A/N: Here we start with season one! Hopefully this all goes well lol. This is mostly from Katherine's "POV", as in most things will involve her. Aside from important things she has no place in! It's not a set POV, as I'm sure we'll delve into others' thoughts and feelings. But not every detail in every episode will be there (like the Halloween party in the pilot), as it's not very important and I'm not here to write out an entire script. I hope no one minds. Enjoy! :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for my OC, Katherine.
Stanford University, California
Two small hands carefully pushed open the window to the apartment, before a feminine figure slipped through gracefully, followed by a masculine figure who was more graceful than expected after so many years of training.
"—you're on my foot, Dean."
"Your foot's under mine, Kat."
Despite his response, Dean quickly moved and gently bumped his shoulder against Kat's as an apology. "We gotta find Sam. You go this way, I'll go that way." He gestured to one side of the apartment for her and the other side for him.
"It's the middle of the night," she whispered, "the bedroom would be a good place to start."
"Do you see the bedroom? This place is like a damn maze."
They went their separate ways. Kat walked quietly through the apartment, finding herself in what looked to be a living room in the dark, looking around in what she knew was a futile attempt to find Sam. It wasn't long at all before she heard grunting and struggling, and looked over to see a man get shoved into the room. He almost knocked into her, but she managed to stumble back and fall onto a couch, going unnoticed.
Dean came in, elbowing the guy in the face as he did.
She would have helped, but they were in Sam's apartment, and it wasn't easy to mistake the gargantuan height of the first man, even in the dark. So she sat back and watched, somehow a little nostalgic. Dean was getting in every move while most of Sam's attempts at hitting or kicking were blocked, until Dean finally knocked him down and pinned him to the floor, a hand loosely around his brother's throat.
"Whoa, easy, tiger."
There was some harsh panting, then Sam's confused and surprised voice, "—Dean?" The only response he got was a laugh. "You scared the crap out of me!"
"That's 'cause you're out of practice." That jab seemed to strike a nerve with Sam, and he immediately grabbed Dean's arm, yanking him down and kicking him in the back to stun him, pinning him down in return. "Or not. Get off of me."
Sam moved to his feet, reaching down to help Dean up. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Well, we were looking for a beer." Dean grinned, grabbing Sam's shoulders and giving him a playful shake.
That earned him a confused look. "We?"
"Hey, Sam," Kat finally spoke, standing up from the couch and moving to them. Being up close, being able to decipher most of his face, had her remembering how much she missed him.
"Katherine...you're still..." Hunting. Hanging around Dean. In one piece. It could have been a number of things, but he chose not to end the sentence, instead just looking at her with shock, confusion, and perhaps a hint of happiness. There was no hug this time, though. It had been three years since he left, and around two since she or Dean contacted him. Two years seemed just as bad as three in the long run.
"Yeah, I'm still."
"Sam?" A female voice called out, before the lights turned on and in came a pretty blonde, dressed in a Smurf shirt and boy shorts that were obviously her pajamas. Dean immediately took a shining to her, looking her over.
"Jess." Sam looked over. "Hey." He then looked at Dean, perhaps with a bit of contempt when he noticed the way he was looking at Jess. "Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica."
"Wait." Jess started to smile, moving further into the room. "Your brother Dean?"
"I love the Smurfs..." Even an idiot would be able to tell he wasn't talking about the characters so much as where the characters sat on the girl's chest. He walked over to her, grinning. "You know, I gotta tell you...you...are completely outta my brother's league."
Kat interrupted with a clear of her throat, waving. "And I'm Kat." It wasn't like she wasn't used to Dean's womanizing, but seeing him mack on Sam's girlfriend was verging on creepy.
"Kat?" Jess looked past Dean, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Sam, who is this?"
"—who am I?" Kat looked at Sam, smiling tightly and blinking in — perhaps slightly offended — shock. "Haven't you mentioned me, Sam?" The awkward look from him told her plenty. "Did you get that, Dean? Sam hasn't mentioned me." Sure, there was no reason to mention her, really. Dean was his brother. Kat was the girl whose entire existence in their lives was woven with supernatural details. But it was still a little painful to know.
"She's...an old friend of ours." Sam's explanation was vague enough to make it obvious that Jess knew little or nothing about the more paranormal side of his life.
Dean was too busy staring at those Smurfs to pay any mind to much else, seeming to make Jess a little uncomfortable. "Just let me put something on—" She turned to leave.
"No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it." He'd likely be dreaming off the opposite. "Seriously." He nodded, as if she couldn't figure out already that he was attracted to her. She rolled her eyes and he walked back over to Sam and Kat. "Anyway, we gotta borrow your boyfriend here and talk about some private, family business. But , uh, nice meetin' you."
"No," Sam said almost defensively, moving to Jess and wrapping an arm around her, "no. Whatever you wanna say, you can say it in front of her."
"Okay." Dean pursed his lips, thinking for a second, before standing straight. "Um. Dad hasn't been home in a few days."
"So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift." The younger Winchester shrugged it off easily, with a veil of mocking and bitterness in his tone. "He'll stumble back in sooner or later."
Dean and Kat shared a look, before looking back at Sam. "Dad's on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days." That got through to him, and there was a long beat of silence.
"—Jess. Excuse us."
Jess looked confused, but realized that it was serious, and nodded, retreating back to the bedroom.
"—I can't believe you haven't mentioned me to her."
"Let it go, Kat. Bigger issues." Dean put his hands on her shoulders, pushing her out of the room and towards the door while Sam went to the coat rack to grab a hoodie. "You can whack Sam's balls off later," he chuckled, knowing full well she wasn't going to unleash some storm of fury on Sam, but finding the thought amusing.
The three made their way out of the apartment in a moment of silence, and it wasn't until the door was shut, sure Jess couldn't hear them, that Sam started to speak, "Was this really the way to go about this, you guys?"
"We need your help, Sam," Dean said matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, we. You have Katherine to help you...you don't need me."
"I'm not John's son—" Kat paused. "—but wouldn't that be the plot twist of the century?" She smiled slightly at Sam's annoyed look, having seen it so many times. Usually directed at John, sometimes at Dean, and sometimes at her when she thought she was being funny. She turned to walk down the stairs with Dean, and Sam followed with a sigh.
"I mean, come on, you can't just break in in the middle of the night and expect me to hit the road with you."
"You're not hearing us, Sammy. Dad's missing. We need you to help us find him."
Unfortunately, Sam could be stubborn when he wanted to be. "Remember the poltergeist? Amherst? Or the Devil's Gate in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing and he's always fine." His face was stony as he and Dean stopped at the bottom of the stairs; Kat didn't exactly want to be in the middle of whatever might transpire, so she walked an extra few feet away.
"Not for this long." Dean was more of an optimist than anyone knew as he asked, "Now, are you gonna come with us or not?"
Sam looked at Kat, then at Dean. "I'm not."
"Why not?" Somehow Dean was perplexed by this, despite how obvious Sam's dislike of hunting was.
"I swore I was done hunting. For good."
"Come on." He rolled his eyes. "It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad." He turned to keep walking, moving to the gated entrance of the apartment building as Sam and Kat followed.
"Yeah?" Sam scoffed. "When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45!"
"Well, what was he supposed to do?"
"I was nine-years-old. He was supposed to say..." For a split second, Sam seemed to be searching for the usual lies parents told their children to calm them. "Don't be afraid of the dark."
"The dark's not all that safe, Sam," Kat said softly. "I think we all know that firsthand."
"Yeah, I know, but the way we grew up after Mom was killed...the way you had to live after what happened to your family...Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed Mom, and we still haven't found the damn thing." Sam's voice was raising and Dean looked away uncomfortably. "So we kill everything we can find!"
"Save a lot of people doing it, too."
Kat nodded in agreement with Dean. Hunting was hell and she couldn't really blame Sam for shying away even with such dire circumstances, but saving people made it...worth it. It was one of the reasons she hadn't gone with him and it was one of the reasons she was still in the game. Among a few others.
Sam nearly laughed. "You think Mom would have wanted this for us?" The night he left flashed through Dean and Kat's minds, the way he and John fought; his shouted words about his mother so similar to the ones he said now.
Instead of answering, Dean just slammed the gate open and walked up a set of cement stairs; Sam kept going, catching up to his brother to keep his attention. "The weapon training...the melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors. If that wasn't bad enough, Dad had to drag Katherine into it, too! He couldn't just save her and let her go, it had to be selfish. He had to gain another hunter, because he was so damn obsessed."
"Hey." Kat wasn't exactly defending John with her interruption, but rather the fact that she was brought into that life. It was hard, yes, but God knew where she would have been without those boys. They walked over to the Impala that waited for them; it had been around as long as she had, and probably longer. She had never been a 'car person', so she never asked a thing about it.
"So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life?" Dean threw his arms out, moving around to the trunk of the car. "Is that it?"
"No, not normal." Sam shook his head, eyes flickering to Kat for a split second and then back to his brother. "Safe."
"And that's why you ran away." There was a pause and Dean scoffed, looking away.
"I was just going to college." Even if he had been, there was little chance he was going to ever return to the hunting life. He had offered Kat that normal, safe life all those years ago. "It was Dad who said that if I was gonna go, I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."
"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble," Dean was doing his best not to snap. "If he's not dead already, I can feel it."
Kat leaned against the car, casting a sympathetic glance at Dean. "He really is in trouble, Sam. We haven't heard from him and we've tried contacting him. We can't do this alone."
"Yes, you can."
"Yeah, well, I— we don't want to." Dean's slip didn't go unheard. They both missed Sam, but the man who practically raised him and loved him with everything he had took the cake. It had been clear since the day he left how much he wanted to have Sam back, even if he didn't say it.
Sam looked between the two, seeming to struggle for a second, before finally sighing and rolling his eyes. "What was he hunting?"
With a nod, Dean turned and gave Kat a light swat on the thigh. Neither of them noticed the weird look from Sam, Kat too busy moving off the car and walking past Dean with a half-hearted glare, and Dean opening the trunk. He lifted the floor of the trunk, where weapons, supplies, and documents were neatly kept, and propped it up with a shotgun. "Alright...let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?" He began searching through.
"Brown folder, by the holy water." The look Kat got from Dean said something along the lines of him being able to find it himself. "I pay attention, you just stick things places." She realized her poor choice of words, but thankfully Dean just grabbed the aformentioned folder instead of making a comment.
"So, when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?" Sam leaned over to look in the trunk, watching Dean.
"We were working our own gig. Uh, voodoo thing down in New Orleans."
Sam smirked. "Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?"
"I'm twenty-six, dude." Dean gave him an offended look.
Kat raised an eyebrow when Sam gave her an expectant look. "I'm three months older than you. I think we can both handle ourselves, don't you?"
"Ah, here we go." Dean pulled out the documents he'd been looking for, straightening up to read it. "So, Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago," he handed a paper to Sam. "this guy. They found his car, but he had vanished. Completely MIA." He drawled, as Sam looked over the article.
"So maybe he was kidnapped." Sam's skepticism was odd considering what he knew.
"Yeah, well." Dean started to sift through the papers. "Here's another one in April, another one in December '04, '03, '98, '92...ten of 'em over the past twenty years." He yanked the first paper back from his brother. "All men, all same five-mile stretch of road."
"And you can thank yours truly for digging the case up." And for probably causing John to disappear, but that was another issue that Kat wasn't going to worry about.
"Started happening more and more. Dad went to go dig around. That was three weeks go. We haven't heard from him since, which is bad enough." He reached into the trunk, pulling out a recorder. "Then I get this voicemail yesterday." He pressed play.
"Dean." John's voice and a lot of crackling came from the recorder. "Something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may...be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger."
Sam met Dean's eyes when he pressed stop. "You know there's EVP on that?"
"Not bad, Sammy." Dean grinned. "Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" Then he looked back at Kat. "Why couldn't you figure that out? Points for me and Sammy."
"I don't know. I didn't go to EVP school," she said lamely. She knew Dean's comment was in jest, but she was almost upset that both he and Sam had figured it out. After Sam left, John would make comments about how she was the smart one...which seemed to have gotten to her head. At least she knew about the EVP before Sam did...if only because Dean had pointed it out to her before.
Dean chuckled and started to rewind the message. "Alright, I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got." He pressed play, this time a woman's voice could be heard instead of John's.
"I can never...go...home..." He pressed stop.
Sam blinked in confusion and repeated softly, "Never go home..."
Dean laid the gun back down, dropping the false floor before slamming the trunk shut and turning to lean against it. "You know, in almost two years, I've never bothered you. Never asked for a thing." That was a guilt trip.
"—" There was a sigh, and Sam looked down. "Alright. I'll go." He nodded. "I'll help you find him. But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here..." He started to go back to the apartment, but was stopped by Dean,
"What's first thing Monday?"
He paused. "I have an interview."
"What, a job interview? Skip it." Dean shrugged it off easily.
"It's a law school interview." Sam looked almost amused, like Dean's lack of care for things he didn't understand was funny. "And it's my whole future, on a plate."
"Law school?" Dean smirked, like Sam's goals were amusing. They both had skewed senses of humor, it seemed.
"So we got a deal or not?"
He stayed silent, so Sam walked back down the stairs and into the apartment building.
Kat watched him go, then walked over to sit up against the trunk of the Impala with Dean, crossing her arms. "He's really making something out of himself." She couldn't say that she wasn't impressed. Sam made it out of the life he hated and was really living the life that he wanted to live.
Maybe it made her a little sad. He would never be coming back to them and she would never be going to him; it almost scared her that her that she was mostly okay and mostly proud. She missed him, that was true, but time makes things fade. The close bond they once shared seemed more far and less close. Those deep conversations, spilled feelings, shared interests, and late night talks seemed like a thousand years ago rather than just a few.
And yet, she remembered the day their bond was forged so clearly, considering it seemed to be at least a thousand and one years ago. It was the day the boys found out about what had happened to her. She went to her motel room and wept rather pitifully over the reopened memories of what her family had become. What the Winchesters had to do. It was only a moment or two before there was a knock, then the opening of a door, then Sam's shame-filled presence. He had come to apologize and, God, no one in history could have ever meant an apology more than that puppy-eyed kid. He was so earnest and sorrowful, that she couldn't even send him away to save her the embarrassment of her tears being seen; and he did stay. Though his lack of experience with crying girls was noticeable, he soon came over to the bed and sat with her, and put his hand on her shoulder. That one touch had every fact and feeling spilling from her before she could stop it. He just listened.
Kat hadn't had a bad childhood — the sudden thrust into hunting was debatable, but before that, all was well — and she was surrounded by love and support, but no one had ever listened to her like Sam did. He took in every word with sympathetic eyes and kept any embarrassment she may have felt from her tears and confessions at bay. They connected, and that's what their relationship became. Hopes, dreams, fears, hurts—they said it all to each other, feeling safe and trusting. Where Kat had no one and Sam had the non-ideal Dean or John, they suddenly found each other, knowing they could say anything without laughter, or judgment, or the fear of someone else being told. They were the closest friends either of them had ever had.
But it had been too long. Instead of wanting him to come back, to cry with him, she wanted him to help them find John and then go live his life. He had changed. In some ways, Kat changed, too.
"—seriously, Kat?"
She broke out of her thoughts, blinking at Dean. "What?"
"I've been talking to you for, like, two minutes. You're just staring off into space."
"—sorry." She turned her full attention to him. "What's up?"
"Forget it. We've had Sam back for a hot minute. You already desertin' me?" He gave a little pout, turning what was likely a valid fear of his into something not-so-serious.
"Never." She meant it. The holes that Sam had left were filled by the two of them, perhaps a bit more than he had ever filled them in the first place. For her, at least. "You know, I'm surprised Sam agreed to come."
"Eh, I'm just very persuasive."
"Or, deep down, Sam cares about your dad despite their rocky relationship."
He snorted. "Okay, Oprah."
"That was definitely more Dr. Phil than Oprah." She leaned her head on his shoulder and felt it move a bit as he sighed at her. "I guess we should just be happy that he agreed."
"Yeah. It's not like he's gonna stay, though." There was hope buried somewhere deep in Dean's tone of voice. "Back by Monday."
There was the creak and slam of a gate, before Sam came jogging up the stairs and over to the car, a bag over his shoulder. "Hey. What are you guys doing? Let's get this over with." He seemed to lack a certain enthusiasm.
Dean rolled his eyes and stood up, walking over to get in the driver's side. When Kat moved around the car to open the passenger side door, her hand landed on Sam's instead of the cool metal of the door handle. "This has kinda become my seat since your dad disappeared, Sam."
"Kat." Dean met her eyes over the roof of the car. "Let's not hurt Sam's ego."
She relented, moving her hand and opening a back door instead, getting in. Before John, that spot had been Dean's, so it wasn't like she'd gotten the front seat long enough to be attached to it; and she understood that Dean most likely wanted to sit by his brother.
"Shut up, Dean." Sam glared, opening the door and getting into the seat. "You've always been the one with an ego."
"Yeah, right, college boy."
Kat sat back, shaking her head and smirking. At least there was one person in their group who didn't have a big ego. She was the most sane of the three. Definitely nothing egotistical about thinking that...right?
Jericho, California
A man drove down Centennial Highway, his cell phone pressed to his ear as music played on the radio. "Amy, I can't come over tonight. Because I've got work in the morning, that's why..." He grinned, laughing. "Yeah, okay, I miss it and my dad's gonna have my ass."
There was a high pitched noise that began coming from the radio, and the man, Troy, noticed a woman dancing on the side of the road, making him furrow his brow. "Amy, let me call you back?" He hung up, pulling over to where the woman stood, leaning over to speak out the window. "Car trouble or somethin'?"
The woman wore a tattered, white dress or nightgown and had no shoes. She just stared for a long moment before saying simply, "Take me home."
"Sure, get in." He reached over to open the passenger side door to let her in, which she accepted, leaning back in the seat like she was exhausted. "—so, you comin' from a Halloween party or somethin'?" He received no answer, and couldn't help but look down at the cleavage shown in the deep neckline of her dress, licking his lips before quickly looking away. "You know, um, a girl like you really shouldn't be alone out here."
She slowly looked at him, almost sadly, while her hand pulled her dress up to show her leg. "I'm with you." Troy looked away nervously, but she grabbed his chin and turned him back. "Will you come home with me?"
"—um." He laughed. "Hell yeah!" He immediately pulled off the side of the road with a squeal of his brakes, continuing down the highway as she directed him where to go. They soon pulled up to an abandoned-looking house and he parked the car. "Come on, you don't live here."
The woman leaned forward and looked at the house, tears falling down her cheeks. "I can never go home."
"What?" Troy leaned forward, too, to look at the house. "What are you talking about? Nobody even lives here. Where do you live?" He looked over at her, only to find that the seat was suddenly empty. He checked the rest of the car and found no sign of her, opening the door to get out and chuckling at what he thought was a joke. "That was good. Joke's over, okay?" He shut the car door, taking a few steps forward. "You want me to leave?" There was no answer. He looked around again, before starting up to the broken down porch and to the door, looking through the torn screen. "Hello?"
A bird suddenly flew right out and into his face, making him scream and fall back. He immediately scrambled to his feet, running to the car without a care for this woman anymore, getting in and rushing back out to the highway. He took a glance back, breathing deeply to calm himself down, then looked in the rearview mirror. The woman was there, staring right at him through the reflection.
He screamed again and drove straight through a sign on a closed bridge, suddenly coming to a stop right in the middle. He screamed once more and the car shook with his struggles as the woman attacked him.
Blood splattered against every window.
Kat's fingers twitched. Her brow furrowed. She groaned. She shifted a bit and felt the cool leather of the Impala's backseat against her cheek; she must have fallen asleep at some point the night before. It wasn't exactly surprising, given the fact that she had been up in the middle of the night to break into Sam's apartment. She hadn't exactly gotten any sleep before that, with planning what to do and then Dean's favorite music blasting the entire ride there.
She sat up and yawned, stretching shamelessly before she noticed Sam in the front seat, smirking slightly at her. She peeked over to see him looking through Dean's box of tapes while his legs hung out the open car door.
"Morning," he said, then returned his attention to the tapes.
"Morning." She ran a hand through her hair and leaned forward, resting her arms on the back of the front seat, and her chin on her arms. "Hey, Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"Why didn't you tell your girlfriend about me?"
He paused, a Metallica tape in his hand. "—uh...I dunno...I..." He looked down with a sigh. "It never came up. What was I supposed to tell her? 'Oh, by the way, I used to have this friend whose family we had to take care of because they turned into horrible monsters. She also had to live with us'."
He was right. As she had suspected, there was no real reason to mention her to Jess. She wasn't family. She wasn't an ex or something like that, so there was really no important reason for Jess to know about her. It didn't help nor hinder their relationship, so what was the point, really? No one mentions old friends to their mates.
He had brought up her family, but she gave no outward reaction. In fact, she didn't really give an inward reaction, either. That pain was there, forever, a little farther back. A little duller. So much duller it made her feel guilty sometimes.
"I get it," was all she said. She watched him as he went back to looking through the tapes. His face had matured, she noticed, if only just a little. His hair was kept shaggy like it had always been. So how did he look so different? Did time apart do that much?
She sighed and turned to look out the rolled down window to her right. They were at some rickey, old gas station, which Dean soon exited with hands full of junk food; he even had a pack of candy in his mouth, which he took out to speak,
"Hey! You want breakfast?"
Sam leaned out to glance at the food, making a face. "No, thanks."
"Yes," Kat quickly said out the window, her stomach grumbling at just the thought of food.
"About damn time you woke up." Dean set the the food on the trunk of the car, taking the gas nozzle out of the car's tank.
"So, how'd you pay for that stuff?" Sam asked, looking at another tape. "You guys still running credit card scams?"
"Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career." He put the nozzle back on the pump. "Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards."
"Yeah?" Sam laughed. "And what names did you write on the application this time?" He moved back to sit fully in the car, shutting the door.
"Uh...Bert Aframian." Dean got into the car, smirking as he set down a bottle of soda and a bag of chips. "And his son Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal."
"Sounds about right." He laughed again, looking back at Kat. "What about you? Couldn't add a daughter on the application for a third card?"
"I prefer to get my money in more honest ways."
"Yeah, challenging drunk guys to a game of pool is real honest, Kit Kat."
"Dean!"
Sam chuckled yet again, looking at her with a bit of surprise. "You can play pool?"
"She can't play for shit. She just finds the drunkest guy and bets him fifty bucks." Dean grinned as Kat glared. "We're all a little dirty, you can admit it." He reached over the seat to hand her a soda and a bag of chips.
"Soda for breakfast? Ugh." She set aside the soda, but happily opened the chips, sitting back in her seat.
"You know, I was gonna say you guys haven't changed—" If only Sam knew just how wrong he was... "—but I never really thought I'd see you swindling people, Katherine."
"Kat."
"—what?"
"It's just Kat. Only your dad really calls me Katherine now..." She smiled softly. "I adapt." Or change. That pesky little word that seemed to keep popping up was an appropriate verb.
Sam nodded, turning back to the box of tapes in his lap. "—I swear, man. You gotta update your cassette tape collection."
"Why?" Dean looked at him like he was stupid.
"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two," he pulled out a tape, "Black Sabbath?" then another, "Motorhead?" then another, "Metallica?" The last one was yanked away from him by Dean, who opened the case. "It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."
"Well, house rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music," he put the tape into the player. "shotgun shuts his cakehole." He tossed the case back into the box, giving his brother a look.
"You know, I'm gonna have to agree with Sam—"
"House rules apply to the backseat, too." He just gave Kat's glare a little smirk through the rearview mirror, before starting the car. Music immediately started blasting from the stereo.
"You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve-year-old. It's Sam, okay?" So Kat wasn't the only one with a name change, though Sam's wasn't going to be respected.
"Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud." Dean grinned, pulling out of the gas station and onto the road.
They had been on the highway for God knows how long before they passed a sign for the town of Jericho. Sam had been making phone calls on his cell and finally hung up, snapping the phone shut. "Alright. So, there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue, so that's something, I guess."
Dean stayed silent, before looking ahead as they came to police cars parked by a bridge. "Check it out."
"Check what out?" Kat leaned forward, peering out the windshield. "Well, I think we might have a clue."
"Okay, Scooby." Dean pulled the car over and turned off the engine, leaning over to open the glove compartment and pull out a box, looking through it. She didn't think it was worth the trouble or time it would take to insist that Scooby Doo wouldn't talk like that and, if anything, it was more like Fred. "Here. Just in case." He handed her an ID, before taking out a badge, smirking at Sam. "Let's go." He shoved the door open and got out.
Sam and Kat soon followed, the three of them crossing the street to the crime scene.
"You guys find anything?" A deputy stood at the side of the bridge, shouting down to a couple of men who had been searching through the water below. The answer was no and he sighed, turning away. He walked over to a car that had been abandoned in the middle of the bridge, leaning down to look through the car to another deputy that was on the other side.
"No sign of struggle. No footprints...no fingerprints...spotless. It's almost too clean."
Sam, Dean, and Kat walked onto the bridge, surveying the situation. It was just the car, really, nothing else. It may have been just a case of someone jumping off the bridge, but wouldn't those men down in the water have found a body? It was something more. It always was.
"So, this kid Troy," the first man, Deputy Jaffe, started, "he's dating your daughter, isn't he?"
"Yeah."
"How's Amy doing?"
"Puttin' up missing posters downtown."
"You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?" Dean said casually, catching the deputies' attention.
"—who are you?"
"Federal marshals." He flashed his badge at the deputy, lying easily. Kat and Sam stood back while Jaffe looked them over suspiciously.
"You three are a little young for marshals, aren't ya?"
Kat almost couldn't blame the guy for being skeptical. They looked like a few teenagers trying to fit in, though Dean's acting helped to cover that.
He laughed. "Thanks, that's awfully kind of you." He walked closer to the car. "You did have another one just like this, correct?"
"That's right." The deputy looked at Dean, then at Sam, and then at Kat. "About a mile up the road. There've been others before that."
"So this victim..." Sam turned to face the man. "You knew him?"
He nodded. "Town like this, everybody knows everybody."
Dean circled around the car, his hands clasped behind his back. "Any connections between the victims, besides that they're all men?" He stopped on the other side of the car, where Kat walked over to join him, moving around him to peer into the front of the car. It looked like nothing more than a recently abandoned vehicle.
"No. Not so far as we can tell."
"So what's the theory?" Sam made his way around the car, too.
"Honestly? We don't know. Serial murdering? Kidnapping ring?"
"Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys," Dean said. Sam smiled tightly and stomped on his left foot, just as Kat gave a friendly smile and elbowed his right side. He flinched, but said nothing, as the deputy eyed them in confusion.
"Thanks for your time." Sam was the first to start walking off, looking around. "Gentlemen."
The deputy still looked at the three of them like they were insane as they walked off of the bridge, Sam in the lead, Kat in the back, and Dean in the middle. Dean looked back to make sure no one was looking, before he smacked Sam hard on the back of his head.
"Ow!" Sam glared at him. "What was that for?"
"Why you gotta step on my foot?"
He wasn't afraid to get in his brother's face. "Why do you have to talk to police like that?"
"Come on," Dean swept in front of him, stopping him and Kat in their tracks. "They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone in this. I mean, if we're gonna find Dad, we've gotta get to the bottom of this thing ourselves." His eyes met Kat's and he immediately pointed to her accusingly. "Don't you think I'm not pissed about that little—" He paused when Sam cleared his throat, and turned around to see a sheriff with two FBI agents.
"Can I help you three?" The sheriff asked gruffly.
"—no, sir, we were just leaving." Dean nodded to the FBI agents as they passed. "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully." He luckily didn't see Kat's eye roll as the three of them headed past the sheriff and back to the Impala. Sam got in, but Dean's hand came up quickly to shut the back door when Kat tried to open it.
She looked up at him. "What?"
"Seriously?" He gestured to the side where she had elbowed him.
"You know I don't like it when you talk to people like that. They may not know what we know, Dean, but they're doing their best."
"They're not going to find shit! It's up to us."
"Dean." She reached out, squeezing his arm gently. She knew from the way he was acting and his words to Sam before, this was all because of his dad. The hunt just happened to be there, too. "We will figure this out, okay? It doesn't matter if they do or not. We're gonna take care of this, then we're gonna find your dad."
He looked at her, jaw clenched, eyes searching her face for a hint of doubt or dishonesty, before he opened the car door and climbed in. She got in with a sigh, not very surprised to see Sam looking awkward in the front seat. The Impala wasn't exactly soundproof.
"What now?" Sam asked as Dean started the car, before any sort of awkward silence could occur.
"We find his girlfriend. Annie or whatever—"
"Amy." Kat and Sam corrected him in unison.
"—and question her. She's gotta have some sort of hint or something to give us a lead." He started to drive down the highway, towards the town of Jericho. It wasn't far and the town really was small. There was a girl hanging posters at a movie theater, so Dean parked the car in front of some little restaurant and they all got out without a word. "I'll bet ya that's her."
"Yeah." Sam's one-word response was the vocal equivalent of an eye roll.
They walked up to the girl as she put up posters, obviously dressed for the cool weather in furry boots and a fringed jacket. "You must be Amy," Dean said.
She barely glanced at them. "Yeah."
"Yeah, Troy told us about you. We're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is Sammy." He pointed to Sam, then looked at Kat. "Sammy's wife, Kat."
The two shared a look, before Sam shook his head in response to both the nickname and their sudden pairing.
"He never mentioned you to me." She started walking away.
Dean was quick to keep up with her, sighing. "Well, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much, we're up in Modesto." He was always a little too good at lying.
"So, we're looking for him, too, and we're kinda asking around," Sam added in, while he and Dean moved into the girl's path to stop her.
"Hey." Another girl quickly walked over, touching Amy's arm. "Are you okay?" Obviously, two imposing men getting in a young woman's way didn't exactly look very good.
"Yeah." Amy assured her with a nod, but the other girl crossed her arms when she looked at the two Winchesters.
Kat quickly swooped in, moving to push between Sam and Dean, in hopes that her presence with the boys would make them seem a little less...creepy, for lack of a better word. "Is it okay if we ask you some questions?"
Kat was still between Sam and Dean as they sat in a booth at a nearby diner, across the table from Amy and, as they had found out with a little chit chat on the walk over, her friend Rachel. She would have been squished between the boys were it not for Dean's arm being slung over the back of the booth.
"I was on the phone with Troy. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and, uh," Amy sighed slightly, voice trembling with worry. "He never did."
"He didn't say anything strange? Or out of the ordinary?" Sam prodded her gently. If they could get anything even slightly weird, it would be good enough.
"No. Nothing I can remember." She looked away.
As they spoke, Kat couldn't help but stare at Amy's necklace. It was simple, a silver chain with a circular pendant that held a pentagram inside it. Amy seemed more grunge than girly girl, so the necklace easily could have been something she thought was stylish...and yet...
"I like your necklace," Kat said, trying to bring it up casually. "It's a pentagram, right?" Well, it wasn't like she was about to spill every detail of information she knew about pentagrams; that was a good way to look creepy.
Amy looked down, before stroking the necklace fondly. "Thanks...Troy gave it to me. Mostly to scare my parents, with all that devil stuff..." She laughed, just as Sam did, though the latter did so for a different reason.
"Actually, it's the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil...really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing..." His explanation almost made Kat glad, since she couldn't explain it herself. Though, there went Kat's brief, unspoken theory of the girlfriend having something to do with it.
Dean rolled his eyes and pulled his arm off the back of the seat, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. "Here's the deal, ladies. The way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So if you've heard anything..." The girls exchanged a look. "—what is it?"
Rachel shrugged, before explaining, "Well, it's just...I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk."
"What do they talk about?" Sam and Dean asked in unison. They may have been separated for years, but they fell back into place easily enough.
"—it's kinda this local legend." Rachel seemed hesitant, like she knew what she was about to say was silly. "This one girl...she got murdered out on Centennial, like, decades ago. Well, supposedly, she's still out there." She earned an encouraging nod from Sam to continue. "She hitchikes, and whoever picks her up...well, they...disappear forever."
Bingo.
Sam and Dean looked at each other, then Kat. She looked back and forth between them to let them know she got it, too, which was a bit awkward.
"Alright." Dean dug in his jacket pocket, pulling out some almost-forgotten cash that was probably enough to cover the coffee and drinks the five of them ordered, tossing it onto the table as he stood up. "We gotta get going."
"You've been a lot of help, seriously," Sam said, as he and Kat slid out of the booth.
The boys nodded their thanks and started towards the exit; Kat's steps faltered. She looked back at the girls, seeing Rachel comforting Amy, who seemed to be more distraught now that she wasn't being interrogated. She couldn't help the empathy that filled her for the poor girl; she clearly loved Troy. It didn't help that her obvious emotions and the hundreds of posters she likely put up were like a visual of Dean's own suppressed feelings of worry for his father.
"We're gonna find Troy." Maybe that was weird, coming from your boyfriend's secret Uncle Sammy's wife, but it needed to be said. "We're gonna find him, okay?" She nodded as Amy's teary eyes met hers, then turned to leave with Sam and Dean. She just hoped she could keep that promise.
She hoped there was enough left of Troy to find.
They had gone to the library to find out any information they could about the woman that Rachel had mentioned. Dean sat at a computer and typed different variations of the murder into the search page for the local newspaper, Sam sat beside him to watch, and Kat paced a bit behind them.
"Let me try." Sam got a smack on the hand from his brother when he reached over to touch the keyboard. He quickly retaliated by shoving Dean's chair out of the way, scooting his own chair in front of the computer and ignoring the hit Dean gave him on the shoulder.
"Dude! You're such a control freak," he growled, moving back over.
"So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, maybe it's not murder."
Kat paused in her pacing as Sam said this, walking over and leaning on the backs of the boys' chairs, watching Sam replace the word 'murder' with 'suicide'. A result immediately came up and he clicked on it, bringing up a short article with a picture of a pretty, young woman.
"This was 1981. Constance Welch, twenty-four years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river."
"Say why she did it?" Dean asked.
"Yeah." Sam furrowed his brow as he read, sighing almost painfully as Dean asked what the reason was. "An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Apparently, her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back, they aren't breathing. Both die."
"Shit," Kat breathed out. "If anything's gonna bring out a pissed spirit, that's gonna do it."
"'Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it', said husband Joseph Welch." As he scrolled through the page, a picture of a bridge came up.
Dean looked at his brother and Kat. "That bridge look familiar to you?"
They had to wait until nighttime before they could go to the bridge, sure that the cops would be gone and the car taken away. They didn't really know that they were going to find, but hoped that the ghost of Constance might show.
In retrospect, it was a pretty horrible thing to hope for.
The three walked along the bridge, stopping at one point to look out over the railing, to the water below. "So, this is where Constance took the swan dive." He felt a jab to his left side like before, glaring at Kat. "Really? Again with the elbow?"
"You could stand to be a little more sensitive."
"I'm just not a sensitive guy."
"Oh, yes, you—"
"So you think Dad would have been here?" Sam interrupted the growing banter, looking at Dean.
"—well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him." He shrugged and moved from the railing continuing along the bridge.
Sam hesitated for a second before following, while Kat stayed behind to stare down at the water. "Okay, so now what?"
"Now we keep digging until we find him. Might take a while." That had Sam stopping.
"Dean," frustration was immediately growing in his tone, "I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday—"
"Monday." Dean finished for him, turning to face him. "Right. The interview. Yeah." He seemed calmer than Sam, but something was hiding just beneath the surface.
"Yeah."
"I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?" There it was. The bitterness creeping in. Maybe it was his jealousy over Sam having that normal life right within reach, or maybe it was just that he was insulted by Sam's lack of care for their dad.
Kat just knew that she had to step in before one of them ended up thrown over the side of the bridge. "Guys, don't do this..." She walked over to them.
"Maybe. Why not?"
"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?"
Sam started to walk closer and Kat immediately stepped in between them, holding her hands out. "Seriously. Please. Can't we do this later? We'll have a whole ride back to Stanford." It seemed that neither of them were listening.
"No. And she's not ever going to know."
"Well, that's healthy," Dean said sarcastically. "You can pretend all you want, Sammy, but sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you are." Then he turned and started walking away, and Kat thought for a blissful moment that they might just drop it.
But this was Sam and Dean. Stubborn and stubborn. Sure, she was stubborn, too, but she wasn't part of this argument.
Sam followed to continue and Kat followed to do her best at keeping it under control. "And who's that?"
"You're one of us." Dean said it like it was obvious, gesturing to Kat with a shrug.
"No," Sam practically laughed, rushing to get in front of Dean. "I'm not like you guys. This is not going to be my life."
Somehow, that stung. The implication that they chose that life, that they enjoyed every minute of it, stung. Dean did it out of allegiance to his father and Kat did it, honestly, out of loyalty to Dean, who deserved so little to be in this by himself. And, like Dean had said before, they saved a lot of people doing it. Maybe they could leave, just like Sam, but where would the world be if they did?
"You have a responsibility to—"
"To Dad? And his crusade?" Sam's words were stinging Dean, too. It could be seen in his eyes, where his emotions usually stayed. "If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back."
That broke the usual mask that Dean's emotions hid behind. He immediately grabbed Sam by the collar and shoved him against the railing.
"Dean!" Kat ran after them, a hand going to his shoulder. Partly to keep him from doing something he would regret. Partly to comfort him. His shoulder relaxed beneath her touch, as he stared at Sam for a long moment.
"Don't talk about her like that."
Kat didn't move her hand until Dean finally released Sam. She sighed with relief as the argument finally seemed to be over, and turned away. That's when she saw it. A woman stood on the railing, ready to jump, her dress blowing in the wind. "—Dean. Sam."
They turned to look on in confusion as the woman glanced at them. Then stepped off.
The three of them immediately ran to the other side of the bridge, like they could catch her even though she had already jumped. "Where'd she go?" Dean asked. The water below was empty.
"I don't know."
Kat's eyes scanned the water. "Wasn't that—"
The sound of a car starting filled the air and a bright light suddenly cast over them. They looked over to see the light coming from the Impala's headlights. Dean furrowed his brow, moving away from the railing. "What the—"
"Who's driving your car?"
"Did you leave the keys in or somethi—" Kat's words faltered to almost a whimper when Dean pulled the keys out of his pocket. This was certainly something new to them.
As if on cue, the car immediately squealed out of its parking spot, heading right towards them and gaining speed quickly.
"Dean—" Sam grabbed his brother. "Go, go!"
Dean quickly grabbed Kat, pushing her in front of them as they started running as fast as their legs could carry them. Unfortunately, no matter how much time they had spent running in their lives, they weren't faster than a car. It was gaining on them too quickly.
"Kat, jump, now!"
She didn't know if it was Sam or Dean who said that, and frankly, she didn't care or intend to argue. She grabbed onto the railing and vaulted over the side of the bridge, soaring down to the water below.
She thought she'd expect it when she hit the water, but she didn't. It was colder, and rougher, and deeper than she could have imagined, and she didn't get the best breath in before she went under, immediately struggling to get to the surface. It felt like hours before her head finally made it above water and she gasped for air, looking up to see she had ended up under the bridge. "Dean!" She cried out, looking around. "Sam!"
"Kat? Where are you?" Sam's voice came from above.
"Under the bridge, I—" She sputtered as she got a mouthful of water, kicking her legs to stay above the surface.
"Kat! Come on! Over here!"
Oh, God, it was Dean. He was somewhere ahead of her. She wasn't the best swimmer, but she was going to be that night, as she kicked and swam until her feet finally touched the bottom. She did her best to walk, though jumping off a bridge and swimming for her life was a touch exhausting and she felt heavy from her soaked clothes, so she had fallen to her hands and knees by the time she made it to land, collapsing next to an extremely muddy Dean Winchester. "We're never doing that again." She was panting slightly. No monster or hunt had ever exerted her as much as that water did.
"Oh? You didn't want to go for another ride?"
She would have glared it him, but instead directed it at Sam, who let out a chuckle from where he was on the side of the bridge. "That better have been a laugh of relief for our well-being, Sam Winchester!"
"Come on, Kat." Dean got up, taking her hand and gripping it tightly when their hold nearly slipped from the mud, steadying her on her feet. "You okay?"
"I'm okay. Are you okay?"
"Been better."
They made their way back up to the bridge, still gripping each other's hands tightly once they were on safer ground, neither of them really noticing. It wasn't until they made it to the Impala and Sam cleared his throat that they realized, pulling away from each other. Kat leaned against the car and Dean went to check the engine.
"Hey," Sam's soft voice had Kat looking up. "Are you okay?" Eyes full of concern. The Sam she once knew flickered across his face, sweet and caring and there.
The desire for him to come back flickered in her, but it left as soon as it came. He had an interview on Monday. He had Jessica. He had a life, and she chose hers the day he went off to find his. She really did choose it, didn't she? She couldn't be hurt by his words from before now. They all made choices and he had given her a new one. She was the one who passed him up on it.
"I'm fine, Sam." She did her best to smile. Why was being around Sam again so painful and complicated? Why didn't she expect it to be that way?
He nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer, and sauntered over to Dean. "Car alright?"
"Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems alright now." Dean shut the hood of the car. "That Constance chick, what a bitch!" He shouted out into the empty air, as if she were listening.
"That's the kind of thing that's gonna get her trying to run us over again, Dean-o." Kat moved around to the front of the car, sitting on the hood of the car as Dean did.
"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure." Sam looked around, before sitting on what room was left of the hood. "So where's the job go from here, genius?" All Dean could do was shrug in frustration. Sam sighed, sniffed, and paused, "—you smell like a toilet."
Kat leaned against the Impala, waiting outside a motel for Sam and Dean to check out a room for them. She was positive she smelled just as bad as Dean, so maybe baking in the sun wasn't the best idea, but it was better than the weird look she'd get from the clerk. It gave her time to think anyway.
About how, even though a few fights were being picked here and there, things were starting to feel like the old days. The car ride to the motel had been jokes and bantering, probably because they were all a little delirious. Even Sam had lightened up considerably.
She had already come to terms with him leaving twice — once when he left, again when it was definitively confirmed that he'd be back at Stanford by Monday — and now she was going to have to miss him again. It wasn't fair. She was always going to want to let him go and also have him stay. It made her feel insane to be so indecisive.
At least it wouldn't be as hard as the first time. This wasn't really the Sam she missed. This was hardly even a Sam she knew, even if there were little glimpses of him there.
"Kat," Dean called to her as he and Sam walked out. "Come on, get up."
She pushed off the car, following them. "You shouldn't rush me. I'm getting the shower first, you know."
"Couldn't care less. Our dad got a room here."
"Wait, what?"
Well, that had to be yet another thing she hadn't expected.
A/N: Wow, that was long. I had to stop it somewhere! The next chapter should be the rest of the pilot. I hope that wasn't too bad lol...I'm sorry if it was a little rough. Things should get better and more collected as the episodes go on. I also apologize for any grammatical errors, this was another chapter I finished in the middle of the night and edited today. I'm just hoping you could all follow it! I hope you all enjoyed it. Review if you want!
