A/N: For those still patiently waiting on a second chapter of Perchance to Dream, I promise I haven't given up on that story. I hope to have more by the end of the month. This was an idea I had long before some the ones I've posted. It is set just after "Scarecrow" for SPN and sometime after "Gum Drops" for CSI. The timeline between the two shows might not be exact, but it is pretty close. Thanks to Muffy for her input on this and no thanks for getting that song stuck in my head and getting it stuck in Dean's. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Valerie was excited about their new house and what it represented. She and her husband Doug were finally ready to start a family. The "new" house, a typical Ranch style, had four bedrooms, a den, a family room, a huge back yard with a swimming pool, and the biggest kitchen she'd ever seen. It had plenty of room for a family.

Though she loved her husband dearly and couldn't wait to start having kids, she was also glad for the days she got to spend alone in the house. Since being mugged on her way home from work, Doug never let her out of his sight. He was more than ready to leave New York and all of its stresses behind. When the chance for a transfer to the Las Vegas office presented itself, he'd practically begged her to say yes. Originally, they were both supposed to move to the new house together. In order to ensure he'd have a job when he got there, he had to stay to help train his replacement. Someone had to be there to sign all the papers and she had to start at the new office immediately.

Valerie already unpacked the necessities in the kitchen and all of the computer equipment. The room they'd chosen for the home office was on the far end of the house and had a few quirks that she chalked up to the house being almost fifty years old. There were odd noises, smells, and changes in temperature. One whole corner of the room was a good 10 degrees cooler than the rest, which was strange as that side of the house was always in the sun. She planned to put their computers in that area to protect them from the wicked Vegas summers she read about while researching the move. The smells were the strangest of the quirks. Sometimes she thought she smelled something burning, other times it was more acrid, like sulfur. One time she was certain she smelled baby powder near the closet.

Doug was due to arrive the next day. She'd worked tirelessly getting the place ready for him and planned to make the last night alone as relaxing as possible; a nice long bubble bath, a cup of tea, a little time online, and the last few chapters of a good book. While she ran her bath, she gathered a few candles and her aromatherapy beads. Doug hated the smell of the chamomile and lavender, but they always worked perfectly to calm her nerves. She'd just stepped into the tub and paused when she thought she heard noises, almost like voices coming from the direction of the office. When the noise didn't repeat, she figured she was just hearing things. The calming scents of the bath beads chased the thought of them from her mind. The bath made her sleepy, so she decided to skip the internet surfing and the tea. She got dressed for bed, picked up her book, and got only three pages read before falling asleep with the lights on.

Less than an hour later she was woken from a sound sleep by a loud voice, a woman screaming in the office. She jumped out of bed, grabbed the baseball bat she kept with her since the mugging, and ran to the office. She flipped the light on, bat at the ready, expecting to confront prowlers. What she found was an empty room. Frustrated and a little groggy, she switched the light back off and turned to head back to bed. Someone grabbed her from behind and slammed her against the far wall, near the cold corner. She finally started to truly panic when she could feel hands holding her against the wall, but could see no one in the room with her. The smell of burning returned and she felt herself being lifted off the floor, sliding up towards the ceiling. Once she reached the ceiling, she felt a sharp pain across her abdomen, felt the warm blood spread, saw it drip to the floor. She heard faint laughter, felt heat spread across her body, like she was burning alive, and knowing it was the end, let darkness take her.

Nick learned early in his career to always make note of his first impressions of a crime scene. The habit had served him well, even closed a few cases. It was so easy to get bogged down in the sheer volume of evidence, sometimes the little details got lost. In this case, everything appeared normal. No signs of a break-in or struggle, nothing to even hint at the death a few rooms away. Each room had boxes neatly stacked against the walls, ready to be unpacked. The house still smelled of fresh paint and new carpet. The closer he got to the room, he swore he could smell something burning.

"Hey, Greg," he said to the young CSI following closely behind him, "Do you smell that?"

"You mean that new carpet smell and the paint?"

"No, it smells like something was burning. No one said anything about a fire."

"I don't smell...oh, wait yeah. It's faint, but you're right. I thought they said the victim was stabbed."

Nick was relieved when it wasn't just him. He still felt unsure of so many things since being buried alive. He hoped he wasn't obvious about it, but he tried never to be alone at a crime scene, never went more than a few feet from whichever night shift crew he worked with. His co-workers would understand the need, would be supportive. He didn't want to burden them with it, to seem so weak again. Everyone at the lab tried to help him get past the ordeal. Only a couple of them, his closest friends, understood that he'd rather not be treated with kid gloves. They treated him no differently, even joked with him about it. Surprisingly, it was Greg he felt most comfortable working with. His constant chatter about anything and everything was so normal, while letting Nick know he wasn't alone, in no danger. He brought his attention back to his job, to the evidence.

"Yeah, that's what first officer on the scene said. He said the husband found her and called it in. I think Brass is questioning him now."

"Maybe the placed burned before and the new paint couldn't quite cover the smell."

"Hmm. That's not a bad theory. We can worry about that after we've examined the scene."

They turned the corner into the room, what looked to be a home office. Things looked as normal as the rest of the house. The right wall was lined with boxes, all neatly labeled "home office/guest room". The wall directly opposite had a couple of book shelves and a computer desk in the corner, the computer already set up and running. The back wall was clear, probably where they planned to put the bed for the guest room. Everything was organized and where it should be. Except for the body of a woman dressed in night clothes lying face down in the middle of the room. Again, no signs of a struggle. No boxes knocked over, nothing broken. He was willing to bet nothing was stolen either. The weird thing was there was also no blood; no trail, no spatter. The complete lack of evidence to speak to the crime was unnerving at best. It looked like a body was dropped in the middle of the floor with no trace of how it was transported.

Judging from the tone in his voice, Greg also noticed the discrepancy and was just as unnerved. "This is weird. How did anyone get a body in the room without leaving a trail?"

"There must be a trail, one we can't see yet. Maybe the killer did an excellent job of covering his tracks. Maybe the husband is lying. We won't know for sure until we check the house, the whole house, from top to bottom. Any word on David's ETA?"

"He's supposed to be here any time now. He'd just finished up his last autopsy when the call came in. Guess that means we process the rest of the room until he gets here?"

"Yeah, you look for any prints or fibers. I'll take photos. We'll move to the bedroom next." As Nick circled the room, getting pictures of everything, he noticed a significant temperature change in the corner where the computer was set up. The burning smell that was faint as they entered the room was much more intense near the computer. After discounting the computer as the source of the smell, he took several pictures of the corner, a reminder to see if the previous owners repaired after a fire. He'd just finished photographing the room when David, the assistant coroner, arrived to determine time and cause of death.

"Hey, Dave. What took you so long?"

"Traffic. You know how it is."

Nick, intrigued to finally find out cause of death watched as David turned the body over. The woman, whose face was completely hidden before, looked terrified, both eyes and mouth opened wide as if in mid-scream. The only visible wound was a long slice across her stomach, though it didn't look fatal. The small amount of blood underneath the body suggested the same. Signs still pointed to death occurring elsewhere, the current location being the dump site. He watched as David took the liver temp to determine approximate time of death. The coroner turned to him, a confused look crossing his face.

"What's wrong?"

"The reading. It doesn't make any sense. I won't be able to give you TOD or the cause until I do the autopsy."

"What? David, what's wrong with the reading?"

"It's too high. According to this she would've either died mere minutes ago or burned to death. The body shows no signs of a fire and they found the body at least an hour ago, so it can't be right."

He and Greg looked at each other, obviously thinking the same thing. That would explain the smell when we first got here, but how?

Dean was thrilled to leave Burkitsville and its bad memories behind. The last 6 months or so had taken its toll on the hunter and he was ready for a break. Not that he'd tell Sam. Sam had issues of his own. Sam would also want to talk about it, get it out into the open and try to make things better. He wasn't ready for caring and sharing. He'd deal with it on his own. Eventually.

He couldn't figure out why one particular issue wouldn't let go. Over the last several weeks he'd been shot, ignored, and left behind by his family. He still couldn't believe their father ignored his plea for help when they went home. Would never forget the pain of Sam calling him pathetic, shooting him with rock salt, and trying to shoot him with the pistol. But the one thing that bothered him most happened back in Lawrence. When their mother appeared, she smiled and said his name. Then she walked past him and apologized to Sam. Only to Sam. Dean would never admit out loud it hurt, but it did. Like his entire family didn't want or need him. When Sam chose to chase after John rather than stay, it was like the final proof he was truly alone. It was the main reason he wasn't able to come up with a plan to free himself. In his heart he'd given up. If his family didn't care, then neither did he. If Sam hadn't shown up when he did, Dean and Emily would've been the last victims of the Vanir.

For now, he'd be happy with what he had and pretend things were fine. He knew the day would come when they found what killed their mom and Jessica. Then it'd only be a matter of time before Sam left again. Left for a normal life with law school, wife and kids, and all that goes with it. He'd be on his own again.

They agreed to head to California. They also agreed that if they came across a case on the way they'd stop. Dean wanted to find John, but he wasn't willing to risk lives in order to find him. He knew John could take care of himself and would call if he needed their help. About an hour outside Indiana, they stopped for lunch at a little diner. Sam was searching the usual sites for a case while he read the local paper. When he bored of that, he looked over their road atlas to find the quickest route to Sacramento. It looked like I-80 would be their home all the way to California. He noticed something on the map that made him chuckle.

"Hey, Sam. Any idea how many Salems there are in the US? Looks like we'll pass one in Utah."

Sam, an exasperated expression on his face, looked up from his computer and said, "Depends. You talking actual towns or census-designated places?"

Forgetting what Sam was like in research mode, Dean made the mistake of encouraging his little brother to elaborate by asking, "What are you talking about?"

"A census-designated place. There are areas not populated enough to be considered a town, but still need to be counted for the census. So they designate these areas with names. Including the census-designated places, there are over 30. If you only count incorporated cities or towns, there are fourteen Salems in the US."

"Ask a simple question, get a geeky answer. Thanks for the lecture there Professor." Though he wondered sometimes where his brother kept so much useless information, it felt good to joke around a little, like before things became so awkward. He knew the only reason Sam agreed to the stipulation that they stop if they found a hunt was guilt. Sam still wouldn't look him in the eye after walking out almost cost Dean his life.

"Funny you should mention Salem. You sure you're not psychic too?"

"Ha ha. Hilarious. Did you find a case in Salem, Utah?"

"Possibly. But it could just as easily be nothing. Several kids claim to have seen something in the cemetery near their home; a guy carrying something large enough to be a body. Several pets have disappeared from the neighborhood and yesterday a kid supposedly went into the cemetery on a dare and never came back."

"That's not much."

"No, but we've checked out less. And it's only a short detour down I-15."

"I-15? We could mix a little pleasure with our business, Sammy. Head down 15 to Vegas for a night or two, then take the scenic route to Sacramento."

"What is it with you and Vegas?"

"Maybe the fast women, cheap food, and a chance to make a quick buck. I could win us enough to lay off the stolen credit cards for a while. They have a prime rib buffet for only $5.99. Prime rib! What's not to love? Come on. You know you're dying to go!" The look in his brother's eyes told him he'd probably get his way, but he decided not to push it.

"Not really. Why don't we see how the case in Salem goes and decide after that?"

"I wonder sometimes how we're related. Ok. Salem, Utah it is. Then it's Viva Las Vegas!"