Eye of the Storm
Disclaimer: Don't own Supernatural in any way. I do own Haley Winchester and Laura Whitman.
Author's Note: My knowledge on cars is extremely lacking. I'm choosing car for the characters by looking up movies and series' in the IMCDB (Internet Movie Car Database), and choosing them from there. Hope it all goes okay.
Chapter 2: Old Friends and New Ones
Dean brought them back to the motel room he'd been staying at, where an argument quickly ensued over who got stuck sleeping on the couch. There were only two singles beds, and it was obvious to Sam and Dean that Haley would get one of them (Haley had no say in the matter), so all that was left was for them to figure out who got the other bed.
In the end, Dean won the argument, only because he got Sam in a headlock and Haley was conveniently too tired to interfere.
As it turned out, though, the argument was meaningless, as not five minutes after Sam and Dean had gone to separate ends of the room, Dean to lick his wounds and Sam to pick up the broken remains of his dignity, Dean's phone rang.
"Dean Winchester's phone," Haley said, answering it before Sam or Dean could make it to the middle of the room. "He's currently unavailable, can I take a message?"
"Haley, that you?" A familiar voice asked.
"John." Haley said, her smile faltering ever so slightly. "Here's Dean." She said, tossing the phone in Dean's general direction. The older Winchester caught it, just, being careful not to hit any buttons as he did so.
"Dad?" He said.
"Yeah." John said. "Missouri told me to give you and Sam some time to catch up, or I'd have called sooner."
"You've been talking to Missouri?" Dean asked.
"I'm at Missouri's." John answered. "In Lawrence."
"Oh." Dean said, sitting down on the end of his bed. Sam and Haley both looked up from what they were doing.
"I need you to come here. You and Sam and Haley." He said. "And quickly. It knows I'm closing in on it, and I… I think it's getting ready to retaliate." The tone John spoke in was one Dean rarely heard, only when he was talking about Mary, or if he thought Sam or Dean were in actual danger. It was his family tone. Well, the bad version of the family tone.
"Okay, it's gonna take us at least three days to get there, so-"
"Make it two." John said.
"Yes, sir." Dean said automatically. "I'll see you then." He cut the connection.
"What is it?" Sam asked.
"We have to leave." Dean said. "Now."
"What?" Haley asked, getting to her feet.
"Dad says he thinks the demon's planning something." Dean said, already collecting his stuff from around the room. "He's worried. I could hear it in his voice." That got both Sam and Haley moving. It took a lot to worry John Winchester enough for someone to hear it in his voice.
They barely had a chance to start packing up before the motel room door was kicked down. A man stepped in the room, smiling darkly as he glanced at the three occupants in turn.
"Well, I gotta say, this is disappointing." He said.
"'Disappointing'?" Dean echoed. "'Disappointing'?"
"Yeah," The man blinked, and when his eyes opened again, they were both charcoal-black. "After everything I heard about you Winchester's, I expected you to be at least one step ahead of me. And yet here I find you, a step behind me."
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw a flash of steel in Dean's hand. The demon obviously saw it as well. He jerked his hand to the side and Dean was thrown across the room, crashing into one of the chairs at the table and hitting the ground, hard.
"Argh!" Haley cried out in pain, staggering backwards, hands on her stomach. The demon turned to her, in time to see a look of fear mixed in with pain in Haley's eyes, then anger and desperation, and the next instant he was lifted off the floor as Dean had been, only he wasn't lucky enough to crash onto a chair; he was thrown straight at the window.
"Haley." Sam cried as she fell backwards. He caught her before she hit the ground. "Are you okay?" He asked.
"Yeah, Sam, I'm fine," Dean said irritably, getting shakily to his feet. "Probably just a broken collar bone, maybe a cracked rib or two, nothing too drastic." He swayed unsteadily, and managed to steady himself on the table.
"I'm fine." Haley said. She closed her eyes for a minute, and breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought… I felt Dean's pain. And I thought… I was afraid that…" She glanced at the broken window. "Did I do that?" She asked. Sam nodded.
"It won't stop him." Dean said. "Meg fell seven stories out of a window and she got up and walked away. I doubt being thrown out of a ground floor window is going to stop him." Haley nodded her agreement. "You're going to have to drive." Dean said to Sam. The younger Winchester nodded, helped Haley back to her feet, letting her lean on him for support, and then walked over to Dean, offering his other shoulder, since as far as they knew, Haley was just feeling what Dean was feeling at the moment, only less. If that was the case, Haley was either milking it for all it was worth (which was debatable) or Dean was just being Dean and pretending he wasn't in any pain at all. Sam was inclined to go with the latter.
Dean ignored Sam's offer of help, confirming Sam's suspicion, and limped out of the room on his own, picking up his duffle bag as he went. Sam grabbed both his and Haley's packs, and followed Dean outside.
The drive to Lawrence was reasonably uneventful, unless you counted Dean's constant complaints because he was stuck in the back. It was a unanimous decision made by Sam and Haley, who came to the conclusion that, being injured, Dean should be in the back seat where he could stretch out.
With Sam driving them, it took them a little longer then it would have with Dean driving, but Sam continued to remind Dean that it had been his decision to let Sam drive, every time Dean complained about how long it was taking them.
With Haley sleeping (not to mention snoring) for most of the trip, and Dean sitting silently on the back seat recovering from being dropped on a chair, Sam had plenty of time to think.
He thought about what had happened back at the motel room. One minute, everything had seemed perfectly normal- well, as perfectly normal as it could seem when they were being threatened by a demon- and the next, Haley seemed to become a completely different person. It was just for a split second, barely noticeable, but in those few milliseconds, when Haley had reacted to the pain her empathy had brought into her from Dean and thrown the demon out the window, Sam was sure he'd seen the other Haley, the one he'd seen in his dream back when Haley had been possessed by the psi-vamp.
Neither he nor Haley had had much luck with their gifts. Until the confrontation, neither of them had been able to move things telekinetically; Sam hadn't had a vision since he'd seen Haley in her house when the demon had killed her mother; and Haley's empathy was as uncontrollable as ever.
Another thing he was wondering about was Dean's gift. Whatever it was he'd done to Haley, it had taken almost two weeks for the burns to heal. And since then, he hadn't been able to do it again, not even against a vampire they'd fought a few weeks after Haley had joined them again, even when it had been an inch from taking a fair-sized bite out of Sam's neck.
Haley shifted in her sleep, and Sam glanced at her, keeping one eye on the road. He smiled, relaxing a little as he thought about the family he had always wanted, the one that was beginning with the small life growing inside of Haley. The very idea that he was going to be a father to a baby girl… well, it made him feel warm and tingly inside.
He reached over with one hand and laid it gently on Haley's stomach; the road went on for miles up ahead; there was no chance he could have no preparation if he saw someone or something up ahead.
A moment later, he felt Haley's hand slide under his, holding on loosely. His smile broadened, especially when he saw Dean finally asleep on the back seat, which meant he'd finally be getting some peace and quiet, for a little while at least.
They arrived in Lawrence about two and a half days after John called them at the motel. Dean had mostly recovered from the injuries inflicted by the chair by the second day, so he did most of the driving after that, with Sam sitting in the back now (Haley seemed to have no choice in the matter; she was in the front passenger seat and that was the way it was).
There were three other cars parked outside of Missouri's house, not counting John's truck. Sam and Dean exchanged a look as they got out of the car. Haley zeroed in on one particular car, a black BMW.
"Something wrong?" Sam asked. Haley blinked, and looked over at him.
"No," She said. "That car just looks… familiar, but I can't remember where I've seen it." Sam frowned, but Haley merely shrugged.
"Oh well, I guess I'll find out when we get inside." She said. Sam nodded, taking Haley's hand in his. Dean rolled his eyes and took the lead, walking up the driveway to the front door, with Haley and Sam walking hand-in-hand behind him.
They reached the front door, and then Dean stopped, glancing over his shoulder at Haley. "Anything we should know?" He asked. Haley bit her lip, and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she tried to reach out empathically towards the house.
After a minute, she shook her head. "If there's something in there, I can't sense it." She said. "But that's not much to go on." She added irritably, knowing full well she had no real control over her empathy. Dean nodded, and, after a minute, opened the front door, coming into the waiting room of Missouri's house/psychic lounge (or whatever it was).
"Uh… should we wait for her to greet us or…?" He trailed off, looking over at the other two hunters. Sam merely shrugged.
"Sam, Dean?" The two brothers looked up at their father's voice. "Finally, I thought you'd never get here." John said. Sam would've been annoyed with how he greeted them if he hadn't known that was his father's way of expressing relief that they'd gotten there safely.
"We had a little… encounter back at the motel." Dean said. "But we dealt with it… well, Haley dealt with it." He admitted, giving Haley a smile. John nodded.
"Well, at least you got here in one piece." He said. "Come on through… there are a couple of people I want you to meet." He said, leading them into the living area of the house.
It was quite crowded compared to the last time Sam, Dean and Haley had been there. Of course, then it had only been Sam, Dean Haley and Missouri. Now there were five others standing or sitting around the room, Missouri not included.
Sitting on the couch beside Missouri was a woman in her early thirties, with lightly tanned skin and shoulder-length brown hair.
A middle-aged man with greying hair and dressed in a priest's garb sat in one of the chairs opposite the couch; Sam recognized him as Pastor Jim, though it'd been almost ten years since he'd last seen the man.
Standing over by the window was Caleb, a balding man who'd helped John out more then a few times over the past twenty-two years.
Bobby Singer, a man specializing in demonic possessions who'd once threatened to shoot John with his rifle, was sitting on the other chair with a mug of what Sam guessed was whiskey in his hand.
And over in the corner furthest from the door was man in his mid-to-late fifties whom Sam didn't recognize at all. But he seemed to recognize Sam; he was staring right at him with eyes full of wisdom way beyond his years.
"Sam, Dean, Haley, I'm sure you know Caleb, Jim and Bobby." John said, gesturing to each man in turn as he said their names. "But I don't think you've met Daniel Elkins." He said, nodding to the man in the corner. "Daniel, these are my son's, Dean and-"
"Sam." Elkins said, eyeing Sam strangely. John nodded, apparently not surprised by his friend's interruption.
"And this is Sam's wife, Haley." John said, gesturing to Haley. Elkins nodded at her. She smiled, a little nervously, and her grip on Sam's hand tightened. At that moment, the woman sitting beside Missouri cleared her throat. "And this is Jim's niece." John said, nodding towards the woman. "Dean, you may remember her." Dean barely acknowledged the woman with a nod, which didn't seem to bother her in the slightest. In fact, she seemed to prefer being ignored by him, getting to her feet and walking over to Sam and Haley.
"Laura Whitman." She said with a smile, holding out her hand. Haley smiled and took her hand.
A split second passed where something seemed to happen between the two of them. Haley felt something, the faintest flicker of life. And then the second passed, and Haley leaned over, taking in a few laboured breaths.
"Haley?" Sam said questioningly, concern in his voice.
"Are you okay" Laura asked. Haley smiled reassuringly at the two of them.
"I'm fine." She said. "Just a little tired; the baby's really taking it out of me these days." Sam put a reassuring arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him. "I just need my loving husband to show me to where we're… uh…" She turned to Missouri. "Where're we sleeping?" She asked. Missouri smiled.
"I put aside a room for you and Sam," She said.
"Yeah, made me sleep on the couch last night because of it." Bobby put in. Missouri rolled her eyes.
"Follow me." She said, leading Sam and Haley out of the room. Laura still looked worried as she watched the two of them leave.
"They'll be fine." Jim reassured her, suddenly by her side. She smiled at her uncle, and turned back to look at where Haley and Sam had gone. Dean glanced at her, shook his head, and followed his brother and sister-n-law out of the room.
A/N: So,what did y'all think of that? I hope I described Elkins, Jim, Caleb and Bobby okay (seeing as they were already in the show). And what about Laura? What did y'all think of her. Please, review (I'm sure there are mor readers then reviewers - I know, broken record, but can ya blame me?).