Amelia got three hours of sleep that night before she jerked awake from a nightmare. No fire, for once. Amelia pulled her knees up to her chin, hugging a blanket around her, and staring into the darkness.
She didn't cry, she never cried. Expect for that one time with Sam, and that didn't really count. Amelia just sat quietly in the darkness, alone with her grief and pounding heart. Again, she had been forced to watch her brother being tortured. His screams still echoed in her ears. Holding out her hand, she spun her fingers around, and fire danced in the air, casting flickering shadows on the wall. She stared into the fire, distracting herself with concentrating on the changing shapes and dancing tongues of flame. After a while, her heart settled down, and she curled back into the blankets, the smell of fire and warmth hanging in the air.
Amelia slept for the rest of the night, more sleep than she had gotten over the last week. She woke up with a thick head. It felt like half a hangover, but probably just came from actually getting some sleep. Yawning, she stumbled to the bathroom, and splashed some water in her face to wake up.
Returning to the biscuits and gravy diner for breakfast, she devoured an unhealthy amount of the biscuits. She also found out about a half-marathon to be held the next day in a nearby town, and decided to attend. The haunted ranch seemed to be a bust anyways.
Amelia took second place in the marathon, winning $500 and getting a random running shirt with the name of the marathon stamped across it. All in all, a better deal than trying to hustle for pool, and much better for her life expectancy.
She found another potential case the day after, strange drownings. Amelia decided to take it up, putting on a professional set of clothes and taking her FBI badge to the coroner's office. Maybe it was a little overboard, but she was excited to break the badge in and throw a some authority around.
The coroner readily complied, pulling out the steel tray with one of the bodies on it. She stared down at the bloated body.
"How many bodies have there been?" she asked the coroner, an older man in a white lab coat.
"Three so far," he answered.
"All of them found away from water?" she poked at the body with a probe, studying it.
He nodded.
She heard the door open, and faint voices in the entrance room. The coroner left to deal with it, leaving Amelia alone with the dead body. She studied it carefully, and heard the coroner come back with two extra set of footprints.
"Looks like there's more agents on this case, Agent Adams," he said, a note of suspicion in his voice.
Her heart jumped into her throat. Really? Busted on her first case using a fake? She turned, and then couldn't keep back her smile of relief.
"Sam, Dean," she nodded to them. "Looks like the offices messed up again, huh?"
"Amelia," Dean looked surprised. "I thought you were still on, uh, desk duty."
She shrugged. "Wanted to get out in the field again," she told them.
"Doctor, why don't you tell them everything you just told me?"
He sighed, then started in on the description of the wounds for the second time, Sam and Dean studying and prodding the body.
"Dangerous to be out without a partner, isn't it?" Dean muttered to her in an undertone.
When the doctor turned away, she made a face at him.
"I think we're finished here doctor," Sam told him, "thanks for everything." He nodded to the man, and they left.
Outside the office, Dean turned on her. "The hell are you doing here Amelia?"
She shrugged, trying to look innocent. "Hunting. Did Bobby put you up to this? Tracker in my phone or something?"
Judging Sam to be the worse liar, she looked at him closely.
"We just came for the hunt," he told her, "nothing from Bobby."
She believed him. They walked to their cars, and Dean leaned up against the Impala in his interrogation mode. "So you're hunting on your own now?"
Amelia shrugged. "I was going to crazy up in South Dakota before too long. So what do you think about the case?"
Sam and Dean shared a look.
"Well, we dealt with a ghost one time that did something like this, but it could be some sort of creature. Research time," Sam sounded mildly excited.
Dean's face fell. "Come on, lunch or something?" he complained.
"Research, Dean. Do you have an motel room yet Amy?"
She shook her head.
"We can grab you a room at our motel when we get there, if you want. Easier to research. And stuff." He finished lamely.
"Easier to keep an eye on me," she corrected him with a sigh. "Whatever."
Except when they got to the motel, there were no empty rooms.
"I'll take your couch," she told them with another sigh. Putting up any fuss would alert them that something was up with her. She would find something to do to hide the fire in her hands. No way she was dropping her big secret on the Winchesters, especially when not even Bobby knew. She didn't want to believe the demon for a second, but she had seen enough of the Winchesters to doubt they would keep their hands off their guns if they found out she had been infected with demon blood.
Amelia dumped her backpack and duffel on the couch. It looked lumpier than even motel couches tended to be.
"You know you can take the bed," Sam told her, again.
She gave him a thin-lipped smile. "Let's not go through that again. The couch is mine."
Amelia pulled out her laptop, and sat down on the couch, ending the argument.
"So local drowning deaths, random weird occurrences, anything else I should be looking for?"
Sam sighed. "There doesn't seem to be any connection between where the victims died. So yea, I guess that's what we have to go on. Try to find some connection between the victims."
He took out his own laptop as Dean came in with a bag of weapons. "Well, isn't this just a cute little study party." He looked disgusted.
"I'm going to go talk to the vic's family's, see if I can dig up anything on them," he said, flipping through his badges. Anything to get away from the mind-numbing research.
"Sure, yea. Be careful," Sam clicked away.
Dean left. Sam stared at his computer. Amelia stared at hers. Click, click, furious typing. "Hey, get this." Bits of information jotted down. Violent deaths, potential hauntings. Anything strange they could find that ever went on in the town. The pieces of paper started to pile up around them.
When Dean got back three hours later, they had a plausible case worked out.
"Hey, I found the connection between the vics," Dean announced as he barged in, "they all worked for the-"
"-company that was draining the lake," Sam and Amelia said, in unison.
Dean looked like someone had popped his balloon. "Come on, guys, I had to sit through like three crying widows for that, the least you could show is some respect."
Sam gestured to the sheaf of papers scattered around the room. "Two hours of research, Dean. Show some respect," he teased.
"So, what do you have on what's ganking the vics, then?"
"That took a little longer," Sam admitted. "We're still not entirely sure."
"Sam told me about your case with the kid drowned in the lake. We didn't find anything suggesting that a ghost is what's happening here, but-"
"We still can't rule it out at this point." Sam took over. "More research," Dean groaned at that, "find the town's death records, see if anyone ever drowned in the lake."
"There's another possibility, though," Amelia it up again. "It could be a water spirit of some sort. Nymph, naiad. Something pissed that its home is being drained."
"So how do we kill a water spirit?" Dean glanced from one to the other.
Sam and Amelia shared a look, then Sam shrugged. "We really have no idea. Usually these things weren't violent so we can't find any lore on killing them. Hopefully it's a ghost, and they found the body to bury."
"Awesome," Dean grunted. "Now, since I apparently wasted my afternoon, can we get some food now?"
"Yes please," Amelia bounced up from the couch.
Dean's choice for supper was a restaurant with a bar, predictably.
The burgers were good, even if the waitresses dressed a little too skankily for Amelia's preference. Dean of course didn't mind one bit, and pretty soon Amelia focused on her burger so she wouldn't have to watch Dean's eyes follow the women around. Sam ate his salad quietly.
"So, rematch of that pool game?" Dean glanced at Amelia after ogling their waitress.
Amelia looked at Sam, who had his bitch face on at Dean. "Probably should get some more research done," she told Dean, who pouted. "Or at least a half decent night's sleep."
"Aw, come on."
"Hey, you already got out of a full day's research, Dean," Sam scolded him. "Stop whining."
Another couple of research hours later, Dean checked out, rolling onto his stomach on the bed. Within ten minutes he snored away pleasantly. Sam made it another hour before he too crashed on his bed.
"Get some sleep, Amy," he told her before he drifted off.
She sat in the darkness for a while, staring at her computer screen trying to find any information on how to kill water spirits. Of course she wanted to find information about the hunt, but really she just didn't want to go to sleep and wake up with fire in her hands and guns in her face.
When she couldn't force her eyes to stay open any longer, she curled up on her stomach, blanket pulled over her head. With her arms crossed under her chest, she hoped that any fire she started wouldn't get a chance to spread before she could put it out. She needed to sleep sometime, right?
She had been getting more sleep lately, wrecking the nice sleep deprived schedule she had established over the summer, so she needed it more than usual. And with no run or using her freaky powers, she wasn't as tired, which meant not sleeping deeply, which meant more dreams... In spite of her apprehension, Amelia quickly drifted off to sleep.
Sometime in the early morning darkness, Amelia woke up choking down a scream in her throat. Smoke drifted up towards her, and she scrambled backwards, already reaching her hand out to stifle the flames underneath her. She saw a tiny flame flickering up from the lumpy, terrible couch, but it quickly died out. Breathing heavily, Amelia sat back down, resting her head in her hands. Her head hurt a little, not too bad compared to what some of her other headaches had been like.
The bed next to her, Sam's, squeaked, and she glanced up. Their eyes met.
"You all right?" he asked, in a quiet voice, propping himself up on an elbow.
She took a breath so her voice would be more even. "Nightmare," she muttered, putting her head back down on her palms.
"Need to talk about it?"
"Definitely not," she grabbed her running clothes from her backpack. "I'm going for a run," she told him, ducking into the bathroom to change. When she emerged, Sam stood stretching in the middle of the room, wearing sweats. Amelia raised an eye at him.
He shrugged. "I've been meaning to start working out more, seems like a good opportunity." Sam smiled at her in an innocent, disarming way.
Amelia chuckled softly, aware of Dean still snoring away. "Hey, if you want to run with me-" She could make the run miserable for him. Amelia pulled on her running shoes, and laced them up while Sam scribbled a note for Dean. Outside, Amelia did some quick stretches, then started running. A good five mile pace that would leave her sweating but not quite completely winded. As fit as Sam was, he simply didn't have the right build for long distance running. Without a word, they ran through the town, Amelia a pace ahead. Sam gave that much distance. He kept his own for the first few miles, due to his obscenely long legs, but Amelia heard his breathing get heavier and faster the longer they went. At around four miles, he started to lag behind, while Amelia kept to the same relentless pace. When she judged she had reached five miles, Amelia jogged to a stop, and turned around. Sam was a block behind, breathing heavily as he tried to catch up.
She waited for him, bouncing on her toes. Even if Sam was obviously spent, she had barely worked the edge off of the nervous tension that had been accumulating inside her since she teamed up with the Winchesters. Sam jogged up, and stopped a few feet away, bending over to rest his hands on his knees. Sweat dripped off his face as he gulped for air.
"You're fast," he gasped.
"I've kind of had a lot of practice," she smiled at his obvious pain. "That was only five miles, usually I go at least seven."
She tossed him her water bottle, since he obviously needed it more than her. With a grateful look, he popped it open, and drank about half of it.
"Thanks," he had almost caught his breath, and passed the water bottle back, "and thanks for going easy on me."
"No prob," she took a drink herself, and started walking. If she had taken the right turns, they were four blocks from the hotel, a nice cool down. She wanted to walk in silence, but Sam apparently had other ideas.
"Do you do marathons then?" he asked, easily keeping pace with her now that they were walking. "Now that you're not in college any more."
She nodded. "Yea, I've done a couple half-marathons."
"Better then hustling, huh?"
Amelia gave him a thin smile, and kept walking. Really, take a hint.
Apparently Sam did, because he didn't try to start any more conversation the rest of the way back to the motel.
"You can take a shower first," he told her, generously, as they came back in and found Dean still snoring away pleasantly.
She nodded, grabbed her shower things, and locked the bathroom door behind her before he got a chance to rescind the offer. The shower felt wonderful, and afterwords she put a couple braids in her hair just for the heck of it.
When she came out, Dean was jabbing the motel coffee maker and growling obscenities. Sam sidestepped her into the bathroom to take his own shower, giving her an apologetic look as he did so. Amelia chose not to make eye contact with Dean, and tiptoed past him so she could sit back down on the couch and start paging through the information she had found the night before. Maybe a fresh set of eyes could find something she had missed previously.
After a few more minutes of swearing, Dean finally managed to make the coffee machine regurgitate a thick, black sludge that made the room smell even worse. It emitted a sad groan, then beeped.
"Nooo," he slammed his hand down on the table. "Come on, I need to caffinate you stupid little-" he grabbed it from the table, in what would have been a strangle, if coffee makers had necks.
Amelia couldn't help the chuckle that slipped past her lips. Dean heard it, and glared at her, causing her to meekly bury her nose in the sheets of paper once more. Out of other options, he tried a sip of the vile sludge, and immediately spit it out.
"Son of a bitch!" he swore, spitting a few more times to clear his mouth out. Then he pounded on the bathroom door. "Hurry up in there, Samantha, I need caffeine some time this week!"
Soon enough, though never soon enough for Dean, they loaded up into the Impala and found a cute little mom and pop diner for breakfast. While Dean drank his coffee and munched away on his pancakes, Amelia showed Sam what she had found the night before, which was pitifully little.
"There just doesn't seem to be a surefire way to kill them," she sighed, after he had leafed through the papers.
"Other than getting rid of the lake some how," Sam brooded. "That's what triggered it in the first place."
"Yea, but how do we gank a lake?"
Dean looked up at that, grinning widely with a piece of bacon hanging out of his mouth. "Now that sounds like research I could get into."
Sam raised an eyebrow.
"Come on, Sammy," Dean smirked at him, "explosives, back hoes, now that's fun research. Let's go find out what the company had planned to drain the lake."
"Boy, he cheered up quickly," Amelia muttered to Sam as they walked out. Dean had an unmistakable swagger in his step.
"Yea, well, explosives will do that I guess."
They shared a look and a smile as they climbed into the Impala.
New hunt! Will the Winchesters find out about the demon blood? How will they hunt the naiad? Tune in next time for an exciting new chapter! :D