Welcome back everyone! I've got a bad habit of ending chapters on cliffhangers, I know, but it's where I tend to stop with ideas, and this chapter is no different *sorry*. Hopefully the decisions made in this chapter make sense, and as always, I'd love to hear thoughts about it! Thanks so much to Celtic Knot, ThornsHaveRoses, VegasGranny, DearHart, and BaldiDaughterChevy for sticking through these cliffhangers with me ;) especially happy that people seemed to like Matthews, I don't write many characters outside the universe, so it was encouraging that he was taken well!
Just a simple fan writing stories and waiting for season 14 news from SDCC next week while wishing I owned parts of this show. Oh well.
Dean had already been thinking of places to go celebrate when he heard Sam drop the phone from his ear and tell him to hold on. 'Holding on' during a hunt was never a good thing, never.
"Sam? Hold on? What does hold on mean?" he tried to clarify, hoping his brother would answer him that no, nothing was wrong, he was just checking on the sheriff or something because he got scared. Cas seemed to sense the worry in his tone and moved a step closer, watching Dean carefully. When the pops sounded over the phone, almost like gunfire, Dean jumped a fraction. "What was that?" he demanded. Not good, not good, not good, whatever it was.
Sam, of course, didn't answer and Dean's worry kept growing. Driving, the graveyard and station were only about five minutes away. So give or take ten on foot (if he ended up having to) if he ran and depending on just how much danger Sam was in. There was just rustling on the other end of the line and a…feminine voice of some sort if he could place it.
"Dean? What's wrong? Is there a problem?" Cas asked, feeding off the worry that was practically rolling off of Dean.
"I have no idea. Sam? You hearing me or is it static?" he waited for a reply, but was met with the sound of something, probably Sam, hitting something hard and groaning. So whatever it was had now hurt his brother, and Dean was too far to provide any immediate help. He was just hoping that the pops he had heard weren't shots and that Sam hadn't been thrown into a wall and was bleeding out. "Sam? Sammy?" Dean tried, his tone increasing his need to hear Sam's voice. If he'd been knocked unconscious or shot with something on the loose and coming for him…
"It wasn't James, it's the wife, we got the wrong bones!" finally came through, loud enough that even Cas could hear it and he looked to Dean worriedly.
But that made no sense. James was supposed to be the spirit, angry that he'd been put in jail. "The wife? She's been cremated, you're sure?" he said hurriedly. So Sam had seen the spirit then, which meant she was there and wreaking havoc, which meant danger. Why couldn't a milk run just be easy for a change?
"I'm sure," Sam said as confidently as he could, which didn't do anything for Dean's state. "Get to the house. Dean, you-" the line cut off abruptly, leaving Dean to shout his brother's name into it. The call had been disconnected, probably by the spirit. Dean dropped it from his ear and tried to not crush it in his grasp. "Son of a bitch!" he cursed, and picked up there stuff and started jogging to the car.
"Dean, he's sure we're actually dealing with Stevens' wife?" Cas asked, following along hurriedly next to Dean.
"That's what he said. From what it sounds like, she's pissed," Dean said tightly, wishing the entrance to the small cemetery was closer.
"But she's been cremated, there are no bones to burn and we do not have time to look for something that would be of value to her."
And there was the problem. Dean slowed down for a split second before he started back up again. The house, the burned house, that must have been what Sam was referring to. "The house. We've gotta go back and finish torching the house, that has to be what she's connected to." It made sense, anyways. Parts of her remains were probably in the house that she and James had shared. It was as good a connection as any.
They finally reached the car and Dean threw their supplies into the trunk and pulled out a shotgun before he slammed it closed.
"And if it isn't?"
Dean didn't want to think about if that wasn't the answer, because then that would mean that they were up the creek without a paddle and Sam was about to drown. "That'll be it," he said and dug the keys out of his pocket, but paused. "We have to split up."
"Dean, we had agreed, no stupid decisions, no breaking off," Cas started, but Dean waved his hand to get him to stop.
"I know, damnit, I know, and Sam's going to have my head, but at least he won't be dead." Reluctantly, he passed the Impala's keys over to Cas. "They're in opposite directions. It'll take too long to run to the house, the station's closer. I'll head there, see if they need help, you burn down the part of the building that's still standing," he directed, but Cas looked uneasy about it all. Dean couldn't blame him.
"Are you sure that's wise?" the angel asked, but did eventually take the offered keys.
Dean shook his head. "None of it's wise, Cas. I go to the house, ghost shows up. I go to the station, ghost shows up. But we need two people in the field to get this all done, I can't be benched for this, not with Sam's life on the line." Maybe when he got there, Sam would have the ghost trapped, or at least dispelled for a time. But given how it had sounded over the phone, Dean knew the chances of that happening were slim.
Still, his brother was there, and he was going to pull him out of whatever mess he was in. Cas could handle burning an already burned house, Dean had to do what he did best: protect his little brother.
"And how would Sam react to you putting your life on the line when we discussed that it should not happen?"
"He'll be pissed, but he'll get over it!" Dean's voice rose. "Another day on the job, we need to move. Don't you dare scratch my Baby," he added, mildly threatening in tone.
Cas, finally understanding the timeliness of the situation, reluctantly nodded and got into the car. Dean had no idea if the angel had driven it before, but right now it didn't matter, they didn't have the time to drop someone off and proceed to the next spot.
Dean watched until Cas pulled out of the parking lot and made a left, the Impala rumbling as she quickly ate up the pavement beneath her. He then took off at a run towards the right, checking his watch for the time after every hundred steps. He only hoped the station and Sam would still be standing when he got there.
He turned a corner down the last little street just past seven and a half minutes after he had started running. However, to his absolute horror, it seemed that seven and a half minutes had taken too long.
Dean saw the smoke before he saw the building itself, and while he wanted to stop dead in his tracks out of disbelief, he pushed himself forward into the still empty parking lot, chest heaving with exertion. His eyes were wide as he looked at the building. Flames had started curling around the doors and windows and the whole top of the building was smoking. Dean had no idea how long the blaze had been going on, but given that firemen hadn't shown up yet, it couldn't have been very long.
No way it had grown this size in that amount of time without some evil supernatural help. Why, of all the things, why did they have to be dealing with a pyro ghost?
"Sam!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, looking for any way into the building, or any sign that Sam or the sheriff had gotten out unharmed. In the front of the building, he found neither. He got as close as he could to the flames, still shouting. From his position, he could see that the glass door was blocked by something and that smoke was rapidly filling up the inside of the building. Dean switched tactics and curved around the side of the building and pulled out his phone.
He dialed the emergency services as quickly as he could and told them to get to the police station a-s-a-freaking-p and was told that vehicles were on their way out. He was told to remain out of the fire and stay on the line.
He'd been planning on doing that initially, but after another few seconds of looking through the black smoke, he realized that there was a very real possibility that his brother was in there, possibly unconscious or hurt, and had no way to get out. Sam may not have the three minutes it would take the fire department to arrive to start helping.
The breaking of glass from the back of the building was the last motivating factor he needed to tell the sensible part of his brain to shut up in favor of the 'save Sammy' section, which usually won out anyways. Sam was going to kill him for this, if he was still conscious when Dean got to him. As he got closer, he saw that the flames had begun to collapse a section of the roof, which warped the doors and had left one of them cracked open. One of the windows in the back office had broken, but Dean didn't see any sign of movement immediately around the window, and it was too high for him to clamber through. The doors were his best bet.
He'd need two hands for whatever they were getting into, and stowed the shotgun underneath a tree and some yet to be cleaned up leaves that were away from the blaze.
Dean then switched out the phone in his hand for the bandana he always carried, the one that had gotten softer with more years of use, no doubt to patch up hand wounds and quell fevers and offer support like it had in the past. How much more blood had it seen than he remembered? No time to dwell on it now. He tied it around his nose and mouth, not that it would do much good, but anything that could help mattered at that point.
He took a few deep breaths and shook his head before he clambered through the door, staying low to avoid what smoke he could, shouting Sam's name the whole way. He'd already gotten his brother out of a fire once, he could do it again.
Even from inside the blaze, Sam could tell that it was spreading much too quickly for that of a normal fire, which fit the descriptions of what had happened to the other victims. No sprinklers came on like they should have, and the damage he could see around him was soon obscured with thick smoke that danced in the firelight.
He'd met some pissed off spirits in his time as a hunter, and this one was high on the list, whether or not she had reason to be pissed.
"What do we do?" the sheriff coughed out, trying to keep his face in the crook of his elbow to avoid the smoke. His eyes were wildly scanning what he could see in front of him for the spirit, which had yet to appear again. If they were lucky, she'd stay away.
Sam squinted through the smoke again to the front door, which was definitely not an option. They may be able to make it to the back door, but whether or not it was blocked, Sam had no idea, and they may not have time to go there and come back and get another plan. The hallways leading to the holding cells were also blocked. Sam honestly had no idea. "Closest room with a window that leads out?" he eventually pitched, his voice loud and hoarse to be heard over the roar of the flames. The continued coughing definitely wasn't helping his aching ribs any.
Maybe if they didn't have to go the whole way through a blocked hallway, they could make something work.
"Office," Matthews pointed with his free arm towards the back of the station, where the fire was somewhat less concentrated. There was an offshoot of the main room that lead into a section Sam hadn't yet been into, where the individual offices were. The entrance was blocked by a knocked over file cabinet, and, of course, more fire, but it was their best and closest bet.
"Go," Sam nodded. Matthews maneuvered around him and sidestepped as best he could the debris on the floor, Sam doing the same as he followed in his footsteps. He checked over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure the spirit hadn't appeared right behind them.
The smoke continued to thicken as the fire continued to expand. The two men carefully picked their way to the downed file cabinet, which was too hot to touch to get across. Sam offered a shoulder, which Matthews used to lever himself up to step over the barricade and over to the other side, and threw up a hand which Sam grabbed and got himself over in a similar fashion. Out in the main area, something in the ceiling creaked and snapped, but Sam didn't look back to find out what it was.
They were met with a walkway that split into two offices, one of which had an open door. Sunlight filtered in through the window, providing the room with a source of light other than the red-hot fire that was reflecting off everything. Both men immediately started looking for something they could use to get to the window, as it was raised above the normal level, all the while trying to avoid the flames that were climbing up the walls around them.
Through the smoke, Sam noticed the desk in the center of the room, and Matthews followed his gaze towards it. They nodded to each other, not needing words as the smoke kept building, and moved the desk so that it was positioned near the wall under the window. Sam, being the taller one, then took the lead, got up on top of the desk, and used the butt of his pistol to break through the glass when it was clear the window wouldn't open due to the structure shifting.
"Matthews!" he shouted down, one word being all he could manage before he dissolved into a fit of coughing. Being up higher meant he was more exposed to the smoke, which was trying to filter out through the hole that had been made. Sam put his gun back in his jacket and raised an elbow to cover his nose and mouth as he coughed, but when he turned around to look for the sheriff behind him, he wasn't there.
He cast a quick glance back at the window before he got down from the desk, grateful at least that for now he was below the rising smoke. The heat, however, was also rising, and flames started to lick at his jacket as he squinted his eyes to search the room for the sheriff.
"Sam!" His name was strained and cut short, and Sam struggled to see more than a foot in front of him through the smoke. He followed the noise and stayed low, and was eventually able to make out Matthews' legs on the ground in front of him, the rest of his body stretched out beyond the threshold of the office door.
In the firelight beyond, Sam could just barely make out the ghost standing a foot or so beyond, apparently keeping Matthews in place on the floor as the flames encroached. Sam immediately stiffened, his fuzzy mind trying to figure out where the hell he could find some iron in the office to dispel the ghost. Their guns were out in the main area, and it would take him too long to get back out there. The bullets in his normal pistol were silver, not iron, so they wouldn't be of any help either.
Maybe a hammer, nails, some sort of utensils? He started running through a list of possible things in his head. "Hang on!" he yelled back, and began searching what drawers he could for anything that he could use. After a few moments, he heard a scream, one that didn't come from Matthews, and he took a few steps back into the doorway, just in time to watch the ghost go up in flames of her own.
A small weight was lifted from his shoulders when he realized that Dean and Cas must have gotten the house burned, like he had said. The ghost was gone, and while he liked to believe that the fire decreased in intensity ever so slightly, it didn't go out completely.
Smoke inhalation and minor burns were already becoming a problem, they needed to get out, and fast. Sam stuck out a hand and helped Matthews to his feet, who joined Sam with his own fit of coughing. They struggled back into the room, where Sam got Matthews up onto the desk and gave him a slight boost to make his way through the window. As soon as he was through, Sam reached an arm up, but stopped when he heard another voice in the station.
Surely it couldn't be, right? No way he'd be here…
"Sammy?!" Sure enough, it was Dean's worried tone that carried through the flames and the collapsing building to reach Sam's ears. He was supposed to have stayed in the car, he wasn't supposed to be in the station. There was no way in hell Sam was going out the window then, not with Dean looking for him inside (how the hell he had gotten in, Sam had no idea, but he wasn't exactly surprised that his brother had managed to), unlikely to give up until he found Sam.
He muttered a 'damnit' under his breath and maneuvered back off the desk and through the room towards where the downed file cabinet was blocking the way. "Dean!" he shouted over the roar, and jerked backwards instinctively as the building creaked around him.
"Sam!" It was definitely closer, but through his watery, dizzy vision, Sam couldn't make out where his brother was coming from. He got as close as he could to the cabinet without touching it, not being able to get across without some sort of lever like he and Matthews had offered each other.
"There's a cabinet! It's-" Sam cut off abruptly in another fit of coughing, once again jostling his ribs and sending him into another dizzy spell caused by the lack of oxygen. Whatever he had managed to say though, thankfully, had been enough, as an outstretched hand appeared out of the smoke in front of him. Sam took it and grasped it tightly before he used it to lever himself up and over the cabinet, struggling to maintain his balance as he did so.
There was no smile on Dean's face when Sam came over, not that there should have been, and Sam would have been berating him if they hadn't been in the middle of an inferno. Still, something like relief bloomed in the center of his chest at the sight of his brother once again appearing to save his ass. Missing memories didn't take away the instinctual and ever-present need for the older Winchester to protect the younger one, even at Dean's own expense.
"Door busted open," Dean explained loudly, one hand on Sam's shoulder, the other pointed towards the back exit. His voice was a bit muffled, and as Sam squinted, he noticed it was because their bandana was obscuring the bottom half of Dean's face, probably to act as some sort of a smoke guard. It was probably doing a whole lot of good, given what they were facing. His eyes were blown wide and panicked under his guise of trying to keep it together, and his face was already streaked with soot and sweat. Sam imagined he probably looked a few times worse.
Dean didn't give Sam a chance to reply before the hand on his shoulder turned into an arm under it, and he immediately began supporting some of his little brother's weight as he tried to maneuver them back towards the door. Sam's feet kept catching on bits of debris on the floor, and Dean's counterweight was the only thing that kept them from fully collapsing in a heap.
The creaking in the building seemed to follow them as they picked their way back where Dean had entered. The noise seemed to reach its pitch the moment Sam's eyes registered outside light filtering through the smoke. Those must have been the doors Dean had mentioned busted open, and next to them was a cabinet that must have at one point been blocking them. Sam didn't know how Dean had gotten over it, but a cabinet couldn't stand in the way of Dean Winchester, and that was about all the explanation Sam needed.
Dean turned his head up and Sam followed suit, as if they'd be able to see anything beyond the flames. It was either what Sam didn't see, or what they both heard that had Dean picking up the pace, and Sam trying to keep up. His lungs burned for something other than the hazy, contaminated air around them, and the heat on his back had risen considerably.
However fast they moved, they couldn't seem to catch up to the door before the noises caught up to them.
"Not gonna make it," Sam heard Dean mutter under his breath, like the final nail in the coffin of realization that the building was actually about to come down around them.
Sam could swear he almost heard sirens outside. They were close, so damn close. But before they could get to the door, Dean was pushing both of them down towards the ground in a futile attempt to avoid further catastrophic injury. The fire around him got darker as Dean tried to cover Sam's head with his arms, and Sam found that he didn't have the strength to push him away or try to do the same.
Once again, Dean was protecting him, but there was no one left to protect Dean. Why hadn't he just stayed in the damn car? Asking it again didn't make the answer disappear from Sam's head any faster.
When the ceiling, its beams, and the fire did in fact clamber to the ground, it buried the Winchesters with it, and Sam finally gave into the dizziness that had been plaguing him since the smoke started.