Solitude is something we all secretly long for, even chase. Quiet stolen moments to breathe and reflect upon and nature always seems to come into play in some aspect. Alone time is essential to a person's mental health, but under these circumstances, Riley was trying to keep herself from going crazy. She absolutely craved any form of human contact and the visits once a week to the tiny grocer to talk to the same kid who worked there were looked forward to each Saturday.
She already read the books she'd brought from the bunker and longed for a wifi signal.
And the boys.
Riley start planning daily activities for herself to do, keep busy and have a purpose. After writing in her journal for awhile, she'd finish her undoubtedly cold cup of coffee. She swept off the porch everyday that over looked Clear Lake and walked the shoreline after breakfast. She found a smooth, flat rock after being there for nearly a month and it gave her an idea. She would collect more smooth flat stones and build a firepit, something the cabin didn't have.
Maybe it was stupid, but it gave her something to do each day, scour the desolate water's edge for materials. Riley collected the rocks each morning and shaped the firepit each afternoon. This seemed to calm her anxiety some and her thoughts were never far from the Winchester boys. She knew while she was here doing collecting dumb rocks to keep herself from going mad, they were probably going nuts and trying to find her.
Or maybe they weren't trying at all.
Maybe they'd just shrugged and cut their losses and continued to hunt, the Mark removed from Dean.
Deep down, she knew that wasn't true. She'd gotten way too close to the boys for them to just drop her like a bad habit. Bobby clearly wanted them to look after her and they'd done an amazing job so far.
Well, until Riley decided to take matters into her own hands and take on the Mark.
What the boys and Castiel hadn't known was that while going to school in Decorah, Iowa, Riley had done her thesis on the Mark of Cain. She'd done research for nearly an entire semester on the subject, knowing more than the boys had ever dreamed of, which was why she'd asked Sam if it could be removed or transferred.
She'd thought it was strange now, looking back to when her teacher's assistant assigned her that particular subject for her twenty page thesis during her last semester, how he'd smiled and told her that he had the perfect subject for her to research. Little did Riley know just how that tiny seemingly meaningless coincidence in a little college a couple states away would change her world forever.
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Twelve weeks.
It had been twelve weeks since Riley had disappeared, leaving behind only a note. The boys spent their days and nights searching for something, anything, that might lead them to Riley. Castiel was always on watch, waiting for some sign of her presence somewhere in this green earth, but he always came up empty. The guilt he was feeling was something he never thought he'd experience and he knew that he should've told the boys what Riley was planning the moment she came to him months before Dean died and turned into a night of hell.
With each day that passed, Dean got more anxious. Time was ticking away fast and he wondered if Riley could feel it. Feel the beckon of the darkness calling out to her like a beacon of light in the darkest of nights. Only it wasn't a light; it was the draw of freedom... freedom from everything that made her good.
"You alright?" Sam's wary, rhetorical question made him close his red rimmed eyes.
"Oh yeah, I'm fuckin' wonderful."
"We have to keep looking." Sam still held on to hope that Riley was still out there, still okay, still fighting. Held onto that hope for the both of them.
"How could she just disappear?" He must have asked that question a million times. "She had a place to go and cash to use? How? Did you check and see if her cell was back on yet?" The older man was alternating between nervous pacing and looking over his brother's shoulder at the laptop.
"Of course I did." Sam's studious eyes raked over his older brother before he set down a mug of coffee in front of Dean's chair before sitting back down across from him in the war room. "Did you even go to bed last night?"
Dean glared at Sam before he rested his hands on the back of the wooden chair, completely ignoring the steaming mug of coffee. "I can't sleep. Just knowing she's out there somewhere... alone..."
"I'll take the next few hours. Go lay down before you pass out." Sam nodded to the couch a few feet away. "I'll keep looking, Dean." To his surprise, Dean considered that for a few seconds before he took a sip of coffee. Sam watched him head for the couch. He was snoring within a couple minutes, making the younger man smile sadly before his hazel gaze returned to the screen in front of him.
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He watched her sleep. Not in the creepy ass way way Castiel watched him sometimes, of course. His gaze meandered over her features; her slightly crooked nose, a few scattered freckles and her dark lashes. Her lips were parted in her slumber and he watched her breathe.
She was always at peace while she slept with him and there were the nights, like tonight, where he'd heard her awake in the stillness of the early morning, soft sobs coming from her room after some nightmare that she refused to share with him. Dean had swung his legs over the side of the bed, letting the dizziness fade before padding up the dark hallway in his bare feet to her room.
Riley wiped her eyes haphazardly and he entered her room and simply held out his hand. She'd reached out and taken it. He pulled her to her feet and led her wordlessly to his bedroom, closing the door behind them. He left his lamp on the lowest setting, because he knew she was afraid of the dark.
They'd climbed into his bed together, he always closest to the door. Dean felt her relax against him as he spooned her, pulling the blankets up over them. "Night Ry," He squeezed her just a little bit tighter.
"Night Dean." She whispered back.
He stirred a bit and his mind drifted onto the next dream.
They were giggling in his bed, an amused smirk on his mouth because she was a happy sort of drunk. She'd had a little of his whiskey in her coffee after dinner and had a nice buzz going. Everything he said was funny and he laughed right along with her, his ribs hurting in the best kind of way.
"I can't sleep."
"That's the booze."
"Read to me."
His brow quirked. "Like, a bedtime story?"
"Yeah."
"Like..." Dean racked his brain for anything. "Like what?"
"I'm reading a novel. It's in my top drawer." Her chocolate gaze held his. She held up a fist to do rock paper scissors and he shook his head.
"I'll go." He was back in his room in less than a minute and had said novel. "You know, Ry, I've read this. Wasn't half bad."
"Really?"
Dean settled next to her, his back against the headboard. "In high school or something." He began to read and his gravelly voice made her eyes close.
"I like to listen to you." Her sleepy voice was getting softer.
He smiled and continued to read as Riley drifted off. "The world is a fine place... and worth fighting for... I hate to leave it, I hate it very much..."
Dean's bloodshot eyes snapped open and he gasped for a breath. He sat up from where he'd been dozing at the war room in the couch, closing his eyes from the dizziness that threatened him with the sudden movement. Sam looked at him questioningly. "Dean?"
"Where's that letter Riley left us? I was dreaming and... remembered something..."
Sam pulled it out of a notebook and handed it over and Dean got up. "What?"
"This quote..." He tapped his index finger to the line in Riley's cryptic letter. "The world is a beautiful place and worth fighting for? That's from a book, Sam."
"What book?" The younger man rose when he saw his brother do so.
"I think I read it to her one night. Something by Hemmingway."
Sam had surprise on his features. "Really?" Dean gave him a sharp look. "Wait... that part about hating to leave this world..." He paled visibly and the older man stopped. "Dean, Hemmingway wrote that?"
"Right. I just said that."
Sam's jaw clenched. "Dean, Hemmingway committed suicide." His words were followed by a shocked silence.
"What?"
Sam leaned over the table and opened a new tab on his laptop and typed something in before turning the screen towards his brother, who'd moved to the lighted table. "July 2nd, 1961." Dean's eyes closed painfully.
"Sammy, we gotta find that book." The two men moved down to her bedroom quickly. Sam watched his brother yank open her top drawer and shuffle through her underwear before he came up with the only book she'd left behind in the bunker. He flipped it open and a piece of newspaper slid out and floated to the floor before Dean could grasp it. His knees cracked a bit as he knelt to the floor to pick of the paper and he frowned at what he saw.
"Wait. What the hell is this?" Dean straightened as he studied the creased paper before flipping it over. He set the paperback book on the dresser Bobby had made for Riley. Sam watched his brother as he unfolded it completely, confusion etched on his features. "It's a grocery ad." Sam held out a hand and Dean handed him the faded paper. Sam's gaze raked over the six month old ad before he finally saw it.
She'd drawn stars next to two of the store's specials for the week.
"Irish creme and coffee." Sam spoke out loud, a smile lighting up his face for the first time in nearly a month. "Dean, I know where she went..."
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The bag of groceries she'd brought in from the truck was set down on the tiny bit of counter space and Riley peered inside, pulling each item out to study. A new can of coffee, a bag of dried beans, canned chicken, brown rice and a bunch of bananas were all placed carefully on the counter top.
The conversation faded from her mind. Riley wandered into the bedroom and shuffled through her clothing, pulling out a hoodie and pajama shorts from the deep drawers under the bed. She yawned, suddenly exhausted and headed for the shower after pulling all the curtains in the cabin closed.
Riley placed her clean clothing on the sink before she undressed and tossed her worn clothing in the corner of the bathroom before she cranked on the water. Steam floated above her a moment later and she got inside the shower, sighing when the hot water cascaded over her aching shoulders. There was a half bottle of shampoo sitting on the shelf that she'd been using, probably from the last time the cabin was used and the smell of strawberries invaded her nostrils.
She washed her hair and body as Dean and Sam drifted into her thoughts and she felt her eyes sting with tears. Should she just call and let them figure this out together? Let them yell and tell her how stupid it was to transfer the Mark to herself?
No.
She couldn't do that. It was then she realized that she had no plan B. This had to work. She had holy blood running through her and that was honestly the only thing that kept her from freaking out right now. Riley reached out to crank the water back off. She got out and used one of the worn bath towels from the tiny storage cubby before hanging it over the shower door and getting into her pajamas.
That morning at the cabin, she started the day off with a mug of coffee out on the back deck, looking out over Clear Lake. There was fog over the water today and it was meandering through the trees in the morning and it was eerily beautiful. Riley sat out there for sometime after she'd heated a small pot of water on low on the range top for her oatmeal. She'd stuck close to the cabin, her running shoes crunching over the leaves as she moved to the water's edge to toss in stones, watching the waves echo outward. Gathering stones for her firepit today hadn't crossed her mind.
Something was different, she could feel it in her bones.
Something felt like it was looming over her.
The birds were starting to chirp and Riley headed back to the safety of her cabin, knowing the water was boiling on the stove, ready for her oatmeal to be poured in. After breakfast, Riley let herself doze on the couch until she awoke sometime later in the afternoon. There weren't any working clocks in the cabin and that in itself was maddening.
The only clock was above the stove and it ran on batteries, which were long dead now. Riley always looked at the receipts from the store to find out what time it was and that seemed to be a surprise each time. The same clerk, the teenage boy, was always there and he was always kind to her.
If he only knew the evil that was etched on my body, he probably wouldn't be this nice, her anxiety taunted her.
After a midday nap, she'd make herself dinner, pasta or rice and beans and some sort of fruit. Most often canned, but it was food and she couldn't complain. Riley would read in the living room and fall asleep when it got dark. Her days weren't ever rushed, for she had no place else to be.
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Hello lovely readers!
Shout out to EmilyAnnMcGarrett-Winchester, SaphyraBlu13, ButterflyAlley and jloh217 for reviewing the last chapter! You guys rock!
So who helped Riley leave the bunker and hide?
CitrineMama