SN – fic Ga'lo chapter 4.
disclaimer… still counts
Love – still there.
As the sun tipped West of its daily pinnacle the boys realized they had to get on the road to Bobby's to see their dad and fill him in. They couldn't put it off any longer, they had to begin to mend the wounds they'd been carrying around.
Tiny and Dean walked out into the bright afternoon light, neither of them noticing the cascading band of shadow that seemed to flow across the weed dotted ground from Grey Betty to nestle under Metallicar.
"…and she wouldn't say what was wrong?" Dean took advantage of Sam's time in the bathroom to ask about Laura.
"Nah, she don't lay out her cares… but if I had to guess I might go ahead and guess that she's just really gonna miss you. She took a quick liking to you and that's not normal for her… it's genuinely unusual…"
"Well… it was unusual circumstances… do you think she went back to Bobby's?" Dean asked. He couldn't leave without saying good-bye or thanking her for everything she'd done on their behalf, Or saying good-bye, he thought again and felt a strange quivering sensation in his belly just as the hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. He looked around the yard, feeling as though he was forgetting something.
"Probably, she said she wanted to check on your dad again before you got there," the big man shrugged as Sam joined them at Metallicar's side and offered his hand.
"We can't thank you enough Tiny… really," he smiled, "She looks beautiful."
"Just promise me that if God Forbid anything happens you'll bring her back to me, she was a real joy to work on," he grinned.
"Yeah well God Forbid is right but we'll definitely bring her around every now and again. I don't think Dad's gonna be in any shape to make any long trips for a while," Dean grinned shaking Tiny's hand emphatically, his eyes speaking all the gratitude that sometimes wedged itself in his throat. To his chagrin the big man actually tussled his overgrown buzz cut and looked pretty embarrassed by the level of appreciation he was receiving.
Tiny stood grinning and waving as they pulled out onto the road, the choppy thunder streaming away toward Bobby's house with just a bit of odd black soot seeming to cling to the tail pipes. Eh, it'll clean up. He thought glad to have his work appreciated.
BOBBY'S DRIVEWAY.
A funny thing happened on the way to Bobby's house…Dean thought feeling his brows furrow as he pressed down on the accelerator. She seemed to get a little sluggish at the turn onto the driveway but true to her nature she responded with a rush of gas and a return to speed once the turn was made.
Overhead a raven flew across the sky and Dean couldn't help but think, Don't you dare! but he needn't have worried, it banked gracefully and disappeared into a nearby stand of trees without a second glance at his newly rebuilt baby. Smart bird… he thought sternly and grinned when he saw Laura's gold sedan parked nose to nose with Bobby's truck. Good, maybe we can take a walk or something… he thought as he felt his younger brother stiffen and scowl then shake his head and seem to relax a bit. What is it with him? he wondered yet again as he put the car into park and reluctantly got out.
"Hey boys…" Bobby greeted as they leapt up the steps and entered the house, "Welcome back…" he nodded noting the anxious expressions on their faces. "He's in the bathroom… listen he's gonna put on a good show but he's got a ways to go yet…"
"I don't need coddling from my sons Bobby," John growled coming up behind him, eyeing his children with painful uncertainty. He could see his pain and trepidations mirrored in his eldest sons' face and it gave him an odd sense of comfort to know Dean was as uncertain as he. It leveled the field between them a bit. Sammy on the other hand oddly had no compunctions and simply wrapped him into an embrace that felt like it came from a giant.
I really gotta put some weight back on… the beanpole is making me feel frail! he thought bemused by the concept and crazily verging on tears at finding them whole.
"Dad… you had us so scared… I'm so sorry I blew it… but Dean and I have made some progress…" Sam stammered and stopped noting the frozen look of barely controlled fear on his brothers' sweat dripping face. What happened next did so all at once and seemed to happen in slow motion, yet none of them could stop it.
Breaking through his fear Dean's hand reached into his inner jacket pocket while the other grabbed their dad by the wrist. A flash of light on metal later he was pressing the edge of a strange looking knife, dagger actually that Sam had never seen before, against John's palm. In the same instant, the back door slammed open and Laura was almost instantly at Dean's side just as the razor sharp edge was penetrating the first layers of skin to draw the finest of blood lines against the blessed metal.
"It's okay Dean… you don't have to do that," she said softly lifting his hand to take the blade from John's palm.
Dean's glance moved from his father's surprised but comprehending countenance to Sammy's horrified expression to Laura's calm assuring smile. "He's not possessed," she looked at all four men, one to the next ending with Bobby, "The sidhe have sensed evil nearby… they think all three of them together have brought it forth."
"Did they say where?" Bobby and John asked together.
She shook her head, "Just very close… like within the perimeter close…"
There's something different about her… hunting is good for her, Dean thought appreciatively noting the black jeans and t-shirt and the odd gold ring around her neck, That's a torque!… eh it's probably a family heirloom… there's something about those things though… what was it again?
"Did you say sidhe?" Dean and Sam asked in unison looking at her curiously and with some small measure of awe.
"As in Faerie folk?" Dean asked curious as he faced her full on, his hands gently clasping around her upper arms as she took the dagger from him and while falling into his eyes passed it to Sam so she could clasp his forearms in her hands.
"Yeah…" she breathed smiling contentedly.
The electricity between them filled the room as if lightning had struck and even Bobby who'd seen more in the last two months than he had in the previous six combined was stunned by the force of it. He'd felt it when he talked to Dean about teaching Laura, or with her about Dean but the two of them in the same room together hadn't happened up to this point and he was frankly stunned by it, whatever IT really was.
John and Sam were likewise surprised. John throwing a questioning look at Sam who shook his head and shrugged completely stymied by the last 30 seconds and all that had happened within it.
Wow… Bobby said there was something but… My God… this isn't humanly possible… should we all be feeling this… it's like static all over the place… it's got to be the magiks…
"Hey…" Bobby said after about fifteen more seconds of their silent eye-diving then gave her a shove on the shoulder that broke their physical contact, made them both grin and made her blush an interesting shade of pink that made Dean want to chuckle.
She looked from Dean to John and back to Dean, "He's nervous too… just get it over with," she advised and strode down the hall to the bathroom where seconds later they heard water running.
John nodded looking Dean in the eye, "Dean… I'm sorry…" he choked and felt his eldest sons' solid frame impact as he was drawn into a fierce hug that began the catharsis they both needed.
Sam looked at the dagger in his hand and felt like he was being torn in two. He recognized the Celtic design and knew she'd given it to Dean but couldn't figure out when or how. He was impressed that a ceremonial dagger would have the power to exorcise or at least expose a demon but he was furious that Dean hadn't told him about it, that he had in fact kept him completely in the dark about it and its properties and he'd probably done so because she'd told him to. Bitch! snarled in the back of his head taking a surprisingly firm grasp on his psyche as he strode to the bathroom, part of him itching to just swipe her throat with that sacred blade.
Instead he caught her by the elbow, his fingers driving deep into the joint space there as he leaned in close and said, "We need to talk."
He led her out through the kitchen and into the backyard unobserved by the three remaining men. Bobby was tending John's cut and John and Dean both looking shame-faced and trying to wade through the emotional slime Big Bad had left behind.
Sam closed the back door softly then swung hard with his left hand literally trying to throw her down the back stairs. She threw herself into the jump instead and landed safely on the ground facing him, her gaze certain as the wind picked up and debris swirled in a dervish around the yard.
"There's one in you isn't there?" she asked.
"You think you're so smart? You think you can turn my own brother against me? Who the hell do you think you are? What gives you the right to interfere with my family?" he yelled stalking towards her, his voice heavy with malice as his six foot four inch frame moved steadily and frighteningly toward her five foot three inch self.
"I'm trying to protect your family Sam… you know that… you have to fight whatever's happening to you, fight for your dad and your brother… they need you…"
As she pleaded trying to reach the youngest Winchester's true nature through the dark influence over him, corrupting him, the dervish in the yard began to defy the laws of this realms physics. It started to coalesce into what was beginning to look like a tightly packed column of earth and to make matters worse, she could see a shadow growing at the far corner of the house content for the moment to linger in mid air, a malevolent cloud of living dark dust.
With her renewed connection to the immaterial plane she could see small mounds of Earth cropping up and from the mounds gossamer half seen figures of the sidhe as they moved through the four entities in the hard to stand guard over the men in the house and do what they could to prevent any harm from coming to them.
Laura tried to back away as Sam came closer, his expression almost black with fury. Up close she could see a slow stream, each mote of that dark dust moving of its own accord adding to the growing corruption of his being. At her back was the now solid column of earth that was another newly formed Golem, cousin to the Ga'lo they thought they'd defeated in Oregon.
Laura felt her ribs begin to compress as Sam leered closer wagging the dagger before her. It felt like someone had run a pitchfork through her chest as he grinned and looked back at the house where the sidhe stood sentinel, doing their best to keep the back door closed against the boys within, as they tried to get outside and lend a hand.
"To bad there aren't enough of them to help you instead of keeping them safe…" he mocked.
They're doing what they've been asked to do… and if I asked for an army of them to come and kill you, they'd be here but I will not sacrifice Sam no matter what happens, I will not let Dean lose his little brother. She swore to herself as another shearing sensation ripped through her.
"What do you care? Why do you bother with these worthless meat sacks?" he asked keeping her pinned against the golem as he drew the tip of the dagger down her cheek to the torque at her throat. "Hmm, think that'll help? Some heirloom you think is imbued with what? Some kind of power?" he sneered and held up his hand waving Dean's amulet before her eyes on its black leather cord.
"This haspower," he taunted. Over his shoulder she could see Dean's eyes grow wide as he realized what his brother was holding, then she saw him pick up a chair and swing it at the window with everything he had.
Oooh that recoil is gonna hurt she thought as her chest began to crack yet again, this time under the combined force of the demons' will, Sammy's abilities and the Golem's strength.
The faces of the sidhe guarding the boys inside were filled with compassion and a few of them looked like they wanted to help this newest edition to the Warrior Goddess's earthly representatives, but she could hear and understand them and knew they would hold their post. She saw Dean rocked by the recoil of the chair against the currently unbreakable glass and tried to hold back against the howling scream that wanted to split the day.
"He's so much easier to manipulate without this…" the demon taunted through Sam as he angled the point of the dagger forward to dimple the skin of her throat as he slowly increased the pressure, "You know once you're dead the guilt will drive him over the edge… he was so close but I made the mistake of underestimating the impact… get it? Impact that returning the car to him would have… he's really very entertaining for a primate…" he continued to mock pushing the blade another millimeter in.
She had to do something to stop the pain, and if she could find out as much about when this demon took Sam over, she miht be able to help him overthrow it, but she did it more to escape the pain, "Show me," she gaspedand placed her hand on the side of his head.
Images rocketed through her coupled with feelings, an overwhelming sense of failure and self loathing; Jessica burning up against the ceiling, Mary Winchester dying the same horrifying way, some boy named Max blowing his own head off, Dean in a hospital dying, John in a coma, a policeman drowning, someone named Meg screaming and dying horribly, Dean half torn apart, some guy in a garage in Kansas ripped to shreds but left alive to linger agonizingly while the golem he'd used to do the deed dragged Dean's clothes through the copious pools of blood, focusing on the amulet and chanting an incantation meant to weaken the warrior mind and spirit.
She was drawn deep into his mind, so deep she could no longer feel the anguish he was putting her body through, but she could hear him screaming for help. Though his mind was labyrinthine his calls drew her as if there was but one way to go.
"Sam? Can you hear me?"
"Laura? Laura is that you? Thank God…" she saw his face press against the bars in the door that held him prisoner in his own body and mind, "You gotta help me get out of here before it makes me hurt someone! Please!"
INSIDE THE KITCHEN.
"Dean stop they're not going to let us out…" Bobby tried to restrain him.
"Sammy's killing her!" he yelled frustrated.
"It's not Sam!"
"Something's happening…" John said from the window. It was as if time had stopped, laundry held itself in mid-flutter, nothing moved, the leaves and debris that had kept feeding the golem were literally frozen in both time and space as were Laura and Sam.
From the angle they could see the blade of her dagger now sunk deep in her throat, and her hand frozen at Sam's temple.
"Oh God… she went in…" Dean breathed groaning and turning pale as he slumped into a chair.
"Went in?" John asked, "Into his mind?"
"Uh huh."
"But who's? The demon's or Sammy's?" he asked.
Dean shook his head, "I don't know."
In seconds a howling alto broke wide into the world drawing them to the window where they watched as several things happened all at once.
Movement returned to the world and behind Laura the golem collapsed in a heap of debris, its earthy hardness now acting as a softer pile upon which she fell, blood running in a tiny track down her throat but pouring from her mouth and nose as she gasped in agony. For the third time they watched a demon exorcised from someone. Sammy flew backwards from the force of the demon's leaving and slid several yards in the dirt, and lastly, once it had disappeared into the ether the back door opened and the warriors of the sidhe approached both Sam and Laura.
One of the ethereal beings stooped near Laura, picked up and studied with fascination the pendant the possessed human child had wielded maliciously.
"Get Sammy!" Dean ordered as he led the way outside and moved to Laura who lay gasping on the ground, blood pooling from the wounds the demon had caused. If anyone knew what she was feeling right now it was him.
"Laura?" he whispered and looked up glancing between the fifteen comparatively tiny warriors and the two men with his brother. Bobby and John were helping Sam to his feet and it seemed that some of the sidhe wanted to help so appeared to be clinging to all three sets of legs as they crossed the yard to join Dean and his own little cadre of protectors.
Half a dozen of the other-worldly folk stood around Laura, their faces calm yet their concern palpable as they perhaps began to speak and her breathing seemed to even out. One of them reached for the dagger sticking out of her throat.
"Wait! That might be the wrong thing to do…" Dean protested and felt a flush of downy warmth as the one with the pendant touched his arm, smiled and held it up before securing the cord around his neck effectively keeping him occupied while the other pulled the dagger and allowed the wound to close.
From within the circle of sidhe a pea soup mist rose obscuring everything for a long moment before he felt only Earth under his hand. "Laura? Where is she?" he demanded disquieted by her sudden disappearance but strangely not really fearing any danger for her. In front of him a raven called and lighted on his shoulder. It sat calmly, clicking its beak against his cheek and even going so far as to nip his earlobe as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place and he started to recall the old Celtic tales of the Warrior Goddess and her maidens, that they could transform into crows or ravens usually on a battlefield. He looked deep into the sparkling black eye of the bird on his shoulder and ran his hand down its chest. It promptly hopped onto his hand and just as quickly flew away.
In seconds the mist cleared, "Laura!" he called as from several yards out in the back field she came walking back to the yard seemingly none the worse for her encounter.
Stunned and somewhat apprehensive John, Bobby and Sam moved closer to the circle of sidhe where Laura knelt before Dean and felt herself taken hard into his embrace. One of the sidhe, the one who'd returned his pendant leaned in close to her ear and made a noise like running water. Dean figured it was talking to her.
"Yes I do… very much," she responded smiling, "thank you for your help," she caressed its face and watched as he and the others disappeared back into their mounds content to continue to watch.
"You okay Sammy?" Dean asked around a large lump in his throat though he wouldn't let go of Laura.
"Yeah…" Sam knelt before them both and noted the protective grip Dean had on her, he looked deep into her eyes, his own glassy with shame, "I'm sorry… and thank you."
"Hey… folks like us… we gotta stick together," she smiled touching his cheek tenderly, "I'm just glad you're back and that you're all you…"
"Me too," he nodded standing up as she and Dean also rose.
"Do we have to start singing kumbaya now?" Dean asked as they made their way back into the house knowing the war was far from over though this particular battle was theirs.
LATER.
"So what exactly was it that happened?" Dean asked later as he and Laura meandered through the back field while Bobby got the grill going for dinner.
"Sam was able to push it out… all he needed was the opportunity…"
"Yeah I get that part… I'm talking about the sidhe, the torque and the raven thing… don't you usually have to be a God or Goddess or something for all that? You didn't go and get yourself unduly evolved or anything did you?" he asked nervously.
Laura stopped and turned him to face her, then took his other hand into hers so that she was holding them both. "Not hardly… I'm just an emissary but I'm still just me too. It is a pretty cool perks package though," she fell into his eyes again, here was a man who could understand her life and the choice to answer the call.
"So… when you came back… that sidhe warrior asked you something…."
"Uh huh," she nodded and smiled cockily at him as her hair tried to stand on end. He cocked an eyebrow expectantly and she grinned, "It asked me if I love you."
He tried to hold back his smile, "and what was it you said again?"
"Yes I do… very much," she answered easily.
"Oh yeah, that's what you said," he grinned lowering his head and pausing millimeters from her lips, "… say it…"
"I love you Dean Winchester," she gasped as he pulled her into him and felt every hair on his body stand on end as their lips met at last.
As they were engulfed in living energy she felt him grin against her lips, "That's hot..."
"Hey…" Bobby called as John and Sam joined him at the bar-b-que where he pointed to the field where a blue light emanated from Dean and Laura's last known position.
"Told you there was something between those two."
The End.
Hope you all liked it and that once again… you'll please be so kind as to review. It would be nice to have a few comments to help me in my personal projects that I'll be returning to work on . Not that I don't love the boys, I really do… but we've got spoilers for season two and I don't want to go back into the guess-fest waters. I'll just wait and watch and see what TETIK comes up with to torment us all. (After season two is over maybe another fic or two can't promise not to.)
Thanks in advance.
Sifi.