*Author's Note: Hey guys! I'm posting a day early because I'm getting some wisdom teeth removed tomorrow. I hope you enjoy it! Special thanks to cammiemorris7 for the review!

Chapter 4- One Year Ago

Dean awoke in a start. He sat up from his supine position, gasping for breath as his heart hammered against his aching chest. He didn't know why he was suddenly so distressed, but there was a dull throb coming from his stomach. A second later, he felt a sting from his cheek. Wincing, he reached up to touch it. To his surprise, his fingers brushed the rough fabric of a bandage, and as he felt it further, he was pretty sure someone had put cream on it. His first thought was Sam, but then he looked around at his surroundings.

He was in a well-kept bedroom, lying on a twin sized bed atop a patterned quilt. Furrowing his brow, Dean studied the walls around him, which were decorated by generic landscape paintings typical for a country-themed guest room. Dean looked to his left, and he saw another twin bed sitting on the other side of the room. A quilt identical to his was laid out on the bed, but it was wrinkled, as if it were recently vacated.

The elder Winchester frowned, confused to where he was, when it clicked. Memories of before came rushing back, and Dean gritted his teeth angrily. If he saw that chick again, he was going to shoot her.

Slowly, he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and rested them on the carpeted floor. For a moment he wondered if he should remove his boots, but pushed the thought out of his mind, and checked his gear. To his relief, his gun and all his knives were still on him.

Feeling slightly safer, Dean stood up from the bed and exited the room through the open door, all while keeping his hand near the pearl grip of his gun.

When he poked his head out into a hallway, he heard a pair of muffled voices coming from his right, where the hall lead to a living room. Hesitantly, he followed them, scanning the hall as he went. He assumed there were only two other people in the house, but the unfamiliar house made him feel uneasy.

He stepped into the living room, and was instantly met with a scene that could have been taken from A Beautiful Mind. The wall across from the entrance to the room was covered with photographs, newspaper clippings, and handwritten notes. Red string webbed the psycho collage together, supposedly connecting the papers tacked on the wall.

Now, the collage itself didn't bother Dean. Both he and Sam used this method of connecting the evidence for a case. No, it was the size of it that was disturbing. The entire thing took up over half of the whole wall.

"Dean!"

Dean jumped and whirled around to the voice, only to see his brother standing in a doorway opposite to the one the elder Winchester entered in. It was as if someone had punctured a balloon of tension in his chest as Dean looked at his little brother.

"You're awake? Sarah said you probably wouldn't be for another fifteen minutes or so," Sam said with a look of relief as he walked up to his older brother.

Dean rose a suspicious eyebrow. "Sarah? Sarah who?"

"That would be me," an aggravatingly familiar voice said behind him.

Yellowstone National Park

Silence reigned in the Impala as the two brothers drove to the crime scene. Sam didn't speak as he uncomfortably sat beside his brother, who, from the looks of his expression, was wordlessly sending a string of profanities as the clunky Jeep in front of them. It was no secret to Sam that Dean resented Sarah, but his brother's sour mood was starting to get on Sam's nerves. So far, Sarah hadn't done anything to warrant such a harsh reaction from Dean. Sure, she was acting a bit off from her usual stiff, rule-keeping self. Maybe a bit rude, but nothing to get such hatred from Dean. The thought of their last encounter with the blonde sent a shiver down Sam's back, but Dean was too focused on giving the Jeep death glares to notice.

"Could she drive any slower?" Dean growled under his breath, breaking the silence in the car. Sam glanced at his brother warily, deciding to remain mute and let Dean vent his frustration. "I mean, seriously! Old ladies drive faster than she does!" Sam didn't speak, only tensing in his seat at his brother's tone. "Her crappy Jeep must be the reason, to be honest. Just look at that paint job on the back! I doubt it has never gotten a good fix since the day it was made."

As he said that, Dean pointed a finger to the back of the Jeep, where Sam could see a large rusted chip in the paint just above the license plate. Upon further inspection, Sam could see that the vehicle bore many chips in its green paint, mainly on the edges of the windows and along the seams in the metal. It was painfully obvious to him that Sarah didn't give the same amount of affection to her mode of transportation as Dean did to the Impala.

Eventually, Sarah's paint-chipped Jeep lead them to the entrance of the Park, where they easily passed through the gate checkpoint with a flash of their FBI badges. The guard seemed relatively surprised to see the ID's, but let them pass with a tip of his wide-brimmed hat.

Not long after they passed through the gate, Sarah turned off the highway onto a gravel road. Two sheriff cruisers were parked on the side of the road with their red and blue lights flashing, illuminating the tall pine trees flanking the road. The Jeep pulled up behind the nearest cruiser, and the Impala rolled to a stop behind Sarah.

She stepped out of her vehicle while nervously smoothing her jacket and adjusting her forest green shirt as Sam and his older brother stepped out of the Impala.

Sam stepped up to her with a look of concern. "Hey, you alright?"

Her wide blue-green eyes gazed up at him for a moment before they quickly averted to the ground. "Oh, yeah. I'm fine," she replied. "I'm good." She sucked in a deep breath. "I haven't done this for a while. Usually St- I mean, my friend, takes care of this part of hunting."

Sam nodded in understanding and reached into his pocket and pulled out a spare FBI badge and offered it to her. "Here, you're gonna need this."

Sarah shook her head and patted her jacket. "I have my own. Thanks anyway," she responded and took another deep breath.

With a shrug, Sam replaced the ID in his pocket.

"Are you two gonna stay gossiping over there, or are we gonna do this?" Dean barked over the roof of the Impala.

After shooting his brother an annoyed glare, Sam watched Sarah take another deep breath before she brushed past him to meet Dean by the hood of the car. "You are one sarcastic remark from losing a few teeth, fruitcake." The blonde hunter muttered sarcastically. It was just loud enough for both brothers to hear.

The trio walked to the trees lined with strings of yellow tape, where a portly middle aged officer strolled up to meet them. "Sorry folks, this area is blocked off," he told them as he hitched up his khakis by the belt loops.

Dean stepped up, taking charge as he pasted on a serious expression in front of the officer. "FBI. I'm Agent Cash, these are my colleagues Agent Denver and Agent Lawrence," Dean announced as he and Sam flashed their badges. Sarah, however, stood between them, nervously eyeing the trees as if she was worried that something might jump out of them. Nudging her with an elbow, Dean pulled her out of whatever was going on in her head, and she quickly yanked out her own badge. Pursing his lips, Dean rolled his eyes and turned back to the man giving Sarah unsure looks. "Sorry, she's new."

Tucking his thumbs in his front pant pockets, the officer studied them curiously. "Oh yeah. I got a call from your supervisor. He said you'd be coming," he said.

Furrowing his brow, Sam turned to his brother, only to see Dean mirroring his confused expression.

Their thoughts were cut off, however, when the officer continued talking. "Welcome to Yellowstone, Agents," he announced proudly, oblivious to the brothers' unsure glances. "I'm Sheriff Harpin. I'm in charge of this case, and I'd like to know why the FBi is investigating an animal attack."

Sam glanced down at Sarah's shaking hands as she returned her badge in her jacket pocket. She definitely wasn't going to talk, that he knew, so he was the one to answer.

"Agent Lawrence here is being evaluated. The guys up top figured a rough scene like an animal attack would help break her in." Officer Harpin's focus turned to Sarah, who quickly straightened up.

"No offense Agent, but I don't think she can handle a scene like this," Harpin said in amusement.

Sam shook his head and replied, "Let us be the judge of that, officer. If you could show us where the body is, that would be great." The older man nodded, slightly alarmed by the sudden but subtle murderous glare that Sarah was giving him and motioned them to follow him.

"A kid found it," the officer explained as the four of them picked their way through the thick undergrowth.

"It?" Sarah asked, speaking aloud to Harpin for the first time.

The officer glanced at her warily before he continued. "This body has been torn apart. I can't tell whether it's a male or a female. It could be an alien for all I know," he stopped and pointed to a thick tree trunk that stood a couple hundred yards away from them. "It's behind there, in the clearing," he said and shoved his hands into the pockets of his khakis. "If you have any questions, I'll be by my car."

Sam stared at him curiously as the older man made his way back to the road. "What, you got a weak stomach?" Dean called after him. The officer didn't answer as he hurried away, looking slightly green around the gills.

Sarah shook her head in disgust. "Tourist," she muttered, then turned to the tree, and froze. With the officer gone, her apprehensive expression had returned. Sam glanced at his brother curiously, who in turn studied the blonde hunter with a frown.

"What's the matter, Lassie? Got a nervous stomach too?" asked Dean.

The remark earned the elder Winchester an annoyed glare from Sarah before she adjusted her jacket and marched over to the tree with her head held high. The boys closely followed.

"So, we have a supervisor?" Dean asked as he stepped over a particularly thorny bush that hung over the thin deer trail. The trees were beginning to thin out, and bigger patches of sunlight streamed onto the carpet of brown pine needles from the larger gaps between the trees overhead. Sarah firmly marched down the trail, barely acknowledging the forest surrounding her, and ignoring the elder Winchester's question.

Sam wasn't sure, but she seemed slightly paler than usual. Sarah normally had a rather ruddy complexion, but at that moment her color had all but disappeared.

That thought quickly left his mind as they stepped around the big tree. The moment he stepped around the hefty trunk, he was met with a gory sight.

"Well, he certainly wasn't kidding," Sam said with a grimace as the three entered the clearing. Dean and Sarah walked to either side of him, staring at the body, or what was left of it. The mass before them hardly looked like the remains of a human being. It held a better resemblance to a pile of spaghetti with too much sauce than a human being. Chunks of flesh and sinew were strewn around the small clearing, and some pieces still had frayed bits of clothing glued to them with drying blood. But the most disgusting thing about the scene was the smell. A putrid stench of rotting meat hung thickly in the warm autumn air like an invisible cloud. "This guy looks like they went through a meat grinder."

"Regretting all those pit stops now, Dean?" Sarah chuckled uncomfortably at Dean as they circled the carnage, careful not to step on any entrails. "You look a little uneasy."

"What, you aren't?" he shot back.

She gave him a small grimace. "Buddy, this isn't the worst state of a body I've seen. To me, this is nothing."

Sam gave her a worried look as a gruesome image of the blonde popped in his head. "Thanks for the picture," he groaned.

She gave him a reassuring look that momentarily masked her nausea, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking of. "You're welcome," she replied, ignoring the strange look dean was giving her.

Clearing his throat, Sam pulled out his EMF detector from his jacket pocket. The younger Winchester fiddled with the device, but to his disappointment it remained silent. "Well, we can cross ghost off the list," he announced, tucking the gadget back in his jacket.

"And I'm not smelling any sulfur, so no demon either," Sarah added, then creased her forehead in thought. She started muttering something softly to herself, speaking too quietly for Sam to completely understand what she was saying. What he could piece from it was something about a deer.

The three of them circled around the corpse with Dean grimaging in disgust. "Well, this looks like a foot," he observed, pointing to a bloody shoe, then motioned to a gore-covered limb a few feet away. "And that is an arm."

"And that is pretty much what we have left of this body." Sam sighed.

"It's enough," Sarah insisted.

"Oh yeah?" Dean hissed at the blonde hunter. "How is that?"

"Just give me a minute," she stated flatly, ignoring his question.

Dean rolled his eyes, then motioned to the messy remains at her feet. "Well then, by all means, Sherlock, go ahead," he said, his voice laced with sarcasm.

Sarah let out an exasperated huff as she crouched down by the body and gingerly prodded the mass of bloody tissue, then sniffed her hand. In the corner of his eye, Sam caught sight of Dean frowning at her in disgust. He couldn't help but smile in amusement as he guessed what his brother was thinking: "Why did she have to touch the body?".

"Human, obviously. In their late thirties, possibly early forties." She straightened up and pulled a bandana from her pocket to wipe her hand. "Whoever this guy was, he definitely loved his iron supplements, that's for sure."

"He?" Sam tore his eyes away from the dismembered body to the blonde hunter.

"Yeah, the muscle structure is of a man. It's too bulky for a woman."

"How can you tell if the muscles are bulky if there isn't a piece large enough to tell?" Dean rose a questioning eyebrow at her.

"Do you want to do this, or will you let me figure this out?" she shot back with a growl.

"Guys." Sam sighed, quieting the two bickering hunters. "Is there anything else Sarah?"

With a nod, the young woman motioned to the corpse at her feet and perched her other hand on her hip. "Yeah, there's something off about his blood, other than his apparent love for seafood."

"What?"

"He smells wrong for some reason. I know how human blood is supposed to smell, and there's something….how should I put it: off?"

Dean shrugged. "Well, the dude's been filleted. Of course he smells bad." Dean straightened up and gave the body another disgusted look before turning to face her.

Sam watched Sarah drop her hand to her side in resignation and he couldn't help but laugh internally. It was kind of funny to watch his brother mess with her, but he knew that somewhere they were testing Sarah's patience. He had seen what happened when she lost her temper. Thankfully she took it out on the monsters they were hunting at that time, and he was sure he didn't want to be on the receiving end of her fury.

"So, I guess this means that it's definitely not a "normal" animal attack," Sam said in attempts to change the subject. "You have an idea on what we're dealing with?"

Shaking her head, Sarah turned away from Dean to face the younger Winchester. "Whatever it is, it's difficult to say what exactly it is."

Behind Sarah, Sam watched his brother toss his arms into the air in exasperation before her turned back around to look at the body. Ignoring Dean, Sam focused on Sarah. "Do you have any potential monster suspects?"

The blonde opened her mouth to reply, but she hesitated, visibly thinking on what to say. She suddenly looked extremely nervous. "Well, I would like to say wendigo, but this doesn't feel like a wendigo attack. They don't leave gory scenes like this."

"Yeah, we're gonna need to do some more research to figure out what it really is," Sam said, giving the red mush an uneasy look.