Disclaimer: I promise I didn't forget or abandon this story... even if it has been like a ridiculous amount of time since my last update. Which I totally apologize for! I've been sitting on this chapter for a long time. There will only be like one or two more chapters to this story and I hope to get them out relatively soon. Thanks to all of you who have beared with me! :) I hope you enjoy this next bit.


A knock on his hotel door woke Dean up the next morning. Who knew he was here? He grabbed the knife he kept under his pillow and hid it behind his back as he went to open the door.

He peaked through the peep hole and saw a curtain of bright blonde. He threw the knife back into his bag and subconsciously ran a hand through his hair before opening the door.

"Emma," he greeted with a smug smile. She turned around to face him, an unimpressed look on her face as she looked over his sleeping attire: a t-shirt and boxers. "How did you find me?"

She shrugged. "I asked the front desk. Walter Herman, huh?"

"Seems we both have our little tricks to making it around the country."

"Why did you give me such a hard time about stealing your car then?"

"One, I gave you a hard time about stealing a car badly. And two, because it was my car." She smirked and dug her hands into her pockets, looking around nervously. "So… Do you, um… Want to come in?"

Without replying, Emma walked past him into his room. "I want to know how you did it."

"Did what?"

She held up her hand defensively, "Look, I promise I won't get mad about it. I just want to know how you did it."

Dean sighed, running his hand across his face. "No one likes a skeptic, Emma."

"You obviously had the smoke, but did you use mirrors? Dry ice? Some sort of hologram?" Dean just stared at her, crossing his arms. "Just tell me."

"I don't have to tell you," Dean said, shaking his head. "Look into my eyes and tell me if I'm lying."

She stared for a few seconds, then shook her head. "Just because you believe something doesn't make it real."

"That's exactly what makes it real," he said with an exhausted chuckle. He shook his head, "You saw everything last night. You saw that spirit, you saw it disappear – and you recognized it from the last time it was here. Why do you refuse to acknowledged what's right in front of you?"

She took a step closer to him and rose her hands, "Because it's impossible!"

"If you think it's so impossible then what are you doing here?" he asked loudly, taking another step closer to her. She pursed her lips together and inhaled sharply. "You're here because deep down you do believe but something is keeping you from taking the final plunge. Now, if you want to continue to hang out in my hotel room, have at it. I'll enjoy the view, believe me. But I have work to do and people to save. And whether or not you believe ain't my problem."

Neither of them moved. Her face held a look that sat on the borderline between amused and frightened, and Dean couldn't take his eyes off of hers. His eyes, rich of the color chartreuse, melted their way into her own hazel eyes, stormy green and rays of dark yellow piercing through.

She was the first to move, wrapping her hand around the back of Dean's neck to pull him down as she rose up on her toes. Their lips met fully, Dean raising his brow as he hesitated. But she opened her eyes and pulled away just long enough to give him a look that told him this was okay, and then she kissed him again. This time he responded, cautiously wrapping his arm around her back and pulling her against him.

Their lips pushed and pulled against each other, until Emma pulled back slightly, resting her forehead against his. He opened his eyes to see her smiling, biting her bottom lip.

She took a deep breath, and removed her hand from his chest. "Ok, I might be inclined to believe you."

Dean's mouth dropped, both out of surprise from what she had just done and what she just said. He cleared his throat, running his hand through his hair as he took a seat on the edge of the bed, suddenly feeling vulnerable in his choice of attire. "It's a, um, it's a – a ghost."

She rose an eye brow, listening intently as he tripped over his own words.

"Sometimes when a person dies in a violent way, their spirit remains on Earth, often haunting the place where it died or the person. These spirits are angry, born out of the violence that killed them. And in that anger, they do horrible things."

Emma nodded, "Like kill truck drivers?"

"Exactly," he sighed.

"And how do you know all this?"

He shrugged, "Remember how I told you I did a lot of traveling with my dad and brother?" She nodded. "That's how. Something killed my mom, that's how my dad got into the game. My brother and I grew up with it."

"Where's your brother?"

Dean sighed, "Sammy's in college. Just left, actually."

Emma caught the social cue not to continue asking, obviously his brother was a sensitive subject. "So, the truck drivers –"

"Right, yeah," he got up and grabbed the newspaper clippings he'd compiled of all the obituaries he'd obtained and handed them to her. "The pattern is every ten years, five trucks and their drivers go missing. Same way you described it happening: heavy fog, and then nothing. A few days later, the truckers are always found dead on the side of the road a few miles away."

"You put all this together?" she asked as she thumbed through the pages. "The pattern and everything?"

Dean shrugged. "Well, yeah."

Emma looked up, an impressed coat painted across her face. When he looked down, slightly embarrassed, she took a deep breath and turned back to the papers. "So what about last night? You stopped the… ghost from taking that truck. Aren't you throwing off her cycle? Will she come back?"

Dean nodded, "That's what I've been trying to figure out. I have a feeling she'll try again tonight to make up for the loss."

"So, you didn't stop her last night?"

"I did temporarily. The rock salt in the shells repelled the spirit, driving her away for the moment. The way to get rid of her for good is by figuring out who the spirit is, finding their corps, and burning their remains. That's what puts them to rest."

Emma made a face. "I really wish you hadn't told me that."

He chuckled.

She rubbed her forehead, pacing a bit in her spot. "I've been up all night just thinking about what happened. I haven't been able to get the image of that… spirit out of my mind. She could have hurt you; she could have hurt that truck driver. And she was real. It's like a nightmare."

Dean sighed. "I'd give anything not to tell you this, Emma – but sometimes nightmares are real."

She nodded slightly, taking a deep breath. "Alright. How can I help?" she said bravely, taking a seat on the extra bed across from him.

His brow creased, "You don't have to help. It's my responsibility."

"It's going to be hard for me to forget about all this, so I'm helping. You just have to tell me what to do."

He sighed. He might have just met this young woman, but he had already learned that she was a stubborn girl and his chances of talking her out of joining him were slim. And if he were being honest with himself, a part of him didn't want her to leave.

"Fine. When is your next shift at the diner?"

She lifted up her wrist and checked her watch, "I've gotta clock in in a little less than an hour for the breakfast shift."

"I need you to ask some of the locals that stop at the bar or some of your coworkers if there are any local legends regarding that strip of road. Now, I've narrowed it down to two potential cases," he pulled out the two incident folders. Emma took a seat next to him on the bed and took one, opening it. "This woman died in a car cash on that road. But there's nothing about a semi-truck or missing person, nor does it seem like a really violent death, so it doesn't really fit the motive."

He handed her the second folder.

"Delilah here is our best bet. She was last seen alive walking along the strip of road, then found dead just outside of the next town over. But that's all the information I could scrounge up regarding her death."

Emma studied the file, memorizing the name so she could ask about her later. Her manager had been at the truck stop a long time, maybe he'd know something about her. She looked up at Dean. "Okay, so what are you gonna do?"

"I am going to go to the library and try to find more history on our Miss Delilah and if that goes cold, I'll start looking into the truck stop. Meet back here this evening?"


This time when there was a knock at his door, he was expecting it.

A part of him wanted to scratch the case entirely and pretend like she was just some waitress he'd picked up at the diner. It would have been easy, especially recalling the way she'd kissed him earlier. But even so, there was something about this girl that was really pulling at him. He'd already broken a few of his 'on the road' rules, the most important being that you were never supposed to get close to anyone. He'd spent most of his day yesterday talking to Emma in a way that he hadn't talked to anyone in a long time. He told her things that he would have never talked to his dad about. Even some things he hadn't talked to Sammy about; Sam didn't know about the books he liked to read or his favorite scenery spots around the country. And he most certainly didn't know that Dean had promised himself to never go back to his home in Kansas nor why he was so afraid of it. But Emma did. And he got the feeling he knew more about her than most.

Dean was a realist: he understood that hunting was his life and that there wasn't ever going to be a future for him that traveled anywhere close to normal. That's not how he was raised. It was his job to save people; to stop evil from corrupting the world as much as he could. And if that meant sacrificing that apple-pie slice of happiness – no contest.

It seemed Emma had him thinking things that were reserved for late, drunken nights alone in his hotel room or the backseat of his car. He thought about what it could be like to meet Emma as a normal person. As a regular dude meeting a regular chick going on a regular date. There was always that far-fetched idea of finding someone to settle down with, raise a family, and grow old with the love of your life.

But that was a fairy tale; a life he could never lead. No matter how often during the day he thought about what it would be like to pack up the Impala and travel around the country with Emma by his side.

As much as he had hated the fact that his baby brother had run away from this life to go to school, deep down he was hoping that the boy found happiness there. That maybe he could relish in the life he was never offered and reach just far enough to grab ahold of that fairy tale idea.

Dean shook his head. Emma was outside the door and he had to concentrate; he had a job to do.

He couldn't help himself as a large grin spread across his face when he opened the door and saw her standing there impatiently.

"Finally," she groaned as she invited herself inside. "I was beginning to think you were standing me up."

Dean scoffed and closed the door behind her. "Stand up a pretty thing like you? Give me more credit than that."

She smiled, shaking her head playfully as she took a seat on the edge of the bed. He grabbed his papers and sat across from her on the spare bed.

"So," he started, "how was your day?"

Emma rose a brow, "Are-are you asking in general? Or about the case?"

He chuckled, "Well, I guess in general. How was work?"

"No one's ever asked me that before," she admit. She looked down at her hands. "Um, it was fine. I guess. I asked around about the case."

"Did you find out anything?"

She smiled. "Well, I started by asking some of the truckers who I've seen frequently since I've been working there how long they've been driving this route. The ones who said longer than ten years were the ones I dug into a little more. I asked about the disappearing trucks and how weird it all was. Three of the men shrugged it off, blaming the driver or something. But there was one guy who started acting weird when I brought it up."

"Weird how?"

"Well, first his head immediately dropped, avoiding eye contact and all. He was quiet, sort of just let me do all the talking. I tried to get something out of him, so I said that it was almost like the truck stop was cursed –"

"Actually, hauntings and curses are two separate –" Emma's unimpressed expression caused Dean to stop ranting. "Right, sorry. Go on."

She shook her head, but chuckled nonetheless. "He responded to that: his head snapped up and his eyes narrowed at me. Then he said that it wasn't something to taunt, and that something evil was definitely happening."

Dean's brow rose. Something evil? This guy definitely sounded like he knew something.

Emma's eyes lowered and her brow furrowed a little as she continued with her story. "His eyes – they seemed so sad. I sat down across from him and asked what he meant. He said I had the look; the look of someone who had seen it to. I asked him what it was, but he started to pull away. Started panicking, saying that he shouldn't have even come back here and that this was all a mistake. I chased him out the door and told him that I could help. I told him that I had a friend who was here trying to stop the disappearings, that he knew how to put an end to everything – we just needed information. He didn't believe me until I told him about last night. I described the fog and energy, the truck that tried to leave, and the woman who appeared. He asked if she took him," she paused and took a deep breath. "He was so worried, so shaken by my words. Like he knew exactly what I was saying. You should have seen the way his mouth dropped when I told him that the driver was alright. I told him that my friend stopped the woman, drove her away and got the driver to safety."

Dean was listening intently to her speak, watching her facial expressions rise and drop with the content of what she was saying. When she spoke of the pain the driver went through, he could see her own pain. She felt for him.

"He said he would talk, but only to the both of us," she finally said. "Tonight at the diner."


"kendraCs: Don't take to long to update ok? This is freaking good! Im a captain swan till dead but I cant really complain. This is just... I dont know... Awesome! Please update i need to know what happens next... Emma will meet neil? Or will hook up eith dean... Come on I just have to know!" I'm so sorry this took so long! But I'm back at it lol and hopefully won't take so long to update the next chapter. And thank you so much for your compliments! I, too, am a HUGE Captain Swan fan as well, but Swanchester has a very special place in my heart lol. And I'm sorry for keeping you waiting on this story!

"The Lady Geek: Love the plot and whole idea since Emma doesn't believe in magic yet, she denying everything." Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it :)

"Daizels: Really really good please don't leave me hanging!" I'm sorry for taking so long! But thank you :) and I hope you enjoy.

"Kara: Quick question you gonna continue this prequel story along side your other one? I noticed that Emma stealing the Impala kind of mirrors Snow stealing Charming's ring back in season 1." I am continuing this story! Slowly but surely lol. And yeah, it was definitely a sort of mirror of Snow and Charming. That's definitely a cool parallel!

"MaxandThalia: you should finish this story it's really good and i just love this pairing i mean don't get me wrong i totally ship captain swan but swan hunter is a close second for emma swan pairings." I will definitely finish this, I promise! And I love Captain Swan, but Swanchester is the crackship that has slowly started to take over my life in the best kind of ways lol. I appreciate your encouragement and I'll definitely be more on top of this story!