A/N Hi, and welcome to the second story in my NoRest!Verse. If you have not read the first, called No Rest for the Winchesters, I would recommend doing so, because this story will not make much sense otherwise. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: And so it begins again. As always, Supernatural is not mine.

Simon Screamed

Chapter 1

It was 11:30 pm when Abby got the call.

She had a separate phone, with its own special ringtone, for calls from her brothers. Up until this evening, Sam and Dean had only used it when they wanted to talk to her, usually complaining and or worrying about each other, and once when Sam had managed to get his hand broken by a zombie. She had put a cast on her little brother's arm, listened to the concerns, and mediated the complaints. But tonight was different. Tonight she was being called in for active duty.

"Sammy had another one of his freaky death visions Abbs," Dean said quietly. Abby guessed that he was close to Sam, but trying not to be overheard.

"You said that those always have something to do with the yellow-eyed demon, right?"

"They have up until this point, and there's no reason why this one should break the pattern."

"So we find the person in Sam's vision, save them, and figure out their connection to the demon. Simple." Abby was trying to convince herself as well as her brother. She had a nervous pit in her stomach at the prospect of her first hunt in seven years.

"Right," Dean snorted. "Simple. Except for everything about it."

"So what do you want to do, Dean?"

"I want to lay low, think things through somewhere safe. Unfortunately, Sam doesn't feel the same way. He's freaking out, and he wants to go to the Roadhouse."

"The one with those hunter friends of Dad's that you told me about?"

"They aren't really hunters, but yeah. Sam thinks that Ash, the truly unique resident computer genius, will be able to figure out where the vision takes place."

"But you don't think he can do it?" asked Abby, trying to understand her brother's evident reluctance.

"No, I'm sure he can do it."

"So what's the problem?"

"That Roadhouse is full of other hunters. Sam is having visions that connect him to a demon. And not just any demon; I'm really starting to think that this yellow-eyed bastard is a major player. I don't think that it would be a great idea to dangle Sam's abilities in front of a bunch of people who probably have 'shoot first, ask questions later' tattooed on their asses."

Abby had to take a second to blink away that visual.

"Okay," she said. "But you're forgetting something."

"What?"

"You said that Sam wants to go to the Roadhouse. Have you met the guy? If he's dead set on this…"

They were both silent for a moment.

"I'll see you at the Roadhouse," they said in unison.

ooooooooooooooooo

It was extremely late when Abby finally pulled up to the battered Roadhouse in her father's truck. She had claimed the massive black car after she and her brothers had driven to the warehouse in Lincoln where their dad had abandoned it before making his fake trade for the Colt with Meg. Though going through John's things from the trunk and glove compartment had been extremely difficult, Abby was grateful for the connection to her father that the truck provided. She also felt better using the weapons from his arsenal, as she had gotten rid of most of hers when she went to school.

Despite the shabby exterior, the Roadhouse was more pleasant than Abby had been expecting. It had the comfortingly familiar smell of alcohol and smoke, but did not feel dirty or grungy. It also had just the right level of background music and conversation to make it homey. Abby gave the ragged collection of hunters occupying the saloon a cursory glance, but none of them seemed particularly threatening.

"Can I help you?" The clear voice came from behind Abby. She turned to see a young blond woman with a wad of cash in her hand, looking up at the newcomer suspiciously.

Abby glanced over the woman's shoulder to a grizzled older man shaking his head at the high score list on the console of a hunting game, and then back at the bills in her hand. She grinned. She could guess what the girl had done, because she had used the same hustling tactics before she left hunting.

"You must be Jo," she said. "No one else could spend enough time here to rack up that many high scores." Abby leaned in closer.

"It also helps that most of these guys think that girls like us will run screaming at the sight of a gun, not be better shots than them," she said confidentially.

"And you are?" The young woman was not hostile, exactly, but she was certainly not very friendly, at least with strangers.

"Abby Winchester," she said, sticking out her hand. "I think you know my brothers, Sam and Dean?"

"You're Dean's sister?" Jo asked incredulously.

Just Dean; nice. Abby fought against rolling her eyes. Her brother managed to wreak havoc on girls' hearts when he was not even trying.

"His twin, actually," she replied.

"The boys never mentioned you," Jo said bluntly, clearly still suspicious.

Abby tried not to show how much that hurt. Her brothers had met Jo and her mother, Ellen, very shortly after their father's death. There were probably still some bruised feelings and bitterness. But still, for them not to mention her at all…

She was saved from having to answer by the arrival of her brothers. Dean entered first of course, checking to make sure that there were no threats before Sam followed him in. Abby gave a small smile; some things never changed.

Dean relaxed slightly when he caught sight of his twin. He led their brother over to her and Jo.

"Just can't stay away, huh?" asked Jo with a rather flirtatious smile. Abby could not prevent the eye roll this time, but fortunately no one saw it.

"Yeah, looks like," replied Dean distractedly. "How you doin' Jo?"

Without waiting for a reply, he turned to Abby and was about to speak when Sam pushed past him.

"Where's Ash?" the young man asked Jo without so much as a smile in greeting. Abby was taken aback by the look on her little brother's face. He looked tired and haggard, but also full of nervous energy.

"In his back room," Jo told Sam, looking mildly offended as he brushed past her, saying only "great" as he strode off. "And I'm fine," she called after him.

"Sorry, he's…we're kind of on a timetable," said Dean lamely as he trailed off looking for a better excuse. Apparently not finding one, he looked back to his sister.

"Coming?" he asked before walking off after their brother.

Abby turned to Jo and smiled apologetically.

"Sorry; their people skills festered in my absence. Don't take it personally," she told her.

Abby ran to catch up with her brothers.

"You could be nicer to her," she admonished Dean when she was close enough.

"What do you mean? I was being nice," he said defensively.

Abby just shook her head incredulously. He honestly did not understand the effect that he could have on women. But all thoughts of Dean's obliviousness fled her mind when she caught sight of the door that they had reached. She raised her eyebrows.

"Dr. Badass?" she asked, looking at the sign that was hanging in front of them. "Really?"

Dean just shook his head as Sam began to pound on the door.

"Ash!" he shouted over the loud music that was coming from behind the door. "Hey, Ash!"

When there was no response, Sam turned away in frustration and made a face at his siblings. Dean stepped forward confidently and whacked the door with his fist.

"Hey, Dr. Badass!" he shouted. He gave Sam a smug smile as they heard the sound of a latch being undone.

The three Winchesters turned away in horrified unison as the door opened to reveal a stark naked man illuminated by flashing strobe lights.

"Sam? Dean?" he sniffed loudly, looking back and forth between the boys. "Sam and Dean," he confirmed. He looked at Abby. "You I don't know, but you're hot, so you can stay."

"Gee, thanks," said Abby as Dean rolled his eyes.

Sam ignored both of them.

"Hey Ash," he said, still trying not to look at the man. "Um, we need your help."

"Well hell then," he said, not even pausing to think about it. "Guess I need my pants."

He gave them a cheeky grin and shut the door on them. Sam and Dean walked away immediately, but Abby stood rooted to the spot, stunned by the brief encounter. She had met some eccentric people, both as a hunter and a doctor, but Ash was in a league of his own. 'Truly unique', Dean had called him; somehow, that did not quite cover it.

She was still standing there a few moments later when Ash emerged from his room, thankfully clothed, although his fashion sense left something to be desired. He winked at her.

"I'm Ash by the way, since we haven't been introduced."

"Abby Winchester," she replied, unable to prevent the smile that spread across her face. She could not help but like this strange, ridiculous, oddly charming man with a hairstyle that belonged in another millennium.

"Another Winchester?" he asked, sighing. "Man, you guys are everywhere. I suppose you want something too?"

"Actually, we're all here about the same thing."

"Okay, which is?"

"Sam should tell you; he and Dean are over there."

She led him to the corner of the Roadhouse that her brothers were occupying. Sam pulled out a piece of paper with a logo with the words 'Blue Ridge' under a road drawn on it, and handed it to Ash.

"I need you to find out where this is from," he said urgently.

"Why?" Ash asked as he took the paper, opened his computer, and started a search.

"We think it might be a lead on a hunt," Dean answered impatiently.

It must have been the only identifying marker from Sam's vision. No wonder the boys had needed the help of a computer genius; it would have taken days to search for that symbol without a program to narrow down the results. They waited in silence while Ash worked.

"Well, I got a match," he said, surprisingly quickly considering they had asked him to find one obscure logo in the entire country. "It's the logo from the Blue Ridge bus lines in Guthrie, Oklahoma."

"Okay," said Sam. "Do me a favor, check Guthrie for any demonic signs, or omens, or anything like that."

"You think the demon's there?" asked Ash.

"Yeah, maybe," said Sam evasively. Abby could tell that he was trying to avoid mentioning his visions to the man who was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger to them.

"Why would you think that?" Ash continued to dig because, despite his eccentricity, he was extremely intelligent, and apparently did not like to be used without explanation.

"Just check it alright," ordered Dean tiredly. Ash gave him a look. Abby gave him one too.

"What he means," she said pointedly, "is that this is really important, but we don't know everything yet and we need your help."

Ash gave her a slightly placated smile, ran a hand through his hair, and turned back to his computer. Dean rolled his eyes at his sister, which she responded to with a sugary grin.

"No, nothing," said Ash. "No demon."

"All right, try something else for me," said Sam after disappointment flashed briefly across his face. "Search Guthrie for a house fire. It would be 1983, fire's origin would be a baby's nursery, night of the kid's six month birthday."

Abby frowned; that was extremely specific information, and was enough to raise suspicion in any hunters who could be listening in. She looked around, checking for eavesdroppers. She could see Dean doing the same from the corner of her eye. The only person within earshot was Jo, who was watching them curiously, but turned away when she met Abby's gaze.

"Okay, now that is just weird man," said Ash slowly. "Why the hell would I be looking for that?"

Abby was worried that he would stop helping them, or continue to demand answers that they could not give. Apparently, however, Sam knew Ash's price. He placed a beer in front of the hacker.

"Because there's a PBR in it for you," he said simply.

"Give me fifteen minutes," stated Ash, all business now that alcohol was on the line.

Abby smiled and stood, thinking that it was high time she met Ellen, about whom she had heard a lot from her brothers. She walked over to the bar, behind which was standing the only woman in the Roadhouse old enough to be the other Harvelle. The woman smiled when she saw the young doctor approaching.

"Hi," she said kindly. "You must be John Winchester's girl."

"Yeah, I'm Abby," she said, suddenly shy. "You're Ellen, right? Sam and Dean told me about you."

"Not all good things, I hope," said Ellen.

"Mostly good, I'm afraid," she replied with a laugh. "I heard that you and your daughter managed to neutralize both of them within about five minutes." Ellen smiled.

"Actually it was closer to two minutes," she said.

"Okay, for the record, we thought the place was empty," said Dean, sliding onto a stool at the bar next to them. "And I was tired that day."

"Right, so the fact that you didn't think a girl would be able to throw a decent punch had nothing to do with it?" Abby asked. Her brother ignored her.

"Could I get a beer please, Ellen?" he asked, trying to hang onto his dignity.

"Sure, honey," she said, winking at Abby.

She poured beers for both of them before moving to the other side of the saloon to clean some tables. Abby sat with her brother in companionable silence for a few minutes before she noticed Jo standing in the corner, casting repeated glances at Dean. She sighed and stood.

"I'm gonna go sit with Sam," she said to her twin without explanation.

Dean stared after her, but his confusion was replaced by mild horror when the opening chords of REO Speedwagon's 'Can't Fight This Feeling' began to play from the jukebox next to Jo. Abby just chuckled into her beer. She turned to share the moment with Sam, but sighed when she saw the tense, sour look that was still on his face.

"Look, Sammy," she began softly, ignoring Ash who was absorbed by his computer. "You know we're going to figure this out, right?"

"Do you have any idea what this feels like, Abby?" he asked. His sister realized that she had opened the floodgates to the torrent of emotion that had clearly been building inside him for a while. "All our lives, we've just wanted to be normal. And we did it, we got out, we got to be actual people. But now this? The demon said that he had plans for me. I'm…marked; tainted somehow. Even Dean called me a freak. And the people around me keep getting hurt, and I can't stop it, and I can't find answers. So tell me, tell me please, how you can possibly help me figure this out."

Abby had not realized just how fragile her little brother was. The worst part, however, was the fact that he was right. Something was happening around Sam, and she did not know how to fix or understand it. But nothing would stop her from trying. She put a hand on Sam's arm and he looked away, apparently ashamed of his outburst.

"Hey, Sammy, look at me," she urged gently. Stubborn hazel eyes slowly met her green ones. "I don't care what it takes; I'm going to help you through this. And so is Dean. We'll keep digging, keep finding out more, and eventually we'll know enough to fight this bastard properly, and we'll take it out before it lays a finger on you, alright?"

She held his gaze seriously for a moment, trying to convey her earnest support. Then she smiled and tapped a finger against the frown lines between his eyebrows, the way she had done when they were kids, and he was concentrating hard on his studies.

"But until then," she said teasingly, "you need to relax, or your face is going to stick like this."

Sam rolled his eyes, but his expression did relax slightly. Just then, Ash slapped a hand on the table in victory.

"Alright Winchester, hand over the booze," he said triumphantly. "I have found you your mystery kid."

A/N Thank you for reading this story. I know that the plot is still pretty much the same as the actual episode, but Abby's presence will have more of an effect in the next chapters. Reviews encourage me to write faster, so please let me know what you think, or if there is anything you would like to see in the story.