Disclaimer, Summary & Rating:see Chapter 1
FALSE MEMORY
Chapter 3
"Not counting tonight…but – the time before last…" Sam's tone was nervous as Dean knew about 'the time before last' since the vision had been too brief and nonsensical to be of any use to Sam, "after the vision I needed to use the bathroom and when I got up, the bathroom door opened for me on its own."
Dean waited, and then felt himself relax slightly. "Naaah, spoon-bending's more entertaining."
"Dean…"
"Sam…you opened a door with the power of your mind! Hold the front page." Dean snorted. "Now if you'd been able to levitate the beds and juggle them –"
"I'm probably getting to that."
"What?" Dean thought he'd misheard until one look at Sam's granite face confirmed the comment wasn't humorous.
"Dean…" Sam shook his head wearily. "After being pinned to that wall like a butterfly on a board whilst that thing in my father's body hurt you…Do you think I've forgotten what the hospital doctor said? Lacerated internal organs, haematoma? Like I couldn't see that while the doctor's mouth said 'We'll have to wait and see' what he meant was 'your brother's dead; his respiratory system's just a bit slow on the uptake so we'll have to wait while it gets to the same page and stops.'"
"Sam…" Dean tried to interject, even as he suppressed a shiver – as the days had gone past he had begun to actually remember quite a lot about his transcendental experience in the hospital, including the deceptively pretty Reaper and her obviously sincere claim that he had been 'on borrowed time' already – something he was brutally aware of since he was only alive because his father had sacrificed his own life in exchange.
Sam cut him off, needing to get out his explanation before his courage failed him. "I swore to myself I was going to have the control and proficiency that Max had. He would have had the colt in the air and fired it a dozen times by the time The Demon blinked once."
Are you kidding? Max Miller was a Grade-A psychotic who would probably have gone Dark Side like Webber the instant Ole Yeller fluttered Dad's eyelashes at him. Dean kept this scornful remonstrance locked within as Sam continued to hesitantly speak.
"…But since then I've developed the six-pack abs and the operative word is six," Sam confessed almost sepulchrally.
"Sorry, you lost me when you went round that last bend, bro'."
"The time before last I opened the bathroom door," Sam reiterated. "The last time, before tonight…we were in Solway, North Dakota? ...You were out – interviewing," Sam put a wealth of innuendo into the word, "that redhead Marsha, Marta…"
"Oh, Marcia…" Dean grinned a happily reminiscent grin, woebegone brother sat next to him with his own private rain-cloud not withstanding.
She'd actually been a year or so his elder; a bright, ambitious career type with no interest in hubby or rugrats but who had an itch needing to be scratched. Most redheads were actually ginger or strawberry blondes, but Maria had been a true copperhead, in more ways than one; she'd been slim and incredibly supple like a snake too – half her contortions had been anatomically miraculous. She'd ridden him like a Kentucky Derby yearling for half the night and he'd returned the favour…
Sam's stone-face snapped him back from basking in the nostalgic afterglow. "Solway, North Dakota. And…?"
Sam swallowed and licked his lips. "The vision was long and – unpleasant. It left me dry-mouthed…so I drank the water left in your bottle."
"You thief," rejoined Dean without concern. "I'll beat you for it if you like."
"Dean." Sam spoke through gritted teeth, closing his eyes. "You left the bottle of water on the far side of your motel bed, in your duffel bag. I didn't get out of bed to go and get it."
Now they were on the largely empty Interstate, Dean could afford to give Sam a baffled glance for slightly longer than a split second. He didn't get it. "You didn't get out bed…"
"No…"
"But you wanted the water because you were thirsty."
"Yes."
"So you drank the water from the bottle I'd left…" Dean stopped speaking as the words far side of your motel bed, in your duffel bag replayed in his head and he started to connect the dots. If Sam had never left his bed, but had obtained the water bottle to drink from it that meant... "You beamed the bottle…" he stumbled, the sci-fi kitsch terminology his only reference to what he was trying to say.
"Yes, I teleported the bottle from your bag to my hand by thinking of how much I wanted it," Sam corrected the phrase. Just by thinking how much I wanted it. "That's what I mean by six being the operative word." He took a deep breath and explained earnestly, "Dean…Max Miller was telekinetic, but he sure as hell was not psychic and he most definitely wasn't capable of teleporting anything anywhere."
"Maybe he never had the chance to use –"
"No," Sam shook his head. "He didn't have those abilities, Dean. I can't explain how I know but his only ability was telekinesis. Like Ava, and Andy…and that poor kid that Gordon Walker knifed to death…and even that son-of-a-bitch Jake. Ava had visions and she could control demons, but I know those two were all she had."
"You know."
"Yes. I don't know…I can't…Like…like…Einstein was a great scientist but – that's it. Nobody ever raves about his Impressionist paintings or his Piano Concertos…but Mozart – he was a brilliant pianist and a genius composer and a superb violinist." His face twisted, "Say something Dean."
"Such as what?" Dean retorted. "You've just told me you were able to pull off telekinesis and teleportation – I'm still not entirely sure what that last one even is – without even thinking that much about it. Let a guy process already!"
"How do you think I feel?!" Sam burst out. "I'm terrified, Dean. Terrified to my toenails. I feel like a kid who's been forced to take French lessons all his life so has deliberately not learned anything. Then I realise I'm being childish so I decide to give it a fair go and boom, instead I wake up to discover I can speak every language on the planet. And that's only the start."
"The start? What else have you done?" Dean asked before he could censor his alarm.
"Nothing…but I think…" Sam struggled to articulate. "As soon as I started trying to accept my psychic ability…I felt like I'd stepped into a library full of books that I'd already read and only needed to glance at again to remember how to do things. I can feel all this…this…stuff…just laying in the bottom of my mind like piles of instruction manuals waiting to be re-read. When the YED snatched me…he kept telling me I was hit favourite to win, over all the others, and to be honest, figuring out why is driving me nuts. Did he – it – know that I was different from all the others – or at least those that Ava didn't kill, or was he really clueless and just playing mind-games? After we got out of the hospital…when I thought I had that Croatoan demon virus and would try and kill you, I was practising my 'control' like crazy…even when 'Meg' possessed me, there were certain things she couldn't do, because I managed to stop her. I know that if I just start thinking of doing it…I can do something…things that Ava and Andy and Jake couldn't even dream of."
"Such as?" Dean demanded tightly.
"Clairvoyance."
"You're already clairvoyant."
"No, I'm psychic.1"
"You say potato, I say –"
Sam shook his head from side to side negatively. "No, a psychic is someone who sees traumatic or extremely emotional events that happened in the past, or that are happening now in the present and maybe – if they're lucky - a day or so in the future. A clairvoyant is someone who sees into the future; the stronger the clairvoyant, the further ahead in time they can see."
"Clairvoyance." Dean repeated the word harshly. "As in you're going to meet a tall, dark and handsome stranger…"
"Yes."
"You think you can do that just by trying to do it?" Dean pressed.
"Yes…I feel like Marty McFly in Back To The Future II."
"Well don't, because that's a crock. Your Shining, I get, tele-whatever, I'll go with…Madame Blavatsky peering into a crystal ball is pure fakery."
"Then how come I know who's going to win the 2008 World Series?"
Continued in Chapter 4…
© 2007, Catherine D. Stewart
1 This is perfectly true – psychic abilities and clairvoyance, though extremely closely related, are not the same thing, similar to the distinction between being an empath (able to receive/send emotions) and being a telepath (able to receive/send language). However 'psychic' is recognised as a catch-all umbrella term in much the same way that 'scientist' is a catch-all umbrella term.
