Family is Where the Heart is

Chapter 35

The Winchesters were sitting in a diner, researching anything that might be a hunt. Dean skimmed through the newspaper while Sam checked on his laptop. Sarah was busy chowing down on some French fries, soaked in ketchup.

Dean looked over at his daughter out of the corner of his eye. "Want some French fries with that ketchup?" he asked her before stealing one that was somehow not coated completely.

"Nah, I have enough," she smiled and reached for her drink to take a swig.

Dean tossed his newspaper down and announced he couldn't find anything.

"Well, I've been scanning Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota… Here. A woman in Iowa fell ten thousand feet from an airplane and survived."

Dean shrugged, "That sounds more That's Incredible than, uh, Twilight Zone."

Sam agreed and continued typing.

"Hey," Dean suddenly said, "we could just keep headin' east. New York. Upstate. You could stop by and see Sarah again. Eh?" he nodded, smirking. "She's a cool chick, man. Smokin'." Dean whistled. "You two seem pretty friendly. What do you say?"

Sam looked up from his laptop. "For the last time, Dean. I'm not dating someone with the same name as my niece." Ever since their last hunt and meeting a young woman also by the name of Sarah, Dean had been trying to hook his brother up, trying to get him out on a date. Or at least laid. Sam thought she was pretty and all, and a nice girl but was mostly afraid of someone getting close and getting hurt in the process. He did not want what happened to Jessica, to happen all over again. Sam didn't want to experience that pain again. Plus, it felt awkward dating someone with the same name as his niece.

Dean looked over at his daughter. "Why must you have the name Sarah?" he asked her.

Sarah shrugged, "I don't know. That's what Mom named me."

"Just teasin' ya, kiddo," he said and turned back to Sam. "What else you got?"

"Ah, Manning, Colorado," said Sam, looking at the screen. "Local man by the name of Daniel Elkins was found mauled in his home."

Dean was thinking about the name and how it sounded familiar to him. "Elkins? I know that name."

"Doesn't ring a bell. Sounds like the police don't know what to think. At first, they said it was a bear attack."

"How does a bear get inside a house?" asked Sarah.

"I don't know, peanut," Sam said. "Now they say they found signs of robbery."

Dean was now flipping through John's journal, "Mm-hm." He said not looking up.

"Dad, are you even listening to Uncle Sam?" Sarah asked of her father.

"Yes, Sarah," he told her in an annoyed tone. Dean then stopped on a contacts page and showed it to Sam. "There. Check that out."

Sam took the journal from him and looked at it. "You think it's the same Elkins?"

"It's a Colorado area code," he shrugged.

"So something killed Grandpa's friend?" asked Sarah.

"May as well check it out," Sam suggested and started packing up.

"Finished eating, baby girl?" Dean asked his daughter as he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair.

Sarah grabbed one more helping of French fries and placed them in her mouth. "Yeah, I'm done," she replied with ketchup on the corner of her mouth. Dean told her to go wash her hands and mouth in the restroom and to use the bathroom, too before they hit the road.

Once in Colorado, they headed for Daniel Elkins' house. Sam picked the lock this time and opened the door as Dean and Sarah shined their flashlights inside. He quickly put his lockpick away and took out his own flashlight, shining it inside, too.

While Sam found salt on the floor, Dean found a journal that looked similar to his own father's as he looked through it. Venturing more into the house, the house seemed like there was one heck of a fight and there were more than one that had attacked Elkins.

Sarah crouched to the floor. She looked through the pile of stuff on the floor, finding an empty gun case. "Dad, what's this?" she stood up and held the box out to her father, who shined his flashlight on it.

"Looks like an old gun case," he said.

Sarah looked at it. "Doesn't look like it would hold a gun."

"It's probably one you can take apart in pieces," he explained.

"Oh yeah," she said, dropping it on the floor. "I didn't think of that."

Dean took a few steps forward and kneeled down to get a look at something on the floor.

"Got something?" asked Sam.

"I don't know," he said, staring at it, "Some scratches on the floor."

"Death throes, maybe?"

Dean looked around the room, "Yeah, maybe. Sarah, hand me one of those pencils, would ya?"

Sarah looked behind her at a container of pencils that were sitting on the desk. She reached up and grabbed one, turning around to pass it to her father. "Here you go, Dad."

Dean took it and asked for a piece of paper, too. Sarah tore one from a stack of papers and passed it to him, as well. He then laid it over the scratches, pounding it down before scribbling on it with the pencil. Dean picked the paper up when he was done and looked at it. "It may be a message," he said and handed it up to Sam. "Look familiar?"

Sam took it and looked at it. "Three letters, six digits. The location and combination of a post office box. It's a mail drop."

"It's just the way Dad does it."

After scourging some more and not finding anything, the Winchesters headed outside to the Impala. Just as Sarah was about to open her door she thought she saw shadowy movement off in the distance. She thought about telling her father but saw that it was gone. They could always come back anyway. So, Sarah climbed into the backseat and shut her door, moving over to sit in the middle to finish her war game with her green army men against several Pokémon figurines.

At the post office, Dean opened up the post box while Sam and Sarah stood on either side. When he got it open, Dean pulled out an envelope that said J.W. and an address on the front.

Dean stared at it as they sat in the Impala.

"J.W." Sam read off. "You think? John Winchester?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Should we open it?"

Sarah was leaning over the back of the front seat. "Opening someone else's mail without permission is a Federal offense, Dad."

"And how do you know something like that?"

"Heard it on TV somewhere," she shrugged before there was a knock on Dean's window. All three jumped when they heard it, looking in that direction.

Looking in the window, smiling was John looking a lot better than when they last parted ways.

Dean asked, "Dad?" as John opened the car door to the backseat, getting in.

Right when John sat down he got an unpleasant surprise. He had sat right on Sarah's toys. "What the hell?" John asked, quickly moving to the edge of the seat to look back at what was there.

Sarah moved back to the seat and pushed all her toys over so her grandfather could sit, comfortably. "Sorry, Grandpa. No one usually sits back here with me."

"It's okay, sweetheart," he assured her before getting pounced on in a hug.

"Dad, what are you doing here?" Sam asked. "Are you all right?"

John kissed his granddaughter's head. "Yeah, I'm okay," he replied. "I read the news about Daniel. I got here as soon as I could."

Sarah sat back on her left leg.

He looked between the three of them, "I saw you three up at his place."

Sarah remembered when she thought she saw someone as they were leaving. "That was you I saw," she told John. "I thought it was maybe what killed Mister Elkins, but it was you, wasn't it?"

John looked over at her. "Yeah, Sarah. It was me."

Dean wasn't pleased though. "Why didn't you say anything? What if it had been what killed him?"

"I wasn't sure if I really saw something," she shrugged.

"It doesn't matter, Sarah. Even if it's just a hunch, you let us know. Do you understand?" he told her, sternly.

Sarah nodded, "Yes, sir." And sat back in the backseat, sad that she had disappointed her father.

"So, why didn't you come in, Dad?" Sam asked his father as Sarah picked up two of her toys and started fighting them.

"You know why," John replied. "Because I had to make sure you weren't followed. By anyone…or anything. Nice job covering your tracks, by the way."

"Yeah, well, we learned from the best," Dean told him.

"Wait, so you came all the way out here for this Elkins guy?" Sam continued to interrogate his father.

John nodded, "Yeah. He was… He was a good man. He taught me a hell of a lot about hunting."

"You never mentioned him to us."

"We had a… We had kind of a falling out," he explained. "I hadn't seen him in years."

Sarah looked up from her toys. "Sorry about your friend, Grandpa," she told him, sincerely.

"Thanks, sweetheart," he smiled back at his granddaughter. She looked so much like Dean did as a kid, to him. He turned back to Dean to ask for the letter. Dean passed it back to his father who opened it and read it in his head.

"What does it say?" Sarah asked, curious.

"That son of a bitch," he said at the letter.

Dean asked, "What is it?"

"He had it the whole time."

"Had what the whole time?" asked Sarah.

"When you searched the place, did you…? Did you see a gun?" John asked all three of them. "An antique. A colt revolver."

"I found an old box. Dad said it was a gun case, but it was empty."

"They have it," he realized.

"Whatever killed Elkins?" asked Dean.

John started to get out of the car. "We've got to pick up the trail." He then slammed the door shut behind him.

"Wait," Sam stopped him. John looked inside Dean's now open window. "You want us to come with you?"

"If Elkins is telling the truth, we've gotta find this gun," he explained.

"What's so special about a gun?" Sarah asked, curious again.

"It's important," he told her.

"Dad, we don't even know what these things are," said Sam.

"They were what Daniel Elkins killed best. Vampires."

Dean was surprised to hear that. "Vampires? I thought there was no such thing?"

"One of my books says vampires were extinct," Sarah added.

"I thought they were, too," John replied. "I thought Elkins and… And others had wiped'em out. I was wrong." Sam, Dean, and Sarah, who was leaning over the front seat again, exchanged looks between them as he continued. "Besides, Sarah, most vampire lore is crap. A cross won't repel them."

"And sunlight won't kill them," she finished.

John was impressed. "Right. And neither would a stake to the heart."

"Vampires liking blood is true, though. They need fresh human blood to survive," Sarah added, impressing her grandfather even more.

"Right again, Sarah," he nodded. "They were once…"

"People, so you won't know unless you see their teeth, which aren't just four fangs like in the movies. Vampires have another set of teeth that they can retract when they're not needed."

Sam was also impressed by the information his niece knew. "How do you know all this stuff, peanut?" he asked of her.

"It's all in one of my books, The Monster Guide," she told her uncle.

"I told you Sarah already knew about what we hunt when I picked her up from her grandparents," Dean reminded his brother.

"Let's find somewhere for the night and Sarah," John looked over at her again.

"Yeah, Grandpa?"

"I want to take a look at this book of yours," he told her.

They went in search for somewhere to crash, finding a cabin they rented. Inside, Sarah showed her grandfather her book.

John skimmed through it, amazed. "Where did you find this, Sarah?" he asked of her.

"Gram likes searching for yard sales every Saturday, and sometimes I go with her. An old woman was selling it."

"Why?" asked Dean from one of the beds. "What's wrong?"

"This is an underground book written by a hunter, Maureen Seinfeld. You can't just buy this anywhere," John told his oldest son, looking up from the book. "Most hunters dream about finding this book. In fact, the gun I'm after is mentioned in here as well."

"You're not gonna take it, are you, Grandpa?" Sarah asked him.

John closed the book and passed it back to her. "No, I wouldn't do that. You hold onto it, tight."

Sarah took the book, whose spine was falling apart and covered in scratches all over. "I didn't know it was special," she said as she looked it over.

"You should see the other books she has," Sam pointed out to John. "Nothing you would expect a kid to have in their collection."

John shook his head upon hearing at how much deeply involved his granddaughter was in hunting already.

"Come on, Sarah," Dean said. "You need at least a little sleep before we start this next hunt."

Sarah set her book down on the table John was sitting beside and went over to climb into bed with her father. John watched as she got underneath the covers and snuggled up against her father's chest and fell right to sleep. Dean wrapped his right arm around her, protectively and drifted off to sleep, as well.