A/N: Thank you all so much for the reviews! I was pleasantly surprised at the response to my first Supernatural story. :) You guys are amazing! Here's chapter two, please review and enjoy!

I'd Follow You Anywhere

Chapter Two

"What was all that about, exactly?" Dean snapped as he and his brother piled into the Impala, Dean in the driver's seat, Sam in the passenger's. Dean's tone was irritated and Sam looked genuinely confused.

Eyebrows drawing together, Sam asked, "What was what about, Dean?"

Dean started the car, pausing when the engine gave its rumbling, precursory roar. Dean was silent until they had pulled away from the LeGrange house and were cruising toward the main part of town. It was well after noon, the brothers hadn't had lunch yet, and they had noticed a small roadside diner on their way into town. It had been a long drive to Louisiana, broken up by a couple of gas stops and one night in a rundown, rather seedy motel in Georgia. Both were tired and beginning to grind on each other's nerves and Dean didn't so much as blink when his fond annoyance with Sam turned into defensive irritation at hearing Sam's words to Lilian.

Finally Dean spoke up, his voice tight but attempting to stay light. Annoyed as he was, he wasn't in the mood to get into it again with Sammy, especially about Dad, which, Dean knew, despite his reluctance to admit it, was what this was all about. "Oh, I dunno, Sammy, maybe that whole Dr. Phil, don't be afraid to talk about your feelings crap," he answered. "You trying to say something, Sam?"

Sam stared at Dean for a couple of seconds, then snorted as everything came into clear focus. "I was just trying to help."

Dean didn't look at Sam when he replied, "Who? Lilian or me?"

Glaring, Sam ground out, "Lilian. Dean—"

Dean cut him off. "Sammy. Just forget about it."

"Hey, you're the one who brought it up, man, I—"

"Sam."

Sam didn't respond other than to make an impatient noise in his throat and turn away from Dean, resting his forehead against the cool window of the Impala.

Dean glanced over at his brother wearily, heart heavy. He hadn't actually meant to say anything to Sam about his comment to Lilian but when they had gotten into the car and he'd seen the brooding look on Sam's face, he lost it. Dean had known exactly what his brother was thinking about – Dad – and didn't appreciate him trying to send subliminal messages to Dean about how he needed to 'open his heart' and all that crap. Now, it seemed, Sam was hurt by Dean's response, still ticked that Dean wouldn't become a freaking pansy and talk about their father, and Dean was getting more agitated at Sam by the second – and he didn't want to be. Sam was all he had left now and he didn't like fighting.

But Dean was so, so sick of hearing about his dad, of being reminded of John Winchester, that he didn't care. If Sam was going to instigate a fight by preaching his so-called therapeutic message, then Dean would call him out on it. Sam would just have to realize that Dean wasn't going to gush about his feelings to anyone, even his own brother. There were some things that even the closest of friends had to deal with on their own.

Even if it was killing them inside.

Later that evening, after a spicy, classic New Orleans lunch of gumbo (and pie for Dean), the brothers checked into an obscure hotel on the edge of town, informing the skeptical hotel clerk that they wanted two single beds, not one king bed, thank you very much. Once in their room, the brothers started pulling out the information they'd gathered, ready to go over it again in light of their interview with Lilian. Both men studiously ignored the argument they'd had earlier and worked like it hadn't even happened, other than a small hint of tension lingering in the air between them.

"So what'dya think?" Dean asked from his seat across the table from Sam, once again shuffling through some information they had dug up at the library about the bogs before coming here. "Vengeful spirit? Maybe Melanie's father had something to do with her death, and she got revenge on him?"

Sam frowned, glaring moodily at the picture of the little girl he held in his hands. They had searched the newspaper archives in the library, finding the obituary from five years ago of little Melanie LeGrange. They'd made a copy of it to bring along with them, which Sam now held with a brooding expression on his face. "Yeah, maybe," he conceded, releasing the paper onto the table, where Dean picked it up, studying the seemingly innocent face of the girl. Melanie was cute, with coffee-colored skin, bright, happy blue eyes, black hair, and a smattering of freckles across her chubby cheeks. The report beside her picture spoke mournfully of how the child had gotten lost from her parents during a hike and drowned in the bog. Of course, an investigation had been launched but nothing had come up that deemed either parent intentionally responsible for their daughter's death.

Dean set the paper down and observed his younger brother through narrowed eyes. Sam was even more emo than usual today and Dean didn't think it had anything to do with their disagreement in the car. No, there was something else, something about this job, that was bothering him. "But…?"

At Dean's prompting, Sam looked up, surprised. "But what, Dean?"

"C'mon, Sammy, I know that look. You're thinking that this isn't just a straightforward salt-and-burn, am I right?"

Sam nodded slowly, gaze far off. "I mean, maybe, if it had just been Carter LeGrange who died. But we've got the other five suicides to think about, too. Why would the ghost of one girl go after five other people?"

Dean shrugged. "You get pissed off spirits killing people that invade their turf all the time. It's not that unusual."

"No," Sam agreed, "but it's not just been in the bog, has it? I mean, sure, three people've drowned in the bog, but three others jumped off a cliff. And they all died in different areas. Ghosts are supposed to be linked to the place they died, or to a cursed object. So why would Melanie be moving around killing people that had nothing to do with her death?"

Dean frowned. "What if they did? How do we know that the other five weren't somehow involved with Melanie's death?"

Sam shrugged, still looking doubtful. "I guess we don't. So… what? You want to go talk to the families of the other victims, find out if they knew Melanie?"

Dean nodded. "I'll take two of'em, you can have the other three families."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Why do I have to take three?"

"Because," Dean grinned, scooping of the keys to the Impala and heading for the door, "I'm going to check out the bar, too. You know how people like gossip, Sammy."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Always thinking about work," he commented sarcastically.

"Well you know what they say," Dean countered cheerily, the previous argument all but forgotten now that they were getting into the job. "All work and no play makes Sam a very dull boy."

"So, Ms. Jacobson," Sam said, sitting rather uncomfortably on an overly plush, bubblegum pink sofa across the living room from the first victim, Riley Walker's, babysitter. She was an older woman, in her early sixties, with a strong southern accent, a poof of fiery red hair perched precariously on top of her head, and more makeup slathered on her aging face than a clown. She batted her mascara-clumped eyelashes in what she must have assumed was an alluring manner, almost predatory gaze locked on Sam's face.

"Call me Delilah, doll," the woman breathed, her voice cracking from years of smoking. "Ms. Jacobson sounds so… formal."

Sam's lips twitched in what he hoped was a professional enough smile and reminded her, "This is a formal visit, ma'am." He wanted to add that it was illegal to try and seduce the questioning FBI agent but he wasn't sure it was an actual law and didn't know how savvy the woman was on this aspect of the law. Instead, he simply plowed on, mentally cursing Dean for opting to question Karlie LaRae's and Raymond Keith's respective family, leaving him with the flirtatious old babysitter as the first on his list. "Ms. Jacobson, when was the last time you spoke to Mr. Walker before he passed away?"

The woman seemed disappointed that he wasn't the least bit interested in playing her game, but she conceded, even as she sighed heavily at Sam's lack of interest. "Well, let's see, Agent Ramsey," she mused, her two-inch long earrings jingling wildly with every thoughtful shake of her head. "I talked to him the evening he died, actually, to see if I would need to come over to get Laura earlier the next day. Riley often leaves for work early, you know, so that he can stop by the cemetery on his way there. Poor soul feels terrible about what happened last year." Her voice automatically became hushed and excited, indicating that she was getting ready to do some major gossiping.

Sam leaned forward instinctively, hoping to hear something that would shed some light on this odd situation, but apparently the old bird thought it was a cue that he was interested. "Oh, Agent Ramsey," she nearly cooed, "I knew you'd come around!"

Sam instantly sat back, desperately trying to keep his face from flushing crimson, and asked, "Ms. Jacobson, who did Mr. Walker visit before work?"

Still leaning slightly forward, Ms. Jacobson answered, "Why, his wife, Agent Ramsey. Michelle. She died going on a year ago and lord knows that poor man blamed himself."

Sam racked his memory for the way Walker had killed himself. Right, he'd jumped off a cliff. So, did that mean…?

"She didn't happen to die on a cliff, did she? Fall or… jump?"

The question took the older woman aback. "Michelle? No, heaven's no. She was killed in a hit-and-run. Wasn't anything Riley could've done about it, though, she was walking home from the market and some drunk hooligan ran her down and drove off like the devil himself was on his tail." She shook her head slowly, clicking her tongue disapprovingly. "Riley said he shouldn't've let her go out alone, should've walked with her. Their car was in the garage, you see."

Sam's brow furrowed even more. This made even less sense now. Even if Mrs. Walker's ghost somehow blamed her husband for her death, why would she get revenge by throwing him off of a cliff? Why not run him over with a phantom car in the street? And would a mother, even a ghost mother, really leave her child an orphan just to get some petty revenge? Unless this didn't have anything to do with Michelle's death at all, but with the LeGrange's daughter, which didn't make sense, either, but it was all they had.

"Ms. Johnson, you don't happen to know if Mr. Walker had any association with the LeGrange family, do you?" he asked, wishing fervently that she'd stop looking at him with that dreamy, almost hungry, look in her eyes.

"Oh, no, dear, the Walkers were a real quiet family, didn't get out much. I doubt they knew any of their neighbors, let alone a family all the way across town."

"But you know of them?"

"Why, yes, of course. That poor man killed himself after his daughter's death; it was all over the newspapers." She squinted across the room at Sam, eyes alight with curiosity. "Why? Do you think they're connected, Agent Ramsey?"

Sam shrugged, thoughts far away. He was baffled. Maybe the two cases had nothing to do with each other. Maybe this wasn't supernatural and Riley Walker had killed himself out of grief. It had only been a year since his wife's death. But why would he do it in the middle of the night, leaving his daughter alone in their house? Unless he'd completely cracked or had never been Father of the Year material, it didn't make sense.

Nothing did.

He stood up to leave, his hostess rising with him, a sad expression on her face. Sam had a feeling that this had less to do with the depressing topics they had been discussing and more to do with the fact that 'Angent Ramsey' was about to leave. Sam, on the other hand, couldn't be more delighted that he had finished his interview. "One more question," he asked quickly, more out of curiosity than anything, and Ms. Jacobson perked up a bit. "Who is taking care of his daughter, now that he's gone?" He really hoped this old woman wasn't; not that she wasn't nice in her own way, but Sam couldn't imagine having to spend more time with her than was absolutely necessary and would not want to have been raised by such a person.

"His sister, I believe," Ms. Jacobson replied. "Why?"

"Just making sure the child is in good hands," Sam replied, ducking subtly out of the way of the woman's wrinkly hand as it rose to touch his arm. "Thank you, ma'am, for your time."

Sam practically ran out of the door, ready to kill Dean, even if his brother hadn't known he'd be left alone with a sixty-year-old with eyes for men more than half her age. It wasn't an experience he was going to forgive easily, that was for sure.

With a heavy heart, even more confused than when he had knocked on the babysitter's door, Sam turned and walked away from the house, ready to go to the next address and talk to the families of Randy McClain and Deserea Marion, two other suicide victims. He stopped in his tracks, though, as a familiar form caught his eye on the sidewalk outside of the house. Standing in front of him, wearing the crisp, baby-blue dress she'd been buried in, blonde hair cascading down her shoulders, and eyes watching him joyously, was Jess. Sam's heart nearly stopped at seeing her face again, beautiful and happy. He watched as she winked at him, tilting her head fractionally toward alley between two buildings, as if she wanted him to follow her.

Sam only hesitated for a moment before she started to walk away, threatening to leave him forever, and Sam couldn't have that. Mind clouded over with desire, pain, love, and guilt, Sam found himself walking the way she had gone, unable, it seemed, to control his own body. All he could think about was Jessica, and how he was going to get to hold her again, apologize for what had happened to her.

They would finally be together again – forever.

A/N: Yay, a bit of suspense, at last! :) This is not, by any means, the end of the investigation because they still don't know what the heck's going on here, but we will get some action pretty soon! XD Please review and I'll update ASAP! ;)

~Emachinescat ^..^