The hunt was over. The ghost was gone, they'd stopped the killings, and Tom was back home. It was over. It should've felt over. But something about that hunt just wasn't sitting right with John.

They returned to the Impala, having dropped off Tom, and were on their way back to the cabin. As he drove, he kept thinking about the case, turning it over in his head. His instincts from years of hunting kept throwing details of the hunt at him, shoving them in his face and showing him how wrong they were.

"John?" He looked over to see Rose staring at him, eyebrows raised with concern. "Are you alright?" she asked.

The Hunter nodded stiffly. "I'm fine," he said quietly.

Rose raised an eyebrow, not looking convinced. "Earlier, you said something looked wrong about the ghost vanishing," she pressed. "You think she didn't really die or something?"

John shook his head. "It didn't look right," he told her. "There wasn't any flames, and it was too quick. It looked like an act."

"But we burned the bones," Rose reminded him. She paused, then shook her head with a slight chuckle.

The Hunter looked at her with amusement. "What, is that one of the stranger things you've said?" he guessed.

The blonde shook her head, telling him with a rueful laugh, "Actually, that's the thing. For me, that's pretty much in the range of normal. A little grotesque maybe, but not any stranger than anything I've done in the last two years." She grinned to herself at some memory, remarking with amusement, "I'm pretty sure traveling to the year 5 billion and stopping a homicidal flap of skin counts as weirder than burning some bones."

John just stared at her. After a few moments he shook his head with a sigh. "I hope to God you're crazy," he said wearily.

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Um, alright," she said with a slight chuckle, "I'm trying not to see that as an insult. Why exactly do you want me to be insane?"

"Because aliens and time travel sound like ten new kinds of crazy that I do not need in my life." Rose laughed, a warm, pleasant sound, and the Hunter grinned slightly despite himself. He shook his head briefly, then snapped back into Hunter mode, deciding aloud, "We need to find out more about Mal. Something has to be keeping her here, some piece of DNA that got left behind, a lock of hair or a fingernail or something. We should talk to Tom again, see if she had anything like that." He switched over into the left lane, setting up for a U-turn to take them back to Tom's house.

The girl nodded. "Alright. Hopefully he'll know something, and if not he can help us look." There was silence for a few moments, then she spoke up again. "It's not all bad, you know."

John's brow furrowed. "What isn't?"

"Aliens and time travel," she clarified. "It's not all aliens trying to take over the world and people dying. There's good aliens out there, fantastically wonderful aliens, and incredible planets. Living like that, yeah, you see people at their worst, but you get to see all the best of them too. You know, Gandhi, Rosa Parks, people who did good in their lives, who gave everything they had to help people. And it's not just big names like that either. There are so many good, ordinary people out there. And I think that's the best thing. There's a woman out there named Gwyneth who died saving Cardiff from the Gelth, a servant girl no one ever paid any mind to, and a man named Mickey Smith who saved a parallel world from Cybermen. No one knows who they are, and no one ever will, but they were heroes, and because of the way I live, I got to see that. Well, the way I lived, anyway."

John listened quietly, studying the girl as she spoke. She had started out sounding proud of her life traveling time, but as she went on, her voice grew dull, eyes darkening with grief, shoulders slouching. He remembered her uncontrollable sobbing from earlier, and couldn't help but wonder what it was she had lost.

The Hunter looked away gruffly, commenting, "Sounds like a good life."

Rose shook herself slightly, composing herself before responding, "Yeah. Yeah, it was."

John snorted. "Well mine isn't. There aren't any good ghosts or ghouls, not any that I've met. There aren't any grand views or fun adventures. There's just nightmares and everything you could ever think of waiting in the shadows to eat you alive. There's nothing glorious about this life, so if that's what you're here for, might as well get out now."

The girl rolled her eyes. "I'm here to help people," she said testily. "How many times do I have to keep telling you that? Besides, I can't exactly go back to normal after two years of time and space."

John just shook his head. "Whatever. Let's just finish the job first." He turned the radio on, cutting off any further attempt at conversation as he turned the volume up on AC/DC.

Whatever Rose's deal was, he wanted it to be the only thing on his plate when he dealt with it.

SCENEBREAK

Tom slipped out of his house, dully closing and latching the door behind him. He felt like he was walking in a fog of some sort, every movement distorted, like something was weighing him down. His thoughts were equally sluggish and confused. He wasn't sure what he thought about anything anymore, except that he had to get out of that cramped little house and get some fresh air. Slipping the keys back into his pocket, he started off down the sidewalk, barely feeling the cold bite of the wind.

It wasn't really even the revelation that ghosts were real. It was a little freaky, yeah, but it had just been that, he was pretty sure he could've handled it. No, it was Mal, and how she'd come back. More specifically, how she'd tried to kill him.

He'd always wondered to himself whether Mal was happy where she was, if she was anywhere at all, if she really was in a better place. Whether she blamed him or not for her death. He had agonized over it all that year, if it had really been his fault or not, and what Mal could possibly think of him. But now, he knew. She did blame him. She had tried to kill him. And now he'd killed her again, and it was all his fault, all of it. Mal would still be alive if it weren't for him being a stupid, selfish coward. Hell, Mal'd been right to try and kill him, and he knew it.

Part of him wished she had succeeded.

As he trudged along the street, shoulders hunched in misery, his hand brushed something in his pocket. He pulled it out, feeling another stab of guilt as he recognized it. In the palm of his hand lay Mal's locket, the one her mother had given her. Something hard formed in his throat, and he could feel tears threatening to spill over. With a shaking hand, he undid the clasp and opened the silver heart, laying on his palm so he could see inside. Two short locks of brown hair were curled inside the rim of one half, with a picture of Mal and her mother on the other side. His fingers absently traced the curl of the lock of hair. Mal and her mom had been so close. Her dad had skipped town before Mal was born, and her mom had stepped up to the task of juggling being a single mom with a full-time job with a gusto.

She had been heartbroken when Mal died. And it was his fault.

Tom's vision blurred. His tears finally spilled over, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He snapped the locket shut and closed his hand around it, clenching his fist until he could feel the outline of the heart pressing into his palm. He moved to return the necklace to his pocket, then paused, considering. Finally, he lowered his hand, locket still clenched tightly. He didn't want to put it away. Not yet.

The night wore on, and he kept walking. He couldn't stop. Something kept pushing him on, kept him feeling restless and weary all at once. Whatever it was, he suddenly knew where it was leading him. Honestly, he wasn't surprised. He always knew he'd end up here again.

Tom finally came to the house, pausing in front of it. He hadn't come here since Mal died. It would've been too painful, for this is where she and Paul had lived before her death, and where Paul lived still. As he watched, a lithe blond figure passed by the window, reaching for something on the counter. Tom's eyes narrowed. It was Paul's new girlfriend, a girl he'd only met a few times before. For a moment, he hesitated. Paul was at fault, but he didn't want to drag this girl into this.

The blond girl swung her head to the side, blond hair swinging around to behind her shoulder. She grinned at something Tom couldn't see, then a tall, well-built man with dirty blond hair strode into view. Tom felt his stomach clench at the sight of him. Paul. He threw an arm around the girl's waist and leaned in, chin resting on her shoulder, face buried in her neck. The girl laughed, and Tom felt a blaze of fury. How dare he move on from Mal so quickly. How dare he live like that and act like nothing happened, like he wasn't the reason his girlfriend had lived miserably, why she was dead.

To hell with caution. His day had been way too weird to worry and hang back. Tom stormed up to Paul's front door and started hammering on the door. He bellowed out, "Paul! Get over here!"

He could hear footsteps inside, then Paul's voice from within. "Alright, alright, I'm coming, don't break down my door dude." The taller man pulled the door open, expression hardening as he recognized Tom. "Tom," he said coolly.

The blond girl peered around Paul, looking at Tom curiously. "Who there's, honey?" she asked.

Paul gave a tight smile. "Just an old friend. He was just leaving."

There was a hard edge to his tone. The last part was a warning, but right now, Tom was in no mood to listen. "We need to talk," he told Paul in a low voice.

Paul narrowed his eyes. "No, we don't," he said more firmly.

Tom lifted his chin, glaring as defiantly as he dared at the pissed-off jock. "I'm not leaving until we talk," he growled out.

"Listen, you little bi-"

"Hey, why don't we just calm down –" his girlfriend began, looking oddly between the two men.

Paul whirled to face her, barking out a quick, "Shut up!" The girl jerked back, looking at her boyfriend with a shocked expression. Tom guessed that she hadn't been with Paul long enough for him to show his true temper.

While Paul was distracted with his girlfriend, Tom pushed past him into the house, storming into his kitchen. Paul whirled to face him, every muscle rigid with anger. He stalked towards him, barking out, "Get the hell out of my house!"

Paul moved a hand to push him, but Tom beat him to it, shoving the man's chest back with everything he had. "It was your fault!" he cried. He hated the way his voice cracked, the way he had to ball his fists to keep himself from trembling. Rage was blazing got under his skin as he raged, "You're the reason Mal's dead! It's because of you!"

The girl looked at him with wide eyes. Her gaze shifted uneasily to her boyfriend. "Paul, what the hell's he talking about?" she asked sharply.

Paul ignored her. "I don't know what you're talking about," he growled. "It was an accident, Tommy boy. Suck it up and move on."

Tom felt a flash of rage. "You selfish, sadistic son of a bitch," he gasped out. The fury was burning under his skin, pounding against his skull, balling up inside until it felt like there was a cold knot in his chest. Rational thought flew out of his head as he threw a wild punch at Paul's head. The stronger man dodged easily, swatting Tom's fist away while responding with a hard slam to the gut. Tom jerked back, feeling the wind fly out of him. He gasped for air, but wasn't given much of a chance to recover. Paul gave him a hard blow to the jaw, sending him slamming down onto the ground.

He landed shoulder-first, head snapping back against the hard wooden floor. White-hot pain shot through the back of his skull, spreading steadily to his neck and shoulders. He heard the girlfriend let out a shocked cry as he fell, and as the pain spread through him, he vaguely heard her yell, "What the hell, Paul?!" He looked up in time to see Paul shove her back, throwing her against a wall. She let out a slight cry, but fell silent after that, gaze darting between the two guys.

Tom forced back a whimper of pain as he blinked blearily up at Paul. The taller man's face was contorted with rage, voice low and husky as he sputtered, "What the hell are you playing at kid? It's been a year, goddamn it. That bitch got what was coming to her, and so will you if you don't watch your fucking mouth. 'Kay? You just keep your trap shut."

Tom felt himself quivering with rage, but his head was still ringing, and he knew that if he got up, he would just start swinging again, and that would land him right back on the floor. So he stayed put, glaring up at the man he'd hated all that year. "You're a coward, Paul," he said shakily.

Paul's eyes narrowed. "What did you just say to me?" he demanded.

"You heard me," he hissed. "You're freaking pathetic, you're just evil. You made Mal's life hell for years, and you have the nerve to blame her?! She's dead because of you! You killed her! You made her into that, that thing, you made her kill those people! She was so damn miserable that she couldn't move on."

Paul's expression had gone from rage to plain confusion. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked.

Tom bit back a groan, clutching his stomach where Paul had slugged him. The fight had drained out of him. All he felt now was a weary hatred, and the grief and fear of the earlier ghost encounter. He looked up at Paul, blinking through the pain. "I wish I'd killed you instead, when I had the chance," he rasped.

Before Paul could say anything, the lights in the house suddenly began to flicker, and the temperature dropped. Tom felt himself freeze with fear as his breath turned to white fog. No. He said it aloud, a whimpering mantra of, "No, no, no, no."

Paul looked around. "What the hell?" Tom ignored him, his frantic whimpering growing quieter in fear. It was over, it was supposed to be over, they had promised it was over!

One of the knives on the kitchen counter began to move of it's own accord, lifting up into the air. Paul's eyes widened, and the girl let out a gasp. Tom's heart stopped cold as Mal materialized in front of them, the knife gripped tight in her hand. Her eyes weren't dull and emotionless like before. Now they burned with rage and hatred as they fixed themselves first on Tom, then on Paul. She let out a hiss that echoed ominously. "You did this!"

Tom closed his eyes. "I'm sorry," he whispered. He stuffed his hand in his pocket and clutched the locket tight. I'm so sorry.

Mal took a step forward, lifted the knife, and grinned.

Silence, and then screaming. Then, nothing.

I'm sorry.

I won't be spending a lot of time on these chapter comments, it's 3 am for me (stupid college hours) but whatever, I finally finished the chapter. I've been struggling a bit with my concept of this story, mostly with Rose, so I think after me and my roommate are done with our Supernatural marathon, I'll head back to watch some of the Rose episodes, so I can get a better feel for her character. I'm just going to have to work to get her to fit in the SPN verse, methinks.

I'm actually pretty happy with how this chapter came out, especially the part with Tom. The title came from me thinking about the song How To Save A Life by The Fray. Not sure how much it really portains to this chapter, but it sorta kinda fit with Tom's guilt over Mal, and it's currently stuck in my head, so whatever.