For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.
Then...
On the run from Arkansas fresh off their jail break, Dean and Sam are waylaid in Tennessee by a sultry voice on the radio belonging to Darcy Ryan, who worked with Dean on his first "solo" hunt before John Winchester went missing. Sam is reluctant to stay but the Winchester boys decide they should figure out if Darcy is attached to the Yellow-Eyed Demon's plans, if she's "special" like Sam.
Now...
Sam sat in the lobby, picking up the radio station's wireless Internet access, as he punched information into various search engines, both credible sites and more questionable sites – ones linked to the paranormal. He looked deep in thought, and Dean was content to stay in the control room with Darcy while she did her disk jockey thing.
"Sammy's a good guy," Dean said. "I didn't warn him about what you could do... So, if he had any... unkind thoughts... he wouldn't have had them had I told him," he said, looking over at her.
"It doesn't matter. I hear a lot. I hear a lot of what people think of me. It's not new. It's not that big a deal either."
"Still."
"Thoughts generally aren't sugar coated, Dean. That's why they're thoughts. Y'know, yours weren't either, when I met you," she said, smiling at the memory.
"Yeah, not one of my finer moments, I'm sure."
"Well... hunting voodoo high priestesses tends to solidify a friendship, I guess."
He nodded, smiling. "Something like that."
She was silent for a moment, but she had to know. "Why did you stay? Your job was done once we got rid of the priestess, right? I mean, the killer. You caught her, sent her back to wherever she came from. I remember that part. I was just... collateral, right? The cost of doing business."
"You were hurt. And the way the doctors were talking, it wasn't... natural."
"'Bayou fever.' That's what they called it. What really happened to me, Dean? Why was I out so long? Somehow I think you had to have a hand in my cure."
He exhaled. "I don't know why you'd think that," he said casually. He'd promised himself then not to reveal to her the truth, what had brought her back to life. He didn't really want her to know. He didn't want her to feel obligated somehow. He carefully controlled his thoughts, thinking about the aftermath of his actions, about her waking up, rather than his proactive steps. "I'd gone out for some air. When I came back, the doctors and nurses were all in and out of your room. I, uh..." He shook his head, but did reveal one piece of information he hadn't let her know before. "I thought you were dead."
She watched his face and listened as he recalled that event. He'd been worried--scared--for her.
"Then you were awake and breathing and talking and... all that good stuff."
She was silent for a moment. "Thank you for staying with me."
He shrugged it off.
"Seriously," she said. "Thanks."
He flashed her a grin. "Thanks for putting up with me and my brother a couple days."
"Well, it's only fair. I dunno, though, I've only seen you in work mode. We should do something that's not work related, see the other side of you."
His eyebrows slid up his forehead slightly, amused. "You have something in mind?" He had to keep his thoughts in check as her look turned impishly mischievous.
"How much gas is in the Impala?"
"Half a tank..."
"Perfect," she said, smiling.
"You want to tell me where we're going?"
"Not yet," she said, shaking her head.
"Well, then, how are we going to get there?"
"I'll navigate once I sign off."
"Y'know, this place looks like a sunset town. Is there anything going to be open then?"
She leaned in towards him slightly. "Who said I was taking you to a place that opens or closes?"
He frowned, making her grin.
Before he could say anything further, she pulled the microphone between them. She hit a button on a CD player, starting the next song, and flipped a switch. "That was another solid-rock block from WXMT FM, at one-oh-six point three on your dial, home of Eclectic Rock on your Radio," she said into the microphone. She gave Dean a soft smile. "I'd like to welcome a special visitor to the station tonight. Dean, why don't you say hey to all the folks out there in Radio Land."
He blinked. "Uh... Hey." He looked from her, to Sam, sitting just beyond the glass window, shrugging.
Sam didn't look too amused.
"Ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause for our radio virgin." Darcy tapped the weather display on the control board in front of them. "Why don't you let our awesome listeners know what time it is and the temperature."
"Uh, it's eleven-forty-two PM and, uh... fifty-eight degrees."
"A balmy, beautiful night out there, not a cloud in the sky. Perfect for a little stargazing with a little Led Zeppelin," she said, cutting off the microphone in time to finish Stairway to Heaven's long instrumental introduction.
Dean chuckled. "That was pretty cool."
"You did good, for me throwing you in head first," she said, grinning.
'That was so stupid.'
Her smile faltered as she looked out at Sam, who was shaking his head while looking at his laptop.
"Darcy?" Dean asked, frowning.
"Sorry, passing car," she fibbed, looking back over at Dean. "Somebody's pissed," she said, shrugging. "Anyway, we can blow this joint in about fifteen. I'll let the automated DJ take over and we'll hit the road."
"Automated?"
"The future of radio. We tap into DJ Joe's Freak Show from outta Atlanta, so nobody's here from about midnight to six AM. Up until a couple years ago, this station still had a graveyard shift DJ. I'm not sure anyone does anymore. Turns out I left one dying field and got into another..." He chuckled, making her smile. "You should tell your brother to pack up. Tell him I want to take you guys on a brief reprieve, shouldn't take more than about a half hour, forty-five minutes or so. I'll finish up everything here."
"Sounds good," Dean said, getting to his feet. He crossed to the lobby, flopping down in the chair beside Sam. "How's it going?"
"Nothing really unusual, not as far as I can tell. Not yet, anyway."
"Maybe she's special in a different way."
"Maybe she's not really that special at all."
Dean frowned. "What's going on, dude?"
"Nothing," he said, glancing up at Darcy, who was sliding CDs back into their spots along the rack on the wall.
If Sam wanted it dropped, fine with him. He'd move on: "Hey, listen, Darcy wants to show us some place. You up for a road trip?"
"You don't know where?" he asked, looking over at Dean.
"She didn't say, no."
"Dean, you said yourself you didn't know this girl very well, you didn't spend that much time with her awake..."
"We both might've died in New Orleans if we hadn't worked together. I trust her and so should you."
"Look, no offense, but sometimes your opinion of girls and their opinion of you tend to differ... Who's to say she's not in there right now sending an e-mail to the authorities and our little trip to some unknown place is really the sheriff's department, so we can sit in yet another holding cell for the second time in as many days until Henricksen shows up."
While they were sitting there, talking quietly amongst themselves, she emerged from the control room, leaning against the open door. "There isn't much to see here in town, no, but if you'd listened to what I said earlier, you boys might've picked up on it when I had Dean give the time and temp..."
Dean and Sam both turned to see her. It was Dean who put it together first. "Stargazing."
"Pine Ridge is a ten minute drive from here, about a four minute walk to the tower site... it's breathtaking. You guys must see so much death and destruction and things that are so utterly grotesque, I thought it might be a nice change of pace. Sam... I don't know what to do to prove to you that my heart's in the right place... I have no intention of turning either of you in. I think if everybody knew, if everybody really knew what was out there... they'd want you out on the streets, too. But, in the meantime, if I can shelter you guys, give you guys a break, a mini-vacation even, until the heat dies down... I'm happy to. I want to."
"I'm sure you understand, Darcy, that sometimes we have to be really very cautious about who we're around," Sam began, his thoughts landing briefly on Meg, who he'd thought was a friend, who'd turned out to be a demon.
"So, let's prove it," she said, nodding. "How can you tell, if I'm a demon or not? You guys must know some sort of trick or something," she said, glancing from Sam to Dean.
"We are not even remotely considering that you're a demon," Dean said, narrowing his eyes at Sam.
"Holy water. It'll take two seconds," Sam said, looking at his older brother.
"In the Impala, right, the trunk?" she asked, having a vague recollection of the tools of the trade hidden in the trunk's false bottom. "Go get it."
"Sammy," Dean said warningly.
"No, Dean, I want to," Darcy said. "Better for you guys to be safe rather than sorry, right? Go get it," she repeated, looking again at Sam.
He handed the laptop off to Dean, and headed out to the car, popping the trunk.
"Why?" Dean asked, frowning.
"Because maybe he'll stop thinking what he's been thinking the past hour," she said quietly. "He's entitled to his thoughts, and not really entitled to a thought-stealer, but..." She sighed. "I don't think you strong-arming him into being nice to me would've worked, so... let's have this little field test and get it over with. We'll go see Pine Ridge, we'll go home... You can stay and hang out a while... it'll be nice, for a change, for the both of us. Maybe even all three," she said, looking up as Sam reentered the station. "So, what is this, like a baptism... do I get sprinkled or dunked or something?"
"Hold out your hand," Sam said, glancing tentatively at his brother, who seemed to be accepting.
Darcy held her hand out to him, her palm open. Uncapping the bottle, Sam poured a small amount of water into her hand and it looked... like regular water. "You sure you didn't just grab the Dasani there?"
"No, it's holy water," he said, nodding.
"Am I a demon?"
"If you were, you'd be smoking," Dean explained. "Are you satisfied, Sammy?"
The younger Winchester nodded. "Thank you."
"Cool, well... now that it was totally anticlimactic – but in a good way – I'm gonna sign off, set the alarm... and we'll get out of here. Sound good?" she asked, looking from Sam to Dean.
"Pine Ridge, yeah?" Dean asked.
She smiled. "Pine Ridge."
The Winchesters headed out to the Impala, while Darcy set about turning off lights and shutting down.
"Y'know, too, with Madison being... what she was..." Sam began haltingly.
"In this situation, let's say that we were both right. You were right to make sure she was what she said she was... but I was right 'cause I knew she wasn't a demon."
Sam nodded. "Fair enough."
Dean was silent for a moment. "Technically, I was more right."
"Shut up."
"Bitch," Dean playfully spat, fighting a smile.
"Jerk," Sam returned.
"You guys aren't going to bicker like that the whole time, are you?" Darcy asked, locking the front door to the station, a black backpack over her shoulder.
"Brotherly love, Darcy," Dean explained.
"Or sibling rivalry," provided Sam.
"Dear God, what have I gotten myself into?" she asked, crossing down towards the Impala. "Shotgun, by the way..." she said, glancing over at Sam.
Sam's jaw fell open slightly. "Hey..."
"She's a girl, Sammy," Dean said, sliding behind the wheel. "'Sides, she has to navigate."
Reluctantly, Sam climbed into the back, behind Dean, as Darcy let herself into the passenger seat.
On the way up to Pine Ridge, Dean and Darcy filled Sam in on all the details of their voodoo hunting experience, from their first encounter in the morgue, to the death-defying stunts in the bayou surrounding the Big Easy.
"I can't believe it's been almost two years now," Darcy said, as the Impala turned off the state highway and onto a dirt road.
Dean turned his brights on. "I can't believe you have a radio tower off a dirt road."
"Apparently it used to be in the middle of somebody's farm, so they were very happy when it got moved. And our listening area increased, so, it worked out for everybody."
"Uh... Darcy?" Dean asked, seeing that, up ahead, the dirt road seemed to come to a complete and total stop. That, or trees had decided to take up roots in the middle of the street.
"Yeah, I told you a four minute walk, right?" she said, glancing over at Dean.
"It's a good thing there are flashlights in the trunk," Sam said, looking out his side window into the darkness.
The Impala rumbled to a stop, and Dean turned off the engine. As Darcy emerged from her seat, she dug through her backpack, finding her own flashlight and turning it on so Dean could see to get into the trunk.
He pulled out two flashlights, checking both of them, before handing one off to Sam. "After you," he told Darcy.
She led them along the path. It was starting to become slightly grown over with the new spring foliage.
Dean fell into step behind her, with Sam trailing along. "Y'know, I bet you guys could make a killing at Halloween. Creepy hiking. Tell ghost stories," Dean suggested, turning his flashlight upside down under his face.
"With a great soundtrack," she laughed.
"Monster Mash," said Sam.
Darcy smiled. Maybe, now that he was convinced she wasn't entirely evil, he'd actually come to enjoy a couple days off, too. "Exactly."
"Charge five bucks a head," Dean said as he returned his flashlight to the trail before them.
"Beats credit card scams," commented Sam.
"Low blow, Sammy," chided Dean. They walked along in silence for a few more moments, before he started humming Dueling Banjos.
"So not funny, dude," Sam said immediately.
Darcy shook her head as she finished leading them along the short trial, coming to a stop in a wide clearing, where the radio tower stood straight and tall, secured by guy wires. "This is it," she said, turning off her flashlight.
Dean and Sam followed suit and glanced skyward. Millions of twinkling lights smiled down at them.
It was something the boys hardly bothered to look at. There was so much going on beneath those shining stars that required their attention at night that they were overlooked, seemingly unimportant. After all, there were no such things as aliens or alien abductions, as far as any hunter they knew were aware, so there was no need to look to the heavens. But vampires, zombies, and werewolves were entirely different stories.
"The thick trees down the ridge block out most of the city light. And the tower light, well... that doesn't distract too badly," Darcy said, glancing up at the flickering beacon. "Certainly better than the streetlights and everything back in town."
"Makes you think about how small you really are, in the grand scheme of things," Sam commented.
"Who you callin' small, Sammy?" Dean asked, easing to sit on the grassy ground.
"You're just one guy, Dean. I'm just one guy."
"And you guys do amazing things," Darcy said.
Dean shrugged. "Depends on who you ask. You? Sure. Agent Henricksen…?"
She eased to sit down next to Dean. "He can't help it if he's wrong. He's obviously never been face to face with a previously dismembered voodoo high priestess before."
Dean glanced over, grinning. "Hey, that's it. We'll just conjure up a ghost and present it to him."
"If only it were that easy," Sam said, sighing.
"It could be, Sammy; you never know."
As silence descended on the tower site, Darcy tried to keep her thoughts to herself, focusing on her own feelings at the moment. It was different, having someone around who knew what she could do. It was different, being around people who thought she was normal. It was... nice. Around Dean, she didn't have to feel like a freak. Around Dean, she could let her guard down a little. She didn't have to be quite so guarded with what she said, differentiating between what someone really told her and what she'd discerned.
She ran her fingers though her dark hair, glancing over at Dean, who was still looking at the beautiful navy blue blanket of stars surrounding them. He thought about how nice it would be, to be settle down somewhere, sometime, eventually. To be able to stop and look at the stars. Maybe someday, he thought as he leaned back, stretching out on the ground.
Sam, too, stretched out. His thoughts floated to Jess, to Madison. His luck with slowing down, trying to avoid the truths he knew existed always ended the same way: with death. Maybe if he didn't care, like Dean, bad things wouldn't happen. But, he couldn't turn off his emotions, could he? His humanity. Of course he couldn't. That wasn't who he was. He wasn't like Dean. He wasn't like his father.
Darcy fought hard to block Sam's thoughts. She focused on Sheila, on her memories of her sister. The times that Sheila covered for her, took care of her. The times when Darcy felt safe, protected. The times she felt important for keeping such a big secret from the world.
She was pulled from her thoughts, however, as Dean slowly sat up, before getting to his feet. She looked at him, trying to access his thoughts, but they weren't there. She glanced back at Sam, who seemed lost in thought, but she wasn't reading anything there either. The thoughts of the demons taking Jess away, the thoughts of Madison's destruction were all gone, completely so. But she could see the wheels turning, so clearly. Why couldn't she hear?
"Darlin'?"
That sort of sounded like Dean's voice, but there was a very distinctive Southern twang she was certain hadn't been there moments before. "Dean?" she asked, looking up at him.
He cocked his head to one side, questioningly. "Dean? Darlin', are you all right?" He offered her his hand, which she accepted, being pulled to her feet. "You haven't hurt yourself, have you?"
Again, Dean now looked like he should've been thinking something, but there were absolutely no other voices in Darcy's head. "No..."
"We're going to be late for the party, you know."
Darcy was starting to wonder if she was hallucinating. "Party?"
"You know how John loves to dance those reels."
She spun on her heel, noting well that Sam now had a drawl as well. John... They had said John was their father's name. "I..."
"Save a line on your dance card for me, won't you, Elizabeth?" Sam asked.
Elizabeth? John? The fact that they weren't thinking... Darcy tried to keep her jaw from falling clear to the ground and her eyes from growing to saucer-size as she put it all together: they were no longer themselves at all.
"Elizabeth?" Dean asked, his hand lightly finding the small of her back. The touch was so gentle, so electric, so... personal, almost intimate. "She looks frightful pale, don't you think, William?" he asked, looking at Sam.
"We could fetch Doc Fletcher," Sam said with a nod.
"Oh, no, no, no," Darcy said, afraid of who Doc Fletcher might turn out to be. Perhaps the Impala. Or the tower. Or, worse, something far more sinister.
"Are you sure, love?"
Darcy started to open her mouth, but had to stop and recollect her thoughts before trying to speak again. Hearing the word "love" come from Dean's lips, aimed at her was, well, breathtaking. Hearing it with the Southern accent that wasn't quite Dean's own voice, however, made it breathtaking in a not-so-good sort of way. "I'm fine," she managed, trying to keep the squeak out of her voice as best she could.
The Road Ahead...
"So, what do you think? You think we were temporarily possessed?"
Sam shrugged. "I dunno, but I think it might need a little checking out, make sure everything's kosher and that it won't happen again."
"Being a puppet to a two hundred year old dead guy? Yeah, that'd be nice if that never happened again."
"Where do we start?" Darcy asked.