Disclaimer: I don't own anything, least of all The WB's Supernatural.

LOS ANGELES TIMES April 4, 2001

Police responded to a 911 call from 1411 Harbor Street at 11:55 p.m., April 2, 2001. The caller was an 8-year-old child whose name has been withheld. According to police transcripts of said call, the child was in a panic and alleged that his mother was being attacked by an unseen assailant. Upon arriving at the scene the two officers dispatched found the woman lying on her bed in a state of shock. She was taken to Mercy Hospital where it was discovered that she had been a patient several months earlier of the Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic. The child was found unharmed hiding in a linen closet. When interviewed he claimed that his mother was attacked by "an invisible man." According to sources, the woman, whose identity remains unconfirmed, was placed at Hartman Psychiatric Institute in Sacramento as requested by her estranged husband. Police feel that further investigation is not warranted.

"Kathy Riggs," Sam reads from the top of the paper. The piles, once neat and organized, have been fairly well desecrated as random sheets lie strewn about. The article from the LA Times was found buried beneath a number of other pieces cut out of various papers from around the nation. Many of them were seemingly unimportant, one discussed new drug trials, another focused a terrorist attack in Indonesia, and yet another was about an annual dog parade. It took a while for Sam and Dean to realize what she had been doing in setting things up as she did. It was a pattern, one that they were supposed to figure out for themselves, one that hopefully others wouldn't be able to. If anyone else had come into the room and began looking through the research laying about they likely would have quickly concluded that all of this was simply the work of a mad woman, some sort of paranoid and delusional individual who somehow found connections between dog parades and demons. But of course, that's how she wanted it to seem.

It took about an hour and a half before Sam found the pattern. Every third article was significant. They ran in descending order, not from the time of publication, but from the time of investigation. That, he figured out after finding a log sheet buried within yet another pile of notes, one that had written on it nothing more than the name of a city followed by two dates. He had to go through several different attempts at arranging the papers before discovering that the first date was the one on the article itself, the second then, he concluded, was when she must have gone to the city to investigate.

Once all of the newspaper clippings had been rooted through and effectively organized, he went on to find the corresponding notes. This was much more time consuming and proved to be too much of a chore for Dean who lacked the necessary patience. "She went to St. Louis," he says, hard at work on his new task, setting up an itinerary of sorts, where she went, when, and why. He put together numerous piles containing the pertinent articles and whatever snippets of information were found within the notes Sam was still going through. "Four months ago," he continues and then holds up the cut out of the article she had emailed them months ago.

"Yeah, I saw that," Sam says before looking up and preparing to change the subject. "I think Kathy Riggs was the woman from LA. This whole page has notes about the real estate market out there."

"Real estate?"

"Yeah, but the only thing that's underlined is her name." He hands the sheet to Dean and picks up another as his brother finds the pile set aside for LA and Sacramento. Already three pieces of paper sit there, the article from the Times, a print out on the objectives of Hartman Psychiatric Institute, and a torn piece of paper with a handwritten list titled Common Delusions and Hallucinations. All of the things listed there were in relation to actual events they had witnessed. Parktowne possession…spirit inhabited a small boy for weeks. Minnesota Poltergeist…successful banishment, but not before veritable destruction to house. They had worked those cases together, Dean and Tessa, their father too. He had always known that if other people found out about what they did they would think they all were nuts, so really, he guessed, it wasn't a bad idea to use these events as evidence of a mental illness. Certainly she'd be convincing when talking about them.

"I think I'm starting to get the hang of this," Sam says as he looks at all of the stacks that surround him.

"Yeah, well you're the only one."

"I mean there is a pattern. It just changes is all. I don't know, maybe you just have to be in the right frame of mind."

"Would that be the crazy frame?"

"Kind of. Man, we've being doing this for," he stops and looks at his watch, "six hours." He stretches awkwardly and rolls his head, tries to work the kinks out of his neck, but to no avail. "I guess you immerse yourself in it like this for so long and all the crazy just stars to make sense."

"Yeah, I guess so," he says turning to his brother. "Why don't you get some sleep. I can keep this up for a while."

"No offense Dean, but you're not gonna have any idea what she's done here. I mean I've been going through these and you really have to look at it all for it to make any sense."

"Excuse me, Boy Wonder. I guess I'd just be too stupid to figure anything out without your help, huh?" he says, grabbing the piece of paper from Sam's hands.

"I'm just saying, I'm kind of on a roll." He grabs another sheet and scans it for details. It's a recipe for devil's food cake. The only odd thing about it is that instead of having any flour, it calls for two cups of Mississippi mud. "Here," he says, handing it to Dean. "File under Oxford."

Dean looks at it and frowns. "What is this? A recipe? What the hell?"

"The numbers at the bottom are what we need," he says getting up and looming over Dean's shoulder, pointing to the directions at the end of the page. 23-67 minutes at 473 degrees.

"What?"

"The news from Oxford," he goes on, digging out the copied article. "February 3rd, 1967." The article is about a house fire that killed an area man, Wayne Johnson. "He was 47-years-old and is survived by his three children," Sam reads triumphantly. "And that," he indicates the sheet Dean stole from him moments ago, which now lies askew in his lap, "should be with everything from Springborough." Dean shoots him a quizzical look. "The flowers," he says, pointing to the corner of the page where tiny buds have been drawn in bright red ink. "Everything from Springborough has flowers doodled on it. Get it? Spring…flowers."

"Uh, yeah…I get it. You're both nuts."

"Just call it a twin thing."

"I just don't see why she did it, I mean set all this up, make us jump through hoops."

"She's scared it'll fall into the wrong hands. Somebody who shouldn't know will find out."

"Yeah, but who? This is a lot to go through just based on some hunch that there might be somebody out there who'd want this information. She's not really the paranoid type, not this paranoid anyway."

"So she knows for sure," Sam offers, taking a seat on the bed and commencing rubbing his sore neck. "When I talked to Dad he said it wasn't safe, like someone was after us, or something."

"So maybe he told her that too, told her to be careful, overly cautious."

The brothers sit in silence for a moment, Dean flips through the stack from Oxford, Mississippi while Sam remains on the bed, lost in his thoughts. Then something occurs to him. "Maybe she told Dad."

Dean turns to face him. "What do you mean?"

"We kind of forgot about the little detail of her showing up here beat to hell."

"You think somebody got a hold of her?" Sam raises his eyebrows, gives Dean an it's possible look. "Yeah but that was two days after Dad called us. Whatever happened to her must have happened just before she got here. There're bloody towels in the bathroom, Band-Aids. She cleaned herself up here."

"Maybe…I don't know. Maybe whoever it was got a hold of her then, but he could have been following her before or something."

"And she called Dad when she figured that out to warn him?"

"Possible." Sam takes a deep breath and scratches his head, tries to think despite the sleep deprived fog he's fallen into. "She checked out of that clinic the morning of the 29th." He goes over to the table where the recently faxed medical records still sit and reads through them. "Seven in the morning," he says without looking up.

"Seven in Vermont. We were in Illinois, that's six."

"And Dad called us around seven, our time. So she could have checked out, called him, and bailed…"

"Which she must have done, hauled ass to get here in a day and a half."

"Like she was running from something."

"Okay," Dean says as he rises and starts to pace, not paying any attention to the papers his feet shuffle over. Sam doesn't seem to notice the mess he's making either. "Okay, so something happens at that clinic, and she gets scared."

"This whole time we were thinking she just found out what she needed and that's why she checked out in such a hurry. But if she was freaked about something, then that makes a lot more sense. It explains a lot, why everything's a puzzle, why we're here in the middle of no where, a place she never mentioned – "

"And isn't mentioned in any of this stuff," he says, sweeping his hand to indicate all the clutter.

"Right. And then she's gone. Because she's still running?"

"Because she doesn't want us to get hurt," he says softly, stopping in his tracks. He turns to Sam solemnly. "If this thing, or whatever, found her once, she probably thinks it could again."

"So she's playing Dad. Great." Sam lets out a frustrated sigh. Why was this family so intent on sheltering each other? Whatever this thing is, it has to do with all of them. They all should be able to know about it.

"No," Dean says firmly. "She's not. Look around, Sammy. She left everything here for us. She wants us to figure it out. But if she's being hunted…"

"Okay," he says sitting upright. "She wants us to stay safe long enough to figure this out. And as soon as we do that, we can find her, help keep her safe."

"Unless it's too late."

"Shit, Dean, don't say that! What's wrong with you?"

Dean sits back down at his chair and shakes his head absently, chiding himself for thinking the worst. But he can't help but think it.

"I would know," Sam says quietly.

Dean doesn't look up, he simply nods and reaches out for the stack of papers in front of him, flips through for a moment, and then turns to Sam. "Anything else on Oxford?"

After a couple more hours of reading the two brothers have most of the papers in some kind of order. There are now eleven piles, all of different cities, all arranged according to the date she arrived to investigate. It made sense that they do it that way so that they could go through everything as she had and ultimately then be led to the same conclusions, or so they hoped. Eleven different cities. Oxford, Mississippi. Los Angeles, California. St. Louis, Missouri. Springborough, Vermont. Sacremento, California. Archer, Pennsylvania. Arlington, Virginia. Marthasville, North Dakota. Wydeker, Ohio. Fairview, Illinois. And Cambridge, Minnesota.

The last one had been the most perplexing, and also represented the smallest pile. All that sat in that stack was the Polaroid shot that she had emailed to them and a copy of the news article about a young boy drowning after falling through the ice while skating. Jeremy Matheson, 14 years old. It was from 10 years ago. The log sheet had only one date written down, December 14, 1995, so they couldn't be sure if she had gone back there to investigate anything or not. Although, really, why would she? She knew what happened, they all did. They were there after all.

They had been in Minnesota for only about six weeks, just long enough to get to know some of the townspeople. There were very few families there at the time, so many had left the small cold city for the winter, but the Mathesons stuck around every year. It was love at first sight for Tessa when Jeremy, the older of the two brothers, showed up at her door their second day there. He was fourteen. He was tall, taller than her despite the recent spurt that sent her two inches ahead of Sam. And he had a brilliant, slightly crooked smile. She was a goner. Tessa had always been a bit of a tomboy, as she would have to be growing up as she did, living with three men, training like a soldier. So it was a surprise even to her when she became so infatuated with Jeremy that she started to do her hair in the mornings, wear nicer clothes, and giggle inadvertently at any ridiculous joke he made. Dean harassed her endlessly of course, and she could hardly blame him, she hated herself for being such a girl around him, following him like a lost little puppy, but she just couldn't help it. And really, Jeremy didn't seem to mind. Sam and the younger Matheson, Ryan, who was also 12, were naturally appalled, but as long as Jeremy said she could tag along, she didn't care.

The day of the accident it was rather warm, a breezy 35 degrees as opposed to the blustery 10 it had been just the day before, and they decided to go out even though Dean had told them no. He didn't want to baby-sit the group as John so often demanded he do, so before anyone even said anything that morning about hitting the lake, he informed them that everyone was staying in today. And of course this was his prerogative as he was in charge when Dad was away, and their father was going to be gone for at least another day yet while hunting up north. But both Sam and Tessa were too stubborn to take orders from their brother, so they waited until he slipped on his head phones, Metallica blaring, as he closed his eyes for a nap, and they snuck out.

Once at the lake Tessa was informed that she wouldn't be allowed to play today, not since Ron and Billy and Jake had all come out to play. They needed an even number and since she was the girl, well, she had to sit it out. Instead of objecting, or running home and crying as she was certain they'd wanted her to do, she simply sat back and watched. The game went on for about a half an hour before Ryan wildly hit the puck out into the middle of the lake, where the ice was considerably thinner. You go, Tessa, they had encouraged. You're lighter than us. Jeremy stood up for her, said if they wouldn't let her play she shouldn't have to go fetch for them. He told Ryan to get it himself, but Ryan who was rather overweight and probably couldn't have done it even if he wanted to, told him to fuck off. Then he turned back to Tessa and proceeded to call her a chicken. So she did the only thing a girl in her position could do. She set off to prove herself to the boy she loved, while also sticking it to the one she hated.

Jeremy followed, told her to be careful, take it slow, listen for any cracking. She did all that, moving even slower than necessary just to prolong her time alone with him. She made it out to the middle, grabbed the puck and started back, watching while Jeremy turned around and yelled back at his brother Ha! Shove it, jerk off! He was about to say something else, something to her as she approached him, but before he could the ice under his feet gave way and he splashed into the dark water beneath. She was just close enough at the time for him to grab on as he fell, but instead of keeping himself from going under he pulled her in right along with him.

They were lost under the ice, carried away by the lazy current, and none of the boys could find them. Ryan ran home and got his parents. Sam ran home and got Dean. And by the time they all had arrived, one of the boys had spotted Jeremy. They broke the ice around where he was and hauled him up. Dean performed CPR until the paramedics arrived, which was close to twenty minutes, while the others continued the search. Finally one of the police officers who had just pulled up spotted her bright blue coat under the ice near the southern shore. She had been under close to an hour.

Jeremy lingered on life support for just over two days before his body gave out. Tessa woke from her coma just as it happened. But no one discussed that little coincidence, no one was allowed to. Sam wondered about it out loud at one point and was quickly told by his father to never mention it again. It didn't matter. It didn't mean anything. And if Tessa knew about it, it would only make her feel guilty. Because really, she was under twice as long as him, her body temperature had dropped twice as low. And while things were said to be touch and go with him, the doctors had informed Tessa's family that there was no hope where she was concerned. He never should have died. That was her fate.

But this was all a long time ago, and the Winchesters had come to accept that despite the tragedy their family had endured, they had a miracle in their past as well. And they moved on, put in all behind them. Until now. Now it seemed that so much of their past was coming back to haunt to them, even their mother, who, for the first time in over twenty years, almost seemed to be in the room with them. After all, this was seemingly all about her, or her death at any rate.

But Sam and Dean tried to set that aside. They worked to move through all the emotion that could so easily have stunted their progress and tried instead to look at everything logically. Even the news articles about their own house burning down, their mother trapped inside. They moved through all of the odd snippets from places across the nation where the events that took place seemed eerily reminiscent of those they encountered themselves. They read and read and read, scoured every page until finally their eyes gave and they each fell into an awkward slumber, one perched at the table, newsprint staining his face as he slept. The other curled into a tight ball on the floor, his feet absently kicking at papers as he twitched.

And like this they both slept, lured by exhaustion into a rest so deep that that neither heard the old lock jiggle as it was fiddled with from the outside, effectively picked so as to release the deadbolt. Nor did they hear the knob turn or the creek of the door as it was slowly pushed open.