Family is Where the Heart is

Chapter 21

Dean unlocked the door to their motel room, letting Sarah in first and shut the door behind him. He tossed the keys on the bed, closest to the door before removing his jacket, not saying a word. Sarah wandered over to her uncle, who was sitting at the small table, on his computer.

She wrapped her arm around him, "Hey, Uncle Sam. Did you find anything?"

Sam kissed her head. "Hey, peanut," he told her.

Dean had tossed his jacket on the bed farther from the door and walked over to them. "What did you find out?" he asked his brother.

"I'm sorry," Sam told him.

He stared at him. Sorry about what?"

"Marshall Hall died at 4:17." Sam let out a sigh.

"The exact time I was healed," Dean realized.

"What does that mean?" asked Sarah, looking between her father and uncle.

"Well, I put together a list. Everyone Roy healed, six people over the past six months," Sam explained. He reached for a stack of papers and handed it to Dean, "and I cross-checked them with the local obits. Every time someone was healed, someone else died and each time the victim died of the same symptom Le Grange was healing at the time."

"So someone is healed of cancer, someone else dies of cancer?" Dean questioned.

"Somehow, La Grange…" he let out a deep breath. "…is trading a life for another."

Dean, who had sat down across from his brother, shook his head. His bad feeling was taking a turn for the worst as he learned the truth behind Roy's "healing powers." "Wait, wait, wait. So…Marshall died to save me?"

"Dean, the guy probably would have died, anyway, and someone else would have been healed."

"You never should have brought me here," he said, standing up once again.

"Dean, I was just trying to save your life," Sam told him. "For Sarah's sake," he nodded towards his niece still beside him.

Dean was walking away. He turned back to face him, raising his voice, "But, Sam, some guy is dead now because of me."

"I didn't know."

Sarah stared at the floor, torn. Torn between her father alive and well, and torn from the fact that someone had to die in order for Dean to live. She loved him so much that she never, ever wanted to lose him. But to think of this Marshall guy dead. His friends and loved ones crushed from the lost and now probably grieving over him. Sarah didn't like it. In fact, she ran from the room and out of the lobby, pushing the front, main doors with full force that it flew open and bounced closed after she was outside.

She hid her face in her arms that she folded them on the hood of the Impala and cried. It wasn't fair. Why couldn't Roy have been a real healer? Why couldn't her father have been healed without anyone having to die in his place?

If luck would have it, Mark was sitting out there, puffing on a cigarette, enjoying the chilly, cloudy day of the beginning of May. He had looked over when he heard the door fly open and saw Sarah run out.

He took one last puff and flicked it on the ground. The lit cigarette landed in a shallow puddle. Mark wheeled over to her. "What's wrong, Sar Bear?"

Sarah lifted her head and sniffed back a whole lot of mucus. "Roy's a fake," she just blurted out, without thinking of what she was saying and who she was saying it to. "Someone else died so my dad could be healed. Who probably didn't even deserve it."

Mark stared at his second cousin. "A fake?" he asked. "I traveled all the way from South Dakota just to hear the guy's a fake?"

She sniffed, wiping her eyes. "What's with you, Mark?"

He held his arms out. "My legs."

"What happened to them?"

"I was wounded over in Iraq during a battle. I told my friend to just leave me there and save himself. Well, he's dead and I'm alive. Not even able to use my legs." Mark looked away, at the wet pavement. "I rather have died then live like this."

Sarah dried her eyes and scrunched her eyebrows together. She stepped towards her second cousin. "Didn't you tell me once that it's not what's on the outside that counts, it's what's on the inside?"

"That was before, Sar Bear," he told her, sadly. "Now, just thinking about sitting here not able to do anything… I rather be dead."

Sadness turned to anger. "Don't say that, Mark!" she snapped at him. "Just because you can't walk, doesn't mean you're useless. Don't you look around when you see Roy heal someone? See the pain they're going through? There's people who are worse off than you, Mark. Like today, someone miles away, died so my dad could live. My dad has to live with that fact. That Roy ended the man's life so he could heal my dad."

"Big deal, it should have been me," he replied. "You don't know what your dad did. To you. To your mom."

Sarah stepped forward, towards her second cousin just as Dean opened the door. "My dad didn't do anything to me or Mom. He wasn't even around, remember?!"

Dean froze in his tracks, holding the door open. He shook his head and said, "Sarah, come inside. You know better than to run out like that without your uncle or me."

She turned and walked over to her father, looking up at him. "I'm sorry, Dad."

"Just don't do it again," he told her. Looking over at Mark, Dean said, "Stay away from my daughter. The last thing she needs is you filling her head with a bunch of crap."

Sarah looked back at Mark, then at Dean. "What's going on? Are you both fighting?"

"It's nothing, Sarah. Let's go back inside." Dean placed his hand on the back of his daughter's head and led her inside the door. They headed back to the motel. "What's wrong," he asked her.

She shoved her hands inside her sweatshirt pocket. "It ain't fair, Dad."

Dean looked ahead. "I know, but neither you or Sam knew."

"It still doesn't make it right," Sarah told him, bitterly.

"True." He stopped in front of their room's door and turned to face her. He had been walking with his hands in his jeans pockets. "You know what I have to do though, right?"

Sarah stared up at him and shook her head. "No, what?"

"Think, baby girl. You ran out without me or Sam, into a parking lot where something could have happened to you."

Her eyes grew wide when it finally sunk in. Sarah backed away. "I said I was sorry, Dad. I was upset."

"And I realized that, but I have told you never to leave the motel unless Sam or myself was with you."

Sarah hugged her father's legs to her. "Please don't, Daddy. I won't do it again, I promise."

Dean just looked down at her. He closed his eyes, hating the fact of what he had to do when they got in the room. This was the part of fatherhood he was not looking forward to but knew he had to do it. Sarah had to learn what she needed to know. He had to keep her safe and that meant doing what he told her to do. Dean removed his hands from his pockets and lifted his daughter up into his arms, rubbing her back in circles. He kissed the side of her head and carried Sarah inside.

"Sam, can you step out for a moment while Sarah and I have a chat?" he asked of his brother.

Sam nodded and stood up, closing his laptop. "I'll go get a soda. Want one?"

"No, but get Sarah a Sprite."

He nodded and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Dean sat down on the foot of the bed, closest to the door, setting Sarah on his lap, facing him. "Look at me," he told her, nudging her off his shoulder. "I understand you were upset by what Sam said. Believe me, I'm pissed, too. But that's no reason to go running out to the parking lot. What if someone had taken you, Sarah? What if someone had hit you with their car?"

Sarah wiped her nose on her sleeve, sniffling.

Dean watched her, grossed out. "We have got to wash your sweatshirt, kid," he stated, looking her sweatshirt over.

"I won't do it again," she told him.

"I know you won't but I still need to punish you for this time."

Sarah hid her face in his chest. "Please don't, Daddy," she pleaded with him.

Dean rubbed her back, his chin resting on top of her head. "I have to, baby girl. I hate to, but I don't have a choice." Dean then lifted her off of his lap and tried to lay Sarah on her stomach. She fought against him as best as she could but lost. He wrapped his arm around her waist and began to spank her, pulling way back on his strength so he wouldn't seriously hurt her.

Sarah cried out, trying to get away but her father kept his grip on her. After a dozen swats, Dean stopped and pulled his balling child back into his arms.

"It's over, baby girl," he assured her, rubbing her back. "I'm sorry I had to do that. But I was very serious about you not leaving my sight. I just don't want anything to happen to you, that's all."

She was crying on his right shoulder. "I want Uncle Sammy."

"He'll be back. Sam went to get a soda." Dean's heart ached, hearing his daughter request for someone other than him. He hated having to punish his little girl. Sarah still loved her father, though and Dean knew it. He remembered the many times when John had punished Sam, and Sam only wanted Dean.

After a few minutes, Sam knocked, peeking his head in. Dean told him he could come in and Sam walked in, closing the door behind him. When Sarah saw her uncle was back, she got off of her father's lap and ran over to him.

Sam stacked the soda in his right hand onto the one in his left, and lifted his niece up, careful of her sore bottom. He walked over to the table to set the cans down. Sam then rubbed his left hand on his shirt before rubbing Sarah's back in circles.

Sarah cried into her uncle's chest, hugging his neck. "Shh, shh, it's okay, peanut. I got ya," he told his niece in a gentle voice. Sam looked over at Dean who had his face in his hands, knowing both of them were having a tough time with this. "We care about you and don't want anything to get you." She just continued to cry into his chest.

After a while, once Sarah was feeling better, the Winchesters discussed what it was they were hunting. Dean had come to the conclusion that it was a reaper.

"You really think it's thee grim reaper?" Sam was asking him. "Like Angel of Death, collect your soul, the whole deal?"

"No, no, no," said Dean, looking up from his research. "Not the reaper, a reaper. There's reaper lore in pretty much every culture on Earth, go by a hundred different names. It's possible there's more than one of them."

Sarah was sitting at the table, looking at the pictures of reapers. "But Dad, you said it was a guy in a suit. Aren't they skeletons in black robes, that carrying around a scythe?" she asked.

Dean shook his head. "Sam, you said the clock stopped, right?" He held up a picture of a reaper skeleton holding an hourglass. "Reapers stop time. And you can only see them when they're coming at you which is why I could see it and you two couldn't."

"Right, I know that but…" Sarah said.

Dean cut her off. "Times are different and I am sure reapers updated their attire. There, satisfied?"

She nodded.

"Maybe," Sam muttered.

"There's nothing else it could be, Sam," Dean told him. "The question is, how's Roy controlling the damn thing."

"Are you sure it's Roy?" asked Sarah.

He looked up from his research. "What do you mean?"

She shrugged, "I don't know. When we talked to Roy, he looked like he really believed he can heal people. Maybe it's someone else. Maybe Sue Ann is doing it or something. I mean, the guy woke up from a coma with "healing powers," no one could cock that up, themselves." Sarah did quotation marks with her fingers when she said, "healing powers."

"You could be right, Sarah," Sam spoke up, from realization. "That cross."

Dean and Sarah looked over at him. "What was that last part?" asked Dean.

Sam picked up a deck of Tarot cards, and began scanning through them. "There was this cross, I…I noticed it in the church tent. I knew I seen it before." He found the card and scoffed, showing it to his brother. Sarah got up, onto her legs, leaning on the table to see, as well. "Here."

Dean took it, looking at it. "A tarot?"

"It makes sense," he said. "Tarot dates back to the early Christian era, right? When some priests were still using magic, and a few of them veered into the dark stuff. Necromancy and how to push death away, how to cause it."

"So, Roy," Dean glanced at his daughter, "or Sue Ann, possibly," he turned back to Sam, "could be using black magic to bind the reaper."

Sam took the card back," They are then they're riding a whirlwind. It's like putting a dog leash on a great white."

Sarah was trying to figure out her uncle's last statement. "How do you put a dog leash on a shark?"

"It's a figure of speech, peanut," he told her as Dean stood up to put his cup in the sink.

Dean turned around and leaned against it, on his hands. "Okay, then we stop them."

"How?" asked Sam.

"You know how."

"What the hell are you talking about, Dean? We can't kill them."

"Sam, whether it's Roy or Sue Ann, or whoever, they're playing God. They're deciding who lives and who dies. That's a monster in my book."

"No, we're not going to kill a human being, Dean," Sam told him. "We do that then we're no better than they are."

"Okay, we can't kill them," said Dean, "we can't kill death. Any bright ideas, college boy?"

Sam looked down, "Okay, uh…if one of them is using some kind of black spell on the reaper, we gotta figure what it is and how to break it."

They drove back to the church's tent to find some answers on how Roy or Sue Ann was controlling the reaper. Sam and Sarah searched their house, while Dean tried to keep Roy from healing anyone. If things weren't bad enough, Roy had chosen Layla next, which made it harder for Dean to stop it. Sure enough, he did. Sam had found an old spell book with news clippings in it of people, one of them or both, thought were immoral. Heading outside, Sam and Sarah tried to keep the reaper away from the protestor in the parking lot while Dean faked a fire, getting everyone out. It didn't stop the reaper though until Dean saw Sue Ann and hurried over to her, catching her with a cross necklace.

Sue Ann called for help and Dean was dragged out of the tent. After stating she was disappointed in him, Sue Ann told the police that they could let Dean go with no charges. Dean saw Layla who also couldn't believe what Dean had done and walked away from him, sadly. Dean felt worse than she did about the whole thing.

"So Roy really does believe," Sam was saying when they were back in the motel room.

Dean was looking out the window where he saw Mark smoking again. "I don't think Roy has any idea what his wife is doing."

"Well," he said, holding up the spell book, "I found this hidden in their library. It's ancient. Written by a priest who went dark side. There's a binding spell in here for trapping a reaper."

Dean had sat down beside where Sarah was sitting on the bed next to the one Sam was sitting on. "Must be one hell of a spell."

"Sam agreed, "Yeah. You gotta build a black alter with seriously dark stuff: bones, human blood." He shook his head, "To cross a line like that… That preacher's wife… Black magic, murder. Evil."

Dean looked through the book as Sarah looked, too. He looked up at Sam, "Desperate. Her husband was dying, she would've done anything to save him. She was using the binding spell to keep the reaper away from Roy."

"Cheating death," Sam nodded and chuckled. "Literally."

"But why keep doing it if Roy's okay now?" Sarah asked them.

"Good question, baby girl," said Dean.

"Right," agreed Sam, too. "To force the reaper to kill people she thinks are immoral."

He scoffed, shaking his head and shutting the book in his hands. "May God save us from half the people who think they're doing God's work."

"We gotta break that binding spell, Dean."

Dean glanced up at Sam and reopened the book to a picture of a cross. "Sue Ann had a Coptic cross like this and when she dropped it, the reaper backed off."

Sam placed his hand on his knee, "So you think we gotta find the cross or destroy the alter?"

"Maybe both," shrugged Sarah.

"Possibly," said Dean, "but whatever we do, we better do it soon. Roy's healing Layla tonight." He stood up and headed over to the kitchen. They drove once again back to the tent in time for the healing service to begin. "If Roy had picked her instead of me, she'd be healed right now."

Dean, don't," Sam told him.

"And if she's not healed tonight, she's gonna die in a couple months."

Sarah leaned over the back of the front seat. "It's like you said, though, people die. It's a part of life," she reminded her father.

"And you also said this, yourself, Dean," Sam added, "You can't play God."

Dean didn't respond to any of them. He stared over at the tent where Roy and Layla were starting the service. Dean knew it was all true, he just wished it wasn't. Eventually, he opened his car door and stepped out. Sam and Sarah followed, all shutting their doors.

While Dean distracted the police, Sam and Sarah hurried up to Roy and Sue Ann's house, wandering around the porch for a way in. Sam noticed some cellar doors and hurried over to them. Sarah followed, closely behind. She looked around as Sam opened the doors. He climbed in first, letting Sarah in before he closed the doors behind them. Uncle and niece descended the stairs that led into the cellar. The room was dark as they looked around.

Sarah was the first to notice a table with a bunch of black magic stuff and lit candles laid out on it. "Uncle Sam," she pointed with her thumb at the table.

Sam hurried over to the table and looked at it.

"Ew, gross," she said, beside him.

"What were you expecting? Thanksgiving dinner?" he asked her. Sam noticed a picture of Dean with a black X over his face. He picked it up and looked at it.

Sue Ann's voice startled them from behind. "I gave your brother life and I can take it away."

The two of them turned their heads to find her standing behind them. Sam now angered, told his niece to move out of the way where he tipped the table over, knocking everything off. He and Sarah then ran after Sue Ann in time to have the cellar doors shut in their faces. Both Sam and Sarah tried to push them open but Sue Ann held it closed with a piece of board.

"Can't you both see? The Lord chose me to reward the just and punish the wicked, and Dean is wicked. And…"

That overly set Sarah off. "My dad is not wicked!" With the hardest push she could muster, something happened and the board snapped in half as the cellar doors flew open, sending Sue Ann flying back into the air.

Sam stared at his niece for a second, unable to comprehend what just happened before he realized they were on a job. He hurried from the cellar and ran over to where Sue Ann lay on the ground, on her back where he yanked the cross from her neck and threw it on the ground. The cross shattered into pieces, and blood oozed out from inside.

Sue Ann quickly got to her knees and kneeled over the broken cross as Sarah hurried up, behind her uncle. "My God. What have you done?"

"He's not your God," Sam told her.

She looked up in time to see the reaper standing there, staring back at her, grinning. Sue Ann tried to run but it reappeared behind her and placed a hand on her head. Sam and Sarah watched as the life was sucked out of her and lay lifeless on the ground.

Sam looked around then walked away back to the Impala, putting his arm around his niece. They met Dean there. "You okay?" he asked Dean.

"Hell of a week," Dean replied.

"Yeah."

"You can say that again," agreed Sarah.

"All right, come on," said Sam. "We should get going."

After a good night's sleep, the Winchesters packed up to leave town. Layla came over to say good-bye. Sam and Sarah left the two of them alone, grabbing some drinks for the road.

While Sam was putting in the first dollar in the soda machine, he couldn't help remember Sarah's little episode from the night before. "Hey Sarah, about last night," he said, pressing the Coke button.

"What about it?" she shrugged.

"How did you do that? Open those doors I mean."

She shrugged. "I don't know. Strange stuff like that happens when I'm really mad or scared."

Sam reached down and grabbed the can of soda and took another dollar from his wallet. He shook his head, placing the dollar inside the machine. "You just opened that like it was made of paper. And you're only seven."

"Seven and a half, actually," she told him. "It happened when Dad and I were on that skinwalker job, too."

"Sarah, don't tell me you're still reading that crap." Mark had wheeled up to them while the two of them were talking.

"Mark…uh…" Sarah looked to her uncle for help.

"Yeah, my niece was just telling me about these stories she was reading the other day," Sam lied to the man.

Mark scoffed, "We used to try and get her away from reading that garbage before it rots her brain."

"Look, I don't think it's a good idea for her to read and know about this stuff at her age either but there's nothing anyone can do," he told Mark. "This is who Sarah is and we can't change that."

"She was five years old reading stuff about ghosts and other supernatural creatures that most kids are afraid of, that she used to be afraid of. That sound healthy to you?" Mark demanded of him.

Sam shrugged, "No. No it doesn't but at least she isn't scared anymore."

The guy rolled his eyes then turned back to his second cousin. "Sarah, why don't you come back to South Dakota with my girlfriend and I. We would gladly take you in since we're getting married this summer. You can be flower girl."

Sarah exchanged looks with her uncle and then looked back at Mark. "No."

"No?" he questioned.

"You heard me," she told him, calmly.

"But you loved coming over to my house and hanging out with me."

She shrugged, "Yeah, I did but that was before I found the part of my family who wasn't afraid of me. Who believes in me."

Mark raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, I know the truth. In fact, I heard you and Mom talking once. You never believed in me, you thought I was a heavy burden on Mom. Well, I have my dad and Uncle Sammy here that say otherwise. Sorry to say this, but I want nothing to do with you. We're on a quest to find my grandpa and I want to finish it with my dad and uncle."

Mark stared up at Sam. "What did you people do to my cousin?"

Sam smirked, shrugging his shoulders at him, "Love her."

He looked back at Sarah who crossed her arms. When his girlfriend walked up to them from outside, Mark stormed away in his wheelchair, fuming.

Sam turned to his niece. "You would choose this life over a normal one?"

Sarah shrugged at him, too. "Even when I had a normal life, it never felt comfortable to me. Having this life of hunting evil and finding Grandpa has been more comfortable than anything else before."

Sam frowned when he heard his niece tell him that. He had her make a selection of what soda she wanted and when Dean was ready, the Winchesters left town.