Hello, sweeties!

Surprise!

Two things in one day? First Take the Long Way Home, and now this? BOOYAH!

So, the internet I'm mooching got really good all of a sudden. I've been working on this for a couple months. Just something that led up to Sam making the decision to go off to college. I hope you all like it, as we get a little background story on our lovely Samantha! Do I feel bad about stealing someone else's wifi? A little. Enough to not post this? Nope.

Please review and leave me thoughts! Sorry for any errors and such, I haven't had more than one chance to read through it.

Love,

MD

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of the characters. Credit goes to Eric Kripke and the writers for this show. I gain nothing from writing this, other than creative satisfaction, and little personal happiness. Enjoy!

"Rebelliousness: defying or resisting some established authority, government, or tradition," as defined by your trusty dictionary. Or, to make it easier, just look at the picture of Samantha Rae Winchester next to the definition. It wasn't that she enjoyed fighting with her dad and screaming words that burned like acid on her tongue, and she really didn't enjoy making Dean be the one to pick up the pieces of their broken family every time. But god damn it her dad just pissed her the fuck off. That tone of voice that just demanded she listened to him without question, that she become some brainless robot and worship the fucking ground beneath his feet. That she follow all of his fucking orders without even half a mind to question whether they were the right orders.

Fuck him.

If the 4.0 GPA she worked her ass off for, the praise her teachers drowned her in, or the hours she spent studying for tests she usually missed were anything to go by, Sam was a fucking genius. So yeah, following that logic, she had a fucking brain, and if her dad would talk to her about Hunting, rather than talk at her, things would go a lot smoother around here. She wouldn't call her dad a heartless dick, and he wouldn't call her an ungrateful little shit. She wouldn't go to bed crying into her brother's shoulder after every fight, and her dad wouldn't stumble into all the local bars until he'd drank his anger away. If he would only talk to her, treat her like the Hunter he had trained her to be, then maybe they would actually be able to call themselves a family.

So, she rebelled against him and his iron-grip. She writhed in his hands, trying to escape from the vice he had around her life. He told her when to eat, when to sleep, where to sleep, how to fight, what to fight, to shut up because he didn't have time for her shit, or to talk to him because he'd asked her a question and her silence was pissing him off. He told her how to live, and he'd decided that the only reason she wouldn't be Hunting anymore is because it had killed her. Yep, that's right, he'd written off how she was going to die, and she hadn't even finished high school yet. Sam had absolutely no say in the matter. It rubbed something within her in all the wrong ways to have her bow her head in obedience as a way of life. It made something in her snap until all she saw was red, and the anger at her father was so consuming that it sucked away at everything else. Her anger was a black hole that just inhaled everything around it and made her feel helpless and small. She got so pissed off when her dad used that this-is-an-order tone of voice that she was yelling at him before she'd even realized what she was doing.

God, how many times had they had the same fight? How many times had they been red in the face, spitting words at each other while Dean tried helplessly to rope in the hurricane? They all started the same. It began on the car ride back to the shitty motel room they would call 'home' on that Hunt. Dean would sit next to their dad in the front of the Impala. Her dad would be gripping the wheel so tight that it was a wonder it didn't break, because his daughter had failed him yet again in whatever-the-fuck way it was this time. Sam would sit in the back, looking out the window, seething. Someone would say something, just one thing, and the tension in the car would break and shit just hit the fan. That's when her jaw would unlock and all of her anger and indignance at being treated like a fucking five-year-old-snot-nosed-brat would come pouring out in the form of scathing accusations she hurtled at her father. Her dad wouldn't say anything back, though, until Sam and her brother had walked back into the motel room and he'd slammed the door shut so hard that the hinges whined. That's when the real screaming began.

"Samantha Rae, you will not speak to me like that, I am your father!"

"Well I'll stop when you start acting like one!"

"Guys, please! Stop fighting, I'm tired and I don't want to deal with this tonight!"

"Young lady, don't you try and start another fight with me when you were the one who fucked up tonight! Innocent people got injured because, once again, you questioned my judgment. All that time you spent asking me those fucking questions could have been spent burning those bones, and then that little boy would have never ended up in that hospital bed!"

"I'm sorry about the boy, Dad, I really am, but guess what? He'll live. And what do you expect me to do when you talk to me like I have no fucking idea what I'm doing out there?"

"With the way you acted tonight, it's obvious you don't. If you can't follow an order as fucking simple as 'stay in the car' then you shouldn't be hunting."

"What? That is such bullshit! If I hadn't disobeyed your order, that ghost would have torn you to shreds!"

"Guys, seriously! Stop it!"

"It doesn't matter, Samantha. I told you to stay put. Your disobedience is unacceptable, and until you can learn to keep it in check you will stay in the motels we end up at. You continually disregarding my orders is a sign of disrespect that I will not tolerate in this family. Is that understood?"

"Fuckyou, Dad, and your fucking obedience shit. I am so sick of-"

"ALL RIGHT YOU TWO, THAT'S ENOUGH!"

The exact details of the argument might change, and the context of everything could be different, but it always followed the same pattern. Dad was pissed because Sam didn't listen. Sam didn't listen because Dad treated her like an incompetent moron. And Dean… Dean had to literally shove them away from each other every time, just as pissed as they were but keeping it all in for the sake of his family. Honestly, Sam had no freaking idea how he could just keep that shit all bottled up when she was screeching and accusing before her brain caught on.

Their Dad would leave at that point, slamming the door again, and Sam would turn her still-too-fresh rage on the only person around to take it: her brother. The fights between them when this happened weren't nearly as bad, but they still left a bad taste in Sam's mouth, and the blackness inside her still ate away at her soul. Sam hated fighting with Dean. He never really deserved her anger, even if him bending over like a dog with a tail between its legs, begging for scraps, pissed her off almost as much. Dean was her best friend. The parent she'd never had, as annoying as he was with all of his pranks and making her look like a geek-wad in front of any reasonably attractive guys. But it wasn't like she could help it, her fights with their father were too short to be satisfying, and Dean never left her alone after their dad ran for the alcohol, despite what he knew was coming. Son of a bitch sure was committed to family, that was for damn sure.

Over time, Sam learned tricks to keep her anger at bay. She would rebel in small ways, taking just the slightest bit of freedom for herself in seemingly meaningless actions, but to her, it felt so rich and exhilarating. It tasted like sunshine and freedom, felt like warmth and independence. It made her feel like a person.

It started out by simply taking her sweet time to get out the school doors after her classes were finished out to her dad was waiting when he wasn't working, and Dean when he was. Sam took as long as she possibly could, asking stupid questions of her teachers, striking up conversations with complete strangers, purposefully messing up her locker combination (if they were in town long enough for her to get a locker)… she had a never-ending list of things she could do to take her time. And finally, people were waiting on her for something, for once, stupid-doesn't-know-how-to-listen little Sammy was calling the shots. Her family had to wait for her to finish her business before they could go anywhere, because they always picked her up from school. Without question. Always. And if she was going to keep her ass from leaving for as long as possible, they had no other option but to wait for her.

However, after some time, that wasn't enough. Simply making them wait ten extra minutes after school wasn't enough to pacify Sam's need to assert herself. So, she went in search of other methods. This time it ended up being with the 'wrong crowd' where she could drink and get high whenever she wanted, all beyond that control her dad prized so much (though to be fair, Sam didn't do more than smoke pot. She wasn't stupid, just… claustrophobic.). Her brother found out about that though, when she'd left school after drinking maybe a little too much and could barely stumble out the doors without falling over. He'd put an end to that real quick. He'd gone and tracked down every single one of her "friends," and even though Dean never told her what he'd done exactly, they were so scared of Sam after that point that they refused to talk to her, let alone drink with her. And he did this every time they settled in at a new town so that people Sam could find some reprieve with were too frightened to even look at her. Well there went that option out the fucking window. Even better, though, to drill the lesson into Sam's brain, he made her still go to school the next day, despite that she'd woken up praising the porcelain goddess and could barely even blink without something aching.

Suffice to say Sam didn't drink at school again.

After that was taken away, Sam threw herself into extracurricular activities. Anything and everything she could think of, though she particularly enjoyed being a part of theatre. Hell, she'd even gotten the lead role of Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing once, but they'd skipped town before opening night. Of course. Still, staying hours after school was over to pretend she was someone else was so thrilling, and for a time, that appeased her. All good things must come to an end, though, and even being a part of theatre got sucked into the hole eventually. It wasn't enough. It was never enough.

Desperate, Sam was running out of ideas. She started spinning out of control at that point. She'd drink any alcohol her dad or brother kept in the dives they slept at, if only to get into a fight about her being underage or taking a particularly good brand of beer without asking. When those stupid, petty arguments weren't enough to make Sam feel in control, she started to deliberately disobey her dad again, just to get a rise out of him. Sure, all that work had been spent to try and keep her anger in check and avoid lashing out at her dad, but ultimately, there was nothing that assuaged her indignance and frustration quite like getting in the old man's face and screaming at the top of her lungs.

It got so bad that Dean was reduced to begging her for her to 'shut the fuck up and let it go tonight, Samantha,' because a Hunt had been particularly nasty and he just wasn't up to the broken pieces tonight. Sometimes she even listened.

Something changed right before she turned 18. To date, Sam can't tell you if it was something within herself, or if it happened in her dad, but that year was the worst year of her life. The air between Sam and her father crackled and fizzed with tension if they were even in the same room, and Dean just got more weary and tired. Sam stopped crying on his shoulder after fights, and the fights between them started getting so bad that they'd gone to blows a couple of times. She stopped laughing that year, and months could pass without her smiling and Sam would hardly notice. She didn't feel right sitting in her own skin, and there was a sense of restlessness that the blackness inside herself seemed to spare from the all-consuming depths. It was the only constant thing she felt those days, the need to get up a do something with her life. She wanted to go places of her own volition, places where she could form actual connections with people, places where she didn't have to lie about her own name, places where she could do something that didn't require rock salt or guns. But every time Sam would try and settle on what exactly it was she wanted, her mind would blank out, and her only thought would be, "Dean won't be there to take care of me if this goes wrong." An entire lifetime of living under that kind of unconditional protection, and she was terrified to function without it.

Dean was her rock, her best friend, her brother, her guardian, and by all rights the dad she'd been deprived of her whole life. He had raised her, taught her how to talk, how to tie her shoes, how to shoot her first gun, how to fight, how to hold her drink, how to blend in with the shadows, how to hustle for money, and how to laugh at the little things. Any problems with bullies she'd had at school always vanished after just one talk with her brother, and if they were in a school long enough to build a reputation, she was always cool by association. Then people found out that she actually had a brain she knew how to use, and things just went up from there. Dean was there with open arms and gentle words when Sam had first found out that nightmares breathed the same air and stalked the same roads she'd been on. Her dreams had been cruel and terrifying when she'd first found out, and when Sam would throw her eight-year-old body, shaking and terrified, into his bed he'd quietly wrap his arms around her and hold the monsters at bay. And even though she was a lot older at this point and had long since stopped falling asleep in her brother's embrace to counter the bad dreams, after her first few hunts, her dreams again plagued her with tears. The snarls and claws that ripped at her subconscious after being forced to shoot a werewolf or burn a body would wake her up a whimpering, wet mess, and Dean would wordlessly pull his blankets back and offer her safety and warmth.

He loved her in the little ways, she'd discovered. The big ways too, but he showed it in the little ways, and that was really all that mattered. Like how Sam always woke up with a glass of water next to her bed because her brother knew the first thing she wanted after leaving dreamland was a drink. Or how he always made sure she had something to eat, even if that meant his dinner consisted of saltines and a six pack. How he'd come back to the room, even if he'd been out at a bar and reeling some poor girl in for the kill or they'd been fighting again, if Sam really needed his company because her well-being was priority number one.

Dean was the only person in her whole life that Sam trusted completely and without question. Yeah, he pissed her off just as much as her dad sometimes, but she was always easy to forgive him and he could never stay mad at her for very long. So the thought of having to actually leave the comfort of his presence was quite literally the most terrifying thing she'd ever felt. It stopped her quest for that something 'more' right in its tracks, and Sam traveled in an endless circle of "I have to get the fuck away from this life" to "Dean will never come with me." It left her feeling aggravated and she was struggling to find something – anything – that she could use to shy away from her father's authority.

And then, one day, it hit her. She'd been sitting on her bed in another shitty motel in Nowheresville, America, trying to read a mystery novel, but it was impossible since Dean had had the TV on obscenely loud. She'd given it up as useless after she'd been stuck on the same page for almost an hour without truly absorbing anything. Seriously, she was going to shoot that TV with her .45. She'd tossed her book to the side and figured she'd go yell at her brother to turn it down, but the commercial had stopped her in her tracks. It was stupid, really, that commercial. Sam wouldn't even remember what it was about five minutes later, but all she knew is that the lady she saw on the TV just looked so damn happy. She couldn't have been more than three years older than Sam, but her face had a kind of life that had been withering away from the young Hunter's for years now, and the aching hole in Sam's chest left her jealous and gasping for air.

What was it about this lady that made her smile like that? Why was she so young, but so damn ecstatic about everything? What gave her the right to smile like that when Sam just wanted to scream? She bore her eyes into that TV, using her Hunter skills to scour that girl for every detail she was worth to try and find some answers, and then her eyes saw it. It was small, and hidden by different camera angles most of the time, but for all Sam knew, that tattoo could have been the only thing on the screen. It was just a little black star on the girl's knuckle, but for all of Sam's anger, it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. The girl didn't even matter anymore, for all the attention she got now.

Sam hadn't hesitated before slipping back over to the bedroom she shared with her brother to grab a jacket and her wallet. She'd been hustling pool and poker games in this town for long enough to have something small done, and as luck would have it, there was a tattoo parlor right down the street and a couple blocks up from the motel. She promptly grabbed her brother's room key and slipped out the door with Dean none the wiser. It was kind of sad, really, how little he'd been paying attention to her. After silently slinking away, she ran the whole way there and burst through the parlor doors at nine in the evening, her cheeks flushed and her chest heaving from the exertion and excitement.

The guy who had done her tattoo had been a grumpy man named Troy. He was covered in so many tattoos that Sam had trouble distinguishing where one ended and another began. She had stumbled in, asking what she could get done for $150 dollars, and he'd pulled out a small binder of photographed tattoos, keeping her to a specific section. They weren't very detailed or large, but that didn't matter to Sam. She just needed the ink under her skin. It would be something she could wear on her own body, and the pain from the needles would be hers. It would all have been her choice to make this happen, and no matter how pissed off her dad was, there wasn't a single fucking thing he was going to be able to do about it. She would have this with her now. Forever.

She'd settled on a pentagram on the inside of her left wrist, no bigger than a quarter, and after 30 minutes of gritting her teeth and biding her time, Troy gave her proper cleaning instructions and sent her on her way. It had cost her 65 bucks, plus tax, and it was the best thing she'd ever bought. Sam left an hour-and-a-half later, feeling like her feet would just float away from the ground at any moment. It hadn't really hurt as bad as she'd thought it would; it had felt kind of like a cat had been scratching at her skin, and Lord knows she'd felt worse pain while Hunting.

When she'd walked a block away from the tattoo parlor, she'd collapsed against the side of the building next to her, and tears were streaming down her face. She couldn't tell if it was from the happiness of doing something so outrageous that was just going to make her dad snap, or if it was the anger at being pushed so far that a simple fucking tattoo felt like escaping from prison. After another 30 minutes, her tears stopped and Sam was able to wipe the wet tracks and snot from her face, and she walked back to their room, her pace brisk. Whatever happened now, she'd had this. She'd had these two hours to herself, these two hours of freedom, and nothing her dad said was ever going to squash this feeling away.

Seeing the impala parked out in front of their motel room hadn't really surprised her; in fact, Sam might even go so far as to say that she'd sort of expected it. It only made sense that as soon as she rashly went out and got this done that her father would come back. They would have realized she wasn't there a long time ago, and Sam winced as she thought of how her brother must have gotten yelled at for it. Well shit, she hadn't thought about that. Though she hadn't thought of anything really other than after she'd seen that commercial. Still, no matter how unsurprised she was that her father was already waiting to tear her to shreds, that didn't mean she was looking forward to it.

Her father had been angry at her in a way that he never had before when she finally walked back into the motel room. She'd been steeling herself for yells and insults and pain and rage, but she'd gotten none of that. No, she'd received cold silence and not a single word from either her father or her brother. Dean hadn't looked as furious as her dad, but he still refused to look at her. She knew that her leaving on his watch like that had hurt, and even though Sam knew Dean was stupidly blaming himself and not her (even though this was totally her fault, and she knew that), she still felt guilty. Their dad, though… John was silent in a completely different way. He was sitting at the table in their kitchenette, his eyes piercing her like a hawk that just found its next victim, and Sam had no shame in admitting that she felt insanely uncomfortable. There were muscles in her dad's temple that were twitching with the force of his rage, but still, he said nothing. The air around him was chilly and so thick with tension, Sam wondered if she could cut through it. She couldn't help but think of the quiet before the storm, and the silence made her ears hyperaware, so that every breath sounded like a bomb going off in her head.

It wasn't until Sam took off her jacket and they both saw her bandaged wrist that things got… messy. Her father had shot up from the table and demanded to know what she'd done, and when Sam told him that she'd gotten a tattoo, he almost hit her. The only reason his hand didn't connect with her cheek was because Dean grabbed John's hand at the last second and wrenched it away. Sam knew how to handle this anger, though. She hadn't ever had to deal with that icy calm before, but this explosive rage was something she could handle. She threw back as good as she got, though for the life of her, she couldn't remember half the things she said when she thought about it later in bed. It was just a knee-jerk reaction now. Her dad yells, she yells back. And, in all honesty, she knew that getting a tattoo was a dumb idea. In their line of work they couldn't afford any markings that might stand out in someone's memory; nothing could be traced back to them. Didn't stop her from arguing back, though.

Eventually, her dad had nothing left to shout and left, off to some dive bar probably. He'd called her every name in the book, and then some. Told her she wasn't allowed to go on Hunts anymore, that she was confined to their motel rooms indefinitely, that she was going to listen to him or he would break her. Called her worthless, a piss-poor excuse for a Hunter, an ungrateful little shit. Maybe he'd even drank a little already, because he'd screamed that he'd wished he'd gotten a different daughter, or another son instead, and that just couldn't be true. No matter what they'd said to each other in the past, they had never wished that they had a different family. Sam wished her family had a different lifestyle, yes, but never had she longed for her brother or father to be someone else.

Dean just stood there the whole argument, listening to their screeching, and for the first time since Sam could remember, he hadn't stopped the fight. He'd stopped them from hitting each other, sure, but he never jumped in to put an end to the raised voices and nasty insults. Sam had turned to him when their dad left, daring him to say anything with her eyes, but he just glared back. He looked so tired to her, like he'd aged ten years in the span of the last three hours and had the weight of the world pressing on his back.

Still refusing to speak to her, Dean plopped back down on the couch, turning the TV up loud enough that Sam could tell conversation was out of the question. Still hurt and furious from her recent verbal sparring session with her father, she walked to the bathroom and slammed the door as hard as she could. In a moment of weakness, she slid down the door and curled into a small ball. It wasn't until she had to take a deep gasp for breath that she'd even known she was crying.

She crawled away from the door, instead settling herself in the small tub to the left. Sam had no idea how long she stayed in that tub, arms wrapped around her waist, rocking back and forth and sobbing, but it had to be a good chunk of time, because her brother eventually started pounding on the door. Sam snapped her mouth shut and hushed herself, but it was obvious he'd already heard her.

"Sam?" he asked. Sam bit her lip, tears still falling onto the dirty porcelain.

"Sam, c'mon, open the door." She kept rocking. She heard a short, irritated sigh, and then her brother opened the door. Damn. She'd forgotten the stupid lock.

Dean padded over to the toilet, next to where Sam was crying, and sat down. He stayed there for a few moments, just watching Sam as she tried to collect herself. She just shook her head, and stopped trying to keep in the noise, now that Dean was sitting right next to her and everything. She choked out some sound that might have been a coherent sentence in another lifetime. Dean slipped off his seat and sat on his knees in front of Sam, his arms resting on the lip of the tub.

"Sam," he called out softly. She just shook her head, tightened her arms, and rocked. "Sammy." Her childhood nickname had seemed to be what she'd needed to focus, because she took several deep breaths, reining her weeping into sniffles, and looked up at her brother.

"Talk to me, kiddo." Sam looked down at her jeans, sporting several wet spots, and the slightly grimy off-white porcelain underneath. She shook her head again. She heard Dean scoff and stand up. "Fine. I don't have energy for this shit tonight anyway."

And yeah, maybe Sam deserved that after getting him in trouble, but it still stung a little bit for her brother to just dismiss her like that. But, before she could say anything he left the bathroom, shutting the door softly behind him. For some reason, that felt worse than if he'd slammed it. Sam didn't continue her previous activities, though. Now that she'd got some hold over herself, it felt pointless for her to cry. Tears didn't ever solve anything, she never felt any better after she was done, and they always gave her headaches. She'd been stupid to cry in the first place. Sam looked at her wrist, and the wrappings around it. She'd been stupid about a lot of things tonight. She could try and fix one of those right now.

Sam stood and got out of the tub and went to the sink. She turned on the cold water and washed away the evidence of her little meltdown as best she could and toweled her face dry with a hand towel that she wasn't entirely certain was clean. Sam slipped out of the bathroom and listened. TV wasn't on, so she headed for the two beds instead. Sure enough, Dean was on the bed closest to the door, facing away from the hallway so that all Sam saw was the back of his gray t-shirt.

Sitting down cross-legged on her own bed, she chewed her lip. She had to apologize to her brother in some way, offer some kind of explanation to him, but what was she going to say to him? How could she make him understand the intense need she'd felt for this?

"Dean?" she whispered. Nothing.

"Dean, come on, I know you're awake."

Silence.

"Look, man, I'm sorry, all right? I should have left a note or something, or told you where I was going before I left so you didn't freak and Dad didn't yell at you, but – "

"You know what, Sam? You can shut up. I don't even care so much that you ditched out on me, again, I might add," Dean finally turned around, lying on his side to glare at his sister. "No, what bothers me is the lengths you go to to piss off Dad."

Sam didn't really know what to say to that. She decided to say nothing.

"I mean, really, Samantha. This goes beyond you having a difference of opinion. If I didn't know any better I'd say you hate the guy, and I have no clue why. I'm tired, Sam. I'm tired of all this fighting and watching my family fall apart."

"I know, Dean, and I'm sorry, I –"

"I don't want you to be sorry, Sam. I want you to make this stop." Sam looked down at her hands, biting on her lip nervously. Her wrist stung. Her eyes were sore. She had a headache, and some place that was dangerously close to her heart was throbbing with pain.

"He said he didn't want me, Dean… he's never said that before." Sam knew she was changing the subject, avoiding giving him an answer. Sam didn't care.

Dean rolled his eyes and shoved himself up so that he was sitting with his feet on the ground, facing where Sam was gnawing on her lip.

"For cryin'… Sam, you know that's not true."

Crickets.

"Sam, you… you do know he didn't mean it, right?" Sam shrugged in lieu of an answer. Some part of her, somewhere, deep down probably knew he hadn't mean it, yeah. But the bigger, larger, more emotional part she couldn't seem to keep in tonight didn't. Not completely. He'd just sounded so angry, and he'd said it with such force. He'd damn near slapped her again, but Dean had forcibly shoved his shoulders so that he'd had to take a few steps back, and her cheek had been spared. Too bad her heart wasn't.

"Oh come on Sam. He's… Dad didn't mean it. You just pissed him off, a lot, and you know how he gets. He says tons of shit he doesn't mean when he's angry. You do too. So just forget about it and leave me alone. I'm too tired for any chick-flick shit you want to have tonight." Dean pulled his feet back up on to the bed and turned back on his side, away from Sam, ending the conversation. She hadn't really done anything to repair the damage she'd done with her brother, but suddenly she was so tired that she didn't mind. She'd do that in the morning, but right now she just needed to sleep. She'd gone through so much, and her emotional reserves were running on fumes. She had no will in her to stay awake, so she fell on to her own bed and turned off the light before passing out. She hadn't even changed into her pajamas yet.

She hadn't gotten the chance to fix things, in the morning, however. Her dad had woken them both up by slamming the door to their room and barked out orders for them to get dressed, they were checking out early. Dean had gotten the first shower, and Sam had been left to eat her cereal in uncomfortable silence with her father. Her dad still looked pissed, and like he had something to say, but he sat on the couch and glared at the TV screen without talking to her. Sam counted her blessings that she passed her breakfast in silence and nearly ripped her brother out of the bathroom when he was done so she could take her turn.

Asshole had taken all the hot water again. Sam gently washed her sore and slightly swollen wrist in warm water and dabbed it dry, like she'd been told, before wrapping the bandage over the ink again. She was supposed to keep it away from direct sunlight.

When they'd checked out and all piled in to the Impala, Sam taking her usual spot in the back, Dean had hurriedly flipped on the music. Seemed he didn't want them to talk. That was just fine with Sam, she was still worn out from last night, and nothing sounded better to her than a quick cat nap. So, that's exactly what she did. She used her duffle bag as a pillow and lay down across the bench seat and was out like a light.

She wasn't sure how long she'd slept, but when she woke up, it was dark outside. The music was off, and they were slowing down, from what Sam could tell. She could see piles and pillars of empty car shells, and instantly knew they were at Uncle Bobby's place. (He wasn't really their uncle, but he was close enough to be family, so it kinda stuck in her mind.) Her sleepy brain wondered for a moment what they were doing there, but she yawned, and accepted that she'd find out soon enough.

It wasn't until their dad greeted Bobby with a hello and firm handshake that Sam realized they hadn't spoken to each other all day. It was the longest they'd ever gone without speaking to one another, and she felt a little twinge of guilt, but hid it under her indignance and anger from last night. She refused to cower out of this stalemate. She was just as stubborn as her dad, and if he wanted to play this stupid game, then fine, she be just as fucking petty and annoying. She'd even eat all her food with her mouth open like he hated, so how he fucking liked that. Dick.

Bobby gave Sam a warm hug, and the customary smell of cheap whiskey, smoke and oil washed over her. She patted him on the back, and he moved on to Dean. It was then that her dad finally decided to speak.

"Samantha," she twitched her hand. She hated being called Samantha, and her family only reserved that for when they were being especially serious. "In light of you recent outburst, I've decided that you need some time to rethink your priorities."

Sam snorted and rolled her eyes, but Dean stepped on her foot and shook his head. She ignored the look and crossed her arms, but took his advice and stopped trying to goad her father into snapping again.

"That being said, you're going to stay here with Bobby for a couple months –"

"I'm going to what?"

"while your brother and I go on Hunting. We'll be back to check in every now and then. I suggest, young lady, that you seriously reconsider your life and where you're heading. I will not tolerate behavior like this again, and we need you to be 100% on these Hunts. If you haven't had a serious attitude adjustment by the time I'm here to pick you up, you'll stay here even longer. Am I clear?"

Sam just gaped at her father. Had he… had he really just fucking said that? Sam looked at her brother frantically, but he looked just as shocked as she did. Daddy dearest hadn't included him on the plan, then. Bobby's face was unhappy, and his mouth was set in a grim line, but he didn't look surprised. John had told him, she guessed. Of course he had, how else had he gotten permission for her to be here this long? From the look of things, though, Bobby didn't exactly agree with this punishment.

"Are… are you fucking kidding me? You're ditching me?" John's eyes steeled over and he shuffled uncomfortably.

"You did this to yourself, Samantha. I wouldn't have to go to such extremes if you would just obey my orders." Sam's vision may or may not have gone a little red at that, and she could swear something in the back of her brain snapped, and suddenly, she didn't care what he was doing, as long as she could get a swing in at his fucking face and break it.

"Fuck you!" she screamed. "Fuck you, and fuck your orders. How can you treat me like this? I'm not some child to put in a time out, Dad, and I would listen to you IF YOU WOULD FUCKING TREAT ME LIKE THE HUNTER YOU TRAINED ME TO BE!" John shook his head and turned his back on her, heading for the door before she was even done.

"Dean," he growled, "let's go." Dean didn't move, still shocked in his position next to where Sam kind of wanted to kill something. Patricide wasn't illegal anymore, right?

"Dean. Now." That seemed to snap him out of his stupor, because he mumbled something and threw a nervous glance at his sister. Sam was stomping after their father though, still shaking with rage, and didn't see her brother's concern.

"Don't you fucking walk away from me when I'm talking to you, you piece of shit!" But John was already in the car. Dean followed soon after, and the two of them drove away, leaving Sam trembling on Bobby's front porch.

That was it. That was fucking it. That was the last straw. She was done. Fucking done. She was getting out of this fucking shithole of a life before it killed her. And it would kill her, if she let it. She would Hunt, and kill every nasty she could get her hands on while the blackness inside grew larger and larger until it was all she knew anymore, and she was nothing but her anger and bitterness.

That night, Samantha submitted an online application to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. She'd been toying with the idea for several weeks now. She had the grades for it, but the only thing that had been stopping her had been her fear of what would happen if she left. But that didn't scare her so much anymore, because anything was better than this.

Sam got her acceptance letter one month later, and she felt something kind of… click into place. Something kind of righted itself within her, and a wave of peace washed over her, the likes of which she'd never known.

Three months later, she stepped off a bus in sunny California, with six bucks, four bags, and a granola bar to her name. She finally go the purpose in her life that she'd wanted for so long. All it had cost her was her family.

At least she wasn't Hunting anymore. That was something… right?