A/N: I got the idea for this while typing the latest chapter of 7 Days. Think of it as a prelude to both that and The Other Winchester.
FTR, here a bibliophile is used in the context of so0meone who obsessively collects and reads books. I'm a bibliophile (spine must be facing out, title must be visible and right-way up, books to be stored in order of subject and author and God help anyone who gets them muddled up) and an audiophile too. (don't start me on my MP3 library. Just don't.) And Bobby does have a lot of books – there's only…okay, I'm going to stop before I start blathering on too much.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Most Secret is by Nevil Shute. Quoted are pages 58, 106 and 110, with mention of others. I'd have quoted further, but Mum chucked the book out.

"…and watch out with the clutch, if you force it too much she'll stall."
"Okay Dad."
"You be careful. Take her once around the block, and I'll see how you go."
"Alright…"
Sam was sitting on the front porch of a small house somewhere in Indiana. Dean and Dad were in the car – Dean was learning to drive. I'm kinda jealous, but what's wrong with that? The Impala is a cool car, Dean's lucky that Dad even lets him near it.
Unbidden, a darker though entered his head. I hope they don't have a crash or something…
As discreetly as he could, Sam knocked twice on the wooden boards he wass sitting on, and then went back to reading.
The brigadier looked critically at what he had done. "The Air Ministry must have a print of this immediately…" He paused, running his eye over the unfinished details. "You make a beautiful drawing, Mr. Simon."
The designer smiled faintly. "Is it good enough," he asked anxiously, "to get me a commission in the Royal Engineers?"
The hard, china-blue eyes of the brigadier looked at him, noting the lean, intelligent face, the straight black hair. "I think it is," he said. "I'll get a paper going about that to-morrow, Mr. Simon."
"Thankyou sir." He hesitated. "I really do know a good
Sam was interrupted by the tyres of the Impala screeching slightly as Dean backed the car out of the driveway. Somehow, he was sure that Dean was just as nervous as he was – but probably for a different reason. What Dad had been saying to Dean drifted into his mind.
"…if you force it too much she'll stall."
Why are cars called she? The Impala looks like a boy. It doesn't make sense.
Little did Sam know, that question would burn in his mind for years to come.

"Dean, why are cars called she?"
"I dunno. Dad, why are cars called she?"
"Ask Bobby, I don't know."
Sam pondered the question as he kept reading. Despite Dad's warnings about car-sickness – which Sam never got – Sam always read in the car. He didn't like any of the music on the radio, and there were only so many times you could play I Spy before it got boring.
Dartmouth to the net deference store he got out there and put his foliage just inside the gate. He dismissed the Wren, and she drove back to the Naval garage. It was time for tea. Rhodes walked back to his rooms and washed his face, has a quick cup of tea, and went out to report his visit to Lieutenant-Commander Marshall.
An hour later he was in the ward-room of H.M.T. Gracie Fields drinking a glass of gin with Boden. They were alone together; the captain was on shore. "I saw the devil of a thing to-day," said Rhodes. "I believe it might be useful in our racket."
"What sort of thing?"
"A flame-thrower." He told the trawler officer briefly what he had seen.
Boden said thoughtfully: "A flame-thrower…" He stood staring out of the scuttle at the tide flowing past, bright in the evening
Aren't Wendigos afraid of fire? A flame-thrower might help Dad…
"Dean, how did you make that flame-thrower at school?"
Dean couldn't help grinning a little. "Uh, a can of deodorant and a match. I burnt my fingers though."
"Well, if Wendigos are afraid of fire, and Dad's hunting one…maybe a flame-thrower would help him."
"I don't think so, Sam, it'd probably set half of the forest on fire as well. Flame-throwers aren't that accurate."
"Yeah, but you were just using deodorant and a match."
"Dean, stop giving your brother ideas. You're enough of a troublemaker as it is."
Dean was still grinning when he replied, "Sorry Dad."
Sam can't resist jabbing at his brother a little. "Hey Dad, didn't you say once that all your grey hairs are from all the times Dean did something stupid?"
"Mhm. I nearly went completely grey after that flamethrower incident."
"What? How else was I supposed to get out of there?"
Dad sighed. "You know, when I was a kid nobody cared about that. We were practically obligated to do stupid things like that. These days, some kid gives some other kid a black eye and they're expelled."
Dean narrowed his eyes. Sam tried not to smirk and went back to reading.
the tide flowing past, bright in the evening sun. He was silent for so long that Rhodes looked curiously at him, noting the staring auburn of his hair, the white strained face, the rather sunken cheeks. Boden wasn't looking quite so good to-night, he thought. Sometimes he looked about sixty.
Dad looks twice as old as he is. Nobody would believe that he's only 47 – he looks like he's at least 55. I wish he'd stop going away so much…I'm okay with Dean, but sometimes he really gets on my nerves…
Boden turned to him. "Is it a big flame?" he enquired. "Big in diameter, I mean – not just in length."
Rhodes told him.
"I mean, if you turned in on anyone – a German – he wouldn't be able to jump back and get out of it?"
"Lord, no," said Rhodes. "You ought to see the thing."
Fire kills Wendigos, therefore they are afraid of it. Flamethrowers aren't accurate…maybe something like a paintball crossed with a Molotov?
"And is it all blazing oil inside the flame, in all that width?" He paused. "I mean, what would happen to anyone caught by it.?"
"It wouldn't do him a great deal of good," said Rhodes decidedly. "It's flame temperature, of course, the whole of it. But there it solid oil all through it, I think, in a sort of spray form, burning as it goes. Your German would get blazing oil all over him, and when he gasped he'd get it blazing down into his lungs. He wouldn't come up for a second dose."
Hm…maybe something more like a water pistol but with burning oil in it? No, it'll still get everywhere, and the plastic won't handle the heat. If it was made of metal it'd be too heavy, and it'd heat up even more. Maybe a water pistol with oil in it and something like a match near where the oil would be squirted from? That could work…
Boden said: "Were you thinking we could have one in Genevieve?"
"That's what I had in mind. I sounded out the chaps up there about the possibility of getting an equipment. They said they thought there'd be a chance."
They spent some time together, talking it out in detail. To Boden the suggestion came like the opening of a door. It gave a form and
"Sam! Are you planning on sleeping in the car tonight?"
"Huh?" Sam hadn't even realised they'd stopped. He shoved the door open, and stumbled a little as he ran to catch up with Dean; four hours of sitting still had made his knees all stiff and sore.
Bobby's yard was the same as it ever was – rusting, smashed-up cars piled up, forming a labyrinth with the tyre mountain in the background. When Sam had been going through his 'ancient civilisations' phase, he'd imagined it was the Labyrinth under the palace of Knossos, and that the pack of dogs that hung around the yard were Minotaurs, to be defeated or fled from. Or, he'd imagine that it was the jungles of Peru, and that the tyre mountain was some kind of lost Aztec city.
It is kinda like a labyrinth – easy to get lost in, and it all looks the same. And the dogs are just as dangerous as a minotaur – more dangerous actually, because there's about fifty of them.
The said dog pack came tearing from around a corner, all barking madly at the trio. A shout from Bobby scattered them, and most of them vanished back into the maze of cars and car parts. Sam didn't hang around outside – the sun was hot enough to make him feel like he was going to either melt, fry, or both if he didn't get inside soon.
The inside of Bobby's house was somewhat cooler than outside. Bobby was showing Dad something in a newspaper, Dean was standing on tiptoe and jumping around to try and see, and Sam headed straight for the couch. Stretched out, with his head propped up on the arm rest, he kept reading.
It gave a form and substance to the whole proposal to use Genevieve; he ached to use a weapon of that sort against the Germans. Anti-submarine work was all very well, but it needed so much imagination.
Sam skimmed the next few paragraphs, and pulled a face. Nice. Really. How could people get to that stage where they actually like to see and hear their enemies dying?
Another train of thought butted in. Maybe if I flick ahead a few pages…
His inner bibliophile kicked in. NO! You blasphemer! Read from cover-to-cover, start to finish!
Suddenly, his previous question was remembered, but he knew it would have to wait until tomorrow.

Bobby seemed to 'get' Sam better than either John or Dean. The kid was quite happily sitting on an upturned milk crate in the workshop, nose in one of Bobby's demonology books – The Lesser Key of Solomon, to be exact. As Bobby worked on John's new truck, Sam would occasionally call out a word or sentence in Latin that he didn't understand, attempting the pronunciations as best as he could. If Bobby definitely couldn't figure out what he was saying, he would give his shoulders and lower back a break, and go and look at what was being read. Normally, Bobby never allowed books into the workshop – bar the manuals for various cars, trucks and vans – but he had a soft spot for Sam, and the kid was more of a bibliophile than he was. Sam jealously guarded his books, and would read them with a ferocity that surprised even Bobby. However, the next question that was asked startled him.
"Uncle Bobby?"
"Mhm?"
"Why are cars called 'she'? Why aren't there any boy cars?"
Bobby sighed, then decided on a break. Turning over another empty crate, he sat down next to the kid, and said, "Cars are called she…well, it's complicated. You have to think of a car as a concept, not as an actual thing."
"Like…uh…like the law?" ventured Sam.
"Yeah, yeah, like the law. It exists, but in a different way to you and me. It exists without being there."
"Right," muttered Sam. I think I'm starting to get the idea...
"As a concept – to me – a car represents freedom. You can go anywhere, and do anything, if you have a car. Eventually, you start to think of the car like a person. Most guys would rather travel with a girl than another guy, so they call their car 'she'."
Sam contemplated this for a moment, then said, "I guess girls would rather travel with another girl too. But…some cars just look like boys. Like the Impala – if the Impala was a person, it'd be a boy."
Bobby wondered whether he'd actually had enough sleep last night, then said, "I never thought of it that way."
As he returned to work on the car, he thought, children are wonderful things.
It's a pity he won't be a child for long.
Christ, John, why do you have to drag them into this? He swallowed, a lump suddenly forming in his throat. Dean and Sam were practically sons to him. It hurt him to see how fast Dean had grown up, and the contrast between Dean's maturity and Sam's childlike mind. If Bobby could have convinced John, he would have liked to adopt the two boys, if only in legality. They could stay at the yard while John hunted, at least until they were old enough to hunt on their own. Still, he knew that there was no hope for Dean to be a child again. Dean's childhood had ended the night of the fire.
Bobby had been there, in the first year after the fire. He and John, with the help of others, had coaxed Dean into speaking again. It had taken almost another year, and John had feared for Dean's mind. Even now, years later, Dean still sometimes woke up crying in the night. Once upon a time, it had been Bobby or John who had comforted him, but once he turned seven he shirked the comfort. Bobby still saw the fire's scars though. He saw it the way Dean had flinched the first time there'd been a blackout, and they'd had to light candles. Before that, Dean would start screaming if a match was struck near him, although in time he'd learned to accept fire. Bobby knew now that as much as Dean hated to admit it though, fire still scared him.
The old hunter suddenly realised that the tears had spilled over and he turned his head to hide his face from Sam. The kid doesn't need to see this, he thought.
"Uncle Bobby?"
"Yeah?" He fought to keep his voice level.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just been a long day, that's all."
"Dad's not going to need the truck until Dean gets his licence, and that's not for another five years. You don't have to finish everything now," stated Sam plainly. He then hopped off the crate and left with the book, presumably to find a quieter place to read.
Bobby shrugged. Child logic had won out.
Scrubbing his hands on a rag, he went upstairs to take a nap. I wonder if the Impala is a guy or a girl…
Going round in circles in thought, he ended up dreaming of cars, people, and car-people, and people-cars, all wandering around the yard while Dean danced around a giant burning candle and Sam sat on a crate with his nose in a book.

It would be a long time before he found out. Twenty-two years, to be exact.