A/N: Thanks to all of you who have submitted reviews thus far. However, I would like to comment that even more than positive reviews telling me that you like the fic so far, I love reviews that tell me what you don't like and what I should work on to make it better. I'd like to stress that this is still a work in progress that I fully plan on revising before I post a final copy on my partner in crime's website, You won't hurt my feelings, I promise, and if you can't think of anything, you can always just tell me that my chapters are too short or that I take to long to update. 

A/N2: Also, still need a title. If I can't think of one soon, I'm going to end up calling it something like Two Guys, a Girl, and an Impala or Ghost Town Afternoon or, my personal favorite working title, She's a Crazy Bi…Shut Your Mouth! Any suggestions?

God, Dean is so infuriating! I hate it when people make me feel useless. I don't know what he thinks is going to happen to me, but all these bullshit stories he's feeding me aren't going to convince me to grab onto his arm and beg him for protection. No matter how great his biceps are.

Disgusted with myself and my one-track mind, I get up and follow Sam outside. It's the middle of the day and the sun is high, illuminating the countryside. I don't know what it is about the Midwest, but there's always this grounded feeling about it. Whenever I'm outside in a rural area like this in this particular part of the country, I always feel more acutely aware of gravity and the feeling of the expansive sky weighing down on me. Now, thanks to Dean, I feel like there's pressure on me from all sides.

Sam is standing between the two cars, apparently undecided about who to ride/side with. I soften a little when I see him, seeing as he's repeatedly been the one to talk Dean into giving me a chance. I don't understand why Dean can't decide to do so without convincing.

"You wanna ride with me, Sam?" I ask, "I promise I'll stay on the right side of the road and you can pick the music."

"Sold." Sam agrees, giving me a small smile as if thanking me for helping him to decide.

We both head over to my car and I notice again, as I do every time I see it, that it is in desperate need of a carwash. In fact, somewhere in my travels some stupid, punk kids scrawled 'Wash me and feed me chocolate' in the dust on the trunk, followed by 'No, chocolate is bad for cars.' I still haven't gotten around to cleaning it off. I promise the car mentally that I haven't forgotten it and that I'll take care of everything as soon as I can before unlocking the door and sliding in. I reach across the passenger seat to unlock Sam's door, noticing as I do so that the inside of my car is not much better than the outside. Living out of my car has turned it into quite a dump. Of course I cleared off the seat so that Sam can at least sit down, but the floor at his feet is still filled with crap and I don't even want to think about the back seat or the trunk. I hope Sam won't think I'm a slob because of the state my car is in. It's creative disorganization, really.

Sam climbs in, picking up my CD case as he does so. He seems like a nice guy, Sam. The kind of guy you can trust, who'll come through for you. I wonder why he's here, doing this sort of thing.

"So, what's with the music?" I ask, easing into an impromptu interview which will hopefully clue me into what's going on with him and with his brother.

Sam looks up from my CDs with a smile, "My brother's musical tastes are kind of limited. I've listened to nothing but Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath for the past few months."

I take in this somewhat trivial information about Dean and reply, "Hey, Zeppelin's pretty awesome."

Sam groans, "Not you, too."

I smile reassuringly, "But not all the time. I said I had eclectic tastes. I've got everything from jazz and swing to heavy metal to…don't tell anyone this, pop. I even have some whiny, chick music if that's your thing."

"Not really." Sam says with a dry chuckle as he flips through the CDs. He pauses for a moment, "You're really not kidding, are you?"

"No, why?" I ask, wondering what inspired the question as I turn on the car.

"Well, you have Tool next to…N'Sync?" he says, with another chuckle, looking over at me with raised eyebrows.

"It's not mine." I say immediately, feeling defensive. Why hadn't I gotten rid of that?

"Okay." Sam says, but his eyebrows are still higher than normal and I can tell he doesn't believe me.

But I'm too distracted by the noises my car is making to bother with my somewhat poor taste in music in the past. Everyone goes through phases, after all. I frown at my car as it struggles to turn over and pump the gas a couple times.

"Should the car be making that noise?" Sam asks.

"What noise?" I reply, turning up the radio so that the noise from the engine can no longer be heard. I feel the car finally start and sit back in my seat in relief. I know my car is just letting me know how upset it is about being neglected. I promise it again silently that I will make it all up to it later. I notice Sam looking at me with this slightly concerned look on his face, so I smile at him and ask another question to distract him, "So how'd you get into all this, Sam?"

Sam kind of smiles at the question, but the smile is sad and he looks down. I wonder if maybe I should have waited to ask that question and if I've alienated him. I decide to back-peddle in the hopes that maybe he'll still want to talk to me and we can approach the touchy subjects again later, "I'm sorry. I didn't…"

"No, it's okay." Sam interrupts.

I stop and wait for him to say something else. The moment of silence before he speaks again is kind of excruciating.

"My mom died when I was a baby." Sam begins and I immediately realize why this was a bad topic. I immediately feel awkward and unsure of what to say to comfort him, but thankfully he continues talking, his gaze fixed out the window and off into the distance, "Something killed her. Something evil. Ever since then my dad has been trying to find what killed her and stop it from hurting anyone else. Fighting bad stuff has kind of become the family business."

"Oh." is the only thing I manage to get out of my mouth.

I feel like my brain's stop working. I almost can't register that information. A ghost killed their mom? I know Sam's not lying, I've been reporting long enough to have a bit of a sense for when people are lying, but he can't really mean what he's saying.

Sam looks over at me with that same sad smile again and takes pity on me, "What about you?"

I snap out of it in order to answer the question, immensely grateful to Sam for sparing me any further awkwardness and confusion, "N…nothing like that. I just have always been interested in the supernatural."

"Yeah?" Sam asks, looking interested. It's almost as if we didn't just have a conversation about his mom dying.

"Yeah. I mean, when I was little I saw something and I liked feeling like I could see something that others couldn't. I like the idea that there's more to things than just the obvious, ordinary stuff. Even if sometimes those things are bad." I try to explain what's in my head and my heart, but as usual I completely fail. I've never really been able to relate my motives for investigating the supernatural as a lifestyle and make others understand.

"Well, sometimes those things aren't just bad, they're evil and they hurt people. Those things have to be stopped." Sam says, his voice rough and determined.

"I'm not arguing with that, but I still want to understand what's going on. And I want to help people, too. I want to do both." I silently urge Sam to understand me, hoping that the look on my face communicates more than my words can.

A knock on my window makes me jump in surprise and whirl around in my seat. Dean's standing outside the car looking a little annoyed, but also curious. I roll down the window quickly to see what he wants.

"You two going to sit here all day with the car running?" he asks, leaning against my door.

"What? You can't wait five minutes?" I ask, more annoyed at the situation than at Dean. Whenever I try to explain what's going on inside my messed up mind, especially in regards to my life choices, I end up frustrated and irritated.

"I can, but if you two are gonna be awhile, I'd rather wait in the room. It has cable." Dean replies easily, looking a little too amused for my tastes at the moment.

That's it, I've had enough. I open my door, forcing Dean to quickly back out of the way or get hit by the door. Both brothers look confused.

"Sam, you drive my car. Try not to crash. Dean, I'm riding with you. We need to talk." I explain for them quickly before marching over to the Impala, getting in, and slamming the door shut after me.

I force myself not to look, but out of the corner of my eye I watch as Sam gets out of his side and exchanges a mystified look with his brother over the hood of my car. They say something to each other before Dean shrugs and heads in my direction while Sam moves around to the driver side. I cross my arms across my chest, determined not to let Dean see any sign of weakness. He's already seen me be more unsure of myself than I care for. I'm usually not like this.

Dean eases into his seat behind the wheel, closes the door, starts the car, and begins backing out of the space without saying a word. My annoyance increases. If he thinks he can get away with ignoring me, he's got another thing coming.

"Are you ignoring me?" I demand.

"No." Dean answers slowly, eyes still focused over his shoulder as he backs up. He stops the car and puts it in drive before glancing at me, "I'm driving."

I grumble under my breath about how driving and talking can be done at the same time, but stop when Dean asks, "What did you want to talk about?"

I look out the window to see Sam pulling out and following us. It's a little weird to see someone else driving my car, but I'm not overly concerned. I'm sure Sam will take care of it. He couldn't possibly treat it worse than I do. But I'm just avoiding the conversation, which is stupid because I'm the one who decided that we need to have it.

"Well, I don't think we really understand each other." I begin. Dean gives a derisive snort at that, which makes me glare at him before continuing, "And to be honest, you're kind of ticking me off. So, I figure if this is going to be as dangerous as you keep saying, we should get this worked out before anything goes down. You know, cooler heads and all."

Dean seems to mull that over before kind of shrugging, "Okay."

"Okay." I repeat, momentarily unsure of how to continue now that Dean has actually agreed to talking about this. I'd kind of been expecting an argument. I try to figure out the best way to start this little talk, reviewing mentally the tiny bits of information I've gleaned about Dean. The fact that I know so little is more glaring to me than anything I do know. Well, except maybe for what I've just learned about his mom. Maybe Dean wasn't really lying when he was telling me those stories about the things that go bump in the night. My thought process comes to a screeching halt as what I just thought to myself really sinks in. Now my silence is due to startling realization. What have I got myself into?

"Uh…Lindy? I thought you wanted to talk." Dean says after my silence has dragged out into a couple minutes.

I force down a growing lump in my throat, "D..Dean, those stories you told me…"

"Yeah." Dean encourages when I fail to continue.

"You were just making a point, right?"

Dean pauses before he answers, "If you're asking if I made those up, no, I didn't. They were all true."

I'm sure I must look like an idiot with my eyes wide and startled. My suspicion is confirmed by the satisfied look that appears on Dean's face when he looks at me. My mind races a little bit as I recall what Dean said to me earlier. About the people who died and the things that killed them. Was that really what I'd devoted my life to chasing? Nobody else at the magazine ever said anything like that. None of the other reporters ever told me stories about slashed up bodies. It was always about high EMF readings and objects moving and disembodied voices. Occasionally, there were scratches or bruises from having things thrown at them, but never death. Not in real life. That was only in ghost stories. Right? People made that stuff up to scare other people. But Sam hadn't been lying about his mom…

"Just got through to you, huh?" Dean smirks.

"Shut up." I snap.

I have to get a handle on this. I recall Sam's face as he told me about why he does this: sad and regretful, but also angry and determined. He wanted to help people, stop them from experiencing what he had. And I'd said that I wanted to help people, too.

"I don't care." I finally say out loud, my voice stronger than I expected it to be.

"What?" Dean asks, frowning in confusion.

"I don't care that those stories are real or that it's dangerous. I still want to do this. I still want to help people and I still want to understand what's going on out there." I say and as I'm saying it I know it's truly how I feel. I almost smile, I'm so relieved to have figured myself out.

"You're nuts." Dean says, shattering my moment.

"How am I any more nuts than you are?" I demand, my smile melting away.

"Because I know what I'm doing." Dean replies immediately, so sure of himself that I almost want to hit him.

"Why do you insist on treating me like I'm good for nothing?" my voice is steadily raising in volume.

"I never said that." Dean replies, his voice still as cool as when we started talking.

"I hate when people treat me like a useless, little girl!" I fume.

"I didn't say that either." Dean points out.

"I just want to make a difference!" I can't seem to stop myself from yelling the first thing that pops into my head.

"Do I need to pull over?" Dean asks.

"You're not going to talk me out of this." I growl, determined not to let him change my mind no matter what he says or does.

"Okay." Dean says, a smile appearing on his face.

That smile makes me freeze, "What?"

"I believe you. I can't change your mind. But at least now you have a hint about what we're up against. Maybe now you'll listen to me."

I blink slowly, taking a deep breath. I'm not totally sure what's just happened. Dean sees my confusion and gives a weak laugh.

"Well, I figure if you're so set on chasing this stuff, one of these days you're going to actually find something. So, just in case Sammy or me ain't there, I want you to be prepared for what's out there."

I pause and replay his statement in my head. Is he actually concerned about my welfare? That's almost sweet.

"So, what, are you going to teach me something?" I ask, a smile springing to my face, "Teach me how to fight the big nasties?"

Dean looks me over critically, "We'll see."

I feel about a hundred times better despite my growing apprehension about what we'll find tonight. I feel like maybe Dean does have some confidence in me after all. I feel like I understand why he's been so critical lately. Now we can move past screaming at each other and hopefully towards something more fun. I check Dean out as discretely as I can out of the corner of my eye, amused to find that Led Zeppelin is playing out of the speakers. I just hadn't noticed it before because of all the yelling I was doing. Sam wasn't kidding about Dean's exclusive music taste. I don't mind, though. It suits him. I relax into the seat and decide to enjoy the rest of the ride up to the ghost town with casual conversation.