Get It While You Can

by poorpiratelass

Through Season 1. Searching for their father, Sam and Dean end up hunting a wendigo – and meet Jayne Gibson, an angry, dirty, bruised up hunter looking for her stepsister. That meeting will change everything. Currently being revised: UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

36. Don't Fear the Reaper

Get It While You Can

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Supernatural. All I got to my name is Jayne and Lynn.

Rating: T

AN: Big thank yous to kazza03, winchesterlover14, angeleyenc, hulahula551, legrowl, SingingInTheRain1989, Nelle07, ksirrah, Padme4000, Lov3good, Little Rock-n-Roll Queen, Strangler000, marky deedee, ThreeMoons, 321K-Girl, M*YP,Spelllesswonder29, XVampiric-AngelX, angel, PushUpDasies, skm228, LaFemmeQuiRit, Joan J., and Penny for all the reviews!

"Faith"

---

Chapter 35: Don't Fear the Reaper

Generally, as a rule of thumb, Lynn did not do well in silence. Despite everything that had happened over the past couple of days, that still held true. At first, admittedly, she had relished the idea of being alone for a few hours; it was certainly a better option than being trapped on her own with Sam. But after the first hour alone in the library, with countless newspaper clippings and obits spread out on the table, and the silence thrumming in her ears as she felt what she imagined to be the pounding of her own heartbeat... it was too much. It gave her too much time to think. It felt like the walls were closing in on her.

So she had retreated to her motel room, an ugly little thing as dark as a windowless box. There was a window, but it was smudged and dirty and the shade wouldn't open all the way. The room was split in two. By the door were two queen beds with olive bedspreads and there was fake olive stucco on the walls. In the adjoining kitchenette there was weird wallpaper all over the room, like a kindergarten student's finger-painting, white and splashed all over with elongated dots of primary blue, red, green and yellow. Throughout the room were ugly olive curtains and an awful olive shag carpet, which was the primary reason she was still wearing her boots; who knew what the hell was growing in that thing? She'd taken a seat at a little square table in the kitchenette, in front of a small expanse of cabinets, a sink, and a forty-year-old fridge, where she had spread out the research from the library. Now she was browsing the internet on her laptop… and she didn't like what she was finding.

Every person Roy had healed? There was a corresponding death for that miracle, a different person who died suddenly of the exact same illness. Sam had sent her a text not long ago further confirming her discovery; the heart attack guy was named Marshall Hall, and he'd died on the exact day at the exact time that Dean had been healed. Lynn had sent him a text back, summarizing what she'd found, and other than a quick 'thanks,' she'd gotten nothing but radio silence from Sam ever since. It had been nearly an hour now.

I told him, she thought unhappily, staring at the laptop screen and anxiously twisting her necklace around her hand. I warned him; I told Sam he shouldn't go messing around with this stuff...

Her phone buzzed again, but it wasn't Sam. It was Jayne, sending her a text, telling her that she and Dean were on their way back, and Lynn should meet them in the boys' room. She sighed tiredly, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. That was the last place she wanted to be.

She got up anyway, packing away her laptop and gathering up her papers. Then she stepped out into the dark, dingy hallway and headed next door to Sam and Dean's room, where she knocked on their door a little too hard.

Sam answered the door promptly, and he looked surprised to see her. "Uh... hey," he greeted her uncomfortably.

"Hey," she echoed. "Jayne texted me. She and Dean are headed back, and she wanted me to meet her here."

"Oh," Sam said, nodding. "Right. Of course."

He moved so she could come inside. She heard him shut the door behind her. His motel room was dark too, and almost identical to hers, except the mock stucco effect around the beds was dark red instead of green, there were red and burnt orange accents instead of olive, and there was no shag.

She headed into the adjoining kitchenette, where everything was identical to her own motel room, right down to the finger-paint wallpaper, and took a seat at the tiny square table, directly across from where Sam had set up his research space. "Um..." he said, still standing by the door as he mussed his hair with one hand. "Does she know?"

"I didn't tell her," Lynn replied, barely looking at him as she unpacked her computer.

"Right," he murmured.

There was a long silence. Lynn booted up her computer again and started unpacking the research from the library. Eventually Sam stopped standing awkwardly by the door and joined her at the table. After another long, silent moment, Lynn spared him a glance out of the corner of her eye. He was chewing his cuticles, knuckles practically jammed into his mouth, and staring at something, somewhere over his laptop, instead of at the screen.

"What am I going to tell him?" he asked helplessly.

Lynn's breath caught in the back of her throat, surprisingly sharp, like she'd been running too hard in the cold. It hurt a little, listening to the tiny, breathless sound of his voice, and she wanted to say something, do something to help... but the last time she went down this road, nothing good came out of it, so she stayed on her side of the table and didn't say anything at all.

The door creaked open barely a minute later, and Lynn looked up in dread, turning slowly towards the entrance. Jayne stepped inside the room with Dean hot on her heels. They both looked unhappy, and Lynn was suddenly sorry she had to make it worse.

Sam barely looked at either of them. Jayne joined them at the table, but Dean was lollygagging in the other part of the room, taking his time shrugging out of his jacket, before he tossed it on one of the messy, unmade beds. He looked like he was biding his time before he had to interact with the rest of them. Lynn bit her lip and looked down at her computer.

"What'd you find out?" he finally asked, stepping through the wide, cased opening that led to the kitchenette.

Lynn looked at Sam. He looked small somehow - defeated. "I'm sorry," he said.

Dean frowned at him. "Sorry about what?"

"Marshall Hall died at 4:17," Sam replied, sinking low in his chair and not making eye contact with his brother. He heaved a harsh, heavy sigh, looking first at his laptop, and then finally at Dean. Lynn looked at Dean too, but he wasn't looking at any of them.

"The exact time I was healed," Dean returned, clearly already knowing where this ended.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "So... Lynn put together a list while I was checking out Marshall. Roy healed six people over the last year, and we cross-checked them with the local obits." He handed Dean the stack of said obits, and Lynn bit her lip, looking down at her computer determinedly. "For every time someone was healed, someone else died. And each time, the victim died of the same symptom Roy was healing at the time."

Dean sank into a chair at the table, too heavily, and Lynn watched him from the corner of her eye as he leafed through the obits. "So... someone is healed of cancer, and someone else dies of cancer?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sam said. "Somehow, Le Grange is trading a life for another."

Lynn wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. Dean looked a little flabbergasted, shaking his head. He tossed the obits aside. "Wait, wait, wait... Marshall Hall died to save me?"

He glared at Sam, and Lynn chanced a glance at Sam too. He shook his head. "Dean, the guy probably would have died anyway, and someone else would have been healed."

It was a valid point, Lynn decided. It held no weight with Dean. "You never should have brought me here," he growled, getting back up on his feet and marching across the room. Lynn flinched a little.

"Dean, I was just trying to save your life!" Sam shot back.

"But Sam, some guy is dead now because of me!" Dean snapped.

"No one is dead because of you," Jayne interjected sharply, and Lynn turned huge eyes on her stepsister. "Ok? You didn't do this. This isn't on you!"

"Well, who is it on?" he demanded, rounding on Jayne instead of Sam. "Because last I checked, the guy was dead and I'm still here breathing!"

"That's not your fault," Jayne replied, a little too evenly. "Ok? That's on Roy."

She was right, Lynn decided, but Dean didn't look like he bought that. He looked at her too long, and then he looked at Sam, and Sam shook his head, screwing up his face earnestly as he said, in a small, quiet voice, "I didn't know."

There was a long, tense moment of silence that left Lynn wishing, once again, that she could disappear.

"The thing I don't understand is how is Roy doing it?" Sam finally broke the silence. "How is he trading a life for a life?"

"Oh, he's not doing it," Dean retorted, shaking his head. "Something else is doing it for him."

"What do you mean?"

"The old man I saw on stage," Dean explained. "I didn't want to believe it, but deep down I knew."

"You knew what? What are you talking about?"

"There's only one thing that can give and take life like that," Dean replied. "We're dealing with a reaper."

And it all devolved from there.

They all crowded around the tiny kitchen table, leafing through journals and browsing the internet. Between John Winchester's journal and her father's flash-drives, they already had a lot of information about reapers and didn't have to go to the library to research the lore. That should have made things easier, but there was nothing easy about this job. Dean was still sour and pissed, and Sam was angsty and guilty, and Lynn just wanted to get the hell out of there.

She actually wasn't sure how Jayne felt about any of it. Except for that one sharp comment, Jayne hadn't spoken much at all. She was her usual silent self, stone-faced and focused on the research. Lynn wished she was also focused on the research, but instead her thoughts kept wandering, the computer screen in front of her blurring before her glazed-over, inattentive eyes. An hour crept by, every minute more uncomfortable than the last.

Soon, the boys were arguing. Not loudly, not angrily… well, that was a lie. Dean was pretty angry. He was still convinced he knew what they were dealing with.

"You really think it's the grim reaper?" Sam asked skeptically. "Like, angel of death? Collect your soul? The whole deal?"

"No, no, no, not the reaper, a reaper," Dean retorted. "There's reaper lore in pretty much every culture on earth. They go by a hundred different names. It's possible that there's more than one of them."

"But you said you saw a dude in a suit."

Dean looked at him like he was an idiot. "What, you think he should have been working the whole black robe thing?" he retorted, and Lynn had to admit, when he put it like that, it did sound pretty freaking stupid. "You said it yourself that the clock stopped, right? Reapers stop time. And you can only see them when they're coming at you, which is why I could see it and the rest of you couldn't."

Sam still didn't look convinced. "Maybe..."

"There's nothing else it could be, Sam! The question is: how is Roy controlling the damn thing?"

Sam was still reluctant to believe, but Lynn saw through that in an instant. Poor, angsty, guilt-ridden Sam, unable to do anything right. He was arguing to clear his conscience, trying to justify what he did. Lynn could see that struggle on his face as clearly as she saw Dean's guilt, his desperation, his frustration… something that resembled self-loathing.

Neither she nor Jayne jumped into the discussion. Lynn saw Jayne, also sitting in silence, her eyes jumping from one Winchester to the other, always settling on Dean one second too long. Jayne tried to keep her face blank, but Lynn saw her struggle too. Jayne did not like this new development any more than Sam. She too did not want to admit they had made a mistake. In fact, Lynn had grave doubts that Jayne even saw this as a mistake, reapers and all, and that scared her. Jayne scared her. Jayne scared her more often than Lynn liked to admit.

She watched the scene before her, feeling removed from it all. She understood where everyone was coming from, had a pretty good idea about what they were all feeling... but she felt only a strange, quiet desperation to be somewhere, anywhere else.

Thankfully, her phone started to buzz. Lynn looked down at the screen, saw the incoming call was from Rufus, and her stomach leapt up into her throat.

"I... uh... I have to take this," she announced, grabbing the phone and running for the door.

She ducked out into the dark of the hall, swallowing too hard, suddenly torn between relief at the chance to escape that motel room, and fear about what Rufus had to say. She shut the door with a gentle thud and answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Lynn," Rufus's voice grunted through the speaker.

"Rufus?" she asked, even though she already knew exactly who it was. Her voice caught in her throat. Lynn didn't stop at the hallway; instead, she marched down the corridor, boots clacking against the ugly gray linoleum.

"Yes, ma'am. How are you doing, little lady?"

She knew what was coming. She kept walking down the hall, squinting through the gloom. The corridor was lined with tiny gold wall sconces, mounted every few feet on the maroon wallpaper, but they offered little in the way of light. "Well, to be honest, Rufus, I could be better," she admitted, making her way towards the door at the end of the hall, where the barest gleam of pale sunlight streamed into the otherwise dim and depressing hallway.

Rufus chuckled dryly. "Right." There was a brief silence, and Lynn bit her lip, twisting her necklace around her hand. "How did things go with that Winchester boy?" he asked after a moment. "Deedee said he got hurt on a hunt, and the docs say its terminal."

Lynn swallowed too hard. "Yeah," she replied, forcing some breeziness. She'd reached the end of the hallway now, and she pushed open the heavy glass door, stepping into the cool spring air. "Electrocuted. He was hunting a rawhead in a damp basement."

Rufus made a grunting noise in the back of his throat. There was a long pause, and the sound of Lynn's footsteps against the parking lot pavement echoed in her ears. "Way I hear it, you all was looking to fix him some way or another," he finally said, slow and low and deliberate.

She took a deep breath, wondering why Rufus wouldn't just tell her what she wanted to know. "Right. Jaynie and Sam, mostly. You remember Sam?"

"Oh, yeah. The beanstalk."

Despite everything, Lynn laughed softly. "Right. The beanstalk."

"You all find anything yet?"

"Sam found a faith healer out in Nebraska," Lynn replied, finally reaching Jayne's truck, parked two rows away from the building. She leaned against the rusty gray tailgate with one hand shoved in her jacket pocket. "The healer laid hands on Dean, and then… well, he was healed. We took him to a cardiologist and everything. They said he was fine."

"No kidding?"

"Yep. We were as surprised as you are."

Lynn didn't name Roy Le Grange. She didn't tell Rufus about Marshall Hall, or Layla Rourke, or the reaper. These were things Rufus didn't need to know. It was going to work out in the end, anyway. They were going to fix it.

(That's what she was going to keep telling herself.)

"Well, I am glad to hear that," Rufus rumbled. "You and your stepsister seemed to be getting friendly with them boys. I rather took a liking to that Dean kid."

Lynn snorted. She couldn't help herself. "You took a liking to Dean?"

"Seemed like a good sort."

"He beat up your son!"

"Yeah, well, Danny wasn't quite himself, was he? Those demons set him on Jaynie and all… had to be done. And after all, Lord knows my boy never had a lick of sense. Maybe he needed someone to beat a little into him."

"How is Danny?" Lynn asked. "How's his hunting going?"

Rufus was quiet.

"He's all right," he finally said. "Calls to check in about once a week. He's doing fine out there." Rufus paused again, a second too long, and then added hesitantly, "Haven't seen him in some time, though."

Lynn scuffed the toe of her boot against the parking lot pavement. "I'm sorry," she offered.

"Can't be helped."

They didn't speak for a while and Lynn contemplated hanging up. She'd assumed Rufus had called to explain things, to tell her about her mother and make good on Jayne's request. The last thing she'd expected was the older hunter to be checking on Dean's current state of health, and if she was being honest? She was getting a little pissed off.

"So, I spoke to your sister."

And finally, here it was.

"She was hopping mad."

Lynn gave a short, quiet laugh. "She tends to get that way."

There was a long pause.

"Well… so you know."

There. It was out in the open.

"Yeah," Lynn said, taking her hand out of her pocket to twist her necklace. She squinted up at the steel gray sky. "I know."

"How'd you find out?"

"I got my hands on her death certificate," Lynn explained. "When I saw the official cause and the date of death... well, needless to say, I noticed right away that nothing I'd been told matched up."

Rufus sighed. "I want you to know that keeping this? It wasn't my idea. It was all your daddy's."

"I figured as much," Lynn returned, trying to keep calm. "But why, Rufus? Why didn't Dad want me to know? How did my mother die?"

"I can't be real certain," Rufus told her. "Your daddy didn't give me all the details. All I know is that she was into something real bad, Lynn, and she was in deep. So deep that…"

He trailed off. Lynn frowned, clutching the phone a little too tight. "What?" she prompted him. "Rufus?"

"It was a long fall," Rufus murmured. "A long fall out her apartment window, back in Brooklyn." He paused again, and Lynn swallowed, hard. "Might have been intentional. Might have been an accident. Might have been foul play. But whatever Inez was up to had your daddy spooked."

"But… but Jayne… she doesn't even remember Inez holding me, or…" Lynn swallowed again. "Where did I live for that year, Rufus?"

He didn't reply right away.

"Russ took you nearly as soon as you were born," he finally answered. "He'd just married Ana. He was kind of worried about how she would take it, but Ana wasn't that kind. She wanted you. She and Russ were alike in that respect. She would never have left you out in the cold, never have resented you for… you were a second daughter. Ana loved you the moment she laid eyes on you."

Lynn heard the silent truth under the pretty words. Rufus was making such a big deal out of Ana taking her in, out of Ana wanting her and loving her… but Lynn heard the subtext. Inez hadn't wanted her.

"Whatever your mama was into… it scared your daddy. It scared him bad. He didn't want you anywhere near it."

"What was it? Do you know what…?"

"Your daddy met Inez on a hunt," Rufus said. "He was investigating some voodoo witch up in the Big Apple… I don't know, Lynn. It might have been connected to that."

It was a little too much to handle and Lynn tugged on her ponytail as she pushed herself off the tailgate and headed for the passenger side door. Rufus's long pause wasn't helping her feel better. "Voodoo?" she asked uncertainly, as she pulled open the door and slid into the truck cab.

"Yes, ma'am."

And just like that, Lynn was more confused now than back when she'd been clueless. Her head was spinning and she kind of wanted to run away. Instead, she softly shut the door behind her, and opened the glove compartment. "Was there anything else?" she asked hoarsely, as she started digging through its contents.

"I'm sorry, Lynn."

She shut her eyes a moment, shaking her head, and then she kept digging through the glove compartment. "Thanks for telling me," she said out loud.

"You all right?"

No, I'm not, she thought, but she didn't tell Rufus that. "I will be," she said instead. "Talk to you soon. Ok?"

"I'll hold you to that."

She smiled, even though he couldn't see it. Rufus hung up with a click, and Lynn followed suit, tossing the phone onto the bench seat beside her, and she renewed her search with vigor, until her hand finally closed around her hidden pack of cigarettes, until her fingers finally stumbled over her emergency lighter... until she knocked the tightly folded square of bright white paper out of the glove compartment and onto the old, dirty gray carpet on the cab floor.

Lynn froze, lighter dangling from between her index and middle fingers, and stared at the paper on the floor. A long moment passed as she stared at it, pack of cigarettes forgotten in her lap. When she had knocked the paper down, when she had spotted it on the carpet... she truly did not intend to read it.

But then she tossed the lighter on the bench seat, letting it fall with a thud beside her abandoned phone. She bent over, picked up the paper, and slowly unfolded it, biting her lip. It was a list, but it wasn't for groceries or chores... the very first line tripped her up.

Graveyard dirt…

Lynn froze again. She frowned down at the list. It was definitely Jayne's handwriting. She swallowed too hard, her stomach suddenly upset again, as she kept reading the messy scrawl on the clean white sheet.

Black cat bone…

Picture of self…

Something about the list made her feel cold and clammy all over. The need to smoke forgotten, Lynn shoved her lighter and the incriminating cigarettes back into the glove compartment, and then she closed her hand tightly around the list. She hopped down from the cab and jogged back towards the motel.

When she got back to the room, the door swung open before she could even knock on it. "Hey," Jayne grunted at her, pushing past her into the hallway. "Sam remembers seeing some kind of wonky cross at the tent. He found the symbol on a tarot card... something to do with early Christian priests and necromancy... we're headed back to the Le Grange place. Now."

"Uh..." Lynn said, thrown by the sudden change in direction and getting whiplash from this latest development. "Ok... uh... let me get my stuff."

Jayne shrugged a shoulder and marched off down the hall. "I'll be in the truck."

She ducked into the motel room, amid a flurry of activity, barely avoiding getting run over by both Winchesters. "Hurry up," Dean barked at her, shrugging into his jacket. "The next service starts in less than twenty minutes!"

Both he and Sam jogged out of the room, leaving the door ajar. Lynn blinked after them, shaking her head, and then she dove for the table in the kitchenette, sinking back into her chair and maximizing her browser window. She glanced nervously over her shoulder at the motel room door, and then she returned to her laptop, typing the list she'd found into the search bar. The search results popped up in seconds.

Summoning Rituals… Crossroads demon…

Lynn stared at the screen. She blinked, leaning back in her chair, and blew her bangs up off her forehead she twisted her necklace around her hand again. The list tumbled down onto the tabletop. Suddenly, she regretted snooping through the glove compartment; she regretted picking up the list and reading it, instead of just shoving it back where it belonged.

Now, she had uncovered something she didn't want to know.

---

The road to the Le Grange place was getting too familiar, Jayne decided, steering Janis down the country highway, towards the gravel and mud lane that led to the big white tent. The Impala was just ahead of them, and she stared at its shiny chrome back bumper as she drove, with her hands too tight on the wheel and her lips locked in a tight, thin line.

Beside her, Lynn was fidgeting. Biting her lip, playing with her ponytail, fiddling with her necklace, constantly changing her position in the passenger seat. Jayne spared her a glance out of the corner of her eye before returning her eyes to the road. Lynn had been weird all day. Actually, Lynn had been weird since yesterday morning.

As if on cue, Lynn heaved a harsh sigh and pulled on her ponytail again. "So, what exactly is the plan?" she asked.

Jayne cringed a little as she thought about what had happened in the motel room after Lynn had ducked out to answer her phone: Sam's college professor lecture on early Christianity and priests who still used magic, priests that experimented with causing death and pushing it away, and Dean's insistence that they stop Roy.

You know how, he'd said, when Sam had questioned him. The man's playing God. Deciding who lives and who dies. That makes him a monster in my book.

Jayne hadn't said anything, but if she was being honest, she hadn't exactly disagreed. Killing Roy... well, it wasn't exactly taking the moral high ground, and they probably ought to explore some other options first... and it was obvious that Dean was coiled tight like a spring, on the edge of snapping, barely in control, and what he'd said... well, even knowing all that, she still hadn't exactly disagreed. But then Sam had made a big speech about how they couldn't kill another human being, because then they'd be no better than Roy, and she supposed that wasn't too far off the mark either. She decided not to go into all that with Lynn; there was something going on with her, and she wasn't going to drop more crap in her lap.

She shrugged a shoulder. "Sam figures Roy's using some kind of necromancy spell on the reaper. We figure out what kind of spell and how to break it, we stop Roy."

Lynn nodded slowly. "Makes sense," she murmured, still fiddling with her necklace. She shifted in her seat again and sighed heavily. Jayne raised her eyebrow.

"What's going on with you?" she finally grunted at her stepsister.

Lynn glared at her sideways. "What's going on with you?" she retorted pettily.

Jayne rolled her eyes. "I'm not the one quietly freaking out," she returned, a little too calmly. "Is this about your mother again?"

Lynn pursed her lips and stared at her, and Jayne mentally braced herself because it looked like her stepsister was gearing up for a fight. But instead, Lynn slumped in her seat with a harsh sigh and shrugged. "I don't know. I talked to Rufus."

Jayne nodded once. "Right."

"Thank you," Lynn offered. "For telling him to call me."

Jayne nodded again, suddenly uncomfortable. She hadn't wanted credit for that; she wasn't sure she'd wanted Lynn to know at all. "It's fine."

"He doesn't know what happened to her," Lynn went on, in a rambling sort of way. "Not really. He knows she fell out of her apartment window and died. Maybe she was pushed, maybe she jumped... all he really knows is that I was born, and Dad took me and booked. He says she was a witch, Jaynie."

Jayne froze. Her fingers curled tighter around the wheel. She frowned at Lynn from the corner of her eye. "A witch?" she repeated dubiously. "He said that?"

"Well... no," Lynn admitted. "But I read between the lines, ok? Dad took me away from her. Dad met her on a job in Brooklyn investigating a voodoo witch. She died mysteriously, and Rufus said the two might have been connected. I mean... I don't know, Jaynie, it sounds like she was the witch!"

It wasn't what Jayne had expected to hear. "A witch," she said again. "But... Rufus didn't say that, did he?"

"I told you, I read between the lines."

"Ok, but... how do you know she was the witch? Maybe the witch killed her."

"Maybe," Lynn said, but she didn't sound convinced.

"Russ didn't do anything to her," Jayne pointed out. "She was still breathing when he left Brooklyn. Why would he do that if she was some big bad voodoo witch?"

"I don't know!" Lynn exclaimed, sounding harassed. "I don't understand any of it! Ok?"

Jayne didn't understand any of it either. "Ok."

There was brief silence, and then Lynn heaved another harsh, heavy sigh. "He said she was into something bad, and she was in deep, and whatever it was had Dad spooked," Lynn announced. "You still think she wasn't the witch?"

Jayne swallowed, staring determinedly out the windshield. She took a moment before she answered. "No," she said finally, again too calmly. "I guess I don't."

"Well, glad we're on the same page then."

There was a long silence. Finally, Lynn heaved another harsh sigh. "Speaking of getting deep into something bad, and spooking other people…" she said meaningfully, and Jayne frowned in confusion, taken aback by her stepsister's words.

"What about it?" she asked.

Lynn stared straight at her. "If Roy hadn't healed Dean… what were you planning on doing, Jayne?"

Jayne frowned some more, not sure what had brought this on... but she couldn't help fidgeting slightly under Lynn's hard look. She kept her eyes stubbornly on the road. "I don't know."

"Cut the crap, Jaynie," Lynn snapped. "I saw the list Deedee gave you. The one you were hiding in the glove compartment?"

Jayne froze, hands going tight on the wheel. "What?" she demanded furiously.

"It fell out!" Lynn defended herself. "I wasn't looking for it!"

"So that means it's just fine for you to read it? I guess it magically unfolded itself, huh?"

"It could have!"

"What gives you the right to snoop through my shit?!"

"Don't you dare get all preachy on me," Lynn bit out, eyes flashing. "Graveyard dirt, Jaynie? Black cat bones? I looked it up! That's the summoning ritual for the crossroads demon!"

Jayne locked up her jaw and squeezed the steering wheel even tighter. Her eyes didn't leave the road ahead of them. "So?"

"So?!" Lynn exploded. "The crossroads, Jaynie? Where deals are made?"

Jayne didn't say anything to that. Lynn sat up straight in the passenger seat and turned towards her, leaning across the cab. Her dark eyes were furious and too shiny. "Were you going to sell your soul?" she hissed.

"No!" Jayne exclaimed, like it was a ridiculous question. It was a ridiculous question. "Of course not! I had a plan!"

"Oh?" Lynn asked slowly... sarcastically... bitterly. "You had a plan?"

"Yeah," Jayne retorted. "I had a plan."

"And what was this genius plan of yours?"

Jayne shrugged a shoulder. "I was going to trade something else."

"Like what?"

"I don't know!" Jayne snapped. "I hadn't got that far in the plan yet!"

Lynn stared at her, shaking her head. Jayne pressed her lips in a tight, thin line again, still focusing her glare straight out the windshield. There was a long, tense silence.

"Are you in love with him or something?"

The question came out of nowhere, and it honestly shocked the hell out of her. "What?" Jayne retorted, her jaw dropping. She gawked at Lynn like she'd grown another head. What the hell...? "No! No, of course not! That's… that's just… stupid."

Lynn stared at her with huge brown doubting eyes, and Jayne didn't care for it. "He's my friend," she emphasized. "Our friend. Honestly... maybe my only friend."

"I'm your friend."

"Yeah, but… you're my family. It's not the same."

They were quiet again. "You're kind of scaring me, Jaynie," Lynn finally admitted.

Jayne sighed tiredly. "Yeah," she whispered. "Me too."

The ensuing silence in the truck was deafening, and Jayne turned up the radio a notch. Lynn gave her a dirty look but didn't say anything. They didn't speak the rest of the way to the Le Grange place. Jayne passed the tacky, light-up, arrow-shaped sign, proclaiming there was a church service today, and she followed the Impala the rest of the way down the lane. She and Lynn rattled around in silence as the truck shook and shuddered its way down the long dirt road, past tall, green, overgrown weeds. The sky overhead was still overcast, and the ground was still nothing but mud. It wasn't raining though, and that might have been the upside. From the look of the rolling, dark gray clouds overheard, the rain was coming, maybe a thunderstorm too.

She parked behind Dean's car. People were milling all around the tent, trekking towards the entrance through the mud and the long grass. The protester from the last service was there again, standing in the mud and gravel, handing out more flyers and claiming Roy was a fraud. Dean was waiting right outside her driver side door when she stepped down from the cab. "You're with me. We're stalling Roy," he commanded. "Sam and your sister are going to head into the house while its empty, see if they can find whatever spell Roy's using on the reaper."

"Wait, I'm what with who?" Lynn demanded, voice high and borderline outraged, and that settled it as far as Jayne was concerned; something was definitely going on between Lynn and Sam.

Unfortunately for Lynn, Dean completely ignored her and stormed purposefully towards the tent, over the gravel and through the puddles, leaving Jayne scrambling to catch up. Lynn's indignant huff echoed through the cool, damp air from behind her.

He ducked into the tent, seemingly miles ahead of her. Jayne jogged in after him, and almost crashed into his back. Dean had stopped just inside the dark tent, dimly lit by hanging florescent lights. It felt eerie in there, and she hugged her arms over her chest, stepping out from behind him. He was staring, eyes darting around the tent. Piano music tinkled from the front by the podium, rising above the quiet chatter of the church members as they took their seats in the rows of folding chairs.

"You going to be all right?" she asked gruffly, from the corner of her mouth.

Dean was still watching the people gathered before them. His eyes traveled slowly from one face to another. Jayne fixed her gaze on Dean's face; she wasn't interested in Roy's flock. Instead, she found herself studying his tight jaw, his narrow eyes, and his tall, tense, unnervingly silent frame.

For someone who seemed like he'd been hiding his feelings his whole life, he was absolute shit at it. Jayne could see how this hunt affected him without the slightest trouble. He was on the edge, barely holding onto his control. He was hurting.

"I'll get back to you on that," he said finally, and he stepped further inside, away from her.

Well, Jayne supposed, that was better than a flat out lie.

---

The Le Grange's front door creaked open, and Roy stepped out onto the sweeping, wraparound porch, wearing his dark glasses and Sunday best. Sue Ann and an aide helped him across the porch and down the tall front steps, towards the muddy parking lot around the big white tent.

Just around the corner, Sam hunkered down on that big old farmhouse porch, crouching out of sight. Lynn sat on the porch beside him, with her back to the wall, silent as a tombstone as she stared at the lush green side-yard with hard, dark eyes. Sam spared her a quick, nervous look over his shoulder, and then peered around the corner of the house again. Roy and his entourage were slowly crossing the front yard, with their eyes turned towards the tent.

The parking lot was basically deserted now, as most of Roy's parishioners had already filed inside the tent to find their seats. The only person still standing out in the mud was the lonely protester, with a stack of yellow flyers in his hand, and even if he could see them, Sam doubted the protester would do anything to stop them.

He ducked back around the corner of the porch where Lynn was waiting, on her feet again and leaning against the wall with her arms folded over her chest. She refused to look at him. Sam decided not to focus on that, and instead headed for the nearest window. He tugged on the sash, found it unlocked, and pushed it up, opening it all the way. Then he crawled inside easily, one leg at a time, ducking through the low opening and into a dim, dated, brown and beige living room.

Lynn crawled inside behind him, managing it even easier than he did, and quietly shut the window again. "So... what exactly are we looking for?" she asked in a low, dull, stilted voice, as though she'd spoken against her will.

"Uh..." Sam shrugged, self-consciously shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. "Some kind of spell book, probably. We should look for a library... or maybe an office..."

Lynn was wandering away from him already, headed deeper into the sitting room, hands shoved in the back pockets of her skinny jeans, and black ponytail swinging back and forth as she zeroed in on a tall bookshelf in the corner. Sam frowned at her back, but she didn't turn around or acknowledge him at all.

"You want to take this room?" he suggested in a whisper. She shrugged without turning around, and Sam sighed quietly, starting to get frustrated. "If we're going to work together, we have to talk to one another," he said, as patiently as he could.

"Who's not talking?" she bit back, still not turning around.

Sam stared at her for a long time. "Fine," he said finally. "You take this room, then. I'll go look for an office or a library."

"Sounds like a plan."

She still wouldn't look at him when she spoke, and once the words left her lips, she instantly marched off to the far corner of the living room, intent on her search. Sam watched her a moment longer, but she didn't acknowledge his presence. Finally, he shook his head, and headed out of the room and down a long, narrow hallway. He was out of sorts, and maybe a little lost.

Lynn had always tended to fill up silences, asking questions, making conversation, offering a comment or two about whatever they were doing or hunting, or wherever they were doing it. So it was unsettling, Sam decided, that she was being so quiet. He understood why, of course. He supposed she was hurt or angry or embarrassed, but even then, he'd more expected to be yelled at than given the silent treatment. Lynn had been hurt and angry and embarrassed with him before, and while it had stilted their conversation, there had still never been total silence.

There was a part of him - a frustrated, angry, hurting part of him, the part of him that burned all through the night and kept him wide awake, always hissing at him find-it-find-it-kill-it-kill-it; it was the part of him that nursed the wound left by Jessica's death as though it were still fresh, as though it had happened only yesterday - that part of him wasn't apologetic or worried or wondering how to bridge this sudden widening gap between them. That part of him was angry that she was angry, that she wanted more from him than he could give, that she was pressuring him and ignoring his feelings and blaming him for what had definitely been a two-party transgression.

But mostly, Sam was just sorry that he hadn't had more self-control. He'd used her that night, no matter what his intentions were. He'd used her to push away his grief for Dean, and his anger at his still radio-silent father, and the voice that whispered at him and pushed him and kept him awake at night...

Lynn must have known what was happening that night, and it hadn't bothered her then, and while Sam wished he hadn't used her and regretted hurting her (even though it was hard to regret the act) he also had to wonder why, knowing what she knew, Lynn was so angry now. She couldn't have thought anything was going to come of it. She must have known it was a one-time thing.

So why was he getting the silent treatment?

Truthfully, it was hard for him too. Remembering what they had done made every interaction twice as awkward, and Sam now struggled to start a conversation with her, or even look her in the eye. He'd understand if that was true on her end too... but the way she kept snapping at him, insisting on putting distance between them, objecting to working with him... he decided it was more than just awkwardness. She was upset. But what was he supposed to do? He already knew he'd messed up. He'd let down his brother and disappointed Lynn and then he'd dragged everybody to this stupid faith healer who gave church services in a freaking tent, and even after he'd managed to save Dean, he'd still messed up, because saving Dean had meant killing somebody else… and there was just no fixing that.

Sam swallowed a lump in his throat and straightened his spine, stopping some distance down the hall, where he pushed open an old, creaking wooden door.

Found it.

The room off the hall was an office, with bookshelves lining almost every wall save one. The back wall had been mortared over with red bricks, and an old, black, wood-burning stove was hooked up to it. Sam began walking the office perimeter, watching the thick dust that had gathered along the shelves, looking for any clean space before the books. After nearly ten minutes of scrutiny, he came to a shelf with the exact tell-tale sign he'd been searching for: a long line of dust, broken only before an old, black, hardcover book entitled Encyclopedia of Christian History.

Sam slid the volume off the shelf and flipped through the pages. Nothing that even remotely resembled anything relating to the tarot or to necromancy jumped off the page at him. Sighing, Sam shut the book and laid it on the nearby desk. Then he reached into the space where the encyclopedia had come from, searching for something, anything else.

He found it. An old, beaten, black leather book, small and thin… more of a pamphlet, really. Sam flipped it open. Inside, on one of the first few pages, was the weird cross he'd seen on the table in the tent, on the tarot card from his father's research… and tucked within the black book's pages were newspaper clippings. One was about Marshall Hall… and the lawsuit he'd won against the local school system, which he had filed when they fired him for being openly gay.

And then there was another clipping, about a recently deceased woman named Holly Morton. She was a local abortion advocate.

There was one more clipping, this one about the man they'd seen outside Roy's tent every time they'd come by: the protester who'd called Roy a fraud, and Roy's church a cult.

Sam ran out of the library and clattered his way back down the hall. He found Lynn still in the living room, on her hands and knees on the old, knotty wooden floor as she searched the books stacked under the living room coffee table. She jumped, startled by his sudden entrance, and whirled around, blinking up at him as he skidded to a stop behind her.

"We got to go," Sam announced. "I got the book… the next victim is the protester out in the parking lot."

Lynn frowned, getting up off her knees. "How do you know that?"

"Newspaper clippings," Sam returned, heading for the window. "I found them tucked in the book. He's picking victims he thinks are immoral, Lynn. Marshall Hall was gay; Holly Morton was pro-choice…"

"And the protester has the nerve to disagree with Roy," Lynn spat. "I'm following. Let's go."

They both jogged back to the window they'd entered through. Sam ducked out onto the porch, glancing around in a panic. No one was watching. Lynn hopped out next. Sam whipped out his cell phone and called Dean, rushing down the back steps. Lynn followed, and then split from him once they hit the backyard.

Dean answered on the first ring. "What do you got?"

"Roy's choosing victims he sees as immoral," Sam explained, racing towards the parking lot, eyes peeled for the protester. "And I think I know who's next on his list. Remember that protester?"

"The guy in the parking lot?"

"Yeah. Lynn and I will find him. But you can't let Roy heal anyone, all right?"

Then Sam hung up the phone, tucked his contraband from the farmhouse into his coat, and raced towards the parking lot, hoping against hope that he wasn't too late.

---

The tent was too quiet, too still, with a silent Roy standing on stage, facing the congregation. The piano was still playing, and there was a quiet murmur going through the crowd. Dean hung up his cell phone, tucking it back into his coat, eyes searching the tent as he moved slowly down the rows of folding chairs, getting closer to Roy's pulpit.

"What?" Jayne demanded from behind him, and he started at her voice, whirling around to look at her.

"Sam called," Dean explained shortly, in an undertone. "Roy's offing people he sees as immoral."

Jayne frowned. "Then why the hell did he heal you?"

Dean sighed, harassed. "Hell if I know. Look, the protester outside is next on the list. Sam and Lynn are looking for him, but…"

"But there's no way to stop a reaper."

Her tone was definitive, determined. She knew the score. Dean looked her in the eye, and she stared right back. He sighed, running his hand over his hair and down the back of his neck. "Right," he agreed. "We got to find a way to stop Roy's service."

"Layla Rourke!"

Dean's stomach sank as the tent burst into applause. He looked at Jayne again, and her eyes were wide. She stared at him, and Dean looked away, pretending not to notice.

"Layla Rourke!" Roy called again. "Come up here, child!"

Dean's stomach swooped as he ripped his eyes away from Roy and spun around to look out at the audience. Layla stood up from her seat, and he stared at her. She was smiling, wide and happy and clearly excited, and her mother was in happy tears, hugging Layla tight before sending her jogging for the stage.

"Get out of here."

Jayne's order startled him. Dean gave her an incredulous look. "What?"

She was fishing a lighter out of her jacket. Dean fought the urge to ask what the hell she was going to do with that – there wasn't time. "Get out of here," Jayne said again. "Go help Sam and Lynn with the protester. I got this."

"You got this?" he echoed incredulously.

She shrugged in that maddening way she had. "I mean, what have I got to lose?"

"I don't have anything to lose," Dean retorted immediately... which wasn't really, true, in any case, and he could tell by Jayne's eye roll that she knew it too. They were both well aware of what he had to lose. Dean didn't want to be responsible for Layla Rourke not getting her miracle cure. And hell, a man Roy had healed coming back to stop his healing ways for good? Well, even for him, it was kind of in bad taste.

Jayne took a deep breath. "If it's me…" she began, but Dean cut her off.

"Then I didn't kill Layla Rourke?" he barked at her, barely maintaining his undertone.

She winced. Dean rolled his eyes. The two of them glanced around the tent to make sure no one had heard them. Then Jayne turned her back on the congregation, visibly steeling herself as she looked him straight in the eye. He struggled to look back.

"Yeah," she replied. "I mean... kinda."

There was silence. It was tempting, to accept the offer... but it was too late for that now. He was already a part of this. He couldn't back out now. Layla was already running up alongside the rows of chairs, and Dean turned from Jayne, stepping into Layla's path to intercept her. She was startled to say the least when Dean caught her by the arm.

"Layla, wait," he whispered urgently. "Listen to me. You can't go up there."

She frowned up at him, shaking her head slightly. "Why not?" she whispered back, clearly confused, clearly torn, clearly wanting to get up on that stage. "We've waited for months!"

"You can't let Roy heal you."

"I don't understand. He healed you, didn't he? Why wouldn't I at least let him try?"

"Because if you do, something bad is going to happen. I can't really explain; I just need you to believe me."

"Layla!"

Dean turned. Sue Ann was standing at the foot of the stage, with that wide encouraging smile, holding her hand out to Layla.

"Please," Dean pleaded.

Layla looked at him, and for a moment Dean thought she was going to do it. He really thought she was going to take yet another leap of faith and believe him... but then she looked at her mother.

"I'm sorry," she finally said, breaking free of his grip and jogging the rest of the way to the stage.

"Layla!" Dean hissed after her, but she ignored him and took Sue Ann's hand, letting the preacher's wife lead her up onstage.

Dean looked around the tent, cursing under his breath. What was he supposed to do now? If he stopped Roy, Layla would… but if he didn't…

He clenched his fists, trying to think up something fast. But his brain was failing him. Everything was failing him. Even Jayne was failing him. He frowned, looking around the tent, searching for her tall, thin frame, and her pale blonde head... but she had vanished from the tent. Dean shook his head, cussing again. Where the hell was she? Didn't she get that he needed her right now?

"Pray with me friends!" Roy announced.

Layla closed her eyes. Roy reached for her face. Dean began backing towards the door, not sure what he was going to do, where the hell Jayne was, how to… did he smell smoke?

"Fire!"

Dean heard Jayne's voice distinctly, but still couldn't see her face. He joined in anyway, adding his own shouts: "Fire! The tent's on fire! Everybody get out of here!"

"Oh, my Lord, I see smoke!" a little old lady on the left cried out.

Dean frowned, looking in the scared woman's direction, and did a double take. There was smoke filtering in through the tent flaps on the left side of the folding chairs. People started to get up, chairs dragging in the dirt, heading for the door, all of them chattering and murmuring as Roy tried to call out calming instructions from the front of the tent, even while Layla's mother begged him not to stop, pushing her way past the exiting parishioners, headed towards the pulpit instead of the exit.

It hurt, to watch a confused, disappointed Layla usher her desperate, sobbing mother out of the tent. Despite everything, a small, sad smile crossed Dean's face, and a nearly silent chuckle escaped his throat as he glanced at the little cloud of smoke still wafting into the tent.

Leave it to Goldilocks.

---

Lynn raced through the muddy parking lot and tore around the corner of a parked, burgundy SUV, looking frantically for the protester as she ran down row after row of parked cars. There was nothing and no one in sight, and she was starting to freak out a little.

The whole thing made her sick, really. That fundamentalist bastard was out here picking and choosing who got to live, and he had somehow convinced himself that his god would approve. It was downright hypocritical, this cleansing of the amoral using black magic.

She didn't believe in much, and that made her feel bad. She could tell Sam believed in all this god and heaven and Christianity stuff, judging by the way he'd talked the first time they'd come to Roy's tent, but… well, she'd like it all to be true. The nasty, evil shit she'd grown up seeing… she'd love it if there was an antithesis out there. A god. Good entities to battle it out alongside the evil ones. Something wise, something powerful, something noble and kind that could hear her prayers. Skepticism aside, she wasn't Jayne. She wasn't even Dean. She couldn't even say that she didn't believe.

It was more like she wasn't sure what to believe. She wasn't sure if she should believe. There was plenty of bad out there that was evil for the sake of being evil, but… but then there were people like Roy, people who believed in good and God… and then committed such evil, heinous acts in the name of something that was supposed to be better than all that.

Now, the hunt felt personal. As relieved as she was that Dean was still alive, that Sam had his brother back, that Jayne wasn't going to lose anyone else… she was not going to sit there and let some psychotic preacher man dictate the lifestyles of those around him. He had no right to do it, no right to decide how good people lived, no right to kill.

Suddenly, she heard the screams.

"Help me! Help!"

It was the protester. She was sure of it.

Lynn ducked around another parked car – this one an aging black Volvo – and hurried towards the sound of the screams, her boots squishing in the deep, soft mud. Finally, she saw him: a pale, tall man, a little too thin, his dark hair gelled perfectly, dressed all in black. He was screaming and retreating, tripping around a black pickup truck, stumbling between a red car and a gold one, running backwards from something in front of him, something that only he could see.

Lynn jogged after him, coming right to his side. "Where is it?" she demanded, grabbing his jacket.

The protester screamed again, and then pointed directly in front of him. "There!"

Lynn looked and looked, squinting her eyes, crinkling her forehead. She didn't see a damn thing.

"It's coming!" the protester shrieked.

Lynn threw herself in front of him, still trying desperately to see the attacker.

"Lynn!"

It was Sam yelling now, emerging from the rows of cars. He flew through the mud, running towards her and the protester. "Where is it?" he demanded, whipping his head left to right.

"It's behind you!" the protester shrieked.

Both Lynn and Sam whirled around, looking for the magical teleporting reaper, and still seeing nothing but air. "Oh god," the protester moaned, closing his eyes, shaking his head, and Lynn whirled around again to gawk at the poor man. "Oh god!"

He stumbled backwards into a white, ten-year-old Cadillac, clutching his throat.

Sam's eyes darted from one parked car to the next. "Where the hell is this thing!" he exploded.

"He's got me!" the protester rasped, gasping for air and clawing at nothing, still clutching his throat. Lynn stood in the parking lot helplessly, half a foot from the dying protester, staring at him in horror. She had no idea what to do.

There wasn't anything she could do.

She could only watch the man die.

---

Dean stood still at the back of the tent, watching as the panicked worshippers continued storming the exit, watching as Layla's mother continued to cry and plead, watching as Roy continued calling out soothing words to his flock, trying to control the panic, even as he followed them outside with the help of his aide. He took a quick look around, shuffling towards the exit as well, purposely falling to the back of the line. Then he paused by the last row of chairs, mere feet from one of the tent poles, and dug his phone out of his pocket.

"We got him?"

He jumped, startled, and spun around. Jayne stood behind him, leaning against the pole, with her arms folded over her chest. Dean glared at her. "Why you got to sneak up on me like that?" he snapped.

She shrugged one shoulder. "We got him?" she asked again.

Dean surveyed the tent again. "Must have." He turned back to her, frowning. "Did you set this freaking tent on fire?"

She scoffed. "Just a trash can."

Dean stared at her a moment. She raised her eyebrow. "What?"

He snorted. "You're something."

Jayne frowned at him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Dean didn't answer. He called Sam and put his phone to his ear. His brother picked up on the first ring. "Dean?" Sam's voice echoed in his ear., as the kid clearly struggled to catch his breath.

"I did it," Dean informed him. "I stopped Roy. The protester makes it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we're all fine. I think…" Sam trailed off, and Dean heard him swallow too hard. "Yeah, I think it worked."

A beat. And then a loud, terrified, masculine scream.

"No!" Sam bellowed into the phone, panicked. "No, it's still coming!"

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know! Roy must not be controlling it!"

"But who…? Hang on!" Dean hung up the phone and started looking frantically around the tent again. "Damn it!"

"What?" Jayne demanded.

"Reaper's still coming for the protester," Dean replied. "It's not Roy! Check outside! I'll look in here!"

Jayne didn't argue with him. She ducked through the tent flaps, jogging out into the crowd. Dean swiveled, eyes darting all around the huge white tent. It was empty, dim and stuffy, and it smelled like smoke. He didn't see anyone at all, not at first... and then suddenly, there she was, in a shadowy corner, hiding behind the church piano.

"Sue Ann," he muttered to himself.

Dean stormed to her side of the tent. Her back was to him, but he could hear her mumbling. Whatever she was saying, it wasn't English. Dean came up behind her and roughly grabbed her arm, whipping her around. The preacher's wife stopped her mumbling and turned wide, terrified eyes on him.

He looked down at the necklace she was clutching: a big, black cross with a ring on top, matching the larger one on the altar. It was the Coptic cross from Sam's deck of tarot cards: a dark arts symbol.

Sue Ann followed his gaze, looking down at the cross too, and then she stuffed it hurriedly into her sweater. "Help!" she called out. "Somebody help me!"

The cops got there so fast, Dean suspected they'd been hiding in the tent all along.

---

Outside the tent, on the other side of the parking lot, everything seemed to go quiet all at once. The panic, the confusion, the chaos... suddenly, as though with a flick of a switch, it was gone. It was over. As Sam watched with wide eyes, the protester slowly sat up off the ground, clutching his jacket, eyes darting all around as though he'd lost the reaper and was looking for it again.

"Is it gone?" Lynn demanded, crouching above the mud, directly at the man's side.

The protester nodded, looking all around him in terror. His pale face was even whiter than before, and his fingers were trembling. Sam glanced all around them too, eyes roving over row after row of parked cars, but he saw nothing else suspicious. Not that he'd be able to see the reaper if it were still around, of course. Only the protester knew for sure if he was safe or not.

Lynn stood up, offering the man her hand. He took it, stumbling back up on his feet, still gasping for air. Sam moved quickly to the protester's side, grabbing his arm.

"We got you," he said, trying to calm the other man. It seemed to work. The protester was quiet, catching his breath, eyes still darting around the parking lot.

"Thank god," he gasped.

Sam swallowed, frowning, and looked at Lynn. She bit her lip, meeting his eyes. "Dean and Jayne must have got him," she murmured.

He nodded. "Yep," he said softly, still glancing around them. "Must have."

God, he hoped so.

They made their way across the muddy gravel lot, ducking around car after car, before finally leaving the shaken protester at his own vehicle. He seemed glad to be rid of them - grateful for their help, but ready to put them and the whole reaper debacle far, far behind him. Then Sam and Lynn joined the crowd gathered outside the big white tent.

Sam scanned the crowd for Dean and Jayne, but there was no sign of them, or of Jayne's old gray truck. People were headed for their cars; apparently services had been canceled. Sam's hope that they'd got Roy and the reaper began to dim. When he and Lynn reached the Impala, his hopes vanished.

Roy stood in the mud nearby, on the arm of an aide, soothing a begging, pleading Mrs. Rourke. "I'll hold a private service tonight, no interruptions," he promised, and Sam's stomach dropped. "I give you my word; I'll heal your daughter."

Sam met Lynn's eyes over the roof of the Impala. She looked grim, nodding at him once before getting into the car. Sam followed suit.

This was far from over.

---

Roy Le Grange wasn't doing a damn thing but standing stock still in the middle of his muddy parking lot, holding the arm of his aide. Jayne studied him hard, scrutinizing the reverend, but Roy looked like the least suspicious person there. He stood calmly and patiently in the mud, sandwiched between Layla and his aide. Layla's mother hovered nearby, still pleading with the man, who seemed perfectly sympathetic and reassuring; she couldn't figure why Mrs. Rourke thought she still needed to convince him to help.

Jayne sighed heavily, surveying the people gathered around the man. No one looked suspicious. No one looked like they were muttering any sort of black magic crap under their breath. All the parishioners simply stood huddled together, nervous and worried. Some of them were praying.

For crying out loud. She shook her head, snorting derisively. A little smoke in their Jesus tent, and suddenly they were praying for a savior, like it was the end of the world coming and not the fire department. It was mean, but she thought it anyway. Jayne had little patience for this sort of shit.

She cursed under her breath, looking around again. Where was the culprit? Biting her lip, she glanced back at the tent, eyes peeled for Dean. As if she had summoned him, he stepped through the tent flaps at just that moment, with a cop on either side of him and the preacher's wife leading the way.

Jayne's stomach sank. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Sue Ann was their bad guy. She pushed her way through Roy's flock, trying not to knock over any sick people, and headed straight for Dean, already wondering how she was going to talk him out of getting arrested.

"I just don't understand," she heard Sue Ann say. "After everything we've done for you, after Roy healed you…" The preacher's wife shook her head. "Well, we're just very disappointed, Dean."

Then she addressed the cops. "You can let him go. I'm not going to press any charges. The Lord will deal with him, as he sees fit."

Then Sue Ann was off, vanishing around the side of the tent.

One of the cops sneered in Dean's face. "We catch you around here again, son, we'll put the fear of God in you. Understand?"

Dean smirked back. "Yes sir, fear of God. Got it."

The cops shoved him forward, releasing him roughly, and then shuffled off, darting dark looks in Dean's direction. Jayne stepped up, headed for his side. Layla Rourke got there first.

"Why would you do that, Dean?" she demanded angrily. "It could have been my only chance!"

"He's not a healer."

"He healed you!"

Jayne watched Dean's back. He shook his head, not looking away from the angry woman in front of him. "I know it doesn't seem fair. And I wish I could explain. But Roy is not the answer, I'm sorry."

Layla just looked at him. Jayne cringed a little as she moved closer to them; it was difficult to watch. She looked down at the mud instead.

"Goodbye, Dean," Layla said. She pushed past him. Then she stopped, briefly, looking back at him over her shoulder. "I wish you luck," Layla told him. "I really do."

Dean looked back at her, and Jayne honestly hated the look on his face. His chin was tight, and his eyes were crinkled, and they had this lost little boy shine to them... she hated it.

"Same to you," he said to Layla.

Layla turned her back on Dean, headed straight for her mother. Dean watched her go.

"You deserve it a lot more than me," he muttered.

Jayne recognized she wasn't supposed to hear that. He hadn't meant for anyone to hear that. Honestly? She doubted he'd meant to say it out loud – she doubted he knew she was right behind him.

That didn't stop her.

Dean turned around again, and she stepped into his line of vision. She saw in his face, the moment he laid eyes on her, that he knew. He knew she'd heard him. Dean looked away, half rolling his eyes, lips getting even tighter. Clearly, he didn't plan to talk about it.

Jayne stared him down.

"You ready to go?" Dean asked, not looking at her. "Sam's got my keys, but I don't think we should wait for him. Wouldn't want those nice officers of the law to have to put that fear of god in me."

Jayne stared at him a moment longer. She almost snapped at him. "Yeah," she said instead, fishing her keys of out of her jacket pocket. "I'm ready."

Dean marched towards the truck, not waiting for her. He swung open the passenger door, climbing in. Jayne took off across the mud, clambering into the cab moments after him, and then she started the engine and shifted into drive. Wheeled her way slowly in and out of the spooked group of parishioners. Turned the volume way down low on her crackling radio.

Her old truck rattled and shook all the way down the dirt road leading back to the highway, bouncing off the ruts and sliding in the mud. Jayne pressed her lips in a tight, thin line and glared at the mud and the gravel road ahead of them, her hands too tight on the steering wheel. The silence was deafening.

There were words Jayne wanted to say, things she needed to tell him, things he didn't want to hear. Dean was locked down, with his jaw tight and his eyes hard, keeping everything bottled up inside where he always kept it, where it probably belonged, where she usually kept it too. She tried not to say anything, but the words were clawing their way up her throat, building like bile, until they were right there, on the tip of her tongue. In a rare moment, she found it twice as hard to keep the words to herself as it was to spit them out.

She couldn't stop herself. The words tumbled out, and as though they resented her attempt to swallow them, they came out angry. "She deserves it more than you?" she asked, her hard, clipped voice shattering the silence of the cab.

Dean glared at her out of the corner of his eye. "What are you talking about?"

"I heard what you said," Jayne retorted.

Dean slumped in the seat, folding his arms over his chest, and remained petulantly quiet.

"Why?" she finally demanded, when he didn't say anything.

His harsh sigh echoed in the cab and grated against her ears. "Can we not do this?"

"No," she retorted. "Why? Why does Layla Rourke deserve to live more than you?"

He tensed up, gave her a startled look out of the corner of his eye... but that soon disappeared, and he huffed out a short, sardonic laugh. "Are you kidding me?"

"No," she said again. "Explain it to me."

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No," she echoed, once again, like a parrot that only knew one word. "Why? Because she reads the Bible and goes to church out here in this stupid tent and says nice things to strangers and even sounds like she means it? What's she ever done? Why is she better than you?"

"Well, what have I ever done?" Dean countered.

"I don't know," she snapped, starting to get pissed. "How about save lives and stop monsters?"

Dean rolled his eyes and slouched down even further in the seat, with his arms still stubbornly folded over his chest. "What?" Jayne barked at him. "That's not good enough? You want to believe you're a shitty person, so you just are? That's all you got?"

"I don't even believe!" Dean snapped. "Ok? All this peace, love and forgiveness crap... everything this church business is supposed to be about. She believes. She has real faith. But me... I've got nothing. I... I don't believe in anything."

There was a long silence. Jayne frowned at the road, squeezing the steering wheel again. She wanted to tell him she didn't believe in anything either, and if that was the qualifier for being allowed to live, she supposed she ought to go lay down and die in a ditch, but she kept that to herself.

"You believe in doing the right thing," she finally said, and it felt right - it felt true and real, and she was glad she'd said it. Dean blinked, clearly startled by her response, and she took that to be a good thing. "Isn't that more important than anything else?"

More silence echoed back at her, as tense and thrumming and deafening as the one that had come before. He was staring at her, a little slack-jawed, like he couldn't believe what she'd said. Jayne shrugged a shoulder, suddenly uncomfortable, and glared out the windshield again.

"Did I, though?" he asked roughly, and the silence shattered. "Did we do the right thing here?"

"You didn't know," she said automatically. "Sam pushed this. Hell, I pushed this. Sue Ann did this."

"That's not what I meant," he returned, and she felt a little nauseous. She knew exactly what he meant.

"What, we just let her go on killing whoever she sees fit, just because she healed you?" Jayne retorted. "Just because you like Layla Rourke?" He flinched a little. "She's killing people, Dean. Innocent people. Just because they don't agree with her."

"And we're not killing Layla?" he retorted, and Jayne recoiled a bit, not expecting that.

"No," she said, her eyes flicking from the road to him and back again. "A brain tumor's doing that."

"Well, we're not helping either."

"Sorry. You're a neurosurgeon?"

He glared at her. Jayne ignored that. "Well, you and Sam weren't cardiologists," he retorted, and she held herself a little tighter, a little tenser, as she tried not to flinch. "And what about Marshall Hall, huh?"

She sighed harshly. "I don't know what you want me to say, Dean. I get it; some guy's dead now and you get to live..."

"That some guy is dead because of me!"

Dean's deep bellow resonated throughout the truck. Jayne didn't flinch. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He shook his head furiously, his fist going to his mouth. He returned his gaze to the window.

"Bull shit," she spat, and she startled him into glancing her way. "Marshal Hall is dead because of Sue Ann, not you."

"Why do you keep acting like this isn't a big deal?" he snapped at her. "Who cares if it was Sue Ann who did this? This guy died so I could live! Why aren't you mad about that?"

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry he's dead!" Jayne shot back. "But you're not dead, and I'm having a real tough time being upset about that!"

He stared at her. She stared at the road. There was more silence, long and tense and strangely loud. Jayne swallowed, too hard, and then she mustered up the strength to say something else. "Look, maybe you don't think your life was worth saving, but I do. And if I'd known what the price would be, I wouldn't have let Sam take you here. But... if I'm supposed to choose who I want to live the most, and it comes down to you and some muscle head guy I never met, or you and some little blonde from the local church... you. Every time."

There was another long silence. Then Dean laughed; his laugh was a short, bitter, dangerous thing. "Well, that's great. I'm glad you're happy."

"You think I'm happy right now?" she snapped. "Well, I'll admit it – I'm happy you're alive. I'm happy you won't be dead in another month. But I am not happy that someone else died instead, and I'm definitely not happy that you are sitting here in my truck and hating yourself right now."

He scoffed. "Who says I hate myself?"

She snorted. "Who do you think you're talking to right now? I can read you like a book."

He looked offended. "That so?"

"You can act like you're fine. You can pretend you're just angry, and nothing else. But you're not going to fool me. You'll never fool me."

"I'm not talking about this."

He sounded pissed, and Jayne didn't care. "Fine. Don't. Think that's going to change what I know about you?"

"You don't know a damn thing about me."

"I know more than one damn thing about your stubborn, sorry ass. I see what this job's doing to you."

The words were rolling off her tongue, and they sounded too angry for the sentiment they were attempting to convey... and she wasn't sure why she couldn't stop them, why she couldn't dam them up the way she normally would, why they kept flowing out of her mouth. He didn't want to hear them, and she wasn't sure she wanted to say them... but she couldn't stop.

"Why do you think you don't matter?" she asked incredulously... because really, how could he think that, when there were people out there willing to go to crazy lengths to try and keep him around? But Dean didn't seem to want to matter; she could remember what Roy had said in his sitting room, when she and Dean had first gone back to the Le Grange place after he'd been healed... A young man with an important purpose, a job to do, and it isn't finished... and the way Dean had reacted, the way he'd looked at the floor, like that explanation for Roy's choice didn't satisfy him.

He scoffed, shaking his head. "Look, Jayne, I'm not going to do this... talking thing, all right? I don't need this crap."

It sounded just like him, really. Jayne thought maybe she should heed the warning there, but she still couldn't seem to stop. "I can't let you sit there and think you're not important or something."

"I'm not," he said automatically, and Jayne tore her eyes from the road momentarily to gawk at him. Dean winced a little, clearly sorry he'd said that. "Why should I be?" he added defensively.

"You're important to us," she retorted... and she regretted that a little, lumping herself and Lynn in with Sam, acting like the four of them were a unit, rather than something temporary. Dean didn't seem to catch on. "Sam was scouring the ends of the earth to help you..."

"Well, he shouldn't have."

"Do you think I'd have come out to see you so quickly if..." she stopped, swallowed. "Look, you think I'd have done this kind of shit for just anyone?"

She was getting dangerously close to revealing something she didn't want to say; something she'd hidden so well, even she barely knew what it was.

"He shouldn't have involved you," Dean said tightly. "He shouldn't have..."

"He called everyone," Jayne retorted. "Lynn and me, all your friends, your father..."

Dean looked tenser and tighter than before, and Jayne started having this niggling, half formed, unexpectedly psychiatrist-like realization. "Just because he didn't bother showing up... well, that's not because of you, you know. He was probably looking for a way on his own..."

"Don't talk about my dad," he interrupted, his voice as tight as the way he held himself, sounding too controlled, and she knew she needed to back off.

"Why the hell not?" she snapped instead. "Where is he, huh? Less than a week ago, you were stretched out in some pathetic hospital bed, looking like shit warmed over, with death less than a month away, and… and…"

Her voice broke. Goddamn it. Dean looked at her with wide eyes, but Jayne did not look at him. She kept her gaze on the windshield. She swallowed, she blinked. She barreled on. "And that son of a bitch can't even pick up a damn phone."

Bang! His fist collided with the truck door, impact echoing throughout the tiny cab, and Jayne flinched. The glass in the window rattled. There was a split second of terrible, uncomfortable, loaded silence.

"Don't ever talk about my dad like that," he warned her, his voice steady, low and too calm.

She didn't answer for a long time. Dean didn't say anything either. He frowned at the dashboard, flexing the fingers on his right hand.

"He should have come," she finally said, and he glared at her. She ignored that. "You're a good son. You're a good person. You... your dad should have come. Dads are always supposed to come for their kids, no matter what."

There was another long silence. Jayne swallowed, blinking at the windshield. They were getting close to the motel now, traffic getting heavier, the tall grass and empty fields turning into parking lots and fast food restaurants.

"He's doing something important," Dean murmured, and she jumped a little, not expecting him to say anything at all on the subject. "He couldn't get away. The demon comes first."

That pissed her off. Jayne's hands tightened on the steering wheel and she clenched her jaw. "Like hell it does."

There was more of that tense, loaded silence, and then Jayne swallowed too hard, teeth catching on her upper lip. "Look, you can pretend you're fine..."

"I am fine!" he snapped.

"But I know you're not," she went on, ignoring the interruption. "And honestly... I can sit quiet and let a lot go, without saying a thing. Admit it. You like that about me."

He didn't say anything, but his jaw got all tight again, and he glared out the window.

"But I can't do that now, not about this," she informed him. "I can't just let you sit here and hate yourself and blame yourself for something that's got nothing to do with you, not really. I can't let that go. I can't sit quiet about it. I'm not going to."

It was as close to an apology for pushing the sensitive subject as she was going to give him. She dropped the whole thing after that, and Dean seemed more than fine with that. He never said anything back. Jayne kept driving, and they found themselves back at the motel less than five minutes later. She pulled into the parking lot and swung into a space by the motel's side door, close to their rooms. She shut down the engine. She didn't get out of the truck, not for a long moment, and neither did Dean.

But the silence pressed in on her from all sides, and she felt claustrophobic, like it was getting difficult to breathe, and so she threw open the truck door and stepped out into the cool, damp air, taking a deep breath as she slammed the door shut behind her with a heavy thud.

She heard the creak of the passenger side door as Dean got out next, joining her in the parking lot. She looked at him over the truck, and he leaned his elbows on the rim of the bed, staring her down with narrowed eyes. "What do you believe in?" he asked suddenly, challenging her.

Jayne stared at him. She knew what the right answer was. Doing the right thing, defending the innocent... whatever. She should just say the right things and leave it at that. But she couldn't just say the right things and pretend she meant them. She owed him more than empty platitudes. She'd seen a piece of him he hadn't wanted to show her; a piece that he rarely showed anyone. She couldn't lie now.

"I believe in protecting my own," she replied quietly, and a little too evenly.

He stared at her again. She stared right back.

"So... you don't care about Layla Rourke?" Dean retorted. "Or Marshall Hall, or anyone outside the circle of people already in your life? If Lynn's fine, and your brother's fine... if I'm fine... then some stranger's life doesn't matter?"

"That's not what I said."

"Then what are you saying?"

"Of course I care about what happens to Layla," she snapped. "Or Marshall Hall. But I care about what happens to you a hell of a lot more, and I'm not sorry about that!"

He stared at her again, too long, and Jayne couldn't take it anymore. "What?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't totally buy that," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"I buy that you'd put Lynn and Steve before a stranger," he clarified. "Hell, I'll even buy that I'm on that list too. But I remember the last job I worked with you."

Jayne didn't like talking about that job, and she didn't see any reason for Dean to bring it up now. Every muscle in her body tensed, and she tilted her chin, staring him down, trying not to let him see how the mention of that job affected her. He didn't look impressed; he seemed to know what she didn't want anyone to know, and that pissed her off a little. But turnabout was always fair play.

"What's that got to do with anything?" she asked tightly.

"I remember you put a woman you met once before yourself," Dean returned. "So, don't give me that 'I only care about my own' crap."

He turned his back on her and headed for the motel. Jayne stared at his back. "You're giving me too much credit!" she called after him.

"I don't think I am!" he shot back, over his shoulder. Then he opened the side door and stepped inside, letting it fall shut with a heavy thud behind him.

Jayne glared at the door for a moment. She didn't really know what to say to that, or how to feel about it... or whether it was even true. She knew she'd pushed him out of his comfort zone - pushed herself out of her comfort zone, while she was at it - and she thought maybe he was just trying to get even.

She rolled her eyes, huffing out a loud sigh, and then she followed him inside.

---

The Impala was dead silent. The vibrating rumble of the engine, echoing loudly in Sam's ears, was the only sound in the car. He'd even turned off the radio, unable to stomach one more round of Dean's ACDC cassette, or the crackling static of the radio. Roy's place must be in a dead zone.

Lynn was sitting in that same stony silence, arms folded tightly over her chest as she glared straight ahead out the windshield. Sam spared her a glance from the corner of his eye, and then quickly returned his eyes to the road. Tall grass and empty fields and lonely farmhouses whizzed past as the car roared its way down the county highway.

Finally, Sam sighed. "Look," he announced. "I can see that you're mad at me, and maybe that's fair. But we can't keep working like this."

Lynn's ponytail swung violently as she whipped her head around to glare at him. "Well, maybe we shouldn't work together. Would that make you feel better? If we team up on cases, I'll just… stick with Jayne. Or maybe your brother. Why not? Sound good?"

Sam screwed up his face incredulously, shaking his head. "That's not really what I meant."

"Well, what are you saying then?"

"I'm trying to clear the air! Look, Lynn… I'm sorry…"

"Why?"

"Wh…" He stopped, a short huff of air escaping the back of his throat. He frowned at the road ahead, shaking his head a little more. "I'm… I'm sorry because…"

"Do you even know what you did?" Lynn challenged him.

"I… well, this is obviously about…"

"About sex?" Lynn finished for him, and Sam's face warmed despite himself.

"Um… yeah. Obviously."

She looked at him like he was an idiot, and despite being a good foot taller than her, it made Sam feel small. "And what about sex with me is making you sorry?"

He felt like that might be a trick question. "I… I shouldn't have… we shouldn't have…"

"We shouldn't have done it?" Lynn prompted him.

"I mean…" Sam shook his head. "No?"

"Is that a question?"

He sighed harshly, losing his patience. "Look, what happened the other night… I was just…"

"Sad?" she suggested, and he was really starting to get annoyed with the repeated interruptions. "Grieving? Angry? Needing a distraction?"

The thing was, despite hating the constant interruptions, he had to admit she wasn't far off the mark. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I didn't mean to… I wasn't trying to lead you on or anything. I didn't mean to hurt you."

She scoffed loudly. "That's why you think I'm mad?"

"Well… yeah?"

Lynn scoffed again. "Look, Sam, I knew exactly what that night was. I'm not an idiot. I'm not a naive little girl. Actually pretty perceptive, thanks. And it was shitty of you to use me like that, but do you really think I would have let it happen if I wasn't ok with it? Honestly, Sam… I guess I was using you too."

He frowned. "You were?"

She didn't allow him time to decide if that bothered him, and she didn't elaborate on the statement. "The sex doesn't bother me. The sex was fine. The sex was great, actually."

His face warmed again, but she wasn't looking at him.

"It's the morning after I have a problem with," she informed him.

Sam frowned again. "What do you mean?"

"Are you freaking kidding me?"

He gaped at her like a dying fish, but he couldn't seem to come up with any sort of response. Lynn huffed indignantly. "Look, Sam, I get this was a one-time thing. I knew that from the get-go. But you can't treat me like some one-night stand truck stop waitress that you had to kick out bed in the morning, or whose bed you had to sneak out of, or... We're supposed to be friends! You can't treat me like that and think I'm going to be okay with it!"

Sam was still gawking at her. The accusation stung; it was last thing he'd expected her to say. "I wasn't... I'm not treating you like... like a truck stop waitress..."

"Yes, you are!" she shot back, cutting him off. "Seriously, like from moment one of yesterday morning!"

He gawked some more. "You've been avoiding me!"

"Excuse me, you dill hole, but I'm pretty sure I did not start the awkward, silent, 'let's not talk to each other or look each other in the eye while we treat each other like a one-night stand' bull crap!" Lynn snapped defensively. "I tried to be friendly and normal when we got up that morning, but you were clearly trying to get rid of me. Look, I get that it was a mistake, that we were using each other and... and I can get over that if you can. It wouldn't have been a big deal to me; I get that you and me... I knew what was going on, ok? I was fine with it until you gave me the cold shoulder in the morning!"

There was another long silence. Sam took a deep breath. Obviously, they'd both screwed this whole thing up. But if what Lynn said was true... if all the tension and resentment stemmed from the way he'd acted the morning after... well, maybe it was up to him to apologize. "Look... it wasn't intentional," he told her. "I just... it's not something we can do again. I'm not ready for... it's just that I felt kind of weird about the whole thing. It was awkward and embarrassing and... I wasn't trying to push you out, or... I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I just didn't know the right way to handle this."

"Well, you did," Lynn bit back, a little snottily, and then she sighed and rolled her eyes. "But I understand all that, Sam. I just... maybe I should have said something earlier and tried to clear the air instead of... well, I guess my feelings got hurt, and I didn't handle it very well."

He nodded. "Right. I get that. And... I didn't handle this great either."

She nodded too. The silence returned, thrumming along with the rumble of the engine. "So..." Sam asked tentatively, after a moment. "Are we good?"

Lynn bit her bottom lip. She didn't answer immediately. "I... I guess so," she hedged.

It wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no. Sam wasn't sure what it was, or why he felt so unsatisfied by it. The car was fast approaching their motel, and soon they'd have to go inside and meet with Jayne and Dean and talk about what had happened at the church, who was actually controlling the reaper if it wasn't Roy, and how they were going to stop them... especially since they only had until tonight to get it done. He wanted to be done with their argument; he wanted to put it all behind them, nip it in the bud, and focus on the case.

Somehow, he didn't think it was going to be that simple.

Moments later, he was parking the Impala in the lot, beside Jayne's rusty old truck. He shared a short, stilted smile with Lynn before they both got of the car and walked in dead silence back to their motel rooms. It was almost a relief to find Dean waiting in his room, to have to switch gears immediately and get back to talking shop.

The sum of the situation was that Roy Le Grange truly believed he was healing people with the power of prayer. Meanwhile, his wife Sue Ann was pulling all the strings. That was Sam's cue to bring out the book he'd found in the library: the book that contained a reaper binding spell, with instructions on how to build a black altar, requiring seriously dark stuff like bones and human blood. Sue Ann had bound the reaper when Roy was dying of cancer to save him... and then she'd continued trading lives for lives once he was healed.

"We got to break that binding spell," Sam announced, once he'd finished explaining.

Dean then revealed that Sue Ann carried a Coptic cross like the one in the book, and once she'd dropped it in the tent, the reaper had backed off.

"So, do we break the cross or destroy the altar?" Sam asked.

Dean shrugged. "Maybe both?" he suggested.

It was a shaky sort of plan, but that was par for the course, really. Their plans were always a little shaky. Sam supposed it didn't matter. Whatever they did, they had to do it now, and fast.

Roy was healing Layla Rourke tonight.

---

The old gray truck shook and rumbled its way up the mud and gravel road to Roy's place once again, for what felt like the hundredth time in less than three days. This time, it was in the pitch black of night, while a fine, sleet-like rain misted down all around them.

Lynn's mind was going a mile a minute, thousands of thoughts swirling around in her head, some of them about the job and the reaper and Sue Ann Le Grange, but plenty of others about completely different things entirely. The silence in the cab wasn't helping either, but she didn't have the focus or the energy to try and break it. She leaned back in Janis's passenger seat, tilting her head towards the window. Beside her, Jayne shoved the old truck into neutral and let the vehicle coast silently into the parking lot outside Roy Le Grange's tent.

Soon they coasted to a stop, and Jayne parked the truck in the shadows. There were lights on in the tent, and voices carried from inside, floating through the cold night air. Lynn squinted out the window, watching Dean's car coast to a stop beside the truck. By the light from the tent, she could see two cops lurking around the tent entrance.

Jayne sighed. Lynn looked at her. She caught Jayne's eyes wandering towards the old black car sidling up next to theirs, and she knew where her stepsister's thoughts were.

"He's not all right, is he?" Lynn asked.

Jayne shrugged a shoulder. "He'll live."

"And you?"

"There ain't a damn thing wrong with me."

It was a lie if she'd ever heard one, but she couldn't bring herself to call Jayne out on it. Lynn just watched her stepsister for a while. Jayne didn't look at her.

"So, all we got to do is find Sue Ann's black altar," Lynn finally spoke, breaking the silence. "Destroy it while everyone's in the tent making good on Roy's promise to Mrs. Rourke to heal her daughter." She heaved a harsh sigh, blowing her bangs up off her forehead as she wrapped her necklace nervously around her hand. "Damn, does that woman make things difficult."

Jayne shrugged again. "Her daughter's dying."

"I know. I'm not saying she shouldn't be making things difficult – I'm just saying she is. I mean, a private service? Just so Layla gets healed?"

"She's desperate," Jayne murmured. "Just like Sue Ann was, back when Roy had cancer. Layla's dying, Mrs. Rourke finds her a healer. When Roy was dying, Sue Ann bound a reaper and tried to keep death away from her husband. I mean, I think we all know a thing or two about desperation."

Lynn thought about the ritual her stepsister had been hiding in the glove compartment. She thought about Sam's endless night of research, of the phone calls... how he'd dragged them all up here in the first place. Yeah, desperation was a thing with them, she thought ruefully, but she didn't dare mention it out loud.

"Maybe," she said instead. "But to use the reaper to knock off anyone who doesn't share the same values as her…?"

"Values," Jayne snorted. "Last I checked, good Christians aren't supposed to dabble in black magic and murder. Guess I missed that Sunday school lesson."

"Pretty sure you missed all the Sunday school lessons," Lynn retorted. "But yeah, she's a psychopath. With you all the way on that one."

Jayne sighed again. Then she frowned at her sideways. "So, what's your deal, anyway?" she asked, and Lynn tensed up, feeling attacked. "First you don't want to check out Marshal Hall with Sam, then you get pissed off that Dean lumps you two together to search the farmhouse... and then tonight, you raced to my truck when we left the motel, like you were afraid we'd stick you with Sam again."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lynn lied, trying to sound careless as she tossed her ponytail. "I just don't see why the two of us suddenly need to be attached at the hip."

Jayne snorted, unimpressed. "Right. Because prior to this, you two weren't attached at the hip."

Lynn sighed, feeling harassed, and crossed her arms petulantly over her chest. "Maybe I just wanted to spend some time with my sister."

"Bull shit," Jayne retorted. "You spend nothing but time with me. What did the idiot do?"

Her stepsister was getting dangerously close to figuring it out, and Lynn could never lie to her, anyway. She trained her eyes on the ceiling and tried to sound innocent. "I don't know if I want to say."

"Oh my god," Jayne groaned, making a nauseated face. "You had sex with him, didn't you?"

"No!"

Jayne just looked at her. Lynn sighed, fidgeting with her sweatshirt. "Maybe," she amended.

"When?"

Lynn shrugged, looking at the ceiling again. "Um… uh… maybe… two, three nights ago?"

"When Dean was in the hospital?"

"Well, yeah," Lynn returned defensively. "So what? Sam was upset, ok? He was… he was hurting. He was worried. He was all… panicky."

Jayne frowned at her. "Yeah. I know."

"So, it wasn't wrong," Lynn pushed. "It wasn't. We weren't being insensitive. We researched for nearly six hours before anything happened!"

Jayne stared at her some more, looking a little confused. "Ok," she said.

"He needed comforting," Lynn kept going. She couldn't seem to stop. Jayne didn't look like she needed any more convincing, but Lynn kept trying to explain anyway. Maybe she was trying to convince herself. "He needed… something to keep his mind off all this bull shit. I gave him that."

"Lynn," Jayne murmured. "You don't have to explain to me. I'm not judging you. It's really all right."

Lynn bit her lip. "But maybe it's not," she said quietly. Jayne just looked at her, waiting patiently, and more doubts spilled out. "I… I wanted comforting too, Jaynie. All I could think about was my mom, and… and the death certificate, and…"

"It's ok," Jayne insisted. "Really. I'm the last person to pull the moral high ground with you."

"Well, I don't know if Sam agrees with you," Lynn muttered. "He's barely spoken to me since. He hardly looks at me!"

She felt her lip tremble, and her eyes stung. Jayne stared at her, and she tried to be a big girl about it; she'd known what that night was about, after all, and she and Sam had already cleared the air. She should be over it.

(She wasn't over it.)

"I'll kill him," Jayne announced, and Lynn rolled her eyes, groaning.

"Jaynie, don't…"

"You know, I always thought Dean was the asshole playboy, but if Sam's going to treat my sister like that…"

"Please don't be overprotective big sister right now!" Lynn pleaded. "Sam and I… we need to work things out ourselves."

There was a long silence. Lynn stared at Jayne, watched her jaw tighten, watched her teeth catch her upper lip.

"Fine," Jayne conceded tightly.

Lynn breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks."

Another silence.

"But if you decide you want me to kill him… just say the word."

"Right. Filing that away."

They lapsed into silence again. Lynn frowned out the windshield, into the dark, watching the tent, watching the house, watching the Impala. She heard the tell-tale creak of the car door, and soon enough, she saw both Winchesters climbing out of their car.

"Come on," Jayne said, swinging open her door. "The guys are moving. Let's go end this."

Then Jayne hopped down from the cab and slammed the door. Lynn took a moment and steeled herself first, and then she swung open her door and followed Jayne out into the dark, muddy field. It was sleeting out, a cold misting rain, and clouds covered the moon and the stars. She saw her breath fogging out in front of her face. They met the boys outside the tent. Lynn could hear that old piano playing softly inside. Roy's voice carried a bit, a notch louder than the whispers of his parishioners. She chanced a peek through the tent flaps and saw Roy and Layla at the pulpit, with only a small handful of people standing by the stage.

"Where's Sue Ann?" Dean asked suddenly.

"House?" Sam suggested.

Lynn sighed. Great. The serial murdering preacher's wife was missing in action. They moved back towards the house, away from the tent, picking their way through the parked cars and RVs.

"All right," Dean murmured. "Sam, Lynn, you two go check the house. Find the altar. Goldilocks, you're with me."

Lynn saw Dean exchange a look with her stepsister. Jayne nodded in agreement to whatever the silent look signified, and then jogged off, weaving her way through the parked cars and disappearing into the dark. Lynn frowned after her. "Something you two want to share with the rest of us?" she hissed.

But Dean just shoved Sam behind the corner of the house, in between the bushes and the church's long white school bus. Sam, to Lynn's great annoyance, yanked her back there with him.

Then there was a loud crash: the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. Lynn froze. Two policemen came running past her hiding place, from the direction of the front porch, coffee cups in their hands. A flashlight beam caught the squad car, parked close to the tent, and Lynn cursed, shaking her head and rolling her eyes when she saw the car now had one busted headlight... and Jayne was standing beside the car with a tire iron in her hand.

"What the hell are you doing?" one of the cops shouted.

Jayne shrugged one lazy, apathetic shoulder. "Vandalizing your car," she returned, deadpan.

She heard Sam laugh quietly beside her, but all she could muster up was a muffled, but aggravated groan. "I am going to kill her," she whispered.

Both cops stepped towards Jayne, but stopped short when they heard a long, loud whistle. "Hey!" Dean's voice echoed through the parking lot, and both cops spun around, catching him in the beams of their flashlights.

"You gonna put that fear of God in me?" Dean asked.

That's when Jayne took off running. The cops heard her pounding footsteps; they turned back to stop her. Dean chose that exact moment to race off next, heading in the opposite direction. After a moment of confusion, the two cops split up – one going after Jayne, the other after Dean.

Lynn shook her head. "Idiots," she hissed in annoyance.

"Who?" Sam asked. "The cops, or my brother and your stepsister?"

"All four of them," Lynn spat. "Let's go find that altar."

She marched up the porch steps. Sam followed close on her heels.

They moved in silence, trying not to be heard or seen. It helped that they were still, for the most part, ignoring one another. Minimal talking made it easy to move quietly. They shouldn't be ignoring each other; they had talked things out, they were supposed to be good. But there was tension still, and no amount of 'talking it out' was going to fix what they'd broken that night in Sam's motel room.

She'd meant it, what she'd told Jayne. She and Sam needed to work things out on their own. Maybe they were already halfway there. Lynn knew he was hurting. She knew he was guilty. She was trying to understand. But it was hard to empathize with his pain when he was hurting her. And honestly? It was hard to be sympathetic at all right now. Her mother might have killed herself. At any rate, her mother had almost definitely been working something dark side, something dangerous. But most importantly, it felt like everything she'd ever been told had been a lie.

Lynn closed her eyes slowly and swallowed. She breathed deep through her nose and straightened her spine. She tried to push those thoughts aside as she followed Sam down the back steps of the wraparound porch and around a large bush. They turned the corner of the house and stumbled on a root cellar. Sam jimmied open the rust-pocked, galvanized steel doors.

She followed him down the rickety steps, into the dark earthen hole. It was dark, save for a couple flickering candles, and creepy as hell, characterized by a few corner cobwebs, and featuring a storage unit made of chicken wire. The two of them crept across the dirt floor, towards the opposite side of the basement. Set up along the far wall was a long, old wooden table. Sam jerked to a stop, and Lynn froze, just behind him. She stared. There was a black cloth spread over the table, and that same old wonky cross from the tarot sat prominently in the middle of the spread. There was an animal skull, and a candle here and there. She crinkled her nose at the other things scattered along the tabletop: bones, blood, shells… and in the center, a picture of Dean with an 'x' through his face... an 'x' that looked like it had been drawn with dark red blood.

Sue Ann had chosen her next immoral victim.

Sam inhaled sharply. "Dean," he whispered.

Lynn stared at the table. There was a pit in her stomach, and it wasn't just about Dean's impending doom. Try as she might to focus on the present, she kept coming back to her mother, and what Rufus had said… she kept coming back to herself. Lynn wondered if her mother had ever built something like this. She wondered if her mother had ever been a Sue Ann.

"I gave your brother life, and I can take it away."

Both Lynn and Sam spun around at the warbling, accented voice that sounded behind them. Dowdy, cardigan-wearing Sue Ann Le Grange stood at the foot of the cellar steps, staring them down.

Sam didn't hesitate; Lynn jumped as he grabbed the altar and toppled it, grunting loudly as he knocked the entire table on its side, breaking glass and scattering the bones and shells.

Sue Ann made a run for the stairs, and Lynn sprang into action, her fingers scrabbling over the Glock tucked inside her jacket as she raced after the other woman, jogging around support poles and chicken wire. "I don't think so, bitch!" she shouted at Sue Ann's back.

She heard Sam's footsteps behind her. Sue Ann got to the top of the steps way ahead of her and reached for the doors. Lynn drew the gun and aimed for Sue Ann's head.

"No!"

Sam suddenly appeared beside her, knocking the gun from her hands. It skittered across the dirt floor. Overhead, the cellar doors slammed shut. Lynn heard the scrape of metal against metal. She turned slowly, glaring at Sam incredulously, but he ignored her and pushed past her on the stairs, jogging up the last few steps and throwing his weight uselessly into the cellar doors.

"Sam, can't you see?" Sue Ann called down, from the other side of the doors. Sam kept pushing uselessly on the barricaded exit. "The Lord chose me! To reward the just and punish the wicked! And your brother is wicked! He deserves to die just as much as Layla deserves to live!"

Sam gave up on the doors and tore back down the cellar steps. He ran across the cellar and began yanking at a loose beam in the corner.

"Lord chose you, huh?" Lynn shot back from her place on the stairs. "Did he give you that creepy little book too? Taught you a crash course in black magic?"

In typical hypocrite fashion, Sue Ann didn't acknowledge her accusations at all. "I'm sorry!" she called, and Lynn rolled her eyes. "Goodbye, Sam!"

Lynn swore as she ran back down the steps, in a bad temper. She spotted her Glock on the floor, two feet to the right, and scooped it off the ground. She jogged the rest of the way across the cellar, shoving the gun back into her jacket as she went. By the time she reached Sam, he'd already loosened the beam and was knocking the boards out of the tiny cellar window, grunting and straining. Lynn watched impatiently as the beam smashed through the boards with a bang! A wooden plank popped loose and fell onto the grass outside.

"You should have let me shoot her," Lynn bit out, because he should have. Sue Ann would be down and out, Dean's life wouldn't be in jeopardy, and they wouldn't be trapped in the root cellar right now. "You shouldn't have stopped me. You shouldn't have knocked away my gun."

"She's human," Sam growled through his teeth, propelling the beam into the boarded-up window again. Bang! Another plank popped loose and hit the ground.

"So what?" Lynn snapped. "She's a murderer."

"If we kill her, we're no better than she is!" he retorted. He slammed the beam into the window one more time. Bang! The final plank popped free and tumbled to the grass. Sam stepped back from the window. "You first!"

Lynn glared at him. "Maybe the world's not that black and white, Sam," she told him.

"Now, Lynn!" he barked. "We don't have a lot of time!"

They didn't have a lot of time – that was true. Lynn shook her head bitterly and climbed through the window, dragging herself out of the cellar and through the mud. As soon as she was clear of the window and stumbling back on her feet, Sam's head appeared in the window.

Less than five minutes later, they were free from the cellar and running through the long, muddy grass, headed straight for the big white tent. Sam was acres ahead of her, courtesy of those long, long legs, and she was jogging after him, glaring at his back.

He should have let her shoot the crazy bitch.

---

Jayne listened very carefully from where she lay flat on her back, staring up at the dark, overcast night sky.

There was nothing but silence for several long minutes, save for the distant, quiet tinkle of piano playing from the church tent. She heard no footsteps, no shouting... only a distant barking dog, and that stopped soon too, leaving the quiet and the wind and a few more piano notes. Satisfied that the cops had given up, Jayne tentatively propped herself up on her elbows and poked her head over the rim of the truck bed where she was hiding. Not a soul in sight, living or otherwise. She sat up and swung herself down from the rusted white Chevy, and then paused a moment, taking another quick look around and making sure she was alone. When nobody appeared, Jayne began trekking through the parking lot, looking for Dean.

The frost crunched under her boots as she picked her way through the dark, ducking around parked cars and soldiering through the steady, cold sleet. She cautiously made her way under the old dim lights stationed about the lot, nailed onto tall, roughshod wooden poles. They illuminated the muddy path back to the big white tent. At first, she thought nothing of the silence, of the emptiness... but soon she began to worry. Dean was nowhere in sight, and she felt like she should have seen him by now. She wondered if the cops had stopped chasing her because they'd caught Dean.

Then one of the lights along the path flickered and went out.

Jayne froze. There was a buzz, and a flick, and then every light along the lot fizzled and died.

"Shit," she whispered, her breath catching in her lungs. It felt like her stomach was clawing its way out of her, through her throat. She looked one way and then another, trying to catch her breath. There was nothing and no one there. She looked towards the tent: no one. She looked over her shoulder and saw nothing but darkness. She swallowed too hard, breathing still too short, and listened. The air around her went cold, and she shivered in the dark. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She heard nothing but the soft whistle of the wind and the piano from the tent.

Then she heard a groan - an awful, loud, grunting groan of pain - and her stomach was in her throat again.

Her hand went to her gun as the groan echoed through the field. She jogged on tiptoe around the corner of an old, rusty tin-can of a camper, into an open patch of the parking lot, lit only by a flickering orange trashcan fire. That's where she saw Dean, in the shadows, with no other soul in sight, gasping for air. He sank to his knees in the matted grass, eyes glazed over and milky, with his skin bone white and his lips pale and colorless. Jayne felt sick, like she couldn't breathe either, like her throat was swelling up. Everything was suddenly ice cold, and the world was deathly still.

She made half a start towards him, and then she froze. Sue Ann, she remembered. It was a sobering, stabilizing thought, and her hand closed around her gun, pulling it from her waistband. She looked all around her, head whipping from side to side. The urge to run to Dean's side was still strong, but cold logic was making a reappearance. She eyed the nearby tent, and the distant, hulking roof line of the dark farmhouse. Which way? Find Sue Ann fast, and stop her... stop her for good.

The distant, tinkling piano stopped abruptly with a loud, ugly thlunk! Dean gasped loudly from behind her, like a literal dying man finally taking a full, unobstructed breath, and she whirled towards him, just as he toppled over, landing on all fours in the mud, coughing and wheezing and clutching his throat.

"Dean!" she cried out. Sue Ann was forgotten, and her gun went back into her waistband as she jogged towards him, across the field. In an instant, she was at his side and on her knees, cold mud seeping into her jeans as she knelt next to him.

Dean's answer was a loud, pained groan. He gasped for air, and Jayne's fingers shook as she reached for him tentatively, hesitantly... and then he pitched forward, headfirst into her lap. She reached for him more insistently, wrapping one arm tight around his shoulders, rolling him towards her, the other hand roughly cupping his face.

"Dean!" she shouted at him, her voice cracking horribly.

He was heavy and limp in her lap, still wheezing, and her arms tightened around him. Jayne searched his face with her eyes. Her chest hurt - a sharp, sudden pain above her heart, a physical embodiment of her panic. Then suddenly Dean's coughing subsided, and he sucked in air, and the color flooded back to his face... and Jayne felt like she could breathe again too.

Her fingers were shaking, and her hand smoothed over his hair as though it had a mind of its own. She shut her eyes, swallowing hard, and took a deep, steadying breath.

"Dean?" she asked throatily. "Are you all right?"

He nodded frantically, still hunched up, half in her lap and half in the mud. Her hand was moving on its own again, over his hair, and then she squeezed his shoulder. Slowly, he sat up, dragging himself out of her lap, balanced on his hip in the gravel and the mud. Jayne stared at him, hoping she didn't look as wildly doe eyed as she felt. She swallowed down what felt like her stomach trying to leap out of her throat again. She glanced all around her, still holding his shoulder. There was nothing and no one – just her and Dean, huddled in the middle of the mud.

His color was back entirely, and he was breathing steadier and steadier, and Jayne sagged a little in relief. It was over... it had to be over.

She didn't have to sit here and watch Dean die.

---

Sam's footsteps pounded in his ears as he tore across the dark grassy lot, sneakers sinking in the muck and crunching through the frost-tipped grass. He sucked in long, pained lungfuls of bitterly cold air as he ducked around cars, flying past the long, white canvas wall of the tent. Somewhere behind him, Lynn was running on his heels, panting loudly. He'd practically left her behind, racing across the field through the fine, cold wet mist still coming down around them.

Where was she? Where was Sue Ann?

The altar was gone – desecrated – a mess on the cellar floor. But that amulet was still around Sue Ann's neck... which meant there was still a chance she could keep working her spell and controlling the reaper… there was a still a chance she could kill Dean.

Sam ran faster, his shoes kicking at the loose gravel. Finally, he saw the tent's entrance and came running furiously towards the circle of warm yellow light shining out the tent flaps.

There was Sue Ann, plain as day, clutching the Coptic cross around her neck as she screwed her eyes shut and furiously recited her spell. Sam sprinted the last few steps to the tent and tore the cross from her neck, snapping the chain. Sue Ann gasped, whirling around, reaching for her amulet, but Sam ignored her and threw the cross hard into the gravel. It shattered on impact, little pieces scattering all around on the ground, and dark red blood spilled from inside, pooling in the mud.

Sue Ann shrieked. "No!" she cried out, falling to her knees in the gravel, grabbing uselessly at the broken pieces of the cross. "My god, what have you done?"

Sam smirked down at her with satisfaction, even as he struggled to catch his breath. "He's not your god," he informed her.

She looked up, straight ahead into the tall grass, and gasped in terror. Sam followed her gaze, frowning. There was nothing in front of them. But then Sue Ann gasped again, clutching her throat. She coughed, she choked, and her eyes glazed over. All the color leeched from her skin, and a puff of cold air escaped her lips.

Then she slumped to the side and rolled onto her back, twitching. Sam frowned, cringing a little, staring at her, transfixed, as she stopped twitching and went deathly still in the gravel. Her empty, milky eyes bored into Sam's face.

All that, he thought, turning away from her. All that, and she died after all.

A hand closed around his arm and he jumped. "We need to get the hell out of here," Lynn's voice said in his ear.

Sam turned to her, staring down at the top of her head. Lynn was staring at Sue Ann, and it was strangely hard to read her expression - far harder than he remembered it ever being.

"She's…" he began, but Lynn cut him off.

"Dead," she finished, pulling him gently back the way they came. "Did you think the reaper didn't know who trapped it?"

Sam frowned at her as she walked away from the tent, still pulling on his arm. He let her tug him along, back towards their cars, away from the tent and any witnesses and away from Sue Ann. "We need to go," she said unnecessarily.

"Yeah," he agreed breathlessly, and they picked their way back through the rain and the long, wet grass towards the Impala and the truck. "I know."

She didn't seem to have anything to say. They walked in silence, and Sam decided that was fine by him. He remembered the way she'd gone to her gun, the way she'd aimed for Sue Ann Le Grange's head.

He wasn't sure he had anything to say either.

---

From the moment Dean had seen the face of the reaper - that same pale, wrinkled old man in the dark suit he'd seen on stage in Roy's tent - Dean couldn't breathe and he couldn't see. The moment it had touched his face, its hand ice cold against his skin and freezing through his bones, the reaper's face had vanished, and all Dean saw was black and dim, wavy shadows. All he felt was pressure and pain, like a heavy weight expanding rapidly inside his skull.

Then suddenly the weight had been gone, and the world swam back into focus, and the pain began to fade. He could breathe. He toppled over, sucking in air like it was being discontinued. The sudden rush of oxygen left him dizzy. That's when he'd heard Jayne calling to him, and felt her hands and her arms, and he realized he was choking and gasping for air with his head cradled in her lap.

"Dean?" she demanded breathlessly. "Are you all right?"

Dean nodded furiously, daring to look up at her. One by one, the lights in the lot flickered back on. He saw her face – panicked, white, a trembling lower lip - and her wide, panicking eyes. Her wet eyes.

He tried to sit up, still gasping. Her hand slipped off his shoulder, and she tore her eyes away from his, searching the field around them. Dean looked too, but the reaper was gone, and they were alone, and he could breathe.

"Is it gone?" she asked hesitantly.

He nodded again, still breathing too hard. "Yeah," he choked out. "Yeah."

She sighed. She stared at him for a long moment. He stared back.

"Think you can get up?" she finally asked, and she sounded as breathless as he had a moment before.

Dean nodded again. "I'm fine."

She got to her feet and took his arms. He stood up with her help and winced, wrapping an arm around his abdomen.

"You all right?" she asked immediately, and her voice went up a notch too high, cracking like it had before.

He stared at her a moment, thrown, and then quickly nodded again. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he told her, trying to brush it all off, and her hands dropped at her sides, letting go of his arms.

"If you say so," she murmured.

Dean was still staring at her, and he swallowed a little too hard, watching her frown at the gravel under their shoes. His eyes traveled down her face, resting on her lips. She looked up then, too quickly, and Dean realized they were close - too close - and he'd leaned towards her unconsciously as he'd watched her. Jayne frowned at him instead of the ground. Dean swallowed again. Her lips were inches from his. His eyes wandered down to her lips for the second time. Jayne looked at his mouth, and then up at his eyes, and then she took a step forward.

His head tilted in, slowly, unconsciously. She drew in a shaky breath, watching him carefully, and then her eyes dropped down to his lips again, and she leaned forward even more... and then a general outcry from the direction of the tent startled them both, and they practically leapt backwards from each other, looking all around them for the source of the noise.

They looked to the tent, and then Dean looked at her again. Jayne took a step back, not looking at him anymore. As he stared at her, following her with his eyes, she pushed past him, brow still drawn together, her eyes on the ground. Her arm wrapped around his, pulling him with her, and Dean stumbled a little, leaning on her as she marched across the field, through the cold misting rain, boots crunching the frozen grass, and Dean let her drag him back to where they'd left their cars. They were silent the whole way back.

He didn't dare mention the moment, and Jayne didn't look at him again.

---

Late the following morning, after a restless sleep, Dean sat on the edge of his bed in the dark, depressing motel room he shared with his brother, surrounded by fake, deep red stucco as he dropped clothes in the duffel bag at his feet. They were both packing, getting ready to put Nebraska in the rear-view mirror. Sam didn't seem the least bit perturbed as he wandered the room, gathering his things... but Dean wasn't ready to let this latest job go.

"What is it?"

Dean looked up from his duffel bag, startled by his brother's voice. "Nothing," he said.

"Dude," Sam insisted. "What is it?"

Sam wasn't going to let it go, and Dean didn't have the patience to stone wall him. He frowned up at his brother. "We did the right thing here, didn't we?"

Sam tilted his head, shoulders falling. "Of course we did."

Dean looked at the floor again. "Doesn't feel like it," he returned.

There was a knock at the door.

Dean frowned in the direction of the sound as Sam headed for the door. His instinct was that Jayne or Lynn were there, dropping by to say goodbye... but when Sam opened the door, Dean was shocked to see petite, blonde Layla Rourke standing in the doorway.

He got up slowly, taking a hesitant step forward. Layla stepped into the room, offering him a smile. "Hey," she greeted them.

"Hey," Dean returned, too eagerly. He shook his head, marveling at her appearance. "How did you even know we were here?"

She smiled again, gesturing to Sam. "Sam called," she explained. "He said you wanted to say goodbye."

Dean looked at his brother.

"I'm going to go get a soda," Sam excused himself. He smirked at Dean, and then scurried out the door in the least subtle way possible. Dean frowned at his brother's back. Layla stepped around him as the door closed, moving further into the motel room, eyeing their luggage.

"Where are you going?" she asked, turning back towards him.

"Uh… don't know yet," Dean returned, slipping too easily into their usual cover. "Our work kind of takes us all over so…"

She nodded. They were quiet a moment. Layla was staring at him, and Dean tried not to look uncomfortable about it. "You know," she broke the silence, cringing a little as she did so. "I went back to see Roy."

Dean stared at her a moment, nodding his head slightly. "What happened?" he finally asked.

She shook her head and took a seat on the bed. "Nothing," she replied, and she laughed a little, without humor. Dean sank down beside her on the edge of the bed. "I mean, he laid his hand on my forehead, but nothing happened."

"I'm sorry," he replied, and she nodded, studying the floor. "I'm sorry it didn't work."

"And Sue Ann," Layla went on, frowning. "She's dead, you know? A stroke."

"Yeah, I heard."

There was a long pause. "You know, Roy's a good man," Dean finally observed. "He doesn't deserve what's happened." Then he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "It must be rough," he allowed. "To believe in something so much and have it disappoint you like that."

Layla stared at him for a moment, and then she gave him a slow, sincere smile. "You want to hear something weird?" Dean looked her in the eye again. "I'm ok. Really."

Dean wasn't sure he believed her. How could she be ok, after all that had happened, after receiving a death sentence? But Layla was still smiling, even as he frowned at her. She shrugged. "I guess if you're going to have faith, you can't just have it when the miracles happen," she explained. "You have to have it when they don't."

He shook his head, staring at her, floored by her answer. He managed a pained smile. "So… what now?"

She smiled back and shrugged again. "God works in mysterious ways."

His eyes were burning. Dean stared at her, trying hard to keep smiling. Layla cupped the side of his face, her hand brushing his hair. "Goodbye Dean," she whispered. Then she got to her feet and headed for the door.

Dean rose from the bed, feeling like his stomach was lodged in his throat. "Hey," he said. She stopped and turned back to him. "I'm not much of a praying type, but… I'm going to pray for you."

Layla stared at him a moment. He stared back. "Well," she said finally. "There's a miracle right there."

Then Layla opened the door, ducked into the hall, and she was gone.

---

It was darker in the motel room than it should have been, but this particular place had been dark and depressing from the get-go. Lynn stuffed clothes quickly into her duffel bag, standing over her bed in the dark green plastered half of the ugly, dated motel room. It wasn't just dark and ugly in there - it was too quiet. Jayne was across the room, by the window, alternately frowning out into the gray parking lot and shoving crap into her own bag.

Jayne was always quiet, so Lynn supposed she shouldn't read too much into it... but she looked distracted, like she was thinking or remembering or... anyway, Lynn thought she ought to bother her about it.

"Are you ok?" she asked.

Jayne gave her that same one shouldered shrug she always did. "Fine."

"See, I don't really believe you," Lynn retorted.

"That's because you're projecting," Jayne shot back easily, shoving the last of her things into the bag and zipping it shut. "You're way less fine than me."

Lynn glared at her as she too finished stuffing her bag. The drag of her zipper echoed in the motel room. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Jayne shrugged again. "You're still upset about Sam, right?"

"I'm not," she said too quickly, and Jayne snorted. "I'm not! I'm fine. We talked it out and... it's not a big deal. Air cleared. Fence mended. Working on the return to normal."

Jayne didn't look like she believed her. "Mm-hmm."

"Look, it was just... mutual misunderstanding, you know?"

"No. I don't."

"Ugh, you are so... look, I thought he was giving me the cold shoulder, but actually he was just awkward and embarrassed about the whole thing, and it wasn't intentional, and I never thought this was anything more than a one night stand, so that was always a non-issue... and like I said, we talked it out, and everything will be fine."

Jayne raised an eyebrow. Lynn lifted her chin and stared her down. If she said it enough times, Lynn decided, then she would believe it, and eventually Jayne would too.

"Whatever," Jayne finally said, and she started putting on her boots. Lynn started packing away her laptop in its carrying case. There was a long silence.

"So..." Jayne grunted, out of the corner of her mouth. Lynn looked up, startled. "How is he?"

Lynn's jaw dropped. Jayne gave her a moment to answer, and then lifted an eyebrow again, meeting her eyes. "That bad, huh?"

She glared at her stepsister. "Honestly? It was some of the best I've ever had."

The sad truth was, she meant that. She'd kind of said it to make Jayne uncomfortable, mostly because Jayne was trying to make her uncomfortable... but she also wasn't making it up. Sam was good in bed. That was just facts.

Jayne gave her that slow, trademark blink. "Sam?" she asked, mildly disbelieving.

Lynn nodded. Then she smirked. "We're talking, like... cracked the top five. Maybe the top three."

Jayne stared at her a beat, and then gave her that same slow, trademark blink again. "Sam?" she echoed, flat like a pancake.

Lynn nodded again. "Yeah," she replied enthusiastically. "He's like... aggressive, I guess. Like rough and kind of angry and... I don't know, ok? It was just good. Really, really good."

Jayne frowned. "Huh. Sam." Lynn rolled her eyes as Jayne turned from her to stare out the window again, shrugging a shoulder. "Wouldn't have thought he had it in him."

"Yeah, well," Lynn returned breezily, picking up her bag. "I'm going to put my stuff in the truck and grab a drink from the vending machine."

Jayne waved her off, getting to her feet and heading for her own bag. Lynn practically ran into the hallway, shutting the door behind her and making a beeline for the parking lot.

As much as she wanted to be over everything, as much as she wanted to mean it when she said that she and Sam had talked and worked through the awkwardness and the hurt feelings... well, it wasn't really true. The awkwardness lingered, the hurt feelings weren't so easily smoothed over, and Lynn wasn't really over it. She wasn't just thinking about their ill-advised tumble in the sheets, either; the night before, with Sue Ann, in the root cellar... maybe she and Sam truly didn't see the world the same way. Maybe she didn't have as much in common with him as she wanted to think.

Lynn tossed her duffel bag into the bed of the truck, tucked her laptop case into the cab, and then marched back across the parking lot, the cold wind whipping her ponytail around behind her. She turned into the vending area, fishing in her purse for change as she made a beeline for the pop machines.

"Oh, hey."

She looked up at the voice, startled, and found Sam in front of the Pepsi machine, holding a bottle in his hand. He gave her a strained, almost apologetic smile.

Lynn didn't really have the energy to smile, so she returned to her purse, pretending to be distracted. "Hey."

"You guys leaving?"

Lynn dug some quarters out of the bottom of her purse and then shouldered the bag, finally looking him in the face. "Yeah," she said. "Last bag is loaded. I think Jayne was going to say goodbye first. We'll be gone sometime in the next ten minutes."

She brushed past him and the Pepsi machine to the Coke machine instead and began slipping quarters into the slot. Sam leaned up against the nearby ice maker. "So… you weren't going to say goodbye?" he asked.

Lynn froze. She bit her bottom lip, reaching out slowly and deliberately, and pressing a button on the machine. The machine hummed and groaned. There was a clunk as her diet soda fell to the slot at the bottom. She reached into the drawer and yanked out the plastic bottle. She couldn't seem to work up a reply for him, or even look him in the eye.

"Lynn, I'm really sorry."

She looked up at him, surprised. "What?"

"I'm really sorry," Sam repeated earnestly. "I just… with everything..."

"Don't worry about it," she interrupted hastily, shaking her head.

"No, really," he insisted. "I mean it. I shouldn't have treated you like that. I shouldn't have ignored you. I just… that night, when Dean… and you… I was just so… and I needed…"

"I get it."

"I'm sorry. It's just that… while we were… he was lying in that hospital, dying, and I… well how could I…?"

"Sam," she whispered. "Stop. Really. I get it. It's fine."

"It's not fine. I was wrong. I just… I need you to know that."

Long pause.

"Don't worry," she told him. "I do know that."

He chuckled ruefully.

"Sam, it's not like I don't understand," she went on. "I get it perfectly. You were upset that night, and I was there."

"No. No, Lynn, it wasn't like…"

"It was," she interrupted. "It was exactly like that. You needed comforting… a distraction. I provided."

Sam shook his head and gave her those sad puppy eyes. "Lynn…"

"You know, I have my own shit I'm going through," she said as evenly as she could, without any whining or anything self-righteous, trying not to sound like she was complaining, trying to come off as just matter of fact.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

Lynn shook her head. "No, I'm just saying I understand. There was a little of that use-for-comfort going down on my side too. I get it, Sam."

He looked at the floor.

"We talked already, and you don't have to keep apologizing," she went on. "I know you didn't mean to hurt my feelings. I get that the whole situation was awkward and embarrassing for you, for me, and... things just got weird. It wasn't intentional."

Sam sighed.

"And with Dean in the hospital... I mean, you were working through some guilt, about him and..."

She trailed off, chickening out, finding herself unable to say Jessica's name. Sam inhaled shakily, and she knew he'd figured out what she'd left unsaid.

"And, anyway, I'm not innocent here," she finished quietly. "And things... they got weird, but... give it a little time, right? And... we'll get back to normal."

She wasn't sure she believed herself. Sam was still standing in front of her, leaning on the ice machine, passing his Pepsi back and forth, from hand to hand, and Lynn hefted her purse higher on her shoulder. One hand fiddled with her necklace. She wanted to be normal with him. She wanted to smile and be friendly and talk to him like she used to, like nothing had ever happened... but the can was open, and the worms were everywhere she turned, spilled between them, and she'd never get them all back inside where they belonged.

"Look," she offered, after a beat. "Sam, you are not a bad brother, and you don't have to feel guilty about... about what we did. And Roy... well, that was a mistake too, but... how were we supposed to know?"

He looked up from the floor in surprise and stared at her. Lynn kept rambling on. "You really care about Dean – anyone can see that. You're willing to do anything for him. What you went through when he was dying… I can only hope that if it was us in that situation, if Jayne was dying, that I could be half the sister to her that you were a brother to Dean."

Sam scratched at the back of his neck, ears red. There was a long silence. Sam stared at her with big, skeptical eyes, but Lynn was glad she'd said it anyway. He was a good brother, and someone needed to tell him, because clearly Dean had too many issues of his own to speak up about it.

She had other things she wanted to say: more accusations about the way he'd treated her, more hurt feelings she'd like to air... just more. But she bit her tongue. It might go against her instincts, but she knew she had to stop harping on the subject or they'd never get past it... and they had to get past it. Jayne's words from Marietta echoed in her head; the Winchesters are currently a semi-permanent fixture in our lives, and you two need to work shit out so we can all work together.

Lynn forced a smile. "See you around, Sam."

He nodded. "Yeah. Uh... thanks."

She nodded back and made a mad dash for the parking lot.

"Bye, Lynn!" he called after her.

She waved at him over her shoulder, barely glancing back at him, and then escaped, jogging across the cool, gray parking lot and taking refuge in the safe, silent solitude of her sister's old, beat up truck. She ducked into the cab and slammed the door shut behind her. Then she banged her head back against the seat, closing her eyes.

It was safest, she decided, to wait for Jayne in the truck.

---

Jayne finished packing up her belongings, alone in the quiet, ugly green room. Lynn had left barely a minute before, and the motel room was noticeably silent in her absence. She took a last look around the room for any left behind items, and that was when Jayne spotted the familiar, tightly folded square of bright white motel stationary sitting on the floor, under the table where her stepsister's laptop and carrying case had been. She frowned, recognizing it immediately, and swooped down, rescuing it from the ugly olive shag.

She stared at the paper. She ought to throw it away, she decided. A devil's deal at the crossroads was hardly a smart plan, under any circumstances. Jayne cared about Dean. She cared a lot, actually. Maybe more than she'd realized... but selling her soul for him? She didn't care that much. Using it so she could barter with something else, though... the plan had been half-formed and dangerous, but that didn't mean it would never have merit.

Dean would flip if he knew she'd had it. He'd flip if Sam ever used it, so there was that as well. And Lynn... Lynn would never want her to use it. She would never want Lynn to use it. She should just chuck that useless, stupid, suicidal ritual into the trash where it belonged.

Instead, Jayne tucked it into a small, secret pocket of her duffel bag. She didn't intend to use it, but she'd always liked having a contingency plan in her back pocket.

By chance, seconds before she planned to leave, Jayne peeked out the window at her truck. Lynn was sitting inside already, waiting for her. Jayne frowned, watching a familiar blonde head walk briskly across the parking lot, headed for a familiar car parked by the front office. It was Layla Rourke, and it didn't take a genius to figure out where she'd just been.

Jayne bit her lip, feeling uneasy. She stepped back from the window, reaching for her bag. With the duffel over her shoulder, she finally left the motel room and headed for the parking lot.

It was once she'd reached the truck and dumped her things in the bed that she spotted Dean, loading a bag into the nearby Impala's trunk. He was looking a little lost and distracted, but that was par for the course. He hadn't been himself the entire job, and she supposed she couldn't blame him.

She took a deep breath and straightened her spine, and then she marched across the parking lot.

He looked up at her arrival, gently shutting the trunk. The smirk he gave her didn't completely reach his eyes. "Hey, Goldilocks," he greeted her, leaning against the bumper with his arms folded over his chest.

"Hey," she returned with a jerky nod. "Um… we're leaving. Looks like you are too."

Dean nodded, dropping his eyes to the pavement. "Yeah, in a few."

The silence that followed was awkward, awkward in a way Jayne hadn't felt with Dean in a long time. He stared at the pavement, and she stared at the bumper of the car. She folded her arms over her chest too.

"I saw Layla Rourke," she finally said. "Leaving, just a minute ago."

Dean nodded. "Sam sent her over to say goodbye," he explained, but she didn't get much else out of him.

"Did it help?" she asked, after a beat.

He frowned at the ground. "I don't know," he admitted.

There was another long silence, and then Dean finally looked at her, whipping his head up and meeting her eyes. "She's kind of amazing, you know?"

Jayne stitched her brow together, feeling her muscles tense and tighten, feeling an odd, unwelcome, unhappy tingle that she couldn't explain (didn't want to explain) and she did her best not to show it. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "She... she's not even upset. You know, that she didn't get her cure."

Jayne scoffed slightly. "I'm sure she's a little upset."

"Nah," he shook his head. "I mean, she's disappointed, but... she's not heartbroken or angry or... do you know what she told me?"

She shifted uncomfortably, folding her arms even tighter over her torso. "What?"

"She said if you're going to have faith, you can't just have it when the miracles happen," Dean told her. "You have to have it even when they don't."

Jayne stared at him a moment, biting her upper lip. It was hard to picture; a person with such strong beliefs and strong faith that she could keep believing even after her faith went unrewarded. Dean studied the asphalt under his boots again.

"Yeah," she admitted softly. "I guess she is pretty amazing."

There was another silence. "Anyway," Jayne said after a bit. "I just wanted to say... I'm glad you're not dead."

He snorted, raising an eyebrow at her.

She rolled her eyes. "Shut up. Oh, and for future reference? Water and electricity? Not good bedfellows."

Dean ducked his head, smirking slightly. "Yeah, I'll remember that next time."

She gave him half a smile back. "I'll see you again soon, Dean."

He nodded, lifting his head, and smirked a little wider when he met her eyes. "See you soon, Goldilocks."

She rolled her eyes at the nickname that didn't even bother her anymore. Dean chuckled, and she finally saw that smug, self-satisfied smirk make a reappearance, and travel all the way up to his eyes again. Jayne smiled too, and then she turned around and headed for her truck.

It was stupid to think things would go back to normal after this, and Jayne knew it too. There'd been a shift, and this job was the primary factor. Things between them - between all four of them - weren't going to be the same, and she wasn't sure how she felt about it.

So she shoved it to the back of her mind and decided not to think about it at all.

Lynn looked up quickly when Jayne opened the door and climbed into the truck cab. "We're going?" she asked.

Jayne nodded. "Yep. Let's get the hell out of here."

Lynn sighed, slumping in her seat. "Finally."

Jayne smirked a little as she started the engine and put the truck in gear. Things had definitely shifted, and not just for her.

The next job they worked with the Winchesters was going to be a real pain in the ass.