"Hey,you two lovebirds. Wake up."

Dean and Buffy stirred, both fighting the grogginess they felt from their forced slumber.

"You can't sleep here, this is a public park." Dean opened his eyes and saw a cop standing in front of him. Looking around, he saw the wooded outline of a park and not his hotel room. And Buffy Summers was pressed up next to him. Her eyes were open and he could see the confusion in their olive green depths. Anger, too.

"I'll be back this way in ten minutes and I expect the both of you to be gone. And get some clothes on, girly. Asking for trouble they are, girls nowadays." The man turned and left, muttering the last words to himself but still loud enough for both of them to hear.

"Did he just really say that? I'm going to show him trouble," Buffy fumed. Then she looked down. "That would be scarier if I wasn't in my sleepy kitty jammies, huh."

XXXXX

They made their way to a small restaurant called Jay Bird's Diner that was serving breakfast. Buffy had put Dean's flannel shirt on as protection from the chilly air, though there hadn't been anything they could do about her bare feet.

"I am going to kill that jerk-faced Castiel," Buffy grumbled. "He couldn't give me five minutes to get dressed. No, Mr. I-thnk-I-look-good-in-a-trenchcoat had to send me off God knows where without my shoes. I love shoes. I have a bunch of them too. Lot of good they're doing me now."

"Pipe down, princess. We'll get you some damn shoes. And some clothes. We just need to make a couple of calls and then you can kick angel ass, ok?" Dean had his cell phone open, looking for signal, but was having no luck.

"Can you tell me where I can get some reception on this thing? Whole town's not a dead zone is it?" Dean asked the man sitting at the counter as he and Buffy slid onto the empty stools next to him.

"The USS Enterprise maybe." The dark haired man laughed. "What does it do?"

"Do? It's a cell-" Dean started to say but Buffy had grabbed his right bicep in a crushing grip and started hissing in his ear. He turned.

"Look around us!"

"What?"

"Dean, look at this place. Look at what everyone is wearing!" At that moment the waiter walked up and it was all Dean could do not to laugh. This guy looked liked he was dressed up
for a Sunny Bono look-a-like contest.

"Nice threads, man. You do know Sunny and Cher broke up?"

"Sunny and Cher broke up?" And suddenly it all clicked into place. All the patrons were looking at him, and for the first time he looked at them. The outdated clothes. The classic cars. The Sunny-freaking-Bono wannabe.

"Shit," Dean muttered. He looked back to Buffy who was nodding her head. "Shit."

This was bad. Why the hell would Castiel send them back in time. Where were they? When were they?

The man on Dean's left was giving him a strange look and turned back to his paper, but Buffy reached across him and snatched the paper from the man's hands. Both of their eyes went to the date on the front page.

Monday, April 30, 1973.

"Excuse me. Could I have my paper back?" Neither one of them moved when he plucked the pages from their hands and returned back to his pursuit of the news.

"Dean, what are we going to do?"

"I don't know. Castiel sent us here for a reason, we just gotta find out what that is."

"We don't even know where we are!" Buffy exclaimed louder than than she had intended.

"You're in Lawrence, Kansas." The dark haired man said, obviously having heard what the two of them were saying. "Y'all must not be from around here."

"No, we're not," Buffy said. "We were kinda left here, unexpectedly. I'm Buffy, by the way. And this is Dean."

"I'm John Winchester. So how can I help you?"

XXXXX

"Dean, I don't know that it's a good idea to be following your dad around like this. We need to find out why we're here." Buffy felt like an ass saying it, but it was the only logical thing to do.

"Whatever reason we are, I guarantee he knows why."

"I don't know. Are you sure that's your dad? I mean, he definitely has the Winchester good looks. But I don't get huntery vibes from him at all. He's looking at VW van. Doesn't exactly scream Badass Demon Hunter."

Buffy turned around at the prickle of awareness just as Castiel poofed into existence behind Dean.

"What are you two doing?" The angel's gruff voice ground out.

"You tell us," Dean said, facing the newcomer. "you're the one who sent us here. What, the angels got ahold of a Delorean and cranked it up to 88? How did we get here?"

"Time can be fluid. It's not easy, but at times we can bend it."

"Well, bend it back! Or tell us what the hell we're here to do." Buffy snapped.

"I told you, you're here to stop it." And with those words he was gone.

"Son of a bitch."

XXXXX

"Are you done yet?"

Dean and Buffy had stopped at a thrift shop across the street from the car dealership, intending to find shoes and clothes for Buffy. Dean hadn't realized that this would take longer than ten minutes and was irritated as hell.

The store was in an old, rundown building that must have been built fifty years ago. The place had no air conditioning, only a single fan resting on the counter, not much younger than the building itself. Its rattles and squeaks were the only sounds accomaning the thumping of Dean's feet while pacing. The forty-something clerk was reading what looked to be a trashy romance novel about pirates; her eyes never left the pages except to flash him looks of annoyance.

Dean wondered how pissed Barbie would be if he left. He probably didn't want to know. But he didn't think he could take one more second of this. How hard was it, really, to pick out some jeans and shirts? He'd have been out of here in two minutes.

"All these jeans are so high-waisted! Can you believe none of them go below the belly button?"

"Yeah, it's tearing me up on the inside, darling. Just pick one and get your ass out here," Dean growled, his patience already worn thin. He walked back to the windows and looked out at his dad, still on the dealership lot. The saleslady scowled at him and he scowled back as he walked back to the dressing room. Buffy popped her head over the curtain door.

"Look, why don't you leave me some money and you go talk to him? Because I swear on all things pointy that if you don't stop huffing and puffing out there, I will break your nose. And I know you think too highly of your face for that." Dean wasn't the only the agitated. Buffy had had enough.

Dean looked at her, not liking the idea of them splitting up any more than the thought of having to wait while she tried on half the store either. She must have sensed his hesitation because she pointed at the door and said "Go!"

Dean shrugged and left her ten dollars, telling her he'd be back in fifteen minutes. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to be careful but he held back. How much trouble could she get into at a thrift shop?

XXXXX

Buffy heard the bells on the door chime and looked up to see two young women walk through. They both seemed to be in their early twenties. One was a tall blond with delicate features and a beautiful smile. The other was a smaller girl whose chestnut curls and freckled face gave her an air of good humor.

"Did you just see that guy who walked out of here, Mary? He was gorgeous!" The darker-haired girl said.

"You think Woody Allen is hot, Trina," said Mary. "Although I admit, he wasn't bad looking."

"You can only say that because you're steady with John Winchester and love makes you stupid. That guy was smoking."

At the mention of the Winchester name, Buffy ducked her head back down, thinking about the situation. If Mary is dating John, is this Dean's mother? She racked her brains trying to remember if her name had ever been mentioned but didn't recall..

"Love does not make me stupid, Trina," Mary chided her friend as they looked through the racks of clothes together. Pure curiosity made Buffy forget about her own search for clothes. She couldn't take her eyes off the pretty blond woman before her. As she looked closer, Buffy started to see little bits of Dean. He took after her more in his coloring, with his golden brown hair and green eyes. And the pouty lips. His looked so damn kissable. Soft but still masculine, she knew...

"What happened to the Mary that was leaving Lawrence as soon as she graduated? Wanted to become a writer. The girl who was going to go to college. You threw all that away for John Winchester. Stupid, see?" Trina's angry rant broke through Buffy's dirty thoughts.

"You know my dad would never let me go, anyway. Family business and all that. Besides, John says we're going to leave here, together, and I can go to school once we get settled."

"Mary, I have known you since we were eight years old and I still don't know what exactly your family business does. All I ever see is y'all going camping all the time," Trina said, holding out a shirt for Mary to inspect. Mary shook her head to the offered clothing but stepped closer to her friend.

"I've told you before, Daddy is a general contractor and he works from home," Mary replied, the playful tone from before gone. Buffy could hear the finality to her words, warning her friend that this conversation was over.

"Yeah, yeah. You've told me that before. I'm just saying that your family is really odd and don't you try to deny it. Lucky for you, I like the strange and unusual. Now, what do think of this for my date with Todd?" The women resumed their shopping and Buffy picked up the clothes that had meet her standards. Now, all she needed was a pair of tennis shoes.

Leaving the dressing room area, she walked over to the completely disorganized pile of women's shoes. Something nagged at Buffy's conscious. Why was Mary so defensive about what her family did for a living? Unless being a general contractor was just a story. And suddenly a memory flashed into her head. In Bobby's kitchen, the night Dean had told her about his life growing up and how he and Sammy were in the family business. Could she really be? Was Mary a hunter?

XXXXX

"Are you sure about this, Dean?" Buffy asked from the passenger seat of the car they had stolen earlier that day. "Maybe we should be talking to the sheriff or something. See if anything thing unusual has been going on. Isn't that what you normally do?"

They were parked on the side of the road in a middle class, residential neighborhood, following John Winchester in his newly purchased '67 Impala. They had been trailing him since he drove it off the lot and still were no closer to finding out why there back in the '70's. Buffy's eyes darted to the yard of the house up ahead of them as a bright blond-haired girl ran up to John's car. It was Mary from the thrift shop. Voices could be heard drifting through the night air and into the open windows of the stolen car Dean and Buffy were in.

"Hey," John's deep voice called out.

"What is this?" Mary replied in disbelief, her eyes roaming over the sleek lines of the muscle car.

"My car." John got out as his girlfriend walked around to the back, trailing her hands over the trunk.

"What happened to the van?" Mary laughed as she went into John's opened arms.

"This is way better than a van, Mary! This has got a 327 cubic inch motor, a four -barrel carburetor." The rest of his words were drowned out by the sound of the Impala's engine roaring to life, but Buffy couldn't help but see the look on Dean's face. She knew then her hunch had been right.

"Mom?"

XXXXX

"My mom is a total babe," Dean murmured. He couldn't take his eyes off the scene before him. His mom and dad. Alive. And on a date.

"And you're a total perv." Buffy's voice whispered in his ear, hot and breathy, and shot straight to his groin. He turned and looked down at her, trying to erase the mental images she brought up. But the mischievous glint in her eyes only added fuel to the fire. He was man enough to admit he was drawn to her. Very drawn to her. But lusting after her wasn't going to do either one of them any good.

"I'd take offense but you wouldn't be wrong. Although I do not have an Oedipus complex, just so you know."

"So you were not just checking out your mom then? Cause that's what it looks like."

"Is that jealousy? Just say the word and I'll show you how pervy I am. Safe word is Chimichanga," Dean told her, not able to keep the smirk off his face. He didn't know what it was about her, but even with a job to do, she distracted him.

Buffy only replied with a throaty laugh as she shook her head and punched him lightly in the arm. At least he thought she meant it to be lightly, but he still winced.

"So are we going to spend all night out here watching them from outside or are we going inside?"

XXXXX

"What do you know about your mom and dad? It's gotta be surreal as hell seeing them like this, younger than you are," Buffy said around a mouthful of pie, content to finally have some food after the strange events of the day.

"Well, not a whole lot. Dad was- is- a mechanic after he got out of service. Him and mom got married in '74. Will get. I don't know. Dad didn't talk much about the past."

"What about your mom? Anything you remember about her that might help?" Buffy asked.

"She always cut my sandwiches diagonally," Dean said, a sad smile on his face and Buffy felt her heart constrict for him. She forgot how young he must have been when he lost her. Made her appreciative of all the years and memories she had with her mom.

"I'm going to go to the little slayer's room," Buffy announced as she stood up. John and Mary were still across the restaurant on their date, but who knew when her next chance to go would be.

Buffy flushed the toilet and opened the stall door, surprised to find herself face to face with Mary Winchester. Or the future Mary Winchester.

"Why are you following me?" Mary demanded to know. The sweet girl she had seen before was replaced with a dangerously angry woman. "First the thrift shop and now here. What do you want?"

Not waiting for an answer, Mary threw a hard jab at her face. Buffy deftly ducked away, not wanting to get into a brawl with a human. Mary continued her assault, expertly punching and kicking, though never landing one on the slayer. Seeing that she was getting nowhere, Mary backed off, her hands still held up in the defensive position.

"Who are you?" Mary hissed. Buffy could tell that she had surprised her by blocking all her attacks and she could see why. The woman was good. If she wasn't the slayer, Buffy would have had one hell of a fight on her hands.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot. I'm Buffy." She held her hand out to her but Mary stood still. "It's not what you think. We're just trying..." The words were interrupted by the door opening and Dean poking his head through.

"Buffy?" Striking fast, Mary punched Dean, the blow landing on his jaw.

"What the hell! Are you crazy?" Dean cried out as he stepped into bathroom and dodged a kick to his groin.

"I know you've been tailing us since my house," Mary said to the two of them. Buffy could see how pissed she was. But she wasn't afraid. At least not much. And that made Buffy think there was more to this girl than Dean knew.

"I don't know what you're talking about-" Dean started saying but Mary cut him off.

"Really?" Mary asked, and raised her fist again. But Buffy grabbed her arm before it could connect with Dean's face for the second time and held it tightly. Mary tried to yank it away, obviously surprised that the much smaller Buffy was able to hold her. She struggled more, the tinkle of her charm bracelet bringing Dean's eyes away from her face and to her wrist. Surprise flashed in his eyes as he looked at the charms.

"Are you a hunter?"