Chapter 3

September 14

Palo Alto, California

Dean and I watched from the car as Sam attended Jess's funeral. We hadn't known her and Sam told us that he wanted to go alone, which was understandable. We sat on the hood and watched as her casket was lowered into the ground.

I squinted up at the sun.

"It seems kind of sacrilegious, don't you think?" I asked Dean. He glanced at me. I took my sunglasses out of my backpack and put them on.

"What does?" He asked. I shrugged.

"The sun being out. Aren't funerals always grey with a chance of rain clouds over your head?" Dean shrugged too. I sighed and watched Sam.

"He's going to want to go after the demon that did this," I told him. Dean nodded.

"Yeah, I figured as much." I turned to Dean.

"What are we gonna do?" He shook his head and looked at me.

"There's nothing we can do. He's got to sort through all this himself. He doesn't want our help." Dean said. I exhaled and nodded. All the other people had left but Sam was still sitting in the same place holding the flowers he had spent over 40 minutes picking out.

"He blames himself," I said. Dean narrowed his eyes at me.

"How do you know that?" I scoffed.

"Did you not listen to him at all? He wasn't ever going to tell Jess about any of it and he was done with it all." Dean shook his head, not understanding. "He thinks it's his fault because of who he is. He thought that he could put it all behind him, but it all came back and killed his girlfriend."

"And you know all this for sure?" Dean asked.

"Of course I do." I said. "Just because I don't know this new Sam it doesn't mean that he doesn't have the Sam that I know so well still inside."

"This is crossing the boundaries into chick flick moment very quickly," Dean said. I smiled softly and nudged my shoulder with his.

"Please, I'm your girlfriend. You all ready told me you don't mind chick flick moments with me."

"Yeah, well, Sammy's here now so it's gonna get uncomfortable very quickly." I sighed and nodded before looking away. He glanced at me. "I don't think I've told you lately that I love you."

I smiled and looked back up at him.

"That was very C.F.M. of you," I said. He cringed slightly and nodded. "I love you too."

I was about to kiss Dean when I noticed Sam wasn't by her grave anymore. I turned to look around and saw him walking towards us. He ignored us and walked right by, getting into the back seat and shutting the door behind him, waiting for us. Dean and I glanced at each other before getting into the car as well.

It was off to John's coordinates: 35, -111.

...

September 20

Blackwater Ridge

Lost Creek, Colorado

Sam was sleeping in the backseat and I kept looking back to check on him. Every time he'd fall asleep he'd wake up from a nightmare. He was constantly fidgeting in his sleep.

"Leave him alone," Dean said. I sighed and sat forward in my seat, playing with my hands. "I thought you didn't care for Sam like you used to."

"Doesn't mean I don't still care a little," I told him. He grabbed my hand with his right hand and squeezed gently. "Nothing feels right anymore."

"What do you mean?" Dean asked. I checked in the rearview mirror to see if Sam was still sleeping. He was.

"I don't know. This is going to all sound horrible." I shook my head and looked away. "Never mind."

Dean glanced at me and turned up the music a little louder just in case Sam wasn't sleeping. He lowered his voice but I could still hear him.

"Come on, tell me." He gave me a look. "It's my job to keep you safe and happy but I can't do that if you don't talk to me."

"It's just," I looked back at Sam again. "It shouldn't be like this. It should be you, me and sometimes your dad. Sam should be at college still, with his girlfriend."

"That doesn't sound horrible." Dean said softly.

"It kinda sounds to me like I don't want Sam here," I said, finally looking at Dean.

"Do you not want him here?" Dean asked.

"Not like this." I admitted. "I want him to be here because he wants to be, not because he just lost any chance he might have had at a normal life."

Sam jerked awake before Dean could say anything and I looked back at him as I pulled my hand out of Dean's grasp. Sam was rubbing his face and he looked pale and scared. He had had another nightmare.

"You okay?" Dean asked. Sam nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Did you have another nightmare?" I asked. Sam cleared his throat and we dropped the subject. It was silent for a moment.

"Do you want to drive?" Dean asked Sam. I turned to Dean in horror.

"What?" I asked.

"Dean, in our whole lives, you've never once asked me that." Sam said.

"You've never let me drive!" I accused.

"You used to drive all the time." Dean argued. I shook my head.

"I only drove when you were too busy hung over in bed with some slut and I needed to get out of the room." I told him, glaring. Dean's jaw tensed.

Sam was looking between the two of us like we were insane. We probably were.

"I just thought he might like to, that's all."

"Last time Sam drove he drove the Impala into a house," I muttered, crossing my arms and pouting out the window.

"You guys are like an old married couple, you do realize that, right?" Sam asked. Dean and I chuckled awkwardly. He sighed and looked at Dean. "Look, you're worried about me, I get that. But I'm fine, all right?"

Dean and I nodded, obviously not believing him for a second. Sam rolled his eyes before leaning forward and grabbing the map, looking at it.

"So where are we?" He asked.

"Just outside of Grand Junction." I said. Sam nodded.

"Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon," he said. Dean and I glanced at each other again.

"Sam," I said, turning around to face him. "We looked everywhere. We dug around there for a week and we didn't find anything."

"If we want to find the thing that killed Jessica," Dean said.

"We have to find dad first," Sam finished. We'd had this conversation over a million times since we left. I understood Sam's frustration, but he had to understand ours too.

"He'll know what to do." I added. Sam nodded.

"It's a little weird, these coordinates that dad left for us." Sam said, looking at the map again. "Blackwater Ridge. There's nothing there."

"There's a forest," I said. "There are lots of things there."

"Why is he sending us in the middle of nowhere?" Sam asked. I shrugged.

"It really wouldn't be the first time we were stuck out in the middle of nowhere," Dean said. I laughed, remembering some of the places we had gone.

"Like the faeries," I said. Sam stared at me, glancing between the two of us.

"Faeries?" He asked skeptically. We nodded. "Like, honest to god faeries?"

"That's what Dean had said too," I remarked.

...

We parked at a Ranger Station near the Lost Creek Trail and went in. We started looking around.

"The Ranger Station at the Grand Canyon was cooler," I said, looking at all the pictures on the wall. "They had stuffed animals. I should have gotten that coyote, damnit."

"What would you have done with it?" Dean asked.

"Snuggled with it," I told him, smirking. He mock-glared at me.

"There are abandoned silver and gold mines all over this place," Sam said looking at a small scale of the National Park.

"Check out this bear," Dean said looking at one of the pictures. "It's huge!"

"Lots of grizzly sightings here," I said. I looked around. "I wonder if they sell teddy bears,"

I saw a ranger come out from his back office and he regarded us.

"You lot ain't looking to go out to Blackwater Ridge, are ya?" He asked. I looked back at them and saw Dean searching for something to say.

"Actually we're environmental studies majors from U.C. Boulder." Sam said, smiling slightly. "We're just working on a paper."

"Recycle man!" Dean said. I rolled my eyes and turned back to the ranger with a look of apology on my face.

"Bull," he said. "You're friends of that Haley girl, right?"

I stepped up, "You caught us."

"Yeah, we are," Dean quickly looked at his name tag, "Ranger Wilkinson."

"Well I'll tell you the same thing I told her," he told us. "Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater till the 24th."

"I guess he's not really missing then," I muttered. Dean glanced at me with narrow eyes. The ranger nodded at me.

"Tell that girl to quit worrying. I'm sure he'll be fine." Ranger Wilkinson said. We nodded.

"You know what would help," Dean said, "if we could get a copy of the permit so that Haley could see her brother's return date."

...

We left as soon as we got the copy and I grabbed it out of Dean's hands to look at it.

"You looking for a hook-up or something?" Sam asked Dean. I tried to bite back a glare, but I managed to give Dean a look. He shook his head at me.

"Why?" Dean asked him.

"The coordinates are for Blackwater Ridge. Why are we screwing around? Let's just go find dad." Sam said, obviously annoyed. We got to the Impala and Sam stole the front seat before I could nab it so I took the seat behind Dean. Dean and I were looking over the car at Sam. "Why are we even going to talk to this girl?"

"So that we know what we're getting into before we actually get into it." Dean said.

"Seriously, we have no clue what we're dealing with here," I said. "We could find ourselves in deep shit without a way to get out. I'd rather have more information before walking into my funeral unknowingly, thanks."

Dean was shaking his head at Sam.

"What?" Sam asked.

"Since when are you shoot first ask questions later?" Dean asked him. Sam tensed.

"Since now," he said, getting into the car. Dean glanced at me with an amused look on his face.

"Oh, really," he said. I shrugged and we got into the car and headed to Haley's.

...

I knocked on the door and a girl around our age answered the door.

"Haley Collins?" Dean asked. She nodded. "I'm Dean and this is Sam and Rose. We're rangers, Ranger Wilkinson sent us over to ask some questions about your brother Tommy."

She stared at us and I fingered my fake Ranger badge in my pocket, knowing that she would ask to see them. Sam needed his own set of fakes soon.

"Let me see your I.D." she said. Dean and I nodded and held our badges against the screen. She stared at them for a while and for a split second I thought she was going to call us out on being fakes. Instead she nodded and opened the screen for us. She saw Dean's car parked on the street.

"That yours?" She asked, looking at Dean. I narrowed my eyes at her. I could tell this was going to take a lot of effort on my part to keep our relationship from Sam. We would have told him by now, since he was with us for good again, but he had just lost his girlfriend. I didn't want to be in his face about our relationship.

Dean nodded with a quick glance back at the car and at me. He could see how not amused I was and he just followed Haley into her house with his head down a little. I almost smiled. He looked like he was a toddler who had just gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

We followed her into the dining room. Her little brother was sitting at the table and she was bringing dishes in from the adjoining kitchen and setting them on the table.

"So how do you know that he's missing if he's not due back for a couple days?" Sam asked.

"He had been checking in every day, with a video from his cell phone or text messages. We haven't heard anything in three days." She said.

"Maybe he lost cell reception," Sam said. Why did it sound like he was trying to mock her?

"He has a satellite phone." She said. Dean glanced at Sam.

"Could it be he's just having so much fun he's forgotten to check in?" Dean asked. The boy at the table spoke up.

"He wouldn't do that," he said, looking at Dean and then at me. I smiled and nodded.

"I believe you," I told him. Dean narrowed his eyes at me and I gave him a look.

"Our parents are gone," Haley said. "It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep close tabs on each other."

I bit my lip.

"Can we see the pictures and videos that he sent you?" I asked. She nodded and led us over to her computer. She showed us one picture.

"That's him," she said before playing the last video she got. We all watched, but I could have sworn there was something that happened behind him in the video. It was just too quick to tell without slowing it down.

"Well, we're headed to Blackwater Ridge first thing. If your brother is still out there, we'll find him." Dean said.

"Maybe I'll see you there," she said. We all glanced at each other, collectively thinking the same thought: Oh shit. "Look, I can't just sit here. I hired a guy and he's taking me out to find Tommy myself."

"Can you forward these to me?" Sam asked her, motioning to the video. He had seen what I saw. She shrugged and nodded.

...

We ended up at a bar for a drink later that night.

"What do you guys want?" I asked as Sam took out his laptop. They both told me the drinks they wanted and I went up to the crowded bar to get them.

The bartender passed me a couple times without noticing me.

"Do you need help?" I turned to my side and saw some weird older man leering at me. I shook my head.

"I'm fine, thanks." I said, motioning for the bartender.

"He's not gonna see you," he said. I raised an eyebrow at him and continued to ignore him. I leaned forward on the bar and held out my money and the bartender quickly came over, glancing down at my cleavage. Whatever helped to get a drink.

"Three beers please, on tap." I handed him my money and he quickly filled three large glasses full of beer.

"I guess you didn't need my help," the guy said. "But maybe you'll let me carry your drink."

I turned to him, holding all three glasses. He had stood up and I could see that he towered over me.

"Look, Lurch," I said, getting a little angry. "I don't need your help. I'm an independent woman who does things for herself. I'm also an independent woman traveling with my two brothers who won't hesitate to kick your ass if they see you bothering me."

"Please," he laughed. "Your brothers couldn't hurt me."

"No," Dean said from behind me, "but she could definitely make you bleed where you don't want to be bleeding."

The man regarded Dean standing behind me and then glanced at me before turning back to the bar. I rolled my eyes and turned back to Dean with an appreciative smile.

"Thanks," I said softly. He smiled back and grabbed two beers out of my hands.

"Well, I'm supposed to save you, aren't I?" He asked as we walked back over to Sam. I sat down and started drinking, not realizing how thirsty I had been for beer until I started to drink it. I set my glass down and it was all ready half empty. Sam and Dean stared at me like I grew an extra head.

"What?" I asked. I picked up the paperwork that Sam had gotten. Every 23 years hikers go missing from Blackwater Ridge because of a supposed grizzly bear.

"Every 23 years?" I muttered. "That sounds familiar."

I leaned down and pulled my journal out of my backpack and started flipping through it.

"Take a look at this," Sam said, turning his laptop around so Dean and I could see. He flipped through different frames of the video and I saw a shadow move across the tent behind Tommy.

"That's three frames," I said. Sam nodded.

"It's a fraction of a second," he said. "Whatever it is, it can definitely move."

"I told you something weird was going on here." Dean said.

"Just one more thing," Sam said, picking up some paperwork. "There was one survivor. He had been just a boy when it happened."

I chugged down the rest of my beer and stood up, putting my journal back in my backpack.

"Why are we still here?" I asked. Dean chuckled and shook his head at me, standing up as well as Sam.

"You just chugged that whole beer and you want to go out investigating," Dean said, leading me out of the bar.

"So?" I asked, stumbling for a second. I cursed myself. "I'm tipsy." I said, pouting.

"Is this a bad thing?" Sam asked. He'd never had the experience to see me truly tipsy. Dean laughed and shook his head.

"No, just extremely entertaining." He helped me into the car and we drove off to find the only survivor of the supposed grizzly attacks.

...

"You should probably wait in the car," Dean told me as he parked outside the guys house. I frowned and stuck out my bottom lip.

"Why?" I asked.

"You won't realize this until you stand up, but you're the worst beer lightweight I've ever known." He said. "You are drunk, Rose, and I'm pretty sure we won't be convincing rangers if you come with us."

"Slut," I said, falling back against the seat with my arms crossed. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Drunk," he called me, closing the door. He and Sam went up to the man's house and knocked. I watched as Dean showed him his badge and the man led them in his house.

I sighed and sat back against the seat again. I decided to pull out my journal and I grabbed a flashlight to start reading it.

We were looking for something crazy fast that most likely inhabited the wilderness. It fed off of humans every 23 years which made it sound like it hibernated or something.

Dean and Sam came out of the house quickly and bypassed the doors and started rummaging through the trunk.

"What did you find out?" I asked as I got out as quickly as I could without stumbling.

"It can unlock doors, it has huge claws, it's corporeal." Sam listed. Dean started loading one of the duffels with weapons. I grabbed my crossbow and put it in so he wouldn't forget.

"So then we know we can kill it at least." I said. Something struck me and I grabbed my journal out of the car.

"We have to convince Haley not to go tomorrow," Sam said. I laughed.

"That's not going to happen." I said, thumbing through my journal. It was getting full and I definitely needed to get a new one soon.

"She lost her brother. She's not going to sit back and wait for him to never come home." Dean said. "We'll go with her and protect her and we'll keep our eyes peeled open for whatever it is that's out there."

"So finding dad's not enough?" Sam asked. I stopped to stare at him. "Now we have to babysit too?"

Dean stared at him like he didn't know who he was.

"What?" Sam asked. I suddenly wasn't so drunk anymore as I stepped in front of him.

"Look, you haven't been with us for the past four or so years, so I guess you don't really understand how these things work." I told him, anger biting through. "When you find a job, you finish the job, especially when people are in danger. You push your own problems aside and you deal with everything that's right in front of you."

"So you don't want to find Dad?" He asked. My fists clenched and I was trying to keep my anger in check.

"Of course we want to find him," I snapped. "But innocent people are going out there tomorrow to find more innocent people and none of them know what's really out there! So we're gonna do what we do best and we're going to help them. We're going to keep doing our jobs until we find your dad."

I turned and saw that Dean was all ready in the car so I brushed past Sam and got into the front seat. Dean reached over and gave my hand a quick squeeze as Sam closed the trunk and got into the backseat.

...

...

Yay! 2 chapters in one night like I promised! I hope you guys like it and it's not too redundant reading the same stuff from the actual episodes. Please review.

-Erin