Look Beyond The Road We're Driving
by AmandaK
"It's an army," Sam said. His voice was heavy and he looked off into the distance."He's unleashed an army."
"The war has just begun," Bobby added. He made the words sound as ominous as they warranted. Ellen suppressed the shiver that wanted to run along her spine.
"Well then," Dean said, rounding the Impala and putting the Colt away in the trunk, "we got work to do." Contrary to his brother and Bobby, Dean appeared eager, almost gleeful with the prospect of hunting down and sending back to hell each of the some two hundred demons that had escaped through the devil's gate.
Ellen looked at the three men standing in a half circle around the Impala. Blood-spattered, mud-streaked, grass and dried leaves sticking to their hair and clothes, shoulders slumped with weariness, they stood tall and strong and determined. And still...
She wrapped her arms around herself. They'd won this round—or at least she thought they had—yet there was a strange undercurrent running through them that she couldn't quite decipher. Emotions on a slow boil beneath the surface, things left unsaid. Years of serving drinks to self-contained hunters or hearing their drunken confessions had honed her senses razor sharp, and every instinct told her something was just not right.
Thinking back, Ellen realized she'd felt it ever since she bumped into Bobby and Dean in Bobby's junkyard. At first, she thought they were simply suspicious of her, demonstrating that near-paranoid caution of seasoned hunters, but the tension hadn't abated after she'd swallowed the belt of holy water and proved she was who she was. Quite the opposite, back at Bobby's place it had been Dean and Bobby who seemed at odds, with the way Bobby stared at Dean and how Dean avoided meeting Bobby's gaze. But now—now Sam was part of it too.
She tried to put her finger on it while she followed Bobby to his battered sky-blue truck and hoisted herself into the passenger seat. She sank into the padding with a heavy breath; she couldn't remember ever having been this exhausted, like every cell in her body was ready to collapse with fatigue. She thought she could sleep for a month.
The truck jolted into motion, jarring her back to the present. The Impala bounced across the rutted track in front of them, the boys' heads visible as silhouettes against the landscape brightening in the morning sun. Ellen put one hand against the dashboard to keep herself from being thrown around the cabin until they reached the main road. Ahead, Dean signaled a right, and Bobby followed without a word. She cut him a glance.
Back there, even after it was over, Bobby had sounded apprehensive, almost afraid—which scared her more than anything. Over the many years she'd known him, nothing frightened Bobby Singer. And she didn't believe it was fear of the demon army that had Bobby worried, the army that made Dean smirk in an almost frantic desire to go fight. No, something else had rattled Bobby Singer's composure, and Ellen dreaded to find out what it was.
And Sam... Sam turned out the greatest mystery of them all. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that such viciousness as with which he shot that Jake kid resided inside that tall, gawky body. What could it take to push Sam that far? What had Jake done to warrant such aggression?
She expected Sam to have been happier, more relieved than he was. After all, the yellow-eyed demon was dead, the boys' mother avenged, their father rescued from hell. Dean showed the expected emotions, but Sam... Sam had looked as if another heavy load had been dumped onto his shoulders before he could straighten up after the last one lifted.
A yawn escaped her and Ellen snuggled into the corner between the seat and the door. She was too tired to think about it any longer. And perhaps Sam was just shell-shocked and she was imagining things. Who could blame him?
She closed her eyes, leaning her head against the window and relishing its coolness on her skin. The engine rumbled steadily while the truck zoomed along the highway in the Impala's wake.
She was about to drift off into exhausted sleep whenBobby's voice broke the silence of the cabin.
"I shouldn't have left him," he said, softly, and Ellen wasn't even sure if he were talkingto her or to himself. "Dammit, I shouldn't have."
She sat up straighter and turned sideways. Bobby's jaw clenched tight and he held the wheel like it was a life buoy. His knuckles were white. "Bobby?"
Bobby gave her a startled look, as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Back in Cold Oak," he said, "Sam died." His voice cracked.
"What?" But then she recalled the shock on Jake's face, and what he'd said.
I killed you. Cut clean through your spinal cord. You can't be alive.
Ellen's throat went dry and she tried to swallow convulsively. "Oh my God. How..." Things clicked in her brain and she could feel the blood draw from her face. "He made a deal, didn't he? Dean?"
Bobby nodded.
She turned her head away and stared out across the blacktop. The Impala was a dark fleck on the horizon, too far away to see inside. "How long?" she asked in a whisper, fearingthe answer but needingto know nevertheless.
"One year." Ellen could barelyhear Bobby's answer over the noise of the engine and the hum of the wheels on the asphalt.
"Goddammit! That fool idiot!" she burst out, causingBobby to jump and the truck to drift onto the wrong lane before he corrected its course. "What the hell was he thinking?" Ellen turned back to Bobby, who divided his attention between her and the road. "You've seen what John's sacrifice did to that boy. And now he turns around and does the exact same thing?" No wonder Sam looked as if he carried the weight of the world. She'd have a few choice things to say to Dean the next time they stopped, she thought. "I could just throttle him!"
The corners of Bobby's mouth quirked a little and he snorted a humorless laugh. "That's what I said."
"Like father, like son, I suppose, eh?" Ellen directed her gaze forward again. Dean was lucky he was out of her reach or, so help her God, she would—
"Don't get mad at the boy," Bobby said quietly. "You didn't see him, afterward. I did. I was there."
She swiveled her head around so she could look at him. Bobby glanced sideways, meetingher eyes for a second before he went back to watchingthe road.
"After Sam... died," he continued, "we carried him inside the nearest house, cleaned him up a little. Or rather, Dean did; he wouldn't let me touch Sam. And when he was done, he stood there for hours, just watching Sam with this look on his face..." Bobby's voice faded and the truck's interior fell quiet.
It was several minutes later that Bobby spoke again. "It broke my heart. I tried to help, tried to get him to eat something, to draw him back. But I failed. Then Dean told me to leave, and, dumbass that I am, I did." His voice broke. "Ellen, I left him alone when I shouldn't have. I should've known he'd do somethingmonumentallystupid, he was crazed with grief and despair..."
Ellen put a hand on Bobby's forearm and squeezed gently. She tried to imagine what it must've been like for Dean to lose Sam like that, to lose the last of his family.What if it had been Jo? There was nothing she wouldn't do for her baby, no price too high to pay for her daughter's life. Ellen shuddered and her stomach clenched. She might've done the same thing, were she in Dean's shoes.
"Is there a way to get him out?"
Bobby shrugged. "I don't know. But if there is..."
Ellen nodded.
...we'll find it.
Disclaimer: This story is based on the Warner Bros. Television/Wonderland Sound and Vision/Eric Kripke/Robert Singer series Supernatural. All characters belong to their original creators. The story is meant for entertainment purposes only and no copyright infringement was intended.