In Burkittsville, Dean got a jolt when he saw the girl's nameplate necklace … Emily! Shit! He had not spoken to his sister whom they had promised they were coming home after the Roosevelt Asylum job. But after the phone call from their father, neither him nor Sam had been thinking straight, the topic of their father always managing to tear them apart and remove all rational thought from their heads, leaving only hot blind emotion. In the heat of the moment, they had both forgotten to call Emily and tell her they couldn't make it because they had got other missions. His mission being to do the job his father had asked him to do and Sam's being the direct opposite. God, his kid brother could be an insubordinate little brat. Sometimes Dean wished he could spank him. Unfortunately the kid was now taller than him. Indeed there was no God, because what loving God would allow a kid brother to grow three inches taller than his big brother. That height had taken away some of the leverage Dean had over his brother. Thank the heavens Emily was short. Well, not short, she was far from short; for a girl she was a gigantor, but at least, she was shorter than him and smaller than him. Next to him and Sam, she was downright dainty! He hadn't seen her in forever, he hoped she had not grown another foot in his absence. That would really suck!

Really, after this gig was over, he was going to drive to Sioux Falls and check on Emily and Bobby, and then he'd head to California and link up with his hotheaded brother and father. He felt guilty about leaving Sam in the middle of nowhere especially knowing how easily his brother attracted trouble. He was also sorry he had called Sam a selfish bastard. Truth be told, he admired the kid, but he just couldn't tell him. As a big brother, he had a reputation to protect, besides, Sam's head was big enough. Complimenting him might just make it explode. Dean just hoped that between now and whatever time he made it down to California, Sam would be okay and would have hopefully found dad.

He asked this Burkittsville Emily for information and went into Scotty's diner where he was promptly thrown out and chased out of town for harassing the couple he was trying to save. Damn, he missed Sam's people skills.


Even as he was talking to Meg, Sam was thinking about Emily. Not that the two had anything in common. This girl was blond, smaller, and by all means should have come across as more vulnerable than his dark, tall sister, but she didn't. There was something hard about Meg. Even as she identified with him, smiled, and told him she was running from her parents and their expectations, she came off as cold and unfeeling.

Also, she was giving off weird vibes. When she'd said she had cut the van guy loose, Sam's heart had skipped a couple of beats. He knew he was being ridiculous but he couldn't help feeling she had meant it literally. He wouldn't even be talking to her if he had not been feeling such angst at leaving his brother to find his father. He hated fighting with Dean but when the topic was their father, the result was always a fight, and this time, it was coupled with the unresolved issues between the two of them after the asylum gig.

So as Meg empathized with him, he thought of Emily. First, she would not have picked a side so quickly, and without hearing Dean's take too. Then when all was said and done, Sam knew she wouldn't have taken his side on this one. The loss of her parents, who had been her whole family was still too fresh and she would not understand how Sam could walk away from Dean, who had been the one constant in his life. She would have told him to stay with Dean, see the case through and then they would both look for John together. Family trumped revenge any day.

He wanted to call Emily, but he didn't dare, not with Meg listening in. He would wait until he was alone. It had just occurred to him that he could call Bobby, when his phone rang. It was Dean. He glanced at Meg, who was asleep and took the call.

That phone call left him raw. Without really saying anything, Dean had reminded him about the meaning of brotherhood. So hours later when he couldn't reach his brother, Sam knew there was no way he was getting on the bus to California. Truthfully, he was just glad that he had an excuse to return to Dean.

His timing couldn't have been better. He'd saved Dean's ass, and the girl's too. Incidentally, she was called Emily. Each brother had been just as glad to see the other even though they would never have admitted it. When they got into the car after getting the girl on the bus to Boston, they turned to each other.

"Well, I hope you called Rae!" Sam said.

"What? Dude, you always call. I can always count on you to call! You're the conscientious one!"

"Well, I didn't. The circumstances did not lend themselves to making a call!"

"Circumstances? You were not the one who got gun butted and tied to a tree as a sacrifice!"

"Fine. I'll call." Sam reached for his phone. The battery had gone flat. "Great! Guess we have to look for a motel to crash and charge these things."

"Then we have a little sister to visit." Dean started the car.

They found a run down motel fifteen minutes later and checked in. Sam hit the shower, while Dean plugged in the phones. He waited a few minutes before turning them on. There were missed calls from an unknown number, Emily, two of Bobby's phones and Pastor Jim. Dean's heart skipped a beat and then began to race. He called Emily first, her phone was off. So were Bobby's. With his heart now threatening to fly out of his chest, he called Pastor Jim. Two minutes later he was banging on the bathroom door.

"Sam, get out of there. We have to go."

"What?"

"Bobby and Emily went on a hunt…"

"What!" Sam flung the door open while still pulling on his tee shirt, "What happened?"

"I don't know, Jim's phone cut out before he could get into details. He said they were in St. John's Hospital in Rum River!"

The brothers were out of the motel in less than three minutes.

"I'm so going to kick Bobby's ass!" the look on Dean's face was thunderous.

Sam silently agreed with his brother.

A nine hours drive was ahead of them. Dean would definitely do it in less.


By the time Bobby woke up, Emily had tired of her repetitive movements and had fallen into the chair and was staring unseeingly at the TV.

"Hey!" he croaked.

"Hi Bobby, glad you're up. This show is riveting!" she smiled. Yeah right, she didn't know what the hell was on. It could be infomercials for all she knew.

Bobby could see her smile was strained. Her eyes were blood shot. She looked exhausted and on edge. He decided not to bring up the 'leaving the hospital' issue, just yet. She looked like a spring that was about to fly apart and he did not want to unleash her fury on himself.

"What is it about?" he asked about the show instead.

She shrugged. Too tired to even come up with a lie.

"You look tired. How much did you sleep?"

"Enough," her voice sounded dull. "How are you feeling?"

"Great actually!" to prove his point, Bobby sat up. Emily got up to help him, but the stubborn idiot managed to do it on his own. Emily sat back down, then Bobby had to ask the one question Emily had stopped asking herself because it was just upsetting her. "Where are those knucklehead brothers of yours?"

"I don't know!" she sounded nonchalant but Bobby was well versed in Winchester speak and even though Emily had not been raised one, she certainly had turned out a Winchester. He could hear the fear and worry.

"Emily, I'm sure the boys are okay. They've …"

Emily had reached her breaking point. "Oh really? You're sure they're okay? How? You're not the one who's been trying to call them since last night! Do you maybe have a telepathic link that I know nothing about? If so, please share with the class!"

That she said all this while still slumped lethargically in the chair was a testament of how tired she was. Still, her posture did not take away from the heat of her words.

If she had been any other person, or it had been any other day, Bobby would have reprimanded her for her insolence. But he knew she was worried and he was still looking for the words to assuage her worry, when the door flung open.

Emily looked up tiredly expecting the nurse with Bobby's lunch and instead found a man wearing all black. In an instant she was on her feet, her knife in front of her.

"Who the hell are you?"


Pastor Jim had heard most of the outburst. Wow, what an ill-mannered child this Emily was. He was not sure what he had expected of her, but having known the Winchester boys since they were children, he had not expected any sibling of theirs to be uncivil and badly behaved, no matter who had raised her.

So he opened the door more forcefully than he would have, ready to tell off the insolent teenager. Instead, he found a girl, slumped tiredly and dejectedly in a reclining chair and Bobby looking at her with pity, not anger. The picture did not reconcile with his imagination or the words he had heard. Both Bobby and the girl startled and looked up at him.

Despite her obvious exhaustion, once the girl saw him, she was up, and with a speed and economy of movement any hunter would have killed for, had a knife held out in front of her. Her stance, her steely alert eyes and the way she held the knife, with no theatrics or spoken threats, told him she really knew how to use it and was ready to. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn this girl was a hunter.

"I'm Jim Murphy."

Oh, so this was the pastor or priest or whatever! She had expected a collar.

Jim glanced at Bobby who had a smile twitching on his lips. The old bastard was enjoying this. Without withdrawing the knife, or her attention from the pastor, Emily reached behind her with her left hand. She produced a flask from the recliner and handed it to him. With a glare at Bobby who was now laughing silently, Jim took a sip of the water, recapped the flask and by the time he handed it back, the knife had disappeared. The kid was fast.

"Nice to meet you Pastor Jim. I'm Emily Avis-Raines." she extended a long hand and smiled at him. The hunter gone, replaced by a surprisingly polite and gentle child.

"I know. We spoke on the phone about three hours ago," he took the hand. It was soft, no callouses, but the grip was firm.

"Thanks for coming!"

"I had to come. I had to see Singer in a dress with my own eyes!"

"Not you too!" Bobby objected.

Emily barked out in surprised laughter. She was still grinning when she moved aside for Jim to get to Bobby's side. She sank back into her chair.

"Good to see you, Jim!"

"You too old man!"

"Watch it. Even in this state I can take you!"

"I would like to see you try! Now she, I wouldn't cross!" Jim said of Emily as he pulled up the unused corner chair and sat by his friend.

The two chatted for a while, laughing heartily and sporadically until the nurse came in with Bobby's lunch.

Jim had thought Emily was asleep because her hair was curtaining her face, but when the door opened to let in the nurse, she looked up quickly and alertly, he knew he had been wrong.

Bobby fell asleep after lunch. Jim looked across the bed. Emily's dark hair was again obscuring her face. He knew better than to think she was asleep this time. He did not know how to break the silence. With Bobby awake he had not had to worry.

"Did you manage to get in touch with Sam and Dean?" she beat him to the punch.

"No, not yet."

"So why are you here?" Emily was aware she was coming off ungrateful, but she had asked this man to find her brothers, not to come and babysit her.

"I'm here because I can be here. When there is news about your brothers, there will be news about your brothers. Until then, relax!" Jim said firmly but kindly.

"I can't," she briefly closed her eyes and held the tips of her fingers to them. She respected this man, not because of his title, but because of how he had spoken to her.

"You should get some rest. You look exhausted!"

She sounded exhausted too. Her words were stringing together slowly, like the brain was taking a long time to relay the necessary message to her mouth.

"I'm fine!"

There was a fire under those weary words, a fire that dared him to say otherwise. Jim had heard those words spoken automatically, and usually without truth, from John and his boys. Apparently, it was a hard wired Winchester answer.

"Figures you'd be as stubborn as he is!" Jim shook his head in amazement. He had spoken to himself, but she heard him.

She turned to him with a faint smile. "Can you tell me about him, please?" Emily loved hearing about John; even the less flattering stories about the man were entertaining.

Aside from Missouri, Jim had known John and the boys longer than anyone else in the hunting community, and he had a good memory, and a flair for storytelling. Emily was sure it served him well as a pastor. He had her laughing and commiserating, sympathizing and criticizing, and with each story, she learnt more about her father and the relationship between him and her brothers.

Jim watched Emily in fascination. When she laughed, her eyes, though bloodshot from tiredness, twinkled with glee. When she disapproved, she did not need to say it, it was immediately written in the small frown and pursed lips. Her eyes dulled with sympathy at the sadder stories, and they clouded with unshed tears at the tragic ones. The way she narrowed her eyes in suspicion and cocked her left eyebrow when she thought he was having her on, was particularly funny to Jim and it took everything for him not to laugh whenever she made that face.

He had to admit he had jumped to conclusions so hastily. Emily wasn't the brat he'd thought her to be. Yes, she was mischievous and mouthy but without crossing the line over into disrespectful territory.

The stories helped pass the time because when his phone rang, an hour and twenty minutes had passed. He looked down at the screen. It was Dean.

"Hello Dean!" he said. He did not miss nor understand the hurt look that crossed Emily's face. "Listen, I'm at St. John's in Rum River with your sister and Bobby …"

"St. John's? That sounds like a hospital?" Dean questioned suspiciously.

"It is. A hunt didn't go exactly as planned and … hello? Hello?" Jim took the phone off his ear and looked at the screen. It was black. His phone was dead. He had not thought to carry its charger with him. He too had a hate relationship with technology. He turned to Emily. "Can I borrow your phone?"

She stood up to reach into her pocket and retrieve the phone. Immediately, she knew it was dead, because whenever she drew it from a pocket or her bag, it lit up as she inevitably touched a button. It was not lighting now. "I'm sorry. I think the battery went flat."

She had no idea when that had happened.

"Great! At least I managed to tell him where we were."

Since she was now up, Emily decided to pace around the room, get the blood flowing, muscles moving and clear the cobwebs of exhaustion that were gathering on her brain.

"I noticed from the way you handled that knife, and the fact that you killed a cacus or whatever you called it, that you can take care of yourself. It that due to nature or nurture?"

Emily smiled at the diplomatic way the man phrased his question. "It could be nature because I took to it easily and I was a child then, but the fact that I had lessons from way back, means it's been nurtured as well. So I guess, both?" she hated people who spoke like they were asking a question but she now understood that they did it because they were unsure.

Jim had never approved of children being exposed to violence. He had fought John over it but John had argued that he needed to teach his sons how to survive in the world they found themselves in. Jim had reluctantly agreed. He was a pastor and he was a hunter, and circumstances had forced him to learn how to survive in the world he found himself in. So he had understood where John was coming from, however, he could not condone civilian parents who did the same.

"You learnt how to wield a knife as a child?" Emily could tell he was shocked and a little disapproving.

"I had karate lessons as a child, for the discipline. I did not learn how to wield a knife until it came up in my lessons, and by then I was much older. I first went shooting when I was thirteen, until then, I didn't even know my mom owned guns!" Emily defended her parents.

"You held that knife like a hunter, not a person who was karate trained!" Jim objected. He wasn't a fool, he knew the difference.

"Oh, that! I've been training. With Sam and Dean, and Bobby, and once with John. I needed to tweak my skills for the real world!"

Pastor Jim couldn't object to this. He supposed they had been right in honing her skills. Besides, they had not picked a random innocent civilian off the street and turned her into a hunter. This girl had been fated to become one, had already had the basic skill set even before meeting them.

He didn't like it, but such was life. The supernatural world did not care about your feelings or beliefs or upbringing!