Faith Against Fate

“Where are you going?” the young boy of twelve watched as I filled my duffle bag with all the meager items I possessed. I hated myself for what I was about to do to him, but there was no other way. I was tired, far too tired for a girl of seventeen, and nothing was going to change unless I did something drastic.
“Away, Sammy,” I answered, fighting back tears.
“Are you going to meet up with Dad? When will you be back?” He sat on the edge of one of the beds in the motel room I shared with him and his brother Dean. He was eating a bowl of soup I’d heated up for him.
I sighed heavily, and ran a hand through my long brown locks. “No, I’m not going to meet your dad.” I threw the last of my things in the bag a zipped it forcefully shut.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. I smiled at him, wishing with all my heart I could be just as damn innocent as he was. We were only five years apart, but to me it seemed like generations. All of us, Dean, John, and myself had done our damndest to keep him that way. It was slightly illogical, and even dangerous, but for some reason we all felt better knowing that there was at least one person here not as jaded as the rest of us.
“No Sam, it’s not,” I spoke truthfully, and it was rare for me to be so with him. “I’m leaving and I won’t be back for a very long time. I have a family out there that doesn’t even know if I’m alive or not. I want to go find them, and be with them.”
“Wait,” Sam struggled to understand. “You’re leaving us? Like, for good?”
“For a while, at least.” Okay, that was a lie, I never planned on coming back, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
“No, no you can’t! I thought your parents were killed, and we were your family now. Dad said so!”
“Please Sam, this is hard for me, but I need to live on my own. I have other family members out there somewhere, and I can’t do this for the rest of my life.”
“It’s because of Dad, isn’t it? I’m not stupid you know, I heard all those fights you had with him, and how he always made you go with him even though you didn’t want to.”
“That might be part of it, but—”
“No! I hate Dad! I hate him! Please don’t leave me here with him, take me with you…”
“Sam! Stop it right now! You have no idea how lucky you are to have a father and brother who love you care about you so much! I can’t believe you’d be so selfish, how could you do that to them?”
“Please Faith, please don’t leave! I’ll stand up for you, Dad won’t ever make you go with him again! I promise…”
“I’m sorry, Sam, you have no idea how hard this is for me, but I have to! Please understand. It’s not like I won’t see you again.”
“But how would you find us? When Dad gets back tonight we’re probably leaving again.”
“I have Dean’s number. I’ll call and find out, okay?”
The young boy shook his head, and shaggy brown locks bounced around his face. “That’s not good enough. Swear to me, Faith, I want you to swear that once you find your family you’ll come see us again.”
“Sammy…”
“Swear!”
“Okay, okay Sam. I swear,” I lied, hoping it was enough for this heartbreaking moment to end. I needed to get out, and I needed to get out fast.
Before I changed my mind.
His eyes bore into mine, and I stared back steadfastly. After a second he seemed to be satisfied, but just as I was turning to go he threw his arms around me.
“Won’t you just stay and say goodbye to Dean? He’ll be mad if you don’t.”
“I can’t Sam. He wouldn’t understand. He’s too much like your father.”
“Do you want me to tell him goodbye for you?”
I smiled despite myself, “Sure, and tell him I said to work on his pick-up lines too.”
“What about Dad?”
My smile disappeared. “Just tell him I hope he finds what he’s looking for, because I’m done looking for him.” I felt Sam nod, and he let me go.
“I’ll miss you. Hurry up and find your family so I can see you again.”
“No problem kiddo,” I hugged him one last time, and then fled the room quickly before he could see my tears.

I don’t know why I didn’t just tell him, yes, I was going to meet up with John. One little lie would have made things so much simpler, and maybe I wouldn’t be bawling my eyes out now as I rode the bus out of town. He was a little brother to me, and I loved him. Maybe I was just afraid he wouldn’t know that unless I said goodbye. Now, if I had told Dean, I don’t think I would have made it out the door period. He would have been far too difficult, and far too persuasive. If I regretted anything though, I think it was that he would never really know how much I’d miss him and his stupid pick-up lines.

“What?! What the hell do you mean she’s gone?” Dean yelled at Sam.
“She left. She said that she couldn’t take being a hunter anymore and she left.” Sam collapsed on the bed and stared at the wall. Faith was the closest thing to a mother he had ever known, and now she was gone too. He felt like curing up into a little ball and screaming.
“How could she have left like that? She wouldn’t do that without telling us!”
“She told me.”
“But she didn’t tell me or Dad!” Dean voice rose again, and Sam flinched.
“She’s gone because of Dad you know. He was always mean to her.”
“What? Did she tell you that? She trying to turn you against him or something?”
“No! She got mad when I said I hated him.”
“Wait, you said what?” Dean shook his head, “You know what, never mind, I’ll talk to you later about that. Where did she go?” He swiped up his leather jacket and headed towards the door.
“I don’t know, she said she was going to look for her real family or something.”
“What? That doesn’t make any sense. She didn’t have any family outside of her parents.”
“She said that was why she was leaving. She said they’d be worried about her.”
Dean put two and two together pretty quickly. Faith had said that so Sam wouldn’t blame Dad, who was probably the real reason she was running away.
“Now that I think about it I think she did mention something about an aunt or uncle,” Dean lied to Sam. He hated it, but it was better than having Sam pissed off at Dad even more so than he usually was. “How long ago did she leave?”
“About an hour ago.”
“And you didn’t call me? You know they have these great things now-a-days called cellular phones. You should have called me!”
“I’m sorry…”
“Sam, do you know how dangerous it is out there for her? Demons want her dead for what she can do! How could you let her go!”
“How could you stand by all those times and do nothing when Dad made her go with him? How could you not say anything when she would come home hurt and Dad would make you patch her up? She was miserable here Dean, you had to know that. Maybe she’ll be happy wherever she goes now. I just wish I could have gone with her.”
“You take that back right now Sam,” Dean jutted his finger out at him. “Dad has sacrificed a lot just so we can live half-decent lives and he knows more about this kind of stuff than you could ever hope to. Faith has a gift and he only did what was right.”
“Forcing her to go and sniff out demons for him to torture doesn’t seem right to me!”
“How do you know about that?” Dean was taken aback. That was something they’d all worked really hard at keeping from him.
“Please, you think it’s hard pretending to be asleep? I couldn’t sleep at all most nights because you two would never shut up.”
“What?” a look of horror crossed his face as he remembered all the things he and Faith talked about at night when they thought Sam was off in dream land.
“Yeah. Let’s just say she was right when she asked me to tell you to work on your pick-up lines.”
“Wha…well, like she knows anything about that,” he said nervously, rocking back on his feet, “but we’re not talking about that right now. I’m going out to find her.”
“She’s long gone by now Dean, you have to know that.”
“I don’t care, I’m going to find her and bring her back. Anyway, she’s probably waiting for me to come get her at the bus station or something. I won’t be gone long.”

Sam spent the rest of the night alone, absent mindedly flicking through the few channels the cheap motel they were staying in had to offer. It wasn’t until ten o’clock the next morning when an exhausted Dean walked through the door and wordlessly climbed into bed. He never talked about where he went or why he was gone so long, and after that night they never talked about Faith again.