AN 1: In this chapter I took a real ghost story from Vermont's history and made it fit into a Supernatural story/ episode I guess. I changed the name of the ghost because I knew I would be changing his story slightly, but the circumstances of his death and the main points of the story are the same. So if it sounds familiar to you, that is why.

Dean let his phone go to voice mail every time it said his brother's name for almost three months. On the initial sixteen hour drive from Sam's dorm to Santa Fe, Sam called almost twenty times. He demanded to know what Dean's problem was at first, then slowly the voice mails became more desperate, just wanting his big brother to let him know he was okay.

"I don't know what did, Dean," Sam's very tired voice said in the last voice mail that night. "I don't know if one my friends said something to piss you off and you left before you punched someone or what's going on in your head, but call me back, okay. I'll fix it. Whatever I did I'll fix it."

"You can't," Dean replied to the empty car. "You can't stop growin' up kiddo. I can't ask you to do that."

When he finally did call back, leaving a happy birthday message, Dean knew it was the last time he'd be calling his little brother. Sam was probably too pissed at him to answer, let alone call him back. Dean knew he was the one that fucked it all up, but he knew Sam would be fine. He had his friends, those people who knew a side of him Dean never would, the happy side, and that was almost enough to make Dean feel better about it.

He spent a long summer with his dad driving around a haze of blood and monster guts; bars and girls that he was too drunk to remember their names. He was numb again, but he like it that way. He wasn't in the haze that he was when Sam first left, but he teetering on the verge of losing control.

In October Dean and John sat at a table in a motel in Bloomington Indiana they'd just finished going over plans to take down a changeling operating near an elementary school. They were playing five card draw for pieces of popcorn and peanuts while they slowly drank warm beer, when John's phone started to ring. He looked at the number skeptically before standing and flipping the phone open.

"Who is this?" John demanded.

Dean shuffled and dealt the cards out, snacking on some of his winnings as he waited for his dad to come back to the table.

"Kate?" John said pacing. "Kate who? I don't know a Kate. Who gave you this number?"

He did his best not to listen, just sat back and took a slow drink of his beer.

"Oh," John said into the receiver. He eyed Dean warily and paced faster on the far side of the room as if he didn't want Dean to hear. "Why didn't you… you could have… is it okay if I… As soon as I can… of course I do… as soon as I can… You could have called me earlier… I mean it's kind of a big thing… no, I'd love to… I'll be there… yeah, I know… I'll be there, Kate… See you soon."

He flipped his phone shut and placed his hands on the back of the chair he was previously sitting in. He let out a long deep sigh.

"What was that?" Dean asked curiously.

"I gotta go to Minnesota," John replied. "I think wanna take the car. You'll be good with my truck for a week or so?"

"What about the changeling?" Dean questioned. "Takin' that bitch down in the morning right?"

"I have faith in ya," John nodded. "This thing up in Minnesota is... important, can't wait."

"Need back up?" Dean pressed. "We'll have this wrapped up by noon, take off from there."

"No," John said dismissively. "One man thing, ghouls, I can... I can take care of it. Not a big thing. We'll meet up in a week."

"Where?" Dean asked, popping a piece of popcorn into his mouth.

"I'll call ya," John nodded. He pushed off the chair and started to gather his things. "Or you call me when you finish up the changeling. You might be able to squeeze another job in between this and when I get my stuff done up there."

"Alright?" Dean leaned back in his chair confused.

"You got the keys to the Chevy?" John asked patting down his old leather jacket, which had become Dean's a few years earlier.

"Yeah," Dean fished them out of his front pocket and tossed them on the table. "What's going on, Dad? I've never seen you rattled by a phone call."

"Nothing," John shook his head. "Just something I gotta take care of. I'll see you in a couple weeks. Take care of that think in the morning. I don't want it getting any more kids."

"We're partners now," Dean interjected as John picked up his bag to leave. "We're supposed to be in this fifty/fifty, no secrets. That's your rule."

"Still your father," John said in that tone that made Dean feel like he was twelve again. "So when I say 'don't worry about it, it's my problem' don't worry about it, I'll take care of it myself. Understand?"

"Yes, Sir," Dean nodded as John rushed out the door.

Confused and slightly worried about the mysterious phone call and his father's reaction, Dean started to clean up the now abandoned game. His dad wasn't the kind of guy that just took off in the middle of a hunt, definitely not one where kids where were in trouble. Dean went over the plans again, making sure he had a flare gun ready for his early morning raid on the abandon warehouse down the road where John and Dean were certain the changeling mother was had set up camp.

Dean cleaned up the changeling den pretty quickly the next morning, brought the kids he could back to their parents. He decided it was in his best interest to start focusing on that part, the saving people. If he thought about all the people he'd saved from horrible fates instead of how flaky his dad was being or that his little brother was never going to speak to him again or that Bobby had made it perfectly clear that he never wanted to see a Winchester on his property ever again, he'd be okay.

He hated driving his dad's truck. It was a nice vehicle, but it wasn't his Baby, it handled too smoothly, nothing rattled when he turned on the heat, it was almost too good. The Impala was imperfectly perfect; the only permanent fixture in his life and it didn't feel right to not be behind the wheel. He could not wait until he got his car back.

John finally checked in as Dean drove west through Wisconsin.

"I want to you to head to Vermont," John's gruff voice said before saying hello. "There's something fishy in Hartford, I want you to check it out."

"Are you meeting me?" Dean replied.

"Maybe," John answered. "If I finish up here. Find out what's going on in Hartford, then call me. I'll let you know how it's going out here."

"Okay," Dean sighed. "Is everything alright? You said it was an easy job."

"Yeah," John answered like he was trying to rush Dean off the phone. "It's almost wrapped up. Call me when you get to Vermont. Get that case squared away. We'll figure it out from there."

"Alright," Dean answered and the line went dead. "Nice to talk to you too, Dad."

He turned the car around at the next exit and headed East, making it to New England about twenty hours later. He went straight to the library and started working. If his dad called he wanted to have a good jump on this thing, he was going to pour everything he could into it, give his dad a reason to want to work as a team again.

In Hartford there was a stretch of road that was known to have a lot of weird car accidents right after the bridge that crossed the White river. Dean sat in the public library waiting for his dad to call as he scrolled through old newspaper articles about deaths on that stretch of road. There were a fifty eight since 1910 when the bridge was converted into a roadway after train crash in 1870's. Since the first death was less than a week after the new bridge opened. Dean figured the two things were related. There were a few survivors of car wrecks over the years, all saying the same thing caused the driver to swerve, a young boy, between 10 and 12 standing in the middle of the road.

He decided to call it a night; he'd scout out some college kids at a bar or a bookstore the next day and try to find out about this boy. He found his way to the nearest motel, dad's truck didn't cut it as a place to sleep, and flopped down onto the bed. He checked his phone one more time for missed calls before drifting into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning Dean headed out the bridge. Nothing looked weird, he held onto the side of the bridge and leaned around to look down at the water, but nothing seemed out of place. There were still railroad tracks running down the left side of the road, overgrown with over a hundred years of weeds and grass but still visible from where he stood. There as a little plaque on the bridge commentating the big train wreck, saying that it happened because the bridge was wooden and hadn't taken into account the new train technology of the time and caught on fire. Most of the passengers had died, burned alive or drowned in the river.

Dean walked back to town, hoping to find a nice little place to eat breakfast, when is phone rang, finally.

"It's Dad," the voice on the other end of the line said. "What you find out?"

"Honestly," Dean sighed. "It doesn't look like a vindictive thing. There was a train wreck on the site of the crashes, so it could just be people seeing someone standing in the road, swerving around it and hitting a tree."

"Still gotta let that poor soul rest," John replied. "Find out who it is?"

"Working on it," Dean answered. "I gotta find some locals see if they know the story. Could get a real handle on it in the library. Are you heading this way?"

"Yeah," John said. "I'm on my way. It all looks good here for now. Might have to go back later but I think it's good now."

"What's out there?" Dean asked curiously.

"Nothing that concerns you," John replied harshly. "I'll be there in about twelve hours."

The phone went dead before Dean could answer or say good bye.

"You look lonely," the waffle house waitress, Wendy, observed as Dean stared at his coffee. He looked up at her. She was older, probably his father's age, pretty in that way that all mothers are pretty, with dark hair and soft brown eyes. She smiled sweetly at him. "You need someone to talk to, sweetie?"

"I don't know," Dean shrugged, pressing sweaty palms against his thighs. "Maybe. You're probably too busy to listen, though, just being nice."

"Sweetheart," the waitress smiled down at him. "Look around this place. Its 9:30 on a Tuesday morning and you are my only table. I got all the time in the world. Let me grab your food and if you need an ear, I'll listen to you, alright?"

"Yeah," Dean nodded. "I… I uh… I think I'd like that."

"Alright Sweetheart, I'll be right back."

Dean stirred some sugar into his coffee as he waited for the waitress to come back. She placed his breakfast down and took a seat in the empty booth seat across from him.

"Talk," she smiled.

Dean smirked; he cut up his pancakes as he talked.

"I work with my dad," he started. "Pest control, we travel quite a bit, and umm… the other day, like a week ago, he got this phone call and just took off, like pretty much in the middle of the night. Wouldn't tell me what was going on. We've been pretty equal partners for a while now, and I just I don't get it. He's being real weird about the whole thing. Every time I ask him what's going on, he shuts me down. He keeps hanging up on me an stuff."

"He still treats you like a little kid," Wendy the waitress smiled.

"Yeah I guess," Dean replied pouring syrup over his meal. "I mean, like, my little brother, he used to be with us, but he went to college and doesn't want nothing to do with us anymore. So it's just me and my dad and I don't know. He talks about being equal partners in this business. It's our family business and I know he wants me to take over one day when he can't do it anymore, but he doesn't treat me like I matter."

"I'm gonna tell you how I work with my daughter," Wendy smiled. "She's a little bit older than you I think. Got herself a husband and gave me a little grandbaby. It don't matter how old you are, you're still a little baby to your parents. Your father doesn't see a man yet when he looks at you, just his little boy. You'll understand it a little more when you got yourself your own babies."

"But we're supposed to be partners," Dean explained. He crunched on a piece of bacon.

"Maybe you just gotta sit your father down and explain how you feel?" Wendy asked. "Maybe your dad doesn't want to worry you about what's going on. Just cuz he's your dad doesn't mean he stopped being a person. Maybe it's just a personal thing that he doesn't want to bother you with."

Dean chuckled, "Yeah, I've been trying talk to him that since he left but he keeps hanging up on me. If it was just a personal thing he'd say that. He wouldn't just shut me off. We have a better relationship than that, I think."

"Wait til you see him," Wendy suggested. "Might have to corner him. I'm sure your dad isn't doing it on purpose. He's just treating his little boy like a little boy because it's easier than accepting you've grown up."

The bell over the door jingled and Dean watched a group of college kids walk in.

"I gotta go, sweetheart," Wendy smiled, touching his hand. "Don't let your dad bring you down. I'm sure that you're good at your job. You look responsible, like a good kid. You can convince him if you try."

"Thank you ma'am," Dean nodded. "I appreciate it."

Dean went back to the library, chatted up a couple college age girls about local legends.

"Oh! You mean Tommy!?" one of the girls, Krista, he thinks, exclaimed, which caused the harsh looking librarian to glare in there direction, when Dean mentioned the stretch of road by the White River.

"Sure," Dean nodded. "Tommy."

"Oh, there's this old ghost story," Krista whispered and nodded excited. "He's this little boy, like ten, who was in the big train crash in the 1870's. I've heard it told a couple of ways, but the most popular is that he was thrown into the water and shoulda drown, but he didn't I guess. When he got to shore he started looking for his dad, but his dad died in the crash. And eventual Tommy died of his injuries or something, but he still goes to the bridge to look for his dad."

"Interesting," Dean smiled. "Any idea where he might be buried?"

"Umm," Krista's brunette companion thought aloud. "Probably the cemetery on the other side of the river. A lot of the bodies were buried there. Thomas Something really Irish."

"Thanks ladies," Dean smiled as he stood up. "That was very helpful."

"Are you gonna go look for Tommy?" Krista asked. "One time my sophomore year of high school, we all went down the road for a softball team bonding session, and we saw him. I swear."

"No," Dean shook his head. "Just writing a paper."

"Oh," Krista looked really disappointed.

"But… um…" Dean smirked. "If you want to tell me all about your experience, we can meet up later."

"Yeah," Krista smiled. "I'd love that." She scribbled her number onto his hand before he walked away.

Dean spent a decent part of the afternoon looking for "Tommy Something Irish" age 10 in the cemetery on the other side of the river. It took almost an hour and half to find the section of the grave yard that held the hundred year old graves of the victims. The stones were hard to read but after quite a bit of rubbing and eye rolling, Dean found the graves of Thomas Cavanaugh and his 10 year old son, Thomas Jr.

"That'll be them," Dean smiled. He places a white flag at the foot of the grave so he could find it later, and headed back to the motel, to wash up so he could have this little date Krista the college girl.

The Impala was parked in front of Dean's room when he got back to the motel, a slightly tipsy Krista giggling behind him. He'd told him dad that he'd gotten a single room, so Dean hoped that his dad got the message and got his own room. But of course as Dean stepped backward through the threshold, holding Krista around the waist. John was sitting at the desk going over paperwork.

"Bout ready to take it down?" John said.

"I'm sorry," Dean whispered into Krista's ear. "Give me like, two minutes."

"Thought we had a job to do?" John said glaring at Dean.

"We do," Dean replied. He looked at Krista an apologetic look. "Why don't you have your own room?"

"Who's this?" Krista giggled.

"Business partner," Dean answered. "I swear I didn't know he'd be here."

"I told you I was coming back," John grumbled.

"Didn't think you'd be back so soon," Dean said glaring at his father.

"Whoa," Krista said taking a step back. "Is this… are you guys like… No…I didn't sign up for this."

"Oh, no," Dean shook his head, panicking. "That's not… He's leaving. Nothing weird is going on I swear. He wasn't supposed to be here I wasn't trying anything. I swear."

"I don't think this is a good idea," Krista shook her head walking backward toward the door. "I'm sorry. But, like, you should have told me about the business partner. That's wicked sketch"

"Krista," Dean called after her. "I swear to God that I didn't know he'd be here."

"No," Krista repeated before turning and walking across the parking lot.

"Fuck," Dean groaned. "Thanks." He banged his head against the wall next to the door. "How did you even get in here?"

"I taught you to pick locks when you were six," John shrugged. "One room's cheaper than two."

"Yeah, but you know, I've kinda been by myself of a little bit, and I had a since you weren't coming back for a while and knew I had a single room…"

"Job comes first," John shrugged.

"I've been working my ass off on this case," Dean said. "I've done all the legwork. I got the grave marked. All I gotta do is dig it up and burn the bones."

"Then why ain't it done?" John asked.

"Did you not see the hot blonde?" Dean replied. "She was the research portion of this investigation."

"I'm sure she had a lot of interesting things to say," John replied. "But we got a job to do."

"I'm twenty-three," Dean said. "I'm sorry you didn't have fun at twenty-three, but you know maybe you should loosen up a little bit. It's barely midnight, she woulda left by three at the latest. Plenty of time to dig up a grave and burn the bones before midnight."

"Job first, Dean," John said. He grabbed the shot gun from the backside of the desk and stood up. "I don't know how many times I gotta tell you that. You can have your fun when the job's done. Let's burn this mother."

"We aren't in town long enough for me to have any fun," Dean argued.

"You're starting to sound a lot like your little brother," John said walking up into Dean's space. "I'm your father and you don't got any right to talk to me like that. Let's go."

"Yes, sir," Dean nodded. He turned and followed his father out to the truck. He gave him directions to the cemetery.

When they got there, Dean, of course, did all the digging. John was tired from driving all day and pissed off about Dean's attitude, so Dean dug until he hit the wooden coffin.

John poured the container of salt over the body, when as expected a small translucent ten year old boy appeared next to him.

"What are you doing to me?" he asked. "I need to find my father."

"You're gonna find him, Tommy," Dean nodded. "As soon as we're done here, I promise."

"I have to find my father," Tommy cried. "The train, it crashed."

"I know kiddo," Dean nodded.

"I'm scared," Tommy appeared next to Dean.

John flipped the lighter and stared at the flame for a moment.

"Dad just wait," Dean said quickly. "He's scared."

"It's a ghost, Dean," John sighed.

"A scared little kid ghost," Dean corrected turning to the boy. He kneeled so he could look into its eyes. "It'll be okay. You're dad's probably looking for you too, I promise you. It'll…"

But before he could finish the boy screamed and turned to flame.

"You start getting attached to the ghosts," John said as they drove back to motel, Dean's face pressed against the passengers window. "You're no good for the job."

"It was a scared little kid," Dean replied. "He didn't mean to kill those people. He was lost and looking for his dad."

"But he killed sixty people, Dean," John said.

"On accident," Dean sighed.

"If you killed sixty people on accident you'd be in jail for the rest of your life," John explained. "We're saving every person who drives down that road at night. If you can't see that, you don't deserve to be a hunter."

"Yeah, okay," Dean sighed.

He wanted to keep fighting with his father. Yelling that maybe he just understood the kid. He missed Sam, John had been weird and distant this last week, but Dean held it in instead. It wasn't worth being yelled at to try to get a straight answer out of his dad. He tried to brush it off as he laid on the floor of the motel room he paid for, not with his money, but still. He stared at the ceiling trying to figure out how to make this work. He just wanted his dad to trust him, be proud of him. He wanted so much, he just didn't know how to get it.

AN 2: The original ghost story is about a boy that was killed in a train crash in the 1870's. Later the railway bridge was replaced by a steel bridge; I converted the railway bridge into a road bridge when it was rebuilt for my purposes. The boy is usually seen floating over the river not on the railway or road. I changed that part. The ghost either died along with his father or watched his father die and supposedly looking for his dad. I thought it fit what was happening in this part of my story so shaped it to fit.

AN 3: There is a weird math situation in the Supernatural timeline. Adam was born in September 1990, which makes him 12 in 2002, when the beginning of this chapter takes place. But when looking to see when John first met Adam, several sources said that it was the same year Sam left for Stanford. But if Sam was born in 1983 he's be 18 in May 2001, therefore graduation HS in June of 2001 and leaving for Stanford that summer (If Sam followed the typical HS to college line). But Adam said he met John when he was 12. So that's not the same year. I'm mostly telling you this because I spent almost two weeks trying to make Adam 12 in 2001 or have Sam leave for school in 2002 and I couldn't and I got really upset and needed to share this with other people.