Hello some of my favorite darlings!
After much thinking and planning and pre-writing, here is the beginning of the sequel installment to your favorite SPN story!
Again, thanks so much to everyone who loved and gave feedback to Rhythm and Rous - it was much appreciated and served as inspiration as getting started with the sequel.
Y'all are in for a treat with this story, I can promise that much. Stay tuned to see where Heather and Erica's adventures take them this time!
IMPORTANT TO NOTE:
This sequel is set in season 8, in a surprisingly convenient niche of time after the boys are established in the bunker and before Sam starts the trials :)
So this prologue is at the end of season 5 – gotta do something with those 6 years in between the original and the sequel, right?
Rated M so we can be realistically liberal with language (you think real hunters don't have sailors' mouths?) and for…y'know, better descriptions of some of the more fun stuff ;)
Two years later (A\N end of season five)
The floorboard creaked. Erica shot out of her fitful sleep with the gun that remained under her pillow cocked at the unseen intruder. For the span of a breath, she waited with her muscles locked so tightly they ached.
Slowly her mind registered where the sound had come from. Not a floorboard, but her radio. Some new-fangled version of music came through the quiet speakers. Usually she was woken by the perky voices of morning talk shows, but with a swift glance at the time, Erica realized she must have slept through that. She was nearly an hour late for her shift at the station.
Raking a hand through her thick brown hair, Erica swung her bare feet to the floor. It wasn't like her to sleep in. A glance at the missed calls from Sheriff Mills and Nadia confirmed that they felt the same way.
With a tightly wound knot in her stomach, Erica made her way over to her daily planner. A hasty glance at the pages told her that she could afford to call in sick today. Erica rubbed at her eyes as she meandered over to shower away her unease. She could not place what caused her to be so out of whack today, but she'd learned long ago to trust her gut. With the rest of her hunter skills growing rusty, however, Erica briefly wondered if her instincts were also growing useless.
After a much-needed scalding shower, Erica twisted her wet hair into a bun and pulled on running pants and a thin jacket. She sent a brief text to Heather inquiring if she wanted anything from the store for when she got home from work.
Are you ditching again? Heather typed back.
Need a me-day. Erica replied.
She leaned over toward her radio so she could find a better station to set as her alarm. Instead of the appalling music from earlier, the droning voice of a news announcer met her ears.
"With natural disasters around every fork in the road, some folks are calling this the beginning of the apocalypse. If that's the case, break out your Bible and get right with the Lord. My colleague just pulled one out of her purse. Oh, those Gideons." A forced laugh followed.
Erica lurched for her laptop, clicking on the most recent news report. Earthquakes in places nowhere near fault lines. Disease spreading in some of the most sanitary cities Erica knew of. Still more allowed Erica to understand why she was so on edge today. Something just felt wrong in the air. If the apocalypse was upon them she knew of two people she wanted at her side.
Bobby, where are S and D right now? Erica sent out the text and stepped into her sneakers. She began throwing clothes into a duffle. Old fake ID's, phony credit cards, and weapons she had not touched in months were placed in the bag as well.
With a buzz from her phone, Erica zipped up her bag and crossed the room to read Bobby's response.
Come see me. it read.
Erica dropped the phone, staggering back into the wall. Bobby knew she would never ask for their location unless it was dire. And Bobby wouldn't respond like that unless he wanted to talk to her in person. To tell her something was wrong. To tell her that the boys weren't around anymore.
Sam and Dean were dead.
Somehow, this assumption only served to fuel her desire to leave. She had no right to stay here in comfort when something capable of killing the Winchester roamed freely. Shouldering her bag, Erica kicked her phone under the bed and went to Heather's room. She packed with a clarity that frightened her. She should be a mess right now. She should be tearing at the seams.
Sam's face flashed in her mind as she'd last seen him. Nearly a year had passed since their last encounter but the emotion he brought up was the same. The unsheathed knife Erica clutched cut into her palm she gripped it so tightly. Erica watched blankly as the blood dripped onto the floor. She didn't feel any pain. Not from the wound. Not from Sam's death.
A silver Chevy corvette waited for her in the back of apartment garage, tarp and dust and all. It was impractical, really, keeping a third car around, but it had belonged to Heather's father. Erica was still unsure exactly how she and Heather had ended up with it, but it had proved useful once or twice for a high-profile covert hunt.
Erica carefully arranged the bags around the various guns and assorted hunting tools in the spacious trunk. She cranked the engine and gunned the car to Wayne and Beaumont, Attorneys at Law.
The receptionist scurried after her with protests as Erica strode right into the employee elevator. Alone, joyful violins floated down through the speakers. She curled her hands tightly into the hem of her jacket, resisting the urge to break the music that tried to calm her.
When the doors open, she was greeted with baffled men and women in professional suits. Erica's pants swished together as she wove through the onlookers to Heather's office. The blonde was reclined in her plush chair with her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. Her phone was cradled against her ear so she didn't hear Erica enter.
"You're not hearing me. I need you to make the transfer to the manger under me. No ma'am, I don't deal with these problems." Heather sounded like she'd said this many times.
Erica tapped her desk, making Heather spin around with annoyance in her gaze. "Alright? Ok, I'm transferring you now. No, don't call this number back." Heather hung up and held the phone out to Erica. "Did you forget how to use one of these? I don't need you bringing your bad mood in here. I'm having a bad enough day on my own."
"Something in the air? You woke up feeling like shit?" Erica guessed. She knew Heather was no trained hunter, but she would make a damn good one. That's why her own makeshift hunting bag sat in the car as well. There'd been a few occasions where the girls thought Heather would go on a hunt, but it had yet to actually happen.
Until today, Erica was willing to bet.
Heather's lips parted and she pushed out of the navy chair to brace her arms against her desk. "E, I love you, truly. But I am up to my nose in cases. Apparently everyone thinks the world is ending." she deadpanned.
Her nude heels clicked as she walked over to retrieve her water bottle from on top of her filing cabinets. Erica allowed her roommate to take a long sip before going on.
"As far as I can tell, it is. The apocalypse is well under way and Sam and Dean are no longer around to stop it."
Setting down the water bottle so hard some splashed out, Heather marched to come face to face with Erica. Erica thought she saw tears welling up as understanding swept in, but the hazel eyes quickly blinked them away.
"They're dead, as far as I can tell." Erica confirmed. She only had enough energy to be totally blunt. "I don't want to go out there without backup, Heat, but I will. Someone has to fight back."
"You're leaving? Just like that? On a whim that they're –"
"You know good and damn well something's wrong." Erica knew it was the nerves that had both of them on edge. She took a deep breath and continued in a softer voice. "Sam and Dean haven't been back in a year. No word from them or Bobby, and talk from other hunters says that the apocalypse is nigh and the Winchesters have been caught in the middle since day one. From what I can tell, call it intuition or knowledge of how reality works or whatever you want, but I think they're gone. And they're not coming back."
Slowly it dawned on Heather that, not only could she not let Erica go off on her own, but she wanted to go hunt down whatever monster or catastrophe took Dean away from her. Whether it was for revenge, to feel close to Dean, or to finally face all the things in the dark herself, she couldn't really tell. She shouldered her purse and set her phone on her desk.
"Don't leave that just yet. We can toss it after we call Bobby. I need to get their last location from him. But we can do that on the road. I've got your stuff packed. Let's go." Erica spoke curtly.
Together they raised more eyebrows as they left the firm without explanation.
"You knew I'd say yes." Heather stated.
"I know what believe in. You believed in those boys as much as you do your job. With them gone, I knew you wouldn't back down."
Erica waited for Heather to climb into the passenger seat. She leaned her steady hands against the door handle. She felt too calm. In theory, she knew that would eventually be just as damaging as breaking down, but right now it served her well. She slid behind the wheel and let the feel of pavement beneath her wheels further numb her.
..
The evening sun was glaring at them from the left when a melody came from the purse sitting on the dashboard. The phone hadn't finished its first ring before Heather had it on speaker and Bobby's gruff voice was demanding, "Where are you girls?"
"Look outside."
The corvette rolled to a stop next to a rusted black van just under the Singer Auto sign. Heather stepped out of the car, willing herself to not visibly cringe. But the muscles in her chest and legs and hands were coiling at the sight of a place that would now only hold memories of a green-eyed hunter, not the man himself.
Her gaze was refocused to Bobby as he came out of the house to meet them, a solemnness dragging at his features. He waved them over and the three filed into the old wooden house. Erica scavenged some pizza from the fridge before perching next to Heather on the couch.
Silence still gripped them and the older hunter merely stared out the window. Heather's heart was pounding in her ears as uncertainty whirled around her. They hadn't even exchanged words yet and she was falling deeper into despair as the minutes ticked by. What was supposed to be said first? Demanding explanations? Crying over loss? How the hell to proceed?
"First of all," the gravel in Bobby's voice shook the quiet, "I'd like to know what took y'all so long to get here."
Erica was quick with an answer. "Heather needed to pick up a few things from the apartment before we headed over."
The blonde's face contorted in disagreement. No. she thought. No lies today. We need truth all the way around. And so she spoke up. "So E, you're just gonna not mention the fact that you didn't even want to drop by here? That you just wanted to run along to the last place Sam and Dean were seen?"
"Really, you're bringing this up again?" the other woman fired back. She hated arguing with Heather, but impending doom has a tendency to make tempers flare. "We're here now, losing time and a jump start on fighting whatever it is that they lost their lives to."
A sharp rapping against the table jolted the women out of their bickering. "Ladies, that's enough." Bobby seemed more disappointed than mad, but his tone remained stern. "I wanted you here so we could talk things out and get facts straight before you did something rash. And I understand that y'all are strung out at this point, but the last thing you need is to start pushing each other away. Take a deep breath, and let's talk."
The couch was scratchy. The breathing air felt stale. The ceiling fan had a skin-crawling creak every time it made a rotation. Nothing felt right.
"Are they really dead, Bobby?" The dam in Heather's mind burst. "Just gone? Evil got the best of them? What are we supposed to do? They never told us anything!"
Bobby tugged a hand across his beard and downed the remains of the nearest bottle of whiskey. "I'm honestly sorry that you were able to gather that news from my text. But yeah, they're gone. Been through a hell of a lot and it finally caught up to them."
"What was even going on? What were they doing? What's up with the end of the world stuff?"
"All the mess you read about in Revelation." He tapped the Bible sitting on the desk. "Horsemen, Lucifer, all of it. But I haven't even seen the boys since all this apocalypse business began and –"
"That's a lie." Erica challenged. Her jaw was set, eyes practically blazing.
Bobby scoffed, not missing a beat. "And? One of their priorities, the one that I'm preserving in their stead, was to keep the both of you safe and out of the big problems. So no, I'm not filling you in. They averted the goddamn biblical apocalypse for you and me and the rest of the world and are both dead because of it. End of story."
It was then that the girls noticed the older hunter's eyes pricked with tears. Heather could only imagine what that meant for what he'd gone through with the Winchesters. And how inescapable the truth was that they were gone.
The image that flashed in her head – Dean's smiling face the last time she waved at him from her office window – was painful enough for her to fetch migraine pills from Bobby's medicine cabinet.
When she re-entered the living room, Bobby whirled around from his current conversation with Erica and bellowed, "And now you spring this on me? What am I supposed to do with y'all gallivanting across the country?"
Heather felt small, having to explain their plan to such a mentor bent on keeping them safe. Her hand moved to his shoulder comfortingly as she said, "Bobby, we can't just sit around. I want to do this, I want to go hunting and be in this life. It's the least I can do. Not to mention poor E is miserable at the police station."
"And as for what you're supposed to do with us," Erica chimed in, "we're just another set of hunters you can manage. Give us cases, we call when we're stumped, you're the FBI director."
"I can't tell if you girls are asking for my permission or simply informing me that you'll be hunting." The streetlights outside buzzed to life as he heaved a sigh. "God, Heather, what happened to being a lawyer? You're head partner at the biggest firm in town!"
Heather looked down at her wrinkled blazer and the heels discarded to her left, then let her gaze travel to the holy water on the window sill and musty spell books stacked on the table and finally to Bobby's shotgun where it rested on the wall behind him. She knew where her comfort zone ended and that the most thrilling parts of her life so far had come from far beyond it.
"Apocalypse or not, the world still has monsters to deal with. Erica can and will fight them, and if the Winchesters can't be there to save her ass then I intend to."
Bobby nodded slowly, then held up one incriminating finger. "I get it. But you girls have got to swear to me you'll leave this apocalypse business alone. It's done, it took Sam and Dean, and I don't want it taking y'all too. Leave them be. I'll get you your own hunts, let's leave the moping over them to me."
There were crickets singing from the darkness outside the window. Crickets that Heather had heard many a night before when she would come to sit and decompress and feel safe at Bobby's. It would've been dangerous to visualize how things used to be, when Dean would come sit quietly by her and scratch at the same frayed pillow or Sam would drop a new book recommendation on that same table that sat beside her now. Instead, she resolved to do her best to look to the future – the one where she and Erica and that corvette and those monsters in the night were the only reality she worked with.
..
Bobby's incredulous laugh at Heather's makeshift hunting bag was a blow to the girls' confidence, to say the least. He proceeded to fill the trunk of the corvette with more hunting paraphernalia than they thought was possible, along with the threat, "Don't ever be any less prepared than that. I won't see you dead on my watch."
So when Erica pulled into a pawn shop bright and early the following morning, Heather's eyebrows shot up. "We're either buying stuff or selling it and neither of those options seem logical right now."
"Relax, Heat." The brunette tossed an encouraging smile to the passenger seat, and Heather noted that it was refreshing to see her back in her hunting mode. "If we're gonna teach you to be a real hunter you should have some of your very own gear. Can't always practice with my favorite forty-five."
The wiry man at the counter was at least in his sixties, and had half that many cigarette packs within an arm's reach. "What can I help you ladies with today?" A wedding ring sat loosely on his finger; so loosely, in fact, that his eyes travelled appreciatively over the women's frames.
Which made it all the more comforting when Erica piped up with, "Looking for a shotgun. I've got a Remington pump-action in my trunk and she's wanting something just as reliable."
"You ready to pay for something like that?"
Heather had been wondering the same thing. Their saved income would only take them so far, why start off in the hole? But a nudge and wink from Erica alerted her to something more at play.
Erica lowered her voice, head tilted lazily to the side. "Bobby Singer's calling in a favor for this one."
The man's dominant stance collapsed, and he huffed out a reply. "Still kind of an abnormal request for the looks of you."
Heather shrugged, silently thanking Bobby for coming through for them once again. Erica's next phrase, though, would still ring in her ears for months to come.
"Well, Heat, welcome to abnormal for the rest of your life."
"This is Dean's other, other cell, so you must know what to do."
Bobby cursed to as the third time was definitely not a charm and the elder Winchester had yet to answer his calls. As soon as the girls had been nothing but a silver dot on the horizon, he had ambled inside to connect the other piece of the puzzle he'd made.
It wasn't until a busy hour later and he had mechanic's grease on his elbows that the little flip phone lit up with Dean's name.
"Yeah, what is it?" The younger hunter's voice was thin and worn and sounded like too many shots with not enough sleep. A week and a half had done nothing to ease the image of Sam jumping into the cage.
Bobby suddenly regretted the call, but had to press forward to get the information across. "Hey, Dean. Look, since there's no use in sugar-coating or bush-beating things at this point…" He trailed off as there were too many places he could start.
"It'd help if you actually said something, Bobby."
"Heat and E came by." There was a distant thud from the other end of the line, presumably Dean sitting down, and Bobby could imagine his face falling into his hands. "They were finally worried enough about you mooks to come sniffing around after hearing nothing for so long."
Dean's response was immediate and urgent. "What did you tell them?!"
"Nothing. Nothing about Sam or the pit, and I even let them think you were gone, too. As far as they know, the apocalypse is over and took you both out with it. And it needs to be that way, Dean. I want them out of y'all's shitstorm. Unless you have any dire objections?"
Bobby poured himself a cup of coffee from the steaming fresh brew, bracing himself for a barrage of arguments and pleas from the other man.
But none came. "I couldn't go back to them without Sam." His low tone moved to a tense whisper. "And so they think I'm dead, too?"
"Yeah, kid. My judgement calls it the best option." Bobby had never detested the role of wise mentor more than that moment, but the impossible task of somehow keeping everyone sane had to be dealt with. And that meant even more lying, unfortunately. He couldn't have Dean running after the two newest hunters in the bunch. "I'll keep a close eye on them, make sure they get back to their jobs here in Sioux Falls and move on best they can."
Dean coughed into the receiver but the older hunter still heard the telltale rhythmic thumping of pacing across the floor. Dean's voice was still tense as it resorted to apathetic sarcasm. "Yeah, that's, um…that seems to be all that's left, apparently. Head down and move on."
The conversation had run its end, Bobby could feel that with the thundering silence. Too much negativity and bad news had just been tossed around and no amount of small talk or promises for the future would solve any of it at that moment. So he and Dean bid their goodbyes and Bobby stuck a post-it to the cabinet to remind himself to call back in a few days.
Lunch time had come and gone and he had hammered out umpteen dents from a rusty Volkswagen by the time he remembered the new addition to his to-do list for that day. Iced water cooled his veins as a quick online search through Missouri news articles brought him to the type of title he was looking for.
'Fourth Disappearance in Two Months from Abandoned Hebert Manor in Kirksville'
"Nice and easy to start 'em off." Bobby mumbled to himself as he texted coordinates and then dialed Heather's number for the second time that day. After the quick greeting, he said, "Heat, have Erica fill you in on what the term salt-and-burn entails."
See? I wouldn't leave canonically-alive Dean for dead.
I hope you enjoyed this little prologue section!
Like, favorite, review, and\or message me to let me know what you think so far!