Charlene sits down at the bar, the wooden chair creaking underneath her. Her warm Coke sits in front of her on the bar, but she hardly has the time to pick it up before Sam sits down next to her, the way he leans towards her stating clearly that he wants to talk.
"Hey Carly." She barely glances at him.
"Hi Sam." He pauses momentarily before saying
"I heard you were attacked by Leticia." Carly doesn't respond, although she looks at Sam for a moment. He takes her silence as a cue to continue, and he says
". . . but I'm pretty good at reading people, and I know that something else happened back there," Her eyes snap up to meet his. "- something you don't want to talk about, but probably should." Carly looks away again, choosing to stare down at her coke can as she swirls it around in her hand.
Sam clenches his jaw at her lack of response, and he leans tries a slightly different tactic.
"Carly, if you found out some new information about Leticia, or even the other ghosts, it might be able to save lives. You just need to-"
"You burned the wrong bones." Carly interrupts him, still staring at her soda. Sam's eyebrows furrow.
"What?" Carly turns towards Sam for the first time, meeting his eyes.
"You burned Leticia's bones, right?" Sam nods. "Well that was a mistake. She was keeping the ghosts of the boys she killed in line. Without her, they'll run wild; go on scalping sprees." Sam's eyes widen as she says this, and he moves to stand and tell Dean the new info when he notices that the secretive look in her eye hasn't gone away.
He weighs the options in his head: Either tell Dean and go burn the other bones, or figure out what Carly's not saying. Choosing the first option, Sam stands up from his chair although, before he turns back to Dean, he points a finger at Carly and says in a stern voice
"We'll talk again later."
Not too long after that, Carly is herded into the auditorium along with all of the remaining guests.
"Well, guys, I guess we're out of time," Carly hears Chuck say as she takes a place along the back wall of the auditorium. "So thank you for your incredibly probing and vigorous questions, and have a good-"
He's cut off by Sam running up to the stage and whispering something into his ear.
"Hey, what?" Chuck asks, before his eyes widen and he says into the microphone "Holy crap!"
A murmur of confusion and uncertainty sweeps through the crowd, and Sam covers the mic with his hand as he continues whispering into his ear. Carly notices Becky sister stand beside her at some point, her eyes glued to Sam. He seems to finish what he was saying, then runs offstage, leaving a slightly scared Chuck and a questioning audience.
"Hey, good news, I've got lots more to tell you." Carly's attention is torn away from Chuck as she hears the hotel manager say to Dean as he's herded into the room
"Buddy, I got work to do."
"You're going to want to see this, trust me," Dean promises. "It's going to be one hell of a show."
As the rest of the staff files into the room, Sam and Dean close the doors, spreading salt lines across them. Carly mentally checks off salt as a useful tool when fighting ghosts, along with iron.
"Uh, what does the future hold for Sam and Dean?" Chuck starts speaking again, tearing her attention away from Sam and Dean. "Well, how do you feel about angels? Yeah, because let me tell you, they're not nearly as lame as you think."
Carly lets out a small chuckle, although she tunes Chuck out as she hears Sam and Dean start talking.
"Okay. Apparently the legends of Leticia Gore are ass-backwards, and we've got three pissed-off spirits running around. The hell do we do?"
Sam shrugs, glancing through the room. His eyes land on Carly for a moment, and she hesitates to do what she's been pondering, but she quickly gives in and approaches Sam and Dean.
"Look, I'm no hunter, but I've got an idea." Dean raises an eyebrow, but remains silent.
"So they were kept under the control of Leticia, right?" Both Winchesters nod.
"Well, all you have to do is make them believe that she's back. From what I've heard, they have the building on lockdown, but if they're distracted, they'll loosen their hold, and you two can sneak out and burn the bones." Sam smiles slightly, but it disappears as Dean points out a possible flaw.
"Good idea, but in case you haven't noticed, we burned Leticia's bones. Were are we gonna get a new ghost?" Carly gestures towards the woman dressed as Leticia, and Dean raises an eyebrow.
"Seriously? Your idea is to put some woman in danger?" She raises her hands in submission.
"Listen or don't listen, I'm only trying to help." Carly begins to turn away from them, but a hand on her shoulder causes her to stop in her tracks.
Sam's voice whispers in her ear "When this is over, I still want to talk to you." Carly lets out a heavy breath, and reluctantly nods her head.
"Fine." She tugs her shoulder out of his grasp and walks back over to Becky, who's been watching the whole ordeal with interest. As Carly approaches her, she squeals and jumps up and down.
"Oh my god the Sam Winchester touched you!" She squeals, although the only response she gets is a scowl as Carly leans against the wall beside her. Becky doesn't notice her sister's reaction, since Chuck has started speaking again. Carly tunes Chuck out, ending up drowning in her thoughts.
There are so many things that are wrong with this, I don't even know where to start . . . how about we start with the fact that I'm not a hunter, and I know almost nothing about hunting, but I just suggested that Sam and Dean should put some innocent woman in harm's way just as a diversion!
Carly's scowl grows deeper as she begins to sink further into her thoughts, although she's abruptly awakened from them when she hears the door creak open. She slowly turns her head, just in time to see two Sam and Dean cosplayers slip out of the room.
You've gotta be kidding me. Sighing, she casts a glance at her sister, who's completely engaged in the boring story Chuck is telling, before she follows the cosplayers out of the room.
Staying a safe distance behind them, she hears them speak to each other in hushed voices, although her attention is caught by the sounds of a struggle in a room nearby. The cosplayers pause for a moment, before they begin walking hurriedly towards the doors. As they attempt to push them open, Carly gives them one last glance before heading towards the room where she can hear a fight going on.
As she enters the room, she sees Sam and Dean on the floor, Dean with two ghost boys on top of him, and Sam has one holding a knife to his throat.
A small gasp of fright escapes her lips, but that's all that it takes for the ghosts to notice her presence.
One of them grins up at her maliciously, but it makes no move to approach her. Instead, it moves to take Sam's small moment of distraction to push the knife through his throat.
Carly notices what he's about to do, and she instantly peers around the room for anything useful. An iron poker lies on the ground, and she automatically wishes for it to come to her, since she's too far away to reach it. Just like that, it flies through the air and into her hand. This time she doesn't waste any time to stand there in shock about what happened, instead rushing towards the Winchesters and swinging the poker through the ghosts holding them down.
As Sam and Dean gasp for breath, Carly takes the time to look down at the fire poker. How come it happened again? Why did it come to my hand again?
In mere moments, the room temperature drops, and the boys appear again, only to burst into flames and disappear in a blaze of light.
Carly shields her eyes from the sudden brightness, and as she brings her arm down, she sees only Sam and Dean looking at her with curiosity and suspicion in her eyes. She looks down to the floor, saying in a soft voice "This is what I needed to tell you about."
Carly stands in the steps of the hotel, suffocating in her sister's tight embrace.
"I'll miss you! Just make sure to update me on what you're doing- oh, and of course tell me what Sam's like!" She pats Becky's back awkwardly.
"Sure will," Carly manages to force out as her sister finally lets go of her. She gives Becky a sad-yet-hopeful smile as she says "I'll try to keep in touch, but I don't know what's going to happen in the next couple of days." Becky gives her a smile, before turning her attention to Sam, who's standing behind them, talking to Chuck.
"Sam!" Becky rushes past her, and Carly takes this as a cue to leave. She walks over to where Dean is leaning against the Impala, and she nods towards the car, silently asking for permission. Dean gives her a nod, and she sits beside him on the hood.
"Look, I really don't know what to say-"
"That's because there's nothing to say." Dean turns towards her, and his emerald eyes meet her hazel ones.
"You saved us, but we just need to figure out how you managed to get the poker to levitate to your hand."
Carly looks away, tucking her hands into the pockets of her pants.
"It never happened before the convention, and then suddenly it happens twice?" She lets out a humorless laugh. "It's just . . . crazy."
"Well," Dean says as he stands up, causing Carly to do the same. "We specialize in crazy." Carly turns to him, giving him a rare, genuine smile, one that even Becky hasn't seen in many years.
"Thanks Dean," Carly says. She looks back at Becky, who's still on the steps of the hotel talking to Sam, and after taking in what feels like the last look she'll get of her sister, she walks to the side of the impala, pulling open the backseat door and sliding in. As she closes the door, she practically feels herself signing away her (almost) normal lifestyle, and replacing it with this insane one, filled with danger, uncertainty, and evil. She lets out a sigh as she breathes in the scent of whiskey, oil and leather.
Goodbye my life, hello hunting.
A/N: I'm sorry about the long delay, and I'm also really sorry about the crappy quality of this chapter (and the incredibly crappy ending). I was really tired when I wrote this, so I didn't really think about how horrible it would be when it was published. Also, I'd like to inform you that I'll try to do my best to update regularly again, but I'm starting a three-week summer camp, and school starts right after that, so I'll do my best to update but I'm not sure how often I'll actually be able to publish.
Anyway, thanks for reading!