A/N: Here you go, kiddos, chapter eighteen of "Prisoner of War". I'd like to start by thanking all my readers, you guys are really faithful and I deeply appreciate it. And thank you also to my reviewers, your feed back helps me gauge whether or not this story is coming across as I intend to it to.

Let's see, as far as notes go, a couple of interesting things. If you are following my fluffy, hurt and comfort fic, How To Fix a Winchester, it updated yesterday. I've received some really great prompt for some upcoming chapters, the next of which is already in the works. My Darkside Sam project, "All The Pretty Monsters" updated yesterday also, and I really love the direction it's going in.

Lastly, because I am obviously insane, I debuted a new story yesterday. It's called "Tuesday's Child" and the main characters will be Sam, Dean and everyone's favorite Arch Angel, Gabriel.

"Tuesday's Child" was meant to take the place of "Prisoner of War" in my posting schedule once "Prisoner of War" concluded, but since I've decided to lengthen this story, it kinda pushed "Tuesday's Child" to the back burner, which bummed me out a little.

So I decided to go ahead and get the prologue out, as a kind of demo. To be clear, "Tuesday's Child" will not update too often at first, because I'm still involved in two large projects which come first, as they have a dedicated reader base, but the response so far has been really good, so I will try to update a couple of times a month, then, when this story concludes, "Tuesday's Child" will start updating more regularly.

Just wanted to fill you guys in, but don't worry, I'm committed to "Prisoner of War" and it's update schedule, so for now, "Tuesday's Child" is just a fun bonus when I get my work done, lol.

As Always,

EverReader

Disclaimer: Not my sandbox

Prisoner of War- Chapter Eighteen

"The Fortune Cookie Club"

They made good time going to Berryville, despite the rainy weather, pulling in just a little after eleven. Sam had spent the ride lost in his book, the challenge of translating the ancient words pulling him in the way it always did.

He started a little when Dean parked. Sam looked up from his book, blinking owlishly at his brother.

"Berryville already?" Sam asked, shifting his sore shoulder a little. Funny how it seemed to hurt more being cramped in the car than it had while he'd been jogging. Perhaps Dean was right and he'd jostled it to much earlier.

Still, the ride had seemed to soothe his frazzled nerves a little.

"Welcome to Berryville, the luckiest place in Colorado." Dean said with a sarcastic smile. They climbed out, stretching their legs.

Sam glanced up and down the quiet street. Berryville was quiet, with a spare handful of pedestrians, window shopping or coming out of one of the various small restaurants housed on what appeared to be Berryville's main drag. Berryville was on the shores of Lake Auburn, and Sam could smell the water whenever the wind shifted in the right direction.

Resolutely, he pushed down his memories of Lake Manitoc.

"Well, it doesn't look like a den of witchcraft and iniquity." Sam said, suddenly unsure about the legitimacy of the case after all.

"Appearances can be deceiving." Dean said, coming around to stand next to Sam on the sidewalk. The rain had mostly stopped, now it was more like a gently falling mist, like they'd driven into a cloud.

"This place, for instance," Dean said, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb at the Chinese restaurant behind them, "Looks like a hole in the wall. I bet the hot braised pork is amazing, though."

Dean grinned at Sam and Sam shook his head in mild disbelief. "Dude, we just ate, like two hours ago."

Dean made a hurt face, "Hey, man. I'm a growing boy."

Sam raised a brow. "Well, growing outward, maybe..."

He danced back half a step with a small grin when Dean pretended to take a swipe at him. "Don't blame the messenger."

"Bitch." Dean's grin widened, but Sam's faltered for a minute before he forced it back.

"Jerk." He mumbled, not making eye contact as he looked over at the restaurant instead.

"Wong Foo's. Well, the name's certainly original at least." He remarked mildly, intentionally not meeting his brother's eyes.

Dean had a habit of making Sam forget the bad stuff, the memories and the shame, which was great while it lasted, but then Sam's secrets would come rushing back at him like a shark-filled tidal wave and suddenly Sam would be drowning all over again.

In honesty, sometimes he felt like he'd never escaped from Lake Manitoc at all.

On his best days, he was just treading water.

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Dean studied his brother as discreetly as he could while pretending to study the menu. Sam's color was better these past few weeks, and he didn't look quite so tired.

Sam was the only person Dean had ever met who seemed to be soothed by the monotony of school and classwork.

He was still to thin, but he seemed to eat whenever he was reminded too, which wasn't really anything new for him, so Dean wouldn't stress too much about it.

Dean hoped Caroline would be good for them, though it still rankled that John wasn't telling him what was going on.

On the plus side, it gave him more time to try and get Sam back on his feet. The kid had had a rough few weeks, and Dean was ready for things to settle down, at least as much as it ever did for a hunter.

Life was always dangerous for a hunter, but lately things had just been ridiculous. Sam had spent more time in the process of nearly getting killed then he's spent in school

"See something you like?" Sam remarked mildly, and Dean made a face.

"Can't decide between the hot braised pork or the general's chicken." He said, hoping to distract his brother.

Sam looked up. "You want me to order one, then you can have some of mine?" He offered, brows raised.

Dean frowned. "You don't even like either of those, Sam. You always get things with mushrooms and broccoli and stuff."

Sam shrugged. "It's not like I'm paying for it anyway. You're paying, you may as well get what you want."

Dean scowled. "Shut up about that shit, already, Sam. You're sixteen. You're not supposed to buy your own food."

"You did. For both of us, all the time." Sam pointed out quietly.

Dean opened his mouth and closed it again. "That was different." He said finally.

Sam cocked his head at his brother but didn't say a word, an unreadable expression on his face.

The waiter came up then. "Welcome to Wong Foo's, best Chinese restaurant in Berryville, luckiest town in Colorado, say so in paper, see!" He handed a copy of the Berryville Gazette to Sam, who smiled at him weakly.

"Thanks." Sam said, placing the folded newspaper beside his plate.

"General's chicken, Beef with broccoli, and an order of pork fried rice. Oh, and some egg rolls." Dean said quickly, heading off Sammy before his kid could take his martyr movement any further.

Sam glanced over at him but remained silent.

The waiter wrote his order down and left, muttering to himself in Chinese.

"So, how's school?' Dean asked, honestly curious.

Once upon a time Sam would have loved nothing more than to be asked about school, would have happily spent hours talking about classes and books and the papers he was going to write.

Recently, though, Sam had stopped talking, about school or pretty much anything else.

"Huh?" Sam asked, glancing up from where he'd started perusing the paper. He frowned. "Hey, what's that sound?"

"What sound?" Dean asked in confusion. The lunch rush hadn't hit yet, and the resturant was actually still pretty quiet.

"That...I don't know. That humming? Kind of, like, buzzing noise? Sam asked, rubbing his temple just a little.

"No. The lights maybe?" Dean said, glancing up,the restaurants lights were all the old fashioned kind, with regular,sixty watt bulbs screwed into them.

"Nah." SAm shook his head. "It's not the lights. I checked when I first came in. You really don't hear anything?"

Dean frowned. "You okay? You look like your heads starting to hurt."

"Just that sound, whatever the hell it is. It's not life threatening or anything. Just annoying." Sam muttered.

"If your sure." Dean said uncertainly. "Well, how about school then?"

Sam looked at him, distracted.

"Oh, um. Good. It's good, I mean, it's just school, right?" Sam replied, face buried in the newspaper again as he tried to take his mind off the ringing in his ears. He felt like a miniture wasp had flown in his ear canal and was now making it's discontent known.

He'd noticed it as soon as they'd come in, but dismissed in as some kind of white noise caused by some older electronic.

Now he just wished that whatever it was that was buzzing would stop already.

"Dude, you love school!" Dean said indignantly.

Sam ignored his comment, folding back the newspaper awkwardly with one hand. "Look. Another lotto winner, just this morning. That makes four in two weeks."

"Told you, Berryville lucky town. And Wong Foo's is most lucky restaurant. All big ticket winners big Wong Foo's customers!" Their waiter said, setting down their food with a flourish.

Dean raised a brow. "Sure, and it has nothing to do with you being the only Chinese restaurant in town, right?"

"Of course not!" Their waiter cried indignantly, and Sam glanced warningly over at his brother.

The waiter, whom Dean was beginning to suspect was none other than 'Wong Foo' himself, leaned over, whispering conspiratorially.

"It lucky fountain!" He said, pointing towards the three foot wide fountain in the restaurant's tiny entry way.

"Riigghhttt." Dean said, nodding and making meaningful eye contact with Sam.

"Thanks...for the tip." Sam said, coughing a little to clear his throat.

"Make a wish." The man said, winking over exaggeratedly. "You'll see. Good things come to Wong Foo's customers. Just look there!" He pointed at another pair of customer's across the restaurant. The woman, a pretty brunette, was laughing adoringly at the bespectacled man in front of her as she fed him noodles.

"They meet, right here, just three weeks ago. Now they engaged."

The waiter walked away with a self-satisfied expression as Dean studied the couple.

"Huh." Dean said musingly. "Talk about a ten and a two."

Sam wasn't paying attention once again, though this time he, too, was watching the customers at yet another table.

Three women were sitting at the table, and the one directly across from Sam was talking loudly, gesturing with loud, sweeping hand gestures.

"I'm telling you, Tracy, I was attacked. I'm lucky to be alive. I've always known I was sensitive, my Aunt Margery was too, you know, but I never thought I'd be attacked by a ghost in the womens locker room." She said.

Dean's head swiveled towards Sam like a hunting dog who'd caught a scent.

"She just say what I think she said?" He asked with a wolfish grin.

"The part about the ghost or the part about it being the womens locker room?" Sam asked, looking less than impressed with his brother's intentions.

"Sammy! You know as well as I do that a hunter has to be willing to go where the case leads him!" Dean waggled his eyebrows and Sam just shook his head.

"Well then, Officer Tyler, you'd better go interview her, then." Sam said, gesturing magnanimously.

Dean smiled at first, getting a kick out of the thought of getting to use one of his fake ID's, but then he frowned.

"What about you?" He asked Sam.

Sam shrugged again. "I can't exactly pass for a cop. I can, however, pass for a high school student doing a paper on urban legends. I'll go interview that hunter who says he saw Big Foot."

Dean frowned again. "I don't know man. Lately, things seem to go south whenever we split up."

Sam looked at him oddly. "There's two of us, and two leads, Dean. This is what we do."

Dean shifted uncomfortably. "Well, yeah but usually we do it together."

"I'm not a kid anymore, Dean. You and Dad were splitting up to follow leads on the same cases when you were sixteen. Hell, I was probably in more danger back in the libraries of some of those towns you guys left me in." Sam said, suddenly remembering, two years back, when he'd met the Kitsune, Amy.

Dean gave his brother a strange look. "What do you mean?" He asked.

Sam bit his lip, wishing he'd kept his mouth shut.

Dean and John didn't know about Amy, about how she'd saved Sam, at the expense of her own mother's life.

He didn't know that guilt and confusion over being saved by a monster had suddenly made it so much harder to act like the hunter that Dean and John had wanted him to be.

Dean didn't know that it was Sam's hurt and anxiety and confusion over Amy and her actions, and the way they had cast dubious aspersions over his family's entire existence that had led Sam to run away to Flagstaff that same winter. Dean had never spoken a word about Flagstaff, choosing to act like it had never happened, and Sam had never had to guts to bring it up to him.

And now, Sam had his way, they never would.

Sam was an expert at keeping monstrous secrets, after all.

"Nothing. Some of those librarians were psycho, that's all." He said easily.

He could tell Dean didn't believe him, but thankfully, he didn't press the issue.

"You got your phone, right?" Dean said instead.

Sam held it up for Dean to see with his own eyes. Dean nodded.

"Okay. Call me in an hour, or I'm coming in, guns blazing." Dean ordered.

"Sure." Sam replied, lowering his eyes so Dean couldn't see the expression in them as Sam thought about the gun in the ankle holster John had ordered him to start carrying the same day they reached Caroline.

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Dean scowled in frustration as he shook his homemade EMF reader, but the needle stubbornly refused to move.

He'd checked every inch of locker room, the showers, the sauna and even walked along the pool deck.

Nothing. Nil. Nada.

Zilch.

The woman's locker room at the Berryville Country Club was the least haunted place Dean had possibly ever been in his entire life.

Seriously, he'd been in Subway's more haunted.

What was worse, the country club was closed for seasonal cleaning, and the locker room was completely empty.

Walking through once more for good measure, he hoped Sam was having more luck.

Pulling out his phone to check the time, his saw that he'd had a text message come in from Sam.

"Went to check out scene of crime." The first line read. The second line made even less sense.

"What kind of bear drinks light beer?"

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me." Dean swore, clenching his free hand as he imagined shaking some sense into his reckless little brother.

He should have stuck with the lo-jack idea after all.