Sacrifice – chpt 11 – s.n. fic.
by: sifi
--
Sam yawned and scratched his head then rubbed his eyes. He and Dean had been going over his files for the last two hours, since his older brother came back from wherever his head had been. Now that he was certain Dean was out of the proverbial woods, at least in a physical sense he could entertain concerns regarding his big brother's mental state. Dean wasn't mentally wired for visions and the only thing about him that seemed in any way to be supernatural was the depth of his loyalty and that freakily unerring sense of direction he had. Could stick him in a centrifuge and drop him in the middle of nowhere at midnight and he'd still know which way is which… must be his magnetic personality… heh… magnetic… sheesh I must be more tired than I know… Sam thought smirking to himself while Dean continued reading one of the files Sam had put together.
"Wait… wait a sec…" Dean paused and grabbed the pictures of the cylinders Sam had printed off then sifted through them. He found the one he was looking for and handed it to Sam who'd seemed to perk up. "This one… this is the one that thing came from…" he tapped the page with his finger.
Sam groaned and nodded, "…alright that makes sense… kinda… well as far as any of this makes sense…" he pointed to the serpentine figure at the base of the cylinder, "That's Tiamat… she's supposed to be responsible for the creation of life on the planet… very fiery, smokey, beginnings of time type creature…"
Dean scowled, "Well what the hell'd I ever do to her?" he asked and frowned as Sam shrugged.
"Well… whatever it is it's got something to do with that damned bell…"
"Draw me a picture…" Dean shrugged wondering how Sam was putting the pieces together. His brother had gained so much information during the day that Dean wasn't sure if he would be able to make the same connections.
Sam nodded, "Okay… we know I heard the bell when you… were… uhm when…"
"Yeah, yeah," Dean waved him past that part, not liking to think of himself as dead by broken neck, not liking to think of himself as dead period.
"…and we're pretty sure that the sound of it… with my… need… for you to be alive… is what brought you back…boy that's awkward to say to you Dean…" Sam shook his head and caught sight of Dean's scowl.
"Wha'd'you mean?" he asked.
"I mean sometimes you make it hard to let you know what I'm feeling…" Sam admitted wondering if he was able to say this because of the late hour and his own failing defenses.
"Dude…" Dean sat back with a curious expression on his face and his hands shrugging as if to say, 'what?'
Sam shook his head, "Nevermind… look point is… what if having been 'touched' by the power of the thing… it kinda left behind some kind of psychic scent or something? Something Tiamat could sense on you? Though why she'd give a damn at all I'm not sure… I mean it's not like…" Sam stopped and cocked his head to the side thinking and frowning for a moment. It was an expression Dean knew well, one that made him smile.
Professor Peabody is on the case…ahh good times… he nodded smiling, What the hell's he mean I make it hard for him to say stuff? He can tell me anything and he knows it! Besides, I know he needs me… almost as much as I need him… a chill ran up his spine as he heard in the back of his mind, "…they don't need you… not like you need them…", he shook his head and frowned, I thought I was over this…how can I be over it? I've never really dealt with it… never talked to either of them about it…about what he said that night…sure dad and I danced around the subject…I know it didn't come from him and he knows I know it… but it had to have come from somewhere… yeah demons lie but why bother with a lie when the truth can cut so much deeper…jeez man… put it away for a while okay? This isn't what I need to be thinking about right now… dad and sam… they DO need me, they're always gonna need me…I feel it, I know it so there's nothing to talk about…just drop it! he forced the issue to the back of his mind and returned to the business at hand, watching Sam deftly click links that led him through an informational maze to what he wanted.
"Dean grab the rubbing will ya?" Sam directed distractedly as his eyes scanned some collegiate looking web-page that had a photograph of a tablet with a dragon-like serpent on it. He zoomed in as Dean spread the rubbing flat on the table.
"Uh huh…okay… wow… that would explain a helluva lot…" he muttered to himself as Dean peered over his shoulder and asked,
"What?"
Sam used the cursor to point to each of the dragon's two front 'hands' in each hand was held what appeared to be two cards.
"See these? Four tablets… Tiamat was the keeper of the tablets of destiny…One for the world, one for the heavens, one for the Gods, and one for Man…We know most tablets from back then were made of clay…" he looked at Dean with an arched eyebrow.
Dean leaned over the rubbing and examined it carefully, "But if these were supposed to be guarded by a God… it should be made of something a little more durable than clay don't you think?" Dean asked getting exactly where his little brother was going.
He shook his head as Sam joined him over the piece of parchment, "I don't see anything that could indicate a seam…"
"I don't either but I had to have started somewhere… maybe I chose the seam unconsciously…"
"…and if it was crafted from one of the tablets that would certainly explain why she'd be able to… sniff it out…" he turned and looked at his little brother who was eyeing him and nodding grimly, "Sam…if that thing was forged from one of those tablets… we're talking about the destiny of all man kind right? I mean he wouldn't use the one for the heavens, earth or the gods… not to fashion a reward for a human…" Dean's legs began to shake as his hand ran down his face and he began to sweat and shiver at the same time, and he finally backed himself to the bed and sat heavily on it his eyes searching Sam's.
"Then that would mean that your buddy Mr. Misty is… or well… was a God... whichever one was responsible for creating and bestowing the bell on Nimrod…"
"I thought it was God God… you know…" Dean muttered shakily.
"Not if your vision is right… if your vision was accurate then it's one of the Babylonian…" Sam pulled up a chair and sat before his big brother, watching to make sure he was going to be alright.
"The guy! The one… damnit… the one you said was hooked up with the Goddess of love…" he perked and smiled remembering the woman's pliant warmth against him, he allowed himself a small groan and sighed.
"Enki…Enki and Inanna… she was also a Goddess of Battle…" Sam informed him and withdrew another of the pictures wondering how long it was going to take for him to make the connection, or if he'd let himself. He turned the image so Dean was looking at it right side up and pointed to the woman standing on the backs of Lionesses. "That's her," he said and looked at Dean's face, his expression was absolutely unreadable.
The elder brother nodded and frowned a bit, his eyes glassed over just enough for Sam to notice it, "Yeah… that's her…" he acknowledged flatly, knowing for certain the life he'd glimpsed never had been his, not even in the longest ago of past lives possible.
For a moment Sam felt his heart go out to Dean for all he didn't have, for all that had slipped through his fingers with the vision, and then he reminded himself of the present, and some of the good things his big brother did have in his life. He'd remember them eventually, he'd remember he had his family, their friends, and a woman who'd pledged herself to him in every way possible short of vows she'd never ask for. Sam knew she wanted nothing more than to be allowed to love him with everything she had, and he wondered, not for the first time about the parallels his big brother apparently couldn't or wouldn't let himself see. Maybe he needs another picture drawn for him… he mused.
--
The wee hours ticked onward toward morning while Dean played catch up with information and slowly locked the pieces of the puzzle together. Sam lay curled on his side, his knees deep into his chest on the bed sleeping soft and soundly.
We can't let the kid go back, I mean he's… I can't believe… why would someone choose to…? I couldn't… then again… maybe if the circumstances were right I could… it's obvious he put a lot of thought into this… Damn Sammy! You did good little brother, you did REAL good…still, no matter how he started all this, he's just a kid now… we can't let him go home… not with Tiamat on the loose in there… I just bet it was her that tore them apart and shattered the statues…the family… but where the hell's the bell? He's got to have it…he might not even remember going back to get it if that interpretation is right… and I'd bet MY OWN money Sam made damn sure he got it right…but what I don't get is why wouldn't the world change around him? Course then again maybe it has… maybe we're just not seeing it because we're outside his world... he picked up the painstakingly taped piece of paper that was itself a trying puzzle his little brother managed to put together, quite literally. He'd found the torn pieces of heavily inked paper in an envelope in Emil Fredrick's desk drawer and wondered why he would have kept them. He'd taped them back together while Dean was out and the simplicity of the entire case came crashing over him. Grotesquely obvious once all the pieces were there, not even needing to be put together really, except to solidify what he discerned.
He looked at Sam's notes with reference to the characters etched on the bell, written in his strong clear hand; "…thought and need must be absolutely clear… will of God to manifest exact request… 'be careful what you wish for?'…" and he turned his attention to the taped piece of paper which held more than a dozen lines, attempts to correctly phrase Emil Fredrick's need. I wish I could grow up in today's world… that's the one he picked? out of all of these possibilities…not even an 'if I knew then what I know now…' clause included? dumbass… he shook his head looking next at the attempts at forging a birth certificate, application for social security card and number, a copy of Emil Fredrick's will, leaving everything in trust to Martin Turnbull until he turned 21. I'll say this much… he was thorough… but I'm pretty sure he didn't plan on turning his 'new' family into statues or getting them shattered…I should've known no nine year old is that… composed… or rational… not EVEN in today's world…It's been two days… I wonder what he'll remember by morning…he looked at the clock, 3:30… a few more hours and he'll be awake… I wonder if 8:00 is too early to show up…hmm he wondered and scrolled through the document listings looking for the forensics report on the glass fragments Sam had arranged to have e-mailed to them. He'd told him earlier that on one side of almost a quarter of the glass fragments the forensics team recovered from Emil Fredrick's office, they'd found human skin and hair embedded into the glass. "As if someone had been encased inside of it and broken free…" he heard Sam's voice in his head and smiled nodding. So Emil wanted to 'break free' of his old life and start fresh? Why didn't he just choose to be completely reborn or something? he'd asked and wondered if perhaps the man had thought mistakenly that he might be able to retain some part of his maturity.
Which one is it? he wondered looking at half a dozen numerically labeled files. Each of them a police report from one case or another, Sammy better clean this shit off the drive man… if the cops ever had reason to go through this stuff…he opened it, Missing persons' report… Adrienne Stephens… well that ain't it… and he moved on to the next one, Carol Guinardi's 911 call and the EMT report… nope… and the next Cook County Coroner's report…Richard Haybert Douglas… who? he wondered and scrolled down reading the report at first with cursory curiosity. By the time he was finished with the Medical Examiner's summation he didn't know quite what to feel or who to feel it toward. No… no… please don't let it be what I'm thinking…please no… he looked at his sleeping brother and wanted to drag him off the bed and punch him, and he wanted to drag him off the bed and just cling to him and ask him why… why hadn't he told him if he knew? but with tiny stinging tears spilling over the rims of his eyes he would do neither. His eyes fell to the open document on the screen, certain words almost jumping into his visual path, "…abrasions… consistent with forceful or rough intercourse... gross physical evidence though marginal is consistent with caucasian female characteristics, tissue samples retrieved indicates forced or forceful sexual contact…" and he saw those moments of fear cross her eyes, those bits of dullness when she seemed to want to be anywhere or anyone else, or maybe even not exist at all. "…I didn't want you to see me… weak…" he heard her voice. I should have known it was more than that… damnit to hell! I should've known! he watched her skitter out of reach until she'd fallen between the bed and the wall claiming to have been unnerved by a dream… and Sam had turned away, he knew… the little son of a bitch! Even then he KNEW! Dean breathed deep and reminded himself, He couldn't have said anything just then… I know that… but he could've told me! He SHOULD have told me!
Over the next half hour Dean almost called Laura more than ten times, he almost woke Sam up twice as many times and he paced the room more times than he could count, feeling his heart ripping just a little more each time he thought of someone hurting the one person who gave him everything she had to give without asking for anything back. After all had been said and done, throughout that whole time, she'd never hesitated to give herself to him with rapturous abandon. How could she stand to have ANYONE touch her? If that bastard…if he… how could she let even me touch her? or have her? Or love her? he wondered and realized that for the moment there was nothing he could do about what had gone before. They had to finish this case and destroy that bell, then he would call her up and find out where she was. They needed to talk. He needed to know for sure and by God she was going to tell him. He looked at his brother, I know Sam… it wasn't up to you to say anything… it's between her and me…I still might hit you, but I understand…
--
tbc – 12 is coming – quickly – please R&R, I need it!
Thanks. sifi
