Through two large pizzas they narrow the search down to four old farm properties along or not far from the road where the feeding sites lie. John watches Mary's children work together, sort through data, argue about search priorities and it hits him again, the guilt, the uncertainty about whether he and Derek did the right thing. No fun for a man not used to second guessing himself.
Lilly sits with her back against the head board of one of the ratty beds. Her knees are pulled up and she rests with her elbows on them and the balls of her hands pressing into her eyes. She looks deceptively small.
His eyes flit between Dean and Lilly. It's hard not to look. He should stop dwelling, stop the pathological staring, but they're like a car accident he can't tear his eyes away from. It's more than the resemblance, there's an air about them. Something that marks them as belonging to each other. Which is insane, John thinks. They've known each other less than six months. Raised so completely apart, in such different worlds. Lilly is her father's daughter: educated, refined, wealthy. All he can boast as a father was providing them with the safety of military training and the security of the backseat of the same car for twenty years. So much to regret and second guess, John remembers.
"No." She snaps at Dean. John's missed the last few minutes of the conversation, lost in his thoughts. Dean's on his feet, pacing. Itching to fight. John recognizes the tension, the coil of his arms.
"Not at night." Dean must drive her as nuts as Sam drives him, John thinks to himself, but her voice is infinitely more reasonable. "We do not go after them at night. Not when they are at their strongest. Not when don't know how many of them there are, or which is the pureblood, or where to find them."
"Well how the hell do expect to find them sitting around here?" Dean challenges her.
"Is that what you think this is? Sitting around?" She asks. "In the last hour we've narrowed it to four likely spots. We know their feeding practices. We know they are sloppy. Unless they plan on showing up on the doorstep, arms up in surrender, we need intelligence, not testosterone."
"Dean." John's voice is a warning. "She's right."
His son slumps down on the bed across from Sam, across from his sister. Dean has never been one to sulk, but the look on his face is as close as he gets to it. Sam sits cross legged at the foot of the bed Lilly is on. How he can fold up his giant legs, John has no idea.
"So now what?" Sam asks. Uncharacteristically calm. John wishes…he doesn't know what he wishes. He wishes they were less alike. He wishes he hadn't thrown him out. He wishes he hadn't wasted the last four years, because god knows there probably won't be many more. He wishes he'd just stopped and shut up and hugged his boy. His Ivy League boy. He should have been proud of him. And he is. He's proud of his stubborn no bullshit son. Stanford. Who would have thought?. He wishes he had told Sam. He wishes Sam had never applied, had never put them all in that position, but goddamit, John was the grown up and he should have acted like one. He wishes for all the lost time. He wishes to have back everything they have ever lost. All of them.
John clears his thick throat and waggles the police monitor at him in response, "They haven't fed in a few days, if Elkins was the last. We wait."
"What if there's no car for the police to find? What if it doesn't get called into 911?" Sam's voice rises in a challenge and John's back tenses despite his musing. Reflex.
"Then we hit each of the four houses one by one during daylight." Lilly says without moving her hands from her eyes. She stretches a leg out and shoves Sam's knee with her foot. Sam shoves her foot back with his knee and John sees a faint smile, Mary's mouth, from underneath's Lilly's hands. He's jealous, if it admits it to himself, of the ease with which Sam calms in her presence. He's not the only one. He sees Dean's eyes dart to the contact between Sam and Lilly, sees his face harden, his eyes focus. Someone has stepped into Sammy territory and that is always a tricky thing for Dean.
Here it comes, John thinks. Dean doesn't do discomfort.
"So what do we do in the meantime?" Dean stands up and asks. "Sit on our asses while some other guy minding his own business gets made into dinner for these bastards?"
"Yes." She has a way of answering plainly that leaves not much room for retort he notices. Dean, though, has a way of getting in pretty much anyone's face.
"Not good enough." His oldest snarls.
"It will have to be." She stands in response, almost casually, but one hunter recognizes another and John knows there is nothing weary or casual about how she or Dean are holding themselves. His son is ready to get into it, but there is no question she is the leader here, "It will have to be someone else because I will not allow it to be one of you."
Hit him in the family, well played. John sits back and spares Sam a glance. They share a look that concedes they both just want to know how this will go. Sit back and watch the Dean and Lilly show.
"I can take four, maybe five of them on my own at a time. You guys, maybe one each. Maybe one for two of you. The nest will have at least eight or ten Halflings."
"Arrogant much?" He's in her face now.
"There is nothing arrogant about it. I know precisely what my limits are. It would take at least two of my kind to kill a pureblood. So do the math, a dozen Halflings and a pureblood. And, by the way, only if we get permission to take the pureblood. Which, so far, we have not. Which we won't even have a chance of getting until we get in there and find something that will get us the order. So think, roughly the equivalent of twenty of them. Not great odds for charging in half cocked are they?"
Dean knows he's wrong, but he has to give it to his kid, he stands her down.
"I'm sorry we can't prevent the next feeding. I am. But I will not risk one of you. End. Of. Discussion." She's giving as good as she gets. These two would make quite the team. Will, some day, John hopes.
"Discussion?" Dean does that thing he does just before the fists start flying: cocks his head to side, raises an eyebrow, raises the pitch of his voice just a note. Sam's eyes widen and John puts a stop to it before it goes too far.
"Stand down." He leans back in his chair, "both of you."
They spin their heads toward him simultaneously and it hits him again how much they look alike. Are alike. Like his Mary. And he has to force himself not to stare.
He takes a deep breath. "Lilly. Dean." John flips on the TV. "Save it for the vampires."