On Sunday morning, Dean lay awake in bed, listening to the last bit of Sam's conversation with Jess on the hallway telephone. When he hung up, he heard him cross the landing.

Sam pushed his door open with a friendly grin, "Happy Birthday, Dean!"

Dean offered him a sleepy smile. It was the most cheerful he had been in weeks.

"So, Jess told me the skating rink's back in order down at the mall," Sam was saying, then he cut himself short and shook his head, "no, you know what? Forget about that. What do you feel like doing today?"

Dean propped himself up on his elbows and shrugged, "Nothin', really. I'm fine just watching the game."

"Oh come on, man. Don't be such a such a soccer-dad. You sure there isn't anything you really want to do?"

Dean glanced at his brother's tall figure sandwiched between the door and the jamb.

Half an hour later, the pair of them were seated on the living room couch as Mary Winchester eyed them one by one.

"You two want a day out?"

"Yeah," Sam said, playfully punching Dean's after. "It's been a while since we just hung out."

"Yeah, just us boys," Dean smirked, "Mano a mano. You know how it is Mom."

Mary pretended to understand. She couldn't help inwardly rejoicing that her oldest son was displaying lesser corpse like qualities that morning, but the change had come seemingly overnight. It was, for lack of a less harsh word, suspicious.

"What are you planning to do?"

"Oh, you know," Dean groped in the dark, "hit the arcades, check out some sports goods at Mercer's."

"Thought's we'd catch that new Fast and Furious Movie," Sam added. The brother's exchanged quick looks. They knew fully well Mary wouldn't crash their little party with that itinerary (as she had often done in the past).

Mary sighed and nodded, "Alright, it is your birthday. I'll take care of chores for today, but you boys be back by sunset, you hear me?"

She watched them grinning their way out the door and shut it softy behind them. At least with them gone she could watch her soaps in piece without Sam complaining or Dean chuckling in a corner. Mary decided she would start on a nice birthday dinner for Dean in a few hours - beef caserole, mashed potatoes and gravy and, his favourite, pie for dessert.

As Dean and Sam walked down the street, their demeanor changed drastically.

"You remember your laptop, Sammy?"

"Got it."

"Alright, we've bought ourselves seven hours total. Let's find out what that son of a bitch is doing camping over a convenience store."

"I know I agreed to this, but you're gonna have to fill me in on this a little more."

Dean was well aware that Sam was only humoring him on what he thought was a treasure hunt, born of months of depression and, in Sam's probable opinion, the outbreak of schizophrenia.

"I found out," Dean said, as opposed to 'Jo told me', "that Castiel's faked half his school records."

"What? How?"

"That's not important. What's important is he's working out of a handkerchief-sized room over Walmart."

"And he can see ghosts, apparently," Sam crinkled his brow. They were halfway to the library now. Sam had to stride to keep up with Dean, whose shoulders were squared with determination as he cut across the street. "Dean, what do you mean working out of - wherever he is?"

"Sammy, you don't believe a word I've told you, right?"

Sam hesitated. He had only just gotten his brother to start talking again, there was no way he was going to jeopardize it.

"Dean, I-"

"Right?"

"Would you have believed it?"

"No," Dean replied automatically. "It sounds freakin' psychotic. I know."

"Hypothetically speaking," Sam ventured, "if ghosts are real and clairvoyants are real, and if Jo's been wandering around school and our house, how come Mom or Jess or me have never seen her?"

The library loomed up in front of them, tall, gray and foreboding. Dean turned around with the sunniest smile he could manage, "Let's find out, shall we?"

They had been sat among piles of books for nearly two hours when Sam said, a little too loud for the librarian's comfort, "Dean, I got it!"

Dean, who had been scrutinizing an ugly crosshatch rendering of a fire-demon set his volume down upside down on the table and pulled his chair closer to his brother's. "What've we got?"

The two of them had been leafing through every book they could find on the supernatural - UFOs, hauntings, case histories of mental patients, grave robberies, every aberration and abomination that Lawrence State Library had catalogued now lay open in front of them - large musty tomes with dry yellow pages. Sam had had a field day going through it all, it felt just like school work. He hadn't heard half of these legends, he realized, poring over the pages, and it was deeply engrossing.

"Ghosts can choose who they appear to," Sam read, trailing his finger along the large roman letters, "but occasionally they'll slip up, if they're angry or expressing bouts of sadness. Most sightings occur when the ghost loses control over the Veil that shrouds them and they become visible to the naked eye."

Dean mulled over it. Jo's rage had exposed her to Castiel. So maybe he wasn't a clairvoyant. He didn't rule it out, but pressed Sam onwards. There was a lot to piece together.

"Here's another interesting bit," Sam read on. "The longer a ghost stays earthbound without ascending to Heaven or descending to Hell, the stronger it gets. Moving objects is just the tip of the iceberg. The more power a ghost commands, the more damage it can do mentally and physically, sometimes entering the dream scape of sleeping living individuals-"

"Glad that hasn't happened yet."

Sam almost said he was glad too but held his tongue. He read the last passage: "Apparently, more powerful ghosts have the ability to control lesser ghosts, make them bow to their will."

Dean perked up at this - Jo's disappearances had becoming increasingly unnatural (not to say her visits were usual to begin with).

"Nothing much else here," Sam shrugged, "Oh, wait hang on - there's a bit on an exorcism: the bones and prized belonging of the deceased must be salted and then burned to liberate the spirit from its earthly bonds."

"The Harvelles cremated Jo."

Sam blinked at his brother a long moment, then shut the heavy volume before reaching out for Dean's hand.

"Whoa, what are you doing?" Dean glared at him.

"That," Sam tapped at the ring Dean always wore on his right hand, "doesn't belong to you."

Dean withdrew his hand and studied the ring closely. He had worn it ever since Jo's funeral. It was a ring she'd left behind in his room one time and that he'd forgotten to return before it was too late. Jo was right. The objects bound her.

"Though it doesn't necessarily have to be a thing," Sam leaned back and yawned. "Says here it could be a person too."

"So Jo's haunting me because of our-?"

Sam nodded, "According to these books, at least, yeah."

Dean drummed his fingers on the table (much to the librarian's chagrin) then suddenly yanked the ring off his hand. He pushed it across the table to Sam.

"Keep it," he ordered.

"What?"

"Just do it, Sammy. Trust me. No, don't just pocket it, put it on!"

Sam was flabbergasted. To be trying to be on Dean's good side on his birthday was one thing, but to be wearing his older brother's dead girlfriend's promise ring was a little more than he had signed up for. Still, Sam obliged him and slipped it onto his finger.

"When Jo - what's the word? - When Jo travels, she travels between me and the objects. It's a long shot, but this may be my only way to prove to you I'm not clinically crazy, alright, Sam?"

His little brother didn't try and argue.

"Dean, I'm starving, maybe we should break for lunch?"

Dean was deep in thought, studying Jo's ring on Sam's finger, "Alright, fine. A quick break. But then we gotta head to the Walmart near school, got it?"