"Don't hurt my baby," Dean grumbled, as she pulled onto the back road Sam had planned out the day before and seemed to relax in the seat. She reached in her pocket, bringing out an old pair of cheap looking sunglasses, probably from Walmart, and slipped them over her eyes.

Dean watched her reach for the radio, turning it up loudly as 'Wayward Son' flowed through the speakers and she sang along. At some point, she'd turned down her window, letting the wind whip her hair and she never took her eyes from the dash.

Dean felt like he was intruding on a private moment, as the car accelerated to 75 and her fingers tapped the wheel in beat with the song. He thought she was reliving a part of her life he had no place in. He was the outsider in his own car, his own home.

He thought, if he could see her eyes, he might see a window into the girl Bobby had described, vulnerable and broken.

"Maybe ease up on the gas a bit," he said nervously as she hit 80.

"Calm down, John!" she said teasingly, something like a smile on her lips before it froze and melted away within the second and Dean thought it was like watching seasons on fast forward. "Sorry," she whispered, her face blank once again, even from behind sunglasses. She slowed to a comfortable 60 and stayed focused on the road ahead of her.

"You were close to him, weren't you?" Sam asked from the back, still trying to find a comfortable way to fold his legs.

She nodded deftly. "I hadn't gotten to spend a lot of time with him when I first got out of the hospital, since he was always hunting. Said I wasn't ready to hunt with him. But…one day he showed up at the Lot, and brought me out to this back road," she said, her voice soft and far away. "Let me drive the baby, knew how much I loved it," she said with a breathy laugh. "Said he wanted me to be a teenager, if only for a day."

"Why were you in the hospital?" Dean asked before he could stop himself. He couldn't help but want to know, and it seemed she was in a sharing mood. She swallowed, her knuckles whitening on the wheel.

"John and Bobby found me and my brother, saved us. Jamie was okay, but I…I wasn't," her voice broke slightly. She coughed, shaking her head slightly and falling back into stone, and Dean wondered if her skin would feel like marble. "I was in for about a month, learning everything. Got out, and Bobby offered to take us in, train us if we wanted to. Jamie didn't want to, but I said yes," she said in a blank voice, devoid of inflection.

"What were you learning?" Sam asked, able to pick up on anything to do with education, Dean thought with a wry grin to himself.

"Everything I could," she said calmly. "I didn't know anything, I had the skills of a fourth grader at best," she paused, laughing to herself as if it were hilarious. "I jammed about seven years of education into about three months."

"How does that happen?" Dean asked, careful and regretfully, as if his voice would make her spell of truth crumble and they would be back to knowing nothing about her.

"When you lived like I did," she paused again, her eyes misting over behind the lenses. "Well, it was lucky I could read." Her lips were still set in a firm line, but her cheeks were a blotchy red. Dean would never admit it was cute.

Her embarrassment seemed to end the conversation, and she drove on, no longer singing to whatever song came after that. She just stared at the road ahead and hoped they didn't think any less of her for being so weak, for being stupid.

Xx

Dean let her drive for hours, hours longer than he was comfortable with and his fingers were tapping at his thighs with nothing to do. She hadn't spoken again, and Sam had fallen asleep long ago, his long legs bent to fit on the seat.

Dean watched her the whole time, his eyes unwavering from her form. He flinched every time she changed gears, though she had done nothing wrong. The radio had been turned down to a pleasant hum of music in the background and her fingers occasionally tapped a beat to a familiar song.

When she pulled into a gas station, and got out of the car, Dean exhaled and wondered if things would go back to normal now. Him behind the wheel and his brother beside him. She walked into the small store, paying for gas and food casually, walking back and waiting by the pump as the numbers rose and seconds ticked away.

They were just inside Maine, then, and she seemed to be on edge. She moved to the passenger's side, allowing Dean to take back his place. Allowing Dean something he needed. She opened the back door, taking out a candy bar from what she had bought in the store and leaned down towards Sam's unconscious body. Dean thought he had moved past simply sleeping, he thought the term was 'passed-the-fuck-out'.

"Prettyboy," she said softly, her hand reaching out as if to shake his shoulder and stopping, her fingers hesitating above the fabric of his shirt. "Wake up." Sam grumbled something unintelligible, his legs pulling even closer to his body. She sighed. "I bought you a candy bar," she said in an almost sing-song voice, and he cracked open an eye. "Come on up to the front seat, I know your legs must hurt by now."

Dean thought she sounded like a mother, and again wondered how old she was. His shoulders rolled as Sam groaned, stretching every muscle painfully and rising from his seat. He took the offered candy bar with a soft smile and passed her to slip into his seat. A sigh of relief broke from both brothers as they returned to normal. Kat cast a look over both of them, feeling like an outsider as she slipped into the back and passed Dean two packs of peanut M&M's.

She fished in the plastic bag again until a contented look came to her face and she pulled out a bag of gummie bears. Dean thought those might be her weakness. He pulled out of the station, Sam already falling asleep, unopened candy bar forgotten in his lap. His eyes flicked back to the rearview as he watched her eat each color methodically, saving red for last. Her nimble fingers raising each to her lips, biting the heads off, then eating the rest. She never once wavered from this pattern.

"Why do you eat them like that?" Dean asked, unable to control his curiosity. She looked up, as if realizing he was there, and shrugged.

"I save the best flavor for last," she said as if it were obvious. "And I bite the heads off because I don't want them to suffer," she said seriously, meeting his eyes in the rearview.

"You…you know they can't feel, right?" he asked, as her face remained stoic.

"Yes," she said, seeming offended that she would doubt her sanity that much. "But when I was little, I could never be sure," she said with a teasing glint in her eyes. Dean smiled, leaning back in his seat and wondering what her teen years were like, since she never mentioned them.

"You're a weird one," he said, flicking his eyes back to her, as if that was the only definition she would ever need. Kat: the weird one.

She only shrugged, taking it more as a compliment than anything else, and turned to look out the window. Without looking up at him or changing her expression, she handed him a red gummie bear. He took it hesitantly, bringing it his mouth and pausing, his eyes flicking back to be sure she wasn't watching. He bit the head off, then swallowed the rest, the whole time his eyes on her. He'd be damned if she saw him do it.