Supernatural: The Benders
A/N: Now, I normally put in my author notes when I'm about to post, but I'm doing it a little bit different this time. Now while this is based on the episode The Benders, it is also a crossover with Criminal Minds, and it takes place between the Criminal Minds Season 1 episodes Riding the Lightning and Unfinished Business.
Update: Just to add in, right before I started writing this, I saw it in a dream as a crossover, and a short while ago, I updated it a bit after meeting Henry Winchester during the most recent season.
Read, review, and enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Supernatural or from Criminal Minds. I just own any and all characters that I just happen create.
CHAPTER ONE: DISAPPEARANCES AND THE BAU
Hibbing, Minnesota…
A young boy, Evan, was watching TV in his bedroom when he heard a noise outside and looked out the window. A man was walking in a parking lot with two bags of garbage in his hands; he threw the bags into a dumpster and started walking back to his car.
He heard the same screeching noise and stopped; he got down on his knees and looked under the car. He saw something that horrified him, and stood up quickly when an invisible force pulled him back to the ground, and onto his stomach. He was dragged under the car, screaming, until he was gone.
Evan, frightened by what he'd seen, quickly shut the curtains, and crawled into his bed, covering his head with the covers. Because of this, he missed seeing an old-looking, red pickup truck drive away.
One week later, Dean, Liz, and Sam were dressed as sheriffs, and they were talking with Evan and his mother.
"I know you're just doing your job, but the police have been here all week already," Mrs. McKay told them. "I don't see why we have to go through this again. The more he tells the story, the more he believes it's true."
"Mrs. McKay, we know you spoke with the local authorities," Sam agreed and Liz nodded.
"But, uh, this seems like a matter for the state police, so…" Dean said.
"Don't worry about how crazy it sounds, Evan," Sam told him. "You just tell us what you saw."
"I was up late, watching TV," Evan began. "When I heard this weird noise."
"What did it sound like?" Sam asked.
"It sounded like…a monster," Evan answered, and Dean, Liz, and Sam exchanged a look.
Mrs. McKay sighed. "Tell the officers what you were watching on TV."
Evan flushed. "Godzilla Vs. Mothra."
Dean smiled, forgetting that he was under cover. "That's my favorite Godzilla movie," he said excitedly. "It's so much better than the original, huh?"
Evan nodded, grinning. "Totally."
"Yeah," Dean agreed and nodded towards Sam. "He likes the remake."
Evan made a disgusted face. "Yuck!"
Both Sam and Liz glared at Dean and cleared their throats. Embarrassed, Dean stopped and got back into character.
"Evan, did you see what this thing was?" Sam asked.
Evan shook his head. "No. But I saw it grab Mr. Jenkins. It pulled him underneath the car."
"Then what?" Liz asked.
"It took him away," Evan answered. "I heard the monster leaving. It made this really scary sound."
"What did it sound like, Evan?" Sam asked.
Evan shrugged, unsure of how to explain it. "Like this…whining growl."
Sam, Liz, and Dean exchanged another look.
"Thanks for your time," Sam said and they left.
That night, both Sam and Liz were having a beer at a table at the local bar, and were looking at research. Dean was nearby, throwing darts.
"So, local police have now ruled out foul play," Sam said, reading from a newspaper. "Apparently, there were signs of a struggle."
"Well, they could be right, it could just be a kidnapping," Dean remarked. "Maybe this isn't our kind of gig."
"Yeah, maybe not," said Sam, handing the newspaper over to Liz, who set it aside. "Except for this…Dad marked the area, Dean."
Curious, Dean came to the table and looked at their father's journal. "Possible hunting grounds of a phantom attacker," he read. "Why would he even do that?" he wondered.
"Well, he found a lot of local folklore about a dark figure that comes out at night," Sam said, tapping several pieces of paper. "Grabs people, then vanishes. He found this too…this county has more missing persons per capita than anywhere else in the state."
"That is weird," Dean remarked.
Both Sam and Liz nodded. "Yeah."
"I'm surprised that they haven't called in the FBI yet," Liz remarked, taking a sip from her beer bottle.
"Don't phantom attackers usually snatch people from their beds?" Dean asked, frowning. "Jenkins was taken from a parking lot."
"Well, there are all kinds," Sam explained, holding up several pictures. "You know, Springhill Jacks, phantom gassers. They take people anywhere, anytime. Look, Dean, I don't know if this is our kind of gig either."
"Yeah, you're right, we should ask around more tomorrow," Dean said, walking back to the dartboard.
Sam rolled his eyes while Liz sighed; they both hated it when Dean did that. "Right," he agreed, taking out his wallet. "I saw a motel about five miles back."
"Whoa, whoa, easy," Dean protested, not wanting to leave. "Let's have another round."
"We should get an early start," Sam suggested and Liz nodded.
"I'm with Sam on this one, Dean."
"Yeah, you both really know how to have fun, don't you, Grandma?" Dean complained, and both Sam and Liz smiled. "Alright, I'll meet you outside, I gotta take a leak."
He grabbed his coat and headed to the bathroom, while Sam gathered his research and they both left.
Sam and Liz walked back to the Impala, passing a old, red, pickup truck, when they heard a noise and stopped.
"What was that?" Liz asked and Sam shrugged.
"Don't know."
Sam placed the journal on the hood of the car and took out a flashlight from his coat pocket; he turned it on, looked around, and then they both bent down to look under the car. They saw a cat, which hissed at them, and then it ran away.
"Whoa!"
Sam and Liz both watched the cat run off, and they laughed at themselves.
"I can't believe that we just got scared by a cat," Liz said, chuckling as they both got up.
Yeah," Sam agreed, shaking his head, and they waited by the car.
A few minutes later, Dean came out of the bar and walked to the car; he saw the cat that scared both Sam and Liz earlier, and then noticed the journal on the trunk. He picked it up, a bit confused as to why it was on the hood, and went over and opened the driver's door, checking to see if they were inside, but they weren't there. He looked around, confused. 'Where did they go?'
A group of people came out of the bar, and Dean walked up to a biker and his girlfriend, who were clearly drunk.
"Hey, you guys been outside, around here in the last hour or so?" he asked, but they shook their heads and walked away.
"Sam! Liz!" Dean called out, looking around frantically. "Sammy! Liz!" He turned around and noticed a traffic camera on top of a streetlight; he walked into the middle of the deserted road and looked around. "Sam. Liz."
The next morning, a deputy, Kathleen, was looking at Dean's fake badge.
"So, what can we do for you, Officer Washington?" she asked.
"I'm working a missing persons," Dean answered.
Kathleen raised her eyebrows at that. "I didn't know the Jenkins case was being covered by the state police," she remarked.
"Oh, no. No, there's someone else," Dean said quickly. "Actually, it's my cousins. We were havin' a few last night at this bar down by the highway. And I haven't seen them since."
"Do either of your cousins have a drinking problem?" Kathleen asked.
"Sam? Two beers and he's doin' karaoke while Liz's helping me restrain him," Dean joked, making her smile. "No, they weren't drunk. They were taken."
Kathleen nodded and sat down at her computer; Dean followed her and sat down also.
"Alright. What's their names?" she asked.
"Winchester. Sam and Liz Winchester," Dean answered.
"Like the rifle?" Kathleen asked.
Dean nodded. "Like the rifle."
Kathleen typed Sam and Liz's names in the computer and brought up their police records; she observed the page, and then clicked on Dean's link, which also appeared, and brought up his record. "Samuel and Elizabeth Winchester," she read. "So, you know that their brother, Dean Winchester, died in St. Louis. And, uh, was suspected of murder."
Dean did his best to look nonchalant. "Yeah, Dean. Kind of the black sheep of the family. Handsome, though."
Kathleen gave him a skeptical look. "Uh-huh." She typed something else and brought up more search results on the computer. "Well, they're not showing up in any current field reports," she reported.
"Oh, I already have a lead," Dean said. "I saw a surveillance camera by the highway."
Kathleen nodded. "Uh-huh. The county traffic cam?" she asked.
"Right," Dean confirmed. "Yeah. I'm thinking the camera picked up whatever took them. Or, whoever," he added.
Kathleen nodded and then sighed. "Well, I have access to the traffic cam footage down at the county works department, but well, anyhow, let's do this the right way." She stood up and got some paperwork from a filing cabinet. "Why don't you fill out these missing persons reports and sit tight over here?" she offered, handing him a clipboard.
"Officer, look, uh, they're family," Dean said, refusing the clipboard. "I kind of…I kind of look out for them. You gotta let me go with you."
Kathleen shook her head regretfully. "I'm sorry, I can't do that."
"Well, tell me something. Your county has its fair share of missing persons. Any of 'em come back?" Dean asked, noting her sad expression. "Both Sam and Liz are my responsibility. And they're comin' back. I'm bringin' them back."
Kathleen stared at him for a moment and then nodded. "Okay." And went back to her computer, where she quickly pinged off an email to the FBI with the information about the Winchesters and the badge number without Dean's knowledge.
Both Sam and Liz were asleep in a cage. Sam jerked awake first with a splitting headache; taking a moment to steady himself, he noticed Liz lying next to him, and gently shook her shoulder. "Liz. Liz!"
With a groan, Liz's eyelids fluttered open and she peered blearily up at her little brother. "Sam?"
"Easy, easy," Sam said, helping her sit up. "How's your head?"
Liz winced. "Feels like it's going to fall off. Where are we?"
"I think it might be a barn," Sam answered, eying their surroundings; after making sure that Liz could sit up without help, he rattled the bars of the cage, but couldn't get any of them loosed. He looked around and noticed Jenkins asleep in a cage next to theirs'. "Well, I found Jenkins."
Liz carefully made her way over to where Sam was, and peered through the bars. "Yep, that's Jenkins," she agreed. "Now how do we get out of here?" she wondered, looking around.
Sam sighed. "I've no idea."
BAU (Behavioral Analysis Unit)
Quantico, Virginia…
In a medium-size office filled with a lot of computer equipment and colorful figurines, a woman with long blonde hair, currently pulled up in pigtails tied with hot pink ribbons, brown eyes behind bright red-rimmed glasses, and was currently wearing a hot pink/yellow blouse and skirt with hot pink high heels, and costume jewelry.
This was Penelope Garcia, an technical analyst for the FBI, and she was currently working on her blog when she got a ping from one of her other computers; closing the page she was working on, Penelope turned in her seat to address the other computer, typing quickly. 'Now what do I have here?'
When she opened the email and read what was inside, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. "No way!" she was about to reach for her phone when there was a light tapping on the doorframe, and a woman, who also had blonde hair that went to her shoulders, blue eyes, and was wearing a formal white shirt with a black skirt, and black high heels, poked her head into the room.
"Hey, Penelope-" she began, when Penelope jumped from her chair and pulled her inside. "Whoa! What's with you?"
"JJ!" Penelope exclaimed, pulling Jennifer Jareau, who worked as a communication liaison within the FBI. "You're not going to believe what I just got emailed to me!"
JJ raised her eyebrows, but she did go to the computer and read the email through twice before exchanging a surprised look with her friend. "Garcia, I'll get the team together, and you get every bit of information that you can to send to the conference room as quickly as you can," she ordered, and Penelope nodded.
"Right away!"
It was barely an hour later when the entire BAU team was gathered around a circular table: among the team members were JJ, Penelope (who rarely joined in on the meetings), Dr. Spencer Reid (a youthful-looking man with longish brown hair and brown eyes), Elle Greenaway (a tall woman with long dark brown hair and brown eyes), Derek Morgan (a black man with buzz-cut black hair, and dark brown eyes), Aaron Hotchner (a tall man with dark hair and dark eyes), and Jason Gideon (the oldest man there with receding black hair and dark eyes).
"What do you have, JJ?" Hotch asked as she passed several folders around the table.
"Hibbing, Minnesota," JJ began, placing several pictures on a glass board, which already had half-a-dozen papers on it. "In the past three years, over a dozen people have been reported missing, and none have been found. Recently a Mr. Jenkins disappeared last week, and a pair of siblings, Samuel and Elizabeth Winchester, disappeared last night from the parking lot of the Kugel's Keg bar on the outskirt of the town."
Gideon frowned as he flipped through the folder. "Why haven't we been informed of this before now?" he asked, noting that there was something familiar about the name Winchester, which was also the name of a famous rifle.
"No one seemed to think that anyone beyond the state troopers needed to be involved; we're being called in partly because of the name Winchester and someone is currently using a stolen badge to pretend to be a state police officer," JJ explained, and nodded to Penelope. "Garcia can explain."
Penelope nodded and cleared her throat nervously. "Um, yes; earlier I received an email from a deputy sheriff named Kathleen in Hibbing, and apparently a man claiming to be Gregory Washington, came into the station to report that his cousins, Samuel and Elizabeth, have gone missing, and he is certain that the traffic cameras picked up whoever took them. She sent me the records about the two Winchesters, and also a photo of the man claiming to be said officer."
Pushing a button on a remote, Penelope put a picture of Dean Winchester onto a screen, and there was a literal gasp from the team.
"I thought he died in St. Louis," Reid commented, recalling the reports.
"You and everyone else," Penelope agreed. "But it looks like he might've faked his death if he's alive and well in Hibbing."
"So, are we heading to Hibbing?" Morgan asked.
Gideon nodded. "We are, and you're coming with us, Garcia," he said, standing up. "JJ, let them know that we're on our way; we leave on the plane in one hour, people." And he left the room.
"So much for a quiet weekend," Elle sighed and the others nodded before leaving the room to get everything that they would need, and everyone was wondering what they would find when they got to Hibbing, Minnesota, and if any of the missing people would still be alive.
A/N: And there is your introduction to the BAU as of season one; one of the reasons I did a crossover, beside the dream, is that both series premiered on TV within a day of each other, and I couldn't resist doing a team up. R&R everyone!