'The world was changing...' Galadriel from Lord of the Rings was wrong. The world wasn't changing; the world had already changed. Old assumptions had proved wrong causing the world as she knew it to tilt on its axis. In her last publication, Professor Delmonico declared that she studied the effects of folklore on society and people, not whether the folklore itself was true. She had never been a paranormal investigator or ghost hunter.

Honestly, she had once thought it would be kind of cool, if any of it was real.

Now, though... Now she had a teddy bear named Scat sitting on a bookshelf. That none of her colleagues or students could see. She'd tried leaving it on her desk where Dean Winchester had put it, but because no one else could see Scat her fellow professors would try to set their coffee mugs down in the 'empty space.' Delmonico quickly became tired of cleaning up spills and picking up fallen papers.

People joked saying one of her ghost stories must have followed her home to haunt her office. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Now, Scat sat proudly (albeit invisibly) out of the way on her shelf propping up a photocopy of a business card: her two most concrete pieces of proof of the world outside the realm of natural. She had entered the world of the Supernatural.

In the last few months, while classes and grades marched steadily on, Leah Delmonico had tried to wrap her head around this new reality. In the downtime of office hours, she had started to go over a decade's worth of ghost stories and legends with a new eye. Playing 'Fact or Crap' with herself. There were so many different stories with some many different kinds of ghosts and monster.

Fact or Crap: the Grey Man Ghost, who protected homes from hurricane damage in South Carolina. So says, Jim and Clara Moore on Pawleys Island during Hugo. She knew ghosts were real now, the Winchesters said so. But did they have the ability or the inclination to keep a residence standing through the eye of a category 5 hurricane that wiped out everything else for blocks around? The home was still standing, that was a fact. Coincidence or supernatural intervention?

Fact or Crap: the Enfield Horror, a five foot monster in Illinois with three legs, T-Rex arms and glowing red eyes known for mutilating animals and attacking children like Gary Garret (who has the scars to prove it.) Something tore up those animals and hurt young Mr. Garret, that was a fact. Rabid zoo escapee, abusive home life or supernatural creature?

Fact or Crap: Journalist Brian Bethel being accosted by two completely black-eyed ten year olds who wanted a ride. Mr. Bethel ran away without another word to them. According to popular non-supernatural theorists (who actually accept the accounting) the children were most likely terrified with overblown pupils and shame on you Mr. Bethel from abandoning children in need. According to the Carver Edlund books, this gentlemen narrowly escaped from a pair of demons, and good on you Mr. Bethel for surviving.

The world had turned on its axis. Delmonico was coping as best she could. Maybe, the next time the Winchesters rolled through her neck of the woods, they would give her a couple hours to talk and help settle her mind about some things. The Baker's Square ten blocks from campus sold over two dozen kinds of pie. Surely she could bribe Dean into stopping.

The phone on her desk rang. Speak of the devil and he will appear. She recognized the number.

Sam Winchester's voice greeted her and asked, "Do you have access to Dr. Daniel Jackson's ancient Phoenician online? We're working a case in a museum, and something just ate their linguist. I'm trying to translate this tablet he was working on before he died, but I'm not having much luck. There's nothing on the internet useful for translating ancient dead languages and all the books I have are a twenty hour drive back to Kansas. This guy works as a civilian consultant for the United States Air Force in Cheyenne Mountain Complex. Whatever it is he does for them, they put some seriously kick-ass firewalls around his programs. I'm not making a dent."

"Why would I have access? I'm not a linguist," Delmonico protested.

"Dr. Jackson sent links to the database to most of the universities around the world, especially ones with a strong linguistics or anthropology department," Sam explained. "Your university included."

"I'll ask," she promised. "Can I call you back?"

"Sure, but...ah. Please hurry. We don't want anyone else to get eaten." With that, Sam hung up the phone.

Delmonico stared at her phone. "No pressure or anything." Her voice shook and came out edging toward hysterical. Dammit, she wasn't a hero! She was a scholastic researcher. Lives should not depend on her! The most dangerous thing that happened around her was the occasional barfight and the belligerent drunk who refused to take a hint. It took a full minute of deep breaths before she was calm enough to start looking for whoever was head of the Language Department.

Professor Shapiro, Linguistics, was very helpful and didn't even ask why a colleague suddenly, urgently wanted access to an online database for ancient and dead languages. Within the hour, Delmonico called Sam Winchester back with her username and a password.

"Thanks, Leah. You're a life saver." Sam said, keyboard clicking as he typed them in.

Am I? Really? Delmonico gave a shaky laugh. "The scary thing is, you mean that literally."

Sam went silent on the other end of the line, even his keyboard clicking paused. "You doing alright? With all of this? I know its a lot to take in and we left pretty fast."

"I just... I keep wondering how many ghost stories and legends have I written off as mere stories when real people were dying because no one took them seriously?" she confessed. "What if, you know, someone like you could have shown up and saved who knows how many lives? And now, here I am blubbering on, keeping you away from an actual hunt."

"Hey, hey, hey. Calm down, okay?" She couldn't see it over the phone, of course, but it sounded like Sam had just turned on his infamous 'dewy, soulful eyes'. "You didn't know, you couldn't have known. And now that you do, you're helping. No one expects you to strap on a gun and start zombie hunting, okay? Believe me, not everyone is meant to be a Hunter. Honestly, Dean tries to talk people out of it whenever he can. But you are helping."

Tears brimmed in her eyes.

"If you want to do more, how about you go through your notes and find us jobs that need someone to look into?" Sam suggested. "Some ghosts only show up once a year or once a decade, they can be hard to track. Why don't you e-mail us the background on a job, say once a month? Maybe every other week. Don't overdo it, okay? You have your life to live, too. But send us stuff you're worried about. We'll look into it."

So elegant, so simple. "I can do that."