Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television shows 'NCIS' and 'Supernatural'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

A/N: And here's the final chapter for this little story. Like I mentioned before, I'm not against doing more in this 'verse, but I currently lack for ideas, so any assistance would be appreciated, if y'all are so inclined, of course.

Haunted

Wrapping Up

Sam tossed their gear into the trunk of the Impala while Abby and Tony acted as human crutches for Dean. Sam grabbed the monster-sized Maglite and the first-aid kit once Dean was settled onto the car's hood. He nudged Abby aside – she'd been trying to use her cell phone to light the still-bleeding gash on Dean's forehead. Tony leaned against the driver's side fender and sighed. "That it, then?" he asked.

The cut wasn't as bad as it looked. Couple of butterfly-bandages. Doesn't need stitches, I don't think. Sam dug into the first-aid kit while Dean nodded. "Yeah. That's it. Problem taken care of."

"And he won't be back?" This time, Abby asked the question.

"Nope," Sam answered, wetting a square of gauze with rubbing alcohol. "You don't need to worry," he said, moving to clean Dean's gash out. "Mawher won't be back." He glanced at the goth girl and smiled. "Promise."

Dean hissed at the sting from the alcohol. "What's the damage this time?"

"No stitches," Sam replied.

"Good. Damn things always itch." The group fell into silence for a few minutes while Sam finished tending the cut. Once the last of three butterfly-bandages were in place, Dean dug a hip-flask out of his leather jacket and took a swig, then offered it to Tony. "You look like you could use this."

Tony accepted it and took a swallow before handing it back. "How's the leg?" he asked.

Dean shrugged. "Dislocated." Tony winced in sympathy.

Sam finished putting the packets of bandaids back into the kit, then moved to pick up Dean's leg by the ankle. He handed Abby the flashlight. "Hold this for me for a minute, will you?" Holding the ankle in his casted hand, he felt the displaced kneecap through Dean's jeans with his left. "On three. One, two," he applied sharp pressure and the bone slid back into its normal position. A strange, strangled noise escaped Dean's throat.

"Sonuvabitch!" It took him a moment to catch his breath. "We got any ice-packs left?" Sam shook his head. "Damnit."

"I think I've got one," Tony said, heading for the trunk of his own car. He rummaged around by feel for a minute, then returned with both the promised ice-pack and a prescription pill bottle. He squeezed the pack to activate its chemical contents to do their thing, shook it to speed the process, and handed both it and the bottle to Dean.

"What're these?" Dean asked, rattling the bottle of pills.

"Percocet," Tony replied. "I broke a couple of bones in my foot few years ago, but opiates and me don't get along."

"When did that happen?" Abby asked, trying to recall when Tony had last broken a bone.

"It was just after Kate joined the team – that case with the rigged-to-fail parachute and the guy who crashed through the roof of the SUV?" Tony explained.

Comprehension dawned. "Oh! When you got pushed out of the airplane."

Dean laughed, "Dude, you got pushed out of a plane? And I thought my last flight sucked." The comment made Sam snicker. Dean smacked his shoulder to get him to shut up.

Tony smiled and shrugged. "Occupational hazard," he quipped. "Not really, though – there was a fight and I was right next to the door – just pure bad luck was all. I was wearing a parachute, but I landed badly." He watched as Dean dry-swallowed two of the pain pills. I know what Ducky would have to say about taking those on top of the whisky, but he looks old enough to me to make up his own mind. "What about you? Why'd Sam just laugh?"

Sam snorted in amusement again, then took it on himself to explain. "Dean doesn't like flying on the best of days, but the last time we got on an airplane, a chaos-demon tried to crash it."

Half of Tony wanted more information, but the other half of him won the argument by asking 'are you sure you really want to know?'. "You know," he said instead, "the more I learn about what you two do, the happier I am with my own job – paperwork and all."

Dean shifted a little on the hood of the car, the plastic ice-pack rattling noisily as he did so. "Don't sweat the paperwork too much – I'd be happy to file a form or three in order to get paid for this."

Sam nodded in agreement, "Me, too."

"Wait, you guys do this for free?" Abby's disbelief was almost a tangible thing. "How do you live?"

"We get by," Sam replied. "Dean's a pretty decent poker player."

"And we haven't seen anyone yet who can beat the both of us at pool," Dean threw in his own two cents. "If we have a long stretch of downtime, I usually temp at a garage or for the local construction crews." Neither Winchester was about to mention the credit card scams, not with a fed right there, no matter that Tony was a pretty cool guy. Dean changed the subject and asked his brother, "How about you, Sammy? I know you got thrown across the yard, too."

Sam shook his head, his hair flopping with the motion. "Nah, I'm fine – just a couple of bruises."

Dean pocketed the ice-pack and slid off the hood of the Impala. "Okay, then – who's hungry?"

After a round of affirmatives, Dean mentioned heading back to Palmira's, but Tony mentioned knowing a great Italian place. Abby asked if she could ride with the Winchesters – she wanted to ask some more questions about what they did. On confirming that Abby knew the restaurant Tony mentioned, Dean tossed Sam the car keys. "I'll ride with Tony. Meet you there."

A couple of minutes later, Dean and Tony were leading the way. Dean resettled the ice-pack on his knee and let out a light chuckle. "S'pose not all cops are that bad," he said.

"What do you mean?" Tony asked over the low sound of Coltrane playing over the car's speakers.

Dean shrugged. "Just that most of the time, cops misunderstand what me an' Sam do – run us outta town soon as we show up an' start workin'. You're in the rare second category, though."

"How so?"

"You actually got your head outta your ass and helped."

Tony turned onto the road that would lead them back to the freeway to DC. "Sounds like that doesn't happen too often."

"Understatement of the century, dude. Only happened twice before, at least to me an' Sam – our dad had it happen a time or two, but that was when we were still kids, so I don't count it."

"I wouldn't count it, either," Tony replied, taking the on-ramp for the freeway. "Can I ask who the other cops were that helped you?"

"Sure," Dean could feel the percocet finally starting to kick in – the white-hot agony of his knee was starting to dim some. "First time was back in February. We were checkin' out this town in Minnesota – Hibbing – that had way too many missing-persons for how small it was. Wound up not being our kind of thing at all; this family of psycho-crazy people were behind it. Took guys hunting, if you catch my drift."

"Sounds like they read The Most Dangerous Game one time too many."

Dean chuckled, remembering the story from a seventh-grade English class. "Doubt they could read, but you got the gist of it. Anyway, they took Sam and I had to track his gigantor ass down. Deputy Kathleen Hudak helped me – her own brother had been disappeared, so I guess she knew what it was like."

"And the second time?"

"Oh, that was just last week, up in Baltimore."

"Seriously?" Tony's interest spiked. "Who? I worked two years in Baltimore Homicide before I came to NCIS."

"Detective Diana Ballard," Dean replied. He started to explain what had happened, but Tony cut him off.

"I'll be go to hell! Diana? How's she doing these days? We were on the softball team together, pitcher and catcher. Worked out pretty well, even though I was homicide and she was vice." Tony grinned at the fond memories he had of the summer games and practices.

"She's in homicide now," Dean replied. "Sam and I got wind of a suspicious death – guy was killed, but nothin' showed on security cameras, police baffled, same ol' crap for us. Anyway, we got there and started diggin'. Like usual, the cops didn't get what we were doing and figured we killed the guy – by this time, his wife was dead, too. Fast-forward some and we find the ghost, only it wasn't the one killin' people."

"Wait, what?"

"Not all ghosts are murderous sonsabitches. Some are warnings – omens – and others are just echoes, replaying the same scene over and over like a screwed-up DVD."

"If that's the case, then who killed the guy and his wife?"

"Detective Ballard's partner – Pete Sheridan. He'd been swiping heroin from the evidence locker, used the woman who was now the omen-ghost to fence it, then killed her. Apparently, the dead guy and his wife were Sheridan just tying up loose ends – they'd known, or Sheridan thought they'd known, what he was doing."

Tony let out a low whistle. "Damn. I'll have to remember to give her a call, see how Diana's doing."

Only part of Sam's attention was focused on following the taillights of Tony's Mustang. Most of it was on his passenger. Not even ten seconds after shifting the car into 'drive', she'd asked, "How come we aren't all haunted?"

"Well, it usually takes a violent death to create a ghost to begin with, but even then, there has to be some sort of reason for them to stick around." Sam reached over and turned off the radio.

"That whole unfinished business thing you read about in the books, huh?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Most of what Dean and I see are cases where someone wants revenge on who killed them or who are so locked in their own suffering they want everyone else to hurt like they do."

"How sad," Abby replied wistfully. "Is there any way to keep people from becoming ghosts?"

Sam shook his head. "Not that I know of. If someone's that determined to stick around, it doesn't matter if you cremate them – they'll find something to anchor to, be it an old lock of hair in their parent's picture album or a piece of jewelry they've worn all their lives."

"So how do I keep this from happening to me again in the future?"

"Well, you know about the salt. Sea-salt and rock salt works best, but table salt will do in a pinch. Ghosts are a lot like people – they'll try the points of easiest access first, so if you keep lines of salt in front of your doors and windows, that will stop most of them. The more powerful ones, though, can come straight through the walls. Iron works well if they manifest to the point you can see where they are – and cold iron is best. Cat's eye shells also work, though I'm not sure why. Dean and I move around too much to use one, but if you're really serious about keeping yourself from being haunted again, you might want to look into obtaining a spirit-trap."

"I think I've seen one of those before – they're those etched mirrors, aren't they?"

"Can be," Sam confirmed. "Most I've seen were just painted on the glass, though. It's easier to paint something on an existing mirror than it is to etch it, after all, and you can wash it off when you're done – a good thing if you're not going to use it again."

"Any other tips on avoiding having this happen again?"

Sam shrugged. "Just use common sense, I guess. Oh, and stay away from antiques – you just never know. If a ghost's attached itself to something that wasn't originally a body-part, it can be extremely hard to get rid of them; you have to destroy whatever they're attached to."

"I guess I get it – a lock of hair burns pretty easy. An alabaster cameo set in gold? Not so much."

"Precisely," Sam smiled at her, and pulled into an empty parking space next to Tony's Mustang.

Dean woke up to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom and knocking at the motel room door. "Just a minute," he called out, pulling on a pair of jeans that could do with a run through a washing machine, but weren't as dirt-encrusted as the pair he'd worn the day before. His knee still ached horribly, but he could actually stand on it and even hobble short distances before it started feeling like it was going to explode.

Leaning heavily on the frame, he opened the door to find Tony standing outside with a cardboard drink carrier and a paper sack. His nose told him it was coffee and donuts. "Mornin'," Tony greeted. "I come bearing breakfast."

"In that case, come in," Dean pushed the door open the rest of the way and hobbled back to his bed.

Tony handed Dean one of the cardboard cups after he'd sat down. "How's the leg?"

Dean shrugged a little. "Been better. What brings you by?" He popped the plastic lid off the cup and took a long drink.

"I just came from Bethesda – Tim's going to be fine. Wanted to thank you. Had you not overheard our conversation the other day, I have the feeling I'd be going to another partner's funeral this week."

"We're just doin' our jobs, dude," Dean waved away the gratitude.

Tony could actually understand the sentiment. He liked to think that he'd still be doing his job, even if a paycheck wasn't an option. Just don't tell the brass that – money does have its uses, after all. "Still had to say it," he said out loud.

Outside, a beat-up old pickup was parked on the street. Gibbs watched his SFA disappear into the motel and waited. He hadn't been able to get any coherent information from Abby – just a lot of babbling nonsense and attempted side-stepping. He left her believing she'd been successful in hiding what she and Tony had been up to the night before. She had let enough slip, though, to bring him here.

And even though Abby wasn't about to give him a straight answer, his SFA would. So he waited.

Motion at the motel room's door let him know it was time. He climbed out of the truck and waited until Tony was finished speaking with the two men in the room. As Tony made his way back to his car, Gibbs fell into step beside him. "Want to tell me what that was all about, DiNozzo?"

Tony stumbled a little in surprise. "Boss! How did… I… Um…" He stopped in his tracks and sighed, running a hand through his hair. "It's just been a really weird couple of days, Boss."

"That a cause or an effect from hanging out with Dean Winchester?" Gibbs asked, his calm eyes centered on Tony's. Tony blinked at him, his brain obviously having difficulty coming up with something coherent. Gibbs decided to take pity on him. "Saw an inter-agency intel request a few days' back. Baltimore PD was lookin' for anything they could find on him and his brother."

Tony slumped a little. "They're not bad guys, Boss."

Gibbs trusted Tony's people-reading skills far too much not to believe him. "Care to explain their rap-sheets? They're pretty long for a pair of good guys."

Tony weighed his options and took a moment to look up at the sunny sky. "It's kind of a long story, Boss…"

Finite Incantatem

A/N2: I know this isn't the longest story I've ever done, but I really enjoyed it – almost as much as I liked writing Once is Happenstance (my first HP/SPN crossover). I hope y'all liked it, too.

Remember to let me know what y'all thought!