Chapter Four

Dean pulled the bag into the passenger seat with him as he heard Ambre's even breathing from the back. He pulled a pair of jeans and a black t- shirt from the bag wondering when a change of clean clothes had become such a valuable commodity. There was a time not long ago that all of them would have given everything they owned for a shower and a hot meal…for a good nights sleep that didn't bring nightmares and fears of the morning.

Dean swallowed as he pulled the jeans on over the boxers inclining his body upward to be able to fasten them. "We could pull off somewhere, so you can change." He heard Sam's scathed voice reach him without really looking at him. Dean sank into the seat untying the strings of the hospital gown before pulling it off and wading it into a ball…tossing it into the floorboard in case he needed it for scrap later. They never knew when they would need bandages.

"Any particular reason not to?" Sam's voice was harboring more and more of an edge to it when he got no response.

"We need to make Chattanooga." Dean replied flatly as he pulled the T-shirt over his head and reached in the bag for an over shirt with a shiver. "No stops unless we're near on empty."

Sam glanced in the rearview finally sure that Ambre had fallen asleep. "Dean, what happened back there? Who were those people? What's happening to you?"

Dean glanced over his shoulder making sure that Ambre was asleep before he finished pulling the red over shirt on and sighed. This was the moment of truth. He looked to Sam with a heavy heart. The Sam that diverted his attention from the road shortly to meet his eyes…was not the same Sam that had held an entire wave of Shades back on the bridge in Washington. He wasn't the same Sam that Dean had held as he died…had brought back to life. He wasn't the same Sam that had held his and Ambre's baby while Dean tried to heal Ambre in vain. He wasn't the same Sam that had been strapped to his father's chest when they plummeted from the helicopter into a frozen wasteland.

He wasn't the same Sam…but that was just it…he was.

Everyone was as they should have been. The only one really out of place was…Dean.

"I told you. I started getting impressions." Dean began and Sam immediately cleared his throat. "What?"

"That's a load of crap." Sam met his eyes.

"Look I believed you when no one else would have, Sam. Is it that hard to believe." Dean grabbed onto the dashboard as Sam pulled the car off on the side of the road and opened his door getting out of the car.

Sam paused there just outside the door and just stood there. Dean looked around worriedly trying to decide how long it would take Alturoc to lock onto their position. "Sam get back in the car. We can't stop here." Dean called as he opened his door and climbed out pulling himself up against the hood of the car.

"Why not?!" Sam screamed at him throwing his hands up in the air.

"Because it's not safe." Dean said slowly seeing the frustration playing dangerously close to rage in Sam's eyes.

"Why is not safe?" Sam kept going. "What the hell is going on…and don't feed me any more of that psychic stuff. Dean those aren't impressions…you're pulling stuff out of thin air. You knew everything that was about to happen at that hospital. You knew all those people…and you killed that girl."

"That was not a girl." Dean scoffed in retaliation and then in his defense "And I didn't kill her."

"You put three bullets in her…one in the dead center of her chest." Sam threw back at him. "Who is she?"

Dean licked at his lips pulling in a breath as he looked to the road ahead of them. "Get in the car."

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on." Sam stood his ground and Dean could tell that he did not intend to move until he got exactly what he wanted.

"Get in the car and I'll tell you about her." Dean met his eyes holding in the same anger that Sam was sheltering, the tension between the two of them mounting through the distance of the car that served as the barrier between them. Both of them held themselves against the hood of the car starring hard at the other.

"No." Sam shook his head. He knew better then to take that deal. He would learn all about the girl and nothing else. "You tell me everything."

Dean's eyes widened in disbelief. "I couldn't fit everything into a week long seminar…let alone the rest of this trip."

"You can hit the highlights." Sam replied defiantly.

"I can't tell you everything." Dean finally forced out breaking eye contact to turn toward the road.

"Why not?"

"Because I promised myself I wouldn't!" Dean screamed back at him turning back on him with tears dotting his eyes and anger playing across his face.

"Break the promise…cause I'm not moving until you do!" Sam called back not understanding any of this. Whatever Dean's reasoning for the reluctance …it couldn't be that bad could it?

"Alright. Get in the car." Dean whispered.

"You'll tell me everything?" Sam asked verifying the deal they were making.

"Yeah." Dean rasped out as if someone had punched him in the gut. He looked away, but Sam saw the tear that rolled past his defenses down his cheek to the crook of his neck. Sam swallowed wondering what in the world he had gotten himself into. Still he climbed into the car, cranked it up and waited for Dean to start before he would pullback out.

"Nessa, is a guardian." Dean began motioning Sam to pull back out. "I met her about six months ago." Dean felt the lull of the road beneath them as he began his tale.

"When we were in Cedarwood, GA?" Sam asked thinking back six months.

Dean laughed…it was a little to long for Sam and it showed the level of frustration that Dean felt. "Stay with me here Sammy, If you want the truth then you have to keep your trap shut."

"Fine…six months ago." Sam nodded as if Dean had slightly bruised his feelings.

"Nessa is a guardian. She's super strong…pretty fast… can regenerate…has a brilliant white wingspan that most people can't see and she protects people…" Dean began as simple a he could.

"Like an angel?" Sam asked

Sam had to wait a good five minutes for Dean to stop laughing. It was wave upon wave of a rolling fit of laughter that seemed to end and only began again. Until Dean finally curbed it, followed by a cough and a drink from his water bottle before he went on.

"No." Dean stated simply.

"She has a fondness for heavy munitions, grenades, rocket launchers, flame throwers, and she hates it when you get in her way. She may protect people, but trust me that don't mean in a pure fashion…in fact I think she's an alcoholic and has casual sex as frequently as she can get away with it. She's not evil though… so that's a plus in her favor." Dean explained Nessa as best as he could leaving out the parts where she had sacrificed herself to destroy the yellow eyed demon and then fought her way out of hell along side their father. He wasn't ready to share that yet. He may have promised to tell him everything, but Dean was going to do it on his terms. "She works for an order of Magus called Foci Command. They kinda have this whole secret organization thing going on. Lots of grand libraries that I would love to visit again…so long as we get some of that grub from the kitchen…" Dean paused lost in the moment. "Man do those little guys know how to cook."

"You've been there?" Sam asked in confusion.

"Yeah…" Dean shrugged the question off to go on with that he was currently talking about even though Sam couldn't imagine when in the last six months Dean had been away from him long enough to befriend a 'guardian' and infiltrate some secret organization. "Ok so Nessa works for Foci command and she gets called out to protect people…people like Ambre. Foci command over sees the whole thing, but Nessa's one job is to make sure that Ambre is alright and that means to hell with everyone and thing in her path. She would have killed us if she had been given half a chance just because she had an inkling of doubt about our validity. That's Nessa."

"And you didn't kill her?" Sam was beginning to wonder about this not being evil thing. And he couldn't believe that at this level of understanding that Dean wouldn't end her…unless he was missing something. Not that Sam personally thought that she needed to die, just that Dean didn't usually have the same hang ups as Sam did and this just wasn't adding up.

"No." Dean shook his head. "I wouldn't kill Nessa. She's great." Dean smiled thinking back to their reunion in the bar just before the subway fiasco.

"Sounds like you really know her." Sam wished that the answers that Dean was giving him was making him feel better…instead he just felt as if they had a lot more ground to cover before any of this would make sense.

"I know her." Dean nodded. "But she doesn't know I do. She doesn't remember." Dean felt the guilt from not further explaining that Sam didn't remember either, but he was testing the waters here as it was.

"What do you mean she doesn't remember?" Sam asked quickly as he took their exit that put them a hundred miles from Chattanooga. "Like Amnesia?"

"No." Dean shook his head. Amnesia would have been welcome. Amnesia meant there was some chance that some one would eventually remember. Dean knew that he would carry that burden alone though and for the rest of his life, because even in telling them what had happened it didn't touch the scars that actually living it created.

Sam paused his grip on the steering wheel tightening as if remembering something else. "You know Ambre too." He said suddenly. "This afternoon when you woke up…she scared you to death…Dean how do you know Ambre? Why did she need to be protected?"

Dean turned in his seat and took in her form again. Ambre had been nearing hysterics when they left the hospital tonight. It was different the first time around. She knew that they had to stick together, that they were all part of something horrible and inescapable. It made staying together easy. This time it was kidnapping and she had yet to gain enough of her wits to fight back. Dean was scared that he wouldn't have what it took to subdue her if she did. Nessa was easy to get pissed at, but Ambre? Dean sighed feeling his heart sink a bit more.

"Yeah." Dean nodded.

"She doesn't remember either." Sam didn't understand what had happened to cause all these people to not remember anything that Dean was talking about, though he really hadn't mentioned how he knew them.

"No." Dean whispered.

"Why not?" Sam had a feeling he didn't want to know. It was creeping up on him slowly but it was definitely there, encroaching on his soul.

"Because that was the deal. I would remember." Dean didn't feel any better getting that off his chest. " No one else would."

"And by no one else…you mean…"

"The whole world." Dean couldn't look at him.

"So what we all lost time? We all just forgot six months" The long drawn out pause that Sam gave before going on was even harder to deal with, but as he continued Dean was surprised at the lack of malice in his voice at the discovery.

"No, not really." Dean gave a pained laugh starring at his hands in his lap. "It just never happened."

"Never happened?" Sam repeated as if he had heard him wrong. Dean nodded.

"I went back to where the first event happened. To the car, right before the plane crash…that's why I was in such bad shape and you didn't understand why. I wasn't the same me that you had been on the road with. Hell I don't even remember what we were doing that night. Where we went, when I ate…it was like a lifetime ago." Dean could admit the deal because Sam had no context to put with it yet. So it made that much easier.

"You went back in time?" Sam narrowed his eyes in amazement. "Why didn't I come along?"

Dean looked over to Sam silently. "Don't make this harder."

"Dean I mean it, Why didn't I come back with you?"

"Because that wasn't part of the deal." It took Dean forever to get that much out. "I had a limited amount of time to make the decision and you were in the middle of something else." Dean finally coughed out. "It was the only chance we had…we were all about to die."

"Why?"

"That would take a month to fill you in on." Dean scoffed. "Look you want the highlights…I'll give them. But part of the reason you stayed behind is so that you never had to know what happened. So don't expect rosy and beautiful here. It's not that kind of story."

"It sounds like some Back to the Future remake." Sam half laughed.

Dean shook his head unammused. "It's not." He replied simply.

"You know you sound nuts right…I mean if it weren't for tonight and the stuff you seem to know." Sam paused a moment. "And even in leu of that I still have a hard time buying this Dean."

"I never wanted you to buy it, Sam." Dean replied softly in his defense. It wasn't like he had just offered to tell him. "You hounded it out of me. I don't care if you think I've lost it completely."

Sam lost his smile seeing the seriousness cross Dean's face again. Dean was always able to shake things off, but this time…Sam felt the worry that he had felt over him in the hospital only magnified by his current demeanor. "What happened Dean?"

"I have to call Ben." Dean swallowed dodging the question quickly.

"Dean you promised to tell me and Ben wasn't home last time you called." Sam knew Dean was trying to avoid it again.

"I'll tell you when I can…I'm tired of talking about it right now though. And Ben needs to have that stuff ready by the time we get there." Dean dialed the number and placed the receiver next to his ear.

"Or what?"

"The guy that's after her is using scrying and so is Nessa's bunch. So we need an anti-scrying potion. Ben was the only one I could find, before, that could make it…if I had the notes on it I could do it myself. Kinda got used to that one…though I always ended up burning it…you and Ambre though…" Dean laughed and then broke off realizing that he had let something important slip. Before Sam could ask about it Dean cleared his throat and looked out the window. "Regular Betty Crocker's." He finished seriously.

Ambre stirred in the backseat and Sam watched the emotions race across Dean's face like his brother was so tuned into her that he had sensed it before she had event thought about waking. Like he knew how she slept.

"We're almost there." Dean said softly to her as she sat up and adjusted her scrub top catching his eye in the rear view. "I'm sure Shay will be there soon. Bobby wasn't far away and he was going to go pick him up as soon as Shay got back in from that trip."

Ambre paused with a nod. "Who are you guys anyway?" The trauma had worn off and she was ready for her own answers. "I mean how did you know he was gone on business? How did you know they were after me…is this government stuff?"

Dean was glad she seemed to have missed the conversation he had with Nessa where in he mentioned regeneration. It was the only reference to the supernatural that she would have been privileged to so far. "Something like that." Dean nodded. "I'm Dean and this is Sam…Winchester though…not Hanover." Dean replied. "We're going to make sure you live a long healthy life. We'll be able to put all this behind us soon."

"What about the other people? I mean she was telling me that she had to bring me in for protection too." Ambre asked in confusion. Dean wished she could just forget the whole thing.

"The guys from the elevator were the bad guys. Nessa meant well, but she wasn't prepared. She would have gotten you killed." Dean replied with a nod. "She'll be fine by the way. I didn't kill her, but she isn't going to like me very much when she wakes up." Dean smiled back to Ambre trying to make her feel better.

Ambre nodded slowly still dazed by it all…the lack of understanding bothering her.

The car fell silent as Sam processed what Dean had already told him and Ambre tried to keep to herself, trying to distance herself from the strangers in the front seat. Dean simply lost the battle with his mind as it decided to take a trip down memory lane. When they hit Ben's street Dean felt the hair on the back of his neck bristle a bit. He sat up straighter having learned through experience to pay attention even when it seemed like a long shot.

"Dean." Sam breathed as he pulled in front of Ben's house and they all looked to the dark structure with a grimace.

"Oh my God…" Ambre trailed off adjusting her position in the seat. Dean opened his door wide eyed and rose slowly from the car in awe. It was like a demonic playpen, with shadows crawling up and down the wooded exterior coming and going… The shades weren't hiding. It was like they were taunting him…saying come on in if you dare…playing across the blood encrusted windows as they danced over the house. "What is this?" Ambre screamed out in terror and confusion.

Dean grabbed his own set of keys and without thinking on it any more then he had to he popped open the trunk as he yelled "You two stay in the car."

Dean grabbed a huge can of salt from the recess of weapons as well as a shotgun full of rock salt, quickly pulling more rock salt shells into his pocket before looking to the house in dismay. "Alturoc you lying son of a bitch." He breathed.

Sam was already out of the car though walking around the back. "Dean what the hell are you doing?"

"Going to get that recipe." Dean replied meeting Sam's eyes fully intending to walk right into that house and take it whether he had to pry it from dead fingers or not. "And you're staying out here with her." The authority in Dean's voice mirrored the arrogance of the God that had been inside him for the last six months. That kind of pride was hard to forget.

"Like hell." Sam shook his head not about to let Dean go in there…let alone go in there alone. Sam suddenly staggered backwards though when Dean's fist connected with the side of his jaw sending him reeling into the car.

"It's nonnegotiable." Dean called over his shoulder as he hit the pavement at a run for the house. "She dies…we all die…now stay with her." Dean screamed as Sam was collecting himself from the punch holding his face a he stared after his brother in dismay.

"Dean!" Sam screamed his eyes traveling to growing tangled mass of writhing shadows that played across the house as Dean disappeared through the front door.

A/N : I have a new Promo Video up for Playback on my profile page.