Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's Note: Dude, it's been forever, I know! And this chapter is kind of short and doesn't offer a whole lot...but, hey, it's an update, and more's to come! Really, I promise!
"You know, we can do this on our own," he says gently, watching as she flits by once more, piling additional clothes into her duffel.
"No you can't."
Sam shakes his head and rises from the corner of the bed. "Tess," he breathes out, fingers wrapping around her arm, twisting her around to face him. "We can do this, really. You don't have to be here." He looks over her shoulder at Dean, face dark and drawn as he leans against the doorjamb.
He's been quiet since they arrived, barely uttering a word in the last hour. Barely even moving, just standing back as Tessa frantically collected her personal belongings and Sam worked to fit them all into the few bags and boxes they'd brought.
"You wouldn't know what I need, Sam," she says simply, shaking off his big paw. "And besides, I don't want you touching my underwear."
He laughs a bit but knows better than to let her attempt at humor truly comfort him. Because she uses it as a defense mechanism almost as much as Dean. And right now she just has too much to defend herself against.
She zips the duffel shut and leaves the bedroom, squeezes past Dean, all the while carefully avoiding glancing at anything that was his. Her brothers follow, watch as she stops and stares at the immense bookshelves along the living room wall, presumably deciding which of many books to bring along.
"You know," Sam starts, sensing what she's thinking, "we can always just pack these up and put them into storage or something."
"No," she responds, resolve wavering with the despair in her voice. "No, I don't really need them." And it was true, most of them she had nearly memorized, knew so well she had no need to consult them. Keeping them was more of a comfort thing, an odd sort of security blanket. Most everyone who'd ever known Tessa Winchester would find it difficult to picture her without a book by her side.
"You sure?"
"I have to let go sometime," she says, so quiet and mumbled that Sam wonders if it was even meant for his ears.
She begins pulling titles off the shelf, tossing them into yet another box, stopping only when reaching for one, not even that high. But the action pulls at her stitches and causes her breath to stall, pain rippling through her chest and back. Sam notices and jumps up to grab the book she was reaching for, knowing full well that if he doesn't she'll only keep trying for it until she succeeds.
"You should still be in the hospital," Dean rumbles behind them, the first full sentence he's uttered in almost an hour.
"Please," she says, turning to him. "Who are you to tell me not to go AMA?" But he's not looking at her when she speaks. Instead his eyes are cast downward, boring into the bloodstained carpet. She looks away, too eager to ignore what he's obviously thinking about, and says with gentle resolution, "I'm fine."
All three siblings are silent for the rest of the time spent in the little bungalow. No one asks why certain items are chosen to be kept and others not. No one discusses what will be done with all that's left behind, with the things that belonged to Ben. No one acknowledges the all too apparent elephant in the room.
Sam and Dean carry everything out, two boxes and two bags, all that she'd accumulated over the last year of being mostly settled. And no one says a word when they pull away from the little house, Tessa never looking back.
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They'd been doing this sort of thing long enough to know how to handle situations like this. Granted they tended not to be quite so personal, but even so, a hunt was a hunt. So they all slipped rather seamlessly into their typical routine.
Tessa consulting her books, notes, previously gathered research. Sam hitting the Internet, searching for anything new or different, or in any way similar. John making calls to various contacts, working his way through the grapevine, eager to discover new information, careful to ensure that none of theirs got out. And Dean pouting restlessly, relying on the others to do their research thing.
It wasn't long before the anxious fervor gave way to a clumsy ennui.
"Maybe we're thinking too much about this," Sam says with a sigh. "Maybe it's more…simple than all this."
"What do you mean?" Tessa asks through a yawn, which quickly makes her wince.
From the other side of the room John tosses her a pill bottle, pain meds she'd been adamant about not taking. He glares at her fiercely, an unspoken order, and she pops open the pills, swallows one dry. When a smart-ass smile spreads over her face, he shakes his head, both annoyed and amused, before saying, "When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras."
"What?" she hisses, brow furrowed.
"What he's saying," Dean chimes in, "is that we're looking for something that isn't there because we don't want to see what's right in front of our eyes." His voice is gentle, but the words cut through her all the same. Because she knows what he means, what he's thinking.
"No," Sam interrupts, eager to keep Dean from saying something stupid. "No, we're just saying that there could be a relatively simple explanation."
"Let's not forget," John begins, taking a seat on the bed next to his daughter, "you and Ben performed a lot of exorcisms, turned it almost into a bit of specialty. That alone makes you two targets for any sort of demonic activity."
She shakes her head. "He wasn't possessed. I mean he didn't show any signs of possession, other that just not being himself."
Dean lets out a sardonic snort, earning him a glare from everyone in the room.
"I don't think he was either," Sam says. "But, you're right, he was clearly not himself."
"And he'd been talking about hearing them again, the demons," John goes on. "We don't know what they might have been telling him, doing to him. We don't know what kind of influence they may have had over him that they couldn't hold over us."
"So, what," Dean tries. "You think he was like Jedi mind-fucked or something? Because I gotta tell ya, that sounds like zebras to me."
"Would you stop it already," Tessa huffs, more exhausted than angry. "I get it. We all get it. You didn't like him. You didn't trust him."
"I'm just saying – "
"No, you're not. You're not saying anything, Dean. I know him. Do you get that? I know him."
"Wrong," he spits out, suddenly willing to get in her face. "You knew him. You don't know him anymore, because he's dead. And he's dead because you killed him, because you had no choice, because he stabbed you in the fucking chest!"
The loud smack of skin on skin startles everyone in the room, including Dean and Tessa. Because while tiffs with her brothers were nothing new, and occasionally these devolved into full on physical fights, she had never actually slapped anyone before.
A punch was one thing, a way to say knock it off or leave me alone. A kick, landed in the right place could do the same. But am open-handed hit was much more personal that that. A slap rarely left a bruise, but the sting lasted indefinitely.
Both siblings stood stunned, John's voice sounding over the din, a firm and rough, "Enough," followed quickly by the ringing of his cell.
No words were spoken as they turned to move for their separate corners. No apologetic glance was shared. Because each knew they were right, the other wrong.
John leaves the room to answer his phone, nothing but his deep rumble discernable from the other side of the heavy door. The three siblings sit in tense silence, waiting.
When their father finally enters once more he simply declares, "We're going to see Bobby," before moving to pack everything up.