A/N: Wow, I can't believe this story is coming to a close. There will be a short epilogue after this, but this is the last chapter. I want to thank everyone who took the time to read and/or review this. You've all been wonderfully kind. Also, a couple notes: I apologize to anyone who is a fan of country music—please don't get offended by Dean's comments about it in this chapter. Also, there are lines in this chapter that are taken directly from the Pilot, and to reiterate my initial disclaimer, I do not lay claim to them.

Okay, that was long enough. Here's the last chapter! Stop by in a couple of days for the epilogue.

Rule Ten: Driver picks the music.

The road was slightly bumpy, jarring the Impala as it sped down the gravelly country road. Fields of corn rolled by outside the window, but twenty-six year old Dean was hardly paying attention to the abysmal scenery. Aside from the occasional jibe that maybe there was a haunted cow wandering around out there, his attention was wholly focused on the indescribably horrific sound emitting from the car at that time. Surely it was worse than the screech of a banshee, worse still than the ominous crackle of EMF on a tape…

"Garth Brooks?" Dean demanded finally with a withering glare towards the radio. "Of all the things to listen to… you choose Garth Brooks?"

Dean watched expectantly as his father rolled his eyes towards him, an amused frown tugging at the gray stubble on his chin. "Yes, Dean," he replied in an exasperated voice. "I happen to like Garth Brooks."

"Man," Dean whined, turning his gaze out the window, hoping to perhaps spot a demon cow—anything to get the horrible sound out of his ears. "What kind of radio station would do this to people? It's torture."

"It's country music," John pointed out.

There was a pause. "I'd rather get my teeth pulled by a possessed orthodontist."

John chuckled as he maneuvered the car down the winding road. "Well, if you want, we can turn around and see if that guy's still hanging around with a drill. Maybe a couple of pulled teeth would stop your complaining." Dean grumbled in reply. "And anyway, it's a well-known fact that the driver always picks the music."

"Hey, Dad?" Dean asked, turning around with a smirk. "Can I drive?"

"No."

That was all right, of course. Dean hadn't expected any other answer, thought it didn't stop him from asking. Truth be told, he didn't really want it any other way. It was familiar, this arrangement—one of the few things that had remained constant in his nomadic life. His father in the driver's seat; him riding shotgun. There was only one thing missing…

He chanced a quick glance to the barren backseat, which had been empty for the last four years.

For eighteen years, it had been the constant hierarchy of Winchester riding privileges. John was the driver, Dean rode shotgun, and Sam got stuck in the backseat. It was just the way things were, they way they'd always been. Yet four years ago that hierarchy had been disrupted by the departure of the lowest class, and while it didn't dislocate the two front seats, it did leave something of an empty hole to be gotten used to—that nagging voice behind them that was no more than an echo. Dean was still getting used to the silence. And it had been four years. Granted, he had known it would come before the disturbance occurred; he had seen that envelope from Stanford before Sam had managed to snatch it from their temporary mailbox. And he knew that the school would have to be run by baboons not to accept his brother.

That wasn't to say, of course, that Dean had never taken the driver's seat. There was the odd occasion when his dad was hurt and he had to drive; but that was to be expected. There were also the times when they researched in separate towns, like they had during the succubus incident, where Dean got the Impala and John took a taxi or a bus or (on one interesting occasion) stole a semi truck. Yet those times never felt quite right, him being the only rider in the car, and he always had to turn up the music to drown out the silence.

So, naturally, Dean liked things the way they were. He was finally getting used to the emptiness of the backseat, and he had always enjoyed the easy conversation that came in the front seat. Because—despite the formal, soldier-to-commander relationship they had when in hunter mode—when they were riding in the Impala, they were simply father and son.

Dean cringed when a particularly cruel country chorus came on over the radio, and he focused his gaze out the window again, this time startled to see that the cornfields were turning into a small town.

"You know, Dad, it occurs to me that we're not going in the direction of New Orleans," he spoke at last, that thought having been nagging at him for the past ten miles when he had first discovered that they were heading west, not south.

John nodded curtly, and Dean could see him slowly slipping into commander mode. "We have to make a stop."

Deciding not to press the issue, he merely stared curiously out the window as they pulled towards a building with a large red sign on it that read "Joe's Garage."

Slowing to a halt, John killed the engine. Dean raised his eyebrows at the building and then turned silently to his father.

"I helped out the guy whose son owns this place. He owes me a favor or two," John explained elusively, stepping out of the car. Dean followed suit, falling into step beside his dad as they entered the building.

"John!" came an ecstatic middle-aged voice, which was attached to a stooped man with flaming white hair and gnarled hands. The man was walking towards them from the building, and they all met halfway between the door to the building and the parking lot. The eldest Winchester smiled brilliantly and shook the man's hand firmly.

"It's good to see you, Rich," he greeted. "That your son?" He nodded towards a younger man who could be seen through the window of the building, possibly a few years older than Dean, with dark hair and shrewd, skeptical eyes.

Rich turned around briefly with a nod. "Yep, that's my boy, Joe. And this must be Dean?" he asked amiably, shaking Dean's hand as well. The latter smiled tightly and nodded, his patience waning as his perplexity grew.

"She ready to go?" John asked quietly, in that conspiratorial voice he often used when dealing with gun salesmen.

Rich grinned with an overzealous wink and waved a hand for them to follow. Leading them into a garage, he arrived at a rather large lump in the far corner and yanked the dirty sheet off of it. Dean gaped, nonplussed by the spectacle of the shining truck before them. Was it haunted? Had it perhaps been used to store dead bodies?

But John laughed, breaking Dean out of his bewildered thoughts, and he thumped Rich on the back with a low whistle. "Wow, she's in better condition than I expected."

The older man shrugged. "Hey, you saved my life. Least I can do is give her a couple new parts and a wax job."

"You don't know how much I appreciate this," John replied as Rich handed him a set of keys. Dean watched the exchange until his father slid into the driver's seat of the truck, running his hands over the wheel with a nod of approval.

They pulled the car out of the garage and into the parking lot, Dean still following along like a lost lamb despite his greatest efforts to understand what was going on. But he knew better than to question his father's motives in the presence of strangers.

At long last, Rich gave John another pat on the back, told him to take care and to drop by if he was ever in the area. John shook his hand and told him that he would. Dean leaned against the Impala, trying not to look like a sour teenager who had been left out of the loop of his friends' latest dating endeavors.

And then the older man had disappeared back into the garage, and John was leaning against the Impala next to Dean. There was a heavy, solemn look on his face—much different from the affable one that had been fixed on for Rich. His sigh was deep and resigned. Dean wasn't particularly fond of where this was all going.

"Listen, Dean," John began at last, running his fingers gently over the keys in his hands. "You're going to have to fly solo for this New Orleans job."

Dean felt his stomach drop down three inches. "What?"

Another sigh. "Remember those articles I gave you to glance over? The ones about that road in Jericho?"

"The one where the guys were going missing?" Dean confirmed. "In California?" he added as an afterthought.

John nodded. "That's the one." There was a slight pause. "I'm going to head over there while you check out the voodoo thing. That's why I got the truck. I figured it'd be better for us to cover more ground."

Dean frowned. They'd gone on separate hunts a couple of times before, but never in different states. "Can't Jericho wait?"

John's face hardened almost imperceptibly, and Dean knew he'd get nowhere. "I wasn't asking you to do the New Orleans job. That was an order."

"But Dad—"

"That was an order," he repeated more firmly.

Dean nodded. "Yes Sir."

"Good. I have a couple of things I need to check out. We'll work more quickly this way, get two jobs done at once. Keep in touch and we'll meet up when we're both done," the eldest Winchester commanded, rubbing thoughtfully at the stubble on his chin, a faraway look in his eyes.

Trying to hide his disappointment, Dean dug his hands into the pockets of his brown leather jacket and looked away. His fingers brushed something hard and square. "Hey, Dad?"

"Yeah?"

With a smirk, he pulled the cassette tape from his pocket and tossed it into the air. John caught it deftly.

"Figured you could use some decent music in that monster truck of yours."

John chuckled. "Thanks, Dean."

And as his father drove off in the large black truck, Dean slid into the driver's seat. But with nobody riding shotgun and nobody in the back, it simply didn't feel right.

The static was loud as it crackled in his ear. "Dean, something is starting to happen. I think it's serious. I need to try to figure out what's going on." There was some garbled, inaudible nonsense as more static entered the phone. "Be very careful. Dean, we're all in danger."

Suppressing a heavy sigh, Dean flipped the cell phone shut and stuck it in his pocket. He wasn't sure why he felt inclined to keep listening to the message over and over. Perhaps it was the comfort of hearing his father's voice, even though his words were far from comforting.

Stepping out of his corner in the gas station, Dean dumped the food on the counter and pulled out a fake credit card to pay for the stuff. A glance out the window behind him told him that Sam was rifling through something in the passenger seat. Typical… sometimes the boy just couldn't sit still.

It was good having him back; Dean wasn't going to deny that. After three weeks finishing the voodoo thing in New Orleans, he'd given his dad a few calls to no avail. And then he'd gotten that voicemail, which had sliced through him like a hunting knife through butter. It hadn't taken him long to decide where he needed to go… the silence of the empty Impala was even more deafening when he would be alone indefinitely. The hierarchy just didn't work that way, with Dean alone in the front seat calling all the shots with no father to ask for orders. Frankly, it freaked the hell out of him.

So he'd gone to Stanford, blasting music all the way there to drown out the silence. And finally things were starting to fall a little bit back to normal… well, if 'normal' was a word that could ever describe the Winchesters. Two Winchesters in a car, ranked from oldest to youngest, was better than a lost, confused, sole Winchester trying to make decisions on his own with no commander to guide him. He'd had to take charge; take the driver's seat, which felt different though he had sat in it before.

Dean took a long moment to look at Sam through the window before he exited the gas station, feeling guilty at his happiness that Sam was with him—especially because he knew that Sam would be leaving again come Monday. As he arrived at the car, Dean spotted his box of cassettes in Sam's lap as the younger Winchester dug through it. Dean made his presence known by waving the food he'd gotten. "Hey, you want some breakfast?"

"No thanks," Sam replied with a glance at the food. "So how'd you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?"

Dean smirked, endlessly amused and perplexed by his brother's honest streak. He had no idea where the kid got it from. Not Dean, that was for sure. "Yeah, well… hunting ain't exactly a pro-ball career. Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards," he jested.

They talked about the cards for another minute or two as Dean slid back into the driver's seat. He was pleased to find that it had become more comfortable behind the wheel when Sam was in the passenger seat. Of course, he'd never tell his kid brother that.

"I swear man; you gotta update your cassette-tape collection."

That sure caught Dean's attention. "Why?"

Sam gave him a slightly incredulous look. "Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two—" The beanpole of a Winchester pulled out a couple of tapes, reading the sides. "Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica? It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."

Not offended in the least, Dean grabbed a cassette from his little brother's hand and popped it into the player. There were a couple of things about Sam that he'd never understand—one of them being his taste in music. Dean wasn't quite sure why neither of his family members had particularly good taste. He supposed he'd gotten all of the music genes. At any rate, his father's easy words strolled through his head. "House rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music; shotgun shuts his cakehole."

AC/DC began blasting through the sound system, and Dean puzzled over that momentarily, seeing as he had grabbed the tape labeled Metallica from Sam. Must have mixed them up. Didn't matter, though; it was all good music, in Dean's opinion. And anyway, John had used the "house rules" against him in the past. Dean was just passing on a bit of Winchester Etiquette 101.

When he heard Sam speaking over "Back in Black," Dean pulled himself out of his thoughts. "You know, Sammy is a chubby 12-year-old. It's Sam, okay?"

Dean couldn't stop the smirk on his face. Yeah, Sam had been telling him that for years. Didn't mean he had to listen to the kid. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you. The music's too loud."

Things had definitely changed, that was for sure. Things had been changing since his Dad had sent him to New Orleans—since Sam had left for Stanford—hell, things had been changing since his mother's death that fateful November night. The Winchester lifestyle was all about change; changing from one city to the next, a demon to a spirit to an Agropelter; accepting new things and letting other things go. Things changed, and he'd just have to get used to it.

But right now, Dean was in the driver's seat. Sam sat shotgun. And he didn't want that to change any time soon.

This, he knew, was impossible. Yet Sam seemed to adapt to change better than him. He'd turned out better, and that was what mattered. Maybe Dean was a little screwed up, but the one thing he did well—other than hunting—was being an older brother. And seeing a well-adjusted Sam (with a hot girlfriend, to boot) by his side told him that he had to have done something right, had to have taught his little brother something important about life in his eighteen years spent with the kid.

They were about ten miles from Jericho when "Shoot to Thrill" came on.

Dean wasn't sure how good of a person he was, but at least he was one hell of a brother. If there was one thing he could be proud of, it was Sam.

The latter nodded towards the radio with an exasperated look on his face. "You know, we're both going to go deaf soon."

Dean's response was to turn up the music.