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NBTS Ch 10

Sam re-entered the kitchen just as he was ending his phone call. "Thanks Bobby. Yeah…you too."

He found himself at the same spot at the table.

Dean and I separated. We then sat across from him, our hands seemingly welded together. "Well? What did Bobby say?" Dean asked.

Sam slowly lifted his gaze from his darkened cell phone screen and said, "He's pretty sure he has a book on the ritual. From what he could remember, it's particularly…." He paused and looked at me as if he was unsure that he should continue.

"It's okay, Sam," I said, trying to be strong. "I figured the ritual wouldn't consist of the potential victim gorging on lollies and candy canes. Please, continue. I'm okay… really."

"Alright… well from what he remembers, it's particularly bloody. Apparently, every step of the ceremony requires the blood of… the blood of the potential vessel."

"Any word of where it would most likely take place?" Dean asked.

"Just something vague about untainted soil or something… Bobby couldn't really remember, but he knows where to find the book, so he'll look it over again before getting back to us." Sam said as he finally met my eyes. "Bobby said that when he gets here, he needed to have a 'talk' with you. Sorry."

I looked down at the table cloth and pick at an imaginary thread with my free hand while saying, "Yeah, I figured he would be mad."

Dean unlatched his hand to rub my back and then he put his arm around me.

"I don't think he's mad," Sam said. "I think he's just really concerned. Plus, he said that the details of the day To… uh… the day of his birth could help to understand the ritual better."

I reached out across the table and patted his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You can say his name, Sam. It's alright." Still holding his hand with my right, I grabbed Dean's knee with my left and looked between the two of them in an attempt to reach an agreement. "Let's just treat this like any other case, okay? No special treatment. Got it?"

"But," Dean said softly. "This isn't just any other case, Lay."

"Yes Dean, it is. If I don't think of it that way, I won't be able to get through this, okay? Please, don't hold back anything. No matter how disturbing you think that I might find it. Shielding me from the truth and keeping me in the dark isn't going to help any of us get him back." For some reason I couldn't bring myself to say Toby's name again. It was easier for me to disconnect and stay focused if I didn't use his name. "Not being up front got us here in the first place. Do we have a deal?"

"Okay," they both said reluctantly.

I was satisfied that we had reached an agreement, so I encouraged Sam to continue by saying, "So, what else did Bobby have to say?"

"Not much else really. He was going to find the book then make his way here. He said that we should just keep digging to get details on the scene where… Toby disappeared from."

As if on cue, Castiel appeared by the kitchen table hold a semi-full grey and blue camouflage backpack and said, "I apologize for the delay. Tobias' backpack was not at the police station as I had originally thought it would be."

"No worries Castiel, thanks again for getting it," I said with a soft smile. "Where'd you end up finding it?"

"William had it with him."

"Oh? And you didn't bring Uncle Bill home with you? Is he on his way?" I asked, completely confused. If Bill had already left the sheriff's office, why wasn't he home yet? We could have waited the 20 minutes it would have taken him to drive the short distance home in order to examine Toby's bag.

"Adelaide, I attempted to, but he refused to come with me. William was too intoxicated for me to be able to reason with him. I was barely able to leave with the backpack," Castiel said in his usual unnervingly even tone.

"INTOXICATED!?!" I asked with a shriek, wide-eyed. Then I remembered that Auntie Mo was resting in bed, so I hushed my tone when I continued. "Castiel, please tell me you didn't just say that you found Uncle Bill in a bar… drunk."

"Lay?" Dean said as he unwrapped his arm that was around me and grabbed my hands. "Since when did you become a Puritan?"

"I'm not Dean, but Bill is an alcoholic. He's been sober for almost ten years now," I said in a disheartened tone. "Maureen is going through hell right now and this… this could kill her. She can't see him like that. It's not fair. Please, we need to get him out of there. Please!" With every word I spoke my desperation became more apparent.

"Lay, Lay, it's okay. We'll get him out of there. Shhh… it'll be okay," Dean said as he pulled me close and tried to comfort me. While my face was buried in his chest, he turned to Castiel and continued. "What was the name of the bar?"

Before Castiel could answer, I raised my head and said, "There's only one place he'd go. I'll take you guys there. But first, let me go check on Maureen quickly."

Dean slid off the bench to let me out, gave me a reassuring hug and said, "I promise, everything will be okay. Take your time; we'll wait here for you."

"Thanks, I'll just be a minute."

While I went to ensure that the distraught mother was comfortable, Sam filled the other two in on the contents of Toby's knapsack. At first he just found the usual: a couple of text books, a pencil case, a note book and a baseball. Next, on the back of the bag, he found some more sulfur, which further confirmed our suspicions that Toby had been taken by a demon. The right strap had been separated from the top of the bag. The ends were frayed, presumably from the force used to tear it from his delicate frame. There was no blood anywhere, which was encouraging, although, we would have been naïve to believe that when we found him that he would remain completely unharmed. Finally, on the front pocket, Sam noted that the zipper was broken and inside he found another clue: a 4 inch bloodstone pendant, carved into the shape of a rose. They assumed that it belonged to his abductor because it was accompanied by a broken gold chain.

"Well, whoever it is that has him, at least they have good taste in jewelry," I said feebly from the kitchen doorway, looking at the broken chain that Sam dangled in his hand.

"And now we know it's most likely a woman we're looking for too," Sam said.

"But first things first," Dean said and clapped his hands together as he stood up from the booth. With concern in his eyes, Dean looked at me and said, "Let's go get Bill and get him sobered up."

As I walked up to the group, I was hugging my body, rubbing my hands up and down my arms as if I was freezing cold (even though I was quite warm).

"I still can't believe he fell off the wagon," I said in disbelief. "He's been doing so well. Through the droughts… through the crop failures…"

"Hey, Cas? Do you think you could stay here with Maureen in case she needs anything?" Dean asked softly while leading me out the back door. I continued to mumble to myself as I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that Bill had turned to the bottle for comfort.

Castiel just nodded in response.

Once we got closer to the car, I suddenly started to change my tune. "I mean seriously! Does he think that he's the ONLY ONE scared shitless and worried right now?!?!" I was on the verge of becoming hysterically mad. "I can't believe him! He SHOULD be here! With Maureen! Doesn't he think that she might need him?! That selfish piece of…"

Before I could finish the thought, Dean had pulled me into a bear hug, stifling any further outburst from me at this time. He rubbed both hands from the small of my back to my neck, alternating left and right hands as he tried to calm me.

"Shhh, Lay. You don't mean that. Come on. It'll be alright."

I gently pushed out his embrace so that I could look at his face, inhaled deeply and continue, still quite angry, "But Dean he needs…"

He pulled me back into his arms and his right hand guided my head to his left shoulder while he massaged my neck. "I know…I know. But we really need you to be calm before we head out to get him," he said.

I hated to admit that Dean was right, once again, but there was no way I could get Bill to straighten out if I myself wasn't under control. I again pushed away from him slowly and without making eye contact, I said, "You're right…I'm calm now. I swear."

"I won't let that happen again," I promised both of them. I untangled myself from his supportive arms, straightened my jacket to further compose myself and made my way to the car.

"Addy, we can go and take care of this. Why don't you stay?" Sam asked, stopping me by gently grabbing my right arm.

All of the day's events were very overwhelming, but I had already vowed to see this through. Plus I knew that if Bill wasn't listening to the advice of an angel, there was no way he was going to listen to a Winchester.

"Thanks Sam, but I really can do this. Plus, Bill can get pretty nasty when he's been drinking. I'm one of the only people that he won't try to fist fight with. I promise I'm okay to do this."

Then I slid into the back seat of my GTO, I knew that I was far too emotional to try to navigate it safely into town. Dean once again crawled in beside me, taking on the role as my own personal guardian angel. Sam then made himself behind the wheel while I said, "I'm sorry if you're feeling like our own personal chauffeur today."

Sam laughed good-naturedly and said, "That's no problem, Addy. I'm just glad that someone trusts me enough with their 'beloved' to let me drive it more than once in a day."

I gave him a small smile and quietly said, "Just hang a right out of the driveway and follow the road. The bar is just on the other side of town."

As we drove down the road, sporadically passing the farm houses that accompanied the vast cornfields, I stared out the window, lost in thought.

"Everything's going to be okay, Lay. He's probably just really worried about Toby," Dean said as consolation while squeezing my right knee.

I slowly turned to face him and said with a heavy sigh and said, "I know. But after what Sydney did to me, Bill stopped drinking cold turkey. He was scared he might do something like that in a drunken rage…If I had of just told Maureen why we were in town last night, maybe they could have protected Toby better. You know? Maybe kept him out of school? Something…anything."

"Lay, you can't blame yourself. You know as well as we do that that wouldn't have stopped Lucifer. He would have just found another way to get to him," Dean said firmly trying to reason with me.

"Yeah…I know. Still…Bill and Maureen don't deserve to be stuck in the middle of this. They're such good people. I mean…they've always, always been there to take care of me. They patched me up after fights, no questions asked. And what do I do? I just breeze in and out of town, whenever I pleased, barely spending a full 24 hours with them. And now…now I've gotten their son kidnapped."

"You seriously have to stop blaming yourself," he said with a tone of slight annoyance.

"I will Dean…when he's home safe." I maintained eye contact with him and expressed my regret saying, "I'm sorry, but that's the best I can offer."

Dean nodded. He understood the guilt of not being able to keep a loved one safe all of the time. We all knew that a part of being a hunter was the guilt you felt for not being perfect. People were going to get hurt, some would even die and there really was nothing any of us could do to prevent it. That said we still secretly accepted some of the blame anytime something did go wrong.

I noticed that we had made it past the main portion of town so I gave Sam turn by turn directions the rest of the way to the rundown bar. "Stubby's" was nothing more than a weathered shack next to a small motel that looked like it should have been demolished 20 years ago. None of the curtains on the windows were open, most of the doors were missing their metal room numbers and the sign only illuminated the "rave n" of "Traveler's Inn". Sam pulled in beside some of the other cars in the makeshift parking lot and I noticed Bill's old brown Ford F150 right away and shook my head.

Once we were all out of the car, Sam looked at Dean and silently asked, "So?" to confirm that we were in fact in the right place.

Dean nodded in the direction of the pickup and responded with a hint of melancholy, "That's his truck over there."

"Sorry Addy," Sam said in my direction. "Are you sure you're up for this?"

"Yeah, I sure," I said. Normally I would have been annoyed at the constant questioning of my welfare, but I had somehow accepted that Sam and Dean were concerned for my emotional wellbeing and not my ability to fight, so I let it go.

Immediately after I entered the seedy saloon, the bartender looked up from wiping down the bar and gestured to a dark figure slumped on his stool at the end of the wooden counter with his rag. Stubby had grown accustomed to directing me to a drunken member of the family many years ago.

I nodded and made my way over to him. Before I touched Bill's shoulder, I took a deep breath to keep myself under control. I reached out and gently tugged his shoulder saying, "Bill? Bill?"

He whipped around to look at me. His face was an absolute mess because his eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks were soaked with tears. "Addy?"

Once he realized that it was me, he looked at the glass of brown liquid in his hand and threw it violently to the ground. As the glass smashed on the floor, he hung his head in embarrassment.

"Oh Addy, I'm so sorry! It's just…we lost…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, we lost him."

I pulled him into a hug and tried to comfort him by saying, "It's not your fault Bill. Nobody blames you. I don't blame either of you. I promise. None of this is your fault." He continued to cry into my chest.

"Bill…Maureen needs you right now. You need to be there for her until we find your son and bring him home to you two."

He looked up and saw nothing but love and concern in my eyes. I then became conscious of the fact that he had blamed himself for Toby's disappearance and thought that I would be angry with him for losing the child I had placed in their care.

"Maureen?" He asked as he slowly pushed out of my embrace. "Oh God…she must be a mess. Oh God…I should…I need to… she needs me. She shouldn't be alone right now."

I grabbed both of his shoulders to steady him and said, "Yes she does Bill. But she also needs you sober. We have a friend staying with her right now, so don't worry about that. Why don't you come with me so we can get you cleaned up for her?"

He nodded and silently allowed me to escort him out of the seedy bar. At the bottom of the short stairway, I pointed him in the direction of his truck and turned to the brothers. "Why don't you take my car? I'll take him in his truck and meet you back at my place."

"Okay, see you there."

Once inside my GTO, Sam turned to Dean (who now occupied his more usual place behind the wheel) and asked, "Who's Sydney?"

Dean's eyes remained fixed, staring out the windshield when he said flatly, "Sydney is Addy's father. He beat her after her mother died and she's lived with the Connor's ever since. The two of them had…issues. She uses his first name to…she does it to deal with it, you know?"

"Shit. Sorry. I had no idea."

Dean turned to look at his younger brother, his face expressionless, "Well now you do. Just…just don't make a big deal about it with her, okay?"

"Of course," Sam agreed with a soft nod.

Dean turned over the engine and eased my car out of the parking lot, following the truck's taillights to my house.