See part one for header details

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As Sam nodded, there was a loud, law enforcement style knock on the door, making it rattle in the frame. Dean and Sam eyed each other. They hadn't been that loud while they had been arguing, had they? Surely no-one in a place like this would call the cops for anything less than a loud argument which was punctuated with gunshots?

Drawing his .45, Dean ghosted over to the door and peered through the spy-hole, swearing quietly as he saw who was outside before waving Sam over so that he could look as well.

Sam gaped, but had managed to school his face by the time Dean pulled the door open. "Agent Hendrickson," he greeted, tone overly cheerful. "To what do we owe this – oh, fuck no."

Blinking, Sam peered round his brother and had to close his eyes, hoping that when he opened them again the Ghost Facers would prove to have just been a figment of his imagination.

Nope. They were still there.

The only consoling fact was that they looked just as stunned by this turn of events as Sam and Dean were. Dean fixed a glare on Hendrickson.

"Start talking," he demanded, face closing off.

Hendrickson smirked at him. "Think of it as revenge for having to chase your ass all over the contiguous forty-eight. Can we come in?"

Dean glanced at Sam, who shrugged in response before moving away from the door. Dean followed suit with bad grace, but allowed the five on the doorstep entry, Hendrickson closing the door firmly behind them with a bang that made Kenny flinch, shooting Dean an amused glance as he did so. Dean smirked in reply as Sam tried to be polite and offered to go get drinks.

Ed snorted. "Yeah, right," he muttered. "Like we'd accept anything off you guys, like, ever. Do you have any idea how much data you wiped with that little electromagnet trick of yours? You wiped the only copy of the pilot for our show! It was a sure thing, man, and you wiped it! Who does that?"

Sam covered his mouth, keeping a careful eye on Dean as Ed ranted on, with asides added by Harry mostly but occasionally by Maggie and Kenny too. He didn't really want to have to stop Dean killing the kid, but he knew that if the kid kept yammering on like that, Dean was going to make the attempt and they had enough trouble with being accused of murders they hadn't actually committed.

After a few moments, Dean appeared to shrug and tune the youths out as he turned to Hendrickson as the man asked in surprise, "How the heck did you get hold of an electromagnet that strong?"

Sam snorted. "He didn't get hold of it," he told the FBI agent. "He built it from scratch with stuff he found at a junkyard down the road."

Hendrickson's eyebrows lifted. "You built an electromagnet powerful enough to wipe a garage full of computer storage out of stuff you got from a junkyard?" he demanded, amused by Dean's idea of appropriate use of engineering skill.

Dean shrugged as he dropped himself onto the end of the nearest bed. "Not hard," he told the other man, keeping an eye on the kids with half an eye, making sure none of them strayed too near either of the duffel bags stowed between the two beds. It was one thing to be surrounded by annoying kids; quite another to be surrounded by annoying kids who had found the weaponry and were only one duffel bag away from finding the ammunition. "Soft iron for the core. Some copper wire for the coil. Just need a car battery to power it." He shrugged.

Hendrickson stared at him for a long moment, then said softly, "I've heard a load more of those crackpots predicting the apocalypse recently." He didn't appear to be overly surprised when Dean stiffened where he was sat, then suddenly shot to his feet, startling Ed into silence mid-sentence.

"Sammy," he snapped, "Look after the kids. Hendrickson and I are going to get some dinner for everyone."

Utterly missing the subtext, the Ghost Facers thought it was actually a genuine offer and began to shout out requests. Dean snorted. "It's diner food, not McDonalds, you idiots. You see golden arches on your way into town? It's burgers and fries unless any of you are vegetarian. Shut up Sammy," he added pre-emptively.

When no-one objected to the offer of burgers, Dean nodded. "Great. Let's go," he said, gesturing to Hendrickson. "Sammy, put the salt down. Kids, if a skanky brunette calling herself Christie or Ruby shows up, Sammy's not home and he wouldn't be allowed out to play even if he was. Got it?"

Sam glared at him, expression turning spectacularly bitchy. "Just get gone, man. Any idea what time we can expect you back?"

He received a bemused look from Dean and a shrug from Hendrickson as both men hurried out of the door, seemingly having spent far more time in the company of the Ghost Facers than they considered enough. He had to credit Hendrickson with more patience than Dean; after all he had just driven here with the four, who had settled in to bicker back and forth amongst themselves as soon as they realized that the people most likely to shoot them were leaving. He stared at the group as the door slammed. Maybe Hendrickson just had a longer attention span to concentrate on why shooting the four would be a bad idea?

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Dean smirked as he caught sight of Hendrickson's car. "Sweet ride," he commented brightly. "How long did it take you to convince those four crackpots that she wasn't going to try to kill them?"

Hendrickson shrugged. "I told them they could get in the car which might try to kill them, or they could stay outside with me and my nine millimeter. They were less worried about the car than they were about the crazy guy with the burn scars."

He caught Dean's guilty expression and huffed in irritation. "It wasn't your fault, man. You saved us from getting killed by Lilith's minions. You couldn't have predicted that the bitch herself would show up when you'd gone."

"Still feels like it though, man," Dean told him quietly. "Look. I. You should hear the whole story, right? If anyone deserves to hear it all, it's you. There's a diner down the street. We can get a coffee and when we're done we can bring food back for the Sasquatch and the Gremlins."

Shaking his head, Hendrickson groaned. "Don't let them hear you call them that. They'll either think it's great, or launch into a diatribe about why they aren't and couldn't possibly be."

Dean's eyes narrowed as he apparently tried to work out whether Hendrickson was pulling his leg or not. He shrugged after a moment and set off down the street, leaving Hendrickson to hurry to catch up. They were a little mud spattered by the time they reached the diner, the effect of passing cars, and the waitress took one look at them blowing on their hands and dropped two cups of coffee off at their table without having to be asked.

"So," Hendrickson asked after they had ordered and their food had arrived, "You were going to tell me the real story about how you wound up as a hunter, and what happened with Lilith?"

Dean nodded, shoveling in fries like he was never going to see them again. "Gotta start at the beginning," he said after swallowing.

"The fire?"

"Which one?" Dean asked, tone dry.

Hendrickson gestured for him to continue, allowing him to tell the story however he felt best.