A/N: Sorry for the filler-ish nature of this chapter! I really didn't want to get into the good stuff just yet, but I promise, it's coming in a chapter or two! Just bear with me! ha.
Like I said, if not chapter 14, then 15, the action truly starts, and then begins our falling action, or conclusion. This story has been a little work of mine for about 6 months, and it is so crazy that with 13 chapters I have 1.3k reads! So incredible!As always, please continue to read, review, follow, and favorite! xo S.
After several minutes, Tessa and Dean arrived at O'Brien Cemetary, relatively unscathed. As soon as the car stopped, Tessa climbed over into the backseat, pretending not to notice Dean pretending not to stare at her ass.
"You didn't have to get in the back, you know," Sam grinned as he got in, pushing his sweaty hair away from his face. Tessa felt bad; Sam had been out in the heat much longer than her and Dean.
"Age wins, Sam. You're older than me," Tessa smiled, pulling the seatbelt over her body. She had noticed that the Winchester brothers often neglected to use theirs. It's not like they're there for a reason, or anything.
Tessa leaned her head against the window as the two brothers began discussing the game plan for the night's mission. She knew that she ought to be listening, but in that moment, all Tessa wanted to do was simply exist. The past few days had been physically, mentally, and emotionally draining, and she just wanted to break. Until all of this ghost business is over, this is the biggest rest she's going to get.
Until it's over. And then Sam and Dean Winchester will be gone, and Tessa will be nothing more than a distant memory in the rearview mirror. It was silly, seeing as Tessa had only known the two hunter's for a little over twenty four hours, but she'd grown to care for them in an odd way. They were extremely different than anyone Tessa had ever known in her twenty one years, and she liked that.
"What do you think about that, Tess?" Dean's green eyes met Tessa's through the mirror, and she felt her cheeks flush. Of course, the one instant in which she wasn't hanging on to Dean's every word would be the time he would choose to address her. Lovely.
"Um, sorry?" If possible, Tessa's face flamed even more than before when Dean smirked. "I kind of tuned out." She defended herself quickly.
"I was saying, Sam and I thought it would be better to go ahead and check everything out before your dad got home. Do you have an ETA on that?" Dean said.
"I'm not sure. My phone's dead so I haven't had a chance to talk to him since earlier this morning. Could I borrow one of your phones?" Before Tessa had finished her sentence, Dean had already fished his phone out of his pocket and placed it in Tessa's hand.
Tessa dialed the familiar number and put the phone on speaker, so Dean and Sam could listen in.
"Hello?" Daniel's voice came through the line, slightly muffled.
"Hey, it's Tessa. Are you on the way home yet?" Tessa tried to make her voice as peppy and normal as she could, but it still came out sounding rather flat.
"Yeah, I'll be home in about thirty or so minutes. Are you back yet?" Daniel cleared his throat on the other end of the line.
"No, I should be heading back soon, though," Tessa glanced up at Sam, who nodded affirmation. "Maybe fifteen minutes."
"Okay. How was Lily's? Did you girls have fun?" Tessa could hear her father's smile in his voice, and it made her heart briefly warm.
"Oh yeah, totally!" Tessa had to physically work to brighten her tone. "We just hung out, it was a total girl's night."
Then, Dean laughed. He instantly covered his mouth once he realized what he did, but the silence from her father told Tessa that he had heard it. She shot Dean a death glare, and he only stared back at her apologetically.
No one dared to even breathe as Daniel sucked in a deep breath. "As soon as you get home, Tessa, I expect you to have a damn good explanation for this." And with that, the line went dead.
"God damn it Dean! Really? How the fuck am I going to explain this?" Tessa knew she was being unreasonable, but perhaps it was the stress of the situation, or the feeling of impending doom, but she could not control her anger.
"Calm the hell down, Tessa. It's fine. This is actually good; If your dad's distracted, it'll give us more time to check everything out. It's going to be fine. You can just tell him that I was giving you a lift home or something." Dean seemed utterly unperturbed by their current predicament.
"Whatever. So what's the game plan, Sam? Tessa made an obvious shift in her attention, now only pointedly addressing Sam.
"Basically, when we get to your place, we'll all go inside and check out the house. If everything seems to be back to normal, then we can get rid of the salt lines and all of that, and your dad will never know anything supernatural happened at your house." Sam said.
"And if everything's not okay?" Tessa pressed, raising an eyebrow at Sam.
"If something's up, then we go back to the drawing board. Sam and I are just being cautious; Most likely, Rose is gone to wherever spirits go when they're killed... Again." Dean tried to reassure Tessa, but she still detected a trace of uneasiness in his voice.
And Tessa understood why. Everything had seemed to be too... Easy. A clean-cut, simple case. And from what Tessa had heard from the Winchester's, this was almost never the case. There was almost always some twist, some big clue the two brothers had overlooked. No matter how much Tessa tried to reassure herself, she couldn't get rid of the pit of uneasiness that was boiling in her stomach.
The time seemed to pass quickly, too quickly, and the Impala was pulling down the street near Tessa's house. One of Tessa's neighbors, Mrs. Loretta, looked alarmed as she watched the group of three traipse down the street.
Tessa knew why; They had to all look like hell. Between the mud on their clothes, the bandages on Tessa's arm and head, and the general look of unkemptness, they had to appear as if they had just left a war zone. The salt guns that Sam and Dean were trying, and failing, to hide didn't help the matter.
"Have a nice evening, Ma'am!" Dean called cheerfully, raising the hand that wasn't clutching a gun to wave at the elderly woman.
Mrs. Loretta turned and hobbled back into the house. Tessa caught a glimpse of her flowered curtains pulling back, and the woman's wrinkled face peering through the blinds. She stifled a laugh.
"We need to change that bandage soon," Dean lightly touched Tessa's head, a surprisingly tender gesture that shocked her.
What he did next, was even more surprising. Dean wove his fingers around Tessa's squeezing her hand quickly with his own. "Let's do this."
He then pulled away, and the intimate gesture was so fleeting that Tessa wasn't even sure it happened at all. She hoped to God that it did.