Our Baggage

When Sam gets back to the motel room, Ashley runs up and hugs him tightly around his torso, burying her face in his chest and inhaling the scent of him. After a beat, he wraps his arms around her and asks, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing.... I...I'm just glad you're back."

He stands there for a moment before his right hand starts stroking her hair. And he doesn't need to say anything.

~~~

The hunters went back to Bobby's, who welcomed them as if it was their house, too. Ashley realized that she felt like it was...like this was home. She was excited to get back to training and studying, and also some chill time. She's ended up getting plenty of the former, and little of the latter, and now, three weeks later, it's time for another case. They're going back to a high school the brothers attended for a very short time before moving on to another, as was the case with all their schools. But this one is special for Sam, she can tell.

"Maybe the girl belonged in the cuckoo house, Sam," says Dean, referring to the girl Sam just got back from questioning. She is in the mental hospital for delivering death upon another girl by way of swirly. "You heard her--no sulfur, no black smoke. Maybe this isn't somethin' supernatural."
"I just think we should check it out. What could it hurt?"

He sighs. "Fine. How we gonna get in? Pose as hawt Swedish exchange students?"

"...I got an idea."

~~~

Ashley and Sam peek into the school's gym, where Dean is teaching a P.E. class. He chucks a dodge ball hard at a student, hitting his stomach and knocking the wind out of him.

"The kid was a brat," she whispers to Sam.

"Yeah, needs to toughen up...."

When the class starts their game, Ashley and Sam walk inside, and Dean meets them halfway across the room.

Lifting his chin cockily, he states, "The whistle make me their god."

"Yeah," mutters Sam.

"Nice shorts," says Ashley.

"I know, right?" Dean replies, extending a leg proudly.

A kid gets hurt behind him, and Sam winces, as he and Ashley lean to get a look.

Dean blows his whistle and shouts, "Walk it off, Colby!" Turning back to Sam, he asks, "Find anything?"

"No," he answers, looking down and shaking his head.

"Not a trace of sulfur in the whole school," says Ashley.

"Welp. No demon. Let's get outta here. After lunch--it's sloppy Joe day."

"Ooh, sloppy Joes," says Ashley, eyes wide.

Sam sighs and nods.

~~~

During lunch, Ashley and Sam take their food outside.

"Wanna talk about it?" asks Ashley.

"About what?"

"About why you're so sad. Bad memories?"

"...Yeah." He tells her all about his time at this school, about his friend Barry, about the teacher who believed in him.

"You protected Barry. That's really amazing of you, Sam."

He shrugs. "No one else was going to."

"I bet he never forgot it."

He gives a little smile that squeezes her heart.

"Are you gonna go see your teacher?"

He shrugs. "Maybe."

"He'd probably be happy to see you again."

"He probably doesn't remember me."

"He might. You'll have to see."

He nods, looking thoughtful.

~~~

"He stuck the guy's hand in a blender?" Ashley asks incredulously.

"Yep," sighs Sam, eyes wide as they walk toward the gym, scanning for EMF.

Dean walks out, and Sam asks how the non-violence assembly was.

"Eh. Apparently blending body parts isn't a healthy way to express anger. So the kid had ectoplasm leakin' out his ear?"

"Gotta be a vengeful spirit. Ghost possession."

"It's rare."

"But it happens. If it's angry enough, it can take total control of a person's body."

"Alright, so, we got a ghost in the building?"

"Yeah, but the question is where. There's no EMF."

"Maybe we can find out who it is," says Ashley. "If there were any bloody deaths on school property."

"Way ahead of ya," Dean says, sliding a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolding it. "I had to, uh, break into the principal's office to get this. Oh, and FYI: there are three legal cheerleaders here. Wanna guess which ones?"

"No."

"Party-pooper," Ashley mutters, and Sam gives her a scornful look.

Dean clears his throat to cover a laugh, and looks down at the paper. "There was one suicide here in 1998. Some kid named Barry Cook."

Ashley's heart sinks as Sam grabs the paper to read it with his own eyes.

"What?" asks Dean.

With a sigh, he answers, "I knew him." Before his brother can respond, Sam asks, "How'd he die?"

"Uh, he slit his wrists in the first floor girls' bathroom."

"...That's where--"

"Where the girl got swirlied to death, exactly."

"...So, the ghost is possessing kids who get picked on?" says Ashley. "To go after bullies?"

The brothers look at eachother.

"Does that sound like Barry's MO?" asks Dean.

"...Barry had a hard time."

Ashley places a hand on his back, hoping to comfort him.

"No one ever gave him a break. But he had the biggest heart." He stares intently at his shoes. "He was gonna be a veterinarian."

Dean reaches out and gives his brother's arm a squeeze, before heading around them, and down the hall. Ashley rests her head on his other arm for a moment, until he wraps his around her shoulders in a brief hug, and they follow after Dean.

~~~

As Sam salts and burns Barry's remains, Ashley presses close into his side underneath his arm, holding him tightly. She feels him falling apart inside, as if they shared a soul. His childhood was so crappy, and the good deed he did for Barry was a shining light in the darkness of his past. Now that light has been snuffed out, and all Ashley can think is that there's nothing she can do to help him.

In the car, Dean breaks the long silence. "You alright?"

Sam sits up, from where he's leaning against the door. "He was my friend. And I just burned his bones."

"He's at peace now, Sam."

"If dad had let us stay just a little while longer, maybe I could'a helped him."

"You read the coroner's report. Barry was on every antidepressant and anxiety drug on the damn planet. School was hell for that kid, his parents had just split up. He just wanted out. There was nothing you could do, Sam. It wasn't your fault." After a few beats, he adds, "I'm glad we got outta there, I hated that school."

"It wasn't all bad," he replies with a brief little smile.

"How can you say that after what happened to you?" Dean asks, turning to him with a barely-there smile.

Sam looks away, and Ashley knows that he's thinking of the teacher, who he didn't visit today.

~~~

Dean finally got the part that "wasn't all bad" of Sam's time at the school out of him, and now they're back here.

"We really came back so you could say 'hi' to a teacher you knew for a few weeks?"

"You drove." He opens the door. "I won't be long."

"Fine. Go have you 'O Captain, my Captain' moment."

Sam gets out, and Ashley stops him as he starts to shut the door.

"Want me to go with you?"

Smiling and shaking his head, he answers, "No. Thanks."

She smiles back as he closes the door, and watches him turn away as Dean drives off for the parking lot.

Once parked, she reaches for the handle, and Dean says, "You're gonna follow him, aren't ya."

She smiles. "Yep."

~~~

Ashley followed the trail of dirt crumbs made by Sam's shoes, and now she stands peering around the corner as he paces outside the teacher's door. He runs a hand through his thick, long hair, and looks up as a girl carrying her books to her chest stops in front of him.

"Excuse me, sir," she says in a creepy voice, "can you tell me how to get to room 305?"

He smiles and gives her directions.

"Thank you, Sam."

He frowns, tilting his head to the side, and she attacks. Ashley leaps between them, earning the blow meant for him.

"Ashley!" he shouts. "What are you doing?!" He rushes to where she landed on the floor, helping her sit up and smashing a handful of salt into the girl's mouth as she dives at them, all in an instant. Ashley grabs both sides of the girl's hair to keep her in place as the salt drives the ghost out of her, and Sam holds her as she sinks to the ground, unconscious.

"Well, um," he says, looking up. "Thanks, Ash."

She smiles and nods. "Anytime, Sam."