Hey! So, welcome to my story . It's a sisfic set from the beginning of season one, mostly from Max's point of view, which will mostly follow the season. Dean is 26, Sam and Max are 22. Hope you like it and enjoy reading! :)
I also want to say a huge thank you to my friend Louise, or winchestergirl67 as you may know her, for all of her help with this story and for proof reading it for me!

October 31st, 2005, 09:23AM, Idaho.

"Maxie!" I heard Dean's voice call through the open bathroom door as he moved around the motel room noisily, I assumed that he was gathering up the weeks worth of clothes and mess that he'd just left lying around in there. I didn't bother going to see what he wanted, I simply spat out the toothpaste in my mouth and rolled my eyes at him. I looked ahead at my reflection in the mirror, pushing a lock of blonde hair behind my ear. I didn't see it myself, but Dean and my dad were forever telling me how much I looked like my mom, but I didn't really remember her, I'd only seen pictures. I had light blonde hair, just longer than my shoulders, bright green eyes and tanned skin. "I swear to god," Dean continued, apparently not taking the hint that I was ignoring him. "If you aren't in that car in the next five seconds, I'm leaving your ass here." He threatened. I could hear his voice was light and playful enough that he was obviously kidding, but then again, he usually was.

"Yeah, right." I smirked to myself, leaving the bathroom and closing the zip on my duffel bag before lifting it from the bed and tossing it over my shoulder. "Like you could survive a day without me." I muttered sarcastically, turning around to face him as he walked towards me, an eyebrow raised. "And if you call me Maxie one more time, I'll stab you in the neck." I added brightly, Dean just laughing at me. I hated being called Maxie, he knew that, which was probably the reason he insisted on doing it. In fact, the only thing I hated being called more than Maxie, was Maxine, or Maxine-Marie. That was the one he usually used when he was pissed, which meant it came at the beginning of an argument. Dean gave another small chuckle as he pushed me in the back of the shoulder towards the motel's door, giving the room one last look over before he grabbed his car keys from the side of the table and handed them to me. I squinted through the bright sunlight as I walked out of the room ahead of him, taking Dean's duffel bag from him and heading to the Impala while he walked in the opposite direction towards the motel's reception desk to check us out.

I threw our bags into the trunk of the car before walking around and climbing into the passenger seat, pulling off my jacket and tossing it over my shoulder to the backseat as I did. The weather was fairly warm to say that today was Halloween, the sun was shining and the wind was almost non-existent, not something that I expected to last. I reached out ahead of me and turned on the radio, smiling to myself as one of my favourite Metallica songs began playing, turning up the volume slightly and sitting back in my seat. To say that I hadn't had a normal upbringing would be an understatement, it had always been moving from motel room to motel room, a different town every few weeks, ganking monsters as we went. Sounds awful, but I'd loved it. I always did. I was especially like Dean when it came to that, we both loved the job, we loved driving at the top of the speed limit down empty roads with the music turned up full. We loved saving people, feeling like we were actually making some kind of difference in this world, we even loved living on the heart attack inducing take out food. Despite all of the upset and the pain that the job had brought us throughout the years, all of the rough patches our family had been through, I wouldn't have changed how it ended. My twin brother, Sam, had finally gotten his wish and left the life he'd always hated, our dad had gone off alone keeping himself busy with whatever it was he couldn't tell us about, but Dean and I had been happy. We were finally on our own, we were independent, and we could just hunt, which was all either of us had ever really wanted to do. I looked to my left as Dean climbed into the car beside me, adding more to the volume of the music before putting the Impala straight into gear and taking off out of the motel's parking lot. "Where are we going, anyway?" I asked him, raising my voice slightly so he heard me over the music. It wasn't like Dean to wake up one morning and decide that we had to just up and leave immediately, especially without him saying where we were going.

Dean cleared his throat and glanced over at me briefly. "We're going to get some help." He answered simply, his tone giving away nothing.

"Help?" I repeated, shifting in my seat slightly to face him. "Help from who?" I was confused now, his eyes were solely fixed on the road, like he was avoiding facing me. I reached out and turned the music down to a more suitable level, my voice turning serious. "Is this about Dad?" I pressed slowly. He'd gone off somewhere, claiming that whatever he was doing was too dangerous for us to know about. Then we hadn't heard from him for a few weeks, until yesterday when Dean had received a voicemail from him, and I'd be lying if I said it hadn't creeped the hell out of me. Dean still didn't respond, just remained focused on the road. "Are we talking help from Bobby? Caleb? Who?"

Dean remained still for a couple of seconds, not seeming like he wanted to answer. I could see by his face, he wasn't expecting me to like whatever it was he was about to say. "Actually," He began slowly. "I was thinking a little closer to home."

I frowned, there wasn't really anyone much closer to home, it wasn't like we had a huge family of people to choose from when we needed some kind of help, we usually just stuck together and got through it by ourselves. I opened my mouth to ask who he was talking about, stopping when I got a horrible thought. "Wait, Sam?" I couldn't even believe the word coming from my own mouth, it had been a long while since either of us had mentioned him.

"He's Sam's dad, too, Max." Dean answered simply, he was obviously dead set on doing this. "He should help."

"Dean," I began softly, shaking my head. We both missed Sam, whether we wanted to admit that to the other or not, but we'd never been to see him, we'd never called him, just like he hadn't called us. "Sam's not going to want to help us."

Dean glanced up at me from the road for a second and raised an eyebrow. "And how do you know that?" He pressed, his tone remaining light and casual.

"Because, he left." I answered simply. "And he left for a reason. He doesn't want anything to do with this life, he doesn't want dragging back into it."

Dean sighed. "Well, I guess we'll see when we get there, won't we?" He muttered.

I shook my head at him. "Dean, are you sure about this?" I pressed. "I mean, I'm sure Dad's fine, he's probably just caught up in a hunt or something, you know how he gets." I reasoned, my voice remaining calm.

"I don't know, Max. I just, I can't shake this feeling.. Something's wrong." He shrugged. "I need you to trust me on this." He took his eyes away from the road for a couple of seconds to face me, our eyes meeting for that split second. I knew how worried he was getting about Dad, not that he was going to admit it, he knew he didn't need to.

"Okay." I said quietly, nodding slowly before going back to looking out of the window ahead. Even as kids, I'd always considered myself to be more like Dean than Sam. The two of us shared most of the same attitudes, whether that was towards school or hunting or music, or even crap like food and movies, we were much more alike than Sam and I had ever been. That didn't mean that I didn't love Sam, of course I did, I loved them both in different ways, for different reasons. Sam had always been like my best friend, the one who I'd always talked to when I'd had a problem, especially the awkward ones through my teenage years. Sam had always been the one I'd been closer to growing up. Saying that, whether he was my twin or not, I hadn't seen him in almost four years. I'd barely spoken to him aside from the few phone calls here and there, phone calls that had also rapidly decreased in number as time had gone on, now they were basically non-existent. Of course I lied about it, but I missed him like hell every single day that went by. I missed our childish little arguments, the way we used to wind up Dean or when the three of us would stay up all night watching crappy horror movies together until we'd fall asleep on the couch. I missed us being a family. But I understood why he'd left when he did, why this life could be so hard for someone who didn't want it, and I didn't blame him for that, I'd been happy for him. "Hey, Dean?" I eventually broke the silence between us, looking over at him.

"Yeah?" He responded, his voice soft, in a way it wasn't when he was with most other people. That was another thing Dean and I had in common, around other people we pretended like we were these stong, tough people, like everything was always okay. But when something wasn't okay, we could read each other like a book, there wasn't any point in pretending.

"You think he's okay, right? I mean.." I trailed off, not really knowing what it was I meant.

Dean sighed, there was a faint hint of sadness in it, I could see he didn't know how to answer that one. "I dunno, sis." He said quietly, a small frown on his face. "But hey," He went on, his voice cheering up a little. "You're okay, I'm okay, that's something."

"Right." I mumbled, returning his small smile with a much less confident one. I wasn't expecting this to go well at all, in fact, I was expecting Sam to say no, Dean to get pissed, and the three of us to become even more distant that we already were. But I guess we'd have to see..

Four years ago, Oklahoma.

"Maybe you should go upstairs?" Dean suggested, his voice low enough that only I heard him, as he moved from where he stood behind me to stand next to me. He glanced down at me, a concerned frown on his face. "I can see this getting ugly." He added.

"Nah," I answered simply. I looked from Sam's face to my Dad's, unsure which one of them looked more homicidal, a lethal glare on both of their faces. "I wanna be here." I muttered, looking up at him and giving a small shrug.

Dad shook his head at Sam, seemingly getting more and more angry by the second. "Who the hell do you think you are?!" He thundered. All the years of hunting and I don't think that any of us had ever seen him get so mad.

"No, Dad, who the hell do you think you are?!" Sam countered, now equally as angry, his tone matching Dad's. "What do you honestly think gives you the right to treat us the way you do, to try and control us like you do?!" He yelled in his face, even at eighteen he towered over him. "You pushed me into this life, all I'm doing is leaving it."

Dad didn't seem to be at all phased by him, taking a step forwards, the glare holding on his face. But then, Dad had never been one to step back from a fight. "Yeah," He said coldly. "As well as your family."

Sam scoffed at that comment. "Family?" He repeated slowly. "You're one to talk about family, Dad. Look at what you've done to yours."

Dad blinked, hard, clearly not having been expecting that one. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He pushed, his voice hard.

"You really think that this is what we wanted, huh?" He took another step towards Dad, only inches separating them now. "And what about Max, huh? She's eighteen, Dad, just eighteen. Are you really going to let her do this for the rest of her life? You're seriously going to let her and Dean get themselves killed over this stupid job?!"

I hated when people did that. When they brought you into arguments that were nothing to do with you, but I let it go, I didn't say anything, because, quite frankly, the last place I ever wanted to be was caught in the middle of one of Dad and Sam's arguments. I'd seen Dean get into that position and it had never ended well. There was no talking to them when they were this riled up at each other. "Don't bring your brother and sister into this." Dad argued, clearly becoming more and more annoyed with each statement Sam made.

"And what about Mom?" Sam went on. I closed my eyes and took a breath, this was getting way out of hand, and fast. "You think that this is the life she'd have wanted for us? What do you think she'd say if she could see us now, see how we'd turned out?!"

I felt Dean's arm tighten around me at the mention of Mom, his fingertips now slightly digging into my ribs. "Don't you dare, Sam." Dad warned, his voice lowered. He looked livid.

Sam seemed to realised that he'd crossed a line, but didn't say anything, just shook his head at him. "I'm done with it." He said flatly. "You are not controlling me anymore." He took a step back and just looked at him for a minute, the hard look on his face never faltering.

"You walk out that door, Sam, don't you ever come back." Dad warned, his tone unforgiving. This time, he looked serious, like he wasn't kidding, it wasn't just something he'd said because he was angry, he looked like he meant it.

Sam shrugged, I could see in his face, those words hurt him. But he said nothing back, just reached down and picked up his bags, turning back to face Dad. "I'm out of here." He mumbled, turning and heading towards the door. He paused and looked back to me and Dean, seeming to only just remember that we were there. "If you two had any sense, you'd both do the same." He muttered, looking at us for a brief second before walking out of the motel room and slamming the door closed loudly behind himself, the sound making us all jump a little, and leaving us standing in a tense silence.

I took a short breath, looking from the door to Dad slowly. I loved him, I did, but we all knew that this time he was out of order, he'd gone too far. And I could understand why he'd gotten mad, I wasn't going to make excuses for what Sam had said to him, but I couldn't believe he was going to stand there and let his son leave without making an attempt at stopping him. I pulled myself free of Dean's hold and made a move towards the door after Sam. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" Dad called after me, clearly not impressed. I shot a glare over my shoulder at him, not even having the guts to look at Dean, before I walked out and slammed the door behind myself.

I saw Sam standing on the side of the road, obviously waiting for his cab. I stopped for a second and looked at him sadly, most teenagers in his place would spend their last few minutes at home, their families crying, telling them they loved them and that they were proud, that they'd miss them. I wish Sam could have had that. "Hey, Sam!" I yelled, making him jump. He turned to face me, looking as though he thought I was about to give him the same speech that Dad had, his eyes practically begging for me not to, like he couldn't take hearing the same thing from me. "You just gonna leave without saying goodbye?" I said lightly, ignoring the lump I could feel in my throat, holding back the tears I felt could so easily come out.

Sam looked down at me, a sorrowful look in his eyes. "Max, I'm sorry." He whispered, once I was close enough that I'd hear him. "I didn't think it'd get so.." He paused and looked down. "Out of hand."

I shook my head, looking up at him and giving a small shrug. "I'm not mad, Sammy." I said softly, taking a step towards him and wrapping my arms around him. "I'm really gonna miss you." My voice cracked over the words, tears forming in my eyes as I rested my forehead against his chest, squeezing my eyes closed.

"Yeah," Sam whispered, tightening his arms around me and placing a soft kiss to the top of my head. "I'll miss you, too." I felt so small in his arms, I always did, not like we were twins, like I was a little kid. "Look after yourself, sis."

I nodded slowly and pulled back, looking up at him. I could feel the tears shining in my eyes, threatening to fall, but I didn't care. "You better stay in touch, you hear me?"

"Promise." He said quietly, looking to the side as a cab pulled up beside us. "I gotta go."

"Yeah," I took a step back and pushed up a smile. "Bye, Sammy."

November 1st, 2005, 2:47AM, Palo Alto.

"Max.." I heard someone's voice, they sounded like they were off in the distance somewhere, but I couldn't make out where. "Maxie.." They spoke again, this time a little louder. I felt someone run a hand through the front of my hair gently, pushing it from my face. "Max!" They yelled, all aspects of softness gone.

I jumped at their voice, sitting up quickly and almost banging foreheads with Dean. "What?" I muttered, I didn't even remember falling asleep. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, looking around slowly. It was now dark outside. I sat up properly, Dean's leather jacket falling off me from where he must have draped it over me while I'd been sleeping.

"We're here." He said slowly, looking out of the car ahead at the block of apartments. I didn't even know how Dean knew where Sam lived, I wasn't sure I wanted to know. "What were you dreaming so hard about, anyway?" He pressed curiously, looking over me with a small frown.

I blinked, hard, and shook my head. "What?"

"You were mumbling in your sleep." He commented, his voice remaining calm, but I knew full well what he was getting at. "Another nightmare?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

"It's fine, Dean." I muttered, glancing down at the time, 2:49AM. "And why are we here at this time?" I went on, changing the subject before he had a chance to carry it on. "Shouldn't we have gotten a motel and called back at a more, I don't know, human time?" Dean just rolled his eyes at me and climbed out of the car, not saying anything more. I sighed and followed his lead, heading towards the door but stopping as I realised he wasn't behind me, he was heading in a different direction. "Dude," I called after him. "What are you doing? The door's this way."

"Like you said, it's almost 3AM, everyone's gonna be asleep." He responded simply, a small smirk playing on his face.

"Yeah, which is why we go and knock on the door." Dean just smirked harder. "You know, not break into the place like you're obviously planning on doing." I reasoned, my protest apparently falling on deaf ears as he continued his own way.

"C'mon, Maxie," He turned back and grinned at me. "Where's the fun in knocking on the door?" He laughed.

"Fine," I sighed in defeat, shaking my head as I followed him. "But if he kills us, it's on you." I wasn't ready for this. I thought back to the night that Sam had left, four years ago. The night we'd all promised that we'd always be fine, nothing would change. But it hadn't been fine, it had been far from fine, and things had changed between us. That had been the point that everything had gone downhill with the three of us. We hadn't known it at the time, but the promises of staying in touch and always being there for each other weren't going to last. We were already drifting apart back then, and we hadn't even realised it. Every step that Sam took towards College, and every step that Dean and I were taking towards Dad and hunting, it had been tearing us apart.

"Relax." He muttered, climbing up and coming to a stop outside of a window, easily having it open. He climbed through it and into the dark room, closely followed by me. I stayed put by the window while I watched him walk further inside. We weren't in there for more than a couple of minutes before a figure seemed to come out of nowhere and grabbed Dean by the shoulders, an attack which was easily blocked by him. Dean got a hold of them around the arm and swung them around, shoving them hard in the chest. Whoever they were, they seemed to go still as Dean moved through the strip of light coming through the window, Dean taking full advantage of that and quickly having them on the floor, pinning them there. "Whoa, easy, tiger." Dean said brightly, I could even hear the cocky grin in his voice.

"Dean?" The guy pinned beneath him breathed out, his voice a mixture of both confusion and shock. The voice was Sam's. Dean only laughed, not saying anything else to him. "You scared the crap out of me." Sam added.

"That's 'cause you're out of practice." Dean responded. I saw Sam frown at that before he grabbed Dean, slamming the heel of his foot into Dean's back and pinning him to the floor. "Or not." Dean huffed out, sounding mildly surprised. "Get off me."

Sam rolled off him, pulling Dean up to face him. I looked over him slowly, he looked the same as he had done four years ago, just, bigger. I'd changed so much, I looked so much older, I'd expected that he would have done, too. "What the hell are you doing here?" Sam asked, his voice now impatient.

"Well," Dean shrugged and looked around the room slowly. "We were looking for a beer." He answered lightly, his tone back to his cheery self.

"We?" Sam repeated. I could see by the look on his face, Sam knew Dean was only going to have been talking about me. "Where," He stopped as his eyes fell to me, staring at me for a couple of seconds before saying anything. "Max."

"Hey, Sam." I said simply, no emotion in my voice. He looked at me for a few more seconds before returning his attention to Dean, the frown holding on his face.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He asked him again, clearly not satisfied that he hadn't had an answer.

"Okay," Dean said calmly. "Alright, we've gotta talk."

Sam just raised an eyebrow. "Uh, the phone?" He suggested, a sarcastic tone in his voice.

I scoffed at that comment, both Dean and Sam pausing to look at me for a second. Sam just looked confused, as if he didn't understand what the issue was. That only annoyed me even more, the fact that he acted as though he couldn't remember ignoring dozens of phone calls from us. "If we'd have called, would you have picked up?" Dean retorted.

Before Sam had a chance to answer that, the light flicked on, the three of us turning to the doorway in unison. A pretty blonde girl stood to the side of the room, her fingertips slowly moving away from the light switch. "Sam?" She questioned, a small frown on her face as she looked between the three of us curiously.

"Jess, hey." Sam seemed to be mildly surprised, searching for an answer. "Uh, Dean, Max, this is my girlfriend, Jessica." I offered up an awkward smile, Dean giving an appreciative nod in her direction.

"Wait, your brother and sister?" Jess smiled at us brightly, taking a step further into the room. She was insanely pretty, apparently Sam hadn't done too bad for himself at all.

Sam nodded slowly as Dean took a step closer to her, a grin spreading over his face as he took in her clothes. "I love the smurfs." He commented, his tone playful, as he gestured to her cropped t-shirt. I rolled my eyes at him and smiled to myself, he wasn't even shy about flirting with his brother's girlfriend. "You know, I gotta tell you - you are completely out of my brother's league."

Jess gave a small laugh, looking from him to Sam for a second. "Just let me put something on." She said as she made a move to turn and leave the room, stopping at Dean's voice.

"No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it," He grinned. "Seriously." His voice was casual, a smile on his face as he moved back towards Sam, his eyes never leaving her. "Anyway, we gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business, but, uh, nice meeting you."

Sam looked up at that, not looking at all impressed. "No." He answered flatly, his gaze moving from Dean to me, his expression hard. "No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her." He said, moving to stand beside her and placing an arm around her shoulders.

Dean glanced back over his shoulder at me for an answer, getting nothing more than a small shrug. Like, how the hell was I supposed to know what he should say? Dean turned back to him, his face suggesting that he apparently thought Sam was just being difficult with him for the sake of it. "Uh, Dad hasn't been home in a few days." He stated simply, looking Sam straight in the face for any kind of reaction.

Sam didn't seem to be phased by Dean's statement, his expression remaining stony. "So, he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift," He muttered. "He'll stumble back in sooner or later."

I shook my head at him, he hadn't seen the guy in like four years and he was still butting heads with him. I took a step forwards, looking at him seriously. "Sam, Dad's on a hunting trip." I pressed earnestly. "And he hasn't been home in a few days."

Sam's expression changed completely at that, he looked from me to Dean, whose eyes were still solely fixed on him. "Jess, excuse us." He said slowly, his attention never leaving us, he didn't look at all impressed. "We have to go outside."

I looked over towards Dean who simply shook his head at me, apparently as lost as I was. Dean and I both followed Sam out of the apartment and into the hallway, me dropping behind to the back, I had absolutely no desire to be the one to have this argument with Sam, but Dean looked all too prepared for it. "Whatever this is, Dean, it's not gonna happen." Sam said as we began heading down some stairs.

Dean walked a little faster, getting ahead of Sam, a frown on his face. "Sam-" He began, his tone hard.

"No," Sam cut him off. "I mean, come on, you can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you."

"You're not hearing me, Sammy." Dean countered, glancing back at him for a second. "Dad's missing. We need you to help us find him."

"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst?" Sam pressed. "Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine." Dean stopped at that, finally turning around to face him.

"Not for this long." He answered. He was right, and Sam should have known that. Dad never went off for so long without saying so, without so much as a phone call to tell us that he was alive. "Now, are you gonna come with us, or not?" Dean asked finally.

Sam shook his head. "I'm not."

"Why not?" Dean argued.

"I swore I was done hunting. For good."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Come on, it wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad." He answered, starting down the stairs again, heading for the doors.

Sam huffed a breath and followed him. "Yeah? When I told Dad that I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45." I shook my head, the amount of times in my past that I'd heard that same statement from Sam, I could've had over a hundred different responses to it.

Dean stopped at the doors leading to the front street and turned. "Well, what was he supposed to do?"

"I was nine years old!" Sam scoffed. "He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark."

"Don't be afraid of the dark?" Dean repeated, a note of disbelief in his tone. "Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there."

"Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her." Dean looked away from him for a second, looking out to the street. "But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find."

"We save a lot of people doing it, too." He countered.

Sam paused, shaking his head. "And what about Max?" He seemed to only then remember that I'd been there. So the second he remembered what did he do? Yeah, he used me as an argument, go figure. "What, you think that the way we grew up was healthy for her, for any of us?"

"There is nothing wrong with Max." Dean answered flatly, his voice a little more forceful than it needed to be, if Sam hadn't been so enthralled into this argument right now, I would have been worried about him picking up on the defensive tone of Dean's.

"You think Mom would have wanted this for us?" Dean just rolled his eyes at that, slamming open the door and heading out onto the street. "The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets?" Sam continued. "Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors."

"So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?"

"No." Sam muttered. "Not normal. Safe."

"And that's why you ran away." Dean concluded, nodding his head to himself slowly.

"I was just going to college." Sam said with a shrug, playing the innocent. "It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."

"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it." Sam didn't say anything. Shocker. "We can't do this alone."

I felt like arguing that point myself, the three of us all knew damn well that we could do this without Sam. Instead, I kept my mouth shut, saying nothing as I moved to lean against the edge of the Impala, my arms folded over my chest as I watched them. I didn't want to be involved in the conversation at all. "Yes, you can." Sam answered.

"Yeah, well, we don't want to." I noticed Dean avoided looking at me as he said that, like he didn't want to incite me to comment.

Sam's eyes flickered from Dean's face to mine. I kept my gaze fixed on the damp ground in front of me, knowing Sam wasn't stupid. He knew by that statement Dean meant he didn't want us doing this alone, Sam didn't believe for a second that extended to me. He sighed heavily and looked down for a second, obviously thinking it over. He looked back up at Dean who was staring at him expectantly. "What was he hunting?" He asked quietly.

Dean seemed to perk up at that, a small smile forming on his face as he walked around the car and opened the trunk, followed by the spare compartment beneath, revealing the variation of different weapons and guns in there. He propped it open with a shotgun before he began to rummage through the trunk. "Alright, let's see.. Maxie, where the hell did I put that thing?" He mumbled, seemingly more to himself than to me.

I glanced down at him and raised an eyebrow. "No worries, Dean, it's probably right next to your brain." I began brightly, Dean looking up at me and raising an eyebrow. "Oh, wait, now you'll never find it." Dean simply shook his head at me, a small smirk spreading across his face.

Sam just looked between us, saying nothing for a few seconds. "So, when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?" He asked curiously, looking over Dean's shoulder into the trunk.

"We were working our own gig," He said lightly. "This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans."

Sam raised an eyebrow, seeming surprised. "Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourselves?"

"I'm twenty-six, dude." He said flatly. "And besides, I'm perfectly capable of keeping Max alive, and you know, she's not as useless as she looks." He grinned. I let out a laugh, shaking my head slowly. "Alright, here we go," He said as he pulled some papers from a folder. "So, Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy," He paused and handed one of the papers to Sam. "They found his car, but he'd vanished. Completely MIA."

Sam glanced down at the piece of paper, a printout of an article headlined; 'Centennial Highway Disappearance', and the picture of a young guy beneath it. His eyes skimmed over the article before he looked back to Dean, not looking at all concerned about it. "So, maybe he was kidnapped." He said blankly.

"Yeah, well, here's another one in April," Dean tossed down another sheet of paper for each date he mentioned. "Another one in December, 'oh-four, 'oh-three, 'ninety-eight, 'ninety-two, ten of them over the past twenty years." He reached out and took the paper from Sam before shoving them all back into the folder. "All men, all the same five-mile stretch of road." He stopped and pulled another bag from the trunk. "It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago, we hadn't heard from him since, which was bad enough. Then, I get this voicemail yesterday." He grabbed a tape recorder and pressed play, a staticky message beginning to play, the signal clearly breaking.

"Dean," I still got chills every time I had to listen to this stupid recording. It didn't sound like Dad, he sounded more concerned, more worried, maybe even afraid, not like the strong, confident voice I remembered him to have. "Something big is starting to happen.. I need to try and figure out what's going on.. It may.. Look out for your sister, and be very careful, Dean.. We're all in danger." Dean glanced up at our brother as he stopped the tape, an expectant frown on his face.

"You know there's EVP on that, right?" Sam stated, looking between us slowly.

"Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" He smirked. Sam just shook his head at him, not giving an answer. "Alright, we slowed the message down, ran it through a gold wave, took the hiss out, and this is what we got."

He pressed play again, this time the sound of a woman's voice coming through. "I can never go home." Dean stopped the tape again, looking up at him for a response.

"Never go home." Sam repeated the tape slowly.

Dean dropped the recorder back into the trunk of the Impala, slamming it closed before leaning against the edge beside me. "You know, in almost two years I've never bothered ou, never asked you for a thing."

Sam looked away from us and sighed, shaking his head slowly. "Alright, I'll go." He said quietly. "I'll help you find him." Dean nodded at him. "But I have to get back first thing Monday.. Just wait here."

Dean frowned. "What's first thing Monday?" He called after him.

Sam turned back to us at the question. "I have this," He paused, looking around awkwardly. "I have an interview."

"What, a job interview?" Dean shrugged it off. "Skip it."

"It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate." He said flatly.

"Law school?" Dean repeated, a smirk on his face.

Sam just ignored him. "So, we got a deal or not?" He pressed.

Dean didn't answer him, they stared at each other for a few seconds before Sam took a step back and turned, heading back inside. "I can't believe you're doing this." I muttered, pushing myself up from the Impala and walking around to the passenger door.

Dean frowned, walking around the other side of the car. "Doing what?"

"You know what." Dean just looked at me. "Dragging him back in. Dean, he doesn't want this."

"Look, Maxie, I get that you're still mad at him, but-"

"Dean, that has nothing to do with it." I cut him off. "He got out once, we shouldn't be here to drag him back in."

"Hey, like he said, he's back Monday." He said, his tone becoming light. "It's just a weekend."

"It's never just a weekend, Dean. You know that."

Dean sighed and climbed into the car, choosing not to answer that one. This wasn't fair. I glanced up at the apartments, Sam was probably up there lying to his girlfriend about where he was going, about what had really happened to Dad. He shouldn't have to do that. He'd walked away once, and he was happy, that's where he should be able to stay. I shook my head to myself and climbed into the Impala beside Dean, pulling the door closed behind me with a little more force than was needed. "Before Sam comes out," Dean began slowly, I knew where this was going, and I felt like bolting from the car and refusing to have the conversation at all. "Have you taken your meds today?" He asked me, obviously trying to hide all the aspects of accusation from his voice, and failing miserably, because we both knew the answer already.

"Dean," I went to protest, getting no further before Dean spoke over me again.

"Max." He sighed sadly, his voice giving away the frustration as well as the concern, looking me in the eyes. "Just, please, tell me the truth. Have you taken them?"

"Dean," I sighed and looked away from him. "I don't want to." My voice was small, I felt like a little kid.

"I know you don't want to, Maxie." I glanced up at him, he looked lost, he looked freaked out and he looked hurt. "You scare the hell out of me sometimes, you know that? Just, for me, take them for a couple of weeks, yeah? Please?" He pressed.

I sighed, after a week of this conversation over and over, I was finally done. I just couldn't be bothered to fight him on it anymore. "Sure." I whispered. I could feel the tears building up and I didn't even understand why. "Dean, can you, uh.." I ran a hand over my face and cleared my throat, composing myself. "Please don't tell Sam."

"I won't." He assured. He looked down at me, his expression soft, and placed his hand over one of mine, squeezing it softly before he placed his other arm around my shoulders. "We'll get through this, alright, me and you. We'll take this weekend, and then we'll take Sam home and he'll be safe. Then we'll find Dad and before you know it, it'll be right back to me and you hunting together where the biggest problem we have is who gets the last slice of pizza." He grinned.

I nodded slowly, unable to hold back the small smile that formed on my face. "I still stand by the fact, that was my pizza." I muttered.

Dean let out a laugh and shook his head. "Yeah, in your dreams." He grinned and ruffled my hair, letting go of me just before Sam climbed into the backseat of the car. This was going to be an interesting weekend.

Thank you so much for reading! I really hope you like it so far, please leave a review and let me know what you thought? :)