Chapter Three
So this sitting in the Impala parked in a deserted parking lot in the middle of the night waiting to perform a B&E and jail break? Definitely not a new concept for Sam or Cal. It was a pretty regular kind of event. What wasn't so regular about it was that Dean wasn't around to take the edge off by distracting and annoying them both. Then again, that was why they were herewasn't it? To rescue him.
Midnight had come and gone hours before and now they were waiting on the four thirty shift change. In just a couple of minutes they'd leave the car and make their respective moves. Cal would disarm the alarm, Sam would make his way into the building to break Dean out of the pokey. All the tedious waiting and planning was finally going to be over and one way or another they'd do what they came to do.
The scary part in all this wasn't that it was just the two of them, where usually there were three. No, the scary part was that they might not succeed and in failing they would pretty much seal Dean's fate. Breaking a guy out of a police precinct holding cell was one thing. Breaking him out of a State penitentiary where he'd be facing hard time was another. The fear that they may fail alone was enough to put them both on edge, which transformed their normally laid back, relaxed dynamic into a lot of short tempered, terse little arguments.
"So you're sticking to the plan, right?" Just another variation of the same question Sam had asked about a million times over since they'd left the farm.
"Yeah, of course I am." Cal gave him the same curt answer as every other time he'd asked, and every time she got just the tiniest bit more agitated. When a girl gives her word she expects folks to believe she'll keep it.
"And by 'the plan' we're on the same page about it being the one we just spent the last two days hashing out, right?" After all, Cal's specialty was changing the plan and making it up as she went along right? Sam had to be positive they could pull this off properly before they went in there.
"Yes Sam. The one and only plan we have. Unless there's another plan floating around somewhere that I should know about?" Cal was about to cross that very fine line from annoyed to pissed-the-hell-off if he didn't let up soon. That muscle twitch along her jaw line (caused by the clenching and unclenching of her teeth) was a telltale sign that she was starting to see red.
"It's just…" Oh God, Sam, with his incessant need to explain everything. "…we can't afford you pulling one of your usual last-minute improvs. You make a last minute change to the plan while it's in action and we might not be able to get him out of there…" That terrified kicked puppy face was really starting to get to her. And you know what? She really didn't need to be reminded that Dean's entire life was on the line here. Talk about putting the pressure on before show time. Jeeze, you'd think Sam 'chick flick' Winchester would think something like that through before letting it cross his lips this close to go time. Enough already!
"Okay look, this is Dean we're breaking out of the joint here. I'm not saying I'm going to go out and intentionally screw around with the plan but you have to realize that if something goes awry we might need one of my-" Sam cut her off mid-way through making sense because he needed to make it crystal clear: there was just no way they weren't coming out of this with Dean tonight.
"Yeah, exactly. It's Dean which means we can't afford to fuck up, alright?"
Oh sure! Never mind that those so called 'improvs' she was always pulling always wound up saving all of their sorry asses. Of course, before she could let it rip and tell him exactly what she thought of this chip he was carrying around on those wide-ass shoulder of his she caught sight of the worry lines etched all over his face. So instead of ripping him a new one she found herself trying to reassure him and somehow calm herself down in the process.
"Listen, I got it. We've been over it about a gazillion times, there's no way we can't do this and get away with it. I'll sneak my way over to the box over there, pull out all the wiring for the cameras to take them offline. I head straight back out here and start the car to man the radio with the blue prints to the place in case you need an alternate route out and wait. As soon as you two clear the building I hit the gas and we all get the hell out of here."
"Good. Now stick to it." Sam looked satisfied with her answer, if no less worried. Now if she could only do something to ease the tension that was literally vibrating out of him. Well, when all else fails a little humor never hurts right?
"Yessir!" She saluted, trying to tease some semblance of a smile out of him.
"Shut up!" Yeah, success is a wonderful thing. That little curl teasing the corners of his mouth couldn't quite be called a smile yet but it was enough to put a grin on Cal's face before shooting off a sassy answer in the sweetest possible tone of voice.
"Make me."
And when he rolled his eyes at her, reaching an arm across the seat to shove her shoulder playfully, she knew it had worked.
A few minutes later Cal was wearing a serious frown as she crawled up the fire escape. Dressed all in black from head to toe like some sort of cat burglar, she could have passed for that girly-girl chick from that Dark Angel show. Her usual jeans and t-shirt would have been her preferred choice but, as Sam had pointed out to her earlier, there was really no help for it if she wanted to blend into the night. They hadn't spotted any cameras around the fire escape but that didn't mean they weren't there.
It took less than a minute for her to climb the side of the one-story building and onto the roof. From there it was just a matter of crawling over to the power box. Thank God the cops had decided to keep him at the station instead of shipping him off to an actual prison. They'd probably done it to avoid a possible escape in transit. In the end it had only made Cal and Sam's job a whole lot easier and kept the plan a whole lot simpler.
Her romantic side (if you could call it that) had her picking the box's lock with Dean's tools. It seemed fitting. Also, she found some measure of small comfort in knowing a small part of him was there with her as she did what she could to help Sam's end of things. Unfortunately once she got the metal box open there was no way to tell which wire to pull. Somebody had messed with the wiring so that the colors weren't what they were supposed to be. She was looking for the color green. According to the plans they'd gone over green was the power feed for the cameras. Green meant go right? Sure thing, except there wasn't even onegreen wire in the whole damned box. Which meant what exactly? They'd changed the colors of the wires? They'd rerouted the power feed for the surveillance and security equipment somewhere else? Damn it! They were tight on time here!
Okay, think fast O'Sulivan. What would Dad do? Old Jacob was pretty good at spur of the moment, on the spot problem solving. Of course, that being said, he was also the all or nothing type so he'd probably just pull 'em all out and hope for the best.
know, that wasn't such a bad idea. Get ready Sam, I feel an O'Sulivan improv coming on.
Pulling Dean's massive Bowie knife out of the sheath she'd tucked into the band above the seat of her pants, Cal took a brief moment to admire the glint of moonlight on its recently sharpened blade. Another moment to take a good long look at the neatly organized wire box before she reached in there and hacked right through every last wire in the box, and just for good measure, crouched down and hacked through all the ones outside of it too, on both top and bottom
Cal O'Sulivan was nothing if not thorough.
Anyway, she figured if she was going to do something illegal she probably ought to go all the way and make it worth the possible jail time to be served. It just wouldn't do to get laughed at when they tossed her into the joint if she got caught. And no, the pretty colors those sparks she'd made with the excessive unnecessary damage had nothing to do with the thrill she got out of it. Well, okay, maybe a little but if anyone asked she'd deny it entirely.
Sam was waiting in the parking lot next door for her signal to go ahead when the lights in the whole building went out, giving him the heart attack of his life. His fingers had never dialed a number so quickly in his life.
"What the hell did you do?"
"Dude, there wasn't any green wire. The stupid box had all the colors of the rainbow except the green one I needed to take the cameras offline. There wasn't any other choice, I had to cut them all. The good news is that without power to the place it'll be easier to slip in and out unnoticed." Who knew, maybe there would be less fiddling with locks. If the power was out then maybe the electronic door locks will have become disengaged.
"Yeah, sure if by 'easier' you mean a lot closer to impossible. Every damn cop in the place is going to be on edge trying to get a handle on the chaos in there. They're gonna be extra vigilant and paranoid, especially when they figure out why the power went out in the first place."
"So get in there and get your pain-in-the-ass brother the hell out of there before they figure out what we're doing." Sheesh, and they said women liked to bitch. At least you could count on a girl to take action without prompting when the moment called for it . Speaking of which, Cal was starting to think that this might be one of those moments.
"I'll meet you by the side door. We'll go in together." Change number two to the plan. Sam would probably have an aneurysm but he'd be better off with someone at his back the way he was already freaking out.
"What? No! You're supposed to be keeping the motor warm. We can't afford to get boxed in before ever even getting in the car." She didn't have to have eyes on him to see the eyes bulging and the vein on his forehead pulsing angrily, threatening to burst right off of his face.
"That might very well be, Sam, but you're also no good alone in there if you're freaking out. You want to be the one to explain to Dean why it is that he'll have to come back tomorrow night to get your sorry ass out of the same cell he's been warming?"
Crap. No. Hadn't Cal just spend the whole night reassuring him she wouldn't do exactly what it was she was currently doing.
"Dammit Cal, what if something goes wrong? What if they catch on to what we're doing and start shooting at us or something? Wouldn't it be better for one of us to have the car running, ready to go?"
"Well, you've got a point… things could go sour… and I am the better driver…"
"Atta girl."
"Shut. Up."
Against better judgment and her own basic nature, Cal gives in to Sam and goes back to wait in the car. It's a move she regrets every minute from the time Sam breaches the side door to the building because the idiot leaves her hanging. The guy doesn't bother to radio her over the walkie talkies even just once to let her know what in the hell was happening.
Five minutes. The whole job shouldn't have taken any more than five minutes. At the eight minute mark Cal revvs the engine and parks closer to the same side door Sam had used to get in. It was supposed to be their exit point and the closer she was the less time it would take to get them into the backseat so she could point the beast toward the highway and home.
When the ten minute mark came and went Cal wasn't too proud to admit to herself that there was panic settling itself in her heart. Never send a man to do what a girl can do better. Ottawa was as much her home as Winchester Springs was. She was the one who had done most of her growing up in the area. These boys were completely out of their depth. Canadians didn't operate quite like the Americans did, even with FBI in their midst. Sam's expectations of reactions and obstacles were not necessarily what he would encounter. Cal, on the other hand. Well, she'd busted herself out of more of these places than she cared to admit to. One too many drinks and a flying fist or two tended to get a girl into that kind of trouble.
After fifteen minutes the emergency lighting came on. It was by no more than extreme force of will that Cal didn't wet her pants because now the dim lighting that was coming from the bulb over the door she was covering suddenly felt like a spotlight pointed directly at the Impala. Someone must have finally turned on the backup generators. The light wasn't bright enough for a passerby to be able to make out the type of car or her face. After the full dark she'd been sitting in though it was hard not to feel completely exposed.
She was dialing Sam with one hand and opening the driver's side door to follow in his footsteps when the metal door with the brown peeling paint finally slammed open.
Two grown men were running toward the car, feet barely touching the ground in their haste. No small feat considering the one was wearing steel toed work boots.
Sam had a hand hovering by Dean's shoulder, giving him a shove forward any time he showed signs of slowing down. Dean, for his part, looked completely winded and kept glancing back from the wide open door to Sam and back. "Get behind the damned wheel Cal, we've got company!" Sam wasn't usually the one to give orders so Cal was inclined to take notice and act on them, although she made a mental note to chew him out for it a little later. Dean still wasn't speaking, probably couldn't what with all the breathless panting he had going on. The rapport that echoed through the parking lot came from nowhere, felt like it was everywhere and scared the living daylights out of all three hunters equally.
They weren't alone anymore. There were cops leaning out windows and streaming out of the door closest to them. "Run, dammit! We don't move soon, we're not getting out of here!" Cal heard some hysterical tartlet scream. Wait, that was her, wasn't it? Well, hell. Who could be upset if it got those two moving?
Dean went from a run to a sprint, putting a couple of feet between him and Sam when the gunshot began in earnest. Instinct had both men hunching over as they ran. Dean dove into the backseat in a move that mirrored something from the Matrix movies, crashing into the door on the drivers side with the force of it. From there he had the perfect vantage point from which to witness a scene that would haunt him indefinitely.
Henricksen was standing, feet slightly apart, sights set on Sam knowing full well that Dean would fall apart if anything happened to his brother. Sam dove, just as Dean had mere moments before, and the agent squeezed off a shot. Later he would replay what he saw in slow motion in his mind over and over again trying to make sense of it. Right then, all that registered was the look of shock on Sam's face when the bullet plowed through his shoulder, stopping him just short of his destination as he dropped to the ground.
All at once the training their father had put them through as kids kicked in. Dean had scrambled halfway out of the car and was grabbing and pulling a bleeding Sam onto the worn leather upholstery of the backseat.
"Shit, Sam! Hey, you're okay, alright? Dude, you're okay." Kneeling on the uneven floor, he pulled Sam's legs up by bending them at the knee so he could pull the door closed with his free hand. Cal, bless her, had already put his girl in drive and was pushing her foot right to the floor. He didn't dare look over to her, not wanting to witness a moment of weakness if she happened to be feeling any kind of fear. Seeing her lose even a little of her cool with his brother bleeding all over him would probably break him.
"No, no I'm not Dean. I think I… God, I think I need a doctor." And that was saying a lot considering they'd been stitching each other up as far back as they both could remember.
"I… Sam." Dean couldn't keep the panic or the helplessness from his voice. If Sam needed a doctor then chances were good the police would find him in whatever emergency room they wound up in. Fake identification or not you couldn't miss three people of their description. They were too motley a crew not to stand out. "I can't go with you. They'll be lookin' for me… for us… we'll all end up back in jail." It was no more than a statement of what they all knew but it felt like a death sentence just to acknowledge it out loud. Sam let out a pained sob as Cal coasted through a particularly sharp turn. "Christ almighty woman!" Dean's exasperated bark was as sharp as the turn she'd just nailed. The fact that she didn't so much as blink where normally she'd have been ripping him a new one should have said something, but Dean was too upset to notice as much.
Cal wasn't just going to let Sam bleed out, and she sure as hell wasn't gonna let Dean leave on them either. Being the chick in the group, she had the solution.
"I know a guy, he owes me a favor or two. A doctor in one of the ER's here in Ottawa." The stubborn mule of a man didn't look relieved like he should have been, just skeptical.
"I don't know. Can we trust him? How well do you know the guy. Who's to say he won't call the cops when he realizes two of America's Most Wanted drag themselves onto his exam table?" Always with the lack of faith. Dude, you'd think the man would know better than that by now.
"We can trust him. I saved his life and his career. He owes me large. Oh and did I mention that I talked to him when we were planning this little break out, just in case someone got hurt? A girl's got to keep her guys safe, doesn't she?"
The skepticism was still etched in the lines around his worried frown but he did seem much more at ease with the idea. Considering the way Sam's face was going from pink to ashy it wasn't like he had much choice at this point.
"Sam? That okay with you?"
"Yeah" Sam smiled weakly as tired eyes started to flutter closed "Cal'll kick his ass if he tries anything." She'd have to get in line first because if anything happened to Sam, Dean was going to kill every last person responsible for it. The good doctor first, because he was more accessible. Then he'd hunt down the FBI agent.
"Okay. It's not much of a plan, but it's somewhere to start." He was pulling off his shirt to put it over the hole in Sam's shoulder. No words were necessary between the brothers. They'd been in this type of situation often enough to be working through routine. Dean ripped the shirt in half right down the back and folded the two pieces as neatly and quickly as he could. Placing the first piece on the hole just above Sam's chest he reached down and moved his brother's hand over the wound. Sam, for his part, pushed down as hard as he could to keep pressure on it and hopefully slow the bleeding.
"I'm gonna set you up so Cal can keep both hands on the wheel after she lets me out. You've gotta promise me to keep talking to her, alright. No closing your eyes, not even to blink, until the doc clears you to. Got it?"
And Cal's plan to keep them all together was backfiring, because he was going to take off for the farmhouse anyway. He was to right, of course. The less of them there were to hide, the easier it would be to get in and out of the hospital without being noticed. Right or not, she didn't have to like it.
"I'll give Fran a call and let her know what happened." He leveled a sober look at Cal, the importance of what he was trusting her to do weighing heavily between them. "I don't need to tell you to keep under the speed limit. Don't rush the doc, but don't stay any longer than you need to. Meet you both back at the barn, okay?" The words left unspoken were charged with emotion: He's all I've got, I trust you. Take care of him. "Cal… keep me posted, okay?" She couldn't muster more than a nod. Damned if she was going to cry and screw up her driving.
"Tie him in with the seatbelt Dean. Use the shoulder strap, it'll fit right across where he was hit. You can strap his hand where it is and keep pressure on the back bit using his own body weight to keep the shirt bit where he needs it to be." The change of subject was left unacknowledged. Better that way because Dean had a feeling if he said anything she'd get mad at him for ducking out. Her suggestion surprised him. Not that he didn't have something similar in mind, just that she'd had enough experience with treating injuries on the fly to think of the seatbelt as something usable.
"You've done this before, huh?" Of course she had. Her childhood had been a lot like his, minus one brother and plus a slightly more sharing and caring kind of Dad. Stupid question right?
"It was just me and my Dad, right? No extra hands. We made do with what we had." Yeah, he knew what that was like.
His "I hear ya." Was audible only to Sam who smiled weakly, clearly finding comfort in knowing there was more than just the two of them now. Honestly? Dean had secretly been harboring that comfortable feeling himself, at least until recent events had turned everyone's lives upside down and flipped them all sideways.
A tuck here, a tug there and a couple of pats to make sure everything would stay in place and Sam was finally as secure as he was going to get.
"Hey Doc." Cal had dialed out to her ER guy and was making arrangements for him to meet them somewhere safer than the front doors of the hospital. He might have heard a tinny voice drift from her phone anything you need Cal, you just say the word but it didn't make him jealous. Well, maybe it did but it shouldn't have.
"I'm thinking a stretcher. Yeah, bullet to the shoulder. I've got to hide the car I'm coming in with too. Can't risk it being recognized." He was trying hard not to listen in but the other voice was coming in so clearly there was no help for it.
Don't tell me the police are looking for you again. You could hear the smile in the guy's voice. Huh."Yeah. The popo sort of take notice when you help a guy sneak out of their custody, you know?" You remember how to get down to the medical supply loading dock in the basement? There's a parking area for the security personnel. "I don't know… the cops'll be calling the hospitals warning security personnel. They'll have the make and model of the Impala. Doesn't seem too safe to park it somewhere so visible to all the wrong folks." Don't worry babe, I'll just tell them it's mine. You know how I love my cars.
Sam was shaking his head at Dean. Don't say anything dude. She's just calling in a favor. For once Dean didn't, though there was no help for the pained groan that came with the 'babe' bit. There just wasn't time to deal with the jealousy anymore.
"Ten minutes Sam. You think you can hold out that long?" Cal called as she ended the call.
"Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Feels a little better now that I'm sitting up." Weak. Weak was his voice, his grip on the torn shirt, his grasp on consciousness. Damn, he hated to leave his brother like this. There just wasn't any other way.
"Sammy?" Dean was doing something he never did, he was asking permission. One word from his brother and he'd stay.
"You had better pull over soon Cal. He'll have better luck avoiding the police if we let him out off the highway." He'd run to the cover of the trees a couple of feet off the side of the road and then make his way to one of rural back roads the farmers in the area used.
She pulled off so smoothly they didn't even feel the gravel crunching under the Metallicar's wheels. He looked at Cal through the rearview mirror, caught the shine of tears in her eyes and chose to ignore them. "Be careful." He told her as he had about a thousand times before. It was unnecessary (she always did what she thought was best, careful or not) but it felt good to say it anyway. Sam gripped him by the forearm with his good hand and squeezed to get his attention. His expression said don't worry, I'm okay. "You be sure to take your own advice." Cal wasn't the only one to act rashly and get themselves into trouble. A sad, indulgent smile punctuated Dean's goodbye. "I'll see you soon Sammy." Sam knew him too well to be able to believe him. Dean was planning to run and given the current state of affairs it would be a while before Sam could follow.
He was already out the door, had closed it soundly behind himself and was running for the cover of the trees when he heard Sam holler out to him. "I mean it Dean, you'd better be careful. Don't you dare make it so I got shot for you for nothing, you hear me?"
"Alright, alright! Quit hollerin' and get moving already. The doc's waiting and you're blowing my cover!" But they probably didn't even hear him. Cal had already pulled back onto the black top, headed toward the hospital. The last he saw of his brother was the shaggy back of his head through the rear windshield as his baby's tail lights receded into the early morning fog.
Thank you for taking the time to read this fic. Please feel free to leave me a review. :)
