Cold, icy wind slammed the door shut behind her. Rory stepped uncertainly into the room, carefully avoiding loose floorboards, her senses sharp and awake. Her feet were not ideally coated; her large hunting boots thudded against the dusty rug-covered floor, causing her to wince although she was creeping quietly.

The silence was eerie and Rory could hear her blood pounding in her ears, rushing through her head. She was trying desperately not to disturb him.

Dean was sat on a large, once-maroon now faded pink trunk, tapping his foot and jamming to an un-hearable silent song. He was unaware of Rory subtly creeping up on him, and his faint ghostly-glow burnt a little brighter every second that he grooved to his invisible jam.

Now only at an arm's length away from Dean, Rory took out her precious mobile phone, her shaky fingers hovering over two illuminated buttons and she leaned forward ever so slowly...

Dean turned, his startling eyes wide with surprise. Rory stopped suddenly, and not just because she had been caught, but because Dean was gorgeous. He was about the same age as her, 17, and his ghostly glow brightened as she saw him take her in, from her big boots to her parted lips. He inclined his head and murmured, "I'll buy you a drink if you buy me a pie."

Without meaning to, Rory giggled. She pressed a hand over her mouth, displaying her cracked and mud coated fingernails, dismayed at her foolish reaction to the ghost's flirting.

Dean's glow split through the shadow of the night as he patted the top of the dusty trunk after scooting over, inviting Rory to sit down.

Cautiously she perched on the corner and Dean began to speak, his green eyes glinting curiously. "I suppose you're wondering what a handsome young man like me is doing in Kansas, when I could easily be the biggest heart-throb in Hollywood!?"

Rory nodded, just a slight tilt of the head, her ribbon bound black hair swaying in the cold American breeze. As Dean went into full dramatic-back-story mode, Rory watched him. Not creepily, but closely enough so she could admire the stubborn set of his jaw, the slight furrow of his eyebrows, the curves of his pink lips and the faint frozen-in-time stubble on his young chin. It was easy to admit that in profile, the too-young-to-be-dead Winchester was stunning.

Dean turned back to Rory. He looked so happy, she noticed. Weren't most ghosts supposed to be bitter and twisted? Surely they were kept tethered to the world through a grudge or unfinished business? Some of them were murdering psychopaths, she'd been told.

Dean was so different.

He looked too innocent to be a killer. As he spoke his head would nod and bob a little, as if his silent song was still there.

Her heart flipped inside her chest as Dean grinned his disarming smile at her and Rory remembered her precious mobile phone, discarded behind the once-useful trunk. As if he had read her thoughts, Dean leaned his well-built body down, and in a true-gentlemanlike fashion, picked up the device and straightened his back, the phone twirling round in his solid-seeming ghost fingers.

He regarded it curiously, his brows quivering slightly as he tried to work out what it was. Rory caught her breath but she knew the ghost would never entertain the idea of using the phone, even if they did know how to use it. But she still couldn't imagine Dean in danger.

Rory began to explain the magical object, then stopped abruptly. Dean would think she was crazy. She couldn't describe being a Hunter, Dean was too innocent, but in that moment she felt like she could share anything with him.

Just as she opened her mouth to speak, "Dean..." a blinding white light burst through the room. Rory's hands instinctively covered her face and shielded her eyes and she was sure the blaze had reached even the far ends of Lawrence, Kansas.

Finally the glow from the phone died down and the room was filled with darkness again. Except this time it was too dark and Rory glanced down at the faded-maroon trunk. Where Dean had been sitting was a drink and a pie. Rory stifled a sob. She put the phone back into her pocket, slid to the floor and let out a cry. "Dean..." she whispered quietly and began weeping, the sounds of the wind howling outside drowning out the sounds of her heart-broken cries.