For Notes and Disclaimer, please see part one.
Then...
Sam investigates the possible connections of paranormal/demonic activity to Darcy's birth while Darcy and Dean catch up. Sam's leery of trusting Darcy, and a quick test with holy water reveals she's no demonic possession walking around. With some trust established, she takes the boys up to Pine Ridge, the location of the radio station's broadcast tower, to hang out and stargaze, but things take a turn for the worse when the Winchesters pick up Southern accents and Darcy can no longer pick their brains.
Now...
She'd managed to keep Dean and Sam corralled near the tower site as the night wore on. But that was not without its troubles. The Winchesters bantered about the state of the union and the growing, grumbling grassroots confederacy that was building, and the possibilities that held for both sides. Darcy had a hard time with some of the old-fashioned language the boys used so effortlessly. It was almost as though she were trapped in a history lesson, with no where to go, no way to quietly cut class.
She was starting to feel lightheaded as she glanced at her watch, realizing that they'd been up there five, almost six hours. The sun would be rising soon. She wanted Dean back. She wanted to hear Sam's biting thoughts. Hell, she'd settle for a relived memory, one of the horribly vivid ones, where the pain was still deep and practically fresh.
Rubbing her eyes, she wondered what she was supposed to do if this was permanent. Maybe she could get a hold of one of their cell phones and just start calling random numbers on their contact list until she found someone who didn't hang up on her when she talked about all things supernatural. She leaned back, lounging on the grass and keeping a weary, bloodshot eye on the brothers. She was normally in bed by about one, up by nine. She was going on twenty-one hours with no sleep and was definitely starting to become exhausted.
She started catching her head drifting down before yanking it back up and forcing her eyes open. As the sunlight started filtering through the leaves of the trees, Sam and Dean's conversation stopped. 'Maybe even Civil War soldiers get tired of hearing themselves talk,' she decided.
'What the hell?'
'Is it daylight?'
She jumped up, as though kicked. "Dean?"
"Darcy?"
Dean's voice had returned to normal, and Darcy found a second wind, catapulting herself towards him, wrapping her arms around him. "Thank God! I was beginning to wonder!"
"We're still up at the tower?" Sam asked, noting well that it appeared that they hadn't moved since just after midnight.
"What the hell is going on?" Dean asked as Darcy slowly disentangled herself from him.
"I have no idea where to even begin, but I think we should all start by getting off this rock."
"Did we sleep up here?" Dean asked, as Darcy started to lead them back towards the path to the Impala.
"I'm not sure sleeping was something you guys did at all," she said slowly.
"Just exactly what did we do?" asked Sam.
"We were all having a nice, quiet, reflective moment under the stars when your thoughts both went blank."
Dean looked at her, an eyebrow drifting up his forehead. "Come again?"
"Completely silent. Y'know, people may say they're not thinking about anything, but generally speaking, there are thoughts," she said, talking quickly. "Whether it's 'hey, that's a cool car' or 'mm, pie.' There's some sort of activity. From you two there was absolutely nothing... except for Southern accents--thick ones--and a seemingly endless dissertation on the reasons for and against the upcoming potential war." Her words came fast, thanks to the adrenaline realization that Dean and Sam returned to their normal states.
Sam's thoughts immediately jumped to the yellow-eyed demon and his plans for some sort of impending battle.
"No, Sam," she said, glancing over at him. "Not an upcoming now war, an upcoming then war." She stopped the hike towards the car, looking from Sam to Dean. "Best I can tell, you guys were talking about the Civil War. The 1860s war."
"North won, slavery's bad kind of stuff?" Dean asked.
"Yeah, except, again, it was like it hadn't happened yet, the states hadn't aligned themselves yet. Tennessee was still in the Union, but the war was coming."
"We were saying this?" Dean said, gesturing between himself and Sam.
She nodded. "You were John." She pointed then to Sam. "You were William. I was Elizabeth." She started walking again, and the boys fell in step with her. "There was Doc Fletcher, and the Robertsons who were having a party with dance cards and reels and the whole nine yards."
Sam frowned. "You were Elizabeth? You were conscious during this?"
"You guys were calling me Elizabeth. Dean said my dress was nice…" She looked down at her jeans and tee shirt. "What dress! Do you see a dress? The whole night was just... freaky."
"I couldn't tell you much about the Civil War except slavery's bad and the North won. I was talking about other things?" Dean asked.
"With authority. It was like straight out of Gone with the Wind, I swear."
"I'm Rhett, right?" Dean asked with a roguish grin. "Sam's the one that marries his cousin...?"
"I think you're missing the point, Dean," said Sam with a heavy sigh.
"And that is?" scoffed Dean.
"Darcy, do any of those names mean anything to you?"
She thought for a moment, before a proverbial light bulb lit up over her head. "The hospital has the Fletcher Medical Office Building."
Sam continued: "What about the Robertsons?
"No," she said, "but, then again I haven't been here that long." She was relieved as the Impala came into view.
Sam and Dean exchanged glances.
"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."
"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.
"Is there a local historical society?" Sam asked. Off Darcy's nod, he continued. "I could meet with someone from the society; you guys could check the library for local historical records, see if you can find these William, John and Elizabeth people, then meet back up for lunch."
"Sounds good to me," Dean said. "Darcy, you feel up for it?"
"So long as it doesn't involve you guys in Southern accents and me in a hoop skirt, whether real or imagined, I'm up for it." She checked her watch. "Library doesn't open till eight... We could run to my house, grab showers, breakfast..."
"Where to?" Dean asked, sliding behind the wheel of the Impala.
Sam retreated to the backseat again as Darcy took shotgun, talking them back down from Pine Ridge and towards her rented home, a mile from the radio station. It was a quaint cottage-looking house, with pale yellow siding and green shutters, a tiny front porch and yard. "Home, sweet home," she said, climbing out of the car.
Sam and Dean stopped by the trunk, grabbing their duffel bags before following her into the house. The living room had the same comfortable couch Dean remembered from New Orleans, with the ottoman for a coffee table, a small TV, and bookshelves lining the walls.
"You like to read, huh?" Sam asked Darcy.
Dean chuckled, easing his bag onto the laminate floor at his feet. "Take a closer look, there, Sammy."
Sam wandered over, setting his laptop case on the ottoman, and realized that she had a music collection to rival Dean's, with records, both 78s and 45s, eight-tracks, tapes, CDs... "Wow..."
"Noise reduction... in a very weird way," Darcy said, moving into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.
Dean, who'd followed her into the kitchen, moved behind her, and whispered: "I can make it if you wanna go ahead and grab that shower..."
She casually glanced over her shoulder, only then realizing just how close to her he was. Her thoughts immediately retreated to a few hours ago, when possessed-Dean had been so kind and loving. "Maybe that's a good idea," she breathed, nodding.
"Sure you're okay?"
"Peachy," she said with a soft smile.
"All right," Dean said as she started to head down the hallway to the bathroom. He looked at the coffee pot. How many scoops was it supposed to be again?
"Three," came the answer from down the corridor, causing Dean to chuckle slightly.
When Sam heard the water running, he joined Dean in the kitchen, leaning against the cabinet. "So, what all do you know about Darcy, from before New Orleans?"
"Not too much. You know most of it, too, now, I think," he said, carefully measuring coffee ground scoops.
"So, you don't know anything about her family."
"Except they disowned her, no," he said, looking up at Sam sharply. "What are you getting at?"
"When I was looking into her birth, to see if any of those tell-tale signs pointed to her being part of the demon's plan..."
"Right," Dean said, filling the carafe with water to complete the coffee making process. "And you didn't find anything."
"Well, nothing that links her to whatever dastardly plan he has, no, but I found other things... Other things like photos from a débutante cotillion."
"Darcy? A deb? Huh..."
"I saved the website on the hard drive of the laptop. Daughter of Deputy Secretary of State Nathan Ryan, escorted by the son of some Senator."
"I dunno if I was a dude and I had a regular job if I'd want the title 'secretary' anywhere near what I did. Even if 'deputy' was in there somewhere."
"Dean, as in Cabinet secretary. As in an appointed government position."
He glanced at his little brother. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Are you absolutely sure that she doesn't have anything to do with her parents anymore?"
"Dude, you heard her give her story last night. Surely you, of all people, should know what it's like to estrange yourself from a family. You and I might've talked a couple times after you left for Stanford, but did you ever talk to Dad, even once?"
Sam shook his head.
"Case closed," he said, clapping his hands. "Let's see that picture, huh?"
Sam led him back into the living room, pulling out his laptop and starting it up. "Just do me a favor, would you?"
"What's that?" Dean asked.
"Just... I think you should be guarded around her, that's all."
Dean nodded. "Okay." Like hell, he thought to himself, wondering for a moment if Darcy could pick that up, or if the shower offered enough distraction to keep his thoughts from invading hers.
Sam seemed relived, and double-clicked on the website he'd saved on the desktop. In the photo, she looked to be about sixteen, with her dark hair in soft, shiny curls around her shoulders. She wore a simple white dress, on the arm of a guy in a tux. She was gorgeous, like a porcelain doll. Not that she wasn't beautiful still, but seeing her like that was sort of eye-opening, as Dean started to wonder if he'd finally found a girl who was out of his league.
"Wow," said Dean quietly.
Two hours later, after showers and a rather quiet breakfast, Sam had an appointment to meet with Julia Owens, the vice president of the historical society, and Dean and Darcy dropped him off at Kate's Cafe, the local breakfast haunt of choice, before heading on to the library.
Darcy couldn't help but notice that Dean had been practically mute since they'd left her house, and that his thoughts had intentionally been vague, almost misleading. "Are you okay?"
He glanced over at her. "Yeah. I'm good." He flashed her a grin, though she could tell there was no mirth behind his eyes.
She merely nodded as Dean pulled into a parking place in front of the local library. She climbed out of the Impala, heading inside with him.
The worker behind the circulation desk smiled as he saw them enter. "Our very own night owl radio voice. I'm amazed you're up this early."
"Hey, Ethan. Early birds and worms and all that."
"There anything I can help you with?" he asked, glancing from Darcy to Dean and back again.
Darcy smiled. "My friend here and I were hoping to do a little digging in the genealogy section. He thinks he has some family from here, lived up on Pine Ridge..."
"S'what my mom told me," Dean added, flashing this Ethan a smile as well.
He stood from behind his desk. "Right this way," he said, leading them to a small room off the main stacks with some computers and two walls of local reference books. "We have a computer program, Regional At-a-Glance Genealogy. Punch in some key words, see what pops up. You could put in names, for example, of people, locations within the county. Pine Ridge and... whatever surname."
"What about first names?" Darcy asked. "He's got some really old records, but the last names are a little blurred..."
"You can try, but you might hit everyone and their uncle..." Ethan laughed. "Literally."
Dean wondered what the hell that dude was smoking, which almost made Darcy chuckle.
"Sorry, genealogy humor... If you need anything, I'm right outside."
Dean waited until the door closed and Ethan was safely on the other side before speaking. "He seems like a fun dude to have at parties."
"I can only imagine," Darcy said, taking a seat at a computer terminal and starting the genealogy program.
Dean eased down beside her, sitting on the chair backwards, watching as Darcy started typing in keywords, to see what all they could come up with.
The Impala rumbled to a stop by the downtown War Memorial Park. It was tiny, and concrete encased, holding only two monuments, one citing all the local war dead from the World Wars, Korea and Vietnam, and the second, showing the local war dead from the Civil War. Sam was looking at the names on the Confederate and Union sides, shaking his head when the engine cut off and Dean and Darcy exited from the car.
"What'd you find out?" Dean asked.
"Reconstruction was pretty rough around here," Sam began, easing down on the bench facing the monuments. "There weren't any major battles of the war itself fought here, but there were certainly skirmishes. The majority of the antebellum homes were destroyed from the in-fighting families even after the war ended. I mean, look at that monument," he said, pointing towards the Civil War's split list of names. "Those are all county residents who gave up their lives for the war. Family names match on both sides, for Confederates and the Union."
Dean glanced over the lists.
"It was a brother-against-brother fight. Families were torn apart."
"All for slavery, huh?" asked Dean, leaning against the monument.
"Not here, not really," Sam said, shaking his head. "This region's always been pretty poor. If anybody owned any, maybe one here, one there... certainly not enough to make it prevalent. Did you guys find out anything more specifically on John and William?"
Darcy nodded. "All three died, presumably at about the same time: John and his wife Elizabeth Cantrell, and John's brother William Cantrell."
"John and Elizabeth were married?" Sam asked, glancing between Dean and Darcy.
"If they were, they certainly made no mention of it last night. In fact, at one point Dean…" Darcy stopped, to correct herself: "John… mentioned about talking to a Mr. Bailey, which happens to be Elizabeth's maiden name. Perhaps he was getting ready to ask for her hand."
"Deeds show that the Cantrell family home was up on Pine Ridge, about the location of the radio tower," Dean added.
Sam looked at Darcy. "You said the tower was built recently; did anyone tear down a house?"
She shook her head. "But, there is another connection... The engineering firm that built the tower was called ABE, Andrews Brothers Engineering. Three days after the work was completed, the lead engineers and partners in the company, Matthew and Westley, were killed in a murder-suicide."
"Brother against brother," Sam said, shaking his head. "No one realized they were acting strangely?"
"According to the police report, the employees of ABE said that the brothers were their normal, jovial selves in the days leading up to the deaths. The police figure one of them just must've snapped, realized he'd made a horrible mistake, and then killed himself," answered Dean.
"And the Cantrells, there's no way to tell which fired first?"
"Not a single witness," continued Dean. "Records show there was definitely some sort of domestic problem that arose between them. Elizabeth might've gotten caught in the crossfire, we don't know. There aren't any witness reports, just that the Robertsons--neighbors on Pine Ridge--discovered the grisly scene and they buried the family up there somewhere."
Sam sighed. "So, maybe the Andrews brothers really were normal during the day... and at night, the spirits of the Cantrell brothers took over. And they're replaying their final days."
"If that's the case, it would've been years later that the Andrews brothers killed each other," said Darcy. "I mean, building the tower didn't take that long. You guys were talking about the impending war and they didn't die until after the war ended."
"Either way," said Dean, jumping into the conversation, "we have to move fast. If they were fine during the daylight and possessed at night... we should get a move on back to Pine Ridge and see if we can locate those bodies."
Darcy looked up at Dean. "What if you can't?"
"Well, this is a little personal for us," Dean said, glancing at Sam, "since it seems to invade brothers and posses them to kill each other. We have to find the bodies."
She nodded, fighting a yawn.
"We can drop you off at home; you can catch some sleep," he told her.
"I can help," she said, looking up at him. Her eyes, however, were heavy with sleep. "I got you guys into this mess; I took you up there for Creepy Thing One and Thing Two to invade."
"You didn't know that was going to happen. For all you knew, the engineers really did have problems," Sam provided.
"You're walking around like a freakin' zombie right now," Dean said. "You won't be much help to us up there like this... 'Sides, you really need to rest... we may need another Civil War babysitter tonight."
She inhaled slowly, knowing they were right. "It's not far to the house. You guys go on. That way I can at least give you a little more time to find the old bones."
"Darcy..." If it wasn't far, it wouldn't be a burden to run her by in the Impala. It might take, what, all of five minutes? Less?
She placed her hand on his arm gently. "Go, Dean," she said softly, yet firmly. She smiled at him, then turned to head back towards her house.
Sam stood, watching Dean watch Darcy walk away. "C'mon, man. Let's find these bones, get this done, and we'll all get a good night's sleep tonight."
He sighed, moving around to slide behind the wheel of his car, as Sam took the front passenger seat again. Dean was quiet, seemingly contemplative. He wasn't even fussing with the radio, blaring a hair band from a previous decade or two over the speakers.
Sam had seen Dean in a similar sort of mood, but only once before: when they were in Missouri helping out Cassie Robinson--the only other girl Dean had seemingly been up front and fully honest with. It had been nice, actually, to see that his brother really did have real feelings for a woman that weren't one-night-stand kinds of feelings. It was even sort of interesting to see this process from the beginning, as he'd only witnessed Dean's affection for Cassie as that ship seemed to be sailing.
"You really like her, huh?"
Dean glanced over at him briefly. "What?"
"Darcy."
"You've been the one pointing out the past two days how little I seem to know her," he said caustically as he pressed the gas pedal a little harder.
"Maybe I was wrong."
"You're admitting that?" he asked, casting a quick glance Sam's direction.
"I just... noticed the way that you were looking at her."
"That's something to take notice of?"
"Dean, you notice girls all the time. Mostly checking them out as they walk past you."
"Like that's a crime," he scoffed.
"No, but... you look at Darcy differently."
"I think sharing your brain with William Cantrell has clouded your thinking, there, Einstein."
"You look at her like you looked at Cassie, though without the sort of bitter, rejection overtones."
"Since when do looks have overtones?"
"The point is... Darcy did something that Cassie couldn't: understand and accept the fact that you're a hunter."
"I don't think I like you comparing my girlfriends..."
Sam realized he'd hit a nerve. "I didn't think Darcy was a girlfriend yet, or is she?"
"Dude, let it go, okay? Let's go find some bones, salt 'em, burn 'em and lie low another day or two then we'll blow out of here, onto the next thing."
"Just, how many times did you try to push me into forming a relationship, however brief, with the women that we meet? I don't think I could even count them all. You were always trying to get me to hook up with someone--"
"So you wouldn't be such a pain in the ass."
"So why can't I encourage you to hook up with someone now? So you'll be less of a pain in the ass?"
"I dunno, because every other time I've tried to hook up with someone, you get this... this... disapproving look on your face."
"Every other time I've seen you try to hook up with someone it wasn't with someone you genuinely cared about."
"Whatever, man. You showed me that website, right? She comes from a high-class background. The daughter of some big government dude, right?"
"Deputy Cabinet Secretary, yeah."
"Her sister went to Georgetown, which, if I'm not mistaken, is one of the schools you were looking at before you hit Stanford, was it not? Another one of those crazy expensive ivy-league kind of schools?"
"Yeah..."
"Darcy went to LSU for at least part of a semester, and it had to be on outta state tuition; it had to be crazy expensive, too. She probably cleared out her trust fund to try to make her life work. Uptown girls like that do not dig guys like me."
"In case you hadn't noticed, Dean. She gave up her 'uptown' status to live in this one horse town and be a nighttime radio DJ."
"What, you don't think Daddy Warbucks would approve?"
"You tell me."
"Let's drop this, okay, man? Just... let it go."
The Road Ahead...
Darcy rushed between other houses, heading into town. It was still quiet this early. A school bus or two. A couple cars. Just one crazy local running after an undead Union soldier. She cast a wary glance towards the courthouse, in the center of town, and its clocktower: 5:38. She still had a little time. She glanced around, hoping to get an idea of where he might be.
Her heart nearly stopped as she saw Sam's lanky form in the middle of the street, with a couple cars on their way.
