There was something different about working as a team.

The thing about hunting alone, something Dean realized quite quickly, is that while one could always do what one wanted there was also the drawback of always being, you know alone. There was never somebody to talk things over, never somebody that could tell when you were being simply stupid and never somebody there as back-up. Now of course Emma wasn't perfect – if she was things would have gotten boring quite quickly – she didn't know a lot about hunting in general, which wasn't that surprising since she didn't grow up in it, but she was a quick study. The physical parts – learning to fight, to use a gun and more importantly running away quickly without being caught which was a skill all on its own – came far easier to her than everything else but that might have been because he himself enjoyed those parts more than the researching. They worked perfectly together which was awesome and he really, really liked her.

There were some parts that weren't perfect of course.

The problem with having one hunter who was excellent (if he did say so himself) at the hunting and fighting part but did not like the researching and wasn't wonderful and another one that was just learning is that there was some parts of hunting that didn't go so well. Most notably the research part, Dean thinks, really, that the problem with the research not always going well was that his first instinct was to call Sam but he no longer could and that hurt. Emma could sense it too, she'd asked about his brother only once and though he'd tried to sound cheerful when he answered it, apparently, didn't work, she'd been able to see right through it (to the extent that she'd stopped asking him about his brother.) The point was that everything was different now and that though some parts were great now – most notably Emma - others weren't and he had to get used to that and it took some time.

But he and Emma seemed made to be partners.

The first time he kissed her was after one of their most eventful hunts – which had ended with a chase by the police – underneath a bridge in the middle of nowhere. Her hair was filled with cobwebs and her clothes was in disarray, she looked winded and she was limping (she must have hurt herself at some point and he almost hit himself for not noticing) but he swears she'd never looked more beautiful than in that moment. They'd been hunting together for a few weeks by then and he'd sworn to himself that he wouldn't hurt her, that he wouldn't rush her because he knew somebody had broken her heart (she'd told him briefly about her time in jail and just like she did with the subject of Sam he never brought it up again) but when he saw her in that moment he knew he had to kiss her, so he did.

And he'd been right to wait because the moment was perfect.

The thing about living together with someone twenty four seven was that eventually, whether you wanted to or not, you knew everything about each other.

At least the little things, like the kind of the things the other person liked to ear or the annoying little habits that made you want to rip your hair out. But the thing is, and this is something that Emma had learned a long time ago – back when she and Neal were busy just driving through the country – eventually even the annoying little things become not so bad. You get used to it, you get over it and eventually, someday, they won't make her want to rip her hair out. But she suspects that's still a long way away. The other things, the important things – the emotional scars that mark their souls – those are the kind of things you can keep quiet, the kind of things that only come out when they decide it will. (Like Sam who leaves for Stanford and Neal who leaves her in jail.)

(What he does tell her, what she does tell him, are strangely enough the moments that changed their lives and the moments that hurt the most. He tells her of his mother who dies in the fire as a yellow-eyed demon laughs in the corner – who doesn't actually say that but that's how Emma keeps imagining it – and she tells him about her parents who left her to die at the side of the road. They never actually talk about this.)

The first thing he teaches her is how to use a gun, he tells her it's her most important weapon because she can fire it from far away without putting herself in danger. It won't always help but it's handy, he tells her. She kind of likes it to, the way he teaches her, him standing close to her, his arms around her, his hands on hers.

It's thrilling.

He kisses her under a bridge in the town he almost gets her arrested in – alright so the fact that they almost got arrested is actually her fault but she suspects that the reasons she blames him has more to do with Neal then with what actually happened. (Unlike Neal he doesn't use her as a distraction though, unlike Neal he makes sure she's going with him and she has a feeling that if it came to it Dean would tell her to run while he became the distraction.) She must look terrible though, cobwebs in her hair, her clothes are wrinkled and he doesn't look much better though apparently he's somehow managed to miss getting hurt. (And why would he twist his ankle, considering how long he's been in this lifestyle – far too long if she's honest but at least his father didn't abandon him at the side of the road – it's doubtful this was the first time he had to run away from something.) The thing is she freaked out when she saw the cops mostly because she'd only just gotten out of juvie and she had no desire to go back (the last time it had cost her so much, her freedom, her love, her sense of being and, most importantly, her son –the one thing, the one detail of her life she still has to share with Dean but she simply doesn't know how.)

The point is he kisses her under a bridge and later he carries her back to the car.

His father calls on a Wednesday, way too early in the morning.

He asks how he is and if his hunt is finished and Dean tells him everything is alright and that of course his hunt is finished, does he want to meet again. (He always asks but his dad always has another hunt for him to go on. Dean just asks because it's expected of him really.) This is what he doesn't tell his father, but his father also doesn't ask – not that he knows he should. He doesn't tell him about Emma, doesn't share the fact that he's found a hunting partner he's slowly falling in love with, doesn't tell him that he's trusted someone even though his father practically taught him never to trust someone he hasn't known for years and even then you still shouldn't trust them completely. He doesn't tell him that the hunt they're talking about, the one that brought him to this ridiculous little town, actually finished three days ago and that he and Emma had just been hanging out (which is something he's never done before and he doesn't know why.)

His father doesn't ask and he never tells, sometimes he wonders if his father would have wanted to know, he likes to believe he would have though.

His father tells him there's a hunter that needs his help in a town not that far away, he doesn't know the other man himself his father tells him but pastor Jim knows him (or at least of him), his name is Richie and he's having some trouble with a very strange house. Dean tells him that of course they'll go and before he can ask him where he is his father has already hung up.

"Another hunt?"

"There's a hunter that needs our help. Let's go."

"Alright."

The first time he meets Richie Dean isn't exactly impressed.

He doesn't seem like the kind of hunter Dean has gotten used to, in fact he seems like the kind of person that would get himself killed five minutes into a fight (and he's pretty sure he's being generous.) Despite that the kid, because he is a kid – although to be fair he and Emma aren't exactly that much older – is incredibly likeable. He makes jokes all the time, doesn't seem to mind when Dean isn't impressed with him and flirts with Emma constantly, but not in a way that makes Dean want to kill him. Dean can see Richie becoming a close friend, hell he can even see hunting with him, but what he doesn't understand is how the other man became a hunter let alone survived for so long. That is of course until the research part comes in and he comes to one realization: he might not look like something, he might not scare people and Dean is pretty sure he definitely won't win in a fight but in the research department he's pretty much a genius. Seriously Richie can look up something in less time than Sam ever did and he knows things Dean's pretty sure even his dad doesn't know and if he doesn't know something he just calls Bobby. (Dean remembers Bobby, he liked him, hell he's pretty sure he loved the older man but then one day he'd had a fight with his dad and just like that he'd never seen him again. It's beginning to turn into a pattern really.)

He still doesn't understand why the other man would even think about becoming a hunter.

(He discovers, about six months later, that Richie had become a hunter because a demon had killed his parents and then, years later, another monster had attacked his little sister. She was, apparently, still in a coma and he visited her every month. Or at least he tried to.)

The thing is despite having done a hell of a lot of research and despite having been in the town for at least three weeks Richie still hasn't figured out what the hell is going on. It's not a ghost, he tells them, or if it is nobody has ever seen it and there have been no deaths in the house so there's no reason why there should be a haunting. But the problem is a haunting is the only thing that actually makes sense. Here's what Dean discovers later: there's another reason he called for help. Usually when it's just a ghost he can deal with it but when it's more he needs help. Richie is basically one big klutz, if there's anything in the vicinity that he can trip over he will accomplish it. And Dean had been right about his earlier assessment: the man won't survive a fight with a demon. The thing is Dean is pretty sure from the moment he meets him that the other man is going to get himself killed someday but he can't talk the other man out of being a hunter. He does convince him to hunt together because you know safety in numbers right?

Emma is strongly reminded of Carla during Richie's explanation of the problem.

The house at the end of the street that just feels wrong somehow, the house that looks older but isn't, the strange color on the front door, the flickering of the lights, all of it. It's almost like she's somehow found herself back in the beginning, back in the house with the family she had almost called her own. But Richie is sure it couldn't a ghost because nobody had died in the house and though Emma asked there were no rumors about any deaths either. It simply doesn't make sense. She can tell Richie is getting frustrated and she suspects she would be frustrated too if she were in his shoes. Stuck in a little town trying to finish a case with no idea what's going on and no way to leave because what if something is going on and somebody gets hurt? It's got to be incredibly frustrating.

She doesn't tell him about Carla though; she doesn't know him enough for that one.

She does tell Dean, later that night in their motel room, and he listens to her and tells her he agrees, it does sound the same. The problem is however that he also agrees with Richie: there is no reason why the house should be haunted; nobody had died in it after all. She asked him then if he knew what had happened so long ago, if he knew who Carla was and what the actual story was. He didn't and though he told her he could call his father and ask he doesn't actually sound as if he believes his father remembers. Emma figures it's something about her past she's never actually going to figure out (and truthfully there are far too many things in her past she doesn't know about.)

She doesn't ask him anything else, there's no real point.

They go the house the next day, it's the stupidest thing he has ever done.

(Considering his life that is certainly an accomplishment.)

The point is the house is strange, it's the strangest thing he's ever gone through and the thing is Richie and Emma are completely right: it feels, looks and sounds like a haunting. But nobody has died here (and they went back through the paperwork as long as they could once they actually made it out of the house but they never found anyone who died in or near that stupid house.) The lights flickered on and of constantly, doors open and close, the colors around him shift and, the most annoying thing, somehow the house itself almost seemed to change. He's not sure if this is really what's happening or if it's just his brain that is making everything worse – and Emma not knowing very much about hauntings in general and Richie falling over anything in sight definitely isn't helping.

It takes eighteen hours for them to get out of the bloody house (he never tells his father it's far too embarrassing.)

Later they have dinner together in a diner, after exhausting every angle possible and coming to the conclusion that as long as nobody ever enters the house everything will be alright so of course they burn down the house.

"So what are you going to do now Richie?"

"Not sure."

"Do you always travel alone?"

"Yeah, I like being alone."

"You sure?" Emma intersects "You could hang out with us."

"You sure you want me around?"

Emma looks at him for the answer like he's in charge – and he is but he likes to think about it as a partnership and as such he believes she has just as much right to say something about it. Of course considering she was the one who offered in the first place it might simply be that she wanted to know what he thought too.

"Yeah sure, stick around. It could be fun."

(It's probably the best idea he's had yet, with him being a hunter and Richie doing the research and Emma learning they make the perfect team. Even though he misses his brother and his father hanging out with Richie and Emma does make it better.)