Warning: Character Death

Sam fidgeted awkwardly, tugging at the brisk fabric of his freshly purchased suit. "Refresh me on who we are again?" he asked, shooting his brother a questioning look.

"John McCartney and Paul Lennon," Dean replied, adjusting his own tie. "We're pre-law students from the University of Ohio. Bobby found someone to fix us up some transcripts, and any calls made from any police station in Kentucky to the school will re-route straight to his phone. Gotta love Ash for things like that," he said, grinning. "We're here on an independent study project to interview incarcerated people before their trials, and Winchester was one of the ones we picked. Got a note from the Dean of Students explaining our project in case anyone asks." He pulled out an official looking letter, emailed to Dean's computer that morning, the forged signature identical to the Dean's real mark. "You're Paul, I'm John. Have a driver's license," he added, tossing a small plastic card to Sam, who caught it effortlessly. "All set and ready to go?" he asked, jamming his hands into his suit pockets.

"Don't wreck your suit," Sam replied. He was nervous, as much as he hated to admit it. It was no big deal if it was a bust; he had been a pre-law student, after all, and he could fake a legitimate pre-law project proposal in his sleep, but if the man they were there to see was actually his father… Well, the last time he had seen the man, he had nearly ended up dead. Sam would be lying if he said that did not put a damper on his enthusiasm to see the man face to face.

"All right, then. Let's hit the road!" Dean grabbed the keys to the Impala from the small bedside table in the hotel room—an actual hotel, more fitting for a pair of college students with parents to pay their tuition, the two had decided. They'd make the money up somehow—Sam was voting for more murder and burning, although Dean was strangely resistant to that idea.

The hotel was not far from the prison in which Winchester was being held. Sam gritted his teeth as they were searched, making a mental note to come back and slaughter the security guards at his first opportunity. The only people who got to touch him were family and paying customers—it did not matter that the once-over was purely business-like and just a part of the man's job; his touch was still offensive and irritating to Sam.

The warden, a short, tough looking woman, asked them surprisingly few questions before directing them to a visiting room, all bullet-proof glass and dented black corded phones. "We'll have him out in a couple of minutes," was all she said, before retreating and leaving the two alone, sitting awkwardly on stools, and waiting for the prisoner to emerge. Sam clenched his hands. Please don't be Dad, please don't be Dad, please don't be Dad he chanted in his head, grinding his teeth together slightly with impatience.

He seemed shrunken, uncharacteristically cowed as a guard led him out, but the Winchester in question was most definitely their father. He heard Dean inhale sharply through his teeth, and kicked him lightly. "Mister Winchester?" he said, doing his best to keep his voice strictly professional, and if he wavered a bit, well, as far as the guards knew, he was a pampered college student here to interview the first criminal he had ever met. "My name is Paul Lennon, and this is my project partner, John McCartney. We're here to ask you some questions for a project."

John Winchester looked up, his eyes flashing in recognition. He studied Sam's face, and then Dean's, a delighted look crossing his tough features. "Well, well, well. Law students, I presume?" he asked, shooting Sam a knowing look.

Sam was surprised to realize that he wanted to laugh at the recognition. Seeing his father was far less painful than he had thought it would be. "Yes. We're working on a project, if you could answer some questions for us?" The whole thing was ridiculous, but Sam knew that they could not risk talking openly to the man.

"Yeah, yeah, sure kid. What do you guys want to know?" John asked flippantly, ever the perfect actor of apathy.

Dean butted in. "Well, for starters, you're here on charges of a double homicide. Are you pleading innocent or guilty, or insanity at your trial?"

John snorted, rolling his eyes indignantly. "Kid, I'm not going to trial. I'm not sitting through some pansy university judge telling me I did wrong and I need to die for my crimes. I'm going to go out on my own terms, straight enough answer for you?"

Sam swallowed hard, reminding himself to keep it impersonal just in case anyone was watching. "Right, well, if you do make it to trial, what are you going to plead?" he asked, keeping his voice as neutral and calm as possible. He clenched his hands under the table; his father was not going to commit suicide, not on his watch.

John laughed, a sharp bark of a noise. "Guilty, son," he said, spreading his arms wide, carelessly. "Guilty as the devil himself. I've got nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. So I took a couple of bastards out; who hasn't wanted to do that from time to time?" He leaned forward, carefully meeting first Sam's eyes, and then Dean's. "Of course, I've always wanted to go out with a bang, so nothing would make me happier than to see the whole prison go boom with me. But I guess that's not going to happen. Not like I'll have a couple of kids who know how to make bombs march in here and take my last wishes to heart."

Sam swallowed hard. "Yes, that would be rather unrealistic, Mr. Winchester," he said, nodding imperceptibly. Dean shot him a horrified look, to which Sam replied by kicking him again. "All right, well, you said that you wanted to kill your victims. Why? Did they provoke you?"

"Provoke, exist, same thing," John replied, leaning back, noticeably more relaxed now. "Out there being a happy little friend set, walking a dog and gossiping, makes me sick just to think about it. Other people, they think the world is nice and shiny, all dogs and friends and giggling over some jackass at work making a fool of himself asking some chick out. I just taught them that the world isn't so happy and shiny, and now they know."

Dean nodded carefully. "So, um, have you always wanted to kill happy people?" he asked, clearly scrabbling to think up a question. Sam sighed; his brother could have phrased it worse, at least.

John laughed, clearly finding the situation amusing. Sam would have too, were it not for the request his father had made of them. "Boy, I've been killing since you were in pull-ups," he chuckled, grinning at his oldest son. "I've never regretted a single kill, not one. Took my whore wife out first, and never looked back. Skanky bitch had the audacity to have another guy over while I was in the house with my kids; looks like even when you think you're happy you're being stabbed in the back." John leaned forward again, smirking. "You got the info you need?" he asked, staring into Dean's eyes.

Dean swallowed hard. Sam knew that convincing him to comply with their father's wishes was going to be a job and a half. "Yes sir," he said, rising from the chair and throwing his father one last pleading look.

John waved at them. "Bye-bye you two! Guess I'll be saying hi to my boys from the afterlife pretty soon, so I'm glad you came when you did." He winked at the two of them, before turning and heading to the door at the back of the room, banging on it. Without the phones, Sam could not hear what he was saying, but if he knew his father, it was laced with profanities and insults directed at the guard outside.

Sam and Dean were silent as they walked back to the car. Wordlessly, Sam slipped the keys from his brother's hand, motioning him towards the passenger seat. Surprisingly, Dean did not protest, slipping in to the car and sitting quietly, face blank and pale.

"Dean, you know we have to do this," Sam said once they were safely on the road. "Dad doesn't want to go to trial; he said so himself. At least this way he gets to go out in a blaze of glory instead of hanging himself in his cell like some kind of haunted man."

"Shut it, Sam," Dean replied tersely, face grim. "I'm having enough trouble wrapping my head around this without you preaching at me."

Sam considered answering him with something scathing, but elected to keep his mouth shut. He could not blame his brother; Dean had always been their father's perfect little soldier, ready to kill and steal and cover tracks at the slightest command, never deviating from their father's plan. If Sam had to guess, he would bet that the search for their Dad was the first trip Dean had taken without the man, and now they would never travel together again. Sam, on the other hand, was sorry that his father was about to die, but knew damn well that he could take care of himself without the man. He had done so for the past four years, after all.

Sam pulled off onto a side road and followed it until he reached a field next to a patch of woods. "Seems like a decent place to work," he said. "I don't trust the hotel room."

Dean nodded grimly and hauled himself out of the Impala. Sam pulled open the trunk and began digging, looking for anything that he could think of to make explosives. "Well, it's not going to be easy to take the whole prison out, but we should have enough if we work smart," he determined finally, running a hand through his shaggy brown hair.

"Do you think there's any way to take out most of the prison but leave Dad's cell block?" Dean demanded, staring past the explosive materials scattered on the floor by the trees. "We could get him out, get him a new identity, maybe some plastic surgery so he won't be recognized—"

"Dean," Sam said firmly, cutting him off. "His fingerprints are on file. They have his DNA. We bust him out, it's only a matter of time before the cops find him again, and us with him. We don't have the resources to get him out of the country, so that's not an option. Even if we did, all his connections are here, and he'd just get himself arrested again."

"Jesus Sam, are you even going to try to save him?" Dean exploded, picking up a piece of pipe and hurling it at Sam, who ducked, letting the projectile soar harmlessly past his head.

"No," Sam replied coldly, kneeling down to start sorting out the materials they had. God, this was so screwed up. He had not even considered the possibility that their father might not want to be rescued, when they found him. "Dad made his wishes clear. You're the one who always said to listen to him no matter what, now shut up and listen. We are taking the whole place out, Dad with it, and I don't want to hear you bitching anymore about it, get me?"

"You—"

Sam rose, stretching to his full height so that he towered over his brother. He walked over to him, calmly, coldly, hands shaking with the urge to grab his brother by the throat and squeeze until he begged. He reached out and grabbed his jacket instead, yanking Dean forward until their chests were almost touching. "Do. You. Get. Me?" he asked, staring down at his older brother, whose face slackened, reacting to the familiar tactic.

"I get you," he mumbled, refusing to meet Sam's eyes. Satisfied, Sam released his hold on Dean's jacket and turned his attention back to the pile of soon to be explosives.

"Then let's get busy. We're going to make Dad's death one the country will never forget."

0o0o0o0o0

The streets were dark, quiet, and deserted as Sam and Dean drove up quietly, parking far enough away from the prison that the car would not be seen, but close enough that they could detonate the bombs from the safety of the Impala, eliminating risks to themselves. "This had better work," Dean muttered, shouldering a heavy backpack stuffed with explosives and as much C4 as they had been able to lift from a nearby demolition site, carefully stalking the place until the workers went on break. "If we get caught or someone calls a bomb squad in time—"

"Don't think about it," as Sam's answer. Dean scowled at his brother, annoyed with his nonchalance. He followed Sam to the back fence of the prison. "You be ready to shoot the guards if they see me," he ordered, pulling two strips of leather out of his pocket and wrapping his hands tightly. He rubbed them together and jumped a few times, loosening his muscles. "All right," he said, eyeing the ten foot tall chain-link fence, topped with particularly nasty looking barbed wire. "If I get this done without getting caught, I'm shooting the guards and going out the front gate," he muttered, glaring at the obstacle. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for pain. "All right. Give me a boost," he ordered, lifting his leg demandingly.

Sam cupped his hands under Dean's boot and lifted as Dean jumped. Dean reached out and grabbed, barbed wire biting through the protective leather of his hand-wraps. "Son of a bitch!" Dean cursed, vaulting over the fence and releasing his grip in record time. He landed none too lightly on the dusty ground of the prison yard caught the second bag of C4 that Sam threw at him, grunting at the impact. He bolted, dashing to the building for cover, just in case the guards had heard him. He was going to have to work quickly.

Dean made it halfway around the building before he heard the tromp of boots behind him. He froze for a second, and the spun around, wrenching his gun out of its holster as he did so. "Howdy, officer," he said with a smile, pulling the trigger before the man could reach his.

Well, they definitely knew someone was here by now. Dean worked as quickly as he could, sweat beading around his forehead as he stuck the C4 and home-made bombs in as hidden of locations as he could find. It was a good thing that they looked like junk, and that the guards would probably be looking for him and not explosives, but it was still troubling—if they found the bombs, the whole operation was off. He planted the last one around the perimeter and bolted, sprinting towards the gate, pulling out his phone and speed-dialing Sam. "No time to get to the car. Blow it!" he shouted.

"Dean, you'll—"

"No names! And now!" he ordered, rushing at the closing gates. Two shots went off and the guards dropped; Dean mentally thanked Sam, breezing through the half-shut gates and tearing around the corner towards the parked car.

He was far enough away that the heat from the explosion did not hit him, but he still staggered as the ground beneath him rolled from the impact. Only two blocks—

Sam pulled the car around so fast that he nearly hit Dean. "Get in!" he shouted, flinging open the passenger door. Dean leapt in and slammed the door shut, turning around to look at his handiwork as soon as the door was closed.

Sam was driving too fast for him to get a good look, but the glimpse he caught was beautiful. Dean could not have set up a better chain reaction if he had had all the time and materials in the world, and an empty building to work with. The entire prison had collapsed in on itself, and fires burned in several places, sending smoke pluming into the sky. "No way anyone survived that," he breathed, mentally patting himself on the back. "How did you manage to shoot the guards and blow the place so quickly?" he asked, staring at his brother in wonder.

"I brought the car around when I heard the first shot," Sam said, shrugging. "Figured the jig was up and you'd have a better chance of getting out alive if I had the car ready and waiting. Glad I did too. It would have sucked to lose you as well as Dad in there.

That counted for affection amongst the Winchesters. "Aw, Sammy, you're breaking my heart with your sweetness," Dean cooed dramatically, throwing himself across the seat at his brother, making Sam swerve into the mercifully empty lane beside them.

"I'll break it with my gun if you don't get off me!" he shouted, shoving Dean away with one arm, but the shine of affection in his eyes betrayed his words. "Okay, on a serious note, we're not stopping until we can get to Bobby's and have some new registration records drawn up to match our new license plates. I'm not taking any chances with this. Rest up, Dean, you've got the next driving shift."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean grumbled, leaning back the passenger seat until it was nearly flat. Don't think about how you just killed Dad. "Wake me when you get tired and pissy, okay princess?"

"Fuck you."

That drew a small smile from Dean. He shoved his jacket under his head and curled up, letting the familiar motion of the Impala slowly lull him to sleep.

0o0o0o0o0

Jimmy was almost asleep when he got the call. He bolted to his feet, away from semi-dreams of a strange looking man who called him 'Castiel' and touched his forehead. He hated that dream; it was a recurring vision that always made him feel dreadfully trapped and uncomfortable in his own skin. Shaking his head, trying to slough off the feeling, he picked up his phone. "Henriksen?" he asked blearily. "What happened?"

"Looks like you were right, Novak." Henriksen's tense voice rapped out loudly from the speaker. Castiel winced and moved the phone slightly away from his ear. "Either that or we've got a hell of a lot of strange coincidences going on. A prison in west Kentucky just blew up, and our guys found traces of C4 all around the site."

Jimmy grabbed his coat off the floor beside his bed and pulled it on over his pajamas. "We get the call?" he demanded, jamming his bare feet into his work shoes by the door.

"Yeah, we got the call all right. Whoever did this was going for the kill. No survivors," his partner said, voice grim, "not even the prisoners. Hell, half of them aren't even going to be identifiable by their dental records, that's how bad this set-up was."

"I don't understand," Jimmy said, sprinting down the stairs to the bottom floor of his house, stopping to grab the ready-bag he always kept packed by the door. "Why would they make the effort to sneak into the prison if they were just going to blow it up?"

"Leave that to the behaviorists, Novak," Henriksen advised. "Personally, I don't give a damn why this guy did it, just that he did it, and a lot of people are dead." He exhaled loudly; Jimmy ignored the annoying noise, tossing his bag into his work car and climbing in. "I'll meet you at headquarters and brief you before we head out, but from what I understand there's not much to tell. If these are the guys you heard a few days ago, they're damn good. If it's not, I want to know what the hell is so interesting about Kentucky's prisons."

"You and me both," Jimmy replied, backing out of his driveway as quickly as he dared and turning on the emergency lights of his car. He sped out of the neighborhood, headed straight for the city, driving faster than he thought he had ever driven before. It still felt so slow. What happened to being able to zip in and out of places at the speed of light?

Jimmy frowned as he realized where his mind was. He could not allow himself to be taunted by the fancies and delusions that lingered at the back of his mind. He supposed he must have been a rather imaginative person before whatever had brought on his amnesia, for all the thoughts that constantly came to the forefront of his mind, unbidden. He shoved the idea down and focused on driving, surpassing the speed limit by a reckless percentage.

It still would have been faster to fly.

0o0o0o0o0

"So here's what we've got, the whole folder of it." Henriksen slapped a single, lonely folder onto the table, scowling in disgust at the lack of information. "We've got a list of prisoners, a list of guards on duty, a record of everyone who visited or was in the prison in the last ten years, and not much else. A demolitions crew in the area just happened to lose their C4 the night of the explosion, so we'll look into people on the crew as well. They've got the remains of the explosives used to set off the C4 in the office in Kentucky, and some of their analysts are confirming that it did come from the demo crew, but apart from that, we've got jack-squat." Henriksen glanced up at Jimmy. "Looks like this is gonna be nothing but one long grind. Our flight leaves in an hour if you want to get familiar with the names."

"Yes, that sounds like a good plan," Jimmy answered, sitting down and picking up the file. It really was scant on information. It took him much less than an hour to make his way down each list, retaining as much of the information as he could in his head. "Have you spoken to the police about where we should start when we get there?" he asked, cocking his head at Henriksen curiously.

"Yeah, they're taking care of making the rounds of the surrounding neighborhoods. They want us to start tracking down the visitors, starting with the most recent, and question them. Guess they want us to hit the friends and families of the deceased as well, see if they had any smart-cookie enemies who could have pulled off a stunt like this." Jimmy nodded; it was about what he had expected. "My guess is that if someone was after a prisoner or a guard, they'd be a new inmate or a recent hire, otherwise this would have happened already," Henriksen continued, shaking his head. "You know, I've handled explosions before, but nothing on this scale, not yet. Whoever did this—it wasn't their first time blowing up a building, I'll bet."

"Well, we can't know that for certain," Jimmy replied practically, closing the folder of names. "We should wait outside for the plane. There's really not much else to do in here."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Henriksen agreed, picking his jacket up off of the chair where he had tossed it. "Let's go meet the plane, and sleep on it. We're going to be up to our ears in questionings and paperwork once we get out there."

Jimmy silently picked up his emergency bag and lead the way outside, climbing into the backseat of the car prepared to take the two of them to the runway. He knew this case was important; if the perpetrator had blown up a prison, who knew what else he or she was capable of doing?

Still, Jimmy could not shake the feeling inside him that screamed that this was a terrible plan, to run and hide and never look back. He hoped that he and Henriksen could be helpful to the investigation, but a small, cowardly part of him hoped that he would not have to meet the perpetrators face to face. There was a niggling sense in the back of his brain, one that told him that a run-in with the perpetrators would leave him begging for death.