Summary: ... in Aggie's shadow
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Spoilers: None
Thank you: poisontaster and mitchy for fantabulous betaing.
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, I just borrowed them.
Feedback: Always lovely

"Black Aggie?" Sam stopped staring at the hypnotic lines on the road ahead and glanced to the driver side. "Uh, Black Agnes. It's just another name for Bloody Mary. Like Hell Mary or Mary Worth or ..."

He reached for the journal on the dash automatically and wondered when that had become normal.

Dean shook his head. "Killer statue. Page eighteen." He took his eyes off the road ahead long enough to stab a finger at the page Sam flipped to in the journal. "The clipping."

'Clipping' was a kind word; it looked like it had been torn from the newspaper and then crammed in between pages at random. There was a blurred photo of a dark haired girl, squinting slightly against the sun. The ink had bled a little, but he could still make out the text. "Teenager found dead in Druid Ridge Cemetery." He skimmed over the paragraphs. "Marian Adams, eighteen. Three months ago. Death not being treated as suspicious, no toxins found. They're saying she died of exposure."

Dean smirked - he didn't have to look to see it, Sam heard it in his voice. "In May?"

"Okay, so why blame it on Black Aggie?"

"Read Dad's notes. A knife was pinning her shirt to the ground. Her eyes were white, blinded. Classic. The thing is the statue isn't even in Druid Ridge anymore – they shipped it out in the sixties."

"Huh." Sam flipped the clipping back and forth between his fingers. "So why are we interested?"

"Because it's interesting." Another fast glance. "And it's on the way."

"Way to where?"

Dean's mouth moved for a moment, trying out various lies, then grinned as he settled on the most obnoxious. "...Disneyland?"

"Right. Whatever. Yeah, you know what, we do this and then we're going to freaking Disneyland."

Sam tossed the book onto the back seat and hunched down, arms crossed over his chest.

"You're sulking now? What are you, eight?"

"No, at eight I would have been begging to go along."

"Yeah." Dean smiled suddenly. "Remember that time when you-"

"No."

Sam turned the radio dial to 99.1 and when Dean said nothing he returned to watching the lines in the road.

-O-

Eloise Adams was a smaller version of her older sister, which Sam figured had to be hard on pretty much everyone. They watched her from the car as she walked down the steps of the high school towards the road. The other students were rushing out, ready for the weekend. She walked slowly with her books held tightly in her arms and her head down.

She looked how he felt. Maybe this was Dean's warped idea of active therapy. "How we playing it?"

"Consultants. Covers pretty much anything."

He glanced over; Dean only had eyes for the girl. "What if she wants to check us out?"

Now his brother looked over, grin wide. "She's welcome to look, but no touching - she's fifteen."

"That's … your mind is a septic tank. You know what I mean."

Dean looked back to Eloise and then shrugged minimally. "Chances are the police didn't take any notice of what she told them. She won't want anything to do with them."

"You're a profiler now?"

"Just don't call me Mulder."

"You ever…" It wasn't a fair question. He shook his head slightly. "Never mind."

"I ever what?" Dean was looking at him blankly and he would have kicked himself if there were any room in the Impala.

"You ever feel bad about lying to them?"

There was another shrug and an expression that said 'whatever it takes' as well as the words would have . "We're helping them. You're going to get a guilt trip over that too? Make me a list or something – I'm losing track of your horrible failures as a human being."

He was saved from replying as Eloise crossed in front of the car. They opened their doors and stepped out as she walked by. Dean didn't seem inclined to get her attention; apparently it wasn't just their father who liked object lessons.

Sam swallowed his resentment and spoke up. "Excuse me, Miss Adams?"

She turned around quickly, startled from wherever her mind had been. The books began to slip, threatening to tumble out of her arms. He stepped forward and helped her right them, glancing at the titles. They were all dry sounding histories of the area or biographies of people he'd never heard of. Nothing like he remembered studying at that age.

Dean was leaning back against the car - with ankles crossed and a polite expression that said Sam was on his own.

He cleared his throat and tried a smile. "Hi, my name's Sam. This is my partner, Dean. The Baltimore PD bought us in to help with your sister's case."

"Mom and dad told you everything." A slow frown began to appear; it was confused, but it would become suspicious if he wasn't careful.

"Sure and we do have the statements - but part of our job is to look for anything that might have been missed." It was all coming back to him, the sincere smile and the frank but compassionate gaze. The lies didn't make him feel guilty; how easy they were did.

Little lies for a good cause were okay; he'd grown up knowing that, as sure as what went up would go down.

Then Jess proved it wasn't okay.

Sam felt his smile begin to die and heard the creak from the car as Dean stood and walked to his side; taking the attention and giving him time. That was so easy too, and somehow even worse than the lies. "We're interested in anything you can tell us. Anything at all."

Eloise's gaze wavered between them and then settled on her shoes. "I … don't know."

He refocused and nodded sympathetically. Just because they were liars didn't mean everything was a lie. "We're really sorry to have to bring all this up for you again."

She looked up back to him and spoke with the pained dignity of someone who isn't going to cry in front anyone anymore. "It never went away."

His stomach hurt. "No, I guess it wouldn't. Look, can we buy you a soda or something? We just have a couple of questions."

"Who did you say you were with?"

"We're … consultants."

"Not police, though?"

Dean began to reach for the cell in his pocket. "No, but if you're concerned we can put a call in and Lieutenant O'Dell will be able to verify-"

"No. No, it's okay."

One day, he thought, his brother was going to call it wrong. And on that day, assuming they weren't being tarred and feathered, he would be right there with a camera.

-O-

Over three burgers, two vanilla shakes and a black coffee, they talked. Well, Sam and Eloise talked, Dean mostly ate.

Sam pushed his half eaten burger to the side and leaned his elbows on the table. He spoke quietly. "Do you know why your sister went to the cemetery?"

Eloise shrugged over her shake, dissolutely stirring it with her straw. "She was doing a paper on the history of the city. It wasn't this big thing to begin with but she got really in to it. I asked her why and she blew me off."

"Angry?"

"Really angry. She was … sometimes we'd fight but I'd never seen her that angry. Just over this dumb paper."

He gestured with a finger to the stack of books on the chair beside her and understood. "You're trying to find out what she found."

"Yeah, but her notes are hard to read. Most of it's just initials and things."

Dean spoke up as he finished the last of his fries. "Did she ever seem like she was scared?"

"I guess, maybe a little. But the day before…" Eloise swallowed and pushed her shake away. "…before. She was okay, it was like she'd figured something out but she wouldn't tell me that either."

Sam nodded slightly. "…I don't suppose you could get us a copy of those notes?"

The girl blinked with pleased disbelief and returned the nod rapidly as she dug into her backpack and brought out a wedge of folded papers. "Here. I have the originals at home."

"That's really helpful, thank you." He unfolded the papers and began to look through. Eloise had been right, most of it was illegible. It made the scribbling in Dad's journal look like the height of cartography.

Dean leant across and read over his shoulder; after a moment he reached out a hand to stop the flipping and then rifled back a couple of pages. "Phone number."

Sam glanced up to Eloise and flipped the sheet around for her to see. "Do you know this number?"

"No and it seemed kinda rude to just call it. The area code is for Pikesville, though." The name meant nothing to him and it must have shown in his expression because she went on. "That's where the cemetery is."

-O-

They offered to give Eloise a ride home but she said she preferred to walk. That was smart and it made him a little less worried she hadn't checked their credentials.

Now they sat in the car, Dean drummed his fingers on the wheel and seemed to be waiting for him to say something.

Finally he chose to admit his curiosity. It was like a band-aid, do it fast and it would probably only hurt for a moment. "Okay, it's interesting. Want to call the number?"

Dean grinned but, to Sam's shock, didn't take the God-given opportunity to say 'I told you so'. Instead he shook his head and pulled the car into the main street traffic. "Cemetery first."

They parked at the bottom of the hill and stood looking up at the rolling green expanse of Druid Ridge. Dotted amongst the neat plots were large and graceful trees and there wasn't another soul in sight. Even the traffic was muted and distant.

"You boys lost?"

At least in his seventies, the man who had spoken from behind them was thin to the point of cadaverousness and dressed in blue overalls. Slightly bent over and almost completely bald, he looked at them through sun-closed eyes over a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. In his hands was a rake he was holding with casual familiarity.

After a moment's hesitation Dean flashed a disarming smile. "We really are."

"Looking for old Aggie, ain'cha?"

Dean tilted his head slightly, managing a look half way between bemusement and interest. "You get a lot of people up here looking for her?"

"Sure." The man turned the rake and leant against it, settling in to the conversation. Sam supposed he wouldn't get a lot of talk most days. "Not so many as we used to, when she was still here and all. Now they come to see where that poor girl died. You here to see about that?" His eyes narrowed even further.

Dean shook his head vehemently. "No - friends of the family."

"Uh huh."

Sam raised his hands with a frown to Dean and a more placating expression to the groundskeeper. The man obviously didn't believe they were family and claiming they were Consultants now would be even less credible. He seized on another option. "We're journalists. Things have been a little dry lately and this looked … interesting."

The man shook his head with amused disgust but relaxed against the rake once more. "They're not running enough wars for you, that it? I'll tell you what I told the other one - the grass don't grow in Aggie's shadow."

Not sure which lead to follow first, he went with the least vague. "There was another journalist here?"

"Sure - you been beat to the gate, boys. Name of, oh, Eve … something, if I recall it right; few years ago now. Chasing up where old Aggie disappeared to. If she ever found out she never told me."

Dean crossed his arms and looked suddenly more intent. "I thought they took Aggie out of here in the sixties."

"They did. Only where she went after that, well, who can say?"

Sam retook the lead in the questioning. "Why'd they move her?"

"Kids, mostly - coming to see what the mystery of her was about. Didn't matter what we came up with to keep them away. Ended up some feller name of Anderson Davies cut her arm off and said she'd made him do it. After that, they shipped her out some place."

Dean nodded and changed the topic. "What did you mean about the grass not growing?"

"Over there, look for yourself. Annandale section."

They turned to look in the direction he pointed out. Dean kept looking, marking the landmarks while Sam turned back. "Did Marian Adams ever talk to you about Aggie?"

"She did. Pretty young girl, it's a damn shame."

"Did she tell you why she was so interested?"

"No, Just asked what stories I'd heard. Foolishness, really."

"And what did you tell her?"

"The grass…"

He grinned and nodded. "…don't grow in Aggie's shadow. Right. Thank you."

"Right." The man grinned almost toothlessly back then sauntered away with his rake trailing behind him.

Sam looked back to his brother. "What happened to us being Consultants?"

"He takes his job seriously, he would have checked. You have a lot of rust to knock off, Sammy. Luckily, I am willing to help."

Dean delivered a couple of quick raps to his head and then jumped back before retribution could be delivered.

The walk to the plot was mercifully short, merciful because he wasn't sure if he could have taken Dean's recitation of the hunter's equivalent of the ABCs much longer. He wouldn't snap. He was calm and serene. He was a rock. He was mentally listing twenty horrible things that could happen to Dean's coat.

He was standing next to the crime scene.

The chalk outline was still just about visible, flaking but intact enough to see how Marian Adams been found. The plot was under a tree and contained in the outline was a patch of short, sickly looking, yellow and black grass.

A few feet away stood an ornate marbled white block with the bronzed cameo of the man buried beneath.

Dean began reading the inscription. "General Felix Agnus. Born July fourth, eighteen thirty-nine. Died October thirty-first nineteen twenty-five. Independence Day to Halloween. Cool."

"And it tells us..?"

Dean turned from the grave with a crooked smile. "He had great timing."

He looked away to hide his grin and then back. "Records?"

"Records."

The Hall of Records was in Annapolis but the drive was short and the music was playing loud enough he was sure he'd stay awake. And then Jess leaned in from the back seat and laid a hand on his shoulder. Her lips brushed against his ear and mouthed a word he couldn't hear.

The flames licked around them and the only thing that mattered was what she was trying to say. Her hand tightened into a burning brand and he jerked forward. He woke hearing the echo of his voice calling her name.

The car was stationary, they were parked outside the Hall and Dean was looking away from him. After a moment his brother turned his head, speaking quietly.

"Here's the deal. I'm not going to say a word." Dean's top lip curled into a sneer as he went on. "I will listen to you have nightmare after nightmare and I won't say a word."

That seemed a little too good to be true. "What's the catch?"

"You go insane, I lose all my family and Dad never gets found."

He swallowed. "That's a catch."

"Well, the good news is you can stop that happening. You just have to tell me to ask."

Dean waited and Sam couldn't say a word. When he was given the bright and empty smile Dean turned on everyone else his hands clenched; and he still couldn't say a word. He opened the door and slid from his seat, after a moment he heard the sound of Dean following.

The Hall of Records was quiet and slightly reminiscent of a hospital, pretty much like every other Hall of Records they'd ever visited. People at college had marvelled at his research skills the first year. He'd smiled and said something about working in a library.

That had been the first lie. The words in front of him blurred for a moment and then his eyes cleared.

An hour passed and the piles of paper before them grew until Sam could barely see the top of Dean's head. Of course, Dean was shorter. He let the smugness wash over him for just a moment. It didn't seem to make him as happy as it did when he was seventeen. Maybe because Dean could still kick his ass eight times out ten.

A grumbling voice murmured from behind half the rainforest. "I'm beginning to hate these places."

He grinned and answered without thinking. "You'd never have survived college."

The answer was too light when it came. "Yeah, right."

Sam looked up to the expressionless records. "I'm sorry."

They rustled slightly. "Forget it."

"Look," he leaned forward, "you could have gone."

All Dean sounded was tired. "When could I have gone, Sammy? When you were fourteen and Dad needed someone strong enough to handle the recoil on the shotgun? Maybe when you left and Dad needed anyone at all? Whatever. You like the research so much, you go through it.

Sam ran a hand over his eyes and stayed silent until he heard Dean's chair scrape back. He spoke quickly. "Okay, it looks like Agnus was a true blue American. Apart from being French."

There was another scraping sound and a grunt that seemed to indicate he should go on.

"He fought in Austria and Italy then came to America just in time for the Civil war - ended up a General at twenty-six. Real pillar of the community stuff, but here's the interesting thing: the statue wasn't originally commissioned for him, it was commissioned for the wife of a guy called Henry Adams."

Dean's hand appeared and pushed the papers between them aside. "Any relation?"

Sam sorted through his notes in case the answer to that had spontaneously appeared in them. Apparently it hadn't. He shrugged. "No idea, but he and his wife were childless so it's not direct line if they are."

"So how did Agnus end up with Aggie?"

"He didn't, he ended up with a copy. There was this whole court case over it, he claimed he'd been ripped off by art dealers and he won. The original is in DC, still over the graves of Henry and …"

The name caught in his throat and he fell silent.

"And?"

"Henry and Marion Adams." Sam blinked and looked down at the rest. "Uh, she committed suicide after the death of her father. Grief stricken husband went to Japan for a while then came back and had the statue made. I haven't come across any legends about it."

"Huh. Guess that explains what got our Marian interested. Then maybe she saw something up there, got scared when Eloise started asking about it and blew her off to keep her out of it." Dean chewed on the end of his pen; Sam resisted the urge to snatch it away.

"So we have a theory?"

"Not unless we're willing to include the possibility of statues haunting a place."

"Well, are there any precedents for that?"

"There have been a lot of reported cases of things that have been imbued with good or evil forces."

"You mean talismans."

"Yeah, but they're not usually that big."

"So we're back to Angus? We could dig him up, salt and burn."

"I think Jethro The Happy Groundskeeper might notice a sudden barbeque."

Sam gestured to the pile of papers before Dean. "Do we know where the statue, the copy I mean, is now?"

Dean stared at the records before him with disgust. "No, we don't. There's nothing about it except it was given to the Smithsonian. I did find a copy of the article by the reporter Jethro was talking about and she says the Smithsonian claim they never heard of it."

"So, what? Aggie's out there wandering around on her own reconnaissance?"

Dean looked thoughtful. "You're thinking some kind of animated stone? Gargoyle or something?"

"Well I wasn't."

The lazy grin returned. "Relax; they're pretty much indigenous to Europe anyway." Dean threw his pen onto the pile of paper where it rolled onto the hard wood table and then clattered onto the floor. He made no effort to retrieve it, just stared at the records as if waiting for them to blink first. "This is making no sense."

"Evil needs a motive now?"

"No, but it needs. Maybe it needed Anderson Davies, anything on him?"

Sam nodded and paged back through his notebook. "Anderson Davies, sheet metal worker. In nineteen sixty-two the arm and a saw were found in his trunk. At the time he said Aggie had cut her own arm off and given it to him in a fit of grief."

"Sure, 'cause grief can make statues do crazy things."

"No record of alcohol or drug abuse. Thirty-one at the time, kind've old for student pranks. There was a picture."

He leaned forward and rifled until he found the photocopy of the old news article he'd made and then pushed it over to his brother. It was a bad photo but it showed the man clearly enough, being led by a policeman into a courthouse.

Dean studied it and then pushed the copy back. "Maybe it's time to phone a friend."

They left the building to sit on the steps before the main door. Dean handed him the cell without a word and without a word he took it. He found the number on the scrap of paper he'd scrawled it on and punched it in.

After a couple of rings, a man's slurred voice answered. "Yeah?"

He put as much corporate perkiness into his voice as he could, he even sat up straighter. "Hi, my name is Bob Smith, I work for the Post-"

The voice on the other end sharpened. "I got nothing to say. I already told that other reporter and the cops."

He went on with plastic smoothness. "I'm sorry, there must have been a mix up – this isn't Michael Whitmore?"

"No, this is Anderson Davies and I got nothing to say"

The man hung up and Sam followed suit then handed the phone back. "Anderson Davies."

During the drive back Sam concentrated on the white lines, counting them as they fell under the car. It was like counting sheep but, for some weird reason, it kept him awake. And awake was a place he really wanted to be.

There was no conversation in the car, just the easy silence. They'd quickly exhausted the topics of conversation that wouldn't lead to an argument – candy, Baywatch and fish – and after that it was just music and Sam bitching about the music.

By the time they arrived in Pikesville the sun was beginning to set. The white door Dean rapped on was stained pale pink and the shadows were stretching away.

The door opened the crack allowed it by the thick steel security chains at the top, middle and bottom. Even their home had only had two. Of the man behind the door, one eye framed by grey and white streaked hair was all he could make out.

Dean hazarded a guess. "Mr Davies?"

The voice was cracked and gravelling, just like Sam remembered from the phone. "What?"

"My name's Dean Adams."

A pause and it was a knowing one. "Adams?" His question was grudging and theirs was answered.

"No relation, but my partner and I are consultants with the BCPD looking into the Marian Adams case. I was wondering whether you could spare a moment of your time to help us."

The face withdrew. "I got nothing to say."

Dean put his foot in the door. "Is that what you told Marian? She tracked you down, didn't she?"

"I … look, yeah, she came to see me but …" The man kept trying to close the door and seemed unable to work out why he couldn't. From Dean's gritted teeth, Sam guessed he wasn't being gentle about it.

He spoke up quickly. "You're not under suspicion, Mr Davies. All we want to know is what you and she discussed - it may help us greatly in our investigations. A young woman has been killed, Mr Davies."

"All right, all right. Come in." The door stopped jerking and Dean gingerly removed his foot and mouthed the word 'ow'.

With a series of clattering and rattling sounds the door was fully unlocked. Sam looked back after stepping through and counted four deadbolts and half a dozen assorted chains.

Before them was a living area. In one corner was a shade-less lamp that did barely anything to illuminate the room. Tattered curtains hung in the windows and the brown carpet crunched under foot. There was a sickening miasma of smells, most of which he preferred not to identify, the strongest was the sharp scent of cheap whiskey.

Anderson Davis himself was a thick-set man dressed in loose boxers, a grey t-shirt and a grimy bathrobe. His hair and beard were both so long and unkempt they'd grown into each other and covered most of his face. His eyes were visible, though, and the left was clouded over and sightless.

The man dropped onto a couch that sagged in the middle and creaked loudly under his weight. He gestured they should find themselves a seat.

For once they agreed - they stayed standing.

"It was about that whole arm thing, you know? Why she came to see me."

Sam nodded tentatively. "You claimed Black Agnes had cut her own arm off."

Davies laughed, ended in a cough and took a long pull from the half empty bottle that had been on his table. "Well, you're looking jail time and you come up with the craziest things."

Dean spoke quietly from the other side of the room where he was looking over some of the pictures and certificates hanging on the wall. "You could have claimed it was planted in your trunk by kids. Or that you'd found it that way and picked the arm up to keep it safe."

"I wasn't thinking."

"Uh huh. Why do you think that was?"

Anderson stared at Dean, something terrified crossing over his expression.

Sam spoke as gently as he knew how. "Mr Davies, my partner and I have been bought in because we're aware there are some more … unexplainable things that occur."

The man relaxed by degrees, another shot from the bottle seemed to help. "You're like that X-Files, huh?"

"I guess you could say that." Sam nodded to Dean. "Call him Mulder."

His brother scowled, but it seemed half-hearted. Most of his attention was still on the wall. As Sam watched, he reached up a hand and brushed some of the dust off one of the pictures.

Anderson mumbled into his beard. "Well I did it. I cut that arm right off."

"Why?"

"I…"

Anderson shook his head and Sam tried another tack. "Could you tell us about that night? What were you doing at the cemetery?"

"My mother. I was visiting her grave, I used to do that every second Sunday."

Sam remembered the visits to their mother's grave. They had been every few months and every few months he'd felt a little more separated from his father and brother; the only one mourning a stranger.

Anderson was looking at him and Dean was silent – for the first time he hadn't taken up Sam's slack. He brought himself back and smiled encouragingly to the man on the couch. "You don't visit her now?"

"Not since. So I went past the statue and they'd put all kinds of stuff around it. Thorn bushes and stuff, you know? To stop the kids crawling over her. But you could still reach the hands. People used ta put money in them, for luck."

"Did you?"

"No, maybe I should have. Anyway, I took my saw and I cut an arm off."

Dean turned away from the wall and leant back against a bare patch. "You brought your saw to your mother's grave?"

"No. No-"

"You went back to your car, all the way to the car, got your saw and came back with it?"

"Yeah, that's what I did."

"Right."

"Then I cut the arm off."

Sam nodded. "You must have gotten pretty badly scratched. All the thorns. In the time it took to cut through, you must have been pretty bloody at the end."

"Sure, scratches all over."

Dean smiled slightly. "Must be good to heal up so quickly."

"Huh?"

"The photo in the newspaper - there wasn't any scratches on your face or arms."

Anderson nodded jerkily. "Fast healer, yeah."

Dean pushed away from the wall, walking over to the couch and stopping just shy of invading the man's personal space. He looked down without a trace of a smile. "What did she say, Anderson? What was so bad she cut her own arm off? Her eyes were glowing, weren't they – you didn't look away fast enough."

"It wasn't her fault. Nothing grows but it wasn't her fault."

Davies reached for the bottle but Dean was quicker and held it out of the man's reach. "Is this what you told Marian? Did you tell this to Marian, Anderson?"

The nod was fast and then Anderson snatched at his bottle when it was held out to him. He clutched it close to his chest and muttered disjointedly.

Sam watched him rocking gently back and forth. "He's done."

"We'll get him another bottle. To say thank you."

"Don't you think he's had enough?"

Dean pursed his lips judiciously, glanced to the wall of the man's life and then shook his head. "No. We'll get him another bottle and then we'll go."

"Where will we go?"

Dean's smile was crooked as he impersonated the old cemetery groundskeeper. "Where the grass don't grow." His voice returned to normal as he went on. "Has to be a reason for it, maybe it's under the dirt."

The drive to the cemetery was so short they could have walked but the idea seemed to be an alien one to his brother.

With a spade from the trunk - and, he took a moment to consider, how wrong was it a spade was a part of their inventory? – they hiked towards the plot.

The hole became deeper and wider as Sam dug and he wondered why it was Dean got to play lookout while he got the spadework. An hour took them into night and another gave them a hole that looked suspiciously like a grave. At least it wasn't out of place.

Finally he threw the spade up onto the grass and climbed after it. "There's nothing here."

Dean wandered back, looking in the hole. "There has to be something."

"Worms. Dirt. A couple of roots. Hey, you hear that?"

Dean looked around. "No."

"Because there's nothing here."

"Funny. Nothing didn't kill Marian Adams or drive Anderson Davies insane."

Sam sat at the edge of the hole with his legs dangling over and tried to pick the dirt out from under his fingernails. "Look, maybe it's not even anything to do with Black Aggie at all."

Dean crouched next to him. "How'd you mean?"

"Maybe something else is doing this and it just got blamed on the statue. There was nothing here when Marian Adams died, there's nothing here now and the grass is still dead. So what could kill the grass, kill Marian and break Anderson's mind?"

"Nothing grows but it wasn't her fault."

Dean stood slowly and held out a hand to haul Sam to his feet then wandered over to pick up the shovel.

Sam narrowed his eyes, Dean's movements were too careful, too considered. And he was holding the spade in two hands. A prickle began to run down Sam's spine and spread over his skin. He resisted the urge to turn around but walked as casually as he could towards his brother.

Dean spoke with a quirked smile. "You know what we never did?"

Sam shook his head mutely.

"We never looked up."

They looked up.

The tree spread over them, its black branches reached across the sky and the leaves rustled gently. Rustled gently on a windless night.

The invisible, unfelt, wind picked up. The tree seemed to loom even higher and Sam looked around him for something to fight with. Dean promptly held out the knife Sam had begun to think of as 'the security blanket'. It felt solidly heavy in his hand and he knew it would be sharp.

He wanted to yell above a tornado that didn't exist and forced himself to speak quietly. "What is it?"

"It's a bleed."

"I don't-"

"After you left. Dad and me came across one in Oregon. Two leylines cross, they're a force. Sometimes not really a good force. Here it's unholy on holy ground." He let out a long hiss to approximate the sound of evil being righteously charred. "It burns the grass."

Sam tried to make out any sign of something like that but all he saw was a tree moving to a ghost wind. "So how do we, what, plug the hole?"

"I don't know."

"You said you and dad found one."

"Right. And then dad called in a specialist and there was coffee. Well, coffee and a werewolf. But that was unrelated."

"We're so dead."

Dean looked amused. "At least we're in the right place."

"Why aren't we already dead? Or blind. Or insane."

"I don't know that either. And I've been having my doubts on the last one."

They were silent for a few minutes; Sam counted the white lines passing in his head. Dean seemed content to just stand there but he decided he wasn't. "Are we going to stay here until morning?"

"We could. Or we could back towards the car and see if we can find anything in Dad's journal."

"I like the plan."

Dean nodded absently. "I have all the best plans."

They began to back away, sliding their feet to avoid any unpleasant surprises, until their heels touched the concrete of the sidewalk.

Dean let out a long breath and slumped down on the hood of the Impala while Sam retrieved the journal from where it had fallen between the seats. They flipped through the tattered pages in the glare of the headlights.

Sam stopped on a page bearing a large sketch of a crucifix. "Consecrate the ground with Holy Water?"

"It's a Christian cemetery; I think they may have it covered."

"Right. What about the tree itself?"

"It's not the tree; it's just covering the bleed. We need some kind of … Holy duct tape."

"I don't think that's Vatican approved."

Dean shrugged philosophically. "What is?" Then he held his hand out for the book and Sam gave it over without protest. After a few more page flips he looked up again. "It looks like Dad wrote down what the specialist did."

"But you're not smiling."

"He waited until something came through and then he threw it back. Seems the bleeds are strictly one way."

"So, to summarize, we have to wait for something to come out and try to kill us, blind us or drive us insane and then put it back?"

"Good summary."

"Thanks. Did the specialist survive?"

"Marco? Oh, yeah … he said he'd never liked his left leg anyway."

Dean's expression was completely deadpan and Sam suspected the best thing he could do would be to ignore the answer entirely. He moved on to slightly more pressing problems. "Do we have anything that can even hurt them?"

"Holy water. Bell, book and candle. The knife is blessed. I'm guessing the spade probably isn't."

"Do they bleed?"

"Everything bleeds, Sammy. One way or another."

He didn't correct the name - it seemed a little trivial given their current situation. Of course, some things had to be prioritized. "After this, Disneyland."

"You don't even like Disney."

"Really not the point."

Dean looked faintly incredulous but solemnly placed his palm to his chest. "Hand on my heart. While I still have them."

They took the holy water from the trunk; along with the worn copy of the family bible with its thin ribbon already marking the passages required for an exorcism. Then they turned and began the walk back.

When they were half way to the plot Dean spoke quietly. "You read again."

"What?"

"Chapter and verse. Your Latin's better."

"And you'll be-"

"Listening, with brotherly pride. Like when you were in that nativity."

"As something tears your arm off." He rattled on, aware he was becoming a little strident but it was worth getting things off your chest now and then. "And you stole my sheep! I had to go on with a pig. What kind of shepherd has a pig?"

Dean blinked. "I thought Dad repressed but you're taking the family tradition to all new places. You were six. Do me a favour and reconcile at least one thing from after tenth grade before you die, okay?"

"I feel weirdly better. You read."

"Too late, I called demon duty."

"This isn't like calling shotgun."

"It's exactly like calling shotgun; you're never going to get there before me."

Dean's tone matched his expression and made it true. Sam gave in for the moment.

They were standing beneath the tree again. This time the breeze moving the leaves was real; it ran along Sam's skin and cooled the sweat. He shivered.

"Now what?"

"Stand back and start reading."

"There's nothing there."

"There will be." Dean grinned and threw a bottle of the holy water up into the tree. It shattered against a branch and small shards rained down. The leaves whipped around and the tree groaned.

Something hissed above and Sam found his voice, beginning to chant out the familiar passages as he opened the book. "…aut saltem corde peccata sua detestans, peracto, si commode fieri posit…"

The tree was almost screaming as it bent against the hell storm, the branches were whipping the ground and he lost sight of Dean. He started forward without pause to his prayer. "Adjuro ergo te, omnis immundíssime spíritus, omne phantásma, omnis incúrsio sátanæ, in nómini Jesu Christi."

The darkness closed in like something tangible. He screamed the last of the passage as he dived between the branches. The branches lashed him but he ignored them.

The bleed was visible, a jagged wound of wrong in the air above the hole they'd dug. A few feet from the hole Dean was on one knee, teeth bared and pushing at … something he could only just see. It was visible only when the leaves fell against it - given form in the thrashing storm and the blood dripping from its maw.

Dean's knife was hilt-deep in the side of its torso and where it trod the grass was scorched.

The thing turned towards him and he had time to see Dean's eyes widen before it was on him. His mind scrabbled into retreat and he let it while his body fought and clawed. A sharp pain tore down his side and his hand clutched and came away warm and wet. Dimly he could hear someone chanting and was aware of a weight lifting. His hand reached out for anything at all and found the knife in the demon's side.

He gripped it and rolled, all his weight thrown into wrenching it out. Something screamed high and furious. It might have been him. The knife came free and he kept rolling until he came to a crouch at Dean's side.

The demon ran at them and he held the knife up with the blade down his arm and the hilt in his palm. Only a sinner's cross but the demon threw itself back, screeching. A hand on his collar bought him to his feet and he couldn't imagine how. But then they were running, rushing hell. They went low and lifted, the demon was off its feet and…

-O-

Jess touched his forehead and smiled down at him as he awoke. "Hey."

He tried to catch her hand, to bring it down and hold it in his own. "Hey."

The bed was soft and warm and he didn't want to move. He tugged. "Come lie down for a little while."

She resisted and pulled her hand gently away. "I can't, I have to go."

"No …" But she was already retreating, only she couldn't be walking away or he wouldn't still be able to see her face.

The blood began to fall.

"Hey!"

Sam woke with a start and a hand holding him down. He almost turned his head but a brief effort convinced him this would be an incredibly bad idea.

"A really pretty nurse took a lot of time and effort into stitching you up, that is no way at all to repay her."

Dean. Sam blinked and then minimally raised his head to see a very pretty blond nurse smiling at Dean from across the room.

"I'm lying in a hospital bed and you're picking up women?"

"No! One woman."

"Right."

"You have fifty-two stitches, a minor concussion and all your limbs. As a souvenir from lovely Maryland you'll have a six inch scar over your ribs but it's okay, chicks dig scars."

"You?"

"Me? I have no feelings about your scars."

Sam stared at him balefully.

"A broken wrist, thirty stitches and a black eye Nurse Marie assures me doesn't do a thing to detract from my devastating good looks. You didn't stay reading the book."

"And you didn't die."

"No, that's true."

Sam searched for an intelligent question and settled for one that he was just curious about. "How did we get here?"

"You don't want to know."

He could accept that. While the pain killers kicked in, anyway. "Okay, when can we get out of here?"

Dean lowered his voice. "Whenever you're ready to go. Try and make it sometime in the next half hour before they work out our insurance is no good."

Sam carefully sat up. "Where are my pants?"

"Burning in a consecrated fire. But I got your other stuff from the car. I called Eloise too and let her know to stop looking."

"Think she will?"

"What do I know?"

-O-

The "You are leaving Maryland" sign came and went. Sam turned the radio off and pushed a tape in. Something indistinguishable from every other song in Dean's collection began to play.

"I lied."

He grinned and looked over. "About what?"

"I'm going to keep asking."

He felt the grin fade away. He didn't know what to say so he said nothing, after a moment turning his head to watch the white lines as they ate away the miles.

One.

Two.

Three.

He smiled slightly. "I hear Disneyland is good for nightmares."

"Christi."

"I'm not a demon."

"Says you."

DONE –

A/N: Black Agnes is a real Urban Legend and much of the information above is true - with just a teensy bit of dramatic license.
A/N 2: I tried to research what I could but I'm perhaps not as American as I could be. Which is to say, not at all. So if I've made some horribly glaring error please correct me! Thanks g