Disclaimer: Eric Kripke owns Supernatural. I just borrow the Winchesters for my own guilty pleasures. Autumn and Athena Daemon belong to me though so that counts as something right?

A/N: I thought this would take me a lot longer but appearently my mind works faster than I give it credit for. By now you know the drill read and review. The more reviews I get the faster I'm propelled to write.

The Hanging Tree

Chapter One

Bushwood, Georgia, April 2cd, 2007

Emily Christy sat on the steps of the court house picking at the hem of her skirt. Robbie must have thought he was doing something good for her, when he told the school counselor about her situation. Surely he couldn't have known it would come down to all this. Emily ran her tongue over dry, cracked lips and wished she'd remembered her gloss this morning.
The steps over looked town square. It wasn't hard to see the town's history, fore it covered every inch of the square. The morbid favorite of the local children was the large oak tree in the middle of the square. Most towns would have the statue of their founder or some other historically significant member of society, Bushwood had an oak tree. The very tree men used be hung from. There were a million ghost stories built around that Hangman's Tree, Emily hadn't believed any of them until she'd seen Faith Forman strung up, beaten, raped, naked, and dead in that tree. Since then the stories had been hard to escape.

Faith's kid brother swore it was voodoo and had run away to find people who would believe him. He'd been back two weeks now and every day swore his help would arrive. Emily prayed the boy was right. If Jimmy was right then the stories would be put to rest, someone would get arrested, and their quiet little town could repent for the next couple of decades.

Emily hadn't realized she was staring at the tree until something impossible registered in her tired mind. Dangling from the tree garbed like an outlaw from the mid 1800's was a man, blue in the face, eyes bulging, and still gasping. His feet still kicking like he was walking in the air. A little scream escaped her.

"Em!" strong arms suddenly wrapped around her and she fought them. "Emily, calm down it's just me." a low whisper in her ear, more familiar than her own voice. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"Can't you see him? Can't you see the man in the tree?" she pointed frantically at the tree and Robbie stared after her finger.

"There's nothing there." He pulled her close to his chest and rocked her. "It's okay. You're just stressed." she was doing a pathetic job of holding back the sobs. "Shh, it's okay. It's just all this stuff about that Forman girl and with your folks. It'll be okay. I promise." With his promise she found herself relaxing, all her fear melted away into nothingness.

"I love you, Robert Collins." she whispered into his suit jacket.

"Not half as much as I love you, Emily Christy."

"Hey, guys! They want everyone back." Emmett, Faith's boyfriend and Robbie's best friend, yelled sprinting toward them. "What's wrong with her?"

"She's just a little freaked." Robbie answered. "Come on Short Stuff, let's get this party started." he took Emily's hand and led her back to the court room, Emmett close behind. Emily looked back to the tree, the man was gone but she was dead certain he'd been there a moment before.

Raining Cloud's Hunters' Resort, Montana, April 2cd, 2007

"Autumn! You have to be joking!" Athena flipped through the pages in awe. "You hate Shakespeare."

"No, I hated being forced to read something I didn't care about." Autumn amended pretending not to be upset by her sister's teasing.

"Seriously, you're killing me here." Athena continued undeterred by Autumn's play. "We'll at least it isn't Romeo and Juliet."

"Don't try me, Squirt. I might read it just to quote it and drive you crazy."

"Hamlet… how'd that one go?" real curiosity poisoned Athena's voice.

"Did you ever pay attention in High School English?" Autumn sifted through her bottom drawer, where she kept all her clothing she found offensive, other wise known as her bar wench costumes.

"Freshmen year Erin Watersomething sat in front of me and she had lice so bad you could see them crawl two desks back, so I watched her hair more often than the teacher. Sophomore was Eddie Cumming's Elton John's phase and he sat by me everyday so I was usually trying to ignore his bad fashion sense and crude attempts at flirting, don't even remember the teacher's name." Athena found a sucker in her pocket and unwrapped it as she thought. "Junior was my crush on Alan Micheals and Senior year I was too busy worrying about those damn braces the dentist saw fit to put me in." Autumn rolled her eyes at her sister.

"Don't worry about it, then. Besides, it's not really Hamlet its just a spin off from Ophelia's point of view."

"Let me guess star crossed lovers, and everyone dies at the end? Don't wear the pleather mini skirt."

"Something like that; what did you do to my skirt?"

"It had a bad run in with a bottle of Will's cologne." Autumn glared at her sister picking the skirt out of the drawer and tossing it in the vague direction of the waste basket. "What? You didn't think we were all innocent did you?"

"No, but I had hoped my clothes hadn't become victims of your stupidity."

"Which stupidity is that?" Athena asked her sweet curiosity suddenly becoming sharp and dangerous.

"Do you remember that book Martha sent us? The Hunter's Guide or something?"

"Yea…"

"What did he say a million times in the course of the book? It isn't worth it to fall in love, with our job."

"Says the girl who has another hunter on her hook." Athena dropped back into her bed and opened the book to read. "Are you always going to treat me like I'm fifteen?" Autumn tugged on a pair of Levi's and ruffled her sister's golden locks.

"Yep. You'll always be my baby sister, no matter what you do or how old you get."

"Screw you."

"You wish." Autumn shoved her feet in her boots lacing up before stumbling out to the living room.

"Her appointment is at two right?" Sam asked as she ran her fingers through her hair in a final attempt and taming it into a resemblance of presentable.

"Yea, I wrote directions down, their on the counter. I've got all the perishables boxed up Marc and Duck will be by this evening to take them to the big house." Autumn stopped to look at Sam knowing she was forgetting something. He was sitting at the kitchen table looking over a small arm compound bow that Marc had made, the two had at least found friendly terms on their last hunt.

"Did you gas 'er up?" Autumn nodded. "You have everything packed to leave tomorrow?" again she nodded. "Did you tell Dean where you hid the Impala?"

"That's what I was forgetting." she ran for her coat, hanging by the door, and dug the keys out of the pocket. "Here, she's parked down by the river. Can't miss her I covered her up with a bright blue tarp."

"I'll go get the car in a minute." he looked at his watch. "You better get moving before you're late."

"Gus won't mind. He knows I'll show up sooner or later." Sam shook his head.

"You could never keep a 9-5 job." Autumn grinned.

"Good, I don't want one of those." she looked herself over one last time before darting out the door, heading for the smoke filled, dimly light bar.

As an April Fools joke Autumn had hid the Impala in the woods, not her most ingenious idea as Dean now refused to talk to her. To highlight this, he hadn't even come to the bar yesterday during her shift. He usually made a point coming in and marking his territory instead he avoided the bar like the plague. The joke wasn't the only one, the whole resort had been swarming with pissed off hunters yesterday and most of the feathers were still severely ruffled.

Gus nodded when she came in tossing her, her apron. Autumn quickly tied it around her waist and picked up her tray. It was going to be a long day, she decided when none of her usual costumers said a word to her beyond "The usual, Autumn. Thanks." Marc meandered in, in time for lunch looking all sorts of out of place, as always.

"Hey, you." he ran his tongue up the back of Autumn's neck.

"Hiya."

"You old man still not talking to you?"

"Seems that way." she hopped up on the bar stool next to him.

"I just got off the phone with Mack and Jasper." he grinned. "They send you greetings."

"That's two names I haven't heard in forever. How they doing?"

"Good, I guess. Up in Albany right now. Said after that they want to hang around the coast."

"Are they coming out this way in the foreseeable future?" He shrugged.

"Mack says she wants to, but she also wants to jump of the Eiffel Tower. So you make what you will of that."

"Does Jasper want to come out?" Marc nodded. "Then they'll be out, sooner or later."

"What makes you so sure?"

"A: this is Jasper's home, B: Mackenzie has and always will do anything he wants." Marc smacked her arm.

"You've got people waiting." he jerked his head in the direction of a group of men with empty glasses.

"I'll be back." she attempted to sound like everybody's favorite governor, to no avail.

"You need to get ready for the doctors, Teenie." Sam said poking his head into the Daemon's bedroom. Athena was laying on her bed propped against a mound of pillows, she'd been stealing from every other room in the cabin, and reading. He had to take a second look to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. What was more shocking than her reading a book, was it didn't appear to have anything to do with hunting. "What are you reading?" he asked stepping into the small bedroom. It was no different from the room he shared with Dean, twin bunk beds, two dressers, dinky closet, a foot locker at the end of the beds, which had been unstacked, thick curtains that allowed the two most important things to any hunter privacy and little sunlight, so when they came in midday after being out all night on a hunt they could crash.

"Oh, something of Autumn's." Athena closed the book around her finger showing him the cover. "Boy Called 'It', it's a child abuse story." Sam nodded sitting on the edge of Autumn's bed.

"Is it any good?"

"I keep expecting Glenda the Good Witch or Galahad to show up and save the kid. So, actually it is a pretty good book. Better than I expected."

"I was starting to think you didn't read." he grinned. She looked up at him through her lashes and chewed her lip. "You need to get ready, Blondie." he tried using a nickname to escape her gaze.

"Yea, alright. Did you put that damn chair in the shower for me?" he nodded. "Thanks, Sam. You're the best." Athena swung her legs over the side of her bed grabbing her crutches in one fluid movement. She stopped long enough to drape her clean clothes over her shoulder.

"I've got to go get the car. You be ready when I get back?" he shuffled to the living room wondering if he should stick around incase she needed help.

"Yea, I'll be fine." she called through the bathroom door.

Autumn was covering Athena's shift in the bar, and Sam had just gotten back with Athena from getting her cast removed. The younger pair were inside cabin playing board games and sharing tales of broken bones, not all of which had anything to do with hunting. So, with John at his side Dean set to his task. He knew Autumn was the soul player in his precious '67 Chevy Impala's disappearance, therefore she was the only one that needed punished. He had thought she understood the bond between him and his car. She had such a similar one with her Mustang. He sat his supplies down and looked the shiny red car over.

"Sorry, Scarlet. You'll be cleaned up later, I promise." he whispered to the car before starting is work.

"What the hell did you do to my car?" Autumn tore into the cabin irate. Sam and Athena, newly castless, looked up from their game of checkers.

"It was fine when we parked it, sis. Honest." Athena said holding up her right hand.

"Where is your brother? I'm going to kill him." she turned her angry eyes onto Sam.

"Calm down, Autty. What's wrong with you car?"

"For starters she has two flat tires and is covered in egg yoke."

"That's starters?" Athena pushed herself off the ground and walked awkwardly to the window. "Oh my God." The candy apple red '65 Mustang sat in front of the cabin like always, with major differences. First the tires that had been flattened diagonal of one another, then at least a dozen eggs had bombed the poor car. Someone had written in thick marker on the windshield the words 'I belong to a car thief' and to top it all off the side mirrors were missing completely. Sam was quickly behind Athena, pressing against her in his rush to see the horror.

"I'm going to tear him limb from limb. I might just castrate him with a very dull butter knife. I haven't decided yet. I've heard some nice ways of summoning hell hounds I might let one of them have at him." Autumn stormed back to her bedroom peeling off her clothes as she went. She didn't waste time changing into something a little less restrictive.

"Autumn, stop." Sam barred the door.

"Samantha, the door isn't the only way out of here. Haven't you noticed the windows are queerly low?" she crossed her arms in front of her.

"Autty, are you armed?"

"No." she growled at her sister. "I don't really want him dead. Just hurting."

"Take a deep breath. Count to ten." Autumn did as she was told, not that it helped any. "How do you feel now?"

"Like strangling the two of you. He's getting away."

"How do you know it was Dean?" Sam asked calmly.

"I stole his car, Sammy. I figured he'd want revenge but…. My car. Why my car? Why couldn't he just cut me off or something?"

"He'd want to punish you not himself." Athena pointed out. "Do you know where he is?"

"No, but I know where he'll be when I'm done: a double room in the ICU."

"Let her out, Sam." Athena ordered with a sigh. Sam stepped a side, when something else struck Autumn.

"Where's my dog?" All three of the house's occupants ran over their day in detail trying to remember seeing John, the large, protective rottweiler, and the Daemon's closest, longest companion. "Both my babies at once." Autumn shook her head. "That's not going to happen." she was out the door before Sam could stop her.