CHERISH

"I told you…no deal."

"But…"

"Sam. Sammy. Come on."

"But Dean…"

"No DEAL."

"It won't take that long…"

"I said NO and I mean NO!"

Sam flinched as Dean slammed his door shut, the Impala shaking behind him. He was still angry they'd failed to find any trace of their father in Sacramento.

But even a good mood, Dean Winchester was never easy in letting someone have his car.

"It's just a damn car, Dean," he murmured as he opened the passenger side, but not loud enough for his older brother to hear.

He wasn't surprised Dean had refused to lend him the Impala. It was a '67, but it still ran like gold. His brother had taken a prodigious amount of care of it. Dean loved that car as much as any member of the family. The only time Sam had ever been allowed to drive it was when Dean was unconscious. And even then he felt guilty sitting behind the wheel.

But this time, he needed it. Today was the 24th. In two days, it would be the 26th. And he needed it before they got too far from Sacramento.

"I told you," Dean continued as he cranked the car gently. "Any running around you do, you can do with me. Or," he turned towards Sam, "you can take the bus."

"And you'll wait? For an entire bus trip?"

"A bus trip to where?"

Sam slouched in the seat. "Never mind"

"Look. Either I'm here and I'm waiting for you in a bus, or I let you have the car…"

Sam sat up.

"I hypothetically let you have the car, and I'm still waiting. Either way, I'm waiting—but in the worse case scenario, you have my car."

"This isn't that…it's not that big a deal, Dean. It'll just go a lot quicker if it can be a straight shot, and I don't have to bother waiting on buses. Or commandeering a ride."

"Commandeer a ride?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "What the hell is so important you would consider commandeering a car, but you can't tell me about it?"

Sam slouched in the passenger seat. "I told you, I'd rather not talk about it."

Dean stared at him with a sour expression, his green eyes narrowed. After a moment, he turned to the road, and shifted into DRIVE. "Fine. We won't talk about it."

"And the car?"

"You can take the bus. Or 'commandeer' one. I'd love to watch you do that."


Dean Winchester watched the scenery fly by, his thumb tapping lightly on the wheel of the Impala, Led Zeppelin on the stereo. His pleasant expression faded slightly as he gazed over a Sam, his tall, lanky form slumped carelessly in the passenger seat, brown hair rumpled from sleep.

What the hell is so important, Sammy? Where do you have to go? It's not like you can make it to Stanford and back in a day…

His mind scanned through the possible reasons Sammy would have to go sightseeing around Sacramento.

Not Jessica, she died in Stanford…

Nowhere near anyone else he knows…

Maybe Dad phoned him?

Dean felt his heart beat a little faster at this last thought. Though he was almost positive his father would not just call on Sam alone, he couldn't be a hundred percent certain. John Winchester had a funny sense about him with regards to his boys. Though Dean had been his assistant and right hand for the past twenty years, Sam had been the one John always thought about first. And now that Sam had joined the hunt…was it possible John would turn to him first?

God, listen to me. I sound like a paranoid girl.

Whatever his father did, he knew it was for the best. Dean had to have absolute faith in that. If he didn't…if he didn't…

"Jess…"

Sam murmured in his sleep, his eyes tightening just a little. Dean sighed. He felt bad for his brother…much worse than he'd ever let on to Sam. There weren't many women in the world that could put up with a Winchester—Dean knew that first hand—but Jessica, for the few moments Dean had known her, had seemed like one. There had been parts of her that had immediately reminded him of their mother. He was sorry she'd been killed—sorry she'd been murdered, that is, in the way she'd been murdered.

The effect of it on Sam had been immediate. Only days after Jessica had been taken, he'd willingly become a hunter. He'd been fighting against it all his life, but over the course of those few days, he'd finally given in. And Sam was one hell of a fighter. More reserved, perhaps, than their dad, but just as determined.

He supposed it was satisfying for the 'cause', as John Winchester would say, but what effect was it really having on his younger brother? Already, the Sammy he'd tried to protect since Mom's death was fading away, dissolving into the face of a young man hell-bent on revenge. In a way, Dean hated to see it.

He didn't want Sam becoming their father.

"Jesus." He frowned. Not only did he have to watch over Sam, now he was turning into a goddamn shrink.

Something flashed on the highway, catching his attention. Concern faded into determination.

They were almost there.

"Sammy." He slapped his brother's shoulder. "Sammy."

Sam opened his eyes slowly. "What?"

"We're here."

Sam sat up, rubbing his dark hair into place, and glanced out the window. Large trees were rolling by. He turned back to Dean with a puzzled expression. "And where, exactly, is here?"

Dean nodded. A small highway sign rolled by:

CARIÑO, CALIF. POP. 6,667.

Someone had used black spray paint to cross out the population number, and scribble, in grotesque fashion: 6,666.


Sam crawled out of the passenger side, stretched, and glanced around the picturesque scenery of Cariño's central town square. The town looked as though it was fairly old, perhaps constructed in the time of the gold rush, and still maintained some of its antique heritage.

The families at play were happy, unaware that two strangers were walking into their midst. Usually, when an aura of something 'otherworldly' hung around, it affected the townspeople. But here, children played and laughed as though nothing had happened. The town was as cheery and perfect as any other average, non-haunted town.

"Uh, Dean? Why exactly are we here, again?"

Dean didn't answer, just pulled out a piece of newspaper from his pocket and slid it across the roof of the Impala to Sam. It was a story that had been tucked away in the last part of the Sacramento paper, page A32, with only a small headline: Mysterious Accident in Cariño; one person dead.

Sam scanned the article quickly. "Patricia Amly, resident of Cariño, died yesterday in a one-car collision on the highway…no known cause, though early indications do not point to intoxication…What's this about, Dean? This doesn't seem supernatural…"

"Ah, but that, my friend," Dean said, taking the article back, "is when it most often is."

"What?"

Dean frowned. "The town's in Dad's journal, okay?"

"Yeah, but just because someone was in a car accident here doesn't mean the two are linked."

"When there's a psycho baby doll involved, it does." Dean slid the article across to Sam again, pointing to the picture of the accident scene. On one corner of the picture, in the grass, was a small, porcelain faced doll. Sam studied the image for a moment. A Victorian era doll, perhaps, dressed in an old-fashioned gown, with a single tear drop painted on one side of her face.

Dean reached back into the car and pulled out their dad's leather-bound notebook. He flipped through a few of the pages.

"Here."

Sam grabbed the diary. A few article clippings had been cut out, and pasted sloppily in the worn leaves of the book. One of them bore a picture of a doll, with a porcelain face and a teardrop, very similar to the one involved in the Amly accident. Written in his father's handwriting next to the picture were the letters 'ARA', and a date—September 24, 1902.

"What does 'ARA' mean?"

Dean shrugged. "I dunno. Doll name, maybe? Owner? It's not that important. What's important is the doll. I mean…look at that thing. That face would scare anybody."

"A demon doll?" Sam's mouth crooked into a grin. "Seriously, Dean. I had no idea. I mean, I suspected, but never really thought…"

"Never really thought what?"

"You mean—seriously—you've never noticed before?"

Dean's green eyes narrowed. "Noticed what before?"

"That you have…well…a doll thing."

"I have a what?"

"A thing about dolls. Fear of Chucky. Pediophobia…"

"EXCUSE ME?"

"Not Pedophilia, Pediophobia…a fear of dolls."

Dean looked at him for a minute, his mouth crooking into a half-grin. "Shut up."

"No, no no no. Don't you remember Lucy and Ellen? What happened to their dolls?"

"That was because they made us play with them. Any red-blooded American male would be proud of what I did."

"You stuffed the poor things into a blender."

"It was about the dignity of a man, Sam. You were six. I was eleven. Dad had already given me my first gun. Dignity. End of story."

"Alright, then. What about the doll that Dad picked up in Lembeaux?"

"That was a voodoo doll."

"Okay…"

Dean had started to move away from the car.

"Then what about that doll that nice old woman gave us in Topeka?"

"What are you talking about?"

"When dad went off that one time, chasing that succubus…"
"Oh yeah," Dean grinned. "Her."

"And we stayed with that lady who loved Elvis? She gave us a porcelain clown doll as a going away present."

Dean colored slightly. "So."

"Which you conveniently lost the next town over."

"I didn't conveniently lose it. I threw it the hell away."

"Exactly."

Dean's blush deepened. "That wasn't a doll thing. It was a clown thing, and I don't know why you're so interested anyway."

"Clown, doll…what's the difference?"

"Are you kidding me? Clowns are freakin' terrifying. With those weird, beady eyes, and those fake painted smiles and those big red noses, staring at you, or laughing at you—with those little bells jingling whenever they move around? Scary, man. Didn't you ever see It? Clowns are demonic."

Sam was having a hard time stifling his laughter. Dean glared at him.

"You know what? You can just…never mind. Look, if this thing is something supernatural, we need to find it and destroy it, before it hurts any more people. Now if you would kindly pull your head out of your ass and start asking around, we need to find out more about Patricia Amly. And her Chinga-freakin' baby doll."


Sam had known small towns to pose problems with knowing everyone, which usually meant they were suspicious of strangers.

In Cariño, he found the exact opposite problem.

Everyone knew everyone, all right—everyone except Patricia Amly. And the town, with its gold-mining history, was often visited by strangers. No one was disturbed by a few 'big-city boys' roaming around and asking questions. They weren't even too shaken up by the accident.

Sam found it all slightly odd.

"Yeah, I've seen her around, but she'd ain't been here long," was all the diner clerk had to say about her. He found similar responses from other locals, who all recognized the pretty brunette and her three kids, but hadn't really come in contact with her.

"She was fairly new to the area," said her boss, Max Corbin, of the Super Max Mart. "Kept to herself the first few months, after Anna was born. Moved here from San Fran. Something about her husband dying in an auto accident, and she wanted to get away. It's just awful. And those kids…"

Obituaries from a year and a half earlier confirmed his story—a Mark Amly had died in an automobile accident in San Francisco. He was survived by a wife, Patty, two sons, Aaron and Simon, and a daughter, Anna.

"Running from city life," Sam said to Dean a little while later, in their lodge motel room. "Happens a lot to people who lose loved ones like that."

"Well, great. I feel sorry for her. But it doesn't explain what happened, Sam. Or why she had that doll in her car."

"What about the daughter? She could have forgotten it."

"Maybe. Could it have happened twice? I mean, could the Dad have had the doll in the car?"

"I don't think so. The doll's connected to Cariño, and they're from San Francisco. Besides that…" Sam pulled out a slip of paper. "The doll didn't belong to them."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"It was her neighbor's…a woman named June Arnette. She gave the doll to Amly's daughter, Anna, as a gift."

"How did you find that out?"

"Max at the Super Max. Said the thing creeped him out. Apparently he has a doll thing, too."

Dean narrowed his eyes, but pressed on. "Any info on what caused the accident?"

"I thought that was your area."

"The husband's accident."

"Oh. Routine, if you can call it that…on his way home from work, got mixed up in a pile-up on the freeway. Another car flipped over and landed on the driver's side. He was killed instantly. Nothing supernatural. What about her accident?"

"Cops say that it was strange. There was nothing on the road that would have made the car veer into the woods, and there was nothing wrong with the car itself. They think it might have been an animal—maybe scared her and she lost control…they can't say for sure. Whatever it was, it was only her car involved."

"And what about her kids? Are they…"

"Staying with a neighbor. Actually, come to think of it," Dean pulled out a note he'd scribbled earlier, "…it is. The Arnette woman. Apparently, she's the only person in town the Amlys are close with. Their grandparents are supposed to come up this weekend to get them. They live in Rhode Island and couldn't get a flight in."

"The accident materials were also returned to the Arnettes. Including the doll."

"Well then." Dean pulled himself up from the table. "I guess it's time we paid that nice family a visit."

"So soon after the accident? Won't that look suspicious?"

"Not if we play it right."


A few hours later, Sam was walking up the pretty, tree-lined front sidewalk of the Arnette family home.

"This is low, Dean. I mean, we've done low, but this is low."

"We've gone lower," replied Dean, his focus on the door. "At least this one doesn't involve vows of chastity."

The front door opened before they reached the porch; a pretty, white-faced woman stepped out onto the wooden planking.

"Are you from the counseling service?"

Dean flashed his brightest smile, though his eyes wore a look of sympathy. He flashed a badge before her, not giving her any time to read it. "Yes, Ma'am. Are you Mrs. Arnette?"

"Yes. She smiled wanly at his handsome face. Somehow, Dean always instilled a sense of comfort in people, particularly women, when he smiled at them. It was a gift he abused quite readily.

"I'm glad Children's Services has branched out so far. I'd never heard of a Grief Counseling service before."

"New program, Ma'am. We're trying to reach out the community, particularly in the smaller towns."

"Of course. The children are inside, if you want to have a word with them."

Dean stiffened a little. Children were something of a puzzle to him, though Sam believed he was better at handling them than he thought.

The house had an old, almost ancient smell to it; many of the decorative pieces were from the turn of the century or older. A Tiffany lamp lit the long hallway, and through the parlor door Sam could make out a Victorian-style camelback couch.

Jess had loved Victorian furniture. She'd already begun decorating the apartment with it…

He swallowed.

"Sam."

Dean was waiting for him at the end of the hall, watching him with a slightly concerned expression. He'd never admit to that, of course, but Sam knew him well enough to know when he was worried.

He shook it off, and moved into the sitting room at the back of the house.

Three kids were seating in the old-fashioned sofas; one, the elder boy with his mother's brown hair, was focused intently on a handheld game. The second was looking listlessly towards the door, his dark eyes staring unfocusedly into the distance, his little body slouched forward.

Only the little girl was rapt at attention, her gray eyes watching them intently. Her hair curled smartly by her shoulders in two bright pigtails, and in her hands, she clutched the doll that had been in the pictures.

"Kids, these nice young men are named Mr. Dean and Mr. Sam. They're going to talk to you about Mommy."

None of the children moved to respond. Only Anna, still staring at them, took notice that someone had spoken, and tilted her head to the side.

Mrs. Arnette sighed, and stepped forward. "Aaron, please put that away. Simon, there's someone here to see you, sweetie. Simon." She nudged the little boy, who sat up, swallowing, and finally noticed them. Aaron frowned, and deliberately jammed his finger on the pause button, as though acknowledging this wouldn't take long.

"This is Aaron, he's ten. Simon is six, and Anna is just over a year old." She turned back to the children. "I'm going to go in the other room, if you need me. These two nice boys will listen to anything you have to say about Mommy. Whatever you want, they can answer, so talk to them about whatever you'd like, alright?"

Aaron rolled his eyes. Simon looked like he was about to cry. Anna paid no attention to her, just continued to stare at them with her bright gray eyes.

Mrs. Arnette nodded, gave them a reassuring smile, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Dean was frozen in the far corner of the room, staring at the three little ones before him as though they had the plague. Sam sighed and brushed past him, moving to kneel in front of the children.

"Hi. My name is Sam. What's your name?"

Aaron scoffed. "Please. You really think we're going to sit here and talk to people we don't know about our Mom who just got into an accident like our Dad did last year? And now she's dead too?"

Simon let out a soft wail.

Sam opened his mouth. Anna watched him curiously.

Aaron stared at him defiantly, then rolled his eyes, and picked up his computer game.

"Of course not," Dean said suddenly. "You think we're all about that mushy lovey-dovey stuff? That 'everything'll be alright' crap?"

Simon stopped whimpering. Aaron's arm was frozen in mid-air, on its way to turning the handheld back on.

"We don't really work like that, kid."

"Dean." Sam gave him a warning look.

Dean stared back at him determinedly. In an odd way, he looked almost exactly like Aaron. Sam sighed, and stood up.

"We're in this business because we know what it feels like. We've lost people we've loved. You obviously know what it feels like, with your Dad. But your mom…well, sometimes, it's good to talk about it. You know, with people who can kinda understand."

The three kids watched him silently for a moment. Finally, Aaron put down the video game.

"You're not gonna expect us to cry, or anything, are you?"

"Please. Don't."


"That was absolutely wonderful. I know you've been a great help to the children. Thank you so much." June Arnette looked relieved, if anything.

They'd spent nearly two and a half hours in the 'session,' talking with the kids about their family. It had been good from a history standpoint—they'd learned the entire story of the death of the father, as well as what the family had been up to since that time. They'd also hammered out that Aaron was the father fill-in for the family, that Simon was the baby, and that Anna…

Well, Anna was different.

Dean hadn't been looking forward to the 'counseling session'—he never claimed he was good with kids—but he'd actually found he liked it. He knew from the moment Aaron had snapped at Sam that he'd be able to understand him—that Aaron was very similar to another boy who'd lost his mother at a young age, and had been forced to take care of his family. Aaron was a very 'no-nonsense', serious child, who watched over his younger brother and sister with an adult eye, despite his age. It was a personality only Dean—and maybe a few others—could understand.

Sammy had spent most of his time with Simon, coaxing the little boy out of his dazed state and getting him to talk about things he did after school. He was obviously the most affected of the bunch, from the way he acted.

Neither of them had spent time with Anna. She was so young, she didn't seem to want to interact much. But there was something about the way she watched them…it was exactly the same type of feeling he always got when he was about to be attacked.

The only time she'd said anything was when Dean had moved over, and asked to see her doll for a moment. She stuck out her little lip in a tiny pout, and said, "Mine."

He'd smiled his biggest grin, but she hadn't relented. She just clutched the doll more tightly to her chest.

"All right," he said. "You keep it."

And she'd smiled at him. It had been cute.

June was walking out to the car, still murmuring about how good the 'session' had been for the children. "Anna's so young, I'm sure she's not going to be as scarred as those boys—but to lose such a young and happy mother at so small an age. Just tragic."

"Anna seems to get some comfort from that doll of her," Dean said stiffly. "It was beautiful, though a bit unusual for a small child. Where did she get it?"

Sam rolled his eyes.

"Well," her thin hands fluttered to her throat. "That actually belonged to my daughter, Amelia, when she was a little girl. I gave it to Patty to give to Anna as a gift."

"Amelia…Arnette?" asked Dean.

June stiffened. "Yes…that's my daughter's name. Amelia Rebecca."

Dean glanced over at Sam. A.R.A.

"Do you know where it came from?" Sam asked quickly. "Has it been in your family?"

"You seem awfully interested in it. It's just a doll."

"My girlfriend collects Victorian era items," Sam said quickly. "If you bought it somewhere, I'd like to tell her where in case she wants to look."

He caught Dean watching him with an unreadable expression.

June looked slightly pacified. "Oh. Well, I didn't buy it anywhere. In fact, it actually came with the house."

"The house?"

"Yes…this neighborhood was constructed in the early part of the 20th century. Some of the furnishings remained in the families for decades. When we bought our house, almost all of the furniture came with it. They were a very wealthy family, and that doll was wrapped up in a storeroom off of what used to be the nursery. I sold about half of the toys in there—no need for so many; there was almost two of everything!"

Dean nodded.

"If you're interested in stuff like that, I do know McAllisteer's, the antique store in the town square, has a few that are like it, from other families who've sold theirs as well."

"It's such a pretty doll…Amelia just gave it up?"

June stopped, her face growing pale. "No."

Dean glanced at Sam. Trouble.

She swallowed. "Um…did you see the sign outside of Cariño, when you came in?"

The boys stared at her, puzzled. "The population sign?" Dean asked.

"Yes…that abominable graffiti?"

"What about it?"

"Some unfeeling young people did that a few years ago. Right before Patty came. They thought it would be funny, but…"

"Was it because of Amelia?" Sam asked softly.

June bowed her head for a moment. Dean glanced over at Sam.

When she raised them, her eyes were red. "I'm sorry. I think I've had enough for today. I'll call you if the children need you again. Thanks for coming."