Good dreams were scarce in the Winchester family as of late.

Abby's dreams were haunted by a boy with a gray shirt and scared eyes. Dean's by a little girl with blood on her face and eyes colder than before. Sam's dreams weren't haunted, in the normal sense. When he did dream, he dreamt of the future.

Abby wondered if they felt different than dreams where you saw the past. Those she was used to; those she knew like the back of her hand.

The idea of dreams set in the future, that made her stomach start to hurt. Especially when it was Sam having them. Prophetic dreams were something witches would have, or some other inhuman creature Sam and Dean hunted would have.

Not Abby's big brother.

At first, Abby had wanted to think they weren't real. Back in December, when her nose was never quite warm enough and there was always a bit of snow on the ground. But those hopes had melted away fast, and now in the heat of July, with the burning hot sun streaming through the windows of Dad's cabin, Abby wished to go back to December.

The papers covering the walls of this cabin were no longer mysteries to the Winchester siblings; their father had just spent the better part of two days explaining what his research meant, with some notes on how he found each part out.

Dad was explaining how about a year ago, when he left, it had been because he had picked up the demon's trail.

"It starts in Arizona, then New Jersey, California. Houses burnt down to the ground. It's going after families, just like it went after us."

"Families with twelve-year-olds. Twelve and six months, every time."

"So basically this demon is going after these kids for some reason," Sam half-scoffed, "the same way it came for me." Abby was sitting at the table, on the side to Dad's left, while Sam leaning against the sink, facing them both. Dean had been quiet through all of this, his expression unreadable even to Abby.

"So Mom's death, Jessica- It's all 'cause of me?"

"We don't know that Sam," Dean said sharply.

"Oh really, 'cause I'd say we're pretty damn sure, Dean!" Sam snapped back.

"For the last time, what happened to them is not your fault."

"Yeah, you're right, it's not my fault, but it is my problem." Sam was yelling now. There had been more yelling in the past week than the eight months before.

"No, it's not your problem. It's our problem!" Dean yelled back.

"Okay, that's enough." Dad interrupted Sam and Dean's argument, standing up and starting to walk behind Abby's chair.

"So, why is it doing it?" the agitation in Sam's voice was obvious. 'What does it want?"

"Look, I wish I had more answers, I do." Dad had walked in front of the table, facing Sam alone now as Dean had taken Dad's spot at the table, standing next to Abby, the lone family member still sitting. "I've always been one step behind it. Look I've never gotten there in time to save..." Dad trailed off, looking away at something only he could see. Abby looked down at her lap, biting the inside of her cheek.

"All right, so, how do we find it before it hits again?" Dean asked.

"There are signs. Look it took me a while to see the pattern, but in the days before these fires, signs crop up in an area- cattle deaths, temperature fluctuations, electrical storms. And then I went back and checked, and..."

"These things happened in Lawrence." Dean finished Dad's thought.

"The week before your mother died. And in Palo Alto... before Jessica. And these signs- they're starting again."

"Where?" Sam asked. Abby could see his eyes, just a little glassier than minutes before.

"Salvation, Iowa."

~
Abby didn't try to ask if they could stop by to see Haley and Sarah. Though she did know when they were just 50 miles away, and she thought about them a bit extra during that stretch of the journey.

She was back in the back seat of the Impala. She had debated getting in Dad's truck, if nothing else just so there were two people in each car. But Sam had ushered her into the Impala, and Abby got the feeling she wasn't getting to ride with Dad again any time soon.

As they passed the Leaving Salvation sign, on the opposite side, Abby craned her head to see the front of the sign.

'Are you ready for Judgement Day?' It said, then 'JW 2:27' under 'The Heartland of America.'

"What's Judgement Day?" Abby asked leaning forward.

"Bullshit." Dean said, not taking his eyes off the road, or more accurately, the back of Dad's truck.

"It's a day when the Bible says God will judge everyone, and sinners will go to hell, and people who are good Christians will go to heaven," Sam explained after shooting Dean a look.

"But it's all crap and nothing you should be concerned about," Dean said, his tone definitive. Abby sat back in her seat, watching the gray sky and fields pass by.

Soon Dad pulled over on the side of the road, near a lake that would have been pretty if everything hadn't been so gray and gloomy. Dean followed, putting the car in park then getting out.

"Son of a bitch!" Dad said loudly, walking towards them and hitting the trunk of his car out of anger.

"What is it?" Dean said. The mud squished when Abby put her feet down, and she cringed internally thinking about how hard it would be to get out of her purple Converse.

"I just got a call from Caleb."

"Is he okay?" Caleb was one of Dad's friends, Abby was relatively sure. The name sounded familiar, but she didn't have a face to go with it.

"He's fine. Jim Murphy's dead." Abby looked down at the mud-covered toes of her shoes. Jim was a pastor, one of Dad's friends. He was pretty nice, but Abby had only met him once or twice. Still, him being dead was sad.

"Pastor Jim?" Sam asked.

Dad nodded.

"How?"

"Throat was slashed. He bled out." Abby cringed a little. Dying from having your throat cut seemed like a very violent way to die, and Abby didn't want to think about it.

"Caleb said they found traces of sulfur at Jim's place." Dad continued.

"A demon." Dean placed.

Dad half nodded, looking away.

"The demon?"

"I don't know," Dad said. "Could be he just got careless, he slipped up. Maybe the demon knows we're getting close."

"What do you want to do?" Dean asked.

"Now we act like every second counts. There's two hospitals and a health center in this county. We split up. We cover more ground. I want records. I want a list of every kid that's gonna be twelve years and six months in the next week."

"Dad, that could be dozens of kids," Sam interjected. "How the hell are we gonna know which one's the right one?"

"We'll check them all. That's how." Abby looked back up at her father. In the fog, standing on a muddy road a few miles from the middle of nowhere, he seemed so.... human. His hair was wet from the fog, part of it sticking it his forehead. He had stubble grown on his face from the busy few days. This Dad seemed so... normal. He just seemed like someone who had lost his wife, and who was trying to raise his kids as best he could.

Abby felt the feeling in her stomach she felt when she had to meet the family member's of a victim in a case. Pity, she guessed.

"Okay," Dean said quietly. He turned around, walking back to Baby and opened the door. Abby stayed still, though, watching Dad as he turned away but didn't move to get back into the truck.

Instead, he just paused, leaning his arm against the truck's back half and leaning his head down, almost as if he was trying to catch his breath.

"Dad?" Abby asked, hearing Dean pause and turn back around with her words, and Sam stopped getting into the car.

"Yeah." Dad looked up, turning around. He had a weird look on his face. It was sadness, Abby was pretty sure. But weird. "It's Jim. You know, I can't-" Dad stopped, looking away.

Dad paused for a second, looking off to the side at something Abby couldn't quite see.

"This ends now." Dad looked back at them, his kids. He looked right at Abby, and she couldn't help but wonder what he was seeing. It wasn't her, she was pretty sure. "I'm ending it. I don't care what it takes."

He didn't wait for another response, just got back in his truck and started it. Abby walked back to Baby, hitting each of her feet against the bottom part of the car before getting in, not wanting to bring too much mud in.

It didn't work.

~

Abby went with Sam since Dean was still acting weird, he had been since the night they got the Colt and Abby killed the vampire, but Sam was acting semi-normal. At least, as normal as Sam ever acted.

When he went into the hospital medical center to get records, Abby stayed outside, reading on one of the benches. She picked one close to an old lady who was knitting. The bench was a bit damp with morning dew, but Abby didn't really care.

As her eyes scanned the page, it felt like the world faded into the background and she could see the characters come to life in front of her. She was in their world now, one of adventure and friends, not Abby's dreary one.

Abby didn't notice her feet swinging, or the time passing as she read.

A tap on Abby's shoulder made her jump but when she turned it was just Sam.

"Hey, ready to go?"

Abby nodded, shoving her book into her bag after dog-earing the page. Abby zipped the bag closed and swung it onto her shoulder, straightening up from her position kneeling over the bag. Sam was making a weird expression, almost like he was in pain, and definitely not the expression he was making a second ago.

"Sam?" Abby said, fear creeping into her voice.

Sam's face stayed into a wince, his hand coming up to rib right over his eyes.

He looked and acted like this every time he had a vision while he was awake.

It still freaked Abby out, a lot.

Sam opened his eyes, wide, looking around, clearly disoriented and breathing hard.

"Sam?" Abby tugged on his jacket, trying to get Sam's attention as he looked around. "Are you okay?" Sam looked down and immediately his expression changed to a bit less panicked.

"Yea-" Sam was cut off by going silent again, the same painful look on his face from earlier.

While Abby waited for Sam to get back to normal, she looked around. No one noticed the man and girl standing next to a park bench. That was good, Abby supposed. They didn't want ot draw attention.

"A train." Sam muttered and Abby turned back around. Sam had gotten a map out of the pocket of his bag and was unfolding it, still breathing hard. Whatever Sam was looking for, he must have found because he then grabbed Abby's hand and started walking. Where they were going, Abby wasn't sure.

"Sam?" Abby's voice came out quieter than she meant it to.

"Yeah?" Sam said, seemingly just remembering she was there. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked down at Abby.

"Where are we going?" Abby started to chew the inside of her cheek. Sam was acting weird, and it made Abby's stomach hurt.

Sam took a few deep breaths and then knelt down, so his eye line was level with Abby's. "I had another vision." He talked slowly like he wasn't sure if Abby could understand him. "I heard a train, so we're going to where there's traintracks nearby." Abby nodded and forced the lump in her throat down.

"Okay." Abby's voice stayed quiet.

"Do you want me to call Dean?" Sam asked, concern coloring his voice. Abby shook her head furiously. She could do this, she decided.

"I'm okay." She said definitively, furrowing her brow.

"Okay, good," Sam said. He forced a small smile and stood back up.

The two walked through street after street it seemed, eventually trekking through a park. Sam was intermittently walking fast, realizing Abby couldn't keep up, slowing down, checking the map, and then repeating. Abby's legs were tired, and she just wanted to curl up and go to bed. Sam's legs were much longer than hers since he was super super tall, even taller than Dad or Dean, and the top of Abby's head barely reached Sam's elbow.

Suddenly Sam stopped, making Abby stop along with him. They were standing across the street from a house with white walls and gray shutters. There was a lady walking along the street, holding an umbrella and walking with a girl, who seemed to be just a bit older than Abby. Sam seemed very very distracted as he rushed across the street. Abby lagged behind.

"Hi, is this your daughter?" He asked, breathing kind of hard and clearly referring to the girl, who looked startled and confused, much like the mother.

Abby was not sure at all what Sam was doing. Abby really really wanted Dean to be here, so he could smile and make a joke and then Sam acting weird would stop making Abby's stomach twist itself up into knots.

"Yeah, she is." The lady said, a bit cautious which Abby thought was fair.

"I'm sorry, I'm rude." Sam half-lauged. He wasn't very convincing, Abby thought. "I'm Sam and this is Abby," Sam said, gesturing to Abby. "We just moved in up the block."

"Oh, hey, I'm Monica! This is Rosie." Rosie gave Abby a tight-lipped smile before giving her mom a look that said 'Mom please don't make me hang out with this random girl.'

"Welcome to the neighborhood." Monica seemed nice at least.

"Have you, uh, lived here long?" Sam asked. Abby was looking everywhere but Rosie and Rosie was looking everywhere but Abby.

"My husband and I, we bought our place just before Rosie was born." Monica gestured to the house behind them.

"And, uh, how old are you?" Sam asked.

"Twelve," Rosie said. If Abby had responded to someone with that much attitude, Dad would be furious. Monica just gave Rosie a light 'quit it' look.

"Her half-brithday is actually today!" Monica said, smiling. "Growing like a weed." She half-laughed and Sam chuckled, Abby was pretty sure out of mostly politeness.

"Yeah." Sam went quiet for a second and when Abby glanced up at him, he was looking at Rosie with a sad, forlorn look on his face. These people definitely thought Sam and Abby were acting insane, Abby thought to herself.

"Monica..." Sam started

"Yeah?"

"Just, uh, just take care of yourself, okay?"

"Yeah, you too Sam. We'll see you around." Monica seemed strangely not off-put by Sam's strange behavior.

"Yeah, definitely." Sam said, giving them a tight-lipped smile.

Sam and Abby walked across the street, back towards where they came. Abby went a few more steps before realizing Sam wasn't with her. Turning around, Abby saw Sam staring at Monica and Rosie. They were talking to someone in a car that had just pulled into their driveway. Probably Rosie's Dad, Abby deduced.

Suddenly Sam half-exclaimed in pain as he put his hands to his forehead again. When Sam didn't immediately come back, though, Abby started to freak out.

"Sam, Sam, c'mon." Abby tried to shake Sam's arm, having to reach up to even grab it. His expression didn't break.

"Sam, you're scaring me!"

~

Abby's eyes kept drifting closed. They were in a motel room, all four of them now, not just her and Sam. Sam was sitting at the table, recalling the events of the day. He still had a headache, Abby could tell by how he was rubbing his forehead. Dad and Dean were sitting on the ends of each of the beds, asking Sam questions. Abby was sitting at the headboard of the bed Dean was on, sitting up against motel pillows and trying not to drift off.

"A vision?" Dad's voice was skeptical. Abby was trying to remember if they had told him about Sam's visions. She hadn't told him, but Dean called Dad a few times when Abby wasn't supposed to be able to hear him. It seemed so important, everything with Sam did, so it just felt like something Dad should know.

"Yes." Sam's eyes were closed and her head was resting on his hand and he sounded like he was in pain and that made Abby feel bad. "I saw the demon burning a woman on the ceiling."

"Alright, and you think this is going to happen to this woman you met because...?" Dad's voice was full of 'this-is-bullshit' tone of voice.

"Because these things happen exactly the way I see them."

"It started out as nightmares, and then he started having them while he was awake." Dean got up from the bed and Abby's eyes followed him as he walked. Guess Dad didn't know.

Sam groaned a "yeah" in agreement. He really didn't sound okay. "It's like- I don't know. It's like the closer I get to anything involving the demon, the stronger the visions get."

"All right, when were you gonna tell me about this?" So Dad definitely did not know, and he didn't seem happy. At all. Abby wrapped her arms around her stomach and brought her knees up to her chin and started biting the inside of her cheek.

Sam and Dean looked over at Dad.

"We didn't know what it meant," Dean said.

"Something like this starts happening to your brother, you pick up the phone and you call me," Dad said, like he was scolding kids who had done something wrong.

"We did call you." Dad's head whipped around and looked at Abby. She hadn't even realized she was speaking until she was done. "Dean called a whole bunch, and you never even called him back," Abby said really fast before shutting her mouth super tightly and deciding not to speak again unless someone spoke to her first. Dad looked at Abby and he looked angry.

"Dad, I called you from Lawrence, all right?" Dean's words made Dad turn away from Abby and look at Dean. "Sam called you when I was dying. Getting you on the phone- I got a better chance of winning the lottery." Dean's words hung in the air.

"You're right." Dad finally said. "Although I'm not real crazy about this tone of yours." He directed this comment at Abby. Abby pressed her lips together and took a really deep breath, willing herself not to disappear into the bed. "You're right, I'm sorry." Abby nodded back at Dad as he spoke.

Everything is okay. Everything is okay. Dad is sorry. He's not angry. Abby repeated to herself.

"Look guys, visions or no visions, the fact is, we know the demon is coming tonight," Sam spoke up. "And this family's gonna go through the same hell we went through."

"No, they're not." Dad said. "No one is... ever again." His words were firm, they made Abby feel like he just had to be right. That's what Dad's were, after all.

Sam's phone rung, and he picked it up. "Hello?" Abby watched as he froze. "Who is this?"

"Meg."

Abby's eyes widened. She suddenly felt like she could feel the deep scratch marks on her left side and blood trickling down the side of her face. Dad stood up and Dean suddenly looked very alert.

"Last time I saw you, you fell out of a window."

Abby's heart was beating fast. Sam's words seemed far away,

"Just your feelings? That was a 7 story drop."

Sam looked at Dad after whatever Meg said next. Abby couldn't see his face from where she was on the bed.

"My dad. I don't know where my dad is." Sam said. He was lying. Abby's brain was all jumbled up, racing a million miles a minute in all sorts of directions and she wasn't sure she could breathe.

Dad reached out his hand to Sam, and Sam slowly handed the phone over. Dean was leaning against the wall. He hadn't said much, but he was giving Dad a very angry look. Why was Dean angry? What happened to five seconds ago when everything had been okay?

"This is John," Dad said into the phone. Abby rested her chin on her legs. Her heart was still beating fast, and she felt like she was drowning. Dad had turned away from Dean and Sam, so they could only see his back but Abby could see his face now. Dad wasn't looking at her though, he was looking at the wall of the motel room as he swallowed hard, a sad expression growing on his face after whatever Meg had just said. "I'm here." He said gruffly.

"Caleb?" Dad said into the phone, alarmed at whatever had just happened. Dean's head whipped around and he and Sam both suddenly looked alarmed. Abby sat up a little, lifting her chin from her knees.

"Caleb. You listen to me- he's got nothing to do with anything." Dad said low and threatening into the phone. "You let him go."

A beat.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Caleb." Concerned. "Caleb!" Even more concern tinged with alarm.

Dad's face morphed into one of anger mixed with anguish as he turned around, facing Dean and Sam again.

"I'm gonna kill you, you know that?" Dad said in such a matter-of-fact tone that Abby couldn't help but believe it.

Whatever Meg said, it made Dad's face turn into a grimace of frustration and pain. He sighed deeply. Dad glanced at Abby, so fast she almost didn't notice, before saying, low and fast, "Okay."

A beat. Meg must've said something.

(MKI: What Meg says on the phone right before John looks at Abby is basically if he doesn't give her the gun, she's gonna kill people he loves.)

"I said okay," Dad repeated, clearer this time. "I'll bring you the Colt." Abby's eyes widened as big as they could go. What could Meg have said to make Dad willing to just give her the Colt?

After Meg said something else, Dad said "It's gonna take me about a day's drive to get me there." So Meg was setting a meeting place.

Meg said something more.

"It's impossible. I can't get there in time, and I can't just carry a gun on a plane." Whatever Meg said next made Dad close his eyes, briefly, like he was regaining his strength not to break down.

After a beat Dad lowered the phone from his ear, flipping it off.

~

Dad was going to Lincoln and Meg was a demon. These things were both true, at least they were according to Dad as of five seconds ago.

"It doesn't seem like I have a choice. If I don't go, a lot of people die. Our friends die." Dad said. Abby was half-standing half-leaning on Sam, which meant she had a good view of Dad but without craning her neck couldn't see what Sam's expression was

"Dad, the demon is coming tonight for Monica and her family. That gun is all we got." Sam was talking fast and loud like he did when what he was saying was really important. "You can't just hand it over."

"Who said anything about handing it over?" Dad was talking more calmly than Sam. "Look, besides us and a couple vampires, no one's really seen the gun. No one knows what it looks like."

"So what, you're just gonna pick up a ringer at a pawn shop." Dean had walked up behind Abby, now standing on the other side of her than Sam.

"Antique store."

Dean paused. "You're gonna hand Meg a fake gun and hope she doesn't notice?"

"Look, as long as it's close, she shouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"Yeah but for how long? What happens when she figures it out?"

"I just- I just need to buy a few hours, that's all."

"You mean for Dean, Abby, and I," Sam said quietly.

Realization dawned on Abby.

Dad wasn't planning on coming back.

Suddenly, the tightness in her chest made itself apparent again.

"You want us to stay here... and kill this demon by ourselves," Sam said slowly like he was just piecing it together himself.

"No, Sam. I want to stop losing people we love." Dad's voice sounded like he was on the verge of tears. "I want you to go to school. I want Dean to have a home. I want Abby to have a childhood."

Abby felt like her lungs were filling with water and she couldn't quite breathe right anymore.

Dad was turned away and Abby could barely hear his next words. "I want Mary alive."

Abby knew that there were tears in his eyes from his voice and she didn't know what to do. Sam was just standing there, looking at Dad sadly. Dean too. Abby settled on just leaning farther into Sam's side while her heart sunk down into her shoes and through the floor.

"I just... I just want this to be over."

~

Dean was going to have to buy Abby new Converse soon, Abby thought about as she stood, yet again, in mud as she leaned against Dad's truck.

Dean had just arrived from getting the decoy gun. Abby felt like she was going to be sick every time she thought about what was going to happen. She had this terrible sinking feeling deep inside and all she wanted to do was yell at Dad and Dean and Sam to stop, that this was stupid, that they should just go back to how everything was before.

What before was, Abby wasn't completely sure. It seemed like they had never had a normal day as a family, at least not one Abby could remember. Maybe once this was all over they would.

"That's why Meg wants you to come alone." Dean was saying. Every mention of Meg made Abby's chest tighten, just a little bit.

"I can handle her. I got a whole arsenal loaded- holy water, madaic amulets-"

"Dad-" Dean interrupted.

"What?"

"Promise me something,"

"What's that?" Dad's voice was soft and low.

"This thing goes South, just get the hell out. Don't get yourself killed, all right?" Dean chuckled while saying the next part. "You're no good to us dead."

With light rain pattering the ground and birds chirping somewhere in the distance, the almost-silence weighed on Abby like a brick pressing down, down on her chest.

"Same goes for you," Dad said after a moment. "All right, listen to me. They made the bullets special for this Colt. There are only four of them left. Without them, this gun is useless." Dad paused, emphasizing each word of what he said next. "You make every shot count."

"Yes, sir." Abby and Sam said.

"I've been waiting a long time for this fight. Now it's here, and I'm not gonna be in it." Dad continued, looking suddenly very forlorn. Abby could hear a crow in the distance. "It's up to you now." Abby looked down at her shoes. "It's your fight.

You finish this.

You finish what I started.

You understand?" Dad looked right at Dean who looked back, not saying anything.

Slowly, Dad handed Dean the gun.

Dean took it.

"We'll see you soon, Dad." Abby half-smiled up at her dad. He looked down at her, smiling back and nodding a bit.

"I'll see you later." Dad cradled the back of Abby's head briefly as he bent down to kiss the crown of her head before heading to the driver's side of his car. As he passed Sam, he gave him an I'll-see-you-soon pat on the shoulder.

As Dad drove away, Abby stood between Sam and Dean. Just as Dad's car was turning the corner and leaving sight, Dean muttered "Later."

~

Abby was drifting in and out of sleep in the backseat of the Impala. Dean and Sam's voices were low and quiet in the front seat, and the weight of her blanket and the world made doing anything seem impossible.

In her half-dreaming state, Abby wondered if Rosie, in the house they were parked outside of, had a teddy bear like the one she was holding. Maybe Rosie was holding it like she was. Abby stopped thinking about that quickly though, it made her whole chest hurt.

A loud static noise was what brought Abby fully back to the present. It was coming from the Impala's radio.

Sam and Dean were both looking out the windows. Outside the night had gotten darker and Abby could see and practically feel the wind blowing leaves around. In the house they were outside of, the lights started to flicker. On and off. Off and on.

"It's coming," Sam said and swallowed hard.

Sam and Dean both got out. Abby did too, not asking for permission or if she should.

Abby crept into the house behind Dean after he picked the lock. She let Sam go ahead of them, sticking close by Dean's side. The lights had stopped flickering, and now they were all off.

Suddenly Dean pushed Abby backwards and to the side, her back hitting the wall.

"Get out of my house!" An unfamiliar man's voice yelled. Abby could see barely more than his figure in the dark, trying to hit Dean with a baseball bat.

"Get out of my house!" He said again, clearly struggling as Dean pushed him up against the wall, just a few feet from where Abby still was, restraining his arms.

"Mr. Holt, please," Sam said forcefully.

"Be quiet and listen to me. Be quiet and listen to me." Dean repeated, low and fast. "We are trying to help you, okay?"

"Charlie, is everything okay down there?" A voice from upstairs.

"Monica, go and get Rosie!" Charlie yelled.

"Don't go in the nursery." Sam's yell was louder and the panic in his voice made Abby's heart thump out of her chest.

"You stay away from her!" Charlie yelled, Pushing off of the wall, away from Abby, grunting.

Dean gave him a quick hit to the face before lifting him over his shoulder, fireman style.

Abby turned around, looking for Sam and just spotting his back retreating up the stairs.

Without a split second, Abby raced up the stairs after him, as fast as she could go. As she reached the landing, she could see Sam about to go into a room from which she could hear Monica's cries.

As Abby raced into the room and skidded to a stop, she could see a dark figure in the room. He turned, quickly at Sam and Abby's entrance. Abby could see his yellow eyes in a sliver of moonlight for just a moment before Sam fired the Colt and he disappeared into a puff of smoke.

The sound of Monica hitting the floor made Sam and Abby turn around. She'd been held up against the wall, Abby presumed, as she seemed relatively unharmed by her fall.

"Where the hell did it go?" Sam said as he moved to help Monica.

"My baby!" Monica said, trying to reach the child's bed in the corner despite Sam's arms holding her back. Abby couldn't see very well in the dark, but it looked like figure still wrapped in pink and purple bedsheets, Rosie, was still asleep.

Abby's brain sent of warning signs at that. There had been enough yelling that there was no way someone could just sleep through that.

"Get her out of here! I got it!" Dean yelled. When had he gotten here? Abby followed Sam out, looking back once to make sure Dean was following. He was carrying Rosie with her face pressed against his collar and had just lifted her out of the bed when it lit on fire. Within moments, the entire bed was covered in bright orange flames.

Abby raced out of the house behind Sam and Monica and onto the front lawn.

She bent over, coughing from the smoke as Charlie, who Dean must have left out here, yelled "You get away from my family!" at Sam.

"No, Charlie, don't! They saved us." Well, at least one of them wasn't a knucklehead.

"Dad?" Rosie, who up until this point had still been unconscious, came too. Dean set her on the ground and her mother cradled her head against her chest. Abby watched.

"What happened?" Rosie asked quietly, clearly confused as she looked at the strange trio of people in front of her and her parents the fact her house was now on fire.

"Thank you." Monica half sobbed to Dean as her and Charlie embraced Rosie.

Abby was still watching the family when she heard Sam say 'It's still in there."

Her head swung around just in time to see Sam jolt back towards the house. He didn't get far, or anywhere, before Dean was holding him back saying "Sam, no!"

"Dean let me go, it's still in there." Sam's yell was low and full of pain. Abby watched as Dean pulled him farther from the burning house and wrapped her arms around herself.

"It's burning to the ground, it's suicide!" Dean yelled. Abby watched with wide eyes.

"I don't care!" Sam yelled, looking between Dean and the house.

"I do!" Dean responded.

Sam stopped fighting back, and all three siblings looked back at the burning house. In the window where there had once been a nursery, Abby could make out a dark figure standing amongst the flames before it disappeared into thin air.

~

I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. ran through Abby's head during the drive back to the motel.

She sat in the same place she had just hours earlier, back against the headboard and not even bothering to take off her shoes.

Sam sat at the end of the bed.

Dean paced, calling Dad. He wasn't picking up.

"Come on, Dad," Dean said into the flip phone. "Answer your phone, damn it." Dean finally stopped calling. "Something's wrong."

Sam didn't say anything, just kept looking at something neither Dean nor Abby could see.

"You hear me? Something's happened?" Dean repeated, turning to look at Sam.

"If you had just let me go in there, I could have ended all this," Sam said quietly.

"Sam, the only thing you would have ended was your life." Dean's voice was clear and factual.

Sam finally looked up. "You don't know that."

"So what, you're just willing to sacrifice yourself? Is that it?" Abby's eyes whipped back and forth from one brother to the other.

"Yeah." Sam stood up, leveling himself with Dean. "Yeah, you're damn right I am."

"Yeah, well, that's not gonna happen- not as long as I'm around."

"What the hell are you talking about, Dean? We've been searching for this demon our whole lives." With each sentence, Sam's voice got louder. "It's the only things I've ever cared about."

"Sam, I want to waste it. I do, okay? But it's not worth dying over."

"What?" Sam said. Sam wantsto die was that all Abby could focus on. Sam wanted to die and leave Abby behind.

"I mean it. If hunting this demon means you getting yourself killed, then I hope we never find the damn thing."

"That thing killed Jess. That thing killed Mom."

"And you want it to kill you too?" Abby said, getting off the bed and standing.

Sam looked at her and his face flashed to something other than anger, something much sadder for just a second before Dean's words pulled his focus and eyes from Abby.

"You said yourself once that no matter what we do, they're gone. And they're never coming back."

Sam suddenly grabbed Dean by the collar and pushed him, slamming his back and head against the wall and holding him there. Abby jumped, shocked.

"Don't you say that!" Sam yell-growled. Abby backed away from her brothers, unsure of what to do. "Don't you- Not after all this, don't you say that."

Abby sat down between the beds, straight across the room from Sam and Dean. She shuffled backward so her back was against the bedside table between the beds, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her body.

"Sam, look..." Dean's voice was quieter, calmer than Sam's. "The four of us- that's all we have. And it's all I have." Dean's voice quivered with the last sentence. Abby bit the inside of her cheek as she could hear Sam's breathing slow and it sounded like he was about to cry. "Sometimes I feel like I'm barely holding it together, man. Without you and Abby and Dad..."

Sam moved away from Dean, releasing him. "Dad.." Sam rubbed his forehead like he had forgotten about Dad, just now remembering that he was somewhere far away, risking his life and not answering his phone.

Dean stayed where he was, against the wall for a moment. He looked at Abby. She looked up at him with wide eyes, tears brimming in them.

"He should have called by now," Sam said. "Try him again."

As Dean dialed the number Sam walked back to where the beds were. He sat on the right side of the one to Abby's left, close enough that if Abby moved a few inches to her left, she could rest her head against Sam's shins.

As Sam slowed his breathing, he reached out a hand and smoothed the top of Abby's hair with a shaky hand. Abby stayed very, very still, not wanting Sam to stop.

Abby watched as Dean held the phone up to his ear. Dad must have picked it up. Then, Abby watched as Dean's face morphed from relief into horror.

"Where is he?" Dean said into the phone.

Whoever had picked up, it sure as hell wasn't Dad.

~

A/N: One more ep of s1?!?!? Going to need some floor time to cope with that. Anyway, very very excited for Bobby Singer, the king himself, next chapter!!