A/N: This story takes place right after No Exit, in season 2. The location is real, the ghost—who knows?? Originally published in Rooftop Confessions #2, edited by GriffinSong Press.

Old Ghosts

by Swellison

The last chords of Ted Nugent's Cat Scratch Fever cassette faded into squeaky silence. Sam watched from the passenger seat as Dean's right hand hit the eject button while they continued to drive down the highway. He dropped the discarded cassette into the box of tapes—Dean's mullet rock collection—which Sam held open on his lap. Without taking his eyes off the road, Dean dipped into the tape box. Grasping a cased tape with his right hand, he single-handedly flipped it open, extracted the tape and slipped it into the cassette player. Sam couldn't decide if Dean had memorized his tapes by their location in the box, or if he didn't care which tape he blared at any particular time; he supposed that they were all good, to Dean's way of thinking.

Idly picking up the Nugent tape and slipping it back into its case, Sam wondered when he would be driving the Impala next, so they could listen to his choice of music. As he placed the cassette back in its slot, he glanced at his right arm, still casted from the base of his thumb to almost his elbow; and he realized it wouldn't be any time soon. Dean had made it crystal clear that only people with two "one hundred percent functioning" good arms got to drive his baby. "So, we're not going to Cali, then?"

Foreigner's opening chords to Feels Like the First Time drowned Dean's "Huh" out.

"Not rescuing Katie Holmes from that cult in LA?" Sam repeated Dean's days-old joke, wanting to get a reaction out of his older brother. Dean hadn't said a word since they'd left the Roadhouse a couple of hours ago, after dropping off Ellen and Jo. Following an aborted conversation with Jo, Dean had stalked back to the Impala, barely giving Sam time to jump off the hood and into the passenger seat before he took off in a cloud of dust, heading—Sam had no idea where.

"No."

Sam lowered the volume on the cassette, risking Dean's ire. "So where are we going?"

"East."

Sam tapped his finger on the window, pointing to the I-80 East marker they were passing on the highway. "I can see that, but where?" Dean turned his head long enough to aim a glare at Sam, then turned his attention back to watching the road. After a few miles of listening to Foreigner, Sam tried again. "So, ah, did Ash give you a new job?"

Dean bristled. "Since when do we rely on them for our hunts, anyway? Yeah, we were working with Jo in Philly, and Ash supplied her with that list of executed prisoners, but you could've done the research yourself. Hell, I could've done the research."

Sam leapt at the mention of Jo. "Speaking of Jo, what happened between you two back at the Roadhouse?"

Dean frowned and his grip on the Impala's steering wheel tightened. "She told me about her father's last hunt. Said he had a partner and the guy got him killed." He paused, and then continued in a flat voice, "She said his partner was Dad."

"Dad?" Sam echoed, disbelievingly. One look at Dean's face told him that Dean was done talking about this. Sam gazed out the window at the passing roadside, lost in thought. Okay, so that hunt must've happened a long time ago—fifteen or so years ago? And there's definitely a learning curve associated with being a hunter,so Dad could've made a mistake, even a fatal one. But Dad was the best hunter I know . . . It was his own worst nightmare that hadn't already happened; screwing up on a hunt and getting Dean killed. Not gonna happen, Sam told himself firmly. But he was shaken by the fact that it already had happened, to his dad, no less. Sam tuned out his thoughts and listened to Dean's music instead, the cassette had progressed to Long, Long Way from Home.

How apropos. Except Dean and the Impala are home. I thought—I hoped—we were getting back closer to normal—well, Winchester normal, the last couple of hunts. Dad's death still loomed large in both their hearts and minds, but . . . He sighed. One step forward, two steps back.

"Your wrist hurtin' again?" Dean had heard his sigh and misinterpreted it. "I can pull over and get a pillow from the back."

"Nah, don't bother. I can wait 'til we stop for food."

Not surprisingly, Dean pulled into the next exit offering a restaurant selection. They settled on Bob Evans, standard American fare, several cuts above McDonald's and a nice, comfortable booth to relax in while they ate. Afterwards, Dean dug out a pillow and watched while Sam placed it on his lap and eased his right arm with its heavy cast on top of the pillow.

They resumed driving, and things got back to normal with occasional insignificant conversation interspersed between long bouts of music. They called it quits when they reached the outskirts of Indianapolis, pulling over at a Super 8 Motel off of I-465. Dean hustled them inside quickly, and stopped in his tracks as he closed the motel room door behind him. The room was a racing fan's dream, from the matching fire engine red bedspreads with white racing stripes to the black and white checkered border that outlined the ceiling and two large, vintage photographs of race cars lined up at the starting line, positioned over each queen-sized bed. "Oh yeah, we're in Indy, all right."

Sam's smile was interrupted by a huge yawn and he glanced sheepishly at the clock: not even 10 P.M.

"Get some shut-eye," Dean ordered kindly. "Unless you want to shower first?"

Sam considered it; but he didn't want to mess with finding the garbage bags and wrapping his cast to keep it from getting wet. "Nah, I'll shower in the morning." He grabbed his shaving kit and a pair of pajama bottoms from his duffel and disappeared into the bathroom. Ablutions completed, he emerged a few minutes later, dressed for bed.

Dean had set up the laptop on the room's table and sat in front of it, face slightly illuminated by the monitor's glow. "I'm gonna find our next hunt while you get caught up on your beauty sleep."

Ignoring him, Sam got under the covers of the bed located farther from the door and switched off the bedside lamp. He fell asleep to the quiet clatter of Dean's typing on the laptop's keyboard.

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Sam opened his eyes to the unusual sight of an already-dressed Dean searching through Sam's duffel. Before Sam could say anything about that invasion of his privacy, Dean had pulled out the roll of kitchen-can garbage bags and a few hot pink rubber bands. Oh.

"'Bout time you got up, Sleepyhead. Let's get your cast wrapped so you can take a shower while I go hunt up some breakfast."

Sam agreed with the agenda, extending his broken right arm. He watched as Dean quickly and smoothly waterproofed his cast, suddenly wondering if Dean had had previous experience dealing with this kind of injury. He remembered Dean's one-handed maneuvering of the cassette tapes yesterday. He'd put it down to a skill Dean had acquired while driving solo, now he wondered if Dean had once been similarly injured. He couldn't recall Dean's wrist being broken during a hunt, but Sam's knowledge of his brother's hunts had a four-year gap in it.

"Okay, you're ready to hit the shower. I even saved you some hot water." Dean patted the wrapped cast and stepped away from Sam's bed.

"Thanks." Sam headed for the bathroom, as Dean crossed the room and left in pursuit of breakfast.

Twenty minutes later, Sam was dressed and pacing the motel room, restlessly waiting for Dean to get back with breakfast. Sam stopped at the table, noticing a thin stack of paper next to the closed laptop and handy portable printer. It seemed Dean had found their next hunt, as promised. Sam sat down and scanned the first sheet of paper. It was directions and a map to Port Gibson, Mississippi, courtesy of Mapquest. Sam noted that the estimated driving time was over eleven hours, and then turned to the next page. He finished skimming the pages, restacked them and frowned, tapping his finger on the table.

Just then, he heard the door being unlocked and Dean came in, holding a cardboard carrier with two lidded cups of juice and a white bag with the Jack In the Box logo. "Man, everyone wanted to eat at the same time," he grumbled. "I finally gave up on the drive-thru and walked in. Should've gotten a room at one of those breakfast-included motels." He inhaled, and then shook his head. "What, no coffee? Falling down on the job," he teased, setting the food on the table.

"I'll make it," Sam offered, starting to rise. Since this had been just an overnight stopover, they didn't get their usual 'base of operations' room, which included a kitchenette, and Sam had overlooked the automatic coffee maker set up in the bathroom.

"No, stay put. I've got it." Dean crossed to the bathroom and removed the coffee pot from the coffee maker on the bathroom counter. He gave it a quick pre-wash, then set about making the coffee. When he returned to the table, Sam had placed two wrapped sausage, egg and biscuit sandwiches, hash browns, orange juice and a napkin in front of the empty chair opposite him. As Dean sat down, Sam unwrapped his own Sourdough breakfast Jack and dug in.

They ate in silence, Dean rising half-way through his first sandwich to return with two steaming cups of fresh coffee.

"So," Sam said a few minutes later, after drinking the last of his coffee, "I see you found our next hunt." He pointed at the stack of paper.

"Yeah."

"So we're going after the ghost at Windsor Ruins?" Sam knew his brother caught the off-note in his voice.

"You have a problem with that?"

"It's an old ghost. I read the eye-witness accounts you printed off. It doesn't seem to hurt anyone, just wanders around."

"And how long is that going to last? Did you read the latest sightings? It's started chasing after people with a knife. Next thing you know, it'll be slashing people, instead of air. It's a ghost, Sam, pure and simple. No nice vampires or super-strong zombie girls to complicate things. I thought you'd appreciate a straight-forward salt and burn."

"It's a tourist attraction. I'm not sure the town will appreciate it." Sam took a deep breath. "Look, gimme a couple of hours to surf and I'll see if I can find a hunt here in Indiana."

His offer unwittingly pushed one of Dean's control freak buttons. "Damn it, Sam! Do you have to fight me on everything?"

Sam froze. He could tell by the expression on Dean's face that his brother was hearing the same thing he was. Dad's words from the hospital ghosted through the still room: "Can we not fight? Half the time we're fighting, I don't know what we're fighting about."

Dean's expression smoothed out into his game face and he rose from the table. "I'll go check us out," he said flatly. "We're leaving for Mississippi in half an hour."

Sam rose from the table. Great. Eleven hours in the Impala with Dean in a bad mood. I'm so looking forward to it.

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Port Gibson was a sleepy Southern town, long on history and short on population. Its only accommodations for visitors were a few bed & breakfast establishments which Dean deemed too small to risk using scammed credit cards. So their base of operations was a motel room in Vicksburg, twenty-some miles north. After settling into their room, they took off for their hunt location.

Sam was beginning to doubt even Dean's well-honed sense of direction as they drove down a seemingly endless two-lane road, until they spotted the tiny sign pointing to Windsor Ruins. Dean turned down the indicated dirt road and finally pulled the Impala into a narrow gravel driveway in front of the ruins. They were the only tourists at the site, mid-November not being prime tourist season, especially for this out-of-the-way historical landmark.

They got out of the Impala and gawked, or at least Sam did. The small pictures of a few of the gray Greek Revival columns posted on the web didn't do justice to the real ruins of the burned-down plantation. Twenty-three Greek columns, spaced several yards apart, outlined a huge rectangular expanse of cleared land. Sam recalled from his reading that the tall columns were 45 feet in height. Some of the columns had huge gouges about a third and two-thirds of the way down from their elaborately carved iron tops, showing where the elaborate antebellum mansion's second and third floors had been. The remains of the third floor ornamental iron balustrade still connected several of the front columns in mid-air.

Sam hauled out his cell phone and snapped a few pictures of the columns while Dean prowled the ruined mansion's perimeter, for now heeding the posted warning: "DANGER RUINS UNSTABLE KEEP OUT." As Dean rejoined him at the front of the ruins, Sam commented, "It must've been magnificent."

"Yeah. Well, there are obviously no Civil War ghosts here now, so we'll have to come back tonight."

"Windsor survived the Civil War. It caught fire and burned to the ground in 1890, after a guest supposedly left a cigar burning on the third floor balcony. Why are you so sure that the ghost haunting the ruins is from the Civil War?" Sam asked.

"You read the same stuff I read, Sam. The place was used by both the North and the South back during the Civil War. After the Union overran the Confederate army, they used it as a field hospital."

"I took a course on the Civil War at Stanford," Sam said. He saw Dean stiffen. "The professor went around the class and asked everybody which side of the war their ancestors were on. I lied and told him my family immigrated later in the 19th Century. Truth is, I don't know which side the Winchesters fought on in the Civil War—or much of anything else. As far as Dad was concerned, the family history begins and ends with the Yellow-Eyed Demon."

"It was a pretty watershed event," Dean defended, and then shifted uncomfortably. "Sheesh, Sammy, what brought this on?"

"The ruins, I guess. There's such a pervading sense of history and loss here. Can't you feel it?"

"No, but I'm not a psychic like you are." Dean punched Sam's arm. "Which is why I fully expect to see the ghost when we come back tonight. You're like a neon sign to the supernatural."

"And that makes me feel so much better," Sam grumbled.

Dean started walking back towards the Impala, Sam following after a last glance at the silent, towering columns. "Cheer up, Sammy, we're spending the rest of the day doing what you like best: research." While Dean had gathered a fair amount of information from the net, they wanted to augment their information with more traditional sources of knowledge. Sam would immerse himself in the library at Alcorn State, the nearest university, while Dean would check out the area museums and historical sites, and with luck, talk to a local history buff or two.

They drove down the narrow dirt road back to the two-lane, then turned left. About a half mile later, they rounded a slight curve in the road and came across an amazing expanse of vegetation-gone-wild. Dean pulled off to the side of the road. "What is that?"

"I don't know." Sam frowned; something was tickling the back of his mind. He got out of the Impala and approached the strange, dense ground cover that started only a few feet from the road. He bent over and stared at the closest vine's three-pronged leaves, reaching out to gently stroke one. "Hairy trifoliate leaves," he muttered, still trying to pin down his memory. He heard Dean traipse up behind him and rose to his feet. "Dean, this is kudzu. I did a science project on it in ninth grade, the year we were in Arkansas."

"Kudzu?" Dean waved his hand at the huge, misshapen mounds of tightly vine-covered vegetation that stretched back from the road, ringed by a bush-level wall of the somehow slimy-looking plant. Some of the vine-covered shapes rivaled the Windsor columns in height. "All this?"

"Kudzu's another one of government's environmental backfires - like jackrabbits in Australia. It's extremely rapid-growing, can grow up to 60 feet a year. It was brought to the US from Japan in 1876 as a soil cover, and the government encouraged people to plant it, to prevent erosion." Sam's near-photographic memory supplied the details from his long-ago project. "It's now classified as an infestation, and it's very hard to get rid of, especially where it's entrenched, like here. Kudzu likes the growing conditions here in the southeast, and there are about two million acres of it running rampant. This is just a few acres of the stuff."

"Weird—but then, so are you, for knowin' all that stuff." Dean shook his head. "C'mon, Sammy, let's get back to our ghost research." As he walked back to the car, Sam heard him mutter, "Something normal."

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