A Distant Voice in the Darkness

by sailorhathor

Dean and Sam head back to Vermont to try to pick up the Mothman's trail, while Paul deals with his haunted apartment. People brush past each other, so close by, but all just out of reach.

2. Only a signal shown

A Distant Voice in the Darkness
A Miracles/Supernatural Cross-over
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)

Chapters: Separated into 3 Parts; 2 of 3
Rating: Adult Supervision Suggested for those under 13 for bad language (including several uses of the F word)
Dates: Written July 2006
Summary: Dean and Sam head back to Vermont to try to pick up the Mothman's trail, while Paul deals with his haunted apartment. People brush past each other, so close by, but all just out of reach. A Miracles/Supernatural cross-over, which slashes Dean Winchester/Paul Callan. (But there is no sex in this story.)
Timeline: Happens after the Supernatural episode "The Benders" and before "Shadow," which moves the Miracles timeline up to 2006.
Warning: Contains spoilers for all of Miracles and Supernatural up to "The Benders."
Betas: Thanks to Meredevachon and KaijaWest for the excellent, helpful beta reads.

Part 2: Only a signal shown

For his own part, Paul had gone back into his apartment thinking of how much he couldn't wait for Dean and Sam to come back from Vermont with news. Yes, it was the news of the Mothman he was looking forward to, nothing more.

He spent about 45 minutes puttering around the apartment, trying to get some cleaning done, although almost every effort quickly ended in him wincing and finally giving up as the pain in his hands was too great. Housecleaning sure was strenuous with busted hands. Oh well. It would have to wait.

Keel would probably be over soon to get the coffee table, and...

Paul noticed one of Dean's crystals still sitting in the corner. The protection he'd put up to keep the Mothman from getting to Sam while they were gone... why that little sneak. Dean had left the protective wall up. Probably to keep ghosts out. Well, Paul wasn't going to let that slide; he immediately walked over and picked up the crystal he'd seen.

Instantly, he heard Keel's teenage sister crying behind him. She was curled up on the couch with her knees pulled to her chest. Paul shouldn't have been surprised, but he was, and he turned and then sighed when he saw her. "You're back, huh?" He tried not to sound annoyed, but he couldn't help a little slipping out.

"You don't like me," she said, sobbing.

Paul sighed again, looking up at the ceiling. "I don't even know you. I'm just... I like my privacy, okay? You've picked some bad times to show up, you know."

Leighandra seemed to think that over, and asked, "Are you a poofter?"

Paul just gaped at her; with her heavy Scottish accent, that had sounded pretty funny. "What's a poofter?"

"Gay. Are you gay? You were with that unpleasant roustabout."

Paul laughed a little uneasily. "No, I'm not gay."

"Then what are you?"

He scratched the back of his head. "I don't know what I am anymore." In the past, it had always been about easing emotional turmoil. He'd never wanted a man like this, not repeatedly, not with a longing that seemed it would never end.

Leighandra tried to stop her incessant crying, wiping her nose. "I've had boyfriends. I know how it feels to want a guy like him. The rough and tumble type. But he's not what you want for all time."

Paul, rolling his eyes, replied, "Thanks for the tip." His tone was unmistakably sarcastic. Like he wanted relationship advice from a crybaby ghost. "So what's your purpose for being here? Have you got a message? Something you want to say to your brother?" Move it along, other spectres to talk to, take a number and have a seat.

Leighandra shrugged. "To Mango? Nah. I just... want to spend time with you."

If it hadn't been so damn depressing, Paul would have laughed. This is what his life was reduced to... one session after another of 'spending time' with ghosts. "Ah. Well, I'm not staying. Keel's coming over soon so we can go into the office and fix my table."

"Sometimes, I like to just stand here in the window and feel the sun on my face."

Paul turned to the window behind him in surprise; Vivian Keel was there, standing in the window, just like she'd said, wearing only a silky white nightgown. The woman looked tired, rundown. She ran a hand over the back of her neck. In such a lack of clothing, with the mid-morning sun highlighting her features, Mrs. Keel looked fairly desirable. Lovely. Paul wondered why Dr. Keel had treated her so bad. Obviously, her husband's cheating heart had just about driven the woman insane. "Mrs. Keel?"

She turned to him. "Good morning, Paul."

"Are you... all right?"

Vivian's face became tight. "After your lover shot me? I'm about as fine as a dead person can be. That hurt, by the way. But you can't really injure a ghost. Just sent me away for a while."

"Oh. I have no idea how it works. I'm sorry it hurt, but you... uh, you were behaving badly." Wow, did that sound stupid. How else did one put it?

"You'll have to excuse my occasional rages. My children did." Vivian crossed to the dining room table, running her finger over it as if she was checking for dust. "That's what he is, right? Your lover?"

Now Paul's face became tight. He glared into her crystal blue eyes as she sized him up, testing him. Was the woman just crazy or did this have a point? "I don't know. We just met the other day."

"He behaves like a lover. Very protective of you."

"I think anyone would be when a ghost was rampaging around the room like a spoiled child."

Vivian tittered, sashaying closer. "Now you know there's more to it than that. You're always the good little Catholic boy, aren't you?"

Paul had lost all patience with her; she was an invader in his home, riding him for no reason at all. "What's your problem, lady? Why do you keep coming back here?"

She started to answer, but Paul didn't hear her because Leighandra asked something from behind him that shocked him to his core. "Who are you talking to?" she asked.

Paul looked at her sharply. Leighandra wasn't looking at him; she was dejectedly staring at the floor with a lost, lonely appearance. "What did you say?"

Now Vivian asked the same question. "Who are you talking to?" Her tone was patronizing, like she was amused with her son's pet psychic.

Paul looked from one woman to another with his mouth open in disbelief. "You... you can't see each other?"

"There's no one else here, dear boy." Vivian made a big show of feeling his forehead for fever.

Her hand felt cold to him. He didn't slap it off; he was too devastated by the thought that two people who should have been reunited in death were damned to walk the Earth alone, unaware of their loved one. "But... your daughter."

Vivian slowly took her hand away, searching his face with her eyes. "Leighandra?"

"She's here." Paul looked at the couch. "She's right there."

Leighandra looked up with wide eyes and a furrowed brow. "Who... you can't be talking to..."

Vivian did not move for several seconds while she tried to decide if Paul was playing some sort of mean trick on her to get even with her for being cruel to him. But a part of her knew he was not that kind of man. Her eyes brimmed with tears. "You're a medium. They said you were a medium. That means you can see... all the dead." Vivian's bottom lip trembled.

Paul swallowed hard. "But you knew I was seeing Leighandra. You told Dean not to talk to her that way again, after he cussed at her."

"But I can't see her. I hear about her after-death activities through the beings on the other side," Vivian explained. Her voice had begun to break. "The afterlife is full of non-human beings who know things we never can."

These were the moments when Paul wished he could turn off the empathy. Sometimes, it had a mind of its own. His own bottom lip trembled. "Mrs. Keel, please don't cry."

"But it's my baby. My baby, and I can never see her. No one will tell me why." Vivian dramatically rushed at the couch, throwing herself onto the opposite end from her daughter, though she didn't know. She beat at the cushions. "Where is she? I want to hold her! Show me where my baby is!" Her tears overtook her and she sobbed uncontrollably.

Leighandra watched Paul's face begin to crumple as he too was overwhelmed. "What's the matter?"

Paul tried to hold back the tears of Mrs. Keel. Their emotions became his. He crossed and sat on the couch between them. "Mrs. Keel, she's here. Right here." He put an arm around Leighandra. The girl felt cold. Paul briefly wondered why Raina had felt warm, if they felt cold.

Vivian crawled on her knees to the other side of the couch. She put out her hands desperately... and they went right through Leighandra. "Why can't I see her? Why can't I touch her? Why, Paul?"

"I don't know... I wish I knew..."

Leighandra started to shake her head. "You aren't talking to my mother. If you were, then that would mean she was dead, and I would be with her."

That was all Paul could take. He began to cry, snuffling hard. "Leigh..."

"Only my family can call me that!" She beat on his chest. Paul let her, though he tried to get a hold of her flailing hands. Leighandra's attack, though, quickly subsided as she collapsed into tears again.

He held her comfortingly. "I'm sorry. Your mother died some time ago. She's here, but for some reason, you can't see each other. It doesn't mean she's not here." Paul sobbed so hard he couldn't speak for a few seconds. "But I'm going to figure out why, and I'll bring you together. I promise."

Leighandra cried on his shoulder while Vivian put her head on his knees and had herself a good cry, too. There was nothing Paul could do to resist the pull of sadness and grief that had ensnared him. They were both so lonely. He could not tell if the intense loneliness he was feeling himself was due to them, or his own loneliness for Dean to return. Paul had tried to deny to himself that he even felt that longing. Vivian was right.

Always the good Catholic boy.

advitd

Out on the highway, Dean suddenly and quite unexpectedly teared up. He wasn't expecting it; after all, it came out of nowhere. But there he was, lip trembling, breath hitching, eyes watering, and suddenly, Dean sobbed and began to cry.

Sam looked at him, horrified and surprised. "Dean! What's the matter?"

"Fuck if I know!" Dean was obviously just as shocked at this as Sam was. "Out of nowhere, I felt like - " Dean flinched, looked around, and checked the rearview mirror. "The hell?"

"What's going on?" Sam asked.

"I just... I felt Paul, like he was in the car with us. Like, some sort of... essence of him."

Sam looked quite confused. "Maybe we should call him. Make sure he's okay."

"Yeah." Dean dug out his cell phone. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, sniffling; the urge to cry had passed as quickly as it had come. Usually, he'd let Sammy make the call so he could drive, but Paul was crying. Dean somehow knew it. He'd felt it.

After dialing, Dean waited for Paul to answer like a man waiting to hear if his loved one had been killed in the car crash. "If he doesn't answer, we are turning around and - "

"Dean?" Paul had Caller ID; he knew who was calling. He'd already memorized Dean's number.

He was snuffling.

"Paul, why are you crying?" was Dean's first question.

"Uhh... Mrs. Keel and her daughter were just here. The phone ringing somehow, I don't know, sent them away? They couldn't see each other and it upset them. I was sucked in."

"What happened to my wards!"

"I found the crystals and removed one. You sneaky jerk."

Dean was glad to hear that joking laughter in Paul's voice. Meant he was alright. "What'd you do that for?"

"We already talked about this," Paul replied simply.

"Yeah, whatever. What do you mean you were sucked in?"

"Their emotions were so strong, they became my emotions. I was overcome." Paul didn't seem to realize that Dean had no idea that he was empathic.

"What do you mean, overcome? Paul, I just felt you in this car. It was like you were really here, in the backseat," Dean explained.

"I never felt him," Sam revealed.

Dean glanced over at his brother. "What? How could you not have; it was super strong. Like he was in my fuckin' lap or something."

Not able to help it, Sam grinned, and teased, "I thought he was in the backseat."

Dean almost blushed. Holy crap, Dean almost blushed. "Whatever. But you never felt anything?"

"No."

"Paul, did you hear that?"

"Yeah." Paul thought it over. "Dean, I'm an empath."

It all made sense, then. "Oh..." Looking at Sam, Dean repeated, "Paul's an empath."

Sam echoed, "Ohhh," and nodded his head. "Projective, then."

"He'd have to be." Dean spoke into the phone again. "So you're a projective empath."

"I never was projective before," said Paul, astonished. "Keel and I discussed it, I tried to make him feel something, and nothing happened. But... you started crying, didn't you?"

Dean answered, "Yes, I did. Out of nowhere, just started bawling. That's not exactly something I do often."

"Wow."

"Okay, we're all knowledge badasses when it comes to the supernatural. Theories, gentlemen?" Dean grinned at his brother.

Sam trotted one out. "I felt nothing. You got the whole of the projected emotions. You also felt Paul's essence in your... backseat. It's an empathic connection."

"Between just me and Paul."

"Makes the most sense, doesn't it?"

Dean let out a sigh. He liked Paul, but this was great. Just great. Like he needed somebody else's emotions making him cry for no reason like some PMSing teenage girl. "Did you hear that?" he asked Paul, sounding so not happy about the theory.

"Yes." Paul heard the disdain in Dean's voice; it hurt his feelings. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to establish an empathic connection between us. It just sort of happened."

Dean sighed again, making an attempt to soften up on this issue. Paul had done it unconsciously because... well, Dean knew why. It started to touch him in places he rarely acknowledged, that Paul was just concerned about him, that Paul... Paul cared for him. A tiny little smile touched his lips. "Oh, it's okay, Paul. I guess I don't mind the Paul Callan Mindmeld so much. Just, try to get more control over it, okay? I don't need to be crying like a little baby at the drop of your hat."

Paul nodded as he said, "Okay. Okay, I'll work on it." Testing the waters, he offered, "I could always work on removing the connection between us completely."

Dean smiled that little smile again. "No. No need to do that."

That made Paul smile too, and put him in a joking mood. "Um, since the Keels have gone, I need to freshen up before the littlest Keel gets here. Call me later, if you find anything mothy, okay?"

"Of course. Bye, Metrosexual." Dean hung up smirking.

He had forgotten all that Sam was not supposed to be aware of. Sam burst out laughing. "Metrosexual? Man, he is! Really metrosexual."

Dean started chuckling too. "You should see his closet."

Still laughing, Sam poked his brother's arm. "You had the perfect opportunity to ask him about 'God is Nowhere.' Why'd you get off the phone?"

"He had to go. Besides, were you not present for the conversation we just had?" Dean sounded angry now, but he punctuated the sentence with a loud snuffle.

Sam got him a tissue out of the glove compartment. "Okay, okay, fine." He paused for comedic effect. "You don't have to cry about it."

advitd

With the help of Mr. Bongiovi, Alva and Paul got the coffee table into the back of Alva's car. Paul wasn't able to help much because of his injured hands. They took the table to the SQ office, where they consulted one of Alva's fix-it books for ideas on how to repair the damage. Conversation about the supernatural began easily enough, though Paul had to choose some of his words carefully.

"...Adding in the fact that Tommy looked older and fairly healthy, I'd say that his purpose for being here is not evil in nature. I believe that he chose to come back," Alva was saying.

"Why?" Paul asked. He handed Alva a screwdriver to use on the side of the coffee table on which he was working.

"Well, you said he was feeding you helpful information, yes?"

"Yes."

"Then Tommy's come back to help you."

Paul let out a small laugh, examining the crack in the top of the table. "I knew that. But why? Is this a typical thing that ghosts do?" His tone sounded a bit skeptical and questioning.

Giving it some thought, Alva replied, "Hm... Tommy fed you helpful information from the other side regarding a case that turned out to be fairly supernatural in nature. The Mothman and all. He seems to be working in harmony with the forces within you... you didn't experience any internal conflict while speaking with him."

"No, not at all."

"Well..." Alva leaned up from where he'd been gazing under the table. "...those sound like the actions of a spirit guide."

Paul, eyes wide, stared at Alva. "Spirit guide?"

"Practically every real psychic you could name has one. Most have multiple guides." Alva stared back, raising an eyebrow.

"But, a child?"

"You and Tommy had a certain rapport, didn't you?"

Sighing, Paul went back to inspecting the crack in the table. "What do I need with a spirit guide?"

"As a mediator between those forces within you and yourself."

"Er, maybe," shrugged Paul.

Alva looked at Paul again with a little frustration in his eyes. "Paul... I know this is all very weird to you. But these things really do happen." An amused smile came to his face. "Are you always going to be this skeptical?"

"Someone's gotta be." He took back the screwdriver. "You would've had us taking that chupacabra case otherwise. I mean, really, Keel - the chupacabra?" Paul scoffed.

Just smirking, Alva laid his hand on the tabletop. "You've got a choice here, Paul. The table is cracked all the way through on this corner. We can either fit the crack back together and glue it, or replace the tabletop completely."

Paul visibly cringed. "The second option sounds expensive. But the table will look like crap if we just put the crack back together."

"Perhaps we can sand it down a bit. Have you ever wanted a glass top? A panel of glass would probably cover the crack nicely, distract the eye from it," suggested Alva.

"Maybe. Let me think about it. Let's repair these things on the side first."

They worked in silence for a few minutes while Paul tried to decide how to ask his next few questions. He wasn't getting much work done anyway, what with his hurt hands. "Hey Keel, give me your impressions on something."

"All right."

He would have to make the scenario as generic as possible. Paul didn't like that, but he also couldn't tell Keel his own mother was visiting him, taunting him, and that the teenage sister Keel had lost over thirty years ago was sobbing her heart out on Paul's couch. Someday, maybe soon, he and Evie would have to figure out the gentlest way to tell Keel the truth.

But not today. "Do you know of any reason why two ghosts who were family members wouldn't be able to see each other in the afterlife?"

Alva replied, "There are several possibilities. But why are you asking such a question, Paul? Are you afraid you won't be reunited with your mother?"

Paul had hoped that Keel wouldn't ask any questions, but he should have known that was just wishful thinking. He quickly whipped up a sufficient lie. "No, nothing like that. Audrey visited me, in my apartment. After the Winchesters left. She started crying because she had searched all over the afterlife and couldn't find her grandmother, though her grandmother is dead. She said some non-human beings on the other side had told her that some ghosts just couldn't see each other, but they wouldn't tell her why. Do you have any ideas?"

"Hm. That's awfully sad for the girl." Frowning slightly, Alva thought that over. "There are a few different possibilities. Now, these are just theories, mind you. We can only know so much about the afterlife before we get there. But it might be that Audrey cannot see her grandmother because her grandmother has moved on, accepted her death, and Audrey has not. Audrey still has work to do here on Earth. She's worried for Kellen, and it keeps her from moving on. Audrey also died violently. Many people who die violently get stuck here.

"There's also suicide to consider. Suicide often keeps a person from moving on. We know that can't be it, though, unless her grandmother died that way."

Paul nodded. "I'll ask her next time I see her. So, how do we reunite them?"

"You have to figure out what's keeping them apart first."

Paul could do that. Maybe he could even solve this on his own, without having to cause Alva pain with the knowledge that it was his mother and sister Paul was talking about. "Okay. Oh, something else really weird happened, too. Remember, I'm empathic. We know that the feelings of the dead often affect me as well as the living."

"Yes."

"When Audrey started to cry, I started to cry."

"Oh, I'm sorry..." Alva began.

"That's not the weird thing, though. Right after, Dean Winchester calls me from the highway to ask me if I'm okay. At the same moment, he was overcome with tears, and said he felt me in the car with him," Paul explained.

Alva looked up from his work on the splintered side rails of the table with a sharp jerk of his head. "Are you quite serious?"

Paul nodded.

"Did Samuel feel it too?"

"Not at all."

His brow deeply furrowed, Alva let the theories rush through his head, picking through them for something that made sense. "You didn't do this consciously?"

"No."

"If this was an incident of projected empathy, you would think Samuel would've felt it too."

Paul nodded his agreement. He didn't see Evie come into the room from out of Alva's office, her arms full of files.

"Unless the ability Diane McNeal passed on to you played a part in why it happened."

Looking confused, Paul shook his head. "But don't I have to touch a person to cause them to experience those abilities?"

"Perhaps your empathy has mixed with her projective clairvoyance. And this is the result?" Alva offered.

"Sort of a... you got your peanut butter in my chocolate, your chocolate in my peanut butter?" said Paul with a grin. He couldn't help but make the joke; it was too easy.

Evie snorted.

Although he smiled, Alva replied seriously, "Well, yes."

Paul fidgeted with the screwdriver, turning it over in his hand. "Samuel, uh, Sam had an interesting theory. He thought maybe an empathic connection had been formed between myself and Dean. It would explain why Dean felt it so strongly and Sam didn't feel it at all."

Both Alva and Evie looked at Paul as if that was a strange explanation. "If an empathic connection has been formed, you did it, Paul. Why would you forge a connection with Dean?" Evie interjected.

Paul stared down at the table sheepishly, suddenly finding it very interesting. "Um... well, I didn't do it consciously. Maybe it's because there's some sort of connection between us already. The reason why the Mothman brought us together?"

Alva shrugged. This "empathic connection" with Dean Winchester made him uneasy. "I suppose. We should make a list of these theories, and see which one pans out."

Paul suddenly jerked like a lightbulb had come on over his head. "Oh! I almost forgot." He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. "I had a sleepwalking incident this morning, and I said some things. Dean made a list." He handed the paper to Alva. "What do you make of that?"

Taking the paper, Alva read it over. The further he got into the list of things Paul had said, the paler his face became. He swallowed hard. "Astounding."

"What?" asked Evie.

"Paul... the forces within you have a certain amount of omniscience. The things you said here... the things they said here... a person said them to me in a dream I had about the Apocalypse."

Astonished, Paul said, "Really?"

"Yes. This part about people being fragile, being given powers that seem too strong for mere humans, and how it's a bad system. That's almost word for word," Alva sighed. "And this at the end, where you made the cracking sound - I heard a similar sound in my dream. Like the sky was cracking in two."

Paul and Evie both reeled a little. "Why have you kept these dreams a secret?" asked Paul.

"I didn't want to worry anyone until I could find out more. After the research I've done, I'm still not even sure why it's me having these dreams, and not you," Alva said to Paul.

Putting his hands in his pockets, Paul breathed out heavily and looked down at the rag he'd used to clean the blood off his coffee table. He wished, just for a second, that his blood would spell out words that would explain everything for once, instead of just deepening the mystery. "Maybe... after all this... the dreams you've had, the odd connections between myself and all these complete strangers, the words written in blood... maybe I need to start admitting to myself that there is something going on here. That the possibility of the Apocalypse... is real. It may not be fire and brimstone falling from the sky, but... something is going to happen. Something devastating."

Relieved and resigned, Alva nodded his head. "It's our job to figure it out, and how we prevent it."

Paul thought about that a long time, and finally nodded back.