A/N: I like Supernatural but don't keep up with it, so sorry for any inaccuracies.
It was six months and a hell of a lot of therapy before Maren saw Sam again.
The therapy part was unavoidable. Sure, Maren's recovery had been swift. Miraculous even, according to Dr. Summers, who hadn't been able to stop shaking his head during her exit eval. He had a kind face, she saw suddenly, wondering how she had missed it before. He was genuinely happy for her. Delighted. It made one wonder how many success stories walked out of the psych ward, when they'd entered in her condition.
And that was just it. Nothing - not the speed with which her depression lifted once her brother's spectre had burned away, nor the abrupt end to what the doctors had labeled "auditory hallucinations"-could alter the fact that Maren had been admitted on suspicion of arson, psychotic depression, and attempted suicide. No hospital, let alone judge, was likely to let her off without a weekly head examination for the next year at least.
Maren made the best of it. Anything was better than the stark white walls, white clothing, bland food of the hospital. How anyone was meant to regain their will to live on a diet of Jell-O and Wonder Bread, Maren couldn't imagine.
She managed it anyway. The first couple of nights after Seth's (second) fiery demise, she awoke drenched in sweat and nightmares, breathing hard against darkness that seemed solid. The way to calm herself, she had found, was to reach for other things that seemed solid instead. The strip of light peeking under the door...the tread of the sleepless nurses in the hallway...the thready woodgrain of the bedside table...it was shockingly easy to calm herself, to regain the equilibrium Maren hadn't felt in months, when no dead brother's whisper crawled to her out of the darkness.
So quickly did her natural good cheer return that Maren found herself in brief danger of yet another diagnosis-bipolar disorder. The doctors, ever accustomed to looking a gift horse in the mouth, suspected a manic episode, and Maren had to work to maintain traces of her former moroseness. To level her spirits she would have focused on Sam's plight, but that too had cleared up as though by magic. She so wanted to see him again, to thank him, if possible to steal the entire vending machine's worth of chocolate bars for him. But it wasn't. Sam slept for a solid three days after his ordeal, and long before he was ready for visitors Maren found herself signing her own release papers. She smiled and nodded throughout the whole thing and when the doctor asked what the critical elements in her recovery had been, Maren only inclined her head and murmured something about working through the trauma.
Part of her longed to tell the real story: "I'm not crazy! I never was!" But the vindication wasn't worth it. Maren didn't need Sam's warning to realize that telling the truth would only extend her stay in the locked ward indefinitely. And this time they would throw away the key.
How did Sam do it? How? Seth hadn't been his first ghost hunt, that much was damned obvious.
She hadn't supposed she'd ever see him again to ask. But here they sat in the dim front room of the same seedy bar, Sam looking very much as though he'd been dragged here against his will, while the man Maren vaguely recognized as his brother made for the pool table with a glint in his eye.
Sam had chosen a corner table, out of obvious habit. Back to the wall, face to the entrance, ready to survey each and every patron as they entered. It meant no effort was needed on Maren's part to capture his attention. Or hold it.
If it hadn't been for the ghost incident in the hospital Maren might have doubted Sam would recognize her; he'd been so out of it. But he grinned broadly the moment he caught her eye.
There was surprise in the look, of course. A slightly pained, sheepish twist to the smile that Maren knew was mirrored on her own face. Any reminder of her hospital stay always brought a squirming feeling to her chest; the knowledge that no one thought she could hack it in the real world.
Of course, Sam knew better.
Maren seated herself across from him. It crossed her mind that she had partially blocked his view of the door, but Sam didn't seem to mind. She was right, then, that he wasn't waiting for anyone. He'd chosen his seat out of habit.
"Hey," Maren said, and blushed. She was hopeless at small talk. But how were you supposed to begin a conversation like this? 'Glad Charles Manson isn't whispering in your ear anymore?'
But Sam didn't seem to mind. "Good to see you, Maren!"
Maren smiled and studied him, conscious that he was doing the same. It was weird to see him this way. Alert. Self-possessed. Not to mention clean-shaven. In her head he was still half-dead from exhaustion, barely hanging on to sanity, and managing (despite his 6'3" frame and broad shoulders) to look extraordinarily like a kicked puppy.
Sam appeared to be harboring similar thoughts about her. Maren cleared her throat.
"Can I buy you a drink?"
That smile came so easily now.
"Shouldn't I be the gentleman?"
Maren laughed. "I'd say you've already fulfilled that obligation, Sam. You saved my life, remember?"
"I do," said Sam, sounding a bit surprised as he said it. "I just...Look, Maren, I'm just glad to be sure you weren't a hallucination too."
Maren blinked; this complication hadn't occurred to her. "Definitely not."
"I didn't think so," said Sam, blinking away a stray strand of hair. "I kept finding the candy wrappers, later."
Maren laughed. "Will you be happy to know I've concluded my life of crime?"
"A bit disappointed, actually," admitted Sam.
In the end he bought the drinks while Maren legally purchased a couple of Snickers bars from the vending machine, for old time's sake. Sam's older brother had spotted them from across the bar, Maren noticed, and kept shooting approving glances over the shoulder of the brunette he was chatting up.
"No more ghost problems?" Sam asked, through a mouthful of chocolate and peanuts.
"Nope," said Maren. She paused. "I really can never repay you for that, you know. I'd have been stuck in that ward for life...if he'd let me live that long."
"That's okay," said Sam. "We don't do this for pay. Go live a happy life, that's the whole point."
It was the opening Maren had been waiting for.
"So this is what you do, you and your brother? You're some kind of...Ghostbusters?"
Sam's mouth twitched at the thought of Dean in the uniform. "More or less. Just don't use that term around my brother."
Point taken. Maren swallowed.
"One...one was enough to give me nightmares for life. I can't imagine."
"He was your brother," Sam said gently.
Maren poked at her drink with her straw, and finally managed to put into words the thing that had been bothering her for the past eight months.
"That's just it, Sam. My brother was a good guy. I just don't get how he could be selfish enough to want me dead." Or I selfish enough to refuse him, she didn't say.
Sam regarded her, brown eyes thoughtful.
"When did you say he died?"
"About a year ago."
"In a fire?"
"Yes," Maren shuddered. "How did you know?"
"Ghosts fall into patterns," explained Sam, which didn't explain much. "So you're telling me your brother died three, four months before you began to hear his voice. Is that right?"
Maren nodded.
"That's enough time," Sam said to himself.
"Time for what?"
Sam studied her as though searching for the right phrasing.
"The thing about ghosts," he said at last, "is that they shouldn't exist. They're people who have held on too long."
"So?"
"You've heard of haunted houses? Axe-murdering ghosts, and so forth?"
"Yes."
"Well," said Sam casually, "Some of those stories are true."
Maren felt her blood run cold.
"I figured," she said, fighting for nonchalance.
"What you might not realize," Sam continued, "is that plenty of those spirits were good people in life. But clinging to life without a body to anchor you there...corrupts the spirit, for some reason. And don't forget, these spirits have been traumatized. It's usually the ones who die sudden and violent deaths that stay on as ghosts. It's no wonder they change, if you think about it.
"So Seth isn't the same anymore?" Maren asked. Her distress must have shown on her face, because Sam held up a placating hand.
"He wasn't, for a while. But...I have no way of knowing, Maren. But I've been doing this for a long time, and I've always had the feeling that the spirits we banish are...set free. At rest."
Her heart sped up. "You think so?"
"Sure. There's a heaven and hell for a reason. You say Seth was a good guy, so…" He shrugged.
"How do you know all this?"
Sam suddenly looked evasive. "Family business."
Maren asked the obvious question. "How do you get into a business like that?"
"Usually?" Sam had regained a trace of the weary look from the hospital. "Death in the family. Revenge on whatever killed them. You learn the rest as you go."
Maren caught her breath. "You mean there's more than ghosts out there?"
"You don't want to know what else we fight," said Sam, suddenly sharp. "And I'm not here to ruin your life."
"You won't ruin-"
"Please, Maren. Just remember the basics I taught you. If you ever run into trouble again, salt and iron work on most things. And burn the remains."
Curiosity was eating her alive now, but Sam had a look in his eye that told her he wasn't going to say any more than he already had. And...Maren remembered her brother's chilly whisper in the darkness, and shuddered. Did she really want to know?
"Did you banish your ghost the same way?" she asked instead.
Sam's brow creased. "My ghost?"
"The one that wouldn't let you sleep."
Sam's face smoothed, jaw clenching. "That was no ghost."
Maren's confusion must have shown on her face, because he added, unwillingly, "That was one hundred percent, bona fide insanity, Maren. Sorry to disappoint you."
Maren's cheeks glowed red. "I'm sorry, Sam. I didn't mean-"
"It's all right." His jaw was working, but he glanced up at her and managed a smile.
"What...what happened?" she asked hoarsely. "I mean...I'm sorry, but it's obvious it's gone now. I didn't think hallucinations just went away. And I know the meds weren't working on you."
"Call it a miracle," said Sam. He wasn't smiling.
"I'd call you the toughest guy I know," said Maren. "It was hell just watching."
For some reason that pushed Sam into a dry laugh.
"It costs you, doesn't it?" asked Maren quietly. "What you do...the things you protect us from…"
"Damn straight," said a voice at her elbow. Maren jumped violently, and an arm snaked out like lightning and steadied her drink.
"Careful," the voice said. "You're going to need that alcohol, if Sammy's been telling you what I think he has."
"Dean," said Sam. "This is Maren."
"Chick from the hospital?"
"That's me," said Maren, irritated for more reason than the sudden shock.
Dean grinned as he pulled up the chair beside her.
"Have no fear, psycho girl. Sam told me about you. Sounds like all the crazy in your life is on the outside."
She laughed despite herself. "That's good to hear. I was honestly starting to wonder."
"Don't," advised Dean, suddenly dead sober.
Maren looked from one to the other. "So this is your life, huh?"
Dean downed his whiskey without a wince. "That and bar-hopping."
Sam rolled his eyes, but Maren could tell he was already lightening up. "I think you've had one too many, Dean."
"No such thing!"
"I mean it. I'm driving tomorrow."
"You were much more of a partier when Lucifer was-" Dean began, but Maren cut him off.
"Driving? You're leaving already?"
Sam sighed. "Poltergeist in Omaha. But don't worry, we'll be back."
Maren swallowed. "I think I'll worry until you are."
"No need," Dean drawled. "We like to kick around this town. Drink to Bobby. Bib the occasional levia-"
Sam kicked him under the table.
"You have definitely had too much to drink," he told him severely. "Look, Maren, do you have a pen?"
She did. Sam scrawled a number on a wrinkled napkin and pushed it across the table to her.
"Keep in touch," he said, and smiled. "I could use someone sane to talk to."
Dean looked up from where he was drooping over the table, trying to gauge whether or not to be insulted.
Maren grasped the napkin and swallowed. "I'll hold you to that, Sam."
Sam smiled again and pulled Dean to his feet, and Maren could read in the gesture that they'd be all right.
"Bye, Sam," she said quietly. And Sam walked out of the bar, supporting his brother - tall, strong, and hopeful, and the only slump in his step was that of a man who would sleep well that night.