Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just strongly recommend it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

NINE

Hartford County Police Station
West Hartford, Connecticut
Saturday, October 7, 2006
11:37 AM

John Winchester doubted there was anything in the damn town of Hartford that could piss him off any more than he was. After a morning of lackluster searches, time whittled away working surveillance outside of the house he was scoping out, and an overall absence of incompetence with whomever he spoke to, John was just about ready to leave Connecticut altogether, with or without what he came here for.

In the last few weeks that he had spent trailing behind Sam and Dean as they went from the case he had sent them on in Fitchburg, Wisconsin to another in New Paltz, New York—trying to get a good read on how his sons were doing and whether or not they were being followed by anything else aside from their own father—John had managed to pick up a few tidbits of information pertaining to the demon he was hunting. As he spoke with other Hunters over the phone, some that should have gotten out of the business a long time ago in his opinion, and tried to sort through pieces of legend, John had ultimately come across something that might help him in killing the thing he had been hunting for the past twenty-two years—twenty-three coming next month.

But in order to decipher lore from facts, John had digging to do, more so than whenever he was getting his hands dirty trying to uncover whatever the demon that had killed Mary was ultimately up to. As he dove into books and phone calls and whatever else he could manage to get himself buried under, John had eventually been pointed toward Hartford, Connecticut, sensing an irony there that he couldn't dismiss. After having just left the state following a rather grizzly encounter with a demon that had nearly killed Amelia, he had sworn to keep his distance from her, knowing that the thing had only attacked her because of her connection to him. To have to return to an area not even forty miles from where she went to school, John was both initially reluctant and surprisingly curious, wondering if the signs were pointing in a helpful or hurtful way—though in his experience, it was always the latter.

Deciding to take the trip down to Hartford, John had left Sam and Dean to their own devices in New York, arriving only a day before the publicized disappearance of a couple of kids hit the news. While it was obvious that something strange was happening there, John had a priority to finish what he had come to town to do first before figuring out whether or not he was going to jump into the job. Heading straight for Armsmear, the former home of Samuel Colt that had been turned into a museum of Colt's more famous guns, John had waited until the early morning hours to make a trip inside, breaking in through the back to scope out the place and search for any evidence that backed up the claims he had been hearing from various Hunters over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, the longer he stayed inside, the longer John began to get suspicious that he was believing in nothing more than a myth, something Hunters told their kids as a bedtime story.

Packing up and leaving, though returning a few hours later when the doors opened to talk to the docent, John had spent the rest of the day on the phone, filing away what the curator had said to him during his private tour of the place. For some reason, there was something in the man who had paraded him around the museum's voice that told John not to give up on his endeavor just yet, as though the illusive gun he was searching for was just out of reach, but not quite in range. Picking up where he left off in phone calls and library visits, John began to get more and more frustrated with his various informants on the other end of the line, finding that they were becoming less and less useful as they prattled on the same information they had given him the first time, their story never changing or divulging anything new.

However, with noon not so far away, John had decided to switch gears, focusing instead on the articles he had read in the newspaper while he had been in Hartford, a couple of stories about missing children in the neighboring town of Willow. Taking the drive over, which happened to be a couple of residential streets away, John had immediately taken to asking around, finding himself more frustrated than before when most of the people in the tiny suburb either pretended to be unaware of what was going on or were tight-lipped about the two reported incidents. Mentally storing that for future use, especially since it had struck him as odd in a town so small, John decided to go straight to the source, doubling back into Hartford to head to the police station sitting not too far away on an empty stretch of Route 176.

Making a beeline for the front desk to talk to one of the five officers milling around, three congregated in front of him as he flashed his FBI badge, noticing a look of surprise and shock mixed in all of their expressions. As he took to asking them about the missing kids, the trio of officers began to stammer three different tales, each of them sounding more bizarre than the theory John had already worked up. Asking for the police reports the parents had filed, he waited impatiently as the cops broke apart, giving John a clear view all around the precinct. However, his eyes didn't travel much further than the holding cells that were easily seen in a brightly-lit room just behind the area he was standing in front of, immediately recognizing one of the two girls being contained there—tall, thin, brown hair, green eyes.

Amelia.

As soon as he saw her, the bubbling rage that he had been attempting to contain for most of the day began to flow over, causing John to snap at the surrounding officers and ask for an explanation as to what those girls were doing in the back. Stopping in the middle of his paperwork, one of the meandering policemen who hadn't been muddling the tale of the missing children answered that they had been taken in for breaking and entering, as well as messing up a crime scene. Shaking his head, John bit back the incensed words he wanted to bark at the cop, instead choosing to round the desk and head to where Amelia was holding tightly to the bars of her cell.

"Girls," John began quietly, "shouldn't you be in school?"

Pursing her lips, Amelia's eyes searched John's face as though looking for the right answer, reminding him strongly of his oldest son when he was younger, the gaze portraying the obvious need to reply correctly without incurring the famous wrath of John Winchester. "We, uh, we should."

"Then what are you doing here?"

Opening her mouth, to speak, Amelia took a deep breath. "There's something—"

"Mr. Winchester, if I may," the girl in the holding tank beside his daughter interrupted. Taking a look at her, John remembered her from the night he had passed her unconscious in the hall, though he was beginning to get the feeling he was going to like her more asleep than awake as she butted in. "Amy and I are just doing our jobs. We noticed something was wrong in town and decided to check it out. We were in David Hollbrook's house when the cops busted us. We weren't doing anything wrong, so if you could just get us out of here so we could be on our merry way, that'd be great."

Furrowing his brow at the friend, and noticing that Amelia's reaction to the speech had been nothing but an eye roll, John bunched his jaw in aggravation at both the other girl's words and how brazen she had been. Though he typically commended anyone who wasn't afraid to hold back what they thought, he had a hard time accepting it when it came to the subject of his kids—in this case, particularly Amelia. John had worked the girl's entire life to keep her out of this, and had been certain that she would shy away after the encounter with the demon, leaving her behind one of the books in his personal collection in case she had some sort of questions as to what had happened that no one would be able to answer. While it was possible that she had misinterpreted the gesture, John had a feeling it wasn't Amelia who had been the one to jump into the job, but instead her friend beside her.

Remaining silent, John narrowed his eyes at the friend, debating whether or not to let them out or have them stay put while he took care of whatever menace was sweeping through Willow. Though he knew it would be cruel to leave the girls in the hands of the inept policemen outside, John had made a promise to both himself and to his daughter's mother than Amelia would never enter the world of hunting, and had stood by that. Only when circumstances were dire had he brought her in while still keeping her in the dark, and even then he had made sure she believed everything to be normal. Amelia's mother, Morgan, would be disappointed to know that he had found her in the middle of a case, and would probably turn over in her grave if she knew.

Making the decision to get them out of there and send them back to school, John left to speak to one of the officers, flashing his badge again and nodding toward the girls behind him. "Any charges been pressed over the 10-14?"

"No, sir," the man replied, shaking his head. "We haven't been able to reach the owner of the property. He's been admitted to Arkham and has been placed under controlled observation for the next twenty-four hours. A neighbor called it in."

"So, you're holding two college students with no priors without grounds, is that what you're saying?" John snapped, rolling his shoulders back to stand taller than the already-shorter man, who then cowered beneath him. "The federal government has rules and regulations against this, officer. If these two haven't been arrested on factual grounds, this can be written up as mistreatment of a citizen. You can lose your job for this."

"But Sheriff Dobbs—"

"Sheriff Dobbs is already aware of the situation," John lied. "You either release them, or I make a call to my superiors. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, uh… yes, sir."

Nodding to the policeman as he removed a set of keys from his belt, John followed behind the cop as he headed for the doors of the jail cells, unlocking each quickly with shaking hands and stepping back to allow the girls to exit. As soon as Amelia was free from inside, John grabbed her arm to steer her away, leading her out the front door of the precinct with her friend in tow. By the time they were out in the overcast day, and away from the peering eyes of the officers in the station, John released his grip from around the girl's arm, checking to make sure he hadn't bruised her or held her too roughly.

"Well, I'm so not doing that again," the friend joked to break up the quiet that had fallen. "We better be more careful next time, Aims. Maybe—"

"There won't be a next time," John interrupted, looking down at the much shorter girl, who appeared neither concerned nor surprised at his glare. "You will return to your car, you will drive home, and you'll stay at school until the end of the year. You will not leave campus, you will not show up in Willow again, and you will not waste time working jobs. You're kids and you're going to stay kids until you graduate, understood?"

"I understand," Amelia answered automatically, a sense of relief coming over her that seemed to solidify John's suspicion that she hadn't been the one to suggest they take the case. "Thank you for that… whole thing."

Nodding once, John turned heel and headed back inside, leaving his daughter and her friend out on the sidewalk to either make good on their word or do what they would.

Watching as John disappeared into the police station, Amy let out a deep breath, shutting her eyes for a moment to get her bearings. The man was right in saying that they should keep their nose out of the situation, that they should stay in school rather than poke around at things that were none of their business. Amy had had that feeling back when Taylor had first proposed they go check out what was happening in Willow, but had overridden the sense due to the fact that she had convinced herself that she was doing the right thing, helping people rather than sitting idly by.

But that wasn't her life, and it wasn't her job to save strangers. John seemed to have already devoted himself to the cause, and he appeared to be on top of it, knowing how to work the system rather than making guesses at what to do. He was learned and trained on how to deal with things like this, whereas Amy and Taylor were messing everything up by breaking into homes and getting arrested. They were being stupid trying to be superheroes instead of students, and Amy was glad that at least someone else realized that along with her.

Rolling her shoulders back, Amy sighed and nodded toward Taylor before heading in the direction she remembered the police car had taken them from David Hollbrook's house in Willow.