The Devil You Know

Chapter Fourteen

They were far enough off the main road that the occasional rumble of passing traffic was just distant noise. The traffic noises punctuated the bubbling birdsong which filtered down with the sunlight through the leafy covering, and the sound of Dean's shaky breathing. Lucy and Sam hadn't spoken since they'd disconnected the transfusion. Dean hadn't moved: he was sleeping. Sam hoped that was a good thing; sleep was supposed to help with healing.

Lucy twisted strands of grass absently between her fingers, staring with glazed eyes at a bare stretch of ground, not seeing it. Her thoughts swirled strangely; she wasn't yet familiar with the person she was going to have to become. She was a fugitive, now: she could never go back to the grey town which had been home all her life. Apart from anything else, it wasn't home any more. Just over the last few days, it had become dangerous and hostile; closed to her and full of madness and murder. The life she'd known; a life of domestic contentment and comfortable platitudes – not an exciting life, but an easy one, it couldn't exist any more. She was changed beyond that: she wouldn't be the same person to her family, to her friends. She wasn't the same, even to herself. That life wasn't enough for her any more, and even if she'd wanted it, she couldn't have it back: she refused to go back to the secure hospital or to prison after everything. It hadn't been her who had killed Paul.

So, her past was dead. But she was suspended, for now, in a surreal present, which didn't seem connected to any obvious future. She'd lived a sheltered life: she wasn't sure how to go on the run. The thought broke her reverie, and her fingers froze in their dance around the severed grass stalk. Her eyes flicked up to Sam.

The younger Winchester's face was frozen in steely determination, fixed on Dean's still face, as though willing him to fight. He didn't seem very aware of his surroundings.

'Sam…?' Lucy murmured, hesitantly. He blinked in surprise, and met her eyes.

'Sorry, I was… thinking.'

She opened her mouth to speak, then stopped, sighed, closed it again. She licked her lips, fixed him in a naked stare, took a deep breath, tried again. 'What am I going to do now?' she asked, finally, a lifetime's condensed weariness echoing in her words.

He frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'I'm wanted for murder… I…' She stopped again, casting a look up at the sunbeams streaming through the leaves, looking for inspiration, hoping her shameful tears would fall where he couldn't see them. 'I don't know anything outside this town, Sam.'

He reached out a hesitant arm, and touched her hand gently in reassurance. 'You'll be fine,' he told her.

She gave him a doubtful look.

'Look… it's a big country. You can disappear. Just over the last few days, you've been arrested and escaped, tried to commit suicide, stitched a wound – twice, hidden from the police in a grave… saved two lives. Whatever you have to do next… it's not going to be harder than that. And you're doing fine so far. You're strong, Lucy. You'll survive.'

'It's easy for you to say…' she muttered. 'My life's been so… safe, bland. I don't know how to deal with this.'

Sam shrugged, remembering similar sentiments when he'd first found himself without Dad and Dean to follow and depend on. He'd been fourteen, in a haunted house with an unconscious father and an injured brother, suddenly obliged to take the lead and save all of them. 'Nobody knows how to deal with it… until they have to. And then they find out if they can or not.'

She chewed her lip. It was a nice sentiment, but she still wasn't sure. 'Well, I don't think I've found out yet.'

'You have… I've known you less than a day. You're not the same person now as you were when I met you,' he replied, with bracing conviction in his voice. She nodded gratefully. There was some comfort in that; enough to put the issue aside for now, as Dean finally started stirring after several hours' silence. Sam's attention was immediately distracted.

'Dean?' he asked urgently, bending close over his brother's limp form.

Dean groaned, tensing his eyelids before cracking them open. 'Hey,' he croaked, lifting his head a few inches off the ground to squint at Sam and Lucy's wide-eyed faces, watching him in trepidation as though he might shatter or spontaneously combust at any moment.

'How you feeling?' Sam asked, hoarsely.

Dean frowned, considering. 'Better, I think,' he answered, finding to his surprise that it was more or less true. He ached, and he was tired – God only knew how long he'd been sleeping, but he couldn't remember feeling more exhausted than this – but, he was breathing, now, without really thinking about it. And his grip on reality seemed a lot firmer now than it had done. That had to count for 'better.'

'You think?'

Dean nodded, letting his head fall back onto the dusty ground. 'How are you?' he rasped, searching Sam's face with his eyes. He looked pale and tired, but more or less healthy.

'Me? I'm fine. Do you even know how much you scared me?' Sam demanded, indignant that his brother was worrying about him, even now.

'Sorry, man… Guess you're still pissed about the closet, huh?'

'Damn right I am… You locked me in a closet with Michael Andover, possibly my least favourite person in the whole world,' he complained petulantly, quirking an unimpressed eyebrow. 'Payback's gonna be a bitch for that one, Dean.'

Dean smirked sleepily. 'Yeah, I can't wait to see you try…'

'Try? Tough talk from the guy lying on the ground.'

'You'd be surprised.'

Sam snorted. That was a little close to the bone: hell, yeah, he'd been surprised how far Dean had pushed himself while leaking his guts out all over the town. He was furious with him, but the dressing-down would have to wait until his brother looked a little more alive. For now, he settled for mild rebukes. 'Even for you that was stupid, Dean.'

Dean half-smiled, no hint of guilt or regret in his eyes. 'Worked,' he whispered.

Sam grimaced at him. 'Maybe by some messed-up Dean Winchester logic. 'Cause I wouldn't say it worked very well at all… you nearly died. Would have done, if I hadn't got out of that closet.'

Dean said nothing, still smiling. It worked… you didn't kill yourself. You're not hurt. That's all I was trying to do, and it worked.

Sam glared at him, but the sour look wouldn't rest long on his face; it was quickly broken by a relieved grin. He realised that he'd been on tenterhooks for hours, every muscle tensed in the hope that his brother would be alright. Letting go of all that fear was such a release, it almost hurt. 'It's good to have you back with us, man.'

Dean smirked, infuriatingly. 'Worried about me?'

Sam opened his mouth to tell him 'Of course, you idiot,' but shut it again stubbornly at the smug look on his brother's face. 'No,' he said, failing to sound convincing.

Dean laughed, meeting Lucy's eyes. She shrugged wearily. 'Well… he does a good impression of worried, then,' she conceded. She was exhausted from sitting in tension for so long.

A silence gathered between them as each reflected separately on the disasters they'd somehow averted. The quiet stretched to the point when it became difficult to interrupt, and Dean's voice when he eventually spoke up sounded too loud in the quiet air.

'Sam… it's not that I'm not enjoying communing with nature, or anything, but… a motel would be good about now,' he suggested.

Jerked from a reverie, Sam threw a surprised glance at his brother, blinking. 'Yeah… good plan.' He smirked suddenly. 'Tired after all that sleeping, Dean?'

Dean gave him a wry look, and nodded sincerely. 'Yup. Also kind of sick of wearing blood as a fashion accessory. "Goth" never did it for me.'

'Really?' Sam asked, helping his brother to his feet to struggle the three-foot distance to the Impala. 'Thought anything'd do it for you.'

Lucy wrinkled her nose at them, muttering something derogatory under her breath.

When the Impala finally rolled up to the end of the dirt track, Sam braked harshly, drawing in a panicked breath. An obstacle was parked across the exit, blocking their path onto the main road and freedom. The obstacle had four wheels, and blue lights mounted on the roof. Lucy's eyes widened in horror, and she shrunk back timidly against the leather of the back seat. 'Now what?' she squeaked.

A gangly, uniformed young man folded himself out of the car door and approached. Lucy stared at him, frozen, cursing her luck. She'd come so close to escape. The cop's face brightened at the sight of her. He was familiar: it was a small town, and she'd known him all her life, not well, but well enough to say 'Hi' to when they passed in the street. He could only be a few years older than she was. 'Lucy!' he exclaimed, relief and nervousness filling his voice strangely. She supposed she'd have to expect that kind of tone, now that she was convicted of murder.

Sam shot a glance at her, grimacing. 'Any ideas?' he muttered, looking sideways at his brother.

Dean shook his head, tight-jawed, his eyes fixed on the approaching officer. He was still pale, and slumped awkwardly in the seat. Sam hoped the cop wouldn't realise that the dark stains across Dean's tattered jacket and shirt were blood. They couldn't deal with any more trouble…

Lucy shifted across the seat nervously and pulled the door handle, not taking her eyes off the policeman. She tried to remember his name, but couldn't in the heat of the moment. Sam glanced at her again. 'Lucy…?' he began, but she was already stepping out of the door and towards the cop. She wanted to distract attention from the Winchesters. They'd tried to help her, and if, ultimately, they'd been unable to prevent the inevitable, she didn't want to pull them down along with her.

'Lucy…' panted the cop, clumsily stopping in front of her. 'Glad I found you.'

She frowned. It didn't seem a fitting prologue for the arrest of a murderer. She offered a confused half-smile, waiting for things to become clear.

'You should know: they found him. The guy who killed Paul; he's been arrested, he confessed to everything.'

Lucy was stunned. The words 'What? I killed Paul,' were on her lips in a second, but she swallowed them with a hoarse grunt. She gaped, and eventually found her breath. 'Ah... good. That's good,' she croaked. Apparently, he took her shock for overwhelming relief, and steamrollered on, grinning awkwardly at her.

'I just wanted to say… I'm really sorry that I thought it was you. I should have known better… should never have believed what they were saying about you. I'm sorry.'

'Um… that's… ok,' she managed to say, her mind drifting, dreamlike, detached from this bizarre twist of events. 'So, uh… who was it?'

'Some guy called Michael Andover. He was suspected of some previous murders, too, but I guess he decided to repent. Don't see that God'll take him after all that killin', if he's sorry or not, but… He confessed to it, all of it.'

She wanted to object to that sentiment, to tell him that being sorry was the whole point, that anybody who truly regretted their sins would be forgiven in an ideal world, but she choked the words back down before they could pass her lips. She had strong feelings about forgiveness, now.

'So… uh…' She was a little nervous about the next question, worried that it would remind him of a duty. 'I'm not… wanted for murder, any more?'

'No… I mean, usually, there'd be a lot of legal issues to work out, but… as this guy's given a statement confessing to everything, and because we all know you… we'd rather just let it all go, this time. Soon, it'll just be a bad memory.' He offered her a lopsided smile.

'Well… thanks,' she said, still stunned at her luck, at Michael's incredible selflessness. She'd thought him just another victim of the necklace, but the Winchesters' venom for him had convinced her that he was worse, far worse, even without the haunted jewellery's influence. Such an action seemed incongruous with the image she'd built of the young man who'd sat next to her in Zaretta's closet for hours.

He nodded, looking at her a little nervously; perhaps unable to fully detach her from the murderess he'd thought her until recently, perhaps afraid that she'd be angry with him for believing her capable of murder. After a few more exchanged words, he seemed grateful when she murmured, 'Well, bye, then.' She watched him get in his car and start the engine, so lost in her tangled thoughts that she didn't hear the Winchesters emerge from their car. Sam tapped her on the shoulder, and she spun round, startled. He gaped at her, asking an incredulous question with his eyes. Dean, leaning heavily against the car door, frowned confusedly at her across the polished black roof of the Impala.

'I got away with it,' she murmured, the gravity of the revelation sinking into her as she said it. 'Somehow, I got away with it.'

'How…?' Sam asked.

'That guy – Michael – told them it was him. Confessed, that cop kept saying. Michael confessed,' the word came out clumsily: it sounded so strange, confessing to somebody else's crime. 'Why would he do that?'

She looked at Dean. He shook his head, uncomprehending.

'But…' Lucy continued. 'How could they believe him? I mean… I was bragging about how I'd killed him-.'

'To Rhiannon. She'd dead.'

'But…' Lucy continued, twisting her mouth uncomfortably at the idea that she'd benefited somehow from Rhiannon's suicide.

'I guess… people are good at forgetting things they don't want to believe. You were one of their own… it's easier to believe it was a stranger.'

You were one of their own. Lucy noted Sam's use of the past tense. She realised, belatedly, that she didn't have to leave, now. She could go back to the life which had seemed shattered, with her parents, her secure and routine existence. But a second realisation followed it, a split second later. She couldn't go back. Nobody would look at her the same; getting back into that life would be a struggle. But, that wasn't the reason. She'd been pushed out of her normal life, and been forced to deal with extraordinary circumstances: she wasn't the same person any more. The life broken behind her wasn't enough for the person she'd become.

She frowned, and voiced another concern. 'Michael will be punished for what I did, though… that's not right.'

'Michael did a whole lot of other things,' Sam told her darkly. 'I wouldn't feel too sorry for him.' The two murders in Michael's home town were imprinted vividly on Sam's memory, but they paled in comparison compared with the amount of horror he had caused Sam, and the sheer volume of blood he had cost Dean, on two occasions. Most of all, though, Sam hated Michael because he'd been one of the special children, before the teen's abilities had been leeched from him after a failure to do the demon's bidding. He represented everything that Sam was afraid of becoming: deranged, friendless, sadistic and alone.

'Maybe Michael's reforming,' Dean mused softly. He looked at Sam, not voicing the rest of his sentiment, not needing to. So there's hope for you, too, Sam.

000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sorry! Slow update, I know, even for me. I guess I got so caught up in reading the work of other, better authors, that my fic seemed to pale in comparison! Anyway, I hope the chapter was worth waiting for. : ) Short epilogue to come.