Sam starting acting weird when they left Topeka at the end of June, weirder than normal, Dean always thought that Sam acted weird. Sam's relationship with Rachel reached its own end before they ended up moving, young love might burn brightly but it doesn't usually burn for long. Sam was almost happy to be leaving town. Dean noticed that Sam was being weirdly secretive, hiding papers in his books, keeping the books with him so that Dean and their Dad wouldn't go through them. Dean had overheard some weird cryptic phone calls between Sam and Bobby, but Sam was always a little weirdo, so honestly, Dean didn't think too much about it.

John took Dean on more hunts over that summer. He got rid of a pair of cursed necklaces in Georgia. They were owned by a set of twins who inherited them from great aunt. Apparently it gave whoever wore them the power to compel others to the wears will. It was tricky, a lot of sketchy things over a weekend in June that Dean never wanted to think about again, but he walked out of their big southern plantation house wearing lead lined gloves clinching those necklaces tight.

A Woman in White along route 1 up the Maine coast, he was quite proud of that one, actually. He caught the pattern before his dad did, meaning he got to take the lead. The smile on John's face as Dean told him where to find the body was the greatest gift Dean had gotten in a long time. They got to spend a week living on beach between New Hampshire and Maine the week of the fourth of July as a reward.

A pagan fertility God in New Mexico; a whole weird town worshiping a very out of place tree, they were sacrificing tourists that had gotten lost on the way to Roswell to it. Dean hadn't really been all that much help with that one, the lore was confusing, but he stood there with his sharpened wooden stake when it came time to kill the thing, another job well done; a slap on the back, a cold beer, and big smile from his dad.

There was something that looked like demons in Wyoming in early August. Dean was pretty positive he knew what they were looking at, printed out a couple different exoticisms at the local library before heading to the house where all the action was. Dean had seen some really fucked up stuff in his life, but the bodies hanging like cattle set for slaughter in the basement of the old house were more disturbing then the disgusting piles of shed skin from a shape shifter. When his poorly pronounced Latin didn't even slow the creature running at him with the butcher's knife, he knew he was in trouble. His dad appeared just in time to kill it as Dean was being strung up in the foul smelling basement. Monsters he could understand, people… well people were fucking crazy.

The Winchesters settled into a summer home owned by someone who owed John a favor in upstate New York in late October. The place was nicer than any placed they'd stayed in recent memory, the boys didn't have to share a room and there was electricity and cable that they didn't have to steal from neighbors. An A plus kind of place as far as the boys were concerned. There was something weird going on in this town, seemingly random fires, insect infestations, missing people. John figured it was the best place to set up camp until they could fix whatever was going on. Their first night in New York, Dean met a witty brunette working at the pizza place down the road from the house, her name was Becca and her and Dean became inseparable pretty quickly. Sam seemed to be sucked into school work again, found himself a nice little group of friends to hang out with. Three or four people that only ever seemed to hang out at their house. Dean didn't mind all that much. He liked knowing what his brother was up to. John found it increasingly annoying to have so many extra teenagers in the house.

Dean was spending a lot to time at the pizzeria, most of the time that he wasn't working at the oil and lube place across the street. He was saving his money in a shoe box in his duffle bag. He wasn't really sure what he was saving for, but he felt it was important. Maybe he'd get someone real nice for Sammy for Christmas. He needed a new coat; his shoes were getting a little worn out. All the things that their dad should notice but never seemed to.

"My mom wants to meet you," Becca said the weekend after Thanksgiving. "Not, like, official or nothing, just wants to know who I'm hanging out with. She'll feed you."

Dean shrugged mouth full of free fries Becca kept sliding over to him when her managers weren't looking. "Can't turn down free food."

"I know," she smiled kissing him hard on the cheek. "Are you working on Wednesday? My mom has Wednesdays off from the hospital. And I have classes all day so I don't have a shift here, so we usually have dinner together."

"I work at the shop til four," Dean nodded. "But I can head over after if that's cool."

"Yeah," Becca nodded. "That would be awesome."

"Do you need me to bring anything," Dean asked. "Like wine or something?"

Becca laughed. "You don't have to impress her, just take a shower before you come over and tell her the food tastes good. Try not to smell like gas and everything will be okay."

"Mom's not into guys covered in oil and grease?"

"Mom has white walls and really nice furniture that she doesn't want covered in oil and grease," Becca smiled.

"Right then," Dean nodded, taking another handful of fries.


When he got back to the house, there was a big manila envelope from Bobby addressed to Sam sitting on the kitchen table. Dean picked it up, weighed it and placed it back down, probably had something to do with Sam being so weird lately. Dean climbed the narrow staircase to the second floor where all the bedrooms were located.

"You gotta package," Dean said sticking his head into Sam's room. "Big hulkin' thing on the counter."

"Did you open it?" Sam said quickly as he dropped the book he was reading on the floor and pushed passed Dean.

"No," Dean shook his head. "As you've pointed out before, opening someone else's mail is a federal offence."

"Who's it from?" Sam inquired as they walked downstairs together, Dean a step or two behind his brother.

"Bobby, from the looks," Dean shrugged. "What is it?"

"Nothin'," Sam shook his head as he grabbed the envelope. "Just some lore I asked Bobby for."

"You're a shitty liar," Dean smirked. "What is it? Is it porn?"

"You're disgusting," Sam rolled his eyes. "Why would I have Bobby send me porn in the mail?"

"Open it," Dean said. "I wanna know what it is."

Sam held the package up in Dean's face. "What's this say? Sam Winchester. You're name's not Sam."

"It actually says 'Samuel J. Winchester'," Dean smirked.

"Still not you, asshat," Sam replied. "Leave me alone."

"Why are you being so weird?" Dean asked turning one of the kitchen chairs around and straddling it.

"Why are you being so nosey?" Sam spat back.

"Come on, freak," Dean sighed. "None of us ever get mail."

"You get credit cards in the mail all the time!"

"Fake credit cards don't count as mail, Sammy," Dean replied. "Come on, don't be a little bitch, tell me."

"Don't… don't tell Dad," Sam whisper as he pushed himself up on the table next to this brother. "After… after I took the SATs last year, I got a couple of my teachers and my advisor in debate to write me recommendations. And this year I've been applying to schools and having the letters sent to Bobby's."

"Alright," Dean said. "What's that have to do with Dad?"

"These are all the letters from the schools I applied to," Sam said softly. "Bobby said from the looks of it I got in everywhere. Acceptance letters are considerably bigger than rejections."

"Okay," Dean nodded. "So open it."

"Dean," Sam sighed. "I… I'm leavin'. Next September I'm gone. I'm goin' to one of these schools in this envelope."

"Where'd you apply?" Dean asked trying to hide any emotion but happiness for his little brother. "University of South Dakota? Keep you close to Bobby."

"Yeah," Sam nodded, "And Kansas, Michigan State, Stanford, Columbia, and UCLA."

"Whoa," Dean shook his head. "You're just gonna go off somewhere with no contacts close?"

"That's kind of the point of college, Dean," Sam rolled his eyes. "To get away; away from Dad, away from this life."

"Away from me, too?" Dean asked softly.

"No," Sam shook his head. "I… You… That's not what I'm doing. It's just… you know… you… you like this life. You like hunting, Dad respects you. He… Dad… he doesn't… I'm always gonna be the infant he saved from the flames. I'm never gonna be a hunter. I hate hunting, it's stupid. I'm not going to live my life for this crusade. I want to do something worthwhile."

"We are doing something worthwhile, Sammy," Dean defended. "We're avenging. We save people."

"Avenging a person I don't remember," Sam whispered. "I mean, it's a great code, Dean. But I can't. I wanna go to school. I want to have an education and do something that I can be proud of. I don't want to have to lie to people about what I do. I remember when you wanted to get out too, when you wanted to do something more. I want to do something besides living out of shitty motels and never being around long enough to have real relationships. I want a real life, Dean. A normal life. This is gonna get me that."

Dean stood up, ran a hand down his face. "Alright."

"Just… let me tell Dad," Sam said as Dean started to walk away. "And don't be mad. It's not about you, really. It's about me doing what's right for me. I'm still going to be your little brother. I just won't be in this house or whatever house you and dad decide is good enough."

"Alright," Dean repeated.

He went upstairs to his room and slammed so hard it bounced off the door jam and stayed open. He knew logically that Sam just wanted what was best for Sam, but that didn't make it feel like any less of a betrayal. Sam was always the smart one, always studied, worked hard in school. Sammy never wanted to do any of the training, hated running drills. It made sense that Sammy would want to go off and get a real good education somewhere. Dean had even imagined watching his kid brother graduate college when they were younger. But college cost money they didn't have. Dean had maybe a grand in his shoebox. That wouldn't pay for food for a semester, let alone tuition and those schools Sam applied to, those weren't cheap schools. He could put every dollar he made for the next four years into that box and it wouldn't pay for the education Sam deserved.

Sam appeared in the doorway about an hour later, knocking twice on the open door before stepping in.

"Are you mad?" Sam asked softly.

"No," Dean shook his head. "I just… it shouldn't be a secret. But, you know Dad…"

"Dad's gonna flip," Sam shrugged. "Whether I was straight up from the beginning or I hid it as long as possible. So I figure I keep in quite until I'm ready to go then tell him. I mean, what's the worst he can do? "

Dean looked down at his dirty hands and didn't answer.

Sam sat down at the end of Dean's bed with the envelopes from Bobby.

"Where'd you get in?"

"Everywhere," Sam smiled. "Kind of amazing considering my six thousand page school records. But I wrote my essay about how Dad raised us. Not the ghosts and shit, but the life on the road after mom died. How you and me had to adapt, work harder to be equal to everyone else."

"How you gonna pay for it?" Dean asked softly. "I got, like, a grand, maybe, that's not gonna cover any of it. I can only hustle so much outta bar flies, but not enough pay for Columbia."

"Scholarships," Sam answered. "South Dakota and Stanford are offering full rides, room, board, tuition, everything. I'd have, like, an on campus job or something. The rest are offering some stuff, not as much, but still really good offers. I could probably get grants and scholarships through school to cover the rest of depending on where I want to go."

"Good for you, kiddo," Dean nodded. "That's a pretty big deal, right? Full rides?"

"Yeah," Sam let a small smile cross his face. "A real big deal."

"Take ya out to dinner big deal?"

"You're not taking me to the pizza place so you can flirt with your girlfriend the whole time," Sam smirked. "But I guess if you want."

"Course I do," Dean said messing with Sam's hair. "You pick a place; I'll treat ya, alright?"

"Yeah, cool," Sam nodded.

I'm… I'm uh…" Dean placed a hand on Sam's shoulder. "I'm proud of ya."

"Thanks," Sam looked down at the floor and played with this thumb nail until Dean let go. He then sprung out of the room like he'd been lit on fire.


John came home the next afternoon after a few days of dealing with vengeful spirit by the Canadian border. He didn't like leaving Sam alone, liked having Dean make sure nothing happened to him while he was out on the hunt. To Sam it was just another reason to try to get as far away as possible as soon as possible; to Dean it was just cautionary. Sam had hid all his college stuff between his mattress and box spring. He couldn't risk dad finding it and after the memorable instant when Sam was 12 finding a large mostly stolen porn collection in the same spot in Dean's bed it became a family rule that certain places would be sanctuary; a little bit of privacy in a life where they all lived on top of each other.

Dean was cooking dinner, a recipe that Bobby gave him; he'd been waiting for a house with a kitchen to try it out. John pulled a beer out of the fridge and sat down at the kitchen table.

"How'd it go?" Dean asked.

"Easy," John replied. "Only took so long cuz the town recorders were shit. Took forever to find out where the son of a bitch was buried. How'd it go here?"

"Nothing special," Dean answered. "Becca wants me to go to her place for dinner Wednesday, Sam's gotta big English test on Tuesday. Livin' the Cleaver life."

"Good," John nodded. "Got anything about what's goin on here?"

"Nothing new," Dean shrugged. "No, wait; there was an ant problem at the college library. Becca was telling me. They had to shut it down, close the main building. Had to cancel classes for a day to fumigate everything. Becca was pissed cuz she had a lab. Could be related."

"Ants in November," John nodded. "Probably. Whatcha making?"

"Chicken stir fry, Bobby showed me last time we were up there," Dean answered. "Should be about, like, ten minutes. Sam was hungry."

"Sam's still growing I think," John sighed. "Hopefully, anyway, with what he puts back."

"What do you think going on around here, though?" Dean asked. "I don't think I've seen anything like it."

"Witchcraft," John said simply.

"Witches?" Dean chuckled. "Seriously? Like boil, boil, toll, and trouble, hocus pocus witches?"

"You've killed a werewolf and you don't believe in witches?" John smirked.

Dean shrugged. "I don't know, seems weird."

"Seems logical," John corrected. "Only thing that makes sense. Witches have control over nature, when they hold a grudge it can be lethal, make people disappear. I wouldn't want to cross one."

"How do we stop them?" Dean asked turning back to his skillet.

"Well, they're people," John sighed. "So they don't stand out that way. We gotta figure out who benefits most from attacks. That's usually the person who's control it. We work from there."

"Alright," Dean nodded.

"So how about after dinner we map it all out," John nodded. "You spend enough time at that pizza place to know people. Sam always knows what's going on in small towns like this. We'll see if we can figure it out."

"Sounds like a plan."


They spread a map across the table, using push pins to point out where each of the attacks were.

"We got missing mailman," John said sticking a pin into the post office. "Last seen here two weeks ago."

"Fire at the barn next to it," Dean stuck a pin there. "Owned by the mailman's family back several generations. Fire in the ambulance bay at the hospital."

"Bugs at the library," Sam said, sticking a pin there. "The grocery store, town hall, and a gas station, shutting down each for a day or two."

"Missing grocery store clerk," Dean said adding a second pin to the grocery store. "Last seen leaving work. And the waitress at the bar across the way, last seen leaving work as well."

"These don't look related at all," Sam said looking at the map.

"But the waitress at the bar was the mailman's niece," John said. "She worked at the hospital, too."

"Grocery clerk was a regular at the bar and also worked at the gas station," Dean added. "He was friends with Becca in high school. She also knew the waitress, just from living in town."

John sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"How about," Dean suggested. "I try to get more info about the other people and places involved from Becca at dinner on Wednesday."

"Probably easiest way to get information," John agreed. "So long as we don't have any bodies popping up we can take that time."


After showering and making himself look nice on Wednesday, Dean drove across town to Becca's for dinner. He knew Becca wasn't anything special, another in a string of semi-connections he'd made. He wasn't a "meet the parents" type of guy, but she'd met Sam so it only seemed fair that he met her mom. Becca's house was nothing special, a regular house with a fence, the kind of place that Sam would have loved to live in, probably would now that he was going off to college.

Becca's mom was a pretty woman, and an excellent cook. She prepared a pot roast with potatoes and assorted vegetables, a homemade blueberry pie for dessert. Becca kept smiling as Dean complement the cook and shoveled food into his mouth.

"What do you think about all the weird bugs and stuff?" Dean asked while he and Becca washed dishes. "The arsons and stuff? Weird right?"

Becca shrugged. "A little bit, those three disappearances are weird. Especially since they're all from one family."

"Really?" Dean probed.

"Yeah, the mail man, was the other two's uncle. Ray and Crystal were cousins. Makes it kinda look like they all just left town without telling anyone."

"Huh," Dean shrugged.

"Yeah," Becca nodded. "It's weird, but there's weird everywhere."

"You have no idea," Dean chuckled.

"Mom's a nurse in the emergency room," Becca continued. "Said the smoke and stuff in the ambulance bay was the worst thing we've had happen here in a long time. I mean it was a huge deal cuz it's not a real big hospital or anything and it's easy enough to reroute emergencies to the county hospital, but it was kind of ridiculous. Then the termites at the town hall the day before the election, super weird; but the town had been talking about moving voting from the town hall to school for years, but Mr. Conklin, the mail man, he's on the town counsel and he's been the main vote against it since day one. "

"Interesting," Dean nodded.

"Yeah," Becca nodded. "With him bein' missing and all, they're gonna have a vote to replace him next week. Mom's boyfriend, Roger, has been running against Mr. Conklin for, like six years. Looks like he'll finally get his chance."

"Huh," Dean nodded. "Good for him."

"Yeah," Becca nodded. "Mom's pretty excited about it. Roger hasn't stopped talking about the town council since Mr. Conklin disappeared. It's been his life goal as long as I've known him."

"What about the other two missing people?" Dean asked.

"Mom knew Crystal pretty well," Becca nodded. "They worked the same shifts sometimes, I think they were up for the same promotion, but I'm not sure. Mom has worked at the hospital way longer that Crystal so even if they were, Mom would have got it anyway. I don't' know too much about Ray really. We didn't really travel in the same circles in school. Mom knows his mom, Mr. Conklin's sister. Says that Ray was really getting his life together."

"Huh," Dean nodded. He cataloged all the information to relay to his dad when he got home, it was looking like they had a few good suspects for who was playing witch in the town after all.