New chapter! Done with the Christmas celebration, back to the same old grind of hunting. Sorry for any typos, I wrote this on a migraine, so expect some small edits after I look over it and correct any mistakes I missed. :) (Fun fact about my migraines, in addition to my eyesight going all fuzzy, I lose some of my ability to comprehend words. Great for typing, lemme tell you.) I'll let you know if I make any major changes, but it shouldn't be much of a difference at all.

Over the next few days, Amelia kept her eye on Dean and Jo, watching for any sign of their affection. Aside from a few brief occurrences of hand-holding, however, even her sharp eyes couldn't catch anything. That may have had to do with Ellen's supervision, however. At night when Ellen and Bobby had turned in and only the younger hunters stayed up, they tended to become a little more familiar, but overall Amelia was disappointed in her observance.

The Winchesters stayed two more days before they came across a hunt and left. Two days of laughing at stupid jokes and drinking eggnog, staying up way too late and arguing over who had left their dishes in the sink. All in all, an argumentative, enjoyable holiday.

Bobby taught her how to use a slim-jim over break. She had over a hundred cars to practice on out in the salvage yard. Unfortunately, few of the cars started anymore, so she couldn't practice hot wiring very much. By the end of she could still break into any car in the salvage lot, and had the basics of hot wiring down pat. Neither Sam nor Amelia ever brought up the night in the basement where she had bawled.

The next semester passed even quicker, and before Amelia had much chance to miss the musty old house, she arrived back again next spring, singing Kansas at the top of her lungs. Her knowledge of the supernatural had slipped some during the months away from hard research, so Bobby put her to work right away, reading huge old books and sifting through conflicting lore to assess a situation properly. She helped him cast a few dozen iron and silver rounds and fit them to handgun cartridges for use as needed. After reading the demon book, at Bobby's suggestion, she got her first tattoo: an anti-possession sigil on her back over her heart. She had an anti-possession charm on her necklace, of course, but that was much less reliable and could be lost or removed.

Amelia went along with Ellen and Jo on a few minor salt and burns, proving herself a good all-around hunter. She could talk well, obtaining information from witnesses, and since she looked at the whole experience from an outsider's perspective, she had some novel ideas about hunting. Most importantly, she could keep her wits about her in stressful, dangerous situations. By the end of her third hunt with the Harvelles, Ellen started to give her some slack, not badgering her every step of the way.

The anniversary of Paul's death came, and she kept his memory by not getting drunk, as much as she wanted to. Paul wouldn't want that, not after a childhood of tiptoeing around their drunk father.

In July, Amelia scribbled down some information from the internet, and took it to Bobby, who was taking apart an engine. She handed him the sheet without a word, and he glanced over her bullet points.

"Demon signs?" he looked at her.

"Looks like," she swallowed. "I noticed the first about a week ago, and they've been picking up since then."

"Good work," Bobby studied the sheet again. "This many signs, has to be quite a few demons in town. Winchesters are a couple states over. Harvelles are a few days out. It has to be something big, better call them all up and start packing."

He wiped off his oily hands, and headed for the house.

"Are you coming?" she asked, walking after him. Bobby rarely left, but if it was a big hunt, maybe he would come.

He shook his head, "I've had enough of demons in my life. Exorcism spell."

Amelia rattled one off perfectly as she gathered things up from being scattered around the house.

Bobby started calling numbers, but continued to bark things at her.

"Holy water."

She tapped a flask inside a pocket in her jacket.

"Rosary."

"Not on me," she said.

"Get one. Get a few. Holy water incantation?"

Amelia fired it off.

"Take extra salt, always have some on you. Backpack, duffel, whatever. Never go anywhere without it. Something to draw traps with?"

Three cans of spray paint, and two markers inside her jacket.

In fifteen minutes, Amelia stood at the door with a duffel bag overflowing with anti-demon objects, and a salt gun in her hand.

"Remember, demons are lyin' suns-a-bitches, they'll say anything to get a reaction from you. Be very, very careful, and don't go anywhere alone. Follow the Winchesters on this one, they have more experience with demons than anyone. They'll be there late tomorrow, and they said they'll get another motel room for you and the Harvelles."

"I'll be careful, Bobby," she told him, and he nodded. "See you in a few days!"

She took the Firebird. When she had hunted with the Harvelles she had driven it once or twice. Bobby had refitted the trunk so it had a false bottom she could hide her gear in. Amelia was actually starting to be fond of the car, in spite of the hideous gas mileage and the memories of her father. It could certainly purr down the highway like nobody's business.

She pulled into the small city very late the next night, yawning widely, and drove to the little motel the Winchesters had chosen. Room 113, the text had said. Duffel and backpack slung over her shoulder, Amelia knocked at the door. Be prepared for anything, Bobby had said, so she had an open vial of holy water in her hand, just in case a demon answered the door. A bleary Sam opened it instead.

"Hey, Amy, come on in," he said. "Don't break the salt line."

She stepped over it, thereby proving she was not a demon, into the dark motel room. Sam closed the door behind her, and checked to make sure the line was still intact.

Dean snored on the far bed, still in his clothes, face buried in his pillow.

"We got the room next door, but the Harvelles aren't here yet," Sam said quietly, to not wake up Dean.

"So couch for me?" Amelia yawned, setting her things down on the floor.

"You can take the other bed if you want. But with us, if it's alright. Bobby said to look after you."

She shrugged. "I'm tired enough to sleep on the floor. Take the bed, I'll be fine."

For a second, she thought he would argue, then he nodded, eyes already half closed, and collapsed back into his bed. She brushed her teeth and crashed fully dressed on the seedy couch, trying not to think of all the people who had sat on it. Hopefully just sat. She shuddered, but sleep took her in a matter of minutes.

Amelia woke with a crick in her back. She heard the shower running in the background, and checked the time. Six-thirty. She had gotten up after less sleep, but her head still felt fuzzy. Sam, sprawled on his bed staring blankly at his computer, glanced over when she stirred.

"How was the couch?"

She yawned. "Divine. A little cramped even for me, though. You wouldn't be able to fit half of you onto it."

He nodded absently, looking at his computer again. "You can grab a shower after Dean, if you want, then getting breakfast."

"Sounds good," she stretched, trying to work the kink out of her back, and rooted around in her bag for a change of clothes.

Her shower felt wonderful, after a day's worth of grime from the road, and she came out feeling like a new person even though Dean griped that she had taken more than ten minutes.

"Takes a while to wash these flowing locks," she informed him, even though her hair wasn't too much longer than Sam's. Sam, concentrating on his computer, paid no attention to either of them.

"Breakfast time, Sammy," Dean chucked a dirty sock at him.

Sam jerked, made a face, and tossed the sock off of him. But he put down his computer, disentangled his long legs from the sheets, and followed them to the Impala.

Dean ate a truly incredible amount for breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns, coffee, everything. Sam stuck to a cup of coffee and some toast, leafing through the papers he had printed off. Amelia kept pace with Dean for a while, she hadn't really eaten the day before, but he pulled ahead with the pancakes and eventually left her in the dust. They didn't talk the case during breakfast, too many ears in the diner. Dean teased Sam, who largely ignored him after years of practice, and he moved on to teasing Amelia, who also didn't bite. They ended up eating their food in silence, watching the news on TV or reading a paper. After breakfast, Dean drove them to the motel to hash out their plan of attack.

"How do you even track demons?" Amelia couldn't help but ask.

Sam glanced up at her. "Well, since we are definitely not using ourselves as bait," he looked at Dean pointedly, "just approach it like any other case. Do the research, ask around about the omens, or if people have seen anything strange. Without trying to attract too much attention, obviously."

"Awesome," said Dean and Amelia in unison.

Jo and Ellen arrived that afternoon, and pitched in with the research. Without her daily run, Amelia began to get cooped between the two motel rooms. The brothers left to interview some of the witnesses, and the women ordered in cheap Chinese food. Amelia had claimed the couch again, and she lay sprawled over it, attacking her noodles with chopsticks as she tracked the demonic omens and stuck pins with dates into the town map on the wall. They had found omens going back for over two weeks, scattered with no recognizable pattern. Mutilated animals, organs missing. One person in the hospital with amnesia, potential post-possession case that Dean and Sam were interviewing. Lightening storm.

"What do they want here?" Jo sighed, after four hours of reading one of the local newspapers online. "Other than Mrs. Erikson's date cookie recipe, which does look pretty delicious."

Ellen rubbed her eyes. "No clue. We'll have to check the library tomorrow for town history. See if there's any local lore or old churches or something."

"Could be some artifact, or somebody that knows something," Jo muttered. "They could be after anything, and we have no idea what it is or how to stop them."

"Just as long as we stick together, they're not going to be able to hurt us. We can keep researching, find out what their end game is, and figure out how to stop them."

Amelia broke open a fortune cookie. "Now is a good time to seek new employment," it read. "Probably not a bad idea," Amelia told her fortune.

"What was that Lia?" Jo looked up from her computer.

Amelia ignored her.

Dean and Sam showed up maybe a half hour later, still in suits and ties. They came through the connecting doors between the rooms, and looked at the progress the girls had made. There were more pins on the map and omens taped up on the wall, but there was still no visible pattern.

Dean sat on one of the beds. "The guy was a bust," he loosened his tie with a grimace. "He didn't even remember the day he was possessed, if he even was possessed."

Sam stared at the map, eyebrows scrunched up, arms crossed.

"Well, I need a drink. Anyone else want to come?"

"Come on, Lia," Jo bounced off the bed, flicking her hair back. "I could use a break. We all could."

"I'm staying here," Sam told them, never taking his eyes off the map. "I'm going to go over the research some more."

"Whatever, Sammy," Dean walked back to their room, shrugging out of his suit coat.

"I'm out, too," Ellen said with a yawn. "Turning in early. Stay sharp."

"We will." Jo turned to Amelia, who hadn't budged from her couch. "Come on, grab a jacket, let's go."

Jo went to the bathroom and quickly redid her hair, throwing on a close-cut flannel shirt over her tank top. As much as Amelia didn't want to slog through the research, she wanted to be a third wheel even less. What the hell, she could always hustle pool. She extricated herself from the couch and stretched. She did need to get out of the motel. The evening air outside smelled wonderful to her after a day of being cramped in the motel room with old pizza and dirty sock smell.

"So no luck with the best lead," Jo said. "We could try to piece together where he might have been possessed."

"It's a long shot at best," Dean grunted, "but we might be able to find something."

The bar Dean chose seemed relatively seedy from the outside, and downright tetanus inducing from the inside. Dean ordered his double whiskey with a smile for the busty bartender, and Jo dropped down on the barstool beside him. Amelia sat by Jo, and got a beer for herself, on Dean's tab of course. And another. Two more, and they wandered over to the pool table. After three drinks, Jo hung on Dean's arm, Amelia obviously the third wheel, and already slightly tipsy.

Jo wasn't terribly good at pool, so Dean and Amelia played. As the expression goes, Dean showed her how to play.

"You're no gentleman," a decent looking follow (for the location, that was) observed, after watching half the game. "Beating the poor girl like that."

"He is kind of a jerk," Amelia pouted.

"Come on, I'll buy you a drink," the stranger offered. "Three's a crowd, right?"

"I want to get better at this," Amelia insisted, rolling the pool balls back into the triangle.

"Fine, I win, I'll buy you a drink," he smiled, grabbing a cue.

Amelia smiled back. "Sure."

Jo and Dean wandered back to the bar. Amelia would have loved to watch them interact, but as she was already on her way to being drunk, she had to actually pay attention to suckering the guy out of his money.

"What happens if I win?" she wondered.

He just laughed. "I'll still buy you a drink."

He won with three of Amelia's balls still on the table. She pouted, but got her next beer, and drank half of it before she realized. Dean drifted by, and goaded the man into placing money on his next game with Amelia, saying she needed a little incentive. By Amelia's glare, she was pretty close to ramming her pool cue through his heart.

She barely won the next game, and celebrated with another beer. One of the guy's friends rotated in then, to rescue his buddy's money: double or nothing. The original guy, confident he had Amelia on the string, hung beside her giving her advice and alcohol. Two hours later Amelia had soaked the circle of friends for something over three hundred dollars. Not a huge load, considering the time investment, but then she had also suckered them out of a constant supply of alcohol the entire time, and hadn't pissed off anyone spectacularly.

"You're not a bad player," Dean told her, as they walked back to the motel, Jo leaning ever so slightly on Dean's shoulder, Amelia wandering along with her hands stuffed in her pockets. Jo was in decent shape yet, but she would probably have a headache in the morning. Dean had drank way more than Amelia, but she could hardly tell the difference in his behavior. She could already feel the hangover next morning, but at the moment she was too chill to really care.

"We'll have to play for serious some time," Amelia told him, "you had some lucky shots."

"I've been hustling for years," Dean informed her.

"So have I," she reminded him. "The first time I played pool I sat on the edge of the table because I couldn't see over the side."

"First time I played pool I was still in diapers," Dean retorted.

She laughed. "So you wore diapers until you were like five, six?" Amelia teased.

To her surprise, Dean just laughed. "I kind of walked into that one, didn't I."

Jo smiled up at him from his shoulder. When Dean glanced down and smiled at her, Amelia mimed puking to Jo.

"Trouble keeping your liquor down?" Jo asked her with an innocent smile.

Dean glanced over. Amelia blinked up at the stars as she walked along, a serene look on her face.

After making sure Jo was safely stowed away in her bed, she curled up and hugged her pillow, Dean nodded good night at Amelia so as to not wake Ellen, and returned to his room. Amelia rubbed her buzzing head. She really did hate hangovers. After a very long shower, she drank as much water as she possible could, and opened her computer back up. When the screen started to un-fuzzy an hour or so later, she drank another glass of water, and crashed on the wonderful, glorious couch.