Chapter 6
1.30 a.m. August 3, 2012. Scotts Mill, Oregon
The small neighbourhood was a quiet one, the house set on its own a mile up a winding road through the edge of the state forest. Ellie woke as the pickup chugged up the dirt road and slowed to turn into the drive. She opened an eye and glanced at the clock. One-thirty.
The town was three miles away. It only had one bar, and that'd probably been closed by the time he'd left. Through the open window, she heard the distinctive clunk of the truck's door, and she rolled over, wondering if Dean had found answers wherever it was he'd gone, or if they'd be facing the same conversation in the morning.
Not like it wasn't due. Circumstances had put it off for a long time, but not any more.
Sam'd returned to the living room when he'd heard the pickup start up.
"He take off to think about this?" he'd asked as he'd walked in. Looking up at him, she'd nodded.
"You're sure this is what you need to do?"
"If you know anyone else who knows Hell as well as I do, point them out," she'd said, probably more harshly than was needed.
"You know he's just trying to keep you and the baby safe?" he'd asked, and she'd sighed.
"Of course I know that." Looking down at the computer, she'd added, "I don't know why he thinks I'd be better protected without him, than with him."
Sam's brow had furrowed up as he'd taken a seat on the other side of the low table from her. "Come on, Ellie, you do know why – he couldn't protect Dad, couldn't protect me – he blames himself for our choices, as if he could've made us choose something else." He'd shaken his head. "You know when I first realised that? Watching him with you."
She hadn't understood what he'd meant.
"I've never seen him as scared of anything as he is of losing you," he'd clarified, his gaze on the table. "Not when Meg took our dad; not when we faced Lucifer. The last few months – the last couple of years – he's changed a lot. He's had to. More than that, he's wanted to."
"You're making that sound like a bad thing, Sam."
"No," he'd been quick to say, shaggy chestnut bangs flopping over his face. "No, it's a great thing, but you know Dean; for him, it's a hard thing too."
His gaze had flicked around the room, as if he could find the words more easily amidst the prosaic comforts of their temporary home. "And one thing hasn't changed. He thinks he can't do his job if he has to worry about the person he loves being in the firing line."
"That's the way it is," she'd said, defences rising. "For me too."
"I know that," Sam'd said. "And you know that. But Dean doesn't want to hear it. Not yet."
He'd been right, she thought, listening to the clump of boots ascending the stairs. There were things she could help him with … and there were things she couldn't. This was one of those things he needed to get clear for himself. By himself.
The bedroom door opened, then closed. She heard him walk around the bed, the mattress dipping on the other side as he sat down. There was a faint rustle and two heavy thumps as he unlaced and pulled off his boots, letting them drop to the floor, and the mattress bounced up again when he stood.
She wasn't going to let him go into Hell after Michael on his own, or even with Sam. He hadn't said anything about what he'd seen or felt when they'd been there, but she'd seen his face, closed up and hard as they'd made their way through the third level. The lower levels would be worse. Cas'd told her the angels had pulled Dean from the seventh level. Moloch's domain. If he couldn't talk to his brother of the memories that'd returned about being tortured for so long, how would he face dealing with worse ones?
Besides which, she thought, pulling the quilt more closely under her chin, he didn't know how to cross from one level to another. Every internal gateway in Hell was different. She'd never been beyond Adoian Baltim, the dividing chasm between the upper and lower levels of the Accursed Plane, but she'd studied everything she'd been able to find on every level over a period of years, memorised them until she could practically see the different facets of Hell in her mind's eye. She couldn't transfer that knowledge whole and complete to him with maps and notes. He needed her with him.
Softer thumps and a gentle tug of the covers lifting and the mattress dipped again, evenly this time along its length. For a long moment, he was still, lying on his back, she thought. Then he rolled onto his side, spooning up behind her, his skin warm against her from neck to knee. His arm slid over her hip and she heard his deep inhale close to her ear, the exhale fluttering against her neck.
"Ellie?" His voice was soft, very low, the brush of his lips against her skin sending a shiver through her. "You awake?"
"Yeah."
There wasn't any point to pretending otherwise. She couldn't sleep, not until they'd gotten some of this out.
"You mad at me?"
"No," she answered, biting her lip when she realised that wasn't quite right. "Yes. A little bit."
"Everything I ever wanted is right here," he said, his arms curling around her. "Tessa told me there were no second chances, but I got one and I don't want to –"
"You want me to change?" she asked. "Be someone I'm not? So you don't have to worry?"
His sigh ghosted over her shoulder, and she closed her eyes, lips thinning out at the injustice of the accusation. She couldn't take it back. Didn't want to, she realised. She loved him exactly as he was. She didn't want to change a thing. She'd wanted him to love her like that, as she was, no excuses or lies.
"I don't want to lose you," he answered, after a moment that felt like an hour.
"It's a risk we both face every day."
"I know that." His voice roughened as he added, "It gets more loaded when you want to get into Hell and free a goddamned archangel."
He had a point, she thought, but not really. What they did was what they did. She could've bought it a million times in a million ways and the job always held risk.
"I did this for a lot of years before I met you. I'm good at it, Dean."
"C'mon, you know that's not what this is," he said. His outgoing breath was filled with frustration, warm against her arm. "I don't – for a second – have any doubts about what you can do."
"Then why –?"
"It took us so fucking long to get here," he cut her off. "Don't you worry about losing this? Us?"
"Of course I do. You know I do," she said, her eyes screwing shut as an image of a rain-soaked street lit with neon bloomed behind the lids. "I can't change who I am, Dean. I won't. Not even for you."
"I don't want you to," he said. "This isn't about how you can take care of yourself, Ellie. It's not about how capable you are."
His cheek dropped to her shoulder, the prick of stubble against her skin. She felt his chest expand against her back as he pulled in a deep breath. "You asked me if I wanted to live, you remember?"
"Yeah."
How could she forget? He'd spent his life being ready to die, ready to put his life between those he loved and any threat. It was a different ballgame to want to live. A distinction she hadn't been sure he'd really made for himself, all those years.
"Yeah, well, I do," he said. "I was thinking, you know, when I left, about my family. About, how, uh, if my mother had just told my dad what was coming, maybe they could've protected each other. Or if even Dad had told me what he'd found about Sam, just trusted me with that, we could've found a different way."
Frowning, Ellie asked, "You think I'm not telling you everything?"
"No. Well, yeah," he said, the edge gone from his voice. "But that's not – look, uh - I just don't want that to start happening, uh, between us. I did it - do it - with Sam, trying to protect him - it nevers works."
They'd talked around this before, not really going into detail because there hadn't been a need to get too specific and neither had felt comfortable raising the spectres that haunted the times when they were apart. They could love each other, look out for each other, but with each new threat, each new danger, he'd have to wrestle with the same dilemma, the same desire to keep her out of it, away from harm. The problem was there was no place that was safe, that was away from the danger. Not in their life, and probably not in any other life either. It wasn't fate or kismet. It was fact.
"You ever read the Declaration of Independence?"
He tensed a little, clearly wondering about the change of subject.
She smiled, leaning back against his chest. "When I was thirteen, my school had a field trip to Washington, and we saw it. Read it. The class teacher was a keen patriot, proud of the history, and he made us think about what it said and that … it changed me, I guess. Gave me a reason to do what I do, maybe."
Closing her eyes, she could recall the passage as clearly now as when she'd first seen it, the memory sending a tingling charge through her chest.
"'But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security.'"
"The people with the ability to take action, also have the responsibility to take that action," Dean said.
"Yeah." She turned over slowly, within the curve of his arms, and looked into his eyes.
"My dad used to say that," he told her, his voice deepening with some memory. "Never mentioned where it came from."
"One day – soon – I'll be relying on you to protect me, to protect us –" She slid her hand down between them and curled it protectively over the shallow bulge of her stomach. "– because I won't be able to."
Dean drew in a deep breath, a frisson of fear racing through his nervous system at her words. She was right.
He didn't want her to change. Didn't want her to be someone else, even if it'd make it easier or safer. Every time he looked at her, heard her voice, felt her touch, something resonated in him, somewhere down deep and that'd always felt right. Real.
Essential.
He didn't want to lose her but asking her to be something other than who she was would have the same result.
In a couple of months, she wouldn't be able to protect herself, not the way she could now. He found the thought more disturbing than the idea of her going into Hell. It would all be on him.
If they made it through the next couple of weeks, he added silently to himself. The only chance of them doing that, getting into Hell and getting Michael out was gonna be on her. Her knowledge. Her skills. There wasn't a snowballs' chance he could bone up on everything she knew in the time he had, and even if he could, he acknowledged reluctantly, he didn't want to go in there without her. She'd been right about that, too. He couldn't face the thought of falling apart in front of his brother. He wasn't real keen on the idea of doing it in front of her, either, but she'd understand, she'd know what was happening. Sam wouldn't. And he couldn't tell him.
She thought along lines that never occurred to him. Came up with solutions that'd gotten them out of trouble more than once. Another thing he loved about her. Another thing that couldn't be replicated with anyone else. Not even his brother. Especially not his brother, he thought. He and Sam knew each other's moves; the way they thought. Sam didn't springboard his ideas the way Ellie did. And the job was going to need that.
It didn't change the fact that she'd be going into the lowest levels of Hell to find an archangel who was probably pissed to max volume about being trapped there for the last three years. Or three hundred and sixty years, give or take, in Hell's time.
"It scares the crap outta me, thinking about losing you," he said simply.
"You think I don't feel the same way?" she asked, tucking her head against his shoulder. "You can't think about it. You can't give it room."
"Is that what you do?"
He did that, to a certain degree, he thought. Not enough to stop the adrenalin flowing pretty constantly. He didn't know if he could shut it down far enough.
"When we're working, yes," she said. "If I let those thoughts in, I'd be too worried about you to do my job. I'd make a mistake and get myself killed. Or you."
Closing his eyes, he thought back to the warehouse. He'd been aware of her, as he'd always been aware of Sam. Or his father. On high alert, ready to jump in between either one of them and any potential threat.
It was tiring. Energy-consuming. Twice, he knew for sure, he could've put them in jeopardy because he'd been thinking of their safety instead of thinking of what he had to do to get the job done. She hadn't remarked on those times. She knew what he'd been thinking. But he understood why she wasn't prepared to let him go into Hell with Sam. How could he retrain himself to not do that? Protecting those he loved had been ingrained so deeply he could never shut it entirely out.
"When you're work on your own, how do you face the monsters?"
On his own, it was easy. "I, uh, don't think about what might happen, only what I have to do."
"Yes."
"I don't know if I can do that with you." He looked down at her, touching her face lightly, his fingertip following the curve of her brow, feeling the small scar that ran across it. "I haven't had much luck doing it even with Sam."
"You have to." She shifted against him, moving up slightly and he felt a rush of heat where her skin grazed over him. "You have to focus on what you have to do, and lock everything else down."
"This another part of that mental mumbo-jumbo you can't teach me in five minutes?"
Her cheek lifted against his neck. "Yeah, I guess it is. It's just a state of mind. You have to learn to dismiss everything that's not relevant."
Her hand slid down his chest, smoothing over his hip to his flank, and his breath caught in his throat. "Like – uh – focussing on a conversation no matter what else – uh – is going on?"
"Exactly." Her fingers slipped back up his thigh, following the curve to the inside, slowing down as she drew her hand up.
"Uh … huh … I don't think I can shut that out either." He struggled to get the words out as sensation swamped him.
"Try harder." She leaned close to him, her breath on his lips. "Much harder."
He closed his eyes and dragged in a deep breath, forcing his physical senses away from his thoughts, letting his body react without it fogging his mind. He knew how to shut away pain. Knew how to ignore distraction. Had been able to control his reactions to physical sensation … at least, he had before … before her. It was the emotional reactions he couldn't seem to ignore.
It was hard, with what she was doing to him; it was damned near impossible. He knew how it could be done, how he could do it, isolating each thought, keeping things separate in his mind, in his body. Her fingers changed position and he groaned, his concentration fragmenting.
"Uh, oh … not fair –"
"You're not doing too badly," she said, grinning at him. "Just need some more practice."
"Uh – no – gimme a second."
"Won't have a second in the field." Her lips feathered over his. "Gotta roll with whatever's happening."
"Good idea," he said, rolling over her, holding his weight above her on one arm.
"Hey!"
He smiled and moved his hand down.
"How 'bout … we see how well you do at this?"
8.30 a.m. August 3, 2012.
"Coffee," Dean said through a jaw-popping yawn as he walked into the kitchen. Sam glanced around, and nodded at the fresh pot on the counter.
"You have trouble sleeping?" he asked, watching his brother pour himself a mug of the fragrant brew, his eyes barely open.
"Yeah, loads of trouble," Dean said. His lids dropped closed and his mouth curled up into a smug grin as he lifted the cup. "Got about an hour."
Sam wrinkled his nose. "TMI."
"Hey, you asked."
"I won't be doing that again," Sam muttered. "Ellie up?"
His brother nodded as he inhaled his coffee. "Be down in a minute."
"You two going to get Michael?"
Dean finished the cup and turned back to the pot to pour a second. "Mmm, looks like."
Not exactly happy about it, Sam thought, watching him, but not completely opposed either.
"You alright with that?"
Turning back, Dean leaned against the counter and stared into his cup. "Not really, but it's not like I got much choice."
"I could come with?" Sam suggested. "Another pair of hands, eyes?"
His brother shook his head. "S'not really the problem," he said, lifting his gaze and meeting Sam's eyes. "Two's gonna sneak in easier than three, and the only shot we have is getting in and out without being seen. I – uh – just –"
Dean waved a hand around in no particular direction as he trailed off, and Sam nodded. His brother's shorthand for being worried without having a way to deal with it.
"If you're distracted –?"
"Oh, I'll be on the ball," Dean snorted. "Nothing but."
"What's for breakfast?"
Both men turned around as Ellie walked into the kitchen. From the corner of his eye, Sam saw his brother's expression brighten and relax at the same time, the seeming contradiction typical of Dean.
"Uh, toast, unless you feel like cooking?" Sam said.
"Well, I feel like eating," Ellie hedged, walking past him to the counter and turning on the electric kettle. She took a mug down from the cupboard and dropped a tea-bag into it.
"What exactly are we supposed to do to help the Watchers?" Sam asked, moving out of her way as she moved around the kitchen, collecting pans, egg and bacon, flour and milk.
"They want – they need – leverage against the Fallen," she said, flicking on the stove top and breaking eggs quickly into a bowl. Sam felt his brows rise as she passed it to his brother. "And something pretty tangible – not just some airy-fairy promise of help against Heaven."
"Like what?"
"Maybe a key," she said, laying out strips of bacon on the broiler. "To a Gate."
Sam looked at Dean, whose mouth had fallen open. "Uh, we might need that."
"Oh, we definitely will, and I wouldn't be inclined to give it to them," she said, taking a bowl from under the stove and spooning flour, salt and sugar into it. She added milk. "But it sure makes nice bait."
"Why?" Sam asked, taking the bowl from her and beating the batter into a froth.
"Being able to open a Gate – that Gate – would give a demon army a big advantage. It might prove their loyalty to the archdemons. Not much else is likely to do that."
"So … we offer them the keys to the kingdom and … what?" Dean cocked a brow at her.
"Trap them?" Sam asked, setting the bowl down and pulling out a clean pan. He added butter to the pan and set it on the stove. "Where? How?"
"Angels and nephilim have no problem crossing the iron rails into the Devil's Gate pentacle. But they do have a thing about hallowed ground. They won't kill on it," she told them, turning the crisp bacon over. "There are five churches within the pentacle. The one closest to the Gate happens to sit in a small, tight valley."
"Back to Sunrise?" Dean shook the pan full of eggs. He added salt and pepper, stirring it again.
"So far, it's looking the best site."
"How do we let them know about the gun?" Tipping the mixture into the pan and tilting the pan over the heat, Sam wondered about the iron-bound pentacle. He'd only seen it in daylight once, and even that'd been just on dusk. He didn't remember looking at the churches, just the graveyard. "They're not going to believe the Watchers have the key and are willing to hand it over?"
"No, I doubt they're that dumb," Ellie said, draining the bacon strips on a paper-covered plate and getting another three plates down from the cupboard. "I thought Cas might be able to help there. Sounds like he has his pick of possible renegade angels to hand."
Dean gave the eggs a final stir and tipped them onto the plates. "You want me to call him again?"
"After we eat, and figure out the best way to lay this out." Ellie added the bacon to the plates and passed Sam a clean plate.
Flipping another pancake, Sam asked, "When do the Watchers arrive?"
Glancing at her watch, Ellie said, "Three hours."
Garth, Twist, Trent and himself, Sam thought, plus Penemue and however many of his brothers and kids they'd brought. Against how many?
"How many are we up against?" He looked from Dean to Ellie as he poured more mixture into the pan.
Dean took his frying pan to the sink. "Cas said ten to one."
"What? How many Watchers are there?"
"Eleven," Ellie answered, pulling cutlery from a drawer. "There's somewhere between ninety and a hundred of the Others."
Flipping the last pancake, Sam watched it brown and slid it onto the stack. Even with superior position and weapons, the odds were too great, he thought.
"That's a big ask, Ellie," he said, turning off the stove and carrying the pan to the sink.
Ellie nodded. "I know. Means we have to be smarter, sneakier, and ignore the Marquess of Queensbury rules."
Picking up his plate, he followed his brother and Ellie to the dining room table. Ellie left the cutlery and returned to the kitchen for butter, ketchup and maple syrup, setting them out on the table before sitting down.
"You want an ambush," Dean said, taking a pancake and adding it to his plate. "High ground. A bottleneck. Someplace crossfire works for us but not them and we can even the odds."
"That's what I want," Ellie agreed, piling egg on top of her bacon. "I had a brief look at the maps last night. There's a section of the road that looks like it might work. It leads past the south-eastern church on the way to Colt's cemetery."
"But we can't kill them," Sam objected.
"Not outright, not with rifles, no," Ellie agreed. "But they will go down under fire, and once they're on the ground, they'll be incapacitated long enough to cut out their hearts."
Sam looked down at the remains of his breakfast and pushed it aside, his face screwing up. Dean reached across the table and snagged the unwanted plate, tipping the leftover pancake and bacon onto his.
"Take more than rifles, Ellie," Dean said, around a mouthful. He swallowed and gave Sam a measured look. "You'll need some mines. Something you can set off once they hit the right place."
Sam nodded. "Redrock?"
"Yeah, I think he stashed some there." Dean grinned around his next forkload.
Sam knew he was remembering the storage unit. He could still picture his brother's expression when they'd found that place, a mix of wary astonishment and little-boy glee at the sheer wealth of explosives there. Shelving had run right around the narrow room, floor-to-ceiling, stacked with cases of claymores, boxes of detonators and C4 in metal cases.
"Redrock?" Ellie got up, taking her empty plate and Sam's to the kitchen. She filled her cup with hot water, poured fresh coffees for the brothers and brought them back to the table.
"Our dad had storage units all over the country," Sam explained. "Some of them were designated for special things."
"Redrock, Idaho, has mines. Explosives," Dean said, washing the last of his food down with the fresh coffee. "I think Caleb picked up most of it for Dad. Had a buddy at some military depot."
Fifteen minutes later, Dean leaned over the table, his gaze moving slowly over the contour map laid out there.
"Those churches haven't been used in a hundred and fifty years," he asked. "They gonna keep everyone safe?"
"Hallowed ground is hallowed ground." Sam moved the magnifying lens over the map, leaning across from the other side of the table. "Once it's been blessed and consecrated it doesn't have an expiry date."
"It's not the same church Twist and Marcus used to wait out Crowley, is it?" Ellie sat at the end of the table, studying the zoomed-in satellite image on her laptop.
"No." Sam lifted his head and blinked at the change in focus. "That was the southern church."
In the kitchen, the coffee pot burbled and hissed and Dean turned away from the table, picking up their empty cups. He set them down on the counter and looked at bowl of tea-bags next to the electric jug.
"You sure you don't want a coffee?" he asked Ellie, nose wrinkling as he picked up a bag and took a cautious sniff.
"Is that offending your delicate sensibilities?"
"Uh, no," he said, hearing Sam's snort. "Just checkin'."
"It's calming, full of vitamins and tastes great, Dean."
"Sure it does." He dropped the bag into her empty cup and poured water over it. "Right."
Pouring out fresh cups for himself and Sam, he watched the hot water turn a deep red. "Looks like pig's blood."
"Just leave the bag in until it's nearly black," Ellie said.
He shrugged and picked up the coffees, returning to the table to pass Sam his cup and sitting down with his own.
"What about us? Where're we going in?"
"Devil's Gate Reservoir, I think. Pasadena." Ellie looked up from the laptop. "It's closer. Cas said it would let us into the fourth level."
The gate where Bill Harvelle had been killed, he remembered. "Jim's journal said it wasn't always open."
She nodded. "I've got a ritual that'll open it."
Getting to her feet, she walked to the kitchen and pulled the bag from her cup. "That's not the main problem."
No, Dean thought. The main problem was he was gonna have to talk to Death and ask if he could borrow his ring again.
"You've still got the summoning?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said. The fine parchment scroll Crowley'd handed over reluctantly was still in its wrapping of silk, at the bottom of his duffel.
"When do you want to do it?"
"Uh, we got everything we need? Maybe we oughta check if we're out of something – uh - vital?" He didn't want to summon Death again. "We – uh – needed some funky crap that was hard to get hold of last time –"
You attempt to bind me again and you'll be dead before you start, the entity'd told him.
Ellie lifted a brow. "What's wrong?"
"Uh … last time we bound him –"
Sam's gaze swung around. "He said he'd kill us."
"Good thing we're not trying to bind him, then, isn't it?" Ellie said. "We won't be using the complete ritual you got from Crowley."
"We won't?"
"No," she said, blowing on her tea as she carried it back to the table. "Just the beginning part of it. This is just a – a request – to talk."
"Oh."
The temperature in the room dropped suddenly. Dean shivered as Bobby manifested next to the table.
"You ever going to invite me to your pow-wows or am I just supposed to keep eavesdropping?" he asked sourly.
"You have a standing invitation, Bobby." Ellie drank her tea quickly before the ghost could pull all the heat from it.
"Bobby, you remember Dad leaving a stash of mines in his storage units?" Dean asked.
"Uh huh. Idaho. Redrock, I seem to recall. And he had a unit somewhere outside Seattle." He looked over the table at the map, pushing his cap back and peering down at the inverted pentacle of Colt's churches. "Seems like old times."
"Yeah, let's hope this goes better than that did." Sam glanced at his brother.
Dean smiled. "I'm still going back to Hell, Sam."
10.30 a.m. August 4, 2012.
Not a breath of wind stirred the leaves or grass in the big garden behind the house. In full canopy, the massive oak, maple and aspens cast deep pools of black shade, the temperatures there almost five degrees less than in the bright sunshine.
Ellie stood by the edge of the long, weathered picnic table, her gaze moving around at the clusters of people that filled the yard. Didn't look so odd, she thought, just a friendly gathering on a hot summer's afternoon. If you didn't look too closely.
The Watchers had arrived the day before, taking up accommodation in the town. Penemue and Baraquiel were staying here, the two fallen looking out of place in their jeans and casual shirts, long hair tied back. The rest of their brothers, and the adult children who'd accompanied them, might've been able to blend in singly, but in a group, they stood out. Tall, beautiful, graceful, even the casual, Westernised clothing couldn't hide their differences.
"Ellie? Can I talk to you?" Tricia said, coming up behind her.
"Sure," she said, turning and gesturing to the long bench next to the table. "What's going on?"
"I want to do this," Tricia said, dropping to the bench seat. "You know I'm capable, and I want in."
Taking a seat opposite, Ellie studied her. "It won't bring him back."
"I know that," the other woman grimaced, her gaze cutting away. "That's not why I'm volunteering."
"You talk to Sam about this?" Ellie asked.
"Sam is the problem," Tricia said.
"It's his gig, Trish," Ellie pointed out.
"And he's outnumbered, probably outgunned," Tricia argued. "You know what I can do."
"You've been out of this game for a long time."
"Long range shooting isn't something you just forget." Tricia's gaze returned to her. "I'm not going back to Chicago."
"Why?"
"You said it yourself," Tricia said. "This is war. What good is it for me to pretend it's not happening? Get people functioning only for them to die in a month or six when it all goes to hell? Literally?"
Sam'd made his feelings clear enough on the subject, Ellie recalled with an internal wince. He didn't want Tricia risking her life. She ducked her head, wondering if Trish knew the extent of his feelings about her. For her.
"I'll, um, talk to him, alright?" she said, wondering if it would make a difference. "But it's his call."
"Alright," Tricia agreed unwillingly, her gaze dipping for a moment then returning to her. "How did you do it? With Dean?"
"Do what?"
"Make him understand what you need to do?" Tricia said, a short, choppy gesture showing her frustration. She shook her head. "He backs you up, every time. Dad noticed it too, you know. Said it wasn't Dean's rep to do that."
"Um, yeah. Well, we're still negotiating that bit," Ellie hedged, the last few days' conversations too vivid. "Is there something between you and Sam? More importantly, do you want there to be?"
"I don't know," Tricia said, running a hand through her hair and pushing it back from her face. "There was – I guess there is – but this – it's more important, right now."
"Sam doesn't think so?"
"No," she said with a sigh. "I guess not."
"Trish, I'll talk to him, alright?" Ellie said, leaning forward. "But you need to get that stuff straight between you, preferably before you go. There's a strain when it's not clear, and that strain can have an impact when it's least wanted."
Tricia nodded. "I know."
She looked up, her gaze slipping past Ellie. Someone behind her, Ellie thought. Turning around, she saw Penemue walking toward them.
"He's a Watcher?" Tricia asked.
Getting to her feet as the fallen angel approached, Ellie said, "Yeah. Uh, Penemue, this is Tricia Milton. Trish, Penemue, of the Irin We-Qadishin."
The fallen angel inclined his head, his bright blue gaze meeting Tricia's.
"You are almost tall enough to be considered nephilim, Miss Milton," Penemue said.
"My mother's genes," Tricia answered, taking his offered hand. "I understand that rules me out."
"Not in all cases," the Watcher said, smiling. "You are to fight with us?"
"I hope so." Tricia glanced at Ellie. "It's been a while since I've done this kind of work."
"Oh?" Penemue glanced at Ellie, then looked back at the young woman in front of him. "What have you been doing more recently?"
"I'm a physiotherapist," Tricia said, her gaze dropping to her hand, still held in the Watcher's grip. "I help people to recover from trauma and injury."
"A healer?" Penemue's gaze fell at the same time. "The world needs its healers, Miss Milton. There is much to be healed."
"Oh, well, I don't plan on giving that up for good," she said, a faint line of pink rising from her shirt collar. And what was that about, Ellie wondered?
"I'm glad to hear that."
The Watcher released her hand and Tricia nodded as she took a small step backward. "Ellie, if you could talk to Sam, and um, let him know I won't be taking 'no' for an answer?"
"Trish, I'll try," Ellie said. She glanced at the Watcher standing beside her. His gaze remained on Tricia as she turned away and walked toward the house.
"Did you want to talk about something?" she prompted, pushing her curiosity about the man's interest aside. The Watcher had been a friend for a long time, and was still as opaque to her as when she'd met him.
Penemue turned to her, his face as smooth and expressionless as she'd expected.
"Yes," he said. "You have a plan?"
She nodded. "Cas asked Danyael to contact the Others."
"With news of a key to one of the Major Gates," Penemue said. "I heard."
"Danyael will tell them of a group of hunters." She looked up at him, the corner of her mouth tucking in. "Unscrupulous. Wanting to make a deal."
"They are angels. Not demons," he said, shaking his head. "They don't make deals and they couldn't keep one, even if they did."
"True. But do they know that humans know that?" She shrugged. ""We'll know in a day or two if the bait's been taken."
"And then?"
"Sam told you about Sunrise?" she asked.
He nodded. "The iron will not affect them."
"Doesn't need to. Sam and a couple of other hunters will be waiting for them in the Church. You, your brothers, the nephilim and the rest of the hunters will be on the slopes of the valley, overlooking the only road in."
"And we use your weapons to attack?" he asked, his mouth turning down. "Those won't kill them."
"No," Ellie agreed. "The mines will do a certain amount of damage, disrupt whatever they had planned. The crossfire across the valley, in front of the church, should even the numbers. Sam will have decide exactly how it all goes down on the spot." She lifted a brow. "Even you aren't likely to get up straight away after taking multiple bullets, Penemue. There'll be time enough to cut out their hearts."
"I suppose it has the advantage of being simple." Penemue looked around at the people that filled the garden. "We're outnumbered almost ten to one, you know that?"
"Yeah, I know," she said. "That's why I thought an ambush would be better than a frontal assault."
His gaze returned to her. "This isn't your war, Ellie. You could leave – stay safe. Have your child and be with the man you love."
The smile she gave him was humourless and cold. "Until they find us and kill us?" She shook her head. "No, it is our war. This is our world. We'll fight."
He nodded, his shoulders dropping a little. "The key will not be handed over to the Others?"
"No," Ellie said. "It's not just a key. It's also a weapon. A powerful one. It won't kill Lucifer, and there are a few other things it will not kill, but I somehow doubt the fallen are on that list."
Sam had told her of the conversation with Lucifer about the gun. Jesse was another of those five things. She wondered who or what else was immune.
The Watcher was looking at her, his expression concerned. "You are taking it into Hell with you?"
"No." She shook her head. "We'll be doing our utmost to avoid being noticed at all. Sam will have the gun. It's a single action revolver and it only holds five rounds, but he's a good shot. He won't miss if he gets the chance. We've been working on a reloader. It'll help with evening the odds."
"You believe the Others will want this key, even knowing it could be a trap?"
"I think they need something big to convince the Fallen of their intentions," she said. "Being able to open a Gate of that power should be irresistible."
"I believe so too." The Watcher turned to look around the garden. "You trust these people?"
"With my life," she told him. "They're risking everything to help us with Lucifer. They have risked their lives to do that."
"An attempt that failed," Penemue remarked.
"Meg erased her wardings and called the archdemons," Ellie said. "Lucifer convinced her. If I'd thought it was even a possibility, I never would've suggested we try to trap her."
"Lucifer is persuasive."
"Yeah," she agreed. "And they have him now."
The devil's last comment returned, sending a shiver snaking down her spine. Had the taunt been for her? For Dean? She'd never know, she thought.
"You and Dean will be leaving soon?" The Watcher's question brought her back to the present.
"Tomorrow morning," she said. "Straight after you, in fact. Sam's running this show, Pen. Whatever you need, you can talk to him."
Penemue folded his arms over his chest. "He seems young. Even for a human. Does he have the experience that's needed?"
"Yeah, he knows what he's doing." She followed his glance across the garden. Sam was talking to Trent and Twist. "And he listens to advice."
"That's something." He looked down at her. "Three thousand years I've been here; I do have some insights."
She smiled. "Your wisdom and experience have always been appreciated, Pen."
He snorted. "You think flattery works on me?"
"Doesn't hurt, does it?" She waved a hand toward the youngest Winchester. "Go quiz him if you don't believe me. We'll have lunch in half an hour, and then get into the nitty-gritty."
"Nitty-gritty?"
"Details," she amended. "And introductions."
"How long will it take to get to this place?"
"A day and a half," she said. "We've got vehicles ready. There'll be room for everyone."
3. 15 p.m.
Sam frowned at the back of the Jeep, now crowded with boxes of mines and detonators. Twist's pickup was parked to his left, the red truck's tray holding eight reinforced plastic and steel cases with the M-40s, boxes of ammunition snugged in beside them. He didn't want to think about what might happen if the hunter was pulled over on their way to Wyoming.
"Is there anything we can do to help?"
The voice was a pleasant tenor, warm and clear, coming from behind his right shoulder and he swung around to see Idan and Adina standing there.
The nephilim, the son of Shamsiel and daughter of Baraquiel respectively, were both tall, an inch or so taller than him. It was a disorienting feeling to be looking up, however slightly, at someone else. Idan was broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, his long, blue-black hair held back in a single braid; Adina, small-breasted and athletic-looking, her oval face framed by long, straight, reddish-blonde hair. Both had the classical bone structure and flawless skin of their heritage; Idan's olive-toned, Adina's Celtic fair. They were surreally beautiful, he thought, trying not to stare.
"Uh, yeah," he said, waving a hand at the truck and the pile of still-unloaded crates on the ground. "Those need to go into the troop."
They nodded and went to pick up a crate each, lifting the hundred pound crates easily and carrying them to the ex-Army vehicle.
"No question as to where the legends of elves came from, is there?"
He started, turning to see Tricia beside him, her gaze on the nephilim.
"Huh, yeah," Sam said. There were – fantasy aside – plenty of legends based on tall, beautiful and, more often than not, malicious or deadly beings that didn't seem quite human.
As he looked at her, they ran through his mind, the women he'd known, had loved or felt something for – Jess and Sara, Madison and even Ruby, in those painful days when his brother had been in Hell and he'd been lost – women he'd known and had gifted with pain or death. There was something of each in the woman in front of him and, at the same time, she was completely different from each of them as they from each other. Not Jess' joyful innocence, or Sara's frightened optimism. Not Madison's hope-less strength or Ruby's needful hunger.
Tricia wasn't a hunter, though she'd been raised in the life. She knew them, knew the dark side and the loss that came with it, he thought. As with the children of the fallen angels, he didn't have to adjust his eyeline much to meet her gaze. She was maybe an inch or two taller than Jess'd been. Her face was calm, her expression determined. Not masking fear. Understanding it and putting it aside.
She was here to talk about what Ellie'd button-holed him after lunch, he knew, wincing inwardly at the memory of that conversation. He'd developed new sympathy for his older brother during that conversation; the red-haired hunter'd been reasonable, persuasive, logical and relentless, and finally he'd given up, unable to come up with the right arguments to stick to his guns about Tricia. He hadn't wanted to admit it was mainly his emotions behind his reluctance to include her.
"I'm not looking for revenge or closure or any of those things, Sam," Tricia said, her voice as steady and direct as her gaze. "It's not a suicidal tendency, not even a homicidal one."
"You have a good life," he parried. "Why throw it away? You help people."
She turned her head, her gaze sweeping along the street. "My dad used to say that most people never get the opportunity to do something heroic," she said. "Or even to take a stand when it matters. He said they never got to know who they really were."
When she glanced back at him, he shivered inwardly as he saw something like a plea in her eyes. "I don't want to feel like I hid away, like some frightened kid, when the chance to do something that might make a difference came along."
"You could be killed, trying to make a difference," Sam told her, his brow wrinkling up, trying to ignore the impact of the fleeting plea he'd seen. That wasn't playing fair. "And all those people you could've been helping will have to live their lives without your work."
"I could die in Wyoming," she acknowledged readily. "There are a lot of people who will step in to take my place – in Chicago, or Boston or New York or wherever," she added. "There isn't anyone who'll believe in this fight and step in here."
"We don't need you that bad," he said, his gaze falling as the words slipped from his mouth. He hadn't meant to say it like that.
"You do, you know," she said, smiling at him. "Didn't Ellie tell you? I'm a great shot with an M-40."
He lifted his head, his mouth curling up involuntarily. "Can you prove it?"
"Anytime, anywhere."
"Gonna hold you to that. If you're that good, that's one thing. If you're not, you agree to sit it out in a motel in the town?" he told her, swallowing against the odd surge of emotion filling his chest.
"Deal."
"You – uh – going to ride with Marcus?" He looked down the quiet street, wondering where the older hunter's car was parked.
"No," she said. "I came over to ask if I could ride with you."
"Uh … oh ..." He hadn't been expecting that and his brain didn't seem to know what to do with it. "Sure. Yeah. Okay."
"I'll get my stuff," she said.
Watching her turn and walk away, he told himself it was a bad idea. A part of Ellie's arguments had been that Tricia had hunted with her father through her teenage years, only quitting when she'd started college, so it wasn't as if she didn't have experience.
It didn't matter, he knew. A few years out of the game meant slower reflexes, the instinctive reactions blunted without regular use. He should've been trying to work out a good reason to give her, a fool-proof way to put her off.
He found his heart wasn't in it. He was kind of looking forward to having her sitting next to him for the trip to Sunrise.
5.30 a.m. August 5, 2012.
"They all gone?" Dean asked, glancing over his shoulder as Ellie walked into the big double garage.
"Yeah," she said. "They should have plenty of time to set up."
He nodded, transferring the contents of his black gear bag to the Army pack. It wasn't as roomy and he had to pick and choose what he was taking, but he'd need his hands free.
"Last time I used one of these was for training," he told her, settling the Benelli and the sawn-off upright against the frame.
"Forty pounds and running uphill?" she asked, stopping beside him.
"In summer," he added, a smile lifting one side of his mouth. He could still feel the wound on the side of his head, but it wasn't hurting. "In New Mexico."
"Now you're just trying to impress me."
"That's some other loser you're thinkin' of," he told her loftily. "You're already impressed."
"Some other loser?" Ellie arched a brow at him, the corner of her mouth tucking in.
He frowned, replaying the words. "Slip of the tongue. Some other dude."
"Slip of some kind," she agreed, the smile widening as she turned to the long work bench against the wall.
On the bench, a small, graceful recurve bow lay with a quiver full of arrows. The pale wood of the shafts was palo santo, he knew. Each head was iron, cold-forged and barbed. Something for the daeva that guarded the abyss, she'd told him. Beside the bow, six bottles filled with a foul-looking greenish-black gloop were also for the daeva. Ellie and Bobby'd concocted the stuff the previous evening, stinking out the basement completely.
Another three bottles were filled with holy oil, something the Watcher'd brought with him. Instead of the usual heavy ceramic, they were glass. Holy molotovs, she'd said. In the hopefully unlikely event they ran into an arch down there.
His stomach fluttered. He'd found some of the books Katherine had given him, boxed up with the selection Ellie'd brought from the cabin. Gradus et Portas Infernalis was the one he'd remembered, the one that'd told him about the levels and doorways of Hell. Skimming through it over the past two nights, he'd reached the unpalatable conclusion that she'd been right. The broad strokes were there, but not enough detail. Not to let him figure out how to get through on his own.
Cas'd dropped by again, and sitting in the house's warm living room, listening to the angel and Ellie discussing the possible routes, the transdimensional doorways and what they would see on each level, had had the taste of a nightmare, disorienting in its surrealism. The angel'd thrown worried looks at him when they'd been discussing the seventh level. He knew why. The seventh level was the one where his soul had been when Cas'd pulled him free. The memories were there, had been pressing against his walls but the discussion had mainly made him aware he didn't really remember the level.
Only the table.
The demon.
The souls.
He shunted aside the tendrils of memory that even thinking near it brought and shoved the boxes of consecrated iron-and-salt round into the pack.
"You okay?" Ellie asked, glancing at him.
He nodded. "You get the location of the gate?"
He knew it was in Pasadena, someplace off the freeway. The demon they'd interrogated in '07 had told them that. Ellie'd dug out Jim Murphy's journals again and re-read the account his father had given the priest. The hunt that'd killed Bill Harvelle. He'd read through them again as well, not knowing what he was looking for. Jim's account of Bill's death had been added to by Bobby, sometime in 2010. The dry words couldn't hide the old man's regret at pushing at a man who'd been too close to the edge. When they got back, he wanted to talk to Bobby about it.
"Yeah. I checked your father's coordinates against the satellite images. It's right next to one of the storm channel drains," she said as she looked over the equipment on the bench, adding, "It's going to be a one-way trip for the vehicle. We need to find something disposable."
He'd figured that. "We can change in Redmond. Grab something from the lot at the airport."
"Alright." She picked up squares of velvet and silk and started wrapping the bottles, tucking them into her pack. "Do you want to do the drive in one day and find a place to crash tonight, or break it up early and get into LA in the morning?"
"Uh, break it up early," he said. Even along the 5, it was an easy twelve hours. Taking four hour shifts behind the wheel, they'd both be tired by the time they hit the city. "Could stop for the night in Castaic?"
She laughed. "Let's save the James Dean tour for another time."
"There's Magic Mountain," he said. "That'd take our minds off what we're about to do?"
"I'm thinking Kettleman," Ellie said. "It's about ten hours. We'll be there around sundown."
"Hey, if you don't want have to fun …"
"Going into Hell and rescuing an archangel is about all the fun I can stand for the moment," she said, adding after a moment's thought, "Besides, I'm betting you like Intimidator more than Escape from Krypton."
"Got me," he admitted, thinking of the low-to-the-ground banking turns of the state-of-the-art roller-coaster. "I could stand to do something not related to Hell, demons, monsters, angels and war on earth sometime in the not too distant future."
"So, I gotta know, how it is you like roller-coasters, but hate flying?"
"I'm on the ground on the roller-coaster," he protested, reconsidering that as memories flashed through his mind. "Some of the time."
"It's still high."
"Yeah." He considered that, giving her a shrug. "I got no clue."
"Could you pass me that bag?" Ellie asked, setting the bow and quiver into the pack.
Turning, he reached for the nondescript hessian bag she was looking at and picked it up. The objects inside it moved together, the bag heavy. "What's this?"
"Alternative light source."
"For where?" he asked. Hell wasn't dark. Creepy. Forbidding. Noxious as a city dump in high summer, but not dark.
"The abyss," she said. "It's pitch black and the stairs are steep."
The more he heard about the chasm separating the upper and lower levels, the less he wanted to see it.
"Remind me why we aren't taking the Colt again?"
"You mean aside from Sam needing it to verify his story with the Others?"
"Yeah."
"Because it holds five bullets, if you're playing it safe with the single action, and there're six archdemons," she said. "If we used the Colt, even once in Hell, it would be a demon magnet. And the reloader's still not finished."
"I'm fast."
"Not faster than thought," she said with a smile. "We don't want to attract attention."
"You can't always get what you want."
"Well, we'll have to be careful," she said. "And we just might get what we need."
8.30 a.m. I-5 California
In true Californian style, the weather changed as soon as they turned onto the 5. Blue skies stretched out to every side, the grey cloud cover left behind and the summer-browned countryside lit up by sunshine. Dean was thankful the ride he'd stolen had air-con as the day heated up.
They didn't talk about the job as the scenery flashed past, or their chances or the myriad possibilities governing success or failure. Instead, they talked about Sam, Dean offering Ellie odds his little brother wouldn't hit on Tricia on the long drive to Wyoming; and about Cas, exchanging speculations on what the angel could do about the mess he'd made of Heaven. They talked about the towns they passed through; about their childhood memories and the hunts that'd held something different, funny or interesting; they talked about music and movies and books. They talked about anything that came to mind that was rooted in the mundane, the everyday.
It was, Dean thought, as he screwed on the gas cap and hung the pump up, relaxing. And easy.
"What do you want?" Ellie asked over her shoulder, heading for the store.
"Usual," he called back, getting into the car and adjusting the driver's seat. He moved the car away from the pumps and fiddled with the radio while he waited. A bubble of anger rose as he looked at the sleek black and grey plastic dash and the garish logo on the wheel. He missed his baby. Missed the legroom. Missed his tapes. Missed her smell and feel and the way she clung to the road.
"What?"
He glanced around as the passenger door opened and Ellie got in, passing him a cup and a bag.
"Nothin'," he said. "Just – uh – wishing she was here."
Nodding, Ellie sipped at her coffee. "I was thinking about that before we left," she said. "No reason not to bring her home if we find a place to stay for awhile? You could do some work on her, even if you're driving something else?"
He blinked down at the wheel. The rebuild he'd done at Bobby's had been fast and dirty; it'd been years since he'd pulled down the engine and gone right through it. His fingers pulled the paper bag open and he stared down at the slice of pie it contained. Apple. The rich, thick scents of fruit and cinnamon wafted out.
"Uh, yeah," he said, his throat inexplicably tight. "Yeah."
An hour later
"So, how many lines?" Ellie asked, keeping her eyes on the road.
"Two from any verse, one from a chorus," Dean answered. He was leaning back into the corner of the seat and door.
"Do I have to sing it?"
"Nope, just say the lines."
"Um … yeah, okay," she said, the lyrics of a million songs flashing through her mind. "Okay … 'pleased to meet you, hope you know my name.'"
He snorted. "Too easy. Sympathy for the Devil, Stones."
She smiled and gave him a one-shouldered shrug. "Okay."
"With no provision but an open face, along the straits of fear."
The music filled her ears for a moment, intricate twisting guitar. "Kashmir, Zeppelin."
"Oh, smart-ass, eh?"
"You started this," she said, sliding a quick glance sidelong at him. "Hit top speed but I'm still movin' much too slow; I feel so good, I'm so alive."
"Uh – crap – I know that," he said, shifting in the seat. "Dammit, I know it."
"You should," she agreed.
"Uh, gimme another line."
"Isn't that cheating?"
"No. Judge ruling. One more line," he said. "C'mon."
"Does it have to be the next line?"
"No – uh – yeah," he said.
"Alright. 'I hear my song –"
"'Playin' on the radio – it goes,'" Dean finished, his voice deepening as he sang the half-line. "Detroit Rock City, Kiss. Haven't heard that in years. Sam managed to lose the tape."
"No excuses."
"How 'bout … 'Growing darkness taking dawn; I was me but now he's gone'" he said, stretching his legs into the well below the dash.
"Metallica," Ellie said, positive of the band, not sure of the song.
"Halfway there."
"Um … Fade to Black?"
"Yeah. This is too easy," he told her. A sideways glance showed Ellie a small, satisfied smile playing on his mouth.
"You and Sam would've been going in hour-long runs?"
"Pretty much," he agreed. "By the time he was fourteen, I never heard of most of the crap he was listening to and he was tuning out the stuff I liked."
"Philistine."
"Right!" he said, giving her a sideways grin. "How'd you get to know the songs so well?"
She shrugged. "My aunt's husband had a record collection, back to the '40's. I went through it probably a hundred times, got a taste for a lot of different music. She pretended to prefer classical, but she'd pick out blues and rock when the mood took her."
"You still got the collection?"
Ellie nodded. "In the house."
It was something she'd have to take care of, sometime, she thought, packing up the tall Victorian in Boston. She'd planned on doing it when she'd bought the witch's place, but too much had gotten in the way.
"Uh … you been thinking at all about names?" he asked a moment later, something in his voice catching her attention.
"Names?"
"Uh, yeah," he said, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. "Y'know, for – uh – "
Glancing at him, her heart skipped a beat when she realised what he was talking about.
"Oh, you – you're thinking about names?"
"Kid's gotta have a name, right?" he said, and in the corner of her eye, she saw him tuck his chin down to his chest, his gaze fixed somewhere on the floor.
"Right." She hadn't thought about it at all. "Sure. You got something in mind?"
"No," he said. "Uh, well, unless, uh, you like – uh – Bobby, if it's a boy?"
It never failed to astonish her, the way he thought about stuff like this, in the background, showing no signs of it, until he came out with a question or said something about the baby, or the future, revealing just how much he was feeling about it all.
"I do like Bobby, for a boy," she agreed readily, keeping her eyes on the highway.
He leaned back, turning to look out the window. "Uh, good."
"I like John, for a boy, too," she said quietly, not entirely sure it was a good idea to push the conversation right now, but unable to let the opportunity slip by again.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't want to name our kid after my Dad," he said, folding his arms over his chest as he hunched deeper into the corner.
"You want to tell me what's going on?"
When she'd met him, he'd idolised his father. That feeling had been eroded gradually, by the things John hadn't told him, by the things he had. Time had distorted his memories – and it'd clarified them as well – she thought. Seeing his father as just a man had been as difficult as believing the man he'd worshipped had fallen from the sky-high pedestal he'd placed him on.
"He screwed us over," he said.
"I thought he did a pretty good job, given everything that was going on." Like a red flag to a bull, the comment earned her a glare.
"You weren't there. You don't know." His brows pinched together, his tone a warning against pursuing the subject any further.
"Alright. Tell me what he did, Dean, that was so unforgivable?" She ignored the look and the tone and he scowled at her.
"He raised us to be hunters. He cursed us with that upbringing, so neither of us could have what we wanted."
"Did he? Or was he trying to make sure you survived, you and Sam?" She was careful to keep her voice quiet, her tone reasonable. He responded better to rational discussion, more than likely a habit inculcated by his father. "You weren't always unhappy with the life of a hunter."
"So maybe he didn't have a choice in how he raised us, but he sure as hell had a choice in what he – in how he – in what he told us," he muttered. "Bobby was more of a father to us than Dad ever was."
A minefield she didn't want to tackle right now, she decided.
"Yeah, he wasn't perfect," she said. "Didn't always make the right decisions at the right time. Guess that made him human."
He'd looked away, unwilling to argue that point. "He left us, when we needed him the most."
"He gave up his life so that you could live." She knew how hard that would hit him, but he wasn't listening yet.
"I didn't want that. I didn't ask for that. I was ready to die when he made that choice, without asking me!"
"I know." The argument went round and round in circles for him, she knew. The same way his father had probably struggled with his wife's choices. "Doesn't change anything. He did what he could to save his son."
She wanted to ask him if he thought their present wasn't worth that sacrifice on his father's part. He was able, in some strange way, to remain bitter about his father's actions, without seeing the long term effects of it at all.
Pulling in a breath, she added, "The same way you did what you could to save your brother."
For a long moment, she thought she'd gone too far, the silence between them deafening in the small car's interior. Checking ahead, she risked a quick glance to the right, seeing his profile, hard and stony, his throat working.
"That wasn't fair," he said.
"I know." Her fingers tightened around the wheel. "It wasn't. But it's the truth, Dean."
There was a long, whistling exhale from his side.
"You're right," he said. "I did exactly the same thing."
"And you don't regret it."
It wasn't really a question.
"No," he answered anyway. "No, I don't."
He unwound himself, leaning back into the corner and she felt his gaze on her. "It doesn't change anything, Ellie."
"Doesn't it?"
"He could've - I made too many goddamned mistakes because there was too much on me," he said, his voice dropping. "It was too much for a kid."
There wasn't an argument to that. The load was the load, and he'd carried it, no matter how hard it had been. She thought his father might've known how much he'd laid on Dean, known it and regretted every moment. But only Dean would be able to pick out those regrets from his memories.
"He did the best he could," she said mildly.
He mumbled something against the passenger window glass.
"What?"
"Nothin'," he said, looking back. "You, uh, good for a couple of hours?"
"Sure."
"I'm gonna catch up on the sleep I missed."
The bucket seat dropped back and she watched him try and find a relatively comfortable position, too long for the seat or the well.
He might rethink some things, she thought, turning her attention back to the highway. He'd changed his mind about his father's actions – and those of his mother – so many times in the last year, it was hard to keep track.
She'd the feeling for some time he understood all too well how little wriggle room John Winchester'd really had, trying to find out what'd killed his wife, and threatened his sons, trying to stay alive on jobs that forgave no mistakes or errors, trying to grieve and love his boys and all the while constantly – permanently – harried by fear of what Jim's journal had said he'd learned about the demon with whom Mary had made a deal. Dean had read Jim's journals. He'd lived a life worried about what might coming for the people he cared about. He'd had more than a taste of what his father had gone through.
Rubbing her temple with the inside of her wrist, she thought Bobby'd had it easy. It wasn't a fair comparison, but like Dean's decision to save Sam the same way his father'd saved him, it was the truth. It hadn't been up to Bobby to train them to constant vigilance. Or to instil the self-discipline in them that would save their lives, not just once, but over and over. Bobby'd been their vacation time. Someone to talk to and listen to and relax with. And from what the old hunter had told her, in bits and pieces, about those years, John had envied him the role.
He could talk to Bobby about it, she thought. As soon as they got back. Ask him and really find out what the differences were.
7.30 p.m.
"How could you make that deal, Dean?" His brother was staring disbelievingly at him and all the times he'd thought those same words, wanting to scream them at his father, came back with a bang.
"'Cause I couldn't live with you dead. Couldn't do it." He shrugged. There were things he could do and things he couldn't. This'd happened to fall into the couldn't basket.
"So, what, now I live and you die?"
"That's the general idea, yeah."
"Yeah? Well, you're a hypocrite, Dean," Sam said, his face hardening. "How did you feel when Dad sold his soul for you? 'Cause I was there. I remember. You were twisted, and broken. And now you go and do the same thing. To me."
"Sammy's right, Dean."
He turned to see his father standing on the other side of the car, his expression worried.
"How's that? You did it for me." The last thing he needed was for the two of them to join forces now. Done was done. He didn't regret it.
"I had to save you, son," John Winchester said. "You were the only one who could stop Sam, if it came to it."
For a moment, his life flickered and wavered in front of him, dissolving and reforming like a mirage in the desert, events and their consequences flashing by like a high-speed film.
"I told you, Dean," John continued, seemingly unaware of being wiped out and returned. "You had to save Sam – or kill him. The demon's blood was working on him."
"Well, I couldn't," he snapped back. "You wanted him saved, you should'a let me go and done the job yourself."
"I couldn't," John said, his face drawn. "Sam didn't – wouldn't – listen to me. Only you. If I'd let you die, Sam would never've come back from the hold the blood had on him."
"Well, I failed anyway," he said, waving an arm at his brother. "He let the devil out."
"But he didn't lose himself –"
"Close enough," Dean retorted. "He chose a demon instead of his family."
"You brought him back," John argued. "You – just you – let him take Lucifer back to the pit."
Sam looked from his father to his brother. "What you did was selfish. Both of you."
"Yeah, you're right," Dean said, scowling at the floor. "It was selfish. I couldn't live with his sacrifice and you couldn't live with mine. But I'm okay with that."
"I'm not," Sam said, glaring at him.
"Too bad," he said. "It's too late to worry about this anyway."
He looked at his father. "You got out and I went in. And I broke the first seal and Sam broke the last. Just the way they wanted it. And it's over. So give it a rest, the both of you."
Dean woke abruptly, the fragments of the disjointed and unsettling dream disappearing as his eyes opened. He swallowed, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth and grimacing at the taste. The lunchtime burrito didn't have nearly the same appeal to his tastebuds six hours later. Squinting against the deep gold sunshine flooding onto his face from the side of the car, he lifted his arm, blocking the setting sun, and glanced at his watch. Half-past seven.
"Where're we?"
"Uh … nearly at Kettleman." Ellie glanced at him. "You were pretty deep."
"Yeah. Not as restful as I'd hoped for," he said, wiping a hand over his face as the last moments of the dream replayed in his head. "You, uh, want me to drive for awhile?"
He wanted to stay mad at her, but he couldn't. She didn't lie to him, and she didn't sugar-coat the truth either. He thought he'd gotten through a lot of the crap he'd been holding onto about his father, the night he'd found out she was pregnant. Had thought he'd understood the way the man'd been driven.
And maybe he had, he considered, as she shook her head, maybe it was just Bobby's death that'd made him start comparing the two men who'd moulded him.
"It's only another twenty to Kettleman. We can get a room; get a good night's sleep. Might be the last chance for a while," Ellie said.
"Yeah." He rubbed his eyes, yawning widely. "Okay."
He glanced at her, wondering vaguely if Sam'd gone through this with Jessica.
Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?
No, and she's not ever going to know.
He somehow doubted it. Maybe Sam could've spent his life lying to Jess. He couldn't. He needed someone to know him, all the way through, right down where he lived and breathed. The downside was Ellie wouldn't let him get away with lying to himself.
8.30 p.m. Kettleman City, California.
Ellie turned into the motel's drive, trying to ignore the way the scent of the pizza was driving her crazy. She parked in front of the office. The sunset was now just a long red line along the horizon.
The room was comfortable, a bit larger than normal. They unloaded the gear and set up the defences, tossed a coin for first shower. She won, grinning at him and disappearing into the bathroom. Stripping off her clothes, she left them in a heap on the floor and turned on the shower.
They hadn't gotten any further with the conversation about John Winchester, but that was okay, she decided. With what they had to do next, it would wait.
She heard the soft rumble of the glass shower door a few minutes later and looked over her shoulder, into a pair of green eyes.
"Thought I'd try and help the planet, save on water," he said, his gaze travelling down her body as she turned to him. "Do my bit, you know?"
Ellie tipped her head back, letting the water run down through her hair, as he stepped into the shower with her, then looked at him from under the spray, not trying to hide the surge of arousal that filled her. All he had to do was look at her in that way and she was ready, her pulse accelerating and her breath catching somewhere between lungs and mouth.
"Sure, saving the planet, that's your thing, right?"
He grinned, stepping toward and taking the soap from her hand. "Let me help you with that."