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1. The one where Karen talks about their grandfather, who was an electrician, an Army veteran--he'd fought in Italy during the war and always after that had a fondness for Italian food but nothing in Kansas ever measured up to his memories-- about how he had a stroke early, and then another one, when she was in college. When she tells them about burying Dad on a grey March day in 1985, she manages to keep her voice steady. Sam's forehead crinkles with sympathy and Dean looks uncomfortable; neither of them really has anything to add.
2. The one where Sam talks about Jessica. Dean's in the garage, tinkering with Karen's old Honda, while Karen makes a double-sized batch of oatmeal bread. These boys are burning through her supplies, and they've only been here for three days. It's pouring outside and cold indoors, just the kind of day Karen loves to bake.
Karen flips the ball of dough over and drives the heel of her palm into it, just as Sam says, "And then I opened my eyes and she was on the ceiling. Stuck there, bleeding--"
She looks up, dough sticky between her fingers and flour all over her shirt. "Wait--what did you say?"
"Oh," says Sam. He looks nervous, plucks at the hem of his sweatshirt. "Um. Listen, let me get Dean. There's some stuff we need to explain to you."
3. The one where Karen throws them out for being a couple of bullshitting lying jackasses.
4. The one where Karen rants at herself for an hour in the car, and then drives to the motel where they said they were staying.
"Explain to me how this story is not entirely bullshit," she demands as soon as Dean opens the door. "And if you lie to me again, so help me!"
"I don't think we can explain it, really, Aunt Karen--"
"--Karen," she interrupts. "I'm too old to be an aunt now. Just call me Karen."
"--but we might be able to prove it," says Sam, who is hunched over his laptop in a way that makes Karen fear for his spine. Oh, to be twenty-four again.
"Prove it how?" She steps inside, still eying Dean skeptically; he spreads his hands wide and backs toward the bed, but he's got a knowing smile on his face.
"Something simple, Sammy," says Dean. "Something easy."
"Yeah, because we're so good at easy." Sam rolls his eyes but obediently taps at the computer. "Gimme a second here," he says to the keyboard, and after an uneasy moment Karen sinks down onto the single chair, its dull green vinyl stained and scratched. The motel is a dump; but she's not sure either of Mary's boys have even noticed. There's crumbs and paint chips and dust everywhere, and probably roaches: there's some white powder sprinkled along the walls. Maybe it's roach poison, but she doubts it.
About four minutes pass, during which Dean opens a package of tortilla chips and offers some to Karen. Finally Sam looks up again. "Jo says she got a report about a dust devil up in Meriden. We could check it out?"
Dean purses his lips. "Might do; we got a net?"
"Last time we used it was in Forks. Should still be in the trunk. I think I lost my goggles, though."
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. You see what I have to put up with?" he asks Karen rhetorically. "Grown up, went to college, still can't stop losing all his toys."
In three minutes they're out the door and in the car, and neither of them will tell her exactly what's going on. Afterwards, she doesn't really have the energy for talking, anyway: sprinting for the car because a dust devil has broken through the silver-knotted net is likely to do that.
5. The one where they turn her down.
"We don't have any proof."
"Sure you do; I saw it!" She can't believe they're just going to go away.
Sam looks away, at the few last scraps of sunset over the garage roof. "No judge on the planet is going to let us off because we say that the only way to save lives is to torch the bodies of the dead."
"Not to mention the credit-card fraud," says Dean. "And the bank job, and San Francisco... I'm sorry, ma'am--" (he still can't call her Karen, and she won't accept "Aunt", so they've compromised) "--but it's not going to work. Isn't a lawyer in the country who can help us. And we can't get you in trouble, getting you involved."
"Damn it." Karen glares at them both: they look just as stubborn as she should have expected. She hates the thought of them just going back out there, living on bad junk food and using stolen money--wait. "Okay, wait, just do one thing for me, okay?"
"What?" Dean looks suspicious.
"Give me a name and an address where you can be reached. Not just a number. I'll ... send you some cookies, some times."
Dean perks up immediately. "Cookies?" Sam raises an eyebrow, but scribbles down a name and a street address in Pennsylvania.
It'll take her a few weeks to get it set up, but she's got all that cash in the trust account, and if she can't use it to defend them one way, well, she'll put it to use in another. Dean might kick, but she figures Sam'll talk him into it. It's their money, after all.