Sam woke with his forehead molded against the cold window of the car. It took a second to realize that the Impala was moving due to the darkness that seemed to seep into every fiber around him. With a grunt, he raised his body up and positioned himself correctly in the leather seat.
"Ah, I see sleeping beauty's finally decided to grace us with her presence. Your prince show up, sugar?" Dean laughed and fiddled with the steering wheel. They must be going somewhere good. He wouldn't be so happy if they weren't.
"Where are we?" Sam ignored his brother's sarcasm and continued to stare at the blackened scenery.
"A few miles outside of Nashville, Tennessee."
"Why?" Sam frowned. There hadn't been anything odd in Tennessee. The last thing ever mentioned in this state was a black dog, but their father had dealt with that years ago.
Dean's grin seemed to take up his whole face. "Since the haunting in Atlanta didn't take long, I thought we'd drop in on an old friend of mine."
"Friend? You never mentioned knowing anyone in Tennessee."
"She just moved here. Her and her family lived in California for awhile, but something happened down there and next thing you know I get a phone call asking if we're close by."
A girl. That explained the shift in Dean's normal, solemn mood. "How long until we get there?" He needed to stretch.
"Another thirty minutes." Dean shot his brother a quick look. "You just keep dreaming there, princess."
"Shut-up," Sam muttered.
The house was small but well groomed. The white siding was accented by green shutters, and a small garden flanked both sides of a neat, cement walkway that led to a green door. "Tidy," Sam remarked stepping out of the car. The second the car door slammed shut, the front door was thrown open revealing the apparent reason for Dean's happiness.
"Dove." Dean's expression was far too serious for the current situation. Sam half expected his brother to pull out his favorite pistol, but the tension soon broke when the girl started sprinting towards them.
"Dean!" The blonde exclaimed wrapping her arms around Dean's muscular frame. "I've missed you so much!"
Grinning, Dean bent down and kissed her. "I could say the same thing." They stood lip-locked a few more seconds until Sam 'accidentally' kicked Dean in the leg. "Oh, Dove, this is my little brother, Sammy."
"It's Sam." He shook her tanned hand.
With another kiss, she took Dean's hand and beckoned the two to follow her in. "Daddy left yesterday for a hunt in Arkansas. It's really too bad, he wanted to see you." There was no sympathy for her father apparent in her voice. "Rae's in the kitchen. She knows you're here, obviously."
"So your dad's not home, huh?" Dean's asked not bothering to hide the meaning in his tone.
"Won't be home for a week!" Dove's perkiness was starting to grind on Sam's already thin nerves.
Dean glanced at his brother. "Find a way to entertain yourself, Sammy." Without another word he and Dove headed to the back of the house.
Sam sighed. Would his brother ever give it up and get serious? There were a ton of jobs they could be checking out right now, but, instead, a pretty girl had once again distracted his childish brother. Shaking his head, Sam headed to, hopefully, the kitchen.
The kitchen mimicked the outside of the house. Light green walls were accented by a white tile floor, white appliances, and a spotless, white counter top. He wanted to laugh at the optimism the house seemed to summon, but, for some reason, laughter seemed out of place here. Instead, he busied himself in a search for something to drink.
"We don't have orange juice," a quiet voice came from behind him, "but there's lemonade and tea in there. There's some soda somewhere too."
Surprised, Sam turned around to find a girl that looked exactly like Dove. Except instead of blonde she had jet black hair, and her skin was amazingly pale, almost translucent looking. How could this stranger know that he was craving orange juice?
"No one in the house likes it," the girl continued, "Dove thought she did for a little while, but all of a sudden she decided she hated it. I think it had something to do with mice…" the girl trailed off into some old memory. Sam shut the refrigerator door, and the sound seemed to pull the girl out of her trance. "So you're the little Winchester. It's nice to finally meet you."
"The little Winchester?" Sam frowned. He may be the youngest, but little was not a word he wanted to be associated with.
"Sam. Sorry." She opened a cabinet and pulled out a loaf of bread. "You don't like peanut butter," she mused under her breath.
Taken aback by the true statement Sam asked, "Who are you?"
"Oh!" she put the break down and gave him her full attention. "Sorry, it's a bad habit. I always forget that just because I know you doesn't mean you know me." She held out a hand, "Raven Nash. The bubbling blonde you met is my sister."
"Raven and Dove?" Sam hid a snicker, "You all are twins?"
"Yeah. And our names aren't that funny. I've heard worse." She pulled a jar of peanut butter down from the shelf. "I'd offer you some, but-"
"I don't like peanut butter," Sam finished for her. "How did you know that?"
She looked at him for a moment. It was unnerving. Sam felt as if she knew everything about him.
"Dean hasn't told you a thing about Dove or me." It wasn't a question. She sighed and started making her sandwich. "When we were six months old, our mother was killed in a fire. It almost got us, Dad was away, but our neighbor saw the smoke and got us out in time." Suddenly there was a yell from the back of the house, "Or at least got me out in time. I think the smoke did something to Dove."
"Six months?" It suddenly dawned on Sam, "That means you're-"
"A supernatural freak?" She laughed, "You shouldn't be so down on yourself, Sam."
He felt his eyes double in size. How could she know that's what he thought of himself? "Wait, so what can you…do, exactly?"
She slapped a bag of chips into his open hands. "You haven't eaten in hours." Raven sauntered to a large oval table and sand into a cushioned chair. "Sit." It wasn't so much of an offer as a command.
Sam complied.
"Go ahead and eat those. They're Dove's. It'll serve her right."
Again, Sam complied. He was hungry. "So?" he prompted between bites.
"Well," Raven's voice was measured, "Dove's empathetic. It seems to serve her fairly well," she added as an afterthought.
"And you?" Sam asked slowly. Even though he knew the girls were allies, he still felt apprehensive. Max had been the only other person he knew with powers like his, and he never wanted to go down that road again.
"I don't know what name you would give it." She picked at her food, "I can see into people's lives. Past, present, or future."
"You mean, like, visions?"
Raven thought a moment, "Kind of, I guess. I can see the future, but I can see past occurrences as well."
"So you're like me?"
"No." Her voice was a little sharper. "I can see whatever I choose whenever I want."
"Do you ever see anything bad?" Sam had stopped eating, utterly enthralled by the girl in front of him.
"Of course. We don't live in a perfect world."
"So do you and your sister go help? Does what you see normally have to do with the demon? How often do your visions happen?" He was rambling, he knew, but he couldn't help it.
"Slow down there, cowboy." She stood up and headed for the fridge. "We normally don't have to help. I've stepped in once, but it was only a minor thing, and had nothing to do with the supernatural." She pulled out a blue pitcher and two glasses.
"Why don't you have to help?" Sam gratefully took the glass she offered to him. It was lemonade, he had meant to grab some.
She sat back down and brought her knees up to her chin. "The future's not set in stone. It's very objective. I can only see someone's path while they're on it. If they suddenly decide to make a decision they weren't going to make in the first place, the whole future shifts. So, I can normally see if someone is going to help." Raven took a drink before she continued, "For example, I thought you and Dean were going to head straight through to Kentucky, but then Dean suddenly decided he and my sister needed a little together time. Because he made that decision, millions of futures changed."
"So did we miss anything by stopping?" He laughed, trying to joke about the situation, but Raven's face became very serious.
"I'd thank God your brother missed Dove." She left it at that.
Sam didn't know what to say. Finally he had met someone that knew what he was going through, and, best of all, Raven wasn't using her powers to kill people. He watched her for a moment, it was amazing how much she and her sister looked like one another, if Raven went to a tanning bed and dyed her hair nobody would be able to tell a difference, but Raven seemed so much more mature than Dove. Not that he could really judge. He only saw Dove for about three minutes. Yet, there was just something about Raven that made him want to know more.
"You're going to be here for awhile." Raven stood again. "We have wireless. Dean's going to ask you if you found anything about the story in Kentucky when he comes out. Just in case you want to have something for him."
"It's not important." Sam followed her into the living room.
"But it is." Raven smiled knowingly. "You shouldn't try so hard to please him. He's already so proud of you." She settled on the corner of a brown leather couch and picked up a thin book.
"You said you could control your visions," Sam sat beside her, "How?"
She put her book down. "Practice." She laughed when Sam frowned at the tired answer. "You could do it too." She took his hands in hers, "Here, let me help." Adjusting herself so she was sitting cross-legged in front of him, she stared into his eyes, "Now, you have to listen to me, and really try. I'll know if you don't."
Sam smiled. She sounded like a kindergarten teacher. "Whatever you say."
"There's two parts to this: focus and surrender. Focus is easy, it's the surrendering that's the hard part." She grinned at him reassuringly, "The first thing you have to do is pick someone. Before you say anything, you can just decided to have a random vision, as well, but it'll be easier for you to practice if you have a target."
"Alright." He picked Dean. It seemed like his brother would be easy to connect to.
"Think about something Dean would do normally. Like," she thought again, "when he comes back in here. Try and see what he says to you. Think about how his voice sounds, his expressions, anything he normally does when he talks to you. Once you have all that in your head you have to give yourself over to the vision. It'll hurt less that way too."
He couldn't help but notice how nice her smile was.
She frowned, "My sister and your brother are doing enough for the both of us. Get your mind out of the gutter."
Sam blushed. He was really going to have to keep his thoughts and decisions to a bare minimum.
"Okay, let's go. Think about it."
Sam bit his bottom limp in concentration. He thought about the sarcasm in his brother's voice and the way he always crossed his arms when he asked a question.
"Sammy, slacking again? Or do you actually have something for us to kill?"
"Ow!" he buried his head in his hands, "I thought you said it wouldn't hurt as bad."
"It didn't." Raven was laughing, "You did it, by the way."
Sam raised his head. Sure enough, the pain didn't last like it normally did.
"Soon it won't hurt at all." She picked up her book again. "You'll get it."
"Well, if it isn't Raven." Dean's loud voice filled the tiny room.
"And, joy, Dean Winchester chooses to make an appearance." Raven looked up from the book. "Where's Dove?"
"Shower. Where's Sammy?"
"It's Sam." He came out of the kitchen. "And before you say anything, I've got a couple of articles on drownings in Lexington. Seems odd to me, maybe a kelpie."
"How did you-"
Raven burst out laughing, "I think your brother has some stuff to catch you up on."
"Rae, I hope you're being nice!" Dove came down the hall.
"She's being normal." Dean put an arm around Dove's waist. "We have to go."
"Oh, no!" Dove pouted. Raven rolled her eyes.
"We'll be around," Dean promised.
"Yeah, but not when I want you!" Dove whined as the two walked hand in hand out the door.
"Here." Raven pulled a slip of paper out of her back pocket. "You'll need it."
Sam unfolded the paper and saw a phone number on it.
"Don't hesitate, okay?"
He hugged her, "I won't." He started to follow Dean out the door.
"You all are going to make it, Sam. You know that, right?"
Sam smiled and nodded his head, "I had a feeling."