Thursday Night

The moon was high as Lawrence Thibideaux pulled the curtains open in his hotel room. He was a tall man with stylishly cut blonde hair and nearly black eyes. He wore an expensive shirt and tie with the pants of a couture suit, and had the air of one who expected to be dressed in only the finest. He missed the scents and subtle beauty of New Orleans. He admired the stark beauty of the Texas countryside, and the rugged appeal of the hill country, but he missed the damp bayou. Hurricane Katrina had displaced more than the city's population. It had destroyed an entire way of life.

Lawrence felt the moon calling to him. He longed to change and run free, but he didn't know this city. He had no idea of where to run and where he could hide. He had known New Orleans like the back of his hand, her curves and hiding places. But here, he felt even more of an outcast than he ever had before. He had to find Bernard, to stop him from hurting anyone else. Bernard had been difficult to control on the bayou, but here, so close to the desert, he would be almost impossible to curb. The darkness, the malicious desires Bernard exhibited in general were reason for concern. But when he gave reign to his baser nature, his animalistic appetites, he became a true terror. The only thing that had kept him from losing control back home had been Lawrence and the Den council.

Behind him, a cell phone trilled. Lawrence had never taken to those garish musical rings, preferring a simple ring. He crossed the room and pulled the phone from its place in his coat pocket.

"Hello?" His velvet and whisky drawl fit the image of the Southern gentleman that Lawrence exuded. "Yes, I'm here. No, Houston was as bad as I remembered." He dug into the pocket of his coat once more and pulled out a pack f cigarettes, lighting up as he listened to the speaker on the other end of the line. "Has anyone gone north? I agree, Dallas is dry, but he may be making his way further north to the-"

Lawrence stopped as the other speaker raised in volume considerably. Holding the phone slightly away from his ear, Lawrence took a long drag on his Camel, and slowly exhaled through his nose.

"No, I agree he wouldn't stay in Austin. I'm going to stay around San Antonio for a while, see if I can pick up the scent here. I'll keep you posted."

Snapping the phone shut, Lawrence slid down onto the couch and took another long drag, exhaling after a few moments with a sigh. Before he could take a second drag, the phone rang again. With a curse, Lawrence answered.

"Yes? Oh, it's you." Lawrence listened for a moment, but quickly began to seethe with anger. "No," he broke in. "I have my own methods. I don't need outside help." The other speaker thought otherwise and Lawrence rose from his seat to move to the table where the hotel had so graciously left a pad and pen. "Okay, then. Eight, six, six… Mmhmm… two, nine. Got it. No, I don't want to call her if I can help it. I'll think about it. Goodbye."

Lawrence closed the phone and tossed it onto the table. He looked down at the name and number he had just written. John Winchester. The name did not inspire confidence. He thought about his other possibility for help. She knew the city, and he could trust her. But could he bring himself to see her again? Lawrence stood and crossed to the window, lost in thought. He watched the first full moon through the open window, admiring how much bigger it looked here in Texas, in the wide open sky. He wondered if she were looking at the same moon right now.

Friday Afternoon

The tires were just another shade of gray on the road. Yellow lines were dull in the glare of the Arizona sun, and white dashes blurred into a dingy beige as the vintage Impala sped down the empty stretch of highway at 85 mph. Desert stretched out on both sides of the road, cacti and rock formations whipping past too quickly to be admired. The sun reflected off the black hood, while inside the car Dean Winchester tapped his fingers on the wheel in time to Alanis Morissette telling the world what she really wants.

In the backseat, Sam, Dean's younger brother, slept peacefully, completely unaware of his brother's chick-rock. Dean snuck a look at his brother in the rearview mirror as Sam shifted his position. Sam's dark hair was rumpled from the cramped sleeping quarters and the wind coming through the open windows. His features, usually tense, were soft in sleep. He looked almost younger than his twenty-two years. Dark brown eyes were concealed behind closed eyes, and Dean wondered what he was seeing now. With dark blonde hair and light brown eyes, Dean was as different from Sam in appearance as they were different in their views of the world. Dean was built to fight; Sam was built to learn. Dean was muscularly built and had a deep, abiding love of guns and the hunt. Sam was meant for academia. His love of knowledge, and normalcy, gave him the air of a scholar. Sam's "Giles" appearance was also enhanced by his mourning for Jessica, his fiance, who had been killed while Sam was helping Dean on a hunt. His guilt over her death haunted him every day, and gave him nightmares so intense they scared the hell out of Dean (even though Sam had never revealed what the nightmares actually revealed).

Dean's eyes softened with brotherly affection and a little relief. The nightmares had been really bad for a while, but Sam had actually been sleeping peacefully for a while now. The bad dreams only seemed to come once or twice a month now. Every few months, though, Sam would have an entire week of the nightmare, but on the whole, his sleep had improved. Sams obsession with finding Jessicas killer had convinced him to come along with Dean, sure that she had been killed by something supernatural. He was nowhere near being over her death, or loving her.

Love like that confused Dean. He didn't understand such devotion to a lover. Relationships, friendly or otherwise, had always been more of a hassle than they seemed worth. It was too easy for someone, or something, to hurt you as it was. Someone you cared for was an even bigger liability. Better by far to lone wolf life, and just find a companion for the evening, kicking ass as you go along. Sam's pain wasn't something Dean looked forward to experiencing. His own dreams had been recently infiltrated by a recurring dream that he wasn't sure he wanted to share with Sam.

Dean had been dreaming about a girl. Not just a girl, the girl from the factory.

"Annie!" Dean screams at the darkness before him.

Finally reaching a large open cavern, the brothers stop. Candles and lamps light the open space, and a huge thing lies on the ground bleeding. Panicked, the two men split up to search the cave.

"Dean!"

Dean runs over to his brother who is kneeling over the girl half buried in rock.

"No!" Dean falls to his knees and Sam backs away. The girl's eyes are closed, her coffee colored hair gray from the dust. Scrapes and bruises on her cheeks and shoulders show the signs of a fight before being nearly buried alive. As Dean sits there, his heart in his throat, her eyes fly open and she gasps.

Pain and fear shine through ocean blue eyes. Dean feels the tears flow down his cheek in relief. She's not dead, and he can breathe again.

"Dean," she whispers.

That was the point at which Dean had always woken up. He couldn't bring himself to talk about the dream with Sam. It seemed personal somehow. As though the girl was waiting for him. Dean didn't like the unsettling feeling of caring for someone the way he felt in the dream.

Approaching the state line, heading away from the sun as it descended slowly behind them, Dean did a quick mental calculation to estimate their arrival time at the Texas state line. Neither Dean nor Sam was overly fond of the huge state, but the trail pointed to Texas and the boys both felt their dad wasn't too far ahead. Their father had disappeared. Neither Winchester could figure it out. John Winchester had been there one day, working on a hunt, easy to find, and then he as gone. Neither son knew where to find the father, and now they both hunted him the way they would a case, desperate - each in his own way - to discover what had happened to their dad.

In the passenger seat of the Mustang sat a weathered and beaten journal, the summation of John Winchester's experience and knowledge. Glancing down at the journal, Dean could feel tears threatening. He tore his gaze away and gave his full attention to the road. Anger welled up inside him, dropping his stomach. Everything Dean wanted to ask his dad, every question, every accusation, everything he had been feeling for the past nine months, raced through his head. Why? What was going on? Where is he? Why disappear? Why not take his sons along? Why not take at least Dean? What could be more important than his family?

Sam shifted in the backseat, waking. Taking a deep breath, Dean quickly cleared all the anger from his thoughts. He didn't want to inadvertently take his frustrations out on his brother. They both had enough issues to work through on their own without adding each man's bitterness toward their father.

"Good morning!" Dean smiled in the mirror at his brother. Sam sat up groggily, looking a little lost. Yawning, he looked around before climbing clumsily over the seat to sit up front with Dean.

"Where are we?" he yawned, pulling their father's journal from under his butt and turning to set it gently onto the backseat.

" Arizona for the next hour. We just passed Bowie. I'm gonna try to get to Las Cruces before we switch off."

Sam blinked the sleep from his eyes and yawned once more, stretching as much as he could in the confines of the car. Dean smiled to himself, glancing over at his brother.

"You should get some more sleep. It'll be another three or four hours at least."

"Nah," Sam shook his head. Bending over he pulled his laptop up from its home on the floorboard. "I'm gonna check my email. Who knows? Maybe Dad finally decided to drop us a note."

The brothers both gave a wry chuckle tinged with bitterness.

"I wouldn't count on it," Dean replied as Sam logged in.

For a while the clicking of keys on the computer and the strains of Alanis on repeat mixed with the sounds of the desert wind into the sounds of normalcy for the Winchester boys. Slowly, Sam stopped typing and looked over at the radio.

"What are we listening to?"

"Shut up," Dean replied. "There was nothing but country and Tejano on the radio." A guilty glance betrayed him. Sam fought not to laugh out loud at his brother's overly defensive answer.

"If you say so." Sam returned to his emails. Scrolling through the offers for penis enlargements and the date of his dreams, deleting as he went, Sam quickly pared down his sixty-something emails to only nine. Going from the oldest to the newest, taking those from his friends first, Sam read one from his friend Becky. Sam smiled as her letter took him back to his campus life.

//Sender: Becky
Re: I hate math.

Sam,

I hate this new math class. I know it's a requirement, but I am never going to need this! What do I need the square of a hypotenuse for? It's like I've fallen into a bad version of the Modern Major General's number!

No joke! That's what we spent all last week working on. I just want to pass this class and never look at another calculator again. I have never been so bored in a class before.

Anyway, we all miss you. Don't stay away too long.

Becky

PS. Zack asked me to pass on another thank you. Seriously, we can never thank you enough for everything you did to help him. He's not completely back to his old self, but he's getting there. We miss you. Come back to visit soon. Alone.//

Several months before, Becky's brother, one of Sam's oldest friends from school, had been arrested for killing his girlfriend. The case against him had been strong, and damning. A videotape of him entering the house moments before her death, and the police had found him with the body of his girlfriend, covered in her blood. Becky had written to Sam with all the details, and Sam and Dean had gone (at Sam's insistence) to find out what they could. Upon arriving Dean almost immediately managed to piss off Becky. The brothers also found the real killer, a shape shifter, who took Dean's shape and tried to kill Becky. Fortunately the police arrived in time to stop fake-Dean, thanks to an anonymous tip from Sam and Dean.

The strangest part in this ordeal, apart from watching Dean shoot himself when he killed the shape shifter, was the pity Sam had felt for the poor creature. This guy was somehow born with an amazing natural ability, but it also deformed his. As a result of his imperfections, he had been shunned by everyone, even his parents, and had begun taking bodies in an attempt to find love as someone else. When the woman didn't fall for it, or found his behavior disgusting, he would kill her, taking his frustration and anger out on the latest person to refuse him. Sam couldn't help feeling that Dean's refusal to make human connections, to push everyone away, made the two of them more like this poor, unloved creature than Sam cared to think about. For years, growing up, he had felt like he would never get to be normal or happy. Sam had always been afraid that he would never know what it was like to have friends or fall in love because his dad and Dean were so gung ho about the hunting business.

Another problem had been uncovered in realizing that Dean had his own issues with Sam. Sam had always known that Dean had issues with him going away to college and leaving the family business, but he had never known that Dean secretly would have liked to get to go away too. Through the shape shifter dipping into Dean's psyche, Sam realized that he and his brother had more to talk about than just finding their dad. He also knew that neither of them would bring up the subject first. Since this realization, though, Sam had come to be truly grateful that Dean harbored no resentment toward him, and still trusted him enough to bring him hunting. Once they found John Winchester, though, the three of them would have a lot to discuss.

Scrolling down a little farther, Sam reread the post-postscript, and laughed.

"What?" Dean looked over at his brother.

"An email from Becky."

"Oh yeah?" Dean returned his attention to the road. "What's she say?"

"Well, Zack's doing better," Sam paused with a smile.

"And that's funny?"

"No," Sam laughed. "Becky asked me to tell you hi."

Dean raised his eyebrows and smiled a little. "That's nice." Dean wouldn't have minded spending a couple of nights with Sam's friend, but her dislike of his masquerading as a cop had not gotten the two of them off on the right foot.

"Yeah," Sam continued. "She also asked me to let you know that even though you're 'dead,' you still owe her a new coffee table and carpet."

Sam laughed at his brother's wince and sigh. He replied to Becky's email, letting her know that he was doing alright. He looked at the subject lines from on a couple others before one caught his attention. Eyes wide he stared at it for a moment.

//Sender: A.F. MacKeary
Re: A message from your father.//

Sam opened the message. Three lines into it, his jaw dropped. Two lines later he felt dizzy.

"Holy shit," he whispered, staring almost unseeing at the words on the screen.

Dean looked over and did a double take.

"You okay, Sam? What is it?"

Sam couldn't answer. He looked slowly up at Dean and then back at the screen, reading the same lines without fully grasping what they said. Dean, alarmed by his brother's behavior, pulled over to the side of the road and turned to face him.

"Sam, c'mon! What is it? What's happened?"

Taking a deep breath, Sam answered slowly, voice shaking.

"It's a letter from someone in San Antonio. They-" Sam stopped and swallowed, taking deep breaths to steady his nerves. Closing his eyes he took one last deep breath before opening them and beginning to read aloud.

//Sender: A.F. MacKeary
Re: A Message from your father.

Mr. and Mr. Winchester,

My name is A.F. MacKeary. Our fathers were once friends. I speak of their friendship in the past tense, because my father was killed nearly eight months ago on a hunt with your father. I am writing to you both now, because I think the time for us to formally meet has come. Also, I have a package for each of you from your father.//

"What's with this guy? Who talks like that? " Dean leaned forward to look on as Sam continued reading.

//I am fully aware that the two of you have been searching for John since his "disappearance" almost nine months ago. In addition to my own work, I have been monitoring his voice mail at his request, taking care of any non-emergency situations. His own investigation, it seems, has become all-consuming.

E-Mail is far too impersonal to say everything I wish, and you both move around too frequently for any post to reach you in time. Please come to my home. You can spend a few days in comfort and relax. We have much to discuss. Come quickly, though. I am afraid that if this message does not reach you before Friday, he will be gone- assuming he stays the full week he plans on. I know you both want to see him.

I hope to see you soon, Sam and Dean.

A.F. MacKeary//

Both brothers stared at the screen for a long moment after Sam had finished reading.

"I don't believe this," Dean said softly. "Can we really believe this?"

"I don't know," Sam answered. "But according to this, Dad's in San Antonio." Pausing to look out the window, Sam thought for a moment. "When is Friday?"

Dean leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, laying his head back on the headrest and exhaling a deep sigh.

"Today." His voice was deep with emotion, and Sam nodded his head in understanding. Looking down at the message again, Sam opened the attachment.

"Well, here's the address and directions."

Dean looked over at the computer and leaned forward on the steering wheel, gazing out the windshield across the desert.

"Okay."

Dean put the car into gear, and pulled out onto the highway, quickly regaining his speed. As he put Arizona behind him, Dean felt very awake and ready to drive, ready for a midnight marathon to San Antonio.