Later that morning, Dean turned the wheel, pulling the Impala into Bobby's yard, parking it alongside of the scrap metal. Lola fiddled with her bottom lip, her knees drawn up to her chest as she sat, staring ahead,
"Okay?" Dean asked, turning in his seat and draping his arm across the back of the front seat. She nodded slowly before turning her face to look at him,
"Scared."
"Of what?"
"Bobby."
"Pfft! Don't be scared of Bobby! He's harmless."
"It's not me I'm worried about."
"Ah. Yeah. I get your point." Dean sighed, moving his eyes off to the side guiltily. She leant forwards, placing a kiss on his forehead reassuringly, "I have a gun." She told him with a wink before turning and leaving the car. Bobby had spotted Dean's car and was making his way out of his workshop, rubbing his greasy hands on a dirty cloth, when Lola stepped out of the black Impala. He stopped dead before pursing his lips and shaking his head angrily,
"Hey Bobby…I hear you have my truck!" Lola tried to pretend like nothing had ever changed. Bobby nodded before motioning with his head over to her precious pick-up truck that stood amongst the heaps of junk. She grinned, running forwards to her truck, jumping onto the bonnet and hugging it, pressing her face against the hot black surface of the bonnet with a happy sigh. Dean walked around his car, watching with a smirk before turning his face to Bobby, he looked as if he were about to kill him,
"Uh...hey Bobby!" He greeted sheepishly, though Bobby was having none of it. He grabbed Dean's arm and hauled him inside,
"What the hell have you done this time? How many times do I have to tell you? The dead stay dead, Dean…"
"How do you know I'd done anything?"
"I know you." He said seriously, "And besides, I spoke to Sam a few days ago about how you were doing. I worried you'd think of something."
"It's fine. The damage has been done now."
"ARE YOU INSANE?!" He bellowed, "What did you do to get her back? How long do you have now? A week?"
"I didn't cut a deal…I just…helped them a little."
"You HELPED them?"
"I trapped a Djinn for them and in return, they gave Lola back. It wasn't her time, they said so."
"People don't have times. They go when they go, Dean. You're so stupid! How could you betray us like that?"
Dean laughed bitterly, turning to walk back to the car,
"I've heard this already…and I'm not in the mood to hear it again…" He muttered. Bobby slammed his hands down on his workbench,
"Well you're gonna hear it! Dean! Your father would not want you doing this!"
"Well dad's not here…and if he was…he'd understand."
"Don't fool yourself Dean. All those years and he never brought your mother back. You don't do deals with demons."
"I didn't do a deal. I helped them on a one off to bring Lola back. End of."
"And what's to stop them approaching you again?"
"They have nothing they can offer me."
"Who said they'd offer you anything?" Bobby asked quietly, "What if they threatened to take her back if you didn't help? Or what if they took Sam? Or Maggie?"
"I would never let that happen!"
"So you're just going to keep helping them?"
"You don't understand."
"Dean…we've all lost people in this job, but we'd never sacrifice or endanger everything on it. When Trey died Lola almost gave up on life all together but she pulled herself up and was back and stronger than ever. It can be done. It has to be done."
"Who's Trey?" Dean asked with a frown,
"Stay on the subject, Dean. What I'm getting at is when someone dies and it's not natural, you pull yourself together and you carry on fighting because that's one more person that's died for the cause. A cause you have a job to complete, Dean. Lola's a hunter and she knows the dangers. You should've left her and pulled yourself out of your drunken stupor!"
"Okay, you've definitely been talking to Sammy."
"What did you expect? You're coming home drunk and smelling like a bar every night. You've been replacing bottles of Bud' for food. What were you trying to do? Send yourself down to hell after her? What about Sam? Didn't you realize how much it hurt to watch his brother destroying himself?"
Dean turned and stalked to the door,
"Thanks for the psychology session, Doctor…but I'm fine…really." He reassured before stomping back outside to Lola's truck where she was hunting around under the tuck-bed cover frantically, "Lost something?" He asked, squinting in the midday sun,
"Yeah…what did you do with my necklace?" She asked with a frown, looking up at him. He reached beneath his shirt and pulled the white gold chain out from under the plaid fabric and t-shirt. Lola smiled as he reached around to unclasp it. She touched the back of his hand with hers and shook her head,
"Keep it on." She said seriously, "It looks better on you anyhow."
"Lola," Bobby began as he approached, eyeing Dean irritably, "Your brother came by a week after you…well, you know."
"How's he look?"
"Upset." Bobby said simply, "Dean wrote him a letter, he wanted to know more so he came here."
"How'd he know to come here?"
"I left Bobby's address on the letter so he could come and get your truck." Dean said, leaning against the truck-bed,
"I guess he didn't want it?" Lola sighed, smoothing her hand over the paintwork. Bobby shook his head,
"No. He told me I could sell it on and to send the money to Dean. He mentioned having a stone put in the church yard for you."
Lola forced a smile,
"Why the money to Dean? Did he say?"
Bobby shrugged,
"I think he was thankful that Dean had written to him and told him what had happened. He asked who he was and I said they you two were very good friends and that Dean was by your side until the end and I think he appreciated that you weren't alone."
Lola wiped at her eyes,
"It's better that he doesn't know. It's safer for him that I never see him again. He has small children and I could never live with myself if anything happened to them."
Bobby nodded understandably,
"It's going to be difficult for you Lola." He said seriously, "A lot of people knew you. When people found out, there were some lovely things said about you. I think some of your old friends made a marker for you and placed it along with the others. There're so many there now, after the Road House burnt down…"
Lola nodded slowly,
"Well thanks for holding my truck."
"Take care."
"I will do." She called as Bobby wandered off again, back to his workshop. Lola turned to Dean and pushed herself against him, forcing him to hug her back, "Shall I follow you?" She asked quietly. He nodded,
"Yeah…are you going to be okay driving?"
"No. I figured I'd crash." She said dryly, "I'll be fine. It can't be any more dangerous than driving with you. And I cannot take your music any longer! It's terrible."
"Hey! I'm a good driver!"
"Hey Maggie I think I got one." Sam called to his sister who was paying for her third cup of Mocha. She turned from the counter, polystyrene cup in one hand a powdered doughnut in the other and sat down next to Sam in the crowded café.
Spinning the newspaper round to her view, Maggie scanned the column that Sam had highlighted.
25 year old, High school teacher, Tessa Smith was found dead at the bottom of the stairs of St Edmonds, English block yesterday. The cause of death is still unknown and local authorities have suspects.
The maths teacher is the fifth death that the catholic school has suffered in the past month. Just last week a fellow colleague, Mr. Johnson was found at the bottom of the same set of stairs, bearing the same marks and bruising on the neck as Ms Smith, as did the three other victims before them. Police suspect hanging although no murder weapon has been found and the positions in which the bodies were found also suggest that the teachers were pushed.
"You think this is our kind of gig." Maggie asked, mouth full of pastry.
"I do, the fact that there were no witnesses, no murder weapon is strange enough, but I had a look into the history of the school…" Sam replied turning his silver laptop round to Maggie's view, … "Six years ago 5 teachers died on the same stairs bearing the same marks on the neck and the cops didn't have any suspects then either."
"So where is the school?" Maggie enquired as Sam pulled the laptop away from her fingers that were covered in icing, "About 20 miles from here." He replied, wiping his precious keyboard clean, his face frowning in disgust.
"Awesome…Maggie mumbled, shoving the last of the doughnut into her mouth, "lets go tell the others."
They arrived at the motel room as they two Chevrolet's pulled up in front. Sam and Maggie waved as Lola hopped down out of the cabin, dragging her black holder behind her, desperate to get out of Maggie's clothes that were two tight on her larger frame. Dean jogged quickly after her,
"Lola," He began, "Are you okay? Really?" He asked gently,
"It hurt, to hear what Bobby had to say about my brother and my friends but I think it's for the best. Everyone's safer now…except the people I'm closest to…which is you guys."
"I would rather be here than safe without you." He said seriously, "Uhm, who's Trey?"
Lola cautiously looked at him, moving herself away a little,
"Who mentioned him?"
"Bobby did."
Lola sighed heavily,
"Trey was a hunter. A very good one at that…he just…" She trailed off, "Didn't make it, like so many of the good ones don't. We were up near Canada when it happened. It was a vampire." She said seriously, looking at the ground, "Got him with his own gun. There was nothing I could've done. It was just the two of us then…we'd left the safety of our group. I…I wish we hadn't, but we thought we'd be okay. So long as we had each other, nothing could hurt us. We were wrong." She looked up at him, tears glistening on her cheeks, "And that was Trey, or rather, that was the end of Trey. He was a good man, we were very close."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"It was two years ago, when I first started out hunting. It's in the past now. There's nothing I can do but honor his memory."
"…do you wish I hadn't brought you back?"
"I do because there are so many reasons it was wrong…but I'm glad you did because I never got to say goodbye and now every time you go out of my sight, I'm going to tell you whatever's one my mind and give you a proper goodbye because now I know that I don't know what could happen next."
Dean nodded in understanding,
"And what's on your mind now?"
"That'd be telling…" She smiled, "I was just thinking how much you mean to me." She told him before walking on ahead, "Time to change…considering Maggie eats so much, I'd imagine her clothes to fit me a little better. I think I'm losing all the circulation to my extremities."
"Dean!" Maggie exclaimed as they walked in, "Catch!" She threw a doughnut through the air for Dean to catch; he did and looked at it hungrily before stuffing it into his mouth,
"Mmmm…" He mumbled, closing his eyes in pleasure. Lola looked on, horrified,
"Now there's a man that likes his doughnuts a little too much!"
"I like my doughnuts like I like my women…"
"What? Round and with a hole in the middle?"
"Uh…maybe…?"
"You're an idiot." Sam sighed, "Come here, I wanna show you what we found…"
"So let me get this strait…we've got to somehow get into this school and check it out?" Dean said skeptically, "Sam, those schools are massive! We'd need to know ahead of time what's going on in there, perhaps we could talk to some of the kids…?"
"Or…" Sam began, turning his head to look at Maggie and Lola who were stood across the room, leaning back on a large chest of drawers, "…we could go undercover."
Both girls stood oblivious to his meaning until suddenly, both their eyes widened in realization,
"Oh no!" Maggie cried, holding her hands up in defense, "I am not going through pimples and hormones again! Thank you very much!"
"Yeah!" Lola agreed, placing her hands on her hips, "We're not dolls you can dress up and play with, y'know!"
"You got a better idea?" Sam asked,
"No!" Lola shot back,
"We have to go under cover all the time." Dean said with a shrug, "It shouldn't be anything a couple of pistols like you two couldn't handle!" He said with a wink. Lola rolled her eyes,
"We're not gonna win this, huh?" Maggie sighed,
"Nope." Sam replied,
"Nuh uh." Dean agreed,
"Maybe it'll be fun?" Lola suggested with a shrug. Maggie stared at her before laughing sarcastically. She knew all too well it wasn't going to be fun.