WvsO: We All Fall Down

Prologue

No Such Thing As Happily Ever After

Dean woke to an empty room and a hastily scribbled note scribbled on the bathroom mirror in Cal's favourite shade of lipstick. 'Got a call. Favour owed. Catch up later.' In her usual flair for the dramatic, she'd left a lip print by kissing the mirror next to her initial.

Great. Since when did Cal owe anyone anything? And what kind of favour was it, exactly, that she couldn't drag him along for the ride? Something wasn't right. When he called to get the details she didn't answer. When he texted her to get her ass in gear and call him back right-the-hell now, he found her phone vibrating merrily away in his duffel bag. 'For safe keeping' scribbled on a post-it note taped to the screen. Going no contact like that? Well, that was a first even for her.

"Sonuvabitch!" He'd have hurled the phone across the room but there was no point. She was gone, leaving him to chase after her yet again. Only this time it felt a whole lot less like 'come and find me' and a whole lot more like goodbye. His options? Hell, he didn't even know anymore. Go around manically searching for a clue as to which direction she took off in, if only to have a place to start? Sit around worrying about her lying on the side of the road somewhere bleeding? Yeah, 'cause entertaining images of She-Ra injured and dying alone somewhere was just so damned entertaining. Uh, how about no.

It was the feeling of finality to this latest disappearing act that was really getting to him. He could feel a panic building; a nasty, burning discomfort that felt a whole lot like heartburn settling itself somewhere deep in the pit of his belly. Dean had never been a 'giving in' kind of guy, so instead, he dialed another familiar number. One he hadn't dialed in ages. When the voice at the other end of the line finally answered he knew he was in for it. "You'd better be dying man. It's the butt-crack of dawn and I'm already pissed off that you haven't answered your phone in four months." And, yeah, Dean would be the first to admit that he'd had that coming. He wasn't dying, but his gut was telling him that something was desperately wrong and he wasn't inclined to ignore it. "Sam? We've got a problem." Any time Cal buggered off without anything more than a hastily scribbled note, trouble always followed. Maybe not the apocalyptic kind, but generally the kind that put lives in the balance. Usually hers.

"She leave you the car this time?" There was a smile in Sam's voice, but Dean couldn't find it in himself to mirror it. "Yeah, and her phone too." He could hear the rustle of sheets and Fran mumbling sleepily in the background. "Shit. Okay. Text me where you are. I'll be there as soon as I can." Just like that Dean found his calm again. Everything was going to be okay. He and Sam would figure this out. Cal would be okay because they were going to find her before trouble caught up with her like it always did.

Chapter One

The Blood Donor and His Miracle

They've been driving for days, but that's nothing new. Sam had found her, finally. Oh, out loud Dean never admitted to having given up. But he had. Finding her had been all Sam. Dean hadn't made any kind of an effort in years.

Maybe if his brother had said something before they'd gone off after that nest of vampires things might have gone a little differently. Might have been a little more careful if I knew I'd get the chance to rip SheRa a new one for taking off like that and making me believe she'd died. As it was Sam had waited until Dean had been all but sucked dry. Okay, so maybe sneaking into the nest an hour after dark without backup had been a bit of an unnecessary risk on Dean's part. Recon could have gone a little better during daylight hours. Probably would have been a little less dangerous. Sam had used the word suicidal to describe Dean's approach, but he was being a little dramatic about the whole thing. Then again, maybe he was entitled to a little drama and angst. Sam had walked in on Dean being used as a glorified Happy Meal by a couple of very young, very eager vampires.

He'd begun to drift toward unconsciousness when the splintering crash of the door being kicked in had prompted the vamps to let him go. "Dean!" Sam's panicked voice pulled him back into the here and now as Dean fell to the floor. The jarring blow should have been incredibly painful but Dean was too numb to feel anything.

He remembered not having the energy to move, so he'd just closed his eyes while the scuffle went on around him. Sam's enormous hands had wrapped his fingers around his Bowie knife; "Just in case, Dean, I need you to open your eyes. Now!"

There had been a momentary thought. Damn, he sounds like Dad right now. But he couldn't muster the energy to be annoyed by it for a change. When Dean opened his eyes he was amazed by the amount of blood everywhere. "Sam?" Sudden panic at the thought of losing this one person in the world he had left until those big brown eyes hovered an inch away from his face. "Any of this yours?" He barely recognized the weak whisper of a voice as his own. "No. As far as I can see, most of it is yours. How're you feeling?" Not good, but Sam didn't need him to say the words to know it.

"We've got to get you to a hospital. Dude, don't you dare close your eyes on me again. You hear me?" No amount of ordering Dean around was going to stop that from happening though. So instead of trying to keep him awake, Sam had opted for giving his brother something to live for. "I found her Dean. She's not dead, she's in Vermont with Malcolm." Dean's sluggish mind had a bit of trouble processing. Surely he couldn't mean Cal? Eyes already closed he somehow managed to slur out a question through the cotton in his mouth. "But, the headstones?" Had she really been so elaborate in staging her own death as to fake a couple of fresh graves complete with headstones in that little cemetery in small-town upstate New York? "We were wrong. I talked to Malcolm myself two days ago. Stick around a while and we'll get your answers. Just… for God's sake Dean. Hang in there."

Three hours of drifting in and out of consciousness in the jam-packed ER waiting room du jour and another four hooked up to blood bag and Dean hadn't a thing to say to his own brother. After the horror-movie-like freak show of that middle of nowhere shack painted in his own blood, the transfusion bag looked so neat and orderly. Wrong somehow considering he was still such a mess.

For once he didn't argue when the nurses tut-tutted him into the mandatory wheelchair they wanted to whisk him off to the car in. He let Sam fuss over settling him into the backseat of his own car, let him fluff pillows, put big ass wool socks on his bare feet and tuck a bunch of blankets around his broken self. Not a peep was uttered until Sam was behind the wheel, pointing the nose of the Impala toward the nearest motel.

"Sammy? No stopping. Just get us there, okay?" There was a hairy minute there where Sam's shoulders tensed and Dean was pretty sure he would meet some pretty serious resistance. Then there was the slightest hiss of an exhale, like the air being let out of a tire, as Sam realized the futility of arguing. "All right."

After that everything was a big blur of road signs, coffee shop parking lots and the backs of his eyelids. Every passing mile built that feeling of anticipation. All this time he'd thought her gone and now with each breath, she was a little bit closer to being real. After finding those graves he'd resigned himself to never again getting to look into those big blue eyes that were all but electric when she was riled up. He should have been angry. He should have wanted to hurt Malcolm for hiding her away like he had. It was hard to care about anything past the fact that she was out there somewhere at that very moment, breathing. For once angry, cynical Dean who had seen it all and then some could find his way to believing that maybe, just maybe, miracles were possible.

It wasn't what either of them expected, the little clapboard cottage with the white picket fence surrounded by forest and wildflowers. It was just this side of shabby with a respectably large vegetable garden off to one side. It looked like something out of a storybook or a fairy tale. The kind of place that was meant to come alive, be filled with family complete with children and pets running through it. The green siding, the white picket fence… it was so far removed from anything they'd ever associated with Cal that it was hard to believe they'd found the right girl.

If it weren't for Dean's recent transfusion they'd have turned around and checked in to a motel. Maybe done some checking around to make sure these were the right people before knocking on the front door and announcing their arrival. As it was Sam had to get him inside somewhere he could sleep comfortably.

Malcolm who was sitting out on the porch, watched them pull in and walked over to the car to give Sam a hand maneuvering Dean out of the backseat. "There's a pull-out couch in the living room. It's not far." And just like that, it was as if no time had passed and nothing had ever changed except for the fact that Cal was nowhere to be seen.

Yet.