Hiraeth

It had taken nearly a week, but the three of them finally reached Sioux City. Bobby’s house was a fifteen minute drive outside of city limits and on the way there, Coralee couldn’t help but feel a little anxious. Truth be told, she hadn’t even told Bobby she was coming. He had no idea that she’d been headed his way when she’d taken the wraith case. The last time she’d seen him had been nearly six months ago, when she’d headed off on her own and split from the Winchester brothers.

During the past year or so, she’d come to the conclusion that the three of them knew more than they were letting on about her sister’s disappearance. She knew now that Vivian had made a deal with the devil and that he’d come knocking for his payment – that she’d lost her soul in exchange for her earthly success in the medical field. She knew there was nothing that she could have done; that anyone could have done. Vivian’s fate had been fixed the moment she’d sealed the deal by kissing whatever demon it was that had her contract.

Throughout the years since then, she’d heard whispers in the small community of hunters that there had been more than a few similar cases, and that other hunters had joined the fight because of the exact same thing that had happened to her sister. One particular rumor she’d heard was that Bobby Singer might have a lead on the demon ordering all the contracts.

She’d tried asking all three of them about it, but they’d stayed mute on the subject, Dean would always bounce off to another subject, or tell her that Bobby wouldn’t lie to her and that she should trust him. Sam would just stay quiet, and Bobby usually ignored her questions or answered them indirectly.

Coralee was pulled out of her thoughts as Dean turned the Impala off of the main road onto a dirt one, and she looked up as they pulled through a gate that advertised Singer’s Salvage Yard. There were old cars and a few junk piles scattered around the yard, patchy grass poking out from underneath the heaps. The house was a little more than distressed, with peeling blue paint and a roof that looked older than Bobby himself.

Dean parked the car and just as he turned the ignition off, the front door opened and Coralee looked up to see Bobby himself walking down the stairs. He looked surprised to see them as he approached the car.

“I thought you boys were taking her—” he started before Dean cut him off with a look.

“Took care of that one, Bobby. We got here early.” Dean explained to him before looking quickly back at Cora. “She’s a badass in the field. You should tag along sometime.”

“Someone’s gotta answer the phones for you idjits,” Bobby retorted before grinning at Coralee. “Where’s my hug, kid?”

She tried not to, but Cora couldn’t help but crack a smile as she walked over to the older man, letting him give her a hug. She had to admit, it felt nice being back around him. Though she had a suspicion that he knew more than he was telling her, she trusted Bobby with her life. He’d been there for her through a lot of shit, and he’d gotten her out of more than one mess.

A few moments later, a truck pulled up behind the Impala and Cora watched as a black man got out of the driver’s side, walking over to them. Bobby looked relieved to see him, and she noticed that the boys didn’t look surprised to see him either.

“Cora, this is Rufus,” Bobby introduced the two of them. “An old friend of mine from back in the day. We were actually just heading out on a hunt.”

“Oh?” She asked, eyebrow cocked. “Doesn’t someone have to answer the phones?”

Silence settled over the three of them, and Cora sighed. Now she knew something was going on. They knew it too, and Sam was the first to speak to her.

“We were trying to stall so he wouldn’t be here when we got to town, Cora,” he admitted. Cora crossed her arms over her chest, looking at Bobby. He looked like he wanted to say something, but before he could, Dean cleared his throat.

“Now’s not the time, Sam.”

“The time for what?” Cora interjected. “How do you even know what I wanted to come out here for?”

None of them answered, but none of them needed to. It was painfully clear to all three of them that she wasn’t going to let her sister’s death go. In a way, it reminded Dean of his and Sam’s own search for answers. He couldn’t blame the girl for wanting to find the demon who’d killed her sister. But he also knew that she was biting into something that was way too much for her to swallow, and that scared him. Her relentless search for the truth had definitely caused waves.

“Well, dammit, let’s go inside. Grab a beer, and we’ll talk,” Bobby grumbled under his breath before heading back to the house. Cora sighed, looking at both Sam and Dean before following the older man through the front door of the house.

He led her through the kitchen and to his back office, with its various phones hooked to the wall and piles of paperwork covering nearly every available surface. He plopped down into a chair behind his desk, motioning for her to sit on the opposite side before cracking his beer open.

“Why were you trying to avoid me, Bobby?”

His eyes shifted away from hers for a moment before he shook his head, turning around and shuffling through some folders before pulling one out from the pile. As he turned to face her, his eyes were dead serious.

“Before I tell you any of this, I need you to promise me one thing, kid.” He told her. When she opened her mouth to interject, he held his hand up. “Promise me you’re not gonna fly out of here like a bat out of hell. You’ve got family, Cora. Those boys—”

“Don’t need to take care of me,” she finished his sentence for him, her eyes not moving away from his. “I’m not a kid anymore, Bobby. I’ve been on my own for six months, and I’m fine. I can handle this, whatever it is. You promised me if you ever found anything you wouldn’t—”

“I know,” he cut her off, sighing as he leaned back in his chair. For a few moments, the only sound in the room was the ticking of a stuck clock on the wall. After what seemed like forever, he finally continued speaking.

“I think I found your sister.”

Time froze, and Cora’s breath hitched in her throat. Everything seemed to stop, but her mind was going a million miles a minute. Sam and Dean had explained what had happened to Vivian; that she was dead – dead – and not coming back. She’d accepted that, and she’d moved on. That was why she hunted now. It was the only way she could think of to avenge her sister’s death.

“What?”

“Well, not really your sister. I mean…shit, Cora,” he growled. “It’s complicated, okay?”

Cora was speechless. This was not the conversation she’d thought she’d be having with Bobby Singer when she’d gotten to Sioux Falls a little over an hour ago. He handed her the stack of papers he’d been holding in his hand, and she flipped through them slowly. The top paper was a photograph of a woman who looked to be in her early thirties. She could almost pass for her sister, she realized, but the features were off.

“Who is this?”

“A woman named Sharron Meeks,” Bobby answered her. “Or at least, she was.”

“What do you mean, was?” Cora asked him. He sighed, reaching for his beer and taking a long swig before he looked up at her.

“I mean, she was Sharron Meeks. She’s not anymore. She’s been possessed by a demon for a couple of months now. And I think…”

“That the demon is Vivian?” Coralee snapped at him, not letting him finish his thoughts. She stood up, her beer tipping over on the ground. Neither one of them cared as she glared at Bobby. “My sister is not a demon, Bobby. You’re out of your damn mind.”

“Look through the rest before you snap my damn head off, will ya?” He told her as he leaned back. Cora frowned, looking down at the photograph. She didn’t want to look through the rest of the paperwork that Bobby had drawn together. If she was being honest, going through it scared her. If there was one thing she’d learned since meeting Bobby, it was that he was rarely wrong.

She slowly sank down into the couch positioned against the wall and swallowed hard. She began slowly sifting through the paperwork. Bobby had a lot of information down and it was all information. He had a paper trail showing that this woman – Shannon Meeks – was using her sister’s medical degree and work references to work as a surgeon in a hospital in Las Vegas. It was all there in black and white. That left Cora with a whole new set of questions that she didn’t know how to answer.