Singer's Auto Salvage, outside Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 12:24 a.m.

"Dean..." Sam started then stopped, pursing his lips. He continued, all in a rush, like he did when an idea had hit him suddenly. "Dean, what if maybe.. maybe it is? I mean, maybe it was Dad?"

"Dean ran a hand through his short hair and sighed.

"News flash there, Sammy. Dad is dead, real-live dead." He puffed out his cheeks in a sigh. "It's somethin'... it's the same thing, man. Some freaky demon trick, some, I dunno.. spirit or djinn or what the hell ever. We know it's the same thing that lured us to Illinois and all the hell over the place... just like it was screwin' with us." He reached for his coffee cup and drained the last swallow. "Dad is not gonna walk out of Hell. Trust me on that one."

The lights flickered suddenly, and Sam and Dean were instantly alert. There was a crash in the front room, wood and glass splintering and raining down on the plank floors.

Somebody was home, and it wasn't Bobby Singer.

Sam and Dean stood, rooted to the floor as if the dusty cabbage roses on the rug had twined thick vines around their boots, holding them fast. Both stared toward the hallway, but neither could or would make eye contact. Not a sound passed between them. Not a breath.

Then, the voice. Unmistakable. It boomed through the halls of Bobby Singer's house, just as it had off the thin walls of countless roach-infested motels. Just as it had over the backseat of the black Chevy. Just as it had in that remote log cabin, where they had hidden, wounded and afraid, and waited for the Yellow-Eyed Demon to find them.

"Hey, boys! Come give Daddy a hug!"

Footsteps echoed down the wooden plank flooring, coming closer. Sam finally shot a quick glance at Dean. Dean will know what to do, he thought. His big brother was always his saviour, his guardian and protector. Dean always had a plan, no matter how half-assed and haphazard.

Not this time.

"Dean?" Sam stage-whispered. When his brother failed to react he repeated "Dean!"

Dean finally tore his eyes off the doorway and looked at Sam. It was at that moment, that precise second, fraction of an instant.... Sam saw Dean again as a scared fourteen year old, facing down a furious father, standing up to accept another punishment, lying down for all the abuse their father cared to dish out.

The footsteps stopped just outside the office doorway.

"Dean?" Sam whispered once more, biting his lip, trying to will back the tears. Think, Sam! He frantically scanned the office, fists clenching and unclenching, looking for some object, some talisman, some thing... because this time, Dad was literally as mad as Hell.

1426 Mulberry Street, Bossier City, Louisiana, November 1990

"Dean?" Sammy asked plaintively, cuddling up under the ragged crocheted afghan, drawing his knees up to his chest. "I'm cold and I have to pee." He wiped his sniffly nose with the ragged flannel shirt cuff clenched around his fist. "I don't like this, it ain't camping."

Dean sighed heavily and scooted closer to his brother, scuffing up the damp earth beneath them.

"Do you really, really have to pee, or are you just bored?" he asked for the fourth time in an hour. He knew Sam didn't take well to sitting quietly.

"Gotta pee, for sure," Sammy replied, scuffing his cuff under his nose again. He managed to throw the puppy-dog glance at Dean, which though barely discernible in the gloom, was convincing enough for his brother.

"Okay," Dean said, "but you gotta remember to keep quiet. For real, dude... just to the edge and back fast, you got it?"

"'kay!" Sammy wriggled out from beneath the blanket, leaving it heaped in the dirt. He crawled to the edge, as Dean indicated, trying hard to be quiet. Settling on his knees, he unzipped his jeans. He wished he was camping; he wished they were at Yellowstone National Park, like in the nature program he saw on TV. Families camping and laughing, fishing and hiking and staying in big canvas tents with zipper doors and roaring campfires and big pots of stew and S'mores. And there would be bears; big vicious grizzly bears and black bears. Sam loved bears.

Sam wished there was a bear there now, and that the front door on their rented house was made of zippered screen, so the bear could just barge right up, slashing it open with it's huge curved claws. The bear would walk right into their house.

And the bear would eat Dad.

Sam smiled at the thought. Then it would be just him and his brother, no dad to push them around or hit them or make them move away from schools they liked.

Sam zipped his pants and crawled back on his hands and knees to where his brother waited. They sat close, conserving body heat, and Dean draped the blanket over their knees, pulling it up beneath Sam's chin.

They sat like this, in the crawlspace underneath the screened porch of the old house in Bossier City, for the next four hours. In a while, Dad would stumble out of the house, throw a bag and a bottle of Jack into the backseat of the Chevy and head to Oklahoma on his next hunt. When he was safely gone, the boys could go back inside, out of the chilly November night air. Until then, Dean daydreamed about the cute blonde cheerleader in his home room class.

Sam dozed and dreamed of bears.