Rehearsal had been called for the day and Dean and Brad took off at a run. They had to move fast if the were going to get to talk to Graham before his parents came to take him home, where ever that was.

"So have you done this before? You know, interviewing someone with ghost problems?" Brad asked as he settled into the passenger's seat of the Impala.

"Ghost problems, poltergeist problems, spirit problems, once a werewolf problem." Dean said. "Demon problems, we don't specialize. We just...do it. Besides, the kid just tried to off himself, maybe he'd like some visitors."

"No kidding." Brad said. "I think most people are avoiding the whole situation. Too many of us have been here for the suicides. It' s a lot easier to deal with knowing that it's not some hidden stress. I mean we have had people here investigating everything. Social workers, police officers, military shrinks. The students are tired of dealing with it really."

"Don't blame you. Here's hoping we can just get it dealt with now once and for all." Dean said as he pulled up to the hospital and found out what ward Graham was on. "Hey." He said when they came in. "How are you feeling?"

"Like a jerk." He grumbled but smiled a little. "Thanks by the way...for...you know." He told them as they entered. He didn't really understand what had happened. One minute he had been going over his lines back stage waiting on rehearsal to start, the next he had been so tired of it all, so miserable and unhappy that he couldn't bear the pain of taking one more breath. He had wanted to die. Really die.

"No problem." Dean said as he sat down. "You want to talk about it? I mean, that was pretty scary."

He explained it as best he could. "I don't really want to die." He said, hoping they would believe him. "No one here believes me. Can't blame them, I guess. But... sometimes at the school I would...I don't know... get the blues or something. But I never even thought about it until the other day. I mean... one minute everything was fine, other than not being able to remember my lines, and the next I'm jumping from the rafters with a noose around my neck."

"I believe you." Dean said as he took a photo out of his pocket. "You ever see this girl before?" He asked, showing him the picture from the yearbook.

"Yeah... I think she is one of the girls in the play. I saw her in the theater a few times. Once out in the woods, but I don't think she was one of the girls meeting anyone."

Woods. Dean filed that away for future investigation. Was as good a clue as any, really. "I really gotta try those woods sometime." He said with a grin. "So no thoughts on why you did this? You said you were fine, then not."

"I just... " He sighed. "Okay so I had been cheating on exams and got caught. I talked the instructor out of calling my parents but I ... I couldn't stop thinking about it. I mean... I would be okay and it would be out of my mind, I was spending most of my time studying for the make up test but... there would be times that it wouldn't go away. It was like someone was breathing down my neck about it. And I would get... caught up in it, you know... like it was the end of the world and it would just be better if I wasn't there."

So that's how the ghost was doing it. Playing on guilt. His thoughts immediately turned toward his father, but he shook it off for now.

"Well, I hope you know better now." Dean said. "World's a better place with a lot of living people in it. Especially when they let go of some guilt. You cheated. You got caught. It's over."

"Yeah I guess it is." Graham said with a nod. "But really... I didn't...ah... well... you know." He sighed. Winchester had said he believed him. And he just had to let himself believe that.

"And don't worry about the play. Dean's got it covered. He can even remember the lines... most of the time. "

"Are you kidding? That's the one thing I won't miss about school here. The plays every year."

"Oh come on. I bet I can sweet talk a shrink here so you can come back for opening night. Really, it's no sacrifice on my part." Dean said, half joking.

"Listen to this guy." Brad teased. "He loves it. Really. Don't listen to Dean. He's just willing to do what it takes to make you happy no matter how much he loves standing up there on stage looking like a geeky mama's boy next to me, that's all."

"I don't look like a geek next to anybody." Dean said with a laugh. "But fine, guess I'm stuck."

"Yeah but did you note he didn't argue about the whole mama's boy thing?" Brad said and finally got Graham to actually laugh. He had experience in this, getting depressed kids in a hospital bed to laugh. Sometimes it took over the top behavior, sometimes it just took teasing someone else for the kid's benefit, but usually it worked. He smiled, hearing Graham laugh. One mission accomplished anyway.

"Of course you two are going to mock me. He likes this stuff, and you got out of it!" Dean said with a laugh. "Nice, feeling the support here, fellas."

"Look at it this way... it's your senior year... you're new in a military school. If this is the worst embarrassment you have to experience this year... you're doing good." Brad pointed out. "I mean, if you want to appreciate the theater more we could arrange for a more traditional hazing to go on, but I think people figured if the meek and retiring one of your family can kick the class bully's ass without thinking about it maybe they should leave you alone...I mean, we can fix that for you. No problem, anything for a friend, after all."

"Oh thanks." Dean said. "I'm feeling loved already."

"Man, you better do that part justice. I mean, I had that part first; you're just an understudy. I'll have to kick your ass if you mess it up." Graham said.

"You can try." Dean said.

"See... you can't let him down Dean. How can you not respect the wishes of a man in a hospital bed? I mean...it's not like he's an annoying little brother or something." He could tease like that around Dean. They each knew and understood each other on the subject of little brothers. They were the bane of their existence, the most annoying creatures in the world, and no one had better even look at them cross-eyed because they were the center of their older brother's universe. By choice. No matter what the parents or little brothers thought.

"Ooh guilt factor." Dean said with a laugh. "Fine, I won't screw up too badly. Besides the chick playing the girlfriend is hot."

"Yeah she is. I had been planning to ask her to the ball, but not gonna make the ball this year. Gonna have to fight my parents to come back here at all." Graham said.

"Changing schools isn't so bad." Dean assured Graham. "I do it all the time."

"I got into trouble at my last three schools. Big time trouble, it's why I didn't want my parents to find out I had been cheating. This is the only one that I have been able to ... make work. I like it here."

"Yeah, it's not so bad." Dean allowed. "Okay, well, I'm sure you'll be back. It was just an accident."

"That's what I am trying to convince my parents of. They think someone was bullying me. Me.... bullied? Not even. Not since I was a newbie. " Graham frowned. "I'll be okay. Mom will freak but Dad will cave. I think he likes the quiet." He said with a genuine laugh.

Dean chuckled. "I know what that's like, my father lives in solitude, even when we're right there."

"Must be a military thing." Brad said.

"I think so." Graham said. "Besides it makes them think their boys are going to grow up into men... by military standards. So how is yours taking the fact that you are gonna be all girly and get a job on Broadway?"

"Oh... oh that hurt." Brad said grabbing at his gut melodramatically and leaning forward on the bed, once more making Graham laugh. "Nah he thinks it's a phase and blames my mother. Jimmy is going to be a career military man, me... don't know if I will wind up on Broadway or not, but definitely not going to join the Marine Corps."

Dean laughed. There was no military in his future. Just hunting. What he did right now, but without the bothersome homework. "I got months till graduation, plenty of time. Still won't be seeing me on Broadway though."

"Too bad. You've got talent, you know. If you didn't, you would be doing something with sets or lighting." Brad pointed out.

"Don't remind me. I tried to get into props." Dean said with a roll of his eyes as a nurse came in and looked at them pointedly. "We'll try to see you later, Graham." He said. Visiting hours were over.

"Take care, man. Keep in touch when they take you home." Brad said as he got up and started out into the hallway.

"Okay, well we got a little more than we had." Dean said. "We should check out the woods, see what we can find, other than illicit hook ups." He said once they got to the elevator.

"Maybe this was all about an illicit hook up gone wrong." Brad suggested. "Not sure why it would be three specific people that she targets every year... that's the part that confuses me. It makes no sense."

"I don't know. Illicit hook up gone wrong that resulted in gang rape?" Dean offered, disgusted with the idea. If a girl didn't want to have anything to do with you, then go find a girl that did! How hard was that?

"That's possible. Especially if she was lower class. I know my dad still has weird ideas about who is and isn't okay to associate with outside of school. Back in the 60s it was worse. They wouldn't have thought of her as well...worth much. She was there on sufferance. Who was she going to tell? The local law enforcement would have blown it off as boys being boys and a girl off in the woods asking for it."

"We don't know what happened. Drama kid, science club kid and gym teacher. That's all we know. Gym teacher for the years she was at the girls' school died of cancer like ten years ago, so we can't count on him to tell us anything."

"And I suppose you guys are already looking at alumni from Science and Drama club...but why suicide? I mean... she can move things, why not kill them out right? That has to play into it some how, doesn't it? Sorry, I know all I know of ghosts is what I see in movies and John Saul novels but it just makes sense to me."

"She wants them to suffer first." Dean said, thoughtfully. "You heard what Graham said. He was okay, then he was being pounded by thoughts about how he wasn't good enough and all that."

"Hazing gone wrong?" He suggested then. "Or maybe just a group of social bigots took things too far." He frowned. "I guess this means she died somewhere on the school grounds, doesn't it... how though... suicide, homicide, accident... and the disappearance means she wasn't turned over to be buried so she was either never found, or hidden because there were too many questions... "

"Those woods are crawling with kids all the time. So she's gotta be buried there." Dean said. "Not too shallow, would have been uncovered by animals by now and long gone...which won't do us any good. But they would have found some tracewe should head over to the police department, see the missing report, see if anything ever came up in the woods."

"The police? They aren't gonna talk to a couple of students. Seniors or not, they think of us as just kids. " Brad pointed out.

Dean grinned. "Who said we're going to talk to the police?" He said. "I just said we should head over to the police department."

"You mean we're gonna go break in. You do realize that the place never shuts down right... might not be exactly crawling with cops in a town this size, but it's definitely not empty."

"I'm good." Dean said. "I am the bane of every cop. Trust me, we'll be in and out."

"Well, that will look good on my shiny new rap sheet. He said 'we would just be in and out'." Brad said, shaking his head "What the hell, what's it going to do, piss my Dad off? Can't bug him anymore than the musical does. At least getting arrested is a manly thing to do."

"There ya go." Dean said with a laugh. "Earn your man card through felonies. It's the American way after all! Come on, you can wait in the car and I'll see what I can find. Need a wheel man anyway in case things go south."

"I had to fall into a bad crowd eventually." He said. "And you are actually going to let me drive your car?"

"Yeah, around the corner to an alley I'm going to show you." Dean said with a laugh. "Definitely not a joyride. More like just moving parking spaces. Sam's been doing that since he was ten."

"Sounds like you two have an exciting life. I bet you wish it was less exciting sometimes." Brad said. "Driving at an early age, sneaking into police stations, chasing down ghosts."

"Hey, it beats band camp." Dean said with a laugh. "It's...different. Sam has more of a problem with it than I do, but that's all right. He's just going through a difficult stage I think."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but… Sam is always going to be going through a difficult stage." Brad said, not in a mean way. "He…looks like he has a lot to carry around on those scrawny shoulders. Gotta be a lot for a 13 year old. I don't care who you are."

"He'll figure out his way." Dean said. "It's just a weird year. He really wasn't happy coming here and having to cut his hair, let me tell you. I remember when I was thirteen; every day I thought the world was going to end. Not from monsters, or demons, but because I had a pimple. Or I hadn't grown yet. Or anything. It's called hormones, dude."

"When I was 13, that was the year we found out Jimmy was sick." Brad said. "It wasn't a normal 13 for me. Guess I don't identify much. I hope you're right though. That he'll sort it out. Especially with that ghost playing with people's heads like she's doing."

"I was thirteen when Sam started to figure out our dad wasn't like all the other dads. He was nine." Dean said. "Then again, when your nine year old son says he's afraid of the thing in his closet, and you give the kid a .45, that's tipping your hand."

"Yeah I guess it is." Brad said. "Gotta imagine that was harsh. Who knows what normal really is? I don't think 13 comes in normal. Starting to think nothing does, really. That normal is sticking your head in the sand and letting it all pass you by."

"Last normal moment of my life is my mom tucking me in. Next thing I know, the house is on fire, my mom is dead, and I'm carrying Sam outside. I was four." He said as he pulled into an alley. "Okay, that window looks easy to get to." He said, surveying the building.

"Right, okay… so going in that window… coming out the same way… and I am here to be ready to drive off if you come out with company… right?"

"Now you got it." Dean said as he reached into the backseat for his bag, and found a lock pick, a window cutter, a smaller bag and a flashlight. "It's not so hard. Good thing I'm not afraid of heights. Be back in a few." He said as he got out and climbed on top the large garbage unit and started scaling the wall.

Brad moved over into the driver's seat and watched Dean. He was nervous. Scared really. He had never done anything illegal before in his life, and some how being the wheel man for a guy breaking into the police station seemed like a really … really… intense way to start his life of crime.

Dean made it up the wall and jimmied the window open, slipping in. He found an evacuation chart and found the file room, where the cold cases would be kept. Barely managing to evade detection, he broke in there and flipped through the files, guided only by his flashlight, until he found the girl's file. That was one he had to have.

"Come on, come on." Dean said as he found a map that detailed the 'high crime' areas. The woods were a definite party spot, lots of underage drinking there. He took a few incident reports from those years and headed back down the wall, the files clenched in his teeth. "Move over." He said to Brad. "Free and clear, I can drive. This is all they've got though." He said, tossing the files to Brad.

"Let's go get a burger and look over this stuff." He suggested. He wasn't in any hurry to get back the school. Mostly because Dean and his family would continue working on this even then, and he would be in his dorm room, staring at the ceiling and wondering whom it was coming for next. Better to be a part of it.

"B&E always makes me hungry." Dean agreed as he drove to the burger joint. They grabbed a table and went through the files. "Well, missing persons report was filed. But nothing else. Fifteen years later, they had her declared dead."

"Okay so we know when she was seen last…" he said, "and apparently that was at the military ball." Brad stated. "So chances are she at the very least died on base. But why the suicide? Obviously she can move things, so killing directly shouldn't be a problem for her. "

"Because she wants them to suffer." He said and pulled more files out. Police were automatically called for suspicious deaths, even if they were down played later. So he spread out the photos of the various suicides that he'd found. "She wants them to suffer because they somehow made her suffer. Even in life, or they're symbolic for the ones that made her unable to move on."

"Okay so the one definite we have is the gym teacher. But that was ages ago. He's probably dead by now." Brad said. "Not sure how we are going to track down her body, cause she obviously isn't interested in everyone just getting along."

"Gym teacher died ten years ago of cancer. He was the first one I looked for." Dean said. "She's bound to the school, so she died somewhere there. And since the deaths didn't start till the year after, and they've kept happening, I think the kids in the clubs were seniors."

"Makes sense. Okay… so say some chick died at the school and we were bone headed enough to want to hide the body… which means she had to have died in some way that would be hard to explain. Some freakish accident or murder… where would we hide it. I mean yeah, the woods are a logical spot except for two things…one it's hard to dig deep enough out there to bury a body so that it would stay buried without seriously disturbing things so it would be noticeable, and two how many panicking kids do you know that would have the patience to do it in the first place?"

"Good points." Dean said. "Maybe the woods only figure into it because it was a meeting spot for our girl and her guy. Rumor is she had a boyfriend over in the military school." He said as he ate the food. "So where would he bury her? Sports fields? The track? Basement?"

"I guess that depends on what the grounds looked like back then. You would want some place soft enough that you could dig a hole fast enough that none of the teachers would spot you. The night of a big dance they would be all over the place trying to keep the kids from making out. "

Dean's eyes lit up. "Which is where the gym teacher comes in." He said. "He had to help them with something. Makes sense."

"Which means it was some where in the sports department. Under the risers, under the sod, maybe under the track before the paving was done." He said. "It sort of narrows it down. At least we can be fairly sure she isn't in the walls then."

"Which is great, because I don't think we'd get away with checking the walls on a large scale." Dean said. "If we find out what happened to her, that would be even better."

"Yeah but how do we do that? Is there any way to make them talk to you instead of throwing sand bags at you?" He asked.

"We find out who did it to her, and interrogate them." Dean said. "Break out the rubber hoses and everything."

"Great… any idea who we need to interrogate first? Cause I am freakin' clueless." Brad said with a chuckle. "Don't suppose anything like they have in the movies would work, you know séances, Ouija boards… I don't know… that thing they do with the tape recorders…"

Dean looked thoughtful. "You might be on to something." He said. "Séances are out, we're not psychic. Unless you haven't told me something." He teased. "Ouija boards, some EVPgotta be careful with that stuff though. And the EVP, I don't know where we'd start for that. We could start at the football field, toss a ball around while we let the tape recorder do its job."

"That's a start. Who knows what it will pick up? Of course with our luck, she will get pissed and throw it at us." He said as he finished his dinner.

"Hopefully she throws like a girl then." Dean said. "I want to watch Sam on the football field anyway. This way, I can pass it off as work and not big brother spying."

"Yeah, let me know if that works. Somehow I don't think Sam is going to buy it any more than Jimmy would." Brad said.

"You've seen my brother. He's little." Dean said. "He could kick the ass of anyone on that team, but I'm not sure he's football material, so I gotta watch out for him. Tell him he's doing great even if he's not."

"Yeah I know how that goes. " Brad told him. "You aren't gonna know what to do when he grows up, are you?" He said with a chuckle.

"Sure I am. Look out for him anyway." Dean said with a grin as they got back into the car and headed to the football field. "Besides, it's research anyway. And better yet, doesn't the girls' school use the field for cheerleading practice?"

"Now you have my attention." Brad said with a grin. "Just remember, it's not kosher to beat up the football players that tackle Sam. Unless they are on the townies' team."

Dean laughed. "Luckily I'm not Jewish so I don't have to obey kosher." He said. "The football players have more to worry about from Sam if they take a cheap shot."

Brad laughed. "Yeah Jimmy told me about how he dealt with the freshman class bully." He shook his head "Too bad you two weren't here a few years earlier. Life would have been a hell of a lot more interesting."

"Was it really boring a few years ago?" Dean asked with a grin. Interesting usually followed Winchesters. Or they followed interesting. Either way.

"I didn't know what I was seeing a few years ago."

"Sorry I lifted the veil." Dean said as he drove and pulled dup to the football field. "I think everyone would prefer that their veil was still intact. Sometimes I know I would."

"I don't know... I don't like the idea of all this going on around me and me not knowing about it. Don't have plans to take up hunting as a profession, but I sure as hell want to know if something is going on."

"I can understand that." Dean said. "And hunting doesn't pay, so that's why high school guidance counselors never mention it." He said as they got to the bleachers and took a seat. Dean was watching the practice, sure, but he was also looking over the lay of the land, seeing if any of it had been disturbed more than the others.

"Don't suppose there is any way to make a ghost go to its body. Would sure make this a whole lot easier."

"It would." Dean agreed with Brad. "I'll ask Dad, but none that I know off hand. There might be. Of course, this is one violent ghost, so summoning her would be tricky on its own."

"That is one pissed off girl." Brad said. "Someone had to have done something terrible to her. "

Sam was miserable. He hated football, much preferred soccer. Soccer he was good at. Soccer he actually enjoyed. He did okay at football. But he wasn't really trying. He wanted kicked off the team- but it wouldn't happen. His father was using this to punish him, Sam was sure.

"Winchester!" The coach snapped at Sam. "Up on the line!" And started calling out various things he wanted Sam to do, ignoring the boy's decided lack of enthusiasm.

Sam glared at the man, and wished for all the world that he were anywhere but school in that moment, any other place he could yell at his father and be a jerk about it but not here. Not on the job. Never on the job. All he could do was say, "Yes sir" in such a way that it implied anything but enthusiastic respect.

John shook his head. Why was Sam being so difficult about this? He would have loved to sign him up for soccer, but that slot was already filled. Football was where John could keep an eye on him; make sure he wasn't putting him in danger. Where he could try and keep him safe. But Sam was going to be difficult, he could see that. And it frustrated him.

Sam squared his shoulders and prepared to go out and do what needed to be done, telling himself it was just another con. It was okay that he was out here on the football field with the same sort of jocks that loved to trip him in the lunch room in other schools. He was convinced the difference here was that his brother was here, and his father was a teacher.

John watched Sam a bit and called him back. "I have the perfect position for you." He said as a compromise. "Kicker." He could use his soccer knowledge there, and maybe not being on the field so much would wipe that miserable look off his face. "Think if I set you up at the goal you can get it to the forty yard line?" Sam was thirteen after all; he couldn't be expected to get it into the other side of the fifty-yard line.

Sam looked at the field and thought about it seriously. "Yes sir." He said, this time less petulantly. "I think I can."

"Okay." John said with a sigh of relief. Dean hadn't been this difficult at 13, had he? "Take that tub of footballs over there, and keep practicing until you can consistently get it over there. High, not flat." Repetition was the key to any sport.

Sam did as instructed, feeling better about the class. It was something he might be good at for a change. Usually football was one of those things he tried out for to please his father and usually got pounded to a pulp. He didn't see Dean and Brad arrive. Neither did he see the girl standing nearby. Didn't see her smile slowly, almost toothily at his brother and give a small wave.

Dean froze when he saw the girl. Close to his brother. And grinning like a freaking hyena. He started to get up and Brad pulled him back.

"What are you going to do? Charge out onto the field after something no one else but us can see?" Brad hissed. "You'll end up being Graham's roommate." Dean didn't have a choice, he sat back down. Then got back up and walked over to his father who was by the bench.

"She's over there." He whispered urgently. Making it look like he was asking his father for cash.

"Where?" He asked even as he was following his eldest son's eyes. "By Sam?" He frowned tightly. He had never seen her but he had felt her presence time and again. He started to walk forward and the ghost rested both her hands on Sam's shoulders, which seemed to slump under the invisible weight, and the ball he had been about to kick just dropped to the ground. But her full attention wasn't on Sam. It was on Dean.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean said as he rushed over to Sam. That was normal big brother behavior, right? Not that he gave a shit. And not that he made it all the way over to Sam. He was too busy being thrown against the goal posts. Of course his father had to pick an expensive school, one that used really hard and durable metal in their goal posts.

"What the hell?" Sam said, suddenly brought out of his mood by the image of his brother flying back wards. He moved toward Dean, but didn't make it to him, as he too was skidding across the astro turf.

The girl held Dean against the post, staring into his eyes with her own dark eyes. "Make it right." She told him harshly, pulling Dean away from the post only to slam him into it once more, "Make it right." She demanded again "Or he's mine. Not that you are so good at protecting him. You're not are you? Things just keep happening. The one thing you were supposed to do and you can't do it. I might as well walk away with him right now." She breathed into Dean's ear, grey incorporeal hand closing around his throat.

"Tell me how." Dean gasped out. "What do you want? Where are you? Tell me where you are. If I can't do it, take me. Leave Sammy alone." His vision was filling with dancing lights and sparks. His back was killing him. He couldn't breathe. But Sammyhe couldn't see Sammy.

"Find him... Find him and make it right. Make him pay. Make him pay." She said again. "You can't destroy me until you make him pay. I won't let you," she hissed. So much anger in her voice. So much pain.

John couldn't fire a gun not here, not with something that no one could see, except Dean, but he could use cold iron. Passing it right in front of his son, trying to sever the connection between him and the ghost. "Dean!" He said, pulling his son away from the post and into his arms. This was getting out of hand, he was going to have to end this job quickly or they were all going to die.

Dean gasped, finally able to breathe as he collapsed in his father's arms. "Sam!" He said hoarsely, just above a whisper. He was blinking to stay awake, he couldn't stay awake...everything hurt. And the lights were still there.

"I'm here." Sam said, worriedly as he knelt down beside his brother. He looked at his father with wide dark eyes. The ghost was changing tactics. She was getting violent, like a poltergeist, and she knew she was being hunted. Apparently held a grudge against Dean for stopping the suicide in the theater.

"Yeah, I got him, man." Brad said far enough away to give Dean room to breathe.

Dean nodded in relief and passed out, the lights finally blinding him until he couldn't take it anymore.

John looked at Sam. "He's still breathing, we have to get him to the infirmary." He said as he picked his son up. This had been a lot easier when Dean was smaller that was for sure, and started toward the infirmary. He trusted his assistant coach to cancel what was left of practice.

Brad followed closely keeping watch for the ghost, but didn't see her anywhere. He knew enough to know that didn't mean she wasn't there. Never the less he wasn't about to let Sam out of his sight until Dean could take over the job again.

Sam followed silently still not sure what had happened. The ghost had attacked Dean but he didn't know what had brought him rushing over in the first place. It had all happened so fast. He couldn't help feeling some how that it was all his fault. Everything was his fault. He had seen that with such clarity out there on the field. He hadn't been able to quite shake that feeling.

The school had an on call doctor. Retired military doctor, but usually he was more than sufficient for the needs of the school, waited within the infirmary as John hauled Dean into the room. "What happened?" He asked looking at how pale the boy was. "Not another..."

"No." John said sharply as he laid Dean down on the examining table. "Accident, you know how seniors are. Trying to impress a cheerleader. The girls' school was practicing on our field today. He opened Dean's eyelids with his forefinger and thumb. "He's got a concussion." He said worriedly.

The doctor looked Dean over. "Accident, what did he do, fall down in front of the entire football team?" The older man asked. "He is having some respiratory distress, better call an ambulance while I look him over." He said. "You boys wait outside."

"No." Sam said simply, but firmly. His dad could be pissed all he wanted to be Sam wasn't going to leave his brother. Dean wouldn't leave him. So Sam wasn't going anywhere either.

"Come on, Sam." Brad said. "We can wait for the ambulance." He was worried for his friend also, but knew he definitely wouldn't be allowed to stay.

John blanched as he heard the doctor and reached for the phone, calling 911. Gave them what information he had and then stood by his son's bedside. "Is he going to be okay?" John demanded. "Tell me!" This was a big mistake coming here. Even for an old friend.

"I don't know, John. I really don't know." He said. He suspected the boy was going to be pissing blood, at best. The bruises forming at his back were darkening quickly as were the ones at the kid's throat. "Someone beat this boy." He said. "And I know it wasn't you because the hand prints are too goddamned small." He added, not wanting to deal with a defensive father on top of a kid that was struggling for every breath. His throat would be fine. It was the busted ribs that were the biggest fear. "Tell me what the hell is going on, Winchester." He turned to the boys. "And you two get the hell out of my infirmary, it's not a request, boy!"

Sam blanched and let Brad drag him out of the room but only just. He hovered by the door worriedly, staring in through a crack in the door looking for any sign of what was going on with his brother. "This is my fault, isn't it?" He asked Brad. "He was running for me when he got hurt... it's all my fault."

"No it's not." He assured Sam. "She's gunning for Dean. Dean foiled her last assisted suicide attack. You were... Sam, you were bait. This isn't your fault."

John looked at the doctor. "You know, ask the headmaster." He was passing the buck, but he had bigger concerns.

Suddenly the doctor checked Dean's pulse, and moved to start breathing for Dean. His heart was still beating, weakly but beating. His respiration however had stopped. There was no time to ask any more questions. He was relieved to hear the sirens in the distance. The ambulance would be there soon. Hopefully soon enough to save the boy's life.

John's heart dropped into his shoes as he watched the sudden actions of the doctor. Someone now had to breathe for his son. Watching this, if this wasn't hell, he didn't know what was. "Dean, I know you can hear me. You're going to make it, do you hear me? That's beyond an order." He said, gripping Dean's foot, which was as close as he could get right now.

Brad watched the paramedics rush by them into the infirmary. When the door swung open, he saw the doctor. And Dean, with the ambu bag mask over his face, the doctor squeezing the bag rhythmically as he barked out report to the medics and looked at Sam.

Sam looked as heart sick as his father did. He watched in horror, then moved out of the way as they brought Dean out on the gurney, his father following so closely that he might have been one with the damned thing. He swallowed hard and stared, the gurney and medics disappearing down the hall with his brother and out the door. A sudden look of determination came over his face. "I'm going with them." He said as though daring Brad to try and stop him.

"Sam..." Brad said. But what could he really say? If that were Jimmy, he'd be on the rig too. It probably wasn't a big brother thing. It was probably simply a brother thing. That's when he saw Jimmy and another kid coming toward them. Jimmy was limping and being supported by the other kid. "What happened?"

"Took a spill." Jimmy said.

"A spill? Where? What happened?" he started to ask as he took over the supporting role from the other kid. He barely refrained from chastising his brother, telling him he had to be more careful, that he couldn't afford injuries or sickness, but he did refrain, and was rewarded with a grateful look from his own little brother.

Sam gave Brad a worried look and took off at a run trying to catch up with the ambulance before it took off.

Brad didn't see the girl standing just out side the door. Neither did anyone else. Including Sam. Who never made it to the ambulance. Not that Brad knew that. Not that John knew that Sam had intended to join them. The younger Winchester numbly walked out into the woods.

She found the youngest Winchester so easy to sway. What a character defect to have a time like this. She led him into the woods; he didn't even know he was being led into the woods. Deeper and deeper to the darkest parts most had forgotten. Down into a cave that could be barely seen until you were on top of it. Unless you were looking for it. One she knew all too well.

The paramedics worked desperately at Dean. They found themselves glancing at John's hands, and like the doctor, came to the obvious conclusion that the father couldn't have tried to choke the life out of his own son. Which made the ride less awkward as they worked. "Okay, intubate. We don't have a choice."