Elizabeth groans as Dean shakes her shoulder, batting his hand away and snuggling under the cheap comforter. "Liza," he hisses, then continues in a normal tone. "A demon? What's he saying?" Her eyebrows scrunch together as she hears Sam talking, slowly pushing herself up and turning to rest her back against the headboard. She gazes around in a state of half-sleep, watching as Dena yanks a shirt over his head.

"You know where it is," Sam asks. "Let us help." Elizabeth gets to her feet to stretch before grabbing her bag, heading into the bathroom for a shower. The guys can catch her up on whatever she's missing when they go get coffee.

She starts the water so it can heat up while she pulls off her tank top and underwear, making sure to pee before climbing under the warm spray of water. Her body wash and hair stuff are already set up on the side of the tub from last night, but right now Elizabeth just wants to let the warm water work out the kinks in her shoulders and back.

"Liza, no time for fartin' around, we gotta hit the road."

"Dean Anthony Winchester, you let me have my fucking shower or you'll be the one to regret it!" It's obvious that Dean takes her warning to heart because she can hear the bathroom door shut and the sound of him pulling off his dirty clothes before he joins her in the shower. He doesn't make any suggestive remarks as he soaps up a washrag, just helping her get her back and shoulders before letting her do the same. "Who was on the phone?"

"Dad. He, uh, gave us a new job." She nods, running the cloth over his chest and leaving a line of suds behind. "He doesn't want us chasing after him anymore."

"Sammy pissed about it?" Dean snorts, brushing some of Elizabeth's wet hair over her shoulder.

"Beyond pissed," he murmurs, his lips brushing her neck with every word. She shivers from the contact, wrapping her arms around his waist and letting her fingers splay against his broad back. "We better get out before Sam kicks the door down."

"The fucker would, too." They rinse off before getting out to dry and dress, making quick work of it as they move around each other with a careful routine. "Let's get this show on the road." She slaps his ass as she walks out of the bathroom, leaving Dean to pull on his shirt and chase after her. It's still dark outside when she joins Sam in the car, shivering in cool air that smells of oncoming rain.

"Took you long enough," Sam grumbles.

"Nice to see you, too," she says around a yawn. He turns the key in the ignition when Dean runs out and joins them, sending him an unimpressed frown. They pull out of the parking lot at a reasonable pace, taking advantage of the lack of traffic as the speed along towards the highway. Elizabeth sits in silence as the scenery blurs, able to make it three hours before she speaks again. "Anybody else think John should've called around noon so we had a chance to sleep in?" Dean looks at her over his shoulder and Sam looks at her using the rearview mirror, matching expressions of incredulity. "Just trying to diffuse the tension."

"Well stop it." There is tension, there always is when John is brought up in a conversation. Sam and Dean view him in completely different lights and Elizabeth tends to side with Sam that the guy is a shit human being. "Hey, those names Dad gave us are all couples, right?"

"Three different couples," Dean nods, looking down at the road map. "All went missing."

"Anything that connects them to make John think it's a case," Elizabeth asks, leaning forward to look out the windshield. "Towns, hobbies, porn preferences?"

"Yeah, each couple took a road trip cross-country and none of them arrived at their destination. None of them were ever heard from again."

"And do we have a hunch on where they might've been when they disappeared? Because this country is huge and I don't feel like visiting Little Rock again." Sam gives her a brief, questioning glance and she explains. "I have a warrant there after I set a trailer on fire seven years ago. It was the Fourth of July and I was drunk, but the cops didn't care."

"Don't worry, Liza, we're going to Indiana." She nods, taking advantage of a stop sign to climb over the seat so that she's snuggled between the boys, ignoring Dean's protest about what her Converse could do to the leather upholstery. She shifts closer to Sam since he's the warmest of the trio, instinct having him wrap an arm around her shoulders.

"Is that Pikachu on your shirt," he asks, glancing down. She gives him a cheesy grin and nods. "Do you even know anything about Pokémon?" She shakes her head this time. "You just think Pikachu is cute, don't you?" She beams this time and Sam snorts, thumb brushing up and down over Elizabeth's arm. "Anyways, getting back on track."

"Each couple disappeared on the second week of April, one year after another after another." Dean holds up the map for the others to see, but Elizabeth couldn't read it even if she knew how since her glasses are in her duffle.

"This is the second week of April."

"Yep."

"Will I be used as bait," Elizabeth asks. "I'm cool with that as long as I don't actually disappear for the rest of my life. Bobby might have a problem if that happens and his scarier than any ghostie or ghoulie or long-legged beastie out there."

"You won't be bait this time around if we can help it." The possibility of being bait isn't something you can predict until you get to where you're going and figure out what the hell is going on. Hell she wasn't supposed to be bait while they were all hunting the ghost of a British soldier in South Carolina, but she was and nearly got her head taken off for all her trouble.

"So," Sam says. "Dad is sending us to Indiana to go hunting before another couple vanishes?"

"Yahtzee." Dean's eyes are focused back on the map and Elizabeth allows hers to close as she gets warmer. Sam is like a human furnace sometimes and she's supremely glad of it tonight. "Can you imagine putting together a pattern like this? The different obits Dad had to go through? The man's a master."

"He's something all right," she mumbles under her breath, only Sam close enough to actually make out what she said.

"What was that?"

"Nothin', Dean." Elizabeth has just managed to rest her head against Sam in a more comfortable position when she feels the car being pulled off to the side of the road, gravel crunching under the tires. She opens her eyes and turns to see if they're being signaled by the police, but there's only an open stretch of road behind them. "The fuck are you doing?" Sam puts the car in park, taking his arm back and forcing her to sit up right.

"We're not going to Indiana," Sam states.

"Since when?"

"Since now. We're going to California."

"As much as I'd love to visit the place Full House was filmed at, I don't think we have time right now." Sam frowns at her and then turns the expression on Dean. What is she missing here that seems to put Sammy in Serious Tourist mode?

"The phone Dad used was from a payphone with a Sacramento area code, and you'd know that if Dean had bothered to fill you in."

"Well, that certainly makes more sense than sight-seeing, but we have a job to do here first." Why do the Winchesters have to be so fucking stubborn at the worst time possible? Is that written into their DNA or did she just get unlucky enough to be raised around the two shitheads?

"Sam," Dean starts only to be interrupted. Sam continue in a firm, set in his ways, tone.

"Dean, if this demon killed Mom and Jess and Dad's closing in, we gotta be there," Sam states in a firm, set in his ways tone. "We gotta help." Elizabeth rolls her eyes and climbs back over the seat, using her throw blanket as a pillow. Where will be no talking Sam out of this decision and she doubts that Dean can be talked into disobeying his old man, so butting in will only give her a headache. While the two continue their bitch fest, she closes her eyes and falls back into a deep sleep.

The next time Elizabeth's eyes open it's daylight and there's one less person in the car. Thinking she's still too asleep to count, she sits up with her brows creased and trying the count again. It does no good, Sam is gone and Dean is glaring straight ahead of him.

"Why are we one person short," she asks.

"Sammy was adamant about going to California, so I let him." A burst of anger causes her to punch Dean's shoulder as hard as she can without chancing a wreck, continuing to hit him until he grabs her fist in his free hand. "What the hell is that for? He said he wanted to go, so I let him go!"

"He didn't actually want to go by himself, you ass!" She starts hitting him with her other hand, forcing him to pull over in order to protect himself. She lets out a squeak when he pulls her over the seat, both her wrists caught in one of his hands and her legs pinned down by his bony ass. She keeps up her struggle, wriggling until the plastic seatbelt clip begins to dig into her lower back.

"Are you done?"

"Oh, we're talking later. I don't care if I have to tie you down in order to do it either."