Dean and Sam finish packing the car, and much to both brother's disappointment, Jo and Harper decide to ride together in the rental car.
Jo's stuck at the motel doing research after a loud disagreement over whether or not she should be hunting with them. Dean won eventually, partially because Jo's "morning" sickness took over.
So Sam and Dean play FBI and Harper plays journalist. When they all meet back up in the motel they agree they're hunting a ghost.
They found out that a few years ago a thirteen year old girl drowned in a nearby lake that kids love to play in. The girl was an outcast and bullied a lot. She lived with her dad who was a drunk and tended to leave her on her own. She was at the lake alone when she died. The kid's ghost has taken to drowning other girls in an attempt to make a friend that won't leave her alone. The whole story is a tragedy.
"So three girls have drowned in as many weeks. Each on Tuesday, the same day the ghost girl died," Harper summarizes. "The first girl was Kaitlyn Myers, ten years old, the second was Charlotte Turner, six, and the third was Maria Cisneros, seven."
"Right, so tomorrow is Tuesday. How are we gonna know which kid the is girl..."
"Alexis," Jo supplies.
"Alexis is gonna pick?" Dean finishes.
"Well, each drowning has taken place in one part of the lake, so they girl is probably luring the kids over there," Sam suggests.
"Plus, from what I've heard, lots of parents have stopped taking their kids down there," Harper says.
"So we act like creepers and just hang around the lake all day?" Dean asks.
"Uh, yeah. That's exactly what we do." Harper laughs at his almost nervous face.
Jo grins wider and suggests, "Ooooooooor Harper and Sam could go in swimsuits and blend in. No one would be suspicious of two adults going on a swim date."
Harper's grin is gone.
But Dean's isn't. "That would work! But what about me?"
"You can hide. Three people might look odd."
Both Harper and Sam are silent during this discusion, and Dean and Jo quickly plan out the whole thing.
Harper and Jo go shopping for Harper's swimsuit because neither of them have one. Jo goes for the smaller ones, while Harper is looking at the one pieces.
"Harper!" Jo scolds when she looks over at her still in the one piece area. "No, you are getting something pretty and a maybe even a little sexy, you got that?"
"Jo, I don't-"
"-Nope. I'm choosing, you just try on what I tell you."
Harper groans, but complies. Jo takes a good look at her. Harper's a lot tanner than her, and she's curvier. And not to mention a half a foot taller. Jo stands at 5'4 and Harper at 5'10.
Jo grins when she find a cute almost neon pink bikini. When Harper tries it on, it's perfect. It covers enough of her to look decent, but still is sexy. Plus the color looks amazing on her skin.
A few hours later Harper and Sam are on their "date".
They try to chat for a few minutes, but every conversation is killed by the tension in the air.
Eventually Harper gives up and stands.
"What are you doing?"
"Going swimming. I'm bored." She shrugs and walks to the edge of the water. She lets the water lap up on her feet and finds it almost warm. She smiles and wades in deeper before going under. When she comes back up, Sam is still sitting on the beach. "You scared?!" she yells.
He stands, smiling. "Me? Scared?" he yells back, coming down to the water. "You should be scared!" he says as he wades over to her. He's in above the waist when he gets to her.
"And what should I be scared of?" she asks giggling.
"Me!" he yells as he grabs her around the waist and throws her over his shoulder. She squeals and kicks her legs, laughing.
"Let me go!"
"Never!"
He starts spinning her around and she laughs until she sees the shore. "Sam! There's a girl!"
He drops her and turns. Harper recovers quickly from the dizziness and dives under, swimming to the shore. Sam follows after her.
A little girl is walking slowly towards the lake's edge, while the two swim. Harper's up for air when the child reaches the edge. She yells, "No!" but it's too late. The little girl looks up at her in fear just before she's pulled off her feet and into the water. Harper swims back towards where she sees bubbles at the surface. When she gets there, Dean is on shore and Sam is a couple yards behind her. She dives for the girl, down into the deep water. After a few moments of seeing nothing, Harper catches sight of the girl's arms reaching up. She grabs the kid's hand and then her arms, pulling up. She manages to wrap one arm around the girls torso and begin swimming up. She doesn't make it very far, but then she feels the ghost lose it's grip on the child. There are a few seconds of relief in which Harper fights to get to the surface, but then that feeling comes crashing down when a cold hand clamps around her own ankle.
She keeps kicking and struggling, not letting go of the limp little girl. She may be able to stay under for a while longer than humans, but this kid is already unconscious and Harper is about thirty seconds from losing consciousness.
Then she sees Sam above her. She shoves the kid up to him and he takes her to the surface. Harper keeps struggling, but the pain in her lungs is almost overwhelming. She doesn't know for sure if werewolves can drown, but based on the burning need for air, she'd say they can.
Her movements are slowing and her vision is beginning to go dark. She sees Sam come back under and her oxygen deprived mind thinks about how attractive he looks with his hair floating around his head and the ring of light surrounding his face like a halo.
She puts all the strength she has left into one last fight for her life before unconsciousness takes her. She manages to get a little closer to Sam before her vision goes dark and her body goes limp.
Sam panics when her eye close and air bubbles float out of her mouth and her limp body begins to suck in water. He grabs her middle with one arm, similar to the way she was holding the four year old girl.
He pulls with all of his strength, and after a few seconds he pulls her loose. As he swims to the surface, the ghost girl follows.
He sucks in a big breath when he gets to the surface and then begins to struggle to shore. He only stops when he hears the ghost girl screaming. When he turns, he sees her thrashing around in the water until finally she disappears in a flash of light and they know that it's over.
He carries Harper to shore where Dean is desperately trying to revive the child. Just before Sam reaches shore, she coughs up water and begins to cry and reach for Dean who lifts her up into his arms and holds her tight.
Sam lays Harper out on the sand and begins to try and save her. Only after a few seconds does she cough up water. She sits up and wraps her arms around Sam's neck, burying her head in his shoulder.
Both Harper and the four year old are shivering from the freezing water that was a result of the ghost and the ghost's hand.
Sam wraps Harper up in a towel to warm her up because he knew the bikini wasn't going to cut it.
"I wanna go home," the little girls sobs.
"Don't worry, sweetheart. You'll be home soon," Dean soothes. "What's your name?"
She hiccups then murmurs, "Emma."
"Okay, Emma. Can you tell me your Mommy or Daddy's name?"
"Mommy's Dah… Dehli...lilah…"
"Delilah?"
"Yeah, that."
"Do you know your last name?"
"Peterson… yeah."
"Alright let's get you home, Emma," he says. Emma nods and buries her head into his shoulder. Her wet clothes and hair are soaking Dean's shirt but he doesn't mind. She's wearing a Minnie Mouse tee shirt and black gym shorts. She was barefoot and by the state of her feet, had probably walked here.
After Dean took Emma to the police station and saw her reunited with her mom, he heads back to the motel to see Jo.
They plan to elope in some town somewhere near the bunker. Not the most romantic option, but it's what suits them. Dean can't wait to marry her. And Jo can't wait to marry him.
Their lives are all shifting dramatically, but the next hunt changes everything.
"Looks like there's a shapeshifter in some tiny town in southern Nebraska. About an hour away," Harper announces looking up from her computer.
It's been a few weeks since the ghost lake incident. The impala is already rebuilt. She and Sam had been skirting around each other and their feelings since.
"Shapeshifter? Uh..."
Dean just looks at his little brother and Jo rolls her eyes at Sam's obvious protectiveness. "Jo?"
"Dean, I can sit in a motel room for a few days and do some research. I'll be fine."
"We don't have to-"
"Sam, seriously. I'll be fine," Jo says even though she knows he's more worried about Harper.
He sits quietly hoping another hunter will have already taken the job.
The shapeshifter kills two more people before they can actually catch him. Except when they do, he runs and escapes down into the sewers. Unfortunately, he's the kind of shifter that doesn't actually have to shed his skin.
Harper quickly realizes that going on this hunt was a potentially deadly move for her.
The three follow the creature into the sewers, but he's gone. They split up to look for him because if they do have a problem, they'll just silver test each other. Foolproof.
Harper turns a corner and finds another dead end. "Where the hell did you go?" she mutters under her breath.
She turns around, and the shifter is right in front of her, but he looks like Sam. Lucky for her, she can smell the difference.
"Harper, I can't find Dean or the shifter. I think it got him."
Yeah, right.
"Shit, well, I haven't seen either since we split up. We'll find them, don't worry," she says. She'll just pretend until they find the Winchesters.
A few minutes later, she walks back into the area they're supposed to meet at. She turns to the shifter, "We can wait for him here. Maybe he'll show back up."
Then the monster grins in a way that doesn't look at all like Sam Winchester. "Yeah, maybe." He morphs into Harper's form just as Dean comes into view.
The eldest Winchester looks between both Harpers and grimaces. "Alright, the real Harper won't be affected by silver so let's do this." He raises his silver blade and moves forward. Both werewolf and shifter move back. Dean's face turns into one of confusion. "Harper?"
She steps forward slowly, hands out toward him. "Th- that's not gonna work," she stutters.
"How come?"
She's silent. "Dean-"
"-Why not?" he asks again, more demanding this time.
Harper's shaking and suddenly feels sick. "I- I can't," she manages to say despite the lump in her throat.
Taking advantage of this plot twist, the shifter, still in Harper's form, starts to back away. It freezes when Sam's voice comes from behind it. "Don't move. Dean, what's going on?"
"Oh, nothing. Harper here's just explaining to me why a silver test won't work." He raises his eyebrows at her, wanting an answer now.
Sam's eyebrows furrow, and he looks at Harper in confusion.
She feels like she can't breathe. Her eyes dart between Sam and Dean and she knows it's over. She can't hide anymore. "It won't work 'cause it'll burn both of us," she says softly. She looks at Sam for only a second because the coldness in his face is too much for her to take. A tear slips down her face and she closes her eyes for a moment.
When she opens them again, she looks directly at Sam.
He steps back at the sight of her eyes being yellow and filled with pain. She snarls with fangs and all when she sees the shifter make a move to run out of the corner of her eye. Sam turns to it and shoots it in the heart with a silver bullet. It's pupils turn white as it drops dead.
The younger brother turns and leaves the sewer without a word.
Dean stays, studying the now human looking Harper Ross. He doesn't drop his knife, but he doesn't make a move to attack her.
"It's alright," she softly assures him. At his questioning look, she continues, "If you kill me. It's okay, I get it. I'm a hunter, I was raised by hunters. It's your job. I won't blame you, how could I? I'm a monster."
"We're going to back to the motel, and you're gonna tell your story. Then I'll decide."
She looks at him in shock. "You aren't going to just gank me now?"
"Like you said, you're a hunter. You've had plenty of chances to rip our hearts out, and haven't. I'm giving you a chance. Sam may not be as generous."
She nods.