Epilogue

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or LOST.

John Winchester was a hard person to impress. For a man so deeply steeped in flaws, he demanded perfection of the people around him. It was a necessity as a hunter. Anything less than perfection led to mistakes, which led to injuries and could possibly lead to a funeral pyre. He'd be damned if his boys or himself were killed by the bastards they hunted, especially before he was able to avenge Mary's death. Hence, he was a hard guy to impress.

As he perused the torn cursive of the notes that Meg had made since his departure, he couldn't help but admit that he was in awe. This girl had managed to find a random pattern in recent plane crashes where each one crashed at exactly forty minutes into the flight. That seemed like the very definition of a deliberate pattern.

"Anybody know what the statistics on plane crashes are nowadays?" John shouted at the room as he kept his attention on the pages in front of him.

"That'd be one in a little over four million," Meg shouted back from the kitchen.

One in four million. Meg had found four plane crashes in the span of a month and what he assumed was supposed to be a fifth one that took off from Los Angeles headed to Sydney, Australia on September 21st. This was it. This was the direct link to his sons' disappearances. This explained why Dean had willingly stepped foot on an airplane...it was for a case.

"How in the hell has nobody noticed all of these plane crashes in such a short amount of time?" John asked himself.

"Somebody did," Meg argued from right in front of him. He jumped at her sudden appearance as she graced him with a sheepish smile and set a cold bottle of beer down in front of him. He nodded his thanks up at her as she pointed to a name and phone number she'd written on one of the pages. "Jerry Panowski. Apparently, he's the one that pointed Sam and Dean towards the plane crashes case."

"Wait, back up a second." John stopped her with a timeout signal as he shook his head incredulously. "This guy contacted Sam and Dean? Who in the hell is he?"

"Some guy that works for one of the many airports in the country," Meg explained to him. "He told me that he tried to contact you first and that your voicemail message directed him to Dean. They all met up a few days before Sam and Dean took off from L.A."

John leaned back in his seat and ran the name through his memory before he shrugged and shook his head at the lack of recognition. It sounded familiar, but if he remembered every single person he'd ever met, his mind would be filled with names, instead of important facts. "I honestly don't have any clue who this guy is."

"Well, he knows you," Meg informed him. "Told me, quite proudly, that you and Dean helped him out with some poltergeist case in Pennsylvania."

At Meg's explanation, a light bulb immediately went off over John's head and he sucked in a deep breath as the memory hit him. Kittanning. He and Dean had caught wind of the poltergeist after Jerry's wife had been injured badly in their home alone. The damn thing had torn his house up and down and he'd been worried that his children would be next. That had been several years ago, though. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the old desk in Bobby's study as his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "That hunt was years ago. How'd you even find this guy's name?"

"I hacked Dean's phone bill for any calls that were received or placed around the first flight's departure date," Meg shrugged unemotionally. "Actually, if you wanna argue semantics, I hacked Kyle Gamling's phone bill. It ended up being the ninth alias that even hit on any calls during that time frame. A few days prior, in fact."

John's jaw slacked in stunned amazement. Not only was Meg able to connect dots that none of them had seen or considered, but from what he could see, she'd put an amazing amount of effort into all of this. Here was a girl that not only hadn't been raised in their world, but she had no connections to their world. She'd been forced into this life the same way most hunters were...to avenge a loved one. The demon had played puppeteer to her own body and forced her to murder her entire family. John's psyche was already screwed up, but he was thankful that he didn't have the memory of his wife's blood on his hands to go along with her gruesome death.

He looked past Meg and barely managed to stifle a laugh at the sight of Castiel and Bobby seated across from each other. They were each sizing the other one up under intense scrutiny as Meg turned and snorted at the man and angel. "Bobby, he's on the up and up, I promise you," John told him.

"So you keep telling me," Bobby grunted, his concentration fixed on the angel.

"Even if you don't believe me, you stuck him with a silver knife, doused him in holy water and watched him walk across the Devil's Trap under the rug," John reminded him. "Lay off."

"There's a lot of other things he could still be," Bobby reiterated stubbornly. Castiel took a deep breath and released it as Bobby's eyes narrowed in consternation. "So...you claim that you're an angel."

"Yes," Castiel answered with a tight nod. "...of the Lord."

"Sure you are, Michael Landon. Maybe you can explain to me how our community has never heard of your kind before outside of myth?" Bobby asked as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He smiled smugly as the 'angel' shifted uncomfortably under the attention directed at him. "It's just, you'd think one hunter would have run across your kind before and spread the news to other hunters."

"We don't dwell on Earth in large numbers or for very long," Castiel calmly explained with a tilted head. "Besides, it has been my understanding that humans tend to ignore the good tidings that befall them and focus, instead, on the negative. While demons create chaos and destruction, my brothers and sisters prefer to deal in positive designs. You are, after all, my father's favorite creations."

"Well, he's got you there, Bobby," John spoke up with a laugh as he tossed his pen down onto the filled pages in front of him and ran his hands over his face in exhaustion.

"Got me on what?" Bobby argued.

"Oh, come on, Bobby," Meg interjected as she walked across the room and sat down next to Castiel on the couch. "How many times have you called a customer service line to complain about something as opposed to the times you've called them to praise their company?" She turned to the angel and patted him on the arm comfortingly. Her bright smile thinned as he scrutinized her intensely and she shrank under his gaze. "What?"

"You were possessed by a demon," Castiel observed sympathetically. Meg winced at the memory before she nodded her head up at the angel in confirmation. "It was a loyal follower of Lucifer. I'm truly sorry for the loss you endured at its hands." He attempted a weak smile before he tenderly pressed two fingers to her forehead. The moment he made contact with her skin, she gasped in shock as warm sensation flooded over every inch of her mind. The constant pain and fear she had become used to eased from her consciousness as her smile grew bright again and she jumped up from her seat so quickly that Castiel's hand fell limply onto his lap.

"What the hell did you just do to her?" Bobby snarled. Castiel looked up at the hunter from behind Meg and let out a frustrated sigh at the sight of the gun, once again, pointed directly at him.

"Please lower your weapon," Castiel requested as he raised his hands lazily in a surrendered gesture. "I simply healed the damage that the demon did to her mind. She will no longer be in pain if she remembers her time of possession."

Bobby lowered the gun as he looked up at Meg in concern. "You've been in pain? This whole time?"

"It was just a few headaches," Meg reluctantly admitted. "I wanted so badly to remember any information I could in order to help you both find Sam and Dean, but it kept making my head hurt, so I had to stop trying." She glanced over at John apologetically. "I don't think I have any new information, though…I'm sorry. I redirected my focused onto the research to make up for it."

Meg was sorry? Was she serious? If it hadn't been for her and the effort she'd put into her investigation, they would still be at square one, with only an angel to direct them to the next blind lead. John stood up, walked over to Meg and placed a hand on each of her shoulders as he looked directly into her eyes. "You have done one helluva job when you found all of this stuff. You have nothing to be sorry for. We'll figure something else out for the rest of the information we need."

"Actually, I may already have," Bobby spoke up. Each person and the angel turned their complete attention to the older hunter as he sheepishly shook his head at the attention. "Well...no, not me exactly, but I called and left you a voicemail about it a few days ago, John. I figured when you didn't call me back at all that you'd just taken off to get a head start. That is your way."

"It's like I said before...my phone got lost," John told him. "I didn't even get your message. What's going on?"

Bobby sat back down and gingerly placed his gun on the coffee table in front of him. "Well, do you remember Frank Devereaux?"

Clearly the theme for the day was names from John's past. He repeated the name under his breath and barely searched through his memory before his face lit up in acknowledgment and he scoffed. "Oh man…the conspiracy nut that lost his wife and two kids?" He asked incredulously.

"Yeah, I met him a few decades back in Port Huron," Bobby explained to him. "Saved his life and in return he sometimes helps me out or sends me some cases. He may be a conspiracy lunatic and a jackass, but he's the best damn surveillance expert that I've ever met."

"Yeah, well...it's usually the really paranoid ones that end up being the best damn surveillance experts," John commented with an eye roll. "Ok, so why's he important?"

"He just called me the day before yesterday. He has a few feelers out on different things and intercepted a message regarding high levels of electromagnetic activity."

"Big deal," John commented. "We all got EMF readers, we can measure that stuff in our sleep. Hell, Dean made his own reader out of an old walkman. Why's this relevant?"

"Because this was big," Bobby told him. "And whatever caused it is coming from nowhere in the middle of the damn ocean."

Author's Note: And that's all for Swan Song Station. Truly a delight to write. I enjoyed bringing Castiel into this story and having Sam and Dean reunite and saving Ana Lucia. The third season of LOST is probably my favorite, so I'm stoked to write that with Dean and Sam included and to see where John and Bobby go in order to rescue the boys. Mucho thanks to thedarkpokemaster, Guest, Zgirl101, auPHE and Archivist613 for your kind words on the last chapter. Chapter one of "My Brother's Keeper" is happening right now and I can't wait to get it up for your reading pleasure! Thank you so much!