Chapter 1

She was sitting in her usual seat in the corner of the diner when the door opened and two men walked in. Her heart stopped when she recognized one of them. It had been four years since she had seen him, but she couldn't possibly be mistaken. No one else could look like him, so tall, with that beautiful flowing hair and those eyes that could melt your heart. She watched as they took a booth on the other side of the diner. She wondered if the man with him was his brother, the one he said he wasn't in touch with any more.

Every day she hoped and prayed for the chance to see him again, and every day she told herself that would be a huge mistake. But here he was, and now she had to see him, no matter the consequences. The stakes were too high.

She lingered over her coffee, pretending to read a book until they finished their meal and left. It was dark by this time, and she followed them on foot as they walked two blocks farther downtown. They stopped and leaned against the wall of a building as if they were waiting for someone.

She crossed the street and continued watching them, hidden behind a car. They kept looking around, on edge, obviously waiting for someone to show up, or something to happen. When it did it startled her so much she almost cried out. Another figure joined them, just appearing as if out of thin air. Sam and his brother appeared to be arguing with the newcomer, and then suddenly, Sam took out something that looked like a dagger and stabbed the man. And that wasn't even the most astonishing part. When the man got stabbed, flashes of light seemed to come out of him. When he fell to the ground, Sam and his companion just turned casually and walked away.

She was very frightened now. What she had just seen was making her have second and third thoughts about seeing Sam. But desperation managed to override her own fear for herself, and she continued to follow them. They walked to the motel behind the diner where she had first seen them, and went into a room. It took her a long time to actually get up enough courage to knock on their door, but she finally did it.

"Well that was a bust," said Dean in irritation. "Goddamn demons, you just can't trust any of them."

This remark made Sam send a significant look towards his brother, but he managed not to say anything. What he did say was, "Do you think maybe he was actually sent by Crowley?"

"Hard to say but I don't think so. I think he was out for himself. But I couldn't take the chance on him running back to Crowley when we wouldn't meet his demands. I'd rather not have Crowley know what we're looking for."

Their conversation was interrupted by a soft knock on the door. They looked at each other and Sam picked up the gun that had been lying on the table, and cocked it. He opened the door just a few inches to see a fairly attractive woman standing there.

"Yes?" he inquired.

"Sam?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Sam, we met a few years ago. I'd like to talk to you if I may. It's very important," she said.

Sam looked back over his shoulder to Dean, who shrugged back at him, so he opened the door to allow her to enter. Her eyes immediately went to the gun, and he put it into his belt. "I'm sorry, I don't remember you," he said.

She gave little chuckle and said, "Well, I think I looked a hell of a lot better back then."

Sam took a closer look and slowly began to see her as she might have been in better days. She'd been really pretty then, with bouncy blond hair and laughing blue eyes. Now her hair looked drab, and her eyes held little expression. "Sam held up a finger and wagged it at her. "Molly, right? No wait, not Molly... Polly!"

She smiled wanly and said, "Yes, it's Polly."

"Right, well come on over here and have a seat. This is my brother, Dean," he told her, as he indicated the only other chair at the table. He sat on the edge of the bed and said politely, "So what can I do for you, Polly?"

She looked extremely nervous and she was wringing her hands in her lap. This was not the vibrant, fun-loving Polly he remembered. "Is something wrong? You can tell us."

"Look," she started, licking her lips, indicating her nervousness even more. "I wouldn't have come here except I have to ask you something. I have to know something. It's important."

"Go on," he said gently.

She was looking at him more closely now, trying to reconcile the caring and gentle tone of his voice with the man who had killed someone in cold blood not an hour before.

"You look frightened. There's no need to be. We aren't going to hurt you," Sam said smiling.

"I'm not so sure of that," she said, smiling tightly. Dean looked at Sam with a question in his eyes and Sam shook his head almost imperceptibly. Polly took a deep sigh, and said, "I just need to get it out there and let whatever is going to happen, happen." She looked straight at Sam then and mustering all the courage she had inside her said, "You need to know I'm not looking for anything, okay? I'm not laying any claim on you and I'm not asking for money. We just had a weekend fling. I just need to ask if you might possibly know what's wrong with our daughter."

Sam looked like he'd just had the wind knocked out of him. Dean looked at Sam and said, "Sammy you sly dog!"

"Shut up Dean," he said without expression. He looked at Polly as though he didn't understand the language she was speaking. "Our… We have a… are you sure?"

She grabbed her purse off the chair where she had hung it and opened it up. She pulled out a picture and laid it on the table. "That's Samantha June, named after you and my mother. I know she's yours. I wasn't with anyone for months before you, and I've been with no one else since. But if you need me too, I'm happy to have a DNA test done."

Sam picked up the picture and stared at it. There was no question in his mind that this was his child. She looked just like him. But something was wrong. She was a cute little girl, but she wasn't smiling. She almost looked cold, like there was no one there. Sam shook off this fanciful line of thought and handed the picture to his brother.

"You said something's wrong with her?" Polly nodded. "What? What's wrong with her?"

"She's institutionalized," she responded. "Has been for over a year, when I just couldn't handle her anymore. She has behavior problems and no one knows why. She's totally uncontrollable. She hurts people, especially other children. She has to be kept isolated. She won't eat unless she wants to. She won't do anything unless she wants to. And she totally refuses to sleep. They have to sedate her heavily to get her to sleep at all. She's very intelligent, and fortunately she likes to learn. But only on her own terms."

Hearing this Sam and Dean looked at each other in horror. Sam looked away and swallowed. "What makes you think I might have the answer?" he asked her.

"I don't know that you do. But when I saw you in the diner I knew I had to at least try to ask you. The doctors have exhausted all the avenues they could think of. They can't even really diagnose her, because she doesn't fit any of the known mental illnesses enough for a single diagnosis. They've tried sedating her, but that just slows her down. It doesn't change her attitude. The doctors say it's like all she has in an id, if you understand Freudian theory."

"Sam, I love my daughter. I want her with me. If you have any inkling of an idea that might help, please tell me."

Dean cleared his throat. "Sorry to interrupt, but can we back up a moment? You said you saw us in the Diner?" Polly nodded. "And what? You knew we were staying here?"

Polly swallowed, realizing she had given herself away. "Look, I don't care what you've done. I don't care who you are or what you do. I just want to know if you can help Samantha."

Again the boys looked at each other. "You," Sam cleared his throat. "You followed us from the diner?" She nodded, lowering her eyes. Sam blew out a breath that fluffed his cheeks out.

"I'm not going to tell anyone, really, I promise."

"Polly, it's okay." Sam said soothingly. "We aren't going to hurt you. What you saw, well, it's not what you think."

"How can it not be what I think?" She asked incredulously.

"Oh god," Sam said, shaking his head. "Polly, can I ask you to try to trust me on that, and let's just deal with the problem at hand?"

She looked at him then, with a long puzzled look. "You seem different," she said. "Kinder, more caring." Sam got up and rubbed the back of his neck, pacing the floor, while Polly followed him with her eyes.

"So, do you know anything that can help?" she asked.

He went over and sat back down on the edge of the bed, and took her hands in his. "I don't honestly know. I don't want to get your hopes up unnecessarily. What I'm thinking is a long shot. A very long shot. I'm going to need some time to get ahold of a friend, one who may be able to help." She inhaled her breath in a display of hope. "Don't," he said. "There may be nothing we can do. But I promise you, I will do everything I possibly can."

She nodded, tears flowing quietly down her cheeks. "Let me have your address and phone number, and I'll give you mine. We may need a few days, but I promise you I'll be in touch." He reached over and lifted her chin with his hand. "Can I… can I keep the photo?" he asked her, after they exchanged information. Again she nodded, and stood up.

"Thank you," she said to Sam, nodded to Dean and left.

"Sammy, you sure…?" Dean began.

"Look at the photo Dean. How can you even question it? And even without that… I just know. And now there's a beautiful little girl out there who can't live a normal life because of me."

"You don't know that. You don't know that it has anything to do with you."

"I do know it Dean. Somehow, my not having a soul has damaged her. I don't know how. But I know it's true. And if it's the last thing I do, I'm going to fix it."

"So you think because you didn't have a soul at the time, that she was somehow born without one? How does that even make sense?"

"I don't know. I don't know how souls work. But I know that if she doesn't have a soul, then that's on me. And somehow, some way, I'm gonna fix it."

"How Sam? You got an extra soul lying around? Death himself said you can't just break off a piece of a soul, so you can't just give her a piece of yours."

Sam got very quiet for several minutes. "You ever wonder where new souls come from Dean? I never gave it a thought until now."

Dean watched his brother agonize over this new situation. It was a lot to take in all at once. First, finding out you have a child you never knew you had and then finding out there's something wrong with her that might be your own fault. He was hotwired to protect his brother from everything. But how could he begin to protect him from the pain of something like this.

"We need Cas," Sammy said. "If anybody knows how souls work, it's him," he said, as he reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone.

"Sam," Cas answered.

"Cas, hey, um, I know you're knee deep in your own problems, but if you could spare me a few, I really could use your help."

"Where are you?" Cas asked, and when Sam told him, Cas appeared in the room. "I'm hanging up now," he said, closing his phone and putting it away. He looked at the grave faces of both Winchester's and frowned. "What is it?" he asked.

"Cas, I have a question," said Sam. "How do new born babies acquire a soul? Where do they come from?"

Cas looked at Sam perplexed. "That's an odd question," he said.

"Yeah I know, but can you answer it? Sam responded.

"Well we know that children get their physical characteristics from DNA, which is a combination of genes from both the mother and the father."

"Yeah, thanks for the biology lesson Cas," Dean said, sarcastically. "But what does that have to do with souls?"

"Souls work the same way, Dean. They're unique to the individual, and they're created at conception from the combination of soul essence from both parents."

Sam sat down heavily on the bed, thinking furiously. "So what would happen if one of the parents didn't have a soul at the time of conception?"

Now Cas looked worried. He sat down next to Sam and said, "I don't know. As far as I know this situation has never happened." He looked more closely at Sam and the significance of this line of questioning finally hit him, and asked quietly, "Sam, are you asking these questions because this has happened to you?"

Sam sighed and nodded slowly. He took Samantha's photo out of his pocket and handed it to Cas. "This is my daughter," he said. "I just found out."

Cas looked at the photo with interest. "I can definitely see the resemblance," he said. "But why the questions about souls? Is there a question about hers?"

"She doesn't seem to have one," Sam said, and related what Polly had told them about her behavior.

"I see," Cas said sadly. "That does seem to be the case. But I have never heard of a situation like this, and I'm not sure we can fix it."

"We have to try, Cas," said Sam vehemently. "This is my fault! I have to fix it."

"Actually," said Cas sadly, "it's really my fault. I'm the one who brought you back without your soul."

"Then help me fix it, Cas. This is an innocent little girl we're talking about."

"let me go make a few inquiries and see if I can find out anything helpful. I won't be long."

When Cas left, Sam looked at Dean. "You haven't had much to say about this."

"What's to say? I know what you must be feeling. I'm with you on this, bro, whatever it takes."

"Thanks," Sam said appreciatively.

About thirty minutes later, Cas returned, and without preamble, he began to speak. "The procedure is hard to explain, but think of it like this. When a baby is conceived, it has an empty place for the soul. This space calls out to the parents, and each of their souls forms a bud, a tiny seed of a soul, and the two buds fill the empty space and merge together, forming the total soul."

"So what does that mean, Cas? Does she have half a soul, or what?"

"The best guess is that she does have half a soul, but it's yearning, calling out for completion. Without it, the half she has is most likely dormant."

Sam was pacing back and forth, rubbing the back of his neck. "So what then, does that mean I may have the bud she needs on my soul? Could it have formed even while my soul was in the cage?"

"It seems remote, but possible," Cas answered.

"Can you tell? Can you touch my soul and see if it's there?" Sam asked.

Cas said, "I can try. But Sam, you know how painful that is, and personally I don't think I'll find anything."

"I don't care," he said, his level of agitation rising by the moment. He grabbed a towel from the sink and sat in the chair. "Do it," he said, and bit down on the towel as he grabbed ahold of the chair arms.

Cas looked at Dean, shook his head and rolled up his sleeve. "Do it," Sam said again, his words muffled by the towel. Cas pushed his hand into Sam's body and Sam closed his eyes and cried out in muffled pain, squeezing the chair arms as he tried to cope. It lasted only a few seconds, but it seemed like minutes to Sam.

When he pulled out his arm Cas looked sad, and shook his head. "It's not there Sam. I'm sorry."

Sam was breathing hard as his body adjusted to the removal of agony. "So what do we do? Cas, what do we do now?"

Suddenly Cas collapsed into a heap on the floor. "Cas," Dean yelled, as he and Sam both stooped down to help Cas up and onto the bed. Cas appeared weak and his breathing was shallow. "Cas, what's wrong?"

"I'm okay," he said. "That just took a little more out of me than I expected. I'll be fine."

"I'm sorry, Cas. I had no idea doing that would hurt you," Sam said, worry creasing his brow.

"Sam, don't beat yourself up. We needed to find out. One step at a time."

When Cas began looking better Sam said, "Well, then, what's the next step?"

"I'd like to see the girl. Do you think you could arrange that?"

"Probably," Sam said.

"Call me when you have that arranged. Meanwhile I'll go back to my car and drive it here. I can't keep using my angel powers unnecessarily."

When Cas left, Sam took out the photo of his daughter and stared at it for several minutes. Dean watched him with his own heart aching for his little brother. He got up and patted Sam on the shoulder. "It's too late to do any more tonight, Dude," he said. "Let's try to get some sleep."

By the time Polly knocked on the motel room door it was slightly after ten am and Sam was in emotional turmoil. He was too restless to sit for very long and was spending most of the time pacing around rubbing the back of his neck. When Polly arrived he brought her in and sat her on the end of one of the beds. Dean was sitting in the same chair he had been in the night before.

Dean had asked Sam if he'd like some privacy when he talked to Polly, but Sam asked him to stay. He really needed the moral support. Now it was time to explain everything to Polly, and he was terrified. Funny how he could face fiercely dangerous monsters and keep his fear in check, even use it to his advantage. But what he was about to do now frightened him more than he wanted to admit.

He squatted down in front of her and took her hands. "Polly," he said. "We think we know what's going on with Samantha, but we have no idea if we can do anything about it. In order to even try, though, you have to be made aware of some very serious things, things you might find hard to accept."

She stared at him for a moment and then asked, "Like what?"

"Polly do you trust me.. Us?" he asked her.

She looked from him to Dean and nodded, saying, "I think maybe I shouldn't, but yes, I do."

"Okay, good, that means your instincts are working well, that will help."

Sam stood up and pulled the other chair over from the table and sat down in front of her. "In order for you to understand what's most likely going on with Samantha, you will need to hear my… our… story, or at least a part of it."

"Okay?"

"Last night, when you saw us do something that scared you. Tell me what you saw, all of it, no matter how weird it might seem."

Again she looked from Sam to Dean and back again. "I saw you kill another man," she said.

"Describe it, describe what happened in detail… please, it's important."

"Well," she said with a sigh, "I followed the two of you a few blocks downtown where you stopped and waited for someone. It was quite dark there and no one else was around. I crossed the street so I could get closer, and I hid behind a car. Soon a man came up to you…"

"Okay stop for a minute. Did you see where he came from?"

"No, I didn't. Actually, it just seemed like he appeared out of thin air, but I figured I just must have missed seeing him approach."

"Okay, that's good," Sam said, encouragingly. "Go on."

"You argued with the man for a few minutes and then you just… you just stabbed him," she said, her voice taking on a frightened edge.

Sam took her hands again to calm her and said, "It's okay, I promise. Just tell me what you saw when I stabbed him."

His smile and his calm voice had a soothing effect on her, and she said, "he… he glowed. I mean I didn't think that was right but that's what it looked like."

"You're right, Polly, he did glow. Do you think that's a normal thing for people to do?"

She chuckled humorlessly. "Well, no, not in my experience."

"But he did glow, Polly, he did glow, and he did appear out of nowhere." He looked straight into her eyes as he said this, giving it all the sincerity he could muster up.

"But… but how?" she asked, almost in a whisper.

"Because he wasn't a man, Polly. He wasn't human. He was a demon." Again he watched her eyes to gauge her reaction.

"A… a what?"

"A demon," he said again, matter-of-factly. "Polly, you saw it for yourself. Your eyes weren't playing tricks on you and you weren't imagining things. Demons exist."

He waited for her to catch up, and when she did she asked, "What do demons have to do with my daughter?"

"Thankfully, nothing per se. But it was the place to start since you'd already seen one. But be prepared, Polly, because things will get even harder to believe. You okay?"

She swallowed and nodded. "Go on," she said.

"When I was just sis months old, a demon killed our mother," he began.

She gasped. "How horrible," she cried.

"It was. And it changed the course of our lives. Our dad, who had never even known demons existed, became obsessed with hunting down and killing the demon who took away the love of his life. We were raised in a crazy life of never settling down anywhere, and learning early on how to kill monsters." He looked over at Dean. "That's what we do now, we hunt down and kill monsters."

"Your dad…?"

"Dad was killed by the same demon that killed our mom. Dean was the one who finally killed him."

Again, Sam took a break to allow her to catch up. "Monsters? You said monsters?"

"Yes. Demons aren't the only monsters out there, but there's no reason to burden you with all of it right now. I need to get to the part that affects our child."

By this point Polly was very subdued, just trying to take in everything she was being told to accept, against everything she had ever believed. She nodded for Sam to go on.

"It gets harder now. I wish I didn't have to tell you all this," said Sam.

To be continued….