AN: I kind of tweaked the mythology a bit on this chapter to fit the storyline, if anyone decides to look up the creature I mentioned. And since I've never actually been to Cedar City, Utah, after some research I took creative liberties on the landscape/culture of the area, so forgive me if there are any errors there.

Do You Recall

II: Precious Time

Dean called Ash that night and got him on the case of finding Jack Hayes. They'd done as much research as they could, but the morning was already considerably better than the one before with actual breakfast and fresh coffee. The scenario was all too familiar and he hated that, but he guessed it couldn't be helped.

"So Nevada, right?" he said around a mouthful of eggs. She raised a brow at his lack of table manners, but Sam noted she didn't seem surprised.

"Yeah, pretty much at the east border heading toward Utah."

"Do you have the name of the motel he was staying at and the name he was using?" asked Sam. "If Ash doesn't come up with anything solid, we're going to have to take a trip, see if we can follow his trail."

"It's unlikely that Ash won't find anything though," Dean said, seeing her look.

"I'm going to have to take more than a sick day, huh?" she asked wearily.

"Maybe, maybe not." But he wouldn't give her false hope.

"So what do we do in the mean time?"

"All we can really do is wait—" The sound of Dean's phone going off cut off Sam's reply. Dean looked down at the caller ID with a smile, and held it up for them to see before answering it.

"Hey, man. Watcha got?"

Dean hated driving through Utah for reasons. Most of it was uninhabited, which is only a partial plus (less traffic), but mostly it sucked because it was scorching hot in summer and driving through the desert seemed to take so much longer without at least some scenery.

He could hear Elena fidgeting in the backseat, trying and failing to get into a more comfortable position after nearly seven hours of straight driving. It wasn't new to him, but he knew she'd been working at a steady job driving an hour a day at most, unless she'd visited Bobby when they weren't there.

Sam was dozing in the passenger seat, even as Bachman Turner Overdrive played loudly on the radio.

"He had to get lost in the middle of the goddamn desert," Dean heard her mutter, and he smirked.

"Cedar City," he corrected. She narrowed her eyes at him through the rearview mirror.

"That's just where his credit card trail left off. The GPS on his phone clocked out miles east of the highway," she reminded him. "There's nothing but mountains and desert there, not to mention what the hell he was doing heading out that way."

She stopped herself there. Thinking about the "what ifs" would only wind her up more, and with another six hours to go until they even got to Cedar City, she didn't need more energy to burn.

Elena had to ask for some time off work for a family emergency after she'd already taken Wednesday off as a personal day. But after saying her father had a heart attack, Craig, her boss, was lenient enough to give her the rest of the week and the weekend. Just as long as she came back to work on Monday morning. Her friend Val agreed to split covering her shifts with one of the teenagers that was only working the summer.

"Look, I'm not saying it's going to be easy," he said after a minute. "But we're gunna find him."

Always so sure of himself, she thought. But when it came to the hunt, he was only ever blankly honest with what his gut instincts told him. At least that was what she'd gleaned from their brief time working together.

She bit her lower lip absently. The final riffs of "Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" fill the car, then faded into a familiar intro she knew well.

"I've had a lot of big dreams"

"Aw, not this shit," said Dean, raising his hand toward the knob on the stereo. "This is why I rarely listen to the radio."

"I've made a lot of bad moves"

"Don't you dare!" Elena propelled herself forward into the front half of the car and smacked his hand away.

"I know you could walk away, but you never do"

"Hey, hey! This is my car, Shortstop. I pick the music," he said, fending her off. "Sit back the fuck down!"

She hated that nickname. Inwardly she seethed, but she wouldn't get what she wanted by getting angry over that now.

"Oh, come on, you know you love this—"

"I've met a lot of cold hearts"

"Hey, what the hell is goin' on?"

"I've learned to smile and deceive"

"She's trying to take over, Sam!" Dean managed, while still trying to bat her hands away from where she was obstinately covering the buttons.

"I know I'm hard to be around, but you never leave"

"I just want to listen to this one song! Don't tell me the chorus doesn't make you want to—"

"I'm not easy to understand"

"Not in my car, damn it! I didn't think you liked this shit."

"But you hold out your hand"

"It's not shit. It's music, you ass! Just let me listen." After a heated ten seconds, Dean begrudgingly relaxed against his seat, staring broodingly out at the road.

"And you say you love me, just as I am…
You always treat me the best that you can"

"This is torture," Dean murmured. She shushed him.

"You say you want me, need me,
Love me baby just as I am…just as I am"

From the rearview mirror he could see her mouthing the words and obnoxiously motioning with her hands. It was sickening 80s pop, in his opinion only slightly more tolerable than any post 1990s pop or 2000s top 40s hits. The longer the song went on, the more he was itching to turn it off (especially after he caught himself tapping to the drum beat and nodding to the guitar riff).

The entire time, Sam glanced at his brother out of the corner of his eye, silently laughing throughout the entire four minutes.

You just let a chick break house rule number one, dude.

When Dean looked over he read the thought clearly on Sam's face. He slid his gaze back to the road, pointedly ignoring Sam.

"You say you want me, need me,
Love me baby just as I am…
Just as I am…"

"Excuse me. We're trying to meet up with a friend. Do you have records of a Don Henley staying here?" Sam asked the clerk behind the reception desk. It was a cheap motel like any one of the hundreds of sleazy motels they'd stayed at before.

"Let me see…uh, yeah. Room 27. He checked in two weeks ago, paid for up until tomorrow. I haven't seen him come in for a few days, though," said the clerk—Joe, his nametag said. His eyes were red-rimmed, like he'd been doping up just before they walked in.

"How many days are 'a few days,'" Elena asked.

"I dunno, lady. Maybe five. A week," said Joe, who was beginning to get a bit impatient. "Are you going to buy a room?"

She looked over at Dean in exasperation, who nodded at Sam.

"Two rooms, please. One with two twin beds," said Sam, handing the clerk a credit card. He ran it through and got them checked in.

"Well, Happy Days over there was helpful," Dean remarked. He unlocked the door to one of the rooms and looked inside. "This one's ours. Damn, I should have asked if they had a couch. We could've just paid for one room."

"It's okay, Dean, I can pay for my own," Elena said with a smile. She unlocked the door next to theirs, and remarked, "My junk-dusting job does afford me small luxuries."

He smirked but shook his head, "Nah, don't worry about it. We already got it covered. Meet us back out here in ten minutes."

It took her about five to shower and another three to hastily get dressed, but by the time she got back to the hallway they were already jimmying the lock to Room 27. Dean glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

"About time, princess. Stop to repaint your nails?"

The nerve. She didn't even wash her hair before throwing on a fresh t-shirt and a worn pair of jeans.

"Stuff it, ass-hat."

Sam just looked amused, but also like he wanted to shake his head at his brother. He was starting to like Elena.

"Yeah, this is definitely a hunter's room," Dean said when they were inside. The place looked barely touched, save for the gym bag poking out from underneath the bed and the desk, utterly trashed with newspaper clippings, pictures, and other clutter. His laptop was buried underneath it all.

"Yep, this is him all right," said Elena. Even working at the local police station in Hill City, South Dakota, the few times she'd visited his office she remembered his cubicle looking much the same. The way he researched while on hunts wasn't any different, and that she remembered well.

"He was obviously on something's trail," said Sam, noting the red circles on names in Cedar City obituaries. They found article clips of similar deaths—all of them young women recorded as accidental or suicide, all in intervals of twenty-five years, and all in the same city—dating back over a century.

"And on the summer solstice," Elena added. Her eyes were glued to Jack's computer screen, where several tabs had been left open. Her dad had a bad habit of closing the laptop without shutting it down completely, and now more than ever she was thankful for it.

"Electrocution via toaster, strangled by shower curtains, impaling themselves on kitchen knives—this sounds like hexes," said Sam, "Which sounds like witch activity."

"Okay, but why the summer solstice?" asked Dean.

"A summoning ritual," said Elena. She turned the laptop around so both of them could see. "Why do witches always feel the need to raise their masters from their fiery keep?"

"Looks like they were trying to raise one powerful mother," said Dean, glancing through the several tabs open on the screen. "The murders were sacrifices…one ingredient in a long list we don't have."

"Are you sure that's all it is?" asked Sam. "If they were able to raise a demon, then why keep doing it every twenty-five years?"

"Maybe it didn't work," Elena suggested after a moment, "Maybe something didn't take. With something that powerful you probably only get one shot, right?"

"Yeah, but how many murders do we have here? Five. They'd have to be the stupidest witch I've ever seen," Dean remarked. "When is the summer solstice anyway?"

"It happens twice a year, but in the northern hemisphere it's usually between June 20 and June 22," said Sam. Dean gave him a peeved look.

"How the fuck do you know that?" Sam opened his mouth to answer, but Dean cut him off. "Forget it. 'S not worth it."

Sam smirked and looked down at the ancient book he'd found in Jack's duffel bag, even as he heard Dean mutter, "Nerd."

"Heard that."

"Shut up."

"This year it's on the twentieth," Elena interrupted, the small smirk on her face betraying her amusement.

"And it'll be the nineteenth in," Dean checked his watch, "three hours."

There was a brief moment of silence as each of them took in the new information.

"So my dad was after this witch to stop her from murdering another woman, and from summoning what we assume is a badass demon," Elena began, "but how did he know to go after them? There hasn't been a death that fit the pattern in this town since 1982. And why wouldn't he tell me he was after one?"

"Something about that bothers me, besides the obvious," said Sam. "Why do they have to be women? Something tells me that's a specific part."

"You concentrate on that," said Dean. Something about the timeline didn't feel quite right. "Elena, go ahead and call Vick again."

She shot him a confused look.

"Why? He already said he only knew Dad was heading to Utah, nothing about what he was hunting."

"I know, and I know Vick. I just want to talk to him."

She gave him a look that said she didn't understand what he was getting at, but she picked up her cell phone and scrolled through her contacts.

"Vick? Hey, it's Elena. Yeah, I'm in Utah trying to find him. With the Winchesters." Elena pulled a face, as if she couldn't believe what the man on the other line was saying. "Well, what did you expect? He's been missing for two weeks! Look, if he told you anything, you have to tell me right now."

Dean had enough of the ride around he was sure Victor Graves was giving her.

"Give me the phone, Lena." She gave him a look, but put Vick on hold to pass the phone to Dean.

"Graves? It's Dean Winchester."

"Winchester? Look, I already told her all I know."

"I think we both know that's not true," said Dean. He glanced over at Elena, who had joined Sam at the other side of the room to help him research the spell. He lowered his voice and continued, "Look, whatever Jack told you about keeping Elena away from this hunt, doesn't mean shit now. My brother and I've got her back. If you don't tell me what we're up against, we might not be able to bring him back alive."

There was a pause on the other line, but eventually he heard a heavy sigh.

"He didn't want to worry her into coming to help him."

"Tell me."

"Apparently some guy came into Vick's bar while he and Jack were talking, out of it and a shaky on his feet. Tossed back three shots before he told them a story about how he was running away from his home town, eventually got it out of him that something evil had killed his wife twenty-five years ago, and he knew it would be back," Dean recounted the story as concisely as he could. They didn't have a whole lot of time to be sitting around. In fact, they had little more than twenty-four hours to find Jack Hayes and gank a witch.

"He was jumping states with his daughter because didn't want it to take her next."

"Did he say what killed his wife?" Sam asked.

"He didn't really know what it was, besides what looked like a regular guy, but he saw it and described it. Turns out the witch is actually a warlock, if you want to get technical," said Dean. "He's trying to raise some nasty fucker called an aswang. Bitchin' name."

He said the name as if it were some wacked out medical disease someone could barely pronounce, but Sam's eyes widened in recognition.

"You know what that is?" Elena asked him. Sam took out his own laptop from his backpack and ran a quick search, coming up with a grotesque creature that looked vaguely like a wendigo if it had fangs and large wings.

"An aswang eats both the dead and the living, but prefers children and unborn fetuses," Sam skimmed the page. "They have a lot of power through touch, mostly to read the thoughts of who they come in contact with. They're mostly like demons in that they can choose to possess someone, usually young women, and have some of the same weaknesses, like holy water."

"Does it say how you kill it?" Dean asked.

"Most folklore says silver, or you can banish them back to hell. A regular exorcism won't work, though."

"The question is why a witch—or warlock, wants to summon one," said Elena. "What's in it for them?"

"The power to control it, maybe. Use it on an enemy," Sam said. "Witches that get to be old enough can get pretty creative when it comes to revenge."

"Pretty sick way of getting your kicks," Dean muttered. "But the good news is, we have a name on our mystery witch."

"I haven't seen much of Nick lately. He seems to have a lot on his plate."

"Oh, well, that's too bad. We haven't seen him in a while and thought we would drop by…it is that house across the street, right?" Dean asked. The elderly woman smiled.

"Yes, that's it. He's probably at work by now, but if you're sure you lost his number he should be back in the afternoon," she said. "I didn't know he had any family nearby."

"Well, we're driving from Nevada over to our parents' house in Salt Lake City," Dean made up on the fly. "Just wanted to stop by on the way and see if our brother wanted to come with us."

"We'll probably get some lunch and come back later," Sam added. "Thanks for your time. We didn't mean to distract you from your cleaning."

"Oh, it's no bother," she said, waving off his apology. "Those mothballs under the couch were making me sneeze like crazy. But I hope you find him."

"Thanks, ma'am," said Dean, and stepped off the porch when the woman closed the front door behind her. The three walked back to the Impala with no intention of leaving to get lunch.

"That's the annoying thing about small towns," said Sam. "Everyone knows everyone—their schedule, their business…"

"Good thing for us though," said Elena. They got into the car, but Dean parked it a street over just in case Margaret, the neighbor they just spoke to, decided to look outside through her window. It didn't take long for Dean to pick the front door lock after making sure Nickolas Greenwood was actually away. Though Elena found her dad's truck parked behind the house with all of his weapons missing.

The inside of the house was immaculate. Nice furniture and sophisticated looking, but definitely belonging to a bachelor. They searched the house and didn't find anyone inside, and Sam hit the jackpot with the usual witchery paraphernalia in Nick's rather large walk-in closet.

"He works at an insurance agency," Elena said as she flipped through the man's mail. "Life insurance. The irony."

"Find out the building's hours," said Dean. He was helping Sam sort through the various ingredients in the closet. Sam found an ancient book that was dog-eared on a page that detailed the summoning spell in depth.

"This stuff is just for hex bags. This obviously isn't where he puts together his more intricate spells," said Sam. "There's no basement in this place, so I don't see where it would be."

"Maybe that's why the GPS signal on Jack's phone died about a mile out from Greens Lake Drive. It's nothing but rocks and hills out there," Dean suggested. "Maybe he has a shed or a cave somewhere."

"A cave, Dean?" Sam asked with a slight grin.

"Whatever, man. Somethin'."

"Okay. Let's say he has a secret cave in the hills somewhere. We have no idea where it is," said Sam. "But we do know he'll probably go there tonight. Timing is everything with this spell. It needs to be done on the day of the summer solstice, but before dawn. That's only about a five-hour gap."

"So we follow him," Dean clarified.

"Yep."

"First he needs a sacrifice…unless he already abducted a woman," said Elena. That gave her chills, because it was obvious now that he had taken her dad, had probably interrogated him for answers…

But she pushed that train of thought away to keep her mind focused on the case. It was strange being back on a hunt again, but it was familiar and she more or less enjoyed the feel of it, thoughts of finding her dad aside. They had already lied to get Greenwood's exact address, based on the information Vick gave Dean on what the poor man who'd lived in this city said.

Now they were breaking into a witch's house.

She never quite forgot the excitement of this job.

"Where did you say he works?" asked Dean.

"About a five minute drive from here, but he doesn't get off until five," she replied. Dean considered this, then said,

"Okay. Let's actually grab some lunch, though, 'cause I'm starved and we got time to kill."

Elena sighed and checked the GPS on her phone for the nearest diner.