Riley looks intently out the window of the backseat of the impala. Sam is sleeping. A rare occurrence throughout this past week, so Dean said no music. Which is fine. Riley knows other ways of keeping herself entertained. As a car goes by she sees it's red color and reaches over the front seat and punches Dean's shoulder before he can manage to do it to her.

      "Jesus, you have punch hard." Dean mutters as he rubs his arm. They are playing a game similar to slug-bug. It's just the same, but applies to any car with red on it. Riley is in the lead with 10, and Dean with only 5. He's letting her win. She's bored. And bored Riley isn't a fun person to be around.

      "You taught me to punch. What do you expect?" Riley whispers back. She's becoming bored again. And she's hungry. Bored and hangry Riley is a monster.

      Suddenly Sam jerks awake. Riley and Dean look at him with concern in their eyes. Sam blinks his eyes, getting whatever he saw out of his mind. Nightmares. He can't sleep without having them lately. "You okay?" Dean asks as he glances at Sam. Sam nods. "Yeah, I'm fine."

      Riley lets out a breath. Bullshit.

      "Another nightmare?" Dean asks, already knowing the answer. Sam clears his throat. Riley sits back and pulls her sketchbook out. She knows just what to draw.

      "What to drive for a while?" Riley and Sam look at Dean in shock. Sam laughs and Riley continues to stare in disbelief. "In your whole life, you never once asked me that." Sam glances back at Riley and she hides the start of her sketch. "You even taught Riley how to drive with one of the cars in Bobby's yard." Riley hums and nods. "And it stunk like piss."

      "Just thought you might want to. Never mind." Riley smiles as she goes back to her drawing. Dean isn't good with emotions, and neither is she, but they both try and help in any way they can. Dean offers Sam to drive and Riley- Well, she's still working on it.

      "Look, man, you're worried about me." Sam looks at Dean. "I get it, and thank you, but I'm perfectly okay."

      "Mm-hmm." Dean mumbles.

      "Bullshit." Riley says in a sing-song voice. Sam glances back at her and gives her a glare, once again trying to get a glimpse at her art. Riley hides from his view again.

      Sam sighs and grabs the map in front of him. "All right." He clears his throat. "Where are we?" Riley holds her sketch away from her face and narrows her eyes. She's better with art when she has a reference, so this is a bit hard. But it has to be perfect.

      "We are just outside of Grand Junction." Sam sighs as he looks at the map. "You know what, maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon." Dean meets Riley's eyes in the rear view mirror. "Sam, we dig around there for a week. We came up with nothing." Dean glances at Sam and also tries to sneak a peek at Riley's drawing.

      She literally growls at him and he looks away. She doesn't like people looking at her art until it's done, and even then she doesn't like people looking at her art.

      "If you want to find the thing that killed Jessica..." Sam sighs and nods. "Got to find dad first." A burning feeling hits Riley's chest. She's been talking to John since he gave her the number to contact him with. Somehow he wasn't surprised when Riley told him about Jess. It made her wonder what he'd found.

      "Dad's disappearing, and this thing showing up after 20 years? It's no coincidence." Riley swallows hard. She knows it's not. John confirmed it, but Riley can't tell them that. He's trusting her not to tell them and Riley is going to retain that trust.

      "Dad will have answers. He'll know what to do." Riley can only hope. She's never fallen victim to the terror of what killed her father's mom or Jess, but she knows what it's like to lose someone. Her mother's death is still hard for her despite her being so young when she passed.

      She doesn't remember much, but a flash of light, her mother's screams, then nothing. After that, Dean took her in and started raising her. She takes after him majorly. Except for her hair. The blonde she gets from her mom.

      "It's weird, man." Sam says. "These coordinates he left us, this Black Water Ridge..." Riley glances at Sam. John didn't know what was out there, but he has a guess. He just didn't tell Riley what it was. "What about it?" Dean asks, glancing at Sam.

      "There's nothing there. It's just woods." Sam puts the map down and creases his brows. "Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?" Riley's eyebrows perk as she draws. "Maybe it's a hunt." Sam and Dean turn to look at her. Riley hides her drawing and looks at them with eyebrows raised. "It's just a guess."

       They turn back around and Riley lets out a breath. That was dumb to say.

△

      Riley walks around the office with her hands in her pockets. "So Black Water Ridge is pretty remote. It's cut off by these canyons here-" Sam says pointing to a 3D map of the park. Riley spots a picture of a man with a massive bear and walks over to it. "Dad, check out this bear." Dean walks over and whistles.

      "Rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place..." Sam shakes his head and Dean continues to look at the bear. "Dude, check out the size of this friggin' bear." Sam walks over and the three Winchesters look at the photo. "...And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area."

      Riley snorts. "It ain't no walk in the park, that's for sure." Someone walks behind Sam, Dean and Riley. "You boys aren't planning to go out near Black Water Ridge, by any chance?" They all turn around and the man standing in front of them glances at Riley. She raises a questioning eyebrow at the man.

      "Oh, no, sir." Sam answers with a smile. "We're environmental-study majors from U.C. Boulder- Just working on a paper." The man nods and looks at Riley. "All of you?" Dean chuckles and puts a hand on Riley's shoulder. "No. This is my daughter. It's a school holiday and I wanted to tag along for the fun."

      Riley snorts and rolls her eyes. "Right, fun."

      "Recycle, man." Dean says with a chuckle. The man stares at them with a hand on his hip. "Bull." Sam and Dean tense and Riley turns her back to the man so he doesn't see her laughing at the looks on their faces. "You're friends with tht Hailey girl, right?"

     Dean makes a face. "Yes." Sam and Dean walk over to the desk. "Yes, we are, Ranger... Wilkinson." Ranger Wilkinson sighs. "Well, I will tell you exactly what I told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Black Water until the 24th." Dean nods slowly and Riley glances at the bear photo again. It's freakishly huge.

      "So it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it?" Dean shakes his head and Sam glances at Riley. He thinks she may be right about there being a hunt. "Tell that girl to quit worrying. I'm sure her brother's just fine."

      Riley lets out a breath. She somehow doubts he is. "Well, that Hailey girl's quite a pistol, huh?" Wilkinson nods. "That's putting it mildly."

      "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?"

△

      Sam, Dean and Riley walk out of the Ranger's station. Dean laughs as he folds the backcountry pocket and shoves it into his pocket. "What, are you cruising for a hookup or something?" Riley cringes at Sam's words. "What do you mean?" Dean asks. "The coordinates point to Black Water Ridge. So what are we waiting for? Let's go find dad."

      Riley walks over to the Impala and opens the door to the backseat, but pauses to listen to Sam. "Why even talk to this girl?" Dean opens his door. "Maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it."

      Sam stares dryly at Dean. "What?" He asks as he throws his hands out. Dean and Riley shake a look. "Since when are you all 'shoot first, ask questions later'?"

      Riley nods. "Yeah, that's Dad's thing." Sam scoffs. "Since now." Sam gets into the car and Riley raises an eyebrow. "Oh, really?" Dean asks. He makes a face and Riley laughs. "That makes my life easier then."

- author's notes -

so the it says 2.1 at the top. the first number is what episode I am writing about and the second number is how many parts are written for the episode.