Dean was thankful for the shade underneath the car. The sun blazed over head and in his current position, on his back on a roller board under the chasse, socket wrench in hand attaching the new oil pan, he was nice and cool.
Zepplin's "Immigrant Song" played low on the radio he had set up on the tool bench and Dean was thinking about how much he loved John Bonham's marchy sounding drum beat in this song when he saw his brothers brown boots approaching.
"How's the car coming along?" Sam asked.
"Slow." Dean replied, attaching the last screw to the pan.
"Yeah? Need any help?" Sam asked.
Dean cringed at the thought.
"What, you under a hood? I'll pass." He said.
"Need anything else, then?" Sam offered.
Not again. Dean thought. He dropped the wrench and pushed himself out from under the car. He reminded himself as he stood that he shouldn't hit his brother. No matter how bad he really wanted to.
"Stop it, Sam." Dean said.
"Stop what?" Sam asked.
Dean pulled the rag he had hanging out of the back pocket of his jeans and began futilely trying to rub the grease out of his knuckles. And he then again started telling Sam the same thing he'd been saying for 2 months since their father died.
"Stop asking if I need anything; stop asking if I'm okay. I'm okay. Really. I promise."
Sam looked defeated and for a moment Dean felt bad for snapping at him.
"All right, Dean, it's just... We've been at Bobby's for a long time now and you haven't brought up Dad once."
"You know what? You're right. Come here. I'm gonna lay my head gently on your shoulder. Maybe we can cry, hug, and maybe even slow dance." Dean mocked as Sam rolled his eyes.
"Don't patronize me, Dean." Sam said, getting angry now. "Dad is dead. The Colt is gone, and it seems pretty damn likely that the demon is behind all of this, and you're acting like nothing happened."
"What do you want me to say?" Dean asked with his palms out.
"Say something, all right? Hell, say anything!" Sam said, starting to shout now. "Aren't you angry? Don't you want revenge? But all you do is sit out here all day long buried underneath this damn car."
"Revenge, huh?" dean asked, still cool and calm.
"Yeah." Sam said scowling.
"Sounds good. You got any leads on where the demon is? Making heads or tails of any of Dad's research? Because I sure ain't. But you know, if we do finally find it - oh. No, wait, like you said. The Colt's gone. But I'm sure you've figured out another way to kill it." Sam looked at the ground as his brother spoke. Not agreeing with Dean but knowing he was right none the less. "We've got nothing, Sam. Nothing, okay? So you know the only thing I can do? Is I can work on the car."
Done, Dean crouched by the fender, running the ran over the shiny new metal.
He saw Sam pull a cell phone out of his pocket and flip it open.
"Well, we've got something, all right?" Sam said, fidgeting with the phone, his voice calm again, the argument over.
"It's what I came by here to tell you. This is one of dad's old phones. Took me a while, but I cracked his voicemail code. Listen to this."
Sam held out the phone to Dean who looked at it reluctantly before deciding to rise and take it.
Dean put the phone to his ear and listened to the voice mail. It was a deeper female voice with a bit of a southern drawl.
"John, it's Ellen. Again. Look, don't be stubborn, you know I can help you. Call me."
When the voice mail was over Dean again looked at his brother, unimpressed and gave him a small shur and a raise of his eyebrows as if to say So?
"That message is four months old." Sam explained.
"Dad saved that chick's message for four months?" Dean asked. That small fact turned the priority of the message up in his head. Dad wasn't the kind of man that held onto things for sentimental value. If he had that message for four months it was for a reason.
"Yeah." Sam answered.
"Well, who's Ellen? Any mention of her in Dad's journal?" Dean inquired.
"No. But I ran a trace on her phone number and I got an address." Sam said.
Dean thought about it for a moment and then decided that it was worth checking into.
"Ask Bobby if we can use one of his cars." He said to his brother.
