Youngest Winchester

It was early in the morning when they arrived at a gas station, Sam awakening at the stop of the car. He had slept the rest of the night away, given that it had been the middle of the night when Adam and Dean had arrived. He had been dreaming of fire, a strange fire that smelled of sulfur, and Jess. A rather vivid dream of Jess being pinned up on the ceiling of their apartment, her mid section ripped open, before she burst into flames.


“I’m gonna fill up the tank,” said Dean after he got out of the car, before leaning to peer in through the window. “Either of you want anything?”


“I’m good, thanks,” said Adam casually from behind him. Sam looked back at him to see that he was looking at something on this laptop.


“Nothing for me,” Sam shook his head, looking back at Dean.


Looking around in the Impala in the morning light, Sam noted that it hadn’t changed much since the last time he had seen it, even though it was Dean’s car now. The only thing that was different was the box full of cassette tapes, as it appeared that Dean’s collection had grown in the time Sam had been absent. After opening the Impala’s door to get some air, Sam picked up the box and looked through it, wondering what new cassettes Dean had picked up.


Sam noticed a few bands that Dean normally wouldn’t be caught dead listening too, such as Queen, the Beetles, and a few newer bands called Green Day, and Goo Goo Dolls.


“Are these yours?” Sam asked, looking back at Adam and holding up a Queen cassette.


Adam looked up from his computer. “Yeah…?”


“Does Dean actually let you listen to them?” Sam put the cassette back in the box.


“Sometimes,” Adam looked back at his computer.


So not too unusual then. “Hmm. What’re you reading?”


“Eh, just looking at some notes I wrote,” Adam replied casually, looking back at Sam. “personal research stuff.”


“What kind of research?” Sam asked curiously.


“It’s personal,” Adam raised his eyebrows. “I just said that.”


“Oh, right, right,” Sam turned back forward, before frowning and looking back at Adam. “Wait, shouldn’t you be doing homework? You’re still going to school, right?”


“Well technically I’m home-schooled now,” Adam replied, shrugging. “Dad figured, since we have the internet and portable computers now, he didn’t want to go through the trouble of signing me up for school every time we moved to a new area if he didn’t have to.”


“Oh,” Sam replied, nonplussed.


“I’m gonna get my GED when I turn sixteen,” Adam continued. “Then it’s smooth sailing from there.”


“You’re not gonna go to college?” Sam asked with a concerned frown.


“Nope,” Adam replied. “I already have the career I want, so there’s no point.”


“It’s not much of a career,” Sam scoffed. “And there’s more to life than hunting, Adam.”


“Hey, we’re living on the open road, in a cool car, hunting monsters and saving people,” Adam pointed out with a shrug. “What could be a better life than that?”


“I don’t know, how about having a life where you have your own house and a safe job where you don’t have live in shitty motels, eat shitty food, and risk your life every other week,” Sam replied sharply. “How about that?”


“Hey, I’ll have you know I cook my own food,” Adam said with a grin. “and everyone loves it.”


“You’re missing the point, Adam,” Sam replied with a sigh. “The hunting life is dangerous, and there’s always a chance you’ll die if you keep doing it.”


“I know,” Adam said soberly. “But it’s my life, and this is the way I choose to live it.”


Sam shook his head and went back to poking through the cassette box.


A moment later, Dean came out of the store carrying food.


“Hey, either of you want breakfast?” he said from the back of the Impala, waving the food around.


“I’m good, thanks,” said Adam, not looking up from his computer.


“No thanks,” Sam replied looking back at Dean. “So how’d you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit-card scams?”


“Yeah, well… Hunting ain’t exactly a pro-ball career,” Dean replied as he put the gas nozzle back on the stall. “ ’sides, all we do is apply. It’s not our fault they send us the cards.”


“Yeah…” Sam replied sarcastically, “-and what names did you write on the application this time?”


“Uh… Bert Aframian,” Dean replied as he circled the car and got in. “And his son, Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal.”


“Sounds about right,” Sam replied dryly with a chuckle, before looking down at the cassette box. “I swear, man, you’ve got to update your cassette-tape collection.”


Dean furrowed his brows in confusion. “Why?”


“Well for one – they’re cassette-tapes,” Sam replied. “And two...”


He picked a few tapes out. “Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Metallica?”


Dean snatched a tape out of Sam’s hand as he said: “It’s the greatest hits of Mullet Rock.”


Dean looked at the cassette-tape in his hand, before looking back at Sam. “House rules, Sammy: Driver picks the music...”


He finger-shot the cassette-tape back in the box. “… Shotgun shuts his pie-hole.”


He then started up the Impala, while music started playing.


Sam looked down at the box, before turned back to Dean.


“You know Sammy is a chubby 12-year-old, it’s Sam, ok?” He said with a sharp tone, but was drowned out by the music.


“Sorry, I can’t hear you, the music’s too loud,” Dean replied as he drove onto the tarmac.


Sam rolled his eyes.


OO)SCENE-BREAK(OO


“So this is where Constance took the swan dive,” said Dean as they walked along the bridge where the latest victim, Troy Squire, had been killed.


“So you think Dad would have been here?” Sam asked as they looked down at the river, suppressing a yawn.


It had been a long day. They’d arrived at Jericho to find that another victim had disappeared, and the police were investigating his car that had been found on a disused and dilapidated bridge. After questioning the police, they had determined that the police had no leads or useful information.


After that they’d gone to question the victims girlfriend who’d been putting up posters downtown, and from her and her friend had heard of a local legend of a girl who was murdered out on centennial many decades ago, and was still out there. Apparently she hitchhikes, and who ever picks her up, disappears forever.


After hearing the story, they had gone to the library, hoping to find information on the hitchhiking ghost, and they’d found an old newspaper article about a woman who had committed suicide on centennial bridge after her children had died.


Now they were out on the bridge itself, in the dark, hoping to find clues on Dad’s whereabouts.


“Maybe,” said Adam from Sam’s other side. “He was working this case, so if we keep following it, we should find him.”


“Ok, so what do we do next,” Sam asked.


“We keep digging ‘till we find him,” Dean replied, turning and walking down the bridge. “It might take a while.”


“Dean, I told you I’ve got to get back by –” Sam started.


“Monday.” Dean turned around. “Right, the interview.”


“Wait, what interview?” asked Adam curiously.


“Law school interview,” Sam replied, looking at Adam. “It’s my whole future on the line.”


“Yeah, I forgot,” said Dean with an irritated expression. “You’re really serious about about this, aren’t you. You think you’re just gonna become some lawyer, marry your girl?”


Sam shrugged. “Maybe, why not?”


“Does Jessica know the truth about you?” Dean asked interrogatively. “I mean, does she know about the things you’ve done?”


“No,” Sam replied with a determined face. “-And she’s not ever going to know.”


“Well, that’s healthy,” Dean replied sarcastically. “You can pretend all you want, Sammy, but sooner or later you’re gonna have to face up to who really you are.”


“Who is that?”


“One of us.”


“No, I’m not like you,” Sam said with a determined face, walking around Dean to face him. “This is not going to be my life!”


“Well, you have a responsibility-” Dean replied in a harsh tone.


“To what? To Dad? And his… Crusade?” asked Sam derisively. “If it weren’t for pictures, I wouldn’t even know what Mom looks like. What difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her and Kate, Mom’s gone, and she isn’t coming back.”


Suddenly, Dean grabbed him by the coat and pushed him against a bean of the bridge, glaring angrily at him. “Don’t talk about her like that.”


“Guys,” said Adam from behind them. They turned around to see –


A woman, wearing in a white dress, standing on the fence that separated the road from the drop on the other side. The woman turned to look at them, before turning back and jumping off the bridge. At the sudden motion, the three of them ran over to the other side of the bridge and looked over.


“Where’d she go?” asked Dean, looking at the river below.


“I don’t know,” Sam replied.


Suddenly, they heard the sound of the Impala’s engine turning on, and it’s light began to shine on the bridge.


“What the...” said Dean as he stepped back to get a better look at it.


“Who’s driving your car?” asked Sam.


Dean pulled his keys from his pocket, and they looked at it.


“It’s the ghost,” Adam exclaimed, looking back at the car.


At the sudden squeal of the tires, Adam reacted instantly, running over to the fence and climbing over it. Sam and Dean reacted a second later, turning and running as the Impala chased after them. After a few seconds of running, the car had almost caught up to them, so they had no choice but to dive over the fence.


Sam’s torso impacted a metal pole, which sent a jolt of pain through his chest and knocked the wind out of him. He grabbed a hold of the pole as he slid off, and he ended up hanging from it. After catching his breath, he tried to pull himself up, sending a fresh jolt of pain through his chest, causing him to drop a bit.


Wheezing, he fought through the pain as he tried to pull himself up again, and this time he was successful. He grabbed a hold of the railing next to the fence, and pulled himself to sitting position on it, clinging to the fence.


Looking down, he saw Dean crawling out of the river. “DEAN!”


“What?!” Dean called back up to him.


“Hey, are you alright?” Sam called back with concern.


“I’m super,” Dean made the O.K. sign. He was covered in muck.


Sam laughed at the absurdity of it all.


“Sam,” said Adam from behind him. “are you ok? That looked pretty painful.”


Sam stood up on the railing. “it’s just a dull ache now, thanks though.”


“It’ll probably leave a nasty bruise,” Adam replied as he helped Sam over the fence, before turning to look at the car. “Looks like the ghost is gone.”


“Yeah…” Sam replied uncertainly.


“Come on,” said Adam, walking around the car. Sam watched as Adam opened the trunk, and began looking through their supplies. A moment later he picked up a pair of what looked like knifes in holsters, and passed one to Sam.


Sam pulled the knife out to see that the blade was made of pure salted iron.


“A little invention of mine,” Adam said a moment later. “it’s easier to carry around than bars of iron or bags of salt. If you see the ghost, just stick that in her and she’ll leave.”


“Huh, good idea,” Sam replied as he unwound his belt to put the holster on.


“Thanks,” Adam replied with a grin.


When Dean came back they waited as he did a thorough check over the Impala.


“So what’s the verdict,” asked Adam with a grin when it seemed he was finished. “Will she live?”


“Ha ha, very funny,” Dean replied gruffly as he closed the hood. “Whatever she did to it, it seems alright now. That Constance chick, What A BITCH!”


“Well she doesn’t want us digging around, that’s for sure.” Sam commented as he looked down the bridge.


The three of them sat down on the hood.


“So where’s the trail go from here, genius?” He asked a moment later.


Dean flopped his hands up in an admission of defeat, and Sam shook his head, before sniffing the air.


“You smell like a toilet,” Sam commented a moment later.


Adam sniffed him as well. “Yeah, the town must empty their sewage in that river, or something.”


Dean wiped a bit of the muck off, before sniffing it. “Oh, gross!”

 

By some coincidence, it turned out that John had bought out a room for a whole month at the same motel we had intended to get a room at, or so the manager told us, which was why I was standing watch with Dean while Sam picked the lock to John’s room.


My first impression of the room after Sam had pulled us in was: God this place is a mess.


There were books littered everywhere, what looked like investigation notes were tacked to the walls, a bit of half-eaten food on the counter-top, and what looked like paranormal detection equipment on an unkempt bed, along with an empty suitcase.


“I don’t think he’s been for a couple days at least,” said Dean after he picked up and sniffed a wrapper of half-eaten burger.


Sam dug his fingers in a salt line on the floor. “Salt. Cats-eyed shells. He was worried, trying to keep something from coming in.”


I investigated the bed. There was some expensive equipment here. “He must have left in a hurry. This isn’t the kind of stuff you leave behind unless it’s an emergency.”


Dean looked at some of the notes tacked to the wall, and Sam walked up to stand beside him. “What do you got here?”


“Centennial Highway Victims,” Dean replied as he looked at the different notes. “I don’t get it. I mean, different men, different jobs, age, ethnicities. There’s always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?”


Sam walked back to look at the other walls, while I investigated the table behind the window, shifting aside some of the books.


“Dad figured it out,” said Sam after turning on a lamp.


“What do you mean?” asked Dean, turning around.


“He found the same article we did,” Sam explained. “Constance Welch. She’s a Woman in White.”


While they’d been talking, I had found what I had been looking for, John’s journal. I opened it and found the note John had left for Dean. Dean’s name, with a set of coordinates.


“Dad’s gone,” I said, looking at the note. “Dad’s left Jericho.”


“What do you mean?” asked Dean, turning around to look at me. I turned around and handed John’s journal to him.


“Dad’s journal!” said Dean in surprise.


“But… he doesn’t go anywhere without that,” said Sam in confusion.


“There’s a note inside, coordinates,” I said, scratching the back of my head.


Dean opened the journal and rifled through it, finding the note a moment later. “Oh, the same old ex-marine crap when he wants to let us know where he’s going.”


“We’ll have to find out where they point to,” Sam mused, still looking at the journal.


“Right, but we’ve got a Woman in White to deal with first,” said Dean, turning around and looking at the article that was pinned on the wall. “We gotta dig up her corpse, and do a little salt and burn. Does it say where she’s buried?”


“No, not that I can tell,” Sam replied. “We could go ask her husband, if he’s still alive.”


“Hmm.” Dean frowned thoughtfully. “All right, why don’t you see if you can find an address, I’m gonna go get cleaned up.”


While they had been talking, I had walked over to the mirror, having noticed a picture of a younger John with a younger Sam and Dean.


“Wait, no,” I said, turning around after I grabbed the picture. “Dad left in a hurry, he didn’t even pack up. He must have had a good reason for leaving all this stuff behind. I don’t think we should linger here. You can get cleaned up somewhere else.”


Sam and Dean looked at each other.


“He has a good point,” said Sam. “We should go.”


Dean shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Ok, lets go.”


I had, of course, known that the cops were on their way here, and apparently we had left just in time, as half a minute after we had gotten in the car and pulled onto the road, we saw the cops pull into the parking lot.


“You think they were here for us?” asked Sam as we drove by.


“Maybe,” Dean replied thoughtfully.


OO)SCENE-BREAK(OO


We stopped at an old gas station, where Dean decided to use the restroom to clean up. While we waited, Sam and I decided to use the time productively: Sam was looking for Joseph Welch’s current location, while I was looking up the coordinates John had left us.


“Hey Sam, can you double check this for me, make sure I got it right?” I asked after carefully checking over the location. “I don’t think I got it right.”


I of course had gotten it right, but I also knew that John wasn’t at the coordinates that he had left us, but that was a result of my knowledge of Canon. Sam and Dean didn’t know that, however, so in order to lead them in the right direction, I would sometimes have to act the confused kid.


“Sure, hand it over,” Sam replied, holding up his hand, and I passed over the map and tools I’d been using.


“No, I’m pretty sure you got this right, Adam.” said Sam a few minutes later. “It’s Blackwater Ridge, Colorado.”


“But that doesn’t make sense,” I replied in a confused tone. “There’s nothing out there but wilderness.”


“Well, Dad went there for some reason,” Sam said, passing the map and tools back. “You can ask him why when you get there.”


“I take it then that you’re not coming with us?” I asked curiously.


“The interview’s on Monday, I’ve gotta be there,” Sam replied crossly.


“Hey, you’ll get no argument from me,” I said, throwing my hands up submissively. “You gotta live your life the way you want it.”


“Heh, yeah. Some times I feel like you’re the only one in this family that gets me, you know?” Sam said contemplatively, looking out the windshield. “Like, you’re the only one who understood why I had to leave. Not like Dean. Not like Dad...”


I rolled my eyes. “Sam, you know he was only mad cause he was scared, right? He was only concerned about keeping you safe, and in his mind, you were only safe if you’re with him or with Dean.”


“That doesn’t give him the right to-” Sam started to say heatedly.


“I get it, I get it,” I rose my hands placatingly. “My point is, Dad understands you more than you think, he was just worried about you. He was worried that he couldn’t keep you safe. He still cares about you, you know? We all do.”


“I know,” Sam looked away.


Thankfully Dean chose that moment to return, properly cleaned up now. As he sat down in the drivers seat, he looked between us, possibly noticing the tension in the air.


“I found the location of the coordinates Dad left us,” I said before Dean had a chance to say anything. “Blackwater Ridge, Colorado. Did you get the address, Sam?”


“Yeah, we can head there now,” said Sam. “Hey, Dean? About what I said earlier, about Mom, and Dad. I’m sorry-”


Dean held his hand up. “No Chick-Flick moments.”


“Alright, Jerk.” Sam snarked.


“Bitch,” Dean replied.


OO)SCENE-BREAK(OO


Surprisingly, everything went off without a hitch. We found Mr. Welch, and learned the location of Constance bones from him. Then we went and dug them up, and salted and burned them. It was all rather anti-climatic, so a few hours later we pulled up in front of Sam’s apartment building, unscathed from our little hunt.


After he had gotten out, Sam leaned down to the Impala’s shotgun window. “You’ll call me when you find him? Maybe I can meet up with you guys later, huh?”


“Yeah, alright,” Dean replied.


Sam smiled and turned away.


“Sam!” Dean called a moment later, and Sam turned around. “You know, we made a hell of a team back there, all three of us.”


“Yeah,” Sam nodded.


Dean nodded back, before putting the car into gear and driving off. I turned and looked back at Sam as we drove, before we turned a corner and I lost sight of him. A moment later, Dean pulled into the parking lot behind the apartment building and parked.


“What are you doing?” I asked curiously.


“I haven't got much sleep the past few days,” Dean replied after yawning. “I was gonna rest up for a bit.”


“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” I replied, yawning myself. I looked at the apartment building, waiting.


A moment later, the building began to smoke.


“Dean, Fire!” I said suddenly, pointing at the apartment building.


Dean, who’d been making himself comfortable in the front seat, sat up. “Shit, Sammy!”


We both got out of the car, and Dean ran as fast as he could to the back door, with me hot on his heels. Strangely enough the back door was already open, so we raced through it, running up to Sam’s apartment.


“SAM!” Dean yelled after kicking the door open. I followed him as he raced to the room the smoke was coming from, and there I saw Jessica, pinned to the ceiling, her mid-section ripped open.


Dean grabbed Sam and pulled him up, as he was doing little more than sitting on the bed, yelling Jessica’s name, and I held the door open as Dean pulled him out.


OO)SCENE-BREAK(OO


It was two hours later. The building was only smoking now, as the firefighters and ambulances had arrived and were dealing with the situation. Dean and I watched from the edge of the scene, Dean wearing an expression of disbelief, while I was more grim faced.


After a few minutes watching, Dean turned around and walked back to the Impala, I followed him. There we Sam with trunk of the Impala open, he was loading a rifle. He looked at us with grim determination, before sighing and tossing the rifle back in the trunk.


“We’ve got work to do,” he said, then closed the trunk.

 

I was starting to think that I had made a mistake.


Observing Sam over the week as we dug round for clues into Jessica’s demise, it was clear that her death had deeply affected him. Of course, only someone who knew him as much as I did was able to tell, as he tended to hide his grief behind a blank face. There were signs, however: his temper was shorter than usual, he was having nightmares, and he tending to speak in stiff, short sentences around strangers while standing stiff as a board, were as normally he was looser and more expressive.


While at the time I had had what I felt were rock solid reasons for condemning Jessica to death (mainly: her death was unavoidable because there was nothing preventing another demon from showing up to kill her even of I took care of Brady, but also because I didn’t want to attract Azazel’s attention), but now I was starting to feel like maybe I should have made more of an effort to protect her.


Which was why I found myself staring at Sam from the backseat as we drove towards Blackwater Ridge, Colorado. He was twisting and turning in his seat, his face screwed up. Another nightmare, no doubt. Probably about Jessica, again.


“You gonna wake him up?” I asked Dean, looking at him through the rear-view mirror.


“No, he doesn’t like it when I wake him up,” Dean replied, his eyes on the road.


“Right,” I nodded, looking at Sam again. “Do you think-”


“He’s fine, Adam,” Dean cut me off, turning up the radio.


I snorted. If anything, Dean was worse than me when it came worrying over Sam.


A moment later, Sam awoke with a start, jerking up from his resting position on the windowsill, and looking around, blinking. A moment later he sighed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.


“You ok?” Dean asked super casually after turning the music back down.


“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sam replied shortly, looking out the windshield.


“Another nightmare?” Dean looked at him.


Sam cleared his throat, keeping his eyes on the road.


An awkward pause followed for a moment, before Dean’s face brightened.


Conspiratorially, he leaned towards Sam, and looked at him with a sly grin. “Wanna drive for a while?”


A surprised chuckle escaped Sam’s mouth, and he looked back at Dean, perhaps expecting him to signal somehow that it was a joke.


Dean’s face was dead serious, however.


“In your whole life, you’ve never once asked me that,” Sam replied in surprise.


“Just thought you might want to, never-mind,” Dean frowned grumpily, looking away from him.


“Look, man, you’re worried about me,” Sam sighed with irritation. “I get it, and thank you, but I’m perfectly ok.”


“Mm-hmm,” Dean pursed his lips.


Another awkward pause followed.


“I’d like to drive,” I said brightly, holding up my hand.


“No,” said Dean sharply.


I furrowed my brow and scoffed. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”


“I mean NO, no means no, Adam,” Dean replied in the same sharp tone.


“Figures,” I said grouchily, leaning back in my seat.


Sam chuckled again, rolling his eyes at our antics, before picking up the map. “Where are we, anyway?”


“We are just outside of Grand Junction,” Dean replied.


“You know what,” said Sam after looking at the map for a while, his face turning grim. “Maybe we shouldn’t have left Stanford so soon.”


“Sam, we dug around there for a week,” Dean replied with an exasperated expression. “We came up with nothing. If you want to find the thing that killed Jessica-”


“Got to go find Dad first,” Sam finished, still looking at the map.


I felt a guilty lump form in my stomach, so I did what I always did when feeling stressed, by opening up a bottle of coke to drink and bag of potato chips to munch on.


“Do you think Dad has answers?” I asked to help take my mind off my guilty feelings as I popped a chip in my mouth. “We’ve been looking for this thing for 20 years. Well, you guys have… longer than me.”


Another awkward pause followed that. It was a subtle reminder that, as far as they knew, it was Azazel that had killed my mother 7 years ago now. I tried not to think about Kate, most days.


“Dad will have answers, he’ll know what to do,” Dean replied firmly.


Sam looked up from the map, and turned to look at me with an unreadable expression.


“What?” I asked a moment later after taking a swig of coke to wash down the chip.


He blinked and turned away. “Never mind, it’s nothing.”


I rolled my eyes and looked out the window, popping another chip in my mouth.


“This is kind of weird,” said Sam a moment later. He was looking at the map again. “These coordinates he left us, this Blackwater Ridge…”


“What about it?” asked Dean.


“There’s nothing out there,” Sam replied, his brow furrowed. “Just woods.”


He put the map down and looked at Dean. “Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?”


Dean looked at him and shrugged.


OO)SCENE-BREAK(OO


It was half an hour later and we were at the local ranger station.


“So Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote,” said Sam as he walked over to a relief map of the area. “It’s cut off by these canyons here. Rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place...”


Dean was checking out a picture on the wall. “Dude, checkout the size of this friggin’ bear!”


Sam walked over to stand next to him. “… and a dozen or more grizzles in the area. It’s not nature hike, that’s for sure.”


“We can take a few grizzles,” I said, looking at the relief map. “It’s the other things that I’m worry about...”


Sam was prevented from answering by Ranger Wilkerson, who had just stepped into the room. “You boy aren't planning to go out by Blackwater Ridge, by any chance?”


“Oh, no sir,” said Sam in a lighter tone. “We’re Environmental Study Major’s from U.C. Boulder. Just working on a paper.”


“Recycle, man!” said Dean, pumping a fist.


“Well, they’re working on the paper,” I said wryly. “I’m just here cause mom wants me out of the house.”


Ranger Wilkerson looked between us. “Bull.”


The three of us looked between ourselves, not expecting someone to call us out as liars.


“You’re friends with that Hailey girl, right?” Ranger Wilkerson asked as he walked behind the front desk.


“Yes,” said Dean after a moment’s consideration. “Yes, we are, Ranger… Wilkerson.”


Ranger Wilkerson looked down at his badge with a chuckle. “Well, I’ll tell you exactly what I told her: Her brother filled out a backcountry permit, saying he wouldn’t be back from Blackwater until the 24^th. So it’s not exactly a missing persons now, is it?”


Dean shook his head and smirked.


“Tell that girl to quit worrying,” Ranger Wilkerson continued as he made to walk back into his office. “I’m sure her brother is just fine.”


“We will,” said Dean with a smile. “Well that Hailey girl’s quite a pistol, huh?”


Ranger Wilkerson turned around in the door. “That is putting it mildly.”


Dean’s face brightened. “Actually, you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brother’s return date.”


Ranger Wilkerson looked down, considering it.


OO)SCENE-BREAK(OO


Dean chuckled as we walked out the ranger station, holding the backcountry permit copy.


“What, are you cruising for a hookup or something?” Sam asked irritably.


“What do you mean?” Dean asked in confusion.


“The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge,” Sam said with exasperation. “So what are we waiting for? Let’s just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?”


“Well, maybe there something is going on out there, Sam,” I said with annoyance. “If Dad’s out there, he’s probably out there for a reason. Why else would he point us to some place in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere?”


“Yeah, maybe we should find out what we’re walking into before we actually walk into it,” Dean added, giving him a confused look that lingered for a moment.


“What?” asked Sam, responding to Dean’s confused look.


“Since when are you all ‘Shoot first, Ask questions later’, anyway?” Dean asked interrogatively.


“Since now,” Sam said simply, before turning and getting into the Impala.


“Oh really?” Dean smirked, getting in the Impala himself.


Yeah, I’ve definitely made a mistake. I thought to myself as I got in the back seat.