xxx

Accurate to Pastor's Jim prediction, Dean made it to Birchdale long before the eight hour estimate was up. The town itself was in a state of disbelief. The five women who had been missing for between a month and four months had almost been given up on; to have all five come stumbling into the town's police station, dragging one unconscious male with them, was unprecedented. Half the town was spouting conspiracy theories (conspiracies of what, Dean had to wonder), the other was busy praising the Lord. Dean wasn't in either camp and spent an infuriating few hours trying to find out whether Sara or her mother was in the group that had been admitted to the hospital. The authorities were at first unwilling to disclose information, probably worried about some attempt to snatch the women back, but something in Dean's desperation seemed to convince them, at least enough to confirm that neither Lucian was in the town's one and only hospital.

That plan exhausted, Dean walked slowly out of the hospital. The town was fairly surrounded by trees and hills, it was safe to bet that the women had come from there. Which meant that Sara had been there. Currently, however, 'there' was a fairly huge area. It could take hours to search it all. There had to be some way to narrow it down.

A hurried phone call to Bobby had told Dean that Amelia and Sara had gone after some incubuses and succubuses, planning to free the women and then blow up the demons to hell. But no one in town had mentioned any sort of fire or explosion, so they must have been out of sight of Birchdale. Not that that helped Dean much. He was running out of patience. Pretty soon, he'd give up on information and start trying to track the two women through the woods. He'd already found their motel room, empty and clearly unused. The owner said two women had checked in the day before, taken off at sunset and not been seen since. Normally, a hunt might take more than one night, but Sara had said she was going to call Will. She was very good at doing what she said she'd do. And not only that, but Will couldn't reach her either. Dean had called as well. The phone rang, but no one picked up.

There was no such thing as paranoia for Hunters. If the worst could happen, it most often did.

But he did have one last, desperate lead. One woman had refused to stay in hospital. Excessive eavesdropping had told him who she was and where she'd gone. Now he just had to convince a woman who had no reason to trust males ever again that he was one of the good guys.

When he knocked on her door, he was still toying with the idea of being a reporter or a cop. But when she opened the door cautiously, one side of her pretty face mottled blue and purpled, he lobbed all pretence out of the window.

"Carrie Elton?" he asked. When she nodded, still wary, he continued quickly, "I'm Dean Winchester. I want to talk to you about last night."

"The police told me not to speak to any reporters," Carrie replied. "And I have to say, I don't much want to talk about it anyway."

"I understand that. But..." Dean hesitated for a split second. "I can probably guess what happened. You were being kept somewhere by guys who... didn't seem entirely right, if you know what I mean. Last night, two women, one older, brunette, glasses and one younger than you, a redhead, more gung-ho, rescued you. Set some explosives, told you all to run."

Carrie frowned. "I'm not in the mood for games, Mr Winchester."

"No games. Those women are important to me, miss. And I need to know what happened to them."

The woman softened slightly. "I honestly don't know. I haven't seen them since last night."

"Well, what happened?"

"They got us out, just like you said. The older lady led the other women away, I helped the redhead with Bert. We caught up with the others, they said that the woman had gone back for something. The redhead told us to keep running and went after her friend."

"Mother," Dean corrected absently. "Where were you being kept? Can you remember?"

Carrie nodded. "She told us not to tell the cops."

"Well, I'm not the cops, am I? Could you give me directions or something?"

Carrie did better than that, she actually produced a map of the surrounding area and handed it over, pointing out the relevant spot. "Around there."

Dean nodded, taking the map. "Thanks."

He was halfway to the sidewalk when Carrie spoke again. "I hope you find them."

"I will," he said and kept walking.

xxx

With Carrie's map, finding the right area to start searching was much easier and Dean drove the Impala out of town with the single-minded focus of a Hunter. Recon, search and destroy, search and rescue. It was all the same, at least in terms of control and discipline. When the car couldn't go any further, Dean grabbed a pair of handguns from the trunk and started walking. Carrie had been helpful, but she'd been scared of her wits and running in the dark. There was no way for her to tell Dean exactly where Sara and her mother might be.

But wherever the demons had been, that would be a good place to start. The only consolation Dean could think of at the moment was that incubuses rarely killed their victims. Arguably, what they did do was far worse, but as long as the Lucians were alive, Dean could help them. Could help Sara.

If the succubus was still alive, Dean might had a slight problem, but the guy who had been taken was recovering from his 'drugged mania' nicely, so it was probably dead. Either way, it wouldn't stop Dean from looking for his friend.

He set out from the Impala, using the map to guide him but mostly working from instinct. He wasn't sure if he was following his sense of evil or his sense of Sara, but the physical evidence of crushed grass, broken branches and so on seemed to be supporting him anyway, so he kept going. From the fresh smell in the air, at least part of last night had been spent in rainfall.

As Dean walked further and further from the Impala, he started to call out for Sara, listening to his own voice echo around. But there was no answering shout of Dean or, if Amelia was the one to reply, Winchester! As a last resort, he pulled out his phone and called Sara over and over again, hoping to hear her ring tone somewhere close by.

He smelt it before it saw it, the charred smell of burning that he knew a little too well. Following his nose now, rather than the map which he had already traded for a handgun, Dean sped up, moving quickly towards the source of the smell. Barely ten metres from the tree line was the blackened shell of a wooden cabin. The remains of the monsters' home and the pheromone bomb, Dean assumed.

And Sara was sitting a short distance away, under a large tree. It was a damn good thing that Birchdale was thorough in clearing the undergrowth or she'd have gone up in flames, just like...

Dean steeled himself as he walked towards his best friend. Hunters had to know how to read people and it was even easier with Sara because Dean knew her. But the only time she'd looked so... lost was when her mother had gone missing, the first time he had met Sara. Add to that the weird body language, the fixed way she was staring at the burnt-out building, and the apparent lack of any sign of Amelia and Dean could figure out what had happened. Not why, but what at least.

And maybe that made it easier to walk over to Sara, because knowing, even just instinctive knowing, was better than suspecting.

Sara was sitting under the tree, but not leaning against it. Her knees were drawn up, her arms stretched out with her hands resting on her knees, but the posture was casual, not scared or panicked. On one side of her was her shotgun and a rifle. Sara didn't usually carry a rifle. She was good with it, but she preferred her shotgun. Amelia's gun, maybe.

Dean crouched down in front of her, but just to one side. Sara didn't even glance at him, but some of the tension seemed to leave her shoulders. Of course, it was hard to tell. A night spent outside, apparently getting soaked by rain on top of the oddly chilly September weather, meant that Sara was shaking despite her warm jacket.

"Hey, Sara," he said. "You're not answering your phone."

She didn't look away from the house, but Dean saw the muscles in her jaw twitch. So she could hear him, she was just ignoring him. He switched from the crouch to sitting by her, facing the same way.

"You know, it's only polite to entertain me now I came all the way out here," Dean continued. "Passed up on a very promising gig in Nebraska for this."

"Nothing happens in Nebraska, Dean," she replied softly.

"True enough. So you wanna tell me what happens in Minnesota instead?"

Sara shook her head helplessly.

"Well, that's okay." Dean brushed the back of her hand with his fingers. "Jesus, you've got cold hands."

"Bad circulation."

"What?"

"I've got bad circulation in my hands and feet. Blood flow's not what it should be, so my fingers and toes freeze up," Sara explained.

They were sitting only a foot or two from the base of the tree. Dean shifted himself back, then reached out to ease Sara back as well. She didn't resist in any way, and although she still wasn't apparently ready to look at Dean, she did look away from the cabin. Instead, she focused on a patch of grass by their feet. Dean draped one arm across her shoulders, either for comfort or for warmth, depending on how full of denial Sara got later, and waited.

And he'd never bring up the way one of Sara's hands twisted in the hem of his button-down shirt like she was trying to hold onto him.

"I don't get it," Sara said to her feet.

"Get what?"

"How... How it works. Or doesn't work. I mean, all the people we save, they run into these things, don't know what the hell they are, but they survive. And an experienced Hunter who knows exactly what's what doesn't. How does that work?"

"Dad says it's like war. The more training you have, the more likely you are to survive. But at the same time, the more training you have, the more dangerous the situations you get put into and the more dangerous you appear to the enemy. Bigger target, you know?"

"So we're soldiers. Only without the government telling us what we do is right or the medals or people saying we did great work when we die."

"Get a unit, though."

"Wasn't enough."

"Only 'cause she wouldn't let it be enough."

Sara tensed, about to pull away, and Dean squeezed a little tighter until she relaxed again.

"You know, we had an argument a few weeks back," Sara said. "'Bout you. About me trusting you."

Dean waited patiently, trying and failing to ignore the guilty unease that was prodding him. He'd always been a... source of disharmony for Sara and her mother. Amelia wanted Sara to be some sort of perfect Lucian. Sara wanted to be human. Everyone knew whose side Dean took.

"We argued 'cause of you and I didn't care," Sara continued, voice trembling slightly. "And now she's dead and I still don't care. How screwed up is that?"

"Would it be easier if I left?"

"No. And that makes it worse."

Dean had done the math already. The Lucians had set out just after sunset. The rescued women had reached town by midnight. He'd been called by Will at eight in the morning. Another seven hours to get here, a couple more hours spent finding Sara... No matter which way you looked at it, she'd been sitting here on her own for way too long.

"I'm meant to take you to Pastor Jim's place," he said. "Dad's waiting for us there."

"Dean..."

"No way in hell am I leaving you here, Sara."

Then Sara did look at him, only a quick glance before looking away again. "Yeah, I know."

Neither moved, both looking again at the remnants of the cabin. After another long moment, Sara pushed away from Dean and stood up. Dean followed, taking her shotgun as Sara bent down and picked up the rifle. As she did so, her two necklaces fell out of her shirt, dangling on their respective chains. A golden cross that Amelia had wanted her to wear, and a silver spiral pendant, an old gift from Dean.

Sara always did that, he realised. Always talked about the Lucians like she was an outsider, not really one of them. Dean just couldn't figure out whether it was because she didn't feel like she was one of them or because she didn't want to be one of them. At a moment like this, he'd be tempted to pick the latter.

They walked silently back to the Impala, side by side. Sara didn't glance back at the cabin even once, letting her eyes run over the ground instead, like a cop looking for clues or something. When Dean popped the trunk and hid her shotgun away in the weapon's compartment, she placed the rifle reluctantly in as well.

"What about your mom's car?"

"It was a rental. In case the cops linked it to the explosion, you know? It's clean. And rented under the name of someone who lives in Norway, I think."

"Smart."

Sara shrugged vaguely.

"Uh, I'll clear out your motel room and then we'll get out of town, okay?"

She nodded once and automatically moved to the passenger seat. Dean had the vague idea that cars in England were the other way around, Amelia's car was like that, but Sara never seemed to make that mistake with the Impala. She always sat in the passenger seat, normally with a book on her lap or some notes or something. Whether she actually got anything done was another matter, but this was the first time Dean could remember her just sitting there, hands folded neatly in her lap.

He wanted to do something, say something to snap her out of this. But what could he do? She'd just lost her mother, the only family she had.

With a final, not-so-subtle glance at his best friend, Dean shifted the Impala into gear and headed back to town.

xxx

Gran had always told her about the bad things in the dark. Even though Sara was old enough to know the demons' proper names and appearances now, somehow she always hung onto the image of shadowy creatures with blurry faces and long nails. The bad things. The things she couldn't quite identify, but hated all the same.

Turned out drunk-drivers were in the same category.

The funeral for Jean Lucian had been hastily thrown together and poorly attended. Sara had worn her grey school skirt for lack of anything more appropriate and spent the rest of the academic year hating it with a passion. She'd been so glad when her secondary school had insisted on green skirts and, although she never told her mother, the grey one was burnt with a fistful of salt. Amelia Lucian seemed more resigned than anything else. Death was death, be it by demon or car accident.

Sara sat quietly next to her mother, listening to a priest who obviously didn't know anything about wards or the proper uses of holy water drone on about salvation and faith and life after death. At ten years old, Sara decided that if there was life after death, it certainly wasn't worth singing about. This life was quite enough to be getting on with, thank you very much. Quite bad enough, that was.

Her hunch was proved right after the actual burial, the token handfuls of earth, well, mud that splattered across the wooden coffin as rain dripped into her eyes and her mother turned to her.

"I've found a good secondary school for you. A boarding school."

Secondary school? Sara wasn't meant to be going to secondary school. She was meant to be going to America, with her mother, with her grandmother for that matter, to fight and hunt and be a real Lucian.

"As soon as you're at school, I'll go back to America." Amelia rested one hand on Sara's shoulder. "Okay?"

"Yeah," Sara replied. Her mum wanted to be far, far away, just like always. What did she care? "Whatever."

But she did care.

xxx

Sara didn't even realise she was crying until Dean swore slightly and pulled the car over. She could vaguely remember him stopping at the motel and getting her stuff, the bags were now sitting on the back seat, but not much after that. Shock, said her practical Lucian side. The Sara side was too busy with the crying and mortification at crying to care much. Shit, it was getting way too easy to split herself in half.

Crying was worth bothering with. Didn't change anything, didn't save anyone, didn't help Sara most of the time. As a child, she'd cried once or twice under the covers at night, softly so her gran wouldn't hear. At school, sleeping in a dorm room with one to three other girls, crying in bed wasn't an option. I'm scared because my mother's hunting a monster and won't pick up the phone wasn't a valid excuse. Sara spent her teenage years crying in locked bathrooms if she cried at all.

Dean was pulling her close, saying something along the lines of "Damn, Sara,". She automatically tried to pull back, hands going up to hide her tears, but Dean wouldn't let her and she gave up a little too quickly for her liking and just sobbed.

She would never be able to work out what she'd been saying as she cried, just that she had said something. Mostly apologies, she later guessed. She didn't know what for or who to. But she did hear what Dean was saying over and over.

"I got you, it's gonna be okay. It'll get better, I promise. You'll be okay."

And for the first time Sara just couldn't believe him. Not even when he said I promise.

xxx

Word spread quickly through the Hunters...

Amelia Lucian's dead. Killed in Minnesota.

And the question bounced back just as quick...

So who'll do the exorcisms?

There was an answer to that, of course. But Amelia had spent eighteen years keeping her daughter and heir far, far away from the American Hunters and another three years keeping her involvement in the exorcisms so quiet it was silent. Sara had performed all but one of the exorcisms that had been done since 2001, but only three people knew that. Amelia Lucian, Sara Lucian and John Winchester.

But how the hell John had found out, Sara had no idea. It wasn't such a great surprise, sneaky bastard that he was.

He was waiting for them when the Impala pulled up outside Pastor Jim's church the next day, leaning by the notice board. John Winchester was used to death and loss and, more than that, he could use his eyes and brain, so he didn't need to ask what had happened when only Sara and Dean stepped out of the car.

"We need to talk," he said calmly. No meaningless condolences or pathetic phrases.

"In a minute," Sara replied, just as calm. There was no sign of her breakdown in the car or the fact that she'd spent the greater part of the night in tears. "I have to speak to Pastor Jim."

And she walked into the church, cool as anything.

"Do you know what happened?" John asked his son.

Dean shrugged. "Amelia's dead. Can't get any details out of Sara, but I'm guessing she didn't clear the blast zone in time. Maybe one of the demons grabbed her, I don't know."

"And Sara?"

"What do you think?"

"I think she'll cope."

"Hope you're right."

They stood in silence until Sara returned, just as calm and collected as when she left, with Pastor Jim walking behind her.

"I guess I have some work to do," she said softly. "So I'll be accepted as the next Lucian. Apparently, you used to tell Hunters about Mum," she said to Pastor Jim, who nodded.

"And I'll do the same for you."

"Thank you. John, she once told me that you could help me with the Hunters themselves."

"Sooner would be better, in that regard," he replied.

Sara nodded. "Makes sense." She glanced at Dean, then back to John. "Give me a second to catch my breath?"

John obviously saw the same thing in Dean that Sara had because he nodded without complaint.

"Jim, you said something about a new source?" he said.

"Uh, yes, of course..."

And the two men wandered back into the church, leaving Dean and Sara alone. Silently, they walked around the church to the graveyard, both sitting down on the low wall surrounding the graves. They'd done this before, kids waiting outside while the adults talked business.

"Well, at least I don't have to worry about a funeral," Sara said finally. "I hate those things."

"Sara..."

"Yeah?"

"You're sure you're ready for this? Just... leaping in, just like that?"

Sara smiled, shaking her head. "You know, there used to be just as many exorcists as Hunters at one point. But something happened and the Hunters turned on them. Killed almost all of them. So without exorcists, how do you think they dealt with possessed hosts?"

Dean knew the answers, not that he liked them. "Burning. Beheading."

"And burial alive," Sara added. "Half the Hunters will already know Mum's dead. If I don't get them on my side pretty soon, they'll go back to the old ways. They gotta have faith in me which means I have to do my job. Now."

"I know. Just doesn't feel right."

"Yeah, well, none of it does. But they don't want me to be a grieving daughter, Dean. They want me to be an exorcist. And I can do that."

"Is that enough?"

"No. But it's not all I have."

She slipped off the wall, standing straight for the first time since Dean had found her. Sara was a born sloucher, like Sammy, but she always stood tall when working. Always.

"Hey, Dean," she called over her shoulder as she walked away. "Be careful, okay?"

"You too."

Sara didn't look back, focused on shoring up her internal walls. Not a single weakness could be seen by the Hunters. First impressions were everything.

John was waiting by his truck. Well, he could wait a moment longer and Sara walked to the church doors. Next to them was a donation slot. Sara pulled the gold cross out from around her neck and, with some difficulty, fed it through the slot. That seemed to be the only way God was going to do any good.

She matched John's look with one of her own, daring him to say anything. After a moment, he just gestured to the trunk.

"So where are we going?" she asked, climbing in.

"Nebraska."

xxx

Next chapter should be up on the 5th. Big thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter!