Part 25

Lander, Wyoming, 2006

Charlie lingered warily in the open doorway, next to where Sam stood with his hand on the doorknob. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked hesitantly.

Dean gripped a hand on the back of the chair to his left, lifting his eyebrows at Sam who met his gaze squarely, gave a nearly imperceptible shrug of his left shoulder and looked away.

The subtle defiance laced in his brother's tiny movements was an achingly familiar throwback to the way Sam had been with Dad back when things had just started going wrong—before Stanford. Before things had escalated into You're ruining my life and If you leave, stay gone—rebellion and insubordination found more in his demeanor than in any outright action. Dean usually thought of this as Sam's way to subtly communicate his opinion that the rest of the world had become unreasonable and his was therefore the only sane voice left.

Clearly, his brother thought he knew what he was doing.

Dean wasn't so sure. His teeth clenched involuntarily—a gut reaction of worry, mostly for his brother.

"No," Sam said, eyes on Charlie, answering his question when it appeared no one else would. "You're not interrupting. Come in."

Jack shuffled his feet across the coarse carpet, lifting a hand to the bridge of his nose.

"Sam," Dean cut in warningly, but Sam just shook his head at him, adding the trust me look Dean had caved to in the past way more than he ever should have.

"I told Sam I wanted to talk to Jack." Charlie was glancing between them, keeping himself in the doorway despite Sam's invitation. "Maybe this is a… bad time?" There was an edge of sarcasm in his voice that didn't sound all that good-natured. Whatever he'd initially thought his brother was doing here—checking on Dean's health or whatever—Charlie'd obviously deduced there was more to it than that, expression tightening as he tried to connect the dots. He made an indistinct gesture with his hand and spoke to Jack, "Look, I know there's something going on, alright? You've been acting weird all week and—"

Jack's hand dropped away from his face. "Charlie—" he started, tone weary and placating.

"Is this Charlie?" Elly rose unexpectedly from her seat on the bed.

Jack swung toward her, startled, looking surprised to hear her speak—even more surprised when he realized her eyes were on him and the question she'd asked had been consciously directed to him.

The tight white lines bordering her features softened. She moved to Charlie, not stopping until she stood directly in front of him. Sam stepped back to give her space, hand still holding the doorknob, gaping the door wider with his movement, rain-soaked air flowing inward on the breeze. Elly's hand skirted up to Charlie's jaw, pausing just short of touching it. "Jack talks about you," she whispered, eyes sparkling momentarily.

Charlie flicked his gaze to Jack and back without moving any other muscle in his body—instinctively as motionless as one would be confronting a wild animal. "Does he, now?" he replied, relaying the who are you? in the simple preciseness of his tone. "Wonderful. That's… uh… absolutely fabulous."

Elly's lips twitched to a soft smile, making it look for a moment like she might laugh. Her fingers descended to touch the side of Charlie's jaw after all. Two seconds later, her expression changed, the sparkle in her eyes abating. Her hand dropped. She glanced back at Jack as though just then remembering where she was and why she was there, tugging again at the tie on her sweater, folding her arms across her chest when she'd finished.

Her stance shifted.

Dean could no longer see her eyes, but it seemed clear her focus was suddenly on his brother.

Wary of how she'd reacted to Sam back in the care center, Dean stepped forward, tensing.

She turned abruptly away from Sam to face him. "She found you, again."

He stopped. Unlike the conversation with her before, Dean was pretty sure he understood her this time—was reasonably sure she was talking about Prisal One. "Yes," he answered.

The fingers she had clenched at each of her biceps fluttered and stiffened until her hands looked white. "But it's not over."

Dean wasn't sure if it was a question or not but he answered anyway. "Not yet."

Elly nodded, twisting back to Sam. "That just leaves you," she whispered, gaze wavering. "She agrees with you."

"What?" Sam glanced to Dean and frowned.

Dean's chest constricted. Forcing one long fighting breath, he took another step forward, close enough to the open door to feel the cold from the rainy outside air hit his bare arms. Was it a warning or a statement? Did she mean Sam or him?

Trapped between them, Charlie stepped back, more outside than in, confusion etched deeply on his face.

"You still shouldn't be here," Elly spoke once more, directing her words at Sam. It wasn't said with the same agitation she'd said it back in the center—sounding more regretful than threatening. She blinked, eyes squinting. "It's what comes after," she mumbled, looking at Dean, pinning her eyes to his chest. "It's always… what comes after." She stopped, squinting, looking up to see Sam's eyes, confusion in her voice making what she said sound like a question, so sedate in word and action, Dean wasn't expecting it when Sam flinched.

Already fighting his hypersensitive nerves, his eyes narrowed. "Sam?" he questioned.

Sam didn't answer and Jack spoke before Dean could push. "Elly, what are you talking about?" he questioned gently.

She shook her head, eyes scrunched and pained as she returned to her seat on the bed, tucking stray hair behind one ear, brushing her other hand against a non-existent crease in her jeans. "I don't know, Jack."

Outside, the rain was picking up again.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

"Uh," Charlie stumbled, "I'll uh… I'm sorry to interrupt. I'll… "

"Charlie, wait. We do need to talk." Jack threw Dean an apologetic expression. "Can you give us a minute?"

"We could use some air," Dean agreed. He grabbed his over-shirt from the back of the nearest chair, shrugging it on before picking up Sam's jacket.

Sam stopped him before he could cross the scuffed line of salt, closing a quick grip on one arm. "You should stay inside," he said lowly.

Dean rolled his eyes, rebelliously stepping over the line, breaking Sam's grip and brushing past Charlie into the grey outside—the overhead awning keeping him from getting instantly wet.

Behind him, Sam made a disgruntled noise, but it was followed by the creak of the closing door and Sam's feet scuffling across the cement. When Dean looked back, Sam was folding his arms across his chest. His face looked pinched and a little white. For a moment Dean regretted his cavalier response to his brother's worry.

"You shouldn't be out here," Sam said, voice off enough for Dean to recognize he hadn't yet shaken off his nightmare.

Dean swallowed thickly. He didn't know what to say that hadn't already been said. He could tell Sam again he wasn't dying—could tell him again his dreams were just nightmares. But Sam wouldn't buy it, and the line between fact and myth blurred more and more each time Dean tried to draw it.

Wordlessly, he tossed Sam his jacket—didn't tell Sam he was fine and didn't really try to hide the fact that he wasn't. He turned away, took several balanced steps to a bench against the wall a few doors down, consciously swallowed his own surfacing fears and sat down. When he did, he discovered he had a view of both the Oxbow Restaurant and the McDonald's across the street. At some point, before those newer buildings existed, he probably would have had a pretty excellent view of the oddly shaped brushed hills bordering the entrance to the town—the same ones that eventually bottlenecked into Sinks Canyon—proving that everything grew and changed, even towns like Lander.

Jacket on, Sam slumped next to him, hands shoved deep into his pockets, apparently willing to allow his worry to take the backseat—for now. He tapped his foot against the pavement a couple times but stilled it when he spoke, "Before you say anything about Charlie—he asked, Dean. He's not an idiot. He already knew there was something going on with Jack. And after everything at the house this morning… then the clinic—"

"So you just thought you'd spill everything to him whether Jack wanted him to know or not? 'Hey, Charlie, your brother's secret fiancée was kidnapped by ghosts and—'"

"No. I didn't tell him anything. I'm not planning to tell him anything. I just gave him the chance to ask his brother questions he already had."

Dean stretched his legs out in front of him, sliding down on the bench. He picked up on Sam's wronged-little-brother vibe, but ignored it for the moment. "With Elly there?"

Sam grimaced. "I didn't think Jack would really bring her," he admitted.

Dean smirked. "Your faith in me is overwhelming," he shot wryly.

"I'm sorry, okay? After everything Jack said the other day… about her not wanting to talk to him or leave her room… I just didn't think—"

"Yeah, you didn't think, did you?"

Sam scowled, body movements reflecting heightened anger. "You know what, forget it, I was thinking. First, Jack said he wanted to tell Charlie about Elly—just didn't know how. Second, Charlie was going to talk to him anyway. Besides, if Jack really didn't want Charlie to know, he could have just let Charlie leave when he was going to."

Dean sighed at Sam's righteous indignation. "And if Jack's in there telling him the rest along with it? Telling him he saw a ghost in the canyon… and that you aren't who he thinks you are? What do you think he's going to say? Because if you think your friendship's going to be the same, it won't be. And let me tell you, him calling you freakin' nuts will be at the top of the list."

"Charlie's not like that."

The crux of the situation: Sam had too much faith in people, in the ultimate good of the world, in his friends. A lingering characteristic from his brother's well of innocence. How could he explain to him that this was different? Bringing Charlie here—blending the two sides of Sam's world—it wouldn't go well. It wouldn't go well because innocence didn't exist on their side of things. In the normal world, they were freaks.

Besides, Dean had tried it once—the full honesty thing—had reached the point of no longer being able to pretend. He'd learned the hard way that there were reasons for the rules they lived by, for the secrets they kept. He didn't want Sam to feel… that. Didn't want him to know that friendships only went so far—that people would rarely react the way Sam wanted them to. Dean thought Sam would have learned that by now, after all those lost arguments with Dad.

It was a hard reality but— "People are like that, Sam."

His brother slouched back on the bench, the pose of giving up without conceding. "You're kind of cynical, you know that?"

"Doesn't mean I'm wrong."

"Doesn't mean you're right, either. And Dean, at this point, would Jack telling him everything be such a bad thing? I mean, he's right in the middle of it—got a vase smashed into the side of his head this morning because of it. And with Sara getting possessed and all that… Maybe if we'd filled him in sooner, he might have been able to help us a little. At the very least, he would have been prepared to protect himself better. Besides, they're brothers, Dean."

There it was—the wronged-little-brother vibe again. Dean blinked, cocked his head to the side. "Something you want to say to me?"

Sam fidgeted, shoulders tightening and relaxing, jaw twitching. Ultimately, he sighed, casting his gaze out over the parking lot. "I just wish you wouldn't keep so much to yourself," he admitted. "We might have gotten further on this thing sooner if you'd just... let me in a little—told me about what you'd read in Dad's journal or filled me in on what happened to you before, or even just… told me what you suspected."

Dean snorted, and this time he did say it, "You've got to be kidding me. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you the guy I remember saying—what was it?—oh yeah, You're my brother, but there are some things I need to keep to myself? Aren't you that guy? I'm pretty sure that was you." He left out the part about Sam dying for him—on purpose. As honest as he tried to be with himself, he often edited out the concepts he couldn't deal with. Ignoring was sometimes better. A bad habit for sure—creating a selective reality—but sometimes it was all he had to make things bearable. And theoretically kept others from honing in on the things that could hurt him—really hurt him.

Sam's response was predictable. "That's different."

Dean drew his legs back in, sat forward and lifted his eyebrows in disbelief. "Really? How?"

"What I hold back doesn't end up putting my life in danger."

Dean's disbelief went up a notch and he expelled a short huffed breath of air. "So Bloody Mary was just planning on shaking your hand?" His voice was rigid through the sarcasm.

Sam shook his head. "It's not like you didn't know what was going on. At least you knew she'd be coming for me—knew what to do when she did. Besides, that had to stay a secret or the plan wouldn't have worked."

Dean grunted, wanting to ask why then Sam hadn't told him about the dreams after the Bloody Mary thing was over? Or, forget that—why hadn't Sam told him about them back when Jessica died? Why had it been so difficult for Sam to tell him about them, even after he'd demanded Dean go back to Lawrence because of them?

And why the hell hadn't Sam wanted him called after he'd been taken to the hospital last year?

Dean felt it surge up in him—indignation and anger and hurt. "Whatever you want to tell yourself, Sammy, but the truth is you're just like Dad—you think you're entitled to all the information, but for the rest of us it's need-to-know at your discretion." The weight on his chest was instant, the twinge in his heart intensifying, matching the vibration that flew forward from the back of his mind. He clenched his eyes shut, bowed away from his brother, and balanced his elbows on his knees. He kept his hands purposely away from his heart—clenching them into fists so tight the short nails cut into his palms.

Vertigo struck next, confusing his sense of up and down. He opened his eyes again quickly, relieved to find himself still upright. His gaze flicked back to Sam, focus drawn to the deepening line between his brother's eyebrows, but he saw Sam's hands, too, coming out of his pockets, reaching for his arm.

"Are you okay?" Sam's voice was scared.

Dean unclenched his fists, gripping the edge of the bench on either side of him.

One of Sam's hands landed on his shoulder, gripping tight. The hum and the vertigo gave ground to his touch, but as grateful as Dean felt to have it, he was angry about it also. Couldn't he get into a nice normal argument with his brother without needing to hit the dirt? For a second, he warred between the desire to knock Sam's hand away and the desire to clench onto his wrist to make sure he didn't let go.

He did neither. He locked his jaw, rolled his focus back to the McDonald's and said, "I feel fine, Sam."

"You should have stayed inside."

"A ring of salt isn't going to protect me."

"Better than nothing," Sam shot back. He leaned back on the bench, but kept his hand to Dean's shoulder, fingers twisting in the fabric of his shirt in a way that made Dean think he wasn't aware he was doing it.

Better than nothing.

Dean told himself that lie about a lot of things.

As it turned out, Dean was right.

Sort of.

Jack ended up telling Charlie all of it—and Charlie wasn't really taking it well.

Sam hated it when Dean was right.

On the other hand—while Charlie kept looking at him like he'd never seen him before, he hadn't called him freakin' nuts yet, like Dean had said he would.

That was something.

Except maybe Charlie just hadn't worked up to it yet, because he hadn't said anything to him at all, really—had kept himself seated in the corner of the room behind the table while the rest of them spoke, watching him and Dean and Jack with silent Alice-in-Wonderland contemplation, furtive glances at Elly thrown in for good measure.

"You said voices, Elly—plural. Could you distinguish between them? Did they talk at the same time?" Dean was asking.

Sam tried to focus.

Elly had taken a pillow from the bed and was holding it folded in front of her—false security—as she tried to answer Dean's carefully composed questions. She'd progressed in coherency as the conversation evolved, but continued to phrase her answers with a staccato stop-motion of words that caused Sam to repeatedly backtrack what she'd said, just to make sure he was grouping the right sections of her words together.

"They spoke… together. At the same time. The man. Two women. I think," she explained.

Dean nodded. "Could you tell—"

"—what they were saying? No. Not really. They were fighting. They argued."

"All three of them?"

"Yes."

"What about?"

"Me. They were fighting. About me. I think."

"For control, maybe?" Dean speculated, looking at Sam.

That made sense. If the ghosts couldn't operate independently, or at least, couldn't operate independently all the time, there would be some inconsistency or inherent difficulty in forming cohesive actions, despite the fact that all three were ironically obsessed with being alone. Forever together, but damned by what they'd done to each other.

"Anything specific?" Sam asked.

"I don't… it's hard. To remember. Like remembering a dream."

From his corner, Charlie snorted.

Dean ignored him.

With what must have taken monumental effort, so did Jack. He thought maybe it was an exclusive big brother skill—the ability to tune out the younger when they needed to… or wanted to. "I only heard the man," he told Sam, leaning against the wall with one shoulder. "He said—now I'd know what it was like to be alone." He looked apologetically at Elly.

Sam assumed the look had something to do with the argument they'd been having before she disappeared. He looked away from them, feeling voyeuristic, pen firm in his hand as he wrote what Jack had just said.

"Knowing this is really going to help us stop them… it?" Jack fumbled to ask, stepping closer to peer at Sam's scratchy writing.

"Hopefully," Sam answered. He couldn't help it when his gaze traveled to Charlie—couldn't help wondering what he was thinking. When their eyes briefly met, he still couldn't tell.

He returned to Jack as his focal point. "If we can figure out what motivates each part of the casserole, we'll at least know a little more about what we're dealing with—maybe know what made each victim vulnerable to it." His eyes went to Dean this time—who was plainly aware of Sam's scrutiny and was expertly ignoring it. "And since we don't know where the third body is, we may have to come up with another way to stop this thing."

"Which means anything you can remember could help—especially since you," Dean looked at Elly, "—survived. Even just a phrase or a word."

"You're saying that what she remembers could tell us why she and the Collins guy came back… but Addison Wright didn't?" Jack didn't say Addison was dead. He didn't have to.

Elly took a deep breath, closing her eyes like Dean kept periodically doing. "Alone. They just… kept talking about... being alone." Her eyes opened. "Maybe… one of them. One of them might have said something about hurting what you love… knowing what you needed… or… or maybe, losing what you needed… I… I don't remember."

"It's okay," Dean said.

"Sometimes, I think I… I dream about it. At night. Hear them again and again, but I… When I wake up. I don't… I can't remember what they're saying."

Saying, Sam thought, present tense—like she was still hearing them but didn't know it. "It's okay," he reassured, tapping the pad. "This at least gives us something." He stood, stretched, and looked down at his watch. It was getting late. Neither he nor Dean had eaten dinner yet, but Sam was willing to skip it, for both of them. Now that it was darker outside and he could go the cemetery and dig up Earl's grave with less risk of being spotted, he didn't want to put it off.

He expected Dean to argue when he announced his intentions to go alone. He wasn't expecting the determination and force Dean put into his reaction.

"It's not going to happen, Sam."

"Yes it is."

Usually, when it mattered, when it was obvious, Sam could reason Dean down. Especially when he was this weak and wobbly and just wouldn't admit it. This time, Dean was ignoring common sense. Maybe feelings from their earlier argument were still rubbing at his nerves, or maybe—

Sam was getting frustrated, and quickly forgetting that there were other people in the room. "You're staying here," he ordered bluntly, feeling once more the fleeting wish for their father to show up and make the order stick.

"Like hell."

Sam made a noise in his throat and turned away, laced the fingers of his hands and ran them together over his head. He kept seeing, in his mind's eye, flashes of Dean being torn away from him—kept picturing himself digging up Earl's grave while Dean collapsed in the grass above, foolishly there under the pretense of protecting him. He tried to make his voice level when he turned back, but the want to yell was building in his chest. "You just spent the night in the hospital—"

"Clinic."

"And since you got out you've barely been able to walk ten feet without falling over!"

"Sam—"

"These ghosts already have a hold on you—"

"One ghost."

"And a week ago, you almost died—"

"That has nothing to do with this."

"The hell it doesn't!"

Dean was standing rigidly, fists clenched—but Sam could see it, the stuttered gasp in Dean's breathing, the conscious effort he was making to not touch his sternum. He had the audacity to say it anyway. "There's nothing wrong with my heart, Sam."

Sam lowered his voice in turn. "You've been weak since we left Nebraska," he stated, stepping closer—deliberately crowding him. "If you'd had time to really… recover from everything—maybe I'd believe you. Add this latcher on top of it and stepping out that door is the stupidest thing you can do. All it does is put you in a position where you will get hurt again. You. Can't. Help me right now."

Dean gave in, unclenched one hand, and pressed his palm against his chest, looking away, leaning himself back against the wall, taking tight, short, stiff breaths.

Sam held back his reactive I told you so expression and extended his hand, fingers closing once again on Dean's shoulder. He thought he'd won, but there was a set to Dean's jaw— "Sam, in the canyon, the ghost did something to you, not me."

"I'm not going to be in the canyon," he countered, trying to make his voice kind—but the pit of fear in his stomach made the words harsher than he meant them. "I'll be nowhere near it."

Dean growled, but Sam caught the defeat in the sound.

"I'll go with him."

The outside voice was startling. Simultaneously, they shifted their heads toward the speaker.

They really had forgotten there were others in the room.

Jack repeated his offer. "I'll go. I'll do it. Just tell me what I need to know."

Sam looked back to Dean, checking his reaction, holding his breath—hating that he felt like he was waiting for permission.

Dean's throat quivered as he swallowed but the action preceded a cautious nod. "Yeah," he whispered. His darkened eyes caught Sam's—blatant concern and hidden threats pulsating out from them. "Yeah, okay. But you—be careful. Make sure Jack can fire the shotgun. Keep your cell phone on and with you. And leave me a shotgun too."

"That I can do," Sam agreed, nodding at Dean's terms.

From the corner, Charlie finally spoke. "Wait. Jack, did you just say you're going to go dig up a grave? That's crazy. Not to mention illegal."

"Well, I thought I was going crazy anyway—then they come along and tell me that I'm sane." Jack shrugged, waving a hand at Sam and Dean. "If it turns out they're right, I'll be moving up in the world. If it turns out they're wrong, at least I haven't lost any ground."

"Unless you end up in jail for grave robbing."

Jack didn't respond to that. He spoke to Dean instead. "I know how to fire a shotgun."

Dean nodded. Jaw tight, he answered, "Sam will tell you what to look out for."

Jack turned to Elly. "I'll take you back to the care center first."

"No." She shook her head. "I mean, if you get me a room here. I'd rather not go back. Please, Jack."

"You feel safe there, Elly."

"Not anymore."

His face flashed briefly with emotion and he reached out a tentative hand to her shoulder—relief on his face when she didn't flinch away. "Okay," he agreed. "Okay."

A minute after Jack and Elly left to get her room, Sam came back from the Impala with the requested shotgun and more. Extra salt and a nine-millimeter, a box of consecrated iron rounds and the extra EMF meter—it would do, but Dean wished his other meter hadn't been left at the house.

Setting everything on the bed, Sam began checking and loading the weapons with quick, expert hands—so focused on his task he didn't notice that Charlie was watching him handle the weapons with uneasy awe.

Dean saw it—and couldn't help the smirk.

When he was finished, Sam tossed Dean the shotgun, which he caught one-handed. After that, Sam moved to the nightstand, setting the other weapon on top of it. "Extra rounds are in the drawer." As though Dean hadn't just watched him put them in there.

Dean nodded acknowledgment, still not liking this being-left-behind crap. He'd never been good at sitting on the sidelines.

Sam picked up the salt canister and began re-laying the lines.

When he was finished, he frowned over at Dean. "What about the others?"

To their surprise, it was Charlie who answered, "They've been upstairs watching movies all afternoon. They'd just started The Indiana Jones trilogy when I came down here. They're not going anywhere for a while."

Sam's eyes slid to Dean with a hopeful expression. Dean saw the relief there too—could tell his brother was gratified Charlie had finally said something to him. "Sara too?" Sam asked.

"Yeah."

"And she seemed okay? Uh… normal?"

Normal was the wrong word to use.

Charlie recoiled in the wake of it. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again. "As far as I know," he finally stuttered. Which wasn't saying much—considering how much normal for him had just been changed.

The moment was broken when Jack tapped on the door.

Dean opened it.

"I'm uh… ready when you are," he said to Sam.

Sam picked up the keys to the Impala, gave Dean a look of reassurance, and followed Jack out the door. He was closing it behind him when Charlie spoke again. "Be careful," he muttered, eyes guarded.

Sam's hand paused on the knob. "We will be. You too." He said it to Charlie, but his eyes strayed meaningfully to Dean.

The door closed.

Dean pressed his hand to his heart again, used the other to grip the back of the chair closest to him, taking long slow breaths in the wake of fear Sam left behind. It took longer, this time, for the black spots dancing in his vision to finally go away. When they did, dread settled deep in his stomach, making him shaky. He swore under his breath, oblivious to Charlie's worried watching. He fought the desire to punch the wall or throw a chair, and dropped to the bed in one angry movement with his head in his hands.

The thought of Sam alone terrified him.

It wasn't something he was comfortable with in the best of times. And in the worst—he'd stepped willingly onto a plane he knew was going to crash simply because the greater fear was his brother dealing with it alone. Rational, logical, or not—he shouldn't have let Sam win that argument.

And he never should have let his little brother walk out that door without him.

tbc