Dislcaimer: The hottie mcHots are still not mine.

Hey chums! Thanks for all the lovely reviews! This chapter is really important, you have to read it. It explains a lot, and things really get started. I think it will be slow at first, reading the beginning of it, but stick with it, cuz other wise you won't understand!

Love you all!

Chapter Four: The Scientist

The college stood out brightly, directly in the center of the drab Maine town of Bethel. The grass between buildings was cared for almost to the point of being perfect, lush and green, and the pine trees were tastefully placed around the sidewalks and paths. Only students who had exceptional academic history were allowed in here—the school couldn't afford to take on a student who wasn't 100 intense.

These were some of the reasons that Tom Hanson had first moved into Bethel as a professor at Goldridge. He had the education to profess science to college level students, and his daughter, Ashley, was only a couple years from graduating high school and moving on to college. As a professor, she would be openly accepted there, according to the college's policies.

Now, about four years later and weighed down by the four-ton chip on his shoulder, Hanson was living as a dorm parent in a male dorm building and trying to supervise his 22 year old daughter as she attended classes as WELL as working tirelessly on a break through that would rival all others in modern science. Because of Goldridge's vast scientific laboratories and libraries, Hanson had found it relatively easy to carry out the research needed to fill in all the empty spaces of his knowledge—the spaces that had been created by a single encounter with something everyone told him was impossible.

Hanson sighed, his thoughts roaming restlessly to his abandoned experiment, waiting for him down in Lab 2 on the second floor. He'd been forced to leave immediately to take care of an issue between two boys in the dorm, and when everything was solved, the sun was already sinking outside. Hanson decided the lab would have to wait until the morning, however much he regretted the idea.

This morning his need for answers had increased steeply as he realized there was nothing he could do to stop two young researchers—younger versions of Hanson himself, in his opinion—from putting themselves in serious peril. Not even his impersonation of an associate of theirs, a Mr. Andy Thomas, persuaded them to move onto something else.

His call tonight from the base of Lafayette had confirmed that the subject in question had tainted at least one of them. He knew he needed to intervene somehow… possibly share with them the slightly inadequate treatment he'd discovered… he couldn't let either of them die; his actions had already caused the deaths of seven people.

Someone knocked softly on the door. "Come in," Hanson said, sitting up and snapping out of his reminiscence.

A young woman peeked around the door, her deep chestnut hair tied messily back in a pony tail. "Hey, Dad," She said, coming fully inside and closing the door. "Where have you been?"

"Hi, Ash. I've been around—I had to deal with the two Evans brothers a little while ago, that was a mess."

Ashley Hanson raised her eyebrows. "You were dealing with the Evans's all day? Must have been a real problem. Were they at each other with clubs?"

"I can tell you're in one of your sarcastic moods, Ashley. Maybe you should get some sleep; word on the street is that you've got a pretty big test tomorrow."

"It's no big deal. I've got it covered, Dad. I'm here for a reason."

Hanson frowned. "What reason?"

"Dad, come on. What do you think? I haven't seen you in a week, and we live on the same campus!"

"Don't start that, honey, you know I'm extremely busy."

"So am I, but I still find time for the people I love."

"Love? You have a boyfriend?"

"No, Dad, I meant you."

Hanson felt a distant hint of longing somewhere in the oceans of his mind, but it wasn't strong enough for him to cling onto. "Sorry, Ash. I do try. But I'm a professor and a scientist, and right now I'm working on something extremely important."

Ashley paused for a moment. "I know."

"Good."

"No. I mean, I know what you're researching right now. What you've been researching for so long."

Hanson felt his heart stop. How could she possibly know that?

"It's obvious, Daddy. Ever since you told me about what happened to you when you were young… I've been catching on. I didn't know how to tell you I knew. I knew you'd be mad. You are, right?"

"I—don't know."

"All I want is for you to be happy, and you used to be. When you were with me in Utah, just you, and me, and Roger, living in the country. You loved it there. When we moved here you disappeared into your own reality, chasing after some apparition of a 'parasite of fire'… Dad… Come on."

Hanson could feel the ancient bubbles of defensiveness perk up inside him. "I'm not chasing it, Ash, I'm researching it."

"You can't research something that's not there."

"But you can research something that people don't believe is there, but really is there."

Ashley stood there for a moment more, and then turned without a word and left, closing the door gently behind her. Hanson ground his teeth.

It is there. I experienced it, I know. And I might be close to finding the remedy for this unnatural abomination I created… It was never meant to be anywhere except for my laboratory… The fire with which he was working was supposed to be highly contained. It hadn't happened the way he had planned.

The Winchester boys… Ashley's skepticism of his life's work had convinced Hanson in a matter of moments of what he needed to do. It didn't matter whether or not his peers believed him—all that mattered now was that nobody found out it had been he to set the supernatural parasite loose. The young researchers needed his help, and soon.

((Moosehead Lodge))

"Would I lie?" Sam asked, a grin curling his lips. "I swear to you! I feel absolutely fine!"

Dean eyed him suspiciously. "I can't tell if you're telling the truth, or if you're just seriously desperate to get out of this basement."

"If I was dying, I think I would feel a little bit sicker than this, alright? I probably didn't get the full blast of the thing—like, only a part of it got into my body, or something."

The shred of hope that had been so determined to stay grounded within Dean's mind was starting to blossom tentatively. Sam looked ok, he was speaking easily, and he was acting unharmed… He had regained use of his legs only a couple of minutes before, but now they were in fine shape as far as Dean could tell.

"Ok. I believe you feel fine. But that has nothing to do with what's really going on in there, got it?"

"I know. Now all we have to do is get to Thompson's house."

Dean nodded. "That would be an awesome plan, Sammy, if we only had a car."

Both of them waited a moment, probably for effect, and then slowly turned their heads to stare pointedly at Gavin where he still sat in the chair.

The man knew at once what they wanted, and he didn't entirely object, but he needed to know something, first. "Before I drive you anywhere, I need to ask you a question."

"Shoot for it."

"I need to know hear from you the real reason you were on Lafayette this morning."

Silence.

Gavin cleared his throat. "It's important to me, it really is. I've had more worldly experience than you might think."

Dean thought back dryly to Lafayette, and how Gavin had allowed him and Sam to get off scot-free as cops, without even asking for identification. "Worldly experience, eh?" He couldn't keep the skepticism out of his voice.

"I think I might know what case it is you're on."

"Is that so?"

"I'm serious, Dean. I need to know if this has anything to do with a… with the deaths of the seven hikers who came here to see the crashed plane."

Dean and Sam glanced at each other. "Look, Mr. Gavin," Sam said. "We really don't know anything yet."

"And we won't find anything else until you help us out and drive us to this man's house."

"I need to hear it out of your mouths for me to believe it."

"What are you talking about?" Sam demanded.

Gavin took a deep breath and began to explain. "My brother called me last night, very late, asking if two young men had signed up for today's hike, and I told him yes, they had. He said he had to go—no explanation—he just hung up the phone. He hadn't told me, but I knew it had something to do with his experimentation… He just gets this different tone in his voice when he's dealing with that kind of thing."

"You're brother's a scientist?" Dean asked.

"Has been for several years. He's been working on this especially important job for a while, now… maybe eight months, or so."

Sam wondered impatiently what this could have to do with anything. "A job?"

"Well, I guess that's not the proper word—I'm no scientist, I have no idea how you refer to it. He's been busy because… well, something happened in one of his experiments. The test subject got loose. The entire warehouse burned down in its escape."

Dean felt uneasy. "Your brother is experimenting with subjects dangerous enough to destroy a building?"

"He didn't know he was, though!" Gavin defended. "He was working with two things at one time, trying to join them… and it worked. They became one. You'd have to ask him for the details."

"This sounds really unusual, Mr. Gavin."

"I'm not. Nobody's ever believed my brother when he's told them of the nature of his research. They all think he's loony, and they probably have good reason. Anyway, after that first call from Tom, he called back. He told me that the two young men coming to the mountain in the morning were researching the exact same thing he was. They were researching the supernatural entity that potentially landed with the plane, because they also believed it was responsible for the seven deaths."

Neither Dean nor Sam immediately registered what had just met their ears, and it took a few moments of ringing silence for its full gravity to fall. Dean's jaw dropped and Sam tried to stand up so quickly that he knocked over a small table beside the couch with a huge crash. Both of them scrambled to regain their composure, trying at the same time to re-read the information in their heads and extract a different meaning.

"Are you alright?" Gavin asked.

"You—I—we thought"—

"You didn't say—did you? I mean, you couldn't"—

"Wait, what the Hell did you just say?"

Gavin nodded knowingly. "I knew it. That's what you're looking into right now."

"You couldn't possibly know that, could you?"

"How do you, anyway?"

"Tom is a scientist, like I said, working to join two things together. He was working with… what I refer to as 'ghosts' (and whenever I do he gets angry)… he calls them angry spirits, or his 'subjects'. The other element he was working with was fire. He let loose an angry spirit infused with flame onto an unsuspecting public."

Dean felt his heart thudding in his chest. This thing was man-made? "Did he tell you this?"

"I saw it with my own eyes, before it escaped into the Portland Jetport."

The puzzle pieces were beginning to click together slowly. The creature was a spirit joined with the properties of flame… It had escaped into a Jetport, which was how it had been in the plane that crashed, and probably why the scientist suspected it of being here in the first place, especially after having heard of all the deaths in the area.

Sam, who was still sitting rigidly on the couch beside Dean, had an awed expression on his face. However, the looking quickly transformed into one of angry incredulousness. "You knew it was there? You knew! And still, you took people up the mountain!"

"If I had known it was still there, I never would have taken anyone up there again!" Gavin said hastily, raising his hands. "Tom told me the subject would probably be transported to a different location by its first host. That it would only infect one person at a time."

"Looks like he was a little confused," Dean said, his voice a little cold.

"Obviously. But I refused to believe him, about the two of you researching the same exact thing he is until I heard it from you. I thought Tom was desperate for someone else on his side… I see now I was wrong."

Sam was still nettled. "Well, now you know. So how do we get to your brother's place?"

"He lives all the way up in Maine."

Dean cut Sam off before he could reply sharply. "We don't care, Mr. Gavin. We need to get there. If you're right about Sam's…situation…if it's really not gone, then I'm not wasting one more second sitting here. Where's your car?"

Gavin stood and the brothers followed him back out through the door and across the parking lot to a small, red Jetta. As Sam walked, he felt again that ominous, cold numbness in his toes. His heart skipped a beat, and he jogged to catch up with Dean and Gavin.

Review, chumbuckets! Love you all! Muah!