Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling; various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books; and Warner Bros., Inc. This story is also based on characters and situations created and owned by Eric Kripke; various production elements including, but not limited to, Warner Brothers and the CW network. No money is being made from this intellectual exercise and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction; any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

A/N: There are a couple of instances of Latin used in this chapter, but since I seem to have misplaced my Latin grammar book, I have no idea if I conjugated the sentences correctly. If you know more Latin than I do, please let me know if it's totally mangled from what I meant to say, and I'll fix the chapter. All instances of Latin are noted with translations at the end of the chapter.


Ripple Effect

Tuesday, May 1, 1990
Eagle Butte, South Dakota

Remus hung up the phone and ran a hand through his hair. Hmm…getting shaggy there, Moony. A haircut will have to wait, though. Whatever's killing people in California takes precedence over your vanity, such that it is. He turned his mind to making a quick list of what he wanted to take with him. Snagging a pen from the junk-drawer and using the back of a grocery receipt, he quickly scribbled down several book titles – there were nine in total – and looked up. The only other person in the kitchen was Sam, still gnawing his way through the last of the breakfast toast while reading from his history text. "Sammy?"

"Uncle Moony?" The soon-to-be seven year-old mimicked Remus' tone precisely.

"Would you do me a favor?"

Sam slowly closed his book and leveled a look that would not have been out of place on someone three or four times his age; a look that said what now? and maaaybe and what'll I get out of it if I do? and a whole host of other myriad things that all boiled down to a wary kind of acceptance. "What?" was all he said out loud.

Remus wasn't sure if it was a good sign or a bad sign that all three of the boys had a tendency to act far older than they really were. Since he was uncertain, he decided to consider it a positive thing – after all, unlike nearly every other child he'd witnessed during his trips into the normal world, none of the three boys ever acted up in public or threw a tantrum because they couldn't have something. He handed the receipt to Sam. "Could you get these out of the library for me?"

Sam scanned down the list and, though he never really noticed anything when busy with his book, some portion of the telephone call had seeped in. "Venatus?" (1)

Remus nodded, "Ita. Non ago scio ubi remam." (2)

A thoughtful look surfaced on Sam's face; again, Remus noticed that the expression was somewhat out of place under all those shaggy brown curls. "Quo?" he asked. (3)

"California."

Sam's expression finally melted into something suitable to a child his age – he pouted. "You're gonna miss my birthday."

Remus winced at the power of Sammy's 'kicked puppy' look; his hazel eyes now seemed far too wide for such a small face and took on a bright sheen that the werewolf knew from experience could run either to tears or to nothing at all. "I know," he replied sympathetically. "I'm really sorry about it, too."

Sammy shook his head. "No, you aren't. Just like Dad wasn't really upset that he missed Dean's birthday last year."

"That's not true," Remus cajoled.

One of Sam's eyebrows arched up in an unconscious imitation of Dean's favorite expression of incredulity. "Yeah, it is. Sure, Dad felt bad he hurt Dean's feelings, but he wasn't sorry he went."

Remus made a mental note to look into just where Sammy was getting his information. Kids aren't that perceptive, are they? Remus knelt next to Sam's chair and looked him in the eye at his level. "Tell you what, cub, since I'm going to miss out on all the fun, you save me a piece of cake and when I get back we'll head over to Pierre – just you and me – and go to Barnes and Noble. How does that sound?"

Sammy brightened so much that for an instant it seemed like someone had lit a lumos behind the kid's eyes. "Really?"

Remus nodded, "Absolutely."

Sam scrambled off the chair, the remains of his breakfast forgotten next to his history book, and nearly knocked Remus completely over as he scurried for the library with the list of books in his hands.

As he climbed back to his feet, a sudden realization descended on him. He blinked blankly for a few moments, turning the thought over and over in his mind. The only conclusion he came to was, So this is how a chess-piece feels. He chuckled at his own gullibility before heading up to his room.

Remus' old backpack, which had served so faithfully since his last year of Hogwarts, had finally given up the ghost a few months earlier. He wasn't too sure he much cared for the replacement that Dean had scrounged up for him – a rather archaic leather valise – because he couldn't sling it over his shoulder like he was used to, but it did hold more than the backpack had. It was also relatively watertight. But still…his backpack had seen him through some hard traveling, and later served quite admirably for both his and Harry's possessions before they'd settled at Singer's. He wouldn't go so far as to say it was like a missing limb, but it came pretty damn close.

He quickly had a couple of pairs of jeans and some t-shirts packed, along with several pairs of socks (after a particularly messy hunt with Bobby down in the muck of the Louisiana swamps, he rapidly came to the conclusion that clean socks were the next best thing to heaven and had taken to packing far more than a normal person would anytime he had to be gone overnight) and so on. The next things he added to the valise included his toothbrush, comb, and other toiletries all zipped up in a plastic baggie. After the necessities for daily life had been added, he retrieved three wooden boxes from the bottom drawer of his dresser. The first and largest measured roughly the same size as a thick hardback novel and contained his personal version of a first-aid kit, with Peperup in place of Nyquil, Skele-Grow in place of splints, and other miscellaneous potions and salves. The second box was the smallest, about an inch or so deeper than an average paperback, and held his collection of identifications (after seeing the hassle John and Bobby went through to photocopy realistic IDs into existence, Remus had taken to transfiguring them instead). The final box held the one item he really didn't care much for owning, but after discovering that certain species of magical creatures native to North America were inherently immune to external magic, he put up with it. The item in question was a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. A big part of why he disliked the gun had to do with the fact that Bobby insisted he carry both iron and silver ammunition. He kept latex gloves in the box to handle the silver bullets.

Remus had just finished packing the last of the things he felt would come in handy, like a notebook, when Sam arrived carrying the stack of books he'd requested. Luckily, most of the books weren't all that thick, otherwise the pile would have been taller than Sam. As it stood, the boy was having trouble seeing over them. "Thanks, Sammy," Remus said, taking the books from the youngest of his 'cubs'.

"When you leavin'?" the boy asked.

"In a couple of hours. I'll be hunting with Bill Harvelle this time."

"Jo's daddy?"

Remus nodded. "The same."

Sammy echoed Remus' nod. "He seems like a good guy, but I don't like Jo much. Want me to tell Dean'n'Harry you're leavin'?"

"Thanks for offering, cub, but I can do it myself. Bill won't get here for another few hours yet."

"Okay," the boy chirped. "D'ya need any help packin'?"

Remus shook his head. "Nope. All I have left to pack were the books you brought me." He began fitting them into the remaining empty space in his valise. "You all ready for your end-of-the-year assessment tests?"

"Think so," Sam replied. "They're at the end of the month, though, so I still have ages to finish studying."

"The time will pass quicker than you think, cub," Remus warned. "Best stay on top of things."

"I do. But Dean says that as long as he remembers it for the test, it doesn't matter when he studies for it."

Remus wedged the last book into the bag and zipped it shut before looking over at Sam. "And how well does Dean do on the tests?"

Sam shrugged, "He passes them all, I know that, but he never lets me'n'Harry see his scores."

"That's because he usually just barely passes the subjects he doesn't much like," Remus explained as he checked his pockets. His wallet was in its proper place, as was his wand, but the good-luck pouch the boys had given him for Christmas wasn't where it was supposed to be. Where did I put that thing again? "He does very well in science and arithmetic, but he could definitely use some improvement in history and English."

"But those are so easy!"

Remus chuckled, "Not for Dean, they aren't. It's like you and algebra or Harry and languages. You each are just naturally good at different things. It's the areas you don't like and aren't naturally good at that you need to spend more time in studying." Remus picked up his valise and stood in the middle of his room, making one last check that he had everything he wanted with him.

"Forget somethin'?" Sam asked.

Remus sighed. "Always feel like I'm forgetting something whenever I get ready for a hunt. You haven't seen that luck-pouch you boys gave me last Christmas, have you?"

Sammy brightened and grinned, "It's in your jacket pocket, where you put it last week."

"Thanks," Remus replied. "How about we see if we can't find Harry and Dean, hmm?"

"I think they're out back with Uncle Bobby," Sam said, leading the way down the short hall to the stairwell that was tucked between the main house and the addition.

"And where's your dad?"

"He went in to town. Said that Miss Penny would give him a hundred bucks to fix her porch roof for her and patch the leak in her water heater."

Remus valiantly refrained from either snorting or rolling his eyes, though he couldn't stop the thought, I'm sure that's not all he's 'fixing' over at Penny's. Penny Fairchild was a thirty-three year-old divorcée with a ten year-old daughter. Both Penny and her girl shared the same honey-blonde hair and sky blue eyes, though the daughter, in Remus' opinion, was far too spoiled a brat to have such a friendly mother. He supposed it had something to do with the girl's father, but he couldn't confirm that as he'd never met the man.

On arriving in the living room, Remus grabbed his light denim jacket from the hooks by the front door and quickly checked the pockets. Sam had been correct – his luck-pouch was right where the boy had said it would be. He shrugged into the jacket and reached for the door. One last glance revealed that Sam had headed back to the kitchen; he was just visible through the doorway. "Don't forget – you promised the bookstore when you get back!"

"I won't forget, cub," Remus replied.

He stepped out onto the shaded porch. Sitting his bag on one of the battered and rusty metal deck chairs, Remus headed around the house to the back yard. Bobby had a minivan pulled up on the slab of cement that marked the boundary between the yard and the ever-growing piles of rust that covered the rest of the small acreage. From where he stood – the outside corner of the library – he could see the distinctive shapes of Bobby's size twelve boots sticking out from under the rear end of the van. On the other side of the jack was another pair of boots, identical to Bobby's in all but size. The question as to which remaining cub it was became clear when Dean's voice echoed through the mounds and piles of cars, "Found one!"

Remus didn't have long to wait to discover just what it was that Dean had found among the slowly-dissolving car carcasses. The eleven year-old appeared relatively quickly, directing a floating exhaust pipe and muffler with his wand.

"Hey, Uncle Moony," Dean said, directing the muffler and pipe to a spot near the van Bobby was working on. "You need somethin'?"

Remus nodded, "I'm going to be heading out shortly."

Dean perked up, "Really? Whacha goin' after?"

"Don't know, cub."

A smirk showed up on Dean's face, "I could help, you know. I haven't missed a shot since Dad started showing me how to shoot."

"No, Dean," Remus replied, his voice stern. "You're still not old enough to come along, and you know it. So stop asking."

Dean's shoulders slumped and he rolled his eyes. "When, then? Huh? I mean, any time I talk about it, all you, Dad, and Uncle Bobby can say is 'not yet'."

"I honestly don't know, Dean. You'll need to take it up with your dad. If it helps, I promise I won't let Harry do any hunting until after you get the chance."

A loud, "No fair!" echoed out from under the van, followed by a metallic clang and Bobby saying, "Damn it, Harry! Lil' warning before you blow out my ears next time!"

Remus chuckled softly before calling back to Harry, "Is too fair. What wouldn't be is if I let you do something before Dean, just like it'd be unfair to you to let Sammy do something before you."

"How long you gonna be gone?" Dean asked, digging out a little slip of paper from his pocket.

Remus shook his head. "I'm not sure. I hope no longer than a week, but it really depends on what this thing is."

"Where'll ya be?"

"California. Los Angeles."

Dean closed his eyes and Remus could hear him muttering to himself even though he couldn't make out the words. "That's…fourteen hundred, ninety miles. Take you about twenty-two hours on the interstates, maybe longer depending on what time of day you wind up goin' though the cities."

Dean's capacity for applied mathematics – not to mention his visual memory acuity – never failed to amaze Remus. What other eleven year-old could figure that up without a map, ruler, and calculator handy? Then again, what other eleven year-old has spent literally hundreds of hours memorizing the road maps we bring back from hunts. I just hope he eventually decides to do something else with his life. Hunting's no place for a walking calculator like him. Out loud, Remus asked, "Which cities?"

"Oh, uh…Salt Lake and Provo in Utah. Las Vegas. And then LA itself. Those are the biggest ones. It's about nine-hundred, sixty miles to Salt Lake. You'll pro'ly stop over there, right?"

"How much time is that?"

Dean's eyebrow crept up towards his hairline as though to say You've got to be kidding me. "It's fourteen and a half hours, Moony. Distance divided by speed equals time." His tone clearly indicated that he felt that Remus should have been able to figure this on his own. He planted his open palm against his forehead. "Wait a sec, this is you. Dad-driving-speeds don't figure. Since you'll be runnin' at the speed-limit, it'll take you about seventeen and a half hours."

"I don't know about that – I'm going to be with Bill Harvelle on this job. I assume, since he's swinging by here to pick me up, that he'll be doing most of the driving."

Dean blinked at Remus. The image that came to the werewolf's brain was of the old Commodore computer he had retired earlier that spring in favor of a system that ran on Windows 3.0; the old Commodore ran on BASIC, and if you hadn't programmed it to do something properly, it always came back with 'syntax error' on one line, followed by 'ready' on the next. Remus was almost positive that Dean was blinking at the same speed the old cursor did.

"In that case…" Dean sighed and threw up his hands. "I don't know! The distances don't change none – at least 'til we figure how to fold space – so you're gonna hafta figure the times on your own."

Yes, that's Dean-speak for 'syntax error' or 'does not compute – insufficient data'. Remus shook his head a little and smiled at his 'nephew'. "Don't worry about it, cub. Unless we trade off the driving, we'll probably take two or three days to get there." Changing the subject, he asked, "You're scrounging up parts for Bobby?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah. If we got the time later, we're gonna see what's makin' that clanking noise in your truck, too, but Uncle Bobby said that the payin' customers come first."

"If you get a couple of spare minutes before I get back, you think you could find something for me?"

"Sure. Whacha need?"

"Bill's got a friend looking for the…" Remus' mind refused to recall which part, exactly, Bill had mentioned needing. "Um…it's a hat, I think."

"A cap?" Dean offered.

"Yes, that's it."

"Oil cap? Gas cap?"

"No," Remus scrunched his forehead, trying to force the proper term to surface in his brain. "It began with a 'd', I believe."

"Oh," Dean smirked at Remus. "A distributor cap?"

"That's it exactly!"

"For what car?"

For all that Remus usually had a pretty decent memory, cars held no fascination for him whatsoever and so most details pertaining to them had a tendency to flow in one ear and right out the other. He figured it had something to do with living with two mechanics and two cubs bent on following in their footsteps. Any time the four of them started in on cars, he and Sam usually disappeared to the library or out to the back yard or anywhere the car-talk wasn't ongoing and endless. "A seventy-nine something-or-other. One of those crossbred car-truck things, I think. When Bill gets here, you can double-check with him."

Dean took the crumpled scrap of paper he'd been holding on to and unearthed a tiny snub of a pencil from his other pocket. He crossed something out and scribbled something else down. "I'll do that," he said with a wry little grin on his face.

"You find that oil-pan yet?" Bobby called from under the van.

"Just gettin' on it now!" Dean flashed his sunny grin at Remus before disappearing back into the piles of junked cars.

"You two get all that?" Remus asked, closing the distance to the van.

"Yeah," Bobby replied. "This that article you tore off to the library with this morning?"

"The same," Remus agreed. "Bill saw the same article, and apparently Ellen doesn't want him running solo on this one. Wonder why he called me, though."

"That's easy," Bobby's voice said. With the signature squeak-squeal of the wheeled trolly-thing he used when working on the undersides of cars, the older man pulled himself out from under the van. Harry followed and emerged with rust-flakes in his hair, dust on his glasses, and a dark smear of grease across his cheek. "Joshua's still trainin' that kid he found and Preacher-girl's up in Alaska. He ain't all that close to most of the huntin' community, for all they run the Roadhouse. I reckon Ellen figured that the three of us would be less likely to run off and do somethin' stupid and get Bill killed."

"How's that?"

"The boys."

Remus had to admit, it made sense. "Ah."

"When you headin' out?"

"Bill said he'd be here around noon or so. Do you think John will be back by then?"

Bobby snorted and readjusted his ball cap. "No. I'll let him know where you went, though. You'll pro'ly wanna call when you two pull off to sleep."

Regardless of his earlier memory issues with the car part, Remus knew when an order was hidden by a polite request. "I'll call, even if we trade off on the driving, around nine or so. Say goodnight to the cubs." He reached down and brushed some of the rust-flakes out of Harry's hair. "What about you, Harry?"

"What about me what?"

"No questions?"

Harry shrugged and pushed his glasses further up on his nose. "Nope. I have ears, you know."

"Surprised you didn't go with John today."

"Wanted to, but Uncle John said maybe next time. Said he didn't want me on the roof with him."

Remus and Bobby exchanged a conspiratorial glance that clearly communicated that they both thought that John was doing a little more than just fixing a roof over at Penny's place. A corner of Bobby's mouth twitched and Remus' smile morphed into a rather wolfish grin. "Maybe I'll give John a call before Bill gets here," he said. His inner Marauder was never all that far from the surface, and since John wouldn't actually admit he and Penny had a 'thing'…

Bobby echoed Remus' mischief-filled grin with his own smirk. "Sounds like a good idea."


A/N2: Another point to keep in mind now that S4 of show is out on DVD and most folk who have had to wait to see it have managed the feat, I will not be having Adam as a character in this universe. According to SuperWiki, John was involved with Adam's mom in January of 1990. In this tale, that time has been spent in an on-again, off-again relationship of sorts with the off-screen Penny Fairchild (and please, relax, folks – nothing comes of this relationship but some good memories for John to linger over later in his life).

I also realize I've probably got the release of Windows 3.0 not quite right, but please ignore any discrepancy – I'm going off of memories that are old enough to freakin' vote here.

1. Hunting?

2. Yes. I don't know when I'll return.

3. Where?

Like I said before, I'm not sure if the Latin I'm using is conjugated properly – I can't locate my Latin book on grammar right now, just the dictionary, so I gave it my best shot. If any of you know a better way to Latinate the noted sentences, let me know, and I'll update the chapter.

This tale is complete and will run nine chapters. I will update every two or three days.

Thanks for reading and remember to let me know what you think!