This one has a lot from the episode so I hope you guys still like it!
Dean hated riding in silence, but with the way Alec and Bobby were acting he was just glad that they weren't taking hits at each other. He'd been shocked when Alec didn't immediately jump into a million questions; he figured out a little into the drive that Alec was way more closed off than he normally was.
When they'd first taken Alec in, he had answered their questions with short, sarcastic answers. It wasn't until they had shown him some trust and been honest with him that he'd opened up and answered their questions. He'd even volunteered information to them and Dean hadn't expected him to do that.
Alec seemed fine with talking about his past most of the time. He didn't go into too much detail of how it was at Manticore, but he did talk about his time in Seattle. Dean was curious about how Alec was raised, but he knew it could be a touchy subject so he was going to let Alec talk about it when he wanted to. Even though his own childhood wasn't all butterflies and rainbows he wasn't going to keep anything from Alec; if the kid wanted to know, then he would tell him.
Dean glanced over at Alec; he was looking out the window, but his jaw was clenched and he'd been sitting like that for the majority of the trip. Dean had tried to bring him out of his silence, but nothing had seemed to work. None of the normal tricks he used on Sam seemed to work with Alec; he needed to come up with an entirely different set of tricks for Alec. He just wished he knew something for right now so he didn't have to ride in silence.
He finally pulled the Impala onto the familiar road that led to the Roadhouse.
"What the hell?" Dean muttered when he saw the Roadhouse was a burned out shell. The sight was almost too much to take in and the silence in the car seemed to change; it was more of a shocked silence instead of an aggressive silence.
Dean parked the Impala and looked over at Alec and Bobby; Alec looked concerned since he didn't actually know about the Roadhouse or the people inside, but Bobby looked just as shocked as Dean felt.
Together the three of them made their way over to the ruins. Dean felt sick at the sight of the burned corpses; he just hoped he wouldn't recognize one of them.
"My God…" Bobby breathed out, moving further into what was once the Roadhouse.
"You see Ellen?" Dean asked worriedly as he scanned the wreckage.
"…No…or Ash either…" Bobby answered as he stepped around a pile of charred bones.
Alec was walking around slowly and was scanning the ground carefully. Dean had no clue what Alec would be looking for since he didn't know Ellen or Ash, but maybe his watchful eyes would pick up something that Dean couldn't.
Dean suddenly saw something that looked familiar and walked toward it. It was a charred hand, but there was a watch on the wrist that he recognized. "Ahh Ash, Dammit." Dean ran a hand through his hair in defeat; not only was Ash gone, but so was the only way to find Sam.
Dean reluctantly followed Alec and Bobby away from the burned building after they had searched the entire thing.
"This is-" Bobby started but trailed off once they were by the Impala again.
"What the hell did Ash know? We got no way of knowing where Ellen is…or if she's even alive. We got no clue what Ash was gonna tell us and how the hell are we gonna find Sam?" Dean couldn't focus on one thing. His thoughts were scrambled now that their last hope at finding Sam was gone.
"We'll find him," Bobby immediately reassured and Alec nodded his agreement.
A sudden spike of pain shot through Dean's head and he closed his eyes and pressed his hand against his temple to try and ease the pain.
"Dean?" Alec's quiet voice asked in concern.
Dean tried to shake his head to clear away the pain. It seemed to work for a second and then it came back twice as strong. He leaned over with the force of it; his eyes were squeezed shut, but he suddenly saw something that looked like an old bell. The pain eased again and he was able to open his eyes to see Alec and Bobby looking at him with worry.
"What was that?" Bobby gruffly asked.
"I don't know…headache?" That was true, it was a headache…just not any headache he'd ever had before. Not only that, but he'd seen something; he knew he'd never seen that bell before.
Alec scowled in disbelief and Bobby asked, "You get headaches like that a lot?" He apparently wasn't being very convincing.
"No…must be the stress. I coulda swore I saw something…" The picture of the bell came back to him, but he had no idea what it meant or where it'd come from.
"What do you mean? Like a vision? Like what Sam gets?" Bobby asked.
"What!? No!" He wasn't psychic like Sam, and he didn't want to be. He had enough to worry about as it was and he didn't need to add this to the list.
"Well, I'm just sayin'," Bobby defended.
"C'mon, I'm not some psychic!"
The pain spiked again, but way stronger than before. He was brought to his knees with the force of it and he leaned his head against the hood of the Impala.
"Dean? Dean!" Alec moved so he was crouched down next to him and put his hand against his shoulder.
Dean squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. He saw the bell again, but he still didn't know what it meant. Then he saw Sam. It was so brief that all he knew for sure was that Sam was alive.
"Dean!? You with me?" Alec shook his shoulder slightly to try and get his attention. Dean finally opened his eyes and saw Alec's worried gaze was fixed on him. His eyes quickly scanned Dean's features, but Dean knew his face was still lined with pain and that wasn't going to ease Alec's worry.
Dean stayed leaned over, but he tried to ease some of Alec's worry by answering, "Yeah…I think so. I saw him. I saw Sam."
"It was a vision," Bobby stated. He had also moved forward to help Dean, but Alec had beaten him to it, which would actually help Alec earn Bobby's trust even faster.
"Yeah, I don't know how, but yeah. Whew, that was about as fun as getting kicked in the jewels," Dean tried to lighten the mood as he stood up. Alec still wasn't buying it, but he did take a small step back to give him some space.
"What else did you see?" Bobby asked after a moment.
"Uh, there's a bell…" Dean tried to remember if there was anything special about the bell, but he could really only remember seeing Sam.
"What kind of bell?" Bobby continued.
"Um, like a big- a big bell with some kind of engraving on it, I don't know…" Dean racked his brain, but still couldn't come up with much.
"Engraving? Was it a tree? Like an oak tree?" Bobby asked.
"Yeah, exactly," Dean said, brightening up a little. Now that Bobby had said it, the bell became clear in his head. And Bobby's tone sounded like he recognized the bell, which could finally lead them to Sam.
"Do you know where the bell is?" Alec asked hopefully.
"Better, I know where Sam is," Bobby stated.
More soon!