Sam was worried about Dean. His big brother should have been over the moon at the thought that he was going to be the one to kill the demon clan and avenge their family. Instead, he was walking around like he'd had his heart cut out. He hadn't even smiled when they had dumped the demon body parts into steel drums filled with holy water, something that should have at least made him grin. After about an hour or so John had enough and told Dean he was to work on the exercises Elizabeth had given him and to do whatever else it took to get his head out of his ass. His abilities were probably going to be needed. They didn't have time for Dean to not be on top of his game right now. The demon clan was too close and they were going after Dawn. John hoped that triggering Dean's highly developed big brother instincts would help, but it didn't really. Dean had simply nodded his head and went to get his knife sharpening kit. The whole thing just made Sam worry even more. It was obvious that whatever was bothering Dean was important, and that it involved Dean's emotions. That was always the one thing that was harder to drag out of Dean than anything else. Finally he couldn't take anymore and went into the break room where Dean was sitting on the floor honing his knives. "Are you going to tell me what has gotten you so down or am I going to have to blackmail it out of you?" He asked, sitting down next to his brother.
"You don't have anything on me big enough for this little brother." Dean said. Sam saw that he wasn't even trying to get into the spirit of their usual bickering.
"Not even the package that Dad gave you?" Sam asked, knowing that if Dean said yes to that he was in big trouble.
Dean snorted. "It wouldn't make a difference if you did. I screwed up somehow."
"With Faith?" Sam asked quietly. He knew how hard losing Cassie was on Dean. He hoped it wasn't that serious with Faith.
"Buffy said I scared her. I don't know how could I have scared her Sam? I wasn't doing anything. I tried to tell her we weren't cutting up humans and she called me a few names. That I understood, you know? Calling me an idiot and saying that she knew they weren't is just fine. But then she punched the wall, and I just wanted to see if she broke anything. How could that have scared her? You have to make sure the bone is straight or it'll heal crooked. I wasn't doing anything but being a gentleman, I swear!" Dean threw the knife he was holding into the wall.
"What else did Buffy say?" Sam asked hoping that she had left him a clue in what she had told his brother.
"Just that Faith hasn't had the best luck with guys before. And that it was because I was being nice." He wasn't going to add that he'd been worried. He was sure it was written all over his face for his brother to read, but that didn't mean he had to admit it.
"Ah," Sam said wisely. "I've known girls like that. You probably have too; you just didn't know it at the time because they were comfortable with you trying to pick them up. You never try to hide the fact that you're just out for a good time when you do that. I think that Faith is more used to trying to peel a guys hands off of her. She probably had a few very bad experiences and the so called nice ones were the ones that hurt the worst. Either that or there just weren't any nice ones at all. Think about it. You know that some of the places where we stayed as kids Dad was the only decent man around. More than one woman was scared of him until they figured out that he wasn't interested in them as anything but potential babysitters. That was when he was when he was sure it was safe enough for us to have babysitters. A woman who grows up in that sort of place doesn't really understand that there are decent men out there that would be interested in them. If a man is interested, he has to be a jerk or a womanizer or a wife beater waiting to happen. They'd rather see what's wrong with a guy up front. Knowing that makes her feel safe. She doesn't want to jump into the pool without knowing what's at the bottom. Not being able to see anything bad is just going to freak her out, because she's convinced that for you to be interested in her, there has to be something wrong with you."
Dean stopped and thought about what his little brother was saying. "Aw, hell! She asked me why it mattered if she got hurt."
"Yeah, that sounds typical, especially when you think about her getting out of jail like she did. I had a friend in one of my classes go through that. After watching him struggle I've figured out that the only thing you can do is be patient with her and tough it out. I know you can do tough. You were the one who was always getting in between Dad and me when we'd get going, and there isn't anything tougher than that. Dad is right about one thing though, you do need to practice. This whole situation is probably why you have this power and not something that is more like the rest of the family. So you really do need to be able to use it." Sam said quietly, not wanting Dean to think that he was ganging up on him.
Dean nodded and went to retrieve his knife. They were right; he needed to get his head out of his ass. It wasn't his fault he had scared Faith. He was probably going to be doing that a lot. As long as he stayed steady, he'd be able to win the girl. Right now he needed to be sure he was going to be able to win the fight. And as much as he hated talking about stuff, he needed his little brother's help to get this one done. He just couldn't seem to manage to move while he was concentrating on the earth connection. He set the sharpening kit aside and told Sam about the exercise that Elizabeth had told him to do.
"Hmmm, you see a stone bridge? Is it that one out by Carver's creek where we hunted that battlefield ghost?" Dean nodded, wondering where Sam was going with this. "Well, wasn't there some kind of plants on that bridge? Didn't they move?"
Dean stared at his little brother. "Ok, either you really are a genius, or I'm an idiot." When Sam went to open his mouth, Dean pointed his finger at him, "Don't answer that."
Sam laughed and swatted his shoulder as he got up and left the room. He didn't think his brother needed anymore help. John looked up from where he was changing a tire and sighed in relief when Sam nodded. Sam didn't have to see the look on his dad's face to know that his dad had been worried about Dean. They might not be really good at communicating with each other, but there was no doubt at all that they loved each other. He collected the money from the customer as John handed over his keys. When the customer took off with the car, John asked Sam how Dean was.
"He was having a little slayer trouble, his slayer, not yours." Sam smirked at the look on John's face. "I think I've talked him down from his freak out over that. He was sure he'd FUBAR'd as badly as you had with Buffy. I think he's over that now and he's working on the moving part that Elizabeth want him to master before she teaches him anything else."
"Hope that what ever she's teaching him works. These demons are tough SOB's. We'll need every edge we can get." Sam nodded. "What should we take with us?" John was sure that Sam had been thinking about what would be effective against the demons. One thing he and Sam had eventually agreed on was that Sam really was good at picking out just what weapons would be needed on what job.
Sam wanted to get his reasons across to his dad before he told him which weapons would be best to use. He still wasn't sure his dad would listen otherwise. "We only have one chance at this. If we can't get to the clan house before they realize we've gone, we've lost our advantage. We need to make sure that they don't know that we have the information we need to take them out. We have to distract them here and now. It'll be important to keep a low profile. That means we can't arm up the way we usually would. We can't bring in Caleb or anyone else. They're going to be watching for that. We have to use who and what we have here. Any demon we meet is going to have to be chopped up, that's all there is to it, so we'll need blades. We'll also need consecrated iron rounds that should give the demons fits. They should work better than the holy water to incapacitate them at least. We should still take holy water pistols with us for when we run out of rounds." Sam considered the weaponry that they normally had on hand. "I think that's all that'll be effective. Dean's abilities and Dawn's magic will have to make up for the rest."
John nodded and looked up as Dean shakily walked out of the break room. "Dean?" he asked in concern.
"I got it Dad!" Dean grinned in triumph. He was very wobbly and he wasn't standing very straight, but he was moving. "It's like trying to walk on a tightrope when you're drunk. If I can stay centered while I move I can do it, but it's hard to keep my grasp on the damn connection and stay centered. I'm going out back to work on some fighting forms. Those should be easier for me to handle staying centered." Both John and Sam watched as Dean walked out the back door.
"Suddenly, I'm not so worried about us being ready in time." John said with a smile. "Consecrated iron rounds, huh? I've got a bunch left over from a hunt a while back. They should be upstairs. I've got a bunch of shot too. I wonder if regular ammo will do if it's blessed. We can double or triple our ammo if that would work." Sam nodded, deep in thought. There was something else that occurred to him. Meg had said that she did what she did for the same reasons that he did; love and loyalty. That must mean that she was close to the clan leader, possibly even one of his heirs. That would explain why she had been dogging him and Dean. It would also mean that she was around here somewhere.
"Dad, I'm going to go and check on Dawn's progress with Elizabeth. I've got an idea on how to test your blessed regular rounds theory, and there's an idea I want to run past Elizabeth." John Ok'd it and sent Sam off with his truck. Normally, Sam would have taken the Impala, but Dean had gotten even more possessive, if it was at all possible, over his car since he found out that she could feel things. On the way to the Magic Box, Sam kept his eyes and his extra senses open, maybe he'd be able to sense Meg the way he'd sensed the poltergeist back at their old house. He wasn't sure it would work, but it was worth a shot anyway.
It wasn't long before he got the hang of it. There was something out there that made his skin crawl, but it didn't feel like the demons he'd come across before. As he swung by the construction site where Xander was working, it intensified and Sam realized that it was the hellmouth itself he could feel. That made sense, he'd been feeling it all along, and he just hadn't known what it was. It also made sense that he would be able to feel it; it was the strongest of all seven hellmouths around the world after all, and the evil it put out had to be strong as well. Once Sam had identified the feeling, he pushed it to the back of his mind as background noise. There she was, he thought. He could feel the evil oozing out of her, and it drew his gaze. She was watching him. He moved his eyes on, not letting them rest on her, but the glimpse he'd had was enough. It was Meg and she was following him. Good, he smiled nastily. She was going to pay for what she had done to him and his brother. Tying them up and cutting them for her pleasure was bad enough. But she had separated them from their father, when they had been so scared for so long that he was dead, no matter how much Dean had denied both his fear and their father's probable dead state. She was going to pay for that. It was also time he got to pay the clan back for taking Jess away from him. The pain that came to his chest whenever he thought about Jess was weaker now, but he didn't think the guilt would ever leave him. Oh god, why hadn't he listened to the nightmares? Why hadn't he realized that it wasn't just worry over asking her to marry him? He blinked hard as tears swam in his eyes. They had to pay, and Meg was just the one take it for them.
He pulled the truck into a parking space and parked, taking a few minutes to get himself under control. He couldn't let the others see him upset. They would start asking questions and he couldn't handle that right now. Right now he had to concentrate on his plan to catch Meg. He got out of the truck and jogged into the Magic Box. He walked up to Giles who was manning the counter. "Hey, Giles, would you look behind me and see if you can spot a blond girl with short hair? She's one of the demons and she's stalking me."
Giles looked behind Sam, doing his best not to be seen doing it and saw the girl he was talking about. "Good Lord! Could she be any more obvious?" He gestured to the back room. "Wes, Faith and Buffy are back there, but don't interrupt Elizabeth and Dawn. They're doing some serious magical study right now."
"Actually, I need to talk to you first. Do you know what they use to restrain a vampire during the Cruciamentum?" Sam asked as he leaned on the counter and fidgeted with a few odds and ends.
Giles frowned at him that was an odd request. "Usually the vampire is restrained with a special set of chains, magically strengthened so as to be unbreakable."
"Good, that'll work on Meg. Do we have any?" Sam asked eager to get started on his plan.
"Yes, I have a set, but they aren't here. They are up over at Xander's. He used them to restrain Spike." Giles and Sam both gave a sympathetic wince for Xander. "They should still be at his apartment."
"Thanks, I'll go there next." Sam stood up and went over to the back room. He still had to check on his little sister and give Elizabeth a report on Dean's progress. Not to mention check on Faith and talk to Buffy about what he wanted to do to Meg.