"We've got a problem—I can't find my wallet."

Deja lifted her pounding head from her hands to look at Dean from where she sat at the edge of Dean's bed, squinting at the elder Winchester as he came flying out of the bathroom, throwing his jacket aside as he started searching his duffel in a frenzy. Sam only looked mildly annoyed at the proclamation, continuing his own packing on the bed next to them.

She was really not looking forward to making a long drive in the car today.

One too many drinks indeed.

"How's that our problem?" Sam asked, a wad of clothes in his hands. Dean brushed right by him as he went over to the living room part of the motel room, grabbing another jacket and starting to check the pockets before yanking it on.

"Because I think I dropped it in the warehouse last night."

Sam froze and Deja groaned, rubbing her forehead in agitation.

She was drunk one night, one night...

"You're kidding, right?"

"No, I mean, it's got my prints, my I.D.—well, my fake I.D., anyway, but—we gotta get it before somebody else finds it, come on," Dean announced, moving for the door. Deja rose from her seat on the bed, trying to smooth down her bedraggled hair.

"Okay...okay...I'm coming."

Dean paused with the door already open, turning to face her with a flicker of guilt in his eyes. "No, you can stay and rest, Sam and I've got this."

Deja waved him off. "No, losing your wallet where you committed B and E and destroyed a painting that despite its ugliness was probably worth a lot of money is serious, and an extra pair of eyes means you'll find it sooner."

"Deja...you look terrible, I bet you feel terrible—just stay here, we've got this," Dean again tried to assure her, but she didn't take it, managing to make herself look presentable while Sam shrugged on his coat.

"Deal with it—I'm coming, and don't argue or you'll make my headache worse," Deja grumbled, waving her hand dismissively as she sulked past him and made her way towards the Impala.

They were about to find out that hungover Deja was a grumpy Deja...if they hadn't figured that out already.

******************************

As soon as they were at the auction house, Sam, Dean, and Deja started to tear through the warehouse for Dean's wallet. Since it was so early, there didn't seem to really be anyone in the auction house, but it was at least open. Hopefully they'd be able to find the missing wallet before anyone else.

The three of them immediately spread out, Sam and Dean checking on either side of one aisle while Deja checked along the wall, looking rather miserable.

The hangover Dean told Sam about must have really been doing a number on her. Maybe they should stick around long enough for her to get some more rest before they tried to hit the road again...

"How do you lose your wallet, Dean?" Sam hissed around a painting as they continued to come up with nothing, Dean only giving him a vague I don't know hand gesture in answer. Sam went to move a box of antiquities out of the way when a familiar voice that, at the moment, caused a spark of panic to jolt through him sounded from behind him.

"Hey, guys!"

Sam whipped around, already scrambling to think of an excuse while Dean and Deja tried to blend into the background. "Sarah! Hey!"

"What are you doing here?" Sarah asked as she approached them, looking happy but also reasonably curious to see them, curls of dark brown hair falling in her face.

Sam looked back towards Dean and Deja as if asking for help trying to come up with an excuse, but they didn't offer him any help, leaving him scrambling still. "Oh...uh...we-we are leaving town, and...you know, we came to say goodbye."

"Awe, what are you talking about, Sam?" Dean suddenly said, appearing at Sam's side. "We're sticking around for at least another day or two."

Sam's brows furrowed as he looked at his suddenly smiling, perfectly happy and nowhere near worried as he'd been a few seconds ago brother, wondering what had suddenly changed.

Maybe he meant another day to give Deja time to recuperate from her hangover, maybe?

"Oh, Sam, by the way, I wanted to go ahead and give you that twenty bucks I owe you."

No...

He did not.

Sam stared, slightly open mouthed as Dean pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and held it out where everyone could see it.

The entire thing...had been a ploy.

"I always forget, you know, just..." Dean chuckled as he fished the twenty out of his billfold and Deja came to stand next to Dean.

Oh, I'm going to kill him.

"There you go," Dean said with a smug smile, holding the twenty out to Sam. Sam stared at him for a few seconds before he snatched the bill out of his brother's hands, catching the look Deja was giving Dean from behind, arms crossed over her chest.

I take it back...I'm going to kill him, if Deja doesn't first.

"Well, I'll leave you two crazy kids alone, I got to go do...something...somewhere," Dean said, that smug smile still in place. It seemed to vanish when Deja stepped even with him, pinching his earlobe between two fingers and tugging, forcing him to lean slightly and follow her.

"Yeah, I believe you and I need to talk," she forced out, and Sam watched with great satisfaction and a feeling of justice as Deja dragged Dean out of the auction house for what he suspected—or rather, hoped—was going to be a rigorous lecture.

*****************************

"Easy, easy, what the hell, Deja?" Dean complained once they were out the door and he managed to pull himself free of her ear-abuse. Deja was quick to turn around, eyes narrowed and focused on him.

"Really, Dean? I mean, seriously? Why did you have to give us a heart attack like that, huh? I thought we had an actual problem that needed to be resolved as soon as possible! I thought we were in trouble!" she hissed angrily. Dean held his hands up in defense, leaning back slightly at the intensity in her voice.

"Hey, I told you to stay and rest, but you insisted on tagging along. I didn't plan on you insisting to come along...or having a hangover, for that matter," Dean stated, muttering the last part to himself.

"I insisted I came too because I thought you were being serious! You should have at least told me you were trying to get Sam and Sarah to bump into each other again instead of scaring me to death like that, damn it. I would have played along, or hell, stayed back to rest," she huffed.

"So...you're just complaining about the fact I didn't tell you and you came with us despite your hangover, not that I just tricked Sam into running into Sarah again?"

"Yeah. I'm all for getting those two together again, not so happy about the rest of it," she told him, leaning against the side of Baby, her eyes squinting against the morning sun, forehead crinkling up in slight pain.

A hangover and sunlight did not mix.

Dean opened the driver's side door, grabbing his sunglasses before shutting the door again and offering the shades to her, leaning against the car beside her. "Well then, I'm sorry for not informing you and by default dragging you out here. Forgiven?"

She frowned just slightly, taking the offered sunglasses from his hand but still pouting. "Yeah, you're forgiven," she mumbled.

Dean laughed softly, putting an arm around her and pulling her into a half-hug. "I'm sorry you're not back at the hotel resting right now, I know your hangover's probably quite miserable." Deja grunted quietly in agreement, instinctively resting her head on his shoulder and probably closing her eyes behind the shades. "You probably shouldn't have drank so much—but when we get back you can curl up in bed and sleep to your heart's desire, how's that? We won't leave till tomorrow, at the very least."

"I would like that very much...and sleeping me will be a little more tolerable than hungover me," Deja muttered.

"Nah, you're doing fine—looks like you get my kind of hangovers. Sam becomes best friends with the bathroom, at least you don't have that," Dean reasoned.

"I never said I wasn't sick to my stomach."

"Well...just don't puke in my car and we'll still be on speaking terms."

Deja laughed weakly, and Dean gave her arm a light, reassuring squeeze. Yeah, she was going to need some recovery time.

They stood like that for several moments, and Dean was just starting to think she'd somehow managed to fall asleep on him when she spoke again, her voice so soft he barely heard her. "By the way...it's all a little fuzzy, but...I remember enough to say thank you...and I mean it. Thank you, Dean...it meant—means—a lot to me."

Dean smiled faintly, resting his chin atop her head as he pulled her a little closer. "I'm glad..."

Damn it, I'm not going to get over her, am I?

Suddenly, Sam came out of the auction house with an expression that looked like he was barely holding back panic.

"The painting's in there," Sam said seriously once he reached the two of them. Dean straightened, which caused Deja to pull away.

"What?" Dean asked, disbelieving.

"I don't know how, but I just saw it in one piece being moved in the auction house—it hasn't been sold yet, but it's there. I—"

Sam stopped himself, looking around and opening the back door to the Impala, ushering Deja inside the car before he made his way to the passenger's side of the car. Dean got the hint, getting in on the driver's side the same time Sam got in on the opposite side. Once everyone was inside, Sam picked up speaking again.

"I don't understand, Dean, we burned the damn thing."

"Yeah, thank you, captain obvious," Dean muttered, glancing back to see Deja lying down in the back seat, still awake and listening but obviously feeling like sitting up was too much effort. "All right, we just need to figure out another way to get rid of it...any ideas?"

"Okay, all right, well, um, in almost all the lore about haunted paintings, it's always the painting's subject that haunts them."

"Yeah...all right, so we need to figure out everything there is to know about that creepy-ass family in that creepy-ass painting. What were their names again?"

"The Isaiah Merchant family. There's got to be something about them somewhere..."

"Great...so a day of digging through research commences," Deja commented from her spot in the back, voice a little rocky.

"We will do the research, you will be sleeping off this nasty little hangover of yours like I promised so that you're on your game again, one hundred percent and all that," Dean told her, turning around in his seat so he could look her in the eyes.

"Normally, I would argue, but I just don't feel like it right now," Deja grunted.

"Which is why you're resting till you're you again...and plenty of water, that too," Dean muttered, turning back around and starting the car so they could make their way back to the motel.

******************************

Deja slept while Sam and Dean were out looking into the history of the family in the painting, though by the time they returned—which was after night had fallen—Deja was awake and feeling better, though she'd probably still sleep like a rock when they were done for the night.

Since she was feeling better, the three of them now sat together in the boys' hotel room, crowded around the coffee table and peering at the picture Sam was currently talking animatedly about.

"I'm telling you, man, I'm sure of it. Painting at the auction house, the dad is looking down. Painting here..." Sam turned the copy of the original painting they'd gotten out of a history book around to face Dean, pushing it closer his way before continuing. "Dad's looking out. The painting has changed, Dean."

Deja craned her neck to get a good look at the picture, frowning. "Sam's right, the pictures don't match. Not only the father looking a different way, thing, but the painting in the background is different, too; it was a cemetery, not a landscape portrait. That's what I notice is wrong immediately, can't tell you what else is different without looking at the painting again."

Dean stared at her for a moment. "How do you...?"

"I have a good memory when it comes to certain things: what art and pictures look like—its like a picture in my head, almost like photographic memory—pop culture, music, Latin..."

When she trailed off, Dean cut in to steer them back on the right track. "All right, so we think daddy dearest is trapped in the painting and he's handing out Columbian neckties like he did with his family?"

"Well, yeah, it seems like it. But if his bones are already dusted then how are we going to stop him?" Sam mused.

Deja shrugged, leaning back in her seat. "Maybe they didn't torch everything, maybe they missed something. It happens—makes our job more difficult, but it happens."

"All right, well if Isaiah's position and the painting in the background changed, then maybe something else in the painting changed as well, you know, it could give us some clues. Like the cemetery Deja says the painting has in the background painting—we might want to take a closer look at that," Dean said pointedly.

"You think it might have some sort of Da Vinci Code deal?" Sam asked.

"I don't...know, I'm still waiting on the movie for that one. Anyway, we gotta get back in and see that painting," Dean announced, standing up and making his way back over to his bed while Deja hid her smile. "Which is a good thing, cause you can get some more time to crush on your girlfriend."

"Dude—enough already," Sam complained as Dean flopped down on his bed, stretching out with arms folded over his chest.

"What?" Dean asked.

"What? Ever since we got here, you've been trying to pimp me out to Sarah! Just back off, all right?" Sam told him, voice raising substantially. Deja let out a low whistle only she could hear, looking up at the ceiling and debating how she was going to escape this one.

"Well you like her, don't you?" Dean asked. Sam made a why me, I give up gesture and rolled his eyes, looking away with an even more annoyed expression on his face. Deja took the brief lull as an opportunity to stand up and make her way towards the mini bar. "All right, you like her, she likes you, you're both consenting adults..."

"What's the point, Dean, we'll just leave! We always leave," Sam snapped, and Deja caught Dean's eyes flicker towards Deja for the briefest second.

...everyone I get close to leaves.

"Well I'm not talking about marriage, Sam—" Dean explained patiently, though Sam quickly cut him off, clearly angry. Deja was suddenly very interested in the leftover tequila from the night before, though she wasn't about to drink it.

"You know, I don't get it. What do you care if I hook up?"

"Cause then maybe you wouldn't be so cranky all the time."

Deja's eyebrows rose and she discreetly let her gaze slide between the momentarily silent brothers, the temporary lull only there because of Dean's unexpected words. Deja again took the opportunity to move, heading into the bathroom this time since it was obvious the conversation was about to be back in the family matter area she was tired of awkwardly witnessing in a forgotten corner. So, as Dean sat back up to answer Sam, Deja shut the bathroom door and simply took a seat on the toilet, deciding to lounge until she thought they might have had enough time to talk.

She waited until she heard Sam's voice speaking in a perfectly normal, peppy tone to move again, flushing the toilet and washing her hands for show before wandering back outside to see Dean back in his reclined position on the bed, watching Sam talk on the phone with Sara, most likely.

"...about you? Yeah, good, good, really good," Sam was saying.

"Smooth," Dean said quietly, earning a glare from Sam and a nudge from Deja.

"Cut him some slack, he's a little out of practice," Deja told him, taking a seat on Sam's bed for once and waiting for Sam to finish talking to Sarah so they would know what they were doing next.

"So, uh—so listen, me and my brother were, uh, thinking that maybe we'd like to come back in and look at the painting again. I-I think maybe we are interested in buying it." The smile suddenly vanished from his face as Sam stood up, tense like he was ready to bolt or fight something. "Wait, what? Who'd you sell it to?"

Dean sat up while Deja stood, everyone preparing to launch into action with whatever Sam was about to say next.

"Sarah, I need an address right now."

*****************************

When they peeled into the driveway of the address Sarah had given them, all three of them loaded into the Impala for convenience, there was already a Jeep outside the front of the house with Sarah standing next to it. Sam let out a frustrated sigh as they all got out of the car, already rushing for the front door.

"Sam, what's happening?" Sarah asked as they hurried to the front steps.

"I told you, you shouldn't have come," Sam said in a low voice, Dean, Sam, and Deja taking the steps two at a time while Sarah followed behind. Dean pounded on the door while Sam tried to get a good look through one of the windows, Deja keeping Sarah out of their way.

"Hello, anybody home?" Dean shouted with no answer from inside, which prompted him to start getting ready to try and knock it down.

"You said Evelyn might be in danger—what kind of danger?" Sarah asked.

"I can't knock this sucker down, we gotta pick it," Dean announced, already pulling out what he needed to do just that. Sam moved over to the other window where there was light coming from inside, trying to get a good look inside yet again while Deja stayed behind Dean, waiting for him to get the door open.

"What are you guys, burglars?" Sarah asked, moving over to Sam.

"I wish it was that simple," Sam muttered after unsuccessfully trying to get the bars on the house's windows to budge.

Of course this Evelyn would be the kind of person to put bars over the windows and have a door we can't break down.

"Look, you really should wait in the car, it's for your own good," Sam warned her, moving back over to Deja and Dean when his attempt with the windows was obviously failing.

Dean finally got the door open, and all three of them quickly piled through, with Sarah taking up the rear with a defiant, "The hell I will, Evelyn's a friend!"

Nobody argued—they didn't have time to.

"Evelyn?" Sarah called as they shut the door behind them, cautiously stepping inside the completely silent house.

"Evelyn," Sam called as well, his voice echoing through a few of the rooms.

They turned the corner to see the back of a blonde woman sitting in a chair, the only light on in the room the lamp beside her and a light on the far wall. The haunted, cursed, whatever paining was perched above the fireplace, creepy as ever and causing the hairs on the back of Deja's neck to stand on end.

Whether that was her sixth sense going off or just her knowledge of the portrait freaking her out, she wasn't sure.

"Evelyn?" Sarah asked as they all came to a stop in the doorway. The woman didn't move.

Oh, I don't like this...

"Evelyn?" Sarah repeated, the four of them cautiously stepping into the room with still no response. Dean started to walk around, lightly pulling Deja along with him while Sam stayed with Sarah. The woman wasn't blinking, wasn't even twitching at the fact there were three strangers in the room with her, four people in her house who didn't have a key. "It's Sarah Blake, are you all right."

"Sarah, don't, Sarah—" Sam tried to warn her as Sarah reached out to touch Evelyn. The old woman's head fell back unnaturally, revealing that her throat was slit deep enough her head wasn't even all the way attached to her body. Sarah screamed, falling back into Sam's arms and looking up at the portrait on instinct.

The dad, which had been looking down at the daughter in the portrait mere moments ago, was staring out right at them now.

"Oh my God, oh my God," Sarah was chanting as Sam pulled her from the room, and Deja attached herself to Dean's arm.

"Yeah, it's time to go," she said, not about to deny she was freaked out as goosebumps broke out along her arm, tugging him towards the exit. He didn't offer much resistance, following after her with a hand pressed on the small of her back to usher her forward as the two of them made a rapid exit out of the house, Dean keeping himself between her and the killer painting.

******************************

A knock on the hotel room door the next morning caught all of their attention, Dean and Deja looking up from the laptop they were both sitting by and Sam pausing in the pacing that had been starting to get on both Dean and Deja's nerves. Since Sam was already standing up, he was the one who answered the door, stepping aside to let in a rather frazzled looking Sarah.

"Hey..." he said as she brushed past him right into the room. "You all right?"

"No, actually, I just lied to the cops and told them I went to Evelyn's alone and found her like that," Sarah said sharply. Dean and Deja shared a look, a happy and somewhat proud smirk showing up on Dean's features—they'd been worried about what they would do if Sarah told the cops about them, so that was one less thing to worry about.

"Thank you," Sam told her. Sarah barely let him finish.

"Don't thank me. I'm about to call them right back if you don't tell me what the hell is going on. Who's killing these people?"

Sam looked over at Dean and Deja, and the three of them shared a look, their expressions holding a clear meaning between the three of them.

They might as well tell her, she was already involved and clearly wasn't going to let it go.

"What," Sam corrected her quietly. Sarah paused, staring at him.

"What?" she echoed.

"It's not who, it's what is killing those people." When Sarah continued to give him a blank stare, Sam sighed and pressed a little more. "Sarah, you saw that painting move."

Sarah shook her head, moving about nervously as she stepped around one of the chairs in the living room area. "No, no, I was, I was seeing things, it's impossible."

"Yeah, well, welcome to our world," Dean chipped in with a smug smile.

"Sarah, I know this sounds crazy, but we think that that painting is haunted," Sam told her patiently. Sarah laughed under her breath.

"You're joking," Sarah said finally. All three of them looked at her with deadly serious expressions, and the realization dawned on her. "You're not joking. God, the guys I go out with..."

Sam stepped closer to her. "Sarah, think about it. Evelyn, the Telescas, they both had the painting, and there have been others before them. Wherever this thing goes, people die, and we're just trying to stop it...and that's the truth."

Sarah nodded slowly near the end of his explanation, then suddenly looked up with determination in her eyes. "Well then, I guess you better show me. I'm coming with you."

Sarah started to make her way to the door, but Sam stopped her where her back was to Dean and Deja. "What? No. Sarah, no, you should just go home. This stuff can get dangerous. And..." Sam suddenly stopped, as If the words had caught in his throat. Dean's brow furrowed in concern, suddenly watching the exchange much closer as Sam continued, voice a little softer now. "And I don't want you to get hurt."

"Look, you guys are probably crazy, but if you're right about this, well, me and my dad sold that painting, and might have got these people killed. Look, I'm not saying I'm not scared, cause I am scared as hell, but I'm not going to run and hide, either." With that conviction filled statement, Sarah returned to the door, pausing once she had it open and looking at the three hunters still in the same place. "So are we going or what?"

"Sam..." Dean said slowly as the door shut behind Sarah. He pointed where she'd just disappeared, and with a purely serious voice, said. "Marry that girl."

"Amen," Deja echoed, the two of them giving each other a high five.

******************************

"Aren't you worried that it's gonna...you know, kill us?"

They were once more standing in Evelyn's house, Sarah included, after the police had vacated the crime scene for the day. At the moment, even Deja had to admit she shared some of Sarah's reservations about what was going on, but only because she was creeped out. She'd already said she didn't like ghosts, and this was no exceptions, so even though she knew better, she was still a little jumpy.

Why she was jumpy at the moment was the fact that Sam had taken the painting down off of its perch by the fireplace and was currently looking at it with his face only an inch or two away. She knew it wasn't going to attack him at this moment, but it still unnerved her.

"Nah, it seems to do its thing at night. I think we're all right in daylight," Sam stated while Dean looked between their copied picture of the original and the actual painting before them.

"Sam, check it out. The razor, it's closed in this one, but its, ah, open in that one," Dean stated, handing it over to Sam. Deja came closer to look as well, then pointed at the landscape picture in their photo.

"See, just like I said: cemetery, landscape," she stated, gesturing between their picture and the painting.

"What are you guys looking for?" Sarah asked, sounding a little bit like she was feeling left out.

"Well, if the spirit's changing aspects of the painting, maybe it's doing so for a reason," Dean told Sarah as he stepped closer to the painting as well. Deja shuffled out of his way so he could get a good look.

"It seems to have focused on a certain part of a cemetery," she hinted, and Dean took the time to look at the painting in the painting.

"Looks like a crypt or a mausoleum, or something," he murmured, stepping away to grab a glass ashtray and using it as a makeshift magnifying glass to make out the name on the top of the mausoleum.

"Merchant."

*****************************

"This is the third boneyard we've checked. I think this ghost is jerking us around," Dean muttered as they made their way through yet another field of graves, eyes scanning the distance for the mausoleum that had been in the painting.

"Maybe. I mean, it doesn't make sense for a murdering ghost to give hints on how to stop him, unless we're missing something," Deja replied, walking beside Dean while Sam and Sarah walked behind them.

"That's a lovely thought," Dean sighed before coming to a halt. Deja followed his gaze, taking in the familiar mausoleum a brief walk away. "Over there."

The Merchant crypt stood under a canopy of four dead trees, a few crows fluttering about and a light breeze rustling some of the dead leaves that littered the path up to it away and into the grass. "Uhg...it definitely fits the creepy bill," Deja muttered, earning a laugh from Dean.

"You really don't like the ghost part of the job, do you?"

"Nope, not one bit...and just think, that's like, eighty-five percent of the job."

"One day, you're going to tell me why ghosts creep you out so much."

"And one day, we'll all get through one case without you and Sam having some kind of family drama," Deja returned, giving him a sweet smile as he pulled out his bolt cutters and gave her a relatively mild bitch face before cutting the chains on the crypt. They stepped through, Deja grimacing slightly at the cobwebs that thankfully Dean got rid of as he stepped through first.

They all filed inside, spreading out as much as they could with Dean and Deja looking at the names on one side of the crypt while Sam and Sarah looked at the urns and glass casings in the wall on the other side.

"Okay, that right there, is the creepiest thing I've ever seen," Sarah announced, and Deja turned around to see what she was looking out, a soft groan escaping her once she did see what was inside the glass case Sarah was looking at with distaste.

"I hate dolls..." she muttered.

Dolls, spiders, ghosts, what else is fate going to add to make this such a wonderful case, hmm?

Dean smirked at the look on her face, as if he knew what she was thinking, while Sam—ever the logical one—started to explain why there was a doll in a glass case in a crypt.

"It was, ah...sort of a tradition at the time. Whenever a child died, sometimes they'd preserve the kids favorite toy in a glass case, put it next to the headstone in the crypt."

Of course, while Sam was being logical, Dean was picking up on something before anyone else.

Damn, he was good at this job.

"Notice anything strange here?" Dean asked, eyes studying the urns before him.

"Uh, where do I start?" Sarah asked sarcastically, earning a smile from Sam.

"No, that's not what I mean. Look at the urns," Dean told them, pointing to the four pieces in front of them.

"Yeah, there are only four," Sam said aloud.

"Yeah, mom and the three kids. Daddy dearest isn't here."

"So where is he?"

******************************

After a run to look through county death certificates and a late-night trip to another graveyard for a quick salt and burn, Dean, Deja, Sam, and Sarah went right back to Evelyn's house to make absolutely sure that the salt and burn had worked. All of them agreed that whenever they'd taken care of what was killing the painting's owners, the painting would go back to its original form. That was why, despite the fact it was the middle of the night and they had already salted and burned Isaiah Merchant's bones, they were parking in front of Evelyn's house.

"Dean, keep the motor running," Sam told Dean as he opened the passenger door, Sarah leaning forward from where she sat next to Deja in the back seat.

"I thought the painting was harmless now?"

"Better safe than sorry. We're gonna bury the sucker," Sam told her. Sarah already had her hand on the handle of her door.

"I want to come with you."

"Are you sure?" Sam asked, even as she opened the door and slipped out of the car.

"Yeah."

"Hey, hey, hey," Dean hissed to Sam as Sarah walked around the front of the car. "We'll stay here, you go make your move."

Sam only scoffed, getting out of the car.

"S-Sam! I'm serious!" Dean whispered, but Sam just kept walking.

Deja reached forward and patted Dean's arm. "Nice going there, Cupid."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Dean muttered before he leaned forward and flipped on the radio.

"...this is what it's like, I'm in love. So this is what my life, could become!" the song was singing, and Deja had to bite down on her knuckles to keep from laughing as Sam stopped, gave Dean a really, dude look, and gestured for Dean to cut the music.

"Wonderful matchmaking there," Deja quipped again as he shut off the radio.

"Shut up," he groaned, leaning his head back and staring at her in the darkness.

"I will when you do," she returned with a sly smirk. Dean rolled his eyes, sitting up once again and casting his gaze towards the door.

At the exact moment that it swung shut on its own.

Dean and Deja didn't need any prompting to both fly out of the Impala, racing up the steps and trying to open the suddenly immoveable door. Deja got out of Dean's way as he instantly started to slam all of his body weight into the door with as much force as he could, Deja making her way over to the barred windows.

"Dean! Hey, is that you?" Sam's faint voice came from inside.

"Sammy, you all right?" Dean asked, and Deja moved back to his side so she could clearly hear everything that was being said. Dean's phone started ringing, and he automatically put it on speaker so Deja could hear as well. "Tell me you slammed the front door."

"Dean! No, it wasn't me, I think it was the little girl."

"Girl? What girl?"

"Yeah, she's out of the painting. I think it might have been her all along."

"Wasn't Dad looking down at her? Maybe he was trying to warn us," Dean stated, pulling out his lock picking supplies and handing the phone off to Deja so he could focus.

"Hey, hey, hey, let's recap later, just get us out of here!"

"Well, I'm trying to pick the lock, but the door won't budge," Dean said evenly.

"Well, then, break it down."

"Okay, genius, let me grab my battering ram!" Dean snapped, giving up on picking the door and snatching the phone back from Deja.

"Dean, the damn thing is coming!"

"Well, you're gonna have to hold it off until I can figure something out. Get some salt or iron!"

"Okay, okay, so...it's the little girl, not the dad, but the little girl was cremated, so how is she still haunting the painting?" Deja rationalized while Dean tried the barred windows they knew were useless. At least the curtains were pulled back now so they could see inside. Sure enough, Deja could see the painting was missing a family member, and if she was closer she would have bet the razor was missing, too.

"I don't know, Deja, now is not the time for that," Dean grunted, pulling uselessly at the iron bars before making his way towards the door to try beating against it again. Deja stopped him.

"All you're going to do is beat up yourself, and yes, it's exactly the time for that, Dean. We can't get in, they can't get out, so either we do nothing or we figure out how to get rid of the child ghost inside. So if she was cremated, how is she still haunting the painting?"

"I don't know damn it!" Dean snapped, taking the phone off speaker and pressing it to his ear. "Sam, are you okay?"

There was a pause while Sam answered, Dean and Deja walking the length of the wrap-around porch but coming up empty with a way in. "We're trying to figure out how to waste her, but we don't know how if she was already cremated." Dean paused as Sam answered again, grabbing Deja's arm and leading the two of them off the porch so they could survey the house as a whole. He seemed to be thinking of scaling to one of the upper rooms and opening a window. "Okay, something else, but what?"

As they stood between the house and the Impala, Dean's expression suddenly became intense, and he turned to Deja.

"Sam said the doll might have the girl's hair."

Deja grabbed his shoulders and shoved him towards the still-running car. "That counts as remains. You hall ass to the cemetery and go burn the doll, I'll keep trying to find a way to get them out. Go!"

******************************

Inside the house, Sam kept a firm grip on the poker that had made the little girl disappear in the first place, the only weapon they had as for whatever God-forsaken reason, the old woman hadn't kept any salt in the house. After waiting for a while for Dean to call and say he'd burned the remains or for the painting to return to normal, the lights had officially gone out and the wind had picked up again, the girl's giggling echoing through the entire house as he put himself between Sarah and where he expected the girl to appear, poker at the ready. For a few tense moments, nothing else happened, just wind, darkness, and unnerving childish laughter.

Then, suddenly, an entire antique desk that looked more like an upright piano flew across the room and pinned him to the wall, the poker flying out of his hand as he fell to the ground. The furniture pressed against his chest, making it hard to breathe, but no matter how hard he pushed, he couldn't get it to budge.

Sarah dropped to her knees beside him, trying to help him move the desk as the wind picked up. "Sam! Sam, come on, come on!" she cried, pulling on the desk while he pushed. It still wouldn't budge. She turned around to look for something to help move it, and Sam's heart stopped when she found herself face to face with the little girl.

She didn't slit Sarah's throat, but instead tossed her across the room before slowly making her way towards her, razor in one hand, doll dragging across the floor in the other. Sam struggled harder to move the desk, but it still wasn't budging, and the ghost was getting closer, and Sarah wasn't getting up—

The lights suddenly surged in the room the same time a rapid serious of loud banging came from the window to the porch outside, Deja's muffled voice was heard outside, and the ghost turned away from Sarah towards the blonde hunter outside. Everyone's attention shifted to her as the surge from the lights ended and Deja stopped banging on the glass now that she clearly had the girl's attention. Deja's face, though it was hard to see from Sam's angle and distance away, seemed petrified as she stared at the little girl now walking towards her, but determined nonetheless. In the ghost's distraction, he was able to push the desk aside, reaching for the poker so he could get rid of the thing again, but before he could even get to his feet the ghost erupted in flames. When it disappeared, he looked back just in time to see the image of the girl reappear in the painting like she was being burned back into it, the entire image back to the way it was supposed to be.

Sam looked over at the window where Deja still stood, their shaken gazes meeting each other for a brief moment before Sam turned his attention back to Sarah. He kneeled down beside her, pulling her into a tight hug as she looked rather shaken herself, the two of them not needing to say a word.

He'd hardly had her in his arms a full minute before his cellphone rang again, and he answered it only because he registered it was his brother calling.

"Sam, you good?" Dean asked on the other side of the call.

Sam looked at Sarah, who only had a little blood coming from her lip from being thrown against the wall. "Not bad," he answered before he hung up and slumped against the wall, the adrenaline leaving him in a rush.

******************************

The next morning the four of them all stood in the auction house, watching as two workers packed the painting into a wooden box. Dean had a copy of a report in his hand, clearing his throat as he made his announcement.

"This was archived in the county records. The Merchant's adopted daughter, Melanie. Know why she was up for adoption? Cause her real family was murdered in their beds."

"She killed them?" Sarah asked, glancing at the little girl in the white dress in the painting.

"Yeah, who'd suspect her? A sweet little girl. So then she kills Isaiah and his family, the old man takes the blame, his spirit's been trying to warn people ever since."

"Where's this one go?" one of the workers asked once they'd gotten a lid on the box.

"Take it out back and burn it," Sarah said promptly without missing a beat. Everyone stared at her, the three hunters included. "I'm serious, guys. Thanks."

After the workers were out of earshot, Sarah spoke again. "So, why'd the girl do it?"

"Who knows why someone kills their own family—and then others. Some people just turn dark without any warning," Deja murmured, watching the two men carry the portrait out back with furrowed brows and arms folded over her chest. Dean stared at her for a few moments, but it was only briefly as Sam spoke up.

"Some people are just born tortured," Sam stated.

"Nah, I don't think that's true—no one's born bad, they go bad," Deja corrected.

Dean heaved a sigh. "Maybe, I don't really care. It's over, we move on."

"Uh..." Sarah started to say, processing Dean's statement before she sighed as well. "I guess this means you're leaving."

Another sigh, this time from Sam, and then an awkward silence grew, Sam and Sarah gazing at each other while Dean and Deja stood awkwardly off to the side. Dean was the one to make an equally awkward escape.

"I'll go wait in the car," he said with a crisp nod.

"I'll go with you," Deja stated quickly, latching onto his arm to either follow or drag him away.

"See you, Sarah," Dean added before he started walking, pulling Deja along.

"Bye," Deja said, giving Sarah a small smile before she passed. A few antique paintings down the line, Dean grumbled under his breath.

"I'm the one who burned the doll and destroyed the spirit, but don't thank me or anything," He griped. Deja laughed, tightening her grip on his arm.

"Aww...you're a hero to me," Deja told him sweetly, leaning over to gently and briefly kiss his cheek. Dean blinked in surprise, having not expected the action as he turned his full attention to her.

"Well, that's one person," he mused, offering her a small smile as they left the auction house. When they were almost to the two cars parked a few paces from the entrance, Dean spoke up again. "Hey, what was with the whole...some people go dark without warning, thing? You got that look on your face when you said it," Dean asked, watching her.

Deja sighed and pulled away. "Dean—don't ruin the happy moment, all right? Let's end this case without any dark lingering thoughts or drama, hmm?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "I was just asking," he muttered. Deja huffed, shaking her head.

"Okay...I already said I've seen some dark stuff in my time as a hunter. Let's just leave it at that and avoid the gruesome details," she relented, and Dean turned to look at her, squinting slightly against the sun.

"I can live with that," he said. They both looked up as the doors opened, watching as Sam started to leave with Sarah closing the door behind him with a crestfallen look on her face.

And he's still not going to make a move...

Dean shook his head, pulling out his keys and getting ready to get in the Impala when suddenly he heard knocking on the auction house's door, and he looked up just in time to see Sarah open the doors and Sam pull her in for a deep kiss. A smile broke across Dean's face, and he felt a bubble of pride swell up in his chest.

"That's my boy."

Feeling like it was rude to watch them any longer, Dean looked over at Deja, expecting a smile of her own to be on her face. He was a little thrown off to see a bittersweet, faint smile gracing an expression that had more longing then happiness in it, and his own smile faltered. Glancing back at Sam and Sarah, it wasn't that hard to figure out what the longing was for.

Maybe this whole distance thing isn't just hard for me. But if it's hurting her, too, then why's she doing it?

Deciding not to let her longing sink into anything darker, Dean reached out and put an arm around her, pulling her to his side and resting his head against hers. She molded to him instinctively and without any resistance, breathing him in as much as he did her, and feeling the tension slowly seep out of her at his embrace.

Much better.