A/N: Hope you liked the surprise, Merisha. I couldn't resist a teensy mention of another actor you had a crush on when you were a toddler. Last year, it was zombies and Adrian Paul. Not that there's a connection there, of course. This year, she admitted to a fetish for Lee Majors.

A/N 2: Kudos to wave obscura and LiaFromBrazil for fixing my pitiful Spanish. Ariadna also offered to help, and I thank you very much, but your email address was deleted from your review by the fanfic site. I fixed the Spanish in Chapter 1. There's just a teensy bit more in this chapter and the next, but it was correct when they gave it to me. If there are any remaining errors, they are certainly all my responsibility.

He rolled like his life depended on it. And it did. If he didn't get the fuck out from under the mobile he was going to be a wet spot on the floor. Arms tight to his chest, he threw himself to one side, feeling a breeze as the construction passed him and hit the floor, one outthrust metal arm slapping down across his right hip and thigh before he could get clear.

He got on his stomach, put his arms over his head, and squeezed his eyes shut. Glass shattered with bright hard noises. Something whacked his entire left side, ankle to shoulder. The breath he'd been holding came out in a grunt but he didn't move until the last crystalline noise faded.

Cautiously raising his head, he heard and felt a shower of glass drop out of his hair and rain to the floor. The armature of the mobile had snapped and bent, and was canted to one side on top of the wreckage of the reception desk. Slender metals rods like spider legs trailed across the floor; some spiked into the air, still slowly swaying with residual kinetic energy.

He heard an ungodly din from the direction of the silver room. Looked like the spirits were playing together. He pushed up on his hands, hissing when he drove a small piece of glass into his palm. The floor was white with a confetti of glass shards, splinters of wood, and plaster dust from the ceiling. The only place that looked clear for yards around was the Dean-shaped area right underneath him. Getting up on his feet, he brushed at his hair and shook himself, dislodging as much glass as he could.

Not thinking, he shifted his weight onto his right leg, and almost went down to the floor. His hip was screwed. Slapping a hand on it, he breathed deeply until the burning sensation died down. Shit.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he felt something on his left arm and leg. In fact, there were things clamoring for attention all up and down his left side. He took a deep breath, and risked a look. His eyes widened involuntarily. His clothes were embedded with glass shards thrown out by the collapsing mobile and ran in a line from his shoulder down his arm, and from his chest to his ankle. Damn.

He carefully plucked out a shard. Then another, set in deeper. His breath hitched and blood starting trickling down his arm. He needed to sit down or he was going to keel over. Snagging his shotgun, he limped to a bench set against one wall. Tugging at his long-sleeve shirt had him hissing and cursing, but it finally came off the last jagged edge of glass. His jeans had caught the shards aimed at his leg and most of the pieces dropped off when he brushed them with his wadded up shirt.

He caught sight of his watch and groaned. There was a scratch all the way across the crystal. Those goddamn ghosts had some 'splaining to do.

And so was Em. What hadn't she told him about Bill—Guillermo—William Spratling?

He stood and took an unguarded step forward and almost fell again. Limping back to the security office, he snagged his duffel, and exited the building as gracefully as he could.

It was almost dawn when he threw the shovel into the Impala's trunk. Mrs. Gunderson had been rich which made the cemetery easy to find but hard to get into. And her coffin was state of the art. And she was fresh. He was beat.

He'd wrapped the worst of the cuts in his arm before he left the museum parking lot, but the bandages were soaked again and blood was dripping from a few of them. Pulling a pair of jeans out of his duffel, he changed right there in the cemetery, dropping his now filthy jeans into the trunk for a wash later. His cuts pulled every time he moved his left arm, but that was nothing compared to his hip. He'd taken eight ibuprofen just to keep going through the dig, but the ache was starting to reach the teeth-chattering hand-shaking level. And since it was just him, when he found a motel and got a room, he was going to moan because it really hurt.

There was a litter of Motel 6's on the way into the city, and it was easy enough to work his way back to the I5 and select one. He was expecting cowboy pictures on the wall, but got institutional seascapes. His phone was about dead, so he plugged it into the charger before climbing into a shower, not coming out until his fingertips were wrinkled. Pulling out the first aid kit, he flicked on the TV for background noise and was surprised to come upon an episode of The Big Valley. He checked the room clock—five o'clock in the morning. No wonder they were showing old television shows. Maybe they'd show Bonanza next.

His hip looked like shit. Black bruises went from his waist to half way down his thigh. Just thinking about touching it made his head hurt. He gingerly used his fingertips to apply some liniment, and gradually increased the pressure as he rubbed it into the skin. Most of the cuts on his arm were minor, but there was still some imbedded glass he had to root out before he cleaned everything again and re-bandaged his arm. He dipped back into the kit, hoping to find something stronger than ibuprofen, but only one pill dropped out of the bottle of oxycontin when he opened it. He swallowed the pill and most of a bottle of water before slowly lowering himself onto the bed. Once settled and the pillows just so, the smell of the liniment both familiar and nostalgic, he allowed himself a long moan. Smiling to himself, he was asleep in seconds.

Maybe in a week or two, he'd be grateful that his phone didn't ring until nine. Right then, after less than four hours of sleep, it seemed like his head was going to fall off. He rolled toward the phone, right onto his hip. "Goddamn it to hell!" He fumbled for the cell, reeling it and the charger to him by the power cord, answered the call and barked, "This had better be good."

"Dean?" A man's voice. Not Dad.

"No, Tinkerbelle. Who's this?"

"What the hell did you do to the museum?"

Blinking, he pulled himself up to lean against the headboard, the pain from his hip dragging out a groan. When his breath evened out, he said, "Caleb? It, um, fell on me."

"I know that, you twit. I told Mrs. Barkley that you were unlikely to climb fifty feet to deliberately pull some god forsaken artistic thing to the ground, but they had to close the museum. You should have called her."

"I might have left her a voice mail. What else was I going to do, Cal? It's not like I have her home phone number."

"Call her at this number. And yes, I'll wait an hour for you to find a piece of paper and a pen."

"'Oh, ye of little faith'. There's one of each of those right here by the phone. This is a high class establishment."

"Not a by-the-hour? That is a step up for you."

He scribbled down the number. "Thanks, Caleb. I'll call her right now."

"Dean, your Daddy called looking for you. Were you supposed to be in Alabama right about now?"

"Yeah, probably. Do you know where he is?"

"Here getting ammo last week. He could be anywhere by now. Look, I didn't tell him anything, but you'd better call."

"Thanks, man. I'll call him right after I talk to Mrs. B. "

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Thanks for covering for me. I owe you."

"You do. Remember I fronted you that last load of ammo for the Eagle."

He scrubbed his face. "Sorry, Caleb. I'll pay you…"

"Grovel later. Call that woman or you aren't going to collect a dime."

He called Dad first, not sure how to do anything else. Talked to voicemail, because that's all he knew how to do too these days. "Dad, I'm finishing a paying gig in Cali. I should be able to leave for Tuskegee tomorrow, maybe Thursday. It's a paying gig, oh, yeah, already said that. I really needed the cash, and you always said paying gigs were, well, worth doing. Ever hear of two ghosts attached…"

The beep at the end of the message cut him off. He drank what was left of the bottle of water on the bedside table, and called Vickie.

"Yes."

"Vic—Mrs. Barkley, this is Dean Winchester." He closed his eyes.

"Where are you, Mr. Winchester? Not here at my museum, I take it. The museum that you destroyed?"

"Ma'am, that's going a bit far. I did not drop the mobile. The ghosts did."

"Ghosts? You mean there's more than one?"

"You're from Virginia. You said that, didn't you? You must know what I'm talking about. The East Coast is hip deep in phenomena… so yes, there were two. And they dropped whatever that thing was on me. Um, I'm sorry about the things that broke."

He heard a prolonged sigh. "I agreed, didn't I? Not to blame you for property damage?"

"Yeah, you did."

"I didn't really think you climbed up there and pulled it down."

"No, Ma'am."

"They are going to start hurting people now?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Fine." There was a pause. "Dean." An indrawn breath. "I want to trust that you are telling the truth."

"I was only able to take care of half of the problem last night. I'll need to talk to Em again, but keep the place closed. Please. No one inside, not even to clean."

"Very well, but I expect a full report from you when this is over."

He laughed. "I'll tell you what happened when we talk. I don't do fancy binding."

"I knew there was a reason I trusted you. And I will forgive the breaking of the installation. Keep me informed, will you?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"It's Vickie."

"Thanks." Hanging up, he rubbed his eyes. Research next, but coffee first, and the coffee maker was on the other side of the room. He got himself seated on the edge of the bed, and if he'd had to use his hands to drag his right leg over, at least he was able to move. Standing up, and careful to keep all of his weight on his left leg, he took a breath, held it, and limped to the coffee and the ibuprofen from yesterday.

He finally settled back on the bed with his laptop, since no amount of repositioning made sitting at the table comfortable. After two hours, he was staring at a yet another picture of William Spratling. Bill was shaking hands with a thin Orson Wells. According to the caption, the picture was taken just after the release of a movie about Spratling called 'The Man from New Orleans' in 1948. The guy had his own movie. In the background of the photograph, Dean found a familiar looking dark young man staring intently at Spratling.

It was time to hit the library. He took two more ibuprofen, and limped out to the car. Vickie answered on the first ring and gave him Em's cell number. She directed him to the Central Library and agreed to meet him there a few hours later.

"Are you alright? Vickie said the mobile dropped on you?"

"I'm fine."

"Good. I'll meet you in a couple of hours."

"See you at four."

Spratling was an expatriate. He moved to Mexico in 1929 and made his home there until he died in a car accident in 1967. Americans had certainly been to visit him—one article mentioned a coterie of older women who apparently moved to Mexico to be closer to him. Which might have impressed Dean more, because no one younger or older had ever moved closer to him, but it didn't sound like a harem. Most of the books and articles that said anything about Spratling's personal life suggested he was gay. That might explain how 'Silver Bill' had picked up a young male admirer.

Dean was impressed. The guy knew almost everyone in politics and Hollywood, he was adventurous—flying to Alaska, teaching himself how to sail, starting and losing one business just to start another. Dean fingered a picture of a necklace Spratling had designed. Bill had single handedly revived silver-working in Taxco. But Dean didn't look anything at all like the guy, which just proved again that spirits were nuts.

Dean wasn't clear what relationship Mrs. Gunderson had with Bill. He would have been one hundred and four this year, if he'd lived, while Gunderson had died at eighty-three. He scratched his chin. Maybe she saw Spratling as a father figure—or she didn't realize he was gay. Or else he wasn't gay, and they'd done a tango. Something, at least, had been going on to make her and Juan Valdez duke it out last night.

He limped to the window and stared out at the street. Kneeding his hip, he leaned against the sill and idly watched an SUV trying to parallel park. The space was clearly too small for the vehicle, but the driver kept trying. Dean winced when the SUV locked wheel wells with the car in front. He winced again as he worked his fingers into the muscles on his hip.

Leaning on the wide marble sill, he walked down the length of the windows, turned carefully at the wall, and paced back. Moving usually helped him figure stuff out, put together unrelated facts some case research uncovered, but today between the pain in his hip, his recent recon to see Sam, and maybe because he was overdosing on ibuprofen, he was having trouble staying focused. He'd found zilch on the second silver bust in the museum but a lot on the Americans who moved to Taxco, like Mrs. Gunderson, to form an expatriate community. Dean couldn't imagine doing that. Leaving everyone he loved and everything he knew for something unknown? Too bad for him the rest of his family didn't have any trouble with it.

A glance out the window made him stop his third or fourth circuit. The driver of the SUV was arguing with someone. There was a lot of arm waving and pointing. Dean shook his head. There were plenty of spaces. All that driver had to do was stop trying to squeeze that one. Dean limped back and forth. Maybe that's what it was like for Sam. He kept trying to squeeze himself into the family business space when it was too small for him.

Expatriate was the perfect word for Sam. It meant ''out of the fatherland'. That made him laugh—Sam as a runaway from the World of Winchester. That would make him and Dad commies, or fascists maybe, and his brother a noble refugee moving to the Free Democracy of Sam in NormalWorld. No wonder Sam wouldn't call back. He'd adopted Stanford and college as his new homeland and here was Dean giving him a ring from Nazi headquarters in the 'vaterland'. No, not Nazi headquarters. Dean was just calling from where Sam had left him. In the World of Dad.

Sighing, he turned and limped back to his table, got his leg propped up on a footstool, and picked up the next book in his stack.

"There you are. I've been looking everywhere for you." She pushed a pile of books to one side, replaced them with the armload of papers and books she was carrying, and sat opposite him. "I brought my thesis notes on Spratling."

She was wearing shorts and strappy sandals today, her hair down around her shoulders, and she was even more beautiful than yesterday. He smiled appreciatively before checking his watch through the scratched face. "Oh, sorry." He closed the book in front of him, and selected a book laying open to his right. Turning it toward her, he tapped on a picture.

"Do you recognize him?" He reached for another book and showed a second picture to her. "He's in this picture, too. He called me 'Guillermo' last night."

She looked up, eyes wide. "He spoke to you? He couldn't have. He's dead. He's been dead since 1969."

He tapped a pencil on his lower lip. "Two years after Spratling died in the auto-accident. Was this guy involved in the accident in any way?"

"Oh, no. Bill was driving too fast and lost control of his car."

"But you know who he is," pointing at the picture again.

"That's Carlos. Carlos Rivera. He was very close to Bill the last few years of his life."

"Close, as in, gay lover close?"

"That's possible, but remember there's no proof that Spratling was gay." She pulled out a folder of xerox'd pages. "I know what the books say, but it's all conjecture. He never dated a man or a woman. But I don't see what that has to do with Carlos."

"What do you know about him? Is he buried nearby?"

She looked puzzled. "Buried? No, Carlos was buried near Taxco." She pulled out another folder. "There was a movement to have his body moved to the Santa Prisca Cathedral cemetery but it failed. They were very orthodox in Mexico back then—back in the sixties, that is, and the request was turned down."

"Orthodox?"

"Carlos committed suicide. Sometimes they aren't allowed to be buried on hallowed ground."

"Does anyone know why he did it?"

"That we are sure of." She selected a page and handed it to him. "This is a copy of the suicide note."

Dean looked at the page and pushed it back. Cocking an eyebrow, he said, "It's in Spanish."

She snorted and looked down. "You are definitely not from California. Alright, long and short, Carlos was in possibly unrequited love with Bill, and killed himself because he couldn't live without, um, suffice it to say, it's all about Bill."

"Guillermo."

"He really spoke to you? Carlos?"

"It's not really him. More like a memory of him, like a pattern—well, it's hard to explain. Something about him is attached to that bust. And so was Mrs. Gunderson."

"What? You saw her too? That's crazy. Those idiots Ed and Harry? From the PAR team? They never saw anything and they were here a week."

"They're amateurs."

"They aren't any younger than you, maybe older."

"Trust me. I've been doing this a long time." He started massaging his hip again. "So, what do you know about the bust?"

She leaned back and brought up her feet onto the table, crossing one ankle over the other. "I thought you would never ask."

He couldn't help but grin back. "Oh, baby, I'll always ask." Her cheeks flushed. "Um. How long did Mrs. Gunderson own it?"

"What?"

"When did she get the head?"

"Just a few days before she died. Carlos had it commissioned. His mother had it until her death when it came up for auction. Mrs. Gunderson was very excited to win it. She's been trying to buy it for years. It was just tragic, really. She finally had the bust and died in a car accident before she could enjoy it."

"A car accident. Is the bust solid silver?"

"I don't think so. We weren't buying it for the silver content so it didn't matter to us."

Yahtzee.

His key and pass still worked, and once back in the museum's security office, he made sure the alarms were still off before limping toward the silver room, salt gun cocked. The EMF was quiet as he picked his way through the lobby and slipped into the room.

Tonight was simple. Break the bust open, salt and burn whatever Carlos might have put inside, and he was done. And if that didn't do it, burn the silver head. Which would be awesomly cool. He'd have to burn the head no matter what.

He lifted a crowbar bar out of his duffel, and in one broad stroke, took out the display and sent the bust onto the floor in a shower of glass. He swung the crowbar over his head, and damning his hip, brought it down with a crack across the center of the bust.

Nothing happened.

He shrugged and swung again, hissing as the pain in his hip lanced down his leg. The crowbar stopped so suddenly, he almost went ass first into the glass. The crowbar wouldn't move. He couldn't move. The EMF squealed uselessly in his pocket.

The voice was soft and breathy sounding. "Guillermo?" Carlos flickered into view. "¡Usted está aquí! ¡Usted volvió a mí!"

He gritted his teeth. "No habla español, you dick." Carlos reached out and touched his face, cupping Dean's chin, oblivious as spirits always were.

"Mi amor."

Dean tried to flinch away from the corpse cold hands on his face. "I'm not your goddamn amor!" Carlos pulled him roughly forward and kissed him. With tongue. Cold radiated out from his mouth, down his throat, his eyes were frosting up. He could move suddenly and windmilled his arms, struggling to back away. When he broke free, he dragged the back of his hand across his mouth.

The EMF let out a piercing squeal and went dead. His breath fogged in front of him.

"Bill? You came back!"

It was Mrs. Gunderson.

Oh, hell.

A/N 3: Adder574 asked for a Ghost Facers connection. Glad to oblige.

Spanish translations:
¡Usted está aquí! ¡Usted volvió a mí! = You are here! You've come back to me.
Mi amor = my love.