Dean and Sam were in Lawrence, mostly to visit their mother's grave and bury John's dog tags in the plot. While they might have hated his guts, he did devote most of his life since that day to hunting her killer. That was enough of a reason to at least bury a part of him with his wife, even if he did have a third son with another woman several years later.
Dean laid the flowers while Sam buried the dog tags in the ground...before Bear whined loudly.
"What is it boy?"
The dog barked, and immediately trotted over to a plot of land where there was nothing living. Dean and Sam shared a look. Bear had developed a nose for trouble, and this definitely qualified.
They waited until nightfall to start digging, and what they found had Dean groaning in dismay.
"Undead... just great."
"Not an inferi, you think?"
Dean noticed some runes on the casket's coffin, and shook his head.
"Definitely not. I'm betting someone found a resurrection ritual and didn't know that bringing people back to 'life' always ends badly for everyone. Hey Mort," said Dean off hand.
I hate necromancy, said Mort sourly.
"If we get this chick back to the graveyard and in her coffin, can you make sure she stays there once she's in? I really don't want to haul a freakin' corpse around," said Dean.
Find the lost body and get her back where she belongs and I'll insure she returns to wherever she was dragged from. I might send a reaper to haunt whoever was stupid enough to bring her back, if you don't get to him first, said Mort.
If there was one thing that annoyed Death, it was necromancy. He didn't care what the reasoning behind was, if someone was stupid enough to bring another person back from his domain he was going to have words with them. Or at the very least put the idiot on reaper watch.
Fortunately Dean didn't mind acting as Death's hand when it came to cases like these. Mostly because undead souls were always unstable and turned murderous before long.
"Sam get something from the casket so Bear can track her down. The sooner we get her back in the grave, the better," said Dean.
"Right."
Sam took the pillow from the grave and they carefully hid the open hole and the dirt around it with a spell. No way were they digging that up twice.
It took Bear two hours to locate the house, and they had to wait until nightfall. Fortunately the dog kept the undead chick inside so she couldn't go after her cheating ex-boyfriend like she planned. After that it was a matter of herding her towards the cemetery, which was a lot harder than it sounded because she was hella pissed off at them.
Dean had never been more glad that his creature form was apparently bullet (and apparently) zombie proof in his life. He was still going to be a mess of bruises in the morning though.
Once Sam tripped her into the casket, Mort took care of her with just a touch. Because he couldn't affect the physical realm, he couldn't help with getting her to that spot. The body went limp, rigor mortis setting in mere minutes. Sam tiredly closed the casket and a tag-team of Bear and Stitch put the dirt back with their claws.
The only reason Dean didn't have Bear help them dig more often was because the one time he did, it was a total bitch and a half getting the dog out of the hole. He was simply too heavy to levitate.
Both brothers sagged in relief once the job was done. There would be a minor fight over who got the shower first once they got back to the hotel though.
Dean and Sam were not in a good mood. Finding out that there were more people out there who had developed unusual abilities (which for some reason Sam was unfairly immune to) was not something they were happy learning about. Especially since one of those idiots damn near drove off with the Impala simply by coercing Dean to hand over the keys!
(He quickly decided not to try taking the car when Bear objected and also proved immune to whatever mind-control trick the guy used. Bear could be scary if you didn't know the dog!)
But that bad mood only grew worse when, as they came back to what they considered home base when they within quick driving distance, they came into a massive drag-out argument between their 'mother' and Jo.
Dean and Sam looked at each other, then tried to sneak out the door. No way in hell were they getting involved with another cat fight between their mom and little sister.
Unfortunately Jo spotted them before they could make a clean escape.
"Sam, you want to put the 'Closed' sign up before some unlucky idiot walks into this?" said Dean sighing.
Sam nodded and flipped the sign before some tourist family drove into the parking lot. They moved on to the next restaurant without stopping.
"Now what the hell are you guys arguing about this time?" asked Dean.
Jo brought out information for a hunt, and Dean groaned.
"That's what this is about?" he asked Ellen.
Ellen growled.
"First off, Jo, you're an idiot. Second, mom, you of all people know Jo would never drop this without a huge fight," said Dean sitting down.
Both girls glared at them.
Sam took a look at the victim list and winced. No wonder Ellen had gotten all tense about it. Most of the victims would fit Jo's profile!
"Normally I would offer to take this. However, I'm not stupid enough to go on a hunt Jo managed to find by putting clues together when we all know she would find a way to follow us and possibly get caught by whatever the hell this thing is," said Dean flatly.
Sam snorted in agreement. If Jo was the one to pick up on this there was no way in hell she would let them take it without trying to follow them to help.
"So how about a compromise?" asked Jo hopefully. From the way Dean was talking it sounded like he sided with her.
"Mom, would you object to Jo wearing an emergency port key? Or having me act as her back-up in my Stitch form?" he asked Ellen.
They all knew it was pointless for them to try and stop the blond girl from following them. So they might as well make sure she was safe the entire time and then set her up on some easier hunts.
It was less of a massive headache that way for all involved.
"You two idiots charm her up the wazoo and I might consider it," growled Ellen.
Jo perked up.
Under any other circumstances she might not have allowed it at all. If they had been Winchesters, definitely not. But these were her boys, who she had practically raised since they first came to her bar in hopes of sanctuary. They loved Jo like she was their flesh and blood and would never let her get too badly hurt or worse killed.
And if there was one thing Dean was good at, it was protecting those he considered family. He got downright paranoid whenever he thought his family was in danger.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" squealed Jo.
She had hugged Dean pretty tightly because he had given her all sorts of charms meant to ward off danger and promised that Jo would never be alone anywhere near the hunting grounds of what they were after. They had only barely gotten away before Ellen changed her mind about letting her daughter go.
"Sam, you don't object to being partnered with Bear do you?" asked Dean.
"We're good, right Bear?" said Sam, scratching the dog's ears from his spot on Jo's lap. Bear barked.
"Right. So what's our cover?"
"Young couple with a friend helping us move?" suggested Jo eagerly.
"Good enough," said Dean shrugging before he added "Not it."
"Not it," said Sam.
"Real mature guys!" said Jo sticking her tongue out at them...before she added "Not it what?"
"Newbie has to pay the landlord so he buys our story," said Dean with an evil smirk.
"Ass."
"Brat."
"Jerk."
"Bitch," said Dean reflexively. They kept up the name calling for an entire state and halfway through the next, to Sam's amusement. This was going to be a long hunt.
Two days into the hunt...
Sam was worried. Dean and Jo went investigating and he hadn't heard a word from either of them. Bear was whining and that was never a good sign.
Taking a gamble, he took the dog out to the back lot and said loudly "Seek."
Bear took off like a rocket until he started digging in a particular spot. His nose might not be able to smell Dean, but the familiar bond told the dog where his master was. Suddenly there was a loud thunk from something metal. Sam helped uncover the thing and revealed a large metal door.
He made sure Bear stayed while he took a large bag of salt down below. He didn't even notice Mort appear once he hit the bottom.
"Dean? Jo?" he called out into the dark.
At first he heard nothing...then he heard Jo's yelp and something heavy slam against a wall. It sounded like something metal hit more metal. Then he heard Dean's rather inventive cursing and followed the sound of his brother's rather odd voice. He was definitely still in creature form if he had trouble hearing his brother.
Sam followed the sound of Dean's cursing to find him and Jo breaking another woman out. The ghost clearly didn't know that Dean's creature form could use enormous amounts of strength even when in confined space.
About the only downside Dean's creature form had was that he couldn't swim in it. The creature was simply too dense and had a tendency to sink like a rock.
"Is she okay?" asked Sam to Jo, who was helping the other captured woman out.
"I'm fine," said the woman, clearly shaken.
Dean crawled onto Sam's shoulder.
"How'd you find us?"
"Bear. Is that Mort?" asked Sam seeing the 'reaper' for the first time.
Hello Sam. If you can keep the ghost still long enough I can take him to hell where he belongs, since it's impossible for you to deal with him the normal way. Consider it paying you back for dealing with that zombie a few weeks ago, said Mort.
Deal, and thank you, said Sam.
Jo was the bait, though she had Dean in her lap the entire time. Once the ghost reappeared, they captured him with a salt circle which Mort stepped over with an annoyed look on his face. He did not like it when ghosts got this out of hand.
You sir have annoyed me greatly. It's time you went where you belonged and quit making so much work for my reapers, said Mort in his dry toneless voice.
Jo, Sam and Dean were all on the surface, waiting to hear the verdict.
He's gone. Coincidentally you do realize that if your mother learns that two of you were taken she'll never let her hunt again, don't you?
Dean and Sam paled.
"Shit. Jo, do us all a favor and keep quite on how we found the ghost's area?" said Dean.
Jo winced.
"Agreed. Mom can never know how we found that ghost or how we got rid of it," said Jo.
If Ellen knew that Dean and Jo had been grabbed by a murderous ghost, she would never let Jo out on a hunt again. And she would never let the boys hear the end of it!
Ellen took one look at the trio and when she asked to hear about their hunt, they all clammed up after giving what was clearly a rehearsed reply. She narrowed her eyes, but kept her silence.
"Am I to guess that all of you are going to keep to that story?" she asked.
In a rare show of solidarity they said nothing, but their expressions spoke volumes. Considering Dean and Jo tended to get into it more often than not (older brother annoying his little sister type arguments) she knew something happened.
So Ellen turned to her daughter with a strange look in her eye and said "I'll let you go on hunts, but only if I have a chance to look into them first. I'm not letting you go half-cocked like these two idiots do most of the time."
"Hey!" came the duo protests from said idiots.
Jo beamed at her mother, relieved she trusted her enough to let her become a hunter for real. Even if she was on a 'probationary' period until her mom said otherwise.
It was better than being grounded.