Motel
Darcy sat on the far bed of the motel room reading a demonology book, Dean was scanning through his dad's journal again and Sam was calling contacts.
"No, Dad was in California last we heard from him," Sam was telling Caleb.
Darcy inhaled sharply and tried to ignore the conversation. She had managed not to tell Dean about talking to Uncle John in Kansas. She wasn't sure where he was when they talked but she did try to avoid the subject. She could lie effectively to a stranger but not to Dean. He would kill her if he found out she had gotten a tip off from Uncle John to go to Missouri Moses. Kill wasn't the right word but it wasn't going to be a picnic if he found out.
Sam sighed a "thanks" and hung up the phone.
"Caleb hasn't heard from him?" he asked but it was almost a statement.
It wasn't surprising that he hadn't. Sam called a few other contacts before Caleb and they had all been dead ends. Uncle John knew better than to contact the people that Sam and Dean would think to call. Darcy knew he had an extensive network and he had only shown Darcy and Dean the bare minimum. The same contacts that Sam knew too. John didn't want to be found so he wouldn't be.
Darcy rolled her eyes as Sam suggested they call the feds. Dean made his usual argument and they began a discussion that they had already gone through many times. Darcy was about to go for her mp3 player when Dean's phone began ringing. Darcy hoped that would interrupt them but they continued.
"You said so yourself, you tried to call him, and nothing," Sam said to Dean.
Dean started rummaging through his clothes for his phone. "I know. Where the hell is my cell phone?"
"You know, he could be dead for all we know," Sam said.
Darcy, frozen in shock and anger, interrupted him. "Don't say that," she said.
Dean reacted the same time. "He's not dead. He's…he's…" Dean didn't have an alternative.
"He's what? He's hiding? He's busy?" Sam retorted.
Darcy handed Dean the phone. He looked at it and mumbled to himself, "I don't believe it."
"What?" Sam and Darcy said together. Dean's sat on the end of the bed and Darcy changed positions and leaned over his shoulder to look at the phone.
"It's a text message," Dean answered, "Coordinates."
Dean immediately set into action. He checked the coordinates, and found a location. He was still typing on the computer when Sam finally spoke again.
"You think Dad was texting us?" he asked. His tone sounded like he didn't fully believe it.
"He's given us coordinates before," Darcy reminded him as she deflated her sleeping air mattress.
Sam turned his impatience to her. "The man can barely work a toaster, Darcy," he retorted.
"No, he could barely work a toaster three years ago," Darcy corrected. She flinched as the irritation leaked from her tone. She was tired of Sam's pessimism.
"Sam, this is good news," Dean informed him, "It means he's okay."
"Or alive at least," Darcy added in a mumble, not wanting to raise her hopes too high.
Sam ignored her this time. "Was there a number on the caller ID?" he asked Dean.
There was no number of course but the coordinates pointed to Rockford, Illinois. The local papers had a recent story that would have peaked the interest of any ghost hunter who scanned it. Dean recognized the location from a page in his father's journal.
"I think this is where he wants us to go," Dean stated.
Darcy went to the bathroom to start packing up in there.
Sam was exasperated. "This is a job," he said, "Dad wants us to work a job."
"I mean maybe we'll meet up with him," Dean replied with a hint of hope in his voice, "Maybe he's there."
Of course he wasn't but Sam and Dean didn't speak to each other for a good portion of the ride after their fight over the chances that their dad was actually there. Dean's standpoint was that if their dad sent them there that was good enough. Sam thought they shouldn't waste time whether that was what his dad wanted or not. Darcy sat in the back seat texting with Matt and ignoring them both.
Rockford, IL
Eventually they got into Rockford and had to make plans. Dean dropped Darcy off at the motel to check them in and start laundry which she begrudgingly agreed to mostly because the boys were almost out of clean clothes. The boys would go check around for information.
When the boys returned it was very dark outside. Dean filled Darcy in on what Sam found out. The next step would be to go to the asylum and check it out.
Darcy looked wearily at the blackness in the window and hoped that they were going to wait until morning for that part. Dean glanced at the window as well. "In the morning of course," he answered her worried expression.
The Asylum
Darcy and the boys were at the asylum gate early the next morning. The cops had chased a group of teenagers that broke into the South Wing. Dean checked his dad's journal again.
"In 1972 three kids broke into the South Wing," Dean read, "only one survived."
"The way the article put it," Darcy said, "one of the dudes went nuts and started lighting up the place."
The South Wing was the heart of what was going on. A closer look at the door showed that until recently, the entrance had been chained. Whether it was to keep people out or keep something in was uncertain but this was where they had to begin their investigation.
Dean wasn't getting any readings on his EMF but that didn't mean much.
"Ghosts can appear at certain hours of the day," Sam speculated.
"Yeah the freaks come out at night," Dean replied.
Darcy started humming noiselessly. She silently cursed her cousin because the song would be stuck in her head for the rest of the night. They were both a little ways ahead of her down the hall, Dean ribbing Sam as always, but Darcy had slowed a little. She thought about looking in one of the other rooms but was far too weirded out by the place.
She caught up with the boys as Dean made a pop culture reference that few people would get. This room was really creepy. There were torturous gadgets throughout the room that had once passed for psychological aides.
"So what do you think?" Dean asked, looking around, "ghost possessing people?"
"Maybe it's more like Amityville or the Smarl Haunting," Sam suggested.
"Spirits driving them insane," Darcy agreed.
"Kind of like my man Jack in the Shining," Dean joked again.
Sam wasn't in the mood. "Dean, when are we going to talk about it?" he asked in a tone that made Darcy cringe.
Dean didn't see it coming but Darcy was already out the door. She wasn't going to listen to this again. On her way out she tripped over a plate that said Chief of Staff Sanford Ellicott on it. This was where they would have to go next.
In Town
Dean and Darcy waited outside of the Creekview Medical Center for Sam to get out of his appointment with Dr. James Elllicott. It was decided that of the three of them he was most likely to get the information.
"What is taking so long?" Dean mumbled impatiently.
"Sessions are usually an hour, Dean," Darcy answered, "He's only been in there twenty minutes.
Sam emerged at the end of the hour and relayed all the information. The asylum was home to the worst of the insane and after a riot in 1964 it closed down for good. The entire thing was so gory and bad that some of the bodies were never found. This included the Chief of Staff, Ellicott.
Asylum, Night
While investigating the South Wing that night, a spirit cornered Darcy. Dean shot it with a salt gun before it got too close but Darcy speculated that the ghost had acted strange. Soon Sam, Dean and Darcy stumbled upon Gavin and Catherine two teenagers that were maybe a year older than Darcy. They had thought that it would be fun to see ghosts. Gavin had an encounter with a ghost as well. A girl ghost kissed him and tried to tell him something but he was so scared that he ran from it. They rest of them had split up to find him. Darcy and Sam went one way while Dean and Cat went another.
Catherine had been pulled into a room by a ghost and was not trapped in there with it. Dean was trying to pry the door open when Sam, Darcy and Gavin ran down the hall. When apprised of the situation Sam yelled through the door for Cat to calm down and listen to the ghost. She screamed her reluctance for the plan but Sam insisted that it would let her go if she listened.
There was a moment of silence, then the door opened. A bewildered Catherine came out and repeated what the ghost told her. A room number. 137.
Dean set out to go examine the room while Sam and Darcy took the teenagers out.
Sam and Darcy soon learned that this plan was flawed. Something evil would not let them exit. Darcy stayed with the teenagers while Sam looked around for an escape.
"Dean," she answered her phone as Sam got back to their group with news that he had no luck with the other exits. She handed the phone to Sam.
"So now what are we going to do?" Gavin asked.
"For starters, we aren't going to panic," Darcy answered,
Gavin looked at her, "Why the hell not?"
"I'm on my way," Sam said before hanging up the phone to talk to Darcy, "Dean's in the basement. I'm going down to help. Stay with these two."
Thirty minutes later
Dean came down the hall following the sound of the two teens talk. He heard them quiet down quickly and the clicking of a shotgun being cocked.
"Darc?" he called.
"Dean?" Darcy lowered the shotgun.
"What are you still doin' here? Where's Sam?" Dean asked joining the others.
"He went to the basement," Gavin answered, "after you called."
Dean swore that he never called anyone. Darcy told him that she had been sure it was him.
"Either of you know how to handle a showgun?"
Kat took the gun and cocked it. "I can."
They left a shotgun with the teens and followed after where Sam went.
Another Part of the asylum.
Dean and Darcy called for Sam and heard no response.
Darcy rounded the corner, saw nothing and turned around, almost right into Sam.
After catching her breath she said, "Dude, Dean and I were calling you."
"Man! Answer me when I'm callin' you," Dean called as he joined them, "You all right?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"You know that wasn't me who called your cell, right?"
Sam replied with an affirmative and speculation that he was lured.
Dean began explaining what he found out from Ellicott's journal. The spirits were trying to tell them that they were tortured into rage. The patients rioted because of the torture.
"So I'm thinkin', what if his spirit is doin' the same thing? To the cop, to the kids in the seventies –- making them so angry they become homicidal. Come on. We gotta find his bones and torch 'em."
Darcy agreed with Dean and followed him toward the procedure room, with Sam behind them. Dean already figured that that the patients hid the body in a hidden procedure room that the Doctor experimented in.
Sam stopped, "I don't know. It sounds kind of—'
"Crazy?" Darcy suggested.
Sam hesitated, "Yeah."
"Yeah, exactly." Dean agreed, oblivious to Sam's mood. Darcy wasn't. She hung by the door and let Sam follow Dean into the room to look for the hidden door.
"I told you, I looked everywhere. I didn't find a hidden room," Sam said.
Dean sarcasticly replied, "Well, that's why they call it hidden."
Darcy heard a very faint sound and pointed it out to the boys. "You hear that?"
"What?" Sam asked though the sound was not so faint he couldn't hear it. Dean heard it and found the door. "Dean," Sam said in a low voice. Dean turned to look at him, confused. Sam's nose began to bleed, "Step back from the door."
Dean stood up. Darcy stood in the doorway with a look of shock. She saw Sam's gun twitch.
"Sam, put the gun down," Dean said with forced calm.
"Is that an order?" Sam asked in a still angry tone.
Dean tried to stay light, "No, it's more of a friendly request."
Sam aimed the gun at Dean, "Cause I'm gettin' pretty tired of takin' your orders."
"Sam!" Darcy finally said, "I knew it. Ellicott did somethin' to you, didn't he?" Dean held a hand up to her so that she knew to stay back.
"For once in your life, just shut your mouth," Sam said pointing the gun to her.
"Sam, do not point that gun at Darcy," Dean yelled. Sam pointed the gun at Dean again.
"What are you gonna do, Sam? The gun's filled with rock salt. Not gonna kill me."
Sam fired the shotgun, "No. But it'll hurt like hell."
Darcy screamed as Dean fell back but quickly regained some composure when Dean started moving, "Sam! We gotta burn Ellicott's bones,
"Yeah and all this'll be over. You'll be back to normal."
Sam paced addressing Dean. "I am normal. I'm just tellin' the truth for the first time. I mean, why are we even here? Because you're following Dad's orders like a good little soldier? 'Cause you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval?"
"This isn't you talking, Sam."
"That's the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I'm not pathetic like you or you even." He acknowledged Darcy again.
"So what are you gonna do, huh? You gonna shoot me too? Kill us both?" Darcy asked, "Does that sound like the plan of a sane person, Sam?"
"You know what? I am sick of doing what Dean tells me to do. We're no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago," he retorted.
"Well, then, here. Let me make it easier for you," Dean said from the ground, "Darcy give him your gun.
Darcy looked at Dean in shock and confusion but obeyed. Sam had the same look of confusion.
"Go on. Take it, Sam. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt. Take it!" Dean challenged.
Sam dropped the shotgun and turned the pistol to his brother.
"You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger," Dean continued, "Do it!"
Sam pulled the trigger but nothing happened. He tried again. While Sam fiddled with the unworking pistol, Dean took his advantage and knocked Sam down and out. "Sorry Sammy."
Darcy stood back, in shock. Dean got up in pain and walked to his cousin. "Darcy snap out of it. Like you said, we gotta find the body."
Darcy nodded and began looking for the body with Dean. They found the rotting corpse shoved in a cabinet. Darcy handed Dean the salt and lighter fluid. She heard something to her left that she thought was Sam waking up. The pain of the table crashing into her struck her as hard as the surprise of it moving. She flew a few feet and sat up in time to see the ghost of the doctor grab Dean by the neck.
Dean was able to find his lighter in his pocket as the ghost began shocking him. The ghost burst into flames and then disintegrate into cloth and dust.
Sam woke up.
"You're not gonna try to kill me, are you?," Dean said. Darcy went to help him up.
"No."
"Good. Because that would be awkward," Dean replied.
Next Morning
Katherine and Gavin were grateful to the hunters for helping them and vowed never to go into a haunted asylum again.
Darcy took her usual seat in the back of the Impala and stretched out.
"Hey, Dean," she head Sam say, "I'm sorry, man. I said some awful things back there.
"You remember all that?"
"Yeah. It's like I couldn't control it. But I didn't mean it –- any of it."
Darcy scoffed quietly and turned over.
"You didn't, huh?" Dean asked skeptically. He believed as much as Darcy did.
"No, of course not," Sam replied sincerely, "Do we need to talk about this?"
"No. I'm not really in the sharing, caring kind of mood. I just wanna get some sleep," Dean returned with all his bravado. They got in the car. "Though you might want to apologize to Darcy when she's done pretending to be asleep."
Motel
All three hunters were sacked out after the all nighter that they just completed.
A phone rang, blaring out rock music as it vibrated.
"Dean," Sam said,
No response.
":Dean," Darcy tried from her mattress across the room, "answer your phone."
Finally Sam answered. "Hello…Dad?"
