With or Without You

-U2

"You can't just break-in, in the middle of the night and expect me to hit the road with you." Dean had only been there a few minutes and already Sam was exhausted. The young Winchester liked his life, as dull as it often was. He had School, his friend Brady, and most importantly, Jess.

"Dad is missing, Sam," Dean sighed, exasperated. This was going to be like pulling teeth and he hadn't even gotten to the part about him being married yet. "I need your help to find him."

"Looks like you have help to me." Sam glanced pointedly at Rhiannon who had come up beside them as they exited the building. The redhead shrugged her shoulders as if to say, don't look at me.

"She isn't a seasoned hunter," Dean explained. "Not to mention there is a whole other host of problems that prevent her from being my backup." Sam huffed out an irritated breath.

"It shouldn't take more than two people to track him down," The younger Winchester kept going. "And if dad let her work with you, that should be enough."

Dean stopped short, his forest eyes turning cold as he eyed his brother. "Drop it." Luckily, Sam did. Rhi worried her bottom lip nervously. So far, the older Winchester had been nonchalant about their 'predicament', but the redhead knew that it was going to cause a significant problem when trying to hunt. They needed Sam. That was the hard truth. Without the ability to be separated for more than thirty minutes at a time, there was no way to cover the ground they would need to.

"Dad is always missing, and he is always fine." Sam pointed out logically. Dean shook his head as he strode over to his car.

"Not for this long. Now, ae you gonna come with me or not?"

"I'm not."

"Why not?" Dean looked like he was about to snap.

"I swore I was done hunting for good." And he was, but Rhi could tell those old habits died hard. The evidence had been all over his apartment in the lead beads hanging in the kitchen and the silver knives. Sam may be done hunting, but it didn't stop the monsters from existing or the years of training to disappear.

Dean scoffed. "Come on, it wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad." The hunter was really pushing for it. He needed Sam, more than he wanted to admit.

"Yeah?" Sam asked in disbelief. "When I told dad I was afraid of the thing in my closet he gave me a .45."

"What was he supposed to do?" Now Dean really was annoyed. Sure, their father wasn't up for any kind of award, but he did what he had to. Made the hard choices.

"I was nine years old," Sam sneered, throwing his hands up in the air. "He was supposed to say, 'don't be afraid of the dark'."

"Don't be afraid of the dark?" Dean swung the passenger side door of the Impala open, grabbing up Rhiannon's jacket. He shoved it at her without saying a word. Sam watched curiously. The girl hadn't asked for her jacket, although he could see the goosebumps forming on her pale arms. It surprised him that Dean even noticed something like that. The only thing his brother usually noticed about a girl was the size of her breasts. "Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there."

Rhiannon pulled on her jacket, grateful for the warmth, and watched as the two brothers argued. She knew that John was different with his sons, especially when they were growing up. It wasn't something he had ever tried to hide from her, and Dean definitely didn't hold back about how different his father treated her. The redhead just didn't realize how different she was being treated.

It wasn't hard to see that Sam was bitter. The resentment flooded off of him in giant waves and it took everything Rhi had to keep it from affecting her.

"What was he hunting?" Sam took a resigned breath. Rhi relaxed as the tense atmosphere began to slowly dissipate. Dean popped the trunk of the Impala open, lifting the secret hatch he had built to store his weapons. "Where did I put that thing?" The blond rooted around in his trunk, pushing odds and ends aside as he tried to find what he was looking for.

"So, when dad left, why didn't you go with him?" Sam asked curiously. The two normally stuck together on hunts and it surprised the younger Winchester that his father allowed Dean out on his own.

"We were working our own gig, this voodoo thing down in New Orleans," Dean frowned as he continued to search through his trunk. Where the hell had he put that sucker? "Haven't been with him in a month or so now. Still stay in touch, but he hasn't been answering our calls or even called us back."

"Dad left you alone to hunt?" Sam couldn't believe what he was hearing. And how did the girl fit into all this?"

"Dude, I'm 26," Dean replied rather indignantly. "Plus, I had Rhi here." Sam watched fascinated as his brother shot the redhead a soft smile when she placed her small hand on his shoulder, pulling him gently out of the way of the trunk while she grabbed what he had been searching for.

The girl smirked at his brother's playful glare when she easily snatched up the small silver object, a recorder. Dean huffed in annoyance as he snatched up the file that went along with it.

"Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy-" Dean handed over a printed picture to his brother. "—they found his car, but he'd vanished, completely M.I.A."

"Maybe he was kidnapped." Sam shrugged dismissively.

"Yeah well, there are several more," Dean pointed out as he handed sheet after sheet of evidence over. "One in April, another one in December '04, '03, '98, '92; ten of them over the past twenty years. All men, all the same, five-mile stretch of road. Started happening more and more so dad went to dig around. That was about three weeks ago. Haven't heard from him since, which is bad enough."

Dean nodded at Rhi who fiddled with the recorder a bit before pressing play. John's voice flitted out from the small speaker his voice nearly indistinguishable from the background interference. The message was clear though, it was serious, and they needed to be careful.

"There's EVP on that." Sam pointed out the obvious. Dean smiled at his brother.

"Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, huh?" God how he had missed this. The bantering. The ribbing. "Rhi managed to slow the message down and run it through a Goldwave, took out the hiss, and this is what we got." Rhi forwarded the recorder and pressed play again.

I can never go home.

That was enough to make Rhi shiver. The haunting tone of the woman on the recording settled itself in the young Gypsy's bones. Those words held power behind them, enough that it affected her through a recording.

Dean hadn't liked that. The first time she had played the slowed recording, the redhead had nearly passed out as wave after wave of crushing pain swept over her mind. Whatever was haunting that small stretch of road was powerful.

The hunter's green eyes were on her, watching for her reaction. Rhi gave him another soft smile, letting him know she was okay. The recording hadn't affected her since the first time.

"Never go home," Sam's brow furrowed as he thought over the message, the gears in his head shifting. Dean smirked as he watched his brother settle back into his hunter mindset before shoving everything back in the trunk and shutting it hard.

"In almost two years, I've never bothered you. Never asked you for anything," Dean leaned against the trunk of the Impala expectantly. He knew he had his brother on the ropes and Rhi could sense Sam's defiance fading into acceptance. More like reluctance.

"Alright. I'll go," Sam resigned, shoulders slumping a bit in defeat. There was no way out of this. It was only for a couple of days anyway. "But I have to be back first thing Monday. Just wait here." Sam turned to go but Dean stopped him.

"What's first thing Monday?" He asked curiously. Rhi smiled.

"I have this interview," Sam replied hesitantly.

"Like a job interview?" Dean scoffed. "Skip it."

Sam straightened and squared off with his brother. "It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate."

"Law school?" Dean smirked, about to say more but Rhi elbowed him in the gut as a warning.

"So, we got a deal or not?" Dean nodded, still smirking as his brother left to pack his bags.

"Law school," Dean muttered under his breath, but Rhiannon could see the pride in his green eyes.

"Be nice," Rhi watched the door, waiting for Sam to reappear. "His emotions are bouncing around all over the place. He's nervous about finding John."

"Yeah," Dean sighed. He could still remember the giant fight the three of them had, had before he left for college. "Part of me wishes we didn't have to bring him along, but with our limitations…"

Rhi worried her bottom lip. He didn't have to finish that sentence; she knew how it would go. The fact that they couldn't be separated was a large weakness. A chink in their armor.

"I know," The redhead whispered as she stood and opened the passenger side door when Sam exited his building. "Sam's too tall for the backseat. I'll take it. Haven't been able to sleep much anyway, this could be my chance to catch up." Dean nodded silently as he settled in behind the wheel. He felt bad. Her nightmares had been getting worse, even when they slept in the same bed, and he was pretty sure that whatever mojo the shaman lady had placed on them was to blame.

"You gonna tell me what the hell is on your finger?"

Sam broke the silence. The three of them had been driving for a few hours now. Rhi was fast asleep in the backseat clutching Dean's jacket to her chest like a lifeline. There was no way in hell there wasn't something going on between the two.

Dean looked at his brother, startled by his sudden exclamation.

"My wedding ring," The hunter sighed. He knew Sam would notice it sooner or later. He had just been hoping it would be later rather than sooner.

"Yeah, I can see that," Sam looked almost hurt. "Why didn't you tell me you got married?"

"Would you have answered my call?" Dean cut right through the bullshit. "Or would I have been leaving a message instead?" Sam felt somewhat guilty now. Of course Dean wouldn't have called to tell him he got married. It wasn't like the two of them had said goodbye on good terms.

"Sorry," He mumbled in quiet repentance. "Who's the lucky bride?" Sam already knew, at least he was pretty sure he did, but the young Winchester wanted to hear it from his brother directly.

"Rhiannon, of course," Dean nearly laughed as his gaze slid to the girl in the backseat through the review mirror. "Why else do you think I'm dragging her around?"

"I just can't believe it." Dean shrugged.

"There's more to it than just the marriage," Dean kept his voice low as not to wake her. "She was with dad and me for several months before our accidental marriage happened."

"How do you get accidentally married, Dean?" If he wasn't curious before, he sure as hell was now. "Does dad know you two got hitched?"

"Long story short, the shaman we ganked in New Orleans had a wife and she cast some kind of weird voodoo shit on us," Dean explained. "She can't be away from me for more than thirty minutes at a time. If she is, she starts having a really bad reaction. Pain and shit and the longer we are separated, the worse it gets for her. When we first found out about it, she was nearly seizing on the floor of our motel room. And no, Dad doesn't know. That's how we discovered he was missing."

The blond hunter launched into the tale about their hunt in New Orleans and how they ended up hitched. Sam couldn't believe it.

"How did she end up with you and dad?"

Dean tensed. He wasn't sure if he wanted to tell Sam that story just yet, so he opted for a white lie.

"Found her on the side of the road, disoriented," Dean tried his best to hide the grimace. "She couldn't remember anything about herself. Not her name or where she was from. Dad decided to keep her around."

Sam could tell his brother wasn't telling him the whole truth, but he let it go for now. He didn't want to stress the small bond that was beginning to form again after so many years apart. But there was no doubt in his mind that he would find out why his father was so interested in the petite redhead sleeping away in the backseat.

John Winchester never kept anything that didn't have a purpose.