Hello! If ya'll haven't heard of me before, my name is Bobadoo (or Ashley whichever you please). This is my first attempt at a sister fic and boy am I excited. I hope you guys enjoy this. I'm hoping it's a different look at it.

Special thanks to superloudean for bearing with me on this. (I know it bothered you, admit it).

I do not own Supernatural. Only my OC.

~FADE~

Normalcy is nonexistent.

Melanie opens her eyes, instantly awake and prepared to fight for her life. It's only when her alarm clock starts to buzz that she realizes there is no danger present. The feeling of darkness surrounding her, ready to pounce and snuff out the flame that was her life was nothing more than that, a feeling. It is the same feeling that has followed her for years, as present as her shadow and just as illusive.

With a sigh, she sits up and unwraps her fingers from the pistol under her pillow.

Life is a series of complications, road blocks and speed bumps.

Silencing her clock with a slam of her hand, Melanie glances at the time. 5:01. She's been asleep three hours. Her body waits a minute, wondering where the urge to crawl back into bed was. It never comes.

Melanie slips out of bed, stretching her arms to the sky and cracking her back. They said it was a bad habit to take up, whoever they were. Then again, a lot of things were bad for you. Cigarettes were, too much alcohol, too much sun, too much of anything really. Living in ignorance was probably more dangerous than everything combined but no one ever said anything about that, probably because they were ignorant too. How she envied them.

What we remember about it are the strange moments, the ones that took us out of our comfort zone.

She walks over the line of salt at the threshold of her bedroom, careful not to disturb a single grain. Walking down the stairs, she listens intently to every sound that it gives off, making certain none are out of place. The dead silence of the house is disturbed momentarily by a passing car. Melanie stops in place and waits, tense, until it passes by.

In the kitchen, she grabs a bowl from the cabinet. A flask of holy water sits just to the right, offsetting the cheerful red of the bowl. She takes a box of Cheerios from the next cabinet over. There, too, is a flask. Sitting at the table with all the ingredients, Melanie makes her simple breakfast, her hand never far from the sawed off shotgun strapped under the table.

Life, itself, is not normal.

After eating, she goes back upstairs, changing into a pair of navy blue dress pants, a white camisole and matching blue jacket. She takes her wavy, brown hair and ties it up in a bun, leaving a little bit hanging by the side of her face. Flats are her shoe of choice. Never wear anything you can't run away in.

When she is satisfied with her appearance, Melanie attaches the silver knife to her belt and tosses an extra flask of holy water into her purse, where it rests with her lip gloss and compact mirror. With one final look at the mirror and a nod at her reflection, Melanie heads back downstairs again, ready to face the day.

But if normalcy did exist, I don't think I'd qualify as a candidate for that list.

She makes sure every door is locked, that every window is firmly shut and every line of salt is untouched. Before heading out, she squints at the ceiling in the doorway. If one wasn't looking, the devil's trap could not be seen. Satisfied that every line is still intact, Melanie heads out the door, making sure it is locked, twice.

My paranoia alone is enough to bar me.

Chapter One

Melanie Windsor, formerly known as Winchester, fiddled with her coffee cup on the table, listening to the contents as they splashed about inside. She stared at it intensely, distantly wondering if it would eventually explode under her gaze. Her body was leaned back in the chair, looking relaxed but it was unusually tense. Mornings were always the worst for her, as though someone had hit the reset button and brought her fear of attack crawling right back into place. However, by the time she had coffee with Tiffany, her pale, wide eyed friend staring uncomfortably at her from across the table, the feeling had usually subsided.

It was not going to be a good day.

Then again, it was THE day.

Exactly thirteen years ago she had left everything she had ever known, ran away out of fear and frustration at her life. Sixteen was hardly an age to be shooting guns and learning how to take down things twice your size that were about to kill you. Neither was six or any other age in between for that matter. She had fought her father tooth and nail every day of it, never gave up, until finally she snapped and in a fit of rage hotwired a car, another gift from darling daddy, and drove out of town. Thinking over it, Melanie knew it was never intended to be permanent but as the days passed by, she came to realize he was not searching for her. He had made up his mind and, for once, she agreed.

Leaning forward, Melanie placed both elbows on the table and stared back at Tiffany. "You know, if you don't blink, your eyes are going to be stuck that way."

Tiffany blinked. She always was gullible, at least when it came to anything she said.

Matilda Margaret Lynn Johnson, or Tiffany as she liked to go by for reasons Melanie had yet to fathom, was a well to do librarian who lived on the East side of town with her equally well to do husband, their two cats and their enormous collection of paranormal memorabilia. She had been to their house a few times for dinner and always managed to leave more freaked out by that encounter than she had ever been with a ghost. It was because of their disturbingly easy acceptance of all things supernatural that Melanie had befriended them. Mostly it had been out of desperation, she had needed someone to confide in and Tiffany had been more than willing, though at times Melanie believed she thought it was all about as real as the plastic light up ghosts at Halloween.

"Sorry," Tiffany replied, her voice high even when lowered. Her fingers drummed on her own coffee cup, the French tips making an annoying click sound when they hit its surface. "It's just, you're awful quiet today."

She was always quiet, but let that slide. "Just a bad day is all."

Tiffany leaned in closer as Melanie took a drink from her coffee, looking like a girl ready to take in the latest gossip. "It was today, wasn't it?" She nodded. "I don't know how you did it. I don't think I ever could."

"You'd be surprised what you can accomplish when given no choice," Melanie said matter-of-factly. "Besides, it was all for the best. God knows where I'd be if I hadn't gotten away." Probably six feet under but she decided to leave that part out.

Nodding, Tiffany lifted her enormous purse off the ground and onto her lap. Some days, for pure entertainment's sake, Melanie would try to imagine all the weapons she could fit inside. It was a disturbing amount actually.

Melanie watched as her friend took out a handful of newspaper clippings. Crap.

"No, no, no, not today, Tiff," Melanie begged, waving her hands in attempt to ward them off. "Don't you ever get sick of pushing this on me?"

"Not really," Tiffany responded, shrugging. She had the look of a lost puppy, broken. It reminded her of a certain member of her family and damn if she could resist his look either.

To Tiffany's delight, Melanie offered her hand. "Alright, hand'em over."

It was a tradition that had started some time after Melanie had made her big confession to the girl. The first time, she just happened to have a newspaper on her and found an article that she took as curious. Showing Melanie, she had asked if there was anything paranormal at work. Of course, Melanie had never wanted anything to do with it but she had given in about as easily then as she had just now. It was harmless really, though quite annoying on occasion, especially in recent times. The number of articles had been increasing exponentially.

"Crazy guy, crazy guy, mishap, crazy gal," Melanie rattled off, a bored tone in her voice. "Accident, accident, whoa…what is that?"

"Did you find something?" Tiffany asked, nearly jumping out of her seat.

"Yeah, a guy with one effin' ugly mug. Heh, fugly." She looked up to a not very amused friend. "Sorry. Crazy guy, crazy guy, stupid guy and…"

Her body froze, all the blood in it having run cold. In the distance, she could hear Tiffany calling her name but she sounded so far away, like someone shouting down a busy street with no chance of their voice fully getting through. All she could hear was her heartbeat as it grew louder and louder, pounding in her head like the beat of a drum, threatening to shake her body apart.

…Monument, Colorado…

…police station fire…no survivors…

…victims include recently apprehended fugitives Dean and Sam Winchester…

"Mel! Melanie, for God's sake snap out of it! People are staring!"

Shaking her head, Melanie tossed the article aside as if it had burned her. Still, for a long time she stared at it, waiting for something to happen. Maybe it would move and attack her; maybe it would disintegrate before her very eyes. Or, the thing she found herself praying for, she would wake up, eyes wide open in her bed, looking around once more for the dark things that stalked her in her dreams. But none of that happened. The paper just sat there, taunting her in its silence.

"Melanie!"

She finally turned to Tiffany, eyes staring right through her. "How old is this article?"

"What? I don't know."

Melanie slammed her fists against the table, attracting the attention of everyone around them. "Tiffany, tell me how old it is!"

"A few months, maybe more," Tiffany finally answered, clearly afraid of her friend. Fear. That was an expression she was used to. People were always afraid of her family when she was younger. They were freaks, did things that normal people wouldn't do. Even when she had gotten away, she still received the looks but not for a while now. She had escaped. Seeing it again hurt her more than she cared to admit but at that very moment, none of it mattered.

"I have to go," Melanie stated, jumping from her seat.

"But what about work?" Tiffany shouted after her with little effect. Melanie hardly heard anything, hardly saw anything. Before she even realized it, she was in her car, driving down the street toward her house. The lack of car horns suggested that she was being less than reckless but for all she knew, she may have missed those sounds too.

It wasn't until her SUB pulled into the driveway, her speed so fast that the brakes squealed when she hit them, that Melanie became aware of her surroundings once more. She did not move, did not dare to breathe for a while. Her eyes just watched her home, a small two story with a wraparound porch. IT seemed innocent enough but then again everything had its light side. Some sane part of her screamed from its corner of her mind, demanding why she was afraid now when clearly the event had happened months ago. Melanie could not answer its intelligent please.

Reaching over to the glove compartment, Melanie withdrew a revolver. She approached her house with the same caution she would for one she had never been to, one that she was fairly certain contained something that would harm her if given an opportunity. It hadn't even been an hour since she left, certain that everything was safe. She was not proud of this paranoia but it was what kept her breathing all these years.

Searching every room cop style, Melanie slowly cleared her house. Nothing was moved, touched or out of any kind of order. It was quieter than normal, if possible, but that was because she strained to hear anything out of the ordinary. If she tried any harder, her mind would start to make up sounds and the last of her sanity would slip away.

Melanie sighed and dropped the gun to her side as her left hand dug for her cell phone. When the screen lit up, she noted a few messages from Tiffany and even received another one as she held it. The girl was going to need an explanation of some sorts but that was for later. More important things demanded her attention.

Out of the few numbers she had stored on her phone, there was only one that she had never actually used. It came to her one day as a random text containing a simple message: 414411N 732032W. They were the coordinates to Warren, Connecticut, the town she had been calling home for the past seven years. She guessed it was John Winchester's way of saying he still looked out for her because apparently a man that faced down the monsters in the closet didn't have the guts to give his only daughter a phone call. Of course, the only thing he probably ever feared was emotion.

Hitting the call button, Melanie placed the phone to her ear and waited impatiently. It rang for what felt like eternity, the sounds echoing through her body, making her feel empty on the inside. Finally there was a click and a voice, but not the one she wanted, not the real John Winchester.

"This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean Winchester. He can help."

Melanie ended the call and hit the redial button. Same result. She hit it again. And again. And again. On the seventh or eighth try, Melanie screamed at the recording of her father's voice. "Pick up the phone!"

His voice did not break or sway, as much as her actual father would have reacted. This time she waited for the tone.

"You goddamn son of a bitch," Melanie hissed. Her first words to her father in thirteen years and they were hateful, and they felt good. "Just because I left all those years ago, it does not give you the right to not tell me about my brothers. Sam and Dean are dead, Dad. Didn't you think I'd want to know? You couldn't even send some damn encrypted message, just nothing? I always knew you hated me but this…this is a new low."

She stared at her phone a while, feeling the tears flowing freely down her face. She bit her lip, hating it for trembling. Then with a shout, she chucked the phone as hard as she could into the wall across from her and fell to the floor, breaking down for the first time in years.

Regret was something Melanie experienced much in her life. She hated herself for leaving some days, especially for Sam's sake. He had only been twelve at the time. She had been the one to comfort him when their dad got rough, when Dean's emotional disconnect just wasn't going to cut it anymore. When Sam questioned why they did things, she was the one who stood up for him, took his side while Dean followed orders. It wasn't that she did not love her brother. Dean was her twin and they shared something that most people could not understand but there were days when she felt he had too much of his father in him for his own good.

Now what could she do? There was no reconnecting with family. They were gone, dead, lost to eternity just like their mother was. All that was left were her and John. He could have been dead, not if his phone was still up. However she doubted there would be an emotional reunion in their future.

The sound of her phone caught Melanie's attention. It was just a generic ring. She never could get into having some strange sound coming out of her phone, unlike Tiffany who had the Twilight Zone theme blare out of it.

Through tear filled eyes, Melanie stared at it, briefly wondering how it was even still working. She crawled her way to it, noting the name on the screen.

"Shoot," she mumbled, sniffing as she opened it. "Connor."

"Melanie!" He sounded way too cheerful, especially for a boss. "Where are you?"

"Umm..something…something came up and I…I don't think I'm going to make it in today."

There was a long pause on the other end. In the background, she could hear his office phone ringing. He was using his cell. That was unusual. "Are you alright, Melanie?"

No. Hell no. Absolutely not. Two thirds of her family had just been wiped off the map, just meaning months ago, and the only way she happened to find out was by coincidence through her eccentric friend, not by her father who should have honestly made that his priority. Maybe he was on another stupid revenge trip, ready to waste another twenty years looking for a creature that no one could find or prove exists.

"Yeah, I'm…I'll be fine. I just…I'm gonna need some time off…I need to go somewhere."

She could practically fell his confusion beat her through the ear piece. "Go where?"

"Monument, Colorado," Melanie deadpanned, slamming the phone shut.

Connor Freemont sighed as he put the phone down. He looked around his office space. As large as it was, it felt grander now, far more open and emptier than normal. This was it, the day they had been waiting for. Now everything was coming full circle.

He felt a presence in the room.

"She knows," he said. "It's starting."

The figure moved forward. "I know how difficult this must be. I'm sorry. If there was any other way-"

"Don't apologize to me!" he shouted, facing the man. "You wanted me to do this. You practically begged me to do it. Deal with the consequences on your own. I'm not here to make you feel better."

He disappeared then, leaving Connor alone. It may have been starting but he knew full well that it would not end the way they intended.

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