SUMMARY: A vengeful spirit's attack leaves Dean hypothermic and fighting for life, while a concussed Sam, lost and alone, battles to get back to his brother. Story takes place mid-to-late Season 2, but before the events of All Hell Breaks Loose.

DISCLAIMER: Nope. Don't own Supernatural. Still playing in Kripke's sandbox. Will happily vacate premises when strike is over and Kripke & Co. are allowed to play here again.

A/N: Heather, as always, I am in your debt. This chapter contains some mild swearing. And in no way are the two aforementioned items remotely connected!

BRIDGING TWO SOLITUDES

CHAPTER 10

Dean was back in the Impala but he was not a happy man.

First, he was in the back seat. Doc had injected him with a painkiller as they left the hospital but, since a side effect was grogginess, had banned him from driving.

To prove another point, Doc had insisted he ride in a wheelchair for the trip to the hospital's front entrance. That short ride quickly make it clear his hip wasn't ready to be folded up behind the wheel any time soon. Even riding shotgun was out. That forced him, grumbling loudly, into the back, leaning against the door with his injured leg stretched out across the bench seat.

Second, he was about to go up in a helicopter. And for a man deathly afraid of flying, there was just no way to turn that into a good thing. But the chopper ride offered the best and fastest way to find Sam so, for that, Dean would suck it up

Bobby's research had given them a logical place to start their search. He had shared his findings with Doc and Dean as they helped the elder Winchester make his escape from the hospital.

"Our vengeful spirit is a woman named Agnes Graham."

Bobby passed Dean a sheet of paper containing a photocopied story from an old newspaper. Dean glanced at the article then up at Bobby. "Who is she?"

"Pillar of the community, as far as I could tell," Bobby said. "Agnes and her husband Alistair lived on a small farm not far from here. He ran a lumber mill in town, they raised three kids, attended church every Sunday….nothing out of the ordinary…."

"Until….," Dean prompted.

"Until a series of tragedies wiped out Agnes' whole family. That sent her over the edge, figuratively and literally – she threw herself off that bridge in the fall of 1876. Body washed up a few miles downstream."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "So what set that chain of events in motion?"

"Two drifters." Bobby checked the piece of paper in front of him. "Patrick Corrigan and Dan Shepherd. They'd robbed a bank two towns over and rode into Plymouth with bounty hunters on their tail.

"From all accounts I read, it was just bad luck for the Grahams that Corrigan and Shepherd chose their house to barge into looking for a place to hide out for the night. Only the women in the family – Agnes and her daughter Mary – were home at the time. Long story short, the robbers were spotted going in and a neighbor raised the alarm. Corrigan and Shepherd basically shot their way out of there, dragging Mary Graham with them as hostage."

Dean, now dressed and lying on top of the bed covers, took in this latest information. "Obviously this is the part of the story where Aggie turns from pillar to pissed-off."

Bobby nodded, dropping the rest of his papers on the bed beside Dean and shoving his hands in his pockets. "The Grahams, a few neighbors, the bounty hunters all took off after the robbers, tracked 'em down a few days later but Mary was no longer with them. After a little, um, encouragment, Shepherd admitted they'd dumped her in the woods, saying she was just slowing them down."

"I've said it before, Bobby," Dean growled. "Demons I get, people are crazy."

"Yeah." Bobby nodded. "And it gets worse. Search parties combed the woods for days looking for Mary but were never able to find her. She just vanished. The stress of it all caused Alistair to drop dead of a heart attack. That, combined with everything else, incensed Mary's older brothers to the point they busted into the local jail and grabbed Corrigan and Shepherd, who were awaiting trial there. They hauled them back out into the bush, trying to force them to retrace their steps and show them where they'd dumped their little sister."

"I think I would have liked these Graham boys." Dean pursed his lips. "But I'm guessing the bad guys didn't exactly trip over themselves to co-operate."

Bobby shook his head. "Shepherd only made it as far as that bridge before taking a swan dive, pretty much like you did. Friends of the Graham family tried to say the guy fell or jumped trying to get away but, reading between the lines, seems more likely one of the Graham boys tossed him over the side. Might have been out of anger, might have been an attempt to get his partner to be more co-operative……."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Whatever. He got what he deserved, if you ask me." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "But, since any story we end up in the middle of never has a happy ending, this Corrigan didn't just roll over and start playing nice, did he?"

Bobby shook his head. "Nah, he sounds like one surly bastard. Accounts seem to vary on what happened next but all agree on the fact Corrigan ended up dead. They hauled his body out of the bush a week later, but never were able to find Mary."

Dean nodded. "So that was the breaking point, huh? Agnes lost both her husband and daughter to these bastards, so…." Dean bit off his thought and stared at Doc. His stomach clenched as he realized the clear parallels to Doc's tragic past. Evil had also claimed the lives of her husband and baby daughter. "You okay, Doc?"

She nodded slowly. "Part of me feels for Agnes. I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on my worst enemy….." Doc cleared her throat and looked from Dean to Bobby. "But, the fact remains: Agnes attacked Dean and it's very likely she attacked Sam. Something pushed her over the edge….."

Bobby reached for another paper on the bed. "That something was the loss of her sons. The Graham boys were both charged with the vigilante murders of Corrigan and Shepherd, had the misfortune to draw a judge who believed 'thou shalt not kill' was absolute, and ended up hanging for their so-called crimes.

"The day after both her boys hanged, Agnes walked back down to the bridge and threw herself off. There were a couple of witnesses. Said she never hesitated. Just stepped over the railing and jumped."

Dean clenched and unclenched his jaw. "So, Sam and I, we're what - some kind of easy substitute for Corrigan and Shepherd? She gets her revenge on them by beating the crap out of us or anyone else who happens to cross that bridge?"

Bobby nodded, glancing at Doc. "The night Doc and I went out to the bridge, she ignored Doc completely, and went straight after me. All her victims have been men. She's making the men who destroyed her family, or whatever substitutes she gets her hands on, pay over and over again for robbing her of her husband and children."

Doc frowned. "But if it's simply revenge-fuelled misandry, wouldn't the body count be a lot higher after all these years?"

Dean frowned at Doc. "Misan-what?"

"Women who hate men," Bobby offered.

"Then why didn't just say that?" Dean's frown returned, betrayed by the slight lift at the corner of his mouth. "No wonder you and Sam get along so well. If he was a chick he'd be you – only taller." He turned to Bobby. "How many kills is Agnes credited with, anyway?"

"She may have dispatched a few people no one missed or reported but the official tally is 17." Bobby shrugged. "Best as I can tell, time of day has a lot to do with when she attacks. She used to go out to the bridge with her sons in the morning, to see them off when they went searching for Mary, then she'd meet them at the bridge at the end of the day when they returned. From the accounts I've read, if a time was noted, attacks took place either in early morning or early evening."

Dean nodded, eyes darting back and forth as he tried to sort through this latest information. "But what about Sam? That vision, or whatever the hell it was, showed me he's not in the water. Why not? Why didn't she just toss him in the river right after me?"

"My guess is this." Bobby pulled a sheet of paper from the pile on the bed and handed it to Dean. It was another photocopy of an old newspaper clipping, this one containing 'Wanted' poster sketched images of the two bank robbers.

Dean looked at the images and his chest tightened. "I've seen this guy before, Bobby." Dean tapped the image of Patrick Corrigan, his brow furrowing. "How the hell would I know him?"

"The one on the left?" Dean nodded in answer to Bobby's question. "Kinda looks like Sam, doesn't he?"

Dean looked again at the sketch. "No. He doesn't look anything like Sam."

Bobby reached for another paper, containing a news article published while the manhunt for the two bank robbers was still under way. "Forget the pictures," he said. "What if you didn't know Sam, had only seen his once and had to give a general description. Corrigan is described as exceptionally tall, believed to be at least six feet, five inches, and wore his dark hair long and unkempt." He stopped reading, raising an eyebrow at Dean.

"Still doesn't explain where I've seen him before , but ….." Dean rolled his eyes, the puzzle pieces suddenly snapping together. "Okay. Now I get it. Corrigan didn't die in the water. The Graham boys took him out into the woods and, when he wouldn't co-operate, show them where he abandoned their sister, they either killed him or just left him there. Eye-for-an-eye stuff."

Doc continued Dean's train of thought. "Now, 130 years later, Agnes has had lots of time to get royally pissed off. She sees Sam, thinks he's Corrigan and somehow dumps him in the woods, just like they did with the real Corrigan – and leaves him out there to die alone…..."

Bobby nodded. "Condemning him to the same fate as her daughter."

"But how?" Doc folded her arms, looking from Bobby to Dean. "If she haunts the bridge, how'd she manage to dump Sam...wherever she took him?"

Bobby scratched the back of his head. "That's the $64,000 question. When we're dealing with the spirit world, it's not, um, an exact science. Sure, there are certain basic rules but the circumstances of a person's death always define the parameters of what a spirit can do. And since circumstances are always different, well, let's just say it keeps us on our toes."

Dean's eyes fell on an article describing the search for Mary Graham. An image flashed through his head of a teenage girl with long, dark hair. "How old was Mary Graham?"

Bobby searched his memory, mentally sifting through the reams of records he had gleaned information from. "She was a teenager, 17, 18, I think."

"Sonovabitch." Dean rubbed his temple as his headache ratcheted back up a notch. He turned to Bobby. "Any of these articles have a picture of her?"

Bobby shook his head. "Beyond 'Wanted' posters, most newspaper back then didn't run many sketches. Why?."

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face. "Because I've got this image of a girl in my head and I think it might be Mary Graham. How the hell do I know what she looks like?"

Bobby's eyebrow quirked at that news. "You sure it's her?"

Dean shook his head. "Hell, Bobby. I'm not sure of anything. You said they never found Mary. They never even found her body?"

Bobby shook his head again. "From what I read, no. I mean, there's 150 square miles of forest out there today, just within the boundaries of the state park. A century ago, that wilderness stretched a hell of a lot further. Would be real easy for anyone to get hopelessly lost and never be found."

Bobby caught the look of alarm that flashed across Dean's face. "Hey, just remember, we've got a lot more options available to us today. We're gonna find Sam."

Dean's gaze was fierce as his eyes met Bobby's. "Damn straight we will."

Dean, lost in thought replaying all the information Bobby had offered up before they left the hospital, jumped at the sound of knocking on the Impala window. The rear door on the passenger side opened and Doc leaned in. "How you doing?"

Dean sighed. "I'm fine, Doc. Quit worrying."

Doc smiled softly. "Yeah, well you and I have very different definitions of the word 'fine' so forgive me if I do a little worrying. Did I mention this was a bad idea?"

Dean frowned. "Yeah, Doc. Only a hundred times."

"Is that all? I'm slipping." Doc's smile faded, replaced by concern for her friend. "The chopper's on its way in. You sure you want to do this?"

"Try and stop me," Dean growled. The sounds of the chopper were getting louder and Dean looked past Doc, trying to pick out the helicopter in the overcast sky. They'd hoped to get the search under way before daylight but Joe had been delayed and sitting around waiting was doing Dean's nerves no favors; he needed to get the search going so he didn't have to think about going up in the chopper any more. He shuffled round to open the door he had been leaning on and began the slow process of pulling himself out of the car.

From the hospital, Bobby had driven the Impala to the municipal dock where the chopper would land. Doc had followed in her own car a few minutes later. Not knowing what medical supplies would be stowed aboard the rescue helicopter, she'd stocked her own first-aid kit with as much as he could justify 'borrowing' from the hospital.

Now, both cars were parked side by side a safe distance from the heli-pad. As Dean pulled himself to standing, his wheezing turned to coughing as his lungs protested the unwelcome workout. Doc moved round to offer him a hand. Her quirked eyebrow dared him to refuse but his response was lost in the loud thudding of the rotor blades and high-pitched whine of the turbine engine as the helicopter came in for a landing.

Doc and Dean both turned their faces away, scrunching their eyes closed as the prop wash kicked up dust and an icy spray from the nearby river. As the rotors slowed, Dean lifted his head and squinted at the helicopter, seeing Bobby walking toward it, hunched over and one hand firmly holding his ball cap in place. The helicopter door opened and a tall man with a silver crew cut stepped out, extending his hand to Bobby, shaking it enthusiastically and clapping him on the shoulder. With the engine powering down, the pilot leaned in closely to hear what Bobby was yelling. He nodded as Bobby gestured in Dean's direction and the two men began walking over to where Dean and Doc were standing.

Bobby took care of the introductions. "Joe, this is Dr. Kelly Caine; Doc, Joe Patterson."

Doc smiled, shaking Joe's hand. "Thanks for helping us."

Joe nodded. "Glad I can, ma'am."

Bobby turned to Dean. "And you already know Dean."

Joe smiled. "It's been a while. You were a good deal smaller the last time I saw you." He shook Dean's hand warmly but his smile faded. "I was sorry to hear about your daddy, son. He was a good man. Stubborn as an old goat, and twice as ornery on a good day, but nobody I'd rather have at my back in the middle of a shitstorm."

"Yeah," Dean smiled, Joe's blunt manner quickly setting his at ease. "Thanks."

Joe turned to a small, wiry man who had exited from the far side of the chopper and crossed the heli-pad to join the group. "Everyone, this is Artie Knaff, my co-pilot. Artie, you know Bobby, and this is Dean and Doc Caine."

Artie nodded, offering a wide, genuine smile. "Glad, I could help. We've just got a few things to go over then we can get going."

Dean frowned. "What things?"

Joe smiled. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and guess none of you has rappelled from a helicopter before."

Dean's eyes widened. "Why the hell would we have to do that?"

Joe gestured to the woods on the far side of the river. "If your brother is lost out there somewhere, there's a good chance when we find him there'll be no place clear enough to land the chopper. If that's the case, you're gonna have to rappel down to him. We need to show you how to fasten and unfasten the safety harness so, when the time comes, we can get you down to him, and then back up into the chopper, ASAP."

He looked from Bobby to Dean. "Under normal circumstances, I'd have a full crew with me to handle this sort of thing, but Bobby said you wanted to keep this under the radar. Am I right?"

Bobby nodded. "Yeah, the fewer people who know what we're doing, the better."

Joe clapped Bobby on the shoulder. "As far as the authorities are concerned, I'm testing out some new Search and Rescue equipment. We won't be bothered. Now, let's show you how this equipment works."

Dean swallowed. This day was going from bad to worse. Not only was he going up in a helicopter, there was a good chance he'd soon be swinging from a cable beneath one. "Sam, you better be okay," he muttered to himself, "because I am so gonna kill you for making me do this."

Out loud, he said simply, "Fine. What do we need to know?"

Artie tilted his head quizzically as he took in Dean's pallid complexion and labored breathing. "You sure you're up for this, son?"

Dean glared at him. "I'm fine. Let's just do it."

Joe smiled at Bobby. "I see Johnny's stubborn gene lives on in another generation."

Bobby nodded as they walked toward the chopper. "Yeah, and wait 'til you meet Sam now he's all grown up. All the time I've known'em, still haven't decided who's the most pig-headed."

Joe and Artie quickly and efficiently showed their three passengers how the rappelling harnesses worked and how to attach it to a rescue litter if Sam was injured and couldn't move under his own steam. The next lesson showed them how to operate the two cameras mounted on gimbals on the underside of the fuselage. The cameras each offered 360-degree views of the ground, the images transmitted to monitors inside the chopper. The cameras were also equipped with thermal imaging technology, capable of picking up heat signatures almost a kilometer away. That would allow them to scan thick brush the ordinary cameras couldn't see through and, if necessary, continue the search after dark.

Bobby shook his head. "Pretty fancy set up, Joe."

Joe smiled. "Yeah, well, since I often help boys in, um, your line of work, I made a deal a few years back with one of the manufacturers. We field test new equipment, put it through its paces then provide them will a full report on how it stacks up in action." His smile widened. "We might leave out a few of its more, er, unique applications but it's a good deal for both sides."

He slapped Bobby on the shoulder as he opened the door to climb into the pilot's seat. He glanced over at Dean, taking in the worry painted clearly across the younger man's face. He smiled reassuringly. "Hey, let's go find that brother of yours."

xxxXXXxxx

Sam stared at the women in the locket. He slumped back against the tree as the shock of recognition set in. Mary's mother was the spirit who haunted the bridge; the spirit who had thrown Dean in the river and tossed his butt into the middle of nowhere.

Sam's breathing rate quickened as he turned to look at Mary. "You said your memories of your kidnapping are unclear, but what do you remember?"

Mary frowned as she tried to pull up the memories. "I remember shouting, I remember some gunfire, I remember being dragged outside and being pulled up on a horse. The last thing I heard was my mother calling my name. I think she was crying, but everything is so jumbled, so …..I am uncertain."

Sam flashed back to the images planted in his mind by the bridge spirit. They were Mary's memories. Or the memories of someone who shared her experiences; her mother.

Sam's eyes darted back and forth as the puzzle pieces fell into place. Mary's mother apparently blamed him, and all her other victims, for Mary's kidnapping and subsequent death.

He looked down at Mary's remains. He wasn't sure whether she died of exposure, the blow to the head or a combination of the two. But, whichever way you looked at it, her tormentor caused her death. Had he not hit her, had he not taken her from her home, she would not have died alone and scared in the middle of nowhere.

Sam stared at the locket in his hand and tried to reconcile the woman in the photograph it contained with the angry spirit on the bridge. They were obviously the same person but the woman who attacked him bore no trace of the warm smile so evident in the woman in the picture. Time and grief had obviously taken their toll, twisted her mother's spirit into something far different than she was in life.

As Sam glanced at Mary, he saw she was staring at the locket he held. As she looked up at Sam, her eyes glistened. "When I hid from him, I was cold, I was scared so I held on to that locket. It was like having my family with me.

She looked again at Sam, an almost embarrassed smile crossing her face. "I am sure I sound like a silly girl to you, but it gave me strength."

Sam shook his head. "It doesn't sound silly at all. It….." Sam had been staring at the locket, at the photos it contained, when he suddenly noted a feature he'd missed earlier. Under the glass, between the beveled edges of the locket that held the photo of the three Graham children, and encircling the photo, was a tiny braid.

Sam held up the locket as he turned to Mary. "The braid? Is that hair?"

Mary nodded. She smiled softly. "Yes, it is a family tradition; a few strands of baby hair from all three children, me and my brothers, woven together with some of my mother's hair. It represents a mother's life, always intertwined with her children's."

Sam's eyes widened. The locket contained a physical link to Mary's mother. Angry spirits were generally locked to one place While he wasn't sure how Mary's mother died, he'd put money on the fact it had something to do with the bridge. He rubbed his temple, willing his fuzzy mind to clear. If Mom died on the bridge, that explained why she haunted it, but not how she had been able to transport Sam miles away. The tiny braid in the locket offered a possible answer; a physical piece of her was here in the woods and that just might be enough for her to maintain a connection between the two sites.

Sam was exhausted and it was getting harder and harder to think clearly. Without the tree at his back, he doubted he had the strength to remain sitting up. He blew out a breath and again fought to find focus. On a good day, dealing with the supernatural was far from an exact science and this was anything but a good day. And something was bothering him. If Mary's mom could somehow transport him from the bridge to the middle of nowhere, could she do the same with herself?

Sam turned again to Mary. "When was the last time you saw your mother?"

Mary frowned. "I told you. When those men came and took me from my home."

Sam nodded, fighting to sort through this new information. "But you've never seen her out here?"

Mary's frown deepened. "No, of course not. If she had found me, I would no longer be here."

"No, I mean since you, um, died. You haven't seen her spirit."

Mary looked horrified at the suggestion. "Her spirit? Why…"

Sam stomach lurched, and this time not from the nausea "I'm sorry." Sam's fuzzy brain had forgotten that Mary had no idea her beloved mother was now an angry spirit who had been haunting a bridge for more than a century. "I'm just trying to..."

Sam's apology was cut off by the sound of someone barreling toward them through the brush. His head snapped to the right in time to see the lumbering form of Mary's tormenter fade into sight about 15 feet away.

His eyesight much improved since their last encounter, Sam got his first good look at the spirit of the man who caused Mary's death and continued to torment her more than 100 years later. He was a big man, similar in height to Sam but with a beefier build. His hair was long and dark and a few days worth of stubble framed a hard, cruel mouth. His eyes narrowed as he smiled coldly. His run slowed to a walk as he neared Mary, his rolling gait suggesting a life spent on horseback.

Mary stood to face him, shoulders pressed back defiantly. She returned his smile in kind and her eyes flashed angrily. She glanced at Sam, spun quickly and took off at a run, daring her tormenter to follow.

But unlike every other time over the past 130 years, this time he didn't.

He stopped right in front of Sam, his expression stony as he stared down at the man slumped against the tree. He looked from Sam to the direction in which Mary had run off then back down to Sam. But this time he was smiling – and there was nothing in the smile to like.

With no warning he leaned down, grabbed Sam by the neck and hauled him up to his feet. Sam gasped for air as the beefy hand closed tightly around his windpipe and slammed him into the tree he had been leaning against only moments earlier. Sam's vision swam and he pawed helplessly at the spectral hand that held him in place.

"I hope you're listening, missy," the spirit bellowed. "Unless you haul you pretty little behind back here by the time I count to 10, your new friend here is about to meet his maker."

A gold tooth glinted as he leaned in, his face inches from Sam. He laughed as Sam coughed and spluttered, fighting to breathe through the spirit's choking hold.

"One…..two…..

To Be Continued……..

A/N: I did it again, didn't I? It's a sickness I tell you – evilcliffieitis. Wonder if there's a cure? Thanks again to all of you following this story. You make writing it a heckuva lot of fun. Hugs and virtual cookies to those who have left comments. Please, keep it up – I have lots more hugs and cookies to share. Thanks again.