From Yesterday

by gaelicspirit

Post Season 5, AU. Stripped of their Heavenly help and their friends, their reality changed, pushing them back to a bare-bones approach to life, the brothers learn to redefine normal. Though they stopped the Apocalypse, there is still evil in the world and it touches someone they thought they'd never hear from again. Is it enough to compel both brothers to start hunting again?

14. Part Two: Chapter 13

Title: From Yesterday
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: gaelicspirit
Characters: Dean, Sam, and OCs
Disclaimer/Summary: See Part 1: Prologue

Author's Note: Thank you for reading and for your reviews – I look forward to your thoughts each time I post to see if the story I'm weaving is one you're interested in reading. You make this all worthwhile.

So, as far as posting, it's pretty much going to be an every two-week thing now for awhile. Real Life is getting a bit chaotic and I didn't stock up on enough completed chapters to stay ahead of it. I hope you'll stick around to see how this plays out. This is a longer chapter, but there are a lot of plot pieces that had to go on the board here before the action and angst could play out in the last seven chapters.

Hope you enjoy!

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He could smell cigarette smoke.

The scent curled in from the outside, filtered through the window and slipped around him, pungent enough to pull his head around. The silhouette of one man, leaning against the side of the building, face toward the mountains, glowing embers near his features, caught Dean's eye and he settled back in his chair.

It always seemed odd to him when he saw fire fighters smoking; they inhaled enough of it just doing their job, he figured they wouldn't want to add more carcinogens to their already taxed systems, but, addiction was addiction; he knew that better than anyone. He'd once had his own crutch on alcohol to chase the demons away and he'd watched his brother deny, succumb and overcome one very powerful addiction.

One that had nearly destroyed the brother Dean would willingly die for.

It was dark in the fire station, the only light a soft yellow glow emanating from the underside of the microwave above the stove, and one street light outside. One of the pop-out windows was open and the smell of the smoke filtered inside from whichever man had to steady his nerves after the eventful day.

Captain Reynolds – a rugged, quiet man with narrowed eyes and mottled scars on his arms – had allowed Dean and Sam to stay at the station over night in payment for Dean's assistance at the rock slide, and subsequently saving one of his firemen. Though the Argo station wasn't Virgil's primary home, it seemed he was one of a brotherhood. Dean saving Virgil from the gas line blast at the Jurgen house had bought he and Sam some time before they had to find a place to stay to complete this hunt.

Dean was grateful; he wasn't excited about sleeping in the Impala again. Though he'd been healed from the events at Stull for some time now, his hip seemed destined to trouble him if he sat too long. Or moved too long. Or shifted the wrong way. And the only motel in town was the B&B where Brenna had been staying, which currently boasted one free room – with a queen-sized bed.

The trouble with bunking at the station, however, was the fact that the free beds were in the common room with the rest of the firefighters. Ten beds in all, eight of them occupied. That would be a lot of people Dean would wake with the sound of his nightmares.

After the noisy and welcoming dinner of spaghetti – made possible by Brenna and Sam's afternoon efforts – most of the men drifted to their various haunts to dial down the adrenalin from the day. Several wandered to the saloon – and it was actually still a saloon, which intrigued Dean to no end – a few dropped down in front of the TV to watch a movie – the second Underworld movie from the sound of it – and many hit the sack.

Sam and Dean had wandered over to the TV, the allure of Kate Beckinsdale in skin-tight leather too much for them to resist, though Dean found himself smirking and catching a shared look of disbelief with Sam at the transformations and killings of the vampires and lycans in the movie. Virgil had crashed in the common room and Brenna had gone up to her small loft room to call and check on her daughter.

When the movie ended, the firemen distributed the remaining beers and wandered to their bunks. Dean was amazed that none of them questioned the brother's presence beyond asking them how long they'd known Virgil. They'd been told that the brothers were visiting from Kansas, just passing through, and that had been enough. Sam had carefully framed up their jobs – fellow blue-collar workers, just trying to get by.

It had felt good, Dean thought, being accepted. Not having to scare anyone with the truth…and not having to fabricate a lie so thick he'd forget its origins.

Just as the lights began to shut off in the common room, Brenna came down into the kitchen. Sam was in one of the Lazy-Boy chairs, the footrest kicked out – though his feet still hung over the edge a bit – a rerun of MacGyver playing through the static on the TV. Dean was at the table, having positioned himself so that Sam was on his blind side and he could see who walked through the door, a notebook he'd snagged from Virgil in front of him, pencil clutched awkwardly in his left hand, half-empty beer bottle balanced in his right.

She was wearing draw-string sweat pants and a grey Pearl Jam T-shirt, her hair pulled back and tied in a loose, messy knot so that he could see the tattoo on the back of her neck. Dean felt something kick, low in his gut, at the sight of her and he looked back down at his paper, not saying a word as she opened the fridge and retrieved a bottle of water. He felt her eyes on him and took a slow, deep breath.

"You okay?" she asked finally, her voice pitched low in deference to the sleeping souls around them.

Dean looked up and gave her a quick, empty smile. "I'm good."

Brenna lifted her chin, indicating the paper in front of him. "Since when are you left handed?"

Dean swallowed, releasing the bottle he held with the tips of his fingers. She's already seen some, he knew. No reason to hide the rest from her. He turned his hand over, exposing the large knot of scar tissue on his palm.

"Since this," he replied.

Brenna nodded once and Dean saw her throat bob quickly as she swallowed. She motioned to one of the chairs near him and he tipped his head back in invitation. She sat gracefully, her eyes shifting back to where Sam lay sprawled in the chair.

"Don't worry about him," Dean said, a smile in his voice. "He's asleep."

Brenna frowned. "How can you tell?"

"He hasn't made a crack about duct tape and a Campbell soup can in about ten minutes," Dean said with a shrug, turning his attention back to his paper. "He's out."

Brenna sat quietly for a moment, distractedly opening and closing the plastic bottle in her hand. After a moment, Dean looked up at her, noticing that her eyes were on his right hand. He could feel her working up to a reason to learn more about what happened to them.

"When did that happen?" She asked, a finger swirling in the air around his left eye.

"Same time," he replied. "You saw it."

"Sam did it," she said, darting a glance toward the Lazy-Boy chair.

"Naw," Dean turned his head so that he could see Sam as well. "Sam stopped it."

"You can't see out of that eye anymore, can you?"

It was more of a statement than a question, but it still caused him to shift uncomfortably in his chair. He looked down at the table, then glanced up at her.

"I lost my peripheral vision," he told her. "But I can still see most things."

She nodded slowly. "That must have been some fight."

Dean didn't reply. This was going down a path he wasn't ready to travel. "So, why didn't things work out with you and Virge?" he asked, wanting to throw her off course.

Brenna jerked slightly, surprise clear in her expression. She hadn't expected him to be that forthright, apparently. He liked catching her off-guard, he decided. She always appeared so…controlled. Following a set of rules that only a select few were privy to, that had been decided long before she was ever a glimmer in the universe. He imagined she had to maintain that control to keep her power in check, but he remembered her out of control, he remembered her losing control, and he remembered liking it.

"Not one to beat around the bush, huh?" Brenna replied. "Guess I forgot that about you."

Dean took a breath. "You show me yours, I'll show you mine."

Brenna gave him a look, her gaze steady. Though her expression didn't change, he saw years travel through her eyes, memories of times with and without him shifting the level of trust she offered him. After a few heartbeats, she looked down.

"I don't owe you an explanation," she said with a quiet rasp to the edge of the words telling him she wanted to offer one.

"Never said you did."

"You could have asked me to stay."

Dean rolled his lips against his teeth, remembering that last night with her, remembering how she'd known so much without his having to say a word.

"I was living with a death sentence," he reminded her. "Not asking you to stay was the only way I could show you how much I cared about you."

Brenna nodded slowly, her body rocking slightly with the motion. "How long were you…," she broke off, then looked away, "gone?"

Dean sat back, worrying his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. "Four months," he replied. "But…uh, down there…," he cleared his throat, "down there it was more like forty years."

She raised her eyebrows, a wince of sympathy narrowing her eyes. "Added incentive to behave myself."

He flashed her a small, surprised smile.

"When you came back," she hedged, "did you think about…contacting me?"

Dean looked down, then lifted his eyes to meet hers. "No," he replied truthfully, knowing she deserved nothing less. "Not at first. There was," he shook his head once, looking away, "a ton of shit to wade through. Like the Devil coming back to Earth."

She nodded, though her expression showed that there was no way she could comprehend what those words truly meant outside of keeping Dean from her. "I think I saw him," she said, chewing on her bottom lip as she searched his face. "The man with the rotting skin?"

"Yeah, that was him. Ugly son of a bitch."

"And the angel with the shadow wings?"

"Castiel," Dean told her, feeling a pang in the center of his chest as he said the name. "He…pulled me out of Hell."

Brenna cocked her head at him. "He's a friend?"

"Was," Dean replied quietly, loss like a weight pressing down on his shoulders. "He, uh…he died the day I got this," he rolled his hand over again. "Lucifer killed him and Bobby both."

"Bobby?"

Dean looked at her. "I forgot you never met Bobby," he said, a sad smile ghosting his lips. "Bobby was a friend of our dad's…kind of like a surrogate uncle to me and Sam. He was a hunter…best damn hunter I ever knew."

"You miss him." It was a soft exhalation of truth.

"Yeah," Dean said quietly. A hollow ache started behind his heart, making him feel a bit sick and lonely and strangely like he wanted to cry. "Yeah, I miss him. He was a cantankerous son of a bitch, but he loved us. He taught us almost as much as Dad. And he died trying to save my life." The burn of tears stung the backs of his eyes. He hadn't talked about – or let himself even think about – Bobby in months. He looked up at Brenna and saw mirrored pain in her eyes as she caught the tears swimming in his. "He was basically the only family we had left."

"You've lost a lot of people these last few years," she said.

He sniffed and dragged his hand down his face, banishing the emotion. "Thought you had to be touching me to see the truth."

Brenna smiled sadly. "You wear their loss like a shroud, Dean. It's in the way you move."

"How about you, huh?" Dean deflected, uncomfortable with her eyes peeling back his layers in a glance. "You've had a busy four years."

She twisted her lips ruefully, looking down at her linked fingers. "You mean Aislinn."

Dean didn't reply. He couldn't fathom having kids. It was hard enough to protect Sam from the evil in the world and his brother was a grown man who could defend himself and knew the truth. The choices Dean would have to make if he had a kid were almost too massive to absorb: truth or innocence, soldier or civilian, life as a hunter or normal life? How could he even begin to explain to a child what he'd gone through to survive, what he'd seen, how he'd seen it?

For about a fraction of a second he'd once thought that the son of a one-time encounter, Lisa Braedon, had been his, and at the time, he'd been surprisingly disappointed to learn that he wasn't a father. But after the initial realization wore off, he'd been immensely relieved. There was too much danger around him, too much uncertainty, too much loss. Brenna was a braver person than he'd ever be to bring a child into this crazy world.

"Scares you to have her so far away, huh?"

She smiled. "Leave it to you," she chuckled. "You always knew me better than I gave you credit for."

Dean shrugged. "It would scare me," he said.

"More than having her around all this?" She swept out a hand. "Didn't your dad ever send you guys away to keep you safe? When you were little?"

Dean started to shake his head, but stopped. "Well, yeah," he conceded. "A couple of times he'd leave us with Bobby or Pastor Jim when he had a dangerous hunt. Mostly he seemed to think that between him and me, we could keep Sam safe."

"Well, I don't have you," she said quietly, then looked up at him hurriedly. "To keep her safe, I mean. So, the only thing I could do was send her to someone I trusted until this was all over."

"What about Virge?" Dean asked, honestly confused. "Why didn't you guys just go to Denver and stay with him?"

Brenna sighed. "I never thought I'd be explaining my love life to you," she said with a soft, humorless laugh.

Dean tilted his head. "I know you don't love him," he said. "Not…enough, anyway."

Brenna furrowed her brows, sadness drawing lines around her eyes. "I always wanted to," she confessed. "I hate that I just…couldn't." She looked up at him, his tears of before echoing now in her gaze. "I've been so unfair to him…never telling him to leave, always being the one to walk away. And he just…lets me. He's never not been there for me."

"He's a good guy," Dean said.

"One of the best. He deserves better than me," Brenna said, sniffing. "But I'm afraid to let him go."

Dean looked down at the pencil on the table. "I can understand that."

They were quiet a moment, and then Dean felt Brenna reaching out to hesitantly touch the tips of the fingers on his right hand. He stiffened and started to draw back.

"I won't look," she whispered, her fingers trembling slightly as their skin connected. "Not unless you want me to. I don't pry."

"It's not that," he replied softly. "Before, when you…did your thing…I saw what you saw."

Brenna nodded. "I know."

"That never happened before."

"I know."

"And with Sam, I don't see anyth—" he stopped, drawing in a sharp breath.

Brenna froze. "What do you mean?"

Dean looked at the scar on his hand, silent.

"What happened to you, Dean?"

"It's…complicated."

He heard Brenna swallow. "Can I…?"

Dean shot a look over his shoulder; Sam was lax in the chair, mouth slightly open, breathing softly. The common room was dark, the only sound the crickets from the opened window. He looked back at Brenna and let his hand fall flat.

"I'll be careful," she promised.

He nodded and watched as she skimmed her fingers over his scar, then pressed carefully. Part of him expected to feel pain, but all he felt was the pressure of her fingers before she gasped softly, her eyes going wide and wild as they tumbled into his mind, an eerie silence surrounding them as they stood on the scrub grass of Stull cemetery and watched.

Dean saw himself, broken and bloody, on his knees before Sam, a large hole opening up in the Earth behind his brother. He saw himself reach out and Sam reach back in a gesture that appeared almost instinctive. The moment their hands touched, Dean was no longer on the outside, but was staring up at Sam once more, his brother's cat-like eyes filled with courage and misery as he surrendered, ready to give his life to save them all.

He felt Brenna's fingers flinch in his palm as light filled his memory – blinding, brilliant light that Dean knew fused him with the amulet. He closed his eyes, pulling his hand away, shutting her out, unable to see more. He hadn't heard a thing, hadn't felt a thing – not like in his nightmares where he relived every wound – but he was hurting just the same. The memory of the moment was almost as bad as the moment itself.

Brenna exhaled a shaky breath and Dean opened his eyes. He was unprepared for the almost violent way she flinched away from him. He frowned.

"What?" It hadn't been pleasant, what she'd seen, but it could have been so much worse.

"Your—your eyes are…," she stopped, blinking, as if remembering that her own eyes flashed wild when she used her sight. "How?"

He shrugged helplessly. "When I was a kid," he started, looking down, trying to reel in the light she saw shifting his eyes. "Sam gave me an amulet. It was just this…charm—"

"I remember," Brenna said. "Some gold thing, black leather strap. You never took it off. Even with the wraith."

He nodded. "Right. Well…it turns out it was actually something of a…," he paused. How did he tell her about the righteous man? About being a vessel? About breaking in Hell and the first of the seals? "…well, it had meaning we'd never realized."

"Until you had to put the Devil back in the Cage," she guessed.

"You saw the Cage?"

She shook her head. "I got those words from Sam's head," she confessed. "I didn't really know what it meant."

"It meant," Dean sat back, his eyes feeling gritty. "That I could use it to save Sam. Only…when I did, it kind of…connected to me. A binding spell."

"So…you have sight? Like me?"

He shook his head. "Only with Sam. Except it's one-way. If we make skin contact, he sees my…emotions, nightmares, whatever I got going on up in my melon."

"What do you see?"

"Nada."

Brenna started to nod, slowly. "But with me…you see what I see."

"Yep."

"I get the feeling there's a lot more here that you're not telling me."

Dean gave her a tight half-smile. "If you had a week, maybe I could scratch the surface."

Brenna tilted her head at him, a teasing smile tipping up the edges of her lips. "Nothing's ever half-way with you, is it? Can't just be, hey, how's it going, turns out I'm not dead. No…," she smiled a bit broader. "No, with you it's I'm not dead and turns out I have powers."

"I like to keep things interesting," Dean shrugged, grateful for the light tone and her smile.

"That, I remember," she grinned.

"Your turn," Dean leaned forward, his eyes up, on her face. "Why here?"

She frowned, confused.

"Why Argo? Why not pick up and leave? Why fight it out?" He hunched his shoulders, pinning her with his gaze. "What's so important about this place?"

Brenna sighed, sinking back into her chair. "You're not going to believe me."

Dean bit off a chuckle. "Sweetheart, if you'd seen what I've seen, you'd know there's not much I won't believe."

"I just meant…it's not going to make sense to you."

"Try me," Dean coaxed. "The kid at the library said your daughter needed this place."

Brenna looked up. "David?"

Dean nodded.

"Huh. I didn't think he noticed."

Dean shrugged. "Seems like the kind of kid others forget is around and say things they otherwise wouldn't. I bet he knows all the town secrets."

Brenna's lips twisted in a smile of acceptance. "Yeah, you're probably right." She rubbed her face, tucking a couple of wayward curls behind her ears. "Aislinn was born in Denver," she said quietly, her voice hesitant as if this was the first time she'd ever said these words. "We were in Boston, looking for work, when I realized…. Anyway, it was Virgil's idea to be near family and since I don't have any, we headed to Colorado. His aunt moved to Boulder last year, but she was in Denver when we got there."

"How'd you end up here?"

"I tried to make it work," she said, pulling her lips away from her teeth as if trying to ward off pain. "We lived together and we pretended…but I knew early on that Aislinn had the sight. I remember Declan telling me how scared my mother had been when I was a baby, trying to understand my power, make sure neither of us went crazy or they didn't take me away from her…it's just," she glanced at him. "Until you're there, you don't know."

Dean nodded, accepting that.

"Virgil wanted to help – he tried, but…he didn't know how to block himself. And when he'd hold her, she'd see, but she wouldn't understand and she would cry for days. Terrified. I tried to teach him, but it was like…," she pushed at her hair, though it wasn't in her face. "Like trying to teach a fish to fly. It was tearing him up not to be able to hold her, to touch her, to help me…. I started to look around, trying to find a way to help her learn control. I wanted so badly to talk to someone who'd dealt with me, but…they were all dead. So, I looked to see if there were any druid sects…and I found Argo."

Dean frowned. "There are druids here?"

She nodded. "They don't make themselves known; the world doesn't really accept druids as a faith. It's paganism…basically witchcraft to many."

Dean wrinkled his nose slightly in remembrance of his own father's assertions that Brenna had been a witch.

"They were drawn here about a hundred years ago," she continued. "There's a…a healing energy to this part of the mountains. I think it has to do with the mine, but I haven't been able to prove it."

Dean sat up straighter. "The bastnasite."

Brenna shot him a look of pure surprise. "Yes! How the hell did you know about that?"

"Hey, I'm more than just a pretty face."

Brenna stared at him for another moment, apparently thinking better of her retort. "The druids here aren't what I was hoping for," she confessed with a sigh. "They're third generation, none of them have sight – or any other powers for that matter – and all of them are very focused on protecting the Earth. There was a celebration at the last winter solstice commemorating the day the mine caved in because it stopped further drilling into the Earth."

"Heard some people in town died that day."

"Yeah," Brenna tossed him a look. "You can see why the druids aren't really popular around here."

"If they aren't what you needed for your daughter," Dean argued, "then why don't you just leave? Go get her and just…go someplace else."

Brenna leaned forward, her forehead resting on the palm of her hand. "Aislinn doesn't talk," she said suddenly.

"What do you mean, she doesn't talk?" Dean frowned.

Brenna looked at him, her eyes large and sad. "Not one word. I've had her tested – she isn't deaf, she can hear me just fine. And there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her physically. She just…doesn't speak."

Dean narrowed his eyes slightly. "You think it's because of her sight."

Brenna nodded. "It can be…traumatizing until you learn to channel it or block it. I simply stopped touching people for years until I figured out how to focus it. But when you're a baby…?"

Dean tipped his chin down, starting to put her complicated logic puzzle together. "And you think the bastnasite can help you."

Brenna sat up straighter. "Every book I've read on druidism says the mineral from that ore can be used in a ritual to block powers – essentially remove them until or unless the ritual is reversed. I think I can help her stop being so afraid."

"What makes you think she's afraid?"

Brenna sighed, putting her face in her hands. "I can feel it. She can't really tell me, but I can feel her fear."

"Wait," Dean held up a hand. "I thought you were teaching her Gaelic."

Brenna glanced at him, an eyebrow raised. "You don't have to speak a language to understand it."

"Oh. Good point."

"Anyway, Virgil's aunt has been around Aislinn all her life and knows how to communicate with her and when she gets too scared, she'll call me and I'll talk to her or sing to her and she's okay as soon as she hears my voice."

"I'm sorry, Brenna," Dean said softly, sincerely.

She looked up at the sound of her name. He realized it had been a long time since he'd said it out loud…to anyone.

"Thanks," she replied quietly. With a deep breath, she stood up. "It's been a long…weird…day. I'm gonna get some sleep. You find your bed okay?"

Dean nodded, not mentioning that he didn't plan on using the bed tonight. "See you in the morning," he said, smiling at her as she walked away.

He waited a few more moments, then glanced back over at Sam, half expecting his brother to be staring back at him, having been listening the whole time, but he looked out for the count. Dean stood stiffly, and headed out to the common room. Grabbing a blanket from one of the free beds, he made his way back to the rec room and spread it over Sam, not bothering to wake his brother. Sam looked comfortable enough and if he were honest, Dean liked having him close by.

Sitting back at the table, Dean looked once more at the paper he'd been working on. It had been awkward and frustrating to learn how to write with his left hand. Shooting with his left hand had seemed like a cake walk the minute he tried to form legible words with the unfamiliar grip of fingers unaccustomed to such a specific task. At first it had looked like gibberish, but as he continued to practice over the last six months, he'd managed to at least make it intelligible. Enough that he could sign his paycheck or leave Sam a note as to his whereabouts.

He wanted the laptop, but it was packed out in the trunk of the Impala and he wasn't sure he could get out and back in without waking the men in the common room. So he stuck with the paper, sketching out two circles, overlapping one edge of each. Inside one he wrote 'power,' and in the other 'danger.' As he thought through who he'd encountered so far in the town, he began to write their names in each circle, noting that some seemed to fit inside both.

Below the circles, he listed the names of the dead and their cause of death.

Elliott, foreman of mine, drowned.

Frazier, museum owner, stoned.

Abby, church lady, impaled.

Turner, fire station manager, drowned.

For the fifth victim, he simply drew a question mark and the word stoned, having yet to learn who the person had been and what their tie was to the town. That meant, though, that the next cause of death would be impaling. The problem was, as he saw it, figuring out who the victim was going to be. He didn't know enough to draw a connection between each victim, and without a connection, figuring out who was next would be impossible.

Rolling his neck, Dean sighed. Glancing up at the clock on the microwave he saw that it was nearly two in the morning. Brenna had been gone for hours, Sam sleeping soundly the whole time. Dean was beat, his body aching from the events of the day. He flexed his right hand as much as the scar tissue would allow. As he did, he remembered the landslide, the heat, the way he'd somehow known – not clearly, not in a way he could articulate, but known all the same – that something bad was about to happen. That Virgil had been in danger. That he'd needed to move.

He hadn't even thought about it; he'd just done it. He longed to ask someone, to talk to someone about the after-effects of the binding spell with the amulet.

Castiel.

There was so much he still needed to ask his friend, so much he needed to understand. What happens to the righteous man when the angels walk away? When the demons retreat into their Hell? Does destiny even matter when there is nothing left to fulfill, nothing left to fight? Where had his friend gone that he couldn't even answer him when he prayed, when he reached out with every ounce of need, searching for an answer, a path to follow?

Longing for one more conversation with his friend shifted suddenly to anger for Castiel not listening to him. If Castiel had just stayed behind, stayed safe, he might still be alive, still present in Dean's life. But he'd had to show up and try to help – just as Bobby had – and now they were both dead. Dean could feel the anger at that loss crawl up behind his heart and sit with a small pick-axe, carving into the hollow space inside of him that never seemed to fill.

Castiel had once beaten him senseless for daring to choose his own path. He remembered how the power behind his friend's fists had taken his breath away, shaking him from the soul outward with each impact. It had been as bad as Lucifer using Sam's fists on him. It had bruised his trust, shaken his faith. It had nearly defeated him, that beating. Dean could still taste the blood in his mouth, still feel the darkness sweep him up, still recognize the swift, painful sensation of his bones knitting, his skin healing with Castiel's apologetic touch.

"Dean."

Dean woke with a start, at once confused, disoriented and, strangely, mortified. He hadn't meant to fall asleep – couldn't clearly remember even putting his head down on the table. He lifted his head stiffly, the joints in his neck cracking with the movement. It was still dark and quiet, but Sam was sitting next to him at the table, having taking over the chair Brenna had vacated.

"Time 's it?" Dean muttered.

"About three," Sam replied softly.

Dean rubbed at his face, coming back to himself, and realizing he was shivering. "'s freezing in here."

"Window was open," Sam told him, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "Woke me up."

Dean looked mutely at the chair where he'd last seen Sam. "Covered you up," he said.

"Yeah, well," Sam shrugged. "You okay? That was some dream."

Dean peered at his brother, trying to bring his bleary eyes into focus. "You saw?"

Sam frowned, looking as if he wanted to deny the truth, but then nodded. "You weren't making any noise, so don't worry about that, but…," his frown deepened. "You were shaking. I wasn't thinking and grabbed your arm. I'm sorry."

"I didn't feel it," Dean frowned. "The spark."

"You seem to only feel it if you're already awake," Sam observed. "Dean…," he sat back, seeming to brace himself for his next question. "When did Castiel…when did he do that to you?"

"Beat the hell outta me, you mean?"

Sam nodded.

"Back when I was going to…y'know, say yes to Michael. Before Adam."

Sam's eyes darted in thought and he sat forward, rubbing his face. "I remember him bringing you back, unconscious, but I didn't know…," he shook his head.

"It was a long time ago, Sam," Dean offered. "Right now I just wish we had him back so we could ask him about…this." He rubbed at his scarred hand.

"We've been getting along without him pretty good, don't you think?" Sam hedged. "I mean, we've been able to work around the whole…mind meld thing. And as long as you stay away from ghosts, your eyes don't go all…Riddick on us."

Except for when they do, Dean thought, remembering Brenna pulling away at the sight of his eyes when he was caught in the memory of Stull.

"Sam," Dean started, his brows pulling close. "Something happened today."

Sam sat back as if he'd been waiting to hear this and wondered when Dean would get around to telling him. He stared at Dean, hazel eyes shadowed in the dimly lit kitchen, mouth set in a thin line. Dean suddenly felt like he was on trial. Taking a shallow breath, he told Sam about the heat, the way it rolled over him, not touching him, and the fact that Virgil's friend had seen a light just before the blast.

"You think it was you? This light?"

Dean shrugged. "All I know is, there's something else going on with this whole fused amulet thing. Something more than you being able to see my nightmares."

Sam nodded, his jaw working, lips pursed in thought. "With my…with the demon blood," he began quietly, "it was about a trigger. There actually had to be a demon around for me to feel the…surge."

Dean leaned forward, intrigued. Sam had never brought up the mechanics of his demon blood powers. Once it was over, it simply became something in their past.

"It was different from the visions," Sam continued. "They just…happened. But I had to…to, uh, turn this on, basically. I had to will it."

Dean nodded. "Like the Force," he said, only half-teasing.

Sam huffed. "Sure, okay." He glanced at his brother. "And you say I'm the geek."

"You are," Dean replied, rubbing his face tiredly. "I'm just trying to speak your language."

"Anyway," Sam said, resting his forearms on the table, voice still hushed. "All I'm saying is…maybe whatever it is inside of you now…maybe it only works when there's a trigger."

"Like heat?"

Sam shook his head. "Like…danger. Like someone needing protection. That's what Rufus said the amulet was for, originally, right? Protection?"

Dean rubbed the back of his neck, ignoring the aches of his body. "Protection from sacrifice."

Sam picked up Dean's discarded pencil and began tracing the edge of the circle Dean had drawn. "We could always pray to someone else," he said quietly. He looked up, meeting Dean's eyes. "Another angel. Joshua, maybe. You said he told Cas about the amulet in the first place."

Dean watched Sam's hands as he traced the circle, holding the pencil easily in his right hand. "I thought about that."

"And?"

"And what if we accidentally call down someone we don't want?"

"Uriel and Zachariah are dead," Sam pointed out.

"We don't know who's up there, Sam," Dean reminded him. "We didn't even know about Cas until…well, until we did. I just…it's been quiet. No angels, no Crowley. I don't want to…," he flipped his hands up on the table, "tip the scales."

Sam nodded quietly, the pencil still moving. "We can call Rufus again, see if he's got anything else."

"Yeah," Dean nodded, thinking that if Rufus had found something, he most likely would have called them already.

"You asked her about Aislinn," Sam said suddenly.

"I knew you were awake. Faker." Dean let his head fall forward, chin to chest, as he grinned affectionately at his brother.

"Is that why we're here?"

"Would it matter if it was?"

Sam was quiet long enough that Dean looked up, watching his brother's profile for an answer. Finally, Sam looked over at him. "No. No, it wouldn't."

Dean looked down at the paper. Sam had added to it, apparently noting what he'd gleaned from Brenna in the time they were apart.

Draiocht gets power from sacrifice.

Amulet protects from sacrifice.

What does the Wicker Man mean?

Why are vics electrocuted first?

Magic/not-magic?

"What are you thinking?" Dean asked.

"I'm thinking one of us needs to find out more about this draiocht thing," Sam said. "And one of us needs to find out more about the electrocution on the bodies."

"Brenna has books on the draiocht at her place," Dean pointed out. "But I think we need to look into the mine, first."

"Yeah?"

Dean nodded. "There was a cave-in about twenty years ago and there's some kind of ore or something in the tunnel that fell in. I think it's important."

"You take the mine, I'll take the bodies," Sam declared.

"Sir, yes, sir!" Dean teased.

"Listen," Sam sighed. "No offense, but you haven't really been dealing with bodies all that well lately."

Dean looked away, not answering.

"I just think…why chance it?" Sam tempered his tone, apparently hearing the criticism as loudly as Dean had. "I can just go in as Agent—"

"Wait, no." Dean looked back quickly.

"No?"

"No Agent, no alias'," Dean said, leaning forward. "Sorensen has a target on our backs right now, man. And he's going to take Jackson down with us if he can. We go under the radar."

Sam pulled back at the urgency in Dean's harsh whisper.

"I mean it, Sam."

"Okay, got it! Under the radar."

"Use Virgil to help you get in," Dean suggested. "He can help. At least…I think he can…."

Sam was staring at him, brow furrowed. "How about you get some rest, man?"

Dean shook his head. "I'm not going to sleep here."

"Sleep in the chair," Sam suggested. "I'll make sure you don't wake anyone up."

Dean looked up sheepishly, slightly ashamed that his brother got to the heart of his concern so quickly. "You gotta sleep, too."

"I've been sleeping."

"Couple hours," Dean scoffed.

"So we trade off," Sam shrugged. "You're no good to us on no sleep."

Dean took a breath. "Fine. Just…," he looked down at the table. "Just don't let me—"

"It's going to be fine, Dean. Trust me."

Dean looked hard at his brother, thinking through the efforts Sam had gone to in their little house in Lawrence to help him get even the few hours of sleep he'd been able to capture.

"Okay," he acquiesced.

Pushing stiffly up from the table, he dropped onto the Lazy-Boy chair Sam had vacated and pulled the blanket around him. Focusing on the sounds around him – the refrigerator humming, the sound of snoring in the other room, the scratch of Sam's pencil – he managed to lull himself into a comfortable doze, slipping over the edge of consciousness as if sinking beneath the surface of a lake.

www

Everyone in the station seemed to wake ridiculously early.

Sam had managed to sneak out to the Impala and retrieve his laptop without waking anyone up, sitting quietly at the kitchen table and dividing his attention between the case he was pulling together and listening for Dean to stir. Roughly three hours after Sam had finally convinced Dean to sleep, Virgil stumbled into the kitchen.

"Hey," Sam said quietly, looking up at him over the laptop.

Virgil stopped, blinking bleary eyes at Sam, a crease across one side of his face from where it had pressed against his pillow. He rubbed the heel of his hand into one eye and yawned wide.

"What are you doin' in here?" he said on the exhale. "It's like…," he peered at the microwave clock, "six in the morning."

"Working," Sam said, pointing to the laptop. "Why are you up?"

Virgil yawned again and moved over to the industrial-sized coffee maker.

"Inner clock," Virgil explained. "Coffee?"

"Yes." This from Dean who growled out the word from the depths of the blanket he'd pulled over his head.

Sam and Virgil glanced over at the Lazy-Boy chair as Dean uncurled, gasping slightly as his joints popped. The over-sized FDD T-shirt he'd borrowed from Virgil had twisted around him and Sam could see the tail-end of the pink scar that ran down his back where the screws had been inserted into his ribs just before he yanked it back down. As he stood, Dean rubbed the flat of his hand over his head, sending his hair in twenty different directions, lending him a brief illusion of innocence.

"You guys got something against beds?" Virgil muttered, turning away from Dean and filling the coffee basin with four large scoops.

Sam half-grinned and glanced up at Dean, who was standing over him, looking down at the screen.

"What?"

"What's all this?" Dean tipped his chin at the computer screen.

Sam sat back and gestured toward the machine. "I just built out a context wall – y'know, like Dad taught us."

Dean frowned, reached out and flipped the notebook he'd been writing in around. "You mean, like this?"

Sam nodded. "That's a good start, but this is better," he said. "It's like a database, see? You can insert the formulas and codes here and here," he pointed to the cells on the spreadsheet he had pulled up, "and it will help us make connections from the victims to their manner of death and each other—"

"All right, all right, there, War Games," Dean muttered, moving around the table to stand near Virgil and wait for his coffee. "You lost me at 'database'."

Sam furrowed his brows, slouching back in his seat as he pouted, "Well, it is better."

"Why, because you did it?" Virgil asked, tossing a grin over his shoulder to pull the sting from his words.

Dean outright chuckled as he took the mug of black coffee Virgil handed him.

"Such a jerk," Sam muttered, closing the laptop.

"Bitch," Dean returned, his lips perched on the edge of the mug, a grin still framing his eyes.

Minutes later, more of the men who'd filled the beds in the common room filed in, grabbed coffee and breakfast, and greeted each other with the terse, half-sentences that narrated morning. Dean pulled on his boots and shuffled stiffly out to the Impala to grab their spare clothes. While he was gone, Sam edged Virgil away from the group of men and told him what the brothers had discussed during the night.

"So, you want to, what…inspect the bodies?" Virgil asked, puzzled.

Sam shook his head. "No, just question the cops."

"You want to question the cops," Virgil repeated. "How am I supposed to get them to just…hand over the information?"

"Brenna took a folder from the coroner yesterday," Sam explained. "Reynolds wanted to look at the autopsy for some reason. Offer to take it back over to them."

Virgil was frowning, but Sam could see from the way his blue eyes darted back and forth that he was calculating the possibilities and likelihood of the plan working.

"What about the mine?"

"Dean'll go check out the mine," Sam told him. He glanced over Virgil's shoulder to see Brenna enter the kitchen and make a bee-line for the coffee. "Brenna can go with him."

Virgil ticked back his head, his eyes leveling on Sam's, his expression territorial.

"They're gonna have to talk sometime," Sam said.

"About what?" Virgil replied, his voice cold. "The fact that he let her believe he was dead?"

Sam shook his head once, feeling his jaw tighten. "There's a lot of stuff that happened then, Virge," he said softly. "A lot of shit you don't understand."

"How about you tell me, then?"

"Tell you what?" Brenna asked, walking up with innocent eyes as she sipped her coffee. "Mornin'."

"Hey, Brenna," Sam greeted with a small smile.

"What're you guys talking about?"

Sam looked at Virgil, waiting. Virgil sighed.

"You and Dean need to go check out the story behind the cave-in at the mine," he told her.

"What about you?"

Virgil looked at Sam, then rolled his neck until it cracked. "I'm gonna take Stretch here to talk to the cops."

Brenna nodded slowly, taking it in. "Okay. So…where is Dean?"

It took Sam a few minutes to find his brother. He wasn't at the Impala and the showers were empty. After a brief flash of worry, Sam wandered around outside of the station to the back where the mountains nearly butted up against the building, leaving barely enough room for a utility easement. He saw Dean standing near a large, waist-high bolder, one foot braced against the rock, leg straight as he bent sideways over his hip.

Sam skidded to a halt, gaping as Dean caught sight of him. Neither moved and then after a moment, Dean shrugged and continued the odd stretch.

"Oh, c'mon," he said, his voice slightly strained by his position, "this is not the weirdest thing you've ever caught me doing."

"What are you doing?" Sam asked.

"Some moves Mason taught me," Dean said, dropping his foot and bending over at the waist to touch his toes. "Helps get my hip loose faster. And my ribs."

"Mason taught you…yoga?" Sam almost laughed.

Dean stood up, his face slightly red from his head-down position. "Yes. Now, unless you want me to put you in the corpse pose, shut the hell up."

Sam couldn't help but grin wider. "Dude. Didn't you go out with a yoga instructor once?"

Dean paused, hands over his head, and grinned. "Aw, yeah. Lisa." He bounced his eyebrows. "Yoga has its benefits."

He swung his arms loose and made his way over, grabbing up a duffel bag along the way. Sam saw that he was actually moving more fluidly than he had when heading out to the Impala. When Dean got even with him, Sam reached out, clapping his brother on his shoulder in a gesture so natural it felt strange. Dean didn't react, but Sam dropped his hand and followed Dean inside, oddly rattled by how easily everything seemed to be falling into place.

The road trip, sleeping in the car, putting the clues of the case together, giving each other a hard time about nothing and everything, it felt like…coming home. How was this normal? How was this right?

He knew what Dean would say if he asked: Normal is other people.

But he wanted it to be them, didn't he? That's what he'd been after all that time, fought endlessly for in the months that followed Stull. But then why did he feel like he could take a breath for the first time in weeks?

"You go on ahead," Sam said, pausing at the edge of the building. "I'm gonna make a call."

"Your girl?" Dean guessed, giving him a half-turned glance.

Sam nodded, putting the phone to his ear, wondering exactly when he'd become so transparent to his brother…or if he always had been. Talking to Stella settled him a bit. Her voice, her laugh, the way she knew instinctively when to ramble about nothing important so that he could get his balance, then casually ask him how the hunt was going as if he was just running to the grocery store….

He'd missed her. A lot.

"When do you think you'll be home?" she asked.

Home…. Lawrence was home. Not the road. Not this nomadic life. Not the front seat of an old Chevy. Right?

"Couple days," Sam told her. "I don't think this is what they thought it was."

"So…no boogie man?"

"Not this time," Sam chuckled. "Pretty sure it's just a serial killer."

He heard Stella huff out a quick breath. "Only you could make that sound like no big deal." Smiling, he was about to hang up when Stella stopped him. "Hey, a friend of yours stopped in at the bar yesterday."

"Friend?" Sam frowned, thinking maybe Rufus had found out some information on the amulet to share with them. "Black guy?"

"No," Stella said. "He didn't leave his name. Honestly, he seemed kinda cagey. I told him you guys were out of town for a few days."

Not Rufus, Sam realized, instantly concerned. It wasn't like they had many friends.

"He say what he wanted?"

"No, but he left a number." She read it off to him. "He didn't seem to be in a rush or anything, just ordered some beer, asked about you guys, then he was gone. Left a big tip."

Now that was weird. Who did they know that was a big tipper? Another hunter?

"What'd he look like?"

"Average height, dark hair – oh, he had a British accent."

Sam went cold. His fingers were numb and he tried to grip the phone tighter so he wouldn't drop it.

Crowley.

"He left? You're absolutely sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Sam, what's the matter? You sound…scared."

"And you didn't tell him where we are?"

"No, just that you were gone for a few days."

Sam swallowed hard, darting his eyes around at the rock face behind him, the building to his left, the men moving around inside the building. Impossibly, his eyes found Dean as his brother was studying the screen of the laptop Sam had left inside on the kitchen table. As if by some magnetic draw, Dean's head came up slowly and his eyes met Sam's. Dean stood, but Sam shook his head, not taking his eyes from him as he spoke to Stella.

"Listen to me," he said. "That guy is no friend. He comes back, you call the cops. Right away, don't even wait to see what he has to say."

"Sam…."

"No, listen, Stella. He's dangerous. I can't even—" He closed his eyes and took a breath. "He's bad news. Call Sergeant Jackson and tell him. Describe everything about the guy. Tell him not to do anything, just be aware." He opened his eyes and flinched violently to see Dean suddenly standing in front of him, frowning. "Call Scott Mason over at the garage, too. Ask him to keep an eye on our house. I don't know how he'd find it…and it's warded against demons, so…."

Dean's face paled at the same time as Stella gasped.

"Did you say…demons?"

"Just…be careful, okay? I'll call you soon."

"Sam, I—" She stopped, whatever words she'd been about to say stalling in her throat. "You be careful, too. I miss you."

"I miss you, too." He closed his phone, staring at Dean, feeling the ground shift under his feet once more, as if the Earth was trying to collect him and send him straight to the Cage.

"Who?" Dean asked.

"Crowley."

"Son of a bitch," Dean growled, his teeth gritted as he looked away. "I knew that bastard was still out there."

Sam couldn't reply. Dean had told him months ago and he hadn't wanted to believe.

"Stella okay?"

Sam nodded. "I told her to call Mason and Jackson. He left, she said, but he gave her a number."

Dean drew his head back, eyebrows up. "The King of Hell has a data plan?"

Sam looked down at his phone.

"You're not calling that number, Sam."

"Don't you want to know what he wants?" Sam asked.

"Hell no," Dean frowned. "I don't give a damn what he wants."

"I should have listened to you." Sam looked up, feeling as if his world was melting around the edges.

Dean's anger shifted to worry as he studied Sam's face. "Hey, take it easy, man."

He grabbed Sam's arms and turned him until his back was against the building. With slight pressure from Dean's grip, Sam felt himself sliding down the side of the building to sit in the grass. Dean crouched in front of him.

"Better?"

Sam nodded. "I can't believe I thought they'd all just go away."

"You have hope, Sam. That's not a bad thing."

Sam looked down. He'd been an idiot. They could never have anything normal. Never have a life. Just being around other people put those people in danger. Crowley had found Stella. He could find anyone.

"You don't know that."

Sam looked up, puzzled. He hadn't said anything out loud, he was sure of it. "What?"

"He can't find anyone," Dean said. "I know how that big brain of yours works, man. You're spiraling and you gotta stop it."

"He was in Lawrence, Dean."

Dean shrugged. "Not a big secret where the grudge match of the century went down," he said. "I'm just surprised it took him so long."

"Yeah, well. He doesn't know where we are."

Dean sat back on his heels, keeping his eyes level with Sam's, his hands hanging between his knees. "What do you want to do?"

Sam frowned. "What? What do you mean?"

Dean tipped his hands outward, the knotted scar catching Sam's eye. "You said you didn't think this was our kind of thing," he reminded Sam. "We could leave this to the cops."

"Leave?" Sam gaped at his brother. "What about Brenna?"

Dean looked down and Sam saw the muscles along his neck tighten. "She's been doing okay this long," he said, his voice pitched toward the ground. "She'll do okay without me getting in her way." He lifted his head. "If this isn't a witch…then there's no reason for me to be here."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Do you really believe that?"

Dean gave him a sad half-smile. "Doesn't matter, does it? She's got her own family."

"They're not together, Dean," Sam emphasized.

"Since when have we defined family by conventional standards, huh?" Dean replied. "You want to go back and make sure Stella's okay?"

Sam studied Dean for a moment, looking for the tell in his expression, the waver in his brother's voice. But he could find none. Dean was completely ready to drop everything and return to Lawrence with him if that's what he said he needed to do.

"No," Sam replied. "She's okay. She's got protection."

Dean pushed to his feet. "Okay then. Let's call Rufus and get this show on the road."

He pulled out his phone and dialed the older hunter, leaving him a voice mail that Crowley was back on the grid and to call them back. "Knowing if I have some kind of super-special angel powers might come in handy if we run into that limey bastard," he concluded and hung up.

Sam stood waiting as Dean finished his message, then looked over at him. "I was checking out your whole…algorithm thing," Dean said as the moved in tandem back toward the entrance of the fire station.

"Pretty neat, huh?" Sam asked, grinning proudly in spite of himself. "I took most of the idea from Ash's programming, but I figure the more we learn about the town and the suspects, we can just plug the information in and the formula will calculate who the most likely suspect is."

"Oh, it already did," Dean said, putting his left hand on the door and looking at Sam with his eyebrows up.

"It did?" Sam paused, pleasantly surprised that Dean had figured out how to use it.

"Yep," Dean pulled the door open for Sam. "Narrowed it down to Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick."

Sam shot him a look. "Hilarious."

"Could have been the lead pipe," Dean hedged, following him inside.

"Shut up," Sam grumbled good-naturedly as they made their way back to the kitchen to find it mainly cleared out except for Brenna and Virgil.

As they entered the room, however, Sam felt as if they'd walked right into a storm. The quiet pressure in the room seemed to push against his ears and he felt his skin tighten. A quick glance at Dean revealed that his brother was affected similarly, his head up and shoulders back as if ready to ward off a physical blow.

Brenna was standing next to the kitchen table with her arms crossed and fury turning her eyes bright; Virgil was across from her, hands on his hips and faced raised to the ceiling as if he was having a private conversation with God.

"Uh…," Dean muttered. "What'd we miss?"

"Nothing," Brenna stated. "Are you ready to go to the mine?"

Sam tilted his head wondering how she was able to say such an innocuous statement and yet it came out sounding like, cross me and I will kill you painfully and laugh while doing it. He glanced over at Dean who looked back at him and folded his lips down in a shrug before looking back at Brenna.

"Yep," he replied. "Just let me change clothes."

"I'll be outside," she announced and moved fluidly past all three men standing between her and the door.

Sam looked at Virgil who just shook his head once, jaw tight, expression clearly stating don't ask.

"I need two minutes," the bald man said, his blue eyes alight with an unidentifiable emotion.

"You got it," Sam said, nodding back once.

Dean smacked the back of his hand on Sam's chest and pointed toward their duffel. Grabbing a change of clothes they hurried to the showers, not daring to speculate on what had transpired between their two friends. As they stepped out of the fire station into the bright sunlight curving around the mountain peaks, Sam knew that what they found out today could be the deciding factor in what happened next in the lives of four people.

Argo was small enough that driving almost anywhere along the main drag was a waste of gas. Sam and Virgil parted ways with Brenna and Dean, heading toward the police station. Virgil held the envelope in one hand, whacking it distractedly against his leg in time with his thoughts as they walked. Sam caught him tossing a look over this shoulder a few times, though they were far enough apart there was no way he could still see Brenna.

"Want to talk about it?" Sam offered.

Virgil just shook his head.

"I can imagine how you gotta feel—"

"Bullshit!"

Virgil skidded to a halt and turned to face Sam, forcing Sam to stop in the middle of the sidewalk. He glanced around quickly, but saw that no one nearby.

"You got no goddamn clue how I feel, man."

Sam pressed his lips together, nodding once. "Okay."

"Y'know…lately there's not a day that goes by where I don't wonder where my life would be if I hadn't been working that day you guys got trapped in that church fire."

Sam frowned, but waited Virgil out.

"If I'd never met you, I'd've never met her and…," he pulled off his red baseball hat and rubbed at his bald head, pulling the hat back on with a rough tug. "There are just as many days I wish I'd never met her as there are days I can't imagine my life without her in it," he concluded.

"Listen, you love her, I get it, but—"

"No," Virgil interrupted him again. "You don't get it. Because I don't even get it. I don't even know if I love her anymore," he confessed. "I think I just…don't know how to quit her."

"What do you mean?"

"I've been looking out for her for a long time now, y'know?"

Sam nodded.

"I just don't know how else to be with her," Virgil sighed, then rotated on his heel and started walking again. It took Sam a moment to catch up. "There are days where I wish I could just…leave."

That caused Sam to stop. "Leave?"

Virgil turned, squinting against the glare from the sun as it crested the mountain top behind Sam. "Just leave. Start over. Find someone who actually loves me…not someone who never really got around to it."

Sam just stared at him, trying to process the information. "But…the way you were with her back before…, I just—"

"I did love her, Sam, but," Virgil just shook his head. "It's gonna sound like a cheesy '80's song, but sometimes love ain't enough." He looked away, his eyes sad and tired. "Today's one of those days I wish I had never met her," he said quietly.

"But…what about Aislinn?" Sam asked.

Virgil looked back at him. "What about her?"

"Well, if you hadn't met Brenna…," Sam let the words hang between them.

Virgil simply looked at him, the sad expression spreading from his eyes across his face until there were lines of it drawing his lips into an upside-down bow. Something kicked sideways in Sam's brain at that look, but before he could chase down the errant thought, a shout from across the street caught their attention. Both turned to see a man in a brown sheriff's uniform standing next to a parked squad car wave at Virgil.

"It's Maddox," Virgil told Sam. He waved back and they began to cross the quiet street.

"You got something for me?" Maddox asked, sparing Sam a glance.

He was a thin man, taller than Virgil, eye-level with Sam. His thick, snow-white hair lifted his wide-brimmed hat off his head a bit, giving it the illusion of floating. Age lined his face, pulling his white mustache down around his mouth to hide his lips completely.

"Yep," Virgil started to hand the envelope over, but then paused, pulling it back. "You got a sec?"

Maddox frowned. "Was just about to go out and check on LeAnne Jurgen, get her statement."

"Ten minutes, tops," Virgil cajoled.

Maddox shifted his small-eyed, sharp gaze to Sam. "Who's your friend?"

Sam stuck his hand out to shake. "I'm Sam," he replied, not offering his last name.

"Friend of mine," Virgil replied. "He and his brother are visiting; his brother found the body yesterday."

Maddox nodded slowly, then leaned slightly to the side and spit out a stream of tobacco. "Reese," he said.

Virgil tilted his head. "Reese? Jack Reese?"

"The same," Maddox nodded. He looked hard at Virgil another moment, then jerked his head over his shoulder. "Ten minutes."

As they followed, Sam whispered to Virgil. "Did you know him?"

Virgil shook his head. "No. But he hassled Brenna a couple of times."

"Hassled?"

"Tried to get her to close up her herb shop. Said something about it being witchcraft or whatever."

Sam's face knotted in confusion as he followed Virgil inside. "Seriously? Herbs?"

A young woman with long, dark hair looked up from the front desk, her fingers poised over the keys of a black typewriter, a name plate identifying her as Rebecca Holden on the front edge of the desk. Sam registered immediately that she had a typewriter and not a computer, but said nothing. Maddox nodded at her and pointed to a room behind her, door partially opened.

"They still at it?" he asked.

"They've been arguing since you left," Rebecca replied. "It doesn't sound good."

"Arguments rarely do," Maddox replied, sighing, and removed his hat. He turned around to Sam and Virgil. "Start talking."

Sam frowned and tried to peer around the sheriff into the next room as Virgil began asking about the signs of electrocution on the first victim, Elliott, saying Reynolds had mentioned something to him.

"Reynolds was a first responder to that one," Maddox said, pulling at his mustache. "Never sat well with him, seeing the marks on the man's neck. Wasn't your typical drowning."

"None of these deaths have been typical," Sam remarked. "Do you have any suspects?"

"I got a town full of 'em," Maddox replied.

"Nothing to connect the victims?" Sam pressed as Virgil remained silent. "They're not all part of the same club or…have the same priest or something?"

Maddox didn't look at him; instead he inspected the patter of the linoleum floor as the raised voices from the other room spilled out to the main reception area.

"Sheriff," Sam said, trying to get the man's attention. "Did you search the houses of the victims?"

A that Maddox did look at him. "Why do you ask?"

"Did you find anything in there that seemed out of place?"

Maddox hooked his thumbs in his belt and shifted his weight to one hip. "Define…out of place."

Sam sighed. "Maybe a bag with odd bones or bits of hair—"

The door to the room behind Rebecca slammed open and four people surged out into the small reception area – a woman and three men. The woman, pale, with a pleasant face and fire-red hair, had her mouth pinched in a scowl.

She spared Sam a passing glance, saying shrilly to the men who accompanied her, "You're wrong not to take this as a warning. What more proof do you need?"

"Siobhan," said one of the older men, his black suit and white collar identifying him as a priest. "You understand that proving the deaths were the result of witchcraft does nothing to help your case."

"How can you say that?" Siobhan yelled, causing Rebecca to flinch back and away. "It would prove that it's real! That I'm not crazy."

"Mr. Riker," Maddox said, stepping up to another of the men. "I think you should take your daughter home."

"And I think you should mind your own damn business," Riker replied, tugging off his tie and folding it with furious jerks of the silky material, stuffing it into a pocket of the tweed jacket he wore. "Not listening to my daughter in the first place is the reason my niece is dead."

"We don't know that—" the fourth man, who looked to be of Asian descent, tried to speak up before he was cut off harshly by Marcus.

"Stuff it, Hiro. You've already done enough."

"Mr. Riker," the priest tried. "I think we all need to take a moment and—"

"I'll give you a moment," Riker growled, his fist flying before anyone had a chance to react.

The priest took the hit like his jaw was made of glass, dropping in a boneless heap at Sam's feet. Virgil moved forward as if on instinct and Sam grabbed him back at the last second as Maddox unsnapped his weapon and put his hand on the butt of the gun, barking out a sharp, "Hey!" as Hiro and Siobhan reached for Riker.

"Enough!" Maddox bellowed. He looked at Virgil. "Check him," he said, jerking his head toward the unconscious priest. "You two," he looked at Hiro and Siobhan. "Out. And you," he grabbed Riker and turned him. "You're gonna cool your heels here for the rest of the day."

Virgil was already attending to the priest, who was coming around. He'd dropped the envelope with the autopsy report on Rebecca's desk and was easing the priest to a seated position. Sam stepped back out of the way as Hiro began to move past, but Siobhan stopped, staring up at Sam.

"You know about the hex bags," she said, causing everyone in the reception area to freeze. "I heard you. You know about the rituals, too, don't you?"

"I don't—" Sam started, his hands up and open.

Siobhan's eyes darted to his scarred palm. "What is that from, a blood spell? It is, isn't it?"

"Siobhan," Maddox said. "Go. Hiro, take her."

"I don't want anything to do with this," Hiro said, shaking his head. "We have a serial killer taking us out one by one and instead of finding out who it is you're distracted by all this nonsense about witchcraft."

"You wait until you're the one they come after!" Siobhan screamed. "We'll see if you think it's nonsense then!"

"Is that a threat?" Hiro stepped out of the doorway and approached Siobhan. Moving forward as if to protect his daughter, Riker tried to push Maddox out of the way.

"Son of a—" Maddox looked at Rebecca. "Where the fuck is Lennox?"

Rebecca regarded him with wide, scared eyes, unable to look away from the people screaming at each other in front of her desk. "He went to the mine. T-to check in with Bruce."

When Riker made it past Maddox and reached for Hiro, Sam stepped in, grabbing the older man by his tweed jacket, turning him and slamming him against the wall by the door. When Riker struggled, Sam grabbed the man's arm, twisted him around and pushed him face-first against the window, crinkling the blinds with the man's face.

"Stop!" Sam snapped, his jaw clenched. "Just. Stop."

Siobhan stared at him with shock and Hiro took a step back. Sam looked over at Maddox.

"Is Lennox your deputy?"

Maddox nodded.

"Maybe better call him, then," Sam said. "I'll just wait here until you have some help."

"Appreciate it." Maddox glanced over at Virgil and the priest.

"He's okay," Virgil said, pulling the other man to his feet.

Maddox looked at Siobhan and Hiro. "I want you two gone. Not one more word or I'll arrest every single one of you."

Hiro backed out of the room and Siobhan shot a look at Sam before following suit. Sam saw them start to head off in opposite directions. Several minutes later, the priest left, thanking Virgil for his help and nodding at Sam. Once the room had been cleared out, Sam let Riker step back and pull his face away from the window. Maddox cuffed him, then glanced at Sam and Virgil.

"Sounds like we got a few things to talk about," he looked around, his face knotting. Rebecca set a coffee cup at the edge of her desk and Maddox grabbed it and spat into it before looking back at them. "Wait here."

As he escorted Riker back to where, presumably, the cells were located, Sam glanced at Virgil who shrugged back helplessly. Sighing, Sam carded his hair with his fingers and turned to face the window with the crumpled blinds.

"You guys want some coffee?" Rebecca asked, standing and picking up the mug Maddox had used as a spittoon.

Sam glanced over his shoulder and saw Virgil eying the mug with trepidation.

"You got a different cup?" Virgil asked.

www

"My dad was the one who could have really told you about the cave-in," Bruce Frazier said, his back to Brenna and Dean as he pulled files from a cabinet and stuck them in a white, cardboard box. "He knew the history of that mine inside and out. More than Susan Smith over at the library, even."

"Susan…," Dean spoke up, wandering the office and looking at the multitudes of framed black-and-white photos, dating back to the 1890's. "Her nephew the one who works the desk?"

"Gimpy kid? Yeah, that's him," Bruce replied. "Her brother died in the cave-in and she likes to think she's the resident expert." He paused, turning, and looked at Brenna. "But no one knew more than my dad."

"I'm really sorry about what happened to him," Brenna said, her voice a bit choked.

The sound of her distress had Dean turning around. Brenna stood in the center of the room, arms crossed over her middle, eyes on Bruce. She appeared relaxed, until he saw the tension in her shoulders and the muscle coiled along her jaw. For whatever reason, Dean realized, she was holding herself tightly in control.

"You found him," Bruce said, files in his hands, hovering over the open box. He tilted his head, studying Brenna. "Didn't you?"

Dean took a step forward, waiting for Brenna's answer.

"Yes," she replied tightly.

"Was…," Bruce paused, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. "Was it awful?"

Brenna pulled her lips in and looked down before answering. "Yes."

"You haven't seen him?" Dean asked, moving to stand next to Brenna.

Bruce shook his head. His wheat-blond hair was longer than Sam's, and fell into his eyes at the motion. His hands shook slightly and he gripped the files tighter.

"Said the body was evidence in an open investigation."

"Not even to identify him?" Dean pressed.

"They said we wouldn't be able to." Bruce turned away. "Whoever killed him mashed his face in. With rocks, or so we were told. Had to ID him with his finger prints."

Dean looked down at Brenna, who was still studying the floor. "Anything you could tell us about the cave in would help, Bruce," he said. "It'll be more than we know now."

"Why do you want to know?" Bruce asked. "Why do you care?" He looked at Brenna. "This got something to do with your shop getting busted up?"

Brenna looked up. "Something like that."

Bruce sighed, then grabbed the back of a rolling desk chair. He sat heavily, putting his feet up on the desk, motioning for them to take a seat. As he spoke, Dean watched Brenna take in the information.

She'd been acting off from the moment he and Sam walked in and found what looked like the end of an argument between her and Virgil. On the way to the mine museum, she'd gotten a call from Virgil's aunt and had spoken in low tones to her daughter, words that Dean couldn't – and wasn't meant to – understand. She'd seemed reassured when she hung up, but there were lines around her eyes that Dean wasn't used to seeing. Lines of worry. And regret.

"Mostly what I got is rumor…with some stuff I heard my dad talk about," Bruce began. "Like twenty years ago, or so, a man named Fletcher Reese bought the mine. His grandfather had been from here or some shit. Anyway, he was Mr. Moneybags and wanted to commercialize the mine, take tours through it, all that jazz – even though it was still a working mine."

Bruce picked up a pen from the deck and began rolling it along his fingers, staring at the toe of his boot as he talked.

"August Smith was the foreman back then." He glanced at Dean. "Susan's brother. He was flat-out against it, man. Said the liability was too high or whatever. Had petitions against it and spoke about it at church and the town council. Said it would ruin the town's history and heritage." Bruce shrugged. "I was in high school at the time; I don't remember much. I didn't really care then – I was too busy trying to figure out how to get the hell out of this town." He tossed the pen on the table. "Ironic, I guess, that I ended up here anyway."

"What happened with the council?" Brenna asked, leaning forward in an effort to bring Bruce's attention back to point.

"Oh, well, the town was divided about it. There was this…sect or faction or something in town that claimed there were secrets in the mine. Really spooky shit," Bruce gave them jazz hands and rolled his eyes. "They said that the secrets shouldn't be revealed to the world and they supported Smith and his protest. Reese thought it was bunk – just people trying to jump on a protest bandwagon and claimed they would end up destroying the town's economy."

Bruce took a breath, then dropped his feet from the desk, leaning his forearms on the surface.

"This one night, Smith said he was going to show Reese how real the secrets were and he told Reese to meet him at the mine in one of the little-used arms. No one really knows what happened next, but there was an explosion, the tunnel caved in, and both men – plus two rescue workers trying to get them out – died."

"Did Smith say anything about the bastnasite?" Brenna asked, her whole body tense now.

Dean frowned, hearing something in the way she asked the question that caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end.

Bruce nodded slowly, then stood and crossed the room to one of the pictures. Pulling it down off its hook, he handed it to Brenna, Dean peering over her shoulder.

"This?"

The picture was of two men standing at what appeared to be the original entrance to the mine, a wheelbarrow between them and in the barrow a collection of rocks that appeared to have crystal centers. Dean could see burned into the base of the picture, Argo 1898.

"Yes," Brenna replied. "Was it in the arm of the mine that collapsed, do you know?"

Bruce shrugged. "Must've been. It's nowhere now. All gold, gold, gold."

A rap against the glass on the door to the office had Dean jumping in surprise. Bruce crossed the room to open the door, allowing a man in the brown police uniform to enter.

"Lennox," Bruce nodded. "You come for the files?"

Lennox nodded at Bruce, then shifted his eyes to Brenna. He smiled, showing a flash of teeth that had Dean narrowing his eyes.

"Miss Brenna," the deputy said. "How's your daughter doing?"

Dean pulled his head back slightly at the mention of Aislinn.

"She's good, thanks, Paul," Brenna smiled sweetly at the deputy. "Thanks again for your help getting my place boarded up."

"Don't mention it," Lennox said, twisting his hat around in his blunted fingers. He was shorter than Dean, stocky to boot, but looked like he could fell a man with one powerful punch. "Just sorry it had to happen at all."

"Yeah, me too," Brenna said.

Bruce handed Lennox the box he'd been filling. "This is all I got on Dad and the construction that was going on under Mr. Elliott. Not much on Reese, though."

Dean looked over at Bruce. "Isn't that the name of the guy you said bought this place?"

Bruce nodded. "The last guy they found was his nephew, Jack. He didn't even live in Argo. Was just back to sign some papers or something that would turn the mine over to the town."

Dean shared a look with Brenna. "Did he sign them before he died?"

Lennox shook his head. "Shame, really."

"What?" Dean studied the deputy.

"Well, now the mine will probably have to be closed," Lennox hefted the box. "No contractor, no one to run the museum, and now with Reese's nephew – and only descendant – gone, ownership will go into probate. Bad for the town, you ask me."

Bruce pressed his lips with a yeah, that's a shame nod. "I'll walk you out. I need to talk with Maddox about setting up guards here, anyway," he said to Lennox. Glancing back at Dean and Brenna, he asked, "We good?"

"Yeah, Bruce," Brenna smiled. "Thanks."

As they left, Dean stood and started pacing. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Rarely," Brenna replied.

"It's all coming back to this place, the mine…. Did your friend Abby have anything to do with the mine?" Dean asked.

Brenna shook her head. "Not that I know of. Her life was the church."

"And Turner ran the fire station," Dean frowned. "That's connected to the whole town, not just the mine." He sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "Hell, maybe we do need Sam's super computer for this. There are too many players to keep track of."

"Let's get back to Sam and Virgil," Brenna said, standing and moving toward the door.

"Wait."

Brenna stopped, but didn't turn. Dean watched her shoulders tense and he moved closer.

"What aren't you telling me?"

Without turning, Brenna huffed out a humorless laugh. "How long you got?"

"About this case, Brenna." Dean stepped forward. "Like maybe how you were the one to find Frazier?"

She glanced to the side, not really looking at him. "I told Sam."

"And what about this bastnasite?"

Brenna turned to face him. "I told you about that! The druids believe—"

"Yeah, I heard you. Healing powers. But you knew before we came in here that it was in the arm of the mine that collapsed," he accused. "Did you know about Smith and Reese? About the town being divided?"

Brenna didn't reply, but when Dean stepped forward, she stepped back.

"Yesterday, I met a few people in the diner," Dean told her. "They said you've been crossing the streams."

"I don't choose sides is all," Brenna said. "It's stupid."

"But you knew, didn't you? About the bad blood in this town." He took another step forward, feeling the air between them tighten and crackle with tension.

"What if I did?"

"We're here because of you," Dean said, brows gathering as he stared at her, trying to catch her eyes with his. "We had all-but retired. No more hunting. But you called and we're here."

"I didn't call!"

"Semantics," Dean snapped. "You're in trouble, you need our help, so what's with all the secrets?"

Brenna's back was against the office door, but she leaned forward into Dean's personal space. "What's with the third degree? You've been here a day and you think you have a right to every little thought in my head?"

"The ones pertaining to this case? Hell, yeah!"

"Fine! I found Frazier and I want the bastnasite. You figured me out," Brenna snapped, finally looking at him. "Happy?"

"Why, Brenna?" Dean asked, purposely dropping his voice. He tilted his head, studying her, thinking. "Why do you need it so bad?"

He stepped closer, feeling a pull low in his gut, a low-simmering heat in his chest. He was moving on instinct.

"Don't," Brenna pulled up, away from him, but had nowhere to go. "You…you don't get to do this."

"Do what?" Without consciously realizing it, he had all-but eliminated the space between them, now standing close enough he could feel her breath against his face.

"You were dead, Dean," she snarled, teeth clenched. "You didn't get a say in what happened next in my story."

Dean shook his head, confused. "I never said I—"

"You have no idea what it's like, how this feels, the control that I have to maintain every day—"

"Holy shit…," Dean breathed, watching as Brenna closed her mouth with a click, biting off whatever she'd been about to reveal. "You don't want it for your daughter…you want it for you."

"I have to protect her," Brenna breathed. "I have to keep her safe – even from me."

"But you control it," Dean argued. "You only see when you want to now."

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Brenna snapped, her fury seeming to blast him, the simmering heat kicking up until Dean gasped with the power of it, yet he couldn't back away. The magnet had flipped and he was caught in its pull. "I have to think about it every time I touch her, each time I hold her. I can't ever let my guard down, not once!"

Dean felt the skin around his eyes tighten as her pain shook between them. "Brenna, I'm sor—"

"No!" She pushed at him, not budging him, but making him flinch from her touch. "You don't get to say that. You died, Dean. You left. And I hated you for it. I hated you so fucking much—"

He was against her before he consciously realized what he was doing. The full length of his body pressed Brenna against the closed door, his forearms braced on either side of her head as he closed his mouth over hers in a fevered search for contact. The moment their lips met, images and sensations flooded his senses. He could barely breathe from the intensity, but was unable to pull away.

Dimly, in a part of his brain that still registered his surroundings, he felt Brenna's hands slipping up under his shirt, seeking skin, fingers ghosting over the scar on his back as she pulled him closer. The force of his need pushed her up slightly on the door, propped there only by his weight as he buried his hands in her hair, fingers on the skin at the back of her neck, their mouths a clash of tongues and desperate breath.

He saw everything – his truth, her memories, both consciousnesses blending and meshing and then ricocheting as they parted telling the story of their four lost years. He felt the pain rip through her body as Aislinn came into the world and then the overwhelming joy and love unlike he'd ever experienced as the baby was placed in Brenna's arms. He saw the inside of his grave; felt that first gasp of air as he climbed from the Earth into the world once more. He saw Bobby and felt his friend's arms around him and Sam's tears as he finally believed Dean was really alive.

Brenna clutched at his hair, her mouth moving over his face, lips at the scars around his eye, along his jaw. Her leg curled around his waist as he pressed his knee between her legs in an effort to lift her higher, putting his mouth at her throat. He inhaled the warmth of her skin as her hands – God, her hands – found every curve, every bend, every scar along his back, neck, face, arms. Their breath was ragged and wordless as they fought to instinctively blend their bodies as the memories and sensations connected.

He could see Virgil walking away, Brenna holding her baby close as her heart broke once more, unable or unwilling to cry. He watched as she searched, endless books, words blurring, tears wetting her cheeks as she worked to comfort her daughter without connecting. He felt the fury and frustration of his fight with Sam, his brother walking out as Dean lay bleeding on the floor. He felt the fear and relief at finding Sam again, his brother helping him drive a blade through Ruby just before Hell opened up.

The memories grew and built, the emotions becoming stronger, the impressions vivid until Dean thought he was going to pass out from the intensity, but he didn't want to stop. He was no longer aware of anything outside of Brenna's touch, her mouth, her memories, her emotions. He craved more, more, needing to feel it all, to see what she saw.

He pushed into her mind, trying to find her next memory and her next. Seeing inside of her with such freedom and abandon was intoxicating, addictive. He opened himself, barring her from nothing, letting her see it all. The images and sensations began to overlap, coming at him too rapidly for him to really separate, absorb, understand. He saw Virgil yelling, and then Brenna's reflection in a mirror, eyes puffy from tears. He saw nightmares of fire and wraiths.

He saw himself shut Sam into the panic room and felt the tear in his heart as his brother cried out. He saw a blend of blood and pain, unable to differentiate if he'd caused it or if he felt it. He saw himself kill Zachariah and saw the sky inside of Heaven.

Then, without warning, light shot through his mind, searing his vision and blasting a wave of heat between them strong enough they were suddenly stumbling apart. For several moments, Dean could see nothing but the light, his eyes burning with it, his body feeling as if it were on fire. He clutched at his head, registering that he'd fallen to his knees, unable to stop the inevitable collapse of his body. He cried out as the heat grew, until he thought he was panting from the intensity, then as quickly as it came, it was gone. The light, the heat, everything.

It was silent in the office once more; save for the harsh breathing of two very confused people.

Hands trembling, Dean dropped them to his sides, looking over at Brenna with trepidation. She was still leaning against the wall, her hair askew, her lips swollen from his kisses, her T-shirt twisted at the waist, but otherwise intact. Her eyes were wide, the pupils large and black, gold barely around the edge, but Dean could tell they were returning to normal.

"What the hell was that?" Dean rasped. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Brenna whispered, then louder, "Are you? Your skin was on fire. It hurt to touch you!"

Dean pushed to his feet, his hip protesting, and dragged a hand down his face. "Did you see that light?"

Brenna shook her head, straightening her shirt and pushing her hair back as she got her breath under control. "I saw a lot of stuff…."

Dean peered at her, confused. "You didn't see that light? It was…it burned my eyes it was so bright."

"Nothing," she said, moving away from the wall with careful steps, as if afraid she was going to fall over if she moved too fast. "No light."

Dean rubbed at the scar along his jaw. "Man, that's weird. It felt like…," he stopped suddenly, looking at the scar on his right hand.

Brenna was twisting her hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. "Like what?"

"I saw light like that," Dean replied, unable to take his eyes from his scar, "when I grabbed onto Sam back in Stull." He didn't bother explaining to her what Stull was. Either she got it from connecting with them, or she didn't. "Then I saw it again when I tried to wake him up after he got knocked around by a ghost."

"What does the light have to do with Sam?" Brenna asked, trying to keep up.

"Nothing. I don't know. Maybe everything." Dean looked up. "Are you okay? Really? I mean…I kinda feel like I overloaded us or something."

"I'm okay," Brenna said, offering him a small smile. "I'm stronger than I look. Although, that was one helluva kiss."

"I've never had that happen before," Dean shook his head, looking at his hand once more. "The visions thing. It was…," he struggled to find a word that she wouldn't take offense to.

"Intoxicating."

He glanced at her, nodding carefully.

"Until you about burned up," she amended.

He opened his mouth to say something, thinking about how both he and Sam had used the heat to their advantage, but was interrupted by her cell phone. Frowning, she answered.

"Virge? What do you mean—okay, okay! We're on our way."

"What is it?" Dean asked, already heading toward the door.

"Something about trouble down at the police station," Brenna said, on his heels.

Dean's frown was fierce as he downshifted to find another gear, all thought of connecting with Brenna or psychic heat that could literally melt them forgotten as he thought about Sam being tangled up in whatever trouble had Virgil calling for back-up.

He didn't even notice when Brenna was forced to jog to keep up with him.

www

"Well, that escalated quickly," Virgil muttered, sitting on the curb of the sidewalk outside of the fire station, an ice pack on the side of his face, another on his knuckles.

The moment Maddox had returned to talk with Sam and Virgil, noise from outside had drawn their attention.

Sam and Virgil had gone to the door, narrowly avoiding being hit by a brick that sailed through the front window, the glass shattering inward and cutting Rebecca's forehead. Sam wasn't sure who'd thrown the brick – Siobhan or Hiro – because chaos started soon thereafter with Lennox's return. Somehow Riker had gotten free, but Sam didn't see how because roughly a minute after he'd stepped outside, Hiro had pulled a Bruce Lee and roundhouse-kicked Sam on the side of the head.

He'd opened his eyes to see Dean wading into the melee, flattening anyone who stood between him and Sam, using his left fist and right forearm to subdue whoever who took a swing at him. It had almost felt like a dream, Sam remembered, his vision hazy, his head throbbing, watching with distracted amazement as his brother moved with a kind of lethal grace through the small mob of angry people.

"I think the little guy actually bit me," Dean muttered, working his tongue along the cut on his bottom lip, flexing his left hand where teeth marks bruised the skin between his thumb and index finger. His knuckles were scuffed, his cheek starting to reveal a bruise, but other than that he appeared in one piece.

Sam took the ice pack from Brenna and dropped it across the back of his neck. "I miss everything," he complained.

"That's what happens when you get yourself knocked out before the fun starts," Dean told him.

"I thought his getting knocked out was what started the fun," Virgil countered.

"Oh, yeah," Dean bobbed his head.

"You guys have a really weird definition of fun," Brenna muttered with a frown, tilting Dean's face to the dying light of the late afternoon sun, inspecting his left cheekbone. "I don't think that'll bruise too badly," she said.

Dean lifted a shoulder. "Eh. I've had worse."

"Next time, try attacking a group of people from the right," Brenna said softly, releasing Dean's chin. "That guy wouldn't have been able to hit you if you'd seen him."

Brenna smiled at Dean and Sam blinked at them, noting a decidedly different energy between them than had been present that morning. Something had transpired at that mine that was for sure. But with the present company, he was going to have to wait to get the full story.

As they tended to their wounds, Sheriff Maddox talked with Captain Reynolds out of earshot. Hiro – who Sam had learned ran the mercantile – and Riker were cuffed and sitting in the back of Maddox's squad car. Siobhan had been taken home by Lennox and the priest – whose name, Sam learned, was Damien.

He was pretty sure Dean was the only other person who would find that funny.

Rebecca was sitting in another car, gauze taped to her forehead, waiting for Maddox to take her home. And a woman Sam had never seen was writing down every word Reynolds was saying to the sheriff. Sam sighed. This was the weirdest case he'd been on in a long time, not counting anything involving angelic vessels.

"So…let's recap," Dean said, his voice a low rumble against the subdued air.

Sam liked listening to his brother post fight. There was something soothing about the irreverent up yours, world attitude Dean voice always seemed to capture when they managed to walk away from another struggle, more or less in one piece.

"We got Sheboygan –"

"Siobhan," Sam corrected.

"Right. Hot crazy chick is sure that witches killed five people in her town – including her cousin. Knows about hex bags and spells. Right so far?"

"Yep," Virgil muttered, his head hanging low.

Sam watched as Brenna moved over to sit next to him and hold the ice pack in place on this hand, listening quietly.

"Asian guy is on the opposite side, saying the killer is some crazy dude in town and seems pretty sure that this Riker guy is it," Dean said, pointing to the two men in the back of the squad car, not looking at each other.

"Right again," Sam told him.

"Priest guy is in the Crazy Dude camp, and Riker says he believes the hot chick. Reynolds, Maddox, and that poor kid Rebecca don't know what to believe," Dean shifted his eyes to Rebecca, then looked down at Sam. "Match that up with what Brenna and I picked up back at the mine, my money is on the Crazy Dude theory."

Sam smiled wanly at his brother.

"You put that together pretty fast," he said.

Dean rubbed gingerly at his bruised cheek. "What can I say; I kinda got the corner on 'crazy'."

"I still don't know how you got here so fast," Sam said, adjusting the icepack from his neck to the back of his head.

"Felt a tremor in the Force," Dean said, giving him a wink that said we'll talk later. "Think we can use your mini WOPR to plug the names in and figure out whodunit?"

"I don't know," Virgil said suddenly.

"You don't know?" Brenna asked, shifting so that she could look at all of them.

Virgil dropped the ice pack from the side of his face, a nasty bruise contrasting with the bright blue of his eye. "I don't know about this Crazy Dude theory, I mean."

"What are you thinking?" Dean asked the paramedic.

"I just keep going back to that wizard," Virgil said. "Last time we worked with you guys. You remember?"

"Burned onto my brain," Dean replied, glancing sideways at Sam, perhaps remembering, as Sam did, how the wizard had used the Kestrel dagger to cut Sam, causing Dean to nearly bleed out, thanks to the spell that accompanied the blade.

"He was just a regular guy once, just a," Virgil glanced at Dean, "Crazy Dude. And he messed with something evil and turned himself into a monster."

"Witches are human," Brenna said, adding to the counter-argument. "They use spells and rituals and find ways of gaining and subverting power. I mean, some of them do. Not all are evil."

"The ones who kill are," Sam muttered.

"I'm just saying…the vision I had when I touched Frazier," Brenna said, pointedly avoiding the quick, shocked look Virgil shot her at this news, "wasn't of a crazy dude. It was a Wicker Man. In druid rituals, this figure is used as a symbol of sacrifice."

Dean sighed, then looked at Sam who shrugged in return. "Three of the people who were killed were connected to the mine," he said, still looking at Sam, but no longer seeing him. "What if the other two – Abby and Turner – what if they stood on one or the other side of this whole…town rumble." He waved his fingers toward the squad car.

"Abby would've believed," Brenna said, sounding pensive. "She had faith in everything – even my herbs. If Siobhan had talked with her at all, Abby would have been all-in."

"Not Turner," Virgil countered. "He was your basic seeing is believing kind of guy. He would have laughed at the idea of a witch causing his death."

"We need to look in their houses," Dean said to Sam. "See if we can find any hex bags or something that marks them as victims of a spell. With or without the electrical burns, if it is a witch, they would have used some kind of spell, you can bet on it."

"And we need to find out more about the Wicker Man Brenna saw," Sam concurred.

"The Wicker Man is a symbol of the draiocht," Brenna said. "If we can find out how to summon the draiocht, we might be able to find out how they're choosing victims."

"And then who they are," Virgil concluded.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say we don't have a lot of time," Dean said. He looked at Sam. "You take Brenna up to her house and go through her books." He looked at Virgil. "You and me'll take the houses."

No one argued with him. Sam stood and rested a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Be careful," he said quietly, remembering too clearly the hex bag that had almost killed Dean once. "I feel like we're flying a little blind on this one."

"You're just rusty," Dean said, his mouth pulling up in a half grin, his eyes dancing a bit.

"Oh, and you're not?" Sam raised an eyebrow at him, realizing that while Dean had been willing to back his Crazy Dude theory, the prospect of this turning into an actual hunt after all excited him.

Dean pulled his head back, his face folding into a look of false incredulity. "I don't get rusty." He clapped a hand on Sam's arm and grinned, whispering, "Yoga."

"Swell. New Age Dean. Just what the world needs."

"Call me when you find something," Dean told him. "And, uh, Sammy?"

Sam turned to face him once more. "Yeah?"

"Watch out for yourself."

Sam tried to alleviate some of the concern he saw in Dean's eyes by smiling widely enough his dimples appeared. "Always, man."

He and Brenna stood watching as Virgil and Dean approached Reynolds and Maddox, asking for the addresses of the victim's houses. Sam knew that Dean would find a way in, even if it wasn't exactly sanctioned by the Sheriff of Argo. Glancing down at Brenna, Sam smiled, trying to reassure her. She had managed to avoid being caught up in the ruckus, standing by to help them pick up the pieces when it was over.

"Ready?"

She nodded. "Care if we drive? It's been a long day."

Sam glanced back at Dean. His brother had the keys to the Impala. "You got a car?"

Brenna grinned. "It's even Winchester approved," she said, leading him across the street to a black, '77 Charger.

The door squeaked as Sam opened it. He smiled and climbed inside, chuckling slightly at the completely incongruous sight of the car seat in the back. Brenna started up the engine. The stereo blasted Pearl Jam, startling Sam. Brenna turned down the volume quickly, Eddie Vedder's voice fading to the background.

"It's a really good song," she said sheepishly.

The light had faded significantly, the sun having slipped behind the mountains, dumping shadows across the town like a bracing splash of water. Brenna hit the headlights as she headed up out of the business district to the winding mountain road that led to her house. Sam narrowed his eyes, trying to see into the darkened wooded area as they drove, studying the house by the headlights as they pulled to a stop in front.

The house was small, with a small front porch and hooks where a few hanging plants had once resided. Sam saw broken pots now sitting in a pile of clay on the ground just off the edge of the porch, the front windows boarded up as if the residence was ready for a bad storm.

Brenna led him inside and turned on the lights, exposing more disarray inside. She set her keys on a sideboard behind a couch that was situated in front of a stone fireplace. Off to the side, Sam saw a TV that had been smashed out, and above the fireplace a mirror had been broken.

"It was weird," Brenna said, following his traveling eyes. "They broke all the glass. Even in the picture frames on the tables."She nodded to a stack of black frames on the sideboard.

Shrugging, she started down a hall, calling out over her shoulder. "I'll bring the books out to the kitchen. There'll more room to look through them. There should be some soda or beer in the fridge. Help yourself."

Sam nodded and started to head toward the kitchen when he saw what she meant about the picture frames. Several five by seven frames were stacked near where Brenna had tossed her keys, the glass face gone, the pictures exposed. Sam wandered over, picking up one and smiling at a photo of Virgil, ever-present red baseball hat turned backwards, leaning on a fence and grinning at the camera. Another was of Declan, sitting back at the pub where Sam and Dean had first met Brenna, a pint in one hand and a pipe in the other.

He wondered idly if there were any existing pictures of him and Dean outside of the few childhood ones he knew his brother kept tucked into John's journal – and the ones on file in various and sundry law enforcement establishments. He set the two frames aside, turning to look through the rest.

But then he paused.

Three frames in, he saw one of a smiling Brenna crouched next to a child – a girl with shoulder-length, fine, light brown hair and large green eyes, a small scattering of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and her mouth pulled up in a half-grin so achingly familiar Sam's knees went weak.

He turned the frame over, pulling the picture free and saw written on the back Aislinn, 3 years old.

"Oh, my God," he breathed, turning the picture back over and staring once more at the child's eyes, not at all like her mother's, but well-known to Sam.

"I have too many books," he heard Brenna saying from down the hall, her voice getting closer. "It's actually funny, because when we left you guys, I had hardly anything, remember? Pretty much all my stuff burned up when Declan—"

She came out into the living room, three encyclopedia-sized books in her hands, and froze at the look on Sam's face. Her eyes darted to his hands, seeing the picture clutched there and then back up to his face.

"Oh, hell…," she said quietly.

"Brenna…this is Aislinn?" Sam said, needing her to confirm it.

"Sam…," Brenna's voice trembled. She set the books down on a small end table next to her couch, approaching Sam with her hands out as if in supplication.

"This is why you and Virgil don't live together…," Sam continued, holding the picture up in accusation. "Why you never married. This…this is why he's okay to leave and start over."

"I didn't know how to tell him," Brenna offered, and Sam knew at once she wasn't talking about Virgil. "I don't know if I can."

"You have to," Sam said, his voice hard, his eyes hot. "You have no idea what my brother has been through over the last four years."

"I'm starting to get an idea," Brenna said, wincing as if at a memory.

"Then you know I'm right. You have to tell him."

"Sam, how am I supposed to—"

She never got to finish her sentence.

In that moment, the lights around the house went out and before Sam could do more than rotate to face the door, it was kicked open and three figures rushed in, shadows against the dark. Sam dropped the picture, his fists up to fight but a pain unlike any he'd ever experienced slammed into him, crashing through his system and freezing his muscles.

He fell to the floor, hitting hard as his body convulsed. Blinking blurrily up through the gloom, he saw a baton descend, bright lights dancing on the end. It touched him once again, electricity coursing through his system, wave after wave of agony causing him to buck and writhe, unable even to call out, to breathe, to defend himself.

The pain abated for a moment, but Sam was too far gone to appreciate the reprieve. His world was gray, flashes of light gathering at the periphery of his vision, tunneling rapidly forward as he gasped weakly, tears slipping unheeded from eyes pressed tightly closed. His ears were ringing, his mouth wet with a sick taste, and then the pain slammed into him again and his body jerked once more before darkness took him, mercifully, into its protection.

---

a/n: If you're using a crib sheet to keep track of the cast of characters in Argo, don't worry. I've got one, too. *smile* And if I do it right, there's really only one who will ultimately matter. You just have to figure out which one…. *grins*

For those of you who guessed where I was going with Brenna's daughter, kudos to you! I hope you'll enjoy how the rest of the story plays out as I'm excited to bring the rest of it to you.

For those of you who don't like this direction, I just want to say that I've been planning on writing this story for about five years now and have a very specific way I want to end it, thereby book-ending my multi-chapter SPN fics. I know this direction in a story (girlfriends, spouses, kids, that sort of thing) isn't wildly popular in our fandom, but I thought this a story worth telling and I hope those of you who aren't thrilled will give the rest of the story a chance.

As always, thank you for reading! I'll see you in a couple weeks.