Disclaimer: I don't own anything, least of all The WB's Supernatural.
Author's Note: Okay so I lied, there isn't really any action in this one. But I think I needed to explain a bit more first. Stay tuned though, the big final showdown is coming up. Who will live and who will die? We shall see.
She sits on the floor amongst a stack of books in the Romance section, the least frequented this time of morning. Her legs are folded beneath her and her attention is seemingly captured solely by the open book that lay in her lap. Her eyes peruse the pages and she yawns, long and wide, before saying, without looking up, "The prodigal son returns."
All three men stop in their tracks and turn their heads slowly as if taking a cue from some sort of old fashioned comedy, a single take in unison. They had arrived only minutes before and were preparing to split up and search the library's vast spaces. But the Romance section was nearest the door, perhaps because it was just small enough to fit into the cove there, perhaps because those who sought out that section did not want others believing they were really the kind of people who would venture deep within a library.
She closes the book around her finger to save the place and looks up at the men, all of whom seem to have been struck dumb. "Was it a warm and fuzzy reunion?" she asks the group, her eyes lingering on her father's face a bit longer than on the others'.
"Not exactly a reunion," Dean says as he begins to move forward. "One of us was missing."
"One of us," she repeats in a whisper, almost to herself.
"You okay?" he asks as he kneels down in front of her, runs his thumb across the giant bruise, letting it come to rest gently on the wide red split in her lip. She doesn't wince, but pulls back all the same. "Your head?" he says, indicating the bandage over her eyebrow.
She grasps the bookshelves behind her and pushes herself up, looking wildly around as though, all of sudden, there were no safe place to lay her eyes. "Yeah," she says halfheartedly. "Fine."
She glances back at Sam and John just long enough to see her father spring forward, lurching at her. Before she can move, or even think about moving, she is in his arms, feeling his breath in her ear as he says quietly to her, "Don't you ever…ever do that to me again. Ever." He pulls away and looks at her shocked face, her stiff form still held tightly in his hands. "Do you hear me, Tessa? Theresa Rose Winchester? Do you understand me?" he asks firmly, his voice deep and strained.
"Yes sir," she utters in response, and he lets go, takes a couple of steps back and readies himself for work. She shakes her head quickly to bring herself back around, out of the drowsy stupor she'd fallen into. "Um…" she says, but can't quite find the words that should come next.
"Let's start with who did that to you?" John says, his arms folding across his chest as he nonchalantly leans his back against a shelf filled with pink and purple books, all of the bindings too worn.
"Meg," she says with a sigh before bending down to collect her books. Dean helps her, catching one copy as it falls from her laden arms, and grabbing two more that perch precariously atop the pile, and follows on her heels as she moves for the stairs.
"Meg Meg?" Sam asks as he too follows up the winding staircase.
"Don't worry," she tosses over her shoulder, "I kicked her ass."
Dean mutters under his breath, "I'm sure you did." And she stops suddenly causing a domino effect, each Winchester ramming into the one in front of them.
She turns and looks down at Dean who's busy trying to juggle books while regaining his balance. "I did," she says shyly and continues on her way.
They reach a small and abandoned cove on the second level, buried within a ton of dusty old reference books that look as though they haven't been touched in years, let alone pulled from the shelf and flipped through. She drops the books onto a table and sits, waits for the others to do the same. "I met her a while ago," she says as she begins arranging the books on the table. "At a bar. She just walked in and started talking to me, which I thought was kind of weird, but…" She stops and wrinkles her nose, looking at the books, then switches two of them around. "Anyway, I didn't know who she was, just some girl who was lonely and wanted to talk I guess. But Ben dragged me out of there when he saw her, said there was something about her."
"Wait," Sam interrupts, shaking his head. "Ben?"
"Oh, yeah," she says, genuinely surprised at having forgotten to mention him. "Ben. I met him a few months ago…six actually, I think. Up in North Dakota. I was looking into a case there…anyway, his mother died just like ours, twenty-nine years ago. Just like you," she says looking at Sam, "he was spared, saved…by Baz." At his name her voice drops, as do her eyes. And she sighs heavily before continuing. He had just started, then, when we met, to have weird…feelings, senses."
"Like what?" Sam asks quickly, his eyes wide with anticipation.
"Like you." She looks at him for a moment before shaking her head again. "Not exactly like you. It's different for all of you. But it's also the same."
"What does that mean? You're not making any sense."
"You all have a…a gift. Or something. You're all special."
"Well, thanks for that," a man utters from the corner. He emerges with an oddly familiar cell phone in his hand, which he sets on the table and slides toward John. "Sorry about that," he says, pointing at the phone. John picks it up and investigates it for a moment before realizing that it is his. The man moves toward Tessa and stands behind her, grasping the back of her chair, looking embarrassed and awkwardly out of place.
"Speak of the Devil," she says with a hint of irony. "This is Ben. Ben, this everyone." She makes a sweeping gesture with her arm to indicate the men around the table and looks up at the man behind her. He lets go of the chair long enough to rake his fingers through his wavy sandy colored hair and shift uncomfortably on his toes. "Oh, stop it," she says, swatting him playfully. "Don't be such a pussy. They won't bite."
"You stole my phone," John says incredulously.
"I made him," she blurts before Ben has a chance to respond. "He's been helping me. Anyway," she says, long and drawn out, "Meg's crazy evil, but I didn't know it then. When we were at the bar she gave me her number, or the number of a friend she said was going to meet in Sacramento. And then when I was up in Vermont…you know about that don't you? You figured all of that out?" They nod. "Well, this chick up there started talking about a young woman named Meg, same description and everything. So I booked, called the number, and she said she'd meet me outside Austin, TX."
"We knew something was up with her," Ben chimes in. "It's not like we were going in blind. I had a feeling about her, and by then we both knew she was more than just sort of involved in all this."
"But you went anyway," Dean says. "You let her go there anyway and get beat to hell by some kind of demon bitch." His face grows red as he speaks and his eyes linger, longer than he intended, on Ben's hand as it rub a path across Tessa's shoulder, his fingers as they knead her flesh.
"She's not a demon," Tessa says, dropping her head and maneuvering her face so that her eyes catch Dean's. He looks at her and the color in his cheeks begins to fade back to a normal shade. She props herself back upright and glances between the three men in front of her, returning to Dean periodically to catch random hateful stares directed at Ben.
"She's human," Ben says, taking over for her. "She was sacrificed, in a manner of speaking."
"It's an ancient practice," Tessa says as she reaches for one of the books and flips to a dog-eared page containing a sketch of a child being burned at an altar. "Mostly those who practiced Zoroastrianism. The sinful would sacrifice their children, daughters usually. Not sure why, there are a lot of possible explanations. That," she says, tapping her finger on the picture, "may have been one way. But others were given body and soul. Sometimes it was purely for sexual purposes. I don't know about Meg's personal life with her father. But I do know that her new Daddy is Baz."
"What?" John asks, his eyes shooting up from their focus on the open book.
She merely nods. "That's what she told me when we met, just before she tried to kill me of course. Which," she begins while turning to Dean and capturing his gaze, "she might have done if not for Ben. Not that I like admitting that she managed to get the upper hand on me," she mutters embarrassed.
"Baz told her to do it," Ben continues. "He wanted her to kill Tess because she knew too much. And he wants to kill you," he says looking in Sam's direction, "because they can trace you back to him. He saved you. They know. Now there's a trail they can follow to get to him, and he doesn't want to die."
"But he will," she says firmly as her hand snakes up to her shoulder and squeezes Ben's. She looks to her father. "I don't know that there's much we can do about the thing that killed Mom. If it was a lesser demon maybe…but I have an idea. And I know that we can get rid of Baz in the process…and protect Sam." She picks up a book and tosses it to Sam, then one to Dean and one to her father. "There's a storm coming tonight and a cemetery not far from here. How's your Latin?" she asks to them collectively.
"This is an exorcism rite," John says as he flips through the pages.
"Yeah, there are a few different ones. I don't know which might work. So you have the rest of the day to study those and commit them to memory, or get as close as you can anyway. I have some others we might need to use, Persian incantations and some pleas from Babylonian times. One of them should work. I hope."
"A storm?" Dean asks, his brow knotted in confusion.
"Lilith rides in on the winds that carry great storms," she says.
"I thought we were taking out Baz."
"Baz wants us dead. Meg failed so now he'll do it himself. Of course, the others'll be looking for you now, Sam. She's pissed at her son and I'm sure she wants to tell him so. Wouldn't you?"
"I would," John interjects.
"They're all coming after us. We just have to keep the upper hand, set the trap. So start studying."