Nightmare

Sam bolted up in bed, sweat trickling down his face. He was breathing heavily and his heart was racing. He jumped out of bed and shook Buffy's shoulder, then Dean's. "Wake up! Get up now!"

Buffy woke instantly and drew her knife from under her pillow and held it out protectively. "What's wrong?"

"What are you doing, man? It's the middle of the night!" Dean asked sleepily.

"We have to go," Sam insisted, packing his belongings into his duffel bag.

"Why?" Buffy asked, relaxing and sheathing her knife.

Sam ignored the question. He shoved Buffy and Dean's things into their bags and stood up, glaring at his siblings. "We have to go. Right now."

Dean and Buffy were herded into the Impala and Dean drove off. It wasn't for another twenty minutes that Dean finally pulled the entire story out of Sam.

"You saw a man get stuck inside his car, inside his garage, and he died?" Dean summarized.

"Yeah, if you want to get all unemotional about it," Sam grumbled.

"And we need to get to Michigan for what reason?" Buffy asked.

"We need to save him!" Sam insisted.

"How sure are you that this actually happened, or will happen?" Buffy asked.

"I was right about Lawrence, wasn't I? I was right about Jess's death, and I did nothing. I'm not going to let someone die because I didn't believe the warnings I was given," Sam vowed.

"Our house in Kansas, your girlfriend, you know people involved with both of those incidents. Why would you be dreaming about some random man in Michigan?" Dean asked.

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "But there's got to be some connection, some reason I saw it happen."

"Well, did you get any details from your dream that we could check? Like the plates on the car?" Buffy asked, reluctantly.

"Yeah. I'll call the local police, maybe they'll be able to get something," Sam agreed. Fifteen minutes later, the police was calling him back. "The car is owned by one Jim Miller, from Saginow. How far out are we?"

"A few hours."

"Drive faster."


They got to a blue two story house early in the morning. They could tell it was the right house because there was a small crowd in front of it. There were two police cars and an ambulance on the same side of the road the house was on. Three people, Buffy assumed were Mr. Miller's family, were standing on the tiny front steps talking to a police officer.

Buffy, Sam, and Dean parked the Impala several houses away and walked over to the house. "What happened?" Buffy asked a nearby woman.

"Suicide. I can hardly believe it," she answered.

"Did you know him?" Sam asked.

"I saw him every week at St. Augustine's. He always seemed so. . . normal. I guess you never know what's going on behind closed doors," she answered.

"Did they say how it happened?" Dean asked.

"They found him in the garage with the engine running about an hour ago. I can't imagine what his family's going though," she muttered before walking away, leaving Dean Buffy and Sam a few yards away from the rest of the crowd.

Buffy and Dean turned to look at Sam. "We got here as fast as we could," Dean consoled.

"I know." Sam's voice was hollow. "It just doesn't make any sense, Dean. Why would I even have these premonitions if I can't stop them?"

"I don't know, Sammy." Dean admitted.

"Maybe they're just warnings, like mine are," Buffy guessed.

"Did you have one tonight?" Sam asked.

Buffy shook her head. "No, Sammy boy. I didn't. I don't know any more about this than you do."

"Maybe the guy just killed himself, Sam. Maybe this isn't our type of gig," Dean suggested.

Sam shook his head. "I watched it happen, Dean! He was trapped in the garage, murdered by something!"

"By what then, huh? A sprit? Poltergeist?" Dean demanded.

"I don't know!" Sam insisted. "I don't know why I'm having these dreams! I don't know what the hell is going on!" He noticed the expression on Buffy's face. "What!"

"Nothing," Buffy answered, shaking her head. "I"m just worried about you."

"Well, don't look at me like that!"

"I'm sorry."

"Let's find a motel. You look like crap," Dean suggested.

"Yeah, you're right. We can pick this up in the morning," Buffy said.

"You've seen them! There not going to want to talk to us," Sam insisted.

Buffy and Dean exchanged a glance. "I think I know who the will want to talk to," Dean said.


Sam shook his head, messing with his collar. "This is a whole new low for us, man," he muttered as Dean pressed the doorbell.

Dean gave Sam a small grin, then turned his attention to the man who had opened the front door. "Hello. I'm Father Simmons, this is Father Frehley. We're junior priests at St. Augustine's. May we come in?"

The man stood aside and closed the door as Sam came in "We're very sorry for your loss."

"If you want to pitch the whole 'god has a plan' story, try someone else. My brother's dead!" he said bitterly.

"Roger!" a woman scolded. "Please!"

"I'm sorry, Edna," Roger said, turning and walking away. "Excuse me."

"I'm sorry about my brother-in-law," she apologized. "He's just very upset about Jim's death. Can I get you anything?"

"Coffee, if you don't mind," Dean requested.

A few minutes later she returned, a cup of coffee in each hand. Sam and Dean were sitting on opposite couches and she joined Dean. "Thank you so much for coming. The support of the church means so much right now."

"Of course. After all, we are all god's children," Dean said, taking a mini-sandwich off the plate on the coffee table and ignoring the confused look on Sam's face. "So, Mrs. Miller, did your husband have a history of depression?"

"No, nothing like that. I mean, we had our ups and downs, but we were happy," Edna began to cry. "I just don't understand how Jim could do something like that."

Sam sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry you had to find him like that."

"I didn't find him. Our son, Max, he found him."

"Do you mind if I talk to him?"

"Oh, would you, Father?" she exclaimed. "Thank you!"

Sam gave an uncertain smile and walked over to Max, who was sitting in the corner of the dining room, all by himself near the table.


Buffy was lying on her bed back at the cabin they rented for their stay. She had spent her time trying to find any information she could get on the Millers and had found a lot. The more she found out, the more she was certain that whatever was going on was somehow connecting Sam and Max. She wasn't sure how, but that would come later, from pieces that Sam and Dean would get from the Millers later on.

There were several referrals to CPS, but almost all of them were swept under the carpet and not looked into very well. It looked like an inside job, somehow. Each of the Winchester children knew from an early age that every time someone was referred to CPS, an investigation was required by law, every single time. The accusations that Max was being beaten on a regular basis were only investigated three times, and there were at least fifteen referrals, several by the same people.

A lot of the accusations were focused on Max's dad and his uncle, who lived next door. The stepmother didn't appear to do anything, either to stop them or encourage them. Buffy shook her head. This was some seriously messed up kid, no matter which way you looked at it.


She looked up as the door opened. "You find anything?" Dean asked, quickly changing back into his normal clothes.

"Depends on how you look at things, but I found a lot," Buffy answered, splitting up the papers she printed out and handing half to each brother. "I focused on the family, more than their house, so I still have to do that, but, it was a pretty bleak family, for Max anyway." There were flashes of the dark haired man from Indiana, Xander, with bruises and a sprained wrist.

"What do you mean?" Dean's voice brought her out of her flashback.

"There were multiple referrals to CPS about his father and uncle beating him. The Michigan CPS, however, didn't do a good job. All but three referrals look like they've been ignored, or overlooked," Buffy answered slowly, rubbing her face. "His stepmother didn't do anything to stop the abuse, but she didn't beat him either, according to the guy who lived across the street."

"His stepmother?" Sam asked, emphasizing the last word.

"Yeah. His birth mother died in a fire. In the nursery. When Max was six moths old," Buffy replied, holding out the police report.

"I don't get it," Dean shook his head and began looking around the room.

"Your bag is on the floor in between the beds," Buffy said, not taking her eyes off her computer.

"Thank you."

"Sam, why don't you grab dinner while Dean calms down and I look up the house."


Sam arrived back at the cabin about an hour later to find Buffy lying on his bed and Dean cleaning his weapons on the other. "Did you find anything on the house?"

Buffy sighed, leaning back in her chair. "Nothing bad has happened in that house since it was built. The land is clean too. No battlefields, graveyards, or any else that I could think of. The family was normal?"

"If there was something there, I think we would've found it. I used both the infrared thermal scanner and the EMF. I didn't find anything," Dean said, putting the gun he was working on back together and reaching for the shotgun.

"So what, you think that Jim Miller killing himself and me watching was just a coincidence?" Sam scoffed, handing Buffy her food and putting Dean's within his reach.

"I don't know, but there is nothing supernatural about that house," Dean answered, putting down the gun and reaching for his oilcloth. He wiped off his hands and caught the hand sanitizer Buffy tossed to him. He rubbed his hands together then reached for his food.

Sam sat down on the bed across from Dean, dropping his own food beside him. "Yeah, maybe. Or it could have nothing to do with the house." He started rubbing his temples and began to force his words out. "Maybe. . . it's connected to. . . Jim some other way. Oh god!" Sam fell to his knees in the aisle between the beds.

"Sam?" Buffy called, jumping up and grabbing him. Sam was curled into a ball, eyes clamped shut. He was grunting in pain, clutching at his head. Dean hadn't wasted any time either and was on Sam's other side, rubbing his back.

The whole fit couldn't have lasted more than a minute, but it felt like hours to Buffy. She was way out of her element, and she didn't like it at all. She knew Dean felt the same way. He hated it when he didn't know what was going on.

Sam froze and Buffy exhaled in relief. "Are you alright, Sammy boy?" she asked, cradling his head.

"It's happening again," Sam gasped. "Something's going to kill Roger Miller!"

"You get the address?" Buffy asked from the passenger's side seat.

"Yeah," Sam said, hanging up his cell phone. "450 West Grove, apartment 1120."


Dean glanced at Sam through the rear view mirror. "You alright?

"I'm fine," Sam answered in a flat voice.

"No, you're not," Buffy corrected gently.

"No, I'm not," Sam conceded. "I'm terrified. The nightmares were bad enough. Now I'm having them when I'm awake too? And this visions, or whatever they are, they're getting more and more intense and painful."

"You do know that you're going to be fine, don't you?" Dean asked. "It's going to be fine."

Sam shook his head. "I don't get it. What is it about the Millers that I'm latching onto? Why am I watching them die? What the hell is going on?"

"It's going to be fine. We deal with the unexplainable every day, and this is just another thing," Dean said.

"It's never been in the family like this, no matter what Buffy's been through. Tell me the truth, that this doesn't freak you out. Either of you," Sam implored.

"This doesn't freak me out," Dean repeated after a small pause.

"Buffy?"

"It doesn't matter if this freaks me out or not. We are going to figure out what's going on. But for the record, it doesn't."


They reached the apartment complex quickly and all three spilled out of the Impala.

"What does Roger look like?" Buffy asked, scanning the sidewalk for people, spotting seven potentials.

"He's right there." Dean pointed to a balding man carrying two paper shopping bags near the entrance to the apartment building.

Sam took off and confronted Roger. "Hey, you're in danger!"

"What are you guys, missionaries?" he scoffed. "Leave me alone."

"Hey! We're trying to help you!" Dean shouted. He and Sam followed Roger to the doors of the building. "Please! Listen to us!"

"I don't want your help. Go away and leave me alone!" Roger shouted before slamming the door in Sam and Dean's faces.

"Come on!" Dean shouted, running around to the side of the building to the fire escape.


Buffy was already even with the second floor when Dean and Sam joined her. Quickly, they made their way up the stairs. All too soon there was a thump and a splattering noise. Buffy froze and Sam and Dean went around her up the next staircase. There was blood all over the glass and Roger's head was sitting in the flower bed hanging on the window sill.

Buffy and Sam went back down the stairs and Dean left through the apartment, after taking a look around. They met at the Impala and drove back to their cabin in silence. When Dean opened the door to the cabin, Buffy broke the silence. "What did you find, if anything?"

"Nothing. Just like the Miller's house, there was no sign of anything up our alley."

"There had to be something. In the vision, there was this dark shape. I think something was stalking him," Sam said.

"That may be, but if we don't know what it is, then we can't get rid of it," Buffy sighed.

"Whatever it is, it's not connected to the house," Dean said.

"What about the family as a whole? What do you think, vengeful sprit?" Sam asked.

"Possible," Buffy cocked her head to the side, thinking. "There are cases where a spirit's connected to a family and followed them for years."

"Banshees," Dean said.

"Like a curse. Maybe Roger and Jim got into something that they shouldn't and now it's going after the men in the family. Do you think Max is in trouble?" Sam asked.

"Let's confirm our theory before we jump to conclusions," Buffy cautioned.

"Well, I know one thing I've got in common with these people," Sam grumbled. "Both our families are cursed."

"Our family's not cursed!" Dean protested. "We've just got our dark spots."

"Our dark spots are pretty dark," Sam said.

"Lighten up, Sammy," Buffy said. "We could be fighting the end of the world once a year instead. I think we got off easy."


Buffy insisted on coming with Sam and Dean when they went back to the Miller's house. Sam finally gave up, but Dean was more persistent in trying to get her to stay behind. Buffy won the argument when she asked, "Who would you rather talk to, Dean? A pretty girl or a handsome priest?"

The three of them were on their way the next morning, Sam and Dean in their priest outfits and Buffy in a black dress. They were let in the house by Max. "My mother's not feeling well."

"I'm very sorry, but I can't say I blame her," Dean said, following Max into the living room, Sam and Buffy on his heels.

Max glanced into the dining room, where casseroles and other food items covered every available place on the table. "People keep stopping by with food. I finally had to tell them to go away. It's like nothing says 'I'm sorry' like a tuna casserole or a bunt cake."

Dean and Sam cracked small smiles and Buffy and Max chuckled.

"I don't remember you. Were you here last time?" Max asked Buffy.

"This is my first time here. I was coming to town to visit my brother, and when he told me people from his church had died, I wanted to express my condolences," Buffy explained, latching onto Sam's arm.

"Thank you."

"How are you holding up?" Buffy asked Max.

"I'm okay, I guess," Max shrugged.

"Your dad and uncle were close?" Sam asked, trying to pry any information out of Max, to see if he could verify anything that Buffy had found.

"I guess. I mean, they were brothers," Max answered.

"But not lately?" Dean asked.

"It's not that," Max said, leaning forward in his chair and staring at the floor. "It's just. . . we used to be neighbors when I was little. We lived across town and Uncle Roger lived next door. He was over every chance he got."

"Right, so how was it in that house, when you were a kid?" Sam asked.

Max scrunched up his face in confusion. "It was fine. Why?"

"All good memories then? Do you remember anything unusual? Something with your father and uncle, maybe?" Dean asked.

Max fell back against the back of his armchair, glaring at Dean. "We were happy," Max said in a flat, unemotional voice. "There was nothing. We were totally normal."

"I think we should get going. Thank you very much for having us, Max. You should get some rest," Buffy said, standing and pulling on Sam's sleeve.

"Yeah. Thank you," Dean agreed. He and Sam got up and the three of them showed themselves out.


"I don't care who you talk to, no one's family's totally normal," Dean insisted as they entered their room.

"Did you notice the way he was talking about his old house?" Sam asked. "He sounded scared."

"I don't think the abuse stopped," Buffy said sadly. "And that's why he's so afraid."

"Do you think the spirit latched onto Max, and it's killing to protect him?" Dean asked.

"It's possible," Sam agreed.

"Do you know anything about Max's birth mother, other than she died?" Dean asked, turning to Buffy.

She rifled through her papers and found the one she was looking for. "Yeah. She was killed in a. . . oh god, why didn't I notice this before? She was killed in a fire that originated in the nursery, when Max was six months old."

She looked up to find Dean crouching next to Sam, who was clutching his head and moaning in pain. Buffy got pain pills and handed them to Sam, with a bottle of water, when he gasped for breath. "Max. He's doing it!"


"Max has been doing everything I've been seeing," Sam repeated as Dean was driving to the Miller house, this time all three in casual clothes.

"Are you sure?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah."

"How?" Dean asked.

"It looked like telekinesis," Sam answered, rubbing his forehead.

"So he's psychic? A spoonbender?" Dean asked.

"Well, we both have psychic abilities, We're both. . ."

"Don't finish that sentence, Sam," Buffy interrupted. "You and Max are nothing alike."

"He's a monster who has already killed two people, and now you say he's after a third. He's just like everything else we've hunted," Dean agreed, inserting a clip into his favorite gun.

"We're not going to kill him!" Sam insisted.

"Then what? We going to hand him to the cops and say 'Lock him up, he kills with the power of his mind'?"

"Forget it! I'm not going to let you kill him!"

"Sam!" Dean growled.

"Dean!" Sam copied. "He's a person, we can talk to him!"

Buffy silently counted to three, and right on cue both brothers spun in their seats to ask her for her opinion. "The killings have to stop. Since we can't talk to him after he's dead as easily, let's talk to him first. If all else fails, then we can kill him."

Dean and Sam nodded their heads in agreement and the three of them got out of the car.


Dean kicked down the door and the three of them ran into the kitchen, Sam in the lead. "Fathers?" Edna breathed in surprise. Her eyes were bloodshot and very red.

"What are you doing here?" Max asked, shyly, his eyes just as red as his stepmother's, as if he had been crying.

"Uh, Max, could we talk to you outside, for a second?" Sam asked, pointing to the front door.

"About what?" Max asked, confused.

"It's private. I don't want to worry your mother," Sam said. Max nodded and stepped into the living room "Buffy, why don't you help Mrs. Miller clean up a little."

Buffy nodded and ushered Edna into the kitchen just as Max reached the front door.

Suddenly the front door, as well as all the windows slammed shut.

"You're not priests!" Max shouted as Buffy ran back into the living room, followed by Edna.

"Max, what's going on?" she asked.

"Shut up!" Max shouted. Dean took Max's distraction for his only chance and drew the gun, but it was yanked from his hands before he could fire.

"Max, what's going on?" Edna cried, confused.

"I said shut up!" Max shouted, throwing her against the wall before hurling her into the kitchen counter, where she hit her head and collapsed on the floor.

"Max, calm down!" Sam urged.

"Who are you?" Max demanded, spinning back around to keep both Sam and Dean in front of him.

"We just want to talk to you," Sam implored, holding his hands out in a non threatening way.

"Yeah right. That's why you brought this!" Max hissed, using his abilities to point the gun in the general direction of the brothers. "What about your story?" Max asked Buffy. "What did you lie about?"

"Nothing," Buffy answered. "I am Sam's sister."

"Bringing the gun was a mistake, alright? I admit it. So no more lying about what we are, okay Max? Just please hear us out!" Sam implored.

"About what?" Max demanded.

"I saw you do it, Max. I saw you kill your uncle and your father before it happened!"

"What?" Max hissed.

"I've been having visions about you, Max," Sam said.

"You're crazy," Max accused hesitantly.

Sam inhaled and pointed to his eye. "So you weren't about to kill your stepmom? Weren't going to launch a knife through her eye?" He slowly lowered his arm to his side. "Is it really that hard to believe when you look at what you can do? I think I was drawn here, Max. I think I'm supposed to help you!"

Dean and Buffy exchanged confused and exasperated looks. The gun, which Max had been lowering as Sam talked to him shot back up to its previous position, shaking slightly. "No one can help me!" Max shouted.

"Let me try, please?" Sam begged. "It'll be just the two of us. Let Buffy, Dean, and your stepmom go, and we'll talk."

"No one leaves!" Max shouted. The vase on a nearby table shattered and the light above Buffy's head began to rattle.

"Okay, okay," Sam conceded. "No one leaves. You're the one in charge. No one's going to do anything you don't want them to."

"Max," Buffy called, for the fist time since being addressed. "Just give him some time to explain. Five minutes."

Max nodded. "Five minutes," he repeated, the lights coming to a standstill. When Buffy went to help Edna, Max shook his head. "You stay."

Buffy nodded, stepping further into the room. Dean walked passed her and helped Edna up, guiding her up the stairs.


A few minutes later all three were seated in the living room, Max facing Sam and Buffy. Max stared at a silver letter opener and slowly brought it up so it was standing on its point and begun to spin it, using his powers.

"Listen I can't begin to imagine what you went through," Sam began.

"That's right, you can't," Max forced out through clenched teeth.

"But this has to stop," Sam continued.

"It will," Max agreed. "After my stepmother."

"No, you have to let her go," Sam said, with a note of finality.

"Why?" Max demanded. The letter opener began to speed up, spinning so fast you could begin to see it sink into the table.

"Did she beat you?" Sam asked softly.

"No, but she didn't stop them either. She's a part of it too!"

"Look, what they all did to you, growing up, they deserve to be punished, but. . ."

"Growing up?" Max spat. "Try last week!" He lifted his shirt, exposing what should've been his chest. Instead it was a mass of black, blue, red and yellow, without a spot of unblemished skin. "My dad still beat me, just in places where people wouldn't see. Old habits die hard, I guess." He pulled his shirt down.

"I'm so sorry, Max," Buffy whispered, as Sam sat there stunned.

The letter opener spun faster. "When I first found out I could move things, it was a gift. My whole life I was helpless, but now I've got a weapon that no one would ever think I could have. So when Dad got drunk last week, for the first time in a long time, he beats me to hell. It's the first time in a long time, but I know what I have to do."

"Why didn't you try to get away?" Sam asked, jumping as the letter opener dropped onto the table with an echoing thump.

"It's not that easy, Sam," Buffy said in a soft voice.

"It wasn't about getting away," Max said, shaking his head. "It was about not being afraid. About not wondering if Dad is going to come into my room in the middle of the night. About being able to breathe without somehow setting him off. If I left he'd be able to get at me some how. When my dad used to look at me, there would be hate in his eyes. Do you know what that feels like?"

"No," Sam whispered, as Buffy shook her head.

"He blamed me for everything. For his job, his life, for Mom's death."

That last one confused Sam. "He blamed you for your mom's death?"

Max gave a dry, humorless laugh. "Yeah. There was a fire. He'd babble about it when he was drunk, like she died in some insane way. He said that she burned up! Pinned to the ceiling!"

Sam's eyes widened and he glanced at Buffy. "It's true. What your dad said is true."

"What?" Max asked, disbelievingly.

"It happened to my mom too. Exactly the same. My crib, my nursery. My dad saw her on the ceiling," Sam said excitedly.

"Then your dad's a drunk as mine!" Max denied.

"No, it's got to have been the same thing," Buffy said.

"That's not possible," Max denied again.

Sam shook his head. "This must be why I'm getting visions during the day, why they're getting more intense! You and I must be connected some way! Your abilities, they started, six, seven months ago?" Sam's voice expressing his excitement.

"How did you know?" Max demanded, shrinking further into his chair the more excited Sam got.

"Because that's when mine started!" Sam exclaimed. "Yours seem to be much further along, but still, this is something, right? I mean, for some reason you and I, we were chosen!"

"Oh god," Buffy muttered. "Being chosen's never a good thing."

"Chosen for what?" Max asked, growing paler.

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "But Dean and I, we hunting down our mothers' killer. And we can find answers. Answers that can help us both. But you have to let them go. You have to let your stepmother go!"

Buffy could tell by the sudden change in the air that Sam had just hit the reset switch. He had just lost any ground he might've gained.

"NO! What they did to me, I still have nightmares!" Max shouted, getting to his feet. "I'm still scared all the time, like I'm just waiting for the next beating! I'm tired of being afraid all the time! If I do this, it will be over!"

"You don't get it, do you?" Sam asked, pity entering his voice. "The nightmares won't end. It's just more pain, Max, and it makes you as bad as them. Max, you don't have to be alone any more."

Max stepped over to Buffy and looked up at Sam. "I'm sorry."

Sam's eyes widened a second before he was pulled back and thrown into a closet. "No! Max, don't do this!"

Max pulled the china cabinet in front of the closet.

"What are you going to do with me, Max?" Buffy asked, ignoring the sound of Sam trying to get out.

"Are you going to stop me?" he demanded.

"I don't think I'd have much luck if I tried," Buffy replied, shrugging. "But don't think that I agree with what you're doing."

"Aren't you and your brothers doing the same thing?" Max demanded.

"We are fighting to make the world a better place. For us, our demons aren't people. Yours are. It's a slightly different situation," Buffy answered. "But I can't let you kill your stepmother."

"Are you going to stop me?" Max repeated.

"Are you going to make me stop you?" Buffy asked in response.

"Yes."


Dean was carefully cleaning the nasty cut on Edna's head when Max opened the door using his powers. Dean stood up, placing himself protectively in front of Edna. "Max?" she called, watching her stepson fearfully.

"Stay away. This isn't about you," Max said to Dean. He raised his hand and held Dean's gun, pointing it at his mother. Carefully he let go, using his telekinetic ability to keep the gun in place

"If you want to get to her, you have to go through me first," Dean growled.

Max's smile was the coldest Dean had ever seen. "Okay."

"No!" Sam shouted as he burst through the door. "Don't! Please, Max! We can help you! But this is not the solution. It's not going to fix anything."

Max nodded sadly. "You're right." Before anyone could move, Max swung the gun around and shot himself in the forehead.


An hour later, the police were back at the Miller house. Edna was sitting on her couch wrapped in a blanket as she told the police what happened.

"How did you end up in the basement?" Dean asked, checking Buffy over for the tenth time, cataloging her bruises.

"He threw me down there because it's the only room in the house that locks from the other side that I couldn't get out of," Buffy answered, lifting the ice pack off her head as Dean took a look.

"We'll call you if we have anymore questions," the officer who was talking to Edna said on his way out.

"Thank you," Dean said. The three of them left shortly afterwards.


Sam and Dean were finishing up the packing, checking to make sure that they had everything important and weren't leaving anything that they wanted. "If I had said something different, gotten through somehow. . ." Sam lamented.

"Don't do that, Sammy," Dean warned.

"Do what?" Sam asked.

"Torture yourself," Buffy answered, walking in. "There's nothing you could've done to save him. Max was too far gone."

"When I think about how he looked at me, right before. . . I just feel that I could've done something," Sam said.

"We almost gave our lives, Sam. I think we did enough, considering we didn't get there twenty years earlier," Dean said.

"I guess you're right, but I'll tell you one thing. We're lucky we had Dad," Sam said.

"I never thought I'd hear you say that," Dean admitted.

Sam shrugged. "A little more booze, a little less demon hunting, and we could've had Max's childhood."

Buffy and Dean stopped what they were doing, both drifting back in thought. Neither knew how long they were lost in thought, but Sam's voice drew both of them out of their thoughts. "I've been thinking."

"That's never a good thing," Dean quipped.

Sam made a face. "I'm serious. I've been thinking. Why would this demon, or whatever this thing is, kill Mom, Jessica, or Max's mother? What does it want?"

"No idea," Dean answered quickly.

"Do you think it was after us? Max and me?" Sam asked.

"It's not about you, Sam. If it wanted you or Max, it would've taken you. This isn't your fault, and it's not about you," Buffy declared.

"It's about that damn thing that did this to our families. We're going to find it, and kill it. That's all," Dean continued.

"Actually, there's something else," Sam said, sitting down on the edge of one of the beds. "When Max shut me in that closet, he shoved that cabinet in front of the door. I moved it."

"You have greater upper body strength than I give you credit for," Dean congratulated.

"No, Dean. I moved it," Sam repeated.

"Oh," Buffy said, eyes widening.

Dean picked up a discarded spoon. "Bend this."

"Goddamn it, Dean! I can't turn it on and off!" Sam shouted in exasperation.

"I'm sure it's not going to happen again," Buffy said, pulling Sam into a hug.

"Yeah, maybe. Why aren't you worried, either of you? Don't you think I could turn into Max?" Sam demanded, allowing Buffy to hold him.

"Nope," Dean smiled, packing the last of his things in his duffel bag.

"Why not?" Sam demanded.

"You have one advantage that Max didn't have," Buffy said softly.

"Dad?" Sam scoffed, pulling out of Buffy's embrace. "Because Dad's not here!"

"Not Dad," Dean said, smiling. "Us. As long as you have Buffy and me around, nothing bad is going to hurt you."

"Now, with your premonitions, I know where we have to go next!" Buffy said, pulling Sam out of the cabin.

"Where?"

"Vegas! We'll win big each time!" Buffy answered in a 'duh' tone.


"Lisa knows what we're doing," Willow sighed.

"How did she find out?" Xander demanded.

"Apparently she got suspicious and had Andrew bug the room back at headquarters," Willow answered.

"Now we don't have to hide what we're doing," Giles said, "and we can go forward. We need to contact Buffy, and get her to trust us."

"How?" Faith asked. "Do you remember how hard it was to find them before? It was almost blind luck the first time!"

"It's the best idea we've got," Giles conceded. "We've got to tell them what's going on, and fast. Time's is beginning to run out. Has anyone seen Spike?"