(Author's Note: Um, people under 17 shouldn't google the names Dean gives...)
That Scottish Play
"'Your face, my thane, is a book where men may read strange matters. To beguile the ti- to beguile the-' Oh!" Alyssa Fraser said, hanging her head tiredly. She took a few deeps breaths, trying to collect herself. It wasn't easy.
"It's okay, Alyssa, take your time," the director told her from the second row, leaning against the seat in front of him, watching her. She looked down at him with a sigh.
"I don't know what's wrong with me, Jerry! I just feel so awful! This place creeps me out," she informed him. It was a lucky thing for her that Jerry was the sort of director who understood and was compassionate. She had met many directors who'd be up on the stage yelling at her by now.
"Don't you worry about it. We all know you can do this, so just take your time, clear your mind," he reassured her. Alyssa smiled and took a deep breath, letting the air try to cleanse her.
"Oh, never shall sun that morrow see!" she started again.
Since Dean was still asleep, Sam bended the 'thou who driveth the car choseth the music' rule and let Alex fiddle with the radio until she found a station that played 60s music. Looking back at the two unconscious people in the back seat, Sam really felt like he was getting away with something.
"Hey Sam," Alex said, lowering the volume when a Stevie Wonder song finished, "who are these two girls?"
Sam looked over and saw her looking at the photograph Eve had given them of Samuel, Joanna, Daniel, and Ruth Winchester. He hadn't even realized Alex was looking at it. Clearing his throat slightly, he looked back to the road.
"Joanna and Ruth," he answered.
"Yeah the back says that, but who are they?" she asked again. Sam was quiet for a moment, which only made Alex even more curious.
"Their wives…" he said softly but Alex heard him. This was evident by the dropping of her jaw.
"No kidding? I thought maybe you two had sisters you ain't mentioned, but wives? Holy crap!" she said, trying not to laugh.
"We're not married, well, not now, anyway," Sam made clear. Alex nodded, understanding the past lives thing a bit better.
"Which one's yours? Have you met them yet?" she asked. Sam nodded and pointed to Joanna in the photograph.
"Joanna, and yeah, I've met her," he confessed, feeling slightly heavy all over. What was it about grief that was so heavy?
"What's she like? Does she know you exist?"
"She was wonderful, she could smile forever," Sam said with the fondness one would expect. Alex, to her credit, was able to catch on to the important part of what he said, the past tense.
"When did she die?" she asked softly.
"November 2nd, 2005," Sam didn't have to think at all before answering. Alex nodded in understanding. What she understood, who knows? It's just the best way to explain it.
"And the other one? Who's she?" Alex pointed to Ruth. This caused a change in mood in the car.
"Roberta Tait," Sam answered, looking briefly in the rear view mirror at Dean.
"Bobbi?" Alex asked, eyes wide. Sam looked over at her in shock.
"You know her?" he cried in surprise.
"Kinda. She heard about a job we did and wanted to know if we still had the harmonica," she explained.
"What harmonica?"
"Oh, this ghost was buried without the harmonica he always played, so to put him to rest we had to find it, which was a pain in the ass. We did though, and a few years later we get a call from some woman who wanted to buy it for 500 dollars," she said and shrugged. Sam, impressed at how small the world really was, nodded.
"You didn't recognize her in the photo?"
"We never met, just talked over the phone," she explained and again Sam nodded.
"She's helped us out sometimes," he said and now Alex nodded.
"So she's going to be Mrs. Dean Winchester? That works," she figured she approved.
"Maybe. Don't say anything to Dean about it though," Sam warned and Alex laughed slightly but promised to be silent.
When Dean woke up the car smelled warm and tasty. This made sense as he opened his eyes and saw the three other people with him munching happily on sandwiches. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Dean frowned.
"Hey, what abo-" he started to say but stopped when Nikki held a bag over to him. He looked in it, saw a sandwich, and nodded in approval. He sat up carefully so as not to hurt his ankle or Nikki's lap, and dug into the bag.
"Where are we?" he munched.
"Still in Nebraska," Sam told him.
"But we're making a little detour."
"We are?" both brothers asked surprised. Alex nodded, smiling.
"Yeah. Nikki and I have been tracking a theatre where ghosts seem to be quite active. We were planning on stopping by after we were done with you guys," she explained.
"When were you going to tell me?" Sam, as the driver, wanted to know.
"When you became suspicious. Don't worry, we're already headed there."
"How are we doing that?"
"You let me navigate, Sam, I've been leading us there for 20 miles," she answered simply. This surprised Sam, and impressed Dean, who was picking the tomato off his sandwich. Alex seemed to be made of tough stuff, maybe this whole thing wouldn't be so bad.
This was when Nikki reached over for his discarded tomato. She looked at him asking if she could have it. He nodded so she picked it up. Nikki then rolled down her window, and flung the tomato slice out of it. She quickly turned around to see if she could see where it went. Dean sighed a little.
Yes, this was going to be bad.
"So what about this theatre?" Sam asked Alex.
"It's really interesting, you'll love this," Alex started, "in the past three weeks four people in this theatre have died. All in different ways. One fell down a flight of stairs, one had a heart attack, another had a tool fall on his head from the rafters, and the last committed 'suicide.'"
"So?" Dean asked, "those are all unfortunate, but not impossible. They're not even unlikely."
"Let me finish. About fifty years ago, in the same theatre, a fire broke out back stage during a performance and killed the entire cast, 25 people in total. The play they were performing then hasn't been done since, until now…" Alex said suggestively. The brothers were now both interested, and the sisters could tell this by the silence. Alex's grin widened like a cat who just spotted a blind canary.
"And…" she gracefully added, "the play is Macbeth."
After arriving in the town just like Alex had planned for them to do, the four drove over to the theatre which wasn't terribly hard to find. It was obviously by the sheer volume of signs that the theatre was the main attraction of the small town. Sam pulled the Impala up across the street from it and everyone in the car gave the police car parked in front a nasty stare.
"Phantom strikes again?" Dean asked rhetorically.
"We'll find out," Sam answered leaning across Alex and opening the glove compartment. The sisters watched him pull out a box and dig through a bunch of IDs. He threw one back at Dean, took more for himself, and dug around toward the bottom for two more. One of these he handed to each sister.
"FBI?" Alex asked, looking at hers.
"There's no picture but it'll do for flashing at people," he shrugged closing the compartment. Alex looked the ID over in greater interest.
"You guys are hardcore," she sounded impressed so the brothers took it as a compliment.
"Alright so I figured we split up into two groups. Group one talks to the cops and other people, the other group looks around the theatre. I figure group one should be Dean and Alex," Sam explained. The two mentioned looked at him in slight shock.
"What? Why us?" Dean asked him.
"Because your ankle isn't up for sneaking around and Nikki wouldn't be a lot of help in a conversation," Sam explained authoritatively. Everyone credited this plan to Sam's time as Stanford, Sam credited it to plain old common sense.
Dean tried very hard to look professional and limp at the same time. His ankle was mostly numb from ice, but every now and then a shot of pain would come up his leg and hit his right eye. To compensate, Dean took deep breaths and leaned against the back of the police car as casually and as soon as he could. He and the three people behind him smiled as the local cop walked cautiously over to them.
"Can I help you?" he asked. Dean gave the man a reassuring and rather ambiguous smile.
"I hope so. I'm Agent Peter North with the FBI," Dean showed his badge to the man. "These are Agents Andrew Blake," he pointed to Sam, "Audree Jaymes," he pointed to Nikki, "and, uh, Karen Dior," was Alex, who looked displeased.
It is a credit to the police officer that he didn't recognize any of those names.
"What are four FBI agents doing here?" he asked perplexed.
"A group of sudden deaths is something the FBI takes an interest in," Dean managed to say so smoothly he impressed the two sisters.
"Really?" the officer was surprised, "oh, well then, what can I do to help?" he shrugged.
"Well I'd like to have some words with you, find out what's going on, maybe get your ideas, while they go look around. That okay?"
"Oh, yeah, sure. That'd be just fine," the officer nodded. Dean smiled, genuinely pleased.
"Great!" he turned around to Sam and Nikki, "Andrew, Audree, why don't you start looking around then?"
"Sure, right away, Peter," Sam told him, hiding his murderous rage rather well. Dean gave him a cocky little grin as the two left. He was getting too smug for his own good, so Alex shifted her weight in such a way the officer didn't notice her foot on Dean's toes.
Dean, however, did notice.
Sam had never been to Ford's Theatre, but he had always figured it looked something like this. Rather simple and easy to navigate while the lights were on, things looked what would have been considered classy for the 19th century. The theatre smelled like wood and wood polish, unlike most new theatres that smelled like stale popcorn regardless if they even sold popcorn.
"Have you ever been to Ford's Theatre?" Sam asked, looking at the portrait of a rather gloomy sort of man. It occurred to him that Nikki was mute and he'd have to turn away from the painting to know her answer. He found Nikki smiling and shaking her head.
"Neither have I," he answered and looked down at the viewer of the digital camera he was holding. The two continued working their way down the hall, and every now and then Sam would look over at the EMF meter Nikki was using. It was so nice looking and easy to use. He was trying to appreciate the skill Dean would have needed to make the one they had, but honestly, and Sam would admit this, he had EMF meter envy.
To make things even, though, Nikki envied his digital camera.
Sam concentrated on the digital image of the theatre for so long that when he did turn back to Nikki, he found her gone. Panicking for a moment, thinking about what Alex would do to him if he lost her sister, Sam retraced his steps and luckily spotted Nikki walking down another hallway. Going after her, Sam realized she was following the sounds of her EMF meter, waving it around for a moment and then moving in the direction it was pointed. So he followed her, and eventually they found themselves at the bottom of a pair of roped off stairs. Nikki turned off her EMF meter and looked over the stairs curiously. There was a tarp over an area at the bottom, probably over a bloodstain. Sam moved the camera over the tarp and, sure enough, he could see the ghostly image of a man lying at the bottom. He hit record and after a moment of capturing the ghost he scanned the camera up the stairs to the top, where someone was looking at him.
The ghost seemed just as surprised to see Sam as Sam was to see him.
"Hey!" Sam cried looking away from the screen to the stairs where the dead man could not be seen. Turning back to the camera he saw just the shoulder of the man stepping hurriedly out of shot. Sighing, Sam stopped the camera from recording and looked down at Nikki.
"'Life is but a walking shadow…'"
"Okay, well, now that we got all the preliminary information down, I'd like to know what you think of all this," Dean was being charming. Now fully up on the hood of the police car, he had been asking the cop questions for quite a while. He had even managed to force Alex to take notes.
"What I think?" the cop looked modestly embarrassed, "well hell, what could my opinion mean to an FBI agent?"
Dean continued to smile and be charming.
"We consider the knowledge of local law enforcement to be incredibly valuable. You understand this town and the victims far more than we ever could. Besides, you look like a trustworthy guy, you're probably privy to a lot more of the gossip going around town. I figure we can get the lowdown from you," he explained. The cop straightened his back slightly with pride. There was a moment of silence and Dean heard only Alex's pencil scratching on the notebook.
"You get that? 'Lowdown.' It's one word," he leaned over to her. In response Alex stopped writing and gave Dean the lookiest of all 'Look's. He cleared his throat and leaned back casually again.
"Well, as far as gossip around town goes… It's silly," the cop shrugged, "but everyone seems to think it's the ghost of those people who died 50 years ago."
Neither Dean nor Alex reacted like they thought that was a silly idea.
"What do you think?" Dean asked him.
"Me? Well…" it was obvious the cop thought it was ghosts but didn't want the 'FBI' to know that, "I think it's just unfortunate."
No one could say he was lying about that.
"Alright, well, thanks a lot. I guess we'll go find our friends, hm?" Dean turned to Alex to see what she thought. She already had her pad of paper and pencil tucked away and was walking toward the theatre entrance. Dean hobbled to catch her.
"No, go on a little more," Sam instructed. He was standing alone on the stage, his eyes down but the camera pointed up. In the view screen he was watching Nikki up on the catwalk. Sam saw on the camera screen she was walking closer to a large, glowing orb that couldn't be seen by the naked eye. He had seen it from the balcony and the two decided one of them should go up there with the EMF meter. Since it was her meter, Nikki had found her way up a spiral staircase and listening to both the meter and Sam, urging her closer to the spot.
"There, yeah, right there. You get anything?" Sam called up to her. He could make out the nodding from her head. Before she went up there, they had decided that was the spot the tool had fallen from when it hit a man on the head and killed him. This is why it made sense for Nikki to look out over the railing and to the stage floor directly beneath her. There was a tarp there too, and the small section was roped off.
"Okay, you can come-" Sam cut short, looking at the screen. The glowing orb had remained there even with Nikki standing on it, but now something else was beginning to take shape. Sam watched, and saw the face of a man there. The same man he had seen at the top of the stairs before. That could not be good.
"Nikki! Get out of there!" he yelled at her. Nikki, confused by this urgent demand, stood still for a very brief moment, trying to figure it out. Sam had a feeling this would happen and had already bolted off the stage and ran for the spiral staircase. Sometimes have incredibly long legs was a pain. Short tables, small cars, school buses; but when it came to bounding up stairs they were very good. It only took Sam a few moments to get up on the catwalk, and he got there just in time to see Nikki fall over the railing.
"Nikki!" Sam heard Alex's scream fill the theatre as he ran over to where Nikki had been. The younger Charles sister had an elbow wrapped around one of the poles holding the catwalk railing up and had the other elbow up on the catwalk. Sam couldn't see them, but he figured her legs were flailing uselessly beneath her.
"Oh my god!" Alex cried and this time Sam could see her bounding up on to the stage beneath them. Sam's brother limped after her.
"Hang on Nikki," Sam tried to say calmly. If she heard him it was hard to tell. Her face looked more like one of disbelief than one of fear. Hanging off a theatre catwalk isn't something one actually expects to do.
"Get a rope around her shoulders!" Dean yelled up to him, hobbling onto the stage. Sam already knew this, of course, and had been looking around for some loose rope. He found some rope, it just wasn't loose.
There is a good reason Sam always kept a knife on him. That reason happens to be because he never knew when he'd be around someone dangling from a catwalk and would need to cut some rope.
After a few quick saws through the rope, Sam unwound it from its place. He could hear some half piece of backdrop falling to the stage, but right now the louder sound was Nikki's feet hitting the underside of the catwalk as she tried to climb up.
"Hang on, hang on," he said as he moved the rope around in his hands. Kneeling by her arms and face, Sam worked quickly and carefully to get the rope under both of her arms, all the while reassuring her things were going to be fine. Nikki was generally the optimistic sort, who always felt that nothing terribly would ever really happen to her, so she believed him quite readily. Alex was not so optimistic, and was continuously telling Sam to be careful. If he wasn't, Alex said, she'd personally castrate him, and since she had no medical knowledge, it'd be very likely he would die. Dean was somehow able to shut her up.
"Okay Nikki, I got you. Between us both we should be able to pull you up, okay?" Sam was remaining calm and being very good. Holding the rope tight and pulling as gently as he could, the two tried to pull her up. They might have made it if Sam hadn't felt a chill behind him. Before he knew it, something was pushing him forward into the railing. The only thing he heard was Alex screaming as he lost hold of the rope and Nikki began to fall. Without time to think Sam grabbed the falling rope and stopped Nikki about half way to the ground. He grit his teeth against the pain in his arms but held her tight. Beneath him he could hear Alex thanking various gods and goddesses.
"You'd best just lower her down, Sam," Dean said calmly from the stage. Sam nodded and one by one, hand over hand, he lowered Nikki to the stage where Alex hugged her thoroughly. Only after Alex managed a 'thank you' up toward him did Sam know it was safe to let the rope go. Hearing it hit the stage below, Sam walked off the catwalk and down the spiral stairs.
On the stage he found Alex and Nikki still hugging each other in relief, and Dean leaning down to look where Nikki's EMF meter had landed. This was quite the job, as the meter had come to rest in several different places after breaking against the hard stage floor. Dean seemed oddly pleased. He saw Sam and gave his young brother a sort of 'Whose EMF meter is better now, huh?' look. Sam felt very much like chastising Dean for it, and he would have, if Nikki hadn't so suddenly hugged him. She got Sam so off guard he stumbled back a step and cried out slightly in pain. The cry made Nikki release him and look at the parts he had spread farthest from her.
His hands.
Her eyes went wide is shock when she saw the large rope burns that covered them. Alex flinched slightly and Dean looked mildly concerned. Everyone felt better though when Sam chuckled slightly when Nikki wrapped her arms around him again in gratitude and even gave him a kiss on the chin to help ease the pain.
"No, I'm okay, they're not that bad," he tried to reassure her and everyone.
"Still though, we should get you to the first-aid kit," Alex told him. She said this in such a motherly way that both motherless brothers obeyed immediately and they all went back to the car.
The cop had gone and the sun had set dusk upon the town. Sam was sitting in the front passenger seat with his legs out in the street. Nikki knelt in front of him, cleaning, applying lotion, and wrapping his hands. All the while he could see the disbelief on her face. What it was she had trouble believing, though, he had no idea. Sam just kept smiling, hoping it'd help her realize everything was alright.
Dean wasn't helping. He sat like Sam did, only in the backseat. He was watching Nikki the same way he had when she was dressing his twisted ankle, like he was making sure she didn't do anything wrong. This wasn't a reflection of Nikki, though. When Sam was the one to dress wounds Dean would look at him the same way. It was something Dean did without knowing, which was sad, because if he did know he looked so judgmental he would have liked to stop.
"Alright, thank you," Alex said into her cell phone before hanging up. She walked a few steps closer to the car and watched Sam's hands being wrapped for a moment.
"I got us a room at a local inn. It's a suite, with two rooms, breakfast and everything. The woman even gave me directions," she explained. The brothers nodded in approval and Nikki, upon finishing Sam's second hand, signed something to her sister. Alex's eyes widened in realization.
"Oh, right. Who's going to drive?" she asked the brothers. Dean and Sam looked away from the younger to the older, slightly confused.
"Drive?" Dean asked.
"Yeah, you know, the car," Alex told them, "Dean can't use his foot and Sam's hands don't look good for steering."
The brothers were silent for a while.
"Oh Christ," Dean sighed and fell back onto the seat. Sam shrugged.
"I guess one of you will have to," he said.
Alex smiled.
No one was surprised by Dean's backseat driving, but the backseat navigating was a little much. Alex was in the driver's seat with Nikki next to her giving her the directions Alex had gotten from the inn keeper. Between them was Dean's foot up on the seat, as Sam had quite strongly refused to hold it in his lap. Apparently, Alex was using too much gas and pulling on the steering wheel too hard, and Nikki was taking too long in telling Alex where to go, having her sister make turns so short it would hurt the car.
More than once a sister would accidentally hit his foot on purpose.
Eventually they did get to the inn and checked themselves in. Had it occurred to Alex while she was making the reservations that she and Nikki would be the only ones able to carry luggage, she would have requested a room on the first floor. As it was, though, by the time the sisters got everyone's things to the room, the brothers had already order out for pizza and the women could relax.
Until Dean's bandage came off and Nikki had to redo it, of course.
"So the cop was there today just to make sure nothing had been disturbed, he also added that lately they've been checking the theatre every day to make sure someone else didn't die there," Dean explained getting a whiff of the pizza as Alex closed the door on the delivery guy and carried the two large pizzas over to the table.
"He tell you anything about the fire 50 years ago?" Sam asked, likewise smelling the pizza.
"Nothing he knew for certain, but he was pretty sure the library would have information. Apparently it has every local newspaper since 1903," Dean answered.
"Let's get back to the ghost that pushed Nikki over the catwalk, can we?" Alex asked setting the pizzas down on the table between them all. She had a wait a minute as everyone got themselves a slice, or, in Sam's case, three slices.
"I'm pretty sure I got him on the camera," Sam said amongst mozzarella.
"We might be able to identify him from pictures of the cast in the newspaper from the 50s," Dean said.
"Assuming that's when he died," Alex shrugged, pouring herself some soda pop. The brothers looked at her for a moment.
"Of course he did. He died in a fire performing in a play so now he haunts the play," Dean thought it was all pretty simple. Alex gave him a pointed look.
"Yeah, but what started the fire?" she asked. The brothers were silent again as they thought. Nikki just smiled to herself with pride for her sister.
It was good that Sam went to bed early that night. Not for any particular reason, just that it's always good when a Winchester got a full night's sleep. Dean was just walking out of the bathroom, flipping off the lights and putting his toothbrush back in its little baggy. Limping over toward the bed Sam was fast asleep in, Dean cringed a little from the pain of a sprained ankle. Looking at the doorway that connected the Winchester brothers' room with the Charles sisters', he saw light coming out from around it, signifying one of both of the sisters were still awake. If it was Nikki, maybe she could wrap another icepack around his ankle.
So he hobbled over to the door, trying not to bump anything in his now dark room. As he got there he could hear Alex's voice, it was low and gentle. Dean opened the door a crack and intended to barge right into the room his fake credit card was paying for, but he saw the unmistakable sight of a bare female back. He pulled the door shut most of the way closed but, being Dean, left just enough space for him to peer into the room. He could still see the back, and by the lighter brown color he could tell it was Nikki's. Alex's voice proved that.
"You should tell me when you're hurt," the older sister chastised gently. Dean leaned to the side and, looking still at Nikki's bare back, could see minor rope burns by her shoulders. They didn't look very bad, not nearly as bad as Sam's burns, but they didn't look all that comfortable. Dean watched Nikki sign something, trying to communicate and hold a blanket to her chest at the same time. It seemed enough for Alex who sat on the bed behind her, opening the lid on a tube of lotion.
"I don't care if you think it's embarrassing, you need to tell me," she said, beginning to rub lotion on her sister's burns. Nikki signed something else. Dean couldn't see her face, but her hands seemed cheerless.
"It was not your fault Sam got hurt. You didn't jump off the catwalk," Alex shook her head. Dean had to give Alex credit. Apparently she could read sign language backward.
"And it wasn't your fault Dean sprained his ankle, either," Alex added for good measure. Nikki signed again.
"Okay, so it was silly of you to fall down the hill. It was silly of him to do the same," Alex said. It occurred to Dean that the sight of two women seated on a bed, one rubbing lotion onto the bare back of the other, would usually be something he'd see as erotic, but with these two it just seemed gentle and familial. This worried Dean a little. He closed the door on them and hobbled over to bed. What worried him was that the Charles sisters weren't women to him, they weren't sex. Even Cassie and Bobbi have always been sex to him. But these sisters, they were different, they were Alex and Nikki, they were friends.
Dean just hoped this didn't mean he was gay.
It was a pretty small library, the sort that was probably a one room school house at some point, maybe even a church. Sam knew it was a small library when he found its one edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the non-fiction section and missing the front cover.
"You find anything?" Sam asked carrying a book in the crook of his arm. Dean was seated at a desk, flipping through old newspapers on the screen in front of him. Sam liked the familiar sound of the clicking as each newspaper went by.
"No," Dean huffed, "no one seems to know what month the fire happened. I'm currently in August, 1956."
"Anything interesting?"
"Linda Hoyt gave birth to twins girls. They named them Milly and Molly," Dean said and looked at him as if this were very exciting news indeed. Sam frowned.
"Well keep looking, it'll be there," he said. Dean nodded and continued clicking his way through the newspapers.
"What you got there?" he asked Sam as the younger sat down and set his book on the table.
"Oh! I found a copy of Macbeth! It's been awhile since I've read it, so I figured I'd go over it again," Sam shrugged. He realized that made him sound sort of dorky, but frankly, Sam didn't give a damn if it did.
"'When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?'" Dean asked.
There was a moment as Sam looked at his brother is shocked awe.
"You've read Macbeth?" he was only partially speechless.
"Only the first two lines," Dean shrugged and turned back to the screen.
"Let it never be said a little old fashioned hard work never paid off!" Alex's voice was a little too loud for a library as she walked over to them, beaming. Nikki followed after, carrying a large, newspaper sized book.
"What'd you find?" Sam asked as Nikki set the book on the table and opened it. Both brothers leaned forward.
"October 9th, 1956! '25 People Burn to Death in Theatre!' Beat that!" Alex was very proud of herself. The aged front page did indeed bear this headline, and all down it were 25 small portraits. Pulling the book closer, Sam began looking over the head shots as Dean read over the article itself.
"Fire of unknown causes," he read and intended to have a meaningful look with his brother, but the younger Winchester was still searching the faces. Sam's eyebrows furrowed in a way that Dean knew wasn't good.
"He's not here," Sam informed them.
"What do you mean?" Dean demanded.
"What can I mean? He's not here. The ghost in the theatre that tried to kill Nikki isn't here. He wasn't in that cast," Sam explained.
"Maybe you got his face wrong."
"No, I remember that face. It's creepy as all Hell, I didn't forget," Sam was quite positive. Dean sighed and thought for a moment.
"I want to see the face on that camera. Come on," Dean stood, "let's get a photocopy of this."
He began to pick up the large book.
"You mean like this?" Alex smiled and produced several sheets of copy paper. Dean looked over them and eyed the elder sister critically.
"How long ago did you find the newspaper?" he asked.
"About an hour."
The brothers both glared at her.
"It took us awhile to find the copier," she explained.
That night Dean Winchester and Nikki Charles had a very large scare. All four of them where in their hotel room just in time for Jeopardy, which normally isn't a frightening event, but apparently both Sam and Alex excel at the game show. Dean and Nikki watched on in horror as their siblings played the game against each other, going so far as to use the hotel stationary to keep score. It was surprising at how seriously Sam and Alex seemed to be taking it, too. During the commercials they bickered like mad over who got the answer first and other small details. Alex even shoved Sam over the side of the bed when he insisted he get credit for an answer whether or not he put it in the form of a question.
Really, though, Alex was right about that one. In Double Jeopardy you need to put it in the form of a question.
The two non-genius siblings sat off in the corner, mostly afraid of being slapped by one of the other two. Dean was reading over the photocopied newspaper, which the sisters had copied in full (it cost them one dollar and 60 cents,) while Nikki was searching online. Nikki, Dean noticed, had horrible computer posture. She hunched herself down and curled her arms to her chest, occasionally using one to move the mouse or type something. She looked like a nervous squirrel, it was really unsightly.
He was about to tell her so when another Jeopardy related fight broke out over whether or not Alex's pronunciation of 'Sudan' was acceptable.
Sighing and shaking his head, Dean turned back to the newspaper, occasionally looking over at the image in the digital camera. It was a very memorable face. Back to the newspaper again, Dean had to wonder if it had really been a good idea to continue the story from the front page in the obituary section. He supposed it saved space and money, but really, it seemed sort of tacky.
This was his train of thought up until the moment he jumped out of his seat, throwing the chair backward to the ground in the process. Naturally everyone looked at him and the photocopy clenched in his hands.
"What?" Sam asked his excited looking brother.
"I found him!" Dean cried. Sam and Alex abandoned their Jeopardy and Nikki left her squirrel like internet surfing. They were by his side and looking at the obituary he was pointing to.
It started with a picture of the man. He looked like he wasn't the smiling sort, but was being forced to try for the sake of the photograph. The obituary wasn't very long as some of them go, but the very important part was at the end. Dean, being the only one to read the entire article about the theatre fire, was also the only one to know why the date and time of the dead man's funeral was important.
"His funeral was at the same time and day the memorial for the actors was, the exact freaking time!" Dean explained, "how many people do you think showed up for his memorial?"
"I'd be surprised if his wife showed up," Alex disliked this ghost the minute he touched her sister.
"So he's killing these actors for, what, revenge?" Sam wasn't exactly sure how to word it. 'Jealousy' might have been better.
"People have killed for less," Alex told him and Nikki nodded in agreement. This would have been a good time for the brothers and sisters to think long and hard about the different sort of childhoods they had, but they had other things to think about at the moment.
"What do we do? Salt and burn the bones?" Sam asked. Dean thought for a moment.
"We could hold a funeral, get people to come," Alex suggested. The brothers looked at her.
"That wouldn't work…" Dean said.
"It could. Sometimes all they want is a proper send off," she shrugged.
It was a testament to Dean's charisma that the entire remaining cast and crew of Macbeth was seated in the theatre looking at the stage. Some how, under the guise of an FBI agent, Dean had gotten the local cops to get everyone to come. Dean had said something about questioning and going over theories or something… but really, he just needed a group of people.
Now they were all looking at Sam, who of the four was the least threatening looking one that could actually speak. He stood at a podium and looked somewhat shyly over the group of confused people.
"Hello," he did his non-threatening wave, "we've gathered you all here to mourn the passing of Henry Bunten."
Sam then went on to read everything he knew about Henry, which was the obituary in its entirety. The group of people in front of him continued to be confused through every word of it. Finally he finished and set the paper on the podium. There were a few moments where he looked out at everyone, impatiently waiting for something to happen.
"I told you it wouldn't work," Dean said to Alex back stage.
That was when the giant roar blasted through the theatre before slowly fading away. Most of the cast and crew panicked and fled the theatre, while Sam jogged off the stage to his brother and the sisters.
"What was that?"
"I don't know!" Dean replied.
"Nikki was that it?" Alex asked her sister. They all watched as Nikki nodded, smiling.
Later that night Alex was driving the Impala down a rather busy highway. Dean and Nikki were asleep in the back seat, Nikki making some odd breathing sound in the back of her throat. When Dean had fallen asleep had been a very good moment for Alex. It meant he finally shut up about her driving his car. Though, even his nagging hadn't taken anything away from the fact that she was driving a really nice looking car! Alex wasn't a lesbian by any means, except that one time that doesn't count, but this car seriously made her want to go pick up chicks.
"Hey," Sam quietly got her attention. He was in the passenger seat, carefully typing on his laptop with just his index fingers.
"Yeah?" Alex really didn't know how to be quiet.
"How'd you know it'd be so easy to get rid of that ghost? It was pretty violent," he asked. This wasn't Sam complaining. Just because he was an excellent marksman didn't mean he enjoyed shooting things.
Alex shrugged.
"I dunno. They're not really all that hard to get rid of sometimes. For some, all y'all gotta do is something simple."
"Simple?"
"Yeah, simple. Like… Play them music, or let them watch a movie. Sometimes it's hard and we gotta solve their murder or rearrange a library, but sometimes it's all easy," she said. Sam thought about this for a moment. He had taken some psychology classes at school, and he was wondering if the reason he, Dean, and their dad always shot things while the Charles sisters just worked things out, as because of the difference in male/female ways of thinking.
"Oh," was all he said on the matter, "I still should have gotten credit for that answer."
"It has to be in the form of a question!"