SN Fic: Since They've Been Gone (3/4)

[thatgirlsix]

 
Supernatural Fic: Since They've Been Gone

Summary: John Winchester wasn't the only soldier they lost that week. Sometimes being a good son and doing your duty really sucks.

Disclaimer:  Maybe when the student loan sharks have stopped calling me forty years from now, there might be something left in my pockets besides lint to buy myself the copyright. Until then, this is just for fun, folks!

Author's Note: This piece is too long to post in one entry, so it's getting four (silly word limits). / The writing in this story is a little more experimental for me than usual. Hopefully it worked out. / As always, this is a MarySue-free zone. If you are less than mad at Al by the end of this, I didn't do it right.  / Rated PG13 for implied violence and language (because I've been married to the military too long not to have a mouth).

This story takes place between "No Exit" and "The Usual Suspects".

Thanks for reading, kiddos!

Since They've Been Gone

Love lost, such a cost
Give me things that don't get lost.

When they pulled up in front of the hundred year old farm house eight hours later, Dean sat quietly in the driver's seat for a moment before letting the engine cut. It wasn't a long moment, but it was long enough that Sam looked at him sideways, wondering what was going through his brother's head.

"You okay?"

"She's gonna hate us for the rest of her life," said Dean quietly, regretfully. "She's gonna hate us, and there's nothing we can do about it. It sucks. She's gonna be one of the hard ones to let go of, you know? It's not like we had that many to begin with."

Sam ran his free hand through his hair, letting that speak for his understanding. Of course it was going to be hard. They wouldn't have put this off for two damned months if it was going to be a joyride at the county fair. Forcing himself to reach for his door handle before he let their mutual lack of nerve talk him out of this, he bumped his casted fist sideways into his brother's bicep. "Let's get this over with. She's been waiting long enough."

They got out of the safety of the car at the same time, feeling a chill in the air as they did. They both looked around out of habit, checking out the surroundings. The grass looked like it hadn't been cut in nearly two months, which, considering, wasn't all that unlikely. The old porch swing was swaying back and forth, riderless except for a deceptively angry-looking cat. Leaves stirred on the ground as a breeze blew through the trees, kicking up little bugs from the sand along the way. Everything looked fairly normal, though. It was just so quiet. That house was never quiet. Either Al had music blaring or Caleb was banging around out back or both. Things were never this quiet. Neither of them said a word, but from the looks on both their faces, something really wasn't right.

Dean took the first of the rotting wooden steps up to the porch with a tentative look at the cat. When she fixed him with a stare right back, he cocked a smile at her. The little gray ball of fur leapt off the swing and came up to him, allowing the familiar man to pick her up and play with her ears. Softly he asked, "Hey, Minion. Where is she, huh?"

"Al," called Sam, peering in through the front door screen. The front door was wide open, leaving only the screen door to keep the bugs out. "Al? You in there?"

Sam looked back at Dean holding their friend's cat now just a little tighter than he meant to. "Out back?"

"She would have come up front as soon as she heard the car," Sam said. He reached for the screen door and pulled the handle with shaky fingers. Something wasn't right. Al would never have left the house this open, no matter what. Windows, sure, as long as there were spindles in the windowsill to prevent them from being opened any further than she wanted them to be. And there would be salt in all of the sills on top of it. The heavy oak doors were always shut, always locked. Two shotguns always hung from a rack right on the inside of the doorway, one loaded with consecrated iron, the other with rock salt (Thank you, Dean Winchester). To a stranger it was overkill, but in their line of work it was precaution and nothing more. Al was careful. She'd learned a long time ago to be careful. Sam creaked the screen door open, looked up to where he knew the rack to be, and found only one weapon in its assigned slot. This was so not right in so many ways. He called out her name again urgently. "ALICE!"

Dean continued to stroke the cat's ears, hoping it would get rid of his own uneasy feeling. Not willing to give in to the paranoia that he knew was a logical next step for him he shrugged, "Maybe she went to the store or something. The girl's gotta eat."

"When have you ever known her to leave the house unlocked? And open?"

Dean didn't answer as Sam brushed passed him and went back to the car. Retrieving two loaded shotguns from the trunk, he charged back up the stairs, passing one of the weapons over without even looking. Dean set the cat down and opened the screen door, allowing his brother to go first. They began a quick search of the house starting there on the first floor. As they crossed into each room, one of them would yell for their friend, warning her that they were coming in and not to shoot.

When they finally found her staring almost sightlessly ahead from a rocking chair in what was looking to be yet another remodel of the master bedroom, Dean didn't know whether to hug her or kill her. Without thinking about it, he blurted angrily, "Damn it. You couldn't hear us yelling our heads off for you? Why didn't you answer?"

The blonde woman didn't blink as she said with barely any air at all, "I thought you'd leave if I waited long enough."

"Are you okay?" Sam asked patiently, countering his brother's frustrated huffs. He reached for her, but she shook her head and held up her hands to keep him at bay. Sinking back a little but still running his eyes over her to find any sign of what was wrong, he asked gently, "What happened?"

"Sorry," she said, blinking furiously and shaking her head and shoulders, getting rid of whatever it was that had had her staring so silently. "It doesn't matter." Refocusing herself, Al took in the two men in front of her and smiled brightly, the vestiges of her tears gone as if by magic. "You two are a sight for sore eyes."

Without thinking about it, Dean answered naturally, "Well, I know I am, but you must need to fix up that prescription of yours if you think the kid here is anything but an eyesore."

"I didn't say you were a good sight," she threw back at him. She looked them both up and down, actually assessing their appearances, and asked, "What the hell are you two doing here? You look like shit."

"Just passing through," Sam lied, even though he knew Al knew perfectly well why they were there. She wouldn't have been hiding out from them otherwise. He wasn't nearly as close to her as Dean-another casualty of those years at school-but he still knew her well enough to read her. If nothing else, he could read Dean, who was obviously trying to avoid the subject. Whether that was his choice or hers, Sam didn't know yet, but it was the road they were taking. Ignoring his concern since she still hadn't come out of the chair, he apologized, "Sorry for not calling ahead. It was sort of spur of the moment."

"Where're you headed?"

"New Orleans," said Sam while Dean said, "Phoenix."

Al eyed them both and didn't bother to lie to herself or them any longer. They all knew exactly why the two of them were there. She wasn't stupid. She stood up and started for the door, brushing past them without looking at them. When she reached the door, she turned around and warned them with a hard voice, "Not in here. I won't do that in here."

Sam didn't say anything, but his lips tightened in a grimace. He shook his head once then started out of the room, following the quiet footfalls that were already landing on the creaky old stairs. He only exchanged a look with his brother on the way, one that they both knew said it for them both.

Fuck.

Dean pulled the door shut behind him, not wanting to see the room that would never be filled again, not even in passing. Seeing her in that room had been bad enough. Being in that house was hard enough. Like they had at Pastor Jim's, the walls, he swore, were moving in on him. They were so loaded with memories that they couldn't stand on their own anymore. If he didn't need so badly to keep it together for Sam and their girls, he didn't think he'd be able to stay on his feet himself. It was all too heavy. Oddly, he wondered if that was how death felt-heavy. He wasn't sure if he wished he could remember or not.

Suddenly, he could think of nothing but getting out from under the weight. Catching up to his brother and friend, he forced a smile into his eye and suggested, "What do you say we get out of here for a while? Huh? Get some food, a little booze, a little fun? We haven't been to town in awhile. There have to be at least a few suckers begging for me to take them off their coin. What do you say?"

"I say you get me out of the house, but a walk sounds nice for now," counter-offered Al. "It's supposed to be a nice night. I want air, not smoke and guys grabbing my ass. I gave that up the day I quit school."

"Well, I'll guarantee you the lack of smoke, but I can't promise there won't be any games of grabass," Dean winked at her. "Caleb was one of my best friends. I have a duty to make sure you're well looked after."

"Sam? You're closer. Smack him for me." When Sam actually did as requested, Al laughed. Over Dean's protests, she gloated, "Life's a bitch, man, and so am I." To Sam, she said, "Damn, kid, we missed you around here."

"Why? Because I always did everything you told me to?"

Dean rolled his eyes and groaned, "God, I miss those days."

*

They walked through a good portion of the property, talking about anything but what they were supposed to be talking about. Sam heard a few stories from his college days, the missing stories about his brother's life that Dean seemed to not want to talk about with him. They were stories about times surrounding hunts but never about hunts themselves. It was about the fun and the wind-downs and the things that made their lives worth the hard stuff.

Had Dean told Sam about the time that Caleb got him drunk on vodka and the two of them had a two car demo derby in the back forty at three in the morning?

Who won?

Since Caleb wasn't there to defend himself at the moment, he did. Loser.

Had Dean told Sam about the time that Pastor Jim sent their chosen little family on a mandated vacation to that cabin he had up in northern Minnesota? The boys got drunk ice fishing and were throwing their picks in the ice like horseshoes. They couldn't figure out why the ice finally gave way and they fell through. The two of them had thought it was hilarious.

They were okay?

Okay enough that they ended up tug of warring over their blankets until they got back to the house.

Who won?

John. He pulled the middle of the blanket so hard that the two of them ran into each other and fell down like they were the damned Keystone cops.

Sam had missed a lot. For that, he was sorry.

They had been walking for almost two hours when Al turned so that she was walking ahead of them backwards, stared down Dean and waved her hand in front of his eyes. "You aren't saying a whole hell of a lot."

"Don't have a whole helluva lot to say at the moment," he said quietly.

Sam quickly covered for his brother, wanting to let Dean ease into things. They had known that this wasn't going to be easy, but he could tell it was getting to be a lot harder on Dean than it was on him, which, he supposed, was the way it should be. He'd left them. There was no getting around that. For a little over three years, Dean had had to depend on people who weren't him. He'd had to compensate for the loss somehow; most of that had come in the form of either Pastor Jim or Caleb. He knew that. He was willing to accept that. There were always going to be things about that time that he didn't know about, just like there would be things that Dean wouldn't ever know about. Choices had been made. That's what life was. And right now, his choice was to make this a little easier on his brother for as long as he could. He had to.

"When we pulled up, the place looked like it could use some work. Is there anything you want done around here that we can do? I don't think either of us has ever used a lawn mower in our lives, but I'm sure we could figure it out."

Al startled for a moment, quickly recovered by walking forward again, and said, "Yeah. Maybe. No. I don't know. I-I guess I haven't really thought about it. Caleb, he . . . He took care of all that stuff, you know?"

Way to be, Genius, Sam chastised himself. He was doing a real stand up job of making anyone feel better. He should take that act on the road, really.

The widow must have seen her friend's flinch because she said gently, "It's okay, Sam. I'm okay. It's going to take a lot longer than two months to get used to all of this, but it's okay. It's not like I didn't know something like this was coming the day I signed on to marrying the guy. Hunter marriages come with a limited shelf life. We got the short straw. End of story. I'll find somebody to make the scrapbook."

Speaking for all of the men, the hunters, that they had known over the years, Sam said with an aching laugh, "We should come with warning labels."

"Nah," said Al with a smile. "We'd just ignore them anyway. Did your girl know about you and the hunting and all that?"

"No."

She offered him a sweet smile, letting him know that his absence didn't mean he had been out of the club. Or the family. "For you, I bet she would have ignored it the way I did. It may not be a normal life, and it sure as hell isn't a safe one, but it's a good life. I had no idea how happy I could be until you guys came along. I never knew anyone who loved like Caleb did. It was worth it."

Out of nowhere, Dean stopped walking and said heavily, "We should have been the ones to tell you. I'm sorry we didn't get down here."

"No one should have been the ones to tell me. But I do know that you would have been here yourselves if you could have. Besides, you were a little busy. Tell me you've got a lead on where that bitch is."

Sam saw Dean cringe, most likely thinking about the same thing he was, them holding the real Meg in their arms while she used her last breaths trying to give them a chance to save their father the way they'd saved her. Ignoring the chill in his spine, he said, "She's not a problem anymore."

"And The Demon?"

"In the wind," Sam admitted. "We haven't seen it ourselves since I . . . since I shot Dad, but we think maybe Dad did. We don't know for sure. We think we know what happened, but there's no real way to know."

She didn't mean to, but Al laughed. "You shot your father? Damn, kiddo. Caleb always said the two of you were going to kill each other, but I'm pretty sure you were taught well enough to know that you weren't supposed to actually try."

"It wasn't like that," whispered Sam before he let his legs take him off well in front of them so that they would have to damn near run to catch up.

Dean took his time, letting Sam catch his breath. He watched the ground as he walked, kicking at the dried leaves along the way. "Sam's had a rough go of it lately."

"You both look like death warmed over."

"You don't know that half of it," said Dean, a cold shiver up his back making him damned near ill. Not remotely half of it. "He'll be okay. You're not really a Winchester until you've shot your own father at least once."

"Does Sam know about that?"

"Nope, and you're not going to tell him." Dean watched his brother sulk his way along the path and felt a twinge he didn't like. Sam was taking the comment about shooting their old man a little too hard. "We really should catch up with him."

Suddenly Dean noticed that Al wasn't at his side any more. He was somehow standing half way in between Sam and Al, not sure which one of them he should be going after first. Sam had finally stopped long enough to look back to them, giving him a confused look. Dean jerked his head, beckoning his brother back to him. This leg of the trip was about her, not about them. Right? When Sam joined him, they silently backtracked to where Al was standing staring off into the woods where they both knew a little clearing was. Caleb had called it his and Al's own private Inspiration Point.

"Al?"

"Joshua burned him back there. He didn't know not to." The quietness of her voice was unnatural for her. She must have heard it, too, because she snapped back quickly, raising her eyes to meet those of her friends. "You know, in case either of you wanted to go there. It's not exactly a headstone or anything, but it's not like we really need them in your line of work. It's okay, really, if you want to go back there. Joshua stayed with him to make sure everything was okay, but I'll understand if you want to be sure."

Sam looked toward the clearing as if he could actually see through the trees and gulped, almost missing the sickened sound his brother made next to him. Dean didn't say anything, but his eyes popped wide in a way that only Sam would have caught. He wasn't ready. He really wasn't ready.

Carefully Sam said, "We trust him. Joshua did the right thing."

"I'm sorry it wasn't us," said Dean quietly.

"You were busy getting yourselves nearly killed," said Al, her voice back to normal as she took in the looks on the men's faces. "There's nothing you could have done."

"Yeah, I know," said Dean like he didn't really believe that at all.

Sam didn't like the look on Al's face as she watched Dean. She'd been around this life for too long. She knew what she (and Sam) thought Dean was looking for. The look was gone as soon as it appeared, but he could guess what she was thinking. He hoped she could do for his brother what he had yet to be able to do, give him at least some sense of absolution for what had happened, even if it was something Dean only thought he needed.

"Hey? You guys both know that what happened isn't your fault, right?"

And there it was. Sam swallowed his own response-Of course we do-when he saw Dean's eyes flash up to meet hers and knew exactly what his brother was going to say. It wasn't like he hadn't heard Dean's take on the situation already. Even though hearing it once was enough, Sam was pretty sure their conversation about Dad was on a continuous loop in his brother's head. He knew Dean was going to continue to blame himself for all of this, no matter what Sam said. He knew no one would convince him otherwise, so he kept his mouth shut until he could find the right time to bring it up again. Al, however, didn't seem to have the same inhibition about smacking his brother's guilt around for a while when she fixed him with a stare that shut his trap up real fast.

"Don't you even think about arguing with me, kiddo."

Dean slipped that cold mask over his face again and countered with a hollow chuckle, "Kiddo? You're barely a year older than me."

A similarly dark look took over the woman's features as she snapped, "A girl learns a lot in that year, fuckwit, and don't you forget it. But that wasn't what I was going to say. I was going to say . . . Well, I . . . You know what? You're an idiot. Caleb is my husband. I get to blame who I want to. I blame the demon that took him. I blame the demon that ordered it to do what it did to him. I blame the sonofabitch who took your parents from you. That demon did this, Dean, not you. You better be listening to me right now, both of you. None of this is your fault. You know damned well that Caleb would kick your ass right now for even suggesting that you were in any way responsible for what happened. Because unless everything that demon does is because of something you told it to do, none of this is your fault. Caleb hunted for his own reasons. You know that. And he was grateful, every day, that your lives crossed. Don't make him out to be some blind little soldier who followed you and yours around like he didn't have a mind of his own. It's insulting. He made up his mind long before you were old enough to tell him otherwise. So knock it off. You're both idiots and I could strangle you both. You come here to my house out of some sense of what? Loyalty? Duty? Because that's what your daddy the marine taught you to do? I couldn't care less what sort of protocol or code of fucking conduct you guys think is supposed to happen here. You can't come here and expect me to listen to you sit and tell me how any of this is any of your fault. You know damned well that you never would have chosen this life-hell, you wouldn't even know that a life like this existed if it wasn't for what that thing did to your mother. So don't give me this 'we're sorry' look and expect me to be okay with it. God, you're both idiots!"

"Wait-"

Yanking her arm out of Dean's reach, again the woman snapped before her friend could try to counter anything she had to say. "Next thing I know, you're going to tell me that Pastor Jim's death is on your hands, too, huh? Do you really have so little faith in him that he couldn't handle himself without you? Even though he was the one who taught your old man everything he knew about hunting? After everything you've seen and done, I would have thought you knew better, but apparently someone needs to kick your teeth in good and hard. We are all grownups here. We made the choice to live this life. You don't get to take that away, neither of you."

Al was shaking so hard in her anger now that she became this ball of energy that neither man dared to get in front of. She started pacing back and forth not really seeing them anymore, yelling at them at the tops of her lungs in a burst of anger that they had never seen from her before. She was the calm one. She was the one who did all the stitching and calming and ordering around when any of her men were hurt. It was one of Caleb's selling points on her when she was first introduced to their sad, strange little family. This wasn't her at all.

Dean followed her with his eyes, looking for all the world like he was taking a needed punishment. Sam saw the look, and so did Al, because she took her focus back to just Dean instead of both brothers.

"Don't you look at me like that. Don't. Damn it, Dean! You are just . . . I swear, if it wouldn't mean another body to bury, I would kill you right now." She seemed to catch herself with that last bit, the reality of what she'd just said hitting her hard. If it hadn't, it still hit Sam right in the chest. They exchanged a look, knowing that the other had heard it. Her resolve snapped, she crossed her arms over her chest to try to contain her shaking. Softly she begged, "Tell me you loved him. Tell me you'll miss him. Tell me anything but that you're sorry."

Without really thinking about it, Dean did as she asked and just started talking. He kind of knew what he was thinking about saying, but he wasn't sure. He started saying the first thing that came to mind and hoped it would be the right thing. He concentrated on keeping his voice from shaking as he said, "The night we met you, he knew he wanted to marry you. We were sitting there in the corner watching you hustle six guys one after the other at the pool tables and flipping a quarter over and over to see which one of us was going to get to try to bag you first. He won. He told me he had no intention of losing the chance to me. As far as he was concerned, he had never seen anything more beautiful. That's when he went over and tried to hustle you, but you hustled him first. I don't think I've ever seen him get hustled before or since. He came back over to our table and told me right then and there that he wanted you. You got the good end of the deal. With me, you would have had a one night stand. With him, you got a husband."

Tears blurring up her eyes, Al whispered, "Shut up."

"The night you got married is one of the few times I've ever seen my dad completely relaxed. He was drunk stupid, but he was relaxed. The two of us were sitting at the table watching the two of you dance. I don't think he realized he was saying what he was thinking out loud, but he said that he could tell that Caleb had a smile that was only for you. The thing about Caleb, you could always tell what was going on with him by how he looked. And Dad was right. There was one smile that he had that he never had for anyone else. It was the only smile he had that was truly happy. You made him happy. I've seen him little kid giddy as all git out when we're in the middle of a hunt or in some hole in the wall, but I've never seen him as happy as he was when he could just look at you when he thought you weren't looking back."

Again, she said, "Shut up, Dean."

"He wanted to have kids with you. For years, he used to say that anyone who even thought about having kids in the world we live in was an idiot. If Dad's reason for hunting hadn't been Mom, Caleb said he would have beaten Dad for dragging us into it. He said he knew too much about the world to deliberately put anyone through it. But he told me once that he felt safe doing it with you. He wanted to be a dad because of you."

"Knock it off right now, Winchester, or I will kick your fucking ass."

"Dean," Sam started, only to be cut off.

"So don't tell me not to feel guilty right now," Dean said, his voice deathly quiet, vicious and angry. "In the course of one week, my father and two of my only real friends in this world were taken from me. You can call it what you want, but I have every right to be angry. I will be as angry as I damned well want to be. And I can blame myself if I want to. And I can be sorry if I want to. Because I am. I'm sorry that he isn't coming home. It may not be my fault, but I'm allowed to feel sorry. I am so fucking sorry."

"Okay."

"What?" he snapped loudly and still angry, not quite on the same page as her.

"Okay, Dean."

The softness of Al's answer nearly knocked the wind out of him. He turned away from her, swiping a hand over his face to try to regain control. He pulled in a breath and held it a good ten seconds, counting down, then let it out, turning back around. "What?"

"Okay. Be sorry if you want to. I won't stop you. I should have known better than to try."

There was an out there and Dean was not going to be dumb enough not to take it. He clenched his teeth down hard, counted to five, then replaced everything with a big old smile. Conversation over. No arguments. The smart ass was back where he shouldn't have left. The joke didn't quite hit his tone right, but it was there just the same. "Damn straight, you should. You know I always win."

"The hell you say," argued Al, fake smile of her own directed right back at them.

You're a liar.

So are you.

But I'm better at it than you.

*

Another two hours later or so, things started to get uncomfortable. Al continually glanced at the clock, at the mess of a living room that she had yet to clean up, at the two men in her kitchen. As gruesome a possibility as it was, Sam had offered to help her clean the house up. They both had seen how afraid she was of the living room in all its torn up glory. With all the blood and mess, it was a wonder she'd allowed herself to stay in the house at all.

Still, she had refused their offer, at least for the night. They would be back in the morning, they'd assured her. She was more than welcome to come up with a Honey Do list for them. They wouldn't mind.

That was okay, though. She would find a way eventually.

Walking them out the back door, around the house, then to the car, she gazed up at the stars instead of at them. A little skittish, she requested, "You guys call me when you get settled in at the motel, okay?"

"Are you sure you don't want us to stay?" asked Dean, concerned. Not that he minded if she wanted to be alone, but she looked scared, and that made a big difference in his book.

"I'm sure. I think I just need to take a bath and get some sleep. It always looks better in the morning, right?"

Sam wasn't buying it any more than Dean. For a lot of different reasons, the immediate future being one of the least scary prospects actually, he almost wished he could ask her to come with them, try to keep at least some part of their sad, strange collected little family together for a little while longer. Knowing he couldn't ask that of her or of them, he instead asked, "Are you sure you're going to be okay? Is there anything we can do for you to at least get you through the night?"

A resignation came over her face, darkening her eyes. She chewed her lower lip, contemplating her decision, before blurting, "Aw, what the hell. Can you follow me down to the basement for a minute?"

The brothers glanced at one another, shrugged, and followed her wordlessly back into the house and toward the door that would lead them to the steps down to the basement. As soon as Dean opened the door for her, he bit back a gag reflex. "Damn, what are you keeping down there?"

Under her breath, they could both hear her muttering "Damn it, damn it, damn it" as if she didn't remember they were there. Her voice came back to them much more casual and forceful. "You know what? Nevermind. I can take care of this myself."

"It's not a problem," said Dean with a shrug. "It's not like we're in a rush out the door. But if you want it to wait for morning . . ."

She didn't say anything else but took the lead down the stairs with ridiculously slow care. When they were all three at the bottom, she looked at the both of them with tears in her eyes. Her voice was shaking scarily as she nodded toward the washing machine and dryer. "There should be some salt in the coffee can and lighter fluid on the shelf there next to the Tide. Caleb had the stuff stashed all over the house in the weirdest places. I ended up salting his clothes more times than I can count."

The idea of it making Dean itch all over, he laughed, "I bet he loved that."

"It's definitely a look," she said nervously. "What can I say? I never was the domestic type. If that was what Caleb wanted, he definitely picked the wrong girl. But anyway, I've been using the tee shirts and stuff for rags. If you need some for the car, I've got a whole garbage bag full. It's right up there at the top of the stairs."

"Sure, we'll grab a few," said Dean, a little uneasily. Her sudden nervous movements weren't like her at all. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," said Al all too quickly. "Listen, it's late. You guys really should get on the road. You can stay if you want, obviously, but not down here. I'm sure I can get my dad to take care of this for me. It's no big deal. Why don't we go back upstairs?"

Dean's expression darkened, concerned. He reached for his friend's widow, intending to gently pull her back into the light so that he could see for himself what was wrong with her, but she stepped back even further into the shadows away from them both. "Al?"

"Out of here, guys, let's go."

"Alice."

"Nope. I mean it, let's go. I'll take care of this myself."

"Al-"

"I said no!" Al snapped, but the order was drowned out by the sound of a rather loud crash over the bottom of the stairs.

Sam immediately stepped in front of their friend, eyes popping open to try to get a better look into the darkness for a sign of whatever it was that had fallen. In the meantime, Dean looked up into the rafters, searching, and asked, "Where's Minion? She still like to climb up there?"

"It wasn't Minion," said Al with a hard quietness that urged both men to turn to look at her. "That was me."

Dean eyed her suspiciously. "What was you?"

The woman's voice sounded even smaller in the dark, scaring the bejesus out of all three of them. Rushing her words to get them out before they could get stuck, she said, "I had a fight with my mother after Caleb called to tell me about Pastor Jim. She never knew what Caleb really did, but she didn't trust him either. She was terrified of him, believe it or not. She was convinced he was going to go all Unabomber on us one day. She didn't trust anything about him. She thought that the people who came and went from this place were scary. Of course, the only two she ever saw were your dad and Joshua, but she got this bug up her ass about it and never let up. She thought John was especially scary, seeing as how she always saw Dean sitting in the car but never coming out of it. She didn't trust any of you. She was trying to convince me that I still had a chance to get out of our marriage since there weren't any kids yet. I didn't want to fight with her again. It's been ten damn years of that fight. So I left. I . . . I wasn't supposed to come home for another week, but after Caleb told me about Jim, I didn't want to be alone. I had to get out of there. I just drove and ended up here. She was waiting in the living room for him when I got here."

Sam was positively sick when he whispered, "Meg."

"Bleached psycho with a billboard sized flair for drama?" asked Al.

"That's her," said Sam without any hint of humor. Regretfully, he reached out for his friend's hand, but she quickly pulled away. "Al-"

The rest of her shook for the first time while she stared off into the darkness, seeing something that Sam guessed was locked now only in her memory. "We always joked that if the apocalypse came, this was the safest place in the world to be. We have an arsenal big enough to hold off an army and enough food and water to get us all through at least a year. That's always been the joke . . . He didn't tell me not to come home. All he said was that Pastor Jim was dead, that you and your dad were on its tail, and that he would call as soon as it was safe. He didn't tell me it wasn't safe to come home. We always said the safest place was home."

The implications of what the two of them were saying slowly sucker punched Dean in the gut. He could feel the liquid panic spreading through his mind, screaming at him to run away from what it was that they were saying. He didn't want to be right; dear God, don't let him be right. He spared a glance at his brother, who happened to look up at the same time. He saw the same sickness blearing out Sam's great big eyes. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. He secretly was grateful that she wasn't looking at him. He wouldn't have been able to take it. Stop the madness, his head screamed. Stop it now, before you have to hear any more. Stop it before either of them tries to make any of this any more obvious. Thickly he asked, "Where?"

Staring back at the same spot she had been before, she pointed a nail-bitten finger into nothingness.

Instantly Dean remembered the large walk-in freezer that Caleb had installed down there for stashing some of his more unorthodox weapons, things that only the hunters he supplied would need, things that would have him labeled a Dahmer-like freak should they ever be discovered. His lower jaw worked back and forth as he tried to find the right way to ask his next question. "Tell me the damned thing is still working."

"It's a regular penguin habitat," she assured him.

He didn't know how to cover the mixture of weakness and complete fury in his voice as he coughed, "Stay here, okay?" Meeting the protesting look he knew he was going to be getting from Sam before he even got that far, Dean ordered, "Stay with her, Sam."

"Dean, don't," Al pleaded, barely a whisper.

"I swear to God, don't you even think about saying another word or I'll-Just stay there and keep quiet."

Never one for orders, she said again, "He didn't tell me not to come home."

Unable to look at her then, Dean disappeared into the shadows, grabbing the flashlight from next to the fuse box where it always was on the way. The only indication to Sam and Al that he knew where he was going was the ominously loud snick of the door handle being pulled back and the whoosh of frozen air that swept into their faces.

Dean was cold and it had nothing to do with the temperature. Part of him had hoped to find her right as he'd walked in the door so that he could still feel the relative warmth from the rest of the basement coming through the door. He'd hoped to find her right away so that he wouldn't have to search out the entire damned thing. The implications of what that would mean were a little much. No such luck. But then, having one of his best friend's widows thrown away like an unwanted popsicle was not exactly going to fall into the category of 'Luck' anyway.

The sweep of the flashlight barely called his attention to her when he finally found her flung into the farthest back corner behind some of the racks Caleb had built for storage. The only thing Meg could have done more to keep them from ever finding her was to dump her in the lake or something. If Al hadn't given them at least some indication, she never would have been found.

As it was, she was propped up, a shoulder braced on each of the joining corners. Her legs were splayed out in front of her, slightly bent at the knees by muscles that were only up because they were frozen that way. Her arms lay uselessly at her side, looking more like they belonged on a much-abused toddler's doll rather than a human being. He squatted down in front of her at near-eye level. One of the eyes was pretty much blown out by what was most likely Meg's minimal effort to strangle their friend. The blackness around her neck was enough to make his own throat constrict with pain. There was no look of repose or sleep, not like they tell you it's supposed to be.

There was no warning even for him as Dean grabbed at the shelving on his right side and yanked as hard as he could. When it didn't budge, he turned and gripped the vertical support with both hands and just pulled. Still standing, he started to snake off whatever he could from the shelves. He threw things in every which direction, kicking at the glass remnants and steel frame and everything he could reach. He growled low in his throat, unable to form the scream he knew needed to come out. He wasn't going to let them hear him scream. He wasn't going to give Meg the satisfaction, either. He doubted she could hear him all the way down there, but he wasn't going to give it to her anyway. Kick after kick, punch after punch into the frozen steel, he beat at everything until his knuckles bled. It was only when he was able to start forming thoughts again that he slowed down. Eventually he sank to the floor, too tired to do anything but stare right back at his dead friend in some twisted version of a staring war.

Back out in the basement, Sam had turned the lights on over where Caleb's desk had been. Well, still was. It was the ownership that had changed. Unlike Pastor Jim's sanctuary, however, nothing had been done to clean up after . . . after. It wasn't like Al could have done it, not really. Joshua had probably wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, both for fear of his own life and for the sheer horror of it. Sam knew that the smell of the blood that had turned black on the floor was the smell that had accosted them coming down the stairs. He couldn't imagine what it had been like to live with that for the last two months.

Al was staring at the ring almost as if she could see Caleb sitting there in the middle of it. Sam immediately knew he had to get her away from it, although he guessed that would be a lot harder than it should be.

"What do you think's going on in there?" muttered Sam, tapping his cast nervously against his thigh, a nervous habit he had quickly developed once the damned thing came on. "He's taking too long. If I turn the lights off again, will you be okay? I don't want to leave you here like this, but I don't want him seeing that when we come back out either. I don't know that you should be down here right now anyway."

Alice stepped out in front of Sam to keep him back, sad smile in every inch of her body. "I'll go." When Sam opened his mouth to protest, that He's my brother look all over his face, she said pointedly, "Suck it up, Winchester. It's my corpse. I get to go." Just to settle the discussion, she blinked out of the room as if she hadn't been there at all.

When she found Dean, he was sitting on the wall opposite where her body was sitting, staring just as sightlessly as her corpse. His forearms rested on his knees, hands dangling hopelessly. The flashlight was between his feet, shedding only enough light to reflect on her body up to her chin or so. From the look in Dean's eyes, it was probably enough. Al sat down next to him cross-legged, hands squeezing tightly in her lap. "So what's the verdict, Doc? Time to cut off life support?"

"Not funny," said Dean with barely a whisper.

"I think frostbite is going to be a good look for me. It's not like I wasn't pale enough that I look blue in most light already, right?"

"Stop."

"I told her she couldn't kill me because I was already contracted for the sequel, but she said she was going to demand a rewrite."

"Al."

"Laugh, Dean. This is too morbid otherwise."

"You were going to let us walk out the door and leave you here," he said. Suddenly it became very obvious that his lack of a voice wasn't one of sadness or grief. It was one of complete anger, anger directed right at her. "Why? So we could come back in twenty years after you've managed to sink so low into the crazies that you end up just like the rest of them? You know what we do; you know what we hunt. You've seen what happens to spirits when they-God, Al, you were going to have us fucking leave you here!"

The woman-or rather, her spirit, he told himself-stared at him patiently, waiting for him to get out whatever it was he was going to say. She looked like she didn't think he was done yet, so he supposed it looked like he wasn't. He didn't feel like he was. Her staring at him only made it boil over more, and despite the fact that he was sitting in a frozen cooler with the corpse of his best friend's wife, he felt hot all over.

"When Joshua was here to tell you about Caleb, did you try to tell him?"

"No."

"Why? Because you knew we'd be around to do the dirty work eventually? Are we really that predictable?"

"It wasn't like that. When I saw Joshua, it wasn't because he was here to tell me about Caleb. He was here to . . . to take care of him. I doubt I was even remotely on his mind at all. He couldn't see me. I could see him, but he couldn’t see me. If he felt that I was here at all, he must have assumed that I was Caleb and that he'd be gone once he finished the usuals. When I realized he didn't know I was here, I tried to figure out how to get his attention, I did, but nothing worked. Caleb and I had talked to him just a few days before, so he must have assumed I was at my mother's still. He was on the phone with your dad when he got here. John told him to take care of Caleb and then to worry about telling me later, just in case the demon had done anything to him. They were trying to take care of Caleb."

That answer definitely wasn't good enough, not for Dean. He was too angry with her to let it be. "And the last couple of hours? You had plenty time to tell Sam and me. How could you let us think that there was nothing wrong? What the hell were you thinking?"

"I've been trying to do it myself," she said painfully, looking at her body for the first time since coming into the cooler. "I thought if I could find a way to Topper myself around, I'd be okay. But apparently that's against the rules or something because I've tried. God help me, Dean, I've tried, but I can't even strike a damn match, let alone drag my frozen ass out to the woods. I can't seem to touch anything. I can rattle things around when I'm upset, but that's about it."

"That banging in the rafters was you, like you said?"

She nodded. "I didn't mean to. You are just too damned stubborn to listen. It happens when I get frustrated, and let's face it, kid, you always did know how to bring out the frustration in all of us on an occasion or two."

That was definitely the wrong thing for her to say, because just as Dean was weirded out enough to remember that she was his friend, too, and that he should be trying to figure this bitch out instead of being mad at her, he heard that and got hot all over again. Angrily, he said, "Of course I'm fucking frustrated! You know why? Because you're becoming one of them! Damn it, Al! How the hell do you think these things happen? Huh?"

Defensively, she said, "I'm not a child, so stop talking to me like I am one. I know what happens, but what was I supposed to do? Damned if I do, damned if I don't. I thought that if I let you two walk out the door today thinking that I was going to pack up, you'd just assume that I did. If you thought I'd gone off the grid completely, you wouldn't worry about it. But then I realized that you'd be back, because that's who you two are. Even if it was only once a year, you'd still check in out of loyalty to your dad or Caleb, whoever. Eventually you would have figured it out. And maybe, if I was lucky enough, it would be after I had managed to finally figure this out. Yeah, I wanted to do it myself because I knew you'd look at me like you are right now, like I'm not even me anymore. But then, you just said it: I'm one of them now, aren't I?"

"Yeah? How? You said yourself you can't or you would have done it already."

"You know what? Get out of my house, Winchester. I don't need your pity, and I sure as hell don't need your lectures. I'm working up to it. It's only been two months. I've got time. It's exactly twenty-three feet from here to the salt can, lighter fluid, and flame thrower. Even if I can only figure out how to move them a few feet a year, I'll get them there. It's not your problem."

Dean was positively sick hearing what was obviously a lot of thought having gone in to how she was going to destroy her own remains. The catch in his throat came out all wrong, sounding furious instead of hopeless the way he was feeling. "Jesus, you-"

Al snapped back, just as angrily, unable to hold back her tears any longer. "Tell me, hot shot, in your vast experience with being dead and all, what would you have done?"

Dean had never been able to stand seeing a girl cry. He hated watching girls cry. It was something he had in common with his father that wasn't taught. He forced his tone to change in spite of his anger then, unwilling to make her cry any more. "Then why did you take us down here?"

Pointedly she said, "Because I don't want to spend the next ten years trapped in this house trying to figure out how I'm going to destroy myself. Okay? I thought I could. I want to. I don't want you to have to do it at all. Don't you think I want to? But I . . . If nothing else, I've had plenty of time to do the math here. If I do it right here in this room, it would lead to too many questions. The fire would spread, especially with the coolant chemicals in this thing. Eventually it would hit all of the ammunition in the house, maybe even get out to the shed out back. We're in the middle of nowhere, just the way we like it, and no one would see this place until every last bit of ammunition went up. This place would become a crater. Dead or alive, it would start a lot of questions about Caleb and eventually you and your Dad and the others. I stay and go crazy, I'm selfish. I blow this place up, I'm selfish. I ask you or whoever happened to come by next to help me, I'm selfish. There was no real good way out of this one. At least with you two, I'm with family." As if she could read his mind, she added, "Joshua isn't family. A friend, yes, but he was never family to us the way the three of you were."

"This has got to be the single most-FUCK!" Dean kicked his heel in to the solid floor of the freezer, banged his elbow back into the wall that propped him up, and clenched his jaws so tight he could swear he could feel his teeth buckling under the pressure. He slammed his elbow back a few more times until he was seeing stars in his vision. For her part, Al sat there patiently waiting for him to finish his explosion. When he saw her sitting there looking so calmly at him and sitting right beside her own corpse, it drained the fight out of him almost completely. This was just so damned screwed up. Needing to change his focus at least a little until he could sort it out in his head, Dean watched his hands, unable to look at her anymore, and asked, "Did Caleb know?"

"I don't know. After I saw her, everything is kind of a blur until maybe a couple of hours later. I remember sort of waking up sitting up in our bedroom looking out the window. I don't know how I got there. I didn't really have a handle on anything. I don't know how long I sat there, but it sort of all came back to me real fast. I found him in the basement here, over by where he keeps his personal weapons. I sat down here with him, just talking to him. It wasn't until Joshua came down and couldn't see me that I realized something was wrong with me. I was so worried about Caleb that it didn't even occur to me that something was wrong. Then when Joshua took him away and after that I couldn't follow, I-It's been a long two months since."

When Dean saw the look on his friend's face, he suddenly remembered that he was in fact yelling at her spirit, not at her. Whatever he was saying to her, it was going to be the last things that he was going to say to her in this world. He sure as hell wasn't going to leave her like this, not now, and it wouldn't be long before he wasn't going to be able to say anything to her at all. His anger softened then, remembering that she was his best friend's wife, someone who he had loved dearly himself. He was both apologetic and sad as he asked her then, "Are you, you know, okay?"

She seemed to actually ponder the question, like she wanted to give him a real answer, but all she came up with was a smile. "I'm dead, have no idea where my husband is, and have to watch two people I love dig me a grave tonight. I'm shiny. I want to buy the world a Coke."

Unable to really respond to that, Dean tipped his head toward the freezer door. "We should check on Sam."

"He's okay," she said quietly.

Dean glared at her, bitter, even though it wasn't necessarily directed at her. None of us are okay.

There isn't a single thing about this that's okay. 


Follow the White Rabbit to Part Four