I Carry the Suitcase of My Grief in Both Hands, Ma 2/4

[withdiamonds]

Part One

Mary came to Sam often when he was at Stanford. He dreamed about her when he and Jess first got together. Sam had already decided that Jess was the one. She was his whole future, safe just ready and waiting for him.

Mary smiled at Sam and said, “I like her, Sam. She’s a good girl and she won’t be afraid when the time comes.”

Sam didn’t know what was coming that would make Jess afraid, and the way his mother smiled made him not want to ask.

When Dean finally woke up, he demanded that they find someplace to eat. His eyes were bloodshot and he didn’t look like he’d slept at all.

Sam had eaten enough diner food in his life that he really thought he might have developed an allergy to meatloaf. He thought maybe his fate had been sealed on that issue the day John Winchester decided that living life on the road was the way to go. Sam honestly didn't care that much about food, probably because he didn't really know good food from bad, but the monotony got to him sometimes.

Actually, he did know about bad food. It was usually whatever his brother liked to eat.

Sam managed to find somewhere that at least had fried chicken on the menu and they ate in almost companionable silence. Companionable if Sam ignored the studied blankness of Dean's face or the way he avoided meeting Sam's eyes. Sam sighed. Sometimes his brother showed all the maturity of a five-year old.

"I figure we've got about six hours to go," Sam said, instead of what he really wanted to say, which was to ask Dean how much longer he was planning on pouting. No sense in making things worse.

Sam’s fried chicken was actually really good. He eyed the two lethal-looking Hush Puppies on his plate. "You could kill someone with one of these things if your aim was good enough," he said, waving at them with his fork. He didn't understand Hush Puppies, he never had. Whenever they'd spent time in the South when they were young, John had always bitched about Sam wasting food when he refused to eat them, but Sam was damned if he'd try to swallow those hard balls of fried dough. As far as Sam was concerned, they were just there to take up space on his plate.

Dean grunted around a mouthful of mashed potatoes and gravy. His expression softened and Sam figured he was remembering, too. "It used to drive Dad crazy when you refused to eat 'em," he said. His voice held the usual note of sadness it contained whenever he talked about Dad. He seemed to realize, and cleared his throat before shoveling another forkful of potatoes into his mouth.

They ate the rest of the meal in the strained silence that made Sam thrum with a low-level tension at the time that was slipping away from them. Only a few months left and Dean was choosing to waste it arguing. Christ.

Sam finally broke. “So how much longer are you going to pout?”

Dean didn’t answer him, just held his hand out for the car keys, and after a moment's hesitation, during which Dean's eyes narrowed dangerously, Sam handed them over. Dean threw a few bills on the table and headed out of the diner. Their waitress had done her best to engage Dean's attention, but nothing she'd done - and she'd done a lot - even seemed to register.

Sam, on the other hand, had liked the way her tits tried their damnedest to spill out over the neckline of her uniform when she clattered their plates onto the table, and he liked the way her skirt hiked up when she bent to give them an eyeful as she cleared off the table opposite them. He watched her hips sway as she walked back to the kitchen and felt an idle flicker of arousal.

But it wasn't compelling enough to do anything about, and it wouldn’t distract him the way he needed to be distracted. And Dean was just perverse enough that it would piss him off even more.

Sam followed Dean out of the diner.

Dean slid behind the wheel of the car with the air of someone being reunited with his long-lost lover. What he was doing to the steering wheel could only be described as a caress, and he glared at Sam as if Sam had kept him separated from the love of his life by insisting that Dean get some sleep earlier, instead of letting him risk driving his baby off the side of the road.

Sam didn’t know the last time Dean had hooked up with an actual woman, now that he thought about it, which was just weird. It was also weird that the way his brother interacted with his car made Sam think of sex. But Dean hadn’t had much energy for women before the Trickster’s detour, if Sam’s memory served. The manic joie de vivre he’d shown for the first few months after he made his deal had dissipated as time started running out and the reality of his situation penetrated his thick skull.

Sam tried and failed to feel bad about that.

They arrived in Sarasota around midnight. Sam hadn’t really liked Florida all that much before Broward County, but now he downright hated it. No matter how many times he reiterated that, it wasn’t enough to fully convey the depth of his loathing. The weather was evil; hot and humid, and nothing good ever happened here. It was a fucked up place, full of people who all came from somewhere else.

Sarasota, at least the part on the water, was just like every other town or city along the Gulf coast, full of retirees and tourists. High-rise condos stood on the beach alongside small, crappy motels and run-down cottages dating from the 1950s, and the streets were lined with seafood restaurants and shops full of bathing suits and souvenirs made out of seashells.

The parking lots all showed No Vacancy signs, but Dean finally found them a cheap room in a motel that was actually a series of small cottages with an all-pervasive dolphin theme. Dolphins leapt across the wallpaper, swam through the bathroom tiles and dangled from the ceiling, reflecting in the mirrors. The place was close enough to the beach that there was sand everywhere, little grains that would be trapped in the perpetually damp carpet for all eternity. Nothing ever seemed to completely dry out in Florida.

Sam hated it.

Dean seemed slightly less angry as he slung his duffle onto the bed closest to the door and headed for the bathroom. There was weariness in the set of his shoulders and fatigue in his gait, but the tenseness of his anger was mostly gone.

Sam stripped to his boxers, dropped down onto the other bed and closed his eyes. He could brush his teeth in the morning.

The first time Dean showed Sammy a picture of their mom, Sam already knew what she looked like. He didn’t tell Dean that, though. Sometimes Dean would tell Sammy stories about their mom, whispering to him late at night when Sammy couldn’t sleep.

Dean talked about her hair and her soft hands and her pretty voice. He didn’t remember much, but that was okay. Sammy liked to listen to the same stories over again, lying quiet in the dark, huddled together in whatever bed they were sleeping in, wherever they were.

And anyway, he knew stories that Dean didn’t know. Stories that his mother told him when he was asleep. She’d stroke his hair and tell him about the stars, or the animals in the forest and the creatures in the ocean. He didn’t tell Dean any of those stories.

He wanted to keep them for himself.

The next morning they made their way across a sandy street crowded with tourists, towards a small restaurant with a hand-lettered sign proclaiming the World's Best Coffee taped to the front door. Dean brightened perceptively.

"Move your ass, Sam."

Once inside, they made their way to a table situated between two large families. To Sam's left, a group of painfully pale children chattered away in undeniable British accents. "Mummy," the oldest one piped. "May I have an egg and toast, please?"

The mother, a pretty woman with light brown hair, nodded distractedly at her daughter, while filling one of those cups that had spouts on them with orange juice. She offered it to a small blond-haired toddler sitting in a booster seat next to her. He batted it away with a loud NO and his sister giggled as it went skidding across the table. It hit the floor and the lid flew off. Orange juice splattered everywhere, including the left leg of Sam's jeans.

The father, a tall, lanky guy wearing wire-rimmed glasses, looked at his wife with irritation on his face, his lips tightening in displeasure. "Miriam, can't you keep him under control?" he snapped. His wife closed her eyes wearily for a brief moment, and Sam could see her exhaustion in the droop of her shoulders.

Dean made an unidentifiable noise and Sam glanced at him, startled at the unexpected sound. His brother was looking at the spilled orange juice with a smile. He shook his head and grabbed a wad of napkins, scooting his chair back and getting to his feet.

Dean bent to swipe the napkins through the puddle on the floor, and then picked up the cup. He straightened and set the cup firmly on the table in front of the father with a glare, turning to give the mother a soft smile of sympathy. It was the kind of smile Sam hadn't seen on Dean's face in a long time.

He sank back down into his seat and grinned at Sam, who was staring at him with bemusement. "Dude, you used to do that all the time. Threw your sippy cup across the room anytime it didn't have apple juice in it." Sam let him smirk for a minute while his brain processed the fact that Dean had used the words sippy cup in a sentence. Then he smirked back.

"What?"

"Sippy cup?"

"Well, that's what they're called. Don't be a dick." Dean eyed Sam with censure. "Whose job do you think it was to make sure your precious-ass sippy cup was never empty? You were a real bitch about it, too. Treated me like a freakin’ waitress, Sammy."

Sam hastily decided to change the subject before Dean could get started on all the ways Sam had been a bitchy princess when he was little. It was a subject he could wax eloquent on for hours if Sam let him.

Then Sam tilted his head and looked at Dean, reconsidering. Maybe he should let Dean run with it. It would give him something else to think about, maybe calm him down a little, make him less angry.

But it was too late. Dean had disappeared behind his menu and the way his fingers tightened on it when Sam tentatively cleared his throat told him that Dean had remembered he was still pissed at his brother. Sam clenched his jaw in renewed frustration.

Dean was all smiles for their waitress, turning on the charm, which she responded to with a pretty pink blush and a toss of her hair. Sam didn't quite glower at her when he told her he wanted pancakes, but it was a near thing. Her blush faded and she tossed her hair in a very different way when she turned away from the table with their orders.

Sam half expected Dean to bitch him out about ruining their chances for frequent and attentive coffee refills, but he didn't. He was watching the people at the table on the right side of them, his eyes narrowed in a way Sam couldn't quite interpret.

There were three kids, all dressed in bathing suits, talking excitedly about going to the beach. The youngest one was wearing some kind of flotation device around his waist, a green swimming tube with a smiling dragon's head sticking out in front.

The parents were engrossed in their own conversation, but still paying attention to the kids, the kind of parental multi-tasking that Sam was in awe of whenever he saw it, and that Dean had almost always been able to pull off when they were growing up.

The mother had long blonde hair and she smiled sweetly at her son's excitement. There was something about it that made Sam’s throat ache.

It had been a bad day and Sammy was tired. There was a Christmas play at school tonight, and he had been looking forward to it for weeks. His class was going to sing Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman and there was going to be punch and cookies in the school cafeteria after the show. Everyone was supposed to bring cookies, and the auditorium was decorated with a big tree, twinkling with white lights and big red and gold balls. Dean had made cookies the night before in the small kitchen of the tiny apartment they lived in, and he let Sam help decorate them with red sprinkles.

And then this morning Dad said they had to leave and for Dean to help Sammy pack his things. Sammy tried not to cry, but he didn't want to miss the Christmas party. Dad told him he would be going to school where they were moving to, but Sammy worried they wouldn't have a second grade at the new school. He didn't know what kind of things a new school would have, but he knew they wouldn't have a Christmas play by the time he got there.

He yelled at Dean when Dad was outside packing the car. He shouted that he hated Dad and hated Dean and he didn't want to move again. Dean looked sad when Sammy said he hated him, but he just kept packing Sam's stuff and didn't yell back.

And now it was dark and they were in the car, still, because Dad didn't want to stop at a motel yet, and Sammy was curled up in the back seat, dozing to the sound of Dad's music. It was playing quieter than usual, and Sammy knew that meant Dean was asleep in the front seat. He had turned around to tell Sammy goodnight, but Sam ignored him, looked away out the window into the dark night and passing headlights, and pinched his lips shut tight.

"Sammy," his mother’s voice said. "Sammy, my poor baby. This isn't what I wanted for you. I'm sorry, Sammy." His mother looked sad, and her eyes were just like Dean's. "Dean loves you, Sammy."

It was just starting to get light when Dad finally pulled into a motel and carried a half-asleep Sammy inside. He laid him gently down on the bed, and Dean pulled the covers back and scooted in next to him. Sam stirred restlessly, not wanting to wake up all the way. "Shh, Sammy," Dean whispered. "It's okay, go back to sleep."

"G'night, Dean," Sammy murmured.

February was apparently when all the tourists came to Florida. Sam had never seen so many Michigan license plates in his life, at least not outside of the actual state of Michigan. He could certainly understand the urge for a Michigan winter exodus. And after the Christmas he and Dean just spent there, he definitely didn’t think he’d be going back again any time soon.

It had been both the best and the worst Christmas of Sam's life. He tore his mind away from the memory of Dean's face, lit with the colored lights Sam had strung around the room, looking happy and content just to be with his brother on Christmas. Giving Dean Christmas was one of the hardest things Sam had ever done until the Trickster decided he was bored.

As pissed as Dean seemed to be with him still, again, whatever - and really, how fucked up was that and how much longer was it going to go on? - he was obviously ready to get on with the job by the time he'd wiped the last of the maple syrup off his plate with his finger. He then proceeded to suck said finger into his mouth, licking the syrup off with a flourish. Sam made himself look away.

"Let's go," Dean said, shoving his chair back from the table and standing up. The family on the right was also getting ready to leave.

The British folks had already left, the father stalking out ahead of his family, leaving his wife to gather the children and all their child-related crap. She'd given Dean a tremulous smile as she balanced her son on one hip and a huge bag of stuff on the other, trying to herd her daughter out in front of her. Dean made a move as if to get up and help her, but she'd shaken her head quickly, with a nervous glance at her retreating husband's back. Dean subsided into his seat with a shrug and a frown.

Now Sam and Dean made it safely out the door, dodging the little boy and his swimming tube as his mother laughed joyfully while she watched him trot towards the door, the dragon's head clutched in his chubby little hands. Dean’s face softened and Sam felt his chest tighten.

When they got back across the street to their room, they changed into their Federal agent outfits to go interview the guy who'd killed his wife because he loved her too much, whatever the fuck that meant. Sam frowned at the spot of mud on his pant leg and hoped that his suit coat hid the worst of the wrinkles in his shirt. Living out of the trunk of the car didn’t do much for keeping their wardrobe neat and tidy.

Tightening his tie in the dolphin-shaped mirror that hung over a dresser painted to look like ocean waves, Sam decided to try and make peace again. He'd let this go on for longer than he should have.

"Dean," he started.

"Forget it, Sam," Dean said from behind him, shrugging his suit coat on over his shoulders and meeting Sam's eyes in the mirror. "It's fine."

"Obviously it's not fine, Dean," Sam said impatiently, turning to face his brother.

"It's as fine as it's gonna get, then." Dean glared at him. "Just drop it."

"I'm not gonna -"

“Dammit, Sam,” Dean snapped, and Sam actually took a step back at the anger he saw on Dean's face. "Yes, you are. I mean it, Sam. Quit beating a dead horse." Dean snatched his car keys, wallet, and FBI ID off the dresser, shoved them in his pocket and stalked to the door. "Come on!"

Sam took a deep breath to steady himself and keep from kicking his brother's ass right then and there, and followed Dean out into the blinding Florida sunshine.

The FBI badges worked their usual weird magic and got them in for an interview with Jack Harrison. He was one sorry-looking son of a bitch, weary and pale. His eyes were flat and lifeless, his skin was gray, and his hair was dull and limp. The orange prison jumpsuit didn't help, making him look like he’d been embalmed. Orange didn't even look good on Dean, Sam thought, as he studied Harrison closely, and Dean looked good in everything.

"You wanna tell us what happened?" Dean started. He'd picked a Golden Oldie for their badges this time. He flashed them at the guy, who couldn't have looked less interested. "Agents Jagger and Richards. Tell us what happened to your wife."

Harrison seemed to be shaken somewhat out of his apathy by Dean's directness. He stared at them from across the table, then licked his lips and said, "She was a saint." He lowered his eyes and said nothing else.

"That's it? She was a saint?" Dean's belligerence was obvious. "And that's why you killed her?" He shook his head. "Okay, pal. We're gonna need a little more than that." He turned his glare on Sam as Sam kicked him under the table. "What?"

"What Agent Richards means is, why don't you tell us what happened that night?" Sam said, trying to sound calm and encouraging. Dean snorted.

Harrison looked back and forth between them, sighing and twisting his hands together on the table in front of him. "We were married for seven years. We have two children. Melissa was perfect. She was the most wonderful mother in the world. She was the best wife a man could ask for. We were very happy." He sounded almost mechanical, and Sam frowned. "I don't know what else you want me to say. I loved her more than I should have."

Sam had no clue what that meant, but Dean merely said, "Listen, just tell us what happened." Harrison didn't say anything, just stared down at his hands.

Sam put on his best sympathetic face and said, "Mr. Harrison. How did you love your wife too much? Can you tell us what you mean by that?"

Harrison's knuckles were white as his fingers wrapped together even tighter. "She was perfect," he whispered. "And I wanted her to stay perfect." He looked pleadingly back and forth between Sam and Dean. "She wouldn't have if she'd lived. Eventually, things would have gotten to her, made her do bad things. It’s hard, being a mother. That’s what the girl said."

“What girl?” Dean asked. Sam blinked. This was the first mention of any girl.

“The girl with the long dark hair. She said the amulet wouldn’t help.” Harrison looked past them like they were no longer there.

And that was all they were able to get out of him.

“Guy’s a dick,” Dean said as they walked out of the county building. “What the hell are his kids supposed to do now? And who’s this girl he’s talking about?”

Sam didn’t have an answer for either question.

They screwed around town for a while after that, checking a few facts at the library and the local newspaper office. Dinner was fried shrimp at the seafood shack down the street from the Dolphin Inn. Sam could feel his arteries clog up, but he had to admit it was pretty good.

The place was full of tourists and that made Dean antsy.

“I feel like I’m stuck on the friggin' Love Boat,” he grumbled. “What’s with all the men in shorts?”

He seemed to have softened a little and when they got back to their room, Sam got reckless and tried again. He’d been so long without and there was so little time left, and dammit, didn’t he deserve to have as much of Dean as he could, while he was still alive?

So he took a risk and Dean said no.

And Sam pretty much lost it.

“I watched you die, over and over and over again, Dean,” Sam shouted with baffled fury.

“And so, what, you think I owe you sex?” Dean cocked his head and looked at Sam curiously. “No means no, Sam, and even if I’m not the chick in this relationship, I still get to say it.”

“What are you afraid of, Dean? I don’t understand.” Sam was pleading now and he didn't care. There was so little time left. How could Dean not see that.

“I’m not afraid of anything, Sam.” Dean disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Sam heard the sound of running water, heard the toilet flush, heard Dean gargle and spit into the sink. All sounds that he thought he’d never hear again.

All sounds that in a few short months he really never would hear again if he didn’t find a way to do something about it.

And now he’d gone and fucked things up again. He knew better than to push. He felt his stomach do a slow flip and he clenched his teeth against hopeless love and frustration.

When Dean came out of the bathroom, Sam was still standing there in the middle of the room, lost in misery. He flinched when Dean laid a hand on his arm.

“It’s not fair, Sam. That’s all. It’s not fair, and it’ll just make it harder for me to go.” He took his hand away and crawled into bed, turning on his side, his back to Sam.

Sam’s arm burned where Dean’s hand had touched him.

It took Sam until Cold Oak before he had any idea why his mother told him she was sorry when she came to him in his dreams. He still didn't understand why Azazel feeding him demon blood was his mother's fault, and Ruby's cryptic instructions to check out Mary's friends and family hadn’t provided any answers, except that they were all dead. There must be more to it, but in the dreams, although Mary always spoke to him, Sam could never seem to ask her. He tried, but the words wouldn't come, and his mother just shook her head at him.

But the days after Cold Oak - well, Sam was mostly confused about that time. He'd been dead. That he knew. And then Dean, that stubborn bastard, had gone and made his stupid, self-sacrificing deal with the crossroads demon, which Sam still wanted to kick his ass for. Sam had been dead but he didn't go anywhere. Or, if he did, he didn't know where. If there had been a reaper, if his spirit, or whatever, went into any kind of light, Sam didn't remember it.

The only thing he remembered from that time was his mother. She'd been there with him, wherever he was, and sometimes she talked to him, but mostly she was silent. It seemed to Sam that she was grieving; he heard her voice rise with it. She appeared to be waiting for something. Her head tilted, listening, but he didn't know what she was listening for. He was floating and lost, adrift in darkness. He saw flashes, he supposed they were memories, of Ava's smiling face and the fear in Andy's eyes. Jake, he saw how terrified Jake was, and how strong that made him. The yellow-eyed demon had been there, Azazel, telling him things he didn't want to know, things about blood, and his mother.

And then his mother screamed and Sam didn't know if it was with rage or joy. He heard a name he didn't understand, Castiel, screamed in his mother's agony, and then right before Sam woke up, Mary said to him soothingly, "It's fine, Sam. They’ll watch over him."

He had no idea what she meant.

When Sam woke in the morning, Dean was gone. Sam hoped like hell he was only out getting breakfast and not anything else. Panic fluttered in his belly at the sight of Dean’s empty bed, but the rumpled sheets at least gave him relief in the knowledge that Dean had been there.

During all those months without Dean, those months that weren’t real for anyone except Sam, he hadn’t been able to stay in a room with two beds. After the first time he’d tried it, the sight of the empty bed next to him, immaculate and untouched, sent Sam to the bathroom and kept him in there until morning, hunched over the toilet. On his knees on the cold tile floor, he’d known such despair that he wasn’t sure if he could survive it.

On the rare occasions a motel didn’t have a room with a single bed available, Sam had slept in Dean’s car. That brought its own kind of agony. The car was all he had left of his brother and it made him hurt beyond measure.

He shook his hair out of his eyes and the memories out of his mind, swung his legs over the edge of the bed and headed for the shower.

When he emerged from the steaming bathroom, towel knotted around his waist, Ruby was standing in front of the small table in the kitchenette, leafing idly through the piles of notes from this case.

She turned at his entrance and stared appreciatively at his bare torso, eyes straying to the front of his towel. Dropping the papers back on the table, she folded her arms across her chest. She whistled.

“Impressive, Sam. You really shouldn’t hide behind all those shirts, you know.” She nodded at his chest with a smirk.

“What do you want, Ruby? Sam moved self-consciously to where his duffle was parked on the dresser. Having a demon perv on him was beyond disturbing. Shoving a carved wooden dolphin out of his way, he began to rummage through his bag for some clean underwear.

“Don’t get dressed on my account, Sam.” Her voice was amused and it got under his skin.

He turned to glare at her. “What do you want, Ruby?”

“Okay, okay.” She cocked her head and looked at him with speculation. “What’s wrong, Sam? You seem a little…off. Did something happen I don’t know about? You’re not keeping secrets from me, are you?”

There was no way Sam was going to tell Ruby about Broward County and the Trickster. “What do you want?” he repeated for the third damn time, jaw clenched tight. He grabbed some boxers and a pair of jeans and went back into the bathroom. From behind the partially closed door, he heard Ruby shuffling through his notes again. He dressed hastily and returned to the room. “Leave those alone.”

“Sorry,” Ruby said, not looking sorry at all. She put the notes down. “This case is so not important, Sam. What are you even doing here besides wasting time?”

“Every case is important, Ruby,” Sam said, although he actually agreed with her. This case and these people were nothing compared to Dean, but he was here because Dean wanted to be.

“Right. Well, then, I’ll let you get back to it. When you’re ready to save Dean from his deal, Sam, you be sure and let me know.” She turned to the door.

“Ruby, wait. Did you come here for a reason? Do you have something for me?” He wondered if she was lying when she insisted that she didn’t know the name of the demon that held Dean’s contract. He wondered if he could make her talk.

“No. I came to see why you were wasting your time on a ghost with mommy issues instead of trying to help Dean.” She shrugged, looking unruffled for all her professed concern. “Time’s running out, Sam. You don’t have forever to do this.”

Sam advanced on her, frustration burning through him. “Tell me what to do, then! How am I supposed to help him?” He stood over her, fists clenched at his sides. He wanted to hurt her.

She cocked her head again, her long blonde hair falling around her face with the motion. “No, you go right ahead and stay here with Dean and finish up this case. I’ll be waiting for you when you’re ready to be serious about this. Maybe I’ll even have that naming ritual for you. Just don’t take too long, Sam.”

She turned and was gone, leaving Sam shaking with urgent fury.

Ghost with mommy issues? What the hell did that mean?

Five minutes later, Dean came back through the door, carrying coffee and a bag of Dunkin’ Donuts.

“What’s up, Sammy? Why’re you standing around half-nekkid? You thinkin’ about trying out to be a Chippendale dancer?” His voice teased, but Sam could hear something under the smile. Something warm and dark and he watched Dean look at him, watched his eyes travel over his chest as if helpless to look away.

Sam turned back to his duffle, grabbed a t-shirt and pulled it over his head. He’d had enough rejection last night and he wasn’t about to risk giving Dean a chance to do it again.

But the look in Dean’s eyes as he watched Sam tug his shirt into place made him hope, just a little, that things weren’t as fucked-up between them as he’d thought.

At first, Sam didn't think he slept during the months the Trickster kept him dangling on the cusp of Tuesday. Dean died, and Sam woke up. And it wasn't as if he and Dean took naps during the day while Sam was waiting for Dean to die.

But he knew he saw his mother's face, knew she came to him somehow, sometime. It was the saddest he had ever seen her look, and she never said anything directly to him. She barely even looked at him. "Dean," she would say, mournfully. "Dean."

And Sam knew what that was like, he said it himself, every time Dean died. When Dean fell in the shower, when he ate bad tacos, when the ax in Sam's hand slipped and buried itself in - Sam shouted Dean's name, he screamed it, he whispered it with hot bitter tears on his face. So he understood it when all Mary could manage was her beloved son's name.

"Look at this, Dean." Sam picked up the small statue of a scorpion that sat on an undersized dresser. The dresser looked suspiciously like some sort of altar to Sam. There was an ornate bowl with carvings of birds covering the sides, filled with soil, dark and rich. A green candle sat in the center, surrounded by some kind of grass clippings. Sam turned the scorpion over in his hands. What appeared to be dried blood stained the bottom, brown and rust-like.

"What the hell is that?" Dean said. "Dude, that's gross." He looked around the room, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "We're not dealing with friggin’ witches again, are we?"

“I don’t know what this is,” Sam said. He looked around the Harrisons’ bedroom. The yellow crime scene tape curled despondently across the floor, no longer keeping anyone out. Nothing was out of place as far as Sam could tell. The room was freakishly neat, really.

Small pink roses festooned the wallpaper and there were matching curtains at the two windows. The furniture was small and almost delicate, white wood with ornately carved knobs on the dresser drawers. It was a very feminine room, not really a typical master bedroom. There was a large bloodstain on the bed, and Sam paused, tilted his head to the side and studied it curiously.

“Dean, does this look like some kind of pattern to you?” he asked.

Dean was looking under the furniture, presumably for hex bags. He stopped and glanced at the mattress. “Well, Sam it looks like someone got gutted -" he stopped. “Huh. It looks almost symmetrical.” He grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper from the pile of neat, flowered stationary on the small desk in the corner of the room.

He studied the blood on the mattress, and then, sketching quickly, duplicated the pattern on the paper, folding it up and tucking it in his pocket. “I don’t see any hex bags. We done here? This place gives me the creeps, all these flowers. I feel like I’m at a funeral.”

“Yeah, we’re done.” Sam palmed the scorpion statue, feeling the heft of it in his hand, and said, “Let’s go.”

He had to physically stop himself from grabbing Dean’s arm as they started to walk across the street where they’d parked the car. There was very little traffic in the Harrisons’ neighborhood this time of day, sleepy mid-afternoon, but that didn’t mean anything. Sam was conditioned to things happening to his brother suddenly and without warning under the most innocuous circumstances.

“Florida’s a weird-ass place, Sammy,” Dean was saying. He gestured to the verdant foliage, the green trees with fruit hanging heavy from every branch. “You can just go outside any time you feel like you wanna eat an orange and grab one.” Every front yard had the same thing, an orange tree next to the driveway and a grapefruit tree up by the house. “That’s not natural.”

They were in an older neighborhood, made up of small pastel-colored ranch houses with bas-relief dolphins or seahorses on the front walls next to large picture windows. There was vegetation everywhere, dank and green, with lurid pink and red flowers and insects buzzing indolently in the bright sun.

Sam spotted a face peering out the front window of the house next door to the Harrisons’. It was a pale aqua house with spiky plants around the front door and a beat up Jeep Cherokee seeking refuge from the Florida sun under a carport roof.

He nudged Dean. “Let’s see what the neighbors think.”

The neighbor was a young woman in her twenties, with dark brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and a pretty little girl who looked to be around two clinging to her leg. The woman stood warily in the doorway, propping the screen door open with her hip.

“Sure, I knew Melissa. Our kids played together.” She shrugged. “We were friends.”

Dean’s face lit up with the same expression it always did when he was around kids. The little girl peered at him solemnly from behind her mother’s knee, thumb stuck in her mouth, bare toes curling into the carpet.

“Hi there, sweetheart,” Dean said, beaming down at her. She stopped sucking her thumb and watched him with curious eyes.

“Can you tell us what the Harrison’s marriage was like, um, Mrs…?” Sam asked.

“Jackson. Kathy Jackson.” She was playing idly with a small silver charm that she wore on a chain around her neck. “Who are you again?” Sam wasn’t sure she really cared. She seemed more focused on Dean and the gentle faces he was making at her daughter, who now had her thumb out of her mouth and was blinking up at Dean, her lips curved in an almost-smile.

“FBI,” Dean interjected glibly, looking up at Kathy. “Agents Jagger and Richards.” She nodded.

“They seemed happy enough. Melissa never complained. Jack worked a lot, but they all did stuff together on the weekends. You know, they went to the beach, things like that. Played with the kids.”

“That’s a lovely necklace, Kathy,” Dean said suddenly. “May I?” He reached out a hand, but Kathy shrank back against the doorframe.

“No! I mean, I’m sorry, it was a present from my mother and I don’t like -” Her daughter seemed to pick up on the change in her mood and started to fuss, raising her arms to her mother and whimpering. Kathy bent to pick her up, depositing her effortlessly on her hip in that competent way some women had of making Sam feel lucky he’d probably never have kids. It was so far out of his proficiency range it was ridiculous.

“Sorry,” Dean said.

“It’s fine. Did you talk to the girl? She might know something,” Kathy said, looking at Sam.

“What girl?”

“The one with the long dark hair. I’ve seen her hanging around the neighborhood sometimes.” Kathy looked thoughtful. “Melissa mentioned seeing her a couple of times.”

“No,” Sam said smoothly. “We haven’t talked to her yet.”

“We’ll get out of your hair now,” Dean added. He handed her an official-looking card with his cell phone number on it. “Here’s my number if you think of anything else. Thank you for your time.” He winked at the little girl and they turned to go.

“Melissa was a good mother,” Kathy Jackson said to their retreating backs. It sounded almost aggressive. That was weird. As far as Sam knew, no one had said she wasn’t.

Part Three