Note: Okay, so all week I've had terrible writer's block. I have a ridiculous number of half-written stories waiting on me right now, and it's hard to bring myself to work on any of them. But I am not missing a week. I refuse. So I wrote this today, and I apologize if there are noticeable mistakes, but I didn't really edit it much. In this chapter Anna is fourteen and a Freshman in high school. Let me know what you think, and I'm not sure if I've said this, but I'm open to requests if anybody has one.

Anna Winchester's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

When she woke up, it was in a pool of blood. Her mind went to the obvious place first, but she then remembered that her period had been last week. She brought a hand to her face and confirmed her second theory. Nosebleed. While she was sleeping. Great.

She spent half an hour showering off blood and soaking sore muscles from the weekend hunt in hot water. She was out of shampoo, so she had to use Sam's, which smelled like every cologne made for men. It was kind of nice, but kind of annoying, and she wasn't in the mood for it, but her hair needed the wash.

Of course, as she was drying her hair, the mistake she'd made became painfully apparent. You cannot wash curly hair with just any shampoo.

The frizz that followed was unbelievable and untamable.

Anna carefully moussed her hair and tried to get it to fall like it normally would, but was unsuccessful.

In the hallway, she tripped tiredly over her own feet and almost face planted into a wall just as Dean rounded the corner in his dead guy robe and slippers. A round of merciless teasing that Anna could have done without started up about her clumsiness and then moved onto her insane hair which was poofing like never before.

In the kitchen, Anna took solace in what had become an essential start to her day. Coffee. Strong and black. She apparently had inherited Dean's taste in that department where Sam usually drank his with cream and sugar. Today, she needed that cup of coffee especially badly, and when she walked over to the little coffee station she was broken-hearted to find that someone had finished the coffee without starting more.

"Hey- Woah. What did you do to your hair?" Sam asked through a barely concealed laugh.

"Don't even talk to me, Judas."

Sam raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry, you just look a little like Napoleon Dynam-"

"I've heard all the references I need to, alright? Dean beat you to it. In other news, you finished the coffee," she accused, holding up the empty pot with a look of ire on her face. It would have been intimidating if it wasn't adorable and hilarious with her crazy hair. "And your shampoo freaking attacked my hair."

"You used my shampoo?"

"Oh, don't worry, I'm never doing it again. I mean look at this. No, I changed my mind; don't look at it."

"It's not that bad, Ladybug," Sam said in a combination of sympathy and amusement. "I'll help you fix it."

"Sorry, kiddos. No time for beauty parlor," Dean teased as he walked into the kitchen, now fully dressed, and held up his phone to show them both the time. "You're gonna be late," he told their sister.

"Got any paper bags?" Anna asked even as she scooped her backpack off the floor by the island and tried in vain with her free hand to smooth her frizzed out hair.

()()()

She wasn't late to her first class, but she was damn close and didn't get to see Kate before school like usual. To make matters worse, her first period math class had a substitute teacher who was a stickler for literally every rule ever created.

The two kids behind her who started laughing about her hair the minute she sat down were separated for talking in class-- something Anna was actually grateful for.

But then when her phone started blowing up with notifications in the middle of class, Anna barely had time to slide it out of her pocket and put it in silent mode before the substitute was walking toward her. She saw the notification Dean sent a photo, and closed her eyes in disappointment.

Dean sending her memes while she was at school? Unfortunately it had become the norm.

"Why don't I keep that at my desk for now?"

Anna smiled sweetly at the teacher and surrendered her phone with no problem.

"You can come back for it whenever your lunch block is."

Anna nodded, biting her lip to keep from arguing that it wasn't her fault her stupid brother decided to send her stupid memes while she was in a stupid math class at a stupid high school on a stupid Monday.

Most teachers would keep it a full day, but still... Ugh.

()()()

"Mila is so mad at you."

Anna turned from her open locker to see Kate's good friend, Ethan, standing beside her carrying a Biology textbook and a binder. "What?"

"Mila. She's pissed, and rightfully so, if you ask me."

Bewilderment overtook Anna's face. "What are you talking about? I haven't talked to Mila since Kate's birthday party last weekend."

"Well, maybe you should have said something instead of stabbing her in the back."

"Stabbing- What?"

The bell rang abruptly. "Maybe you should ask Mila," Ethan suggested, protective anger hardening his voice.

"Wait, Ethan- Dammit." She went to pull her phone out of her pocket to text Mila before realizing that she didn't have it. It was in her math classroom. Anna let out an exaggerated sigh and stuffed her English book and laptop into her backpack. She would just have to find out how she'd offended Mila at lunch-- after she collected her phone.

()()()

The substitute teacher took it upon herself to give Anna a five minute lecture on the appropriate uses for technology in a school setting, imploring her to consider leaving her phone at home before finally letting her go to lunch. In the cafeteria, Mila and Ethan both shunned her resolutely when she tried to ask what she'd done to upset them.

"What happened to your hair?" was Kate's first question as she settled across from Anna at one of the many picnic tables set up outside.

"Is it still that bad?" Anna asked and started frantically trying to smooth it out again. "I ran out of shampoo this morning so I used Sam's but... It's not for curly hair." At the look Kate gave her, Anna glared. "Please don't say it. I was tired. My mind wasn't fully awake yet."

"Mila gets like this sometimes," Kate reassured her. "If you'd really upset her she'd be confronting you, not giving you the silent... treatment." She trailed off, looking at something over Anna's shoulder.

"What?"

"We've got incoming."

Anna frowned and turned to see what had caught her friend's attention. "Confrontation means I really pissed her off?" At Kate's nod, Anna grimaced. "Wonder how." A few seconds passed as they continued to stare. "Do you think she practiced that walk?" Mila was storming toward them as if on the warpath... or the red carpet. She looked determined, strong, and confident. It was almost intimidating. But Anna had faced down more dangerous enemies.

Kate laughed at Anna's question, but all traces of joy faded when Mila made it to them. A couple steps behind her was Ethan, who looked very hesitant.

Mila didn't hesitate for a minute. She leaned down in Anna's face, unnecessarily close, and spoke clearly and slowly, voice dripping with venom. "You must think you're some kind of comedian, right?"

Anna's expression made it clear that she had no clue what Mila was talking about.

"Setting me up with a boy who's clearly in love with you. If you didn't want to go out with him, fine. But don't set me up with him."

"What? When did I set you up with anybody? And who's in love with me?"

"Are you joking? Kate's birthday party? You told me to introduce myself to Kai, because he'd been staring at me all night. That was funny to you?"

She remembered setting Kai and Mila up now. She'd thought they would be cute together and if he was into Anna instead of Mila, he'd given no indication. "Mila, I swear, I didn't mean to-"

"What? Humiliate me? Too late." Mila looked between Anna and Kate for a minute as neither spoke and both stared at her in discomfort. "I can't believe you're sitting with her," she told Kate fiercely.

Despite herself, Anna felt a pang of hurt in her stomach at the words. She wasn't that bad, was she? She wanted to think Mila was being overdramatic, but if she'd been led to believe she had a chance with somebody and then found out they weren't interested... she'd probably be upset too. That did nothing to change how offended she was getting the longer Mila spent talking her down.

"You know, I thought we were actually becoming friends," Mila said stiffly, then grit her teeth.

"Mila-"

"You have never liked me, have you? You just put up with me because Kate's my friend." The accusation was unexpected and Anna frowned and tried to correct her, but wasn't fast enough. "Well, that's fine. Good riddance. To both of you." With that, she reached for Anna's lunch tray and poured the contents over her head, then grabbed Kate's tray and shoved it against her chest so that ketchup and chocolate milk covered Kate's graphic tee.

For a moment, both girls just froze in place, slowly registering what Mila had just done to them. As they looked up from their dirty clothes and met each other's eyes in a moment of shock and rage, water and ketchup dripped from Anna's frizzy hair.

"Mila, what the hell?" Kate demanded, just barely keeping her voice at a reasonable volume.

"This isn't Mean Girls, Regina George," Anna growled, reaching blindly for a napkin or something to wipe her face and hair with.

"Call me Regina," Mila said smugly. "But you're the one who pulled the Mean Girls move. This is good old fashioned revenge. And we're square."

()()()

"That was seriously something out of a '90s movie," Kate said fifteen minutes later as she helped Anna wash her hair in the bathroom sink. "Hey, what's this gonna do to your hair? Is it gonna help, or make it worse?"

Could it possibly be worse than earlier? "Maybe it won't dry enough to be frizzy by the end of the day," Anna said hopefully.

"I've never seen you so blissfully optimistic."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Is it all out of my hair now?"

"I think so. I like this shirt," Kate said mournfully as she watched Anna ring out her hair in the sink.

The door swung open in the middle of this scene. "Playing beauty parlor in the bathroom, Freshmen?"

Anna glared spitefully at the taunting voice of the upperclassmen who'd just stepped into the bathroom. "Screw off." Fortunately, that was all it took for the kid to backtrack and leave to find another bathroom.

"Why are people acting like jerks today?" Kate inquired, wiping at her shirt with a wet paper towel.

In the hallway, the bell rang and both girls groaned in tandem. "No way can we go to class like this," Anna said longsufferingly.

"I'm not ditching again," Kate said firmly. "You remember what happened last time."

"We just haven't learned the system yet," Anna asserted.

"Call it Freshman luck," Kate allowed. "Either way, I'm going to French. You coming?" They were fortunate enough to have their next class together. Kate tossed her paper towel in the trash and grabbed her backpack off the floor, handing Anna hers as well. "On the bright side," she said, "We don't have to brave it alone."

Anna looked at her, unimpressed, and took her backpack. "This day can go choke."

"That's Monday for you."

Anna said nothing. This was not your average Monday. This was just a really crappy day.

()()()

"You need an extension because you were what this weekend?"

Anna took a deep breath in through her nose. Rather than repeating her excuse of hunting, she gave up. "Just... nevermind," she allowed, accepting defeat. "I'm sorry I missed the deadline." She ran a hand through her messy hair and hoisted her backpack higher up on her shoulder. "I have to catch the bus, but can I- If I turn the assignment in late, is there any way I could get at least partial credit? I mean, my brother will kill me if I fail this class and- and I kinda thought I was doing better."

"You are," her teacher said encouragingly. "However," he added when her face brightened. Anna's expression dropped again. "This assignment was really important in calculating mid-semester grades."

Anna nodded, fighting the sudden urge to cry at the unfairness of her life today. "I guess I figured," she said. "I'll just... I'll try harder," she promised, but she wasn't sure there was any way she could try harder. These stupid required science classes always tripped her up.

She sighed once more as she headed for the door, trying to think how she was going to explain to Sam when her grade for the first half of the semester came back as barely passing. Not to mention, it just felt bad to be failing. For reasons she still couldn't understand, she cared about doing well in school. Yes, she'd been forced to go against her will. But now that she was here, she might just as well make an honest effort. Sam kept signing her up for actually difficult classes, though, and that was just unfair.

"Anna."

She turned back and met her teacher's serious gaze. "I won't finish grading these papers until tomorrow night anyway. Turn it in by the end of class tomorrow and I'll consider it completed on time."

It felt like the break she'd been silently begging for all day. With a cautious but grateful smile, Anna said, "Thank you."

As she started down the hallway toward the front doors of the school, she was startled to hear the buses engines already running. "Oh shit," she muttered and started running toward the doors. If she missed the bus, she had to walk all the way back to the bunker instead of just walking fifteen minutes from the edge of town. "Shit shit shit," she continued to grumble under her breath as she got outside and the front bus started to pull away from the curb. Her bus was always the last to leave, though. She still had time.

Her mad dash had her catching up to the last bus just before it left the school drive. As the bus doors opened for her, though, Anna frowned up at the driver, panting in exhaustion. "Are you-" She checked the number on the side of the bus and threw her head back in frustration. "You're not covering Allison's route by any chance? Her answer was the bus doors closing in her face.

Believing with absolute certainty that the day could get no worse, Anna pulled her phone out of her pocket to text Sam or Dean, hoping against hope that they were still home and hadn't found a hunt today.

Standing on the edge of the driveway, her hair was whipped back and forth as cars passed by her, many of the drivers giving her strange looks which Anna resolutely ignored. When she hit send on her long, pleading, and apologetic message to their three-person group chat, her phone helpfully informed her that she had no service with which to send the text.

Wasn't that just right in line with the rest of the day? Anna let out a frustrated breath, put in earbuds, blared her favorite playlist as she started a casual stroll through Lebanon, Kansas. Maybe this walk was karma for not finishing her paper after they got home Sunday afternoon, but regardless it was so annoying.

()()()

"Do you have any idea how late you are?"

The question-- well, demand was more like it-- caught Anna's attention the minute she reached the bottom of the stairs in the war room. She positively glared at Sam, unintimidated by his angry posture and expression, and threw her backpack at him. He caught it with no trouble. "I missed the bus," she explained in a frustrated tone. "And I didn't have service by the time I was done chasing it."

"And you didn't think to stop in front of the Cafe or Grocery Store where you know there is service and then send a text?"

Anna's expression fell flat as she realized that she could have been saved an hour of walking if she'd only thought of that very simple, very obvious solution. "Guess the Einstein hair doesn't actually make me smarter."

"That's not funny."

"Yeah, you're right, it was funnier in my head. You know the feeling."

"Anna, get serious."

"You can't make me."

"You're an hour and a half late."

"And I told you why," Anna countered reasonably. It seemed like a pretty simple misunderstanding to her and if anybody had the right to be angry here it was Anna. She'd been forced to take a long and boring walk after a truly terrible day and now was being interrogated. Sam's overreaction was really not helping. In fact, it was just annoying the crap out of her.

"How did you manage to miss the bus?" Sam asked as he trailed her into the kitchen, setting her backpack on the floor in the war room.

"I was talking to my science teacher," Anna said vaguely. She didn't need a lecture on missing the deadline for the mid-semester assignment on top of everything.

"About?"

"Does it matter?" she asked with attitude, opening the door of the fridge harder than necessary.

"Uh, yeah, Anna, I'd say it does."

"My project is late, okay? But he gave me an extension, and I'm gonna finish it tonight, so-"

"Why didn't you finish it yesterday?" Sam grilled.

Anna whirled around, hands firmly planted on her hips. "I was tired. Maybe I shoulda worked on it, but I didn't feel like doing anything other than sleeping by the time we took down that nest, so that's what I did. Now if I can get five minutes of peace, I'd like to eat something and take a shower so I don't smell like cheap fries and ketchup all night."

Sam looked confused at that statement, but he let it slide. "Okay, maybe I overreacted," he amended. "But you should have been more thoughtful. You know how much it freaks us out when we don't know where you are."

Anna bit into an apple and answered him with her mouth full, channeling Dean, "Yeah, 'cause you're freakin' mother hens."

"We're not- That's disgusting."

"What?" Anna asked innocently even though she knew exactly what he was talking about. She took another bite of the apple in her hand and then ducked around him to go take a shower.

()()()

"How do you get ketchup stains out of a shirt?"

"You spilled ketchup on your shirt?"

"Nope."

Dean gave his sister a strange sideways look as he stood in front of the stove stirring something in a saucepan. "I'll take care of it," he said without questioning her further.

Gratefully, Anna tossed her dirty shirt onto the ironing board in the corner of the kitchen even though that probably wasn't where her brother wanted it. "Whatcha makin'?" she asked, peering over his arm to see into the pan on the stove.

"Food."

"You're hilarious," Anna said sarcastically, a little more bite in her voice than necessary.

"And you're cranky."

"Shut up."

"You shut up."

"How does that make sense?"

"How doesn't it make sense?"

"What?" Anna asked emphatically.

"What?" Dean countered in a similar tone. "Whatever. It's chicken parm."

Anna's disbelieving and annoyed look quickly turned to an excited one. "First good thing to happen all day," she remarked with a grin.

"Oh come on. Frizzy hair and a long walk home hardly top the charts for worst day ever."

Anna bobbed her eyebrows at the truth of that statement. "Well, you have to stop sending me memes because the sub took my phone in math today."

Instead of looking regretful in the slightest, Dean laughed out loud. "They were good, though, did you look at them?"

"No," she admitted, letting the conversation die as she watched Dean open the oven to check something. "Has high school been a literal battleground forever?" she asked a minute later as she watched him put together the chicken parmesan.

"Pretty much," Dean answered distractedly. Once he finished topping the dish with cheese, he gave his sister his undivided attention. "Why? What happened?"

"Nothing crazy. I mean, I think I had it coming, but somebody dumped my lunch over my head and it was like every high school movie ever."

"Well, believe it or not, Munchkin, the movies are written by people who went to high school."

Anna rolled her eyes at his sarcasm.

"Get Sammy, will you?"

Anna agreeably headed for the doorway leading to the library since that was Sam's usual hidey-hole. Halfway there she paused. "Oh, hey, Dean?"

"What?"

"Thanks for replacing my shampoo."

La Fin