Here ya go; enjoy, and let me know what ya think. :) Thanks so much ya'll! And for those of you who haven't heard, I started the sequal to Time's Redemption. The title is Time's Lessons, and I posted the first chapter a couple of days ago. I should have chapter two up by the end of the weekend. :)

Chapter 14

"If you're checking the house out anyway, why do you want to check the spillway again?" Sam asked, following Dean and Bobby down the hill on Cedarville's campus.

"The spillway, and the woods. We could have missed something…I just like to know as much as I can," Dean shrugged.

Sam glanced at Bobby, who shrugged too, and Sam pulled up short as the other two stopped at the railing and hopped down into the spillway again. He glanced up at the student center across the water before he was sure why. "I don't guess you need me then…"

Dean looked back curiously. "I don't know; why?"

He only gestured vaguely toward the building, but Dean seemed to understand.

"Oh…sure. Yeah. Go on," he said quietly.

Sam nodded. "I'll…be right back." He tracked back to the top of the hill and took the sidewalk around the edge of Cedarville Lake until he reached the student center. It was almost dark, and nearly seven. Abby might have left, but there was still the chance she was in there, reading a book even if she'd long-since finished her coffee.

The sidewalks were nearly abandoned in the dying light, and he leaned against the bench he'd almost collapsed on the night before, wondering if he even had any right to go in…after what he'd said that morning. He'd been more than nice about it, and at the time he'd meant it.

Now he wasn't so certain anymore. He wanted to see Abby.

Even if it was only to say goodbye again.

Sam was saved the trouble of deciding whether or not go in; Abby came out herself moments later, giving him an odd sense of déjà vu.

"Sam…"

She had stopped short just outside the glass doors, and Sam straightened quickly. "Abby. Hi."

She smiled uncertainly. "I wasn't expecting to see you here." The smile faded. "I wasn't sure I'd see you again at all."

He winced. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, but it's just that with this job there's a lot of, you know, moving around, and…"

"I know," Abby sighed. Almost tentatively, she closed the distance and looked up at him, arms wrapped around a book she held against her chest. "So you're leaving soon then?"

Sam shrugged. "As early as in the morning, maybe." If we find that thing and kill it tonight.

"You said you would tell me what happened to my friends."

"We will; we'll contact you as soon as we catch what—whoever did this."

"So they're not around here anymore."

"We don't think so," he lied. At least not in the same form, probably, he filled in.

Abby nodded silently in understanding and stared past him at the lake for a moment. "So…you came to say goodbye."

Sam sighed. He hadn't been sure before what he was here for, but she was right.

It was really the only thing he could do.

"Yeah."

Abby didn't respond, and suddenly Sam's shoes were just as interesting to him as the lake was to her. For several long minutes there was nothing but silence, but when Sam dared to glance up again she to was looking at him. He stared back, for a moment.

Then Abby was up on her toes, kissing him, and he was returning it.

It only lasted a moment before she jerked away, a hand flying to her mouth. The hand Sam had brought to the back of her neck landed around her arm.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry! I've never done that before, I swear!"

"Whoa, whoa, it's all right…" Sam assured her, suddenly smiling.

"It is?" she asked, still a little wide eyed.

He chuckled once. "I'm sure. We're not in high school, Abby; it's fine."

She swallowed. "I don't know why I did that. I didn't even know if…if you felt that way…"

Sam winced again. "I still have to leave."

"I know…" The way she was looking at him told her it hurt, but that right now she didn't care.

Well…maybe he didn't, either.

"Come here." With the hand he still had on her sleeve Sam gently pulled her back to him, and slid that arm around her waist. After she dropped the book on the bench, Abby's arms came up around his neck when he kissed her again, and his other hand swept her hair out of her face and rested against her cheek.

This kiss lasted much longer. The only thing that stopped them was his cell phone ringing insistently from his pocket.

He smirked against Abby's cheek before pulling partially away to pull out the phone. "Sorry. Real romantic, huh?"

"A fed's gotta do what a fed's gotta do," she snickered, pulling her arms down to rest at his waist.

Sam smiled back, and flipped open the phone with a sigh when he spotted Dean's number. "What is it, Dean? I'm a little busy."

"Then you'd better wrap it up, Sam. We've got problems. We're in the woods, and that thing is down here."

He frowned, and politely extracted himself from Abby to walk a few steps away. "What?"

"It didn't shift out here, but there are definitely a few stray globs of goop that tell me this is a shapeshifter. We just didn't go far enough in to see them before, after there was nothing at the spillway but the blood."

His brother's voice was low and hushed, and he'd barely picked most of those words out. "Okay, so get out of there, and let's go find the thing," he answered quietly, aware of Abby not far behind him.

"No, Sam, I mean it's here—down here with me and Bobby. I know it. It's probably been watching us."

Sam's eyebrows went up to his hairline. "All the more reason to get out of there!" he hissed.

"No, I think we can take it, but I need you back at the car and ready in case—"

"In case what?"

"I don't know! I don't want you down here, and you know why, but I'll call you back if I have to. besides, if this thing gets past us I don't want you without a way to defend yourself. Now get back to the car, get a gun, and make sure you're loaded up on silver bullets."

"Dean—" He wanted to help, if the thing was right down there in the woods with them. He could see the spillway from here, and they couldn't be far beyond that…just outside the reaches of the campus.

"I've got to go; I think we're close—" Dean cut off again, but this time Sam heard a loud grunt and a heavy thud to go with it.

"Dean?" Nothing. "Dean! Dean, answer me!"

Abby was at his side in a moment. "What is it?"

"Dean!" Still nothing.

"Sam, what is it!" she repeated.

Sam snapped the phone shut. "I have to go. Stay here. Or…no. Don't stay here. Go back to your dorm, and stay there."

She stared at him. "What?"

"It might not be safe out here!"

"I thought you said the guy wasn't around here anymore!"

"Well—I—we were wrong. Please, just get inside, somewhere…"

"Where are you going?"

Sam shoved his phone back in his pocket and took off back around the sidewalk loop, shouting behind him. "Get inside! Go to your dorm room and lock the door behind you!" With a shapeshifter that could look like anyone, it was the only place he could think of that might really keep her safe.

It was dark now, the street lights and stars giving the only illumination as Sam ran back to the last place he'd seen his brother, wishing he already had a gun. He hadn't thought he would need it; they were only checking out the spillway again. They weren't sitting outside the professor's house.

The grunt and the thump replayed over and over in his mind, narrowing his sight to tunnel vision until he made it past the spillway and down the hill to the edge of the woods. He'd taken it too fast; his chest ached sharply, but he ignored it.

When he got there Bobby was trudging, out of breath, out of the woods, carrying Dean's gun in one hand and holding his arm with the other. His own gun was back in his belt.

"Bobby! What happened!"

"The damn thing must have knocked him out and dragged him off," the older hunter swallowed as Sam took the handgun from him. There was blood seeping out between the fingers of his other hand—the one clamped over his upper arm.

"We had no idea it was that close until Dean went down. It had gotten dark all of a sudden, and we didn't have the flashlights out yet. It was dark, and I shot at it, and it…got me with something. Maybe a knife." He hissed when Sam pulled his hand away to take a look. "Damnit."

Sam swallowed, a little out of breath himself. "We have to find Dean."

"Sam!"

He twisted in surprise, to see Abby stumbling up to them, obviously after all but sliding down the hill behind them, her book dangling from one hand as her arms shot out for balance.

"I thought I told you to go back to your dorm!"

She ignored him. "What happened! Who is that? What happened to him?"

"This is Bobby, the other agent on this case. Bobby, this is Abby, and Abby is going back to her dorm room."

"No, I'm not. What happened?" Her eyes focused on the cut on Bobby's arm, and they widened. "Were you attacked?"

"Well…" Bobby trailed. How were either of them supposed to answer that?
Sam pressed her about it again. "Please, Abby, if you won't go back to the dorm, at least get back inside the student center…"

"Wait a minute! I heard some of what he said, Sam. He said something about Dean being dragged off. How could one guy drag him off like that?"

"One guy killed both of your friends without any help."

She grimaced, but kept going. "What if there's more than one of them?"

"We're pretty sure it's just the one," Bobby answered.

This time Sam shoved Dean's gun in the back of his waistband and tried to push Abby back up the hill. "Please—"

But she fought him. "Sam, no. If this guy is out there right now, I want to help."

He stopped and stared at her incredulously. "Help? Abby, we're trained to track these th-guys down. You can't help; you need to stay safe until he's out of the way. I don't want you to get hurt, and right now we have no idea what his plan is. We only know he has Dean." His throat threatened to tighten up at the though, but he swallowed hard and pushed on. "Please listen to me."

"But—"

"Abby! The best thing you can do is stay out of the way!"

She stared at him for a long moment, and finally nodded in something of a shock—even though he hadn't yelled half as loudly as he could have before Leah and her fun. His chest was hurting again just from what he'd gotten out.

He knew he'd need a few deep breaths to make up for it, and Sam started to guide Bobby back up the hill to cover it. Abby trailed behind them, but he could feel the glares spearing his back.

Well…good. Hopefully she would storm right back to her dorm and stay there.

He only wished he could stay to make sure, but right now they had to get Bobby's arm patched up, and find Dean. That house would probably be the best place to start looking.

Bobby climbed in the passenger seat of the car, and Sam glanced back once he'd slid in behind the wheel. Abby didn't look angry anymore. Instead, her book was being hugged to her chest again, and she looked more than a little upset.

He swallowed again. "Just stay safe, okay?"

"You too," she frowned.

Sam nodded and shut the Impala's door.

Dean groaned as he woke, his head pounding straight through to the back of his skull where he was sure the shapeshifter had popped him with something. When he pried his eyes open and pulled his head up enough to realize he was tied to a support beam in what must have been a basement, he was sure.

Damn déjà vu.

He didn't see anyone else trapped with him here, but there were two doors that led to other rooms in the basement, that could have been hiding any number of other captives.

Footsteps on the stairs told him he wasn't alone, and he looked sharply that way, expecting to see what looked like Professor Ray coming down to greet him.

Instead, it looked like Cody Woodrow.

"I'm glad you're awake," his captor said cheerily. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and glanced down at himself. "What? Surprised? Weren't expecting this look?"

Dean snorted, remembering after a moment. "You took the kid last night. That's why Cody wasn't answering his phone."

The shapeshifter hummed an affirmative. "It was too dangerous to keep looking like the professor, after all—since you and your partner were looking for me. After all, you're not really FBI agents, are you? You're hunters. And there are three of you. I heard tell of your friend poking around here, too."

"Which means there are still two of us out there," Dean smirked. "You're still outnumbered." In theory, anyway, but if Sam comes too I'll kick his skinny ass.

Shapeshifter-Cody opened his mouth to deliver what would probably have been a good smart-elic reply, but the doorbell rang upstairs. Presumably this was the professor's house, commandeered when the shapeshifter first took the man's form.

"Hold that thought," the thing said instead, and hurried back up the stairs.

Why would it answer the door now, when 'the professor' had been missing all day? Maybe it just wanted to see who it was, without who it was seeing him.

Dean stayed quiet, knowing anyone outside wouldn't be able to hear him anyway and just hoping that whoever it was had sense enough to get the hell out of dodge.

His hopes plummeted when the he heard the shrill, but muffled screaming coming from upstairs. The screaming came closer, and the shapeshifter reappeared—dragging Abigail Ragusa with him.

"Cody, what are you doing!" she shouted, struggling. "Let go of me!" But the thing's slightly inhuman strength kept her from making any progress on an escape. The shapeshifter shoved her down against the next support beam from Dean, and had her tied to it before she could get away.

"Cody, stop it! What are you doing? Cody!" But in a moment he had disappeared up the stairs again.

"That's not Cody," Dean sighed.

Abby's head snapped around, and she seemed to see him there for the first time. "Dean? You're okay!"

"What?"

"I-I was with Sam when you called him—"

"Oh that kind of busy."

She glared at him briefly. "What do you mean that wasn't Cody? I saw him. What is he doing here anyway, and why did he…"

"A better question is what the hell are you doing here?

Abby sighed in frustration, pulling at the ropes. "I was with Sam when you called him, and he freaked out when whatever happened to you, and he told me not to but I followed him, to the edge of the woods, and saw the other agent coming out, and he said something had dragged you off. He said thing not person, but that looks like Cody! What's going on!"

"Keep going first. What happened after that?"

"Sam and the other guy—Bobby, right?—they left because Bobby was hurt, and they said they had to find you. Sam told me to go my dorm and lock my door, or at least get inside somewhere. I just…didn't. They wouldn't tell me what was going on, and knew something was up, and I thought maybe if I looked for Professor Ray again he might be here. He's the only one that I thought might have any clue, since it was his wife that was killed first. I don't know…"

Dean's stomach lurched. "Bobby's hurt? How bad? Is he okay?"

"It's just a cut on his arm, or something. I'm sure he'll be fine."

He sighed once, and then frowned. "Man, you really do talk fast."

"I'm sorry," Abby winced. "It gets worse when I'm nervous." She groaned and pulled at the ropes again. "What's going on! That can't be Cody; he wouldn't hurt anyone…"

"I'm sure that true. Like I said, that is definitely not your friend."

She swallowed. "Then who is he? Why does he look like Cody? I-is it just dark? He's just a guy, right? A guy who looks a lot like Cody."

"I really wish I could say that was the case, but I gotta start by telling you that it was a really stupid idea not to listen to Sam."

Abby stiffened. "Why? Is—is he going to kill us?"

Dean shrugged. "That depends on whether or not he wants to use our forms later."

"Our…what?"

"I don't guess you've ever even considered the possibility of monsters being real, have you?"

She stared at him askance. "What?"

"Abby…that thing—that thing that's not but your friend, but, yeah, looks exactly like him—that's a shapeshifter. It's what killed the professor's wife and your other friends. It may have killed the professor himself by now, too."

She stared at him longer. "Are you on something? There's no such thing!"

"Unfortunately, he's probably ready to change again, so you'll probably get some proof here pretty soon."

A moment later the shapeshifter came bounding back down the stairs, and stopped between them, eyeing his two captives as he gave a feral smile. "Well, it seems no one followed you, Abby dear. However, I don't suppose that means his friends won't come looking later," he said, nodding toward Dean.

"I suppose we'll just have to be ready for them."

Dean only scowled.

Back at the motel room briefly, letting Sam up his arm, Bobby tried to argue his young charge down. He tried to convince Sam not to come, but with Dean being the one held and leaving them down a man, and Bobby's right arm injured, it just didn't make sense in the end for him to stay in the car this time.

That didn't stop Bobby from worrying about what might happen.

The professor's house, just off the campus and on the outskirts of town, was dark. Pistols drawn and silver bullets loaded, the two hunters skulked around to the back and found a small window that led straight into the basement. Peering through the dingy glass revealed a tiny room barely larger than a closet, and a closed wooden door. Bobby tricked the latch open, and then there was a silent argument of hand signals and mouthed words before Sam relented and let him go in first.

They both scrambled as quietly as possible through the opening and slid to the ground. Bobby was waiting by the door when Sam's long legs easily deposited him on the concrete floor, and the boy held his gun ready and nodded when he was prepared.

Bobby quickly but quietly pushed the door open, and both of them spread out into the rest of the basement, weapons aimed, covering all angles.

The only other figure in the larger space was the one gagged and tied to a support beam. That in itself wasn't a surprise. With a shapeshifter, they'd expected to find captives.

They hadn't expected to find Abby.

Wide-eyed from their entrance, her gaze snapped to Sam, who's arms dropped in surprise. "Abby?" Before Bobby could stop him he'd gone to her, not seeing that she had begun shaking her head at him furiously.

"Sam, wait!" Bobby hissed.

He was already untying her, unlistening. Bobby kept his gun up and ready, sweeping back and forth, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

"What are you doing here! I thought I told you to get inside; how—"

"Sam, there you are." Dean—or what looked like Dean; he couldn't be sure about either of these people at this point—came hurrying down the stairs, pausing at the bottom to catch his breath. Or pretend to. "I was up there; I just got loose. I'm not sure where the thing went…"

Sam had looked up when he heard his brother's voice, but hadn't stopped trying to get Abby untied. That was when he pulled the gag off, and she all but shouted in his ear. "It's a trap!"

Sam jerked back from the volume, frowning for the split second it took to register what she'd said. Then he straightened, bringing the gun up to aim at the thing that looked like Dean.

Or, he tried to, and Bobby tried to get off a shot, but neither succeeded before the shapeshifter had charged Sam in a football tackle and slammed him back into another of the thick support beams.

"Sam!" Abby shouted.

Bobby didn't have to hear any cracking to know something in Sam's chest had broken again; he only had to hear the scream and see the look on the boy's face as he sunk to the ground.

The shapeshifter delivered two quick punches—one to the gut and one to the jaw that effectively silenced him—and turned to find Bobby.

All he found was a bullet in the chest.

Abby screamed in reaction to the shot, and by the time Bobby had dragged the body farther away from Sam, she had pulled off the rest of the ropes and spared him the job. She scrambled to Sam's side, calling his name.

Bobby grimaced. "He's unconscious, girl. It's probably best to let him stay that way for now." Worry gripped his chest like a vise, but there was nothing he could do for Sam until he had him back at the motel, with his oxygen and their medical supplies. Before he could get him there, he had to find Dean.

It only took a moment to register the thumping and gag-muffled shouts coming from behind the other door down here.

"Stay with Sam; make sure he's breathing. I'll be right back."

Abby only glanced up at him briefly, wild-eyed with worry and confusion and shock, but she nodded, and then her focus was on Sam again.

The other door was locked, but one barely decent kick sent it open. On the other side was, again, barely more than a closet, but this one held two captives and a body covered in an old blanket.

"Bobby! Thank god you're okay. What happened out there? The bastard's dead, right?"

Bobby leaned down to untie the terrified college student first. "Yeah, it's dead alright." His gaze slid back to the body.

"The professor," Dean sighed, giving Cody an apologetic glance. When Bobby had the kid untied, he was out the door and up the stairs almost immediately. Dean said to let him go; he probably wouldn't be talking about anything that had happened here, anyway, and there was time to track him down again later. He lived on campus, after all.

Bobby wasn't worried about it; while untying Dean, he was already bracing himself to ignore a good yelling-at from the older Winchester.

Dean helped him, shaking the last of the loops off, and launched to him feet to shoot around his older friend and out into the main room of the basement. Bobby followed quickly, back to Sam.

"Oh god," Dean swallowed, crouching opposite Abby and gripping his brother's arm. "What happened?"

"I-It tackled him," she stammered. "It was so hard, but…still…why is he still out? He shouldn't be this hurt—not just from that. What's wrong with him?"

Bobby watched, not sure how Dean was going to respond to that.

Dean ignored the question, only taking in the information, and the fact that Sam's breaths were growing more ragged by the moment.

"You need to get back to campus," he said quickly instead. "We'll take care of him."

"Are you kidding? I'm coming with you."

"Coming where?"

Abby scowled in confusion. "You're taking him to the hospital…"

Dean shot a glance at Bobby, who shrugged and shook his head to say that it probably wouldn't make any difference either way.

"No, we're not," Dean sighed.

"Why not?" she all but shouted. "He needs help!"

"We know how to take care of him!" Dean shouted back, motioning for Bobby to move in and help him get Sam off the floor.

Bobby motioned Abby aside as he and Dean carefully pulled Sam up between them. "He's probably got a couple of broken ribs is all, and all they would do at the hospital is make sure they're set straight, wrap them, give him pain meds and maybe keep him a day or two for observation. I can do that," he assured the girl gently. "He'll be fine." For now, he thought, wincing to himself. For a few more months, anyway.

Abby followed them as they carried Sam slowly up the stairs. "But…why do it yourself? Why avoid the hospital at all? You're not really FBI, are you?"

"No," Dean answered tiredly. "Didn't the face-changing bastard that grabbed you off the front doorstep clear that up for you?"

She was behind them, but Bobby was sure she was glaring now. "So…what then? What are you?"

"Let's just say this isn't the first of those things we've seen. Taking them out is kind of our job."

"Shapeshifters?" she asked, barely audible and obviously not comfortable with the term.

"Among other things," Bobby answered vaguely. "Trust us; you don't want to know any more than that."

She fell silent until they made it out to the Impala, and neither of them protested when she climbed into the back and helped load Sam in the back seat. He woke up groggily during the process, gasping, and Bobby saw Dean's face twist at the pained groans that followed.

Then Sam was in and Abby wrapped her arms gently around him, until the gasps stopped and he dropped back into unconsciousness against her shoulder, his breathing dangerously shallow. Dean and Bobby were already in the front ready to go, and Dean started the car and roared out toward the motel before anyone could come to investigate the sound of the shot that had killed the shapeshifter.

"I'll go back and clean up later. Again," Bobby said quietly. "I assume I at least need to bury that thing."

"Yeah…just leave the professor, and we'll call with an anonymous tip later if nobody finds him. But we definitely need to bury the shapeshifter. The last thing we need right now is more crap on my record if the cops manage to find us alive again—heaven forbid," Dean sighed.

"I know what you mean. But like I said, don't worry about. I'll help you patch Sam up, and then I'll do it. You stay with him."

Dean nodded once, his mouth pressed into a thin, white line.