xxx
8th May, 2006,
Nebraska,
Sixth months on the road, it seemed, had been more than enough to eradicate Sam Winchester, college boy extraordinaire, from the world. The Sam Winchester who walked confidently through the corridors of Stanford would never have been able to justify the trading of lives.
But Sam knew that was only because in the three years he'd been that Sam Winchester, it had never been his brother's life on the line. And Sam was more okay with this situation that Dean was, which he thought said far too much about his brother's sense of self worth.
Mind you, Sara had made it pretty damn obvious that she was on Sam's side about this. He still wasn't entirely sure what she'd been doing at Roy's, but her relief at seeing Dean healed made Sam really not bothered by the minor details. The time she'd spent playing mediator had also been seriously appreciated.
But the case was solved, the reaper was gone and it was time to move on. After Dean finished talking to Layla, they'd be out of this town. But for Dean to actually speak to Layla, Sam and Sara had to be elsewhere.
'Elsewhere' turned out to be outside the motel, by Sara's truck, as she dug ancient tomes out from under the passenger seat. Bobby would shoot her if he knew how she was treating the Grimoire.
"So what were you doing here?" Sam asked. "Did Josh tell you? You got here before we did."
"Just a coincidence, Sasquatch," Sara replied. "I just thought Roy was worth looking in to. I mean, come on. A real faith healer? Faith doesn't do anything."
"It can help."
"Maybe, but not in the curing-cancer way." She backed out of the truck. "If you want that book, you'll have to get it. I can't reach, but maybe your monkey-arms are good for something after all."
Sam grinned and moved forward to try and grab the right book. It was an awkward angle and he couldn't see what the hell he was grasping at.
"Heard you took care of that possessed student without any difficulty," Sara said. "How are you finding the fallout? You know, you'll build up some resistance eventually-"
"Not a problem for me," Sam said, twisting a little to reach another way. "I mean, I was kinda run down afterwards, but I wasn't sick or anything."
"Seriously?"
Sam pulled back to be able to look at her. She didn't sound disbelieving, which would have annoyed him, just… surprised. Maybe even shocked.
"You are using the ritual I showed you, right?" Sara asked, frowning even more when Sam nodded. "I don't suppose you mother was a psychic, was she?"
"What?"
If Sara had heard the sharp tone in his voice, she didn't react. "Well, my grandfather had this theory that a bit of psychic in your family tree would help negate the effects of an exorcism. And my mother had a much easier time of this whole deal than I ever did."
"You're psychic?"
"Not really. Weird vibes, a good sense of who's possessed and who's not, that's about it. And I spent two years puking my guts out after every exorcism."
"Are you just cranky because I'm not suffering?"
"Probably. Look, I don't mean to pry. But this stuff, it is kinda the only thing that ever mattered to my family. You can't blame me for being curious."
"Well, I don't have any answers. Just an odd sense of thankfulness. Dean kept telling me about all the crappy fallouts you've had."
"Did he mention the time I threw up on his boots?"
"Twice."
Sara chuckled. "Son of a… Next time you feel like ruffling his feathers, ask Dean about the demonic rat things."
At long last, Sam managed to reach the right book. "What other stories can I get in exchange for not telling Bobby where I found this two-hundred year old book on demonology?"
"Oh, Sasquatch, you're forgetting one crucial fact. I know what happened to your copy." She gave him a bright, smug smile.
He was just about to reply when Layla walked out of the motel.
Sara glanced over at him again. "Mind giving me a few minutes to slap some sense into your brother?"
xxx
Dean didn't turn around when he heard the door open again. There were only two people who it could be and he didn't feel like seeing either of them just then.
"So when are you going to forgive him?" Sara asked, apparently not at all bothered by talking to his back. "Mind you, I'm fairly certain that forgiveness isn't the issue here. You should be able to get why he did it. So when are you gonna to let it go?"
"Someone's dead 'cause of me. Don't see how I'm supposed to just let that go," Dean replied shortly.
"People die on hunts all the time. Sometimes all you can do is kill the thing that's responsible and you boys did exactly that. It's no different. Besides, I know you would've done a hell of a lot more to keep Sam alive if your positions had been reversed."
"That's different."
"Why? Cause it's Sam? Cause somehow you're not worth as much as your pain in the ass little brother? Bullshit."
Dean flung his half-packed bag aside and spun around, furious.
But the look on Sara's face made him pause. She glanced down at her feet after a few seconds.
"Just 'cause you're okay with your dying doesn't mean the rest of us are," she said finally, looking at him again. "That should mean something, right?"
Dean couldn't think what to say. He sucked at conversations like this, but these days they seemed to be the only sort of conversations he had with his best friend. Nothing was ever just the normal day-to-day stuff. It was always more complicated than that.
"So how about you just call me when you're okay with all this? I mean, I'm just as guilty as Sam."
"Because you wouldn't have stopped him?" Dean asked.
Sara hesitated at the door and that was enough to make him kinda suspicious. "Because I didn't stop him," she said finally. "Come on, Dean. I was here for four days before you arrived. Do you seriously think I didn't realise something wrong was happening here?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I talked to Roy, the day before you arrived. I just wanted to see if I could sense any demonic energy or magic after-effects or whatever, so I told him I was a reporter, but I think he knew what I was there for. He told me to come back the next day and I did and you were there. And I let you go up there. So if you want to blame someone, blame me. Sam didn't know there was anything wrong there. I did."
"Why would you-"
"Don't you ask me that, Dean. Don't you dare."
"Sara-"
She slammed the door hard enough to make it shake.
xxx
It was almost a day later before Sara's phone rang, Dean spelled out across the tiny screen. With a sigh, she turned off the radio and grabbed the phone. Good thing she was used to driving and arguing at the same time…
"I'm still not sorry," she said, bypassing any attempt to avoid the problem at hand that Dean might have tried.
"Yeah, I know," came the reply. "It's okay."
"Wow. You came to that conclusion in twenty-four hours? That has to be some sort of record. Didn't we agree that Sam was to do all the thinking for you two?"
"Probably. I never should've introduced you to him. You're always ganging up against me."
"Not to split hairs, Dean, but you didn't introduce us. Bobby did; you were too busy trying to make solid silver bullets, remember?"
"Hey, that nearly worked."
"You didn't even get close," Sara corrected.
"Hey, Sara? What did you mean when you said that Roy knew why you were there?"
"He kinda reminded me of Maxwell, knew what I was going to say before I said it. And he told me you were on your way. Why?"
"He told me I had something important to do. A job or a duty or something, something that wasn't finished yet."
Sara smiled, glad Dean couldn't see her. "Doesn't sound so bad."
"I don't know. Doesn't it sound sort of… destiny-ish?"
"Oh, we have a destiny now, do we?" Sara said. "Aren't we the special one?"
"Stuff it, Sara."
"Sorry. But you don't believe in destiny. You once told me that you were put on this earth to do whatever the fuck you wanted, a view which Pastor Jim is still worried about."
"Yeah, I probably shouldn't have said that in front of him."
Faintly, Sara heard Sam in the background, a door closing, quiet brotherly insults.
"Dean, I can't even pretend to understand what Roy was talking about. But if you do have a destiny, then isn't it going to turn up whatever happens? I mean, you can keep on doing what you want."
"Yeah, I guess so."
Another long pause, but not awkward because there was years of friendship there.
"Dean?" Sara said finally. "Roy said something to me too. He said all this was going to get worse before it got better. But I've already worked that out on my own."
"How much worse?"
Sara didn't know how to answer that question, she really didn't. Her own theories and beliefs were too dark, too hopeless. She didn't want to tell Dean she thought they were all going to die, alone and scared and beaten. But she couldn't lie to him either.
"We've been so lucky, Dean," she said finally. "So damn lucky. We should all be dead a dozen times over and this life isn't getting any easier. And I can't shake the feeling that our luck's running out."
"We'll be okay," Dean said. But he spoke too soon and Sara knew he was just saying it to try and help her. "We're not just lucky, we're good. And nothing's going to change that."
"Dean, it's more complicated than that. More ghosts, more monsters, way too many demons, more than I've dealt with in my whole life. I'm constantly tracking down a possessed host and there could be dozens that I don't even know about."
"We're gonna be okay, Sara."
"How?"
"Cause we're not going to let it be any other way, right?"
Sara sighed. She wanted to argue, she wanted to be strong and sensible and God knows what else, but sometimes she really was still the scared kid Dean had first taken hunting. "Promise?"
"Yeah, I promise."
But she couldn't help wondering which one of them Dean was hoping to convince.
xxx
27th May, 2006,
Black Earth, Wisconsin
Please enter search parameters…
Sam frowned at the computer screen. He'd already tried psychic, telekinesis, visions, all with no decent results to speak of. The Hub was a good computer system, but it did have access to a hell of a lot of information. Well, he'd just have to narrow it down. Somehow.
The easiest thing to do would be to call Sara or email Will, ask them for a few ways to get the best results out of this machine. The only problem was, neither Sara nor the Atwoods knew anything about his… talents. Or should that be curse? And if the fricking visions weren't enough, he now had the ability to move things with his mind.
"You find anything yet?" Dean yelled down the stairs.
"Nothing useful," Sam called back, thoughtfully running his hands over the keyboard. He'd already researched Max Miller, tracking him all the way back to preschool, and that hadn't resulted in any new information, except for the fact that Mrs Miller had died in '84, not '83.
But how about…
Search: FIRE, SUSPICIOUS, NURSERY, 1983-1984.
The Hub buzzed and whirred around him as he waited for the search to finish. It would take time, but he had a stack of files to work his way through and he was buried in a list of possible witches and warlocks when the computer beeped loudly.
Plenty of results, as well there might have been, but not the one he'd been expecting. Sam frowned and went back to the search programme.
Search: Mary Winchester, November 2nd 1983.
Another wait, this one much shorter, and a few results, but nothing about his own nursery fire.
In pure confusion, Sam just ran the basic person search for Mary Winchester. A death certificate came up, the right date, definitely the right woman, but the COD wasn't burning. It was a heart attack.
Dean was still eating when Sam came up out of the basement twenty minutes later. His big brother might hate the whole white-picket-fence idea, but Sam knew that a decent kitchen always went down well with Dean.
"We can hang around for a few days, see if Sara turns up," Dean said through a mouthful of homemade BLT as he shoved a second sandwich towards Sam. It was a Dean BLT, about 90% meat with mere shreds of vegetable.
"Yeah, okay." He turned towards the kitchen table, only to give up on the idea of sitting down when he saw their vast collection of weapons spread out across the wooden surface.
"Doesn't Sara mind you doing that?" he asked, leaning against one of the counters instead.
"Hasn't complained yet."
And, indeed, when Sara turned up the next morning, she didn't even seem to notice the newly-colonised kitchen table. That could have had something to do with the fact that she couldn't move one of her arms properly. Dean's almost-impressed swearing had been Sam's first clue that Sara was even back.
When Sam reached the kitchen, he could see Dean's point. Sara's left arm didn't seem to have much skin left on it, not to mention the burn stretching between her wrist and elbow.
"-so quit fussing," Sara said as Sam walked it. "It was just a fire elemental."
"Cool," Sam said because he could see the faint signs of stress and anger on Dean's face. "How did you get rid of it?"
A look of faint embarrassment crossed Sara's face. "Well, when it grabbed me, I kinda... I fell into a pond."
Dean snorted with laughter, still checking over the burn. Sam could see the remnants of old bandages to one side, Sara had obviously got her arm treated properly, but then Dean never did trust doctor's assessments.
"So did you two just get fed up with motel beds or what?" Sara asked when Dean had finally let go of her arm and rewrapped it for her.
"I wanted to ask you something about the Hub," Sam answered. "It is possible to edit information on it, isn't it?"
"Sure. Will makes a lot of money hiding the criminal records of Hunters. Why?"
"Does he ever just delete records?"
"Nope. It's too suspicious. The best he can do is a bit of editing, alter the date, the description, COD, whatever's required." Sara flexed her hand experimentally. "And, once again, I ask, why?"
"Because someone's tampered with my mom's death certificate." Sam kept his gaze fixed steadily on Sara. He'd inherited that glare from his father.
Of course, Sara had been glared at by the real John Winchester and she didn't seem at all fazed when she crossed her arms and calmly replied, "Yeah, that was Will. At my request, of course."
"Jesus," Dean muttered. "Sara, tell me you had a good reason for this."
"Of course I had a good reason, you idiot!" Sara snapped back. "When the situation for hunters gets worse, it's the freaks who suffer. And I don't mean just the witches and warlocks, I mean the seers and the psychics. Which, in case you think I haven't figured it out, includes your little brother."
"Why would you think that?" Sam asked, shooting for confident and missing it completely.
"Because despite what everyone seems to think, I am good at my job. This demon or whatever it is, it came after you twice. That would be reason enough for certain Purists to want you dead. Not to mention how you can perform just about any exorcism without so much as headache afterwards! No one should be able to do that, not with the kind of exorcism I taught you!" Sara took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "Plus, Dean really is a terrible liar when it comes to me."
"Sara, it's complicated," Dean said. It wasn't an explanation, not even close, but Sam knew Dean wouldn't say any more without his okay, and that was a long time coming. If it was ever coming.
Sara shrugged. "I'm not going to ask pointed questions about something that you don't want to tell me. But I am going to do everything in my power to help you guys out and if you have a problem with that, then get the fuck out of my house."
Dean looked down, clearly embarrassed if you knew him well enough.
"Okay," Sam said softly. "We get it. Really. But that doesn't explain why you didn't tell us about the others."
"Other? What others?"
"You didn't know about Max Miller?" Sam said.
"If I say 'who', will you finally understand that I have no idea what you're talking about?"
"There was this guy," Dean said. "Max Miller. He was killing his family, we thought it was a curse or spirit or something. But he told Sam that his mom died the same way ours did."
"But when I looked him up on the Hub, there was no record of a nursery fire, nothing."
"One woman dying in a freak accident doesn't always make the papers, Sasquatch," Sara said.
"Yeah, but there wasn't even a death certificate."
Sara paused, opened her mouth, closed her mouth and then strode off towards the basement door. Once in the basement, Sam and Dean found places to perch while Sara ducked under one of the tables.
"Fun fact for you, Sasquatch," she said as she stood up and sat in front of the main computer. "The Hub keeps a record of all original files accessed and any changes made to them completely separate to the official records out there."
"Will's way of keeping track?" Sam asked.
Sara nodded. "Can't hide your tracks if you can't find them first. Besides, it never hurts to have something to use against hunters."
"After the first murder attempt, Adrian made it pretty clear that if anything happens to Will, all of the information he hid will get sent straight to the Feds," Dean added. "Just in case anyone else thought of covering their tracks a little too thoroughly."
"Are all hunters really that bad?" Sam asked.
"Of course not. But it helps to view them in two groups: those you trust with your life and those you should never take your eyes off. It's not hard to figure out which group makes up the majority," Sara said, eyes fixed on the computer screen. "I know of maybe three dozen hunters by name. Out of those, I trust under a dozen to help me out. Everyone else might as well be a demon for all the help they give me."
"Which category is my dad in?"
Sara frowned at him. "Don't start, Sasquatch. Oh, hang on… Got it. Mrs Miller's death certificate. No remains found, assumed cause of death is asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation and severe burns. Sounds about right, doesn't it?"
"Can you compare the date of date to Max's date of birth?" Sam asked, ignoring the warning look Dean flashed him.
"Six months exactly, just like you." Seeing the boys' expressions, she rolled her eyes again. "Oh, come on. That was easy to figure out."
"That confirms what Max told you," Dean said to his brother. "We've got a pattern."
"Two's a line, not a pattern," Sara retorted. "There are more deleted entries here. I'm trying to… Shit!"
"What?"
"Someone's been through the backups, deleting most of them." She hit a few more keys. "That son of a bitch!"
"Which one?" Dean asked, rubbing his eyes.
"Well, there are only five people who knew about the backups. You, me, Will, Adrian and John. And it seems that these records were accessed just before John came to me for the Lucian diaries. He even told me he'd been in Black Earth. Without any one to watch the Hub…"
"Why would he do that?"
"I don't think he'd be covering up for the demon, so maybe he's just covering his own back." Sara looked at Sam. "Or yours. If I could figure part of this out, so could someone else."
"Is there any way of getting those records back?"
"Will might be able to, but there's no way I can do it. We wouldn't even have the info on Mrs Miller if there hadn't been a power cut while John was here. I spent three days recreating the security system, so I remember the date."
"But there were more records," Dean said thoughtfully. "So I guess we can expect more of these kids."
Sara shrugged again. "Hardly my place to comment on such things. And if you've both quite finished accusing me of… whatever it was, I'm due elsewhere."
Sam flushed, ashamed, as Sara hurried up the stairs, letting the door swing shut behind her. Dean looked similarly uncomfortable and he was standing up mere moments after Sara was gone. He left without saying anything, but Sam knew more than enough to just stay where he was. In their family, they never let harsh words be final words. They had enough bad luck as it was.
xxx
Sara flung her duffel into the back of her truck, yanked open the driver's side door and then her anger suddenly ran out. She didn't need this, not from John, definitely not from Dean, and if she didn't get a grip right that minute, she was going to start bawling like a little kid.
"I just didn't want you to worry."
She turned to face Dean, fond amusement fighting with irritation, the standard combination when dealing with her best friend. "You're about seven years too late for that."
"I know. And I'm sorry."
"Dean, I swear, I was only trying to keep you safe. I don't want anyone hunting Sam."
"Is it really going to come to that?"
"Depends on how many people, or which people, work out what he can do, whatever that may be. But it might blow over. It has before."
"Are you safe?"
"So far as I can be, yeah. There are some guys running interference for me and not many people know about this place."
"But you're not okay."
"Dean… I haven't been 'okay' in a long time." She shrugged. Dean was really starting to hate that motion. "This'll pass, like everything else. Just… Just stay safe. Please."
"This whole thing's really freaked you out, hasn't it?"
"I don't give a rat's arse about what Sam can do. Provided he isn't sacrificing virgins, it doesn't matter. Doesn't change who he is. But what's going to happen to him because of all this? That really does scare me."
"You don't even really like the guy," Dean said, honestly confused.
Sara shook her head slightly, mostly in disbelief. "But, my dear idiot, whatever or whoever comes after him is going to have to go through you first."
Dean paused, remembering Nebraska, remembering Sara's anger which he had recognised even then as merely being a mask for real terror, remembering her confession that she'd had the chance to stop the Reaper and hadn't. After all that, not to mention all the stupid stunts she pulled in three years of working with him, something as harmless as fudging a few records was hardly surprising.
"I guess I just don't understand that," he said softly, and they both knew he wasn't talking about his suicidal protective tendencies.
"Maybe you don't need to understand it to be able to put up with it." Sara gave him a final smile and climbed into the truck, pulling the door shut after her.
Dean took a step back as she started up the truck. It wasn't like his dad's, but just a simple black Ford Ranger. She used to own a motorbike and Dean could remember how much she'd loved that machine, but it wasn't strictly practical. He wished that didn't matter so much.
He stayed where he was until the truck was out of sight, then headed back in. Sara was right; this situation, the demon, the visions, all of it, was going to end badly. Really badly. And, realistically, the only way he'd get the kinda answers he needed would be to track down his dad and make him talk, which was never going to happen. So until something else happened, something that could point him in the right direction, he'd just have to play it by ear.
It was a good thing that he'd always been good at bullshitting his way through anything.