Author's Note: Sorry it's been a while, hopefully not such a long while that no one's interested anymore. Just wanted to say thanks for reading and, especially ChaiGirl and GhostWriter, thanks for reviewing. I also wanted to say that I thouroughly enjoy reader participation, so if you have any comments or suggestions about the story, where it should go, whatever, please review. I know it might seem like it's moving kinda slow, but bear with me, it'll build more and more. Anyway, thanks and enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, least of all The WB's Supernatural.
Sam sits quietly swishing the spoon around in the nearly full bowl of soup. He can't eat. The dull ache in the pit of his stomach, that which he first thought was merely concern, had been gnawing away at him for almost two days now and had yet to let up. If anything the pain had gotten worse. It was more than just worry though, that much he knew, had decided. It was real and true fear, dread. As much as he didn't want to admit it, something had happened to his sister.
They were twins after all, and even though more often than not they managed to live their lives totally independent of one another, they still had a solid connection. When he fell off a stone wall he had been scaling at age eight, she was the one who screamed out in pain, crying about her arm to her father long before he lumbered back to the house cradling his broken arm. And when they were ten and she had to be rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night due to a fever of 105, he was the one who suggested it might be strep throat, not because he had tested positive for it at the doctor's earlier that day, but because he had the symptoms. And in the end he was right; he may have felt sick all day, but it was only because she carried the ailment. Now, sitting in a half empty diner staring into a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup as his brother prattles on about how, really, they have nothing to worry about, everything's fine, now he feels a different type of sickness rise up within him.
"It's not okay," he says without looking up, stopping Dean midsentence.
"What?"
"I don't know what's going on, but I know it's not nothing, Dean. I know it's not okay." He looks up from his meal and meets his brother's gaze, gives him a rather convincing stare, and throws down some cash on the table before getting up and walking out.
Of course he was right, you didn't have to have some sort of freaky twin bond to know that something was definitely up, but what was so wrong with pretending a little, tossing out some positive thoughts amid all the negative ones? It's not that Dean wasn't worried, he just figured it would be better to actually work on the problem instead of merely being angry at the fact that there was a problem. And in order to do that he had to stop dwelling on everything going on in his heart, the fear and concern, and focus on what was in his head, sifting through whatever few clues they had in order to find Tessa.
The first step was a simple one, trace her credit cards. Granted, this could have been extremely difficult, impossible even, considering that she had about ten cards and they were all under different aliases, ones that her brothers likely didn't know at all, certainly wouldn't remember if they did. But the first credit statement Dean pulled up had a charge that was made just two days prior, and so was likely one of the most recent. It was for a room at the Dawn Motel in Roseville, Texas. This is where they were headed now, where they would likely be in a couple of hours. Where, he hoped, she would be waiting for them.
The card he had traced was one that actually belonged to him. The name on it was Cameron Dune, a decidedly unisex name. That was why he gave it to her when she said she needed one about a year ago. He thought it was strange at the time, but as usual with his sister he quickly gave in, knowing that it was just easier than sitting through the harsh stares and chiding, the convincing though entirely fallacious arguments, all of which would eventually convince him anyway. But it almost makes sense now. When they began thinking of the ways to try and find her, track her down, that credit card was the first that came to mind. He hadn't thought that it would work. She was smart, she would have known that he could have easily found her with that. But there it was, the only charge placed in over a year. She wanted them to see, that much was obvious. She knew they'd find it, drop what they had been doing and rush right out to Texas. She knew. But he knew too. He knew that she wouldn't still be in that motel by the time they pulled in.
"Excuse me," Dean says, a smile plastered to his face as he proceeds to charm the woman behind the counter of the Dawn Motel. She wasn't particularly attractive, certainly not young, but he knew that his boyish grin could get him just about anything from anyone, and he never hesitated to put it to use. "I'm looking for someone."
"Dean," Sam spits out of the corner of his mouth. This wasn't the plan. They were supposed to come in and get a room, then proceed to find Tessa's and either simply knock in the hopes that she'd be there, or just break in. They weren't supposed to tip anyone off as to their intentions.
Dean shoots him a quick I know what I'm doing look and turns back to the woman. OLIVIA, that's what her nametag says. "So, anyway, my associate and I are looking for someone, and we thought you may have seen her." He waits for a response but gets none. Awkwardly he continues. "You see, we're private investigators and we're currently searching for a young woman who stole a great deal of money from our…current employer. We have reason to believe she may have passed though here, maybe even stayed at your motel for a while." Again he flashes a smile and waits for some sort of response, a smile in turn, a nod of the head, a blink. But she continues to stare at him stonily.
With Dean obviously off put by Olivia's reaction, or lack thereof, Sam takes action, jumping in front of his brother. "She's about 5'9, slim, long dark hair, sort of wavy. We think she may have paid with a credit card issued to Cameron Dune. It wouldn't have been long ago, just a few days."
Olivia takes a deep breath, a loud and guttural sigh, and leans her elbows on the counter. "Who'd she steal from?"
"Um," Sam starts, surprised by her odd request. "I'm really not at liberty to say."
"No?"
"No…ma'am."
"He wouldn't be some young buck with a penchant for violence now would he?" Sam and Dean exchange confused glances before simultaneously shaking their heads 'no'. "Because I don't need that kind of trouble around here. That's just what I told her when she checked in too. I don't need no trouble."
"So she was here?" Sam asks quickly.
"I didn't say that."
"What are you saying, lady?" Dean chimes in, clearly annoyed.
"I'm saying that if there were a girl like that who came in here all beat to hell, talking about how she has to get away from some crazy boyfriend of hers, I might let her stay just out of pity. But I won't say anything that's gonna bring trouble into my establishment after that. Y'all understand?"
"No," says Sam, "not really."
Dean pushes Sam aside and leans forward on the counter, placing his elbows not even an inch away from hers. "Is she here?"
The woman leans into him, stares him icily in the eyes. "Who's asking?"
"Look lady – "
"My name ain't lady," she says, pointing to her nametag.
"Look," he tries again, but is, again, interrupted.
"Why don't you just tell me who y'all really are? Then maybe I'll look for her."
"I told you – "
"She's our sister," Sam says from behind. Dean turns and offers him an incredulous stare while Olivia works to retrieve something from under the counter.
"I thought so," she says, still fumbling around. "She said you'd come. Course she also said someone else might, and I shouldn't say nothing to him, or them, or whatever. Guess that'd be the boyfriend. She called y'all to come rescue her? Well, no matter to me. I just figured you were them, her brothers, cause y'all are just about how she described you. Here," she says, holding out a key and dropping it into Sam's outstretched palm. "Room 14."
"What…what about the boyfriend, her boyfriend, did she say anything about him?" Sam asked warily.
"Nope. Her face said enough though."
"She was hurt?"
"Bruised and bloodied, but she said she was fine. Acted fine too, except a little jumpy. But who wouldn't be, right?"
"Right."
"Did she say anything else?" Dean asks.
"Anything, like what? I didn't want to know. I already told y'all, I don't want no trouble, don't even want to know about no trouble. She asked for a room. I asked her what happened, she said her boyfriend beat her up and that's why she needed a room. Said she doubted he'd find her but if anybody came looking, turn 'em away. Unless they was you two. She said eventually you'd show and I should give you a key and point you in the right direction. She paid up through the end of next week, but if y'all leave before that, let me know, will ya?"
"Yeah, sure. So she's still here?"
"Guess so. I ain't seen her leave since she checked in. Course I try not to take notice. Like I said, I don't want no trouble and I don't want to know nothing about no trouble neither."
"Right, yeah. Thanks," Sam says turning to leave.
Dean follows just behind, shaking his head solemnly. "Crazy much?" he says glancing back at the woman through the grimy window.
Their hopes are high when they reach room 14 that Tessa may still be there, but no one answers their knocks, so they simply enter the dark room key in hand. The lights are all out and every curtain is drawn, thick dusty curtains that manage to block out almost any trace of sunlight. Dean feels along the wall for a switch, finds it, flips it and freezes in place. "Wow," he says absently as Sam makes his way past and over to the bed. The room is filled with books, maybe a hundred or so, all stacked along the far wall in neat little piles. On the table her laptop sits, on but closed, saved on standby. And spread out on the bed are hundreds and hundreds of papers, stacked and separated much like the books. Sam goes to investigate, plucking piece after piece from the tops of the various piles, scanning them for anything important, reading to see what exactly they all are. Several piles are filled with news articles, ones printed off the Internet, clipped from the paper, or copied from microfiche. The dates seemed to range from over fifty years ago to just last week. Elsewhere there were printed pages, pages copied from books, and handwritten notes on a variety of topics, pyromania, succubus, ritual sacrifice, to name a few.
"Looks like we've got some reading to do," Dean says, picking up one of the books along the wall. "Dictionnaire Infernal," he reads in broken French. He puts the book down and starts going through the chest of drawers to his right. "Nothing," he says after closing the last empty one with a thud.
"She's not here," Sam utters from his precarious perch on the bed, where he sits trying to keep from disturbing the papers.
"Thank you Captain Obvious."
"No, I'm saying she's not here. She just left all of this for us." Dean raises his eyebrows and tosses up his hands. Yeah, duh! "All of this stuff though…where'd it come from? I mean it must have taken her forever."
"I don't really care about that, Sam."
"And her laptop," he says, rising and going over to the small table, "why would she leave that?"
"I don't know. Why would she leave her cell phone?" Sam turns and sees Dean standing by the bedside table, Tessa's cell in his hand.
"It doesn't make any sense," he says shaking his head and tuning his attention to the computer, which when turned on reveals nothing but a page from her email account alerting that the message has been successfully sent. The date was two days ago and the address was his.
"She doesn't always make sense," Deans utters absently, looking though the papers on the bed. "A lot of this stuff is about demons. You think she's been helping Dad out? I mean with the research and all?"
"I thought you said they hadn't even talked in like a year."
"Yeah, not that I know of, but…maybe she figured something out, found something. I don't know." He puts down the paper he had been reading, one filled with her handwriting, quick notes and scribbles about the Alphabet of Ben Sir, whatever that was, and goes into the bathroom to rummage some more. No toothbrush, no toiletries of any kind. All he finds are a couple of bloody towels in the bathtub, some band-aid wrappers in the trash, and a couple of pill bottles.
"Hey, Sammy, he says, leaning his head out of the bathroom. "What's Risperdal?"
"What?"
He comes though the doorway, bottles in hand and sets them down next to the computer as he speaks. "Risperdal. It's a prescription for Teresa Albright. There's also some Lithium for Teresa Polar. Funny. That's for Bi-polar Disorder, right?"
"Lithium? Yeah I think so."
"And you said Dr. Phil would never come in handy."
"Risperdal's an anti-psychotic."
"And I'm guessing that Teresa Albright and Teresa Polar are probably the same person."
"Yeah, Teresa Winchester maybe."
"So little sister's using fake names to get prescriptions for psych meds, managing to get the shit kicked out of her by…someone, and still finds the time to do all this research, send out creepy emails and disappear into thin air. Great. She's more of a pro than I thought."