A/N: Hello everyone! Thanks for reading! Thank you everyone who followed and faved. I feel so loved! kasey123: Thank you! I will try to satisfy your need. Hope I don't disappoint! maxfan28535: I plan to. I very much enjoy writing this. In the show we see the result of these emotional journeys, but we don't get to see what brought the characters to that point. Filling in backstory to the best of my ability is something I love doing. I'm glad you like it.

I do not own Supernatural or it's characters


Chapter 4


Bobby walked downstairs the next morning to find it had snowed again during the night, dumping another six inches on the already snow-covered ground. He grumbled to himself and started toward the kitchen. One of these days, he was going to have to move out of South Dakota. He needed to go to the store, and three people had just been placed on his well-stretched food supply. He wasn't going anywhere, though, not with the condition of the roads. He glared at the almost-empty fridge. He heard a noise, and turned around to find Dean eyeing him from behind the doorway. Bobby spoke, "Hey Dean. What are you doing up?" Dean edged his way into the kitchen, never taking his eyes off the man, moved a chair over to the counter, and grabbed the bottle and formula from where John had placed it the night before. Then he fled. Bobby went back to studying the fridge, chuckling slightly, "I'm not the enemy, kid."

Dean was still unsure of the scary man. Mommy had told him not to trust strangers, and this man was stranger then most. Why was he taking so much interest in him and his brother? He found that highly suspitious. Daddy didn't pay nearly as much attention to him as this man. Still, he was nice... He concidered the problem as he mixed up the formula and helped Sam with it. Uncle Bobby, that was his name. Oh well, until he came to a conclusion, he would avoid him, and keep him away from Sam. That was the only thing to do.


"Salt. Salt?!" John was incredulous.
"Yep. Useful against ghosts, demons and a hell of a lot more."
"And what do you use against werewolves? Parsley?"
"Silver." John stared at him, then stood up and started to pace, "This is insane. Killing monsters with condiments and jewelry."
"Hey, you're the one who wanted to be a hunter."
"You mintioned demons?"
"Yeah. I wouldn't worry too much about it though. They're really rare, we only hear about maybe three a year. You're safe."
John rubbed his hands through his hair, "My God. Hey, if demons exist, what about angels? If there's a hell there's got to be a heaven, right?"
Bobby shrugged, "No one's ever seen one. I don't think they're real. Anyway, you want to hunt monsters? I have a case. Vengeful spirit, I think. Wanna come?"
"Really?"
"Yep. You have a brain and you can shoot, good enouph for me."
"Sure!" "Okay. We leave as soon as they clear the roads." Privately Bobby was hoping John would get whatever romantic notions he was having about hunting out of his head, decide he hated it, and go back home. Maybe expirience would work where words did not.


John went upstairs to check on the kids, to find Dean packing, "What are you doing, buddy?"
The boy paused in the middle of putting a shirt in his duffle, "We hafta get back. Sissy and me are taking Sam to the park. He's never been." John cursed. Why did Dean have to get so attached to the girl? He had known he would have to explain to Dean eventually, but he hadn't planned on it coming quite so soon. He took the shirt out of his son's hands and settled him on the bed, sitting down awkwardly next to him, "Um, Dean. Uh, we aren't going back to Lawrence." Dean straightened in shock, "But we hafta! All our stuff's there... Sissy, she doesn't know where I am! I need to say goodbye! You said we were leaving for a couple of days!" John sighed, "Circumstances changed. Don't you like it here? I thought you hated me going off to work. Now I'm not." Dean sniffled, "But what about Sissy? I hafta say goodbye. She's my sister." John was getting sick of this, "She's a girl I hired to look after you while I was at work. Cindy isn't, and never was, your sister. She's probably forgotten about you already." He started toward the door, assuming the conversation was over.
"She wouldn't! She's family! She loves me!" John paused, one hand on the doorframe, "Family means blood, Dean. She's not your blood. It's time you understood that."
He walked out, and Dean burst into tears. What was he going to do? He looked over at the laundry basket currently serving as Sam's crib. Daddy was wrong, he had to be wrong. Sissy loved them both. She had been so kind, helping him with Sam, helping him cope with his pain, everything. Why would she do that if she didn't care about him? She had promised she would always be there for him.
A Presence in the corner watched the crying boy curiously. These humans were so strange, so seceptible to sin and cruelty, and so capable of great kindness and sacrifice. A walking contradiction, an angel and a demon in the same soul, and this boy's soul burned so brightly. Well, he supposed it made sense that it would, he was the Michael Sword, after all. He felt sorry for the child, losing everything he cared about, again, and wondered if it would be crowding his orders too closely to comfort him in a dream. He balked, shocked at himself. He knew his orders: watch the vessels, and if anything major occured, such as death, alert his superior. Such a thought, an inclination, as to make himself known, even in a dream the boy would dismiss, was and had to be sinful. He mentally shuddered at what he had concidered; it was dangerously close to disobedience. Castiel focused back on his task, determined never to think that way again.


Bobby came back downstairs to find John sitting on the couch, drinking. He walked over to him, "Well, I hope you're satisfied. I just saw Dean. He's sitting up there, sobbing. Saw me and closed the door. What the hell did you do?"
John took another swig, "I told him we're not going home."
"And that made him hysterical?"
"He's ridiculously attached to his babysitter. He wanted to go see her."
Bobby shook his head, "Balls, John! You must be some kind of messed up in the head. Your boy's up there, in tears, and you're down here drinking my booze. What the hell is wrong with you?"
"My wife was killed two months ago. That's what's wrong with me."
Bobby stared at him, frustrated, "Well boohoo, Princess! Mary's dead, you're not. In case you haven't noticed, you still have a family, and they're falling apart. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself, and HELP. YOUR SON!"
"Dean's tough. He can take care of himself."
"He's four!"
"Five next week."
"Oh, yeah. 'Cause that makes him such a man."
"We all have to grow up sometime. You know what, if you're such an expert, why don't you go deal with him?" Bobby fumed. He's your kid, he thought. Still, nothing would be accomplished by fighting with John, "All right, fine, whatever. You want to hear about this job?"
"That's why I'm here." Bobby walked over to the desk. He took a few newspapers from the top of a large stack teetering on the corner, and handed it to John, "Well, here it is. Three people dead, same family, same stretch of road. One a year, for three years."
John nodded, "That's weird. What do we do next?"
"Next, we wait for the DoT to get their asses in gear and clear the roads, then we go down and check out the town. Look at the periodicals and microtape, see who's died bloody on that road. Get a list, start checking who has a connection to that family."
"Isn't there anything else we can do from here?" Bobby took a portion of the stack on his desk, and dumped it in John's lap, "Yep, there is. Get reading. You find anything in any of them, give me a shout."

They worked for hours, looking through newspaper after newspaper. Every so often, John would see something strange and call the other man over. Usually, Bobby would dismiss it as normal, and every so often he would make a note on a clipboard he kept on the wall, muttering something about finding somebody to deal with it. So far they had found nothing on the case at hand.
John threw down the paper he was reading in frustration, "There's nothing here! We're wasting our time." Bobby glanced at him, lowering his open paper, "It's called 'research', and it's about ninty percent of hunting. You want to do this, you're gonna have to learn some patience, 'cause if you go in half-cocked, you're going to get yourself killed. You can't handle it, go back to Lawrence and get some grief conseling." John grumbled, picking up his discarded paper.


Mary focused on a tool one of the builders had left behind. She could do this. After all, how many times had she and her father gotten beaten up by ghosts? If they could throw her across a room, she could move a hammer. She focused harder. Come on, you really said no to the reaper for this? To be a useless piece of fog? Yellow Eyes got to Sam, and she had walked right in. It was her fault. How could she have forgotten it was the ten year due date on that stupid deal? She should have known. She should have guessed. She should have had salt, iron, and devil's traps at every entrance. Instead she forgot. Whatever. She couldn't fix it now. All she could do was learn as much as she could about her new condition. Whatever that demon had planned for her son, she couldn't let it happen. She couldn't let him win. Not only that, knowing John, he was planning to do something stupid, and one of these days her family's lives might depend on what she did now. Come on, move! It finally shifted a couple of inches, and she smiled, relaxing in exhaustion. She never would have thought fog could get tired. Oh well, she could work some more later. She gasped as a memory came to the surface. She was having dinner with her parents, and a visitor. Dean Van Halen, that was his name. Or was it? She wasn't sure. He was a hunter, she knew that much, and her father didn't like him. She frowned, where had that come from? She didn't remember that. In fact, thinking about it, she had several new memories, and more were coming at an increasingly rapid pace. How could she have forgotten this stuff? Anyway, it didn't matter. If John was going to do what she thought he was going to do, someday he might come back, and on that day she needed to be ready.