Dean cracked open an eyelid and stared groggily up. It took a minute before he recognized the watermarked ceiling as that of his and Sam's room at Jim's place in Blue Earth.
He felt like hammered crap. A dozen sharp-hooved centaurs were playing polo inside his skull, and he was pretty sure they'd pissed in his mouth before the game. Grimacing, he licked dry lips, then startled when a bottle of water appeared before him.
"About time you woke up, dude." Relieved, Sam held the bottle to Dean's lips. "Try not to move your head too much. And don't drink too fast."
Dean took a cautious sip, almost groaning with relief as the cool liquid filled his mouth and cooled his throat. Way too soon, Sam pulled the bottle away and Dean relaxed into the mattress again with an unhappy murmur.
"How's your head? Sorry. Dumb question. You want some aspirin?"
"Nah," Dean shifted cautiously, wincing at his various aches and pains. "Maybe in a couple minutes. You okay?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "Dude, I'm fine. You're the one that got shot."
"Take more than that to kill me." Dean scoffed weakly. "How'd we get back here anyway?"
"Dad. And Bobby and Jim."
"Great." Envisioning their father and the shit parade that was sure to land on his head, Dean asked resignedly, "How mad is he?"
Sam screwed the lid back onto the water bottle and set it back on the bedside table. "He hasn't said anything to me about it," he answered, voice level, sitting down on the bed beside his brother. "But he kinda has to be."
"Yeah. Hell. " Dean looked at Sam with a predatory gleam in his eye. "At least tell me that son of a bitch didn't get away."
Sam dropped his gaze. "Mitch is dead," he finally said. "And that blond guy, too."
"Good. Go, Dad!" Dean digested that, headache almost forgotten for the moment. "I don't remember anything after I went down. What happ– "
"The kids were still there, Dean," Sam said abruptly. "Mitch lied about them being gone already."
"Yeah? Well, that's one good thing to come out of this clusterfuck. Guess we shoulda figured the prick was lyin', huh?" He shifted again and yawned, wincing.
"You want those aspirin now?"
"Only if I can't get anything stronger." Dean accepted the tablets with a grumpy, martyred sigh and washed them down with another sip of water. "What about the kid?"
"Alec." Sam's eyes darkened with regret, remembering the sullen hate in the boy's face. "We dropped him off at the police station with the other kids."
"More than he deserves." Dean scowled. "Little bastard almost got us killed."
"It wasn't his fault," Sam protested, surprised. "Dean, he's just a kid. Mitch – "
"Whatever. I guess." Something in Sam's expression pinged on Dean's little brother radar. "You sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine." Flushing, Sam looked away from Dean's searching eyes.
"You don't look okay, nowhere near." Dean's eyes narrowed. "You're not freaking out about Dad killing those guys, are you?"
Sam shook his head, but it wasn't very convincing.
"Sam, he killed your friend! Shit, he sold all those kids into slavery, who knows how many. If anyone deserved a bullet – "
Sam flinched and stood up. "I'm gonna go. You should get some sleep."
"Sam!" Ignoring the stab of pain the movement cost him, Dean reached out and snagged his brother's sleeve. "Damn it, hold on!"
"Dean –" Sam looked away from the searching eyes, his hands clenched tightly at his sides. "Just drop it."
"Forget it. What's goin' on?"
"Nothing!"
Dean's eyes narrowed. Something was wrong, really wrong. Something way beyond his brother's usual emo bullshit. "Hell, no," he said flatly. "Spill."
Sam wearily rubbed his aching temple, briefly debating the pros and cons of wrenching free from Dean. He could do it, yeah. Dean wasn't at his best right now. But odds were the stubborn jackass would just haul himself out of bed and follow him.
"Fine." Reconciled to the inevitable, Sam sat back down on the bed. Dean warily released him, ready to latch on again if it looked like his brother was going to make a break for it.
After a minute or so of uncomfortable silence, Dean flapped his hand impatiently. "So, talk."
"Dad didn't kill Mitch," Sam said in a low voice.
"What?"
"Dad didn't kill Mitch," Sam repeated a little louder, dropping his eyes to the floor.
"Oh," Dean said. "Bobby?"
Mouth tight, Sam shook his head.
Dean was starting to get a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Was it Jim?"
Sam finally looked up at him and the sheer misery in his eyes told Dean exactly what his brother couldn't say out loud.
"Oh, hell." Aghast, Dean grabbed Sam's hand and squeezed it, hard. "Damn it, Sammy, I'm sorry."
Sam let out a shaky breath and nodded.
"You didn't have any choice, kid."
"Didn't I?" Sam's voice was bleak.
"You could've let them kill you. And me. You could've let 'em keep stealing kids and selling them to perverts. Would that have been better?"
Sam shook his head violently. "No, I just – Dean, I killed them." He gulped. "This isn't who I want to be."
"You saved me, Sammy. You saved those kids. You're a freakin' hero." Dean tried to sit up but his head gave a bitchy protest and he lay back, exhausted. "Listen, Sam, I get it. I wish like hell it hadn't gone down like that. But we screwed up. And the truth is, this shit's on me just as much as you."
"No, Dean," Sam protested, "You – " He stopped himself, seeing Dean's energy visibly flagging, the weariness plain in his face. "You need to sleep."
Dean didn't want to let this go, but he was at the end of his strength for now. They could talk again later. "Sleep. That sounds good." His eyes drifted shut. A few seconds later, already half asleep, they fluttered open again. Green eyes stared up anxiously. "Sammy? You okay?"
"I'm okay," Sam whispered, his fingers reaching out to touch his brother's. "Rest."
SUPNSUPNSUPN
It was just past ten p.m.
Unable to settle, Sam wandered downstairs and found his father, Bobby and Jim scattered around the living room, watching the evening news. A bottle of whiskey stood open on a low table.
Jim greeted Sam with a worn smile, but Bobby and John, glasses clutched tightly in their hands, stayed focused on the screen.
"How's your brother?" Jim asked.
"He was awake for a couple minutes," Sam answered, flicking a glance at his father, who was clearly ignoring him. "He's sleeping now."
"Good," Jim approved. "That's best for him, right now."
With an impatient growl, John turned up the television. Sam hunched his shoulders guiltily and, with a small nervous smile at Jim , found a chair in the back of the room and tried to focus on the television.
The evening news report was flashing back and forth between shots of a constipated-looking reporter and images of what Sam recognized as the warehouse they'd been at that afternoon. A score of police officers - uniformed, plain-clothes and evidence techs – pushed in and out of the building. Further maddening the scene, an agitated swarm of reporters buzzed outside a sawhorse barrier, screaming frantic questions at whatever unlucky soul happened to pass by.
This story began," the talking head on the news desk intoned pompously, "or, rather, ended, earlier today, when four children walked into a Savannah police substation."
The pictures of the three missing children appeared on the screen.
"Police tell us that Beth Ann Gallagher, William Conray, Kenneth Garland and one unidentified teenage boy were being held captive in a warehouse on East Bleeker," he continued. "The property owner told Channel 2 that they'd rented the building to a company called Sweet Home Mortgage. When police arrived there this afternoon, they found two dead bodies and evidence of significant criminal activity."
The screen flipped to a clip of two covered stretchers being taken from the building and loaded into waiting ambulances.
Sam felt his father's eyes on him, heavy with judgment, and willed himself to keep his eyes on the television.
"The dead men have been identified as Mitchell Elroy Jenner and Russell Edgars. Both men had extensive criminal records." Mug shots of a smiling Mitch and a scowling Blondie appeared on the screen. "It appears that the two deceased men, as well as another man found injured at the scene, were involved in a major child trafficking ring."
"Details of how the children came to escape are still sketchy, but we are told that between three and five armed men broke into the building and in the confrontation that followed, Jenner and Edgars were shot and killed."
"One of the men carried a key card for the Baymont Inn on Canebreak Road." The hotel appeared on the screen. "When police went there, they found Mrs. Althea Jenner, mother of Mitchell Jenner."
A clip of a stone-faced elderly woman in a wheelchair being escorted by two patrolmen across a hotel lobby appeared on the screen.
"Mrs. Jenner, along with her son, are apparently wanted in both Missouri and Arkansas for questioning in the disappearance of several children there."
It was Ma Jenner. Sam made a little sound in his throat, then choked it off quickly.
Bobby glanced over at him briefly, expression impenetrable, then got up and turned off the television. "I think that's enough. Time I got on the road."
"Sure you won't stay the night?" Jim rose, wincing as his knees creaked. "There's an extra bed in Caleb's room."
Bobby's mouth quirked in amusement. "Believe I'll pass." He shook Jim's hand. "Thanks."
"We appreciate your coming." There was a decided emphasis on the word \ that no one in the room missed.
John said nothing, just stared blankly at the empty whiskey glass in his hand.
"Anytime." Bobby cast an irritated glance at John, then, making a sudden decision, walked over to Sam and dropped a hand on his shoulder.
"You did good, son," he said gruffly. "Don't let anyone tell you different."
Startled, Sam nodded his thanks and then Bobby was gone, leaving Sam feeling emptier than ever, because whatever Bobby felt, it was obvious that John didn't feel the same. His father hadn't said one word to him since they got back to Blue Earth.
After walking Bobby out, Jim made a quick circuit of the vicarage, making sure that everything was locked up tight, then came back into the living room.
Dividing a worried look between the two Winchesters, he hesitated, then said diffidently, "I'm going to check on Caleb, then head on to bed."
"Night, Jim." John looked up, his face impassive. "We'll be pulling out in the morning. Got a job waiting in Indio."
"Oh," Jim said, surprised. "Well, if Dean's not ready to travel, he can certainly stay here until – "
"He'll be fine," John said with finality.
"All right, John." Jim looked at Sam. "Good night, Sam."
"Night, Jim," Sam said in a small voice.
With a final speaking glance at John, Jim trudged heavily upstairs.
SUPNSUPNSUPN
Drowsing comfortably in bed, a radio playing softly on the bedside table, Caleb cracked open a lazy eye when Jim came into his room. Seeing the older man's troubled face, Caleb snorted in amusement.
"Don't tell me. Sam's on one side of the room, John's on the other and nobody's sayin' shit."
Jim didn't even bother ripping him up for cursing. "I don't know what to do." The pastor gestured helplessly. "That boy's hurting. He needs his father, but John - "
"John almost lost his boys today." Caleb snagged a cigarette from next to the radio, lit it up and drew in a lungful of smoke. "It scared the crap out of him and now he don't know if he wants to hug 'em or kick their asses for doing something so damned stupid."
Sighing, Jim listened at the door for sounds from downstairs but heard nothing. "These Winchesters are going to be the death of me," he muttered unhappily
SUPNSUPNSUPN
Sam held it together for as long as he could.
After Jim disappeared upstairs, John stood up, still without saying even one word to him, and started for the stairs.
Sam said hesitantly, "Dad?"
John stopped and looked coldly at his youngest.
"Dad, please," Sam whispered helplessly. "I had to. I had to."
John's lips tightened. Without a word, he continued out of the room.
Staring after him disbelievingly, Sam shuddered all over and buried his face in his hands.
Halfway up the stairs, John stopped and looked back into the living room. On seeing the undeniable misery in his son's slumped figure, he took a step back down, then stopped short.
He deserves it, a spiteful voice whispered. He killed two men today.
He killed two monsters, John thought, guilt knifing into him. He saved lives.
Which wouldn't have been necessary if he'd done as he was told and stayed at Jim's instead of running off half-cocked to Savannah.
He did what he had to do.
So why don't you tell him that? Why are you letting him believe that what he did today makes him a murderer?
He has to learn discipline. He has to learn that there are consequences when you disobey an order.
The voice was silent.
There was a stifled sob from the living room.
The hell with this, John thought explosively, starting back down the stairs. Sam had learned all about consequences today. He was a boy who'd done a man's job. A boy who would have to live with a man's regrets.
But right now, he was just John's son. And he needed his father.
SUPNSUPNSUPN
Sam straightened up when his father sat down heavily beside him, then squeaked in surprise when John pulled him into a strong embrace.
Confused, he tried to pull away but John held on tightly and Sam stilled, staring apprehensively into his father's face.
"Dad?"
"Son - this isn't what I wanted for you." John's voice was thick with repressed emotion. "Not for either of you."
Sam flinched. "I'm sorry, Dad. I'm sor –"
"No, Sam," John interrupted. "No. You did what you had to do." He put a big hand around the back of his son's neck and squeezed it comfortingly. "I should have said this before. I'm proud of you."
Stunned, Sam stared into his father's deep brown eyes and saw the truth reflected there.
Relieved beyond words, he hesitantly laid his head against his father's broad, comforting chest, gradually relaxing into the familiar, comforting smells of tobacco and gun oil, the faint scent of whiskey underlying it.
Soon he was trembling, the release from the tension of the last weeks almost too much to bear. He pushed his face into his father's chest and tears long denied started to fall. This time he didn't even try to stop them.