"All right. I've been cruisin' some websites. I think I found a few candidates for our next gig." Dean announced as I was leaving the bathroom, rubbing a towel through my hair after my morning shower.

"Good. I can't wait to get out of this dump." I grumbled; I was in a bad mood after finding that there had been no hot water left. I sat on the end of a bed, flipping my head over to make a turban.

"A fishing trawler found off the coast of Cali –- its crew vanished. And, uh, we got some cattle mutilations in West Texas. Hey." Sam and I looked up; I'd been trying to get water out of my left ear, and Sam had been doodling on the motel notepad. "Am I boring you with this hunting evil stuff?"

"No. I'm listening. Keep going." Sam assured him, before going straight back to his drawing.

"And, here, a Sacramento man shot himself in the head. Three times." He held up three fingers, waving them in Sam's direction. Then resorting to just plain waving, dropping his hand when Sam failed to take any notice. "Any of these things blowin' up your skirt, pal?"

I smirked slightly at Dean's exasperation, "Come on, Sammy, you're being rude."

Sam ignored me, flicking through the pages of the notepad that he'd been doodling in, "Wait. I've seen this."

"Seen what?" Dean questioned as Sam crossed the room to start searching through my satchel.

"What are you doing? It's polite to ask first, Sammy." Honestly, no such thing as privacy 'round here.

Sam pulled Dad's journal out of my bag and dropped the notepad on the bed. I got a brief glimpse of a drawing of a tree, done in pen with bold lines, kinda a beautiful drawing, before it was covered by the journal and Sam was rifling through the pictures inside. He pulled out one in particular and compared it to the sketch of the tree. "Dean, I know where we have to go next."

"Where?"

"Back home –back to Kansas."

"Okay, random. Where'd that come from?" Dean asked, he was feeling mild distress, but clearly trying, quite successfully, to hide it, so I left it alone for now.

Sam crossed to the desk where Dean sat, holding out the photo he'd taken from the journal. "All right, this photo was taken in front of our old house, right? The house where Mum died?"

Dean picked up the picture and looked at it, now clearly reticent. "Yeah."

"And it didn't burn down, right? I mean, not completely, they rebuilt it, right?" Sam went on, seemingly oblivious to Dean's distress.

"I guess so, yeah. What the hell are you talkin' about?" I crossed to hover behind Dean, leaning over his shoulder to look at the photo, placing a hand on his shoulder as I did, casually touching my thumb to the skin on the back of his neck, soothing his distress.

The picture had been taken outside their old house, it showed Mum and Dad hugging baby Sammy between them and little Dean grinning at the camera. "Wow, your ears used to stick out."

"Okay, look," Sam sat down opposite Dean at the table, "this is gonna sound crazy but…the people who live in our old house – I think they might be in danger."

"Why would you think that?"

Sam broke eye contact, "Uh…it's just, um…look, just trust me on this, okay?" He rose and moved to fetch his duffel, placing it on the end of his bed.

Dean stood to follow and I stepped back, going back to drying my hair. If Sam's packing, we're leaving, and I'd rather not have wet hair when we do. "Wait, whoa, whoa, trust you?" Dean questioned.

"Yeah."

"Come on, man, that's weak. You gotta give me a little bit more than that."

"I can't really explain it, is all."

"Well, tough. I'm not goin' anywhere until you do." Sam sighed and straightened, turning to face us.

"Is this something about your dreams, Sam?" I asked, coming to stand next to Dean and dropping the towel to the foot of the bed. "The premonitions about Jess?"

Dean turned to me in surprise as Sam nodded tersely. "Come again?"

"Look, Dean…I dreamt about Jessica's death – for days before it happened." Sam tried to explain.

Dean stood, staring at Sam for a beat before gesturing in my direction. "And how'd she find out and you didn't think to tell me?"

"Bloody Mary said." I explained. "Sam didn't want to talk, that's his call, it wasn't his fault I knew and I trusted that he'd talk when he was ready. Besides, we're telling you now."

Dean threw a hand in the air, turning to sit on his bed. "Sam, people have weird dreams, man. I'm sure it's just a coincidence."

"No, I dreamt about the blood dripping, her on the ceiling, the fire, everything, and I didn't do anything about it 'cause I didn't believe it." Sam's voice was rushed, "And now I'm dreaming about that tree, about our house, and about some woman inside screaming for help. I mean, that's where it all started, man, this has to mean something, right?"

"I don't know." Dean was overwhelmed, but my focus was on Sammy, being reminded of Jess was still painful for him, and having premonitions was kinda freaking him out too.

"What do you mean you don't know, Dean? This woman might be in danger. I mean, this might even be the thing that killed Mum and Jessica!"

"All right, just slow down, would ya?" He stood, pacing the room, letting his agitation show. "I mean, first you tell me that you've got the Shining? And then you tell me that I've gotta go back home? Especially when…" He drifted off into silence.

"When what?" I prompted quietly.

Dean looked between us despairingly, "When I swore to myself that I would never go back there."

After a moment's pause, Sam spoke, his voice much softer than before. "Look, Dean, we have to check this out. Just to make sure."

"I know we do." He sounded defeated, but he packed his bag and we were checked out and on the road half an hour later.


The drive to Lawrence, Kansas was possibly the calmest drive I've ever been on with Dean. It was slow, with steady acceleration and long, steady braking. It was quiet too, the music turned down but no one talking. We finally pulled into town and Dean went straight to a house in the suburbs. It was painted a pale blue, with a grey roof and an old silver Volvo parked out front.

Sam finally broke the quiet. "You gonna be all right, man?"

"Let me get back to you on that."

We sat for a moment, all looking at the house, until I lent forwards between the boys. "That is one creepy-ass tree." It was! Old and dead, missing all its leaves and smaller branches, the trunk of the tree was covered in ivy, with skeletal limbs rising up and twisting towards the house.

Sam gave me a scornful look before getting out of the car and leading the way to the front door, Dean and I followed.

"Yes?" A blonde woman answered the door, with a polite smile on her face.

Dean started the usual spiel, treating this like a regular case. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am, but we're with the Federal—"

"I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother, Dean and my sister, Alison." Sam interrupted; a slightly strange look on his face. "We used to live here. You know, we were just drivin' by, and we were wondering if we could come see the old place."

"Winchester." The woman breathed, "Yeah, that's so funny. You know, I think I found some of your photos the other night."

She invited us in and as we followed her into the light and airy home, I slipped my hand into Dean's. He shook his hand free and clenched it into a fist, his jaw tensing as he gazed about with pain filled eyes.

Dean's rejection stung slightly and as the boys followed the woman into the kitchen, I hung back, loitering in the doorway for a moment before excusing myself to use the bathroom.

Friendly voices from the kitchen drifted into the background as I made my way upstairs, noting the creaking step, fourth from the top. The house was nice, decorated in pale neutral tones, the light fittings and such slightly dated perhaps, and a few piles of boxes gave away that the family downstairs had only recently moved in. I opened a couple of doors, finding a little girl's room, decorated pink, and the master bedroom before getting the right door. It was as I was washing my hands that the light over the mirror began to flicker.

I'd been tense, on high alert since we'd stepped foot inside, Sam's visions had warned us that something was going on here and now I had some tangible proof. The temperature dropped slightly, and I turned the water off, reaching for a towel and examining the reflection of the room in the mirror.

Everything looked normal, so I continued as if I hadn't noticed anything, replacing the towel and reaching for the door handle. It wouldn't turn. The lock was a sliding latch, that wouldn't slide open, though it had moved freely when I'd locked it earlier. Neither lock nor door handle would move, so I turned back to face the room bracing my back against the door and reaching for the iron knife hidden in the lining of my satchel. I pulled the knife free of the lining, but left in inside the bag, gripping its handle tightly.

For a moment, nothing happened, but then the tap turned, water pouring into the basin, and steam started to rise, fogging the mirror above. Slowly, the words "Get out!" appeared on the mirror, as if traced by some invisible finger. I pulled the knife from my bag, transferred it to the other hand and reached back to try the lock again. It still wouldn't move, so I pulled a small pot of salt from my bag, sprinkle some into my palm and tried again, to no effect.

There was a moment's pause, I shifted my weight into a fighting stance, and changed the salt and knife over, so that the knife was in my right hand. Then the shampoo bottle flew at me, swiftly followed by everything else in the bathroom that wasn't tied down. I raised my arm, shielding my head and glanced at the floor. Hopefully the woman downstairs, whose name I hadn't caught, wouldn't hear and think I was trashing her bathroom.

Once everything that could be thrown, had been, the room went still, the temperature rose back to normal and the door yielded behind me. I left it open and started tidying up. The kiddies shampoo lid hadn't been on properly and there was a bit of a mess to clean up, but otherwise it only took a few minutes to return order to the room. Though whether it was the same order, and whether the home owners would notice that things had been moved was another question.

Sam and Dean were passing the bottom of the stairs when I finally made it back downstairs, they seemed tense and in a hurry to leave the house. I threw a quick wave to the woman and her daughter and followed after my brothers.

"You hear that?" Sam hissed as the door shut behind us, "A figure on fire."

"And that woman, Jenny, that was the woman in your dreams?" Dean replied as I jogged to keep up with the pace they were setting across the lawn.

"Yeah. And you hear what she was talking about? Scratching, flickering lights; both signs of a malevolent spirit."

"Yeah, well, I'm just freaked out that your weirdo visions are comin' true."

"Not to mention what happened to me in the bathroom!" My words made both of them stop and turn to me, in the middle of the road, still a few paces away from the Impala. "Lights flickered, temperature dropped, door locked, contents of the bathroom threw themselves at me. Message on the mirror said to 'Get out!', but I didn't get a look at the spirit itself."

"The thing in the house, do you think it's the thing that killed Mum and Jessica?" Sam asked me, slight panic in his voice.

I shook my head, "No, a spirit like that is likely to be tied to the place, so it can't have killed Jess. And throwing things at me was hardly welcoming, but it certainly wasn't fatal, so it's unlikely that the first thing you'd have known about it being in the house was it killing Mum." I sighed, rubbing a hand across a sore patch on my forearm before continuing. "If someone said something about seeing a figure on fire, and given who we know died a violent death in that house; we need to consider the fact that it could be Mum who's in there."

Sam's eyes bugged out in shock at my words, but Dean just flat out denied them, pointing a single finger at me with a firm "No. No way." before turning away.


We drove all the way to a petrol station before Dean spoke again. "We just gotta chill out, that's all. You know; if this was any other kind of job, what would we do?"

Sam huffed a breath of air as he and I joined Dean leaning against Baby while the tank filled. "We'd try to figure out what we were dealin' with. We'd dig into the history of the house."

"Exactly," Dean agreed, "except this time, we already know what happened."

"Yeah, but how much do we know?" Sam pointed out, "I mean, how much do you actually remember?"

"About that night, you mean?" Dean asked, as both Sam and I turned to face him. "Not much. I remember the fire…the heat." He paused for a moment, seemingly lost in old memories, before shaking himself slightly and continuing on as if unaffected. "And then I carried you out the front door."

"You did?" Sam questioned, as I looked at Dean with a renewed appreciation for my big brother's unerring devotion to Sammy.

"Yeah, what, you never knew that?" He'd been Sam's hero for so long, and rarely did Dean give it any thought at all.

Sam shook his head, "No."

"And, well, you know Dad's story as well as I do." Dean hurried on, trying not to linger on the story, the bad memories. "Mom was…was on the ceiling. And whatever put her there was long gone by the time Dad found her."

"And he never had a theory about what did it?" Sam asked.

"If he did, he kept it to himself." I replied. "God knows we asked him enough times." There was a pause while we all sat against the side of the Impala, lost in thought, before I cleared my throat. "Okay, so if this were any other case, we'd talk to witnesses."

"Yeah." Dean agreed, "We'll talk to Dad's friends, neighbours, people who were there at the time."

There was another pause, before Sam spoke quietly. "Does this feel like just another job to you?"

For a moment, no one answered, and then Dean excused himself to use the bathroom. I heard him walk away, rounding the side of the building before stopping, he dialled a number and it rang a couple of times before going to voicemail: "This is John Winchester. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean at 866-907-3235." Seriously Dad? Answer your damn phone! We'd phoned before and gotten the same message, but it still stung. I mean, what are you supposed to do if this is an emergency and you are Dean?

After the beep Dean left a message, his voice shaking slightly. "Dad? I know I've left you messages before. I don't even know if you'll get 'em. But I'm with Sam and Ali. And we're in Lawrence. And there's somethin' in our old house. I don't know if it's the thing that killed Mum or not, but…" his voice cracked and I looked up from where I'd been staring towards the ground and frowned in the direction Dean had taken. "I don't know what to do. So, whatever you're doin', if you could get here. Please. I need your help, Dad." He sounded so broken. I turned my gaze back to the stones under my feet; if Dean was crying, and he sounded like he probably was, then he wouldn't want us to know.


The boys went to talk to Dad's old business partner, and I sat in the car, out of sight around the corner. They were impersonating police officers and I couldn't tag along. So I sat rereading the start of Dad's journal for the umpteenth time. He'd started writing in it when he was investigating what killed Mum. It contained all of the family's collective knowledge on the supernatural; accounts of hunts, information on different monsters, identifying features, and how to kill them, spells that might prove useful, contact details for other hunters. Everything went into that book, but only the first page had anything about Kansas.

Soon enough the boys returned and Sam started going through the phone book in the telephone booth we were parked next to. Dean filled me in; apparently Dad was seeing a palm reader in town before he and the boys left town, if we could figure out who then that would be the next person we'd talk to.

"All right," announced Sam, "so there are a few psychics and palm readers in town. There's someone named El Divino. There's, uh –there's the Mysterious Mister Fortinsky. Uh, Missouri Moseley—"

"Wait, wait. Missouri Moseley?"

"A person? Not the state?"

"What are you two talking about?"

"In Dad's journal…here, look at this." Dean grabbed the journal out of my hand, holding it out for Sam to see. "First page, first sentence, read that."

"I went to Missouri and I learned the truth."


We sat on lumpy chairs in Missouri's front room while she saw another customer, Dean flicked through a magazine without any real interest in it. The boys hadn't wanted me to come, but I'd argued that if this woman had told Dad about the supernatural all those years ago, then she wouldn't be too surprised to see a 14 year old tagging along, hell, she'd probably even be able to tell that I wasn't actually 14!

Dean finished flicking through his magazine, (he hadn't found anything worth reading) and dropped it back to the table just as Missouri, a large black woman with short hair held back with a head band, led her previous customer to the front door, reassuring him that his wife was faithful. He thanked her and left, and she turned to us as the door shut behind him.

"Whew. Poor bastard, his woman is cold-bangin' the gardener."

"Why didn't you tell him?"

"People don't come here for the truth. They come for good news."

We all three stared at her, before exchanging a look. Well, just because she knew her target audience and knew how to sell her services, didn't mean she wasn't psychic. She chivvied us through to the solarium before turning to face us.

"Well, lemme look at ya. Oh, you boys grew up handsome." She laughed, pointing a finger at Dean "And you were one goofy-lookin' kid, too."

Dean looked rather affronted, whilst Sam and I laughed. Then Missouri turned to Sam, taking his hand, "Sam. Oh, honey…I'm sorry about your girlfriend. And your father – he's missin'?"

"How'd you know all that?" Sam asked, pulling away from the woman just the slightest bit.

"Well, you were just thinkin' it just now." Sam raised his eyebrows, surprised.

"Well, where is he? Is he okay?" Dean interjected; his voice impatient and demanding.

"I don't know."

"Don't know? Well, you're supposed to be a psychic, right?"

"Boy, you see me sawin' some bony tramp in half? You think I'm a magician? I may be able to read thoughts and sense energies in a room, but I can't just pull facts out of thin air. Sit, please." The three of us seated ourselves on the couch opposite Missouri's chair which she sank into before sitting straight up and pointing angrily at Dean. "Boy, you put your foot on my coffee table, I'm 'a whack you with a spoon!"

I turned to Dean with a scowl and rapped my hand sharply across Dean's knee, he responded to both me and Missouri with a slightly petulant tone to his voice, "I didn't do anything!"

"But you were thinkin' about it." Dean's eyebrows raised and he shrunk back into his seat slightly, to my left Sam made a poor attempt to hide his smirk.

"Okay. So, our dad –" Sam started to steer the conversation back towards our purpose for visiting, "- when did you first meet him?"

"He came for a reading." Missouri told us, "A few days after the fire. I just told him what was really out there in the dark. I guess you could say…I drew back the curtains for him."

"What about the fire?" Dean asked, "Do you know about what killed our mom?"

"A little. Your daddy took me to your house. He was hopin' I could sense the echoes, the fingerprints of this thing."

"And could you?"

" I…" Missouri shook her head.

"What was it?" I asked in a small voice.

"I don't know. Oh, but it was evil." She told me softly before turning back to the boys. "So…you think somethin' is back in that house?"

"Definitely." Sam confirmed.

"I don't understand," Missouri murmured. "I haven't been back inside, but I've been keepin' an eye on the place, and it's been quiet. No sudden deaths, no freak accidents. Why is it actin' up now?"

"I don't know." Sam answered. "But Dad going missing and Jessica dying and now this house all happening at once –- it just feels like something's starting."

"That's a comforting thought." Dean stated dryly.


We drove back to the house with Missouri, hopefully Jenny would let us in and Missouri would be able to tell us a little more about what we were dealing with. Dean was just pulling away from the curb when Missouri turned to me.

"Well, Honey, you seem to have landed on your feet here; better than most of your kind."

I glanced down at my hands, where they were twisting in my lap before glancing back up to my brothers. There was something in the way she'd said "your kind" that made me feel… not attacked exactly, it wasn't aggressive enough for that, but I got the impression that she didn't approve of me. I dropped my eyes back to my hands, now picking at a small scab I couldn't recall the origin of, deliberately looking neither at Missouri, nor at Sam who was twisting in his seat to watch us. "Yes, I was lucky that Dad found me, that they welcomed me, that I can call them family. I love them more than anything in the world."

"What do you mean by 'her kind'?" Sam asked; his voice reproachful.

"I'm not quite sure, but she's not a human, her energy's all wrong." I could feel her eyes on me, studying me, her extra senses poking and prodding at me like a sample under a microscope and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "Are you certain she's safe? Do you know what she is? What her abilities are? Where her loyalties lie?"

How dare she?! "I'm loyal to my family!" I hissed, glaring at the woman sitting next to me, "What I am is no business of yours. I appreciate your concern for my brothers' safety but I assure you that they are in no danger from me."

She withdrew from my anger and a tense silence filled the rest of the short journey. It was a relief to get out of the car when we arrived, Sam's hand was comforting in its warmth and security, so much larger than my own and yet I still consider him my baby brother. I leant into his shoulder as we approached the house, still bristling from Missouri's mistrust.

The details of what occurred at the door escaped me, all I cared to note was that we were granted entry, and that Jenny was shaken and afraid. I took her hand, pulling her panic from her and leaving dispassionate calm in its wake as I lead her to the kitchen and made her a cup of tea, by the time she realised that she felt better, she'd blame it on the tea.


Sam filled me in on the way back to Missouri's house; apparently the evil that had visited Sam's nursery that night all those years ago, had left a wound in the fabric of… reality? the ether? which attracted lesser evils in its wake. There were now a couple of spirits in the house, including a nasty poltergeist, which was what was causing all the trouble for Jenny and her children.

"So, what is all this stuff, anyway?" Dean questioned, sniffing at one of the ingredients he was adding to what looked a lot like a hex bag.

"Angelica Root, Van Van oil, crossroad dirt, a few other odds and ends." Missouri answered, placing another pot of dried roots onto the kitchen table were Dean sat assembling the bags.

She went on to explain that placing a bag in each of the corners of the house on each floor of the house would purify it, driving the spirits out. She also warned us that we'd have to work quickly, before the poltergeist could work out what we were doing and attempt to stop us. Meanwhile I pulled Dad's journal from my satchel and turned to the page on poltergeists. There wasn't much room, but I was able to add the ingredients list for the spell bags to the corner of the page and squeezed the instructions into the margin.


Jenny and the children were ushered out of the house by Missouri while Dean distributed the bags to us and went over the plan; Sam and I would take the upstairs, Dean would take the ground floor and Missouri would be in the basement. We'd place the bags in the walls as quickly as we could and purify the house before the spirits could fight back.

Missouri returned and collected her bundles then we split up, going to the three levels and starting to knock holes in the walls. I was using the end of a crowbar to punch my holes, the first in the wall of the little boy's room. I jammed the pointy end into the wall, wriggled it some to widen the hole and removed it, pushing the bag through the small hole and moving on to the next location, the bathroom I'd been attacked in earlier.

The wall here was tiled and much harder to punch a hole in. I ran the edge of the crowbar along the grout, hoping to be able to pull a tile off the wall, it would make the repair much smoother. Unfortunately my more considerate approach had to be abandoned when the shower head pulled itself from the wall and started hitting me over the head. One good strike with my full strength behind it smashed the tile and the bag was in the wall. I ran from the bathroom, leaving the violent shower head behind, running for the master bedroom where Sam should have been placing his second bag.

I sensed the pain a second before I saw him, lying choking on the floor, an electrical cable wrapped tightly around his neck and pulling him away from the bag that lay on the floor a few inches from the hole he had hammered into the wall. I grabbed the bag, completing the job Sam had been prevented from before wrestling with the cable that was choking the life from my brother.

"Dean and Missouri had better hurry up!" I exclaimed, pulling the end of the cable away from Sam's neck and ignoring the way it attempted to ensnare my neck with the loose end.

The cable was stubborn, and the metal was strong, but I was stronger; I pulled until the cable snapped, ignoring the pain in my fingers. Once broken, the cable went lax and I worked to quickly unwind it from Sam's neck and remove his pain, allowing him to breathe easier.

We pulled ourselves to our feet and hurried hand in hand to the kitchen, where Dean should be finishing his set of bags.

"Dean!" I called, drawing his attention just in time for him to duck, avoiding the kitchen knife now quivering in the cupboard door behind where Dean's head had been only a moment before.

The rest of the knives jumped from the draw and flew across the kitchen, some flying at Dean, who flipped the table up to use as a shield, the rest flying towards me and Sam. We dived back around the corner, me pushing Sam ahead of me in a slight panic as the knives turned in the air behind us to continue their pursuit. Suddenly there was a white flash as Dean successfully completed the spell, banishing the spirit and the knives clattered point first into the walls and floor around us.

"Sam? Dean? Everyone okay?" I called, turning back to eye the sharp kitchen utensils where they left scratches in the plaster and floor boards and in a couple of cases actually struck hard enough that the points were stuck in the wall.

"I'm good!" Dean answered, coming around the corner. I gave him a critical once over and nodded in agreement, all my senses confirmed that my brothers were both unhurt.

I reached forward to start retrieving the knives to be washed and returned to the kitchen when Sam's voice croaked out behind me. "Dean…"

I turned to Sam in alarm, had I missed something? Was he injured and I hadn't sensed it? Dean hissed in a breath through his teeth as I took a step forwards, reaching out for my baby brother.

"Ali, don't move okay?" Dean caught my upper arms, holding me still. "You're going to be okay, you're gonna be fine."

I twisted slightly in his grip to look back over my left shoulder at him. What was he talking about? Surely Sam was the one who was hurt, though I hadn't sensed any pain from him.

The black plastic handle of a knife caught my attention as it wobbled in the air behind me. Dean's slightly horrified eyes were already focused on it, but it took me a moment to work out what it was, and what it was doing there. How was it hovering in the air like that? Why did it move when I did?

My brother's voices, raised in pitch by their worry, faded in volume to my ears as the meaning of the knife handle behind me sank in.

I'd been hit.

There was a knife embedded in my shoulder.

I was vaguely aware of Sam pulling me against his chest and pressing around the wound. I watched in a detached sort of way as Dean pulled it out and dropped it to the floor.

I watched it as it hit the ground, rocking slightly, the light playing across the blood that dripped gently off the blade, leaving little circles on the wooden floor. I thought idly that Jenny was lucky it hadn't been a carpet; blood's not too difficult to mop up off a wooden floor.

My brothers' voices slowly faded back in as I became aware of warmth flowing down from my shoulder, where Sam's hands still pressed.

That was my blood on the floor.

I looked up from the jewel bright red coating the blade at our feet into Dean's face, fear beginning to rise as it really started to register that I'd been hit in the back with a kitchen knife, that I was hurt, bleeding, possibly badly hurt and I couldn't go to hospital.

Would I be okay? Was I going to bleed out? Dean? Help me!

Dean's hands replaced Sam's, keeping pressure on the wound as he pulled me back into the kitchen and over to the sink. Then he was pushing me forward, bending me over the sink, ripping my shirt open at the shoulder and running the tap over the wound.

I stared down as the water ran orangey-red into the sink beneath me.

Dean's voice was low and reassuring, though the words weren't quite making sense to me. The water was running pink now, and then a sharp pain in my shoulder brought the world into sudden focus.

My shoulder was burning, just next to the sharp pain of the needle Dean was threading through my skin. Sam was hovering just behind, a bottle of gin in his hand; no doubt part of why my shoulder was burning.

I looked up at him, trying to relax and not to flinch away from where Dean was patching me up. "Sam, how bad is it?"

My voice was quiet, small and sounded very young to my ears, and Sam's eye's snapped to mine. He stepped forward, taking my hand from where it rested on the counter and squeezing gently. "You're gonna be fine, Ali." He reassured, calmness seeping into his eyes and helping to slow my racing heart and panicked breathing. "It wasn't that deep, and didn't hit anything vital. Dean's gonna sew you up and you'll be good as new in a couple of months."

I was shivering from the cold of the running water by the time Dean finished sewing and pulled me up to standing, drying my shoulder off with a cloth and tapping gauze over it. The pain was fairly dull now that the burn from the alcohol had faded, but I was sure that when the shock wore off it would be throbbing.

Dean pulled me into a hug, "Sorry, I'm not as good with a needle as you are, kiddo, you're gonna have a bit of a scar."

I huffed a laugh as Sam joined our hug and wiped tears from my eyes that I hadn't noticed I'd cried.


My fingers and shoulder were throbbing. I had been sleeping in the back of the car, and judging by the darkness outside, I'd been sleeping for several hours, but the pain in my shoulder had reminded me of the old days. The nightmares had woken me and I wasn't likely to get any more sleep for a while.

"So, why are we still here?" Dean questioned, prompting me to sit up and take note of our location; parked across the street from the old house, all the lights were out and everything seemed quiet.

My movement drew my brothers attention and they twisted in their seats to look at me. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty. How ya feelin'?" Dean grinned at me and I grimaced in return.

"I wish painkillers worked on Prangeni." I'd had a very high pain tolerance when I'd lived with my father, but it had faded over the years of living with a family who loved me and didn't hurt me for food.

Dean winced in sympathy, reaching back to muss my hair before turning back to Sam. "All right, so, tell me again, what are we still doin' here?"

"I don't know." Sam peered out the window at the house. "I just…I still have a bad feeling."

"Why?" Dean questioned. "Missouri did her whole Zelda Rubenstein thing, the house should be clean, it should be over."

"Yeah, well, probably." Sam answered vaguely. "But I just wanna make sure, that's all."

"Yeah, well, problem is I could be sleeping in a bed right now." Dean grumbled, sliding down in his seat and trying to settle in for a nap. I reached up with my right hand to prod gingerly at my injured shoulder, silently agreeing with Dean about the bed. Not that I'd be able to sleep, but it would be less uncomfortable.

"Dean. Look, Dean!" Sam grabbed Dean's arm, shaking him to alertness before we all lunged for door handles to respond to whatever Sam had seen.

The movement caused a shockwave of pain to roll out from my shoulder down my arm and across my body, freezing my breath in my lungs and I collapsed against the door gasping.

"You grab the kids, I'll get Jenny." Dean said as the two of them sprinted across the lawn towards the house. I sat in the car, watching helplessly as Jenny disappeared from the upstairs window that she'd been banging on, and Sam and Dean disappeared through the front door.

I moved slower to open the door, expecting the pain now, and bracing for it at every little movement of my left arm. I pulled myself laboriously slowly from the car and rushed across in time to meet Dean returning with Jenny from the house. We all turned to watch the door and I strained my ears, cursing my injured arm for preventing me from being able to do anything to help.

Footsteps thundered down the stairs then stopped and I heard Sam address the little girl, "All right, Sari, take your brother outside as fast as you can, and don't look back." There was a thud, a crash, a little girl's scream, then Sari raced out of the building, her little brother in tow and ran straight to their mother.

Jenny grabbed up the little boy and Dean caught hold of Sari's shoulder, bending down to her level and speaking urgently. "Sari, where's Sam?"

"He's inside." Came the tearful reply, "Something's got him."

Horrified, I spun back to look at the house, only to see the front door slam closed, my baby brother now trapped on the other side of it.

Dean ran for the Impala, wrenching open the boot and grabbing an axe and a rifle. I legged it for the door, trying the handle, unsurprised to find that it didn't give under my hand, I eyed the door, wondering if I could break it down despite my injured shoulder. Adrenaline is a powerful painkiller and my shoulder wasn't hurting me now, though I knew I'd suffer later if I caused more damage to it. Dean reached my side and I stepped smartly back as he swung the axe.

I could hear more crashes coming from inside the house as I stepped to Dean's side, pulling the axe from his hand and swinging as hard as I could with only one arm at the hinges. The door fell in as I struck the third and final hinge and Dean rushed passed me into the house, rifle at his shoulder.

Sam was pinned to a wall, his pain was minimal and he wasn't feeling much distress either, which was weird, considering there was a figure on fire walking slowly towards him.

"Sam? Sam!" Dean raised his rifle at the figure.

"No, don't! Don't!" Sam cautioned.

"What, why?!"

"Because I know who it is. I can see her now." Sam had tears in his eyes, but was smiling.

Dean and I turned back to the figure in confusion and the fire seemed to vanish, leaving a very familiar, smiling blonde woman garbed in a white nightgown.

"Mum?" Dean breathed in wonder, eyes wide and fixed on her, hardly daring to blink.

"Dean." Mum smiled gently at him before stepping away and approaching Sam, where he was still pinned to the wall. "Sam." Her smile faded. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Sam asked in confusion, but she offered no reply, turning away to glare up at the ceiling.

"You, get out of my house. And let go of my son." Once again, she burst into flames. The flames roared upwards, reaching the ceiling and spilling across it before disappearing.

Sam fell away from the wall, the force holding him was gone only a moment after the flames vanished, leaving the house in darkness. Sam stepped over to us and we all stared at each other for a moment in silence. "Now it's over." Sam stated with certainty.


The next morning Dean and I stood by the car with Jenny, looking through the old photos she'd found of the family. Dean thanked her for them, the conversation light as he stowed them carefully in the boot of the car, belying just how much those photos meant to him.

Sam, sitting on the front steps of the house, was joined by Missouri, who was moving rather stiffly after having her leg hit with a trunk by the spirit the night before. She'd been checking the house for leftover spirits, giving it a thorough going over to make sure she didn't miss any again.

"Well, there are no spirits in there anymore, this time for sure."

"Not even my mum?" Sam asked her, looking up as she lowered herself to the step beside him.

"No." She shook her head.

"What happened?"

"Your mum's spirit and the poltergeist's energy, they cancelled each other out." She explained in a gentle voice. "Your mum destroyed herself goin' after the thing."

"Why would she do something like that?"

"Well, to protect her boys, of course." Sam nodded in understanding, glancing away as tears filled his eyes. Missouri reached to place a hand on his shoulder, but pulled back. "Sam, I'm sorry."

"For what?" Sam looked back at her with surprise.

Missouri looked at him through slightly narrowed eyes. "You sensed it was there, didn't you? Even when I couldn't."

"What's happening to me?" Sam asked in a low voice, glancing towards where Dean and I were still by the car, Dean chatting easily with Jenny.

"I know I should have all the answers." She said apologetically, "But I don't know."

Dean wrapped up his chat with Jenny, called Sam over and I started the careful process of lowering myself into the backseat without moving my shoulder. With a wince or two I was in, Sam hovering awkwardly behind me until I was able to turn and smile at him, and then, with smiles, waves and shouted promises to stay in touch, we left Lawrence, Kansas.