The Lucky Strikes

Part Four

— June 11, 1944 —

Inside the house, the grandfather clock struck midnight — not that Lillie was really noticing things like time or order these days. Time and order were for people who had a purpose in their lives. They were for people who still had something to have a purpose about. She had been careful not to say such things to Susan, knowing that her best friend would be devastated to know she was even capable of such thought. But then, they were pretty sure that Bobby was okay. Susan was still whole. In their entire lives, this was the first time that Lillie was fairly sure that Susan would not understand.

The blanket around her shoulders did nothing to make the night seem warmer. For June, it was still cool at night. The mosquitoes were already at it, though. Living this close to the river was just asking for punishment and/or retribution, depending on whose side you were on. For the sake of her own sanity, she planned to take out as many of the little vampires as she could before her life was over. They deserved it for ruining her evening. Couldn't a girl lose her mind in peace?

She was still seeing Charlie every time she dared to leave the confines of her bedroom. There were a few times that she had caught him standing at the doorway to the attic, although she wasn't entirely sure why other than that he could see the entire floor from there. He had always been such a cautious, overprotective man. Most of the time, he was waiting for her under their tree like when they were kids and he'd climb her parents' tree to her window at all hours. Whenever she and Susan left the house, she would try not to look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her anyway. When they would return, there he would be, staring and waiting for her. She tried to give him a look to tell him that she would see him at night and talk to him then, but she never knew if the silent communications were getting through to him. Nineteen months apart was a long time for signals to get crossed.

When the clock's chime stopped half way through its ritual, Lillie looked around. The wind picked up, tugging at the finicky electrical wiring and sending every light down the street into flickers. Her eyes instinctively went to the skies, looking for signs of tornadoes, even though it was a little early yet in the season for this far north. There wasn't a cloud in the sky to hide the stars. Then as soon as it started, everything returned to normal. The howling of the wind died down, leaving only the sound of a whistle behind it.

The whistle was quietly accompanied by the steady clunk-click of heavy shoes on the sidewalk down the street. Lillie peeled her eyes into the darkness, wondering which of her neighbors would be out so late and if she should make a quick dash into the house to avoid calls of impropriety for being out in her night dress on the porch. She couldn't see a face under the brim of the black hat. The only thing that came from under it was the jolly whistle of a man who had perhaps seen one too many brews. The slight skip in his step was enough to make her want to tell him to cross the street and keep his happiness to himself.

When the walker stopped at where the sidewalk met her front walk, it took everything Lillie had not to scream. She could swear that there was a flash of light under the brim of the hat where the man's eyes should be, eyes that would be staring right through her if they could. Her own eyes darted to the side out of reflex, looking for Charlie. He was there as expected, standing ramrod straight with a menacing glare at the stranger at their walk. He started forward, but after only two steps, he disappeared, leaving Lillie alone for the second time in a week.

The man continued whistling as he took to the walk, coming up right to the bottom step of the porch. He did not attempt to remove his hat or ask her permission to join her. He stood there, seemingly sucking all of the warmth out of the night air around him and just waiting. She wasn't sure how she knew, but Lillie was pretty sure that he was waiting for her permission to speak. Everything in her told her not to say a word, that he would go away if she left it long enough, but he stayed there without looking up at her with his hands folded neatly in front of him. He wasn't going away.

Despite the stinging sickness in her gut that told her to do otherwise, Lillie stammered out, "Can I help you?"

Again something under the hat flashed, but the face under the brim finally revealed itself. The man's eyes weren't yellow like Lillie had initially thought, but they also were far from kind. She wanted to get up right then and there. Charlie had taught her to fire a shotgun in precaution; it was right inside the front door if she got there fast enough. Susan would wake up at the eek of the door. Together, the two of them could take this guy. She felt her eyes go to the tree again, as if Charlie would still be there to give her a sign of what to do, but for the first time since seeing him there, she felt as if her husband had truly abandoned her to this world alone.

The man under the hat did not give her a chance to do more than flit her eyes before he said evenly, "You have yourself quite a problem, little lady." He paused as a breeze circled him, wrapping both himself and Lillie in a blanket of cold. "You have a problem that I may be able to help you with."

"I don't need any help with anything," said Lillie bravely.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

The man's laugh was hardly warm or kind in any way. It was sarcastic at best, warning of danger and instant death if she chose to ignore what he had to offer. "I'm sure the prospect of life without your husband is quite scary. I would find it scary . . . alone in this big house with no real security, no man to come home to, to walk with, to share your dreams with. Alone would be a mighty terrifying place to be in in this house, in this life. You must be a lot braver than I could ever be to willingly let your husband die on the other side of the world, all alone, never to come home to you again. Of course, knowing the people I know who know the things they know, I wouldn't have the strength not to ask them for help. I'd let them help me, no matter what the cost. You, my dear, are much braver than I."

Lillie couldn't help but feel hypnotized by the man's words. Any other time, it might have sounded to her like nails on a chalk board, but the more he talked, the more melodic his tones became. His mysterious eyes lulled her into a calm that she hadn't felt since the moment Charlie had appeared beneath their tree. She didn't even feel the need to look to see if he'd returned. All she knew was that she wanted to hear more.

The man removed his hat, twisted it around in his hands by the brim, and said, "Forgive me for disturbing you this fine evening. Please accept my condolences. I'll trouble you no further."

"Wait!"

"Yes?"

"You can help my Charlie? You can bring him back?"

"I can't," the man said then waited, as if relishing the sheer despair that washed over her. Again his eyes glinted before he said, "But I know who can."

"How do I find this person?"

The man removed a piece of paper from his pocket then held it close to his breast. His head shook with feigned, almost melodramatic regret as he said, "Maybe this wasn't the right time. You're grieving. It wouldn't be right."

Fierce color flushed Lillie's eyes as she stared the man down, determined. "Leaving my Charlie alone to die over there is what isn't right. Now are you going to help me or not?"

Without any further provocation, the man handed Lillie the paper. The cold voice returned, reminding her of the Widow Peterson's husband and the way he had scared every child within a ten block radius of their house when she was a child. "Collect the items on this list then drive out to a crossroads in the country. Bury the items in the center of the road and wait. My friend will be along to help you as quickly as possible. The last few evenings since the invasion began have been overloaded with clients in situations similar to yours, as I'm sure you can imagine. The closer to midnight that you do this, the louder your call will be."

"Why are you doing this for me?" Lillie asked timidly.

The man didn't answer her question. He simple replaced his hat to his head, offered the widow a low bow, and turned on his heel toward the street. Lillie watched him pass along, whistling his tune. It wasn't until both sound and the man disappeared on the wind that she realized what song he had hypnotized her with. It was Charlie's favorite song.

— December 10, 2007 —

The next morning, Dean was still twisting about Charlie trying to drive his car. He also didn't appreciate that Sam as only half-heartedly agreeing with him, even if the car checked out fine. Sam was better occupied with wrapping his hands around two coffee cups (maybe one day the itty bitty things would grow up to be real cups) and wishing like hell that he had thought to pick up a pair of gloves at any of the Targets that he'd seen coming in, out, and around town. He knew there was a reason that he let Dean do the job hunting during the winter. His brother was skilled at avoiding the sub-zero weather. Dean was also good at putting his brother in it when the need arose. They were going to have to have a long chat about rank issues again here one of these days.

They had been there a good half an hour before Andreea joined them bearing the files that they had asked her to retrieve for them from the county courthouse. They seriously doubted that WANTED posters with their faces were plastered on the post office or courthouse walls, but they weren't going to take any chances that people actually paid attention to those things, either. The woman had been more than happy to help once they stopped by her room to ask. She was starting to get a little antsy in the tiny hotel room and wanted her house back as quickly as possible. When Dean asked if she still thought Phantom Denis was on her side, she rolled her eyes. Sam kicked him under the table, rattling the unused china and cutlery, which prompted Andreea to give Sam a grateful clap on the back. Her apology was a mile long when she saw the brothers' synchronized wince at the contact. Dean made a mental note to have his brother's shoulder checked out the next chance they got; Sam made a mental note to keep his overprotective brother from trying to drag him to a clinic to get his shoulder checked out the next chance he got.

After adding all of their other research to the pile, half of the procured documents went to Sam, the other half to Dean, and Andreea kept up a running (and it was practically running) commentary as their surly waitress dive-bombed and left them. Sam shifted through his pile with a grimace. The photocopy was shady at best. The ink had most likely faded on the original documents to the point that he was lucky to be getting as much as he was, but that didn't make his job any easier. The coroner's report wasn't helping him much either. Still, he made a notation of the coroner's name and sent up a silent wish that the guy might still be alive and have half his capacities in case their luck ran out. He wasn't entirely sure why he did it, but he also made a note of Lillie Wallace's date of death with the intention of asking Susan and Bob Beckett if there was any chance that that date had some sort of significance. It was a long shot, but right now, they were working off a lot of long shots.

"Find anything?" he finally asked across the table.

"That we're colossally screwed?" grumbled Dean. He flipped a sheet of paper off to Sam. "The funeral home paperwork is ever-so-kindly telling me that they were both cremated. Custody of her ashes was given to her mother, who died in 1956. His ashes were taken care of by Bob and Susan."

Sam threw his arm up onto the heater vent next to the window and wrapped his other hand around his warmed coffee cup. Thinking out loud, he said, "So something else has to be tying Charlie to the house."

"Two Charlies," corrected Dean. He took a long gulp of his coffee and leaned back in the booth, jaw working back and forth in thought. His eyes darkened, clearly unhappy with the answer he was coming up with. "We have to get back in that house."

Andreea's eyes went wide at the suggestion, clearly remembering seeing her two companions being ejected from her home two days before by a force she had once considered friendly and merely a nuisance. She'd wanted Phantom Denis to back off, maybe move on or whatever it is that ghosts do when they finish their unfinished business, but she hadn't wanted anyone to be hurt in the process. Seeing Dean come through the second story window had told her that the woman from Missouri had been right to be so cautious. Remembering the threat she'd received from that woman, she shook her head. "You aren't going back in there."

"You're firing us?" asked Dean.

"No."

"Then we're going to have to go back in there sometime, unless you plan on having two dudes watch your every move in that house for the next fifty years."

The woman shrugged a rueful shrug, the At least there would be a 'dude' to watch nothing less than implied. For the first time since they'd met her, she did not seem at all nervous or like she would shake apart from the pressure of all the words in her head. "I can't let you in there if it's going to get you hurt. It wasn't like this before. He'd never hurt me, and if there was even a chance that he had hurt anyone in the house before me, I would have heard about it. My realtor isn't that cruel. She would have said something about it. At least, I think she would. I'm still going to have a little Come See Jesus with her about all this, but even if she had known and didn't tell me, this town isn't so big that I wouldn't have found out about it. It's a college town. College kids talk, and if there is anything college kids like to talk about in their college town it's their college ghosts. I'm close enough to campus that my house wouldn't escape the rumor mill. So no, I can't let you in until you can promise me that you aren't going to get hurt. That woman made me promise not to get you hurt, and she sounded damn scary. I believe her when she says she can hurt me back."

Dean took a good hard look at the woman sitting next to his brother, trying to size up just how much he could do with her. He tapped his fingers against the same heating vent Sam was clinging to for dear life, weighing his options to the rhythm of the chorus in For Whom the Bell Tolls like he always did in these situations like it was his own personal theme song. When he came to his decision, he looked at his brother, who was waiting patiently. Sam knew him too well.

"You got something?" asked Sam.

"We need to get in that house, but Charlie isn't going to let us," started Dean. "I hate to put it this way because spooks just aren't supposed to be like this for us, but . . . He always treats her like a lady. He would never throw her around the way he would us."

Following the train of thought, Sam said, "If he thinks it's only her coming in, he's going to give her free rein to run around. She can find what we're looking for without us having to get in at all."

"'She' me, 'she'?" balked Andreea. "You can't be serious."

Dean shook his head. "Yeah, I am. We spent enough time with the guy's best friend the last two days to know what he was like. Whatever his issues with us, he isn't going to take them up with you. All of the noise and stuff that's been going on in your house, he was probably only trying to get your attention. He'll let you in."

They were still discussing the ins and outs of whether or not it would be a good thing for the woman to attempt to enter her own home when they pulled up in front of it an hour later. By that time, the argument had been pared down to its simplest form: what's the worst Charlie's going to do — lock you out of your own house? He's already done that. Andreea hadn't exactly responded well to the logic, but she couldn't argue with it either. The crux was the spirit wasn't going to be letting the brothers in, whether they asked politely or not. It was up to her to loosen the ghost up.

"You're sure about this?" asked Andreea for the umpteenth time, getting out of the car with them.

"We'll be right here if you need us, but I'm pretty sure you won't," said Dean. "You'll be in and out, no problem. Grab yourself some stuff to keep him happy then look around for any signs of what he's been up to the last few days. Us being here has probably made him more desperate to find whatever it is he's looking for, so wherever he's looking is where we want to be."

"First sign of trouble, we'll come right in," Sam added. "Just yell."

Andreea started across the street then turned to face them when she'd reached the curb connected to her yard. She shivered from anything but the cold and said, "I don't think yelling will be a problem. Fifteen minutes."

"Fifteen minutes," both brothers confirmed. To be sure, they both waited quietly, barely blinking so that they could catch any possible movement in the house. It wasn't until Andreea was able to get in the house without any resistance that they took a breath, slightly assured that they had made the right move. When she waved at them a minute later from a second story window with a big smile on her face, they started to breathe regularly again.

They watched in silence for a while, just enjoying the presence of each other. It was a beautiful day, even with the cloud cover. The snow was coming down so quietly, it made the whole world seem peaceful. Sam made a mental note to find a place where they could enjoy the quiet like this once the job was over. They'd been at it hard since the Devil's Gate cluster. Dean deserved at least a day or two of quiet. So did he. For now, though, they had a job to do.

Breaking them both from the moment, Sam said, "You know that Charlie isn't ever going to find what he's looking for, right?"

"Lillie?"

"Yeah." Sam looked down at his boots, fascinated with the swirls that the mixtures of snow and salt had made when they dried over his toes. It was a good thing he didn't care much about how he looked anymore or the mess would have driven him crazy. Jess never would have let him out of the house wearing these things. If his home wasn't the car, Dean wouldn't have let him in there, either. Thinking about those swirls was suddenly a lot easier than thinking about what he knew he needed to be talking about. He would much rather have talked to Dean about the mess on his boots, too, but instead he forged on, trying to get it out as quickly as he could. "You heard Bob. If he's here, it's because Lillie isn't. And the way Susan talked about how Lillie was found? Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions here, but . . . ."

"You're thinking Lillie made a deal for Charlie?"

"You aren't?" asked Sam.

Dean wiped his hand over his mouth, sticking the nail of his thumb between his teeth. He chewed it hard, down to the quick. This was not the direction he'd wanted this job to have taken. It was supposed to be a simple haunting, nothing more. A tickle in the back of his mind made him want to call up Missouri right then and there and ask her if she'd sent them Andreea's way on purpose, if she knew what he had done. It was almost cruel, especially to Sam. He had to give his kid brother credit, though. He was doing his best to be professional (as professional as hunting went, anyway). Knowing he needed to return the courtesy, Dean straightened up and said, "Yeah. Yeah, I do, but how are we going to be sure? It's not like I'm itching to summon a demon to ask about a sixty-three-year-old collection, especially when we don't know what we'd be summoning."

"Wait a minute," said Sam, ideas ping-ponging in his brain. He could feel Dean watching him and trying to figure out what he was thinking, but he tried to shut it out. There was something there, right there, that he knew if he could only remember the exact words, he'd have the answer. Of course, the exact words didn't want to come to him. He could hear how Susan said them, her tone of voice so clear. He just couldn't quite hear her words. Then out of nowhere, he knew what it was. He pulled out his phone, holding up a hand to silence his brother's opening mouth. He pulled out his notes, found Susan's phone number, and dialed. The woman answered on the second ring. "Hi, Mrs. Beckett. It's Sam."

"Good morning, sweetheart! How are you?"

"We're good, Ma'am. Thanks for asking. And you?"

"Ready for all this Christmas stuff to be over. If I have to tie one more red ribbon around another godforsaken box of gingerbread bastard children, I may just have to slit my own wrists," the woman said cheerfully. "Never let anyone tell you that Christmas is anything less than work, Sam."

"I won't." Sam laughed. He really was going to be saddened to leave this woman behind. The way she talked, she was what his father would have called 'spunky'. His dad had used the same word more than once to describe their grandmother.

"I'm guessing you and your brother aren't available to help me out in the kitchen today, so what's the question?"

The image of Susan's knowing smile still burned in his brain, Sam went for the direct approach this time around. "Can I ask, did anything significant happen the day that Lillie died?"

"Not really," she said slowly, clearly thinking out loud. "We spent most of the morning helping my mother out around the house. Mother's eyesight wasn't so good, so we did a lot of the mending that needed work. My father could wear a hole into steel-toed boots, so you can just imagine what he could do to a pair of socks. It was Christmas, so we were in the kitchen most of the afternoon. I remember, we barely made it to the post office on time, but we were so glad we did. She got a bundle of letters from Charlie. We went out to celebrate since it was the first real proof we'd had that he was all right. We lit the place up, I'll tell you what. We came home, went to bed . . . When I woke up, she was gone."

"And she was out in the middle of nowhere?"

"Yes?"

Before she could ask what he was thinking (he could hear her wanting to ask), Sam quickly asked his next question. "Where she was found, is it still in the middle of nowhere?"

"Oh, no, sweetheart," said Susan. "That intersection is a Barnes and Noble now."

"Intersection?" asked Sam, looking right at Dean to make sure his brother knew that he was thinking that they pretty much had confirmation. "Was it a four way stop?"

"Just outside of town, yes. Sam, is something wrong?"

"No, Ma'am," he answered her concern quickly. "Listen, Susan, I'm going to have to run, but I will give you a call before we have to leave town for the holidays, all right?"

The smile the woman had had on her face when she'd waved them off came through now on her voice in his ear as she said, "I can't imagine what it is the two of you are doing trying to understand what happened to Charlie and Lillie, and I'm not sure that I want to know, but whatever it is you're looking for, I hope you're doing it for the right reasons. They were good people whom I loved very much. If it's at all avoidable, please don't disturb their peace."

Sam startled for a moment, wondering how best to answer her without sounding like he was crazy. He turned his back on his brother, feeling Dean watching him too intently. He knew his brother wouldn't exactly approve of the answer he was about to give the kind old lady, but she deserved an answer that was at least somewhat close to the truth. Bob and Susan had trusted them; he needed to trust her back. Besides, even through the phone, Sam was pretty sure Susan would know if he lied to her. "They haven't had peace yet, but we're sure going to try to get them some. Thanks, Susan. We will call."

He snapped the phone shut, disconnecting the call before she could say anything else. He stared at the house across the street and could feel it watching him right back. He shivered, not entirely sure that it was from the cold. Where his thoughts were going, it was going to get even colder soon enough.

"Well?"

Sam kept his eyes front, afraid to look anywhere near his brother. He wanted to keep his next question about this job instead of their other situation, but he unfortunately needed an answer to one to answer the other. He nodded, steeling himself for what was to come, and asked, "When you were negotiating your deal, what was the lowest the demon was going to go?"

"What: you mean, like, time?"

"Yeah."

Knowing that he had kept most of this to himself so far, Dean felt he needed to give his brother an honest answer. Maybe it would even make Sam feel a little better about things if he thought that Dean hadn't just gone for the first offer he could get, that he didn't hate himself as much as Sam seemed to think he did these days. "I started out with ten years, but she didn't want to hear it. I think maybe I got down to six or seven before she called it all off and tried to leave. She wasn't going to actually leave without a deal, I don't think, but . . . " He took a breath, letting the cold air warm the ice in his lungs. It was bad enough that he had to remember that night in his dreams. Doing it when he was awake physically hurt. "The bitch would have taken me right then and there, I think, but she wanted to play with me. The thing is, I would have done even that as long as I could have been sure you were okay."

"You think maybe Dad did that, too? That the little bit of time we had with him in the hospital before he . . . Maybe that was his one condition? That he got to be sure you were okay first?"

Dean came around the car to stand next to his brother, shoulder to shoulder, staring straight ahead to avoid having to look at Sam just as much as Sam was avoiding looking at him. It struck him as odd that they had never discussed the possible details of their father's deal, but then, they had done a lot of avoiding about talking about their father in the last year. He had become quite practiced at framing his words carefully for his brother where their father was concerned. He knew he couldn't come out and say 'He wanted to make sure to pass on his lovely parting gift to us that I needed to save you just to make sure that The Demon still didn't get its way'. That would be cruel, even if he'd had the thought on numerous occasions. In his anger, he had convinced himself almost whole-heartedly that the only reason their father had stuck around was to stick it to The Demon one last time by giving him a head's up and that it had nothing whatsoever to do with his child's well-being. He'd been that angry. But Sam was looking for a helpful answer, not a scornful one. He looked down at his boots as he said carefully, "I think Dad wanted to be sure we were both going to be okay. He was lousy about it, but he said 'goodbye' to us the only way he knew how. And yeah, he probably wanted to know that I was okay without any catches. He wouldn't have trusted that sonofabitch to take him without some assurances. Why — what are you thinking?"

"Do you remember that time when I was, like, seven or eight and we spent a couple days on the boardwalk in Atlantic City with Dad and Caleb? Caleb refused to see the fortune teller, even though I begged him because I thought it would be fun?"

"You drove us all nuts that day," said Dean with a chuckle. "I thought he was going to throw you right off the pier. When we left, you kept badgering him to tell you why he didn't want to know his future since the old lady told you that you were going to be rich and famous. You were so mad at him because he told you that she probably said the same thing to everybody, so you couldn't understand why he wouldn't go in himself. He said he never wanted to know when his number would be up because it would take all the fun out of whatever time he had left. Sam, what does this have to do with anything?"

"What if Lillie thought the same way?" Sam asked. "What if she was offered the standard ten year deal but didn't think she could deal with waiting it out for Charlie to get home only then to have to one day tell him that she knew she was going to die because she had made a deal to bring him home? Maybe all she asked for was the chance to make sure he was okay before she went, just like Dad. Susan said that the day she died, Lillie got the first letters from Charlie that were written after he would have come back from the dead. What if she got her confirmation, went out to wherever she had made her initial deal, and died there as part of the whole thing?"

With the specter of Hell glaring at him not too long from now, Dean couldn't imagine wanting to rush to the finish line like that. Then again, some would say even his year wasn't nearly enough. Ten years probably didn't seem like enough. But in his desperation at the time, he all too well understood why someone would have been willing to make a deal like that. He was guessing that there had been an awful lot of deals made that day, which was probably one of the selling points to begin with. His thoughts catching up with the dark place he knew Sam had parked his, he quietly agreed, "Yeah. She probably didn't think she had anything left to lose. The crossroads demon would have played on that. It's not like Lillie was like us. She wouldn't have known what she was truly getting into. All she probably knew was that someone was offering to help her save her husband. Susan said she was lonely unless she was with the three of them so she probably didn't think she could handle her life without him. That's what the demon plays on best."

Sam would have loved to ask his brother to elaborate on that one, but he knew that as soon as he did, Dean would tell him to focus on their job instead of on him. For now, he could live with that. They did have a job to do, after all. Andreea would probably like to get back in her house here one of these days. So rather than annoy his brother, Sam said with a fair amount of certainty, "Okay, so we know why there was the lag time in between when Charlie died, came back, and Lillie died."

Following his brother's train of thought, Dean supplied, "Which tells us that she isn't part of our picture in the house. Yeah, it sucks, but there's nothing we can do about her. What we need is to find a way to get rid of Charlie. . . –ies, Charlies, which puts us right back where we were, with no way to get in the house long enough to find out how to send him on his merry."

"And how do we get rid of two of them anyway? Better yet, how are there even two of them in the first place? Lillie brought Charlie back. He died old and lonesome, not twenty-three and married with his whole life ahead of him. That younger guy shouldn't be here at all."

Too many pieces suddenly came together for Dean too quickly, making his head rush. He bent over, hands on his thighs to keep himself from falling flat into the over-salted street. He could hear the damned ocean in his ears, it was so loud. He heard Bob telling them about how Charlie had changed when he'd come back, seemingly bullet-proof and ready to head into any danger to protect Bob. He heard the stories about how Charlie had been different, like a piece of his soul was gone. Then he heard the words that he had chewed on relentlessly over the last six months, taunting him like they were brand new.

How certain are you that what you brought back is one hundred percent pure Sam?

Before Sam could worry about him, Dean straightened up, running both hands through his hair. Though he knew Sam would want to know what made him think so, Dean had no intention of telling his brother exactly how he had a pretty good idea what had happened. He put his Big Brother Is Always Right assurance into his voice and said, "The crossroads demon didn't have the power to bring all of Charlie back. Part of him had to stay behind. That's why he came back different. Bob thought he was different."

To his credit, Sam pocketed the idea about what the implications were for himself and stayed focused on Charlie Wallace. He thoughtfully asked, "If the problem isn't Lillie, you think maybe there was something tying him to this place that the demon couldn't counter?"

"You mean the promise he keeps talking about?"

Sam's eyebrows disappeared under his bangs while he looked for agreement or at least a somewhat similar line of thinking. "If we knew what that promise was, it might tell us how to get him to move on."

Clapping a hand on his brother's uninjured shoulder, Dean chirped sarcastically, "Why don't you go on in there and ask him, kiddo? I'll just wait here and keep the car warm for you."

Sam swiped the hand away, but he didn't bother to fight back otherwise. He had a different question on his mind, one that had been bothering him since talking with Susan. "Hey, Dean? How do you think Lillie found out about this stuff?"

Sensing that it was a real question, that there was actually a purpose behind it, Dean said quietly, "How does anybody find out about anything?"

"Susan, Bob, Lillie . . . They don't seem like the kind of people who would have even the slightest knowledge of the kind of stuff we deal with."

"We weren't the kind of people who knew this kind of thing either."

That you know of, anyway, Sam thought, his mind flashing to that never-too-far-away replay in his mind of his mother's last words in this world. It's you. He didn't exactly want to burden Dean with that knowledge, though, so he elaborated in the only other way he could. "Lillie had to have had help. She didn't get there by herself."

"Does it really matter?" sighed Dean. He was starting to see that look on his brother's face, the one that required their usual buck up of We can't save everyone. He suddenly felt like Sam was on the path, the one that was going to lead to a lot of guilt over not being able to save a woman gone sixty-five years who was in no way savable. "She made her deal, Sam. She was probably a nice girl who was manipulated by the black hats into doing something because she was desperate, and she probably didn't deserve it, but that doesn't change the fact that we can't help her. All we can do is help Charlie do whatever it is that happens to them when we get rid of them and get Andreea back in her house sometime before the year is out. Right?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," said Dean, settling that issue for the time being. "So let's hope Andreea can get a good bead on what we need to do next and get everyone where they belong so that we can get the hell out of this town. This whole job is starting to give me the creeps."

Right on cue, Andreea stepped out the front door, overnight bag in hand. She ran to the car as soon as she was clear of the porch and didn't look back. She shook her head at them when she was half way across the street. Taking the hint that she wasn't ready to talk, the brothers each went to their respective sides of the car, Dean opening her door for her. She practically dived in, shrouding herself in her jacket like it could somehow protect her from whatever she had seen or heard. To be safe and keep from spooking the woman more than she already was, Dean drove them back to the hotel in silence, letting everyone soak up the relief that distance from the house and the situation brought them.

They spent the remainder of the afternoon in the hotel, mostly talking Andreea through her fears. She wasn't entirely sure why she was afraid because there had been nothing in the house at all to indicate that she should be afraid of anything, but if she was going to be afraid of anything, it would be the mess that had been torn through her second floor hallway and kitchen. Both of the men had been there, but they didn't speak to her or hinder her exploration in any way. She would have tried to talk to them, but she figured that would get her in the kind of trouble that would only land all three of them in an unwanted situation. She was greatly relieved when Dean told her she had done the right thing.

It took a while, but they were able to piece together more of a pattern from the documents that they had found. The brothers were careful not to talk about demonic deals in front of their job, but they were able to speak vaguely enough that they were able to decide that, yes, if they were able to get rid of one Charlie, it would get rid of them both. They tossed a few theories around about what it was going to take to get Charlie out of the house, ranging from therapy ("Dude, just because it worked with Molly doesn't mean I can get all touchy-feely again!"), rituals ("No, I'll do it because your Latin sucks!") to full on arson ("You are not burning my house down!"). The only real consensus they came to was that it was all going to go down that night. They would just have to be prepared for anything.

After a dinner where Andreea mostly pushed her food around on her plate, she took them to a shop downtown that pretty much had Dean ready to blow his wad right then and there. Between all the vinyl and supplies handy to their trade, he never wanted to leave. He played long enough that even Andreea's smile returned to her face. They walked out with everything the brothers could possibly need ritual-wise for at least the next few months. For Dean, Sam also picked up Houdini Action Figure (complete with all the tools of the trade including a straight jacket); for Sam, Dean picked up an Albert Einstein Action Figure (complete with realistic hair, small parts not suitable for children under 3 years). Andreea was struck with the idea that these two had only been children when they were adults. Neither brother disagreed with her.

It was well after nine when they parked in front of Andreea's house for one last shot at the place. Dean gave her a final opportunity to stay in the car if she wanted, but she refused. Sam tried to relax her by saying that she obviously didn't trust Dean's Latin either, earning himself a good clowning. Rolling her eyes at them, she was the first out of the car.

The three of them stood at the curb staring up at the house like it was going to fly off its foundation to come after them. Lights flickered on the porch and second floor Morse code warnings to stay away. A few random memories of the Amityville Horror came to mind for all three of them, chilling them more than the winter night ever could.

"Well . . . " Dean muttered.

"Well . . . " Sam agreed.

Another long beat went by before Dean said, "I get him first, you're washing and detailing the car once we get far enough away from all this damn salt."

"I get him, you're on laundry detail for the next two weeks," Sam counter-offered.

They didn't look at each other but reached across Andreea to bump fists to seal the deal. In a series of synchronistic moves, they raised their shotguns to check their loads. Their heads snapped up to stare down the house, their current enemy. They both straightened, the rest of the world clearing away. Matching cocky smiles graced their faces and together they said to the house, "It's on, bitch!"

Sam put his hand on the small of Andreea's back to usher her forward as he and Dean made the surge ahead. As Dean peeled off toward the front porch and they started toward the garage's cubby entrance, Sam hollered at his brother, "Be careful!"

A sarcastic thumbs up was the only answer he got, which was fine with Sam. At least it wasn't another digit. The last thing they needed was for Charlie to get annoyed that they were flipping each other off in the presence of a lady.

When they reached the door, Andreea asked timidly, "Should I?"

"If you go first, he might let us in, yeah," said Sam.

The woman gave a Here Goes Nothing swish of her head then reached for the doorknob. She tapped her fingers on it like it might be hot before securing her fingers around it. She grinned at her escort then turned the knob and pushed the door open. She took careful steps across the threshold, going in far enough to allow Sam room to get into the garage but close enough to the door that she could follow him if he went the other direction. When he was able to get through himself, they walked together to the back hall door. They went through the same motions again, feeling only a slight electrical thrum of resistance in the air.

As expected, the old man was standing his post in front of the other door that came off the kitchen, looking out at the yard. He would have seen them coming in, but he obviously wanted them there for some reason. He didn't turn around to greet them or acknowledge their presence in any way until Sam cocked his shotgun and prepared to fire it.

"You don't need that, Son," the spirit said as Sam's weapon flew out of his hands onto the floor out of reach. "I allowed you into my home to tell you that there is nothing you can do to help me. You need to stop trying to help me."

Although it was most decidedly out of the norm for him, Sam went ahead and talked to the ghost, hoping to find a way to help him anyway. "If you could tell me what you need, I could try."

"My Lillie will be along. I'm not leaving until I can leave with her."

"Sir, your wife isn't going to be coming. She can't."

The old man turned around to face them, his face a pool of tears. Suddenly Sam knew what the crying sound Andreea had heard had been. There had never been a woman or anything else. It was only an old man who was lost without his wife. The spirit radiated sadness at them, blowing cold into the room. The man blinked at them, his clear blue eyes flipping an internal switch from desolate to dangerous, promising consequences if he didn't like what he heard next. "We made promises."

This time it was Andreea who spoke, keeping her voice comforting and gentle to let Charlie know that she was the one in control, not Sam. "We know you did, Charlie, and I wish that there was a way that Lillie could have kept hers, but she can't."

"She didn't break it," said Charlie.

"No, she didn't," Andreea said, using the little bit she had picked up overhearing the brothers that afternoon. "It was broken for her."

"It's my promise," Charlie started vehemently. "You can't break my promise. I won't let you!"

"I don't want to break your promise. Neither does Sam. We just want to help you keep it."

Charlie advanced on them, slowly, his anger sending sparks up from various electrical elements in the room. For the first time, his voice was nowhere near gentle or grandfatherly. Sam could finally hear the change that had taken place in the man Bob had known sixty years ago. "You think you can interfere with blood? You're children. Children don't understand how to make promises the way we did when we were kids. A promise meant something back then. Your word of honor was all you had. We made that promise on our word of honor. We were coming home and we were all going to be a family again. That's family. That's blood. That is something you kids will never understand. I cannot break that promise. I will not break that promise."

Upstairs, Dean wasn't having any more luck getting through to the younger Charlie. He wanted to talk reasonably with the guy. He felt bad for him. The poor guy probably had no idea why he was there, and he certainly had no idea why he was standing guard in the hallway or under the tree all these years without his wife to guard over.

All sense of pity for the ghost was quickly vanishing as Charlie was throwing Dean around from wall to wall like a plaything. Dean Winchester was no one's plaything. And he had every intention of telling Chucky that when his ears stopped ringing.

"You are not welcome here," the spirit said.

Dean slowly hauled himself up from the carpet, attempting not to move his head too sharply in one direction or the other. He bit back a groan as he felt a strain in his neck and threatened thickly, "Look, Chuck, insurance fraud can't be much harder than credit card fraud, and I gotta tell you, I am really good at credit card fraud. I will burn this house down if you push me one more time."

The toolbox that had been sitting unopened behind the attic door for the last six years opened. All of the screwdrivers, hammer, and nails rose into the air and darted forward, directly toward Dean's head.

"Good answer," Dean growled as he dropped to the floor again.

From downstairs, Sam's roughly nervous voice shouted, "A LITTLE HELP HERE, DEAN!"

"COMING!"

He clawed his way to his feet, creeping along the wall until he reached the stairs, careful to keep his head down. He took the stairs two at a time, slipping on the highly polished wood four steps from the bottom to send him sprawling. By the time he got back to his feet, the younger Charlie was at the bottom of the stairs, too. Andreea's kitschy knick-knacks started flying off shelves, either getting taken out by the walls or by the books that were following close behind.

As something rather heavy collided with his back, Dean hollered, "THAT'S IT! SAM, WE'RE OUTTA HERE!"

Dean rounded the corner into the kitchen to find Andreea backed against the wall, cowering and crying. He gave himself a good hard mental kick in the ass; Dude, civilian: what did you expect? Still, she was relatively safe there. The one exposed and in trouble was Sam, who was sitting up with his legs spread wide and head trying to mate with the corner of the kitchen table. The older version of Charlie was advancing on him, looking for the first time like he was losing patience with the pesky kids who kept invading his home.

"You need to leave," the old ghost said in the same sad command he'd used on them before.

"Yeah, I'm getting that," Dean grumbled. "Sam?"

The younger hunter didn't answer, but he raised his hand like he was a kindergartner wanting to ask a question. Apparently the effort was a little much, though, because his hand flopped back to the floor, palm up and limp. No question followed.

Taking that as the only sign he was going to get from his brother, Dean sidestepped toward where Sam's shotgun lay near Andreea's feet. In a whisper he told her to run and meet them out at the car, then he picked up the weapon, turned, and fired. The spirit collapsed into a formless fog. Not half a second later, the kitchen seemed to get a mind of its own and ramped up the chaos a notch.

Dropping down to his brother's side, Dean tapped Sam's wobbly face. "You okay?"

"Mean table."

"Yeah, I bet. Come on. We need to get out of here. We'll figure something else out."

There was a long But Dean, I Don't Wanna Go To School whine in the back of the man's throat, but Sam allowed his brother to pull him to his feet anyway. They bent low on the way through the hall, dodging whatever came at them the best they could. Dean kept one hand in between his brother's shoulder blades, both guiding and protecting him at once. They made it to the foyer when they found Andreea crouched near the bench, clutching her head with a trickle of blood between her fingers.

"Sonofabitch! Andreea, stay there. I'll be right back for you," Dean snarled, pulling his dazed brother by the collar out the door. He threw Sam away from him a little harder than he meant to, eliciting a pained grunt as the younger hunter's foot hooked on the old wooden steps of the porch on the way down, knocking the wind out of him. He glanced his apologies then ran back toward the door to get Andreea, but the door slammed shut in his face. "Fuck."

"DEAN!" called Sam.

Without taking his focus from the door and the now screaming and banging woman on the other side, Dean yelled back, "BETTER COME UP WITH SOMETHING QUICK, PROFESSOR!"

"NO PRESSURE OR ANYTHING . . ."

"FINE, THEN YOU GET THE DAMSEL AND I'LL GET CASPER!"

Sam crawled onto his hands and knees, stood, then swatted his hand around the stars that circled his vision even though he knew they weren't really there. He stumbled back to the porch, hoping that this one last idea would finally work. He stuck his hand out as soon as he was within arm's length. "Give me your lighter."

"Huh?"

"Wild guess," Sam panted, still trying to catch his breath. "Just hand it over."

As Dean gave Sam the lighter, the younger of the Charlies appeared on the porch between them. He raised his hands in what would otherwise have been the universal sign of surrender, sending them both flying off into the yard once again. Dean landed hard on his stomach and hands, the ice layer on top of the snowbank cutting into his right hand as easily as a knife. While he swore, Sam landed on his back, knocking the little wind from his lungs that he'd barely been able to regain in the first place.

"That's it," Sam growled. "Dude, you're pissing me off." To Dean, he pointed back at the porch and hollered, "GET HER OUT OF THERE."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean snapped and started back toward the door. "Pushy little fucker. BET MY LATIN'S SOUNDING REALLY GOOD TO YOU RIGHT NOW, HUH?"

Sam hauled himself painfully to his feet, his right hand clutching to his injured shoulder the best that he could. He surged forward, stumbling along the way until he pretty much tripped in the snow right into the trunk of the tree. He used it to right himself then slip-slided to the garage where the bags of salt and kitty litter were laying unopened next to the door. He pulled his knife from his pocket and slit across the top of the salt bag. He hefted it over his other shoulder, keeping the bag half way shut with his hand until he got back to the yard. He let his hand go, drawing a thick circle of salt around the base of the tree.

At the sound of splintering wood, Sam looked up to see Dean kicking the front door off the hinges. Knowing his brother was okay for the moment, Sam ran back to the car and grabbed the gas can from the trunk. He soaked as much of the tree trunk and surrounding grass as he could in the noxious liquid then whipped the lighter out from his jeans pocket. A look of sadness crossed his face as he stepped back from the circle, flicked the lighter, and threw it into the grass as close to the tree as he could get.

A tortured scream arose from the tree and from behind Sam at the same time. He turned around in time to see both the young and old Charlies standing behind him, watching their tree catch fire. Where the younger man's face was quickly overcome with despair, the elder's was drawn in relief. Sam caught the metallic scent of blood coming from the tree, fresh as the day the tree was fed with it.

"You didn't break your promise," Sam told them quietly. He took a few steps to come to stand between them, regarding them both with the respect that he knew his father would have wanted him to give them. "It was broken for you."

"Sam?" Dean asked from the porch, escorting a clearly terrified Andreea down over the damaged steps.

"We're okay," said Sam, waving his hand behind his back to keep his brother away. Flanked by the two Charlies, he stood and watched the tree burn until they disappeared in flames of their own, headed to where, Sam didn't know. When they were gone, Dean came up next to him, quiet. Before Dean could even ask, Sam told him, "I'm okay."

"Good."

"You?"

"You stop getting your head rammed into walls, tables, and generally anything solid, I'll be good, too."

Sam smirked. "Yeah, I'll get that memo out right away."

"See that you do."

Andreea watched the two of them chatting back and forth, shaking her head. "You guys are weird, you know that?"

Twin grins and nods greeted her. They both said, "Thank you."

"One of my neighbors has probably called the fire department by now. Does this thing have to burn all the way down, or am I okay now?"

The brothers looked between the house and each other, doing that silent communication thing that drove most people around them crazy since they weren't in on it. There were a few hooked thumbs and raised eyebrows, a set of rolling eyes, and a smack upside the head (Dean to Sam), quickly followed by an apologetic tap on the cheek. Finally, Sam told their hostess, "It would probably be a good idea for the two of us to get out of here before the cops show up. It's late, so we can catch up with you in the morning before we leave town, if that's okay?"

Andreea glanced back at her house, watching the blaze as it crept closer to her house. "It's really over?"

"Yeah, it's really over," said Sam. "We'll check everything out again in the morning, but yeah. You could probably even stay here tonight if you wanted."

"That's okay," she said sadly. "I'll see you back at the hotel later, probably. Suddenly my really beautiful house that I paid a fortune for isn't all that beautiful anymore. I have a feeling it may be going back on the market here soon."

Dean reached over and tapped her arm playfully. "Nah. Where else are you going to find cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling?"

"Dude, what would you know about cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling?" Sam asked.

"Get in the car, Sam, or you're walking home."

Sam offered Andreea as genuine a smile as he could manage at the hour with a killer headache. "Get some sleep. You can always hire a cleaning service in the morning."

The woman hung her head, but she nodded. Sirens started to kick in down the street, so she waved them into the car. She held the frame of Dean's door until the engine roared to life, spitting a cloud into the frigid night air. Quietly, she asked him, "Is it always like this?"

Ignoring the duality of Lillie's situation to his own, Dean smiled at her and said, "You and this house were a piece of cake. I wish they could all be this easy. You were a big help. Thanks."

"Thank you," she said and shut his door. She waved as they pulled away from the curb and down the street, passing the fire trucks along the way.

The next morning, the three of them gathered once again around the car to say their goodbyes. Andreea told them about dealing with the fire department. They had been able to contain the blaze enough so that it never reached the house. She hadn't stayed there that night, choosing to remain in the hotel for one more night, but she had stopped by early in the morning. So far, she was ghoulie free, and she was pretty sure that they were right. It was going to stay that way.

They had been standing around talking for a good ten minutes of throwing duffels and supplies in the trunk when Andreea handed Dean an envelope that he couldn't bring himself to even peek in in front of her. "It isn't much, but I guess I have the feeling that it's more than a lot of people get around to giving you. I took care of the hotel, too. My town, my treat. And before you argue with me, I'm just going to remind you that it's Christmas."

"That's — " Sam started, only to be cut off.

"It's Christmas," she said again, shutting down that argument, too, before he could even start it. "It's the least I could do for getting the two of you knocked around the way I did. What was that you said about rabid dogs the other day? Besides, I don't imagine that this job comes with insurance benefits or paid holidays, and I won't even ask how you put gas in that guzzler of yours, unless of course it isn't a guzzler, like maybe you've done something to help that out, but seriously? You might want to think about a hybrid with as much driving as you do. Even Mother Earth needs a Christmas present now and then."

As Dean's hands reached behind him, patting down his girl's imagined temper at the suggestion that she was a lush, Sam coughed to cover his laugh. His smile could have lighted the entire block as he said, "Thank you."

"I appreciate the help. It's not like I could look someone like you up in the Yellow Pages."

"That's a scary thought," said Dean.

Andreea asked, "Do you know where you're headed next? Please say it has something to do with your family and the holidays."

Sam was about to say that they never knew which way they were going, which would have been their usual generic Jack Kerouac answer, but Dean looked at him and said pointedly, "I think our uncle Bobby might want to hear from us."

"Does he know that?" Sam laughed.

"He will when we pull up in front of the house." Dean ran a hand over his hair, looking for a way out of the awkward Minnesota Long Goodbye that Pastor Jim had been so good at putting them through — and Andreea was channeling. Finally settling on the thing that worked best for their father, he said, "Get a move on, Sam. We're burning daylight."

Another five minutes of handshakes, thank you's, and a well-timed insult at Dean's baby later, they managed to get on the road with a fair amount of light still in the sky. Andreea laughed them off with one last joke, getting behind the car (which she named The Old Geezer) and pretending to push it along. Sam waved at her while Dean flipped her off.

They called Susan Beckett on the way out of town, as promised. She was saddened that they weren't going to be seeing the brothers again, but she was grateful to hear the news that her friends would finally be at rest. She didn't ask how they knew that, but she thanked them anyway. Sam wished them both a merry Christmas and told her to keep feeding her grandson's book habit. They would be proud one day.

They had been on the road for nearly an hour, running into Cities traffic, when the dreaded question finally came up. Sam knew they both had been avoiding it, but he thought it might be easier to get an honest, thought-free answer from his brother if he was concentrating on keeping his car safe in rush hour. It was a dirty trick, he knew, but he had to try something. He pressed himself against his door, trying to put as much distance between himself and Dean as possible before he gathered up just enough air to ask quietly, "Do you think a part of me is still there in Cold Oak?"

Dean felt every muscle in his back tense and ache like he was still pinned ruthlessly to that headstone in Wyoming. Over the months, the voice had morphed into a combination of his own voice and that of The Demon, but now, it was pure demon when it asked him again, How certain are you that what you brought back is one hundred percent pure Sam? He wanted to answer it back, As of this week, I'm almost positive he's not, but you aren't going to get one over on me, you sonofabitch. You can't mess with my head anymore. The condensed version of his answer came out instead.

"Nah."

Sam seemed to chew on the answer for a while, weighing the possibility that Dean might be right. He didn't necessarily disagree with his brother when he asked, "Why?"

"Because, like you told Bob, Jess has been waiting for you. Even if we left part of you back there, she came for you. She wouldn't have left you there alone without a fight."

"Yeah," said Sam quietly.

"You aren't buying it."

Fear of both his brother's reaction and the prospect of what he was about to suggest brightened Sam's eyes as he whispered, "I want to be sure."

Dean was pretty sure he stopped breathing for a full minute, if not longer. Even thinking about the possibility, he saw himself back in that ghost town, laying there in the middle of the puddled road holding his baby brother's lifeless body, completely helpless. There hadn't been a single night since that moment that he hadn't found himself back there, but even somehow in his dreams he knew that it wasn't real. He could sense Sam there in the next bed, warm, safe, and sound. He didn't know how he knew, but he could feel that if he went back there, that sense of security would be stripped from him for his remaining nights. Gathering the breath to tell his brother just how scared he was of this one thing was hard. His lungs burned as he said, "Don't ask me to go back there, Sam. I can't."

"Neither can I." Sam's knees bounced against the door, rattling the change he'd dropped into the lip of the armrest. He gave Dean a minute to adjust to the suggestion then said wryly, "I guess that means we're going, huh?"

"I guess so." The resigned look in Dean's eyes was quickly replaced by the mischievous glint that promised bot danger and results. "But this time, we're bringing a few friends along."

"Friends?"

"Yep. My good friends — Bic, Zippo, and Morton," Dean grinned. A shadow of seriousness hit his voice as he met his brother's eyes head on. "They've never let me down before."

Sam gave it a moment, thinking on the truth of that statement. As crazy as it all sounded, there was a certain comfort in that. Hunting and the supernatural may have taken just about everything they had ever known to be good in their lives, but the tools of the trade had come through for them every time. Good or bad. Sam nodded, the corners of his mouth twitching in agreement. "I like the sound of that."

— December 13, 2007 —

Ten minutes into his shift, the county sheriff called in to dispatch a blaze coming from a patch of trees that no one in their right mind had gone into in near a century. The residents of the county had all heard the stories about Cold Oak; they all knew it was the last place on Earth they wanted to go near. It was too far into the dark of winter for lightning to have caught. The town had been abandoned before electricity had come to it. If there had been any kerosene left to light the rotting buildings, it was probably too old to catch fire anyway. He told himself that, should the fire go any further than the skirt of trees surrounding the town, he would call someone in to investigate. Otherwise, all he could do was breathe the first breath of truly fresh air he had had in his entire life, his town and jurisdiction no longer stifled under the watchful, eerie eye of the town so haunted it had a life of its own.

He watched the burn until he got another call to come to the bend in the road that had once been a one church, two bar town. In the parking lot of the Gas 'N Groc, the county vehicle that had been stolen from under their noses around sunset was waiting for him, keys in the ignition. Upon closer inspection, he found a note taped to the steering wheel.

Sorry we ran out of gas or we would have brought her back.
Tank's full now. You need more salt.
Thanks.

The sheriff took off his winter gear hat and scratched his head, confused and actually kind of amused. Whatever the kids who had taken the joyride in the county salter had done with her, she seemed to be fine now. At least they had been polite about it. If he could manage to get her back in the shop without anyone but the night watch knowing, he would thank his lucky stars. Those kids should, too.

On his way back to the shop, he passed a black muscle car that tipped the radar going seven miles over the limit. He let his generous mood cut that driver some slack as well. He was in a good mood tonight. He looked toward the rising smoke of the blaze down the road and wished he had chocolate and marshmallows in the car.

As Sam drove past the county sheriff's squad car, he reached over to grab his brother's wrist. Dean was practically bouncing in his seat at the sight, hyper from too many days that week of full sleep and decent food. Seemingly all of ten years old, Dean was actually going to reach up and wave at the cop. The next thing Sam knew, his brother would probably be pulling on the invisible line by his window to get passing truckers to blow their horns, too. He shook his head, rueful smile on his face. Some people's kids . . .

It wasn't until they were barely an hour out from Bobby's place that Dean let himself feel the pull of sleep. He wasn't sure what it was, but even burning down Cold Oak and sending its occupants back to Hell where they belonged wasn't giving him quite the peace of mind that he had hoped it would give him. He could see a certain weight lifted from Sam's shoulders, though. Maybe that was the point of it. Maybe Sam needed to be the one who got a better night's sleep from this. Maybe the point was just to have the answer.

Yeah, he had to admit, he'd let that question fester since that night the Devil's Gate opened. He had replayed The Demon's questions a few times — okay, a few hundred, but really, who was counting? — wondering in the back of his mind if Sam had maybe come back a little wrong. It wasn't like his brother to be so cold when it came to killing any being, let alone a human. The night Sam had sneaked out to confront the crossroads demon had damned near done his heart in thinking that his brother hadn't hesitated to kill the demon's poor host. But then he'd seen Sam's reaction to the idea of killing Gordon and knew. Sam hadn't come back wrong; he'd come back leaving part of himself behind. Sam had left the last shred of innocence he had on that muddy road when Jake stabbed him in the back. The only part of Sam that was lost was his ability to trust anyone other than Dean ever again. That part did break Dean's heart, more than he thought possible. But he knew he had his answer, and that was the important part. Sam was and would be just fine.

Dean had every intention of having a good long talk with Bobby when they got to the man's home, so he let his eyes droop for the rest of the way to try to catch a little bit of a nap. He wouldn't say he'd sleep when he was dead since he guessed that probably was the last thing Hell had planned for him, but he knew that his time was important to the people he loved. Besides, a beer by the fireplace with Bobby was just what he needed.

As he fell asleep, he thought of Lillie and what Sam thought about her not being able to handle the idea of spending ten years with her husband only to have to leave him. One last look at Sam in his concentration on the road told Dean that he didn't have to wonder at all. He had made the right decision. One year could be enough. Together, they were going to make this year enough to get him through anything.

(End Part Four of Four)

Author's Note: Now that this is over . . . This story was inspired by two songs — Jenny Lynn by Becky Schlegel and American Anthem by Norah Jones. Somehow they morphed into this. When I figure out how I got there, I'll let you know. Heh. / The record store where they get all of their supplies is real. It's a shop called The Electric Fetus. You can find them in St Cloud, Duluth, and Minneapolis. If you've never been in one and are close by, check it out. They're awesome and put Spencer's to shame. / Yes, I went to school in St Cloud, so the directions, hotel, and traffic report are real, but otherwise, it was a convenient location to tell the story, nothing more.

Anyhoo, if you've made it all the way to the end here, THANK YOU! Hope you enjoyed!