"Jeez, boy, you look terrible."
Despite himself, Sam snorted. He knew he looked terrible… because he knew he felt terrible.
The instant the call with Jody had disconnected, Sam had got back into the Impala and driven just about continuously for over twenty four hours to get to Tulsa, Oklahoma, only stopping when he needed either to fill up with gas, to use the rest room or to grab something trashy and tasteless that was easy to eat in the car, (which he was never going to admit to Dean that he had done… ever.)
He was exhausted. But it didn't matter. He was getting closer to finding Dean.
Oh God, please let him be getting closer to finding his brother.
"So what have we got?" Sam was already shaking off the weariness as a lifetime's training of putting one's personal discomforts aside to focus on the matter at hand kicked in as he stepped into the room…
… for Jody had beaten him to their arranged rendezvous, a motel just off the main freeway on the edge of the city, by nearly half a day and already had an evidence board set up… and Sam wanted to see it. "Sheriff? Have you managed to narrow our search of field down at all? Do we know where that photo actually came from…?"
"Hold ya horses, Sam. Hug first! Then sommat to eat… You look like ya haven't been taking care of yourself and that ain't gonna do your brother no good! And what is this? You been growing a bird's nest, boy?!"
The young man couldn't help but laugh as the brunette tugged jokingly, but quite firmly, at the shaggy uncontrolled growth that had sprouted from his chin and neck in the preceding couple of months since his brother had gone missing. He had kept his hair clean as carelessly and as often as he had washed his body, but anything more than the basics had been forgotten: nothing had mattered to him, nothing would ever matter, as much as finally finding Dean.
But he accepted the hug from Jody with a slightly lighter heart.
"He's gonna hate it, Sam!" The sheriff teased good-naturedly. "All that straggle! That's the first thing he's gonna gripe about when we get him back: ya know he is…"
The dimples went deep for the first time in a long couple of months: "I'm counting on it, Jody. Give him something to moan about… Take his mind off… off…"
"Off what he's going through: having a baby ya mean?" Jody nodded. "No wonder he freaked out on ya… He really needs our help, Sam."
Her heart broke a little as she noticed Sam's eyes glisten momentarily… and then the young man blinked and they were dry and determined once more. "He's going to hate that I told you, Jody. He'll be so angry at me… and ashamed of himself, even though he's got no cause to be: he can't have helped what happened. He's somehow going to have a child: that ain't normal… but he's going to feel that it's his fault because that's what he always does, I…"
She put her arms around him again, but this time it stood for far more than a friendly greeting between old friends. This was heartfelt. "He's no reason to be ashamed, boy. He can't have helped what's happened to him… and he needs his family around him. We just gotta remind him of that and keep reminding him of that, is all."
Her own tears gathered as suddenly Sam's own strong arms were wrapping tightly around her as well, almost crushing her momentarily… and his words were whispered hoarsely but sincerely into her shoulder: "Thanks, Jody."
"You're welcome, boy."
"Sam? Hey!"
He turned to greet the newcomer with a surprised smile and a question. "Hey, Claire. What are you doing here?"
The sheriff snorted: "You ever tried keeping a secret from a Hunter? You and Dean ever managed to…?"
Sam's smile slipped a little even as the beautiful young blonde closed the motel room door behind her and advanced on him for a hug: "Nah… sooner or later it would all come out. Caused just about every bad decision that either of us have ever made…"
"Exactly." Jody agreed. "Claire's as worried as I am about Dean's disappearance. And she wanted to know why he vanished like that… didn't take her long to hack the messages on my cell." She gave Sam's arm a sharp jab. "Dunno who could have taught her that…"
"Is it true?" Claire demanded. "Dean's been turned? He's… become something else? And is having a… a… baby? How the hell is that possible?"
Sam sighed. But he appreciated the genuine concern in her voice.
And he appreciated even more so the complete lack of any kind of judgement in it.
He glanced at Jody, who shrugged her shoulders: "I've told her what I know, Sam. Which to be honest, ain't that much. You wanna elaborate…? Just a little, boy?"
With a sigh, the young man moved away from both the women to sit on one of the twin beds in the room, stretching his long legs out in front of him with relief after all the hours spent in the impala. He really wasn't looking forward to answering questions but he knew that the sheriff had waited long enough.
"He literally vanished in front of me." The memory of that day was still vivid in Sam's mind. "We were trying to catch a were… well, it turned out to be two weres and a mastermind warlock…" he shook his head at himself: that part wasn't important. "We had tracked one to a warehouse in Kansas City. Then Dean saw this… he said it was glowing blue. I couldn't see it… asked him what it was. Stupid." He admonished himself. "I should have thought... Should have dragged him out of there…
It was a trap for him, and I let him walk straight into it."
"Wasn't your fault, boy." Jody was watching the young man's expression carefully and was not going to let him borrow his brother's capacity for self-condemnation. "You didn't know what was going to happen…"
The only sign that Sam was listening was yet another big sigh.
"So what happened?" Claire asked desperately: the more she knew, the better she could help her friend and (although she would never admit it) almost father-figure. "What was the blue thing?"
"I don't know." Sam had to admit. "Not even now. To me it looked like a stone but Dean… both Dean's… said…"
"Wait! What? Both Dean's?" The two women spoke almost in unison: at any other time it would have been amusing. "How can there be two?" "What are you talking about, boy?"
"Dean touched the blue-glowing stone and vanished, and in his place was suddenly left another Dean!" Sam had no choice but to talk over them. "He looked exactly the same, and sounded exactly the same, but he wasn't the same.
He was from another world… dimension… I don't what or where or how. But he was a male that could give birth… he called himself an omega, whatever one of those is… and…
… he was terrified.
Of other people. Everyone.
The other Dean was scared stiff of everyone and everything, because of what he was. He was an omega and in that world, they are the lowest." Sam felt tears prickle again as he remembered his brother's look-alike and how nervous he had been all the time: Jody and Claire stared at him with consternation as the unpleasantness of the situation and the pressure caused by it became more and more obvious. "The lowest in status… their status.
They're like…" the young man tried to think of a way to explain… "it's like… in that world, they're descended from animals: dogs, wolves, although Dean… that Dean… actually seemed to be from a feline lineage… whereas we in this dimension are descended from apes. They certainly have a much better sense of smell than us and use it as a major sense.
Alphas are the leaders of the society… think of our wolves and other animals that run in packs. The Alphas are the ones with the power. The betas are the majority and the basis of that society: they're more like you and me, only the women can give birth. And the omegas… they're the…"
"Lowest?" The sheriff wasn't making a joke. Rather, she was frowning.
"In the worst way, Jody." Sam couldn't help from growling at the thought. "They were thought of as little more than sex-objects: objects being the word. From what that Dean told me, his life was a misery: even though he was married… mated, they called it… to my look-alike of that world and his brother before you ask…" he ignored the startled gasps of both the women, "men… women… Alphas, would come up to him continually and ask for… expect… him to serve them sexually.
Because he was an omega… is an omega. Never mind that he was marr… mated, and had children, that's what it was like. And that was the least of it! Omegas were vanishing, being taken for the… the… sex-trade. They would be drugged to keep them in this thing called a heat… again, think of dogs and that thing the females go into when they're ready to breed… and they would never be found…
Dean… that Dean… was absolutely petrified: both of being away from that world and his much-adored children, and of having to return to it! And he was worried sick for my Dean… our Dean…"
"Why? Dean's not an omega! I mean…" Claire's words slowed as she thought through what she had just been about to say… "you're saying that's what he is now. That somehow there he… But he wasn't when he got there: he was still human…"
"Like I said, the other Dean had a very strong sense of smell," Sam reminded the blonde. "I mean… really strong! He had never even been in the Bunker before… that's where we live, Dean and I… my Dean, I mean… anyway I took him back there because he didn't feel safe anywhere else… he really was terrified of anyone and everyone: it was almost funny but… it wasn't… and he just took one deep breath as he walked in through the door and knew which was Dean's room… my Dean's room… and which was mine, and what we had eaten there recently and…"
"Take a breath yourself, Sam." Jody was amused despite the seriousness of the conversation. "Y'all must be running out of air in ya lungs!"
And indeed the young man did have to take a deep inhale as he remembered… "He said I made him feel safe because I smelt exactly like his mate, his Alpha. The Sam of that world: his own damn brother. He said my scent was weaker but it was still the same…
So… he was worried that Dean's…"
"He was worried that Dean would be mistaken for an omega in that world because if you shared the same aroma as your counterpart, then it would be logical that the both of them did as well." The practiced intuition of the long-serving cop was making Jody already far ahead of him. "And if he got mistaken for an omega, and they got treated like you said then… Shit, Sam," her deep brown eyes were as full of troubled sorrow as he had ever seen them, "what the hell must he have gone through? On his own there with no one to help him?"
"I don't know." The younger Winchester hadn't been able to think about anything else for the last few months. "That's the worst of it: I just don't know.
He got himself back, Jody. Somehow. The stone began to glow again and swapped them back because he did something in that dimension and got himself back: I was absolutely useless."
Both women remained momentarily silent, such was their intense concentration on his words.
Sam couldn't help but feel it as condemnation.
"But he was really… erratic… from what happened. I mean… everything he'd been through, and he was so…
And then we didn't handle it very well… Castiel and myself, I mean… and, well, Cas immediately noticed the… the… the baby inside him, which was a tremendous shock to Dean. He was traumatised anyway when he returned: he had several broken bones and he had been stabbed..."
"Stabbed! You never told me that, boy!" "Is he alright, Sam?"
"Yeah… yes, Claire. Cas healed him immediately we realised, but… looking back, it's obvious now that Dean was in shock when he returned. Whatever happened in that fucking world…
And Castiel told him… in Cas's own unique way…" the blonde snorted at this description of the angel's bluntness despite herself, "that he was pregnant. Dean could barely take it in, and then I got… well, I… I should have been a lot calmer than I was…
Between us we got him so agitated that finally Cas had to subdue him…
And when he woke up… he ran.
Shit. I should have been there when he woke up. I should have been there to tell him that whatever's happened, I'm there for him."
"As am I." The deep gravelly voice made them all start. Castiel had materialised in the corner of the room, complete with two bags full of steaming hot take-out. "I am so sorry, Sam. I should have been there when he woke: I should never have left his side. He was so upset at what I had done… I should have apologised…"
"It's okay, Cas." Sam interrupted. "We were both at fault that day. Only thing that matters now is to find him. Hey! When did you get here anyway?" he realised.
"He was waiting for me when I got here." Jody replied although her eyes were narrowed: she hadn't missed the sudden ending of the tale, nor Sam's reluctance to let the angel elaborate further. There was something that the boy didn't want to tell her to do with Dean's disappearance, and she had the horrible feeling that she wasn't going to like whatever it was when she did find out.
"He flew here the moment you called him and has been searching the area, but in vain…"
"There's nothing here within a hundred mile radius, Sam." Castiel agreed with a miserable down-turn to his mouth. "Dean is not here. I have searched everywhere down to the smallest molecules for any trace of him. So I thought I should come and meet the good lady Sheriff here and try to perhaps find the car or something…"
"I keep telling ya, Cas: it's Jody! The boys and Claire have told me enough about ya for y'all to be family."
"Thank you." The dark-haired angel looked genuinely touched at her words, but then he was remembering the bags of food. "Did I stay away long enough? I tried to. But I must admit I agree, Sam, that Dean will be extremely perturbed about the uncontrolled growth of hair on your head when we do find him: it is somewhat…"
"Messy." Straggly." "Unkempt." The disapproval was unanimous. Sam sighed, but then realised…
"That was one of the first things we discussed when I got here! How long have you been there really?"
Castiel had the grace to look abashed. "The Sheriff said that she wanted to talk to you: your explanation of how Dean is having a child has been… somewhat deficient in its detail. She hoped that you would expand on it, and asked me to take my time getting you all something to eat. Only…"
"You flew, so you were probably back almost before you had gone." Sam finished the sentence for him. "Still not nice to eavesdrop, Cas. But… thanks for giving us a few minutes.
Have you any other questions or can we get on?" This was to the two females, even as his attention was already returning to the evidence board.
Although the younger Winchester was stopped in his tracks by Jody's sarcastic drawl: "Actually, I got lots. Everything you're not telling me to be exact." God, she reminded Sam of Bobby sometimes! But then the brunette was relenting: "But, like I said, food first… you seriously do look like death, boy. And finding your brother safe is the main objective… preferably before he gives birth.
And ain't that something I'd never thought I'd ever say!
The truth can come later."
The young man couldn't help but stare momentarily down at his own boots, unable to meet her eyes… as did the angel, but at his own highly polished shoes… but then the urgency of the situation was overtaking him again.
"So, okay. What have we got?"
Sam actually meant the evidence board…
But what he heard was: "Thai alright?" And the young man was having boxes of steaming pad thai noodles thrust at him: "Chicken or shrimp? Or both?"
Actually Sam ended up eating three boxes of the tasty temptations… and savouring every single morsel… as they all studied the maps and pictures that the sheriff had pulled together. Just being in company… familial company… brought it home to the young man how alone he had felt since his brother's disappearance.
And just how much he had missed him.
"The picture was actually taken on Harrison Street in somewhere called Pawnee in Oklahoma." Jody explained through a mouthful of noodles. "Five days ago now."
"Shit, I've wasted a whole day getting here!" Sam was distraught. "We're twenty-four hours further behind him that we could have been!"
"But we've got an area to look in, Sam." Jody was calm. "He's relaxed in the rear of that car. He knows who he's with: he's not under duress…"
"He's anxious. Look at him." The young man all but exploded.
"He's worried about the imminent birth," Claire told him. "Of course he's anxious… and probably scared. I'd be terrified."
"Yeah, well, that's years away, girl." Jody was quick to put in.
The blonde snorted: "Won't ever happen!"
"Anyway," Sam interjected. "Have you got anything else? Anything on the car? The other faces?"
The sudden silence in the room told him the answer.
"Give us time, boy," the sheriff made sure to sound confident. "We'll find him."
Sam bit his lip and tried his hardest not to be sarcastic: that was Dean's forte.
God, how he missed him.
Forgetting the last couple of forkfuls of noodles in the third box, the younger Winchester stepped forward to study the map of the area that Jody had pinned up. "So… tell me about Pawnee then. What sort of town is it? One where everybody knows everybody else's business? Is there anybody worth sounding out about any strangers moving in?"
"No idea, Sam. I haven't even been there yet. It's part of the reserve…"
"Reserve?"
The tribe. The Pawnees. Native Americans. The town is named after them, and that's where a lot of them now live."
"I checked the whole area, Sam." Castiel said with genuine sadness in his face. "Dean is not anywhere there."
"But he will need a doctor… or medical help." Claire spoke up. "With what he's going to be going through imminently, I mean. Dean's gonna need someone."
"So… that someone was probably the man in the car. And he brought our boy into the town for some reason… Dean looks anxious, but it's not 'cos of the driver. He's relaxed with him."
"So he's an ally: whoever he is." Sam studied what he could make out of the driver from the picture: the elderly lined face; the silvering sideburns; the slightly outsize nose, trying to memorise what details he could in case they should ever meet in the street.
"And it's not a large place, so it was for a specific reason that he went there… And well, let's face it, Dean won't be getting any smaller… how soon do'ya reckon this is gonna happen, boy?"
Sam considered: "The other Dean said the omega's gestation period lasted approximately six months… twenty six weeks… and I don't when exactly… whatever… happened, but he's already been missing over sixteen of them since he returned from that world…"
"Do you think he was raped, Sam?" There was a pause as the older adults in the room winced at Claire's directness…
"That would seem to be the case, yes." The angel's tone was grave.
"Cas! For goodness sake!" Jody admonished him. "And you!" She started on the blonde.
"What? I'm only saying what everyone else is thinking…"
"Well, it ain't helping! And it ain't important, either. All that's imperative is getting Dean back safe: he needs our help no matter what the situation!"
"And he's got it, Jody! I'm not saying he won't! Dean's family, and he's got my support unconditionally! I'm… just seeing it how it probably is… and why he ran away… and why we're gonna get him back and damn well get through to him that he's not on his own."
There was another pause in the room… and more than one pair of eyes had to blink again tears of pride at the young blonde's words.
But then Sam's focus was suddenly back on the board again: "Wait. Pawnees? What do we know about them?"
"In what way?" "What d'ya mean?"
"Well… many Native Americans have stories that mention Spirit animals…"
"The other Dean was protected by a Spirit animal." The mention of that had immediately caught Castiel's attention as well. "It saved our lives as well!"
"Spirit animal?"
But Jody was ignored momentarily as Sam hurried to fire his laptop up: "So is it coincidence that he's here? Who are the Pawnees?"
They all crowded around as the young man found a website and began to read the information out loud. "Pawnees. One of the indigenous peoples that lived on this land before the arrival of the white man, now federally recognised… hunters, not farmers… known for their bravery in battle, and who have had representatives serve in all American conflicts…"
Sam couldn't help but give a sharp, short inhale of breath as he continued: "Just like most of the tribes, they believe in symbiotic relationships with nature and the animals around them to the point of it being thought of as spiritual… but the Pawnees also have deities. Their gods are stars, particularly the Evening Star, the goddess of darkness and fertility, and the Morning Star, the god of fire and light.
But they also believe in the Moon god Pah, and his lovely consort Shakuru, the Sun goddess."
There was a silence in the room.
Broken by the angel. "I definitely felt the presence of… being observed from the heavens, Sam: I felt… there is no other to put it… eyes on me.
And Dean… the other Dean… was convinced that there was a female moon god: she was protecting him… as indeed she, or something, proved to be. That spirit animal was definitely sent by something, Sam. We both saw it: well, you were definitely aware of its presence in that warehouse. And the werewolves knelt to it in awe, and the warlock… his magic was destroyed as if it were nothing… and that thing had extremely powerful magic!
Sam?"
"He's here, Cas." The young man was trying to hide how emotional he was suddenly feeling: he felt almost nauseous with nerves and relief, and he was aware of how his hands were suddenly trembling uncontrollably. "He's here. Somewhere. We're so close." Sam didn't even realise that he was rambling somewhat. "After all these months, we're so close to finding him."
The mood in the room lightened momentarily… only to be immediately dashed once more by a sad Castiel. "But he is not, Sam. I have looked everywhere within a hundred mile radius since the sheriff contacted you. And not just once, but… many times in case.
Dean is not anywhere in this vicinity."
There was another poignant pause in the room: no one wanted to be the one to break the silence…
Well… except perhaps for Claire.
"But this is Dean. He'd know how to draw sigils to hide himself, even from Castiel. And with you saying there's an actual god involved… well, then... If he doesn't want to be found, then he's not gonna be found."
"Goddess." The angel corrected. "A moon goddess: the other Dean was very particular about that."
But Sam was frowning… and thinking the young blonde's words through: "Okay… You're right. He's been wanting to hide from us... that's been just about the whole problem…"
"But I have looked everywhere, Sam." Cas argued. "There is nowhere for him to hide."
"No." The young man suddenly realised: "No! Claire's got it spot on! Dean's not trying to hide: he just doesn't want to be found. He doesn't want to be found.
Cas. Can you search the area again… but this time… Don't look for Dean.
Just…
… look and see if something strikes you as abnormal."
"I don't comprehend, Sam."
"Try again, but this time… look in case there's anything you can't see." The sheriff was also following the logic. "In case there's anything hidden between the molecules…"
"Between the…" It was almost worth it… Sam couldn't help but grin to himself… to see the angel's expression so… completely nonplussed. But then Castiel was nodding grimly and disappearing from the room in a sudden noise of flapping wings.
"I better head there as well." The young man was already packing his laptop away and reaching for his bag. "We're still a good six or seven hours from Pawnee. I need to be there when Cas finds… whatever he finds…"
"He can come back and tell us, boy. In the meantime, you need to get some sleep. Ya look like ya haven't slept for days: now… git on that bed. We'll wake you when there's news…"
"No, I need to be…"
"Samuel William Winchester: now you do as you're darned well told and get some sleep! Ya ain't helping your brother none by driving yourself into the ground looking for him! The hard bit's gonna be after we find him… so you get yourself on that unused bed and I don't want to hear from you for at least four hours!
Go on: git!"
Yeah, Jody really did remind Sam of Bobby…
… And there was no way he was going to even dare to argue…
"Yes, ma'am. But… promise me you'll wake me as soon as Cas returns."
"Of course we will." The younger Winchester felt slightly suspicious of the innocence in both the woman's tones… but… actually… he was absolutely exhausted. A power nap couldn't do any harm…
Half an hour, or so…
Cas probably wouldn't be that long anyway…
Please god, let the angel find something. Let him find Dean.
Jody helpfully turned the main light off even as he shrugged his boots and lay down on the covers of the single bed still in all his clothes. Claire snickered a little and called out "Goodnight Sam," earning herself a punch on the arm and a hissed reprimand from the sheriff as they both left the room to give him some peace.
Sam lay awake in the gloom, thinking of his missing brother: worried about what he might be going through on his own. This was ridiculous: he shouldn't be wasting time, he should on the way to Pawnee. He should just get up and get going… and risk the wrath of the feisty sheriff at a later date…
He was just going to get up off the bed and be on his way…
Sam opened his eyes again and groaned slightly. Reaching for his cell, he came to fully with a start upon the realisation that some seven hours had somehow passed since he had 'just' lain down.
Looking across the motel room, he could see Jody and Claire now also returned… and Castiel, sitting at the table with the women with maps spread all across the cheap laminated surface.
Sam sat up with a gasp: "Cas!"
"Hey, sleeping beauty! You go and grab yourself a shower and we'll bring you up to speed!"
"But…"
"Go."
"I'll get you fresh coffee." The angel broke into the discussion, unintentionally diffusing the increasing tension. "There's news, Sam."
"And more bagels!" Claire ordered.
"And more bagels." And with that Castiel was gone again.
Sam really wanted to cross to the table and see what was being scrutinised so microscopically… but instead he grabbed his bag with a sigh and went into the bathroom. It wouldn't do to argue with Jody… especially after she had been so right about how much he had desperately needed sleep…
He managed to make sure it was the shortest shower he had ever had in his entire life though.
They were all back to sitting around the table when Castiel returned with three steaming hot cups of coffee and a hot chocolate drink for himself. And a box full of mixed bagels.
"You gonna tell me what's going on?"
"You and the sheriff were quite correct, Sam: Dean has hidden himself between the molecules."
The younger Winchester waited. With increasing impatience. "And?" he couldn't help from snarling eventually.
"For goodness sake, Cas! You've been watching too many of those darned talent show reveals where we all die of boredom waiting to be told who's going home! Tell Sam what you found!"
"I have checked and rechecked to ensure that I am correct, Sam." The angel was finally on a roll. "I searched the town but found nothing that did not seem unexpected. So then I moved into the surrounding lands and again found nothing… until I got to these hills that are highlighted on these maps…"
The young man couldn't help but try and steal a glance: as indicated, these were much more detailed and focusing on Pawnee itself and the surrounding area, rather than Oklahoma in general. Jody and Claire had obviously been busy during his sleep. But then he was listening intently again…
"… and as you suggested… I was standing on the side of this hill and I became aware that there was a track… a driveable track… coming from the direction of the town and heading towards a large group of trees at the end. The track was large enough… and dusty enough that I followed it to the edge where it entered the field… and there was a creaky old gate and a mail box.
And so I came back to where I had been standing and I began to look closer at where the track seemed to lead, and I realised that I could see the leaves of the trees… but at an angle somehow,, as if I wasn't staring at them directly but was having my attention forced towards them…
And if I changed my angle, then the leaves would also adjust…
It took me some considerable time to comprehend that my vision was indeed being… tangented from seeing whatever was right in front of me… somehow. Indeed, in that place, I simply can not see what is right in front of me! My vision, when I am looking at, or trying to, at whatever it was that should be there… is being slid away to the side somehow and away from my ability to fully absorb what I should be seeing. I admit to finding the experience somewhat… disconcerting… and actually… extremely vexing."
"He returned here and we looked the area up on Google maps." Claire told Sam. "It took a bit of working out which was the actual area that Cas was finding this anomaly in: we highlighted a lot of the satellite images of fields and tracks and printed them out while you were asleep…"
"It's this one, we're pretty sure." Jody uncovered a picture and handed it over to the young man. "Castiel has immediately recognised all the other buildings as ones he has checked. And he recognises this trail as matching the one that caught his attention. But he has never seen the dwellings there…"
"They are hidden from me, Sam." He had never heard the angel sound so troubled. "I have been kept repelled from buildings by sigils and held prisoner by anointed seals of holy oil, but I have never before had my senses toyed with so definitively…
I took a copy of this image with me back to the scene that I had indentified." He pointed out the details to the young man as he spoke. "It is definitely the place: I myself flew up so as to be able to compare the image taken as it is from so far above…
There is the track with the same sweep of curve: it enters the image from exactly the same corner and exactly the same angle, and the trees, although now even more grown than they were in this picture as the satellite would have passed over a few years ago, are in the same position.
So it is the same place.
Which means those two small buildings there…" Castiel indicated the cabins, whose simple roofs could be clearly made out on the photograph, half beneath the shady covering of the thick branches and leaves to give a little protection away from the intense heat of the Oklahoma sun. "… should also be in the same place… but I can't see them.
When I look where they should be, even looking down on them, it is as if my attention is just… being side-swiped by something. I can't seem to see them directly: my vision just… slides off and I can do nothing to stop it. I am extremely… nonplussed. I can see them on this old grainy image, but not in reality…"
"So you think, this is where Dean is?" Sam hadn't really heard a word since he had been handed the print of the photograph: instead he was running his long fingers over the image of the buildings, trying to get the slightest sensation beneath them of much-needed physical proximity to his brother. "One looks much bigger: or at least, the roofs do. Two separate chalet-type dwellings? Or a cabin and an out-house? But this is where he is…?"
"This is where he's gotta be, boy." The sheriff agreed. "Castiel has made several visits to confirm that there's no mistake and we've not muddled the area up with anywhere else: we've been over and over the google images and discounted all the other fields and tracks. It's this meadow and this track, and just these two small buildings that he can't see!"
"Which is extremely vexing."
The angel's grumbles were ignored. Sam tapped his nails against the glossy surface of the pictures and felt his spirits soar: "Dean's here." For the second time recently in a long few months, his lips lifted enough for his cheeks to remember how to dimple, although his eyes had to blink away always-threatened tears at the same time…
"Yes, he is." Jody looked at the young man and understood. "I'm sure of it. We know he's been in this area of Oklahoma: we know that something is somehow blocking Castiel's view of whatever is in this building… it would make sense that the two are connected…"
"Then…" Sam felt so momentarily overwhelmed with relief that he couldn't think… with the exception of one single consuming thought: Dean was in one of those two building, so that's where he should be as well. "I should be there. I shouldn't have wasted time sleeping. I should be there right now! I… shit: I'm still a good six hours away from him! I should have just driven there immediately Cas started searching; I should be there right now!"
"Boy. Calm down. You slept because you desperately needed sleep: believe me you did, ya looked like you were gonna fall down standing up. And you're gonna need the time while we're all driving to Pawnee to work out how you're gonna handle meeting up with your brother again without blowing it!"
"I… what?"
The sheriff was on a roll. "Look, Sam. You know I love ya and god knows I love ya brother. And I know you boys both have your issues and your quarrels: that's family. And I know that I'm not being told the truth here and I probably never will… But sommat happened…
And Dean ran from you.
You!
In this situation, where he needs more help than he's ever needed before, he ran from you!
So… You use this time to work out what you need to say, and what you need to do, because he don't need upsetting any more. Not if he's in the condition that we think he is. His thoughts are gonna be all over the place and he might well be… somewhat temperamental: that's probably more likely than the alternative at the moment.
So, you need to keep yourself calm and think all your arguments so you don't mess it up. Because Dean can't be upset, and more importantly, he can't be forced to feel he has to run again."
"He's not going to." Sam told her. "I'm going to find him and I'm going bring him home where he belongs."
"That isn't quite what I meant…"
"I get what you meant, Jody. And I appreciate it. But I need to find my brother and I need to bring him to the Bunker where I know he'll be safe."
"Well, you gotta be the calm one about it, boy." Jody tried again. "Cos he ain't."
"Got it, sheriff."
But even as he was speaking, Sam was already on his way to the motel room door: his holdall clutched in one hand and the photo, tight to the point of being slightly screwed up in his grip, in the other. And he wasn't going to be turned back.
Jody sighed and hurriedly began to get her own things together. "Just wait for us in Pawnee, Sam." She called after him. "We'll meet up again and make a plan. Just don't go after Dean without us being there.
C'mon, girl," this was to Claire, who was also hastily throwing her toiletries into her main bag and packing all the photographs and documents up. "Let's go and help the one idjit to find the other idjit… and hope that neither one makes this whole darned situation any worse than it is in the meantime!"