn me you were coming, I didn't have time to clean it up. We'll put some fresh sheets on the bed and tomorrow we can clean it out to give you space to put your things and move around."

"You don't have to move too much," she assured him hastily. "I'll be fine with just the bed."

Bobby's stare was disapproving. "You need a space to live," he said sternly. "The kind of work you're gonna be doing… You'll want somewhere clean to rest."

Well, that was foreboding. Faith only nodded her head. Bobby disappeared back out the door, returning after a moment with a set of fresh sheets held in his hands.

"Why don't you make the bed while I get something for us to eat? You got any allergies?"

"No sir."

Bobby grunted. "None of that. It's Bobby, or it's the door."

Blinking at the ultimatum, Faith was quick to agree. "Bobby, then."

"I'll meet you downstairs in a half hour."

And with that he was gone, footsteps plodding down the stairs until they disappeared altogether. Faith stood in the middle of her new bedroom, garbage bag of belongings at her feet and a set of clean sheets held in her hands.

By the time she'd made the bed, barely ten minutes had passed, so she got to work moving the boxes closest to the bed further into the room, balancing them on top of one another in the corner. It was tough work – they were mostly filled with books – but by the time she was done it had been long enough that she thought she could head downstairs.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting – maybe some heated-up leftovers on paper plates, or something equally bachelor-pad-like. But instead, what greeted her on the small dining room table against the wall in the kitchen was a proper meal of chicken and vegetables, served on some chipped but still usable china, and a glass of what looked like fresh lemonade.

Faith must have been staring at the meal like an idiot, because Bobby snarked, "Quit gaping and come eat before it gets cold."

Faith did as she was told. Settling into the seat opposite Bobby, she first picked up her glass of lemonade and took a delicate sip. It was delicious, and Bobby laughed at her surprise.

"Even beer gets old after awhile," he told her in a conspiratorial sort of voice, and she decided then that she liked him. Maybe she didn't trust him yet – not like she did Dean and Sam – but they were right; he was good people.

"So, you make a habit of taking in street urchins?" she asked conversationally, digging into her meal.

"I try to avoid it," he confessed. "But you've got Sam and Dean vouching for you, so I figure I'll give you a shot."

She nearly smiled. "I'm a thief, y'know?" she said, because she just couldn't help but sabotage herself. It was a habit she'd never been able to kick. Maybe she thought that if she was upfront with her faults in the first place, it would soften the blow when she eventually fucked up so badly they cut ties with her forever.

Bobby only arched a single brow. "You should know, there's not much here worth stealing," he told her calmly. "Unless you've got contacts in the rare-occult-book-community."

Faith chuckled. "And how many of those rare books will I be reading in these lessons of mine, Mr. Miyagi?"

"I'm no Mr. Miyagi," Bobby said. "Or, at least, I'm not yours."

Confused, Faith put down her fork and began worrying that this meant he wasn't going to train her.

"Don't look so worried," he chuckled. "I'm no full-time hunter. I've got a business to run on the side, not to mention juggling the petty complaints of the majority of the hunters in the continental US. I don't have time to teach you everything you need to know. So, I'm bringing in help."

Slowly, she picked her fork back up. "Help?"

"I know a few hunters who might be willing to come show you the ropes," he told her. "I'm gonna put out some feelers in the morning, see if any of them feel like taking on an apprentice."

"Is that what I am?" she wondered. "An apprentice?"

"Well, we could call you a trainee, but that makes it sound like you're serving coffee at the Starbucks."

Faith's fork froze halfway to her mouth, and a wry smile began to stretch across her lips. "Did you just say 'the Starbucks'?"

Bobby's only response was to bury his face in his food and give a noncommittal grunt. Faith laughed, the sound coming unexpectedly easy. They ate in companionable quiet for a few minutes, and when Bobby finally spoke, all her cheer melted away like frost under a hose spray.

"Dean told me about your boyfriend," he said, attention on his food as he spoke. Faith went rigid and kept her own eyes on her food, which she began to push halfheartedly around her plate, her appetite vanished. "You seem to be doing okay," he added, saying it gingerly, like he was a member of the bomb squad and she was suspicious package left abandoned at an airport terminal.

She shrugged and rolled a piece of asparagus back and forth in a pool of butter. "Just used to losing people, I guess," she said it like it was simple, as if it didn't tear her apart inside. And maybe it didn't. Maybe she really was as numb to it all as she pretended to be. It would certainly be easier that way, wouldn't it?

"I lost my wife," Bobby said without looking up at her.

Faith swallowed a mouthful of chicken, and it was like a hunk of damp coal sliding down her throat. "How long?"

"Decades, now," he murmured, quietly sipping his own lemonade. "It gets a little easier with time. But it'll always stick with you." Faith said nothing, prodding again at her asparagus and tapping her foot against the floor in a senseless pattern. She was right before – it was exactly like being at a brand new foster home. "What I'm saying, kid, is that I understand. And I'm here if you need someone."

Faith finally looked up, finding Bobby looking about as awkward as he sounded, all while his eyes glittered with sincerity. "You just met me," she pointed out. Bobby chuckled.

"Like I said," he told her quietly, "you've got the boys' approval. That's all I need to know."

They ate in silence another few minutes.

She was the first to break the quiet. "These hunters you're reaching out to…"

"Not gonna find very many diamonds among our kind," he said flatly. "As a rule, hunters are sour, solitary creatures. Not great at playing well with others. But they get the job done, and from what I've heard, that's all that matters to you."

She tried not to consider what kind of a person was being conscripted to this job. She liked to think she could handle everything the world could throw at her, but up until two days ago, she'd had no idea the world contained things like ghosts and wendigos and demons straight from the fiery pits of Hell. Suddenly, she wasn't quite so confident in her ability to survive it all.

"Don't worry, kid," Bobby said, seeming to read her mind. "You'll be just fine."

Finishing up their meal, Faith hurried to collect their dishes before Bobby had a chance. She went to the sink without a word and began to wash up while he climbed to his feet and went to tend to the fire.

"Thank you," she said five minutes later, leant in the open doorway between the kitchen and study, watching as Bobby fed logs and kindling to the healthy fire. He grunted in vague acknowledgement, but she pressed stubbornly on. She knew Dean's rule about chick flick moments, and while she was sure that same rule extended to most hunters, some things just needed to be said. "Regardless of Sam and Dean, you could have tossed me out on my ass, and you didn't. That's…that's more than can be said of a lot of people."

Bobby glanced up, incredulous. "You're just a kid."

She frowned. "I'm twenty-four."

"Exactly."

She rolled her eyes, an unexpected smile flickering to life on her lips. "Anything you need from me – help around the house, or with your business…" she began gingerly. Bobby looked up with raised brows. She took a deep breath and powered on. "I just don't want to be a burden."

He eyed her a long moment, taking her in from head to toe as though weighing her worth by what he could see. She was suddenly all too aware of her ill-fitting sweater, dirty jeans and damp hair. What did he see, when he looked at her? What did anyone see?

"A hand with daily chores around the house will be a help," he finally said, seeming to come to some sort of silent decision. Faith hoped the bone-deep relief wasn't too obvious on her face.

"Okay," she said, smiling gratefully. "Um, thanks for dinner. It was great." Bobby nodded in acknowledgement and began to stand from where he'd been crouched in the hearth. "I think I might head up to bed – it's been a long few days. Is it okay if I take a shower?"

"Course it's okay, ya idgit," he said, exasperated. "Dunno if it escaped your notice, but you're sort of living here now." She stared at him wordlessly until he rolled his eyes and waved her away. "Clean towels are in the closet in the hallway."

"Cool," she murmured, for lack of anything better to say. "Uh, thanks."

"Keep thanking me, and you'll thank my foot up your ass, next," he warned her.

She held up her hands with a huff of laughter. "Fair enough. Night, Bobby."

His only reply was a halfhearted wave as he flicked on the TV and settled onto his couch. Faith was still smiling to herself as she climbed the stairs, found a clean towel and slipped into the bathroom.

The water was hot, but given the age of the house she didn't have high hopes for it lasting long, so she made her shower quick. She didn't have any toiletries of her own beyond the few things she'd managed to grab at that thrift store back in Baltimore, but she figured Bobby wouldn't care if she used the three-in-one shower gel he had in there, resolving to buy her own things the first chance she got.

She towelled off and changed into clean sweats and a teeshirt, then skilfully avoided all the boxes scattered throughout her new room like landmines in the dark. The bed springs creaked and groaned when she sat down, so loud that she wondered for a moment if it was going to collapse under her weight.

Sleep came surprisingly easy – she really was exhausted. Her night was filled with dreams she wouldn't remember come morning, about Nate and what he might have said to her, had they gotten a goodbye. And if she woke up with wet cheeks she couldn't explain, it was for nobody to know but herself.

In the morning, after a brief breakfast of some off-brand cereal she found for herself in the back of the pantry, she wandered the house in search of Bobby. When she couldn't find him, she assumed he must be sleeping in – that was, until she heard muffled cursing and the whine of a dog from the open back door.

Hesitantly, Faith pushed open the fly screen and stepped out onto the back porch. If the front of Bobby's house was a junkyard, then his backyard was an abandoned impound lot. It looked like the place cars came to die, their half-rotted carcasses spread across his property, some dusted with snow while others remained red with rust.

She'd never been to a salvage yard before, and wondered if they all looked like this one did.

Bobby was wearing coveralls again, this time paired with giant galoshes to keep his feet dry from the snow-turned-mush of the ground. He was bent inside the engine of an old pickup truck, Rumsfeld curled at his side. As she approached, careful not to slip on the ice, the dog lifted its head to peer at her cautiously. She still didn't risk trying to pet it.

"Thought this was a self-service salvage yard," she said in greeting. Bobby finished whatever he was doing in the engine and straightened to look at her, wiping the grease from his hands with a dirty piece of cloth.

"I run some small auto-repairs work on the side," he told her. "Keeps me busy."

She nodded, crossing her arms to combat the bitter chill. "I figured I'd get started on the room upstairs, but I wasn't sure what you wanted done with everything. Did you want me to wait for you to go through it all, or…?"

"Just take it all up to the attic," he told her with a flap of his hand. "Once the room's clear, there's cleaning supplies in the basement. Go nuts."

They were simple instructions, but she enjoyed the freedom of it. "Cool. Thanks."

She turned to leave, eager to be out of the cold, but Bobby's voice stopped her in her tracks. "Managed to get ahold of a good candidate for your training this morning."

"You did?" she turned back to look at him.

"Name's Tobias Monroe – he's got about a decade on you, and he wasn't my first choice, but he was the only bastard who could be bothered to return my message, so I guess you're stuck with him," Bobby told her plainly.

She blinked, shuffling in place against the chill, trying to work some heat into her slowly freezing legs. "Why wasn't he your first choice?" she asked, then reconsidered. Did she even want to know?

Bobby shrugged. "Didn't seem like a good fit. He and his hunting partner, they keep to themselves. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I figured you'd want someone a little more…personable."

She considered that carefully before asking, "You trust him to teach me?"

"He's a good hunter. Knows a fair bit about lore, but he's a fighter at heart. I can teach you what you need to know in the brains department, but Tobias? He'll get you in fightin' shape. You'll be ready to face off against all manner of demons and spirits in no time."

"Er, you're really making it sound like it's gonna be a bootcamp," she said, reluctant discontent ringing loud in her voice.

Bobby put down his spanner and turned to look at her baldly. "There are no tests to pass. No exams or trials. To be a hunter, you don't have to get into shape to become a hunter. You're more than welcome to take off right now, not an ounce of muscle on you, and try your luck with a werewolf. That's your prerogative. But if you want an actual chance in hell of coming out the other side of that fight alive, then you need to know how to handle yourself in a fight, and get strong enough for a weapon to do you any good."

Feeling chagrinned, Faith ducked her head and nodded. "You're right," she agreed. "I need to know how to fight."

"What'd you think training would be like?"

"I…I honestly don't know," she confessed with a sigh. "So, this Tobias guy, he really agreed to come all the way to South Dakota to train someone who's never even fired a gun?"

"Dunno why he said yes, only that he did," Bobby told her in that plain, matter-of-fact way she was beginning to grow familiar with. "He was over in Nevada when I spoke to him. Said he's just finishing up a rugaru hunt, then he'll head straight up here."

"He and his hunting partner?" she asked, because one unknown hunter was bad enough, adding a second one into the mix seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Bobby shook his head. "Said it was just him."

There were a multitude of possibilities in that one sentence. Was his partner just taking a break from hunting, or had something more sinister happened? Faith opened her mouth to ask, then quickly changed her mind. It wasn't her business – at least, not yet.

"So, where's he gonna stay?" she asked, desperate for more information even with her teeth chattering and the way she was slowly losing feeling in her toes.

"Got a cot he can use in the study," Bobby grunted.

Faith was incredulous. "He's gonna sleep on a cot in your study?"

"Trust me. The man's slept in worse places. Most of us have." He fished a new tool out of the box at his feet, then leant back inside the engine of the truck he worked on. "Hope you're not afraid of spiders – the attic's full of 'em."

It was as much a dismissal as anything, and Faith certainly had plenty enough to think about as she trudged back into the wonderful warmth of the house. She rummaged in the pantry again, digging up some questionable tea. She made herself a cup, then went up to her temporary room, set down the mug on the little bedside table, put her hands on her hips, and stared at the mess before her.

She stood there a long few minutes, but she wasn't thinking at all about the boxes that needed moving or the floor that needed mopping or the walls that could do with a good scrub. She thought about this Tobias person, wondered skeptically what exactly he was getting out of this deal.

With her head a swirl of questions, Faith fished her phone from the garbage bag she'd yet to properly unpack and sat on her bed to the chorus of its aging springs. Dean's number was easy to find – her phone wasn't exactly overflowing with contacts – but her finger hesitated over the 'call' button. Dean was busy enough without her calling him for advice – or worse, gossip.

She wasn't sure why her first thought had been to go to Dean, when by all accounts, he barely tolerated her. Sam was the friendly one. Besides, she needed intel, not a smart-ass comment. It didn't make her weak, she reminded herself; it was smart to use all the resources at her disposal.

She found Sam's number and opened up a text thread.

Faith: Hey Sam, quick question, you know anything about a hunter named Tobias Monroe?

She pressed send, then frowned. He didn't have her number yet, so it'd reach him as an unknown sender.

Faith: It's Faith, by the way.

Then she shut the phone and tossed it onto her covers, turning her attention to the mess before her. In the quiet of her new room, that familiar pain began to rattle and ache in her chest. In the quiet, her thoughts were loud. In the quiet, she had no choice but to remember.

With a growl that came from somewhere deep within, Faith used the elastic around her wrist to throw her long hair into a sloppy ponytail, then dove into her waiting task with the kind of enthusiasm she usually reserved for drinking games and ignoring the worst of her problems.

The boxes were heavier than they looked – filled mostly with books and the odd ancient artefact that looked vaguely cursed and so she made an effort not to touch. It took some time to lug them all, one at a time, up the small staircase leading to the attic. Bobby was right about the spiders, but she'd never been freaked out by bugs. She wasn't easy to scare, which she supposed was going to be a valuable skill in her new choice of career.

It was nearing lunch by the time all the boxes were out of the room, her tea drained to the dregs and the elastic slipping free of its place in her hair. She checked her phone then, finding a message from Sam waiting for her.

Sam: Hey Faith, so I'm not really in-the-know when it comes to the hunting community anymore, but I asked Dean, and he said that Tobias and his partner Oliver are good people but like to keep to themselves. Said he's never met him personally, but our dad's come across them once or twice and that from his accounts, they seem nice enough. Says to watch out for Oliver though – apparently he likes to flirt.

Sam: Why do you ask?

Faith typed back a quick explanation of the situation – how Bobby didn't have the time to take on all her training, so he was bringing in a hunter who did. Then she pocketed her phone and wandered downstairs in search for food.

By the time night fell, the room was scrubbed so clean it reeked of cleaning chemicals, but that was still better than dust and mothballs, so she'd take it. After a quiet dinner with Bobby, she sat down on the squeaky bed and stared hard at her garbage bag.

Unpacking it felt strangely monumental. Even though she'd only been living out of it for a few days, it felt like so much longer. It felt like it had been all she'd had for an age. Everything she owned – every single thing that was left of her life with Nate – was inside that stupid bag. But it couldn't stay that way forever. If there was one thing she'd learned in life, it was that she had to keep moving forwards.

She was like a shark. If she stopped, for even a moment, she'd drown.

With a deep breath to steady herself, Faith began unpacking the bag. The clothes she'd grabbed in a rush weren't a cohesive wardrobe. She had more than just one single sock thrown in there, and way more teeshirts than she did pants. But it was better than nothing, and she pulled out the clothes she'd grabbed at that thrift store with Dean along with them, setting everything in the drawers of the dresser on the south-facing wall.

The cash she'd tossed in there fluttered around her like confetti. She gathered it all up without counting it – that was a chore for another day. For now, she just collected it all in a pile and stuffed it under the mattress for safe keeping. She picked up the bag to throw it away, only to realise there was still something heavy in there.

When she pulled out the photograph from the depths of the garbage bag, it was like a knife to the heart. Faith's knees shook and gave out. She fell onto the bed, the springs screaming in protest that went ignored.

She barely remembered gabbing the stupid photo – one she'd never even liked in the first place, but that Nate had loved, so it had been kept and framed and put in pride of place in their home.

But here it was, their relationship in an image: Nate, grinning in his usual carefree way, and Faith, staring at him with undeniable love in her eyes. He looked so happy, she realised, tracing her fingertips down the glass of the frame. Was he happy because of her, she wondered, or was he happy in spite of her? It was a question that would never be answered, and that was maybe the hardest part of it all to swallow.

Staring down at it, she rethought her shark metaphor. How could she just move on from him? Was it even possible? Was it dishonouring to his memory, to move on like it was easy? Did it matter if it wasn't easy? Did it matter that she hurt in a place so deep, she'd never known it existed? Or was the only thing that really mattered how she reacted, where she went from here, and how she honoured him?

And what better way to honour him than by finding the demonic sons of bitches who killed him and making them pay? She couldn't imagine anything more satisfying than avenging his death.

Staring down at his picture, tracing the familiar lines of his smile with her eyes, Faith felt more resolve than she ever had before. It didn't matter who this Tobias guy was, or whether he was safe, or even if they got along. All that mattered was that he taught her how to do this one thing; how to handle herself in a fight, and how to kill the bastards who'd stolen the only home she'd ever known right out from under her.

They would pay. Even if it took to her dying breath, she would make sure they would pay.

A/N: I really hope you guys enjoyed! Thank you so much for the support already, it's meant the world! I'm thrilled even one person is so far connecting with Faith and her journey. I hope I continue to enthral! xx

In the next chapter: Faith meets the mysterious Tobias and begins to learn what it really takes to become a hunter.