Dean put his face to the glass of the Impala, moving his hands up to press against the passenger window.

John smiled, "Easy there, kiddo. You're gonna lean hard enough and bust right out of there. Then I'll have to figure out where you fell out and come back to scrape you off the road."

Dean turned to him with wide green eyes. "Can I really do that?" He pushed experimentally on the glass with one hand.

"Hey," John said, a little sterness to his tone. "Don't push on the glass. I'm just kidding." He ruffled Dean's soft blonde hair. "I'll tell you what you appearently can do, which is leave prints all over the window for me to clean up."

Dean used his sleeve to smear some of the oil marks around in his attempt to help. "It's my mess. I'll clean it up." His cheap plastic Spiderman watch made a loud clack against the surface.

John smirked, a dimple showing through his stubble. "It's okay. I'll get it later. How was school?"

Dean shrugged, rose up on his knees to watch out the window again. Fascinated by the scenery rolling by.

John tried again. "What did you learn?"

Dean shrugged. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" John raised a dark eyebrow. "Wow. The curriculum has changed since I was a kid...Dean, sit on your butt before you go flying if I stop the car."

Dean sighed and settled back on the seat, swinging his legs back and forth. His eldest son was a perpetual motion machine it seemed. Much more animated than young Sammy.

Dean strained to sit up tall enough to look out the front windshield. "Where are we going?"

"I'm just taking a quick detour to check on something, Sport, then we can go get Sammy from the sitters."

Dean folded a leg under himself for height once again and John sighed. "Sit."

"Sorry, Dad."

"Come on Dean, first week of first grade, what did you learn?" John said congenially.

Dean scooted over to him on the bench seat and buried his face in the side of John's worn leather jacket. "I don't know."

"Taxpayer money hard at work right there." John quipped. "Hey kid..." he tried to free his arm from Dean's crowding. "I'm happy to see you too, but Daddy needs room to steer or I'm going to crash us."

Dean sat up. "Okay."

John rolled his shoulder. "That's my man." He slowed as they passed the old house on the hill, put Baby in park and let her idle.

It was getting dark already. Hardly even dinner time and the light was fading. He barely had time to pick Dean up from the after school program and run some errands and it was already late. They both needed dinner. He was starting to wonder if he should pay the woman to keep the boys overnight so that he could do some hunting. He'd been working this case for a week and he was fairly certain the paranormal activity that had been plaguing the families around here was about to reach a head.

It had already claimed the lives of one family and he was going to be damned of he let it claim another. He had no clue what caused him to pull up to case the Anderson's house before he fed and dropped Dean off. It was on the way, sure, but he had no intent to hunt with his 6 year old in the car. It was more hunter's instinct than anything that made him shut off the car finally and step out. He ducked down. "Dean. I'm going to go check something out. I need you to wait right here, you got me?"

"Can I come?"

"No! You wait right here in this car, got that?"

Dean looked nervous. He'd been a bit clingy since the night his mother had died. He was getting better but he still had occasional issues when Dad left.
Apparently this was going to be one of those damn times. "Stay. I will be RIGHT back."

John circled around to the trunk, got his ivory handled .45. He slammed the trunk firmly, rocking the car. He turned to see Dean's face pressed against the glass. "Stay." He ordered. No sooner had he said the words then the house behind him erupted into flames. The windows blew in a blast of heated air, shards flying far enough to almost reach where he stood. It went again in another blast that had him ducking and covering his ears.

Cries reached him from the engulfed structure of the little yellow two story. "Stay!" He yelled to his child and ran into the the fray. It took him a moment to break into the door disappear inside.

Dean sat in the front seat, watching the flames in a fascinated terror. His heart began to pound as his father left his sight. The fire began to consume the roof, it blackened and smoked, caved in on itself like a melting candle. The pyromaniac in every young boy kept Dean's eyes glued, but the other part of him, the part that remembered a fire not too long ago knew that bad things happened when houses caught. People died. Mothers disappeared. His small fingers dug into the rim of the car window and he rose onto his knees. "Dad." He whispered. "Dad." The minutes crawled by and he felt real fear in his chest. Real anxiety. He was alone. It was dark.

Dean started to yell. "Daddy! Daddy!"

He scrabbled at the window frame, pulled up the lock on the Impala's passenger side with shaking fingers and shoved the door open, launching himself out.

The house looked like a twisted bonfire rising into the sky. He knew enough not to leave the proximity of the car. He craned his head, strained his eyes and ears and cried for his father once again. "Dad!" He jumped in one spot, his anxiety needing an outlet even then, prompting him to move, react.

And then, suddenly, the front door flew open, half off its hinges and six-feet of John Winchester stood silhouetted in the flame, carrying a limp woman in his arms. He was covered in soot and coughing.

"Dad!"

He looked up. "Dean! Stay where you are!"

Dean took a step forward and was slammed off of his feet by some force that he didn't understand. He tumbled sideways with a cry, eyes wide at a twisted figure standing above him, half burnt and hideous like the worst Halloween decoration he'd ever seen.

He cried in sheer terror and burst into tears. A shot from his father's pistol rang out and the figure dissipated. Dean lay in the grass, stunned. He could hear his father approaching quickly and in a second he was at his side, sliding to a kneeling stop in the tall grass. "Dean, are you okay?"

Dad smelled like smoke and leather. He gathered the boy into his arms and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "You're okay," he soothed.

"Daddy!" The name broke on a sob.

"It's okay," John's lips were pressed to his son's soft hair. He exhaled into it and pulled away. "Are you hurt?"

His big hands searched Dean for an obvious injury and he pulled him up to his feet. Dean was still crying. He clung to his Dad. John gently pushed him away. "Dean. You're okay. Stop."

He turned and started to walk back to the woman he'd left sprawled on the grass. Dean clung to his long leather jacket staggering behind sobbing.

His father spun, throwing Dean sideways with the movement. The figure appeared to their side and John perfunctorily emptied another round into it.

Dean came lose from the jacket and almost fell sprawling backwards onto the lawn. He was crying again. "Hey." His father bent down and grabbed his arms. "I know you're scared. But she's hurt. Go open the car door for me."

The little boy paused and John gave him a small shove. "Hurry Dean. Now!"

The words sent Dean into motion just as they had one horrible night barely two years ago.

"Back door, Dean!"

Dean unlocked it and swung it open.

John nodded. "Get in!"

Obediently, Dean clambered over the seat and John slid the woman's pale, soot covered form in after him.

"Your job is to watch her, okay?" No sooner were the words out of John's mouth than some force yanked him backwards out of the car. He went down with a surprised shout, his pistol falling out of his hands.

Dean leaned over the woman and watched his Dad tousle with the half-burned figure. John threw a punch and dove back toward the Impala before it grabbed him again. He kicked it with a booted heel and managed to drag himself to his knees. He was coughing with the exertion, face smudged with soot.

It was on him again- and again his Dad went down, face first into the lawn.

Dean felt a surge of protective indignation sweep through him. "Leave him alone!"

It lifted it's head and locked it's soulless eyes onto Dean. The boy felt his heart skip.

That second of distraction was all John needed to fling it sideways and empty the rest of his clip into it.

"Dean!" He shouted, his voice husky and deep with exertion "Is she wearing a locket?"

Dean stared at his dad a moment, not understanding. "A necklace?" John made a motion as he walked to the car.

Dean looked over and nodded. "Yes." He wiped his nose with the sleeve of his jacket, trying to scrub away the remnants of his tears.

John's face softened as he leaned in and locked gazes with his eldest. "Hey, kiddo."

The woman on the seat was making a strange rasping noise and John turned his attention to her. "Hey, sweetheart," his voice was soft and low. He put a hand on her head. "We're gonna get you some help real soon."

He reached over and grabbed the necklace off of her with a sharp tug. It snapped free and John held it aloft just as the figure reappeared.

Dean watched his father grin and fling the locket into the air with a throw that followed through his entire shoulder and upper body. It sailed across part of the lawn to land in the flaming wreckage. The ghost next to his father suddenly burst into flames with an earsplitting scream and disappeared.

Dean was shaking. John slammed the door and jumped into the driver's side. He twisted to look at Dean, his heavy lidded eyes serious and intense. "We're going to the hospital."

The impala peeled out in a flurry of tires.

His Dad's eyes flicked to the rearview. "Talk to her."

The woman was coming to, coughing and frightened. Dean bent over her, fascinated, his face an inch from her nose. Her long hair was singed in a few spots and it smelled acrid.

"Dean stop crowding her." His Dad admonished. "Let her breathe."

Dean backed off.

She moved her head weakly. Dean slipped his small hand over hers. "My Dad and me are going to help you," he declared through a trembling lower lip. "We're heroes."

TBC