Thanks for all the positive feedback! Some of your are apparently following this story, which is more than I was at this stage...

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"Took you long enough." The girl stood with her hand on her hip, peering at them through the gap between the door and the doorjamb. "I didn't think you were ever going to pluck up the courage to come knock on the door."

Sam and Dean exchanged an uncertain glance, Dean waiting for Sam's 'Honesty is the best policy' speech, while Sam wondered whether one of Dean's less-than-convincing cover stories may have been the way to go after all.

"Well?" the girl prodded, her tone of voice uncomfortably reminding Dean of Missouri Moseley.

It wasn't that he'd been scared of Missouri. Well maybe just a little. And it hadn't been the whole psychic thing. That hadn't really phased him either. Well not that much. No, what had freaked him out most about Lawrence's least-fake psychic was the whole 'don't even bother opening your mouth because I know you're going to lie to me' thing. Not being able to lie to someone: now that was something to get freaked out about.

He regarded the girl in front of him thoughtfully. She was maybe fifteen, although the expression on her face would not have been out of place on someone at least forty; tall for her age, with dark afro-style hair scraped back into a ponytail at the back of her head, held in place by a hair band which sported an incongruous yellow flower that clashed horribly with her bright orange t-shirt. She was kind of pretty in a geeky sort of way.

Dean shuddered as he suddenly imagined Missouri looking like this as a teenager. God, Missouri as a teenager: what would that have been like?

No way he was lying to this girl. She'd know. He just knew it.

When Sam still didn't open his mouth, Dean managed, "We're sorry to bother you," realising he'd lied already as he included Sam in his apology with an inclination of his head. Jeez, get a grip of yourself, man, he thought to himself. She's not Missouri. She can't read your mind…

The girl was starting to look impatient. "Hey, I'm not psychic you know," she said, causing Dean to do a double take, while Sam's eyebrows nearly shot off his head, suggesting to Dean that he and his brother may well have been sharing a thought or two themselves. She tapped her foot. "Unless you tell me what you want, I can't help you with it."

Dean smiled weakly. Right. Needed to tell her what he wanted. "Yeah," he stumbled, awkwardly. "Erm, this is the Bradshaw house, right?"

The girl's expression instantly became one of suspicion. "Who wants to know? If you're more reporters, I'm calling the cops right now, I swear!"

"We're not reporters," Sam said, suddenly finding his voice. "We – " he glanced at Dean. "We're kind of – um – freelance investigators…" Dean raised an eyebrow at this description. "We're looking into Thomas Bradshaw's death."

The girl's face hardened slightly. "He jumped off a bridge," she said, setting her jaw and gripping the edge of the door a little tighter. "What's to investigate?"

"You believe that?" Dean asked carefully.

The girl regarded him thoughtfully, pushing her glasses further up her nose. "You going to tell me something different?"

Dean made as if to answer, but bit off the words at the sound of another voice. A male voice. And it didn't sound too happy.

"Lexie? Who are you talking to?"

The girl inclined her head backwards slightly, eyes never leaving Dean's, as if still holding out for an answer. "It's Alex!" she returned with a sigh and a roll of the eyes, neatly sidestepping the question.

Dean glanced quickly at Sam, who was grinning. How many times had he used that exact tone of voice when Dean had insisted on calling him 'Sammy'? "It's Sam!"

A large hand appeared on the door above Alex's head, opening it wider to reveal a well-built teenaged boy almost as tall as Sam and a lot broader. He eyed Dean and Sam suspiciously, Dean immediately recognising the 'Protective Big Brother' look. Had he had a younger sister, he was pretty sure he'd have had the exact same expression on his face had he caught her chatting to two strange young men on the doorstep.

And they didn't come much stranger than Sam and Dean.

Recognising a kindred spirit, Dean realised a prompt explanation was probably in order. "Hey," he said. "I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam," figuring introductions were as good a place to start as any.

The young man continued to frown at them unflinchingly, and Dean found himself wondering uncomfortably if he and Sam would be able to take this kid in a fight.

"They're investigators," Alex explained, and Dean couldn't tell whether she believed that or not. He hoped she did: he still couldn't shake the idea that lying to her would have been as pointless as lying to Missouri. "They say they're looking into Dad's death," Alex continued.

The boy's frown deepened to a look of downright hostility, and he moved as if to slam the door in their faces, but Dean was too quick for him, instinctively jamming his foot in the threshold. The boy looked momentarily taken aback, but didn't look as if he planned to rip Dean's arms out of their sockets and beat him over the head with them.

That was always a good sign as far as Dean was concerned.

"We want to help you," Dean managed, trying to sound as sincere as Sam always seemed to sound.

The boy continued to glare at him, before turning his glare down towards Dean's foot.

Dean smiled awkwardly, withdrawing the offending limb from the Bradshaws' doorway as further proof of his sincerity. To his relief, the door remained open. "Didn't catch your name…?" he said to the boy.

"Didn't give it," the boy replied curtly.

"It's Nathan," the girl provided, pulling a face at her brother.

Nathan pulled a face right back. "And this is my little sister Lexie – "

"Alex!" the girl corrected.

"Alex," Nathan conceded.

The two pairs of siblings continued to stare at each other, as if each was willing the other to crack first, until Sam finally broke the silence, Dean sighing mentally in relief.

"We don't want to intrude," was Sam's opening gambit. "We know this must be a difficult time for your family. But…" he glanced sideways at Dean. "We think Stillwater may be in danger, and your father's death might have something to do with that."

Nathan's stony silence remained unbroken, but Alex raised an eyebrow. "How so?" she asked.

Sam shrugged. "This rain," he said, glancing briefly out onto the street where, if anything, the downpour seemed to be intensifying. "It's not exactly normal, right?"

It was Nathan and Alex's turn to exchange a glance. "What, you're a weather man too?" Alex asked.

Sam smiled awkwardly. "Not exactly," he conceded. "But you must be able to see – something weird's going on here. Something that started when your father returned from Europe…"

Nathan and Alex exchanged another glance, and this time, Sam could see that something he'd said had hit a nerve.

Nathan opened the door wider. "You'd better come in."

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Thomas Bradshaw's study was an echo of the man himself: ordered, organised, tidy; a place for everything and everything in its place.

Except for the desk.

Sam raised an eyebrow as he took stock of the seething mass of paper covering almost every square inch. In fact, the only item on the desk that wasn't buried under hurriedly scribbled notes or crumpled yellow legal paper was the computer keyboard. Even the monitor was almost totally submerged under a crazy collage of Post-It notes in every shade imaginable.

Alex and Nathan followed Sam and Dean into the room, the girl shuddering visibly at the state of her father's desk. "He was such a neatness freak," she said, shaking her head slowly and wrapping her arms about herself. "But this…" she trailed off, staring at the desk sadly. "It just wasn't like him."

Dean absently picked up one of the pieces of paper from the top of the pile, looking over at Alex and Nathan, who kept glancing over his shoulder.

"Listen," the young man said, fidgeting nervously. "Our Mom's gonna be home soon. I'm not sure how we're going to explain letting two perfect strangers in here…"

"Don't worry," Dean tried to sound as comforting as possible. "We have that effect on people; I guess we just ooze trustworthiness." When Nathan just looked at him blankly, he added, "And we'll be quick." He glanced over at Sam hopefully. "Won't we, Sam?"

Sam didn't answer straight away, busy trying to make sense of some of the paperwork.

"Sam?" Dean prodded, causing Sam to look up at him absently.

"Uh-huh," he said, eyes returning immediately to the paper mountain.

"My brother has an affinity with the written word," Dean explained, smiling. "Had to promise our Dad I wouldn't use the word 'geek' too much when he was around…"

"I can hear you, you know," Sam assured him, continuing to look through the papers.

Alex's hand had gone back to her hip. "Do you guys even know what you're looking for?" she asked, again sounding disturbingly like Missouri.

"Yes," Dean answered immediately, just as Sam answered, "No."

The two of them exchanged a quick 'huh?' look that caused Dean to admit, "Well, not exactly…" while Sam modified his answer to "Maybe."

Dean threw his brother a 'man, you are so bad at lying' look, while Sam's just said, 'man, you so need to work on this whole telling the truth thing'.

Sam shrugged, and continued to sift through the paperwork, while Dean attempted a more person-oriented approach.

"So," he said, again smiling awkwardly at Alex and Nathan. "When your Dad came back from Europe. You notice anything odd – anything different – about his behaviour?"

Alex glanced sidelong at her brother. "He'd been worried about the drought for a long time," she said cautiously. "He'd been warning his bosses at the power company for months – "

"That the town was running out of water?" Dean asked.

Alex nodded. "He couldn't get anyone to listen to him."

"And that's why he went to Europe?" Sam put in. "To find some other way to save the town?"

Nathan looked distinctly uncomfortable, as if he really didn't feel right telling them anything. But Alex nodded her encouragement. "He said he had a lead on something that might fix the problem," he said, shaking his head. "And when he came home, he just seemed like a different person, like all the worry and the stress had been lifted off his shoulders."

"And that's when it started raining?" Dean asked.

Nathan nodded. "The day he came home." He exchanged another nervous glance with Alex, who continued,

"But the rain wouldn't stop, and he started to get kind of – well – frantic. Kept saying he didn't know how to stop it, he didn't understand…"

"Understand what?" Sam seized on Alex's words just as Dean remembered the old woman's repeatedly asking him whether he understood her.

Alex again glanced at her brother. "I don't know," she admitted. "He – he kept rambling on about this weird dream he kept having…"

Dean paled visibly. "Dream?" he echoed, stomach lurching. Sam had stopped squinting at Bradshaw's notes and was looking at his brother. Dean was almost scared to return the look.

"It was stupid," Nathan said.

"It was?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Nathan continued. "He kept dreaming he jumped off a cliff and drowned."

Dean felt like someone had just poured a bucked of ice water down the back of his shirt. "He – he did?" his voice sounded strangled, and the fake smile that had been plastered to his face for the last couple of minutes slipped noticeably.

"Why is that stupid?" Sam asked, as nonchalantly as he could.

Nathan shrugged his broad shoulders. "Dad was a caver," he explained. "Knew every cliff and every cave within fifty miles of here like the back of his hand. And he was the best swimmer I ever knew. If he was going to jump off a cliff, he'd know which cliff he could jump off relatively safely. And he sure as hell wouldn't drown."

"How can you safely jump off a cliff?" Dean asked, also trying to sound casual.

"Water level. Undercurrent. Rocks…" Alex answered.

"So how come he drowned?" Dean instantly regretted asking such a stupid question. "I mean – er – if he was such a good swimmer and all…" he trailed off, angry at himself for causing the pained expressions on the Bradshaw kids' faces.

"Exactly," Nathan managed at last. "Which is why the cops said his death must have been a suicide. Reckoned no way he should have drowned in the river, knowing it as well as he did. Not unless he wanted to drown."

"So he knew the area where he drowned really well, not just the water?" Sam asked curiously.

"He had a favourite spot somewhere round there," Alex answered. "Near Churchill Bridge someplace. A cave he used to go to all the time when he was a kid."

"Dean?" Sam interrupted suddenly, pulling a glossy flyer from under a thick sheaf of unused legal paper. Dean shuffled round the desk to take a look, eyes widening in disbelief as he read the caption on the front: 'Welcome to Winchester Cathedral'.

"Ah man…" he muttered.

"There's a photography stub too," Sam added. "You know, when you pay extra to take photographs…"

"What's the date?"

Sam turned the ticket stub over. "July 10th," he replied, before looking up at the Bradshaws. "Did your Dad use film or a digital camera?"

"Digital," Alex replied. "Your typical gadget man."

Sam indicated the computer. "Would his pictures be on here?"

Alex nodded.

"Mind if I look…?"

Again Alex and Nathan exchanged a look.

"I guess," Nathan replied, grudgingly.

As Sam powered up the computer, Dean's attention was caught by a slip of pink paper buried right at the bottom of the pile. Pulling it out, he realised it was an invoice.

"University of Nevada Department of Anthropology," he muttered, looking up at the Bradshaws, a frown creasing his forehead. "Why'd your Dad owe them money?" he asked.

Nathan and Alex shrugged.

"Dr Maurice Greenbaum," Dean read the name off the bottom of the invoice thoughtfully, before holding the piece of paper up to their hosts. "Can we borrow this?" has asked.

"Hey, knock yourself out," Alex said.

Dean pocketed the invoice, peering over Sam's shoulder at the photographs displayed on the computer screen. "That's the floating cathedral, right?" he said, pointing at a group of pictures showing the inside of the church.

"Yeah, I guess," Sam agreed, scrolling through photo after similar-looking photo. Dean's attention began to wane after the twentieth stained glass window, and it was only when the pictures began to move through a series that looked as if they had been taken in a dingy old crypt that Sam managed to get him to re-focus with a sharp elbow to the ribs.

"Whoa," he muttered. "What the hell is that?"

"I told you, Dad was a caver," Alex's voice in his ear almost made Sam jump out of the chair, the girl having appeared from nowhere as her curiosity got the better of her. "He said he'd been in some good ones in England…" she trailed off, as various images of half-submerged caves scrolled across the screen.

"Said he found something in one of them," Nathan offered, just as Sam clicked to enlarge a particular photo that had caught his and Dean's attention at exactly the same time.

"I'll say he did," Sam agreed, staring at the computer screen with a mixture of awe and disbelief.

"That what I think it is?" Dean asked slowly, for a second wondering whether his morbid upbringing was prejudicing his interpretation of the image in front of him.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed. "And I'll bet we can guess who it belonged to…" he added, looking up at his brother meaningfully.

It took Dean a second to follow Sam's train of thought, then it was as if a light bulb had come on behind his eyes. "No way!" he burst out. He peered a little more closely at the picture, before adding, "Well, at least now we know why Grandma's so pissed off…"

"If it's genuine," Sam added.

"Maybe that's why Mr Bradshaw was hanging around University Anthropology departments?"

Sam was about to agree, when Nathan, who had suddenly appeared behind his sister, asked "What is that?" while frowning at the photograph.

"It's a bone, dummy," Alex admonished him.

"A bone?" Nathan repeated, peering harder at the screen, where a long, yellowing object sat atop a boulder, carefully unwrapped from a mound of filthy grey rags. "That's a bone?" he asked.

Sam nodded. "Hmm," he muttered, opening up Bradshaw's e-mail account. "Looks human, too…" he added, e-mailing himself a copy of the photograph before printing a hard copy.

"Arm," Dean agreed, having burnt enough of the things to know one when he saw one. It was only on looking away from the screen that he realised Alex and Nathan were staring at him.

"How'd you know that?" Alex asked, as if suddenly suspecting she may in fact have invited a serial killer with a penchant for dismemberment into her house.

Dean smiled awkwardly. "Biology," he said. "Always my best subject." He grinned at Mini-Missouri, content in the knowledge that he still hadn't really lied to her. Depending on how you looked at it.

The girl folded her arms across her chest and raised a knowing eyebrow. "Uh-huh," she said. "I'll bet."

"OK," Sam interrupted, standing so suddenly Nathan took a startled step backwards. "I think we've got what we came for."

"We do?" Dean queried, looking down at the half ton of paperwork still strewn across the desk that they hadn't looked at yet.

Sam gave him a 'shut up and follow my lead' look, the sort of look Dean didn't remember Sam ever giving him before the kid's sojourn at Stanford. Any other time, he might have berated him for treating him like he didn't have two brain cells to rub together, but Dean figured that could probably wait until later, when he didn't run the risk of tipping these kids off to what their late father may have gotten himself killed over.

Convincing Alex and Nathan they were investigators was one thing; convincing them their Dad was a grave robber was something else entirely.