When they returned to the hunting cabin, Rose turned to John, who was crossing over to the table. "So, what do we need to do to find this ghost or whatever?" Her voice was eager and cheerful. There was a lightness in her step John wasn't used to seeing, an energy that no one in his life seemed to have. Every Hunter he knew walked as though they were weighed down by the weight of all they'd seen, but Rose was light, still happy. It was weird to see.

Gruffly, he told her, "We need to find out who it is. That means research." He scooped his keys up off the table.

"Researching what exactly?"

He strode off towards his room, re-emerging with his hunting journal tucked under his arm. "Any strange or violent deaths in the area. We find any with a grudge who were killed in those woods, we find our ghost." As he crossed over to the front door, he told her, "There's a town not far from here, they've got a library. We can search the databases there."

Rose's expression wilted a little. "Urgh. Forgot I was in the ninties for a minute there." She wrinkled her nose with distaste. "Guess that means no laptops. Or phones with internet."

John snorted. "Get used to it, kid. There's no alien tech here to make your life easier."

She groaned. "Great. Guess I'm back to living life on the slow path again." The girl followed John outside, where his Impala waited. At the sight of it, she grinned a bit. "Nice car," she commented.

"Thanks." He was rather fond of it – he'd had it since before he and Mary had gotten married.

The girl smirked. "Could be bluer, though." Without explaining the comment, she headed over to the car, grinning back at the Hunter. "Let's go then. Sounds like we've got a lot of work to do."

SCENEBREAK

The library was a small thing, but it had computers, and John was quickly able to hack into the police records he needed. While he scanned through, Rose flipped through some old newspapers, grumbling something about being stuck in a time without Google.

The Hunter couldn't help but be curious about the strange girl. He didn't believe what she'd said about aliens and parallel universes, but he still wasn't sure what had actually put her in that forest, or why.

She was definitely no civilian. He would've guessed she was a Hunter, but she didn't have the right attitude for it. Hunters were grim, black humor types, at least all the ones he'd ever met. She was too open, too eager. He was pretty sure she wasn't the kind to use black magic, so witch was out, though he was still thinking wiccan. But if she was, why would she lie about it to a Hunter? If she was anything supernatural and was trying to cover it up, why act so strange in the first place? Why not act totally normal, instead of hinting at knowing something?

Whatever she was, she seemed pretty convinced with her "aliens and time travel" theory. Admittedly, John had heard of some instances of creatures that could time travel, mostly pagan gods. It was a rare ability, but it wasn't unheard of. Maybe she'd met one of those, or even known one well. That would explain the lack of surprise and asking what year it was.

Aliens, though, was another matter. All his time as a Hunter, he'd never heard of any proof of alien existence, or at least their presence on Earth. It was all just crazy conspiracy theories from guys living in their parents' basements. Rose didn't look like the crazy conspiracy theorist type, but she might just have confused the supernatural for the extraterrestrial. He was pretty sure that if aliens existed, some Hunter would've heard of it by now.

Rose looked up from her newspaper, head tipped curiously. "So, is this your job, then? You hunt supernatural things for a living?"

He snorted. "Not much of a living, but yeah."

"On your own?" she asked gently.

The Hunter stiffened, thinking of the two kids he had waiting for him. "Yeah," he lied. She didn't need to know about Sam and Dean. He wasn't that trusting.

"Sounds lonely," Rose commented. There was soft sympathy in her expression, also something John was unused to. "Are there other people like you who do this, or is it just you?"

"What, Hunters? Yeah, there's plenty of other Hunters."

"Then why not hunt with one of them?" she asked.

He scoffed. "Hunters ain't exactly the most friendly people in the world, sweetheart. Not many'd be wiling to work with me, or me them." The Hunter gave her a quick, sideways glare before turning back to his computer screen. "Enough with the Twenty Questions. This isn't an interview."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Fine. You at least want to tell me what we're up against? You said it's a ghost, right? But how'd you know?"

Reluctantly, he turned from his screen. "There's been two victims in the last two days; Dana Wilson and Josh Harrison. Both bodies found in almost the same place, both killed the exact same way, with the exact same injuries, down to the same broken bones and scrapes."

"Alright, but you got the call about the second body after you were already here," Rose pointed out. "How'd you get 'ghost' from just the one?"

"I didn't," he said gruffly. "But people who go missing in the woods don't turn up that often, and if they do, they've usually been a bear's chewtoy. Even if there's some human murderer in the woods, how do you break that many bones on a person, and then why leave them to die? Medical reports say it looks like the victims were thrown off a cliff. Odd way to kill someone. So yeah, I figured something supernatural was going on and came down to check it out."

Rose grinned. "Impressive," she complimented. "Makes sense, but how'd you go from that to ghost? You said there's tons of supernatural stuff out there, right?"

John was used to working in silence, without any other Hunters to bug him, let alone some way-too-peppy teenager asking a million questions. He was being very much reminded why he preffered working on his own. "A lot of creatures kill in specific ways, and this didn't fit any of them. You know, no blood drained, so not a vampire, heart was still intact, which means it wasn't a werewolf. There was a lot of EMF activity at the crime scene, which told me there's a ghost in the area."

"Yeah, but why's it doing this?" the girl asked. "Why kill those kids? Did the ghost know them when it was alive?"

He shrugged. "Could be, but probably not. Ghosts'll lash out at anyone."

"Why?"

"Depends on the ghost," he told her. "Some were just sick bastards before and felt like carrying on in the afterlife. Others, something bad happened to them, usually they were murdered or just abused in life, and they decided to stick around for revenge. But ghosts usually aren't that coherrent, and they don't particularly seem to care who they're taking their revenge out on. They'll lash out at anyone they meet."

Rose nodded sadly, accepting his explanation. "All right. So what's your job then, put the ghost to rest?"

"Something like that."

The blonde's eyes narrowed. "'Something like that?'" she repeated sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'll do whatever it takes to get rid of this thing," he replied testily. "It means salting and burning the bones and getting rid of the ghost for good, and I don't rightly care what happens to it after that."

Rose glared at him, expression suddenly stoney. "You mean you're just going to kill it without trying anything else first? Without knowing what'll happen to it afterwards?"

He snorted. "Not much to kill. They've already died, I'm just finishing the job."

The blonde woman leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. "Alright. But what about vampires and ghouls and those other things you mentioned? Is killing them the only option?"

The Hunter was starting to get irritated with the morality speech. He swung around to face her, growling out, "Look, innocent people are getting killed. My job – my only job – is to protect them. Going around handing out hugs to monsters isn't going to do anyone any damn good. There's no reasoning with these things."

"And you never thought to try talking to them first?"

John looked at her incredidously. "They're monsters, sweetheart, not people. They're killers."

"So?" she asked angrily. "Doesn't mean you get to just kill 'em."

That was enough. He leaned forward, snapping, "You're the one who wanted in on this, remember? Now quit telling me how to do my job, or you're on your own."

The girl glared at him, clenching her jaw angrily, but after a few moments she gave a stiff nod. John turned stiffly back to his screen while she picked up her newspaper. He had a feeling that this wasn't the last he was going to hear about this from the stubborn blonde.

After a few moments of silence, she stiffened. "Here." She turned the newspaper so he could see it, pointing to one of the articles. As the Hunter skimmed through the article, Rose summed it up for him. "A year ago, a woman named Mallory Chann was out hiking with her friends when she disappeared."

John swung back to his screen, narrowing down his search. He finally got what he wanted. "Police reports say the friends were cleared of suspicion, but she still hasn't been found."

The blonde got up, coming behind him to look at the screen. "So, you think she's our ghost?"

"Dunno." He sat back, looking up at her with a raised eyebrow. "But I hope those friends of hers can tell us more."

Rose's brow furrowed in thought. "You think they know more than they're saying?"

"Like I said, vengeful ghosts like this one usually didn't die by accident," he said, "and it's the closest lead we've got right now." He stood, pushing back his chair. "Come on. We need to find out what happened to her."

SCENEBREAK

When they arrived at Tom Chann's house, the dead woman's cousin didn't look too happy to see them. They introduced themselves as FBI again, one of the parts of working with this Hunter that Rose was already used to. FBI wasn't one of her usual covers, but she and the Doctor had used psychic paper to get in places they weren't allowed. They really couldn't resist a keep-out sign.

Tom let them in with a tight grin, but Rose could see his knuckles were white as he gripped his coffee cup, the way he fought to meet their eyes.

She and John sat on the couch across from him, leaving him to stand awkwardly in front of them. John leaned forward, expression coolly professional. Rose could almost believe he really was FBI. "Mr. Chann," he said, "please tell us about your hiking trip with your cousin last year."

Tom nodded, hands still gripping his coffee mug, though he didn't seem to be drinking from it anymore. "It was just a few of our friends we grew up with. Her boyfriend Randy, and our friends Lily and Paul from college. Mal went out to look for something she'd dropped, and she didn't come back."

"'Mal?'" Rose repeated questioningly.

"Huh? Er, yeah, that's what we called Mallory." He shook his head. "I still can't believe it. I mean, anything could've gotten her."

Rose nodded sympathetically. That fit with everything in the police report and the article she'd read, but it'd sounded almost rehearsed. "You said Randy and Mal were dating at the time?" she asked. That part hadn't been mentioned.

Tom nodded. "Um, yeah, they'd been going out for a year. He was... he was really broken up about it." There was something stiff in his voice, a hestitation that made Rose think he wasn't being entirely truthful. She and John swapped a quick glance; clearly, he saw it too.

John leaned back against the soft back of the couch, looking briefly at the medical records he'd printed out. "Now, Mr. Cann, you said she went looking for something she'd dropped, right?"

The young man looked uneasily at him. He cleared his throat, then nodded. "Yeah."

"Do you remember everything leading up to her disappearance?" the Hunter asked.

Tom hesitated, his fingers anxiously tapping the side of his coffee mug. "Why?" he asked uneasily. "I thought the police wrapped the case up. It was ruled an accident. What does the FBI care?"

John smiled tightly. "Just following up," he assured him. "Now, could you describe it for me?"

The young man looked down. "Erm, why don't you ask Randy about it? He remembers it better."

"But you were there too," John pointed out. "You saw it too. You're as good to tell us as anyone else who was there." He leaned forward, voice suddenly becoming hard. "Unless there's something you're not telling us."

Tom stiffened, eyes widening in fear. "N-no, I'm telling you what happened," he said, his voice going high-pitched.

John started to speak, but Rose cut him off. "Tom, it's okay," she saidly gently, expression soft with sympathy. "If it wasn't your fault, just tell us. We can help you." Tom still looked scared, so she gave him a friendly, reassuring smile. "I promise."

He sighed, the nervous energy slowly draining from him, making him look hunched-over and weary. "Mal caught Randy sleeping with Lily," he said quietly. "Randy's pretty well known on campus as a controlling guy. I never saw it, but I knew his relationship with Mal wasn't... I mean, I could see sometimes, the bruises she couldn't hide." His hands clenched the coffee mug, tightening angrily. "I told her to get out, but she never listened to me, and when Randy found out, he told me to leave her alone, or else."

Rose nodded encouraginly. "Keep going," she said gently.

He nodded. "Well, that was finally enough for her, I think. The next morning, she told Randy they were through, that she was leaving. They got into this huge fight, and it started to get a little physical, so I went in to break it up. I-I'm not sure what happened, but someone pushed somone, and Mal... she fell." The kid paused, taking a shaky breath before continuing. "I wanted to go check on her, but she was lying so still, and Lily just kept screaming, saying she was dead. I - I mean, I was frozen, I just
couldn't move, you know? Couldn't take in what was happening. There was this... this crunch, this awful... and she... she wasn't..." He trailed off, hands trembling slightly as he kept up his deathly tight grip.

After a few moments, he continued, "Then Randy, he said we should just leave her, that we couldn't tell anyone what had happened. I argued with him, but h-he said that we couldn't be sure who had pushed her, that either of us could be blamed. If we told the police what had happened, he'd blame me, and Paul said he'd back him up." He looked helplessly at the two FBI agents. "His mom's this big partner at a law firm. I'm just a mechanic. No way I'd win in any trial. And Mal was already dead."

"So you left her," John said in a hard voice.

Tom looked down. "I'm not trying to justify it, but... Randy didn't just scare Mal, okay?" He looked sadly at the two agents. "Are you going to arrest me?"

The Hunter let out a sigh. "No. But we need you to come with us. Show us where you left Mal."

The kid's brow furrowed. "Why?"

"So we can give her a proper burial," he said drily. "We'll work out what to do about it after we find the body."

Tom hesitated, then squared his shoulders, giving a firm nod. "Alright. Whatever I can do."

This is going to have to be quick, I need to get to bed. I'm heading to college tomorrow (yay, college, finally!) so I might be able to get a chapter out of TSWS, but I might not. Either way, don't expect much from me after that for a while. I'll be busy moving in and being at orientation, and I don't know how well the WiFi is gonna work up there.