Liv sat at Jodi's kitchen table, listening to the faucet drip. She had tightened the knob at least four times but, no matter how much effort she exerted, the damn thing wouldn't stop leaking. She even used a wrench that she'd found in the cabinet below, but it made no difference. Maybe Bobby would fix it, she thought, and put her head down on the table. It was probably the most irritating she had ever been subjected to. But, worrying about the faucet distracted her from worrying about him, and the others. It was impossible to dampen the overwhelming panic that overcame her, though. It was funny how upsetting a leaky faucet could be.
She'd been making coffee when he stormed into the room, demanding to see her cell phone. She didn't have it, though. She had left it in her bedroom, back at his house when he'd gotten home from the hospital and insisted that she go to Jodi's and look after her while she recovered from her surgery. Liv was happy to oblige. Jodi had quickly become one of her closest friends, and she'd been worried when she learned that Jodi was in the hospital, even for something as minor as her appendix.
"Did Dean call here, at all?" Bobby demanded.
"No. Why? What's going on?" Liv was unnerved by Bobby's alarm. She rarely saw him so out of sorts.
"My phone's dead," he said.
She disregarded his response. No way would a dead cell phone cause such distress.
"Bobby, what is it, for real?"
He took a deep breath and sank into a chair by the table.
"The house," he began and Liv was further troubled to see tears forming in his eyes. "My house is destroyed."
"What do you mean?" she asked, cautiously.
"It's burnt to nothing, Livvie. It looks like someone dropped a bomb on it. There's nothing left."
"Oh, no…" Liv said. She rushed to his side and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She knew how great a loss it was; he'd lived there as long as she knew him and even before. His parents had lived in that house; his wife. She said a silent prayer of thanks that she'd brought Molly along, rather than leaving the dog behind as she'd originally planned.
"That's not all," he said, pushing her away and holding her at arm's length. His fingertips dug into her shoulders, almost painfully, but she didn't pull away. She looked at him, into his eyes, and saw the genuine concern and fear lurking within.
"What else did you see?" she whispered. Images whipped through her mind, fully formed pictures of two burnt and unrecognizable bodies. Visions of Dean, buried in charred rubble, broken and bloody. Images of death.
"The Impala…" he said.
"No," Liv said, shaking her head. "No, no, no." The internal slideshow sped up. Dean in the Impala, his body riddled with impossibly wide bites, his eyes, open wide but unseeing. Sam, covered in blood, and unmoving. She couldn't make it stop.
"Now, wait, Liv. It's there; the car is there but it's not burnt. It's parked right by the house but it's not damaged, and the hood was still warm."
"You didn't find them?" she asked, hopefully. She clung to the idea and was finally able to pause the barrage of horrors in her mind. They might not be dead. He might still be alright.
He shook his head.
"They weren't there. One of the cars in the salvage yard that I had up on a lift was dropped. There was some blood. But not much!" he added, hastily, when her eyebrows arched in alarm.
"Where could they be?" she asked.
"I don't know. My phone's dead; yours is probably charred to a crisp, along with all my gear. I got no way of getting in touch with them, dammit."
"What about my scanner?" Jodi asked from the doorway, where she leaned heavily against the frame. She was pale but looked steadier than when Liv had first arrived, which was good, but definitely needed a few more days in bed, which was bad.
Bobby pointed at her and grinned. "Stellar idea, Sheriff. Fire it up."
The scanner sat on the counter, beside a mug tree and the coffee maker. Jodi snapped it on and they all listened as she switched through the channels. Liv walked over and poured herself a cup from the coffee pot; it was hot and the mug warmed her fingers. She added cream and sugar and filled two more mugs for Jodi and Bobby. She barely had time to distribute the mugs and take a seat at the table before Bobby waved his hand at Jodi, signaling her to stop.
"There!" Bobby said when a clear voice filled the room. He leaned closer to the scanner. "Listen."
"Two males," the voice said. "Both late twenties to early thirties, being transported to Sioux Falls General. Unit was dispatched to Singer Salvage. First patient is conscious, possible fractures to lower extremities, uncooperative. Second patient is unconscious with visible head trauma. Be advised, ETA to hospital is approximately eight minutes."
"Uncooperative," Bobby said, and scoffed. "That'll be Dean."
"Of course he's uncooperative," Jodi yelled, weakly. "They're taking them to the exact same hospital you just busted me out of!"
"Ahhh, hell!" Bobby groaned. He grabbed his keys from the counter and headed out the door.
"Wait," Liv yelled. "I'm coming with you!"
"No! You stay here with Jodi. I'll be in touch."
He slammed the door behind him, not giving her any chance to argue. She didn't even have time to get angry. Seconds later, a car engine fired up in the driveway and he was gone, tires squealing on the pavement.
The two women exchanged worried, nervous glances before Liv realized that Jodi looked like she was about to collapse. Hurrying to her side, Liv wrapped an arm around Jodi's waist and guided her through the doorway and toward her bedroom.
"You, lay back down. There's nothing we can do, for now, so you might as well get some rest," Liv instructed.
"Alright, but you come get me as soon as you hear anything, okay?" Jodi said, as she eased back onto her bed. Liv tugged an old, worn quilt up over the woman, and nodded.
"Of course," she said.
"My car keys are in my jacket pocket. It's hanging in the hallway, by the front door," Jodi said, resting her head on the pillow.
"What do I need your keys for?" Liv asked. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Just in case," Jodi said, her eyelids heavy.
"Okay. I won't leave without letting you know."
"Mmkay," Jodi said, absently.
"Yell if you need another pain pill. I'll bring it."
Jodi only nodded; her breathing was already beginning to slow. Liv was temporarily maddened by a brief and sudden tidal wave of jealousy; she wished she could just take a pill and sleep until Bobby got back, hopefully with Sam and Dean. Instead, she made her way back to the kitchen and sat, drinking coffee and listening to the damn, leaking faucet, until light began to seep through the curtains and morning mist crept across the yard around Jodi's house.
Dean woke slowly, his eyes refusing to adjust to the brightness around him. His head ached, his mouth felt full of cotton, and his right leg seemed to have been encased in a pool of dried cement. But he knew where he was without even having to raise his heavy eyelids; a hospital. He recognized the antiseptic smell.
The first sensation that came to him was utter confusion. Why a hospital? Where? And what the hell happened to his leg?
The next was anger. The goddamn leviathan, that man with the denim jacket and the dark hair, had thrown him into a car windshield. And then the son of a bitch had knocked Sammy out with a lead pipe.
The last thing he felt was satisfaction. The car had crushed the bastard. Dean remembered the satisfying crunch as the leviathan, dressed as a middle class Hispanic gentleman, was obliterated. The blood, or whatever the hell it was, black and viscous, had oozed out from under the sedan in an impossibly wide pool.
After that, after everything else came back to him in a nauseating rush, all he knew was panic. Bobby. Liv. They were gone, and most likely dead. He took a second to center himself, to focus on the present. He even utilized one of Sam's hippy-dippy meditation methods, and counted to five in his head. Then he did what he'd been trained his entire life to do, and put it all behind him, for the moment.
Dean's eyes, still hazy and difficult to focus, settled on the IV that hooked into his left hand. He tugged on it, barely wincing when the needled ripped away from his flesh. The sign on the wall said he was in Sioux Falls General. He'd told the driver not to bring them there, had shouted and threw a fit, but they didn't listen. They never listened. Damn EMTs, always thinking they knew best.
But, he didn't have time to reflect on that little nugget of anger any more than he had time to lose himself in the sorrow and pain of potentially losing Liv, so he flung his legs over the side and stood, intent on finding Sammy and getting the hell out of there. Unfortunately, his leg, the one firmly set in a sea of cement, didn't cooperate, and he quickly found himself ass-down on the cold, tile floor. In that instant, he realized he had nothing on, aside from a flimsy, hospital gown, but he did have a sore tailbone to add to the growing list of aches and pains riddling his body.
He was considering just staying there, just surrendering and offering himself up as a gourmet appetizer, when the door to his room popped open, and a welcome figure stepped in.
"You okay?" Bobby asked, his eyes narrowing as he took in the peculiar scene before him.
"Bobby," Dean said, in disbelief. "You're alive."
"Course, I am," Bobby answered. "Why are you on the floor?"
"They gave me morphine. A lot," Dean answered in a slurred and garbled voice. "Hey look, a monster broke my leg," he added, as Bobby helped him to his unsteady feet.
Bobby scowled and pushed him back onto the bed.
"Wait a minute," Dean said. "The house. We thought you were dead."
"Well, I ain't," Bobby answered, simply. "Not yet. But we gotta run. This place ain't safe." He handed Dean a stack of clothes that Dean recognized, after a second, as his own. "Where's Sam?"
"Uhh… Head scan, I think."
"Meet me at the ambulance dock, stat," Bobby said. "I'll find Sam."
"Wait, where?" Dean asked. His head was still fuzzy and the fluorescent lights in the room were too bright, disorienting him. "Bobby, I'm a gimp!"
Bobby glanced around the room and snatched up a pair of crutches. He hurried over and handed them to Dean, who watched with a startled expression.
"Here," Bobby said, kindly, with a warm smile and a gentle pat on Dean's cheek.
"Bobby, wait!" Dean said, just before the older man disappeared through the door. "Is Liv…?" He found himself unable to finish the question and swallowed a thick lump in his throat.
"She's alright. Get dressed; I'll find Sam. Then, we'll go get Liv," Bobby said, and slipped away.
Dean felt a tightness release in his chest, a vice grip on his heart that he'd been unaware of. Tears of relief and tentative joy sprang to his eyes but he quickly shook his head and refused to let himself celebrate, even a little bit, until Sam was safe and the three of them were out of the monster buffet line.
"Where are we going?" Dean asked from the front passenger seat of the Impala. The floor was littered with crumpled up fast food wrappers and empty, Styrofoam coffee cups. They'd been on the road over two hours, and his leg was really starting to cramp.
"Rufus' cabin," Bobby said. Behind them, Sam leaned forward and rested his forearms on the seat.
"Rufus has a cabin?" he asked.
"Yeah, up in the mountains. We'll be safe there," Bobby answered.
Dean glanced over his shoulder at Sam, who looked better than he had earlier, at least. They were both tired, both very sore, and both extremely cranky, but they were alive and he was thankful for that. But, he couldn't overlook Sam's odd behavior, which had continued despite their confrontation in the warehouse and had actually intensified.
"Are we almost there?" Dean asked, realizing he sounded like a whiny child and not caring in the slightest.
"Yes, god dammit. We'll be there in a few minutes," Bobby answered, sounding like the weary parent of a pair of crabby toddlers.
"And Liv will be there?" Dean asked.
"What did I say before?" Bobby demanded.
Dean frowned and shifted, uncomfortably, in his seat. "You said she'd be there."
"Yeah, and thank Christ because I'm getting damn tired of listening to your mouth. She can have a turn."
Dean scowled, irritably, imagining that Bobby would be pretty bad-tempered if he had a broken leg, too, but you'd never hear him offer any sympathy to anyone else.
"How long til we get there?" Sam asked, after a few minutes. Dean was pleased to hear his brother sounding just as surly.
"Yeah, my leg is cramping," Dean said, trying unsuccessfully to stretch out his hip and leg in the confining car seat.
"Oh, for sweet Christ's sake, would the two of you just shut up? You act like you've never ridden in a car before."
"My leg hurts," Dean grumbled. "And it's itchy."
"My head hurts," Sam said. "I have a concussion," he added. Dean thought he sounded proud, which was stupid. Everyone knew a broken leg was a bigger deal than a dumb concussion. Dean was pretty sure he got a concussion on practically every hunt. Hell, he probably lived in a permanent state of concussion. Big whoop.
"My leg is broken in two places," Dean said, refusing to be outdone. "It's broken and I can't wear a shoe. I had to cut my favorite jeans."
"If I fall asleep, I could die," Sam interjected.
"Shut up!" Bobby yelled, quieting them both.
The interior of the Impala was peaceful for approximately three minutes before Sam broke the silence and asked, once again, how long it would be before they arrived.