Happy Birthday Dean and Jess! You deserved better!

I'm leaving this as a one-shot for now with the hope of returning to finish it all, but maintaining the right to update it sporadically in the meantime. As I haven't finished All in the Family yet and I'm in the middle of school, my hopes aren't high for a new project.

I wish this site allowed strikethroughs, but instead you guys will have to pretend the italicized parts are the 'deleted' bits of the book. You'll recognize both actual cannon dialogue in the deleted parts as well as my own added content, plus multiplies of the same scene which would have been rewrites/ excerpts. Let me know if it's intelligible or if I need to rework it a bit for those who don't have the dialogue memorized and know the difference.

Enjoy!

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Book 1, Supernatural- Summary: Along a lonely California highway, a mysterious Woman in White lures men to their deaths...a terrifying phenomenon that may be Sam and Dean's first clue to their father's whereabouts.

Chapter Contents:

Chapter 1- The Little Lamb

Chapter 2- What Could Have Been Pg 23

Chapter 3- Dean and Sam Pg 41

Chapter 4- The Sacrifices Made Pg 62

Chapter 5- Victim Number... Pg 87

Chapter 6- Back to Business Pg 101

Chapter 7- Constance Welch Pg 125

Chapter 8- Welching Pg 140

Chapter 9- A Woman in White Picture Perfect Pg 159

Chapter 10- Interrogation 35-111 Pg 185

Chapter 11- The Other Side

Chapter (12)11- Home Pg 199

Chapter (13) 12- Supernatural Pg 230

Chapter 1 The Little Lamb

A famous author will one day say, "the creator is only the first interpreter."* Oh don't bother looking them up, they won't have been born yet. All stories can be read by every person and a new thought will still always be had. This does not change facts, but instead gives life the new meaning.

Lawrence, Kansas

November 2, 1983

Crickets chirp. A large deciduous tree with no leaves stands outside one of several suburban homes. Two story, white wood paneled, and a chimney with a large front porch as homey as it could be. The branches sway in the slight breeze, making odd shadows, almost as if a profile were flitting under a window.

The light flicks on, as Mary carries her eldest son Dean to say good night to his baby brother, which the four year old does with practiced gentleness.

"Goodnight Sam," he pecks a kiss on his head and looks to his mother, who does the very same.

"Goodnight love," her blonde hair spilling around him, making the six-month old giggle.

"Hey Dean," a man with messy black hair in an old USMC shirt and worn jeans calls from the doorway, and Dean calls in delight to see his dad, running eagerly to him after his long day of absence at work, and at once in his arms.

John clasped his son tight while watching his wife still leaned over the crib, joking lightly, "So what do you think? You think Sammy's ready to toss around a football yet?"

Dean shakes his head, laughing.

Mary passes the two on the way out of the room. "You got him?" She asks.

"I got him," John agrees fondly, hugging his boy tight to him. "Sweet dreams Sam," he whispers to the baby as he turns with his arms still full to get the light off.

The baseball-themed mobile above Sam's crib begins to spin on its own while Sam watches. The transportation-themed clock on the wall ticks, ticks, stops. The moon-shaped night light flickers.

Lights flash on a baby monitor sitting on a nightstand next to a photo of the happy couple. Strange high-pitched noises come through the device as well as soft calls from the infant. Mary, asleep in bed, stirs. She turns on the light on the nightstand.

"John?" Mary turns, she's alone. She gets up.

Still rubbing sleep from her eyes as she enters the nursery, her long white nightgown swishing around her making more noise than she did as she spots his silhouette and asks quietly, "John, is he hungry?"

A whispered shush is her only response, and as Sammy's stopped fussing, she turns quietly back away, to see a wall mounted light flickering away just above the stairs.

She goes to tap it for a moment, wondering...but the house isn't cold enough to worry about such a silly thing. It stops quickly enough, but now she's listening for it, she hears other things. Faintly downstairs, and imaging Dean having snuck down there for the TV, she descends softly, turning no lights on herself.

What she finds is an old war movie on, and her husband's snoring face illuminated.

"Oh my god," the horror strikes her too fast to do anything but move. She's racing back up the stairs, sure her thundering heart would alert her husband of the problem, only one thought regardless. Sammy.

She's back on the second floor, the thought turning to ever increasingly loud shouts for her baby, until finally she's over the threshold, and it turns into one long scream.

John's eyes flash open. "Mary?!" He follows her pattern, yelling and all, until he's standing in seemingly the exact same spot, with no cause for alarm.

Sam's still in his crib, cooing happily and looking up in pure delight. John goes to his side, double checking himself, and finds a drop of something next to his son's face right there on the blanket. More begins to fall right onto his fingers.

He looks up.

The source is Mary's bone white face frozen in a mask of horror right there on the ceiling, droplets of blood still leaking from her center.

John falls in horror, the word no wrenched from him as if it would undo the sight. Her nails digging into the plaster, her long hair plastered in a mass and suspended around her with no support. Her dead eyes, frozen in a scream that seems to come from more than just her, as the ceiling itself bursts into flames.

Sammy's screaming, and instinct kicks in as the father hauls himself back to his infant, scooping him up as the hot flames are already descending the nursery walls, the heady smoke seeking more.

Dean is waiting for him in the hall, surely long roused by all the noise and finally braving the night himself. "Daddy?"

John doesn't hesitate to put Sam in his arms, the feeling of being torn in half tearing at his skin could not take him farther. Mary, his boys, Mary...he could do both.

"Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don't look back! Now, Dean, go!"

Dean doesn't hesitate to do as told. John turns back to the mouth of flames, running back for his beloved as his boys vanish behind him.

"Mary! No!" The inferno is all around him now, licking at his heels as he still sees her outline frozen to the ceiling, the flames finished engulfing her even as he watched. The very room echoes his scream back, and John has no choice but to throw his hands up at the tongues lashing in all directions, creeping past the room now with him still inside.

Dean's made it outside with the bundle of his brother still safely in his arms, looking up at the lit window without quite understanding as he promises, "it's okay Sammy."

A dark shape swoops in on the boys, Dean is caught around the middle and hauled away, his brother still tight in his arms as the windows blow out of their house behind them.

...

John sits on the hood of his car, his boys wrapped tightly in his arms, the whole thing still playing back in his head no matter the new noise around him. The wail of the red lime green fire trucks that were still hard at work putting the fire out, the cops keeping everyone back, it was all nonsense to the crystal clear image in his head. He would find what had done this.

Chapter 2 What Could Have Been

Stanford University

October 31st, 2005

A slutty nurse

A blond woman in a

Sam! Get a move on

Jessica Moore was not in the nursing program, but nobody was going to care about that today. There weren't slutty lawyer outfits anyways. Her long curly blond hair hung around her in waves, causing her hat to go askew again.

"Sam, get a move on!"

She rounded the corner of their very tiny shared apartment to go to the living room mirror, easily maneuvering past a bike, a very old red leather chair, stacks of homework assignments and overlarge books, and right past the very same photo of John and Mary, never knowing the burnt edges in the new frame, and reminded with exasperation, "we were supposed to be there fifteen minutes ago. You coming or what?"

"Do I have to?" Sam pleaded. No longer a six month old, obviously, There were many things he'd rather not encourage Jess to do, stop asking questions about his father and brother, leaving the curling iron on, and her persistence over this particular day were just the top few. He rounded the corner still staunchly in his day clothes, a worn jean jacket over an old unbuttoned blue shirt over a well worn Stanford shirt, floppy brown hair stubbornly itching his neck.

"It'll be fun," Jess encouraged, her smile bright and promising. "And where is your costume?" She called out.

Sam scoffed. She knew better, they'd had this discussion all throughout the month. "You know how I feel about Halloween."

Sam's feelings would not be taken into consideration as she went to his side and wrapped her arms tight around his neck. "Please Sam?" She batted her long lashes at him. "It won't be any fun without you, and you deserve this victory! Besides, it might be the last chance you get to relax until you graduate!"

It was her persistent encouragement that had gotten him this far. As far as he was concerned they could turn on music and throw shots right here and it would have the same affect, she did look quite sexy in that costume and he wasn't sure he wanted to share that with anyone else regardless, but Jess wanted everyone to know about his LSAT's, despite the fact he'd only told her for a very particular reason. Even if this milestone had a bitter edge to him, it would make her happy to share it at this party, even on this particular day.

He grabbed his wallet as answer and knew it would be worth it the rest of the night just to see her face light up like that.

As they walk down the street, a zombie tries to kill the mood by leaping from behind a telephone pole and shouting "ha!"

Sam shakes his head and gives a small smile while Jess full blown, grins.

"What do you think, huh?" Their friend Luis stands proudly displayed.

"Whatever." Sam keeps walking, his friends antics weren't funny on the good days, and this wasn't one of them. Jess and Luis follow, Sam taking Jess' hand.

"At least I wore a costume." Luis accuses. "Man, if your sorry ass was trick-or-treating at my house, there would be no popcorn balls for you."

Sam glances over his shoulder at Luis. "You gave out popcorn balls?" Well that was new at least, as they start across the street.

"You could at least have gone as a slutty version of something." Luis persists. "Slutty Dorothy, slutty Alice, slutty nurse—"

Jess looks back at Luis.

"Hey," she only half heartedly protests.

"I—I didn't mean you." Luis grins.

"Man, what can I say? I just never been a big fan of the whole thing." It's not as if Sam can really explain this any other rational way to a normal person.

"Never been a fan—what, what, are you a Communist? Who doesn't like Halloween?" Luis clearly can't conceive the idea.

Sam, no longer smiling, looks away as they pass a Halloween decoration hanging from a fence: a skeleton in a black hooded cloak.

Next thing he knew he was being towed through a very crowded party, costumes of every level of ridiculous as far as the eye could see as well as hysterical decorations, and not in a good way. An ugly old gargoyle with cobwebs was guarding a beer can and having a baseball cap with the words GET NAKED perched on its head even as he watched, between all this and the obnoxious music this was about as far from his idea of a good time as it could get.

It didn't help that he wanted to laugh at the fake looking vampire fangs and inform the guy those were practically extinct, or rolled his eyes every time he saw a gaudy witches hat. If only they knew...

At least Jess was having a blast though, and that did make up for it in some ways. At least she hadn't made him dress up.

"So here's to Sam and his awesome LSAT victory," she toasted over the music to him and their friend Luis, though Sam kept his eyes downcast through it all.

Still not quite used to getting praised for that. "All right, all right, it's not that big a deal." Sam quickly diminished, clicking drinks agreeably but still studying the liquid instead.

"Yeah, he acts all humble, but he scored a one seventy-four." Jess needlessly reminds as Sam tosses his drink back.

Luis, dressed up as some kind of undead if Sam had to guess, only seemed to have scored his alcohol out of obligation as he then asked, "is that good?"

"Scary good," Jess beamed and knocked back her own.

Luis quickly jumps on the train. "So there you go. You are a first-round draft pick. You can go to any law school you want!" As he plops in a seat beside Sam.

Sam's voice still comes out rather jilted as he says, "Actually, I got an interview here. Monday. If it goes okay I think I got a shot at a full ride next year." Tapping his fingers on the table, the achievement still seemed to hold something half-glass empty to him that had nothing to do with the shots.

Jess grabbed his fingers and made sure he was looking her in the eye this time as she stated with such forcefulness it's as if she expected the universe itself to bend to her. "Hey. It's gonna go great."

Sam finally looked back, his hazel eyes flashing oddly in the neon bar. "It better."

"How does it feel to be the golden boy of your family?" Luis' harmless question finally hit the crux, as a flood of memories swept over Sam unbidden. The fights that grew worse with age, Dean always in the middle, and Sam always on the outs. A door slamming, and unopened for three years.

Yet his nose scrunching up in distaste was all he visibly let show as his eyes fell to the sticky table once more and brushed off, "Ah, they don't know."

Luis is understandably shocked, returning, "Oh, no, I would be gloating! Why not?"

"Because we're not exactly the Brady's." Sam dismisses while tossing a napkin at him.

"And I'm not exactly the Huxtables. More shots?" Luis makes his exit without waiting for a response, dropping the napkin back in Sam's lap. Despite both his and Jess' protests, Luis goes off to do as promised.

Jess is quick to make sure Sam is really looking at her though as she repeats, "No, seriously. I'm proud of you. And you're gonna knock 'em dead on Monday, and you're gonna get that full ride. I know it."

Sam gazes at her for a long moment as visions dreams begin dancing in his head, of what the rest of his life will be like starting next week. There would be no turning back, and he couldn't wait. "What would I do without you?"

"Crash and burn." Jess says lovingly. She pulls him in for a kiss that was meant to last felt like a lifetime.

Luis is back to interrupt before things get too personal though, and soon more of their friends arrive. Jessica's best friend Madeline pulls her away to try their hands at the Mystery Bowl, while Brady has joined Luis and Sam. The college bound youths drink their holiday away. It was the best Halloween Sam would ever have.

Chapter 3

He could taste the heat as it flowed all around him, watched and could do nothing as her nails dug into the plaster, her long curly blonde hair plastered in a mass and suspended around her with no support. Her dead eyes, frozen in a scream that seems to come from more than just her, as the ceiling itself bursts into flames and blood falls from the center of her nightgown.

Chapter 3 Dean and Sam

Sam wakes suddenly to a very noisy crash, like glass breaking.

Burglars, he hopes. Though he had salt, and silver handy just in case. He left Jess to sleep as he went to investigate. A window is open, more than shadows move, there was definitely someone present. Just the one he was sure, as old instincts kicked back in he'd thought he'd replaced with pre-law text. A male with a heavy tread, and not being subtle one bit. There were no cold spots or smells The moon his only light source, he spotted the solid outline bathed in blue, and made his move.

Sam lunges forward and grabs the man at the shoulder. The man knocks Sam's arm away and aims a strike at Sam, who ducks. The man grabs Sam's arm, swings him around, and shoves him back. Sam kicks and is blocked, then pushed back into another room. He's elbowed in the face; Sam kicks at his head. The man ducks and swings and Sam blocks. The man knocks Sam down and pins him to the floor, one hand at Sam's neck and the other holding Sam's wrist.

"Whoa, easy, tiger." The voice was unmistakable, even if he hadn't heard it in a few years now.

Sam breathes hard, chagrin, shock, and anger quickly feeding his adrenaline. "Dean?"

His older brother laughs a triumphant noise.

"You scared the crap out of me!" Sam accused, already tugging to be let up.

"That's 'cause you're out of practice."

Pride quickly trumps that assessment, as Sam grabs Dean's hand and yanks, slamming his heel into Dean's back and Dean to the floor.

"Or not." Dean grudgingly agrees, his smile still not dimming. "Get off of me."

Sam quickly does so, and even helps his brother up before demanding just slightly out of breath, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Dean was insulted he had to ask, couldn't he just pop in and see him now and again? There didn't have to be a reason... well there was a reason, but Dean was still going to drink in this moment while he could. "Well, I was looking for a beer."

Sam was still somehow growing, the freak. Last time he'd seen him Dean still had two inches on the kid. Now they were the same height. Seemed he was doing quite well for himself in fact, Dean had hardly believed his eyes when he looked up his brother and found this address.

Dean puts his hands on Sam's shoulders, shakes him a bit in silent congratulations, and let's go.

"Uh, the phone?" Sam harshly kills the mood.

"If I'd'a called, would you have picked up?" Dean's answer already felt obvious.

The light flicks on. They both turn to see Jessica leaning against the doorframe in a cropped Smurfs shirt and the shortest of shorts.

"Sam?"

Quite well for himself indeed.

"Jess, hey," Sam says less than enthusiastically, hardly taking his attention off his brother. "Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica."

Dean, on the other hand, is clearly riveted.

"Wait, your brother Dean?" Jess seems just as intrigued now, her smile friendly and welcoming.

"Oh, I love the Smurfs." Dean, ahem, compliments the precariously cut shirt. "You know, I gotta tell you. You are completely out of my brother's league." He even takes a few steps towards her, as if he's completely forgotten said brother behind him.

Jess' enthusiasm is already starting to waver as she glances at Sam again and takes in his stony face. "Just let me put something on," she tries to excuse herself.

"No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it." Dean grins. "Seriously." He turns back to Sam despite that, his tone still friendly, if dismissive. "Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business, but, uh, nice meeting you."

"No." Sam walks right past Dean and puts his arm around Jess. He'd left the family business so whatever Dean was here for must not be that important. "Whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."

"Okay," Dean says casually enough, but there's still a no longer playfully dismissive way in which he addresses the pair. "Um. Dad hasn't been home in a few days."

Sam is unimpressed, story of his life. "So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later." In fact last Sam heard he'd nearly stopped hunting any-old-thing altogether, functioning alcoholic he was, had been singularly obsessed with finding something that had vanished twenty-two years ago.

Dean hangs his head. Sam was supposed to be the smart one, was he really going to make him spell it out? He looks Sam square in the eyes and enunciates each word this time. "Dad's on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days."

Dean can still read his brother

Sam finally bites

The tangible, life defining words

Sam finally takes a hint

There's a long dormant moment of clarity in his eyes Sam couldn't ignore anymore, no matter how much he longed to. "Jess, excuse us." Outwardly, his expression doesn't change. but some part of him knows there's no going back.

Despite offering this herself moments ago, she's clearly reluctant to do so now as she watches over her shoulder the entire time she heads back to the room.

"Thought you were going to make me give her the talk before you took a hint," Dean finally dropped his flirty act and went right down to business. "Get dressed little brother, I'll explain on the way."

"Dean, you haven't explained anything!" Sam snapped.

It's not that he wasn't happy to see Dean, honestly the amount of times he'd wanted to pick up the phone and call his big brother over the years was probably a pathetic amount in retrospect. The real crux, the one that had his feet already dragging to the hall closet to grab a very old, used duffel bag, was that Dean was here at all. Asking for help. About Dad.

Not to come check in on him after all these years and actually grab a drink, but the same exact shit he'd left so long ago, their freak-story life. Dad had been the boot, but Dean had clearly gone along with the separation all these years on the same orders he always followed. For him to make his own decision about coming to get him, not following one of Dad's orders, even an unspoken one, was possibly the only thing in the world that had Sam stomping into his room without waiting for Dean's response to change clothes and start bundling some up for the road.

He hesitated when he saw Jess sitting cross legged on the bed, a very worried expression in place.

He shouldn't leave her- they were just nightmares.

He could ask her to come, she'd say yes, but he'd have to lie to her the whole time or tell the truth, and the painful knot his innards turned to at either prospect would only complicate things further.

The dancing dreams bum rushed him in earnest, the jewelry shop he'd been price checking last month...his eyes flicked to his wallet she was holding out in her hand for him. He would not use that money, not for anything.

"Jess, I..." Sam trailed off pitifully, already knowing nothing he could say would be good enough. He could not tell her everything, but some part of him wanted to. He shouldn't leave her, but they were just nightmares.

"Go," she nodded, already at peace with something he knew he'd be wrestling with until he got back, probably even after. "You can explain when you get back. I'll miss you though," she bounced off the bed and gave him a promising kiss, before pushing him towards the closet.

His faded blue POPS shirt was covered with a thin jacket and sweats replaced with jeans, his bag having all the road essentials. He kissed her one last time, and she wrapped her arms tight around his neck before laughing and pushing him out the door where Dean was already shuffling impatiently. He dropped the bag on the couch and waited.

as he grabs a jacket and ushers Dean out the door. Dean seems to take that as a sign of acceptance, and is off down the stairs, Sam now having to chase after him. "I mean, come on. You can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you."

"You're not hearing me, Sammy." It was the earnestness in Dean's voice that kept him moving, he really believed what he was saying. "Dad's missing. I need you to help me find him."

Sam still outwardly scoffed. "You remember the poltergeist in Amherst?" He'd been eleven, it had been three weeks. "Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton?" He'd been fourteen, it had been nearly two months. "He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine." Dean himself had once been missing for two months and nobody had treated that like a big deal.

"Not for this long." The unspoken amount of time was bothering Sam more than anything, how long had this happened before Dean finally caved and came for him? "Now are you gonna come with me or not?" He stopped on the bottom step and looked back at him expectantly, like he hadn't already answered.

"I'm not," Sam stated, still scrutinizing his brother for the unanswered. If he fought back, Dean would tell him what really needed to be said, like what had started this. Why had Dad been on his own to begin with to even go missing?

"Why not?" Dean seems genuinely surprised, like the past three years hadn't even happened.

"I swore I was done hunting. For good." At least Sam would have tried to do both school and the family business, but Dad hadn't even given the idea a chance. It was in or out, and he'd chosen out.

Dean gave the most dismissive of eyerolls at his theatrical brother. "Come on. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad."

Dean turns to keep going, and Sam kept following, and still arguing. "Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45." and that was after he'd stopped lying to him for years first there was nothing to be afraid of.

"Well, what was he supposed to do?" Dean already sounded exhausted at having to answer for this, stopping right in front of the door to turn and face him.

"I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark." In or out, Dad had tried to keep him out until Dean spilled the beans, and then it was all in.

"Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me?" Dean sounded almost insulted at this response, as if he hadn't been the one to say otherwise all those years ago. "Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there."

"Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her." Dean stops meeting his eyes, glancing towards the door with longing. He'd always been more comfortable talking while driving. but he'd been the one to come here, Sam wasn't letting him off the hook. "But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find."

Dean latched onto this with ease. "Save a lot of people doing it too." It almost sounded rehearsed.

Sam just scoffs, he'd heard that before, but saving those strangers lives had nearly cost them their own countless times. When he'd wanted something more, for himself, Dad had treated it as blasphemy. "You think Mom would have wanted this for us?"

Dean slams the door open and walks out. They'd had a lot of circular arguments about this in their youth, and especially right before Sam left.

It's not like either of them would ever know.

Dad had raised them to do it though

Dad wasn't one to talk about her though, under any circumstances, so it's not like they ever got an answer either could stand their ground on.

Sam persisted in his point, needling at Dean as they finished the stairs. "The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors."

There's only a short walk left before they stop right in front of a familiar old car, and Dean responds by shoving his hands in his pockets and faces Sam again. "So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?"

"No. Not normal." He still knew, there was no turning back from that. He still read the papers, he still kept a large amount of salt in the kitchen, a silver knife in the drawer, and that .45 was tucked into his bag. He just didn't go looking for trouble anymore. "Safe."

"And that's why you ran away." It was supposed to come out accusatory, Sam was sure, but then Dean looked away. Sam hadn't paid much attention to Dean that night, he'd played middle man between his fights with Dad one too many times, but now he tried sorting back through his memories and caught just a glimpse of Dean's devastated face as Dad had said the fateful words. If Dean had really cared though, he would have come after Sam sooner.

"I was just going to college." Sam corrected. "It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."

"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it."

Sam still wasn't so sure. Dean still wasn't saying something.

"I can't do this alone." Dean continued calmly.

"Yes you can." Sam scoffed at the notion. Dean had known for Sam's whole life, he'd been just as much a teacher as Dad, sometimes more as it fell to Dean to coach him and keep him quiet while Dad did the dirty work. The older he'd gotten the more involved he'd become, but Dean had been his first teacher in many ways even before Dad.

Dean had looked away from him again, chewing on words. Sam waited, he wasn't getting in the car until Dean said it, whatever it was.

"Yeah, well, I don't want to."

There it was. The oddity of the situation from the beginning finally took on a new light. Dean was lonely. They'd never had a chance to even be alone growing up, always hunting together, cramped inside motel rooms and the car. Dean could have done this alone, there wasn't a doubt in Sam's mind, but he'd come to him because he wanted to.

Dean still wanted him to be a part of the family. Even if Dad didn't.

It was in or out. Sam was in. "What was he hunting?"

Chapter 4 The Sacrifices Made

The 1967 Chevy Impala was as close to home as Sam had ever known, making it all the more fitting it was suited up for war. Dad really must be missing for Dean to even have the old impala. Dean walked around back and popped open the trunk to find one duffle bag, a towel and shirt poking out of the unzipped end. Then he lifted the cover where a spare tire should be, and the usual array of neatly assorted weapons most people couldn't even name looked up at Sam like some old nightmare.

Dean grabbed one of the many guns available to prop it up. Then wiggled his fingers over various guns, knives, and other objects Sam could identify all too well as his brother muttered to himself, "All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?"

"So when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?" This was still bothering him most of all. Was he determined to push everyone away, even the son he prefered?

"I was working my own gig. This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans." Dean said very casually. Sam noticed for the first time Dean was still wearing the amulet he'd given him years ago, and can't stop a smile.

Sam was, surprised. Maybe a little impressed. If ever he'd thought about them at all, he'd have expected them to just keep going same old same old as if he'd never been there. He hadn't thought his Dad was capable of change. "Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?" Just to confirm someone hadn't been there. Bobby? Caleb?

Dean's apparently insulted by the question though. "I'm twenty-six, dude." As if Sam weren't aware. He'd also apparently found his prize, a folder with plenty of slips of paper stuffed in. "All right, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy," he hands Sam the one on top, "they found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA."

The paper is a printout of an article from the Jericho Herald, headlined 'Centennial Highway Disappearance' and dated Sept. 19th 2005; it has a man's picture, captioned 'Andrew Carey MISSING.' Sam skims it and glances up.

"So maybe he was kidnapped," not everything had to be related to their line of work. Surely Dad hadn't gone on just this.

"Yeah. Well, here's another one in April," Dean tosses down another Jericho Herald article for each date he mentions. "Another one in December 'oh-four, 'oh-three, 'ninety-eight, 'ninety-two, ten of them over the past twenty years." Dean takes the article back from Sam and picks up the rest of the stack, putting them back in the folder. "All men, all the same five-mile stretch of road."

Okay, so either a serial killer, or definitely their kind of gig.

Dean pulls a bag out of another part of the arsenal. "It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough." Dean grabs a handheld tape recorder. "Then I get this voicemail yesterday." He presses play. The recording is staticky and the signal was clearly breaking up, but it was Dad's voice. "Dean...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger." Dean presses stop.

"You know there's EVP on that?" Sam said automatically.

"Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?"

Sam wanted to bristle and correct it was obvious to anyone, but then got a chill at the idea of Jess having followed them down here, listening to this, being so lost and confused like so many civilians trying desperately to keep up. They weren't even in the car yet and Sam was already starting to separate us and them again. He shook his head at himself and let Dean keep going.

"All right. I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got." He presses play again.

A female voice whispered up to them now, "I can never go home..."

Dean presses stop with a rather triumphant expression.

"Never go home," Sam repeats, that was ghostly if he'd ever heard it. the words echoing oddly in his head, and he tried not to think of why Dad hunting this particular thing should be any more significant than anything else.

Dean drops the recorder, puts down the shotgun to let the hatch fall, stands straight, and shuts the trunk, then leans on it. "You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing."

Sam looks away, back towards the dorms and where Jess is still waiting. He half expected to see her peeking out the window at them. They were just nightmares he scolded himself again. If Dad really had finally bitten off more than he could chew though, if he and Dean rescued him and then Sam still made it back to his interview on Monday, would that finally prove to Dad he could do both?

Dean at least seemed willing to try.

"All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him." Dean nods. There was no visible emotion on his face, but Sam still would have bet it was somewhere in there. like relief, or even happiness, god forbid. "But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here." He wanted to at least grab a change of clothes and say goodby to Jess.

Dean called in confusion, "what's first thing Monday?" Sam hadn't even gotten to the stairs.

"I have this...I have an interview." Sam already knew Dean wouldn't understand.

"What, a job interview? Skip it." He at once proves his brother's point. Dean had never had to sit through an interview in his life.

"It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate." Sam corrected, had his brother thought he was hanging around here for the over priced apartments?

"Law school?" Dean isn't really surprised, it fit Sammy well. Who better to find loopholes and fight the system than his little brother.

"So we got a deal or not?" Sam challenges.

Dean just silently nods. A part of him really meant it, he couldn't stop Sam and more, he wasn't even sure he wanted to. Sam actually seemed happy here, far more than Dean had seen him through all of his teenage years. He didn't answer though, even as Sam took it as one and went back up the stairs, because Dean still pictured in his head rescuing their Dad, the two finally talking instead of yelling. This could fix everything and they could just go back to normal...

Sam changed into a plain, forgettable, unmarked blue shirt and a tan, thick but forgettable jacket. He tossed the dirty shirt over his shoulder towards the hamper without looking, his eyes on a duffel bag now, packing all the weapons he'd clung to over the years into it, including a large hook-shaped knife, the .45, and extra pants for when these inevitably got torn up. Jess comes into the room from the bathroom, immediately sussing the situation. "Wait, you're taking off?"

Sam looks up at her with longing. Just one conversation with his brother again had convinced him he definitely didn't want her to come. They'd deal with this and he'd be back here Monday and they'd never have to talk about this weekend again.

"Is this about your dad? Is he all right?" She sounded so concerned, Sam quickly smiled and put her at ease. It bothered him how fake it felt, it was the one he put up to tell a story, just like riding a bike...

She came and sat on the bed. Sam turned away from her, towards a dresser. "Yeah. You know, just a little family drama." He didn't need the extra shirts he grabbed, he wasn't going to be gone that long.

"Your brother said he was on some kind of hunting trip."

Oh how Sam wished his Dad's biggest concern was a ten-point buck. "Oh, yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin, he's probably got Jim, Jack, and José along with him. I'm just going to go bring him back." It felt nice and appropriately vague, let her fill in the blanks, not too many details. Give an inch and most people will fill in the story themselves and stop asking questions.

"What about the interview?" What about me? He met her eyes again and scoffed at the notion. It was only a nightmare.

"I'll make the interview," I'll come back. "I'll make the interview. This is only for a couple days." He grabs the bag and makes for the door.

"Sam, I mean, please." There's an edge in her voice that has him dropping the bag at once, turning back to face her. "Just stop for a second. You sure you're okay?"

He was far from okay. This wasn't exactly his worst nightmare, but he'd certainly hoped his past wouldn't come back to haunt him before he'd even gotten started on his future. Then he laughs at himself for ever trying to pretend otherwise. They were just nightmares.

"It's just...you won't even talk about your family. And now you're taking off in the middle of the night to spend a weekend with them? And with Monday coming up, which is kind of a huge deal."

Great, he already sounded like a crazy person to her and she didn't even know the whole of it yet. He definitely wasn't telling her, he couldn't lose her. he could have both.

"Hey. Everything's going to be okay. I will be back in time, I promise. I love you."

He kisses her on the cheek, scoops up the bag, and leaves. It felt rushed, but he just couldn't take anymore of her questions tonight, not on top of all the ones he had for Dean and his Dad. He could explain everything when he got back. They'd have a nice long talk when he got back and then he'd see where that led. He heard her shout to at least tell her where he was going, but he pretended he didn't hear, Jess had too many questions as it was. that he didn't want to answer.

Chapter 5 Victim Number...

Centennial Highway- Night

Jericho, California

An old blue Volkswagen with its ragtop and all the windows up blared along a road, a teenage boy is driving while talking on his cellphone. His dark hair is carefully gelled down, he wears a red striped shirt and a chunky, spiky bracelet on his right arm. "Amy, I can't come over tonight. Because I've got work in the morning, that's why. Yeah, okay, I miss it and my dad's gonna have my ass." A high-pitched whine interrupts his radio playing a low background song. The guy looks over and sees a woman in a white dress on the side of the road. She's moving as though dancing; she flickers, and for a moment she's gone.

"Hey, ah, Amy, let me call you back?" As he pulls the car over, the whine on the radio grows louder even as he tries to turn the volume down while pushing the button for the window and leaning over the passenger seat to speak.

"Car trouble or something?" He offers politely, though there wasn't one in sight.

She pauses for a long time, her pail willowy figure framed with long black hair that spreads around her in the windy night. "Take me home?" Her voice is soft, almost unheard, though the radio's gone silent.

"Sure, get in," he doesn't hesitate to reach over and pop the door for her.

She walks slowly and carefully, barefoot. The hem of her white dress is covered in dirt and leaves. As she gets in and leans back comfortably, she closes the door and lets her eyes rest for a moment.

"So, where do you live?" He asks nervously.

"At the end of Breckenridge Road." She looks into the distance.

"You coming from a Halloween party or something?" Her dress is quite low cut, and she has plenty to show. When she only stares in response, his demeanor becomes a bit more nervous, he even laughs at himself for a moment before adding on, "You know, a girl like you really shouldn't be alone out here."

She looks at him She's staring at him with a glazed look in her eye that wasn't quite drunkness, but something more than just seductive as she pulls her skirt up over her thigh. "I'm with you."

The boy looks out his own window, away from her now and rubs at his nose for a moment. It was one time, he'd promised himself Her hand appeared under his chin to turn him back to face her. He does enjoy the view. She hadn't caught him before...

"Will you come home with me?" Her voice is still so soft, barely above a whisper.

There's no hesitation left in him. "Hell yeah," he slams the car into drive so fast the tires squeal their protest. Neither of them are wearing seatbelts.

The property is clearly abandoned. The barn is leaning precariously, there are no cars or any sign of habitation, most of the top windows are boarded up, and there are several thatched holes in the roof that need another do over. She's gazing at it with a deep, mournful expression far more embedded in her face than anything she's shown him.

The car comes to a stop. He's looking from her to the house like he's waiting for her to tell him to pull a u-turn, wrong drive. "Come on. You don't live here." He even prompts when she still isn't looking at him.

"I can never go home." Well that explained nothing.

"What are you talking about? Nobody even lives here." He leans forward in his seat to see his headlights illuminating there's several panes missing from the front window, and no true door, just tattered remains and the skeleton of a screen. "Where do you live?"

He turns back, and she's gone. He checks the back seat, also empty, and gets out of the car, heart starting to beat a bit harder with nerves. The only trace she was ever there is an impression of a hand on the passenger side of the front window that slides away as the car door slams back shut. "That's good. Joke's over, okay? You want me to leave?" He wanted to leave, but now it felt impolite to just ditch her out here, even if this was some weirdly elaborate prank.

He looks around: no signs of life except crickets. He walks towards the house. "Hello? Hello!" He climbs the few stairs to get to the door, his mind offering nothing of how she could have slipped past him so easily. Even standing directly in his own headlights he could glimpse bits of aged furniture, and a picture so coated in dust the occupants weren't truly visible, just a female and two kids.

"Hello?" He decided to call one more time, though his heart wasn't really in it.

Wings burst rapidly about his face, and the boy was on his butt in that same second, screaming and twisting to get away. The woman forgotten, escape pounds into his feat as he sprints off the creaking porch and back to his car, the engine still running and peeling him safely away. He glances over his shoulder, just to affirm the creepy place was behind him. He rolls up both windows, and shivers inside the freezing car.

Then he checks his mirror, and sees her.

His scream is automatic, the car slams into a sign barring off a bridge, accelerating halfway onto it before coming to a clunking stop. His screams echo to no one, before blood paints the interior.

If John Winchester had been there, she had already moved on.

Chapter 6 Back to Business

November 1st

The Impala sits quietly next to a very old gas station pump. Ramblin' Man by the Allman Brothers is still blaring out of the open windows though as Dean heads back towards it. "Hey, you want breakfast?" He offers, showing his purchase of a bag of chips, a litter of soda, and some sort of jerky stick already half in his mouth.

"No thanks," Sam barely looked up from his place shotgun, let alone appetized, the door propped open as he riffled through a box of cassette tapes.

Dean sets it all down on the trunk, more for him, while Sam asks quite loudly in the deserted lot, "So how'd you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?"

Dean puts the nozzle back on the pump as he reminds, "Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career." Dean puts the nozzle back on the pump as he reminds, "besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards."

"Yeah? And what names did you write on the application this time?" Sam swings his legs back inside the car and closes the door.

"Uh, Burt Aframian." Dean gets into the driver seat and puts his soda and chips down, "and his son Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal." He closes the door.

Sam can't help but laugh at the nostalgia of it all washing over him. He really hadn't missed this, he kept telling himself. "That sounds about right." He at least changed the subject to another reliable faithful he knew he'd win against Dean one day. "I swear, man, you've gotta update your cassette tape collection."

There were exactly twenty-five of them in the box on Sam's lap; some have album art, others are hand-labeled, all of them were seared into his brain from repetition.

Dean looks at them fondly. "Why?"

"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes," and really, that spoke for itself, "and two," Sam holds up a tape for every band he names. "Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica?"

Dean takes the box labeled Metallica from Sam.

"It's the greatest hits of mullet rock." He already missed Jess, the two of them had spent half their relationship exploring different kinds of music together. Sam concluded an unassailable point.

"Well, house rules, Sammy." Dean pops the tape in the player, but he didn't deny it. "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole." Dean drops the Metallica case back in the box of tapes and starts the engine, the car and music at war with each other for a moment at which was going to blare louder.

"You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve-year-old," Sam tries to keep speaking over AC/DC's Back in Black beginning to play, ignoring an inner eye roll Dean didn't even have them in the right case, Dad would definitely have something to say to that. "It's Sam, okay?"

"Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud." Dean grinned as he put the car back in drive, the Impala roaring just as loud as the heavy guitar riffs.

The boys trade off in peaceful silence amidst the blaring radio, despite their long time apart. Dean genuinely wanted to ask how Sam had liked school, more about Jess, how he was affording his housing, but bit his tongue against it all in fear Sam would change his mind any second and demand he turn the car around.

Sam, in turn, sat weary of Dean's loaded questions and waiting for him to bring up old stories and how much Sam obviously should have missed this, that he chose not to speak at all and not let it all get started.

With Jericho only seven miles out, Sam finished some repeat work of what Dean had already insisted he'd done, but one could never be too thorough. "There's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue. So that's something, I guess." He sounded dubiously hopeful.

Dean glances over at Sam, resisting an 'I told you so' then back at the road. At a bridge ahead of them, there are two police cars and several officers. "Check it out."

Sam leans forward for a closer look, both of them suspecting the same thing, a new victim.

Dean pulls over, the idling trundle of the impala shutting off moments later. They take a long look before Dean turns off the engine. Sam can't help but wonder if he's really about to do this. Dean opens the glove compartment and pulls out a box full of ID cards with his and John's faces: visible ones include FBI and DEA. He picks one out and grins at Sam, who stares. Yep, they really were.

"Let's go." Dean gets out of the car. Sam takes a moment to brace himself, and remind it was too late to go back now before doing the same.

On the bridge, the lead, Deputy Jaffe, leans over the railing to yell down to two men in wetsuits who were poking around the river. "Anything?"

"No! Nothing!" The words come from far below and a bit up the river.

Jaffe turns back to the car in the middle of the bridge, a blue Volkswagen with the ragtop up. The blood is gone. Another deputy, deputy Hein, is at the driver's side looking around inside the car and speaks when Jaffe approaches on the passenger side. "No sign of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints, not a speck of blood. Spotless. It's almost too clean."

Sam and Dean approach with no one stopping them, their air of confidence and familiarity getting them close enough to hear the end of Jaffe's question. "So, this kid Troy. He's dating your daughter, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Hein agrees softly, it's clear where his mind's gone.

"How's Amy doing?" Jaffe inquires.

"She's putting up missing posters downtown." Hein answers, gazing around at the empty car with just as many questions.

Dean finally inputs himself into this. "You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?"

Jaffe looks up when Dean starts talking and straightens up to talk speak to him.

"And who are you?" Jaffe's is a polite inquiry

Dean flashes his badge, and speaks his false title like a trained professional. "Federal marshals."

Now Jaffe's just a touch suspicious, eyeing the pair. "You two are a little young for marshals, aren't you?"

Dean laughs. "Thanks, that's awfully kind of you." He keeps a professional business demeanor as he repeats his question while walking closer to the car to peer inside. "You did have another one just like this, correct?"

Jaffe seems to buy it, as he finally answers. "Yeah, that's right. About a mile up the road. There've been others before that."

"So, this victim, you knew him?" Sam finally inputs.

Jaffe nods. "Town like this, everybody knows everybody."

Dean's now circling the car, looking around. "Any connection between the victims, besides that they're all men?"

Jaffe confirms, "No. Not so far as we can tell."

"So what's the theory?" Sam asks politely, despite having their own, the locals had been known to offer their own insight.

"Honestly," Jaffe sounds quite baffled himself at the admision, "we don't know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?"

Dean slowly makes his way back to Sam's side, just as he says, "Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys." Sam stamps on his foot where the officer can't see, even if Jaffe notices something and doesn't hide his offense well.

"Thank you for your time." Sam finishes for the both of them. "Gentlemen."

The two begin to walk away, Jaffe watching them with uncertainty once more.

Dean didn't even wait until they were off the bridge before wacking Sam on the back of the head.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Why'd you have to step on my foot?" Dean countered.

"Why do you have to talk to the police like that?" Sam snapped back.

Dean looks gapes at Sam and moves in front of him, forcing Sam to stop walking. "Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves."

Sam clears his throat and looks over Dean's shoulder. Dean turns. A new Sheriff, Sheriff Peirce, and two FBI agents have appeared quite out of nowhere, the other two officers still back by the car over Sam's shoulder.

"Can I help you boys?" The sheriffs no nonsense tone has no deterrent on Dean's smile.

"No, sir, we were just leaving." The two feds walk past without glancing back as Dean snidely remarks, "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully."

The sheriff remains in place though, watching them go.

Chapter 7 Constance Welch

The town of Jericho is so small that posting important information on marquee's is the norm. It's still high noon, but there's apparently going to be a town hall meeting that night at eight, as well as the quaint message to be safe.

Underneath it is a woman posting up pictures of Troy's face, a missing poster. Amy Hein has her unbrushed brown hair pulled into a hasty ponytail and smudges around her eyes. This and her posters make Dean's quick assessment not unwarranted. "I'll bet you that's her."

"Yeah," Sam agrees, and it was about time. They'd spent the better part of an hour walking the 'small' streets of Jericho looking for her.

The two approach her, Dean calling to get her attention and confirmation. Even if she wasn't Amy, this girl must know her. "You must be Amy?"

"Yeah," she agrees distractedly, not looking away from the poster she was taping firmly in place.

"Yeah, Troy told us about you." Dean fibs. "We're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is Sammy." Sammy wasn't helping by shooting Dean a look for the continued nickname.

"He never mentioned you to me." Amy brushed off, already walking off. She'd had one too many people today trying to talk to her about Troy and share their observations of his disappearance.

Dean follows, not at all deterred. "Well, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much, we're up in Modesto, and-"

"So, we're looking for him too," Sam cuts in before Dean made up an entire backstory, "and we're kinda asking around."

Rachel, Amy's best friend, finds spots her talking to the two strangers under the shadowed awning from up the street and comes over to investigate as well. "Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah," she smiles briefly at her while going back to dig for another post to put up only a dozen feet over from the last one.

"Do you mind if we ask a couple questions?" Sam continues as if there hadn't even been an interruption.

Amy looks the two up and down for the first time properly, weighing it all in her mind. Her dad had barely said anything this morning aside from promisingng he'd keep in touch, and that had yet to happen. When Joseph Welch had reported the car that morning, the whole town had been doing nothing but whisper. At least with these two, talking could amount to something.

She nodds and Rachel loops her arm through hers as the men gesture to a diner across the street, crossing first and only checking over their shoulder to hold the door open for the ladies as they all went inside.

The diner was slow, a waitress came over at once. The boys ordered coffee and the girls soda. The four sat in awkward silence until the drinks were placed in front of them.

Sam and Dean sat with their backs to the door in the corner booth of the restaurant, waiting patiently, until Amy burst into the same speech she'd given her own dad that morning. "I was on the phone with Troy. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and...he never did."

"He didn't say anything strange, or out of the ordinary?" Sam prompts, gazing at her steadily for some hint she was holding back.

Amy shakes her head. "No. Nothing I can remember."

Sam spots a bit of jewelry on her and hopes to make her more comfortable. "I like your necklace."

Amy holds the pendant she's wearing, a pentagram in a circle, and looks down at it. "Troy gave it to me. Mostly to scare my parents," she laughs, "with all that devil stuff."

Sam laughs a little too and looks down, debating with himself, then up, there's no harm in correcting the minor things, it could even keep her safe one day.

Dean's watching him closely as he corrects a common misnomer, "Actually, it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil. Really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing."

"Okay. Thank you, Unsolved Mysteries," Dean cut in before he started describing Devil's traps. He takes his arm off the back of Sam's seat and leans forward.

"Here's the deal, ladies." Dean more obviously sussed out. "The way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So if you've heard anything..."

Amy and Rachel look at each other. Dean pounces. "What is it?"

Rachel speaks slowly, assessing their reaction, "Well, it's just... I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk."

Dean and Sam speak in chorus. "What do they talk about?"

Rachel continues with more confidence since she clearly had their full, unskeptical attention. "It's kind of this local legend. This one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like decades ago."

Dean looks at Sam, who watches Rachel attentively, nodding.

"Well, supposedly she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up? Well, they disappear forever."

Sam and Dean look at each other.

"Well thank you ladies," Dean's smooth as silk smile seems like thanks enough as he drops a few bills on the table, indicating they'd gotten all they needed.

"That's it?" Amy confirms, they hadn't really asked a single thing about Troy himself.

"Oh yeah," Dean stretches as he gets back to his feet, already digging around for his car keys. "We said we'd stop by Troy's parents place for a quick word with them as well, but you've been very helpful."

Sam gets up more slowly, his mind already remembering the sign pointing towards the local library where they'd begin digging into this local legend.

The girls watch them leave and exchange their own baffled expression at it all.

"You know, I don't think those guys were really related to Troy," Amy admits.

Chapter 8

The library is, as Sam had suspected, not at all hard to find, and not exactly vast. No local historians had ever taken an interest in the local legend, he quickly finds as he methodically browses the shelves, and circles to the back to find Dean trying a more up-to-date method.

...

A web browser is open to the archive search page for the Jericho Herald. The words 'Female Murder Hitchhiking' are typed into the search box. Dean clicks GO; the screen tells him there are (0) Results. Dean replaces 'Hitchhiking' with 'Centennial Highway' with the same response. Sam is sitting next to him, watching impatiently.

"Let me try," Sam reaches over for the mouse while offering.

"I got it," Dean smacks his hand away without looking.

Sam disagrees and shoves his whole chair aside, which thankfully is on wheels so his brother smoothly glides away rather than just flat falling to the ground.

"Dude!" Dean protests, sliding right back over to smack him on the shoulder and inform him, "you're such a control freak." He sighed audibly right into his brother's ear, to think he'd missed this!

Yet as he watched Sammy maneuver the machine, there was an undeniable sense of peace settling deep inside Dean, as he imagined a mirror scenario here by himself instead fighting with this. If Sam hadn't come This felt right, their first case together independent from Dad, even though the case was looking for him.

Sam ignored his outburst. "So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?"

"Yeah," Dean impatiently agrees, that was rule number one of ghosts.

"Well, maybe it's not murder." Sam corrects Dean's assumption as he replaces his choice of words with 'suicide.'

There is one result.

An article entitled 'Suicide on Centennial' pops up. Dean glances at Sam, mostly aggrieved, he would have gotten there, but slightly grateful his brother had gotten them there faster. Sam opens the article, dated April 25, 1981.

'A local woman's drowning death was ruled a suicide, the county Sheriff's Department said earlier today. Constance Welch, 24, of 4636 Breckenridge Road, leapt off Sylvania Bridge, at mile 33 of Centennial Highway, and subsequently drowned last night.

Deputy J. Pierce told reporters that, hours before her death, Mrs. Welch logged a call with 911 emergency services. In a panicked tone, Mrs. Welch described how she found her two young children, 5 and 6, in the bathtub, after leaving them alone for several [minutes]. She reported that their complex-[...]

"What happened to my children was a terrible accident. And it must have been too much for my wife. Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it," said husband Joseph Welch. "Now I ask that you all please respect my privacy during this trying time."

At the time of the children's death and Mrs. Welch's subsequent suicide, Mr. Welch was at the Frontier auto salvage yard, where he works the graveyard shift as associate manager.

"Connie might have been quiet, but she was the sweetest, most caring girl I ever knew," said Deanna Kripke, a neighbor. "She just doted on those children."

Sam skim read the article, the pop out words all he needed to know. "This was 1981. Constance Welch, twenty-four years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river."

There's a picture of Constance; a willowy woman with long black hair.

"Does it say why she did it?" Dean didn't see the point in reading over Sam's shoulder when he was just going to tell him anyways.

"Yeah," Sam's one word does not sound pleased.

"What?"

Sam goes into the grisly details. "An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Apparently her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back, they aren't breathing. Both die."

Dean raises his eyebrows, "Hm." That does qualify for a woman being suicidal, and definitely a vengeful death.

The article has a picture of Joseph next to a picture of Sylvania Bridge. Sam's still reading aloud. "'Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it,' said husband Joseph Welch."

"The bridge look familiar to you?" Dean had already moved on. He filched a pen from a nearby cup of them and went up to the front desk to ask for a scrap of paper, writing down Joseph Welch's address mentioned in the article.

Chapter 8- Welching

The boys head back to the restaurant, this time for a real meal, and are relieved not to see either Amy or Rachel still hanging around with awkward questions. They manage a decent conversation amongst the bustling patrons about music at least, the jukebox playing some old disco song Dad would have been giving scorn filled looks too, entertaining them both. Sam did finally ask at least one nagging question that had been bothering him. "So why do you have the impala anyways?"

"Dad gave it to me," the pride Dean managed to say this with could have had its own statue built in a monument. "Said I was ready to head out on my own and to take care of her."

Sam found himself gruntled at the painted image, he almost wished he had been there to see it. Dean looked so happy just telling him, he imagined his brother had pissed himself with joy at the actual key exchange.

As Sam polished off his plate and Dean savord the last few bites of his, Sam excused himself to the bathroom, fiddling with his phone for a few moments as he contemplated calling Jess, but he had nothing to update her with that wouldn't be either a further lie or stilted runarounds of how things were going on either end. Dean didn't mention it when he got back, though the table had been cleared and the bill paid.

By the time they stopped to get gas and made it to the bridge once more, night had fallen.

Dean and Sam walk along the Sylvania bridge, then stop to lean on the railing and look down at the river. The cloudless night allows the moon to bathe the steep drop to the pebbly river below, the water flowing not too loud.

"So this is where Constance took the swan dive." Dean spoke aloud what had brought them here, where Dad would have gone next. The idea of retracing his footsteps wasn't good enough for him, they still felt one step behind as there was no visible clue their dad had ever been here.

Sam echoed his thoughts verbally. "So you think Dad would have been here?" Eyeing Dean like he somehow still thought his brother was holding something back.

Admittedly, this still wasn't adding up to something their dad hadn't handled a million times, and Dean tried to reassure this much. "Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him."

He keeps walking along, eyeing every bit of metal for something they'd missed in the daylight.

"Okay, so now what?" Sam prompts.

"Now we keep digging until we find him. Might take a while." Dean would tear apart the whole thing right now if he thought it would do any good, what was Sam expecting exactly?

Sam wasn't following him. "Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday—

Dean turns around. "Monday. Right. The interview." Sam was expecting this to be a weekend trip, for them to find Dad tied up like some damsel in distress they could cut him free and he could run off again. Would he really go back before they finished this?

"Yeah." Sam agrees.

"Yeah, I forgot." No he hadn't, he'd been pretending otherwise. or he had, the natural ease of the two of them working together having already vanished the absent years from his mind, but who could tell? "You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?" Dean had really thought once Sam saw how serious this was, he'd wake up, or at least prioritize better. Couldn't he just reschedule the interview? How long was that going to take?

"Maybe," Dean putting it like that, said aloud for the first time, did make it sound ridiculous to his own ears, which made Sam cling all the harder to the dream. "Why not?"

"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?"

Sam did step up close to Dean then, right in his face. His voice held an edge of finality he rarely used with his brother usually reserved for his dad. "No, and she's not ever going to know."

"Well, that's healthy." Dean scoffs. "You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are." Why he hadn't accepted it yet Why he fought so hard against it every step of the way Dean had never understood. Clearly this time apart had only deluded his brother more.

Dean turns to keep walking along the bridge, and this time Sam does follow, seething. "And who's that?"

"You're one of us." Dean proudly proclaims.

Sam's long legs carry him in front of his brother before he even knows it, stopping the two in their tracks. "No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life." If Dean hadn't started this asked he would have been happily at home with Jess right now, asleep! Instead he was on this freezing bridge having the same old argument he felt he'd had his entire life.

"You have a responsibility to—"

Dean was just like Dad, and Sam wasn't going to take it from either of them anymore. "To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back."

Dean's movements are a blur, Sam is pinned to the bridges railing before he even has a hand up to defend himself, his big brother scowling at him. "Don't talk about her like that." There's barely repressed anger in his voice, but he releases Sam and steps back only a moment after.

Sam didn't know a thing about Mom, and that was just as much Dad and Dean's fault as the demons. They didn't talk about her at all.

He turns away from Sam and tries to collect this back to basics. Find Dad, the two of them could manage that, then-

A barefoot woman was standing on the lip of the bridge. A white nightgown flapping in the breeze, her face obscured by long black hair.

"Sam," Dean calls without taking his eyes off her.

His brother's at his shoulder in the same second, the two watching carefully as Constance Welch looks at them, and then steps frees herself over the edge.

Dean and Sam sprint to where she vanished, eyeing the water below and their surroundings so as not to be caught off guard when she appeared next.

"Where'd she go?" Dean demands of nothing.

"I don't know," Sam answers anyways.

Behind them, the impala's rumbled to life, her headlights shining directly onto them.

"What the-" Dean's hand automatically flies to his pocket, as if actually thinking someone had filched them.

"Who's driving your car?" Sam demanded.

Dean pulls the keys out of his pocket and jingles them. Sam looks in disbelief between the two, but the car doesn't care what their eyes believe as it jerks into motion heading right for them, tires squealing.

"Dean? Go! Go!" Dean clearly needed the motivation, as he clearly took far more issue with his car attacking him than running, but when Sam got him turned around they both took off running, not nearly fast enough. The roar of the impala's engine was right on their heels in moments. Dean knew the mechanics of that car better than his own skeleton, and she could rev up from 0 to 60 in 6.2 seconds. They were not going to make it off the bridge in time.

They can both feel the hot exhaust like a pouncing animal when the two turn sharply for the bridges edge, and have not a moment to hesitate as they leap off the railing.

The car comes to a screeching halt, engine roaring its displeasure.

Chapter 9- A Woman in White Picture Perfect

The sylvania was a truss bridge made of strong steel and built to last, it had only been boarded off last week as one of the locals had insisted they'd seen people leaping off. The cops had dutifully closed it to investigate, but as no body's had been found they'd been planning to open it to the public again the following morning, until Troy Squire's car had been reported.

The impala's engine had been silenced, the scene ripe for yet another filing of paperwork, while Sam dangled over the edge grunting to regain some kind of footing. When finally he'd hauled himself back to some kind of support, the first thing he did was to look around, and realize his brother was not in a similar position.

"Dean!"

In the moonlight, something was certainly moving about below, belly crawling right out of the fumbling river. Covered in mud and panting, Dean flops onto his back and gives his brother a thumbs up.

"Hey, you alright?" Sam still tries to confirm, breathing rather hard and still white knuckling the bridge, unsure if his voice even carried down that far.

"I'm super," Dean's words are comforting enough for now, as Sam finally lets out a bit of a laugh of relief for this whole situation and gets himself onto the bridge proper.

He's still running when he gets to the pebbled downslope and stumbles hard, nearly breaking a leg as he gets down to Dean's side and make sure no true injuries had been sustained from the fall. Dean was already hauling himself to his feet and wiping mud from his eyes though, and Sam was in a much more controlled, almost amused state as he finished in a casual walk to his side.

"How's the car?" Was Dean's first question, though his eyes betrayed him as he watched Sam carefully, clearly noting the red raw hands from gripping the rusty bridge, but no limp or other signs of damage.

"Still there, that ghost didn't drive off with it," he promised.

Dean slapped him on the shoulder, bent down to the icy water and plunged his hands in, scooping up enough to rub at his face. He gasped at the feeling but did it two more times before he felt good enough that he began walking back up the slope and to the impala's side, where he immediately lifted the hood and began a thorough inspection.

"Car alright?" Sam's thoughts on the misery of having to take a bus back to Stanford, but at least he'd still make it back before Monday, barely. He watched attentively as Dean triple checked for himself.

Dean's favorite leather jacket is indistinguishable from the muck of the bank, his usually messily spiked hair is plastered to his scalp, and you couldn't see a single freckle on his face, but his smile managed to shine through as he slammed the hood back down and patted her a few times. "Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems all right now." He turns and shouts for the rest of the world, "That Constance chick, what a bitch!"

"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure. So where's the job go from here, genius?" He was mostly being sarcastic, rule number two of ghosts floating in his mind now that there was no other explanation of what they were dealing with.

Dean's leaning against the hood now, mind flickering on what Dad would have them do next, find the husband and figure out where she was buried or

Sam leans on the hood beside him and involuntarily gets a sniff of the air. "You smell like a toilet."

Dean purposely noses his shoulder, and can't help but agree, their next stop now obvious.

Dean goes to the backseat and digs through Sam's bag for a few moments before coming up with two clean towels, ignoring his brothers protest as he lays them out on the seat, and then goes to the trunk for his own bag and finds his own towel to rub the majority of the mud from his face. Neither Sam or Dean flinch as the impala roars back to life despite her recent activity, instead it was more of a comfort from the inside and the steering wheel moved with ease under Dean's hand. He stops at a gas station once more and uses all of the bathroom's paper towels to at least attempt to get the rest off, but when that proves futile a shower really is inevitable. Dad would have to agree he couldn't spend the rest of the case like this.

Sunrise is upon them by the time they pull into the only motel on the outskirts of town that had definitely seen better days, this wasn't exactly a tourist town. Dean pats the hood of the impala one more time before the two go into the front desk, Dean slapping down the credit card once more. "One room please."

The clerk picks up the card and looks at it. "You guys having a reunion or something?

"What do you mean?" Sam almost laughs at how unintentionally ironic the man's question is.

"I had another guy, Burt Aframian. He came and bought out a room for the whole month." The clerk explains, tapping the guest ledger.

Dean looks at Sam and does not hide his triumphant smile.

"Ah, yes sir," Dean quickly changes tactics, no sense in burning this one out as he holds his hand back for his card. "That would be our dad, guess he got here before us."

"When did he get here, exactly?" Sam asks eagerly.

"Ah, bout two weeks ago," the man scratched his chin and eyed his date book.

That didn't really tell them anything, it would have taken a little more than that time for him to drive here from wherever he'd started, which Dean didn't know for sure as he'd just said he was tracking a witch, and they could be anywhere. He would have gotten to town at least, checked in, and...?

The clerk, oblivious to their quick rise and fall of hope, hands back the card and says, "alright, room ten. Another key will be extra though."

"Oh no sir, that won't be necessary," Dean promises.

Sam's been picking locks since before he knew how to drive, and while it was of the most minor of all the laws they constantly broke, he still thought Dean was being difficult on purpose in insisting not paying for an extra key.

Still, the door swung open and he tucked the gear back into his pocket before reaching out and dragging Dean in from his oh so casual guarding. A poof of dust trails him inside and Sam's quick to close the door lest anyone see what only they should, the walls.

It was as clear a flashback to Sam's childhood if ever he'd had a name for it, a mark of insanity to most normal people was the level of obsession his dad showed to everything. The pictures printed and mounted, the old newspaper clips scattered categorically, maps, and notes that only a practiced mind could follow. There are books on the desk and assorted junk on the floor and bed, including something with a hazardous-materials symbol.

Dean goes to turn a light on and finds a half eaten burger sitting under the lamp, stone cold as he picks it up and a bit ripe from being out in the air. "I don't think he's been here for a couple days at least." It hadn't been the three weeks that concerned Dean most about his father's absence, he'd been gone for much longer stretches than that over the course of his life, but rather the suddenness of it. A ghost was a hat trick to all the things in Dad's journal, there was just no way he'd be radio silent this long unless there was something else going on.

Dad would have called by now. He would have cancelled his room. He would never leave all this stuff up for the maid to see.

If Dean's gut reaction hadn't been enough for Sam before, though it should have been, then this was.

Sam was by the window, stepping over a salt circle around a set of drawers and speaking aloud, though to himself. "Salt, cats-eye shells...he was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in." The salt was common enough, and of course he'd have that handy for any ghost, which a woman in white was a sub-class of. It was the cats-eye shells that were interesting, they were a basic warding against mystical watching. Yet this should have nothing to do with witches, or anything else that could be watching without being sensed.

Dean turned to inspecting the walls more closely, and Sam came to see for himself. "What you got there?"

"Centennial Highway victims." Dean confirms it was at least this case.

Sam nods as he peers at them. The victims seen on the wall include Mark, William Durrell, Scott Nifong who disappeared in 1987 at age 25, and Parks. Mark, Durrell, and Nifong are all white males, judging by the photos.

"I don't get it." Dean frowns and goes back over it all, just to be sure. "I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?" A ghost's MO was to wreak vengeance on its own death or at least where it had died. While Centennial Highway was the lead onto Sylvania bridge, this should have meant either gender would be up for grabs.

While Dean talks, Sam looks at the papers taped to the other walls. There's something about the Bell Witch, two people being burned alive, a skeletal person blowing a horn at several scared people with the note 'MORTIS DANSE', a column about 'Devils + Demons', another about 'Sirens, Witches, the possessed', a wooden pentacle, and a note that says 'Woman in White' above a printout of the Jericho Herald article on Constance's suicide.

Sam turns on another lamp to read this last one word for word before telling Dean, "Dad figured it out."

Dean turns to look. "What do you mean?

"He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white."

Dean looks at the photos of Constance's victims again. "You sly dogs," he understood. A woman in white was a subclass of a ghost, specifically the kind that was rumored to suck their victims directly into hell when she was done with them and leaving no traces behind, hence making their kills much harder to spot, let alone make a pattern of.

Dean turns back to Sam. "All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it."

"She might have another weakness." Sam points out, there were plenty of stories about ghosts attaching to objects rather than their own bones.

"Well, Dad would want to make sure." Dean reminded, he certainly wasn't going to skip thoroughness on this case. "He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?

"No, not that I can tell. If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband." Sam taps the picture of Joseph Welch. The caption says he's thirty; the article dates to 1981, so he must be sixty-four. "If he's still alive," Sam amends. Perhaps he'd even committed suicide as well, or any other kind of tragedy after all these years.

Sam goes to look at the rest of the writings, to see if he could put together what had made Dad drop this and the beginning of something else. Dean looks at the picture below the Herald article, of a woman in a white dress.

"All right. Why don't you, uh, see if you can find an address, I'm gonna get cleaned up."

Dean starts to walk away. Sam is tempted to just let him, but knew the longer he went without addressing it the more Dean would pretend it didn't happen. It took him almost three years to address the last fight.

"Hey, Dean?"

Dean stops and turns back.

"What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad, I'm sorry-"

Dean holds up a hand. "No chick-flick moments," he reminds.

Sam laughs and nods, for the first time letting himself ease back into this familiarity. "All right. Jerk."

"Bitch." Dean grins, the mud dried into his face crackling and sending a few flakes to the floor.

Sam chuffs. Dean disappears, into the bathroom, and only moments later he hears the water running, but he doesn't notice. Sam's spotted something, his smile disappearing, and crosses over for a closer look. A rosary hangs in front of a large mirror, and stuck into the mirror frame is a photo of John sitting on the hood of the Impala, next to a young Dean, and Sam sitting on his dad's lap. They had to have still been single digits, at least. He casts his mind back and tries to remember when this could have been taken, first time visiting Bobby? Dad teaching them how to fish? A birthday even? but he can't, there's nothing defining about it, except they all seemed happy. Sam takes the photo off the mirror and holds it, smiling sadly.

Chapter 10- Interrogation 35-111

Neither of them have acknowledged the bed behind them, even to take turns. Not in this room, with dad's absence staring at them from all sides.

Sam's pacing, holding his phone, and sits down on the bed. He can't decide if he's relieved or worried she didn't answer. It's just a nightmare. as her voicemail message plays. "Hey, it's me, it's about ten-twenty Saturday night—

Dean, clean again, his short light brown hair back to its careful style and a change of clothes, comes out of the bathroom and grabs his jacket and pulls it over his jean jacket and gray shirt. Sam had taken the liberty to run it through the wash for him while he'd been in the shower, along with the towles, and was rewarded with a warm glow when he saw Dean had even taken the time to pick the mud out of the edges of the medallion Sam had given him years ago that was still strung proudly around his neck. He shrugs it on one shoulder as he crosses the room, Sam trying to ignore him with the phone still pressed to his ear.

"Hey, man. I'm starving, I'm gonna grab a little something to eat in that diner down the street. You want anything?"

"No." Sam watches him at the door without moving.

"Aframian's buying." Dean reminds, as if that's supposed to make it better.

Sam shakes his head, pressing the phone tighter to his ear.

Dean walked into the bright morning sun, ignoring the fact the 'do not disturb sign' got caught in the door as he closed it, and finished shrugging on his jacket as he crossed the lot, keeping the collar popped to help it air out a bit more.

He looks over and sees a police car, where the motel clerk is talking to Deputy Jaffe and Deputy Hein. The clerk points at Dean, who turns away and pulls out his cell phone.

"-So come home soon, okay? I love you." The phone beeps. Sam looks at it and presses to delete it, still unsure whether to call her back or not, then puts it back to his ear when he sees Dean calling him.

"What?" He'd literally just stepped outside, the doofus.

Outside, the deputies are approaching Dean.

"Dude, five-oh, take off." Dean's voice is low and firm.

Sam stands up at once. "What about you?" He wasn't just going to leave him now. Were they going to meet around back, or another motel?

"Uh, they kinda spotted me." He wasn't worried about that part. "Go find Dad."

Dean hangs up the phone as the deputies approach. He turns and grins at them. "Problem, officers?"

"Where's your partner?" Jaffe demands, complelty faking casuallness now as he crossed his arms.

"Partner? What, what partner?" Dean pretends the same.

Jaffe glances over his shoulder and jerks his thumb towards the motel room. Hein heads over there. Dean can't stop his eyes following him and licks his lips, but he's had enough practice to not really give his face away.

Sam sees Hein approaching and darts away from the window.

Jaffe's still interrogating Dean with a less friendly demeanor by the charge. "So. Fake US Marshal. Fake credit cards. You got anything that's real?

Dean thinks for a moment before grinning. "My boobs."

Sam had just managed to get himself behind the hotel door when it burst open from the sheriff's kick, holding in a grunt of pain as it flew into his gut but managed to catch the handle before it richoted back off of him. The small town sheriff did his duty in checking the bathroom and even glancing under the bed, but Sam blended too well behind the door to be spotted, and he released the door as the Sheriff reached for it to slam it behind him.

Hein slams Dean over the hood of the cop car.

"You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law-" Jaffe begins his Miranda Rights while Dean's still grinning in triumph, Sammy had gotten away.

...

SHERIFF'S OFFICE

Sheriff Pierce enters the room, carrying a box. He sets it on the table at which Dean sits, uncuffed, and goes around the table to face Dean across it. "So you want to give us your real name?

"I told you, it's Nugent. Ted Nugent." Dean even considered spelling it out.

"I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in here." The Sheriff looks almost pitiable at Dean's grin.

"We talkin', like, misdemeanor kind of trouble or, uh, squeal like a pig trouble?" Dean plays along.

Sheriff Pierce isn't letting any runaround. "You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall."

Dean looks away, easily hiding his discomfort and worry that was his dad's stuff, he should be out there looking for him. This was a waste of time! "Along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo-jumbo. Boy, you are officially a suspect." The sheriff answers Dean's question of just how much trouble he's in.

"That makes sense," Dean's impatience at all of this is growing by the second. "Because when the first one went missing in '82 I was three."

The sheriff had put together more than Dean realized though. "I know you've got partners. One of 'em's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing." The cops had been busy, putting together Dad in the same motel they'd found them in, maybe they weren't as idiotic as Dean had thought. "So tell me. Dean." He tosses a brown leather-covered journal on the table. "This his?"

The man has Dean's full attention now as he stares at Dad's journal. Sheriff Pierce sits on the edge of the table. He flips through the well worn pages: it's filled with newspaper clippings, notes, and pictures, just like what's on the walls of John's motel room.

"I thought that might be your name. See, I leafed through this. What little I could make out—I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy," Dean leans forward for a closer look, what exactly had Dad put in there to blow his cover? "But I found this, too."

He opens the journal near the very back to a notebook page that reads 'Dean 35-111', circled, with nothing else on that page.

"Now. You're stayin' right here till you tell me exactly what the hell that means."

Dean stares down at the page, then looks up. He had to get out of here and find Sam, now.

Chapter 11 - The Other Side

WELCH HOUSE

Sam, seen through the chain-link covering a grimy glass window, knocks on the door the window is in. An old man opens it: Joseph Welch.

"Hi. Are you Joseph Welch?" It was the polite way to start even if Sam was sure.

"Yeah," he does not seem happy to be agreeing.

"Would you uh, mind if I talk to you?" Sam put up that endearing little smile he'd learned as a kid. Dad said people always went easier on him when he brought Sam along and he smiled like that, so hopefully it would come in handy now.

To his surprise, it seemed to, as the man stepped onto his porch and shoved his hands in his pocket as answer.

"Um, thank you," Sam dug around in his pockets and pulled the photo he'd taken from the motel. Good thing too, as not moments after he'd gotten the car started and drove away, another police car had showed up and tapped the whole place off as a crime scene.

When Joseph sees the photo, he gives an exhausted sigh and starts walking, Sam hurrying to keep up and realizing at once he was on a time limit, all but shoves the photo into his hands. "Do you recognize this man," he jabs at his Dad.

"Yeah, he was older, but that's him," their shoes are now crunching up a gravel driveway. Joseph hands the photo back to Sam. "He came by three or four days ago. Said he was a reporter."

Sam was both thrilled, and instantly a bit more worried. If Dad were still in town, how had they missed him, unless- "That's right. We're working on a story together." He forced himself to focus now. Just keep working the case, like Dean would do.

"Well, I don't know what the hell kinda story you're working on. The questions he asked me?" Joseph glares off into the distance, his hat dipping even lower to shade his eyes, voice going even more gruff. Sam's timespan was quickly shortening.

He kept pushing. "About your wife Constance?"

"He asked me where she was buried." Joseph still sounded disbelieving over this fact.

"And where is that again?" Sam wished he'd brought along a notebook or something now to make this more credible.

"What, I gotta go through this twice?" He demands on the petulant youth.

"It's fact-checking," Sam quickly fibs. "If you don't mind," he adds on, though what he would do if Mr. Welch did mind would be a problem.

"In a plot. Behind my old place over on Breckenridge." He sounds exhausted just thinking about it.

"And why did you move?" Sam's imagining the poor man tortured by his wife and finds it even more of a miracle he's still alive.

"I'm not gonna live in the house where my children died." He sounds very tired now, and Sam believes him.

Sam stops walking. Joseph stops too.

Sam's gotten all the information that he needs, he should politely thank the man and be on his way. It's what Dad would have done. "Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?"

The split second decision to not echo his dad doesn't give him time to decide where this is going.

"No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known."

Sam hesitates, teetering on the edge of asking about his infidelity, but softening the blow instead. "So you had a happy marriage?"

He hesitates. "Definitely."

"Well, that should do it. Thanks for your time." Sam really did begin to walk away then, let this man pretend and have his remembered happy normal life.

He stopped though in front of the impala, playing with his spare key he'd had for all these years on the same chain as his apartment key. As Dean's words echoed back to him on the bridge, as his unanswered voicemail to Jess still sat in his pocket. There was no normal in this life, and he was tired of being the only one to know and feel that. "Mr. Welch, did you ever hear of a woman in white?"

Mr. Welch turns around.

"A what?" The confusion is genuine. It would not last.

"A woman in white, La Llorona, or sometimes Weeping Woman? It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really."

Sam starts back toward Mr. Welch. The edge to his words are purely scholarly, at first. "Um, they're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places, in Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women." Sam stops in front of him once more. "You understand, but all share the same story."

Mr. Welch is a head shorter than Sam, but his tone still holds aged dismissiveness. "Boy, I don't care much for nonsense." Mr. Welch walks away. Sam follows, his conviction moving his feet and mouth. He was not going to be the only one unable to escape his past today.

"See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them." Mr. Welch stops walking, and Sam finishes the blow, "and these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children."

Mr. Welch is watching him now, his face stoned.

Sam carries on, almost vindictively, still with that forced polite edge. "Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. And that man is never seen again."

Mr. Welch can barely speak his outrage. "You think...you think that has something to do with...Constance? You smartass!"

"You tell me." Sam's knowing smile is triumphant he'd made his point. Mr. Welch would bury his head in the sand again when Sam left, but for this one moment, Sam had gotten through to someone what was out there, he could see it in his eyes.

It was that look, why he'd never share any of this with Jess.

"I mean, maybe...maybe I made some mistakes." Mr. Welch copped to that, his breath still trembling. "But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children. Now, you get the hell out of here! And you don't come back!" His face shakes, whether from anger or grief it's impossible to tell. After a long moment, he turns away. Sam sighs for what he'd done, but he doesn't regret it.

Chapter 12

...

November 2nd

"I don't know how many times I gotta tell you. It's my high school locker combo." Dean had denied a lawyer, he hadn't slept in days, and he'd now repeated that no less than a thousand times today. His attempts to charm the man into believing him had vanished in the early hundreds. He needed to get to Sam, now.

"We gonna do this all night long?" Sheriff Pierce seems more than prepared to do such a thing, to Dean's dismay. He hadn't even been offered a donut. Maybe he should ask for a lawyer, it would add more problems later, but the point was he didn't intend to be around for later. He just needed five minutes alone with that-

A deputy leans into the room. "We just got a 911, shots fired over at Whiteford Road."

"You have to go to the bathroom?" The Sheriff offers.

"No," that wasn't true.

"Good."

The sheriff handcuffs Dean to the table and leaves. Dean nabs the paper clip poking out of the journal he'd been staring at since noon, and smiles at it. He was the one to teach Sam how to pick locks after all, and that kid had it easy with the kit.

Dean waited patiently for the commotion on the other side of the door to die down before waltzing into the row of desks and digging through them. His phone wasn't present, probably in another room somewhere being looked over, but his gun was in a baggy for holding and evidence and he didn't have the time, nor inclination to risk staying longer when he knew the number Sam was using, slipping to the nearest window and climbing down the fire escape, dad's journal safely in his arms.

Sam is driving the impala up to Breckinridge road It had taken him the rest of the day to go online and match county records with abandoned lots and try to match them against the year Constance had died to figure out which was the right house on the long ass stretch of road with far too many acres on it. By the time he'd sussed out a good pick, he'd realized how late it was and sent the police for the opposite side of town, realizing if Dean wasn't here by now he must not have gotten his chance yet to bail in his own way. They'd waited long enough, maybe Dad was there. He set the impala off now instead of waiting for his brother. when his phone rings. He pulls it out, spots the unknown number, but answers it quickly.

Dean is in a phone booth; not having taken the time to steal his back.

"Fake 911 phone call? Sammy, I don't know, that's pretty illegal." He can hear Dean's grin through the phone.

"You're welcome." Sam smiles back.

Thanks out of the way, Dean tries to get to the message Dad left. "Listen, we gotta talk-"

"Tell me about it," Sam misses the message hint. "So the husband was unfaithful. We are dealing with a woman in white. And she's buried behind her old house, so that should have been Dad's next stop."

"Sammy, would you shut up for a second?" Dean tries again, man that kid had a motor mouth when he got going.

"I just can't figure out why Dad hasn't destroyed the corpse yet," the timing of it all is still bothering Sam greatly.

"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. He's gone. Dad left Jericho." Dean finally got in.

"What? How do you know?" Sam's foot eases off the gas instinctively to turn in this new direction.

"I've got his journal." Dean grips it tighter, the worry for his dad increasing with every clenched finger.

"He doesn't go anywhere without that thing." Sam needlessly points out.

"Yeah, well, he did this time." Dean sighed, the reasons why rolling through his head, each worse than the last.

"What's it say?" Sam wants verbatim, like Dean had misread the message.

"Ah, the same old ex-Marine crap, when he wants to let us know where he's going." Dean glares around the glass to assure no one was listening in, if Dad had been worried about that maybe he should be to.

"Coordinates. Where to?"

"I'm not sure yet," did he look like a satellite phone?

"I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Dean, what the hell is going on?" None of this was adding up in Sam's head. He follows a bend in the road, and slams the brake, dropping the phone: Constance right in front of him. The car goes right through her as Sam brings it to a halt.

Dean heard the squealing breaks like a flatline. "Sam? Sam!"

Sam is breathing too hard to even realize he'd dropped the phone yet, the car idling masking his brother's voice, but not Constance's echoing words from the back seat. "Take me home."

Chapter (12) 11- Home

Dean wasn't going to wait around for Sam to perhaps pick up the phone and give him an explanation, he instead left the payphone dangling from its cord and dashed to the nearest car in his sights. They'd been exploring this town relentlessly for Dad, he'd be able to drive to that bridge in his sleep by now, and it had to be in close proximity to the ghosts house.

In the precious time it took to break open the car's starter and get the thing rolling, he'd already mapped out in his head the available turn offs they'd driven past in their days here and mentally categorizing the ones with obvious signs of home life. Dug in tire treads on the third one, a freshly painted mailbox on the last, and cows in a field on the first one, that only left one unaccounted for, and it had to be it.

Now the only question was getting there in time.

"Take me home!" It's as if she knew exactly what he'd been on his way to do. There was no sultry seductress act in store for him, but a demonic demand from this ghost.

"No." Sam had no delusions that telling the ghost this would actually stop her, but delaying her while his mind scramble for some new plan, solo, was his only hope right now. Dean, he knew, was too far away to rely on.

Considering previous experience, he wished he'd had the forethought to turn the car off at least instead of letting it idle.

Constance glares and the doors lock themselves. Sam struggles to reopen them. The gas pedal pressed down and the car began to drive itself. Sam tries to steer, but Constance is doing that too. Sam continues to try to get the door open. In the back seat, she flickers. It would do no good to try and break the car from the inside, via window or the steering column, she'd either kill him now instead or mortally attack him and finish the job when they got there while he bled out.

The car pulls up in front of Constance's house and stops. The engine shuts off and so do the lights.

"Don't do this." Sam has a pretty good idea of what's coming, but the rocksalt rounds waiting in the loaded trunk weren't going to fly to his hand, nor was she going to let him get back there to them. There was no iron in hand, and he was at her mercy.

She flickers again, her voice a sad echo once more of true emotion. "I can never go home."

"You're scared to go home." An idea begins to form, the words playing in his head like they did on that tape recorder Dean had showed him what already felt like weeks ago instead of days. except this time he didn't let them linger in his head regarding himself.

Sam looks back and Constance isn't there. He glances over and sees her in the shotgun seat. She climbs into his lap, shoving him back against the seat hard enough to recline it. Sam struggles in vain to get her off, his hands quickly numbing over, his efforts in vain as it was like pushing through quicksand. The beginnings and ends to a ghost were not tied to their physical form anymore. What held him now was only how she still saw herself in death.

"Hold me. I'm so cold." There's the seductiveness to her voice Sam had been expecting, she even began a kind of grinding motion on him, but he was now repressing shivers of revulsion more than cold as he spat back.

"You can't kill me. I'm not unfaithful. I've never been!"

"You will be," she promises. Her lips seize his like a frozen pole sealing itself to his tongue, no matter how Sam's blood boils to push her away. It's no good, the moral quandaries aside of this being a technicality as she was kissing him and he had no want to it, clearly the ghost wasn't going to sit around and listen to that though, and his grasping hand reaching for the keys is his only hope. She pulls back and disappears, a flash of something horrible behind her face as she vanishes. Sam looks around for a moment, then yells in pain and yanks his hoodie open. There are five new holes burned through the fabric, matching to the ghosts fingers: she flickers in front of him, her hand reaching into his chest, the skeletal visage of her true self the only thing he sees.

A gunshot goes off, shattering the window and startling Constance away. Dean approaches, still firing at her. She glares at him and vanishes, then reappears the silver bullets having no effect but annoying her, and Dean keeps firing until she disappears again. Sam manages to sit up and start the car.

"I'm taking you home."

Sam drives forward. Dean has no time to react as Sam smashes through the side of the house. Dean hurries through the wreckage to the passenger side of the car, tossing the useless gun to get both hands through the door to his brother.

"Sam! Sam! You okay?"

"I think..." Sam's chest is still rattling, ribs, lungs, and heart trickling back to life where her fingers ghostly grasp was holding them no more.

"Can you move?" Dean can't get the door open, and if it were any other car he'd be fantasizing about the jaws of life right now.

"Yeah. Help me?"

Dean leans through the window to give Sam a hand.

Constance picks up a large framed photograph, a long lost part of her seeing the image of a lovely woman with two children, of her old life.

Dean helps Sam out of the car patiently, the two of them together had finally gotten the door open, big brother monitoring closely to see how much damage she'd done while Sam's still looking a little pale around the edges. "There you go."

Sam closes the car door behind him, already trying to pull away from Dean and straighten up. They look around and see her just as she looks up, glaring, and throws the picture down. A bureau slams towards them, pinning them against the car, the holes in Sam's shirt still frigid around the edges a promise of what's more to come.

Then the lights begin to flicker, but her eyes follow them same as the boys, as water begins flooding down the stairs. There's a hallowed look in her face now as she turns towards the stairs, where the visage of a boy and girl stand, holding hands.

They speak in tandem. "You've come home to us, Mommy."

She does not speak, but the regret on her face is enough. Suddenly they are behind her; they embrace her tightly and she screams, her image flickering. In a surge of energy, still screaming, Constance and the two children melt into a puddle in the floor. Sam and Dean shove the bureau over and go look at the spot where they vanished.

A puddle of water is all that's left.

"So this is where she drowned her kids." Dean easily put together.

Sam nods. "That's why she could never go home. She was too scared to face them."

"You found her weak spot," Dean congratulated on the quick thinking, "nice work, Sammy." He slaps Sam on the chest where he's been injured and walks away. Sam laughs through the pain.

"Yeah, I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?"

"Hey. Saved your ass," Dean says without remorse, until he suddenly remembers what had been in between the ghost and the bullets.

Dean leans over to look at the car.

"I'll tell you another thing. If you screwed up my car-" Dean twists around to look at Sam. "I'll kill you."

Sam laughs, still massaging his chest, though the cold had already faded.

Chapter (13) 12 Supernatural

The Impala tears down the road; the right headlight is out, but as this is the only major infraction, he'll forgo killing Sammy this time. He was the one to kill the ghost this time after all, his first in years, like the natural he always hated he was.

Sam has the journal open to the last page Dad would write wrote, and a map open on his lap and is finding coordinates with a ruler, a flashlight tucked between chin and shoulder. It took a little finagling, his first calculations came out somewhere in Arizona, but finally he worked out,"Okay, here's where Dad went. It's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."

Dean nods. "Sounds charming. How far?"

"About six hundred miles." Sam does the mental math with ease.

"Hey, if we shag ass we could make it by morning." Dean's already grinning at what he hears to be the good news, while watching Sam out of the corner of his eye. A part of him already knows the reaction he'll get.

Sam looks at him, hesitating. "Dean, I, um..."

Dean glances at the road and back. "You're not going."

"The interview's in like, ten hours."** Sam helplessly reminds a part of him wishing he could freeze time regardless. " I gotta be there."

Dean nods, and returns his attention to the road. "Yeah. Yeah, whatever." A large part of him wants to just keep driving, to remind Sam that their Dad still needed them, and Dean still needed his help as much as he wanted it. Dad had raised them to be a team, Dad had raised him to look out for Sam, but his little brother had long since grown into his own person who didn't need Dean anymore. Hunting was smarter when done as a team, but it had to be a willing one. All in, or all out.

Dean glances at Sam. It's what his brother wants. "I'll take you home."

Sam turns the flashlight off.

They pull up in front of the apartment, they haven't said a word the whole way back. Sam gets out, his bag in hand already, and leans over to look through the window.

"Call me if you find him?" It comes out more as a question than a demand, and Sam's already wondering if it'll be another three years before he hears from his brother again, let alone his dad.

Dean nods.

"Maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?" It's a peace offering, and a genuine one, but he still didn't know what he was going to tell Jess...

"Yeah, all right," Dean's curt tone isn't particularly inviting, and Sam already knows his opinion on this conundrum, so he pats the car door twice and turns away. Dean leans toward the passenger door, one arm going over the back of the seat.

"Sam?"

Sam turns back.

"You know, we made a hell of a team back there."

"Yeah." Sam's always known as much. It doesn't change anything.

Dean drives off.

Sam watches him go and sighs.

He lets himself in, the key scraping loudly in the lock. Everything is dark and quiet. "Jess?" He hasn't called her all weekend. Sam closes the door. "You home?" She could be at a friends for all he knew, but it was the morning of his interview, and she'd been just as excited as he was, if not more so. Surey she'd be here to wish him luck.

Then he spots a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table, with a note that reads 'Missed you! Love you!', next to a National Geographic. Sam picks one up and eats it, savoring the smile and the feeling of warmth in this apartment, the rumble of a car engine all that was lacking to make it truly feel like home.

Dean's stopped at the end of the street. He looks at his watch: it is not ticking.

The Impala makes a U-turn.

He sneaks into the bedroom, smiling. The shower is audibly running. Sam sits on the bed, shuts his eyes, and flops onto his back.

Something drips onto Sam's forehead, one drop, then another; he flinches and opens his eyes. He gasps in horror: Jess is pinned to the ceiling, staring down at him and bleeding from the belly.

"No!"

Jess bursts into flame; the fire spreading across the ceiling past his eyes, all he can see is Jess.

Dean's standing at the doorway calling for him, but it may as well be another spectre. "Sam!"

Sam raises one arm to shield his face, one name all he can think of. "Jess!"

Dean comes running into the bedroom. "Sam! Sam!" He looks up and sees Jess.

"No! No!" Dean grabs Sam off the bed and bodily shoves him out the door, Sam struggling all the way. "Jess! Jess! No!"

Flames engulf the apartment.

...***

A fire truck is parked outside the building, firemen and police keeping back gawkers. Dean looks on, then turns and walks back to his car. Sam is standing behind the open trunk, loading a shotgun. Dean looks at the trunk, then at Sam, whose face is set in a mask of desperate anger. Sam looks up, then sighs, nods, and tosses the shotgun into the trunk.

Dean's four years old again, he knows the answer just like Dad asked him the following weeks, but he can't stop himself asking of Sam now, "Hey. How you doing?

Sam looks up, then sighs and looks back down.

"I'm fine. We got work to do." Sam shuts the trunk.

The Impala drives away, Sam riding shotgun. His nightmare had become reality.

SSSSSSSS

As you more than likely noticed, Chapter 11 was 'deleted' from the books, and as said above, this and other future moments, while canon and a part of the show, are going to differ from these books if they'd been published. Thanks To The Monster at the End of the Book, Chuck said that Sam's demon blood phase was deleted because they didn't make him seem sympathetic. That means that quite a few things about Sam also could have been cut, so though it won't be in every 'book', expect it to happen more frequently as time goes on.

Let me know your introduction for the show?

Kill Count: 4

2 humans via demons

1 human via ghost

1 ghost via Sammy 'ish.' I'm giving the point to him for it being his idea rather than the execution of ghost on ghost murder. Feel free to disagree.

(Off screen murder's that lead into a case will not count, such as Constance murdering her own kids to start all this and her preceding ten victims. Sam and Dean's off screen murders will, also, not count. After the season finally will just be a monster page of statistics, and I'm looking forward to it. Let me know if there's any other count's you want me to keep track of.)

*I looked it up and saw that this wasn't actually a quote said by anyone? I thought it was profound and kind of cool so surely someone must have already said it.

** October 31st, 2005 was on a Monday. They only spent two days on this case. Assuming they got back before midnight and the poetic justice thrives like I'd assume, this means the final scene is November 2nd again, and now Sam's interview is that morning, despite the fact that Sam's interview was supposed to be Monday. This will be the only time I point out this kind of flaw, I swear, mostly because I have a ton of other plot holes to worry about.

*** I found such an absolutely perfect interlude I didn't want to write my own because I'd basically want to copy this fic verbatim. Pilot by: Black Wolf's Shadow