(In which Sam and Dean try to find a way to move forward.)
Mrs. Clark can’t stop crying.
An old building. That’s what Sam keeps saying. Say something enough and it becomes true.
“It was an old building,” Mr. Clark says, to someone. The woman puts a hand on his arm. Mr. Clark keeps shaking his head, like he’s trying to say it’s not true. “An old building, and—and the wires, I guess it was.”
“I’m so sorry,” the woman says, low and sincere. Sam braces both hands against the window sill. Looks out at the chill November twilight.
An old building, he’d said. The investigator had sat both of them down together. Just routine follow-up questions. Neither of them had slept. Sam still in his pajama pants, his clothes still reeking of smoke. The lights flickered in the bedroom sometimes, Sam had said. Dean had been silent at his side, looking down at the table. The lies came easy. All those case-files, from when they were kids. All that reading they’d had to do. The lights flickered, Sam had said, and sometimes the bedroom door stuck. It was an old building.