'Til Death

Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own 'em and I'm still poor.

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The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death. –Unknown

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"You slept pretty good last night." Dean noted as they walked across the street to the diner.

"Yeah. So you come up with anything?"

"No, I told you I hadn't been at it long when you woke up." Dean noticed as Sam looked at him from the corner of his eye.

"You slept pretty late, too, then?" Sam asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Yeah, I guess. We didn't get in until after three, right?" Dean said as they settled into a booth.

"Yeah, after three." Sam agreed. He busied himself with the menu.

Dean watched him for a moment, then turned his attention to ordering breakfast. He wanted to get everything out on the table, but didn't think it was the right time. He wasn't yet sure how to handle what he thought he'd found in the notepad.

They ate breakfast mostly in silence. Before leaving the diner, they got directions to the library and spent the next few hours researching the backgrounds of the families whose loved ones' graves had been robbed. In the days before, they had spoken to some of the people they were now investigating, but none of them seemed raised any particular suspicions. Now, with another stack of notes and data between them, Sam and Dean felt overwhelmed.

"This sucks, Sam." Dean grumbled as he rubbed his eyes.

"Yeah."

"We got a whole big pile of nothing."

Sam sat back in his chair. "Yeah."

"That all you got, College Boy?"

Sam grinned at him. "Yeah."

Dean shook his head. "Lame, dude. What are we doing here, Sammy?"

"Trying to find out what's going on."

"We've got nothing. All we know is that there have been a bunch of grave robberies. The police don't have any ideas and don't seem to care very much, the families all seem to check out. The biggest clues we have came from some Internet message board and even that isn't much to speak of. Sam, I don't think we're going to find anything here."

"Let's just give it a little longer." Sam suggested.

"Sam." Dean sighed. His brother wore the expression that Dean could never ignore. "So what do we do next?"

"I don't know." Sam admitted.

Dean looked thoughtful. "What about the message board?"

"What about it?"

"You've read it, right?"

Sam nodded.

"What if you post?"

"Post what?"

"A message saying you want to find the necromancer group."

Sam looked at him. "Wouldn't that be too easy?"

"Only if it works."

"Let's go back to the room. I have the URL bookmarked."

"I love it when you talk high tech." Dean grinned.

"Shut up."

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Dean read the last few posts on the page as he stood over Sam's shoulder. One was written by someone claiming to know the necromancers, but there was no way to know if it was legitimate.

"What should I say?" Sam asked.

"Play the grieving loved one who wants to bring someone back." Dean wanted to kick himself when he felt his brother stiffen. He put a hand on Sam's shoulder before moving to the edge of the bed.

"Sam –"

"It's okay." Sam said quietly. He put his hands on the keyboard and typed the message. He left the room a few minutes later, saying he was going for a walk. He was still gone three hours later.

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When Sam left the room, he headed in a direction at random. He didn't know how long he had been walking when he found himself near the first cemetery that had been targeted. His probably would have continued on his way if he hadn't seen the faint glow of a light not too far away. He hadn't noticed the sun set and somewhere in the back of his head he knew that Dean was probably starting to worry the he was still gone. He watched for a moment before heading in the direction of the light. Hiding behind a tree, he watched a group of five people digging up a fresh grave.

He had checked the burial records before he and Dean spent the night watching this same cemetery the night before. The grave he was now watching being desecrated was the site of the most recent funeral; a man by the name of Ryan Criss. He died at the age of 27, the victim of a hit and run driver. He was in a coma, what the doctors deemed a vegetative state, for nearly six weeks before his family was able to make the painful decision to end his life support.

Suddenly, too many things were occurring to Sam for him to process. There was so much information back at the motel room, so many possible patterns and combinations, but he was almost sure he remembered a similar scenario for at least one other of the missing bodies. It could take forever to get any information by going through the message board, but the very people they were trying to find were standing right in front of him. All of his training was screaming for him to call Dean, if for no other reason than back up, but another part of him encouraged him to leave his brother out of it.

He knew it was wrong and he knew it was dangerous, but he knew it might also be his only chance to talk to them without his brother. It might be the only way --

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Dean paced in the motel room. He'd tried to call Sam a few times, but his calls went straight to voice mail. Dean suspected he was fine, that he'd turned his phone off on purpose. He hoped Sam was only blowing off steam, but he was afraid there was something else. He went back to the page in the note pad several times, reading Sam's notes. Not only was he researching things relevant to solving the current case, Sam was researching various methods of necromancy and Dean was afraid he was actually planning to try to bring Jessica back.

Sam was too smart to try something like that, wasn't he? To actually bring his dead girlfriend back to life… it was impossible for one thing, and dangerous for another. She would be only a shell of the real woman, a body completely under the control of the necromancer, it wouldn't be the real Jessica. Dean knew Sam understood that, but he also knew that grief did strange things to people.

"Damn it, Sammy." Dean muttered to himself as he got his brother's voicemail yet again. He went back to pacing, idly wondering if he should go out to look for him.

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Sam watched as a nondescript black van moved along the service road and parked near the grave. The body was removed from the coffin and carefully placed in the back of the van. He was about to leave his hiding place when he heard a noise behind him.

"Who are you?" came the question as he turned in the direction of the noise. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question." Sam paused. "I – I was reading the community message board and –"

The woman in front of him smiled sweetly. She was probably around fifty years old and didn't seem to be at all afraid of the tall man she'd encountered hiding behind the tree. "You've lost someone, haven't you?"

Sam was taken aback and immediately felt disoriented. He leaned against the tree for support.

"It's all right." she soothed. "How long ago?"

"Three months." Sam heard himself say.

The older woman looked troubled. "That's quite a bit of time. I'm not sure I can help you." She smiled again. "But why don't you come with me and we'll talk about it?"

"Come with you where?"

"Back to my home. I have to take care of Mr. Criss first, but we can talk after that."

"Take care of him?"

"His family, his mother in particular, wants him back."

"You can –"

"Come with me, Sam." she held out her hand. When Sam took it, it didn't occur to him to wonder why she knew his name.

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Trying to keep his mind off of Sam, Dean turned his attention to the job. He started going through all of the information again and when he was ready to take a match to it, he noticed something that had eluded him.

"Son of a –" he ran his hand over his face. "How the hell did we miss that?"

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"My name is Awena." the woman said. Sam didn't remember how he got to her home, but he realized he was sitting in a softly lit room. A warm fire was glowing in the fireplace and the furniture around him seemed to be from the Victorian era. "Would you like some tea?"

"No, thank you." Sam responded. He thought it should worry him that so much seemed to be going on without his knowledge or consent, but somehow he felt nothing but peace. Although about the same age as his father, Awena had a delicate grandmotherly quality that he found very comforting.

"Tell me about her." Awena said. "This person you lost."

"Her name was Jessica. She died in a fire."

"You loved her very much."

Sam nodded as tears stung his eyes.

"Three months is a long time, Sam."

"I know. But what you're talking about isn't even possible."

She smiled. "Isn't it?"

"There are very few things that aren't possible." Awena smiled knowingly. "Where is your Jessica? Is she nearby?"

"She was buried in California."

"Do you want her back, Sam?"

"More than anything." he whispered.

Awena smiled.