Chapter Warnings: Henrisken is on scene and getting suspicious, Andy's healing up and contemplating things, Dean's mostly sleeping.

Actual Chapter Warnings: Baby cliffhanger warning! Like, as cliffhanger-y as we can get while the boys are having actual downtime.

-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 52

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

Persephone stared at the snoring, drooling, curled up ball of a writer sleeping on the couch, right where she'd left him. He hadn't even woken to her usual knocking on his front door. So Persephone had let herself in, bearing gifts for the Prophet. In one hand she had two cups of coffee in a holder made of some sort of compressed paper, in the other a bag of bagels from the corner store bakery a couple blocks away.

An apology for borrowing Chuck's credit card and phone without his knowledge.

(A well-intentioned apology, although she'd had to use the last of the money she'd withdrawn from the card to buy the coffee and bagels so…)

She sighed at the sight of the author. It was at least partially her responsibility, she figured (though, that's what the coffee and food had been about…). Persephone crossed into the kitchen, setting her peace offerings onto the counter, and taking a moment to slip Chuck's wallet out of her purse and back on top of the toaster, where she'd found it last night (an odd place to store such a thing, but she tended not to question the Prophet…much). His phone she could safely chuck on the ground somewhere between his desk and the fridge; Chuck wouldn't notice, let alone think anything of it when he finally found it.

A groan from the living room had her returning in short order. Chuck was upright, though he hardly looked awake or aware. He squinted at his editorial assistant, standing in the entrance to his kitchen at – it took Chuck three times to read his watch correctly; the sleeve of his robe kept sliding back over it before he could get the three blurry faces down to one (albeit, still blurry) – eleven fifteen in the morning.

Oh. She was actually quite late. And still way, way too early.

"Ugh, I hate you, why are you here?" Chuck slumped back over into the cushions, burying his face in the blessed darkness. His head was killing him, and the abhorrent hatred, loathing, and overall sensitivity to the dimly lit room suggested more than just a hangover. The couch was nice. It was dark and only smelled a little like Cheetos dust and dirty socks. Only a little.

"You have work to do."

The writer just groaned again, his objection somewhat muffled by the darkness. But the sound of something decently weighted being jostled in a paper bag caused Chuck to crack one eye back open and turn his head enough to take in the offering hovering inches from his face. The logo was a little crumpled, but he'd recognize it anywhere.

Aunt Sally's bagels.

Chuck sat upright in an instant, regretting the spike of pain straight through his temple only a little. He was greeted by another gift from on-high as his assistant held out a coffee from the gas station next to Aunt Sally's. Chuck took both offerings with an enthusiasm that bordered on desperate.

"Okay, you changed my mind. I love you again," the writer mumbled through his first bite of cream cheese and lox on a slice of breaded sesame heaven. He chased it down with scolding hot black coffee that only tasted a little burnt and a lot like sugar. Ah, gas station's finest.

"You shouldn't drink so much," Persephone said with absolutely no guilt, despite definitely being the one to encourage him to do so the night before.

"Not drunk," Chuck grumbled, raising a hand to rub at his forehead. His tone was only a tad defensive as he whined, "It's a migraine of inspiration."

Persephone raised an eyebrow. "A new idea for the story?"

Although she was loathe to admit it, Persephone found herself nervous at the idea of reading about her actions in the Prophet's writings, which would no doubt occur every time she inserted herself into the Winchesters' lives. Hopefully, as with the scene he had detailed in the bar that night with Sam, Chuck would not make any connections between the blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman he was putting in his story, and his new Editorial Assistant who happened to have blond hair, blue eyes, and the same damn fake name.

Persephone adjusted the strap of her stupid little purse, refusing to let her unsettled nerves show through her stoic face. The stolen ingredients were safe inside, waiting to be formed into the hexbag from Chuck's notes. The risks, while many (the woman's eyes darted, momentarily, up to the ceiling of the Prophet's home), were still worth the possibility of success.

Focusing on the present and the still groaning writer, Persephone walked a couple steps back from the couch, reaching across his desk to snag a bottle of pills. Holding it out to the man, she shook it a little when he didn't take notice. Chuck raised his head, eyes narrowed to tiny slits, and let out a grateful moan at the sight of his migraine medication.

"Did I say I love you? I meant I really love you." Chuck swiped the pills, dry-swallowing two as quickly as he could get them in his mouth and down his throat.

When the writer finally staggered to his feet, Persephone was already in her chair by the window, sipping at her own coffee (which she learned that morning she liked with copious amounts of something called French vanilla hazelnut creamer (which she assumed came from France, and must be what made it different than the plain cream)). She smiled at him as he blinked blearing at her. Then, adjusting his robe, Chuck stumbled towards his writing desk and slumped down in front of his computer. He hit a random key to wake it up with all the motivation of a man on death row.

He did have work to do, though, and writing usually helped with the headache, almost more than the pills did.

-o-o-o-

Henriksen surveyed the bare, lifeless town of Cold Oak with a clinical eye. He didn't pay much attention to the abandoned buildings or eerie feel in the frigid early evening air. Victor had no interest in the history of the place, spewed to him by the nervous Forest Ranger on their hour long drive into the Middle of Nowhere National Park, or the many rumors generated over the years by the abandoned town, another topic of conversation during the car ride over. No, he was only interested in the three lives lost most recently and the two men that might have taken them.

"This is what's left of the fire."

Ranger Danson, the one who first spotted the blaze and ended up stumbling across the funeral pyre, bodies still burning within, waved at the now blackened, half collapsed structure of wood and broken down building materials. Victor glanced around with narrowed eyes, focusing on the different buildings around them, sections of side boards missing, probably pulled off by the Winchesters. He'd have to get them all dusted for prints if the local LEOs hadn't already.

The Forest Ranger was still talking, though. He seemed to do that a lot.

"It took a while to put the fire out. Didn't exactly have a nearby water source. So there wasn't much left of the bodies-"

"Rapid City took what was left," District Ranger McMarsson, the head of the Black Hills Forest Service department, interrupted his nervous Ranger. The broad-shouldered man stood between Agent Henriksen and Ranger Danson, giving the Federal Agent a bit of a break from the man's rather continuous blabbering. Danson was a good man, great Ranger, but he did tend to keep on endlessly, even more so when he was uncomfortable.

On McMarsson's other side was Detective Sharron Wells of the Custer police department. She was a smartly dressed, sharp woman who'd shook Agent Henriksen's hand with a steady grip bordering on painful. McMarsson didn't know much about the female detective, but she'd given him no problems so far and worked well with his people. And she didn't make Danson so nervous he spewed history facts like they were going out of style. Which was a bonus for everyone.

Although McMarsson's people had already been over the town, Custer PD had been called in immediately for obvious criminal investigation needs. Rapid City had gotten involved when it was clear this case was going to be more than the smaller town of Custer could handle alone, and they seceded lead on the case to their RPD counterparts, primarily for use of their much bigger and better equipped labs. Between the three departments, Cold Oak had been gone through with a fine tooth comb.

McMarsson put his hands on his hips, staring into the depths of charred wood and murder. Things like this weren't supposed to happen in his park, and he didn't like it one bit. "The coroner is working on identification now. So far we know there were two males and one female, all in their early twenties."

"I'll want to see the remains," Victor announced in a professional, detached tone. He imagined the last hours of those three lives hadn't been pleasant, but it was not currently his concern. He had a job to do. Two killers to catch, so that they never hurt anyone like this again.

Ranger McMarsson shrugged his approval. It wasn't much matter to him. Forest Services knew they'd be playing chauffer to the fed as soon as they got the call from Washington that one was on his way. Apparently, the quiet county of Custer had been unlucky enough to host two serial killers for an unknown period of time. McMarsson liked that even less.

"We didn't find much in the rest of the area," Detective Wells took over, having been part of the initial sweep once her department had been called in. It had been late and she'd been on a rare graveyard shift when the call of three homicides in the middle of Black Hills went through the station. "We've located four potential scenes where the murders could have taken place."

"With three bodies?" Victor glanced over at her, eyebrow raised.

"There's two primary locations with blood evidence and signs of a struggle. We're pretty confident about those ones, though we sent the blood out to Rapid City's lab to confirm they're our victims. We should get that report in a day or two." Wells had her hands high on her waist as she addressed Henriksen, blazer hitched up around her wrists, and Victor found he appreciated her no-nonsense attitude. Unlike Ranger Danson, she wasn't intimidated in the least by the federal agent. "The other two sites didn't have much in the way of incriminating evidence; no significant blood pools or spatter, no murder weapon yet, and the coroner's still working on cause of death for two of the vics. But the interior of two buildings, one over there, the other a couple doors down, suggested a struggle. We're running prints and any DNA we could find."

Agent Henriksen nodded. It sounded like the police and forest services departments had this under control. Which meant he could focus solely on following the Winchester's trail. He turned to Ranger Danson, who over-straightened under his attention.

"Tell me about the car."

-o-o-o-

The Winchesters took turns with Andy in the hospital. For most of the first day, Andy slept. Once they told him about the damage to his neck, including the permanent consequences that came with it – which Andy had accepted with the resigned grace of someone already expecting it – the kid had pretty much passed out for the rest of the day. Fairly so, thought the Winchesters. Appropriately so, thought the doctors.

Still, the brothers stayed at the hospital throughout the day. Neither had wanted Andy to wake up alone, in case he did wake up. The kid drifted in and out on occasion, but the morphine kept him pretty out of it and he usually succumbed to the next round of sleep without much fight. The nurses kicked the brothers out at the end of visiting hours, Sam writing another note for Andy and putting his phone back in his limp hand. Then the brothers headed out for some sleep of their own. They had to find another hotel, this one a bit further from the hospital, which left Dean twitchy for multiple reasons. Their sleep was significantly less restful than Andy's drug-induced haze, which both Winchester's probably could have used, but it was sleep, at least.

Dean didn't dream of red eyes or wake to the feeling of someone in the room with them again, but he didn't wake up feeling like sunshine and rainbows, either.

The next morning, the two showed up at the hospital at ten-thirty sharp again, much to the partially amused, partially don't-push-it-gentlemen looks of the two nurses on duty who had apparently been warned by the previous days' shift. Andy was already awake and looking surprisingly more with it. They'd lowered his morphine dosage. Apparently, the doctors were quite pleased – and a little startled - with – the progress he'd made in only a day and a half.

Sam tried (and failed) not to wonder if Azazel had slipped Andy some demon blood as well back in Rivergrove.

Andy waved at them as they came into his room. He was upright and far more alert as Sam dug out a notepad and pen from the plastic bag he was carrying, something they'd picked up on their way back in that morning. It wouldn't be the fastest form of communication, but it might be easier than typing everything out on the small phone screen and passing it back and forth.

They spent the second day tag-teaming the kid again. If Dean went for food, Sam stayed with him and waited until the older Winchester got back before he'd go grab lunch himself. They didn't bring food into the room since Andy couldn't eat any of it, which the Jedi thought was sweet but also kinda silly. That was until his 'lunch' showed up with a nurse in tow and it consisted of mush, mush, and more mush.

Seriously. Was that baby food?!

(It was not, in fact, baby food, as the nurse explained given the very readable look he'd pinned her with. It was pureed apple sauce, pureed mashed potatoes, and pureed tomato soup. And he was to eat it slowly.)

(Andy did not lessen the look. Who. The Hell. Pureed. Tomato soup. By the very definition of being tomato and soup, it should have already been pureed as hell!)

Dean stared at the kid's lunch with equal horror. Sam could see the silent vow to sneak him something in for dinner, and hit his brother on the arm for just thinking it. The younger Winchester rolled his eyes as Dean whined dramatically, then turned to Andy to (as Dean called it) soccer-mom lecture him. The sooner he ate it, the stronger he'd get, and the quicker he'd move on to normal food.

The nurse beamed at the younger Winchester. The other two just glared at the suck-up.

'Yes, mom,' Andy mouthed and Sam shook his head while the psychic dug into his pureed puree.

Bon Appetite.

After that it was a tossup. They never left him alone, but the Winchesters were also trying to deal with the fallout of both Rivergrove and Cold Oak. Bobby was trying to find them the components needed to make new hex bags, there was something they weren't telling Andy (multiple somethings, he was pretty sure), and Dean was climbing the walls (and trying the hide the fact that he was climbing the walls) about Cas being upstairs.

Andy hadn't gotten much more out of Sam concerning that situation (he wasn't stupid; he'd waited until Dean was out of the room before bringing itup). Cas was apparently upstairs being healed by an angel Dean was very certain wasn't on their side. Which, yeah, Andy could see how that might drive him literally up a tree, control freak that he was. A worrying control freak.

A worrying control freak with a solid crush on the angel in danger (at least as far as Andy (a tv-trained professional matchmaker) was concerned).

But, as Sam pointed out, there wasn't much they could do.

Honestly…Andy was a little more worried about the fact that Sam didn't seem to realize Dean had a plan. Otherwise the older Winchester wouldn't be itching to get out and do it, whatever it was. Not to mention anytime Sam used that reasoning – that there was nothing they could do to reach her so they needed to wait – Dean would bite his tongue or the inside of his cheek. He'd done it twice in front of Andy already, something the Jedi picked up on with completely reasonable suspicion.

Oh, Dean definitely had a plan, he just wasn't sharing it with Sam.

He bet that conversation was not going to be pretty. Any plan Dean came up with that he didn't want Sam to know was guaranteed to be a doozy. Andy knew them well enough to know that. Given how any conversation he had about it with Sam would have to be written – either on a phone or notepad passed back and forth (the tedium of his current capacity for communication was proving more frustrating than anything else about this) – Andy was even less inclined to initiate it. Plus, bringing it up would almost absolutely spark an argument between the two brothers, and Andy wasn't quite ready to be in the middle of that yet.

So, for now, he said nothing. (See what he did there? Said. Ha.)

"I was thinking about something," Sam said late in the afternoon when Dean stepped out to take a call from Bobby, probably about Japanese mushrooms or human toes or something. Andy wasn't quite sure (and wasn't quite sure he wanted to know, either. Dean had started muttering under his breath when the phone rang, which was sign enough that Andy shouldn't want to know). "You said you managed to control the demon in the woods with your thoughts."

Andy's bandaged fingers curled ever so slightly into the blanket spread over his legs. It was the only outward tell of his sudden discomfort, because he knew where this conversation was going. He was surprised one of them had waited this long to bring up that little ability he'd managed. Gently, having finally learned over the last two days not to react with rapid movement, Andy shook his head.

Sam scrunched his face up knowingly. "It could help you talk again, Andy."

At least within his immediate circle. Sam, Dean, Cas. Maybe even Bobby, though they'd have to give the older hunter ample heads up that their Jedi was now a telepath.

But Andy was shaking his head again, picking up the pen to jot something onto the notepad next to his thigh. They'd been keeping it on him or within reach at all times. At the moment it just lived next to his leg and had a long list of single comments, often just one or two words. This required a little more.

'More like control people. Like Weber.'

Sam frowned when Andy held the page up. The younger Winchester both had and hadn't thought of that. He knew Andy's powers could be developed further, both from what Dean had told him about the kid's evil twin in his timeline, and from Andy's own story. But he hadn't quite connected the dots on how Andy would feel about learning to do the thing that had gotten his girlfriend killed. Or, if he had, he'd hoped those dots wouldn't be so obvious to the kid.

"It doesn't have to be control," Sam reasoned, shrugging one shoulder, but those big brown eyes were full of understanding. "Just communication."

Andy faltered, lowering the notepad, staring at it without reading any of the scribbles there. Controlling that demon in the woods had both terrified him and been exhilarating enough to terrify him. Andy could see how easy it would be to misuse that. It had been simple enough back when he'd actually had to talk to people to get what he wanted. This…this seemed way too easy to abuse, and Andy didn't trust himself. Not anymore.

"There's something else." Sam smiled gently when Andy looked up. "I don't know for sure, but the demon you described – a little girl? – it sounds like an Acheri."

Andy didn't see the significance, and gave a little shoulder-head-shrug-shake.

"Acheri's usually take the form of young girls, and bring sickness and death from the hills and forests. They were pretty feared in small towns back in the day." Sam pulled out his phone, bringing up the internet app and handing it over to Andy. The kid skimmed a blog post with scanned pages of an ancient, hand-written book. There was an illustration on the page that was pretty damn similar to the thing that attacked him. Enough so that Andy put the phone down and had to take a deep breath. Sam's sympathetic puppy eyes were on full power mode as he took his phone back. "There's a legend, though, that the only thing that can stop an Acheri demon is a red ribbon tied around your neck."

Sam let the words sink in. Andy started at his curled hands, then blinked and looked up with a frown, staring at Sam until he got it. Fingers crept up towards his neck, and the younger Winchester nodded.

"Like I said, I don't know for sure, Andy. But I can tell you when we found you, your neck was definitely wrapped in red." With melted, sickeningly shiny red flesh, but Sam didn't need to say that part. Let Andy think he meant blood. "It might not have been your powers entirely. It may have been a combination of the Acheri's unique weakness, too."

And if it had been, it was more than possible the injury that had almost killed him twice also saved his life.

Sam's words did exactly what the younger Winchester had intended them to. The idea that maybe it hadn't been his powers alone that allowed him to control a demon helped lessen the terror that just acknowledging those abilities brought up. Andy took in a deep breath, thinking about what that meant, wondering if it even mattered in the scheme of everything. He let out a long, slow breath, and then nodded at Sam.

He'd think about it.

The brunet just smiled in return. Then Dean was coming back into the room, flipping his phone closed and asking why the two were smiling like that (then checking the space around him for some sort of prank just waiting to spring up) which made Andy laugh, body language clear as day even if no sound came out.

Sam didn't mention their conversation. It was likely he and Dean had already talked about it. Even if they hadn't, it was Andy's choice to make. The young Jedi watched the two start up one of their classic back and forth bickers about absolutely nothing important, and turned his thoughts inward to consider the possibility he previously hadn't even let himself think about.

-o-o-o-

Despite the gruesome nature of the three homicides in Cold Oak, the case itself was an exciting turn of events for Agent Henriksen. He'd only been on the Winchester's tail for half a year, and up until the two had been arrested in Baltimore almost a month ago, the case had been nothing more than a paperwork trail of tentatively related killings or crimes, possible sightings, and largely credit card fraud. Victor had done more joint work with the White Collar Crime Unit over this case than any actual bounty hunting. It had been…tedious. But Henriksen was nothing if not patient, and it almost always got him his man in the end.

This case, however, was the most tangible link he had to the Winchesters yet, and it was all in the evidence. They'd gathered more evidence in two days than he'd had on the Winchesters in six months. The brothers and their unique car had been spotted on one of only three roads leading towards the area of Cold Oak, which wasn't enough to tie them directly to the murders.

(Or, as the Rapid City homicide detective liked to remind him, the 'destruction of evidence' when it came to burning the bodies, as they had absolutely no proof that the Winchesters had murdered anyone or even been present for the crime. Detective Gray's money was on the three victims murdering each other. Henriksen thought Detective Gray was an idiot).

The lack of definitive non-circumstantial evidence didn't actually matter to Henriksen, at this point. He had more than a dozen similar cases in the Winchester's file, with nothing more than possibly related crimes, all of which had similar or even more tentative connections to the Winchesters than Cold Oak. It was always the two men being spotted within an area close enough to the crime or speaking to one of the victims. Never anything to prove them guilty or eliminate them as potential suspects. Just annoying, ambiguous grey land in between. But, like he'd said, Henriksen didn't care about that yet. Because eventually, that pile of evidence would become an undeniable mountain, and he'd bury those boys beneath it.

It had taken Henrik months to build those cases together, some going back decades (believed to be the work of their father, though his slowly thickening file and whereabouts were just as ambiguous and tentative as his sons'). It had been worth it though, as it always was. Because what had shown up in that slowly mounting mountain of circumstantial evidence that Henriksen hadn't even seen until now, the pattern hidden beneath the chaos of a senseless crime (the Winchester's calling apparently), was the funeral pyre. More than one of those cold cases involved trace human remains and bones found on burned-out funeral pyres across the nation. Funeral pyres just like the one at Cold Oak.

It was the closest tie-in he had yet. It was no smoking gun, but it sure looked like the beginnings of a solid modus operandi.

He had their car, too. Victor wouldn't normally put too much stock in that kind of find. Criminals like the Winchesters were smart, usually too smart to stick with one car for long, which was how the FBI had been assuming they operated. Up until now. Because Henriksen knew everything there was to know about Sam and Dean Winchester on paper. That included everything about their family, like the purchase of a '67 Chevy Impala by one John Winchester thirty-three years ago. There was no record of John Winchester giving it to either of his sons. There was barely any record of John Winchester after 1983, the year Mary Winchester died in a house fire and the remaining Winchester family fell off the map. Henriksen hadn't thought anything of it; the man had ditched the car at some point, as any smart criminal would have.

But the photo from Ranger Danson's dash car meant something spectacular. Something monumental to the case. Something, Victor was sure, was going to blow it wide open in the end. The Winchesters were sentimental. There was no other reason to keep that flashy and memorable of a vehicle while on the run from a life of crime. They'd kept the car for thirty years. A smoking gun all their own, that was going to keep right on smoking, and the Winchesters were too sentimental to toss it in the nearest river.

Henriksen was gonna make sure it was that sentimentality that he hung them with.

The plates on the muscle car were bogus, of course, leading to an elderly Hispanic man living in Arizona who had no clue what a '67 Chevy Impala even looked like, let alone that he had one registered in his name. Although tracking them through the car was a longshot, there was a chance the Winchesters might not think to change the plates. If they committed murders and destroyed evidence as often as the FBI was beginning to think and hadn't had a close call until Baltimore, they were probably used to getting away with minimal forensic countermeasures. Again, it boded well for Henriksen.

Not that he expected to catch the Winchesters this time. Oh, no, this was the long game and Henriksen was digging in. If the brothers stuck true to the pattern Victor had so far been able to put together on them, they were long gone from Custer County and Black Hills National Forest. If they were smart, which he knew they were, the Winchesters were no longer in South Dakota.

Still, just because Victor liked his i's dotted and t's crossed, the Rapid City PD had put a state-wide BOLO out on a '67 Chevy Impala with Kansas plates, and the FBI would be extending that to a nation-wide alert.

-o-o-o-

Andy did consider Sam's words carefully. He spent the afternoon thinking it over as the Winchesters bickered, brought him into the bickering, played cards with him, played cards with themselves while he napped or stared out the window in thought, and took turns stretching their legs and getting fresh air (guilty looks on their faces every time, which Andy just waved off). At one point, Dr. Richards came back on shift, and Sam took the opportunity to speak with him about an estimated length of stay, stepping into the hall with him for what was sure to be a lengthy conversation.

Dean was currently conked out in the chair beside Andy, one foot up on his bed, boot having been removed after a nurse glared so chidingly at the man that Andy had leaned forward and started untying the shoe for him just so she wouldn't wake him up. It didn't hurt that he'd gotten a sympathetic mother smile from the woman, who assisted him with the task, and all but patted him on the head like a good boy before heading back out. Dean had remained oblivious to the almost imminent threat on his life, which was testament to just how tired he was.

Which was fair, Andy thought. Rivergrove had been four days ago now, and he doubted either Winchester had gotten much sleep over that time. Andy had the luck (if you wanted to call it that) of a demon-infused refresher before waking up in Cold Oak, along with almost a full day of drug-induced rest since. And he was still exhausted.

(Granted, both the doctors and the Winchesters assured him that was to be expected after such physical trauma, but that wasn't the point, here.)

Andy paused in his coloring as a thought occurred to him, crayon hovering above his partially filled-in cartoon hotrod car as it sped around a race track (shut up, yes he was making use of the coloring book and crayons, so what? He was bored and the childhood activity was actually quite soothing in its mindlessness, even if his bandaged fingers made it a far more challenging task than he'd first anticipated.) He'd spent the last two hours doing nothing but going in moral and philosophical circles about his newfound ability. It was all about what was right versus what he wanted versus what he could have.

His powers scared him, in ways they'd never scared him before. In fact, the realization that fear brought on now (that he'd never been truly scared of what he could do before) scared him even more. What kind of person was he that he controlled others so readily, and didn't worry about any of the consequences? It had been different when all he'd wanted in life was a coffee or a pizza or some free weed. He hadn't felt like he'd been hurting anyone. Now, though…knowing what Azazel wanted him to do, what he expected him to do to survive (and knowing the yellow-eyed demon never expected him to survive in the first place…), well, it changed things.

In a life or death situation, what did he want? The answer should be obvious, but Andy was a philosophy junky. It was sort of his jam when he wasn't busy smoking the biggest bong load he could feasibly get (and often times pushing the boundaries of that feasibility). And while moral philosophy wasn't the field he'd had the most interest in (after all, no one liked moral philosophers), he'd still read enough about it to know this was a conundrum if there ever was one. Take that famous Trolley problem and add to it that you were also psychic and knew the future and had super powers.

Really, he should write a book. (Not that anyone would read it, and those who did would immediately assume he had a few screws loose due to the whole, you know, super powers bit.)

So Andy was caught in a dilemma. He didn't want to control people with his thoughts. That much was a known. The heart monitor attached to his finger would start beeping faster anytime he thought about the possibility. Probably a touch of PTSD, which Sam would tell him he could work through in order to access his powers if he wanted to. The thing was, it was incredibly obvious to Andy (probably the only clear thing going on in his muddled mind right now) that he didn't want to.

He didn't want to control people anymore. Not with this mind. Not through a means that had almost no limitations.

Yeah, his Jedi abilities had helped the Winchesters out of a couple of pickles over the last three months, but in the year he'd had these powers, they'd hurt far more than they helped. Tracy was dead because of them. Amanda and Scott were dead in part because of them. Others had more than likely been hurt by them, too. Even if the offenses seemed minor at the time, Andy couldn't actually know if he'd done any real damage to the people he commanded about, because he'd never thought to look.

That was a terrible thing, and he was a terrible person for it. He didn't want to be that person anymore.

So, controlling people with his mind was out. If doing it with his voice had left him without consequence or guilt, the unlimited control he could possess with his mind was a definite rabbit hole that would probably lead him straight to Hell. But, and this was what he'd spent the last two hours going in circles about, what if he could still use his powers for communication, but only communication?

Which he knew the answer to, even if he wished he didn't.

When he'd first gotten his voice thing, he'd had a terrible time at the start. It would have been scary if he hadn't been so busy being amazed at what he could do. There'd been more than once when he'd turned a simple turn-of-phrase into a command without ever meaning too. Looking back at it, he'd been so lucky that none of those times had been anything worse than a friend jumping off a bridge all of two feet off a dry creek bed or another friend wiping an entire table's contents onto the ground after Andy told him to 'knock it off.' But those things had clued him into his utter lack of control, and at least the most basic of consequences. Which had ultimately made him work harder at control.

Those slipups were still going to happen, though. He hadn't been trying to command people when he'd first gotten his powers, but he'd still done it. Even if he said he wasn't going to command people with his brain, there was always the possibility it would happen anyway. He knew from experience how much time and practice it took to have complete control, and re-learning his powers using just his mind was going to be like starting from scratch. He could tell from the headache he'd gotten talking to the demon in the woods. So he was going to mess up, and that was where he currently was in his cycle of should-I-shouldn't-I's.

How much did intent matter when factored into something morally indefensible? And what if all his slip-ups were just small and harmless, like last time? Did that make them excusable?

Somehow, it didn't feel like it, and Andy didn't really know when that had changed.

Over the last forty-five minutes of listening to Dean's snores while coloring his little anthropomorphic racecar (from a kid's movie most imaginatively named Cars), Andy had been leaning towards dismissing the idea entirely. It wasn't worth it. Everything about his powers so far had led him to this. Sitting in a hospital bed, using crayons to color in a cartoon car, unable to speak because he'd gotten his throat slashed by a psycho. Andy knew it was probably PTSD and survivor's guilt talking, but he didn't feel like he had any right to just get over the fallout because he had super powers. Like there were, once more, no consequences for him. He couldn't do that when he knew it would cost other people their autonomy at least a couple of times as he figured it out. More so, Andy would be able to take that autonomy away completely, at anytime, to anyone, once he did figure it out.

Even if he promised himself he wouldn't, that was too much power for him to wield. At least when his powers had been verbal, there was some limitation, some sense of physical boundaries. He'd had to be within earshot of someone, for starters. With straight-up thinking something to someone's brain? Andy didn't even think there'd be limitations, and that was the real thing scaring him. He'd never been good with self-control or temptation. His life in Guthrie, low-key as his crimes had been before Weber had changed everything, was still proof.

And now, with the Winchesters in his life, the life they led, and Azazel's plans… the stakes were a lot higher than some free pizza and pot.

So telepathic communication was out so long as it came with even the most remote possibility of controlling others.

Which meant, telepathic communication was out.

Now, though, as he stared down at the half colored picture on the little table stand over his legs, Andy had a new thought. A new possibility niggling at the edges of his drugged brain.

His problem was that he didn't want to control people. Words, whether formed aloud or sent straight to the brain, would end up doing just that, one way or another. But maybe…pictures wouldn't. Andy blinked at the car, the thought suddenly exciting. If he could…if he could just beam images straight into someone's mind, it wouldn't be a command. It would be up to their brain to interpret what the image meant, which would remove his intent entirely!

He'd still be able to communicate. Sure, it might not be the cleanest or straight forward way, but he was okay with that. It would be faster than writing everything out. Bonus: his survivor's guilt and PTSD and all that were totally satisfied with the compromise. Partial penance, partial solution. Good enough for him!

If he could even do it, of course. He'd never tried before, but if he could send thoughts to someone, he didn't see why he couldn't send images instead. Of course, he'd need to practice, which meant someone to practice on….

Andy's gaze slid oh-so-slowly over to the sleeping Winchester, a wicked grin spreading across his face. He hadn't minded before when Dean fell asleep on keep-Andy-entertained duty, but now he was ecstatic about it.

Okay, okay. How to begin?

The psychic closed his eyes, deciding to start easy. He pictured Sam, as clear as he could, with his gigantor frame and his plaid over-shirts and floppy brown hair. Andy opened his eyes, image firmly in mind, and turned to Dean. Squinting at him with as much concentration as he could summon, Andy pictured himself physically pushing the image of Sam, like it was a Polaroid floating in a black void, towards the slumbering Winchester.

He had to try several times over several very long minutes – taking a break half way through to actually pant like he'd been physically exerting himself – but he knew something was happening when he started to get a headache. It was a familiar pain, front-forward in his brain, stabbing at the temples but feeling like a million pounds on top of his brow in the front. He'd gotten to know that pain pretty well over the last year.

"Sam…" Dean muttered, foot twitching on the bed as the hunter's head rolled to the side. There was a frown forming between his eyes. Andy stared with bated breath. The hunter kicked out again. "Five more minutes."

The older hunter tried to roll over in the chair, failing miserably but luckily not falling out or waking himself up. Andy, ecstatic with success to the point of silent giggling, clapped his hands together (quietly).

Oh, god, it worked!

Andy giggled again, practically jumping up and down in the bed, but stopping when Dean twitched, moving his leg and almost knocking it off the edge of the mattress. The psychic settled down. He still needed a test subject, so Dean needed to keep sleeping on.

Okay. That was a good first attempt, but it wasn't actual proof. It was possible Dean was just dreaming about Sam. Any scientist worth their salt (not that Andy was a scientist, but shush, he was enjoying this) would test their theory further.

Alright. Time for Stage Two then.

Closing his eyes once more, Andy pictured Castiel. He didn't have nearly as many memories to pull from for her, but he'd spent a couple of days total in her presence and was fairly confident of his mental picture. Once more, he slapped that beauty on the mental manifestation of a Polaroid picture and sent it floating Dean's way.

This time the sound Dean made was deeper, more upset, as he muttered Cas's name and pinched his brow.

'Yeah, she's fine my ass,' Andy thought as he took in Dean's clear distress between bouts of congratulations and patting himself on the back.

A wicked, truly inappropriate thought followed, and Andy had to bite his lip, looking away from the sleeping Winchester. Getting Dean to say Cas's name in a completely different way was an absolutely hilariousidea given their obvious unresolved sexual tension. And Andy was pretty sure he could make it happen. But, also, it was maybe just a little not okay while the angel was currently MIA, possibly in danger, and Dean was legitimately worried about her.

And, oh yeah, also, she was an angel. Making Dean picture those sorts of things about an angel was probably blasphemous six ways from Sunday. Not to mention sending Dean images of making out with Cas would require Andy had to picture it first, which was definitely not cool. Cas was his friend (he sort of assumed, at least) and Dean was definitely his friend. There was surely some bro-code somewhere that said picturing your friends getting it on was probably not-the-best.

But… Andy realized something as an equally wicked idea formed in his brain. What he really considered Dean as, more than a friend, was a big brother. A big brother who pranked him, bickered with him, pushed all his buttons. It was totally okay to mess with a big brother like that. Especially since the psychic had another, far safer idea than sending him images of Cas. It even stuck to the bro-code.

Well, mostly. Like eighty percent.

Okay, sixty five, but that was still good enough.

Andy gathered every bit of his extensive pornographic knowledge to him and re-set his sights on the sleeping Winchester.

-o-o-o-

Dean jolted awake, sweat pooling down his back and panic gripping his lungs.

What the hell.

What. The. Hell.

He had just…he'd just been…had he… Had he just dreamt about gay porn?!

There was…there was no way. No. Way. But, he'd…uh…he had been. There'd been flashes. Clips. Like he'd been in one of those old-time theatres with the projectors that were shit and often flashed between scene changes or skipped the reel.

A reel of gay porn.

What. The. Mother. Effing. Hell.

Dean hadn't even- he'd never- okay, there had been that one time, but it had been curiosity and nothing more. And, yeah, it hadn't been as bad as he'd been expecting, but it really hadn't done anything for him either. Enough so that he hadn't even finished the vid!

That had been years ago. What the hell was he doing thinking – dreaming – about something like that, right now?!

The man from the future was still having an straight-up mid-life existential crisis, hands white-knuckled around the edges of the chair he was rigidly perched on, when he heard an aborted, muffled choking sound. The hunter flinched first, realizing he wasn't alone after having woken up from a wet dream about mother effing gay porn! But as he turned to the source of the noise, remembering where he was when he saw Andy in the hospital bed, he immediately realized the kid was trying and failing with everything he was not to burst out laughing.

He was also holding his head like he had the world's most massive headache, and blood was dribbling down his face from one nostril. But he was grinning like an idiot.

Torn between immediately going on the defense, thinking Andy somehow knew what he'd been dreaming out, and calling for a nurse because the kid was bleeding, Dean sat straight up, foot falling off the bed with a thud. He was ready to do both, holler for help in case Andy had an aneurism or something, and spew whatever vitriol it took to make the kid forget anything he'd seen or heard. But Dean pulled up short, halfway out of his chair, when something else occurred to him.

Honestly, if you asked later, he might not be able to tell you how he knew. Maybe it was the knowledge that Andy's brother had developed his powers into something far more mental than physical. Maybe it was a vague memory of images flashing across his mind once before, of an old bell with an oak tree that Bobby recognized and had led them to Cold Oak. Maybe it was the way the kid's nose bled like Sam when he pushed his powers. Maybe it was knowing Andy had controlled a demon with his brain less than forty-eight hours ago. Whatever it was that clued him in, suddenly Dean knew exactly where that dream had come from.

Dean launched fully out of his chair, face reddening. "That was you?!"

Andy couldn't help it. Couldn't hold it back any longer. He burst into mostly silent laughter, huffs of air more than actual sound, almost crying with amusement. Dean wasn't much of a lip reader, but he could see the 'I can't believe it worked!' pretty clear as day across the kid's bloody lips.

Sam walked in less than twenty seconds later to Dean trying to strangle the shit out of the kid without actually making physical contact with his throat while Andy mouthed, 'Not the throat!' over and over again, still laughing hard enough he had tears running down his cheeks.

-o-o-o-

Dean was rubbing his chest as they left the hospital that night, Andy in better spirits than they'd seen since he'd woken up, and Dean still grumbling about the whole thing. Sam, who hadn't approached that fiasco with a forty foot pole, now glanced at his brother as they climbed into the Impala. His own carefully hidden amusement over Andy's weird antics (not that carefully, given the glares Dean was still sending his way), finally faded as he took in the older Winchester.

Dean had handled the little prank about as well as Sam could expect; he'd only tried to murder the kid, like, three times through the evening and night. Which was one less than Sam would have guessed, so that was good, even. But he was rubbing at his chest. He'd been doing that a lot since Rivergrove, but now Dean had been at his sternum since they'd left Andy's room: four floors, one elevator, and a walk to the car ago.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked, possibly the most direct question he'd aimed Dean's way since Cas had gotten them out of Oregon. The younger Winchester hadn't been there for the trap that had so gravely injured the angel, but Dean gave him the cliff-notes version afterward. Sam had seen Cas slap a hand to his brother's chest for the second time apparently, eyes flaring a terrifying and gorgeous blue-white, before all three of them had shown up at Bobby's.

He'd been avoiding asking just what that light had meant for the sliver of grace in Dean's chest, but Sam couldn't imagine it was anything good.

Dean noticed his hand, dropping it from his chest as soon as Sam's question registered. He settled his arm on the windowsill of the Impala, fingers tapping an impatient beat as they drove towards the motel. "I'm fine."

Sam let the silence hang for just the right amount of time. "And Cas? The, uh, one in your chest? Is he still…"

In there?

His older brother fidgeted, dropping his hand from the windowsill only to put it back up a second later, clearly uncomfortable. He chewed on his tongue, then on his lip, then twitched his mouth back and forth before finally admitting in a low, frustrated tone, "I don't know."

Sam let that sink in, looking out to the black night and the road passing beneath them. He hadn't really expected more than that. He'd hoped, maybe, that Dean knew what Cas had done to him, to that sliver of the other Castiel. But he hadn't held out a lot of hope for it, he supposed, given the way Dean kept rubbing at his chest.

"Does it hurt?" Sam cast a side glance his brother's way, but he wasn't pushing.

Dean gave up and starting rubbing those knuckled circles across his sternum again. "No. Yes. Not really." The older hunter shook his head, frustration clear on his face and in the way he huffed out his next breath of air. "It hurt when Cas did it. Like…a vacuum straight to my insides. But now… Look, I don't know, alright? I don't know what he- she did. If she just soul-searched me for a bit of extra juice, or if she took whatever was left of Cas. I don't know."

"Isn't a soul-search more, er, invasive?" Sam's brow was pinched, his gaze back on his brother, though mind far away. He remembered Dean giving him some brief details about an angel's ability to search a soul for a contract or for an energy boost, but Dean hadn't described it as anything pleasant. Not that what Cas had done to his brother was anything close to pleasant but… Sam shook his thoughts away. He just figured touching someone's soul took more than a palm to the chest.

"Hell yeah," Dean answered, but the comment was bitter at best, sarcastic at most. "They hurt like a bitch, and usually involve some elbow-deep action. But with a sliver of Cas's grace all tangled up in my soul, I figure, maybe he- she's got a direct line."

At least, that's what he hoped. Dean didn't know for sure what Cas had taken from him that night for a power boost, but he sure as hell hoped it had been a bit of his own soul. Some left-over juice. Even a full chunk if she needed it. Ridiculous, really, to hope that an angel had taken a piece of his soul instead of absorb what was left of his- her- (no, his?) own grace.

But, childish and utterly ridiculous as it was…Dean didn't want to lose that last bit of the Cas he knew. He didn't want to lose the last of his friend. And the feeling in his chest….

"All I know," Dean repeated, throat swelling with emotion he refused to acknowledge, "is that I used to have a supernova in my chest, and now I don't."

Which was a masterpiece in the art of understatement, but Sam didn't need to know about the hole that supernova had left behind. An endless pit, a scar from Hell that had never filled, an emptiness inside him that not even Famine had been able to contend with. A hollow nothingness that had been there for years and years, except for this last year. This last year, Dean had almost forgotten all about that hole. Had thought maybe it didn't exist anymore, not in this body that hadn't made a deal, hadn't gone to Hell. But that didn't make sense, did it? It was his soul that had been to the pit, and it was his soul Cas had sent through time. Of course it came with all its scars.

It's just that for the last year, Cas's grace had been filling that hole. Now it was gone and Dean was left more wrecked then when he'd first climbed out of his own grave with a chest that didn't feel like his. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be so damn empty inside.

Of course, Sam didn't need to know any of that.

His younger brother was silent for a long time. Long enough that Dean almost thought they'd leave this conversation in the dust as they pulled into the motel parking lot. But Sam, god love him, wasn't quite done.

"It doesn't mean he's gone," the beanstalk said softly, treading what he knew was a live-wire.

"No, it doesn't," Dean agreed, though his tone was hardly a positive thing. He turned off the engine and climbed out of the Impala. Sam followed as the older Winchester turned towards him, elbows on the top of the car, keys jingling in hand. "We're not gonna know what it means. Not until we get our Cas back."

The words were final. Firm and bitter and hard. But Dean didn't push it any more than that. Just headed for the door to their room, Sam trailing behind. The younger Winchester knew his brother wanted to be out there, looking for a way to get Cas back. He was glad, in some ways, that Dean hadn't just up and left yet. He knew that time was fast approaching. All the younger Winchester could do, though, was hope Dean gave him the time to get Andy safe and settled, so Sam could at least join his brother for whatever monumentally stupid plan he had rattling up there in his skull.

-o-o-o-

Henriksen entered the Custer Police station at a bright and early six am. He'd never been one to sleep in when there was work to do (in other words, he'd never been one to sleep in). Now that both Custer and Rapid City PD had cleared the crime scene, the Forest Service didn't have much more to offer than to keep an eye on Cold Oak to make sure no one suspicious returned. Not that Victor thought they would. That wasn't the Winchester's style. The investigation had moved to the Custer Police Station, but Henriksen planned to drive up to Rapid in the afternoon and check in with the team there. Sometimes a little FBI presence went a long way in getting those tedious reports back just that much faster.

Other officers were just getting off the graveyard shift when Henriksen settled at the temporary desk he'd been given. The morning crew was trickling in around him with bleary faces and not-yet-devoured coffee in their hands. Victor set his own morning brew down, pausing at a new folder in the little 'in' filing box on the corner of his desk. It was red, with a sticky-note attached in a handwriting he hadn't yet seen while in South Dakota.

The note just said, 'Blood Report, RPD'

Henriksen flipped the file open, surprised that it had come back sometime in the middle of the night or very early morning. One of the things he'd expected to put a little pressure on when he visited Rapid City later that day was the last of the evidence processing from Cold Oak. He wasn't expecting much from it, but he couldn't dot those i's or cross those t's until it was all back.

For reasons just like this one.

Victor stared in momentary shock at the freshly printed report, crisp black words on bright white paper. He reread it, heartbeat picking up, excitement following in its wake. The blood evidence, labeled number four, which Henriksen recalled was the puddle in the middle of one of Cold Oak's two intersections, did not match any of their victims.

There was a fourth victim. They had a missing body.

Victor dug through his files, scattering them in a mess across the surface of the desk, but that was of little consequence. He pulled the photo from Ranger Danson's dash cam, now famed in his mind as the first solid trail in the Winchester case, and stared at it for the thousandth time. But this time, he was looking at Sam Winchester's turned head, profile features lit by Danson's headlights, in a completely new light.

The younger Winchester was turned towards the darkened, obscured back row of the Impala, partially leaning over his own seat. Just like you would if you were checking on someone in the backseat, possibly injured or even lying down.

Henriksen turned to the nearest person, a young officer who was immediately startled by being addressed directly by their visiting FBI agent. "I need a map of the area and all of the hospitals within a hundred miles of Cold Oak."

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

Acheri Demon: So I had that entire chapter between Andy and the Acheri already written out, with Andy controlling the demon, when I went to double check the description of the little girl and stumbled onto that fact about the red ribbon. And I just…blinked. Stared at the computer. Giggled. Maybe a little maniacally. I love when things happen to line up perfectly all on their own XD

Andy's secondary power: The ability to send images to other people (particularly gay porn) was taken from the show, and originally something I never liked the inclusion of. It always seemed like such poor writing that Andy showed up, just happened to have developed a power that could reach Dean, who-knows-how-far-away, to perfectly tell him how to find Sam. Seemed like a cheap way to solve the problem of getting Dean to Cold Oak. But, with his slit throat, that power development actually makes sense! And I am all for sticking to canon while also fixing things!

It also meant Andy could send Dean clips of gay porn. Cuz this is still Andy we're talking about here XD

Acronyms: For those not familiar with North American acronyms, LEO is a Law Enforcement Officer. Most shows I've seen that deal with other agencies, like the FBI or CIA, refer to the cops at the crime scene as local LEOs. No idea if they do this in real life, but it has a nice ring to it ;) MIA is Missing In Action, a military term for someone who's whereabouts are currently unknown, usually last seen in the field.