Hell, and Back

by Kikkimax

 

 

"Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow."

T.S. Eliot

 

 

Bobby lifted his head from the tome in his hands when he heard the Impala slowly pulling into the drive.  Sam was at the wheel then, which could only mean trouble.  Everywhere Dean took her these days the old girl roared with his apparent joy of driving her.  A byproduct of the kid’s new over the top, devil may care attitude that Bobby didn‘t buy for a minute.  Of course it also meant a throwback to a time when nobody but Dean drove the classic except under dire circumstances.  

 

Something twitched in Bobby’s gut as he got up just in time to hear the screen door slam as Dean barreled in from the porch and straight up the stairs without a word, his pounding steps shaking the front windows in his wake.  Alive then.  And in one piece, physically at least.  Knowing better than to poke at that bear Bobby headed outside to find Sam instead.

 

“Didn’t go well?” Bobby drawled, meeting Sam just under the eave.

 

Sam huffed and readjusted the assortment of bags he carried.  “Let’s just say that was the longest three hundred miles of my life.”  He tried to duck past Bobby, but Bobby knew John’s boys too well and caught him by the arm to spin him back around.

 

“Good lord, Sam,” he exclaimed when Sam’s face turned into the light flooding through the front door.  “What the hell happened?”  He examined what he thought was a bad sunburn until he realized Sam’s eyebrows and bangs were more than a little singed as well.  “Cut it kinda close, didn’t cha?”

 

Squirming under the scrutiny, Sam eased himself free and proceeded into the house.  He looked up the stairs and kept his voice low as Bobby followed. “Well, as Dean’s been so fond of saying for the last three days; that thing was no Drew Barrymore.”

 

“Maybe a firestarter wasn’t the best choice for Dean’s first gig back.”

 

Shooting a ‘ya think?’ look over his shoulder Sam blew out a breath and trudged up the stairs.  Stopping halfway he turned around.  “We gotta do something, Bobby,” he said, desperation just below the surface of his burnt face.

 

“Like what?” Bobby kept it neutral.  If anybody knew what to do about Dean it was Sam.  Sometimes he just needed a little prodding.

 

“I don’t know,” Sam sighed and it sounded like he carried the weight of the world.  “He froze when he saw the flames, just stood there like a damned statue.  He nearly got us both killed.  It was all I could do to get him out of the way.”

 

Bobby rubbed the back of his neck.  It was worse than he thought.  “What about the firestarter?”

 

Sam cleared his throat and leaned against the railing.  “After the first fiasco of a meeting Dean wouldn’t let us get close enough to kill it.  It was wounded though so we tracked it through the woods for a couple of days.  We finally forced it into a deserted mine shaft and caved in the entrance.  Still, if anybody ever digs the opening out and wanders in…” he let the thought hang in the air for a minute then shook his head as if to clear it.  

 

“So you go back and take care of it later, you bought some time,” Bobby soothed best he could.

 

“Maybe you and me.  I’m not letting Dean anywhere near that place until he’s ready.”  Sam paused and reached up to brush aside the tips of his somewhat crispy bangs.  “And I don’t know if he ever will be.”

 

Bobby pulled out his wise old sage look and nodded thoughtfully, but he could tell it was lost on Sam at the moment so he dropped it.  “We’ll take care of it,” he said instead.

 

But Sam was already on his way to bed down.  “Goodnight, Bobby.”

 

“Night,” Bobby called after him and went back to his book.  Sometime later a door slammed and there was a brief exchange of words too loud for normal conversation although Bobby couldn’t actually make them out.  Then things settled down in the Winchester world for the night.  Bobby said a little prayer for the both of ‘em and headed off to bed himself.

 

*****

 

Sam had long since given up pretending he didn’t hear the screams that trumpeted each coming dawn since Dean’s… return.  His rude awakenings were surer than any alarm clock and they both knew it.  It had been even longer since Dean stopped trying to cover with clever wit or biting sarcasm.  “I’m fine,” left his vocabulary months ago.  These horrific, to Dean anyway, lapses of Winchester stoicism seem to strip him of his very Dean-ness, leaving him raw and brittle each and every morning.  

 

“Hell is hell,” Dean once told him, the only time he ever actually admitted to remembering anything about the pit.  Those three little words were the entire Dean Winchester narration of the event and they had cost him in ways Sam couldn’t quite comprehend.  Everything else Sam could only speculate from Dean’s behavior; insomnia, nightmares, and an unadulterated fear of fire.  

 

The courage it had taken for Dean to chase the walking charcoal briquette through the forest night after night made Sam’s head spin, even though he had always known his big brother was one of the bravest men alive.  The shame Dean felt at being unable to confront the thing when it came right down to it was incomprehensible.  But Dean wasn’t having any of it.  And as of last night the subject was closed.  Permanently.  They would never speak of it again as far as Dean was concerned.

 

Now another day had started just like every other.  Standing at the window with his hands on the ledge, Dean’s shoulders slumped as he stared out into the pre-dawn darkness, something akin to muted horror on what Sam could see of his sweat dampened face. Sam usually pretended to be asleep to give his brother a modicum of privacy but today something was different about his stance and Sam couldn‘t help but stare.  

 

Dean seemed unusually defeated as he hung his head.  “I’m sorry,” he finally whispered.  “It won’t happen again.”

 

“I know it won‘t,” Sam said, keeping his voice as low as Dean’s.

 

If Dean was surprised by an answer he didn’t show it.  Instead he chuckled softly and turned around to lean against the ledge.  He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Sam and even in the dark Sam was certain Dean knew he was lying.  “It won’t,” Dean insisted.  “We’re gonna hang it up.”

 

“You mean quit hunting?”  Sam sat up in the bed and stared in disbelief.  Dean had mentioned it before but never with such unabashed earnestness.  Sure he had been slower to come back to the hunt than either Sam or Bobby had ever imagined but he had thrown himself into it wholeheartedly when the mood finally took him.  But that was before the showdown with the firestarter.

 

“That’s what I said.”  

 

“You also said we,” Sam accused, deciding on the spot he wouldn’t let Dean quit.  Not because of this, not until he conquered this… this phobia because Dean wouldn’t be able to live that way.  Fighting dirty was the only weapon he had left and he came by it honestly, taught by Dean himself.  “I’m not quitting, there’s too much work to do.”

 

Dean’s jaw clenched so tight Sam could have sworn he heard his teeth grind.  Anger flashed across Dean’s face followed quickly by frustration and possibly fear but then he relaxed unexpectedly and smiled.  Feral.  Mean.  Sam knew this look.  It meant Dean was pissed but he would let Sam have his way if it killed them both.

 

“Then I guess we’ll go down together,” Dean said as he pushed away from the window, grabbing a pair of sweat pants off the back of the rickety wooden chair.  “Because you’re not doing it without me.”  He picked up the sneakers he’d practically worn out running up and down the dirt road in front of Bobby’s house for the last six months and tromped down the stairs.

 

Sam lay back and listened to water run through the pipes as the toilet flushed.  Predictably a few minutes later the front door banged open and then shut.  He used to try to go with him in the mornings but Dean always wanted to run solo.  Sam had been understanding about it, he really had.  Just thinking how Dean tried to outrun his nightmares made his heart ache for his brother‘s pain.  It was obvious Dean needed help, and just as obvious he’d never take it.  Not without drastic measures.

 

As the sun came up an outrageous plan began to take shape in Sam’s mind.  Devious and requiring a good deal of finesse, it was still better than letting Dean walk away from the life he loved.  If it worked.  He decided to run it by Bobby before doing anything stupid.  And since Bobby was already making the morning sounds of domesticity in the kitchen below they had time to talk.  Dean wouldn‘t be home for hours.  

 

He pushed away the covers and sat on the edge of the bed for another few seconds to make up his mind then climbed to his feet and slipped on a pair of pants.  Sure enough he smelt coffee and bacon when he ventured into the hall.  For the first time in a long time he felt hungry.

 

*****

 

“Maybe I’ll take you with me next time,” Dean breathlessly promised Cleo, Bobby’s new dog.  Although Rumsfeld considered her to be his girlfriend, everyone knew her heart belonged to Dean.  

 

She greeted him with a yawn and a whine, stretched to the end of her chain where she’d been since he left.  She wagged her tail in a manner totally unbefitting a guard dog as Dean stopped to scratch her ears and catch his breath before heading in.  When his lungs stopped burning she followed him around the house to the back door, her chain jingling as they navigated the junk in the yard.

 

Bobby probably knew the whole sordid story by now.  No doubt there would be words of sympathy and advise Dean just really didn’t want to deal with.  Ever.  He pulled off his sweat soaked tee-shirt and hung it on the porch rail before running his hands through his damp hair and putting on his game face.  Through the window he could see Sam sitting in a kitchen chair with a towel around his neck.  Bobby had a pair of scissors working on the mop Sam called hair.

 

When he busted through the back door with a boisterous ‘Morning!’ Bobby jumped and nearly took off one of Sam’s ears.  Sam cried out like a girl and they both turned to glare at him.  Mission accomplished.  Dean gloated as he grabbed the cast iron skillet off the stove and a fork to make short work of the long cold scrambled eggs.  

 

“Idgit,” Bobby swore as he examined the damage, mostly a big chunk of hair that he hadn’t intended to cut.  

 

There was only a tiny speck of blood on the offended earlobe that didn’t come back when Bobby wiped it away so Dean stowed the apology on the tip of his tongue.  Although he was glad to see the singed hair go Dean could see the reddened skin much better.  He felt his smile slip a little.  It was possible he overcorrected but he was sure they didn’t notice.

 

“Give him a buzz cut,” Dean offered instead with a huge grin, leaving the fork in the pan and moving on to the pile of bacon on a napkin.  He crammed the first slice in his mouth and then poured a cup of coffee but stopped chewing when he turned around to what should have been the wrath of his baby brother.  Instead Sam looked away guiltily.  So not good.  “What?” Dean asked suspiciously.

 

“What, what?” came the entirely too innocent response.

 

“What the hell are you up to what,” Dean clarified, narrowing his eyes.

 

Bobby grunted and got back to the much needed haircut.  “Eat yer breakfast,” he admonished.  “And don’t run off.  You’re next.”

 

Dean rubbed the back of his head and decided maybe he did need a little off the sides and back.  “You got clippers?”

 

“Hell yes I got clippers.”

 

“You know how to use ‘em?” Dean pushed slyly, getting back to putting away a quarter pound or so of not quite crisp bacon.

 

“You’d rather spend thirty bucks in town?” Bobby challenged, raising an eyebrow under his ball cap.

 

“If that’s what it takes to look good.”

 

“Suit yerself.”

 

“Copy that.”

 

Sam made no comment which just didn’t sit right and Dean realized he’d been purposely distracted for reasons as yet unknown.  He openly watched Sam as he drank his coffee, now certain something was up.  Sam flinched under his gaze.

 

“Jesus, Dean.  What?” Sam finally cracked.

 

“I’m just waiting for you to let me in on your little secret.”

 

“All done,” Bobby said, carefully removing the towel from around Sam’s neck without scattering the hair.  “Gather that up and burn it,” he told Sam.  “There’s all kinds of hoodoo a body can do with just a lock of hair.  No sense in tempting fate.”

 

“Okay,” Sam agreed, going over to the old chrome toaster to get a look at his new do.  

 

“You next?” Bobby asked, pointing to the chair.

 

Dean chugged the rest of his coffee and considered his options.  “I guess it’ll grow back,” he finally allowed and dropped into the chair.

 

“Well thank you for that overwhelming vote of confidence,” Bobby growled.  He took the towel Sam handed him and slung it around Dean’s shoulders.  

 

Then Sam gathered the impressive pile of his own hair into an ashtray and reached for a match.  Dean felt his mouth go dry and his heart speed up but he tried not to show it.  Still, knowing what was coming, he couldn’t quite take his eyes off the unlit match.

 

“Outside,” Bobby ordered when he noticed what Sam  was up to.  “Don’t need that stink in the kitchen.  I swear you boys were raised by wolves.”

 

“Worse,” Sam said with a smirk as he ducked out the back door.  “John Winchester.”

 

Bobby smirked back, grabbing the clippers he had stowed amongst the mess on the table.  “You okay, boy?” he asked, snapping Dean out of his little fugue.

 

“What?”

 

“You’re looking kinda pale, there.  If you want to go into town for this it won’t hurt my feelings none.”

 

“No, I’m good,” Dean managed, but just barely.  “Just, you know, not too short.”

 

Sam came back in with a sooty ashtray and set it on the counter.  Whatever smartass comment he was about to make died on his lips as his eyes went wide when he looked at Dean.  “What’s wrong?” he asked instead.

 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Dean insisted even though he was still dizzy and sick.  And that was just at the thought of Sam lighting the match.  “You want to let me in on your secret or should I just beat it out of you later?” he tried to cover.

 

“I found us a job,” Sam said.

 

Oh.  “So?”  Dean fidgeted even though what he really felt was relief.  A job was the last thing he was expecting but that was fine by him.  Gotta get back on that horse soon  if they were gonna keep hunting.

 

“Sit still,” Bobby warned.  The clippers came on with a rattle and a buzz.

 

Dean closed his eyes for a second to recover his bearings.  “Well don’t just stand there.  Tell me,” he said as Bobby made the first swipe.

 

“Seven kids and young adults have gone missing in the last 15 years,” Sam spoke up to be heard over the clippers, “All within a one mile radius of a miniature golf course.  Nothing was ever found of any of them.”

 

“A haunted Putt Putt?  Awesome,” Dean approved even as Bobby pushed his head over to the side to trim around his left ear.  “When was the last disappearance?”

 

Sam and Bobby exchanged a look Dean didn‘t miss.  “Three years ago,” Sam said.

 

So that was their game.  “Kind of a cold case then?” Dean asked, his suspicion back full force.  

 

“It came out of my old case file,” Bobby admitted evenly, shoving Dean’s head the other way none too gently.

 

“I don’t need to be coddled,” Dean huffed, angry and humiliated.  He tried to get up but Bobby kept him down by holding the clippers accidentally on purpose too close to his face.

 

“There were gaps of eleven months to four years between the missing kids,” Sam pointed out, pulling out a manila folder and referencing it.  “We don’t know that another might go missing tomorrow.  Dean, we’re not coddling you, this is a real threat.  Someone needs to figure out what happened to these kids.”

 

“Sounds like a job for the police,” Dean grumbled, settling back so Bobby could finish the damned haircut.  “What makes you think this is supernatural anyway?”

 

“There was one eyewitness account.”  Sam pulled out a newspaper article and brandished it in front of Dean’s face.  “The very first case a little girl saw her brother disappear into thin air after he climbed the fence to find his lost ball.”

 

“And the police wrote it off as hysteria,” Dean finished for him.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Dean shrugged and earned a whap on the head for moving.  “Ow,” he complained, shooting an aggravated glance at an unrepentant Bobby before turning his attention back to Sam.  “An angry spirit?”

 

“Or a lonely one,” Sam hazarded.  “It’s textbook.  It‘s only taking boys and young men.  Could be looking for a playmate.”

 

“Okay, I’m in,” Dean accepted, actually glad that was all Sam was hiding.  “Where are we off to?”

 

Sam hesitated again for a fraction of a second.  “Virginia.”

 

“That’s cool,” Dean said too loudly as Bobby shut off the clippers, wondering why Sam thought he wouldn‘t want to go to Virginia.

 

“All done,” Bobby announced, once again disrupting his train of thought.  “Now gather this up…”

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Dean grumbled, accepting the towel.  “If anyone can make a talisman out of this?” he said as he held up a pinch of hair between two fingers, “Good for them.”  He took the towel to the back porch and shook it out, letting the South Dakota wind take the tiny pieces of him away.  Then he leaned on the rail and forcibly exhaled the breath he felt like he’d been holding for days.  He absently brushed away the stray hairs that stuck to his still damp chest.  Time to get back in the saddle.  Again.

 

“Dammit, Dean,” he heard Bobby grumble from the screen door.  “Don’t come crying to me when you’re some voodoo queen’s sex slave.”

 

Sam laughed and Dean couldn’t help but smile.  “Sweet,” he mumbled at the thought as he ran a hand through his newly shorn hair.  It felt soft but uneven.  He would make a trip into town later, he just wouldn‘t tell Bobby.

 

*****
 

S.S.A. Hotchner glanced at the clock as he got to his feet and grabbed his jacket.  It was still early in the work day by anyone’s standards but it was Friday and his team had been through hell and back in the last six days so he made an executive decision.  Everyone, with the notable exception of Gideon whose office was already dark, was gathered in the bullpen comparing notes and finishing their reports.  

 

Slipping into his suit coat as he descended the stairs Hotch went to join them.  “Where’s Jason?” he asked.

 

Reid looked up, not especially haggard in spite of no sleep and the long flight home.  Youth really was wasted on the young.  “He already left.  I think he was going to head up to his cabin this weekend and decompress.  Do you want me to get him back?” he asked, reaching for the phone.

 

“No,” Hotch said quickly.  “In fact I want you all to go home, the paperwork will keep.  And I don’t want to see any of your faces around here until Monday… barring of course anything drastic.”

 

“Drastic like a new BTK or Son of Sam,” Morgan quipped, also looking none the worse for wear, but then again, he had slept soundly on the plane for hours.

 

Hotch nodded and sighed.  Unfortunately a new, bigger, badder serial killer was never out of the range of possibility.  “Yes.  Drastic like that.”

 

“Are you going home, too?” J.J. asked with a tired smile.

 

“Yes I am,” Hotch assured her.  “Right after I…”

 

“We’re not leaving until you do,” Morgan replied, cutting Hotch off as he turned back to his computer.  

 

Prentiss and Reid also kept working.  J.J. leaned against the edge of Morgan’s desk and looked at Hotch expectantly.

 

“Right after I talk to the director and take us off rotation for the weekend,” Hotch finished.  “Then I promise to go home.”

 

“That will give me just enough time to finish this,” Reid said.

 

“Me, too,” Prentiss agreed.  She might be relatively new but she was certainly fitting in with the team spirit.

 

Morgan grinned as he typed.  “So we’ll all leave together.”

 

Hotch gave in after another minute.  He knew his people and they weren’t bluffing.  “We’re all out of here in fifteen minutes,” he told them firmly.

 

Nods of agreement went around but before he went to see the director Hotch stopped at Reid’s desk.  “Was Jason okay?” he asked quietly but not quietly enough as all eyes turned their way waiting for the answer.

 

“I think so,” Reid replied.  “He said he was tired but I took it as more of a physical reaction to not sleeping than mental fatigue.”

 

“Okay.  Good.”

 

“Although I could be wrong,” Reid second guessed himself.  “Do you want me to call him?”

 

“No,” Hotch said.  “I’ll talk to him later this weekend.  Let’s leave him alone tonight.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Fifteen minutes,” Hotch reminded the whole group without looking back as he headed for the stairs.  There was a flurry of fingers on keyboards behind him.

 

*****

 

The trip was uneventful and Sam couldn’t have been happier.  Halfway to Virginia he noticed Dean had snuck into town to see a hair stylist and wondered if he shouldn’t seek out a professional himself.  As it turned out, Bobby was no barber.

 

Other than the occasional barb about Sam’s really bad haircut, Dean seemed to be in his own head most of the way which kept the conversation light and gave Sam a little more time to think.  They covered the miles in less than a day and settled into one of the roach motels in a tiny, unincorporated town not far from their so called case.  He prayed there‘d be something to it because he wasn’t sure how long he’d need to string Dean along if things didn‘t fall in line in a timely fashion.  

 

Now came the hard part.  Sam decided to use research as an excuse to disappear for a while so he could set the plan in motion.  Of course he still had to ‘borrow’ a car and ditch Dean for a few hours.

 

“Where are you going?” Dean looked up from the assortment of weapons he’d just cleaned as Sam gathered his wallet and a room key.

 

“To find a library.”

 

“Didn’t you read that before we decided to come down here?”  Dean pointed to the overflowing folder Bobby had sent with them as he began putting the guns away.  “All that’s left is to go check the place out.”

 

“That stuff is several years old,” Sam protested, trying to sound meticulous and not desperate.  “Don’t you think we should dig into something a little more recent before we go off half-cocked?”

 

“Since when?” Dean wiped his hands off on the bedspread of the bed he was sitting on leaving a dark oily spot.  Of course it happened to be Sam‘s bed.

 

“I just want to see if anything else has been written about it, okay?”

 

Dean sighed as he got up and tucked his gun under his shirt at the small of his back.  “Fine.  Let’s get it over with.”  

 

“I can do it,” Sam offered.  He‘d planned for this.  Staying at Bobby‘s was great but there was one amenity Bobby didn‘t provide.  “Stay here.  Watch some of the free porn.”

 

“Free?  Porn?” Dean asked, turning towards the TV.  “Two of my favorite words, even better when used together.”

 

“Yeah,”  Sam laughed.  “I know.  Just wait for me and we can go to the golf course tonight.”

 

Dean shrugged.  “If you’re sure.”

 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Sam insisted with a smile.  “If I find anything I’ll call you.”

 

“Okay.  You wanna take the Impala?” Dean offered grudgingly.

 

“No, I’ll walk.  It‘s probably not more than a few miles.”

 

Dean grabbed the keys and threw them in Sam’s general direction.  “Take her,” he said.  “You drive like an old lady anyway.”

 

Sam effortlessly snagged the keys out of the air.  “Do not.”

 

“You got your 9 mil?”  Dean removed his own gun and put it on the nightstand then settled back on Sam’s bed, boots and all.  

 

“I never leave home without it.”  Sam looked at the keys and nodded, thankful he wouldn’t have to steal a car or worry about Dean tailing him.  Or worse, showing up at the library since Sam wouldn‘t be there.  “Enjoy,” he called over his shoulder as he started to leave.

 

“Dude, that’s sick,” Dean teased, but his attention was already on the remote as he clicked on the TV.  “Hey!” he called out as Sam was closing the door.  “Don’t think I don’t know where you’re really going.”

 

Sam froze with his hand on the doorknob.  “What?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.  “Where else would I go?”

 

Dean laughed.  “Your head looks like it lost a fight with Edward Scissorhands.”

 

“Yeah, it does,” Sam admitted, relieved as he shut the door behind him.  Too bad he had no time for a real haircut.

 

*****

 

Gideon supposed he should feel guilty for not letting Hotch know he was leaving early.  But for once he didn’t turn off his work phone since he hadn’t gone home before fleeing to his sanctuary, and of course Reid hadn‘t let him get out without asking where he was going.  He wasn’t unreachable, just putting a little distance between himself and the job.  The drive should have let him unwind but he was still on edge even as he took the final turn toward his cabin.  

 

Another case was over, more kids were dead or scarred for the rest of their lives and Gideon felt… What?  He didn’t know.  Certainly not pride in a job well done.  That particular feeling was hard to come by these days.  No matter what he did it never seemed to be enough.  It was not for nothing he told himself.  He didn’t have a problem convincing himself of that.  He just wasn’t feeling it.

 

What he did was important.  What they did.  They got another monster off the street but what was the personal price tag?  They all felt the strain;  Reid, Morgan, J.J., Garcia.  They all had their own methods of coping.  Even Prentiss would learn how to deal if she didn’t know already.  And Hotch, heaven help Hotch.  He carried the load for them all and it wore on him and his family.  Gideon didn‘t know how they held it together.  He suspected they didn‘t, not entirely.  

 

He’d seen it before, more than once.  The most recent victim of circumstance had been Elle who had more or less self-destructed after being shot.  Gideon firmly believed the mental stress more than the physical injury had pushed her just that little bit too far.  He worried for her even now, wondering if she’d reached the bottom of the slippery slope she’d traveled down, knowing she might not ever make it back up.

 

Not so long ago it had been him.  Major depressive episode indeed.  He feared he might be close to experiencing another.  On the other hand he knew the Bureau would go on without him.  The team, too.  Maybe it was time to start thinking about teaching full time.  Or retiring.  But he knew something had to change.  He couldn’t take another failure.

 

*****

 

With a little effort and a couple white lies Sam had located Agent Gideon’s address before they‘d even left South Dakota.  He knew Gideon wouldn‘t be there yet given the time of day, but judging by the piled up mail and sour milk he hadn‘t been home for some time.   And he wasn’t in his office either, at least he wasn’t picking up and Sam didn‘t want to risk leaving a message.  Quantico wasn’t far but Sam knew he couldn‘t just drop in unannounced on the FBI so he dug deeper.  He finally found a cell phone bill in a locked filing cabinet but when he dialed the number it rang from a kitchen drawer.   

 

He could only wait so long before he had to put in an appearance with Dean and was about to head back when a thought struck him.  Being a Winchester Sam never threw anything away.  Not information anyway.  He tugged out his wallet and rummaged through the folded papers he kept there.  

 

“Penelope Garcia,” he read under the name and number of a local flower shop.  He noted her address and consulted one of Gideon’s maps.  Just as he was getting in the car his phone rang.  He quelled his momentary panic and answered.

 

“Where the hell are you?”

 

“Manassas,” Sam answered as close to honestly as he could without giving away his true location.

 

“What?!” Dean sputtered.  “Why?  Didn’t they have any barber shops in this hole?”

 

“No, actually they didn’t.  And they didn’t have a library either so I decided to…”

 

“Whatever.  When are you coming back?  I’m starving.”

 

“There’s a Dairy Bar around the corner from the motel,” Sam told him.  “I saw it when I left.”

 

“Okay,” Dean accepted easily.  He loved Dairy Bars.  “When are you coming back?” he asked again.

 

“Not for awhile,” Sam said.  “I haven’t even found the library yet.”

 

Dean sighed, audible even over the phone.  “Well watch your back.”

 

“Dean.  It’s a library.”

 

“Shit happens in libraries all the time.  So, you know, be careful.”

 

“I always am,” Sam assured with a fond smile as he hung up.  Hell certainly hadn’t quelled Dean’s mother-hen tendencies.  If anything it made them worse.

 

*****

 

Usually after a case was wrapped up all nice and tidy Garcia would go out for a drink with her girls, and Reid, and of course Morgan to blow off a little steam, especially on Friday nights.  But not this week.  Hotch had sent his entire field team home early, and rightfully so after the extended flight back to Quantico on top of everything else in their long, crappy week.  

 

Her posse was too pooped to party so Garcia was on her own for the evening.  She thought about calling someone else but found the prospect of recruiting a new playmate unappealing and decided a quiet weekend at home was in order.  Even she needed some down time, away from office talk and the grisly scenes that played out on her monitor day after day.

 

She stopped at the grocery store for something for dinner, shampoo, toilet paper, and a few other odds and ends.  All together it added up to three large paper sacks.  Recycled, of course.  The light in the parking area seemed to be out and the sun was fading fast so rather than make two trips in the dark Garcia gathered the bags together and managed to get Ester’s trunk closed without spilling anything.

 

“Good night, girl,” she told the old caddy, bumping her hip against the shiny red paint as a substitute for her usual pat since her hands were full.

 

“Can I help you with that, Miss?” a male voice asked from the heavy shadow of the building near another classic car a couple spots down.

 

Garcia startled and nearly dropped one of the bags.

 

“Sorry,” the guy apologized, stepping into the last light of day.  He was huge, way taller than either Hotch or Morgan.  “I didn’t mean to scare you, I was just admiring your car.”

 

“Oh, oh thanks,” she said, starting towards the door of the building as quick as she could without looking like a silly, frightened, idiot.  “Yours is nice, too.  What is that?  An Impala?”

 

“Yeah, it’s my brother’s.  Don’t feel bad, he talks to it, too.”  

 

“You heard that, huh?” Garcia asked sheepishly as she reached the back steps and the communal door.   The guy followed her but kept a respectable distance as if that was where he was headed, too.  There was nothing threatening in his manner but in her line of work Garcia always went with better safe than sorry when it came to meeting strange men in dark alleys.  

 

“Are you sure you don’t need help?” he asked again as Garcia shifted the bags, trying to figure out how to get her key in the lock without putting down the bags.  He moved to the edge of the steps but didn‘t crowd her.  His eyes were kind but his skin was red and his hair was a mess.  “I’m Sam, by the way.”

 

“Penelope.”

 

He smiled then and it was a nice smile.  From what she heard Theodore Bundy had had a nice smile, too.  “Nice to meet you, Penelope.  So now that we know each other are you sure I can‘t help you?  It‘s no trouble.”

 

“No, I’m good.”  Now that she could see his features something about the guy seemed familiar.  “What happened to your face?” she questioned.  

 

“My brother,” Sam explained with an embarrassed huff.  It was cute, in a non-serial killer sort of way.  “We were grilling some steaks and he poured lighter fluid in the fire and pouf.  There went my eyebrows.  Later he helped me trim the burnt part off my hair and… well you can see the results.”

 

“What a jerk.”

 

“He means well,” Sam insisted with a shrug and another nice smile.  “Look, I’m making you nervous.  I’ll go to the front door.”  He showed his empty hands and started to back off.

 

After the initial surge of relief Garcia felt like a paranoid freak.  “Sorry,” she called after him.

 

“I understand.  Maybe I’ll see you around.”  He waved and disappeared around the corner.

 

Garcia sighed and sat the bag she was losing her grip on down on the step and stuck her key in the lock.  When she got the door open she looked around before retrieving her groceries and ducking into the hallway.  She didn’t move until the door clicked back into place and she was safely inside.  Alone.  Except for the forty or so other residents locked in their individual apartments.

 

Wasting no more time Garcia headed for the stairs.  She was slightly out of breath by the time she reached her apartment so she put all three bags on the floor in front of her door and glanced around before unlocking it.  There was someone talking in the apartment next door, or possibly a television, but otherwise all was quiet.

 

“No wonder you’re single,” she chastised herself as she opened the door and turned on the light.  Rather than picking them up she used her foot to slide the bags inside.  “Your tall, red stranger was one good haircut and an eyebrow pencil away from being a babe.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

Before she could scream a large hand clamped over her mouth and she was gently but firmly pushed through the door before it closed with a thump.  

 

“Shh, I’m not going to hurt you,” Sam, if that was his real name, whispered into her ear.  “Don’t make any noise, I just need a favor.”  

 

He really was big.  Huge.  He kept her quiet and still with one hand while he locked the door with the other.  Stripping her purse off her arm he dropped it softly to the floor then guided her to the couch.

 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised again gently, turning her around to face him without moving his hand.  “Sit down.”

 

Garcia complied stiffly, terrified out of her wits.  Raped and murdered in her own apartment was not the way she wanted to go out.  When the tears started she clenched her eyes shut.  She was paralyzed with fear, unable to move or make a sound.

 

“Oh man,” Sam muttered as he removed his hand from her mouth and knelt down in front of her.  “Don’t do that.  Please don’t cry.”  He sounded completely mortified by her reaction.  He put one hand on each of her shoulders and gave her what was probably meant to be a comforting squeeze.  “Look at me, please.”

 

Garcia took a few stuttering breaths and opened her eyes.  Her vision was blurry but in the light she was certain she’d seen this guy before.  “Who… who are you?” she sniffled.

 

He certainly looked remorseful.  Not at all like someone who’d forced his way into her home to do God knows what.  “I told you, I’m Sam.”  He reached over to the side table and snagged a tissue which he pressed into her hand as he knelt down in front of her, eye to eye.

 

She couldn‘t help but stare at him.  “Sam,” she repeated.  Sam… Sam… Something…

 

“Yes.  Sam Winchester,” he said the very instant she put two and two together.

 

All the air left her lungs in a whoosh and she started to hyperventilate.  Sam’s eyes went wide and he dove for the grocery bags, dumping the contents into the floor.  He took the small paper bag her oranges had been in, crumpled the edges as he rushed back to her, then placed it over her mouth and nose.

 

“Slow deep breaths,” he coached as she did her best to follow his instructions.  “That’s it.  Good job, Sunny.”

 

The nickname undid her all over again and she pushed the bag away in a panic.  “But I liked your brother!” she cried.  “I thought he was kind and cute and sweet!”

 

“I know!” Sam swore, doing his best to calm her down.  “He liked you, too.  I’m not here for revenge.”

 

She froze for a second before pulling the bag back to her face for a few more deep breaths.  “You’re not?” she finally asked, the memory of what they said Dean had done to those women close to mind.  And for awhile they’d thought maybe it hadn’t been Dean at all but his… Whoops.  Her breathing took off again, uncontrolled.  No matter what she did or what he said she could not slow herself down.   And then everything faded to grey.

 

*****

 

“Come on, Sam,” Dean complained as he paced the motel room with a nasty combination of boredom and worry.  He never should have let him take the Impala.   

 

The truth was he hadn’t watched any porn.  He knew if he’d turned it down without some major explaining Sammy’s bullshit meter would have gone off the charts.  And he really didn’t feel like explaining.  He couldn’t.  He didn’t understand it himself.  

 

So as soon as he heard the Impala putter away he’d gotten right the hell off the bed.  As much as he would have liked a nap, sleep was the enemy and he refused to fall victim to it even if they might be up all night.  

 

He dropped into the chair and picked at his half eaten chili-cheese fries.  It wasn’t that he was hungry, he just knew he had to keep up his strength.  The case might be just a warm-up, after all, his baby brother was without a doubt up to something.  But it might also be the real deal and Dean had to bring his A-game.  He’d screwed up the last one so royally he needed to come back strong.  He had to prove to Sam he still had it in him.  He had to prove it to himself.

 

“It better be a girl keeping you, little brother,” Dean grumbled as he looked at his watch, knowing it wasn‘t.  He thought about calling again but quickly gave up the notion.  Sam didn’t need to know how uneasy he was on his own.  He wasn’t a needy bitch.  At least he didn‘t want to be.  

 

With a weary sigh he gave up the fight to keep his eyes open.  He got up from the chair and plopped face first into the closest bed.  Maybe Sam would be back to wake him before he could dream.

 

*****

 

When Garcia woke a little while later her feet were on the couch and she was covered with her favorite afghan.  Her vintage skirt wasn’t torn or hiked up around her ears, and her bright blouse was still buttoned.  Movement in the kitchen caught her attention so she played dead.  She squinted one eye open and watched while the intruder… put away her groceries.  A less hysterical part of her brain wondered what Gideon would make of the odd behavior.  

 

She glanced toward the phone and estimated the distance and time it would take to dial 911 and realized he’d be on her long before an operator could pick up.  Still, if the call went through they would have to send a patrol car around.  Even so, help would only arrive in time to find her still warm corpse. She closed her eyes again when footsteps came her way but an inadvertent whimper slipped past her lips and gave her away.  Sam came to check on her while holding the box of super plus tampons that had been in the bag with the toilet paper.

 

“Are you okay?” he bent to ask worriedly.

 

Garcia found herself staring at the box in his hand.  He followed her gaze and she swore his face grew even redder.  “I… uh, didn‘t know what to do with...  Here,” he muttered, shoving them into her hand.

 

She held them for a second, mortified beyond all reason then raised up and crammed them behind the pillow that had been under her head.  “It’s okay,” she whispered.  But it wasn’t.  Nothing was okay.

 

He sat on the edge of the couch next to her hips, effectively pinning her in but apparently without intent.  He started to cradled his face but that didn’t work out so well so he let his hands dangle between his knees instead.  “I’m really sorry for scaring you,” he started softly.  “I guess I just didn’t think this through.”  He looked lost.  Totally dejected.

 

“What do you want?” Garcia asked him as she eased back against the pillow, more to get further away than to get comfortable.  Although she did feel like she might be able to process a little better now that she’d gotten hyperventilating and fainting out of the way.

 

Sam huffed a humorless laugh.  He seemed to huff a lot.  It was still cute.  “I just need a phone number.”

 

“Ever try four one one?”  Never more true than this very moment -- her mouth really was going to get her killed some day.  Maybe today.

 

But he smiled and nodded.  “Actually, I did.”  Ted Bundy could never have been this adorable.

 

“I’m not going to give up anyone on my team,” Garcia told him, steadying herself for whatever response that might provoke.

 

“I don’t expect you to.  But it’s important.  It’s about Dean.  He’s…” he stopped and pressed his lips into a thin line.

 

“He’s dead,” Garcia finished for him.  Great.  Remind him of that while he‘s not feeling particularly homicidal.

 

Sam went quiet before fully turning to look at her.  “I need to talk to Agent Gideon.  He hasn’t been answering his office phone.”

 

“They were gone all week.  You can try again on Monday,” Garcia offered, her brief hope flagging as he shook his head almost desperately.

 

“No, no,” Sam insisted.  “I need to talk to him right now, tonight.  Please just…” he stopped himself again and stared past her shoulder.  She turned as well to see her lime green purse that was now sitting beyond her on the end table.  With one long reach he pulled it to him and tugged her cell out of its perfect little pocket on the front.  Instead of opening it he handed it to her.  “I won’t even look at the number, you can call him for me.”

 

Garcia accepted the phone but didn’t open it.  Nine one one, call 911 her brain screamed at her.

 

“Please.  Then I’ll go,” Sam promised when she hesitated.

 

“You’ll leave?” she questioned, not believing him for a minute.  Still, he had the most sincere eyes she’d ever seen and they were pleading his case for him eloquently.

 

“Yes.  And you‘ll never have to see me again.”

 

Gideon would know what to do and Sam was going to let her call him.  “You’re not planning to hurt him, are you?  He felt awful when Dean died.  He felt responsible.”

 

“It wasn’t Gideon’s fault,” Sam assured her.  “It wasn’t even Henricksen’s fault.  There was more to the situation than you probably know.”

 

Garcia swallowed.  She was absolutely out of her mind.  “Can you explain it to me?” she asked.  She wanted to know more about the enigma of a man that had touched her life if only for a few brief days.

 

Sam bit his lip, deep in thought.  “I’m not sure Dean would want that,” he finally told her.  “He really cared about you.”

 

“Okay, that doesn’t make sense.  How could you know that?  You didn’t see your brother before he died,” Garcia pointed out.  Stupid, stupid, stupid… talk him into strangling you while you’re at it.

 

“I spoke to Agent Gideon,” Sam responded without missing a beat.  “The night Henricksen died.  You didn’t know that?”

 

“I guess I did.”  That seemed logical.  Sort of.  Still…  “But why would Gideon tell you about me?  I‘m sure you had more important things to talk about.”

 

“We talked about a lot of things.” Sam shrugged.  If he was lying he was very good at it.  “I think he would want the opportunity to talk to me now.  Why don‘t you give him the choice?  If he doesn‘t want to, I‘ll still go.  All you have to do is call him.”

 

That actually sounded reasonable.  Worse case scenario Sam Winchester talked Gideon into meeting him somewhere and she could call the team for backup.  Unless he snuffed her out before he left.  Damn little details.  Then again he could just as easily off her now and take her phone with him.  “Okay,” she gave in guiltily.  If she got Gideon killed to save her own neck she would never forgive herself.

 

“Thank you,” Sam said with such relief Garcia got caught up in it as well.

 

She opened the phone and quickly found Gideon’s number and dialed.  “It’s ringing,” she said but far to soon her hopes were dashed.  “Sorry, it went straight to voicemail,” she told him nervously, going so far as to show him the readout.

 

“That’s his personal cell?” Sam asked.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“No, I already tried that one.  It’s in a drawer in his kitchen.”  He stopped and gave her a shamefaced grin.  “I went there first.  Doesn’t he have a cell just for work?”

 

Garcia gaped for a minute before closing her mouth.  “You broke into his apartment?”  Of course he did.  He broke into yours, too, didn’t he?  Definitely not a boy scout.

 

“Work number?” Sam prodded, pushing the phone back toward her and thoughts of getting out of this alive out of her head.

 

“Yeah.”  Garcia scrolled to the next entry and dialed.  “If he’s at his cabin his cell is probably off.”  She only had a second to chastise herself for her slip before Gideon picked up.  “Sir?”

 

“Garcia?  Can this wait until tomorrow?”

 

“No sir,” Garcia said, unable to hold back a shuddering breath.  “Please don’t hang up.”

 

“Ask him if he’ll talk to me.”

 

*****

 

Gideon  sipped a glass of wine by the fire.  So many questions, so few answers.  He wasn’t drunk by any means, he was merely morose, lost in his thoughts.  The isolation was self imposed and he knew it wasn’t good for him.  In fact the last place he needed to be at the moment was in his own head.  

 

Even so, he rolled his eyes when his phone rang.  It was probably Reid checking up on him or Hotch to call him on his bad behavior.  No, Hotch would never do that even if he deserved it.  Gideon groaned as he got up to retrieve the annoying device then glanced at the read out.  Garcia.  Must be a new case.  

 

He sighed and answered.  “Gideon.”

 

“Sir?”

 

“Garcia?  Can this wait until tomorrow?”  He knew better.  She wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.

 

“No sir…  Please don’t hang up.”  There was something in her tone he recognized immediately.  Fear.  It flipped a switch inside him and made his blood run cold.  In the background he could hear a man’s indistinct voice.

 

Suddenly Garcia was more than the highly efficient, if unconventional, oft times cheeky tech girl.  She was someone who needed help.  She had chosen him for whatever reason and he would not fail her.  “I’m here, honey,” Gideon assured with his heart in his throat.  

On the other end of the line Garcia drew in a sharp breath at the unprecedented endearment.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called…”

 

“Don’t hang up!” Gideon could hear his own words echo in an unfamiliar voice through the phone.  “Do not hang up, that’s an order,” Gideon added.

 

“Okay.”  The poor girl was terrified and he wasn‘t helping.

 

“Are you hurt?”  Gideon gentled his tone, starting with something simple as he gathered his things.

 

“No.  Just scared.”

 

“I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.  Where are you?”

 

“Home.  I’m at home.”

 

Gideon located his personal address book and cursed silently when he realized he’d never had a reason to put most of his coworkers in it.  “Who’s there with you?” he asked, keeping it light as he grabbed a pen to write her address down if her captor would let her give it.

 

“Sam Winchester.”

 

He dropped the pen.  Of all the names he could think of Sam Winchester was not the one he would have guessed.  Like his brother, Sam came and went as he pleased, always under the radar, and was probably every bit as dangerous as Dean if provoked.  “Let me talk to him,” he told Garcia through a dry mouth.

 

“Sir?  Just please… I need to ask a question first?”

 

Gideon could feel his own heartbeat.  “Go ahead.”

 

Garcia let out a breath and said something to Winchester before coming back to Gideon.  “The night Agent Henricksen killed himself.  Did you speak to Sam?”

 

“Yes,” Gideon answered.  He’d tried then to get the youngest Winchester to come in and clear the air.  He would find out later why she asked.  Right now he needed to start negotiating for her freedom.

 

Before he could say anything else a deeper voice came on the line.  “Agent Gideon?”

 

“Yes, Sam, it‘s me.  First of all, please don’t hurt Penelope.”  Personalize her, make him see her as more than a victim…

 

“Stay here,” Sam cautioned away from the phone, reeling Garcia in no doubt.  “I’m not going to hurt anybody,” he told Gideon emphatically.  “I… I need your help.”

 

“Let her go and we’ll talk about it.”

 

“It’s about Dean,” Sam said as if that changed the fact he was holding an innocent girl hostage.  “He needs…” another uncertain pause.  “I can’t explain over the phone.  I need to talk to you in person.”

 

Gideon suspected the boy might be delusional but as far as he could tell he really hadn’t hurt anyone yet.  “Where would you like to meet?”

 

“You decide.  Someplace public.  I‘ll ask you not to call the police.”  

 

“In a very tangible way, I am the police,” Gideon reminded him.

 

“I know that.  But Dean trusts…ted you,” Sam countered.  “I’m trusting you, too.  Could I borrow something to write on?”

 

The last must have been spoken to Garcia.  If nothing else, the kid was polite, unlike his more boisterous older brother.  But Gideon had thought Dean’s colorful personality engaging and felt the world a poorer place for its lack.

 

“What about Penelope?”

 

There was an uncomfortable sigh.  “I’ll tie her up when I leave and then you can call someone to come and let her go.”

 

“How do I know you won’t just kill her?”  Gideon could, and would, risk his own life but not Garcia’s.  It wasn’t a chance he could take.

 

“Because I’m not a murder,” Sam protested, his frustration clear.  “Look, I’ll leave the phone on the table next to her.  You can keep talking to her while you drive to the meet.  So just stay on the line, okay?”

 

“Let me talk to her,” Gideon requested.  A lot rested on what Sam did now.  To his surprise Garcia came back on the line.

 

“Sir?”  Never could he remember her sounding so young.

 

“Are you okay with Sam tying you up if it gets him out of your apartment?”

 

“I’ll come with him,” Garcia suggested instead.

 

“No, that’s out of the question,” Gideon said, again hearing Sam echo him with a firm no.

 

“It will only be for a little while.” Sam told Garcia.  “I’ll use something soft so your skin doesn’t chafe.  But you‘re not coming.  Things might get dangerous.”

 

“You said you wouldn’t hurt him.”

 

“I won’t, but if the police come… I don‘t know that they won‘t hurt you trying to get me.”

 

“Sam,” Gideon cut in, determined to make a difference for at least one of the Winchester boys.  “If you leave Penelope unharmed, I promise I won’t call any backup.  The trust will have to work both ways.”

 

“Okay,”  Sam accepted immediately.  “Where do you want to meet?”

 

“There’s a coffee shop halfway between where I am and Quantico.  I can meet you there in an hour.”

 

“Sounds good.  Can you give me directions?”

 

*****

 

Derek Morgan broke every traffic law ever invented on the way over, making what should have been a forty minute drive in only twenty-five.  The harrowing trip only marginally kept his mind off what he might find.  As directed he didn’t call backup and somehow didn’t pick up a black and white tail in spite of his fancy driving and lights, but no siren.

 

He came in the back door of the complex as directed and sure enough, the lock had not only been disabled but removed entirely.  With his gun pointed towards the floor he made his way up the stairs and to the apartment without seeing a soul.  Once at Garcia’s door he ran a hand along the molding at the top and found a key, again, exactly where the unknown caller had said it would be.  He immediately put it to use.

 

No time to steady his nerves, he entered the apartment gun first bracing himself for what he might find and cleared the room.  The living area was tidy with everything in its place and no blood or bodies in sight.  

 

“Derek?” came the soft, nearly panicked call from a curtained off area.

 

Morgan led with his weapon through the drapery into the bedroom to find Garcia propped up on pillows with her hands tied to the headboard, one to each side of her head not too far apart.  Her ankles were crossed, her legs covered with an afghan.

 

“He’s here, Agent Gideon,” Garcia announced loudly, apparently to thin air because there was no one else in the room.

 

“The perp?” Morgan asked in a hushed voice, still checking every nook and cranny before moving to the bed.  

 

“He’s gone,” Garcia informed him, on the edge of tears.

 

Morgan holstered his gun and went to her.  If he didn’t know better he would say the odd way she had been tied was for comfort.  There was already a knife on the bedside table and he used it to make short work of the silk scarves around her wrists.  As soon as her hands were free she wrapped them tightly around his torso for a hug but before he could put down the knife and reciprocate she lunged for the open cell phone he hadn’t noticed on the opposite bedside table.

 

“Agent Gideon?  Hello?  Agent Gideon?”  Garcia looked strickened as she slowly closed the phone and collapsed back against the pillows.  “He hung up,” she reported as she clenched her eyes shut.

 

“What’s going on, baby girl?” Morgan asked gently as he gathered her into his arms.  She was shaking badly but refused to cry.

 

“What have I done?” Garcia asked with her cheek pressed tightly against his shoulder.

 

“I don’t know.  I need a few more details.  Come on, sit up.”  Morgan pushed her to arm’s length to look at her face.  “What the hell did happen?”

 

“More like who,” Garcia responded as she looked down and rubbed her wrists.  “It was Sam Winchester.”

 

“Dammit,” Morgan swore.  “Let me guess.  He‘s looking for payback for the man he thinks is responsible for Dean‘s death.”

 

Garcia shook her head adamantly.  “I… I don’t think so.  He said he needed Gideon‘s help.  He didn‘t hurt me.  He was very concerned when he scared me.”

 

Morgan harrumphed as he reached for his phone.

 

“What are  you doing?” Garcia asked, reaching out to stop him from dialing.

 

“Winchester broke in here, held you hostage, and now probably has Gideon.  What do you think I’m doing?”

 

“Don’t call Hotch,” Garcia begged.  “Gideon made me promise not to let you.  He said to call him instead.  Please?”

 

“Call Gideon?”

 

“Yes.  He wants to see Sam.”

 

“Of course he does,” Morgan groused as he dialed Gideon against his better judgment.

 

“Morgan?” Gideon answered right away.

 

“You know it is,” Morgan replied, angry at the situation if not at Gideon.  “Where are you?”

 

“Don’t worry, I’m in a public place.  He isn’t here yet.”

 

“Let me get the team together…”

 

“No.  Not this time.  Just take care of Garcia and let me handle Sam Winchester.”

 

“You don’t owe this guy anything,” Morgan pointed out.

 

“Actually, I think I do.  I’ll check in in an hour.  If you haven’t heard from me by then you can call Hotch.  In the meantime let him enjoy an evening at home.”

 

“You could be dead in an hour.”  In his mind’s eye he could see Gideon’s mild mannered smirk.  “Don’t smirk at me, you bastard, you know it‘s true.”

 

“I think I see him.  I’ll call you.”  With that, Gideon hung up.

 

Morgan growled at the phone then turned to Garcia.  “Do you have any idea where they were going to meet?”

 

“No,” Garcia said as she scooted to the edge of the bed then ran into the other room.  She picked up a pad of scratch paper and a pencil next to the phone and began quickly rubbing the lead across the page.  “But I’ve got the directions to get there.”  She held up the now readable imprint from the hastily written message.

 

“Stay here,” Morgan told her as he kissed her forehead then took the paper and headed out the door.  

 

“I want to go with you,” she called after him but he didn‘t look back.

 

*****

 

Gideon had taken up residency in a booth by the front window of the carefully chosen diner.  It’s less urban location near his cabin ensured both fewer customers in the way and that Gideon would arrive first.  Hyper-vigilant, he watched the scant traffic go by.  So when the same dark Chevrolet crept by for the third time and then parked with easy access to the road he knew Sam Winchester had arrived.  

 

“I think I see him.  I’ll call you.“  He put away his phone and motioned to the waitress for a refill.  “Can I get one for my friend?” he asked when she came over, coffeepot in hand.  

 

She smiled and turned the cup across from him over and poured it almost to the brim with the fresh brew.  Gideon inhaled the rich aroma, he had always loved the coffee here.

 

In the meantime Sam came in the front door and looked around, quickly eliminating the few other patrons before making his way straight to Gideon.  Observant and smart.  Having seen only photos and glimpses in the dark it struck Gideon that this kid, once hunted by the FBI, skilled in weapons and hand to hand combat, really was just a kid no more than twenty-five.  Gideon had a pair of leather shoes older than that.

 

But Sam was a big kid with impressive height and broad shoulders, not lanky but solid.  How it must have rankled Dean, by no means petite himself, when his baby brother went skyrocketing past him.  

 

Sam moved to the table with the fluid grace Gideon remembered from the impound lot.  But there was a hesitancy about him now, an uncertainty.  The grief was gone, replaced not by anger or rage but by a near frantic need Gideon couldn’t quite put his finger on.  Less than thirty seconds into the encounter Gideon knew the young man was no immediate danger.  More over, he knew he would do just about anything in his power to help him.

 

Gideon checked his watch, figuring Sam had a good twenty minute head start on Morgan.  And even then Morgan still had to find them.  But he would, eventually, after all he did have the best resources of the FBI available.  If the conversation needed to continue uninterrupted they would have to move to another location.   

 

Already in a relaxed, non-threatening position with one arm stretched leisurely along the back of the booth, Gideon grinned his best lopsided grin as Sam slid in across from him.

 

“Thank you for meeting me,” Sam offered immediately, earnestly.  “First of all let me say how sorry I am for bothering Penelope.  It was never my intention to frighten her and believe me, there’ll be hell to pay for it later.”  He was calm and rational above and beyond what Gideon had hoped for.

 

“You’re probably right about that,” Gideon agreed, especially if Morgan had anything to say about it.  “What happened to your face?”  The boy had recently been too close to an open flame and it looked like he had used a pair of dull scissors to remove some of the evidence of the encounter.

 

Sam self-consciously pushed his bangs away from his eyes.  “Accident,” he muttered off-handedly.  That he didn’t want to talk about it was written all over his red face.

 

Gideon nodded his acceptance and decided to let Sam control the direction of the conversation.  “So.  Here we are.”

 

“Yeah.”  Sam reached for the sugar which he liberally applied to the coffee in front of him as he stirred it with a spoon.  “I’m sure you have questions.”  He batted the ball right back into Gideon’s court.

 

“Can I get you boys anything else?” the waitress asked as she walked up and set a creamer on the table.

 

Sam greeted her with a small, genuine smile and nodded his head as he poured a generous dollop into his already sweetened coffee.  “Thank you.  What kind of pie do you have?”

 

“Apple, blueberry, pecan, and rhubarb.”

 

“Can I get one slice of everything but the rhubarb?  To go.  And a large coffee.”

 

“No problem, hon,”  The waitress said with a motherly wink, taken with Sam’s easy charm.  Gideon half expected her to smooth the boy’s uneven hair before walking off.

 

“Hungry?” Gideon asked.

 

“Huh?  Oh, no,” Sam replied.  His mind was somewhere else.  “It’s a peace offering.  Dean loves pie.”  

 

“Dean.”  Gideon always knew that was where they were going.  He took a breath and readied himself for the questions, keeping in mind the promise he’d made to Dean, not to tell Sam he had cried as his death loomed imminent.

 

“I didn‘t tell him I was coming to see you.”

 

Gideon frowned, blindsided by the confession.  He needed to reassess the situation.  Perhaps Sam wasn‘t as centered as he appeared.  “Do you talk to Dean often?” he probed gently.

 

Sam narrowed his eyes as if he were reading his mind, every bit as perceptive as Gideon had thought.  More.  “You didn’t get Dean’s message,” he finally stated.

 

“There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,” Gideon sang softly.  He watched Sam‘s non-reaction with interest.  “I’ve often wondered how you knew about that.  You talked to Henricksen, but he didn’t stick around long enough to hear my little serenade.  And in the panic of the moment I’m sure no one else heard it.”

 

“You never believed it came from Dean?  Not even for a minute?”

 

“It was nice at first to think Dean had somehow found a way to reach back across the veil to me, but when it’s all said and done, I’m a realist.”

 

“This is going to be harder than I thought,” Sam swore to himself as he knuckled an eye and picked up his coffee for a fortifying swig.  He set the cup down and looked Gideon straight in the eye.  “Dean is alive.”

 

Gideon shook his head.  His throat tightened as the wretchedness of that moment rushed back to him.  “He died in my arms.”

 

“Yes,” Sam agreed with a maddening calm.  “He died and went to Hell.  Then he came back.”

 

“How?” Gideon asked reasonably.

 

“Well, it wasn’t easy.  I could show you the research, recite the incantation but…”

 

Gideon interrupted.  “If it were as simple as that there would be no cemeteries.  An incantation that could bring people back from the dead would be common knowledge.  You can’t keep something like that under wraps.”

 

“It not ’that simple’,” Sam fairly growled.  “I have… I’m not… normal.”

 

“Dean told me…“

 

“He didn’t tell you everything,” Sam cut him off tersely.  “I know you stayed up all night while Dean tried to convince you of what we do.  I know you didn’t believe him then, and I also know which key elements he left out.”

 

“Because he told you.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Gideon took a sip of his rapidly cooling coffee.  “Do you talk to Dean often?” he asked cautiously.

 

“Every single day.  In fact he’s probably climbing the walls of the motel room as we speak…” Sam started but trailed off, his face clouded with concern.  “What?”

 

Realizing his face must be reflecting his horror, Gideon tried to school his features.  “Sam, do you have Dean with you?  Is he really in a motel room somewhere?”

 

“Yeah,” Sam answered slowly.  “I just told you…” Comprehension dawned and Sam let out a muffled laugh.  “You think…” The laugh grew to a chuckle.  “You think I’m toting around…”  He couldn’t finish the thought as the chuckle became a full blown guffaw and Sam was holding his sides and gasping for air.

 

People stopped eating to turn around and look.  As Gideon pulled out his phone Sam tried to calm himself.  

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Sam muttered as he wiped his eyes.  “Oh, God, I needed that.  I assure you, Agent Gideon, I‘m not dragging around the rotting corpse of my brother.”  He grinned across the table with unrepentant glee.

 

Gideon was not amused.  “How did Ms. Harvelle get the body out of the morgue by herself?” he asked.

 

“She didn‘t, exactly,” Sam fudged, still smiling.  “She was there but Dean walked out under his own power.  Look, nothing I tell you will make you believe.  Come see for yourself.”

 

“Why?” Gideon had to ask.  “Why now?”

 

Now Sam sobered completely.  “Because Dean needs help.  He says he doesn’t remember the Pit, but… he’s different.  I think it‘s post traumatic stress or something.  He needs your help.”

 

“Even if I was buying into your story,” Gideon told him, “I’m not a doctor of psychiatry.”

 

“No, but you know your way around the human mind.  It‘s what you do.  And Dean trusts you, he‘ll open up to you, he‘s done it before,” Sam pleaded.  They stared at each other in silence for a long moment.  Sam’s eyes seemed to dim and Gideon knew the instant he gave up.

 

“Here you go, sugar,” the waitress said, breaking the standoff as she placed a bag and a large to go cup of coffee on the table.  “Do you need another refill?”

 

“No,” Gideon said without taking his eyes off Sam.

 

“Thank you, no.  Just the check,” Sam told her in a defeated tone as he looked away.

 

“I’ve got it,” Gideon said, pulling out his wallet and plopping a twenty on the table.  “Keep it,” he told the waitress as he got up.

 

“Thanks!  You boys come back and see me.”

 

Sam nodded and faked a smile as he gathered the pie and coffee.  He turned and walked out without another word.  Gideon followed him out.

 

“Sam,” Gideon called out as the younger man trotted across the road.

 

Sam stopped and looked back at him as he opened the door of the well cared for old Impala.

 

“I’ll follow you,” Gideon said before he knew he was going to say it.  The questions had never come.  Sam knew things he couldn’t know.  Gideon was going to get to the bottom of it if it killed him.

 

Sam’s smile lit up like the fourth of July.  “Okay.  That’s great!” he gushed.  “Actually, it’s not far.”

 

Gideon checked his watch.  “Good.  Don’t lose me.”

 

“I won’t,” Sam promised, still grinning like a fool.

 

*****

 

‘Coffee shop.’  Morgan read the top part of the note again as he stood in front of the rundown diner.  The dirt parking lot was deserted but a neon ‘OPEN’ sign shone in the window next to the door.  He looked both ways down the road and there wasn’t another business in sight, at least not one that hadn’t been closed for twenty years.  This was the place, there was coffee to be had, even if it wasn’t technically a coffee shop.  Only Gideon.  He stuck the paper in his pocket and went inside.

 

“Guess I missed the dinner rush,” Morgan said to the old man bussing the now empty counter.

 

“Sit anywhere, just know we close in half an hour,” came the grumpy response.

 

Morgan flashed his badge.  “I’m not here to eat.”

 

“FBI?” the lone waitress asked as she joined them just in time to inspect Morgan’s credentials before he put them away.  

 

“I told you there was something off about those two,” the man muttered to the woman as he pushed a tray loaded with dirty dishes across the counter towards the kitchen and wiped his hands on a bar towel.

 

The waitress planted her hands on her hips.  “Oh hush, they were good tippers.”

 

“Two men?” Morgan asked to get them back on topic.  “A dark haired gentleman that looked like he might be a cop and a tall younger guy?”

 

“Mm hm,” the waitress agreed readily.  “The older one has been in here before, every few months in fact.  Never caught his name though.  And I’ve never seen the young one.  I’d remember him.”

 

“They had quite the little chat in that booth right there.  The kid was disruptive,” the man informed Morgan gravely while the waitress rolled her eyes.

 

“What did he do?” Morgan asked, ready to call in the team if he thought Gideon was in trouble.

 

“Oh stop it, Ray, they had a good laugh is all.  At least that sweet boy did.  I don’t think the other enjoyed the joke nearly as much.”

 

“Did they argue?”

 

The two diner employees exchanged a mildly surprised glance.  “No, they seemed friendly.  I thought maybe they were father and son.  They took pie to go,” the waitress added adamantly, as if there could be no bad in a world with pie.

 

“Three slices and an extra coffee.  I thought they might be off to meet someone else,” Ray said, scratching his scraggly beard.  “They were still outside when I took out some trash.  I heard the old fella say he would follow the young one in his car.”

 

“Follow him where?”

 

“Don’t know.  The young one said it wasn’t far.”

 

“Which way did they go?”

 

“South.  Away from the highway, so off into the woods.”

 

Morgan went to the window and stared out to where the blacktop continued on past where the streetlights stopped.  “What’s back there?”

 

“Like I said, woods.  Farther back there’s a few farms and some small, unincorporated towns,” Ray clarified.  “What’s this all about?”

 

“Is there anything else you can remember?” Morgan asked, blowing off the old guy’s question as he turned back around to face them.  “Please think.  It might be important.”

 

“Well they didn’t like rhubarb,” the waitress finally offered.
 

*****

 

Gideon pulled in behind Sam just off the road at a motel that frankly had seen better days.  The ‘no v ca cy’ light was on but other than the two vehicles they arrived in there was only a beat up Pinto in the lot and judging by the dust, it hadn‘t moved in weeks.  The only light in the small complex, including the office, formed a weak rectangular outline around the drawn curtain of the room on the bottom floor at the end of the building.  And Sam had parked right in front of it, naturally.  By the time he killed the lights and the engine Sam was already waiting for him in front of the Impala.

 

“Dean is alive,” Sam reiterated as soon as Gideon stepped out of his car.  “Just so you don’t stroke out or anything.”

 

“Do you actually see Dean?” Gideon asked as they moved toward the door.  “Or do you just hear him?”

 

Sam stopped and gave Gideon a sad, apologetic smile but before he could put the key in the lock the door swung open.

 

“Where the hell have you been?” a bare-chested man with a towel wrapped around his waist yelled.  His hair was wet and he looked remarkably like a living, breathing Dean Winchester.  In fact he sounded a lot like him as well.  When his gaze fell on Gideon he froze in place.  “What the fuck, Sammy?” he growled dangerously.

 

Sam lifted the bag in his hand.  “We brought pie?”

 

Gideon could do nothing but gape.  A shared hallucination?  Another imposter?  Just how many Dean clones were out there?  His mind raced.

 

The man ducked his head out past them to look around.  “Get in here,” he told them when he was satisfied they hadn‘t been compromised.  He glared at Sam but snatched the bag of pie in spite of his ire as he went back in, leaving them standing on the threshold.  

 

When Gideon’s feet refused to cooperate Sam kindly gave him a gentle shove inside, closing the door behind them.

 

The Dean look-alike was furious.  He dropped the bag on the dresser and rounded on Sam and Gideon honestly thought they would come to blows.  Even so he doubted he would be able to do anything about it since he hadn’t yet recovered the capacity of spontaneous locomotion.

 

“There is no case here, is there?”  The accusation was low but treacherous.  “You just wanted me in striking distance of Jason.”

 

Sam shrugged guiltily but there was a determined set to his jaw.  “Hear me out.”  He started to offer the coffee but thought better of handing the enraged man a cup of hot liquid and set it down on the TV instead.

 

“There is nothing you can say or do to ever justify this kind of betrayal.”

 

“Dean!  Just listen to me.”

 

Gideon moved forward on shaky legs until he was close enough to reach out and touch the moist skin.  “The bullet went in here,” he whispered as he ghosted a hand over warm flesh.  “There should be a scar.”

 

The man let out a sigh and turned livid green eyes to him.  “Uh, Jason?  This is family business.  You mind quietly freaking out in the corner while we settle this?”

 

There was a nervous laugh and Gideon belatedly realized it was coming from his own mouth.  “I thought you were dead,” he told the specter.  “You are.  You have to be.”  He pressed harder until he was in firm contact with the abdomen, so very, very real under his hand.  He pulled Dean in for a tight hug, for it was Dean.  It really was.  “I held you while you died.”

 

Then Dean was hugging him back with equal ferocity.  “I know.  You didn’t leave me.  You stayed ‘til the end.”

 

Gideon patted Dean’s back over and over and Dean didn’t push him away.  Dean was no longer dead.  It wasn’t possible, but here he was.

 

At long last he held Dean to arms length to study his face.  He was beautiful, so full of life.  But Sam was right, there was something troubling right under the surface, an anguish so raw Gideon hurt for him.  He hurt for both of them for Sam suffered along with his brother.    

 

When Sam tucked a tissue into his hand Gideon reluctantly let go of Dean’s shoulders to wipe his eyes and blow his nose.  Dean seemed a little misty himself but played it off, shaking his head like a wet dog.

 

“I need to talk to my brother for a minute,” Sam told Gideon as he helped him sit on the edge of the bed.  “Don’t go anywhere, we’ll be right back.”  Then Sam herded a much subdued Dean into the bathroom and shut the door.

 

Where would he go?  And how would he get there?  His legs didn’t seem to work anymore but his mind was in overdrive.  His whole world view had been turned upside down and shaken.  Gideon fingered his damp shirt, wet from a hug with a freshly showered dead man.

 

He tried to reconcile what was happening with his personal reality but what started as a whispered exchange behind the bathroom door was slowly, steadily rising in volume.  Finally the words were more than muffled sounds and Gideon could no more tune them out than fly.  If he closed his eyes he could make out their respective dispositions, almost see their expressions from their tones alone.  But the expected drama sounded more like a tragic comedy.

 

“Like ‘Weekend at Bernie’s‘?” Dean asked with a laugh.  “Dude.  That would be awesome.”  Too joyful.  He was trying to avoid the topic at hand.

 

“No it wouldn’t,” Sam shot back.  He wasn‘t having it.  “What would be awesome about me dragging your smelly ass all over creation?”

 

“Hey, my ass does not smell.”  Righteous indignation.

 

“Uh, yeah, it does.  And it would smell a lot worse if you were six months dead.”  Good point, Gideon thought.  Without some kind of preparation a body would be hard to hide for long.  A point he himself had missed earlier when he’d made the assumption they were now discussing.  

 

“Yeah, but...  Come on, ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’!  You loved that movie.”  Dean wasn’t giving up so easy.

 

“No, you loved that stupid movie.  I heard about it every time we dug up a corpse for a year!  And stop changing the subject.  Gideon’s still sitting right outside this door.”  Now Sam was the angry one.

 

“So?”  No, no, they were both angry.

 

“So please, just talk to him.”  A request, honest and forthright, no doubt accompanied by that look Sam seemed so good at.

 

“I told you…”

 

“I know, there’s nothing wrong.  Look at my face, Dean.  Look at my peeling, red face and tell me nothing’s wrong.”  So Dean was responsible for Sam’s burn and now Sam was using it as leverage.  That couldn’t be good.

 

There were a few seconds of silence then a simultaneous thump and crash on the wall.  Just as Gideon started to get up Sam’s voice came through again, none the worse for wear.  Apparently the wall had taken the brunt of Dean‘s outburst.

 

“Real mature, Dean.  Let me see.”  Culpable.

 

“Get off me.”  

 

“Is it broken?”  The hand?  Maybe, Gideon thought, but Dean’s spirit was definitely headed that way.

 

“Dude.” The anger was fading but that wasn‘t necessarily a good thing.  Now Dean just sounded empty.

 

“We’re gonna have to pay for that.”

 

“Cheap fucking tiles.”

 

“Dean…” Sam demanded, begged, pleaded… all in one word.

 

“What do want from me, Sammy?” Dean asked, more defeated than Gideon had ever heard him, and Gideon had been there when Dean hit rock bottom.

 

“Just talk to Agent Gideon, that’s all I’m asking.  I won’t even listen.  I’ll… I’ll leave.  Please.”

 

His baby brother was asking for the world.  Would Dean give it to him?  Gideon found himself hoping he would.  He prepared to find his voice and add it to Sam’s.

 

It got very quiet and then once again there were soft murmurs.  Finally Sam stepped out of the bathroom.  Behind him Gideon could see Dean at the sink, his head hung low.  Sam dug through a bag and came out with a pair of boxer briefs and a pair of jeans which he took back to the bathroom and set on the closed toilet lid before backing out and closing the door.

 

“He needs a minute,” Sam said, dispirited in spite of the fact that he had won the argument.  He collected the ice bin and moved to the door.  “I’m gonna get some ice.”

 

“Dean’s fist?” Gideon asked, proud he could string two words together without blubbering.

 

“Yeah.  He‘s never been a wall puncher.  I don‘t know where that came from.”  Sam opened the door but didn‘t proceed.  The reason became obvious very quickly.  He backed into the room, Derek Morgan following with his weapon trained right between Sam’s eyes.

 

*****

 

Garcia let out a groan of disappointment.  Gideon’s coffee shop was closed.  She sat in Ester and stared at the dark building.  Not only had she lured Gideon right into Sam Winchester’s clutches, but Derek was no doubt headed into harm’s way as well.  She wadded up the second etching of Sam’s scribbled message, and boy, he must have really been stressed to write so hard, and tossed it into her open purse.  

 

She tried Derek again but he still wasn’t picking up and she’d given up on Gideon long ago.  “It’s okay,”  she told herself.  “There’s more than one way to track a stud muffin.”

 

Turning the car around in the empty street she headed to Quantico.  If anybody could locate her missing troops, she could.  If not?  She might just have to ruin Hotch’s weekend.

 

*****

 

Sam backed further into the room, raising his hands over his head and Morgan kept pace until they cleared the door.

 

“On your knees, hands behind your head with your fingers interlocked,” Morgan ordered rapid fire, leaving the door open behind him.  “You okay?” he asked without sparing a glance to Gideon.

 

“I‘m fine,” Gideon declared as he jumped to his feet even as Sam complied with Morgan‘s directions.  “Put the gun down.”

 

Right on cue the bathroom door crashed opened and a half dressed Dean appeared, weapon in hand and pointed at Morgan.  “I swear to God, Morgan, if you hurt my brother…”  

 

This was the most dangerous part of Dean.  If there was a cold blooded killer inside the man, and Gideon still wasn’t convinced there was, threatening Sam would be the quickest way to bring it to the surface.  But Morgan was a hair-trigger away from finding out once and for all.

 

“Winchester,” Morgan gasped, his gun wavering only slightly as he took his eyes off Sam for a split second before refocusing.  “What the hell?”

 

“Put the guns down, both of you,” Gideon insisted as he put his own body between them.  Sam was the only one he couldn‘t protect.  

 

“Jason, get out of the way,” Dean told him as he jockeyed for a better firing position.  Gideon moved with him, shielding Morgan.

 

Morgan didn’t appreciate the gesture either.  “Damn it, Gideon, he’s still wanted for a string of murders.”

 

“Not anymore.  I’m dead, remember?” Dean goaded, making a scary face.

 

“Yeah, yeah.  How’d you work that?  Pay off somebody at the hospital?”  Morgan asked, grasping at straws for a logical answer for the apparent resurrection.  

 

“Yeah, that’s it.  You got me.  I paid ‘em in the blood that was oozing out of my lifeless body,” Dean’s tone dripped with sarcasm.  “Jackass.”

 

Sam kept his hands on his head but turned his torso slightly so he could see Dean.  “Everybody just calm down,” he cautioned, a little wild-eyed himself.  “I take it you two know each other?”

 

“Yeah, he ruined my suit.”

 

“It was out of fashion anyway.”

 

“Whatever,” Morgan snorted before allowing his gaze to travel back to Dean in puzzlement.  “You keep a weapon in the bathroom?”

 

“Don’t you?”  Dean’s voice was steady but there was still murder in his eyes.

 

“Dean,” Gideon breathed.  He had to stop them before things got out of hand.  There would be no bloodshed, none of these young men would die tonight.  He trusted Morgan not to fire, he was a consummate professional, but Dean was already on the edge.  Dean was the unknown.  “Look at me.”

 

“He’s got my brother.” There was no emotion in Dean’s voice but Gideon believed he was seconds away from taking Morgan out of the picture permanently.  The tension grew exponentially.

 

Gideon approached him carefully and put a hand on his chest.  Dean was so tense it was like pushing against a granite wall.  “Give me the gun,” he whispered.

 

Dean slowly covered Gideon’s hand with his own left hand, patting it once before twisting Gideon’s wrist and pushing his thumb into the pressure point.  Gideon let out a gasp of surprise and pain as Dean forced him back behind him and to his knees.  He held him there almost effortlessly, never taking his eyes, or his gun, off Morgan.  “He’s got my brother,” he repeated.

 

“And now you have Gideon,” Morgan responded, his cool façade starting to crumble.

 

“No, he doesn’t,” Gideon insisted from his place on the floor trying to keep the grimace out of his voice.  “Look where he put me.  He’s protecting me, keeping me out of the line of fire.”

 

“Dean, he’s not going to shoot me,” Sam said.  “Right?  What’s your name?  Morgan?”

 

“Not unless I have to.”

 

“And you’ll be dead before Sam hits the floor,” Dean promised coldly.

 

“Do you hear that, Gideon?” Morgan asked, making a point.  “He means it.”

 

“I do mean it,” Dean confirmed.

 

“This is stupid,” Sam said as he lowered his hands.

 

“Watch it,” Morgan warned as Sam stood to tower over him even if it was inadvertently.

 

“Sammy!” Dean yelled in a tone that brokered no arguments.

 

Sam ignored him.  “Put your gun down,” he told Morgan.  “Please.  Before my brother blows your brains out and becomes the killer you already think he is.”

 

“Do it, Morgan,” Gideon pleaded.  

 

Morgan hesitated another moment before grudgingly lowering his weapon.  Dean followed suit an interminable thirty seconds later.  They stared each other down even as Dean released his grip on Gideon and helped pull him to his feet.

 

Gideon rubbed his hand distractedly as he watched Dean shove the gun into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back and turn to grab a black tee shirt off the bed.

 

Still wary and more than a little bemused, Morgan holstered his weapon and glanced outside before closing the door.  “So, seriously, how the hell can you be alive?” he asked as Dean tugged on the shirt as if nothing had just happened.

 

“I was deep undercover for the NIA,” Dean lied easily, sitting on the nearest bed and picking up a pair of worn socks from the floor.  He put them on before propping himself up against the headboard since all the pillows in the room seemed to form a nest on the other bed.  “By ‘killing’ me they were able to pull me out without blowing my cover.”

 

“Bullshit,” Morgan scoffed.

 

“Alrighty then,” Dean said with a smile.  “You explain it.”

 

Morgan turned to Gideon who took a deep breath.  “As near as I can tell Dean died and went to Hell where Sam here,” Gideon said with a gesture to the younger Winchester, “Who has abilities yet to be disclosed, brought him back to life through some sort of incantation.”

 

Sam shrugged sheepishly as Morgan turned to glare at him.

 

“So nobody is going to tell me,” Morgan complained as he pulled out his phone.  “I guess we can hash this out in interrogation.”

 

“Put it away,” Dean grumbled.  “I’m not going anywhere with you.  Unless you plan to shoot me.  And look how well that turned out last time.  I just don‘t stay dead, do I?”

 

Morgan moved between the beds to turn on the lamp and get a better look at the supposed corpse.

 

Dean jumped at him.  “Boo!”

 

“Prick,” Morgan groused, pulling back in spite of himself.  Gideon wondered again how no one had ended up dead.

 

“What can we do to convince you?” Sam asked with the same earnest expression he‘d bowled Gideon over with at the diner.  “Anything, you name it.”

 

Morgan threw up his hands and put his phone away but he didn’t look happy.  “Keep talking.”

 

“No, dammit,” Dean swore at Sam, leaning forward and pointing a finger at Morgan.  “We told him the truth, if he doesn’t believe it that’s his problem.”

 

“You can understand it’s a little… off putting,” Gideon implored Dean.

 

“Off putting?  It’s the freaking after life, Jason,” Dean said.  “You either believe or you don’t believe.”

 

Suddenly Gideon had an inspiration.  He moved to sit on the foot of the bed to address Dean.  “You once told me you’d take me on a hunt if you could.”

 

“Not gonna happen.  Did someone say pie?”  Dean bounded off the bed to grab the bag he’d taken from Sam and with an afterthought the probably lukewarm  coffee as well before returning to the same spot.  

 

“That’s a great idea,” Sam chimed in looking first to Gideon and then to Dean.

 

“Don‘t even think about it,” Dean cut him off as he opened the bag from the diner.  “So you don’t believe in Heaven?” he glanced up to ask Morgan.  “What?  Are you like Agnostic or Atheist or whatever?”

 

“Oh, I believe in Heaven.  I might even believe in Hell,” Morgan said as he joined Dean on the bed to reach over and grab the paper bag.  “I even believe maybe you’re headed there someday.  I just don’t think you’ve already been.  What?  No rhubarb?”

 

Dean yanked the bag back, ripping it in half and spilling three clear plastic containers on the bed.  “Rhubarb?  No.  That’s like, worse than mincemeat.  Here, take the… what is that?   Pecan.  The apple’s mine.”

 

Morgan popped open the container with the pecan pie and used his fingers to lift it to his mouth mostly to keep Dean guessing, or so Gideon assumed.  “Not bad,” he reported.  He and Dean sized each other up, again, but at least for the moment a truce was in place.

 

“Why not?” Sam persisted as he took a seat on the other bed.  “We can show them what we do.”

 

“Because I said no,” Dean told him through his first bite of apple pie which he pretended to enjoy.  “Blueberry?” he offered to Gideon and then Sam.  “Fine.  More for me,” he said when they refused.

 

*****

 

Garcia signed in giving Phil the guard an only half-felt smile as she entered the building.  She knew all the guards by name and they knew her, too.  They were used to her coming and going at odd hours so Phil didn’t bat an eye at her ten p.m. arrival but she still made an effort not to rush past him in her haste to locate Gideon and Derek.  

 

She stopped short on entering the bullpen and clutched her purse to her chest.  Keeping the secret might be harder than she thought.  “Didn’t Hotch say he didn’t want to see any of you until Monday?”

 

Reid looked up from his computer and shrugged apologetically.  “Well I figured it was safe since he’s not here…” he trailed off and grinned his best ‘please don’t rat me out’ grin.

 

“Couldn’t sleep?” Garcia asked, pretending to engage in small talk even as she kept moving towards her office at a more leisurely pace.  

 

“You know, sometimes I just can’t seem to shut my brain off so I come here and work on a little side project,” Reid confessed.  “What are you doing here?”

 

“Side project?” Garcia deflected, Reid being the easiest profiler to set off on a tangent.

 

“You’ll think its silly.”

 

“No I won’t.”  Garcia continued to inch towards her office all the while keeping up the ruse of appearing interested in whatever highbrow endeavor Reid had gotten himself into now.

 

“Okay,” Reid said as he motioned her over to his monitor.  “Ellen Harvelle said we needed to look deeper into Agent Henricksen’s accusations…”

 

“This is about Dean,” Garcia interrupted, startled by the revelation.  She quickly moved in behind Reid’s chair to read the screen.

 

“Dean Winchester, yes,” Reid acknowledged holding up a small spiral notebook.  “I’m… I’m trying to clear his name.”  

 

Garcia gasped.  This might help Gideon with Sam.  “What is that?”

 

“It’s Dean’s confession.  I check it out of evidence from time to time since it’s no longer an open case.”

 

“How long have you been doing this?”

 

Reid shrugged.  “Pretty much since he died right in front of me.”

 

“Oh.  Oh, Reid.”  She patted his shoulder and debated telling him about Sam.

 

“He wasn’t a murderer,” Reid stated firmly, mistaking her concern for disapproval.  “I don’t even think he was delusional.”

 

“What about his brother?“  Garcia asked breathlessly.  “Do you think he was the real killer?”

 

“I don’t think so.  I’ve researched many of the cases Agent Henricksen tried to pin on the Winchesters and Miss Harvelle was right, the murders always started long before the brothers arrived.”

 

“How do you know?  How can you be sure when they got… where ever?”  

 

“Well Henricksen was thorough, I‘ll give him that.  He plotted the Winchesters’ travels by following the scammed credit cards.  Once a card was in the system and he knew it was them he used it to track them instead of cutting it off.   Plus he had a constant APB out on Dean‘s car.”

 

“A nineteen sixty-something Impala,” Garcia murmured.  “Black.”

 

Reid nodded enthusiastically as he began to pull even more information up on his computer screen.  “In a lot of the places murders and disappearances had been going on for months or years.  Sometimes they were far enough apart no one detected a pattern.  And some of them started before Dean was born.  Some even before his father was born.  But they always stopped by the time Winchesters left town.”

 

“Okay.”  This was good news.  This might be fabulous news.  

 

“There’s more.  There are witness statements after witness statements that name the Winchesters, Dean, Sam, and John as some kind of heroes although Henricksen all but ignored those.”

 

Garcia felt her excitement bubble to the surface just as Reid gave her an assessing look.  

 

“Wait a minute,”  he back tracked.  “How did you know about the car?”

 

She knew the instant his profiler instincts kicked in as he zeroed in on her and began really seeing her.  His eyes went wide.  “What happened?”

 

“What?”

 

“You’ve been crying.”

 

Garcia swallowed.  “No, I’ve got allergies,” she lied, knowing he was already on to her.

 

“You never had allergies before, not like this,” Reid disagreed.  Like a dog with a bone he looked even closer.  He gasped when he took her hand.  “You’ve got ligature marks on your wrists.  You were tied up!”

 

“You can see that?” Garcia blurted out as she held her arm up to look.  Oops.  “Recreational?” she ventured.

 

“What are you doing here?” Reid demanded.

 

“Okay, okay,“ Garcia told herself as she made up her mind.  Everyone was going to find out Monday morning anyway.  She opened her mouth and let it rip.  “Sam Winchester…”

 

“No, no more distractions,” Reid insisted in exasperation and alarm.  “You tell me what happened or… or I’ll call Hotch.”  He reached for the phone.

 

“No, Reid!” Garcia stopped him.  “You don‘t understand, I’m not playing games.  Sam Winchester came to see me.  That‘s what I‘m trying to tell you.”

 

Reid’s mouth fell open as he stared.  “We’ve got to call Gideon.”

 

“He knows.  I think he’s with him somewhere,” Garcia poured out the story in one breath.  “Morgan is looking for them but I can’t get in touch with either of them that’s why I came in to try and triangulate their cell phones before I call Hotch.”

 

Reid toyed with the phone cord as his thoughts raced visibly across his face.

 

“Please don‘t call Hotch.  Gideon wants to handle this.”

 

“Sam Winchester tied you up?”  There was a grain of anger in his tone.

 

“He didn’t hurt me,” Garcia implored.  “He just didn’t want me calling the cops before he could meet Gideon.  And you said yourself you don’t think the Winchesters were guilty of anything…”

 

“Credit card fraud,” Reid told her.  “Lots and lots of credit card fraud.”

 

“Okay.  But not murder.  Not skinning people alive.”

 

“No.”  Reid sighed and got up.  “Let’s find them before we do anything else,” he decided.

 

“Yes, great!” Garcia agreed wholehearted.  Gideon might not kill her after all.  “To the bat cave, Boy Wonder.”

 

*****

 

Pie gone and small talk dwindling to nothing, Sam made a ’hold on a minute’ motion with both hands to Gideon before approaching Dean again about a hunt.  Gideon let himself relax a little, if Sam wasn’t done yet there was still hope.  After all, Sam knew Dean better than anyone.

 

Sam got up and switched beds, settling just below Morgan resulting in all four men on the same mattress.  “Dean...”

 

This wasn‘t good and that they had him hemmed in certainly wasn‘t lost on Dean.  “Yeah, this ain’t freaky at all,” he remarked sarcastically.

 

Gideon thought he would bolt, and Dean did get up but merely plunked a bag onto the bed.  He pulled out his gun and checked the clip before going into the bag for a box of ammo big enough to fill three more.

 

Morgan shifted uneasily but glanced at Gideon who repeated Sam’s silent call to wait and see.  Luckily Morgan obeyed his unspoken plea.

 

“What are you doing?” Sam asked.

 

“I’m getting ready,” Dean answered as if it were obvious.  “If we’re hunting tonight we need to get packing.”

 

Dead silence.  Even Sam looked perplexed.  “But you said no.”

 

With a snort of incredulous amusement Dean kept right on checking his supplies.  “I know this dance.  I say no, you pout for a while and when that doesn’t work you throw a hissy fit, which I pay no attention to.  Finally you whine about going without me and I give in like a pussy.  I’m just saving us all some time.”

 

“I don’t throw hissy fits.”

 

“I think you’re missing the point, Sam,” Gideon stated, ever the peacemaker but also not wanting to give Dean a chance to change his mind.

 

“No, I got it,” Sam denied, still staring down his brother .  “But that was way too easy.  And you don’t always give in,” he told Dean.  “I seem to remember being dumped on the side of the road and watching you drive away...”

 

“Hey!  That was your decision.”

 

“Why are you suddenly hot for the hunt?” Sam demanded, not taking the bait.  “Ten minutes ago you said no way.”

 

“Oh, I have conditions,” Dean declared as he dropped the bag and returned the glare full force.  There was something going on here that Gideon couldn‘t read, some silent brother communication outsiders weren‘t meant to be privy to.

 

“All the bullshit aside, we came here to do a job.” Dean stopped and frowned even further.  “We do have a job, don’t we?  There really is a big bad out there that needs puttin‘ down, right?”

 

He was angry.  He was hurt.  Where once Dean had been able to lock down his emotions behind a stoic and often comic mask.  Now they betrayed him, open and raw and there was nothing the boy could do about it.  His walls had been sledge-hammered by something so cruel, so... devastating he had no recourse but to fly his feelings like a flag across his face even if he still wouldn‘t say the words.  

 

One thing Gideon knew for certain, a lot was riding on whatever was happening between the Winchester boys.  Then he finally got it.  This was about trust.

 

“Everything about the case is true,”  Sam told Dean with an somber nod.  “I wouldn’t lie about that.”

 

Dean took a moment to read his brother before nodding back and the issue was settled.  “Then let’s do it.”

 

Sam smiled a beatific smile, weak with relief and he jumped right in to help Dean with preparations.

 

With the status quo a little less explosive Gideon could barely contain his excitement.  He stood and checked his own gun as well.  He was going ghost hunting.  It was surreal.

 

“Not so fast there, big guy,” Dean cautioned, holding up a hand.

 

“But you said...”

 

“Just him.”  Dean let his hand drop into a pointing finger, right at Morgan.

 

“I don’t understand,” Gideon protested even though he knew he sounded childish.  “I thought you wanted to prove to me that there is an afterlife.”

 

“Look, I’m not... I’m not at my best, okay?” Dean admitted reluctantly and with more honesty about what he was feeling than Gideon had ever thought possible.  “I can’t do what I need to do and be watching out for you out there.  I’d get us both killed.”

 

Sam stop mid-motion of checking his gun and watched the conversation with his mouth slightly agape.

 

“So what am I?  Ghost fodder?” Morgan scoffed.

 

“I’m not worried about you,” Dean said to Morgan as he got back to work.  “Not with those lightening fast reflexes.”

 

Gideon was beside himself.  “So this is what?  Age discrimination?”

 

“No,” Dean swore, ducking his head before squaring up and looking Gideon in the eye.  “No.  It’s not your age I’m worried about.  It’s your brain.  I know how you are.  You’ll see something you think is impossible and you’ll stand there and process it until you understand.  In the meantime it’ll rip your heart out and eat it.”

 

Morgan cleared his throat.  “You two are crazy.  All three of you are.”

 

Sam shook his head at Morgan indicating there would be no heart eating, repeating the oft used placating gesture.

 

“I’m just saying.  Besides, Morgan already believes.”  Dean added casually as he finished his internal checklist and zipped up the bag.

 

“What?  I do not,“ Morgan protested as he got up, glowering across the bed at Dean.  “That’s ridiculous.”

 

“Why do you say that, Dean?”  Gideon could not help himself, all too aware why Morgan had included him in his list of crazy.

 

“Look at him,” Dean said with a shrug.  “He’s pretty much accepted he’s in the room with a dead man.  And you?  You’re still reeling.”

 

“Maybe he’s better at hiding it than I am.”

 

“Nah.  I know you’re all ‘profilers’ and shit,” Dean said, making quotation marks in the air.  “But what I do?”

 

“What we do,” Sam put in.

 

“Yeah, that’s what I said.  In our job, we have to read people, too.  And I don’t know what happened to Morgan or when it happened, but I know a believer when I see one.”  He turned and spoke directly to Morgan.  “You may not believe in monsters per se, but you definitely believe in something.  Sam?”

 

Sam looked Morgan over as well and slowly began to nod.  “Yeah,” he finally agreed.  “I think you’re right.”

 

“Don’t feel bad, I had a lot more time cooped up with him than you have.  I knew it back when I was in custody.”

 

“I thought we were gonna stop the bullshit,” Morgan objected a little too stringently.

 

“You know me and Reid had a thousand conversations and you were there for most of ‘em,” Dean pointed out and it wasn’t that much of an exaggeration.  “And you made faces and odd comments here and there but mostly you ignored us.”

 

“Bored out of my wits,” Morgan confirmed.

 

“Yeah.  Except when we talked about ghosts.  You tuned right in to that one.”  Dean raised an eyebrow smugly as he studied Morgan now, daring him to deny it.  To Gideon‘s surprise, he didn‘t.  

 

It struck Gideon that under different circumstances Dean would have made a hell of a profiler.  Morgan glanced at him knowing the unspoken rule of don’t profile the profiler was not just being broken it was being smashed into tiny little pieces.   Sam and Dean weren’t the only two who were dealing with trust issues.

 

“I’m sorry,” Gideon said and turned away.

 

“So tonight?  This is a ghost?” Morgan asked.

 

“We think so,” Sam told him.  “We won’t know for sure until we get there.”

 

“That’s why we go in loaded for bear,” Dean added.  “But hopefully since you’re a virgin and all it’ll be a simple salt and b...burn.”  For a second he lost his composure and Sam turned to Gideon wide eyed as if to say ‘see?’

 

“We’re burning moonlight.  Let’s go!” Dean ordered on his way out the door, all business.

 

“I’m sorry you can‘t go,” Sam said to Gideon.  “It’s pretty clear Dean has made up his mind.”

 

“It’s okay, maybe another time.  Do you want me to wait here?” Gideon asked.

 

Sam nodded.  “I think we’re gonna need you later,” he said softly.  “But here.  To pass the time.”  He handed Gideon an old leather-bound notebook then followed his brother outside.

 

“Are you okay with this?” Gideon asked Morgan, clasping the journal to his chest as he moved with him to the door.

 

“Snipe hunt?  Sure.  Why not?” Morgan played it off, making a point of not checking his gun.  

 

“Hey Morgan,” Dean said as he tossed the duffle into the trunk and slammed the lid.  “My other condition... when this is over, if we see something... I want you to tell me your story.”

 

Morgan shrugged and strode to the car to open the back door.  “Then I guess my secret’s safe,” he drawled as he got in.

 

*****

 

“Any luck?” Garcia asked, looking up from her usually much more trusty computer.

 

Reid shook his head as he hung up.  “No.  Both phones still go straight to voice mail.  You?”

 

“Not much,” Garcia sighed.  “I know where they’ve been.  But unless they turn their phones back on...” she trailed off and shrugged.  

 

“I need coffee,” Reid announced with a yawn.

 

“Coffee.  That’s it!” Garcia exclaimed.  “You really are brilliant!”

 

“I am?  I mean, I know, but what did I say?”

 

Garcia grabbed her purse and dug out her keys excitedly.  “Come on, I’ll drive.”

 

“Uh, sure,”  Reid agreed since they weren’t really getting anywhere from this end.  “Where are we going?”

 

“To the scene of the crime!”  With that Garcia bustled out the door and down the hallway.

 

“Of course,” Reid agreed, grabbing his things as well and following.  “Where exactly would that be?”

 

*****

 

Much to Morgan’s surprise they pulled into the overgrown parking lot of a dilapidated mini golf course.  A faded sign that read ‘Jungle Golf‘ hung over the gated entrance and an oversized Tiki Head ala Easter Island loomed in the dark.  They could also make out a concrete elephant and a few purple spotted giraffes over the top of the tall, heavily vined fence.  

 

“This is where we’re hunting?” Morgan asked dubiously.

 

“Yep.”  Dean shut off the engine and he and Sam got out.  They went around to the trunk and opened it.  

 

Morgan shook his head before getting out the passenger side.  Dean waved him off when he tried to join them behind the car so he moved to look through the fence instead.  “This place hasn’t been open in years,” he said just as Sam joined him near the gate and tried to hand him a sawed off shotgun.  “No thanks, I’ve got my own.”

 

Dean stopped digging through the mysterious contents of the trunk to give him a look.  “Your service piece probably won’t work for this,” he told him flatly.

 

“This one fires rock salt,” Sam explained, still  holding the gun out to him butt first.

 

“Salt.  Right.”  Morgan took the weapon and cracked it open to find shells filled with… salt.

 

“Here.”  Sam passed him another handful of the strange ammo.  “Put these in your pocket.”

 

“What about you?” Morgan asked.  “You don’t give your best weapon to the rookie.”

 

“We got enough to go around,” Dean assure him with a smirk as he continued to fill the duffle with even more stuff, clanking metal before slamming the trunk and stalking toward them.

 

“What’s in the bag?” Morgan asked.

 

Sam shrugged, accepting another shotgun from Dean and resting the barrel on his shoulder.  “We don’t really know what we’re dealing with.  We want to cover our bases.”

 

Dean handed Sam the duffle then clamored over the fence with the ease of extreme fitness and long familiarity.  Sam climbed to the top and lowered the bag and weapon down to Dean before dropping over himself.  Dean was already disappearing into the dark before his brother hit the ground.  Sam followed without a word.

 

“Like I said, this place has been closed for years.  We’re not gonna find anything,” Morgan called after then.  “This is crazy,” he muttered to himself before climbing up and over so as not to lose them.

 

“They closed two and a half years ago when the owner retired and moved to Florida,” Sam’s voice led him to the small fake thatched hut that had served as the ticket booth.  When Morgan reached them Sam was on one knee picking the lock.

 

“I see that’s a family trait,” Morgan deadpanned.

 

Sam grinned at him as he got up and opened the door.  “Other kids played hide and seek, we played pick the lock.”

 

Dean switched on a flashlight and headed inside.

 

“Just so you know, this is breaking and entering.”

 

“We didn’t break anything,” Dean retorted as he flipped on the main breaker box and flooded the weedy course with light and loud carnival music.  “I get blue.”

 

“No way, Dean.  You always get blue,” Sam complained, quickly ducking into the hut to fight for the golf ball Dean was bouncing on the floor, stirring up dust.

 

Dean shoved the coveted ball into his front pocket and backed away with a shit eating grin.  “There’s only one blue.  Take red.”

 

“I don’t want red, I want blue.”

 

“Quiet, you’ll wake the dead,” Morgan warned.  He crowded in as well to shut off the music.  

 

“That’s kind of the idea,” Dean said, picking up the duffle and heading to the door.  He stopped to place a red ball in Sam’s hand but Sam tossed it away.  “Take green if you don’t want red.”

 

Morgan looked around noting the cash register was open and empty but covered in cobwebs.  There were a few colored balls in a bucket and a rack of small, beat up clubs.  They caught Dean’s eye and he stopped to examine them one by one until he found a reasonably straight one.  “Hey, remember that course in Odessa?”

 

“With the different levels and the waterfalls?” Sam asked.  He bypassed the green ball and settled on a yellow one.

 

“Best.  Course.  Ever,” Dean declared, sharing a fond smile with his brother.

 

“Yeah,” Sam agreed.  “We were at that motel next door for like three weeks.  We played every day.  Until you got us kicked out for hustling those kids at Skee Ball.”

 

“You took money from a bunch of little kids?” Morgan asked.  “That’s low.”

 

Dean shrugged.  “Dude, I was like eleven.  And we were low on golf funds,” he explained as they took their clubs and wandered down the path to the first hole.

 

Morgan followed, perplexed.  “You’re not really going to play golf, are you?”

 

“Of course not,” Sam scoffed as he placed the yellow ball in the pre-made divot and lined up his shot.

 

“We’re going to play Jungle Golf,” Dean corrected.  “Okay Sammy let’s see what cha got.  Thank God there aren’t clowns to play through, huh?”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“You don’t want to play?” Dean turned to ask Morgan.

 

“No I don’t want to play.”

 

“Good.  You can carry the bag.”  With that he swung the canvas duffle none too gently up into Morgan’s chest.

 

Morgan caught it with a soft grunt.  And damn, it was heavy.  “You don’t think these lights might draw attention to us?”

 

Dean looked around at the assorted lighting, most low to the ground and surrounded by weeds.  And most of those weren‘t all that bright anymore or burned out altogether.  “Well we’re in the middle of freakin’ no where.  There’s no one around, especially this time of night.  Besides the kudzu on the fence is better than a blackout curtain.  Except for that one.”

 

Morgan followed his gaze to a light mounted on a pole at the top of the hill where the cement elephant stood proudly, even with his one remaining tusk.  On the highest ground it stood well above the fence.  Before he could comment there was a blast and the remains of the bulb, along with the lamp itself, came clattering down on the fake boulder below it.

 

“Are you nuts?” Morgan swore in an unnecessary stage whisper since anyone nearby would have heard the shotgun.  Dean grinned back at him as he rested the weapon on his shoulder, still holding the short golf club in the other hand.

 

“Do you mind?” Sam asked calmly as he putted for a hole in one.  “Yes!”  He pumped an arm in victory and headed for the hole up the green rather than fighting his way through the weeds that overtook the narrow walkway.

 

Shouldering the bag, Morgan started to follow, preferring the company of the younger Winchester at the moment.  But Dean raised the club and blocked his path.  “I may need your help,” he stated, all joking aside.

 

“With what?”

 

Dean stuck the club under his other arm and reached into his pocket.  He pulled out a matchbook and gave it to Morgan with a shaking hand.  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to strike... it.”

 

“It.”

 

“The damn match,” Dean spat out in a low voice.

 

“Are you guys coming or what?” Sam called from the dark of the next hole.

 

“Be right there, Sammy,” Dean answered before lowering his voice again.  “I’ll do everything else,” he swore.  “I’ll dig, I’ll pour the salt, hell, I’ll even dump the lighter fluid.  But if Sam can’t do it for some reason I need you to light the match.”

 

Morgan studied him carefully and came to the conclusion he was being real.  As real as a ghost hunting psychopath could be.  “All right,” he agreed, tucking the matches into his own pocket.

 

With an audible swallow and a nod Dean moved on.  He tossed the ball down the putting green with damn near perfect aim.  The ball came to rest just the other side of the hole.

 

“Nice technique,” Morgan replied.

 

“Whatever gets the job done.”  Dean plodded down the middle of the green to get his ball and then moved to catch up with Sam.  

 

Morgan looked around the eerie half-lit course before following. “Dig what?” he asked but Dean just laughed in the dark.

 

*****

 

Reid and Garcia sat in Esther with the top down outside the closed diner drinking coffee and eating French fries from the last McDonald’s they’d passed before leaving civilization.

 

“So what are we doing here again?” Reid asked, wiping a dab of wayward ketchup from his chin with a rough paper napkin.

 

Garcia took a sip of coffee and stole another French fry.  “We’re at the scene of the crime waiting for you to work your magic.”

 

“Uh... well, there’s no one in there to talk to and there’s nothing out here but tire tracks,” Reid pointed out.  

 

“I know,” Garcia agreed softly.  “But this is the last place we know they were so we came here for inspiration.  You‘re a genius.  You’ll think of something.”

 

“It doesn’t work that way,”  Reid protested her utter confidence in him, and not for the first time.  But she steadfastly insisted he make something out of nothing.  Less than nothing.  He wiped his greasy fingers on the napkin and stared into the empty building.  With the glow of the streetlights they could see through the dinning room almost to the kitchen.  The shadows of everyday objects lurked ominously everywhere inside.  “This place is creepy after dark.”

 

“And I thought I wasn’t going to have any fun tonight,” Garcia deadpanned.

 

Reid stared at her for a minute before laughing.  “Oh yeah, this is my idea of Friday night on the town.”

 

She smiled back at him before sobering.  “Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked out of the blue.  Reid loved the way her mind worked.  She wasn’t a lateral thinker either.  Maybe that’s why they got along so well.

 

“No one has ever been able to prove their existence,” Reid answered carefully.

 

“That’s not what I asked.  I want to know what you believe.”

 

Raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips Reid reflected on what he believed for a moment.  “Dean believed in the supernatural, that was evident,” he finally hedged.

 

Garcia called him on it.  “You’re stalling.”

 

“And you’re tough.”

 

“You better know it, big boy.”

 

Reid laughed again before launching into a lecture.  “Well almost every culture on Earth has ghost lore, from the earliest know man up to the most modern societies.  It would be naive to discount the beliefs of nearly every race since the beginning of time, don‘t you think?  Even today only the most scientifically elite tend to discount disembodied spirits as mere myth.  Although solely going on the premise if you can‘t see it or touch it then it can‘t be real also discounts other scientific likelihoods such as dark matter or...”

 

“None of that sociology crap tells me what you think,” Garcia cut him short.

 

Reid accepted his fate with a nod, Garcia was going to make him say it.  “There’s so much we don’t know,“ he started before an annoyed look from her pushed him into a truthful, unadorned answer.  “I want to believe.”

 

“Ohhh,” Garcia approved.  “How very X-files of you.”

 

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Reid questioned in return.

 

“What?  Are you crazy?” Garcia teased, finishing her coffee as Reid glared at her in exasperation.  When she deposited the cup in the empty bag she turned to him.  “Okay, here’s my inspiration... we drive around the boonies ‘til dawn and look for their vehicles.  If we haven’t found them by sunup we call Hotch.  Sound reasonable?”

 

“Not really.  What if they’re in trouble?”

 

“Our guys?  Against one little psycho?  Or big psycho actually, this guy is ginormous.”

 

“You genuinely think they’re okay?”

 

“Would I be sitting here with you drinking coffee outside a closed diner in the middle of the night if I didn’t?”

 

“I don’t know.  I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

 

“I believe that Sam Winchester is not a threat.  Not intentionally anyway, I mean he could have killed me but he just tied me up.  He was... nice.  For a psycho.”

 

“If everything is all right, why haven’t they called us?” Reid pressed.

 

“You guys always take your own sweet time checking in when I’m worried,” Garcia insisted and Reid supposed they could be a little more considerate of her feelings sometimes.  “Come on, let’s waste some gas.”

 

“I’ve got nothing better to do,” Reid gave in, sucked in by the irresistible force that was Garcia on a mission.

 

“Yeah!” Garcia fired Ester up and backed out of the parking lot.  “Right or left?” she asked.

 

“Right feels right,” Reid directed on a whim.

 

*****

 

Morgan sat on a concrete bench made to look like a fallen tree trunk with the mysterious duffle bag at his feet and one of the salt-filled shotguns across the crook of his left arm.  The forefinger of his right hand rested lightly on the trigger since the other ghost gun was all but forgotten, propped up against  the bag while the Winchesters engaged in yet another in a long line of golf related disputes.

 

“You’ve got no follow through,” Sam was saying.  “No wonder you can’t putt in a straight line.”

 

“I putt just fine,” Dean assured as he tapped the ball and it veered off to the left.  “This damn club is crooked.”

 

“Sure.  It’s the club.”

 

Dean pointed the club at Sam and for a second Morgan thought he might hit him with it.    “It is.  And I can still kick your ass at golf and, well, pretty much every other game ever invented.”

 

But Sam never flinched.  “All evidence to the contrary since I seem to be winning.  As always.”

 

“All evidence... Dude.  What the hell did they teach you at Stanford?  Nobody talks like that.”

 

Morgan had enough.  “Winchester!”

 

The boys shared a look and even in the dim light Morgan could see Dean roll his eyes but neither deigned to answer.

 

“Look, just hold it like this.”  Sam demonstrated and the yellow ball zipped right over to the hole, rolled around the outside once, and dropped right in.  “Ha!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

 

“Yeah, well maybe that works for you...”

 

“Winchester!”

 

Sam moved down the green to get the balls.

 

“Uh, you’re gonna have to be a little more specific, Morgan,” Dean said without lifting his head while he surreptitiously practiced Sam’s technique while his back was still turned.  “Which one of us do you want?”

 

“At this point I don’t really give a shit,” Morgan ground out, his last little bit of patience fleeting at best.  “But one of you is gonna come over here and talk to me or I‘m taking you both in.”

 

“He threatens that a lot,” Sam noted as he returned with the balls and placed them on the tee area.  

 

“I suppose one of us should go over there and see what‘s bugging him,”  Dean agreed.  With only a look between them they simultaneously launched into rock, scissors, paper without even releasing their clubs.  Sam’s rock trumped Dean’s scissors.

 

“Two out of three.”

 

“No.”

 

Dean grunted in disgust, dropped his club in Sam’s way, and wandered over to Morgan.  Sam kicked the club away and smugly got back to putting.  With the blue ball.

 

“What?” Dean grumbled as he picked up his shotgun and slumped down to sit next to Morgan on the bench.

 

“What the hell’s going on?” Morgan demanded.

 

“Let’s see... Tiger Winchester is schooling this young pup in the art of Jungle Golf.”

 

“Really?  Because it looks to me like he’s kicking your ass.”

 

“The game’s not over yet,” Dean protested with a sulk.  “I’m just getting warmed up.”

 

“I know what you’re doing with all this arguing back and forth.  You’re trying to keep me distracted for some reason.”

 

“You don’t have a brother, do you?” Dean asked in amusement.  “That‘s just the way me and Sam communicate.  I will admit any kind of competition brings out the worst in us.”

 

“Well when do you two plan to work a hunt into this little tournament?”  Morgan waved a hand around in the air to indicate the lack of ghostly activity around them.  “I’m starting to think you’re just wasting my time.”

 

Dean smirked and patted the butt of the shotgun almost like it was a favorite pet.  “I realize that when you FBI types go after a perp they just jump right up and say ‘here I am, po po, arrest me’.  Ghosts generally don‘t work that way.  Sometimes you‘re in the right place at the right time, other times you gotta finesse ‘em a little.”

 

“Point taken,”  Morgan sighed, nobody said ghost hunting was a thrill a minute.  “Po po?” he asked.

 

Dean just grinned and shook his head.  “That it?  Can I get back in the game, Coach?”

 

“Not so fast.  I have a few more questions.”  Morgan decided to make a better effort to understand the process so the night wouldn‘t be a total waste.  “So we‘re what?  On stake out?”

 

“Sorta,” Dean allowed with a shrug.  

 

“This is what you do.  You show up at a place you think is haunted and you hang out and... play golf.”

 

“Nah, the golf’s just a bonus,” Dean chose to answer literally even though Morgan was pretty sure he knew the question was metaphorical.   He propped the gun on the bench beside his leg and bent to unzip the bag.

 

Morgan couldn’t help himself, he had to lean forward to try to get a look inside.  He was disappointed when Dean pulled out a plain manila file folder held together with a big paper clip.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Research.  I had the feeling you might wanna look at it.”  Dean let him take the folder and sat back to watch Sam.  “You’ll never make the Master’s with that swing,” he yelled when Sam, apparently tired of putting without his brother to argue with, let loose and walloped the blue ball right into the weeds near the fence at the end of the course.

 

Morgan accepted the flashlight Dean handed him and opened the folder.

 

“Fore!” Sam yelled before sending the yellow one after it.  

 

“That’s better,” Dean kibitzed even though the shot fell a few feet short of the other one in the same general direction.

 

“You did all of this?” Morgan asked as he dug through the papers.  “I’m impressed.”

 

“Don’t be.  We got this out of an old case file of a friend of ours.  He’s been researching this place off and on for years.”

 

“This land was a tobacco plantation back in the late 1700s,” Morgan read before Sam swiped the flashlight and headed off into the weeds.

 

“Bitch,” Dean called after him.

 

“Jerk.”

 

Dean picked up the story while Morgan tried to find a better position to read under the low hanging lamp next to the bench.  

 

“The planter‘s only son had some kind of lung disorder and had to stay in the house all the time.  One day after watching a couple of the slave boys through the window he snuck out to play with them.  He fell into the pond that was back that way somewhere and drowned.”

 

“That‘s our ghost?  A little boy?” Morgan asked, finding a sketch of what the plantation looked like back in the day.  He pinpointed the pond and looked in the direction Dean had indicated and agreed with the assessment.

 

“The parents never recovered; she sunk into a deep depression and died and the old man eventually took his own life.  But the slaves ran away and the place went to seed a long time before that.”

 

“It’s kind of ironic that the kid’s the one still around,” Morgan replied.  Next he browsed the newspaper articles of missing children in the area going back more than thirty years.

 

“Our guess is he’s still looking for a playmate.  It‘s time he moved on though,” Dean added as he picked up the gun.

 

“Why are you so sure we’re going to find him when your friend obviously couldn‘t?”

 

“We might not,” Dean admitted and Morgan was struck by how rational he was when he wasn‘t putting up a front.  “But we have something our friend didn’t.”

 

“What‘s that?”

 

“My doe-eyed baby brother,” Dean said proudly, smiling and pointing as Sam continued to search the weeds obliviously for the balls.  Only judging by the beam of the flashlight Sam was pacing in a very deliberate pattern at the moment which Morgan wrote off as inherited insanity.  

 

“You’re using your brother as bait.”  So much for rational, both Winchesters were nuts.  “Did you guys even discuss this?”

 

“Hey, he found this gig, he knows the score.  And he knows he’s the youngest one here so that puts him in the hot seat.  Don’t look at me like that, I’ve been the bait plenty of times.”

 

Morgan realized he was getting a glimmer of what it was to grow up Winchester.  “How old were you the first time your daddy dangled you on a hook?” he asked.

 

“Old enough,” Dean answered defensively.  “And it‘s not all bad.  Once there was this succubus in Cincinnati...”

 

“Dean,” Sam called, cutting the story short.  

 

Dean grabbed the bag and his salt gun and took off without a backward glance.  Morgan closed the folder and followed, shotgun in hand as well.  

 

“What does this look like to you?” Sam asked as soon as they reached him.  He pointed the flashlight at the weeds he’d trampled down in an odd, square crop circle-esque fashion.

 

Whatever it was Dean recognized it right away.  “Shit,” he swore, not even breathing heavy despite the sprint.

 

“What is it?” Morgan asked as he looked on and tried like hell not to sound winded.

 

Sam paced it off for him.  Every two feet there was a slight rectangular depression two to three foot across and five to six feet long.  “There are at least six here and who knows how many more outside the fence where the woods have grown up.”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

Dean took the folder and opened it to the sketch while Sam shone the light where his finger landed.  “You are here,” Dean said.

 

“They built the golf course on a graveyard?” Morgan gasped, the depressions suddenly making sense.  

 

“Just part of it,” Sam answered as if that mattered.

 

“Where are the tombstones?”

 

“From the 1700’s?  There might not be any left,” Dean answered as he took the light and made his way to the fence to peer through it.

 

“Or this might be the part where they buried the slaves,” Morgan suggested.  “They didn’t necessarily get markers.”

 

“That’s right,” Sam agreed with an approving nod.  “You know cemeteries.”

 

“Not really, I’m just up on my black history.  My grandmother made sure of that.”

 

“There are markers in the woods,” Dean announced, coming back from the fence.  “I sure hope the planter built a nice big monument to his boy.”

 

“So you can find his grave,” Morgan said with a groan of comprehension.  “I guess I know what we’re digging up then, don’t I?”

 

*****

 

Gideon took a moment to blink and rub his eyes, looking away from the scrawled handwriting he had learned to decipher with ease.  The quick, short strokes of the pen that even now lingered as an aftereffect under his eyelids evidenced impatience but not chaos, and never madness.  There were entries added later in two different but similar scripts and Gideon had no trouble deciding which was Dean’s, so much like his father‘s clear, concise missives, and which was Sam’s, more expressive and in greater detail.

 

John Winchester had been a meticulous man when it came to the hunt but perhaps less so in his personal life and relations.  Not that Gideon could tell such things from his penmanship, he dabbled a bit but was far from a handwriting expert.  That information Gideon had gleaned from Dean himself during a marathon monologue when he’d recounted much of what was in this very journal.  Gideon had chosen not to believe Dean at the time.

 

He regretted that now.  He’d tried to believe a month after Dean’s demise when he’d received an impossible phone call.  Although it had proven easy to write off as a fluke it still resided on his voicemail as a morbid homage to failure along with a bloodstained, cut-up tie in his bottom desk drawer.  But if the enigmatic song who’s meaning was known only to him and a dead man wasn’t sufficient to convince him of the existence of a paranormal world beyond, actually seeing Dean alive, touching his warm skin over solid muscle and bone... well that was enough.

 

And Morgan’s initial reaction of trickery just didn’t ring true.  Morgan hadn’t held Dean after the shot, hadn’t watched the life drain from his eyes.  Gideon knew the look of death, and it had come for the young Winchester, of that he was certain.  And that forged a bond between them, after all death was a rather intimate affair, ask anyone who‘d ever been on hand to receive a deathbed confession.  

 

So he wouldn’t hold it against Dean that he’d been banished from the hunt.  His explanation for the exclusion had sounded reasonable even to Gideon but he felt there might also be a modicum of rebuke in the decision even if Dean was unaware of it.  He would accept his punishment willingly if only for the chance to make up his shortfall to Dean another time.

 

Having lost himself in previous adventures of the supernatural, and as consolation prizes went, John Winchester’s diary was second to none, he‘d bypassed worrying about how his young friends were faring in the current hunt.  The red light from the old alarm clock between the beds caught his attention and if it was correct it was well after midnight.  He checked his watch and found it was really a quarter to two.  

 

Suddenly he remembered Garcia.  He resisted the urge to wait until morning to call in case she was sleeping because he really thought someone should check on her.  Already in a penitent mood he felt somewhat guilty especially since Morgan hadn’t stayed to comfort her after the rescue.  Gideon himself had simply been so flummoxed by Dean’s resurrection he’d forgotten to turn his cell back on breaking the unwritten rule about never being unreachable.  

 

He fished out his phone and turned it on.  There were half a dozen messages and it was ringing again.  Reid.  Of course Garcia had called Reid.  Who else?  She’d only promised not to call Hotch or the team as a whole.  That was good though, she didn‘t need to be alone tonight.

 

“Good morning, Doctor Reid,” Gideon greeted, uncharacteristically jovial.  He allowed himself that because against all odds Dean was alive.  His soul felt light.

 

“Gideon?”  It was telling that a happy greeting from him made Reid suspicious.

 

“How is Garcia?  Is she there with you now?”

 

“How did you...?  Yes, she’s here.  She’s fine considering she was abducted in her own home and left tied up.”  There was no mistaking the gentle reproach in Reid’s voice.  

 

Gideon had approved the tactic at the time but he‘d only been concerned with her safety.  “Please tell her I’m very sorry about that.  At the time it seemed the most expedient thing to do.”

 

“Where’s Sam Winchester now?”

 

“He’s with Morgan.  They’ve gone on a little excursion I‘m not at liberty to discuss, I’m sure they’ll be back soon.  Go home.  Go to bed.  We‘ll catch up tomorrow.”

 

“And you?  Are you okay?”  Clearly Reid wasn’t satisfied.

 

“I’m fine.  I’m going to do a little reading while I wait for the boys.”  Gideon patted the very special book on his lap.  He hadn’t lied at all, he just didn’t offer up the whole story.   

 

Now he understood completely Dean’s hesitancy to bring an innocent into the dark truth of the world in which they lived.  Reid didn‘t need to know monsters and nightmares were real, Garcia certainly not.  What a burden Sam and Dean carried on their broad, youthful shoulders.  How heavy it must get.

 

“Gideon?  Where are you?”

 

“Go home, Reid, and take care of Garcia.  Morgan and I are fine, I promise,” Gideon offered then hung up.  He waited for thirty seconds before putting the phone away and then answered on the first ring.  “Reid.  We’re fine,” he assured with a chuckle.

 

*****

 

“Well?” Reid asked as he hung up for the second time.

 

“Uh huh, thanks babe, I owe you,” Garcia purred into her own phone held between her right shoulder and cheek as she used the dash as a desk.  “Got ‘em,” she told Reid victoriously as she closed the phone and handed over an address scribbled on a leftover napkin.  She stuck the pen behind her ear and started the motor.

 

Reid squinted to read the note by the dashboard light.  “This is Gideon’s current location?”

 

“Yep,” Garcia grinned as she put Esther in drive and used the shoulder of the lonesome road to turn the old girl around.  She barely missed the edge of the tired old billboard advertising Skippy’s Pizza and a Jungle Golf course, fun for the whole family.  “And we’ve been headed in the wrong direction.”

 

“You can do that?” Reid questioned, holding up the napkin.

 

“A simple matter of using your number to backtrack to the GPS transmitter in big G’s phone while he was talking to you and a friend with the right kind of access.”

 

“Who would have that kind of access outside of the Bureau?”

 

“You don’t need to know,” Garcia warned in a sing-song voice.  “Didn’t the Skippy’s Pizza chain go out of business?” she quickly changed the subject.  “Maybe we should go back and look.”

 

“No, they closed years ago,” Reid confirmed before getting back on topic.  “No one should be able to just access a GPS chip like that.  It can’t be legal...”

 

“La-la-la, la la-la-la,” Garcia sang over the top of him.

 

*****

 

Morgan wiped the sweat from his eyes with a dirty forearm.  “I thought you said you were gonna do the digging,” he reminded Dean who sat on a nearby tombstone holding the light.  He couldn’t see Dean’s face but he knew he was grinning.

 

“I lied,” Dean said.  “Besides, I wanted to give you the full hunting experience.  Keep it up, you‘re doing great.”  He gave him a thumbs up in front of the flashlight and Morgan returned the gesture with one of his own.  Different finger, though.

 

Morgan grunted and put his back into the next shovelful.  Dean had been right about one thing, the dead boy’s marker was marble with a cherub on top and at six foot tall was fairly large for the day.  According to Sam anyway who seemed to know way too much about cemeteries in general.  

 

They spotted the monument the minute they stepped into the woods that had grown right up through the knee-high wrought iron fence that surrounded the family plot.  “You sure Sam’s okay over there by himself?”

 

Dean shrugged.  “Sammy!”

 

“What?” came the aggravated reply from somewhere beyond a veil of kudzu on the other side of the Impala that had been moved for convenience.  Morgan had not been surprised to watch the Winchesters nonchalantly pull machetes and a shovel from the trunk.  Together they made quick work of the overgrown vegetation before deciding Morgan should do the excavating.

“He’s fine.”

 

“What’s he doing anyway?”

 

“Well he damn sure ain’t pissing,” Dean laughed.  

 

“Oh.”  Morgan leaned on the shovel handle to catch his breath.  “You always find time to take a shit on a hunt?”

 

“Don’t look at me.  It’s all that roughage he eats.  He should stick to fats and starches like me.”

 

“You’ll be dead of a coronary before you’re fifty,”  Morgan warned, using the edge of the shovel to break through a wayward tree root.

 

“I’m not gonna live that long.”

 

Morgan stopped to try to see Dean’s face but got blasted in the eyes with the beam of the flashlight for his trouble.  

 

“That grave’s not gonna open itself,” Dean prodded him back to work before adding,  “At least I hope not.  That‘s never good.”

 

“Huh?” Morgan looked down at his feet and bounced a little.  He could feel the earth shifting slightly below him.

 

“I’m kidding,” Dean admitted.  Oh yeah.  He was grinning ear to ear behind that big halo of light.  

 

“You’re a funny man,” Morgan groused as he failed to get back to work.  He rocked back and forth on his heels to experience shift again.  It was an odd springy sensation, almost like standing on Jell-o.

 

“Don’t bounce too much or you’ll bust right through the lid of that old coffin.”

 

“That’s what that is; rotten wood.”  Of course.  The simple answer was usually the best.  Morgan was looking so hard for a ghost he was seeing them everywhere.  He was pretty sure Winchester was on to him but he played it off anyway.  “So we sprinkle salt and light up the bones.  That it?”

 

“Usually.”

 

“What if nothing happens?  How will we know we did the job?”

 

“Sometimes we don’t know until somebody else goes missing.” There was a subtle difference in Dean’s voice that didn‘t take a profiler to understand.  He wasn’t teasing now.  He hated not knowing.

 

“You’re saying it’s an art not a science.”

 

“I would never say that,” Dean objected.  “But I wouldn’t disagree if you wanted to say it.”

 

“Oh yeah?  What would you call it?”

 

“A crap shoot.”

 

Morgan laughed and nodded his head as he got back to breaking his back.  The shovel scraped something hard and flat.  He tapped the tip around different spots and got the same hollow thump.  “I’m there.”

 

“You gotta get more of the dirt off.  The bones won’t kindle if all that loose earth falls on top of ‘em.”  

 

That made sense.  Morgan couldn’t see Dean’s face but his body language told him he was alert, maybe even on guard.  “Right,” Morgan agreed gloomily and resumed the never ending chore.  “So what are you looking for up there?”

 

“Just watching for any sign of little boy blue.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

 

Morgan thought he saw a flicker of light off to his right but by the time he looked it was gone.  He stared into the darkness.

 

“Do you want me to dig for awhile?” Dean asked.  “Pussy.”

 

“No,” Morgan denied, knowing he was being manipulated but too stubborn to give up the shovel anyway.  “I thought I saw something.  There it is again!”

 

“Oh yeah,” Dean agreed casually.  “We have a name for that.”

 

“What do you call it?” Morgan asked with bated breath as he watched for the mysterious light to show itself again.

 

“We call it a firefly.”

 

The light flickered closer and Morgan collapsed against the wall of earth beside him with relief he would deny to his own dying day.  It really was a firefly.

 

“Sammy!” Dean yelled again.

 

“I’m fine!” Sam answered from further away than he had the first time.  “I’m checking something out.  I’ll be back in a minute.”

 

“Dig faster,” Dean ordered Morgan uneasily.  “My stupid brother’s out there trying to get nabbed by this thing.”

 

“I thought you wanted to use him for bait.”  The digging was now a matter of moving the loose soil up to ground level.

 

“I did, but only where I could keep an eye on him,” Dean grumbled.  “This is an intelligent haunt, well as intelligent as a six year old can be anyway.  He was probably just waiting for one of us to wander off alone.”

 

“By intelligent you mean it’s aware of our presence.”

 

“And watching you dig up his grave right this very second.”

 

“You are one evil bastard, Winchester,” Morgan stated as he picked up the pace.  To his surprise Dean didn’t laugh.

 

“Down!” Dean shouted.

 

Morgan dropped to his belly in the grave just as the shotgun went off.  Above his head he had the impression of a burst of light.

 

“Sam!” Dean was calling again.

 

Sam came tearing through the underbrush just as Morgan peeked out.  “What‘s going on?” Sam and Morgan asked at the same time.

 

Dean held the gun ready and looked around in every direction.  “We screwed up,” he swore, not frightened but angry.

 

“What was it?” Sam pressed further, grabbing his brother by the arm to stop his circular pacing.

 

“We dug up the wrong grave.”

 

*****

 

“This is it?” Reid asked when the directions brought them straight to a rundown no-tell motel just off the small two lane road.

 

“It must be, that’s Derek’s car,” Garcia said as she cut the headlights and pulled into the parking lot.

 

“And that’s Gideon’s,” Reid agreed, cutting his eyes back to Garcia as she slowly drove past the familiar vehicles.  “Where are we going?  We found them.”

 

“You seem to be forgetting, they didn’t want to be found.”  Garcia turned around and backed into a spot next to a beat-up Pinto a few spots down and turned off the engine.

 

“Oh yeah.”

 

They both looked to the left to stare at the door on the end, the only room with a light on inside.

 

“I don’t see the Impala,” Garcia ventured.

 

“Gideon did say Derek went somewhere with Sam.  I guess they’re not back yet.”

 

A few minutes slowly trickled by as they waited in silence.

 

“Okay, mission accomplished.  We found them.  So what do we do now?” Reid finally asked his co-conspirator.

 

“You go knock on the door.”

 

“Me?”  

 

Garcia kept her eyes on the door when she answered.  “Yeah.  Gideon won’t yell at you.”

 

Reid  considered the plan for a few seconds to.  “Come with me.”

 

“Uh uh.  Somebody’s got to stay back and call for help.”

 

“What?” Reid jerked his head back in Garcia’s direction.

 

“Just in case,” Garcia explained rationally, meeting his eyes.  “One of us should be ready to call for help.”

 

“You’re not afraid of Sam Winchester,” Reid accused.  “You just don’t want to get yelled at.”

 

“Guilty.  But we really don’t know what’s going on and neither of us is going to be satisfied until we see them for ourselves.”

 

With a reluctant nod of agreement and acceptance of his fate Reid opened his door.  He didn‘t want to put Garcia in danger and Gideon probably wouldn‘t yell anyway.  “I’ll give you a signal if you should call... who are you going to call?”

 

“Nine one one.  Or Hotch.  Or nine one one and then Hotch.”

 

“At least you thought this though.”

 

“Give me a minute.” Garcia hummed to herself as she thought.  

 

Reid waited patiently at first, crossing his arms over his chest but it was clear Garcia was coming up blank.  “How’s this?  If I put one arm over my head like this,” he demonstrated by casually running a hand through his hair, “Call Hotch.”

 

“Got cha‘, one hand equals Hotch.  I‘ve got him on speed dial.”

 

“If I use two hands,” this time Reid rested both hands on top of his head like he was stretching his neck and back,  “Or if I get shot or drug into the room or something call nine one one.”

 

“You don’t think...”

 

“No, but like you said we really don’t know.”

 

“Okay, if you raise both hands I’ll call the police.  One if by land, two if by sea.”

 

“One Hotch, two police,” Reid confirmed as he swung his feet down to the ground.

 

“Good luck!”

 

“Thanks,” Reid told her with an narrow eyed glance that confirmed Garcia was ready with her phone.  He got out of the car and made his way across the dark parking lot to the only occupied room as far as he could tell.  Once there he tapped on the door four times with more confidence than he felt.

 

A minute passed before the porch light came on and Gideon opened the door.  “Reid,” he said huskily as if he had been sleeping.  “What are you doing here?”  He looked slightly rumpled but otherwise fine.

 

“Are you okay?” Reid asked, batting at a moth that began circling his head in the yellow light.  His eyes went wide and he turned to wave off Garcia, running back towards Ester.  “Stop, stop!  That wasn’t a signal!  There was a moth!”

 

Gideon wandered out in his sock feet to see what was going on.  He stayed on the sidewalk and followed along behind Reid when he spotted Garcia.

 

“I am so sorry,” Garcia was saying into her phone as Reid looked on thoroughly abashed.  “No sir, everything is fine I just accidentally hit speed dial... Yes sir, I know it’s three thirty in the morning and I am so sorry.  Please apologize to your wife for me... Yes sir.  Thank you, sir.”  She hung up the phone and glared at Reid.

 

“So much for Hotch’s peaceful weekend,” Reid muttered contritely.

 

“Are you all right?” Gideon asked Garcia.  

 

“At least until Hotch tears off a piece of me on Monday,” Garcia said with a sheepish grin.

 

“I’ll take the heat for this one,” Gideon told them both.  “I am fine.  Morgan is... I’m sure he’s fine, too.  So both of you, go home, go to bed.  I’ll try to explain what I can on Monday.”

 

Reid traded a defeated look with Garcia.  “Will you at least call us in the morning?” he turned back to Gideon to ask.

 

“Sure.  But sleep in.”

 

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Reid answered for both of them as Garcia stifled a yawn.

 

“Good night.”  Gideon waited on the sidewalk as Reid got in the car and Garcia started the engine.  He waved and went back inside as they drove away but the porch light remained on.

 

“We fail at life,” Garcia bemoaned, shivering in the early morning air that rushed over them, but now wide awake.

 

“No,” Reid disagreed.  “We needed to know they were safe.”

 

“I know.  You coming back with me in the morning?”

 

“Absolutely.”

 

*****

 

“Are you sure it was the mother?” Sam questioned for the third time as he returned from the latest perimeter sweep.

 

From the new hole in the ground Dean gave him a look that clearly said don’t ask that again.  

 

Already used to the brother’s bantering antics Morgan marveled instead at the economy of movement and the unbelievable speed at which the Winchesters tag-teamed to open up grave number two.  He hefted the sawed off shotgun and cast a wary eye around what was visible of the little cemetery through the blanket of vegetation.  Another couple of hours and the sun would be rising and damned if he’d ever be caught dead in another all night ghost hunt, no pun intended.

 

“What was she wearing?”  The youngest Winchester simply did not give up.

 

“White, lacy, death shroudy thing,” Dean replied tersely without breaking his rhythm, each hard-earned shovelful of earth bringing him closer to the casket.  

 

At least he sounded winded which gave Morgan some small, and admittedly petty, satisfaction because he knew first hand how firmly packed with roots the sandy soil was.  He had blisters for souvenirs and his back and shoulders wouldn’t soon forgive him either.  But it also proved Winchester was somehow, incredibly, still human which up until now Morgan had had his doubts.

 

“Civil war era?” Sam pushed as he squatted down and rummaged through the ever present duffle bag.

 

Now Dean stopped and glared.  “How the hell do I know?  And why the hell don’t you think it was Mommy Dearest?”

 

“It couldn’t have been.”  Sam opened the case file and held the flashlight on something as if checking his facts.  “The disappearances started immediately after the boy’s death and continued sporadically for over two hundred years.”

 

“And in all that time none of the bodies were ever found.”

 

“How many?” Morgan asked, his interest fully piqued.  “Who were the victims?”

 

Dean waved him off and got back to work but Sam turned to Morgan, file still in hand.  “Young male slaves started vanishing first, four of them, one at a time over a period of about a year.  That’s what prompted the rest of them to risk their lives by fleeing to the North.  They were trying to save their children.”

 

Morgan frowned and looked at the headstone behind Dean.  “Were there more disappearances after the slaves left?”

 

“It was a pretty regular thing until rumors of a curse spooked the locals enough to keep their boys away from this area.  Of course the legend died down in the last hundred years.”

 

“So the kids eventually came back,” Morgan mused.

 

“Yeah, and some genius decided to build a Jungle Golf on ground zero,” Dean huffed, not slowing in the least.  “Not to mention putting the thirteenth hole on top of unmarked graves.  That‘s more than bad luck, that‘s stupidity.”

 

“So you’re saying the majority of the boys went missing immediately after the planter’s son died,” Morgan ignored Dean’s comments and spoke directly to Sam.  He got his shoes covered in graveyard dirt for his trouble.

 

“Sorry,” Dean said with a smirk.

 

“What if it wasn’t the son?” Morgan forged on petulantly as he shook off one boot and then the other.  “What if it was the mother all along?”
 

“She didn’t die until several years later,” Sam argued.  

 

“Sam,”  Morgan replied, shaking his head.  “All monsters aren’t supernatural.  Some are just messed up people.  Maybe she was alive when she started killing and just continued after she passed.”

 

Finally Dean stopped digging.  “Why would she do that?” he asked with such abhorrence Morgan had to wonder how they‘d ever thought Dean could kill anyone in cold blood.

 

“Grief screws with your head,” Morgan explained, keeping it short.  “You’d be surprised what it can drive a person to do.”

 

“Not really,” Sam muttered with a veiled look at his brother as he stuffed the file and the flashlight into the duffle bag.  Then he reached a hand down to Dean and hauled him out of the grave.  Without a word between them they switched tools.  Dean took the salt filled shot gun, Sam the shovel.  Sam jumped into the hole and got to work.

 

Dean looked around then grabbed the bag and sauntered over to sit on the next tombstone over.  “How do you think she killed them?” he asked Morgan with an unexpected amount of deference to his greater knowledge of the human kind of monster.

 

“You say her son drown?” Morgan asked and Dean confirmed with a nod.  “That’s a fair bet then.”

 

“Pond’s long gone,” Dean noted, his breathing already back to normal.  Morgan was going to have to find out how he stayed in such top condition.

 

“Yeah, and bodies dumped there would have resurfaced eventually,” Morgan agreed.

 

“In the nineteen thirties someone built an ice house over an old plantation well,” Sam joined the conversation from deep in the grave.  “Bobby always thought that was a likely location for a bone yard.”

 

Dean dug out the folder and flashlight again to find the rough map.  “Surely she wouldn’t dump bodies in their drinking water.”

 

“It wasn’t a functional well, it was too shallow.   They hit rock they couldn’t get through and it went dry soon after they dug it so they boarded it up,” Sam told them. “But it still flooded when it rained.”

 

“How does he..?” Morgan asked but trailed off at the fond amusement on Dean’s face in the dim light.  “Research.  I suppose he just remembers all the details.”

 

“Hey, you have one, too,” Dean pointed out as he tapped a finger against his temple.  “How is Reid by the way?  Have you been to the range with him?”

 

“I have.  In fact we try to shoot once or twice a month.  The stance you taught him seems to help.”

 

“Good.”  

 

As they sat in silence, except for the shoop, shoop of the shovel, it occurred to Morgan he could finally ask the question he’d harbored practically his whole life.  And he might even get a straight answer that didn‘t include a psyche evaluation.  It took him a few minutes to wrap his head around the fact and a few more to screw his courage up.  “I guess I owe you one ghost story,” he finally ventured softly.

 

Dean didn’t turn his head but Morgan knew he was listening from his body language.  “You haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary yet,” Dean replied after a beat.

 

“No, but you said you did.  I... trust you.”

 

“That’s a switch,” Dean said with a laugh.  He got up and trudged over and Morgan scooted just far enough for them to share the low headstone turned impromptu bench.  

 

Sam kept digging but Morgan thought he was probably listening.  But he had held his questions almost as long as Sam had been alive and he strongly suspected what one Winchester knew the other knew, too, within a matter of time.

 

“Why would someone who was supposed to love someone else come back just to scare them?” Morgan blurted out sounding all of the eight years old he’d been at the time.

 

Dean didn’t look at him but nodded thoughtfully and seemed to follow the meaning behind the jumbled words.  “A family member?”

 

“My grandmother.  I woke up the night after her funeral when she sat on the side of my bed and smiled at me.  I clenched my eyes shut and she stroked my forehead with the iciest fingers you can imagine.  When I opened my eyes again she was gone.”

 

“You ever see her again?”

 

“No.”

 

“Sounds like she had unfinished business,” Dean stated matter of factly.

 

“What unfinished business?  To give her youngest grandson nightmares for the rest of his life?”

 

“No,” Dean sighed.  “She probably wanted to say good-bye to the person she loved the most in the whole world.  She may not have had any choice in the matter or even realized she was scaring you.  I mean give her a break, she just died.  It was, what would Gideon say?  Off putting?”

 

Morgan had to laugh.  “I guess.”

 

“So she did what she had to do to find her peace,” Dean soothed and it made perfect sense even if the tone didn‘t fit his tough guy image.  

 

It belatedly occurred to Morgan that Dean Winchester was comforting him and... it was working.  The mind boggled.  

 

“Did you ever tell anybody?” Dean asked when the silence stretched a little too long.

 

Morgan realized he’d been sitting there with his mouth hanging open in relief and, oddly, gratitude.  “Yeah, yeah,”  he hastened to say.  “Mom told me it was just a dream but I knew it wasn’t,” he added, trying not to sound bitter.

 

Dean shrugged, still being quietly supportive in his own way.  “They always say that.”

 

The shovel made a few loud clanks interspersed with splintering wood.  Dean was up before the echo of the first blow faded.  He put down the gun and reached in the duffle to pull out a large box of salt which he held out to Morgan, and a bottle of lighter fluid.  

 

“What about that one?” Morgan asked, inclining his head to the boy’s still open grave as he accepted the box of salt.

 

“We’ll burn both of them,” Sam told him.

 

“Just to make sure,” Dean finished.  He held a hand down to pull his brother up but as Sam reached up to him he shimmered and disappeared into thin air.  “Sam!”  Dean dropped the lighter fluid and spun in a circle.  “Where’s my brother, you bitch!” he screamed as he grabbed the gun.

 

She appeared between them, an avenging angel with arms outstretched toward Morgan and murder in her luminous eyes.  He could see Winchester right through her and hit the ground instinctively as Dean fired at her head.  Light fled in every direction and she dispersed like spent lightning.  

 

“The salt, the salt,” Dean ordered frantically as he scrambled for the lighter fluid and began to spray it on top of first one desiccated body and then the other.

 

Still clutching the box to his chest Morgan tore the lid off the salt and slid to the side of the closest grave, hers, to shake out a generous portion on top of the bones.  

 

Dean snatched the salt away and dumped the rest on the remains of the boy.  “Light it!  Her first before she can drown Sam!”

 

Fishing out the matches with shaking hands, Morgan did as he was told.  It took two attempts but he finally flung a lit match onto the first coffin.  It was already in flames as he struck another match and toasted the other one.  There was an unearthly scream and the vision of the woman in the white death shroud appeared briefly in the flames that consumed her remains.  Then she was gone and the only sound was the crack of the fire.

 

“How do we find Sam?” Morgan asked urgently as he recovered his wits and turned around.  

 

But Dean had no answer as he lay sprawled on the ground spellbound by the dual infernos, frozen with a look on his face that could only be described as mute terror.

 

*****

 

Sam woke up confused, not that he was sure he was ever really asleep or, more likely, unconscious.  In fact he was almost certain he had been whisked instantly from the graveyard to here, wherever here was.  One second he had been reaching for Dean’s hand and the next he was flat on his back in the dark.  Only it wasn’t just dark he realized when his eyes failed to adjust, but pitch black.  He literally couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.

 

The air felt damp and smelled musty like an old tomb and was slightly cooler than it had been outside.  Even without the use of his eyes he knew from the lack of wind and ambient night sounds he was in some type of structure or cave.  Whatever he was laying on was particularly uneven and he had to tug a rock out from under his right butt cheek as he sat up.  He fingered the odd double stone but when he realized it had a long shaft opposite the twin head he dropped it and scrambled to his feet.  A femur.  A fucking femur.  

 

“Found the bone yard,” he muttered as a shiver went up his spine.  “Dean!  DEAN!” he yelled without wasting any more time, dismayed by the way the void swallowed his voice.  

 

Doubting anyone would hear him he reserved his energy and pulled out his phone.  But it was dead, of course, even though it had been fully charged when they left South Dakota.  He didn’t know if the spirit manifesting itself had drained it or if he needed to check the battery to make sure it was getting a full charge.  Focusing on the mundane helped keep him from freaking out over the mass grave he was surely standing on but he knew he needed to relocate ASAP so he put the phone away.

 

He reached out and moved forward cautiously, nearly stumbling on the mound of small tangled skeletons beneath his feet, half-buried in two centuries worth of  dry mud.  It felt disrespectful to walk on the remains but since they seemed to be everywhere under foot and he couldn’t fly, he had no choice.  Still, the crunch of old bones from young boys nearly sickened him.

 

Luckily two stuttered steps brought him to a rough brick wall that rounded slightly under his fingertips.  Bobby had been right about one thing, even if he‘d had the wrong suspect; the well was the dumping ground.  And if Agent Morgan was correct this was also where the grieving mother had drowned her victims.  

 

Fingering the deep crevices, Sam decided he could probably scale the wall even if he didn’t know what he would find at the top.  But it sure as hell beat sitting around waiting to be rescued.  Not that he had any doubt he would be, but Dean was probably going ape shit over his disappearance right about now and would have to get that out of his system before he could settle down and find the well.  He had plenty of time to climb.

 

As he began searching for the best place to attempt an ascent, he pondered if the earliest victims, the victims of the living, breathing monster, had all gone missing after a rainstorm.  Otherwise the well would have been dry.  He decided Dean wouldn’t sit around in Virginia while he tried to figure out two hundred year old weather patterns after the case was done so he let the thought go.

 

His third careful step around the perimeter landed his foot in a puddle, more heard than felt through his boots.  He started to backtrack but now it was wet behind him as well and deep enough for the icy water to seep in around his bootlaces.  Maniacal laughter came from nowhere and everywhere at once and suddenly he was ankle deep as the long dry well seemed to fill from the bottom up.  It was to his knees in no time and bones began to crash against his legs as the water started to swirl and churn violently.  

 

Sam stopped looking and started climbing right where he was, easily finding finger holds in the dark.  But the water was faster and quickly overtook him, threatening to pull him away from the wall.  Just as he took a deep breath and prepared to be submerged he heard an agonized scream and knew Dean had just smoked the murderous bitch.  

 

His relief was short lived as the putrid water failed to fall away.  At least it stopped rising and the thrashing below him began to die down.  Soon it was quiet and all he could hear was his own ragged breath and the occasional clank of bone against brick as the water continued to settle.  

 

He climbed a little higher but his hands were wet and cold and he didn’t know how long he would be able hold on before they went numb.  But he knew what was below him and decided to try to make it to the top.  Hopefully he could wedge himself in somehow while he waited for Dean and Morgan.

 

*****

 

With basically no idea how or where the younger brother had gone Morgan knew he had to snap Dean out of his rather significant hysterical paralysis if they were going to find him.  And if Sam was still alive they needed to find him soon to make sure he stayed that way.  Against every protective instinct he had, Morgan still hesitated.  Ghost hunting aside, up until this moment Morgan had still, in the back of his mind, been trying to figure out how Dean had so perfectly faked his own death.

 

In retrospect their earlier conversation made sense, after all, how hard was it to strike a match?  It wasn’t.  Not unless you had some deep seated pyrophobia or post traumatic stress from say... spending time in the Lake of Fire.  Ghosts?  Morgan could deal with ghosts, he had at least some frame of reference for disembodied spirits.  And he didn’t have any real heartburn with the concept of eternal damnation either, in his line of work it was oddly comforting to believe certain people eventually got their just punishment even if it wasn‘t in the Earthy realm.  But the reality of the oft preached fire and brimstone Hell would take some getting used to.

 

Realizing he was wasting precious time Sam might not have, Morgan stowed his epiphany for the moment and forced himself back to the business at hand.  His internal analysis of the life, death, and resurrection of Dean Winchester would have to wait for a quieter time and a bottle of something stronger than beer.

 

“Winchester,”  Morgan called as calmly as he could under the circumstances as he approached Dean.  He leaned over him and shook him by the shoulder but didn’t get so much as a flicker of a response.  “Winchester!” he tried a little louder with a harder shake but he still wasn’t getting through.

 

Morgan decided the most expedient thing to do would be to move Dean out of sight of the fire.  He planted his feet on either side of him and hoisted him up with a double handful of shirt, intending to put him across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.  But the move brought Dean that much closer to the flames, close enough to start a wild keening and worse, kick in his fight or flight reflex.  Morgan suddenly doubted Dean had ever used the flight option in his life as he took a knee to the gut and a fist to the head.  The keening became even more horrifying screams that sounded like they were stripping Dean’s throat from the inside out.

 

Instead of letting go Morgan tightened his grip and pulled Dean in close enough that he couldn’t get too much force behind the ongoing flurry of punches.  Dean could hurt a man in a fair fight Morgan full well knew, he could feel the coiled power in each attempted blow.  But in this uncontrolled animal frenzy he realized Dean might actually kill him if he got the chance.  For everybody‘s sake, Morgan wasn‘t going to give it to him.  

 

Acting on years of training Morgan dropped at the knees and fell backwards taking Dean with him.  He rolled onto his posterior and used the momentum to throw Dean completely over his head.  Dean landed flat on his back which knocked the wind out of him as he hit the ground and abruptly silenced the inhuman noises.  Morgan didn’t give him time to recover but yanked Dean’s outer shirt, of which he still had two firm handholds, up and over Dean’s face, ripping the fabric and losing a few buttons in the process.

 

He let go of Dean long enough to collect one of the shotguns and the duffle bag then he grabbed Dean under the arm and pulled him up.   Making sure his face stayed covered Morgan  awkwardly manhandled him towards the car.  Dean stumbled at first and Morgan nearly lost him going over the short fence but they recovered and Dean let Morgan guide him with little resistance.  He only whimpered a few times but soon quieted and started to struggle the last few steps.  Morgan shoved him hard into the side of the Impala, his version of the clichéd slap to the face in a last ditch effort to fully snap him out of it.

 

Dean hit the car with a thump that probably left a bruise on one side of the impact and a dent on the other.  Ripping it even further, Dean struggled out of the impromptu blindfold and flung it to the ground leaving him in a rucked up, sweat stained gray tee shirt.  He glared at Morgan, obviously furious and near tears but he was present in mind.  “What the fuck?” he yelled, leaning into the car like it was the only thing keeping him vertical even as he balled both hands into fists.

 

“We have to find Sam!” Morgan shouted back, getting in his face, certain it was the fastest way to get Dean’s attention and avoid another brawl.

 

“Sam,” Dean gasped and pressed a hand hard against his forehead as if he were actively pushing away any lingering thoughts of the fire.  Then he was upright and moving fast, forcing his way past Morgan.  “Sammy!”  

 

“Where are we going?” Morgan asked as he lugged the duffle bag and tried to keep up.    “The ice house?” he guessed.  That would have been his first stop if Dean hadn’t come around.

 

Dean didn’t answer but moved through the woods swiftly and with purpose, calling for his brother every inch of the way.  It was still dark but Morgan could see the sky ahead of them was beginning to lighten which confirmed his estimation they were heading due East.  Dean had either memorized the map or spotted the ice house on one of his earlier perimeter sweeps because as they entered a large clearing they could make out a ramshackle structure on the other side.  

 

“Sam!” Dean cried as he reached what was left of the old ice house and began to circle it.  “Sammy!”

 

Morgan arrived just as Dean completed his first panicked round of the building.  He grabbed Dean by the arms.  “Shh.  Listen,” he said just in time to avoid another punch to the face.

 

“Dean!” came the muffled answer from somewhere below.

 

Before Morgan even had time to breath a sigh of relief Dean was moving to the  door and using his bare hands to pull at the board nailed across it.  “Crowbar,” Dean ordered.

 

“What?”  Morgan dropped the bag and unzipped it.  It only took a second to find the crowbar inside.  He handed it to Dean and stood back as he popped off first one end of the board in a shower of splintered wood, and then the other.  In another instant Dean had the whole door down as he crashed through rather than messing with the lock.  Granted the door wasn’t in the greatest shape but Morgan made a mental note to never again come between Dean and his brother.

 

“Be careful,” Morgan warned as the roof was already partially collapsed, but Dean didn’t hesitate to enter.  Morgan followed more cautiously.

 

“Sam!”

 

“Here!  Dean!”  Sam’s voice was definitely coming from beneath the flagstone floor.  

 

“Are you okay?” Dean asked urgently.  

 

“Yeah, I’m... yeah,” Sam answered.  “Just hurry.”

 

Dean cast a worried glance at Morgan at the answer before repeatedly stomping on the middle of the ceiling beam and adjunct piece of roof that took up most of the small room.  The old wood shattered under the assault and sent dust everywhere.

 

“Hang tight, Sam,” Morgan advised Sam as he jumped in to help move the debris.  

 

He got an odd laugh in return.  “I’ll try to do that.”

 

Dean used the crowbar to chip away the antiquated cement seams around the huge center stone of the flat rocks that fit together to make up the floor.  Morgan grabbed a machete out of the duffle and helped.

 

“How are we gonna get this up?” Dean asked as he worked his way around.

 

“We could use rope to make a fulcrum.”

 

“A fulcrum?  Really?”

 

“Yeah, it should be pretty easy...”

 

“Uh, guys?” Sam urged, sounding a little shakier than before.

 

“Or we could just muscle it out of the way,” Morgan amended.

 

“Sounds like a plan,” Dean agreed.  He worked the flat end of the crowbar under the edge of the stone and nodded at Morgan.

 

“Wait,” Morgan said before finding a suitable two by four from the destroyed door that looked like it had only been added in the last decade or so.  “Okay.”

 

Dean grunted with effort as he put all his weight onto the crowbar.  As the stone began to lift with an eerie groan of its own Morgan wedged the board into the opening as soon as it was wide enough.  Dean removed the crowbar and grabbed another piece of wood and pushed it even further back.  They worked back and forth until the stone was raised about six inches on one side.

 

The first rays of dawn peeked through the hole in the roof and Sam’s face appeared at the top of the well.  Dean took the flashlight and shined it in as he bent down to get a look at him.  “Hey,” he said gently.

 

Morgan could see that Sam was almost spread eagle across the gaping pit of the well with his feet bracing him from the other side.  If he’d been a few inches shorter he wouldn’t have been able to walk himself around to the opening.

 

“Hurry,” Sam whispered.

 

“Stay down in case we drop it,” Morgan cautioned and with a look at Dean they each grabbed a side of the stone and pried it up another six inches.

 

“I don’t think it’s going much further,” Dean grunted.  “Sam!  Move now!”

 

Sam dropped his feet and almost fell back into the abyss before scrambling out of the hole.  He rolled away just as Dean lost his grip and tumbled backwards.  

 

“Morgan!” Dean warned.

 

Morgan let go instantly and jumped back as the flagstone crashed back into place.  He sank to the ground, once again out of breath.  His back hurt like hell and his blisters had blisters but he never felt so good.

 

Closing his eyes against the weak rays of sun coming through the roof, Sam groaned and rubbed his arms.  “Thanks,” he muttered tiredly but no one seemed to have the energy to answer at the moment.  

 

Dean finally patted Sam’s wet boot, the only part he could reach without getting up, as he rolled onto his back on the very stone they’d just pried up.  “You stink,”  he said.

 

“We stink.”

 

“Yeah.  That’s what I said.”  Dean casually brushed away a huge spider from his dirt streaked jeans.  “Did she go up in smoke?” he finally asked Morgan.

 

“Oh yeah,” Morgan told him, noting the way Sam cut his eyes towards his brother.  “I think we can close this case.”

 

“What about the boys?” Sam asked quietly, seeming to look through the stone Dean was on.

 

“You found them?” Morgan questioned in surprise although he supposed he shouldn‘t be.

 

Sam huffed.  “They sorta found me.”

 

“I think the FBI might get an anonymous tip in a few weeks,” Dean offered as he sat up and offered Morgan a hand.  “But it should probably wait until it rains again to get rid of any evidence that we were here.”

 

“It’ll be awfully hard to explain the different ages of the bodies,” Morgan mused as he let Dean pull him into a sitting position but no further.  

 

“That’s why it’ll be anonymous.  Let the FBI worry about explaining it.  I don’t know about you two, but I’m starving.”

 

“I’m down with that,” Morgan agreed, just happy everyone survived the night.

 

Sam shook his head.  “We’re not done yet.  We’ve still got to fill those graves back in.  Luckily we‘re probably deep enough in the woods no one will come across us this early on a Saturday.”

 

Morgan looked at a smug Dean then flopped back to the floor with a groan.

 

“Welcome to my world,” Dean told him, patting him on the stomach.

 

*****

 

Reid stretched as he woke, almost rolling off the couch.  He frowned slightly as his eyes adjusted until he remembered he was at Garcia‘s place.  It was already light out but the shadows inside the apartment were still deep.  He squinted at his watch.  It surprised him that it was almost seven o’clock.  Just as he wondered if he should wake Garcia she came out of the bedroom.

 

“Rise and shine,” Garcia greeted breezily as she flipped opened the drapes and sent the shadows packing.  She was already fully dressed and fluffed and painted and smelling so good.  She was such a girl.  Reid grinned at her goofily.  “What?” she asked.

 

“What’s on the agenda this morning?” Reid asked, not about to tell her how comforting he found her womanly ways.  “Do we just show up and knock on the door?  Or do we call first?”

 

“Yeah, like they’d pick up.”

 

“So show up and knock on the door it is,” Reid agreed.

 

*****

 

The diner waitresses were different but the cook, and probably the owner given his hours, was the same and as unpleasant as ever.  Morgan was sure everyone in the place had noticed how dirty they were when they walked in but only the cook had called them on it as they waited for a table.  Thus the line to the bathroom -- ‘clean up or get the hell out‘.  

 

Morgan listened guiltily to the slew of messages on his phone as he waited in the hall while Dean was inside primping.  At least he was ahead of Sam, who looked like he was asleep as he leaned against the wall with a bundle of probably equally dirty but less damp clothes he’d dug out of the Impala’s trunk.  

 

“Gideon?” Sam asked without opening his eyes.

 

“I spoke to him a few minutes ago while you were selecting your wardrobe for the day.  He’s going to meet us here.  But that was Garcia,” Morgan informed him.  “And Reid.  And Garcia.  And Reid... you get the idea.  Actually I’m not surprised baby girl called Reid after last night.”

 

Sam stood up straight, now fully alert.  “How is Garcia?”

 

Morgan shrugged.  “She’s tough.  But she was kidnapped and held hostage in her own home.  That‘s got to have some kind of emotional impact.”

 

Dean chose that moment to come out of the bathroom.  His arms and face were clean but his clothes still looked like he‘d been playing in the dirt.  “What?  When?  I’ll kill some piece of...” he trailed off and eyed his culpable looking little brother.  “You didn’t,” he growled.  “Sam!  What the fuck were you thinking?”

 

“I didn’t mean to scare her, I just needed to get Gideon’s number...”

 

“There’s no excuse for scaring civilians,” Dean cut him off as he spun up for a lecture.

 

“Sorry,” Morgan muttered to Sam as he ducked into the bathroom.  He figured as hard as Dean had worked to rescue Sam from the well a few hours prior he probably wouldn’t kill him in a diner.  Not in front of witnesses anyway.  The deep rumble of Dean’s angry voice continued to filter through the door for a few minutes but it eventually went quiet.

 

In the meantime Morgan peed first then moved to the sink to wash up.  When he looked in the mirror to clean his face he saw what Dean had recognized.  A believer.  Maybe that guy had always been there but this was the first time Morgan had ever acknowledged him.  If life seemed different this morning it was also oddly the same.

 

When Morgan finished up and came out only a thoroughly chastised Sam remained in the hall.  He suddenly felt sorry for the guy.  He was only trying to help his brother.  “You okay?” he asked.  “That was some dressing down.”

 

“Yeah.  I’m okay, I deserved it,” Sam muttered as he brushed past Morgan into the bathroom.

 

“This ain’t no bathhouse,” the cook leaned into the little hall to warn as Sam shut the door.  “Be quick about it.”

 

“Yes sir,” Sam answered dejectedly.  

 

The poor kid just couldn’t win for losing.  Morgan shook his head and went back to the dining room.  

 

The place was packed even though it was late into the breakfast rush.  They still might have to wait for a table Morgan thought, but no.  He spotted Dean in the far back booth already working his charm on the younger of the two waitresses as she cleaned the table from the previous customers.  Instead of handing her the tip from under the ketchup bottle Dean grinned at her and tucked it into the girl’s apron.  Whatever he said made her giggle enough that Morgan had to roll his eyes.

 

Morgan made his way over as the waitress walked away with a stack of dirty plates and a smile a mile wide.  She was blushing brilliantly, not surprising with her pale skin and red hair, but she looked as if whatever Dean had said to her had made her day.  It occurred to Morgan it was a good thing Dean really wasn’t a serial killer because he would have been very, very proficient at it.  

 

“I‘m buying,” Dean told him as Morgan slid into the booth opposite him and plucked out one of the menus from behind the napkin holder.  “But I’m hungry so I went ahead and ordered three of the ‘big breakfast’ and coffee.  Unless you’re watching your girlish figure.  Or your cholesterol, old man.”

 

“I’m not that much older than you and I can damn well eat anything you can eat,” Morgan replied, taking the bait if only to keep Dean engaged.  Something was troubling Dean but he was a master at hiding it.  Only a profiler or a brother would know.  Or someone who’d seen Dean travel back to Hell in his mind.  And Morgan was two of the three.

 

“What about Gideon?”

 

“He probably is watching his cholesterol.  He can order when he gets here.”

 

“And how are you paying for this?” Morgan questioned.  The one thing that still bothered him about the Winchesters was their penchant for credit card fraud and he wasn’t about to be any part of it.

 

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it,” Dean soothed with a cocky grin.  Sam was right, Dean could be a first class jerk when he wanted to.

 

“If anything takes you down it’s gonna be the credit cards,” Morgan warned low enough only Dean could hear him.

 

“Hey, bullets aren‘t cheap,” Dean spat back just as low.  “And we gotta eat.”

 

“Yeah, but...”

 

“Hunting is a full time gig, so don’t tell me to get a job...” Dean stopped mid-sentence and looked up, his mouth falling open.  If it had been anyone else Morgan would have said he looked like he’d seen a ghost.

 

There was a feminine gasp in Morgan’s ear and Dean was coming out of his seat.  

 

“Sunny,” Dean said and guided Garcia down to the bench he‘d just vacated.  He knelt beside her and fanned her with the menu Morgan handed him.

 

“I... oh,  I...” Garcia cooed in confusion as she stared first at Dean and then at Morgan.  “Deeaannn!” she finally managed, capturing his hands in hers.  “But... you’re...”

 

He brought one of her hands to his mouth and kissed it as he shushed her.  “I can explain,” he told her gently.

 

“Someone’s in the bathroom but I think I can wait,” Reid complained as he joined them, walking up behind Dean without really seeing him.  “What’s going on?” he asked as he took in the scene.  When Dean looked up to meet his gaze Reid took an involuntary step back.  “How?” was all he got out.

 

“Easy, Reid,” Morgan cautioned.  He got up and caught him by the arm to tug him closer, eventually seating him across from Garcia.  “There’s a very good explanation for this.”

 

“Yeah, sure there is,” Dean agreed, actually letting Morgan take the lead.  The bastard.  “Tell ‘em.”

 

“So there’s still going to be four of you?” the waitress asked as she brought over cups and silverware.  “Or five.”

 

Sam walked up behind the waitress and gritted his teeth when he saw what was going on.  “Uh oh,” he muttered from over her shoulder, sharing a slightly panicked look with Dean.

 

“Actually it looks like there might be six of us,” Morgan corrected.  “I think we’re going to need a bigger table.”

 

“Oh.  Well here’s a private room in the back for meetings and stuff but I‘ll have to ask Stanley...”

 

“That sounds perfect,” Morgan told her as Garcia started to breath a little funny as she took Dean‘s face between her hands.  “In fact the sooner we could get back there the better.”

 

They had the attention of a lot of people and nobody seemed to be eating.

 

“What the hell’s going on out here?” the cook asked as he came out of the kitchen.  “What are you doing to that girl?”

 

“It’s my sister,” Dean announced to the room in general as he stood up.  “I just got back from Iraq and I guess I should have gone right home but it was the middle of the night so me and my buds went mudding and... well, she ruined my surprise.”  He smiled and shrugged and everybody in the whole damn place bought his ‘aw shucks‘ routine.

 

“I thought you were dead,” Garcia stammered, tearing up as she pulled Dean back down to her.

 

“I know.  I’m sorry,” Dean told her sincerely as he kissed her forehead.  

 

There was some oh-ing and aw-ing around them as people got back to their own business.  The waitress got choked up and even the cook softened.  “We got us a war hero here?” he asked, his voice still gruff but for a different reason.

 

“I ain’t no hero,” Dean denied.

 

“That’s bull,” Morgan told the cook honestly .  “This man is a hero if I ever met one.”

 

“Don’t just stand there, Charlene, get ‘em the conference room,” the cook ordered as he charged back to the kitchen.  “Breakfast is on me.”  He stopped then and made a clarification.  “Not all of ‘em, just the hero.”

 

“You’re all heart, Stanley,” the waitress called after him.  “Ya’ll come on this way.  We’ll get you set up in the back.”

 

They fell in line behind her, Dean escorting Garcia and Morgan leading Reid.  Sam brought up the rear and motioned to Gideon to join them as he came in the front door.

 

“Uh oh,” Gideon said simply.  He put his hands in his pockets and followed.

 

*****

 

Sam thought the ‘conference room’ moniker fit the small, windowless enclosure about as well as Gideon’s ‘coffee shop’ designation fit the old diner.  There was a four by six foot area of open space near the door but a large round table took up most of the back of the room.  In fact it left just enough space to squeeze in around the chairs.  But it was private and right now that was all they really needed.   That, or get in the Impala and ride away leaving Dean right back where he started.  And that was no option at all.

 

The problem with the layout of the room was more than just the cramped space providing no real place to put his legs, Sam dealt with that scenario on a regular basis since he was like fifteen.  Mostly getting trapped between the table and the wall had to do with one particular lesson that had been drilled into them growing up; always leave yourself a quick egress.  

 

Sam hung back to let some of the shorter people find their way around the table but at the moment breakfast was a non-issue.  Everyone was too busy either freaking out over Dean not being dead, or trying to control the level of freak out.  Even at four against two by Sam’s count the freak...ees seemed to be winning.  No one was even trying to find a seat.  

 

“How is this possible?” The skinny FBI dude blurted out before Charlene even left.  “Is it really you?” he asked Dean.  “I mean, you are corporeal, aren’t you?  Or are you some kind of apparition or... or.... specter?  Doppelganger?  Familiar?”

 

Dean cleared his throat and smiled quickly at Charlene as she looked up from wiping the dust off the table.  “That’s funny,” Dean said, dropping the smile abruptly as he turned to the guy.  “Doppelganger.  That’s a good one, Reid.”

 

So that was Reid.  He didn’t look so smart with his mouth hanging open.  Sam doubted Charlene had any idea what super genius was talking about but agreed it might be a good idea to shut him up.  He sent a warning look to Dean who in turn shot a pleading one to Gideon.  

 

Then Dean handed Sunny -- Sam just couldn’t think of her as Garcia -- off to Morgan and surprisingly she went without a fuss.  Sam had to assume the two were close even though Morgan apparently called her by her last name just like everyone else did.

 

“Come here, baby girl.”  Or maybe he didn’t always.  Interesting.

 

“I don’t understand what‘s happening,” Sunny began but opted to bury her head in Morgan’s chest when he wrapped his arms around her and shushed the top of her head.

 

“Let’s all sit down,” Gideon suggested.  Firmly.  Sam put his hand on an outside chair, claiming it, but no one else moved.

 

“No,” Reid refused, physically as well as metaphorically digging in his heels as Gideon tried to propel him towards the table.  Sam could practically see the wheels spinning in his head.  “Just wait.  I need to understand...”

 

“Reid,” Gideon interrupted, indicating the waitress with a slight inclination of his head.  

 

“But this is historic!” Reid exclaimed as another younger, redheaded waitress brought in a tray with a pot of coffee, silverware, and cups.  

 

Great.  An even bigger audience.  Sam thought about asking if the place had a PA system so they could share the experience with the rest of the customers but that probably wasn’t necessary since Reid was getting louder by the minute.  Tess, according to her nametag, stopped in the door transfixed by Reid’s exuberance.  

 

“This is... this is... this will change the world!”

 

Enough was enough.  Dean moved in and caught Reid under the arm and attempted to hustle him out of the room.  “I thought you had to pee?”

 

But the maneuver backfired as Reid gasped and grabbed Dean back.  “You are alive.  It really is you.”  He patted Dean’s shoulder with affection tempered by awe followed by an equally awkward hug.

 

Dean nodded and hugged him back, giving Sam a looked that dared him to ever mention it again over Reid’s shoulder.  

 

“I’ve got him,” Gideon told Dean as he reeled Reid by with the other elbow.  “Bathroom.  Now.”

 

“But...” Reid protested, still staring at Dean as Gideon pulled him away.  “It’s really him.”

 

“I know,” Gideon assured with the patience of a saint as he propelled Reid out of the room.  “Let’s go talk about it, just you and me.”

 

“How sweet,” Sam ribbed.  He couldn’t help it and even if he could Dean totally expected it.  He didn’t want to disappoint him.

 

“Don’t start,” Dean warned tersely as he stole the chair Sam had been about to sit in.

 

Finally Morgan seated Sunny next to Dean then went around the opposite way to sit on her other side.

 

“Do you folks need a few minutes to look at the menu?” Tess asked as Charlene helped her fill the cups and pass them out.  

 

“Big Breakfasts all around,” Dean instructed as he took a cup of coffee and began to pour sugar into it.  “White toast and sausage.”  He added a wink and Tess lit up.

 

“I’ll get that order in right away,” Tess said a little too breathily to be anything but a put on.  Charlene shook her head and followed her out.

 

Sam knew the simple order was to get the waitresses out of the room as quickly as possible but he started to object anyway.  The smell from the well still lingered in his nostrils and he didn’t really feel like anything too heavy.  But he also knew Dean was pissed about the thing with Sunny so he decided not to rock the boat.  

 

“Hi,” he said when he realized Sunny was staring right at him as he took the chair next to Dean.  “Listen, I am really sorry about last night.”

 

“I understand,” Sunny accepted benevolently but then let her gaze travel over to Dean.  “I mean I don’t understand but I know why you did it.”

 

Dean turned to Morgan with a look Sam knew all too well.  It was a challenge.  The ball was in Morgan’s court and Sam found himself holding his breath to see where, or if, he’d hit it.

 

“Winchester was deep undercover for the NIA,” Morgan lied smoothly, keeping his voice low. “By ‘killing’ him they were able to pull him out without blowing his cover.”

 

Sam raised an eyebrow and shared a nod with Dean.  If nothing else, Morgan paid attention.  They would do well to stay out of his crosshairs.

 

“I can’t tell you why I needed Morgan’s help,” Dean picked the story right up, “And for my safety, as well as Sam’s, I need you to keep this whole thing a secret.”

 

“Of course!  You don’t even have to ask,” Sunny promised.  “My lips are sealed.”  She pantomimed zipping her lips, locking them, and throwing away the key.

 

“That’s my girl,” Dean approved, taking her hand.

 

“Uh uh,” Morgan objected playfully as he put an arm around her shoulders.  “I saw her first.”

 

“Boys, please,” Sunny gushed with a gleam in her eye, reminding Sam a little of Mae West.  “There’s enough of me to go around.”

 

They all laughed and Sam smiled right along with them.  Dean said they had treated him well in those dark last days.  They were good people, all of them.  And maybe, just maybe Gideon really could help.  At least he was willing to try.  Dean would be the immovable object.  Sam would just have to be the irresistible force.  So.  Business as usual then.

 

*****

 

Gideon ignored the glare of the cook, who seemed to be terribly interested in their little get together, as he hustled Reid by the kitchen.  His intention was to take him outside but he could see a crowd of locals gathered in groups to socialize just outside the door.  So instead of using the exit he turned down a narrow hallway, pushed Reid into the tiny unisex bathroom and shut the door.

 

“Don’t even try to tell me that’s not Dean Winchester out there,” Reid began loudly but lowered his voice incrementally as Gideon shushed him until he was whispering urgently.  “And don’t say he didn’t die because I was there.  I saw them take his body away,” he added sounding like it had happened only yesterday.

 

“I know,” Gideon empathized, taking Reid by the shoulders.  “I’m not going to insult your intelligence by lying about it.  That would be fruitless at best.  I also know you‘ve developed a keen interest in the supernatural since meeting Dean.”  

 

The lack of denial stopped Reid cold and whatever eloquent argument he‘d been about to unfurl died on his lips.  “How?” Reid asked instead.

 

Gideon shook his head and chuckled.  It all seemed so surreal in the light of day.  For all intents and purposes he was still speechless.  Certainly he was sleep-deprived but he had managed a couple of hours just before dawn, that wasn’t really the problem.  How could he explain what he didn’t understand?  “I have no idea,” he admittedly frankly.

 

“We have to find out,” Reid insisted without missing a beat.  “This could change everything.  This could take death out of the picture completely...”

 

“Hold on,” Gideon said, actually shaking Reid by the shoulders to get him to slow down.  “We can’t tell anybody.”

 

Again Reid gaped at him for a second.  “Why not?”

 

Gideon sighed.  He was no match for an adamant Reid on most days, today least of all.  “First of all because if it were known Dean was alive it would put him right back to being a confessed serial killer...”

 

“That confession was bogus,” Reid cut in.  Adamant and obstinate.

 

“Yes, it was.  That doesn’t mean a prosecutor can’t make it stick.  Especially given the truth.”

 

“Yes, exactly!  Dean rose from the dead.  Other than Lazarus and Jesus Christ himself, and a few reports of zombies in Haiti...”

 

“Reid.”

 

“It doesn’t happen every day,” Reid cut to the chase.  “And never has it been so well documented.  Except we don’t have an autopsy, do we?  Oh well, it‘s probably better for Dean not to have gone through that.”

 

“Good, let’s think of Dean for a minute.  He doesn’t want to make this public.  Not only will he have to worry about the law, he‘ll also have to dodge the press and every psychopath who wants to watch him rise from the dead again.  His life will be...” Gideon stopped to swallow, once again thinking of what Dean must have gone through, “Hell.”

 

“I realize that but really, this is too big to keep secret.  And I know I sound dorky and Star Treky and whatever else but in this case the needs of the many do out weight the needs of one man.  We‘re talking about bringing people back from the dead.”

 

“One.  One person.  You can’t stop death for everyone,“ Gideon plunged on past the protest in an attempt to get through.  “The whole endeavor would be wrought with moral and ethical dilemmas.  Who chooses who we bring back?  More likely than not the rich would live over and over while the poor continue to die.  And how many times is too many?  How old is too old?  No, Reid, the power over death was never meant for man because we will never be wise enough to wield it.”

 

Reid harrumphed lightly in annoyance, over mankind’s shortcomings or Gideon pointing them out Gideon wasn’t sure. “Yes, but...”

 

“We have time before we make any life changing decision.  All I’m asking is that you talk to Dean before you announce his resurrection to the world.  And for heaven’s sake, don’t out him in a diner in small town U.S.A.,”  Gideon pleaded.  “The last thing we need is a War of the Worlds panic on our hands.  Or a lynch mob.”

 

Finally Reid let out a troubled breath and ran a shaky hand through his hair.  “You’re right.  I’m... I’m sorry.”

 

“You’re just a little overly enthusiastic sometimes,” Gideon teased as he released his grip from Reid’s shoulders.

 

“So what do we say in the meantime?”

 

“I don’t know, let’s just see what they told Garcia and play it by ear.”

 

“What if they told her the truth?”

 

Gideon shook his head.  “I don’t think they would do that to her.  Innocence is a precious commodity and Dean is well aware of it.  You need to be careful what you say.”

 

“I will,” Reid promised but stood still as Gideon reached for the door handle.

 

“Coming?”

 

“Since I’m here... I really do have to...” Reid cleared his throat and indicated the toilet.

 

“Right.”  Gideon started to let himself out.  “I’ll see you at breakfast.”

 

“Gideon?” Reid called him back.

 

“Yes?”

 

“What about monsters?  They’re real, too aren’t they?  Isn‘t it our duty to warn the public?”

 

“If we did that no one would ever go on a picnic again.  You don‘t want to be responsible for a world without picnics, do you?”

 

“If we don’t they go on picnics and get eaten themselves.”

 

Gideon smiled.  “Not all of them.”

 

“I’m serious.”

 

“I know.  We‘ll talk about that, too.  Okay?”

 

Reid nodded reluctantly and Gideon left him to his business.

 

*****

 

He watched them every chance he got.  They were an odd lot.  The hero smiled and laughed and ate like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.  But it tasted like cardboard to him, Stanley could tell.  

 

And maybe it was one big coming home party and the boy might physically be among his loved ones but mentally, emotionally he was still at whatever fresh hell he’d just come from.  Didn’t matter the battlefield, you never really left ‘em.  Or maybe they never really left you.

 

“Hey, hero,” Stanley called as the group finally finished up and headed for the door.  

 

“Yes sir,” the boy said as he turned back around and Stanley knew for sure he was right about him.  And he weren’t no boy no more.

 

“You’re a Marine, ain’t cha?”

 

The kid’s face fell for about half a second but then he lit up again.  “Semper Fi.”

 

And that was the answer Stanley fully expected.  “Listen, if you ever find yourself hungry or with nothing else to do, you come see me.  Hear?  We‘ll throw back a couple of forty-fives.”

 

“Yes sir.  Thanks for breakfast.”  With that the hero smiled and left with his friends.

 

It struck Stanley right then like white hot shrapnel how very young they were when they went off to war and how very old they were when they returned.  He had to make a conscious effort not to limp as he went back to the grill.  Unfortunately Charlene and Tess followed him.

 

“Get outta my kitchen,” he grunted.

 

“How do you know they weren’t just yanking your chain for free food?” Charlene asked, blonder than the picture on a bottle of peroxide and too old for anyone to fall for it.

 

“Ever hear of the thousand yard stare?” Stanley challenged as he started to clear away the morning mess and get ready for lunch.

 

“No.”

 

“Me, either,” Tess agreed and she might yet make something of herself it she’d get away from the likes of him and Charlene.

 

“I didn’t think so.  Get back to work.”

 

Charlene left but Tess lingered in the door.  “How do you know?” she persisted.

 

“Takes one to know one,” Stanley told her with his back still turned.  He waited for the her footsteps to fade away before wiping his face.

 

*****

 

Over an hour later they filed out of the diner full of good tasting if not necessarily healthy food and interesting to-say-the-least conversation that ran the gamut from veiled truth to fanciful lie.  Garcia was not dumb but they had all watched what they said while Morgan and Dean took turns distracting her.  Even Reid had managed to contain himself.  

 

Though no one had actually come right out and said it, Gideon learned through the course of the meal that his little band of intrepid ghost hunters had indeed dispatched the ‘Big Bad’.  They all seemed to be riding a post-hunt high and the outing turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant reunion in spite of the fact no one was running on a good night‘s sleep.  Leaving the diner they fanned out slightly in the parking lot, continuing the visitation in a near perfect imitation of the now gone locals who had left before them.

 

Gideon excused himself and went to his car.  He got in on the passenger side and unlocked the glove box to remove John Winchester’s journal.  It was more than a hunting bible, it was the history of these boys.  Of their family.  It was too precious to leave unattended in a run down motel room.  He ran his fingers over the cover but didn’t open it.  When he looked up Sam was stepping between the open door and the seat placing a long arm along the top of the car and bending so they were on the same level.

 

“Thank you for this,” Gideon told him as he handed over the book.  From the reverent way he accepted it he could tell Sam understood the significance of the journal.

 

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to come with us.”

 

“Maybe next time,” Gideon said wistfully but they both knew it would never happen.  “Simple salt and burn?” he asked to divert the growing discomfiture between them, to close the distance between hunter and mere bystander.

 

Sam huffed a laugh and smiled, suddenly looking much younger in the morning sun.  “Nothing’s ever simple, is it?  But it all worked out in the end.  Morgan was a big help.”

 

“Good,” Gideon replied and he meant it.  And he fully intended to get every last detail from Morgan at the soonest available opportunity.

 

When Sam glanced over to where his brother was opening the car door for Garcia the weight of the world was back on his shoulders.  “Can you help him?” he asked.

 

“Only if he’ll let me,” Gideon answered as honestly as he knew how.

 

Sam nodded in agreement.  He really was a remarkable young man.  Garcia’s laugh carried across the parking lot, musical and without a care in the world.  Reid, who was getting in the other side of her car stopped in his tracks and turned to search out Gideon with  a look of pure epiphany on his face.

 

“Bingo,” Gideon whispered, nodding his approval across the distance between them.

 

“I’m sorry?” Sam asked as he followed Gideon’s gaze.  

 

“I think Reid just realized the value of innocence versus the cost of knowledge.”

 

“He wanted to shout it from the rooftops?” Sam guessed, narrowing his gaze at Reid who waved as he slipped into the seat beside Garcia.

 

“I can assure you there is no malicious intent on Doctor Reid’s part, he‘s just understandably excited.  I won’t let him inadvertently harm you or your brother,” Gideon promised and again, he really meant it.

 

Sam shrugged and even stifled a grin.  “I don’t think he could.  People have been spreading the word about supernatural phenomena since there has been supernatural phenomena.  You know what they call those people today?  Even when they‘re right?”

 

Gideon had a light bulb moment of his own.  “Lunatics.  Frauds.  Crackpots.”  

 

“Or worse.  I think anything Doctor Reid tried to make public would harm his reputation more than it would hurt Dean or me.”  Sam sounded a little jaded at the moment.  Was it possible he was jealous of the attention Dean gave Reid?  Hmm.

 

Gideon nodded slowly.  He faked a smile and waved as Garcia and Reid drove away.  He would have a word with him even though given the chance to think about it Gideon was sure Reid would make the right decision on his own.

 

“I’m going up to my cabin to shower and change...”

 

“Maybe take a little nap?” Sam teased.

 

“Maybe,” Gideon agreed as if he could sleep knowing what he now knew.

 

“You’ll sleep.  Eventually,” Sam assured quietly.  The boy was apparently also a mind reader.  He stood upright as Dean and Morgan began walking their way and Gideon turned to look at them as well.

 

“Do you think I can talk Dean into coming with me?” Gideon asked.

 

“Not a chance in the world,” Sam told him with a knowing smile.  “After he’s had some sleep I’ll call you and we‘ll work something out.”

 

“If you ever need to talk,” Gideon offered as he handed over a business card with his personal numbers on it as well, “Don’t hesitate to call.”

 

“Me?  I’m fine,” Sam lied not particularly well.  He clammed up as soon as Dean and Morgan reached the bumper of the car.

 

“Is Reid gonna be a problem?” Dean asked as he slumped against Gideon’s car, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back so the sun was shining on his face.

 

“I don’t think so,” Gideon said.  “Still, it might be good if you’d talk to him.”

 

“Talk, talk, talk,”  Dean complained with a weary sigh, not bothering to open his eyes.

 

“I’ll talk to him,” Sam volunteered.

 

Morgan chuckled tiredly.  “I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.”

 

“Not me,” Dean announced, pushing away from the car.  “Fruit flies don’t live that long.  Let‘s hit it, Sammy.”

 

“Dean?” Gideon prodded.  He had to try.

 

“Don’t call me, Jason, I’ll call you.  Or more likely Sam will.”  With that Dean sauntered off towards the Impala.

 

Sam shrugged a little ‘I told you so’ and followed him.  Morgan rubbed the five o’clock shadow on his chin and went as well.  

 

“Morgan?” Gideon asked.

 

“I’ve got to get my car,” Morgan explained then trotted the last few feet as Dean started the car and revved the engine.  “I’ll call you later.”

 

Gideon felt empty as they drove away.  

 

*****

 

“Where are you going?” Dean groused when Morgan followed him into the motel room.

 

“To get my keys,” Morgan bit right back as he moved to the nightstand where he‘d purposefully dropped them so he wouldn‘t lose them on the snipe hunt that wasn‘t.  “Do you mind?”

 

Sam wandered in and fell face first into the closest bed.  “You’re welcome to crash on the floor,” he muttered at Morgan through the pillow.

 

“Yeah, whatever,”  Dean less than graciously agreed.  “You gonna shower?” he asked Sam.  “Cause you smell like butt.”

 

“So does the bed,” Sam assured and he was certainly in a position to know.  “What’s the difference.”

 

Morgan considered the floor and as gross as it was he really was too wiped to drive.  Dean disappeared into the bathroom as Sam held up a pillow, again without lifting his head.  Morgan accepted the pillow and confiscated the bedspread from the other mattress.

 

A few minutes later Dean came out of the bathroom wearing sweats and sat on the side of the far bed.  Instead of crawling under the sheet he bent to put on a pair of worn out running shoes.

 

“What are you doing?” Morgan asked curiously as he haphazardly folded the bedspread into a reasonable rectangle between the beds.

 

“I’ve got to get in a run,” Dean told him.

 

“Dean,” Sam protested as he forced himself up to his elbows.  He sounded beyond tired.  Mentally, physically, down to the bone exhausted.

 

“Get some sleep,” Dean told him, keeping his back to his brother as he adjusted the laces.

 

“You were up all night,” Morgan pointed out and maybe he was sticking his nose somewhere it didn’t belong but there was something going on between the Winchesters that went far beyond Dean’s workout routine.  “Running, digging... punching, kicking.  You could probably skip a day at the gym.”

 

Dean shot Morgan a look that told him he was out of line.

 

“There was punching and kicking?” Sam asked as he swung his feet to the floor and right onto Morgan‘s makeshift bed.  He really did smell like butt.  Or moldy well water with dead things floating in it.

 

“You really should shower.  There‘s no telling what was in that water.”  Dean was off the bed and out the door.

 

Morgan followed him out and went to his own car.  He opened the trunk and found his gym bag.

 

“I thought you were gonna crash on the floor?” Dean asked as he loosened up and did a few stretches, ignoring Sam who now stood worriedly behind him at the door.

 

“No.  I thought I’d go for a jog,” Morgan explained as he unlaced his boots.

 

“But you were up all night,” Dean parroted.  “Running, digging... punching, kicking.  You could probably skip a day at the gym.”

 

Morgan pulled his boots off and tossed them in the trunk.  “You’re funny, you know that?”

 

“I do what I can.”

 

“When was there punching and kicking?” Sam persisted.

 

Dean turned to look at Sam as Morgan slipped on his own athletic shoes without untying them first.  “Get some sleep,” Dean pretty much ordered Sam as he took off a at a fast pace.  Sam threw up his hands as he traded a glance with Morgan then stalked back into the room.

 

Morgan had to hustle to catch up with Dean.  So this was how the bastard stayed in such good shape.  “How far do you go?”

 

“What are you doing?” Dean growled at him when Morgan fell into step.

 

“Going for a run.”

 

Dean stopped and rounded on him as Morgan slowed to jog in place.  “I run alone.”

 

“So do I.  But it’s a free country and if I chose to run two foot behind you then there’s not really anything you can do about it.”

 

“And if I kick your ass?”

 

“You can try,” Morgan challenged with a grin.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Dean asked, rubbing his eyes and sounding every bit as tired as Sam had sounded, as Morgan felt.

 

Morgan stopped moving.  “I don’t know.  But I’m not letting you be alone after...”

 

“Shut up,” Dean groaned wearily, giving in far too easily as he took off again.  “If you can’t keep up I’m not waiting for you.”

 

“If you’re waiting on me you’re backing up,” Morgan goaded as he played catch up once more.  “So how far do you run?”

 

“Until I can’t run any more.”

 

“Then what?  You call Sam to come get you?”

 

“Then I run back.”  Dean picked up speed to an all out run effectively blocking any further conversation.

 

*****

 

They ran until Morgan thought he’d wheeze out a lung.  And all along, even though they kept up a dizzying pace, he got the feeling Winchester was going easy on him.  Finally, as the sun beat down on them relentlessly Dean veered off the road and ducked under a big weeping willow on the outer perimeter of a well kept country lawn.  Morgan gladly followed him into the shade, dropping down beside Dean on the grass before tumbling onto his back in exhaustion.  

 

Morgan felt shaky as he gripped the grass on either side of him, imagining it was the only thing that kept him anchored to the earth.  Damn Dean and his Big Breakfast AND his rural marathon.  He sincerely hoped if he spewed sausage and a short stack it would cause a chain reaction.  

 

But Dean seemed fine as he finally lay back as well.  Still panting, he raised a hand and toyed with the leaves on the long limbs that dangled above them almost reaching the ground.  He had to be as wrung out as Morgan but there was an odd peace about him.  Runner’s high?  Maybe.  Maybe something else.  Maybe he was seeing Dean for the first time without his walls up.

 

“I’m not usually such a coward,” Dean apologized without preamble.  “It’s just... fire does that to me these days.”

 

Understandable, but Morgan didn’t speak for fear Dean would close himself back off.

 

“But I’m no hero.”  And then he was done apparently because he closed his eyes and rested, his chest rising and falling in a visual rhythm Morgan felt echoed his own rapid respirations.

 

“You’re the scariest, craziest, most heroic son of a bitch I ever met,”  Morgan rasped out when he could find the breath to make words.  

 

Dean laughed and it sounded real.  “Don’t get out much, do you?”

 

“You’d be surprised,” Morgan said.  “Seriously.  What you do... what you face every day...”

 

“Don’t mean shit if I get sidelined by a little match.”

 

“You can get past that.  People kick phobias every day.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean muttered as he rolled onto his side to face Morgan.  “If I just talk about it it’ll all go away.”

 

“No, but it might help,” Morgan offered.  “It won’t hurt to try.”

 

“Says you.”

 

“Or maybe you are a coward,” Morgan barely got the words out before Dean jabbed him in the side.  He didn’t quite spew but he did cough a little and Dean grinned back at him like it was the funniest joke ever.  “Asshole.”

 

“Jackass,”  Dean answered affectionately then lolled back over and put his hands under his head as he crossed his feet.  He was the picture of relaxation.

 

Morgan watched him for a while then closed his eyes and let himself drift a little.  “What was Hell like?” he finally asked sleepily.

 

“I don’t remember.”  Dean’s voice was calm and quiet.  “I have a sense of it, that it was bad... but I don’t have any particular ‘memory’.”

 

“Our minds protect us from the things that we can’t handle,” Morgan told him.  “You were there, what?  Ten?  Twelve hours?”

 

“Hours, years... it’s all the same in Hell.  I don’t think our concept of time applies there.”

 

“You have a sense of that, too?”

 

“Yep,” Dean replied and Morgan believed  him, he had no reason not to.  “So what do I tell Gideon when Sam makes me go see him?”

 

Morgan shrugged as he thought about it.  “Tell him what you told me.”

 

“Ha.  Like he’ll let me off that easy.  I’ll probably have to get all emo and talk about ‘how that makes me feel’ to satisfy him.  I least I know you don‘t give a shit about my feelings.”

 

“You’re welcome,” Morgan said with a smirk.

 

Dean poked him in the ribs again but not so hard this time.  “This don’t mean we’re going steady or anything.”

 

“You are one annoying mother fucker.  Did I mention that?”

 

“It was implied.”

 

“Hey!  You there!” an elderly woman shouted from the porch of the neat little house.  “What are you doing to my tree?”

 

“Time to go,” Dean said as he got to his feet and grabbed Morgan by the elbow to pull him up.  “Sorry, lady, we‘re leaving.”

 

She was a quick old woman and managed to get the hose turned on them before they made it out of range although they might have lingered under the spray for a couple of seconds on purpose.  Dean shook his head like a wet dog and grinned at Morgan as he found his stride, more of a jog than an all out run this time.  

 

Morgan wiped the water out of his eyes and caught up.  “This happen to you a lot?”

 

“Only when I’m lucky,” Dean said as he picked up the pace.

 

*****

 

Morgan swore he was going to sleep for a week when they finally got back to the motel.  No wonder Dean seemed to be Superman.  If he’d been running like that every day for six months he could probably win the Boston Marathon without breaking a sweat.  But he couldn’t go on like that indefinitely.  Sooner or later his body would rebel and begin to break down.  It was time to bring it down a notch or ten.

 

Sam didn’t flinch when they entered the room or when Dean rolled into the bed with him, back to back, leaving the far bed for Morgan.  And Morgan swore Dean was asleep before his head hit the pillow he stole from his brother.  Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but at this point even the rumpled bedspread on the floor he’d just tromped over looked good, Morgan slumped down on the mattress and let go of consciousness.  His last thoughts weren’t of ghosts or heroes but that the bed really did smell like butt and how at the moment he really didn‘t give a damn.  

 

*****

 

For only the third or forth time since returning from Hell Dean woke with a whimper not a bang.  As he opened his eyes the horrific dream was already burning away like so much fog in the morning sun until it was nothing but vague dread in the pit of his stomach.  He sighed deeply and stared at the unmoving lump on the other bed.  Not only had he worn himself out enough to get some real sleep, he’d practically put Morgan into a coma.  He couldn’t help but smile a little at that.

 

His once soaked tee-shirt had dried to a salty crust against his skin while he slept but his heavier sweat pants, socks, and even his shoes were still damp making him feel itchy and clammy all at the same time.  Shucking everything on his way to the bathroom he left a clothing trail behind him.  He took a few good, long chugs of lukewarm water out of the bathroom tap then splashed his face, all the while managing not to look in the mirror.  After he relieved himself he stepped into a pair of jeans before wandering back into the bedroom.  Morgan was still out cold and Dean resisted the urge to bounce on the bed as he pulled on a less stiff tee-shirt.

 

Sam was nowhere to be found but there were soft voices just outside the motel door.  Foregoing socks and his boots, Dean shielded his eyes and made his way out into the late afternoon light.  Sam was sitting in a chair on the sidewalk while Sunny worked damage control on his god-awful haircut.  They both looked up, Sam with his worry-face and Sunny with a genuine smile that warmed Dean from the inside out.  

 

“Hey,” Dean greeted sheepishly as he ran a hand through his hair.

 

“Good morning, sleepy head,” Sunny replied as she handed Sam her scissors and came over for a hug, still holding a comb.  “Phew,” she complained laughingly as she pulled away.

 

“Yeah,” Dean agreed with a smirk.  “I probably am a little ripe.”

 

“A little?” Morgan asked as he shuffled out of the door while rubbing his eyes.  He blinked and looked around.  “What time is it?”

 

“It’s almost five,” Sam told him as Sunny moved to Morgan for an aborted hug that turned into more of a pat on the shoulders.  At least she didn’t ‘phew’ him.

 

Morgan grunted and moved off stiffly towards his car.  Dean rolled his head side to side then stretched as he looked around.  There was another car in the lot but Gideon’s was still gone.  Someone had wheeled an old grill into one of the parking spaces and from the pile of ashes all around had cleaned it up.

 

“What’s going on?” Dean asked with an involuntary shiver even if the grill was facing the other way.

 

“Gideon and Reid went to get provisions,” Sam said, holding up the small, shiny shears to Sunny hopefully.  He glanced at the barbeque pit and then back to Dean.  His mouth fell open a little but Dean warned  him off with a raised finger so he didn’t offer any uncalled for platitudes.

 

“Provisions?” Sunny repeated with a laugh as she took the scissors and got back to work.  “You guys kill me with your military...isms.  They went to get stuff for a barbeque.”

 

Dean rolled his eyes and stowed the first comment to come to mind since Sunny didn‘t deserve any of his crap.  “This is turning into quite the social event,” he said instead, toning down the sarcasm as best he could.

 

“It’s a party for you,” Sunny informed him unsympathetically.  “And you’re damn well going to enjoy it.  Got it?”

 

“Yes ma’am,” Dean gave in with a snort and a smile, ducking away as she popped him with the comb.  “I suppose resistance is futile anyway.”

 

“You think I’m tough?  This was Reid’s idea.”

 

As Morgan prowled through his own trunk he came out with a small overnight bag.  Dean watched him for a second then let his eyes travel to the Impala.  He frowned as the light caught on the side looking almost like a dent that hadn’t been there yesterday.  He hustled over to get a better look.

 

“This look like a dent to you?” Dean asked, running a hand over the spot as Morgan meandered past him.

 

“Nope,” Morgan said without even looking.  “And for the record, I’m going to use all the hot water.”

 

Dean frowned at the car and let Morgan get back to the room before smiling.  “What makes you think there’s any hot water?”

 

Morgan blinked. "No hot water?"

"Nope."

"What kind of motel is this?" Morgan demanded looking like he was about to storm the office.

"One that's out of business?" Dean replied with a smirk.

"You're squatting?" Morgan asked, turning to Sam who shrugged innocently.

"Beats credit card fraud," Sam appeased. "Although we are kinda stealing electricity.  And cable."

 

“Free porn,” Dean agreed with a grin, wiping it off abruptly when Sunny gave him the stink eye.

"Then I suppose a clean towel is out of the question," Morgan grumbled as he went back into the room, slamming the door behind him.

 

*****

 

By the time Dean popped the lock on the maid’s closet and was on his way back with a load of musty smelling towels and toilet paper, Sam’s hair once again looked like it belonged on a human head.  Dean was surprised what a relief it was, especially since the redness and peeling of Sam’s face was also going away.

 

“I knew it,” Sunny told Sam, sparing a wink to Dean.  “You were just one good haircut away from being a babe.”

 

“Thank you so much,” Sam gushed as he held the compact Sunny gave him to try and check out his big head in the tiny mirror.  

 

Dean was so happy about the haircut he withheld the big head comment.   “Didn’t take enough off,” he said instead, grinning as he side stepped the swat Sunny sent his way.  But she was quick and caught him on the back pocket.  Dean was sure that’s where she was aiming by the way she grinned back at him.

 

“You’re a bad girl,” Dean teased, pointing a finger at her just as Gideon pulled into the lot.  Reid was riding shotgun and waving excitedly out the open window.  Dean smiled and returned the wave as he ducked into the room.  He went straight through to the bathroom and busted in without knocking to unburden his arms on the back of the toilet.

 

“Room service!” Dean announced as he slung one of the thread bare towels over the shower rod, snickering at the way Morgan pretended not to jump.  

 

“Son of a bitch,” Morgan complained from behind the rust stained curtain.  

 

“I bringa you towels, meester.  Don‘t get your hopes up though, I wouldn‘t exactly call them clean.”

 

“Thanks,” Morgan grunted in a tone that wasn’t really all that appreciative.

 

“Yeah, whatever.  Hurry up.  It’s my turn,” Dean told him as he pasted up a toothbrush and got busy on his teeth.

 

The water shut off and the towel disappeared.  “Do you mind?” Morgan asked as he yanked back the curtain after wrapping the towel around his waist.

 

“Dude.  It’s my bathroom.”

 

“Dude,” Morgan echoed, dripping as much sarcasm as water.  “No it’s not.  And we’re all going to jail if the owner turns up.”

 

Dean spit and rinsed his toothbrush.  “Don’t sweat it, princess, the guy who owns this place is in a nursing home in Florida.  His nephew is supposed to take over sometime next week.  We just told the Sheriff we got into town a week early.”

 

“You’re pretty good at gathering intel.”

 

“That we are.”

 

“It serves you well.”  Morgan gathered his things and went into the bedroom to get dressed.  “I suppose it doesn’t hurt that you’re also a really good liar, Winchester.”

 

“Thanks!”  Dean answered mock cheerfully as he slammed the bathroom door.

 

“That wasn’t really a compliment,” came the grumble from the other side.

 

“Says you,” Dean muttered as he turned the water back on in the shower and tugged off his shirt.

 

*****

 

Once again Morgan was glad he always carried a ‘go’ bag in his trunk.  It might have been a cold shower but it got the job done and he felt a hundred percent better after putting on clean clothes, even if he was a little sore.  

 

When he ventured back outside Garcia, with help from Sam and Reid, was busy hanging paper lanterns along the overhang, and damned if she wasn’t as tall as Sam as she stood in a chair.  “Because atmosphere is everything at these things, that‘s why,” Garcia insisted to her help mates before turning to smile at him.  “Hey you.”

 

“Hey yourself.”

 

“Are you awake now?” Garcia asked with a laugh.

 

Actually, he was more awake and he immediately keyed in on the barbeque pit Gideon was filling with charcoal briquettes.  “This might not be such a great idea,” Morgan said, shooting a look at Sam as he made his way over to Gideon.  Sam caught up to him in a few long strides until they were gathered around the grill.  Garcia and Reid kept working but their glances strayed over to the impromptu huddle.

 

“Gideon thinks it’ll be okay in a controlled situation,”  Sam told Morgan dubiously.  It was obvious by the set of his jaw Sam didn’t agree.

 

Morgan shook his head.  “I don’t think so.  You didn’t see him when we torched the corpses,” he added in a low voice, not meant to carry.

 

“You burned bodies?” Gideon whispered back, his eyebrows shooting up.

 

“It turned out to be a run of the mill salt and burn,” Sam confirmed.  “I missed that part.  But I take it that’s when the punching and kicking happened?”

 

“Dean became violent?” Gideon asked as he set the bag of charcoal down.

 

“Not at first,” Morgan reported.  “In fact it started with an almost complete hysterical paralysis.”

 

“You mean he couldn’t move,”  Sam nodded knowingly.  “That’s what happened with the firestarter...” he trailed off at the dual looks of confusion.  

 

“What‘s a firestarter?”  Morgan had to ask even if he dreaded the answer.

 

But Sam shook his head and stayed on topic.  “It doesn’t matter, all I’m saying is that’s happened before.  Dean freezes up around fire.  Any fire.”

 

“What are you guys murmuring about over there?” Garcia called out from her perch on the chair.  “No secrets!”

 

“We’re just coordinating the menu, Sunny,” Sam told her sweetly.  Apparently all Winchesters were good liars.

 

“He didn’t just freeze up,”  Morgan insisted.  “He was back there.  In his mind Dean was back in Hell.”

 

Gideon nodded solemnly.  “Maybe we should rethink this if he was actually catatonic.”

 

“Oh, he was.  Right up until I tried to move him.  Then he got violent.  Thank God his panic was uncoordinated or he might have killed me.”

 

Reid cleared his throat from across the parking lot but didn’t say anything afterward and no one looked up to see what he wanted.

 

“That’s bad, right?” Sam questioned, looking from Gideon to Morgan.

 

“It ain’t good,” Morgan said, rubbing the sore spot on his shoulder.

 

“Talking about me?” Dean asked as he poked his head into their little circle.   Damn but he was sneaky.  

 

“Yeah.  As a matter of fact we were,” Morgan growled at him.

 

Dean reached past Gideon for a piece of charcoal that he studied with marked disinterest.  “Who’s the cook?”

 

“That would be me,” Gideon volunteered, using the smile he saved for traumatized victims and crazed lunatics alike.

 

“Oh.  That’s too bad,” Dean said as he tossed the briquette back into the pile and turned on his heel.  “I thought you might be ready to talk.”

 

“Let the fire burn down to coals before putting the meat on,” Gideon instructed as he shrugged out of the apron he was wearing and tossed it at Morgan.  He quickly followed Dean back toward the room on the end.  “And for heaven’s sake don’t overcook the steak!”

 

*****

 

Gideon would rather think he was letting Dean take the lead as they sat silently across from each other, one on each bed with nothing but a few feet of space and the light from the lamp between them, but the sad truth was he simply didn’t know what to say.  It’s not like he hadn’t thought about it, agonized until the wee hours how he would phrase each statement for the most beneficial result.  What had seemed reasonable and wise at two a.m. now resonated hackneyed and cliché in his own head.  Dean certainly didn’t need to hear it.

 

It had been far easier helping Sam sort through his thoughts and feelings earlier while Dean and Morgan slept.  The younger Winchester had suffered the loss of his brother in ways that surpassed even Dean’s death.  Sam still grieved for what was lost, burned away by Hellfire even as Dean struggled to get on with life past those very flames.  Even with identical goals the brothers seemed to be drifting further apart with each passing day.  At least that was Sam’s greatest fear.  

 

Their little talk had gone smoothly and probably would have lasted much longer if not for the arrival of Reid and Garcia with the idea for a ‘welcome back to the world’ shindig.  And how he had ever consented to a barbeque over Sam’s protests was a wake up call to what Gideon knew was his sometimes overbearing professional ego.  He’d have to work on that.  Sam’s uneasy acquiescence spoke volumes about his trust in Gideon.  He didn’t know if he would ever actually deserve that kind of deference.

 

Belatedly he brought his attention back to the eldest and by far hardest to talk to brother.  In what had to be the best physical shape of his life, and that was really saying something for the strapping young man, Dean still looked pale and drawn.  He reminded Gideon of a prison lifer, someone who hit the weights every single day but had a finite amount of time in the sun.  Except Dean’s pallor came from within, from fear and pain and gut wrenching hopelessness.  Normally his first inquiry, Gideon didn’t ask how Dean was feeling because it was written all over his face.  

 

The silence dragged on until Dean took matters into his own hands and let Gideon off the hook.  He leaned forward with a soft sigh of resignation and briefly touched Gideon’s knee before pulling back.  “It’s okay,” he murmured.  “I wasn’t hanging all my hopes on this.”

 

But he was.  Gideon could see it in his eyes.  “Does it help?  The running?” Gideon asked, grasping for straws.  Because if he didn’t say something, anything... if he didn’t at least pretend he had a handle on things... he would lose Dean completely to the shadows closing in on them.

 

“Sometimes.  Sometimes not.”

 

“Then run,” Gideon offered, holding up a hand to stop the protest.  “I know Sam doesn’t agree, he thinks you’re pushing yourself too hard.”

 

“After today I think Morgan would agree,” Dean said with a small but genuine smile.  

 

It was encouraging enough that Gideon found more words.  “Sam told me you don’t remember anything about the underworld.”

 

Dean rubbed his eyes and if his lashes were a little wet Gideon pretended not to notice.  “I dream about it but by the time I wake up all I remember is the sheer... terror.”  Dean’s voice broke on the last word but he forged on.  “Morgan said my mind is protecting me from the things I can‘t handle.”

 

Gideon nodded his agreement.  “That’s often true.”

 

“I don’t want to remember,” Dean confessed, eyes wide, looking and sounding like a child.  Looking to Gideon to make it all better.  “It’s like if I don’t remember it never happened.”

 

“Are you open to a little hypnotism?” Gideon asked with a sudden inspiration.  “Clinically it’s usually used to help clarify and bring out buried memories but maybe we can use it to help you bury yours.”

 

Dean sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.  “What if it backfires?”

 

And it could.  It truly could.  And those memories might be just signal the end of the sanity rope Dean was hanging on to.  “We’ll hold that option for fallback,” Gideon quickly backpedaled but he had another idea.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Zippo lighter Sam had let him borrow to light the grill.

 

“That’s mine,” Dean said, reaching out to take it.

 

“Light it,” Gideon suggested.

 

Dean pushed it back into Gideon’s hand.  “That’s okay.”

 

“Come on, Dean.  The tiny little flicker here isn’t going to hurt you.”

 

“I don’t want to,” Dean recoiled, rolling away over the bed and heading into the bathroom.  He didn’t shut the door but leaned against the sink with his arms crossed protectively across his chest.

 

Gideon didn’t follow but set the lighter aside.  “Do you remember lighting the graves last night?”

 

“No,” Dean grumbled from the bathroom.

 

“Did it make you recall being there?  In Hell?”

 

There was a disgusted grunt from the bathroom before Dean reluctantly shuffled out.  “Is this some crazy treatment?” he asked.  “Like putting someone who’s afraid of spiders in a vat full of black widows?”

 

“It’s called desensitization.  And I don’t want you anywhere near poisonous spiders.  I just want you to take a peek at one little bitty granddaddy longlegs.”

 

Dean frowned but slowly made his way back to his seat.  He reached for the lighter but stopped and closed his eyes.

 

“You don’t even have to light it if you’re not ready,” Gideon encouraged.  “But I do want you to hold it and think about lighting it.  Picture your thumb on the flint, feel it, see the flame as you strike it.  Can you do that?”

 

“Seems kinda silly,” Dean put up a token fuss as he touched the cool metal with one outstretched finger.

 

“Humor me,” Gideon insisted.

 

With a determined nod Dean grabbed the Zippo and held it in his hand, the lid still shut.  He closed his eyes and to Gideon it looked for several seconds like he was making a wish or saying a prayer.  “I did it,” Dean gushed, almost dropping the lighter as he set it down with a trembling hand.  He was breathless but triumphant as he grinned shakily at Gideon.

 

Gideon smiled back for all he was worth, sharing the moment before sobering.  “That’s only the first step of many.  I want you to do it every day.”

 

Dean deflated a little.  “I have to do it again?”

 

“Every day.  It’ll get easier, I promise.”

 

“Okay,” Dean agreed as he stood and once again retrieved the lighter.  He ran a thumb over it before tucking it into his front pocket.  “I can do that.”

 

“The day you actually do ignite it, I want you to call me.  Do we have a deal?”

 

“Yeah.”  Dean reached out and shook Gideon’s hand.  “And if I get to that point?  Me and you, we have a date.”

 

“Oh?”

 

Dean winked at him and headed to the door.  “Hey Reid!” he shouted as he moved outside and straight to the Impala without once glancing towards the grill.  “What do you say we round up a real hero for this party?”

 

“Who?” Reid asked exuberantly as he rushed to the passenger side.

 

“I get the feeling Stanley never got a hero’s return,” Gideon heard Dean explain just before he peeled out of the parking lot.  

 

“Well?” Sam queried nervously as he stuck his head in the door just as Gideon was coming out.  They nearly bumped heads.

 

Gideon patted Sam’s cheek reassuringly as he passed him to try and save the steaks.  “Now comes the hard part.  We wait and see.  But we should probably make sure the fire‘s out by the time they get back.”

 

*****

 

As Hotch watched his team file in to the briefing room first thing Monday morning he knew something was up and exactly who it was up with.  J.J. and Emily looked to be as in the dark as he was, but even Jason seemed to be in on the joke.  They were playing it close to the vest but from their cheerful attitudes it wasn’t necessarily something bad.  Garcia didn’t meet his eyes for more than a few seconds and Hotch would almost bet the secret had something to do with her waking him up early Saturday morning.

 

“I hope you all had a restful weekend,” Hotch began, noting the snort from Morgan and the look traded between Garcia and Reid.  Jason looked worn out but practically beamed at him.  “Something I should know?” he asked the room in general.

 

“We’ll talk,” Jason told him quietly.

 

Hotch nodded and got on with the new business at hand.  The meeting went quickly and when it was over he watched the ladies leave but called Morgan back.  “I see you filed for a monthly stipend for an unnamed informant this morning.”

 

“That’s right,” Morgan answered, closing the door.  Jason and Reid looked on with interest.

 

“It’s not much but I’ll see what I can do,” Hotch assured him.  “Not that I don’t trust you, but do you mind if I ask who this new source is?”

 

“Sam Winchester,” Morgan supplied without pause.

 

“Sam Winchester?  The serial killer’s brother?” Hotch asked, frankly a little shocked by the revelation.  “What information could he possibly give us?”

 

“Dean’s not a serial killer,” Reid objected prodding Jason and Morgan both to move to quiet him.  Reid closed his mouth but didn’t look happy.

 

“He confessed,” Hotch said, highly aware of the silent communication running rampant among his teammates.

 

“Reid has ample evidence to clear Dean Winchester of all charges,” Jason declared as Reid nodded earnestly.

 

“You mean posthumously.”

 

“The confession was bogus,” Morgan agreed without actually answering the question.

 

“I think someone needs to start from the beginning.” Hotch squared his shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest.  It was time for some answers.

 

“Are you sure about this?” Morgan asked but he was talking to Jason and Reid.  “Last chance to maintain his innocence.”

 

“He deserves to know what we’ve been up to,” Jason sighed before Hotch could protest the innocent remark.  “And he is the boss.  That predisposes a number of ugly truths not meant for general consumption.  Reid?”

 

“I concur.  Not to mention the Winchesters could be invaluable on... certain cases,” Reid proposed clinically.  “Hotch needs to be in the loop for that to happen.”

 

“The Winchesters?  You mean Sam and what was her name?  Helen?”

 

“Ellen,” Reid corrected and of course he would know.

 

“I thought she wasn‘t really married to the brother.”

 

“Dean,” Reid insisted doggedly even as he cringed about it.  He really couldn’t help it.

 

“Let me,” Jason told the others and they both smiled sadly and nodded as they headed out the door, closing it behind them.

 

“Jason...”

 

Jason hit him with that all powerful, intensely sympathetic gaze.  “Sit down, Hotch.  We need to talk.”

 

*****

 

There had been low rumbles of thunder all evening as Bobby lounged on the couch with a newly acquired spell book, but it had yet to rain.  He paid little heed at first to the low growl until it grew steady in volume into something he‘d recognize anywhere.  He got up as soon as the Impala pulled into the driveway even if it wasn’t a one-step-ahead-of-a-demon roar.  In fact it was more of regular, everyday Dean behind the wheel racket and that meant good news.  Probably.  

 

The boys hadn’t been gone much more than the weekend and on his last call-in Sam had assured him things had worked out just fine.  Good riddance to the bitch of the well and Bobby only felt a tad embarrassed he‘d been wrong about it being the boy all those years.  Sam promised to give a more detailed report as soon as they got home.  In fact he‘d actually used the word ‘home’ and if that made Bobby a little misty eyed then it was nobody‘s damn business.  He was not gettin’ soft in his old age.

 

Dean was ragging on Sam about something as they got out of the car, of course, but it was playful and Sam was giving as good as he got.  No more walking on eggshells then and Bobby could’a let out a whoop of joy over it but he contained himself.  

 

“Bobby!” Dean hollered as he pulled him in for a hug and pounded him on the back.

 

“Dean.”  Bobby patted him back and knew right then there was something different about him.  His spirit seemed lighter.  “Sam,” he greeted, giving Sam a hug as well and damned if the boy didn‘t seem different as well.  Better.  “Well don’t just stand there, let’s move this reunion in the house before we get wet,” Bobby ordered gruffly as lightning flickered across the sky.

 

They all grabbed a bag or two and headed for the porch.  Bobby was able to admire his handiwork as soon as they entered the halo of light streaming through the front door.

 

Bobby smiled wide as he looked from one neat head to the other.  “Damn, I‘m good.  I guess I‘ll be saving you boys a lot of money on haircuts…”  For some reason they both froze on the first step causing Bobby to run into their backs just as the bottom fell out.  Idjits.

 

*****

 

It had been a long, long drive but Elmer Wedgwood finally pulled his early model station wagon into the lot of Uncle Harry’s Motor Court Motel.  Knowing Uncle Harry had been in Florida for months and unable to care for his beloved motel long before that... Elmer dreaded what he would find.  Sure it would be nice to semi-retire from his accounting firm and move back to his childhood home, especially now that the divorce was final, but he dreaded the amount of work it was going to take to get the place up and running again.

 

The motel looked about like he remembered, but much older he thought as he got out of the car;  L-shaped with the tiny lobby up front on one end and all six rooms slightly to the rear in a row.  He unlocked the office and flicked the light switch out of habit even though he knew the power wouldn’t be on.  But it was.

 

And there wasn’t a speck of dust in sight.  The lobby and office sparkled, just the way it had in Uncle Harry’s better days.  As he wandered around in awe with stories of elves in his head he spotted an envelope taped to the front of Uncle Harry’s old twelve inch TV.  Inside there was over a hundred dollars in cash.  In big block letters scrawled across the front it read “Thanks for the mammaries.”  

 

Did elves have a sense of humor?  Elmer thought maybe they did.  He smiled as he went to check out the rooms.

 

*****

 

Epilogue
Six Months Later

 

It had been a rare slow day for the BAU and Morgan idly considered leaving a few minutes early especially since Reid and Emily wouldn’t be back from their fact finding mission until much later.  J.J. smiled as she passed through with a stack of folders and Morgan realized a little guiltily that she never had a slow day.  

 

Gideon was in his office on the phone and Hotch briefly opened his door to speak to him as he pulled on his jacket and headed towards the director’s office for their regular Friday afternoon meeting.  Morgan watched him go, sending up a little wave which Hotch acknowledged with a nod.  If their unflappable leader thought they were all nuts he did an exemplary job of hiding it.  Life went on as usual because Aaron Hotchner didn’t believe in other worldly things hidden between shadows.

 

But he also trusted his team and pushed through a small monthly remuneration to an anonymous source that had already helped the FBI locate the corpses of at least eight young boys lost in a well.  The forensic guys were still going crazy over the large age gap of the bones.  It was a mystery they might never solve.

 

A flurry of motion in Gideon’s office caught Morgan’s attention just before the door flew open and Gideon came rushing down the stairs with his coat in his hand.  

 

“What’s up?” Morgan asked as he straighten up in his chair.  “We catch a case?”

 

“No,” Gideon explained as he fumbled for his keys.  “I’ve been invited on a hunting trip,” he added in a excited whisper.

 

“A hunting trip?”

 

“Yes,” Gideon said with a huge grin.

 

“I don’t suppose I can talk you out of...” Morgan trailed off as Gideon shook his head.  No way was he not going.  “What is it?”

 

“It’s something called a firestarter.”

 

“That can’t be good, not with Dean’s pyrophobia.”

 

Gideon nodded hurriedly.  “He’s been working on that.  But he wants me there, they both do.  I’m flying out to Denver to meet them right now.”  

 

“Just be careful,” Morgan warned but doubted Gideon heard him as he was already on his way out the door.  Morgan waited only a beat before grabbing his jacket and joining him.  He couldn’t help but grin as he caught up.  Winchester would be pissed.  But it wouldn’t be the first party he’d crashed.  And it wouldn’t be the last.  

 

 

 

"The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable
care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind."  

François de la Rochefoucauld.

 

 

 

The End