Standard Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, and I'm using them without permission.

Author's Note: Okay, I'm aware this chapter is extremely short and actually kind of sucks. I've got writer's block. Don't you hate that? At least now you'll know what Rain did. The end is totally in sight; I'm just having trouble with this brief transition. I promise the guys will actually do something the next time I post. :)

Damaged

by Liz Bach

Previously...

"It's Rain's," Sam confirmed softly.

"Well what's it say?" Dean pressed. "What is it?"

Sam looked up at him, and there was anguish where Dean had expected to find disgust. Sam shivered and slid an arm around his stomach without thinking.

No wonder Rain hadn't wanted this getting out.

"They're her confessions."

Part VII

Sam had no right to feel betrayed. Dean had only been voicing a valid concern. He couldn't be mad at Dean for stating a fact. Besides, Dean had apologized. Sort of.

Sam stood and moved away from the table. His eyes took in the dreary room, and he realized there was nowhere he could go where Dean wouldn't still see him. In his life, there was nowhere he could go where Dean wouldn't still see him. It was comforting and suffocating at the same time.

The heater was noisy as it circulated tepid air throughout the small space. At some point during that morning, it had begun to rattle, like something had vibrated its way loose inside. It had been white noise the whole time they'd been trying to piece the McCrays' story together, but now it grated on Sam's nerves. He went to the window and cranked the dial to "off."

In the resulting stillness, he could hear Dean slowly turning pages in Rain's book as he read and re-read everything she'd written. He bit down on his bottom lip as the page-turning began to bother him.

Dean glanced up when the heater shut off and wasn't surprised to be looking at Sam's back. He returned his attention to the book in his hands and flipped through the pages for the fifth time.

"You know, you could just take off your jacket," Dean suggested offhandedly, after a brief silence.

Sam didn't turn around. "It's the noise," he said tensely.

Dean didn't respond, just pursed his lips and went back to the book. It was reprehensible, what she'd done. And fittingly problematic. It seemed every connection they made only brought about further questions. Like how were they going to salt and burn this girl's remains when she'd already done the job herself?

"Do you think she was alive when she did it, or did she set the fire and then off herself just before it spread?"

Sam shrugged. "If it was me, I guess I would do it alive. How else could she be sure the fire would finish the job?"

"If it was you?" Dean repeated. He was still seated at the table with a foot propped on his empty bed. He tucked a finger into the book to save his place, then closed it and rested his wrist on his up-drawn knee. Even hypothetically, Dean didn't like the idea of his brother contemplating his own death by fire.

Sam didn't say anything. His hands were on his hips, and his head was down. From behind, he just looked casually impatient, like he was waiting in a not unreasonably long line.

There were two personal entries in the back of the journal. Neither was dated, so there was no telling how much time had elapsed between the two. The first entry filled eleven pages, the second only one.

At first, Rain McCray wrote eloquently and persuasively, lamenting the fortune that befell her. Her father's unfaithfulness, her mother's silent rage, her own desperate desire to escape. She explained it in an overly dramatic, 19th century romantic novel sort of way, so whoever was reading might almost be tempted to take her side.

She'd had no way of knowing of her father's indiscretion, let alone any means by which to have prevented or stopped it. Yet her mother seemed to blame them both, her father and Rain. Perhaps it was the sight of her that drove her mother past all reason; her face was just a younger, more feminine version of Mr. McCray's. Or maybe it was the lost youth Rain represented: her mother's slim beauty and freedom stolen by Rain's unexpected conception and unwelcome birth, condemning her once prominent mother to an unfulfilling marriage and life with an adulterer.

For whatever reason, after her husband's transgression, Mrs. McCray never seemed to love Rain again. Further education was no longer an option, nor was marriage or any hope she'd had of ever leaving Grant.

While Mrs. McCray took out her anger on Rain, Rain in turn blamed Mr. McCray and his ineptitude as a father, a husband, and a provider. Discontented as she was, her mother had at least been true to her vows, whereas Mr. McCray had been weak and given in to his lust. This loss of love, loss of respect, was what allowed Rain to acquiesce to her mother's sordid plan for revenge. It was an insane attempt at salvaging her mother's dignity, and Mrs. McCray promised it would mean a much more respectful and much less arduous life for Rain.

They'd killed him. They'd poisoned his food with fertilizer and chemicals from the farm. Then they'd burned his body and spread his ashes across the lake. Mrs. McCray had prepared the potent concoction and served it to her husband one cool, fall night. Then she'd made Rain dispose of the heavy body.

It had been hard work. Her father was a large man, and she'd struggled with his dead weight. It took her an hour to drag his cold body into the cover of the woods. Halfway through, she'd used an accelerant and a single match to set him ablaze. It was several more hours before the body had burned completely, and the stench clung to Rain's person. It seeped into her clothes, caused her eyes to water, penetrated the strands of her long, dark hair. The smoke was black, and it trailed in a thin plume past the tree branches and away into the midnight sky.

She was shocked when all that finally remained of the fire were a few dim embers and a small mess of gray ash on the soft ground between the trees. She knelt down and gathered the fabric of her skirt into a makeshift pouch. She scooped her father's remains into her dress with her bare hands, then carried her much lightened burden to the lake.

The water was black and still, and it looked thick like tar in the night. The moon was just a sliver, but there were a thousand stars. Rain could see what she was doing, despite the dark. It was as if she had guidance from a higher power, and that assistance was what convinced her she was doing right. It was a just ending to her father. An ending he deserved. Surely no one could fault her for that.

There had been no wind that night. No ripples on the water. No rustle of falling leaves. Nothing but Rain to carry her father's ashes out onto the lake.

She tied the edges of her skirt into a tight knot at her waist and used both hands to grasp the rough side of a small, wooden boat that sat halfway in a patch of high grass and halfway in her father's chilly grave. Her shoes and ankles disappeared beneath the surface as she waded out alongside the boat. When it was floating freely, she stepped in and sat down on the seat, took hold of the oars, and slowly paddled her way towards the middle of the lake. Her ears filled with the trickling sound of the boat displacing water. Finally, she drifted to a complete stop.

There was no hurry, really. No one knew she was there. No one knew what they'd done. It was unlikely anyone would ever find out. She stood slowly, so as to not rock and lose her balance. She loosed the knot in her skirt and looked down at her father's remains. They were just dirt. An inconsequential mess. She shook the fabric, and the ashes fell into the lake.

Rain said no prayer for her father, spoke no final words at all. She just sat back down and guided the little boat back towards the shore. Once there, she climbed out and dragged the vessel back onto dry land. The trees loomed above her, the stars stared down, and the woods stood in judgment over Rain McCray. Not guilty, she knew they would conclude, but she pulled an oar out of the boat and carried it with her back to her mother's house. Just to be safe.

The second entry in Rain's journal was written in the same flowery script, but the sentences were disjointed and incomplete, as if she had been in a hurry to capture the thoughts as they flew through her mind. Mrs. McCray had convinced Rain that killing her father was for the best, but, apparently, she'd needed no outside persuasion to murder her mother. Except it couldn't end there, she wrote. She would also have to kill herself. There really was no other way. The McCrays – all of them – were just too damaged.

She planned to use the same chemicals to spike Mrs. McCray's next meal and taint her after-dinner coffee. Next she would drag her mother over the same path as she'd dragged Mr. McCray, only Rain would be strong enough to take this body intact all the way out to the lake. She would float them both, her mother and herself, in the boat, out onto the water. Finally, she would light a fire after the sun had set.

No one would notice the smoke as it rose towards the sky, lifting their fetid existence away with it. Only the hired hands would be surprised when they showed up at the farm in the morning. The McCrays would not be there to greet them.

Dean flipped the book shut and tossed it onto the tabletop. His boot was still on the bed, and the coils creaked in a vaguely obscene way as he absently bounced his knee. He had a finger in his mouth, ripped the nail down to the quick, then started in on another.

He glanced over at Sam, who still had his back to his brother. He'd moved the curtains aside and now stood with his forehead pressed against the cold window and his palms spread flat at shoulder height, as if he were preparing to push his way through the glass. Near his slightly parted lips was a circle of condensation that grew larger each time he exhaled.

"Jesus, Sam, you sure do know how to attract the psycho bitches," Dean sighed.

Sam snorted. The noise sounded almost like a stifled sob in the otherwise silent motel room.

"I guess I'm just cursed," he muttered.

Dean eyed the back of his head, decided he was kidding.

"So what do we do?"

Dean shrugged. "Give me a minute. I'm still figuring that out."

"Could you maybe figure a little faster?" His voice sounded strained.

Sam could practically feel his brother's concerned gaze like a heavy weight on his back. The strain of bearing it made him sweat. He was trying, but he just couldn't stop thinking about what they'd read, about what Rain had done. And the fact that she compared – maybe even equated – what she'd done to ruin her family to what Sam had done to ruin his – which was merely existed – was becoming almost too much to take.

He didn't want to be leaning this heavily against the window, but it was cool against his aching head. He squeezed his eyes closed, and his fingers curled into tight fists.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice came at him from a distance. "Sam." Drifting farther away, like he was leaving. Or Sam was. One of them was going, and the other would have to stay.