Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters. Cadence, however, is an original character I invented for the purpose of this fic because I knew Dean wouldn't have fit the part.

A/N: I don't know why this idea hit me any more than the reasons behind any of my other stories. The only excuse I can give you is a hyperactive muse. I just somehow got to thinking about the time Sam was at Stanford and how much he would have thought about the supernatural during that time, and somehow that idea morphed into this fic. No one really ever explained just why Sam suddenly jumped back into the job he wanted to get away from if he was so sure that his dad was the best and knew everything about hunting, and why Dean was so convinced something was up after only a few days when he really kind of believed that even more. So I thought it needed a little more explaining as to why they so readily believed that something could be hokey with John not coming back right away.

An Old Friend

"So are you sure there's nothing special you want, besides that homemade dinner I promised you?" Jess asked, leaning across the café table toward Sam. A hopeful smile tugged at the corners of her lips, and the late afternoon sun refracted off of her golden hair. Sam was sure she had never looked more beautiful.

"I'm sure," he said with a chuckle, shaking his head to emphasize the point.

Jess pouted then, wrinkling her nose at him and poking his arm. "Why won't you let me spend money on you? Not even that much money! Just let me get you something!"

Sam sighed and started to say something, but was interrupted by a sudden exclamation of, "Why, it can't be Sammy Winchester!?" His head jerked up reflexively, a scowl crossing his face, but it melted into a stupefied sort of expression as he saw the speaker.

The fair-skinned woman who had paused on the sidewalk looked scarcely out of her teens, though that might have been due mainly to the fact that she was wearing her auburn hair in a short ponytail sticking out from the side of her head. Her clothes were simple: jeans, a lime green t-shirt, and a jean jacket. Her shoes were also somewhat peculiar, though; the black-and-white-checked Vans on her feet seemed to have been scribbled on with a gold marker, leaving it covered with seemingly random words and markings. Her dancing, ice-blue eyes only served to emphasize the idea of an overgrown kid as she practically skipped over to the table, still grinning from ear to ear.

Once he had recovered from his initial shock, Sam realized that Jess's eyebrows had shot up and she was staring at him expectantly, asking without words, 'Who's she? And since when can anyone call you Sammy?'

"C-Cadence?" he finally managed to get out as he stared at the girl in front of him.

"It is you!" she promptly squealed in response, then suddenly threw her arms around him. Sam didn't have to see Jess's face to know that she was probably confused and possibly a little hurt.

"Uh -- can't breathe, here," Sam objected, trying to free himself from the vice grip around his neck. It wasn't strictly true, but he doubted that Jess would appreciate it if he weren't freed soon.

"Oh, sorry," Cadence apologized, but she was still grinning as she stood up straight and put her hands on her hips. "Now, are you gonna tell me what you're doing here!? You weren't chasing the same thing I was, were you?"

Sam started to object, or to tell her to be more careful with what she was saying in present company, but Cadence went on, undeterred. "That's right, you aren't doing that anymore. I forgot, I guess. But I ran into your dad and Dean in San Jose a few weeks ago! … Oh," she said slowly, finally putting a stop to her constant flow of words.

"I haven't seen them since I came to Stanford," Sam said, his mouth a grim line. Jess's expression shifted into one full of pity and that lingering curiosity about why he hadn't seen his family since he had come to Palo Alto.

"I'm sorry," Cadence said, her gaze falling to the pavement. "It's hard, I know. But they miss you," she added suddenly, looking up to meet his gaze again. "Of course, Dean was all tough-guy, I-don't-care-what-the-little-twerp-does, and John just kept staring at the wall with that typical Winchester shut-up-before-I-kill-you-and-feed-your-body-to-ravenous-wolves-type glare… kind of like you're giving me now… but they really do miss you, Sammy, I know it."

"Well, they sure came up with a new way to show it, the whole kicking me out thing," Sam muttered, glaring into his now long-cold espresso.

"They didn't kick you out, Sammy," Cadence contradicted, shaking her head so that the ponytail on the side of her head wobbled furiously, but her pale eyes were suddenly hard. "You left, same as I did, only for the exact opposite reason. Your family would take you back if you wanted. You're luckier than I am, that way."

"I'm sorry," Jess suddenly interjected, looking from Cadence to Sam as if to remind them that she was still here. However, she was still curious about Sam's history, and that was much higher on her priority list than getting annoyed at what she was currently labeling as a severe lack of manners. "I don't mean to be rude, but… what do you mean?"

"Oh -- yeah, sorry," Sam said quickly, before Cadence could speak up and say something he didn't want her to. "Jess, this is Cadence Beckett. She's an old friend -- she hung around with me and my brother a lot when we were younger. Cade, this is my girlfriend, Jessica."

Cadence's reaction was predictable: her huge grin returned full-force, and her gaze switched to Jess instantly. "Really!? Sammy finally found a girl who didn't think he was taller than Sasquatch and had longer hair, to boot, and he didn't even tell anybody!?"

Sam scoffed and made a face reminiscent of a teenage boy being annoyed by his kid sister. "You'll have to forgive me, Cade. You're a bit hard to pin down. And it's Sam. Nobody's called me Sammy in years."

"Well, so're you, Sam," Cadence pointed out, then resumed grinning at Jess. "Anyway, it's good to meet you! Call me Cady, everybody does."

Jess was understandably taken aback by the sudden display of closeness, a hint of jealousy eating at the back of her mind. She didn't see this 'Cady' girl as a risk to her relationship with Sam or anything of the sort, but… Cadence knew a side of him that Jess didn't, and that hurt a little. As it was, she was glad when she noticed the clock and realized that she had a class in three minutes.

"Crap -- Brewer'll have my head if I'm late again," she said apologetically, grabbing her bag from where she had dropped it beside her chair and standing up. "I'll see you tonight, Sam -- and keep your nose out of the apartment until six-thirty, you hear me!? You'll ruin the surprise."

Sam smiled. "All right, I promise."

Cadence smirked faintly as Jess kissed Sam goodbye before starting off at a quick walk across campus. The blond woman paused after a few steps and looked back to add, "Nice to meet you, Cade -- uh, Cady!"

Cadence flashed a grin again and waved, and she and Sam watched Jess until she was out of sight. Then Sam's gaze shot toward Cadence again, a crease between his eyebrows. "You can drop the clueless-and-naïve act now," he said with a sigh. "I don't know why you find it necessary to throw off suspicion by acting stupid, anyway."

"I don't act stupid," Cadence contradicted, shaking her head and speaking in a lower, more serious voice now as she sat down in the seat Jess had just vacated. She rested her elbows on the table and her chin on her folded hands, those icy blue eyes now solemn and guarded as they were no longer veiled by feigned amusement. "I keep myself safe by pretending to be someone I'm not."

"Is that really necessary, to be safe?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. "Dad's good at staying unnoticed; I know he must have taught you something. Not dressing in every bright color you can think of might help."

"I couldn't do that. It's too easy to feel depressed when everything's bland. And acting like you're happy and carefree can make you feel better, for a while."

Sam's brow furrowed. "Even after five years?"

"Ian was my little brother, Sammy," Cadence said quietly. "That's not something you forget -- not something you let go." She shook her head and added in an almost inaudible murmur, "No matter what faith-crazed fools like my parents say."

Sam just nodded, not wanting to linger on that particular topic; it still disturbed him, and he knew it must be much worse for Cadence. Her nine-year-old brother, Ian, had been abducted by a witch five years ago, and the Winchesters had taken up the case. They weren't in time to save Ian, who had been killed by the spell the witch had cast to steal his gift of foresight, and at first it had seemed a hopeless case to try to fight her. She knew their moves before they did, and it was the best they could do to take the boy's body back to his parents.

The Becketts were distraught, but the witch was still on the loose, and John and Dean took shifts standing guard outside their house. It was around four in the morning, the same time that Ian had disappeared, that a crashing sound from Cadence's room alerted them their watch hadn't been very successful.

Dean had locked Matthew and Isabelle Beckett in the basement to keep them safe while John and Sam rushed upstairs. As it turned out, Cadence had vestiges of the same ability her brother had been killed for and was therefore the witch's next target. However, since the witch was mainly focused on Cadence because of her (albeit latent) gift, John had been able to get an advantage and end the fight for good. Sam still remembered that sudden ferocity in his father's eyes, and wondered for a moment if that, too, was linked to what had happened to Mary Winchester all those years before. Everything seemed to lead back to her, one way or another.

"I'm glad you're happy, Sam," Cadence's voice said, breaking into his thoughts. However, the tone and the expression in her eyes as he snapped back to the present told him there was a 'but' coming. Her voice was carefully level, though, as she asked slowly, "She doesn't know, does she?"

"Jess?" Sam asked, though he knew full well who and what she was talking about.

"Jess," Cadence affirmed simply.

Sam was silent for a long moment before shaking his head. "No. She doesn't know."

Cadence drew a long breath and switched her gaze to a spot in the air a few inches above his head. "… I see…"

"She doesn't need to know," Sam felt the need to explain. "She shouldn't have to know the truth like we had to. She shouldn't have to be afraid."

"She would do well to be afraid," Cadence said in a low voice, her hands seeming to morph into fists of their own accord with the stress of her tone. "Hunters are never truly safe, and neither are the people they care for."

"I'm not a hunter anymore."

Cadence's blue eyes were almost sad as she caught his gaze again, but her voice was still low and warning as she half whispered, "You can't stop being a hunter, Sammy. You can't forget what you know, and the scum out there? They're not going to forget about you, either."

Something flashed in his eyes, and before he could object, she went on, "I'm not saying you should walk away, Sam. I'm not even saying you should tell her the truth. But if you don't, you have to keep your eyes open. You have to protect her. You have to stop denying what you are admit that you're still a hunter, and you always will be, because if you aren't, there won't be anyone to stand between her and what's really out there."

Sam knew that she meant well, but she was being paranoid. Nothing supernatural was going to happen in Palo Alto anytime soon. Cadence was just overly cautious because of everything she had lost – her brother, and in the end, also her parents, who were so deeply steeped in their religious beliefs that they had disowned her for deciding that she couldn't sit idly by with the knowledge she now had. So she had set out with the Winchesters, and had hunted with them for over a year, learning every hunting-related skill John was willing to teach. She had gone off on her own the year before Sam had left for college, and he wasn't sure that she had seen any of them since. Or not until just a short while ago, anyway.

"Why are you here?" Sam asked suddenly, realizing that his argument might have a flaw. Was she tracking a demon? Was that why she was warning him to keep an eye out?

Cadence just shook her head. "Already taken care of."

"Then why are you telling me this? Did you see something? Is something out after Dean and Dad and me?"

"I'm not like Ian, Sammy," she said quietly, crossing her arms tightly as if she were suddenly cold. "There's a reason he was first priority for that supernatural scumbag. He could see more clearly, more accurately. His was a true gift, but Mom and I are different. It's foggy and ambiguous for us, like looking through frosted glass into a room where no one's speaking a language you understand. I only catch emotions, shadows, intents. Mom gets flashes of images, fragments that fit together sometimes, but sometimes don't. That witch only wanted us because we would have strengthened what she already had from Ian. Given her different pieces of the same picture."

"But there's something," Sam said slowly, his brow creased as a wary look filtered into his eyes.

Cadence bit her lip, then sighed heavily. Her expression contorted with focus and a faint grimace turned up the corner of her lip. "There's something, but I don't know what 'something' is. I feel pain, something ominous. A malicious presence. Something that wishes evil and will do anything to achieve it. And pain, pain more intense than almost anything I've ever felt." She swallowed hard, shook her head, and rested her forehead on her palms. "But I can't tell what kind of pain. I can't tell if the threat is more deadly than usual, or if I'm just reading it more clearly. I can't even tell if it's about you, Dean, or John; you're all too interlinked in my head. And it's scaring the crap out of me."

"But it's not Jess?"

For a moment, Cadence said nothing, then sighed again and shook her head. "I don't see how it could be; I've never met her before. I shouldn't have suggested it might be. I guess I just thought it might light a fire under you, like how I suggested to Dean it might be your dad, and to your dad that it might be Dean. They'll protect each other more fiercely than they would themselves."

Sam sat in silence, trying to feel relieved but mostly finding himself only more worried. Whatever he told himself and whatever had happened, Dean was still his brother, and his dad was still his dad. "So it wasn't a coincidence that you ran into Dad and Dean, or that you came here?"

"It was a coincidence that I found them," Cadence clarified, "but it wasn't a coincidence that I told them what I did. You were considerably easier to track down. That's not a good thing, for a hunter, you know."

"I know," Sam said quietly, finally beginning to understand what she meant. But, at the same time…

"I'm not going to hunt anymore, Cadence," he said slowly, trying to read the expression in her eyes but failing miserably. She had been able to hide or even alter the emotions she betrayed long before he had ever known her, probably something that her mother had taught her long before. "I'll keep a lookout, make sure nothing sneaks up on me… but I won't be a hunter again. I'll take care of it if something happens, but I won't go looking for trouble. I don't want to live that life anymore."

Cadence nodded slowly, but her eyes suddenly betrayed sorrow again. "I understand," she whispered, inclining her head toward him. "I… don't have that choice, and I'm not sure I could do it, even if I did. But Sam… I just worry that you won't be able to make that decision, either. I'm afraid that whatever is about to happen will force your hand, one way or another."

"Hey, Sam, man!" a male voice called suddenly, and a stocky guy with tousled dark hair walked over, grinning from ear to ear and waving a piece of paper in front of his face. "A B! I got a B! Can you believe it!? Jeez, I owe you big time for helping me out…"

Cadence stood up at once, resuming her sweet and clueless act as she always did in the presence of someone she didn't know. "Oh, I guess your friend wants to talk to you, huh, Sam? I'll just hit the road; I've got a gig in Abilene. Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

The grin that swept over her face looked almost natural, but this time Sam could see the genuine concern in her icy eyes. He nodded, and the next moment she had turned on her heel and was gone. James, who had been in Sam's first-semester calculus class and who had sought out his help with math ever since, blinked after her and then shrugged and resumed yammering about the test score he had just gotten back.

It wasn't like Cadence had never been wrong before, Sam tried to reassure himself. Anyway, it was entirely possible that she was overreacting; she did have a bad habit of making mountains out of molehills. There was no reason to panic or worry too much.

Yet Sam still made a resolution to get online tonight and start watching for any unusual occurrences around San Jose, where Cadence had said she had seen Dean and John last.

A/N: Now that this fic is completed, I'm actually kind of inspired to write another one which would be sort of like a lost scene from the first epi but has to do with the plot of this fic, basically a scene that better explains why Dean and Sam were afraid something might have happened to John based on the premise of this fic. It would be mostly from Jess's POV, and probably considerably shorter than this one. Reviews will increase the likelihood of me writing more, btw. ;)