Defect, page 2 of 2


Morgan flicked his gaze to the rearview mirror as a sedan pulled in behind him and shut off the lights.  He fished the device out of his cup holder and got out of the SUV to saunter up to the driver’s side.  “Hey, Leon,” he greeted, planting his hands on the open window ledge.  “Who’d you piss off to get the night shift?”

“Don’t ask,” the older agent grumbled.  “What’s going on with our mark?”

“Quite as a church mouse.  She turned off the lights about an hour ago.  Don’t be surprised if she makes you, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“She’s one smart cookie,” Morgan said with a smile, handing over the locator.

***

Once he found his own inner voice Victor had no trouble taking charge of the others.  Suddenly the things worked with him instead of against him.  Against each other.  It was like having super powers come on line and he welded them with stone cold efficiency.  With a look locked doors opened, cameras crashed to the floor.  And people.  He walked out of the facility in the dead of night, nothing left to bear witness to his passing.  Flames roared from the compound behind him as he effortlessly stole a car from the parking lot and headed out to find the closest pawn shop.

***

Once he began the words poured from Dean in a cathartic flood, a lifetime of secrets.  Gideon sat back and let him talk, speaking only to offer encouragement as Dean sought it or to clarify a point.  Dean used the whole night to tell of monsters and family and how the blood flowed between them, stopping only to take a sip of water or when a guard on rounds got too close.  They changed positions from time to time ending with Gideon at the table and Dean on the bunk with his feet up on the blanket.  At the end of the story Gideon began to ask questions, starting with what happened to Henricksen.

“Why did the thing affect him and not you?”

“I drew a protective circle before I started.”

“Of salt?”

“No, it was scratched into the ground with an ancient chant, something new Sam dug up somewhere.  Or, you know, old.  We’d used it a couple of times already.  It’s quick in a pinch and saves on the salt.  Won’t blow away, either.”

“And it kept you safe.”

“I told Henricksen to get inside with me but he was too busy trying to be The Man.”

“So the thing was a demon?”

Dean sucked on his teeth as he considered his response.  “See?  We don’t know exactly.  We think it was a demon since a garden variety exorcism worked so well, but it wasn’t alone.  There were multiple entities of some kind along for the ride.”

“Entities.”

“Going in Sam thought it might be a congregation of damned souls that had nowhere to go after they escaped Hell so they clung to the thing they knew, the demon.  Whatever they are they’re totally out there.  I guess Hell will do that to you after a while.”

“So these entities…”

“Disembodied spirits.  Probably.”

“All right, disembodied spirits, you believe they escaped when Jake opened the portal in Montana.”

“Yeah.  And this poor sap Walter picked up the whole gang when he was investigating a new ‘haunting’.  Amateur.  At least he had the presence of mind to try to get help.  He contacted a priest we had dealt with on a similar matter a few weeks before who in turn got up with us.”

“So this wasn’t an uncommon event for you.”

“No.   In the months after Montana we worked our asses off on variations of this theme.  But no telling who or where or even how long these things had been dead… nothing to salt and burn.  Sam started getting into some pretty dark shit to get rid of them.  That’s when I decided enough was enough.”

Gideon nodded his understanding.  “Then what happened to Agent Henricksen?”

“I tried to help him but he went ape shit.  I finally had to knock his ass out and drop him off at the emergency room.  We planned on going back for him after doing a little more research but he jumped ship as soon as he woke up.”

“Why didn’t you just perform another exorcism?”

“No point in that, the demon was already gone.  These lost souls just attached themselves to the closest warm body I guess.  I don’t know how Henricksen’s kept it together as long as he has.  Walter ended up in jumping in front of a train and he only carried them around for a few weeks.  Sam always says we can’t save them all.”

By mutual, unspoken agreement they both stopped talking as footsteps came down the corridor.  “Jason.  Mr. Winchester,” Hotchner greeted as he stopped outside of the cell.  “I understand you two had an all-nighter.”

“Watch it,” Dean teased as he got up and followed Gideon to the door.  “Don’t go smirching my virtue.”

“There will be a competency hearing this afternoon,” Hotch told them as he motioned for a guard with a key and kept an eye on Dean when Gideon did not.

“Competency hearing?” Dean asked, turning a wounded look to Gideon.  “I’m not crazy.”

“I think we can keep you out of prison,” Gideon said as they waited for the guard to unlock the cell door.  “We can certainly keep you off death row.”

“How?  By reason of insanity?”

“By mental defect, yes.”

Dean ran both hands roughly through his hair leaving it sticking out in every direction.  “Mental defect,” he complained.  “They’re gonna stick me in an institution?”

“It won’t be forever.  This way there’s hope of getting out someday with appropriate treatment.”

“I told you; forever for me is like twenty-six days.  Or twenty-five, I’m not sure.” Dean seemed to think about it as he reached out and held on to the bar.  “Sam would know exactly.  It doesn’t matter, jail or the nut house, it’s all the same to me.”

“I’ll catch up,” Gideon told Hotch, unsmiling when he only stepped out of Dean’s line of sight.  “What’s wrong?” Gideon asked Dean.  “If you really don’t care where you go?”

With a humorless laugh Dean moved back toward his bunk.  “Nothing.  I just,” he paused to chortle again tiredly.  “For a minute there I guess I thought you might actually believe me.”

“I believe…”

“Yeah, I know.  You believe that I believe.  It’s not really the same thing.”

“It’s a lot to take in.”

“Short of taking you on a hunt, and we both know that’s never gonna happen, I don’t have any way to prove anything to you.”  Dean shrugged and flopped down on the mattress.  “All I have is my word.”

“You can’t prove the un-provable.”

“Un-provable?”  Dean snorted.  “You’d be singing a different tune if you came face to face with a pissed off poltergeist.”

Gideon smiled wryly.  “Agent Henricksen doesn’t believe.  Mostly he blames you.”

“Good point, but not relevant to this situation,” Dean countered with a smirk of his own.  “After the hell hounds drag me off you’ll believe.”

“Nothing can get to you here.”

“You think prison walls can keep ‘em out?   Dude, check again.”

“Tell me how it will happen,” Gideon encouraged, only slightly patronizing.  “So I can compare notes after the fact.”  

“No problemo.”  Dean swung his feet down and sat up in one fluid motion then moved back toward the door.  “Write this down; I’ll hear ‘em coming but nobody else will.  I’ll flake.  A little.  I won’t scream like a schoolgirl or anything.  The security cameras will probably flicker and go out then suddenly there won’t be anything left but a streak or two of blood in an empty cell.” He grasped the bars and gave them a shake.

Turning completely serious, Gideon placed his hand over Dean’s.  “Nothing is going to hurt you, Dean.  Not in here and not wherever they send you next.”

“Thanks, Jason.  That’s very reassuring.”  Dean tugged his hand out from under Gideon’s.

“Get some rest,” Gideon said as he walked away.

“I’ll prove it to you,” Dean called after him.  “If it’s the last thing I do.”

******

“What was that all about?” Hotchner asked as they exited the detainee area.

“I was wrong,” Gideon said bleakly.  “We have the right brother after all.”

“So you believe his confession now?”

“The confession?  No, no, absolutely not.  That was mostly for the purpose of protecting his brother.  It’s inaccurate at best, but he wasn’t really lying either.”

Hotchner stopped and shook his head.  “I don’t understand.”

Gideon didn’t even slow down as he explained, forcing Hotch to play catch up.  “When these boys were very young they were dragged into their father’s delusions, they were literally raised into them.  Somehow the brother broke free but Dean bought into them unconditionally.”

“His father’s delusions were his reality.”

“Yes.  When Dean murdered those people he believed he was ridding the world of real monsters.”

“And the torture?”

“Possibly part of some misguided lore or ritual he thought he had to perform to destroy the evil.”  Gideon finally stopped near his office and turned to face Hotch.  “We can’t let them kill him for it, there was no malicious intent.  The boy is sick.”

“Did he tell you about his double?” Hotch asked.

Gideon nodded.  “Shape shifter,” he said as if that explained everything.

“Aw.  Shape shifter.  Why didn’t we think of that?”

“Dean answered all of our questions with paranormal elements straight off of late night television; werewolves, vampires, ghosts.  And yet he accounted for every detail as if he actually lived it.”

Hotch digested the information for a minute before releasing a sigh.  “We’re never going to learn the truth then.”

“He told it as well as he is capable.”

“Okay,” Hotchner agreed.  “I guess we’re done here.  You’ve got a few hours before the hearing.  Why don’t you go home and get some rest?”

“I’ll catch a nap on the couch later,” Gideon refused absently.  “First I want to make a few notes for my testimony.”  

***

“Sammy!”  Dean screamed as he held the lifeless body tight in his arms and rocked him back and forth.

“Little brother dead again?  Gee, that’s too bad,” the demon crooned from over Dean’s shoulder.

Dean swung wildly with a fist but missed her by a mile.  “We had a deal,” he growled at her, low and dangerous.  “I held up my end.”

“Did you? Maybe you should have tried a little harder,” she chastised, vanishing into thin air and taking what was left of Sam with her.  Leaving Dean alone…

***

Dean woke with a start but quickly realized where he was and settled back into the thin pillow with an audible sigh of relief.  As he waited for his thundering pulse to calm he heard footsteps coming down the corridor.  He lifted his head as Morgan appeared at the bars.

“You awake?” Morgan asked as the guard let him in.

“Yeah,” Dean answered, rubbing his eyes and sitting up.  “What’s that?”

“Gideon wants you in a suit for the hearing.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dean complained under his breath.  “Why?  He’s just gonna tell them I’m nuts.  What does it matter what I’m wearing?”

“Hey, it’s a nice suit,” Morgan said, evading the question altogether.

Dean rolled off the bunk and fingered the dark material.  “Is it yours?”

Morgan hung the wooden hanger on a high bar then pulled off the jacket and held it out.  “It’s old but it’s a classic.”

“It smells like mothballs.  It must have been in your locker since Hoover was in skirts.”

“I’m not that old.  Besides, the judge is going to look at you not smell you.  Put it on.”

“Seriously, what’s the point?”

“Because Gideon said so.”

“Gideon said so,” Dean repeated unenthusiastically.

“That’s right,” Morgan insisted.  “He’s trying to look out for you so put the damn thing on and at least try to act grateful.”

“He’s wasting his time.”  Dean slid one arm then the other into the jacket and held them out to show how his hands disappeared.  “It’s too big.”

Morgan tugged on the cuffs and folded them under before pulling on the lapels as well.  “It’s a little long in the arms, but it’s good through the shoulders.  And I have the fix.”  He produced a piece of chalk from his pocket and marked the sleeves at the fold.

“You must have been a tailor in another life,” Dean joked.

“I can’t sew, but I’m hell on wheels with a stapler,” Morgan said with a smirk. “Try on the pants.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Tough.  Do it anyway.  I’ll mark the legs then I’ve got to round up a shirt and a tie.  They’re gonna take you to the showers.  Get a shave, too.  What size shoe do you wear?”

Dean finally laughed.  “You guys are killing me,” he muttered.

******

Gideon thought it improper to ride to the hearing in the same vehicle as Dean since in essence he was there to put him away.  Instead he and J.J. planned to follow the prisoner van but an urgent message from Garcia delayed their leaving by a few minutes.  When they arrived Morgan was already half way back from parking the van in the huge lot across the street.  Reid and Hotch waited with Dean near the side entrance of the courthouse so J.J. pulled the vehicle up near them to let Gideon out.

Sans shackles, having given his word to behave, Dean was restrained with only handcuffs.  With his hands folded neatly in front of him he had the appearance of a nicely dressed young man.  With somewhat wild looking hair.

“Who’s the blonde?” Dean asked as Gideon got out of the SUV.

“That’s J.J.,” Reid told him enthusiastically, his ears turning red as she leaned forward to wave at him.  “She’s our liaison agent.”

“She’s an agent?  That’s hot,” Dean said before turning a flirty grin to J.J. “How you doin’,” he called out to her.  She smiled at him as she pulled away from the curb to go park.  Dean snickered as he noticed Reid’s proximity reaction to J.J.  “You’ve been holding out on me, Reid.  That your girlfriend?”

“We work together,” Reid told him, taking the ribbing good-naturedly.

Hotch moved toward Gideon, shaking his head.  “He’s in rare form today,” he commented, thumbing over his shoulder at Dean.  His demeanor changed when Gideon somberly motioned him closer.  “What’s wrong?”

“There was a fire at Westwood Psychiatric Facility last night,” Gideon explained in a quiet tone.  “Nine patients and three staff members died.  The place burned to the ground.”

“Westwood.  That was that new private hospital.”

“That’s where they sent Agent Henricksen.  Courtesy of his old boss,” Gideon said. “His was the one body they didn’t find.”

“Even if he escaped, do you think he’s capable of killing twelve people?”

“To get to Dean?  Possibly.  Garcia tells me there was a breach in our security this morning.  Someone tried to hack in using Agent Henricksen’s old code.”

“They couldn’t have gotten much, I’m sure his code had been discontinued.”

“Well whoever it was looked at the court calendar.”

Hotch patted his weapon through his suit coat and glanced around the busy sidewalk.  “Let’s get inside.”

“Yeah,” Gideon agreed, following Hotch back to Dean’s side.  

“So I gotta wear a tie and you don’t?” Dean grumbled to Gideon.  “You’re the expert witness, you know.  I’m just the poor defective bastard who’s going down.”

Gideon smiled in spite of himself and fished out his comb as he approached Dean.  “You’re wearing the only tie I had at the office.”

“Yeah, your tie and Agent Hotchner’s shirt and Reid’s shoes, I’m the hand-me-down kid,” Dean rattled off.  “Not to mention Morgan’s old suit.”

“It’s a nice suit,” Reid offered.

“Let’s go.”  Hotch motioned that they were going in to Morgan, who was waiting for J.J. to catch up to cross the street.  Morgan acknowledged him with a nod and a wave.  

Gideon placed a hand on Dean’s back and Hotchner took up a defensive position on the other side with Reid bringing up the rear.  They moved through the bullet-proof side door which put them in queue to get through the security check point in relative safety.

Once inside Gideon turned Dean to face him and got busy with the comb.

“Hey!” Dean protested, smacking Gideon’s hand away.

“Hold still.  You look like a porcupine.”

“Do you know how hard it was to get it like that without any gel?”

“I know how easy it is to fix,” Gideon assured as he combed Dean’s hair anyway.

“You’re not my real mother,” Dean groused, looking towards the bright spot of sun on the floor behind Gideon in resignation.  “But I draw the line at a spit bath…” he trailed off then tensed.  “Who invited Henricksen to this party?”

The explosion was silent, the sound of the shattering door their only warning before they were hit by a blast of air and fractured glass.  A shot rang out before anyone had time to hit the ground.  Dean looked surprised and let out a sharp gasp as Hotchner dove into him and covered him with his own body on the floor as shards rained down on everyone.

Dazed, Gideon peeked up from beneath the arm he’d used to protect his face to see Henricksen, gun in hand, looming on the other side of the empty door frame.  In that instant Morgan hit Henricksen in a flying tackle, hard and high, taking him down and sending the weapon skittering across the sidewalk.  Somehow, even flat on his back, the ex-agent tossed Morgan away like a rag doll, sending him crashing into J.J.  Both of them bounced into the brick wall that sheltered the entrance before collapsing in a heap.

The stunned silence gave way to a cacophony of noise and chaos as people rushed away from the wrecked entrance, crowding through the checkpoint in terror. “That was supposed to be bullet proof,” someone screeched.  

“Dean!” Gideon yelled as Hotch sat up to inspect the damage.  

“The shot came after the glass broke,” Reid muttered uncertainly, stopping to stare at the large dark area spreading across Morgan’s nice old suit.

Outside Henricksen rolled to his feet and dashed out into traffic causing cars to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting him and each other.  His fanatical laughter echoed after him as he disappeared down the street at a dead run.

“And they say… I have a defect…” Dean stammered.

Gideon shushed him as he slid over and gathered Dean into his arms.

Hotch hastily unbuttoned the soggy jacket sending crimson droplets in a cascade all around them.  “Call an ambulance!” he shouted down the hall.  But the guards were busy trying to prevent anyone from being killed in the crush of bodies fleeing through the metal detector and into the courthouse.

“I’ll call,” Reid volunteered as he fumbled for his phone.

“Good.  And check Morgan and J.J.,” Hotchner ordered, not looking up from his task.  

Glass fell from his hair in tiny crumbs as Reid rushed to his fallen comrades after one last glance at Dean, dialing 911 as he went.

The spreading stain stood out in stark contrast against the once pristine white shirt as Hotch peeled it away.  He immediately untucked the hem and wadded it up as a makeshift bandage as he pressed both hands into Dean’s right side.

Dean grunted, coughed, and then tried to sit up. A tiny stream of blood trickled from his between his lips.

“Stay down,” Gideon told him, holding him tighter.

Stubborn as his friend Ellen had said, Dean managed to drag a finger through the stain and bring it up toward his face.  “That’s not good,” he said as he examined the almost black blood.  “Dad said a liver shot is usually fatal.  I hope there’s not a penalty for checking in early.”

“You’re not going to die,” Gideon promised in spite of Hotch adding more pressure to try to stem the ever-increasing flow.

“I guess you believe me now, huh?”

“Sure,” Gideon answered automatically, not knowing what Dean meant but trying to keep him talking.

“So how did he do that?  Break the glass?  He didn’t.  They did,” Dean rattled on breathlessly.  “He thinks they’re with him but they’re not.  They’ll destroy him in the end.”

“Be quiet, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes got wide and he sought out Gideon’s hand.  “Do you hear that?”

“I don’t hear anything.”  Gideon clasped Dean’s hand and held on with all his might, meeting Hotchner’s worried eyes.

“Hell hounds,” Dean announced as tears began to stream down his face.

“That’s just the ambulance.”

“No, they’re coming for me.”  Near panic, Dean tried to get up.  “Don’t let go,” he begged.

Gideon swallowed the lump in his throat.  “I’ve got you.”

Taking great gulps of air Dean managed to get his fear under control.  “If you talk to my brother,” he finally said through his tears, “And I don’t think you’ll ever catch up to him, but if you do, don’t tell him I cried.”

“You’re not going to die,” Gideon insisted again, his voice breaking this time.

Dean started to laugh but then winced and panted through the pain.  “Practice before you talk to Sammy.  You’re a terrible liar.  They’re getting closer.”  Dean squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed Gideon’s arm with both hands.  “I hear ‘em.  They’re getting louder.”

“There’ll be blue birds over,” Gideon bent down to Dean’s ear and started to sing the first song that popped into his head to drown out the auditory hallucination, “The white cliffs of Dover…”

Dean opened his eyes and smiled a little as he stared into Gideon’s face focusing his attention entirely on the older man.  “Yeah, okay.”

“… tomorrow, just you wait and see…”

Morgan knelt down beside them, holding his ribs.  “The ambulance is here.”

“There’ll be light and laughter and peace ever after, tomorrow when the world is free,” Gideon stopped as Dean’s eyes slid shut and his hands went slack.

Paramedics shouldered their way in and Gideon eased out from under Dean’s body as they lay him flat and began resuscitation efforts.  He let Hotchner lead him out into the sun while Morgan held vigil over the scene.  Gideon glanced at the curb where Reid hovered over a shaky and bruised but otherwise healthy J.J. but couldn’t keep his eyes off Hotch’s blood stained hands.

******

Having learned about the hearing from a rather eccentric young lady at the FBI building Ellen rushed back to her room to clue Bobby in before taking off for the courthouse.  With a little luck, especially if the proceedings ran late, she would be able to see Dean before they locked him away God only knows where afterward.  As she hung up and gathered her bag to head out there was an insistent knock on the door.  She flung it open to reveal a by now familiar face.

“Well this is different,” she drawled.  “You’ve actually graduated to knocking on doors now instead of following people around?”  Ellen frowned as she studied Morgan’s scraped cheek and what looked like blood along with the dirt stains on his pale blue shirt.

Morgan took a deep breath then let it out. “I didn’t want you hear it on the news.”

***

The look on Bobby’s face told him all he needed to know.  For once Sam took the call from Ellen without putting up a fuss.  He closed his eyes and listened for a minute before handing the phone back to Bobby and storming out the door.

“I’ll call you back,” Bobby told Ellen as he raced out to the porch.  “Sam, wait!” he yelled then ducked the spray of dust and pebbles as the Impala dug into the driveway and sped off.  Bobby ran for the truck knowing it would be over before he got there.

***

Sam drove like a mad man out to the crossroads.  He choked back his tears as he buried the already prepared box.  “Come on, come on,” he chanted as he turned in a frantic circle, counting each second as another his brother spent in Hell.

He froze when he sensed her presence behind him, unsure how he knew she was there but without the desire to examine it too closely.  When he turned to face her he felt like he’d been punched in the gut for the second time since Ellen’s call.

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to play with fire?” the beautiful blonde asked.  She approached him seductively, her tall host the spitting image of Jess.

“My mother didn’t teach me anything,” Sam said coldly.  He dodged her hand as she tried to touch him.  “But you already know that.”

“Dean preferred brunettes,” the demon observed, ignoring the snub.    “Speaking of Dean, you’re too late.  They’re already enjoying his company in the Fireside Lounge.  He’s cried like a baby before he even got there.  Oh wait, he didn’t want you to know that.”

“Shut up, bitch.  I do the talking.”

“How very Dean of you,” she scoffed, turning on her heel.  “Suffer, Sammy.  I won’t make a deal with you.”

Sam let her walk away, biting back his hate and anger to stew in his gut and shine from his eyes even as he kept them out of his voice.  “The only part of my plan I wasn’t sure of,” he taunted in a soft, even tone as she figured out she couldn’t really go anywhere, “I didn’t know if you would be able to detect a devil’s trap this large.  Apparently I was worried for nothing.”

She snarled in frustration when she realized her predicament.  Taking a moment to test the limits of her prison, she glared at Sam spitefully as she went.  “What do you want?” she finally spat out at him, coming to a stop in front of him.

“I need to know the terms of your contract with my brother.”

“Sorry, baby,” she replied.  “It’s against our privacy policy to release that information to anyone but the client,” she stopped cold when Sam stuck the colt into her face.  “Oh.  That is the gun, isn’t it?  Too bad every demon on Earth knows there are no more bullets.”

Sam cocked the weapon.  “Lucky number six, back from the grave.”

Her supreme confidence faltered for a nanosecond.  “You’re bluffing.”

“Am I?”  Sam held his aim steady and his now dry eyes unblinking.  “The original owner of the Colt was buried next to his first wife and the baby she died while giving birth to in a single grave to his right.  His second wife, who was hanged for his murder, and their oldest son are buried to his left.  Is that common knowledge around the demon water cooler?”

She released a breath and her eyes flashed red.

“So you do know about Robert Willingham.  You’re probably on a first name basis with the demon who possessed his second wife when she shot him over a hundred years ago.”

“You would trap me in hell with your brother?” the demon asked, trying to reason with him.  “Oh what I would do to him over time.”

“Hell is hell,” Sam said with a shrug.  “And you’ll be stuck there, too.”

“We could go on like this all night.  What if someone comes along and see the maniac holding a gun on the poor defenseless girl?”

“You’re got three seconds.”

“No.”

“Two.”

“Go ahead you son of a…”

“One.”

“Stop!”  She held up a hand and began to talk fast.  “It was a standard contract except I only gave him a year instead of the usual ten.  Happy now?”

“I need to know the length of the contract on his end.  All he has to do is put in an appearance and his part of the bargain is paid, right?  And don’t even think of lying about this.”

“Nobody gets out of Hell.”

“We both know that’s not true.  Answer the question or I’ll only count to one this time.”  Headlights swept across them but Sam never wavered.

She gaped at him.  “You plan on opening the gate again after what you let out the last time?” she asked skeptically.  “You can’t risk keeping it open for more than a minute and there’s no way to be sure Dean would even get out…”

“One.”

“Yes!  Any time he spends in Hell satisfies the contract.”

Sam pulled the trigger, hitting her right between the wide blue eyes.  She hit the ground and sizzled with tiny bolts of yellow lightning before coming to rest.  Blood dripped into the caliche, looking more like oil stains than blood in the paleness of the moonlight.

“Sam!”  Bobby shouted as he ran up and pried the gun from Sam’s grip.  “That wasn’t the plan.  You were supposed to trade her freedom for Dean’s soul.”

“Dean’s already dead.  That changes everything.”

“You still could’a made a deal.  You could have offered the Colt or…”

“She would have wanted a soul.  My soul,” Sam interrupted waving his arms around, desperate and angry and near tears again.  “And what do you think Dean would have done about that when he got back?  We can’t keep doing this, Bobby.  The deals have to stop.  Now.”

“You’re right,” Bobby backed down wearily, taking off his hat and running a hand through his hair.  “Plan X it is then.”

“I’ve got to get to Quantico.”

“I’ll drive.  You’re in no shape.”

“Somebody’s got to clean up this mess,” Sam argued pointing to the crumpled body.

“Here.”  Bobby tossed him the next pre-paid cell.  “You’ll need that to find Ellen.  Tell her not to let them do an autopsy.  Any bodily damage after death will be permanent.”

“I know.”  Sam tucked the phone into his pocket and got in the Impala.  He wiped his eyes and started the engine.

“Be careful,” Bobby told him then muttered under his breath.  “You damn fool Winchesters are gonna be the death of me.”

******

Just after midnight Ellen sat on the edge of the bed with the third of the four throw-away phones cradled in her hands and waited for the next check-in.  Even in his grief Sam Winchester was doing his best to keep them all under the FBI’s radar as much as possible.  She’d thrown the second phone off an overpass and into the back of a dump truck hours ago, unable to convince Sam it hadn’t been compromised.

Right on schedule the phone rang.  “Where are you?” she asked, hoping it was only sugar and caffeine Sam was hyped up on, ashamed she even thought it could be anything else.  “Already?  You need to slow down before you kill yourself or get thrown in jail.”

The questions came next, none of which she had the answer to.  Then it was her turn to talk.  

“I called in some favors…  No, it wasn’t easy but your Dad wasn’t the only one with shady contacts.  I ran the Roadhouse since before you were in diapers… It doesn’t matter what it cost... No.  I’m leaving for Kinko’s in another hour or two to pick up the fax.”  She sighed and listened to Sam’s doubt and worry pour through the line.  “Real enough, Sam.  Even if they won’t give me the body it’ll stall the autopsy… Yeah, I’ve already got a lawyer working on it.”

***

Gideon sat in his office holding the tie the paramedics had unceremoniously cut from around Dean’s neck.  It was ruined and Gideon had never been particularly fond of it anyway.  Ties were just never his thing.  And yet he couldn’t seem to make himself toss it out like so much garbage.

“No one took Henricksen for the threat that he was,” Hotchner offered from the doorway.  

“We should have.  That’s what we do.”

Hotch didn’t answer right away but didn’t argue either.  “Reid is…” he paused, waited until Gideon was looking at him, “He’s taking it hard.”

With a soft smile and a sigh Gideon acknowledged the unvoiced plea.  “I’ll talk to him.”  He got up and placed the tie on his desk rather than in the trashcan but Hotch still hadn’t moved.  “Something else?”

“First thing this morning Ellen Harvelle presented the Coroner’s office with a marriage license and a notice that she has filed for a preliminary injunction against an autopsy on Winchester’s body.  Whatever she’s up to, it will only delay the inevitable.”

“She’s stalling,” Gideon said.

“For what purpose?”

“I don’t know specifically, but I’ll bet it’s related to what happened to John Winchester’s body after his death.”

“Some sort of ritual.”

“Possibly.  I’ll pay a visit to the alleged Mrs. Winchester after I talk to Reid.”  

“And Garcia,” Hotchner requested.

Gideon raised an eyebrow.

“She’s not taking Winchester’s death all that well either.  But then again, neither are you.”

“I’m okay. I just feel a certain amount of culpability.”

“You were combing the kid’s hair when he was shot,” Hotchner pointed out doggedly.  “I’d say you cared about him at least as much as Reid and Garcia did.”

“He wasn’t a kid,” Gideon objected, deflecting Hotch’s meaning.  “He hid behind that cocky, boyish charm most of the time but he faced death with as much bravery as I’ve ever witnessed.  Dean died a man.”

Hotch nodded and let him get away with it.  “They’re in the conference room whenever you’re ready.”

******

When Gideon got there Garcia was red-eyed but calm.  Reid appeared to be comforting her with a hand on her shoulder.  When he glanced up his expression was blank but he seemed to be looking to Gideon for direction.

“Are you okay?” Gideon said directly to Garcia, for which Reid seemed grateful.

She nodded and tried to get up.  “I should get back to work.”

Reid tightened his grip.  “You need to talk about it,” he insisted.

“I… I did talk about it,” Garcia stuttered, looking from Reid to Gideon in confusion.  “I’m fine.  You know me, I’ll go home and cry some more, but that’s what I do.  It’s not like I was engaged to the guy or anything.  I just… I guess I liked him.”

“We all did,” Gideon said, noticing the flinch Reid tried to hide.  “If you need to talk some more, you know where to find us,” he added, pulling Reid’s hand away and allowing Garcia to escape.

“Poor kid,” Reid murmured as she disappeared out the door.  He turned away from Gideon’s steady gaze.  

Gideon pursed his lips and waited.

“I’m sorry,” Reid finally said.

“For?”

Reid still couldn’t manage to look Gideon in the eye but he let out a breath and then the words began tumbling out.  “I believed him, everything he said.  I thought he was innocent, that he was some kind of hero.  I let my personal feelings override my common sense.  I was totally taken in by a monster.”

“Whoa,” Gideon interjected.  “Dean was sick.  He wasn’t evil.”

“But you believe he did all those things.”

“Yes, but never maliciously.  He was delusional.  We discussed this yesterday morning before we left for the hearing.  Why the sudden change of heart?”

Reid cleared his throat and tried to swallow but only offered a shrug.

“It may be easier to face Dean’s death if he was some kind of monster but we’re really no better off remembering him that way,” Gideon said gently.  “You made a connection, Reid.  Dean really liked you; he wasn’t trying to fool you.”

“Still, it wasn’t very professional of me to form a friendship with a killer.”

“Did you compromise your job in any way?”

“No.  I don’t think so.”

“Did you learn anything from him?”

“I did get a new perspective on the occult,” Reid admitted reluctantly.

Gideon nodded.  “A new perspective is always good.  And I know Dean was better off for having known you.”

“So what do I do with all these conflicting emotions?”

“We find his murderer and we put him away for good,” Morgan said from the door.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Gideon approved.

“Yeah,” Reid agreed.  “Let’s do that before he hurts anyone else.”

***

Ellen Harvelle didn’t look especially pleased to see him, Gideon noted as he approached the waiting room at the Coroner’s office.  Nor did she seem especially surprised.

“Aw, the good widow Winchester,” Gideon greeted as he reached out to shake her hand.

Ellen kept her arms folded tightly across her chest.  “Agent Gideon.”

“I understand you were able to produce a marriage license this time.” Gideon seated himself on the edge of the coffee table across from her.  

“I had it faxed to me yesterday,” Ellen said, reaching into her purse to pull out a folded piece of paper which she handed to him.  “It’s not certified, of course.  You’ll have to have your people call whoever they have to call to verify it.”

Gideon put on his glassed and opened the paper.  “New Orleans?  You didn’t marry in Vegas.”

“I never said we did.”

“It’s also four years old.”

“John didn’t approve,” Ellen sighed.  “Neither did Sam.  As you have already pointed out, I’m older than Dean.  There was a rift in the family because of me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I didn’t think it was any of your business.  I still don’t.”

“You lived together as man and wife?” Gideon asked, his gaze drifting down the band she still wore on her left hand.

“Not for long,” Ellen told him.  “Dean had a problem with his zipper.  He couldn’t keep it up.  But I never stopped loving him so I never filed for divorce.”

Gideon sat for a moment and considered her.  “You’re a very good liar, Miss Harvelle,” he said at last.

“Screw you, Agent Gideon,” she shot back.  “Legally I have every right to claim his body.”

“If this checks out,” Gideon replied, holding up the fax.  “After the autopsy.”

“No,” Ellen begged.  “Please, you can’t let them cut him!”

“Why?”

A cell phone began to ring in Ellen’s purse and she tensed up.

“Aren’t you going to get that?”

“They can leave a message,” Ellen told him flatly.

“What if it’s important?” Gideon pushed.

“Then I guess they’ll call back.”  The phone stopped abruptly after only three rings.

The steady clomp of high heels could be heard echoing from the hall just before a well-coiffed woman appeared in the doorway.  She held up a document.  “We’re all set,” she told Ellen, sending a dark eyed glance Gideon’s way.

“Excuse me,” Ellen said as she got up.  “I’ve got to stop them from slicing up my dead husband.”

“Just tell me why,” Gideon persisted, grabbing her wrist.

“Release my client right this minute,” the lawyer demanded without raising her voice.

“Is it a religious belief?  Did the Winchesters think an autopsy would somehow keep them out of heaven?”

Ellen snorted as she tugged her arm free but she couldn’t hide the sudden tears that gathered in her eyes.  “Dean’s already in Hell,” she bent to whisper in his ear.

“I don’t believe that,” Gideon said as she walked away.  “Not for a minute.”  He followed them to the public desk and stood to the side as the lawyer presented the legal document.

“What’s this?” the clerk behind the counter asked, staring at the paper without comprehension.

“This is a temporary injunction.  All post mortem examinations on the body of Dean Winchester must cease and desist as of this moment until a judge can make a ruling.  Now I insist you take us to the body so I can verify that the order is being executed to the letter of the law.”  

“I can’t do that,” the clerk objected.  “Doctor Preston will have my job.”

Gideon pulled out his badge.  “You have to stop the autopsy, Gary,” he read from the young man’s nametag, “You don’t have a choice.”

The clerk rifled through a stack of paper on a clipboard.  “Dean Winchester?  They’ve already started.”

“No!” Ellen shouted, turning to Gideon in desperation.  “Gideon, please, do something.”

“As an officer of the law it is your duty to…”

“I know what my duty is, lady,” Gideon said as he rounded the counter and pushed through the waist-high swinging partition that separated the lobby from the receptionist.

The clerk foolishly tried to stop Ellen from following by standing in front of the gate and ended up with matching scrapes on his shins where it hit him.  He gave up trying to stop them and hobbled along behind the lawyer.  Gideon opened the first door they came to but found a file room.   Ellen shot past him to open the door of an office.

“Sorry,” Gideon apologized to a man in blue gown after throwing open the door of the first autopsy room and finding an elderly female on the table.  He closed the door immediately but the man hurried out to find out what was going on as they continued down the hall.  “FBI,” Gideon told him with another flash of his badge just as Ellen hit pay dirt.

“Stop!” she screamed.  “Don’t touch him.”

Gideon rushed in with the lawyer in time to see Ellen snatch an abandoned sheet from a nearby stretcher and throw it across the loins of the naked corpse on the table.  She gave the metal stand a shove and sent pristine instruments clattering to the floor.

“What’s going on?” the doctor sputtered, looking to the clerk.  “Gary?”

“They’ve got some kind of order…” Gary held up the injunction and the doctor snatched it out of his hand to read.

Meanwhile Ellen searched Dean’s neck and chest for injuries other than the gunshot wound.

“I wouldn’t touch that body if I were you,” the other doctor suggested from the door.

“I’m his wife,” Ellen told him gruffly.  “If he has anything I’ve already been exposed.”  The flushing of her face as she moved the examination further south betrayed her lie but she stoically continued all the way to Dean’s feet.  More people in blue entered the room as she, apparently satisfied there was no damage, straightened the sheet and folded it reverently covering Dean all the way to his chin.

The doctor handed the court order back to Gary and snapped off his gloves.  “Put him back into cold storage,” he told an assistant and left without further argument.  “Nut job,” he could be heard muttering from the hall.

“Ellen,” Gideon urged as two technicians moved forward to return Dean to a refrigerated drawer.  

Ellen squeezed Dean’s shoulder and whispered what sounded like “Hang in there,” before allowing Gideon to pull her away.

******

“That was a wasted morning,” Reid said as he sank into one of the conference room chairs.

“Canvassing a neighborhood usually is,” Morgan concurred.  He moved over to the map that marked the areas they had covered.  “How is it possible for a raving mad man to simply vanish into a crowd?” he asked as he tapped the diagram with the tip of his pen.  “You would think he would have started a panic.”

“The general population is getting accustomed to aggressive public behavior.  If it doesn’t affect them directly they tend to not want to get involved,” Reid postulated.  “Half of the shopkeepers I questioned didn’t even want to talk to me.”

“It’s a sad world we live in.”

“So how are we going to find Henricksen before he strikes again if no one even noticed him?”

“Wait, you said people don’t want to get involved if the behavior doesn’t affect them directly.” Morgan put his pen back in his pocket.

“Statistics show…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Morgan interrupted absently.  “We don’t need statistics to tell us we’re way off here.  No one panicked because Henricksen wasn’t a threat to anyone.  He could have hurt a lot of unsuspecting people at the courthouse but he only hurt one.”

“The object of his obsession,” Reid agreed, catching on.  

“We need to stop thinking of this as a random attack and focus on Henricksen’s state of mind.”

Reid nodded slowly.  “You’re right.  People can’t just turn obsessions off and on.  Dean’s actual death probably didn’t do much to satisfy Henricksen.  He might not be able to stay away from the scene.”

“If we’re going to catch Henricksen we need to stake out the courthouse.”

***

Ellen was clearly shaken as Gideon eased her into a chair back out in the waiting room.  The lawyer dug into her large bag and came up with a bottle of water.  Gideon accepted it gratefully and urged Ellen to drink.

“We’ve done all we can do here,” the lawyer told Ellen.  “I’m going to head back to the office and start working on making this thing permanent.”

“Thank you so much,” Ellen said, shaking her hand.

“Don’t thank me yet.  We still have to get a judge to buy off on it.”

Ellen nodded and drank deeply from the bottle.   The lawyer exchanged a look with Gideon, essentially turning her client over to him for safekeeping.   Her expression warned him to take it seriously.  Gideon accepted the task with a small smile and sat next to Ellen to wait her out.  

She drank her water and watched the door, seemingly lost in her thoughts.  The phone rang twice more, three times each but Ellen never made a move to answer it.

“Let’s get out of here,” Gideon finally offered.  “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

“No thanks.”

“They won’t attempt to start again today,” Gideon appeased, trying his best to ease her mind.  “You saw the coroner; it was just another task to him.  I’m sure he has plenty of other bodies waiting.”

“I can’t leave him,” Ellen said simply as she checked her watch.

“There’s nothing else you can do for him now.  Dean was a very troubled young man, but I don’t have to tell you that.  At least take some comfort in the fact that he’s not suffering any more.”

Ellen sighed and seemed to bite her tongue before regrouping.  “I know you don’t understand, but we lost one of the good guys yesterday and today the world is a scarier place for it.”

Gideon was quiet for a long moment.  “I’m glad Dean had someone who believed in him.  And I am very sorry for your loss.”

Ellen nodded but didn’t appear to be ready to go anywhere.

***

From across the alley Sam watched a hearse load a body at the dock on the back of the building.  Ellen had missed the last three check-ins but as far as he knew she was still somewhere inside.  He clenched the phone and fought the urge to call back early.  Closing his eyes he pulled himself together and refused to give in to the despair that nagged him.  Dean was still in one piece, he had to be.  

Pocketing his phone before straightening the coveralls he wore, he put on a smile he didn’t feel and headed for the service entrance.  “Hi,” he told the guard as he presented a fake work order.  “I’m here to P.M. the security system.”

“Preventative maintenance?  Is it that time of year again?”

“It rolls around fast, doesn’t it?” Sam asked, hefting his bag and glancing around furtively.  He scribbled an initial and a name on the clipboard and handed it back.

“The security office is straight down this hall and to your left.  Don’t forget to sign back out Mr. Scott,” the guard told him, issuing him a visitor’s pass and doing a double take at the nametag Velcroed on the front of Sam’s uniform that read Bon.

“I won’t.” Sam grinned as he entered the building.  “That one’s for you, big brother,” he muttered.

***

Ellen was certain Gideon was on to the fact that her phone seemed to be ringing at precise thirty minute intervals.  Since she’d missed one of Sam’s two hour checks he’d gone to the abbreviated time table.  If she didn’t pick up next time he would start calling every ten minutes.  And the last half hour check-in was coming up fast.  She jumped when Gideon’s phone rang.

“You okay?” Gideon asked before answering it.

“Sorry, I’m a little on edge,” Ellen said, thankful when he turned away and went to the far corner to talk.

A second later she caught her breath when Sam passed by the door.  He saw her and stopped.  Sam glanced at Gideon’s back and made the universal ‘call me’ signal with his thumb and forefinger then held up all five fingers.  Ellen gave him a stealthy ‘okay’ then watched him disappear down the hall, quiet as a ghost.  

When she got to her feet Gideon immediately covered his phone and turned back to her.

“Ladies room,” Ellen mouthed, holding up the empty water bottle.

Gideon nodded his understanding and moved to follow her.

“Easy there, cowboy, I can handle this one on my own,” Ellen told him, putting a hand to his chest.  “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Gideon agreed.  “But then I’m taking you back to your motel. No arguments.”

Ellen pretended to think about it before giving in.  “Fine.  Give me five minutes.  I’ve got a shy bladder.”

“Take your time,” Gideon told her before getting back to his phone call.  “That’s good work,” Ellen heard him tell whoever was on the other end of the conversation.  She paused just outside the door and listened until she spotted Gary watching her from the other side of the counter.  He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her.

“Excuse me,” Ellen said as she advanced on him.  “If that FBI agent asks would you tell him I don’t need a ride, I’ll catch a taxi back to my motel.  He’s on the phone and I don’t want to interrupt him.”

“No problem,” Gary said a little suspiciously as he eyed her up and down.  “Have a nice day.”

“A little late for that,” Ellen grumbled.  “Creep,” she added under her breath, making a break down the hall towards the front of the building.  She turned the corner and ducked into a nearby janitor’s closet.  Pulling out the phone she hit speed dial and finally let herself breathe.

“I’ve got to take this,” Sam’s voice sounded in her ear in a stage whisper.  “It’s the old ball and chain.  Hi, babe,” he greeted a little louder.  “What’ve you been up to?  I’ve been calling you all day.”

“I’ve had an FBI profiler up my ass all day, that’s what,” Ellen explained, exasperated.  “Dean is safe though.  Sorry I made you worry.”

“That’s great, sweetie.  I’m glad to hear it,” Sam said before excusing himself from whoever he’d been talking to.  “Are you alright?” he asked more seriously a few seconds later.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me.  But you’ve got to get out of here, I heard Gideon tell someone that he thinks you’re going to show up to steal Dean’s body.”

“Gideon?  Is that the profiler?”

“Yes.  Did you disable the security cameras?”

“Not yet, but don’t worry, the whole system is set to self-destruct a few minutes before midnight.  Do you know what to do?”

“Yeah, but… what if I mess it up?”  Ellen knew she sounded needy and bit her lip.

“You won’t,” Sam soothed.  “Left to right, forehead to chin.  Say it.”

“Left to right, forehead to chin.”

“That’s all there is to it.  I have to be on the other end or you know I wouldn’t ask you to do this.”

“I know.   Just be careful, Sam.”

“You, too.  No more check-ins, okay?  You should only call if it’s an emergency or to give me the signal.”

“I guess I’ll talk to you when it’s over, then,” Ellen said.  “Bye.”  She disconnected and looked around at her hideaway, giving special attention to the mop sink.  She really did have to pee.

******

The plan was for Gideon to drop Ellen off at her motel for safe keeping then meet Hotch back at the morgue in case Sam Winchester showed up to make an unauthorized withdrawal.  In the meantime Morgan, Reid, and JJ would watch for Henricksen at the courthouse.  Unfortunately it seemed the dropping off of Ellen was going to be a problem since she’d never made it back from the restroom.  

Gideon tapped on the door for the third time.  “Mrs. Winchester?”  Again, no answer was forthcoming.  Just as he decided to bust in the clerk from the desk rounded the corner and pulled up short to keep from running into him.

“Hello,” Gideon said, acting like he hadn’t just been caught opening the door to the ladies room.

“Oh.  You’re still here.”

“I was looking for my friend…”

“Oh!  Oh, right.  I’m so sorry,” Gary rattled on.  “She left.”

“She left?”

“Mmm hmm.  She asked me to tell you not to bother with a ride, she’d get a taxi.”

Gideon gave Gary a stern look then barged into the empty bathroom, checking each stall.  He returned to the hall and sighed.  “How long ago did she leave?”

Gary checked his watch.  “Five minutes?  If she didn’t call ahead she’s probably still out front.  It’s notoriously hard to get a cab around here,” he called after Gideon who rushed out to check the curb.  He tsked quietly to himself until a tall hunk in coveralls went by in the opposite direction.  “Can I help you find something?” he purred cheerfully, following behind and taking in the scenery.

***

The cleaning crew came in around ten o’clock.  Ellen squeezed in behind a cabinet in the corner and held her breath while they gathered their supplies.  Once they were gone she slipped out into the hall and looked around.  Realizing the place was far from deserted she searched out another hiding place while avoiding the public areas, and more importantly, the security cameras.

After a few locked doors and one occupied office she located a locker room with a big shelving unit filled with blue scrubs.  The trash can had apparently just been emptied so she yanked out the new bag and stuffed it with scrub pants and a top that would fit Dean plus a smaller set for herself.  Perusing the rack of shoes under the lockers she stole a couple decent looking pairs of sneakers as well.

Hearing voices nearby she ducked out the opposite door and found herself in an anteroom that lead to the autopsy suites.  It was eerily calm but the lights were off so she went ahead and changed thinking it would be better to look like she belonged if someone saw her.  Ellen put her clothes and purse in the bag.  She thought about hiding it but decided not to since she might not be able to get back to it after and Sam had been adamant that she not leave any evidence behind.

The voices were now in the locker room and Ellen could hear metal doors opening and closing.  Locating her Swiss army knife she held it for a minute then decided it would be silly to brandish it at anyone and put it in the front pocket of the scrub top.  She dropped into a crouch behind a chair in the corner instead which provided only scant coverage but it was better than nothing.  If worse came to worse she could play the grieving widow card again which might or might not keep her out of jail but wouldn’t do Dean any good.

“Where are you going?” A male voice asked.  The doorknob began to jiggle.

Light spilled into the room as a woman opened the door.  She didn’t enter, but continued the conversation facing the other way.  “I still have to do the paperwork on McRae.”

“I thought they were going to cremate him this afternoon.”

“They were but I got tied up and couldn’t complete the report.”

“Come on, Doc, it’s late.  He didn’t have any family and the county’s picking up the bill.  There’s no rush, he’ll still be dead tomorrow.”

“You’re right, I suppose.”

“Have I ever led you astray?”

The woman laughed at that and pulled the door shut.  “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

“Come on, I’ll let you buy me dinner.”

Some more banging lockers and a nauseating amount of flirting later the duo finally left.  By that time Ellen’s heart was racing and she swore if she got out of this alive and without going to prison she would leave the cloak and dagger stuff to the boys from now on.  But seeing Dean laid out like a piece of dead meat had broken something inside her and getting him back whole would more than make up for any trouble.  

Ellen checked her watch and saw she still had over an hour to kill.  She took a breath and opened the door to the corridor between the autopsy rooms.  There were two on each side and another wide door at the end.  The old adage quiet as a crypt struck her, prompting an inappropriate giggle that she didn’t know where the hell it came from.  She was not now nor had she ever been a giggling female.  It quickly died in her throat as she reached the door.  

She ducked inside and dug in her pocket for her Swiss army knife.  Jamming the screwdriver blade under the locking mechanism she then dumped her clothes and spread them across the bottom of the door before turning on the light.  It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the brightness then she set about finding Dean in the row of drawers that ran three deep across the back wall.  Winchester was scrawled on an index card on the bottom drawer of the second row.

Opening the drawer was harder than she thought it would be but it had nothing to do with the heavy handle or the squeaky hinge.  Thankfully Dean’s face was covered with a sheet which gave her a minute to get a handle on her emotions.  Ellen tugged with both hands and fully extended the drawer.  She shivered involuntarily as she pulled back the sheet and saw his blue tinged face which didn’t look peaceful as she hoped, just dead.  She smoothed his hair and the skin under her hand was cold as ice.  

“Someday I’m gonna tease you about this over a beer,” Ellen promised as she pulled out the scrubs and set about dressing him.  

His limbs were stiff and Ellen wondered if it was rigor mortis or merely the cold.  She, however, worked up a sweat lifting and turning and pulling the scrubs into place.  Resting for a minute before putting on the shoes she glanced at her watch, astonished to see her hour was nearly up.  

At least the shoes would be easy, she thought as she removed Dean’s toe tag.  But what should have been a simple task reminded her of the time she tried to cram Jo’s pudgy, uncooperative little feet into black patent leather Mary Jane’s for Easter pictures when she was two.  They’d finally had to leave her barefooted or give up their place in line.  She smiled at the memory and passed it along to Dean as she loosened the laces since they turned out to be about a size too small.

When she was done she got her purse and pulled out the Ziplocked hanky.  She clutched it in her hand as she backed away and slid down the wall to wait.

******

Sam kept his head down as he walked glancing up only to avoid colliding with an attractive blonde he met on the sidewalk.  He thought it odd she was out alone on the almost deserted street so late but she seemed confident of her own safety so he merely nodded as he passed her.  He didn’t miss the double-take, in fact something about her whole demeanor pinged his cop radar.  But she didn’t speak so he played it cool and kept the same unhurried pace past the courthouse steps and around the corner.  As far as he could tell she didn’t follow him.

Once he rounded the corner it wasn’t hard to figure out where the so-called explosion had taken place.  Police tape sectioned off the side entrance and a sheet of plywood covered the missing glass on the door.  The only thing standing between him and the place of Dean’s death was a length of chain with a padlock and a bored security guard.

“Hey,” Sam greeted when he got close, lashing out before the man could even tell him to move along.

Sam lowered the hefty guard to the ground with a grunt then made quick work of the lock.  He dragged the man inside and added insult to injury by secured him to the handrail along the wall with his own rent-a-cop issue handcuffs.  He snatched the stocking cap off of the balding head and shoved it into the unconscious man’s mouth for good measure, patting him on the cheek as he got up and stepped over him.

The floor had been swept clean of the more dangerous shards of glass but clearly hadn’t been mopped.  There were small spots of reddish brown here and there but only one large area of smeared blood.  Sam’s heart caught in his throat and for a moment he couldn’t seem to breathe.  But midnight was rapidly approaching and he was on a mission.  He forced his emotions down and with a bit of effort pulled himself together.

He sat cross-legged on top of the smear, judging it to be the place where Dean had spent his last mortal moments.  Opening his backpack he pulled out a candle, chalk, rosemary, holy water, and Dean’s amulet.  He kissed the talisman and placed it in front of him as a symbol of his brother.  His phone rested in his breast pocket and he prayed Ellen would be able to complete her part and give him a ring before the stroke of midnight.  He took the chalk and began to draw the necessary symbols from memory.

***

Gideon lingered in the shadows across the street with a clear view of the loading dock.  The unshakable devotion Dean had for his younger sibling ran both ways, he was sure of it.  It held the family together in spite of their unusual upbringing.  Or maybe because of it, he’d have to reflect more on that thought later.

He adjusted the collar of his jacket against the cool breeze and glanced at his watch which showed twenty to twelve.  Hotch pulled the SVU around the corner and came to an abrupt stop.  “Morgan just called,” he said through the open window.

“They’ve got Henricksen?”

“No.  But JJ is sure she saw Sam Winchester.”

“Near the courthouse?” Gideon asked, unable to stop himself from looking toward the Coroner’s office as if for confirmation.  “Why would he go there?”

“Morgan thinks he was casing the place.  He might have made the same conclusion we did; that Henricksen will return to the scene of the crime.”

“Have they detained him?”

“Not yet,” Hotchner said.  “He gave them the slip but they’re sure he’s still in the area.  What do you want to do?”

“He’ll come here eventually,” Gideon reasoned.  “I’m certain he’ll try to take Dean’s body.”

“And what if one Winchester is as good as another to Henricksen?”

Gideon ran around the SUV and climbed into the passenger side without further hesitation.  “We can’t let that happen.”  

***

At six minutes before midnight Ellen knew that whatever Sam had sabotaged had gone off without a hitch when the lights flickered then left her in total darkness.  The white noise of the drawer coolers she hadn’t even been aware of faded and stopped as well.  So she sat in the pitch black morgue and listened to the sound of her own respirations for several of the longest seconds of her life.  

When the generator kicked in emergency lights came up and cast the room in a hellish red glow.  Given the circumstances she thought she might actually prefer the dark.  The hum of the drawers started low and gradually increased to the same level of unremarkable sound as before. Ellen opened the baggie and slid over to the open drawer.  She ignored the tremor in her hand and unfolded the hanky.

“Left to right,” she said as she dipped her finger in the fine ash.  She traced a line across Dean’s left cheek just under his eye, high across the bridge of his nose, and over to his right cheek equal distance from the left.  The drawer had been open for a while but he was still far from room temperature.  The cold skin gave her shivers in more ways than one and she wondered if she would ever be able to look at Dean again and not see death.

“Forehead to chin,” she finished, repeating the action down the middle of his face then sat back on her heels.  She couldn’t even see the ash cross under the dim red light and hoped she got it right.  Shaking out the handkerchief she draped it over his face and hit speed dial, let it ring once then hung up.

“It’s up to Sam, now,” Ellen told Dean before scooting back to the corner to wait for the witching hour.

******

Everything was in place just like he’d practiced dozens of times while they’d been searching for the magic bullet.  Once Sam had discovered the spell he’d spent every waking moment he wasn’t looking for Willingham or in Dean’s company getting ready for this moment.  Since Dean was frequently occupied getting drunk in some bar or hooking up, finding out what Sam was up to hadn’t turned out to be an issue.  But knowing his brother it was all calculated to give him room to maneuver.  Or most of it anyway.

Bobby hadn’t been sure because the spell was only supposed to be uttered by a demon but Sam had no doubts.  He felt it in his bones, in his very blood that seemed to stir every time he ventured closer to the dark side.  Ultimately, he knew he had control, he had the power to choose good over evil, but he couldn’t deny the kernel the yellow eyed demon had planted so long ago.  And now, to set right the events that had led them to the point where Dean had offered up himself for Sam’s life, he would use that kernel to strike back.  God help anyone who got in his way.

The pre-paid cell rang once then went silent.  Dean’s body was ready, now Sam had to deliver his soul.  He took a cleansing breath and waited for the stroke of midnight.  When the alarm on his watch sounded he struck a match and started the incantation.  Latin had always been easier for him than for Dean but these words were carved into his memory and slid like silk from his lips as he lit the candle.  The flame grew tall and danced along with the rise and fall of his voice as he closed his eyes and chanted to finish the ritual, surprisingly short for summoning the damned.  
  
As he finished there was a stir in the air around him.  He opened his eyes and found himself knee to knee and face to face with Special Agent Victor Henricksen.  Or what was left of him.

“You rang?” Henricksen asked with many voices before blowing out the candle.

***

Reid passed the broken door again, realizing he always speeded up as he went by.  The glass was covered now but he knew what lay just beyond.  He didn’t think he’d ever get the picture of Gideon holding Dean as he lay dying out of his head.  The guard he had spoken to earlier wasn’t back from the break he had said he was going to take.  Reid wondered if he wasn’t slacking off somewhere since he knew there were FBI agents patrolling the area.  He decided to mention it to Morgan the next time he checked in.

***

Ten minutes slowly crawled by and nothing happened.  Ellen thought she might cry as she huddled in the corner.  She fingered the phone and wanted to call, desperately needed to know what the hell was going on but didn’t want to disturb Sam either if he was still busy.  After all, she had no idea how long it took to raise the dead.  

Suddenly out of nowhere there was a spark.  A tiny flame burst spontaneously into being and hovered over Dean.  It grew in size and intensity until Ellen had to shield her eyes.  It wavered for a moment and then disappeared.

“Dean?” Ellen whispered as she rushed to his side.  Hesitantly she pressed two fingers against his throat and felt for a pulse.  She repositioned her hand again and again but there was no tell-tale rhythm beneath the icy flesh.  Backing away as fast as she could she dialed the phone, certain something had gone utterly, terribly wrong.

***

Morgan strolled down the alley behind the courthouse, shining his flashlight up to the second and third story windows as he went.  Headlights came up behind him and he turned to see Hotch and Gideon in the SUV.  

“Anything?” Gideon asked.

“No.  For all we know one or both are already inside.  We need to be in there,” Morgan said, pointing to the building for emphasis.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Hotchner agreed as he pulled out his phone.

***

Sam gasped in surprise and scrambled back, landing solidly on his ass.

“How’s it going, Sammy?” Henricksen greeted in the weird, multi-level tone as he scooped up Dean’s amulet.

Anger replaced shock and Sam lurched forward to snatch it away from him.  He folded it into his fist and glared.  “What do you want?” he snarled.

“Hey, you called us.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Sure you did.”  Henricksen grinned an all too evil grin, taking obvious pleasure from the situation.  “There’s no telling how many damned souls you conjured up.  I guess you Winchesters never learn.”

“You’re lying.  I didn’t conjure you.”  Sam climbed to his feet and surreptitiously assessed the situation.  The mad man was between him and the door, the hallway into the courthouse behind him was completely boarded up, and there was a gun tucked in at Henricksen’s waist.  Worst of all, Sam didn’t think he would be able to unlock the guard and get him out of harm’s way before Henricksen did whatever he had come to do.  

“Too bad you didn’t get the one soul you were fishing for.”

“Actually,” Sam assured, “I did.”  The ritual had worked.  Dean was now back in his body and the nightmare was officially over.  It had to be.  Anything less would break him.

Henricksen got up as well and turned a theatrical three-hundred and sixty degrees with his arms outstretched as he glanced around.  “So where is he?”

Sam’s phone started to ring but he ignored it, keeping his full attention on Henricksen.  Suddenly the amulet in his hand grew warm and seemed to pulse with each beat of his own heart.  “I’m afraid he’s closer than you think,” Sam murmured, stunned, worried, frightened beyond all belief that his efforts were all for naught.  

“Mortals shouldn’t go messing around in demons’ business,” Henricksen lectured, his voice getting deeper and his face growing more sinister by the minute.

“You’re mortal, too,” Sam reminded him, still trying to figure out what went wrong. “You’re a freak with a side order of crazy, pissed off spirits.  Nothing more than a demon wannabe,” he added for spite.

“Is that right?” Henricksen asked with a feral growl.  “Can mortals do this?”  He raised his hands as if gathering energy to strike at Sam but froze in place as something on the ground between them caught his eye.

Sam followed his gaze and saw the candle was once again burning bright.  A light breeze whirled around Sam’s ankles and grew bigger and more powerful with each twist as it rose up around him, leaving the flame untouched.  Suddenly it whipped away from Sam and caught Henricksen in a maelstrom of light and energy.

It lifted the ex-agent off the floor and held him in mid-air.  Henricksen convulsed as the voices screeched and howled in protest.  There was a clap of thunder and a flash of light then he crashed to the ground and didn’t move.  The wind died immediately but the candle continued to burn sedately.

“Henricksen?” Sam asked, giving the fallen man a nudge with his foot.  No response.  From across the room the downed guard began to groan.  Sam opened his hand and stared at the now cool and still amulet before glancing around uncertainly.  He swallowed once before finding his voice again.  “Dean?”

The background noise of the pre-paid cell suddenly stopped leaving the room quiet except for the occasional grunt or moan from the now semi-conscious guard.  The air seemed to shimmy and suddenly a transparent apparition stepped out of thin air looking rather pleased with himself.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sam raged at him in frustration.  “You’re supposed to be back in your body.”

Dean gaped and pointed to the body on the floor, clearly annoyed at his ungrateful brother.

“Yeah, I know, you kicked their asses.  You saved me and probably Henricksen, too.  Now go to your body!”  Sam glared for a minute before realizing Dean obviously didn’t know how to accomplish that after failing to check in the first time.  “Just wait a minute,” Sam told him firmly, reaching down to pick up his pack and pull out an ancient leather-bound book.

Putting his make-believe hands on his incorporeal hips Dean heaved a silent sigh that said ‘Where the hell would I go?’

In the meantime Sam’s real phone began to ring.  “Yeah,” Sam answered distractedly as he thumbed through the old tome.  He started guiltily, forgetting the book for a minute.  “Ellen!  I’m so sorry… no, no, it’s okay.  He’s here with me… I know that.  I am… I will… Just relax for a minute…” Sam had to pull the phone away from his ear.  

Ellen’s disembodied voice filled the room.  Dean grinned and shook his head as Sam got lambasted by their irate friend.

“Sorry,” Sam reiterated into the phone when she finally calmed down.  “Listen to me… Yes.  It’s okay.  Something else should happen in the next ten minutes.  If it doesn’t, get out of there.  We’ll think of something else.  Okay?  Okay… bye.  Boy are you in trouble,” Sam muttered to Dean as he closed his phone with his chin and flipped the book open where he’d had his thumb.  “This ought to do it.”  He began to read in Latin.

Alternately looking worried and confused, Dean still didn’t know what to do.

“You never studied,” Sam accused with fond exasperation as he bent and picked up the still lit candle.  “For once do what I tell you to do.  Go back to your body,” he said as he raised the amulet in one hand and the candle in the other.  “I command you.”

Dean’s protest was written all over his face even as he faded away.  The flame died leaving a thin line of twisting smoke trailing from the wick.

***

“There’s no evidence anyone was inside the courthouse,” Morgan reported over the radio.  “The side entrance is still blocked off but there’s no sign of the missing guard.  What do you want us to do?”

Hotchner exchanged a look with Gideon in the passenger side of the SVU.  They were parked across the street and down the block but had an unobstructed view of the side entrance.  JJ was in the sedan at the corner in the opposite direction, also in line of sight.  

“This is where they’ll come,” Gideon insisted.  “Certainly Henricksen, but Winchester may have just wanted to see where his brother died before he went to the morgue.”

Hotch nodded his agreement as he put the mic back to his mouth and pressed the button.  “You and Reid find cover and hang tight,” he ordered.  “We’ll let you know if anyone tries to get in this way.”

“Copy that.”

***

Ellen gathered her wits and tried to calm down.  Apparently Sam knew what had gone wrong and was taking steps to correct it.  They’d have a little talk later about leaving her in the dark.  Literally and figuratively.  She glanced at her watch and decided to stay until something happened or someone found her and physically removed her.  She just needed to quit freaking out and find a more useful outlet.

Still bathed in the glow of the emergency lights she could just make out the letters on the index cards at the head of each drawer.  Marvin, McRae, Sanchez, Winchester of course, Mehta, Hamilton, Gosselin… twenty-four in all, every one with someone’s remains inside.  Busy place.  McRae stuck in her head for some reason and she moved back to read the name a second time.  

“Oh yeah,” Ellen said quietly, mostly to calm her own nerves.  “You were supposed to be cremated today.  Or yesterday, I guess since it’s after midnight now.”   Curious, she pulled down the handle and opened the door.  Inspiration hit her and she rapidly tugged the drawer open.  Feeling a little guilty she none–the-less pulled it all the way out and uncovered the feet.  Foot.  The little old guy had lost a leg somewhere along the way.  

“I am so sorry,” she told Mr. McRae as she removed the toe tag and replaced it with the one she had taken off Dean before putting on the ill fitting sneakers.  After closing the drawer she pocketed the tag and the index card, replacing it with the one that read Winchester.

No sooner had she finished when a miniature comet came streaking through the room, crashing straight into Dean’s chest.  Ellen jumped back and covered her face as an explosion of light burst from under the scrub top right where the fatal wound was before encompassing his entire body with a brilliant radiance which quickly passed.  Just as the residual glow faded out Dean abruptly sat up and gasped, snatching the handkerchief from his face.  He screamed and fell back panting into the shallow tray of the drawer, writhing in pain.

“Dean!”  Ellen scrambled to his side and got smacked upside the head for her troubles.  Stunned by the blow she ducked as Dean vaulted over her and promptly fell on his face in the floor, still keening.

Ellen tried again, calling his name and reaching for his leg while keeping out of striking distance.  “DEAN!”

Dean rolled away and clawed at the wall desperately.  Ellen advanced on him anyway and pulled his still frigid body close to her.  “Dean.”  She finally got through to him and he clutched her desperately, sobbing as she cradled him in her arms.  Ellen shushed him quietly as she kept a nervous eye on the door.  “It’s okay, Dean.  It’s all right now.”  As she rocked him he gradually settled down.  

In a few minutes they were both shivering but Dean’s skin started to lose the grey undertones.  Ellen pulled back and assessed him for damage.  Pushing her hand up from the bottom of the scrub top she found only cool, smooth skin where there had been a deep gouge from the bullet wound before.  Physically he was whole.  “Thank God,” she breathed, hugging him tight once again.

“Ellen?” Dean finally asked in a broken voice.

“It’s okay, hon, I’ve got you.”

“Wh… what happened?”  He asked sounding very much like a frightened child.  “Where’s S…Sam?”

“We’re going to meet him later but right now we’ve got to get out of here,” Ellen told him.  “Do you think you can walk?”

Dean nodded, but made no move to get up.  He might never admit it later but he actually whimpered when she pulled away from him.

“Wait there.”  Ellen crawled over to her purse and dug out the same lighter she’d used to burn Dean’s hair.  Opening the next drawer up and a row over she climbed on Dean’s drawer as a step to get on top of it.  She said a silent apology to the body as she straddled it with a foot on each side which got her very close to the ceiling when she stood up.  She fished out the index card and one flick later was well on her way to setting off the fire detector.

There was a click and Ellen had just enough time to duck before the alarm sounded and the sprinkler went off.  “Dammit,” she muttered as she dropped down on top of the body and rolled off.  She slammed the drawer shut, then the door, then did the same with the one that had held Dean.

She was heartened to see that Dean was at least with it enough to be trying to gather her things and cram them back into the trash bag.  He was failing miserably to perform even that simple task but he was trying.  Ellen helped him but they were both soaked by the time she liberated her Swiss army knife and opened the door.   She grabbed Dean’s arm and draped it over her shoulders and took an alarming amount of his weight as they stumbled out into the hall.  

“I’ve got it,” Dean told her, tucking the trash bag close to his chest as they hurried along the hall, water still raining down on their heads.

***

Sam let out the breath he was holding.  He wasn’t completely, one hundred percent sure it had worked since he didn’t know what had gone wrong in the first place.  He assumed it had something to do with Dean’s free-will kicking back in as soon as he cleared the gates of Hell.  And he well knew how that could throw a monkey wrench into the best laid plans.  He didn’t even want to think about the kind of psychological scars Dean’s time downstairs might inflict, and the book didn’t elaborate on that point either.

“Who’s there?  Yo, kid, over here!”

The guard continued to call to him but it was the groan closer to Sam’s feet that got his attention.  He bent to check Henricksen’s pulse and got his hand slapped away.  “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Like you care.”

“Look, we’re sorry about what happened to you…”

“Bastards!” Henricksen shouted, cutting him off.  “Both of you!”

“Hey,” Sam objected.  “Dean risked his own neck to save your life.”

“He took it away.”  Henricksen began to sob.  “Everything… all my power.  I was a god.”

“You didn’t have any power.  They were using you.”  Sam shouldered his pack as he got to his feet.  “You were lucky to get out of this alive.  What you do with that life is up to you, but if you ever come near my brother again I’ll kill you myself.”  

Henricksen continued to weep as Sam walked away.  He didn’t see him struggle to his knees but he did hear a gun being cocked.  

“Stop,” Henricksen ordered, firing a warning shot.  The guard screeched in fright.

Sam felt his knees go weak with relief when the apparition of Dean didn’t swoop in and save the day.  As he held his hands up and slowly turned back to face Henricksen the door opened behind him and two men and the blond woman from the street came in leading with their weapons.  Half a second later a large section of the boarded up wall came crashing down and two more armed men joined the party.

“Put it down, Victor,” the older man of the group urged.  “It’s over.”

“Nothing’s over,” Henricksen disagreed, pointing the gun at Sam’s head.

Sam felt a hand on his elbow and let the man slowly pull him away from Henricksen and out of the middle of the circle of guns.

“You know the routine.  There’s only one good way for this to end.  You were a good agent once and now you’ve killed a man.  Don’t compound that mistaken by killing again.”

“You,” Henricksen swore in recognition, finally taking his eyes off Sam.

“That’s right.  I tried to help you before.”

“I didn’t need your damn help.   You helped me right out of a career, you and that bastard Dean Winchester.  Where is he?”

“Dean’s dead.  You know that.  You killed him yourself.”

Sam eased further away as the conversation continued but the blond was between him and the door.  He pulled his keys out of his pocket and nodded his head towards the security guard.  She nodded back and covered them while Sam unlocked him.  When Henricksen raised his voice again she looked back towards the confrontation.

“Son of bitch,” Sam muttered as Henricksen shot himself in the head.  The guard freaked out and grabbed the female agent.  Sam knew she could hold her own and used the opportunity to slip out quickly and quietly.

***

As they emerged from the autopsy suites and away from the infernal sprinklers one of the cleaning staff met them.  “The fire department is on the way.  How bad is the smoke?”

Even though he was having difficulty putting one foot in front of the other Dean coughed right on cue.  Ellen sent him a side-long glance before joining in.  “It’s bad.  Don’t go in there,” she warned.

“Some of my crew is back there,” the woman told them, wringing her hands.

“They got out the other way,” Ellen lied.  “Why don’t you look for them out by the loading dock?”

“Okay,” the woman agreed as she hooked an arm around Dean’s back and tried to help Ellen support him.

“I’ve got him,” Ellen said.  “Go find your people.”

The woman nodded and headed back the other way while Ellen made a beeline for the nearest fire exit with Dean in tow.  He seemed to be getting stronger but was still having some trouble walking.

“Something’s wrong with my feet,” he told her as they busted out the door into the cool night air and tried to maneuver down the set of concrete steps.

“It’s the shoes.  They might be a tad small,” Ellen guessed.  She lowered him to sit on the low brick wall next to the building and behind a shrub.  “Stay here and I’ll get the car.”

“What?  Are you gonna steal one?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Ellen laughed.  “But no, I’ve got a rental stashed over on the next street.”  She padded away leaving wet footprints in her wake.

“That’s my girl,” Dean said.  He shook his head to send a spray of water flying and shivered.  Waking up from the dead was a bitch but the chill was a welcome change.

***

Gideon swore under his breath and turned away from Henricksen as Morgan kicked the gun away and felt for a pulse.  “He’s gone.”

“Yep,” Morgan agreed.

“No,” Gideon corrected.  “I mean Winchester.”

JJ had the security guard slammed face first against the wall but he wasn’t fighting her anymore.  “Sorry,” she said.

“Not your fault,” Hotchner told her as he followed Gideon out the door.

“I’ve got the back,” Gideon called out as he broke into a trot towards the alley behind the building.  Hotch nodded and went the other way.  

Gideon rounded the corner in time to see Winchester jump high onto the chain link fence that encompassed the impound lot and vault over the top.  Graced with age and agility that Gideon hadn’t seen in himself in several years, the younger man dropped to the ground on the other side and kept moving.  

“Sam!”  Gideon used the only tool he had left.  “Sam Winchester!  Wait!  Please.  I want to talk to you about your brother.”

Already half-way across the lot Sam slowed, then stopped and turned around in spite of the distant sirens he surely must have heard.

“My name is Jason Gideon.  I’m an FBI profiler.”

“Are you the one responsible for getting my brother killed?”

Gideon paused and took a deep breath.  “Yes,” he admitted.  “Ultimately I accept that responsibility.  He died in my arms.”

Apparently thrown by the honest answer Sam folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the nearest vehicle, a beat up delivery van.  His head was down and his features stayed partially shadowed.  “What do you want?”

Anyone else would have seen a petulant young man but Gideon saw only grief and anxiety.  And hope.  The boy was shining with it.  “I have some questions.”

“Why should I help you?  One of yours killed one of mine.”

“I’m sorry about your brother.  Agent Henricksen had some problems.  He was relieved of duty.”

“Yeah.”  Sam leaned his head back against the van bringing his face into the light.  “I know about his problems.  I can’t blame you for that.”

“Do you know what he was doing in there?  What were the lines on the floor?”

“It was an ancient summoning ritual,” Sam explained after only a brief hesitation, not quite a lie but perhaps not the whole truth either.

“To summon whom?  Or should I say what?”

“The damned, but that particular ritual only works if you’re a demon.”

Gideon faltered.  It hadn’t occurred to him that Henricksen might have been dabbling in the dark arts.  “He thought he was a demon.”

Sam laughed tersely.  “No, he thought he was a god.”  The sirens were getting closer and he looked ready to bolt.

“I have a message for you from Dean.”  Sam pushed off of the van and came closer to the fence.  “He wanted you to know he died bravely.”

“That sounds like him,” Sam muttered with a disgusted snort.  “Macho ‘til the end.”

“No, he was frightened.  But he didn’t suffer long.”

“That’s what you think,” Sam rebuffed as he moved away.

“What happened in St. Louis?” Gideon called after him urgently, clinging to the fence.

“You won’t believe me.”

“Shape shifter?”

Sam stopped and turned back around in surprise.  “Dean told you that?”

“Among other things.  Wait,” he pleaded as Sam started to edge away.  

“If you didn’t believe him, you won’t believe me.”

“Come back with me.  Let’s talk.”

“So you can arrest me?  I don’t think so.”

“We don’t have anything on you except for the ramblings of a mad man.  What have you done wrong?”

Sam grinned sheepishly.  “I assaulted a security guard,” he confessed.

“That was you?”

“Henricksen would have killed him.”

“Jessica Moore?”

The grief that passed across Sam’s face was all too real.  “That was an accident,” he lied, barely managing to get the words out as he walked away.  “A tragic fire.”

“Don’t go.”

“Are you going to shoot me in the back?”

“Of course not,” Gideon promised but Sam had already faded into the shadows.

******

“Okay, Mr. Winchester, your time is up,” the morgue tech chatted as he entered the cooler room.  “The injunction was only good for twenty-four hours and your wife’s lawyer failed to come up with a permanent one.”

“Good luck finding him,” the other tech huffed, resting against his mop handle.  “The sprinklers made all the ink run.  You can barely read any of them.  Stupid false alarm.”

“Don’t worry, I know where he is,” the first man said with a flourish as he pulled out an empty drawer.  “Oh.  I didn’t think we had any vacancies.”

The other guy laughed.  “They must have picked up old man McRae late.”

“I guess.”  The tech closed the drawer and examined a couple of the ruined index cards.  “Here he is,” he said, popping the handle and giving the drawer a tug.  One of the body’s hands was uncovered just enough to show a little skin.  He lifted the sheet and frowned.  “Hey, Brian?” he asked as he pulled the drawer out far enough to read the toe tag.

“Yeah?”

“Winchester.  Young white guy, right?”

“Yeah.  Gunshot wound.  Why?”

“Oh, man.  Somebody’s in trouble.”

***

The team sat glumly around the conference room table.

“The body is gone?” Hotchner asked incredulously.

“Apparently there was some kind of mix up and they sent Dean to be cremated instead of an old homeless man,” JJ said with a shrug.  “However the crematorium denies ever receiving a body at all.”

“Someone took it,” Gideon said.  “But we know it wasn’t Sam Winchester.  What about Ellen Harvelle?”

“Harvelle-Winchester?” Morgan asked, turning to Garcia.

“As far as we know they were married.  The clerk I spoke to in New Orleans told me they were still sorting things out after Katrina.  When I told her it was important she invited me to kiss a part of her anatomy I never want to see, let alone put my lips on.”

“Bring her in,” Hotch ordered.

“The clerk?”

“Harvelle.”

“She’s long gone,” Morgan told him as he held up the motel receipt.  “And there’s no way she carried Dean out of there all by herself.”

“There was a report of a man and a woman leaving the building just before the fire department arrived,” Garcia announced as she scanned her screen.  “But they weren’t carrying any… body.  And no, we don’t have any pictures.  The security cameras went down right before the fire alarm went off.”

“Maybe…” Reid offered then stopped and looked at the expectant faces around him.  “Never mind.”  He shook his head and closed his mouth.

“Enough,” Gideon declared.  “The perp is dead.  The man who killed the perp is dead.  We will never know what really happened.  Let’s get back to work on a case we can do something about.”

One by one they filed out of the room.

Reid paused in the door.  “He wasn’t just a perp to me.”

Gideon cleared his throat.  “Nor to me.”

“I requested Sam Winchester be taken off the most wanted list,” Hotchner stopped to say.  “An assault on a security guard hardly makes the cut.”

“I know.”  Gideon smiled sadly.

***

Dean stretched out in the shade in the back of the non-descript four-door sedan and wiggled his bare feet as he sipped his soda.  “Are you sure this is where Sam said to meet him?” he asked for the fourth time glancing straight up through the window at the faded and broken motel sign.

Sitting sideways behind the wheel with her feet out on the ground, Ellen continued to work the tangles out of her hair.  “Yes, Dean, this is the place.  He said he’ll be here by noon.  It’s only eleven thirty.  Relax.”  

When she turned to look at him he sat up and lifted her chin, running his thumb along her bruised cheek in silent apology.  “I can’t believe you stole such tiny shoes for me.”

“Well I’m sorry I misjudged your size, darlin’.  You know what they say, ‘big feet, big…’”

“Hey!”  Dean plopped back in the seat and pouted until he heard a familiar roar.  “There he is,” he announced.  He shoved his feet back into the hated sneakers and scooted out of the car.

The Impala tore around the corner and screeched to a halt.  Sam bailed out and rushed over.

“Sammy,” Dean greeted happily, his arms wide open only to be met with a fist in the face.  He landed on his butt in the dust.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Sam yelled as he towered over him.

“Sam!” Ellen dropped down beside Dean and glared up at Sam.  

“The fuck!?” Dean rubbed his jaw and stared in disbelief.

“You almost ruined everything.  Do you know how hard we worked to get you back?”  Sam reached down and hauled Dean up by the now dry scrub top to wrap him in a bear hug.  “Don’t ever do that again.  And no more deals with demons.  Ever!”

Dean exchanged a mystified look with Ellen but held on as Sam tried to hug the stuffing out of him.  “I’m sorry?” Dean offered before pulling back.  “Actually, I’m not.  What did I do?”

“You don’t remember?”  Sam held out an arm to Ellen and she stepped in for a brief hug as well.

“Dude, the last thing I remember some old guy was singing about blue birds or some shit.”

“You don’t remember sending Henricksen’s passengers packing?”

“I did?” Dean asked with a huge grin.  “I rock.”

“Hell didn’t take the edge off of his ego,” Ellen said with a smirk.

Sam eyed him cautiously.  “So you don’t remember the pit?”

“Not a thing.”

“And you’re all right physically.”

“Fit as a fiddle,” Dean proclaimed, raising his fists and bouncing like a boxer.  “Wanna go a round, tough guy?”

Sam bobbed and weaved before pulling him in for another hug.  

Dean went willingly, patting his baby brother on the back.  “I don’t even have a scar.  Although I may be crippled from the infant sized shoes Ellen crammed me into.”

“Oh get over it, Tiny Tim,” Ellen huffed as she slammed the back car door.  “Take your brother,” she told Sam.  “I’m going home.”

“Thanks for everything,” Sam told her.  He kissed her on the cheek and hugged her again.  “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Dean kissed her other cheek.  “I’ll thank you properly later,” he purred with a dirty wink.

“Stay away from my daughter,” Ellen told him, pointing a finger at him as she got into the rental.  “I’ve got to check out of my motel then take this hunk of junk back to the airport.”

“Do you want to ride back with us?” Sam offered.

“Not a chance in Hell,” Ellen replied with an evil grin as she held up one of Dean’s phony credit cards that Bobby had given her.  “I deserve a first class ticket, courtesy of Mr. Nate K. Cole.”

“Hey, that’s my new one,” Dean yelled after her.  He huffed to himself as she drove out of sight then turned his attention to the Impala.  “Oh baby, it’s good to see you.  Even if you do need a bath.”

“Forgive me, I’ve been busy,” Sam grumbled for show as Dean lovingly caressed the car before slipping into the driver’s seat.  “Are you okay to drive?” Sam asked.

“I’m in better shape now than I was when I left.  Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

“Fine.  Give me my phone.  Did you keep it charged?”

“Yes.”  Sam held out his hand for the keys and Dean stared at him for a second before comprehending.    

Dean tugged the keys out of the ignition and got out to open the trunk himself.  “I better not find any panties in here,” he joked.

Sam rolled his eyes as he followed, remembering to take Dean’s amulet from around his own neck.  He waited until Dean was digging through the trunk to dangle it in front of his face.  “Who are you calling?”

“Thanks.”  Dean grabbed the string and pulled it on over his head before resuming his search for his cell phone.  “The FBI.”

Sam shook his head as if he hadn’t heard that right.  “What?”

“Yeah.  Gideon is gonna freak,” Dean laughed.

“You can’t call the FBI.”

“Why not?  Here it is.”  He held up the phone in triumph only to have Sam pluck it from his fingers.  “What are you doing?”

“You’re dead.”

“Not anymore.  Duh.”

“Dean, you died in the arms of an FBI agent.  You don’t get any more dead than that.  They just took you off of the most wanted list, you dummy.”

“Look, I told this one that I’d prove there’s more out there than can be explained by science.  Bitch.”

“Jerk.  You are not calling to rub it in.”

“They were decent to me,” Dean tried to explain.  “I just don’t want to leave ‘em hanging I guess.  Look, man, they cared, okay?”

“Yeah.  That’s the vibe I got from Gideon,” Sam agreed.

Dean pursed his lips worriedly.  “You… ah, you talked to Gideon?”

“Don’t worry, he told me how brave you were when the time came.”

“You didn’t believe him?” Dean asked.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.  Dammit, I knew he couldn’t pull it off.  Give me the phone.”

“No.”  Sam moved away and held it high over his head.

“Don’t make me climb you,” Dean threatened as he stared up at the cell.  

“Just listen to me for a minute.”

“What?”

“Give it a month.”

“Dude…” Dean made a grab for the phone which Sam easily kept out of his reach.  “You got ape arms, you know that?”

“If you still want to call in a month we’ll work something out.  Something that won’t land you in jail.  Deal?”

Dean sighed and looked pensively down the road.  “Yeah, okay.  One month.”  Before Sam could respond Dean tackled him, laughing as they rolled around in the dirt until he came up with the phone.  He patted Sam on the belly.  “It’s good to be home.”

***

One month later

“Oh for Pete’s sake,” Bobby complained when he caught Sam spying on Dean from the kitchen window.  Again.  “What’s wrong now?”

“He remembers,” Sam stated matter-of-factly.

“He says he don’t.”

“He’s lying.  What do you see out there?”

Bobby sighed and pulled the curtain back, not especially stealthily to watch Dean rolling around in the grass wrestling with the dog.  “I see that damn brother of yours ruining a perfectly good watch dog.”  He watched for another minute then harrumphed and took a seat at the table.

“Yeah.  Does that seem like Dean to you?” Sam turned to lean against the sink.  “He spends all his time outside playing with the dog and touching the grass and the trees, watching the clouds roll by… I haven’t seen him drunk once, Bobby.  Not even to celebrate.  And he smiles.  A lot.  It’s creepy.”

“Sam.  He got a second chance.  Maybe he just wants to make the most of it.”

“But he still wakes up screaming in the middle of the night in a pool of his own sweat.  And he won’t go near an open flame, not even your barbeque pit.”

“That could just be a subconscious reaction.”

“I’m telling you, Bobby, he remembers.  He remembers being in Hell and he remembers coming out of it,” Sam insisted

“Even if he does,” Bobby advised sagely, “You’ve got to let him be.  It’s his thing, not yours.  If he wants to share it with you he will in his own good time.  He’s probably still processing what happened.”

“He’s trying to protect me.”

“Well let him.  Now hush up, our reformed pyromaniac is coming up the steps.”

Sam turned to look at the screen door.  It opened and slammed shut and Dean wandered past them to the refrigerator to get a bottle of beer.  Dried grass fluttered along behind him as it fell from his clothes and hair.  

“It’s time to make that call, Sammy.”

“Dean…”

“No argument, my thirty days is up,” Dean said before twisting the top off and taking a long pull.  “Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”

“Those six words strike terror into my heart.”

“I promise to stay dead, at least as far as the FBI is concerned.  But I’m gonna need your help.”

***  

The next day

The team trudged in from a long week on the road but they’d caught their killer.  A win they’d desperately needed.  It was late and they murmured their good-byes as they drifted off in different directions.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Morgan greeted as an exuberant Garcia bounded into the room.  “What are you doing here so…” his question was cut off as she jumped into his arms for a big hug.

“You are the best!  I loved my flower and I couldn’t believe you did that because I didn’t think you’d even remember.  I knew Reid would and probably Gideon but I didn’t think you would.  So thank you!”

“Whoa!” Morgan exclaimed as he pulled back far enough to see her face.  “Say what?”

Garcia beamed up at him.  “Don’t even act like you don’t know.”

“I have no idea,” Morgan said.  “What flower?”

“Yeah, right.  The sunflower you sent me yesterday, my big lump of brown sugar.”

“Yesterday?  Why would I…” he sent a questioning look to Reid who was sorting through a weeks worth of mail on his desk.

“Yesterday was a month since Dean was killed,” Reid supplied softly.

“Right.” Morgan winced.  “Sorry, baby girl, it wasn’t me.”

“Oh.”  Garcia frowned as if she hadn’t even considered any one else then looked to Reid.

“It wasn’t me, either,” Reid confirmed.  “What makes you think it had to do with Dean?”

“The card.”  Garcia pulled a tiny envelope out of her pocket.

Morgan took it from her and slipped the card out.  “To ‘Sunny’ Garcia to brighten your day,” he read.

“Gideon?” Reid asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Morgan said.

“It had to one of you,” Garcia insisted.   “Nobody ever called me Sunny but Dean.”

“We’ll figure it out tomorrow,” Morgan told her, pocketing the card.  “Go home, it’s late.”

“Okay,” Garcia gave in, a little disappointed.  “Hotch maybe?”

“Who knows?”

“Night, guys.”

“Good night.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Morgan shared a look with Reid as she left.  “What?” Morgan asked.

Reid held up a card from his own desk.  “It’s a gift subscription to ‘Guns and Ammo’ from an anonymous benefactor.  It’s post marked three weeks ago.  You didn’t…”

“No.  I didn’t.”

There was a pause while Reid considered this.  “You don’t think…”

“No,” Morgan said firmly.  “I don’t.”

A little shrug as he got back to his mail suggested Reid wasn’t so sure.

“Hey Reid?”

“Yes?”

“We do need to get to the range sometime this week.”

Reid grinned.  “Yeah.  Yeah, we should.”

***

Gideon was tired.  In fact he’d been tired for a while and it didn’t have anything to do with the long hours they’d been putting in.  He turned on the lamp on his desk and left the overhead off.  He reached into the bottom drawer and pulled out the tie he kept there.  He placed it next to his keyboard and smoothed it out, running his finger over the spot of dried blood.  A month and a day had passed. It was time to let it go.  Still, he couldn’t quite throw it in the trashcan so he let it lie there and reached over to check his office voicemail.

He put on his glasses and made a few notes as one mundane message after another played.  It was always like this whenever they’d been gone for more than a couple of days.  Some of the more self-important ones droned on and on and Gideon wished there was a time limit.  Laying down his pen and taking off his glasses he rubbed his eyes and let the last few play without really listening.  

When the tenth out of fourteen began he looked at the phone in confusion then his eyes went wide.  He glanced around to see who might be playing a joke but this was not even remotely funny.  No one had been close enough.  No one had even heard but Hotchner and Hotch was far above such a juvenile, mean spirited prank.  

A knot formed in his chest the size of his fist.  His eyes began to sting so he clenched them tight, but a single tear managed to escape and slide down his cheek.  It struck him suddenly that Dean had kept his word.  Somehow he knew, knew it to the depths of his soul, that Dean was all right, wherever he was.  The veil of grief lifted leaving him with an emerging sense of peace.

“…tomorrow when the world is free…” he sang softly as the music faded away.



The End