AN: So there's just a few chapters left of this story and I never thought it would be this long, but here we are! There will be some twists along the way, so let's just see what happens.

Do You Recall

XXII: World Gone Wild II

"Go to that motel I was telling you about," Dean instructed. The family was dressed and ready to go, and they all made their way outside.

"What are you going to do?" Brian asked. Dean's reply was short-lived though, as they came back to both the Impala and the SUV's tires slashed.

"Oh, come on," Dean groaned as he checked Baby's rims. They were going to sink into the mud from the rain that had only just stopped outside. "Come on!"

Elena rested her hand on his arm and it reminded him to calm down. These people were depending on them to be level-headed while they freaked out. But even she winced and murmured, "Shit," at the sight of the car, already sunk half an inch into the dirt. It was going to be a bitch to tow.

"Dude, the guns are gone!" Sam exclaimed. "So are the…basically, everything is gone!"

"The truck's no good," said Ted, running back over to them.

"What kinda ghost messes with a man's wheels?" Dean shouted upward, into the sky, in the hope that whatever they were dealing with could hear.

"Oh God," said Kate, "What's happen…"

And then she screamed, pointing at the long grass and shrubs in the distance.

"What's the matter?" her father asked in alarm.

"It was the girl! She was there! There in the woods," she said. All Sam, Dean and Elena had were their flashlights, which they used to scan the area.

"What's a ghost doing outside?" Dean muttered.

"You wanna stay and find out?" Sam asked, raising a brow.

"Everybody inside," said Dean.

"Are you nuts?" asked Ted. "We've gotta get the hell out of here!"

"In what? The ghost is hunting us, so I suggest you get your ass inside," Dean exclaimed, and once again ushered everyone inside.

They stayed in the living room, and he lit the fireplace while Sam and Elena made the salt lines. Though Brian was highly skeptical, they were able to convince Kate and Danny that they actually did this for a living and were pretty good at what they did. The sister was able to identify the "girl in the walls" as the young girl in one of the pictures they were given by the housekeeper, which was confusing as hell, considering the Gibson's daughter Rebecca was cremated.

"That picture…she's dead," asked Susan, Brian's wife.

"She committed suicide inside this house," Sam said with a sigh. He stepped to the side with Dean and Elena.

"So, what, Rebecca wasn't cremated?" Dean asked.

"She died in the attic, right?" said Sam. "You want to babysit and Elena and I'll go check?"

"Look, I don't care who hung themselves where. Maybe there is something going on here," said Ted, getting somewhat into the Winchesters' personal space.

"It's a spirit, man," said Dean.

"No, it's just some backwoods hillbilly bitch," said Ted. "And I'm not about to sit around here waiting for her to go all Deliverance on my ass."

"Nobody's leaving this house."

"Stop me."

Ted pushed past Dean over the salt line, but in two steps Dean had the man in a hold that effectively halted him, and pushed him into the living room door frame. Susan gasped while Brian protested, but Sam held up a hand to keep them where they were behind the salt line even as he cast a wary eye on his brother.

"I have a gun," Dean said lowly, "If you don't get your ass back in that circle you're gunna have yourself a third hole."

He let go of Ted, but guided him back to the living room. Sam and Elena gave him similar "what the fuck was that?" looks, but it was Sam who said,

"Dude, you don't have a gun."

"And?" said Dean. "I'm not letting that bastard or anyone else die tonight."

"Okay…then we're gunna go check the attic," said Sam. But he was hesitant to do so with how tightly strung his brother looked. "You cool?"

Dean nodded somewhat.

"Go," he said. But Elena stuck around for a moment and drew closer to him.

"You sure you're okay?" she asked. He'd been a little off all night, and it concerned her.

"Yeah," he breathed, and squeezed her shoulder. "Make sure Sammy doesn't burn the place down."

She nodded reluctantly, then smoothed her hand down his arm before she followed Sam upstairs.

The attic looked to be seldom used, but there were a couple boxes of old junk. Sam and Elena flipped through it all, but the only thing of minor importance was finding Rebecca's diary.

"It's pretty detailed," Elena commented as she flipped through it.

"Think it—" Sam was cut off by the sounds of banging and screaming downstairs. They looked to one another before taking off and running straight for the living room, where they found Dean being attacked by a girl in tattered clothes and barefooted, hair wild as she screamed at him with every down-stroke of the knife in her hands.

"HEY!" Sam shouted, and shone his flashlight right in the girl's eyes in attempt to distract her. She shrunk back and shrieked as if she was being burned, and ran for a door in the wall. Sam followed after her while Elena helped Dean up, but the girl was long gone into the walls.

They cleared out of the house, and Dean told Brian to get his family together and ready to make a run for the motel. He explained to them that the girl wasn't a ghost, and was able to cross the salt line.

"So who is she then?" Sam asked.

"I don't know, maybe it's the daughter, Rebecca," said Dean. "Maybe she didn't hang herself."

"Dude no, she'd have to be like fifty years old by now."

"Well, I don't know. What'd you two find in the attic?"

"Old piles of crap, mostly, but we found her diary," said Elena.

"Okay, well we've gotta get this family somewhere safe. She's human, so they can make a break for it, we've just gotta hold her off," said Dean. Sam pointed behind him to where Brian and his family were coming.

"Danny, Ted! We gotta go!" Brian called, and Ted came running.

"Good," he said.

"Danny?" Susan called. She began heading towards where Ted had just come from. "Danny, come on!"

"Danny!" Brian joined his wife in calling for their son.

"Told you it was some crazy bitch," Ted said to Dean.

"Yeah, you did," Dean said dryly, not even bothering to look back at him.

"You head into town," Sam told Brian. "We'll take it from here, okay?"

But that became irrelevant as Susan's calls for Danny remained fruitless. There was no sight of him out in the forest area. Susan started forward, shouting her son's name even louder, but Brian stopped her before she went too far and told her to take Kate and go to the motel. Both of them adamantly refused to leave without both him and Danny, and eventually Dean agreed, pointing out that the shed would be the safest place for them to hide.

Kate stared at him blankly.

"I am not going in there either."

"Yes you are. It's the best defense," he said, and addressed at Brian, "The windows are boarded up, it's got one door. It's our best shot right now. Trust me."

"Su, Kate, go," Brian told them, and they finally ran together to the shed.

"Okay. Brian, you and I will check outside," said Sam. Then to Dean, Elena and Ted, "You three take the house."

Dean looked like he wanted to argue as he and Ted glanced at each other with similar derisive looks, but they didn't have time for it.

The three ran into the house and immediately started checking the living room. Ted started rummaging in one of the partially opened moving boxes while Dean and Elena checked the walls for hidden openings.

"What are you doing?" Ted asked, taking out three kitchen knives. He gave one to Elena and one to Dean, who both strapped it onto their person.

"Since she's human, she had to have come from somewhere," said Dean.

"There are scratches here," Elena said, pointing them out in the wooden boards of the wall. He examined it closer and pushed them inward. When the boards wobbled, he applied some force and broke it open. The frame was smeared with blood, and it was a deep opening to blackness below. The poignant stench of death that came out had Ted gagging.

"You smell that?"

"Every day," said Dean.

"You going down or am I?" Elena asked him, undeterred by the smell, though she silently agreed that it was horrible. The depth of the darkness inside made her stomach churn, but this was no time to wimp out.

Dean gave her a wry look.

"Let me see if we fit first."

He stuck his head in and saw that it was big enough if they walked partially sideways. The path widened the farther in you went.

"All right, cover me," he said, and crawled in, flashlight handy. Elena steeled herself and followed him in, and not long after, so did Ted. It surprised both hunters, but they nodded and kept going. It was dark and had the occasional cobweb, though besides that and the smell it wasn't terrible. Dean found a rickety ladder of sorts that shot upward, most likely to the second floor. He kept walking though, having to squeeze past the corner as it got narrower. His flashlight illuminated a large hole in the floorboard—another abyss.

"You're not going down there," said Ted. Dean really, really didn't want to.

"Well, do you want to?" he asked. He didn't have to ask to know Elena would follow. He stuck one leg in at a time, and she helped him the best she could.

"Please nobody grab my leg, please nobody grab my leg," he prayed aloud, and with some squeezing down (the hole was narrow for a grown man), he made it under.

"This is by far the nastiest shit," Elena groaned, and crouched to lower herself down. It would be easier for her, since she was smaller and lighter. Thankfully it wasn't enclosed spaces she had a problem with. The darkness, however, was making her edgy and uncomfortable (not afraid; no, she wasn't afraid). Her flashlight was a mild comfort when it only allowed her to see a couple feet ahead, and in the hole she was about to climb into, she couldn't even see Dean—only blackness.

She tentatively began stepping inside and hoped she didn't get sucked down the rabbit hole.

"You'll catch me, right?" she asked in a voice that was stronger than she felt.

"I've gotcha," she heard Dean's voice echo from below. She recognized his rough, strong hands that grabbed her hips when she was almost down, so she wouldn't fall to the dusty, grimy floor. He gave her a quick smile, holding her to him a beat longer in reassurance before he let go to survey their less than pleasant surroundings.

The smell was worse. Probably because of all the mutilated rats, and what was left of Danny's dog.

"Danny?" Elena called, not too loudly.

"Find anything?" Ted asked from above.

"Just her kitchen," Dean remarked.

"Her what?"

Elena wanted to plug her nose, but it wouldn't do any good knowing she was breathing the foul air. They looked around for any sign of Danny, but were soon startled by the agonized shrieking that reverberated off the stone walls. The two rushed back to the opening they came in from, but Ted's dead body partially fallen through the hole stopped them and almost made Elena scream. Dean was able to clamp his hand over her mouth in time to stifle it and pulled them back against the wall. They waited until the sound of scuffling passed, hopefully signaling that the girl was gone.

Dean removed his hand from Elena's mouth and curled his arm protectively around her shoulders. She'd never wanted to bury into his side and hide like she did now, but she allowed herself the small solace of sliding her arm around his middle and fist her hand in the back of his shirt to keep him close.

"You okay?" he asked.

"…Yeah," she nodded after a moment, a little breathlessly as she stared at Ted's lifeless face. Blood gushed from a stab wound in his throat and sluggishly dropped onto the already blood-encrusted floor.

"We've gotta get him out of there," he said, and reluctantly let go of her so he could push the body out by the shoulders. Eventually he got Ted far enough away so that they could climb out. Dean debated helping Elena out first, but then nixed that idea. He would rather it be him who got attacked first if the girl came back than Elena.

Fortunately, the girl didn't come back, allowing both of them to get out and bring Ted's body back to the surface.

Fresh air was a cleansing relief, but having to tell the Carter family that Ted's body lay outside on the grass outside was not. Brian tried to comfort his wife the best he could, but the man seemed to be in a daze. Dean knew that look, had seen it more than he cared to; it was the look of someone who couldn't believe what was happening to them, and didn't understand why it was happening.

"I shouldn't have left him alone," said Dean. He couldn't quite look at Brian in the eye. "I'm very sorry."

He stepped out of the shed and closed the door behind him, leaving Sam and Elena to share a look of unease and concern.

Sam read Rebecca's diary while Elena debated whether to join Dean outside or give him his space. She knew he needed some time to collect himself and get back into the case. At the same time, she knew something was wrong, more than how they failed Ted back in the house.

Meanwhile, Brian was trying to console his wife, who was growing hopeless. Macabre as it was, Danny still had a chance; the girl in the wall liked him. According to Danny, she hated adults, but wanted him to stay. The couple hung onto that as Brian assured Susan of the better life they would live when this was all over. Though Elena perked up at the mention of an "Andy." She'd heard the name only a couple of times, but bringing it up always seemed to strike a dismal chord in the small family.

"I'm going to check outside a bit," Brian sighed after a few beats of silence. "For anything."

"Don't go too far," Susan implored.

"I'll go with you," Elena said. It would give her an excuse to see if Dean was all right. On the surface, he looked fine, staring up at the large house solitarily.

"I'm going to go talk to him for a sec," she told Brian. He nodded, but was stopped short by the body of his brother-in-law. For a moment he could only stare, but eventually, he knelt down to give his respects.

Elena went to Dean, who turned as he heard her coming. His smile was small.

"Sam's skimming through Rebecca's diary," she said, sliding her hands into her pockets. It was a chilly night and the wind was cutting through the thin fabric of her leather jacket.

"Found anything yet?" he asked.

"Not yet, but there's still half to go," she said. "He's better than me at speed reading."

Another breeze drifted through, making Elena shiver slightly. She smiled when his arm came around her, comfortably pressing her against him.

"There's plenty of other thing's you're good at," he said with a smirk, but the mirth didn't reach his eyes. She rested her hand against his chest and toyed with the buttons of his shirt.

"Dean…I know something's up."

His smirk faded, and his cool green eyes settled on her face.

"When this is over." His hold tightened marginally, assuring her that he was telling the truth. "Promise."

After a moment, she nodded. It was progress, at least.

Dean's gaze scanned the area and found Brian again; he was slowly pacing the lawn, and finally stopped a few yards away from them, looking up at the house with an unreadable expression.

Dean heard what went on inside the shed between him and his wife, how they kept talking about an "Andy." It wasn't hard to read between the lines of their conversations and gather a bit of insight on the Carters. Dean led Elena over to Brian and didn't waste time beating around the bush.

"Is Andy your son?" he asked. Brian nodded.

"Got himself killed in a car accident last year," he said. Dean restrained a sigh. He figured as much.

"I'm sorry," he said genuinely.

"It nearly tore Susan and I apart. Still could, I imagine," he confessed. "That's why we moved here. Fresh air, fresh start."

He smiled humorlessly and looked over at them.

"Not even my line. It was the marriage counselor's," he said. Dean shook his head a bit. "Could be right. After all, what could possibly go wrong in the country?"

"I'm going to get your son back," said Dean, "If it's the last God-forsaken thing I do."

Brian turned to him with a tired look.

"Why do you care so much?"

Elena knew.

Dean felt responsible; both for what happened to Ted and for their safety. The safety of good people who didn't deserve what was happening to them.

"Dean, Elena," Sam came up behind them, waving the diary. "We've gotta talk."

Once in the privacy of the house, Sam told them Rebecca's gruesome story.

"That little girl? Pretty sure it was Rebecca's daughter."

"So she had a kid?" Dean asked.

"It's all she talked about—being pregnant, being ashamed of being pregnant," said Sam.

"Jeez, read Juno already. Get over it. So why did she kill herself after having the baby?"

"Maybe because her father called her a 'dirty little whore' and said he was gunna lock the baby up so no one could see it."

"Why would he say that?" Elena asked. Sam just gave them each a look that said "think about it."

"Oh, gross," Dean gagged. He got it just before Elena, who made a face of disgust. "So the daddy was the baby-daddy too?"

"He was a monster," said Sam. Dean and Elena shook their heads.

"Wow," said the older Winchester. "Humans, man…so she's been locked up in this house her entire life?"

"You saw her eyes. She's never seen light. She's barely human," said Sam.

"Okay, so she's been caged up like an animal, and then she busts out and ganks dear old Dad…slash, Granddad?"

"I guess," Sam shrugged.

"Well, can't say I blame her," said Dean.

"It must've been horrible," Elena said quietly.

"Her life was hell," Sam agreed, "But that doesn't mean she gets a free pass for a murder spree."

Dean stared at his brother.

"Like you know what Hell's like."

Sam backtracked.

"I didn't mean…"

He sighed, and Dean shook his head.

"Forget it," he dismissed, and ignored Elena's concerned frown.

"…So how do we find her?" Sam asked.

"Kid's gotta eat, right?"

Sam gave Dean a confused look, while Elena shivered, remembering what lay under the floorboards.

"What?"

"He kept her locked up. But he had to feed her, didn't he?" said Dean.

"I guess…"

"I think I know where."

Dean busted open the painted square in the kitchen, revealing a platform and a ladder than led into darkness below. Brian insisted on going down himself at first to retrieve his son, but Dean managed to convince him to let it be Dean to go down. He promised to rescue Danny, so he was going to do it.

Just in case the girl made a retreat through one of the hidden doors, he gave Sam one of the kitchen knives Ted had given him and kept his own.

Sam held his flashlight while Dean made his way inside, and got it back for the rest of the way. Sam still aimed his own flashlight to help Dean, but instructed Brian and Elena to grab as many curtains as he could find from the moving boxes. They rifled through three or four until they found enough to start tying them together and make a ring at the end.

"Danny!" They heard Sam shout from the kitchen, and they rushed over so he could lower down their makeshift rope. Danny slipped it around his body, and between Brian and Sam, they were able to pull the boy up.

"I hear something down there," said Elena, alarm bells sounding in her head. And whatever it was didn't sound like Dean.

"He's fighting her brother," Danny panted, climbing out of the hole and into his father's arms.

"What?" she and Sam exclaimed. Just then, the sound of screams could be heard distantly, as if they were coming from outside. If the girl's brother was down there…

"Sam, where's the girl?" Elena asked, and Brian's eyes widened with panic.

"Su," he whispered raggedly.

"Help them," said Sam, nodding to the knife strapped to her belt. "I'll get Dean."

After a split second, she made a beeline for the front door out of the house, Brian right behind her, and to the shed where the sounds of snarling were almost drowned out by Susan and Kate's screaming. The girl had broken through the thin wood near the bottom of door and had Susan pinned, but Brian darted forward and grabbed the girl by the ankles, dragging her out. She immediately shrieked and twisted in his grip, and kicked outward. Catching him in the chin, Brian fell back, and the girl wasted no time in pouncing on him like an animal.

Elena was able to hook her arms underneath the girl's and yank her off Brian, sending the two rolling in the grass. Using her heavier weight to pin the girl down, Elena grabbed for her knife. But like a rabid animal, the girl kept trying to claw at Elena's arms, neck and face. Just as she got her wrist free and brought up the knife, the girl scratched across Elena's face with jagged nails and slapped the knife out of her hand, making it clatter into the dirt.

It stung like a bitch, though Elena was able to pull back enough that the scratch wouldn't draw more than thin lines of blood. Before she could recover from the blow, she found herself shoved onto her back with metal gleaming above her and coming down.

And its momentum ceased with a squelch. The girl uttered a choked sound, akin to gurgling, and looked down at the thin, iron rod protruding from her chest. Her chapped lips curled back, revealing rotten, bloody teeth. Then the knife dropped from her hands, landing just beside Elena's cheek. She panted, catching her breath, and her stunned state, she only watched as the girl slumped to the side and slid off of her.

Elena stared up at Brian, who stood over her with an expression that was partly wild, and partly concerned. He looked dazed again.

"Are you all right?" he said, holding out a hand to her.

"…Yeah," she said, and grabbed it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. "Go to your wife, I'm okay."

He nodded and ran into the shed, leaving Elena to take in her surroundings. With shaky legs, she made her way to where Danny was waiting on the steps. He looked relieved that it was over, but tears were streaming down his face.

"It's gunna be okay, Danny," she said with a tired smile. "It's over now."

He bit his lip and nodded, but looked even more relieved when his parents and his sister came out of the shed and ran to him, enveloping him in a desperate embrace.

Elena could've sighed in relief herself when Sam and Dean came out of the house, both looking free of any injuries.

"You okay?" the latter asked when he reached her at the foot of the stairs. His eyes did a quick scan of her body, but eventually lingered on the bloody side of her face.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, "just a scratch."

"What happened?" Sam asked, and both his and Dean's gazes roamed the yard, probably for the girl.

"We got her," she said quietly, and gestured with her eyes over to the side, where the body lay amongst the brambles and tall grass.

Dean sighed, though his hands went to her waist, gently pulling her toward him. She rested the side of her face that didn't sting against his chest and let herself be enveloped in his warmth.

It's over.

Unfortunately, they had to crawl back through the walls to get the rest of the weapons that were stolen from the Impala. But with a brand new set of tires after a long walk into town, the hunters were ready to be on their way. The Carters, though understandably shaken and not by any means okay, Brian and Susan assured them that in time, they would be. They even gave the Winchesters and Elena a head start before the police got there.

It was about eight in the morning, but they were starving enough to grab the closest thing to eat. Cheeseburgers won. Dean parked on a lonely road under a bridge and sat in relative silence. At first.

Dean unwrapped his burger, but after a second thought, wrapped it again and set it down next to him. He was a little put off from eating as flashes of memory from that house kept appearing in his mind.

"You okay?" Sam asked.

"You know, I felt for those sons of bitches back there," he said. "Lifelong torture turns you into something like that?"

It took Sam a moment to see the connection, but with a glance at Elena he could see she also read in between the lines of what his brother was saying.

"You were in Hell, Dean," said Sam. But the elder Winchester only averted his gaze. "Look, maybe you…did what you did there, but…you're not them."

"They were barely human," Elena added softly. Dean nodded a little.

"Yeah. You're right. I wasn't like them," he said. "…I was worse."

Sam's eyes raised skyward, silently asking for strength. His brother's penchant for self-loathing was one of the things that bothered him the most.

"They were animals, Sam, defending their territory! Me?" said Dean. "…I did it for the sheer pleasure."

That made both Sam and Elena falter.

"What?" he asked.

"I enjoyed it," Dean confessed. "…They took me off the rack and I tortured souls, and I liked it."

He shook his head.

"All those years…all that pain…finally getting to deal some out yourself?" He bit his lip, but wouldn't look at either of them. He couldn't bear to see their faces. But if he would've looked up, he would've seen the hopelessness in Sam's eyes; the tears in Elena's, running down.

The worst part was that neither of them had anything to say. Because there was nothing to say. Nothing that would make a difference.

"I didn't care who they put in front of me. Because…'cause that pain I felt…it just slipped away."

His fist clenched and unclenched in his lap. None of it could ever be erased—he knew that. Just as he knew that this could drive him and Elena apart, like Brian and his wife.

"No matter how many people I save…nothing's ever gunna change that."

Dean sighed shakily. He knew now that Elena was probably better off. He'd known it from the beginning, no matter how much he'd tried to delude himself that something like them could work, because there just wasn't enough left of him to work with. At least, nothing good.

She and Sam would never be able to understand.

"And I'm never gunna fill this hole…never."