A/N: Hi everyone! I know it's been so long since I updated this fic and I'm really sorry about that :( I've been really busy lately, and I kind of lost my muse for this story, but I'm starting to get it back, so with any luck, it shouldn't be too long before the next chapter is up :)

I'm not going to babble too much today, mostly because it's late and I have lectures tomorrow haha :p

So please please R+R, it would mean a lot to me to know whether or not you lovely people are still actually interested haha

Thanks :)

xoloveJBox

Chapter Twenty-five-Scarecrow-Part 1

The sand felt good between her toes, the sea air picking up strands of her hair and played with it gleefully. Lena looked across and saw her four friends grinning and laughing, with the sky and the ocean in the background. The beach was deserted other than the five of them, and Anna, Brooke, Meredith and Taylor were tossing a Frisbee around. Lena ran to join them, and for a few blissful minutes, nothing changed. Then Taylor threw the brightly coloured disc a little too hard, and it hit Lena in the chest, knocking her off her feet.

When she stood up again, spluttering and a little winded from the impact, the wind was suddenly colder, and more fierce. Large, black clouds rolled across the sky, taking away any sunlight that had been shining across them all, and Lena looked around. Her friends were gone, and the sand was beginning to whip around her face, blinding her. She started to panic, confusion taking over all of her senses.

Lena froze. The howling wind almost stole the sound, but she was sure she had heard something. She strained her ears, trying to work out if she'd imagined someone calling her, but when she heard it a second time, louder and more desperate, she was sure.

"Lena!" Meredith screamed "Lena, help me!"

Lena looked around her, unable to see much of anything, and the beach still looked deserted.

"Lena please! Help me!"

Tears welled up in Lena's eyes. Her friend was begging for her help, but she couldn't even see her. Meredith screamed again, then again and again and again...

Lena shot up in her bed, panting hard and covered in a layer of cold clammy sweat, with her friends pleas still ringing in her ears. Sam stirred a little beside her, disturbed by the motions of Lena waking up, and when she'd calmed down a little, she scrubbed a hand wearily across her face. It had been weeks since she'd gotten any real, restful sleep, and every night she was plagued by the same nightmare. For a little while, it felt like the dreams were easing up, just enough that Lena thought that soon she might be able to get a decent night's sleep, but then they'd return with a vengeance.

When Sam's phone began to shriek on the table next to her, Lena jumped, then cursed under her breath.

"Sam," she grumbled, giving her brother a nudge, then slid out from under the quilt "Sam, your phone is ringing."

As Lena padded over the bathroom, Sam reached blindly across and fumbled for the little device, answering it just as Lena's closed the door.

When she was alone, Lena let out a long, shaky breath, and glanced at herself in the mirror above the sink; she had dark smudges under her eyes, her skin was a little pasty, and her cheeks seemed more hollow than they had been. She knew she was starting to look rough, and she also knew that her brothers had picked up on it too, but what was she supposed to do? It wasn't like she was choosing for things to be like this. Sighing again, Lena splashed cold water on her face in an attempt to freshen herself up a little, then scrubbed her teeth before letting herself back into the main room just in time to see Dean snatch the phone away from an irked looking Sam.

"Dad, it's me." Dean blurted hurriedly "Where are you?"

"Dad? Are you serious?" Lena questioned, and Sam gave a curt nod, glaring at his brother. "Dean, let me talk to him."

Dean ignored his little sister and continued talking "Yes sir, I've got a pen. What are their names?"

"Dean, I'm serious, I want to talk to him." Lena carried on, and when she kneeled on the bed, reaching for the phone, Dean swiftly stretched out his arm and shoved her off the side, sending her crashing to the floor with an oomph. By the time she'd untangled herself and gotten up, Dean was hanging up.

"Are you kidding me?!" she demanded angrily, her cheeks flushing with frustration.

"What do you want me to say Elena?" Dean snapped back in response as he clambered out of bed and started to pull on some jeans "He had to go."

"And you couldn't have given me two freakin minutes?" Lena retorted sharply, her tone laced with venom.

"It wasn't a social call Le," Dean added "He was giving us a job."

"Oh great," Lena exclaimed sarcastically "The guy's missing for months, and the first time he makes any kind of contact, it's to give us a job?" Lena couldn't deny that she was furious, and her rant was changing from her father to her brother so fast she was surprised she hadn't given herself whiplash "And why do you two get to talk to him, but I don't, huh jerk?! I've been looking for him just the same as you two have!"

"Oh Elena, grow up!" Dean responded, throwing her clothes at her "Now go and get dressed, we need to go."

Lena opened her mouth to argue, but her undiluted rage kept anything coherent from emerging from her mouth so, not knowing what else to do, she stormed back over to the bathroom and slammed the door behind herself, so hard that the windows rattled.

"Alright, so, the names Dad gave us, they're all couples?"

The road around them whizzed past as they drove, and Sam was behind the wheel of the impala for a change, while dean once again looking over the scribbled names that their father had relayed to him.

"Three different couples." Dean confirmed "All went missing."

"And they're all from different towns? Different states?" Sam carried on almost curiously. Lena simply sat in the back with her arms folded moodily across her chest, still annoyed at both of her brothers, though she knew it was a little unfair to be cross with Sam-he hadn't really done anything wrong.

"That's right. You got Washington, New York, Colorado." Dean explained simply, though determinedly "Each couple took a road trip cross-country. None of them arrived at their destination, and none of them were ever heard from again."

"It's a big country Dean." Lena grumbled, undeniably intrigued, despite the fact that she wanted no part in the case at all "They could've disappeared anywhere."

"Yeah, could've" Dean agreed with a nod "But each one's route took 'em to the same part of Indiana. Always on the second week of April; one year after another after another."

"This is the second week of April." Lena commented after a second to think.

"So," Sam huffed, once again unimpressed by the lack of information they could actually work with "Dad is sending us to Indiana to go hunting for something before another couple vanishes?"

"Yahtzee," Dean grinned "Can you imagine putting together a pattern like this? All the different orbits Dad had to go through? The man's a master."

Sam muttered something under his breath and pulled over, ignoring the confused glances his siblings were shooting him.

"What are you doing?" Dean questioned, puzzled, but he recognised the indignation Sam seemed to adopt every time their father was the topic of conversation.

"We're not going to Indiana." Sam replied firmly.

Dean raised his eyebrows expectantly "We're not?"

"No." Sam retorted sharply "We're going to California. Dad called from a payphone; Sacramento area code."

"Sam..." Dean groaned. He didn't have the time or energy for arguing tonight, not while they had their first lead on their Dad for weeks.

"Dean, if this demon killed Mom and Jess, and Dad's closing in, we've gotta be there." Sam added quickly "We've gotta help."

"Dad doesn't want our help." Dean told him, trying to regain control of the situation.

"I don't care." Sam shot back determinedly.

"He's given us an order."

"I don't care." Sam repeated "We don't always have to do what he says."

"Sam, Dad is asking us to work jobs, to save lives. It's important." Dean appealed, looking to his sister for some kind of assistance, but Lena simply shrugged, unsure what she was supposed to do about it.

"Alright, I understand, believe me," Sam added "I understand. But I'm talking one week here man, to get answers. To get revenge."

"Even just a few days..." Lena murmured quietly, the idea sounding more and more appealing by the second.

"Alright, look, I know how you guys feel-" Dean began, but Sam quickly cut him off.

"Do you?" he demanded "How old were you when Mom died? Four? Jess died six months ago, Meredith less than that. How the hell would you know how we feel?"

"Don't you dare." Lena growled, suddenly angry "I want to find Dad just as much as you do, but don't you dare use Meredith for your piss-ant arguments."

"Dad said it wasn't safe." Dean interrupted as calmly as he could manage with his thinning patience "For any of us. I mean, he obviously knows something that we don't, so if he says to stay away, we stay away."

"I don't understand the blind faith you have in the man." Sam exclaimed "I mean, it's like you don't even question him."

"Yeah," Dean retorted defensively "it's called being a good son!"

Sam looked like he was going to respond, but it was clear that he was seething too much for words, so her jerked open the door and shot out.

"Stay in the car Le." Dean grumbled as he followed his little brother, watching irritatedly as Sam started to yank his things from the trunk.

"You're a selfish bastard, you know that!" He yelled "You just do whatever you want; don't care what anyone thinks."
"That's what you really think?" Sam asked, darkly amused.

"Yes it is." Dean nodded firmly.

"Well then, this selfish bastard is going to California."

Lena's eyes widened slightly in disbelief, and rolled down a window, sticking her head out to watch her brothers in disbelief.

"Come on, you're not serious." Dean chuckled bitterly as Sam hitched his backpack onto his shoulder and started to walk away.

"I am serious." Sam called back over his shoulder.

"It's the middle of the night!" Dean replied, though Sam ignored him "Hey, I'm taking off. I will leave your ass, you hear me?"

Lena let herself be relieved as she watched Sam stop and turn back but it soon faded when Sam stayed where he was.

"That's what I want you to do."

Dean nodded, thinking for a second before slamming the trunk closed. "Goodbye Sam."

Lena couldn't believe what was happening as Sam carried on walking, and Dean stormed back over to the car. She was even more surprised when Dean actually started to drive away. She was so sure that he had been bluffing, but the further away the impala travelled, the less she could understand what was going on. Sam and Dean had argued before, sure, and they'd been apart for nearly four years, but never once had it been under these circumstances. Lena had always thought that she knew her brothers better than anyone else on the planet, but now, she wasn't so sure, and that scared her more than anything else she could imagine.

A/N 2: I know I go on about Lena's nightmares a lot, but a) I think they're an important part of her character, the fact that she is brave and strong, but at the same time, she really does internalise things that happen to her, and that she doesn't go through all this stuff with no consequences, because yes, she's lived with it for all her life, but that's an aspect of the show that I feel is a bit neglected; they still get scared, even if they are used to it, and I don't really think that is recognised enough (feel free to disagree haha) and also b) it kind of explains events that are going to happen later on in this episode. I promise to stop going on about them so much from now on haha :D