Disclaimer – Not my characters, I just use them improperly.

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Thanks to everyone who reviewed, I really appreciate hearing from you :) Next chapter should be up Monday…

Chapter 6

"So. This girl. Who is she?" Dean asked calmly, sitting on Ben Ellis's bed without being asked. He met the boy's jittery glance with an even stare.

"I-I told you, I don't know who you're talking about."

"And I told you, I know you do. You've been calling her your girlfriend? Although," Dean snorted, rolling his eyes and looking the boy over with a sneer "That's obviously not true. I've seen this girl. What, did you pay her to hang out with you or something?"

Ben flushed, the colour rising in his face to combat the death-whiteness. It resulted in a patchy rash like badly mixed strawberry-vanilla ice cream.

Now that Dean could see the boy close up, he realised that the skinny frame he'd attributed to a growth spurt was more like gauntness, as if he'd been staying up all night and forgetting to eat. Black circles under his eyes made him look like a washed-out Halloween mask.

"C'mon, we both know you know her. All I want is her name." Dean leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Who is she?"

Ben looked down at his lap, lips pinched tight together. "Look, I just…see her around sometimes, alright. I don't know who she is."

"You hang around with her and you don't know her name?"

He looked at Dean, resentment in his eyes. "She doesn't…talk much. I just meet up with her every now and again. I thought…"

"You thought what?" Dean pressed. Ben hung his head again, his legs swinging on the chair like he was a naughty child.

"I thought…if the guys at school saw me with her, they might not give me such a hard time. Like, they might think I was cool if someone like her wanted to hang out with me."

Dean blinked, his mind tripping into memories.

"God, it's the same at every school, just because I actually do the homework…"

"Want me to come hang out with you, Sammy? Bet they'll think you're cool if they see you hanging with me…"

Except Sam had laughed at Dean's offer, slapping his back and telling him they'd probably beat him up in the parking lot if they saw him sitting in the passenger seat of such an old car. Dean had put on a mock-offended face, grabbing him in a headlock and ruffling his long hair until he was red-faced and giggling helplessly, begging for mercy. The next day, some jock had pushed Sam in the corridor. He'd ended up with a bloody nose for his trouble, and no one had dared to pick on Sam again. Dean had never worried about his brother while the kid was at school.

God, he missed Sam. But Sam had been taken, and the boy in front of him had the means of getting Dean one step closer to finding him. He set his jaw.

"So, what, you just wander around until you find her, take her for coffee?"

Ben squirmed in his seat, the chair spinning from side to side. "Not…exactly."

"Well then, what exactly happens?"

Ben didn't speak for a long moment, the relentless spinning of the chair his only movement. Both hands were gripping the seat hard enough for Dean to see the whites of his knuckles.

"Ben." He prompted. Ben jerked like Dean had shot him. He looked up, meeting Dean's eyes, and Dean could see unshed tears.

"Look, it was just supposed to be a thing, okay? I just wanted someone cool to be seen with, and she's pretty much the coolest person ever. I didn't know…and then, I couldn't get rid of her! She's so pissed off with me, and I don't know what to do, I don't know how to make her go away! If…if she kills me…" His hands flew to his head, screwing tightly in the lanky hair.

"What did you do? Who is she?" Dean gritted his teeth, his heart pounding.

Ben peeked out at him through his fingers, the tears now running freely. "I…I found this…ball thing, like a baseball made of-of glass or something. I was out walking outside town, and it was just there, and I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I thought…I thought it looked cool, it was kinda white and glowing and stuff. And then I turn around to go home, and she's there, saying it's her ball and she wants it back. I thought she was kinda weird, y'know? She was wearing this white dress and no shoes in the middle of a frickin' field, and she just appeared out of nowhere."

Dean sat back on the bed, his jaw clenched so tight his head was starting to ache. He took a deep breath, willing himself to calmness. "So you find this crystal ball knockoff, in the middle of a field, a crazy lady turns up and tells you it's her ball, and you, what, decided to ask her if she wanted some coffee?"

Ben shook his head frantically. He was leaning forward in the chair, like now he'd started the story he was desperate to get the rest out. "No! She freaked me out, man, I thought she might be some kind of weird witch lady or something. So I…" He blushed, eyes flicking away from Dean's for a second "I ran away."

Huffing incredulously, Dean forgot his anger for a second. "You ran away from a girl? C'mon man, I've seen this girl, even you should have been able to take her."

"Yeah, well. Guess I really am a pussy like the guys at school say." Ben's blush deepened as he spat the words out, and he dropped his gaze.

"Well, we can discuss your manliness or lack of it later, kid. Tell me the rest of your little story." Ben looked like he was going to object, a streak of hurt making him glare at Dean through his hair. Dean stood, taking a step toward him.

"Okay, okay! Just…sit back down, please?" The boy shied back looking completely humiliated, his arms shaking as he tried to reassert his grip on the chair. Dean might have dredged up some pity for him at the picture he made, especially considering his likeness to Sam. But, he reminded himself, Sam was the one in danger here. Sam and his dad, and maybe they didn't have time for tea and sympathy. Besides, Sam was never this much of a pussy.

"She-she followed me back to town, or something. She appeared by the diner, just as these guys from school were starting to hassle me. And…and they all looked so impressed when she came up and started talking to me, like she knew me. So I made out I knew her too. I said if she'd have lunch with me I'd give her the ball back."

"But you didn't." Dean said with a sigh.

Ben looked ashamed. "No. All these people from school, they kept coming up to us, chatting like we were friends. Nothing like that's ever happened to me before. And…and this girl, Alana, from school…"

Dean raised an eyebrow as Ben's blush deepened even further.

"Alana, she's…she's never talked to me before. And…I thought, if I could hang out with them, it'd be worth it."

"What would?"

The chair started to squeak under the force of Ben's twisting. "If…if I asked the redhead to hang out with me again. But she said she couldn't, so I said…"

"You said what?" Dean prompted, his patience hanging by a thread.

"I said I'd give her the ball the next day, if she'd come back to the diner with me after school."

Dean sighed. "And let me guess, she came back, and you said you'd give it to her the day after. And then the same thing happened the day after that."

Ben nodded, chewing on his lower lip. "She-she got really mad. I didn't think it would be that bad, I mean, who cares that much about a stupid ball, right? But…she…did things. Made people see things. All the forests started to die. And then, the guys at school started saying that she was crazy. That I could only get girls who were crazy."

"So now you're back where you started. Everyone at school thinks you're a loser, and now you have a crazy redhead after you." Dean concluded for him, leaning back on his hands with a sigh. "Wow, you're in some shit there, kid."

Ben looked up desperately. "Please, please help me. Please, Pastor. I don't know what to do."

Dean had almost forgotten about the whole Pastor thing. He suppressed the smile. The church probably wouldn't approve of his methods of interrogation.

"Do you still have the ball?"

The boy immediately looked down at his hands.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Dean stood up, throwing his hands in the air. "You lost it?"

"You swear a lot for a Pastor." He looked at the boy, his face clearly reading pissed off. Ben let out a little squeak, scrunching down in his chair.


"…and I just don't know what to do, I mean, Ben was always such a polite boy, always reading, and studying. It's like he's a completely different person. Maybe it's a delayed reaction, you know, from his dad dying. He took it very hard." Mrs Ellis was leaning heavily on the table, her head in her hands. The tea she'd spent so long making sat untouched in front of her.

Jim patted her shoulder. "Lots of boys his age go through phases, it won't last forever. He'll be back to normal before you know it."

He hoped he wasn't telling a lie. She smiled like she wanted to believe him though, so maybe false hope was better than no hope at all.

"Oh, you're so good to listen to me, Pastor. I'm sure you and your friend have much better things to be doing."

"Nonsense. Helping people is what we're here for." Jim said.

The eldest Winchester boy chose that moment to stamp down the stairs. Dramatically appearing in the doorway with a face like thunder, Dean looked ready to commit murder.

"Uh, actually we really should be going." Jim said quickly. Mrs Ellis frowned.

"Oh, you do?"

"Actually…" Dean broke into the conversation and then paused, turning to look down the hall expectantly "Ben's gonna take us for a walk. Talk some things out. It shouldn't take too long, Mrs Ellis."

Ben came down the stairs then, dressed in a thick coat and snowboots and wearing a look that was one part reluctance to ten parts fear.

Dean turned back to the table with a sharp grin. "We'll have him back in time for dinner."


The snow had stopped falling as the sky darkened. The forest was bitter and sharp around Sam, the soft crunch of snow and ice underfoot seeming loud in the dead air. The fox trotted on silently and this time Sam had no trouble keeping pace.

It was strange, being able to follow the line of a conversation again. Being able to keep track of his thoughts, like they'd been put into orderly piles in his mind rather than tossed behind a locked door.

Sam thought maybe this was what he'd been like before.

Except shouldn't he be feeling more? Pain, horror at the death of his girlfriend, at the demon's reappearance in his life, the psychic powers he never knew he had until now? The end of his normal, because even if his head was on straight again, he could never go back to what he was.

It would break Dean's heart.

And that should bother him too; that somehow he'd missed his brother's desire for all those years. That he'd given into it and condemned them both.

But it all seemed unimportant. Insignificant.

The fox paused in its tracks, elegant face turning to him as if to check he was still there. Sam nodded to it, and they continued on their way.

He'd given his word to this creature. Everything else could wait.


This time it was Jim who paced the motel room. Dean sat cross-legged on the unused bed, watching him. Five paces up, turn, five paces down, turn. Repeat.

"So this woman, she just appeared from nowhere?"

"Yes." Ben sat hunched over in the only chair, staring at his hands.

Jim looked over at him. "And it happened because you found a ball?"

"Yes. But I didn't know what it was or anything, I didn't realise…"

"So where is the ball now?" Jim broke into Ben's stuttered excuses.

"I-I don't know." Ben looked at his feet. "It must have fallen out of my coat pocket somewhere. I checked the entire house."

"Did you look everywhere? Did you ask your mom if she'd seen it?" Dean asked sharply.

Ben looked up, a petulant expression on his face. "Of course I did. I've got some crazy lady after me, you think I wouldn't want to find this stupid thing and get rid of it? It's not anywhere. I looked, I'm telling you."

Jim sighed, finally slumping into the single wooden chair. It creaked alarmingly under his weight. "Well, it doesn't matter now. If it's lost, it's lost. We need to find out what she is before we can do anything anyway." He frowned, picking up one of the books stacked by the bed. "Any number of spirits could be attached to an object. Something that was important to them in life, something that was instrumental in their death."

Ben's head came up sharply. "Wait, what? A…what?"

"Yeah, okay, say she is a restless spirit. But...a ball? Why the hell would anyone care that much about a ball?" Dean frowned, picking through the research papers John had requested before his disappearance and ignoring Ben completely. "And she doesn't sound like a typical spirit. I mean, an enraged ghost would haunt the boy, threaten him until he did what it wanted. But all she's done is scare him a bit. And why the crop failures? Why take dad and Sammy? If she can pull off that kinda shit, then surely she can steal a ball off a sixteen year old."

"I don't know." Jim shook his head. Dean stared at Jim, waiting, hoping that the other man would dredge up some long-forgotten piece of information that would make everything click. But the Pastor seemed as lost as he was, and Dean let his head drop into the cradle of his hands.

"Hey, what are you guys talking about? Spirits, ghosts…what kind of Pastors are you?" Ben's head was moving back and forth from Jim to Dean, like he was watching a tennis match.

Jim didn't appear to notice Dean's despair or Ben's confusion, frowning and talking to himself like this was a vaguely interesting mystery he'd read about in a newspaper. "…but how could she have trapped your father? And where? It makes no sense. We didn't see her in the diner this morning with Sam, so how could she have taken him? Plus, we have no idea who she is, or was, at least. There were no murders, no accident reports, no suicides to match her description. So then…"

"Jim, d'you think maybe you could…not? Please?" Jim looked over, catching Dean's expression. His own melted into something like pity. Dean set his gaze to the floor. He didn't need pity. What he needed was a clue.

"Hey, can someone explain what's going on here?" Ben said, loud enough to attract the sympathetic look from Jim. Dean narrowed his eyes at the skinny boy, taking faint satisfaction from his twitch.

"Jim, you explain. I'm gonna go check on the car, maybe call Joshua and see if he can come up with anything."

The sky outside was almost dark. The fallen snow seemed faintly luminous against the clear navy-blue, lit by stars and a distant moon. Somewhere in the cold, his dad lay trapped. And Sam – his poor lost Sammy who couldn't even focus long enough to tie his shoelaces sometimes – Sam was alone. Dean clenched his jaw, dialling quickly.


Jim sat in the motel room, feeling every one of his sixty-plus years. His body ached down to his very bones and exhaustion fogged his mind.

He hadn't even done anything yet.

He remembered years ago, hunting side-by-side with men now battered and broken, or dead. Joshua had once told him he'd gotten a lucky escape in hearing the calling of the church. But presiding over the many funerals of those men he'd known as well as he'd known the feel of hot metal in his palm, he thought maybe his new duty weighed heavier than the old one. Jim hoped John Winchester wouldn't be another name on the end of that very long list of buried comrades.

Bizarrely, he wasn't as worried about Sam.

He knew that, logically, he should be worried. Sam was a handful at the best of times, and in the clutches of an unknown creature the boy would be as good as helpless. But there was something, a whisper in the air so quiet he could barely hear it, that told him Sam wasn't in trouble. Not yet, anyway. Jim wished he knew how to explain it to Dean. But if there was one thing John brought his boys up to believe in, it was what they could see in front of them. Dean wouldn't believe Sam was safe until he had his brother in his arms.

"Hey, uh, Pastor?" Jim blinked, pulled back to the present by Ben's hesitant voice. The boy met his eyes for a second and then looked shiftily to one side. "Look, I don't really…understand what you were talking about with-with the other guy. But, this girl, is she gonna do anything? Like, to my mom? Because my mom, she doesn't know anything about this, okay. I never told her what the ball was for, or about the girl, I swear. But I'm…I'm really scared here, Pastor?"

Jim leaned forward, forcing Ben to meet his steady gaze. "Son, my friend and I, we're going to do everything we possibly can to protect you and your mother. But we need to figure out what this girl is before we can think about stopping her. Now, anything, anything you can think of, no matter how irrelevant it might seem, might be useful."

Ben blinked, his eyes big and scared. It was obvious that whatever Dean had said to him earlier had terrified the poor boy, and Jim wished he could have been the one to deal with it himself. But, he admitted quietly, there were advantages to be had in using Dean's method of intimidation.

"I, uh…I remember she had this smell, like woody and musky." Ben said slowly, peeking up at Jim like he wanted to be reassured he was doing a good job. Jim nodded, his eyes earnest. Ben continued, his voice growing in confidence. "She never drank the coffee I ordered for her. One time I bought her a sandwich and she turned her nose up at it, said it wasn't natural or something." Jim closed his eyes, wondering how many girls this boy actually knew if he thought it was unusual for them to have picky eating habits.

The clump of Dean's approaching footsteps were audible through the thin door. Ben shut up quickly, his eyes darting nervously to the entrance. Jim could hear the murmurs of a one-sided phone conversation. From the tone, Joshua didn't have much that Dean wanted to hear.

The door banged open suddenly, hitting the wall with the force. A tiny squeak was forced from Ben's throat and the boy shrunk back as if he was trying to sink through the wall and escape. Dean's face was dark as he stepped in, but Jim could read the signs of distress around his eyes and in the lines at his mouth.

"Joshua doesn't know anything. Neither does Bobby. Christ, what the hell good are they if they can't even…" He fell backward onto the bed without finishing his sentence, like the batteries powering his anger had run down. Jim didn't bother reprimanding him for his blasphemy.

"Dean, it'll be alright. Sam will be fine." Jim said. He could tell Dean wasn't listening. "Maybe you should get some rest. I'll take the boy home and we can start afresh in the morning."

Dean was on his feet again in a flash. "Get some rest? How the hell am I supposed to rest while Sam's out there alone, in the…in the cold. It's snowing, Jim. How's he s'posed to… How are we supposed to rest while Sam and dad are gone?" Dean's face was bleached white as the snow on the ground. He looked thinner, like the last few days had stripped his bones bare. Jim could see the tremors in his hands, clenched at his sides as if he was preparing for a fight. Ben was silent in the corner, frozen in place and watching everything with eyes wide in fright.

Jim stood, taking careful steps toward Dean. He reached out a hand, laying it gently on Dean's arm. "You need to…" The other man turned desperate eyes on Jim before he could repeat himself again. The silent plea was almost louder than if Dean had said it in words. "Okay. Okay, we'll keep at it."

Dean relaxed infinitesimally. Under his hand, the boy's shoulder felt all bone, tense and painful. In his chair, Ben let out a silent breath, sagging back. Jim wanted to let out his own sigh. Managing the two was like trying to distract the cat from the mouse, and Jim had no doubt that with the knife-edge Dean was dancing on, he'd rip the skinny teenager to pieces if he had the chance. In Dean's mind, Ben was the reason he was here, the reason John was missing, the reason Sam was gone.


Sam finally broke the silence. Or at least, broke the silence in his head. It seemed strangely empty not to feel the wonder at every twig, every falling snowflake. His scattered thoughts had been frustrating, even while he was too distracted to know better. But now he could think in a straight line again, he found that he kind of missed being able to see everything as new, exciting.

Where are you taking me?

The fox paused in its tracks, turning its head to look at him. The deep green of its eyes reminded him of his brother. God, he hoped Dean wasn't going too crazy trying to find him.

To exchange. The fox whispered smooth and sinuous in his head. It flicked its tail low to the ground, sweeping a layer of snow into the air with a silent puff. Sam frowned as he noticed it was leaving no tracks behind.

Exchange what?

The fox blinked at that, the only sign of emotion Sam had seen. It was oddly reassuring. A tiny part of him had been half-convinced that the fox wasn't really there, that it was all a hallucination thrown up by his still-crazy mind. That without knowing it he had slipped back into his head, chasing imaginary friends around the forest and getting himself more and more lost in the process.

The fox was cocking its head, and Sam had the impression that could its face show expressions it would be frowning right now. Exchange favours. Is that not how humans bargain with one another?

Now it was Sam's turn to frown. Bargain? I didn't… I thought I was here to help you?

Bizarrely, the fox nodded. And in return for your promised help, I shall give you the favour. It told him, speaking slowly in his head as if explaining something to a child. Sam blushed, feeling stupid. He was being patronised by a fox. If Dean found out, Sam would never hear the end of it.

And then something clicked.

What favour are you giving me? He asked slowly, taking a step forward. The snow squeaked under the sole of his sneaker, slippery-soft. The fox didn't move.

I shall return your father. It said, voice in his head like silk. As a sign of good faith. And you will take back what the boy stole from me.

Sam took another involuntary step forward, his mouth working against words he didn't have to say aloud. You…my dad? You have him? And you'll just give him back, just like that?

In return, you will find the boy. The fox's eyes were alien, even for a wild animal. That is all I ask of you.

Sam hoped he was imagining the hate glimmering in the dark pupils.