Looks Like Loss

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Chapter Three

Sam fell to his knees, searing pain slicing though his head. Had to get to Dean. Had to get to a gun. Had to help his brother.

"Sammy?"

Dean knelt in front of him, holding a towel he'd found somewhere and pressed it against the side of his head.

"Dude, remind me to teach you to duck faster," he said gruffly. Dean really was meant to be more, Sam thought absently. So much more than an angry, smart-mouthed soldier. Maybe an angry, smart-mouthed army nurse. Sam half smiled at the thought. Florence Nightingale, only she'd smack the patients around if they crossed her.

"Sam, are you hallucinating or something? Because the grinning is giving me the creeps," Dean said softly.

"Ghost gone?" Sam asked.

"Right after he shot you. Just poofed," Dean pulled the towel back and looked at the wound grimacing.

"Am I dying?" Sam asked.

"Not even close. Grazed you," Dean said and Sam could hear the barest quake in his brother's voice. "Good thing you've got all this hair. It'll keep you pretty until you heal up."

"S'a good thing he was just warning us. Not sure I want to be there when he's really pissed."

The bedroom door flew open and Geoff Pruett came through, gun in hand. "We heard shots," he said wide-eyed, scanning the room. Finally he noticed his two guests kneeling in the middle of the floor. "Are you ok? What happened?"

"We had an uninvited guest," Dean answered, "your frontier robber guy showed up and shot Sammy here."

"I beg your pardon?"

Dean stood and Sam saw him rub his thigh as if it was hurting him. Sam made a mental note to ask about it once they were alone. Right now he just wanted the room to stop spinning as Dean put a hand under his arm and helped him to his feet.

At his brother's gentle urging, Sam followed him unsteadily into the bathroom where Dean expertly patched him up in only a few minutes with their emergency kit.

"I think you've gone from being Rhett to being Scarlett tending the wounded," Sam said woozily.

"I can take those stitches right back out, you know," Dean replied.

"Would one of you tell me what on earth is going on?" Mr. Pruett said angrily.

"What time is it?" Dean asked instead of answering.

Their host huffed in frustration. "Past five."

"Not much time," Dean observed. "Sam, are you up for a little scouting?"

Sam stood up from the sink, took a moment to judge his balance, and then nodded. "I'll be ok. You sure you are?"

Dean only nodded.

Mr. Pruett frowned. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing," Dean said. He walked back into the main room, picked up his shotgun, found Sam's in the duffel bag and threw it to him.

"Hold on there," Geoff said, backing up. "Just what do you think this is?"

"Stay here," Dean said, ignoring him again. "We'll be back at dawn."

Mr. Pruett ran his hand through his hair nervously. "Look… this is not what we were expecting…"

"This is why you called us," Sam said firmly. "We know what we're doing." He was grateful Dean withheld the snide comment he knew he was dying to make. "Go stay with your wife. You see what I did with the salt around the windows? You need to do that in your room. Doors and windows. Don't come out until daybreak. Got it?"

Without waiting for an answer they hurried down the stairs and deeper into the house eventually finding a door leading out onto a large brick terrace. The yard seemed to stretch away into the distance, a jungle of huge live oaks and shorter trees visible in the waning moonlight.

"That's a lot of back yard," Dean said ruefully.

"You don't get cemeteries in the normal size," Sam replied.

"Thanks for the reminder. 500 unmarked graves. Rhett Butler never had to deal with this kind of crap."

"The Rhett Butler thing is kinda starting to scare me," Sam muttered, following Dean off the terrace through the wide part of the yard that had been cleared to the edge of the trees.

"Don't worry," Dean whispered. "It's the house. I'll be back to my usual, 'What Would Han Solo Do' thing once we leave."

"I'm not sure that's comforting," Sam whispered back.

"How about Kurt Russell?"

"Yeah, Dean. That's much more reassuring."

The moonlight filtered through the leaves of the trees, barely illuminating the ground as they crept forward. Sam wasn't sure what they were looking for, but his pounding headache told him it needed to be soon. Dawn was fast approaching and his head felt like it might fall off. Dean had washed the wound, but his hair still felt sticky with blood and he wanted a shower if for no other reason than he was starting to feel like a one man insect magnet. Dean, he noticed, was periodically rubbing his thigh as if it was aching, though he never paused in their cautious trudge forward through the heavy ground cover.

Sam's ears suddenly caught a noise, perhaps a voice. Dean must have heard it too, because he changed direction. The quiet voices grew louder as they approached. Cautiously creeping forward, Sam and Dean finally stopped, hidden behind a huge tree.

Peeking out, Sam saw the Union soldier who had attacked Dean sitting on the ground beside a small campfire. More surprising though, sitting on a tree stump, was a woman in a long dress, her back to them.

"Captain said he'd be back soon," the soldier said, addressing the woman. "He just had something he had to take care of first."

"Thank you, Mr. Williams," she replied softly. "Perhaps the Captain will bring good news."

"Perhaps so, Ma'am. But you should rest," he added, and looked almost embarrassed.

Sam felt the distinctive sensation of a gun barrel pressed against his back.

"Don't move or I'll shoot."

Pardon the brevity. Real life intruding, etc… Stay tuned. More tomorrow.