A/N: Not that my updates are regular or anything, but I am starting uni again next week - so they will be even more irregular, probably, I guess. Thank you so much for the feedback so far, please don't hesitate to comment your thoughts on how the story is progressing. It makes uploading so rewarding knowing there are people reading my work!

"

Suck it up, take a ride and
Take a walk
And don't you know that
Old folks' homes smell so much
Like my own

Time bends light
Paint's all peeling
Wait outside
Take four rights

"

Dawn watches trucks fly by her window, smiling. She drags a brush through her curls, mulling over yesterday. Stirring restlessness that sits in her stomach, fluttering and quickening her heart, twitching her grin.

She thinks about the warmth of another person. She thinks about how different it feels outside of a professional scenario. She thinks about that other person choosing to cross the boundary before her. She thinks about out of character behaviour. She thinks about the laughter, the giddiness…

Stop it.

She pulls at old hair stuck in the brush.

This will all end in tears.

She chucks it onto the kitchen bench with a clatter.

Nip this shit in the bud or we're really going to have a dialogue.

A sharp, freezing breeze makes Dawn pull her coat closer, shoving her hands under her arms.

She wishes the angels had the decency to plop her in warmer climates when they had the smorgasbord of the earth to choose from.

She stops when she realises Sam and Dean are standing outside the diner, rubbing their hands together against the chill.

Dean grins when they make eye contact. "We've got a lead-"

"I got a lead." Sam corrects, forcing a smile at her.

"-so we need you with us researching today. We've gotta come up with a plan."

She raises an eyebrow. "Alright, well, at least let me grab something to eat first."

"We'll be in our room." Sam nods at her, turning to leave.

"So, no training today?" She asks Dean before he follows.

"Doesn't look that way," he shrugs. "A damn shame."

His genuine disappointment warms her despite the cold.

The Winchester's motel room is even more cluttered than the first night Dawn stayed there. There is a floor-to-ceiling map of Montana tacked to a wall with various scribbles, notes and string pinned into it.

Dawn smirks when she walks in, dropping her duffel by the door.

"Do you guys ever get your deposit back once you leave these places?"

Sam smiles at her from over his laptop, Dean snorting at his own screen.

There are no spare seats at the table covered in books and papers, so she perches herself on the foot of a bed nearby. "So, a break in the Seal lore?"

"I've been trying to figure out where the demons have been, and what might be significant about them," Sam explains, standing and walking to the map of Montana. "But I realised last night that the giveaway was the area where they weren't looking."

He points at a spot marked as a point of interest.

She squints at the text. "Lewis and Clark Caverns?"

"Bingo." He taps the spot for emphasis. "I reckon the demons know they're being tracked by angels and they're freaking out. They don't want to bring any attention to this area until the big showdown."

"The showdown being the Seal breaking?"

"Yeah."

Dawn frowns. "Okay… But what exactly is the Seal?"

Dean chuckles.

"Something I said funny?" She challenges.

"Nah, it's just that Sam doesn't have a damn clue." He shakes his head. "Just a vague-ass theory."

Sam rolls his eye. "It's a whole lot better than nothing, which is what you've been doing."

"Hey!" Dean and Dawn exclaim at the same time.

Sam sits heavily in his seat. "Yeah, I guess learning how to beat each other up is useful."

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm," Dawn grumbles. "It's hard work, and I've come a long way to do it."

Sam sighs. "I've been kind of isolated… I guess I forgot. I'm sorry," he looks at her sincerely. "I didn't mean any disrespect."

Dawn snorts. "Forgotten, Sam. I'm sorry that the angels are such dicks, and they insist on excluding you from everything. For whatever reason."

She makes sure to say this last part as a throwaway, keen to avoid any conflict over information she has been denied since she arrived. "What's this theory of yours?"

"Okay, so," Sam launches himself from his seat again, gesturing with his hands. His figure is altogether imposing, and Dawn feels herself slink back a little as he gesticulates enthusiastically. "From what we've gathered so far from the two seals we've experienced, the breaking of seals tends to revolve around the corruption of the 'natural order' of things."

"I thought you said you guys had only experienced one being broken?"

Sam falters and frowns. "Yeah, right. Well, there's been two. The vengeful spirits that weren't naturally vengeful and the raising of Samhain on Halloween."

She fidgets on the bed, suspicion flitting through her. "Yeah, you told me about the spirits. You didn't tell me about Samhain."

"Something happened," Dean ventures, eyeing her above his laptop. "Wasn't good."

Sam shoots him a look of caution twinged with regret. Dawn looks between the two of them quizzically, shaking her head.

"Alright, fine, keep your secrets." She rolls her eyes. "You were saying Sam?"

He seems all too happy to gloss over the mystery. "In my research, I found out that part of the volcanic system in Yellowstone spills over into the mountains in Montana. I didn't think much of it because it didn't seem relevant to the evidence Cas found at the mountains nearby – they're not part of the volcanic system."

Sam is pacing between Dawn, the table, and the map as he points to relevant locations and research.

"But when I realised that the demons were purposefully avoiding the Caverns, and that maybe that was a giveaway to their intention, all the other pieces clicked into place. What if the diversion went beyond that? What if the demons planted the spell materials on the foots of the mountains away from the Yellowstone network to divert us from the true location?"

Dawn nods slowly as Sam looks at her expectantly. "What if indeed…"

"Right, so, the Caverns are about 70 miles from Gallatin County which is where these mountains are located. The Caverns are deep enough underground that any weird activity could, theoretically, if it were strong enough, set off a volcanic reaction from the Yellowstone chain."

"Theoretically." Dean emphasises.

"It's the best theory we've got." Sam counters.

"It fits the bill. Corruption of the natural order – setting off an eruption before it's due. I'm convinced." Dawn shrugs at a grumble from Dean. "From what I've gathered from being quarantined with angels for a year, 'theoretical' is all anyone's got, including celestial beings. We're all just guessing at the checks and balances of… Whoever's world we're living in."

Sam smiles at Dawn – a desperate, hopeful smile that pains her. It is as if he has not been listened to or believed in a long time.

"The next step is figuring out what kinda mojo the demons are gonna need to set off something that big." Dean continues, reluctant to feed into the idea. "We need to be one step ahead of these suckers. Seals move fast once they get momentum, and all it can take is one small action to break it, then all our hard work is for nothing."

"I'm banking on ancient magic, just have to make a call for help on the research end." Sam whips out a flip phone.

"Any idea when this is gonna be going down?" Dawn swings her legs off the bed as Sam clears a space for her at the table.

"Cas is working on it," Deans says. "We gotta assume a-s-a-p, get to work immediately if you're happy to go off this idea."

"If Sam's been working on it for this long, I trust him." She sits and smiles at him.

"Thanks, Dawn." Sam smiles back.

Dean sighs heavily, closing the laptop with a snap. "Alright, so, 'ancient magic'. That narrows it down – shouldn't be too hard to dig up something so specific."

His sarcasm irritates Sam. "Get to work then, smart ass."

Dean wrinkles his nose in response. He chooses an old hardback from a spread in front of him with an eenie-meenie-miney-moe action. Sam speed dials a number from his cell, walking out of the room as he waits for someone to pick up.

Dawn is suddenly overwhelmed at the mess in front of her. "Where do I even start?"

"Read Sam's notes on the caves and the volcanoes." Dean barely looks at her as he gestures to his brother's laptop.

She nods slowly, the overwhelming feeling drifting away into a nostalgic warmth, remembering the first time she felt so out of depth in the Winchester's lives.

17th June, 2001 - Vancouver, Washington (Student Accommodation Apartments, NE 28th Ave)

Dawn raised her eyebrows as Dean, behind the wheel of a sleek, old-school Chevrolet, pulled into her apartment building's parking lot, headlights blinding her.

He grinned at her as the black machine grumbled to a stop. The doors squeaked a little as they opened.

"Nice car." She commented, smiling to acknowledge Sam as he exited under one of the lights in the lot.

"It's my dad's." Dean replied, pulling out an olive duffel from the back seat. "He's lending it to me while he's working."

"Is he a Ghost Buster too?"

Sam chuckled at her comment while Dean slammed the car door shut. "Sort of."

"Listen, Reggie's not too happy about you guys coming over." Dawn said apologetically. "Even though she saw it happen with her own two eyes, she doesn't really trust you guys enough with our address. So… sorry in advance."

"Yeah, I figured. I could hear her complaining in the background on the phone earlier." Dean shrugged. "That's why I brought Sammy. She seemed to like him."

Sam rolled his eyes at Dawn. "He's joking."

"That's okay," she grinned. "Reg is too old for you. Anyway, you're not really her type."

"What's her type?" Dean asked, cheekily.

Dawn snorted as she led them to the building's entrance. "Women."

Dean halted. He seemed disgruntled by the information, and looked to Sam. He seemed unaffected and did not notice his brother's discomfort.

Dawn tapped a key card on a reader. They followed her up a flight of stairs to a set of elevators.

"So, the thing that threw your mug was invisible?" Dean asked as they waited.

"Yeah. The room got cold. It happened a few days before as well, but today it seemed… 'angry', almost, at Reggie." The doors to the lift opened. "And I remembered something you said, about cold spots."

The boys nodded. Dawn pressed the button for her floor, then turned to confront them.

"You're not reporters, are you?"

Dean gulped, opened his mouth to say something.

"No." Sam supplied. Dean shot him a look of warning. "What? I trust them."

He winced in response. "No, we're not reporters. We're brothers, we deal with this kind of stuff a lot. It's kind of a family business."

"Should I make another Ghost Busters joke, or are you going to tell me how you know all this stuff?" Dawn crossed her arms over her chest.

"You're not far off the mark with the joke. But it's not just ghosts."

She raised her eyebrows. "What, there's more?"

"Yeah, there's-" Sam started.

"That's all you need to worry about right now. Trust me." Dean cut him off with a forced smile.

Sam looked sullenly at his feet.

The elevator tinged at their destination.

"Salt?" Regina scoffed at the brothers. "That's ridiculous."

Dean's irritation with her constant rebuttal and disbelief was mounting. "You'll thank me when it saves your life."

She looked sceptically at her housemate. "Dawn? Back me up here? This is obviously some bogus way of getting in your pants!"

Dawn shrugged helplessly in response. "If they say it works, it probably works."

Regina put the saltshaker she had been holding on the bench gingerly. She looked at the floor, mulling over the information.

Sam noticed her hands were shaking. "Do you need a minute?"

"No, I need…" She trailed off, then looked to the door. "You know what? I can't be here. I need to leave."

"If you leave, it could follow you." Dean cautioned as Regina made for the door.

"Get bent with that nonsense!" She shot back, slamming the door behind her.

Dean sighed.

"I'll make sure she's okay." Sam offered, picking up an iron bar from the open duffel on the apartment floor.

"Here," Dean threw a cell phone towards him. "Call the last number that rang if anything happens."

Sam nodded before running after Regina.

Dawn slumped down onto a chair at the table, her head in her hands.

"Freakin' awesome." Dean muttered at the sad scene. He joined her at the table. "How you holdin' up, chief?"

She took her hands away from her face and gave him a small, forced smile. "Bodacious."

"I know you are, but what am I?" He winked at her.

She scoffed. "What do we need to do?"

"Put down salt lines in front of the windows and doors to stop whatever this thing is from getting in."

"It's a ghost?" It was a question more than a statement.

"Maybe." Dean shrugged. "To be honest, my old man put me on this thing. I'm not sure he was on the right track with it."

"That makes me feel so much better." Dawn sighed. "Why isn't he here helping us out?"

Dean's eyes flicked away from hers. "He had something he had to do."

"That's nice and vague."

"Yeah, well…" He trailed off.

"Does he do that a lot?" She poked.

"What?"

"Leave you and Sam to do dangerous things?"

Dean grimaced. "Well, no, actually. He usually leaves us to do it himself, but this is one of the first times he has trusted us to handle a job without him."

"So, the 'thing' he had to do was kind of important?" She pressed.

"Yeah, something like that."

She could tell he was not going to budge. "Why don't you think he was on the right track?"

"This thing, whatever it is," he lent forward over the table. "It was attached to the college campus. It was murdering professors, but there was no obvious correlation between them except their job titles."

"But now, it's in our apartment," she continued for him.

"Exactly. Totally different M.O." He shrugged. "Either there are two separate vengeful spirits, or we're not dealing with a spirit at all. We have no idea who or what it could be, basically."

"Who or what?"

"Yeah, ghosts that attack other people are just spirits of dead people gone vengeful. Something keeps them here, and they get pissed off. Start taking it out on people that are still kickin', out of revenge probably."

Dawn gulped, feeling a chill come over her. "How do you stop it?"

"Burn their bones."

She laughed a little. "What?"

"Yep." Dean's reply came out in a white puff. He paused. "Uh, hold that thought…"

Dawn drops her biro on a rumpled notepad scrawled with blue ink. Her eyes are heavy and strained, drooping and sinking into their sockets, hungry for rest.

The energy in the room that had built such momentum during the day is all but spent now that the sun is dipping bright orange through the windows. Sam's phone call seemed to go nowhere, and the brothers refused to tell Dawn who was on the other end. The remainder of the day has been a series of varying roads to dead ends, some loopy, some straight, some narrow.

"Guys, I don't want to wimp out or anything," she drums on the paper with her fingers. "But I don't know how much more my eyes can take."

Her mind feels as if it is swimming in a murky swamp.

"I'm pretty tired-" Sam starts.

Dean slams his book shut dramatically. "Well, if the nerds are beat, then I'm calling it! Beers?"

His brother smirks. "A coffee, maybe."

"I'll get them." Dawn offers, standing. "…If I can have one too."

Dean flashes his signature grin at her over his brother's shoulder in acceptance, unknowingly launching Dawn's heart into her throat. She turns away to hide a creeping redness blooming on her face, sticking it into the room's mini fridge to chill the blush.

"It's like you're not even related to me," Dean guffaws at Sam's earlier beverage request.

"Sorry that I'm not a functioning alcoholic," Sam shoots back. "Some of us have been cracking this case wide open."

"Yeah, slowly," Dean teases. "The rest of us have been getting trained up for proper fighting. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that, in Sammy's books, working out is 'doing a whole lot of nothing'."

Dawn closes the fridge door with more force than is required. "Would you two knock it off?"

They sigh but acquiesce. She hands Dean his beer and frowns when she sees him smiling privately to himself.

"What are you so pleased about?"

He pops the cap off the bottle, gestures to do the same for hers. "Nothin'."

"Something." She corrects, handing him the bottle.

"It's gonna sound weird if I say it out loud." He admits.

"Now you've piqued our interest." Sam stands, searching for a clean mug in the room's kitchenette.

Dean sighs, defeated.

"Don't take this the wrong way," he says to Dawn. "But you remind me of my dad."

She narrows her eyes.

"I mean, what with you training me, keeping Sammy and I off our throats… I donno. It's stupid. Forget I said anything." He smiles to hide his embarrassment.

Maybe I was misreading the signs – maybe he just thinks of me as family. Ew. She blinks away the fleeting, piercing feelings of disappointment, rejection, and offence.

"How is… uh…" She probes her memory.

"John." Dean supplies. "And – dead."

"Oh." She grimaces. Duh. "I'm sorry."

"Thanks." Sam nods.

"I wish I could have met him." She forces a smile, trying to conjure the image of a man she had never met but somehow knew from all the boys had divulged with her.

"You two would have butted heads," Dean takes a swig of his beer.

"Big time." Sam agrees. "If you and Dean are fighting, then there would have been no hope for you two."

Dawn smiles fondly. "I think we're okay now, though, right Dean?"

Sounding a little desperate, don-cha-think?

Dean flicks his eye to meet hers, batting an eyelash at her. "Sure."

He holds her gaze, a softness and vulnerability suggested in his relaxed posture, an unconscious smile stretching the corner of his mouth. A billow of butterflies stirs in Dawn's stomach as she holds his gaze, feeling herself buoyed, so light and full of giddiness she could float away.

Her heart twitters against her chest as the eye contact continues longer than necessary and normal. In fact, and this realisation sends a shower of sparks from her chest to her stomach and back again, she would describe that gaze not as fond but as loving.

Dean stood up, wrenching his pump action and loading its chamber. "Dawn, get behind me!"

Already running over to him, Dawn pressed herself onto the kitchen bench. She could feel her arms and legs surging with adrenaline and fear, shaking, ready to flee if only she would allow herself.

But she did not – she stayed and looked up fearfully as the kitchen light started to flicker.

Movement caught her attention – a magnetic strip holding a set of kitchen knives wobbled where it was tacked to the fridge.

"Son of a…" Dean muttered, lifting the gun and peering down the barrel.

There was a flicker, like the physical manifestation of white noise, for a moment near the knives.

Dean pulled the trigger, spraying the wall with tiny granules, embedding themselves into the paint work. The sound of the shot was deafening and the recoil on his arm made Dawn jump back with fright, bruising her back.

The light stopped flickering and the temperature eased into normality. Dawn's hands ached where they had been clenching the bench unconsciously.

Dean turned around. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She managed, choking a little.

They were standing inches apart. Dawn felt boxed in, suddenly aware of how crazy the situation was. She could not move without brushing Dean, and the thought of physical contact with anyone or thing aside from the bench behind her was overwhelming. She wished she could lock herself in this moment, that she did not have to continue through the day. She felt helpless and small.

Dean could see the terror in her face and took a step back. "We gotta get these salt lines up."

She nodded, and immediately moved away.

The phone rang in its cradle on the bench, making her shriek in fright.

"It's probably Sammy," Dean said. "I'll pick it up."

Dawn nodded, relieved to have the decision made for her. She did not know what to do with herself, and sat at the table again, staring at her hands shaking in her lap.

Dean spoke to someone on the phone, but his words were disconnected from her awareness. The room was lit up for the night, the lights dancing with a fuzzy look about them. She closed her eyes, trying to control her anxiety.

Suddenly, she felt a hand on her knee, and she jumped back.

Dean held up his hands defensively. "Sorry! Sam's got a lead, I gotta go right now."

"What?"

"He reckons he knows who the ghost is, so we gotta-"

"No, you can't leave me!" Her voice was shrill, terrified. "Please!"

Dean shrugged. "Look, I'm sorry, but I have to. Make a circle of salt and sit in it. Don't move, don't break it. Hold something made of iron to defend yourself."

The words washed over Dawn. Her disbelieving look irritated Dean. He picked up a pole that jutted from the duffel on the floor and handed it to her.

"Here. Take this."

"I'm going with you." She announced shakily, equally as surprised at her words as Dean.

"No way, José."

"Yes way… Apparently." She felt a surge of confidence as she stood. "And there's nothing you can do about it."

"This is a life-or-death situation – with death being the more likely option."

Dawn breathed deeply and out slowly, imagining the exhale was her fear being ejected from her.

"Seems that I'm in one whether I stay or I go. And I don't want to be left alone in this house. I'd feel safer going with you."

He sighed, time running out. "Fine – but don't get me killed from your own stubbornness."

The moment, the understanding, the feeling, or whatever it was that exists between Dawn and Dean for a few seconds disconnects when Sam speaks.

"What about your parents, Dawn?" He has his back turned to them, pouring his coffee. "You never told us about them."

She snaps her eyes away from Dean's, staring ahead. Her gaze becomes unfocused as a familiar, insidious fear freezes her thoughts.

Dean's forehead wrinkles when she does not answer Sam. "Dawn?"

"They're dead. That's all that matters." She mutters shortly.

"I'm sor-" Sam starts, with genuine concern in his tone.

"Don't be." Her tone is cold and distant, sending a chill through the room.

29th June, 2001

There was a phone call. 3:23am (that would have been 10:23am in the UK).

She was alone in the apartment – Reggie was out.

She had been having trouble sleeping since everything had happened. She had been having trouble focusing as well. She had been spending a lot of time in her room.

She had been hoping for a phone call, but a phone call at 03:23 was never good.

She picked up, heard the familiar accent of her childhood. Not what she was expecting.

She heard the news.

She felt…

…Relief.

Dawn shakes off the recollection before it snowballs any further. She closes her eyes and squeezes them shut to focus on a physical feeling, to ground herself.

"Are you okay?" Someone's voice, Sam's, drifts into her consciousness. "Dawn?"

She huffs out a breath, runs a hand through her hair. "Yep, I'm good. Sorry."

"You kinda drifted off there, Major Tom." Dean's voice now – concerned.

"I haven't thought about them for a while." She explains, opening her eyes and realising the cause of the chill coming from her hand is the beer she is holding shakily. She takes a long swig, cringing at its bitterness. "I haven't thought much of the past. It's… painful for me. I'd rather busy myself with tasks at hand, you know?"

"I didn't know-" Sam tries again.

Dawn chokes as she swallows more booze. "I really don't want to talk about it."

Sam goes to speak but shudders, slopping hot coffee onto his hand and grunting at the sudden appearance of Castiel in the middle of the room.

Dawn's awareness is so delayed she barely registers surprise, and Dean only turns when he hears his brother's alarm.

Castiel frowns at Sam, as if the action of spilling coffee was an inappropriate reaction. He turns his attention to Dean, then to Dawn, and stops.

She looks as if she is either about to cry, or about to break something.

"I feel as if I have intruded on a tense conversation." He announces after a few seconds of awkward silence have dragged by.

"You have." Dean answers.

"Should I come back another time?" Castiel offers. "I come bearing news that is time sensitive, but if you are not in the right head spaces to receive it, it is relative-"

"Why are you here?" Dawn snaps.

He hesitates but continues at her request. "We have reason to believe that the demons are planning to attempt to break the Seal tonight."

Dean shifts in his seat. "When?"

"In approximately four hours." Castiel looks at the papers on the table and the map on the wall. "Have you made any progress in deciphering what it is they may be doing?"

"We think they may planning to use the Lewis and Clark Caverns to set off a volcanic reaction-" Sam starts.

"Yes, that is a Seal. They could well be planning for that." Castiel nods as the pieces begin to fit together in his mind. "The other evidence was planted as a decoy, to confuse us and lure us from the truth. Typical devious, demonic behaviour."

Sam shoots Dean a look that screams, I told you so.

"What kind of spell would allow the demons to set off something like that?" Dean asks, ignoring his brother. "We've been at the books all day and haven't found anything."

"That's because it's ancient magic, truly ancient. Alchemy developed in the study's infancy. When the natural processes of the earth were misunderstood."

"How do we stop it?" Sam questions.

"By stopping the conjurer," Castiel's tone switches to one of urgency. "Once it's started, there's no stopping – the volcanic system is incredibly delicate when provoked by magic. Especially old magic such as this. You must prevent the demons from entering those caverns, or, at the very least, prevent them from beginning the ritual. It is of the upmost importance."

"Yeah, we get that, Cas-" Dean starts.

"Do you?" His tone reveals a razor-sharp edge. "I seem to remember an instance recently where you let your sympathies get the better of your judgement, and a Seal was lost because of it."

Dean gulps. Sam avoids the room's eye contact, looking at the counter. Dawn raises her eyebrows at the party.

"Castiel, we won't lose this Seal." Her distance from understanding the situation affording her an objective, reasonable tone, a balm to the tension paralysing the room.

He looks at her, and the severity of his eye softens. "Good. Start to the Caverns immediately. We will assist where we can."