Shadows and Dust

by gaelicspirit

Written for zine, Blood Brothers 2, set in Season 2 after episode 2.03. Ghosts from the Civil War wrap around Sam and Dean and take them through a different kind of vanquishing.

Disclaimer: They're not mine. More's the pity. Title pulled from line in the movie The Gladiator.

Spoilers: Set in Season 2 following Episode 2.03, Bloodlust.

A/N: This story was written over a year ago for the zine Blood Brothers 2. My thanks to Jeanne Gold and her GildedLily Press for the opportunity to contribute. Also, many of the Civil War facts are true; I've just... enhanced them for purposes of storytelling.

Hope you enjoy...

---

When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep…

—"When You Are Old" by W.B. Yeats

www

Sam slammed into him with the force of fury and panic, shoulder ducked so it rammed his chest, driving the remaining air from his lungs. His vision swam as Dean felt his back connect with the solid bedroom door, crashing it open with a splintering of old wood and the rusted, bent metal of the weak lock.

They tumbled inside in a tangle of limbs, breath, and blood.

"—the hell?"

"Shut up."

Sam left him lying in the dust, gasping, spinning, bleeding. Dimly, Dean was aware of his brother's movement as he shut the broken door, spreading their remaining salt across the length of the threshold.

"Stupid, stubborn son of a bitch."

"I had 'em."

"You're gonna bleed to death and I'm gonna owe you the biggest I told you so."

"Had to…" Darkness swept over him, washing him in a wave of chilling vertigo. Whoa…where'd the lights go…

"Dean?"

Hands at his face, fingers on his chin. Knuckles curling in to his chest, lifting him, moving him. Sliding along the floor. Back against a wall. Dust choking him.

"Dean, don't you do this. You open your eyes right the hell now."

"Th'r open."

"Stupid, stubborn—"

"We covered that part." Dean blinked.

"That's better."

Sam knelt in front of him, face smeared with dust. Fresh, dark blood trailed from the slice on his forehead, making Dean's stomach clench in needless panic. The upper portion of Sam's left arm was bound tightly with the floral curtain they'd torn down in the other room, a small patch of blood seeping through the knots in the field dressing.

"Where'd they hit you?"

Dean swallowed, taking stock. Sam's eyes bored into his, bright in the filtered moonbeams curling through the dust-saturated air. Boards covered most of the window at the far corner of the room, glass long ago broken out.

"Dean!"

"I'm…thinking."

"Forget it," Sam grumbled, manhandling him onto his side so he could find out for himself.

"Easy!" Dean gasped as his brother's large hands made contact with his skin, an aura of neon pain almost doubling him over. "Okay, okay, Jesus Christ, Sam."

"We don't have a lot of time, Dean."

Dean drew in a breath, frustrated to hear stuttered air mirror the staccato skip of his heartbeat.

"Side," Dean exhaled. "Hand. Thigh."

"What were you doing, spinning?" Sam asked, lips tight, teeth clenched as he turned Dean—gently this time—to find the sources of the blood now smeared across the floor.

"Kinda, yeah." Dean lifted his eyebrows, hoping his heavy lids would come with them.

"You keep your eyes open," Sam snapped. "Keep them on me."

Dean obeyed, lacking the strength at the moment to do more than stare at his brother. Sam sat back on his haunches, his hazel eyes sliding quickly around the room in search of something they could use for bandages. Outside their barely-impenetrable fortress, the sound of gunfire cracked, musket balls digging grooves into the walls and breaking the glass wall sconces.

"They're not going to stop until midnight," Dean gasped, sliding his hand to his wounded side, pressing down on the cut and pulling a groan from his gut to punch the air.

"I know that."

"We…we can't…stay here…until midnight."

"I know that, too." Sam's eyes caught on something, and he pushed clumsily to his feet, crossing in a crouched lope to the bent closet door and wrenching it open. Inside, Dean could see, were three long, white dressing gowns.

"Perfect."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Always knew…you were the…girl in this…partnership."

"Shut up before you pass out, smart-ass."

Sam pulled two of the dresses from their hangers, leaving the wooden crossbeams swinging empty on the bar, and hurried back to Dean. The seams gave easily under Sam's hurried grip as he rent the material into strips, breathing heavily. Vaguely, Dean remembered there had been a reason he'd been alone in that hallway.

"Hey…hey, Sammy. Y'okay?" Dean slurred.

"No."

"Gimme that, then." Dean lifted heavy fingers to reach for the makeshift bandages Sam was fashioning, staring with dull-eyed amazement at the blood dripping from the tips of his fingers.

"Had to go and be the hero," Sam was muttering, an end of a strip of cloth clenched between his teeth. "Couldn't just let me stand with you, not even this once."

Dean swallowed, blinking in a slow gaze up from his bloody hand to his brother's tense face. "You're always…with me."

Sam froze, hands paused in the act of reaching for Dean's thigh. "What'd you say?"

Dean pulled the corner of his mouth up in a tired, lazy grin. The edges of the room were fading to soft gray. "You're always with me, Sammy."

Sam dropped his head, and Dean saw his chin tremble slightly. Keeping his face lowered, Sam silently reached for Dean's leg, lifting it to slide the cloth beneath it and wrapping the bandage tightly around the bullet graze, wincing in sympathy as Dean hissed in pain.

"Could be worse," Sam muttered, then caught his bottom lip between his teeth.

Dean lay still, pliant, allowing Sam to tie off the ends of one bandage before moving to his hand. Sam's motions were slowing, his body swaying with exhaustion. When he reached for Dean's side, balance apparently escaped him and he fell forward, catching himself on one knee and one hand, stopping just short of landing in Dean's lap.

"It's worse," Dean asserted.

Eyes slipping closed in a pain-pale face, breath pulled in through clenched teeth, Sam pivoted slowly to sit next to his brother, shoulders touching. "I, uh…I just need a minute."

Shouts echoing from time past slid in a Doppler effect through their ears. Another crack of a musket and a cry of rage, then silence once again held sway as the battle journeyed away from the room where they lay hidden.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"No regrets, okay?"

"Don't talk like that. We'll get out of this. We're gonna…get out of this."

"I mean it, brother."

A pause. Heartbeats echoing, slowing, matching.

"I know."

More cries. More gunfire. A scream shattered the subtle peace of the moonlit room.

"Can you hold your gun?" Sam asked.

"I think so."

"'Cause I don't want to die here."

"You got someplace else picked out?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"The Impala."

Two hearts beating with the rhythm of brotherhood, of time, of family.

"Hand me the gun," Dean wheezed.

"Want me to tie it to your arm?"

"Yeah."

Ignoring the sting in his side, the sticky wetness that saturated his t-shirt and plastered it to his skin, Dean held his hand out for the sawed-off shotgun and positioned his stiff finger in the trigger guard. Sam tied one of the bandages around the butt of the gun, lashing it safely to Dean's shaking arm.

"You ready for this?" Dean asked, ducking his head to catch his brother's eyes once more.

Sam looked up, and Dean caught his breath. He saw their father hiding behind the determination reflecting back at him. He saw himself in Sam's eyes. He saw fierceness and loyalty. But most of all, he saw love.

"As I'll ever be." Sam nodded, then twisted his lips into a rueful grin. "Always thought we'd go out…guns blazing."

"Pull me up," Dean commanded as Sam wavered to a stance. Sam gripped him under his arm, hauling him to his feet. For one moment, Dean leaned heavily against his brother.

Straightening with the strength breath offered him, Dean grinned, feeling his eyes crinkle at the corners as true joy shot through him. "First one to the Impala picks the music."

"Oh, it's so on."

www

Two Days earlier…

"Dude, what the hell?"

"Don't give me shit about this, Dean. It's a job. A week ago you were giddy about a job."

Unconsciously, Dean darted his tongue to touch the still-healing cut at the corner of his mouth courtesy of Gordon Walker's fist. The bruises around his eye had faded to a greenish-yellow, but the ire he felt from Gordon's treatment of Lenore—of Sam—still curled like burning paper at the base of his gut.

"That was different," Dean attempted to argue. "That was vampires, cattle mutilations, y'know…cool stuff."

"And this is…?" Sam asked, hand on the door of the newly restored Impala.

Dean sighed, squinting up through the sun-washed windshield at the graying porch that sagged around the dilapidated, circa-1850 plantation house situated near the banks of the Green River in Sacramento, Kentucky.

"This is like…dumpster diving for spooks."

"Ross is a friend of Jim's," Sam reminded him, opening the passenger door with a creak.

Dean smiled at the sound. The feel of the car, the confines of space, the familiarity of the smells—even with mostly new parts putting her together—made him feel close to whole again. Filled up part of the abyss in his heart where his world had fallen away with his father's final words.

"Was a friend," Dean corrected, joining Sam outside the Chevy.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Pastor Jim was family."

"Yeah, okay." Dean sighed. "Too bad we don't get hazard pay out of this."

Sam moved around the front of the car, heading to the door of the old house. He shot Dean an irritated look. "Since when do you worry about getting hurt?"

Not me I'm worried about… "Since you stuck me in the backwoods of Kentucky on a wild ghost chase," Dean snapped. "Seriously, Sam, what have you got against Florida? The beach? Bikinis…"

Following his brother's lanky, lumbering strides up to the house, Dean let his voice fade, feeling the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention the closer they got to the building. Frowning, he shoved his fists into his jacket pockets, hunching his shoulders slightly against an imagined coldness in the air.

Sam knocked the back of his knuckles against the peeling edge of the screen door. Dean stood just behind him and to his left, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. Sam shot him an abbreviated settle down look. Dean tilted his head and looked off to the side, a huffed sigh on the edge of his lips as the door opened.

"Yeah?"

"Ross Bethel?" Sam asked, his voice gentling, chin tilting down as his eyes met those of the smaller man through the wire mesh of the screen door.

"That's me."

"Name's Sam Winchester, sir. This is my brother, Dean." Sam pointed over his shoulder.

Dean pressed his lips flat in a false smile, nodding at the man. He resisted the urge to squirm as a sensation of spider legs on the skin of his neck spilled down his back.

Cataract-covered blue eyes shifted from Sam's face to Dean's, then back. A worried line appeared between gray, wiry eyebrows in need of a trim.

"Didn't ya'll get my message?"

Sam tipped his head in question. "Message?"

"I changed my mind." Ross took a shuffling step back, moving to close the door.

Dean lifted his shoulders. "Suits me."

Sam pulled the screen door open, thrusting his long arm inside and slapping his palm against the flat of the door. "Wait."

Ross paused, looking back at Sam.

"You said you hadn't been able to…clear the house yourself," Sam reminded him. "Did you…" Dean watched Sam's profile as he searched for a logical reason why this man would no longer need their help. "Did you find the bones?"

Ross nervously darted a tongue over thin, age-spotted lips. Dean ticked his head to the side, intrigued suddenly by the man's obvious anxiety. Tossing a look over his shoulder, Ross slipped out through the narrow crack of the large door, pulling it closed behind him. He grabbed the screen door from Sam's grip and indicated with a silent nod that they should precede him down the stairs.

Dean led the way, stopping when his boots hit dust and turning to watch Ross shut the screen door and virtually scurry down the stairs, past them and around the corner of the rambling house. Eyebrows up, Dean looked at his brother. Sam folded his lips down in a beats the hell outta me look, lifting his shoulders.

"C'mon," Dean grumbled, following the old man.

Ross led them to a new-looking shed, flicking a switch on his left as he stepped inside, illuminating the small space with one overhead light. Dean eyed the equipment neatly stacked and organized by size and use on the large, clover-shaped table in the center of the room.

"Nice." He nodded appreciatively. "How'd you get this thing in here?"

Ross shot him an irritated look, slipping between one of the points of the table and the wall. "I built it in here, dumbass."

Dean frowned. "Hey!"

"Mr. Bethel," Sam quickly interceded, "you found us through Jim Murphy's contacts. Said you had a spirit you couldn't handle. What's changed?"

"Everything's changed!" Ross snapped. He turned his back to them, shoving trembling, arthritic hands through his sparse gray hair. "Jim's dead. Annabelle's gone. Frank's insane. And now she thinks these things are going to be good for business."

Sam opened his mouth to question further. Dean heard his teeth click as he closed it again, apparently unable to come up with anything.

"Okay." Dean stepped in, lifting his hands in surrender and parting his lips slightly in a small smile. "We're all friends here, man. Why don't you just start at the beginning?"

Ross whipped around, near-blind eyes snapping to Dean. "There's too much. Too much. You want to end up like Frank?"

Dean licked his lower lip and took a step forward, ducking his head slightly to find Ross's eyes with his own. "Who's Frank?"

Ross swallowed. "My…my brother." His voice cracked. "He's my brother."

Dean nodded slowly, his face carefully blank, his shoulders tightening in an unconscious reaction to the pain in the man's voice. "Where is he now?"

"In McLean County General. With a bullet wound."

Dean frowned, eyes askance. "Thought you said he was insane."

"He is!" Ross snapped.

Dean sensed Sam slowly moving around in the small amount of free space their side of the wide table of weapons and tools.

"Okay, so," Dean raised his eyebrows, "wounded and insane. What about Annabelle?"

"Aw, damn it." Ross rubbed his face, sinking quickly onto a three-legged stool propped directly behind him. "Okay, you ready for this? 'Cause I ain't telling it twice."

"Go on, Mr. Bethel," Sam said, not looking at him. Dean glanced at his brother. Sam was holding a Mason jar up to the light, scrutinizing its contents.

"Annabelle is—was—my wife. We bought this place from Serena Morehead to turn it into a B&B."

Dean opened his mouth.

"Bed and breakfast," Sam translated.

Dean closed his mouth with a click of teeth.

"Serena wanted a share of the business, though," Ross continued. "Been in her family since before the Civil War, so…she didn't want to really let go."

"So you're being haunted by Serena's ghost?" Dean guessed.

Ross looked up at him. "What? No!"

Dean tipped his fingers up. "Sorry. Keep going." He looked over at Sam in time to see his brother roll his eyes.

"You boys know anything about your Civil War history?"

"Oh, swell," Dean groaned.

"Yes, sir." Sam nodded. "We're from Kansas," he said, as if that statement offered Ross Bethel proof of their knowledge.

Dean was surprised when Ross nodded sagely. "Well, then you probably know that this area is famous for Forrest's First Fight."

"Uh, sure…" Dean rubbed the back of his neck, flicking his fingers through the short hair. The feeling of spider legs suddenly intensified and he stepped to the side of the table and glanced up at the bare bulb in the ceiling. "Wait, wasn't that in Alabama?"

Sam's sigh drew Dean's eyes. "Not Forrest Gump, Dean. Nathan Bedford Forrest."

Dean pressed his lips together, raising his eyebrows, clearly confused.

"Forrest led a raid on Union troops at Camp Calhoun. It's reenacted every May...even though it happened in December," Ross said, shaking his head.

"Okay, so, fine. Civil War. What's this got to do with—"

"We started renovations over a year ago," Ross interrupted him. "Things didn't start happening until we began to tear out walls. We started hearing gunfire and screams in the night. Started at sunset, lasted until midnight. Never saw anything, though, until…"

Sam stepped up next to Dean, listening intently.

"Until…," Dean encouraged.

"Annabelle came home late one night. Some woman's book club thing in town. We were living in one of the rooms of the house while we renovated. I went to bed early that night." Ross covered his eyes with his hand. "I found her the next morning."

"What happened?" Sam asked softly.

Ross shook his head helplessly. "I still don't know. She…she just died. Heart attack, they said. But…she had a strong heart, I'd always thought."

"I'm sorry," Dean offered sincerely.

Ross pulled his hand away. "Yeah, me, too." He stood up, leaning his hands on the table, looking down at the weaponry. "That's when I built this place. Pulled everything I'd ever had for hunting together."

"You were a hunter…before?" Sam asked, surprised.

Ross nodded. "I quit. About twenty years ago. For Annabelle."

Dean felt his brother's eyes. Turning his back on hunting—regardless of the reason—was simply unfathomable to him, but he knew Sam was not only capable of it, he looked forward to it at times. That understanding cracked something inside Dean, and he worked to keep his face still, his eyes vacant, the broken feeling of loneliness hidden from his observant brother.

"What about Frank?" Dean asked, shifting Sam's attention from him.

"Frank came out here when he found out about Annabelle," Ross answered Dean. "We hadn't…talked much. Since I quit hunting."

Sam blinked. "He hunted, too?"

Ross lifted a shoulder. "We're brothers. Used to be not much one of us did that the other didn't know about."

Dean shifted, sliding between the point of the table and the wall, looking at the weapons.

"He came out to help me end this," Ross said, moving in the opposite direction of Dean, toward Sam. "We almost had the fuckers, too…until…"

"They got Frank," Dean concluded.

"So, wait, there's two spirits?" Sam asked.

Ross nodded. "Don't know who they are, though. All I can tell is that they hate each other."

"Oh, terrific," Dean muttered, picking up a double-bladed claw knife but turning the blade slowly so it reflected the light. "Feuding spirits."

He rolled his neck, working to rid himself of the sensation of crawling down through his hair, across the skin of his neck, and into the collar of his shirt. What the hell is that…

Sam remained silent, aware in his periphery of Dean picking up different knives and admiring them, balancing them on the flat of his finger, spinning them around in the palm of his hand.

"And they don't use conventional weapons, either," Ross informed him. "Frank got hit by a musket ball."

"The ghost shot him?" Sam asked, incredulous.

"One of them." Ross nodded, stepping around Sam and up to a shelf filled with small glass vials. "We trapped one in a room with salt, and Frank, he…he stepped in front of the bullet. Just walked right up to the room and…took it." He shook his head. "I grabbed him back, but the ghost was gone. Frank just kept saying that I wasn't with him."

"What was that?" Dean asked.

Sam looked over at him, frowning at the intent look on Dean's face. He was leaning into the table, thighs pressed against the wood, head tipped to the side as if straining to hear. The room wasn't big enough that Ross's voice was difficult to pick up.

"He said 'you're not with me,'" Ross said with a shrug. "It's all they can get him to say in the hospital."

Sam was still watching his brother. Dean shook his head, bouncing the flat of his hand against his ear. He opened his mouth wide as if trying to pop his ears, working his jaw around.

"Dean?"

Dean blinked over at him. "Weird."

"What?"

Dean shook his head. "So, lemme get this straight…" He addressed Ross, setting a knife down and picking up a shorter-than-legal sawed-off shotgun. He tapped the barrels in his open left palm. "Serena Whatsername sold this place to you, but kept her hand in the pot. Annabelle died, Frank lost his marbles, and now you've got two renegade ghosts and one pseudo landlady who thinks that ending them would end a potential money train."

Sam blinked.

Ross's eyebrows lowered over his cloudy eyes. "That about sums it up."

"Why'd you give in, Ross?" Dean said, making his way around the table, still tapping the gun in his hand.

Sam took a breath, noticing for the first time how pale his brother appeared in the harsh overhead light. The air in the room began to feel tight, as if God-like hands had grasped either end of the shadows framing the table, and pulled. Sam licked his lips.

"Be-because without her money…I-I have nothing," Ross stammered.

Dean cleared the table and took a step closer. "So, you betray your brother…turn your back on all he believed in, just for…money?"

Sam stepped forward. In the faded edge of the center light, Sam could see goose bumps framing Dean's smooth jaw and crawling up his cheek. He reached out without a word and wrapped his long fingers around the barrel of the shotgun.

Dean's eyes flinched to his, and Sam held them, pulling the gun from Dean's grip. The room seemed to relax, and Dean looked back at Ross. Color crept back into Dean's face, followed by a fine sheen of sweat.

"We'll, uh," he said in a low, hesitant voice, "we'll look into a few things. Get back to you."

Pushing past Sam, Dean stepped out of the weapons shed, leaving the door open behind him. Sam looked back at Ross.

"You gonna be okay here?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Ross whispered.

Sam nodded and started to go after Dean.

"Sam, wait." Ross grabbed his arm.

Sam looked back.

"Don't let anyone—anyone—know what you're doing," he cautioned. "If Serena Morehead finds out—"

"We know what we're doing," Sam assured him.

"I ain't kidding!" Ross insisted.

Sam pulled his arm away. "Neither am I," he retorted. "We've lived our whole lives in the shadows."

Stepping from the cloistered space of the weapons shed into the fading light of the Southern day, left Sam with a reeling sense of vertigo. His legs ate up the ground between himself and Dean in long, anxious strides, boots hitting the worn patchwork of Bluegrass and dust in a dull rhythm of thud thud thud.

"Hey, hold up," he called, reaching Dean's side.

"What the hell took you so long?" Dean muttered, looking away from him and continuing with his bent-into-the-wind escape to the Impala.

"What's going on with you?" Sam reached out for Dean's arm. His brother shied away, and Sam's fingers brushed the back of Dean's hand. It was like ice. "Dean!"

"What!" Dean's irritation was evident in the set of his shoulders, his swing around the side of the car, the way he wrenched open the driver's door.

"Geez! Someone sure pissed in your Wheaties this morning," Sam grumbled right back at him, slouching into the passenger seat of the car and slamming the door in unison with his brother.

The moment they did so, the interior of the car echoed with one thought, one feeling, one truth: safe.

"Holy shit," Dean breathed.

"You feel it, too?" Sam whispered.

"It's what I don't feel…"

"Yeah." Sam nodded, running a hand over his upper lip, then looking out at the run-down house just as Ross stepped through the front door and back inside. "It's like…some kinda pressure is…gone."

"Did you hear that music?"

Sam looked over at him. "Music?"

"Yeah, like…I don't know. Not humming. But…music." Dean's eyes were on the center of the steering wheel, his fingers white-knuckled on either side, the muscle in his jaw bouncing to a beat only he felt.

"No." Sam shook his head. "No music."

Dean shook himself, then leaned forward and started the engine. "Weird."

"Where're you going?" Sam asked as Dean flipped the car around in a fan of dirt and gravel, heading away from the house with a plume of dust obscuring their rear view.

"Town, I guess." Dean shrugged. "You got any better ideas?"

"Not really." Sam leaned an arm on the door, looking out the window at the fence-lined acres spreading out and miniaturizing the houses built at the back of the plots of land. "Library?"

"Sure." Dean folded his lips down in reluctant agreement. "Good a place as any."

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"I, uh…I got a bad feeling about this."

Dean shot him a bemused glance. "Now you tell me."

www

Filtered beams of faded sunlight danced across his knuckles as Dean pulled out yet another drawer in the old card catalog in the McLean County Library.

"Y'know what I don't get?"

"Rules?" Sam hissed. "Dude, seriously, keep it down."

"Oh, for crying out loud, Sammy," Dean shot back in a stage whisper, not turning around. "There's, like, two other people in this ancient hellhole. And I'm willing to bet they're both deaf."

Sam's sigh bounced between the shelves of card catalogs they were standing back-to-back between.

"What don't you get?" Sam offered as a truce.

Dean continued to idly finger through the drawer of yellowed index cards peppered with faded typewriter ink indicating a Dewey decimal system of books he wasn't convinced would help them.

"This reenactment shit. I mean, the war happened, we know who won, why playact over and over?"

Dean listened as Sam slid shut the drawer he was looking through. He felt his brother move farther down in the stacks and allowed a secret smile to linger on the edge of his lips. He couldn't remember a time when he was unaware of Sam. Even when Sam wasn't around, he was always simply there.

"Well, lots of reasons, I suppose," Sam said, his voice buried in the depths of the card catalog. "Getting a historical perspective on an event that literally tore our country apart, or maybe out of respect for ancestors that fought in the war, or maybe political reasons."

"Political?" Dean huffed, turning his back to his row of drawers, leaning on it and crossing his arms over his chest. "Like, the South will rise again?"

Sam's back worked up in a shrug as he pulled a pen from his jacket pocket. "Maybe."

"What was that whole 'we're from Kansas' crap?"

Sam pulled a card free and wrote a number down on his palm, the cap balanced in the corner of his mouth. "The Kansas and Missouri border was the bloodiest area of battle in the War, Dean."

Dean lifted an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

Sam capped his pen, put the card back, and closed the drawer. Turning, he said, "Yeah, I mean, Lawrence was burned to the ground by Southern raiders."

"Seriously?" Dean's other eyebrow followed.

"Dude, what did you do in history class?" Sam started past him. Dean just grinned. "Forget it, I don't want to know." Sam waved a dismissive hand at him.

"What'd you find?"

"McLean County Census."

Dean followed Sam to a small desk, coughing and waving his hand through the rising dust motes as Sam dropped the large book in front of them.

"Hush!" a harsh whisper sounded to their left.

"Sorry!" Sam called back.

"Old bat," Dean muttered under his breath, eyeing the shrewd brown eyes tipped up at him over narrow glasses pushed down to the tip of a slim nose.

A shocking sweep of white fell to one side of the woman's thin face that was otherwise framed by chin-length black hair. She held her gaze on Dean a moment longer, then went back to the book she was chewing through.

"Okay." Sam pulled his attention back to the task at hand. "So, what do we know?"

"A whole bunch of nothing." Dean sighed, dropping into the chair at the end of the table.

"Not true." Sam sat as well, opening the book to the middle and ticking off his fingers as he spoke. "We know the spirits use muskets. We know the house was built around the time of the Civil War. We know, uh…"

Dean smirked.

"Oh, shut up," Sam grumbled.

Content to let Sam settle into his element, Dean's eyes roamed the library. Dark wood stained black with years of polish framed small, curved doorways leading those in search of literature through a virtual maze of shadowed shelves, yellowed paper, time, memories, and age. Breathing deep, Dean imagined he could feel ghosts of the historians and writers drifting around them, gazes lingering on unseeing eyes that drew in the words they'd spent a lifetime crafting.

The chill he'd felt at the Bethel house crept quietly up his spine and teased fingers through the hair on the back of his head. Shifting his shoulders, Dean sat forward, unnerved. He simply didn't get spooked. Not by spirits. Not by things he knew he could fight. Rats, sure. Planes, definitely. But not ghosts.

"Hey," Sam whispered. "What was the name of that woman…the business partner?"

"Serena."

"Serena Morehead?"

Dean rested his elbows on the table, scooting closer to Sam and the book. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

"Ross said the house had been in her family for a long time, right?"

Dean nodded, watching Sam's eyes as they darted in thought. "Whatcha got?"

"In 1861, a woman named Mollie Morehead lived in McLean County."

"Yeah, and…"

"I know that name."

Before Dean could comment, Sam was up and heading back to the card catalog. Dean let him go, knowing that when it came to research and theorizing, Sam was not only in his element, he was happy.

A sudden bark of noise caught Dean's attention, drawing his eyes as well as the eyes of the woman with the white stripe in her hair. Both frowned in the direction of the front door.

Dean stood, edging close to the entrance, watching a security guard work to calm an obviously agitated man in the vestibule between the main doors and the entry to the library. The man's dark hair was cut short, his drawn face lined and pale, his hands clutching at the guard as he pointed up toward the entrance. A dark blue shirt hung loose on his lanky frame, and Dean could see from there that his boots were unlaced.

Keeping an eye on the situation for a moment, Dean leaned in the doorway.

"They better not let him in here," the woman spoke up.

Dean slid his eyes to the side. "Yeah? Why's that?"

She brushed the air with the tips of her fingers, her voice deep, husky, worn with years. "Just a stalker, that's all. I come here to get away."

Dean lifted an eyebrow. She didn't look like the type to have a stalker. "But he finds you?"

She met his expression. "He did this time, didn't he?" she noted, then pushed past him to seclude herself in another of the small rooms flanked with bookshelves and filled with small tables.

"Dean!"

Dean turned at Sam's call, glancing once more in the direction the woman had gone. "What?"

"Okay, listen." Sam set another book on top of the Census, his voice eager with the idea of discovery. "Mollie Morehead was the one who warned Forrest about Murray's troops hiding out on the other side of the ridge."

"Whoa, slow down there, Encyclopedia Brown."

Sam glanced up. "Sorry. Okay, in the battle that was fought here in 1861, Major Eli Murray was caught by surprise when Colonel Forrest attacked."

"And Forrest was the bad guy."

Sam's lips quirked softly. "Well, he was the Confederate Colonel. Don't think you want to qualify him as a bad guy just yet."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Like it matters now."

"Well, see, that's just it. I think it does to these spirits. I think the spirits could be fighting that battle still…and they may have died on the Morehead property."

Dean trapped his lower lip between his teeth. "And she…warned the Confederate troops?"

"Yeah."

Nodding, Dean tapped the table. "Okay, so all we gotta do is figure out what Yankee and what Rebel died on the Morehead property, a little salt and burn, and Ross is free and clear."

"I don't think it's going to be that easy."

Dean sighed. "'Course not."

Sam sat back in his chair, tenting his fingers against his lips. "For one thing, men died all over the place in that battle. Not all of them were buried."

"Nice," Dean muttered.

"And for another…it's not like they kept really great records back then, you know?"

Dean stared at the table for a moment, thinking. The chill began to tease the backs of his ears. For a heartbeat, he could feel the bite of winter air in his lungs as he breathed. He blinked, the room shifting subtly around him.

"Are you…what are you humming?"

"Huh?" Sam's voice brought Dean back to the musty smell of the library.

"You were humming something just now."

"I was?"

Sam tipped his chin forward. "Yeah," he said slowly. "Hey, I know you're bored, but—"

"It's not that." Dean shook his head. He rubbed at his forehead. Get a grip, Dean. An odd feeling of familiarity seeped into him. Feuding spirits… "Hey, Sam," he said, looking up. "What if they're connected to Mollie somehow?"

"The spirits?"

"Yeah. What if she warned this Forrest guy because…her brother or father or lover or something was one of his men?"

Sam's eyebrows went up appreciatively. "I didn't think of that."

Dean shrugged, feeling cold. "Just…let's check it out."

Several hours later, Sam keeping a subtly close eye on his brother, they had pulled all the books on Mollie Morehead or McLean County in 1861 they could find and were sitting side-by-side at the now dust-cleared table. Dean sat with his fingers bridged over his forehead, elbow resting on the table, face lined with thought. Sam leaned back in his chair, a book on his lap.

"Okay, here's something," Sam spoke up after what seemed like years of silent studying.

"It's about time," Dean breathed, looking over.

"Robert Martin." Sam pointed to the words. "He was a scout for Forrest. He and Mollie knew each other when they were young."

"Does it say they were, like, engaged or something?"

Sam shook his head. "Nope. But it's something."

"Okay, so maybe our Johnny Reb is this Martin dude. Who's the other guy?"

"Yeah, there I got nothin'." Sam shrugged.

"Maybe it doesn't matter." Dean sighed, leaning back. "No bodies means no bones. No bones, no burn."

"You ever get rid of a spirit without burning the bones?"

"Not many." Dean shook his head. "There are probably rituals and stuff, but—"

"HE'S NOT WITH ME!" The heartbroken bellow emanating from the main entryway startled them both. The legs of Sam's chair hit the floor with a thunk.

"Frank, calm down, listen, you need to—"

"HE'S. NOT. WITH. ME."

Dean looked at Sam. "Frank?"

"Frank Bethel?" Sam stood up.

Hurrying toward the door, they watched as the woman with the white stripe in her hair stood against one wall, a hand over her mouth, but the fire of hate in her eyes. The man in the blue shirt struggled weakly against the library security guard, yelling the one statement he'd been reduced to at the woman.

"I saw him earlier," Dean whispered to Sam. "He was trying to get in; skunk-lady said he was a stalker."

"Get him out of here!" the woman said, her voice a fair imitation of a tremble.

"Workin' on it, Miz Morehead," the security guard returned through clenched teeth, doing his best to hold Frank away yet not hurt him.

Dean stepped forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam open his mouth, reach out as if to stop him, but then freeze, dropping his hand as a gesture of second thought. Good. Dean knew Sam would sometimes prefer that he step aside and stay intact rather than wade into danger, but as he moved forward, he felt Sam close by. His brother understood that taking the proverbial bullet so others didn't have to was sometimes the only thing that kept Dean going.

"Hey, Frank." Dean put a gentle hand on the struggling man's shoulder. "You're Frank, right?"

The security guard looked at Dean with a mixture of confusion and gratitude. Frank's frantic blue eyes—the exact shade his brother's would be were it not for the cataracts—met Dean's beseechingly.

"He's not with me," Frank repeated.

"Hey, I know, man." Dean took more of Frank away from the guard, then seemed to sink a bit as Frank grasped onto him, both hands clutching at Dean's shoulders, trembling against his neck. "I know your brother. Ross? We're here to help him."

Frank's eyes widened in panic, and he shook his head. His lips moved in silent, frustrated words.

"What?" Dean whispered, his knees bending slightly as he worked to keep Frank upright. "Frank, what is it? Tell me!"

"He's…not…," Frank whispered. Without another word, his blue eyes rolled up into his head and he went boneless in Dean's arms, bearing both of them to the ground in a small heap.

"Sam."

"I'm here." Sam moved around to the other side of Frank and eased him off Dean so his brother could get his feet under himself once more.

"Thanks," the security guard said. "I sent him away earlier, but—"

"How'd he get out of the hospital?" Dean asked, looking at the guard.

"What?"

"This man needs to be back in the hospital," Sam said, his eyes spitting instinctive venom at Serena Morehead, who stood off to the left, surveying the scene with cold eyes.

"Don't look at me," Serena commanded snidely. "I didn't get him out."

"He was looking for you," Dean pointed out. "Got any idea why?"

"I told you." Serena lifted an arched brow at Dean. "He's stalking me."

Dean's lip flinched with a barely controlled snarl. "Wouldn't have anything to do with what's happening to his brother, would it?"

"Dean," Sam interrupted, "we need to get him back to the hospital."

Dean ran a hand over his mouth. "Right. You got a radio?" he asked the guard.

"Uh, yeah." The guard nodded. "I'll, uh, I'll call it in."

Dean's eyebrows rose and fell in a silent expression. He looked back over at Serena. "You might want to find some other places to haunt for a bit," he said.

"Or?" she challenged.

Dean lifted a shoulder. "Or you may not have three guys around to keep away your…admirers."

www

Dean sat on the double bed nearest the entrance to the motel room, guns spread out before his bent leg, grease-streaked white rag in his hand moving in a slow, repetitive motion along the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. His eyes rested on the weaponry, unfocused in thought and memory. He felt his throat tickle but wasn't conscious of the sound emitted; he was simply relaxed in the rhythm of a familiar pattern.

"I just realized what that song is."

Dean blinked at the sound of Sam's voice. "Huh?"

"That song you keep humming."

Dean stopped stroking the gun. "I'm not humming anything."

Sam looked at him over the screen of his laptop, the silver backing of the machine obscuring the lower portion of his face, the blue-tinged light from the monitor tossing Sam's cat-like eyes into shadow. "Yes, you were."

"Okay, then, Bill Cullen, name that tune," Dean challenged.

"It's 'Lorena.'"

Dean lifted an eyebrow, lips folded down in confusion. "As in…Bobbitt?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "As in a love song. A love song from the Civil War, to be exact."

Dean stared at him a moment. "Your head is one scary place."

"What?" Sam blinked innocently.

"How do you even know these things?" Dean rested the shotgun in his lap.

Sam laid his fingers on the top of his computer screen, pointing at Dean. "Hey, I'm not the one playing 1860's Jukebox."

A line appeared between Dean's brows, pulling them close in concern. He looked down, hiding his too-expressive eyes from his brother's exacting gaze, and continued to buff the barrel of the gun.

"Musta heard it somewhere 'round here." He shrugged. "This place is lousy with Civil War memorabilia."

"We've been exactly three places, Dean," Sam reminded him.

"What's your point?"

Sam sighed. "Forget it. Listen, I've been looking up stuff on Annabelle Bethel's death."

Dean set one gun down and picked up another, ejecting the clip and emptying the chamber, catching the flying bullet before it hit the bed, then began to break down the barrel. Cleaning their weapons relaxed him. Knowing their weapons balanced him. Using their weapons validated him.

"Yeah, and?"

"Well, I think there's something hinky about it."

Dean smirked. "Hinky as in Ross killed her and lied about it?"

"No," Sam shook his head, "but that thought did cross my mind. I think someone brought on that heart attack."

"Someone or something?"

"Says here," Sam's eyes went to his computer screen, "that there were unusually high levels of erythromycin in her blood."

"What the hell is—"

"It's an antibiotic."

"So?" Dean kept his eyes on the gun in his hand, blocking out the sound of the melody, the low, sad bleat of tune crying for loss.

"So, there's been some studies that show high dosages of erythromycin can interrupt the heart's electrical pattern…cause a heart attack."

"Someone killed her."

"Wanna make a bet as to who?"

Dean lifted an eyebrow. "Call me crazy, but my money's on skunk-lady."

"Yeah, I didn't get a good vibe from her, either."

Setting down the last gun, Dean stood and stretched. "Well," he said on an elongated sigh, his arms above his head, his t-shirt pulling high on his belly, "I don't know about you, but I'm cooked."

"We still don't have a plan, Dean," Sam pointed out.

"So we make one tomorrow." Dean yawned.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, Sam." Dean began to put the guns back in the weapons bag with the salt and lighter fluid. "I need some shut-eye, and you're looking a little rough around the edges."

Sam frowned at him.

"What? I say it out of concern as your big brother."

"Whatever," Sam grumbled.

Toeing off his boots, Dean slid his jeans off, letting them puddle on the floor, then crawled between the cool sheets, rocking a bit until the covers were cocooned around him. On a yawn, he commanded, "Don't even think about waking me up before daylight."

Sam grumbled a bit, but Dean stopped listening. The heavy drug of sleep pulled him low with a gentle embrace, and he sighed as he rolled into its arms. For long moments of peace, he heard and saw nothing.

Oblivion was his greatest friend, both healing and hiding pain.

The grass beneath his feet was crisp with frost. His stiff, knee-length boots left imprints on the land as he breeched the crest of the hill, looking into the vacant, snow-covered valley beneath him. The air held the bite of post-Christmas chill. The only thing marring the complete silence of early morning was an occasional cough or laugh from the men encamped behind him, the jangle of bits as the horses stomped themselves awake, and the snap of the morning cook fires.

He knew Mollie would be awake. She always woke with the dawn. Said the night was long enough, didn't serve to waste any of the light. He pictured her standing in her doorway as she liked to do, mug of coffee clutched in small, cold hands, raven-colored hair spilling loose down her back. Twisting her hair up was the last thing she did before moving forward with the day.

He pictured her eyes sliding up at the sides, and warmth spread through his belly, banishing the chill of winter. He closed his eyes and mentally caressed her face, trailing slowly across her lips, feeling himself grow hard in response.

The breathless cry for Colonel Forrest startled him out of his morning reverie, and he turned, eyes searching out the unmistakable figure of Nathan Forrest. The world began to spin backward, working earnestly to bring him to his knees. Crittenden was encamped on the other side of the ridge. The Yankee felt safe in his location.

Joseph was scouting for Crittenden.

"Joe…"

They were moving, riding, cresting the ridge. The morning exploded in a bloody wash of pain, and in the middle of the frozen ground stood Mollie and Joe, both staring at him, both pale, both dying. He couldn't save both.

Mollie vanished, and he cried out, feeling the weight of his guilt hold him back, hold him down. Joe fell to his knees, the blue of his uniform blossoming to a darker, dangerous black. He reached for him, gray collecting blue in an embrace of regret.

"If you'd only stayed, Joe… why didn't you stay with me…"

Joe's eyes stared up at him, wide with shock, dark with hate. "You were never with me, Robbie."

"DEAN!"

Dean jerked violently, struggling to open eyes heavy with sweat-matted lashes. Slowly, as if someone were ticking a dial in his head, he became aware of his surroundings, the gulping breaths being sucked into his trembling body, the death-like grip he had on Sam's bare arms, the frantic movement of his eyes around the sparsely-furnished motel room.

"What…what…?"

"I've been trying to wake you up for about five minutes," Sam said, fear turning back the clock and reducing his voice to a little brother's search for steadiness. "What's going on with you?"

"A dream," Dean panted, forcing his fingers to release, forcing himself to sit up and away from his anxious brother. "Just a dream."

"One helluva dream, man, you were screaming, calling out for Jo."

"Joe?" Blue uniform, blood, cold ground…

"Yeah. I didn't know you felt that strongly for her…"

"Her?" Dean ran a shaking hand over his eyes, forcing away mental cobwebs, then wiped the sweat from his upper lip with his knuckles.

"Jo." Sam sat back, still staring at him with too-big eyes.

"Not Jo, Sam," Dean rasped, shoving the twisted covers away from his trapped legs and stumbling to his feet. He staggered for the bathroom, not bothering with the light, and ducked his hands under the faucet, filling them with water and splashing his face.

"Dean, you said Jo. You screamed it." Sam moved around the end of the bed to stand framed in the bathroom doorway.

"It wasn't her…it was…" Dean pushed himself upright. "Hell, I don't know…some guy."

"A…guy?"

Dean shot a look over at Sam, water trailing down his face and dripping from his chin. "You're giving me shit about this?"

"Just that…we don't know a guy named…Joe." Sam seemed to suddenly not know what to do with his hands as he crossed, then uncrossed his arms, resting them on his hips, then dropping them to his side.

Dean splashed his face once more, cooling his heated eyes and running wet palms over early-morning roughness on his cheeks.

"What time is it?" Dean asked, water spraying from his lips as he shut off the faucet.

"Early," Sam said defensively in a not my fault you're awake tone.

"Let's talk about it in the morning." Dean sighed, drying his face, pushing past Sam and stumbling back to the twisted sheets of his bed.

"It is morning," Sam pointed out.

"Sam!" Dean snapped tiredly.

He'd been asleep almost six hours, yet his body felt used and worn. Weariness wrapped around him as he burrowed his arms beneath his pillows, his face turned away from the wan light filtering in from the window.

Settling into the sheets, Dean listened as Sam reluctantly moved around the room, sat heavily on his bed, and lay back. He could practically hear Sam staring holes into the ceiling.

"I don't know, okay?" Dean answered Sam's unasked question, his mouth pressed into the pillow, voice muffled by sleep and worry. Dean sighed, closing his eyes, hoping for oblivion.

"You said his name like you say…mine," Sam revealed quietly.

"Don't worry about it, Sam," Dean muttered, hanging on the edge of awareness.

"Can't help it." Sam sighed, the bed squeaking beneath him as he rolled to his side. "You're my brother."

www

"I'm starving," Dean announced, to Sam's count for the tenth time since leaving the motel.

"No, really?" Sam commented dryly as he pulled the door open, stepping into the diner under the ringing bell.

"No one made you stay," Dean pointed out, dropping into the nearest booth and plucking the plastic-coated menu from behind the salt-and-pepper shakers.

"Dean, I wasn't going to just leave to get food while you were sleeping after that… that…"

"Dream, Sam." Dean's eyes didn't meet Sam's as he scanned the selection of food. "You can say it."

Sam leaned forward, fingers tightening on the edge of the speckled table. "It was more than just a dream, Dean," he snapped. "There is something going on with you."

Dean flicked his eyes up, and Sam saw a wall reflected in the green that effectively shut him out. "Nothing's going on with me."

Sam stared at his brother. Dean stared back.

"Get you boys something?"

The squeaky female voice startled Sam, and he looked up to see a heavyset woman with too-bright lipstick calling attention to a dusting of hair across her upper lip. She pulled a pencil out from behind an ear framed by close-cropped, bottle-blonde hair, and tapped the lead on a pad of paper.

"Uh, yeah." Sam cleared his throat. "I'll take a chicken sandwich, house salad, and a Coke."

"Sure thing, hon. What about you?" She glanced at Dean.

"Burger with everything, fries, chocolate shake, and a piece of that cherry pie."

"On a diet, are ya?"

Dean looked up at her. "Always."

She smiled, charmed by Dean's roguish grin, then headed back to the kitchen.

"We gonna talk about this?" Sam pressed the minute she was out of earshot.

Dean's eyes roamed the sparsely populated diner. The breakfast crowd had departed and the lunch crowd had yet to arrive. "Jesus, Sam, leave the dream—"

"Not the dream, Dean," Sam snapped, irritated at his brother's seemingly placid disinterest. "We need a plan."

"Uh-huh," Dean replied, eyes catching on something across the room.

"We don't know where the bodies are, besides the house, and we don't have any—Dean! Are you even listening to me?"

"You see that?" Dean asked instead of answering.

Sam sighed. "What?"

"That…display thing over there."

Sam followed Dean's eye line, frowning as his brother rose from the booth and crossed to the Confederate flag hanging on the wall on the other side of the room. Beneath the flag, a glass display case sat open.

"Hey," Dean called to the waitress who had taken their order. "You guys keep this box open all the time?"

"Nah." She shook her head. "Billy's adding some stuff to it. That's his collection of reenactment memorabilia."

Sam stood and began to head toward his brother, eyes darting between Dean's back and the waitress's profile.

"Does, uh… Billy know who all this stuff belonged to?" Dean asked.

"You got me," she replied. "Just a bunch of Civil War stuff."

As Sam watched, Dean's hand hovered over the opened case, his fingertips lightly brushing the books, gloves, spurs, pausing above a silver harmonica. To Sam's surprise, Dean lifted the instrument from the case and rested it in his open palm, fingers lightly stroking the outer casing.

Sam looked from Dean's hands to his face, puzzled by the vacant, lonely expression that seemed to capture his brother's features. Before he could ask him if he was okay, Dean lifted the harmonica to his mouth and closed his eyes.

Sam's mouth hung open, amazed, as he watched Dean cup the back of the harmonica, press his lips tight to the instrument, and begin to play. The mournful, sweet melody trembled through the air, silencing the murmurs and clinks of silverware against plates as the patrons remaining in the diner seemed to hold their collective breath to listen while Dean slid his mouth along the old instrument.

Dean's face drew together as the notes bounced and slid through the air, touching Sam's ears with memory, drawing a pang of longing from his chest that confused him. Dean's lashes lay dark against suddenly pale cheeks. Sam blinked, realizing what he was hearing: the tune Dean had been humming was now being drawn from an ancient instrument by the caress of his brother's lips.

When Dean stopped, the diner sat still and silent. Blinking, Dean looked up at Sam, uncertainty dancing a tango across his features.

"That was amazing," the waitress commented. "I haven't heard 'Lorena' in years."

"Yeah." Dean's voice was rough as he worked to shrug off his uncharacteristic behavior. "Sometimes I amaze even myself."

Sam closed his mouth, pressing his lips together in a tight line. He was fully aware this hunt had been his idea. And now, it seemed, the spirits they were here to vanquish were haunting his brother. Sam pulled in a slow breath as he watched Dean set the harmonica back into the display case.

"You still hungry?" Sam asked softly.

"No." Dean shook his head but headed back to the table as if he didn't know where else to go.

Sam joined him. "Y'know, Ross had a ton of weapons back in that shed."

Dean nodded, the idea of guns and knives seeming to settle him, infusing his too-pale face with normalizing color. "Yeah, he did."

"I'm thinking…maybe that's not all he had back there."

Dean looked up at him. "You think he knew more than he was telling us?"

"Seems like that's usually the case." Sam shrugged.

Dean sat back as the waitress set their food in front of them. Sam dug hungrily into his salad, watching his formerly-starving brother stare at his burger.

"Eat," Sam encouraged.

Dean sighed suddenly. "This hunt is not normal."

Sam shrugged, sucking down a gulp of Coke through his straw. "What's normal?"

"You getting all into research, me flirting with an actually good-looking waitress, digging up bones and burning them, just…normal."

"You're just spooked by your sudden burst of instrumental talent."

Dean looked up, and Sam forced himself to keep breathing. The abyss of fear and pain in his brother's eyes was unexpected and heavy. "Yeah, I guess you're right," Dean admitted. "But sometimes…sometimes I just want it to be easy."

"I know." Sam nodded. "But I think we left easy behind when we decided to look for Dad."

Dean nodded silently, picking up a French fry. "Aw, hell," he said, popping the fry into his mouth. "I don't know what I'm saying. Easy would be boring." He grinned. "And I don't do boring."

Sam grinned back, watching as the wall slid firmly back into place in Dean's eyes, cemented by the rakish twist of his brother's lips. Normal for Sam was Dean inhaling cherry pie. Normal for Sam was Dean moving forward in an all-go-no-quit manner.

Normal for Sam was Dean.

www

"What the hell are you looking for?" Sam exclaimed, grabbing the dashboard as the large Chevy swerved across the two-lane road toward the Bethel house.

"My Motorhead tape," Dean growled, hand flailing along the floorboard, one eye over the dash.

"Dude! Seriously, I'll find it. Geez." Sam pushed Dean up and back in front of the wheel. "You suddenly jonesing for some 'Ace of Spades' or what?"

Sliding his long arm under the passenger seat, Sam came up with the worn cassette and stuck it into the Impala's cassette deck.

"Just need to get this fuckin' song outta my head," Dean snapped, turning the volume up and thrumming Sam's blood with the insane beat of crazed rock-and-roll.

"There's the turn for the house," Sam yelled over the music.

Dean muttered something in return, but Sam missed it. They pulled up to the end of the drive, dust mixing with the afternoon sun to shield the house from sight for a moment. Sam looked from the house to Dean, watching as his brother hung onto the wheel. Hesitantly, Sam reached for the radio, turning down the volume so it didn't blast them the next time Dean turned on the car.

"You ready to go?" Sam asked, anxious to get this hunt over with.

"I, uh…" Dean looked at Sam askance. "Yeah. Yeah, sure."

"What is it?" Sam reached out to grasp Dean's sleeve.

"Nothing." Dean shook his head. He twisted the keys in the ignition, silencing the comforting rumble of the powerful engine. "Let's go smoke us some spooks."

Dean grasped the handle, paused, then pushed the door open. Sam watched him go, suddenly feeling an overwhelming urge to hide in the car. He glanced over his shoulder at the back seat. Memories of his youth, lying curled on his side wrapped in a blanket, head on Dean's lap while Dad drove them across Hell's half acre, bled into memories of leaning his face on the opened back window while Dean played air guitar to Zeppelin's "Ten Years Gone."

Where other people remembered bedrooms and meals around the table when they thought of home, Sam thought of Dean and the Impala. That was all he needed to feel at home, even after all these years of wandering.

"You coming?" Dean called, his voice muffled through the windshield.

"Yeah," Sam said, climbing free of the car and following his brother toward the shed behind the house.

Dean walked up to the door, grasped the metal handle, and yanked it open, letting it bounce off the wall before catching it again with his hand. They entered the darkened shed, eyes searching shadowed corners, swallowing against the ever-present dust.

"Ross!" Dean called. "You here?"

Silence returned their answer. Sam stepped up to the uniquely-shaped table. The display of weapons was still impressive, even in the dim light allowed in through the open door. Knives, bullets, guns… Sam's eyes scanned them, searching for something in particular.

Salt.

"What's going on in that ginormous brain of yours?" Dean asked, flicking on the overhead light.

"We don't know where the bodies are," Sam said.

Dean stepped up beside him, waiting.

"And we can't burn down the place."

"True." Dean nodded, lips pressed out. "Would kinda defeat the purpose."

"Ross said he went after them with salt," Sam remembered, "but…I don't see it anywhere."

"Maybe it's in the house?"

"Maybe," Sam said, wondering.

"So, let's get our own gear and go in there to find out."

Sam turned, grabbing Dean's arm as he started to head out. "Wait."

"What?" Dean looked down at Sam's fingers, then up at his face, irritation and confusion warring for dominance.

"I got a bad feeling about this."

"You can have the bigger gun." Dean grinned. "C'mon, Sammy, let's get this done."

Leaving the light on and the door open, they exited the shed, heading for the trunk of the Impala. Sam thought it was better to not call attention to the fact that Dean hummed Lorena the whole time they gathered their gear, but when they stepped up onto the porch and Dean went pale, Sam realized his mistake.

"Cold, ain't it?" Dean said softly as they stepped inside the dusty entryway.

"Huh?" Sam narrowed his eyes, sawed-off shotgun gripped in his right hand.

"Can, uh, smell the snow…" Dean's voice faded as he moved farther into the house.

Snow? Sam tried to reach out to stop Dean, when he suddenly realized he could no longer see the interior of the house. The long hallway faded into a cluster of trees, the stairs fell away to reveal a hill, and around him were men and horses.

Sam blinked, shaking his head hard. What the hell?

He stepped forward and both felt and heard frozen grass crunch beneath his feet. He looked over his shoulder, wanting, needing to see the opened front door but instead watched shadows shift over white canvas tents as the sun rose.

Dean…

Sam moved forward through the acrid stench of gunfire and blood, searching, hoping. Not Robbie, not like this…

Blinking away the confused tangle of thoughts, Sam leaned against a tree, gripping the shotgun. It felt small, narrow, heavy. He looked down and realized he was no longer carrying the sawed-off, salt-filled weapon. He was holding a musket, a bayonet fixed to the tip.

Joe!

The voice was both foreign and familiar. Part of him responded to it, while the other worked to break free. He turned to see a figure clad in gray approaching him at a run.

Joe, it's me! It's me, I'm here!

But he was alone. He was alone because Robbie wasn't with him. He was alone because Robbie was gone. He wasn't with him. He's not with me…

Joe!

The blast startled him. The sting of pain in his arm dropped him to his knees. He looked up, blinking through the haze, his weapon falling from numb fingers.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Dean… Dean is here… I'm not alone because Dean is here…

Sam felt himself pitch forward, vague, disorienting images sliding inside and around him, strong, familiar arms catching him, holding him.

"You fuckin' shot my brother!" Dean bellowed above him, and Sam worked to break free of the muck in his head that was fighting to pull him back. Dean held him close, Sam's face pressed into this brother's strong chest, Dean's scent filling his nose, drawing him back to the solid base of the present.

"It's rock salt."

"Yeah? Well, he's still bleeding, you crazy son of a bitch."

"The spirit was taking him, couldn't you see that?"

"I could have brought him back."

Hands shifted him around, probed at the sting in his arm.

"You sure this is rock salt?"

"Special blend."

The voices were beginning to separate. As the sensation of falling released him, Sam realized Dean held him, gripping his upper arm to staunch the blood flow. A few feet from them, Ross stood with his shotgun lowered, watching them.

"What the hell happened?" Sam slurred. It was darker in the house; shadows had shifted on the wall, and he and Dean sat in a pile of remodeling dust in a room he didn't remember entering.

"Y'know that, uh, dream I had?" Dean said softly.

Sam blinked. His arm began to burn, an ache that spread slowly from his shoulder to his fingertips. "Yeah."

"I think you had one, too," Dean revealed. "Only, uh… I think you were Joe."

Sam closed his eyes, shifting against Dean until he could sit up next to him, clutching his arm above Dean's fingers.

"I remember…a blue uniform. And…looking for someone named Robbie."

Dean pulled his lower lip in, catching it between his teeth.

"It came to me," Ross whispered. "After Frank…after you boys were here, in the shed…it came to me."

"Care to share with the class?" Dean snapped, frowning at Sam's still-bleeding arm.

"They're brothers. The spirits—the whole war. A country divided. Brother against brother."

Sam hissed as Dean adjusted his grip. "Robert Martin had a brother," Sam said. "I just never found out his name."

"I'm gonna take a wild guess and say it was Joe," Dean drawled. "We gotta get this wrapped, Sam."

"Yeah, okay." Sam nodded, allowing Dean to help him to an unsteady stance. "It's getting dark."

"Yeah, well," Dean slid Sam's good arm over his shoulder, "you were playing time traveler for a while there, brother."

Sam stumbled.

"C'mon, Sasquatch," Dean grunted.

"We can use some of the material in the room down the hall," Ross said, leading the way.

Sam leaned on his brother, watching their feet shuffle through the fine white dust coating the floor. The toes of Dean's boots were gray with dust, the holes in the knees and thighs of his jeans edged in it. Sam looked over at Dean's profile and saw goose bumps scattering his jawline.

"He took you, too, didn't he?" Sam whispered.

"Who did?" Dean asked, purposefully vague.

"Robbie."

Dean shrugged, shifting Sam's arm as he did. "I was ready for him this time."

"What are we gonna do, Dean?" Sam sighed as he sat in the cane-backed chair, waiting while Ross cut down a floral-print curtain hanging free of the dust to wrap around Sam's arm.

"We aren't gonna do anything, Sam," Dean returned, crouching next to Sam's wounded arm. He used the tip of Ross's sharp blade to cut away the tattered remains of Sam's jacket.

"What are you talking about?"

Dean carefully wrapped the material around Sam's arm, closing the slashes created by Ross's special blend of salt. "You're getting out of here."

"No way."

"Don't argue with me."

"I'm not leaving you here."

"Yes. You are."

Sam hissed as Dean tied off the bandage.

"Ross, what's so special about that salt?" Dean asked, standing up as Sam reached over to grip his aching arm.

"Made with holy water, lighter fluid, and some gypsum. Frank made it. Better than regular salt if you want spirits to stay gone."

"Can't make 'em stay gone unless we find the bodies," Dean pointed out.

"Dean," Sam tried to break in.

"I thought of that," Ross said. "And if all this started when we broke into the walls, maybe the bodies are in the house."

"No shit, Sherlock," Dean grumbled.

"Dean."

"Well, sorry, I was a bit distracted with Frank and Annabelle."

"You're a hunter."

"Not for twenty years!"

"DEAN!"

"What?!"

Sam took a breath, having finally caught his brother's attention. "It's us."

"What?" Dean's brows pulled together.

"Brothers." Sam tipped his chin forward. "It's us. The spirits need us."

Dean bent and peered at Sam. "You in shock or something?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Think about it, man. Joe went after Frank…only he didn't actually let him go."

"How do you know it was Joe?"

Sam slid his eyes sideways. "Because all I could think before Ross shot me was that you—Robbie—weren't with me. And isn't that what Frank's been saying all this time?"

"Oh." Dean looked down.

"Robert Martin sought you out," Sam continued. "They're trying to make it back to each other."

"Yeah?" Dean stood up. "So what happens if they do?"

Sam shrugged.

"Yeah, I don't like those odds."

"Dean, you need me." Sam pushed to his feet, swaying slightly.

Dean caught him. "I need you to get out of here. I need you in one piece."

"Dean—"

"Enough, Sam. Ross, get him out of here. Gimme that…special blend."

"You're just going after them yourself?" Ross asked, incredulous. "It's nearly sunset."

"I can see that, thanks."

"Dean…," Sam pleaded.

"Sam, listen," Dean released him, "I'll be okay. I'll be right behind you."

Sam narrowed his eyes. He didn't like this. It all felt wrong.

Ross grabbed his arm. "C'mon, kid," he grumbled. "Lead an old man out."

"Sam," Dean called to their departing backs.

Sam turned in the doorway.

"Make sure you tell Ross about Serena," he said.

Sam nodded.

www

"Well, this was a great idea," Dean whispered into the darkness of the empty hallway. "No, no, you go ahead. I'll stay back with the spooks."

Gunfire erupted with sudden ferocity. Dean flinched, acutely aware that the bullets fired from those guns could actually harm him. Senses hyperalert, Dean pressed his back to the wall of the T-shaped hallway. He felt the skin of his back rub against the soft cotton of his shirt. He felt the heavy metal and wood of the two shotguns in his hands. He felt the air press around his face, crawling up his skin and spilling into his ears, eyes, nose, mouth.

They're trying to get back to each other…

What would he do if life tore Sam from him? What would he do if he were forced to fight against his brother? What would he do if he were forced to kill his brother for some perceived greater good?

Ice collected around Dean's heart, leaving it heavy in his chest, obstructing his air.

Don't think, just move. Don't think, just act. Do the job. Do. The. Job.

"Okay, boys," Dean whispered. "You want a fight so bad? You got one."

Closing his eyes, Dean listened, drowning out even the sound of his own heartbeat as he concentrated on the cries and curses coming from either end of the hallway that ran across the opening to the hallway where he stood. Cocking both shotguns, Dean drew them up so his hands were level with his shoulders.

Pulling in a steadying breath, Dean stepped out into the hallway. "Hey!" he called, jutting his hands to either side of his body and firing.

The kick of the shotguns shook through his frame, tearing at his muscles and spinning him off balance. One shell found its mark and a spirit screamed. The other went wide, and the ghost of Robert Martin stood at the end of the hall, his gray uniform shadowed with time, his eyes boring through Dean to the fallen spirit of his brother.

"Joe…" The voice was both empty and full, breaking like water on rock and surging forward with vengeance.

"Oh, shit," Dean breathed, still teetering, his arm moving too slow to bring up one of the guns in defense.

The bullets sliced through his skin seconds before his brother's roar shook the air, Sam's body slamming into him and driving him with the force of a hell-bent hurricane into the safety of the far room.

www

"You're always…with me."

Sam froze, hands paused in the act of reaching for Dean's bloody thigh. "What'd you say?"

Dean pulled the corner of his mouth up in a tired, lazy grin. The edges of the room were fading to soft gray. "You're always with me, Sammy."

Sam dropped his head, and Dean saw his chin tremble slightly. Keeping his face lowered, Sam silently reached for Dean's leg, lifting it to slide the cloth beneath it and wrapping the bandage tightly around the bullet graze, wincing in sympathy as Dean hissed in pain.

"Could be worse," Sam muttered, then caught his bottom lip between his teeth.

Dean lay still, pliant, allowing Sam to tie off the ends of one bandage before moving to his hand. Sam's motions were slowing, his body rocking with exhaustion. When he reached for Dean's side, balance apparently escaped him and he fell forward, catching himself on one knee and one hand, stopping just short of landing in Dean's lap.

"It's worse," Dean asserted.

Eyes slipping closed in a pain-pale face, breath pulled in through clenched teeth, Sam pivoted slowly to sit next to his brother, shoulders touching. "I, uh…I just need a minute."

Shouts echoing from time past slid in a Doppler effect through their ears. Another crack of a musket and a cry of rage, then silence once again held sway as the battle journeyed away from the room where they lay hidden.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"No regrets, okay?"

"Don't talk like that. We'll get out of this. We're gonna…get out of this."

"I mean it, brother."

A pause. Heartbeats echoing, slowing, matching.

"I know."

More cries. More gunfire. A scream shattered the subtle peace of the moonlit room.

"Can you hold your gun?" Sam asked.

"I think so."

"'Cause I don't want to die here."

"You got someplace else picked out?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"The Impala."

Two hearts beating with the rhythm of brotherhood, of time, of family.

"Hand me the gun," Dean wheezed.

"Want me to tie it to your arm?"

"Yeah."

Ignoring the sting in his side, the sticky wetness that saturated his t-shirt and plastered it to his skin, Dean held his hand out for the sawed-off shotgun and positioned his stiff finger in the trigger guard. Sam tied one of the bandages around the butt of the gun, lashing it safely to Dean's shaking arm.

"You ready for this?" Dean asked, ducking his head to catch his brother's eyes once more.

Sam looked up, and Dean caught his breath. He saw their father hiding behind the determination reflecting back at him. He saw himself in Sam's eyes. He saw fierceness and loyalty. But most of all, he saw love.

"As I'll ever be." Sam nodded, then twisted his lips into a rueful grin. "Always thought we'd go out…guns blazing."

"Pull me up," Dean commanded as Sam wavered to his feet. Sam gripped him under his arm, hauling him to his feet. For one moment, Dean leaned heavily against his brother.

Straightening with the strength breath offered him, Dean grinned, feeling his eyes crinkle at the corners as true joy shot through him. "First one to the Impala picks the music."

"Oh, it's so on."

They broke free of the safety of the room into the darkness of the hallway, momentarily stunned by the lack of light and absence of sound.

"Where'd they go?" Dean whispered, planting his feet to keep from swaying.

"Dunno," Sam whispered back.

"Where's Ross?"

"Outside," Sam said.

"How come he didn't come back with you?"

Sam sent Dean a silent look.

"Yeah, that's what I figured."

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"You feel that?"

Cold. Winter cold. A tune that beat relentlessly against the air.

"Sam…don't forget who I am…," Dean whispered.

Sam's answer was lost as time raced backward, turning the solid wood beneath Dean's feet into frozen grass, the stale, dust-filled air into frostbitten particles, the joy at being next to his brother into a fight against despair at seeing his brother at the opposite end of his rifle.

Dean turned, facing Sam alone on a bloody field, the distant sound of scattering rifle fire like a fingernail tapping on glass. Sam was dressed in blue and looked…small. But it was Sam. Dean looked down at himself, saw the coarse gray uniform, felt the itch of beard, the sweat flowing from beneath his cap down through his hair and trailing along his neck like the legs of a spider.

"Joe…"

Sam lifted his rifle to point it back at Dean, his hazel eyes scared, hurt, and determined.

"I ain't goin' with ya, Robbie."

"Why didn't ya stay with me, Joe? I coulda watched out for ya."

"'Cause what you want ain't right! Ya gotta know that, Robbie."

Dean gripped the rifle, pulling it tighter against his shoulder, eyes burning as he sighted down the barrel.

"Don't make me kill ya, Joe, please."

"I ain't makin' you do nothin'," Sam replied. "Do what ya gotta do, Robbie. You were never with me anyway."

Dean stood, listening to the cries around him, the screams of wounded horses, the commands of officers, the pleas for mercy. He looked at Sam and suddenly knew.

This is it. This is the moment Robert Martin regrets. These are the words Joe Martin wants to take back.

With trembling arms, Dean lowered the rifle. Surprise crossed Sam's expressive face, mellowing his eyes and causing his arms to tremble. Dean watched as he tried to trust. Stepping forward on the field, Dean stopped only when his chest was pressed lightly against the point of Sam's bayonet.

"I know what I have to do," Dean whispered. "I'm the only one who can make that choice."

"What are you…?" Sam's eyes darted in thought. "They'll kill you, Robbie. They'll kill you if they see you."

Dean reached out and moved Sam's rifle to the side, gently so as not to startle a shot.

"You know who I am," Dean said. "I'm not this." He plucked at his sleeve. "I'm not a…cause. I'm your brother."

Sam released the rifle, letting it clatter to the frozen earth. "Robbie?"

"I'm sorry, Joe."

Sam's throat worked against tears. "I thought you—" he tried, looking down, then lifted his eyes back to Dean's. "I thought you worked with Mollie… I thought you killed me, Robbie."

"Mollie did what she had to do. I didn't know until it was too late."

"You weren't with me." Sam's eyes filled with tears, his chin trembling. "When I died, you weren't there."

"I'm here now, Joe." Dean rested a hand on Sam's shoulder, tightening his grip. "I'm here. I'm always with you."

On a sob, Sam stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Dean, clutching his fingers against Dean's strong back. Dean gripped back tightly, feeling the coarse material of the uniform rub at his throat and hands, then fade to a soft cotton. The cold in the air melted to a humid night.

As reality returned, strength escaped. Dean felt his knees vanish as he clutched his brother, trying to keep from landing in a heap in the dust-filled hallway.

"Whoa," Sam gasped, trying to gather Dean closer. "I gotcha."

Pain that had faded with the conquest of the spirits, returned with a vengeance, and Dean's vision swam. His side burned and his leg ached. He clung to Sam, unwilling to end up on the floor. This fight he wanted to end on his feet. Sam shifted Dean up in a clustered tangle of hands and ruffled clothes. Dean looked dazedly around.

"Is it midnight?"

"Not sure." Sam started for the main entryway, dragging Dean through the dust next to him.

"It's quiet."

"I, uh, think it's over…," Sam whispered.

"Over over?"

"Yeah."

"But we didn't…there wasn't any…y'know…burning. Violence. Mayhem."

Dean felt Sam's grin in the slight hitch of his breath. "Maybe some hunts end in forgiveness, brother."

Dean was silent a moment. "Maybe."

www

He hated drugs. But he hated pain more, so he was willing to deal a bit longer with the ten-feet-under-and-upside-down feeling the pain meds left him with. Especially when doing so erased the line of panicked concern from Sam's face.

More stitches, more blood, and IV antibiotics. With no hazard pay…

Dean sat up in the hospital bed, scrub pants scrunched up to his calves, white shirt hitched to reveal the gouge in his side. He couldn't stop messing with the gauze pad the doctor had placed over the wound to allow it to drain. The tape made his skin itch, and every time he twisted, he felt the burn in his side.

Flexing his fingers, he looked at the shallow cut across the back of his hand. The slice in his thigh was apparently the path the bullet that cut his side had taken.

"Magic musket ball," Dean muttered, tugging impatiently at the IV line. He hated being tethered, contained, trapped.

Sam had been gone too long. One hour and seventeen minutes too long. Taking Ross Bethel to the police station after Sam's arm had been cleaned out and stitched up had been at the forefront of Sam's mind once he'd been reassured that Dean was in the clear. Sam was sure they could prove Serena Morehead had killed Annabelle out of a desire to keep Ross under her control, keep the idea of a haunted house alive, draw in patrons to the B&B.

Dean had been too loopy from pain meds to argue at the time, but he distinctly remembered Sam saying he'd be back before dark. It was now dark plus some.

Sighing, Dean slid gingerly out of bed, unplugged the IV pump from the wall, and looped the cord over the stand. Holding the stand that tethered him to the meds, he made his way to the nurse's station.

"Hi." He grinned at a young blonde behind the desk.

"Hi," she returned. "Help you?"

"Can you tell me where Frank Bethel's room is?"

She frowned. "Are you family?"

"Not exactly." Dean's eyebrows quirked. "But I got in here 'cause I was saving his brother."

"Oh!" The blonde's mouth formed a perfect circle. "You're 494!"

"Uh…" Dean glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah, that's my room."

"They told me about you." She grinned, revealing deep dimples. "Quite the hero."

Dean turned up the heat on his smile, leaning on the counter. "Yeah, well," he glanced down, then slowly back up, "part of my job."

"You want Frank's room?" She glanced to the side, checking to see who was watching.

"If it's not too much trouble," Dean whispered, following her look.

"Our secret." She pressed a manicured nail to her lips.

Dean let his smile hit his eyes and watched hers sparkle slightly in return as she told him the number. Nodding his thanks and pressing his finger to his lips in return, he moved toward the elevator and made his way to Frank's room.

The private room was dark when he cracked the heavy door open. Pushing his IV pole through first, Dean peered around the curtain.

"Frank?"

"Ross?"

Well, at least he's saying something new now…

"No, it's uh…" Dean stepped forward so Frank could see him better. "My name is Dean Winchester. We kinda met at the library before."

Frank's blue eyes were clear, his lean face lined with worry and exhaustion, and his hair greasy but combed back from his face. He looked away from Dean. "Yeah, uh," he shook his head, "not one of my finer moments."

"You were trying to get to Serena Morehead," Dean reminded him, easing down into the chair nearest Frank's bed.

"All I could think about was keeping that bitch away from Ross…"

Dean nodded. "My brother, Sam, is with Ross now. They're at the police station."

"What happened to you?" Frank asked.

"Went up against your spirits," Dean said, turning his bandaged hand around.

"And?"

"They're gone."

"How?"

Dean licked his lips. "Truth is, I can't explain it. Sam thinks it's forgiveness."

Frank rubbed at his face. "Maybe he's right." He sighed. "When I, uh…went away," Frank looked up at Dean, "I felt this…pain."

"Like you'd lost the only thing in the world that mattered," Dean said softly.

"Yeah, and that it was my fault…but yet…"

"You were mad at him," Dean finished.

"Yeah." Frank nodded.

"Y'know," Dean shifted in his chair, "I grew up hunting."

"Yeah?"

Dean ran the flat of his fingers over his lips. "My Dad, my brother, and me. Until Sam decided he wanted to go to school."

"He left you guys, huh?"

Dean swallowed. "He needed it—I didn't know how much, really. He needed to find out who he was, figure out life. He met a girl, had a real job, all that stuff."

"What happened?"

Dean lifted a shoulder. "What always happens. Bad guys took it away from him. And I got him back."

"Ross left," Frank said softly. "And I hated him for it. Didn't talk to him for years. But then…Annabelle…"

"You got a second chance, Frank," Dean pointed out. "You got a chance to forgive."

"I know."

"Frank?" Ross Bethel's voice trembled from the doorway.

"Hey, there, you son of a bitch." Frank looked up, grinning, as his brother walked in, Sam on his heels.

"Man, you're looking better." Ross moved over to the edge of the bed, reaching out to clasp Frank's outstretched hand.

"What are you doing here?" Sam asked Dean.

"Wandering." Dean smiled. "You get it done?"

"Police opened an investigation on Serena Morehead," Sam said. "They're exhuming Annabelle's body, going to look for toxins."

"Good." Dean nodded.

"I don't know how to thank you boys," Ross said, leaning on his brother's bed.

"Well…" Dean looked at his bandaged side. "We could use some help with these hospital bills."

"You got it," Frank answered before Ross could speak.

"What are you two planning to do?" Sam asked, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets.

Ross looked at the floor.

Frank looked at his hands.

"Okay, I get it, charades," Dean quipped. "Sounds like…a hideout for hunters…run by… brothers? C'mon, am I warm?"

Sam grinned, still watching Ross but leaning toward Dean.

"Not a bad idea," Frank said.

Ross looked at him, surprised. "Yeah?"

"Give us a good chance to…catch up."

Ross smiled. "That it would."

www

"I can drive, you know," Dean complained for the fifth time that hour. "Not taking those freakin' pills anymore."

"You expect me not to milk this?" Sam retorted, turning up the radio as Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" hummed through the interior of the car. "You haven't let me drive since… Dude, I think you were unconscious the last time."

"I would've had to be." Dean slouched lower in the seat, looking out of the side window.

Sam hummed to Floyd, aware he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, hoping Dean would soon drown him out.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"You really think that worked? Those spirits are gone?"

Sam shrugged. "Yeah. But if I'm wrong, there are two hunters to handle it now."

"Yeah." Dean sighed, reaching into the glove compartment for his sunglasses.

"What's with you?"

"Nothing." Dean slid the shades into place and slouched again. "Just gonna take advantage of having a chauffeur. See what life's like on Easy Street over here."

"Uh-huh."

"Sam?"

Sam looked over and saw the playful smirk on Dean's face. "What."

"You think Serena will go to jail?"

"Why are you asking me questions I have no way of knowing the answer to?"

"What? I'm just curious."

Sam sighed.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Oh, my God."

Dean chuckled, pressing his hand against his side. "Dude, I'm just messing with you."

"Where is that Motorhead tape?"

Dean laughed, handing him the tape and settling back again.

"I would have come back, you know," Sam said under the thrumming tones of the music.

"What?" Dean sat up straighter.

"I would have come back. Eventually. After Stanford."

"Yeah, maybe." Dean looked out the window.

"I couldn't stay gone…not like them. Not for twenty years."

Dean was silent.

"You think I could have?"

"I think," Dean looked over at Sam's wounded expression, "that we don't know what we're capable of doing until time tests us. Promises are made and broken every day."

Sam thought about that, thought about his time away from Dean, thought about what his life would have been like if he'd not returned. "I would have come back," he whispered into the music-filled car, unsure if Dean could hear him.

As they drove on, the road opening up before them, the sun chasing the shadows of the days away, the wind sheering away the dust of the past, Sam barely caught Dean's quiet, "I would have found you if you didn't."

---

A/N: Thanks so much for reading. Next up is Wearing and Tearing, a pre-series story centering on John and Dean soon after Sam leaves for Stanford. Also, I have the unmitigated pleasure of co-writing with a good friend and great storyteller, LovinJackson. Refuto Monumentum is set in Season 4 and we are excited to bring it to you.

Playlist: "Lorena" is an antebellum song with Northern origins. Written in 1856 by Rev. Joseph Phillbrick Webster, after a broken engagement to his sweetheart.

Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

Aces of Spades by Motorhead

Ten Years Gone by Led Zeppelin