Chapter 8.
They were already two and a half hours through their 10-hour journey and neither Dean nor Sam had said a word. They had all agreed to go to Kansas, took their, by now, designated car seats, with Dean in the driver's seat, Sam as a passenger, and Jess with the whole backseat to herself, and just drove off. It was so quiet that Jess had wished anyone would play any sort of music. Even screamo or really bad pop music. Of course, Dean would never go for it, but maybe it would stir some kind of argument, conversation, fist fight. Or maybe if it started raining, then Jess could say oh it's raining, and they could go from there. But as things stood in that very moment, Jess did not know where to start and how to break the ice. It also felt like neither of the brothers wanted the ice to be broken. This trip "back home" felt heavy.
A few more hours later and the Kansas highway, flat and dull, felt never ending. They barely exchanged pleasantries the two times they stopped to refill and use the toilet. Jess was delighted when they went off of I-70 and into Lawrence. She felt the need to ask questions about how the boys grew up there, but then realized Sam wouldn't remember much, and probably the memories of Lawrence weren't quite happy for Dean. Instead, she settled to wait quietly a little while longer.
"Home sweet home!", Dean finally said as they parked across the street from a once-beautiful-now-almost-decaying house.
Jess didn't quite know what to say, so she said nothing. They got out of the car and decided to look around. At a first glance, the house looked abandoned, but shortly, they saw movement inside.
"Do you think someone lives there, or are those squatters?", Dean asked.
"I don't know, let's just knock?" suggested Sam.
"Yeah, OK, you do it then", said Dean.
"Dean, are you OK?", Sam looked genuinely concerned. Jess had also not seen Dean behave so weirdly, before.
"The last vivid memory I have of this house was the night of the fire. I swore I'd never come here again.", he confessed.
Again, Jess found herself in the position of having nothing soothing to say. And again, she chose silence. So did Sam, who simply nodded and responded to Dean's initial request by walking up to the house and knocking. Jess and Dean followed.
Sure enough, someone answered. A woman, late 20s, mid 30s, holding a baby.
"Can I help you?", she said, clearly startled by their presence.
"Hi, I am Sam, this is my brother Dean and my fiancée, Jess.", Sam said to her.
"My brother and I used to live here. We were just in the neighborhood and were wondering if you wouldn't mind letting us show Jess around where we grew up", Sam continued when the lady didn't respond.
"Hi, I'm Anna. You can come right in. We have an appointment in half an hour, but you can have a quick tour, I suppose", she replied.
She seemed a little uncomfortable by the situation, but it wasn't strange enough for her to find reasons not to let them in.
"You know, now that I think about it, I do recall seeing some of your memorabilia in the attic. I could bring it down if you want to have a look."
"Oh yeah, that'd be great", Dean said.
She invited them in the kitchen and made them all a cup of coffee. The first decent cup of coffee since Colorado, Jess thought. At the kitchen table, having her lunch, was the lady's eldest child.
"Sarah, meet Dean, Sam and Jess, they used to live here. Now be nice until I quickly go upstairs and grab some stuff for them."
"Hi", said Sarah, who looked like she was about 6 or 7 years old. Jess was not very good with pre-teens; they scared her in ways she didn't care to admit. But Dean was doing great.
"Yo", he said, as if he were talking to an old pal. "Whatcha eating there?"
"Pizza. On Thursdays we have pizza for lunch."
"Dude, that's so awesome!"
"So, you guys lived here before us?", she quickly changed the subject. The way Dean was staring at her pizza posed too high a risk of sharing, Jess assumed.
"Well, way before... but yes, my room was right above the kitchen, for a while", Dean said pointing up.
"Really? That's my room now. Did you also have monsters in the closet?", she seemed genuinely interested.
"You know, for a while I did, but it turns out, it was nothing", Dean reassured her.
"I saw it, though. It was like a fire ball."
The three of them looked at each other, startled. No one knew how to respond. Luckily, they were saved by the bell.
"Here you go guys, some stuff I found the other day. We just moved a couple of weeks ago, so if I find anything else, I can let you know if you stick around town for a bit.", Anna said, holding an old box. "As I said, we have an appointment, but if you want to come by later and have some tea, maybe?"
"Thanks, we'll leave you our phone number. If you find anything at all, give us a call, we're going to be in town a couple of days", replied Sam. "And yeah, maybe we'll pass by later, then. Thanks so much for the coffee."
They literally could not get to the car fast enough to discuss what they'd heard.
"You think yellow-eyes is here?"
"It's strange, though", Jess interfered. "I mean, whatever yellow-eyes may be, he is not a fireball. And he was looking for you, you know... I don't know, unless maybe it's a trap."
"Could be, or just a terrible coincidence, and we're dealing with something else", replied Sam.
"Hell of a coincidence, though.", interjected Dean. "So, what now?"
"Well, let's treat this like we would any other job. To understand what is going on now, perhaps maybe we should go back 21 years ago.", suggested Sam.
"So... speak to the neighbors and whoever was on the case back then? I have to say, Sammie, this is not a case I ever thought I'd work without dad."
"I know… let's split up, we'll cover more ground this way. How about I go and try to have a look at the house again, you go check out old neighbors, Dean, and maybe Jess can go poke at old police records. You can be some sort of FBI, repeat case...", he was spit balling.
"Or, how about, I'm a writer, investigating odd cases that were never solved, or something along those lines at least."
"Even better."
The three went their own ways. Or rather, Sam stayed behind, researching old newspaper articles and waiting for Anna to come back so that he could have a second look at the house. Dean gave Jess a lift to the police station and then went back to check out the neighbors. Although, Jess strongly suspected he stopped for a burger at the joint they drove by on the way to the station.
Once at the police station, things went smoothly for Jess. She played the cute, geeky writer card, and since it was an old closed case, no homicide declared, neither foul play, nor dubious behavior, the police officers were more than happy to share all their files with her.
Indeed, Jess found absolutely nothing. The case had been dismissed to faulty wiring which had presumably caused the fire. Mary Winchester being trapped in the house was regarded as wrong place, wrong time. There was some struggle claiming the insurance, it seemed, but even that went through eventually. Jess wrote down some information, but probably in vain anyway, and went by the grocery store across the street to get herself a sandwich before calling Dean to come pick her up.
As she was moving down an aisle, she saw a familiar figure at the cash register. Initially, Jess couldn't quite put her finger on where she had seen that very distinctive face before. But then, slowly, it all came back to her. The night of the fire, when she met yellow-eyes. There was a woman, she yelled something, she saved her. Jess blacked out right after, and must have completely blocked parts of the memory, but having seen that woman again brought everything back to the surface. But what was this woman doing all the way here, from Stanford? And why did the brothers not mention her before?