Summary: As Dean knows very well, hunting is a tough enough life as it is without falling in love in the process. Running into another hunter by pure chance while looking for a ghost is one thing, but when that hunter turns out to be an old flame, things become just that little bit harder to deal with. Please R&R!

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or its characters. I only own my OC.

A/N: Thanks for the support with the first chapter! I hope you enjoy this one too!

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By Pure Chance

Chapter Two

"Jesus, Kate...How've you been?" Dean asked as they moved out of the way of the café door, "What the hell are you doing out here?"

Kate smiled up at him, cup of coffee held between her small hands, close enough to her face to warm it slightly against the cold of that morning. Looking up at Dean, she realised how beautiful he really was. She'd missed him. Those years without him had been long, and he'd been the only hunter who she'd felt a connection with in all her years of hunting.

"Hunting." She said quietly, so as not to draw attention to herself, "I imagine you and Sammy are up here doing the same thing."

"Yeah..." Dean replied, looking to the ground as she rubbed his arm gently.

"I'm sorry about John." She told him, "I know it's probably not much of a consolation now..."

Dean smiled at her weakly as she grimaced at him with sympathetic eyes, and the pair moved towards the counter so Dean could get his and Sam's order. Kate hadn't changed much. She still made Dean's heart flutter on sight, and her voice still gave him the kind of chills he shouldn't feel in public.

"Thanks." He said softly, ordering breakfast for him and his brother before turning back to the young woman, "You look good."

He didn't need to ask her how she heard about John. Kate was a friend of Ellen's. She'd visited the Roadhouse a lot, and Ellen was like a mother to her. Dean wondered if she knew about Ellen and Jo's deaths.

"So do you." Kate replied, solemnly gazing out of the window, "You hear about Ellen?"

Dean stopped in his tracks, paying the cashier and sighing quietly as he turned to face the young woman. He couldn't believe that he'd just been thinking about that and she'd brought it up. Talk about minds thinking alike. He knew that she knew the truth, because he could see the look on her face. Turning back the cashier, he thanked her and took his order before moving out of the line as he tried to get Kate to look at him. He had to make her understand what really happened.

"I did my best to protect and help Jo...Ellen didn't wanna leave her to die alone..." Dean whispered, "I am so, so sorry, Kate...We took them with us and we didn't expect that to happen."

"I know." She breathed, wiping her eyes as tears welled up in them, "I heard. Thank you for what you did for them both."

Dean carefully led her outside, not seeing the car she'd driven all those years ago. He opened the door to his baby and put the breakfast on his seat, turning to Kate who tried to smile at him through her near tears. He'd taken her outside so they didn't draw attention to themselves, and so that she could be away from prying eyes and ears. The last thing she needed was for some idiot to start asking questions about stuff they didn't understand.

"Where's the Mustang?" He asked, watching her face fall again.

"Crushed." She replied, "I just use the train and walk most of the time."

"What happened?" Dean asked her with a worried expression on his face, "How'd it get crushed?"

"I had an accident." She said, "Head on with a guy in a four-wheel drive."

Dean winced at the thought of her being in such an accident, and he couldn't help but check whether or not she'd been seriously injured in that crash.

"You okay now?" He asked, "How bad were you hurt?"

"I was actually quite lucky. Just a fractured leg, broken arm and cuts and bruises." She replied with a heavy sigh, "Oh...and I got impaled in the side by a piece of metal flying through the wind shield and pinning me to my seat. It was like Final Destination. Very scary."

"Jeez..." Dean breathed, leaning against his car as he looked her over with concern, "Where are you staying?"

"The same shit hole that you're staying in." She told him, watching him as he walked around the other side of the car and opened the door, shooting her a soft glare before indicating for her to get into the car.

"I'm not a charity case." She told him, sipping her coffee as he rolled his eyes and moved around the other side of the car.

"Kate, you're staying at the same place as us, you're, in all likelihood, working on the same case as us." Dean said as he arched an eyebrow at us, "Come on...We can work through this one together. Just like old times."

Rolling her eyes, Kate made her way forward, allowing Dean to hold the door open for her and then close it as she got herself comfortable in the front seat of his baby.

In the last few weeks of her life, the girl that the trio suspected was the ghost they were hunting had become withdrawn, according to her parents. She barely ate, barely spoke and more often than not failed to attend school. The group knew they had to speak to the boys again in order to try to find out what had happened to cause her to commit suicide. They had to have heard something or known something because they evidently knew Lydia. She attended the same school and was in their grade.

Sam, who had been surprised to see Kate, had welcomed her back with open arms. She knew all about what had happened from Bobby, who she had also kept in touch with over the years. She knew about the angels, demons, Lucifer...Everything. Sam couldn't help notice the way Dean was hanging around her like she was some kind of prey. The pair knew that she'd fallen on hard times, so Sam wondered whether his brother wanted to take care of her and protect her, or if he had other motives on his mind.

"You know what I think...?" Kate muttered quietly as she listened to the brothers' accounts of the boys' statements, "I think that they did something to her. I think that the reason she became so withdrawn was because something awful happened to her. Spirits aren't after blood for no reason. If anyone knows that, it's us."

"What do you think they did?" Dean asked her, wary of his questioning.

"I don't think all of them caused this." Kate told them, "I just think that maybe something happened that we don't know about involving these boys, and that led to her killing herself. She's appearing to them. No other boys. None of the girls. They have to be connected to her somehow."

"It's possible." Dean sighed, "Spirits normally only attack as an act of revenge."

"Well..." Kate said, standing and grabbing her coat, "Only one thing to do. Find the boys, and ask them outright what happened."

"We can make all of this stop if you just tell us what happened." Kate told the youngest of the boys.

There were four of them. Bradley, Marcus, Zachary and Leon. The leader of the group was Brian, who was too busy playing football to speak to the trio, who were claiming to be paranormal researchers. It wasn't a very big lie. It was actually very close to the truth. Bradley was the youngest, and the one who seemed more keen to open up to them.

"Lydia and Brian dated for about two months..." He said, looking to the others for the okay to continue, "Lydia was one of the weird goth kids...Brian didn't want to admit to dating her. He wasn't even dating her seriously. She really liked him, but he just wanted to screw her and then have done."

Kate and the brothers nodded for him to continue, and Kate had a pretty good idea of where the story was going. She was one of the weird kids in high school. A jock dated her and then dumped her without so much as an explanation. She didn't cut herself or anything over it, but if Lydia had real, serious feelings for Brian then it was possible that him breaking her heart caused her to commit suicide.

"He got what he wanted." Zachary spoke up, running a hand through his spiky blonde hair, "She let him take her virginity...Then she arrived at school and saw him all over Madison Bridges the following Monday. It was a shitty thing that Brian did, and we've all been dragged down for it."

"What happened after, then?" Sam asked, "Did Lydia's behaviour change at all?"

"She didn't come to school much. She was never in the cafeteria at lunch. She always looked tired. She genuinely thought that Brian wanted to be with her long term." Marcus explained, "We knew that Brian was planning to sleep with her but we never knew he'd just dump her."

"Yeah, he broke her heart." Leon said, "She wasn't the same after that. We tried to offer her comfort and help, but because she assumed we knew what he'd been planning, she didn't want anything to do with us."

Kate sighed and rubbed a hand over her eyes, looking up at the boys who all looked between each other sheepishly.

"So...He led her on, broke her heart, and then she killed herself?" The young woman asked, earning nods from the four boys.

She got up from the table and thanked them for their help, heading away from the school yard with Dean and Sam in tow. The next thing was to find the bones of Lydia Carmichael, then salt and burn them. Dean looked at Kate's expression. The young woman was livid. Her eyes had darkened with the fury she felt over what had happened to this girl.

"Kate...You okay?" He asked her, earning a nod as she got into the back seat of the Impala.

"Fine." She replied quietly, "Let's just put this poor girl to rest, huh?"

-TBC-

Hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading so far!

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