AN: Thanks again to Sammygirl1963 who always holds my hand during a new story or idea. I hope everyone is still enjoying it. Take care!
Ok, everything was supposed to be alright. Nothing bad was supposed to happen because he had his friends at school, and his brothers at home. So the question of how his day got so messed up was still something that he didn't have an answer for. Sam looked around the cafeteria and saw the stares, glares, and would be death ray glances that he was getting and had no idea what was going on. His only consolation was the fact that Vic and his teammates hadn't deserted him during this confusing moment; in fact, they seemed more determined than ever to make sure no one bothered him.
"Would someone mind telling me what's going on?" he finally asked after the fifth person 'accidentally' bumped into him while he was trying to eat his lunch. Looking around the table he saw the uncomfortable looks and suddenly it fell into place. "Oh you have got to be kidding! She dumps me and I get left holding the bag?" he asked incredulously. It was bad enough that his brothers had witnessed what had happened between him and Jenna, but now the whole school was speculating and apparently they didn't want to be bothered with the truth.
Vic shrugged his shoulders and looked around before answering. "Sorry about this Sam, but you have to understand, to them you're the outsider and much more likely in their opinion to be the bad guy here."
Sam had already suspected as much, but he'd really thought that someone would at least ask for his side before judging him. Losing his appetite, Sam packed the remainder of his lunch into his backpack and picked up his phone. He knew that Dean was already gone so he wouldn't be able to talk to him, but that didn't mean he was alone in this. Unfortunately, he wasn't prepared for his other three brothers to be occupied to the point of turning off their cell phones.
"Hey Sam, don't worry about it. Pretty soon someone will actually ask Jenna and she'll set everyone straight, ok?" Chad said, trying hard to sound upbeat, but inwardly cringing at the thought of what his friend had to be feeling right about now. The whole school was buzzing about how Jenna's flu was really cancer and that she and Sam had broken up. Of course with the previous trouble that Sam had been in, it had been easy for a lot of the others to take Jenna's side even though she had no idea what was going on. He, Vic, Toby and David had already decided that there was no way Sam would have broken things off with her, but they had no way of convincing the others until Jenna came back to school, and even then they weren't sure the others would listen.
Chuckling, Sam shook his head. They had no idea about what happened between him and Jenna, and he wasn't going to elaborate, he still couldn't think about the things she said without tearing up and that was something he was determined not to do. He was a Winchester, and after all the things he'd seen, done and been through, he wasn't going to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing him cry ever again. Looking around the table, he knew that he had some good friends, but at the moment even they were starting to grate on his nerves. "Hey guys, I appreciate it, but uh… I'm going to head home early. Do you think you can cover for me?" he asked, hoping that they wouldn't ask why he was leaving. He was more than a little surprised by the unanimous answer though.
"Nope, sorry." Chad said while the others shook their heads in agreement. When Sam looked at them with first puzzlement, then dejection, he smiled. "Can't cover for you if we're all skipping, right guys?"
Ten minutes later, they were piled in Toby's BMW and heading towards San Diego on the freeway; it might be raining, but it seemed to be the perfect day for going to the beach.
SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN
The Colonel had a rough night with Jenna and now he had to face off via telephone with a Congresswoman who seemed determined to make his and others lives miserable. It had taken over half an hour to explain to Marcie Tolliver exactly why her escort wasn't there yet, and another hour to listen to her complain about not having the proper equipment to undergo her 'research'; even though the Colonel was pretty sure that the only reason why Ms. Tolliver had even bothered with the trip was because she'd never been to South America and was using a proposed Free Trade issue as an excuse to go.
"Congresswoman, I assure you that your escort will be there as the itinerary states… I understand ma'am… yes ma'am… thank you ma'am."
As he finally hung up with the woman he cringed at the thought of what Dean was going to have to endure while in the presence of someone so damn superficial; it always amazed him that she'd ever been elected in the first place. Now though all he wanted to do was sit back for a minute and enjoy the quiet.
"Colonel, Pembridge Academy on line two for you."
Groaning, he couldn't help but wonder what the problem was now. It had been months since the Dean of Students was notified that John Winchester had been posing as a janitor to gain easy access to Sam, and since then the other man had taken it upon himself to make sure that any out of the ordinary circumstance was brought to his attention immediately. Reaching over he pressed the speaker button in hopes that it would be quick so he could get down to the ever pressing business of warding off a headache.
"Erickson here." He growled, hoping to make the point that now was not the time for some petty issue.
"Colonel, I'm glad I was able to reach you. Samuel Winchester as well as several other boys left the school grounds. Now I understand that you believe there is not threat towards the boy at the moment, but I wanted to inform you that he still must abide by all school policies; including the policy of skipping classes."
Hearing that, Terrance groaned inwardly while at the same time worrying that maybe they had missed something. "Mr. Cummings, did anything happen at the school today that might have upset Sam or one of the other boys?"
There was a slight pause before the heavy sigh was heard through the speaker. "Colonel, I'm afraid that news of your daughter's condition has made its rounds and unfortunately made young Samuel out to be a villain. The rumor has it that the boy found out about Jenna's cancer and broke off their relationship with her."
"WHAT! How the hell can something like that spread so damn fast?" he bellowed, no extremely worried about Sam. "Mr. Cummings, I assure you that if there was any breaking off of any relationship, it was my daughter doing it for all the wrong reasons."
"I understand sir; however that does not chance the fact that Samuel is not here and that makes it a suspendable offense." Eugene Cummings said, actually sounding remorseful for it.
"Wait, I thought first offenses were categorized with detention being one of the first options. Has something else happened that we need to be aware of?"
The Dean of Students was quiet for a moment before he confessed, "No, nothing except several parents are threatening the school if we do not limit their children's exposure to the boy. I'm sorry Colonel, but you knew what it was going to be like for him here and unfortunately there's not too many people who are willing to see him as a person instead of as a risk."
Terrance had no idea how long he sat there thinking about the conversation he just had, and he still had no way of knowing how he was going to tell the musketeers that Sam had taken off.
SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN
Dean hated escort duty and today was no exception. The itinerary he'd been given basically made him out to be a tourist on the way back home to Washington, D.C. and only very loosely shadowing the Congresswoman on the rest of her trip. Normally that wouldn't be too bad; except this particular woman was driving him nuts and he hadn't even met up with her yet.
He knew from the reports he'd read and the interviews she'd granted, Marcie Tolliver was a self serving person who's answer to the world hunger problem would have been 'let them eat cake' if that line hadn't been already taken. No, Ms. Tolliver was spoiled to the point of complete decay and even at the age of forty something didn't seem to have the maturity to understand the true complex issues that faced people from all walks of life. In fact it was widely believed that the only reason she got into office was because of the blitz campaign that she ran basing herself as the 'American Girl Next Door', and it wasn't until she'd actually got in office that people realized that they had elected someone who had no idea what the issues were and even less about how to try to help.
Getting off the plane, he grabbed his bag from the overhead compartment and walked down the steps onto the tarmac. Not liking the fact that he was now in the middle of nowhere, he could only smile at the thought that someone like the congresswoman had to be feeling a lot worse of than he was.
It still took him two hours to get to the small villa she was staying, and at that point he was tossing around the idea of resigning when he came face to face with woman and knew that it was a definite possibility.
"Where have you been? I have been stuck in this hellhole for a week, and I am more than ready to go home where it is nice and civilized." She complained as she pushed her damp hair out of her eyes. "So you're Don, right? Well Don you need to make sure everything is secure before we leave and a car will be here in an hour."
Dean watched her stalk off yelling at someone in another room and had to wonder just what exactly was so horrible in his previous life that he deserved to be saddled with someone like her even for a couple of days. After a moment of consideration, he quickly decided that he really didn't want to know. As he looked at his watch he wondered what his little brother was doing and how the others were handling everything while he was gone.
SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN
Stephen was worried and knew the others were too. It had been three and a half hours since the Colonel had told them that Sammy had taken off from the school, and explained what the consequences could be. None of them had realized that the other phones had been turned off, so when that information was added to what they knew they all were pretty sure that if Sammy had tried to call, then he would have probably felt alone in dealing with whatever problem came up at school. It didn't help his nerves though to realize that Sammy wasn't answering his phone at the moment.
Taylor had tried to put a trace on their little brother's phone, but with him not using it, it was next to impossible to get a fix on his location. What frustrated him more was he had actually thought about putting a small tracer in the kids unit just for such an emergency. Now though all they had to go on was that he was with some friends and at the moment they weren't sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.
Knowing Sammy the way he did, Joseph was trying to figure out where he'd go with a few of his friends. He suspected Vic was with him and that made him feel a little bit better, since the kid had stuck by Sammy this long. Now though he wasn't sure where to start looking. Suddenly he had an idea and could have kicked himself for not thinking about it sooner. Reaching for his phone he called the number on the back of one of the house listings, impatiently waiting for the woman to answer. Looking up he saw both Taylor and Stephen looking back at him with expectation and he knew that they were as jumpy as he was about their little brother going AWOL on them. 'Dean's gone one day and all hell tries to break loose.' He thought as the asked the realtor if she had any appointments with his brother today. Smiling, he gave the others a thumb's up and cut the call.
SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN
Sam knew that Toby didn't want to just drop him off, but it was a lot better than them roaming through the house he was trying to finalize a deal on. The realtor had called him as soon as she was asked to be the listing agent stating that she knew he was looking for another investment property and that the people were anxious to sell; that had been a month ago and today they were supposed to do a final walk through with the inspectors and if everything worked out then the final papers would be signed and he could add house number two to the company's list.
Sighing, he watched the tail lights fade from sight and felt the loneliness creep on him once again while at the same time trying to fight it off citing that his brothers would be home by the time he got there and they could hang out all night. He missed Dean already, and the more he tried to deny it the more he knew that he missed Jenna too.
Seeing the realtor's car in the driveway along with a truck that he assumed was the inspector he let himself inside and started to walk around the small house that had once been a home to a family. He didn't have all the details, but he got the impression that there as an illness in the family and they needed to move to be closer to that person. He knew now how close a family had to be in order to uproot themselves like that and he could actually smile at the idea of whoever it was was loved a lot.
So lost in his own thoughts he didn't realize he had company in what once was a nursery until he heard the sounds of scuffling behind him. Swinging around suddenly, he was ready to put up a fight until he saw his brothers standing there vying for first crack into the room. Stunned, he watched them for a moment before laughing at the absurd sight.
"Uh guys… how about we all go in the living room, it's a lot bigger." Sam said as a joke, but suddenly froze when his brothers asked a question he had been completely unprepared for.
"Where the hell have you been?"