Title: Constellations

Category: Supernatural

Genre: Supernatural/Family/Adventure/Romance

Summary: After a shocking disappearance nine years ago, Kate Winchester climbs out of her figurative rabbit hole and jumps back into the hunting life to try and save her big brother from a soul deal.

Warnings: Violence/Romance typical of show, mature language

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural

Main Ships: Cas/OFC, Sam/OFC, Dean/OFC

Episode: pre-Pilot

A/N: Hello and welcome to Constellations, a SPN sisfic centering on Kate Winchester. Kate is played by Jennifer Morrison, if you're interested, and you can find a lot more info on her and the story at her blog, winchesterkate dot tumblr dot com. I'm always delighted to hear from you guys, so if you wanna PM me, or send me an ask, I'd totally appreciate it.

Constellations

Act I

Nine years ago

Kate Winchester slept restlessly.

It was the day before New Year's Eve and she was stuck in a crappy motel in California for the time being. It was hot and humid despite the time of year, and her tank top stuck to her back with a sheen of sweat. Her blonde hair was messy and disheveled from rubbing restlessly against her pillow. She'd been exhausted by the long day of research, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep.

Yet here she was, tossing and turning and completely, totally awake.

She grew frustrated, kicking the sheets off the bed and grunting. Eight hours at the library with Sam, who-while three years younger-harbored a much greater dedication to books, and Dean, who had gotten distracted by the hot librarian ten minutes in and then disappeared for three hours.

And John—her dad, who sat dedicatedly, sifting through each book after one of his children deemed it useful. His weary eyes always seemed so lost, as if his wife had been his only compass, and when she died, he'd given up.

Kate stilled as a moment or two passed, considering her dad's sad eyes, and then she blew a breath out, rolling over onto the other side of the bed.

Only, she didn't just roll to the other side of the bed, she rolled off the bed entirely. But she never hit the ground.

When she did finally land on her feet again, she was no longer Kate Winchester.

Memory loss is a funny thing to describe; having memories replaced is even more bizarre. As Kate tumbled off the flat mattress and the sticky sheets, she fell away from herself-every memory of hunting, of Dean and Sam and John and Mary, of those eight hours of research, it was as if her skull had been overturned and they'd fallen out, splashing everywhere, impossible to piece back together. If Kate had to sum up her feelings as she woke up in a college dorm room to a curious girl asking her if she was the new roommate, she would use one word: empty.

She couldn't quite pinpoint what was wrong—she was Kate Pines. She was a physics student and she'd just been moved to Clarence Hall after her old roommate transferred. Since she had no idea what was wrong, she just smiled up at the girl and answered, "Yeah! Hi. I'm sorry, I just got here last night and you were already asleep."

That's what had happened—Kate had been there, after all. But the words still felt like a lie. But why?

In a cheap hotel in California, two brothers and a father panicked.

"Where the hell is she?" John would demand. Dean would shrug, worried eyes and furrowed brow betraying his cool appearance. Sam would burst out of the bathroom.

"She's not here," he'd tell them. They'd storm out of the room, search the halls, drive for hours in search of a familiar head of blonde hair. Sam would cry. He was sensitive, and he'd weep, trying to assure himself that she was out there and that she was going to come back. That she'd gone out for breakfast and forgotten to leave a note.

Dean would remain stony faced. He'd clench his jaw nervously and rest his head against the car window, worried for his sister, terrified they'd lost her. Dean would refuse to cry, pride and testosterone wouldn't allow it.

John would torture himself. First he lost Mary, he couldn't lose Kate too. His only daughter. Lachesis had screwed him, and he was left to live with the pain.

They'd search. They'd search, and search, and search, but they would never find her. That's not how this was supposed to work out.

The pieces were in position—the fates were ready to play.

Chapter 1: Escape this Suburban Wasteland

Present day

If Kate Pines hated one thing, it was early morning observations.

Anything involving lugging a telescope out into the middle of a field at 4 am deserved this hatred, as she'd discovered in her time as an astrophysicist. She shivered under her coat, wrapping her arms tighter around herself and rubbing her gloved hands together to warm them up. The days until the end of November dwindled, the temperatures dropped, and Kate's eyebrows most definitely were frozen to her face.

She let a shriek escape through her teeth, frustration seeping out between incisors and cuspids. The sound failed to reach a high volume-not that it mattered, since Kate was alone in a desolate wheat field.

Groaning, she stomped her feet on the ground to try and warm herself up a little bit. In her head, Kate knew that curling herself into a ball was counter-productive, but at the moment, instinct was beating out her logic. She jumped up and down as the telescope drilled into the ground, and then she plugged in her monitor and bent over towards the eyepiece. Her teeth chattered relentlessly, and she hummed to herself as she focused her view with the knobs and levers. Kate needed to catch pictures of the stars right before sunrise, since her previous data had been displaying a prominent outliar she needed to examine.

"Why couldn't I have taken the job in Hawaii?" she murmured as she adjusted the lense on her camera.

After finishing up grad school, Kate received three job offers-one in Hawaii, one in Missouri, and one in Chicago, though she completed most of her field work in actual fields beyond even the edge of suburbia. Getting a PhD in astrophysics was the most difficult feat any person on earth had ever overcome, this Kate was sure of. There was nothing more excruciating than the week without sleep, or that Famous Time When Kate Showed Up to Her Theory Class Wasted and Still Aced the Test.

She could barely remember freshman year anymore, but it seemed easy when she thought back to it. Easier than everything later-of course, freshman year also felt...lonely? As though she hadn't connected to any of her peers. Or her professors. Or anyone, really. Not until she transferred dorms.

Josephine, her new roommate, harbored the potential to, quite possibly, qualify for best friend in the world. The first day alone, she'd taken Kate to breakfast, helped her figure out laundry, brought back leftovers from the dining hall after Kate missed dinner, and been completely okay when Kate's mess slowly started inching over towards the brunette's side of the room.

That was probably why they remained friends today, nine years later, in Chicago. Josephine spent her days working HR for some faceless corporation, and at night she labored away working on her novel. In-between, she usually ate pancakes and spaghetti.

Kate, contrastly, usually set her alarm for 3 am, making it to the lab by 4 and out to the field by 4:30. She ran tests or experiments for a few hours, before returning to the lab and analyzing data for another 8 hours. Sometimes, she'd meet Josephine for lunch, but usually she just tried to survive on crappy coffee and whatever fruit she could steal from Jim, the lab's Obligatory Misogynist. The work day ended for Kate at 6, she'd do grocery shopping, go home, make dinner, eat her half, and crash.

And then they'd repeat.

The pair talked more on the weekends, when they had time and their schedules matched up better. Sleep in on Saturdays, work, panic about money, spend the evening watching the same three movies over and over (Legally Blonde, The Exorcist, and Lilo and Stitch) and eating Ramen out of cups. Sunday, Kate begrudgingly agreed to go to church, they'd have brunch with Josephine's family afterwards (at this point, Josephine would also take advantage of her mother's washing machine) followed by a train ride back to their apartment where they'd watch football and eat leftover French toast.

Their lifestyle didn't come close to luxurious, but it was enough.

Kate really wished they could live out the non-luxurious, yet satisfactory life in a place where temperatures didn't drop to 0 starting mid September. Somewhere like Hawaii.

But yet, here she was. In an Illinois field armed with a telescope and a bunch of additional unreasonably heavy equipment.

Kate shivered under her heavy coat, blinking to keep her eyes from feeling dry. As she bent over to grab her papers, she tripped over a rock sticking out of the ground, tumbling over and hitting the ground with a grunt. Letting out an exasperated sigh, she remarked, "I am so done." Rolling over with a grunt, she then used not only the muscle strength she possessed to overcome her bulky whale-like jacket, but the momentum to force her upper body to sit upright, reach over, and then push herself off the ground.

Again-Kate hated early morning observations.

xx

Four hours later, Kate collapsed into a swivel chair in the lab, sending it rolling across the ugly, linoleum tiles. "Fun fact; I'm done with everything," she informed Lois, a dark haired woman who'd been working in the lab for the past twenty something years.

Lois turned to her, shrugged, and answered, "Better you than me."

Kate gasped. "That's so mean," she lamented, mock upset.

"Sweetie, I'm almost fifty. I had my fair share of morning observations," Lois remarked, plugging in one of the machines that translated data collected from possible black holes. She typed something into the keyboard, her wedding band glimmering in the light reflecting off from various angles.

Kate groaned, heaving herself up off the chair to peel off the extraneous layers until she was left in a black and white blouse and a pair of jeans. She headed over to the locker room, stuffed them all inside one of her own, pulled on a labcoat, and washing her hands. Grabbing her camera, she strode over to the computer and plugged in the cable, waiting patiently for the transfer of photos.

Although she probably looked poised and focused, it's important to note that Kate was thinking about how much she wanted tacos from the food truck near her apartment.

Fending off her weird craving for Mexican food, Kate spent the hours until lunchtime transferring the photos and analyzing the star charts for data.

Come noon, she abandoned her desk for lunch with Josephine.

As soon as she took her seat, she heard a loud declaration of, "I swear to god, one of these days, I'm going to punch you in the face."

Kate eyed Josephine from across the restaurant. Her best friend was arguing with her ex-boyfriend-still-friends-but-you're-an-asshole person. It was a complex relationship, and as much as Kate willed herself to understand it, she, unfortunately, could not.

A waiter popped up next to her. Kate glanced up at him and smiled politely. "Can I have a glass of your cheapest wine and the chicken parm?"

He nodded as he scribbled down her order and whisked it away towards the kitchen.

By the time he'd left, Josephine had stormed back over and plopped down on the booth opposite Kate. "I can't believe him," the woman huffed. Kate gave her a sympathetic smile.

"How did he mess up this time?"

"He borrowed my car and when he gave it back the passenger seat was sticky. Sticky, okay, and he wouldn't even tell me why. What the hell is on my passenger seat? I don't know."

"I'm so happy we didn't carpool," Kate remarked, eliciting a giggle from Josephine. "Oh!" She leaned over into her purse and dug through the papers inside. "I have to show you something." Pulling out a file folder, and smiled maliciously at her friend. "I found something in the data."

"I'm a writer, Kate," Josephine reminded her gently. "I don't understand astrophysics."

"I know, I know. Just look. See this?" She pointed to an outlying point in her graph. "This is out of the ordinary." Kate leaned over into her bag and yanked out a few more papers. "I ran a dozen more tests on a dozen more machines. I actually lugged a telescope out into a field yesterday."

She spread the graphs out over the table.

"They all say the same thing."

"What does it mean?"

Kate looked over her papers, making a face. "I have no freaking clue."

Later that night, back at the apartment, Kate was finally collapsing into her bed. It had been a long day–she'd been in the lab at five this morning to run tests, and she had to pick Josephine up from her job after, and then they'd had dinner, followed by another argument between Josephine and her weird complicated ex, followed by a forty-five minute drive back to the apartment they shared. Kate wanted nothing more than to sleep for the next eight years.

Collapsing onto the bed, she groaned from frustration. Insomnia had been a problem of hers for as long as she could remember. Despite exhaustion, Kate seemed to always find herself tossing and turning through the night.

Hours later, her eyes finally grew heavy enough to close and her thoughts drifted away, replaced by the priorities of her subconscious.

Which, for god knows why, happened to be a nursery going up in flames in astonishingly vivid detail as if she was experiencing it first-hand. Her eyes widened in shock as the adrenaline in her veins started pumping, the fight-or-flight instinct swiftly shifted into gear. The heat along with the smell of soot and singed wood burned her throat, her eyes started to sting, causing a prickling sensation of tears in the process. She had to get out there before the ceiling collapsed in on her, but not matter how many tries she took, her feet were planted to the floor as the flames danced all around, ensnaring her. All she could do at this point was stand and stare while her mind shrieked at her to run. Time moved smoothly until there was an invisible shift and things slowed down-all except for her, until a shrill scream reverberated the room, bringing her attention toward the ceiling.

Kate lifted her gaze above her and at the sight before her was horrifying. Pinned to the wood by an unseen force was a woman with blonde curls strikingly similar to Kate's framing her agonizingly pained face. Her wide open mouth released a horrible, distressing sound. Covering her body was a nightgown that was once purely white, but now was engulfed by the scorching hot, licking flames. A bloodied mess from the stomach then seeped through its material and gradually spread to the abdomen area. The longer she watched it all play out, the scent of burning flesh stealthily encircled up and around her nose. It took all that she could to keep her nausea and stomach contents at bay.

Another scream entered the air but this time it sounded higher pitched and shorter; somewhat muffled as well. Her sight dropped from the horrendous view above to the one standing in front of her. The more she listened, the clearer the the sound became. It sounded almost like a...baby screaming-no, wait. It wasn't just one baby, but two.

"Oh no," the thought passed in her mind. "They need to get out of here, but how? How can they even get out, if I can't? I'm stuck. My feet won't move."

Before she could devise a plan as to how to get everyone to safety from the hazards of the burning room, her eyes shot open and a gasp of inhaling air sounded. Her brain felt fuzzy for a minute as she tried to get her bearings straight and recover from whatever that dream-nightmare-was. Looking at her surroundings, her brows furrowed in confusion as she realized that something wasn't quite right. A curse slipped from her lips as she sat up to gaze further at her whereabouts.

It turned out that she wasn't in her bed. She wasn't even in her apartment. She was in her car, parked in front of someone's house. Excess amounts of mostly old and somewhat new cars scattered the layout of the supposed junkyard. The house in front of her had a calming aura surrounding it. The smells of whiskey, faded leather, mothballs and mustiness of old tomes wafted through vents of the car. Immediately, the combination of everything came together in her mind to form one single name; Bobby.

"Oh my god!" she gasped. Her head began to ache, slowly spreading from one side to the other as thousands of strange, yet somehow felt distantly familiar, memories returned, slotting in place like puzzle pieces side-by-side to the ones she grew up with occupying the same space in her brain. Flashes of scenery and people raced through her mind; three, sometimes four, tall men with varying features ranging from soft, to rugged, and edgy. She could see the changes of landscapes from mountains, desert, to swamps, and cities. Just about every scene that flew by, those men were always there. As time went on, she soon learned their names. John, the father who was in the Marines and had lost his wife to a nursery fire. Dean, the older brother who was the glue of the family, the one who always followed father's orders without question, and was the parent to both his father and his younger brother, Sam. Sam, the empathetic one, the studious one, the one who seemingly always butted heads with their father, asking one too many questions when out on the job. It took her a bit, but she eventually realized that the family was actually hers; her father, her brothers.

Apparently, as she so learned, hunting was their choice of employment, albeit without some sort of usual payment, and it wasn't the kind one would think of when the word hunting came about in a typical conversation. This type of hunting involved the supernatural kind, ranging from ghosts and ghouls, to vampires and vetalas, and everything in between.

"Oh my god," she groaned, rubbing her temples with her fingers in hopes of alleviating the pain. Kate sat there, groaning, for at least a half-hour while sorting through everything that she had seen, trying to get a better understanding of it all.

Another two minutes ticked by as she caught her breath, until she shot up as a sudden thought popped up. "What the hell!?"

Had something…wiped her memory? For nine years? Where was John? Where were her brothers?

Kate scurried out of her car, grabbing her jacket off the passenger seat and wrapping it round her shoulders on the way. She was still wearing nothing but a white tank top and a pair of black leggings as well as fuzzy blue socks.

Did Bobby even live here anymore? Kate spent an awful long time staring at the door and debating whether or not to knock. It wasn't as if they could be mad at her. She'd been…she had no clue what happened, exactly, but it wasn't like she wanted to leave.

Kate had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that something horrible was going to happen.

Something horrible would happen if she stayed there.

She could've left...she could turn around and leave, stop at a 7-11 on the way back, buy Josephine a pack of powder donuts, fill up the tank, and head back to work.

That would've been the smart thing to do.

Kate stood there for another few moments, debating whether or not to knock on the door.

She didn't have to make a decision in the end, though, because the door swung open. An insanely tall man stood there, and Kate stared up at him for a moment, thinking Oh crap, he doesn't live here anymore before realizing: that's Sam.

"Something horrible is about to happen!" she spit out mindlessly, trying to get over the shock of not recognizing her own brother.

"What?"

Maybe she was going crazy. Maybe she was Kate Pines after all.

"How the hell did you get so tall?" Kate added, jumping up and engulfing him in a hug. "I was...something wiped my memory, and-ow! What the fuck?" She yelped in pain as Sam gripped her wrist and shoved her against the wall in the entryway.

"What are you?" he hissed.

Kate stared at him incredulously. What happened to the innocent kid that didn't want violence? Nine years, she reminded herself. You were gone for nine years.

Sam suddenly whipped her around and pinned her to the wall next to the doorframe.

It was probably wrong of her to do so, but Kate took the chance to observe Bobby's house. Nothing had changed, except for the position of smaller objects. Same furniture, same musty smell. If anything, this was what stability smelled like.

Stability. The word brought on a flash flood of memories from Bobby's house, but also a montage of memories of her and Josephine. In college. At graduation. Living together. Movie nights. Normal things.

Everything about her life over the past nine years had been normal. Sane. And yet, compared to a life of hunting monsters, it felt so incredibly odd. Extraordinary used to be her rock. Kate had come to expect nothing less. The stress from hunting, the feeling of her heart pounding as her feet slammed the floors of a haunted house. Everything about the supernatural felt like home.

"Dude, it's me. Kate. I swear to god." She gulped. "Something's…happening. I don't know."

"Hey, Sammy, who're you talking to?" came a muffled voice from inside.

Sam opened his mouth to answer, but he didn't need to, because a second later, Dean appeared.

"What the hell is this?" he growled immediately.

"Jesus Christ, why are you guys so distrustful?" Kate answered, frustrated. "I'm really your sister, I swear to god."

She took a step forward. Her brothers took a step back, ready to defend themselves if the time came.

"I don't know what happened. I don't know where I went and I don't know what happened when I left. But I know something bad is coming."

She stared at them, pleading with her eyes.

"Well, you've got one thing right. Something bad is coming."

"I'm pretty sure that's already happened," Sam answered, tone somehow sarcastic and cryptic at the same time.

"What does that mean?" Kate questioned. "What does that mean?" she repeated as Dean shot Sam an annoyed look and Sam shot him one of concern.

"We don't even know that it's her," Dean grumbled. He reached out for a water bottle resting on one of the tables and opened it up, bringing it closer to his lips…

...and then flinging it at Kate.

The contents of the bottle sprayed her face and she let out a gasp as they hit her face. "I'm not a demon!" Kate growled, pushing strands of wet hair out of her face. "What's next? Wanna put me in a circle of salt and see if I can cross it?"

Dean opened his mouth, prepared to shoot her a witty reply, before closing it and turning to Sam. "It's not a bad idea,"

They discussed in hushed voices for a few moments, before Sam turned and headed into the kitchen. Dean whipped out a gun and kept it trained on her. Kate resisted the urge to rip it out of his hands and throw it out the window. What a frickin dork.

Moments later, Sam returned with a bag of salt in his hand. With the shotgun still pointed at her neck, Kate raised her hands and stood up taller so Sam could spread the salt around her legs. Once the circle was complete, he joined Dean and crossed his arms across his chest. Kate gave him an are-you-serious look before taking a step over the line without a problem.

"Holy crap," Dean remarked. "Holy crap Kate. Where the hell have you been?"

Finally. "I don't know...I don't...someone or something or whatever wiped my memories. I woke up in a dorm room."

"A dorm room?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Kate answered. "Guess who has a PhD in astrophysics?"

Both brothers stared at her, unblinking. "Are you serious?" Dean bellowed finally. He dropped his head the slightest bit, as if trying to make she she wasn't kidding.

"Yeah. Took me forever. Can I have a towel?" She gestured to her soaking tank top and her drenched hair.

Sam stepped away for a moment before returning with a green bundle in hand. Kate snatched it from him and wiped her face, relieved that her brothers were finally trusting her. Still, she was a little pissed off about the water thing.

"What were you saying about horrible things having happened?"

Sam dropped his hands and twisted his face up, as if bracing himself. "Dean, wanna explain what happened?"

Shooting his brother a look, Dean opened his mouth, only to close it shut, before opening it again to give his answer. "Sammy decided to die."

"What?" Kate shouted disbelievingly, rocketing from her seat.

"And then Dean made a soul deal. And we've got no idea how to get him out of it."

No, no, no, no, no. Why would they do this? Goddammit.

Kate gave Dean a look of shock, incredulousness, and anger, before collapsing back onto the chair and rubbing her temples. With her eyes closed, she tried to think. Soul deal, soul deal, soul deal, soul deal. Crap. They had to find...a loophole, or something. Something to save him.

"Goddammit, Dean!"

"You're seriously judging me? You've been gone for almost a decade," argued her older brother.

"My god, that wasn't my fault!" Kate rubbed her temples some more.

She really didn't want to stay. She wanted to go back to Josephine and the plastic life that hadn't been completely fucked up, she wanted to go back to her job, to the astronomical anomalies and hell, even the four in the morning observations. All of that seemed like a better alternative to jumping back into the Impala with a shotgun and a thirst for vengeance.

Which reminded her…

"Where's dad?"

Kate looked up at her brothers, and they stared down pitifully. In that moment, she knew. John was dead.

She didn't cry. It wasn't worth it to sob now. Instead, she whispered quietly, "How?"

"Azazel..the, uh, the demon that killed mom," Sam replied.

"Is it dead?" she inquired, voice low and fierce, almost to the point where she was growling.

"Yeah," Dean answered. "Yeah. We, uh, we killed it."

With a nod, Kate spoke a single word. "Good," then, as much as she didn't want to say it, Kate opened her mouth and declared, "I have to stay," to which Sam and Dean both raised their-now bewildered-gazes from the floor to the blonde. She raised her gaze to meet theirs a quick moment later. "I can't...fuck. I can't leave you like this. I have to stay."

And in a morning, everything changed.

a/n: please leave a review!