Chapter Fifty-Five

Sam, Dean, and Alyson decided it might be a good idea to take a small vacation, so of course that meant they were going to head to Bobby's place, stay there until the found another job. They'd called Bobby to let him know they were coming even though they had a key because they were always welcome; sometimes they even used his place when he wasn't there.

When they got closer to Bobby's place, they stopped at a Walmart to get enough food to last a few days, but no more than that because they didn't know how long they would be staying. They were still in the store for over an hour because the lines were massively long.

When they finally reached Bobby's place, they arrived only to find Bobby exchanging car parts for money at the entrance of the junk yard. Bobby gestured for them to head on inside, so that was what they did.

Dean carried the bags in the house and into the kitchen. Sam and Alyson followed him in. They began unloading the food into the fridge, which was almost empty. Bobby had obviously been away recently.

"So . . . steaks and potatoes tonight?" she suggested. "Side salad?"

"Sounds good to me," Dean said.

"Yeah, same," Sam said.

Alyson got together the ingredients needed to marinate steaks before bringing the steaks from the fridge to put them in the sauce dish. Then she put them back in the fridge to let them set up for a while. She decided they would have baked potatoes with the steaks so she wouldn't have to do anything but prepare them and pop them in the oven.

Easy cooking was the best cooking.

Dinner was a peaceful, happy occasion. Peaceful in that they didn't mention work at all; happy because they were all together sharing a home-cooked meal.

They would be sharing a lot more home-cooked meals over the next week. Most of them were simple. Alyson made spaghetti one night, and Dean made hamburgers another night. Alyson even made breakfast one morning, which Bobby seemed to appreciate even more than the dinners.

But he appreciated the company the most.

For the week that they were there, Sam and Alyson perused the many books Bobby had collected and left lying around his living room. Sam would add information to his dad's journal when he came across something interesting.

While they were learning, Dean was tinkering, going through some of the more recent cars that had been brought in. Apparently, some of the parts were still good and he was harvesting them for Bobby.

That was how they spent most of their time until Dean received a phone call one night that made him take Sam aside to discuss whatever the call had been about.

Even though Alyson wanted to know what the phone call was about, she didn't pry. She knew Dean would tell her when he was ready for her to know. That time came once she and Dean went to bed.

He started with, "You and I need to talk."

That was never a good way to start a conversation. It made Alyson think she wasn't going to like what he was going to say.

"What's wrong?"

He immediate thought was that someone they knew had died, but that didn't make sense. Why would he have had to talk to Sam about that in private?

"That call I got earlier was from this guy named Deacon. He was in the Marines with Dad. He's having a ghost problem."

"We deal with ghosts all the time. What's the problem?"

"It's in a prison," Dean said hesitantly.

"You have to go to prison?" she asked, voice louder than she'd meant it to be. "Dean, no!"

She could tell from the sheepish, guilty expression on his face that he'd already agreed to it.

"Dean, no." She was firm this time. "If you go to prison –"

"Deacon's the head guard there, we'll be able to get out," he said. "It's a sure thing, Aly. I wouldn't have agreed if it wasn't."

Even though she wasn't happy with the situation at all, she still said, "Where would you have to go?"

"Green River County. And . . . I'd like you to stay here with Bobby, okay? Sam and I are gonna be . . . ya know, and you'd be safer here."

"Dean, I don't like it. What if something happens and you get stuck? You don't wanna get stuck in prison, okay? And Sam definitely doesn't wanna get stuck. He wouldn't do well there."

"Hey, we'll be fine. Really. It's a definite in and out situation."

Even though they were in bed, Alyson still shoved her open palm against his shoulder.

"I can't believe you made this decision without talking to me first. What if something goes wrong?"

"Nothing's gonna go wrong." Dean pulled her to him. "I'll be back before you know it."

"You're only saying that to make me feel better." She sighed. "When do you guys leave?"

"Early in the morning, probably. Before dawn."

"Hm. I really don't like this." She nudged his shoulder again before settling against him, her head on his chest. "Dean, you better come back to me, okay? You can't just – you can't leave me alone."

One of his hands began to play with her hair while the other one came to rest against her hip.

"I wouldn't have agreed if I didn't think I could come back to you. I wouldn't have said yes if I thought for a second that it would take me away for good."

Alyson ran her fingers over the muscles of his abdomen. His stomach clenched as he let out a breath of laughter.

"I understand why you feel like you have to do this. I'm not happy about it and I'm gonna worry until I hear from you, but I understand."

"I'm sorry I didn't talk to you first, but I knew if I didn't agree before I talked to you that you'd try and stop me, and it probably would've worked."

"And now you have an obligation to go."

"Right."

She kissed his chest once. "Just . . . wake me before you leave?"

"Yeah, no problem."

Dean woke Alyson up as he'd said he would, and she got up to go downstairs to see him and Sam off. She hugged them both, not knowing when they would be back. She would miss them as much as she would worry about them.

She couldn't believe they were actually going to jail to do a hunt. She hadn't thought to ask how they were going to get into the prison and she honestly didn't want to know. She had to trust that they knew what they were doing and that everything would be okay.

Knowing she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, she went back inside and made a pot of coffee and an egg sandwich before sitting at the table to eat.

By the time she was done, the sun had come up fully so she went upstairs to grab the journal Jack had given her so she could jot down some information. Jack had originally given it to her so she could compare feelings she had for each thing she'd come across. She'd already started several entries and she intended to finish them.

Besides, she needed to take her mind off of the many ways this hunt could go wrong and her guys could get stuck in prison.

Dean was wanted by the FBI. But he'd said it would be an in-and-out thing. Get arrested, go to prison, pop the ghost, escape.

She hoped Sam and Dean didn't get separated and that Dean didn't start any fights once they were on the inside. Sam wasn't the type, but she could see Dean being sent to solitary confinement for disorderly conduct.

She needed to remember that Sam and Dean were professionals and would be okay. As Dean had said, he wouldn't have agreed to do this if they didn't have a plan to get out.

Alyson received a call from Dean that night letting her know they'd reached where they were going and they were going on with their plan. She probably wouldn't hear from either of them for at least a week.

She really wasn't going to like that, not knowing what was going on or whether or not he and Sam were okay.

"You better call me as soon as you guys get out."

"As soon as I can, yeah. We have to ditch the car somewhere so it won't be taken to an impound lot."

"Okay, well, be careful. You have a girl waitin' for you back home, Dean Winchester."

"I'll get back to her as soon as I can. I promise."

"Good. Tell Sam I want him to be careful too."

"I think he knows, but I'll tell him anyway." A few seconds of silence and then, "Don't give Bobby a hard time."

His tone was teasing, but she still said, "Yeah, because out of the three of us, I'm the troublemaker."

"Right. Look, you be careful too, okay?"

That was another way for Dean to say 'I love you' so she said, "Of course," before hanging up.

Alyson and Bobby ended up being good housemates. He provided her with a father figure without him trying to run her life, and she provided him with company.

Alyson went on another food run while she was there even though Bobby made it clear he would have been fine with sandwiches and other simple things like that.

Alyson also bought herself a new laptop while she was at Bobby's. Setting it up helped occupy her mind for a few hours. She even downloaded a few books so she would have something to read.

Bobby had many books, but none of them were fiction-based, and it had been a while since Alyson had been able to read for pleasure. What better time to do that than when waiting for Sam and Dean to get out of prison?

By the time Alyson did hear from Dean – two days later than he'd predicted – he was quick to update her on what had happened.

An Agent Henrickson had found them once they had been arrested – Alyson recognized the name, but couldn't place it until Dean mentioned that he was the same agent who had taken charge of the shapeshifting bank robber case. He'd been playing hard-ball, but their public defender had come to their rescue. She had even helped with the case by finding information for them.

He went on to explain that the ghost had turned out to be an old nurse who had worked in the prison. She'd been the kind to take the law into her own hands. That had obviously continued after her death.

When she was sure he was done talking about the hunt, Alyson asked where they were and when they'd be back.

"Well, we were on our way back to Bobby's and we stopped in this town where a few people have gone missing. We should be back tomorrow around noon, though."

"Oh. What're you hunting?"

"A jinn."

"A what?"

"Basically a genie, only evil. They shack up in old abandoned buildings because there are millions of places to hide."

"Hm. I'm glad you're out of prison." She shook her head and huffed out a laugh. "I can honestly say I never thought I'd have to say that to my boyfriend."

"Yeah, yeah." Dean laughed. "What have you been up to?"

"Mostly hanging around here. Got a new laptop to replace the one I broke."

"Nice. Now you and Sam can both search the internet at the same time."

"Yup. Anyway . . . go bag you a jinn, so you can get back to me."

Okay, so last time I wrote this, I didn't write "What Is and What Should Never Be" because I didn't really know how to write in Dean's POV, but this time I will be. I'd like to explore his feelings about how his life would be. Take into consideration that he has a girlfriend in this, so he won't need that fake girlfriend from the beer ad. So things will be a little different and that's where the next chapter is going.