This is an add-on to my other story, So Much For Our Happy Ending. This was just something I did to give life to their new home, and I really liked typing it up. It's an extreme description of everything that makes their new Fortress of Solitude.
Gibraltar
"Money is absolutely no object, right, Carlisle?" Sam asked, glancing back down to the plans that he had spent all week drawing up. He had never been great at art, but it got the job done. "No problem at all. Alice already ordered enough iron to cover the entire state of Washington; you know that, right?" Sam looked up at Carlisle again, mouth hanging open in a wide 'o'. "She saw you start planning something weeks ago, right before you went into detox. She called one of our special people and had him order tons of iron, and to have it cooled to hardness in the sea. That's right…right?"
Sam nodded dumbly, much to Carlisle's relief. The salt layer on the iron would not only add to the protection against any incorporeal creature in existence, but it would also prevent rusting. Bobby had used the same principal in the construction of his panic room.
Alice had been terrified that she would be wrong. She had spent several million dollars on several barges big enough to transport the entire Washington peninsula, including Port Angeles. She had spent millions more on several hundred tons of iron; thick slabs, thin layers, massive blocks, curved straight and any shape imaginable, that would be transported here via said barges. She had left no room for error; Sam had wanted to build a vampire and demon-proof fortress, she got him enough supplies to build one the size of the pentagon, but eight times taller.
She had also bought an entire barge-worth of lead, assuming that if Sam wanted it supernatural-proof, then he would want it human-proof too; the lead would protect them against any bombs that came their way, nuclear or otherwise.
Sam stared back down at his work, double checking all of the measurements, weight values, and any other necessary building formula. He was thanking having taken that architecture course for his undergrad. His hand was killing him, but he knew that it would all be worth it; if it was ever built. He had no idea how twelve vampires and ten werewolves were going to build this massive structure that could become one of the wonders of the world.
Alice came fluttering into the room and said, "Pack up everything in here, Sam. We're leaving for La Push." Sam started at the words, noticing that the others were taking all of the furniture from the room. He looked beyond and noticed that the entire house was empty of anything resembling furniture, of any kind. He turned to Carlisle for his answer.
"She also ordered a massive bulldozer for the construction. There isn't really any place to build something like this, so we decided to use our forest. We own the land in a three-mile radius of this place, and so we can do whatever we want to it; as long as it's not illegal. As far as the state is concerned, we're just building another house!" Carlisle seemed way too chipper for this type of discussion, so Sam immediately became suspicious. "Carlisle…What is-"
"Oh don't worry, Sam. We already too care of everything. Plumbing, electricity, anything needed to make a functioning home later on. We are vampires, after all; we'll just set everything up ourselves afterwards. And with the Denalis' and Quileutes' help, we can be done in double time!" Carlisle noticed Sam's still suspicious expression, and collapsed, confessing to his 'happiness'. "Alright, you win. I really did like this house, but we were going to be moving soon anyways. I'm sad to see it go, but I know that it is necessary. Besides, it would have been demolished when we left anyways; we were releasing the land back to the state of Washington."
Sam turned back to the plans and rolled them up, carrying the ten-foot long roll of construction paper over one shoulder. He walked out to Emmett's Jeep and jumped into the back, unable to wait to have Dean check over the blueprints and tell him what a genius he was.
****
A week later and the plans had been put into motion. It was amazing the work that could be done with eight backhoe loaders, run by eight vampires that could work through the night. By the end of the week, a perfectly cylindrical hole had been dug with a diameter of nearly a half-mile and a depth of nearly two-hundred feet. The entire pit covered close to one-hundred-thirty acres, about one fifth of a square mile. As figures it didn't seem all that big to Sam, but in person, it was freakin' huge! Most of the foundation would be housed here, giving support to the rest of the structure.
The scale and materials being used would have seemed unreal to Sam, if he didn't deal with the unreal every day of his life. The bottom of the pit had been covered with a layer of super-durable rubber cement that was a foot thick. Then the Devil's Trap used to trap Meg, except giant, was laid at the bottom, made of salt-soaked iron. It covered the entire bottom of the hole, the circular edges of the Trap only a foot from the wall of the pit.
Heavy-duty sulfur detectors and EMF transmitters were posted all around the perimeter, every sixty feet or so. They were like hunting dogs; they could detect their respective substance from almost one-hundred feet away. A demon or ghost could not get close to the Devil's Trap without being detected, let alone enter the grounds.
It was amazing to Sam, the way that the fortress was put down. The Cullens and Denalis had made wooden frames for the basement and tunnel systems that would run beneath the iron structure, and then somehow managed to build a concrete layer of thick walls. The plumbing and electrical cables had been laid into the foundations, and connected to the sub-levels, and then routed up to the surface, so that they could be used topside. And then they had managed to fill the rest of the hole with the rubber cement. They had then put a sheet of salt-soaked iron on top of the entire area, to protect against ghosts or other uglies that were unaffected by Devil's Traps, leaving a flat landscape when one looked across where the hole had been.
Alice had thought of the rubber cement as well. It was the type of rubber cement that, once hardened, you could put a jack-hammer to it and it wouldn't even leave a ding. With the quality and quantity of cement they had used, no earthquake on Earth would cause as much as a tremble anywhere within the fortress. Even the Devil's Trap at the bottom of the pit would be completely fine, sandwiched between a foot and two-hundred feet of rubber cement.
And then came the hard part; laying down all of the iron-work, along with the thick layer of lead that would protect the entire structure from any sort of bombs or radiation. The Cullens had called in a friend for this; a vampire named Benjamin. When Sam had asked 'why him?' he had learned that Benjamin could control fire. Benjamin would be their blowtorch for the construction of the iron. He could also manipulate the Earth, which he had learned to twist to include metal. In effect, he was going to build the fortress by himself, using the others as little more than supports for the heavy pieces of metal.
The wolves had all been protected from possession; they had all requested protection tattoos, like the Winchesters had, and they had all gotten them. The super-healing had made them very permanent, very fast. No less than eight of the fifteen wolves were on duty at any one time; they were leaving nothing to chance.
Dean and Sam spent a lot of their time helping Esme to stock up the basement of the fortress. They were planning on everyone living there once it was complete. Four different groups; three different species were all going to be living under the same roof. Werewolves and Vampires and Humans, oh my!
While Esme was out buying literally tons of food, using Emmett's Jeep, for the werewolves, Sam and Dean were stocking up on supplies. Sam would buy rock salt in trips of ten bags before returning to La Push to store it in one of the underground 'caverns'. Dean laughed at his terminology, thinking of the basement as the 'Batcave', himself. Dean would hunt for shotguns and pistols; anything that could fire a round of silver or salt.
The grand iron staircase the all of the rooms in the Batcave stemmed from led all the way down to the bottom of the two-hundred feet deep pit. Track-lights ran the lengths of each tunnel, residual light illuminating the path down. Sam couldn't help but feel claustrophobic as he reached the bottom of the pit and began walking down the largest tunnel in the entire complex. He reached a heavy iron door that was locked by a special scanner that would explode, locking the entire sublevel, if it was tampered with. The scanner was a retinal scanner, like Cerebro in X-Men. Shapeshifters were not like Mystique; they retained their own eyes, except for the irises. It was programmed to open for either Winchester and Bobby, Jacob, Sam and Seth, and all eight Cullens; nothing on Earth except for those fourteen people could open the vault.
Flamethrowers were embedded into the walls, ready to torch any creature that attempted to force open the five-hundred pound door that was bolted to the walls, when locked, by twelve bolts that weighed fifty pounds each. No human or bomb alive could force this door open, and no vampire or other creature could do so without being lit up like a Christmas tree.
Sam stood admiring the security system that had been set up, forgetting about the ten bags of salt behind him. He put his eye to the scanner and held still as the light brushed over his retina, identifying him as a key-holder. Sam heard the whirring of the bolts clicking open and stepped forward to open the heavy door.
Sam grabbed the bags of salt in his arms and turned to enter the massive vault. He crossed over to the heavy-duty iron shelves that contained over one hundred ten-pound bags of salt already, and dumped his load there. He turned away and took in the gun-rack that was only half-full, but Dean was on the way with more. He also glanced at the Reverse Devil's Trap painted on the ceiling, making sure that it was still whole. They had found a Devil's Trap that kept demons outside, instead of keeping them inside. No demon could step foot into this room, even if it managed to make it past all of the iron on the outside.
Sam double checked the rest of the supplies in the room, taking a mental inventory of everything that they still needed, before leaving and locking the door again.
Esme slid daintily down the banister, that led to one of the deeper regions of the pit, while balancing forty gallons of water, and two-hundred pounds of assorted canned goods and other non-perishables. She hurtled to a stop at the bottom, flying smoothly down a long tunnel to the food-storage room. She had left the door open before, and she set down her load so that she could begin taking the supplies into the room. She flew like lightning back and forth, placing the cans where they belonged on the iron shelves, followed by the jugs of water below. Bags of flour and other dry materials went on a separate set of shelves which were just as full as the others. She looked up at the Reverse Devil's Trap that the Winchester boys had painted on the ceiling, smiling to herself as she thought about how no demons could ruin their food supply.
Every time that Sam returned to the Caverns with more supplies, he couldn't help but stare in awe at the progress of the fortress. Benjamin and the others had already built a rough frame of the entire above-ground structure, and were beginning to cast the iron and lead as the walls.
Sam watched as Edward and Emmett held a piece of iron, that could be an entire wall of a house, up to one of the frame supports. Benjamin reached down from his position on said support and Sam stared in awe as fire lit up his hand, glowing white. He slid his hand between the support and the slab and slid down the building Peter Pan-style, until he hit the ground. Emmett and Edward would then press the molten edges of the iron into the support while Benjamin smoothes his hands over the junction, rising slowly up on a levitating rock until he reached the top again. The boys would then release the wall and move to another slab, beginning the process all over again.
By the end of the first day after having laid the foundation, the framework for the entire building was done. By the end of the second day, the outer walls, of lead and iron, of the first floor had been cast and sealed to the skeleton. By the end of the third day, the inner walls had been completely sealed in, the doors added and the ceiling set.
Sam had designed the main door almost as seriously as he had designed the door to the weapons cache. It was significantly heavier, however, weighing over one ton. It was heavily reinforced with titanium microfibers surrounding the lead, and the door had a tamper-proof flame-throwing mechanism as well. Anything incorporeal was useless, and anything tangible would be torched if they tried to open it without help –Only the person inside could open the door, except for Sam, under any circumstances because of the six-inch thick series of dead-bolts locking it. By midnight of that day, the entire first story was complete.
That process was repeated a little more slowly over the course of the next two weeks, resulting in a building six stories tall with triple-layered outer walls five feet thick –three feet of lead encased on each side in a foot of salt-soaked iron –and a complete interior with at least forty rooms, that could fit four queen sized beds with moving space plus a master bathroom with shower and bathtub, per story. None of this included the caverns that rested beneath all of the iron. The fortress itself covered maybe fifty of the one-hundred-thirty acre plot of land, but the tunnels stretched under the entire expanse.
Another building took up one more acre of the land, but it was not a majorly important part of the fortress. A garage to put all other garages to shame had been built of leftover iron and lead. The garage was a separate building from the fortress itself, but it had been demon/ghost/unauthorized-human proofed as well. A small tunnel led from a trap door in the garage straight down to one of the rooms in the sixth sub-level of the Caverns. The garage had twelve doors, that had Reverse Devil's Traps painted in water-proof red paint, and it could hold forty cars that were the size of Emmett's massive Jeep. Dean had loved the garage to death, as it could keep his precious Impala safe during an unlikely Demon raid.
Edward had dug down to the main pipe that fed water to the area and opened one of the valves so that Sam could have access to the water that would sustain the fortress for the rest of its time. Sam had found a titanium-plated silver cross on a very strong, stainless-steel chain. He jumped down to access the pipe and secured the cross to the cap. Sam began to chant the Holy water blessing that he had memorized from his father's journal: "Deus, qui ad salutem humani generis maxima…" He spoke for over a minute as Edward stared at him, picking the words and translations from Sam's brain. He looked over to the cross before Sam released it into the stream of water to find it reflecting light, like a vampire's skin, despite the dim amount that penetrated this deep into the ground. "There, now all of the water in the fortress and caverns is Holy water. If a demon manages to get in, all you have to do to subdue them is spray them with water from the sink, or toilet, or shower, etc.
"We have also put around thirty gallons of Holy water in the armory, since that room is basically a last resort for defense." Sam answered Edward's obvious questions as they climbed out of the hole and Edward began to shovel the dirt back in. Sam took in their surroundings while he waited, almost missing the massive trees that had surrounded the Cullen home previously. Grass was being planted all over the clearing, but because of the iron and rubber, nothing bigger than a few flowers would ever grow there again.
The two boys returned to the fortress to find over twenty large furniture and housing supplies trucks parked on the dirt in front of the main door. They found Esme opening the trucks while six of the Quileutes alternated between carrying in massive rolls of carpet, large couches, beds and other pieces of furniture. Then next week was spent buying new supplies for the fortress, such as drywall, and applying that to the interior. The end product was an impenetrable fortress on the outside, a massive, lovely home on the inside.
With the exception of personalized rooms, every wall was the same light color of the old Cullen house, and cream carpets and tile dominated the floors. Sam observed the scaffolding and doorjambs had been put in to relieve some of the tension made by all of the sharp corners. Majority of the doors had been paneled thinly in wood, giving them a more appealing look. The central AC and heating had been installed, along with the electricity and plumbing, so that the outdoor weather didn't chase them inside, to which he was grateful for. Sam had been getting cold outside from the gloomy weather.
Sam spent the next two hours wandering the fortress-turned-house, taking in all of the furniture and additions that made the place homier than the cold iron on his blueprints. On the ground floor there were thirty bedrooms spaced around the level. The kitchen and living rooms were the most famous to everyone, so far. The kitchen was the size of a small banquet hall, with two large tables that Sam thought could fit twenty Quileute-sized people each. There were three large ovens at the end of the kitchen away from everything else, along with two sinks, two dishwashers, four refrigerator/freezers, four microwaves, four toasters, two pantries full of their more temporary food-stuffs, and hundreds of cabinets and drawers.
Esme had bought several sets of silver silverware; she figured they could be used for protection just as much as they looked nice. Also more than one-hundred durable-plastic plates had been bought, and just as many unbreakable Tupperware glasses. Pots and pans of all types plagued the hidden compartments of the kitchen along with all of the eating utensils; Sam had no desire to find out exactly how much Esme had bought for her kitchen.
The living room was the room that made the fortress a house. It was the largest area in the house, and held the most sentimental value for anyone that would live there. Sam gawked at the two one-hundred inch HD plasma screen TVs that occupied a large section of the far wall, and at the identical assortment of video games that rested underneath each one. The two TVs could play separate channels, or the game systems could link through the internet and interact with each other. An X-Box 360, a Wii, and a Playstation 3 sat beneath both TVs, and a stack of games rested next to each one; the same games under each TV. Sam chuckled at the need for two sets of everything, but then remembered how many people were going to be staying here.
There were also three brand new desktop computers set up against the wall perpendicular to the one with the TVs. Wireless internet was available throughout the fortress, even in the Caverns, but it ran the fastest on the three computers that Sam was staring at, each occupying a large desk with a scanner and a collection of games and programs settled throughout the area. Every computer was connected, wirelessly, to a heavy-duty printer in another room.
There were two large couches and six grand armchairs spaced ideally around the enormous room, providing enough space to seat almost everyone that lived there, now. Sam dropped into one of the armchairs to rest for a moment before continuing his tour through the massive conclave.
Even the Caverns were being made more livable by Esme's touch. As Sam slid through the heavy iron trap door that led to the sublevels, he took in the hardwood flooring, and a suitable paint job on the walls and ceiling. The Caverns created a massive network of tunnels that expanded beyond the upper fortress. While the main body of the building had around forty rooms per story, the Caverns had at least one hundred. The rooms were closer to hotel rooms, but they still had room for two double beds, a TV, a closet that could hold enough clothing for two people for an entire month, and a full bathroom with shower and bathtub.
As Sam went to the third floor, he was distracted by the tile floors and the whitewashed walls. He travelled through one of the hallways and looked into a room, noting the number above the door. He saw a plain room with a single bed with low rails, and pale blue covers. Beyond that were several pieces of equipment that Sam realized belonged in a hospital. How had Carlisle managed that? Sam continued wandering through the hospital, finding an X-ray machine, an MRI, CT scan; anything that could possibly be found in the best hospital in the world, was sitting right here in their new basement. Sam even found a pharmacy that would give any real hospital a run for its money. Sam had no doubt that in one of the deeper catacombs, there was an even greater supply of medicine, but he was having a hard time wrapping his head around everything that had been done in here over the last few weeks.
There were ten stories to the Caverns, but only the top three and the bottom had anything of importance. The seven middle layers were as bare as the day they were laid down three weeks ago, dust and track lights the only things adorning them. Sam skipped them and made his way back up, knowing every detail of the bottom level; the staircase supposedly stopped at the bottom of the ninth, but beneath the tile that had been laid down, another heavy iron trap door was hidden. It had a reverse Devil's Trap between the iron and the tile, further protection against the creatures of the supernatural. It led down to the most important level of the entire structure.
The two Winchesters shared a room, of course, on the second floor. Even with over three hundred rooms available, the two preferred each other's company as they slept. They had one of the largest rooms since they were the only two people, who slept, that shared a room. There's was a large closet –which Alice had insisted on for every room –just off the bathroom door, and two matching double beds, separated only by a bedside table and a strip of the carpeted floor.
Sam dropped down onto his bed and looked around the room again, taking in, in amazement, the details of the room that added their taste to it. A TV and mini-fridge were housed in a small entertainment center, opposite the beds, along with several of Dean's favorite movies, none of which he had ever owned before. A large bookcase containing several of Sam's favorites, along with almost every reference book they had ever owned or found, rested beside Sam's bed. A round table and deep-cushioned chair sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, giving excellent light for reading; even in the gloomy Forks weather.
Every window in the house was demon-proof. They were all Reverse Devil's Traps made of the same salt-soaked iron, just paneled in break-proof glass, and welded to the impenetrable walls. There was no demon, or ghost, that would ever get inside of the house. In the event of a bomb blast, heavy lead shutters replaced the windows, creating an impenetrable seal on the entire system.
An iron-encased lead-based radiation filtration air system had been installed on the roof of the building, in preparation for such an event. They had created a supernatural bomb shelter that would keep a small city running for months with no outside contact.
Several million dollars and just over a month later, Sam and Dean were living in the first place that had felt safe to them since Bobby's house. There was absolutely no supernatural activity anywhere in the United States, which was weird on its own, but the world was coming to an end! Sam figured that Evil would take a break and regroup before unleashing the full force of Hell upon mankind. For the first time in months, sitting in an enemy-proof sanctuary –which Sam had named Gibraltar –and surrounded by twelve vampires and sixteen werewolves and almost just as many humans, the two boys felt like they were home.