THEN...

GREEN eyes met brown for the final time, an earth-shattering finality that came naturally with the promise of death. A morose smile crossed his face in the end, strong in his resolution to sacrifice his life for the people he loved.

That's what Marley always loved about Sam. His propitiatory gaze, burdened with an everlasting flicker of despair and crushing anguish. Settled beneath the rich chocolate brown warmth of his soul, rested a deep understanding of his own perilous journey.

Sam Winchester was a beacon in Marley's life, a lighthouse standing tall in the sea, amidst the ever-shifting, unsteady waters wracking havoc in her life.

He lit the shore of her sanity, creating a sense of security and familiarity wherein all other places she was lack.

Now the murky waters had consumed the lighthouse, while, pulling it into the sinking abyss, leaving her ships wrecked against one another.

Her psyche in shambles, all ships wrecked against the sand; she was entirely alone now, trapped in the middle of the waters he once cleared the way through.

Marley's faith in him was not unbefitting, he was strong against the current, fierce against nature's harshest storms, a life vest she wore with pride amidst the crashing waves.

Oh, how she loved Sam.

The last time their eyes connected, she and Sam, the man she regarded as her real father — one who cared about her despite her flaws and formidably opposed her enemies — he'd thrown it all away for the sake of the world.

How could she be furious with him, when once again, he surrendered himself to the woes of their villains? How could she claim a cruel twist of fate when his own choice was the reason she'd lost him?

When her choices only encouraged the sacrificial lamb to slaughter? A narrative dripping in self-righteousness and begrudging heroism, consequences to her own actions unfolding in front of her eyes.

As green met brown and his face fell, a hopelessness stirring beneath both of their expressions; reality settled in, dusting across the air between them like the aftermath of a long battle, their skin bruised and scarred, hearts heavy with despondency and desolation.

And then a second later, the connection broke and he was gone.

A sob ripped from her throat, shattering her vocal chords and tearing her core, leaving shrapnel of the wound scattered so carelessly into her lungs.

"Sam!"

She tried calling for him, crawling over to the now grassy patch of land, the only sign of his presence a set of four rings. They appeared innocuous, resting harmless against the earth, as though they hadn't played a part in devouring her family whole.

"Marley!"

Arms wrapped around her middle tightly, holding her to a firm chest, but she couldn't see anything.

Marley could only see the rings.

Only the rings, the patch of grass, she could only feel the all-consuming pain, digging into her chest and left a gaping hole in its wake. She could only hear her own sobs, her heartbeat thumping furiously against her chest, a betrayal to her emotions, as though it hadn't been torn from her chest and shattered into pieces.

"Marley, shh," her father breathed into her ear, his own voice cracking, blood coating her cheek as he pressed his face into it. "It's okay, babygirl, it's okay."

She collapsed into him, crying into his arms, and he cried too, his own wounded cries intermixing with her gut-wrenching sobs.

They were alone.

—

NOW...

Marley adjusted the duffel bag over her shoulder, shuffling on her boots at the doorstep. A resounding knock against the tall brown door. A brush of her hair back behind her ear, a glance around the property, a nosy neighbor three houses down.

And then it opened, and her mother's warm, sympathetic face appeared.

Pink cheeks and red-rimmed eyes, her mother's expression was a twist of a knife to Marley's already broken heart. Of course Sam's death affected her too, they were close friends.

"Hi, Mom."

A warm hug enveloped her, more gentle than her father's could ever be, safe, secure. Not unlike Sam, who's hugs were all-consuming and tender, her mother's hugs were kind and familiar and loving. Her mother had that effect on everyone, Marley supposed.

Jenna Sommers was the sunshine in a sky on the cusp of bleak tenebrosity. She was benevolent and compassionate and gave until her heart could give no more. Shrouded in everyone's pain with a grace that should be impossible to maintain, but coming out the other end with only a soft smile and forgiving eyes.

"I missed you, baby," Jenna whispered in her ear, stroking Marley's strawberry blonde hair.

A color they shared, one of the many similarities between the pair. Where she'd gotten her father's sparkling green eyes and freckled cheeks, she had her mother's smile and hair color. Her father's bone structure was the blessing of the Winchester genes, passed directly to Marley, her jaw firm and angled, cheekbones high on her face.

"I missed you too," Marley managed to get out, gripping her mother tightly, basking in the sunshine effect she naturally gifted.

Jenna pulled back a moment later, resting her palm on Marley's cheek, examining her face.

"You're as beautiful as I remember," she smiled softly. "My beautiful girl. How are you?"

Marley knew the question would come, it was inevitable. But that didn't make her any more prepared and it didn't stop the fidgeting of her hand against the duffle bag, the shift in her eyes behind Jenna, into the inviting home.

She wasn't ready to answer that question, not honestly at least. She and her father hadn't spoken about Sam in nine days, not since he'd died. Not since Castiel died. Not since Crowley betrayed them. Not since Bobby keeled over in a heart attack.

Marley especially didn't want to answer that question on the Gilbert family porch, to her warm and optimistic mother, who would offer another hug and soft condolences, then offer a cookie — which would certainly be either too firm or undercooked and doughy in the middle, Jenna was never a master in the kitchen — and they'd pretend everything was fine.

No, Marley didn't want to answer the question, so instead, she offered a convincing smile.

"I'm good," Marley responded, her tone light and easy.

She's always been good at hiding her emotions, like her dad in that sense, only she was calculative and contemplative where his anger swelled in comparison.

"I'm excited to be back, live in a house."

Her mom laughed, the warmth hitting her face like it belonged there, resting in between her dimples with a zest that could only be described as perfection.

"I love you, Mom," Marley slipped out, her eyes catching her mother's surprised expression. "I know that's random, but I just want you to know that."

Jenna grabbed her hand gently. "I love you too, Mar."

Marley allowed her mother to pull her into the home, spotting two brunette teenagers, the male only slightly younger than herself, offering a friendly wave.

She remembered them; her cousins. Marley could remember liking them well enough, but it was only through a brief interaction one week a year when they'd go on a Gilbert-Sommers-Family-Trip together and Jenna would drag her along.

"Hey, Marley," Jeremy looked up at her from the sofa, his eyes a deep chestnut brown and his dimples shone through his warm smile. "Welcome back."

Marley smiled kindly at him, a sudden awkwardness filling her stomach. She ignored it. Channelling Sam, she did the best she could to charm the duo, hoping to make the next year as smooth as possible.

"Hey," Elena spoke up next, sat on the opposite end of the sofa from Jeremy. "I can show you to my room, Jenna said you can stay with me if you want. We set up an extra mattress."

Marley nodded, expecting the offer. She and Jenna had spoken at length about her rooming situation. She could share a bed with her mother — which she was absolutely not going to do — or bunk with Elena.

The last option was to sleep in her aunt and uncle's old bedroom, but the idea of sleeping in a room left still from death made her ill. She'd easily take Elena's offer.

"Sure," Marley nodded, squeezing her mom's hand again, before letting go when Elena stood.

They exchanged a small smile before Elena led Marley back towards the entrance and upstairs into the first room on the left.

"You can feel free to put pictures up if you want," Elena began, gesturing around her room from the middle. "My bed's there and yours is," she gestured to the bed next to the bay window.

A simple mattress with floral cotton sheets and a bright yellow duvet. "There. It really only fit next to the window, sorry, there's not a ton of room in here, so it might wake you up. We can get thicker curtains if you want, but..."

Elena was rambling, but Marley was glancing around the younger girl's room, drowning her out. It was a simple room, not unbearably messy or girly, but had enough character to showcase Elena's personality.

A fluffy pink comforter on Elena's bed, white wooden furniture, a framed picture of a horse above the bed — of course Elena was a horse girl — and small pictures and posters lining sections of the wall. A vanity next to the bed, filled with makeup and perfume bottles and a mirror balanced above it.

Marley's first thought was that Elena was stupid for having a mirror facing the bed. Didn't she know it disrupted sleep patterns, caused anxiety, and attracted spirits into her room?

Idiot.

"I'm actually heading to my boyfriend's, you can come if you want? Caroline and Bonnie will be there too, they're my best friends, and you can meet them."

At first, Marley thought it was an offer of politeness, and she declined easily, but when Elena's face fell a fraction, Marley quickly changed tactics.

"Sure," she nodded, walking to her designated bed and plopping the duffel bag atop the duvet. "Let me just call my dad, let him know I'm here."

Elena nodded, face brightening a fraction before she headed back downstairs to give Marley privacy.

Marley quickly pressed the speed dial 1 for her dad's number, placing it to her ear and leaning against a wall.

"Hey, Dad," she spoke when he answered on the second ring. "I'm safe at Mom's, just wanted you to know. How's Lisa?"

Marley's relationship with her father was complicated. They loved each other, fiercely, more deeply and unconditionally than any other person in either of their lives, but they were much too similar to truly get along.

They didn't necessarily like each other, really. They couldn't. Too many barriers and walls separated them from ever seeing the other person.

That's where Sam came in.

Where her father yelled and shook her — never hitting her, he'd never, ever lay a hand on her, not like his father to him — demanding things from her, rather than asking, Sam was quiet and allowed Marley to form her own opinions, ask her own questions, make her own decisions.

Both headstrong and stubborn, Marley and Dean Winchester had violent streaks and a thirst for revenge, whereas Sam mellowed the pair out with a calm lecture and patient demeanor.

He was the mediator, the eye of the storm, the therapist to two very broken souls.

Marley and Dean were hit first, ask questions later. Sam, ever the peacemaker, was the opposite.

While Dean raised Marley for the more important years of her life — her grandfather held the reins until she was four — he was not, by any means, a soft man.

He had many flaws; arrogance, spite, a certain disbelief that he deserved love at all, despite having a child who loved him unconditionally, and those particular flaws were very present in her childhood.

While he tried his best to make her smile, keep her happy, put her before himself; most of that had gone into raising Sam. He was more of a father than a brother to her uncle, and in turn, that patient, empathetic man raised by Dean turned around and did the same to Marley when he returned to their lifestyle.

Marley was eight when Sam reentered their lives after finishing college, and for the next nine years, Sam took over raising her and became the fatherly figure she desperately needed.

This left her and Dean in an awkward state of unknowing. While the love always remained, the understanding of one another was replaced by a brief smile, a lull in conversations, a sparing 'I love you' that begged them both for more.

When Sam was around, things were better. Easier. He was the glue. He kept them both level-headed and calm, despite their stressful, dangerous lives.

They hunted and killed, sure, but they laughed and were optimistic for a better future. One where they could settle down in a home and be a proper family.

That optimism was trapped in the pit with Sam, all feelings of hope and affection with it.

Now, with just her father, that familiar strain remained. As she'd grown, so too had her understanding of his opinion of her. He saw her as a little girl, his little girl, someone to mold and shape in the way he wanted.

He'd never force her to hunt, though she liked the thrill of it, but instead formulated opinions and ground them into her, without giving her a moment's breath to think for herself.

For most of her life, until Castiel, really, she believed as he did, and his father before him. All monsters were evil, there was no hope for them, family above all else, the light at the end of the tunnel was bullshit, and the only way out of that life was to die.

It took Sam really dying for the placated confusion and misplaced anger to rise to Marley's comprehension.

That wasn't the life she wanted. Saving people, hunting things...why should she be forced to protect people who never once thanked her? Why should it be up to her and her family to save the world from a sure extinction as angels took over?

She hated that idea, that sureness of her own fatality. She wanted to experience life the way it was meant to be experienced. Not looking over her shoulder in paranoia, committing credit card fraud and running from federal agents at every turn.

So it was better to separate after Sam's death. To part ways before a burgeoning resentment could turn into a deep hatred.

"She's good," Dean responded, his voice soft. She missed him too. "How's Jen?"

Marley smiled at the pet name. Despite not being more than a one night stand, her father and Jenna had a very close relationship.

While Jenna and Sam had always been more on friendly terms, even communicating while he was at college — they both were, though they attended different schools, they met up and spent time with each other's friend groups — Jenna and her dad were always able to pick things up after years apart, as though not a moment passed.

Where romantic feelings had long since diminished — though not for a lack of trying, with years of on again-off again — a resolute adoration and protective nature remained.

Marley supposed it had something to do with sharing a daughter, but Jenna knew her father's every secret, and that wasn't something he took lightly.

"She's good," Marley smiled at the humming noise her father made that followed her words. "I'm actually heading to Elena's boyfriend's. I guess she wants me to make friends."

"Yeah, you're great at that," Dean replied sarcastically with a snort. "Just remember—"

"—Keep two knives in my boots and no drinking before three."

"That's my girl."

It was quiet for a moment. Marley almost asked how he was doing. That was something they were both good at, dodging the reality of a situation and talking in circles until they couldn't dodge anymore. Neither of them were comfortable sharing their emotions with the other, both leaning on Sam for support.

Now, with Sam gone the silence was obvious. It nearly killed Marley.

"Hey, uh, Ben's got a baseball game, but I'll text you tonight, okay? Be good. I'll try to come visit soon. Let me know if you need anything."

And that was it.

Barely five minutes with a man she so desperately wanted the attention of.

The care and affection and attentiveness he seamlessly provided to all other kids, his new adopted son included, paled in his own relationship with her.

"Oh, of course, wish him luck."

They both chuckled, but it was dry and uncomfortable. Neither found her statement funny.

"Talk to you later, Dad."

"See ya, Thunder."

Marley's heart stuttered at the nickname, one he used fondly and sparingly, but it made her want to cry just the same.

Something she and her father both shared — thanks to her thirst to impress him and youthful idolization of the man — was their affinity for classic rock.

As a child, she thought the lyrics for "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" by AC/DC were, instead, "burning heat, thunder beat" and after correcting her with a loud laugh, the nickname stuck. Thunderbeat, and more fondly, Thunder.

It only suited her more as she grew, getting into loud screaming matches with her father and 'thundering' through hunts.

It was stupid, simple, and it meant everything to her.

Marley slipped her phone into her back pocket, and exited Elena's room, bounding downstairs and smiling at her cousin's patient face.

"Bonnie's outside, she said she'll drive us."

Marley gave her mother a quick hug and followed Elena outside, to where 'Bonnie' sat in the driver's seat of a white Toyota Prius.

Marley couldn't help but think to herself that while a good car, the Prius was not her father's 1967 Chevrolet Impala, which sat in perfect mint condition parked next to the sidewalk.

She glanced at it, memories flooding her like a tidal wave, Sam's laugh, her father's singing voice, late nights in the car eating junk food and researching a hunt, sleeping on Castiel's shoulder, hugging the teddy bear her grandfather gifted her on her third birthday...

Marley shut the backseat door behind her as Elena climbed into the passenger side.

"I'm Marley," she smiled to Bonnie, who turned around with a friendly grin.

Brown eyes, curly dark hair, a wide smile, dark skin; she was very pretty and very much Marley's type.

"Bonnie," Bonnie stuck a hand out, which was a little awkward from the driver's side to the seat behind her, but Marley shook it regardless.

Bonnie's smile dropped and she pulled back her hand, swallowing once, before stiffening and turning around again.

Marley frowned when Bonnie ignored her completely. What'd she do wrong? She thought she looked cute today, her hair was in natural waves, laying across her leather jacket, which sat across an old flannel, donned with her cleanest pair of denim jeans and a light grey tank top.

Most women thought she was hot. Maybe she wasn't Bonnie's type?

Elena and Bonnie chatted quietly and Marley fiddled with her phone as they drove across town to the 'Salvatore Boarding House.'

Marley's head snapped up at the words, a frown settling between her eyebrows. Salvatore? She knew a Salvatore.

But it couldn't be the same one...right? Why would he be in Mystic Falls? Why would he be dating her cousin?

They arrived after a fairly short drive and Marley exited after Bonnie parked, stalling when Elena grabbed her bag and hooked her arm through Marley's.

Marley smiled at the gesture, feeling a sudden closeness to the girl. They could easily be friends, which was strange because Marley wasn't very friendly with anyone, and she was a very genuine person. Marley liked that.

Elena opened the door for Bonnie and Marley, who smiled in thanks, stepping into the foyer of the large estate, arm still wrapped around Marley's.

Marley immediately glanced around he surroundings, taking note of the doors, entrances, any objects that could be wielded as weapons. Her knives tingled in her boots, as though aware of her thoughts.

Just in case.

"Elena, Bonnie," a man's voice asked flirtatiously from the couches in the middle of the large sitting area. "Who's your friend?"

Marley made eye contact with the male, stiffening at the smoldering gaze of his bright blue eyes.

Conventionally attractive with dark hair and a chiseled jaw, he wore all black and had a smirk set on his full lips.

Before Sam's death, Marley may have tried to go after him, make a move, enjoy his persona. But now? She was a different person. She didn't want to feel at all.

And with the flickering gaze between Marley and Elena, his eyes resting on Elena a fraction too long; Marley was sure this man was full of emotions.

"This is my cousin, Marley. Jenna's daughter."

Surprise flickered across the man's face. "I didn't know Jenna had a kid." He sauntered towards the trio, eyes flickering across Marley's face. "I don't see it. You sure you're Jenna's?"

"Well, if my birth certificate is anything to go by." Marley shrugged. "Why do you care?" She glanced at Elena. "This your boyfriend?"

Before Elena could say anything, another voice spoke up, from near a hallway just off the sitting area.

"Boyfriend's older brother," another man said. "I'm—oh my god, Marley."

Marley glanced behind the first man's body, eyes widening as her arm went slack in Elena's grip.

"Stefan?"

—
hehe thank you guys so much for your support! hope you liked this chapter:) I'm really loving this story and I have big plans for it so stick around! laters gaters<3