Scarecrow

Miles away in yet another motel room, I was sleeping, my head buried in a pillow and an arm thrown over Sam's chest. Both of the boys were to thick to sleep half way decent on the poor excuse for a run down couch. And I just downright refused, so I'd dropped on Sam when he'd been trying to sleep and refused to get up. I was currently in that state of drifting in and out of sleep but to lazy to move. Then Dean's phone started to ring on the table between the beds, I groaned when it wouldn't shut up. "Dean?" Sam muttered, waking up to the ringing. But Dean didn't move, still fast asleep in the other twin bed. "Get it, Chrissy." He muttered, words slurring.

No way, to lazy, "You get it." I muttered, turning over on the bed. I nearly fell off but climbed on as the bed dipped in response to Sam answering the phone. Then Sam sat up so suddenly, it caused me to shriek as I hit the floor with a bang. Dean sat up in his bed panicked, already grabbing the gun under his pillow. Before there was an argument to see what was going on, I was sitting on and glaring at Sam, when he sat something that stalled everything. "We're fine dad. Yes, we have Chris with us to, how'd you know, mind answering why you never told us about her. Where are you?"

"Is that dad?" Dean demanded. I slowly climbed to my feet.

Sam started talking again, ignoring them. "You're after it, aren't you?" I slowly eased myself onto the bed, sitting on my leg. "The thing that killed mom." I felt myself turn sick at the thought of once again imagining my mother trapped on the ceiling and being burned alive. "A demon? You know for sure?"

"A demon?" Dean demanded. "What's he saying?"

I finally found my voice. "You wanna give us some feedback here, Sammy?"

But Sam didn't seem to interested in answering anyone but dad at the moment. "You know where it is?" I straightened my back to attention, he knew where what killed there mother was? "Let us help." Damn right I wanted to help kill the thing that ruined my childhood. "Why not?" But I was still apprehensive, the whole, meeting the father who abandoned me ordeal.

"Give me the phone." Dean said, climbing off his bed.

I leaned closer to Sammy, "What's he saying?" I hissed, practically on his back trying to hear.

"Names?" Sam asked. "What names?" I bit my lip, tilting my head a little to the side. "Dad, talk to me, tell me what's going on." That was a question I've pretty much been asking for twenty two years, and I was twenty four.

"Give me the phone." Dean said more firmly, getting desperate.

"Shush, Dean." I hissed, trying to see if I could hear dad's voice for the first time.

Then Dean snatched the phone from Sam, ignoring my slight whine when all my hard work of trying to listen in was for naught. "Dad, it's me. Where are you?" Didn't Sam just ask that? "Yes sir." I threw myself back on the bed. "Uh yeah, I got a pen." Dean jerked open the drawer to the bedside table, dragging it and one of those small yellow notebooks out. "What are their names?" It was just like Dean, always following dad's orders without questions.

After that, Dean made us pack all our stuff and our weekend rest from hunting was cut short. "So have you found out what those names are?" I asked, sitting on the edge of my seat in the car, arms crossed over the bench seat in front of me.

"Yeah, they're all couples." Sam explained, having just finished looking up the last name.

"Three different couples." Dean said in the drivers said. "All went missing."

"And they're all from different towns." Sam explained. "Different states?"

I grabbed the papers that held Sam's notes on the case, before dropping back in my seat, ignoring the annoyed huff. I flip through the victims backgrounds hurriedly. "We've got couples from Washington, New York, and Colorado."

Dean said, "Each couple took a road trip cross country." I scoffed, my whole life was one endless road trip cross country. "None of them arrived at their destination, and none of them were ever heard from again."

"Well it's a big country." Sam reminded the two. "They could've disappeared anywhere."

I flipped through the papers more slowly, looking for details. "No, there has to be another connection beside couples on road trips."

"Yeah, there is." Dean said. "Each couple took a route that led them to the same part of Indiana." As he said this, I was handing the papers I took back to Sammy. "Always on the second week of April." I thought for a moment, what was the date again, I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in April. "One year after the next."

"This is the second week of April." Sam noted. Dean nodded silently.

My mouth formed an 'O' shape. "Am I the only one that can never remember the date." Dean and Sam both nodded, Dean driving and Sam flipping through papers.

"So dad is sending us to Indiana to go hunting for something before another couple vanishes?" Sam clarified.

"Yahtzee!" Dean suddenly said, slapping the steering wheel lightly. Yahtzee, wasn't that the game with the dice? "Can you imagine putting together a pattern like this?" I haven't played that game since someone found it in the supply closet during one of my last high school detentions. "All the different obits dad had to go through?" We played it when our teaches stepped out for an hour. "The man's a master." We later learned she only stepped out so she could make out with the school janitor.

Sam looked annoyed as he asked for Dean to pull over. "...what are we doing?" I asked as Dean did so, looking confused.

"We're not going to Indiana." Sam said as if it was obvious and they should know that.

"We're not?" Both Dean and I asked. Where else are we supposed to go, people were dying there. And it was our job to help them.

"No." Sam said. "We're going to California?" I went back to the edge of my seat, staring at him confused. What was I in California? "Dad called from a payphone." Oh. "Sacramento area code."

Dean shook his head with a heavy sigh, "Sam."

"Are we really going to leave when we know another couple is going to go missing and die this week?" I demanded. I wasn't used to turning my back when I knew something awful was happening.

"Christina!" I jumped at the sound of my full name, especially since I was never called it. "Dean, if this demon killed mom and Jess, and dad's closing in, we've gotta be there." It never occurred to me since I learned the truth of what happened that we may not be there during that demon's destruction. "We've gotta help."

"Dad doesn't want our help." Dean said, trying to get through to Sam.

"I don't care!" Sam shouted.

I fell heavily back in my seat. "He'll probably be gone by the time we got there anyway."

"Exactly, what she said!" Dean exclaimed, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at me. "So we might as well head to Indiana and follow orders."

"I don't care." Sam said more firmly than before. "We don't always have to do what he says."

I scoffed, looking down to pick at my nails. "If you haven't notice, I haven't exactly been following daddy's orders for over twenty years." How could I, I've never spoken to the man.

"Dad is asking us to work jobs." Dean said seriously. "To save lives, it's important."

"I hope nobody is saying it's not." I said. Honestly, hunting was the only thing I truly knew how to do.

"I know it's not, believe me." Sam said. "I understand. But I'm talking one week here, to get answers." One week and another couple would be dead. "To get revenge." Revenge...I really wanted to kill the thing that killed my mother, to see it die in agony just like my mother had. I curled my hand into a fist over my knee.

"Alright, I know how you feel." Dean was saying.

"Do you?" Sam demanded forcefully. I looked up startled at hearing how forceful his tone was. "How old were you when mom died? Four? And Chris was two?" Just another reminder that I only got two years with my mother but at least that was more than Sam's six months. "Jess died six months ago, how the hell would you know how I feel?"

"In case you forgot, my best friend died seven months ago." I huffed. It still made me angry that I could save total strangers but I couldn't save her.

"The difference is you weren't in love with her!" Sam glared over his shoulder at me. I glared back at him, I may have loved by friends but I've never been 'in love' so I could only imagine that was more painful.

"Dad said it wasn't safe." Dean said. "For any of us." When wasn't it dangerous, when you were a Winchester at least. "I mean, he obviously knows something that we don't so if he says to stay away, we stay away." I stayed away because I was scared to meet the man, not because he told us to.

"I say that this argument has gotten old." I commented, leaning against my car window.

"No!" Sam said frustrated. "I will never understand the blind faith Dean seems to have in the man." Then he turned to Dean to keep on with the argument. "I mean, it's like you don't even question him."

"It's called being a good child to they're father!" Dean shouted back. I rolled my eyes as Sam angrily got out of the car, slamming the door. I only followed as Dean climbed out. "You're a selfish bastard, you know that?" I felt a dread of worry as Sam started pulling his bags out the trunk. "You just do whatever you want."

"Boys, can't we just get back in the car...maybe to for lunch. Whose hungry?" I said nervously. The last thing I wanted was for my family to split, it's only been six months...

"He doesn't care what anybody thinks." Dead scowled, as I stepped between them.

"Not everyone does." I said desperately. I remember in high school, I was that girl that when the crowd was going right, I would go left.

"That's what you really think?" Sam demanded, barking at Dean. He started getting up close to Dean.

"Yes, it is." Dean said. I was pushed in the middle getting squeezed while they had they're big macho showdown of a fight trying to one up the other.

"Come on, boys, just take a chill pill!" I said firmly, getting pissed. I had a hand pressed on each chest, trying but failing to push them away from each other.

"I may be a selfish bastard but I'm going to California." Sam hoisted one of his bag into his shoulder. He looked at me, "Are you coming or staying?" I looked at him startled, looking back and forth between Sam and Dean. Maybe he saw the look on my face, my unwillingness to go find our dad because he scoffed disgusted, and started walking down the road despite it being so late at night by now.

"It's the middle of the night!" Dean shouted after him. Sam obviously didn't care because he kept walking into the night. "Hey, we're taking off!" All I could do was watch, sadden that we were splitting up as Sam walked further away. "I will leave your ass, you hear me?"

Sam turned around, still walking backwards. Spreading his arms wide, he said, "That's what I want you to do!" Sam stared down Dean and I. Deciding he wasn't coming with, Dean angrily slammed the trunk close before trying to pull me to the impala. I yanked my arm away before climbing in myself. Dean threw his arms into the air before climbing in his side and taking off.

We drove the next few hours in complete silence, not even the radio played. I sat in the front seat for the first time since Sam left Stanford to officially come with them. I was leaning silently against my door, cold glass pressed against my cheek. It was when we passed the sign that said Burkitsville, Indiana did Dean pull over. When Dean pulled out his phone, I didn't have to look to see who he was considering calling. "You going to call Sam?" I asked quietly.

Dean stared at his phone for several long tense seconds. "No." He decided, snapping his phone shut.

There was a cafe as soon as we entered town, one of the few places to get something to eat in this town apparently. Dean got my attention and nodded to the building where a man was sitting on the porch, I nodded and we made our way to him. "Let me guess, Scotty?" Dean asked the man. He was talking about the sign that said Scotty's diner. "My names John Bonham." Dean introduced himself as. "And this is my sister Cher Bonham."

Scott's looked at Dean, "Isn't that the drummer for Led Zeppelin?"

I looked startled, I knew Dean should have picked a less known name. Dean was taken aback as well, it wasn't everyday our cover was blown. "...Our parents were fanatics?" It sounded like a question.

Scotty didn't seem to overly concerned about it. "What can I do for you?"

Dean pulled out the missing person flyers he printed off the internet got Holly and Vince Parker, the victims of last year. "I was wondering if uh, you'd seen these people by chance."

"They're friends of ours." I lied. Scott's studied the pictures before shaking his head no.

"They went missing about a year ago." Dean explained.

"They would have been passing through here before heading to the next state." I said, seeing if he recognized any of this.

"Sorry." Scotty said uncaring. "We don't get many strangers around here." He said it completely emotionless...it was weird.

Dean couldn't let that go without a cocky joke. "Scotty, you've got a smile that lights up a room, anybody ever tell you that?" Both Scotty and I stared at him. Seeing this, Dean chuckled and said, "Never mind." Before we left. There was nothing left for us there apparently.

Miles away, Sam was walking down the highway carrying his bags but the highway was mainly empty. And the few cars driving past weren't the kind that were stopping to pickup a hitchhiker. He only stopped when he noticed someone sitting on the side of the road, a girl about twenty with extremely short blonde hair and a bright red jacket. "Hey." Sam tried to get her attention to see if she needed help. Only when she didn't answer did he realize she was wearing headphones and listening to her music. So from behind her, he touched her shoulder as to get her attention.

Startled, the woman shot to her feet, turning around being seeing him as she took out her headphones. "You scare the hell outta me!" The woman, her name was Meg, said looking annoyed.

"I'm sorry." Sam apologized. "I just thought you might need some help."

"No, I'm good, thanks." Meg said cockily. She was clearly one of the kind of women that hated asking a man for help.

But Sam still decided to ask cautiously, "So, uh, where you heading?"

Meg started to grin before she said, "No offense but no way I'm telling you."

Sam started to grin, amused by this girl. "Why not?"

"You could be some kind of freak. I mean, you are hitchhiking."

"Well so are you!" Sam defended himself grinning. It had been a while since he had fun like this. Meg threw her head back and burst into laughter.

At that moment, a van pulled over honking its horn. "Need a ride?" The driver called out the window. Both Sam and Meg acknowledged him, grabbing they're bags they had abandoned on the ground. But the driver looked at Sam and said like it should be obvious, "Just her. I ain't taking you."

Sam watched in disbelief as Meg didn't hesitate to grab her stuff up, yanking open the van door. "You trust shady van guy and not me?"

Meg grinned down at him from her spot in the large van, "Definitely." Then she shut the door in his face and Sam was forced to watch as they drove away.

Back in Indiana, "You never saw this couple stop here before?" I asked the local sheriff. He denied ever seeing the couple before and I was left with no leads again. So I walked away, looking for Dean who had gone off in search for information himself. After walking for several minutes, I slowly stopped, I had that feeling where the hair was raising on the back of my neck, someone was watching me. I glanced around, putting a hand in my pocket and my fist curling around one of my smaller knives. Life had taught me to never go unprepared. Looking around, I couldn't see anyone that brought my immediate attention. So I kept walking until I found Dean talking to people at the local store.

"What's up with you?" Dean asked as I came a little to close to him, still looking around.

Whoever was watching must have left because I didn't feel they're watching any longer. "Nothing." I muttered, slowly forcing myself to relax.

"Did that guy you're looking for have a tattoo?" A girl named Emily who was about eighteen asked, having came downstairs holding a box.

That got us back on track and remembering the case, the whole reason we were there. "Yes, he did." Dean said, giving her his full attention as I nodded.

"Let me help with those." I took the boxes she was struggling with, before putting them carefully on the desk.

"Thanks." Emily said brightly before turning to her Aunt Stacy and Uncle Harley. "You remember? They were just married." She showed them the flyers.

Harley and Stacy had just been firm that they hadn't seen either of them before I'd walked up. Now Harley got a look of remembrance on his face. "You're right, they did stop for gas!" He said with more enthusiasm than necessary. "They did stop for gas." I raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Wasn't here more than ten minutes." How was he so sure if they just hadn't remembered?

"You remember anything else?" Dean demanded.

"I told them how to get back to the interstate." Harley explained. "They left town."

"You wouldn't happen to be able to give us the exact directions you gave them?" I asked with forced sweetness. Harley slowly nodded and gave us the directions.

It was when we were passing an orchid field that something in the back seat started beeping. "What the hell? Find out what that is?" Dean said, still driving. Grumbling under my breath, I nearly kicked Dean as I leaned over the bench seat, practically falling over it as I searched his bag. Dean made a sound when my flailing legs kicked him and he pulled over. I fell back into my seat, holding Dean's frantically beeping home made EMF reader.

That was what caused us to go hiking through the trees of the orchid. "Wow, ugly at four o'clock." I said as we came across a scarecrow high up on a post in the middle of the field.

"Dude, he's more than ugly. He's fugly." Dean decided, looking up at the scarecrow. I couldn't help but agree with him there.

"What are you doing?" I asked as Dean grabbed a nearby ladder propped against a tree.

"There's something up there." Dean said before he started climbing the really too tall ladder. I was almost positive he was gonna fall any minute. So I clutched the bottom of the ladder until he came down safely again, holding the flyers. "The scarecrow, same tat as him." He showed me the flyer of Vince.

I looked from the flyer and back up at the scarecrow. "Shit."

It was another silent ride before we arrived back at the local Burkitsville gas station. "You're back." Emily said cheerfully from the gas pumps.

"Never left." Dean corrected.

"We were just following the trail, it didn't lead us far." I said. The orchard was literally just on the edge of town.

"Still looking for your friends?" Emily guessed. Both Dean and I silently nodded.

"You mind filling her up there, Emily?" Dean patted the hood of his baby.

"Because you can't do it yourself." I smirked, leaning against the hood of the car myself.

Dean grinned cockily, leaning beside me. "So you grew up here?" Dean asked Emily, making conversation. I listened only because honesty, I didn't have anything better to do.

"I came here when I was thirteen." Emily explained. "I lost my parents." I felt pity for the girl but asked it, I know I hated it when people showed me pity. "Car accident." At least it wasn't something supernaturally inflicted. "My aunt and uncle took me in."

"That was nice of them." I said softly.

"Everybody's nice here." Emily explained smiling. It kept on being startling, making me wonder how much a person could really smile.

"So what, it's the uh, perfect little town?" Dean asked. There was no such thing as a perfect little town, just people trying to fool themselves into thinking nothing bad would ever happen in they're small hometown.

"Well, you know, it's the boonies." Emily shrugged. "But I love it. I mean, the towns around us, people are losing their homes, their farms. But here, it's almost like we're blessed."

I slowly nodded. "Blessed, that's must be it." There was no way in heaven or hell that this town was blessed.

"Hey, you been out to the orchard?" Dean suddenly asked. "You seen that scarecrow?"

"Yeah, it creeps me out." Emily said with a shiver. She glanced around as if to make sure none of the townspeople had heard her saying so. Dean laughed slightly as I crossed my arms.

"So if you've been here for quite a few years, would you happen to know who it belongs to?" I asked. There was something about that scarecrow that wasn't normal.

Emil shook her head, "I don't know. It's just always been there." I slowly nodded, of course it was.

"Is that your aunt and uncles?" Dean suddenly asked, nodding as a red van parked in the garage a few feet over.

"Customer." Emily corrected. "Had some car troubles."

"Is that so." I said. No way was it coincidence that a car just so happens to break down in this neighborhood during this week.

"It's not a couple, is it?" Dean asked urgently. "A guy and a girl." Emily nodded cheerfully, not once thinking it was odd that we knew that. Dean and I shared a look of concern. And then I felt that sensation again, the sensation of being watched.

Miles away, Sam was arguing with the lady behind the desk at the bus station he'd come across. "Sorry, the Sacramento bus doesn't run again till tomorrow." The lady was saying, getting annoyed by the man at her window.

"Tomorrow?" Sam protested. "There's got to be another way."

"Well there it." The lady said, starting to give him attitude. "Buy a car."

Sam angrily stormed off, pulling out his phone. He stopped on Dean's name, hesitating before he clicked the up button. He stared down at Chris' number, finger hovering over the call button.

"Hey." Sam looked over surprised, turning off his phone. Meg was sitting against one of the poles, surrounded by her bags. "You again."

"What happened to your ride?" Sam asked curious, walking on over.

"You were right." Meg admitted, not moving from her spot. "That guy was shady." She explained. "He was all hands." Sam raised a curious eyebrow because she didn't appear hurt or scared at all. "I cut him loose." Sam started glancing around with a look of disappointment, remembering his lack of ride. "What's the matter?" Meg had noticed his disappointment looks.

Sam adjusted the bag on his back before admitting his trouble, "Just trying to get to California."

"No way!" Meg said surprised. "Me too!" She finally stood up so she could face Sam despite being several inches shorter than him, she was probably just an inch or four shorter than Chris "You know, the next bus isn't until tomorrow."

"Yeah, that's the problem." Sam sighed.

"What's in Cali that's so important?" Meg asked with a curious little grin.

"Just something I've been looking for." Sam said a little awkward, not feeling much like telling a total stranger about his problems. "For a long time."

Meg grinned, "Well, then I'm sure it can wait one more day, right?" Sam couldn't help but laugh, something about this girl just made him feel...happy, again.

Back in Indiana, "I'll be right back Dean. Bathroom." I said as we were entering Scotty's cafe. Dean nodded, heading to the counter for some coffee. I cautiously headed towards the bathroom area. I stopped and waited around the corner, out of view from the tables because I'd felt that sensation again, of being watched, as I did this, Dean was ordering coffee.

It didn't take long before a man wearing a baseball cap came around the corner, as this was happening, the female of the couple was explaining to Dean how they were on a road trip. No sooner had he came around the corner did I know this was him, and I was grabbing him by his shirt and throwing him against the wall, my arm firmly jamming itself under his neck across his upper chest to keep him there, the other hand fisting his shirt. As I was doing this, Dean was explaining how he was on a road trip as well. "Who the hell are you and why have you been following me?" I demanded, pissed, pressing harder against his throat.

Seeing him choke a little, I loosened my arm just a bit for breathing room. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." He was saying. I almost smirked. Scare me? He was lucky it was just my arm and I hadn't pulled a knife out on him. As he was saying this, Scotty was complaining to Dean about the couple wanting to eat in peace

"Then what's with the stalker act." I demanded. As I said this, Dean back at the table was insisting he was just having 'a little friendly conversation'.

"You just looked really familiar. It wasn't until I saw you coming into the diner that it hit me." He said. As he said this, the girl of the couple up front was explaining to Dean how they had stopped for gas.

Scowling, I let go of his shirt and pulled off his hat. It took a minute before I recognized the floppy brown hair and bright blue eyes, I let him go startled, having not thought of him since that last time we've met and honestly never once considering the thought of meeting him again. "You're that guy!" I snapped my fingers in thought. "What's your name? Dash...Devlin, something that starts with a D." As I was guessing names, Dean was busy trying to convince the couple to let him fix they're break lines.

"Derek actually," he corrected, readjusting his shirt from where I had been pulling on it. "Derek Matthews. And you are?" Derek Matthews, otherwise known as the guy I met briefly nearly a month ago when we went back home to Kansas to save Jenny and her kids. As this was happening, the girl was denying Dean's help to fix they're car.

I hesitated but shrugged and shook his hand that was offered. He wasn't to strong anyway if I could pin him so easily to a wall. "Chris Winchester." As I introduced myself, Dean was explaining to the couple how the roads were unsafe.

He returned his hands to his pockets with the thumb sticking out. "Yeah, I was going to say hi but changed my mind when I saw your boyfriend. He's uh...kinda big." Derek was only a couple inches shorter than Dean but Dean was made of pure muscle while Derek was more lean. As he was complaining about my so called boyfriend, the man of the couple was complaining to Dean how they were trying to eat.

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow of confusion. "Boyfriend? I don't have a boyfriend."

Now Derek looked confused. "But then whose the big guy that came in with you." As he got confused, Dean was busy explaining to the couple how his brother had this puppy dog eyes and how his sister can make you think she was so innocent just by smiling

It took a couple seconds before I started to laugh, not being able to help myself. Derek was startled by the sudden sound but he realized in that moment that he kind of liked it, the way her face was all lit up. "That is so not my boyfriend. He's my big brother."

Derek suddenly got a lot more interested. Awkwardly leaning against the wall, he gave a flirty smile but it just looked funny to me since it was clear he didn't know what he was doing. "So does that mean you don't have a boyfriend?" As Derek was trying to flirt, an officer had just entered the cafe and questioning a word from Dean. Derek looked her up and down, clearly checking her out, but his eyes didn't stray on her hips or chest, instead returning to her eyes. He decided he liked her eyes, the green color swirling that seemed to hide endless secrets.

I scoffed, having more important things to worry about than a guy trying to get a date. I got close and patted his chest, "Honey, I'm a little busy. Maybe I'll answer you another time." I turned and started walking back around the corner.

"Why can't you tell me now?" He called after me.

I turned, walking backwards. "Like I said, I'm a little busy!" Grinning, I returned to the table only to find it was empty. Casually, I picked up the napkin that had left behind. "Oh-five, meet me around back." Was written on it. Oh-five, meaning police. I wasted no time balling the napkin in my fist and quickly walking out.