## Sam
**Eleven years old. Bobby's kitchen. Rain.**
Bobby died on a Tuesday.
Not really. Not permanently. But for Johanna, it was the first time someone she loved had collapsed in front of her eyes, and the difference between almost dead and dead wasn't something an eleven-year-old understood.
Heart attack. Right in the middle of the kitchen. Bobby was standing at the stove, chili—his chili, the recipe he never told anyone—and then he was on the floor. Just like that. No sound. No warning. Only the clatter of the pot, and then silence.
Johanna was the first one to reach him.
I was in the living room. Dean was outside, by the Impala. Johanna had been sitting at the kitchen table, doing her biology homework, and she was the first to see him fall, the first to kneel beside him, and the first to search for his carotid artery.
Eleven years old. She was checking his carotid artery. Not because anyone had told her to. Because she knew. Because she knew everything there was to know about the human body when you grew up in a family where bodies were constantly breaking down.
“Sam!” Her voice. Not panicked. Loud. Clear. Commanding. “Sam, get over here. Now.”
I ran. Saw Bobby on the floor. Saw Johanna beside him, two fingers on his neck, her other hand on his chest.
“He has a pulse,” she said. “Weak. Irregular. I think it’s his heart.”
Eleven years old. I think it’s his heart. Like she was giving a report. Like she wasn't the kid who had learned to stitch on this kitchen floor, at this table, with this man who was now lying beneath her hands.
“Call an ambulance,” she said. “And get Dean.”
I called. Dean came. The paramedics came. Bobby went to the hospital, and Bobby came back out because Bobby was too damn stubborn to die, and three days later he was sitting in his armchair, cursing the hospital food, the doctors, and the world in general.
But Johanna.
Johanna sat at the kitchen table the night after Bobby's collapse. Three in the morning. A book lay open in front of her. Not a schoolbook. An anatomy atlas. Dean’s old, well-worn one, with coffee stains and blood spatters on the cover. She had taken it out of the trunk.
I sat down beside her. She turned the pages. Cardiovascular system. Arteries. Veins. Cardiac arrhythmias. First aid for cardiac arrest.
“Jojo. It’s three in the morning.”
“I didn’t know what to do.” Her voice was quiet. Not the command voice from earlier. The other voice. The little one. “If his heart had stopped. I didn’t know how to—I wouldn’t have—”
“You did everything right.”
“I didn’t do anything. I felt his pulse and called you. That’s nothing.”
“That’s everything, Jojo. That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”
She looked at me. Green eyes, red-rimmed, tired. “Teach me more.”
“What?”
“More. Everything. I want to know how to make a heart start beating again. I want to know how to relieve pressure on a lung when it collapses. I want to know what to do when someone—” Her voice broke. Briefly. For one second. Then it was back. “When someone dies and you can stop it.”
I should have said no. I should have said: You’re eleven. You should be sleeping. You shouldn’t be reading anatomy atlases at three in the morning because you’re afraid the people you love will die in front of your eyes.
But I was Sam Winchester. And I knew what it was like to lie awake at night and study because learning was the only control you had.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s start.”
We started. That night. And the nights after that. Johanna learned everything I could teach her, then everything the books could teach her, and then she learned things no one should have to teach a child.
How to relieve a collapsed lung with a needle and a plastic tube. How to set a bone that had healed wrong. How to remove a bullet when there was no doctor nearby. How to stop bleeding that refused to stop. How to keep someone alive until help arrived. Or until you accepted that no help was coming.
She practiced on pork. On chicken bones. On dummies Bobby built out of things he salvaged from the trash. And eventually—too soon, far too soon—on us.
## Dean
**Twelve years old. The Bunker. The first day.**
I had promised Johanna a lot of things over the course of her life. That I’d be there. That the monsters wouldn’t come. That everything would be okay. Lies, mostly. Half-truths. Things you said because the alternative was saying nothing, and saying nothing was worse.
But this—this wasn’t a promise. This was real.
“This is our home,” I said.
Johanna stood in the doorway of the Bunker. Twelve years old. A backpack on her back that was too big for her. Dean’s old flannel over a T-shirt that belonged to Sam. Her hair—blond, long, always in the way—fell across her face, and she pushed it aside and looked around.
The stairs. The hall. The tables. The lamps. The books. The walls that stood firm and didn’t shake and didn’t smell like mold and wouldn’t be traded for different walls next week.
“Our home,” she repeated. Slowly. Like she was trying out the words. Like they were foreign.
“Our home.”
She walked down the stairs. Slowly. Her hand on the railing. Her eyes everywhere. On the walls. On the ceiling. On the floor. She saw everything the way she always saw everything—examining, assessing, cataloging. Exits. Hiding places. Escape routes. Twelve years of hunter life in a child’s face.
And then she stopped. Right in the middle of the hall. And turned around once, slowly, arms slightly outstretched. And smiled.
Not the grin she got from me. Not the polite smile she put on for strangers. A real smile. One that started in her eyes and traveled all the way to the corners of her mouth and stayed there.
“It’s huge,” she said.
“Wait till you see your room.”
Her room. I’d spent three days working on it. In secret. At night, when she was asleep. Sam had helped—Sam had bought the string lights because Sam knew where to buy string lights, and I didn’t. Bobby had sent the stars—glow-in-the-dark stars you stuck to the ceiling, glowing green in the dark. Cheesy. Childish. Perfect.
I led her down the hall. Third door on the left. I’d picked it because it had a glass door—a door with a window in it, frosted but clear enough to see the light in the hall. Because Johanna still sometimes woke up and looked for the light. Because Johanna still sometimes checked to see if someone was there.
“Close your eyes.”
“Dean—”
“Close. Your. Eyes.”
She closed her eyes. I opened the door. Led her inside. Put her in the middle of the room.
“Okay. Open them.”
She opened her eyes.
The room wasn’t big. But it was hers. A bed—a real bed, not a rollaway, not a motel bed, a bed with a mattress that didn’t sag and didn’t smell like strangers. On it was the blanket she’d had since she was three—the one with the little stars, the one Bobby had given her, thin and full of holes, the one she would never give up.
Glow-in-the-dark stars covered the ceiling. Dozens of them. I’d arranged them into constellations—the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Orion. Sam had shown me the charts. I’d stuck them on wrong, ripped them off, and stuck them up again, ignoring Sam’s eye rolls because it had to be perfect.
The string lights. Warm white. Around the bed, by the window—there was no window, but I’d screwed a frame onto the wall and wrapped string lights around it so it looked like one. So she’d have something that glowed.
And on the bed: her stuffed animals. All of them. The moose Sam had bought her when she was four. The dog Bobby had given her. The thing that had once been a bear, before she’d washed it so many times that it looked like a lump with eyes. And the little Impala—a toy car, not a stuffed animal, but she’d slept with it under her pillow since she was six.
Johanna stood in the middle of the room and said nothing.
For a long time. Too long. And I thought: Shit. Too much. Too cheesy. She’s twelve, not five, she doesn’t want glow-in-the-dark stars, she wants—
“Dean.”
Her voice was strange. Thin. Shaky.
“Yeah?”
She turned around. And cried.
Not quietly. Not the Winchester kind of crying, silent and hidden, crying behind running water. She cried loudly. With sound. With sobs. With snot and tears and that face kids made when they felt so much their bodies didn’t know what to do with it.
She ran at me and slammed into my chest and wrapped her arms around me and sobbed.
“Hey. Hey, Jojo. What—”
“I’ve never had a room.” Between sobs. Barely understandable. “I’ve never had—my own—Dean, there are stars—”
I held her. Pressed my face into her hair. And my eyes burned, and my throat tightened, and I thought: Twelve years. Twelve damn years, and this is the first time this kid has had her own room. With stars on the ceiling and string lights and a bed that belongs to her.
Sam stood in the doorway. I saw him over Johanna’s head. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his eyes damp, and he smiled. That Sam smile that said: We did something right. Finally, we did something right.
Johanna pulled away. Wiped her face. Looked at me. Looked at Sam.
“Can I really stay here?”
“As long as you want, Jojo.”
“For good?”
I looked at Sam. Sam looked at me.
“For good,” we said.
And for the first time, it didn’t sound like a lie.
## Sam
**Twelve years, three months. The Bunker. Training room.**
Dean taught her.
Of course Dean. Because Dean was the one who fought before he thought. The one who spoke with his body when words weren’t enough. The one who knew how to land a punch and how to take one without falling down.
I stood against the wall and watched. As always. The observer. The analyst. The one who wrote everything down and prevented nothing.
“Fist higher. No—higher. There. There. Thumb on the outside, Jojo. Always on the outside. If your thumb’s inside, you’ll break it.”
Johanna stood in the middle of the training room. Barefoot. Shorts and a T-shirt. Her hair tied into a braid that was already half coming undone because Johanna’s hair refused to stay anywhere you put it.
She was small for her age. Thin. But tough. Wiry. The body of a child who had grown up in motels and done more running than walking and more climbing than sitting.
“Like this?” She held her fists up. Too high. Too stiff.
Dean corrected her. His hands on her wrists, gentle but firm. “Here. Chin height. Elbows in. You protect your face and your ribs at the same time.”
“Why my ribs?”
“Because broken ribs hurt like hell. Trust me.”
She grinned. My grin. Dean’s grin. The Winchester grin that said: I’m not afraid. Even when I should be.
Dean showed her the first punch. Straight. Direct. Shoulder, hip, fist—a single line. “The power doesn’t come from your arm. It comes from here.” He tapped her hip. “You twist into it. Your whole body. Not just your arm.”
Johanna punched the pad Dean was holding. It smacked. Not loud. Not hard. But it was there.
“Again.”
She punched again. And again. And again. Twenty minutes. Thirty. Her knuckles turned red. Her breathing quickened. But she didn’t stop. Because she was a Winchester. Because Winchesters didn’t stop.
“Good,” Dean said. “Now I’ll show you how to bring someone twice your size to the ground.”
“Like you?”
“Like me.”
He showed her. Leverage. Center of gravity. Shifting weight. Things Dad had taught him when he was ten. Things he’d taught me when I was eight. Things no child should have to learn and every Winchester child learned.
Johanna threw Dean. On the third try. He landed on his back, the air knocked out of him, and Johanna stood over him looking like—like him. Exactly like him. The same stance. The same eyes. The same grin.
“Again?” she said.
Dean lay on the floor and laughed. Really laughed. The rare, genuine laugh he almost never showed. “Again.”
I watched. And I didn’t write anything down. Not in my notebook. Not this time. Because this wasn’t a milestone I needed to record. This was something else. This was Dean teaching his sister how to defend herself, and Johanna throwing her brother to the floor, and both of them laughing, and for a moment—just a moment—it looked like something normal. Like a big brother and little sister roughhousing. Like family.
But it wasn’t normal. And we all knew it.
## Dean
**Twelve years, six months. The Bunker. Shooting range.**
The gun was too big for her hands.
I knew it. Sam knew it. Johanna knew it. But she held it anyway. Both hands around the grip, fingers extended because they weren’t long enough to close all the way around it.
“Not so tight,” I said. “You’re holding a gun, not a rope. Tight enough that it doesn’t fly away. Loose enough that you can aim.”
She loosened her grip. Slightly. Her eyes were on the target. Focused. The tip of her tongue between her teeth.
“Breathe. Inhale. Half exhale. Hold. Then squeeze. Don’t jerk. Squeeze.”
She breathed in. Halfway out. Held.
The shot was loud. Too loud for the small room. Johanna flinched—the recoil pushed her half a step backward—but she caught herself. Held on to the gun. Didn’t let go.
The bullet landed in the outer ring. Not good. Not bad. For a first shot.
“Again,” she said before I could say anything.
Again. And again. And again. Thirty rounds. Her hands were shaking by the end. Her ears were ringing despite the hearing protection. But her last five shots all landed in the inner ring.
Twelve years old. Five out of five in the inner ring.
I took the gun from her. Engaged the safety. Set it down. And looked at my sister, who was rubbing her hands because the recoil hurt, and who looked like—like me. At twelve. In the woods behind Bobby’s house. Dad beside me. “Again, Dean. Again, until you hit it.”
And I thought: I’m Dad. I’m exactly like Dad. I’m teaching my little sister to shoot, and she’s twelve, and her hands are too small for the gun, and I’m doing it anyway because the alternative is that she won’t be able to when she needs to. And she will need to. Because she’s a Winchester. Because Winchesters always needed guns.
“Dean?” Johanna looked at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Good first day. We’ll keep going tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow I’m putting every shot in the middle.”
I laughed. Because it sounded so damn much like me. Because it hurt so damn much.
## Sam
**Twelve years, nine months. The Bunker. Library. Night.**
I found her in the library at midnight.
Johanna sat on the floor between the shelves. Books surrounded her. Open, stacked, marked with notes. Bestiary. Demonology. Ghost lore. Curse-Breaker’s Handbook. Everything the Bunker had to offer.
She was reading. Focused. A highlighter in her hand—yellow for important, pink for dangerous, green for “ask Sam.” She’d come up with the system herself.
“Jojo. It’s midnight.”
“Did you know wendigos don’t like fire? Not just torches. Any fire. Even matches. It says here—page three hundred two.”
“Yes, I knew that.”
“And that you can recognize a shapeshifter by the silver flash in its eyes? But only in direct light?”
“Yes.”
“And that—”
“Jojo.” I sat down beside her. “Why are you reading this?”
She looked at me. That look. Not Dean’s look—mine. The look that said: You know exactly why.
“Because you hunt. And I want to know what can hunt you.”
Twelve years old. She memorized the bestiary so she’d know what could kill us. Not to hunt herself. To protect us. To be ready when we came back—bloody, broken, with wounds she had to stitch—and she wanted to know what it was. What it had done. How to stop it next time.
I took the book. Closed it. Put it away.
“Hey—”
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll read together. I’ll explain everything you want to know. But you’re going to sleep now.”
She looked at me. For a long time. And then she nodded. Stood up. Gathered her highlighters. And left.
At the door, she stopped. “Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. For teaching me things. Dean teaches me how to fight. You teach me why.”
She left. And I sat between the books and thought: She’s right. Dean teaches her how. I teach her why. And together we’re turning her into something no child should be.
But she wasn’t a normal child. She had never been a normal child. She was Johanna Winchester. And Johanna Winchester learned anatomy at eleven and shooting at twelve and demonology at midnight, and her hands didn’t shake anymore, and her eyes were too old for her face, and she slept in a room with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and a toy Impala under her pillow.
And that was the best we could give her.
The best. And at the same time, not enough. Never enough.
## Dean
**Thirteen years old. The Bunker. Johanna’s room. Morning.**
I stood in the doorway and watched her sleep.
I did that sometimes. Not often. Not every night. But sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep and the Bunker was too quiet and the walls felt too tight, I went to her door—the glass door the light came through—and looked in.
She lay on her stomach. Face in the pillow. One arm hanging over the edge of the bed. The string lights were on—she always slept with a light, always, ever since she was little, ever since the motel in Montana, ever since the night she’d seen us bleeding.
The glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling glowed green. Faintly. Like real stars, only closer. Only safer.
Her stuffed animals lay around her. The moose. The dog. The lump-bear. The Impala under the pillow—I could see one corner sticking out.
Thirteen years old. Thirteen years old, and she slept with stuffed animals and glow-in-the-dark stars and could take a gun apart and put it back together in under a minute. She could stitch a wound without shaking. She could throw a man twice her weight to the ground. She could quote a bestiary like other kids quoted song lyrics.
And she slept with a light on. Because she was afraid of the dark. Not of monsters. Of the silence. Of the moment she woke up and couldn’t immediately hear whether we were still there.
I leaned against the doorframe. And thought: We made it. Somehow. Not perfectly. Not right. But we made it. She has a room. She has a home. She has stars on the ceiling and books on the shelves and one brother who teaches her to fight and one brother who teaches her to think, and she’s strong and smart and wild and fearless and—
And broken. Somewhere inside. Somewhere I couldn’t look. Somewhere the glow-in-the-dark stars couldn’t reach.
I didn’t know it yet. Not really. Not the way I would know it later, when it was too late, when the sleeves grew long and the plates stayed empty and the lies began.
But that night—that night I stood in the doorway and watched my sister sleep and thought: She’s okay. We made it. She’s okay.
And I was wrong.
But I didn’t know that yet.