Disclaimer: I own nothing from the world of Supernatural or (unfortunately) the characters.

A/N: Continuing the story of the Winchester Brothers after the season 2 episode "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things". I kind of envision this story following the various episodes from season 2-5 but I think I will just start off slow and see where it leads me.

Hope you enjoy & please review,

Sorrel xxx

Chapter 1: Heat Seeker

It was early morning, the sun was just rising over the tree line, and a faint mist still clung to the lower branches; all was quiet. Kate looked out onto the scrapyard; she had been awake for about an hour, which was not unusual for her as she was often up before the lark. A faint smile played about her lips as she thought of one of her Aunt Tabby's favoured expressions.

The thought of her Aunt brought imagines of her family to the forefront and the smile about her lips turned to a small crease in her forehead as she began to wonder if she would keep the promise of returning to visit her family before the end of the year; it was already late October and her work didn't seem to be letting up to provide her with an opportunity to keep that promise. "Oh well" she thought to herself "that's what happens when you are connected to a Hunter's family". The demons and monsters didn't break for the holidays they just kept coming and coming; and lately that seemed to be all too frequent.

She turned her back to the window and returned her focus to cleaning an assortment of weaponry: a thick-set machete which still glistened with a recent kill, a bowie knife blunted from continued use, and a sawn-off shotgun. Though she had an arsenal that would rival any military coup the machete, bowie knife and shotgun were her weapons of choice; and they had seen her safe through the recent encounter with a group of vampires who had been hell bent on terrorising a small community in North Nebraska. She had been on her way back to Hope when the call from Bobby had come in.

Bobby was and always would be a surrogate father to her, and although she loved her Uncle and Aunts with all her heart, it had been Bobby who helped her get into MIT when it had become apparent that she had other Hunter skills that would be beneficial to a wider population if she focused and harnessed them. She was a computer genius, and in a different lifetime might have become a multi-million asset to any tech company but it was no use looking at what might have been in life when you had to concentrate all your energies on the here and now for fear of falling victim to the things that go bump in the night.

Kate looked at her watch it was nearly 6:30 in the morning, she knew Bobby would be up at 7 ready to start a mammoth research session looking into occult-lore, and in particular anything to do with the term Special Children; "whatever that means", she thought to herself. Bobby had been fairly tight-lipped about the whole subject over the phone and even more so last night when she arrived at the scrapyard just before midnight; she was hoping he was in a more enlightening mood this morning. If he wasn't it was going to make the whole research area a lot more difficult to undertake, as it was it currently stood at epic proportions compared to anything else she had done recently.

She finished cleaning her weapons and put them away in a small wooden carry-on trunk that she used to transport her favoured arms. She glanced at her watch again, 6:45 am, just enough time to catch a quick shower and change into her research-mode clothes she thought to herself. Gathering her things she headed to the small bathroom; it had everything a bathroom needed: sink, bath, shower, toilet and even a mirror but it didn't resonate anything towards homily. It was purely a functioning room where you washed not somewhere you could luxuriate in a bath full of bubbles and ponder life's existence. "Never mind as long as the water was hot and wet", she needed to soak some of the bruises she had sustained in the vampire's nest; "had that really only been 3 days ago?" Over the past couple of months time had been flying by at an alarming rate.

She got into the shower and her mind went blank momentarily as she allowed the warm water to cascade over her body. Grabbing her shower gel she lathered up and prepared to wash away the aches and pains of last night's long drive and equally uncomfortable sleep on Bobby's lumpy guest bed. The smell of mint enveloped the small bathroom and in what seemed like an eon in House History became temporarily more feminine for it.

Kate was reluctant to remove her body from the warm water but a crash from downstairs made her aware that Bobby was obviously now awake and was probably waiting expectantly for her arrival into the foray of research. Turning off the water she stepped from the shower and began to dry herself, the crash from downstairs had switched her curiosity back onto the task at hand. Whatever Special Children meant she knew it involved the Winchester Brothers; they were even closer to Bobby than she was and now that their Father had died the link between them was even more resolute. "The Winchester Brothers" she said aloud to herself; she had heard talk amongst the other hunters about their recent exploits but hadn't come across them for over 10 years.

Kate had been 15 years old when she had run away from her family; living up to the family legacy of hunting demons in light of the deaths of her parents and twin sister, 4 years previous, had never been fully addressed by the rest of the family. Resentment, anger and fear led her to steal her late-father's beloved Ford Mustang and drive to Bobby's scrapyard seeking answers but more importantly a refuge outside the family. Bobby had taken her in, spoken to her Uncle and Aunts; who had reluctantly allowed her to stay with Bobby while he taught her the research side of demonology.

She had been at Bobby's for a year when the Winchester Brothers had turned up at the scrapyard with their father; the formidable John Winchester. Sam the youngest at 13 years old was going through the gangly stage of life, where his limbs seemed stretched to the point of inhuman ability. Dean the eldest was a broody 17 years old, who kept a close watch over Sam, never letting him out of his sight for more than a minute. Both boys stood to military attention whenever their father entered a room, and neither boy spoke very much unless it was to one another in hushed whispers.

They stayed for less than a week, and in that time she spoke to the boys only a handful of times. It was Sam who was the main recipient of these conversations, which generally consisted of Sam's favourite television programs and what training his dad was having Dean and him undertake. She had enjoyed the snatches of conversations with Sam and when the boys left with their father one evening without saying goodbye she felt an acute craving for dialogue that didn't revolve wholly around the demonic universe. And even though Dean hadn't really given her the time of day, except for a couple of non-committal grunts, she missed having someone her own age around.

It was because of this that Kate had approached Bobby about college, and furthering her education. Much to her surprised he and her Aunt Tabby had been extremely supportive and had somehow managed to get her into MIT's advanced placement scheme. She then spent the next 4 years working hard, soaking up as much knowledge as was humanly possible, and being deliriously happy; she knew it was almost inevitable when it all came crashing down. Her middle brother had been attacked by the same demon that had killed her parents, and hunted her and her sister down. The whole family was called back to Hope to commence a hunting strategy, and it was really from there that her career as a hunter had kick started again.

Kate had never looked back, when her brother had been attacked it had made her realise how lucky she was to still have a family that cared for one another; she would do anything for them. As an extension of her family Bobby was included in that mandate too, and that meant getting her arse downstairs and helping with the Special Children research pronto.

Kate pulled on a pair of skinny jeans, twinned it with a pair of caramel coloured boots, and finished her research ensemble with a white t-shirt, and blue scarf; she rarely got to wear these types of clothes so any opportunity she got was going to be put to good use. In full research mode she bounded down the stairs, towards the dining room; she couldn't remember the last time anyone had use the dining room table for anything more than spreading out vast reams of research material.

Entering the dining room she was met with Bobby's grisly frame holding out a cup of steaming hot coffee for her. She reached out instinctively and said, "Cheers Bobby, sorry I wasn't down sooner I had to re-energise the brain cells and your shower really hits the spot after some many motel dives!" She paused, took a sip of coffee, and then continued questioningly, "So where are we at?"

Bobby moved down to the end of the table, settled in one of the dining room chairs and took a gulp of coffee before answering. "Well Honey, I've gone through all my research here at the house and I've started to rearrange it so it resembles something a bit more organised but I am getting no closer to forming any kind of theory – I need more information, that's where you come in. I need you to use some of your MIT research skills and go outside the grid for me, dig up anything and everything with reference to Special Children."

Bobby took another gulp of coffee; "Gees" Kate thinks, "His mouth must be lead-lined". As she had only managed a couple of tentative sips of her coffee before the heat had beaten her back.

Bobby spoke again, "I know you were hoping to get back to see Tabby before the end of the year but I really need the help Honey: even if it does mean your Aunt chewing me up for taking up all your time!" Bobby grinned up at Kate; it was widely known amongst the family that Bobby and her Aunt Tabby had once shared a few brief but explosive encounters. It had left a residual tension between them that both parties seemed to enjoy exasperating each other with at any given opportunity.

Kate settled down at the other end of the dining room table, opposite Bobby's position, opened up her laptop and booted it up ready for the task at hand. She looked up at Bobby who had begun working on a couple of ancient-looking scrolls. "Not going to get any more information out of him for the moment," she thought. If there was one thing that Bobby could do better than car mechanics it was determined, focused research. Kate knew Bobby had more information than he was letting on about but if he was being tight-lipped about it at the moment then there must be a good reason for it. And Kate trusted Bobby whole-heartily.

For 14 days Kate and Bobby collated and compiled all the information they could find on the notion and occurrences of Special Children. They only stopped for the odd bite of food and power nap. On Day 3 Kate had been dimly aware of the telephone ringing, Bobby had answered with the word "Hi Dean"; but she had been so engrossed in her findings that she didn't give it more than a passing thought.

The morning of Day 15 Kate was busying making more coffee in the kitchen when Bobby came in; he was wearing a tense expression, "Honey I need a word."

"Sure what's up?"

"The boys were meant to check in a few days ago and I am worried that they have bitten off more than they can chew this time." Kate assumed by boys that Bobby meant the Winchester Brothers, and her memory came fleeting back to Day 3's telephone call.

"What can I do to help?" she asked.

"Well the boys were investigating the disappearance of a number of college students in Atlanta I would appreciate it if you checked it out, perhaps taking this Athame with you, it is tipped with a poison specially attuned to a she-demon's physiology"

"You suspect a succubus?"

"The students were all male; I know that's where the boy's conclusions were heading towards. They were going to head over to a club where they suspected the thing was hunting; they text the details over to me a couple of nights ago but I haven't heard from them since. If it is a succubus and they are in trouble they're going to need a little feminine help. I don't think I fit that profile but I know you can handle yourself."

"Sure thing Bobby, I'll get packed up, I can be on my way in an hour."

"Thanks again Honey." Bobby sounded worried but tried to keep the casual in his voice. He went back to the research hoping it would help cancel out the fears he was feeling for the brothers. Although the way things were shaping up if the Winchester Brothers were ok in Atlanta they would have bigger and badder things to worry about in the future.

Truth be known Kate had been itching to leave the house for the past couple of days, so would have agreed to anything Bobby had asked if it allowed her the freedom of the open road for a few hours. She loved research but more recently it had been the hunt that had given her more joy. So a road trip to Atlanta, the chance to kill a succubus and meet up with the Winchester Brothers, should be fun, she thought! Kate grinned to herself and made her way upstairs to pack and prepare for the hunt.

She was after all a heat seeker.

A/N So what do you think? Let me know, Cheers Sorrel xxx