A/N: So, John finally finds Leon and deals with him here, with a little help from someone else :).
"I only see one bitch here right now. Get your ass back down in that basement."
Leon immediately tried a different track. "You got to help me. Someone took my daughter…"
"Your daughter beat the shit out of you and locked you down there in the basement before running to me to keep her safe. Try again."
"You can't tell me what to do in my own house…"
"I told you to get your ass back down there in the basement. You have three seconds before I push you down there myself."
Leon, stupidly in John's mind, drew a fist back, presumably to hit John. Before it was even halfway back, John had pushed as hard as he could. Leon went tumbling back and fell down the stairs onto the floor below. John walked down, not even bothering to close the door behind him. Leon wasn't in shape to run even if he wanted to. Leon made a noise that took John a moment to recognize. When he did, he scoffed.
"Are you crying?"
"No." Leon said, though he looked away as he said it and sniffled.
John laughed in a way that he hadn't in a long time. "You are. Oh, that's gonna make this so much more fun."
"Just, please don't do anything…"
"Oh, no. No, no, no. You don't get to give orders here, or beg here, you don't get any damn say in anything right now. Got it?"
Leon scrambled into a corner and glared over to John. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because in my lifetime, I have hunted and hurt and killed some dirty sons of bitches. But you take the cake on all of them."
"What are you talking about?"
"You think you're big and bad? Beating up on a little girl?"
"Is that what she told you?" Leon scoffed. "That I beat her up? I spanked her a few times. That's it. She's a mouthy, disrespectful brat."
"Oh, she told me all about that. And all about everything else too."
"There's nothing else. If she told you that, she's a filthy liar."
"Yeah. Try to convince me of that nine months from now."
The sheepish look that crossed Leon's face told John all he needed to know. Leon had been caught. He looked down then back up, seemingly resigned to his fate.
"So what now? You're gonna kill me?"
"Oh, no. That's way too good for you."
John got closer and closer to Leon, pulling him forward by his shirt collar. Leon immediately recognized the gesture. He'd done it to Janie in the café just before dragging her out and back to the house. Leon fought the urge to fight John as hard as he could, trying in vain to scavenge every last bit of what little dignity he still possessed.
"I have a plan."
John spoke in a low tone, so low that had Leon not been directly in front of him, Leon probably wouldn't have heard him. But Leon was not under any mistaken assumption that the low volume of John's voice meant he was safe. The man was beyond pissed with him. He was ready to kill him and would do it on a moment's notice.
"And when it comes time for that plan to happen, it'll happen. You see, killing you is too good for you because I plan on making you suffer. Really suffer. Because you don't know it yet, but tomorrow morning you're going to the police and making a confession."
Leon scoffed. "And exactly why would I do that?"
John smirked and looked to the other side of the room before quite unceremoniously dumping Leon back onto the floor. "I was wondering when you'd show up."
"Who the hell are you talking…" Leon's mouth gaped open wide when he saw who had come into the basement to join them. "No."
Sabrina had only been dead for four years, but time passed differently in the afterlife. At first, everything seemed okay. She'd lived in heaven with a much younger version of Janie. It had taken nearly a week of residency in heaven to figure out why the Janie in her heaven was only five years old.
It had been the last time on Earth she'd been perfectly happy.
Over time, things began to get…strange. Sabrina didn't need to sleep in heaven, but at times when the younger memory of Janie would be sleeping, Sabrina would hear her calling. The halls of their house were filled with pained crying and begging. Mommy help me and Mommy please come back became constant calls throughout the perfect little world she now lived in.
At first, Sabrina attempted to ignore it. She assumed she was just hearing things, or that perhaps Janie was just missing her on Earth and would be okay eventually. But the cries became more and more common. Her marriage to Leon had been bad for quite some time, so Janie wasn't surprised that she didn't hear from him. But she did wonder why she never heard anything from him.
It had happened almost entirely by accident. Janie was calling her again. Mommy please help me. Finally, Sabrina had answered back with a thought. Mommy loves you, baby. Sabrina had found herself being violently ripped out of her utopian heaven and into a place she'd seen before but it took a while to recognize.
Janie's playroom?
But, Sabrina thought, that couldn't possibly be right. Janie's playroom had been a bright, lovely place. She and Leon had spent months preparing to convert the drafty basement to a decent playroom for Janie. Sabrina had proposed the project in order to stop the constant stream of mice and bugs she'd found on the rare occasion she'd had to step down there. Sabrina looked around, finding tattered pieces of the wallpaper on the floor and nothing else. She'd heard a door lock and footsteps walking away before muttering under her breath.
"What in the hell happened here?"
The sound of broken sobbing from behind her had caught Sabrina's attention. In the corner of the basement, curled into herself as if trying to escape the world, was a shaking heap of a little girl. Sabrina approached the little girl, not recognizing her at first, to see if she was alright. When she saw the girl's face, Sabrina had nearly screamed.
"JANIE!"
Sabrina knelt down to check on Janie, but was disheartened to find that she couldn't touch anything. Any attempt at running a hand through Janie's hair or giving her a hug was only met with her hand going straight through whatever it touched. Sabrina had tried calling Janie's name, finally actually screaming her name, but it was to no avail.
Sabrina finally forced herself to calm down. She took in Janie's condition. It didn't seem possible, but Janie seemed smaller than she had been before Sabrina died. Was she not eating? Janie was also wearing a worn skirt that was falling apart and a barely fitting t-shirt. Sabrina couldn't be sure, but there looked to be welts on Janie's legs. Sabrina's rage became red hot when she finally got a look at Janie's face. There was a handprint there, and Janie's hair looked like it hadn't been cleaned or brushed in quite some time.
Sabrina had been afraid that Leon was doing a bad job of caring for Janie. But the truth was so much worse. Leon was torturing Janie.
He was hurting her baby.
Out of nowhere, the lone light bulb in the basement shattered. Janie whimpered and curled even further into himself. The two lone mice in the basement also scurried around and squeaked, making Janie cry even more. Sabrina put it together and realized she had to calm down. Her rage, justified as it was, was terrifying Janie even more than she already was. Finally, Sabrina heard the source of the crying she'd been hearing for months.
"Mommy, help me."
Sabrina took several long, deep breaths before answering. She knelt down on the floor next to Janie, hoping she wouldn't fall through the floor. She reached out to Janie and caressed her hand, focusing intently on what she was doing. To her amazement, her hand stayed on top of Janie's she was able to stroke her hand.
"Mommy's here, Janie. What's happened to you, my baby?"
That had been the first time Sabrina had appeared to Janie. Sabrina worked over the following months to become stronger, trying to find a way to help Janie get away from her father. Sabrina had actually attempted to kill Leon when she found out exactly how far he'd gone, but had been unsuccessful. She allowed her rage to manifest if Janie wasn't in the room, but when Janie was there, her focus was entirely on comfort. Through talking with other ghosts that she found around town, she became aware of a name that could help her.
John Winchester.
From there, her plan took shape. She didn't know how she could do it, but she appeared in places all over town. Through practice, she could appear anywhere Janie went. Near the diner, on the hiking trail just outside of town, inside Janie's school. She would stand just far enough away from whoever appeared that they couldn't make out who she was, then disappear. After a few months of that, John finally appeared.
Sabrina had watched the two of them carefully over the two days John had been in town. Finally being convinced that John would take care of Janie, Sabrina had focused all her energy the night before on appearing to Janie in a visible way.
All her work had paid off. Now, she got to deal with this bastard for daring to lay his filthy hands on her baby.
"It's impossible. You've been dead for years."
"Is that so, dear?" Sabrina answered sarcastically. "I didn't know that."
"What the…"
"You see, this is the way this is gonna go." John pulled the two vials of Janie's blood out of his pocket and placed them on the small table that was behind him. "Do you mind pulling the door?"
"My pleasure."
Sabrina snapped her fingers, and the basement door snapped shut to a loud thud! While Leon flinched, John didn't move.
"You see, Leon, before I proceed to do, well, really whatever the hell I want to do to you, short of actually killing you, I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm not FBI. I hunt ghosts."
"There's no such thing as ghosts."
"Then tell me how your wife's here."
Leon sputtered, looked over in the corner at Sabrina, then looked down again.
"Like I said. I hunt ghosts. And for the fist time ever, I can tell you that I really don't want to get rid of this one."
"Really?" Sabrina asked. "I'm honored."
"It's true."
"What are you gonna do to me?"
"Me? I'm gonna make you hurt. A lot. As much as I can without killing you. Then, I'm gonna leave you alone with her."
"Where I'll have my own fun with you." Sabrina said with a smirk.
"And sometime tonight, she's going to take those vials of blood over there and smash them. The blood will hit the wall, mixed in with your own blood wherever it happens to land."
"And then what?" Leon asked, and John could see the prospect of what was about to happen settling on him.
"Then, after a little sleep, you're going to wake up in the morning with a completely modified memory. You'll think that you and Janie got into a knock down, drag out fight. You killed her, while she got her own swings in, and you took her into the woods and burned her body."
"I'm not confessing all that."
"Oh yes, you will." Sabrina said.
"I'll never be able to keep that story straight."
"You will. Because it'll be what you think happened."
"I see. And what if I refuse?"
"Do it. Please. Make me happy and do it." Sabrina dared him. "I'll be happy to send you to hell myself."
"I think we've talked enough. Let's get down to business." John suggested.
"I agree. Janie's asleep for the night. She won't wake up until this piece of trash is secure."
"Good. Will she wake up if she has a nightmare?"
"No. I figured out how to give her good dreams. All she'll see tonight are puppies and candy."
"Good. Let's do this."
Two hours later, John was back in his truck and headed back to the room. Before walking in, John used a payphone outside and made two calls. The first was to Dean, which he kept brief and to the point. Case went well, stay safe, see you soon. The other call he considered for a while before making it. He actually weighed the pros and cons of taking Janie with him. He'd always wondered what it would be like to have a daughter.
Janie Winchester. It had a nice ring to it.
But John knew it wasn't possible. He had barely been able to care for his two relatively normal children. As much as he might care for her, he in no way at all possessed what was needed to care for an abused, pregnant teenager. The people who did were the ones he needed to call. Remembering that they were both night owls, John prayed they were still awake. He breathed a sigh of relief at Marissa's answer.
"Are you sure about this, Marissa? This kid is pretty messed up."
"She needs a home, John. Bring her here. You know we'll keep her safe. Just bring her here tomorrow. We'll take care of the rest of it when the time comes."
John walked into the room to find Janie still sleeping in virtually the same position he'd left her in. She was a completely different child while asleep. She looked at peace. John wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a smile on her face.
"Sweet dreams, honey."
"I'm back."
Too many years of dealing with ghosts made it hard to truly scare John. Sabrina had come in behind him.
"Everything go according to plan?"
"He's unconscious again. Sporting a few new bruises and minus quite a bit of blood."
"You know, for a ghost, you're not so bad."
"Thanks." Sabrina said.
"You want to wake her up?" John asked. "Go ahead and leave?"
"No." Sabrina said. "Let her sleep. It's been a while she had a good rest."
"Sure. I have to go pay for another night. Will you watch her?"
Sabrina nodded. She'd known this night was coming, and it was harder than she'd ever imagined. "I'll watch over her. As long as I can."