The Road So Far…
"Our dad's gone out on a hunting trip and he hasn't called in a few days."
"Is your dad in an occult or something? Salt and cats-eye shells."
"I know it seems hard to believe. I really understand that. But you've seen the proof that the supernatural exists now. I'm sorry you've been shoved into it. But yes, that was the murderous ghost of a woman long dead."
"Something's wrong, someone else is in the house, they were waiting for Sam to get home."
"This book – this is Dad's single most valuable possession. Everything he knows about every evil thing is in here, and he's passed it on to us."
"I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know – saving people, hunting things. The family business."
"It threw me over and tried to attack me, but it was repelled by some sort of shield or something. It seemed to hurt the wendigo, but it felt to me like I was getting a nice hug."
"Watching one of your parents die isn't something you just get over."
"When I was a kid, I lost people I loved. When I was around your age, I lost my mom. I remember being really scared."
"Hey, this stays between us, 'kay?... And don't tell Sam. I don't do chick-flick moments."
Before I knew it, a month had passed since Jericho. We ended up in yet another small no-tell motel and paid in cash for two rooms for the night and by morning, Dean and I were sparring; not for the first time. It turned out that hunting came with the difficulty of needing to master patience. Not everything was out and things that were tended to be closer to other hunters, or things that might not even be a hunt. I can deal with staking things out, but not doing anything is not something I'm able to tolerate.
So by the time we left Lake Manitoc, Sam and Dean had gotten it in their heads to show Serenity and I how they really live when they're not out staring death in his cloak-covered face. I mean, I don't know for sure that death would be male, per se, but death is a bitch and guys whine a lot, so…
How they really live? Huge change of pace from my term of "normal." We ended up driving four hundred or so miles a day up and down the country for a couple of weeks, staying only once in a well-known hotel (Days Inn) and were up and out by eleven the next day, sometimes staying up until three in the morning because we either didn't want to go to sleep or we couldn't. Sometimes I would be lying awake in bed or reading with the lamp on while Serenity read on her phone, head covered by blankets and pretending to sleep so she wasn't bothered, and I would hear a shout from the next room and end up thinking sadly to myself, Poor Sammy.
He was still having nightmares about his girlfriend, who I'd learned was named Jessica Moore. He affectionately called her Jess whenever he spoke of her, aside from when he and I had been talking while on a beverage run for our older siblings and I hadn't known her full name. In return for telling Sam about a guy I'd dated a few years ago and who I'd ended up punching in the face and storming out on, he laughed and told me that she was in Stanford with him and they'd been dating for eighteen months, and Sam had embarrassedly admitted that he planned on proposing to her before hushing my both awed and empathetic squeals and making me promise not to tell Dean.
Serenity and I were as close as ever, with no mafia and no FBI interference to fuck things up and make us fight due to misunderstood concern for the other's safety. We still shared a room, browsed the internet, watched television, surfed YouTube, and listened to music together in our downtime. When we were in the car, we'd tolerate Dean's music for as long as we could before I'd tell Dean to pull over and Sam and I would switch places so Serenity and I could use my splitter to share our own music. We had both resolved to make our own cassette mix tapes as soon as we could so that if Dean got to listen to Stairway to Heaven, we got to listen to Check Yes, Juliet.
Or something like that, so the trade was even.
I'd never really been on a road trip for the sole purpose of not staying in one place before, so it was interesting to have nothing particular in mind and pull over when we felt like it to check out something or get something to eat or stretch our legs and drag the boys into a game of tag when we were bored at a rest stop. Dean seemed to have a vague idea of going through every state until something came up, but he switched interstates pretty regularly. Every morning and every afternoon we stopped at a diner or restaurant and combed through the newspapers for anything that could be deemed supernatural.
Of course, we were still united for the purpose of finding their father, John Winchester, as well. John was in the wind. The lookouts I'd issued had come up with absolutely nothing, which fit with what I got from them knowing how to avoid law enforcement. If John had a vehicle, then it was probably legal - so that he wasn't arrested and drawn attention to - but it was also probably under a completely different identity. The boys made a point of calling his phone at least twice a day, sometimes as many as half a dozen times, even, but they never got an answer.
Serenity and I got along spectacularly with the Winchesters. It was a pleasant surprise to see that we mingled and were all very balanced. If any of us had an argument, then the others would soothe things over. By keeping rooms close by, we had keys to each other's rooms and could easily get in to ask for or give help, and I suppose being able to access each other so simply during sleep built on the trust and security. None of us ever really fought and we trusted each other; seeing as Serenity and I didn't usually get many friends that we both got along with so well, it was a delight to know that the people we were traveling with were good matches for us.
My relationships with the boys individually was a bit different, but both were safe and, in a way, comforting. Sam was taller than me, but his trademark expressions were the bitchface and the puppy dog eyes, which he pulled off incredibly well while barely trying. In a way, his generally mild-mannered and calm demeanor made him seem sweet and maybe a bit innocent, despite that I know he's not. Some days I wanted to say that he was like a younger brother, but other days, like when I ended up getting clawed by a stray cat and he picked it up and starting petting it, he seemed older. One thing was for sure; we were close and trusted each other, and we definitely bonded over the experiences that came from having older siblings that exercised that title.
Dean was closer to my height which made it easier to forget that he had even more years on me than Sam, but if you didn't know our individual ages then you could probably guess we were both in our early twenties. Dean looks youthful and energetic most of the time (unless he's tired) and I've always looked a bit older than I actually am. I quickly learned the things that pissed him off and the types of music he liked, and by extension I figured out a bit of what his life growing up had been like before I mentally scolded myself for starting to psychoanalyze my friend. Although he had been conditioned to be serious and witty, he was flirty and fun in the off time. He took confidences to heart and yet was reluctant to make other people into confidantes, which was not only understandable, but also relatable.
I ducked down quickly and followed through by dropping to my knees, kicking out with one shoe and managing to hook my ankle around Dean's leg. The older Winchester grunted when I rolled over, twisting my legs, and pulled him down with me. He braced himself on the ground before he landed on top of me and pulled his weapon back over his shoulder to strike.
In a practiced move, I wrapped one leg around both of his and head butted his chest, forcing a soft groan from him as he was pushed back. I followed him by leaning up and pushed myself on top of him, straddling his hips and lunging forward to capture his wrists, pinning his arms above his head, and I held my weapon to his throat.
The entire scene took less than twenty seconds and the "weapons" were actually narrow sticks with the ends dipped in engine grease so that we would know if we landed any blows without actually hurting each other. Twenty minutes of rigorous brawling in and both of us would need a shower and a change of clothes, because the engine grease is… well, greasy, and not only does it leave a mark on clothes but it feels uncomfortable on skin.
"Stop going easy on me," I complained, sitting up straight and dropping my stick onto the ground. I reached up both hands to comb my hair back from around my face and pulled the ponytail holder off of my wrists and around my hair, still keeping him on the ground with my weight. "You know I've been fighting murderers for years. I can take a little bit of bruising."
"Fine. I'll give it my best shot next time," Dean growled, and without warning he pitched up. I was taken by surprise and was knocked off of him, hands flying away from my hair and into defensive fists. The hunter rolled onto his stomach, pushing himself off of the ground, and standing up before brushing the dust off of his hands.
"Like you're naturally that smooth. How long were you planning that move?" I demanded, wiping my hands on my jeans.
He cast me a look that was usually followed by some comment that, to my chagrin, I was hard-pressed to find a sensible retort to. "About as long as you were planning the one that got me on the ground."
I rolled my eyes. "I wasn't planning it," I grumbled rebelliously before clearing my throat and raising my voice back to normal volume. Hopefully, the manager of the hotel wouldn't come out now that Dean and I were done pretending to beat the hell out of each other. "Are you satisfied I'm good with knives yet?"
Dean looked like he was considering it. "You need to be more on the defensive," he decided after looking first at himself, then at me and seeing how "bloody" we were.
"Says the guy whose femoral artery was slashed!" I pointed to his jeans for emphasis, even though he wouldn't be able to see exactly where I'd "hit," just behind his leg. "If they were real knives, I'd be nowhere near dead!" I protested.
"That's if you're fighting a human." Dean abandoned his stick on the ground and crossed to the lone Impala in the parking lot, otherwise empty except for a Honda SUV. He picked up one of the water bottles from the hood and unscrewed the cap. "Most supernatural creatures are much faster. If those were your reflexes to human speed, it wasn't bad, but you aren't prepared for superhuman speed." He lifted the bottle and started chugging the water, a few drops running past his lips and down his jaw.
"Don't choke," I muttered, kicking the ground sullenly as I crossed over to join him. I picked up my bottle and then pushed myself up onto the front of the car, swinging my legs a foot above the ground.
Dean panted slightly, out of breath, when he finally got through half of his water. He drew his wrist across his mouth to wipe away stray water. "Hey. You'll get there." He said with a reassuring smile. It couldn't be easy for him to be like a mentor for a couple of girls he hadn't known for relatively long, given his natural attitude, but he was taking it in stride, which I appreciated. "That's why you're with Sammy and me, so we can teach you."
"Sammy and I," I corrected immediately.
"Bitch," he muttered, beginning to pout.
"Dork."
I woke up when I heard the door to the hotel room creaking open and almost dreaded opening my eyes to the light. I didn't feel like I was in the same bed as I'd been in when I fell asleep last night and I squinted to see where I was - in Dean's and Sam's hotel room, Serenity already awake on her computer and sitting at the foot of the bed I was stretched out on. Dean was rolled onto his side facing the window on the opposite bed, presumably still asleep.
Serenity and Sam had been doing stuff on their laptop and I'd gotten bored, so I'd gone to the boys' room to see what Dean was doing and we ended up going through a bit of alcohol while making fun of a soap opera on cable. So what if Serenity and I weren't technically legal? If we can work in the mafia and FBI, then we figure we're mature enough to drink, and big surprise, no one has ever argued that point with us.
"Morning, sunshine!" Sam's voice sang a bit higher in pitch than normal, probably trying to bother me under the assumption that I had a hangover. I sat up on the bed, surprised that I didn't have any sort of ache or telltale sign of excessive alcohol consumption, but I felt fine, other than a slight buzz in my head. He shut the door to the room behind him.
The sound of the door shutting made Dean stir and he rolled over onto his back, groaning. "What time is it?"
"Five forty-nine," Serenity answered immediately, sounding almost bored as she read it from the computer screen.
"In the morning," I added with no small amount of disgust, eyeing the window and the very pointed lack of light coming through. "What could you have possibly thought was a good reason for waking us up at this ungodly hour?"
"Relax," Serenity hushed me with a roll of her eyes, slapping my leg painfully hard to make me shut up. "Sam brought coffee."
"Never mind. Makes sense. Come on, Dean, the world is waiting." I leaned forward eagerly to grab one of the Styrofoam to-go cups from the cardboard carrier Sam held and he stayed still long enough for me to grab it before pulling away and handing one to Serenity.
"Where does the day go?" Dean grumbled, forcing himself to sit up on the bed. The blankets fell down and pooled over his lap.
"Trick question. It hasn't happened yet," I quipped, fanning my hand over my coffee to make it safer to drink. "How much sleep did everyone get?" I didn't want Dean driving if he hadn't gotten a few hours, but I didn't have any idea if Sam or Serenity slept. Seeing as I passed out on Sam's bed sometime past midnight, Sam had probably stayed in Serenity's and my room for the night.
"Ah… I grabbed a couple hours," Sam volunteered, sitting down on the edge of Dean's bed and discarding the now useless drink carrier.
"Liar," Serenity scoffed, immediately calling him out on it. "While I was watching TV, you were watching some infomercial at three and drinking that awful hotel coffee."
Sam chuckled, not seeming too upset about his bluff being called. "What can I say? It's riveting TV."
"You clearly haven't seen any good television in a while," Serenity commented with a concerned frown.
Dean seemed to transition into the protective older brother with the new information and he fixed Sam with a stern, albeit tired, stare. "When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?"
"I don't know," Sam shrugged. "A little while, I guess. It's not a big deal."
"Yeah, it is," Dean objected.
"Look, I appreciate your concern-"
"Oh, I'm not concerned about you," Dean cut him off quickly. "It's your job to keep my ass alive, so I need you sharp."
"Charming," I remarked sarcastically, but for the most part, I went ignored.
"Seriously…" Dean said with a glance at me, like he was saying, see, it was a joke, I'm not really that much of a douche. "Are you still having nightmares about Jess?" It was obvious to anyone by the way he would shout or whimper in his sleep or suddenly jerk awake that he was having nightmares, but the assumption that they were about Jess, while an assumption, was pretty damn accurate, if Sam's sudden blush was anything to go by.
"Yeah," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper, before he cleared his throat and spoke louder. A quick look at Serenity showed that my sister cared about Sam's feelings enough to look up from the computer, giving him her undivided attention. "But it's not just her. It's everything. I just… forgot, you know? This job… man, it gets to you."
I'd noticed. I definitely hadn't forgotten Peter Sweeney's vengeful spirit, drowning innocent people to get back at his murderers from nearly forty years ago, and even in my sleep I couldn't completely forget about the horrific wendigo that had mysteriously been prevented from snapping my neck after seeming to break my bones - nor did I miss that I'd been miraculously healed of the injuries I'd sustained up to that point.
"You can't let it get to you, Sam," I said, knowing exactly what he was talking about. "Feel bad about things. It's human. But don't bring it home." I offered him a sympathetic smile. "Even I had those issues, just with humans as killers. It's never going to get easier to think about, but if you let it haunt you, it will destroy you."
"Yeah, Sam." Dean agreed, nodding seriously. "All that stuff? You have to check it in at the door."
"So, what? All this, it… never keeps you up at night?" Sam arched one eyebrow in challenge to Dean, appearing to think that Dean was capable of hypocrisy. Dean shrugged and shook his head. "Never? You're never afraid?" Sam repeated incredulously.
"No… not really," Dean answered. I raised my eyebrows at him, having seen how angry he got when he was in those stressful situations - and he expresses emotions he doesn't want to deal with in anger.
Sam fixed Dean with a long, unimpressed stare, complete with a single arched eyebrow before he dove across the mattress, shoving his hand under Dean's pillow. The older brother struggled to turn around and slammed his fist on the pillow to keep it down, but Sam had already grasped and pulled on the handle of a long, sharp hunting knife. The blade glinted in the artificial light from overhead.
Dean gave Sam a scowl and lunged forward to take the knife back. "That's not fear," he denied resolutely. "That's precaution."
Sam stared at him in disbelief for a moment before waving with one hand, shaking his head while Dean replaced the knife under the pillow. "Whatever. Fine. I'm too tired to argue."
It was like there was some divine force saying that they didn't want the boys to argue, either, because Dean's phone starting ringing at that moment, screen lighting up as it buzzed frantically on the bedside stand. A song started playing ("And you shook me all night long!") - I think it was AC/DC, but I'm not an expert on what Sam refers to as "mullet rock."
Dean looked away from Sam to pick up the phone and he shifted so he could throw his legs over the edge of the bed, raising the phone up and striding to get to his bag at the same time. "Hello?"
He pushed through his things and I reached up my hands to my hair without much of a thought, grimacing when I felt the tangles and doing my best to push even the snarls into lying down somewhat until I could deal with it. I looked around the room and spotted a couple of small signs saying that I'd spent the night drinking and watching TV with Dean; my phone lying on the bedside table next to a glass, and my shoes shoved against the wall by the closet. All in all it wasn't much, but seeing my personal effects made me smirk a bit, like I was making sure they knew I was the boss here - mostly because I had paid for the rooms this time around and if the boys went wild, they'd be the ones dealing with it because I would know.
"Oh, right, yeah." Dean held up a plain black shirt for inspection before throwing it down onto the bed, still talking into the receiver. "Up in Kittanning, Pennsylvania - the poltergeist thing." A slight pause. "It's not back, is it?" The tension in his shoulders almost immediately relaxed. "What is it?" A moment later he grabbed a pair of jeans and lifted his eyes up to mine in a silent signal to get ready to hunt. A smile grew on my face despite my apprehension.
"C'mon, Ser!" I cheered quietly, mindful of Dean's conversation, but I cast my sister an excited grin. Because everything was still so new, so… wonderful at the same time as horrifying. I felt like a child learning about the world again, where there seemed to be too much and yet I couldn't possibly get enough - in a way, it was exactly like that, because I was learning about the world again, and in a new light.
When we got to the airport in Pennsylvania, I was immediately on edge about the new case, unsure whether I should remain excited or increase my level of apprehension - because seriously, what good could come from supernatural and an airport, with lots of big planes with lots of people that could die if one tiny, seemingly-insignificant thing was wrong with the technology or equipment?! But my clearance got my three comrades through the security to meet Dean's friend halfway, and he took us out of the actual building and to a field running behind it, with a couple of people monitoring the runway within range of sight.
"What's the problem around here, then?" I asked, squinting slightly against the sunlight and relaxing slightly once we entered a more shadowed area where part of the airport cast a long, dark block on the ground.
The airport staff reached up to rub the back of his neck. He was older; probably somewhere in his early forties, with sandy blonde hair kept short and hairline already receding. He had the age lines of someone who stressed constantly and the deportment of a typical desk worker - he wore a plaid button-up not unlike Sam's and slacks, shirt tucked in. He had a bit of weight to him that came a bit with both aging and with having a job that didn't require much physical exertion.
"Well, it's not really a problem, Agent Kasakabe," he chuckled uneasily.
Serenity scoffed indelicately as she walked next to Sam. While she and Sam were slightly behind, Dean and I walked on either side of the man whose lanyard-tied nametag called Jerry Panowski. "Hey, I'm calling bull on that," she called up. "You wouldn't have called up these guys if you weren't in any trouble."
With that, I realized what the issue was - the awkward stumble around my title and the attempt to brush off any issues? He didn't realize that I was someone that he could trust with the issues he was having. I offered him a slight smile that I hoped came across as reassuring. "You can relax, sir. I'm on unofficial sabbatical. My sister and I are working with the Winchesters." I hoped that the emphasis on the word "with" would tell him that we were working with them on the "special" topics.
Jerry's shoulders immediately slumped and he sighed in relief. "I was wondering what he had done, calling in the feds," he admitted, rolling his eyes in Dean's general direction. "Well, I'm welcoming to all the help I can get."
"That's why we're here," I promised. "No arrests or hospitalizations coming from us."
"Thanks for making the trip," Jerry offered, before looking back to Dean. It was clear from the way he tried to face Dean as well as he could that he respected the older brother from their prior meeting. "I ought to be doing you guys a favor, not the other way around." He turned slightly so he could look over his shoulder at Sam brightly. "Dean and your dad really helped me out."
"Yeah, he told me." Sam returned the friendliness with a warm half-smile, but I could tell he was a bit awkward due to the continued mention of his family's work in his absence. "It was a poltergeist?"
A runway manager happened to overhear the last couple of words because he turned around to walk backwards, jersey hanging loose around his torso and bright orange cones held loosely in his hands. "Poltergeist?" He repeated enthusiastically, yelling to cover the distance. "Man, I loved that movie!"
"Go back to your knitting!" Serenity shouted at him, lifting up her hand to flip him off before looking back to Sam's bemused stare. "Problem?" She asked, not nearly as challenging as she had been five seconds ago. Sam just smiled and shook his head.
Jerry quickly turned his attention back to the question Sam had asked. "Damn right it was a poltergeist," he agreed vehemently. "Practically tore our house apart! Tell you something," he added to me, nodding in Dean's direction. "If it wasn't for him and his dad, I probably wouldn't be alive."
"I know the feeling," I commented dryly. "Isn't it just awful to be blindsided by paranormal activity?"
"Is there a new Paranormal Activity?!" Another random worker asked happily, having caught part of what I said.
"Hey, no one's talking to you!" Jerry barked roughly in reprimand. The man seemed sufficiently shaken, lowering his head submissively and carrying on. Jerry seemed satisfied and changed the topic. "Your dad said you were off at college. Is that right?"
Sam frowned a bit like he couldn't decide how to answer that question and the ones that would probably follow up. "Yeah, I was. I'm - taking some time off," he finally said, with a slight break.
"Well, he was real proud of you," Jerry told him firmly, an undeniable level of certainty in his voice. Sam was visibly taken aback, his back straightening and shoulders squaring. "I could tell. He talked about you all the time."
"He did?" Sam's voice sounded slightly strangled. Damn, if he's that stunned his father was proud, then their relationship must be really strained.
"You bet he did!" Jerry returned, not seeming to notice anything off kilter about Sam's replies. "Oh, hey, you know, I tried to get a hold of him, but I couldn't. How's he doing, anyway?"
Dean's grimace didn't go unnoticed by me and his mouth remained open for a few seconds as he grappled with phrases that kept eluding him. "He's, um, wrapped up in a job right now."
Jerry chuckled, taking it all in good-natured humor. "Well, we're missing the old man, but we get Sam and the girls!" He turned around and walked steadily backwards, knowing where he was going even as he turned the side of the building. The four of us followed and I took notice of the back entrance in the shape of a grey door. "Even trade, I'd say, huh?"
I didn't have the heart to tell him that Serenity and I were really just starting out and without Sam and Dean we were pretty much useless, but Sam was the one that replied so we didn't have to. "No, not by a long shot," Sam answered, sounding almost joking and humble, but a look at him showed that his eyes were sad, almost disappointed. Serenity lifted up one hand to pat his arm sympathetically.
"I've got something I want you lot to hear," Jerry shared, much more seriously than he had said anything before now, looking the four of us over before leaning against the door to get it to open.
This time, Sam and Dean took the chairs across from the desk while Jerry took his seat across from them. Serenity and I stood on each side of the boys and I crossed my arms, the material of my suit jacket pulling up slightly from my hips, making me look a bit like an impatient 'suit.' It wasn't how I intended to come across, but I made a mental note to get a more comfortable, less official-looking jacket.
"I listened to this." Jerry confided, holding up a burned, blank CD to show us before he set it in the CD-ROM and slid it into the monitor. "And… well… it sounded like it was up your alley." The drive hissed slightly as the feed took in the CD and I waited almost anxiously for it to load. What could so plainly have SUPERNATURAL: CALL EXPERT HUNTERS IMMEDIATELY written on it that wasn't totally awful? "Normally I wouldn't have access to this," insert spared glance to me.
"Stop freaking the guy out, Holly," Serenity shot at me with a disapproving yet mocking frown.
"I'm not doing anything!" I protested.
Jerry continued. "It's the cockpit voice recorder for United Britannia flight twenty-four eighty-five. It was one of ours."
I put my listening ears on as he hit the button to make the recording start to play and I heard the static almost immediately. There was a long, high-pitched hissing in the background that certainly didn't sound natural, hidden just underneath the sound of alarms and the power of rushing, strong air.
The voice on the recording was that of a panicked male. "Mayday! Mayday! Repeat! This is United Britannia two-four-eight-five - immediate instruction help!" I could already piece together what had happened - a plane crash. I almost felt sick to my stomach.
"United Britannia two-four-eight-five, I copy your message." A new, calmer male voice said, with a significantly clearer read-out than the voice coming from inside the crashing plane.
"-May be experiencing some mechanical failure-"
The message was interrupted by a long, low whooshing sound that was both sinister and malevolent at the same time. I'd say it sounded foreboding if it didn't seem like it was just the sound of wind, but that was before even that was overridden by a painfully sharp growling sound, sharply accented by the fluctuating pitches as it went from an animalistic low to an unexpected high before the recording ended. I winced.
Jerry sighed as he heard it and he shook his head. Sam had his head tipped to one side, lips parted slightly in concentration. "Took off from here, crashed about two hundred miles south. Now they're saying mechanical failure - cabin depressurized somehow. Nobody knows why. Over a hundred people on board, and only seven got out alive." There was a sharp, almost painful lurch in my stomach that I tried to ignore. Judging by how Serenity shifted uncomfortably, she felt something damn near the same. "The pilot was one. His name is Chuck Lambert. He's a good friend of mine. Chuck is, uh… well." He coughed pointedly. "He's pretty broken up about it, like it was his fault."
I narrowed my eyes. "Mechanical failure is rarely at the pilot's fault."
"You think something supernatural did it?" Serenity bluntly asked, abandoning the pretense of the collected but flippant huntress that she had unintentionally built up.
"Yes. I do," Jerry answered with a very slight pause, like he was dreading admitting to it.
Sam nodded and held up his hands, striking down fingers and ticking off as he made a list. "Jerry," he started, voice calm but with a slight edge to it, like he was shaken by the recording but trying not to let it show. "We're gonna need passenger manifests, um, a list of survivors-"
"Alright," Jerry nodded in assent, watching attentively.
"And, uh." Dean leaned forward inquisitively. "Any way we can take a look at the wreckage?" He seemed to realize a moment too late that he asked the wrong person and he turned around to look at me.
"It's federal," I admitted, but before he could get his hopes up, I made sure to continue. "But it's not going to go straight to FBI. Until they ascertain what could have caused the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration will be keeping a close watch on who comes in and out of the collected debris site, airline-employed, government-employed - doesn't matter."
Jerry shrugged apologetically towards Dean. "The other stuff is no problem. But the wreckage - fellas, the FAA, NTSB, and feds have it locked down in an evidence warehouse. No way I've got that kind of clearance."
Serenity sighed wistfully, like she knew it couldn't have been that easy, but she had to dream anyway. "It's alright, we'll find a way in."
I reached for my phone in my pocket and brought it out of the passive sleep mode. "I'm going to make a call," I announced, already beginning to turn towards the door. "I might have a friend in the FAA."
Sam had my laptop out on top of the Impala, leaning against the door and running the sound programs he'd installed for me, going through the recording of the plane crash. I was trying to pay attention, really, but I had to keep looking back at the more-than-a-little-shady business at the corner of the block where Dean and Serenity had both disappeared; Dean to get fake identities and Serenity to make sure that he didn't go overboard and get something that was a little too obvious.
"Holly!" Sam called, getting my attention again when he saw where I was fixing my wrathful gaze on. I looked back to him unhappily and crossed my arms. His eyes softened. "I know you don't like it, but you just have to remember that we're not doing it to be illegal, we're doing it to save lives."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," I grumbled, leaning against the Impala. "Doesn't mean I have to like it." I sighed then. I knew that it was pointless to keep trying to persuade them to shake off their illegal methods. "Just… keep doing whatever it was you were doing."
Sam nodded slightly and turned more so he faced the laptop and I reluctantly did the same next to him. "Do you know what EVP is?"
I rolled my eyes, already relaxing a bit. "Everyone knows what EVP is, Sammy. It's Ghostbusters 101 - electronic voice phenomena."
"Right," Sam nodded, pleased. "Spirits and certain remains give off electromagnetic energies. We use EMF meters to find them, and they'll lead us to the spirit or remains in question. It can help us determine what we're dealing with. But sometimes the spirits speak." I waited hopefully for him to press the play button over the sound waves and frequency levels. "Most of the time, EVP is how we can hear and understand them."
"Right, because… humans can't understand or comprehend certain frequencies, so we have to use computer programs to slow and pick out the dialogue from the static." I motioned to my laptop, sat on the roof of the car. "Is that what you're doing there?"
"Pretty much." He glanced at the status. "It looks like it's almost done going through the tape."
My eyes darted back to the shop when the door pushed open and thankfully, Serenity and Dean came out, both with satisfied smiles. Well, Dean started out smiling, but Serenity elbowed him, and then he was grimacing while she was smiling. So, close enough.
"What took you so long?" I asked when they reached the Impala parked at the curb, crossing my arms.
"Cool your jets," Serenity told me with a roll of her eyes at my predictable irritation. "No one died and no one got punched out, so it's all good."
Dean held up two fake identity cards for himself and Sam, both looking admittedly realistic. "Can't rush perfection," he explained airily with a flirty smile.
"Like I said, what took you so long?" I sniped, ignored the smile and instead taking one of the cards, surveying it and holding it up to the sunlight. I tried to ignore the impulsive desire to go in that shop and shut it down when I saw just how accurate the forgery was - even the seal was visible over the lamination. I'm pretty sure my eyes bugged out of my head. "Homeland Security?!" I whisper-screamed.
Sam pulled the ID out of my hands and I just stared in dismay at where the card used to be while the younger Winchester flipped it over. "That's pretty illegal," he admitted. "Even for us."
"Yeah, well, it's something new," Dean explained, shrugging his shoulders a bit dismissively, like it was no big deal. "You know? People haven't seen it a thousand times." He glanced at me. "You okay?"
I squeezed my eyes shut and tipped my head back so I would have been staring up at the sky and I repeatedly clenched my fists, trying not to get too worked up over it.
"She just needs to relax," Serenity offered when it became clear I wasn't going to answer. "This whole law-breaking thing is like an intervention. If we don't give her cigarettes or heroin, she'll get over it in an hour, tops."
"Right. Well, in that case… Hey Holls, come back to Earth." Dean hit me lightly in the arm and I took a deep breath before opening my eyes again.
"I'm okay," I said calmly, more to myself than to any of them. "I'm an accomplice to fraudulence that has the potential to put all of America at risk, but I'm okay. I am okay…"
"Holly," Sam started, half amused and half pitying.
"I'm okay, Sammy!" Sam held up his hands in surrender.
"What have you guys got?" Dean asked, pocketing his ID and letting Sam keep the other.
"Well," Sam started, gently picking up my laptop from the top of the Impala. He cradled it with one arm like it was a treasure. "There's definitely EVP on the cockpit voice recorder."
"Yeah?" Serenity asked, leaning forward to look at the computer screen with new interest. "What is it saying?"
Sam hit play on the clip and turned it up so we could hear. It was raspy and full of static but I could hear a hissy, scratchy voice that I hadn't been able to make out before. It was whispery but rough and fluctuated between low and high pitch. "Nooooo suuurviiivorssss…" It drew out the words and the voice was tainted with malice.
"No survivors?" I repeated once the clip stopped as it ran out of audio. "Jerry said there were seven survivors. What the hell has that thing been smoking?"
"Probably wrapped brimstone," Serenity commented with a bit of a smirk. I nodded slightly towards her - had to give her credit for that one, since it was actually pretty good.
"So what are you thinking?" Dean asked, directing the question towards Sam. "A haunted flight?"
Sam shrugged his shoulders, still holding onto my laptop so it didn't fall. "There's a long history of spirits and death omens on planes and ships - like phantom travelers." Dean hummed to get him to continue on the line that he was on. "Or, remember flight four-oh-one?"
"Right." Dean nodded, eyes lighting up for a moment in recognition. "The one that crashed. The airline salvaged some of its parts, put it in other planes, and then the spirit of the pilot and copilot haunted those flights."
"Maybe we've got a similar deal," Sam suggested.
"So, survivors." Dean rubbed the palms of his hands together. "Which one do you want to talk to first?"
I brightened significantly. Jerry had provided the passenger manifestos and the first thing I had done was gone through the survivors and figured out where they were, thinking that we might want to talk to them to collect clues. "Max Jaffey," I told Dean, a bit proud for figuring something out on my own. "One, he's nearby. Secondly, if anyone saw something more traumatizing than your run-of-the-mill crashing plane, it was him."
"How do you know that?" Dean asked.
I held up my cell phone with a smile. "While you idiots were getting Homeland Security badges and Sammy was trippin' out my computer, I was doing the normal type of research. I called his mother, and she told me he checked himself into a mental hospital almost immediately after the crash."
I've never spent a lot of time at mental hospitals, but there have been a couple times when I've been required to visit one for a case (or pretend to be a patient, but while awesome and crazy fun, it's an entirely different story). All asylums are a bit different, but none are completely out of range of the television depictions. However, a lot of them have courtyards for the patients and their visitors.
Institutional gardens are some of the prettiest ones I've ever seen, to be honest. With funding that extends beyond pocket money, they can make it very scenic, and they hire people to keep it that way. There are sidewalks among long paths of trimmed, healthy grass and blooming flowers. In the turning weather the petals were just now dulling in vibrancy, the blossoms starting to wilt very slightly. The fountains in the yard hadn't been turned off yet, and so as Dean and I walked with Max Jaffey, visitors' badges pinned to our jackets, I found my eyes frequently wandering to the beautiful stone carvings spurting up clear water.
Max Jaffey was in his early twenties. Contrary to stereotypical belief, he wasn't wearing white clothes issued by the institute. Actually, he was allowed to keep his own outfits, so he wore loose jeans and a dark grey tank top, a sweater of the same color over his shoulders and left unzipped. His hair was short and curly, unruly, but probably because one of his nervous habits was pushing his hand through it. He walked with a cane for stability and a slight limp persisted, likely an injury caused during the crash.
"I don't understand," Max said, twisting his face slightly into an expression of confusion. Dean and I walked on either side of him, Dean in a professional suit that he'd bitched about for a long time beforehand complete with tie and jacket, and me in my normal work clothes - dark jeans, dark tie, and a white button-down under a grey-black suit jacket. It's not the normal attire for female law enforcement, but I refuse to wear skirts but I don't mind jackets and ties, so there we go. "I already spoke with Homeland Security."
"Well, preliminary investigations yielded unexpected results," I answered as calmly as I could after a second of deliberating on the excuse. "So if you'll just answer some questions for us, that would be fantastic." I cast another look to Dean over the shorter man's head for him to go on.
"Just before the plane went down, did you notice anything…" Dean paused, pretending to fish for a word. I had a sneaking suspicion he knew exactly what phrases and terms he wanted to use but didn't want to come across as suspicious. "Unusual?"
We had already gone through some of this. Although none of us particularly wanted to split up, we had decided not to attract attention. If I were investigating a plane crash rather than a plane haunt, I wouldn't take three people with me as backup. Normally Serenity would be conducting the investigation with me, if anyone, but we both knew that the Winchesters were far better versed.
"Like what?" Max asked, not assuaged by my sketchy explanation.
Dean shrugged, lifting his shoulders casually. "Strange lights… weird noises… maybe voices?"
Max scowled in annoyance. "No, nothing." Suspicion was creeping into his voice at the odd questions.
"Mr. Joffey-" Dean started with a slight cough.
I shot him a dark look and cleared my throat very pointedly. "Jaffey," I hissed.
"Jaffey," Dean nodded quickly, recovering with no sign of embarrassment. "You checked yourself in here, right?" Max nodded but his lips were pulled up in a tight attempt to refrain from scowling. "Can I ask why?"
"I was a little stressed," Max replied quickly, voice sharp in ire. "I survived a plane crash!"
I looked back up towards the blue sky at the cumulous clouds, puffy and white, and hoped that Dean would know when to stop being an idiot. Then I nearly stumbled on the edge of the pavement laid on the path and I looked down again, recovering my footing with ease.
"Uh-huh." Dean kept his eyes glued on Max carefully, searching for any signs of deceit and lies. "And that's what terrified you? That's what you were afraid of?"
"For God's sake, he was in a giant metal box that fell from thousands of feet in the air, complete with corpses, screaming, and explosions," I hissed with a roll of my eyes. "Who the hell wouldn't be afraid?"
"I - I don't want to talk about this anymore," Max stated firmly, quickly getting over the stumble in his words.
"See, I think maybe you did see something up there," Dean argued, not letting the subject lay to rest. While a bit annoying, I had to admit that it would be pointless to not press for information, despite how volatile the subject's attitude may be. "We need to know that."
"No," Max denied, shaking his head fervently, denying to himself almost as much as he was to Dean. "No, I was… delusional. Seeing things." His voice took on a faraway quality as he recalled and he suddenly shook violently, a long shudder that had his head shaking and his shoulders rolling.
I looked over at Dean and he met my eyes, in agreement that Max really had seen something and my "amateur" research had actually wielded some damn good information so Serenity's going to get an "I told you so" later.
"It's alright," I said smoothly, placating, tapping into that natural charisma. I can feel sympathy for people I know; I can fake it to strangers pretty well, and it helps that I can understand that Max must feel pretty freaked out, seeing something so unnatural that he locked himself in an insane asylum in response. "But see, we have to investigate any possibility of the circumstance repeating itself. Even if you think it may be irrelevant, it could be a lead we should follow. Just tell us what you thought you saw."
In contrast to Dean's insistence, Max responded well to the gentle coercion. His eyes narrowed and he thought over his words carefully. I was prepared to nudge his side to bring him out of the memory if he showed any signs of distress, because the last thing I needed was a post-traumatic-stress-induced panic attack resulting in some bruises and blood. Most people with mental trauma don't get violent when they have episodes but some do, and even if they normally are nice people, they can do some damage.
And isn't "Damage-Control" my middle name?
"There was… this… man," Max finally struggled to say, swallowing nervously and seeming very unsure about the correct title of what he saw. "And, uh, he had these… eyes." Well, I should certainly hope so, I thought wryly, but refrained from saying out loud. "These, uh… black eyes." And that caught my attention. "I saw him…" he faltered before adding, "At least, I thought I saw him…" He trailed off.
"What?" Dean asked, pushing for more.
Max looked up to me, finding me more hospitable than Dean. He was frowning in both anxiety and unease - totally normal after seeing someone with black eyes having something to do with a plane crash, I suppose. "He opened the emergency exit," the survivor finally stated with an air of resignation. "But that's… that's impossible, right? I mean, I looked it up. There's something like, two tons of pressure on that door."
"The exact amount depends on the plane, but yes, there is generally around that range," I replied in confirmation. I wasn't entirely sure that he was correct in the "two" part of it, but I did know that when planes were in flight, the cabins were automatically pressurized. Tons of metals and machinery made the pressure against the doors incredible, which is why there's never any guards specifically watching the emergency exits.
"This man…" Dean started. It sounded like he was trying not to say something else that implied "inhuman" by the way he paused slightly. "Uh, did he seem to appear and disappear quickly? It would look something like a mirage," he supplied.
Max tipped his head to Dean, what used to be irritation now disgust. "What are you? Nuts?"
"Possibly," I muttered under my breath. We probably have more of a place in this institute than you do.
"No," Max finally answered, shaking his head quickly. "He was a passenger. He was sitting right in front of me."
I was sitting alone in the Impala's passenger seat when the Winchesters and Serenity returned. I was still wearing my work clothes from visiting Jaffey an hour previously, except I had ditched the jacket and loosened the tie, blasting the air conditioning. When Serenity opened the back door, I had one leg up so the ankle was over the opposite thigh. On one leg rested a notebook and I held the spine of a second one against my other leg, using it as a surface to write on with a mechanical pencil.
"What are you doing?" Serenity asked immediately, sliding in and shutting the door behind her.
"Oh. Which notebook?" I asked, just to make sure.
When I use notebooks, they can be either kept neat and organized, or the contents can be all over the place. Generally it depends on my mood and how I feel about what I'm using them for. If I'm really serious about it then I keep it neat and make a point to change my handwriting to emphasize importance or relativity. If it's just something I'm doing for convenience then it doesn't particularly matter; my memory works to remember what's where. My notebooks are generally a good means of identifying what's going on in my head at a point in time. My penmanship changes legibility and emphasis with anger and relaxation and whatnot.
The notebooks were both kept neat; the information was both delicate and important. "Both," Serenity replied, pulling her seat belt across her chest while Sam and Dean opened their doors to the car.
I tapped the end of my pencil against the one on my right leg that I had been working with when Serenity came out. "This one's for this case. It's the information I've collected that might be of relevance. If there are any tells, I want to be able to remember them in another hunt." This was more like a set of notes than anything.
Kittanning, Pennsylvania
Civilian - Airport Staff - Jerry Panowski
Airline crash - flight 2485
EVP - "No survivors" (deep voice, masculine(?))
Seven survivors
Survivor #3 (Jaffey, Maxwell) recalls strange passenger w/ black eyes - solid form, consistent visibility
Emergency door opened. Cause of crash? Opened by black-eyes. Mechanical failure?
Human? Inhuman strength. Apparition - consistent visibility.
Dean slid into the driver's seat and took a glance over at the notes before rolling his eyes. "Nerd," he accused under his breath. "So what's in the second book?"
The other one was significantly more organized, written in paragraphs with underlining and italicizing and capitals. "Oh…" I started, reaching up to rub the back of my neck. "Well, it's… I'm trying to reduce the supernatural to science," I admitted, offering Dean a sheepish smile.
Dean scoffed, as I'd predicted, and Serenity poked me roughly in the shoulder over the edge of my seat. "You can't do that, Holly, that's why it's called supernatural," my sister stated.
"No, but listen," I argued. "I need to try to understand this, and if I can explain it then maybe I can lessen the ignorance of the world to the supernatural dangers. Look, the woman in white - law of conservation of energy states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but energy is used in everything living organisms do. Humans have a vast variety of chemical reactions inside of their bodies every millisecond, forget about the chemicals being produced and released that control emotional status. Constance Welch committed suicide after temporary insanity - the chemicals were really pumping, the chemical glands in her brain were more active - grief, sadness, anger, vengeance, horror, guilt - all going into overdrive at once and making her mentally unstable. Now it's just a theory, but what if not all of the energy is transferred at death? Maybe some of it remains as its imprint. And people can't normally see mere energy, but if there's a certain stimuli or circuit to it, then energy can manifest itself as light, heat, and whatnot, and that could be how we were able to see the apparition." I finished with quite a bit of pride in my voice.
"That's nice, Holly," Serenity sighed while Dean twisted the keys in the ignition. "But you can't knock everything down to science. If this could be easily explained then the world would already know about it. What about the wendigo, huh?"
"I was thinking about that, too!" I said defensively. "And I was thinking - evolution, development - it all comes down to science and chemicals."
"And genetics," Sam added, taking Serenity and Dean's side but offering me an empathetic half-smile.
"But if what makes a human a wendigo is excessive cannibalism, then maybe it's nothing weird like a curse. Maybe there's a naturally-produced hormone in humans that, when consumed excessively, does something to the mental state. This mental trigger is what marks the difference between human and wendigo. Say this hormone is produced more with the body keeping up with the intake, it changes the way the cells in the body are produced. Maybe it changes the composition," I suggested. "Then-"
"Chemicals can't change the foundation of humanity," Serenity scoffed.
I looked to Dean, hoping for help. "She's right, Holls," Dean sighed. "Humanity is what makes us… well, human. A lack of it makes us psychotic. Humanity can't be applied to monsters."
I growled in protest. "What exactly defines humanity?" I challenged. "Huh? Because studies are showing that levels of chemicals like serotonin and dopamine have a deciding factor in brain development, and the differences between the subjects with higher levels are socio- and psychopathology."
I made a noise of intense irritation in the back of my throat. "Look, maybe you guys don't like it, but science is what I've reduced my entire belief system to. I don't believe in genuinely falling in love; I believe in the emotion perceived as love and mental and sexual compatibility. I don't believe in God because I can't prove a religion. If you don't want me to share it, fine, but let me have it so I don't go insane."
"If this is what you need to cope with it, then okay," Sam acknowledged with a nod of his head. "You can have it. We just disagree with it."
"Disagree all you want," I mumbled, taking both of my notebooks and folding them closed defensively before my theories underwent more scrutiny. "Look, the guy Max described, he also said sat right in front of him. I went through the passenger manifest again. George Phelps, twenty-C."
Dean apparently seemed just as willing to let it be as Sam. "Man, I don't care how strong you are," he complained, putting the engine into gear. "Even yoked up on PCP or something, there's no way you can open up an emergency door during a flight!"
"Not if you're human," Sam agreed with the specification. "But maybe this guy George was something else. Some kind of creature, maybe, in human form."
"Shapeshifter?" Serenity suggested helpfully to Sam. "Or do they have human limitations, too?"
And I wasn't even sure I wanted to let myself ponder the science behind shapeshifters, because that would be grossly complicated without any concrete evidence I could base it off on with my own eyes.