Title: Behind Those Eyes
Author: Katie
Summary: A look at the life of Dean Winchester between Sam leaving and the pilot.
Spoilers: None really, at least not so far but a general understanding of the show would help. This chapter loosely references 'Route 666'
Ratings: PG for language
Pairing: None
Authors Note: I hope you like it. Oh, and since I don't have a beta all mistakes are mine.
Distribution: Please! Just let me know.
Feedback: Please!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Supernatural. I wish I did though.
Chapter Three: Break My Heart
Dean Winchester was 24 years old the first time he fell in love.
Dean and his father, John Winchester arrived in Athens, Ohio a full day ahead of schedule. They were investigating some claims of a 'headless train conductor' that several people in the Lake Hope area had claimed to have seen. They got a hotel room near Lake Hope before going out to eat. While they were out they decided that the next day Dean would go to Ohio University nearby and do some research. He could pose as a student and use their library and ask around with the other students. If anyone would want to share the legends of a headless train conductor with Dean, it would be college girls.
The next morning Dean woke up and took a quick shower. His Dad was all ready gone, so he walked out to the Impala and drove to the local university. He got out and started to wonder around. He asked a few people about local legends but so far hadn't come up with anything useful. He was saying goodbye to some girl, walking backwards, when all the sudden he crashed into another person.
"Oh, sorry…" Dean said spinning around and becoming face to face with Cassie Robinson.
"Watch it" She answered harshly lowering to the ground to pick up her books and note books.
"Sorry" Dean repeated and bent down to help her. When they both stood back up Dean extended his hand to her, "I'm Dean"
"Cassie" She responded and smiled. They talked for a few minutes, just standing in the middle of the walking path between buildings. Finally Cassie glanced at her watch, "I'm late for a class" She said regretfully.
"Okay…okay, well, do you want to get some coffee later?" Dean asked. They set up a place and time to meet, and Cassie pointed Dean in the direction of the school's library.
Dean walked into the library and pulled a chair to a computer. He found a website about Ohio's local haunting and had to laugh to himself. He hated sites like that, but unfortunately it was all he had found. The site didn't turn out to be much help anyway, only telling him that a stretch of the local train tracks were haunted 'for reasons we have yet to identify'. So, he didn't really get any new information. But his father, master hunter, was bound to have come up with more.
Dean made his way back to the hotel and could see his dad's truck in the parking lot. He pulled the Impala next to the truck and walked in to the hotel room. "Hey, dad"
"Hey, Dean, you find anything?" John asked his son as Dean walked to his bed and sat down.
"Not really, you?" Dean asked pulling a paper that had been laying on his dad's bed toward himself.
"Yeah, actually." John said and pulled the paper from Dean's hand and put it back on his bed where it had been. Organized chaos. John picked up another paper and glanced at it using it as a reference for the story, "A long time ago, the people that lived in Moonville, a town that is now gone but was not far from here, were quarantined because of a measles outbreak. The train was supposed to deliver supplies but the engineers were told that anyone who stepped foot in Moonville would die, so everyday they speed through the small city as fast at they could. The food and other supplies in the town started to run low so the town council gathered and decided that someone would travel to the other side of the bridge, the one that separated Moonville from its neighboring town, and flag down the train, since maybe they wouldn't be so scared to stop out side of the doomed town. Jonathan Byrd, a man who had once worked on the rail way and there fore knew the lantern signals to make the train stop, volunteered. The next day he left for the bridge. Moonville's isolated; a mountain on one side, a deep river on the other, the only way in or out was the train tracks, across the bridge and through the tunnel. The tunnel's not long, but it turns. So if you were standing in the very center, you would be in complete darkness. The plan was to stop the train before it reached the bridge so that the engineer would not fear contracting the deadly disease. Jonathan reached the center of the tunnel, and should have had plenty of time to reach the bridge but the train had departed from Columbus early and was already crossing the bridge. Thinking that maybe he could still save the city Jonathan started to wave the lantern back and forth. The train did not stop, like everyday it sped up for its travel through the cursed town. The train hit, killed, and decapitated the man. The members of the small town died within the next few weeks and the town has been abandoned ever since. Now there are stories of a headless man trying to flag down any one who goes any where near the small town, trying to save the town." John looked at his son who appeared engrossed in the story. "So, I figure, we'll go out there tonight and check it out"
"Yeah" Dean nodded. "Yeah…well…I'll be back in a few hours" Dean said and stood up. He started to walk toward the door when…
"Stop…turn." John said, amusement evident in his voice. Dean stopped dead in his tracks, his fingers mere centimeters from the door handle.
"So close" Dean whispered to himself before turning to face his father. He plastered his best 'who me?' smile on his face, "We can't go after it 'till dark and I'll be back by then"
"Where are you going?" John asked, mocking. As long as Dean was back in time for the hunt John couldn't care less where he went, but by the way Dean jumped up, John could tell Dean was excited, and John was having fun.
"To get coffee" Dean said in his best innocent voice, that wasn't lying. At his father's look Dean let out a defeated sigh, "On a date, with a girl I met at the college while I was doing research"
"That would be why you didn't get any actual research done." John teased and Dean rolled his eyes. "We should all research like you" John waited a beat, "Go, be back in time to load up the car and drive out to Moonsville"
"Yes sir, bye" And Dean was out the door and in the Impala. He drove to the small coffee shop Cassie had suggested and found her all ready sitting at a small table.
"Hey…am I late?" Dean asked and sat across from her.
"No, right on time." Cassie smiled as he sat down.
After a moment of awkward silence, and a bit of the normal small talk the two began to get more comfortable. "So, you go to Ohio University. You like it?" Dean asked taking a drink of the coffee that had been brought to the table.
"Yeah, I'm in my last year, journalism major" 22 year old Cassie answered. "Do you go?"
"Uh, no…I was never big on school. I prefer life as my teacher. And I travel quite a bit" Dean replied.
"So what do you do that requires all this traveling?"
"My dad and I, have this…family business." Dean answered, and when he saw Cassie's questioning face he added, "Hunting…um…exterminating kind of."
"That's…weird, but interesting" Cassie laughed. "So, no siblings?"
Dean couldn't help the moment of sadness that came over him and he took a drink of his coffee before answering. "No, I have one brother, Sammy; he's in college though…Stanford" As much as Dean couldn't help the moment of sadness that over took him at the mention of his estranged brother, he also couldn't help the pride that crept into his voice when he said that Sam was attending Stanford. "You have any siblings?"
"No…I always wanted one though" She answered. "Where are you from?"
"Lawrence, Kansans. But my mom died when I was 4, the house caught fire and she didn't make it out, and we moved. Haven't been to Kansans since." Dean answered.
"God…I'm sorry" Cassie wasn't sure what to say.
Dean shook his head slightly, "its okay" Dean shook his head again, "That is weird, I don't normally talk about things and you got me…" Dean's voice trailed off and a smile appeared on his face, "Well what about you? You from Athens, Ohio?"
"No…no, I'm from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, just here for college." Cassie tucked her long curly hair behind her ear, "I'm hoping that after I graduate I'll go home and get a job at the newspaper back home"
"Sounds nice" Dean answered and they talked for a while longer before Dean looked out side. It was just starting to get dark. "Hey, I hate to, but I really have to go." Dean said starting to stand up. "You wanna meet up tomorrow?"
"Yeah" Cassie nodded.
They made plans to get together the next day, Dean paid the bill, and left.
"Hey, dad" Dean said walking into the motel room. They loaded the truck and started to drive out to what used to be Moonsville. They had to park at the foot of the old bridge, as it was no longer wide enough for the truck to make it over. They pulled a few guns loaded with rock salt and one each with bullets out of the truck. They got ready to go. Each holding a flashlight and a gun and each had a knife strapped to their boot, and a gun tucked into the waist band of their pants. They walked down the tracks until they came to the bridge. John went first slowly walking across the long bridge and through the short tunnel that followed it. They reached the small town and wondered around. Graffiti from bored school kids decorated the tunnel and some of the buildings that were left over from when Moonsville was still a bustling town.
They spent many hours there, investigating the run down, weather beaten buildings that remained. They didn't see anything out of the ordinary but they figured that it was just an off day so they would try again the next day and when they saw the beginnings of the sunrise the headed back to the motel to get some sleep.
It went on that way for about a week. Dean would spend the days with Cassie and at night Dean and John would go to the abandoned Moonsville. The weird thing was that they never saw anything, and in keeping with legend the sprit should try to flag down any passersby, including them. One night they saw a light in the tunnel but by the time they reached the center of the turn, nothing was there. They decided to stay a while since they didn't have any other jobs lined up.
The next day Dean picked Cassie up after her last class of the day and they went out for an early dinner. Afterwards Dean drove the now memorized path to cassie's apartment. "You gonna come in for a while?" She asked and Dean glanced at the bright red numbers of the clock in his car – he had a little time.
Dean and Cassie went into the apartment and had some coffee, they talked about everything, and nothing before Dean looked outside and saw the beginnings of nightfall, "I should go…" Dean said slowly and regretfully as he stood up.
Cassie stood up as well, "You always leave when it gets dark" Cassie noted.
The freaks come out at night Dean thought to himself but instead only shrugged.
Cassie smiled, "Are you sacred to drive home in the dark…maybe the monsters will get you" Cassie joked walking closer to him.
Dean couldn't help but smirk, "Yep…you caught me…" Dean answered wrapping his arms around Cassie whose body was now pressed to his.
Cassie was about to respond to him bust wasn't afforded the time as Dean's lips came crashing down on hers.
The kiss got heated fast and in the back of Dean's mind he knew if was getting dark, and he had to leave, meet his dad at the hotel, go to the old bridge, help his dad, and try to find that damn ghost. But Cassie hands moved to his jacket and as soon as her shirt hit the floor all bets were off.
They stayed in as much contact as physically possible as they walked to her bed. Various pieces of clothes littered the path from the couch they had been sitting on to the bed they were now laying on.
They removed the last articles of clothing that were clinging to each others bodies before their lips crashed together again.
A few hours later and well after night had fallen Cassie lay happily in Dean's arms. Basking in the afterglow of her the first time she'd had sex with this boy she thought she was falling in love with she leaned up and kissed him softly.
Dean could hear his cell phone ringing but it barley registered as he ran his hand down Cassie's bare back. He heard the small click his phone made after the last ring it would make before sending the caller to voice mail. It was barley two seconds before the phone started to ring again.
Dean groaned before rolling over and grabbing his jeans that were lying haphazardly on the floor. He grabbed his phone from his pocket and looked at the caller ID, "Fuck" he whispered to himself, remembering for the first time that he was supposed to be some where else.
Dean flipped the phone open, "I'm sorry, Sir" Dean said immediately.
"Sorry?" John Winchester's voice came thought the phone and Dean sat straighter without thinking. "Do you have any idea what time it is, we could have missed our chance."
"I know…" Dean stood and started to gather his clothes and get dressed as Cassie watched not knowing what to think. "I just, I lost track of time, it won't happen again"
John shook his head disappointedly, as if Dean could see him. "Lost track of time?" he repeated of as if the concept of it was insane.
Dean didn't know what to say so the phone line went silent until John sighed, "Just get back to the hotel, now"
"Yes sir" Dean barley got that out before the line went dead.
"Cassie, I'm sorry, I have to go" Dean stood, now fully clothed, in front of the bed she was now sitting on, sheets pulled around her shoulders.
"It's okay" She said clearly a little sad.
"I'll stop by tomorrow or the next day for sure" He smiled and kissed her before heading out.
When Dean got back to the hotel him and John had a small fight, nothing that won't blow over Dean thought to himself as he settled into bed.
They both got up early the next morning, but since they had all ready done there research they didn't have anything they needed to do, and Dean didn't want to press his luck by going over to Cassie's so him and John went to a diner to eat and spent the rest of their day just killing time.
At night fall they again loaded up the truck and started out. Almost exactly as they pulled out of the parking lot it started to rain. "Great" John muttered under his breath. They reached the bridge, parked the truck, grabbed whatever weapons they thought they might need and headed out.
They weren't half way to the tunnel before they head a man screaming 'stop' and 'we need help' and various other things along the same line. They started to run toward the tunnel and could see a light. As they got closer they could hear the rushing of a train but both knew the tracks were no longer in use. They were finally close enough to see the train conductor, whose head was firmly intact. He was waving his arms frantically, glancing between a train that wasn't coming and Dean and John. Suddenly they felt a cold wind rush past them and they watched as the ghost of a train conductor was ran over by the train. His head was severed then disappeared, but the man stood, as if nothing happened, as if missing his now missing head was no big deal, he picked up his broken but still working lantern and began to wave it again.
Dean and John looked quizzically at one another before both raised their buns and pumped the ghost full of rock salt to buy themselves some time. They ran into the small, basically nonexistent town trying to figure out what exactly they needed to do in order to kill this ghost. As they ran though they made note of everything, forgetting a detail will get you killed John's voice rang in Dean's mind.
"Wait, stop" Dean heard his dad and halted immediately.
"Yes, sir?" He asked walking toward his father.
John held up a piece of metal and Dean had no idea what it was, seeing Dean's confusion John spoke up, "Piece of the train" That was all Dean needed, he pulled the matches out of his pocket and his dad dropped the metal to the ground and covered it with salt. The train conductor reappeared and began his frantic waving again. Dean shook his head once before dropping a match on the offending object. It took a while, but they finally got the thing to burn and when it did the ghost of a man trying to save a town that no longer existed flickered a few times before it disappeared completely.
They got back to the hotel room and went to sleep. The next morning John was up and at the library before Dean was even close to waking. It was John walking back in that finally woke Dean up. "All happened during a storm, don't know how the hell we missed that" John shrugged, "Doesn't much matter, we're done…time to move on, I heard about a job in New York, sound like us"
We're leaving, it finally hit Dean, "Yeah, sounds good, I just have to go take care of something, but I'll be back in a hour or so" Dean stood going toward the door.
"Just don't be too long" John answered.
Dean got to Cassie's and knocked on the door. She answered and kissed him before he came in, "Hey…I didn't hear from you yesterday"
"Yeah, sorry about that, I was just a little busy, hey, I need to talk to you about something – you got a minute?" He asked placing a hand on her waist and guiding her to the couch. He sat down and she followed suite.
"Yeah, sure" Cassie answered and chewed her bottom lip.
"so, me and my dad, we're leaving" Dean blurted out.
Clearly not into subtle Cassie thought to herself, "Why?"
This was where Dean was supposed to say something like, we just have to or we live somewhere else and we're going home but he didn't want to. He didn't want to lie to Cassie. "You know how I told you that our family business is hunting?" He asked and continued after Cassie nodded, "Well, its hunting…ghosts"
Dean watched Cassie's face go through about a thousand different things, disbelief, anger, everything, before she stood up and backed away from him, "What?" She asked.
Dean stood, "We travel, hunt, and kill supernatural forces"
Cassie rolled her eyes, "Leave"
"Cassie, I –"
She cut him off, "I mean it, go" She answered and he nodded silently and left.
Dean went out to his Impala, his one constant, and drove back towards the hotel. When he got there his father wasn't outside so he just sat in the car. After a long few minutes he pulled out his cell phone and for the first time in a long time dialed Sammy's cell phone. It rang 6 times before his little brother's voice informed him that he wasn't available but he could try the apartment. Dean placed his hand on the steering wheel and gripped it until his knuckles whitened. He hung his head and for the first time in a long time cried. He sat in his car until he was sure all the traces of his tears were gone. He then went back into the hotel. Him and his father packed and when John asked him if he was ready to go his only answer was , "Lets get the hell out of this shit hole"
With that John got in his truck and Dean followed, never to far behind in the Impala.
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wow, this chapter took forever to come out! I am so sorry about that. I am still not real happy with this chapter. I knew what I wanted it to be about just not really how to get it where I wanted it, so this is what you get! They next chapter shouldn't take this long to come out!
PLEASE review!