## Dean
**Six years old. A motel in Wyoming. Midnight.**
The first time Johanna patched me up—really patched me up, not just held compresses in place—was because of a ghost in Casper.
Irony. A ghost in Casper. Sam would've laughed. Sam wasn't there. Sam was in the ER because the ghost had thrown him down the stairs and his wrist was pointing in a direction wrists weren't supposed to point.
Bobby was three hours away. Too far. And I was sitting on the bed in that motel room that smelled like mildew and old carpet, pressing a towel to my arm, and the towel was red, and Johanna stood in the doorway looking at me.
"Go to bed, Jojo."
She didn't go to bed. Of course she didn't go to bed. She was six. She was a Winchester. And she'd learned that "Go to bed" meant: It's bad enough that I don't want you to see it.
She came in. Barefoot. Star-print pajamas. Her blond hair loose and messy. She looked like a normal kid who'd woken up thirsty in the middle of the night. But normal kids didn't look at a bloody towel and say:
"Show me."
"Jojo—"
"Show me, Dean."
That tone. My tone. The tone that said: We can do this all night, but in the end, you'll show me.
I took the towel away. The cut was long. Forearm, from here to here. Not deep enough for the ER. Deep enough that it wouldn't stop bleeding.
Johanna looked at it. Her expression didn't change. No flinch. No crying. Nothing. And that was worse than anything else. Because a six-year-old kid who sees blood and doesn't flinch is a kid who's seen too much blood.
"First-aid kit," she said.
"Under the sink."
She left. Came back. The kit was almost as big as she was. She set it on the bed, opened it, and her hands—her little hands—reached for the right things. Disinfectant. Gauze. Tape. In the right order. Because she'd watched Bobby. Because she'd watched me. Because kids learned everything you showed them, including the things you'd never wanted to show them.
"This is gonna sting," she said. And poured disinfectant over my arm.
It stung. I clenched my teeth. Said nothing. Because my six-year-old sister was treating me, and I wasn't going to be the one who whined.
She pressed the gauze down. Hard. Too hard for a kid. Exactly right for bleeding.
"Hold it," she said. And I held it.
She wrapped the tape around it. Focused. The tip of her tongue between her teeth, like always when she concentrated. Three layers. Neat. Not perfect, but neat.
When she was done, she looked at me. And then—and only then—I saw it. Her lower lip trembling. Her eyes too bright. She'd functioned. Like me. Exactly like me. Do first, feel later.
"Thanks, Jojo."
She nodded. Put the first-aid kit away. Closed it. Set it back under the sink. Then she came back, climbed onto the bed, lay down beside me, pressed her face into my T-shirt, and cried.
Quietly. Without a sound. The way she always cried. As if someone had taught her crying had to be quiet. No one had taught her that. She'd taught herself. From us. Because we cried quietly. Because Winchesters cried quietly.
I put my arm around her. The good arm. And held her until she stopped.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Stop apologizing. Stop falling apart."
Six years old. Six years old, and she told me to stop falling apart as if it were a choice. As if I could just stop.
And the worst part was: A part of me thought she was right.
## Sam
**Eight years old. Bobby's kitchen. Afternoon.**
Bobby taught her.
Not me. Not Dean. Bobby. Because Bobby knew it was necessary, and because Bobby was the only one of us who could say it out loud without breaking down over it.
"Come here, sweetheart. I'll show you something."
Johanna sat at the kitchen table. Homework. Math. She hated math, loved reading, was good at both because she was a Winchester and Winchesters could do anything they had to, whether they liked it or not.
Bobby put a piece of pork on the table. Raw. Pink. From the fridge. Beside it, a curved needle. Surgical suture. Thread.
Johanna looked at the meat. Looked at Bobby. Looked at the meat.
"You're teaching me to sew."
Not a question. A statement. Eight years old, and she knew why a piece of raw meat and a needle were sitting on the kitchen table.
I stood in the doorway. Dean beside me. We said nothing. We'd talked about it—at night, quietly, while Johanna slept. Whether we should do it. Whether we were allowed to. Whether it was right to teach an eight-year-old how to sew meat together so she could eventually sew skin together.
Dean had said, "She's going to do it anyway. Either right or wrong. I want her to do it right."
He'd been right. I hated that he was right.
Bobby showed her. Patiently. Slowly. His big, rough hands over her small ones. "In here. Not too deep. Not too shallow. Feel that resistance? There. Right there. Now through. Slowly. Pull. Don't tear. Pull."
Johanna made the first stitch. Her hand trembled. The thread went crooked. The meat tore a little.
"Again," Bobby said.
She did it again. And again. And again. Twenty minutes. Thirty. An hour. The pork looked like a patchwork quilt. Johanna's fingers were stiff. But the last stitch—the last stitch was straight. Neat. Even.
Bobby looked at it. Nodded. "Good."
Johanna looked up. At me. At Dean. And there was something in her eyes I couldn't place. Pride, maybe. But something else, too. Something dark. Something that said: I'm eight, and I'm learning how to sew people back together, and this is my life, and I know it's not normal.
"Can I finish my math now?" she said.
Bobby put the meat away. Johanna did her math. As if nothing had happened. As if she hadn't just learned how to close a wound.
Dean went outside. I heard the front door. The Impala. He didn't drive away—he just sat in it. In the car. Alone. Twenty minutes. When he came back in, his eyes were red, and he said nothing, and nobody asked.
## Dean
**Nine years old. A motel in Kansas. Two in the morning.**
The first time she did it to me. To real flesh. My flesh.
Werewolf. Shoulder. Four parallel claw marks, deep, from here to here. Sam was unconscious on the other bed—a concussion, his third that year—and I was sitting on the bathroom floor trying to stitch myself up, but the angle was wrong and my hands were shaking because I'd lost too much blood, and the thread kept slipping, over and over, and I was cursing under my breath, and then she stood in the doorway.
Barefoot. A T-shirt that came down to her knees. Dean's old shirt. My old shirt. She'd been wearing my old shirts to sleep in since she was four.
"Let me."
"Jojo, go—"
"Let. Me."
She knelt down. Took the needle from my hand. Her fingers were steady. Steadier than mine. Nine years old, and her hands were steadier than mine.
She looked at the wound. Four cuts. Deep. The flesh lay open, pink and red and wet, and I saw her swallow. Once. Quickly. And then it was gone. Her face went blank. Focused. Bobby's face. The face Bobby made when he worked.
"It's deep," she said.
"I know."
"It's gonna hurt."
"I know."
She disinfected it. I clenched my teeth. She looked at me—briefly, assessing—and then she started.
The first stitch.
I made a sound. Not a scream. Something between a hiss and a breath. Johanna stopped. One second. Her eyes on mine. And I saw it—the moment it hit her. That this wasn't pork. That this was her brother. That she was pushing a needle through her brother's skin and he was in pain and she was the one causing him pain.
"Keep going," I said. "Keep going, Jojo."
She kept going. Stitch by stitch. Her hands were shaking now. Slightly. Barely visible. But I felt it—the fine tremor in the needle, the hesitation before every puncture, the millisecond when she had to force herself.
Twelve stitches. Four cuts. Twelve stitches. Neat. Straight. Bobby would've been proud.
When she was done, she set the needle down. Slowly. Carefully. Then she stood, went to the sink, turned on the water, and threw up.
I stood. My shoulder was burning. Everything was burning. But I stood and held her hair and put my hand on her back, and she threw up and cried at the same time, and I stood there thinking: I did this to her. Not the werewolf. Me. Because I'm the one who lets himself get torn open, and she's the one who stitches me back together.
"I'm sorry," she said between gags. "I'm sorry that I—"
"You have nothing to be sorry for. You hear me? Nothing."
"I was shaking. Bobby says you're not allowed to shake."
"You did it perfectly. Perfectly, Jojo."
She rinsed her mouth. Wiped her face. Looked at me. Nine years old. Blood on her fingers. Mine. My blood on her fingers.
"Next time I won't shake," she said.
And I thought: There shouldn't be a next time. There should never be a next time.
But there was a next time. And another. And another.
## Sam
**Ten years old. A motel in Louisiana. After the hunt.**
By the fifth time, she didn't shake anymore.
I know because I counted. Because I counted everything that had to do with Johanna, in a notebook I carried in my bag and Dean was never allowed to see. Things I wrote down because I was afraid I'd forget them. Or because I was afraid of what it meant if I didn't write them down.
First time with a Band-Aid: five years, three months. First time with gauze: five years, eleven months. First time with a bandage: six years. First time stitching (pork): eight years. First time stitching (Dean): nine years. First time stitching (Sam): nine years, seven months. First time without shaking: ten years, two months.
Ten years, two months. That was today. Tonight. A ghoul in Baton Rouge, and it had caught me in the leg, inner thigh, where the major vessels were, and Dean had driven like a maniac, and I'd wrapped my T-shirt around my leg and tried not to think about how much blood a person could lose before—
Johanna was waiting. In the motel room. Alone. Ten years old, alone in a motel room in Louisiana, and when we came in—Dean half carrying, half dragging me—she was already ready.
The first-aid kit on the bed. Open. Everything sorted. Needles on the left. Thread on the right. Disinfectant in the middle. Towels underneath so the bed wouldn't get dirty. She'd prepared everything. Before we came. Because she knew we'd come back like this.
Ten years old. She knew.
"Bed," she said. To me. Not Dean. To me. Because I was the one bleeding.
Dean helped me onto the bed. Johanna cut my jeans open. Without asking. Without hesitating. The scissors went through the fabric, and she saw the wound, and—
Nothing. No swallowing. No hesitation. No blinking.
She disinfected it. I hissed. She didn't look at me. Not because she didn't care. Because she knew she'd stop if she looked at me. That she'd feel if she looked at me. And she couldn't afford to feel. Not now. Not with the needle in her hand.
She stitched me up. Seventeen stitches. I counted. Every one straight. Even. Not a single tremor.
Dean stood beside her. His hands clenched into fists. His jaw pressed so tightly together I could see the muscles. He watched his ten-year-old sister stitch her brother back together, and he said nothing, and he did nothing, because there was nothing to do. Because she could do it better than he could. Because her stitches were cleaner than his. Because Bobby had taught her what Bobby did best: function when everything was falling apart.
When she was finished, she taped the bandage in place. Checked how it sat. Pressed once—hard, quick—to test whether it held.
"Don't get up," she said. "Six hours. Minimum."
She sounded like Bobby. Exactly like Bobby. The same hoarse authority. The same tone that allowed no argument.
Then she cleaned up. Needle in the trash. Thread in the trash. Wipe the blood off the floor. Roll up the towels. Close the first-aid kit. Everything systematic. Everything calm.
Then she went into the bathroom. Locked the door. And I heard the water running.
Dean looked at me. I looked at Dean.
"She's crying," I said.
"I know."
"Go to her."
"She doesn't want me to come in. She wants me to think she's washing her hands."
He was right. Johanna cried behind running water so we wouldn't hear her. Ten years old, and she'd learned to hide her crying. From us. Because we'd taught her. Not with words. With what we were.
The water ran for five minutes. Then it stopped. The door opened. Johanna came out. Face washed. Eyes a little red, but only if you knew what you were looking for.
"Are you guys hungry?" she said. "I can make pasta."
Ten years old. Seventeen stitches. No shaking. And then: Are you guys hungry.
Dean opened his mouth. Closed it again. Opened it again.
"Yeah," he said. "Pasta sounds good."
She went to the kitchenette. Pot. Water. Stove. Normal. As if nothing had happened.
But something had happened. Something always had. And I lay on the bed with seventeen stitches in my leg, put there by my ten-year-old sister, and wrote in my notebook:
First time without shaking: ten years, two months. First time without crying (in front of us): ten years, two months.
And beneath it, in handwriting that wasn't quite straight because my hands were shaking now:
We're breaking her. Slowly. Stitch by stitch. We're breaking her.
Johanna put the pasta on the stove and hummed softly. A song that had played on the radio. Something cheerful. Something normal.
Dean looked at her. And I looked at Dean. And in his eyes was the same thing written in my notebook.
We're breaking her.
But she made pasta. And she hummed. And her hands didn't shake.
And that was the worst part of all.