Disclaimer: I don't own anything, least of all The WB's Supernatural.

Author's Note: An update in the middle of the week...how excited you must be! Actually this is a little shorter, but, oh well. Thanks for the reviews, I treasure them all, keep 'em coming!

"So who was he? Or…what?" Sam asks, breaking the silence that had lingered since the end of his father's story. The three men remain in the same seats, same position even, they've been in for the half an hour it took for John to relay the details of his first meeting with the mysterious Baz.

"I didn't know then," he says, ducking his head. He had managed to make eye contact precisely two times since he began his spiel, and his relative avoidance had not gone unnoticed.

"But you know now," Dean says, more a statement than a question.

"I couldn't find him. I searched, but for the longest time I couldn't find any trace of him. Then we sort of…ran into each other a few years back."

Dean shifts impatiently in his seat, waiting for his father to go on. "And?" he says rather rudely when he does not.

John looks over at him, notices his stiff posture, arms folded tightly together, anger and frustration creasing his forehead. There's no way out. They have to know, have to be told, not only because he's sort of painted himself into a corner by sharing bits and pieces of the story already, but also because he'll likely need their help in finding Tessa. "There was a mysterious death up in Pennsylvania. This was…four years ago? Five maybe. You," he turns to Sam, "had just started getting serious about college, applying for scholarships and things."

"So it was right before you lost it and threatened to disown me if I left?" he asks snidely.

John looks away, tries to ignore the comment as he continues. "I went there on my own, didn't want you involved."

"There's a shock," Sam mutters under his breath.

"Damn it, Sam! Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Sorry," he says, not entirely convincingly.

"Anyway, I didn't want you to know about it because I thought it might be related to your mother, her death." He takes a deep breath, lets out a long sigh. "There was a fire. I only heard about it a year or so after it actually happened. Picked it up because of this article about the man convicted of murder, arson and murder. It was her husband. The case was circumstantial at best, but they had police records that pointed to a history of abuse in the home, so…"

"Wait," Sam says, his brow furrowing. "Hang on." He gets up and goes over to the stacks of papers sitting on the table next to Dean and picks up a pile, hands it to his father. "Archer."

John takes the papers from him and flips through them briefly. "Yeah," he says as he continues to investigate. "Yeah, that's the article. I gave this to her, and this," he indicates another news clipping, older, from the time of the fire itself. "That's the house," he says pulling out another sheet, this one with an authentic looking MLS listing. He reads it, "partially renovated following fire, no indication of smoke damage throughout, not even in upstairs bedroom where fire occurred, which would make excellent nursery. House checked and scanned, top to bottom, comes up clean." He stops and smiles. "What is this?"

"She got creative. Some of this stuff is just notes, or highlighted texts, but a lot of it is like that, hidden messages."

He chuckles, impressed by his daughter's ingenuity. "I told her to be careful, not to let anyone know about what she was doing." He looks up at Sam who is still standing, looming above him. "Never know who might be watching." He shakes his head and grins again. "This is a little more than I expected though. Impressive."

"Actually," Dean chimes in, "it's a pain in the ass." He leans toward his father, reaching for the papers and pulls them back so he too can have a better look. "So you didn't want us to know about this stuff, but you gave her these articles?" he asks accusingly.

"Only later, only once she was already in so deep that I figured I couldn't really keep it from her anymore anyway."

"So," Sam says as he reclaims his seat next to his father on the bed, "you saw Baz there?"

"Yeah. I drove up after I read that article, the one where he says that he didn't kill his wife, someone or something else did. And it held her to the ceiling and lit her on fire."

"Right," Dean says, reading over the article as his father speaks. "And that's why he won his appeal and was sent to the state psych hospital instead of prison."

"Yep. So I went there to investigate, though really there wasn't much investigating to do. I mean someone new lived in the house, which had already been repaired. No one else saw anything and neither of them had any family for me to talk to. It was pretty much a dead end. Then I found the kid."

"What kid?"

"The couple had a baby, about eight months old at the time. She died in his nursery."

"Well," says Dean, "that's ironic."

"That's why I wanted to see if I could find him."

"And?"

"And I was able to get some information. He was adopted by a family in Pittsburgh. I couldn't get their names or any details really. I was going to look into it further, but…I got the name of the social worker who had taken him in that night, and ultimately found him a home. His name was Baz Smith."

"Baz…Smith?"

"Don't ask. Anyway, the agency he supposedly worked for had no record of him, but I have my ways you know."

"So you tracked him down."

"Almost. I got close, but before I could find him, he found me. Just walked into the diner I was eating in and sat down in my booth, just like that, like we were old friends or something."

"You know, I gotta tell ya," Dean says as he rises and starts to pace, his impatience getting the better of him. "This little story is really interesting and all, but I kind of only care about one thing. Who the hell is this guy?"

"Funny you should put it that way," John says smirking.

"Why is that?"

He takes a deep breath and blurts out, "He's not a guy, he's a demon."

There is dead silence for a moment as both of the brothers stare, mouths agape, at their father. Then Dean speaks. "Come again."

"Well, technically he's a guy, a real human man. Or he was anyway. Baz sort of…possessed him, this…person. He said he's maintained the same body for almost twenty years, said that was a record for him." Sam and Dean continue to stare at him as he speaks, their minds clearly trying to work as fast as possible to grasp what he's saying. But this is all pretty out there, even for them. "Demons can't take human form," he says in an attempt to explain everything to his sons. "They aren't made of the same elements as we are. We can't see them or hear them, or perceive them at all really when they're in their natural state."

"O-kay," Dean says, his forehead a wrinkled mess of confusion.

"That can benefit them. They can move in and out of our world without us even knowing. Fire and air, that's what they're made out of, and because of that they can manipulate it, move through it. Earth and water, not so much. So if a demon manages to possess someone, which apparently takes a lot of practice, they can not only be perceived by us, but can hide from their own kind."

"What, like demons can't…sense other demons?" Sam asks.

"There are ways. But it's possible to hide since they can't maneuver through flesh in the same ways, too much of the elements they're not borne of."

"How do we not know this?" asks Dean, who begins his quick-stepped pacing again. "Shouldn't we know this? I mean I don't remember reading about it or anything."

"I do," says Sam. "I did." He turns and points his thumb behind him to indicate the piles of books still lined against the wall. "Kabalistic theories."

"Certain ones anyway," John says as he watches his eldest son wear a hole in the carpet. "Dean, enough. You're making me dizzy." He stops pacing and returns obediently to his chair.

"So," Sam continues, "Baz is a demon who possessed…some guy, twenty years ago, and…wait, is he hiding? From others…like him?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because he's interfered with certain events. He's made them angry."

Dean sits at the table and plays with a pen, clicks it in and out, in and out. "He's been a bad, bad demon," he mocks.

"He made a deal with the wrong side," John says.

"Sounds familiar," retorts Dean.

His father looks at him, studies his posture, his behavior. He knows what he's thinking, what he meant by that, and he's right. Of course John never should have done what he did, dealt with Baz, especially without knowing all the facts, like who and what he was. But he had no choice. "What should I have done, Dean? Let her die?"

A shadow passes over his face and he inhales sharply, as though the words themselves jabbed him. No, of course not. Of course he shouldn't have let her die. But that's just selfishness talking. He loved his sister, losing her would have been torture. He loves his sister, and losing her is torture. But if it was meant to be, if that was her fate… "I don't know," he says softly, clicking the pen one final time before letting it fall to the table.

"Truthfully," John says, his face once again aimed at the floor, tucked away from view, "I don't either." Sam rises and heads towards the bathroom causing him to look up. "Sam?" he asks, and waits for his son to turn to him. When he does, he can see how deflated the young man is. Sure Dean loves his sister, and of course John loves his daughter, both of them feel a bond, a connection, with her. But Sam is her twin. They were created together, born together, and raised together. And there's no doubt in his mind that the idea of not dying together as well, the thought of having to live a life knowing that a part of him is missing, half of his being is gone, causes his heart to ache.

"I'm going to take a shower," he says simply as he closes the bathroom door behind him.

He tries to think of nothing, turns off his mind as he turns on the water. He tries to wipe the slate clean and forget, at least for the next 15 minutes or so, about everything he's learned over the last couple of days. He tries to close his eyes and not see her face, not imagine it as it was ten years ago. Not picture it stuck that way forever, halted in time, like it should have been. He tries.

He can hear his father and brother talking, muffled voices through the door, as he steps out of the shower. They're probably filling each other in. Dad's giving Dean a synopsis of everything he worked on with Tessa. Dean's telling Dad all about the research they've managed to decipher here. At least that's what he assumes is going on, but he refuses to listen too carefully. He can stay hidden in the bathroom another five minutes tops before they start pounding on the door, so he might as well use this time doing anything other than focusing on the current job, which just happens to be a little too personal. Sometimes a person just needs to step back and take a breather, and Sam's certain that's the case now. So…five more minutes. Five more minutes alone. Five more minutes soaking up the steam.

He leans up against the tiled wall, feeling the coolness of it creep into his skin, and he runs his fingers through his wet hair. I need a comb, he thinks, and a haircut. Then he turns to the mirror and leans towards it, preparing to wipe away the steam so he can see if he looks as awful as he feels. But he stops short, takes a step back, and feels his jaw drop. On the mirror, outlined in steam, there is a single word. MEG.