Disclaimer: Dean, Sam, and everything Supernatural related belongs to whoever owns them. It's hard to tell these things down here, but hey, I don't own them
Warning: Um, let's see, nothing in this one, I think. Don't worry, it's coming.
Author's Note: OMG thank you sooooo much to all the people who reviewed. If you didn't know, this is my first fanfiction and everyone was incredibly nice! A shout out to Faye Dartmouth for reviewing like five minutes after I posted! I went to bed smiling! Hope you all like this chapter!
Chapter 3: Coincidences
Three hours later Dean parked the Impala out the front of the smallest police station he had ever seen. Brian was already waiting out the front, a mug in his hand.
"Let me see them," was the first thing the real cop said, holding out his free hand. Dean cocked his head questioningly.
"The badges, Dean. The nice shiny badges to go with that claim of being whatever you're being."
Sam handed his over first, the fake id claiming he was Detective Sam Davis. Dean was close behind with his Detective Dean Jordan one.
Brian's eyes widened slowly as he took in the badges. "Are these real?" he asked in a slightly higher tone than usual.
"They were real," Dean answered simply.
"It's best not to dwell on it," Sam added. Obviously Brian decided not to: he handed the badges back but didn't turn to go inside.
"I've told the others I knew you from when I worked in the city a few years ago, before I moved here. I told them I'd give you a call if they agreed. They did. They think you're detectives, or something. I didn't really elaborate." Looking at Dean specifically, he ended with, "Try to act the part right this time."
They all walked inside where five other policemen stood to greet them. Brian introduced as they all shook hands.
"State Police," Sam explained. Two of the cops looked at each other
"I thought you knew Brian from the city - colleagues..."
Dean nodded. "For a while. Me and Sam were assigned to a case in the city. Some brutal, brutal murders. Brian was our aide from the local department."
The cops appeared to be satisfied, eased further by Sam's, "We're here to help," and that charming smile of his.
A few minutes later Sam and Dean were sitting at a table by themselves. Well, Dean was actually sitting on the table, flicking through a victim's file, while Sam searched the file of James Archer, the accused killer. What shocked him most was that the man looked so normal. And yet the victim's skin had been found in his teeth.
"Argh, nothing I can find there." Dean dropped the file impatiently down on the table. Sam ignored him and continued to read Archer's file. There was something... curious about it. Like he already knew the man. But that was impossible.
Sighing, he closed the file. Catching his eye was the file Dean had just finished with. It had landed open and the face of victim number two stared up at him. It was a face he had seen before, had ripped to shreds with his own claws.
"Oh my God," Sam whispered. Swallowing, to both wet his mouth and push his breakfast back down, he continued. "That's the woman. That's the woman I dreamed about."
Dean gave him a confused look. "Sam, that woman's been dead almost two weeks. How can you be dreaming about her dying?"
"I don't know!" His heart was racing. Seeing the future was bad enough, but now he was reliving the past as well? He put his head in his hands. They were both silent for a time, which was only broken by the noise of the chimes in the front door. They both listened, preferring to hear that than their own thoughts.
"Claire, what can we do for you?" one of the cops asked. The answer came in a weak, shaky voice.
"I killed Mrs Walker."
Dean and Sam looked at each other. "Is that..?" Dean began.
Sam nodded. "That's the woman I dreamed about."
They were out of the room five seconds later. The policeman who had spoken was just letting a pale-faced woman - Claire they assumed - into an interview room.
"We'll speak to her first," Dean stated, stopping the aged man who was just about to follow the woman in. He looked like he was about to argue until Brian spoke up.
"That's what they're here to do, Walt."
The man, Walt, stepped aside, but raised a threatening finger. "You be easy on her. That's my niece in there. You push her too hard..."
"We won't push hard at all," Sam promised before closing the door in his face.
He sat down next to Dean, across from Claire, studying her as Dean took out a tape recorder. She was maybe twenty-eight, too thin but naturally so. She had on thin-rimmed glasses, dimming the light in her devastated green eyes. Like with Archer's file, he could feel a strong connection with her. A kinship. He so desperately wanted to know what they all shared.
"Can you state your full name, address and date of birth," Dean ordered, sounding every bit the cop and pressing record. She obliged in a small, shaky voice.
"Claire Piper. 17 Connell Street, Merchant. 8th June 1978." She kept looking at her shaking hands and Sam felt sorry for her.
"It's okay Claire," he comforted in a warm voice. She finally looked up. "My name's Sam, and this is Dean. We're with the State Police."
Dean seemed to pick up some of his brother's warmth. "What do you think you've done?" he asked in one of the kindest voices Sam had ever heard him use.
Claire took a deep, shuddering breath. "Two weeks ago. I woke up with one of the worst headaches I've ever had. It hurt so bad I couldn't move. I felt sick, and tired, and really out of it. And I couldn't remember anything from the night before."
There were tears coming now. Claire's words were almost hard to hear.
"Then last night I suddenly collapsed. And I dreamed of... killing..." She couldn't seem to go on.
Sam felt Dean tense, but it was nothing compared to the stress he suddenly had knotting his muscles. "What time was this?" he asked. Claire continued to look down at her hands.
"Maybe 6, 6:30. But I didn't wake up until this morning." She shook her head. "It had to have been shock. What I saw was horrible. What I did."
"If you saw it in a dream, how can you be sure you did it?" Dean asked. Sam, however, felt he partially understood. His own vision had been terrifying. And if she had seen exactly as he had...
"Because it was me. I was the one, in the dream, who mu...murd...murdered Mrs Walker. I don't know how, or why - I still can't remember that. Just that I ripped her apart with..." She trailed off as she raised her hands to look at them, horrified. She began sobbing.
Sam flexed his hands under the table. He knew how she felt. Except he knew that he couldn't have killed that woman. Claire had no such assurances. She had just dreamed about killing a woman who had died on the same night from which she had no memory.
"Thank you Claire," Sam said, standing. He felt Dean's confusion but was grateful when his brother stood as well. "We will get to the bottom of this."
Dean closed the door behind him, having let Walt through to see his teary niece. He led Sam a small way down the hallway before turning.
"What was that?" he asked quietly, a little angry. "I still had more questions."
"Questions she couldn't answer," Sam retorted, leaning against the wall. "You saw her. She doesn't remember anything, except what she dreamed."
"What you dreamed." He couldn't believe that. It was bad enough Sammy was even having these nightmares. His little brother looked terrible. Dean couldn't believe he had stayed awake all night. He had these little rings under his eyes that no one else would notice.
"What I dreamed," Sam confirmed. Dean pushed a hand through his hair.
"So what do you think anyway? What do you think it is?"
Sam leaned back. "I'm not sure. I'm almost certain it's a demon of some kind but..." Dean finished the sentence.
"But it could also be a spirit. Possession?" he asked half-questioningly. Sam gave a slow thoughtful shake of his head.
"Probably. Maybe. It would explain Claire's memory loss, and her dream." He shrugged. "I dunno. We should talk to Archer, see what he's got to say."
"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Brian said Archer didn't remember anything. Maybe we can jog his memory."
Brian had Archer brought to the other interview room, where Sam and Dean were already waiting. Sam stood in the corner, half covered in shadow. Dean sat in the chair, leaning back relaxedly. He could feel Sam's tension and knew his little brother was under a lot of pressure. What was Sam hiding? That he was hiding something Dean knew for certain, just as he knew that he couldn't drag it out. He had to wait, and it was killing him.
The door opened and Archer came in, hands cuffed behind his back. Dean felt Sam tense some more. He had to admit, for such a normal looking man Archer gave him the creeps as well. It was just something about him.
Archer sat down, staring into Sam's corner, while Brian left. As soon as the cop shut the door though Archer let a bombshell drop.
"Sam Winchester right?"
Dean felt instantly pummelled and sat forward. "How the hell did you know that?" Surprisingly it wasn't Archer who answered.
"You really are a psychic aren't you," Sammy blurted out, coming to sit down beside Dean, who was amazed at the change in his brother. It was as if a fire had been lit inside him, ridding him of stress.
Archer nodded. "So you knew we were coming?" Dean asked, a little confused and put up. This time Archer shook his head.
"Not both of you. I knew you would Dean. I wasn't sure about you though Sam. But I did know that if both of you weren't here there would be deadly consequences."
Dean was in shock. He hadn't expected this. How could he have?
"Consequences. For who?" Sam was asking. Archer shook his head.
"It doesn't matter. You're here. We all have a much better chance."
"A better chance at what?" Dean heard himself ask. This was crazy. How did this guy know all this?
Archer replied with one word but it was enough to send shivers down their spines.
"Survival."
"What is it?" Dean asked. Sam was glad he had taken over the questioning. He was trying to piece together everything in his mind.
Archer shrugged. "I don't know. But it is powerful. I felt it arrive in this town four weeks ago. A week before it killed its first victim."
"When I started having the nightmares." Sam had said it before he could stop himself.
"What?" Dean snapped. "You said you weren't having any!"
"I actually said I couldn't remember them. And I couldn't." He looked up at Archer. "Until last night."
For the first time, Archer looked surprised. "What happened last night?" Dean shook his head.
"First tell us what happened with you," he ordered. It was obvious he was still trying to come to terms with the revelations of the past few minutes, and more kept on hitting him.
Archer leaned back in his chair. "I was at my mother's house, like I am every Tuesday. I was feeling really tired. Almost fluey, you know. And then... I don't know what happened. But I woke up with guns in my face and... and someone's b-blood in my mouth."
He turned white and shuddered. "But it wasn't me. I still don't remember. Anything. But to police, evidence means more." He shrugged but was plainly very disturbed by what he had done.
"Same as with Claire," Sam muttered under his breath. Archer managed to hear.
"Claire? Claire Piper?" He shook his head. "It's what I feared. It's too much of a coincidence for it not to be."
"What do you mean?" Dean asked. Sam was just as confused.
"For the moment it arrived here, I wondered why. Why did it come? This town, I thought, held nothing for it." He shook his head again, almost a twitch. "Then the first murder happened. And I started thinking it wasn't the town, but its inhabitants. They're special." He looked at Sam. "This town holds an astounding number of, well, psychics. More than, I'd expect, you would find in a whole other state."
Sam swallowed. A town full of people like him. Archer nodded. "Now I think this thing came here to use us. To use psychics. I don't know why. Claire though, was my pupil. She had just begun learning, but she was already pretty strong. And two of my other students, Daniel and Louise, have complained of missing a whole night in their memory."
"And they're both psychics?" Dean just had to confirm it.
"Sort of," Archer answered. "They have the potential. To be very strong, as well. But they're afraid of it. That's why I started helping them. I am..." He looked over at Sam again, as if calculating him. "... was the strongest psychic here. I'd be careful if I were you Sam."
