hey all. sorry about the long wait, work has been crazy and then i was away. this chappy has lots of info in it, so i hope you all enjoy it. once again, thank you so much for all the great reviews, they really make my day.

IN TRANSIT

Chapter 9

Dean was ushered to the opposite side of the small train car, his injured arm still held close to his chest. He didn't like being in there alone, and he didn't like the idea of Sam being alone either. It wasn't that he didn't think they could handle themselves, he knew they could take on anyone there; it was just that bad things always seemed to happen when they were separated. It was like Murphy's law; if Sam and Dean were apart, then all hell would break loose. The elder Winchester didn't know why fate seemed to hate them, all he knew was that trouble never seemed to be too far away.

"Pete sent you?" Raven's voice broke through the heavy silence, the older woman pushing Dean down onto a box. Dean was amazed at the strength the slender woman possessed, her soft hand pushing him down to sit with more force than he would have thought.

"Yeah." Dean answered, wincing when a sharp pain shot through his arm. In all honesty his arm was getting worse by the minute, the pain growing to an almost unbearable level. He knew that he had done a lot of damaged when he slid into the wall, but it was his arm or Sammy, and no matter what, his brother would always come first.

The woman before him just nodded, her dark eyes boring into him, almost as though she was trying to stare through him, into him. It was uncomfortable to say the least, Dean squirming a bit beneath the gaze, his heart beating faster as he sat. He tried to match her glare, tried to stare her down, but something wouldn't allow him. Her eyes were as sharp as glass, but still somewhat sad; almost as though she was looking through him, staring off at a distant horizon only she could see.

"Why are you here?"

"My arm--." But Raven just held up a hand, silencing Dean with her stare.

"That's not what I mean. Why have you come to us? And before you begin, I expect nothing but the truth."

"I don't think you would believe the truth." Dean answered, his body tensing when the woman reached for his arm.

"You'd be surprised what I believe." She answered vaguely, examining his wrist as she spoke.

"My brother and I are looking into the deaths." Dean answered, surprised when he got no reaction from the woman sitting before him.

Raven remained quiet for several long minutes, working on Dean's wrist, the hunter's grunts of pain the only sounds in the heavy silence. She seemed deep in thought, almost as though she was lost in a distant memory. Her dark eyes remained set on Dean's wrist, her ministrations as soft and soothing as they could be under the circumstances. It wasn't until she began to wrap his wrist in a long cloth that she spoke.

"You should stay away from things you don't understand."

"I think I do understand it."

"You can't."

"You'd be surprised."

"I doubt that."

"Let's just say that I'm used to looking into things no one else really believes in."

"That doesn't mean you understand. Just because something seems on the borders of the natural world, doesn't mean it can be explained away."

Dean just stared at the cryptic woman before him, Raven's black eyes still staring through him, almost as though she was studying his soul. She knew something, of that Dean was certain, he just needed to get the information out of the woman before him.

"Why does everyone around here keep staring at me?" Dean asked after a few moments, his injured arm cradled against his chest once more.

His wrist still hurt like hell, but the shooting pains that had been plaguing him since the accident were thankfully lessening. It wasn't much, but at that moment, he would take what he could get.

"Why would you think that?"

"Because I'm not blind."

"Like I said, there are things in this world that defy explanation."

"Alright, I can do the Yoda thing, too."

To say that Dean was surprised by Raven's reaction would be an understatement. The moment he spoke the once stoic woman's face broke into a wide, sad smile, a soft laugh passing her lips. He had expected her to be sharp with him, had expected her to shoot him down with another cryptic statement. But instead, she laughed.

"Child, this is no place for you."

"Again, my name is Dean."

"It makes no difference."

"Yeah, says you."

"I know you are trying to help, but listen to me. Take your brother and leave, this is no place for you."

"Look, Lady, I'm not going anywhere. So, you can help me, or you can send me on my way."

"Please." Raven began, turning imploring eyes towards the hunter.

Dean was taken aback by the sheer desperation in her eyes. He didn't know what was going on, but it was something that terrified the woman before him, and he could tell that it was fear of more than just the creature. She knew something about what was going on, and it unnerved the hunter. Because, he was now certain that it had something to do with him.

"Please, just take your brother and go."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can."

"I can't leave while people are dying."

"So are so different from him."

"From who?"

"Benjamin."

"Who's Benjamin?"

"Pete's brother."

"Pete has a brother?"

"Until five years ago he did. We've all been here for a long time, seen a lot. You understand."

"When did you first start riding the rails?" Dean asked, phrasing his questions carefully. He didn't know why or how, but he had somehow gained the guarded woman's trust, and he didn't want to lose it.

"Oh my, a lifetime ago." She answered, a sad smile on her face, eyes distant once more. "I was young, younger than you, and I didn't know what I was getting myself into. And now I've been here since 1962.

"I was sixteen when I left home. I had nowhere to go, so I caught the first train I saw. I didn't care where it was going, as long as it was somewhere far, far away. I met Pete a few months later. He was twenty two at the time, god it was so long ago.

"People say life was easier back then, different times, but they're wrong. Things just got covered up more back then, people have always been people. But Pete was a good man, took me under his wing, helped me survive."

"Why was Pete riding the rails?"

"Honestly, I don't know. All these years, you think I'd know, it was just something I never thought to ask. If you can imagine that. I just assumed he was like me, nowhere else to go. And when his brother showed up, it just solidified my beliefs. Neither one ever talked about home, never tried to get back, so I just left it at that."

"What do you mean his brother showed up?"

"Pete had been so excited, he was like a little kid again. He was about twenty four at the time and his brother was coming home from the service. Pete couldn't go, some medical reason, he never really went into it. A bit ashamed about it I think.

"But you see, when Benjamin actually came back, everything changed. I'd never met him before he left, but Pete had told me stories of him. He idolized him, wanted to be just like his big brother. But I guess war changed him, and that broke poor Pete."

"I don't really see what any of this has to do with me."

"You are so much like him, you have no idea. Over the years, we would catch glimpses of the man he used to be, the one Pete told stories of. It was sad, really, seeing the man he had once been, what time and fate had done to him. Over the years, he just grew more and more distant, and more self destructive. And then, he met her."

"Who?" Dean asked, leaning forward a little, his mind soaking up every bit of information it could.

"Her name was Kathy. She was a beautiful little thing, sad, but beautiful. Kind of like a neglected kitten. She was so shy, so skidding, and so young. The rails opened up a whole new world for her. You see, she lived just beyond the tracks, mountain folk we called them. They kept to their own kind, and they didn't think much of the world outside their little towns.

"But Kathy, well, she was a dreamer, and Benjamin was a story teller. Never makes a good mix. He got himself involved deeper than he thought, let that poor thing think he was going to marry her. Don't know how she would think that, a crazed boy from the trains and all, but who knows what that girl thought about reality.

"He didn't know what to do, so he hid from her. They met the same time, the train always stopped over night a few miles from her town. And the night she though he was going to take her away, we hid him. Sad really, poor little girl just sat there on the hill, battered suitcase in her hand, asking everyone she could find where Benjamin was, had anyone seen Benjamin. We just told her he'd decided to go on home to his family, and that she should do the same.

"It was a lie, we all knew it, but we thought we were helping her. This isn't a place to try and start a life. We thought we did right, thought we did good, but five years ago, Benjamin died. He'd always been plagued by nightmares of his time in the service, but one night, it just got to be too much. We heard him screaming three cars away, calling out to people long since gone, yelling that he was sorry, crying out for help. By the time we got there, he was dead, hair snow white.

"We thought his mind just finally snapped, that his body finally gave out to the torment he'd been put through, but then it started happening again and again."

"What do you think's causing it?"

"Vengeance. I've seen a lot in my time, child, more than you know. I kept as close a tabs on Kathy as I could, felt sorry for the poor thing, you know. She married, had a few kids. Her husband seemed like a good enough man, but poor Kathy was just broken beyond repair. The way she stared down the trains was terrifying, almost like she had the devil in her eyes. And then five years ago, she passed on.

"And three months later, on the anniversary of the day she was supposed to meet Benjamin, he died."

"But what about the others?"

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Dean was about to speak, when he heard a loud roar come from the train, the horn blaring out over the mountains and forest as the train lurched forward, slowly picking up speed. It was leaving, the train was leaving and Sam wasn't on it.

"I have to go, my brother."

"You can't, we're thirty miles from the nearest town, no one will know you're missing. If your brother's smart, he's already on."

Dean knew she was right, knew there was nothing he could do but sit on the train and hope Sam was on it, too. He didn't like it, the idea of being separated from his brother weighing heavily in his chest. But it was the way things were, and as much as he hated it, there was nothing he could do.