Taking on a Child

Author: Lolly4Holly

Characters: Dean, Sam, John Winchester. Bobby Singer and a few other Supernatural characters.

Disclaimer: This fan claims no ownership to any of the Supernatural characters, monsters or story lines. I'm just borrowing them for a while, but I fully intend to give them back unharmed, (mostly).

Summary: The Winchester Brother's take on more than they bargained for after responding to a hunter's distress call. Set around season one or two, so no spoilers to the later seasons that I haven't actually seen yet.

Author's Note: Hello, Supernatural fans. This is my first official upload for the Supernatural series. I'm still halfway through writing it at the moment, but I wanted to start uploading to see what people thought. So don't worry, new chapters are always right around the corner. Thank you for reading, please let me know what you thought.


Prologue

"But if it never stops and they just keep coming back, then what's the point in it all? Are you really making a difference or are you just as bad as them? You kill for a living. They kill for a living. It's just an endless cycle of killing, so what makes you better than them?"

Dean grabbed a shotgun from the back of his Impala, giving his younger brother a glare as the eight year old child continued to lecture him on his job. He didn't think he could take another hour of it, but they had finally reached their destination, ready to put an end to the angry spirits killing spree once and for all. He was ready to put a bullet between the eyes of the child they somehow ended up babysitting too, but he knew Sammy would never forgive him for that.

"You two stay here, I'm gonna go inside and check it out."

"Dean, no." Sam immediately protested, following his brother towards the chained gates of the old factory. "I'm not some kid that you can just tell to wait in the car."

"No," Dean cast his eyes towards the child poking through the hunting gear in the back of his car. "She is. Listen, Sammy," He took a step closer to his younger brother, whispering, "If her father's still alive, we have to find him. If not, we get her out of this life. Do you want her to grow up and be like us?"

"We're not so bad." Sam folded his arms across his chest, receiving a glare from his older brother. "Dad brought us up in this life and you've never stopped complaining about it."

"Sam, I don't have time to get into it with you right now." He motioned towards the factory in front of him. "Just... stay with Madison. If I'm not back in twenty minutes... wait longer." He warned his brother, receiving a smile in response.

"Dean." He called after his brother. "Be careful."

His big brother rolled his eyes, muttering, "Wuss," on his way into the factory.

Sam reluctantly returned to the car, prying Madison's curious fingers away from the knifes in the trunk, so he could close it up. He ushered her round to the back of the car, letting her climb inside, before he closed the door. "Does your father usually go off on hunts by himself?" He queried, sitting himself in the driver's seat, just in case he needed to rush to his brother's aid.

The child nodded her head slightly, combing her hair back from her face. It stretched just past her shoulders, starting to darken from her natural mousy blonde colour to a softer brown. "He told me that if he wasn't back in three days, I should call his friend, Carter. He's on a vampire hunt in Florida, so he called his friend, Bobby Singer."

"Then Bobby called us. My Dad used to go off on hunts of his own too. He was sometimes gone for weeks at a time." He sympathised with her. "It was just my brother and me most of the time. My brother raised me more than he ever did. Dean's been taking care of me a lot longer than my Dad ever did."

"Where's your Mom?" Madison climbed over the seats of the Impala, dropping into the passenger seat beside him. She pulled her knees close to her chest, giving him a curious look. "I never knew my Mom. I've seen pictures of her, but I don't know what she was like."

"Same." He agreed with her. "My Mom died when I was a baby. It's how my family got into hunting."

"Is that why Dean is always so uptight?"

"Yeah... maybe a little." He smiled at her, grabbing the duffel bag from behind him as he heard her stomach rumbling again. He searched through his clothes, handing her the last chocolate bar that he had been saving up. He handed it over to her, noticing bruises on her wrist as she reached out for it. She was wearing a pair of tattered jeans with holes in the knees and a dirty white t-shirt with a purple butterfly stitched into the fabric. On top of that she had on old navy blue hooded sweatshirt that looked way too big for her, but she didn't want to take it off.

Sam had only known her for the last fifteen hour drive after they rescued her, but he felt as though he already knew her already as he had lived through her childhood. Only he had his brother around to look out for him when his father went missing, she didn't have anybody with the disappearance of her father.

Madison finished off the candy bar within a few minutes, resting her head back against the chair as the two of them waited for Dean to return. It felt like hours had passed by, before Sam finally decided to check his phone.

"Sam, if this ghost is taking revenge on the people that killed him, why'd he take my Dad?" She curiously asked him.

"Sometimes ghosts can't distinguish the difference between someone who did wrong to them or someone that just happens to be around." Sam tried to explain to her, hoping her father didn't have anything to do with it. "Your father was trying to stop him, before he wiped out the rest of the Miller family. I guess the spirit saw him as a threat. Did your father ever teach you how to stop ghosts?"

"Iron, salt and burning the bones." She remembered. "What if the spirit is after Dean now? He's trying to stop it, so it could see him as a threat and take him out while we're sat out here. We should probably go in after him."

"Hey," Sam tried to stop her from climbing out of the car, quickly grabbing his gun from the glove compartment, before he hurried after her towards the chained gate that his brother had already climbed through. "Madison," He holstered his weapon, grabbing an iron bar from by the gate, before he squeezed through himself. He hated musty old factories, but he couldn't leave her to fend for herself in the final resting place of a vengeful spirit.

Things didn't look good when he found Dean's knife on the concrete floor. He continued through the factory with the iron bar trained out in front of him, following the eerie tingle down the back of his neck that his brother called instincts towards the most dangerous section of the factory.

"Madison." He spotted her creeping down the next hallway, putting his finger to his lips, before he ushered her towards him. "Don't go running off like that again." He grabbed the flash light from her hand, trading it for his brother's knife. "Hold it out like this." He curled her fingers around the handle of the knife, holding it out in front of her. "Stay behind me. Watch my back. We'll find Dean together."

He pulled her behind him, taking the lead with the light of the flash light in his hand. He checked behind him every so often to make sure she was still there, secretly wishing his brother was there to protect them.

He found the start of the summoning ritual in the next open area, feeling a chill as he spotted his brother's gun on the floor. None of the candles were lit, but the circle in the centre had been broken, so he guessed that the ritual had worked in summoning the angry spirit back to its resting place, but it couldn't contain the power of the spirit. He tried to tell his brother that it wouldn't be strong enough to hold the spirit, but he still saw him as his idiot brother.

"Take this." Sam placed his brother's shotgun in the child's hands, after checking that it still had salt rounds in it. He slowly moved the light of his flash light through the shadows of the room, noticing his ice cold breath as he breathed out. It felt like a hundred degrees outside, so the spirit was definitely here. "Stay back." He held the child behind him, quickly turning his head at the sound of a clattering noise. He turned the other way as soon as he heard a louder clattering noise, followed by the sudden advance of a shadowy spirit.

Sam swung for the ghost with the iron bar in his hands, splitting the shadowy figure in two, before it faded into nothing. He really hated it when they did that, but it bought him some time to try and figure out what to do. He couldn't swing at it all night and hope for the best.

He needed a plan.

"Madison." He had an idea, grabbing the canister of salt that his brother had left behind. He took the knife and gun from her hands, ditching them in his brother's duffel. He poured a decent amount of salt onto the ground in a full circle around her, placing the flash light in one of her hands and the iron bar in the other. "I just remembered that Hanson played the winning company baseball game. The ball was framed and put the bosses office as a remembrance to their victory." He motioned towards the office on the level up from them. "Spirits sometimes attach themselves to this plain with personal objects."

"You think he's attached to that?" Madison watched him searching through his brother's bag, finding lighter fluid and some matches.

"If it comes back, stay inside the circle. It can't pass through the salt." He wrapped her little fingers tightly around the iron rod. "If it comes at you, hit it with that. It won't stop it, but it'll slow it down. It'll take him a while to recharge, before he can come back. I've gotta go and burn the baseball, so we can find Dean and your Dad. I'll be right back. Just stay inside the circle, okay?"

Madison quickly nodded her head, gulping softly as he started to walk away from her.

Sam hurried up the metal staircase two at a time, seeing his breath as he reached the top. He held his brother's shotgun at the ready, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as he made his way towards the office.

"Dean!" He screamed at the sight of his brother being throttled by the spirit. He didn't want to hurt his brother with the shotgun blast, so he flung a handful of salt at it instead.

The spirit dissipated into thin air, dropping Dean to his knees, coughing and spluttering to get his breath back. "Took you long enough." He growled, motioning towards the baseball in the cabinet. "Get it, quick. We have to... Sammy!"

The spirit materialised within seconds, flinging Sam into the wall. He grabbed his throat to start choking the younger brother, leaving Dean to scramble across the room for the baseball. He smashed the cabinet open with his elbow, drenching the baseball in lighter fluid while his brother was gasping for breath across the room.

"Hey!" Dean shouted as soon as he had a match lit, holding it directly over the baseball. "Say goodnight, bitch!" He dropped the match a second later, watching as the shadowy spirit began to take on a more human form, before it released Sam, burning up from his chest out.

He never got tired of watching spirits do that.

Sam gasped for breath as soon as it was gone, giving his brother a frown. "Nice. You couldn't have saved me before you did that?"

"You were distracting it for me." Dean clapped his hand over his younger brother's shoulder, giving him a smile. "Quit your whining, Sammy. It's over. I'm hungry." He rubbed his empty stomach. "Let's go get something to eat."

His younger brother rolled his eyes, rubbing his sore throat as he collected up his things from the office floor. He paused the second he noticed a fog watch hiding in the dust beneath the desk, recognising it from the photo that Madison had of her father. "Hey Dean," He picked it up by its chain, holding it up so his brother could see it. "He was here. Do you think he followed the same trail as us to find Hanson's spirit?"

"Isn't that why we followed this trail in the first place?" Dean grabbed the watch from his hand, brushing the dust from the clock face with his thumb. "I'm not going on another wild goose chase to find another missing father." He quickly warned his brother, hearing a scream coming from the factory floor. "What was that?"

"Madison!" Sam pushed his brother out of the way, hurrying down the stairs as fast as he could. He rushed straight towards the rolling flash light on the floor, directing it towards the salt circle he had left her in, only it was broken. "Madison!" He immediately started searching the room.

"You brought her in here with you?" Dean saw the second salt circle that wasn't there before, collecting up his duffel from the floor. "We took the spirit out, so what's the deal here? Are we dealing with something else entirely or is Hanson's spirit too strong to be taken out the usual way?"

"He burnt up, Dean."

"Fake out?" His brother suggested, leading the way to start their search. "How'd this guy Hanson die anyway?"

"See, maybe if you listened to me every once in a while..."

"Details, Sam!" He snapped him out of his whinging.

Sam glared at him, anxiously scanning the factory for any sign of the child they had lost. "He was sleeping with one of his colleagues wife's. David Miller's . . . his first target. His colleagues said a fight broke out in the factory, Hanson got himself caught in some of the machinery and was crushed to death. Factory closed down pending the investigation, then the employees started dying one by one. Hanson held them all responsible since they didn't stop David and helped him to cover it up as a workplace accident."

"So it happened here?" Dean looked around at the machinery, wondering if they could get it to work. "Crushed to death?"

"Yeah, what remains they did find were cremated."

"If the baseball was a fake out, then there must still be something left of him here. He was crushed in one of these?" He knelt down to take a closer look inside the machine, shivering at the thought of what could be left inside.

"Blood?" Sam directed the light of his flash light towards the old brownish stain near one of the machines. "We can't burn this place to the ground with Madison and her father still in it."

"So find them." Dean looked around for anything that would light better than the metal machinery and concrete floor, finding some wooden pallets stacked against the wall. "Hurry, Sam."

"Madison!" Sam took off running through the large machinery, eventually finding her passed out on the floor at the end of the factory floor. "Madison?" He whipped around as he heard a scuffling sound, hoping it was Dean, but no such luck.

The even angrier spirit flung him away from the child, bashing him against one of the heavy machines. He shot him back in the other direction, winding Sam's chest against a heavy pipe, before he let him fall to the floor.

Sam had a moment to try and struggle to his feet, before he was flung into the air again, making him hate this particular spirit more than usual. He waited until he was back on the ground, before he played dead. He could feel where the spirit was from the sudden cold breeze over his shoulder. He grabbed the salt shotgun as soon as he was sure, firing off two rounds into its chest, scattering his black ashes it into thin air once again.

He just hoped that he would stay that way.

"Madison." He crawled to his feet towards her, brushing her hair aside to take a look at the cut she had on her head. He figured she'd survive as he had suffered through worse injuries than that at her age. He lifted her into his arms, spotting a body laying in the distance. He wanted to get back to Dean so they could get out of there and finally destroy Hanson's angry spirit, but he had to know who it was.

"Sammy c'mon, hurry up." Dean emptied the last of the fuel over the wooden pallets, not even noticing the look on his brother's face as he searched for a lighter in his jacket pockets. "I found a gas line running directly to the machines." He pointed above them. "We can take it out on our way out, send the whole building up in flames to make sure." He grabbed his duffel, spotting the fog watch in his brother's hand. "Did you find him?"

Sam gave him a slight nod, holding the child securely against his side, making sure that she was still out. "He's dead. Crushed. Hanson killed him."

Dean anxiously licked his bottom lip, before he tossed the lighter over his shoulder. He hurried his brother out of the building, taking apart one of the gas lines near the entrance, slowly filling the building with gas. He stopped to look from a safe distance as the fire consumed every inch of gas, finally blowing the top off the building like a volcano.

The Winchester brothers ditched their equipment in the trunk of the Impala, exchanging a look as the fire continued to roar in the distance. They had been chasing the ghost of their own father for months now, only to stumble across another hunter's kid in the same boat as them. They didn't want to believe that their own father had suffered the same fate as Madison's, but the trail to find him was as cold as ice at the moment.

"Don't say it, Sam."

"Dean... we can't just leave her." Sam ignored his brother, looking at the child in question sleeping on the back seat of the Impala. "She doesn't have anybody anymore." He knew that the right thing to do would be to find her somewhere safe to live an ordinary childhood that they never had, but he didn't want to abandon her like her father did for a hunt. "We can train her, like Dad trained us."

"You really think that's a good idea?" Dean cocked an eyebrow in his brother's direction. "You complain about how Dad raised us all the time, now you want to do the same to this kid?"

"Being a hunter isn't a job, Dean. You always treat it like it is, but it's a way of life. Once you know what's out there, you can't go back to being ordinary. She knows too much already. Bobby said her father was a great hunter and look what happened to him. There's probably tons of freaks out there that are gonna want some revenge. We've had to deal with that our whole lives, we could at least prepare her the same way Dad did with us."

"When Dad gave you that same speech, you ran out on us for Stanford." He reminded his younger brother. "Now you're giving it to me for some kid that we barely even know? It's a mistake, Sammy." Dean watched his brother making his way round to the passenger side of the car, giving out a heavy sigh as he really didn't want to take on the responsibility of a child.


Thank you, please remember to leave me a review if you liked it.

~ Holly