AUTHOR'S NOTE: Wow, even I was creeped out when I reread that "too late" line. It only gets creepier. All is explained.

CHAPTER 10

Dean left Justine's house quickly after she told him how worried she was about Sam. It was too hard for Dean to think of his brother as that kind of threat. And Sam was his brother, no matter what anyone said.

He drove a few kilometers over the speeding limit, but didn't push it too much. He knew that his Kansas plates would be practically begging for a cop to pull him over. He was going about 110 and it still didn't feel like it was fast enough.

The sky was getting darker and his anxiety grew. He wasn't sure why, but he knew that he needed to get to his dad quickly. He stepped on the gas and accelerated to 120.

Sam reached John's room and paused outside of the door. Part of him wanted to keep walking and not look back. But another part, a dark and powerful part, pushed him to open the door and go in.

The older man stood from his seat at the table when he saw who it was. There was a slightly nervous look on his face. Sam's fists clenched as he understood; John was afraid of him, afraid of what he might do.

"You look nervous, John" Sam said softly, moving only to shut the door behind him. He didn't move closer. "Why is that? You weren't scared before you told me"

John swallowed and clasped his hands behind his back. "A part of you is probably accepting the darker part of your personality; that lets some of the…evil out" john explained his worry.

Sam nodded his head slowly, a false look of sincerity on his face. "I suppose that's why you didn't tell me before then?"

Johan nodded his head.

"And after hearing about Jess…you figured I was half gone already, so why not?" Sam's voice had rose to a yell by the end of his question. The man he had thought of as his father had given up on him.

"I couldn't take the chance that you would hurt Dean next" John said sadly. "Based on your past actions, you only kill the people who are close to you"

"Close to me?" Sam asked, scoffing. "You and Dean are still alive aren't you?"

John pulled a hand through his short hair, cursing underneath his breath. "You were never that close to us" he muttered. "You argued with us all the time and ran off as soon as you could. We were never a threat to you"

"A threat? How would someone who is close to me be a threat?" Sam asked with exasperation in his voice.

"They would stop you from…changing" John said gently. "Your mother would have been a connection to goodness, just like Jessica was. So the part of you that came from…evil…it killed them. It's easier to go bad when you're all alone"

Sam looked at his father as if he had lost his mind. Changing? He didn't feel like anything had changed about him, not to evil, at least. He had been fighting evil for almost a year now, how could that be seen as bad? He asked his father that exact question.

The older man sighed and sat back down. "When you fight evil there is a certain taint that touches you. It grows the more that you fight, until it is like another skin. Most people can't handle that kind of skin; they are the people who ignore and deny the evil in their lives. It's the only way that they can deal" John paused and took a breath looking at Sam. "Then there are people like me and Dean. We can handle that skin and keep going…because of a motive that pushes us to keep going. Our motive has always been your mother's death"

Sam sucked in a breath as the truth of that sunk in. John and Dean had spent 22 years looking for the thing that had killed his mother; and now they had found it. Sam knew that no matter how much he argued with his father, in the end the truth would not be denied. He could feel the evil in himself now; it was simmering just underneath his skin, wanting out. It was trying to use his anger to do just that, but Sam had his temper under control and planned to keep it that way.

"But you…" John continued. "You're different than anyone else. The evil doesn't form a skin on you, it is absorbed. It has been building over the past months that you've been hunting; it's almost strong enough now to take over"

"How can you know that?" Sam asked desperately, wanting John to be wrong more than anything else in the world. "I could stop now and just…"

"Become a lawyer?" John asked ruefully. "Even that is like another evil that would build in you. Why do you think that it comes so naturally to you?"

"I wasn't going to be corrupt or anything" Sam denied.

"But you would have. Sooner or later, you would have" John said critically. "The evil must have recognized how much faster the change would happen if you went with Dean, and killed Jessica to make sure that you kept it up. And it has been, faster that is"

"You keep saying that, but how can you be sure?" Sam asked. He was desperate for any good news now. Everything that his father was saying made a twisted kind of sense.

"I can see it in your eyes. You fight to control your temper more now. And I'm guessing that you avoid any connection with women" At Sam's nod John continued. "A woman's love would pull you back, make the real you be in control again"

"The real me?" Sam asked with a humorless chuckle. "So you think that the good is real and the evil isn't?"

"Yes" John said without hesitating. "That's why I wanted to give you a chance with Jessica; so that maybe she would be able to save you"

"And because of that she is dead!" Sam yelled, coming to his feat and hauling up John by his collar. "You let me stay out there, let me hurt her. I'll never forgive you for that; never" he yelled into the older man's face, feeling his grip on his temper slipping and not able to stop it. His hands went around the older man's neck and he lifted. A strange power was coursing through his body, giving him the strength he needed.

It felt amazing! The rush of knowing that he could punish John for what he had let happen was the most incredible feeling. Sam's heart rate increased until it felt like he had just ran a marathon. He squeezed his hands and watched John's face turn red. The sensation of the man's hands trying to pry Sam's fingers from his throat was hardly noticeable.

Dean was practically running as he jumped from his car and moved towards his father's room. The bad feeling that he had had before had grown until it had turned into an all-out panic.

He burst into the room and his heart stopped at what he saw.