Sorry for the wait for this chapter! Thanks again to anyone who had read/reviewed it.

Unbeta'd

A/N: I don't own supernatural or any of its characters.

He was dreaming of Mary. Nothing exciting or life altering, in fact there was little detail to it at all. But he dreamt of her voice, and her warmth. He could feel her heart beat as she held him close and could smell that new shampoo that she'd began using just before she died, the one that smelled like vanilla and drove him mad because every time she used it it made Dean ask for ice cream. She whispered in his ear, but he didn't hear the words, instead he focused on the gentleness of her voice, the soothing tone that could help lull Sam and Dean back to sleep in the dead of night. It was peaceful and quiet, and most importantly free of the monsters that now terrorized their lives.

"Dad?"

A young voice dragged him reluctantly back to reality. His mind was fuzzy, and while he didn't remember drinking, the dryness of his mouth and the headache blazing behind his eyes told him otherwise. He could remember talking with Bobby, telling him about Dean, and maybe getting a little emotional, and oh God, now he could remember the alcohol, and he prayed that Bobby had drank as much as he had because otherwise he could never look him in the eye again.

"Dean. What time is it? You ok?" Dean stood in the doorway of John's room, freshly showered and shaved, and appeared to have been up for hours. Not surprising since his sleeping pattern had been erratic since this all started and there had rarely been a day when Dean wasn't first up. But today he seemed different. His eyes were brighter, and he held himself with an energy that John hadn't seen in a while. Maybe Bobby's place was doing him good.

"It's just gone ten a.m. Bobby said we should probably wake you if you wanna get started with research." He'd forgotten that he had offered to help Bobby out on a hunt, but it wasn't the first time he'd been hungover at work and wouldn't be the last.

"Dad….I, um…." Dean considered his father for a moment. His eyes were bloodshot and there were dark circles beneath his eyes making him seem older than he was. True, his dad was never a morning person, but now he just seemed to be bone-deep tired.

It's your fault, you know. You're putting them through hell.

Dean cleared his throat and tried to maintain eye contact with his dad.

You gotta keep up appearances or they're gonna throw you in the crazy house.

He usually ignored the voices, muttering to himself to drown them out, but this time he knew they were right. If he didn't do something they were going to lock him up.

"I..uh…I just wanted to say I was sorry. About last night. Well about everything really." This caught his fathers attention.

"I know I haven't been a great son these past few months. I…I've been smoking cannabis."

That's it, tell them what they want to hear. I'm sure daddy thinks an addict is still better than being mentally unstable.

"I'm sorry that I lied to you before about it, but I guess I was addicted, and then it made me act all weird and stuff. And then with coming to Bobby's I was just worried you were gonna leave me here, and that scared the shit out of me, the thought of being away from you and Sam. Ok, so I over-reacted but I needed to prove to you that I could still do the job."

Dad seems pleased you're opening up, Dean. A little bit of false honesty goes a long way.

"I apologised to Bobby. Again. We talked a little and I've kicked the stuff now." Keep going, he's buying this shit. "And I'm actually feeling a bit better today."

John wasn't sure whether to throttle Dean or hug him. The fact that Dean had blatantly lied to him about his smoking seriously pissed him off but Dean had finally admitted he had a problem and after months of monosyllabic conversations, this was a major breakthrough.

"God, Dean. How many times have I given you the anti-drugs speech in the past year? Didn't you listen to a word I said?"

Dean briefly lowered his eyes before apologising once more to his father. "I promise I'm going to make this right, dad."

He seemed truly regretful and John decided to let it pass for now.

"We'll talk about this more after I've had a couple of cups of coffee. But understand this Dean - If I ever, ever catch you near even a cigarette, I will come down on you so hard you won't know what hit you. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where's your brother?" If Dean had been up for hours then Sam had probably not been far behind.

"He's out back, messing around with Bobby's dogs, cooing over some rotweiller puppy like a damn girl."

"Why don't you go on out and make sure he doesn't domesticate it too much, cos I can't afford to buy Bobby another dog."

Dean smiled as he left, and John couldn't help but notice that it seemed too hollow and didn't light up his face like usual. Then again, he supposed, it was one step at a time, and he was just glad that things seemed to be looking up.

It took a good few days at Bobby's for the tension to settle despite Dean's new and improved attitude. They were mindful to keep watch of Dean without crowding him, though he either didn't notice or didn't care that three sets of eyes were constantly following his every move. He wasn't allowed in to town unless he was accompanied by Bobby or John, for fear that he would turn on some unsuspecting civilian like he had on Bobby. But in the few social interactions he had, mostly in diners, he was nothing but pleasant and sickeningly charming and flirty.

They'd given Dean a bunch of leaflets on drugs and addiction, and Just Say No, that Bobby had gotten from the local youth centre. Any idea of seeking professional help was quickly rejected by John, who just seemed relieved that he finally had a reason for Dean's recent behaviour. He was satisfied that Dean seemed to be making progress, and no amount of concerned glances from Bobby or Sam would change his mind.

Sam, for his part, did not believe a word of it. With the life they lead, they practically lived in each others pockets. While their Dad may have occasionally left them alone while he hunted, the only time he and Dean were apart was at school and he had never seen Dean hang out with the stoners or drug dealers in their school, and on top of that, he never smelled of smoke.

He'd had enough lectures in school to know that even something as supposedly enjoyable as cannabis was enough to make people depressed and paranoid but he knew deep down that there was no way it was the cause of Dean's problems.

"Jesus, Sam will you give it a rest. What can I say - addicts are secretive, that's how they get away with it for so long. You might think you know everything but I'm his father and I know when he's bullshitting me" was all his father had said when he questioned him about it, and he'd filed that reply away so that when everything hit the fan a few days later, he could say I told you so.

Bobby's hunt was a simple case that he could've handled himself however he knew that John needed a viable excuse to visit , even if the only person he was fooling was himself. Bobby had already done most of the research and planning, and had taken to calling himself the brains of the operation, with the Winchesters as his hired muscle. Sam usually preferred to be the brains rather than the brawn, but if it kept Dean happy and excitable, he'd accept it this once.

An abandoned farmhouse a few miles from Bobby's place had had three suspicious deaths on the property in three months. One man had apparently set himself on fire after smoking a cigarette and another had died from carbon monoxide poisoning in his car, despite only being left alone for two minutes while his business partner checked out the house. The third death was the most disturbing. While walking around the out buildings, a potential buyer of the property was trapped in a barn which then burned to the ground, but not before the unfortunate man inside it had managed to make a terrified phone call to the emergency services, recording his screams as he died.

It was the phone call that had brought the case to Bobby's attention. There was a rumour of suspicious noises on the recording, with some people saying it was the poor victims soul beginning to detach from his body and making its own hopeless cries as it passed over to the other side. And sure enough when Bobby ran the tape himself he could hear it - not the desperate prayer of a damned man, but more likely his executioner repeatedly saying "leave now, it is mine".

Bobby, as always, had been thorough. He'd managed to track down the previous owner, June Williams, who had abandoned the property a few months after her husband had run off with another woman. Bobby had used his southern charm, the particular type he reserved for gentle older women, and June had eventually relented and admitted that her husband had not been unfaithful, but rather was a fire-happy wife-beating psychopath who June had murdered one day in self-defence, becoming so enraged with her husband after he burned her arm again with a red-hot poker that she pushed him down a flight of stairs breaking his neck. She buried him in the garden but after a few anxious and guilty months, she abandoned the place.

"So you think this ghost is acting up now cos people are going to move in to his house?" Sam asked.

"The house is the safest place on that property," Bobby replied. "June had it blessed after he died. And no one's moving in. They're gonna rip everything up, and I mean everything - new piping, new sewers, new water supply. There won't be a single bit of this place that's original. That means his body's gonna be shredded too and by the sounds of this maniac, he don't want that."

John and Bobby headed around the back of the property while Sam and Dean were instructed to wait in the house until told otherwise. Dean had been itching for a hunt, but John had been wary, and this was the compromise they had come to - Dean basically being a glorified babysitter to Sam while John and Bobby were glory hogs.

"Man, this place is disgusting," Sam said as he tried to find a place to sit and wait that wasn't covered in three inches of dust and mould and god knows what else.

"Well, Samantha, why don't you get cleaning then. There's plenty of supplies in these cupboards." Dean began rummaging through drawers, but there was little in them except for random odds and ends until he found one full of old photographs.

"Whoa. If this is June in this photo, she is one hot chick."

"Gross, Dean. She's an old lady."

"She may be old now, but if she were sixty years younger, Sam." Dean made a smacking sound with his mouth, a sound that Sam instantly repressed and hoped he would never hear again.

"You really don't -" He was interrupted when Dean came running at him and grabbing his wrist tight and dragging him towards the front door. "What the hell, Dean?"

"We gotta get out of this house now, Sam." Dean sounded panicked, but Sam pulled against him regardless and managed to shake his hands free.

"Let go of me Dean and tell me what the hell is going on."

"Dammit we don't have time. I just know something bad is gonna happen alright, so just move it." Looking at Dean again, Sam noted how he didn't just look panicked, he was downright terrified, and seemed to be having another "episode".

"Bobby said the house is the safest place here, Dean. We're safe here." He used his most calming tone and hoped that Dean couldn't pick up on the anxiety underlying it.

"I don't give a rats ass if the ghost can't get in here. We're leaving. Now."

He grabbed Sam again, who put up much less resistance this time thinking it was easier just to go with his brothers delusion, and dragged him out of the house. They had only made it a few feet from the front door when a huge blast rocked the house, and they both hit the ground hard under a shower of wood and brick.