This Life [Dean Winchester]

prologue

"DEAN!"

The ten year old boy doesn't move. His eyes are trained on the open book in front of him, scanning the page for information on the monster that his father is hunting. He generally does not help with the research, but Bobby suggested that the boy help at least a little.

"Dean, watch me!" A nine year old girl hangs upside down from a tree, her blonde hair falling down around her in waves. "I'm a bat!" She bursts into a fit of giggles.

The boy finally looks up. He is sitting in the grass outside with his legs folded like a pretzel in front of him, book resting in his lap. With a heavy sigh, he lifts his head.

"Olivia, stop messing around," he says, tone indicating annoyance. "You're going to get yourself hurt."

She laughs, but stays hanging upside down, the blood rushing to her head.

"I'm serious, Olivia," Dean says sharply. Olivia bites her lip to hold back another giggle. "Get down from there."

"Make me," she sticks her tongue out at him. The boy glares at her, quirking his eyebrow. Olivia knows what will happen if she pushes him to the limit. She knows that he will climb up the tree and get her down if it comes to that.

Dean hears heavy footsteps from behind him. When he turns, he sees Bobby Singer approaching the children. Dean inhales, nervous of getting scolded for Olivia's actions. But Bobby is not Dean's father. He won't yell at him, because Bobby understands that Olivia Connor does what she damn well pleases.

"Kid, get down from there, before you fall an' break your damn neck!" Bobby says in a gruff voice to Olivia. However, she remains still. Bobby gives her a look. "I ain't gonna ask you again, Olivia," he says. Finally, the child climbs down from the tree, an aggravated sigh coming from her as her bare feet hit the grass.

"Where's Sam?" Dean wonders when his little brother doesn't follow Bobby out of the house.

"Still sound asleep," the man replies.

"Not for long!" Olivia giggles as she begins to run towards the door, but Bobby grabs hold of the back of her flannel shirt, effectively stopping her. She tries to wiggle free of his grasp, but Bobby doesn't let up until he is completely sure that Olivia will not charge for the house again.

"I want to play with Sam," Olivia whines. "Dean's no fun." She whacks the back of his head as she says this.

"I'm working, Olivia," Dean says. Bobby makes his way off of the porch, leaving the kids alone for a moment as he walks over to one of the old junk cars in his lot. He rummages around for something while keeping in range of the kids, to make sure they don't kill each other or do anything stupid. Mostly, it's Olivia that he has to worry about.

Olivia Connor's father died when she was only six years old, blood drained by a vampire. Bobby rescued Olivia from the clutches of the vamp nest and brought her in. He had planned on sending her elsewhere, especially given that she was such a damn pest that he could hardly work. But he found out that she actually had no living relatives, and after a while, the blonde haired nuisance actually started to grow on him. She adjusted surprisingly well to this life, especially for how young she is, while still keeping her childlike sense of humor. This is something that Bobby rarely sees. Kids that are dragged into this are generally forced to be responsible, hard-working, and over-all serious, but Olivia did not let monsters get to her.

Of course, she was shaken up after her father died. In fact, she didn't speak to Bobby for the first month of living in his home. During the second month, John Winchester stopped by to drop off his boys, Sam and Dean, because he was on his way to work a nasty case. Olivia was thrilled to see children her age for the first time in a month. That's when she started getting annoying and began acting like a child again.

She opened up to Dean. Well, she did open up to Sam as well, but he was only three at the time and did not understand half of what she said. Mostly because she rambled a lot.

"Dean, why are you so lame?" Bobby looks up from the car and watches Olivia poke the elder Winchester boy on the shoulder.

"Leave me alone, Olivia," Dean says fervently. "Go help uncle Bobby," he suggests. The girl frowns before following Bobby as he passes the two and steps into the house, boots loud against the wood floor.

She grins and bounces towards Bobby's desk as he sits down. "You need my help, Bobby?"

"Not right now," the man sighs.

"But Dean said I have to help you," she argues. Bobby sighs again, before shuffling through the mess on his desk. He finds a large, brown book with a faded symbol on the cover and holds it out to the girl in front of him.

"Here, take that," Bobby says. "Find anything with the word 'wendigo', you let me know, got it?" A deep frown is set onto the girl's face as she looks at Bobby, then down to the book. Finally, she goes over to the couch and sits down with the book in her lap, opening it up to the first page.

"Why does Dean hate me?" The girl suddenly asks, and the question catches Bobby so off guard, he has to ask her to repeat herself.

"What did you say?" The man says. He is confused at the hurt look on Olivia's face, and he realizes how serious she is. He rarely ever sees her this serious.

"Dean hates me," she says. "I drive him crazy."

"Kid, you drive us all crazy," Bobby confirms, expecting her to smile at this revelation. But the frown is still very prominent on her face. "But, that don't mean we love ya any less." At this, a wide grin spreads across her face. "Now, why don't you take a look at that book for me, it'd really help."

Olivia grins and goes to work, scanning the pages. Bobby watches her for a moment. Her eyes are so focused on the page it's almost funny. Bobby smiles as he goes back to researching, wondering how he got so lucky to have that little ray of sunshine in his life.