Disclaimer: Don't own SPN or, for that matter, the Skyeverse...but I do have permission to pall about in it!

AN: This is part of MissAnnThropic's Skyeverse, so if you haven't read her fics, you'll be worse than lost. Takes place around chapters 8/9/10 of "The Memory of Skye".

Red Skye in the Morning

She's a tragedy, she's lost at sea
And we have to let her go
And so begins her search within
And mysteries to be solved
– Shihad, 'Eliza' –

Eclipse River was a nice town. Not a big town, as towns went, but nice and for the majority of its residents, this was just peachy.

It was not at all peachy for Pepper Montgomery.

Sighing, she shoved her wallet into the front pocket of her satchel, slung it over her thin, freckled shoulder and slumped against the bus station wall; the very picture of melancholy.

She watched with perpetually amber eyes as the car pulled up to the curb, its lights and siren silent, and Deputy Beatrix Mason leaned across the front passenger seat, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

"Hi, Pepper."

Pepper, who knew what was coming next, threw up her hands. "Oh, come on!" she appealed, "even Amish kids get frigging Rumspringa!"

"In you get, Pepper."

"Deputy Bea…"

"In. Now. Your mom wants you back in time for dinner."

There was no getting out of it now. Pepper flung open the door, threw her satchel into the foot well and climbed in after it.

She sulked the whole way back into town, determined to ignore the rueful smile on Bea's face.

How he got to be standing here, exactly, sort of defied belief.

Because really, in what wacky parallel universe did a school counselor turn up on Dean's doorstep and say, 'I need your help'?

Sam was still wide-eyed with amazement and faintly hysterical laughter over the whole thing, loping down the high school corridor beside his brother, oblivious to the looks of amazement and incredulity he was getting from both students and staff of Eclipse River High School. Ms. Reed, the school counselor in question, was trotting ahead of them in her tiny size six heels, undoubtedly able to hear the following conversation but wisely staying out of it. Although Dean thought he saw her casting the occasional amused half-smile over her shoulder.

Sam was still gamboling like an oversized puppy (which was a faintly ironic comparison, considering the circumstances) and Dean was getting a little sick of it. High school had been strictly average the first time round and it didn't look like things had improved over the years. Being this far outside of his comfort zone this early in the morning before coffee and much in the way of food could be had was beginning to get to him.

"Dude, you're frolicking like frigging Bambi," Dean snapped in undertone, "quit it."

Sam, still riding his hilarity high, just grinned at him. "What? I am not." The grin shifted a little, and his little brother got that gleam in his eye that meant he was gonna get the hell mocked out of him. "You're just still cranky 'cause this totally betrays the bad-ass rep. Dean Winchester: assistant counselor." He chortled.

"I'm not cranky. I'm just…" he thrust his hands into his pockets. "…puzzled."

Sam continued to grin, the big sasquatchy freak. "Join the club."

"I'll explain once we get to my office guys, I promise," Ms. Reed said over her shoulder to them.

"Boy, I can't wait to hear this," Dean muttered.

Pepper had spent her morning sequestered in her corner of the art room and growling obscenities at anyone who was stupid enough to think she would want to talk to them instead of working on her watercolours. There were advantages to being in the Eclipse River Scholarship Program; every Monday, while other kids had regular classes, the Scholarship kids had independent study in their field of specialization.

Pepper painted.

Unfortunately, so did Rhys 'Pete' Peterson.

"So, heard you made another break for it last night."

She didn't even bother to look up from her canvas. "Go away."

Pete pulled up a chair and flipped it round, draping himself over it and leaning on his folded arms to watch her.

He and Pepper had never quite figured out if they were friends or not, but on some level this almost-but-not state gave them leave to be brutally honest with each other. It wasn't exactly a fun way to know a person, but it worked for them.

For the moment, Pepper kept a peripheral eye on him but continued to paint. Maybe he'd go away if she ignored him. It had worked before…

…But apparently wasn't going to work this time.

"You know it's useless, right?"

Pepper's mouth thinned dangerously. "I'm not having this conversation with you again."

"Ah, yeah, I think you are," he corrected. "Seriously, Pep, this is not the way to go."

"Don't call me 'Pep.'"

"I'm just saying; it's a bad plan. I don't know how many times I'm gonna have to tell you that."

She finally looked up from her canvas with a sigh. "I can't stay here, Pete."

He frowned. "You love it here, though, we all do."

"Well, yeah…but –"

"You'll never freaking guess!" she was interrupted by a tiny blonde plowing towards them at warp speed. "You'll never fa-reaking guess!" she cried again, pitching down her bag when she got to them and throwing her hands up. Pete had to duck to avoid getting hit.

"I'll never freaking guess," Pepper agreed. "What's happening now, Mattie?"

Matilda squeaked and hugged herself. She was Pepper's cousin and as long as the pair of them had known each other, Mattie had always been this hyperactive, even in wolf form. It was bizarre to watch, and a little alarming if you didn't know her. Luckily for Mattie, everyone in Eclipse River knew everybody else…

"New people!"

Pepper and Pete exchanged glances.

"Okay," Pete drew out carefully, in the same tone one might use for fending off a rabid squirrel, "what new people? Lost tourists again?"

Mattie's big blue eyes shone with loosely repressed excitement. "Nuh-uh, not tourists this time! Oh, gosh, not even new really, I mean, one of them's been here before, for a while, but the other guy's a Barely! A Barely, here, in the school!"

The girl lived and breathed exclamation marks.

"What?" Pete said sharply.

"A Barely?" Pepper echoed, nose wrinkling with confusion. "Why would a Barely be here in the school?"

"I heard them talking as they came in," Mattie said, a little breathless now. "They were with Ms. Reed." Her blue eyes were huge now. "The not-so-new guy is Dean Winchester, guys.

"He's back."

The lone wolf.

Holy shit.

Before any of them could even breathe a reaction the door to the teacher's office that divided the scholarship and mainstream art rooms opened, and Mr. Cunningham put his head through.

"Ms. Reed just called," he said. "You're wanted down in the school counselor's office, Pepper."

Holy shit.

"'Even Amish kids get Rumspringa'? Really, she said that?"

"I believe it was 'even Amish kids get frigging Rumspringa', but yes," Ms. Reed said, with the sort of rueful smile that seemed to be universal to school counselors under the age of thirty-five.

Sam was frowning at the records spread out on her desk for both Winchesters to see. "And this is the, what, third time she's taken off?"

Gratifyingly, she didn't hesitate long before answering, and she directed the answer at Sam, something which most of Eclipse River still seemed to have trouble with. It was a hard knock life being the one and only Barely in town and a hunter to boot.

Ella Reed, however, was one of those people who understood on an instinctive level what was going on in the minds of those around her, and she'd caught on fairly quickly that where there was a Dean there would inevitably be a Sam. It was probably why she hadn't minded when both brothers grabbed their coats and followed her in the Impala to the high school.

Sam was grateful, and determined to repay that kind of acceptance.

"Fourth," Ella told him. "And it was a close one; despite the lack of natural camouflage she's getting better at slipping away unnoticed."

Dean raised his eyebrows, perplexed. "Ah…lack of natural camouflage?"

Ella smiled. "You'll see when you meet her." The humour leaked from her face like a plug had been pulled. "Something has to be done though…"

"You're worried she'll get there in time to actually catch one of those buses out of town," Sam said, more statement than question, and Ella nodded.

"She's a clever girl, brilliant artist and one very restless spirit." The counselor folded those china doll hands on the edge of her desk and sighed. "Truthfully we've never had a problem of this nature; no one's ever wanted to leave Eclipse River like this. Well, no one except…"

"Except Trey," Dean murmured, mouth thinning with memory.

Ella nodded, worry lines showing around her mouth and forehead.

While Sam watched his brother closely and carefully, Dean took a slow, heavy breath and said, "Pepper isn't heading into an active warzone, Ella."

"I know," Ella replied, voice low and calm. Gentle. "But the world outside Eclipse River still isn't exactly safe for a seventeen-year-old girl, even one who can slip her skin and become the wolf." She glanced between the two brothers. "Maybe especially not for a girl who can become the wolf."

"You're worried about hunters," Sam said.

"Yes." She looked directly at him, and he caught the tiny flare of gold in each iris; her own wolf peeking out at him. "I know you'd never hurt anyone here, Sam, truly I do. But not all hunters are like you, and Pepper is like every other child here; naive of the dangers of the world. We're sheltered here, and have been for years. Whole generations of children have passed through the gates of this school not knowing the horror of a hunter's raid…"

"And if she goes out there alone there are people – hunters – who would tear her apart." Sam nodded, remembering Dean bound to a bed and writhing in agony… "I know."

Dean was frowning a little. "That's why you want us to talk to her, right? Because we know what's out there." He quirked one disbelieving eyebrow. "Resorting to scare tactics?"

Something in Ella Reed's face shifted, and Sam knew that underneath the apparent flexibility of the counselor's outside was core of blessed bullet quality iron. If – and it hurt savagely to even contemplate – if the town ever came under attack he knew sure as breathing that Ella would be the one barring the attacker's way to Eclipse River's children. He knew how it would go; they'd underestimate her, this tiny delicate woman, and it would be their downfall. She'd fight like a tiger, like a terrier, like the wolf that she was until all of them were gone or she was.

Sam quietly promised himself that it would never come to that. This place meant too much to Dean for that to happen, and as he began to know the people here, Sam knew that soon it would mean nearly as much to him too.

He'd defend it with sheer force of will alone, and if that meant convincing a teenager with itchy feet to stay put until college then Sam would do it gladly and drag Dean along for the ride.

It was at that point that the redhead walked in.

'Lack of natural camouflage', Ella had said.

That about summed it up.

The girl who walked into Ella Reed's office was lean and colt-limbed, had a face full of strong Irish cheekbones, pixie chin and biscuit crumb freckles. Sadly for her, this all paled in comparison to the hair.

The red hair.

Long, curly and the colour of burnished copper.

This, then, was Pepper Montgomery.

Pepper Montgomery.

Pippi Longstockings.

Peppi Lycanstockings.

Oh God, what's happened to my brain, Dean thought despairingly.

Peppi – Pepper, Pepper – was regarding the three of them curiously. "You wanted to see me?" she asked, directing the question to Ella though she kept glancing at Dean and Sam, all big amber eyes.

Ella smiled. "Yes, come and sit down, Pepper."

She did, and Dean noted the fraying jeans with hand-painted designs coiling up one leg and the powder-blue cotton kaftan. She wore a satchel instead of a regular school bag, and there were flashes of lapis lazuli and silver threaded on a leather cord at her wrist. He was willing to bet there would be matching earrings hidden somewhere under all the fiery hair, just like somewhere under all the sheltered teenager there was a gypsy trying to find her way back to the road.

He watched Ella's smile get wider, very much amused, as Pepper tried to politely keep her attention on the counselor, when she clearly found the brothers so distracting. Dean found himself grinning.

Ella had mercy and introduced them. Pepper shook both their hands, watching Sam with great scrutiny as she did. Scrutiny, but none of the wariness that Sam usually got, even from small children (which still got to Dean; usually it was Sam who got swarmed by toddlers who used him as a human jungle-gym.)

This was going to have to be one epic talk, to get through that kind of – he mentally floundered for moment, wondering how it could be phrased, and settled reluctantly on 'lack of survival instinct'. Or 'judgment', perhaps, which stung, because Dean had been judged a great deal in his life, and sometimes it was nice to meet someone who didn't do it automatically and come up mean.

It was going to suck to have to talk that out of her, or scare it down in some way.

Trey had become a cautionary tale, but what had happened to him was in no way the worst thing that could happen to Pepper.

"Um," she was saying, "not that it's not great to meet you guys, but…why are you here, exactly?" Her amber eyes flickered between the brothers and Ella. "I mean, here, as in the school."

"Ah…" Dean shared a look with his brother. Sam looked as apprehensive as he did. "We're here to talk to you, actually."

Pepper looked more perplexed than ever. Ella chose that moment to get up and say, patting Pepper's shoulder as she stepped past, "I'll leave you to it."

Wait…what?

They were supposed to talk to her by themselves?

Since when?

Ella's only response to his panicked look was a bright smile before slipping out of the office to God knows where. Traitor.

Dean told himself to relax. It wasn't a big deal. Just a pep talk. To a teenage girl. You're not afraid of teenage girls, are you, Winchester? Of course you're not.

Pepper was watching the pair of them clear their throats and figure out where to start.

"Is this 'cause I tried to leave town again?" she asked.

"Well…yeah," Dean said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

"Figures," Pepper muttered, looking crestfallen.

Sam waded in. "Look, Pepper…you know they're only trying to keep you safe, right?"

Dean cut a quick look at him. This was new.

Months ago, before Dean's secret had come out, they'd stood outside a diner in some little Hicksville town in Nowhere, USA (as usual) with an argument standing solid between them.

"He was trying to protect you, Sam."

"He was trying to control me," his little brother spat back.

And that had been the end of it. What had changed…?

Pepper didn't look impressed. "I know," she said earnestly, "but come on, they're such hypocrites!"

"Really?" Dean found himself asking, faintly intrigued. "How?"

The girl rolled her eyes in the scornful manner of all teenager girls everywhere.

"Puh-lease. In class it's all 'This is America, look how great she is' and showing us all this fantastic stuff, all this art and history and landscapes and cities…" she said, gesturing expansively. If they'd been sitting any closer she might have clocked them by accident.

Abruptly she seemed to deflate, slumping forward at the shoulders.

"Then when I wanna go anywhere, see any of it, they go all 'Not on your nelly, missy!'"

She pulled a face as she said it, scowling and sticking her jaw out, lower teeth showing like Bart Simpson making a face at Principal Skinner. She added a crotchety, growling voice for good measure.

Dean found himself caught between incredulity and outright laughter. She looked ridiculous, but it made her teachers look ridiculous too; of course she was champing at the bit, they'd told her the county was full of awesome and then told her she wasn't allowed to see it.

It sucked.

On the other hand…

Sam was wearing his earnest-puppy face. The I'm-so-sweet-and-sensitive-dontcha-wanna-listen-to-what-I've-got-to-say-even-if-ya-hate-it look. It worked too; Pepper was helpless in the face of the cutely puckered eyebrows, floppy hair and molly-woppity cow eyes and listened as Sam said,

"Pepper, look, I've been around, I've seen a lot of the country, and you're right; it's beautiful in places…but there are some places – some people – who aren't so beautiful, who're downright ugly inside if not out, and they'll hurt you if they can. Some of them…"

Dean watched his brother's face go from earnest-puppy to solemn-Rottweiler (what was it with him and canine metaphors today?)

"Some of them will hurt you because that's just what humans do. Others…others will hunt you."

Pepper frowned, confused and maybe a little frightened now. Hunters were bogeymen spoken about to scare little lycan boys and girls into being good…and now she was face to face with two of them, albeit ones who would never hurt her, according to town gossip. But two who, nevertheless, provided concrete proof that there were others out there, meaner ones. Callous ones.

Dean found himself talking, picking up from where Sam left off. "They won't know or won't care that you're a person, Pepper," he said softly. "The fact that you're different is all that they'll care about."

Pepper looked between the pair of them. It was just killing Dean. He could see that naiveté draining out of her, being replaced by fear. The vivacity was slowly going into hiding. Damnit.

"You and Sam aren't like that," she said quietly, fidgeting with the lapis and silver bracelet.

Sam smiled. "No, we're not, but we're pretty much the exception, not the rule. It might be because we're younger, I don't know. But, Pepper…"

She looked up at him. At both of them. All big, sad amber eyes. Goddamned heart-breaking.

Sam kept smiling at her. "Pepper, it gets better. I happen to know for a fact that some of the people here have degrees. College is in your cards, you know. You'll get to see the world. You'll just have to wait to see it with a few friends along for the ride, that's all."

She looked at her hands, half-clasped in her lap and playing with the silver and lapis bracelet. "I guess," she murmured, glancing back up at him and Sam. "But I suck at waiting for stuff."

Dean chuckled and Sam's smile quirked. "It'll make it all the more worth it. Promise."

Pepper nodded again and smiled back a little. "I should probably get back to class." She looked hesitant all of a sudden. No, not hesitant, Dean realized, shy, and she was looking at him. "Umm…"

"What's up, Pepper?"

She fidgeted. "I – I'm not really sure how to bring it up."

"Just go for it," Dean suggested. "Like ripping a band aid off."

He watched her nod, take a big breath.

"I knew Skye," she said.

Dean's chest clenched. It was like his ribs were trying to push through the muscles that held them and grate against one another. He swallowed hard.

"You did?" His voice sounded remarkably normal, if a little hoarse.

"Yeah…" She regarded him carefully. "She came in sometimes and mentored a few of us Arts kids, when I was a freshman. Mostly for photography and stuff, but she was interested in painting."

Dean nodded. There were a few water colors scattered around the house. One was a study of Skye herself, hair a dark cloud about her shoulders, eyes like two bright suns; liquid gold as her wolf looked out at the world.

"She sat for me and a few others once. And I did a painting. Gave it to her when she finished her mentor stint. I kept the sketches though…"

Pepper bent and pulled a slim folder from her satchel. Dean registered dark green cardboard and a doodled pattern of paw prints up one side in black ink. She opened it and handed it too him, and this time his ribs retracted inwards and stole every last bit of air from his lungs.

It was Skye.

All Skye.

Every sketch – pencil, charcoal, ink, even chalk – it was all her. Skye smiling, looking over her shoulder, writing on a note pad, biting her lip, tilting her head back to laugh, sitting pretty with a smirk on her face.

Dean couldn't take his eyes off her.

"Pepper," he breathed, "these are…"

"For you."

He looked up at her, astonished. "What?"

Pepper shrugged, looking somehow older. "I wanted to give them to you after the funeral, but Mom said it wasn't the right time. She was right, but then you left and…" She smiled ruefully. "I didn't think to ask for a mailing address."

Dean looked from her back to the sketches. "They're…they're awesome, Pepper. Thank you."

"Thank you," she said quietly back.

Pete found her in the storeroom staring blankly at her sketch pad, a stick of charcoal hanging from her half-curled fingers. There was a pile of screwed up pages resting beside her. He thought he saw part of a man's face peaking out from one crushed corner.

"Pep?"

"Don't call me Pep," she replied automatically. She registered that he was there a second later and looked up at him. "Hey…"

"Hey." He sat down opposite her, careful not to crowd, and gave her an enquiring look.

"You okay?"

She took a long, slow breath. "Yeah. Yeah, just kinda… He's a good guy, you know."

"Winchester?"

"Yeah."

He regarded her with narrowed eyes. "Which one?"

"Both of them, but…Sam, I mean. In spite of being a Barely. And that other thing." She chewed her lip. "The hunting thing."

Pete's face tightened. "You wanna be careful of that crush your working on, Pepper."

She scoffed and hurled one of the screwed up pages at him. "I don't have a crush on him! Christ, I'm not Mattie."

Pete relaxed. "What did they say?"

Pepper shrugged, twirling the charcoal between her fingers. "What everyone else has been saying. And that…that there really is stuff out there – people and whatever – who could really hurt us, me, if I left now."

Pete stopped relaxing. "If you leave now?"

Pepper looked up at him. "Well, yeah. I mean, it makes sense; I'm going to college after high school, Pete. There's gonna be others who will too, and we'll probably all go together, to look out for each other." She smiled. "A little pack away from Pack. What's wrong?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. It's just…Pep, I don't know if I'll be going to college."

She frowned at him. "Why the hell not? You're on the Scholarship Program, Pete; you'll practically be a shoe-in!"

"That's not the problem."

"Then what is?"

He gazed at her steadily. "I don't want to."

She gazed steadily back at him…then her gaze shuttered, and she climbed to her feet, taking her pad and charcoal with her. She turned once at the storeroom door to look at him. Like he'd abandoned her somehow. It hurt…

"Sometimes," she said quietly, "it's like I don't even know you."

Then she was gone, and the room seemed a little darker.

They were at the car before Dean finally spoke again.

"Think she'll be okay?"

Sam looked up at him over the Impala's roof. "Pepper? She'll be fine."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. Dean, all she needed was for someone to tell her that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. That she'll get to have her adventure. It just hadn't occurred to her that she'd have to wait for her friends to come with her, or that college could be that kind of adventure."

Dean's eyebrows went up. "No one else thought to explain this to her?" he asked the world in general.

Sam shrugged. "Sometimes it takes a voice of experience. It's like Ella told us; no one else but Trey has ever wanted to leave here. Pepper wanted someone to relate to."

Dean was watching him, gaze hooded in the way that meant he was thinking deep thoughts. Not necessarily good ones.

"Yeah," he began, keeping his voice casual, "about that. Been thinking…"

"Did it hurt?"

"Very fucking funny. Look…the whole college thing…you still want to go back? Do the normal thing?"

"Dean. We've had this talk."

Dean looked down and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah I know. Just…just checking." He looked back up at Sam, offering a small but genuine smile.

Sam grinned back.

The house was quiet when she got home.

Mom wasn't back yet and she could hear the twins working on whatever madcap project they'd gotten stuck in their shared brain this time. If she was lucky, they wouldn't blow up the back fence again and give their left hand side neighbor, Ollie Wood another case of the rampaging twitches. Cyrus and Diana Montgomery were twelve, and they'd been working on any number of projects since they were six –

Since Dad died…

– And for the next six years, inevitably, they'd somehow managed to blow up the back fence one way or another and give poor Ollie yet another nervous tic.

In any case, no one would be in for a good two hours.

Just enough time then…

Pepper was about to simply slip back out the front door when the kitchen door banged open and the usual barrage of sound followed her younger siblings into the house.

They scented her immediately of course; two of the best noses you'd ever meet.

"Hey!" Pepper heard her younger sister shout, and the twins stampeded in. "When'd you get in?"

"A few minutes ago," Pepper reluctantly called back.

She followed the sounds of clanking tins and the occasional crash, dragging her feet into the kitchen. Ana was sitting on one of the breakfast bar stools and watching Rus ransack the lower half of the pantry.

"What're you doing?"

The frenzied search paused and both twins looked at her in unnerving sync. Their eyes were just as brazenly amber as hers were, though Pepper had never thought of her eye color as being…creepy.

"Sure you wanna know?"

"No," said Pepper hastily. "Hey, um, I'm just heading back out, okay. Going for a run."

Their attention had already flicked back to the search for…whatever. Pepper ignored the gift horse's mouth, gave its ears a friendly rub and snatched up her bag as she headed back out the door.

Five minutes later, Rus stuck his head out of the pantry and said, "That was Pepper, right?"

She walked out to the bus stop a little slower than usual; after all it wasn't like she was running away this time.

The stop was actually an old transit station, so small it was a wonder it was still used at all, and at the extreme edge the bus route, which didn't pass through Eclipse River so much as head in their direction, think better of it and veer away again. It took her an hour to get out of town and beyond the municipal boundary, and then another ten minutes to get to the bus shelter.

The shelter itself was just the same as ever; bench sagging at one end, outdated bus timetable tacked lopsidedly to one inner wall. The graffiti here was older than she was; Pepper was the first person to actually wait here for a bus in over two decades, and probably the only lycan to do so. She stashed her satchel in the small trash can because it never had trash in it…and wasn't ever likely to.

She went behind the shelter to where its little slab of concrete ended and the trees started, hiking thirty feet or so into the woods that lined either side of the road. She spent about three minutes peering cautiously around and listening for anything that might be another person. It was risky, changing this close to a road outside of town…

The itch began again between her shoulder blades, and Pepper sighed. It happened all the time; inspiration bottled up inside her, pen strokes and brushstrokes and marks made on paper to form a place or a face or a symbol…and then she simply couldn't get her body to cooperate. She'd wasted three sheets out of her sketchpad already. It was time for a run.

She shed her kaftan, kicked off her sandals and put her earrings in the front left pocket of her jeans before she wriggled out of them. Tucking her clothes under a bush, she stood wearing only her freckles and the leather and lapis bracelet on her wrist. Her hair lay in copper coils over her shoulders, down her back, and was just long enough to cover her breasts.

Godiva in the sunlight…

Or many Lupa instead.

Pepper smiled, a flash of white teeth in the forest gloom, and let the change cover her. Heat built, visible waves washing over her skin and flushing it full of temporary fever. In a distant way, she felt her body rearrange itself; bones warping, muscles making new shapes, thick hair covering her goosebumped skin. She shivered, going to her knees as her body folded into its other shape, sighing and then…

And then the red wolf shook out her russet coat, jaws opening in a lupine grin with her tongue lolling over her teeth. The lapis, leather and silver bracelet still lay about her wrist; it was tight when she walked on two legs, loose when she ran on four, but it never came off.

She let out a huff that her friends would have recognized as a laugh and took off, her body stretching and snapping like a living rubber band. The woods weren't dark, but they were deep and most definitely lovely.

Pepper kicked up her heels, puppy-yelped for the sheer joy of it, and let the hours spool away as she ran.

Lettie Montgomery was a small woman, barely scraping five-foot-three. Her husband had been the tall one in the family, and his children were steadily following in his long-striding footsteps; Pepper was already five inches taller than her mother and Rus and Ana weren't far behind.

Despite this lack of physical stature, she was a force to be reckoned with – always had been – so when she got home that afternoon to find her eldest child absent, her first reaction was the usual annoyance.

She found Cyrus making himself sandwiches in the kitchen and leaving a trail of crumbs across the tiles as he migrated into the living room.

"Rus, where's your sister?"

He smirked around a bite of his sandwich. "Which one?"

Lettie raised her eyebrows at him.

Rus sighed. "Ana's upstairs, Pepper's out. Said something about going for a run."

"Did she say where?"

Rus shrugged expansively, showering the floor with more crumbs. Lettie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Rus was just like his father and sometimes it drove her mad, just like Mike had.

She sighed instead. She could guess where Pepper would be.

"Take Ana a sandwich too," she told Rus as she picked up the phone and dialed the number from memory. "Bea? Yeah, Pepper again. I know. Would you mind just going by…thanks. Alright, see you in a bit."

Comfortably run out, Pepper strolled back to her clothes and dressed quickly, picking woodland detritus from her hair as she made her way back to the bus shelter.

When she got there, she unearthed her satchel and settled on the seat. Nostalgia washed over her. She'd never really sat here before, not really. She'd always stood to the ready, waiting for the bus or for Deputy Bea to retrieve her. She smiled, and leaned easily against the back of the bench, taking out her sketchpad and a charcoal stick.

The run had done its job; the strokes came easily now, sweeping lines and quick shades forming a shape out of the monochrome medium. The bridge of his nose here, the angle of his jaw and his hair across his forehead there. Earnest eyes and rueful smile.

Pepper smiled back.

She'd gotten as far as his shoulders and the knot of lines that would make his folded hands when she heard the sound of a car coming down the road.

Late model, she thought, lycan hearing making it easy to pick out the deeper tones in the older engine. Newer modern cars seemed to have less baritone in their voices.

She was right; a red El Camino came into view, its paint hazed with travel dust.

Nineteen-eighty, or thereabouts, she guessed, like the one Ollie Wood had, only his was green and in slightly better condition. Then again, there was only so much you could do for a nineteen-eighty El Camino…

To her surprise, it slowed and pulled up next to the shelter. The driver lent over and rolled down the passenger window, calling, "Excuse me, I'm a little lost…"

Pepper put down her sketch pad and approached the car with caution; Sam and Dean's talk was not lost on her.

"Where are you trying to get to?"

He smiled. "I'm looking for The Den."

Pepper offered her own apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I don't know where that is."

His smile widened like a shark that had found blood in the water, and she began to feel uneasy.

"Sure you do," he said with malignant cheer. "It's where you and your buddies hole up when you're not eating people."

Fear sweat instantly gathering along her spine. Reflexively, her smile fixed in place and she tried to look like she'd just been told a joke she didn't get.

"I'm sorry…"

It was such an awful, awful cliché, a line out of some B-grade movie –

"Oh, you will be."

– But those words, low and full of edges and so very ominous, simply scared the living shit out of her.

Then he got out of the car and the sight of the gun in his hands broke her completely.

Pepper's eyes widened in reactive terror and she lurched back from the car, charcoal falling from her nerveless fingers.

Gripped by panic, she turned and bolted around the bus shelter, heading into the woods. She heard him slam the car door and let out a sob, the sound harsh in her throat. There were heavy footsteps behind her, and she kept going, trying to get enough distance to strip and change safely.

Then there was a sound she didn't recognize – a muted crack, like someone snapping a stick over their knee – and something sharp hit her neck.

She stumbled, feet tangling with each other and sending her to her knees…she turned as she fell, turned and saw him coming for her, that sick smile still on his face…

Then the opiates in her blood robbed her of consciousness, and the world went still and dark.

Gordon Walker had never counted himself as lucky, but today he felt safe in doing so.

The girl's intel had been good this time – like it always was, when he held the knife just right and pushed the right buttons – and the skinwalker had been just where she'd said it would be. Seers were all the same; cowards, quaking animals and easily dealt with.

Gordon smiled grimly and tightened the knots. Even if the thing burned through the six-hours worth of morphine keeping it down, the colloidal silver swarming through its veins would keep it from changing. After that…it would simply be a matter of re-dosing until he was ready to begin his interrogation.

He hauled the thing back to the car and heaved it into the tray. He paused, a sneer twisting his mouth as he looked it over. It never failed to amaze and piss him off…how these things could take form like this one, looking like a regular human girl even as a vicious killer lurked beneath its skin. Gordon shook his head and rolled the cover over the tray to keep out prying eyes; civvies wouldn't understand what was going on here if they saw it. They'd be taken in by the pretty packaging and think he was the monster.

But if he had his way, there would be at least one less monster in the world.

Smiling to himself again, he walked round to the El Camino's cab, crushing the fallen stick of charcoal beneath his boots, leaving behind only dust and the scent of old fire on the air…

Bea knew there was something wrong the moment the bus shelter came into sight and Pepper didn't.

The girl was damned hard to miss, all that blazing hair, and a bus shelter didn't offer many places to hide. For a moment, Bea felt a thrill of fear at the thought that Pepper had finally managed to beat the odds and caught a bus out of town…

Pepper's satchel was on the bench.

Bea parked the patrol car and climbed out, dread pooling in her stomach.

Not only was her satchel here, it was open, as if the girl had been in the middle of retrieving something, or packing away the sketch pad sitting beside it.

She circled the shelter, taking drafts of air and holding it, trying to feel out any useful scents. She found the stale fire odor of crushed charcoal, the tang of fear still hovering in the air, the lingering stink of an unfamiliar male and his vehicle, and something sickly…something like…like morphine…

Oh, Pepper…

Heart in her throat, Bea went back to the car and called it in. The town would be in uproar over this. She was in uproar just thinking about it, about what this implied…

She was carefully packing up Pepper's things to give to her mother when the sketch pad slipped to the ground and fell open.

She stared in surprise at the half-finished image on the most recent page.

Sam Winchester's face looked back at her.

The End…

…Or Is It?

AN2: I'm a bad person. *smiles beatifically*