Warning(s) for this chapter: cusses, dick swingin dudes, extreme authorial restraint for being able to put "key" and "lock" in the same sentence without memeing "The French Mistake" (please clap), aaaand child death/murder and implied suicide (not my bad this time)

Notes: So it turns out that the third and last chapter I planned on to end the first installment of this on got a little longer than I was expecting, which is hopefully good news since I kept you waiting for so long? I had decided on cutting out scenes I originally planned, but Sam and Dean demanded so much DRAMA that I ended up having to add in a new scene anyway and then since I kept y'all waiting for so long (and to celebrate the season finale - yay, my boy Jack's still alive and good!), I decided to just readd the cut scenes, chop the chapter into two parts, and put the first half up ASAP.

Quick note that there is an instance of intentional OOCness with a plotty reason for it. The answer is already in the chapter if you pick up on it (but if not, don't worry, it'll get explored more in parts set during "Home" and other later parts).

Also, heads-up that I may change the Take the Long Way Home name for this AU at some point? I don't really love the title and just spitballed it real quick when I realized I had to come up with one. Once I decide on one, I'll wait until I've uploaded a new chapter/work still under the current title, and put in the notes what the new name will be, to give y'all a heads-up so it's not too confusing when the title changes on the following chapter. I'm toying with at least one idea right now but we'll see! Just keep in mind I might be changing the title two chapters/works from now.

Dean slams the door shut with a bang that makes her spin and glare because it's the middle of the freaking night, Dean. Not to her surprise, he's glaring back. "Are you kidding me, Sam?"

Like she didn't try to talk him out of it. "What do you want me to do, tie him up and leave him here while I'm gone?" she shoots back.

"Yeah! Works for me!"

"I'm not tying him up!" Sam says, exasperated. "I can't believe we're even talking about this. This is your fault anyway. What the hell were you thinking, baiting him like that?"

Dean points at himself, eyebrows shooting up. "My fault? Seriously? He decided to come along, I didn't tell him to. And by the way, I'm not the one who's been lying to this guy I'm planning to get hitched to. Didn't you always hate it when Dad lied to you?"

"Shut up about Dad," she growls. "This isn't the same thing."

"Sure it isn't," he mutters loudly enough that she knows she was supposed to hear it. Then he sighs, scrubbing his hand through his hair. "Okay, whatever. For what it's worth, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't think... I don't know, man. I guess I didn't think he'd treat you like that."

Sam bristles. "He didn't treat me 'like that', whatever that means. He was upset because you dropped a freaking bomb on him, because you couldn't keep your mouth shut - "

Dean stares at her, disbelief and anger mixed on his face. "He was upset? You were crying, Sam! And he didn't give a shit!"

She can't believe he's bringing that up. She didn't expect him to just - say it like that. Dean would hate it when she cried, fumbling with it like a - well, like a boy. He'd high-tail it out of the room, pretend it never happened, and tried to fix it in his own Dean-ish way by beating up whatever he figured made it happen (as if she wouldn't notice how every bully at every school would mysteriously lose their teeth along with the desire to have anything to do with her) and becoming inexplicably nicer for about half a day (which was always fine with Sam - she was as eager to leave it behind as he was).

Screw it. She needs to suck it up and get this out of the way anyway. "It's not a big deal, and it's not his fault, so stop treating him like he's the bad guy. He apologized and I accepted it. My relationship is my business, not yours." And it's your fault he got upset anyway. Dean's eyebrows go up at that, and sensing some continued attack on Brady's moral character on the horizon, she beats him to it. "Stop. I don't want him to come either, you know. But he's not gonna listen to either of us. Just... drop it and promise me you'll help me keep him safe, okay?"

"I'm not gonna let anything happen to a civilian even if he's an asshole," Dean grumbles. He circles around to lean on the same side of the car as Sam is, but against the hood, not near her at the trunk. She still couldn't touch him now if she reached out and tried; you could fit a whole other person in the space between them.

The lights are on in the bedroom; Brady's still packing.

Dean slides Sam a sidelong look. "We could drive off right now, you know."

She's thought of that. Not that she's gonna tell him that. "He has a car too, Dean," she points out. "If we leave him here, he'll show up anyway. And if he's going into this, I want him with us so we can look after him and teach him how to handle himself."

"Oh, so he's clingy too. Nice. Landed yourself a real winner there, Sammy."

"He wants to make sure I'm okay," Sam could've said, but the thing is, she already has and Dean has already laughed at it as if the idea of Brady being at all capable of protecting her is absurd.

(To be fair, he's right. Not that she'll ever admit it around him.)

There's no point to arguing. Dean is determined to nitpick everything she says about Brady and turn it all into negatives. And she gets it: Dean has never liked the idea of any boy with her, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out Dean's projecting his anger at Sam out on the stranger. Poor Brady never stood a chance.

Doesn't mean it's not aggravating.

Sam sighs to let Dean know how unbelievably obnoxious he is, but doesn't give him anything else to work with. Her brother drums his fingers on the side of the car and peers at the parking lot. "Which one's his?"

"Uh, Dean, what part of 'Not your business' do you not get?"

He rolls his eyes. "I'm not asking about him, I'm asking about his car. C'mon, just point to it."

"No! It doesn't matter which one it is, you're just gonna badmouth it!"

Dean stays silent another moment, then decides, "All these cars suck anyway. Your boyfriend's got lame taste in wheels, Sammy."

Good thing he doesn't know about Brady's taste in pizza. Sam crosses her arms and ignores Dean's jabs. It occurs to her that she could leave Dean waiting out here and go inside to check on Brady - it'd get her away from Dean's snide comments and macho bullshit - but, snide comments and macho bullshit aside... she hasn't seen or talked to Dean for years, and she really has missed him like a hole in the world. He's a jerk, but so's Brady sometimes and she still loves him. Dean's her brother and until the night she left, he was the biggest part of her life, brother and teacher and best friend and - everything, as much a part of her as her arms and legs.

And after this (after Dad), who knows when she'll get to see him again.

"You're still wearing that necklace, huh?"

Dean touches it as if only now remembering it was there, holding the golden god's head between his thumb and forefinger, and for a moment, she wonders if he'd forgotten she was the one who gave it to him. "Uh, first off, it's an amulet, not a necklace. And yeah, well, why wouldn't I? You said it was supposed to have powers, right?"

"That's what Pastor Jim told Bobby."

"For protection, right?"

"I guess. He didn't say, but that's what most charms are supposed to do. You think it works?"

"If Bobby thought so, it probably does."

That's true. She does like the idea of the amulet she gave Dean helping keep him safe all this time, as though she's been having his back even when they're apart - not that he needs it. She knows them splitting up isn't her fault, and he and Dad were always stronger than her, able to live this life when she couldn't. That doesn't mean she doesn't worry. She's about to ask about Bobby and Pastor Jim and the others when out of nowhere, Dean says, "You look different."

Different how? Good different? Her hair's longer. She's definitely gotten more sun after swapping in the hunting gear of seven layers of jeans and jackets for shorts and tank tops, and has she gotten taller, too? She doesn't think so, but Jessica swears it's true. "Well, it has been four years," Sam says, maybe sounding a touch testier in her self-consciousness than she means to.

"Yeah. It has. So, uh. Not to butt in on your business, but..."

"But you will anyway." She shrugs. "Fine. As long as you're not a dick."

Dean laughs, weirdly, un-Dean-ishly awkward. "No promises, you know me. So. You're engaged, huh?"

She's been waiting for this. "Mm-hmm."

"For real?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. Congratulations." She looks at him in surprise, but he's not looking at her. "So, uh, how'd you two meet?"

"Mutual friend," she says and smiles slightly to herself, watching Brady's shadow walk past the window. "He barely even knew me but he invited me to spend Thanksgiving break with his family so I wouldn't be alone."

"Okay, hold on, that's weird," Dean says. "He didn't even know you but he had some weird girl come spend a few days with his family? And you and them agreed to that?"

"Yes, they did, Dean, it was a nice thing for him to do. All of them were really nice. I appreciated it," she says, stung.

"'Nice.' Jeez. You really fell for that?" Dean shakes his head, apparently unable to restrain himself after all and really, she should've known better. "Your boyfriend's a serious douchebag. You really haven't noticed?"

"Fiancé," Sam reminds him. "And you think every guy who likes me is a douchebag."

Dean sneers. "That's 'cause all guys are douchebags, Sammy. Believe me, I got the inside scoop. So trust me when I say that your boyfriend is a grade-A asshole."

All right. This isn't working. Sam sighs and turns to face Dean head on, making a conscious effort to uncross her arms because she has nothing to feel defensive about and she's got to show both of them that. "Okay. I get you're mad, but seriously, would you back off already? Newsflash, Dean - I'm not some stupid little kid, and I know what I'm doing. You just met him, you don't know what he's really like - "

"He beat the crap out of me, in case you didn't notice! I could barely get up because of your stupid boyfriend!"

"He's my fiancé, Dean! And he only did that that because you broke into our apartment! It's not like he knew who you were, he thought you were a burglar!"

"Yeah, it's definitely not like he knew who I was, because apparently he didn't even know you had a brother!" Dean says heatedly, and - dammit, there's the stab of guilt again. He probably wouldn't believe her if she told him why, because he's convinced she's just a whiny, hateful bitch. But it's not what he thinks. She didn't do it because she hated them or wanted to forget them, it was the opposite. Even thinking about them hurt too much, and she had to push the questions away when it came up because she couldn't stand it - thinking of them, knowing they were somewhere else, how messed up it was between all them, and how they might not -

"It never came up, all right?" she mutters, and it's such a lie, it's so not true, and it's not at all enough. It doesn't seem like it's enough for Dean either, who huffs and looks like he wants to say something. To her relief, he decides against it, squinting at the window instead.

"Where'd he even learn to fight, anyway? Your boyfriend a black-belt or something?"

"Fiancé," she corrects, for what already feels like the tenth time. "And no, no way. He's a total wimp. He can't even arm-wrestle."

Dean fidgets and Sam can't help but smirk just a little. Making fun of her big brother was (is?) her right as a little shit of a sister and he completely deserves it for being such a prick. It's alarmingly easy to slip back into it, like it's normal. "Well, you know, it was... dark. And you guys snuck up on me. I wasn't expecting to get jumped by two people. It wasn't exactly a fair fight, okay?"

"Yeah, that's it," she says, now grinning ear to ear. Loser.

"Shut up." Dean absently rubs his shoulder, and makes a face.

Sam decides to take pity on him. Not too much pity because he's a raging dickhead, but enough to maybe start smoothing things over to make this not a terrible weekend for everyone involved. "Hey, you want some ice for that?"

"It's nothing," he insists, so Sam pegs him at about a 3 on the pain scale; hurt enough to lie, but pissy enough that it's not serious.

She pats his shoulder overly delicately to annoy him. Judging by the look he shoots her, it works like a charm. "Right. I'll go get you some ice."

He huffs. "Fine. But bring a beer too, huh?"

"Uh, sorry, Dean, but we don't have beer."

He opens his eyes to give her a disgusted look. "What the hell kind of college did you run off to, man?"

"Wait, you and Brady are going where?"

"Away." The last thing she needs is everyone else deciding to follow her to Jericho.

"For...?"

"S'not important. Just some family thing," Sam says distantly. Dean, up in the driver's seat, shakes his head but doesn't say anything.

"But what about the thing with Brady?" Jess's voice asks, tinny in her ear. Sam hears her disappointment, and tries not to, because then it'll add too much to her disappointment. "I thought we were going to do something to celebrate today, all of us."

Yeah, well, that was before Dean turned up and shot that idea to hell. It feels like months since they were talking about this - but it was just last night. Just hours. It's terrifying, how easy it is for her life to change in just one night. For her to get dragged back into this, after how hard she worked to forget and build a new, better life for herself.

And now Brady's been dragged into it, too. God, why the hell did she even agree to let him come with? What the hell was she thinking? He could di-

Brady startles her out of it by smoothing a loose curl behind her ear, pinning it in place with a kiss that makes her giggle. She feels the warm glow and wants to hold her hand over it, keep it there forever so she doesn't lose the feeling.

She can't even remember what she was worrying about. Because that's the way it is with Brady; something about him, maybe his easy confidence, maybe his rock-solid trust in her, makes everything else seem so small and unimportant. She turns to smile at him as Dean groans as loud as he possibly can.

"Okay, okay, that's enough! Do you have to do that to my sister in my car?" he barks.

Brady laughs good-naturedly. "Sorry, man! I can't help it. I mean... she may be your sister, but she's my fiancée."

Dean glares at Brady in the rear view mirror. "Well, you better learn to help it or I'm dumping your ass on the side of the road and driving off without you. We don't need you, pal."

Scandalized, Sam slaps her hand over the phone's mouthpiece and leans forward to hiss, "Would you knock it off, Dean? It was just a kiss and we're engaged. You're acting like a child!"

"He's a liability, Sam!" Dean bursts out, and she scoffs. "We should be concentrating on Dad, not watching out for this moron!"

"A liability, huh?" Brady muses. "Hmm. That's funny, didn't feel like I was the liability when I was kicking your ass. How are your bruises coming along, Dean? If you think they'll get in the way, maybe you should sit this one out."

Oh Jesus, don't you start. Sam clears her throat. "Uh, Brady."

"Yes, honey?"

This isn't awkward at all. "You maybe want to tone it down?"

"If that'd make you happy, Sam."

She nods emphatically. "It would, thank you. It would actually make me very happy if the dick-measuring contest ended right now and everyone was civil for the rest of the trip."

"Of course," Brady says. "I live to please."

"I appreciate that, Brady," Sam says, now staring pointedly at Dean, who glowers at Brady.

"Kiss-ass Lou Groza motherfucker," Dean growls, making Sam cringe because holy shit, this is such a bad idea. This is such a bad idea. What the hell made her think this would ever work?

But Brady just laughs, and there's that at least, thank God for his sense of humor. Sam sighs and puts the phone back to her ear. "Sorry about that, Jess."

"No problem!" Jess chirps instantly. "I heard voices, is everything okay? Who were guys talking to?"

"Nobody," Sam says, trying to dodge going down another rabbit hole about the estranged brother she doesn't talk about. "Don't worry about us, everything's fine. Anyway, Jess, I gotta go. Just... tell the others we might do something Monday instead, okay? Or maybe not then, but..."

"Can't we just do it tomorrow?"

If only. Sam would give a lot of things right now just to be home with Brady tomorrow, all this done and ready to return to real life. "Don't count on it," she says with regret. "I don't think we'll be back by then."

"Wait, are you going to be gone the whole weekend? But Sam, the interview! That's Monday!" Jess exclaims, as if Sam's totally lost her mind and somehow hasn't realized it yet. She's miles and miles behind them, but Sam can still picture her easily: her free hand combing curls of blonde away from her right ear almost like a ponytail, phone pressed to her ear to make sure she's hearing Sam right, eyes wide in concern. Jess has always been as driven and success-focused as Sam; that's part of why they're such good friends.

"I'll be back in time. Believe me." Sam meets Dean's eyes in the rear view mirror. He rolls them.

Jerk.

Still sounding not at all reassured, Jessica gets off the phone and Sam settles into the backseat like an old memory. She imagines dust flying off, but of course Dad and Dean wouldn't allow any dust to make the car look its age, regardless of whether Sam was still in the back. They can clean and scrub the upholstery all they want, but Sam knows there's blood soaked into this leather.

When she was younger, she'd join them, running supplies and wringing out rags before bringing them back, squealing when they flicked water at her. But of course that was before she turned into the problem child. Started shutting herself up in the motel or find anyplace else to go while they worked, because she got so sick of it all, sick of motels and driving and Dad, sick of the way they fought anytime they were around each other and the tension that hung in the air when they didn't.

Brady slips an arm over her shoulders. "So? What'd Jess say?"

"Oh, uh." Sam glances down to Jessica's name on the screen, JESS M. "Nothing, really. Maybe we can do it after the thing on Monday, but... who knows." She was about to say "who knows how that'll go," imagining how miserable a party it'd be if the interviewer didn't like her or wasn't impressed, but is too intensely aware of Dean being within earshot to voice any doubt about her new life. She's seen Dean interview witnesses; if he smells blood in the water, he goes for it.

"Okay, I'll bite: what're you guys talking about now?" the man himself asks.

Like that. "It's nothing," Sam says.

"Huh. Sure doesn't sound like nothing."

"It isn't to us, but you wouldn't be interested," she clarifies. She's pretty sure celebrating the school scores that had landed her enough scholarships to make leaving for school a reality is the last thing Dean would be interested in.

Dean shuffles in his seat. "Well, who knows? It's been a long time. Maybe now, I would be interested."

Sam blinks. She might be wrong, and she... probably is wrong considering who she's talking to, but... that sounded like maybe Dean... would try to see her after this, right? Which... doesn't sound like Dean at all. Not the Dean who took Dad's side and watched her walk out without saying anything, at least. Not the Dean who didn't talk to her for four years, or bother to check on her at all. Not if they find Dad, because Dad sure as hell still won't want anything to do with her. Would Dean really go against Dean like that?

"It's. Uhh." She flushes, realizing now how stupid it'll sound to him, how pointless. A party over her test score? God, he won't shut up about it this whole trip. "Some of our friends getting together. Wanting us to come. That's all."

"Sounds thrilling."

"Really?"

"Hell no. Hanging out with a bunch of geek-ass college nerds?" Dean grins at her. "Ha! Not exactly my idea of a party."

Sam frowns at his description of her friends. "Yeah, that's what I thought." She should've known.

Dean drives for so long that Sam assumes the subject's been dropped and has her eyes closed to rest, when he says, "I might swing around. Maybe. Depending on where this thing with Dad goes. Are you gonna have any chicks there? Is the girl you were talking to hot?"

Sam imagines Jess - or any of her female friends, really - getting cornered by her horndog brother. It's enough to make her shudder. "That is definitely not happening," she says with as much firmness as she possibly put into her voice.

"I don't know, maybe it'd be fun if he came along," Brady chips in.

"Shut up."

"Dean, stop it. He's trying to be nice." She frowns again and rubs her temples. "Ugh, you two're giving me a headache. Listen, I have to take a rest. Can you both just... please try to get along for a little? Or don't talk to each other at all?"

"I'm sorry, of course, baby," Brady says, making Dean make loud retching sounds from the front seat. Brady leans over to reach into the bag at his feet and brings out a small white bottle. "Here."

Sam thanks him and washes an aspirin down with a swallow from the water they've been sharing. He unbuckles her seatbelt and guides her shoulders as she rearranges herself along the backseat, bending and shuffling and sprawling out and all the while fighting an overwhelming wave of nostalgia at how many times she would slept this same way in this same spot, the nights she slept on the rolling road, streetlights zipping by as she listened to old rock songs and daydreamed about what she could've had. Now she closes her eyes, and tries not to think.

"Sweet dreams, Sammy," Brady's voice says quietly above her, and she feels his hand on her cheek, light but there and so, so warm. "Dream something beautiful for me, princess."

Love you, she thinks sleepily. "See you," she murmurs, and before long, she slips away to the familiar rocking of the car over the long road, her cradle since she was small.

By the time they arrive in Jericho, there's already been another disappearance, a local named Troy Squire. They're heading over Sylvania Bridge when they hit yellow tape and see grim-faced cops searching his open car. The police can't figure whether Troy walked out, or was dragged out, or even jumped the bridge, like he never left the car but vanished all the same. Wherever he'd gone, he'd left the car on. When the police showed up, the keys were still in the ignition and even the radio was still on.

"What station?" Dean asks with interest, and beside him, Sam refrains from rolling her eyes. He really hasn't changed at all.

"No idea," the officer they're talking to says. "Just a bunch of static." Then he pauses, as if weighing whether he should say more.

Come on, Sam thinks. Now she's interested in his answer too. Tell us.

The officer blinks and suddenly he's afraid, or close to it. "We did hear... or thought we heard... screams."

"Screams?" Sam asks sharply. "Could you make out any voices or words? Did you recognize anything?"

"No, it was just... noise. It might not even have been screaming. Music today, I can never tell."

But Sam, remembering the EVP Dean played for her at the apartment, keeps on it. "Is the radio still on?"

The officer blinks again. "No, we... we turned it off. It was a distraction."

"Good thinking," Dean says acidly, voicing his sister's frustration.

Neither say it, but Sam and Dean are expecting - more hoping - to find Dad snooping around the way he would in a hunt, but there's no sign of him. Dad should be on this. He should be here. Hell, this shouldn't have even happened, Dad should've stopped this already.

He's fine, Sam tells herself. He is, he's fine. He's always fine.

So then where the hell is he?

The same can be asked of Troy Squire. According to the police Sam and Dean question, his girlfriend reported that she talked to him last night before the call dropped and said she didn't notice him acting out of the ordinary. He hasn't been seen or heard from since - and if the pattern holds, he never will. The victims of Centennial Highway seemingly drop off the face of the Earth. (Like Dad, Sam manages to not think.)

The police don't have much more to offer them, but when Dean gives them a description of Dad's truck, they confirm that no abandoned vehicle turned up like that recently. Dean seems relieved by that, at least. Still, he wouldn't have left without solving the case and the case obviously isn't solved, so he must still be working on it. Why's it taking him so long, and why won't he answer Dean's calls, when he was the one who drilled into them how important it was that they check in during a hunt?

They hope they'll catch Dad at the library doing research, but no dice. The woman at the front doesn't recognize a picture of him, either, but hearing a revised version of the truth, she is concerned and helpful enough to give them a list of places to stay in the area he might've gone. Sam suggests staying at the library a bit longer to try to catch up on whatever research Dad did on the case since coming here, hoping that retracing his steps might help them track him down.

Dean shakes his head. "We'll ask him about the case when we find him."

Sam frowns but doesn't argue. She suspects that they both know there's another reason Sam wanted to stay here, and she hates what a coward it makes her. This is getting way too real, way too fast. Dean was the one she got along with, the one she was closer to, the one who tried to play peacekeeper between her and Dad. If Dean's this upset with her, Dad will have a meltdown bigger than Chernobyl at the sight of her.

Tough shit, she tells herself. I'll help him find Dad, but I remember what he said and I'm not forgetting it. The old anger claws its way back up, and Sam swallows it like poison. She needs that anger. She needs it to hold strong for this, stand her ground for her and for Brady and the life they're building for themselves. Dad's not gonna want to see me. And I don't really want to see him. So I'll do this, but then I'm done, for good. Dad cut me out, and I made my own family. I'm not giving that up and he's not taking that away from me, and I won't let them make me look like the bad guy because of it.

She grabs Brady's hand and they follow Dean back to the car. Brady rubs his thumb soothingly along her palm, and the familiarity, it does help. She's not gonna be on her own this time up against Dad and Dean. Brady's her back up.

"Your dad's a tough guy to find, huh?" he asks conversationally.

"I guess."

"Do you think he's all right?"

"He's always okay. He probably just drank too much and lost his phone."

Brady chuckles. "He sounds like a real piece of work. You really think he's just drunk?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense. Man, I hope he's drunk when we find him. Maybe then he won't recognize me."

"Oh, honey." Brady brings her hand to his lips and kisses the back of it without letting go, like the chivalrous gentleman he so isn't. "Don't freak out. I'll be there."

"I know you will. Just..." She pulls a grimace. "... get ready for screaming and fighting... a lot of it."

"Great, looking forward to it," he says, completely straight-faced, forcing a half-laugh out of her. Maybe he'll handle her dad okay. He's put up with her brother already and come with her to hunt a ghost, which is a lot more than what she would've thought anyone would be willing to do for her.

They reach the car and pile into the back, Dean taking off the second the doors close. Their bad luck hold for the first three motels they hit up on the librarian's list, with still no one recognizing Dad's picture. On the fourth one, the clerk frowns and asks if he's in trouble. Sam and Dean exchange glances.

"No, not at all. See, that's our dad - us two." Dean gestures at himself and Sam. "We haven't heard from him for awhile and we're trying to find him."

"Sorry, but I haven't seen him for ... few days, at least. His truck's gone too." Sam can't decide if she's relieved or concerned that he's not here. The clerk gives an apologetic shrug. "I don't think you'll find him hanging around here anymore. Have you tried calling the police?"

Yeah, because they have such a great track record with finding missing people in this town. Sam smiles politely. "Not yet. We don't want to bother them with this, I'm sure it's nothing serious. His cell phone is probably just broken. Has his room been cleaned out?"

As it turns out, no. Burt Aframian had rented out the room for a month and according to the clerk, it's exactly the way he'd left it; judging by the visible crappiness of the motel in question, Sam can believe it. Dad likes staying at crappy, grimy places because it means there are lower odds of there being any maids to worry about coming in and finding something they shouldn't.

They convince the clerk to give them the key to his room after Dean fishes out fake ID bearing the Aframian name, and go to Room 101 check it out. Dean pushes the door open, finds the light switch on the wall, and they all peer in.

Brady laughs and it's the single most awkward sound she's ever heard come out of him in two years. For once, he sounds completely out of his depth, like it's finally sinking in how crazy this is. Sam is afraid again, and she's not sure if it's for him or for her. "Goddamn. What's up with this guy?"

Dean is already walking in, examining the room's jumbled contents. The thin motel walls cluttered with dozens and dozens of papers, missing men's frozen faces staring out, maps with circles and lines in red, pictures of things Sam's never heard of. Her eyes land on one article, a huddle of figures in front of a house, and her heartbeat picks up. Dean, his back to them, doesn't see it, checking the bed (made up neater than any maid - Dad left on his own power), "What's the matter, Brady? You scared or something?" He turns with his eyebrows jerked up. "You can always leave if you w- Sam?"

"Dean," Sam says in a tiny, breathless voice, unseeing. She can't feel her legs and has to will herself upright.

"Sam?"

Brady.

"Sam?!"

Dean.

Her heart is going crazy and there's sharp pain in her head, her eyes, water dribbling out of them. She has to close them. She can't feel anything but fire.

Take me home.

Where? Home? For a moment she thinks, confused, of the Impala, the backseat, Dad in the front and Dean in the passenger seat, but that's wrong. That hasn't been right for a long time. Home is Stanford, home is where she made her first real friends, home is Brady, his unwavering love and belief and the adoring look in his eyes when he sees her that fills her with warm bubbles because this is it, this is really it, she thought she'd never have it but she has him.

There's a shriek in her head, so sharp and loud it tears out her mouth. No, she doesn't have him. She'll never be loved, not really. He used her and threw her away, and she didn't mean to, she's so sorry, it was an accident, really, please wake up, she's so sorry, she just wants her family back, she just wants her home back but -

But she can never go home. She can't. She wakes up calling for her children - and tonight, she hears them calling back. She follows their voices, walking barefoot over pavement, loose stones, and dirt, stumbling on split-open feet and hardly feeling it. She is lost in a dream too dark and dreary and terrible to believe, too heavy and pressing to feel or think. Instinct drives her to her children's voices like a pig to slaughter as their empty, trilling voices melt together in unison, "Mommy, come here, come home, Mommy, come to us."

She is a mother, full of awful, painful love for her only children, drowned and dead in moments (it was only seconds, it seems, but the police looked at her with suspicion that cut her to the core). She climbs up the side of the bridge. Her eyes are dry and she sees clearly, the water far below, the huge and jagged rocks. She knows how they want her to make up for what she did, and she knows she must. But her courage fails her and she wavers. She can't bear to face them.

"One more step, Mommy," they drone together, the hollow voices of her dead, angry children.

Sam's head snaps to the side, her cheek stinging and eyes popping open. She's not standing on top of a bridge in the middle of the night. She's crumpled on the floor, legs stretched out stiff and twitching, with Dean's pale face hovering in front of hers.

She forces herself out of it, swallows down dryness and tastes copper in her mouth. "Dean?"

"The fuck did you hit her for?" Brady snarls behind her, almost making her jump. God, she's a mess right now.

"It worked, didn't it?" Dean says shortly, and puts his hand on her cheek, pressing down to remove some of the sting, before switching it to her forehead. "What's wrong, are you sick?"

"No, just - just dizzy, I guess," she says feebly, trying to hide her panic because what the hell was that? She's had headaches lately, sure, and nightmares, but nothing like this. Dizzy spells followed by... what, waking nightmares, delusions, hallucinations? Is she losing her mind? Right now?

Can't be. God no, not now. She made it so far, and she has so much more she wants to do -

"What the hell were in those pills you gave her?" Dean barks at Brady.

"Aspirin, genius," Brady hurls back. "One tablet to help her sleep a few hours without waking up screaming."

Sam winces as Dean's attention hones back on her. "Screaming?"

"Yeah, Dean, I have nightmares. It hasn't all been lollipops and candy canes with you and Dad, all right?" she mutters, really wishing Brady hadn't mentioned that part.

"Maybe not, but you never had nightmares like that before," Dean says darkly. Sam catches his eyes return to Brady, and scoffs loud enough to startle both men in the room.

"Would you - come on, Dean, enough already with this crap already!" she complains, hoping Brady assumes "this crap" means "babying me" and not "thinking Brady is trying to poison me". She struggles to her feet and accepts Brady's help up, shrugging off Dean's hand on her back in annoyance. Okay, the assuming her fiancé is trying to kill her thing is irritating, but he really can't be treating her like a two-year-old in front of the aforementioned fiancé too.

Dean juts his lip out, green eyes flitting between her and Brady. "Sure, whatever." He turns away and starts poking at one of the maps of this town. Dad had circled some areas.

Sam takes a minute to dust her shorts off, feeling grit clinging to her where she landed. Brady lingers, wanting to help but hesitant to touch her now. "Are you...?"

"Good." She offers him a wane smile. "Sorry this weekend isn't turning out the way we planned, but don't let Dean get to you."

"Is he like that with everyone?"

"... Not exactly."

"Can't win 'em all," Brady reflects. He winks at her. "But hey. I won the one that matters."

She smiles thinly and he seems satisfied with that before going off to walk around the room, looking at everything plastered up on the walls. He walks by the article, and Sam bites her lip.

She looks at it again, and this time, no headache, no dizziness, no thundering heartbeat. No hallucinations of another family, another life.

She walks to it and takes it gently from the rest, careful not to send all of Dad's controlled chaos plummeting to the floor.

"FIRE KILLS MOTHER OF TWO," the headline blares. Beneath it is a picture of her family. Dad, shaven and smiling with years off his face. A kid she doesn't recognize that must be Dean with a mop of blond hair; she doesn't remember a time where his hair ever got so long. Maybe Dad was in charge of cutting it, after. And there's her, of course, or what she assumes is her - a bald, indistinct, pink-skinned blob of baby, held in her mother's arms.

Sam stares, fascinated as ever by the ghost in the picture. The stranger worshipped by Dad and Dean, the holy word never to be spoken aloud. She is beautiful, of course, and looks nothing like Sam. Sam has never heard her voice, has never talked to her; has no memories whatsoever of her. But she beams at her adult daughter from the picture nonetheless, blonde and radiant and radiating a warmth and love Sam will never experience.

Sam wonders often what her mom would think of her. She used to wonder how her name would've sounded from Mom, and if her hands were warm or cool, and imagined how tall and dark and beautiful she was; then she hit puberty and between Dean's terrifying uncertainty and Dad turning a deaf ear to all things girly, felt her absence like a cold chill. She started wondering what Mom would think of all this madness, the sad, lonely, terrifying lives her family lead in mad devotion to her memory.

She'd found this article before, years ago. It was how she first found out what her mom had really looked like, and realizing how wrong she was, how little she was like her mother, hit harder than a punch to the gut.

That was when she found out that her mom had burned to death, less than a year after Sam was born.

"On the night of November 2, 1983," the article began. That's right. It would be 22 years to the day tomorrow since her mother died. Was that why Dad had sent Dean off and come up here alone? To toast the memory of his late wife and get smashed in private?

"Sam!" Dean calls out, and Sam, afraid of how Dean will react if he sees Mom's picture, folds the article up into a small precise square and sticks it into her pocket. She comes over to watch over his shoulder as he crouches on the ground in front of the door.

"Check this out." He swipes his finger through the white mess on the floor, rubs it between his thumb, and shows it to her. "Salt," he says meaningfully. "Dad laid down a salt-line."

Sam waits for the punchline. "Okay. And?"

"'And'? What do you mean 'and'?"

"I mean 'and why's that important'?"

"Because salt guards against spirits, Sam," Dean says, very slowly.

She frowns. "Like ghosts? You think he was worried that this thing was coming after him?"

"Ghosts, or something else," Brady pipes in. He hooks his thumb at the pictures he was looking at - horned figures with hooked claws, a fly that towered over the people cowering from it in the picture, and a goat-headed man with his arms spread wide, surrounded by three kneeling supplicants.

"Demons," Sam realizes, and her heart sinks. "You think demons are involved in this?" She looks helplessly at Dean - ghosts they can handle, but they've never run up against demons themselves. Yanked out of her idyllic college life, four years out of hunting, and with Brady to keep safe, she doesn't feel up for the challenge.

Dean doesn't look worried, or cocky, or anything she expects. His forehead pinches together like he's studying her and suddenly he grabs her by the upper arm. She tries to pull away. "Hey - !"

"Come on, outside. Now."

His tone brooks no argument. What did she do this time? She raises her voice without breaking eye contact. "Stay there, Brady, we'll be back in a minute!"

Brady isn't even paying attention. He's pulling open drawers and bending over to glimpse inside. "Roger that."

"Come on, Sam," Dean hisses, and tugs her outside before using the flat of his hand to close the motel door.

Sam rips her arm free. "What the hell, Dean? We should be in there, trying to find clues to where Dad went."

"In a second, but first, we gotta talk."

She flings her arms out. "Okay then, you want to talk? Let's talk. How about - "

"I don't give a shit about your boyfriend," he interrupts. "What was that in there? An act? A, what, a joke? I don't know what you're even playing at. Why'd you bother to do that in front of him, huh?"

"... What are you talking about?"

"I'm talkin' about the part where you pretended not to know what salt-lines mean! Come on, Sam!"

"Maybe I acted like I didn't know because I really didn't know, Dean." She squints at him, completely at a loss. "Is that what this is all about?"

Dean stares at her for a moment in something fast approaching horror. "Are you serious? Sam, we were laying down salt-lines since you were 7. That was one of the first things Dad and I taught you. You used it to hunt for years. That's what we use to torch ghosts!"

A pit grows in Sam's stomach. Why would Dean lie to her about this? She knows he wouldn't. But then how could she so totally forget something he says is so important? It's not there - none of what he says should be there is. Ghosts are weakened by iron, and stopped by burning the remains. She knows that by heart. But the only thing she's ever used salt for is for seasoning.

The nightmares and the hallucinations and now, according to Dean, she's losing her memories. What's happening to her?

She shakes her head slowly, wrapping her arms around herself. "Maybe... Maybe I started blocking some things out. It's not like those memories weren't traumatic," she says. She can hear herself trying to convince them both.

It doesn't work on her. Or Dean. "That why you fell?" he asks. "What was that? It was like you were having some kind of fit."

"I don't know what that was. It was like I was... somewhere else."

"What does that m-" Dean is starting to ask, when suddenly he's looking past her, grabbing her shoulder and turning her to look too.

A black-and-white police car is pulled up to the clerk's front office. With uniformed officers making a beeline for them.

"Oh God," Sam says weakly. If she gets charged with anything - or even a call back to Stanford - she can kiss that job interview goodbye.

"You go, I'll distract them," Dean tells her.

"No time. I try to run, they might start pulling out their guns and probably end up shooting themselves trying to get us." Sam pulls out her cellphone and hits speed dial.

"Who're you- Oh. Great. Him." Dean makes a sound of disgust. She's a tiny bit relieved by it - at least some things are staying normal.

She cups her hand over her ear, watching the officers trot faster. "Sammy, what's up?" Brady's voice greets her.

She drops her voice. "Listen to me and move as fast as you can. There should be a window in the bathroom. Use it to get out of that room, don't use the front door. If I call you, hang up if I don't say 'Swordfish' in the first sentence. Head back to the library and we'll meet you there soon."

Dean groans. "Your codeword is 'Swordfish'? Lame."

"Drop everything and put your hands up, now!" one of the officers orders.

Dean drops to his knees, folding his hands behind his head. "Easy! We're cooperating, see! Everything's fine!" he calls back. He glances at her.

But Brady's not gone. "Whoa, slow down, slick. What's happening?"

"Put the phone down!"

"I'll tell you later. Stop talking and run. I'll see you soon, I promise," Sam says as quickly as she can. She hits end and places her phone on the ground, mimicking Dean's position as she sinks to her knees beside him.

The officers slap handcuffs on both siblings' wrists, unfortunately good-grade police cuffs they can't work their way out of. They're put in the back of the police car and locked in before the officers go into Room 101. Sam holds her breath, hoping they don't reemerge dragging out any blond men between them.

Her brother nudges her in the side. "D'you remember this at least, Sammy? Just like old times, huh?"

She can't believe she's related to him. "Yes, Dean, this part I do remember."

Dean flashes a grin at her. "Well, that's something."