"My God, it's really been four months," Katherine muses, staring at the roof of the Impala.

Four months, and not a word from John Winchester or her father. Sophia stopped calling so often and started emailing a few times a week. Four months of hunting ghosts, looking for anything else that screamed "freaky." There was a case somewhere in the Mid-West where a few middle-school aged girls awakened the ghost of Bloody Mary.

What a joy that one was.

Christmas, New Year's, Dean's birthday, messy tubes of toothpaste, the boys' shaved beard hairs in the sink and Katherine shouting at the top of her lungs after them like some road mom. Four months of Dean listening to the same music over and over again. Four months of House Rules. God, what a horror. Four months of pranks and some days off. Four months of being punched in the face in the middle of sleep or being crushed underneath the weight of a limb. 

Four months of suppressing unwanted emotion.

But hey—four months of milkshakes.

Dean knocks on Sam's window, and the younger brother cranks it down, looking down at his lap, obviously preoccupied. "I think if we keep on this pace, we could hit Tucumcari by lunch, head South, get to Bisbee by midnight..." Dean leans sideways, staring at his brother, who very obviously isn't paying attention. "Sam wears Katherine's underwear..."

"I'm listening, I'm just busy."

Katherine frowns. "Sam, I told you, we're two totally different sizes."

"Busy doing what?" Dean asks.

"Reading emails."

Katherine leans out of her window. "What's in Bisbee?" She asks. 

"Cacti," Dean answers. She rolls her eyes. "I was thinking we could look for a chupacabra."

She snorts. "I can't believe I live in a reality where that sentence actually doesn't sound so far-fetched." Katherine's eyes move to the ticking sales meter on the gas pump. "This thing doesn't get very good mileage, does it?" She asks with a smile. They only stopped about two hours ago.

"You shut your mouth." He turns to Sam. "Who's emailing you?"

"Friends from Stanford."

Dean snorts. "You still talk to your college buddies?"

Katherine scowls. "Why not?" She asks, crossing her arms over the frame of the door.

"Easy, tiger," Dean says, raising his hands with a smile. "I know you lie to your friends, but Sam...what do you tell them?"

"Same thing Katherine said to Sophia," Sam says. "That I'm on a road trip. And it's not lying, it's just...not telling them everything."

"No, right. We hunt monsters in between visiting national landmarks," Dean says, nodding.

"Well it's better than telling them the truth," Katherine defends. 

"All I'm saying is, in this life, you don't really get to have friends. You can't get close to people like that."

"Well you're kind of the poster boy of being anti-social," she quips. Dean pushes her head back into the Impala. "Hey!" She swats at his wrists. "You can't just shove me when you disagree with something I say, especially if it's the truth! And I have friends and I hunt—I'm just fine."

"Debatable."

"I got an email from Rebecca Warren," Sam says, twisting around to look at Katherine. "One of those friends of mine."

"Is she hot?" Dean asks. Katherine shoves his hip.

"I went to school with her and her brother, Zach," Sam continues with nothing more than a shake of his head. "She says Zach's been charged with murder."

"Holy shit," Katherine says, leaning forward. 

"He's been arrested for killing his girlfriend. Rebecca says he didn't do it, but they could have enough evidence to get a conviction."

"What kind of people are you hanging around?" Katherine questions.

"No, I know Zach. He'd never do something like this."

"Well maybe you know him just as well as he knows you," Dean jests. 

"They're in St. Louis. We're going."

It's not a question, that much is confirmed. At least, that's how Katherine takes it.

Dean lets out a wry chuckle, leaning down to Sam's window. "I'm sorry about your buddy. But this doesn't sound like our sort of problem."

"It is our problem," Sam refutes. "They're my friends."

"St. Louis is four hundred miles behind us, Sam," Dean argues. Sam just stares at him.

And confirming one of the few hypotheses Katherine was able to initially form about Dean, he folds like a cheap suit. The second the tank was filled, Dean turned around and headed to Missouri. 

By the middle of the night, Sam is passed out, his head tilted back with soft snores pouring from his mouth. Katherine glances to Dean, who has somehow managed to keep his eyes open still. After months of being bedfellows, Dean doesn't lose his mind every time Katherine creeps over the top of the seat. She nestles up right beside him, pressing into his warm arm. Proximity isn't a horrible thing anymore. He lifts and drapes his arm across the seat behind her. She smiles and rests her head in the crook of his shoulder.

"Dean Winchester, cuddling," she hums. "Somebody call the town cry." He chuckles. "How aren't you tired yet?" Katherine asks, sitting up with crossed arms.

She always did that. Pulled away just as fast as she returned some flirtatious comment Dean would initially make. Pulled away before those feelings got awkward.

He's ridiculously attractive. He's witty. And he's older than she is. He's stated that many a time. So there's no point in allowing herself to get close, to feel those butterflies.

She can't very well have a relationship with a coworker. Besides, he wouldn't go for it. Not Dean Winchester.

So there's no point.

"Darlin', I'm a well-oiled machine."

"Hmm," Katherine hums, nodding. "Operating on greasy cheeseburgers and a couple of beers."

"That's all a man needs," Dean says, smiling as he gazes out at the highway. Even at this hour, some cars are on the road. 

"All?" Katherine repeats.

"And then some," Dean amends after a moment. "But yeah. The bare necessities."

"Dean, if you want to close your eyes, I'll take the wheel."

"You worry too much, Kat," Dean sighs. "I'm fine."

"Well there's nothing wrong with being better than 'fine.'" Dean doesn't answer. Katherine stares out at the illuminated exit signs and purses her lips. "Dogs or cats?"

"Huh?"

"Dogs or cats?" She repeats. "Which do you prefer?"

"Neither."

"Nooo, that's not how the game works. You have to pick one."

Dean lets out a long sigh. "You are such a—"

"If you say what I think you're going to say—"

"I'm not, I'm not. Sheesh." He sighs once more. "Dogs, I guess." It's silent for a few moments. Katherine looks to him with raised brows. "What?"

"You're supposed to ask me a question."

He frowns. "Why?"

Katherine grins, twisting to face him. "Have you really never played this game before?" She softly asks him.

"I didn't exactly have friends growing up."

Katherine's smile instantly fades. It strikes a chord deep within her as she stares at Dean, her eyes scanning his profile.

She knows Dean was really young when his mother died, when John took the boys on the road. She never realized the implications of it. Moving around all the time, being in a dozen different schools for a few weeks or months at a time. Never having something permanent. Just Sam and his father. 

Dean looks to her. "Why do you look like that?"

"Nothin," she murmurs, turning to face forward again. "Guess I'm just sad for you."

"Oh, come on. No chick-flick—"

"Shut up, Dean," Katherine sighs, crossing her arms. "I'm allowed to be sad that a little boy didn't have much of a childhood."

"Katherine, I still had friends," he murmurs after a moment. "Just...not a lot of them. And not often. I learned it was just...better that way." She doesn't say anything in response. "Candy or popcorn?"

She slowly looks over to him, discovering he's glancing between the road and her features, illuminated by the retreating warm yellow glow of the streetlights. "Candy," she murmurs, facing forward again. "Unless it's movie theater butter." Dean smiles. "City or countryside?"

He ponders this for a moment. "Countryside."

✕

"So the little brother finds his girlfriend tied to a chair," Katherine murmurs, leaning against the island in the Warren home's kitchen. "5-O has surveillance that pins him walking into his home at ten-thirty PM, but Rebecca says he was at their parents' place, with her, until at least midnight. Oh, and the parents spend six months out of the year in Paris, and Dean is an Arizonan cop." She nods. 

"Detective," Dean corrects. "And you are the partner."

"Well I don't see why you can't be the partner."

"Either way, we're partners. And I still don't think this is our kind of problem," he says, looking to Sam. 

"Two places at once?" Sam asks. "We've looked into less."

The three hunters ride with Becky to Zach and Emily's home, a fifteen minute drive from the Warren home. 

"Are you sure this is okay?" Becky asks, looking to Dean first, then Katherine.

"Yeah," Dean answers. "I am an officer of the law." He flashes her a reassuring smile and starts across the street. Katherine rolls her eyes. 

As soon as they step into the home, Katherine decides it's among the more brutal scenes she's been around. Blood is spattered across the rug and furniture, smeared across the walls and panels. Katherine stares at a photograph of Zach and Emily, and glances up as Dean stops at her side, looking at the same photograph. 

"What else did the police say?" Katherine asks. 

"Well...there was no sign of a break-in," Becky tells her. "They say that Emily let her attacker in, and the lawyers are already talking about a plea bargain."

Becky says a few days before, someone broke into the house and stole only a few of Zach's clothes, but the police don't think it's related.

Katherine turns to look out of the window as a dog starts barking. It's smaller, dark brown. Some sort of lab, by the looks of it. 

"You know, that used to be the sweetest dog," Becky hums.

"What happened?"

"He just changed...I guess around the time of the murder." 

Katherine's cogs start turning, and she spins around in search of Dean and Sam. The younger Winchester is staring at a photograph of him and the two Warrens, pinned up on the refrigerator.  "The neighbor's dog went psycho around the time of the murder," she quietly relays to Dean. "Animals are said to have a good sense of the paranormal."

"Maybe Fido saw something," Dean hums. "If there was a case for us here, that is." Katherine rolls her eyes. "But we should look at the security tape, just to make sure."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

That evening, Becky reveals she swiped the footage from the lawyer's desk, and the three hunters review it on the big screen in the living room. "Here he comes," Becky says. 

"That's just after ten," Katherine says, reading the 24-hour timestamp, and turns to Becky. "Murder took place around 10:30?" She nods, and Katherine turns back to the television—not before catching a glimpse of Dean in her favorite shirt of his. It's a deep red, almost berry. A more dramatic enhancement of the color of his cheeks when she hits hard with a flirty comment he wasn't expecting.

It's rare to see him blush.

"Our lawyers hired some kind of video expert," Rebecca volunteers. "He says the tape's authentic."

Katherine perks up as Zach turns towards the street—something catches her attention. Obviously, it catches Sam's too. "Hey, Beck?" He asks. "Can we take those beers now?"

She nods and rises to her feet. "Do you want one?" She asks Katherine.

"I'm fine, thanks," Katherine says, watching the screen closely. 

"Maybe some sandwiches, too?" Sam asks.

Becky laughs. "What do you think this is, Hooters?"

"I wish," Dean sighs, turning to the television as Rebecca walks down the hallway. 

"Tell me you guys saw that," Katherine murmurs. 

"What?"

"Sam, rewind it a little." She moves closer to the TV, arms crossed as Sam plays back the footage. "Right there." Katherine points to the upper left of the screen, one of the four angles of footage they have. "See that flash in his eyes?"

"Camera flare?" Dean suggets.

Katherine shakes her head. "Humans' eyes don't do that. Ever. The closest we get to that is redeye, which is just blood vessels in your pupil."

"Human," Dean hums. "Werewolf?"

"The phases are off," Katherine says, shaking her head. "Plus, there wasn't a mention of the heart going missing."

"A lot of cultures believe a photograph can capture the soul," Sam murmurs.

"Remember that crazy dog?" Katherine asks. "What if he saw this thing? Whatever it is? Zach's doppelgänger?"

"That would explain how he's in two places at once," Dean agrees as he nods.

The hunters stay for a little while longer before tucking into the nearest motel. Unsurprisingly, Dean bounces into bed after his shower, wiggling Katherine from the light sleep she'd managed to fall into. Her eyes snapped open and she glared at Dean before settling in again.

She feels hot. Too hot. And it smells...like a fire. Not a standard fire. This one has a sadly familiar odor to it. It's the smell of burning flesh. Screams ring into the air slowly, like a bad case of tinnitus, and pierce her eardrum. But her own pain, the scorch on her flesh, is by far worse. It hurts so much she can't even scream—and the smoke burns her throat, her lungs. A different kind of fire. 

She's immobile, unable to escape the pain. 

Just as she manages to peel her eyes open, the pillar of her home collapses, hurling sparks and charred wood at her like a fastball. 

She jerks awake. It isn't significant, but it's enough to wake Dean. He's already facing her. Katherine sits back on her legs, squinting in the darkness to stare at her hands. She could've sworn they were blistered. Her heart pounds in her chest, pulses in her eyes. 

The wall-mounted lamp is turned off. She can barely see Sam's slumbering figure in the darkness of the room, shrouded from the moonlight by the clouds outside. It's easy to see the red numbers on the clock—just past three AM. 

Drastically different from her nightmare, it's frigidly cold in the room. She burrows down back into the warmth her body left on her blankets and just then notices Dean is propped up on his elbow, alert and anticipating some threat she may have perceived in her sleep—he can't find one.

"Sorry," Katherine groggily murmurs. "Nightmare." Dean rests back on the pillow, cautiously gazing over at the girl. She hasn't closed her eyes yet. Her heart is still thrumming in her throat. 

"You okay?" After a moment of receiving no response, Dean reaches over and finds her hand underneath her pillow. He wraps his fingers around her palms and waits. 

She wants to scoot closer. To hold his hand, too. It's what she would've done to reassure someone. But she's hyperaware of everything she does now, hesitant and ponderous. So she just sits there. Dean remains silent for a moment and moves his hand up her arm and to her shoulder. The expanse of his palm is wide, and warm against her cool, relatively bare shoulder. "I've never had that dream before," she whispers, slowly closing her eyes and allowing her to feel Dean's palm on skin it's never ventured to before. The pads of his knuckles are calloused, but his hand as a whole is surprisingly soft and welcomingly warm. "I was in the fire...couldn't get out, couldn't get to the screams..."

"I didn't actually see what happened when my mom died," Dean quietly says. Katherine's eyes open and his hand rests off to the side at her ribs. "I remember waking up because I heard my dad...but when I got to the hallway, he handed Sam to me, told me to run outside. There was a bright light coming from his room. I did what my Dad told me...ran all the way downstairs and out into the front yard. When I turned around, I saw the fire. And when my dad came out and my mom didn't...well, I guess I kind of knew I wouldn't see her again. He didn't talk about what happened for a long time...I think a few years later, I asked what really happened. He said Mom was up on the ceiling, gutted. Dead already, probably."

"Like Jess?" Katherine whispers. Dean nods. Katherine stares at him for a few moments, her eyes dry from exhaustion. 

Dean didn't have to tell her what he did. So she allows herself to feel close to someone, to him, and scoots towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He hesitates for a moment before resting his arm around the dip of her waist, his hand pressing up against her back. His chin fits on her shoulder. Katherine withdraws her arms and holds them between their bodies, the back of her hand resting up against his ribs. Her eyes stare into the dark abyss just over his shoulder. H's beginning to see darker outlines of the objects in the room. The divider by the door. The shape of the window.

"Do you ever think about how different your life would be if it hadn't happened?" Katherine murmurs. "If none of it had happened?"

"All the time."

If she slept at all after that, it was very light. Her brain was hyperactive, afraid of reliving that brief Hell, but also aware of Dean in such close proximity to her. 

Sam shakes them awake around five thirty.

It's a groggy task for the girl, getting dressed for the day. She opts for her trusty Levis and throws a dark blue button-down over a white t-shirt. She wears her usual tan utility jacket, leather ankle boots and accessories, and undoes the long Dutch braids, ruffling the waves out during the car ride to a destination she didn't catch.

She stares at the back of a house, tiredly, leant up against the Impala with crossed arms. "What are we doing here?" She tiredly asks. 

"I realized something," Sam says. "The videotape shows the killer coming in, but not coming out."

Katherine stands up a little straighter, hands jammed into her jacket pockets. "So he came out the back door?" He starts away without another word. "Sam," she softly whines.

"There should be a trail to follow," Sam says, turning around to appease her. "A trail the police would never pursue."

"Because they didn't think the killer left," Dean muses from the front of car. Katherine moves to stand beside him. "They caught your friend Zach inside." He sighs, looking to his coffee cup. "Still don't know what we're doing here at six in the morning." Katherine steals his coffee cup for a brief moment, takes a swig, and hands it back to Dean, eyes curiously trained on Sam.

"There's something on that post," Katherine points out, starting forward to inspect it. 

"Blood," Sam hums. "Somebody came this way."

"Maybe the trail ends," Dean muses. "I don't see anything over here."

A wailing ambulance flies down the narrow back alley. The three hunters exchange similar looks before bounding back to the car, and Dean follows the ambulance closely.

It leads them to an apartment complex called The Metropolitan. The police are in the process of putting up the yellow tape. Bystanders watch, gossip with their neighbors in their night robes and pajamas. 

"Do you know what happened?" Katherine asks, stepping beside an older woman. She has white hair and dulled blue eyes, and actually has to break her neck to look up at the huntress.

That's the thing about her height. She'd always been tall, until four months ago. Then, it was her breaking her neck to look up to people. 

"He tried to kill his wife," the old lady says. "Tied her up and beat her."

"Really." Katherine wonders how exactly that information—the detail, rather—had been spilled to the onlookers. 

The old lady nods. "I used to see him in the mornings. He would wave and say hello. He was my next door neighbor, seemed like a very nice young man."

Katherine watches a suited man be lowered into the back of a police cruiser. He seems all right, spare a few gashes on his cheek. 

Katherine moves back to the Winchesters, and after explaining what she heard, they split up, examining the street surrounding the building.

Dean hurries towards her, announced by his shadow in the morning sun. "I just talked to the patrol officer, right?" He begins. "Apparently Alex was driving home from a business trip when his wife was attacked."

Katherine sways a bit, brow raised. "He was in two places at once...like Rebecca said about Zach." Dean nods. 

"Then he said he saw himself in the apartment. The police think he's a psycho."

She shifts her weight, eyes narrowed as the sun glints off of the buildings' windows. "So that's two doppelgängers attacking loved ones in the exact same way." She runs her tongue over her teeth, glancing around. "I'm willing to bet it's the same thing that killed Emily." She sits on the hood of the Impala, one of her long legs stretched out before her. "Seen any evidence of a shapeshifter? Something that can make itself look like anyone, anything..."

"Skinwalkers, werewolves...we've got two attacks within two blocks of each other. I'm betting it's a shapeshifter problem."

"We need to find Sam," Katherine sighs, standing up, and starts down the alley with Dean beside her.

His first question after hearing their theories is, "Can any of them fly?"

Katherine looks to Dean, bewildered. "Not that I know of," Dean answers.

"I picked up a trail here," Sam says, pointing to the building behind him. "Someone ran out of the back of this building, headed off this way," he points ahead of him, "Just like at Zach's—and the trail suddenly ends. Just like at Zach's. Whatever it is just disappeared."

Katherine opens her mouth, rocking onto her toes. "Or, if it didn't go up, it went down." She looks to the brothers, pressing her lips together, and points to the drain by Sam's shoe. Sam and Dean lift the grate. Katherine follows Dean down. "Stop checking me out," she says. 

"How do you know if I was doing anything?" Dean asks, staring up at her as she drops to the ground.

"Your stare has a particular burn to it." She smoothes her jacket out and stares flatly at him. "Like acid."

"You're cruel, you know that?"

"It keeps me awake at night," she sighs, glancing down both sides of the channel, and tucks her hair behind both ears. "God, it smells like sulfur." She presses her sleeve to her nose for a moment and starts down to the right, using her flashlight to illuminate the black ground.

"I bet this runs right by Zach's house," Sam says. "The shapeshifter could be using the sewer system to get around."

"I second that," Katherine says, dropping her hand from her nose. There's such a height discrepancy that the brothers don't have to peer around her to get a glimpse of what she's staring at. 

Her flashlight sweeps the pipe along the wall, covered in some strange pale goop. It leads right to the floor, where a pool of the stuff is. Sam makes a noise and Dean crouches down, knife out in the open, and moves some of the goop to the side. Katherine makes a face. 

"Is this from his victims?" Sam asks. 

"What if when the shifter changes its shape, it sheds?" Katherine suggests. "Like a snake?"

"Oh, that's sick," Dean mutters.

"Well," she shrugs. "Humans aren't slimy. I mean, some are, in a different sense of the word."

"Well, no matter what kind of shapeshifter it is, there's one way to kill it," Dean says, rising to his feet.

"Silver," Katherine hums. "Let's get back to the car, gear up."

As Katherine's exchanging her ammunition for silver rounds, she keeps an eye on the brothers. They're talking softly at the hood of the car—Sam's just gotten off of the phone with Rebecca, and from the looks of his face, sad puppy dog is an even sadder puppy dog.

Katherine ties her hair back into a low ponytail and tucks her gun into the waistband of her Levis. 

"Like it or not, we aren't like other people," Dean says to Sam. 

"If Katherine can do it, why can't I?"

"She doesn't have friends. She has a roommate. Katherine understands the sacrifices that come with the job. And it ain't without perks." Dean hands a gun to Sam just as Katherine walks up to the boys, not having heard their conversation. "Now let's go find the sonuva bitch."