Song Remains the Same

Chapter 12 / After School Special

"Those years oh, they haunt me still."
- Alter Bridge

A Month and a Half Later

"Nothing but Christmas crap on," Dean grumbled, throwing down the TV remote.

Alex walked by where he sat, her arms overloaded with their duffel bags, backpacks, and a sleeping bag. She dumped the stuff in the corner of the motel room as Sam entered with a couple bags and a twelve pack of beer. He plopped the goods down on one of the twin beds and began pulling things out, naming them as he laid them down. "Beef jerky, granola bars, pop tarts, canned chicken, some cracker… things, M&Ms, hot dogs with no buns, and the very last box of…" he grimaced, "Whoops. Squished cupcakes."

"Ooh, gimme!" Alex grabbed the box from him in excitement, examining the red-frosted, green-sprinkled cupcakes with a huge grin. Smeared or not, they'd taste just fine.

Dean, however, looked heartbroken. "No pie?"

"Sorry, this is pretty much all the gas station had left."

"I wanted pie," Dean muttered sulkily. He grabbed a beer instead with grumpy gusto, earning a sympathetic if amused smile from Sam.

"Why would you want pastry filled with gooey fruit crap when you could have these?" Alex held out her prized possession. "It's mini cakes. With frosting. And sprinkles!"

"Ehh," Dean grumbled, eyeing the cupcakes with disinterest. "It's not Christmas without pie."

"None of this stuff says Christmas, Dean," Sam replied, chuckling.

"Yeah well merry friggin' Christmas to us." Dean plunked down on the bed with his beer and a foul expression. Sam and Alex exchanged a glance and simultaneous shrugs behind their brother's back. Alex set the cupcakes down, watching her oldest brother out of the corner of her eye.

Alex was pretty sure Dean was so grumpy for a few reasons… one, he was hungry. Two, he was tired. Three, he was Dean. But more than those reasons, she had a hunch that he was a little more sullen than usual because he had forgotten today was Christmas day—they all had forgotten, actually. The past month they had been hunting nonstop, too busy to even keep track of what day it was. So when they realized today was Christmas (they made the discovery after pulling up to a closed drive-thru), Dean had turned surly. Her oldest brother had never personally been too into stuff like holidays or birthdays but when it came to Alex and Sam, he had always tried to give them something dependable. He'd made a point to always at least remember their birthday, and he always tried to do something special for Christmas. Even Dad hadn't always managed that.

The sound of singing and shouting on TV caught Alex's attention. "Look, Daddy! Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings!" a little girl shouted with glee. Grinning ear to ear, her father joined in:"That's right, that's right!" Frowning, Alex picked up the remote from where Dean had tossed it and changed the channel. "Coming up next on Lifetime—it's Christmas Angel, the new Della Reese movie that's sure to—" she switched channels again, this time to a local news station, where a man was being interviewed standing in front of a bunch of Christmas trees. "I'm so thankful for the Salvation Army, those people are angels! Just angels! If they hadn't got my kids all these great gifts—" Alex switched off the TV entirely, perturbed at all the angel references. Dean and Sam had begun opening up the food and hadn't noticed. Alex glanced back at the TV soberly. Angels. Her eyes darted toward her duffel bag, where one of the angel hex bags Ruby had given them remained. Alex had kept it without telling either of her brothers, and wasn't sure what they'd think if they found out. She was in the process of figuring out how to make more of the bags… however, some of the elements were still a mystery and she needed more time to research.

For the past month, there had been no sign of angels. No dream appearances, nothing. No Uriel, no Anna. No Castiel. The amount of time she had spent wondering about him was embarrassing. Every time before shutting her eyes to sleep, one of her last thoughts always was, will he show up tonight? But he hadn't. At first she'd told herself that was a relief, but now she was beginning to feel uneasy. Multiple times she caught herself wondering if he were injured after his encounter with Alastair... or perhaps he was angry that she was using hex bags to hide herself and her brothers from him. Maybe he got in trouble for healing her again.

"Hey, space case," Dean's voice said, cutting through her thoughts. He seemed to have recovered from his sadness over pie and was popping M&Ms into his mouth like a chipmunk. "Wanna play poker? Loser hash to shleep on the floor." He grinned through a mouthful of sweets and motioned toward the sleeping bag. Alex considered the two beds in the motel room. They looked about as comfortable as the floor was, but Dean was obviously excited to play cards.

She grabbed some cards from him and gave him a meaningful look. "Hope you like sleeping on the ground, buddy."

One Week Later

"Thanks Bobby." Sam snapped his phone shut. Alex looked up from the Dad's journal in her lap. At the wheel of the Impala, Dean looked at Sam questioningly. "Either of you guys remember Truman High?" Sam asked, receiving blank stares from his siblings. "We went there for, I dunno, maybe a month?" His twin made a slight face. After being to at least thirty different schools (none of which she had liked or cared about) over the course of her life, how would she remember that?

"Home of the Bombers?" Dean asked, squinting in impressive thought.

"That's the one," Sam confirmed.

"Ah." Dean sounded a little put off. "I hated that place."

Alex chuckled. "You hated all of them."

Dean glanced playfully at her in the rear view mirror. "What and you loved them so much?" Well, touché.

In information-relay mode Sam, sounded almost excited. "Get this. Bobby said some girl there murdered a classmate pretty brutally… but she's now saying that she had no control of herself when it happened. Like someone or something made her do it."

"So, vengeful spirit?" Dean theorized. "Possession?"

"Only one way to be sure," Sam said.

Dean nodded in agreement. "We go interview the girl."

And just like that, they were on the way to a new job. Alex absently flipped to a new page in the journal, then hissed in pain. "Ouch!" she exclaimed, and stuck her finger in her mouth. "Paper cut," she mumbled at the questioning look she got from Sam.

"Better call Cas," Dean joked, grinning at Sam, who chuckled at the comment. Alex rolled her eyes, trying to play it off. Dean glanced at her and upon seeing her sour expression he grinned even bigger. "Me-ow," he said, his favorite comment to make when he was getting on her nerves. Alex reached up and slapped the back of his head. "Ow!"

Sioux City, Indiana

The three Winchesters got into town, checked into a motel, and were preparing to head right back out again. "All right, I'm going to the mental ward to talk to the girl," Sam said. Dean nodded agreement.

"Yup. You go to the crazy bin, Alex and me will go see what we can dig up at the school."

Alex cleared her throat, setting down her duffel gently on one of the beds. "I'm not going," she said, not looking at either of them.

That got her quite the inquisitive look from her oldest brother. "Not going?" he echoed. "Why not?"

Sam, gentler, frowned slightly in concern. "Come on, we could use you on this one."

"You've both got this," Alex insisted. "You don't need me." She pressed her mouth into a thin line for a minute at their scrutinizing gazes. "I just… really, really don't wanna go back there. To any school we used to go to." She looked at them meaningfully. "So unless it's life or death... leave me outta this one, cool?"

The brothers exchanged a glance, and from the way they looked at each other, Alex knew that they knew exactly why she was didn't want to go. Still, Dean looked hesitant to agree.

Alex's tongue darted out to wet her lips. "I'll do laundry," she heard herself volunteer. The statement of a truly desperate woman. "For both of you. All of your dirty... disgusting laundry." She felt herself grimacing just thinking about all the sweat-stained, musty clothes, the smelly socks that would be crammed up into weird little balls she'd have to unknot. And then, of course, there would be the underwear. Oh god, the underwear. She shuddered.

Dean's face lit up at the prospect of skipping the laundromat, and he put his arm around her, clapping her on the shoulder. "You had me at laundry, kid."

1997

Sam and Alex stood in a place they stood very often: In front of a new class halfway through the school year and in the middle of the class period. They both wore jeans that didn't fit great, worn-out jackets, and shirts that used to be Dean's. Sam stood half a head taller than Alex, who was still short for their age: fourteen.

A sea of unfamiliar faces stared back at them as the teacher made the awkward, necessary introductions.

"So! Is there anything you'd like to tell us about yourself?" the teacher, Mr. Wyatt, was asking pleasantly.

Sam shrugged. He didn't like this part. "Not really."

The teacher turned to Alex. "What about you, Alex?"

Alex just looked down, her ears burning because yes, she had lots she'd like to say but she wasn't able. How many times would she have to live this godawful moment? Sam protectively stepped a little closer and addressed the teacher and the class alike, his voice stronger when he spoke about his little sister. "She's mute," he explained, and Alex's ears burnt even hotter. "She can't talk. But she can hear fine and write well, and do everything anyone else can." Alex knew when and if she looked up, she'd see a small sea of kids staring at her like she was a freakshow, or laughing at her, or unsure what how to respond at all except to avoid her completely.

This always happened, without fail. Dad was too busy to get any paperwork transferred over to let teachers or staff know about her condition. More than half the time when she started at a new school, Sam or Dean had to literally tell her teachers about her mutism. Sometimes teachers didn't even believe them at first. The educators were always so horrified that she didn't know sign language, too. Another embarrassment.

"Oh," said the teacher, sounding thoroughly surprised at Sam's admission. Mr. Wyatt's tone took on a kinder, gentler quality that Alex despised. As if she were to be pitied or babied. "Do you sign, Alex?"

Ashamed again and angry too, Alex shook her head and crossed her arms, her defiant gaze on the floor. Sam would usually explain that she had never really learned it, that they'd always been too busy and moved too much—tons of excuses and stories that left Alex in a cloud of mortification and self-hatred. You'd think she'd get used to it, but in fact, it felt worse the older she got. "Well, there's nothing to worry about, Alex," the teacher said. "This is an environment for learning. And I can tell you're a smart girl. You'll do fine."

Yeah, for the two weeks I'm here. If that, she thought. She looked at the teacher without any real expression, just ready to sit her ass in a seat and get out from in front of everyone. Thankfully, the teacher was merciful and didn't continue the torture. "You kids go ahead and grab a seat," Mr. Wyatt said. Sam led the way. Alex met a few gazes of the kids leering at her and made sure her expression was mean and hostile. A silent 'don't fuck with me.'

Sam took a seat at one of the empty desks and Alex found one behind and to the side of him at a desk behind a bigger kid. On either side of her, she could feel the gaping stares from the other students and she sent one of them a dark scowl. Her ears were burning again, and her cheeks felt hot too. She wished she never had to start at a new school ever again.

As the teacher began to talk, the kid in front of her began to flick the ear of the kid in front of him—a small guy with dark hair and dorky glasses. Alex watched from underneath her eyelashes, feeling even more anger course through her veins. Bullies got to her faster than anything else. She hated them. Sam was giving the bully the evil eye, sidelong, across the aisle. "Leave him alone," Sam whispered, and the bully smirked back at him.

"Shh, I'm going for a record," the kid replied, flicking without stopping.

"I said, leave him alone." Sam's voice carried a certain dark quality that caught the guy's attention.

The bully thrust his chin out in a dare. "You wanna take his place, midget?"

Sam glared bullets. "Yeah. Sure."

Alex watched Sam switch seats with the kid who was being picked on. In about thirty seconds flat, the bully started to flick Sam's ear instead. Alex couldn't pay attention to anything else than that. Anger boiled in her veins, and she clenched at her desk until her knuckles went white, but she forced herself to remain still. Dad had been pretty clear... no fighting in this school, period. She wasn't sure if she could stick to that though. Dad didn't get what it was like.

Still, when the bell rang and everyone got up, she had a small instance of vengeance that didn't require a sucker punch. She deftly snatched the bully's wallet out of his back pocket and smirked to herself, slipping it into her jacket and breezing out of the classroom, feeling superior for a small moment.

When she and Sam walked down the hall to the cafeteria for lunch, he looked at her with a grouchy expression. "What're you so happy about?" She pulled the wallet out and wiggled her eyebrows at him, grinning. Sam's expression dropped and he snatched it from her. "Alex! Why do you always have to do that stuff?!"

Instantly deflating at his reaction, Alex threw her hands out. What? She thought he would have shared in her glee. All she did was get back at a jerk who'd been picking on her brother and another helpless kid—what was with the evil eye? Sam shoved the wallet back at her roughly, making it smack into her chest. He stalked off ahead, leaving her to follow with dejected footsteps. He was such a prude sometimes. She hated it when he made her feel bad for doing what she was good at.

In the cafeteria Sam made a point of separating himself from her. Not in the mood to get told off again, Alex got her lunch and looked around for Dean, feeling her heart sinking when she didn't see him anywhere. Sam sat with some kids from English and gave her a look that said don't sit with us.

Pissed, she rolled her eyes to cover up her hurt feelings and found an empty corner table and sat there, poking at the slice of pizza on her plate before she rolled the whole apple around her plate and watched it thump around unevenly. She didn't feel hungry.

"Hey mute button!" Alex looked up to see the bully from class earlier leering at her. "Where's your big hero brother?" He reached across the table, about to take her pizza off the plate. From behind Alex, a hand suddenly shot out and caught the kid by the wrist.

"You mean me?" Dean's familiar voice asked, and the bully looked up, wide-eyed, to see a big seventeen-year-old holding his wrist in place. "I'm her big brother. You need something?"

"Uh… no. No. Sorry," the kid said, then yanked his wrist back and scurried off, throwing a backwards glance at them. Alex gave Dean a look that insisted 'I had that handled!'

Dean was glowering at the kid's retreat. "Punk." He pulled a chair up, his cavalier demeanor returning. "Your first day as crappy as mine?" He cracked a grin at her. Obviously. Alex gave him a look, and Dean chuckled cynically. "Where's Sammy?"

Alex nodded over toward where Sam had stationed himself. Dean followed her gaze and got a thoughtful, if somewhat pensive look on his face. He glanced at his sister and brightened for her benefit. "Hey you know what? I found a side exit where we can go sit outside and eat on the bleachers away from all these losers. You wanna?"

She nodded yes, excited by the idea of adventure and of the mercy of being away from all these strangers. The brother and sister went outside and ate pizza slices and apples together. After, Alex used her lighter to melt the bully's school ID and his library card. According to those, his name was Dirk. She hated Dirk.

Present Day

At the West Palm motel Alex eyed the pile of dirty laundry heaped up on one of the beds. The pile was a lot bigger than she had thought it'd be. Either way, the laundromat could wait. First, she was going to try to figure out the rest of the hex bag contents. She'd been trying to figure some of the more mysterious elements out for a couple weeks now, but it was hard when she had to sneak the bag around like she did. She heaved her duffel onto the bed, noticing the zipper was half open. Alex rifled through her duffel, looking for the hex bag... but couldn't find it. Growing anxious, she dug through it again, and began tossing shirts aside. Shit. Shit! "Where the hell are you?" she demanded out loud in a mutter.

Castiel had become aware that he could sense Alex's location again perhaps ten minutes ago. With relief, he went to where she was. He kept himself invisible to her—after all, he was only there to check on her. He looked around, seeing that she was in another unremarkable, run-down motel room. She leaned over one of the twin beds, frantically rummaging through a bag, grabbing articles of clothing and tossing them out carelessly. How curious. She lifted the bag up and shook it hard, as if waiting for something to fall out. "Dammit," she swore, and then looked around the room with wild eyes. She knelt and looked under the beds, then knocked a pile of dirty clothes over, rummaging through it, then stepped back, turning in a circle. She seemed to be looking for something and not finding it. She let a huge woosh of air out from her mouth, put her hands on her hips, and closed her eyes. She shook her head and muttered something about 'paranoid' and 'stupid' and began picking the clothes back up, tossing them into a bigger pile on the other bed.

Castiel watched her closely, wondering why she'd been hidden from himself and the heavenly host for more than a whole month now. It prevented him from attending to his calling to protect her. To see her well relieved him. He'd thought of using a dream again and asking her why she was hiding, as well as commanding her to end it—but doing was now risky. After the ordeal with Anna, Castiel had been called to answer to Raphael. The archangel's first act had been to make reprimand against Castiel for his increasingly close relationship to both Alex and Dean Winchester. He told Castiel not to contact them again unless under divine direction. Uriel and Raphael had not known of his visits to the two Winchesters in dreams, but if Castiel were to chance it and be caught… it would more than likely be considered disobedience. Even the thought of the word disobedience set an uneasy feeling in the pit of the stomach of the angel's human vessel. To an angel, unquestioning obedience was of the highest excellence. Anything less was a sin.

Alex finished piling up the laundry with her back turned to the invisible angel. Without any warning, she yanked her dark green tank top off and over her head, leaving herself naked from the waist up. Stunned, Castiel gaped at the sight of her bare back: the light olive skin, the strong shoulders and the dark tumbling hair scattered across them, the shallow dip of her spine running down the center, the distinctly womanly shape made by the gentle curve of her hips as they met the solid dark line of her jeans...

Alex threw the discarded shirt toward the pile of laundry and turned to the side, reaching for a clean shirt. In a fumbling alarm he had never felt before, Castiel left before he could accidentally see more, the sense that he should not be there making him react faster than he had in a long time. He gave no thought to where he was going, only away.

The feet of his vessel met new ground... stone... but he was too busy listening to the blood thunder in his ears to pay attention to where he was. His vessel felt very strange—the mouth was dry, the heart rate elevated, the breathing faster than normal, and there was a completely alien sensation somewhere below the stomach. It wasn't unpleasant, but not having felt it before left him feeling afraid. Castiel shook himself mentally. He had seen human nudity before, of course he had—he'd existed for thousands and thousands of years—but seeing it through the eyes of his vessel for the first time had left him shaken up. It had only been a glance at a woman's back! Why was he reacting so strangely? Perhaps the vessel was faulty.

The nearby sound of a child shrieking with laughter caught Castiel's attention and demanded he emerge from his thoughts. He scanned around for his bearings, noting that he stood in the middle of an elevated stone path that soared about twenty feet off the ground and was bordered on either side by stone guard rails. He looked to his left, and then his right, seeing that this wall continued into the distance both ways, past where he could even see. A group of people with strange little bags worn around their waists passed by, one of the women chasing after a laughing toddler. The father, presumably, put a camera to his face and snapped a picture then grinned at his family. "What do you think, kids?! Huh? The Great Wall of China! Pretty cool!"

Castiel stared in surprise. China? He felt acute embarrassment at the realization that he had lost complete control for a moment, not even knowing where he was going. That had never happened before. He hoped none of his angel brethren had witnessed his fumble.

A Few Hours Later

Alex slammed the door of the dryer shut, glad to have that over with. In her back pocket, her phone began to ring. Sam's number. "Hey," she answered, balancing the phone against her shoulder as she counted the quarters she had left.

"Hey," said Sam's voice. "So, we think we have this figured out. Do you happen to remember Barry?"

Alex frowned, stopping her quarter-counting momentarily. She did, actually. "The kid with the glasses? The one that guy Dirk was bothering constantly?"

"That's him," Sam confirmed. "We're on our way to go salt and burn him."

"Oh." Alex felt a wave of sadness hit. "Poor Barry," she murmured.

"Yeah," Sam said, sounding similarly saddened. She heard him take a deep breath, trying to push past it. "So, we'll be back soon. Maybe a couple hours."

"Okay. See you then." The call ended. Alex stared at her phone for a few seconds, the quarters in her right hand forgotten. Barry. Not only was the kid dead, but his ghost was killing people? It was a lot easier to do this job when you didn't know the ghosts personally.

1997

A couple weeks passed at the new school. Things settled a bit, which always meant that change was around the corner. According to Alex, anyway.

"Yo! Sammy! Alex!" Dean waved at his siblings, sauntering by with a blonde girl who was probably a cheerleader.

"That's your brother with Amanda Heckerling?" Barry asked, sounding very impressed. "He's cool."

"Yeah. He thinks so," said Sam, glancing at Alex. They knew better, and grinned at each other. They were getting along that day. The moment was cut short by the arrival of Dirk… the guy who had been making life miserable for all three of them. Alex's good mood dissolved immediately.

"Hey, tough guy," he sneered at Sam. "I been looking for you and your freak sister. Still wanna take Barry's place? Or maybe your ugly sister would?" He snickered at Alex, whose blood was beginning to boil. Any day of the week, you stupid prick.

"Get outta here, Barry," Sam said in a low, threatening tone.

Barry was growing anxious and anticipated that help would soon be needed. "I'll go get a teacher." He scurried off.

"You wanna go?" Dirk asked, grinning sadistically at Sam. Alex was practically foaming at the mouth to 'go' as Dirk so eloquently put it.

"I'm not gonna fight you, Dirk," Sam said, which only made Dirk laugh.

"Why not? You chicken? Come on!"

"No." Without warning, Dirk reeled back and punched Sam hard enough to knock him over.

The second she'd seen Dirk drawing his fist back, Alex had dropped her backpack and lunged forward, putting all her strength into backhanding Dirk across the face. Stunned, he stumbled backwards and Alex followed through, slamming into him and tackling him to the ground. On top of him, she began pummeling his face with her fists, even as he screamed protests of "Get off, get off!" — but Alex was seeing red, remembering the cruel insults he had lobbed at her, the tripping in the hallways, the dropped school lunches, the way he tried to make Sam look weak and stupid. She grabbed his hair and hit his head against the ground repeatedly, thinking of all the ways she would cuss him out if she could.

"Stop that!" Alex was abruptly being pulled off Dirk by a teacher. Another teacher knelt by Dirk, who was curled onto his side, moaning or crying, maybe both. Alex, panted wildly, her face flushed as she looked around expecting to see amazed faces. Instead, she saw shock, fear, and disdain. All the kids were looking at her as if she were the freak. And then she saw Sam, who was still on the ground, looking at her as if he'd been betrayed.

"He needs his creepy little sister to fight for him?" she heard someone say. Her heart sank even as she was steered away by the teacher.

"Young lady, come with me. You're going to see the principle," Mr. Wyatt said, sounding very flustered. The kids stepped aside as he guided her, and Alex heard whispers and mutters about 'crazy,' 'like a serial killer,' 'probably on drugs.' She had to chew the inside of her mouth to bite back the tears. She wouldn't let them see her cry. Not now, not ever. So instead she made threatening faces at them and lunged a couple times, throwing the middle finger out to anyone she made eye contact with. If you don't like me, you can fear me. It always seemed to go like this.

"Young lady, this behavior is very worrisome. I'm going to call your parents right now," the principle was saying. Alex, slouched in the sticky pleather seat insolently. Good luck with that, she thought churlishly. It was almost amusing.

Dean burst into the principal's office without so much as knocking at that second. The principal stood, caught off guard by the sudden entrance. "And who, sir, are you?"

"That's my little sister you got there," Dean said, in regular form—foul-tempered and fired up.

The principal narrowed his eyes, taking in Dean warily. "I see. Well, she started a fight in the hall, and refuses to talk to me about why."

Dean's expression dropped momentarily, before becoming infuriated. "She's mute—she can't speak! What is wrong with you people?! How do you even—" he cut himself short, jaw clenched shut, eyes shut, maybe thinking better of what he was about to say.

"I wasn't made aware of—" the principal began, trying to maintain a neutral tone and professional posture.

"Well you're aware now!" Dean fired back. He gruffly grasped Alex's arm, pulling her to her feet. "Let's go, Al."

"You can't just leave!" the principal exclaimed, voice raising an octave.

"Watch me!" Dean retorted, already halfway out the door with Alex in front of him. He marched her down the hall wordlessly, and Alex was suddenly worried that Dean was angry with her. That would just be the finishing touch on this bullshit day. Dean stopped eventually in the empty hallway and took Alex by both of her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. She did so reluctantly.

"Listen, Al. I heard what happened." At her baleful expression, he almost chuckled. "Word travels fast in high school—didn't I tell you? That's beside the point. Don't feel bad. I can tell you feel bad. Defending Sammy was the right thing to do, okay? Don't listen to these fucking dumbasses." He threw an accusatory glare around and shouted to no one specific: "Hacks, all of 'em!"

Alex grabbed the mini notepad and pen she always had jammed in her back pocket, scribbling as Dean waited. Sam's mad at me.

He looked at the words and then at her, frowning. "What the hell for? For sticking up for him?"

She shrugged, as if to say 'I guess.' The bell rang, and classes began to change. Kids flooded out all around them, and Dean sighed. "Well, you know what? We won't be at this hellhole for much longer."

True. They'd soon trade this hell for another. Alex's eyes wandered the kids she didn't know and the building that might as well have been a prison. Dean put his hands in his pockets and looked at her long and hard. He always did that when she was upset. It was his way of trying to gauge if she were better or not. Things wouldn't get better until the day she didn't have to show up to school anymore.

With a soft sigh that said he understood, Dean put a hand onto her shoulder and nodded down the hall. "Come on, I'm walking you to class."

At least there was one thing she could count on. Falling into stride with Dean and looking up at him as they walked, Alex felt momentarily safer. She wished she could tell him out loud with words how much she wanted to be like him when she grew up.

Present
The Next Day

Dean and Alex sat in the Impala, parked outside of the school. Sam was inside the school visiting an old teacher, so Alex was in Sam's usual seat. "I'm kind of glad it wasn't Barry," she was saying. "Sad that it was Dirk. Kind of makes sense though. Kid was an asshole."

"Yeah," Dean commiserated. "Sucks that we got it wrong at first, though."

Alex grimaced, hoping that somehow Barry's relatives wouldn't learn about the dug-up grave, the burned bones… oops. She and Dean traded wan expressions, then Dean turned up the music a little—Aerosmith, Train Kept A Rollin'.

"Can you pop the trunk?" Alex asked after a minute. She hadn't thought of it until now, but that's probably where the hex bag had fallen out of the duffel. She hopped out and pulled the trunk up after Dean popped it. It was packed tightly back in there—weapons, supplies, ammo, duffels, backpacks, a couple extra pairs of shoes, a cooler, some dry goods… Alex pawed through slowly, trying not to mess up the carefully crammed contents.

"Looking for this?"

Alex started. Dean stood beside her, holding up the hex bag with a grim expression. She looked from it to him, caught. "Found it in the trunk when we took care of Barry," Dean explained.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh." Dean didn't look too happy. "Wanna tell me why you didn't tell me we still had this?"

Alex squirmed a little. "Don't get pissed… I just... I dunno. I thought maybe you would take it apart." He raised his eyebrows as if to say 'and?' Alex tried to explain herself, fumbling. "I just wanna know more about angels before we let them come around all the time, you know? This hex bag is the only thing we know of to keep angels away."

Dean smiled briefly, an expression laced with irony. "And I thought I was the paranoid one."

"Extra caution quite often saves our asses," Alex pointed out. "I don't like it, Dean. Maybe angels are okay dudes deep down, but whoever's giving orders… well, so far the orders have been a bunch of crap. Do we really wanna be running around in plain sight? We don't even know what we're up against."

"Maybe not, but that wasn't your call to make," Dean said tersely, then sighed heavily. "I'm not as ready to decide angels are the bag guys as you are. Not yet." He shook a few contents out of the hex bag, leaving some inside. "Let's roll the dice and see where we land." He handed her the half-empty hex. "You keep this stuff, I'll keep the rest. If we need it, we'll use it. But not any sooner."

Alex wasn't exactly happy, but she accepted the bag. "I never said I thought angels were the bad guys."

Dean just gave her an all-knowing look.

Sam left Mr. Wyatt's classroom, glad he'd taken the time to visit his old teacher. The halls were deserted, and his footsteps echoed in the empty space. He rounded the corner, then did a double take, stopping short. A tall, dark-haired woman waited there, leaned up against the lockers.

"Ruby! How the hell… what are you doing here?"

"Doesn't matter." She folded her arms, coming to meet him. "Why are you avoiding me?"

Sam scoffed defensively. "I'm not avoiding you."

Ruby stepped closer, voice lowering. "Have you thought about what I told you?"

Sam's tongue darted out between his lips nervously and his voice lowered, too. "I'm not doing that anymore."

Ruby's dark eyes held his and her lips curved upwards in a smile. "You keep telling yourself that, Sam." Her eyes went to his lips, and her expression took on a sultry quality. "I know you want to." She touched his arms gently, leaned in a little closer, her voice dropping to a whisper, her eyes capturing his. "It's all you think about, Sam. You can't wait to have another taste."

Sam pulled away, grimacing. His heart was hammering fast, from a mixture of fear, revulsion, and worst of all, desire. Ruby chuckled, as if his behavior were cute. "Stop fighting it Sam. It's not gonna go away." She again came close, pressing her body against his. He let her, even though he squeezed his eyes shut for a couple seconds. "When you're ready… you know where to find me."

She walked a few steps away, then paused, turning to look back. She sounded suddenly soft. "It must be so hard for you, being the odd one out."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

Ruby came back a couple steps. "Your brother and sister… they see you as a freak. An outsider. The one with the demon blood." She looked at him openly. "I accept you, Sam. And soon you'll see how much I really mean that."

Sam's jaw twitched. "My family is none of your business."

"Sure," Ruby said, her coy smile not faltering even for a second. "I'll be seeing you, Sammy."

And she turned and walked away. Sam watched her go, then looked through the nearby glass door where he could make out the Impala, his siblings waiting for him inside of it. He listened to the sound of Ruby's footsteps fading out, realizing how true the demon's words rang. He didn't fully belong where he currently was, no matter how much he tried. He felt less and less able to be himself with Dean and Alex, and more and more desperate to do something about this disease inside himself. Every day, all day, he thought about demon blood and the abilities it gave him, the rush of pleasure and confidence. The purpose. Dean and Alex didn't appreciate the way it enabled him to save people, and it made him feel like he should be ashamed of himself. So, for now, he was pretending he wasn't wrestling day in and day out with the affliction he'd found himself with. The power.

It was lonely. Because on the outside, he was Sam, but on the inside, he wasn't sure who he was anymore. He was stuck in the middle, unsure of where to turn. But the call kept coming, coaxing him to follow this path wherever it would go. No matter how sinister, or unknown, or dangerous...

Sam clenched his jaw tighter, willing his thoughts to stop so that he could focus on the moment at hand. With a long stride and deep breath, he went back to his waiting brother and sister. But the thoughts followed, eroding him slowly.