Chapter Eleven:

Deanna walked back into the motel room to see Dean digging through a pile of papers on the desk. She walked over and sat down next to Sam as the two of them continued their conversation they'd apparently started while she'd been outside.

"You really think it's the Grim Reaper?" Sam asked, giving Deanna a soft smile before turning his attention back to Dean. "Like, angel of death...collect your soul...the whole deal?"

Dean shook his head. "No. Not the reaper. A reaper. There's reaper lore in pretty much every culture on earth, go by a hundred different names. It's possible there's more than one of 'em."

"But..." Deanna took deep breath, and Dean looked over to see her trying to hold herself together. "It was a guy in a suit."

Sam turned around to gape at Deanna as Dean turned to raise an eyebrow at her, a smirk on his lips as he handed her a piece of paper on reaper lore. "What? You think he should have been rocking the whole black robe thing?"

"You saw it too?" Sam asked, leaning back in his chair and looking at her surprised. "And you two were gonna tell me this when?"

Deanna smirked at him. "We just did."

Dean rolled his eyes at Deanna and as Sam pointed his finger at Deanna and opened his mouth to say something, cut him off. "Look, Sam. You said it yourself that the clock stopped right?" Sam shut his mouth reluctantly and nodded. Dean tapped the paper that Deanna had set down next to her on the table. "Reapers stop time. And you can only see them when they're coming at you. Which is why I could see it and not you."

"Then how could she see it?" Sam asked, jerking his thumb at Deanna.

Dean and Deanna glanced over at each other and then shrugged. "Is that really our most pressing issue right now?" Deanna asked.

Sam narrowed his eyes at the both of them. "The next time something comes after you guys that I can't see, I want to know about it."

Deanna smiled and nodded. She nudged him with her toe. "The next time something comes after me, you will be my first call. Oh speaking of, there was this really big spider in the bathtub this morning..."

Sam rolled his eyes and reached over to flick her. "Brat."

"Sasquatch."

"So whenever you children are done..." Dean said, smiling at the interaction between the two. When his younger siblings turned to look at him, Dean cocked an eyebrow. "You two can help me figure out how Roy is controlling the thing."

"I'm not so sure it is Roy." Deanna said. "He...he doesn't seem like the type."

"The witch in Boston didn't seem like the type either. Or the shape shifter in St. Louis. Or that weird guy in Seattle. I'm still not even sure what that was..." Dean said, trailing off to look out the window.

Deanna glared at him.

"The cross." Sam said, looking up from the papers on the table and reaching for his duffel bag. "That's how he's doing it. I saw it in the church tent. I knew it looked familiar."

Sam pulled out a pack of cards from the bottom of his duffel and shuffled through them before handing one over to Dean. Deanna just raised an eyebrow and took the deck from Sam.

"A tarot?" Dean asked, looking at the image of Death looking back at him.

"It makes sense. Tarot cards date back to the early Christian era. Some priests were still using magic and a few of them veered into the dark stuff. Necromancy, how to keep death away and how to cause it. Stuff like that." Deanna looked up from the deck in her hands. "Is there a reason you have a working deck of tarot cards just lying around?"

"Is there a reason you actually know the history behind the tarot just off the top of your head, Miss 'I've never hunted before'?" Sam countered.

She glanced over at Sam. "I've just spent the last how many years hanging with Missouri? Besides, I didn't say I never did any work with the supernatural. I just haven't done what you two do. There's a difference."

"So Roy is using black magic to bind the reaper?" Dean asked, interrupting their conversation and handing the card to Deanna who shuffled it expertly into the deck.

"If it is Roy." Deanna countered, nimble fingers working over the cards.

"If he is, he's riding the whirlwind. It's like putting a dog leash on a great white." Sam said.

Dean began pacing again and Deanna held out the deck to Sam. "Pick a card.

Sam just glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow, earning an obnoxious smirk from his older sister.

"We're going to have to take out Roy." Dean said into the silence.

The smirk fell off of Deanna's face like water. Both her and Sam whipped their heads around to stare at him.

"Like out...out? Deanna asked softly. Dean just looked at her, a hardened look in his eyes that Deanna hadn't seen before.

"Dean...we can't kill Roy." Sam said quietly, looking up at his brother. He did know that look. He'd seen it only once, but he still remembered the result.

"Sam, the guy is playing God. He's deciding who lives and who dies. That's a monster in my book." Dean said turning to face his siblings. Deanna had clenched her jaw shut and was staring at him with anger in her eyes.

"What happened to innocent until proven guilty?" Deanna asked.

Before Dean could answer, Sam spoke up. "We're not going to kill a human being. We do that, we're no better than he is."

Dean sighed. "Okay. Well, we can't kill Roy, and we can't kill Death. Any bright ideas?"

At that moment, Deanna's phone rang. Still staring at Dean, she reached over and snapped it up off the table.

"What?"

A few seconds later and Deanna moved her gaze from Dean and stood up, heading for the door. "Did you know?" she asked. Her voice was clipped and angry as she let the door slam shut behind her.

Dean and Sam just exchanged a look.

"So? We figure out what the black spell is?" Sam finally asked.

"And he figure out a way a to stop it." Dean finished.

O~O~O

"Did you know?" Deanna asked sharply, slamming the motel room door shut as she did. "Did you know what Roy Le Grange was doing here?"

"Well hello to you too, Deanna. So nice to hear from you again. Yes, I'm fine. How are you?" There was a voice in the background. "Oh. And Sophie says 'Hi'."

"Stow the sarcasm, Damon Salvatore." Deanna snapped. She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair before softening her voice. "But...tell Sophie I said hi back."

Damon relayed the message before turning his attention back to Deanna. "I take it Dean's okay then?"

"Did you know about him trading one life for another?" Deanna asked, leaning against the Impala and sliding to the ground, back to the motel. "Did you know?"

Damon was silent for a moment before speaking. "Would it have mattered if I had known?"

Deanna felt tears pool in her eyes and wiped them away quickly. She took a deep breath, before answering. "No." She whispered quietly. "No, I guess it wouldn't have."

Damon's voice softened. "Listen, we stopped being friends a long time ago. You hate me. You remain on civil terms with me because I know how to get things done, and I know the people who can achieve those goals. I've known the Le Grange's a long time." He paused for a moment before speaking again. "And yes. I did know."

"Another set of humans you didn't eat?" Deanna asked, a smile evident in her voice. "And gee, I thought we were the special ones."

"I wasn't hungry that day." Damon snarked.

Deanna leaned her head back against the car. "You should have told me."

"You wouldn't have gone. And then you'd be down a family member. As I recall, you don't have very many of those left."

"Thanks for the reminder."

Damon chuckled. "Anything else I can do for you madam?"

"No. I think you've done enough. Now I have to keep my older brother from killing a man I'm not even sure is guilty."

"Glad I could help."

Deanna snorted softly before sobering slightly. "I don't hate you Damon. In fact...I don't hate you. But you understand why I keep my distance."

"And you understand why I keep mine." She could hear the smile in his voice. "It would hurt our girl if you suddenly turned up dead. Doesn't mean that we can't be friendly."

"And in the interest of being friendly...thank you."

"You're a good person, D. You'll make everything work out."

Deanna shook her head, and then hung up. She closed her eyes as the sound of crunching gravel sounded behind her.

"You just going to sit there all night or are you going to come in? Sam and I think we might have a plan."

Deanna turned her head and opened her eyes. "Are we still on the 'death to a human being' plan, or did we come up with something that doesn't turn us into ax murders?"

"You're angry." Dean sighed, sitting down next to her.

"You think? Jesus, Dean. You were talking about killing a man with the same casualty as I would use in discussing throwing away a pair of shoes."

"It wouldn't have been the first time." Dean whispered, threading his fingers together and turning to look at Deanna.

Deanna just blinked at him. "Wouldn't...Tell me you didn't just go out and off someone because you were mad at him. Tell me he was actually a bad guy. Or something supernatural."

"He was going to kill Sam."

Deanna was silent for a moment. "Oh."

Dean shrugged. "I don't just wake up and decide to kill people, Annie. If it were up to me, I'd never do it again. Unfortunately, in this life, I know I have to make choices that often I don't like." he nodded to the motel. "With you and Sam back, I'm finding I have to do those kinds of things less and less, but don't get me wrong. Something comes after either of you, I'm going to end them. End of story."

Deanna met Dean's gaze. "Roy Le Grange didn't threaten any of us."

Dean nodded. "He's hurting innocent people who can't fight back. Far as I'm concerned that makes him a monster, pure and simple."

Deanna pushed away from the car and stood up. "It should never be 'pure and simple' to kill someone, Dean. Never."

Dean let Deanna walk away from him before he pushed himself up as well. "His name was Michael Andrews." Deanna stopped at his tone of voice. "He had a job as a car salesman and two little boys. One was eight, and one was ten."

Deanna turned to face him, and Dean continued. "He went after Sam because Sam destroyed the remains of his wife who was hanging around and going after her own murderers. And now those little boys have to wonder every night why their father never came home." he stomped up to her. "I think about that every day. Don't lecture me about killing being easy. I know first hand it's not."

"Good." Deanna said, green eyes meeting the matching set across from her.

"Good?"

"Yeah. Good. 'Cause that one guy's death is what's going to keep you from killing anyone else. The way you feel right now?" She tapped his chest with a finger. "Hold onto that."

Dean did nothing but watch as his little sister walked off. Just as she got to the motel room door, she turned, hand on the door knob and gave him a sad, crooked smile. "And it's not going to work. The whole 'if I tell her what awful things I've done, she'll walk away' theory. It's crap. I told you once, and I'll tell you again. You're stuck with me. Get used to it."

Dean watched again as Deanna slammed a door shut in his face, and scuffled his feet in the gravel. "Good to know." he whispered to the wind.

The door opened again. "Are you just going to stand there all night? Come on! We've got work to do!"

Dean grinned and ran for the door.

To his family.

O~O~O

Dean watched as Sam slipped quietly around the side of the Le Grange's house, and then turned back to the parking lot to where Deanna was supposed to be hanging out. Even wearing a red sweater, Dean couldn't see her. The thought made him both proud and nervous at the same time.

He flinched when he saw Layla and her mother walk into the tent. The woman's words had stung, mostly because he didn't have an answer to her cruel question. Why did he deserve to live more than Layla? What made him better than her?

Granted he knew he wasn't a saint, but he wasn't a bad person either. But he'd been willing to bet that she was a whole hell of a lot better person that he was.

So why did she deserve to die?

A flash of red out of the corner of his vision had him turning around and searching for Deanna again. If she'd found the reaper...

But no. It was just an old woman with an umbrella.

'You're saying you can become invisible?'

"Not invisible silly. You have got to lay off the Harry Potter. But...people see what they want to see. It's insane how easy it is to go unnoticed."

Dean hoped she was right. He didn't want to test her theory about Roy not being dangerous on a shaky maybe.

He didn't want her to find out first hand that she was wrong.

Lost in his thoughts, Dean almost jumped when his phone vibrated against his leg.

"What do you got?" he asked without preamble.

Sam's voice was breathless on the other side. "Roy's choosing victims he sees as immoral. And I think I know who's next."

"Yeah?" Dean asked, turning for the now crowded tent.

"Yeah. Remember that protester?"

Dean stopped. "The guy in the parking lot?"

The one who was no longer there.

"Yeah. Listen, I'll call Annie, and we'll find him, but you can't let Roy heal anyone, okay?"

Dean snapped his phone shut with a curse and hurried into the tent. Roy had just gone up to the stage, and was holding his hand out.

"Layla. Layla Rourke, come up here child."

Dean felt his heart fall through his stomach. "No..." he whispered to himself as Layla smiled and stood up, giving her mother a warm hug.

'Why do you deserve to live more than my daughter?'

Dean walked up to Layla as she made her way to the aisle and gently touched her arm. "Layla, listen to me. You can't go up there." he whispered to her, hating himself for every word that came out of his mouth.

"Why not? We've waited for months." Layla whispered back, looking at him in confusion.

"You...you can't let Roy heal you." Dean said, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

Layla shook her head, "I don't understand. Roy healed you, didn't he? Why wouldn't I at least let him try?"

"Because if you do, something bad is going to happen." Damon shook his head, pleading with her now. "I can't explain. I just need you to trust me."

He was wearing her down, he could tell. But apparently while Layla stood there studying him, Sue Ann decided it was time to move things along.

"Layla." She said gently, holding out her hand. "Layla, come here child."

Layla turned to Sue Ann and then gently pulled her arm from Dean's grip. "I'm sorry." she whispered.

"Layla!" Dean hissed at her, ignoring the look of hatred her mother shot his way.

Layla practically skipped up to the stage with Sue Ann, and Dean found himself hesitating as she spoke with Roy for a few moments.

She was a good person with a whole life ahead of her. She should be healed.

A voice in the back of his head, sounding suspiciously like Deanna suddenly spoke up. 'Who's playing God now?'

Dean closed his eyes in shame and self loathing for a moment before looking back up on the stage. As Roy reached his hand for Layla, Deann took a deep breath, and opened his mouth to ruin Layla's dreams.

"Fire! There's a fire! Everyone out of here!"

People started to get up and file out of the tent, but all Dean could see was Layla's heart broken expression, asking why.

Dean turned away and reached for his phone.

"Tell me you saved him."

If they saved David, maybe it would be worth killing Layla's hope.

Maybe if Dean kept telling himself that, he'd believe it.

Author's Note: I'm sorry for the delay in updating. Life sorta decided to screw some things up, and I didn't really feel like writing there for a while. But I'm back, getting back into the swing of things, including writing, so chapters should be coming up a bit faster. I hope you all decide to stick with me. Thanks again for the reviews and encouragement. I honestly cannot thank people enough.