PART SEVEN: The Wrong Day to Stop Sniffing Glue
Dean greeted him in the usual fashion.
"You look like crap."
Sam looked up from the newspaper he was reading and grinned - painfully. He supposed he did look like crap considering the cuts and scratches decorating his face. Of course Dean didn't look much better with his left eyebrow bristling with stitches and the underlying eye swollen up in a nasty shade of purple. It was the first time they'd seen each other since the accident and it was hard not to pick up on the mutual relief flooding the room.
"New fashion statement?" Sam asked, nodding toward the cast on his brother's arm. It rested in a sling around his neck, but it was impossible not to miss the fact that the outer wrapping of fiberglass was a screamingly loud shade of pink.
Dean made a face as he settled himself in a chair beside the bed. "It's summertime. They've had a flood of rug-rats with broken arms come through the E.R." He raised his arm. "This was the only color they had left."
"It suits you, brings out the red in your bloodshot eyes."
"Shut up or I'll have them revoke your walking papers."
"Oh thank God," Sam breathed.
He'd been told, upon coming to in the E.R. that both he and Dean would be held a couple of days for observation. Both of them had cracked their heads pretty good on the Impala's windshield and Sam had been found soaked and shivering, lying in a graveyard. There had been some concerns about the effects of exposure. Sam felt fine, and told them so, but the doctors put him to bed and said, "stay."
"Oh, by the way," he said. "I found it."
"Well bully for you, Sam, but what the hell are you talking about?"
"Haddox's grave. The family had their own private chapel, which later became the First Baptist Church of Chesterville. The church has it's own cemetery, annexed onto the old Haddox family cemetery. It's the same cemetery where I crashed and burned."
"Ah. I dunno Sammy, sounds like you didn't find it so much as you passed out on it." Dean chuckled to himself as he leaned forward to snag the newspaper Sam had been reading. "Oh look, there's a sale at Penney's."
Sam swung his legs out of the bed and gingerly tested his sprained ankle for its ability to bear weight. The Ace bandage helped considerably. He limped over to the dresser to find his clothes. Luckily Dean had been released a day earlier and had somehow managed to get to the hotel and back with a clean set.
"Actually, I was led to it."
There was a momentary silence before Dean replied, "By Ellen?"
"Yeah." Sam shook his head. "I don't know what she was doing out there, but she led me straight to it." He pulled his t-shirt on over his head, wincing as it rubbed against his bruised and battered face. "Have you talked to her or something?"
"Mmm...no. But I did talk to the EMTs. Apparently you put up a little bit of a fuss when they were trying to get you in the ambulance. You didn't want to leave her behind."
"You know Dean, the more I think about it, the more I'm sure she may have some abilities - you know, like mine? I think she wanted to help those people out there but just didn't know how." Sam sat down on the bed to pull on his jeans. He cocked his head as he paused to think. "They kept saying "free us, free us." What if Haddox's spirit is somehow controlling them, using them for its own purpose?" Continuing to dress, he nodded to himself before turning to look at his brother. "I kinda hope so because if that's the case, destroying Haddox should do the trick. What do you think?"
Dean stared at him. "Aside from the fact that you're a freak of nature I'm thinking someone let you have too much coffee this morning."
"Ha. Ha. Look, I'm just anxious to wrap this up before someone else gets hurt." He frowned. "Whatever happened to the guy in the Toyota?"
"Bastard cut and run. I used him as an excuse as to why we went airborne and now he's got the cops on his tail." Shrugging, Dean sat back in the chair and tossed the paper back onto the bed. "Won't matter though. We'll be gone before they find him, if they ever do find him, and they can't really prove that he hit us. He'll just get his wrists slapped for being a jerk."
"And the car?"
"Ah," Dean grinned broadly. "They don't make 'em like they used to, Sammy. We bent the bumper all to hell and cracked the windshield - that stuff is already fixed. A new radiator is going in this afternoon and after a quick front end alignment she'll be as good as new."
Sam chuckled. "Let's just hope they don't get into the trunk."
"God forbid."
As Sam finished dressing, he noticed Dean looking at him with a sober expression. It was more than enough to give him pause. There was obviously something on his brother's mind. When Sam raised an eyebrow at him, Dean cleared his throat and let it rip.
"Sam, about Ellen..." He saw Sam's frown and added hastily, "Hear me out before you get your underwear in a knot, okay?"
Sam got his underwear in a knot just by being told not to get his underwear in a knot. Days later this would strike him as funny, until then he was a little pissed about it.
"Who said I was..." he began angrily.
"Damnit, Sam! Just shut up and listen to me."
Sam was taken back by the tone. Whatever this was, it was obviously bugging the hell out of his brother. Dean was rarely so serious. "Okay," he said quietly, "What is it?"
"I uh, was kind of wondering about Ellen too, and after they told me you'd seen her at the church, I decided to go over to the library and conduct a little research of my own."
"You didn't!" Sam stood up, forgetting his promise. "Dean! God, why did you do that? I don't need you interfering in my love life!"
"Yeah, you do, Sammy. This time you really do."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Sit down and I'll tell you."
"Dean..."
"Sit. Down." Dean met his gaze, and again Sam was put back by what he saw there.
He sat.
"Ellen's full name is Ellen Baker," Dean said softly. "And she died in 1997."
Sam flinched. Of all the things he'd thought Dean would say, that had not been one of them. Had his brother not looked so profoundly worried - about what Sam's reaction would be no doubt - Sam might not have believed him. As it was, it took some time before he could find his voice again.
"What?"
"I went to the library, Sam, and I asked if an Ellen worked there. Turns out she had, years ago, and one day in the summer of '97 the morning shift librarian came in to work to find Ellen slumped over her desk, dead."
"In the basement." Sam breathed. "Her desk was in the basement room." Something the librarian had told him came to mind. "The Historical Society. Ellen had been working on the Historical Society project. When she died was when it was scrapped. Oh my God." His eyes darted back to his brother. "The Curve, she died on Dead Man's Curve didn't she?"
"No" Dean corrected. "She was killed on the Curve. She died in the library."
Sam frowned. "Wait, I'm not following."
"That's how she was able to appear in the library and out at the Curve, Sam. The night she died she had been working late. She left the library to go home to Highcliffe, where she was living at the time. They think she forgot something 'cause she turned around and came back. On the way back, she lost control of her car on the Curve. The police came, and instead of going to the hospital to be checked out, she asked them to take her to the library. She figured she could sleep there and get a ride home with someone in the morning."
"But she...died? How?"
Dean leaned forward, resting his good elbow across his knees. "Ruptured spleen," he said. "Probably thought she'd just gotten banged up a little bit in the accident. She didn't realize she was slowly bleeding to death. She started dying at the Curve. She finished at the library."
Sam let his breath out in a long sigh. He slowly shook his head back and forth as he stared at the bare wall. "I spent hours alone with her, Dean. I touched her." His voice softened. "I kissed her..."
"You did more than that to her, unless you were lying." The smart ass Dean paused to show himself. "I can't believe you doinked a ghost."
"God..." Sam buried his face in his hands. "Don't remind me."
"Crappily too, didn't you say?"
"Dean..."
"Sorry." Dean sobered again. "Look, Sammy, you know how these things can be. How could you have known? Especially if she didn't want you to."
"But why me? What does she want from me?" Sam paused, frowning. "It's not me," he said, standing abruptly. "It's him."
"Him? Him who? Sam!" Dean hastily rose to follow him as he began hobbling toward the door. "Where are you going?"
"To the library."
"What? No, strike that - how? You gonna walk there on a bum ankle?"
"Dean, I have to go. I have to talk to her again."
"Come on, Sam. Don't do this to yourself...
"Dean. I have to."
They stared at each other. Sam put all he had into making his expression one of pleading desperation. After a moment Dean snorted in resignation, and pushed past him into the hallway. "Come on. I'll drive you."
"Drive? Drive what?" Sam demanded. "Dean, wait!"
Dean shot him a broad grin as he walked backward down the hospital corridor toward the exit. "I've got a rental," he explained and added reverently: "It has air."
