A/N: This one just did not want to upload. Good thing I'm persistent;) We're coming up on the "finale" soon! Thanks for reading. Enjoy!

Bobby pushed the swinging kitchen door open a crack and peeked out into the living room. MJ was fast asleep on the couch, just as they had left her, the Devil's Trap drawn carefully on the floor in front of her and salt lines firmly in place at all the windows and doors. He turned back toward the table, letting the door fall closed.

"Trying to claim what's his?" He asked the boys, who were sitting at the table, staring at the coffee in their hands, looking half dead with exhaustion and worry. "That's what he said?" Bobby finished as he took a seat across from Dean.

Sam nodded silently, while Dean grunted in agreement taking a sip of coffee before adding, "Said she was his and always would be his and that we couldn't keep them apart."

"Well what in blazes does he mean by that? What would make her his?" He asked, bewildered.

Dean finally looked up, turning his tired eyes on the older hunter. "Nothing, Bobby. She's not his." He bit out.

Bobby considered him carefully for a few moments before answering. "Well, I know that, boy. I'm just trying to figure out what would make this deranged bastard think she belonged to him." He explained.

Dean grunted, rubbing his hand over his face. "Sorry." He mumbled. "I'm a little on edge."

Bobby made no response, looking down at the table, deep in thought. Sam watched him closely, wondering where his thoughts were taking him. Bobby knew more about demons than any other hunter Sam knew of. Bobby finally looked up, something brewing in his eyes. Sam was sure whatever Bobby was thinking, he wasn't going to like it. Which meant Dean was really not gonna be happy with it. Sam caught Bobby's eye, hoping the older man got his message to tread lightly.

Bobby took a deep breath, turning toward Dean. "And Wendy didn't say when he came around the first time?" He asked.

Dean shook his head, taking a gulp of the luke warm coffee. "Only that when he came he said he'd be back someday for Mary Jane."

Bobby huffed out a breath as he stood and began pacing the length of the kitchen.

He stopped suddenly, quickly checking on MJ once more before turning slowly back to Sam and Dean.

"How much do you boys know about your dad's…meeting up with Wendy?" Bobby asked, clearing his throat awkwardly.

"Meeting up?" Dean questioned, confused. His expression cleared after a moment, and he stared at Bobby, bewildered. "Bobby if you're asking us about Dad's hook up with Wendy 16 years ago, he didn't exactly share the details."

Bobby shook his head. "What I mean is," He paused, looking between Sam and Dean, clearly uncomfortable. "How sure are you that MJ is his?" He finished in a quiet voice.

This statement was met with dead silence.

Dean just stared at him in awe, his eyes hardening. He would clearly not be entertaining this conversation.

Sam on the other hand, had a faraway look in his eyes as if he had the information to draw this conclusion all along, but had just never put it together. Now that it was out there…

Dean began sputtering incoherently. He turned to his brother, expecting to see Sammy's face mirroring his own incredulity. He was shocked to see Sammy looking pensive. Dean couldn't believe his brother was actually considering this.

"Sammy-really?" Dean cast his eyes around the kitchen as if looking for something to disprove Bobby's theory. He looked up at Bobby. "Her eyes! Huh? They're green!" he all but shouted pointing at his own eyes. "Just like mine."

Bobby shrugged. "Green eyes are pretty common for red heads, Dean." He said calmly.

"Yeah, and your green eyes came from Mom's side." Sammy added quietly, looking cautiously over at his brother.

Dean stood quickly at this comment. "Oh, come on, Sammy! Whose side are you on?" He shouted down at his brother.

Sam raised his hand in surrender. "Hey, I'm not on anybody's side, Dean. I just want to figure this out, same as you." He said as calmly as possible. Dean was quickly escalating, and it wouldn't do any good for Sam to go there with him.

Dean shook his head before turning back to Bobby. "What about her mannerisms then, huh? Sometimes she fidgets and it's like…like she's a Dad clone!" he exclaimed with a wave of his hand.

Bobby and Sam had no response to this. Dean continued, hoping to build on his argument and win them over. "Besides, Dad's not stupid. I'm sure he did the math."

"I'm not saying your Dad wasn't with Wendy around the time that MJ was…conceived." Bobby said, looking down at the floor. "I'm just saying maybe…he wasn't the only one."

Dean shook his head, waving away Bobby's words. "Look, as much as I love discussing my father's sex life," Dean said sarcastically, "What in the hell does this have to do with this demon?"

"Maybe everything." He answered cryptically before walking out of the room. Dean gave Sam a confused look. Sam shrugged back. Before Dean could decide whether to follow Bobby, he was back with a thick, ancient looking volume.

Bobby laid it down on the table and stood leaning over it, paging through it. Dean moved around the table to stand beside Bobby, his arms crossed over his chest, and Sam scooted his chair closer, curious what Bobby was looking for.

"These visions MJ was havin'. They started out of nowhere, what a few days ago?" He asked, still thumbing through the pages.

Sam nodded, not taking his eyes off the book.

"Here." Bobby announced, jabbing his finger onto the page. Sam took in the illustration of a small child, with an evil glint in his eyes, watching with a look of satisfaction on his face as the man standing in front of him burned alive. Sam read the caption and looked skeptically up at Bobby.

"A Cambion?" He asked. "You must be joking."

Bobby was shaking his head as he scanned the page, his forefinger running down the lines, looking for the entry he needed. "I'm not saying that she's one of these things, Sam. Besides this book's good for the basics, but it tends to fudge some of the finer points." His finger paused on a likely looking paragraph.

"Could somebody fill me in please?" Dean asked, frustrated. "What the hell is a cambrion?"

"Cambion." Sam corrected. "It's a child. The product of a demon/human mating."

Dean was shaking his head in confusion. "Demon/human-" He threw his hands up. "What in the hell are you talking about?"

"Devilishly cunning and angelically beautiful, the Cambion will begin to display psychic abilities during adolescence that will continue to develop throughout their teenage years and become fully formed on the child's eighteenth birthday." Bobby read from the book, ignoring Dean and Sam's exchange and Dean's question. "Believed to be soulless and inherently evil, Cambion are characterized by pale skin, red hair and emerald eyes. It has been written that during colonial times, red headed children were often mistaken as Cambion and burned at the stake."

"Bobby what the hell are you suggesting?" Dean asked, annoyed that he seemed to be the only one out of the loop and angry at what Bobby seemed to be suggesting about his sister.

Bobby heaved a great sigh, straightening up and looking at Dean. "It fits, Dean. It makes sense that MJ may actually be this demon's…child. It would explain why he said she belonged to him."

Dean just stared back at Bobby, his jaw clenched and face reddening. He took a step toward Bobby and snatched the book up, still glaring daggers at the older hunter. He finally broke his gaze to look down at the page Bobby had read from. He scanned it, scoffing after a moment.

"This also says that these Cambion are always male, don't breathe or have a pulse until the age of seven and grow up to be rapists!" Dean exclaimed, slamming the book back down on the table.

Bobby was undeterred by Dean's outburst. He shrugged, keeping his voice steady as he looked back at Dean. "Like I said, the finer points aren't always exactly right,-"

"Not exactly right? I'm pretty sure someone would have noticed if she didn't breathe for the first six years of life!" Dean interrupted.

"But enough of it fits that we need to seriously consider it as a possibility." Bobby finished calmly.

Dean looked to Sam, who had pulled the giant book toward him and was absorbed in it.

"It says here the spawn are forever linked to the demon through the human mothers. That the demon marks the mother when he is first with her so he can always find her and the child."

Bobby nodded. "So if the mother was to leave the spawn, then the demon wouldn't be able to track it down so easily."

Sam looked up at Bobby, and Dean's face burned ever hotter when he saw that his brother actually looked excited.

"Would explain why Wendy left so suddenly. If she figured out that his link to MJ was through her." Sam turned to Dean. "Didn't you say that Wendy told Dad that she had to leave because the demon was going to use her to get to MJ?"

Dean shook his head, exasperated. "She's a God damn crack head. Are we really going to base our theory on what she may or may not have told Dad?"

Bobby ignored Dean's comment, resuming his pacing of the kitchen floor. "So the mother leaves the spawn and the demon has to resort to other means to find her."

Sam nodded. "And of course he'd want her now, it says here the spawn begin to develop their gifts during their teenage years. He could probably feel it when she had her first vision and stepped up the hunt."

Dean exhaled loudly, running his hand over his face. "How's this? The next person to refer to my sister as the spawn is gonna get my boot up their ass!" He turned and stomped outside onto the back deck, slamming the door behind him.

Dean sat on the back steps, breathing rapidly, trying to calm himself down. This was just…

He leaned forward, head in his hands, staring down at the splintered wood of the steps below him. How was one person supposed to deal with all of this shit, all at once?

He heard the door open and knew from the gait of the person walking toward him that it was Bobby.

Bobby said nothing, standing beside Dean and leaning on the railing, looking out over the salvage yard.

Dean looked up, watching a squirrel scurry up a spruce tree at the edge of Bobby's yard.

"Soulless and inherently evil, Bobby?" Dean questioned, but he was calm now, sounding more hurt than angry. "That sound like the MJ you know?"

Bobby heaved a sigh, resting his forearms on the worn wooden railing. "Shit, Dean I hope I'm wrong. Probably more than you do. But I'd be a fool not to consider this." He paused looking down at Dean, who made no response. "Worst thing we could do would be to let him catch us off guard. We learn as much as we can about this son of a gun, consider every possibility and most importantly…be ready."

They were both silent for a while, staring out over the quickly darkening yard. Dean hoisted himself up and strolled out onto the grass a few steps before turning back toward Bobby. Someone who didn't know him well might have missed the pained look that was confined to his eyes, but Bobby caught it right away as soon as Dean looked up at him. It nearly broke Bobby's heart to see him looking so forlorn.

"I don't want to consider it, Bobby. Because if it's true it means she's not-"

"Don't you even say it, Dean." Bobby interrupted, his voice full of authority. He stood up straight, pointing a finger down at Dean. "No matter what happens, she will always be your sister. Blood don't make a lick of difference and you know it."

Dean stood for a moment, just looking up at Bobby. Dean knew he was right. He just didn't want to have to deal with the possibility that his sister was part demon. And more than anything he didn't want her to have to deal with it.

Dean trudged up the steps, leaning against the railing next to Bobby. "He probably knows we're here."

Bobby nodded. "Yup. But we'll be ready for him."

Dean nodded. He turned suddenly toward Bobby, his expression serious. "We can't tell her anything about this, okay? I don't want her to have to wonder…not until we know for sure." He shook his head, looking down. "She's had to deal with so much shit lately."

"Listen, Dean. I just want you to know…about the whole McWhorter thing…" Bobby was shuffling his feet and rubbing the back of his neck like he was nervous. "I hold myself responsible for what happened. I never should have let him in the house…around MJ."

Dean was shaking his head before Bobby had finished speaking. "No. No way, Bobby. That's not on you."

"It is on me. I was careless." He crossed his arms, a look of disgust on his face. "You kids should feel totally safe here, be able to let your guard down. I screwed that up."

Dean held his hands up, palms toward Bobby. "Enough, old man. You don't get to take that one away from me. That was my fuck up. I trusted the son of a bitch and I gave him total access to MJ. It's on me and that's that."

Bobby opened his mouth to argue back, but was interrupted by Sam, joining them on the deck.

"What difference does it make? What's done is done. Besides, the only person responsible is McWhorter." Sam said, strolling toward them. "Now can we move on, 'cause we've got more pressing issues than who gets to own the guilt over something that we can't change."

Neither of them made any response, other than Bobby frowning up at him and Dean rolling his eyes. Sam continued.

"Since we know he's going to come after her and it's a safe bet he knows we'd come here, we gotta assume he's gonna show here. Soon."

Dean took a step toward Sam, his irritation returning. "So what do you suggest, Sammy? We run? What's the point? He'll catch up eventually."

"No." Sam answered evenly, further annoying Dean with how calm and collected he seemed. "I think we should stay here and get ready for him. Face him head on."

Dean considered Sam for a moment then nodded his agreement.

"And I think we gotta talk about staying here for a while."

Dean quirked an eyebrow as his brother. "What do ya mean?"

Sam took a deep breath. "I mean, she needs some serious therapy, Dean. And stability. And we can't give her that on the road. She needs time to deal with all of this crap with a real professional."

"Well," Dean seemed taken aback. He shook his head, searching for a response. He settled on, "For how long?"

Sam stared his brother down. He was starting to get agitated. "For as long as it takes, Dean." He said.

"Sammy," Dean started pacing the deck. Bobby's eyes were on him, but he stayed quiet, letting the brothers sort this out. "We can't spend months here. Dad's out there tracking the demon and we got cases-"

"Dad found us, Dean, remember? And he doesn't want our help." Sam shouted. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. He couldn't feign calm and level-headedness any longer. "We don't need to drive around searching for him anymore. And as for having cases, Dean: I could give a fuck about any case. This is our sister's well-being we're talking about."

Dean had stopped in his tracks when Sam started talking. He had his back to his brother, and was standing stock still, listening. When Sam finished, he spun around, anger clear in his eyes. Bobby took a step toward the boys, but still kept his mouth shut.

"Don't give me that bullshit, Sammy. Don't act like I'm just all about the cases and I don't give a shit what happens to her. I'm the one who takes care of her and I'm the one who's dealt with all of this shit."

Sam full on laughed at this. "Dealing with it? You just ignore it and hope it'll go away. And then you think that – what? If you can make her laugh that she's cured? Everything's fine? That's not dealing, that's avoiding. You're in denial, Dean!"

"Oh, get down off your high horse, Sammy, and be realistic! You really want to linger here for months? Like sitting ducks when we've got God knows how many evil bastards looking for us?"

Sam chuckled, throwing his head back. "Didn't you just say that you didn't want to run? That you wanted to stay and wait him out?"

"Yeah, I meant for a couple weeks, Sammy, until that piece of shit shows himself. I didn't mean we'd set up shop and wait for every one of those fuckers to get the memo that the Winchesters are in South Dakota!"

Sam scoffed. "You're not even making any sense." He took a step toward his brother, his arms crossed over his chest. "Why don't you want to stay here, Dean? Huh?"

"Because we've got responsibilities, Sam!"

"To who? Perfect strangers? To every civilian out there who stumbles onto something scary? No. We have a responsibility to her!" Sam jabbed his finger toward the house. He took a deep breath, making an effort to keep the anger out of his voice. "What we've been doing to deal with all of this shit, it's like putting band aids on bullet wounds. It's not helping her to get better and eventually she's just gonna crack, Dean. She can't go on like this." He just looked at Dean, who was carefully averting his eyes, staring out over the yard again. "And neither can we." Sam slowly closed the distance between them, standing beside his brother. "I know you want a quick fix, Dean. You want her to be better now. I do, too, but we have to be realistic. It's going to take time. And what you did today, on the way here," Sam shook his head, like he was in awe, "Dean, that was the best thing you could've done for her." Sam finished.

Dean scoffed, still careful to avoid Sam's eyes. "What, making her cry? Yet again."

"Making her realize what she really needed. I'm not saying it solved everything, but it was a step in the right direction."

They were silent for a moment. Bobby looked between them, waiting for Dean's final verdict. He knew Sam recognized, too, that ultimately this was going to be Dean's decision. And Bobby also knew that in the end, Sam would go along with whatever Dean decided. Even if he didn't agree with it. They stood there for what seemed like hours in the failing light before Dean finally sighed heavily.

"Yeah, fine, Sammy. I'll do whatever you want, just give the Dr. Phil shit a rest. You're making me nauseous." Dean grumbled, heading for the door.

Sam fought a smile, as he followed his brother inside. He saw right through Dean's would-be casual attitude, and he knew Bobby did as well. He shared a knowing look with the older man as they made their way through the kitchen and toward the living room to check on MJ.

"So now what?" Dean asked, quietly, taking in MJ's still sleeping form before scanning the room around her.

Sam shrugged. "Now I guess we get ready for him. And then we wait." He said.

They wouldn't have long to wait, though. Not long at all.