A/N: I think now I've pretty much got the framework for the whole story set... now all I have to do is write everything down and edit it until I'm sure it's not terrible. So, hopefully you guys won't have to wait so long between chapters anymore!
The song used briefly is "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by The Beach Boys.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Angie and Sam left the building in silence. They barely spoke as they walked the streets back to Angie's house. Instead, they kept their heads down and thought about the task before them. Would the Devil's Advocates really have the same base of operation after all this time? Of course, they would have to go to the church and look around to find out, but the thought of hitting a dead end pained them both.
Something else was bothering Angie as well. Though she contemplated discarding the thought, she decided instead to voice her concern. "I hope Jake isn't paranoid right now because of me," she said.
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
"Well… yesterday, I told him about how Dean died."
"What? You mean exactly?"
"Most of it. He was just gonna keep asking if I didn't."
"But Angie, he's seven years old! It's kind of hard for someone that young to hear about how their dad got blown away by a bomb, don't you think?" Sam pointed out. In his anger, he hadn't even thought to say something less harsh about his brother's death.
Angie had clearly been affected by the outburst. "Well, it's hard for me too, and I haven't been seven years old in quite a while," she said, returning her gaze to the pavement. "It was going to be hard no matter what age I decided to tell him something more than 'daddy's job was dangerous.' After all I've been through in my life, I'm not too keen on hiding things from people." Sam decided not to answer. "I just hope that after what I told him, he's not panicked right now thinking the same thing's gonna happen to him," Angie continued.
"Hopefully he'll leave the worrying to us," Sam commented.
They continued walking, spending the next few blocks in the same silence as the first.
"We're gonna need to rent a car," Angie realized as they turned onto her street.
"Why?" Sam asked.
"Well I don't have one, and yours is in the shop," Angie reminded.
"What about Dean's?"
Angie paused. "I guess I forgot about that one. It's just been in that garage so long…"
"It runs okay, right?" Sam questioned.
"Yeah, as far as I know," Angie answered. She sighed. "Last time I rode in it was that night. The trip back from the hospital where you found me."
Sam nodded. He realized that his sister-in-law's feelings about driving in the Impala mirrored his for going into the church again. They were both going to have some things to deal with on this trip.
"So I guess it'll really be like old times," Sam said, trying to lighten the subject. "With the car and everything."
"Yeah. I guess," Angie answered. "Closest we can get now, anyway."
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Angie unlocked the garage's side door and walked in with Sam. "Here she is, perfect as always," Angie said as she walked around the side of the Impala. "God, I'm starting to sound like Dean," she realized. She opened the top drawer on a cabinet in the corner and rummaged around, finally finding the car keys after about a minute's search.
"Do you want to drive, or…"
"You can," Angie decided. She didn't offer any further explanation, and Sam didn't ask for one. He instead took the keys and walked around to unlock the trunk.
"Well this saves us a little time," he observed.
Angie was a bit surprised when she looked inside. "Geez, could you have at least told me that you didn't take the weapons out of here?" she asked, shaking her head but slightly amused. "It's a miracle nothing ever went off."
"Sorry," Sam apologized. "But at least now we won't have to waste time running around to get stuff." He closed and re-locked the trunk, then got into the driver's seat. Angie followed him in.
"So how long is this drive gonna be again?" she asked, unconvincingly trying to take her mind off of where she was.
"I honestly can't remember right now," Sam admitted. "I just wanna get this over with."
"Agreed," Angie said. She took a deep breath and exhaled it, staring straight ahead out the car's front window.
"You okay?" Sam asked her.
"Yeah," Angie replied. "I just haven't been in here in a while, that's all."
"It'll get easier once we're driving," Sam assured. He put the key in the ignition, and the car started up with its familiar reliability and purr.
The radio, having never been switched off of Dean's classic rock station since it had last been used, came to life along with the engine.
Wouldn't it be nice if we were older?
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long
And wouldn't it be nice to live together?
In the kind of world where we belong…
"That's enough," Angie muttered, turning it off.
Sam looked over warily. She'd said she was okay, but he was still going to keep an eye on her. If a song on the radio about a happy relationship bugged her enough to turn it off after only four lines, then there was no telling how fragile she was right now. The car held a lot of memories for both of them, and it would always be tied to Dean.
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After what had seemed like an eternity driving in the ghost of huntings past, Sam and Angie finally reached what was left of St. Margaret's Church. Since it had already been an abandoned building long before that night when the mass sacrifice was attempted, little had been done to clean up place. If the walls hadn't still been standing, the only thing there would have been an immense pile of debris. After over a year, it was still ground zero.
As Sam and Angie entered the church, they were thankful that at least all of the bodies had been removed. Seeing ash, rubble, and even ceiling lying on the floor in giant chunks was haunting enough. For Angie, this was the first time she'd seen the inside of the place where her husband had been lost, but it was a chilling reminder for Sam. This was the last place he'd ever seen his brother. Walking through, he could still feel the smoke in his lungs and hear the tumult of that night ringing in his hears. He still wondered what would've happened if he and Dean hadn't been separated. Would Sam have met the same untimely fate as him or would they both have been able to escape? It was a thought that continued to haunt him.
"Do you see anything?" Sam asked.
"Not really," Angie replied. "What was here… before?"
"This floor was just a normal church, really," Sam explained. "But in the basement… they held meetings down there."
"Where's the entrance?" Angie asked.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Sam said, staring at the cluster of rubble before him. He knew he was going to have to move it if he had any chance of getting downstairs, so he bent down and got to work. Angie made her way over to help him, and eventually, they uncovered the basement door.
Angie wasted no time in getting a handgun out in anticipation, but she still asked Sam to go first. He agreed, and opened the door. After over a year of debris pressing against it, it cracked and splintered, eventually collapsing to the ground. Sam and Angie proceeded through the now empty doorway and started cautiously down the stairs.
The basement was nothing impressive. There wasn't anything left of the cult practices that had taken place there- no cryptic messages on the wall, nobody waiting to engage them in an all-or-nothing shootout. Simply, it was what they could expect from anybody who knew something about covering their tracks. They'd moved their base to somewhere else.
"So what do we do now?" Angie asked. "Where else can we look?"
"I don't know," Sam admitted. "They never said anything about operating anywhere else."
They both knew that there had to be something else they could do, somewhere else they could search- but right now they couldn't think. As expected, the failure and the realization that they'd relived this horror for nothing had dismayed them both.
"Are you sure there's nothing here? It's kind of dark…" Angie pointed out.
"I doubt they'd just leave something lying around like, 'Anyone who wants to stop us should look here,'" Sam pointed out.
Angie sighed. "Jake?" she called out as a last resort. "Jake?"
"Angie, he's not here," Sam said. "We're gonna have to think of something else-"
Before Sam could finish, Angie had turned around and ran back up the stairs to the ground floor. Puzzled, Sam followed. He stepped over the splintered remains of the door and walked out upon the wreckage again. From there he spotted Angie, kneeling down and furiously tearing away at bricks and wood in the middle of the church.
"Angie, what the hell are you doing?" Sam asked as he ran over to her.
She gave up her pointless act and looked up at Sam, her face and hands now spotted with soot. "I don't want to leave without accomplishing anything," she explained. "I guess I just figured… if I couldn't find Jake here, I might as well find Dean."
Sam sighed. It was true that his brother's body had never been recovered, but the police had searched the place thoroughly, multiple times, without finding anything. "The police have already combed through," Sam reminded. "I know there's a chance he could still be here… but would you really want to find that?" Angie thought about it, realizing more with every second how fruitless her little search had been. "I know you want closure. I don't blame you, especially now. But this isn't the way to deal with everything," Sam continued. "Dean's already gone. We have to focus everything on finding Jake now, or we'll lose them both," he reminded.
"I know," Angie said. "I just miss him so much. Him and Jake, they were the two people I loved the most." By now tears had begun to trickle down her face and make lines in the ash on her cheeks. "And now they're both gone. If I can't have both of them, I at least want one!" She paused. "I don't know if I can go on, without my son or my husband. The only way I'd survive… would probably be to end up like your dad. Always searching."
"You're not going to end up like that," Sam said, helping Angie to her feet. She was expecting another pep talk about strength and coping, but instead Sam just said, "I know you won't."
Angie nodded and dusted herself off. They headed outside. "Thank God we won't have to come back here again," Angie said. "It was freaking me out enough, but I can't even imagine what you must've felt in there."
"Honestly…" Sam started, searching around for the right words to convey just how much the church haunted, frightened, and pained him at the same time. "I never want to see this place again."
Angie looked at the expression Sam bore, upset by how disturbed it looked. Sam obviously wasn't as extroverted with his emotions as she was when he grieved, but he was suffering just the same. She wished there was some way she could comfort him- reliving that night in the church by coming here would make the painful memories stay with him for a while.
She tried to figure out if it was possible to demolish the building themselves, but seeing as they didn't have a wrecking ball with them, she knew there was no way. Instead she just suggested they get in the car and leave as soon as possible, and Sam seemed greatful that he didn't have to do anything else in the area.
"Not all of the Advocates got away, right?" Angie realized suddenly as they drove. "The police arrested some people that night."
"Yeah," Sam recalled. "At least eight of them, I think."
"Do you know which jail they're in?" Angie asked. "Maybe we can go ask if they know anything about Jake."
Sam searched his memory as they opened the Impala's doors and climbed in. "Well, I know where one of them is," he said.
A/N: I'll update soon, I promise! (writing this is my excuse not to do my summer PreCalculus work for school.)