Dean came tumbling out of the rift after me, no Cas in sight. "Where...?" I began, but he grabbed my hand. "Keep moving," he ordered, gruffly, worry and grief etched across his face. I knew that look and subsided, following him into the forest.

He left me in the woods while he stole a minimum of gear and directions from some campers. Four days later, we were in Louisiana to free Benny, having hitched all the way there. I helped him dig up the grave.

I watched while he slit his forearm open and there was Benny. I ran into his arms and hugged him tight while he and Dean said their goodbyes. Dean said he wanted to keep his distance for awhile, but I could feel the pain behind his words. He was scared and unsure of the future. He trusted Benny in Purgatory but wasn't sure what he would do back on earth, and he didn't want to face the possibilities. Benny tilted my head up and looked me in the eye. "You stay out of trouble, girlie," he said to me. He kissed the top of my head. I let go reluctantly. "Bye, Benny," I said, softly. I watched him go.

We walked out of there and Dean stole a car. "What now?" I asked him.

"We're headed to the cabin," he said, "to see if we can find any trace of Sam and the Impala, and to find out what happened to Kevin."

"Ok," I said, settling back into the seat for the ride.

"And to get you back into your schoolwork."

I sat up quick. "Schoolwork? What the hell, Dean? Who cares about schoolwork after what we've been through?"

Dean checked the rear view mirror and turned onto the highway. "Again," he said, fighting for patience, "you're not going to lead a hunter's life. You're going to finish high school, finish college, and do something normal, something safe."

I stared out the window. We'll see, I thought. Out loud, I said, "Yeah, because fighting for a year in purgatory prepared me for a 'normal' life."

Dean took a moment from watching the road to catch my eye. "We're not arguing about this," he said. "You're not living this life for any longer than you have to."

"Then why the hell am I still with you?" I demanded angrily, my eyes burning from tears. "Why the hell did you chase me down when I ran away from Bobby's when I was eleven? Why the hell haven't you offloaded me onto someone else now that he's gone? I'm sixteen. I've been with you for five years. I learned to control my abilities after the first year. I'm excellent at it now. There's no more danger to society. You could very easily just let me go; so why don't you just drop me at some welfare office and be done with it? I don't HAVE to live this life now!"

Dean glanced at me with frustration and determination on his face, then he took a longer look before saying with concern in his voice, "Breathe, little girl. Sit back and take a few breaths."

That's when I realized that my skin was starting to glow. I pushed myself back against the seat of the crappy old car Dean had found, closed my eyes, and concentrated on breathing for a few minutes. When I had calmed down, I opened my eyes and went back to breathing normally. I wasn't glowing any longer. I sighed and looked at my feet. "Point taken," I whispered.

"Thank you," he said, but he didn't say anything else, and I knew that he was thinking the same thing I was.

Regardless of what his goals for me were, how the hell was I going to operate in normal society? It was a question that had haunted me since I'd turned eleven and burned down my parents house with them in it, and then had fled to the woods to eventually be found by Sam and Dean. That's a story for another day, but the question still remained. I'd come to think that hunting was the best place for me: weird abilities fighting bad guys. It seemed like the perfect answer, but Sam and Dean both were against me choosing it as my life.

The trouble was that I only ever barely had control over the fire. If I lost my temper, I'd lose tendrils of it, and things would light up. Even when things were calm, when I was calm, I could feel it at my temples and the base of my skull, pulsing to get out. It had taken years to get it under the amount of control that I had over it, and a lot of that control deteriorated in purgatory. Oh, I was much better at directing the flame and controlling the intensity now, but the need to set things on fire, the pulsing, it was so much greater, so much harder to resist. I hoped in the back of my mind that living a more normal life than the one that Dean and I had had in purgatory would help, but we'd only been back four days, and every once in awhile, I'd sneak away from Dean just to light something up, just a little bit, because it just felt so good.

If he caught me doing that, I'd be in so much trouble.

It was a long drive to Whitefish, Montana. Dean switched cars a couple of times, conned some money, stole some credit cards to get us some fresh clothes. We spent one night in a motel so we could clean up, but the rest of the time he spent driving with short breaks for a quick sleep. I was anxious and eager to see Sam. I hoped he was at the cabin, that he hadn't gotten killed after we'd been pulled into purgatory. Dean left message after message on Sam's old numbers, but Sam never called back. Dean was trying not to show it, but he was frantic with worry.

The cabin was empty when we got to it. We'd dumped the car in town and walked the rest of the way to the cabin. Once we got there, I helped Dean circle the cabin and the land around it, looking for any signs, demon, angel, or Sam. There was nothing. No one had been in the cabin for months. Once Dean declared it safe, we went inside. Then, Dean redid a lot of the protections around the cabin, while I watched and learned.

We spent several hours after that cleaning the inside of the cabin. Food had gone bad, windows had been broken by branches and let in nature. Dean did repairs, while I cleaned. In my old room, I found my old laptop and plugged it in, hoping it would charge back up. I also found my schoolbooks. I stashed them in the closet, on the top shelf, as far back as I could put them hoping that out of sight would be out of mind.

When I came out carrying my old phone, Dean was crouched in front of the fireplace, stacking logs with the clear intention of starting a fire. My mouth dried out and my pulse quickened. I dropped my phone without realizing it, caught in the anticipation of fire. Dean looked up at the noise. "No," he said, immediately. He turned back to the fireplace to finish stacking the logs.

"Please, Dean? It's been days," I said. It hadn't been days. Earlier, when he'd been fixing a window pane, I'd lit some sticks and leaves on fire in the front of the cabin, on some rocks so that I wouldn't be caught. I could feel the fire spinning through me, aching to be let out. I didn't remember when it had last been this bad.

Dean turned away from the fireplace and stood up, brushing his hands on the front of his thighs. "Do you see a fire extinguisher here?" he asked me. I nodded to the one on the kitchen wall. "Can you trust a fire extinguisher that hasn't been checked by the fire department recently?" he continued.

"No," I whispered. It was calling to me. I stared at the wood in the fireplace.

Dean cut in front of my gaze and took my chin in his hand. "No, Jessie," he said. "It's not safe." I wanted to cry, but he was right. The more I gave in, the more it would call to me. That much had always been clear. I'd used it all the time in purgatory, though, and I was used to it. It didn't seem fair that I'd had to just go back to the old rules now that we were back. Dean hugged me, and I clung to him as tightly as I could.

"Did you find your schoolbooks?" he asked me. I stiffened.

"No," I said. "They're not here."

He tilted his head a little and tilted my chin up so that I was looking him in the eye. "You wouldn't be lying to me, would you?"

"No," I said. I pulled away from him. "I looked in the bedrooms; they aren't there. Go look yourself."

"No, I trust you," he said. I flinched a little, but he didn't notice. "We'll have to get you some more. Go find something to do while I work on dinner." He turned back to the fireplace.

I didn't move for a minute, staring longingly at the logs. I started to reach just one small tendril out, invisible to everyone, but I could feel it like stretching a limb. Then, Dean's head jerked up and I heard it, too: the Impala. I snatched back the tendril just as Dean turned to me. "Get in your room. Close the door. Wait until I give the ok."

I obeyed immediately, pausing only to grab my phone, listening through the door as Dean went through to checks to make sure Sam wasn't a shifter, a demon, or a leviathan. I listened to their conversation, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I could tell Dean was hurt and mad, and Sam was defensive and upset. I wanted to shake Sam for not looking for us, for abandoning everything. I wanted to shake Dean for not understanding Sam's side; after all, we'd taken a year off and lived with Lisa and Ben when Sam was in hell. We didn't even try to get him out. Of course, we'd known where he was and that there was no way to retrieve him. Even if Sam had known we were in purgatory, would he have been able to get us out? I had no idea, but I didn't want to be in the middle of the conversation, so I stayed in my room, just like Dean had told me to.

Finally, Dean called me out, just before he stormed out of the room. I opened my door slowly, and then ran into Sam's arms. He hugged me tightly and kissed the top of my head. "I missed you, Sam," I said.

"I missed you, too, squirt," he said. "I'm glad you made it back." He let me go. "I'm hungry. Are you?"

I nodded and sat down at the little table while Sam made dinner. Dean slammed back into the room with a box of phones. Both of them were clearly hurt and upset. It was tense just sitting in the room, but I didn't know what to do. I was almost afraid to move, fearful of bringing any attention to myself. Sam finished heating up the can of whatever that he had tossed into a pot and asked Dean if he wanted any dinner. Dean passed and started listening to the voice mails on the phone, while Sam set down a bowl in front of me and we ate.

"No complaints about canned chili, squirt?" Sam asked me lightly.

"This is better than anything we ate in purgatory," I responded. "It's called perspective." I grinned at him, trying to lighten the mood. He smiled a little and then glanced at Dean. "What?" he asked. I tightened up again and glanced over to see Dean's angry, disappointed face. It was the face he wore any time that I was in deep shit for something I had done or neglected to do.

I tried to stay out of everyone's attention while Dean played all of Kevin's phone messages for Sam, Sam getting more and more agitated, my heart sinking. He wrapped up with: "He was our responsibility, and you couldn't pick up the damn phone." Sam caught the phone that Dean had flung at him.

Dean turned around to sit back down on the couch to dig through the phones some more. "Jessie," he said without looking at me, "when you're done eating, go get your laptop and find some more schoolbooks to order."

Sam was digging through his stuff and looked up. "Her schoolbooks are in her room, on her bed."

Dean turned his already aggravated look to me. "You said they weren't."

Fuck. "I... uh..." I stuttered. I had not expected this to turn onto me, and I was unprepared to lie again.

"You said you weren't lying," Dean said, standing back up.

I stood there with my mouth agape, unclear of the safest path.

Dean pointed at my room. "Go to your room, get your schoolbooks, and get back out here. Now!"

I rushed to obey. I brought them out and put them on the table, sitting down to open them up. Dean came over to me, and leaned over me.

"That better be the last time you lie to me, little girl. We've had this discussion before. Do not start up your bad habits again."

I swallowed, knowing I was getting away with it, sort of, and grateful for the reprieve. "Yes, Dean," I whispered, not meeting his eyes. Dean went back to the couch. I looked at Sam.

He set his laptop down on the table, shaking his head. "Figure out where you left off, write it down. We'll work out a lesson plan later."

I opened the Biology book. Sam put his hand over mine and I looked up at him. "Schoolwork is important, squirt. You're going to need to know this stuff when you get to college."

Not wanting to argue with all the tension in the room, I just sighed. "All right," I said.

While Sam worked on his computer and Dean messed around with phones and other equipment on the couch, I spent the next hour poking through the schoolbooks trying to figure out where I'd left off. It was all such a blur that I worried I was going to have to start over, but finally, I started finding things I remembered. You think summer break disrupts learning and memory? Try a year in purgatory.

Finally, Sam broke the silence with the news that he had figured out where to start looking for Kevin. Kevin's girlfriend, Channing, was in Centerville, Michigan, and Sam heard a bus announcement for Centerville on the last recording. Suddenly, everything was a blur as we packed up our stuff and carried it out the Impala to head to Centerville. I dumped my stuff into the backseat and climbed in, wrinkling my nose a little because it didn't smell right.

Once we started moving, I pulled out my phone to play around with it. Sam reached into the back seat and snatched it from my hands. "Finish figuring out where you were, and then you can play on your phone."

"But," I began. He tilted his head at me and I stopped. "Fine," I muttered, shoving my laptop bag to the side angrily to dig out my World History book.

"Lose the attitude," Dean said, looking at me through the rear-view mirror. Yeah, like it's that easy. I sighed and settled in for a long ride.