Demon Virus

Chapter Ten: Never an End

I have to travel for internet these days, otherwise I would've had this up sooner. Oh, well. I've got two more chapters planned for this story, so enjoy!

It took a fair amount of convincing to get the doctor to patch up Sam and Danielle, and Dean wondered how much more he was going to have to endure before it was just too much. In the meantime, he fought tooth and nail to keep his brother and Danielle from being tied up like Duane had been.

"Why are we just sitting here?" Mike asked, voice harsh. "She bled on them, they're infected!"

"So what?" Dean snapped. "We're not shooting my brother or my friend!"

"They're not gonna be either of those for much longer," Duane said. "You said it yourself."

"Nobody's shooting nobody," Dean insisted, hands clenched as he looked over at Sam and Danielle, sitting side-by-side on the table in yet another exam room. Danielle was holding onto Sam's hand tightly with her own, and Dean figured she was acting as a mental shield once again.

"You were gonna shoot me!" Duane pointed out and Dean grit his teeth.

"You shut your piehole," he told Duane, "or I still might."

Duane had the good sense to look scared and even took a step back.

"You know," Danielle spoke up at last, "we don't know that it will do anything to us."

"Have you seen those people out there?" Mike asked, gesturing towards the front of the clinic. "They all went crazy!"

Danielle just rolled her eyes and looked at Dean. "You know this was all a trap," she told him. "They wanted us here. That's why Tara told me go with you, why Sam —" She broke off, but Dean understood. Sam's vision must have been rigged, somehow.

"You're saying you're the real test subjects here," he said flatly.

"Test subjects?" Dr. Lee said. "What are you talking about?"

Sam glanced at Dean, silently asking if he should clear the room. Dean nodded and a few seconds later the doctor left the room, Duane and Mike following silently, although they cast suspicious looks over their shoulders as they went.

After a moment, Danielle spoke again. "Sam and I already have demon blood running through our veins, right? Does it sound so crazy that the demons might want to make sure that this Croatoan thing doesn't affect their future so-called soldiers?"

The thing was, it didn't sound crazy at all. Dean sighed and ran a hand down his face. "So we wait and see if you're both immune?"

"Not much else we can do," Sam finally spoke up, "I mean, unless you'd rather not take the risk and off us here and now."

"That's not an option," Dean said at once, mind at once going back to the secret he didn't want to ever think about again. He scrubbed at his face harshly and turned away. "I'm gonna tell the others to load up the explosives we made, snag the nearest car and get the hell outta here."

He started the leave the room. "Wait," Danielle suddenly said, sitting up straighter.

"What?" Sam and Dean asked at once.

Danielle hesitated before pulling her hand away from Sam's. "Those infected people were standing outside the clinic for hours," she said, "only their emotional states were so flat they barely registered."

Sam nodded. "Okay," he said. "So?"

Danielle raised her eyebrows. "Do you feel them now?"

Dean watched as Sam blinked and sat up straighter himself, concentrating. "No," he breathed. "They're all gone."

"Because the test is already complete," Danielle reasoned, sliding off the table as she placed a hand over the bandage on her chest. "Tell me, how did Pamela go so long without showing any signs of being infected?"

Dean thought for a long moment. "You thinkin' that the demons've got some way of controlling it?"

"Well," Danielle said, "they've watched you and Sam before, haven't they? You said Sam can sense demons, but that sensory thing only reaches so far. There's enough mountains around that they could —"

"Could stand out of my range," Sam cut in, "and then they could direct the virus from afar."

"That sounds weird," Dean said. "I mean, controlling a virus?"

Danielle smiled slightly. "A week ago my life was pretty normal except for the empathy and the strange circumstances of my husband's death that I refused to think about. I'm willing to believe pretty much anything at this point."

Dean thought for a moment before shrugging. "I can dig it," he said. "So, if a demon could control the virus…"

"The demon probably would've tried to activate it in us by now," Sam said, "especially if we're really test subjects. I guess already having demon blood negates its affects?"

"Works for me," Dean said, clapping his hands together.

"Hey!" Mike came into the room. "They crazies vanished. There's no one out there."

Dean glanced at Sam and Danielle. "That's weird," he said, playing dumb. "No signs of them at all?"

Mike shook his head. "Stepped outside and everything. They're all gone, no traces."

Just to be on the safe side, Dean had Sam and Danielle wait in the clinic with Dr. Lee another two hours to make sure nothing in their blood changed. Meanwhile, Duane and Mike decided they were leaving the town together, and they packed up their supplies before taking off.

"I don't understand it," Dr. Lee said after the two hours had passed, "but you two managed to dodge a bullet there."

Dean smiled, even though he couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding. What were the demons going to do with this virus now that they knew it wouldn't affect the special children?

"I'm going to head to Sidewinder," Dr. Lee told them once she'd cleaned up, "get the authorities here — if they'll believe me, anyway."

"Good luck," Sam told her as she packed up her bag.

A few minutes later, the doctor was also gone.

"Well, I'm ready to get the hell outta here," Danielle said after a minute. Sam and Dean both nodded silently. As they left the town, Dean's eyes strayed back to the telephone pole with the word "Croatoan" carved into it and he had to suppress a shudder.

As soon as their cell phones got service again, Danielle's started going off, alerting her of multiple texts and unheard messages. "I probably scared my mom to death," she mused as they headed down the freeway.

"I bet," Dean said from the driver's seat.

Most of her text messages were from her long-time friend Roxanne, with a few from other friends she'd barely managed to keep in contact with after Jared's death, Stephanie included. All nine voicemails, of course, were from her mother. Once she'd listened to them all, she called her mother's phone and waited for her to pick up.

"Danielle?" Lydia's voice was a mixture of worry, relief and anger. "Are you okay? What's going on? Why didn't you call me back?"

"Mom, relax," Danielle laughed. "I'm fine, we just ended up somewhere with no service for longer than I expected, that's all."

"Where are you?"

"Oregon," Danielle said. She was beyond exhausted and felt emotionally drained, but she'd managed to hold her own and they were all alive and kicking, so she figured the exhaustion was worth it.

"Why did you go all the way up there? I've been worried sick, Dani, I almost called the authorities!"

"I wasn't out of contact for that long," Danielle said, grinning a little.

"You left Thursday evening and it's Saturday afternoon," Lydia answered testily. "Your father stopped me from saying anything to anyone besides Roxy and Steph, maybe a few others. I don't know what's wrong with him all of a sudden, but he was so convinced that waiting until Sunday morning before calling for help was just fine —"

Danielle's grin dropped off her face at once. "He said that?" she said quietly, leaning forward slightly and wishing her ability could stretch over phone connections.

"Yes," Lydia sighed.

"Has he said anything else weird lately?"

"What kind of question is that?" Lydia asked.

Danielle squeezed her eyes shut. "Daddy isn't the type to wait that long before reporting someone as missing," she said. "Call me paranoid, but I think something's wrong with him."

That sentence attracted Sam's attention more than her emotions had. He twisted around in his seat and stared at her. "Mom —" Danielle started.

"Wrong with him?" Lydia cut her off. "What are you talking about, Dani?"

"I can't say," Danielle said, "not like this. Just — tell him I called and I'm fine, okay? Please don't tell him anything else."

"Why? Danielle, I don't understand —"

"And you'd never believe me over the phone like this," Danielle cut her mother off now. "Please don't say anything, Mommy. Promise me."

Lydia was silent for a long moment. "All right," she finally sighed. "I promise I won't say anything, but please say you'll explain when you get home."

"I will," Danielle said. "We're gonna stop at a motel a little later today, catch up on sleep, but I'll call tomorrow when we cross the Utah border, okay?"

"Okay. Love you, Dani."

"Love you, too." Danielle ended the call and slumped in her seat. "So my dad might be possessed," she announced in a flat voice.

"For how long?" Sam asked, still staring at her. "I don't think we ever met him."

"No, he started working longer hours at the mental state hospital a few months back," Danielle answered. "And honestly? I don't know. I spent so much time the last seven months trapped in my own head and I barely ever paid anyone else's emotions attention unless I thought I had to for some reason. For all I know, days, weeks, maybe even months. I just — I never noticed that he was different, not once and he went to Church almost every Sunday —"

Danielle broke off and ran both hands through her hair agitatedly as she watched the brother's exchange glances. "He's barely been around since you two showed up," she whispered. "What... what do we do if he is possessed?"

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "We'll have to trap him," he said. "And really, it's not that big a surprise. Tara told us almost three months ago that every special child has an undercover demon nearby, keeping an eye on them."

Danielle shuddered. "For how long?"

Sam gave her a sympathetic look. "Since the beginning of July."

The worst part of it was that Danielle was pretty sure her father's late hours thing at the state hospital had started around then. "Can we save him?"

"So long as the demon hasn't broken his body in any way," Dean said. It wasn't the most reassuring thought, but Danielle clung to it, anyway.

He stepped out onto the road, forcing the approaching pick-up to slow down and stop. "Hi," he said when the two passengers slowly stepped out with guns in their hands. "Dude," he said to the younger of the two men, "stop hiding, it's over."

The man shuddered and shut his eyes before lowering the gun in his hands and revealing black orbs. "That was a successful test, right?" he asked with a smile.

"It was," the first demon told the second. "They were both immune. They will be most pleased to hear the results."

"What's going on?" said the other man, backing away from the two demons with his gun aimed at the first.

"There were supposed to be no survivors," the first demon remarked.

"The doctor's heading for Sidewinder," said the second. The first nodded.

"I'll see to her," he instructed the other demon. "Take care of him, would you?"

He left as the human screamed once before falling silent. He had a doctor to kill and other demons to report to. The success of the Croatoan virus would be most welcome news, he was sure of it.

Minutes later, the doctor was dead and the inhabitants of River Grove ceased to exist.

They stopped at the first motel they came across in Idaho and got adjoining rooms before Dean set out in search of food. When he returned, Danielle was sitting outside with a can of root beer, staring into space.

"You all right?" he asked her as he climbed out of the Impala.

"Yeah," Danielle said. "Could — could we maybe… talk later? Once Sam's asleep?"

Dean was slightly startled by the question, but he saw no reason why he couldn't agree to it. "Sure," he said. "C'mon, it's food time."

Danielle chuckled and followed Dean into his and Sam's room. Sam, for the first time in a long while, wasn't using his laptop or even reading some obscure book about symbols and wards or whatever was currently catching his interest. Instead, he was watching TV.

"Anything interesting on the idiot box tonight?" Dean asked, setting down the take-out on the table.

"Not really," Sam sighed, shutting off the TV. "I mean, unless you wanna watch Miss Congeniality again."

Dean snorted. "I'm good."

Little was said while the three of them ate their food, and eventually Sam drifted off, clearly exhausted by everything that had happened. Truth be told, Dean was pretty close to dead on his feet, and Danielle didn't look much better. Regardless, he followed her into her room and took a seat on the spare bed. "What's up?"

Danielle bit her lip before she sat down on her bed. "What's your secret that you won't tell Sam?"

Dean really hadn't been expecting that one. "Excuse me?" he said, staring at Danielle and thinking she was a little too good at the whole empathic thing.

"I don't know what it is, but I can it's there," Danielle said.

"You're suddenly strangely blunt," Dean said, and Danielle rolled her eyes.

"Sam knows it's there, too," she said.

"Why hasn't he asked me about it, then?" Dean asked, starting to feel a little defensive. Danielle was a great girl, but it wasn't her place to pry like this.

"Because he trusts you," Danielle said, "but he can tell it's got to do with him and your father. Hell, I can tell that much, and it bothers him a lot." She leaned forward a little. "Sam tells you virtually everything, and he trusts you to be there for him, to — to support him while he struggles with the giant pile of shit demons have loaded onto him. He doesn't think he's strong enough on his own."

Sam had never quite put it into words like that, but Dean knew he had no reason to distrust a single thing Danielle was saying, anyway. "What's your point?" he asked.

"Either you tell him what this secret is," Danielle said, "or you completely dismiss it out of hand. If you have any doubts about him, then you express them or get over them. If you're tired of everything, then you — you say something or learn to deal."

Dean clenched his jaw. He didn't like it, but Danielle had a point. "Fine," he said shortly, standing up to leave. He paused when he reached the door and couldn't help but turn back to look at Danielle.

"Do you think that you need to be saved?" The words tumbled out before he could change his mind.

Danielle blinked and frowned. "Like, saved from being killed, or saved from going over to the dark side?"

"Either," Dean said. "Both."

Danielle stared at Dean for a very long moment. "I think," she finally said, "that temptation's a bitch, but family is stronger." Her eyes suddenly softened. "You're a good man, Dean," she said, "and probably the best protector I've ever met."

Dean snorted softly, but nodded. "Goodnight, Dani," he said, turning to leave.

"Goodnight," he heard Danielle call out just before he closed the old motel room's door. Dean smiled slightly to himself as he got ready for bed. Danielle and Sam were like two peas in a pod, and they both seemed to know how to say the right things when he needed to hear it the most.

Dean slept surprisingly well that night.

Lydia was on edge Sunday morning. Harry seemed pleased that Danielle had called the day before, but the relief that should have been there didn't seem to be, and he never once picked up the phone to call Danielle himself the way he normally would have done. Something's wrong with him, Lydia echoed Danielle's words in her mind, and she found she was truly starting to believe them.

Harry had always been a family man, dedicated to his three beautiful girls even though two of them were different from the third. Sarah had been diagnosed with Asperger's autism only five years earlier, but Elise hadn't been diagnosed until only two years ago. The funny thing was that while both Harry and Lydia thought that Elise was simply emulating her older sisters and still learning her place in the world, Danielle had been adamant in her belief that she was autistic like Sarah. And that was before she had started the whole "know how you're feeling before you can tell me" thing.

Danielle was the "normal" one of Lydia's three daughters, having been an excellent student in virtually everything she studied, while Sarah and Elise had their specialties that they excelled in. The best thing was that it didn't seem to matter to Harry that two of his daughters were "different"; he loved them all equally, even if his most intelligent conversations had been with Danielle, even though Sarah had managed to graduate with an average GPA and Danielle had graduated with honors while Elise was proving to be the math genius of the three girls, getting even better grades in that subject than even Danielle. None of that mattered, because those girls were their daughters and they loved them all the same.

Harry was also dedicated to his work at the mental state hospital, but the hours he put in had always been simply what was needed to support their family. Now it seemed all he did these days was work. He had told Lydia it was because they needed to support Danielle in every way possible while she was still grieving over Jared's death, but Danielle had kept her normal hours at the theater while attending school as a full-time student and seemed perfectly capable of supporting herself financially, never buying things that she wanted over things that she needed to get along in life.

Danielle was starting to get better now emotionally. So what was wrong with Harry?

Church didn't seem the same that day. Harry was attentive, as usual, but he lacked the warmth he usually showed. Elise kept shooting him sideways glances like she wanted to talk to him but was afraid to. Even Sarah seemed on edge, and Lydia hadn't said a single thing to them. If they were picking up on it, too…

Danielle called later that afternoon while Harry was downstairs on the computer, and Lydia was even more relieved to hear her voice this time around. "There's something wrong with your father," she told Danielle, forgoing any pleasantries.

"Wow, hi," Danielle said, sounding taken aback. "What's happened?"

"Well, nothing," Lydia said, staring at the pan of lasagna she was preparing. "And that's the thing. I told him you called, just like you asked, and he was pleased, but he didn't seem relieved, exactly."

"He never called me," Danielle replied quietly. "Daddy normally would've gone out of his way to call me himself once he heard the news, and he didn't."

"I know, I just — Dani, what's going on?" Lydia asked. "What is wrong with my husband?"

Danielle didn't say anything for a long moment. "I can't tell you," she finally said, and Lydia felt her temper flare.

"Danielle Elizabeth Young —"

"Mommy, it's too dangerous," Danielle cut her off, and Lydia felt anger bleed into confusion at her daughter's tone of voice. She wasn't just serious; she was deadly serious. "I can't say anything because one, I'm still not sure you'd believe me without proof, and two…" Danielle trailed off for a moment. "I don't know what he'd do if he were to find out you know. I won't take that risk."

"Dani, I don't understand," Lydia said wearily.

"When we get there, you'll understand," Danielle said. "In the meantime, you can't say anything that would make him suspicious. Just act normal, and we'll be there in two, maybe three hours, okay?"

"But you just crossed the border, right?"

Danielle gave a chuckle. "It seems Dean's really good at speeding and scaring the crap outta me, and I thought only Jared could do that. Just — hang tight, we'll be there soon and then it'll all make sense, I promise."

Lydia didn't like it, but the way Danielle was talking made her think that she was probably best off listening to her daughter. "All right," she said, resigned to the idea of staying in the dark, for now. "Please drive safely, okay?"

"Yeah, we will," Danielle said. "And tell Daddy we won't be back for four hours instead of two, all right?"

"All right," Lydia repeated. "I love you."

She hung up and returned her full attention to the half-finished pan before her, trying desperately to keep the lid closed on her worry.

TBC