A/Ns: Guys, guess what? It's my 30th birthday this weekend (holy crap, right?) I can't even. No, really. I can't. Anyway, I think an early chapter is a good birthday present for all, and I do like to spread the love ;)

(Also I won't have time to post properly on Sunday XD But sure, let's go with the altruistic reasoning, yeah?)

Chapter Warnings: Well, after a fun post like that I regret to inform you that absolutely nothing in this chapter is fun. No one has a good time in Cold Oak! (Don't feel bad, Andy, it's not just you!) But oh boy, guys, it's a bad chapter to be an OC…

Actual Chapter Warnings: Lots of off-screen death in this one. Oh, and Jonathon gets what he deserves ;)

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (This Time Around)

Season 2: Chapter 49

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Cold Oak was a bloody mess.

It wasn't obvious at first. It took time, both Winchesters jogging quickly down the three empty streets that made up the town, checking inside pitch-black buildings in the silent night. There was a decent moon out, but that didn't help them inside. The two hunters swung flashlights inside each interior as quickly as they could, trying to hit all the dark corners and crannies, but they were on a time limit and searching an entire town took time. Too much time. All the while, a feeling of eyes on them persisted. Human or other, though, they didn't know. One brother always kept watch, shotgun in hand, while the other searched for the missing kids, but nothing came out of the dark for them.

The Winchesters found the first body about ten minutes in. Scott, going off Andy's description of an emo male.

"God damn it," Dean muttered, turning away from the body. The kid was on his back, eyes wide, terrified and sightless, staring up at the ceiling of an old general store. He'd been strangled and stabbed. The bruising on his neck was grotesque, finger-shaped dents pressed so far into his skin they were more black than purple, and his chest was a bloody mess, shirt punctured in more than half a dozen spots.

Sam stared at the innocent kid – a kid just like him – and closed his eyes, lips forming a silent prayer. They couldn't have saved him, he told himself. His skin was cold, the blood congealed and drying. He'd been dead for hours. They couldn't have saved him, but it still hurt. Still made him angry.

Another life stolen by Azazel's pointless game.

"We should burn the body," Sam said quietly. This kind of death was just asking for a vengeful spirit and Sam didn't want Scott, whoever he had been, to suffer that fate.

"Later." Dean was already headed out of the store, not out of a lack of respect for dead, but because they were on the clock. "We got more kids to find."

Both could only hope they'd find the other two in a different condition. A futile hope, it turned out.

They found Amanda next. She was four stores down in what had probably once been an apothecary or doctor's office of some sort. Her neck was riddled with the same, deep bruising, her chest covered in even more stab wounds than Scott. Dean was really starting to hate this Jonathon kid.

There was a lot less remorse when they found his body. Dean didn't even bother with a moment of silence or regret for not finding the kid alive. He just grabbed one bloodied, shredded leg while Sam grabbed the other. They started dragging the kid back towards the others. As they pulled him down the road, they left a trail of blood and a lot of body parts, internal and external, that they'd have to go back for. The demon Andy spoke of had done one hell of a number on the kid.

Dean didn't have a shred of sympathy for him.

Sam eventually called it, telling Dean they'd have to do more cleanup dragging the body in pieces than just getting the other two and burning them right here where Jonathon lay. The more they left behind of the man, the more chance they took that something would get missed and Jonathon would come back an angry spirit, emphasis on the angry. Cold Oak had enough of that already.

So they left him in the middle of the street and went back for Amanda and Scott. There wasn't time to make a clean burial for each; all three bodies would have to be put on one pyre. Andy didn't have the luxury of them doing this right, and no way was Dean spending the night scouring those woods or this town for wood. It was regrettable, but as far as both Winchesters were concerned, the living was their priority.

Dean carried Amanda back to where they'd left her killer, Sam a couple dozen feet behind him with Scott's body. They laid the two of them down with a hell of a lot more care than they'd dropped Jonathon, and the Winchesters started gathering wood. Dean wasn't shy about it. He ripped loose panels right off the buildings and walkways around them while Sam ventured into the woods for what bigger logs and limbs he could find.

"Stay in sight," Dean insisted, as he had when they'd first entered the town and Sam suggested splitting up. No way in hell was Dean letting his little brother out of eyesight in this town. Not this town. They were tempting fate and the damn timeline plenty enough just being here, and the sensation of being watched hadn't ceased since they entered the damn town.

Both Winchesters had already spotted a ghost each, the incorporeal specters watching silently from windowsills and doorways. There had been no sign of the demon Andy had mentioned, and Dean hoped she'd fucked off back to the woods.

The woods Sam was currently scouring the edges of for fuel.

So the younger hunter didn't push. He stayed within eyesight. He knew what Dean had witnessed once before in this place and he had no plans of making his brother repeat that experience. He took care to stay where Dean could see him and didn't venture further than a half dozen feet into the woods. Sam felt Dean's eyes, as well as others, locked on him the entire time.

It took them forty minutes to build one large pyre. Probably not large enough, given the three full-grown humans they needed to fully burn atop it, but it would have to do. Dean was already growing anxious to return to Andy, and Sam was right there with him. He'd sent the kid a text just before they lost service, telling him they were almost to the town and would text as soon as they were on their way back. But he knew if their places were switched, Sam would spend every one of those one hundred and twenty minutes wondering if that text would ever come or if he'd just be left waiting, wondering what had happened.

"We shouldn't have left him," Dean muttered for perhaps the twelfth or thirteenth time as he climbed down off the pyre, having gotten the last of Jonathon up on it. The rest of the pieces of him they just chucked onto the stacked wood as they picked it up piece by piece. Kid was in more sections than a jigsaw puzzle. Dean still didn't feel a shred of sympathy.

"Andy'll be okay," Sam insisted with far more confidence than he felt. But he had to believe it was true. They couldn't lose Andy now, not when they'd just gotten him back. He was going to be fine, and in the meantime, this was something they had to do. Something Andy needed to do and couldn't. So the Winchesters would do it for him.

"He could have waited in the car," Dean argued, still muttering darkly. Sam spared him a look as he picked up one of the two gas cans they'd both gone back to the Impala for once the pyre was fully built. They didn't split up. Not in this town.

"I'm surprised you didn't make me stay with him," Sam said it in lieu of telling his brother that he understood exactly why Andy didn't want to come back here, no matter the protections the Impala offered. How Dean should understand that too, even more than Sam. The man from the future probably did, he was just too worried not to be angry about it.

The look Dean shot him was not a pretty one, and despite Sam standing in the middle of Cold Oak about to light a massive fire and call the attention of every supernatural thing in a mile radius, that look was a parent daring their kid to make them turn the car around.

"No one comes to this town alone," Dean finally said, the words a declaration of a rule that hadn't been spoken aloud previously but might as well have been carved in stone in the Winchester's mind.

Sam actually stopped chucking gas onto the wood to stare at his older brother. His older brother who would never admit to not being able to do something on his own, especially if it meant keeping his kid brother safe. But Dean hadn't said Sam wasn't allowed to come to this town alone. No, he'd very specifically included himself in that.

The older Winchester ignored Sam's staring, circling the wood pile to dump more gas on the back. "It's taken enough people, Sam. No one comes here alone."

The younger Winchester stared a moment longer, a quiet, private part of himself taking that moment of silence, of condolence, for what this Dean had lost here. It spoke volumes to Sam, as it would to anyone watching their loved one grieve them. Even another version of them. Then Dean was circling back around to him, and Sam emptied the last of his canister on the pile. He stepped back as Dean dug a handkerchief out of his back pocket, soaking it in the last of his gas and lighting it with his Zippo. He chucked it on the wood pile, and the thing went up in flames in mere minutes.

"We should burn the whole town down." The man from the future watched the fire take, orange light flickering in his eyes. Sam huffed in agreement before he realized Dean was serious, and then he was once more staring at him, this time more out of worry.

"We can't," he replied cautiously, still not quite sure Dean had been serious. But the older Winchester sure as hell looked serious, staring at those three bodies as their clothing started to catch along with the wood. "Dean, we can't."

"Why not?" The older hunter turned towards him, shoulders back in a clear challenge. But Sam knew it wasn't him Dean was angry at. "This place is no good, Sam! It's soaked in blood, and I'm not just talking those kids!"

He threw an angry arm out, finger pointing at the burial fire. Sam knew that. He did. This town was once so haunted all its residents fled in fear of their lives. A demon in the woods was hardly the only thing lurking in the dark. They'd both felt it. They were both surprised nothing had attacked them yet.

That would change in a heartbeat if they tried to burn the place down. Sam knew that, too. And two hunters, Winchesters or not, weren't a match for an entire town of ghosts and evil spirits.

But that wasn't the only reason not to do it.

"This doesn't end with them," Dean added darkly, no longer looking at his brother but those burning bodies. He hadn't stayed behind to clean up Cold Oak the first time. Sam's death had been all consuming, but he knew how many bodies they would have found in that town had he and Bobby stuck around. How many more funeral pyres would have been built. How one of them would have been for Sam, and still could be. "Azazel won't stop. Being stuck down in Hell isn't going to hold him back for long. He'll bring more of you here, and they'll die too."

'You'll die too.'

Sam was quiet, hearing what his brother hadn't said as much as what he had. The brunet watched as flames licked against the night sky, illuminating the buildings around them in flickers of light. He could still see the ghosts, hovering behind rotting wood and broken glass. They were watching the Winchesters, orange and yellow dancing in their sunken eyes.

"If we burn it down, he'll just find another." Sam turned to his brother, shotgun in hand and a knowing pain in his eyes. "A place we won't know. If Azazel takes me, takes Andy again, heading here is still our best bet, Dean. Your best chance to stop it."

Because he no longer believed they could prevent it. Neither of them did, not really.

Dean sucked on the thought like it was a sour lemon, face screwed up in anger and distaste. But he didn't argue and he didn't bring it up again.

When they were sure the fire would continue to burn and the bodies with it without supervision, the Winchesters headed out of the town. They made it back to the Impala with the eyes of a dozen ghosts on them, but nothing tried to stop them. They never did find Andy's demon in the woods.

It had been an hour and fifty minutes since they'd left him.

-o-o-o-

When Sam gained service again on their mad dash back to Andy, his phone pinged with three missed messages. But only one was from Andy, acknowledging his text that they were entering Cold Oak. 'Please be safe' was all it said. Sam was happy to have obliged, even unknowingly. He texted back the minute he could to let the kid know they were on their way back. Then he shot a reply filled with only good news to Bobby, who'd been wondering on their progress repeatedly for two hours.

With Dean driving at ridiculously unsafe speeds, Andy didn't even get a text back to them before their headlights were illuminating the kid in the darkness. Their Jedi was still sitting at the base of that tree. He was a bit shaky perhaps, but still in that circle of salt, weapons pressed to a chest buried beneath a half dozen layers of clothing. He'd never looked so relieved to see a car barreling down a dirt road towards him in the pitch black.

As Sam helped Andy to his feet, Dean accepted his gun back with a grim smile, tucking it into his jeans. The younger Winchester pulled their friend into a hug, half under the disguise of warming him up and supporting him towards the Impala. As he pulled back, Andy smiling shakily at them both, the psychic looked between the two brothers only once before he caught both of their grim expressions. Andy realized almost instantly, and yet belatedly, that they were alone. Brown eyes darted frantically to the Impala, but the car was empty.

'No,' he mouthed, then again, and again. Sam took him by the shoulders as his expression crumpled and he tried to shake his head, pulling at his damaged neck. The younger Winchester immediately shifted his hands to either side of Andy's face, touch gentle – cautious – as he stilled Andy's agitated movement, which would only cause him pain.

"There was nothing you could have done," Sam said, trying to comfort their friend, this goofy kid who had somehow become a Winchester when they weren't looking. "You did everything you could have, Andy."

Even without knowing what had happened in that town, the wound to Andy's throat, the fact that he was even alive, was proof of that to both hunters.

Andy understood the logic, Sam could see it in his eyes, but it didn't take. Not really. It was the final straw in a never-ending night that had started more than forty-eight hours ago. Andy broke down against him, and it was all Sam could do to wrap his arms around him and support his weight.

He shouldn't have left them. He never should have left them. He mouthed it over and over into Sam's shirt, soaking the plaid fabric with tears and slobber and snot, but no sound came out of his wrecked throat. The younger Winchester just held him all the tighter.

Dean stared helplessly at the two, meeting Sam's equally lost and grieving eyes, looking for guidance. Hesitantly, the older hunter reached out, settling his hand on Andy's back, fingers curling over the edge of his shoulder. He squeezed lightly, wary of hidden hurts.

"You can't save everyone, kid," he started quietly, knowing that truth was little comfort here. He'd been on the other side of this, too many times. "And it sucks, we know that. But you survived. You kept yourself alive. Man, if you'd been one of those bodies we found back there…"

Dean faltered, voice cracking as the reality of just how bad that could have been, of just how much Andy had come to mean to both of them and how close they'd come to losing him, hit Dean like a punch to the gut.

Damnit, like he didn't have enough adopted strays to worry about.

The older Winchester swallowed heavily, knowing he didn't mean a word of it. The flood of water he was angrily blinking back was proof enough. He swallowed past the growing lump in his throat, stinging pain he knew was nothing compared to what Andy was fighting through. Their Jedi was tough as nails, breakdown and all.

"Kid, I know you're hurting, but you did exactly what I told you do. You stayed alive until we could find you. And I'm…I'm so damn proud. So damn happy you're alive." He met Sam's eyes as he said it, so friggin' bad at any form of heartfelt declaration that he couldn't even do it unguided. Emotional affirmations really weren't his strong suit. But the equally watery smile his brother shared with him told him he'd been right to say it.

"Me too, Andy." Sam tilted his head down, chin brushing the top of Andy's hair as he held the kid, wary of his injuries. "We don't want to lose you."

Andy's shoulders shook beneath Dean's grip and the hunter risked more pressure. He settled his second hand on the kid's back, feeling him shudder with sobs, silent not by choice but by something taken from him with force.

"Let's get you out of here," Dean said quietly, and Sam nodded in agreement.

"You need a hospital," the younger Winchester added, voice equally soft. "And drugs. Lots of really good drugs."

A choked sound escaped the kid's mangled throat, and it almost sounded like a broken laugh. Dean patted their favorite Jedi on the back before he pulled away and made for the Impala's back door. He held it open as Sam got Andy settled on the seat, and the two Winchester's took their places in the front.

They headed away from Cold Oak at as equally pressing speeds as they'd entered it, Dean gunning it for the nearest hospital and the most distance he could put between them and that hellhole town.

-o-o-o-

A passing ranger driving down FSR 297 on a fairly routine night drive through the National Forest spotted what looked like smoke rising above the treetops to the northwest. It was hard to tell for sure, even with an almost full moon high in the sky illuminating the dark night a silvery blue, but Ranger Danson thought he saw a faintly orange glow to the trees.

Forest fire.

He reached for his radio to call in the potential blaze, turning his patrol car in the direction of the old mining town that lay that way. Danson passed only one other car on his way to the scene and, at the time, he didn't think much about the sleek muscle car flying past at far too fast a speed as was safe on these back forest roads.

A forest fire trumped some yahoo thrill seeker any day.

-o-o-o-

Andy was quiet in the backseat on the drive out of the forest. Not that anyone was really expecting him to be otherwise, for both physical and emotional reasons. The woods stretched for miles, and Andy shuddered to think about being stranded, alone, so deep within them, in the dark and empty. He tried, and failed, to turn his thoughts to other things.

He understood what the Winchesters were trying to say and appreciated their compassion and care. Logically, and even from a philosophical and psychological standpoint, Andy understood what happened in Cold Oak hadn't been his fault. There had been nothing more he could do for Amanda or Scott. But that didn't stop his brain from turning the events over and over again in his head, searching for where he'd messed up, what he'd done wrong that might have ended with all three of them walking away if he'd made a different choice.

So, yeah, he understood what Sam and Dean were telling him, but it didn't really change anything, either.

The woods around them didn't thin but the roads got better paved, then bigger, and then turned into an actual highway with other cars. Eventually the National Forest ended and the Impala's windshield shone with the lights of an upcoming city.

Andy made a choked, adverse noise from the backseat as Dean pulled off the highway at the first sign for a hospital. At the sound, the older Winchester all but slammed on the breaks, cars blaring their horns as he made somewhat of an emergency pull off to the side of the road. Sam turned in his seat (though only ever so slightly more, considering he'd spent the entire drive partially turned towards the backseat, not so subtly watching Andy for signs of discomfort or worse), but all Andy did was shake his head, wince, and then raise and shake his hand.

"No hospital?" Sam hazarded, tone incredulous. His fingers gripped the top of the Impala's front seat tightly. "Andy, you need a hospital. Your neck…that's not something we can patch up ourselves."

Not to mention the kid was still shivering. Even with the heat blasting on full in the front, Dean having stripped down to just a t-shirt, and Andy with his seven layers of clothing, the kid was still shaking away in the backseat.

The Jedi made a frustrated noise at his inability to communicate. He considered, just for a second, trying to talk to them the same way he'd talked to that demon. The memory of the headache he'd had for more than an hour afterward ultimately ended that idea. He was too tired and too drained to try something like that, anyway. So instead he made a broad pushing motion with his hand, trying to tell them they needed to go further.

Dean and Sam exchanged glances, and Andy kinda wanted to hit them both. He was too tired to do that, either.

"You…want to go to a hospital further away?" Sam tried again and this time he got the hand-flapping Andy had been using as a surrogate yes.

"Kid, you need a doctor," Dean argued, though there was no heat in his tone, only worry.

Movement followed but faltered as Andy clearly tried to figure out how to communicate what he was thinking. Frustrated, he pointed at his eyes, then looked around for something. When he couldn't find whatever it was he wanted, Sam dug his phone out of his pocket and handed it to the struggling kid. Andy looked even more annoyed that they hadn't thought of that sooner, and started typing. After only a moment, he handed the phone back.

"Yellow Eyes," Sam read aloud. Dean caught on first. Andy wanted to go someplace Azazel wouldn't find them.

"He's gone, kid," the older Winchester said, though the way he couldn't quite meet Andy's eyes told the psychic there was a lot more to it than that. "He's not coming after us. Not anytime soon."

Andy didn't understand.

"Cas exorcised him," Sam offered, one shoulder raising up as he put his arm on the back of the seat. He sent a cautious look Dean's way, adding to the dull alarm bells ringing in Andy's head that all was not right.

'Cas?' Andy mouthed, looking between them. The last thing he remembered from Rivergrove was Azazel asking him to give the angel up and Andy refusing. That…hadn't been pleasant. None of that had been pleasant, actually, and Andy had been doing so good at not thinking about it. Granted, the only reason why was that he'd had plenty worse to focus on since.

"She's okay," Sam was quick to say. Too quick. Those muted alarm bells got a little louder. Dean was downright rigid in the front seat, refusing to look at either of them. "She was injured, but she'll heal. She went back to Heaven so her, um, brothers can help her."

Yeah, something was definitely not right. More than that had clearly gone down. Andy remembered how nervous talking about Heaven made the Winchesters, especially Dean. The man was so tense right now and trying not to be that clearly their opinion on the place hadn't changed. But Andy was too tired to think about it, so he chose to accept Cas would be alright and hoped it would turn out true.

He made the shooing motion with his hand again, adamant, and Dean frowned.

"Andy, I get it, I do. But we're seven hours from Bobby's, which is the only safe place between us and, well, anywhere. And I don't think you should wait that long."

Bobby's was the only place they'd be truly protected from Hell; a place with another hunter watching their back and a panic room available for the worst case, need be. Every hospital in between, be it the one a mile in front of them or the one in Sioux Falls, would be the exact same level of safe or not safe if a demon really came looking for them.

Dean glared at the road sign a hundred feet ahead, a large, reflective white "H" and arrow pointing them in the direction of the Regional Health Rapid City Hospital. He understood Andy's need to get further away, and given what they'd left behind in Cold Oak, it wasn't even an outlandish request. But the kid shouldn't wait the hour and a half to the next town east, and no way Dean was making him. Clearing his throat, the older Winchester made a decision. "We'll go a town away, alright? Sturgis is half an hour north of here. But then we gotta get you looked at. Burns are…they're just not something you leave alone."

That was putting it lightly, Sam thought, casting a furtive look at Andy's neck. They'd given him another dose of morphine once in the car, and Sam had wrapped his throat with a single layer of gauze as incredibly cautiously as he could. Andy had only been able to take three laps around his head before he was calling it quits, tears streaming down his face and looking a half a breath away from passing out.

He didn't look thrilled now at the idea of staying so close to the forest, which stretched north a good distance, but he conceded because he was too exhausted, too emotionally numb and finished, to argue further. Dean pulled back onto the road. True to his word, they turned away from the sign to the hospital and traveled another thirty minutes to the town of Sturgis.

-o-o-o-

Sam and Dean flashed their FBI badges the minute the doctors and nurses starting asking questions. And boy, did they have a lot of questions. Luckily, the Winchesters didn't actually have a clue what happened to their friend, which made their declarations of confounded cluelessness (edging towards irritated cluelessness for one brother) very convincing.

The hospital staff wheeled Andy away on a gurney, surrounded by medical professionals shouting stats and needs loudly and insistently over top him as they unwrapped the gauze from his neck and assessed the incredible damage. Both brothers watched, somewhat helplessly, as their friend disappeared from sight in a whirlwind of commotion and efficiency.

Sam settled into a chair in the now-too-quiet waiting room with a long, low sigh. Dean started pacing in front of him, and the younger Winchester wondered where he was even getting the energy. They'd both been awake for more than forty-eight hours now, through some of the most traumatic events they'd ever had, both in physical demand, sheer stress, and emotional upheaval. Suddenly, Sam was all but boneless in that hospital chair. His limbs felt like they'd tripled in weight, and he braced his arms on his knees just to breathe through the abrupt adrenaline crash. His hands were shaking again, but he was pretty sure that, for once, it had nothing to do with the persistent buzz in the back of his skull. He'd managed to forget about that for the last so many hours they'd spent searching for Andy.

Dean paced for another six and a half minutes before throwing himself into the chair next to Sam, restless energy a mask for the fear, frustration, and uselessness that had kept him on his feet.

"He'll be okay, Dean," Sam consoled quietly, hands clasped lightly between his legs to hide the fact that his fingers were still trembling.

Andy would be okay. They'd had worse hospital waits when the fate of the loved one behind surgery doors wasn't known. But Andy's injuries weren't life threatening. They most assuredly had been, but the kid pulled through all on his own for hours. Traipsed through haunted woods, fought off a demon, and survived it all. He'd keep surviving, Sam was sure of it.

"I know," Dean replied, tone both exhausted and terse at the same time. He started up that absent-minded rubbing across his sternum, and Sam knew he was thinking of Cas.

"She'll be alright, too."

Dean dropped his arm after casting Sam a warning look. Not a topic he wanted to talk about. He sat up straighter, leg starting to jiggle against the metal leg of his chair as he stared past the nurses' station at the doors Andy had disappeared behind. He didn't want to think about Cas, because there was nothing they could do about it.

At least, not right this second.

Dean bit his cheek and pushed the thought away. They had enough on their hands taking care of Andy. He'd just have to trust that Sammy was right (since he usually was), and Cas would be fine until they figured out a way to get her back.

-o-o-o-

In Washington D.C, as the sun rose on the city of politicians, agencies, and museums, Victor Henriksen was only an hour into his day and already elbow-deep in reports. Cross-checking the files beside his keyboard as he typed, the FBI agent looked up from his work when David Attingwood, a relatively young data analysist known for a rock steady work ethic and even more so for his enthusiasm on the job, tapped the edge of a paper he was holding against the surface of Victor's desk. Given the thickness of the cardstock and the glossy sheen of the white back, it was a photograph of some sort.

"You are not gonna believe what just came in."

Victor raised an eyebrow at the overly chipper agent. David had taken a strange liking to Henriksen almost from the get-go. He was just about the only one, given Victor's propensity for burying himself in his work with ferocious concentration (the agency shrink had called it obsessive, if he remembered his psych eval correctly). So a junior agent not being terrified of him was the talk of the town, given that everyone at the water cooler was fairly sure the young man was gay and just about no one could get a proper read on Victor, despite his referencing multiple ex-wives over the years. In fact, the 'multiple' part was most likely what added fuel to the fire that was the J. Edgar Hoover Rumor Mill.

It irked the astutely professional Agent Henriksen more than it probably ought to. Data Analyst Dave didn't even seem to know there was a rumor mill, let alone that he was a monthly feature, at least.

David eagerly held out the photo, flipping it around so Victor finally got a look at what it was. The reports only half finished on his computer were completely forgotten about as he reached forward and snagged the photo from David's hands. He blinked at the grainy, black and white image before looking back up at the data analyst.

"Where was this taken?"

"Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota," David answered with a grin. "Six hours ago. A Ranger spotted smoke and headed for the scene, only it wasn't a forest fire, it was a funeral pyre in the middle of an abandoned mining town."

"How many bodies?" Victor asked, practically on rote. He stared at the photo in his hands, the best lead he'd gotten yet in the largely stagnant, often outlandish case he'd been working on for the better part of six months. It was a nighttime capture of a '67 Chevy Impala, black or a very dark blue, license plate KAZ 2Y5. But what Victor really cared about were the faces of the two men riding in the front seat. The passenger was half turned towards the back, but even partially obscured and only a profile, that was very clearly Sam Winchester. And the driver was undeniably an angry-looking Dean.

They had 'em. They finally had 'em.

"Three: two male, one female." David rolled on the balls of his feet. "Partially burned, about eighty-five percent, so identification is going to be a while. Rapid City and Custer PD are both working in junction with the Forest Service, but given that Ranger Danson's 'dash cam winner of the week' here alerted us the second they ran facial recognition, it's about to become a federal case."

Henkriksen stood from his desk, reports now completely forgotten, and pulled his suit jacket off the back of his chair. "Get me on the next flight to South Dakota."

"I'm not your secretary," Agent Attingwood huffed in wry amusement, smirk wide and only the least bit smug, as he handed over a second piece of paper. A freshly printed flight itinerary, the United States Air Force seal bright on the top of the page. "But if I were, I'd be a damn good one. You leave in two hours."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A/Ns: Dun dun duuuuuun! Booyah, FBI not only on scene, but really on scene! (Run, boys!)

Amanda and Scott: ...so...I did it again, apparently. I went and made minor or original characters likeable enough that people didn't want them to die... I want to apologize, but making OCs feel real seems to be a thing with me. I didn't even know it was before this story. Straight up, Angela Garrett taught me this about myself. But I do apologize for any attachments formed. I'm not *trying* to be that cruel. I save that for the intentional crap I pull with Dean and Cas XD.

Cold Oak/Season 2 Ending: Many people were thinking this was it, that this was a clever way to kick of the Season 2 Finale, with Sam in Cold Oak. And I...I...guys, you mean I could have WRAPPED it up HERE?! *turns to muse* WHY DIDN'T YOU THINK OF THAT? Nooo, we have to have ANOTHER TWENTY CHAPTERS to this season! *head thud* *head thud* *head thud*

The muse's response, you might wonder? That bitch shrugged, said something about Uriel and Heaven and Cas tied up in need of rescue and Gabriel coming into play (not necessarily in that order) and then she just sauntered off set to find a lollipop or maybe take a nap.

- . -