Sam had been looking forward to exorcising the demon, but when the moment arrives it's Dean who recites the Latin chant, while Sam slides down the wall to sit on the floor, hardly even glancing up when the cloud of black smoke rushes upward out of Hudson's mouth and he falls inert to the floor. Dean steps forward and lays two fingers at the side of Hudson's throat. His lips press together, his jaw clenching.
"He didn't make it," Sam says. His voice sounds distant, hollow, even to his own ears. They might have gotten Hudson released from his deal, but the demon won anyway. Hudson's family is going to come home to an empty house after all.
"It was his own damn fault," snaps Dean, but his voice breaks and his eyes are over-bright.
"Like it was Mom's fault?" Sam whispers, and Dean turns away. If Sam were not so numb at the moment, he thinks he might resent Dean for being right all along.
Dean says nothing to that effect, however. He scrubs a hand through his hair, scuffs a foot through the scattering of papers on the floor. One of the pages apparently catches his attention; he bends down to pick it up and tucks it into his jacket pocket. The same pocket from which he pulled the last page of John's journal, which bore the message that the demons were coming for Sam. And now they know why.
"Azazel," Dean mutters, stepping past Sam into the study to retrieve their bag of supplies. "That must be its name. The one who made the deal."
This is exactly the kind of information they'd hoped to glean from this case, but now, Sam can't bring himself to care. It's hard to believe he was so eager to for the hunt only a few hours ago. Now he wishes he'd let Dean keep chasing spirits and monsters, moving to a different small town every few days, keeping far away from their quest for vengeance. What did that quest matter now, anyway? Is it even possible to avenge a person who died by their own choice?
Before Sam can get too lost in his thoughts, Dean is there, tugging gently on his arm.
"Come on, Sammy," he says, his voice softer than Sam has heard it since they arrived in Rosedale.
The nickname is what finally pierces through Sam's numb paralysis. There's a response he's supposed to make, he's certain, but he can't think what it is at the moment. He allows himself to be pulled to his feet, and stumbles unseeingly out of the house and into the Impala. It's as if the revelation about Mary was too much to take in, and now all his senses are overloaded, and he can't process anything that he sees or smells or hears. He can feel the warmth of Dean's hand at his back, though, guiding him, and surprises himself by feeling grateful for it.
He doesn't know how long they're in the car, how far they are out of Rosedale, before he thinks to ask where they're going.
"Back to Lawrence," says Dean shortly. "I think we should pay Missouri a visit, don't you?"
For once, Sam wholeheartedly agrees with him.
It's a ten-hour drive from Mississippi to Kansas, and it's already been dark for a few hours when they leave Hudson's house, but neither of them suggests stopping to get some rest. Dean leaves the radio off; perhaps he's hoping that the steady, monotonous hum of the Impala's engine will lull his mind into blankness better than music. It's not working for Sam, who would have actually appreciated some noise to distract him from his thoughts.
Dean drives the whole way with his hands clenched white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his shoulders tense, his eyes fixed on the road. They pause only to refuel. At one gas station, Dean buys a box of energy bars and shoves it into Sam's lap with a significant look, but Sam doesn't touch it, and neither does Dean.
It's mid-morning when they pull up to Missouri's house. It's quiet, almost eerie; the only noise is that of the Impala's tires crunching on the long gravel driveway. Otherwise, everything is still. No birds flitting about or singing. No wind rustling the maple leaves. No movement from inside the house when Sam rings the doorbell.
Sam glances at Dean, who shrugs, so he rings the doorbell again, insistently, and then raps his knuckles on the door. "Missouri!" he calls. His voice is hoarse and scratchy from the silence of the long drive from Rosedale. "It's Sam and Dean. We'd like to talk to you!"
But as soon as he stops speaking, the eerie silence falls again.
"Right," says Dean, after another minute of waiting brings no sound from within. He pulls his set of lockpicks from his pocket, crouches down, and has the door open in seconds.
Inside the house it's just as unnervingly silent as outside. Not even the hum of a fridge or a furnace working makes itself heard. Sam and Dean spread out, tiptoeing through the entire house, their footsteps sounding unusually loud in the silence. Dean has his Colt in his hand, and points it ahead of him into every room; Sam grips the handle of his own handgun in his waistband. Something doesn't seem right about the emptiness of the house, and although there's no sign of a struggle, Sam can't help feeling that wherever Missouri is now, she did not leave this place willingly.
They search the entire house, and, finding nothing, return to the living room. That's when Sam notices the folded piece of paper lying on the coffee table. He picks it up, and a small bronze object slides out of it and into his hand. He turns his attention first to the paper, holding it out so that Dean can read too. It's a note written in curiously uneven, shaky letters, as though the writer's hand was trembling.
Sam and Dean,
If you're reading this, I'm sure you've come here looking for an explanation. The only one I can give you is one you sure ain't gonna like. That's the trouble with being psychic, ain't it?
Sam, your mama loved you. She loved her whole family. That's why she made the deal, when she thought she was gonna lose you before you was even born. She was driving home one night when her car got hit by a semi. She was okay, but you weren't, and she just couldn't bear the thought of her family being torn apart.
I was already the demon's whore by then. He made sure I was there for the accident, so I could help her make the deal. But the demon didn't just want her soul—he wanted you too, Sam.
The demon who holds the contract—oh, he is evil. He's coming for me soon, and he's coming for Sam, too. I don't know what his plans are, and I hope you never have to find out. Dean, it's up to you to keep your brother safe now. You boys are on your own.
I ain't asking for forgiveness. Where I'm going, forgiveness is pretty hard to come by. But I am sorry.
The last word trails off the page as though the writer was interrupted in the middle of forming it. Sam finishes reading, and opens his hand to look at the object that fell out of the note. It's a bronze amulet just like Sam's, molded into the same strange little horned face.
There's a deep scratch across its eyes.
*S*P*N*
The sight of the destroyed amulet spurs Dean into action. They didn't find any sulphur during their search of the house, but he feels certain that Missouri was taken by demons—possibly the demon, Azazel. Whether or not that's true, there's an undeniably sinister feeling lingering about the area, and after reading Missouri's note Dean is even more aware than usual of the danger Sam is in.
Sam doesn't put up any of his usual protests as Dean hustles him back out to the Impala, still clutching the note and Missouri's amulet. Soon, they're tearing out of Lawrence, barrelling along some unmarked country lane. Dean doesn't know where he's going and doesn't care, as long as it isn't Lawrence. He never wants to set foot in that town again.
Eventually, as the morning wears on and the adrenaline wears off, Dean pulls the car into a secluded, shady spot at the side of the road, presumably so they can get some rest, though Dean suspects that it will be a long time before he sleeps again, despite the exhaustion pulling at his limbs.
This suspicion turns out to be correct; he's still awake a long while later when Sam stirs in the backseat.
"Dean?" he whispers.
Dean considers pretending to be asleep, but he doesn't have the energy even for that. "Yeah?"
"You were right. About Mom."
For a moment, Dean is no more able to reply than he was the first time Sam said it, back at Evan Hudson's house. Something about his tone, the way he sounds like a sad, lost little boy, seems to steal Dean's voice away. Sam always loved and trusted Mary, even after she died, and he's carried that trust with him all these years as surely as he carried the amulet she had given him; and now it too is broken.
"I didn't want to be," Dean finally manages to say.
"Do you wish…." Sam stops, and Dean hears him swallow uncomfortably. "Do you wish she hadn't done it?"
"I wish she hadn't sold her soul and left the rest of us to clean up the mess." It was all right for her, Dean thinks, chewing the inside of his lip angrily. She got ten years with her family intact, and when the time was up she just checked out. She never had to see her family separate, never had to watch John nose-diving into alcohol-fueled obsession, never had to struggle to keep Sam safe from all the evil freaks that are after him thanks to her.
"But do you wish…." Sam trails off again. Then he says in a rush, "I mean, if she hadn't sold her soul I would never have been born."
Dean sits up so fast he nearly cracks his head on the ceiling. He peers over the backrest to where Sam is lying on the seat, hugging his knees to his chest, his eyes squeezed shut, looking so small and vulnerable it's hard to believe that if he were to stretch out there wouldn't be room in the car to accommodate him.
"Sam! Of course I don't wish you'd never been born," Dean says sharply, his heart suddenly pounding with something close to fear. He'd thought the two of them were reaching some kind of understanding over the last few weeks—had he been wrong?
"She'd still be alive," Sam whispers, his eyes still tightly shut.
"But you'd be dead," Dean points out. He swallows, then plunges on, not caring if his voice goes rough. "I wouldn't want that. No way."
Sam opens his eyes and smiles shyly at him, and Dean experiences a feeling of relief so sudden and dizzying that he's forced to sink back down across the front seat.
"Good. I'm glad," comes Sam's voice from the other side of the backrest. "Cause there's not much we can do about it now, is there?"
Dean gives a weak chuckle, because he knows Sam wants to make him laugh, but he sobers again quickly.
"You know what I wish?" he asks.
"What?"
"I wish she never got hit by that semi in the first place."
"Not much we can do about that now, is there?" Sam says again, but this time he sounds sad.
There's a pause. To Dean, it seems that they're observing a moment of silence for the life they could have had if the car crash had never happened, if no demon deal had been made, the years they could have had as a family, untroubled by the dark, evil things lurking in the shadows. Then he hears Sam stir again, this time sitting up and leaning over the backrest into Dean's field of vision. Something dangles from his fingers directly above Dean's face. He reaches up to swat the object away, and his hand connects with warm metal. It's the amulet that usually hangs around Sam's neck.
"I want you to have this," says Sam.
"Mom gave it to you," says Dean, staring at him.
"Mom sold me to a demon. I'm giving it to you." Sam's face is set in an unaccustomed hard expression. "Missouri said we're on our own now. But we've always been on our own, haven't we? You and me."
It certainly seems like it, Dean thinks, looking up into Sam's face. Mary, John, Cheryl, Tommy—they're all gone now, and their passing has only increased a distance that was there all along.
Dean looks at him a moment longer, then takes the amulet, its little face disfigured with the scratch across the eyes. He doesn't know how he could ever have thought of it as worthless; now Dean thinks it's the most precious gift he's ever received. He wants to tell Sam how much it means to him, but he can't find the words, so he just slips the cord over his head and lets it settle against his chest, right over his heart.
Sam nods in approval. "It suits you." Then, as though attempting to lighten the gravity of the moment, he says, "Goes with that whole street punk look you've got going on."
Dean punches his shoulder, trying to scowl, but he's pretty sure it's coming out more like a grin. "Thanks, Sammy."
Sam smiles back, and doesn't bother to correct him about the name.