The Runt of the Litter

The Many Faces of Anna Winchester

Note: Happy New Year! I've never been happier to see a year end.

Also, you all are amazing... I can't get over how sweet everybody was last week when I posted! I smiled for, like, 24 hours straight reading people's comments! Thank you thank you thank you for reading, voting, and commenting!

So... I realized while starting to write a request this week that this is CHAPTER FIFTY. Say WHAT?! So, I combined the prompt with another story idea that I've had in mind for a long time.

The request came from YJislife who wanted to see Anna having trouble adjusting when the Winchesters move into the bunker in season 8. Thank you for letting me go a little (okay VERY) crazy with the chapter.

I've had a plan for chapter fifty for a while now. I wanted to do a chapter exploring the kinds of lives Anna might have lived had one choice been made differently by someone in her life. So, here we have a three part event: Three lives Anna never lived and how they might have come to pass in another universe.

I messed with the lore on one type of Jinn in the writing of this chapter, but the show changes a lot about their mythology as well, and I tried to stick more closely to the show's lore than what I researched for this.

I do need to add a TRIGGER WARNING here: This chapter contains domestic abuse, substance abuse, and suicide. It's not a happy chapter and if any of this will trigger you, PLEASE do NOT read it anyway.

If you would like to read a summary, or if you want me to send you the parts of the story that you could read, let me know and I'll gladly give you whatever you need. If you do read it and want to talk about anything after, or if you aren't sure whether you should read it/want to ask a question before going ahead, don't hesitate to private message me. I should be able to answer within a couple hours.

This has been a long note, I know, and I'm sorry. But the chapter is pretty long too, so it should balance out 😊

You can enjoy the story now:

In real time for this one, Anna is fourteen. Her age changes in some sections but it's written in the story so you will always know how old she is. I know that sounds confusing and ambiguous, but you'll get it.

The Many Faces of Anna Winchester

For the first day, it was like nothing else. The number of nooks and crannies to explore, the number of books donning the shelves, the number of artifacts and weapons lying around looking medieval and a little awesome, a bedroom all to herself with a desk and a bed and a closet, the bathrooms and showers and just the sheer amount of space... Anna had the time of her life exploring the Men of Letters Bunker those first twenty four hours-- all of this within the boundaries of "Don't touch the swords, Ladybug," and "Don't go too far by yourself, Rugrat," and "Don't touch any of this stuff until we know what it is, Anna." It was hard to have all that much fun when she was so limited, and Anna quickly ran out of things to do.

Now it was day two, and Anna was bored out of her mind. Sam was poring over a handful of books at one of the tables in their new library, Dean was setting up his new room, and Anna was just laying on the floor of her bedroom trying to remember the pathway to the library from here. She didn't think it would be worth the possibility of getting lost to try going out there, so she just lay on the cold floor and stared at the ceiling.

It was really strange having her own room, strange enough that she'd barely slept a wink last night because she kept feeling pangs of anxiety at being all alone. She felt stupid for it. She was fourteen now, after all, but she'd never slept in her own room before. Hell, there were still times when they couldn't get a room with a third bed or even a sofa and she had to share a freaking bed with one of her brothers. She hadn't seen this coming from a mile away. As great as it was, it was also really weird.