Sam looked over at Hermione as they made their way through what the locals called the forest, which was really just a clutch of trees outside of town. They had learned through asking the right questions that there were some strange people out in a dilapidated house in the forest. The sun was just now going down, but Sam wasn't too worried. They weren't near the full moon, so the werewolves shouldn't transform, but he had a gun loaded with silver bullets just to be safe. Hermione assured him that she had her wand, it just wasn't visible.

He could feel sweat forming on his body. It was early June in Kansas, and the heat and humidity had already begun to ramp up. He really should have left one of his layers at the motel. He looked over at Hermione and noticed her long sleeves and had to wonder if she was just as uncomfortable as he was.

As they approached the house, he went over the plan in his head again. They had agreed he would let her move in first and do the talking, and he would hang back, with the gun, as backup of sorts.

They reached the door, and Hermione reached out and rapped on it. She took a step back and they waited. And waited.

"Shit," Hermione muttered under her breath.

Sam felt the same. If no one answered, that would mean the wizards were successful in recruiting the pack. And that would change everything.

Hermione looked over her shoulder and gave him a look of panic before turning back to the door and knocking on it again, louder this time. She stepped back even with him.

"How long do we wait for them to answer?" she whispered to him.

Sam shrugged. "Maybe a few more minutes?"

"Do you think I'm knocking loud enough?"

Sam took a step forward and lifted his hand and pounded on the door with the butt of his gun. He stepped back, and gave Hermione a smile. "There. Now we don't have to question if they heard it or not."

"Thank you," she said.

He was going to answer but the door of the shack swung open, revealing a middle aged man. He was well kempt for living out in the middle of the "forest." He looked like they had woken him. And he looked leery of their presence.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Yes sir, I'm Agent Buckingham and this is Agent Fleetwood, and we're in town looking for a couple fugitives, and we're wondering if we could show you a few pictures to see if you've noticed them around?"

"Um, yeah, sure."

Hermione reached into her pocket and pulled out the pictures of the wizards, holding them up for the werewolf to see.

"Yeah, yeah, they were just here," the werewolf said after he saw the pictures.

"Really?" Hermione said, surprise evident in her voice. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. They came here and tried to convince my friends and I to go on the road with them. To work for them. But we didn't want to buy what they were selling, if you know what I mean? So we sent them away."

"What were they trying to sell you, if I may ask?"

The man looked nervous, his eyes shifting between looking at them and looking at the ground. He was trying to figure out what he could tell them.

Hermione moved in closer and Sam changed his grip on his gun, just in case the werewolf made any moves that he wasn't comfortable with. Hermione bowed her head toward the werewolf, lowering her voice. "What's your name?"

"Cade," he said, in an equally quiet voice.

"Cade, you're not in trouble. We're not here for you. We are looking for these men. So don't think you're going to get into any trouble here tonight."

"Yes, ma'am," Cade said.

"And don't worry about your secret," she said.

Cade looked up, meeting her eyes. "My secret, ma'am?"

Hermione leaned even closer to him. "That you and your friends are werewolves. We know your pack has been hunting exclusively in the forest and being almost 'vegetarian' as it will. Since you're not killing humans, we're going to let you stay put. But we need your help. You're the only ones who can help us find these men, who are trying to prevent people like you from living peacefully in your cabins in the woods."

Sam had to smile. She was good. He could see how she made her way to the position she was in. She excelled at talking to people.

Cade looked down at the ground for a long time. He seemed to be contemplating his options. And for her credit, Hermione stayed right there by his side. She was didn't look frightened, and she looked like she was ready to help him make any decisions he needed to make.

Finally after what seemed like forever he spoke up. "How does the FBI know what we are?"

Hermione gave him a sweet smile. "We're a special division of the FBI. We deal specifically with supernatural beings. Eradicating those who are doing harm to the average citizen, protecting the ones who just want to live an ordinary life."

"Hunters," Cade said. "You're hunters."

Hermione shrugged. "Call us what you would like, but that doesn't change what we are doing here. We want to keep you, your friends, and everyone else like you, safe. In order to do that, we need you to tell us what we need to know."

"They were here two, three days ago," Cade said quietly. "They knew we were werewolves and they said that's the reason they were looking for us. They pulled out these, um, these sticks, and they, uh, made a few things float. They said that they were recruiting for a revolution. Over in England. They weren't very specific about what the revolution was exactly, but they were trying to get us to fly out by the week's end. We refused. They told us to think about it and they would come back and get our answer."

"When did they say they would be coming back?" Hermione asked.

"The end of the week."

She turned back and looked at Sam. "That's tomorrow." She turned back to Cade and pulled out a card from her pocket, handing it to him. "This is my number. The second they show up here, call me. Stall them until we get here. We're staying just inside town at the motel, it shouldn't take us long to get here. Can you do that for us?"

Cade took the proffered card and slipped it in his pocket, giving Hermione a smile. "Yeah, yeah of course."

"Thank you so much for your cooperation, Cade."

"You're welcome, ma'am."

Hermione stepped back from him and he gave her a smile, and then looked up at Sam, giving him a little nod, before closing the door. Hermione motioned for him to follow her, so he put his gun away and followed her as they walked down the path away from the house. Once they had made a good distance between them and the house, she turned to him.

"Okay, so what do you think?" she asked, moving closer to him as they walked, so she wouldn't have to talk so loud.

Sam shook his head. "It seems really damn convenient," he answered. "I mean what are the odds that we would show up literally the day before the people we're looking for are going to return?"

"Not very good," she said. "But, it could just be a coincidence. I'm just really paranoid after everything I've gone through. To me it smells like a set up."

Sam shrugged. "It could go either way, really. I mean, he really seemed sincere. At least by my standards. Usually I can tell when someone is feeding me bullshit. What about you? You do this for a living."

Hermione shrugged. "I agree with you. He doesn't seem to be lying. But I can't just let it go."

"Well," Sam said as they hit the edge of the woods, placing his hand on her elbow to help her over the fallen log in their way. "How about we treat this like a trap? We'll go in tomorrow like we told him, but we'll be prepared for every possibility."

"Yeah, that's a sound idea."

They walked the rest of the way down to the motel in companionable silence. It was the least awkward time they've ever spent together thus far. Sam took the time to admire her. When he had first seen her, he hadn't been sure if she could hold her own. She was so petite and polite. Now, he hadn't seen her in action yet, not really, but watching her talk to that werewolf, that was something else.

They got back to the motel, and Hermione opened the door for them. She shut the door and they walked over and sat opposite each other on their respective beds.

"You were really good with him back there," Sam said.

She smiled. "Thanks. Before I worked for the MLE, I worked in the Department of Magical Creatures. I worked on trying to gain equality for werewolves in our society. I spent a lot of time talking to werewolves, so I knew what to say."

"Where did you get a card with your cell phone number on it so quickly? We just gave you the phone this morning."

She gave him a wide smile. "Magic."

Sam returned her smile, shaking his head. "Magic, of course."

Hermione shrugged. "You asked. I answered."

"Can you make some up for me, too?"

Hermione nodded. "Of course. And when we change our aliases, I can re-charm them so that the name is changed."

Sam shook his head. "Less than twenty-four hours on the road with me and you're already making my life easier."

Hermione laughed. "Glad that I'm making myself useful."

Sam blushed. "I didn't mean to make it sound like that."

"I know what you meant."

Comfortable silence fell between them. He watched as Hermione reached across her bed, picking up her bag. She opened it, pulling out a box of blank business cards. She shook her right arm, and her wand fell down into it. She pointed her wand at the cards and muttered a few words before setting the wand to the side. She reached across the gap and handed him the stack. He smiled down at the cards. They had the official FBI seal on them, his current alias, and his cell phone. They looked legit.

"These are really good."

"Thank you, it took a few tries to get them right," she said.

"When did you have time to perfect it?"

"When you were sleeping," she said.

"I thought you were napping, too?"

Hermione shrugged. "I don't sleep much," she said, matter-of-factly.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I can relate."

"Yeah, I know."

Sam stood up from the bed and walked over to the wall unit and began to mess with the air until the machine kicked on. As he walked back to the bed, he lost his button down shirt. The humidity was no joke. He looked over at Hermione who had moved on to reading on the bed. She was still wearing her long sleeve blouse, buttoned all the way to the neck.

"Aren't you hot?" Sam asked.

She looked up from her book, "Hmm?"

"I asked if you were hot. If you want I can step out so you can change into a t-shirt or something."

Hermione shook her head. "I'm fine, but thank you."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I've cast a cooling charm on my clothing, so I'm fine, really."

Sam looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language. "Okay, if you say so."

"So," she started, closing the book she was reading. "What is the plan for tomorrow?"

"Well, we hope your guys show back up to the werewolves at some point tomorrow, and then we go in and try to get them. And cross our fingers that everything doesn't go pear shaped."

"Sounds simple," she said.

"The best plans are."

"Well, now that we have a plan, how about we call it a night, try to get some sleep, and then we can start fresh with any preparation in the morning. I'll need to tell you some of the possibilities you might see tomorrow."

"Thought you didn't sleep much."

"Still bloody jet lagged," she said, grabbing her back pack and walking toward the bathroom. "Think I might get a few hours of sleep."

Sam smiled. He watched as she closed the door behind her, before slipping his belt out of the buckle, and stepping out of his pants. He folded them placing them on the floor by the foot of his bed before pulling the covers back and sliding in, pulling the sheet up over him. He reached over onto his night table, clicking off the light. He laid his head down on the pillow and tried to relax.

He looked over at the empty bed, and could feel the tears filling his eyes. Usually there would be a leather jacket flung haphazardly over the foot of the bed, and possibly several crumpled burger wrappers. He closed his eyes, the tears burning behind his lids. He tried to control his breathing, the pain becoming all too real. This was the new reality. Hunting without his brother. He was hunting with a very attractive woman, and his brother was being tortured in Hell for eternity. How was this fair? Dean should be here. He would get a kick out of all of this. And he could bet his last dollar he would have tried his damnedest to seduce Hermione, and he probably would have succeeded.

He heard the bathroom door open and could tell the light had been turned off. He listened as Hermione's soft footsteps fell on the carpet and made her way to the bed. He rolled over onto his side and cracked his eyes open. He was not surprised to see that she was still wearing a long sleeved sleep shirt, high neckline. He watched her climb into the bed where Dean should have been sleeping, turn out the light that Dean should have turned out, and as the room fell into darkness and her breathing evened out, he finally allowed himself to cry.