The house was quiet in the night. A few weeks had passed since he and Cas had really talked about his plans. Cas accepted it, but he did not accept it. He was quiet about the whole thing. Dean pulled the laptop to him and logged onto the proxy server. He and Sam had a planned chat to get to before Dean could sleep. Cas wandered out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, robe dangling loosely from his shoulders. "When you coming to bed?" He pulled open the fridge and leaned on the door looking in.
"Don't know. Gotta chat with Sam about the papers here before the trip, make sure I have all my ducks in a row. I'd tell you more, but you look like you're sleepwalking. Plus, that is no way to get a tan." Dean waved his hand at Cas who was still leaning into the fridge.
He let the door close and came over to the table. There was a bowl of fruit on the table. He fiddled with the selection and then picked out a golden apple. "I'm not even hungry, but I'm tired. I can't seem to sleep though." He munched away on the first bite of the apple noisily.
"I hear ya. Sorry about messing up your sleep. I just have to get this done."
"Well, you might as well let me help. I have some skills even when I'm sleep deprived." Cas took another loud bite and Dean twisted the laptop so that they were both in the frame. He started the video chat. Sam's face was too close to the screen.
"Oh, sorry 'bout that. I was grabbing some papers. Oh, hey, Cas. Didn't expect to see you."
"Hey, Sam. Dean's letting me help, since I have insomnia. Keep me entertained." He smiled past another bite of his apple.
"Will do. So, here's what Uriel and I have determined." Sam looked away for a moment and added, "You aren't going to like this."
"Stop with the melodrama and spill," Dean interrupted.
"We have no usable evidence. Literally." Sam looked as miserable as his words.
"What do you mean no usable evidence? We have documentation of his connections to Mirov. We have him admitting to acts of violence. You heard the audio that Donna got. It may be circumstantial, but he is connected to the killings of both our mom and M. All of it together makes a damnable case against Brady."
"Dean, stop." Sam raised his voice a little and Cas reached over and rested a hand on his arm. Dean stopped and stared at him through the screen. "You aren't hearing me. I didn't say that there was no evidence. I said that none of it was usable. Everything that we have, and I do mean everything with the exception of M's file, is illegal. You worked the case with a direct conflict of interest and Jorge likely knew about it the whole time. I had access to case files that I should not have had, case files that I illegally passed on to you. I did that. I caused that horror show that happened in that goddamn alley that night, and none of that can even be used. Donna's audio, well, I don't even have to explain how not useful that stuff is. It's all completely inadmissible. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that you are sleeping with Brady's lawyer. Yeah, that is gonna look just peachy in front of the jury." Sam slipped into silence and dropped his head into his hands. "I'm sorry."
"What happened, Sam?" Cas asked quietly.
"Dean and I talked earlier about getting the paperwork together to present to the D.A. Donna wanted to get the ball rolling, but the more Uriel and I tried, the more we failed. I honestly looked at it all from every angle. I don't see how we can make any of this stick." Dean was watching Sam speak, but he was not saying anything. He felt determined to change this, to make Sam see things differently. He also felt the dim gnawing ache of defeat. He shoved the file box off the table and stormed out of the house.
He walked out to the dock and tried to regain his composure. He stooped down to the gravel and grabbed a handful of the smooth stones. He clopped down the dock to the very edge and began lobbing one rock after the next out as far as he could. He stopped and listened for the splash. He heard the footsteps on the dock behind him. "I need to be alone right now." He knew it was Cas.
"You sure?" Cas wrapped his arms around his waist. "Let me help."
"You can't do a damn thing. None of us can. I'm just so God damn tired of it all. How long does this have to go on for? How long?" He was frustrated and angry. His voice was a shaking mess as he hollered out his questions to the night with Cas at his back.
"I know." Cas wedged his chin up on Dean's shoulder and looked off over the water with him. "But, I think that I can help. I know that I have been avoiding a lot of it. I think, though, that I can provide a solution." He pulled at Dean a little. "Just come in and lay out the evidence for me. Worse case scenario, I fail and we are right back here, where we started."
Dean turned in Cas' arms. "Okay, Cas." It sounded like defeat. He felt pathetic. Cas pulled him along though. They walked back into the house, and Cas began scooping up the mess of papers on the floor. Dean straightened up the table. "Did Sam say anything else?"
"No, I told him that I would call him tomorrow. He was fine with that." Cas pointed at the chair and then took one across from Dean. "Now, here's what I want from you. Go through all of that paperwork and give me the most damning evidence of Brady's crimes, and I want you to do it with a complete disregard for how it was obtained."
"But it's useless." Dean looked at him steadily while he spoke.
"That might just be where you are wrong. Let me work my magic." Cas winked at him and Dean felt confused. "Hop to it." So Dean did as he was told, and it would be many hours before he would sleep. The most frustrating thing, though, was that Cas chose not to explain a single thing.
Cas was a genius. A certified, fucking awesome genius. Dean had woken up with his face plastered to a pile of paperwork on the dining room table. A dried bit of saliva had formed between himself and the papers.
"I should have woken you up before you started drooling on everything, but you looked kinda cute." Cas reached over and ruffled up his hair.
"Guess we should go to bed." Dean got up and stretched out.
"Uh, don't you want to see what I have done with your evidence?" Cas cocked his head to the side. How did he look so awake? He was practically energetic.
"Um, sure. Did you do something with it?" Dean sat back down and Cas scooted closer.
"Here." He slid over the papers with a new sheet attached that read across the top, Contacts.
"I don't know what I'm looking at Cas. Enlighten me." Dean pushed it back toward Cas.
"These are media contacts that I have. We are going to anonymously," Cas made air quotes while he said the last word then continued, "share this evidence with one of the journalists on the list. They will eat this up. They have recordings of Brady admitting to crimes. They can say that the audio was given to them by an anonymous source. They don't have to say how it was obtained. Then when the public sees the report and all of the," air quotes again, "useless evidence, they will demand that Brady get prosecuted. And, get this, they can use the evidence from the news broadcast which will now be completely legal. You won't be connected to it and neither will anyone else."
Dean didn't know what to say, so instead he grabbed Cas by the face and pressed a kiss into him. "You God damn genius."
"Bleh." Cas pushed him back. "You can thank me by brushing the stink off, Mr. Morning Breath." Dean laughed at him again, and pulled him back into another kiss. Cas fought him a little, but Lil was the one to really save him.
"Yuck. Boys have cooties. You're going to get cooties in your mouth." She wedged herself between them and hugged Cas.
"Yeah, Dean go clean out your cootie hole." Cas laughed at him.
"I'll clean out your…" Cas popped a hand up over Dean's mouth.
"Stop now. You don't need to finish that stinky sentence." He pointed off to the bathroom and Dean got up and slowly made his way to it.
Since he had at least gotten a few hours of sleep at the table, he agreed to let Cas sleep while he took Lil to her extra karate practice. Later, Cas had a few sessions to attend to at the Music Depot, so sleep was a tiny necessity. Cas would likely be at work by the time that they got back to the house. Dean could power through. Plus, he was sort of riding a wave of positivity now that Cas had put things into focus. He had done more than just create a plan, he had written out the evidence as an easy to follow narrative. He took all of the items that Uriel had put together and combined them with the evidence obtained by Donna, Sam, and even John and Dean. It was the first time that they had really had it all laid out like this. Once again, Dean felt like Cas was a bit of a genius, my genius.
He was startled from his thoughts by the collective noise of the young people lined up in front of the instructor. They were neat little rows of white karate uniforms and smiles. Dean felt pride as he watched Lil's efforts. He watched her joyous kicks and rolls. She was a tiny bullet of energy, not to be discounted in a fight, he thought.
They practiced one maneuver, then the next. Eventually, he paired them up for something that Dean would have called a type of sparring. Lil was paired with a boy, about the same size as her. The goal seemed to be to get the opponent to the ground. First, Lil went down. Dean watched her, though as she re-assessed the situation. She was calculating her next move. Dean leaned forward. The instructor waved his hand for them to begin. Lil dropped low, and spun her leg out into a sweep. The boy dropped back. Dean smiled. Good job, kiddo.
When he got her home, he wondered at the way that Cas had handled her upbringing since the move. Clearly, he had decided that she had needed to have self defense skills. He wondered what else he had taught her.
They got out of the Impala and Dean asked, "Lil, did your dad ever talk to you about what to do if you had to hide from someone?" He hoped that the question wasn't too scary. He almost choose to deflect it, make a joke or something, but she responded too quickly.
"Of course." She bopped on ahead of him toward the porch, but did not go in. "You want to see the plan? We practiced it a lot when we first moved here. Not so much anymore, but I still know what to do. We even keep the phone charged and in place every day."
It was like she was speaking a foreign language. "Um, Lil, I don't actually know what you are talking about." She took his hand and pulled him along.
"Come on. I'll show you." She dragged him into her room and showed him the backpack. "This is my backpack. I should have taken it to the dojo with me, but I forgot." She looked nervous for a second then added, "I usually don't forget. Dad always reminds me, but I don't forget. It's just that it was you taking me so I…"
Dean put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Hey, no big. Don't worry about it."
She shifted away from him and picked up the backpack, putting it on the bed. She opened it and nodded down to it, directing Dean's eyes to the interior. "See, I have clothes, snack foods, water, and the phone." She rummaged around in it toward the bottom. "And here…" There was a little compartment at the bottom of the pack. She slipped her hand into it and pulled out a wallet. "More money than I could ever need. Dad said that it was for emergencies." She pushed it all back into place and looked at him.
"So, what did he tell you to do with all of this?" Dean helped her zip it all back up.
She took his hand and pulled him over to the closet. "Well, if someone tries to get into the house, I can leave through the closet. Dad says not to wait for him, that he'll find me." She pointed down at the rug in the closet and then crouched down to lift it. "See?" And Dean did see. There was a trap door to the crawlspace that ran under the house. She lifted it to show him more. He crouched down next to her and looked into the dark space.
"You wouldn't be too scared in there?"
"I wouldn't stay. I would just use the space to get out of the house without the bad people finding me." She looked at him, and Dean felt sad that she had to know about such things. "There are scarier things than this space."
"That there are, kiddo." He stood then, and she closed the trapdoor, replacing the rug over it after. They headed out the front door. Lil was pulling Dean along to the back of the house.
"This is where I come out." She pointed at a little door. It was one of those access panel doors that one often finds leading to crawlspaces under homes. She turned from it then and asked, "You want to see where I'm supposed to go and where we hid stuff?"
Dean nodded and said, "Lead the way munchkin." She pulled him off into the woods.
She began chattering away about the plan. She seemed to be very comfortable with it all. "Dad and I came out here a lot. We talked about not having a straight path. He said that I should move around a lot. He said that I should head for the creek and maybe move along it for a bit, but only if it wasn't too cold out. He said that freezing my toes off was a bad idea. I agree." She laughed and they walked onward into the deeper woods until there was a creek.
"Is this the creek that we won't be walking in?"
"It's not that cold, Dean." She smiled at him and pulled him over to a spot that would be easy to cross. "Dad put that rock there for me." There was a small flat rock in the middle of the creek that would give Lil a place to step as she made her way to the other side. She hopped over to it and then to the other side. She seemed happy, like it was all a game and not something rooted in danger. Dean followed her and took her hand again.
"How far do you intend to go?" They were a ways from the house now and the woods were dark despite the fact that it was only midday.
"Just a little ways more and you can see the rock hill." They continued on and she swung his hand back and forth. "I am glad that you are here now."
He squeezed her hand in acknowledgement. "I'm glad too. I guess that means that you missed me, huh?"
"Yeah. Plus, dad is happier."
"He does seem to be happier." Dean smiled as they walked along.
"So, why are you going to leave us then?" Dean came to a stop as she said this and she turned to look at him.
"I'm not leaving you. I'm going to the city to take care of unfinished business, then I am going to rush back to you both. It'll be a few days, promise."
She looked skeptical. "Then why why does dad seem unhappy about you going?"
"It's complicated, munchkin. Your dad does not think that I should go back to the city because we had all of those hard times there, and I think that I need to go there to make sure that the bad guys that caused it get put away for what they did. I also think that your dad's opinion on me going has changed in the last twenty-four hours. I think that he is okay with it now." He hoped that this oversimplification was enough. She started to walk again.
Ahead there was a large hill that was grassy with large craggily rocks jutting out at odd angles."This is the first hiding place." She dipped down and moved aside a stone. Beneath it was a tupperware container with a knife and a flashlight.
"Why is this here?" Dean leaned down and looked at the container.
"In case I can't carry my pack or if I get here and need them." She replaced the lid and covered the items back up. She stood and pulled Dean along again. "Will you be in danger when you go to the city?"
"No. I will not be alone either. I am being very cautious about everything there." They rounded some trees and a path appeared out of the deep woods.
"Dad says not to take the path. He said that I should hide in places that a kid wouldn't think of." They crossed the path and headed in more, until there was a rise in the ground. It was gradual at first, then it became steep. She began scrabbling up it. Dean struggled to follow her. "You doing okay?"
"Yeah, I'm just old. How 'bout you?"
"I'm good. I'm young." Then she stuck her tongue out at him. They got to a little lip in the hill and she stopped. "If I lay here, people can't see me down below. We checked. Plus, if you look over that way, you can see the creek. I have a good view here." Dean came down to her level and looked out where she pointed. He was impressed.
"So, is this where your dad would come find you?"
"No, I'm supposed to go to the next spot when it seems safe." She moved down the hill ahead of him at a pace that made him nervous. He could picture her tumbling head over heels down the slope. He could picture himself tumbling, and that was equally frightening. Don't go breaking a hip, Winchester. They backtracked a little and moved toward the sound of the creek. Dean could see a cabin up ahead.
"Who lives there?"
"Pamela, my talking doc. Dad told her about things, and she said that I could come visit anytime. So, I would go there and stay until Dad could get to me." They didn't go all the way to the house. They instead turned and headed back to their own home. "Could Donna take care of the bad guys for you?"
Dean was growing accustomed to her shifts in conversation. "She could. I would feel like a bad friend to her though, if I did not help." He was hoping that his language was creating understanding in her.
"Hmm." They walked on as Lil seemed to consider the situation. "I think that you should go for only one day and that you should not talk to any strangers."
"Well, I need to go for a couple of days, and I need to talk with one stranger, so can we have a compromise?"
"Maybe. Is the stranger a good guy or a bad guy?"
"A good guy."
"Well, okay then, but I am not happy about this." She sounded like she was trying to put on an adult tone.
"Anyone ever tell you that you are silly?" He swung her up into his arms and carried her in a half hug as they walked. She hugged him back.
"Just you and dad. Everyone else thinks that I am very serious." He marched on with her in his arms, and she let him. She was serious too. It was unfortunate that she was. He wished more than anything that he could change that, the causes. He set her down when they cleared the tree line and saw their cabin. She took his hand and walked briskly at his side to keep up. They got to the porch and sat on the stoop. "Let's wait for dad. He'll be home soon."
"Okay." Dean still held her hand as they sat there.
"I had one of my dreams the other night." She wasn't looking at him as she made her admission.
"One of your dreams?"
"Yes. I use to get scared at night, but Pamela and dad helped me get better." He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She had her hands clasped in front of her.
"I'm sorry if our little adventure freaked you out." He rested a hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him with confusion.
"It didn't. My dream happened before. I'm not dreaming now." She got up and started kicking rocks across the yard. One of them bounced dangerously close to the Impala. Dean gave her a look that said, watch it kid. "Sorry. Almost got her." She smiled.
"Do you want to tell me about the dream?" She came back over and sat down.
"Maybe." She was fidgety then. "The man with the ugly ponytail was there. He's always in the dreams. No matter who else is there, he will always show up. There will always be stabbing and fire. Those things never change. This time though, he just watched. I thought that he would do more. He didn't though. He just watched. He was everywhere that I was. He was in my school, at the diner, in the woods. In the end he burned my house. Dad was inside and so were you. I thought that he was going to stab me. He didn't though. He let me live, but I was alone, and I had to go live in the woods. I didn't go to Pamela's because I knew that dad wouldn't come and get me. I didn't want to go there either, because then she would likely get killed too. Better to be alone." She stopped talking and got up to kick some rocks again.
Dean got up and pulled her into a hug. "I love you, munchkin. I'm gonna make sure that you are never alone. Your dad and I aren't going anywhere, and the man that did this…" He stopped and got down to her level. He cupped her face in his hands. "The man who did this is going to pay. I won't let him ever hurt you or anyone else again. I promise you." Dean let his thumbs smooth back the flutter of blonde hair that slipped onto her cheeks.
"I love you too, Dean. And I believe you." She pushed her head to his shoulder and he cupped the back of her head, holding her close. When Cas came home, he found them huddled together on the front porch, looking serious. He didn't ask questions, but they walked in together, and Dean shared a little with a glance and a nod. They could talk later.
Review, Fav., Follow, Rec.
AN: Hello lovelies. I'm back. Sorry for the lengthy wait. I am grateful for this chapter, though, and the distraction that it provided to me today. I'll likely throw a little personal note on Tumblr, if you want to know more. If not, it's all good. So, let me just say thank you to all of you for reading and caring about this story. I have enjoyed writing it for you. I have also just finished the other fic, The Interview. It has also been posted on the Destiel Fanfiction site in their unofficial rec bulletin. I think that it gets official if it gets a review from someone on there, but I'm not sure. As it stands right now, it has a higher kudos count than Cas the King over on Ao3, so that is amusing to me. I think that it is thoroughly beating Dean the Dangerous. So, that also amuses me. Lastly, I am planning to do the DCBB this year with a fresh idea. I don't think that the Bells of Winter is allowed as it has been published in some form. I could do the last part of this series, but I have a plot bunny for something new and you know how that goes. Anyway, I plan to post on a more regular schedule, and such. Much love to you all, and thanks for your patience.