Chapter 1

Six Weeks Later

"I think we can move all the furniture and stuff back to its proper place," said Laney.

They had been back at Bobby's place for a month and a half now. Her rehabilitation was going well and the cast on her arm had been removed. She'd graduated from the wheelchair to crutches, so she didn't need the wide open spaces to navigate anymore.

"Did you hear me Dean?"

He grunted, but didn't remark on her suggestion. And that's the way it had been for the last few weeks. Their first week back had been great. Outside of her therapy, they'd spent the days relaxing, hanging out, eating junk food and watching old movies together. Then Dean began work on restoring the Impala to its former glory and everything shifted. His attitude and demeanor had totally changed. He never engaged her conversation anymore unless it was to ask the most basic questions. Whenever she spoke to him or asked him question, she got one word responses or grunts. He barely raised his head from underneath the hood of the car. Laney didn't know what to do to draw him back out. She missed him desperately, more so than when she'd gone away to school, because this time he even though he was in the same house with her, he might as well have been a million miles away.

Things weren't going much better with Sam either. She'd caught him and Dean having some heated discussions, but she never knew what they were about. Whenever she walked in on them they quickly changed the subject. But she wasn't stupid. Whatever it was she had a feeling it was all about Dad's death. Not that either of them had or would talk to her about it. They wanted her completely focused on her recovery. Really, she figured they just wanted her out of the way.

Sam had withdrawn into research and spent all his free time down in Bobby's basement, at the local libraries, or buried in his laptop. Even Bobby had made himself scarce, disappearing for days at a time on "business". Laney was sure he was giving them their space. But a big part of her believed he couldn't handle the tension in the house. She could barely stand it. It left her head aching everyday and spirit faltering. The only respite was the two hours a day, five days a week that she was spending at the rehabilitation center in the city. But she was doing well enough that those hours and days would start reducing and then she'd have nowhere to go. She'd be stuck in the deafening silence and the ever expanding gulf between her two brothers and the memory of their dead father. A father, who was apparently causing as much grief dead as he did alive.

Laney eased herself off the stool she'd been perched on while watching her brother work. She had been hoping he'd ask her how her day had gone. But he didn't and she couldn't stand sitting there any longer. She reached out for her crutches.

"Ouch," she yelped, when she banged her knee against a steel toolbox.

She heard a tool clang to the ground. "You okay?" asked Dean, coming out from underneath the hood.

"It speaks," she muttered to herself.

She turned to look at him. "Banged my knee, it'll be fine."

"Be more careful."

Laney frowned. It seemed the only way to get her brother to show any interest in her was if she was hurt or bleeding. Otherwise, silence.

"Yeah," said Laney with a shrug.

"If you need a pain pill, they're up on the top shelf in the bathroom cabinet," said Dean.

"Yeah, okay," said Laney, with a sigh. She crutched her way back into the house. She could feel Dean's eyes on her back until she rounded the corner.

She peeked out of the kitchen window to see him already back at work on the car. She went to the bathroom and grabbed the pill bottle, took two pills out and flushed them down the toilet; as she had done every day since she'd arrived at Bobby's. Neither Sam nor Dean knew what she was doing and they would have definitely disapproved. The pain in her body, especially her leg had been pretty intense early on, but she pushed through it, and suffered in silence. The truth was that part of her welcomed the distraction from the other hurt she was feeling. The kind of hurt no pill was going to help.

It bothered her that her brothers were so intent on keeping her medicated. As if keeping her medicated, kept her happy, and out of their way, while they all avoided dealing with their feelings about their father.

She contemplated asking Dean where Sam had gone, but when she looked back out of the window at him, she noticed how much more relaxed he seemed without her watching him work. It was better if she left him alone.

She pulled out her phone to dial Sam, and then changed her mind. If he wanted her to know where he was, he would have told her. If her brothers wanted space, then she really had no choice but to give it to them.

Laney slowly made her way up the stairs to her room. Computer and electronic parts were all over the place. Bobby had set up a large work table for her that took up a huge part of the room. She'd been attempting to rebuild a laptop like her old "supercomputer" that had been destroyed in the accident. She wasn't sure if it was her brain injury or lack of desire – probably a combination of both – but it had been coming along much slower than she'd anticipated. Her heart just wasn't in it the way it used to be and it seemed harder to do than she remembered. Back in the old days she would have rebuilt it in a couple of weeks tops. She didn't even have it halfway done and she'd been working on it every single day for five weeks. She found herself easily and often distracted and unable to focus.

For lack of anything better to do, she laid down on her bed and stared at the ceiling until she heard the muted voices of her brothers talking outside by the garage. She quickly got out of her bed and hopped to the window, but she'd missed whatever they'd been talking about. To her surprise Dean was washing up and putting some tools away.

She grabbed her crutches and was about to make her way downstairs when she heard footsteps approaching. Sam met her at the door.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey Sammy, what's up?"

She immediately noticed the guilty look on his face. "Well – uh – Dean and I – uh – we got a lead on a case. It's nearby so we're going to go check it out."

"What's the case?" asked Laney, already thinking of ways she might be able to help.

"Don't really know yet, but we'll call if we need a hand with research. We won't be far. It's the next town over."

"What aren't you telling me Sam?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, shifting nervously foot to foot.

Laney narrowed her eyes. "What's going on?"

"Nothing is going on. I just feel bad, leaving you here on you your own."

As if they hadn't already been leaving on her own, more or less, for weeks now, she thought.

"I'm a big girl Sammy I think I can handle it fine. I'll call if anything comes up."

Sam smiled in relief and leaned down to kiss the top of her head. "Okay, kiddo, we won't be gone too long. Remember rule number one."

Laney plastered on a fake smile. "Yeah, yeah, don't go outside, I get it. No worries, I'll be careful."

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"Was she mad?"

"She seemed okay, but she's knows something is up. You know you can't put anything past her," said Sam.

Dean nodded his head. "Ain't that the truth." He sighed heavily. "We'll fill her in as soon as we know more."

Sam nodded.

"How's she been doing at rehab?" asked Dean. For the first week of her therapy, he'd hadn't missed a session. It was an hour drive each way to the facility and with her two hours in between, it made for a big chunk of time out of every day. Time that Dean felt was better spent getting the Impala up and running again. So Sam ended up charged with driving her back and forth.

"She said it's going great. And look at her, she's zooming around on those crutches pretty good."

"What have her therapists said?"

"I haven't talked to them lately," Sam said, guiltily.

Dean shot his brother an annoyed look. "What do you mean you haven't talked to them lately? What have you been doing?"

Sam shrugged his shoulders, ignoring his brother's glare. "I go down to the University library and do research."

"Research?" he asked incredulously. "Because you're not doing enough already?"

"Look Dean, I haven't forgotten that we have a demon to track down."

"Are you implying that I have?"

"No, I'm just saying you've got other things on your mind right now."

"What's your problem?" asked Dean, angrily.

"My problem? Why don't you ask Laney how therapy is going? Oh wait, you haven't said more than five words to her in the last month! I don't think you'd notice if she broke her other leg."

Dean slammed brakes on the car and stopped on the side of the road. He jumped out of his seat, ran around to Sam's door, opening it before he could react, and yanked his brother out of his seat. They started wrestling with each other. Dean got in a good punch. Sam wheeled back ready to punch back but then stopped short.

"Did that make you feel better?" asked Sam, holding the side of his face.

Dean took another swing at him, but this time Sam successfully blocked him.

"Don't you ever imply that I don't care about my sister!" spat Dean.

"This isn't about Laney," said Sam, wiping at the tiny trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

"Oh yeah, then what's this about?"

"You know what it's about. This is about Dad!"

Sam took up a defensive stance because he was sure Dean would start taking swings at him again. But much to his surprise, Dean's shoulder slumped in defeat.

"You don't know what you're talking about Sam."

"Yeah, I think I do. I think that instead of dealing with Dad's death, you're burying yourself in fixing that damn car just so you don't have to think about him. I think you're ignoring Laney because you're too afraid of her questions, because you don't want to deal with her grief."

"And you disappearing the second you get home and not sticking around at her therapy sessions isn't doing the same damn thing?"

"I'm not trying to avoid her. I'm trying to get justice. I'm trying to get the yellow-eyed bastard that's responsible for all of this."

"And just what are you planning to do when you find him? Go off half-cocked and alone to take him on?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't get you Dean, the way you talk, it's like you've forgotten the mission."

"What mission Sammy? Killing yellow-eyes? I thought our lives were about saving people and hunting things? Not vengeance."

"You know, it's like you don't care anymore," said Sam, sadly.

Before Dean could answer, Sam's cell phone rang loudly. The ringtone belonged to his sister. He fished it out of his pocket and immediately answered.

"Everything okay Laney?"

"Yeah, it's fine. I was just wondering if you guys were going to be back by dinner."

Sam looked at his brother for a moment. "I'm not sure."

"Alright, well I'll just make myself something then."

"You sure you're okay?"

"I swear I'm fine. Don't stay out too late. I've got therapy extra early tomorrow."

Sam swore silently. He had forgotten. "Right, what time again?"

He heard his sister's impatient sigh on the other end of the line. "7 am, so we have to be on the road by 6."

"No problem, kiddo. See you soon."

"Love you."

"You too."

"She okay?" asked Dean.

"She's fine," he answered crisply. He looked at his watch. "Look, let's just check out this Harvelle's Roadhouse, find out who this Ellen woman is and get back home."

Dean sighed heavily, nodded, and turned back towards the car.

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Laney clicked her phone shut and set it - more like slammed it - on its charger. She was angry. She knew something was up and as usual she was being kept out of the loop. She decided to see if there was anything she could find out on her own.

She went into her brothers' room and noticed that it was a lot tidier than she expected; which meant that Dean wasn't spending much time in there. As a matter of fact, his bed was made; which had to mean he hadn't been sleeping there either. She quickly connected the dots, remembering the pile of pillows and blankets that she kept finding shoved into the downstairs hall closet. Dean had obviously been camping out on the couch. That was more disturbing to her than any of the other changes in his behavior recently.

She grabbed Sam's laptop bag and rifled through it, not finding anything of interest; lots of notes about weather patterns and strange phenomena, but nothing unusual, for them anyway. She looked over at his duffel stuffed in the corner of the room and hesitated for a moment. It wasn't like her to violate their privacy like that, but really, they'd left her with no other choice. After a moment she hobbled over to the bag and placed it on his bed. She pulled things out one by one and took a mental note of how the bag was arranged so she could put it all back the way she'd found it. Dean would never notice such a thing, but Sam most definitely would.

She mostly found clothes, as expected. She found her father's journal tucked inside a sweatshirt. She didn't open it. She'd read through it before. She knew it word for word. She found a large cardboard envelope which she dumped on the bed; in it were pictures of Jessica and her own school pictures from over the years. She smiled fondly at a photo of the three siblings together from a year earlier, shortly before she went off to college. She put it down and noticed a shiny metal object poking from underneath another picture. She picked it up. The world spun around her for a minute. It was a set of dog tags. Her father's dog tags from when he'd been in the Marines. She gripped them tightly and sat down hard on the bed.

After Dean had smashed her antique box that her father had given to her, she had nothing left of his in her possession. She'd longed for something to have, some piece of him that would help her feel closer to him. Reconnect with him. Dean had the Impala, Sam had the journal, but Laney had been left with nothing.

She quickly and carefully put everything back in the bag the way she'd found it, minus the dog tags. She had to keep them, for a little while, at least.

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Hours later and already long dark outside, Laney finally gave up on waiting up for her brothers to get home. She had an early therapy session in the morning and needed to get her rest. She was able to shower pretty quickly now that she didn't have her arm in a cast. The bulky brace she had on her leg had been replaced with a softer and smaller one. She was allowed to remove the brace for showering, although she had to sit in a special chair while she showered. She still wasn't allowed to bear her full weight on the leg just yet.

Laney dried herself off when she was done and secured the brace to her leg before she hopped over to the sink. She stood in front of the mirror and studied herself. She had put on a few pounds since being back on her feet and she had to admit, it did her good. The scars from where the rods and screws were implanted were still red and very noticeable, just like the scar from her abdominal surgery. Those scars didn't bother her at all. It was the two crisscrossing scars on her chest inflicted by the demon Meg that bothered her more than anything. They were a reminder of her stupidity in getting caught and setting in motion the chain of events that eventually led to her father's death. Now she was brain damaged too and her brothers were hurting badly and no one was talking about it and really, it was all her fault.

She was combing through her hair when she heard a car pull up into the driveway and park. She looked out the window. Her brothers were finally back. She quickly got dressed.

She came out of the bathroom to find Sam looking in his duffel bag. Her eyes went wide and her heart stopped for a moment, but he looked back at her with a smile and pulled out his own bed clothes.

"Hey, sorry we were so late."

"It's okay. I'm glad you're back in one - what happened to your face?" she asked, noticing the cut on his lip and the faint bruise on his cheek.

"Occupational hazard," he said with a smirk.

Laney frowned. "Are you going to tell me about this case?"

Sam sighed heavily. "How about I fill you in on the drive into the city tomorrow? I'm pretty beat."

"Yeah okay," she said reluctantly. "See you in the morning."

"Okay."

"Hey, where's Dean?"

Sam's eyes drifted towards the window and Laney had her answer. She crutched over to see Dean hunched over the Impala, working by the industrial lights he had strung around the work garage. She nodded her head disbelievingly and walked back to her room, shutting the door behind her and climbing into bed. She pulled the dog tags from underneath her pillow and fell asleep clutching them to her chest.

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Laney was startled awake by the sound of her alarm clock. Normally she was up before it went off, but she had stayed up so late the night before, she was already behind on sleep. She knew it was going to be a tough day.

She dressed as quickly as she could. She could hear Sam tinkering around the bathroom, probably awakened by her alarm.

She went downstairs and was surprised to see the couch empty. She'd fully expected Dean to be there. Instead she looked out the window to see him already working on the car. Or had he even been to bed yet? It was hard to tell.

She made a pot of coffee and filled up a couple of travel mugs to take on the road. She thought about it for a moment before she pulled an extra one out of the cabinet and filled it up for Dean, deciding to take a chance and bring it out to him.

"Hey Dean," she said, juggling his mug carefully

He didn't seem startled when she called out to him, which meant he must have heard her coming.

"Hey short-round," he said.

Laney smiled, pleased by the use of one of his nicknames for her.

"I brought you a cup of joe. Sam and I have to hit the road extra early today."

"Thanks," he said, grabbing the mug from her.

"Don't mention it."

"So why so early today?" he asked.

"Ah, they're doing a full physical today. Blood work, MRI of my leg and all that, see how things are coming along."

Dean looked irritated. Sam hadn't mentioned it to him. But Sam probably had no clue either, he thought.

"I see," he said, uncertainly. "Maybe I should come with, talk to the doctors."

"Nah, it's okay. Results won't be back for a day or two. They'll just call you," said Laney, looking around. "Besides, looks like you're pretty busy here."

"I can leave it for a day," said Dean, when he noticed the sad look of resignation on her face.

Laney was ready to say okay, but she could tell by the way he looked at her and back towards the Impala, and the tense set of his shoulders, that he really didn't want to go. He wanted to keep working.

"Don't worry about it Dean. I'll keep you posted."

"Okay."

Laney smiled, trying not to show how upset she was at the relief that was clearly written all over her brother's face. He didn't want to go. He didn't want to be bothered.

"Well, I won't hold you up any longer. Catch you later." With that, Laney quickly went back inside the house.

"Shit," muttered Dean, flinging a work glove on the ground. What the hell is wrong with me?

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"So fill me in," said Laney. "Tell me what you guys were up to yesterday." She and Sam were headed into the city for her appointment and she planned to take advantage of the hour to grill him for info.

Sam sighed. "I cracked the code on one of Dad's old cell phones."

"Oh," said Laney, quietly.

"Yeah, he had a message on there that he'd saved for four months from a woman named Ellen Harvelle."

"Never heard of her."

"Neither had we."

"You tracked her down," said Laney, more a statement than a question.

"Yup. She's runs a roadhouse out on Route 82."

"Okay," said Laney, "So who is she?"

"Turns out this roadhouse is kind of like a meeting place for hunters. They hang out there, trade information."

Laney's eyes widened in surprise. "Is she a hunter too?"

"No, but her husband was."

"Was?"

"Yeah, he's dead and I guess he and Dad worked together on a few cases."

"Huh. So why did Dad save her message?"

Sam was quiet for a full minute. Laney was beginning to wonder if he'd even heard her ask her question.

"She knows about yellow-eyes."

Sam looked worriedly out of the corner of his eye at his sister when he heard her sharp intake of breath.

"Does she know where he is?" she asked shakily.

"No, but she's got a guy that works there, name is Ash, computer genius. He's setting up a program for us, like the one you made for Dad. See if we can't track him down again."

"Why didn't you just ask me?"

Sam stuttered for a moment. "Uh – well – it's – uh – not that we don't think you can do it, it's just, you know, you've got your recovery to focus on."

Yeah, right. This is really because you think I'm so brain damaged I couldn't do it again.

Laney let it go. "What else happened?"

"She gave us some information on a possible case."

"What does it involve?"

Laney noticed her brother's face visibly pale. "Sammy?"

"Killer clowns."

Laney nearly choked on the sip of coffee she'd just taken. "Clowns?"

Sam nodded tightly.

"Oh Sam, I'm so sorry."

Sam's fear of clowns was well known and documented in the Winchester household. Dean had never failed to torture him to no end on the subject. Give him a vengeful spirit or a skinwalker any day of the week and it was no big deal. Give him a clown and all bets were off.

Laney couldn't help but laugh off and on the rest of the drive. It was almost enough to take her mind off the fact that her brothers' didn't trust her to help them anymore. Almost.