Like A Map

by dancingninja19

Something isn't right. Monsters of all kinds are showing up everywhere, and no one can figure out why. Even Sam, Dean and Bobby need help. The brothers reconnect with an old friend, and alliances are made with a few new hunters. Little do the brothers and their friends know, one of them is the target for something huge. A part in a demon plan huge.

Like A Map

Chapter 1- The Dake House: Genoa, Nevada [Late 2006]

The young man crouched behind the table, cursing under his breath. They'll definitely see me, he thought, his eyes narrowing. It was dark in the kitchen, but not dark enough. Here and there were strips of light, shining in through the semi-closed shades in the window over the sink. Again his head ducked to avoid the flashlight beam of the owners of the house. This is not good.

James Munroe and his wife Bridget knew there was someone in the house. They'd bought it three months ago, fixed it up, added an addition for their son (who is now off at college) and knew every nook and cranny there was. James had inspected the house himself, and Bridget was an avid architect. They knew all there was to know about the house they were currently searching.

Connor watched as the yellow beam of James's flashlight swept the parlor. He crept slowly forward, crawling on his knees until he was concealed beneath the table, surrounded by the four chairs. His breathing sped up when James stopped and stared in his direction. Crap! he thought. Had he made a noise? Did the floor squeak?

"What?" Bridget asked, her voice high pitched and nasally. Her eyes followed her husband's.

James's face was concealed by the bright light pointed at Connor. "I don't know," he said, "I just thought I saw something."

"Why aren't you going to see what it is, then? It could be a robber, or an animal. James?"

James had ignored her and was walking back towards the garage door, turning right and climbing down the stairs that led to their son's room. "Let's check down here," he suggested.

Bridget cast a wary glance in Connor's direction once more and then followed James down the dark stairs.

Connor's sweaty palms unclenched themselves. He climbed out from underneath their dining room table, taking care not to step on the floorboards he knew that groaned. Tiptoeing through the doorway and onto the rug, he retrieved his green army-styled backpack ("Thank god they didn't find this," he muttered with relief) and slung it over his shoulder. He looked up just as a soft, barely audible knock sounded on the front door. His arms raised in defense, though he knew the homeowners hadn't heard it. Slowly he walked to the door. His hand automatically reached behind him for his handgun, concealed by his jacket; it was strapped to his back. Peeking out the peephole, Connor's tight stomach did a flip. Two men were standing outside in the lightly falling snow. They were tall, definitely related somehow, and both were carrying shotguns. Totally and shadily conspicuous.

Connor opened the door and slipped through it, wiggling in between the men. "Sam, Dean? What are you doing here?" he asked them after all three had backed up enough to see each other clearly.

Dean, the oldest Winchester brother, the one with the green eyes and short, light brown hair, raised an eyebrow. "We were coming to help," he told Connor. "Bobby called a few hours ago and said these two might be a problem. Nosy sons-of-bitches," he muttered.

The taller man with the darker, floppier hair and hazel eyes added, "He said the poltergeist would be tricky, too."

"Bobby's the older guy, right? The boozer."

Dean's eyes flashed. "Hey, don't knock him. We—"

Connor held up his hands, palms forward. "I didn't mean anything by it. But thanks, guys, really. I'm pretty sure I've got it covered." He looked back into the parlor quickly. "We should probably go. I don't know how long they'll be down there."

The Winchesters agreed and the three men, looking completely suspicious with their shotguns, Connor's backpack, and the way their eyes were constantly shifting all over the place, made their way down the small snow-spotted hill and onto the sidewalk. Connor's red car stood out like a sore thumb in the dark neighborhood, even without the benefit of a streetlamp near it. He walked over to it quickly and silently yanked open the door; he dropped his backpack onto the back seat and closed the door once more. He turned back to the brothers.

Dean was staring at his car. He leaned closer to Sam. "Do all hunters have bad-ass cars or is it just the ones we've met?" he asked him.

Sam laughed. "Just the one's we've met, probably," he replied.

Connor grinned. "Your car isn't half bad, though," he praised, and nodded in the '67 Impala's direction. "It's a friggin' legend," he said.

"What's yours?" Dean asked, leaning down and peering through the window.
"Dean, we should probably get going," Sam suggested.

"1970 Chevy Chevelle SS."

"Say that five times fast," Dean laughed.

"Dean," his brother pressed. "Let's go."

He looked up, almost like he was just remembering Sam. "Right. Well," he turned to Connor and held out his hand, "you've got our numbers. If you need anything, give us a call."

Connor smiled and shook it, then Sam's. "Definitely."

The brothers waved and walked back to their car, started it, and rumbled away.

Conner arrived in South Dakota only a few hours later. He was gunning his car as fast as he could, just like he had been for the past hour. Absently he looked in the rearview mirror, though he knew there were no cars following him. But he had to make sure—

"Damn!" Connor cursed loudly. A Statie had pulled out of a hidden driveway on the side of the narrow, one lane road and was flashing its red and blue lights. The siren hadn't been turned on yet, but Connor pulled over to the side of the road, watching as the speedometer's needle ticked slowly below 100 mph. He stomped on his breaks and put the car in park. But the officer raced past him, the siren on full and obnoxious now.

Connor's eyebrows rose. What the hell was that all about? He'd been lucky many times before, but this had been a blatant act of disobedience, and he'd obviously gotten caught. How had he slipped by without a ticket or handcuff session, then?

Oddly enough, Dean's face popped into the back of his mind. "Dude, you're a ninja," his whispered, rough voice said, laughing. Connor shook his head to clear it.

Pushing it to the back of his racing mind, Connor began the sprint to his destination once more and once more pushed his car as fast as it could go. His toes pushed against the inside of his new, black Converse All Star Outsider boots, anxious. He couldn't believe he'd stopped for a cop. Of all things. He shouldn't have stopped.

Connor hissed tightly, thinking of those few minutes he'd lost. Well, now he'd just have to make them up.

There was a knock on Bobby's door. Sam looked up from his beer and stood, sliding back the small kitchen chair with a groan, and walked over to the door. But it opened just before his hand reached for the handle. Connor stood in the doorway, his black hair wild from the wind.

"Connor?" Sam took a step back to let him in. "What are you doing here?"

"Sam, what are you doing in there?" Dean's voice came from another room. He strolled around the corner. "Bobby needs—Oh, hey Connor," he said, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"I just asked him the same thing, Dean," Sam muttered, closing the door.

Connor looked from Sam to Dean, and then back again. "I didn't know who else to go to," he told them. "There aren't any other hunters near my town, and the ones I tried to call just hung up on me."

"Hey, idjits! We have a case here, remember? Stop gabbing and get in here," called Bobby from the room Dean had appeared from.

Sam tugged Connor along behind him and Dean, as he tried to wrestle his way out of his jacket, walking back to where Bobby was seated behind a large writing desk. It was piled with at least ten very old, very dusty books in each corner. In the center, where Bobby's gaze was fixed, was a map of Nevada. Bobby looked up when Sam cleared his throat.

"Ah," he said to Connor, "figured you'd be here sooner or later."

Sam frowned. "You knew he was coming?" he asked. He and Dean exchanged a glance.

"Yep." Bobby stood and handed Connor the map. "He knew we'd be able to help him."

"How?" Connor asked, tossing his jacket over a chair and gingerly holding the edges of the worn map. "I tried so many hunters and none of them wanted anything to do with me," he told them.

"Why?" Sam asked Connor. He shook his head.

"So." Dean leaned against the wall. "What's with all these different cases?"

Bobby shrugged. "No idea. It is weird, though. Having almost a half dozen in one state at the same time."

Sam agreed. "I don't think I've ever heard of something like this happening." He looked to his brother. "I don't have a clue," Dean replied, shrugging also.

Connor continued to stare at the highlighted cities, his eyes unfocused. Sam shook him. "Connor, where do you think we should start?" he asked him.

Connor looked up, shaking his head a bit. "Uh…well, maybe…" His forehead creased. "Why are you asking me? I'm the one who came to you guys for help," he said. His fingers played with the tattered hole in the thigh of his dark but faded jeans.

"Start at the beginning," Dean suggested.

Connor looked back up at the three hunters around him. "I guess it started…two days ago? With the poltergeists in Washoe. Mrs. Bowers used to do séances after her husband died, and when she kicked it I guess she haunted the second floor of their mansion for a long time. Both of them are buried in the graveyard behind it." Connor paused for a moment. "People who've lived there say they could see glowing figures near the graves whenever it was a new moon. I took care of Mrs. Bowers' and her husband's ghosts, burning their remains and such, because the couple before the Munroes almost died of a heart attack."

"So?" Dean asked. "What does that have to with the case?"

Connor glanced at him sideways. "They had seen the ghosts one too many times. That's why they sold the mansion to the Munroes," he explained. "And then the poltergeist moved in."

Sam shrugged and made a face. "Makes sense," he murmured. He looked to Bobby. "So, what's the plan? Where do we go from here?"

"Looks like…" Bobby took the map from Connor and held it out. "Henderson, Nevada."

Chapter 2: Harriet Treem Elementary School: Henderson, Nevada

Just under two days later, Dean pulled into the school's parking lot. Bobby and Connor had elected to stay behind so that they could try and figure out just what they were up against. The four hunters knew that something had to be off in the supernatural world. There weren't many instances where a group like them had to face so many monsters at once. Dean could tell that this job was going to take a lot longer than a week. Maybe it would last a month, maybe longer. He really hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"Is this it?" he asked Sam. They got out of the car and shut the creaky doors.

"Looks like it," Sam said.

Dean looked up into the bright sun and watched the dozen red flags wave in the soft wind. "I hate jobs in schools. We can never get away from them."

The brothers walked around the car, opened the trunk and propped up their weapons compartment with a shotgun. Sam shrugged, not saying anything.

"What do you think we'll need?"

"Well, from the lore that Connor researched," Sam said with his head deep inside the trunk, his long arm reaching for something, "this school has a child ghost problem. We'll need the salt, definitely."

Dean shuddered and grabbed his shotgun and salt rounds, responding with, "Kid ghosts are always so creepy." He shuddered again and helped Sam shut the trunks. Shouldering their weapons, they made their way to the front entrance. "You said the school has been shut down for a week. Anyone know why?"

Sam gave him a look.

"Ah, the ghost. Right. Shoulda thought of that." Dean pushed the door inwards but stopped. The doors wouldn't budge. "Great. This ghost just doesn't want us to gank it, does it?" he muttered.

Sam tapped Dean's shoulder. "We should try a window," he replied. He pointed to their left and they made their way over to the window. Sam peered inside. "Looks like a gym."

Dean looked over his shoulder. On the drive down to the school they had passed maybe five cars, six at best. And they had cruised down the only two lane road in the city at eighty. There was no sign of a cop anywhere. It made Dean suspicious. "Isn't it weird that there's no one around?" he asked Sam cautiously.

Sam was busy trying to crack the window with the butt of his shotgun. "What?"

"I said—" The glass shattered and a gust of freezing cold air blasted at them from inside the gym; they raised their hands protectively. "Holy crap," coughed Dean. "What the hell was that?"

"No idea. We should be careful, though. I didn't like that at all," his brother commented.

Dean nodded in agreement. Being careful not to cut themselves, the boys climbed through the window and into the gym. Dean raised his gun. The air was frigid in here and the hair on his arms stood straight up. "Dude." He elbowed Sam. "Check it out." He pointed to his arm.

One of Sam's eyebrows rose. Dean chuckled to himself and walked across the gym, his boots clacking noisily. Then, all of a sudden, a girl appeared before them. She stood at the other end of the room, near the double doors that led out into the hallway. Her face was pale white, as was the little dress she was draped in. Dean and Sam stopped short, their guns snapping up. But she vanished. The brothers each made a double take. They took a hesitant step forward, and when the little girl didn't reappear, they walked slowly towards the doors she had disappeared behind.

Dean pushed open the doors and jumped around them. "Sam," he murmured. The little girl was just feet from him. But she didn't try to hurt him.

Sam lumbered around the corner then and stopped. "Maybe she wants something," he replied.

The little girl reached her hand out towards Dean, and he got this crazy, overwhelming urge to take her hand. As he reached out ("Dean, what are you doing?" Sam asked, raising his gun), the little girl quickly pulled her hand back and said, "Help me," in a small, petrified voice. Once again she disappeared, but this time, she left a path of dark red blood. The shining trail made its way down the hall and rounded the corner.

Dean made a face. "Should we follow it?" he asked his brother, who nodded.

The trail ended in a small janitor's closet. The problem was, when Dean wrenched open the door, it was completely empty. The trail had disappeared entirely. The brothers looked to each other and then back to the open doorway. There was a small piece of paper taped the wall, something they hadn't seen on their first look in the closet. Dean reached in and ripped it from the wall.

"What's it say?" Sam asked, reading it over his shoulder.

"The little girl we just saw," Dean said, turning to Sam, "died in this closet. The janitor strung her up with some rope, upside down, before dunking her head in some cleaning liquid."

Sam turned away, his face crumpled in disgust.

Dean sighed and folded up the obituary, putting it in his pocket. He backed out of the closet and shut the door. "You think the girl's still running from the janitor?" he asked Sam.

He shrugged. "Probably. We just need to find if the janitor's—"

There was a scream from down the hallway. It was deeper, more powerful than the little girl's voice had been. Sam and Dean bolted towards the gym once more.

Connor let loose another round of rock salt. Finally, the ghost of the creepy old janitor vanished with a bellowed growl. Connor could feel himself shaking; he dropped to one knee, the end of his gun resting on the floor. The double doors behind him opened with a crash, and he whirled around to face whatever else wanted to eat him for lunch. But it was Sam and Dean.

"Oh, thank God," he sighed, lowering his gun. "I knew you guys were here, but I didn't know if I'd get to you in time."

The brothers walked over to him. "What's going on?" Dean asked.

"We heard you scream. It sounded like something was after you," Sam added.

"Something was," Connor told them. "It was the creepy janitor. He came at me with a friggin' noose." His hand rubbed slowly under his chin. He watched Sam's eyebrows get lost in his hairline. "I know where he's buried, if that's what you're gunna ask," he said before Sam could ask anything.

Sam smiled. "Great. So—"

"But I torched him already. I tried to catch you guys on the road because Bobby figured it out just after you'd taken off. I just thought I'd meet you here after I'd burned the bones in case anything else tried to eat you."

"Well, you missed something," Dean said. "Or there's something else here that belonged to him."

"What about the little girl?" Sam asked. "Did you guys find where she's buried?"

"She was cremated and all of her belongings were burned and scattered along with her ashes," said Connor.

"Everything?"

"Everything," Connor sighed.

Dean scratched his head. Connor could almost smell the smoke coming from the hunter's ears. He had to bite back a laugh. "Maybe if we find the rope, we can kill both of them?" Dean asked.

Of course Connor regretted almost laughing at him the moment he'd started. Dean had come up with the only plan that sounded do-able; he had to give him some credit. "We should check in the basement," Connor suggested suddenly.

Dean gave him an odd look. "Why? The girl died in the closet. Wouldn't it be in there?"

"Dean, the closet was empty, though," his brother whispered.

"Oh, right," he mumbled, looking down. "Then maybe in one of the other ones? There has to be more than one." He looked back up, his eyes hopeful.

Connor shrugged. "Maybe. But I'd check the basement first. Bobby dug up an old school newspaper that had been banned right after the girl's murder. It said that the girl hadn't died in the closet, that the janitor had put her there after she'd died. Somebody knew the truth. The principle probably wanted to cover up the fact that the janitor had tortured the girl in the basement. He only wanted people to see that she'd drowned and had a quick death."

"You guys were busy," Dean muttered and walked back the way he and Sam had come. Connor and Sam followed him.

Chapter 3- Introduction

"Kid ghosts are so creepy!" Dean yelled to the steering wheel a few hours later.

Sam laughed next to him. "Dude, it's over. You can relax now," he said. Dean mumbled something low and pushed his car a bit faster. Sam rolled his eyes, grinning, and bent over the road map again.

"Who would've guessed he'd use the same exact rope to tie her up for torturing and giving her a necktie? This janitor, man, must've been pretty screwed up in the head."

"I know," Sam agreed. "So where are we going now?"

"Why can't we just go back to Bobby's or find a crap motel for a few nights?"

"Because that's not how our job works."

"Well, our job sucks," Dean huffed.

"Seriously though," Sam said, leaning back, "we should be glad Connor came when he did. We would've searched that school for hours. We had no clue what we were looking for."

"Yeah, I guess. But I wish we could have a break once in a while," Dean said. Sam looked over at him. "We deserve one."

Sam agreed completely. "But we won't get one, Dean. We just have to suck it up and do our job."

Dean grunted. "Our job…crappy guidance counselors. So do you get this?" His eyes flashed to Sam's and back to the road. "I mean, all these jobs, just lined up like this? When does that ever happen?"

Immediately, Sam's mind rushed back to another job at a school a year ago. He didn't say anything because he knew Dean would just get upset and Sam would laugh at how uncomfortable his brother would suddenly be. So he kept his mouth shut and turned to look out the window, his grin reflecting back at him.

~One Year Earlier~

She wanted to transfer out of the college. She absolutely hated the place, the food, and the people; except her friends. The girls on her floor were the funniest she's ever known. She'll really miss them, she always told them. They'd make sure sleep-overs were arranged, they'd assured her, and she believed them. But Jenna was far from an ordinary college girl. Almost twenty, this red-headed young woman had experienced something that no one should ever have to go through. Two months ago, she'd been attacked by a ghost.

"I'm telling you, my room's haunted," she told her floor mate one Thursday night. Some idiots from the floor above them were partying, or getting ready to party, and they shook the ceiling. Jenna looked up and yelled, "Son of a bitch! Shut up!"

Her floor mate, Lindsay, sighed and shook her head. "Thirsty Thursday," she muttered. "Whoever came up with that is a total douche." The girl ran a hand through her chin length brown hair.

"I know, right?"

"But seriously? You think it's really haunted?"

Jenna nodded her head fearfully. "People say the whole school is haunted," she said.

"Yeah, it's almost 200 years old. I kinda figured, but your room? Really?" Lindsay asked.

"You think I'm crazy." Lindsay didn't say anything. "Well, thanks. But yeah, I do. I heard footsteps and I could've sworn I felt a hand on my forehead this morning."

The other girl shifted her position on the common room's couch next to her. "What time, this morning?" Lindsay asked hesitantly. "'Cause you know three in the morning is the—"

"Witching hour," they both said together. Then Jenna said, "Exactly." Her already pale face paled even more.

Her friend nodded, took in a deep breath, and then stood, holding her hand out for Jenna. "C'mon. I'm gunna call some guys I know. They'll know what to do." She took Jenna's hand and hauled her into a standing position. "They're experts at this stuff, trust me. I just wouldn't tell anyone else about this. There's no reason to get them freaked out."

"Shouldn't we, though? It matters to them, too."

The girls walked out of the room and into the hall. "Trust me on this, Jenna. Don't tell anyone who doesn't need to know. The only reason I'm telling you about them is because they can help your…" she stopped just in front of Jenna's door "…situation."

Jenna hesitated too. "I don't want to go in there," she whispered, her voice tight. "I'm too scared."

Lindsay nodded. "Yeah, I wouldn't either. C'mon, my roommate's out for the week. She's at her boyfriend's place. Sleep in my room tonight if you want. Just go get your pillow and stuff quick and get out of there."

Jenna nodded and after some reluctance, grabbed the door handle, swiped her card, and darted into her room. She was out again in less than twenty seconds. Her face showed just how scared shitless she was to be in there.

"Got everything?"

Jenna nodded and didn't say anything.

"Your dorm smells like skunk." A male's voice drifted up the stairs.

"Yeah, that's the boys' dorms. Weed," a female voice commented absently.

"There are different kinds of weed that don't smell like that." Another male spoke this time.

The woman with them laughed. "They prefer the smelly stuff. Don't ask me why."

It was a few hours after Lindsay had called for help, and Jenna was sitting on the top step of their floor, listening to the incoming conversation. She stood quickly when she saw her friend leading two very tall, very handsome men up towards her. Immediately she felt a blush rise in her snowy, freckled cheeks. Lindsay waved and shooed her away, needing to get through to the hallway. Jenna was out of breath by the time she had made it to the middle of the hallway and turned back around to face the three of them.

Her friend pointed to the taller man, the one with the floppy brown hair. "This is Sam," she pointed to the man next to him, "and Dean. They're brothers. These are the guys I was talking about. They can help. Just tell them…"

The exterior of the house was normal enough. It was a one story with an unfinished basement and had once-green-but-now-yellowing siding. The two young Japanese Maple trees on either end of the small front lawn needed trimming. There was a two car garage, but a reasonably sized gray car was sitting in the top left corner of the driveway. Everything looked perfect. Yet there was only one thing that was out of place.

A young woman—who uncannily resembled Lindsay, except she had short and spiky, metallic-purple streaked, dark brown hair—opened the white front door and jogged down the concrete steps, an odd look on her face. She walked towards the car in her driveway and slowly made her way around to the other side of it. She stopped near the back end of the car and dropped to her knees only after her eyes had swept from the car door on the ground to the right-rear-door-less frame of the vehicle; her mouth dropped open. Then she put her hands on the ground in front of her and peered under the car. She jerked up when she saw the spare tire sitting on the ground, right where the stick-shift would be.

"My car! What the hell?" the woman asked herself. She stood and began to walk away from the ruined car, towards the back end of the house. Whoever had done this was probably hiding in the backyard woods somewhere, so she had to be careful. But once she had a clear view of the brownish-red deck, she stopped. Two men had sprung out of the surrounding wooded area behind her and now had small handguns pointed at either side of her face.

Crap, she thought.

"Get moving," the smaller of the two masked men ordered. He prodded her towards the side stairs of the deck.

Gulping down her fear, the young woman walked slowly up the small stairs and stopped just in front of her sliding glass door. "What do you want with me?" she asked in a shaky voice.

"There's about a hundred bombs hardwired to explode any second. And that string you just stepped on…it just pulled all the pins. Your brother is inside," the second man stated.

She looked down. Shrieking, she jumped off of the tripwire—the one of about a hundred crisscrossing across the deck—and looked from the two men to her living room, visible behind the glass door.

"NO!" she cried. The young woman shrieked again when a movement across her yard caught her tearing eyes. Two more men, much taller than the gunmen, appeared around the side of her house.

Sam, Dean! Help! she thought desperately.

And then just as suddenly, the young woman wrenched open the glass door and darted away from the men in front of her, taking the gunmen by surprise. They hadn't even had time to lift their weapons to shoot her retreating back. The girl tore through her house and skidded into her brother's bedroom.

"John, we gotta go! Get up now!" she yelled at the younger boy, who was sitting at the end of his bed, playing a video game.

"Wah! Who're you? Why?" he asked. "How'd you get in my house?"

"It doesn't matter! Just trust me, please!"

When he didn't move, the girl ran forward and grabbed his hand, yanking him up into a standing position.

"Savannah, c'mon!" he called to his dog, who was comfortably curled up next to him.

"The house is gunna blow up! Please, let's go, now!"

"What?! How?" John asked as the siblings raced through the small house, John's Border Collie in tow.

"Trust me!" Without thinking, she burst through the open doorway at the back of her house, stopping short when she found herself on the deck once more. She looked around quickly. The two gunmen and two other men were gone.

"We gotta run," she told her brother, and they both took off down the steps. Savannah followed as she barked, but obediently.

Just as the siblings rounded the corner to the front yard, a black car screeched to a halt at the end of their driveway. The two tall men from before yelled through their open windows, "C'mon, let's go!"

The young woman opened the back door and practically threw the dog inside before shoving her brother in after her. Then she jumped in, slammed the door and yelled, "Go Dean, go!"

Jenna shook her head to clear the unexpected, odd, and very vivid daydream that had passed through her.

Lindsay watched as Jenna's eyes suddenly widened when she caught Dean looking at her. Her knees probably felt weak; Lindsay rolled her eyes.

"Jenna, are you all right? Jenna?" Lindsay walked over to her and poked her arm. The girl completely ignored the prodding finger.

Jenna sighed softly as Dean's eyebrows rose in amusement. Holy God, she thought, he's hot. She tried to swallow the uncomfortable lump that was rising in her throat, but it was too dry. She distantly heard Lindsay comment, "I'm sorry, she's not usually like this," as though she had shouted it down a well. But Jenna didn't stop to wonder why Lindsay had said it in the first place.

Dean nudged his brother, Sam, and they both focused their attention on her. "You okay?" one of them asked Jenna. She couldn't figure out which one of them had spoken. She really didn't care at the moment.

"Jenna?" her friend asked again. "Why don't you tell them what happened?" Her voice was tight, anxious…annoyed.

Finally, Jenna tore her stunned gaze from the brothers and shook her head. "Right," she muttered. "So I keep hearing footsteps in my room, and I could've sworn I felt a hand on my forehead this morning."

"You sure it wasn't your own?" Dean asked her, his voice deep and rough.

She decided that she liked his the best. "Definitely not mine. It was ice cold, and when I woke up to see who was there, I was sweating bullets. My window wasn't even open."

Sam sighed. "Looks like you have a poltergeist. A small, probably harmless one, but we'll take care of it," he told her, smiling.

Why do they have to be so attractive? Jenna thought enviously. Her eyebrows pulled down a bit. "Thanks," she said, walking in between them and over to her door; she could smell their delicious cologne on the way by. "Really," she stuttered. "I would still be freaking out if I didn't know it would be gone by tomorrow." She opened her door for them.

"No problem," said Dean as he passed by her. "So what is it with this ghost? Know anything about it?"

"Only rumors," Lindsay chimed. "The older kids here told us that a girl hung herself in this room. Another did herself in down the hall too."

"And you couldn't take care of it on your own?"

Dean's question stopped Jenna short. She looked at Lindsay. "What does he mean, you couldn't—?"

"You guys are the experts," Lindsay interrupted, keeping her eyes away from Jenna's. She was clearly hiding something, and Jenna promised herself that she'd ask her about it after this was all done.

The brothers exchanged a wary glance. Jenna was now focused once more. She wanted more than anything to touch Sam's chest, to see if he really was built like she was imagining… Someone cleared his throat, and she realized that her face was plastered into a dreamlike expression. Rearranging her features quickly, Jenna ducked her head, smiling.

"Why'd you wait so long to get help?" Sam asked her, sliding past her into the now open doorway.

Jenna stepped back to let Dean through as well. "I thought I was dreaming or something. But it kept happening, so either I was going crazy or something was really haunting me," she said. She peeked into the room at the brothers' backs. "Do you need anything?"

"A computer would be great," Sam replied over his shoulder. He turned his gaze back to the ceiling. "I left mine in the car."

They want to use my computer? she thought, her eyes growing wide. Jenna began to picture Sam bent over her small desk, his dark hair spilling over his forehead…and Dean, leaning over him. She lingered on the way Dean's face would look in the glow of the computer screen for a little longer than was necessary. She heard Sam clear his throat again. The sound probably wasn't even to get her attention. But she felt like it was meant to. "Sorry," she mumbled. "You want to use mine?"

Sam and Dean turned to face her. "If you don't mind," Dean said, winking at her. Sam nudged him in the ribs with his elbow. "What was that for?" he hissed.

But Jenna hadn't noticed. He'd winked at her. Holy crap. He'd winked at her. Now completely entranced in his spell, Jenna slowly walked over to her computer, sat in the black folding chair, and hit the power key. She typed in her password, barely aware of what she was doing. Then she stood and backed away against the wall-hanging mirror, her head resting against it. "I'll just be…I'll let you guys work, I guess," she stuttered, and walked out of the room, closing the door. She didn't see Lindsay in the hallway, her face in her palm.

Jenna was racing back and forth in front of her friend, making a slight indent in the rug whenever she ran by. "I can't believe you didn't tell me!" she whispered excitedly.

Lindsay had her arms crossed. "What are you talking about?" she asked for the tenth time. "Aren't you tired? You've been running like this for over three hours."

Surprisingly, Jenna wasn't tired at all. "I'm just hyper. It'll wear off soon, probably."

"Doubt it."

"Yeah, probably."

"But what do you mean, I didn't tell you? What didn't I tell you?"

Jenna finally stopped, almost knocking her friend over. She grabbed her arms. "That they were so goddamn good looking!" She shook her. "You can't just tell me you have friends who hunt ghosts and not tell me they're hot!"

Lindsay laughed. "I wasn't expecting you to spaz this much, to be honest," she said.

"But they are!"

"Yeah, I know. But you really don't want to—"

"Kaci was a freshman—" Sam's voice said from Jenna's room. He'd opened the door.

Jenna's eyes widened and she started to say something, but her friend clamped her hand over her mouth and hissed frantically, "Cool it, seriously. You're freaking me out and if they see you like this, they'll never forgive me for introducing you to them."

When Jenna had stopped bouncing on her heels and was tugging at the hand across her mouth, Lindsay dropped her hand and stepped away from her. It was just in time, too. Sam and Dean walked out of Jenna's room a moment later.

"So we have to gank her soon," Dean continued, stuffing an ID into his wallet that read Jackson Seal. He was totally oblivious to the fact that neither of the girls had heard either him or his brother. Jenna and Lindsay just nodded in agreement.

Sam put a massive hand on Jenna's shoulder; she had to resist the urge to stare at it. "You guys should go home until this is over," he told them.

"We don't know how dangerous it'll get," added Dean. Sam dropped his hand and Dean nodded to the staircase at his right.

Jenna's eyes widened. "You mean you didn't kill it yet?" she asked Dean.

He shook his head. "We just finished the research," he replied.

"I've already got some clothes packed for each of us," piped Lindsay. Jenna looked at her curiously. The other girl shrugged. "I thought it might help to be prepared."

She turned and walked to her own room, disappearing inside it and then reappearing just a few seconds later with a blue Nike duffle bag over her shoulder. "All right, let's go," she said to Jenna. But Jenna hesitated.

The brothers, of course, took the gesture the wrong way. "It'll be fine, Jenna," Sam said. "Trust me, we've got it covered. This whole thing will be over by midnight," added Dean.

The other girl sighed and grabbed Jenna's upper arm. "Call your mom," she told her as they made their way down the stairs to the lobby, "and tell her to pick us up. Jenna!"

"What?"

"Get your head out of the gutter!" her friend hissed quietly. "C'mon, man!"

Lindsay and Jenna had gone home, and the night had crept up on the Winchester brothers so fast that their heads were spinning. After evacuating the students with the fire alarm, Sam and Dean knew they had only seven minutes until the fire department arrived, since tonight hadn't been a scheduled alarm. So once Sam had given the okay that the halls and dorms were clear, Dean went back up to Jenna's room and started preparing for one seriously pissed-off poltergeist.

The brothers had just relocated every single one of the poltergeist's potential victims, and now it was angry for being left alone, trapped with two hunters.

"Sam, we gotta find it," said Dean. He reached into his duffle and pulled out his sawed-off shotgun, throwing Sam his as well. "It could be in any one of these dorms."

"We should take different sides of the building," Sam suggested. "I'll take South. You can take North."

Nodding, Dean loaded the gun with his home-made rock salt rounds, cocked it, and left Jenna's room. No sooner had he stepped onto the landing of the staircase did he feel a hard shove in the middle of his back. Yelping in surprise, Dean tumbled down the flight of stairs, thankful the wall had been there to catch him.

Sam rocketed out of Jenna's room. "Dean! What happened?" He rushed over to help his brother stand.

Dean was holding his shoulder. "The damn thing pushed me," he groaned. He could feel the numbness slowly spreading through his right arm, making his fingers tingle. This was not good. He was going to need that arm.

Sam's eyes were wide. He grabbed Dean's unhurt arm and slung it around his shoulders, slowly making their way down the three flights of stairs to the ground level.

"You good?" Sam asked when Dean leaned away from him and into the wall.

Dean grunted. "Just…go see if it went to the South side. See if you can get it before it gets me again," he said.

Sam gave his brother a look of concern before turning and disappearing around the corner of the lobby.

Still groaning, Dean tried to lift his arm. Pain shot through his shoulder when he had lifted it to about chest height, and he hissed and dropped it to his side again. "Son of a bitch," he muttered, but turned down the boys' corridor to his right, his shotgun shaking in his left hand.

Almost instantly, Dean was thrown forward onto his stomach. His gun was snatched from his hand and tossed out of his reach, clattering against a door ahead of him.

"Son of a bitch! Sam!" he called, struggling to get to his feet. But he was knocked down again, and it felt like the thing was standing on top of him.

"Dean!" Sam cried when he had found his brother.

A round of rock salt flew over Dean's head, and Dean heard the poltergeist scream in rage. Luckily, the thing had vanished and Dean was able to breathe, getting to his knees before Sam was grabbing at his shoulders.

"Get the bags of herbs Missouri told us to use," instructed Dean. "Put them in the four corners of the building."

"You brought that stuff?"

"Yeah, I put it in the duffle before we got here." Sam helped Dean stand and he leaned heavily into the wall again. "Go, I'll distract it," Dean said.

"How?" asked Sam.

"I'll figure something out," said his brother. He shoved Sam towards the stairs. "Go!"

Dean watched Sam take the stairs three at a time. He muttered a curse under his breath. If this was how it was going to go down, well, that was just fine with him. He had wanted to brawl with some evil son-of-a-bitch for quite some time now. Maybe tonight would be his chance.

"Come on! I'm right here! You can't get rid of me that easily!" yelled Dean into the deserted hallway.

There was a whooshing sound, and the poltergeist came flying around the corner, down the stairs, probably backtracking from on its way to kill Sam. Dean immediately dove for his gun, rolled over onto his back, and took a shot at the thing. It vanished. But Dean knew better this time. He stood and ran for the lobby, and then down the South boys' corridor.

Again he let loose a round of rock salt. Again the poltergeist growled and vanished. "Come on, Sam," Dean muttered. "What are you doing, painting your nails?"

But he could hear an axe, or maybe it was Sam's goliath shoe, hammering against the walls upstairs. He was trying to create a hole for the first, or maybe second or third—Dean couldn't be sure—bag of herbs Missouri had given them to ward off poltergeists. There was a flash of blue and white light, and just as Dean was picked up, then thrown into the stairwell and pinned against them, did the evil spirit roar and let him go.

It was over.

Sam hurtled down the stairwell where Dean was lying, almost falling on top of him in his haste to help his brother stand. "We better go," he said. "The seven minutes is almost up. And we don't want to have to explain the holes in the walls to the cops."

"Ugh, cops," grunted Dean.

Together, they climbed the stairs, found their way back to Jenna's room, grabbed their things and walked back to the lobby. Before they left, Sam insisted on wiping his and Dean's prints wherever they thought was necessary. Rolling his eyes, Dean grabbed a cloth from his brother and wiped everything he thought he'd touched as fast as he could.

"Can we go now?" he asked, throwing the rag back to Sam; he nodded.

Ignoring the staring from the students shivering in the cold, Sam and Dean made their way over to the parking lot. Dean tossed the duffle bag into the back seat and opened the door to the passenger's side. Sam raised an eyebrow at him.

"You drive," Dean said as he got in and closed the door. Sam sat next to him and started the engine. "My shoulder is killing me."

Chapter 4- Hot Ponds Hotel: Jackpot, Nevada (PRESENT DAY)

Sam scuffed his shoe into the dry dirt of the trail. It was Wednesday afternoon, and he and Dean had had cases for three days straight now; he was, quite frankly, exhausted. Then he stopped and crouched. "Dean, look at this," he called over his shoulder.

Dean jogged over to him. "What is it?"

"It's the hoof prints the locals were telling us about. But we haven't seen any horses anywhere," he said.

Dean nodded and added, "No horse crap, either."

Sam laughed. "Yeah, none of that so far. Maybe we should come back tonight and see if anything changes."

"I guess." Dean straightened from his crouch. Then his head tilted to the side, almost as if he was thinking very hard about something, and he forced his eyes to squint down the length of the trail. "Sam?" he asked, pointing into a patch of trees behind them. "Do you see that?"

It was unmistakably a patch of vividly red hair, crouched—or attempting to be invisible—in the shade of one of the bigger trees. The young woman behind the bush was definitely watching him and his brother. Dean saw the girl jump in surprise (falling over and scrambling around for a few seconds) when she'd realized that they could see her. Then she stood and walked out onto the trail, a sheepish smile on her face.

"Jenna?" Sam asked. He and Dean walked forward to meet her.

"What were you doing?" Dean wanted to know.

Jenna's face quickly turned the color of her hair. She cleared her throat and said, "I was going to meet you, once I found out that you two were staying at the hotel, but you weren't at breakfast or in the pool or on the golf course, so I decided to come looking for you. I'm staying for the week, too."

"How'd you know we were here?" Sam asked.

"The sign-in sheet at the front office," she said simply. "Dean used the same fake ID the few days you came to help me at school, so I figured…you know, maybe it was you guys?"

Dean shuffled a bit. Of course she'd pay more attention to him. It made him uncomfortable for some reason. "Why'd you want to meet with us?"

Jenna shrugged, holding her hands up, palms forward. "What's with the twenty questions?" But she dropped the sarcasm almost instantly. "I wanted to tell you that the ghosts won't be a problem anymore," she said.

"How'd you know about that in the first place?" Dean asked, but Sam crossed his arms and didn't wait for her answer. "Who says?"

"I do."

"And how would you know that?"

"Because I took care of them. And I did research before coming here." Jenna rubbed her neck in embarrassment. "The issue at school kind of…freaked me out of going any place before knowing its history. I guess I'm paranoid now, but it was good this time, led me straight to something real."

At this, Dean had to laugh. "Sure, Jenna, sure," he muttered, backing away from her and tugging his brother along with him by the sleeve. "We'll let you know how it turns out, though." He smiled in spite of himself.

"Excuse me?" Jenna's question was sharp and could have slapped Dean (and probably Sam) right across the face. Both brothers turned back to face her. "I did you a favor, risked my life, and you two won't even let me explain myself? You just brush it off like it never happened?" Her eyes were dangerously narrowed; Dean had never seen her this angry before. "You guys are assholes," she spat, turning away from them.

Dean ran up to her and grabbed her sleeve. She tugged her arm away from him, glaring at the ground. "All right, sorry," he said, "really. We just…didn't think you'd be hunter material." He shrugged in what he hoped was an innocent manner.

To his and Sam's relief, Jenna let out a small laugh. "That's what I thought," she told them.

Sam huffed in exasperation next to them.

"So," she clapped her hands together, her mood shifted entirely, "want to you how I successfully took down my first—well, first two—ghosts?" she asked excitedly. There was an unusual brightness in her eyes.

Dean looked to Sam, who shrugged, nodding. "Sure, why not," they told her.

~Twelve Hours Earlier~

Jenna picked up her phone and dialed the number five: Lindsay was on speed dial. It took a few minutes for Lindsay to pick up, but when she did, Jenna didn't even let her say 'hello.' Jenna immediately said, "I figured it out!"

Lindsay yawned into the receiver. "Figured what out? You know what time it is, right?" She yawned again.

"Yeah, it's like, ten o'clock or something," Jenna said absently. "But listen—"

"No," Lindsay said dryly, "it's not. It's fall vacation and it's three in the morning. What could be so important that you have to call me at three in the morning?"

"Really? Oops." Jenna's eyes flicked to her nightstand. She thought her friend sounded a bit more than annoyed. "But it's important. So can we talk for a few?"

Lindsay sighed heavily. "Now that I'm awake, why not?"

"Okay, good," Jenna said, "because I figured it out. How you know Sam and Dean."

There was silence on Lindsay's end. Then, "You did, huh?"

Jenna noticed how guarded her voice had become. "Yep," she said, twiddling a piece of stray hair around her finger. "I was looking for hotel reservations for a week—I'm going to see some relatives in Nevada—and found this hotel that was haunted—"

"Did you now?"

"—and then it clicked," Jenna continued as if Lindsay hadn't sarcastically interrupted at all. "Haunted Hotel. Haunted School. You brought Sam and Dean in to help." She waited, hoping Lindsay would catch on. But she stubbornly didn't.

"Yeah, so?" Lindsay hedged. "Maybe I just happen to know that these guys like to kill monsters for fun. What's that got to do with me?"

Jenna smiled even though Lindsay couldn't see her. "Everything," she said excitedly. "Lindsay, you know them because you kill monsters too! It's the only thing that makes sense!"

Jenna heard Lindsay drop her phone loudly onto what sounded like a tile floor, curse, and scuffle around to pick it up again. When she could hear her breathing again, Jenna asked, "Well? How'd I do?"

"I can't believe it took you this long to figure it out, honestly," was her answer.

"Yes!" Jenna punched the air in triumph, and she only stopped dancing once she heard Lindsay's voice again, saying loudly, "Jenna, tell me you're not going to do something stupid."

"What do you mean?" Jenna's eyebrows pushed down.

"I mean don't go hunting whatever you've found by yourself. You could get killed."

"I won't," Jenna promised. "I'll be careful."

"Jenna, no!" Lindsay practically squealed. "You don't know what you're doing! Please, just leave it alone. Some hunter somewhere will take care of it eventually. Don't do this when it's not your responsib—"

Jenna had hung up on her.

"Wow, okay," Dean muttered, shaking his head. He, his brother and Jenna were now in the lobby of the Hot Ponds Hotel, sitting comfortably in a half-moon array of squashy maroon armchairs.

"She told you not to take the case," Sam said, "because she was worried about you. And then you just hung up on her like that?"

Jenna nodded, smiling. "It gets even better, just wait."

Jenna was pacing in her kitchen, her hands behind her back. Sam and Dean had told her before, for future reference, that ghosts and spirits could not cross lines of salt. She stopped pacing and ran to her cupboard, dug out the double-pack tube of salt and thrust it into her open backpack. She began to pace once more, keeping her eyes fixed on the bright screen of her laptop, sitting on her kitchen table.

The website for the Hot Ponds Hotel in Jackpot, Nevada (Say that five times fast, Jenna thought, grinning) said there was a horseman that had used the trail on the hotel's grounds for trade purposes back in the 1700s. The hotel was just a small post office back then, and he stopped by regularly to mail his goods to different parts of the world. The website also mentioned of his untimely death: Theodore Multame was murdered on October 22, 1792 down on the back trail. The authorities had said that he'd been murdered only on the evidence that his horse was found with a slash across its stomach and a trail of blood leading from the saddle into the woods. Multame's body was never found.

The much-publicized rumor of the hotel being home to Multame's ghost was another thing that had caught Jenna's eye. Anyone who had stayed overnight at the hotel said that they could see Multame and his horse through the trees, walking along the trail, only when the sun had set. The ghosts had been peaceful, minding their own business, up until ten years ago.

Something had happened, no one knew what, but something had angered Multame and his steed. Swarms of reporters were to be seen flocking to the back trail whenever one of the vacationers from the hotel went missing; they'd always be found on the back trail, hoof prints encircling the body, with a gruesome slash across the stomach. Theodore Multame was killing people. Thirty-six have been claimed by the ghost's rage so far.

"What did you do after that?" Sam asked.

Jenna crossed her legs dramatically, draping an arm over the back of her chair. "I came here," she said.

"Without knowing anything else besides the ghosts' possible fearof salt? You know that could've been a trick or something, right? I mean, we could've lied to you to keep you out of our way," Dean said. Sam nodded next to him in fervent agreement.

"I know, but I figured Lindsay trusted you, so why shouldn't I trust you?"

The brothers were silent for a moment. Jenna took this as a signal for her to continue. "So I drove here, camped out on the trail, and waited for them to come to me," she told them in a hushed voice.

She was surprised and a bit put-off when Dean scoffed, "Oh, by all means, explain that one, please. Because that was pretty stupid of you." Sam elbowed him hard. His older brother glared at him. "What, Sam? She waited for a murdering ghost, probably at the exact time he shows his ugly face, and put herself right in his way, without any regard for her own safety. Bet he was glad he didn't have to wait another three and a half weeks," he added smugly, watching Jenna's eyes widen in astonishment.

"How'd you know?" she asked.

"We've been doing this for a lot longer than you have," Sam said, and when Jenna was about to question how long, he added, "too long. Why don't you get back to how you stopped the ghost?"

At this Jenna brightened considerably. "Well…" she began.

Jenna had been running from Multame for longer than she realized; the sun was coming up. She quickly looked over her shoulder. The horseman was gone. Panting, Jenna doubled over to catch her breath. Throwing open salt packets had distracted the ghosts—it had made them flicker from view and vanish a few times entirely, actually—but after a while it had seemed as though they'd gotten stronger, was able to resist the salt with barely any effort at all. As sheer luck would have it, Jenna had somehow made it back to her bag at one point and grabbed her last hope: the salt bomb. She'd Googled how to make a home-made (very home-made) bomb before leaving for the hotel, and attached the explosive to the double-pack of salt she'd thrown into her bag. But she hadn't brought her lighter with her. In fact, she didn't even have a lighter. And then Jenna had been in trouble.

Sweaty and shaking, without any of her belongings, which were back on the trail somewhere, Jenna made her way across the small green golf course and into the lobby. She sank into a squashy, very-obviously-maroon chair, and began to think. What could she do? The salt had been her only option. But that couldn't be right. Sam and Dean had completely gotten rid of the poltergeist in her dorm room; Jenna shivered uncomfortably. They had to have used something else. Then an idea came to her.

She dug out her cell from her pocket and dialed five: Lindsay picked up on the first ring.

"Hello?" she asked, and her voice sounded strained, anxious.

"Lindsay, it's—"

"Oof!" There was a loud bang, and Jenna thought she heard shouting.

"Lindsay? Hey, I kinda need your help," Jenna said, a little louder than would have been necessary if she hadn't needed to shout over whatever was in the background where Lindsay was. People meandering lazily in the lobby were staring at her.

A sound distinctly close to a gunshot made Jenna jump. Then Lindsay had the phone back to her ear again. "I'm a little busy," she huffed—perhaps she was running?—"can this wait?"

Jenna shook her head. "No, it's about the hotel ghost," she whispered, hoping against hope that Lindsay had heard her through all the noise. "I need to know—"

"—how to kill it, right," Lindsay finished, sounding distracted. "Ah!" There was another shot, and Lindsay shouted, "We're in the middle of a paintball game right now, dude! C'mon!" Apparently, someone must have cheated.

Jenna sighed in relief. She had feared that her friend had been involved in a shoot-out, or that she'd just interrupted her in a hunt for something that wanted her for lunch. "Lindsay?" Jenna asked tentatively.

The girl on the other line cleared her throat. A siren went off, and she said, "Good, we won," probably looking at the score board. "Salt didn't work, huh? Yeah, Multame's a bitch."

Jenna was taken aback. How did she know which hotel she was at? There must be hundreds in Nevada, and she hadn't mentioned the name, not once. "You know him?" she asked instead.

"Yep. I tried to snuff him out a year ago. I burned his bones, but I guess he's got something else floating around out there. Hot Ponds is the most haunted hotel in Nevada, so I figured you'd try to be brave and go there. I was going to get back to him eventually…"

"You…burned his bones? What?"

"Yeah," Lindsay laughed. "Didn't know you had to become a grave-robber, did you?" She laughed again, and this time it was a deep, belly laugh. "How do you like being a hunter now?"

"I guess…I'll just deal with it ." There was a crunch of gravel, and Jenna said, "So what should I do?"

Lindsay sighed. "Well," Jenna held the phone away from her ear as the sound of Velcro being undone blasted out of the receiver, "you can always look for something he owned to burn," she said, and huffed as she heaved the rest of her gear off (or, at least, that's what Jenna thought she was doing). "But you should do it quick. Legend has it that once Multame had sent off forty pieces of his trade, whatever that was, he partied with the locals. And he partied hard. It must've been some trade he was doing. I'm guessing forty in his magic number. He's up to what, thirty-six people now?"

"Thirty-eight as of this morning," Jenna mumbled, her throat dry.

"Crap. Wish I was there to help." Lindsay paused, and then, "The staff allowed you into the hotel?"

"Yeah, it was unbelievable how fast it reopened. But why can't you help?"

"I'm not getting into this," Lindsay said, and Jenna could just imagine her holding up a finger. "You started this. You finish it. Just don't lose any more time. His partying now may be slightly different than his partying when he was alive."

Jenna clenched her fist on her knee. "Thanks—" But the line went dead.

Sam was leaning on his fist, his elbow on the arm of his chair. "What did he own?" he asked Jenna.

"I went back out to the trail later that day—not at night, I'm not that stupid" (Dean rolled his eyes, and Jenna glared half-heartedly, trying not to smile) "—and accidentally kicked something, stubbing my toe." She bent down to look at her black-and-blue pinkie toe, strapped in red sandals. "I think I broke it."

"Anyway…" Dean hedged, waving his hand.

Jenna sat up, "Right," and continued. "It was a horse shoe. I dug it out of the ground, but once I had it, I had no idea how to destroy it," she told them.

"Did you melt it down?" Dean asked. He looked around. "Where the hell did you find a forge here?"

"There's gotta be one, Dean," said Sam, "horses are everywhere."

"See." Jenna held up a finger. "That's what I thought."

"So there isn't one close by?"

"I had to go to Ohio—("Why Ohio?" Dean murmured)—and melt it down. But Multame followed me."

Sam and Dean sat, mouths open, thunderstruck for a few seconds. "He followed you?" Sam asked, his elbow slipping off the chair. "What happened?"

Jenna smiled, glad that her story had finally caught the brothers' attention. It should have been given the spotlight in the first place, but Jenna knew that Sam and Dean didn't think of her as a hunter, so they'd just brushed the story off. Well, she'd just have to prove to them just how useful she was.

"Nothing really," Jenna said, sighing and waving her hand in the air. "We scuffled a bit in the barn next to the forge—actually, he ran at me with a pistol and I was basically hiding from him the whole time… I think he might've killed a few chickens—and when I ran across the field to the forge, his horse tripped me at the very edge of the entrance. The horse shoe flew from my hand and somehow landed in the fire." She paused, her hand thoughtfully on her chin. "There was a blast of black smoke and I had to cover my head, but when I looked back, Multame and his horse were gone."

"Sounds like you got lucky," Dean said, nodding in approval at her.

"Very lucky," Jenna agreed. She ducked her face to hide her reddening cheeks.

The glass doors at the entrance of the hotel slid open then, and a police officer stepped into the lobby. He took off his dark sunglasses, wiped them on his uniform, and tucked them into his pocket. Then he walked over to the empty counter and waited; Jenna's face was its normal snowy coloring again.

Dean turned to Sam and whispered, "You know, that's the first cop I've seen all week," pointing discreetly in the cop's direction.

Sam nodded. "It's weird, don't you think?"

"That's because he's the only one here," Jenna told them, her voice just as low as theirs had been. When neither brother said anything, as they were still staring at the cop's back, she snapped her fingers and said a little louder, "He's the only one," the brothers turned around, "because the ten others were too scared to stay. They'd all tried to squash the rumors that Nevada was so haunted, but ended up seeing the ghosts for themselves."

"You mean," Sam said, his eyebrows furrowing, "that all those ghosts we just took care of scared off the law enforcement?"

Jenna nodded. "He was the only one brave enough, or stupid enough. Maybe because he doesn't believe, or maybe he hasn't seen anything yet."

"Huh," Dean grunted. "Well, good for him, I guess."

Returning their gaze to his back, the three hunters watched as the cop tapped his fingers on the mahogany wood counter for a moment, turned, and just about stormed out of the hotel. Jenna was the first to stand. "I think I should get going," she said. Dean and Sam stood as well. "I don't actually have reservations. I have to get back home."

Dean smiled at her. "Ours are fake, anyway," he replied, shrugging his shoulders.

Jenna grinned, "See you later, then?" and held out her hand.

Both brothers shook it and watched her walk out of the lobby. Dean leaned on the chair behind him. "She's not too bad," he said to Sam, who let out a small laugh.

Chapter 5- Visit

The brothers were back at Bobby's finally, and they were exhausted. Dean threw his duffel bag across the room with a jerk of his arm; it landed with a clang. He stalked over to the fridge and yanked the door open. His head disappeared inside, and then popped up a moment later. "Seriously, Bobby? No beer?" he asked.

"You boys are drivin', ain't ya?" the older man replied.

Dean slammed the door shut and grumbled. "Driving where? We just got back from being dragged all over Nevada. And those vampires last night were a pain in our ass."

"Well, you boys better rest up for tomorrow. There's more where that came from."

"But tomorrow's Friday," Dean whined.

Bobby gave him a hard look and said, "D'you really think spirits and whatnot give a crap about what day of the week it is?"

"Eh, I guess you're right," Dean muttered. He plopped himself heavily onto the old and worn sofa next to his brother, still muttering, "You gotta be kidding me."

Sam looked up from his laptop."What?"

"Bobby says there's more," Dean hissed under his breath to Sam.

"But those vampires..." Sam trailed off. "I'm exhausted." Dean nodded in agreement. Sam looked up at Bobby. "Seriously? There can't be more," he said. "I mean, don't you think that four in a week is enough?"

A sheepish knock sounded at the door. The three men looked to one another. "I'm not getting it," Dean declared from his comfortable seat.

Sam chuckled, but stayed where he was seated also. Bobby rolled his eyes at the two of them. "You're lazy asses, you two," he muttered and walked to the door.

When Bobby opened the door, Lindsay stood facing them, a small smile on her lips.

Dean was the first to stand. "What are you doing here?" he asked. He walked over to her when she had closed the door behind her and gave her a tight hug.

"I came to visit. I haven't seen you guys all that much since I've been…away," she told them, looking down at the old tiled floor.

Dean knew right away what she wasn't saying. Lindsay had gone off to college, like Sam had, but unlike Sam, she had stayed in school instead of rejoining the brothers to hunt the supernatural when the time came. She still hunted whenever she could, but school was one of the top priorities in her book, and sometimes it came first. Dean had never gotten over the fact that she'd chosen that instead of him and Sam.

He'd first met her when he was twelve; Sam would've been eight, and Lindsay was five, almost six. She was a spunky little kid, always hanging out with the boys in her neighborhood. Dean's father John had been called for help by one of his friends, Jack Lawson, who just happened to be Lindsay's next door neighbor. Dean and Sam had tagged along with their father, crashing with Lindsay's family for the weekend; the brothers were surprised that her brother's name was John, too.

Lindsay had spotted their father's car, and then his boys as the three Winchesters and Bobby climbed out of it, and she ran across the road—not before looking both ways—and just about tackled Sam.

"Are you my new neighbors?" she asked excitedly, her long eyelashes fluttering when she blinked.

Dean watched as Sam stuttered, pouting, "No. Why'd you run into me?"

"She didn't tackle you, Sam. You're still standing," replied Dean from where he was leaning against the car.

Lindsay watched John and another older man disappear into Jack's house before saying, "Exactly. What he said. And Jack was looking for new people to live with him. Are you sure your dad's not gunna sign stuff?"

Sam looked at his brother.

"And how would you know that?" Dean asked her, leaning down towards the smaller girl.

She stepped away from him. "I don't like it when people do that," she said. Dean straightened up when her face turned a dark, angry red.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Lindsay's giggle popped Dean back into reality. Bobby was squeezing her. "Jeeze, Bobby! You're killing me! Leggo!" She laughed again when he had finally released her and she swayed a bit. "What, Sam? You just gunna sit on your ass all day?" She held out her arms.

Sam rose from his seat and sauntered over to her. Dean chuckled when he saw her eyes take in his massive form. "Did you grow again?" Lindsay asked as she pulled out a chair from the kitchen table, stood on it, and wrapped her arms around Sam's neck. "I've missed you guys," she muttered as she buried her head into Sam's shoulder.

"You probably shrunk," Dean coughed into his elbow. He laughed and had to duck out of the way of Lindsay's swinging hand, aimed to collide with his ear. He was relieved when she laughed too, and jumped down from the chair to hug him again.

"Sorry to interrupt this beautiful reunion," Bobby's voice cut in, "but this case shouldn't wait. We have to get going."

"Going? Where? I just got here," Lindsay said when she had finally released Dean from her crushing hug.

"So did we," Dean agreed.

"There's more hunts, apparently," Sam told her.

"Alright, then. I'm in."

Dean waved a hand casually through the air. "Oh, hey, we ran into your friend Jenna a few days ago," he told her. "Pretty decent hunter material you've got there."

"Jenna…from school?" Lindsay frowned. "She's not a hunter. She may think she is, but she' not. She just got lucky that Multame didn't eat her ass."

Sam backed towards the fridge and retrieved a water bottle. "We don't even know what the case is yet," he said, immediately pulling the girl's attention away from subject of Jenna and back to Bobby's announcement. And just like he'd anticipated, Lindsay looked back at Sam, shrugging her shoulders.

"So?"

But Sam locked his lips together. If the case was as bad as the last one him, Dean and Connor had been on, they'd need her help. But he didn't want his friend to get hurt. Lindsay was a great hunter. Sam knew that. But she was younger than even he was, so he felt like it was his job to protect her. They'd known each other too long not to feel like that. Not to want to keep the other safe. She was his and Dean's little sister, so to speak. He just wanted her to be safe.

Lindsay saw that Sam had made his decision, however unwillingly, and she was about to say that of course she would be perfectly fine, when Dean cut in before she could. "You don't need to worry about her, Sam." He turned to Bobby, opened his mouth to say something, but Lindsay cut him off with, "Jenna, seriously? Jenna helped you on a case?"

Dean nodded, "Took care of it all by herself, actually," distracted, and turned back to Bobby. Lindsay was still shaking her head in disbelief as Dean said, "What's the next one? And please, please tell me we don't have to go out right this second."

~The Next Day~

The pool room in the hotel was hot and muggy. The floors were slippery. But the four hunters had to concentrate. They had to find the ghost and kill it before it killed any more Las Vegas vacationers.

Connor had shown up just minutes after the brothers and Lindsay had snuck into the hotel. He'd just walked in the front entrance like he owned the place, and since no one had been at the front desk to object his presence, he went straight through the "crew only" corridor and into the pool room. There he found Sam, Dean, and a woman he did not know.

She was squatting in front of an open duffel bag, her hair falling across her face. Connor could tell that she worked out; the black t-shirt she was wearing flattered her nicely. And when she ran a hand through her hair, Connor's stomach did a tight flip. He was definitely sure it wasn't from the prospect of the hunt.

Once she'd spotted him standing there, she asked, "Who are you?" stepping in front of the brother's open bag, trying to conceal its contents from Connor.

She was surprisingly short, maybe a head in a half shorter than Dean, and probably not even tall enough to reach Sam's shoulders.

Dean and Sam had been sweeping the room with their EMF meters when she'd spoken and turned towards Connor. Before they'd even opened their mouths, Connor cleared his throat and said, "Bobby called me, said you guys could need some help."

"Do you have a ladder, by any chance?" asked Sam.

"What?"

Dean straightened up from absentmindedly looking into the turquoise water. "Well," he tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, "this ghost likes to camp out somewhere in the rafters."

"Excuse me," the woman standing in front of Connor said, "who are you, and how do you know them?" She jerked her thumb behind her to the brothers, who still hadn't moved.

"Connor." He strode forward and shook her hand. "Fellow hunter."

"Right," the woman said, kneeling near the duffel, and began rummaging through it once more.

Connor looked to the brothers, but Sam had gone back to sweeping for EMF, and Dean was busy coating the only windowsill with salt. He looked back to the woman. "Who are you, then?" Connor asked her.

She looked up at him, her cheeks a bit pink, her eyes narrowed slightly. "I grew up with them," she said, "fellow hunter."

Connor made a face. "But what's your name?" It was like pulling teeth with this girl.

"Yo, Squirt! Help Connor get that ladder. I think we've got it," called Dean across the room. He was staring at the ceiling, holding a strange instrument up towards it. Probably a UV camera or something.

Squirt? She lets him talk to her like that? Connor arched an eyebrow. "I don't have a ladder," he told Dean, shrugging.

"Then go find one," Dean prompted. "It's that easy."

Connor heard the woman sigh and then she stood, grabbed his arm in a tight fist, "There's one in the closet outside," and tugged him out of the room. "I can't carry it by myself, apparently," she muttered irritably to herself.

Connor smiled to himself.

After a few minutes of watching her struggle to retrieve the much-taller ladder from the tiny closet, Connor asked politely if he could be of help. Shrugging, she had stepped out of his way and stood with her back to the wall. Together they'd carried the ladder—horizontally—back to the brothers. But when she had opened the door for Connor, neither was to be found.

"Sam, Dean?" the woman called out.

Connor propped the ladder against the wall. "Guys?"

There was a splash, and Sam's head shot out of the water, his face frantic. "Lindsay, Dean's at the bottom!" he yelled. "The ghost pulled him down and won't let go!" He dove back into the water.

Lindsay rushed forward and prepared to dive, but Connor held her back. "What are you doing?" she screamed at him.

"Let me get him," Connor said.

Lindsay yanked her arm away from him. "You stay here," she ordered, her lips white, "so that when Sam and I get Dean out, you can gank the ghost." And she dove into the water.

Chapter 6- Virginia City: Piper's Opera House

It was all very weird. Jenna was in this strange room—it looked like a large fish tank—but she was underwater, inside it. There were two men underneath her, way at the bottom of the water, and one had his eyes closed and wasn't moving. The other was struggling to pull the man to the surface; he kept gaining some distance and then losing it right away, sinking faster than he had swum.

Jenna recognized the unconscious man at once. How could she not? It was Dean Winchester, one of the brothers Lindsay had introduced to her when the poltergeist had finally been too much for her. He was the one she'd freaked out over, the one that had caught her attention as soon as he'd looked at her. And he needed her help…somehow.

"C'mon! Get him up here!" she yelled into the water. Surprisingly, she could hear herself clearly and breathe without difficulty. This was very strange indeed.

The struggling man looked up when he heard her voice. "I need help! I can't do this by myself!" he called back. A streak of bubbles left his mouth and he closed it again, trying once more to heave Dean up towards the surface.

Jenna nodded, but as she began to swim down towards them, she felt herself get yanked violently upwards. She looked around and noticed that a chain was wrapped around her leg, keeping her in place just inches from the surface. "I can't move!" she called back, tugging desperately at the chain. Jenna reached towards the man. "Give me your hand!"

The man had almost made it to the middle of the space in between them. He reached his hand out. Dean slipped, and the man gasped, almost losing his hold on Dean entirely. Panting now, the man pulled Dean up so that he could wrap his left arm around his broad chest. Then he reached up towards Jenna with his right, his legs kicking frantically, trying to keep her within his reach.

Jenna just about whooped with joy when she had finally gotten a hold of the man's hand. But then, something even stranger happened.

Jenna sat up and looked around, very confused. She was in her room back at home, lying in her bed. Her glowing bedside clock read midnight. Swinging her legs over the side of her bed, Jenna walked over to her three-sided mirror. She had been so sure that had been real. It felt real. It still felt real. She looked at her reflection. Her eyes were wide and staring, totally freaking out, and her hair was a tangled mess. But she didn't care how she looked.

Turning away, she spotted her phone lying on her desk across the room. She strode over to it and picked it up. She knew what she had to do.

A cell phone went off, loud and obnoxious, in the Winchesters' motel room. Lindsay, half asleep and stumbling, rushed over to the windowsill, in the process whacking her toe on something and cursing darkly. She was surprised that neither of the guys in the beds had woken even the slightest bit. Finally she had reached her phone. She grabbed it just in time to answer it on the final ring.

"Hello?" Her voice was groggy with sleep.

"Lindsay! Oh my god, you wouldn't believe the dream I just had!"

Lindsay thought for a moment, still trying to get her bearings, when the name of the person on the other line came to her like a slap in the face. "Jenna?" she asked.

"Well, yeah!" Jenna's relieved voice said.

"Wait, so why are you calling me again?"

"My dream! Dean was in it, and this other guy. It felt so real! I can't really describe it…"

Lindsay waited for her to continue. Jenna was obviously going to go off on some tangent about how Dean was so attractive or how amazing he was, like she always does. But this time she didn't.

"We were in this pool thing, and I had this chain locked around my foot. I could totally breathe underwater and stuff. It was awesome, but weird at the same time, you know? Anyway, so I looked down and saw Dean—he was totally out cold—and this other guy was trying to help him up so that they could breathe—"

Lindsay screamed, surprising Jenna so much that she dropped the phone.

Dean and Sam bolted up out of their beds, their eyes somewhat crossed. "What is it?" they both asked together.

But Lindsay wasn't paying any attention to them. "Jenna, Jenna. You need to get here. Now," she said into the receiver. No one answered her. "Jenna!"

There was some scuffling and then, "What?"

"I'll text you the motel address. No, I'll come get you. Just stay put."

"But—"

"No arguments!" And Lindsay hung up on her.

The next morning found Jenna at Bobby's house. The parking lot and whole yard around the old house was filled with scrap cars and trucks—stacked ten high—that were either falling apart or completely torn to shreds, as their biggest and probably less-rusted parts were being used for repairs. Jenna had timidly exited the car Lindsay had borrowed to pick her up, knowing full-well that she was walking straight into the heart of hunter territory. Jenna knew Bobby was a hunter, and a wise and very knowledgeable hunter at that. He not only knew the ropes; he had helped create some of them. Jenna knew she had to be careful. With what, she wasn't quite sure yet.

Lindsay had stomped through the house, not even raising a hand in greeting when Dean had strolled down the stairs, one hand up to his mouth, feeding himself a burger, the other clutching a beer. Or when Sam had glanced up from his computer, surprise clear on his face, and said, "What are you doing here, Jenna?" Or when Bobby threw a book at Lindsay without looking up from the one on his desk and asked, "Know anything 'bout Djinns?"

Lindsay kept silent, tossed the book onto the nearby couch and kept walking. When she had reached the back door, she called, "Jenna, follow me."

Jenna was freaking out by now. Her hands were wringing in front of her, and she was biting her lip. She could tell that her friend was pissed. About what, she had no idea. But she followed Lindsay outside.

A stack of cars towered in front of them, to their right, and to their left. Once the door slammed behind Jenna, making her cringe, she only had a spot of dirt to stand on. Next to her was a small table. On it was a gun, its empty magazine, and a case of bullets.

"You think you know what you're doing, just because you took care of Multame and his horse," Lindsay began. She was staring off into the rows of cars. "But that was one job. One ghost, and—"

"Technically, it was two ghosts," Jenna piped, keeping her eyes on the ground. She received a threatening glare from Lindsay.

"Multame and his horse had become one entity, one ghost. To defeat either of them, one had to be taken in order to destroy the other. So technically, you're wrong. Look," Lindsay said a bit softer, "I don't want to be the bad guy here. But I don't want you hunting. It's dangerous and if you don't know what you're doing, you could get killed. You think I want that on my conscience?"

She turned and faced Jenna. The steely glint in her eyes had left, and now her eyebrows were furrowed up, concerned, scared. "My brother probably hunts behind my back. There's nothing I can do about that. I've tried to tell him that I can't stop hunting, because I know too much now. I've seen things he could never…imagine. And I think…he just wants to protect me. Doesn't want me to get involved in his hunts. We could get tangled up and then I could lose him, or he could lose me. I think he figures it's easier if he just kicks it alone so that I don't have to clean up his mess."

Jenna's hands relaxed and fell to her sides. Her heart was still beating painfully fast, but it wasn't wrenching—terrified—as much as it had been before. It was just an excited, anticipating heartbeat. She wanted to know about the things Lindsay had seen, what she'd done. Jenna wanted to learn how to hunt. Maybe the idea excited her. Maybe…she wanted to be able to at least contribute a small change to the world. Whatever lame excuse jumped to her mind, all she knew was that she wanted it. She wanted in.

"And maybe he isn't a hunter," Lindsay continued. "Maybe he's just going to college like I think he is." There was a short pause, and Jenna had to really focus in order to catch what Lindsay said next. "But since you're here, and since you know the brothers and since you sorta know Bobby, I think you need to learn to handle a gun. That, at least, I'm cool with."

Lindsay then walked over to the small table, loaded a few bullets into the clip, shoved it into the gun in one smooth motion, and held the gun out for Jenna. This was something she had not expected.

There was a bang, and Jenna spun around on the spot, her hands over her ears. Dean had let the backdoor slam shut behind him and had his eyebrows raised at Jenna.

"Did I do that?" he asked, looking behind him. When he looked back, he had a smirk on his face.

Jenna dropped her hands, a dark shade of red slowly creeping across her cheeks. "It just scared me," she muttered. "It was loud."

Dean walked forward and took the handgun from Lindsay's still outstretched hand. "Then you may want earplugs or something." And the gun went off.

Jenna opened her eyes only after she realized that it was deadly silent. She glanced over at Lindsay; her face was unreadable.

"Okay, so did you see that at all?" Dean asked Jenna, pointing to the gun with his other hand.

Jenna shook her head. Dean nodded knowingly.

"First, you just gotta aim. Keep two hands on the gun. Line the sight up with the target, and make sure to aim a bit higher because the barrel is lower than the sight. Got it?"

Jenna nodded slowly. "Aim first with sight. Barrel is lower than sight, so aim higher," she repeated. She didn't tell him—or Lindsay for that matter—that she had shot a gun once before. Jenna lives in Vermont. Of course she'd know how to shoot a gun. But maybe this was supposed to be a bonding moment or something. For her and Dean. Whatever this was, she figured she'd play along. No need to upset Lindsay any more than she already was.

Jenna glanced sideways, barely peeking from behind her curtain of hair, at Dean.

Dean's smile was small. "Second, a gunshot is loud. You better get used to it, or you'll never be of any use," he said. The gun went off again. This time, Jenna only covered her ears. "Good," Dean praised.

He held the gun out for her.

Jenna didn't know what to do. Well, she did, but was Dean really right to trust her with a loaded pistol? She glanced over at Lindsay. Her face was still stony, but her lips were curled up ever-so-slightly at one corner. She was enjoying this more than she wanted to be. Finally, with a big breath in, Jenna took the gun from Dean.

"Where do I—"

"Exactly where Dean shot," Lindsay said. She pointed to one of the cars in the mass in front of them.

"Why aren't you shooting?"

Now Lindsay did smile; it was cocky. "I didn't want to show up Dean," she said, and receiving a shove from Dean, she skidded a few feet to the side. When she had regained her balance and blank expression, Lindsay said, "Shoot it, Jenna."

"Where, though?" Jenna asked. "I can't see any hole."

Jenna didn't feel Dean walk up to her until he was right behind her. She squealed a bit in spite of herself.

He took her hands in his and raised the gun. "Look down the barrel to the sight," he told her, tickling her ear with his breath, "and go from one end of the pile to the other until you find it." He moved her hands slowly to the right, as if he too were attempting to find were his bullet had landed. "You gotta breathe, Jenna. It'll help you focus."

Jenna's breath came out in a big whoosh when she finally spotted the tiny hole in the yellow front door of the smashed pickup.

Dean let go of her hands and stepped away. "Close enough," he chuckled. "Now shoot it."

The gun went off for a second time.

Jenna blinked and stared at the new hole she had created in the side of the truck, just inches from Dean's. The sound of clapping startled her.

Lindsay elbowed Dean as Jenna replaced the gun on the table. "Not too shabby," she said, giving Jenna a wink.

Once again, Jenna found her face as hot as the top of a stove. All the blushes that hadn't come before rushed over her face in one confused tumble of a hundred fluttery butterflies.

"Just don't forget to practice, okay?" Lindsay began to walk back towards the house. But she called over her shoulder, "We don't want you to be rusty when we need you."

It was Sunday, and Lindsay, the boys, and Jenna were now standing in front of Piper's Opera House in Virginia City. There was a whole crowd waiting at the doors, but no one was being allowed into the building. The women in the crowd stood on their toes to get a better look at the situation, while the men stood around with their arms crossed, casually chatting away with one another. They didn't seem too concerned.

Dean and Lindsay were leaning against the Impala, Lindsay tapping her fingers impatiently on the hood, whereas Sam and Jenna were deep in some conversation, seated on the trunk of the car.

"What the hell is taking so long? Should we just go around the back?" Lindsay muttered, stepping away from the car and stretching.

Dean shrugged. "It'll be too obvious if we all walk towards the back of the building at once. And even if we do it in pairs, there's too many people here not to notice that, either," he replied.

It started to rain and Lindsay clenched her hands in her hair. She was obviously still ticked off about Jenna's involvement with the Winchesters; she knew that now that Jenna had a taste for hunting, she'd never go back. Lindsay was still grappling desperately with ways to change the girl's mind.

"Aw, man!" she heard Jenna complain. She and Sam jumped into the car and slammed the doors as the rain began to come down in icy sheets. Even Dean decided to escape into the warm cab. But Lindsay stood in the middle of the muddy lot, her fists clenched at her sides, water dripping in ribbons down her arms.

"What's up with her?" Jenna asked Dean, who was shaking his wet hair to dry it.

"You're probably something like a prophet," he said. "It's been bugging her that you saw me almost drown, and that she couldn't do anything to stop it."

"What do you mean? What's a prophet?" Jenna looked to Sam, but he was staring out at Lindsay, still standing in the pouring rain.

"We've only heard legends of them. Don't know too much. But you were her, in the vision," Dean explained, looking at Jenna in the rearview mirror, "and the guy you didn't recognize was Connor—"

"A friend of ours," added Sam. "When Lindsay had jumped in after me, the ghost attacked her. That's why you couldn't get to Dean in the vision. It was holding her back."

"So I was told," Dean said, looking away from Jenna finally.

"Wait…that was a vision? It wasn't just some freaky dream?" Jenna asked; Sam shook his head. "But I didn't see you there, Sam."

Sam leaned his elbow on the window. "The ghost threw me out of the pool and I hit the wall. It knocked me out. Then Connor jumped in and saved Dean."

"You said the ghost had Lindsay, too. What happened to her, then?"

"She almost drowned," said Dean. He was looking at the girl outside, and—Jenna noticed—she was looking at him through the window, too.

Jenna leaned her chin against the seat in front of her. She was a tad bit jealous of the way Lindsay and Dean were staring at each other. "So, what's a prophet?" Jenna paused. "Never mind. You sorta answered that already," she muttered.

"And she's frustrated that another of her friends is hunting," Dean continued, leaning his head against the window.

Jenna frowned. "Why would that frustrate her?"

"She doesn't want you to have her—our—life."

"Her life seems pretty uncomplicated. Great, actually," Jenna said with a grin.

Sam made a small noise in his throat. Jenna looked at him. "It's more complicated than you think," he explained.

And as if on cue, Lindsay suddenly opened the door and said, "Connor just got here. Everyone's going inside. Let's go," slammed the door, turned on her heel, and disappeared into the crowd.

Connor watched Lindsay hook arms with Dean as they walked down the empty, red-velvet-carpeted hall opposite him, Sam and Jenna. He'd stopped and stared, and then he heard Dean say, "I kinda need my arm."

Dean tried to slide his from hers, a smile clear in his voice, but she securely locked their elbows together, replying with, "Nope. I get to keep your arm for a few minutes." And then Dean laughed, giving her brown hair a playful tussle.

"I don't understand," Connor muttered to himself, watching Lindsay and Dean from behind. "She's all over him…" He frowned at the carpet.

Ever since Dean had almost drowned in that hotel pool, Connor hadn't been able to shake off Lindsay's obviously anxious, but still-very-pretty glare. The way her voice had sounded when she was angry, desperate to get Dean from the ghost's grasp. The way she had ordered Connor around like he was a little kid. If Connor had to guess, he knew why she was always plastered on his eyelids whenever he went to sleep, her voice revolving around and around like a song he hated but couldn't get rid of. She was pretty. She was a hunter. She was like him.

Connor made a face. Not like him. Like Dean. Lindsay was a short, female version of the older Winchester. Even some of her mannerisms were similar to Dean's. And Connor wanted her to notice him, not Dean or Sam. He wanted her to risk her life for him. Not the two men who were practically her brothers.

"I know, right?" Connor heard Jenna agree in a low, envy-tinted voice. It was like she had read his mind.

"All over who?" Sam asked next to him, making Connor jump a little. Jenna was now walking on the other side of Sam, her head buried in a century-old map of the Opera house.

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head. But he couldn't keep his mind from wandering as he turned down yet another hall. He knew Sam was still watching him, so he shook his head again. "We should keep going," he told him. "The Opera will be done soon and we need to smoke out the old guy if we're ever going to find lavender lady."

"What makes you say that?" Connor could clearly hear Sam's reluctance not to press him.

"I told him," piped Jenna, looking up from her map. Connor saw the glitter in Jenna's eye, and was actually happy that she was happy, for once. He'd been so focused on the fact that his girl wasn't really his girl and that she was best friends—practically glue to them 24/7—with the hunters he had sought out for help, Connor never really gave Jenna notice. But he had to admit, once he got past the way she always stared at Dean because of her totally obvious and fairly obnoxious crush she had on him, Jenna was turning out to be a helpful part of the group.

Sam's eyebrow rose. "You told him?" he asked her, snapping Connor out of the haze that was Lindsay.

"I did some research on your laptop after you'd fallen asleep on the way here," she said, dropping her nose into the map again. She saw Sam's mouth open to protest out of the corner of her eye and said quickly before he could, "I didn't erase any of your porn, Sam, chill."

Connor grinned at her in front of Sam's cherry red face, and he and Jenna burst out laughing. Sam muttered, "I don't know what you're talking about," but that only made Jenna and Connor laugh harder.

Sam cleared his throat loudly. "What did you find, then?" he asked Jenna.

Jenna wiped the tears from her eyes. "The old guy and the lavender lady had a thing," she told him and Connor, "so if we find him, she'll definitely show up sooner or later."

Suddenly, a small scorch mark, still hissing at its auburn edges, appeared in the wall in front of them. Jenna and Connor immediately fell quiet. Sam walked up to it, his fingers to his lips, and looked up and down the halls that were now on either side of him; there was no way to go but left or right. Not a minute later, another scorch mark appeared, and then another, and another. They looked like cigar burns, and they were leading Sam, Connor and Jenna down the right corridor. The three followed them cautiously.

But almost as soon as they had appeared, the marks vanished, and Connor could hear the babbling of many voices as the Opera ended and people came pouring out of the theatre below them. He knew they'd have to find the ghosts soon or there'd be another attack, one they could have easily stopped. Footsteps sounded down the stairwell to his right and Connor watched as a police officer walked, oblivious, towards them. Frantically, he, Sam and Jenna searched around themselves for an escape, but there was nowhere to go.

"Excuse me," the officer said when he'd spotted them, "you're not supposed to be up here."

Obviously, thought Connor. But you're just going to get in the way.

"What are you doing up here, then?" Jenna asked. Sam stepped on her foot. "Ow, Sam!" she hissed.

"I'm the security for this building, and I think you three need to come with me," the officer said.

Yet at the exact moment when Connor was about to follow him downstairs, he heard Dean shout, "Guys, I found her!"

Without another glance at the officer, Sam, Connor and Jenna took off towards Dean's shout. They skidded around the corner ("Where do you think you're going?" the officer yelled and bolted after them) and found Dean with his salt-round shot gun raised towards a young woman, dressed in a long lavender gown. Connor only vaguely wondered how they'd gotten through security with it. The woman's outline was wavering slightly, and incense-like purple smoke was issuing from it.

"Can you help me?" the woman pleaded, searching their faces.

"Help you?" Lindsay asked slowly. "With what? Dean, put your gun down." She placed her hand gently on his arm; Connor frowned.

The end of Dean's gun was now pointed at the floor, but he kept a good grip on it, just in case.

"He won't let me leave," the ghost began to say, but the officer had caught up with them by now and yelled, "Holy crap, what is that?!"

With sweat beading on his upper lip, he crept closer to Sam, making sure the giant of a man was concealing him from the ghost.

"Don't move," Connor cautioned the officer, who had been reaching for his pistol. "You're going to scare her off."

"Scare her off?" he asked, his voice a bit hysterical. "This is what the guys were trying to tell me about, and I got them fired!" He unstrapped his pistol from its holster and had raised it before anyone could react. Anyone but Jenna.

She had clearly seen this coming and said, "Give me a minute," to the ghost in front of her, who replied kindly, "Take your time, Lady."

Jenna back away from Dean, Sam, Lindsay and Connor without them noticing, and disarmed the officer with one quick swipe of her hand.

The man blinked, stunned. "How'd you—?"

The girl gave his face a swift punch. "Now," she said after he'd stopped complaining ("God, that hurt!"), "we…well, I sorta do…but they know what they're doing here. You have to stay out of our way, or you're going to get hurt. And you can arrest us later, if you want, but you'll probably just want to thank us instead."

The officer nodded, still rubbing his cheek, as Jenna gave him his gun back. Everyone's faces were shocked; they couldn't believe she'd just assaulted an officer and they weren't in jail yet. And it was Jenna that had been the one to do it. Not Dean or Sam or even Lindsay.

"Okay…then." Lindsay turned back to the ghost woman. "You were saying?"

The woman nodded. "He won't let me leave. He's scared I'll forget about him," she said, and her face dropped sadly. "But he won't admit he's scared—"

"I'm not scared!" came a bellowed voice, seemingly echoing from inside every wall around them. Then a hunching, gray-haired and withered-faced old man, clutching a still-burning cigar in one hand, burst from the wall behind the woman. Unlike she, his form was gray and wavering, misty as though it was about to be extinguished.

"Dad, you have to let me go," the woman said. She stepped closer to him, gliding soundlessly over the carpet. He took a step back, a scowl on his once-handsome face. "You have to admit you're scared or we'll never be able to find peace."

"Dad?" Jenna whispered. "I thought they were an item."

Dean glanced at her sideways. "Someone obviously got the lore wrong," he muttered.

But the two spirits weren't listening to the hunters. They were having their own argument, and the old man seemed about to explode.

"I don't want you to leave!" he practically yelled. "I'm not leaving, so you can't leave! I've told you this many times, Molly."

"But Dad," Molly said soothingly, "there's nothing left for us here. You can't say that scaring the guests is worth staying over."

"But it is!"

"There's nothing left for us, Dad," Molly said sternly.

"Excuse me?" Jenna asked suddenly. The two ghosts swiveled around to face her, the old man looking as though he had never noticed her or any of the others before.

"What are you doing here? This is a private conversation. Get out of here!" he threatened Jenna, raising a gnarly fist at her.

"Dad, that's enough!" Molly snapped when her father's form began to waver more noticeably now. "You are going to stay here until we figure this out," her father shook his head ("I'm not!") and she grabbed his arm to keep him from disappearing, "and I think these people may be able to help us."

She looked hopefully from one face to another. "You can help us, right?"

"I don't want their help!" cried Molly's father. He then pulled his hand back and swung at the person closest to him: Connor.

Connor flew into someone, knocking them aside, and into the wall behind the group, crumpling at the corner to the stairs. Twinkling lights blinded his vision for a few seconds, and then he knew no more.

"You— Freaking damn it! We only want to help you!" Jenna yelled.

"Dad! That was not necessary!" Molly scolded at the same time.

"Yelling isn't going to help anything, Jenna," Sam said.

"It's helping me," she muttered, crossing her arms. She watched as Lindsay walked over to Connor and put a hand to his head.

"How can we help them if they don't want to be helped?" the officer asked suddenly, stepping out from behind Sam.

Jenna glared at him. "Molly wants to leave. It's her father who doesn't. Haven't you been listening?"

"I've just been staring at you, actually."

Jenna's glare disappeared. "What?"

"Okay, Romeo," muttered Dean. He rolled his eyes and Jenna huffed, turning away from the officer. "Are you going to help us or not?" Dean asked the officer.

The officer sighed. "Why not?" But then he frowned. "Where'd he go?"

The old man was gone.

"Damn it, Dad!" Molly cursed, stamping her foot soundlessly on the carpet. But then she vanished, too.

Leading the five hunters and tag-along police officer on a wild goose chase, Molly's father had disrupted the second performance of the day by straight-out tackling the male lead in the middle of his opening aria. He'd zoomed off, cackling, leaving the poor man with a nasty cigar burn in the middle of his forehead.

Molly had cornered her father at last, way up in the rafters of the attic, with Jenna and Lindsay down below. Connor had finally awakened at that point, and he was with the Winchesters and the officer, trapped in an elevator that Molly's father had rigged to stop on the way up.

But it was Jenna who convinced Molly's father to move on.

"People are scared of you," she said.

"Good!" Molly's father cried. "They should be scared!"

"Why? What have they done?"

"They're humans! They're impolite, irresponsible, smelly, no-good—"

Molly suddenly made a sort of choking sound. "Dad?" she said quietly. Her father turned to her. "You're not talking about the people who come to the show, are you?"

"Who says I'm not?" he roared.

Molly's eyes began to tear up. "Peter," she murmured. "This is about Peter. Not anyone else. You've always called him those things."

Her father's eyes bulged for a moment, and then his face softened.

Jenna and Lindsay glanced at each other. "Who's Peter?" Lindsay asked.

"No one!" Molly's father barked. He was glaring again.

Molly shook her head. "He was my—"

"Don't you say it!" The old man's rage had returned, more powerful and emotional than before. "I won't have you say that word while I am here! He was not what you say he was! He did not fulfill his promise to you!"

"I never understood riddles," Jenna murmured to Lindsay beside her; she nodded.

"But I forgave him, Dad," Molly said. "I forgave him a long time ago."

"Why would you ever—?"

"If she forgave him for whatever he did," Jenna interrupted Molly's father, "shouldn't you? Wouldn't it just make sense?"

"Stay out of this!" he roared. But he floated down towards the girls. "I can never forgive that man for what he did to my daughter," he said softly. "That's why I can't move on. I can't stop avenging her. I can't. If she leaves, then it will all have been pointless."

Lindsay took a small step forward. "What do you mean?"

"He only goes after men," Molly told her. "But…up until now, I don't think I ever really realized who he hurts." She floated down towards her father, who'd hung his head in shame. "He hurts men who act like Peter. Men who abuse their wives."

"How does he know that?" Jenna asked, glancing quickly at Molly's father. "Stalk them?"

"I'm a ghost. I've got lots of time," he replied, keeping his eyes on the ground. "But I have to keep those monsters from hurting anyone else!" he said, whipping his head up and holding a fist in the air. "I have to do what's right!"

"But you're not doing what's right," Jenna said calmly. "You're doing exactly what Peter would have wanted you to do. He would have wanted you to hurt people for him."

"The only way to avenge your daughter, sir," Lindsay hedged, "is to challenge Peter. Challenge him by resisting the urge to help those women—"

"Are you crazy? They could die without me!"

Lindsay shook her head, but Jenna spoke first. "It's the only way you'll find peace," she said. "Stop hurting the men. Let the police take care of them. The officer with us knows what's up now. He'll know what to do. Help Molly find peace. Leave the men alone, and leave with her to the next world."

The old man ground his teeth. He looked down at the smoking cigar in his hand, and then tossed it high in the air. When the girls looked back, he was gone. And Molly had vanished, too.

The elevator began to move. "You see," Connor's voice shook, "this is why I don't like elevators!"

The bell dinged a moment later and as soon as the doors opened, he was the first onto the solid landing…running headlong into Lindsay.

"Oof, Connor… You okay?" She steadied him. "How's your head?" she asked. Lindsay pushed back the hair covering his forehead.

"I'm alright," Connor told her. He grinned when her hands fell to his shoulders. And his smile widened almost to his ears when she threw her arms around him.

"I'm glad you're okay," she whispered into his ear, her soft breath tickling his neck.

"Bow chic-a wow wow," muttered Jenna as she rounded the corner to meet the rest of the group.

Lindsay giggled and shoved Jenna. "Shut up," she hissed, glaring softly.

"So," Dean clapped his hands together, "now that that's settled… Wanna grab a bite? I found this awesome diner a few blocks down." He jerked his thumb behind him.

Sam laughed. "Sounds great, Dean. I'm starving, actually."

"Mind if I come?" asked the officer.

Everyone looked at him. He made an almost embarrassed face.

"Or…I could just take Jenna out on a date now."

Lindsay burst out laughing at Jenna's bright red face. "Bow chic-a wow wow," she muttered, elbowing Jenna.

Chapter 7- Connor's Birthday: Three weeks later

The brothers, Lindsay, Jenna and Connor were finally given a break only after three weeks of non-stop hunting. They'd tackled two Rugaru in Mississippi and Texas a piece, a nest of Changelings in Virginia, a particularly stubborn and violent Tulpa in Washington, and a few stray zombies in Massachusetts. The lightning and cattle mutilation omens had finally settled down, too. Everything in the supernatural world had gone quiet, for now. It was perfect timing, too. Today, October tenth, was Connor's birthday; he was twenty two.

Connor sat on the couch next to Lindsay, in between her and Sam, who was lazily clicking away channel after channel on the television. He settled himself in, ready to watch whatever Sam chose. Then his stomach growled.

"Pizza's here!" Bobby declared after shutting Connor's front door. He plopped the four boxes on the coffee table in front of Connor.

"You really think that's going to be enough? I mean, Sam can eat," Lindsay said as she lifted open the box and helped herself to a piece.

"You can eat just as much as I can," countered Sam. He reached for the box.

"Used to," Lindsay corrected, handing him two pieces. Connor stood and walked towards his kitchen. "You aren't eating?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

"I'm getting plates, and napkins. I don't want grease all over my new furniture," Connor replied. Bobby followed him towards the fridge.

Connor heard Dean grunt when he had shut the bathroom light off. "Plates for pizza," he muttered, shaking his head and grinning. He walked over to the couch and stood behind where Lindsay was seated, resting his arms on the back, his chin on her head.

Connor crouched, making his knees crack, and reached into the open cupboard for the paper napkins and plates. When he stood and began to make his way back to his friends, he froze in the doorway of his parlor. Dean was leaning over the back of the couch, his face in front of Lindsay's, but upside down. They were nose to nose. Connor glanced at Sam; he was paying them no attention. Looking back, Connor watched as Dean's arms crept underneath Lindsay's, and the young woman's hands reached up and twined themselves into his hair on the back of his head. Then she laced her fingers together and kept them there. Both of them were smiling like two kids at Christmas.

Bobby walked up next to Connor—his hands full of un-opened beer bottles—and knocked into him, which woke Connor out of his haze. "Hey, lovebirds!" Bobby called to Dean and Lindsay.

That's when Dean, for some reason unknown, toppled over the couch and over Lindsay—knocking Sam with his feet ("Dean, what the hell!" Sam complained, dropping the remote)—and onto the floor. Lindsay and Dean both cracked up laughing.

"That's better," Bobby muttered with a smirk as he brushed past Connor and into the parlor.

Before Bobby could get too far, however, Connor had grabbed a handful of the man's sleeve and pulled him back. "Bobby," Connor began, not taking his eyes off of Dean and Lindsay, who were still doubled over with laughter, "are Dean and Lindsay…I didn't think they were, but…are they—?"

"Nope. They've just known each other since they were kids," Bobby replied with another smile. He turned and plunked down into one of the two loveseats on either side of the couch. "You've got nuthin' to worry about, kid."

A furious blush rose up Connor's neck and stopped at his ears.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lindsay could see Connor blushing like a tomato. Sighing, she wiped the tears from her eyes and leaned back against the sofa, her stomach sore from laughing so hard. "Hey, Connor?" she called over her shoulder at the young man who still had not moved from the parlor doorway. He blushed again when he finally realized she was talking to him; she had to resist the urge to let her own blush show. "Can we use your pool?" Lindsay pointed out the back window to the in-ground swimming pool, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs.

Snapping out of whatever spell he was under, Connor cleared his throat. "Sure," he said, smiling, and came to sit next to her on the couch.

But Dean beat him too it. He flaunted his win by draping his arm around Lindsay's shoulder. Of course Lindsay had to elbow Dean. He was only taunting the poor guy. Her heart did a little flip; she didn't like it when Dean made Connor mad. She shrugged apologetically when Connor frowned and stood again.

"We should get some use out of it. I haven't used it since I moved here to California," said Connor.

"I don't do pools," declared Sam, who was now rummaging through Connor's fridge.

"And why not?" Lindsay asked.

"I just don't, I guess."

"It's a nice pool. I always keep it clean," added Connor a little sourly.

You think that matters to him? Lindsay thought, shaking her head. Then, in a deviously whispered voice, she said to Dean, "You and me. We need to get Sam in the pool. Agreed?"

And she liked the look that had just flitted across Dean's face. She knew they had a deal.

"Holy God, it's cold! What did you do, fill it with ice cubes before I got in? C'mon!" Dean complained as he stiffly walked down the steps into the shallow area.

There was a splash, and Dean caught a glimpse of Lindsay going under the water as she jumped from the deep end diving board and did a cannon ball. When she resurfaced, sputtering up a fountain of water, she said, "You can't just walk in. I always freeze my ass off if I do that. You should go jump from the diving board and get it over with."

Dean stopped his forward advance into the pool and let his hands rest on the surface of the water for a moment. There was another splash, and Connor disrupted the calm, teal, shimmery surface. He popped up in about the same manner as Lindsay.

"Hey, Connor! Wanna help with something?" Dean called out, his hand near his mouth.

Connor looked up from shaking his hair out. "Sure," he shrugged.

Dean waved Connor towards him and Lindsay swam behind him. When they had reached him, Dean turned his back towards the house, where he knew Sam was watching them from the window. "Ok, so Lindsay already knows what's up," Dean began. He turned to Connor, who was so obviously staring at Lindsay. "Hey." Dean waved a hand in front of his face; Connor blinked. "Focus here, man," he said. Dean suppressed a small chuckle when he caught the last flashes of Lindsay's fading blush. She smiled apologetically. "So what we're going to do is get Sam into the pool," Dean told them both, making sure they were focused completely this time.

"How?" Connor's eyebrow went up.

"I'll go get him, make up some story to get him to follow me outside," Lindsay told him, an evil smirk on her pretty face. When both of Connor's eyebrows went up she said, "Don't worry, I have a plan. Just tackle him when he gets close enough to the pool. Dean'll help. But don't keep him under—we don't need him to drown. Got it?"

"Me either," muttered Dean. Lindsay nodded in agreement.

Dean stuck his hand in the middle of them. Lindsay put hers on top, and then Connor did the same. "Break!" he yelled, and they lifted their hands into the air. They were all laughing as they climbed out of the side of the pool.

There was a loud bang—someone had slammed one of Connor's doors—and Lindsay came tearing around the side of the house, Sam close on her heels. Gripped tightly in one of her hands was Sam's shirt, and in the other—slung over her shoulder—were his gigantic jeans. She had a hysterical fit of laughter escaping from her as she continued to run away from her giant, boxer-clad friend.

Dean watched from the bushes at the side of Connor's house, located directly in front of the pool. He had to cover his mouth to keep from giggling like a girl when Sam had tackled Lindsay to the ground and she rolled out from underneath him, barely escaping his enormous hands as they shot out to reach for her. She skidded away, another peal of laughter echoing around the yard.

"Give them back! That's so not fair!" Dean heard his brother yell as Lindsay cartwheeled away from him once again.

"Connor!" Dean whispered to him across the yard; hopefully Sam wouldn't hear him. "Get ready!" He saw Connor nod, and then saw his chance.

Sam had tackled Lindsay again, but now had her in a vice-like bear hug. He was on his back, and her legs were kicking wildly. His clothes were strewn all over the yard, and she was still laughing her head off. Then Sam stood, the girl still locked in his arms. He was now at the edge of the pool. Dean stuck his head closer to the edge of the bushes, hoping Lindsay could see him somehow. Their eyes connected, and Lindsay nodded to him quickly, unable to stop smiling from ear to ear.

"GO, CONNOR!" Dean yelled as he sprinted towards his brother. Dean heard Connor racing after him, and just barely had time to think, Well, Squirt won't have time to escape, and hear Sam yell, "Oh, crap!" before he and Connor grabbed a shocked-looking Sam and Lindsay around the middle and fell into the pool.

"You guys suck," Sam coughed as he resurfaced, shaking out his wet hair.

Lindsay was still laughing when she popped up next to him. He splashed her, swimming towards the edge of the pool. Sam felt Dean grab his shoulders. "I want to get out," Sam said.

"Too bad, Sasquatch," replied his brother. "You're in here now. Why don't you have a little fun for once?"

Sam turned and shoved Dean under the water with a reluctant grin. "Fine."

Connor raced to get away from Sam as he swam towards him, both laughing, but Sam was faster. He grabbed Connor around the middle and dove with him; they wrestled underwater for a few seconds before neither could hold their breath any longer. They reappeared spluttering; Connor punched Sam's shoulder.

"Where's Lindsay?" Connor wondered aloud, looking around. "Dean's gone too."

Sam stood where he was and followed Connor's example. "Dean?" he called out across Connor's yard. Nothing. "Dean?"

With the sound of pounding footsteps, both big and small, Sam and Connor turned and had to duck into the water. Lindsay and Dean rocketed over them, both executing nearly-perfect backflips in the green-and-blue water behind them.

"Whoo! That was awesome!" Lindsay exclaimed when she climbed onto the shallow-end's steps and sat down. She high-fived Dean when he'd sat next to her. Then she shivered. "I think I'm done. What about you guys?"

Connor was first out of the pool, and Lindsay and Dean followed shortly behind him. Sam had dove deep into the water and it was only when he had come up for air did he realize that they had all left him.

"Really, guys? You drag me in here and you're done already?" he muttered to himself as he leapt out of the pool and began walking across the grassy lawn of Connor's yard, stopping only to grab his clothes, duck inside the door and close it again behind him.

Bobby was watching a football game when they all had dried off, changed, and filed back into the living room.

"We should get going," Sam suggested.

Dean pouted, plopping onto the other available loveseat. "Why? The game's just started," he said.

Sam glared at them all. "I don't trust you guys," he said.

Dean let out a huge laugh. "After the game, we'll go back to Bobby's, all right? There's no pool there." He nudged Bobby next to him.

"Sure, sure," Bobby muttered.

"Fine," Sam said. He crossed his gigantic legs underneath him and sat on the carpet.

No sooner had Connor gathered his resolve and sat next to Lindsay was there a knock on the door. Lindsay jumped up, "I got it!" and ran over to it. Next minute, Jenna was closing the door behind her.

There was a chorus of "Hey, Jenna," from everyone, and the girls sat down on either side of Connor.

"I hope it was all right if she came," Lindsay whispered to Connor. "I called her a few minutes ago. I wanted another girl in the house."

Connor smiled at the fact that her breath smelled like peppermint. It was a random thought, but still, it made him smile. "Yeah," he said, "it's fine."

"Good," Jenna said loudly. Both Connor and Lindsay looked over at her. "I was planning on coming over anyway. I'm staying at my aunt's—"

"Go, go, go!" Dean yelled at the television screen. Sam laughed with him when the team they were rooting for scored a touchdown.

"—and she lives right down the road from here. Plus," Jenna dug out a small envelope from her pocket, glaring unconvincingly and then smiling at the brothers' backs, "I wanted to give you your present."

"Aw, Jenna." Connor took it. "Thanks. You really didn't have to get my anything, you know. I'm not five," he told her, grinning.

"We didn't get you anything, dude, sorry," Dean muttered over his shoulder. Sam shrugged and added, "We're kind of broke."

"That's okay," Jenna piped, and after a moment added sarcastically, "none of your presents could compare to mine anyway." She looked sideways at Lindsay. "Or Lindsay's."

"Jenna!" Lindsay hissed, her hand making a frantic slashing movement across her throat. But Jenna continued to grin.

Dean looked between her and Lindsay suspiciously. "Did you get him a—"

"Why don't you open Jenna's present, Connor?" Lindsay suggested over Dean's comment.

Knowing him, Dean probably would've asked if she'd gotten Connor a lap dance or strip tease, but she decided not to risk him saying anything instead. Lindsay glanced hopefully up at Connor just as his light blush had faded.

"Okay," Connor said, and she sighed in relief. Connor tore at the blue envelope and out flew twenty-three dollars, followed by a card.

Jenna grabbed the bills before either brother could and handed them back to Connor. "Twenty-three dollars instead of twenty-three punches seems like a fair trade to me," she said. Bobby remained motionless, intent on the game.

And then, Connor was on his feet and was following Lindsay out of the room; Sam, Dean and Jenna had returned their attention back to the game. Connor could feel her racing pulse in the tips of her fingers as she quietly pulled him into the kitchen and down the hall. She stopped only when Connor couldn't hear the announcer or Dean's, "C'mon, ref! What're you doing?" anymore.

Lindsay was nervous about something. Connor could definitely tell something was up, but he didn't know if he should ask her or not. So he just waited.

But then she was up on her toes and had her lips gently brushing his. Her hands were tangled in his hair and he was holding onto her waist, completely aware that this could be a very awful, very vivid daydream. To his immense relief however, their kiss ended, and she rocked back onto her heels, whispering, "Happy birthday." And she pulled his head down for another kiss.

Chapter 8- Werewolf Attack

Dean didn't know what to do. His brother was lying on Connor's living room floor with a gaping hole in his chest. Sam was screaming, and it was a heart-wrenching sound that Dean had never heard before. The older brother was chained in a corner, struggling desperately to free himself. "You son of a bitch!" he cried. "I'll kill you if you touch him again! I'll kill you!"

But the werewolf king—the beast right out of the Grimm Brothers' Little Red Riding Hood—didn't acknowledge him. The three or four others, however, grinned to each other and skulked up to him, blocking his view of Sam. Dean could hear Sam's blood gurgling and dripping in big splashes onto the carpet from the table he was draped over. He had to get to him. Sam wasn't going to live much longer without him.

Sam could just barely make out Dean's shape across the room. He knew he was going to die; his arms felt like Jell-O and the hole in his chest… He screamed again, but it was a weak sound this time. That was the only way he could describe the excruciating pain he was feeling. There was a bright flash of light, and if he turned his head just enough, Sam was able to blurrily watch the fight that had suddenly erupted in the room.

Lindsay knew she had to get to Sam. But she had to deal with the other four werewolves first. Her gun went off, and two of the wolves dropped without even realizing what had hit them: Silver bullets, straight through their backs and into their hearts. Dean called out to her, and she looked for him. It was only when the other two werewolves had moved did she see how bloody he was himself; chained to the wall, slashed across his face…he was almost in worse shape than Sam. Almost.

Lindsay ran forward, simultaneously whipping out a machete from its holster around her waist, and beheaded the two werewolves left guarding Dean with one clean sweep. She then took out her pistol once more and plugged the headless bodies with silver, just in case. Dean managed to give her one thankful look before her vision went blurry. The king of the werewolves, the one who had been torturing Sam, had thwacked her on the back of the head with his massive paw.

Lindsay clattered to the ground, and the werewolf kicked away her weapons, baring his shiny yellow teeth. But she surprised him. He had had enough of her silly ways, and he didn't care that she had killed his wolves; he had plenty more to replenish his ranks. So he had turned back to finish carving out the younger brother, when he howled in fury. The girl had jumped onto his back and was now reaching around for his powerful jaws.

The fierce king struggled and snapped, saliva foaming around his jowls, but even as Lindsay's hands were torn and bitten and began to bleed, still she tried to wrap her hands around his jaws. She screamed when he screamed, a powerful sound that contorted her face into an angry grimace, and finally, her hands found their mark. She gripped the king's lower jaw and upper jaw in each of her hands, his teeth cutting deep into her fingers, and she knew that the king knew what was going to happen next as soon as he began to claw desperately at her face. Still, Lindsay held on. And then, she gave an almighty tug.

The werewolf king's jaws separated, and she pulled the top jaw from the bottom, exposing his brain for all to see. The girl tossed the half-head aside.

Lindsay woke with a start. She was lying in a bed that was not her own. Immediately she sat up, threw the covers off of her, and ran out of the room. She skidded to a very confused halt in the middle of Bobby's kitchen.

"Good morning, Sunshine," said Jenna from the small table. A bowl of cereal was in front of her.

Lindsay looked around. "Where's Sam?" she asked, her voice a little higher than usual.

"Right here," came his deep voice from behind her.

She whirled around and was about to throw her arms around him, when she saw that his chest was just as it had always been: chiseled and quite normal. Lindsay looked up at him with an expression she really couldn't understand, and Sam said, "Are you all right?"

"What day is it?" she asked.

"October eleventh. Yesterday was my birthday. Thursday, to be exact," Connor piped from his seat in front of the television, in the next room.

"How could you forget that?" Jenna asked, smiling. But Lindsay ignored her.

Her eyebrows knitted together. "How did we end up here? What happened last night?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Sam said.

"Weren't we at Connor's?"

"We drove here after we dumped Sam in the pool, remember? He wouldn't trust us anymore," replied Connor.

"So there were no…" This was sounding stranger and stranger by the second, but Lindsay decided to press on. "…werewolves, there?"

Dean surfaced from inside the refrigerator a moment later. "We would have told you," he said.

"Why do you keep looking at Sam like that?" Jenna asked Lindsay, standing and walking over to her. She placed a hand on her head. "Do you have a fever or something?"

Lindsay swatted her hand away. "You've gotta be kidding me," she muttered to herself, backing away from the brothers' and Jenna's curious stares. But she couldn't tear her gaze from Sam's. She only blinked when her back hit the wall. "That was a dream?"

Ridiculously larger-than-were-necessary tears welled up in her eyes and she fought to keep them back, but soon they had won, and were spilling silently down her face.

"Hey," Sam said softly, coming to stand next to her, "what's wrong?" He wiped a tear from her cheek. Connor came into the room behind him, and he scowled slightly when Sam's hand had touched her skin. Lindsay ignored him for the moment.

"I thought you were dying," she whispered. "I thought Dean was dying."

"What about me?" Dean asked.

Lindsay slid down the wall, her head now in her hands. It had felt so real. When she had awoken, she really did think she'd find Sam in a pool of blood and half a werewolf head somewhere. But she's not that strong. Nobody's that strong. She shook her head. Somehow, it still felt like she'd just turn a corner and find—

"Oh!" Jenna cried from where she was seated at the table once again. "Oh, my god!"

Lindsay looked up. Jenna was staring at her, probably with the same expression, and had the sides of the table clenched tightly in her hands. Her face was slightly green.

"Jenna," Dean said, "what is it?"

"Oh, damn," she said, and she blinked, coming out of her vision. "That dream was…nuts. I'm glad I only got flashes of it." Jenna visibly shivered.

Sam turned back to Lindsay. "You dreamed we were attacked by werewolves?" he asked, squatting next to her. She nodded. "We're okay, you know." He smiled at her.

Lindsay smiled back. "Sam?" His eyebrows rose, and she began to wring her hands nervously. "Can I…" This is so cheesy, she thought. "I need a hug," she said finally, and flung her arms around his massive shoulders, sobbing softly in relief.

"Lindsay," Connor said after a minute, "can I talk to you?"

Sniffling, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "Sure." She stood with Sam's help, and followed Connor into the other room, shrugging at Jenna. I have no idea what he wants, her eyes told her.

When she and Connor were out of sight from the others, Connor turned to Lindsay, who had slipped her hand into his. She was hiccupping slightly. "What are you trying to do to me?" he demanded, a scowl on his face.

Lindsay's eyes widened when he disentangled their fingers roughly. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

Connor stuffed his hands into his pockets. "You can't just kiss me and…hang all over them like that," he said. His brown eyes were sharp.

Lindsay slowly, cautiously placed her hands onto his chest. "I don't hang all over them," she said. When Connor didn't say anything, it was her turn to glare at him. "You can relax, Connor," she told him, her hands dropping to her sides. "They're not what you think—"

"But the way you act when you're around them? You think that doesn't hurt?"

"I don't mean to, all right?" Lindsay snapped. "You're just friggin' paranoid."

Connor hissed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not! You're constantly hugging them like your whole friggin' life depended on them returning your affection!"

"It doesn't mean anything to them. Why are you so worried?"

"How do you think that looks, huh?" he continued, taking in a deep breath. "How do you think I felt after you kissed me? And then you go and dream about Sam and Dean!"

"They're my best friends!" Lindsay yelled finally, her fists balled at her sides. "So what if I hug them? So what if my life depends on that? I'm a hunter, Connor. If I lose either of them, my life is ruined! How do you think you'd feel if you lost me?"

"Why are you even with me, anyway?"

That was something he shouldn't have said. Lindsay's face suddenly lost all color. The fire in her eyes went out and she took a step back. Softly, she replied, "The things you've done, Connor. The way you've helped us. It's just…the way I feel…I guess."

There was a long pause, and when she met his eyes again, the fire was back in Lindsay's eyes, as were tears. "How could you even ask that?"

And she stormed out of the room with a huff.

When she and Connor had made it into the crowded kitchen, Connor made a grab for her wrist. "Wait, please," he pleaded. But Lindsay yanked her arm away and bolted to the front door. She pulled it open and let it slam shut. Connor ran out after her.

Chapter 9- Dean's Appreciation

Sam, Dean, Jenna and now Bobby—he had finally come down from rummaging through the attic—could hear Lindsay's muffled yells from the kitchen.

"If that boy hurts her…" Bobby grumbled, settling himself at the table with a beer that Dean had just tossed him.

"She can take care of herself, Bobby," Sam said. But he couldn't help looking to the window, his expression pained.

Jenna stood from her seat next to Bobby. "I'm going to see if I can help," she said, and made her way towards the door. Dean placed a hand on her shoulder softly.

"I wouldn't get in the middle of them if I were you," he said.

"She might need a girl talk," Jenna told him, and brushed his hand away gently. "I'll be back…soon, I guess." She opened the door and the sound of the couple's raging fight only faded after it had closed again.

Jenna returned ten minutes later, her face white and her hands shaking. She gulped when she'd closed the door behind her. "You were right, Dean," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, "I shouldn't have gotten in the middle of it."

"What happened?" Bobby asked, standing. When Jenna didn't move, he walked towards her and led her over to the couch. Sam and Dean followed quietly. "What happened?" he asked again.

At first, Jenna didn't know if she should tell them what had been said, or what had been done. She didn't want to invade either Lindsay or Connor's privacy, though she had done that pretty successfully already, but still… If she told any of the guys… It just wasn't right.

"I can't tell you," Jenna mumbled, keeping her eyes away from them all.

"What are you talking about? Is Lindsay alright?" Dean asked, making to stand.

Jenna yanked him back down by the collar of his shirt. "She'll be okay. Just don't go outside. I think she'd shoot you if she saw you."

Sam frowned. "Why would she shoot Dean? Connor's the one—"

"She'd shoot anyone. She almost shot me." Jenna shivered. When the brothers and Bobby only continued to stare at her, Jenna sighed.

The door slammed against the wall of the kitchen, and Jenna and the others peeked into the room. Lindsay was standing at the sink, her hands gripping the edges to try and stop her shaking. She looked up when the door opened again.

"They saved your life. Of course they did. That's their main objective of life, isn't it? To save your life," Connor said as if he were continuing a conversation with someone. He let the door creak closed and stood in the middle of the room, his arms crossed tightly.

"Who told you that?"

"Jenna did. Told me the whole bull story about your house exploding, almost killing you and your brother, blah blah blah."

When Lindsay answered him, her voice was strained, quiet. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Connor's glare slipped. "What?"

"That wasn't me," she repeated, turning to face him.

"But Jenna said—"

"It was me."

Connor and Lindsay turned to see a girl walking through the door behind them. She had short and spiky, haphazardly-styled brown hair, exactly the same shade as Lindsay's, except with streaks of metallic purple splashed through it. Her eyes were the same shape and color, and now wore the exact same glare as Lindsay. Even their height matched.

Both Dean and Sam rounded the corner of the room together. "Whoa, whoa," said Dean, holding up his hands. "There's two of them?"

He and Sam glanced at each other, and then Jenna and Bobby emerged as well. All four of them were staring between Lindsay and the new girl, who was staring at Lindsay with a level expression, though her eyes were narrowed, whereas Lindsay had her mouth hanging slightly open. Connor was searching the floor at his feet.

"What the hell is going on?" Lindsay asked the girl. "Who're you?"

"I said it was me," the girl continued. "Why don't you believe her? Do you need picture proof or something?" she asked Connor.

"Wait, wait, wait." Dean was walking towards them now, but stopped when Connor and the two girls looked up at him. "So you're saying," he pointed to the newcomer, "that we rescued you that day? Not Lindsay? But we were at her house! Why were you with her brother and dog…at her house, in the first place? What the hell's going on here?"

"That's something I'd like to know," Bobby growled.

The purple-haired girl turned to face them. "Bout right," she said. "See—"

There was the sound of a gun cocking, and Jenna's shout, but all anyone really noticed was Lindsay's gun pointed right in between the new girl's eyes.

Connor stayed silent.

"You better cut the bull," Lindsay warned, clutching her pistol tighter as her hands shook, "before I blow your melon clean off. Tell me who you are, why you look like me, and how the hell you knew how to find us."

"If you'd let me explain—"

"Now, Lindsay," Bobby began, pushing in between Sam and Dean.

But the other girl was faster. She whipped out her own pistol and pointed it right back at Lindsay.

"Just wait! Wait!" Sam was reaching around Dean, trying to step in front of him. He had his hands out in a calming sort of motion. "No one's shooting anyone here. Just relax," he soothed.

"She could be a Shape Shifter for all we know!" Lindsay spat.

"I could," the girl hedged, "but so could you."

"Excuse me?" Lindsay snarled. "Why don't I just plug you right now, you—"

"Hold up, guys!" Jenna yelled over them.

"What, Jenna?" Lindsay glared in her direction, still pointing her gun at the girl near the door. Connor had moved by now; he was standing next to Lindsay, near the sink.

"I know you," Jenna told the girl, who gave Jenna an arched brow.

"No, you don't," she said.

"Yes, I do." Jenna nodded enthusiastically. She pointed to the girl. "I had a dream…well, a vision…about you! It all makes sense now!"

"Why didn't you tell us this before all the firearms started blazin', Jenna?" Bobby hissed. "It would've saved us a lotta grief."

Jenna's smile slipped a bit. "I…I wasn't sure until they really started talking… But I remember now. I was wondering why I'd have a vision about Lindsay, when she didn't really look like her.

"But I get it now," Jenna continued, her smile back in place. "Oh, put your guns down!"

Glaring at each other with looks that could've shot fire, both girls lowered their weapons, but kept firm grips on them.

"I'd like an explanation," Connor pressed. Everyone turned to look at him. "If you didn't know you had a twin, then I think everyone else has a right to know, too," he added to Lindsay, still not looking at her.

"What's your name, at least?" Dean asked the girl.

"Haven." She dropped her right hand from her pistol and stuck it out for Dean, who reluctantly shook it.

"Did John know about you?" Lindsay asked Haven stiffly.

"When I showed up that day? Nope. But he knows now."

"And he didn't stop to think and…and tell me?"

"I guess he thought you knew you had a twin." After a brief up-and-down glance at Lindsay, Haven stuffed her gun into the waistband of her jeans. "Doesn't matter now, anyway."

"Why didn't you bring this up before?" Lindsay had rounded on the brothers now, and their eyes widened innocently.

"We just thought you cut your hair or something," started Sam.

"And then it grew back," added Dean.

"In that short amount of time?" asked Lindsay, exasperated.

"We hadn't seen you in a year, dude," said Dean, stepping closer to her. "We didn't know."

"Why didn't you say, 'Oh, have you found a new house yet?' or something?"

Dean and Sam just shrugged.

"It didn't…come up?" Sam was searching for something to cover his and his brother's tracks.

Shaking her head, Lindsay looked to the floor. "Maybe that's why John hasn't called," she muttered. "Maybe he thought… But our house… Where is he living, then? Have I been away for that long?"

She brought a hand up and rubbed it over her face. Both Dean and Sam nodded and said, "Yeah, you have."

Then Lindsay stuffed her own gun away.

"Glad that's over," muttered Bobby. He took off his baseball cap and smoothed his hair before putting it back on.

But Dean grunted when Lindsay's fist connected—however semi-softly—with his stomach. "That's for not telling me I had a friggin' twin!" she hissed.

"Dude!" Sam complained, but stopped his advance to help his brother when he received a glare from Lindsay.

"Don't think you're out, Sam," she told him, an index finger pointed his way dangerously. "You're next, Bigfoot."

"You suck, Squirt. That hurt," Dean mumbled from his bent over position.

There was a snorted laugh off to the side.

"Excuse me?" Lindsay took a step towards her sister. "Would you like to say that to my face?" She dug into her pocket and produced a small silver knife, brandishing it threateningly.

"Whoa, Lindsay! What are you doing?" Bobby asked, helping Dean regain his posture. "Put that knife away."

Haven's hands flashed up in a you're-under-arrest type manner. "Chill, Sis. I guess it wasn't funny," she said. "My bad."

"I don't care what you think about my name. I just need to be sure you are who you say you are."

She advanced on Haven with the blade.

"Come on, now!" Haven yelled as Lindsay pinned her to the door with her left forearm at her throat, the knife tip at her eyes. "You find out you've got a sister and you go all spaztastic?"

"Lindsay, cool it," Dean ordered. "There's no need—"

"Shut it," she snapped back, and Dean quieted at once. "I'm going to figure this out, whether you guys," she glared around at Sam and his brother, at Jenna and Bobby, and finally at Connor, "wanna help me or not. I'm doing this my way."

Suddenly, Lindsay stepped away from Haven. She raised the blade to her own arm, and sliced down her forearm. There was no hissing, no steaming, no bubbling or burning. Just a trickle of red blood.

"So obviously," sneered Lindsay, "I'm not a Shape Shifter. Let's see if that holds true for you too, shall we?"

Lindsay held out the hand that was not clenched tightly around the knife, and when Haven placed her hand in her sister's grip, Lindsay yanked her arm towards her. The knife came down. Blood began to drip.

But there was no supernatural reaction from the silver.

"I told you, I'm not either," Haven said through a grimace.

Lindsay flung her arm away from her. "Fine." But then she sighed tightly. "Are you really that damn jealous, Connor?"

She had switched topics so fast that Jenna's and everyone else's heads were spinning.

Back to being the center of attention, Connor's face purpled. He didn't say anything.

A tear rolled down Lindsay's cheek when she closed her eyes. "I don't even care if I have a twin," she said.

"Gee, thanks," Haven snapped.

"All I care about is not losing you."

"Listen, dude," Haven seethed to Connor, "my car was practically turned inside out, I was jumped in my own backyard—"

"My backyard," Lindsay corrected.

"—and I tripped the wire that connected over a hundred hand grenades to the central bomb that they planted in my basement. If you need proof, just go to the site. My house isn't there anymore."

"Sam," Lindsay said over her shoulder, "can I have your flask?"

"What?"

"The one with holy water." She held out her hand. "Give it here."

"You expect me to—"

There was a knock on the door. Bobby stepped forward hesitantly and, walking in the middle of the couple and Haven, and opened it. The officer from the opera house stood on Bobby's doorstep, his baseball cap twisting between his hands nervously.

"Hello," he said with a small smile. "Bobby, right? My name's Christopher." He shook Bobby's hand. "I'm looking for Jenna. Is this a bad time?"

~ A Few Hours Later~

"Jenna, what are you doing?" Lindsay hissed to girl in the car.

Jenna's hands flew off the steering wheel as she jumped in surprise, and she turned around in the front seat. "Just sitting," she said innocently.

Lindsay reached into the open window and swiftly grabbed Dean's keys from her hand. "Hey!" Jenna huffed, attempting to get them back. But Lindsay jingled them in front of her.

"Just sitting…with Dean's keys?" she asked.

Jenna shrugged. "I've got sticky fingers."

Lindsay's eyes widened at Jenna's guilty expression. "You were going to take the Impala for a joy ride!" Her whispered voice had a note of envy. "Dean would've killed you if he'd found you here. He doesn't even let me drive Baby."

"Who?"

"His—Get down!" She suddenly and very forcefully grabbed the back of Jenna's head and shoved it towards her lap, barely missing whacking the girl's forehead on the steering wheel.

"Dean's coming," Lindsay hissed between her clenched teeth—she had her back facing Jenna now—and squinted her eyes to try and block out Jenna's muted whining, "keep quiet."

Jenna's neck was twisting and cramped, but she knew better than to get caught in Dean's car, with his keys, by Dean—especially without his permission.

"Hey, Squirt," Dean said when he had reached Lindsay. "What are you doing out here?"

"Trying to clear my head," she replied, leaning closer to the Impala, hoping Dean couldn't make out Jenna's shape behind her small frame.

"Yeah," Dean sighed. "Haven showing up was pretty…interesting, to say the least. Sorry we didn't mention her earlier."

Lindsay waved a hand in dismissal. "I don't even care anymore," she told him. "I'm just frustrated that John never thought to tell me that our house had exploded."

"Your parents never told you either?"

"My parents…" Lindsay looked up at Dean now. "They probably didn't want to worry me. They know I'm at school, and they know I'm a hunter. They've tried to stop me, but they said that's like putting a dog leash on a great white."

"Okay, but they could've told you about Haven," Dean said. "That's something both you and John should have known about."

Lindsay rolled her eyes. "I still think something's fishy here. Mom and Dad should have told me from the very start… Maybe she was stolen when we were kids or something, because I have absolutely no memory of her. At all," Lindsay told him. She kicked at the sandy ground.

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, it is weird—"

"Gimme a sec," Lindsay told him and began to walk back towards the house. She had Sam's flask clutched in one hand.

Dean rushed over to stop her. "What're you doing?" he asked.

"Gunna go check if she's possessed. It's the only other option that's left."

"Uh, no! She's your sister. You can accept that. That's your other option."

"Do you really believe her showing up here isn't weird? How'd she know where to find me? Where to find us?" Lindsay asked, pocketing the flask without noticing doing it. "Not a lot of people know where Bobby lives, and how'd she know about Shape Shifters if she's not a hunter?"

Dean sighed. "How do you know she's not a hunter?"

"I just know."

"Whatever floats your boat, Squirt."

"Just go with me on this, okay?" Lindsay ran a hand over her face.

"Okay, okay." Dean softly took Lindsay's arm and steered her back to the car. "Just…let things cool down for a bit. We can trap her and douse her with holy water—"

"—and exorcise her."

Dean's eyes turned stern. "Only if there's a real need. We don't need to be killing your sister, got it?"

Lindsay glared at the ground.

"Got it?" Dean repeated.

"Fine! Okay, I won't freak out until we know for sure."

There was a short pause before Dean cleared his throat and said, "You know, if Connor doesn't want to understand you, he's really not worth it."

Lindsay glared. "Thanks for the advice, Doctor Phil," she said.

"I'm right, though."

"You're right, though," she agreed, and her frown disappeared. "I wish I could just make him understand. It would be so much easier," she said, looking to the ground, thankful for the change in subject. "But it's just so tiring."

Dean leaned against the back door next to her. "You're in love with him," he said.

Lindsay shot him a glance. "Jenna's in love with you." There was a tiny squeak from inside the car. "It doesn't make a difference either way," she muttered.

"With you it does," he told her. "Jenna needs to wake up. She's got a great guy looking out for her. I'm not good enough for her ("Exactly," Lindsay hissed over her shoulder), and…she needs someone who can keep up with her. I don't even know how you do it."

Lindsay chuckled. "She's crazy, that one," she said.

"Crazy, but I like her. Not a bad hunter, too. Could have used her on some of our old hunts, huh?" Dean elbowed Lindsay.

Lindsay smiled. "Yeah, but this life's not for her. Christopher needs her. She should stay with him, build a life with him." And she was glad Jenna was hiding. Because Jenna needed to hear it.

Clearing his throat again, Dean knocked twice on the glass behind him without turning. Jenna slowly rose from her hiding place. "You could have asked, you know," he told Jenna when Lindsay was about to shove her back down.

Lindsay sputtered. "But…but—you never let me drive!" She stepped away from the car, her mouth agape at Jenna's wide grin. "Dean! That's so not fair!" Lindsay complained.

She watched Dean grin, shaking his head, and plunge his hand into his pocket. He flung his keys at her. "You could ask, too, you know," he said.

And then he was next to Lindsay, a hand tight on her sleeve, adding in a whisper so that Jenna couldn't hear, "You know the rules, dude. Let her drive around a parking lot or something. Nothing crazy, got it? I trust her, but not that much."

He winked and left the two girls gazing after him, a cloud of dust rising around his feet.

Chapter 10- Life Goes On

The Impala rumbled and purred underneath Jenna, and she was ecstatic that she hadn't been beaten to a pulp by Dean. Lindsay had cranked the music as high as it could go, and even though their brains were likely to bleed out their ears soon, they didn't turn it down. They were having way too much fun. Watching the glares from everyone they passed. Pushing the car faster when the road was empty of any other vehicles. Screaming at the top of their lungs out the open windows.

But though she complained—profusely—about how Dean wasn't allowing her to drive on an actual road, or that maybe Lindsay was making the whole thing up just so that she could drive longer, Jenna was just happy to sit shotgun.

"Are you going to tell me how your date was or not?" Lindsay asked as they barreled around a slim corner. The trees on either side rushed past in a blur of green.

Jenna's face flushed. "It was just a date, nothing fancy," she said.

Lindsay looked at her sideways. "He was in a suit. A nice suit." Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment. "But he was holding his baseball—"

"He does that when he's nervous," Jenna blurted, and at once she realized how defensive she sounded. She flushed again.

Lindsay's grin was triumphant. "It was fancy! And you had a good time." Again, she glanced at Jenna sideways, this time with a look that made Jenna squirm uncomfortably. "Did you get laid?" Lindsay asked, unable to help the arch her eyebrows took.

"God!" Jenna laughed. "Why do you Winchesters always come to that conclusion?"

But as the silence next to her lengthened, Jenna bit her lip and faced forward again. Her eyes studied the dashboard in front of her.

"I'm not a Winchester," Lindsay said softly.

She pulled the car over to the side of the road, cut the ignition and got out. She walked over to Jenna's side, "Scoot," got in and closed the door. "You can drive home," Lindsay muttered.

Jenna pulled back onto the road, made a U-turn and started for Bobby's once more. She made no attempt to vocalize her thoughts; she was content to stay in her head this time.

"Is that Christopher?" Connor asked, walking over to the window. "He's back already?"

"Looks like," Bobby said over his shoulder. He was seated at his large desk again, looking exactly the way Connor remembered him on their first meeting.

Bobby scratched his head through his ball cap. "D'you know anything 'bout killin' a thousand year old warlock, by chance?"

Connor shook his head. "Not sure."

"What about the boys?"

"Dean and Sam are in the junk yard, practicing their aim." Shrugging, Connor made his way to the front door when the car engine cut off. "She's not here," he called out to Christopher as he shut his door.

"I think I saw her on the overpass on the way here," Christopher said. He shook Connor's hand when he'd reached him. "Was she driving Dean's car?"

Connor nodded. "You want a beer?" He waved Christopher to follow him inside, but the man didn't move.

"I think we should stay out."

Connor turned back with an eyebrow cocked. "Why?"

"I'm not trying to push you here or anything. I just don't want you to make the biggest mistake of your life."

"What are you talking about?"

Christopher scratched the dark scruff on his chin. "I don't have the right to be telling you this. But I only found Jenna because I opened myself to her. For the past few months, I'd been…scared, I'll admit it. When my buddies disappeared from the force, ended up in jail, I didn't know who to trust anymore. I thought they were all whack jobs. They had been the only people I could trust.

"But when Jenna stood up to that ghost… I realized something." Christopher's hands stretched above him and settled behind his head. "You know what that was?" he asked Connor.

Connor could see where this conversation was going, and despite the fact that he wanted to run away from it and never talk about it again, he couldn't move his feet. He couldn't even make them move. His strength was gone, and his whole body felt like it was made of Jell-O. So he just shook his head in defeat.

"I realized," Christopher began, "that I had to trust who I had left. I had no one else, Connor. She was brilliant. She was sweet, a little crazy…but aren't we all?" He paused for a moment. "What I'm trying to say, dude, is…"

The rumble of the Impala's arrival stopped him short. Jenna got out of the driver's side and was followed slowly by Lindsay. Her face was streaked with a few tears.

Seeing her, seeing her with such a hurt expression, seemed to push the blood back into his legs again. Without hesitation, Connor strode over to her as she closed her door quietly, and took her up in his arms. Her hands reached up for his face when his lips crushed hers. Hungry, desperate…apologetic. He could feel her shaking. Connor's hands locked themselves around her waist. He didn't know what the tears were for, but he knew that Christopher was right. That Jenna had been right a few hours ago. He should have listened to them.

"Eh, close enough," Christopher muttered with a grin, walking back to the house with Jenna on his arm, their hands clasped together tightly.

Bobby backed away from the window and let the curtain swing back into place. He had his trademark small, awkward grin on his lips. The one only Dean and Sam ever really get to see. He sat behind his desk once more as the front door swung open, and the two couples followed each other inside.

"You three know anything 'bout killin' a thousand year old warlock?" he asked Lindsay, Christopher and Jenna. They all sat at the couch next to the desk, Connor and Lindsay snuggling in a tight embrace. "Connor's got no clue. I just don't know…" Bobby dug around in the drawer of his desk, flipped open a few pages of the books around him.

"Hold up," Lindsay said, standing, "lemme see that book." She pointed to the smallest, red leather bound one behind Bobby, on the bookshelf. "There might be something in there."

He handed it to her, wondering when she had noticed it. "I've never actually looked in that one," he told her. "I forgot I had it."

Bobby watched her open the book carefully, skimming the pages with a thin finger to guide her. Dean and Sam came in through the back then, laughing and looking more like brothers than they had in a long time.

Haven appeared from the stairs to Bobby's right. "What're you guys doing?" she asked, leaning against the doorframe.

"How do you about Shape Shifters, Haven?" Lindsay asked, still skimming through the book.

"You're not still on that, are you Squirt?" Dean asked, a huff in his voice.

Lindsay ignored him, and Sam just shrugged his shoulders at his brother.

Haven shoved off the doorframe and came to stand beside her sister, peering down at the book. "I've hunted, just like you," she said.

"Why didn't Mom and Dad ever tell me about you, then?"

"I wasn't…brought up the same way you were."

Lindsay snapped the book shut and looked at Haven.

"I only found out that my parents weren't my real parents a few weeks ago," explained Haven.

"You were kidnapped? When?" Jenna asked from the couch.

Haven looked over her shoulder. "A week after I…we…were born. Mom and Dad…I guess they stopped searching for me after a while."

"No one stops looking for their kid," Bobby stated. "They never stop."

"Well, I guess they did," both Lindsay and Haven said together.

Lindsay glared at her sister. "Don't do that," she hissed.

"Fine." Haven glared back.

"C'mon, guys. Cool it," urged Sam, but neither Lindsay nor Haven heard him. If they did, they were very forcefully ignoring him.

"But I only found about you and John a few weeks ago, like I said. It's just…I didn't know how to tell Mom and Dad. So I figured, why not rescue my little brother and make a show of it, instead?" Haven continued, a growl in her voice now.

"What are you saying?" Sam asked.

"Did you stage that explosion?" Dean asked.

Lindsay started walking towards the kitchen, her hands clenched together.

"Where're you going?" Haven asked.

"To get a beer. Want one?"

Sam, Dean, Bobby and Jenna all exchanged a glance and a shoulder shrug. Connor was focused on Lindsay's back, and Christopher was staring at the floor, as if that was the most interesting thing in the room.

"I'll get one, thanks," Haven sniffed, and began to follow Lindsay to the fridge.

But she stopped at the edge of the room, just before stepping over the threshold. Looking up to the ceiling, her face twisted into a sneer. A dark red devil's trap was drawn onto the ceiling, and it had trapped Haven. She couldn't move out of its binding circle.

As Lindsay closed the fridge, she opened the beer with a flick of her knife. "I told you guys something was off," she said, smirking.

"Let me out," Haven hissed.

"Sam, get Dad's journal. Start reading," Dean whispered.

Sam disappeared into the next room.

Jenna stood but was pulled back onto the couch by Christopher. "I want to help," she said, but he replied with, "This is way out of our league, Babe. Let the professionals deal with her."

Lindsay was walking forward now, swigging greedily on her beer. She placed the empty bottle on the table and grabbed Sam's flask; she had put it there on her way over to the fridge, knowing something could come up.

Quickly she uncapped the flask and splashed holy water over her sister's face. The demon hissed and screeched as it burned her skin, making steam rise from it.

"Let her go, you freak," Lindsay screamed just as loud. "Get out of her!"

"You think holy water will dispel me?" the demon spat. "Pssh, you wish."

But Sam had appeared behind the demon. He had his father's journal open and was reading the Latin exorcism spell in hushed tones. Only when the demon's eyes turned a threatening black and its mouth began to twist in pain did it turn around to face him.

"You're smarter than I gave you credit for Sis," sneered the demon. "But tell me, when did you have time? You know, between your squabbling with your little boy-toy over there."

She flicked a hand towards Connor, and he slammed into the cabinets over the sink, hovering against them as though roped there.

As Sam kept reading, his voice low in the background, Haven's eyes—now back to their original color—began to roll in her head. She gritted her teeth to gain control of them once more.

"It's always been there," Lindsay said. "Bobby isn't about to let just anyone waltz into his house without having protection readily available."

"I'm not that stupid," Bobby growled in agreement.

Haven narrowed her eyes into slits. "Let me out!" she roared again.

"Let me sister go!" Lindsay shot back.

She was leaning towards Haven, their faces just inches apart, before straightening suddenly. It was quiet around her. Lindsay looked around.

Both Sam and Dean had been thrown against opposite walls, and their father's journal lay at Bobby's feet. Haven hadn't even twitched.

"I'm stronger than I look," she said, grinning.

Her head snapped to the left, and Bobby was sent skidding into the couch, knocking his head into the wall behind it and throwing Jenna and Christopher to the floor. He was out-cold instantly.

"You son of a bitch!" Dean seethed.

"What do you even want?" Sam asked Haven.

But Lindsay had raced forward and grabbed John Winchester's journal. Haven watched her with slitted eyes, suspicious. The demon knew Lindsay couldn't read too much Latin, but Lindsay was flipping through the pages feverishly.

"You think you can send me back to Hell?" Haven laughed. "You've never been good at exorcising. Why would now be—"

"Ergo draco maledicte, et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te. Cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae. Perditionis venenum propinare," Lindsay said calmly and looked up from John's journal when the demon let out a piercing scream.

"Should I continue?" Lindsay asked threateningly. "Because I know a hell of a lot more than you think I know."

Haven's only response was a hiss. Her eyes turned black.

"I take that a yes."

"NO!"

Jenna and Christopher were thrown against the wall where Sam was pinned; Christopher smashed into a picture frame and the glass rained down on top of him.

"Vade, Satana, inventor et magister. Omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis. Humiliare sub potenti manu dei—contremisce et effuge—invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt!"

Another screech.

"I can do this all day, bitch! Let her go!"

And another.

Lindsay read through the whole exorcism rite, until there was a garbled scream, deep and menacing. That's when Sam and Dean, and Connor, feel to their feet. Haven's black eyes widened, her mouth opened, and a plume of black smoke shot to the ceiling. The smoke filled the devil's trap, but did not stray from the edges. It sizzled and burned before completely disappearing. The demon was back where it belonged, and Haven was free.

"Haven." Lindsay rushed forward to catch her before she fell. "You okay, Connor?" she asked over her shoulder.

He stood from his kneeling position and leaned heavily against the sink. He nodded, saying nothing.

"Guys, check Bobby," Lindsay instructed Sam and Dean. "He hit his head pretty hard."

They rushed over to the older hunter. Bobby groaned after a minute and sat up. "Did we get it? Is she gone?" he asked.

"Haven," Lindsay said before anyone could answer him. "Haven, how long have you been possessed?"

The girl looked around, a dazed glaze in her eyes.

"Haven, look at me."

Haven finally faced her sister. "Months," she whispered. "It led me to your house. It wanted Sam and Dean to find me and John. But once it realized that I wasn't you…it tried to…yank itself out." Haven shuddered. "But it was stuck. It couldn't go anywhere. It couldn't get out."

"What?" Dean, Sam and Bobby asked together.

Dean helped Bobby stand. "What do you mean, Haven?" Bobby asked.

"I think…" Haven licked her lips, looking anywhere but at Lindsay. "I held it back."

"Why would you do something like that?" Connor asked, coming to kneel beside Lindsay. He gently took her hand in his own, and Haven stared at it. Lindsay didn't pull away.

"I guess… It was trying to find you, and it was just going to kill me and possess someone else, right? I mean, that's what they do, right? So…I wanted to find you," Haven told her sister.

Her eyes filled with tears.

"I had that demon lead me here. I knew it wanted you, but it wouldn't tell me why. I just… I didn't want it hurting anyone else."

"You were very brave," said Dean.

"And stupid," said Jenna.

Christopher made a face as he brushed the glass off of his jacket. "Why would you say that?"

"Are you even a hunter?" Jenna pressed Haven, her eyebrows knitted.

"No, I… I don't remember. I don't know. And I didn't know I had a sister, or a brother," Haven answered. "What would you have done?"

There was silence.

It was a few hours later, and everyone was trying to figure out exactly what had happened. Sam and Dean were hovering over Sam's computer, like they usually were. Lindsay was off in a corner talking in hushed tones to Haven. Connor was sitting with Jenna and Christopher, explaining some of the things they'd need to know about demons and how to trap them.

Everything was coming into order. Finally. The whole monsters-gang-up-on-the-hunters deal was sorted out—Bobby would figure what the hell was up with that when there was more time—and Christopher had knocked some sense into Connor. The boys, and probably Lindsay, Jenna, Connor and Christopher too, would spring all the jailed cops eventually, somehow. Or maybe the girls would go back to school.

Unlikely, Bobby thought, recalling what had just happened with her sister and the demon.

Why did that demon want Lindsay? Were others looking for her too? What about her brother? And the rest of her family? Were they all in danger now?

This was their life, whether Bobby liked it or not. And the girls were like a map anyway. Easy to read, hard to follow, just as hunters should be. Bobby knew he had no chance of turning anyone away from hunting, especially if Sam and Dean still kicked ass every now and then. Lindsay would always look to them for guidance, and Jenna would always look to her. Haven would have to decide whether she wanted to continue hunting or return to the life she had before being possessed… Connor would stay with Lindsay, and Christopher…well, he'd just have to figure Jenna out on his own. But by the looks of things (Bobby sat behind his desk with a plunk) the Winchester family had gained four extra members. And they'd need all the help they could get, if things were going to go the way they'd been going lately.

~THE END~

*I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE MATERIAL USED FROM THIS SITE. I ONLY USED IT FOR RESEARCH. IT BELONGS TO THE SITE.*

*ALL SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERS AND PLOT IDEAS BELONG TO ERIK KRIPKE AND THE OTHER CREATIVE GENIUSES. ONLY LINDSAY, JENNA, HAVEN AND CONNOR ARE MINE, AS ARE SOME OF THE BACKSTORIES AND FILLER STORIES.*