The car ride back to the hotel was quiet, neither man could find the words to express their feelings and fears. Dean thought about the woman back there curled up in on herself, mouth agape, obvious terror in her rotting features, and he thought of her mother and her father and wondered if they should call the police and let them know they found a body in the woods. Would her parents really want to know that their daughter was dead, or would the possibility of her being alive be better than sure knowledge of her death? He grappled with the idea, and he decided that if it were him he would want to know his loved one was dead. Would want to put their body to rest, and not left to rot in a house in the middle of the woods.

"We need to call the police when we get this ghost killed." Sam nodded. "She can't be left like that." Sam looked over at Dean and saw something running down the older man's neck.

"Pull over Dean."

"Why? You okay? Gonna be sick?"

"No. Just pull over please." Dean did as asked and Sam pulled a flashlight out of the book bag that was behind him. He clicked it on and saw that it was blood that was running down Dean's neck.

"You're bleeding."

"I am?" Dean asked surprised.

"You were thrown against the wall."

"It must be no big deal. If it were a big deal it would hurt more." Dean looked to check for oncoming traffic, obviously going to go back out onto the road.

"Wait. Let me see. Just wait." Sam said and Dean sighed and listened to the law student. Sam used the flashlight and found the source of the blood. "It's in your hair." He said. "I can't see it very well."

"We'll figure it out back in the room." Dean said unphased. "A little blood doesn't bother me." Dean said with a shrug and pulled back out onto the road. Sam wondered how often Dean played football injured. He seemed to be someone willing to go through pain and wounds to do what was in the best interest for others. It was then that Sam realized that Dean had thrown himself in front of Sam to protect him.

"Thanks by the way." Sam said.

"For what?"

"For saving my life back there." Dean shrugged.

"No problem."

When they arrived back at the hotel, Dean's head had stopped bleeding and it was just a matter of cleaning it up. Dean let Sam take a shower, and then he took his, and both men slipped into their beds. Neither slept.

"My mom," Sam started seemingly out of the blue. "Said that she adopted me because I was the sweetest thing in the world and that she just couldn't' stand the thought of a little boy not having a home. If she had been the one to die like that I don't know what I would do. Until tonight, I thought that ghosts were just in the movies, thought that the only way a ghost could kill you was if you were an actor and the director yelled action and you played dead because it said so in the script." Sam sighed. "Until tonight, I thought salt was nothing more than a condiment that you put on your French fries."

He paused. "I never thought that my parents were ever in any danger. I always thought that they would be safe in their nice upper middle class house, in suburban Nebraska, behind their locks and dead bolts and security alarm. But they aren't are they Dean? They aren't safe. Some random ghost could just slip through those practical defenses and murder my parents before they knew what is coming." Dean sensed that Sam had more to say so he waited. He heard Sam swallow, Dean assumed that he was swallowing tears, and he wouldn't' pry, because he didn't want to have to admit to himself or to Sam that he had been crying when Sam had been in the shower, so the anonymity that the dark afforded them would not be breached by Dean. "I started to call my parents when you were in the shower, but I couldn't. I just couldn't. What if they didn't answer? What if something got them?"

"Nothing got them." Dean said as much for his own reassurance as Sam's.

"How can you be sure of that?"

"Because, I have to. I have to be sure of that or I won't ever be able to sleep again. I don't want to imagine my parents dying like that poor girl did. I can't. So, I'm going to learn everything I can and make sure it never happens to my parents or anyone I love." Sam nodded. And for some reason Dean's reassurances did their job. For some reason, Dean saying that it would be all right made it so. Sam turned over and tried to sleep, and like Dean, he couldn't, but he pretended to, just for the sake of appearances.

Sam and Dean parted ways on Sunday evening and didn't rejoin until their class on Wednesday. As usual they were both early and both looked as if they hadn't slept much in the last couple of days.

"Find anything?" Sam asked as he sat down.

"Yeah actually. You?"

"Yeah. I found something too. Go first."

"I found that if you burn the body of the ghost they go away."

"I found that too. I also found that you should salt the bones first."

"Always with the salt." Dean tried for levity and failed. He was too tired, the dead girl haunted his dreams, and he was constantly looking over his shoulder expecting to find a ghost just out of eye shot.

"I guess we should try it in concert and see if it works."

"How are we going to know if it works?"

"Go back into the house with the EMF and the camera and wait."

"Okay. Then we call the cops. Her parents deserve to know." Sam nodded.

"Next weekend we go salt and burn a corpse." Sam sighed.

"We need to figure out where the guy is buried though."

"Great." Sam said with a hint of anger. He was just as tired as Dean. "That should be fun, a hermit, what are the odds I'll be able to hack into the county records and find his death certificate and then locate the cemetery where he was buried? What if he wasn't buried Dean? What if he is still in that house?"

"Then I guess we find his corpse and we torch it there."

"But the girl?" Dean took his eyes from Sam and starred out into the distance.

"I don't know Sam. I really don't know." Their conversation stopped, other students entered and took their seats, laughing and carrying on, blind to the things in the dark, and happy with their innocence firmly intact. Dean and Sam each watched with envy and disgust, neither real sure if they were happy that they knew the dangers out there in the world, or terrified because now they knew that nothing was safe, that death didn't just mean the stoppage of breath. And that their families, and their loved ones were fragile and helpless to stop it.

AN: I was a good girl today, put in a full day at school and at the house, so I thought I deserved time to write. Enjoy!