Chapter One: The Bearer of Bad News

Author's Note's:
So, in this chapter, there is a lot of quite similar dialogue to that of the show itself. I did this intentionally, because much of the dialogue in these opening scenes are personal, and some of the speech's just should not be changed. As the story progresses I will bring in more and more of my dialogue. Do not take that as, me planning to change it completely, it is just that I feel some may feel boredom if all of the dialogue is overly similar to that of the actual TV episode. I will simply put my own 'spin' on some of the later dialogue.
P.S. I am currently looking for a Beta Reader. Anybody who is interested, let me know.

Stanford University

Present day, 2005
Halloween

9.00pm

'C'mon Sam! Let's go. We're gonna be late,' Jessica called.

Sam poked his head out of the bathroom door. 'Do we have to go, Jess? You know how I feel about Halloween …'

Jessica turned with a sigh, 'Yes, we do – and hey, where's your costume? I dress up in a nice, sexy nurse outfit for you, and you're not dressing up for me?' Jess complained playfully. 'Sam, you promised. It'll be fun, so let's get out of here and go have some drinks.'

9.15pm

Sam took a shot of rum in the active nightclub, while listening to Jess and his friend Trev congratulate him on his astounding final exam scores. 'Really guys,' Sam sighed modestly, 'it isn't that big a deal. I don't see why we should be out celebrating…'

'Nothing to celebrate? Sam, you got a 174! You should be jumping with joy!' Jess exclaimed loudly, as she took her second shot.

'So, he's that good, huh?' Trev asked jokingly.

'Yep, he's that good,' Jess replied.

'What does it feel like being the star of the family, Sam?' Trev asked.

Sam chuckled quietly. 'Well, they don't know about it. We aren't exactly a close family.'

'Why? Your family should be bowing down to you, bro! I mean, you got a potential full ride ahead of you now. All you gotta do is pass an interview, and you got your future right there in front of you.'

'Actually, speaking of that, I got an interview here, on Monday. My whole future on a platter.'

'Well, this definitely calls for more shots,' Trev laughed.

Sam shook his head and laughed, glancing down at his empty shot glass as Trev took off to acquire refills.

'Hey, Sam, look at me,' Jess said in the sudden silence. 'You are going to do great, I know it. You are going to ace that interview, and get your full ride to law school.'

Sam looked up at his girlfriend and smiled. 'What would I do without you?' he asked seriously.

'Hmm, crash and burn.' Jess smiled back at him. With that, they leaned in and kissed each other passionately on the lips.

2.00am

Sam awoke to a loud noise in the downstairs section of his apartment. He got up; making sure Jess was still asleep as he did so. He walked quietly over to his bedroom door, and picked up the baseball bat that was leaning against the wall. It was a warm night, and Sam felt sweat roll down his temple as he crept through his hallway and down his stairs. He gripped the bat tightly, ready to swing if he had to. He walked through the set of connecting glass doors between the main hallway and the living room. As he did so, he heard the click of a lock, and looked to his right. A figure, whose face was hidden by shadow, was standing in the room, apparently unaware of Sam's presence.

Sam took one light step forward, and swung the bat. The figure spun around at surprising speed. He caught the baseball bat, ripped it from Sam's hands and threw it into the corner of the room. The men began throwing punches; both skilled in hand to hand combat. The figure caught Sam by surprise, and kicked Sam's feet out from under him. Sam hit the ground hard, and the figure quickly took advantage of this by slamming his knee into Sam's gut, hard enough to take the wind out of him, but not hard enough to do any serious damage.

Sam looked up at the figure, and couldn't help but think that the man's facial features looked familiar. The moonlight shone through the window, and struck the man's face. The man grinned and said 'Easy cowboy.'

'Dean? …You scared the crap outta me!' Sam exclaimed in an exasperated tone.

'Well, that's because you're out of practice…' Dean retorted.

As soon as Dean said that, Sam grabbed Dean's arms from around his shoulders, kicked his legs around Dean; and flipped him over so that he was in control.

Dean chuckled stupidly. 'Or not…come on, let me up.'

Sam hauled Dean up. 'What do you want, Dean?'

'I just stopped in for a couple beers, and a chat, dude!'

'Dean, come on, what the hell are you doing here?'

'All right, all right. We needa talk. It is about Da-'

Just then, the lights in the room flickered on. Both boys' heads turned towards the connecting, glass doors at the main hallway. Jessica was standing there with a confused look on her face. 'Sam, what's going on?'

Sam stood there awkwardly before saying, 'Jess th-'

'Well, hello there…' Dean said in a slightly smug, and perverted tone.

'Jess, this is Dean. Dean this is Jess, my girlfriend.'

'Wait, your brother Dean?'

'Why yes, I am the one and only, and may I just say, m brother does NOT deserve you…'

'Hang on, let me just go put something more appropriate on…' Jess said tentatively.

'No, no, no. I wouldn't dream of it; but I will ask you to just give my brother and me some privacy for a minute. Some private family business we need to discuss. It was great meeting you though, really it was…', he gave her a wink as he trailed off.

Jessica ignored the wink, and just nodded with a suspicious, and rather put out look on her face. She looked at Sam. He nodded at her, then paced over to her, and held her around the waist.

'No. No, she can hear whatever you have to say as well.' Sam said in a tone that conveyed a sense of authority.

'Okay.' Dean said, very bluntly. 'Dad hasn't been home in a few days', he continued; rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

Sam stood there with his arm still around Jessica. He looked at Dean with a tired expression, and replied, 'So he is working over time, he'll be back soon.'

Dean chuckled to himself at his brothers' ignorance. 'Sam, dad is on a hunting trip…and he hasn't been home in a few days.'

At that moment, a realization hit Sam like a tonne of bricks. He now understood the seriousness of Dean's statement. A feeling of dread swept through his body. 'Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside,' was all he could say.

2.15am

Sam and Dean headed down the stairs of the university apartment building hastily. It was a quiet night. Many creatures seemed to be squawking, screeching and whistling, breaking the silence of the night.

'Dean, you can't just turn up out of nowhere, and expect me to pack up and go with you.'

'You're not listening to me Sammy, Dad is missing; you have to help me find him,' Dean replied, as he reached the bottom of the dark, eerily quiet stairwell.

'What about the poltergeist in Amherst, or the devil's gate in Clifton? He was missing then too, he's always missing; and he is always fine,' Sam retorted, desperately trying to convince Dean, and also himself that their father was indeed fine.

'Not for this long. Now are you gonna come with me, or not?' Dean asked.

'I'm not,' Sam replied tersely.

A confused, and frustrated expression was plastered on Dean's face, 'Why not?'

'Dean, I swore I was done hunting, forever.'

'C'mon, it wasn't easy…but it wasn't that bad either,' Dean said as he turned and headed for the gate, which led out to the car park. 'Oh, come on Dean. When I told him I was afraid of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45!' Dean stopped by the gate, and looked at his younger, yet significantly larger brother, 'Well, what was he supposed to do?'

'I was 9 years old. He was supposed to say don't be afraid of the dark.'

'Don't be afraid of the dark? Don't be af- what are you kidding me? C'mon Sammy, you know what's out there!' Dean began to raise his voice. He was stunned by Sam's apparent lack of worry for their father, and his sudden ignorance of the dangers hat lurked in the night.

'Yeah, I know. But still, the way we were brought up after mum was killed, and dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her. But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find.'

'We save a crap load of people doing it too.'

They both pouted, and looked at each other with frustrated expressions. 'You think mum would have wanted this for us?' Sam asked. At this Dean turned toward the gate and opened it out into the car park. He began to storm off into the car park. He resented his brother bringing up their mother, especially since Sam had never known her like he had.

Sam followed his stubborn brother. 'I mean, seriously, the weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets. Dean, we were raised like soldiers. We had no child hood!'

'So what? You wanna just live some regular, simplistic life? Huh?'

'No, not regular. Safe.'

'And that's why you ran away?' Dean asked [more rhetorically than anything] in disbelief. He was so angry with his brother at that moment.

Sam looked at him in amazement. As if to say, why would you bring that up?

'I just wanted to go to college. It was dad who said that if I was gonna go, I should stay gone, so that's what I'm doin'.'

'Yeah, well dad is in real trouble right now. You know, if he isn't dead already,' Dean looked up at the sky, and sighed. He looked back at his brother. 'I can't do this alone…'

'Yes, you can,' Sam replied impatiently.

'Yeah, well, I don't want to,' Dean looked at his brother with a look of subtle fear. Sam looked back at Dean, his expression softened slightly.

He sighed, and said 'What was he hunting?' Dean looked up at his brother, with a glimmer of hope in his eye.

2.35am

The boys stood at the tail end of Dean's 1964 [black] Impala. It was a beautiful car. I was shining in the moonlight, all smudges and stains cleaned off of it's exterior. Inside it was even more astonishing. Red leather seats, perfectly taken care of. This was a car that received great amounts of love from its owner. One only had to stare at it for a second to realize this.

Dean opened the trunk of the car, and then proceeded to lift up a false floor on the inside of the trunk. All kinds of weapons were hanging from the upside of the false floor, and also lying beneath it. Guns, grenades, assorted blades. Some made of iron, some made of silver. Wood, iron and silver stakes. There were shotgun shells filled with rock salt; you name it, Dean had it.

Dean began to rustle through all the weaponry. Sam showed a lack of surprise at the contents of his brother's trunk. 'So, when dad went missing…where were you, Dean?'

'I was working my own job … some voodoo thing down in New Orleans.'

'Dad let you go on a hunting trip … by yourself …?'

Dean looked at Sam with an embarrassed look, and replied '…I'm 26, dude.'

He looked back down into his trunk and rustled around for another minute or so. 'Ahh, here we go.' He produced a folder from under some scrap paper. He opened the folder and scanned the contents. 'So, Dad was taking out this two lane black top just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy…' Dean handed Sam a piece of paper with a picture of a man on it. The man had blonde hair, and looked to be middle aged. '…they found his car…but he was nowhere to be found, vanished.'

'So maybe he was kidnapped?' Sam suggested, but knew it wasn't that simple. Dean began shuffling through a seemingly endless pile of paper. Each piece had another article, of another missing person on them.

'Yeah, well, here is another one in April, December '03, '04, '98, '92, ten of these disappearances over the last twenty years, all of them along the same stretch of road, all of the victims men.' Dean proceeded to slot the papers back into the folder that he had picked them from, and continued on, '…it started happening more often, so dad went in to have a look, and see what he could dig up. That was a few weeks ago now. I received this voicemail not too long ago…' Dean produced a voice recorder from the trunk of his car, and clicked 'play'.

'Dean, someth- is start- happen. I think it – serious, I need to fin – ou – what – going – n. You may nee – ome looking. Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger.' Dean clicked stop on the voice recorder.

The recording was so crackly, that Sam could barely make out what his fathers voice was saying. The only part that could be fully understood were the last two sentences. 'Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger.'

Dean looked at Sam with a look that almost said I told you so.

'There is EVP on that, Dean…'

'Yeah, I know. So I slowed the message down, and removed the hissing, and this is what I got…' Dean clicked play on the recorder once again.

'I can never go home.'

It was a woman's voice. It was a soft whisper; it reminded him of the wind on a cold, dark night. What was really strange, however, was that the voice was emotionless. There was no sense of happiness, sadness, anger, shyness, nothing. There was no trace of emotion anywhere within the voice. The recording sent a shiver down Sam's spine. He looked up at Dean, who had one eyebrow raised, and a kind of worried look on his face; yet at the same time, he looked bewildered.

'Never go home.' Sam repeated.

Dean closed the trunk and stood up, Sam followed suit. Dean turned, and sat on the trunk of his car, he looked at Sam with a strained expression. 'You know, it has been almost two years, Sammy. In those two years, I have never bothered you, never asked you for help with anything, never even asked to meet up, because I figured you would rather not see me…'

Sam frowned, and turned on the spot. He was going over his thoughts, one by one, trying to figure out what to do. His brain told him not to go, that it would be too risky this close to his interview, but every instinct he had, told him that his father needed him. 'Fine, I'll go with you. I'll help find dad. I have to be back here by Monday, though. Wait here for me, I'll go get my things.' Sam turned away to go to collect some of his belongings. He was feeling such frustration towards his brother at this point, for dragging him back into the game.

'What's happening on Monday?' Dean asked, giving the impression that he wasn't particularly interested, but in reality was intrigued.

Sam stopped, and sighed. He had been dreading this moment. He looked towards the ground and turned around to face his brother. He looked at Dean, and said,

'I-I-I have this interview…thing…'

'What, some kind of job interview? Skip it,' Dean half chuckled.

Sam was getting frustrated with his brother's stubbornness. He was unable to stop himself from conveying a cold tone, when he said 'It's a law school interview, and my entire future depends on it. This one interview, could determine not only my career, but also the rest of my life. Now have we got a deal?'

Dean sighed with a mixture of frustration and sadness at his brothers' statement. He could not bring himself to give a verbal response, so he just nodded.

2.45am

Sam was in his bedroom, hurriedly stuffing clothing and essentials into his duffle bag, muttering put downs [aimed at his brother] under his breath. He heard the door to the bedroom open; he looked over at the doorway, to see Jess standing there. When he looked at her, he noticed, just like the million times before, just how beautiful she was.

She had long, blonde hair, with a fit body, but curvy hips. She had beautiful, bright, green eyes that took his breath away, and probably any other mans who looked her way. Even in the early hours of the morning, with her hair all over the place, and her face not washed, she was still stunning. Dean was right, Sam thought, she is out of my league.

He turned back to his packing as Jess slowly moved over towards him. She grabbed his hand, and persuaded his body to turn and face her. 'Hey', she said, 'look at me; I'm confused. Let me get this straight…your brother, who you haven't seen for close to two years, shows up in the middle of the night and you're just going to go with him?'

'Yeah, well, he says that dad is in trouble, and I feel that I need to help find out what is going on.'

'Your brother said he was on a hunting trip…?'

'Yeah, he is just deer hunting, up north in the cabin. We are just going to go up here and bring him back…' Sam trailed off as he paced to the other side of the room.

'Well, what about the interview, Sam?' Jess asked, concerned.

Sam gave a half, but sincere smile, 'I'll make the interview.' He turned to grab some more clothing, but Jess pulled his arm back.

'Sam, come on, what's going on? You won't even talk about your family, and as I said, you haven't seen your brother for two years, and he shows up out of the blue? And you are just going to pack up and leave to spend a weekend with them? Also, with the interview on Monday, which is a huge deal Sam, your whole life right there on a platter…a bit risky don't you think?'

'Hey', Sam said, smiling, 'everything is going to be fine. I will be back in time for the interview, I promise.' He leaned in and kissed her on the left cheek. He then turned and headed out the door.

'At least tell me where you're going?' Jess called out after him. There was no reply.