First of all, I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so sorry for making you guys wait this long! School's been taking a lot of my time and I hit a hard wall of writer's block and it took me a while to find a suitable grappling hook to get over it.

Thank you to all you wonderful people who've favorited this story and followed it! Seriously, you guys are awesome! It forced me to jump back into action and keep writing. THANK YOU!

Also, as always, you guys can feel free to message me or write reviews. I'm not a scary person... unless you get between me and dessert... but other than that I'm pretty nice. My next fic will likely be something about Dark Angel but I'll wait until it's finished before I get too many hopes up before getting stuck again.

Thanks again! (In case you didn't pick up on it, you guys rock)

Sorry if the very ending's a a bit clipped but I felt like you guy's had waited long enough.

~ Edwin Nigma

Bobby stared down at the remains of the other Alpha when Sam started shouting. Horrible reminders of the first time they'd ever met these hunters flashed through his mind. His boys were in trouble.

He was there in a split second. Sam was trying to shake his brother awake. It was too much like before.

"Sam, a pulse. Tell me he's got a pulse."

Sam quickly pressed two fingers to the side of his brother's neck. "Slow but still there."

Bobby gazed up at the starry sky for a moment and shook his head. "You boys are going to be the death of me." He turned his attention back to Dean.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" the blonde girl - Jo, Dean had called her - asked. Her voice sounded hollow and Bobby felt a sharp spike of sympathy and spotted the hunter that the girls were sitting by. The man Bobby had fought with weeks before had clearly stopped breathing.

"I'll handle this." Bobby declined gently. "I think you need to take care of you and yours." he nodded to Lisa and Jo mirrored the action.

"Dean? Dean c'mon. Wake up. Please." Sam seemed on the verge of tears. "Dean you're my big brother I can't lose you, please."

Bobby gripped the Beta's hand and slowly felt, without looking, the inky blackness seeping into him. "Come on, boy. You've got to fight it." Bobby muttered through gritted teeth. "Come on."

"Dean?" Sam tried shaking him again but it was half-hearted and slow as if he were afraid it would be for nothing.

"Dean, c'mon." Bobby agreed. "Do it for your brother. Come back for Sam."

Dean's eyes shot open. "Sam?"

Bobby released Dean's hand and breathed out a chuckle in relief. "No way that was what brought you back." He muttered in disbelief. "I mean, I was hoping it would, but-"

"-DEAN!" Sam cut him off and quickly wrapped his arms around his older brother. Dean seemed startled and even winced at the suddenness of the movement before hugging Sam back.

"You alright, Sammy?"

Sam nodded and wiped his face on his sleeve. Bobby noticed once again that he was starting to outgrow the hand-me-down shirt. Teenagers.

"No! No! This shouldn't have-! This can't have-! NO!" Someone shouted and the pack turned their attention to the girls sitting next to them.

Lisa was shaking her head at her older sister before jumping to her feet and running off.

"Leese! Wait!" Jo shouted but made no move to go after her sister despite how much she clearly wanted to.

"What's wrong?" Dean asked.

"John, he-" her voice changed without her meaning to. "He-he's gone and Lisa… she won't accept it. She probably thinks it's her fault or mine."

Jo's gaze moved to the fallen hunter and stayed there. "I don't know what to do." she whispered but Dean heard her and immediately got up to his feet before nearly keeling over. Sam and Bobby both caught him before he could start falling.

"Easy there, boy." Bobby warned. "We just got you back, don't go risking it again."

"I need to talk to her." the 17 year old insisted.

Bobby and Sam shared a look. "I'll go with you." Sam offered. Dean frowned slightly at the insinuation that he needed help but accepted the help, albeit grudgingly. Slowly, they made their way after Lisa.

Bobby sat down on the ground next to Jo, crackling the orange and red leaves around him. "I don't suppose there's anyone else at your house?" he began.

Jo shook her head 'no' and sniffed before quickly wiping her eyes. "No, it's just -" her voice broke again. "Gosh, sorry I hate crying in front of people. Sorry."

Bobby sighed. "You've got nothin' to apologize for. Frankly, you have every right, right now. I'm an old man. I don't really mind when someone needs a minute to themselves. I do mind the fact that you seem to apologize more than Dean for stuff you ain't responsible for."

Jo gave a short, weak, laugh at that before falling silent again.

"Okay, I think 'm alright."

"Alright, if you say so. If you'd like to, you and your sister could stay in some of our guest rooms tonight if you're not wantin' to go home just yet. We'll take care of your father."

Jo glanced up to where Lisa had disappeared to. Did she really want to take her sister to the proverbial lion's den? (well, werewolf den, she reasoned) They'd been after this pack for months, why would they want to help?

"Don't have to, of course. Just want to make sure you two get somewhere safe tonight after all of this." The Alpha explained.

"Did you ever have kids?" Jo asked, startling the older man.

"I… not really. I almost was. My wife was expectin' when I lost her." Bobby trailed off. "But, I've got my boys so, I suppose I do."

Jo quirked a small smile. "You sure it wouldn't be too much trouble?" she was shocked at the words that came out of her mouth.

Bobby shook his head. "None at all. You can talk with your sister about it when she's feeling better."

"Thank you, sir."

The Alpha rolled his eyes. "What is with you kids and callin' me sir?" he muttered. Jo stared at him in confusion before he gave a reluctant smile. "Name's Bobby. Or you can call me Mr. Singer but I ain't no drill sergeant so they'll be none of the 'sirs', got it?"

The blonde girl raised an eyebrow but nodded.

"Lisa?" Dean and Sam took alternating turns calling her name as they followed the trail she'd left behind her. "Lisa, are you there?"

"Go away!" came the response. Sam and Dean glanced at each other and then turned to follow the source.

"I just got here and I'm tired." Dean complained to the space in front of them. Sam smirked at Dean's attempt at reasoning with the hunter girl. "Don't tell me I've been walking this whole time, nearly crushing my little brother by leaning on him, just to go back."

"Leave me alone, Dean!" the voice was closer now. The brothers turned to see Lisa sitting on a log with her face buried in her hands.

Dean pulled his arm from where it was thrown over Sam's shoulders. "Dean." Sam warned but the older brother ignored it.

"I'll be fine, just give us a minute." he assured quietly.

Sam's eyes narrowed. "You'd better not kiss her."

Dean pulled a face. "Oh yes, and we're going to make you watch unless you get your butt out of here." he teased. Sam looked disgusted before turning away to leave. Dean smiled slightly at the success of his plan as his brother left. He was joking of course but Sam could tell when Dean needed him to listen.

Dean made his way over by Lisa and sat down next to her.

"What part of 'go away' and 'leave me alone' did you magically not pick up on?" Lisa growled, looking up to glare at the boy next her.

"The part where I don't think you should be running away from your sister like that when she needs you." he answered honestly. "She's having just as rough of a time dealing with this as you are."

"It's her fault."

"No it's not."

Lisa turned back to stare at the ground and nodded. "I know… I'm just…"

"I know."

They sat together in silence for a few moments before Lisa inched closer to Dean and leaned against his shoulder. He tipped his head against her and felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

"Sorry I didn't believe you before." she said quietly.

"I probably wouldn't have believed me either, I've heard I'm a crappy liar."

Lisa laughed a little. "Now that's something I definitely don't believe. You once had me convinced that if you told a car every day that you loved it, it would never die on you."

"That's true though." he argued. "I've had the same car since I got my license."

"Yeah, last year."

"Alright, alright. But it's a working theory." Dean compromised. They settled back into the comfortable silence, looking up at the moon.

"Why did you come?" she straightened up.

Dean gave a sighed and rolled his eyes. "Well, Sam came because it was the 'right thing to do'" he added his own air quotes and then gestured in his younger brother's direction. "I came because of Sam." He pointed back to the direction they had come from. "And Bobby came because we're idiots and we're in way over our heads."

She smirked in response. "I guess that counts as an answer. Even if I don't think it's quite true."

Dean shrugged. "Believe what you will."

Lisa felt a warm arm wrap around her and somehow didn't feel the need to brush it off.

"I'm sorry about your dad."

The night seemed a bit colder at the reminder. "He's not really my dad." was all she could manage.

"But he acted like it for you guys. That means something."

"I would think you'd be the last person to defend anything about him."

Dean looked at the leaf-strewn ground for a moment. "It's true, I didn't really like him too much. I lived a good portion of my life waking up from nightmares thanks to him… but you miss him and I like you, so I'm sorry that you lost someone important to you."

Lisa turned to look at him. "Why did you try to help him? He's responsible for you losing your parents."

Dean bristled slightly. "I know… Maybe Bobby's dumb meditation is getting to me. I thought about just leaving him there. He could die feeling all the pain that my parents felts when he shot them."

Lisa's head tilted to the side before Dean continued.

"But I thought my parents would want me to be better. Bobby too. He's to me what John was to you. He took us in and taught us what he knew, how to control ourselves, you know? I just thought, if they knew that I could help and I didn't, they'd be let down, no matter who the person is."

"I think you're right." Lisa said. Dean raised an eyebrow. "That meditation stuff is getting to you."

Dean split into a grin. "I'll file a complaint with my Alpha. Maybe I'll get reparations."

We were-...I was worse before. The words echoed again and Lisa moved away a little bit. Dean noticed and looked confused.

"You said you were worse before Bobby took you in… did you ever…?" she couldn't quite finish.

Dean didn't need her to. "No. I never killed anyone… I came close though."

Lisa waited for him to continue and he took a deep breath. "There was this older kid. I was about 5 or 6, he was closer to 8 or 9. His name was Gordon. He tried messing with Sammy. Sammy was just a year old and trying to walk but he thought it would be funny to keep pushing him down. I lost my temper… When I came too, there was blood on the ground. So much blood. He was still conscious, shouting at me and calling me a freak, a monster. I called 9-1-1. I told them there was a dog attack and an older boy got hurt and hit his head. They believed me but not the kid who was swearing that I had sprouted fangs and claws and attacked him.

"Bobby found us a few weeks later. I told him after the first month. I told him if he wanted me to go I would but asked him to watch out for Sammy and let me know he was okay. I wasn't ready to be a parent to him. I was just a kid. But Bobby was a grown up and he'd been helping so I trusted him with my brother. I trusted him with Sam more than I trusted myself after what I did to Gordon. I was scared I'd hurt him but… Bobby didn't send me away. He taught me how to control it. At least enough to keep everyone else safe. He helped me get better."

Dean looked up at Lisa, looking for some kind of judgment from her. "That's all I got. Last of the deep dark secrets. Do you want to shoot me now?"

Lisa shook her head. "Maybe later. I don't feel like it right now."

"Dean! You're taking forever." Sam's voice carried and the pair of people sitting on the log laughed.

"I guess we should go back." Lisa said.

"Fair enough." Dean slowly got to his feet, feeling much less dizzy than he had the first time, and hand in hand, they walked back to the others.

Epilogue - Just a summary. Basically just snippets of the next few weeks.

After the funeral for John, Lisa and Jo ended up staying at Bobby's for about a week with the Winchester brothers and their guardian.

Bobby contacted several good hunters he knew and told them the situation to see if someone was willing to come and take care of the girls. Eventually, a woman by the name of Ellen came to stay at the old house and essentially adopt the two sisters. Dean and Sam would often swap notes on the theory that there might be something between Ellen and Bobby and call Lisa and Jo to talk about it. The debate was never truly resolved.

On weekends, either pair of siblings would go to the other's house to watch a movie. Dean and Lisa would always sit together leaving Jo to look on distastefully acting as the older sibling and Sam playing the role of younger brother and pretending to throw up if the couple so much as held hands within his line of sight.

Jo was the first one to see them kiss. She turned bright red upon walking into the kitchen to see why making popcorn had taken so long and see the two of them before turning on her heel and walking out and complaining to Sam, who looked immediately furious and then gradually let it go.

Ellen's 19 year old nephew, Caleb, came to stay for a while at the household and was seen within 2 weeks of being there holding Joanne's hand and sitting next to her during movie night.

Sam sulked for a full day, cursing the others for 'betraying' him… until Dean forced him to talk to Jess at school. Dean would tease him the more he saw them together and most especially when Sam started grinning at nothing when he got into the car on the way home.

Within the space of 4 months, a sense of normalcy began to settle into their lives. No more worrying about wandering Omegas, just the tests at school. No more patrols through the woods, just a movie night that night to look forward too.