Hello, my jewels!

So, I thought at first, that I would do Hell House, but... my muse did not agree with me. She turned up her nose and was a total snob and refused to help me at all, so I'll have to get around to that one some other time. However, she was practically drowning me with help when I started writing for Faith, so this is what you guys get next!

As always, I appreciate any comments of love and critique y'all can spare! Not sure how long this one will be yet, but I have the first three chapters already written out, so we'll see how it goes.

Still no interwebz at home. Not having money really sucks. Ah well, a lesson in patience, I suppose.

I hope you guys enjoy this latest 'episode,' I'm certainly having fun writing it so far!

Much love and warmth,

MD

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of the characters. Credit goes to Eric Kripke and the writers for this show. I gain nothing from writing this, other than creative satisfaction, and little personal happiness. Enjoy!

Dean died on a Sunday.

It was just a couple days after Burkitsville, Indiana with the Pagan god scarecrow-thingy, and about a week after what she referred to as the 'asylum incident.' Things between Samantha and her brother were… sketchy at the moment. Not quite so bad that she could legitimately address their issues so they could move the fuck on already and just get back to being siblings (because really, this separation was fucking ridiculous), but bad enough. Bad enough that she didn't feel so comfortable being alone with Dean most days, which wasn't entirely new (being cooped up with the same face for extended periods would give anyone cabin fever) and not alarming, but certainly indicative of the tension and crackling nerves between them.

She could tell his head was still reeling from her attempted murder (she had just had her brain re-wired by a ghost, thank you very damn much) and she knew he hadn't forgiven her just yet for what she'd said that night (again, not herself). Then, just mere hours after trying to plug Dean full of rock salt, their dad had finally, fucking finally, made contact with them. But was it to give them answers and include them on what-the-fuck-ever he'd been doing for the last six months? No.

Oh no.

It was to touch base and send them off on another job. To check in, sure, know they were okay and alive, yeah, but not ask for their help. Never that; God forbid that John-fucking-Winchester ever really needed help from another human being, let alone his damn children. If he could have swallowed his pride for five fucking seconds he would have seen how willing both of them were to drop everything and meet him in California (bless you, caller ID), and this all could have been over much sooner.

Nope. None of that, thanks. That was too simple. Too easy, and John Winchester was notorious for never doing easy.

So, indignant at being sent off like a mindless robot once again, pissed that all she'd found out from their dad was that this monster was a demon (this complicated matters, but didn't really change anything) and that Dean was completely fine with not being in the loop, they'd left.

In hindsight, the following argument they'd had probably wasn't solely about their dad. They'd both said… things. Both snapped and bitten and bled and parted ways for a short while. Sam hadn't given any thought as to how that could hurt Dean at the time, and if she had, she would have been too pissed at him to care much. It wasn't that she'd meant to make him feel like he was an obligation of hers, like she was stuck with him only because of finding their dad. She was just... well, they were both stubborn. Sam wanted to find Dad, and Dean wouldn't because he'd been specifically told to stay away and stop looking, so she'd had no other choice but to leave him. Separate decisions fueled by anger and their own moral code (which had, admittedly, glaring differences when compared in some aspects), and Sam had once again left her brother.

It wasn't until she'd been walking on the street for an hour, picking at her memory of their parting, that she'd noticed the pained resignation on Dean's face at the time. Like he'd known this would happen, but knowing hadn't stopped it from hurting. Which sucked, because she wouldn't have had to ditch him if Dean would just think on his own for once in his fucking life, and making his abandonment issues worse never made Sam happy. And what the fuck kind of family were they to take advantage of him and his blind devotion so badly that he now expected to be left in the dust? Ugh.

One interesting and random friend(?) later, she flew back to her brother because no matter how pissed they were, he would always pick up the phone for his Sammy. Always.

And she'd tried for three hours.

Saving his life had, if not earned her a little forgiveness, put him in a better mood. (Not surprising. Sam was always happy when she didn't die, too.) He hadn't looked like he'd totally believed Sam when she'd said she was sticking with Dean through to the end, but she couldn't help that now. She'd done the damage and was reaping the benefits, and it was just something she would have to live with in the forefront for a while.

Soooo…

Yeah, things were sketchy. Dean was still hurt and a little angry with all the shit thrown his way by his other (better) half, and Sam was dealing with the frustration of losing their dad again and her only hope of revenge.

Life had seen better days.

It was a dangerous gamble for her to search out a new Hunt when things were still so off with them, but that was exactly what she'd done. She'd heard the stories from Bobby and Pastor Jim, and knew the risks; being off with a partner very easily led to getting killed. However chancy it was, though, she knew it was the best thing that would get their head back in the game. Get their priorities straight.

She'd picked a simple case. It went after children, with a recorded number of nearly forty disappearances over the last sixty years. Poking around for two days, and they'd made the connection that they were dealing with a Rawhead. Sam had only come up against one of those creepy fucks a couple times in her life, and that view she'd had to sneak from behind Dean's back. John had wanted to use her as bait the first time, and the only way her brother had agreed to it was if he was literally around the corner from her. As soon as it had shown up he'd leapt out and shoved her behind him. Sam had told herself that the only reason her dad had even suggested such an idea was because she had training and Dean, but she'd still had the nightmares. And she never trusted John the same way after. The memory of what a Rawhead looked like was fuzzy and slow to be dredged from the archived memories of a ten and fifteen year-old, but it was enough that she knew what to look for.

The day after they'd made the connection, two more kids went missing. Now, Sam wasn't exactly panicking yet because Rawheads didn't normally kill their prey right off the bat. Nah, they were sadistic shits and liked to play for a little bit before moving on, and the kids had been kidnapped from an orphanage the previous night, so there was a good chance they were still alive. Still, she didn't let that lull her into a false sense of arrogance and used her not-quite-panic to fuel her determination to track this thing down. Dean helped, and they spent the whole day scouring the town and outskirts relentlessly until there was only one place left.

That side of the tracks.

To say it was the bad part of town would be the understatement of the century. Most of the houses were missing half of their structure, and the rest were barely what Sam would call livable. There weren't real roads, the government didn't see the point of federal funding when this area was hardly populated anyway, so Dean kept cursing up a storm whenever the Impala had trouble maneuvering through the mud.

Damn rain. By the time this Rawhead was gone, the car would be a whole new color.

It was nighttime now, evidence of the fucking torrential downpour from earlier gone, leaving the sky clear in a way one can only find after an intense storm had passed. The moon was nearing full, just a few days shy, and Sam silently thanked God that she hadn't found evidence of a werewolf case before the Rawhead. She would have had to take it out of principal, and she just wasn't up for that. The only people she trusted unconditionally to do a sufficient job besides herself were Dean and her father (he was an asshole, and she hated him as much as she loved him, but he was the best damn Hunter Sam had ever met), and werewolves weren't quite at a level she was comfortable with right now. Especially so close to the full moon. Bitches got nasty in the week leading up to the full moon.

There were fresh prints in the mud that Sam had pointed out, and they'd followed them until they led inside an abandoned and dilapidated house. The front door was missing, part of the roof had caved in on the second floor, all the windows were broken, and the steps leading up to the front porch had rotted away.

It was one of the nicer homes around.

Wordlessly they'd slipped out of the Impala and around to the back where her brother opened up the trunk and his arsenal of weapons. He kept the second door propped up with Sam's preferred pump-action sawed-off, but that was okay, she wouldn't be using it this time. Bullets didn't kill Rawheads. Neither did salt, iron (consecrated or otherwise), or silver. The only thing that worked on one of these creepers was electricity, and a lot of it. She thought their thick skin might offer some kind of resistance (which is why Hunters had to practically deep-fry them to get the job done) but she didn't have proof, and there was no way to test it out, so eh.

Dean handed her a stun gun from deep within the abyss of metal and shells while Sam was fiddling with a flashlight. The battery was almost dead and the light kept flickering, but she'd turned it just so and it was fine for now. It'd last until the job was done, which was all that mattered anyway.

"What do you got those amped up to?" she asked. Dean reached for another stun gun and held it delicately in his hands.

"A hundred-thousand volts." Sam's eyebrows shot up into her hairline and she damn near dropped her gun, which would have sucked because the triggers on these models were sensitive as fuck and Dean would have been pissed as shit to lose one of the only two he had.

"Damn," she breathed. Dean grinned and grabbed his own flashlight, clicking the button to make sure it still worked.

"Yeah. I want this Rawhead extra-freaking-crispy." That was kind of obvious. Sam hadn't even known stun guns could charge that high. Dean, satisfied with his equipment, laid the pump-action back down and shut the first door on his weapons and the second on the whole trunk. "Now remember, you only get one shot with these things, so make it count."

Sam nodded and they both ran off towards the house. The moment her feet touched the saturated wood, she brought up her gun in her right hand. She held it steady by resting her right arm on her left arm, which she crossed under the gun to shine the light in front of her. Dean's position was identical to her own and it came to both of them with an ease that was only acquired after years of repetition and training.

They didn't bother going to check the second level. Rawheads had a thing about being underground, so the basement was really the best bet. Besides, half the staircase was gone, so unless Rawheads had some magical powers of levitation Hunters hadn't discovered these hundreds and thousands of years of doing the job, then the second floor was out. A quick sweep of the first floor while making sure to steer clear of the giant hole in the floor of the living room, and the siblings went straight for the basement.

Dean opened the door and they both crowded into the cramped doorway, shining their lights down the rickety wooden stairs to the cement floor below. Her brother, of course, took point, and they barely made a sound as they descended down the stairs. Dean kept his attention focused forward and to either side of the staircase as soon as they were visible. Sam turned around three-quarters of the way down the steps so she could look between them and make sure the Rawhead wasn't lying in wait. Satisfied that nothing was creeping up behind her, she turned forward just as she reached the bottom. Dean was off to her right, shining his light over all the clutter, keeping a watch for any sign of movement. She turned to face the opposite direction and was sweeping her eyes over the far wall with the only window in the whole room when there was a loud banging sound.

Sam was so keyed up that she practically jumped out of her black boots, but within half a second she had her flashlight and gun trained on the double doors to a large, weathered armoire. She didn't need to look to know that her brother had zeroed in on the noise as well. They stood stock till, waiting for something to leap from behind the two doors, but nothing happened and Sam loosened her grip on the flashlight a little.

"On three," she heard Dean mutter. It was hardly audible, barely more than him exhaling past his lips, but she'd caught it. She tensed her hands on her gun and waited with bated breath while her brother slowly counted up to three. When he reached the number, both Winchesters leapt forward and yanked the doors open, springing back and bringing their guns up in one fluid motion. There was a startled yelp and a delicate whimper from inside, and Sam's gaze traveled from where she'd thought the Rawhead would be snarling at her face down to where two small children were huddled together.

The girl on the left had strawberry blonde hair in braided pigtails that were starting to fall apart. A few loose strands curled around her face in large ringlets and the rest was tangled in a mess of knots and drying mud. Her eyes were hooded, and Sam couldn't see what color they were, but she could tell by the shine reflected from her flashlight that they were filled with tears. There were smudges of dirt on her cheek, nose, and above her left eye, and a small cut on the back of her right hand. She had her hands balled in fists and on either side of her head, and her knees were pulled up to her chin so that most of her face was hidden from sight. Her gray skirt was muddy, and her shoes were completely ruined, but that was all superficial, and Sam was glad for the lack of damage.

There was just something wrong about a child getting hurt.

The other child, a boy, was smaller than his sister. His hair, in contrast with hers, was jet black. It fell over his ears and flopped in his eyes in a way that Sam could tell would be absolutely adorable if it had been clean. As it was, though, the black locks were matted to his forehead with sweat and mud in a wholly unattractive way. He had more smudges of earth on his face then the girl and all down the front of his clothes, so Sam guessed that he'd had trouble keeping up and kept falling over. His eyes were blown wide with fear and just as shiny as his sister's, but Sam could tell they were a dark color to match his hair by the way they swallowed up the light around him. She could just barely make out freckles on his cheeks, and there weren't any cuts that she could see. Again, she was relieved for their relatively good condition and thanked God for their good luck and His protection over these young ones.

Sam leaned forward and the boy snapped his attention over to her. She would have given him a comforting smile, but half of her attention was focused on the room behind her so that they wouldn't get taken by surprise so she didn't bother.

"Is it still here?" she whispered. The boy gulped and nodded, his bottom lip trembling. The girl wasn't even looking at them anymore, just staring at her brother with a glazed look and slowly rocking back and forth. Sam narrowed her eyes and turned away from the kids, keeping a sharp eye on the room around them while Dean leaned forward and reached for one of the boy's hands.

"Okay, grab your sister's hand," he whispered fervently, "we're gonna get you outta here." The boy latched on to Dean and pulled his sister, stumbling, out of their wooden hiding place. Dean gently extricated his hand and nudged the little boy's back. Christ he couldn't have been more than five, he barely came above Dean's knees. Was Sam ever that small? "Alright, come on. Let's go, let's go."

Sam brought her gun up as the little kids tripped over themselves running to the steps. She followed them up, doing one last quick sweep, and lowered her weapon as she darted up the stairs. Halfway up, though, something shot out from between the steps and gripped her left ankle, just as she was starting to lift it up to the next step. With a started yelp, Sam lost her balance. She whirled her arms around, trying to find her center and keep from falling, but then the Rawhead pulled her foot towards him and she fell. She tried to throw herself to the right so that she didn't break her neck on the way down, but she hit her head on one of the cement walls with a loud crack. She groaned, dazed, and distantly heard her brother calling her name as she tumbled down the stairs. There was a high-pitched scream from somewhere, but it was difficult to catch anything past the rushing sound of her own blood.

Sam blinked once, forcing away the cobwebs from her brain just as her brother leapt to the side of the stairs, took aim, and fired his stun gun behind the staircase where the Rawhead had tripped his sister. There was an eerie groaning sound and some shuffling, so Sam knew he'd missed. She didn't hold it against him, though, it was black as shit back there. Her brother cursed and dropped the now useless gun from his hands, running back to the bottom of the steps.

"Sam, get 'em outta here!" With a hard shove, Sam pushed herself to her feet.

"You take this!" She tossed him her gun and whirled back to the children shivering at the top of the stairs. She bolted up and gave them both a gentle shove and they were off. The kids didn't seem to know which way was out, so Sam stepped between them, taking each of their hands in her own, and maneuvered them around until they were breathing fresh air again. Sam hopped off the porch, helping first the boy, then his sister, to the muddy ground and over to the waiting Impala.

Opening the back door, Sam shuffled the two kids inside and walked to the back of the car. She opened up only the trunk door, leaving the weapons undisturbed, as she grabbed their kit of emergency medical supplies. Gauze, fishing line, needles, hooks, varying sizes of bandages, some pain meds, hydrogen peroxide, and the occasional pilfered hand towel from past motel rooms. When they looked like they weren't infested with diseases, of course.

Sam brought the shoe box holding the supplies to the open door of the car and kneeled down in front of the girl. Sam could see now, in the moonlight, that the girl's eyes were a hazel color, a mix of greens and browns. Like a forest.

She made quick work of cleaning the cut on the back of her hand and putting a bandage on it before noticing with a small amount of sadness that the smudge above her eye wasn't a smudge, but a deep cut. She cleaned that too, murmuring soft apologies when it stung and made her cry, and put a bandage on that as well. She brushed the dirty hair away from the girl's face and smiled at the siblings for the first time.

"It's okay, you two are gonna be alright now. You're safe, okay?" The hesitated for a moment before sniffling and nodding. Sam set the shoe box next to the girl, giving her knee a soft squeeze. "I'm gonna go back and make sure my brother's okay. Watch out for yours, make sure you clean any of his cuts with this stuff right here okay? I'll lock the car so nothing can get in, so stay here. Both of you." The girl nodded meekly, trying furiously to wipe away the tears running down her face.

Sam forcibly shoved down the lock on the door with her hand before shutting it and running back into the house. She listened for a moment for any movement down in the basement, but heard nothing, and dashed down the stairs. She threw her dying flashlight all over the basement as soon as she could get a clear view of the place, but stopped when she found her brother.

Found her brother unconscious, to be exact.

Her first instinct was to run over to Dean and check he was still alive, because from her spot it was hard to tell if he was breathing, but years of training made her check the rest of the room for any movement. When she saw the Rawhead's body just a few feet away from her brother, though, she leapt off the stairs and flew to his side. She set down her flashlight and put fingers to her brother's neck to check for a pulse. It was there, but faint.

Why the fuck was it faint?

Sam looked at his right hand and saw Dean's fingers loosely wrapped around the stun gun. The coils were extending behind her towards the Rawhead's body, which was all well and good but that didn't explain why his heartbeat was fucking faint. She stopped breathing when she noticed her brother was sitting in a big puddle of water. With growing despair she looked behind and, sure enough, the Rawhead was crumpled at unnatural angles, also in the water.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, fucking shit. She could almost hear her sixth-grade science teacher explaining what a conductor was, and how simple it was for electricity to travel through water. She whirled back around to her brother. No, no, no, this wasn't supposed to happen. This was supposed to be an easy case where they just came in, killed the monster, and moved on. It was supposed to make things better between them, mortal danger was not part of the plan.

Sweating and cursing and trying to push back her panic, Sam slapped the side of her brother's face, calling his name, trying to wake him up, but his head just lolled around limply. She cursed once more and felt a frantic moment of blind panic. His face looked so sallow and pale, but that just had to be the poor lighting from the grimy window behind her. There was a sickly sheen of sweat on his skin, but that had to be from the Hunt and adrenaline in his system. Christ, it didn't even looked like he was breathing.

"Please, God," she whispered, clasping her hands together in front of her face and squeezing her eyes shut. "Please, not my brother. I need my brother, please don't take him from me. Oh dear God, please just let me keep my brother."

Sam took a deep breath and exhaled slowly and then shoved her panic into a box so she could focus. She grabbed her flashlight and bent over and (with much groaning and yanking) pulled her brother to his feet. She couldn't call the police, there would be too many questions about the Rawhead and why they were passing through this neighborhood and other shit that Sam just couldn't think up lies for right now. She'd just have to drive to the hospital and pray harder than she ever had the whole time. Dean hated hospitals, hated the police, hated doctors, but he'd just been electrocuted, and she had no idea what the fuck else to do.

"What do you got those amped up to?"

"A hundred-thousand volts."

Shit.

Dun-dun-DUN!

Just a guess, but I'm pretty sure in real life, if someone got electrocuted by 100,000 volts, their insides would fry. However, for the sake of this story, Dean doesn't turn to scrambled eggs!

Joy.

Peace.