The Necklace of Trish?

The Necklace of Trish was a joke! It was literally a cheap beaded necklace that had belonged to a girl named Trish who once spent the night with Dean. He had found it under his motel bed the next morning and, in the way that brothers do, Sam had taken the piss it was secretly Dean's. The necklace pretty much came everywhere with them as a standing joke; Sam had even hung it around the neck of a stone bust of some long dead man of letters at the bunker.

Why the hell would some secret buyer do all this just to get some pink plastic beads that sold for $5 in any Walmart?

Sam's mind whirled as every possible scenario that even half made sense ran through his brain. The fact that his entire face felt like it was being eaten by fire ants made it hard to think. One thing he knew for sure; Dean would have an answer. But first, the angel warding HAD to come off, and he needed Lara for that.

Through puffy lips, he called out to her softly. "Lara…are you ok?" She didn't reply. "Lara…please?"

After a minute or so, he heard water running from the faucet, so twisted around as best he could to see her head-on through the open doorway. She was washing the blood off her face, scrubbing it with wadded up toilet paper. Her nose was swollen and her eyes were starting to bruise. Deep anger coursed through him again at her pain. In that moment he wanted nothing more than to inflict a fuck load of violence against the three kidnappers.

Lara came out of the bathroom and stood in front of him. Some of her hair was wet, and had tiny bits of toilet paper stuck to it. "So that bloke on the phone was your brother?" Her voice was taut.

"…Are you ok?..."

She repeated herself. "So that bloke on the phone was your brother?"

She had every right to be mad and Sam looked down, ashamed. "Lara I'm so sorry."

"He's like you is he? Dodgy? Don't tell me – it's a family business - getting people nicked off the streets?"

"No!" Sam looked up. "I don't talk to my brother anymore, I haven't seen him in months. Look - he might be a lot of things, is a lot of things - but I can guarantee he will do everything he can to help you. Whatever he's mixed up in, he would never have wanted an innocent bystander hurt."

She scowled, then winced as it hurt. When she spoke, it sounded like she had a bad cold. "This is all bollocks. Total bollocks."

"Yeah it is." He agreed. "It's a total fucking shit-storm. And my apologies mean jack, I know that."

She actually growled in frustration. She was staring at his mess of a face, the way he was staring at hers. "You keep apologizing. Tell me exactly - what bit of this nightmare do I blame you for?"

God, where to start. Shouldn't have befriended her in the first place. Should have made a big scene as soon as he first saw Bill in Stratford and given her a chance to run.One moment, though, stood out like a beacon. "…That I didn't get you out of here when I had the chance."

She paused at that. "What do you mean 'when you had the chance'?"

He had no idea how to phrase this. "I kind of had a way, just after we searched this room. I didn't take it though."

"Why?" She looked shocked.

"Lots of reasons. Pride being one of them, I guess."

"What the fuck? Seriously?" She looked just about ready to swing for him.

"We can still do it though. Now, quickly, before they come back. I know it won't make up for what you've been through, but at least things won't get any worse for you."

She looked at him incredulously. "So let's do it then! You got some secret panic button or something? Some code word that will bring helicopters, the SAS and Harry Potter? No?"

He chuckled, hollowly. "Nope. I've got a nail."

"A nail." She stared at him. "You're mental."

"It's been known." He gave her his best smile. With cuts and blood everywhere it must have looked like a death rictus. "Down there somewhere…" He pointed with his foot. "Can you get it?"

It took her a moment to find it. She waggled it in front of his nose. "Ok MacGyver – now what?"

"If you can get it to my right hand, I can try and unlock the cuffs. Can you reach up? I know I'm normally tall, but like this my hands are near the ceiling." She stood on tiptoes and with a little jump, managed to get it into his hands. He dug about, and tried, but could not get anything like enough purchase to pick open the handcuffs. The nail was just too small, and the angle was all wrong. He tried again anyway, just to make sure, before swearing in defeat.

She turned away and kicked the plaster wall next to her. "Sam, I'm trying to stop with the crying and all that, I really am. I don't want to be a fucking pathetic woman, but I swear the next time they come in here I might actually collapse with a heart attack."

He believed she meant it: she was trembling all over. "Look – getting out of these cuffs would have been great – but it's not crucial. It just means you've got to do something that you really won't want to." He stared at her hard, willing her to listen to him. "You have to do what I say – whether you think it's crazy or not. And when we get out of here I will explain everything, I swear it."

She looked like she was going to cry again. Instead she tucked some of her matted hair behind her ear. "What. What do I do?"

"Lift up my shirt."

She looked at him like he had just insulted her mom. "What?!"

"LARA! Please, trust me! Lift up my shirt."

"Fine!" She choked back as sob as she pulled his bloody work shirt up to waist height. "I'm gonna die horribly in a room with a crazy man who wants me to look at his snail trail."

He ignored her mutterings. "Can you see on my stomach – there's a mark on my skin? A burn mark in a series of crisscrossed lines?"

"Oh my god Sam, what the fuck? Who the hell did this?"

He ignored her question. "Take this and cut into some of the lines." He opened his hand and dropped the nail to the carpet. She backed away fast, as he knew she probably would.

"Lara – you have to do this! Cut deep through the scar tissue on a couple of the lines to destroy the sigil."

"No! You're crazy! How does that help us get out of here? You're a fucking weirdo!"

She was shouting, and Sam desperately hoped that Bill wouldn't come rushing in to see what all the noise was about. But, in his desperation, he couldn't help but shout too. "You have to…NOW."

"Why?" She was crying now. "How will cutting you help us?"

He pursed his sore lips, knowing she wouldn't believe him: Lara was a regular vanilla citizen with absolutely no knowledge or experience of the kind of world he lived in. "The mark on my stomach is an anti-angel sigil, and it's keeping away a friend of mine."

"Anti-angel what now? What are you talking about?"

"Listen to me. I get it – that sounds nuts. Totally and utterly bat-shit nuts." He chuffed half-heartedly. "And it's the honest to god truth. As soon as the symbol is gone I can call him and he will get you out of here."

"Call him with what? The invisible phone you keep up your arse for emergencies?" She went to turn away, then swung back as the thought hit her. "Hang on – you say an anti-angel mark is keeping your friend away. So that would make him what, an angel?" Lara stormed over to the bag of snacks, and began rifling through them. "I need chocolate. Tequila would be better, but a Kit-Kat will do." She turned to him. "We are well past nuts. The turning for 'nuts' was about ten miles back that way. You want a Snickers or a Kit-Kat? I'm having a Kit-Kat. Or do you want some crisps?" She was rambling.

If she wouldn't, or couldn't, help him it might be hours before they removed the handcuffs. If they ever removed them at all. He may never be given the opportunity to damage the sigil: they might just kill him where he stood once Deal made the handover. Lara, he suspected, had even less time: she was only there to persuade Sam to persuade Dean. Which had now happened.

Precious minutes slipped away as Sam wracked his brain trying to come up with something to persuade her. He interrupted her picking at the candy bar, trying a different tactic. "Have you ever seen a ghost?" He asked.

"What?" She gave up nibbling on the chocolate and looked up at him.

"Have you ever felt, or seen, something you can't quite explain? Maybe at night, in the dark?" It was a fairly calculated gamble – most people had been creeped out at night at one time or another in their lives. And as he knew first hand, things really did go bump in the night.

"You have, haven't you? Talk to me Lara – what happened?"

She shook her head. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"You tell me first – then I'll answer your question."

More minutes crawled past, before she decided to answer. "I'm a twin. Was a twin. My sister died when we were small. Sometimes…sometimes I think I can feel her hand in mine." She wrapped up the rest of the Kit-Kat and put it back in the bag.

"Do you want to believe it's your sister? Or do you know it's her?"

"I don't know."

"What about god? Do you believe in him?"

"God? What does god, or my sister have to do with anything? You said you'd answer me..."

"Do you?" Sam persisted.

"I don't know! Maybe? I think so? Why?"

"Lara – you are an intelligent woman: that's obvious. And yet you don't discount the possibility of god, or ghosts. So why not angels?"

She snorted, then winced as it hurt her nose. "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously! What's with the selective disbelief? If you are willing to take the possibility of god on faith, why not angels? They're in the bible too…"

"God, angels…I know I've only known you a couple of weeks, but I didn't have you down as some kind of bible basher. I really got you wrong. The hair and the accent must have really distracted me…"

"Lara – why the hell would I lie to you? Look at me! What could I possibly gain by lying to you about this?" He could see the puzzlement in her eyes as she thought about this.

"Everything I'm telling you is the truth. I'm not CIA, or a hitman or any of the crap we said earlier. I'm a hunter. A supernatural hunter. I go after every bad thing you ever had a nightmare about, and kill it dead." He took a deep breath as he realized what he just said. "Or rather I was. Now I just work for a bank and make small talk with pretty women at bus stops." The joke wasn't funny, he knew that. "My friend, Castiel, he really is an angel. He's a good guy. He will help."

"Sam. Let's say for two seconds that I believe your 'supernatural' bullshit. Which, y'know – being an 'intelligent woman', I don't. If he is your friend and such a good guy, why do you have that symbol carved into yourself?"

"I did it to keep him away, because I didn't want my brother using him to find me. I meant what I said just before – I don't want anything to do with Dean." Surely she could see the pain in his eyes, see the sad truth of it?

They both flinched as the sudden sound of a toilet flushing came through the wall next to them. That reminder of Bill's proximity put Lara back on the edge of freaking out. Softly, sadly, he tried one last time. "Tell me Lara – what exactly do you have to lose by trying this?"

Panic did what his words couldn't. "Fine – you win. The crazy lunatic wins. Which makes me even crazier for doing this!" Rushing the few steps over to him, she bent and picked up the nail. She didn't give herself any time to change her mind, just lifted up his shirt and dragged the nail deep through the scar, punishing Sam for her predicament. It was only once blood started to flow, when she heard Sam hissing with pain, that she realized what she'd done. His shirt began to blossom with crimson, and she backed away slowly, still holding the nail. "…Sam?"

Sam closed his eyes and began to pray.