Her story

His cold inexperienced hands were pulling her black Metallica t-shirt upwards. They stopped when the tips of his fingers met the lacy bra and hovered a little, like he had no idea what to do next. Over Marilyn Manson’s lyrics she scowled him. “Damn it David!” Faith pushed him aside, pulled her t-shirt off, unhooked her bra with one move and lied back on the bed. “Can you just get on with it?”

They were both sixteen and David had never seen a pair of boobs in reality so he was just sitting there, on his elbow, looking confused and blushing. “I….” he mumbled “your parents are downstairs.”

Faith huffed out a breath of air. “Would you like me to go kick them out so you can perform?” she asked cynically while reaching on the floor for her t-shirt. 

“Uh, what are you doing?” David got alarmed when she turned the knob on the door - and jumped of the bed.

“I’m guessing this is not going to happen tonight so I’ll go ask when dinner will be ready. Unless you can’t eat while my parents are downstairs either.” Faith slammed the door behind her making the CD jump in the player and skipping a beat.

She got back two minutes later with two glasses of Coke yelling and cursing, concluding with a “fuck you!” slamming the door shut behind her using her leg.

“And there’s our dinner!” Faith held the gasses up and shook them a little. “Apparently I misbehaved and that’s my punishment.” David turned down the music and took a sip form the ice cold beverage but spat it back. “Is there alcohol in this?”

Faith grinned “While my mother was too busy calling me an ungrateful child I snuck in some rum.”

David was not what anyone would expect of Faith. In fact he was the exact opposite, that’s why her parents didn’t feel the need to check up on them every five minutes. He saw her beyond the make-up, grunge clothes and bad music.

“I really don’t know what kind of statement you’re trying to make with this attitude but let me tell you, it’s not working. You’re one of the smartest people I know and that includes teachers. You’re only sixteen and you’ve already read everything written by people with Russian surnames and you’re on your way of doing the same with American writers. You’re one of the best students at that school and I know for a fact you’re parents aren’t aware of that. You can go anywhere, you can be anything and you choose to be the Goth chick that hates everybody. What’s up with that?”

Faith raised an eyebrow and huffed up an annoyed laugh. “Maybe you need people’s approval, I don’t.” she sat at the desk. “I think it’s time for you to get on home little boy, it’s dark outside and your mommy will be wondering where you are. Plus I have homework.” David crossed his arms and shook his head, smiling bitterly. She had the habit of trashing him like that every once in a while.

“Bull shit!” he spat and Faith’s head jerked up. She never heard him swear. “I’m sorry?” She asked, wide eyed, not knowing what triggered his reaction.

“You don’t have homework. It’s Sunday evening. You’re doing your homework Friday after school and that I know for a fact. But I can … “ he stopped frowning and turning the music even lower to listen. “What the hell is going on down there?”

Faith shook her head. “My mother’s yelling. She does that. It’s like running the marathon, every night she breaks a record for yelling the most. I think one time she yelled for 2 days in a row. That was a riot. Maybe I should gag…” David put a hand over her moth and shushed her.

From downstairs a high pitched scream broke the silence and was closed with a thump.

“I’ll go check it out.” David rotated the knob and opened the door sticking his head out. In the next second he disappeared completely leaving the door to slowly open and squeaking. Faith’s heart stopped and her breath was caught in her throat. A surprising amount of time passed until the door opened enough to shed some light in the hall way and reveal the horrifying scene that was happening out there.

A man was holding David by his head and shoulder, while sinking a monstrous pair of teeth in his neck. The man raised his eyes and saw Faith, sitting in her chair, eyes wide in horror and jaw clenched. The man let David go and rose to his feet, stepping over his victim and into the room. Faith moved, just an inch and the man moved with her at almost the exactly time. The only weapon she had, near and easy to handle was the desk chair where she was sitting. She spun around and pushed it hard towards the strange man. He stepped to the side and let the chair hit the door behind him. Faith looked around for just a moment and made a decision. She jumped on the window frame and let go.

The fall from the second story window was rapid and painful. She hit the ground face first and broke her jaw. After trying to move Faith decided she had a broken leg, arm and more than one rib. She was almost certain that her spine was intact since she was able to move her good leg. She extended her arm, grabbed a fist full of grass and dragged herself forward.

“Mommy!” One tinny voice rang from inside the house and Faith remembered Alec. Her little brother was most definitely in his room, playing with the fire truck. “Faith help!” he cried one more time and silence covered the neighborhood.

“Alec?!”

A couple of minutes later three noisy people got out of the house, into a car and drove off, singing and laughing like three friends walking out of a bar after a night of drinking.

Faith prayed to lose her conscience or to die, anything to stop the pain but nothing of that happened. Instead she just lied there, all thru the cold night; the image of David’s ripped out neck playing over and over again in hear head, accompanied by her brother’s voice.

The sun came up, finally and Faith realized nothing had changed. Nothing that happened last night altered the world in any way. The Earth did not stand still, the sun was still on the sky, people were getting into their cars and driving to work, her classmates were waking up, just as they do every Monday morning and going to school.

Nothing that happened last night changed the world but it changed her world. She’s an orphan now. The last thing her mother said to her was that she was an ungrateful child; the last thing her father said to her was “that’s not nice”. David’s last words were “I’ll check it out.” But what’s truly going to haunt her for the rest of her life is the small voice of her brother, asking for help. She started playing scenarios in her head, ways that she could pass the strange man that was sucking David’s blood and getting to Alec. Every time she changed something in the scenario and she would be able to get to her brother and somehow sneak him out. Every imaginary success in that matter was like a punch in the face.

“Faith?” Did someone just say her name? A pair of sleepers and a blue robe that wasn’t covering half the things that it should be covering were approaching fast.”Faith, are you ok?” the man in the robe grabbed her broken arm and Faith yelped in pain.

“Oh my God! Daisy, call 911!” the slippers yelled.

“Daisy” Faith thought. “Who the hell is Daisy?” She thought about that for a while longer and upon realizing that Daisy is her neighbor, and the man in the slippers had to be Martin, her husband, she slipped into unconsciousness knowing that help was on the way.

Three days later she woke up in a harmony of whispers in a hospital room. Martin and Daisy were there, the nice old couple that found her, a woman dressed in a much too tight skirt for her curves, a cheap blazer and a clipboard was most likely a social worker. There was also another man there, with dark brown hair, beard and a brown leather jacket. He didn’t seem to belong there. He wasn’t a cop, not with that beard and jacket.

“She’s awake!” Daisy said and approached. The social worker stepped forward but was stopped by Martin who grabbed her arm and shook his head. “Don’t even think about it.” He whispered.

“Oh honey.” Daisy stroke Faith’s hair and looked at her with such pity that made Faith feel pity for herself as well.

“Miss Greene.” The bearded man said, sticking his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket and pulling out a badge. “I am lieutenant Roger Waters, with the police department; I have few questions for you.”

“He’s definitely not a cop.” Faith thought but was curious to hear what he had to say. So she nodded and the other characters left the stage in an orderly fashion.

Faith tried to stand up and the man rearranged her pillows and pushed the button on the bed to make it rise.

“Are you here to finish the job?” Faith said, noting but curiosity reading in her eyes.

“Maam, I told you I’m with the police department. I want you to tell me…” But Faith didn’t let him finish

“Listen mister Waters” she air quoted ‘mister Waters’ with one hand, “I know my music, I also know that Roger Waters is the guitarist from Pink Floyd. So who are you really, and what do you want?”

The man laughed, he sucked in a lungful of air and said “My name is John Winchester and you wouldn’t believe me if I told you why I’m here.”

“It’s because of the vampires that killed my family” Faith said quietly and confident and John was taken by surprise. Not even once in his whole career did he find a victim to be so certain of what she saw.

“Why do you think they’re vampires?” he asked in a soft voice.

“Teeth. Not the movie kind, full set, over the normal ones, sharp. One of them sucked my boyfriend dry. They were moving fast. Unless that was a really vivid nightmare, I’ll say those were vampires.”

John huffed up a laugh and sat on the chair by the bed. “Did they say anything to you? Something that can help me track them?” He asked in a low voice, like he didn’t want to wake her up. Faith shook her head.

“I have the strange feeling they’re already gone. I don’t think they would stick around after this massacre.” She said, thoughtful and sincere, like she was analyzing the evidence from a whole different case, a case that was not related to her, specifically.

John nodded and cursed under his breath “Damn it!”

Faith turned to look at him and apologized like she was to blame that the bastards didn’t stay long enough in town so they could be hunted down and killed. “Sorry.”

John growled “Arghhh…I’ve been tracking these sons of bitches for three months. They’re always a step ahead of me.”

Tracking. The word stuck in Faith’s head like a clue, something to piece together, something that could help her figure out why the man was looking for a bunch of vampires.

“Tracking.” She replied out loud. “You’re hunting them, aren’t you?”

John twitched and rose to his feet. “Sorry for bothering you, miss.” He says, while walking towards the door clearly not wanting to elaborate his involvement in this whole bloody mess.

“Don’t you dare!” Faith scowled, trying to get off the bed. “Don’t you dare leave me high and dry you stupid ass. I want to know what you know! And if anyone’s gonna kill those sons of bitches, is gonna be me.”

John sighed and walked out anyway.

The room got filled with people again, a doctor and a nurse walked in first, checking the machines around Faith and poking at her like she was on display, the social worker followed, asking her all sorts of questions that she was answering automatically, lie after lie.

“An aunt in Florida. My grandmother’s sister.” She invented after the social worker asked if she had any family left. Martin and Daisy Miller were standing in the far corner of the room. Martin was ready to jump at the social worker’s neck if she tried anything. The couple was old and never had any kids. They knew Faith since she was the size of a puppy and loved her immediately. Daisy was baking cookies every week and sneaking them to Faith thru her bedroom window whenever she was grounded. “To make jail time seem shorter.” She used to say.  At one point Faith had “designed” a rope, with a hook at its end so Daisy won’t have to stain too hard by throwing the bag all the way to the second story of the house.

Faith’s mother knew all about it, but never intervened. Faith never knew the love a grandmother could give so she let it slide. Her own mother died soon after Faith was born and her father soon after that, Faith’s father never knew his parents, he was raised in an orphanage until his 18’th birthday then kicked out. He was 5 when he was brought in, after his parents died in a horrible car crash and at that age, he was far too old to be adopted so he sat back, looking at families coming in and leaving with babies in their arms, families that were never as much as look at him twice.

No, that’s not going to be Faith. She’s not going to spend her next two years in an orphanage, hating babies and hating herself for not being small and cute and cuddly anymore. So she lies.

***

Six months, a titanium bolt in her jaw, and three casts removed later.  – San Antonio University library

She opens a Google page and looks at the screen, hand hovering over the key board. “Probably that’s not even his real name.” But types in the search bar anyway.

“John Winchester” like Google can help her …

She went to every sleazy motel around her birth town, finally finding the one where John…or Roger had stayed in when he came by the hospital to ask her about the vampires. She stole the clerk’s guestbook, wrote down Roger’s credit card number which lead her here. San Antonio Texas. Faith hated Texas, she’s never been to Texas before but she wasn’t harboring a secret desire to do so either.

She was in the library, searching for John Winchester on the internet because she thought maybe he was part of a secret society that was hunting monsters and maybe, just maybe, the internet would give her a hint about them. But the almighty Google is not that almighty after all. The only John Winchester she’d found was a podiatrist and mainly websites about weaponry.

She was just trying to burn out a little time since Roger….or John wasn’t in his room when she arrived at the motel, though he was checked in. She leaves, letting the webpage opened on what she was searching. “I should find a way to get into that freaking room.” She thought while strolling down the library’s stairs.

She used her dad’s credit card to open the lock and the door moved with a painful cry after the second try.

“Either this door is too easy to open, or I’m turning into a decent criminal.” She though as she walked in and placed her backpack on the bed. She looked around, there were two weapons in a dark corner of the room. “Visitors not allowed, ha?” she smiled.

Faith took the remote control of the nightstand and flicked the TV on, sat on the bed, next to her backpack and surfed thru ten, or so, channels before turning it off. She never liked TV anyway. She started rummaging thru the news papers that were spread across the bed. A headline was shouting “HORRIBLE MURDER IN SAN ANTONIO. Guy sliced and diced by wife.”

“You asked her for a sandwich, didn’t you, you crazy fuck?” but before Faith could laugh at her own joke, the door handle was being pushed down and a mountain of a man stood in front of the door, blocking any king of light that might push past him. Faith froze. She wanted to find him but never thought of what she’ll say when she did.

John squint his eyes and moved his hand at the back of his jeans. “Who are you?” he growled, taking off the safety of his gun, pulling it out and dropping it by his side. When John grabbed the gun with both hands and pointed it at her face, Faith panicked, she threw her hands in the air, palms pointing forward, closed her eyes and turned her face way. She looked like she drank lemon juice. “Don’t shoot, please, oh my God, don’t shoot!”  Faith begged. “I’m Faith, I’m …” Oh my God, this man was pointing a gun at her and she had to be cool enough to explain herself. “I’m the girl in Phoenix … with the vampires.”

John instantly lowered his gun and holstered it.

“What the hell … why… How did you find me?” He asked, finally deciding on the most important question.

“Credit card.” The girl answered lowering her hands next to her face and opening one eye to see if the gun was still there, but John relaxed, he was closing the door and turning on the lights. He moved to the chair in the far corner of the room and pulled of his jacket. Faith was following him with the one open eye and the hands still in the air.

“What….?” John started asking but stopped. “Put your goddamn hands down, will ya’! I’m not gonna shoot you.” Faith did as instructed but didn’t move from that spot.

John was pinning a piece of paper on the wall when he resumed his question. “What the hell do you want, kid?”

“Did you catch them?” She asked, no hesitation, no emotion, no more fear.

John scratched the back of his head and sighed. “No.” he breathed, disappointed.

Faith nodded once, understanding and determination flashing in her big blue eyes that were staring right into John’s. “Then, I want you to teach me how to catch them.”

John clenched his jaw. She had the same look on her face that John had after Marry died. Full of hatred and need for revenge.

“Get out.” He roared.

“What?” Faith asked, confused, feeling her last glimmer of hope draining out.

“Get out.” John yelled now and he remembered her of the Beast, from Beauty and the Beast, the scene where Belle almost touches the rose and Adam throws her out of the castle. “Out, out get the fuck out!”

John was using vulgar words and pushing her out the door, maybe he’ll somehow manage to scare her away, to convince her that he’s a violent man who shouldn’t be trusted, to make her understand he’s no teacher, nor his a wise man that should be looked up to.

“You stupid child.” The man spat, before slamming the door shut in Faith’s face.

“Damn it!” she hissed and hit a rock that was harmlessly lying on the pavement and hitting a car in the process.

She looked closely at the car. It was a black Chevrolet from the 1960’s, late 1960’s judging by its shape. It was a 1967 Chevrolet Impala. It looked better that it looked when it got off the rails. It was…SHE was shiny and well kept. The owner must’ve loved her a lot.

Faith pats the hot metal on the hood and traces a hand all the way to the back then comes back again, grabbing the door handle and lowering herself to examine the spot where the rock has hit the door. A small round dent was making this exquisite beauty, a little less perfect. She touches the dent like she’d hurt a living thing and wanted to stop the bleeding.

Faith was feeling so guilty she sat down and eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” But she wasn’t talking about the car anymore.

She held back those tears for six agonizing months and now everything was rushing to the surface. All because she’s dented a car.

She was keeping one hand on the small imperfection, the other hand over her mouth, trying to stop the sobbing.

“The fuck are you doing to my car?” John bolted out of the room and smacked Faith’s hand away. He tried to find what was wrong with that particular spot, but couldn’t. “What’d you do?” he grabbed Faith by the lapelle of her jacked and dragged her to her feet. “What’d you do?” the man shook her, and Faith whimpered some more.

“I …hit…rock…rock….hit…. car….I…so sorry.” Thru sobs and pouring tears she told her story and John’s anger melted away.

“You hit my car with a rock?” he asked, trying to confirm the story he’s just heard and Faith nodded franticly.

“Jesus, kid, is no big deal, you can barely see it. Tell me that’s not why you’re crying so hard.” The man let go of her jacket and pulled her into a bear hug. “Weeping women make me uncomfortable, could you cut that out, please.” He pleaded, somewhere over her head, but the only thing that managed, was to make her cry even harder.

Faith clenched her fists into the unknown man’s t-shirt and buried her face in his chest and cried.

John understood at one point that the regret she felt for denting the car door was just a catalyst for everything else.

“C’mon” he guided her inside the motel room. Faith stood her ground, reluctant at first. “I swear… Hey, look at me… I swear I’m only gonna give you a glass of water and let you clean yourself up. That’s it.”

John had a fatherly smile on his face and his right hand pressed against his heart. She trusted him. She didn’t know how, but she trusted him.

After she gulped in a glass full of water, trying, perhaps, to refill her tear ducts, she finally spoke.

“You’re a parent.” The girl said matter of facktly. It wasn’t a question, or a statement, just a conclusion. John’s head jerked up and she could read sadness in his eyes. “You’re a single parent.” She concluded again.

John huffed. “Are you always a smart ass?”

“Yes” she replied instantly, without any hesitation. “Hundred and eighty two IQ. I’m Einstein smart ass.”

John laughed so hard his head tilted backwards and he looked like he’s going to slap his knee. But he didn’t. With the brightest smile he answered “Two boys. One is your age, in fact, he’s 17. The other one’s 12. Smartest son of a bitch I’ve ever met. He must take that from his mother.”

Faith smiled and sipped one more time from her plastic cup, before putting it down on the table next to the TV.

She put her hands between her knees and looked around the room. Her eyes settled on the news paper clipping on the wall.

“What are you hunting?” she asked in the smallest voice she could possibly muster, trying not to wake the Beast.

John clenched his jaw looking annoyed and frustrated when he realized, no matter how far he’ll push this little girl she won’t stop until she’d get her revenge and possibly getting herself killed in the process. 

He slapped his knees before getting up. “At first I thought it’s demon possession, now I’m convinced it’s a shape shifter.”

Faith looked ….serine, she wasn’t thrown by the unusual words like ‘demon’ and ‘shape shifter’, she didn’t ask the question “are they real too?”

“Shape shifter – one that changes form at will, mythical creature that can assume different forms.”

John felt the need to smack his forehead. She was smart, he had to give her that much, she sounded like a goddamn Webster’s dictionary but knowing what it is and knowing about it, how it moves, how it hunts, how violent and implicitly deadly it can be, is two separate things.

“Yeah, ok Rain Man.” He huffed, sarcastically while rummaging thru his duffle bag and pulling out a notebook. It was torn and ruffled; pages were ripped up and scotch taped back together, some of them were added from some other notebook, not matching the rest of them. It was leather-bound and it was beautiful. It reminded her of the one she had, back home, the one where she was scribbling quotes from books and movies furiously for hours at the time because she just couldn’t decide which one is the best quote. She’d sometime copy three, four pages from the book she’d read because it was that beautiful, because those pages spoke to her the most, because those pages made her feel like mediocrity is not an option.

John handed her the notebook. He had an amazing handwriting, the kind you can only get from a fountain pen or a goose feather. “SHAPE SHIFTER” it said at the top in big shiny letters.

“Can change into any human form it wants. When it shapes, it shades, leaving a gooey pile of skin behind that disintegrates with time. Abilities: fast, strong. Facts: you can recognize it in a video camera, its eyes glaring white. Can be killed with a silver bullet to heart.”

“What happens to the people it morphs into?” Faith asks, throwing John off for a moment because of how together she was, how rapidly her mind worked.

“I…have no idea.” John sincerely answered and went back to his duffle scratching his forehead.

Another surprising string of questions followed. “How did the husband believed that is his wife? Wouldn’t it be some kind of gap in her story that would’ve made him question her identity? Cause this monster, or whatever, seem to me like the toying with you before it kills you type of monster so it must’ve lived around the house for at least a couple of days. Where did it stash the wife’s body? If she’s even dead, how are you certain of that? Where does it live and….”

John’s head was spinning from all the gaps HE had in his information.”Ok, ok, alright, I got it, I don’t know squat about shit and you’re a brainiac.”  He snapped, flapping his hand in the air. “Marry mother of Christ.” He mumbled before he dug a cell phone out of his bag, placing it to his ear and growing more and more impatient as no one was picking up at the other end of the line.

“Sam! Where the hell were you?” He growled once his dialogue buddy finally picked up the phone. “Listen son, I don’t have time to wait around until you’re goddamn good and ready to answer the phone. I want information and I want it now so you’re going to get your gear up, march down to the library and tell me everything you find out about shape shifters. Where they squat, what are they doing to the people they transform in and some other two hundred things that I didn’t mention and when I say now, I mean now! People are dying, boy.”

He most certainly didn’t tip toed around the bush. 

John sent her away after that day but she kept popping up in his motel rooms, on his hunts, stumbling in hunted houses with no weapon what so ever and John found himself in the position of saving her live more than once. He finally agreed to help her, after three months of doing this dance and three more months after that, they found the nest of vampires that slaughtered her family. This whole time Faith was training, no matter if john was around or not and when she’d find a moment of peace and quiet she’d read about monsters and ghosts and demons. She’d learn ancient Greek, Sumerian and Romanian. She was already well schooled in Latin from the time she was going to high school, French and German being also her strong points. Now high school seemed like a lifetime ago.

Faith was at the coffee table studying a copy of an old Egyptian parchment that was like a 101 manual about vampires. She’d already learned how to hide, already accustomed to lucking in the dark, in the creepiest motels America had to offer, passing by everyone she encountered on the street and leaving no memory of that behind.

The one thing John knew for sure about vampires was that once they caught your scent is like you have a bull’s eye painted on your back for the rest of your life so Faith was taught how to hide, how to pass as invisible.

The cell phone to her right started vibrating impatient and before it could ring for the first time she answered it.

“I found them.” John’s voice was quiet and small, like the smallest whisper could bring down a whole building. Without any thought Faith was grabbing her backpack, which was always, already packed and ready to go and jumped into her car. The car was a 1981 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am, flaming bird on the hood and everything. Her father found it in 1992 in a junk yard and fixed it up.

Faith was only thirteen at the time but spent as much time under that black beauty’s hood as her dad did. She learned all the ropes round and inside that car and hoped one day, her father would give it to her. That was not the case. Because she went AWOL after being released from the hospital the state took it to an impound and closed all access to any kind of money her parents left her until the day she’s turn eighteen. John stole the car from impound though, after Faith begged and cried and stomped her feet, because she found out it’s working for her and because John, as the father of two boys, had no idea how to react when a child cries and begs and stops its feet.

In 20 hours Faith was in Chinook, Montana, a cowboys and Indians village thru and thru. Bear’s Paw Motel was actually comfortably. It had a kitchen, a pretty good working condition TV set and one big, cherry wood, country side like bed though the wood on the walls could make you feel like you were sleeping in a pilgrim’s wagon.

“Have any plans for tonight big man?” Faith huffs, punching John in the arm and looking with an insinuating grin at the bed.

John looked in the direction her eyes flared and stumbled over his words. “NO!” he answered a little too fast and a little too loud. “I..never….I didn’t even…”

Faith threw her backpack on the bed and sat down.

“Take a breath old man, I was just joking. Don’t have a coronary on my now, not before the big fight.”

“Funny.” John grumbled nervously and moved to the table to get the map that was lying there, lifeless, like an old piece of cloth. “Kids.”

John took the map that had a great red X in one corner, marking an abandoned ranch at the end of town. He put the map on the bed, next to Faith and for a moment ponders whether or not to sit next to it as well but it seemed inappropriate, especially after Faith’s great and also disturbing joke. So he crouches down in front of the map. Faith giggles, and the giggle turns into a laugh.

“Could you act like a grown up for just one second?” John scowls and Faith stops dead. The man nods like that was more like it, like he approved that all-work-and-no-play face Faith had displayed. 

John slammed a finger right in the center of the X. “They’re there.” He says, a little hesitant. Than opens his mouth to say something else but closes it back up again. But decides to continue anyway, heartbreak be damned, they WERE talking about her life here.

“I’m afraid you drove all the way here for nothing, I’m not taking you with.”

Faith jumped to her feet, rage in her eyes. She was ready to do anything, cry, yell, kick John, even tie him to the headboard if she had to. That’s what she had trained for, for six months and was waiting for a year now.

“You need backup.” She tried to reason, but John wouldn’t listen.

“I brought my son, Dean. He’ll be my backup.”

“Bull shit!” Faith spat and took John by surprise. “You’re not taking this away from me! This is MY kill, you pain in the ass, old coot…”

“I don’t think so buttercup.” Faith had more insults, more screaming to do but the tallest, cutest guy, with most beautiful eyes and broadest shoulders walked in and interrupted her. She already hated him, besides the fact she was completely mesmerized by him and all she wanted was to smell his leather jacket and run her finger thru his marvelous set of hair.

“Faith, this is Dean, my son.” John said grabbing Dean by the shoulder and shaking him a little, pride reading in his voice.

Faith wanted to melt right then and there, she wanted to giggle like a school girl and laugh at every sarcastic and inconsiderate joke he’d make and touch his arm, run a hand thru her hair to let him see her eyes and maybe finally accomplish what she wasn’t able to do with David.

“Fuck off.” She barked instead and pushed past him, bumping her shoulder into his while bolting out of the room. “I’ll just go by myself then.” And she walked out.

“Damn it, Dean!” his father hissed and ran after Faith but only to see her screeching away in her car.

“Grab the guns, let’s go!”  John ordered and Dean obliged, almost robotically. 

The farm was big. Well, at least the propriety was big because they had to drive at least 3 more minutes after passing thru the gate. John wasn’t really thinking straight. He knew better than to drive to their front door, giving that a vampire had the sharpest hearing of all the monsters he encountered. Faith’s car was parked between two bushes and John stopped right behind it. The only building that was still standing on that farm was a creaking barn, red paint peeling off in chunks, the most disturbing smell of death and horse crap was surrounding it and quiet, way too quiet. 

John pinned his machete on his belt, loaded a sawed off with rock salt then stuffed as many rounds as he could in his pocket and started walking to the door when he felt Dean’s hand on his shoulder. “I know you want to get her out, but killing yourself is not the way, c’mon dad, think.”

Dean never talked to his father like that, like John was the rookie but someone had to say it and Dean was the only one around.

“Psst!” Someone said and both their heads turned towards the way the sound was coming from.

It was Faith, crouching behind a tree, waiting. She waved a hand in the air, signaling them to come over.

John was furious. “I thought you were dead…I …” Faith placed a hand over his mouth and the other hand on the back of his head to keep him in place, and quiet.

Dean smirked. He’d never have the liberty and courage to do that to his father. “Shut up old man, you’re gonna get us all killed.” Faith whispered almost not making any noise at all, but mostly shaping the word with her mouth.

John mumbled something underneath Faith’s hand and pointed at his mouth. The girl freed him.

“Are you fucking insane? Coming here with no guns, no plan, no backup?” The two were communicating more thru sign language, John waving his hand around, pointing at his head for the word ‘Insane’ and at the barn for ‘Here’.

“Do you want me to gag you again?” Faith asked, playfully and extracted another smile full of admiration form Dean. “I had a plan, idiot. Faked my being mad and taking off than waiting for you two muttonheads to swoop in and save me. Now that we’re all here, let’s get to work, shall we?”

Dean was watching this conversation, mesmerized, Faith was talking to his father like he was her oldest of friends and the weird thing is that John didn’t seem to mind. He saw his father slamming doors and cursing people for less that this and yet now, the only way he responded was to flick her ear and shake his head. Dean was feeling almost jealous at this helpless little girl in front of him.

Jealous at her relationship with HIS father, when his father would smack him ten ways till Sunday if he’d ever speak to him like that and jealous at her courage, to face the monsters that killed her family with a poor constructed plan and a smile on her face.

John had been wrong about her. Of course this was revenge for what happened to her family but she didn’t hate the vampires anymore, she accepted that what happened happened and nothing she’ll ever do, will bring them back. He wondered if he’ll ever be able to let go like that, to stop hating, to stop ruining his kid’s lives by chasing a mirage.

“Oky doky.” Faith said, rubbing her hands together. “While you two were pushing that rust bucket over here, I thought of a plan to smoke them out.”  When the name calling of the Impala started, Dean gave Faith a piercing, ice cold look and waited for the IED to explode but the blow never came, instead John just huffed.

“And the plan is to literally, smoke them out. We put fire at every exit and let them run out thru the one we leave intact, then chop their heads off, one by one.” She declared proudly then took a step back when she didn’t receive any feedback right away “…is that possible?”

John looked at her funny, almost laughing, but not quite. “Why didn’t I ever think of that?”

Faith laughed, throwing back her head and opening her mouth but not making any sound. “Because you’re old, old man!” and then the mocking and the laughing stopped. She put a hand behind John’s head and planted the smallest, sweetest kiss oh his cheek that either of them ever seen and almost made John blush.

“Sweet kid.” John thought. “Crazy, but sweet.”

“Oki doki buckaroos, here’s how it’s gonna go down. You …” she pointed at John “…, I’m guessing, know how to hack monsters so you’ll stay in front of the door and I’ll take young Steve McQueen over here and light this candle, and then we’ll meet you up front.”

“Simple enough.” John agreed and Dean was trying so hard not to protest, not because he didn’t agree with Faith’s plan, but because, oh the hell with it, the girl had no idea what hunting meant. She grabbed the torch and a machete with a smile on her face, gave John another glance and pushed Dean towards the left side of the building. She was acting like she was the bosses kid and this attitude will get them all killed. 

“Light it up sunshine.” Faith smirks at Dean and he does as instructed contempt on his face. Taking orders from a child wasn’t really his cup of tea but if his dad was ok with this he just had to play along.

Faith circles half the barn with her torch leaving the other half to her – now, most certainly - crush , placing fires at every crack in the wall, big enough for someone to sneak through and jogs back to the front entrance, machete in her hand.

When she arrives, Dean was already there, a headless corpse next to him and thick, red, blood dripping wet from his blade. He smirks at her with superiority, forgetting to keep his eyes on the door.

A vampire leaps out of the barn, past John, who was fighting off another one, catches Dean by the throat and slams him into the ground, biting the air next to his face, and punishing hard on his neck with both hands.

John was still trying to liberate the arm holding the machete from the monster’s grip. Faith raises the blade and plunges at the vampire who was, no doubt, thirsty for Dean’s blood.

Two more come out of the door, almost panicked because their clothes were on fire and go for Faith’s neck. John puts his boot in the dead man’s stomach and pushes him away slashing his throat and making a wet, horrifying noise in the process. He trips one of the flaming vampires and does the same, decapitating him, on the ground and head rolling a few feet away.

Faith waited for the vampire that was coming for her, waited for him to be close enough that she could look into his eyes, to see the horror on his face when he smelled her up close and realized that the scared little girl who chose to jump out of a window and break every bone in her body, rather than stay and fight to keep what was left of her family alive, the scared little girl was no longer little or scared anymore and then “slush”.  The vampire stopped dead, head still in place, big dead eyes staring at her, in a second his body went limp, crumpling to his knees and his head finally fell backwards and rolled away.

John was trapped, fighting off a couple more vampires and Dean was still pinned under the one that was trying to eat his face, pushing at his chest with useless hands and kicking it in the shins without any results. Faith snapped back to reality, thinking that this was after all going to be a triumph wasn’t something to ponder over right now. She gained momentum, ran towards the monster biting the air next to Dean’s face, like a rabid dog and kicked it hard in the family jewels, like she’d kick a soccer ball, sending the vampire onto one side cupping at his crotch. Dean rose to his feet, fast, kicked the monster in its face with his surprisingly large and somewhat fashionably biker boot, than “hack.” The dead man’s hands slowly relaxed and fell from where he was trying to keep his balls in place after Faith’s kick. Not being able to get it up after all this stopped being his number one problem giving that he, literary, lost his head.

Faith turns and grabs a monster that was all over John, by the back of this jacket and pulls so hard the man’s feet actually get off the ground for a moment. She throws him back and Dean finishes the job.

When she turned to see if John needed any more help all she saw was a kneeled corpse slowly melting on the green grass, staining it with infected blood.

A moment of dead silence filled the air while the three hunters were scanning the inside of the barn, as much as they could see from the door, but nobody was plunging out anymore. They were finished. Not to mention that even if someone was hiding somewhere in there he, or she, would’ve been ashes by now, seeing that the whole barn was on fire and getting ready to collapse onto itself.

A feeling of relief passed thru Faith and she relaxed her shoulders being under the impression that she’d done that for the first time in a whole year. The tension and the back of her head drained away and tears filled her eyes. She was ready to drop down on the ground and cry for a week.

John saw the changes on her face, from relief and happiness, to sadness when she realized this didn’t made it all better and despair because she was all alone in the world, with no one to look after her and her purpose in life lying on the ground, filling muddy holes with dark red blood. He moved to her side and wrapped one huge bear paw around her shoulder, whispering: “It’s not over yet kid, we have to put these dead sons of bitches back in the barn, hope they’ll burn with it and the evidence of our passing though along with them.”

She sniffed, nodded and ran a bloodied, shaking hand over her cheeks. “You did good.” John reassured her, patting her shoulder.

“Hey.” Dean intervened, drawing her attention. “Thanks for …” clears his throat “…you know” says, nodding at the spot where he was pinned up for more than one minute.

“Don’t strain yourself.” She muttered and broke free from the man’s hug and bent over to grab a heavy corpse by his jacket when something caught her eye.

Grabbing the doorframe inside the barn, there was a small boy, cheeks stained with ashes, messy hair and torn up green t-shirt.

Faith freezes, John and Dean tens next to her and get their machete ready.

“Alec?” She gasps in shock. The police couldn’t find her little brother in the house but there was more than plenty of blood in his room and figured that they tortured and dismembered him in there and took his body with them. Their theory was that whatever the perpetrators did to Alec would’ve left some kind of clue to who they are that’s why they took him. Of course they were talking about a body from the jump, not even trying to find him, evidence pointing at a most violent death.

Faith bolts to the barn, John’s hands grabbing nothing but air when he tried to catch her. Dean looked at his father, saw the horror on his face and shook his head in desperation. “This cannot be happening.” He thought punching himself mentally and thing how pointless everything in life would be for him if this was his story and that would’ve been his little brother.

“Faith!” John howled and took three giant steps to reach her. Faith crotched herself next to the little boy, arms stretched.

“It’s me, it’s Faith. Do you remember me?” The girl asked with the most soothing voice and charming smile on her face and tears in her big blue eyes. The little boy’s eyes flickered; he smiled, he grabbed the doorframe and launched himself at his sister, mouth wide open, exposing the sharpest, most terrifying set of teeth, rage and hunger reading on his face. He had her pinned down and biting in her forearm before John could run closer and flinging his machete so hard the little body jumping in the air when the force he’d put into the weapon hit the boy’s neck. And everything went quiet again.

“Alec, nooo.” Faith cried, pushing herself up onto her knees and trying to put her brother back together again. “Little brother, no.” she whispered, holding the disembodied head in her arms and rocking back and forth. “Alec.”

Dean couldn’t help it anymore, he dropped his machete and fell on his knees, tears flooding his eyes than rolling rapidly down his cheeks. He was thinking of Sammy, he was thinking how he’d lose his mind if anything, ever…

John grabbed Faith by the arm and tried to pull her away.

“You son of a bitch.” He heard Faith spitting through tears and saliva, and blood. She kissed the little boy’s forehead and rose to hear feet, fists clutched at her sides than flung one over hitting John right in the jaw and drawing out blood.

“Asshole, jackass, you poor excuse for a human being, mother fucker, jerk off, fuck face!” With every curse word Faith was throwing another punch and another and another… John was just standing there, misery reading on his face and blood dripping from a corner of his mouth. He just fucked up one more kid’s life. He grabbed Faith’s wrists and pulled her tight to his chest. “I’m sorry, I am so sorry.” He whispered over her head.

The emotional scene was rapidly interrupted by the sound of sirens. Someone saw the barn burning and called the fire department.

Faith traced a hand over her face, wiping of the tears and leaving a smudge of blood behind. They threw the bodies in the already collapsed barn and placed straw in the pools of blood, lighting them of fire.

John threw his keys to Dean and jumped into the Trans Am, knowing that Faith wouldn’t be able to drive and also, if he’d leave her alone, he’ll probably never see her again.

On their way back to the motel Faith understood why John did what he did. That … thing was no longer her brother and she sank into the leathery bucket seat of her dead dad’s car and look at her red stained hands. 

When they arrived at the motel it was already dark, which was good because nobody saw how battered and bruised and full of blood they were, nobody was around to smell the smoke in their hair and on their clothes and link them to the fire. Nobody was around to see the aura of death and destruction radiating from them.

They had to bolt though, mud being stuck to the tires of their cars, blood on the upholstery and who knows how many other clues that could sentence them to a lifetime of jail.

“Get changing and let’s go.” John ordered and Dean nodded slamming the door to his room. Faith was standing in the doorway, looking at nothing.

“C’mon kid.” John pushed her into the bathroom, bent her over the sink and splashed cold, icy water on her face than started soaping and rinsing her hands. He left her there, starring in the mirror and looking like her reflection was talking back at her. He came back a few seconds later with a pile of fresh clothes he’d dug up from her backpack. “C’mon kid, I can’t help you with this too.” He held up her clothes and shook the pile of fabric in her face. Faith reached a hand and grabbed it.

John nodded and got out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

When he came back he was good as new. No more blood on his face, fresh new clothes, and flowery scented. Faith instead was the same wrack John had left behind. She’d pulled her jeans on but didn’t bother to button them up and the Alice Cooper t-shirt was put on backwards. She was holding the pile of bloody clothes looking around the small room with dead eyes, not being sure what to do with them.

John closed his eyes but got to work, grabbing the stack of textile from Faith’s embrace, throwing them in the sink. He pushed her arms back inside the t-shirt, turned it round and pulled her arms back out again. He keeled in front of her and forced her feet inside the boots, meticulously tying the laces into a perfect bow. All this time Dean was watching and couldn’t believe his eyes. John never tied his, or his brother’s shoelaces, never, not to mention having so much patience and not just throwing Faith over his shoulder and carrying to her car because they were in big hurry after all. He mentally checked “Dad can be gentle.” And stepped into the bathroom, grabbed the pile of bloody clothes and led the way out.

“I’ll take care of that when we get far enough from this town.” John said nodding at the bite on Faith’s arm and starting up the Trans Am.  

When John considered they were in fact “far enough” the morning light was shimmering thru the trees scattered along the dusty and abandoned road. He honked twice and Dean hit the brakes on the Impala and pulled over, with John and the Tans Am on his trails. Faith recovered from the shock somewhere along the way but didn’t say anything and didn’t close her eyes, not even for a moment though all she wanted to do was sleep, forever. That’s how tired she was, physically and mentally.

Once John cut out the engine she bolted out of the car, hugged a tree and threw up what it seemed like everything she’d ever eaten in her life. John held her hair back and at times held her from falling into the puddle of digested food.

He took out a box of bandages and antiseptic from the trunk, sewed up the most torn bits of skin on her arm then wrapped it up with hospital like precision and professionalism.

“Thank you.” Faith muttered when he was done, words that took John by surprise. He’d gotten so used to the deathly silence she’s been treating him with for the entire night that he almost didn’t recognize her voice, his eyes actually snapping in the direction of the trees.

“You’re welcome.” He says, patting the bandage on her arm and cutting off the hanging strips that formed a knot. “It’s not going to get infected, that much I can promise.”

When he moved to the box, to place the scissors and other instruments he’d been using on Faith’s wound the girl threw her arms around him and squeezed him so tight he thought his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets. “Thank you.” She repeated wanting to make him understand what she was thanking him for and burying her face in his neck.

John dropped the instruments, not caring if they hit the box or not and hugged her back. ‘Poor kid.’ He thought. ‘I killed her brother and she’s thanking me. How fucked up is that?’ But he stayed like that for however long Faith needed. After a while, Dean felt really uncomfortable and started gathering up the instruments and placing them back in the trunk, then fishing for the cell phone in his pocket and dialing his brother’s number. He slid back inside the car and talked to Sammy about the stupidest, most normal things he could think of, making his brother laugh and soaking in every moment.   

After a while Faith pulled back and sniffed raising to her feet, putting her hand into John’s jacket pocket and fishing out the keys to the Trans Am and without any word walking up to it.

“Faith?” John grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her round. “Don’t go throwing yourself in fights, halfcocked, you hear? If you need anything, anything at all, you call me, ok?” John thought all night about asking her…no, scratch that, about forcing her to go live with Bobby Singer, at least for a while but that would’ve been a waste of time. Bobby couldn’t keep his eyes on her every moment of every day and he’d started knowing Faith well enough to know that she’d skip out and disappear with the first occasion he’d get.

Faith huffed out a bitter laugh. “I’m not going hunting, John. I’m joining the army.”

John’s jaw fell open. “Are you trying to kill me?” He screamed. “There are military operations all over. Sierra Leone, Cambodia and I hear this jackass wants to start something in Iraq and well!” But Faith smiled blankly, kissed John on the lips this time, got into her car and drove off.

He tried to find her, God, how he tried; pulling every favor in the military he ever had. Paid of clerks and lieutenants and generals and every kind of C.O. that was giving him a second look but he couldn’t find not even the faintest trace that Faith was ever in the American Army. After a few years he gave up. He was convinced she’s done it, but he was also convinced she changed her name.

He even visited her home town, maybe she’d past thru there, but since 1998, when she blew back into town and sold the house, that was rightfully hers since she was eighteen nobody had heard anything from her.

****

The year was 2003. John had just finished off a rougarou outside Elwood, Nebraska and needed a drink, bad. That damned creature clawed its way thru his jacket like it was butter and scraped his shoulder pretty good.

“What can I get you, sugar?” The bartender asked, after he’d just sat down at the bar. John rubbed his forehead. “Whisky, a lot of whisky.” John mumbled, tiredness reading in his gravelly voice.

The bar was a bar, like any other hundreds of bars he’d been in. Dim light, the counter placed smack in the middle of the room in a perfect square and inside that square shelves filled with alcohol. ‘Jackpot’ John thought.

“Rough night?”  The bartender asked cheerfully, her back turned and pouring whiskey into a tall glass with one hand, and the other shaking a silvery container with a cap.

John raised his head to answer but his attention was caught by the girl’s tattoo on the shoulder. A bear paw with five claws inside a red sniper target. “Blackwater.” He recognized. “Are you a fan?”

The girl laughed hard without turning around. “Believe it or not, I was part of that fiery mess for five long years.”

John snarled, he knew damn well what Blackwater was: a bunch of murderers, playing soldiers.

 To elaborate: Blackwater was and still is one of the most well equipped, well founded and well known Private Armies in the world (or Mercenary Company, if you will) and John, as an ex marine hated them. Mercenaries were doing underhanded black ops, eliminating targets, no matter if those targets were good or bad for the world, as long as they were getting paid, escorting drug lords thru enemy territory and guarding them so they can see another day. ‘Just my luck’ though John.

“Here” the bartender said, pushing the glass in front of John. “I hope I didn’t ruin your night.”

His night had already been ruined and he laughed sarcastically, before raising his eyes and…

“John!” Faith had the most shocked look on her face. She measured up the counter to see if she can jump over but thought about it a little longer and decided to get out thru the small door on the side. She ran, pushing people away and almost knocking the hunter off his chair when she jumped into his lap.

John was baffled. Couldn’t react more than wanting to put his hands around Faith as well but her top was so small that the tips of his fingers could touch nothing but skin where ever they’ve decided to rest so his palms just hovered around her.

“Hot diggidy!” She exclaimed, kissing him all over:  forehead, cheeks, nose and finally settling on his mouth and staying there for what seemed like forever. She crawled off his lap, rested one elbow on the counter and threw back his glass of whiskey.

“Of all the gin joints, in all the cities, in all the world and he walks into mine.” She said with the brightest grin in the history of humanity.

John’s eyes sparked. Casablanca was his favorite movie, even though Dean had knocked it, more than once and Sam was simply not interested.

Faith’s hair was changed it was shorter, messier and hot bright red making her blue eyes pop out like they were actually three feet away from her face. Her body had changed as well, or at least now John could see her body, no longer being buried under long black t-shirts. She was just as small but somehow slender, shiny, long and yet feminine in a bad ass sort of way muscles winking at him, every time her arm moved.  ‘WOW’ John just saw that she was wearing. A tight white top, so tight he thought for one moment she’d stole it from a child and a tiny black pair of shorts, covered up by a green apron and coupled with a pair of black motorcycle boots.

“Faith!?” he asked, not to certain that the magnificent creature in front of him was the same awkward kid from seven years ago.  ‘Omg, seven years ago’ he thought. He hadn’t seen her in seven years and now he walks into a bar and there she is? He’d looked for her for two years after she’d driven off and now he finds her just like that?

John pulls out a handful of salt from the pocket of his jacket and drops it on her bare leg.

“What the…?” Faith jumps startled.

“Who are you?” John growls, this time pulling out the silver knife bolted at his belt.

Faith raises an eyebrow and yells over her shoulder. “Larry, I’m taking my break now.” From inside the kitchen a pissed off Larry walks out, unwraps his white apron, throws it on the floor and grabs a green one before getting behind the bar.

Faith gabbed John by the arm and pulled him out of the bar. In the parking lot she extends out an arm making John step back a little. “If I tell you I’m me, you’re not going to believe me so light it up cowboy. Salt, holly water, silver, the whole nine yards.” John doesn’t move uncertain if he should hug her or stab her.

She takes the silver knife out of his hand - which makes John reach for his gun - presses it into her arm and pulls. A thin red line appears and fills up with blood until one drop escapes and runs down her arm to her elbow and then, like a kamikaze pilot, splashes down on the ground. She hands him his knife back and starts whisking him, patting on every pocket of that jacket until she finds what she’s looking for. She pulls out a small bottle of holly water then elbows John in his stomach before gulping the content.

John relaxes. “That was actually my last one.” He comments, grabbing Faith by her shoulders like he used to, so long ago.

Faith throws her head back and laughs so hard that John can actually see he uvula.

“Wait” She stops him, escapes from his arm and runs back into the bar. “You know what Larry, I’m actually taking the night off.” She yells from the door and Larry throws a glass at her which smashes on the already closing door. “Pain in my ass.”  He yells back.    

Faith looks playfully guilty, biting her lower lip and shrugging her shoulders. “So that’s done for. I’m all yours, what do you have in mind?” She asks, putting an arm around John’s waist and wiggling her eyebrows.

John huffs out a laugh. He knew Faith was joking, Faith was always joking like that, even when she was a seventeen year old except that now was harder to ignore it. After all she wasn’t his child, plus she wasn’t A child anymore and…. ‘OH GOD, stop it stop it stop it!’ he thought and punched himself mentally so hard he actually stopped, feet stuck to the concrete.

“You know what? I … I…” He searched for a good excuse to get out. “I should just stick to my plan and fall dead on my bed till tomorrow. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” He rotated on his heels and started walking away.

“Oh. My. God.” Faith screamed behind him and ran to stop him. “I went too far with my joke, didn’t I? Look man, I’m sorry; I’m no longer the innocent little girl… Actually I’m kind of a floozy.” She declared scratching her head and giving John a weary look. “Plus I work in a bar full of dudes, these kinds of jokes are necessary, for survival purposes, not to mention those six years and a half being one of the guys. The point is, I was not hitting on you. Ok buckaroo? Plus you’re too old anyway.” She smacks his ass and walks in the direction they were heading before John’s freak out. ‘HOOOOT!’ she mimicked, thinking how John’s butt felt underneath her palm, without turning around.

John laugher and ran over to her. “I’m old? Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately?” He joked, clearly more relaxed now.

“Don’t even start, grandpa.” She slid one arm around his and with the other grabbed the thick leather on his jacket, resting her head on his shoulder.

 She led him to her house, small and comfortable, big wooden porch in front and a swing. The damn thing actually had a small white picket fence surrounding it and a big back yard where a dog was running around, trying to catch something with his teeth in mid air. John was resting his palms on the back window frame and thinking how much like his and Mary’s home this place was.

Faith peeked her head out of the kitchen. “You’re looking at Barky McBarkneson, right? Yeah, that dog is 10 shades of idiot. So what will it be?” She asked after she realized the dog joke wasn’t catching. “Coffee or whiskey.”

John turned, sat down on the window frame and weighted his options a little. “Tea!?” he finally said flinching at the mere thought. 

“Tea? Are you ok?”

John laughed. “Yeah. I’m too damn tired to drink coffee and alcohol easily corrupts me.”

“HA!” Faith barked out. “You don’t trust me? Me? But I’m the most trustworthy person in the universe.”

Faith snuck back into the kitchen and John breathed: “I don’t trust myself.”

But what John was afraid of, never came to pass, mostly because the moment his ass hit the couch in the living room he was instantly dead to the world.

When Faith came back with his tea John’s head was fallen over the sofa’s headboard and he was snoring the house down. She almost pitched a fit. She took the hot drink back in the kitchen, took John’s boots of without him budging and inch, then dragged him to a horizontal position, placing a handmade quilt done from tens of black t-shits with rock bands over him and dragging herself into the bedroom. “Old man.” She said before her head hitting the pillow and falling asleep instantly.

When John woke up, the house was filled with the smell of pancakes and bacon. And Faith was scrapping away at a tin fry pan.

When she felt John standing in the doorway she turned. “Oh look, the king of the jungle woke up.” She said, unenthusiastically but smirking at his poor constricted hairdo, every bit of hair standing on end. “You look like you slept with the rats.” She pointed out and nodded towards the kitchen table. “Sit.” She commanded. “Eat.”

John was smoothing out his hair and sat before the crooked tower of pancakes that was threatening to collapse at any moment. He gave the pancakes a look, than glanced at Faith. “I made too much composition.” She explained, shrugging.

The kitchen was bathed in a soft morning light, the sun throwing one picturesque ray thru the window, right on the table. He searched for a clock with his eyes. 8:30. He huffed. “I’ve never slept so good since I was a baby.” He noted, his OCD kicking in and starting to arrange the Leaning Tower of Pancakes. “What the hell happened?” John asked abruptly, realizing he had no memory of last night.

“What happened?” Faith snapped playfully. “You left me high and dry, that’s what happened. When I came out with your tea you were bringing the house down with your snoring.”

John started laughing, she never heard him laughing like that. He was so cheerful, John was never cheerful, he would laugh, yes, he would joke, of course, he would huff and puff and bring the house down, but he was never cheerful. “Don’t laugh at me old man.” Faith said, smiling and throwing the wettest and most degusting piece of leftover pancake scrapped from the bottom of the pan at him and bull’s eyeing him, right in the forehead.

John peeled the damp piece of gooey junk off his face. “I would kill you for this if I wasn’t so chilled right now.”  

Faith came close to him, took a pancake rolled it up, pulled up a chair and spun it round so she can have the back as support and said. “Spit.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Everything!” She pointed out. “What you’ve been doing? Did you catch it?” after a pause she said: “Obviously not, you’re still alive. Ok then” she decided what she wanted to hear first: “how are Sam and Dean?”

John’s face dropped and Faith had the sinking feeling she just asked the most stupid question she could ask.

“He’s not…” her mind trailed at Dean, reckless and cocky, with his shoot first and ask question later attitude. “They’re ok, right?”

John robbed his forehead. “They’re ok. Dean’s doing his 10 states in 10 days road trip and Sam…”

“Yeah?” Faith said, impatiently not being sure if she wanted to hear the rest.

“Sam’s at Stanford.” John continued.

“And?” Faith asked, not knowing what was going on? Did Stanford turn evil? Did it corrupt scrawny boys and transformed them into Satan worshipers? What was so wrong about Stanford?

“And?” John growled. “His place is not at Stanford; his place is here, with his family where I can keep my goddamn eyes on him, where he can help me gank that motherfucker that burned my wife and his mother alive.” John jumped to his feet and pushed the chair from behind him so hard it slammed against the wall.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” Faith scowled, feeling actually, for the first time since she knew John, a little afraid for her life. “You can’t control him, man, not like that; he has to make his own mistakes in life, if Stanford is even a mistake. Hey!” she said softly, putting the squished pancake on the table and placing one soft hand on John’s rough cheek. “Hey, look at me, you can’t do that, you can’t strap them to you. They’re big boys now; they can take care of themselves.”  

And something in her eyes reassured him somehow but he shook his head.

“I’m not…” John started to explain his rage but didn’t know how. “I don’t want to control, I want …” But he understood it wasn’t about what he wanted but about what Sam needed and he needed that, he needed to go to school because somehow he managed to do something that John will never be able to do. Sam managed to let go.

“I just want him to be safe and happy. “ he finally spoke, sitting back down on Faith’s chair.

She ran one hand thru his hair and pulling his head to her chest. She squatted down, next to John’s chair, both hands on his knees, leaned in and kissed him, really kissed him, long enough to feel the need to get more comfortable and she pulled herself onto his lap legs flung on either sides of his hips.

 John sighed, grabbed the back of her head and weaved his finger thru her hair. He needed this, God, how he needed this, but with Faith? Really? I mean John wasn’t the most well behaved little boy out there and he was never picky when it came to age but he knew Faith since she was seventeen. Now she was twenty four and a hell of a woman, he had to give her that. The only thing that could run thru John’s head at this moment was math. Forty eight minus twenty four equals twenty four. Twenty four years gap between them and Dean, Dean was her age. Oh God…

When Faith moved to his neck and managed to squeeze out a growl of pleasure from him,  John stood up so fast that the girl in his lap almost hell on her butt.

“No, I can’t …this is too…”

“Weird?”  Faith finished his sentence. “You know just as well as I do that this is anything but.”

John moved away, as far away as he could in the small space the kitchen was providing.

“You’re the same age as my oldest. I could be your FATHER!” He explained.

Faith grabbed her hips with both hands, looking annoyed. ‘Really?’ she thought ‘When you have to convince a man to have sex with you, you know the world has just turned upside down.’

“Have you been anywhere around Phoenix, Arizona in 1978?” she asked, just mere curiosity and a little bit of annoyance reading in her eyes but she was waiting for an answer and John complied, a little bit confused. “N..no!”   

“It’s settled then; you just cannot be my father. I mean my mom was a skank, not to speak ill of the dead, but she wouldn’t travel all the way to Kansas just to hook up with a random dude.”

John smirked at the way her mind was working and rubbed his eyes. “I should go.” He finally managed to gasp after laughing some more at Faith’s logic.

“Where?” she asked with genuine concern. “To an empty, sleazy motel room, to a paid night, to drink yourself though tonight and force yourself to forget about me, to hours of rummaging thru old papers trying to figure out what that thing was and how to hunt it down, to miles of empty road and nothingness? Where are you going, John?”

The little girl had grown up, she pointed out every stop on Highway Misery.

“Stay one more day. Just one.” She was so close now John could feel her breath of his face, warm and minty fresh.

“No.” he answered blankly and moved to leave but she placed two soft hands on each cheek. “People managed to live on long before you became a hunter John, the planet is not going to crash and burn if you take one night off.” And he did, he took the night off.

They both woke up startled in the middle of the night when something was ringing so hard and annoying and disturbing the peace. They wrestled they way out of the messy pile of clothes and sheets and Faith answered the phone that was vibrating and ringing so panicked on the nightstand.

At the other end of the line was Larry, her boss, screaming and shouting and cursing. Faith pulled away from the phone and rolled her eyes at John who was using his arm as a jack for his head.

“Laaaaarry.” Faith tried to make him stop but with no success what so ever. “You know what, Larry, you can shove it.” She hung up the phone with a comical, almost animated like exaggeration. “And now I lost my job too.” She said, flinging her legs on the side of the bed. “I’m going to get something to drink. Want some?” John shook his head and watched her leave, naked, pale skin glistening in the cold blue light of the night, soft elegant muscles creeping from under her flesh while she tipped towed her way to the kitchen.

The next day John showed her pictures of Sam and Dean, all gowned up. She drooled at them until John swiped them from her hands and shoved them back in his wallet. She’d told him how crewel the army was, how she ended up with the mercenaries and what she’d done all those five long, agonizing years. Then he hit the road, with the promise he’ll come back.

And back he came. Almost every week, like clockwork. When he called and was all business Faith knew that Dean was with him. He’d call constantly, not to check in but because Faith was an honest to God genius and she’d find quick and easy answers to any monster related problem they had that day. And then he’d be back again, leather jacket and guns locked up in the car. Once he’d past that white picket fence he was just a civilian. And Faith loved him more every time. She loved the smell of salt and gunpowder on his hands, she loved the sound of his boots on the concrete in front of the house, she loved the roaring sound on the Impala pulling in the drive way and how Barky McBarkenson barked at it, every damn time, she loved the curiosity with which he was studying the core of every book in her library, hands pulled behind his back as being too afraid to touch them, she loved how mesmerized he was listing to her read form the morning paper, or from a beloved book whenever they had a little more time to burn. And for one long, beautiful year it seemed to Faith like there will always be time to burn.

After that year, John’s dropping bys got more and more rare, he’d call more often though ‘just to chat’ he’d say and then nothing. One cold winter morning she woke up from a war dream to hear the phone shout Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir. She picked up the phone with trembling hands and answered. She was ready for the worst news anyone could give her.

“Faith.” John’s voice was tortured and painful and he had even worse news. “I found out what that damn thing was, I’m tracking it.” She listened quietly, tears filling her eyes and waiting for those words that she knew, would break her heart. “I’m closing off all communications.” He was all business but he was choking on his own words. “Good bye, baby.” He hung up the phone without waiting to get an answer and that was the last time she’d ever hear from him.

She cried and fought the urge to go find him. John didn’t want to be found and she wasn’t going to step over his will. Her war nightmares appeared more often, now mixed not only with the blood and guts of small children scattered across allies, things that she’d lived in Iraq after the 9.11 incident, but with monsters as well. The whole Goddamn enemy army was filled with vampires and werewolves and demons, all clawing at her insides and killing her just a little bit more every night.

She’d lost yet another job, not because she didn’t like it, this time, but because she wasn’t able to focus so she sold yet one more house, packed her bags and hit the road.

When Bobby Singer called, seven months later she had the mother of hangovers and didn’t have any clue in which state she was, which town and most definitely had no idea who the man in her bead was.

She answered the phone and barricaded herself inside the bathroom.

“Hello Faith.” Bobby said with warm voice, all the regret in the world reading into his tone. Faith bit her lower lip and sank down on the bathroom floor. “I’m sorry honey. He’s gone.”

Bobby waited patiently for the sobbing to stop. “What…?” Faith couldn’t manage to say the words aloud but Bobby knew what the next question was and answered. “Demon.” He said blankly and no other explanation was needed.

“Did the b…” she started again but was impossible to finish any kind on sentence. Bobby’s almost psychic intuition kicked in. “The boys are all right. Get set on revenge, but they’re as good as they can be at this point.”

“Good!” Faith growled. “I hope they rip that mother fucker apart.” She slammed the phone shut, got up, pulled her spare gun from behind the bathroom stall and bolted into the room butt naked, pointing the gun at the man’s head.

When Faith got out of the bathroom he was rummaging thru her backpack.

“Put. My. Fucking. Wallet. Down.” She spat every word with so much hatred that the man actually peed his pants. The gun gave a nudge in the right direction as well, but mostly it was the sound of the cock being pulled back that meant the gun was good and loaded and all Faith had to do was squeeze the trigger.

After the stranger got so fast out the door he almost left a human sized hole on it Faith got dressed, she went to the nearest minimart, bought a news paper and started figuring out where she was and why she was here.