Disclaimer: The Winchesters belong to Eric Kripke and I will be forever grateful to him for sharing them with us. I hope he doesn't mind me borrowing them from time to time; I promise to return them as I found them. And I know the rule. If I break them, I buy them.
A/N: I have the ending written and we're really not too far away from it; it's in Kelli's fine hands now. I appreciate everyone who has stuck with me in this story. It turned out a whole lot longer than I anticipated.
Chapter 11
"There's EVP all over that!" Sam said excitedly as he and Dean sat at the table in Mike's kitchen listening to a recording. "Where did you get this?"
"It's a friend's house; his name is Tom. He recorded this the other day and just told me about it. He was here for some of my poltergeist fun and –" Mike looked at Dean. "Can you help him?"
"Yeah." Sam said quickly.
"Tell us what's been going on." Dean said, glancing at his brother.
"He and his wife just bought the house a couple months ago and this stuff has been freaking them out since they moved in. Noises at night, things moved from one place to another. Nothing too crazy, but progressively more annoying. Than a couple nights ago, something attacked them."
"Attacked them?" Dean repeated.
"Yeah. Things started flying across the room; whatever was handy. Gloria, my friend's wife, got some cuts on her forehead when a vase hit her."
The brothers exchanged a glance.
"Let's go." Sam said.
Mike stood on the porch and watched as Dean drove off. Just behind him, Jessica smiled to herself.
As Dean drove toward the house, he couldn't help but see his brother's excitement. Sitting in the passenger seat, Sam couldn't keep still. His leg bounced and he chewed on his thumbnail as he stared out of the window. Dean wasn't sure how he felt. He thought back to his conversation with Jessica and knew, even though he didn't want to admit it, that this was the life Sam was destined for. It also seemed to be the life Sam wanted.
Dean parked across the street from Tom and Gloria's house just after the sun set. Mike had called to tell them that Dean and Sam were coming and Tom met them on the porch. He led them through the house and Dean's EMF reader picked up definite signs of a ghost.
"Why don't you let us take it from here?" Sam suggested when Gloria barely dodged a book that flew across the room. "We'll do a little research, see who owned the house and go from there."
"My pleasure." Tom said. "Gloria and I are going to Seattle for a few days anyway."
The brothers went back to the apartment. Sam booted up the computer while Dean went into his bedroom. He opened his closet and moved some boxes out of the way. In the very back, locked, sat the weapons safe. Even though he didn't use them, he still kept everything in pristine condition. He wasn't sure he was doing the right thing by his brother, but Jessica's words came back to him again as he gathered what they might need.
He can't stop hunting. Not now.
Dean pushed the conversation from his mind and packed up the supplies he'd chosen.
"Dean!" Sam called. "Come here."
Dean joined his brother a moment later. "What have you got?"
"Sometimes it's just too easy." Sam grinned. "About twenty years ago there was a murder in the house. Husband came home and found his wife in bed with another man. He went nuts and started to beat on the guy."
"So that's our ghost."
"Nope. It's the husband, Doyle Glover. The boyfriend got the upper hand and killed him with a baseball bat." Sam tapped the computer screen. "Apparently married women are the ghost's targets; probably because of what happened with his wife."
"Great. A ghost with a complex. Okay Einstein, where do we find the guy's body?"
Sam clicked on a second browser window, the information already located.
"A little digging, a little salt and we're done." Sam said as they walked through the cemetery. "Sometimes it really is too easy."
Dean only nodded.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked.
"Nothing." he gestured toward a grave to their left. "We're here."
After digging to the coffin, Sam forced it open. "Hi Doyle."
Dean glanced at him.
Sam pulled out the rock salt and coated the body. Dean lit a match and tossed it into the coffin. Once they made sure the job was done, they made their way back to Dean's car. Everything happened too easily and was over too quickly. Dean was sure Jessica had something to do with it.
"You're quiet." Sam said as Dean drove toward his apartment.
"Sorry."
"You okay with this, Man? I never even asked –"
"I'm okay, Sam. I couldn't not help a friend."
"Then what is it?"
"It's nothing."
Sam let it go. "It's nice having something familiar to come to after a job." He said as Dean unlocked the apartment door. "Those motel rooms got really tiring."
"Yeah." Dean went into the kitchen and returned a moment with two bottles. "And here we have beer."
Sam took one. "Thanks. You know, that was pretty easy, but we still make a good team."
"We always have." Dean agreed, trying to match Sam's enthusiasm.
They sat quietly for a moment.
"I guess we should figure out how I'm getting back to California." Sam said, trying a different tact to get his brother to talk.
"Yeah, about that. We need to talk." Dean looked at his brother. "Tell me about school."
"What do you mean?"
"Are you happy there?"
Sam looked confused. "You know I like school."
"Yeah. But are you happy there? Do you go out, do you have friends?"
"Dean." Sam looked away. "We've talked about this."
"So," Dean hesitated. "what if I moved to Palo Alto for a while?"
Sam looked at him, unable to hide his smile.
"I mean, I helped you move in and then just kind of took off. We spent twenty-four hours a day together for a couple years, then nothing."
"You're worried about me."
Dean thought about that for a moment. "Yeah. But there's more to it."
"What?"
"Sam, I want you to finish school and have some fun while you're doing it. I can help with that. I saw how much you enjoyed that little gig tonight and I know you're going to find ways to keep doing it. I can help with that, too. But I can't do either of those things from here."
"You're serious. You'd give up what you have here –"
Dean looked around the room. "Sammy, this is just stuff. I can put stuff in a box and put it anywhere. You're my brother. And the truth of the matter is, I miss you."
Sam blinked away tears and cleared his throat. "Uh, what about your job?"
"Someone told me they have bars in Palo Alto."
"Look, Man, I appreciate what you want to do, but I'm not sure I should let you."
"You don't have a choice." Dean smiled.
Sometimes it really was too easy to make his brother happy.
TBC
