Wouldja look at that? I'm on time today!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHAPTER 16

Sam is fuming. Practically foaming at the mouth, and he knows he's probably freaking Lisa the hell out, but he also doesn't really care at this point. Someone has his brother. Someone has Dean.

"So he's alive?" Lisa asks, relief evident in her voice. They're standing in her kitchen, laptop and miscellaneous research spread out over the table and overflowing to the counter. They'd been at it for a few hours before the call had come in, presumably from Dean. Sam had jumped up from his chair to answer it, and Lisa had followed suit. Sam places the phone back down on the table, rubbing a hand over his mouth.

"Yeah, for now," he answers. "Says he'll meet me in a few days to make an exchange."

"An exchange for what?"

"No idea," Sam admits.

"Okay, so what do we do now?"

"Same as before," Sam says, beginning to regain some control. He's never been good at keeping a clear mind when Dean's in danger, and it's never helped him. He needs to focus. He takes a long, slow breath. "We keep digging. We figure out who took him."


It takes another two hours, and Lisa's the one who finds it.

"Hey Sam?" They're sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, their laptops lined up like Battleship boards, back to back.

"Yeah?" Sam is only half listening. He's rereading all the information he'd been able to dig up on Sandy Crippens, the woman they'd spoken to at the bar.

"Didn't you say crossroads deals only last ten years? And then you go to Hell?" Lisa is clicking through something on her laptop, typing furiously.

"Yeah," Sam repeats, giving her a little bit more of his attention. She sounds like she's piecing something together. Something important.

Lisa nods to herself, staring at her screen. "Okay," she continues. "So how is Phil Moorhead still alive?"

Sam is back to half-listening. He turns back to the file in front of him as he talks. "Had us confused too," he says. "According to him, it wasn't a crossroads deal. It was his dog. Pepper."

The silence stretches longer than it should, so Sam finally looks up to find Lisa staring at him over both computers, eyebrows raised in confusion. "Is that supposed to make sense to me?"

Sam snorts. "Basically Phil just stumbled into the stock market like an idiot and got lucky."

"Got lucky, huh?" Lisa says, her disbelief made clear. "Sam, the guy never made a wrong move. From everything I'm reading about, he didn't miscalculate a single market fluctuation. I mean, magic dog or not, that's unbelievable. That's not natural."

Sam comes around to her side of the table, leaning over for a closer look at what she's reading. It's an article about Phil. The more he reads, the wider his eyes get. "Wow. Okay, that's weird," he concedes. "But I mean, even if you're right and it was a deal, it still doesn't explain how he'd be alive twelve years after he started making money. Demons don't give out extensions."

"Not even if this Phil guy had something else to offer them?" Lisa asks.

"Like what?"

Lisa flicks her wrist out in annoyance. "I don't know, Sam. This isn't really my gig. I'm just saying, that's how business usually works. You stick with a person for as long as they can help you make a profit. So what do demons profit from?"

"Destruction. World domination," Sam lists. Then pauses. "Souls, technically."

"Okay, so those are the deals, right? How do they work, exactly?" Lisa asks.

"People trade their souls for the things they want," Sam explains. He begins to pace, trying not to let his mind wander to where Dean might be at this exact moment, how deep into trouble he could have landed himself. "You meet at a literal crossroads and it's like a business deal, essentially."

"Okay," Lisa blinks, processing. She's typing on her laptop again. "So maybe Phil's a really good salesman, then."

"It's usually the demons doing the selling," Sam contests, but there's something beginning to tickle at the back of his brain.

"What kind of dog did he have?" Lisa asks after a moment.

"Huh?"

"The magic dog, what breed was it?"

Sam shrugs. "Uh, Great Dane, I think."

Lisa spins the laptop towards him, and Sam stops his pacing to look at the screen. "This Great Dane?"

A collage of several photos of the same dog Sam had seen on Phil's phone greet him on the screen, and he nods.

"But this is a Facebook post from six years ago," Lisa says, cocking her head to the side.

"And?" Sam prompts.

"And, read the caption," Lisa urges, bringing his attention back to the picture.

Sam reads the words below it: It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our beautiful Pepper. He filled our lives with a joy and a playfulness that we will forever be grateful for. Rest in Peace.

"Six years ago, you said?" Sam confirms, and Lisa nods. "He said Pepper passed four days ago. Why would he lie?"

"As the mom of a teenager, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it's because he's hiding something," Lisa replies, spinning the computer back to herself. She squints at it one more time before raising her eyebrows at Sam.

"It's all pretty thin, but seeing as it's the only lead we have, I'll take it." Sam straightens up, reaching for his coat where it hangs on the kitchen chair. Lisa reaches for her own jacket.

"I'm gonna make a quick call to the the Hemlock Hotel," Sam says. "See if Phil is still staying there. Pack anything you need in the car." He tosses her the Impala's keys from his coat pocket.

A few minutes later they're in the Impala, speeding to the place Sam prays he'll find his brother. According to the concierge at the Hemlock, Phil Moorhead had checked out of the hotel. Sam had managed to get a home address with one more phone call and some fake credentials. Sam's running through scenarios in his head, wondering if he'd benefit from having Lisa as backup or if he'll have to cuff her to the steering wheel before he goes in. A thought occurs to him then, and he glances over at her. She's staring out the passenger side window, peeling nervously at her nails.

"I have to show you how to load a gun," he says.

Lisa turns toward him. "Already know how."

Sam tilts his head at her, eyebrows raised. Lisa's lip twitches a little in something like mirth. She stops picking at her nails.

"I was surprised too, when I figured it out."

Sam's even more intrigued now. "How did you figure it out?"

"Guy I was seeing took me on a date to a gun range," she explains, grin widening as she gets caught up a little in the memory. "I think he wanted to impress me with his aim." She snorts. "I still have my target hanging in the house. Almost all bulls-eyes. He never called again…."

Sam chuffs in impressed amusement. "So Dean must've taught you then," he concludes. He looks at her seriously then, eyes growing earnest.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you. For losing your memories and not having any say in it."

Lisa nods, meeting his stare head on. "Thank you, Sam. That's good of you to say."

"I mean it," Sam insists. "Memories are everything, especially to Dean and me. We don't get to take anything else with us, you know? So he, of all people, should've known better."

Sam's not really sure why he's pushing this. He doesn't mean to rag on his brother, and he knows Dean's been through a lot. In a way, these are the words he's always wanted to say to Dean, but never would.

"Has anything like that ever happened to you?" Lisa asks suddenly.

Sam thinks of all the things he could say, all the ways he feels connected to her now. Dean has always made decisions for him. Sam can see the necessity in that most of the time, but other times he's found it hard to forgive Dean's strategies, the things he's risked and the things they've both lost because of those decisions. And part of Sam knows that it's unfair to place the blame on Dean's shoulders. They've faced impossible choices with no good outcomes for years on end. But still, if Sam feels for it, he can find a pool of resentment glistening inside his gut. He shakes his head at her question.

"Not like that, no. But this life…." he pauses. "I feel like I've lost certain parts of myself, too."

"Monsters sucking out your soul? All that?" Lisa asks, half-joking. Sam blinks at her in surprise.

"That's actually...you're more on the nose than you know," he says. "Sometimes that's how it happens- it's the monsters that take those pieces. And sometimes it's just...it's just you. It's just what you have to become in order to survive."

"Sounds like you're talking about Dean, now."

Sam scrunches his forehead in acknowledgement. "I'm talking about both of us, I guess. I never agreed with what Dean did, letting Cas take your memories. I still don't," he emphasizes. "But recently, I think I've at least begun to understand why he did it. How desperately he wanted to keep you safe." Sam eases the Impala left at the next streetlight. They're not far now. "Not only that, on another level, I think he wanted to let you skip over the heartbreak of it all, you know? Again, not saying it was right. I just…" Sam sighs. "I think I get it. When you love someone, you don't want to make them say goodbye. You don't want them to have to live without you, because you know how it feels to live without them."

Lisa hums out what might be an assent. "Sounds like you're back to talking about you again," she says.

"Doesn't matter," Sam says. "Doesn't make a difference who I'm talking about."

Because Sam has always known that the strings of their lives are forever intertwined, has shared his brother's pain and joy and all of the little, boring, crazy, horrible, wonderful moments in between, and he has to bring Dean back now. He has to find him and bring him home the way he couldn't when it was Dick Roman and black slime all over the walls and no one left but him. And Dean, trapped and alone within the oozing underbelly of Purgatory. Without him.

Sam steps on the gas.


Getting down to the nitty gritty. See you next week and thank you so much for your thoughts/comments!