Catching Up
Chapter 9 – No Exit

A/N: I'M BACK! I never actually left and it's been so wonderful to see all the support you have for this series. I hope to return to my regular upload schedule soon, however there should be another smaller update to my multi-chap stories in the next couple of weeks. Until next time, ENJOY! R&R PLZ!

"Okay," Sam read out. "No Exit. Sam and Dean investigate the brutal slayings of blonde women from the same apartment building." They hit start and skip the intro as per usual. The show starts with a short scene of a young woman arguing with her landlord before finding some black goo and mysterious eye in her wall.

"Oh yeah, I remember this one. Good case," Dean recalled. "Shitty, shitty ending."

"Hush," Rowena censured. "Spoilers!"

"What spoilers," Sam scoffed. "That's our mantra." I love it when you get all self-aware.

Meanwhile Jo and Ellen are having a massive argument at the Roadhouse over Jo wanting to go on a hunt. The blonde shows TV!Sam and TV!Dean her case about girls who go missing over ten year intervals. Jo had put the case together herself but Ellen makes the boys take it, insisting she won't lose her daughter. "I feel for both of them," Mary frowned. "As the mother and the daughter."

"You hated hunting," Sam thought.

"I hated not being able to have both." Mary replied. "I didn't mind the hunting so much but I resented not being able to live my own life too. I ultimately abandoned the life to be with John. But, to be honest with you, it wasn't perfect and I did hunt once or twice while I was married. After all, I was raised on gun oil and salt. It was where everything felt natural."

"I don't think it's possible have both," Dean said. "S'too much."

"Maybe, or we could just be special." In the show, the boys try to check out the apartment only to find Jo was there as well and promptly posed TV!Dean as her boyfriend. They bicker about her presence and needing to go home. Especially considering her mother whom TV!Dean doesn't want to lie to. But she stays anyway, TV!Dean lies anyway, and all three of them work the case together.

Unsure of the origins of the ghost, they agreed to search the different floors with TV!Dean shadowing Jo. The young girl is upset thinking he considers her incapable on account of being a girl but TV!Dean says it's because she's an amateur who doesn't grasp the reality of the job. TV!Dean even opens up about not having any other choice and maybe wanting one. "You should have gone with me," Sam whispered to his brother. "That night."

"Couldn't. I was too scared," Dean admitted.

Huh? Sam didn't respond, rather let a conversation from a lifetime ago flood his mind.

Dean you can come with me. It's been the two of us against the world since we were kids. You and me, we can take this on too.

Sammy we can't just leave dad. You know why we do this.

That demon took mom's life, it doesn't have to take ours, he doesn't have to take ours. I know it'll be weird but think about it. You can do whatever you want. Maybe open a garage and work on cars, you'd love that. Heck all we have to do is confirm your GED and you could come to school with me.

What about dad?

You heard him in there. He'd honestly rather have us spend our every waking moment hunting down this demon but has no idea what we'd do after. He doesn't care about the after, about where we go from there.

Of course he cares Sam! He just doesn't know how long it will take –

Exactly. We've been at it our whole lives and it could still take another 20 years to find this thing, at which point, what options will we have? Right now Dean, there is world where you don't have to look over your shoulder for a werewolf or wonder if a disappearance is a linked to vengeful spirit.

The only reason those people don't look, don't have to look is because we do. I can't forget what's out there. And I can't walk out on dad like this.

You can but you won't. Look this is my residence address and number. I searched up the general design of the place. Nothing you haven't seen before. You know the drill; left side window will be half locked, door key buried under the bedroom window. If you ever need me, come find me Dean.

Wow I'm sorry kiddo. "I hated leaving him."

"Sam?"

Sam shook his head. "Sorry, what were you saying mom?"

"Spaced out on us there Samantha," Dean chuckled. "You're only on your second beer lightweight. You missed my awesome detective work. I found a chunk of hair and the spirit snatched another girl."

"Doesn't that make you a shitty detective?"

"I'm doing my best," Dean pouted. In the show, Jo and TV!Dean have a heart-to-heart about their fathers and hunting but the moment is TV!Sam who informs them that another woman had been taken. The team doubles down their efforts to find the source of the haunting and realize that the complex sits on top of an old execution site for an asylum. Looking through a list of the dead, they stumble on Herman Webster Mudgett, the real name of –

"H.H. Holmes," Mary caught on. "The first serial killer of America. The forefather of homicidal sadism."

"Sounds like Cain's line," Crowley spoke up for the first time. "Nasty streak that one."

"Cain? As in Cain and Abel?" Mary gaped.

"The first serial killer of Earth," Rowena confirmed. "A child of Adam and Eve, they say his holy blood became tainted when he slew his brother."

"So are all criminals descended from Cain?"

"Of course not! You can't help who your family is," Crowley haughtily admonished her. "Especially on a biblical scale. But they do say, his lot are rather unlucky."

"Considering what Cain himself did, I'd say so," Cas concurred. Onscreen, the team tries to investigate inside the walls of the complex and Jo goes by herself when the passage gets too narrow. TV!Dean tries to get to her but the spirit gets her first, leaving TV!Dean to deal with wrath of her mother who knows she's been lied to.

"I'm gaining the impression she doesn't trust you boys," Crowley surmised.

"Didn't give her a whole lot of reasons and dad gave her evidence to the contrary." Mary shot Dean a look and her son just shrugged wearily. Meanwhile, the TV!Winchesters deduce that there may be something in the sewers which is where Jo wakes up, trapped in a coffin-like chamber. The another victim is there as well but they are by and large helpless against the spirit. Meanwhile TV!Sam and TV!Dean go down into the sewer as Jo tries to escape and confronts the spirit herself. It tried to touch her and she stabbed its hand with an iron knife. "Good girl," Mary praised.

The ghost comes back to go after Jo but the TV!Winchesters arrive in time to drive it off and free the girls, unfortunately for Jo, they need her to stay and be bait. They have Jo sit in the middle of the room and wait for Holmes to return. The ghost approaches her from behind, looking almost solid. "Boys quick question," Crowley examined the creature. "How accurate is this to what you lot saw?"

"Pretty damn close why?" Dean looked at him.

"It is awfully corporeal for spirit, especially an angry, vengeful one," Crowley noted. "I mean not accounting for lackluster special effects, to be that solid and in control as a spirit is something of a feat."

"Probably the strongest spectre because the attachment to the grounds," Rowena theorized. "Those catacombs, that area, everything meant a great to it. Not mention the whole place is probably imbued with the evil energy from all the murders."

"The most a murderous spirit could hope for," Mary added.

"Still was trapped by a salt line," Castiel added as the boys and Jo do just that. Then for good measure, they fill in the sewer with cement to make sure that it stayed down there. "Ingenius solution in lieu of burning the bones."

"Thank you Cas," Dean said proudly. "That idea was one of mine."

"Perhaps you ought to call a priest and bless the grounds," Mary suggested. "Remove some of the negative powers and diminish it's strength. Even now, it couldn't."

"Not a bad idea," Dean considered. "I'd probably go back into that building and cleanse it too. At least bar the spirit from entering."

Sadly for everyone, TV or not, salt and cement couldn't save then from Ellen who did end up flying down to get her daughter. TV!Dean drove them back to the Roadhouse where Ellen finally revealed why she was so edge. Jo told TV!Dean that their fathers had teamed up for a hunting trip and something went wrong, John screwed up and got Jo's dad killed. That's why John never mentioned them to the boys and stayed away for so long. With that, the screen cut to black and the credits rolled. "Damn," Mary hung her head.

"Yeah," Sam returned and that was all they really could say.