Firefly – Chapter 24

By: Suz Mc

Dean was already in the driver's seat by the time Sam started pumping the gas. The steering wheel felt good in his hands and he was almost embarrassed at the desire he felt to hold onto it while they were still sitting motionless at the pumps. The Impala didn't mind giving him some comfort and he damn sure needed some now.

He'd read the translated text over and over, struggling through the more gruesome sections where Sam's handwriting had deteriorated to a scribble. Sam had kept cutting his eyes over at him while he read, waiting for him to explode and smash his fist through the windshield. Somehow, he'd gotten through it without letting his brain bleed out through his ears or his heart tear open the front of his chest.

Focusing on Emily's face helped for a while. As long as he pictured her alive, he could hold it together. The way she smiled when he totally screwed up that bubble bath and spent an hour cleaning it up. How completely pissed she was when she was too short for the booth in the restaurant. Her face when she was sleeping without fear slashing apart her dreams.

"Here." Sam was suddenly in the car, shoving a cup of coffee into his hand.

"Thanks." It was hot, stinging his throat and he liked the way it made him more alert. Pain wasn't always a bad thing. Most of the time, but not always.

It didn't take long to get the Impala settled well over the speed limit and Dean clung to the wheel tightly. Sam was now riding shotgun where he belonged and he reached over to pick up the pieces of paper Dean had tossed on the seat when he couldn't look at them anymore.

"I want to ask you about something that stood out to me about the ritual," Dean said, keeping his focus on the road. He had to call it "the ritual" instead of "the sacrifice" or he couldn't talk about it at all.

"Okay."

"There's a part that's bothering me and I want you to explain it to me."

"If I can."

"There's a phrase that said Amora's 'liberation is born from the source of her own annihilation.' I want you to explain that to me."

Sam didn't answer right away, just kept his eyes on the pages in his hand. Dean could hear Sam's finger running down the page, pretending he needed to see it in black and white when it was obvious he didn't. He'd translated the damn thing. He knew what it said.

"May have something to do with Emily," Sam said, shutting off quickly.

Little brother loved to talk and talk, but when he reigned in that vocabulary he was so proud of and switched to short non-information-giving sentences, it was his tell that something was off.

"No shit, Sam," Dean said, his patience ebbing away rapidly. "You know something and I want to know what it is."

"I told you Amora may have done something to Emily because she was inside Calley at her conception. That's it."

Dean tilted his head sideways, feeling the tension pop in his neck. "Something like what Azazel did to you, right?"

"Could be."

"Stop making me drag this out of you, Sam! You know more about this 'child of light and fire' bullshit and you'd better start talking. Silence is not optional! You told me you had a connection with Emily and I thought you meant blood and family but that's not it, is it?"

He could feel Sam looking at him and weighing the wisdom of holding on to whatever intel he had inside his head. "I'm not sure of anything and I didn't want to freak you out until I knew more."

"Freak me out!? Start talking, now."

"When I touch Emily's hand, we can both feel some kind of psychic buzz and it's physical and mental," Sam said, quickly adding, "but, Dean, I don't think it's bad."

"What the fuck are you telling me, Sam? You don't think it's bad?! How can this not be bad for her, damnit?!" Every nightmare moment he'd played out with Sam, courtesy of a yellow-eyed bastard, replayed in his mind with Emily's face jammed in the middle of it.

"Dean, I was trying to cover all the bases and rule out the worst case scenario before—"

"Worst case scenario? And what would that be, Sam? I think this is about as fubar as it gets already!" A disturbing thought struck Dean and he cut a cold glance in Sam's direction. "You thought she might be possessed, didn't you? Answer me?!"

"She's not. I checked."

"Son of a bitch, Sam! You touched her with holy water, didn't you? You poured holy water on my kid!"

"She was in my room the day I was leaving and when I felt that connection between us, I wanted to be sure there wasn't some demon riding her and lying dormant."

The way Sam said it, like he was checking off some demon detection to-do list, infuriated him. "What makes you think you have the fucking right to keep any of that from me? She's MY KID, not yours!"

"I know."

"Oh, no you don't! You keep going. Child of light and fire, what does it mean?"

"That she has something to do with light and fire."

"Don't be a smart ass."

"I'm not, Dean. Maybe that's why Amora tried to burn her."

"Alright, next topic. 'Liberation born from the source of her own annihilation.' If killing Emily--" He stopped for a second, thrown off balance by the reality of saying it out loud. "If killing Emily liberates Amora, that implies something, doesn't it?"

"That maybe Emily has something that's dangerous to Amora."

"That's just great, Sam. Awesome. Not only does she want Emily dead so she can get her freak on walking around earth getting laid and torturing women but she HAS to kill her before this little kid kills her first! And to top it off, Emily doesn't even know she can do it, right?"

"Stop, Dean. We don't know what she can do, if anything. That's the catch with demons throwing around their juice; you just don't know what's going to grow."

"Maybe I could have found out if you hadn't been doing your need to know bullshit, once again."

"One thing we do know is that Amora can't do the job herself so if we take out all of her groupies, she's screwed." Sam tried to defuse Dean's anger by offering a plan of action.

It didn't work.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me, Sam, because now's the time?" Dean watched Sam carefully. He had learned years ago to spot little brother's weaknesses and he was holding back one more card.

Sam remained silent.

"Don't think about it too long because the longer you wait, the more pissed I'm gonna be and I'm about as jacked as one human being can get!" Dean checked his watch. They would be in Centennial in a couple of hours. He'd give Sam one to spill the rest of it then he was going to wring it out of his hide.

***

It had been a long time since she'd tried to get away and everything had gotten black. Being in the backseat with the mean lady was making her feel sick. Every time the lady looked at her, it was like it burned. Her head hurt where it had hit the door when they threw her back in the car before they made that man bleed. Everything was foggy and fuzzy. She'd been scared so long that the poundy feeling in her chest wasn't even weird anymore; it was just the way she felt.

The mean people were talking but their voices sounded like they were far away, like she had cotton in her ears and she liked that because she didn't want to hear the ugly things they said. They were all excited like bad people get when they're about to be badder. There was a mean little girl at school who was like that. She'd get all wound up and loud when she was about to pull your hair, then she'd laugh if you cried about it. That's what those people were like. She wanted to fix them like she fixed that mean little girl and dump a bowl of chocolate pudding on their heads but she didn't have any and they were taller than that bully girl and they'd probably hit instead of running off crying to the teacher.

"How much longer?"

The mean lady was louder than the rest, like she was the boss or something. If Daddy was here, she wouldn't be his boss. But Daddy wasn't here and he probably wasn't coming because they must have made him bleed like that other guy who wasn't Daddy. When she thought about that, it made her dizzy and sick and she couldn't think.

"They're meeting us in two hours and we'll have plenty of time to prepare."

The red-haired man kept looking at her funny over the seat and she was glad she wasn't seeing clearly because he was the scariest of them all. He reached over the seat and pinched her leg and she was too tired to pull away anymore.

"You're going to be the star of the show, Cutie."

She didn't want him to call her that. That was what Daddy called her but he put "pie" at the end because he liked pie and her, too. Daddy was the only one who could say that, but he wasn't here and she wished he was. He was probably in Heaven by now. Maybe she was going to go there, too, and it would be nice, because then she'd be away from these mean people who were everywhere.

***

Sam had known from the beginning he should have told Dean about Emily and what he'd felt. But what was he supposed to say? "Dean, I think your little girl may have powers? What powers? Not sure, just powers."

Dean had fallen silent in his anger which was infinitely better than his bellowing earlier. The only Winchester ever allowed to have secrets was Dean, period. It was Dean's line in the sand and Sam had known it would set Dean off if he crossed it but he'd done it anyway.

Even though he was driving, Dean was planning. Sam could see that focused, pissed off look Dean wore while formulating a battle plan. By the time they arrived in Centennial, he would have a list of weapons to deploy and some way to get into that house and create the bloodbath he was fantasizing for anyone who'd hurt Emily.

Sam knew he was on Dean's shit list now, too, and he deserved to be there.

"Shit!" The curse slipped out as his phone vibrated in his pocket and yanked him out of his thoughts. As Sam read the email subject line, he couldn't help but say a sarcastic "Thanks" to the cosmic force that thought it was the perfect time to screw with him.

"What?" Dean had waited a total of three seconds before his curiosity won over.

"It's an email."

"Sam, I'm not going through this shit with you again with the short answers. Who's that from and what does it say?"

Sam scanned through the message and shut it down. The last thing they needed before going into battle was a wedge between them, but lying to Dean again wasn't an option at this point.

Sam took a deep breath, and then started his confession. "I've done something you told me not to and I have to tell you about it."

"Well, color me surprised! Sammy doing something I told him not to do. What a freakin' shock." Dean's hands were tight enough on the wheel to wring blood out of it at any second.

"The email is from Dr. Wallace."

"Wallace? Why the hell would he be sending you an email?" Dean's teeth ground together as the realization hit him. "Son of a bitch! You ran the fucking DNA test! Didn't you?!"

"Let me explain."

"YOU KNEW I didn't want it. YOU KNEW!" The bellowing was back. Dean slammed his hand against the wheel and the car shimmied slightly on the blacktop. "I swear to God, Sam, if I had time to pull this car over, I'd KICK YOUR SORRY ASS FOR THIS!"

"You and Emily both needed to know this, Dean. The truth always comes out."

"That's fuckin' unbelievable coming out of your mouth, Sam. The truth! Yeah, right. You're all for telling the truth unless it's something you want to keep from me. Fuck you! How could you do this to me? You're supposed to be my brother."

"I AM your brother, Dean! That's why I did this, because you couldn't and you and Emily BOTH need the truth. You know this was necessary, damnit."

"I know that you're a toothbrush stealing, sneaky bastard who won't stop talking!"

"You need to hear this and if you'll just listen—"

"SHUT UP! I'M NOT GOING TO LISTEN TO THIS RIGHT NOW SO JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!" Dean's face was bleach pale with dread and he was repeating his "shut up" mantra like a little kid covering his ears to block something he couldn't stand to hear.

"Dean."

"Stop talking or I'm gonna' shove that phone down your throat!" Dean was driving at the speed of his anger now, passing ninety and heading for ninety-five.

"Listen to me, damnit!"

"NO! You stop screwing around with my life!"

Sam lowered his voice. He didn't need to say this loudly because Dean was listening, no matter what he said.

"She's yours."

The death grip Dean had on the wheel held him still and he bit down on his lip hard to hold back the flood of what he was feeling. His body seemed to collapse inward, just a fraction, as the relief spread over him. He didn't make a sound except for the heavy breaths rushing in and out of his lungs. Sam knew his brother wasn't going to be able to talk for a while.

"She's yours, Dean, and I have the proof here in print. We're going to get her back and no one can ever take her away from you."

Dean cut a look over at Sam, made an attempt to speak, but stopped and looked back toward the road. Sam had no illusions concerning how Dean felt about being lied to, regardless of the outcome. At least there wouldn't be an axe hanging over Dean's family, waiting to hack it to pieces. Sam felt good about that, no matter how Dean felt about the end run Sam had done around his wishes.

When Dean finally spoke, his voice was low and rough. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, as long as you don't pull the car over and kick my ass."

"What were you going to do if the test said something else?"

"Nothing."

Sam had decided that from the second he'd watched his drug dazed, panicked brother crawling around on the motel room floor looking for his child. "You're Emily's father in every way that counts, ways that have nothing to do with blood. You're supposed to be her dad. That's all that matters."

"Okay."

That was all he was going to get from Dean for a while. The sun was setting and in the dimming light, Sam watched his brother allow himself a smile. They had four hours left until midnight. If they didn't stop Emily's sacrifice, it might be the last time he'd see one on Dean's face.

TBC