Wow! You guys have blown me away! All of your kind reviews and adding this story to your alerts took me by surprise :) I'm SO sorry for making you wait so long for the next part, but I have been buried under homework.
This chapter isn't as long as the first one, but I wanted to get something out to you guys. So I will finish up the episode in the next chapter.

A HUGE THANK YOU and special shout out goes to sweetkiwi604 for making the awesome cover imagine for this story AND my other one, Growing Up, Winchester Style. She is seriously too nice! So check out the picture if you want to get a better idea of what I thought Kate might look like. And don't forget to check out all of her sisfic stories too! You will love them.

Please leave me a review and let me know what you think..things you liked/didn't like, etc. Your feedback helps me SO much :)

It was one of those moments in my life when time felt like is was flying by, but at the same time it was standing still. Everything was changing, yet everything was the same. My life was in slow motion, but I felt like too much was happening and I couldn't keep up. Talk about a major problem. It'd been one week and 2 days since my dad died. And one longishly short and quickly slow week since we buried my dad. Well, buried no. We gave him a hunter's funeral, like he deserved. I remembered everything from that day, but yet I remembered nothing at all. I remembered feeling the heat of the flames as his body burned. I remembered seeing the tears that streaked Sam's face and the rigid look on Dean's before I walked away because I just couldn't stand there anymore. And I was relieved when neither of my brothers followed me and just gave me my space. But I couldn't remember what had been going through my mind.

After the funeral, we went to Bobby's house to rest, recuperate, heal, avoid the real world, call it what you want. Lately I had spend a lot of time holed up in my room, exchanging few words with everyone else. I had never had to process this kind of grief before. My mom died when I was just a little baby, so I don't have any memories of that. But my dad…I still couldn't believe he was gone. Gone gone.

I finally decided it was time to venture out of my room and join the rest of the world in sunlight, hoping that would help. I still wasn't feeling up to talking about anything, so I knew the perfect person to be was with Dean. I was out in the junkyard sitting on some rusted piece of old car as Dean was working under the Impala in front of me. We had barely exchanged any words, but I found the silence comforting in a way, just knowing he was nearby was nice. I looked down at the old cell phone I was holding. It was one of Dad's and I was determined to crack his voicemail password, but it had been an epic fail so far. Sam had always been the more technological savvy one out of all of us, but this was a great distraction for me.

I heard a bunch of clinging and clanging, knowing Dean was working hard. I glanced over to my side and saw his open beer bottle just chilling there. Not wanting it to go to waste, I reached over with my free hand and grabbed it and took a nice, long swig.

"You drinking my beer?" his voice came from under the car. How does he always pick up on this stuff!

I quickly swallowed and examined the outside of it. "Don't see your name on it." When he didn't respond, I took that as an open invitation to drink some more. I never drank really. Heck, I didn't even like the taste of beer, but there were just some times where a beer just sounded good. Dean must have realized that this was one of them.

Sam suddenly appeared beside me as I was taking another drink, which warranted me a disapproving look. "What?" I argued.

"What are you doing?" he asked. As if it wasn't obvious.

I was sure he was referring to the drink in my hand, but I wasn't having any of that. "Supervising. Making sure Dean doesn't mess up the car."

"Yeah? Need any help?" Sam asked. I was shocked he was going along with my completely ridiculous answer. We both knew what he was trying to do and it wasn't going to work.

"Yeah, I'll pass. I don't need you supervising me supervising him. Seems kinda redundant, doesn't it?" I took another long swig of the beer as Sam stood there, slightly shocked by my hostile response. I loved the guy, but he just needed to give me some time and not push it.

"Oh, well…do you guys need anything else then?" he asked, still hopeful.

Dean rolled himself out from under the car, deciding to make his presence known. "Stop it, Sam." Ah, thank you brother Dean. He got up and made his way over to the tools sitting on a table nearby.

"Stop what?" Sam asked, pretending to be oblivious to what we already knew he was doing.

"Stop asking if I need anything, stop asking if Kate's okay. We're fine, really," Dean responded. I could tell he was getting frustrated with Sam.

"It's just… we've been at Bobby's for over a week now and you've never brought up Dad once and Kate has barely said two words about everything that happened!" Sam argued.

"Barely two words? Well how's this: Dad is dead and the colt is gone," I said, counting each word on my fingers. I held up eight fingers as if to prove my point. What else did he want me to say? Sure, Sam was used to be running to him when I had an emotional crisis, but this time I was in crisis overload and just needed time to sort it out before I sat down and had a chat.

"Exactly! Aren't you angry? Want revenge? But, Dean, all you do is sit out here all day long buried underneath this damn car of yours!" Sam yelled back.

Well, this was going to get out of hand, especially when damn and car were used together. I'd said my two cents worth and I just couldn't deal with a bitch fight between my brothers. So I grabbed the cell phone and quietly snuck off around to the other side of a broken down car, trying to block out everything they were saying. I wanted to crack this damn voicemail code. I was trying every combination of number I could think of. It was only 4 numbers. Seriously how many different combination possibilities were there? Ugh. Mom's birthday, Dad's birthday, I tried everyone's birthday. Addresses. Ages. Special dates I could remember. Dad was smart, I'd never deny that. But a guy's memory couldn't be THAT good. The number had to have some meaning in order for him to remember it. Wait…24…2…6…all three of our birth dates. I carefully pressed the numbers in.

"I got it!" I yelled as I stood up and flipped on the speaker phone. Sam and Dean turned to me, both looked to be pissed off. "I cracked his voicemail code!" I announced as I made my way over to them again. They came over by my side as I went through the menu options to replay the saved message.

"John, it's Ellen. Again. Look, don't be stubborn, you know I can help you. Call me."

It was from 4 months ago. Dad saved this random message for four months. We all agreed (shock) that it was worth checking out.

"Well go work your magic and get us an address," I said as I tossed Sam the phone, which he barely caught. Getting rusty after a week? Geesh.

"And ask Bobby if we can use one of his cars," Dean threw in before he went back to working on the car.

Finally we pulled up to some old looking bar in the middle of nowhere called The Roadhouse. As we got out of the junky minivan Bobby had lent us, Dean slammed the door in frustration. "This is humiliating! I feel like a friggin' soccer mom."

"Feels more like karma," I said as I went past him towards the main doors.

"Yeah, for all those times you wouldn't let us play soccer," Sam retorted. I glanced back over my shoulder and shared a smile with him. Guess he was back on top of his game in the helping me screw Dean over department. It felt great…like things were getting back to normal-ish.

"That wasn't me, that was da-," Dean began but stopped himself, realizing what he was about to say. Dad. He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. We fell into a deep silence as we continued looking around the outside of the bar. So much for normal-ish. "You bring the, uh," Dean asked, ignoring our previous conversation.

Sam tossed him the lock pick and he got right to work. I waited impatiently beside him, tapping my foot just to annoy him. After giving me the death stare, he finally managed to open the door and we headed inside.

Well it was definitely a bar. Complete with a drunken man sleeping over on the pool table. "Well I'm guessing that isn't Ellen," Sam said as he made his way towards the back room, looking around.

"Yeah," Dean said as he went over to investigate Mr. Unconscious. Well, it looked like they had everything under control in the back room and the bar area. Oh, that left just looking behind the bar. Nominating myself for the job, I walked over and stared at everything. I was no expert in alcohol, or hell even bars for that matter, but they had a nice collection here. I squatted down, checking out all the alcohol they had hidden beneath. So many bottles. This would be Dean's definition of a Heaven. Wow, there was Jack, Jose…

"Dean, check this out!" I said as I stood up, holding a bottle in each hand. I was expected to see just my brother, eagerly grinning back at me, but instead I had 8 eyes staring back at me. 8 eyes and 2 guns on my brothers. I looked from Sam to Dean, then to the 2 bottles I was holding in my hand. Like I said before, I wasn't an alcoholic or anything, but this current scene wasn't helping my case. Wrong place, wrong time was an understatement.

"Kate," Sam scolded in a low voice.

"Well this is awkward," I said as I sat the bottles down gently on top of the bar and held up in hands. The last thing I wanted was to get shot.

"Wait…Dean, Kate," the dark haired lady said as she looked from me to Dean. Then she turned to my other brother. "Sam?"

He slowly nodded his head. "Mom, you know them?" said the younger, blond haired girl who had the rifle pointed at Dean. I looked her up and down. Geesh, shirt get shrunk in the wash much?

"Son of a bitch. Yeah, I think these are John Winchester's kids," she said as she lowered down her gun, suddenly smiling. "Hey, I'm Ellen. This is my daughter Jo."

Jo lowered her riffle too. "Hey." Well this was getting interesting.

We all pulled up some chairs and saw down for a little pow wow. Ellen went to grab some ice for Dean, turned out Goldie Locks got the upper hand on my brother. I was still debating whether that was a point in her favor or against her.

Well it was time to get this show on the road. "So we heard a voicemail you left for our dad a few months back. You said you could help…with what exactly?" I asked.

"Well the demon of course. I heard he was closing in on it," Ellen replied, as if we should already know this.

"What, was there an article in the Demon Hunters Quarterly that I missed? I mean, who are you? How do you know about this?" Dean asked. Right on, Dean. Took the words outta my mouth, because last time I checked John Winchester didn't share that kind of information with just anyone. Who was this lady?!

"Hey, I just run a saloon. But hunters have been known to pass through now and again. Including your dad a long time ago. John was like family once," Ellen explained. The look she shared with Jo made me think that hunters just didn't pass through every now and then…it seemed more like a place just for them.

"Well he never mentioned you, so why exactly do we need your help?" I asked. Why was Sam just sitting there and letting me and Dean do all the interrogation. Normally the guy wouldn't shut up.

"I can do without the attitude because I know John wouldn't have sent you if…," she trailed off as she looked at all of our faces. There was a great possibility that between the 3 of us you could see an epic mixture of pain, hurt, guilt, annoyance, and sadness. "He didn't send you." Sam and I shared a glance. "He's all right, isn't he?"

Looked like she didn't get the latest issue of Demon Hunters Quarterly afterall. There was a long pause as nobody answered her. I wasn't about to share what had just happened. Even though this lady claimed to be like family with Dad, she wasn't to me.

"No. No, he isn't. It was the demon, we think. It, um, it just got him before he got it, I guess," Sam explained. He wasn't as concerned about indulging family information as I was apparently.

"I'm so sorry," she said in a very sympathetic voice.

"It's fine. We're alright," I interjected. I didn't need her dragging on this moment any longer. It was bringing up memories and feelings that 2 outta 3 of us hadn't even processed through yet.

"Really? I know how much your dad cared bout you kids." I felt a lump rise and my throat tighten. I knew Dad loved us and cared about us, even if he had a..um…different way of showing it. But hearing someone else tell you that hit me so unexpectedly.

"Really, lady, we're fine," Dean said coldly. Leave it to him to turn down the feeling thermostat on this conversation.

Ellen explained to us that she in fact could not help us, but instead this weirdo named Ash could aka Mr. Unconscious aka 'a genius' according to Jo. Um, you might to consult the latest version of Merriam-Webster because "drunken and passed out on a table guy with a bad haircut" wasn't one of the definitions.

"You've got to be kidding! This guy's a freaking Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie," Dean joked as Ash came over by us.

"I like you," he said pointing to Dean. He turned and appeared to notice my presence for the first time. "And I'm loving you," he said looking me up and down. Oh geeze, did that comment just made me blush? I feel so gross. So, so gross.

Without missing a beat, Dean immediately stood up and motioned for Ash to go over to the bar, drawing him away from me. He really thought I needed protected from that? Um, no. I could assure you that there was no way in hell I'd be into Ash. Oh, but where would the fun be in letting Dean know that?

I followed Dean over as he laid down the huge folder full of Dad's research on the table. "This stuff's about a year's worth of our dad's work," he stated, almost proud.

"Yeah, let's see what you can make of it," I said as I leaned up against the bar and rested my head in my hand, ignoring the confused look Dean was throwing my way.

Ash quickly combed through the papers before saying, "Come on, sugar. This crap ain't real. There ain't nobody can track a demon like this." I was positive I saw Dean's muscles tense up. Oh how great it was. "I mean damn. These are all signs. Omens, you can track 'em, you can track this demon," he finished.

I walked to the other side of Dean, so I was now standing between him and Ash. "Well, you think you can do us a favor and track this bastard? We'd so greatly appreciate it," I said as I leaned in closer. Ash stayed paralyzed for a few moments as I felt a tight grip around my arm and Dean jerked me back by his side. Talk about overreaction.

"Well, peeps, with this, I think so. But you gotta give me time…say…51 hours. Well, 53, if little miss wants a date," he said motioned to himself. I felt a laugh creeping up on me. Was this guy for real? Oh, this was just too good to make up.

"Yeah, no, don't think so. She's good," Dean said before I even had a chance to respond.

"Well, your loss," he said to me before he took off towards the back door.

"Hey, Ash!" I called after him. "I dig your haircut," I said with a wink.

"Damn straight. All business up front, party in the back." And on that note he walked into the back room, leaving the three of us laughing. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed these kinds of moments. For a brief second I had forgotten about the doom and gloom that hung over us.

Next thing I knew, Dean was up and walking over to a different table, since his immediate threat was gone. I was left with Sam and Ellen at the bar. Sam started asking Ellen about a police scanner or folder or something of the sorts. I was trying to listen, but I was too distracted by spying on Dean and Jo. My eyes narrowed as I saw them flirting. Woah, back this train up. Did I just get irritated because a girl flirted with Dean? Omg, was I doing to Dean what Dean was doing to me and Ash? Does that even make sense?! Ok, no. Totally different situations. It had to be. Let's see. I was flirting with Ash just as a joke to bug Dean because otherwise flirting just wasn't me. I didn't think Dean was flirting with Goldie Locks to piss me off, nope…he was doing it because he was Dean. See? Totally different. Normally I'd just accept that and move on, but there was just something about a girl who wore a shirt that was fit for an 9 year old that rubbed me wrong way.

Sam nudged me, bringing me back from my inner freak out of being like Dean. "What do you think?" he asked holding up the folder. I suddenly felt like I was back in high school when the teacher would call on me and I realized I hadn't been paying attention to a single word. Oops.

"Yeah, sweet folder." Solid response, right? I figured I had a 50/50 chance that it worked in this scenario.

Sam just rolled his eyes and called Dean over. Well, guess I picked wrong. Turns out it was about a hunt not too far from here and both Sam and Dean deemed it necessary we investigate. Sounded good to me. I was over this bar anyway.

We piled in the minivan and made our way on out just as the rain started pouring down. Ugh, why rain? It just made the situation seem more dramatic than it really was as Sam explained the case.

"Seriously? A killer clown?" I exclaimed. Man the crazy just never stopped.

"Yeah, that's what it seems like and Cooper Carnivals seems to be ground zero. Cops got no leads and everyone's got a solid alibi. Oh, and the girl said she said a clown vanish into thin air," Sam explained.

"Well, I know what you're thinking, Sammy. Why did it have to be clowns?" Dean joked. How had I forgotten about that? Oh my, this case just got a million times better.

"Oh give me a break," Sam tried to defend himself.

"Just admit you've always been scared of them," Dean joked.

Before Sam had a chance to respond, I said, "Yeah, like that one time when I was like in Kindergarten and you took me to that school carnival and…"

"Sammy, I wanna go over there!" I said as I pointed to a group of kids in the opposite corner. We were standing in the gymnasium at our elementary school. It was the day before Christmas vacation and the school decided to put on a carnival instead of giving classes. Dad hadn't given us any money, so we couldn't play games, but between both of our left over lunch money, we had enough to get a bag of popcorn.

"Let's get popcorn first before they are all gone," Sam tried to persuade me.

"But I wanna go there," I whined. He never let me do what I wanted. He wasn't being a good, big brother. I wished Dean hadn't been in middle school so he could had taken me around.

"Fine, we will later. Just wait here while I grab us the popcorn. I'll be right back," he said as he pointed to a chair that was up against the wall. I reluctantly took a seat as Sam took off to a nearby table to buy our snack.

I swung my legs back and forth, as they didn't touch the ground. I couldn't take my eyes off of all the kids across the room laughing and having a great time. I wanted to be with them, but Sam wasn't letting me. I looked and saw the back of his head as he waited in line. There were quite a few people in front of him, so I figured I could make it over there, see what was going on, and be back in time.

I quickly made my way across the gym and into the swarm of kids. They were all taller than me, so I pushed my way to the front so I could see. It was a clown! He looked so funny in his crazy yellow and orange outfit with red hair. And he was making balloon animals! It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I had to have one.

The clown made eye contact with me and I shyly waved at him. "Well come here, sweetie. What can I make you?" I knew I had heard that voice before but couldn't place it at the time.

"I want….a dog!" I squealed. Sammy was going to love this! I was staring in awe as he blew up, twisted and turned the balloons around and it started to look just like a dog.

The next thing I know, Sam is beside me, tugging on my arm. "Katie, let's go now!" he pleaded as he started dragging me away.

"Stop it! I want the doggie," I said as I tried to break free from his grasp. I looked at Sam's face and I had never seen such panic and fear before. He didn't let up on his grasp and he continued pulling me through the crowd of people. Even my protests and arm smacking didn't stop him until we were on the complete other side of the gym. "Sammy! You're so mean! I wanna go back to the clown," I begged. I wanted my balloon animal.

"No, they're...they're not nice. Now just sit here and eat your popcorn," he said as he pushed me down into the seat and handed me the popcorn. He sat down beside me and I could tell that he was breathing fast. I watched as his eyes stayed wide and he kept searching around the room, as if watching out for something.

Dean started laughing. "Wasn't that clown the school janitor? The one that you talked to every day at that school?" he joked as he looked over at Sam. That was it! It was the school janitor. I knew I recognized that voice. Sam The Scardy Cat!

"Shuddup!" Sam said. Like that was going to work.

"And just fyi, I never got my balloon animal!" I threw in for good measure.

"Yeah well at least I'm not afraid of flying," he said looking at Dean. "Or bugs," he said throwing a glare back at me.

"Planes crash!" Dean defended himself.

"And bugs attack!" I reminded them of our rather unpleasant meeting with gross insects out to kill us last year.

"And apparently clowns kill!" Sam yelled. Well, we all had our issues. I wanted to argue that Sam's was the most illogical, but I was pretty sure that went without being said.

"So these types of murders ever happen before?" Dean asked. I, for one, had certainly forgotten about the case for a moment. Taking a stroll down memory lane threw me off track. Basically what those two knuckle heads came up with was we had ourselves a cursed object floating around this carnival.

"Just great. I hate searching when we don't know what we are searching for. Defeats the purpose of searching! Whose idea was this case anyway?!" I complained.

"Most definitely Sam's. Why is that, by the way? You were awfully quick to jump on this job," Dean said.

"So what," Sam replied, trying not to meet his gaze.

"It's just…not like you, that's all. I thought you were hell-bent on the demon hunt," Dean replied.

"I don't know. I just think taking this job is what Dad would have wanted us to do…," Sam responded.

"What Dad would have wanted…," I quietly repeated. Sam had a very valid point. I agreed with him there, but apparently that wasn't apparent in my response. Didn't they know that I wasn't always sarcastic?

"Yeah! So?" he retorted, looking back at me.

"Dude, I agree with you," I said. He smiled softly back at me as if to apologize before turning around and staring back out at the road. We all fell into silence. I glanced up front and I could see Dean gripping the steering wheel tighter than necessary. Clearly something was bothering him.

The next morning it was time to get down to business. We hopped into the Brown Crapper, as I affectionately called our new wheels, and made our way to the Carnival. We saw the police interviewing some people, so something had gone down overnight. Dean told us to wait nearby why he went to see what information he could get from them.

What happened next, I couldn't have planned it better myself, even on one of my best days. As we were standing there waiting, this three foot tall lady in a clown outfit passes right in front of us. The look on Sam's face was priceless. It was nervousness mixed with pure fear. I quickly pulled out my phone because I just had to capture this as evidence. I tried to get to the camera as fast as possible, but it was hard. Anyway, by the time I managed to pull it up, the moment had passed as the small lady walked off and Sam visibly relaxed a little. Talked about wasted opportunity. I really needed to make a short cut button for the camera. Well, no better time than the present.

As I was still messing with my phone, Dean walks up beside me. "Did you get her number?" Ok, now I was offended. This was supposed to be a 'pick-on-Sam' moment and it just backfired. Sam and Dean both chuckled.

"No, but I got Ash's," I said closing my phone and shoving it back in my pocket. Dean's smile suddenly turned to a scowl. Ah-ha! Take that. Now who had the smug smile on their face?

"More murders?" Sam asked. Leave it to him to get us back on track again.

"Two more last night. Apparently they were ripped to shreds. And they had a little boy with them. Said a clown vanished into thin air," Dean explained.

"Looking for a cursed object is like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles. It could be anything," Sam said. This hunt just seemed less and less appealing by the minute. I took a look around us and spotted something much more interesting.

"Okay, well good team meeting. I'll be over by the cotton candy machine while you two go hunting for this cursed thingie. Let me know what you find out," I said as I started to walk off. I had walked off enough that I thought I was home free, but I was suddenly, and very rudely, grabbed by Sam. The guy had like a wingspan of a freaking airplane. Ugh.

"Well it's bound to give off EMF, so we ALL will just have to scan everything," Dean said, emphasizing the part that meant I had to go on this search for a mystery object too. Joy.

"Great, that won't take too long at all." The sarcasm was thick in my voice.

"Yeah, that'll be so nice and…inconspicuous," Sam threw in, equally as sarcastic.

"Inconspicuous?" I repeated. Look at Mr. College boy showing off his stuff.

"Inconspicuous," he confirmed.

"Really?!" Dean asked, looking at him irritated.

"What? Would you like me to spell it for you? I-n-c-o-n" Sam retorted, but I cut him off.

"s-p-i-c-u-o-u-s," I finished, earning a proud look from Sam and an annoyed one from Dean.

"Show offs," Dean muttered before he pointed a nearby sign said "So translation: We are going to have to blend in." And he took off towards what appeared to be the main tent.

I looked at the sign he was pointing to. Help Wanted…S. Cooper. Great. Just great. His bright idea was for us to become carnies. After I thought there was nothing we hadn't already done…I jogged to catch up with my brothers. This case was turning out to be quite something. They said part of healing was getting back to your normal life, and quite frankly this was probably as normal as it got for us. So maybe this was just what the doctor ordered. But I still couldn't get this feeling out of the pit of my stomach. This never ceasing feeling…feeling of emptiness.