Something was wrong. He didn't have to be a genius to figure that out. Hell, he didn't even need to be Sam's brother. Anyone could have looked at the guy and noticed something was up. But Dean didn't know what he could say, so he kept his mouth shut.

It had been like this for hours. School had been a nightmare—even more so than he'd remembered. And that was before the ghost attack. After, he had to shuttle a hundred kids into the auditorium for some emergency group therapy talk, stop them from fucking around, shove them back into classrooms, and then start all over again with the next batch.

Anyone who stuck around in public schooling was probably some kinda saint. Or masochist.

When Kat had sent over the reports she'd hacked from the district database, Dean had been relieved. Scratch that. He'd been fucking elated. All those years the school had been open and only one kid had died on campus? In the same bathroom the first attack had been in? Awesome. Case open, case closed.

Sam hadn't taken the news quite so well.

It wasn't even a surprise that he'd known the kid. They couldn't go anywhere these days without some miraculous coincidence trying to tell them they were on the right path. Dean felt for his brother, he did. At the same time, it was hard to see the whole thing as anything but an unsettling inconvenience. Every day it felt like the world was getting smaller. Like they weren't in control. Dean hated it.

The ride to the cemetery was quiet. So was the walk to the gravesite. Kat had opted to hang back with the cars, keeping a lookout for any caretakers or passersby. Dean tried to give her shit for avoiding manual labor, but Sam just walked wordlessly toward the graves. Avoiding Kat's curious look, Dean trudged after him.

"You ready for this?" Dean finally asked, after hours of digging.

Sam avoided his gaze. He leaned down to the headstone, brushing some stray dirt away from the name Barry Cook.

"Yeah," he said weakly. "Let's do it."

Dean hung back. He let Sammy take the lead opening the coffin, salting the body, pouring the lighter fluid. But in the end it was Dean that lit the match. It dropped into the pit with a satisfying hiss, and the flames licked up the dirt toward their feet.

Now would be a good time, Dean thought to himself. If he was gonna say something comforting, it would be now, in the awkward, reverent moment that always followed burning the body of a stranger.

"So long, Barry Cook."

He turned to Sam, who was still watching the fire with a far off look in his eye. Silently, he turned off his flashlight and turned to pick up his shovel.

Alright. Not his finest moment. He'd wait to try again.

The flames died down and they flipped the casket shut once more. Then it was back to shoveling, throwing all the dirt back to where it came from. It wouldn't hide the fact that they'd been there. The freshly turned soil was still clear as day. But more people turned a blind eye to a fresh grave than an open one.

Sam patted down the dirt when they'd finished. He cleared his throat, probably swallowing a miserable sigh, and headed for the road again. Dean grabbed his arm before he could leave.

"Hey, just—just hang on, man."

"What?" Sam turned back, confused. "Dean, we can't exactly hang around right now. You know that."

"I know, I know, just…are you sure you're good?" Sam gave him a spectacular bitch face, and Dean rolled his eyes. "Look, I know it's not good. It sucks. But I'm asking if you're alright."

Sam sagged slightly. His eyes flicked back to the headstone. It looked dead without the dancing light of the flames.

"Barry was my friend. And I just burned his bones."

"Well, he's at peace now, Sam."

"I mean, if Dad had let us stay just a little while longer, maybe I could've helped the kid, you know?"

"You read the coroner's report same as me," Dean assured him. "Barry was on every anxiety drug and antidepressant known to man. School was hell for that kid. His parents had split up. He just wanted out. It was tragic, but it's not your fault."

Sam nodded, but continued to stare at the grave. Dean clenched his jaw, and tried again.

"To tell you the truth, I'm glad we got out of that town. I hated that school."

This time, Sam finally did look over at him. He shoved his hands in his pockets, shrugging as he led the way back toward the cars.

"It wasn't all bad."

"How can you say that after what happened to you?" Dean chuckled humorlessly. "That uh—That twerp that was picking on you between classes? Nearly knocked your lights out."

"I got him back," Sam reminded him.

"Yeah, sure. After you were done whining about wanting to be normal."

"You remember that?"

"Eh, not specifically. But that was always your thing when we were kids. You wanted to go to Office Max and buy all your folders and little binders, do your homework, join…I don't know, chess club."

"Shut up," Sam snorted, making Dean smile.

"I'm just saying, your life got a lot easier when you stopped pretending to be something you're not. You stepped up to the guy, gave him a taste of his own medicine. Bet he never bothered Barry again after that."

"What's your point, Dean?"

"You did help Barry. Just by using what you knew and being yourself. So try and stop beating yourself up about it."

"Right," he said, adjusting the shovel perched on his shoulder. "Dean, you haven't always been so down with the idea of me helping people with who I am."

Dean nearly stumbled when he stopped short, shocked.

"That's different. You know that's different."

"Yeah, I know."

"Seriously, Sam? You're still on this? That's…"

"I said I know, Dean!" Sam whirled back to face him, yet still couldn't meet Dean's gaze. His eyes scrunched up in frustration, bordering on agony. He pushed his hair back, baring clenched teeth. "Can we not…? I—I don't wanna do this right now. Forget it."

Dean desperately wanted to point out that he'd done jack shit wrong, and Sam had been the one to bring up the sore subject in the first place. But they were still standing in the cemetery, their hands still stinging from the effort of digging up Barry's coffin.

"Okay," he said instead, gesturing for Sam to lead the way back. "Forget it."

Kat was getting impatient by the time they returned to the cars. She was perched on the top of her Prius, legs folded underneath her, twirling her tiny billy club in her hands. Dean offered her a salute as they approached, which she scoffed at.

"Finally," she sighed, sliding gracefully off the roof. "Thought you guys got lost. Or eaten."

"Ghosts don't eat people," Dean grumbled as he passed her.

"Yeah, well with your luck they'll probably start."

He couldn't argue with that. Popping Baby's trunk, he tossed in his shovel and tried halfheartedly to organize all their shit.

"Well, I'm starved. Either of you down for a bite? Pretty sure there was a twenty-four-hour diner off the main road."

"I could eat," Kat agreed, walking around to the driver's side of her car.

"Uh, could you just drop me off?" asked Sam. "I'm kinda beat."

"Come on, Sam," sighed Kat. "Not to sound like my mom, but you've gotta eat."

"Nah, don't worry about it, man. Here."

Dean tossed over the car keys, which Sam caught with a look of surprise. He looked at Dean suspiciously.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, go ahead. Kat and I'll grab some take out, bring something back. Go pass out, take a shower, jerk off. Whatever it is that makes you less whiny."

Sam snorted and twirled the keys into his hand. "Right. Thanks."

They all climbed into their cars, Dean watching Sam's movements carefully. He was worried, sure. He was always worried about Sammy. But the guy had just buried a friend, no matter how briefly they knew each other. He was hurting. Dean didn't want to get into a fight any more than Sam did. Hopefully his determination to make dumbass decisions would fade away with his grief. If not, they could duke it out in the morning.

Kat was watching him curiously.

"What?" Dean demanded.

"Went that bad, huh?"

"Meaning?"

"Sam's been acting weird all night. Now you're handing over the keys to your car and voluntarily climbing into mine? Kinda seems like you fucked up."

"Shut up," Dean grumbled. He attempted to push his seat back, but couldn't figure out how to work the bars and levers underneath the seat. He cursed under his breath, and then over his breath when he saw Kat watching him smugly. "Can you just fucking go?"

"Alright! Don't get your panties in a twist."

Kat started up the car, the speakers hopping to life with some upbeat girl song he knew he'd heard once or twice. Dean groaned and reached for the radio. But Kat had already snatched his wrist.

"Ah, ah, ah. You can set the volume. That's the deal."

"If I don't have a burger in my hands in twenty minutes you're gonna have a lot more to worry about than how loud your music is."

"Wow," Kat sang, pulling out onto the road. "Touchy, touchy."

The diner Dean had spotted wasn't anything special. There was one very grumpy cook and one tired waitress who disappeared as soon as she'd taken their order to go. There wasn't much going on at three o'clock in the morning, but Dean could still smell the lingering scent of bacon. His stomach growled. The cafeteria's sloppy joes were a lifetime ago.

He popped a squat on one of the bar stool, absent mindedly playing with one of the salt shakers. He reorganized the sugar packets in their bin by color, and then sorted the jam containers by flavor. And then, because he was an idiot, he chanced a glance out of the corner of his eye.

Kat was still watching him.

"Can I help you with something?" he demanded.

"You gonna tell me what's going on?"

"We're waiting for them to make our food. It's called cooking."

"With the case," she said flatly. "Tonight's been weird, but Sam's been off for a couple days now. And I just got you to listen to twenty minutes of Shania Twain's biggest hits without so much as a peep. What's up?"

"Concerned?"

"Definitely curious."

"Well, you know where that'll get ya, Kat…" Dean laughed at his own joke, unsurprised when her only reaction was to raise an eyebrow. He huffed. "Fine. You…You know how we said we moved around a lot? Bunch of different schools?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, this was one of them."

"Wait," she said, briefly shaking her head. "You two went to Truman?"

"Only for a couple of weeks, but yeah. Must've left a pretty big impression on Sammy. I figure that's why he was chomping at the bit to take the case."

"Okay. I still don't get why everyone's walking on eggshells."

"The kid we just buried. Well…reburied."

"Oh." Kat blinked at him. He couldn't see it, but he knew the puzzle pieces must be moving behind her head. "Shit."

"Yeah," he sighed. "I mean, at the end of the day, the job's the job. But it still sucks when it's someone you know."

"I know the feeling. I'm sorry."

"Hey, I didn't know the guy. But you know how Sam is. He gets attached fast. Three weeks and suddenly you're the best friend he's ever had."

Kat laughed lightly. She leaned back in her seat, pulling the salt shaker toward her so she could slide it back and forth between her hands.

"Still," she offered, "gotta be weird for you, being back."

"Not really," he said with a smirk. "Only things I remember about that school are Amanda Heckerling and the inside of the janitors closet."

"I'm surprised you remember anything."

"Hey, I'm a gentleman."

"Clearly," Kat snorted. "I just mean, you know, you moved around so much. Doesn't everything get blurry? What happened at which school and all that?"

"Sometimes. But to tell the truth, Truman was one of the last schools I ever went to. Couple more hunts and Dad decided I'd be more useful picking up research than sitting in English class."

"Wow," she gasped playfully. "You gave up your all access pass to the cheerleaders?"

"Hey, I still got plenty of cheerleaders," Dean defended. "I just hung around when I went to pick up Sammy, told em I was a college dude in town for my kid brother. They ate it up."

Kat rolled her eyes. "Naturally."

"Nothing girls like more than a bad boy with a soft spot for kids. I got more phone numbers that winter than my whole junior year. I mean…damn. That had to be, what—1997? Damn good year."

The salt shaker slid to a stop. Dean looked over to Kat, but in the second it had taken him to turn his head, she'd already composed herself. The shaker was flying again and she was rolling her eyes, albeit a little overenthusiastic.

"Why am I not surprised you've got a mental tally by year?"

Dean grinned, keeping his face casual. "Just what I do."

He watched her a bit longer, but still kept his mouth shut. He wasn't exactly sure it was safe to push the envelope this time. He didn't know Kat all that well, and he definitely didn't know how to read her mood. Still, she hadn't exactly been hiding how much she disliked their case. Her reluctance to go undercover, her meltdown in the gym, the reluctance to walk down memory lane. Obviously the chick had some unresolved academic issues.

Most of him didn't care. So long as she could still get the job done, it wasn't really his business. But he could admit that he was just as curious as she was. So he left her to her thoughts for a couple more minutes before he cleared his throat.

"Hey, uh…about before. In the gym. You know, I wasn't trying to piss you off."

"Right," she scoffed, not bothering to look up. "Cause you'd never try and do that."

"No, I'd…alright, fair. With the dodgeball, maybe. I just meant with the whole cheerleading practice thing. I was just joking around. I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable."

This time, Kat really did stop. She turned to stare at him, mouth open, so surprised that Dean almost instantly regretted speaking at all. And then she had to make it worse by laughing.

"Are—Are you actually apologizing to me? Dean Winchester?"

"Trying," he said through gritted teeth.

She held up her hands, pressing her lips together to show her silence. Still, her smirk made it hard to continue.

"Ahem, uh…I mean, that was pretty much all I had to say. I wasn't trying to upset you, I just didn't think…well. I figured, pretty girl like you, cheerleader, went to college. High school couldn't have been that bad."

Maybe it was because he was looking for it, but Dean could see the amusement wither on her face this time. Her lips stretched into a thinner line, and her nail tapped absentmindedly against the metal of the salt shaker.

"Yeah," she sighed, her eyes dropping to his chest. "Not so much."

She didn't offer anything further. Before Dean could figure out if he was supposed to prompt her or wait it out, the waitress returned with their food. Kat jumped at the diversion. She smiled widely as she took the bags, over-tipped the woman for her service, and scurried out the door.

Dean knew a closed door when he saw one. He wasn't gonna fight his way through. He let Kat play whatever music she had without much more than a grumble, and they didn't talk on the way back to the motel. She kept her eyes on the road. He kept his eyes on the food. Comfortable silence.

The first thing he noticed when they pulled into the parking lot was the absence of the Impala. Whatever Sam had decided would make him feel better obviously wasn't waiting in the motel room. Dean grit his teeth, trying not to let it bother him. Sam had gotten used to driving Baby. One night out wouldn't wreck her. And if he wanted alone time, that was fine by Dean. That meant he had the whole room to himself. It was still relatively early—or late. If he hurried, he might be able to find a few late night reruns of Dr. Sexy MD before the morning news…

The Prius beeped loudly behind him, and Dean turned to watch as Kat stalked away with her half of the take out. Her hair hung down over her face as she walked, eyes to the ground.

He gripped his room key a little tighter.

"Hey, Kat, do you uh—want some company? Crappy motel TV, couple'a beers to wrap up the case?"

Weak.

"Thanks, but no thanks," she called back, smiling wryly. "I'm beat. Some of us actually did work today."

"That's rich coming from the chick who took a pass on digging the grave a couple hours ago."

"Hey, leave it to the pros, right? Besides, I gotta write up a case report or something for my mom. She's pretty much hounding me a for play by play now that I'm full time."

"Homework?" Dean asked with a scrunched nose. "Gross."

"Yeah, you're telling me. Have one for me though."

She let herself into her room and did not look back at him. Dean pouted thoughtfully in the parking lot. That had been downright pleasant. Something really had to be bugging her.

The first thing he did when he got back to his room was grab his laptop. Well, after he ate his burger. He wasn't that curious. But it was time to do some homework of his own.

There was one benefit to having a name like Katherine Moore. It was general as fuck. She was not an easy person to find. But somewhere between all the suburban soccer mom home blogs, grandmothers cooking sites, and middle school MySpace pages, he found a link that pointed him in the right direction.

Dean could've done without the bright pink. But that was probably par for the course for a women's gym. On the top of the page the words "Warrior Women" were printed in stark white, the two O's connected with a little plus that mimicked the weird female symbol he'd never known the use for. He frowned appreciatively, flicking through the pictures on the homepage. Unsurprisingly, none of them showed Kat. They focused on the students, the different kinds of equipment the gym had, the classes. Dean was momentarily distracted by a dated advertisement for pole fitness, which led him down a click-hole into the programs and classes tab. He was disappointed to find it wasn't a class they actually offered.

The About tab was headed with a picture of the full staff—about a dozen women in matching T-shirts, arms wrapped around each other in a very kumbaya, overly happy fashion. Kat sat in the middle glaring playfully at the camera, her fists up and ready to punch.

Dean scanned the blurb underneath, but it didn't give him anything useful. It talked about when the gym had opened, where Kat had gone to school, nothing that gave any real insight into her as a person. The closest thing he got was a mission statement:

"Our business does not change women into warriors. Every woman in this world is already a warrior—mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Our goal is to teach you how to protect that warrior, to show you not how to fight other people, but to fight for yourself."

Well, that was a load of inspirational bullshit, but it did have a nice ring to it.

After a few more minutes of searching, he found a staff directory. Every instructor had a picture and a little bio to tell prospective students more about them and what classes they taught. Dean smirked at the name "Harley Bates"—a tiny brunette girl with a sly smile and her hair in Pippy Longstocking braids. And she taught a dance work out. Definitely Sammy's type.

He almost scrolled right past Kat. It was an old picture. Same face, same hair, but something about it was unrecognizable. Maybe because she wasn't giving the camera a death stare or flipping it off. She had her hair pulled back into one of those bouncy, high ponytails, and a bright blue sports bra. Her eyes were wide and clear, and she wore the widest smile Dean had ever seen on her. It was dazzling.

Dean frowned. Dazzling? Who the fuck was he? A YA author?

He moved over to the bio, but it was just a regurgitation of the business blurb. She had this degree and this certificate and yada yada yada. Where was all the soulful stuff? This was her business, wasn't it? The about blurb should be all about how she started the company, where she grew up, her personal experience and whatever. Where was all the dirt?

Dean chewed on his lip and went back to the search page.

Social media was always a good way to learn people's secrets. Problem was, Dean didn't know a lot about social media. Most hunters didn't. He was wanted in multiple states and also supposed to be dead—twice. He wasn't dumb enough to start taking selfies for MySpace or whatever. But if Kat was still a semi-functioning member of normal society, she probably had some kind of page somewhere.

The first couple sites he got bubkis. He clicked on a link to Facebook, and looked through the first few Katherines that popped up. He tried to click to the next page, but nothing happened. He clicked again. Nothing. He clicked a few more times. That's when he caught sight of the blue banner at the top of the page.

Sign up for Facebook now to view more results!

Dean huffed. That was ridiculous. He wasn't gonna take an ultimatum from the latest shitass website everyone was using. In a couple months people'd move on, no matter what twisted marketing scams they were using. It was stupid.

"I am literally a sixteen-year-old stalker," he grumbled to himself, clicking on the sign up button.

Twenty minutes later, his account for Hector Aframian was all set up—bogus email, fake birthday, stock photo profile pic and all. He typed in his search again, and this time got hundreds of options. He had no idea how to narrow his search. Just figuring out the filters took another ten minutes. 'Lives in California' didn't help all that much. He knew he was supposed to know her birthday, but he couldn't remember that either. On a whim, he searched for Warrior Women under business profiles. That got him started, and after a few more minutes of scrolling through pages, finding the members, weeding out people's profiles, he finally found the right link.

Kat was listed as a page admin. It was another old picture, but this one looked more like her. Her blonde hair hung in its beachy waves, a dark pair of sunglasses obscuring her face in the too bright California sun.

"Jackpot," said Dean, practically glowing as he clicked on the profile.

It was set to private.

Dean very nearly threw his laptop across the room. Typical. Why was he fucking surprised? This was Kat they were talking about. She didn't like telling people her order for dinner. She wasn't gonna plaster personal pictures all over the internet for the public to see. He was being an idiot.

He grumpily closed out of the page, but lingered on the blank search bar once more. If he was really serious about piecing things together, there were a few research tricks he could probably break out. It wouldn't be too hard to do some math and figure out what year Kat had graduated high school. He could look through one of those classmates websites, try and find yearbook photos or something like that. He could try and find Harley's page, see if there were any pictures or posts about Kat on there. He could try digging into Jess's life and see what stories cropped up in memorial pages. That sounded a little messy, even for him. Especially when Kat was already acting weird, and Sam was down and out. Messing with Jess's memory would only put him in the dog house.

As he packed up his laptop, he tried to think back to the night they'd stayed over in Kat's apartment. He couldn't remember seeing many fuzzy childhood memories. Sam had pointed out Kat's graduation photo, right next to Jess's, but that had been right before they left.

With sudden clarity, Sam's words looped in Dean's mind.

"She didn't open the gym until 2004, and she didn't become a hunter until 2006. So why do you think she suddenly threw herself into learning how to fight?"

He stuffed the laptop into a duffle bag, and pointedly slid it under the motel bed.

No, Dean decided. He wasn't that serious about piecing things together. Some shit was better left buried.