Knock on the Sky

by EB
(c)2006

Chapter Three
Baby's on fire

He found Dean's car the next afternoon.

At first he'd thought, Can't be too many black '67 Impalas in a place like Amarillo, Texas. Piece of cake. Except he was starting from practically zero: no idea where Dean had left his vehicle, and no idea how long it would sit wherever until someone came to claim it.

And Impalas were more plentiful than he'd hoped. Souped-up low-riders painted garish purple or eye-gouging green; rusted-out hulks up on blocks in somebody's front yard.

But he got lucky this time, only three hours of driving slowly past wrecker yards and impounds and there it was, in a half-empty wrecker yard: dusty but undamaged, tucked between a shiny new Ford F250 and a beat-up Torino with a missing back window. Sam parked across the street, walking over on legs that shook a little beneath him, heart thumping like the bass rattling the windows of a passing Mustang.

He didn't have to fake the look of mixed annoyance and worry while he faced the gray-haired Hispanic man at the wrecker office.

"You sure that's your car?" the guy asked, narrowing his eyes. "You got a title or something?"

Sam met his look and shrugged. "Title's in the car. What do you care? I'll pay."

"That's a valuable automobile. Classic."

"Yeah," Sam agreed thinly. "And it's my brother's, and he's gonna want it back."

The teenaged boy standing behind the man slumped. "Aw, man. Another couple of weeks and we coulda sold it."

Sam didn't bother hiding the surge of righteous anger at that comment, and the older man said quickly, "Gonna cost you for storage, too. Ten bucks a day."

"I'll pay the towing fee," Sam said evenly. "Plus a hundred for maintenance. That's it."

"Now, I dunno about –"

Sam smiled, and the guy shut up. He'd have popped the trunk, after nobody came for it. Probably helped himself to some free goodies. "And we'll call it even."

The guy gave a grudging nod. "Yeah. All right."

Sam handed over a couple of crisp hundreds, thinking bleakly about how many more times he could afford to get cash on his credit card.

"Pleasure doing business with you," the guy said, grinning and showing yellow teeth.

"Whatever," Sam muttered.

The Impala looked fine. Sometime over the past few years, in addition to letting Dean off the leash to work solo, Dad must have also passed along the car. Sam stood a few feet away, swallowing elation and rage and sorrow. Two months. Two months and change, and Dad had only called him four days ago. Was that how long it had taken him to NOTICE? Whoops, had a feeling I forgot something. How long between noticing and doing anything about it? A month? Six weeks? Had Dad looked for Dean at all? Or been too swept up in his quest to give more than a passing thought: He'll turn up sometime? Only Dean hadn't, and finally Dad took an extra five minutes and called Sam.

Funny how years of separation hadn't changed a thing. Anger like an old friend, clenching at his throat and balling his hands into fists at his sides. Hurt – if you walk away don't come back – and regret, because he'd gone and hadn't gone back and things had happened, things had changed and he hadn't been around to see them, to fix what he could fix or head them off at the pass beforehand. He'd left, and Dean was gone and here was the car, the beloved Impala handed down by their father, Dad who knew how much Dean loved this sleek machine, knew it was another way to tie Dean even closer to him, bonds of gratitude.

The spare set of keys was where Dad had always kept it – Dean wasn't about to change a family tradition, and when Sam reached under the left rear wheel well he felt a blob of duct tape, familiar shapes stuck fast, and pried it away.

When he popped the trunk he could see no one had been inside. Surprised him: expected that compartment to be – not precisely empty, but definitely pawed-over. But it looked about the same as always, just a few common trunk items, empty gasoline can and Dad's ancient car-wash kit, and underneath the plywood spare cover, paydirt. Sam swallowed, and touched the stock of one sleek sawed-off shotgun. Maybe the wrecker guy opened the trunk, saw the arsenal inside, and thought better of messing with anyone who carried around this much materiel. Guns and ammo and the long, lethal sword in the sheath Dad himself had made the summer Sam was twelve. Elmira, New York, and the sharp smell of tooled leather and sweet oil.

He slammed the trunk and unlocked the driver's-side door with fingers that shook more than he liked. The inside was another barrage of familiar scents, onslaught of years of bickering over who got shotgun and are we there yet and the ghosts of thousands of endless highway miles. Nothing changed. Dean's tapes in a battered shoebox, sheaves of maps and a wad of parking tickets stuffed under the seat, glovebox filled with receipts – no doubt for fake credit-card transactions – and an empty Ruger clip.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to suggest that the man whose car this now was had been insane the last time he drove it.

"Not insane," Sam said out loud, flinching at the sound of his own voice. "It's something else." Dean was the sanest person he knew. Always had been. Lots more sane than Dad, and at times, probably had both feet more firmly on the ground than Sam himself. At least in those teeth-gritting months prior to Sam's departure.

The car started with a deep baritone snarl, and Sam smiled and felt his throat tighten. That was the way a car ought to sound. Strong, no-nonsense, capable.

For a second he was sure – positive – that Dean was sitting behind him. Lip curled in disgust at taking the back seat, sprawled out like he really did own the Impala and all she contained.

He kept himself from looking only with real effort. Put the car in gear and spared the wrecking-yard owner another dour look while he passed the office. Nice profit there, buddy. Won't be seeing you. Get the rental, drop it off, cab it back to the motel and he could head out.

Which left only the glaring question of where to, exactly?

If Detective Ware wasn't exactly the friendliest officer Sam had ever met, she was marginally sympathetic when he called late that afternoon, and after he did some pleading, she gave him the name of the officer who'd taken Dean into custody the night of August 13th. Sam drove Dean's car to the station close to the end of the shift, and waited until the guy came out.

"Oh, yes sir. I remember him."

Sam saw the way the officer's eyes went unreadably blank. Great, Sam thought. This is gonna go real well. "Can you tell me what happened?" he asked out loud.

The cop – an excruciatingly neat man named Williams, uniform trousers so deftly pressed Sam was pretty sure he'd cut his finger on the razor-straight crease – drew a deep breath. "I got a call around six that evening. Possible drunk-and-disorderly. When I investigated I found the gentleman walking down Wolflin Avenue. He wasn't -- That is to say, when I tried to see what the problem was, he was pretty resistant."

Sam leaned forward. "Can you remember what he was saying?"

"Didn't understand it, sir." Williams' impassive look flickered a tiny bit before tightening down again. "I called for backup, and we ended up taking him to the ER for evaluation. And that's -- The last I heard about him."

"He –" Sam swallowed. "You said you didn't understand him. Was he – slurring his speech?"

"No, sir. Least I don't think he was." Williams smiled suddenly, looking down. "See, it wasn't English. Sounded like – German or something."

"Dean doesn't speak German."

Looking uncomfortable, Williams shrugged. "Sorry, sir. Best I can do."

"Yeah, ah." Sam nodded. "Thanks."

"Look, I'm sorry about your brother." For a moment Williams relaxed, pausing in the middle of turning to go. "Got four of them myself. Would do anything for them, even the ones I don't get along with so good, you know?"

"Yeah," Sam said faintly. "Me, too."

Outside the station, he lingered by the car. Getting late, and the idea of staying another day in Amarillo was frustrating, but where the hell else was he gonna go? Hospital? See if anyone knew what happened to John Doe # Whichever, way back in August? Did they even give out that kind of information? He had no way of knowing.

"Nice car."

Sam flinched and turned, forcing a smile when he saw Ware standing on the curb. "Thanks. It's my brother's."

She nodded slowly. Unsmiling, but she came closer. "Want a word of advice?"

"I'll take anything at this point."

"Santa Elena. About two hours northeast of here."

He watched her carefully. "What's in Santa Elena?"

"State hospital. One of two." She cocked her head a little to one side, studying him. "Worth a shot."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. That where they take –"

"I'm not saying he's there. I have no idea. Without a name –" She made a helpless gesture with her hands, before crossing her arms. "But it's not far, and if he's really non compos, that may well be where he wound up."

"Yeah," he whispered. "Guess so."

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

He was near the city outskirts when he made himself think about it. The urge to get somewhere, DO something, clashed heavily against the knowledge that it would be dark before he could reach Santa Elena. If Dean was in the state hospital, it sure as hell wouldn't be a good time to visit. Tomorrow would be the earliest he could see him, probably.

Pulling into a gas station, Sam put the Impala in neutral and grabbed his Texas map. Screw it. Better now than –

Knifelike pain exploded between his eyes, and the map fluttered to the floor when he clapped his hands over his face, groaning between clenched teeth. Images careening by: Jess, her familiar face drawn in terror and the angle all wrong, like Sam was looking up at her, up to – ceiling? No, Dean's face, Dean's slanted sardonic smile and eyes meeting his, sad and knowledgeable, flames roaring up behind him. Whispering countless voices: You can't go home, you can't, go home, go home. Wind whistling through the hallways, dust in his eyes, in his throat, a taste like death and grief and the smell of blood in the air. Blood and smoke, Jess, DEAN –

"Sir?"

Tapping, tapping, each little thud like a bludgeon to the head, and Sam blinked blearily between his fingers, squinted in the waning red light of the sun. A face stared at him through the open window. Bearded, quizzical, with a smear of grease on the cheekbone. "You all right, son?" the man asked. He wore a mechanic's canvas jumpsuit, stained and old.

"Fine," Sam gasped, and realized there were tears on his face. He wiped his cheeks with ice-cold fingers. "Just – headache."

"Yeah. All righty, then. Got some aspirin in the store if you need 'em."

"Th-Thanks, I'll be okay."

"Suit yourself."

The headache was no lie. Fierce and immediate, crucifying pain behind his eyes. What the fuck had that been? Like a nightmare, only he wasn't asleep this time, very much awake. His head hurt too much to bring it all into focus.

The question of pressing on to Santa Elena was moot; he'd be lucky to find a motel in the shape he was in. Shading his eyes with one shaking hand, he put the car in gear and swallowed nausea. Anything. Just someplace dark, quiet, wait it out. Could figure out what it meant when the act of blinking wasn't so goddamn painful.

Driving like an overcautious 80-year-old, he found a Holiday Inn near the highway entrance, and shuffled inside. The clerk watched him carefully, and Sam wiped his streaming eyes again and whispered, "Migraine," and she nodded and gave him a key.

The room was blessedly dim. He sat on the edge of the one bed, rocking until the nausea took over, and flung himself into the tiny bathroom.

TBC. EB