THREE
Three Heads Are Better Than Two
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Dean opened an eye slowly, wondering why his head hurt. He kept very still, just like trying to work out if Dad and Sam were awake before him. And if so, if Sam had already got the good cereal for breakfast.
But instead of the dinginess of a motel room, he saw lots of white. Lots of blurred, wouldn't-stay-in-focus-white. He took a deep breath rather surreptitiously.
Definitely not a hospital smell, he thought as he analysed the strange concoction of pleasant, innocuous scents. He opened his other eye and listened carefully. He could make out voices, one male and one female. And then it clicked.
"Dad," he grunted. It made pain shoot through his head, but he was determined to call until he got what he wanted. "Dad!"
Someone put a hand on his shoulder gently. Instinct told him it wasn't his father. A brown haired vision of beauty interrupted his fearful imaginings as he watched it hove into view directly above him. Suddenly everything was in sharp focus. The face was breath-taking in its Venus-like effulgence.
"How you feeling, Dean?"
He stared up at her, assessing exactly how he did feel. "Are you an angel?" he blurted.
The face smiled and suddenly, she was even more amazing than before. "No, Dean, I'm not an angel. Do I look like one?" she teased warmly.
"My mom said angels are watching over me. You're over me," he pointed out. "And you're… well, kinda watching. Right?"
She put a hand down and squeezed his shoulder warmly. "Alright then, yes, I'm an angel," she grinned.
"You're making fun of me," he realised.
"Oh Dean," she grinned, pulling her hand back. "You're so very clever for an eight year old."
"Eight and a half," he pointed out quickly. "Actually, no, I'm nine in two months."
"Not too old for a smack if you're giving poor Nara trouble," came a stern voice, and Dean saw his father's face loom over him.
"Not at all, John. He's your boy alright - right down to the smart thinking," she said, drawing her face away from Dean's. John faded upwards too, and before he knew it, Dean had let his eyes close.
"Dad," he murmured, and the two adults bent over him again as he struggled to make his eyes open, struggled to come out with a coherent sentence.
"What is it, sport?"
"Where's Sammy?"
There was a pause. "He's fine. Now sleep for a little while. Nara's going to watch you."
"Don't… know her…"
"I know you don't. But I do. She'll watch you."
"'K." Dean's eyes were already closed, and he was fast asleep before he could acknowledge it.
Nara looked up at John, a wide smile over her face.
"What?" John asked suspiciously.
"Your boy thinks I'm an angel," she teased.
"Does he now," John remarked, shaking his head and putting his hand out. He brushed Dean's hair back from the stitched-up lump in his hairline, his own face pained for a long moment.
"He'll be ok, you know. We don't let anyone die here."
"No-one?" John asked sourly.
Nara put her young hand out, trapping John's to his son's head with warmth. He looked at her and she smiled, but there was more gravity there than if she had scowled at him.
"No-one," she asserted. "At least, not before their time. And I think both your boys have a very long way to go yet."
"I… ah… Hope that's a good thing," he observed, baffled. "Listen, I'm just really grateful you took us in like this - without warning, and without telling the cops."
She looked down at Dean with unexpected warmth in her brown eyes. "Pastor Jim was very vouching," she grinned. "He likes the three of you. Anyway." She looked up again, and John saw so much wisdom in a face much too young for it. "The last thing we need round here is cops. It's not their world, is it?"
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"The last thing we need round here is cops," Dean said firmly, biting into the hot dog with as much relish as it was carrying itself. "It's not their world, is it?"
Sam lifted a napkin patiently, but his brother ignored him. Until Dean managed to spill ketchup down his white shirt. He cursed something with a full mouth, taking the napkin and wiping it off his front quickly.
"I assume she works for the local station," Sam said slowly, watching Dean push as much bun into his mouth as possible. "Frost, her name is. I didn't get a rank or first name."
"Sounds… friendly," Dean observed with sarcasm.
"Actually, I'm sure she would be if she wasn't having to attend funerals for people she knew," he said tartly. Dean just looked at him.
"Alright, calm down, Oprah. I was just sayin'."
"Right. You still think she's the murderess? Cos I think we need to Agent-up and pay a call at the station, get some info here. All we know so far is that Hannah Barrington, eighteen, of Pahrump, Nevada was found dead, apparently the victim of a dark-alley attack."
"Have we seen the autopsy?" Dean asked, around a mouthful of ketchup, mustard, relish and Frankfurter sausage.
"Not yet," Sam said deliberately. "That's why I want to go find out who the Chief is in this town."
"Right, right," Dean said quickly. "You wanna hear what I got from the gravedigger dude?"
"As long as it's not his backlog of Penthouse magazine jokes," he sighed.
"Well there was the one about the two dwarves that pick up two hookers, and then one dwarf hears the other going 'Geronimo!' next door, but you've probably heard it," Dean said dismissively. Sam just eyed him before shaking his head in pity. Dean sniffed and stuffed the last piece of hot dog in his mouth.
"Well?" Sam asked wearily.
"Right, so get this - the guy, Roger, is employed to dig graves, right?"
"Because he's a gravedigger?"
"Shut up. He gets a call to dig a fresh hole for plantin' someone, so he shows up to work and digs."
"Wow, freaky," Sam drawled with enough sarcasm to cause overload damage to the suspension springs on the Impala.
Dean tutted. "This is the good bit - he digs all morning and he's done, right? So he goes to the boss and tells him. The padre turns round and tells him he has to inspect it - which he does - and then tells him it's in the wrong place. Gravedigger Dude--"
"--Roger?"
"--Roger, says 'woah woah woah, not on my map it ain't', but the father says he has to dig another one."
"And?"
"And he digs another one - on the other side of the yard."
"So?"
"So the other side of the yard is supposed to be full already, and off-limits."
"Right, wow. Someone wanted her on the shady side of the Lawn Of Rest. What's next, they order the wrong flowers for her headstone?"
"Nope," Dean said, appearing vindicated. "The work order specified no trees or vegetation whatsoever round her place of rest."
"No! Call the police!" Sam cried, slapping a hand to his suit over his heart, stumbling slightly on the lawn. "Oh my God! That's incredible, Dean!"
Dean scowled at him. "It is, actually, cos it matches exactly what was specified on Neal Perry's - the ex who was supposed to have killed her a week after he shuffled off this mortal coil. Both of them had to be buried out in the boonies end of the graveyard beyond vegetation or decorative flora and fauna."
Sam paused. "They both had that in the grave notes?"
"They both had that in the grave notes. I think someone doesn't want rotting trees and dying plants to advertise the unholy ground they got goin' on. I think they're--"
"You think someone's recruiting them as zombies?"
"What do you think?"
Sam was silent as he turned it over in his head. "Well… It's a reach right now," he allowed.
"Aw c'mon, Sam, what else have we got? And it would explain the dead-for-a-week murderer."
"It could be any number of things, Dean. It could be… uh… a simple case of mistaken identity - how do we know the DNA was matched correctly in the first place?"
"Alright, Gil Grissom - we'll go down to the station and pull some rank, demand some paperwork. Happy?"
"With you being wrong about zombies? Yes," Sam smiled, putting his hands in his pockets and following the elder Winchester across the lawn.
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Sam and Dean walked into the police station on high alert. While Sam was more concerned with anyone who took an overt interest in them, Dean appeared to be ever more uncomfortable the deeper they ventured into the station.
Sam left his brother dawdling by the reception desk and instead went straight to the private desk behind the wooden gate.
"Excuse me, you can't be in here," came a little voice, and he turned quickly. He spotted a young woman, probably no more than twenty-two, watching him with suspicion. Her expression suddenly changed as she clapped eyes on his actual face.
"Oh, I'm sorry, how rude of me," he said with a wide smile, approaching her as he put his hand inside his jacket. "Special Agent Peart, FBI."
"Oh! Sorry, sir," she said quickly, but Sam waved it off.
"No problem, I shouldn't have walked in unannounced. Is it possible to see the Chief?"
"Ah - yeah," she allowed, a frown on her young features. She pushed mousy hair from her face irritably. "But she's kinda busy right now."
"She?" Sam prompted, a funny feeling he would knew who the Chief was beginning to nudge his suspicion nodes.
"No-one's too busy for the FBI," Dean said suddenly, appearing behind Sam, lifting his badge. "Special Agent Lee. Tell her we won't take up too much of her time."
"O-k," the officer said quickly. She turned and made her way to the back of the room, turning left and disappearing round the corner.
Sam turned and looked at him. "Little harsh?"
"Daylight's a-wasting. If this is someone brewing up new zombies, we need to stop 'em before it gets dark. Or at least get a handle on who it might be."
"Fair enough," Sam admitted. He looked around the room slowly, taking in the six wooden desks replete with stacks of paperwork and files in odd little towers of neglect. "Does this seem like the usual state of a station?" he asked from the corner of his mouth.
"Y'know, there's something odd about the way the tables are laid out," Dean muttered. They split up abruptly, spacing out and tilting their heads to try and deduce some kind of pattern to the odd layout.
"Excuse me? Special Agent Peart? The Chief will see you now," came a polite female voice.
The Winchesters straightened quickly, pretending they hadn't really been caught stooping and bending to work out decorative master plans. There was a synchronised throat-clearing and then they followed the young officer to the back of the room.
They turned left and found themselves in a corridor that barely went ten feet before it turned ninety degrees to the right again. There was just about enough room to walk side by side as they followed the girl down the very clean corridor.
She walked past a door and stopped, turning back to them and holding her hand out to indicate the door.
"I'm sorry to make you walk, gentlemen," she said quickly.
"Oh it's no trouble," Sam replied suavely, before gesturing over his shoulder with his chin. "He needs the exercise."
She smiled for him alone and stepped back to push the door open. She watched Special Agent Lee shove Special Agent Peart in the back to get him through the door, and smiled as she closed it again slowly.
She bounced off, smiling for no good reason. But it felt warm.
Sam and Dean walked further in cautiously, looking around the office and finding it adequate. It had no windows, only a high ceiling with artificial lights and a silent air-con unit in the polystyrene tiles, currently sweeping the room efficiently.
"Good morning, gentlemen," said a voice. "Sorry to inconvenience you like this."
They looked over and found themselves facing a stack of files on a desk. Dean wandered over, poking his head round the side. He found an ageing Apple MacIntosh laptop computer and a large, worn chair. But no person.
"Up here," came the voice. They both looked up and round, finding a woman watching them from the top of a wooden library ladder, attached to a dizzyingly complete wall of ancient bookshelves.
The woman from the funeral, Sam confirmed to himself.
"Well well well. The FBI gets prettier every year," she remarked drily, raising a single eyebrow at Dean. She shifted her eyes to Sam. "And I've met you before, haven't I?"
"You have, ma'am," he admitted. "I neglected to tell you who I was at the funeral. I'm sorry."
"No harm done," she allowed.
She turned on her wooden ladder, hefting a book under her arm and making her way down it slowly. The bookshelves filled the entire wall, crammed full of old, dusty tomes. Sam eyed the shelves, nudging Dean to draw his attention to them. But Dean nudged him back, gesturing to the far filing cabinet with his eyes. It looked ordinary enough, apart from the fine line of suspiciously grey powder around the back edge.
And the faint pentacle chalked on the side.
Sam's eyes took it in with a look that Dean had come to know meant that he was analysing all the clues in his huge brain to see if they measured up to a theory he already had cooking.
The chief reached the floor from her ladder, turning and dropping the book to her desk. "Please ignore the state of my office," she said smartly.
"Oh, no really, it's like Washington," Dean smiled. "All you're missing is an 'I Want To Believe' poster."
She rolled her eyes, but a small smile escaped. "Chief Frost," she announced, putting her hand out. Dean took it and a firm handshake ensued.
"Agent Lee," he nodded.
She paused, holding onto his palm. "Have we met before?" she asked faintly.
"Nope," Dean shrugged, his guilty gaze going round the walls quickly to make sure no 'Wanted' posters were around. He realised they were still shaking hands and pulled on his to free it. But she held onto it.
"But… I feel I know you," she said slowly. "Yeah, I do. I just can't think--"
"Well, this is my partner, Agent Peart," he said hastily, turning. She let his hand go and her hazel eyes narrowed on Sam.
"Hi," he said gamely, putting a hand out. She shook it firmly and their hands dropped. "Anyways, we were kinda wondering if we could take a look at what you have so far on Hannah Barrington."
"Hannah? Why?"
"We're investigating," Dean said, nodding firmly. "We find it odd that she was apparently killed by a dead guy."
"Oh really," Frost scoffed, folding her arms. "And after I show you the pathologist's report and you can see for yourself his findings are genuine and absolute, what then, gentlemen? You mosey on back to Washington and brand me a fruitcake for trying to find a murderer who, according to the national records, was dead before he killed her?"
"Oh, hey, now," Dean began quickly, his hands up in surrender.
"Not at all," Sam cut in swiftly, "once we've seen the report and we concur, we'll help you in your search."
"I see," she tutted. "Like I've never heard that before."
Sam's eyes dropped to her folded hands, and the ring on her baby finger. He smiled slowly then let his hands drop into his trouser pockets, positively reeking confidence.
"What?" she asked.
"You're a Wiccan," he announced, nodding at her ring.
"You're fishing, Special Agent."
"Are you a British Traditional? Or a 1734 Tradition? Or maybe a Dianic Wicca - although you don't fit the description of the last two," he said easily. Dean, beside him, looked down as he rocked on his heels slightly, amused.
She scowled at Sam. "How the hell do you know--"
"Oh it has nothing to do with Hell, as you well know," Sam smiled. "Look - we've already clocked the protection dust and the pentagram - and that symbol on your finger. Can we pretend to be friends now?"
"Oh I get it, tell me a few things that are supposed to shock me and I'll believe you're on my side. I've seen 'Psych', I know it's all a con," she allowed, but she wandered back and perched on the end of her desk.
"Says a witch," Dean said pointedly. She stared at him. Hard. He didn't so much as flinch.
"Well this witch says it was definitely him, dead or not."
"Good," Dean nodded. He spared Sam a glance, passing a nervous tongue over his lower lip. "Then I'll come clean."
Sam slid his eyes over to him quickly, fearing his brother's next words.
"What?" she asked with a sigh.
"We think you're right," Dean confirmed. Sam nudged him. "Ok, I think you're right - about him being dead and still killing that girl."
"Riiiiight," she smiled, tilting her head. "And just how is that possible?"
"We got ourselves a zombie problem."
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"We got ourselves a zombie problem," John admitted, leafing through his weighty journal. Nara sat back, shaking her head.
"There are no such things as zombies," she smiled, but he realised she was only half teasing.
"Very soon you'll be right. I just need some silver rods and to get them pinned to their grave beds," he said.
"Fair enough. You do it your way. You are leaving Dean and Sam here though, right?"
She watched the older man's face, watch it flit through a hundred different emotions in a few seconds.
"It would be for the best," she said quietly. "Dean's not fit to go anywhere, and Sam's a little… He seems troubled when he can't sit with his brother."
"They're all I've got," he blurted, looking at her. "Look, your mother said… she said we could get medical help. And you've seen to Dean, he's all stitched and medicated, and I really, really appreciate that. But a lot of shit went down last night and I think that bump on his head was the least of it all."
"Does he know what you do?"
"He doesn't know I'm a hunter. Although after tonight, it's going to be… awkward."
"He's a smart kid. He pretends not to be though."
"Don't I know it."
"Why?" she asked quietly. John looked at her in the candlelight, really looked at her. He considered his answer for a long time.
"He doesn't like joining in. He hates being singled out. I guess pretending he knows nothing is easier than getting involved," he said at last. And why do I feel like I can tell you anything?
She nodded slowly. "I understand. Look… you can leave them here. I'll look after them. You can't go off and kill undead things in the middle of the night if you're worrying about them."
"You got a point. But how can I leave my kids with someone I don't know?"
"Pastor Jim vouched for you. And would he tell you to come here if he didn't think we could look out for you three? Besides, James is here too, and if need be, I have a certain circle of friends I can call on to--"
"Just you," John interrupted.
"I'm sorry?"
"Just you. With Sammy and Dean. No-one else. Ok?"
She smiled and reached out, putting a hand on his arm. "Deal. Now go, and good luck."
"Fine. I just need to check on Dean first." He got up from the table, walking back through the quiet house and up the stairs, into the back room.
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