Late chapter because I spent the day getting fried at the beach. (Regrets.) To all those in the CA, NM, AZ heatwave-I feel ya.
Thank you, as always, for your kind responses. I love you guys!
Chapter 9: Caroline's Conclusion
"Come on, Kate. We gotta go! Kate!"
I blinked my eyes open. I wasn't in the Impala anymore; I'd been dragged out of the car and was lying on the sidewalk. Dean was cradling me in his lap. God, my head is aching. It throbbed, making my stomach roll.
"You OK?" he asked me in a rough voice. He inspected my bleeding, injured head.
In response, I pushed myself away from him and towards the curb before puking up the little I still had in my stomach. The bile eroded my already bruised and pained throat. I groaned, making the whole situation worse. Dean was at my side instantaneously.
"God, you got a concussion," Dean stated, mostly to himself. "You can't lie down yet, though, OK? We gotta get to that body; I don't want that bastard ghost coming after you while we're digging."
I lolled my head as my vision focused in and out.
"Is she OK, Dean?!" Sam's worried voice snapped me out of my stupor. I looked up to see him supporting a limping Caroline out of the car. The Impala was wrecked on the right side, smashed and scraped against the wall. Dean must really love me if he wasn't currently bemoaning his precious Baby.
"Concussion," he answered back, squinting at my bleeding scalp. "You sure you're—"
"Yeah, I'm fine, Dean," Sam assured him. He held the shotgun out in front of him and threw Dean another. "Let's salt and burn, alright?"
Dean nodded and put his gun at the ready before turning towards me. "Think you can make the trip?"
Gregory's spirit appeared, and Dean shot it away in the same instant.
I looked over at the cemetery across the street and let out an almost groan through my aching throat. "Just go without me." The thought of moving made me want to hurl again.
"Not a chance, kid," Dean said. He wrapped an arm around my middle and dragged my limp arm across his shoulders. He supported me as we stood, and I staggered at the change in position. "Woah, hey, I got ya. Come on; we'll make this quick, alright?"
I tried to force down my throbbing and my nausea and my stupor to stumble alongside my brother. Dean kept the shotgun pointed in front of us as we followed Sam and Caroline into the cemetery.
"OK, where's your husband buried, Caroline?" Sam asked.
She gestured towards a large wall of urns. "He wasn't buried; he was cremated. His ashes are over there."
Oh, why was this our luck? I sagged under Dean's hold, letting the head injury overwhelm me at this stupid, stupid news.
"You said he was buried!" Dean yelled angrily. His grip on me tightened as I tried to fall to the grass. The grass would be twenty times better than staying vertical right now.
Sam held out a cautionary hand towards our brother before focusing on Caroline. "Caroline, if his body is already burned, there has to be something else tying Gregory here. Did you keep anything of his? A, a lock of hair, maybe?"
She shook her head. "No, no, I didn't."
Oh God, this night was going to be eternal. I slumped more, but Dean simply supported me more. "Just let me sit, Dean," I squawked wearily. He threw me a worried, doubtful side-eye but gently let me sit at his feet.
"His ring!" Caroline exclaimed in realization. She wiggled it off her ring finger and held up the platinum wedding band. "I got it resized for myself after he passed."
"Let's kill it." Dean pointed an accusatory finger at the band.
I leaned against Dean's jean-clad legs in defeat and moaned, "We forgot the lighter fluid."
Dean ran a weary hand down his face as Sam offered to run back to the trunk and get it. Before jogging off, he let Caroline down onto a gravestone, mindful of her discolored and swollen knee.
Dean kept his gun at the ready, but he still ran a hand through my hair reassuringly. "We'll head back soon, alright? You can sleep in, and I'll make you some toast and eggs whenever you wake up."
I grimaced. "No eggs. No toast. Chocolate chip pancakes. Extra syrup."
His sigh was fond and annoyed. "Your sugar obsession is gonna kill you one day, kid."
"But what a way to go," I mumbled.
Caroline's scream rocketed me away from Dean's legs and him stumbling towards her. She was being dragged away, pulled entirely by her unnaturally blonde hair. She thrashed against the grass as her scalp hauled her body weight along. I pushed myself onto my knees, but I stumbled back down when I tried to get to my feet.
Dean fired off salt at the spirit, but it knew what to expect; it disappeared right before he fired, and it reappeared in the next instant—right next to me.
"You took her from me!" Gregory spat in my ear before slamming me against a headstone. I coughed in pain as my back took on yet another brutal beating from this bastard.
Dean fired at the ghost, but Gregory moved out of the way before the salt could land. "Hey, dickwad!" Dean called with his gun ready. "Take on a real man—not some injured girl."
That "real man" that I called my brother went sailing across the graveyard and tumbled through the grass. Great. Good work, Dean.
"Gregory, please," Caroline sobbed from her crouch on the grass. Unhappily, the ghost stalked towards her.
Sam ran up, the lighter fluid in hand. He looked to me and Dean before focusing on the real victim. "Caroline, toss me the ring!"
With a cry, she hurled the ring in our direction. The ghost reached her and held her up by her throat.
Sam poured lighter fluid on where the ring had landed in the grass.
"If I can't keep you here, then you'll join me in the afterlife, dearest!" the ghost growled. "You're mine!"
With a struck match, Sam lit the small pyre on fire. Just as Caroline struggled for her final breaths, the spirit erupted into flames, allowing her to collapse to the grass in a coughing fit.
I gave a weak, half smile. "Good work, Sammy." He gave me a small smile and knelt to support me to my feet.
"Nicely done, Sammy!" Dean congratulated as he came back over. He helped Caroline to her feet.
"Yeah, couldn't have done it without you, Dean," I dryly commented. "You were a 'real man.'"
He scoffed my comment off as we all hobbled back to the Impala. "Please, I was totally necessary to offing that ghost."
Rolling my eyes would've made me nauseous, so I ignored him and turned to Caroline. "Are you OK? We can take you to the hospital if—"
She shook her head. "No, no, I'm OK. I…" She let out a shaky breath and looked up at me with a wavering smile. "I'm free."
I gave her a smile back. Yeah, I guess she was.
As we pulled up to Caroline's gigantic house, Caroline timidly asked, "Sam, Dean, could I… speak with Kate alone? For just a moment?"
Dean looked suspiciously at the woman while Sam gave her a gracious nod and moved out of the car. When Dean still hadn't moved, Sam jerked his thumb for him to get out. With a sigh, Dean looked to me for confirmation, and I gave him a nod. He rolled his eyes and pushed himself out of the car. "I'll be right over there." He jabbed a finger towards the porch steps and slammed the car door shut.
Caroline took a deep, shaky breath and waited a moment before she asked, "Kate, you've been dealing with spirits and, um, that sort of thing for a while now, am I right?"
Uh, OK…? "Uh, yeah, I have." Where was this going?
"So, in your experience, have you been led to believe that there is an afterlife?" She looked up at me with wide eyes.
Ergh… "I… Yeah. We've had some experience with Heaven and Hell."
Her eyes drifted downwards, and her shoulders sagged. "Do you believe I'm a bad person, Kate?"
What? "No, I don't."
"I—" She looked up and stared longingly out the car window. "I've killed someone, Kate. I killed my husband." She locked her pleading gaze with mine. "He used to physically and sexually and verbally abuse me day after day after day after day…" She dropped her gaze again. "I snuck up behind him one day when he was showering and pushed him down. He hit his head wrong on the tile, and that was all it took. I made it look like an accident, and everyone believed me. They called it an accident, and I was so afraid of what I'd done, but I finally felt free for the first time in years…"
"Caroline," I started gently.
"He deserved it," she told me confidently with sad eyes. "But I think that means that I also deserve to rot in Hell. I thought that's what this was, when he first started appearing to me. And every time I tried to get away from this godforsaken house, he always forced me to stay.
"But you inspired me, Kate," she said sincerely. "You gave me the hope that I could get out. And, now you've released me from him." She gave me a wobbly smile.
I grinned softly back. "Caroline, you were strong in all of this; you started and ended your escape."
Her eyes dropped again. "That's why I wanted to know. I just wanted to know if those eternal flames would be there to greet me when I die."
I shook my head. "Caroline, I don't think it works like that; murder is bad, obviously, but I don't believe that you are a bad person. I've killed people when my life was at stake, and I don't think that'll condemn me. I think the same goes for you."
Her eyes lifted and held a renewed hope. "You think so?"
I smiled reassuringly at this desperate woman. "I really do."
She gave a nod and smiled to herself. She scooted to get out of the car before pausing. "Thank you, Kate. For everything. I'm entirely grateful to you and your brothers."
I patted her hand with a smile. "Anytime. Just don't thank them too much; Dean's head is already big enough as it is."
She smiled and got out of the car. Sam came to help her up her steps, but for how mangled her knee had gotten, she practically strutted up those steps. She was free of that bastard husband, and her straightened back and renewed confidence reflected that.
Dean slid into the driver's seat beside me. "Chick flick moment go good?" He started up the engine.
I rolled my eyes and slouched against the damaged car door. "We just made out for a few minutes, Dean. It was a really romantic girl power moment."
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at me as Sam jogged back to the car, getting in on the left side—the right doors were bent shut until Repairman Dean could salvage them.
"Let's go sleep for a year or two," Sam announced as Dean pulled away from Caroline's place.
"Or a decade or two." I let my eyes drift shut. My head and throat were still throbbing painfully.
"Yeah alright, ladies, let's stop the bitching; we'll be back to the apartment in no time."
I hummed my satisfaction.
"Kate." Dean's voice was stern, so I grunted an acknowledgement. "If you ever drive off like that again, I'm going to beat your ass, you got me?"
"Yes, sir," I grumbled, grinning at the annoyance that surely showed up on Dean's face; he hated when I called him that. It's not like I had a car anymore, anyways; I had reluctantly handed Caroline back her keys on the car ride back.
"Dean, may I please finish my shower when we get back, sir?" Sammy joined in on my joke. "I'll keep the door unlocked and everything, sir."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's bitch about the cursed older brother trying to keep his only family members breathing," Dean bitched. "Laugh it up."
I wrinkled my nose in amusement and leaned against Dean's arm. "Sorry for disrespecting you, sir."
Dean huffed his annoyance as Sam and I exchanged an amused glance.
