A/N: I'm so sorry this took so long, I've been swamped with work, but hopefully I'll be able to update more frequently now! :D I hope you guys enjoy!

Chapter 9: Clowning Around

Mia inhaled deeply. The scent of smoke and ashes filled her lungs and she stifled a cough. Her eyes began to burn and water. She turned to Dean and Sam to see how they were faring and saw that both of them had teary eyes as well, but for a different reason.

As the three of them stood over John Winchester's funeral pyre, watching his deceased body burn to ashes, Mia couldn't help but think about Star Wars. She remembered when Luke Skywalker burned his father's body on a similar funeral pyre. She didn't know why but that thought seemed to make things easier for her. True, she hadn't known John very long but she had come to appreciate him greatly. John had been firm but she could see underneath his rough demeanor, he had a heart. After the sacrifice he'd made for his eldest son, she could think nothing but positive thoughts about the dead hunter.

She felt Sam shaking beside her and her heart broke. She hated seeing the brothers so downcast and would have given anything for them to have their father back. From personal experience, she knew that it sucked not having a dad.

"Did-did he say anything," Sam choked, "to either of you before he…"

Sam trailed off as he fought back a violent sob. Dean, who was crying silently, shook his head and muttered "No. Nothing."

Mia replied that he hadn't said anything to her either.

She and Dean stared into the burning embers of the fire as they thought about the lies they had both just told. Dean knew that what his father had said to him couldn't be repeated and Mia hoped the boys wouldn't figure out the truth about their father's death.

The three of them continued to stare, dejectedly, into the flames, wishing that somehow John would awaken and jump out of the fire before he turned to ashes.

Sam, Dean, and Mia took refuge with Bobby for a week and during that time they took no new cases. Although, Sam looked through his father's phone for messages that could provide them with one.

Dean had devoted himself to rebuilding his cherished Impala from scratch. He was out in the junkyard all day, every day, and refused to even acknowledge his father's passing. This worried Mia greatly, and she pushed Sam to confront his brother, claiming that Dean bottling up his feelings was not a good thing.

"Maybe, he's getting better," Sam suggested when Mia approached him about talking to Dean.

Mia crossed her arms. "It's your dad, Sam. You can't just get over losing someone within a week. He's probably just putting on a brave face, but he really needs to talk about it instead of doing nothing but rebuilding that damn car."

Sam saw her point and went to talk to Dean who was still working on the interior of the car.

"Do you need any help?" He asked casually.

"Nope," came Dean's quick response.

"Well, do you need anything? Screws? An extra hand? Someone to talk to?" Sam offered and Dean groaned.

"Geez, you sound like Mia. She keeps asking me if I'm okay or if I need anything. It's driving me crazy."

Sam shrugged. "She does have a point, we've been here for over a week and you haven't even mentioned Dad."

Dean turned around. "You're right. C'mere. I want to lay my head on your shoulder, cry, maybe even slow dance." His voice was dripping with sarcasm and Sam groaned in frustration.

"Don't patronize me, Dean. Dad is dead, the Colt is gone, and you're acting like nothing even happened. God! Just say something, anything! Don't you want revenge? Aren't you angry? All you ever do these days is work on that damn car!"

"You know what, revenge sounds nice. Have you got any leads to track the demon? Oh, guess not. Well, that's okay, I'm sure there's another way to find him, but then again we have no Colt. Face it, Sam, there's nothing we can do. But fixing up this car, that's what I can do, and what I will do," Dean replied, as he bent back to work on the car.

Suddenly, Mia appeared breathless, with John's cell phone in her hands.

"Her name is Ellen Harvelle, Bobby finally gave me the address," She told Sam, handing him back the phone.

Dean frowned. "Wait, what?"

"I cracked Dad's voicemail code, and there was a message from this woman named Ellen, saved for four months. I gave it to Bobby a couple of days ago and he offered to track the woman down for us," Sam explained.

Dean studied their faces. Mia looked eager to get on another case, while Sam looked desperate for a distraction from the pain of their father's death. Dean understood both of their emotions and agreed that they could borrow one of Bobby's cars and check out the place.

That next morning, the three of them set off in the only car Bobby had running: a rusty, old, mini-van. The address Bobby gave them turned out to be a saloon called The Roadhouse.

"This is humiliating. I feel like a freaking soccer mom," Dean exclaimed angrily as he slammed the van's door shut.

Mia stretched her arms out and yawned. "Say what you want about the car but that backseat is wonderful, I slept the whole way here."

She, Sam, and Dean walked over to the front of the building. It was closed as it was still early in the morning, but that didn't stop Dean from picking the lock to let them inside.

"Nice place," Mia remarked as she took in the various decorations on the walls consisting of animal heads and scenic paintings.

They suddenly noticed a man who was lying, passed out on a pool table. Dean tried to wake him up but to no avail.

"Someone had a bit too much fun last night," Mia joked, hoping to lighten the mood, but Dean and Sam didn't respond.

"I'm gonna check back there," Sam announced, before turning into the room behind the bar.

"Oh hey look, a quarter! It's my lucky day," Mia chuckled as she bent beneath the pool table to grab the coin.

When she emerged from getting the coin she saw that Dean and Sam had guns on them. There was an older woman with light brown hair who stared at the boys in dismay, her gun aimed at Sam's back, while the younger girl, who looked to be around Mia's age, stood her ground against Dean, who was cupping his face as though he'd been punched.

"Are you Dean and Sam Winchester?" The older woman asked.

"Yeah?" The brothers replied in perfect unison.

"Wait, you know these guys?" The younger girl frowned.

The other woman laughed and put down her gun. "These are John Winchester's boys. Hi, I'm Ellen!"

Both she and the younger girl lowered their guns.

"Sorry about that punch," The younger girl said to Dean.

Mia laughed to herself but quickly sobered when she realized she'd spoken her thoughts aloud and caught the attention of everyone in the bar.

"Who are you?" Ellen demanded, her gun was up again and pointed at Mia.

"It's okay! It's okay, she's with us!" Sam exclaimed, gently forcing Ellen to put down her gun.

"That's funny, I don't remember John mentioning a daughter…" Ellen said thoughtfully as Mia walked over to them.

"She's not our sister, she's just a friend of ours," Dean explained.

Ellen smiled. "Oh well, any friend of the Winchesters is a friend of ours. I'm Ellen Harvelle and that's my daughter Jo."

"I'm Mia Wilkins, nice to meet you," Mia said giving Ellen a handshake.

The five of them settled themselves into chairs and talked while Ellen grabbed a pack of ice for Dean's face.

"So, you called our Dad saying something about helping him, what was that about?" Dean asked Ellen.

"Oh, help with The Demon, of course. I knew he was closing in on it," Ellen replied.

"How does everyone know about The Demon? Is there some sort of forum?" Dean asked in disbelief.

Ellen shook her head. "Your Dad used to frequent The Roadhouse, along with a lot of other hunters. John was like family once."

"Oh yeah? Then how come he's never mentioned you?" Dean retorted coldly.

Ellen's face fell for a moment. "You'd have to ask him that."

This time both Dean's and Sam's faces fell and an awkward silence descended upon them.

"John uh, he… well he… he's passed," Mia stuttered uneasily, knowing the boys probably didn't want to have to explain to two perfect strangers that their father was dead, as they hadn't even come to terms with it themselves.

Ellen looked devastated by the news. "I'm so sorry," she said to them.

"It's okay, we're fine" Dean replied gruffly.

Ellen continued. "Really? I know how close you and your dad were and-"

Dean cut her off abruptly. "Really Lady, I'm fine."

She seemed to be taken aback by Dean's hostile tone.

Sam jumped in and asked if she could help. Ellen responded that the only person who could help them was Ash.

"ASH!" Ellen called, and suddenly the man lying on the pool table sat up.

His sudden spring into action frightened Mia so much that she fell out of her chair. Which at least got Sam to smile for the first time in a week. It also made Jo laugh.

"That's Ash?" Dean asked in bewilderment of the mullet man who was climbing off of the pool table.

"He's a genius," Jo nodded.

Ash took the brothers and Mia aside and explained that he had filed through John's work. To their surprise, the hung-over hillbilly could understand the notes and explained that they correlated to particular signs or omens that appeared just before The Demon would strike. He told them that in fifty-one hours, he could track the demon down for them.

This left Dean, Sam, and Mia with time to kill. Sam asked Ellen about the case files she had behind the bar counter, while Jo pulled Mia aside to talk to her.

"So, are you a hunter?" Jo asked as she wiped down the bar tables.

Mia nodded. "I guess you could say that, but I'm just a beginner."

"How many cases have you worked?" Jo inquired.

"Umm, Let's see… there was the vengeful spirit, the tulpa, the shtriga, the haunted painting, the vampires, and then we tried tracking down The Demon so six," Mia counted off her fingers.

"How old are you?" Jo asked in bewilderment.

"I'll be twenty in two months and a day," Mia replied excitedly. "But don't tell your mom I'm underage! The beer you guys serve here is great."

Jo laughed. "It's alright, I just turned twenty a couple of months ago, and she's been serving me alcohol since I was seventeen."

Mia beamed and took a long sip of her beer.

Jo sat down beside her and put away her dish towel. "I think you're the youngest female hunter I've ever seen in here."

Mia's eyes widened. "Really? Are you a hunter too?"

"No, but I want to be one," Jo sighed wistfully, "It seems like something I'd be good at."

Mia grinned. "It is pretty awesome,"

Dean suddenly stood up from the bar and walked over to the table the two girls were talking at.

"How'd your mom get into hunting?" Dean asked Jo.

"My dad, he was a hunter but he died when I was a little girl," Jo said sadly.

Mia opened her mouth to offer condolences but Dean cut her off before she could speak.

"I'm sorry to hear that," He said.

"I'm sorry about your dad," Jo offered back sympathetically.

Dean shrugged nonchalantly and Mia felt the urge to wipe the smug grin off of his face. The way he was acting like nothing was wrong was driving her insane. When you lose someone, you don't get over them that quickly. And as much as Dean was trying to be strong, he was looking like he never cared about his dad, which Mia knew wasn't true.

"So, I guess I've got fifty-one hours to kill," Dean said playfully to Jo, "maybe tonight you and I could…" He trailed off and gave the blonde girl a smoldering look.

Mia saw Jo's jaw clench and fought the urge to laugh. Dean was going to get punched twice in one day by the same girl. But he must've seen the steely look in her eyes as well and backpedaled, telling her to forget about it.

Mia excused herself to the bar to laugh and tell Sam what happened but as soon as he saw her he pressed a thick envelope into her hands.

"We've got a case," He told her, "There's a couple of murders nearby that Ellen caught wind of, sounds like our kind of thing,"

Mia nodded and flipped through the case while Sam called his brother over. They were off in no time.

"Killer clowns?" Dean exclaimed as Mia read the case notes to him. They were driving down the highway and it had gotten pretty dark.

"Clownnn," She emphasized. "Apparently he killed the parents but left the girl unharmed. She claimed she saw a clown do it and then vanish into thin air."

Dean snickered. "Well Sammy, I know what you're thinking. Why'd it have to be clowns?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

Mia leaned forwards from the backseat. "You have coulrophobia?"

Dean laughed. "He's been terrified of clowns since he was a little kid."

"I'm not terrified of them," Sam retorted, "I just… don't like them."

"He used to run crying out of the room when Ronald McDonald came on television," Dean chuckled.

"Hey, don't feel bad. Everyone's afraid of something. I'm sure Dean has a phobia too like arachnophobia or claustrophobia," Mia reassured Sam.

Dean shot Mia a dirty look. "Hey! I haven't been afraid of Santa Claus since I was four."

"That's not what claustrophobic means," Mia said with a huge grin on her face.

"No, Dean has pteromerhanophobia," Sam replied

"English please?" Dean moaned.

"You can fight a pack of monsters with no problem but it's planes you're afraid of?" Mia burst out laughing.

"Hey! Planes kill!"

"Well apparently so do clowns!" Sam shot back.

After a long silence, Dean asked "Has this happened before? The clown murders, I mean."

Mia flipped through the case files. "Uh yes, a couple of years ago a young couple was murdered and their child testified it was a clown. That was in 1981 with the Bunker Brothers Circus, the one reported in the current case is Cooper Circus."

"That means the clown is somehow moving from circus to circus…" Sam pondered.

"It's probably a cursed object," Dean offered.

"Great, that means we're on a wild scavenger hunt," Sam sighed.

"Hey don't complain, you're the one who picked the case," Dean retorted. "And why was that anyways? I thought you were hell-bent on finding that demon?"

Sam shrugged. "I figure that's what Dad would have wanted, for us to keep hunting. Besides, it kills time."

Mia was extremely appreciative that Sam had picked a case because if she had to be locked up with Dean the martyr for fifty-one hours and hear him lie about his feelings towards his dad's death, she was going to go crazy.

By the time they got to the circus, it was early the next morning and there were already cops interviewing a couple of the Carnies.

Dean headed over to learn the details while Sam and Mia walked around the carnival.

"I love carnivals," Mia sighed as she stared longingly at the ticket booth, wanting more than anything to go on some rides before they started working the case.

Sam, who saw her intention, pulled her away from the stand. "Hey, focus. We can go on rides and stuff afterward."

"Seriously?"

"Sure," Sam smiled. "I've never been to a carnival before. And besides the creepy clowns, I kinda wanna see what all the hype is about."

Mia was ecstatic at the prospect of hanging out at the carnival. She eagerly watched the various Carnival workers set up their attractions as happy memories from her childhood encircled her head.

Dean returned a few moments later and told them that there had been another murder. Both parents were killed; leaving the child who reported a clown from the carnival did it.

"Finding this cursed object is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack," Sam dreaded.

"Nah, it'll give off EMF, we just gotta scan everything," Dean told him.

Mia crossed her arms. "So we're just going to walk around with our EMFs and hope someone doesn't question us about it?"

"No, we just need to blend in," Dean said, and pointed to a sign nearby that read 'Help Wanted: Talk to J. Cooper'.

They walked into one of the tents and saw a man throwing knives at a large target with perfect precision. Mia was impressed. Sam had tried to teach her to use throwing knives once and her aim was so terrible she nearly maimed him.

"Nice shot," She commented when one of the knives hit dead center.

The man was startled and spun around. "What's that? Who's there?"

"Uh, hi. Have you seen Mr. Cooper?" Dean asked.

The man was furious. "Is that supposed to be a sick joke?"

He tore off his sunglasses to reveal that he was blind.

Dean apologized immediately. "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't-"

"Do you know what I'd give to see Mr. Cooper or a sunset one more time!?" He cut Dean off.

"Barry, is there a problem?" A voice asked and the three hunters turned to see a little person enter the tent with a wrestling costume on.

"Yeah!" The angry blind man exclaimed, "This guy hates blind people!"

By that time Sam and Mia were laughing their heads off while Dean tried to explain himself.

"I don't hate blind people! It's just a little misunderstanding,"

"LITTLE? Is that supposed to be a joke?" The wrestler yelled angrily.

"NO!" Dean shouted back desperately. "I just want to talk to Mr. Cooper! Please!"

Luckily the wrestler pointed out the way to find Mr. Cooper. Who greeted them warmly and invited them into his office. He explained that he was grateful for them to join because now his business needed help more than ever.

He led them into a room with three chairs facing his desk, two black chairs, and a wooden one decorated with a clown.

Without a word, Dean grabbed Mia by the wrist and dragged her over to the two black chairs so Sam would be forced to sit in the clown chair. He smirked as he watched his brother fidget in the chair.

"But enough about that…" Cooper finished his speech about the police investigations. "Have you three ever worked the circus circuit before?"

"Yes, sir," Sam lied easily, "last year we traveled from Texas to Arkansas."

The man stared at them warily. "What positions did you have?"

He began listing strange-sounding job titles for them.

"Uh, a bit of everything, I guess," Sam chuckled nervously.

"I was an acrobat," Mia offered.

Mr. Cooper shook his head. "You've never worked a show in your lives, have you?"

"Nope, but my brother has a thing for the bearded ladies," Dean answered with a laugh.

Sam shot him a dirty look.

Mr. Cooper sighed and explained that he'd inherited the circus from his late father. He claimed that the circus was the place for society's outcasts, a refuge for people who felt they didn't belong.

"You three should go to school, get married, have some kids, and live regularly," He finished.

"With all due respect," Sam began. "We don't want to go to school, we want this."

The man still didn't seem convinced.

"All our lives we've just wanted to be a part of something bigger, and this circus job gives us that opportunity. Sure, we may not be qualified, but you know what, every professional was once a beginner, just like you were when you started working in your dad's circus. We want this life, Mr. Cooper. We may look like regular people but we're outcasts too, outcasts seeking refuge from the expectations of our friends, our families, and teachers. Please give us that chance, Sir." Mia proclaimed passionately.

Dean and Sam seemed impressed by her speech and so did Mr. Cooper who hired them on the spot.

"Nice job, Wilkins, I didn't know you could be such a good liar," Dean said to Mia as they walked out of the office.

Mia smiled. "I wasn't really lying. The number of times I've heard, 'go to school, get married, start a family'… But hunting has been the better option for me, as strange as that seems."

Before she could impart more of her wisdom upon the brothers, she spotted a cotton candy stand and ran at it.

Dean smiled at Mia's childlike behavior and then turned to his brother. "What about you? Were you telling the truth about not wanting to go back to school too, or-"

"I don't know, Dean…" Sam sighed. "I think… I've been having second thoughts about going back. I think Dad would have wanted me to stay."

His older brother was incredibly annoyed. "Since when do you care what Dad wants?"

Sam was taken aback. "Since he died, Dean. Do you have a problem with me staying, or something?"

Dean shook his head. "No, I don't. I'm fine."

He then took off in the opposite direction to blow off steam, leaving Sam to watch him go.

"I swear if he says 'I'm fine,' one more time, I'm going to kill him," Mia mumbled, having returned from buying herself and the Winchesters cones of cotton candy.

She handed Sam a cone and as he devoured the treat he mumbled that he was sick of Dean lying about being okay too.

By that afternoon the three of them were suited up for work and wandering around the park. They were forced to pick up trash around the carnival. As they did so, they kept their EMFs in their pockets. Dean had figured out a way to convert an MP3 player into an EMF with headphones so to anyone watching them, it just looked as though they were listening to music while they worked.

Sam was positioned in front of the haunted funhouse while Dean and Mia were stuck on the other side of the park.

"So how come you never went to school?" Dean asked Mia to make conversation as they listened for any EMF ratings.

She shrugged as she shuffled a load of trash into the dumpster. "I did, I tried a semester but i just didn't like school that much. There weren't any subjects that really grabbed my attention, you know? I liked History and English, but not enough to make a job out of it. Besides, I was just average, a solid B student, unlike Sam."

"Yeah," Dean sighed. "Sammy got the brains, but at least I got the looks."

Mia laughed sarcastically. "You got the brains too, I mean how the hell did you figure out how to turn an MP3 player into an EMF tracker? I don't even know how to change the batteries in a smoke alarm. And the fact that you're rebuilding the entire Impala from the roots up, that takes an awful lot of brains, don't sell yourself short, Winchester."

Dean was moved by her kind words. No one had ever called him smart before. He was the slacker, the kid that was too cool for school. The Bart Simpson. But Mia made him feel like he was a genius. Of course, he couldn't let her know that so he played it off.

"Anyone could figure that stuff out, you're just slow," He teased.

Mia rolled her eyes in defiance. "Yeah, okay."

Suddenly, Dean's ringtone blared and he put it on speaker for both him and Mia to hear.

"Dean! I think I have an idea," Sam exclaimed quickly and breathlessly.

Dean smirked, "What's the matter? You sound like you've seen a clown."

"Hahaha," came Sam's sarcastic laugh. "And actually it was a skeleton in the haunted funhouse. But that skeleton gave me an idea… What if the clown isn't attached to an object but to its own remains?"

"Did the skeleton give off EMF?" Mia asked curiously.

"No, but-"

Dean cut him off, "We should check it out anyways. We're heading to you."

He hung up the phone and began walking over to the haunted funhouse with Mia on his tail. Suddenly he bumped into an older man wearing sunglasses he recognized as Barry from earlier.

"What are you doing?" Barry asked, pulling Dean's arm.

"Uh… sweeping," He muttered in reply.

Barry shook his head. "Bull. What were you guys talking about? Skeletons and EMF?"

"Geez, your other senses really do heighten when you're blind," Mia remarked.

"Listen," Barry advised, "we Carnival Folk are a tight group, we don't like outsiders, and we solve our own problems."

"Do we have a problem?" Asked Dean.

"You tell me. You're the ones talking about human bones!"

"Do you believe in ghosts?" Dean interrogated.

Barry was baffled. "What?!"

"Well," Mia jumped in, "we're writing a book. It's about this killer clown ghost that haunts a carnival-"

"And kills the parents of the children it befriends," Dean added.

"We took this job to get into the carnival atmosphere," Mia supplied.

The two of them then went on to explain that it was based on a legend that had originated from a circus called Bunker Brothers. Barry was intrigued, as Mr. Cooper had worked for the Bunker Brothers Circus. He seemed satisfied by their explanation and told them it seemed like an interesting story before finally letting them meet up with Sam.

"What took you guys so long?" He asked when they finally got to the haunted funhouse.

"Long story," Dean replied.

They discussed theories as to where the remains would be while Mia looked at all the happy carnival goers.

She remembered her first carnival when she was four years old. Her parents had taken her on all the rides and bought her all the cotton candy she could eat. She remembered winning a stuffed penguin and falling asleep in the car on the way home.

She was snapped out of her nostalgia when she saw a little girl pointing into the distance and exclaiming that she could see a clown.

Mia smacked the Winchesters' chests to get their attention on the girl.

"There's no clown, honey, come on," The little girl's mother told her. The two of them walked away but the little girl continued to look back to the spot where she claimed to have seen the clown.

"Guys," Mia grinned. "I think we just got ourselves a lead!"

They kept tabs on the family during the rest of the day and when they left the park, so did Sam, Dean, and Mia. They parked their car outside of the family's house, ready to spring into action.

Dean told Sam that Mr. Cooper had worked for Bunker Brothers and hypothesized that the clown could have come from an object or remnant that he'd taken with him.

"Makes sense, that would be how the clown traveled from that circus to this one" Sam approved.

"God, I can't believe we keep talking about clowns," Dean sighed.

"I can't believe there's a homicidal clown spirit that kills people," Mia muttered as she consumed the bag of cotton candy she'd brought with them. "What next? A serial killer Teddy Bear?"

They were parked outside for a few hours. Time passed slowly and each of them took a turn to keep watch on the house. Around two in the morning, during Sam's watch, the lights in the house flickered on.

"Dean! Mia!" Sam called, gently smacking both of them awake.

They all looked up and saw the little girl walking around by herself.

"He's here," Mia mumbled as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

The boys grabbed their guns and headed towards the house while Mia stumbled after them with her own gun.

Sam and Dean ran into the house and hid behind one doorway while Mia followed them and hid in the doorway beside them.

"On three, grab the girl and we'll take care of the clown," Dean instructed her.

Mia nodded.

"One, two, three!" Sam called.

He and Dean jumped out of the doorway and immediately started firing on the clown while Mia grabbed the little girl to keep her out of harm's way. The girl screamed and thrashed against her but Mia's grip was ironclad.

The clown crumpled to the ground to the brother's relief. They put their guns down. Then suddenly, he sprang up again like a jack-in-the-box.

"SAM! DEAN!" Mia shouted to warn the brothers.

They continued to fire rounds into the clown but found they were too late. The spirit jumped through the window of the front door, breaking the glass as he went then vanished into the night.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" Thundered the parents of the little girl as they ran into the room.

"What are you doing to my daughter?" The mother exclaimed in disbelief, seeing that Mia was holding the girl tightly.

"SHIT!" Mia shouted and released the girl. The three hunters broke out of the same window as the clown and booked it to their van. Dean gunned the engine and they sped away.

Dean claimed the parents had seen their license and drove to a remote part of land off of the highway to dump the rust bucket.

Mia was furious as this meant they were going to have to walk all the way back to the carnival, which was about a two-hour trek. But with their ten-pound bags of gear, it was going to feel like forever.

"What the hell was up with that clown? That rock salt hit something solid," Dean wondered aloud.

"Maybe it's a person?" Sam suggested.

"A person that dresses up as a clown and kills people's parents for kicks? Seems unlikely," His brother answered skeptically.

"That and why was it that only the little girl could see the clown at first? It's definitely something supernatural," Mia explained with a grin.

Sam pulled out his cell phone and began to call Ellen to see if she knew what it could be as they couldn't find any mention of a homicidal clown in their father's journal.

"Do you ever think Dad and Ellen had a thing?" Sam asked his brother.

"Nah,"

"Then how come he never mentioned her to us?"

"They must've had a falling-out."

"Is it just me or does Dad seem to have a falling out with lots of people?"

Dean didn't reply.

"Not this again," Sam groaned.

"What?"

"This, strong, silent, crap. I'm so over it," Sam explained.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Look, just because I'm not all sharey-carey like you doesn't mean-"

"That's not the point! The point is you're not even dealing with Dad's death. I know how you felt about him, and you can't just pretend like you're okay!"

"I'm okay! I'm okay! The next person who asks me if I'm okay, I'm gonna start throwing punches!" Dean shouted.

"If you say you're okay one more time, I'm gonna start throwing punches!" Mia retorted angrily.

Dean ignored her threat and turned to face his brother. "Look, these are your issues, don't you dump them on me."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sam asked.

"You think I haven't noticed how damn obedient you've become all of a sudden? You've fought with Dad every day of your life. Hell, you picked a fight with him the last time you ever saw him and now you're trying to make things right. Well, you know what, it's too late for that," Dean roared.

Sam looked extremely hurt. "Why would you say that?"

Dean's green eyes were filled with pure malice. "I'm dealing with Dad's death. Are you?"

"I'm going to call Ellen," Sam replied in a defeated tone. He walked off ahead of Dean so he could talk to Ellen.

Mia let out a frustrated sigh as she trailed after Dean.

"What's your issue?" Dean inquired in annoyance.

"You're not 'dealing', with your dad's death, you're not even acknowledging it," Mia said plainly.

"What?"

"This entire week you've barely been able to utter the word 'dead'. Look, I get it, it really sucks losing someone you love but you can't clam up like this because you're just going to get angrier and angrier until you explode."

Dean laughed darkly. "Oh yeah, how would you know?"

Mia opened her mouth to explain to him but thought better of it. Now wasn't the time…

"Bottom line, Sam just wants to help. He's torn up about it too, you know. And seeing you acting like it doesn't matter is breaking him because he feels weak. You can't keep pretending that it doesn't hurt because that's going to kill you slowly," Mia finished.

Dean ignored her and walked ahead. He didn't need life advice from a nineteen-year-old that had probably never lost anyone important to her, ever.

Eventually, Sam walked back to them and told them that Ellen believed it was a Rakshasa.

"It's a Hindu creature that feeds on human flesh, has the appearance of a human, cannot enter a home without permission and can turn invisible," Sam elaborated.

"That fits, they dress up like a clown so the kids let them in," Dean approved.

"What else?" Mia asked as she forced herself to remember the details to fill in her own hunting journal.

"They sleep on a bed of dead insects and have to get up every few years to feed," Sam said.

Dean nodded. "That explains the deaths this week and the ones from the Bunker Brothers in '81. And who do we know worked both shows?"

"Cooper," The three of them uttered in unison.

"Did Ellen mention how to kill it?" Dean inquired.

"Legend says that a dagger made of pure brass can kill it," Sam answered.

"Great. Because we've got plenty of those to spare," Mia grumbled in exasperation.

"Actually, I think I might know where to get one," Dean told them.

"Well, before we start stabbing Cooper, I wanna make sure it's him," Sam told him.

"Sure, you check his room for bedbugs while I get the blade," Dean told Sam.

"And I'll get us some more cotton candy to celebrate when we do kill him," Mia offered.

"No more cotton candy!" Sam and Dean told her.

When they arrived back at the circus, it was closing up for the night. Mia and Dean headed over to Barry's trailer to ask if he had any brass knives they could use, while Sam broke into Cooper's trailer to see if he truly slept on a bed of bugs.

"I think I might have some brass blades in my trunk," Barry said as he unlocked the door to his room.

"I can't believe it. That's like your fifth cone of cotton candy," Dean groaned as he watched Mia inhale the sweets.

"Hey we might never have a Circus case again so I think I'm allowed to fill up while I can," She retorted.

Barry pointed to a trunk in his trailer that was filled with costumes. Dean dug through and froze when he came upon a very familiar-looking clown costume.

"It's you?" He asked in disbelief.

"It's me," The blind man cackled. He removed his glasses and turned invisible.

Dean and Mia ran for the door but Barry the cannibal clown began throwing knives at them. Dean was pinned to the side of the door by his shirtsleeve and Mia began continuously launching herself at the door, hoping to break it down for them to escape.

"Hurry up!" Dean pleaded.

"I'M TRYING!" Mia shouted. She knew her entire left side was going to be bruised after this.

She heard more cackling and turned around expecting to see the clown's face but there was nothing. She suddenly had an idea. She pulled pieces of her cotton candy from the cone, licked them, and threw them where she believed he was standing. Her saliva gave the candy an adhesive quality and soon enough a couple of pieces stuck and seemed to float in midair in front of her. She knew that the pieces were stuck to the invisible clown.

With all the force she could muster, she kicked the cotton candy pieces and the clown fell to the ground. The door magically opened, and Dean fell onto the ground.

"Good thinking using the cotton candy," He told her as they sprinted away from the trailer.

"Thanks," She replied. She was proud of her resourcefulness although she was disappointed she'd used up all of her treat.

They met up with Sam who affirmed that Cooper didn't sleep on a bed of bugs.

"We know! It's that Barry guy, he's after us!" Mia explained, glancing around, hoping Barry wasn't nearby.

"Did you guys get the blades?" Sam asked.

Dean shook his head.

"I have an idea, follow me," Sam told them as he ran off in the direction of the haunted funhouse.

"YOU WANT TO GO INTO A MAZE WHEN THERE'S A CANNIBAL CLOWN AFTER US?" Mia exclaimed fearfully as they ran inside.

"Trust me," Sam reassured her as he led them through the maze.

When they got about halfway, the three of them were separated when the door shut behind Sam, and Mia fell through, what was supposed to be, a haunted mirror.

The black lights and creepy music weren't making her feel any better about the separation.

"WHERE ARE YOU?" Mia shouted through the maze.

"Follow my voice!" Sam commanded and Mia made her way through the hall of mirrors while Dean, who was on the opposite side of the wall, did the same.

When the three of them finally met up, Sam had just pulled an organ pipe out of the organ in the center of the maze.

"It's brass," Sam explained, relieved that they now had a weapon.

Mia went to grab one of her own but as she tried to pull the pipe out, knives came whizzing by her head and pinned Dean against the wall.

"Not again," Mia exclaimed as she struggled to remove the pipe.

"Where is he coming from?" Sam yelled over the loud music.

"I don't know!" Dean replied. He spotted a lever above him to trigger steam within the premises and pulled it. The room became smoky and he was able to see the outline of the figure. It was coming closer to them and stood behind Mia as she tried to pry the brass pipe loose.

"MIA! BEHIND YOU!" Dean screamed.

Sam turned around, hearing his brother's yells, and thrust the pipe into the outline of the invisible clown's body. The pipe seemed to float in midair, as red blood dripped out of the wound.

The figure shrieked and then melted until nothing was left of it except its clothes and the brass organ pipe.

Mia dropped her organ pipe as Sam helped Dean unpin himself from the wall.

"You know what, suddenly I don't feel like sticking around anymore," Sam said to Mia.

"Carnivals are really overrated anyways," She agreed.

Dean exhaled heavily, "I think I hate carnivals."

They headed back to The Roadhouse and Ellen gave them a round on the house.

Mia took a sip of her beer and sputtered, "This tastes like root beer!"

Dean laughed loudly at her expense. Ellen came over to her and smiled.

"Jo told me you're only nineteen. You can have any soda you'd like, it's on the house."

"Jo!" Mia exclaimed in betrayal, "I thought we were cool!"

The blonde girl smiled. "She's just kidding, you can drink whatever you want."

Mia shook her head and smiled but finished her root beer anyways.

"You guys did a great job, John would be proud of you all," Ellen told them before she vanished behind the bar.

Jo looked at Mia, blinked, then looked at Dean. Mia, who understood the complex eye contact language of females, took that to be Jo asking if she and Dean were a couple.

Mia's eyes widened and she shook her head. Jo smiled then looked from Dean to her then over at the pool table. Mia took this to mean that as her cue to leave them alone.

"I'm gonna go play pool," Mia announced, as she walked over to the table.

Jo tried using her eye contact tricks on Sam but he couldn't get what she was trying to say. Eventually, Mia just called him over to play against her so Jo and Dean could be alone.

Jo and Dean talked for a few minutes while Mia and Sam watched.

"Do you think they're gonna hook up?" Sam asked her.

Mia watched them closely. It seemed as though Jo was coming onto him but Dean was, surprisingly, resisting her advances.

"Honestly, no. I don't think he's in a good enough place for that," Mia replied.

Ash suddenly appeared and told them that he had programmed the information into his makeshift computer to track down any signs of The Demon.

"There's no sign of it yet, but if any new signs pop up, my computer will light up like a Christmas tree," He told them.

"Ash, how the hell did you learn how to do this stuff?" Sam inquired, impressed by his work.

"M.I.T.," Ash shrugged as if it was no big deal, "I went there till' I got kicked out for roughhousing."

"Thanks, Ash," Mia grinned as the three of them stood up to leave and head back to Bobby's.

When they arrived at Bobby's, Dean resumed his obsessive tinkering with the car. He claimed it was almost done, another week and it would be ready for the road.

One day, Mia decided to explore Bobby's auto salvage yard and to her surprise, she found an abandoned tire swing that was probably as old as her. It didn't matter though, because it still carried her weight. She swung happily as she thought about the carnival again. She missed her childhood, those carefree days when all that mattered was playing all day. She glanced around the junkyard, wondering to herself how many times the Winchesters had yearned for the same thing.

Sam decided to check on Dean and headed outside into the yard where his older brother was working. He felt like having a heart-to-heart about their dad.

"Dean, you were right. I was just trying to make things up to Dad. I think he died thinking I hated him and I… I just… I miss him, man. And I know you're missing him too, and you're dealing with it in your own way, so I'll just. I'll leave you alone, to fix the car," Sam admitted. He violently fought the tears that threatened to resurface. Sure, he and his dad didn't have the best father-son relationship but he loved him a lot and missed him. More than anything, he wanted him back, but he knew there was nothing that could do that.

Dean watched his brother walk away. He was fuelled with anguish. His father's death had left a hole in his heart that no matter how hard he tried he couldn't fill.

Dean grabbed the nearby prybar and began smashing the windows of the nearby cars. He then began smacking the prybar against the trunk of his car, over and over until he could see dents. But no matter how hard he hit the car, it couldn't get rid of the agony inside of him. He heard Mia's voice echoing in the back of his head; "you can't clam up like this because you're just going to get angrier and angrier until you explode." She had been right…

He sighed heavily as he recovered from taking his feelings out on the car. He put down the prybar and froze when he realized that way across the yard, Mia was watching him from Bobby's old tire swing.

Dean's eyes widened and he wondered how long she'd been there. However, what unnerved him most wasn't that she'd seen him explode, it was the way she was looking at him. Her face showed no signs of the fear, shock, revulsion, pity or sympathy that he'd expected to see. Instead, her blue eyes were affixed to him with complete understanding. She looked as though she knew the pain he was experiencing. The frustration, guilt, and overwhelming depression he felt towards his father's death.

It was as though she could see right through him. Through his tough-guy façade, and cocky demeanor to the deepest most intimate parts of himself that he refused to share with anyone, not even his brother.

That thought scared him more than any monster he'd ever faced…

Notes: I know I've kinda set up a mystery around Mia's past but I promise, we'll get to it this season.

-Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing, I appreciate it so much!

-If anything seems unclear, please feel free to message me or leave a review for me to reply to, I'll be more than happy to respond when I get the time to.

-I'm kinda going off on my own storyline this season so you'll notice a lot of deviation from the show's episode order, just giving you all a heads up.

Next Episode: The Winchester brothers and Mia face a nest of strange vampires, as well as an eccentric vampire slayer that could give Blade himself a run for his money.