Sam picked up the cell phone and looked at the caller ID. "Hey, Ellen, what's up?" He was driving 20 miles from nowhere on some back road in Kansas, trying desperately to avoid Lawrence, even though they could crash at Missouri's in a pinch. Sam just wasn't ready to face the past again. He didn't think Dean was either so soon after their father's death.

"Got a call from someone today." She said, not sure how to broach the subject. She wasn't even sure she should use Sam and Dean for this job. Normally this wasn't something that she would pass along to a hunter who was involved in the situation. But she knew the boys, they were like their dad. Involved was the only way it happened and if she let someone else handle it she would have them breathing down her neck when it got back to them. "Sarah Cavanaugh. Down in Tyler Texas."

"We're in Kansas, shouldn't take us too long to get there, what's the job?" He asked and Dean perked up at the words job and not too long to get there.

"Well, she called with the strangest story, said some guy showed up, amnesia, and messed up pretty bad. Has him holed up at her place still."

"Okay, but how is this something we need to take care of?" He asked, heavy brows furrowing, knowing that she was hedging, not wanting to tell the full story for some reason. He could hear it in her voice.

"Sam, " she took a deep breath, "she says it's you're Dad."

Sam hit the brakes. "That's not possible." He said in a harsher tone than he intended, as the wheels locked, leaving skid marks behind them on the road. "You know that's not possible." He looked over at his brother with wide eyes.

"Son of a –" Dean swore, bracing himself against the dash before getting out the passenger's side door. "Scoot over." He told Sammy, grumbling as he walked around the car about car abuse. He got behind the wheel, and readjusted the seat forward several inches.

"Ow!" Sam exclaimed indignantly as he banged his knees on the dash, letting Dean take the cell phone out of his hands.

"Hey, see she doesn't like it when you drive, she bites back you know." Dean said and returned his attention to the cell phone. Sam didn't retort, and that caught Dean's attention, almost as surely as Ellen's story. His affect going from perplexed to pained to bland in mere seconds.

"We're on it." He said flatly into the phone. "No… we're good. I'ts not our Dad. We cremated him and salted the remains… It's not Dad. We're on it."

"Dean, you alright?" Sam asked, watching the expressions play across his brother's face, but Dean waved him off.

"Yeah, like I said, we're on it. Let her know we'll be there tonight or in the morning depending on the roads." He hung up the phone, and stared forward for several moments. Long silent moments.

"Dean-" Sam began but was cut off by the sound of Dean's hand slamming into the steering wheel again and again and again. "… You're hurting the car." He said figuring it was the one thing that might grab his brother's attention right now. "Dean…" he said more firmly this time.

"Shut up, Sammy." He said as he turned the stereo up and started the car down the road at somewhat less than legal speeds. Dean fumbled around in his tapes, picking one up looking at it then dropping it to go for another one, all the while repeating himself after every persistent question. "Shut up Sammy… Sam, shut up… I don't want to talk about it Sam… Sam shut the hell up already. "

Sam couldn't help but ask the questions. Who or what could it be that was using their father's face, why would it appear in Texas, who was this woman they were going to see, how did she know their father in the first place? Was it after something of their father's or something of hers? The questions kept coming into his mind and once there making their way out of his mouth much to the consternation of his increasingly irritable older brother.

It was just as Dean popped in the tape he had been looking for that Sam asked the question Dean had been trying to avoid.

"What if it's him?" He asked, looking over at his brother, who simply glared in return and cranked the volume on Ozzy. "Dean I'm serious."

Dean turned the volume up even more and pounding out the beat on the steering wheel, trying to pretend the question had never even been asked, because it wasn't something he was willing to think about.

Mental wounds not healing
Life's a bitter shame
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train

Sam reached over and turned the volume down, Dean in turn turned it back up, even higher than before, trying desperately to drown out the questions, the possibilities. No one wanted their father back more than Dean. No one alive felt his loss as keenly as Dean did, and that ache inside scared him. He couldn't let himself have the faintest hope that this was John Winchester or he would believe the lies without a second thought. No matter how much he wanted to believe; he couldn't.

"Dean, I am trying to talk here."

He turned the volume up again, this time to the barest edge of the speakers' capacity, the music beating into him as he beat out the rhythm on the steering wheel. Trying to lose himself between those beats. Trying to drive away the nagging guilt and grief.

Heirs of the cold war
that's what we've become
inheriting troubles I'm mentally numb
crazy, I just cannot bear
I'm living with something that just isn't fair

Sam let go for a time, delving into research, looking for answers to questions that Dean was unwilling to entertain. He couldn't help but hope just a little. It was in him to hope. He had to believe in miracles as well as tragedy.

The trip was a long one, going down back roads, but at least they avoided the turnpikes that way. Occasionally they would talk, and so long as Sam kept the conversation to where to grab food, what supplies they needed for the first aid kit, Dean was responsive. Vague, almost lost, but responsive. Anytime the subject turned to the job at hand the battle would begin once more.

"Shut up, Sammy, shut up Sammy, shut up Sammy, shut up Sammy." He intoned until the words almost had no meaning anymore. Not that his brother acknowledged what he was saying anyway.

"Dude, we have to talk about this." Sam pressed.

"No." He said. "We don't."

"Oh yeah, well how do you expect to deal with the man if you cant even deal with the fact that he exists?"

"I don't." Dean said with a shrug. "There's nothing to 'deal' with. Either it's some poor schmuck that this Sarah chick thinks looks like Dad, or i'ts some demon in Winchester suit. Either way, it's not Dad, there's nothing to deal with. "

"How do we know that it isn't Dad?" Sam asked. "With all the demons and monsters and walking dead we deal with, why is it so hard to believe that there could be something miraculous in the world?"

Dean glanced over at him in disbelief. "Didn't we have this conversation in Nebraska? I mean, hello, faith healer didn't turn out to be such a miracle did it?"

"You're still here." Sam said, the look in his eyes revealing that he still wasn't quite over that scare.

"Yeah, and they murdered someone to keep me alive. What do you think it would take to bring a man back from the dead? Dad wouldn't want that on his conscience anymore than… it's not Dad." Any more than he did. It wasn't John, couldn't be John, because Dean couldn't bear the thought of his father going through that gut rending guilt, of him wishing it had never happened.

"Sometimes its not about what Dad wants." Or what Dean wanted. Sam was sorry someone else had died while Dean was being healed. He really was, but his brother was still here. Dean hadn't been taken from him. That was what mattered to Sam. He knew it was selfish but that was the way it was. "All I'm saying is it's a possibility we have to consider."

"No. It isn't." Dean said as he turned up the volume once more, closing the discussion. He would have gladly died that night in the hospital if it would have meant that John hadn't sacrificed himself. He had cheated death so many times, and every time someone else paid the price for him. It should be about what he wanted, it should be about what John would want. No one should have to live on with that guilt.

They arrived in Tyler, Texas just as the sun was rising. Dean followed the directions he had gotten from Ellen, and half an hour later they were pulling into the long drive of a small ranch.

As he parked the car the front door opened and a middle aged woman stepped out the front door. With her hands on her hips she looked over the car, and then the young men that stepped out of it. "Well if that car isn't another ghost from the past." She said shaking her head. "You must be Sam and Dean. I'm Sarah Cavanaugh."

"Yes ma'am." The brothers said in unison. "I take it you and my Dad were old friends?" Sam asked, not that he could remember the woman at all. He glanced over at Dean who shook his head almost imperceptively.

"Not exactly. He and my husband used to go on hunting trips together. John would come back by here to be patched up. Those two would come home in so many pieces, I swear it was like sewing a crazy quilt some nights." She shook her head. "Poor man, I think that's why he came here now. Some sort of unconscious memory, because he's in pretty rough shape. Looks like he's been hit by a Mac truck." She said as she started to ward the door. "You boys come on in and have a bite. He's resting for now."

The brothers exchanged looks. "Thank you Mrs. Cavanaugh." Dean said with his most charming smile. Usually he sicced Sam on the middle aged mother, and old granny lady types. But he had a bad feeling about this. His spidey sense was tingling all over the place, and he didn't want Sam getting in too close just yet. "Not hungry, really but I could sure use a cup of coffee if that's alright."

Sam followed his brother's lead, taking in their surroundings as they were lead into the house. It was definitely a hunter's home. Salt discreetly placed at the threshold and he suspected the window casings as well.

His trained eye could make out at least five weapons in that room alone. Holy symbols over door ways worked into the simply country décor. So this was what it was like to be a hunter and have a home at the same time? It made him uncomfortable but he wrote it off to jealousy and followed his brother and the woman into the kitchen.

"So how did you find this guy?" Sam asked, as she poured coffee for them both.

She indicated where the cream and sugar was. "Found him out in the back forty, about half in half out of that old well out there." She shook her head. "Your father sure has a will to survive. I don't know too many men that could have made that climb in his condition."

Dean's jaw ticked. He looked into his coffee cup as Sam continued to ask questions.

"Can we take a look at the well?" Sam asked, and Sarah nodded. "Any idea how he got out there?"

"Not a one. I appreciate that you two are all for investigating, but don't you want to see your father?"

"Our father is dead" Dean said finally, looking up from his coffee. "I am willing to admit that this man may look like him to you, and that it's definitely a situation, but that man is not my Dad."

"Dean." Sam said in a gentle admonishing tone, and the slightly older man shook his head as

though to shake off the mood that had settled over him. "Actually I would like to see him." Sam held up a hand as Dean started to protest. "It's been a few years since you have seen him… maybe he doesn't look as much like our Dad as you think he does."

Dean seemed to relax a little then and nodded as well. "Yeah, probably best we start this thing off with a visit to the mystery man himself." He admitted reluctantly. He didn't want to do this. Didn't want to see his father laying there in a bed, helpless, wounded. Not even if it wasn't really his father.

Sarah sighed and shook her head a little in disappointment at their disbelief and started toward the guest room. "Well, come on." She said looking over her shoulder as the brothers lagged behind, looking at each other as though trying to decipher what was in the other's head.

She paused at a door at the end of the hall for a moment then looked back at the young men. "Like I said, he's resting, and he has been through a lot." She admonished. "Whether you believe he is your father or not, the man doesn't deserve to be battered in his condition. He doesn't know anything about himself or how he got here, so asking won't help."

"Right, put away the rubber hoses, and no badgering the witness." Dean said sarcastically. "Got it."

Sarah looked at him through narrowed blue eyes. "You know, of all the things you could have inherited from John, this isn't the one I would be proud of if I were you." She said as she stepped aside.

Dean looked at their hostess and then at the door, clenching and unclenching his hands until the knuckles cracked, unconsciously doing it. He was staring at the door as if it might hold some clue as to what was behind it, without opening it.

Face to face, it had come to this. He had burned his father's body. He was sure of that. Smuggled it out of the morgue. He'd watched his father's heartbeat disappear on the monitor, watched the doctors and nurses step away from John when it was all over. Watched them remove the now useless tube that had been shoved down his throat to force him to breathe.

That whole scene passed before his eyes, seeing them, not the door.

Sam reached for the door knob and Dean grabbed his wrist. "Wait." He said as he pressed his ear against the door, listening inside. For...anything...as Sam looked at him quizzically.

"We're not going to know anything until we go in there." Sam said logically, and gently. Too gently, as Dean's eyes whipped to his brother's before closing down. Hope and fear battling within the hazel green depths. Before they were vanquished into blankness. Then he let go of Sam's wrist and nodded, taking a step back. Nearly a defensive posture.

He watched the door open, cautiously. Sam was being cautious. Dean didn't know if he was being cautious over what could be inside the door, or of Dean. Or of both.

The room would have made Martha Stewart proud, soft colored wall paper with a delicate subtle print, crips curtains, even the bedspread matched the decor. The carpet was thick under his feet as he took a careful step in, muffling any sound his boots would have made as he approached the man on the bed, who was sleeping, or seemed to be.

Battered? Yeah, he was battered. Looked like he'd gone head to head with Rocky, Apollo and Drago all in one movie. But recognizable, causing Dean to sharply intake breath as his eyes widened in shock. He looked at Sam.

"It's not possible."

"Dean, look at him." Sam whispered back, urgently.

"I'm looking."

"But.."

"Don't start, Sammy." Dean said. Don't get my hopes up. I've had enough dashed in my life. I can't survive another one. Not like this.

The man on the bed opened his eyes. Didn't do any obvious startling, just opened his eyes, his eyes cutting to the young men at the foot of his bed. Dean's eyes met his for a moment. Just a moment before he turned on his heel and walked quickly out of the room, past Mrs. Cavanaugh, to the outside, holding onto a rail as he retched over the porch.

"Not possible." He said, over and over to himself. It wasn't.

"You should talk to him." Mrs Cavanaugh said from the door, leaning against the open screen door.

"That's not my father." Dean said, wiping his mouth.

"Are you sure? We've all seen some pretty strange things..."

"That's not my father!" Dean nearly yelled. "It can't be." He finished in a whisper. But it was. And he couldn't explain it. He made a life explaining things that couldn't be explained, everything everyone said was 'supernatural' or 'paranormal' was actually quite natural and normal if you could wrap your head around it.

He couldn't wrap his head around this.

He couldn't.

Sam slowly stepped closer to the bed. He didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry. This was his father. "I don't- I don't understand." He said as he gently sat down on the edge of the bed. "how?"

John swallowed hard. "I don't know." He said and cleared his throat. "I should know you." He said as he studied his son. "I know that much but…it's just a feeling, not anything concrete."

Sam nodded. "I … yeah." He said. "I- We… we're you're sons. I'm Sam. That was Dean." He smiled again. "I cant believe you're here. It's okay that you don't remember, you will." He had confidence in that. His father was alive. It shouldn't be. They had destroyed his earthly remains. But here he was, alive, even if not well.

"Your brother doesn't seem too happy to see me." The tone was matter of fact, accepting, not hurt, not pleased.

"He is." Sam said, and his smile broadened at the look his father gave him. It was a purely Dad look. One that spoke volumes of disbelief, and demanded the truth, but it was pure John, and that was somehow reassuring. "We watched you die." He told him, choosing his words carefully. Not sure his father could handle the truth right now. "It's a shock. You two are close, believe me."

John nodded. "Alright. What about you and me?"

It was Sam's turn to look stricken. He swallowed hard and fought to find the words.

"That close, huh?" John said, taking everything in. He didn't remember his life but you didn't forget skills that were hardwired in. You didn't forget how to observe people, even if you didn't remember them.

"We..." Sam struggled with the words, and finally sighed. "We argue a lot. Usually very loudly." He laughed nervously "But…we just, I guess we aren't friends like you and Dean."

John nodded. It felt right. He would have liked to hear that things were different. Didn't like the thought of being distant from his own son, but what was there to say about it? Maybe things could be different now, but he didn't think it was something they could really discuss, just something that had to be made to happen.

Sam nodded in return, letting the silence fall between then, although for once it wasn't an angry silence. "Ahm… how much has Mrs. Cavanaugh told you?"

"Not much. Not anything that makes sense." John told him. "A lot of it makes me wonder if she isn't a little off kilter."

Sam frowned. She had probably been trying to make John remember. Made sense really but it wasn't something he really thought of as wise. It was a shock of some sort that had taken his memories, probably the shock of what ever had brought him back to the living… what ever had reconstituted his body from ash and bone. "She isn't nuts. Wish it were the case but… she's not."

John took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wincing a little as he ran one battered hand through his hair. "Okay… that's going to take some getting used to." He winced again, moving his hand to his chest. "Aah." He breathed, his eyes watering with the pain.

"Dad?" Sam asked. If his father was acknowledging pain it hurt like hell. The man wouldn't tolerate weakness, not even with amnesia.

John looked as though he were about to reply, but choked it back. His eyes suddenly cleared and he reached out for his son's arm. "Sammy, run." He growled out then arched his back and screamed in pain.

"Dad!" He moved off of the bed but only took a step back as he watched his father writhe in pain ."No… no damn it no." He could see the bandages on his chest discolor, darken in a distinctive pattern. "Dean." He yelled at the top of his lungs.

Dean had accepted a glass of water from Mrs. Cavanaugh when he heard Sam yell for him. He put the glass back down on the counter, not noticing that it came crashing right back down as he ran by back into the room.

"Sammy!" Dean said and stopped short when he saw the pattern on the bandages. Dark and nearly blood colored, as if it were soaking through the bandages. "Sam, get back!" Dean said. But he had to know as he tore the bandages off John's chest...revealing bruising and gashes. But the gashes weren't in the same pattern as the sigil that had appeared on the dressing.

And red marks on his chest, from the defibrillator that had been used to try and restart his chest. Angry burns rising up in relief to the blanching skin.

Dean's breath was as nearly ragged as John's as he looked at the bandages, comparing them to the wounds on the chest.

Had this happened to anyone else besides a man who looked like his father, he could have been more level headed. It didn't help to look in his eyes, his father's eyes, even if they were clouded with amnesia and confusion and pain.

Pain, John and pain. John in pain.

Dean was frozen for a moment until his father's back stopped arching and he slumped back on the bed, with Dean still holding the bandages. Mrs. Cavanaugh bustled in.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She demanded as she moved Sam aside to go to the bedside. "I told you, you can't be rough with him. He can't take it right now."

"I didn't..." Dean tried to say.

"Get out!" Mrs Cavanaugh said as she reached for more dressing supplies. "You've done enough damage. I knew it was a bad idea to call Ellen."

"But..."

"I said leave! Until you can behave like a human being."

"Dean..." John said, half moan, half whisper. "Go." He gestured at the bandages. "Job." Then he stifled another scream as another fit took him.

"We didn't do it." Sam said in an amazingly authoritative tone. This was his family. That woman may be helping his father but she had no right to accuse. "We're not going far. And we sure as hell aren't leaving the property without him." He did however steer the stunned Dean to the back of the room to give her room to work. He for one wasn't going anywhere until his father stopped writhing in pain. He had died alone once, Sam wasn't going to let him suffer alone now.

"You are standing on my property boy." She pointed out not liking his tone at all. "John… it's alright. " She said in a soothing tone "It's going to be all right. "

"There are hospitals." Dean countered finally finding his center again when his father slumped into unconsciousness, no longer twisting in pain.

Sarah Cavanaugh sighed then. Frustration evident in her tone. "You're right. I'm sorry. It's just, when ever he starts to worry at it, you know… starts trying to find John inside that head of his, these fits start. The more you push at him the harder it's going to be on him."

Sam frowned. "I wasn't pushing." He said. "I asked how much you had told him, about things, and then the pain started and he told me to run." He looked at his brother then. "I swear Dean, he was all there where he said it. He called me Sammy. "

"It's not that big a stretch to call someone named Sam, Sammy." Dean countered, as he continued to stare at the sigil on the bandages.

"Sure, if they're 5." Sam countered. "I think that's why the pain started. I think something is trying to keep him from remembering."

Dean frowned deeper and looked at his brother for a minute before glancing toward his father once more, now settling into a relaxed state, breathing evenly. "You said you found him crawling out of some well. Mind if we take a look at it while he rests?"

"Suit yourself." She said as she applied antibiotic ointment to his abrasions before bandaging John's chest. " Head on over to the barn, my foreman should be around there somewhere. His name is Jake. Tell him I said to take you over there."

"We have any climbing equipment in the Impala?" Sam asked.

"Got plenty of rope, we'll make do." Dean said as he finally broke his gaze from his father, and turned to leave the room. "I think you're right, Sammy. The demon wants his brain scrambled."

"How did he get here in the first place?" Sam asked as he followed Dean out the door and to the trunk of the Impala.

"Don't know. Worry about that later." Dean said, stashing the bandages inside his jacket for the time being. "Right now let's find out what's causing the… anti-stygmata."

Sam grabbed the rope. "They may be one in the same." He said as they started walking toward the barn. "If he was found coming up out of that well it might be the point of entry"

"What? A gate way to hell?" Dean asked with his brow furrowed. "That's comforting." He grumbled.

"Dad probably wasn't in hell." Sam said. It was one of those things. He couldn't imagine his father having sex and he couldn't imagine him going to hell. Maybe purgatory but never hell.

"He was in hell." Dean said

"What?"

"He gave himself to the demon to keep me alive." He said matter of factly, as though it didn't bother him. But it did. It ate at him every day. Every time he would think to himself 'that is Dad would have liked something' or wished he could talk to his father, it ate at him. His Dad had died to save him.

It didn't make him feel all warm and fuzzy. Didn't give him that sense of being loved and protected. It was guilt and anger and abandonment all wrapped up into one mother of a knot in his chest.

"Dean, why didn't you t-"

"Don't" was all Dean said, and the word was final. There would be no argument over this one. No string of shut up Sam to follow his incessant speech. The subject was terminated.

Jake stepped out of the barn as they drew near. "We're not hiring." He said as he wiped his hands and mopped at his brow.

"That's okay, we're not applying." Dean said with a lopsided grin, so easily pulled into place even though his insides were ragged and torn. "Mrs. Cavanaugh said for us to come ask you to show us that well… the one our Dad was found at."

"Oh, so you're the Winchester boys." Jake said with a nod. "Gimme a minute and I'll take you out there. If you can ride, feel free to saddle up."

"Nah, we got it." Dean said, memorizing a topography map hanging on the wall. "Come on, Sam." He said, taking the rope from Sam and winding it into tight loops as Jake went to get the horses.

"Can you ride?" Sam asked doubtfully as Jake moved off with a shrug.

"Yeah." Dean said. "A little." Sam gave him a look. "Once."

"Pony rides at the fair don't count." Sam said, and Dean smacked him upside the head for that one.

"Let's go." Dean said as Jake saddled horses and handed them the reigns. "Thanks, dude." Dean said and cleared his throat as he led the horses out of the barn. "Okay, so the map says the well in question is that way." He said pointing. Then he looked the horse up and down. "Okay, let's do this."

It was an awkward mount, but he managed to get in the saddle. "Look at that!" Dean said. "Wow, you're short." He said to his brother, still standing on the ground.

"Jerk." Sam said as he got on the horse and they tentatively led the horses in the direction. "So..."

"Don't." Dean said.

"Dean, we have to talk about this. That's Dad!" Sam said, not about to fall for his brother shutting down the conversation now.

"It looks like him, it sounds like him, I'm not sure it is him." Dean said, hedging.

"Dammit Dean!" Sam said. The horse reared at the temper in his voice and Sam took a breath. "I'm serious. He called me Sammy. He knew you were Dean without anyone telling him. He's in there."

"Okay, we'll go with that. It's him. What's he doing back? What's wiping his memory? How'd he come back? Who's responsible for this?" Dean shot back and waved the bandages in Sam's face. "And what does this mean?"

"Well, that's why we're going to the well." Sam said. "Might be something there."

"Or not and we're just going on another wild goose chase like when we were looking for dad in the first place!"

"And think of all the people we saved then."

"I don't want to save anyone!" Dean said. "I just want my father back." He whispered.

"What?" Sam said, not hearing that. Dean didn't answer, just nudged his horse faster. "Dean, I didn't catch that."

"Good." Dean said. "That's the point of a whisper you know." Sam made a face, coming right against the wall that was Dean. When Dean wanted to shut down. The far less charming Dean that no one else saw, and he wasn't sure if he was supposed to be flattered that he saw this side and no one else did.

It was a short ride, but would have been a long walk, to reach the well as Dean dismounted, more than happy to be off the beast as he shook himself out. It was a large well, made to support a ranch, with a platform built recently, within the last year. Dean hunched down beside it and looked down, shining a flashlight. Deep down, he could see a watery reflection of the light. Sam knelt down beside him.

"So he was half in, half out." Sam said. "Probably right there." Where there was a blood smudge.

"It's a long drop." Dean said, picking up a rock and throwing it down. It was a good few seconds until he heard the splash. "All right, let's do this." He said, unwinding the rope and tying it around a nearby post.

"Whoa, what makes you think you're going?" Sam said as Dean made a harness with another piece of rope and tied them together.

"Because I'm the oldest, I'm cuter, I'm more athletic..." Dean said. "Any more questions? Good. On belay?" He said with a smirk as he braced himself at the edge of the well.

"On belay." Sam grumbled, slipping on gloves and taking the rope as Dean scaled down the well.

Dean shone the flashlight along the walls as he slowly went down. Normal enough walls, slick, smooth, relatively clean. Then he tugged on the rope to let Sam know not to lower him anymore as he dug the bandages out of his jacket.

"Son of a bitch." He said,comparing the sigil to the mark on the walls. He pulled a glove off with his teeth and touched it with his bare hand, jumping back until he hit the other side of the well. "All right, Sammy, pull me up!" He called out.

A few minutes later, he was taking the harness off.

"Dude, you gotta lay off the cheeseburgers." Sam said.

"Shut up." Dean said and took his gloves off, showing Sam his hand. "Blood." He said. "This symbol is in that well painted with blood."

"Probably Dad's." He said, ignoring the look Dean gave him. Dean was trying to protect himself, but he knew, and Sam knew it. There was no denying that man was their father. "Okay… so let's get back to the house. I'll see if this sigil comes up with anything." He would also send it out to the roadhouse, see what they might have there. Besides, he wanted to tell Ellen that it was actually their father.

Dean nodded and struggled back up into the saddle. He didn't doubt that Sam was right. The man in the bed (his father) had probably put the sigil there. But if he had the man (his father) was either possessed when he did it or had another of his episodes.

"He was probably climbing out." He couldn't imagine the amount of fortitude it would take to do that in the condition the man was in. "Which means he started out in the water. Cause I doubt he went crawling down in there just to paint pretty pictures."

Sam frowned. "So we should look up what we can on the property as well. Well might be cursed now, we should probably do a cleansing ritual on it. Do you think we can trust her?"

"Hell no. But what do I know, right?" Dean said with a shrug. He didn't trust anyone but Sammy right then. If that man was really his father (he was… he knew he was) then once all this demonic crap was settled, he would trust him again too, but right at that moment, not a chance.

"Okay… guess we'll see how Dad reacts to her when he is conscious before deciding what to do with him while we track this down. He definitely wants us to work on this thing."

Dean frowned. He wasn't comfortable with this at all. Something about it was rubbing him the wrong way. "Whether this guy is Dad or not we can't leave him unprotected. Gotta do something to keep what ever that thing is from attacking him."

"It's Dad."

"Sam." Dean said a little sharply "Leave it alone. Please." He frowned. "Besides, can you see Dad laying still in a frigging Better Homes and Gardens reject?"

"I don't think he has choice right now. He's pretty ragged. If it weren't for the sigil on the bandages, I'd have already called an ambulance. He goes into the hospital and that starts happening and we'll be beating off priests, the National Enquirer and who knows how many other freaks? Every time the shrink comes to help him with his memory there goes another seizure." Sam frowned. Seizure. It certainly looked like something was trying to seize his father.

They rode the rest of the way back in silence, returning the horses to the barn and helping to put away the gear. Sam went straight for his lap top, starting to check out the usual sites on demonology.

Dean walked back to his father's room, opening the door quietly. He entered, walking silently on the deep pile carpet and took a seat in the chair by the window, staring at the man on the bed.

He looked like John Winchester. Even the way he breathed when he slept was like John Winchester. God knew that Dean had lay awake on enough nights listening to that sound, making sure it didn't stop. John had come back from the hunt tore all to hell more often than not. Hazard of the job.

Sam had said something about a hospital but this wasn't hospital bad. This was feed him two lortab, a couple of antibiotics and stay awake all night listening bad. This was the sort of bad where Dean used to take Sammy to the park when he was little so that their father could sleep and recover well enough to drive in a day or two.

Had the man crawled up from the water of that well? How had he gotten there in the first place? What was the demon trying to stake his claim so painfully? And when they stopped it… would his father cease to exist again? Would saving him ultimately destroy him?

Maybe it would be better to leave him unaware of who he was. Just let him go through life as John Doe. Maybe there wouldn't be any new scars. Maybe he could have a home, settle down, be at peace. That had been Dean's only consolation when his father had died. That his fight was done and there wasn't going to be any more anger and pain for John. But then that bubble had been burst by a demon who didn't like being cornered into backing out on a deal. Dean had nightmares based on that conversation.

Had he fought his way out of hell and this was the devil coming to take him back? There were so many ways that this could go badly, that he could wind up losing him yet again. Believing was opening the door to pain. Not believing was opening it to regret. He sighed, and tented his fingers in front of his face, tapping his lips to the rhythm of a song he didn't even realize he was thinking of.

"You look like hell." John said simply.

You look like hell.

How many times had John said that to him? Not as many times as Dean had told it to him over the years. When he'd bleed all over whatever motel they were in. When he'd first learned to put stitches in. He remembered, they were gaping and crooked for a while, sometimes they wouldn't hold. And he'd have to do them again, but John would be patient and guide him through it again, with Jose Cuervo acting as lidocaine.

He shook off the memory and managed a weak smile.

"You don't exactly look all that great yourself." Dean said.

"Must be a family trait." John said, closing his eyes again, not knowing where that came from.

But it struck Dean right in the chest. Family trait. It was a family trait, wasn't it? And this man, John, his father, had to bring it up. Had to say it aloud, in that dry John tone. His eyes were closed, so he didn't see Dean pale, or start chewing on his lip as he dropped his hands, but kept them clenched in his lap.

His father. How long had he spent waiting for John to come back, in his childhood? Had he really changed as an adult? Was he still waiting for his father to cross the threshold and make everything all right again? To assure him that things were going to be all right?

But this man was so battered. So hurt and so confused. Was that his job? He didn't want that job, not any more. He wanted to simply be Dean. Quick with the one liners, good with the ladies, and a kick ass demon hunter.

"Yeah." Dean managed. "Must be." And he wanted to push. Wanted desperately to push. But that would bring on another fit, and he'd lose more time. More time with...

He wasn't thinking of that. Of that raw, gaping hole no amount of stitches was going to close that was left where his heart should be. As he watched his father die. Sam thought he was a cynic, but at the core of it was a bead of hope that he constantly tried to shove down.

Hope that tomorrow things really would be okay. They would be better. Because he knew better. He knew all too well what hope got you.

And looking at this man, it was hard not to hope. It was. But he stopped himself as his eyes lidded, trying to fight off the past.

He wanted to push. He wanted to push so badly. But that would bring on another fit. He'd seen one, he couldn't see another one. And he didn't want to put John through that if he could help it. So he sat. In silence. It wasn't a comfortable silence, it was one charged with what ifs? And what was.

John opened his eyes and sat up a little, looking at this man who was his oldest son. Strong resemblance. It was there.

"So you're the oldest." He said finally, making Dean look up from his hands.

"Yeah." Dean said with a nod. That wasn't pushing. That was acknowledging.

"I have two sons."

"Yeah."

"Your mother? I take it we're not together?" John said, looking down at the wedding ring he still wore.

"She died when I was a kid." Dean said.

"Accident?"

"You could say that." He had to be so careful, so careful. John moved the ring around on his finger thoughtfully.

"Did she have blonde hair?"

"She did." Dean said with a nod.

"I loved her."

"You did." Dean said, hiding the choke in his throat.

"I do." John said with a nod, knowing that, even if he couldn't remember clearly.

"Yeah." Dean said, feeling quite witty at the moment.

"You have no idea what to say to me." John said, lifting his eyes from the gold band to look at his eldest son.

Dean was silent for a long moment, with several aborted attempts to say something. "I watched you die." Was what Dean came out with, and realized that was wrong, his face showing he knew that.

"I'm sorry." John said. "So the bandages?"

Dean had to chuckle. Somethings were just in your make up, even if you didn't remember it. Back to The Hunt.

"Sam's looking into it."

Sam sketched the sigil onto a piece of note paper. Tracing the lines over and over as he stared at it. It wasn't familiar to him at all. He wasn't finding it with any of the online sources he normally used. Hunters had a way of disguising their shared research in websites. You just had to know what keys to look for. It wasn't in any of their father's journals either so likely it didn't belong to their favorite yellow eyed demon.

Which complicated matters.

"Maybe it's not a sigil so much as a cipher" He said, getting excited and starting down another track of research. The difference was miniscule in literal definitions of the words but to Sam the difference between Seals, Sigils and Ciphers were hard and fast and miles apart.

A sigil was an identifying marker, a makers mark or the equivalent of knowing something's true name. A sigil cut out the guess work on a demon's name. Sam preferred them for the summoning process. Although he avoided that like the plague.

Seals were hard core magic. Kabbala, hermetic order shit that any one could use even if they didn't know what they were doing. And people not knowing what they were doing was responsible for a good deal of what he and his brother hunted down. One stroke off, one dot out of place, a smudge and what ever it was you were trying to bind was free.

Then there were ciphers. If seals were big magic, controlled magic, ciphers were small. At least in the execution. Like bind runes it was a series of runes of power, melded together into one image. Each individual rune drawn and cast, and the next laid over it, and cast until the final image was the combined force of all. Something completely different than the sum of its parts yet each of them fully activated with in. It was old magic. It had the potential to be nasty magic if in the wrong hands, and since it was appearing in blood and agony, he doubted it was in the hands of the good guys.

His cell phone rang "Yeah" He clipped as he started to research bind runes at various sites. Several forms used that process, which made it even more difficult to track down.

"Hey, Sam. How you holding up?" Ellen asked. She, like Dean, had her doubts and was beginning to doubt the wisdom of sending the boys out there in the first place.

"I'm fine. Was about to call you anyway." He said and yawned, shuddering a little to shake off the drowsiness. Wasn't the first time he had stayed up all night on a job, and this was more important on a personal level than most. "It's Dad. I know what you're thinking, but it is. Problem is something has hold of him. It's keeping his memory blocked, any time he tries to remember it sends him into this… seizure. " He left off the part about the cipher appearing on his chest. He didn't want Ellen making any wrong assumptions and sending someone out here to finish things.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Was all she said, leaving Sam more room to talk.

"Yeah… there's cipher we found at the place Mrs Cavanaugh found Dad. I'll send it to you guys and see if anyone you know recognizes it. " He switched over to the paint program and began to work on creating the image one square at a time. It was slow work, but it gave him something to do while waiting on responses and search engines.

"Ignore anything in red, the black is the image. I don't want to send it in its pure form since we don't know what it is."

"Appreciate that. Might have to hurt you if you suddenly turned stupid on us" She said, and Sam could hear the smile in her voice. "Anything else you need us to do?"

"Nah. I will let you know though. I appreciate the help Ellen."

"Any time." She said. She had her issues with John, some of which had spilled over onto his boys but they were good kids, and John, well he was John. Not much anyone was going to do about that. Apparently not even kill him.

Sam hung up and finished his work on the sigil, making red marks in places that wouldn't detract from the image but altered it enough to make it safe to send in an email. He was glad they had connected to Ellen . Sam didn't know why Ellen was upset with his father. Dean had kept that to himself. Like most things that would bother Sam, Dean kept it from him. Sheltering him even now.

He poured himself another cup of coffee and settled in to doing more research, this time on the property itself.

"You should get some rest" John told his son.

"Isn't that my line?" Dean asked in return.

"All I do is sleep."

"You'll get better." There it was again. That kernel of hope, trying to sprout inside him like a weed.

John shrugged. "You still need to get some rest. You boys are going to have to leave soon. If there were any answers here they would have been found already."

"I'm not going anywhere"

"Dean-"

"No Dad." There. He had said it. He had called him Dad. Now he had to believe right? Had to hope? No… hope was evil. Hope was what took your breath away and left you standing with nothing but a gaping hole where it used to be. Hope was what made people do foolish things.

John smiled a little. It was a John smile, not the beaming happy smile of a man with no sorrow, no fear in his life. But it was a good smile for John. "That sounded good." Some how he knew that he had been missing that sound. Had been lost some how in a place where he had never thought to hear that sound again. "You still have work to do though. You can't sit around here and wait for your old man to get up and go with you this time."

"Why not?" Dean asked, already feeling that hope crack, knowing some how that his father was trying to say good bye again. He couldn't take that again.

"Because it's going to be a long time before I get out of this bed and stand on my own. Because I would get you killed out there. We both know it. Not sure how I know it, but I do."

Sam looked at the website and smiled. Of course it made sense that his father would come up through a well. Mythical gateways between this world and others. Sometimes fairies, sometimes monsters…sometimes the underworld itself. Wells that were found where they didn't believe there should be water were supposed to be the most powerful.

Sam remembered the geological/ topographical map out in the barn and headed that way at a run.

"Where's the fire?" Jake asked

"Not sure." Sam said not really thinking about what he said. He grinned looking at the map then stepped outside and looked around. The property was green, lush, fertile by all appearances. But the land across the road was only green a short way in, then turned the same dirty dusty brown as the rest of the landscape, the normal look of things in the middle of august in Texas.

Sam took a horse and headed back out to the well. He wanted to check on something before interrupting Dean. The more time Dean spent with their father the better. They needed each other. Dean had been the walking wounded since his father had died. Like the life had been sucked out of him instead of their father. He had put on a good mask of being the old Dean, but Sam had seen through it.

There were a number of things Sam had inherited from their father. His complexion. His temper. And his ability to read Dean like an old familiar book. Dean wasn't hiding anything from Sam. It was good for Dean to be in there, he needed it, in a way that Sam could see but couldn't truly fathom.

He dismounted as he got to the well, looking at the land around it. All the trees near at hand were starting to lose their glow. There were dead leaves littering the grown as though it were late fall rather than late summer. Some of the limbs were already barren.

The grass was brown in patches. Those patches become more frequent the closer you got to the well. The ground close to the base was hard packed and lifeless. Something you didn't normally think of in the late summer. Except that the rest of the property was lush, why the patch near the well?

Sam fiddled in his pocket and pulled out what had once been a bottle of nasal spray. Now it contained holy water. Not much – but enough to get something out of his face if need be. He knelt down beside the well and sprayed the holy water at the base near the dead earth.

At first he thought it would do nothing. Not really sure what he thought it was going to do when he had done it. But then the sound came. The sound of scrabbling and screeching, the sound of wind centering on the well. Sam backed away, aiming for the horse, and escape, but the horse had ideas of its own and took off at a gallop.

Sam took his eyes off of the well long enough to look at his escape racing off and that was when the first hit him. "Ow!" He exclaimed and looked down to see a dazed bird falling to the ground, a sparrow. He lifted his eyes and saw them pouring forth like a living tornado. Screeching loud enough to almost deafen him.

John scratched at his chest, his expression suddenly troubled.

Deans eyes widened "Dad-? " he asked fearing the worst, but John shook his head, waving him off.

"Where's your brother?" He asked still frowning.

"He was in the kitchen when I –"

He didn't finish the sentence, didn't get the chance. John interrupted abruptly, sharply. "Go find your brother. Now"

Dean was out of the chair and out the room before John even finished. What the hell was Sam doing now? Into the kitchen, Sam wasn't there.

He brushed past Mrs. Cavanaugh and ran outside. No Sam. At least the Impala was still there. Then he ran toward the well, not even bothering with a horse.

A full on, break neck run that left him gasping as he found his brother by the well. With...sparrows coming out of it?

"Sam!" Dean said, grabbing Sam and pulling him back.

"I'm fine." Sam said, waving Dean off.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Dean demanded.

"How's Dad?" Sam asked instead.

"A little concerned about you. Doesn't even have to have his memory back to know you're getting in trouble."

It was so easy to fall back on that word. Dad. He'd used it aloud. He'd thought it several times. That man in there was his father, their father, John Winchester. Somehow. And it had to do with this freaky ass well.

Sam nearly smiled a little at that poke. "Sounds like him." Sam said as they moved away from the well, as the sparrows started to slow down. "Sent it to Ellen." He said, meaning the sigil.

"And?"

"And I didn't find anything." Sam said. "It might not be a sigil. I think it might be a cipher."

"Wonderful." Dean said, still catching his breath. Sometimes he felt like all the times he'd nearly died, and should have died, were trying to catch up to him. Times like these, when his heart was racing in his chest and his lungs didn't want to breathe normally. But his breathe was finally caught and he looked at Sam. "We have no idea what we're dealing with here and you go off alone? This isn't a normal hunt!"

"Dean, I know that..."

"Don't 'Dean' me." Dean said. "I don't know what the hell is going on, but no hot dogging cowboying."

Sam scratched his head and gave his brother a look. "So who's going down?"

"Me." Dean said. "I went down once, I'll go again." Just in case there was something freaky down there. Nothing freaky ever really wanted its way with Dean. Just Sam and John. Which made him the safer bet as he grabbed rope they'd left behind earlier. "Don't suppose you have a flashlight on you?" Sam shook his head, this had been a lark, he hadn't planned it all that well. Dean sighed and shook his head as he got out his zippo, there was enough fluid on it. "Dad wants us to leave." He said as he tied a harness on.

"What?"

"Well, he knows the answers probably aren't here, and he can't come with. NOt with how he is now." Dean said. If he didn't know what he knew, he would have suggested taking him to the roadhouse. But he couldn't ask Ellen and Jo to look after John, not after what happened with John and William Harvelle. He wasn't even sure he'd trust them to do so appropriately come to think of it. And John seemed comfortable with Mrs. Cavanaugh, though the jury was still out on that one. "On belay?"

"On belay." Sam said, grabbing the rope. "So we're really just going to leave him here? We can't do that Dean. He's our father and he needs us."

"He needs us to figure out what's going on." Dean said, his voice taking on a hollow and echoing quality as he was lowered back into the well. "So, sparrows."

"Yeah, makes sense. Sparrows are often psychopomps..."

"Which are harbingers of the undead, bringing the dead back to the world of the living and the living to the world of the dead. I know." Dean interrupted. "You're not the only literary braintrust in the family."

"Myspace, dude. Myspace."

"Shut up and give me some slack on this rope. So dad comes out of this well, and he's followed by sparrows. Or he could have been brought by sparrows previously. The way Dad is, I don't even think he could scale these walls without some help." Dean said as he braced his feet on the wall to slow down his ascent as he scanned the walls with his zippo. "He's pretty tore up."

"Guess that can happen when a body is remade from scratch." Sam said thoughtfully.

"No, some of his wounds are combat wounds." Dean said. He would know. He knew what combat wounds looked like on his father. "Like he fought his way out of here or something." He was looking for any marks of struggle. Any claw marks. Anything that would give him some clue.

Below the first mark he had found, fading now, he found another. A map.

"Sam, I found something. I need a light, I can try to capture it on my cellphone, but I need more light."

"We don't have anymore light." Sam reminded him.

"Dammit." Dean said. "Then go get some more light."

"Dude, I'm not leaving you hanging down there."

"Sam, if I leave it might disappear." It had happened before.

"Well, I'm not leaving in case another scene from 'The Birds' happens."

"Good point." Dean said and took a couple of pictures, providing as much light as he could from his lighter.

Sam pulled his brother out of the hole "Next time I'm going to be the one on the end of the rope." He grumbled, helping his brother out of the well.

"There isnt going to be a next time Sam." Dean replied and took a look at the pictures before undoing the make shift harness. They were probably as clear as they were going to get.

"Looks like a map of the waterways. Kinda blurry though"

"Yeah, wasn't exactly clear down there. I think it was starting to degrade." Dean said. "Not sure if it's what we need but its something"

"We need to purify the well"

"They can do that themselves." He said anxious to get moving on this, and not thinking on a supernatural level.

"Dean, look around you." Sam said. "It's killing everything. We can't have that here…not as Dad's primary water source."

"You think this is because of that cipher on the wall down there?" He asked and swore as Sam nodded. "Okay. Gonna need to run into town to get supplies for it though. I don't usually carry that shit with me." If he carried everything he needed for every occasion they would be driving a moving van, not the Impala.

Sam peeked in on their father, to reassure him he was alright, and set up his research materials in there while Dean went into town, and his father dozed. He smiled up at Mrs. Cavanaugh as she brought in lunch for the two of them.

"How is the research coming?" She asked as she helped John to sit up and propped him up into an upright position with pillows.

"Slow but it's coming. We're gonna have to cleanse your well. Whatever is attacking Dad has tainted the well, it's starting to kill things off. Dean went to get supplies for it." He figured that much he could tell her. It was her well after all.

She looked worried then. That well was the life's blood of her ranch. If it went down so would they financially, they could lose the ranch. "Well, I appreciate your help."

Sam shrugged. "It's what we do." He said looking back down at his computer, not seeing the look of pride in his father's eyes.

John was pleased that his boys could do things like they did and be so off handed about it when others thanked them. He figured there were a lot of people out there that would milk it for all it was worth. But not his boys. He must have done something right along the way. Damned if he could remember it though, and he knew better than to dig for it.

Things bubbled to the top all on their own and he latched on to those bits of knowledge with both hands but didn't follow it down for more. He hated it. Knew that if he could just focus long enough he could batter through whatever was keeping his memories locked away. But his body couldn't take the devastation that came with it. He might have been able to fight it all the way before, to hell with the outcome, but not now. He couldn't kill himself that way in front of his boys. He couldn't die on them a second time.

Sarah helped John eat, and he hated that too but he was grateful. The bed was too confining. His own body was too confining. But before long he was sliding, fighting the whole way, into sleep, and Sarah was clearing away the lunch dishes.

"What happened to Mr. Cavanaugh?" Sam asked looking up from his computer.

She paused, as if surprised by the question but then smiled slowly. "Heart attack." She said. "Lost him almost 4 years ago now. You would think with what he did it would be on a hunting trip but it wasn't. " She glanced over at John in the bed. "They were an awful lot alike. Forceful, no nonsense men." She looked back at Sam. "I think he would have preferred to go out with a bang. Hunting, saving lives. " She shrugged. "But we don't always get what we want out of life. The trick is to want what we have. A whole lot of sadness in the world because people don't seem to be able to be satisfied with the hand life deals them."

Sam looked down at that moment. He supposed that was true. Not just in the realm of the supernatural where demons would trade you your heart's desire for your soul. But in the simple things too. Would that have made a difference in his relationship with his father? Or had Sam been right to want and need more from life than blood and death.

She excused herself, closing the door behind them with an audible click.

Dean returned a few hours later. Some supplies he had to drive to another town to get. He had picked up lunch while out and downed three coffees with a 4th resting between his legs as he drove back to the ranch.

This whole gig was one big scary mess, and they hadn't even seen the bad guy yet. No one died unless you count that poor sparrow that kamikazeed himself on Sam's impossibly hard head. Yet this scared him. Reached down into his gut and twisted it up.

A man had come back from the dead. Generally that was bad. Generally what came back was something evil inside of someone that had once been good. It was rare that it turned out to be the person you wanted it so desperately to be. But everything in him said that was his father. Not some zombie, or a possessed corpse. That was his father. Sans a few memories but it was John Winchester. It was the core of John Winchester with the walls and sharp edges cast aside in return for a memory like cheesecloth.

What if he was wrong? What if this was another attempt to get at Sammy? What if he was going to have to hunt his own father? That thought alone made him very nearly pull over and leave his lunch on the side of the road.

This was the point when hope started to kill you. When the logic and doubt came calling, hope made you push them out the door until it was too late and you were pulling a Thelma and Louise off the nearest cliff chasing your hope all the way down. He would just have to juggle both. Logic and hope, even if it made him feel disloyal. Believe that it was his dad but be prepared to protect Sam every step of the way.

He parked the car in front of the house pushing his doubts and fears to the side because there was a job to do. They had a well to cleanse and a bad guy to ferret out somehow…some way, so that he could get his father back.

Dean spent a long moment in the car, in silence. Perfect nearly peaceful silence. The Impala was off, the rumble of the engine died off. The radio was off, his cell wasn't ringing. There was no noise whatsoever except for his own breathing and his fingers moving idly over the steering wheel as he looked at the house.

His father was in that house, his brother was in that house. It was reason enough to go in...except Sam and John weren't arguing. Not even close to it. They were peacefully co existing in the same room. He couldn't remember the last time that happened, usually there was some crackle to the air, even when they were quiet. Like a fight just waiting on the edges to start.

But not today. Today was a day of quiet, even as everything was boiling inside him, threatening to run over at any moment. It was so hard to keep himself in check right now, when everyone really needed him to stay in check. To stay the Dean they depended on. The Dean who had it together.

So he'd be the Dean that had it all together as he got out of the car and got the bag out of the back seat. Supplies. Took a while to find them all, couldn't exactly go into a store and say "yeah I need this and that to purify a well of a potentially evil spirit..."

"Hey." He said softly, coming in the room where Sam was researching and John was sleeping. "He's sleeping again?" He said, putting the bag down on a table and stealing the other half of Sam's sandwich.

"Yeah." Sam said, eyes fixated on the computer. "He needs his rest."

"Huh." Dean said. He was never used to his father sleeping, especially sleeping so much. But the afternoon's fading light didn't cast that great a view on John, with the bruises and the gashes and various other lumps and bumps and crevices that shouldn't be there.

"Huh?" Sam asked with a lifted eyebrow.

"Huh." Dean confirmed as he pulled up a chair. "So what do we have?"

"If that was a map of waterways, we've got some good hits." Sam said, bringing up the relevant pages. "Long map though. If it was accurate."

"Told you to get me a flashlight." Dean said, taking the mouse to scroll down different pages.

"Dean..."

"I know, I know."

"Got the cleansing supplies?"

"In the bag." Dean said as he sat back and looked over at John. Back to his brother, but his eyes kept drifting over to his sleeping father. Almost as if he stopped looking, John wouldn't be there. He'd disappear in the same flash he had reappeared in.

"Then we should do that." Sam said, his voice dragging Dean back to the present.

"Right, then we'll hit the road." Dean said, standing back up. All business. Business was easier.

"We should wait for him to wake up."

"Let's just get the well taken care of." Dean said as he left the room. Sam looked at John and his departing brother. Most of the time he appreciated how quickly Dean could get down to business, but...Sam didn't know. Maybe he was still longing for some long delayed overlooked family bonding. He couldn't do it while John was alive, or previously alive, but maybe he could do it now.

So it confused Sam that Dean wasn't jumping on it, but figured his older brother had his reasons. He always had reasons, even if they didn't make sense to anyone else but Dean.

"All right." Sam said, shutting the lap top down and following him outside, where they drove the Impala out to the well.

They set the stage in silence. Each knowing what needed to be done and doing it. Neither of them wanting to think about what might happen when this was done. Not letting themselves ponder how much their father is connected to this well and the desecration there. They had a job to do and their father would want it done, damn the consequences.

Sam held out hope that it might free him completely. But that was Sam. He was the optimist, the feeler. Willing to let himself feel the pain so that he could experience the hope fully. Maybe that was because Dean had sheltered him so much.

Their father had set Dean over him as a guardian, a protector, but it was Dean that had taken it a step farther. Dean had protected him from things emotionally as well. Allowing him to grow up with that softer, gentler side that drove Dean to distraction when it was focused purely on him, but then it was that part of Sam that John and Dean both needed in their lives. Why the world had seemed to fade a bit with him away.

The brothers looked at one another and nodded, and each with their own journal stepped to the appropriate places, and began to read in loud authoritative voices. The words seemed to ring through the evening air, as their voices mingled in pitch, meter, tone. The ritual took hours, but neither brother tired, nor glanced back to the ranch house. Neither listened for the sounds of Mrs. Cavanaugh crying out for them to stop or the sounds of their father's cries. Not that either would have reached their ears at this distance if they had been uttered at all.

They canted the last of the ritual, Dean snuffing the candles in order, and Sam knelt pouring salt into the box that was the receptacle and sealing it closed. They drove the Impala to a near by cross roads. The things were conspicuously all over every where in the south. It gave Dean the cold horrors really. But there was more than one use for burying something at a cross roads. Originally it was to confuse the spirit so that it couldn't find its way back.

"So do you think-"

"Sam don't start. I havent had any sleep since night before last and we just did one hell of a ritual, can't we let things just… be… for now."

"Dean…turn the car around and go back to the house." Sam said. A lump formed in his throat at the tormented look in his brother's eyes. "If we don't, we'll never know. Besides, neither of us is up to driving tonight."

They slipped back into the house quietly. Sam started instinctively for the guest room, but Dean grabbed him by the shoulders and directed him to the family room in the basement where the sofas had been made up into make shift beds. He wasn't able to face his father's room just yet. He was too tired. Too raw. Bad news right now was not something he could take. He didn't know that it would be any easier in the morning but right now he knew he couldn't handle it.

Sam closed down the lap top and put it into his bag "okay… this is one of your old cell phones" he told his father "every one still thinks you are dead so you shouldn't be getting a lot of calls except from us."

John looked at the device and nodded, setting it on the night stand. "Alright" he said. He was glad to see them go, relieved. He didn't know why it should settle in so emphatically that it was GOOD that they were going, when he also ached inside at the thought of it.

"Our numbers are on speed dial so… if you remember anything or have anything you know… you … wanna talk about" Sam said, and gave a soft laugh when his father raised an eyebrow and almost smiled.

"I'll be alright, Sammy."

Dean felt worse about leaving than he had about coming, and yet he was anxious to be out on the road. His dad looked better than he had before they had gone down to the well, but he wasn't out of the woods yet. He had hopes that the seizures had stopped with the cleansing of the well but he wasn't willing to put his dad through that pain again if they had failed.

"we should get on- " his cell phone rang and he rolled his eyes "the road " he finished as he opened it "Hey Ellen." He nodded "that's great" he said as he searched his pockets for a scrap of paper and stole a pen from sams coat pocket. He turned his brother around and put the paper on his back "Right… okay… how long ago?"

Sam looked over his shoulder in bemusement "What?" he asked only to be shushed by Dean.

Mrs Cavanaugh cleared away the lunch dishes, standing at the door, looking on for a moment as John wiped at his face, sighing. "you're over tiring him" she admonished "Make it short" she told them.

"And take care of the car." John said as he closed his eyes. He was so tired. Was he this tired in his 'old' life? Was this what it meant to be John?

Dean had to chuckle. "We'll take care of the car." He assured his father. Probably wasn't wise to tell him the truck was sitting in Bobby's yard right now, might bring on a fit as John tried to remember his truck. So Dean kept his mouth shut. "We've got a lead, we'll check in. Come on Sammy." Dean guided Sam out of the room and handed him a piece of paper. "Dallas, dude. Ellen got a hit on it, well, the geek did. Used outside a bar that sane people don't go to. And with the moon being full tomorrow night, well, we got a lot of black top to cover and not a lot of time."

"Dallas? They usually stay away from crowded areas." Sam said, looking over the paper and Dean's quickly scrawled chicken scratch.

"Hey, I didn't make this up." He said as he fished his keys out of his pocket. He looked at Mrs. Cavanaugh. "Take care of our old man for us. We'll call. Often."

"Will do." Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "At least now he can get some rest."

Sam followed Dean out of the house and looked over his shoulder " you know, I am liking her less and less by the minute"

"yeah, me too." Dean said as he got behind the wheel "lets get this thing solved so we don't need her anymore.

He popped in a tape, turned it up to a pleasantly loud volume and started down the road, headed for Dallas.