Okay so this one is set in Its a Terrible Life and has parts of the actual episode in it, the rest is obviously mine.

Chapter 36

She made it her mission to try and subtly remind Dean of who he was. She asked him what car he drove and had to cover a laugh when he told her it was a Prius – the complete opposite to his Impala. She momentarily wondered where the Impala was, she would have to look into it. Once she even played some Metallica on her computer when he walked passed, even though she wasn't a fan herself. He had looked at her strangely, and told her to turn it down. He sent her out to fetch weird health drinks and to pick up his dry cleaning. Serena knew that this was normal for assistants, but for anyone else she would never have done it. What else could she do to remind him? Throw herself at him? She laughed at the idea. The Dean she knew would love that, but not this Dean. She could picture this Dean's reaction; he would probably call HR or something.

That night, Sam had more dreams. This time he dreamt of the same guy as usual, but this time there was a brunette woman involved. It wasn't like any of the other women in these dreams – she seemed to be a part of their demon-fighting team. He watched the events unfolding. First he saw the guy and brunette joking about Mexico, then he saw the three of them standing in a big barn, facing each other in a circle as they checked their weapons. He saw himself crouch down and draw the last part of some weird and complicated symbol on the ground. After that it was all a blur, flickering figures appeared close to where they were. The guy was suddenly on the mezzanine level above the main space with a sniper rifle. The fight looked horrible and Sam didn't really understand what was happening. He woke up just as the brunette got stabbed.

When Serena finally managed to slip away from Dean, she got a different reaction from Sam. Dean had kept her surprisingly busy – fetching salads, mixing health drinks and doing general office work. As she walked into Sam's line of sight, she saw his eyes widen. He recognised her, Serena could tell that much. His eyes widened to the size of teacups when she walked straight towards to him. But did he remember how he knew her? She stopped next to his cubicle and smiled at him.

"Sam isn't it?" she asked. His eyes were still wide, but he nodded. She knew that he would be trying to work out if he had seen her before, so she decided to help him rule out the possibility of passing her at work. "I'm new around here, my boss told me to introduce myself to as many people as possible. Sarah."

"Oh, uh yeah, I'm Sam," he replied, frowning as he tried to place her, but he remembered his manners and smiled. He glanced over her shoulder. "That's Ian." Ian turned around at the sound of his name and grinned when he saw Serena.

"Hello there," he greeted.

"Hey," Serena returned. "Nice to meet you." She turned back to Sam. She smiled apologetically "I lied. I actually have a silly I.T. question for you... I can't sign in to the company email. It was fine this morning..." Sam laughed.

"Try turning your computer off and on again. Should work fine then." Serena smiled her thanks.

"Thanks Sam, you're a hero!" She smiled at him and walked off. The meeting had informed Serena of how much Sam suspected, which understandably was much more than Dean. Sam had always been more sensitive to these things and knowing how Dean had been feeling when they last saw each other, wanting to disappear, she was not surprised that Sam felt things were wrong.

As soon as Serena had walked away, Ian slid his chair over to Sam. His eyes had been glued onto the retreating brunette.

"Wow, I gotta get me some of that," he said. Sam laughed half heartedly. Ian slapped his hand on Sam's shoulder. "You're feeling it too, I can tell." Sam rolled his eyes.

"I'm pretty sure people don't talk like that Ian," he said. "She looks so-"

"Hot?" Ian supplied.

"I was gonna go with 'familiar'."

"Riiiight," he said. "Your dream woman maybe? Oh no, your dreams are interesting in a different way!" Sam stayed silent, his eyes lost focus. Was Ian right? There was a woman in his dreams, but her face was never clear. If it was her, then things were getting even weirder than he had thought. After recognising Dean Smith (he had looked up his name after meeting him in the elevator) as the man in his dreams...and now this woman, Sam felt he was going crazy.

Serena worked undercover for just under a week before the strange things started to happen. She turned up for work and saw an ambulance outside of the Sandover building. As always, she headed straight for what was happening. She saw the coroner wheeling out a body. She hurried over to him and asked what had happened. She rolled her eyes as he refused to tell her anything. The office was alive with gossip and when she reached her desk another assistant came over to her and filled her in - a 59-year-old man had committed suicide right in the building last night. He had put his head in the microwave. Will joined in their conversation. Serena shook her head when Will elaborated, acting as horrified and upset as she could manage. Was this the real test from the angels? Or was it a horrible coincidence? As soon as Will and the other assistant went back to their desks, Serena knocked on Dean's office door. He looked up and gestured for her to enter.

"I just heard what happened," Serena began. "It's awful." Dean nodded in agreement.

"Yeah and the guy was meant to retire in 2 weeks."

"What," Serena asked. So he had already started researching. The hunter was still there.

"I know. Who does that?" Serena sat down on one of the seats, deciding to play up to it.

"I – it's just so, so..." she trailed off, wiping at the corner of her eyes. She decided this Dean would react just as awkwardly, but she hoped he would tell her more. Dean stood up and moved around to her side of the desk.

"Hey, hey it's okay. Did you know him?" Serena shook her head slightly.

"It's just the idea, you know? Was it definitely suicide?"

"The guy jammed his head in a microwave..." Serena pulled a face. "Sorry, I meant, the way he died. They won't treat it as suspicious. Do you want to take the rest of the day off?" Serena shook her head, dabbed at the corner of her eyes and left the room. She went to her desk and sat down.

The next day, Dean summoned Serena into his office and asked her to call a member of Tech Support. She was surprised to find that he wanted to talk to Ian. Dean wouldn't say why he wanted Ian to come to his office and Serena couldn't push it without crossing the strict rules of the office. She went over to her desk and searched for Ian's extension number. She dialled it and waited.

"Tech Support, this is Ian."

"Hey, Ian, it's Sarah. Could you come up to 2208?"

"Be right up." Serena frowned but put the phone down. His tone was very different from when she had met him, and she had expected him to hit on her. She was glad that he hadn't but she would have to keep an eye on him.

At the same time floors below, Sam rolled on his chair towards where Ian's desk was.

"Hey, why would someone kill themselves two weeks before they were supposed to retire? I mean Paul was two weeks from freedom. He should have been happy, right?"

"I don't have time for this Sam," Ian replied, in an annoyed tone.

"That's very funny," Sam laughed. His smiled died as he saw Ian was serious. "What's with you?"

"I'm working, it's important."

"HR bust your balls or something? You're wearing the shirt." Sam smiled again. "Did you shave?" Ian ignored him and answered his phone.

"Tech support this is Ian. Be right up." He glanced at Sam. "Got to go up to 22, got to speak to a manager" He stood up, adjusted his trousers and left, leaving a very confused Sam.

Five minutes later, Ian appeared out of the elevator. Serena stood up and greeted him. His mannerisms were completely different, he had seemed so relaxed and carefree before, whereas now he was tense, worried.

"Ian, great, are you okay?" she asked. He looked at her.

"I'm fine," he said, his voice shaky. Serena nodded.

"Mr Smith is just through here," she led him to the door and knocked. She opened the door when she heard Dean's voice.

"He's here," she announced and gestured for Ian to go in. Serena lurked near the door, pretending to be studying a poster.

"Hi, Ian is it? Yeah come on in," Dean greeted. Ian stepped nervously into the room. "Yesterday you filled out a 445-T and, no problem, just a few errors when we did your switch to Vista. So I'm sure you're used to filling out the dash-Rs, am I right?" Ian's face fell.

"Oh no." His tone worried Serena. Her spider sense was tingling – something was wrong.

"No, no it's fine. It's fine." Dean soothed quickly. "I just need you to redo one today so I can get the show on the road with the invoicing." Serena moved to the filling cabinet, she was still close enough to hear.

"Oh, my god," Ian said.

"No its fine, Re-file it and we're square."

"It affected profits, I screwed up. I am so sorry. I – How could I do that?" Serena heard Ian saying from inside. "I failed Sandover." Serena frowned. That really didn't fit with her impression of Ian. She rushed to the door of Dean's office. Dean's worried gaze met hers briefly.

"Why don't you sit down, Ian?" Dean asked, trying to control the situation. Ian backed out of the room and into Serena. He jumped away from her and ran out of the door.

"Ian? Ian, hey?" Dean called. Serena looked at him in question. Dean shrugged and followed him. Serena gave it a few seconds and then went in the same direction, noticing they had gone into the men's room. She sighed and waited outside.

"Ian hey just chill out man, okay?" Dean said, walking into the men's toilets. Ian was staring at his own reflection, muttering to himself. Dean breathed out and was confused when he could see his own breath. That shouldn't be right, he thought. It was always warm in the Sandover building. The taps all started running, as did the soap.

"Ian hey maybe we should get out of here, huh? Come on" Ian didn't respond at all. "Ian?" The soap was falling onto the floor now. "Look at me!" Ian did, reached into his pocket, pulled out a pencil and stabbed himself in the neck. Dean rushed to his side, looked up and saw the reflection of a man in one of the silver cubicle doors. When he turned to see who was there, he saw no one.

"Somebody help me!" Dean shouted. Serena, who had been lurking outside the toilets, pushed open the door and took in the scene. She rushed over to Ian and saw that he was already dead.

"It's okay, Dean," she soothed. "Wait here, I'll call 911." She hurried out of the room, to her desk and called for a paramedic.

"No, I followed him into the bathroom," Dean explained to the cops, Serena was standing next to him, trying to offer support. "He was – he was standing there in front of the mirror and then-" he looked over and saw Sam was nearby. They shared a long look before the cop prompted him. It didn't pass Serena by. "And then he stabbed himself in the neck. I'm sorry, that's..." he trailed off. She led him back to his office and mixed him one of his health drinks.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," she said quietly. His eyes flew to hers and widened. "Dean, what is it?"

"Nothing, I didn't see anything. Apart from Ian." Serena nodded sadly and sat in one of the chairs. "Ghosts aren't even real." He was jittery. Serena could tell he had seen something. A ghost would make sense. She would research into it when she had a minute.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Nothing to talk about," Dean stated. That was her Dean. She nodded and left the office. There was a few filing jobs she had to do, so she started doing that. Office work was so boring, she longed to stretch her legs. After a while she heard footsteps stop in front of her desk. She looked up and saw it was Sam.

"Hey Sam, how are holding up?" Sam shrugged slightly.

"It feels like a nightmare. I mean it was Ian. He was so relaxed...I mean before today." Serena stood up and rested a hand on his arm.

"You couldn't have known, Sam," she said, knowing how his mind worked. Sam looked at her in confusion, swallowed a few times and gestured at Dean's office.

"Is he there?"

"Sure, just go right in," she smiled at his back. They were definitely remembering.

"Come on in, shut the door," she heard Dean say. Serena frowned, she had wanted to hear what they talked about, but she couldn't lurk outside the closed door without attracting attention.

While they were in there, she did some quick researching, pulling up any news articles on the history of Sandover. It wasn't hard; P.T. Sandover himself had died in the building. From the way the articles described him, he was the perfect candidate for ghosthood. She decided to hack into Paul and Ian's email accounts and phone records to see if they had anything in common. Bingo – they had both received emails from H.R. calling them up to room 1444.

"But H.R. is on the 7th floor," she whispered. After digging a little deeper, she realised that room was significant because it had been Sandover's office. It all made sense.

The door to Dean's office opened after 20 minutes and Sam and Dean both appeared looking on edge. Serena looked up at them expectantly. It made her feel better to see them standing together.

"Uh, Sarah. Can you move my conference call to tomorrow? I, uh, there's something we, I mean I have to do."

"Sure," Serena said, smiling at them both. "Go do what you need to do." Sam and Dean shared a confused look but left.

She got up to follow them to room 1444, but Mr Adler appeared in the doorway and asked her lots of questions, and then sent her home for the night. She growled as she packed her things into her handbag. What was she supposed to do now? She didn't want to leave them to it. But Mr Adler stood and watched her. The penny dropped.

"So which one are you?" she asked, not looking at him.

"Excuse me?" he replied.

"I asked which angel you were. You clearly don't want me to follow Dean."

"I don't know what you are...you shouldn't be following your Mr Smith."

"Drop the act. Are you Michael? Gabriel? That annoying one in Charmed?" He sighed.

"Go home Serena, or you'll wake up in Mexico." Serena rolled her eyes.

She did leave the building, but two hours later, she stopped off at Dean's apartment. She rang the doorbell and a confused Dean answered.

"I came to check you were okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Dean countered, confirming to Serena that he had found out something about the real world.

"Oh I don't know, seeing someone kill themselves is supposed to be traumatic." Dean nodded. Serena pushed her way into the apartment and saw Sam sitting at the kitchen table with a laptop in front of him.

"Oh hey Sam," she greeted. "How are you doing? I know Ian was a friend."

"Um, yeah I'm okay, it was...a shock." Serena almost smiled before remembering that would be inappropriate. They were both terrible at covering things up.

"Good." She turned back to Dean.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Look, Sarah, I'm flattered but you coming onto me, it's inappropriate." Serena pulled a confused face.

"Wait, Sarah," Sam said suddenly. "What do you think about ghosts?" Now that was tempting.

"What like Casper?" she forced a laugh. "Come on Sam, they're not real. Next you'll be asking me about vampires." She laughed again and looked at Dean, not missing Sam's eyes widening again. "I'll go then. See you both at work." And she left.

"She knows something," Sam said when she had gone.

"Bit of an airhead."

"No, it's like she knew I had dreamt of them as well."

"Let's just focus on this, hey?"

More to follow soon!