The next day saw grey storm clouds drifting into small-town Indiana. As if the mood wasn't already gloomy enough. The shock and excitement of lethal attacks seemed to have worn off for the student body of Truman High. Now the concern and fear were setting in. Between that and the weather, everyone was looking pretty subdued. Which wasn't great, of course, but did make it a lot easy to get some work done.
Kat slid a hand down her face at her desk, mentally kicking herself. It would be easier to get some work done. If she were really a school nurse. Which she was not.
She shook out her arms, leaning back from her seventh game of solitaire to survey the room. It was empty—a far cry from the dodgeball crowd the day before. Not even Margot was at her desk. She'd stepped out for her second cigarette of the morning. It left the room quiet, almost peaceful.
But obviously, she thought back later, all things had to come to an end.
Without warning, a student came tumbling through the doorway. He was running so fast that he nearly tripped himself on the tile floor, and was gasping for breath when he collided with Nurse Hannigan's desk. The sound made Kat jump about a foot in the air, and she nearly grabbed the knife she'd taped to the bottom of her chair. Thankfully, she composed herself in time.
"Woah, okay, what's wrong?" She hurried around the desk, grabbing the boy by the shoulders. "Are you okay?"
"Me? I'm—yeah—it's—it's my friend Jennifer! Jennifer Tanaka, she—she was passed out in the hallway."
"Where?" Kat demanded.
"No, she's coming. Mr. McNeil's bringing her. I was—just supposed to let you know. Ow, ow, ow, my knee…"
Kat contained a groan of annoyance as she helped the kid to a bench. She was just tossing an ice pack to him when the next set of people walked into the office. The man was carrying a teenage girl in his arms, unmistakably unconscious.
"God, Jeremy, I told you to run ahead and get the nurse, not use yourself as a battering ram."
"Is she alright?" Kat asked, leading the teacher over to another clear bench.
"I don't know. Guess that's your call. Jeremy found her slumped clear in the middle of the hallway. No idea what happened. But that doesn't look to me."
He nodded down to the girl. Her skin was pallid, dark bags blossoming under her eyes. But Kat assumed he was referring to the dark black substance that was oozing out of her nose and mouth.
Kat grabbed a box of tissues, hurriedly wiping it out of site.
"Nose bleed," she said confidently. "She probably just fainted."
"Nose bleed?" the teacher echoed. "But she has…"
"Where did you find her?" Kat asked the boy.
"In the hallway," Jeremy answered with a shrug.
"No, I mean exactly. Where did you find her?"
"Oh, she—she was in the English wing. Outside…I don't know. Room 287? 286?"
"Okay. Right." Kat ran a hand through her hair, trying to think fast. "Is that anywhere near the art wing?"
"No," Jeremy answered. "But she might've down there this morning working on something."
"See?" Kat smiled disarmingly. "It's probably all the fumes and charcoal. It can change the color. Totally normal. She might've bit her cheek in the fall. I'll keep her here for observation though, call her parents."
She ushered them out of the room as quickly as she could manage. Only when she was certain they were gone did she grab the iron blade from under her chair, along with the flask of salt in her filing cabinet. Then she checked the girl's pulse. Satisfied that she was still breathing and no longer possessed, Kat patted her head and made for the door. If there was one recently inhabited body, there was probably another missing life or limbs. She did not want to risk a student walking into that.
Before she could make it to the hall, her phone rang on the desk. Kat doubled back, glancing at the screen and flicking it open.
"Hey, case is definitely not done."
"Wait, what?" Dean's voice asked.
"The hunt. Not finished. Case very much not closed."
"No, I mean, I know it's not case closed. Why do you know it's not case closed?"
"Maybe because I have a little girl in my office oozing ectoplasm out of her face."
"Your office?" he echoed. "What, the nurse's office?"
"No, the Oval Office. Surprise!"
"Shut up. What are you doing at the school anyway?"
"Working. Or pretending I am, anyway."
"But we thought we closed the case."
"Yeah, and you said we should stick around for a few days so it didn't look suspicious."
"Holy shit, you believed me?"
Kat pulled the phone away from her ear. She closed her eyes, her hand clenching the device so hard that the plastic threatened to crack under grip. Digging her nails deep into her other hand, she growled into the phone.
"When was the last time I reminded you that I'm gonna flay you a-fucking-live?"
"Hey, look, I'm sorry. I—I honestly did not think you were gonna take that seriously. I was just trying to get a rise out of you."
"What else is new?" She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore his chuckles. "So if I've been sitting here like an idiot all morning, where the fuck have you two been?"
"Well, we did come to school. Sam wanted to talk to some English teacher, some Dead Poets Society thing. But he ran into our ghost friend instead."
"Is he alright?"
"Eh, he's got a couple bruises and a damaged nutsack, but he'll be alright. We're parked a couple miles outta town regrouping."
"Right," Kat scoffed. "You bolted and left the teenage girl unconscious on the public school floor. Real Samaritans."
"Hey, you wanna explain why the janitor had to duke it out with a sixteen-year-old, be my guest."
Kat wanted to retort, but he did have a very real point. If their quick departure didn't raise questions, an altercation like that certainly would.
"Whatever. I'm still gonna kill you."
"Alright, noted, but—this is actually good. You're stuck there, then you still got access to those records. You gotta go through those again. I think we missed something."
"Oh, no, no! Don't you push this on me! I did my part. I looked through all the records, and Barry is the only person that has ever died on this campus. If something's wrong, it's cause you didn't burn the bones right."
"It's burning bones! Salt, lighter fluid, done!"
"And yet, you still managed to fuck it up."
"Shut the hell up. Just—Just look again, alright? We're gonna look over the stuff we've already got."
"Fine," Kat sighed, plopping down in front of her desk. "I guess I can widen the search. I'll try looking farther back and maybe that…"
"No, don't go back. Keep it recent. Class of '97 through…I don't know, '03 or so? Anyone who was student or faculty in November 1997."
"Okay. That's…kinda specific."
"Yeah, well…it's looking like this is someone Sammy knew. Or at least someone that knew him. Ghost dropped his name before the beat down."
Kat tried to keep her sigh of despair quiet. Nothing was ever simple.
"Alright. I'll take a look. Let you know what I find."
"Cool. Thanks, Kat."
She dropped the phone back on the desk and let out a long, low groan of frustration and fury. Why couldn't she have learned to mourn the death of her sister like a normal person? No, she had to go and become a supernatural P.I. and now she was paying the price. Fucking dumbass.
Before she started down the click-hole that was the school's student records, she made a quick call to the unconscious girl's family. Mrs. Tanaka was beside herself, but Kat assured her that her daughter probably just had a bump on the head. They'd know more when she woke up, but for the moment she was completely stable.
She'd just pulled up the class of '97 when Nurse Hannigan returned. Her absent-minded humming stopped the moment she spotted the occupied bench.
"What the…?"
"She's fine," Kat said, without looking up. "Mr. McNeil brought her up from the English wing. Looks like she fainted. I already called her family."
"Goodness me." She threw her cigarette case back on her desk with more force than necessary. "You know, I have no idea what's gotten into the district this week. Attacks, freak accidents, blatant disregard for school regulations. Suddenly this place is a nut house."
Kat snickered, waving a hand in agreement.
"Well," Margot sighed, settling into her chair, "at least we haven't had any more dodgeball fiascos. Looks like you were really able to get through to Coach Roth yesterday."
"Oh no, haven't you heard? He was escorted off campus yesterday for making obscene comments about the cheerleaders. Men, huh?"
Nurse Hannigan gaped, and with a venomous smile and a deep feeling of satisfaction, Kat turned back to the old school records.
Kat did not like being responsible for the paper trail end of hunts. She wasn't good at it. She didn't have experience finding her way around unfamiliar filing systems, and more importantly, she didn't have the patience for it. Finding the information on Barry hadn't been too bad. In a school so small, there weren't many incident reports to go through. But now she had to look through everyone—people who were alive, people who were dead, people who had moved out of state. She searched each name, looking for obituaries or social media updates or anything of the kind. It was just…so much. And she had so little interest in doing it. She kept hoping the girl, Jennifer, might spring up from the bench and tell her that she knew exactly who had possessed her. Until that miracle, she'd have to keep chipping away at the list one name at a time.
She worked through her lunch break, her eyes feeling like they were ready to bleed. Nothing she'd found seemed all that promising, but it was hard to tell when you didn't know what you were looking for. It was hard enough finding the names, let alone discerning which of them would have enough unfinished business to stick around after death.
It was a relief and a disappointment when her phone rang next to her. She'd failed to find anything useful, but maybe the boys had better luck.
"Do you mind?" she asked Margot, holding up her phone.
"Go ahead," she assured her, before turning back to her magazine.
Kat answered the call with a sigh. "Hey, Dad. I'm actually at work."
"Is that really necessary?" Sam chuckled.
"Yup. How are you feeling? Mom told me you had a rough morning."
"I've been worse. Good news is the ghost doesn't punch as hard as you do."
"Well, that's what I like to hear."
"How about you? You been able to find anything in the records?"
"Not much." She glared reproachfully at her computer screen. "Nothing interesting anyway. There is a whole lot of uninteresting stuff."
"We might be able to narrow that down for you. Got a name for you—Dirk McGregor Jr. You got a second to check it out?"
Kat peeked over the top of her computer, but Margot was still engrossed in her magazine. Quietly as she could, she opened a new page and typed in the new search. It didn't garner a lot of results, but with addition of the town name she was able to narrow it down. What came up was not good.
"Anything?" Sam prompted.
"Uh, yeah," she answered, running a hand through her hair. "But like I said, I'm still at work."
"Alright, just uh…did—did he pass?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry."
Sam took a shaky breath. Kat knew she should probably say something, but she wasn't sure what a situation like this called for. There also wasn't much she could say in front of Margot. So she just waited awkwardly until Sam cleared his throat.
"Okay, does it say anything about a burial? Anything like that?"
"Not really," said Kat, scrolling over the page. It was a death announcement, barely four sentences long. "Like I said, not a lot going on."
"Figures. Well, we've got an address for his dad. Turns out he's one of the bus drivers at the school. Dean and I will swing by there now to talk to him, see what kind of answers we can get."
"I don't think that's gonna work."
"Why not?"
"When was the last time you looked at a clock?"
Her eyes drifted to the clock on the wall. The buses were due at the high school in about twenty minutes, which meant Dirk McGregor Sr. probably wouldn't be home for at least another two hours or so.
She heard Sam curse under his breath.
"Dean, we gotta go. Like now. Put the gun down, dude! There are people here!"
"Where are you right now?" Kat asked over their hushed arguing.
"Uh, the bus lot."
"Of course," she snorted. "Well, how bout I meet you and Mom at home when I get off work and we can grab some food. We can talk about it then."
"Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Bye, Kat. Dean, I told you to put the shotgun—!"
The line went dead, and Kat rolled her eyes.
"It's so good that you still talk to them," Margot offered from her desk. She'd put aside her magazine to look at Kat fondly. "I wish my kids still offered to come round for dinner. I'd have to drag 'em by their briefs."
"Yeah," Kat laughed, dropping her phone into her bag. "We're just one, big, happy family."
The rest of the day left no room for solitaire. Nurse Hannigan fussed about as soon as Jennifer showed signs of stirring, and Kat was left to explain the situation to the frantic Mrs. Tanaka when she came to pick her daughter up from the office. Kat only narrowly avoided having to fake her way through an incident report. Thankfully, Margot thought it was so quaint that she was going to have dinner with her parents that she offered to pick up the paperwork.
It was a relief to get the hell out of the parking lot.
The Winchesters were already waiting at the motel when she got back. Sam was sitting morosely on his bed, his laptop propped open in front of him. Dean was kicked back at the small table, a large bucket of fried chicken in front of him.
"Oh, thank God," Kat sighed. She made a beeline for the food, snatching it out of Dean's reach and smacking him on the head for good measure.
"Ow! The fuck was that for?"
"You know what that was for." She took the chair across from him, and kept the bucket hugged close to her chest. Tearing into a chicken breast, she spoke with her mouth full. "Wha' were you two doin' at the bus lot anyweh?"
"Investigating," Dean spat. "A lot more useful than you've been."
"Wow, and who's fault is it that again?"
"Look, I told you, I didn't think you'd believe me."
"You're such an asshole…"
"The kids all rode the same bus," Sam interrupted. "Took a second look at their files, went to go check it out."
His voice was flat—void of amusement or frustration. It was enough to make Kat and Dean drop their argument. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but he just shrugged. Sam's emotions were an enigma to everyone, apparently.
"Okay," Kat prompted. "So did you guys find anything?"
"Not much," said Dean. "EMF was going off, but we didn't have a lot of time to check it out. Had to stuff my shotgun down the back of my jacket to get past all the bus drivers punching in."
"Smooth," she snorted. He sneered at her, and she tossed the bucket of chicken back on the table for him. "So we've got a haunted bus? How does that work?"
"Not sure," he answered. "Ghost possesses them in the morning, rides into the school, jumps ship back to the bus after the attack. We just gotta figure out what's tying it there. Stray hair, skin…"
"God, that's disgusting." Kat gagged, and dropped the rest of her chicken on a napkin. "Do you ever think about that? Seven years and they've never hosed that thing down?"
"Six years, three months."
They both turned to Sam, who was still staring at his computer screen. Kat frowned, deeper when Dean grumbled from across the table.
"Nice going, Tink."
She glared at him, but turned her attention back to Sam. She did her best to sound comforting.
"So this Dirk guy. Was he a friend of yours?"
"Uh, no." Sam sat back, casting a hand down his face. He smiled awkwardly. "Not at all. Actually, he was a real jerk. Made life a living hell for the rest of us—me, Barry. I don't know. Kinda makes it feel worse."
"So the kid was a bully," said Dean. "Doesn't mean you wanted him dead. All of us get it in the end."
"Does it say what happened?" Kat asked.
"Nah. Just that he'd been fighting in the hospital for a few days, and that he'll be missed. Looks like his dad's the only family still around."
"Well," said Dean with a clap of his hands. "Let's go pay the old man a visit."
"Uh uh." Kat grabbed the bucket of chicken again, slouching pointedly in her chair. "After food."
Sam snorted as she grabbed another piece of chicken, chowing down without shame. Dean just watched her disparagingly.
"Seriously? You're just gonna shotgun chicken like that? Would you like something to drink?"
"Yeah, beer would be great. Thank you."
It was a credit to Sam's skills as a peace keeper that they all made it out of the motel alive. Dean slammed the doors of his car like a baby, and Kat kept her distance in the Prius as she followed them to the McGregor household. It was a small house—one floor with the pale green paint starting to peel on the shutters. The garden was nice, the lawn presentable, but the house had definitely seen better days. She imagined it wasn't all that different for the man that lived inside.
She saw Sam and Dean heading up the path, but Kat lingered in her car a little longer. There were a lot of things she didn't like to do when it came to hunting. Talking to widows and widowers, parents of dead children, people who had lost their friends and family—that was definitely at the bottom of the list. Normally, she could coach herself through it. She needed to speak to these grieving people to prevent more losses in the future. And when she was posing as a cop, or an agent, or a whatever, it didn't feel that bad. She could tell them she was going to do her best to investigate, and that wouldn't be a lie.
But this, she thought as a plain-clothed Sam knocked on the door, this was a lie. To say they wanted to pay their respects when they were looking to dig up a body. And Kat had never even known this kid. Surely they didn't all need to go into the house.
She watched as the front door opened to reveal a short man with neat, white hair. His face fell as Sam spoke, but after a moment, he stepped aside. He nodded them into the house with a brave smile. Kat almost relaxed, thinking she was in the clear. But then Dean took a step back, saying something before he headed for her car. He kept his forced smile in place all the way up to her passenger door, and rapped his knuckles against the window sharply.
Resigned, Kat rolled it down.
"Get out of the car," he hissed. "Now."
"No," she hissed back. "What good is it gonna do if all three of us go in there? It's overwhelming."
"Please, like this is about some old guy. You just don't want to do the footwork."
"What I want is to respect a man's privacy and root around in other people's lives as little as I possibly can! I don't know who this guy is—or was!"
"Neither do I! All I know is that he's gunning it for my brother, and if we don't find out more, another kid is gonna lose a hand, or worse. So for the love of God, get out of the car."
Kat glowered at him. But with the old man still standing in the doorway, there wasn't much she could do. With a painful amount of physical control, she climbed out of the Prius and shut the door softly behind her. She trudged after Dean up the path with her head hung low.
"Please, come in," Mr. McGregor greeted them, ushering them into the house. "It's nice to meet you…?"
"Katherine," she answered. "But really, I don't want to impose…"
"Nonsense. Any friend of Dirk's is welcome in my home."
Kat's stomach lurched, but Dean laid a strong hand on her shoulder, preventing any escape.
"Yeah, we were just looking up some familiar names when we heard the news. Our family moved around a lot back then—military brats, you know. We weren't in town that long."
"That makes a bit more sense," said Mr. McGregor. He showed them to a sitting room as he talked. "I don't recall Dirk having many friends at Truman. Here, sit down."
Kat would have refused, if only to wander looking at pictures, but Dean forced her into an armchair before joining his brother on the sofa.
"When did Dirk pass?"
"He was eighteen," Mr. McGregor said solemnly.
Sam clasped his hands in front of him. "What happened to him?"
"Well, there was…first, drinking. Then drugs, and then too many drugs. And he just…slipped through my fingers. It—It was my fault."
"I'm sure that's not true," said Kat.
"No, I should have seen it coming. He—He was my boy. Dirk, he uh—well, he had his troubles."
"What kind of troubles?" asked Dean.
"School was never easy for Dirk," the man sighed. "We didn't have much money, and well. You know kids. They can be cruel. They picked on him."
"They picked on him?" Sam asked.
Kat prayed that his inflection was subtler than she was hearing it. Mr. McGregor must not have picked up on the disbelief, because he only nodded.
"They called him poor and dirty and stupid. They even had a nickname for him—Dirk the Jerk. After what happened to his mother, he…"
"His mother?" Sam asked, almost too quickly.
"Yeah, Jane—my wife. She died when Dirk was thirteen. Cancer. I was working three jobs, so it fell to Dirk to take care of her. And he was a great kid. He made sure Jane got her medicine, he helped her, cleaned up after her. But you know, you—you watch somebody die slow, waste away to nothing…it does things to a person. Horrible things."
Kat pressed a hand over her mouth. She didn't even want to hear her own breathing in the heavy silence that had settled over the room. She didn't want to move, or hear the furniture creak under her. She hated the misery that life dumped on people.
"I didn't know about his mother," Sam said quietly.
"He—He wouldn't talk about her," Mr. McGregor said with a bitter smile. "Not even to me. Lot of anger in that boy."
"I'm sorry."
Kat nodded in agreement with Sam's sentiments. It was all she could really bring herself to do.
"Well," said Dean, in a loud, unaffected voice. "We'd really like to pay our respects, Mr. McGregor. Um, you mind telling us where Dirk is buried?"
"Oh, he wasn't," Mr. McGregor answered. "I had him cremated."
There was a pause as Sam, Dean and Kat all looked at each other, pretending desperately that they weren't looking at each other. No grave meant no body, which meant whatever was keeping Dirk here was going to be a lot smaller and harder to destroy.
"All of him?" Dean asked weakly.
Thankfully, Sam was close enough to furtively elbow him.
"W-Well, I kept a lock of his hair," said Mr. McGregor, completely nonplussed.
"Oh, that's—that's nice," said Dean. "Where do you keep that?"
Kat was very glad that she was sitting in the armchair, where she could glare holes into Dean's very skin without having to hide her expression.
"On my bus?" Mr. McGregor answered. "In my Bible."
Dean nodded sagely, exchanging a look with Sam, but evidently did not think it was worth the effort to say anything.
"My mom did the same thing," Kat said, in an attempt to diffuse the tension. "When my sister died, she—she bought a special locket that she keeps in her room. She wanted one of those fancy frames—the little, uh…shadow box thing. But I told her I wouldn't be able to look at it."
The old man's skepticism melted away into a miserable, commiserating grin.
"I know what you mean. Truth be told, I don't take it out much—hair or the Bible. I don't have to read it to know God's looking out for me. I suppose it's the same with Dirk. I know he's still there, and that's all that matters."
"That's really beautiful," Dean said with a hollow smile. "Anyway, like Kathy said, we don't want to impose, so we'll just get out of your hair. Again, we are so, so sorry for your loss."
Dean was the first up from the sofa, clapping Sam on the shoulder and shaking hands with the still-extremely-confused Mr. McGregor. He patted the arm of Kat's chair as he passed, urging her to move. Kat took the opportunity to snatch his hand and dig her nails into his wrist.
Maintaining her grip but ignoring his smothered sounds of pain, she stepped around him to shake hands with Mr. McGregor. "Thank you so much for seeing us. I hope you have a good day."
Dean dragged her outside before she could say anything else. They were barely out of the door before he was clawing frantically at her fingers. But Kat did not let go.
"Fuck! Kat, I swear—ow!"
"Call me 'Kathy' again, and I chop the whole hand off."
"Fine! I got—I got it!"
She threw his hand back to him, satisfied by the way he hugged his arm close to his chest. He checked his skin, blubbering like a baby, and Kat rolled her eyes. "Relax, I barely scratched you."
"Bare—I'm bleeding! Look at this!"
Kat would've continued the argument, but Sam had finally followed them out of the house. He kept his eyes low, wandering right between the two of them as he made his way back to the Impala. He didn't even try and stop them from making a scene.
Dean pursed his lips, nodding to her. "Guess we'll take lead back to the bus lot."
"Sure. I'll meet you guys there."
The benefit of being in a small town was that they didn't have far to go. The district lot was barely five minutes away. Kat pulled in right behind the Winchesters and followed them right around to the back. She didn't think much of it as they circled the buses, even weaving up and down some of the lanes. In fact, she didn't even realize something was wrong until they were back in the front parking lot.
"You've gotta be kidding me," she grumbled, watching the Impala coast to a stop.
Dean climbed out of the driver's side and patted his car on the roof. Kat tried to wave him down, looking for any indication of what the fuck was going on. But of course, Dean had more important things to worry about. He just jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the Impala and kept walking.
Kat simmered. She was getting really tired of being directed around.
Killing the engine, she slid out of the Prius and hopped into the Winchester's car. She considered the front seat, if only to piss Dean off, but there were some lines even she didn't want to cross.
"Hey," she greeted Sam, ducking into the backseat. "I know I say this all the time, but your brother is a real asshole."
"Yeah, I know," he chuckled weakly. "Sorry about that."
"Well, it's not exactly news. What's going on? Why're we idling?"
"Can't find the bus," Sam sighed. "Dean's going up to the office to ask."
Kat nodded, but Sam didn't offer anything else. His hands were still folded in front of him, just like they'd been on the sofa. He stared sightlessly at the dashboard, hair in his eyes.
It was pretty clear this was some kind of set up. But Kat took the bait anyway.
"How you feeling?" she asked, stretching her legs across the back bench.
"Hm?" Sam looked up, wide-eyed. "Oh, I'm good. Yeah. Fine."
"Sam."
He smiled bitterly and twisted to face her. "Not great, I guess."
"I figured as much. I mean, I imagine it's gotta be weird. Even if you weren't friends. Someone you knew, but didn't quite know. And now they're gone. Shakes you up."
"It's not that." Sam leaned back against the passenger door, staring resolutely at the steering wheel. "I told you that Dirk used to pick on Barry. Pick on me."
"Yeah, so? You heard McGregor. Kids are cruel. Everyone's been on the receiving end at one point or another."
"Yeah, but that name…I made that up. I said that to Dirk and…man, the other kids treated me like some kind of hero. I actually thought I was standing up for Barry, helping him. And I did I really did was ruin Dirk's life."
"Alright, well let's not get out of hand," said Kat. "The kid said something mean and you reacted. Everyone knows middle school is a war zone. It's hard enough worrying about yourself. You don't have time to worry about what everyone else is going through."
"But I did have the experience," Sam argued. "Look, I know you're kind of new to hunting, but…it gives you a different perspective. I walked into school every day and I knew so much more about the real world than those other kids. About life."
"Sam, you knew about monsters and loss. That doesn't make you a licensed therapist. Especially at thirteen."
He laughed dryly, and ran a hand through his hair. "I know. I guess I just feel guilty."
"You had no control over what those other kids did."
"No, I get that. Logically, anyway, but…I just can't believe I never stopped to think what happened to him."
"Hey, I don't talk to anyone I went to school with," said Kat with a shrug. "Out of sight, out of mind. Better off that way."
Sam nodded, but he didn't seem all that convinced. Kat leaned across the seat to smack him lightly on the shoulder.
"Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I know you wouldn't have let that happen to him if you had the choice. If you'd stuck around, you wouldn't let those kids rag on him, no matter how shitty he was to you."
"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice weak. "Cause…I'm not."
Kat sighed. Clearly Sam's guilt complex was not something to be taken lightly. She kicked her legs off the seat and sat up straight, folding her arms over the front seat. Then she looked him head on.
"Alright, you want the truth? I don't know what you'd do. Cause if you'd stayed at Truman for more than a month, you wouldn't be the Sam Winchester I met at Stanford. So it doesn't matter. All that matters is what you're gonna do now. All that drama and grief is keeping Dirk stuck here, miserable, and you're gonna fix that for him. Cause you're the only one who can. You couldn't help him then, but you can do something about it now. Got it?"
Sam stared at her. It made her a little uncomfortable, as did the small smile that was growing on his face. But she figured that was better than crying. Finally, he nodded, and she sank back into her seat.
"Good. And not to be crass, but Dirk does rhyme with jerk, and someone else would've realized that eventually."
"Jesus, Kat," Sam wheezed, shaking his head.
"What? I'm serious. Do you know how many people I've spoken to that think they've invented the nickname Kit Kat? Everyone thinks they're the funniest, most original person on the planet. I'm telling you, even if you hadn't called him Dirk the Jerk, the next year some jock would've coined…I don't know. Dirky Jerky or something."
"That doesn't even make any sense."
Kat shrugged, unperturbed, but was interrupted by a sharp knock on the window. Dean hopped into the driver's seat, looking more annoyed than anything.
"Bad news," he sighed. "Bus isn't here."
"No shit," said Kat. "So where is it?"
"Field trip. Wrestling team has an away meet for the championships. It's an overnight."
"Any idea where they're headed?" asked Sam.
"Yeah, and I know where we can cut 'em off. But we're gonna have to make pretty good time, so. Hold on tight."
"Wait, what?"
Kat scrambled, but the car was already lurching forward. She barely had time to lock her Prius from the back window before they were peeling out of the parking lot and back onto the road.