Hiraeth

They pulled up to the shores of Lake Lanier around one o'clock the next afternoon. The boys had taken shifts driving, six on and six off, while Coralee had slept in the backseat of the Impala. The fight with the wraith had taken its toll on her, and she was still exhausted as the car came to a stop.

"Wake up, sunshine. We got a case to solve," Dean murmured to her from the driver's seat. Coralee grumbled in response, sitting up and pulling her hair into an unkempt ponytail of sorts before looking between the two brothers. Sam was reading through their father's tattered old journal while Dean was busy looking through contacts on his phone.

"A case, huh? Well, what are we sitting in here for?"

She didn't wait for the two Winchesters as she exited the vehicle and looked out over the lake. A few people were on fishing boats and canoes while children played in the sand by the shore. A few dogs were playing fetch with their owners on the east bank, backed by a forest thick with tall oaks, birches, and pines. The earth here smelled the similar to the dirt in the backyard of her grandmother's house, and it brought a smile to her face. She remembered playing back there with Vivian, before her older sister had gotten too old for such frivolous things and started spending time with the local boys instead.

Two car doors shut behind her and Coralee was pulled out of her thoughts just in time to hear Dean going over the game plan. He had already lined up a meeting with the town sheriff, while Sam was going to the local coroner's office to examine the one body that had been recovered. She supposed she would tag along with Sam. She'd never been great at talking to other people - that had been Vivian's talent.

"Think you could tag along with Sam? An extra set of eyes wouldn't hurt."

Coralee nodded at Dean's suggestion and bit down on her bottom lip as the two boys fished around in the trunk, emerging with two suits. She stifled a giggle as they walked towards the outhouse nearest them, Dean muttering under his breath about monkey suits and the job. She looked down at her own rumpled outfit and frowned, going back to the car for her own suitcase. She pulled out a fresh set of more professional looking clothes just in time to watch Sam emerge from the outhouse.

She headed over and had to force herself not to gag from the overwhelming smell coming from the toilet as she changed quickly, not bothering to take her shoes off as she changed into her skirt from pajama bottoms. She finished changing in record time and made her way back to the car. Dean was already blasting AC/DC, Sam grimacing as his brother did so when she crawled into the backseat.

The drive into town took a little bit longer than she expected due to some road work on the highway, but by shortly after three, Dean had dropped his brother and Coralee off at the coroner's office and they were heading inside. After showing their credentials, they were led down a well-lit, bright hallway towards the morgue, where the county's coroner was waiting for them.

When they walked through the door to the morgue, a man in his late 60s was smiling up at them. He looked far too cheerful for his line of work, and she could tell Sam was just as uncomfortable with the man as she was.

"You must be Agents Lee and Smith," he greeted them. "I'm Dave Striche, the county coroner. Your boss called and said you needed to take a look at the body from Lake Lanier?"

Bless Bobby, Coralee thought to herself. She wasn't sure what they'd do if it wasn't for him.

"Ah, yeah. It may be related to a case we're working in Michigan," Sam lied smoothly. Coralee wondered how many times the man had lied in his lifetime to get it down to such perfection, but she had a sneaking suspicion she didn't actually want to know.

"Well, I'm not sure I can tell you anything just yet. It looks like a natural death - drowning, water in the lungs and all. Odd, though. This kid was a swimming champ."

Sam's head perked up, and he arched his eyebrow. "That didn't strike anyone as suspicious?"

"Well, accidents do happen." Dave shrugged. "He was pretty far out on the lake, too, and there was a storm that night. General consensus is that he got caught up in it and that's what caused the drowning."

"Makes sense." Coralee spoke for the first time, looking over to Sam as he flipped through his log of notes. He jotted something down before looking back up at Dave.

"You wouldn't mind if we looked at the body for ourselves, would you? Boss is kind of paranoid, you know."

Dave just shrugged again, reaching for a few slick aprons from the wall behind him. "Help yourselves. I'm going out for lunch."

They waited until he'd left before looking at one another. Both of them were thinking the same thing - this boy's death was anything but natural. A champion swimmer didn't just wander out into the middle of a massive lake, especially with a storm on the way.

Coralee watched as Sam carefully checked the body for any signs of something other than a vengeful spirit, but found nothing. He sighed, looking up at her before shaking his head.

"Everything looks normal, but I still think it's a spirit. What about you?"

Coralee nodded. "I think you're right. No way that kid went out there on the water when a storm was heading in if he was a champ. I think we should look further into this."

"Maybe we could hit the library? Dean can pick us up there and we can get a bite to eat before heading back out to the lake."

"Sounds good to me." She agreed with him.

Spending her afternoon at the library wasn't her idea of a fun time, but she knew that it was what needed to be done. Research was just part of the job, and if she was ever going to find out what had actually happened to her sister, she'd do this all night, every night.

Sam rolled the gurney back into its small case, shutting the refrigerated door shut on it before they left the room. The brunette followed Sam down the street and then walked up the stone steps to the Hall County Library.

Coralee sighed as they walked inside. With only a little over an hour before closing, they had a lot of ground to cover if they were going to figure out what was going on in this little town. Sam found the media center and she followed him, pulling out a records book. She had to start somewhere, and going back through the town's history might not be a bad thing.

Three minutes before closing, an impatient librarian reminded them that doors would be closing soon. It was just in the nick of time that Sam announced that he was pretty sure he'd found something. He convinced the librarian to photocopy a few articles for him before they left. Coralee wanted to know what it was that he'd found, but she supposed he'd tell her when Dean picked them up and they grabbed a bite to eat.

While they were waiting, Coralee looked through photos on her sister's old Facebook account. She couldn't believe it had been so long since Vivian had last logged in to share some mundane update about her life. When she'd been alive, Coralee had hated it. She'd felt that it was Vivian's way of showboating and one-upping her sister, but now the profile was a source of comfort for her. Vivian was all smiles in the photos, taken at various places across the southern states and some more exotic locations that she'd visited when she'd worked with Doctors Without Borders.

"That's your sister?"

Coralee was startled by Sam's voice, and she bit down on her bottom lip as she nodded, turning her phone to the side so that the younger Winchester brother could see Vivian. With beautiful blonde hair and bright green eyes, she'd been the total opposite of Coralee, who'd taken after their father with her mouse-brown hair and dark eyes.

"Vivian, yeah. I think you would have liked her. She was the studious type, kind of like you."

Sam chuckled, but they didn't have a chance to further their conversation as Dean pulled up in the Impala. Sam opened up the back door for Coralee before going over to the passenger side of the front, and they both piled in before Dean took off in the direction of the closest burger joint. As they drove, Coralee couldn't help but find herself more and more curious about whatever it was that Sam had found at the library.