Phantom Traveller

I was, quite literally, trapped in bed. I'd heard Sam get up and slip out of the motel room to get breakfast after a quick shower, and I wanted to join him for the trip too. But with a snoring Dean nuzzled against my chest and my need to sleep 10 hours a day for optimum levels of function, I didn't want to get up.

I ran my hands through my sleeping husband's hair. Without the hair gel, his hair flopped down to frame his face. His eyelashes were the same dirty blond shade. And his eyelids hid my favorite shade of green. The stubble on his cheeks were prickly, a manly contrast to his baby soft skin. His nose was adorable too. His nose bridge was high and it used to be straight. Until he'd gotten it broken while we were hunting a wraith and he had gotten it smashed against a wall while he was trying to protect a couple of kids. Now there was the slightest bend in it that you wouldn't even notice unless you were looking for it.

I trailed my hands down to his shoulders. They were so much larger than mine. His muscles strained against his T shirt and man, that was a sight to see. I let my hands travel down to his biceps. Huge. I couldn't encircle them even if I used both my hands. They were wrapped around me, keeping me in place, but it wasn't like I couldn't get out even if I wanted to, I just didn't want to. The muscles in his stomach were solid too. He definitely had a 6 pack despite his addiction to drinking a 6 pack everyday.

I closed my eyes and let myself soak in this warmth. It wasn't very often that we got time to ourselves. Dean was a family man who was always pining for his brother. And I just liked being left alone. Even when we went to bars together, he would be chatting with the person sitting on his other side while I awkwardly held onto my glass of soda. Our worlds rarely collided, with my favorite place in the world being a corner of the library or my bedroom and Dean's being a car dealership or the garage. Yet, I found peace in his extroverted demeanor. It was comforting, the way he would take over social situations for me, but leave enough room for me to join in if I ever wanted to.

I loved him. I loved him so much. I wanted to hold him close and protect him from all the sadness in the world, from all the painful events that were going to come in his life. I wanted to show him that his happiness didn't have to equate to the happiness of others. It was okay for him to be a little more selfish. A little more greedy. I wished he would ask me for sex more often. I wished he would ask me to do the laundry a little more. I wished he would ask me for anything.

I kissed his forehead. It was still smooth. But if he kept worrying like he did, then it wouldn't be long before it was all wrinkly. I wanted him to be happy. I wanted him to get wrinkles from old age, not stress.

My throat felt swollen as I felt like crying for the man I was tangled up with. I buried my nose in his hair and inhaled. It smelled like my coconut shampoo. For a man who claimed to be so manly he sure loved the hair products I used. The scent was relaxing, and I felt a tear roll down my cheek. All his pain. If I could just take it all away.

"Mm…" Dean stirred. "Oh, sweetheart…" He lifted his head from my chest and kissed my lips softly. "You're a sight to see," He opened his eyes. "Where's Sammy?" His voice was still rough from sleep.

"Breakfast." I couldn't help but smile when he rolled his eyes. "G'morning."

"Morning." he frowned. "What time is it?" He lifted his head up enough to glance at the clock on the nightstand on my side. "5:40? Dammit," He settled back in bed, trapping me against him once more.

I should have been getting ready to get up and take the shower before Dean used up all the hot water. But I didn't have enough energy to roll out and actually get ready for the day. And he was right next to me anyway. We both relaxed against each other.

Until the doorknob twisted.

Dean immediately stiffened and reached for the gun under our pillows. I knew it was Sam just from the footsteps outside the door. But I remained wary just in case.

"Morning, sunshines." Sam mocked.

"Where does the day go?" Dean released me from his hold along with the gun.

"I'm taking the bathroom first." I slid out of the warm blankets into the cold air of the motel room.

"Dammit." Dean grumbled before flopping back in bed.

When I got out, Dean and Sam were sitting with grim faces.

"My turn I guess." Dean stood up.

"You two good?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah." But Sam looked like he was going through things.

"You wanna talk about something?"

He paused. "Dean said he doesn't get scared. Of this. Of everything. Do you?"

Fear was a constant accompaniment ever since I'd landed in this place. But I wasn't going to tell Sammy that. Communication may be the way to avoid all problems, but… Sammy didn't need two paranoid people with him… Those stupid puppy dog eyes that begged for answers ended up winning.

"I do."

"Then how do you do it? Dean won't even admit it."

"I don't know, Sammy." I pulled my hair back into a ponytail. "I just do it."

"How do you sleep?" He continued anyway.

"Pretty deep." I joked. His face said that he wasn't too fond of the answer. "Okay, fine. I have my gun under my pillow. So does Dean. and I have a silver knife on the nightstand. But you already know about those."

"I meant– how do you fall asleep?" Man, he was persistent.

"Having Dean next to me is some comfort." I confessed. "Like, he has my back. When you came in through that door, he had the gun before I even considered my knife. It helps, Sammy. Knowing someone is out there. Someone that cares for me no matter what." Sam's lips pressed into a line. "It doesn't have to be a romantic partner. Remember when we were younger? I was still adjusting to everything. Coming to terms with the idea that the darkness beyond the bathroom door could actually hurt me wasn't very easy. I used to be able to sleep because Bobby was there. Not even in the same room. Some days he would be on the couch, sometimes in his bed. But just knowing that he was there looking out… it helped."

"I… I also slept better when I was on your top bunk. Or when Dean was in the other bed– but the nightmares–"

"They still happen." I fixed my jacket. "You just have to live with them."

"Oh," Sam looked down sadly.

"Sorry. I don't have a better answer."

"It's fine. Thanks. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's affected by all of this."

"New case!" Dean shouted, bursting from the bathroom with just a towel around his waist.

Sam and I both turned around so we weren't looking at his naked glory. "Put some pants on!" we cried.

Sam I sat on either side of Dean as he talked on the phone.

"Oh, right, yeah. Up in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, the poltergeist thing. It's not back, is it?... What is it?"

Dean glanced at the two of us. We were on the move.

"Thanks for making the trip so quick. I ought to be doing you guys a favor, not the other way around. Dean, Sharon, and your dad really helped me out." Jerry shook all three of our hands. I remembered this guy. I had no idea he was the Jerry that ended up on the plane case.

"Yeah, he told me. It was a poltergeist?" Sam asked politely.

"Poltergeist? Man, I loved that movie." A random worker laughed as he passed by.

"Hey, nobody's talking to you. Keep walking." Jerry barked. "Damn right it was a poltergeist, practically tore our house apart. Tell you something, if it wasn't for you and your dad, I probably wouldn't be alive. How's work been, Sharon? The kids still brats?"

"Well, they're always brats. But they're a joy. School's out for a few days. So I joined Dean and Sam on this case." I lied. He was a sweet man, but Dean had asked us to keep the fact that John was missing a secret, and I wasn't about to argue with that. The less people that knew, the better.

"Oh yeah, Sam! Your dad said you were off at college. Is that right?"

"Yeah, I was. I'm, uh, taking some time off." Sam laughed nervously.

"Whole family's on break?" Jerry chuckled. "Well, he was real proud of you. I could tell. He talked about you all the time."

"He did?"

"Yeah, you bet he did. Oh, hey, you know I tried to get a hold of him, but I couldn't. How's he doing, anyway?"

"He's, um, wrapped up in a job right now." Dean cut in.

"Well, we're missing the old man, but we get Sam. Even trade, huh?"

"No, not by a long shot." Sam said quietly.

Oh, Sammy. He had no idea how much of a help he was. "He's pretty good. Don't let his words fool you." I smiled.

Dean cleared his throat. "So, what's the situation?"

Jerry grew grim. "I got something I want you guys to hear."

We walked into Jerry's office where I dragged a chair inside for myself. "I listened to this. And, well, it sounded like it was up your alley." Jerry found the CD and put it in the drive. "Normally I wouldn't have access to this. It's the cockpit voice recorder for United Britannia flight 2485. It was one of ours."

I leaned in to hear the grainy noise of the CD. When was sound going to improve?

"Mayday! Mayday! Repeat! 2485-immediate instruction… may be experiencing some mechanical failure…" and it ended with a loud whooshing sound.

There was something else in the background though. Sam would manage to figure out what it was later. I just had to make sure he sat down to play around with the audio.

Jerry's voice shook ever so slightly as he continued explaining the situation. "Took off from here, crashed about two hundred miles south. Now, they're saying mechanical failure. Cabin depressurized somehow. Nobody knows why. Over a hundred people on board. Only seven got out alive. Pilot was one. His name is Chuck Lambert. He's a good friend of mine. Chuck is, uh… well, he's pretty broken up about it. Like it was his fault."

"You don't think it was?" Sam asked.

"No, I don't." Jerry shook his head.

"Jerry, we're gonna need passenger manifests, um, a list of survivors."

"All right."

"And, uh, any way we can take a look at the wreckage?" Dean asked.

"The other stuff is no problem. But the wreckage… fellas…" Jerry sighed. "The NTSB has it locked down in an evidence warehouse. No way I've got that kind of clearance."

"That shouldn't be a problem." I was dying to break out that suit anyway.

"What're you reading?" I jumped when Sam peered over my shoulder.

"Whoah," I snapped the book shut. "Nothing good."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

I side eyed him before giving him a watered down version of the book. "So there's this girl. And she gets kidnapped by a biker mafia rich older professor – he's super hot by the way – and her childhood friend is trying to save her. Except the professor is also her stepbrother and her sister has her eyes on the childhood friend and won't let him save her."

"What?!" Sam took a minute to process the information with a scowl. "Isn't that incest? And illegal?"

"They're not related by blood and she's 20. He's 40, but you know, it's legal."

"But if they're step siblings then how did he kidnap her?"

"He told their parents that he was taking her to a summer retreat." I shrugged.

"And the sister is in love with the childhood friend but the childhood friend is in love with the main character?"

"Yep," I opened up the book again and continued reading. "I'll let you know who she ends up with."

"You… you don't have to." Sam shuddered. Hah. I'd successfully traumatised another one. "Dean, what took you so long?"

I looked up from my book as he approached the two of us.

"You can't rush perfection." He flashed us the three badges he'd made. Sam and I took our respective ones.

"Homeland Security?" Sam turned around his ID to check the back. I did the same. "That's pretty illegal, even for us."

"Yeah, well, it's something new. You know? People haven't seen it a thousand times." Dean had a point. We filed into the car.

"Will the suit I packed even cover Homeland Security? I thought they wore police vests and stuff." I leaned to the front seat. I should grab my bike from Bobby's if I ever was in the area.

"Should work. They don't wear vests all the time. Alright, Sam, what do you got?"

"Well, there's definitely EVP on the cockpit voice recorder."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, listen."

We all listened closely. Sam had edited the audio to where the noise in the background was now audible and intelligible. 'No survivors!' the scratchy voice echoed. Shivers ran down my spine. That was creepy.

"'No survivors'? What's that supposed to mean?" Dean stared at the laptop as if it might contain the answers. "There were seven survivors."

"Got me." Sam shrugged. He looked towards me for an answer. I couldn't say anything of course. He sighed and turned to look at Dean. "Well, what are we thinking?"

"A haunted flight?"

"Could be. There's a long history of spirits and death omens on planes and ships, like phantom travelers."

Dean hummed in acknowledgement.

"Or remember flight 401?"

"Right. The one that crashed, the airline salvaged some of its parts, put it in other planes, then the spirit of the pilot and copilot haunted those flights."

"Right."

"Yep."

"Maybe we got a similar deal."

"All right, so, survivors, which one do you want to talk to first?" Dean looked at the two of us.

"Third on the list: Max Jaffey." Sam pointed to his name.

"Why him? He's not even first on the list."

"Well, for one, he's from around here. And two, if anyone saw anything weird, he did." Sam grinned.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, Sharon and I spoke to his mother. And she told us where to find him." Sam rattled off the address to the Riverfront Psychiatric Hospital.

"Okay then," Dean started Baby. "Here we go."

We'd managed to find Max and joined him for his routine walk in the garden.

"I-I-I don't understand." He stammered. "I-I already spoke with Homeland Security."

"Right. Some new information has come up. So if you could just answer a couple questions…" Dean pulled out his notepad for pretense.

"Just before the plane went down, did you notice anything… unusual?" Sam asked.

"Like what?"

"Like anything." I cut in. I didn't want to drag out this conversation any longer than necessary. "Literally, anything. Whatever you think you saw."

"There is no way what I saw makes sense." the man laughed incredulously. "That's why I checked myself in here– I must be going crazy."

"Mr. Jaffey." I insisted. "We need details. We don't care how improbable or impossible it sounds. We need to know. Anything at all. Whatever you saw. Exactly what you saw."

The man remained silent for a moment before hobbling with his cane to a nearby bench. He sat down and took a deep breath before speaking. "There was… this- this man. And, uh, he had these… eyes – these, uh… black eyes. And I saw him – or I thought – I saw him…"

"What?" Dean leaned in closer.

"He opened the emergency exit. But that's… that's impossible, right? I mean, I looked it up. There's something like two tons of pressure on that door."

"Yeah." Dean nodded.

"This man, uh, did he seem to appear and disappear rapidly? It would look something like a mirage?" Sam urged him to talk more.

But Max Jaffey thought of him as crazier than himself instead. "What are you, nuts?" Sam tilted his head curiously. "He was a passenger." Jaffey scoffed. "He was sitting right in front of me."

"George Phelps, seat 20C." I hummed as we got out of the car in front of a quaint house.

"Man, I don't care how strong you are." Dean shook his head. "Even yoked up on PCP or something, no way you can open up an emergency door during a flight."

"Not if you're human." Sam pointed out. "But maybe this guy George was something else. Some kind of creature, maybe, in human form."

Try possession. I wanted to say.

"Does that look like a creature's lair to you?" Dean scoffed.

We rang the doorbell, showed the man's wife our badges, and sat down on the couch in the living room.

"This is your late husband?" Sam looked at a framed picture. It was a perfectly ordinary, skinny, middle aged man standing next to a perfectly ordinary, skinny, middle aged woman. They were as ordinary as you could get. No offense.

"Yes, that was my George." Mrs. Phelps choked on the statement.

"And you said he was a… dentist?" Dean was skeptical.

She nodded. "He was headed to a convention in Denver. Do you know that he was petrified to fly? For him to go like that…" she just held herself from breaking into tears.

"How long were you married?" Sam questioned.

"Thirteen years."

"In all that time, did you ever notice anything… strange about him, anything out of the ordinary?"

"Well… uh, he had acid reflux, if that's what you mean."

Well, that was not what we meant. But that just solidified the idea that he wasn't exactly the one who opened the emergency exit. "Thank you so much for your time." I stood up and the boys followed. "We will be in contact if anything else comes up." We shook hands with her and left the house.

"I mean it goes without saying. It just doesn't make any sense." Sam said.

"A middle-aged dentist with an ulcer is not exactly evil personified." Dean pulled out his phone and checked the address Jerry had texted him. "You know, what we need to do is get inside that NTSB warehouse, check out the wreckage." Dean gave me a lopsided smirk. "I finally get to see you in that new suit of yours."

And once again we were flashing our fake badges to the security guard at the entrance. He squinted and analysed us for a good minute, before deciding that the badges looked legit enough, and let us in.

Wow. This place was huge. The airplane was in pieces and every piece had been placed in the exact way it had fallen. I wandered around the wing of the plane. They were huge. I felt so tiny next to them. And they were tall.

"What is that?" Sam frowned at the object in Dean's hand.

"It's an EMF meter. Reads electromagnetic frequencies." Dean muttered as he walked around the warehouse.

"Yeah, I know what an EMF meter is, but why does that one look like a busted-up walkman?"

"'Cause that's what I made it out of. It's homemade." Dean said proudly. I debated whether I should touch the broken engine of the plane. But I couldn't leave any fingerprints…

"Yeah, I can see that." Sam remarked.

"Sharon, over here." Dean called. I headed over to where he was moving the EMF over a piece of the wreckage with yellow dust all over it. "Check out the emergency door handle."

Sam got out a ziploc bag and started scraping off the yellow dust into it with one of the hairpins I kept in my pocket.

"Don't give me that back." I eyed my poor yellowed bobby pin. I would have to buy another set. Dammit.

The thuddering of several pairs of footsteps caught all our attention. The guys must have caught on. "Go, go." I whispered to the boys and took off for the exit.

They were hot on my heels and we ran out. I could hear the door being slammed open as the men started searching. Damn. The adrenaline rush I got from this was crazy. My hands were sweaty and my heart was racing, but it lowkey felt fun! The alarm started blaring as we approached the giant gates that were chained close.

Shit. I couldn't make my way over them without help.

Dean threw his suit jacket over the spikes on the top. "Sammy on the other side!" Dean guided us as Sam jumped over easily. "I'll boost you up, sweetheart."

I scrambled over the iron bars as Dean let me use his hands as footholds. I brought my legs over the covered spikes and balanced myself on the thin iron horizontal bar that ran across the top of the gates.

"Jump! I can catch you Sharon!" Sam held out his arms. Well, I trusted him. So I jumped down and I felt him catch me with his arms around my torso.

He grunted as I knocked the wind out of him. "Sorry, Sammy," I winced in pain for him. He dropped me to my feet and gave me a quick once over for any wounds. But we had no time to waste. Dean had leapt over and grabbed his suit jacket and was leading us back to the car.

My legs ached as I made the final stretch and swung the door to the car open. I gasped when Dean started driving before I could even sit down. "That. Was. Crazy." I panted in my seat, and the brothers burst into laughter.

We went back to Jerry's office where we presented Jerry with our little ziploc bag. He put the yellow dust under a microscope to examine it. I already knew what it was though. Sulfur.

"This stuff is coated in sulfur," Bingo. "Take a look for yourself."

"YOU EFFING PIECE OF CRAP." Someone yelled outside Jerry's door.

"If you fellows will excuse me, I have an idiot to fire." Jerry stomped out of the office and the door slammed close behind him.

Dean went over to the microscope to look at the yellow powder. "You know, there's not too many things that leave behind a sulfuric residue."

"Demonic possession?" Sam suggested. Exactly.

"It would explain how a mortal man would have the strength to open up an emergency hatch." Dean stepped aside for Sam to look through the microscope next. Great, now I wanted to check it out too.

"If the guy was possessed it's possible."

"This goes way beyond floating over a bed or barfing pea soup. I mean it's one thing to possess a person, but to use them to take down an entire airplane?"

"You ever heard of something like this before?"

"Never."

I walked back into the motel room with three take out bags, where Sam and Dean were poring over books and journals, trying to determine if it really was a demon. Sam was on his computer and Dean was trying to figure out some kind of connection between all the pictures and notes he'd stuck on the walls. I dropped lunch for the day on the table and started handing out everyone's share.

"So, every religion in every world culture has the concept of demons and demonic possession, right? I mean Christian, Native American, Hindu, you name it." Sam said to no one in particular.

"Yeah, but none of them describe something like this." Dean gestured towards the things he'd stuck in the wall.

"Well, that's not exactly true. You see, according to Japanese beliefs, certain demons are behind certain disasters, both natural and man-made." Oh yeah. I'd forgotten over the years that demons tended to take on the beliefs of other cultures and countries other than just Christianity and the Bible. "One causes earthquakes, another causes disease."

"And this one causes plane crashes?" Dean sat up as I passed him his box of burgers. "Thanks." He dug in with a huge bite. How adorable. "All right, so, what? We have a demon that's evolved with the times and found a way to ratchet up the body count?

"Yeah. You know, who knows how many planes it's brought down before this one?" Sam stared sadly at his laptop. I handed him his sad looking chicken salad. I wasn't big on unhealthy cholesterol heavy burgers like Dean, but I also wasn't enough of a health nut to live off of leaves with a milligram of chicken.

"I don't know, man. This isn't our normal gig. I mean, demons, they don't want anything, just death and destruction for its own sake. This is big. And I wish Dad was here." Dean and Sam had no idea of the gigs they would take on over the years. If they thought this was big, then what would they think of the things they would have to deal with in the future. I wished I could tell them all the information I had. My memories of the later seasons were fading with time. I couldn't write down anything thanks to the thing in my head, and there was no one I could talk about this to either. All I could do was to try and not forget major events and cases over the next 15 years. That is if I was even still here.

"Hey, Jerry." Dean looked at me and Sam with a look that told us to be quiet for a bit. "Wha– Jerry, I'm sorry, what happened?… Where'd this happen?…" Dean motioned for a pen and paper. Sam handed it to me and I passed it onto Dean. "I'll try to ignore the irony in that… Nothing. Jerry, hang in there, all right? We'll catch up with you soon." He put his phone down after that.

"Another crash?" Sam asked. Dean nodded.

"Where?" I asked too.

"Nazareth."

Once again, we were in Jerry's office.

"Sulfur?" Dean asked.

Jerry nodded.

"Well, that's great." Dean grimaced. "All right, that's two plane crashes involving Chuck Lambert. This demon sounds like it was after him."

"With all due respect to Chuck," Sam said gently. "If that's the case, then this would be good news."

"What's the bad news?"

"Chuck's plane went down exactly 40 minutes into flight. And get this, so did flight 2485."

"40 minutes?" Jerry blinked in confusion. "What does that mean?"

"It's biblical numerology." Dean explained. "You know, Noah's Ark, it rained for 40 days. The number means death."

"Sharon and I went back, and we found 6 plane crashes over the last decade that all went down exactly 40 minutes in." I nodded at Sam's comment. It had taken a bit of digging, but we had solid evidence from the released audios on the internet.

"Any survivors?" Dean asked.

"No. Or not until now, at least, not until flight 2485, for some reason. On the cockpit voice recorder, remember what the EVP Said?"

"'No survivors,'" Dean thought for a moment. "It's going after all the survivors. It's trying to finish the job." It took them long enough.

"Really? Well, thank you for taking our survey, And if you do plan to fly, please don't forget your friends at United Britannia Airlines. Thanks." I said using my sweetest customer service voice. I hung up on the call and stretched in the back seat. "Blaire Sanderson and Dennis Holloway aren't flying any time soon."

"So our only wildcard is the flight attendant Amanda Walker." Dean hummed.

"Right. Her sister Karen said her flight leaves Indianapolis at eight pm. It's her first night back on the job." Sam said as he looked at his notes.

"That sounds like just our luck." Dean grumbled and sped up.

"Dean, this is a five-hour drive, man, even with you behind the wheel." Sam shook his head at Dean's attempt at speeding up.

"Call Amanda's cell phone again, see if we can't head her off at the pass." Dean slammed even harder on the accelerator, if that was even possible. Any faster and we might be the ones that started flying.

"I already left her three voice messages. She must have turned her cellphone off." Sam sighed. "God, we're never gonna make it."

Surprise, surprise. We did make it. "We're gonna need tickets. But keep trying her phone." I told the boys and headed for customer support.

"Hi!" I forced on a smile as I approached the lady at the counter.

"Hi! How can I help you?"

"Um, we had a family emergency, and we kind of need to get a flight."

"Oh, okay, and when are you planning to leave?"

"Immediately, hopefully. I-I already know which flight number– 424?"

"Ma'am– that flight has already started boarding, I cannot–"

"Please. It's just three of us– and my father-in-law– he–" I let a tear drip down my face. "We-we just want to make it in time for his funeral–" Sorry John for killing you before your time. "I can't express to you how important he was to us– Please. We can run to the gate?"

The lady looked at her coworker and picked up her phone. "Let me make a few calls and see if I can get you guys on the flight."

"Hey!" Dean and Sam ran up to where I was standing. "Did you get a flight?"

"They're working on it." I nodded towards the woman who was frantically dialing numbers.

"We can get you guys on. The flight was supposed to leave at 8:00, but it got pushed back to 8:30 due to some issues. Would that be alright?" I nodded. "Can I have your card please?"

"Yeah, yeah!" I fumbled for my card and handed it to her.

With a few more buttons, she handed us our tickets. "Gate 13 will be down that way."

The three of us made our way through the crowded airport, after passing security, somehow, but we made it to the gate in time.

Once we were on the plane, we were presented with a different problem.

Dean was sandwiched between me and Sam. I was enjoying the view from the window seat and Sam was enjoying the extra leg room in the aisle seat. Dean, though, was trembling in the middle. Poor guy.

"Just try to relax." Sam grabbed one of Dean's hands.

"Dean, we're still on the ground. Just stay calm." I took his other hand in mine.

Dean snatched his hands away in a panic. "Just shut up you two." he was visibly shaking. Poor thing. My poor big scary adorable husband was scared of flying.

"You look adorable." I whispered to him.

He fixed me with a glare that made me giggle and look away. I missed flying.

Dean started humming some song which made Sam turn his head. "You're humming Metallica?" he snickered.

"Helps me calm down." Dean said angrily. It was hard to hold back my laughter when the flight attendants went over the safety guidelines and Dean paid way too much attention with wide eyes.

When the plane took off, Dean ended up clenching my hand and Sam's as he braced himself against his seat. I rubbed comforting circles with my thumb and that seemed to make him a little less tense.

"We got 32 minutes and counting to track this thing down, or whoever it's possessing, anyway, and perform a full on exorcism." Sam noted.

"Yeah. On a crowded plane. That's gonna be easy." Dean took deep breaths.

"Just take it one step at a time, all right?" Sam leaned out to look up and down the aisle. "Now, who is it possessing?"

None of the passengers that's what. It was the copilot.

"It's usually gonna be somebody with some sort of weakness, you know, a chink in the armor that the demon can worm through. Somebody with an addiction or some sort of emotional distress." Dean rambled.

"Well, this is Amanda's first flight after the crash. If I were her, I'd be pretty messed up." He caught a flight attendant's attention and asked. "Excuse me, are you Amanda?"

The attendant looked a little awkward as she answered. "No, I'm not. But it will be the attendant standing right there." She pointed to the back of the plane. I couldn't see Amanda from where I was sitting, but by Sam's expression I could tell he had figured out who she was.

"Oh, sorry. Thank you."

"I'm gonna go get a read on her mental state." Sam said, standing up. "What if she's already possessed?"

"I brought holy water." Dean started pulling out a flask with a Cross on it.

"No, more subtle." Sam groaned.

"Christo then. She would react to the name of God, right?" I offered.

Sam nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

A couple of minutes later, Sam came back.

"So?" Dean looked up.

"So… she's not possessed." Sam sighed. "There's nothing getting in her either. If it's on the plane, it could be in anyone."

Literally. Like the copilot speaking right now. The plane started shaking from turbulence. Had airplanes always been this shaky? Maybe it was because this plane was older than the ones I used to ride. Or maybe it was because the copilot was being possessed by a freaking demon.

"Come on! This can't be normal!" Dean hissed.

"Hey, hey, it's just a little turbulence." Sam tried.

"Sam, this plane is going to crash, okay? So quit treating me like I'm friggin' four."

"You're acting like you're four, Dean." I tried to unfurl his fingers from the death grip he had on the armrests. "Calm down. Don't demons take over the mentally weak? You gotta calm yourself down before it thinks you're a possible host."

"She's right, Dean. Calm down."

"Well, I'm sorry I can't!"

"Yes, you can."

"Dude, stow the touchy-feely, self-help yoga crap, it's not helping!"

"Dean. Just breathe, alright? Come on. You want me to breathe with you?"

"No, no, no." he vehemently shook his head. He looked so cute even when he was scared.

But I had to keep him calm for now. "Come on, Dean." He took slow deep breaths as he held my hand.

"I found an exorcism in here that I think is gonna work. The Rituale Romanum." Sam showed us the passage he found in a book.

"What do we have to do?" Dean asked.

"It's two parts. The first part expels the demon from the victim's body. It makes it manifest, which actually makes it more powerful." Sam explained.

"More powerful?" Dean winced. "How?"

"Well, it doesn't need to possess someone anymore. It can just wreak havoc on its own."

"And that's a good thing?"

"Um, yeah because the second part sends the bastard back to hell once and for all." Sam smiled proudly.

"Well, first things first. We gotta find it." Dean stood up on shaky legs and grabbed his EMF. Sam did the same. And the two brothers prepared to scan the opposite sides of the plane.

"I'll stay here." I crossed my legs and marvelled at the sheer amount of leg space old airplanes had. You couldn't have found this in the 2020s. Everything was mini sized where not even the average person could fit in.

"So the demon isn't possessing any of the passengers?"

"Keep looking." I waved them away.

A few minutes later and with 15 minutes left until the plane went crashing, Dean and Sam were back.

"It was the copilot." Sam whispered to me and we made our way to Amanda at the back of the plane. "She's not gonna believe this."

"12 minutes dude." Dean reminded us.

"Oh, hi." Amanda smiled at Sam. "The flight's not too bumpy for your brother I hope."

"Actually, that's kind of what we need to talk to you about." Dean smiled.

I pulled the curtains close as the brothers gave Amanda the rundown of the situation.

"Now, we've spoken to some of the other survivors. We know something brought down that plane and it wasn't a mechanical failure."

"We need your help because we need to stop it from happening again. Here. Now."

"I'm sorry, I-I'm very busy. I have to go back-" Amanda tried to get out of the little cabin.

I blocked her path. "Sorry, but we really do need your help."

Her eyes widened in fear. "We're not going to hurt you. We don't have any weapons that can hurt anything human."

"The pilot in 2485, Chuck Lambert. He's dead." Dean continued.

Amanda froze. "Chuck? He's dead?" Her hand flew to her mouth.

"He died in a plane crash. Now, that's two plane crashes in two months. That doesn't strike you as strange?"

"I-I–,"Amanda stammered as she tried to make sense of the situation.

"Look, there was something wrong with 2485. Now maybe you sensed it, maybe you didn't. But there's something wrong with this flight, too." Sam explained. "Amanda, you have to believe us."

Amanda nodded shakily. "On… On 2485, there was this man. He… had these eyes."

"Black eyes?" I tried to confirm.

She nodded. "Yes, how did you–"

"Okay. The copilot, we need you to bring him back here." Dean ordered.

"Why? What does he have to do with anything?"

"His eyes." I checked my watch. "7 minutes. We're running out of time."

"How am I supposed to go in the cockpit and get the copilot–"

"Don't know. Don't care. We just need him back here. Tell him the plane is broken and will crash or something. Whatever will get the copilot over here."

"Do you know that I could lose my job if you–"

"You'll lose your life if you don't do this right now." Shoot. I sounded like I was gonna kill her.

"O-okay–" Amanda ran off to the other end of the plane to call over the copilot.

"Where's the passage?" I asked Sam. "I can read out the exorcism if you guys hold the thing down."

"Alright. Here it is." Sam showed me a two part long passage in the book. "It's in Latin."

"Alright." I skimmed through the passage and mentally read it in my head. Alright, I could do it. Ideally I would have drawn a devil's trap but I had nowhere to hide it or draw it in time. "Hold that thing down when it comes here."

Dean and Sam nodded as Amanda and the copilot entered the back area.

Sam immediately threw holy water on the demon who screamed. Or he would have if Dean hadn't already slapped a strip of duct tape over his mouth.

"Keep the passengers away." Sam instructed Amanda.

I began the incantation. With both Dean and Sam holding down the demon, I could continue reading the words on the page. They barely registered in my head before they left my mouth. The adrenaline was crazy. Black smoke erupted from the copilot's mouth and the smoke swirled above us.

Okay, a tiny bit faster now. Before it went into the vents. I kept reading. Last para. Last line. And bam. I'd done it. The black smoke disappeared, and everything was calm.

Other than the copilot of course. He was terrified. He had two giant men holding him down and holy water had sizzled his skin after all. But he was still alive. And we'd done it. We'd saved over a hundred people on this stupid plane. Amanda, don't you ever fly again after another near death experience.

Sam, Dean, and I dodged all the paramedics that had shown up thanks to our copilot who had gotten himself possessed and therefore burned from holy water. And if he had been nervous enough to be possessed by a demon then was he even fit to be a copilot? I shuddered. Maybe the turbulence really was due to the copilot's skills and not just because of the demon that possessed him.

"Thank you." Amanda whispered.

When the police and paramedics walked towards us, she managed to distract them with her own testimonies while Sam, Dean, and I snuck out of the crowd.

"We really did it." Sam looked excited. "We took down a demon without Dad."

"Yep!" Dean was back to his cheery self now that we were on land. "And we're on land! We're not gonna fall to our deaths!"

"We could if it's a canyon or a cliff." I pointed out.

"Hey, I'll take that over falling off an airplane any day." Dean grinned.

I shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"Alright, guys. Let's get out of here." Sam muttered under his breath when one of the police looked in our direction.

"Nobody knows what you guys did, but I do. A lot of people could have been killed." Jerry looked at us with gratitude. "Thank you." He held out his hand. Dean and Sam grasped onto it and shook it firmly. I wiped my sweaty palms against my jeans and grasped his hand before giving it two firm pumps. "Your dad's gonna be proud."

"We'll see you around Jerry." Sam smiled and turned to leave.

Dean paused. "You know Jerry?"

"Yeah?"

"I meant to ask you, how did you get my cell phone number, anyway? I've only had it for like six months."

"Your dad gave it to me." Jerry said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

But wasn't John missing? Or was I missing a key piece of information here?

"What?" Sam thought the same because he walked back to stand next to me and Dean.

"When did you talk to him?" Dean was listening with rapt attention.

"I mean, I didn't exactly talk to him, but I called his number." Jerry shrugged. "His voice message said to give you a call. Thanks again, guys."

"This doesn't make any sense, man. I've called Dad's number like 50 times. It's been out of service."

Dean scrolled through his contacts and pressed John's number. He put the phone on speaker so Sam and I could hear it too. 'This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. 785-555-0179. He can help.'

Sam forced the door to the impala open. "You can go shotgun, Sharon." he climbed into the backseat. Dean and I looked worriedly at the younger boy.

"What's going on, Sharon?" Dean whispered.

"I can't say. I'm sorry." I whispered back.

"Will we be okay?" Dean looked at me as if begging for answers.

But I couldn't say anything.