Chapter 3 The Bunker
Carrie Beth had nodded off in the back seat of the Impala. She didn't know how long they had been driving or where they were but she did know that neither Sam nor Dean appeared to need much sleep. She stretched as best she could in the car and sat up from her lying position.
"Look who's awake," Dean said glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
"How long was I out?"
"We've been on the road six hours," he said. "You and Sammy both have been asleep."
She glanced over at the passenger seat where Sam was obviously still knocked out. "Want me to drive?" she asked with a yawn. "I'm not sure where we are going but I know you must be exhausted."
"Ha, yeah right. Nobody drives my baby but me and occasionally Sam."
She huffed. "I was just offering Dean no reason to be a dick about it."
Dean stared at her in the rearview mirror. She was pretty, but not in a conventional kind of way. She was curvier and heavier than what was thought of as attractive these days, but she was easy on the eyes for him. He liked a woman with a little meat on her bones. He had never understood the allure of having ribs poke you while you were in the throes of passion.
"I like your hair," he said without thinking and immediately wanted to kick himself.
She smirked. "What's to like? It's dull and stringy and thin. I can't do a thing with it but leave it down or pull it back in a ponytail."
"I think it's a beautiful dirty blond that suits your face and I love a ponytail. Especially when I get to take it down."
"Dean Winchester are you flirting with me?"
"Sure as hell am Carrie Beth. I like what I see when I look at you."
"What quick and uncomplicated?"
"Is that what you think of me?"
"You don't strike me as a long term guy Dean. In my case I'm a damsel in distress and you are my denim clad knight riding up in a 1970's black Impala to save me. I'm sure I look like an easy target, but I'm not."
Dean pulled to a stop in front of an odd looking round door set into the side of a hill or mountain. "First of all it's a 1967 Impala. Secondly I can be flannel clad too and thirdly… I don't think you are an easy target and I would never take advantage of you."
Sam groaned in the passenger seat as he woke up from his deep sleep. "Now Sam, watch out for him… he can't be trusted," Dean whispered the last part before climbing out of the car.
"What?" Sam asked confused and Carrie Beth giggled before she too exited the car.
"Where are we?" she asked Dean.
"Home," he said grabbing the bags out of the trunk.
She reached for hers but he shook his head. "I've got it."
"How long was I out?" Sam asked from the other side of the car.
"Six hours or so. You'll probably be awake for the next week now."
Sam stretched again. "You should have woken me, I could have driven part of the way. I know you have to be tired."
"I offered Sam, but he shot me down."
Sam laughed out loud. "If he had let you drive I would have had to kill him."
She looked at him perplexed. "Nobody drives Dean's Impala. If he had let you drive he is obviously a demon or shapeshifter or something non-human which would mean it had to die."
"He's not wrong," Dean yelled from the steps leading up to the round door.
Sam motioned for Carrie Beth to head up the stairs and she felt very heavy as she approached the door. She smelled black pepper, basil, and garlic when the door opened under Dean's push and recognized a bushel of fennel draped across the entrance of the door. "What's with the smell? Is somebody cooking?" she asked sniffing the air.
"Nope," Dean replied heading down the steps into the large room below.
Sam sighed. "Dean you don't have to be a jerk. She doesn't know any of this stuff."
"Well quit being a bitch and explain it to her then," Dean called from the bottom of the stairs.
"Jerk," Sam muttered under his breath.
"I heard that bitch," Dean yelled from somewhere beneath them.
Carrie Beth looked at Sam curiously. "The herbs are part of the wards to protect this place from evil and supernatural beings. Did you feel how heavy the air is outside?" She nodded her response. "It's the spells that are cast over the bunker. It keeps us and everything in here safe from outside magic and evil."
"So the fact that I can enter means I'm cool right?"
Sam laughed. "Exactly," he said following her down the stairs.
"Put her in the back room and I'll get started on some grub," Dean yelled from a doorway.
Carrie Beth followed Sam down a hall past a room full of books and tables that reminded her of the school library. He pushed a heavy wooden door opened and she glanced into a plain brown room with no windows and a full sized bed covered with a brown blanket. "Well this is depressing," she said stepping back from the doorway.
"It'll do for now," Sam said. "We'll hopefully have you home soon."
"What's Dean cooking?"
"There is no telling."
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She followed the sound of music to a small kitchen where Dean was mixing eggs and cheese together in a large glass bowl. He had a kitchen towel slung over one shoulder and was bobbing his head along with the tune that she recognized as Metallica. He looked like sex on a stick and she had to take a deep breath before she spoke. "Classic rock fan?'
"Damn straight," he said without looking at her.
"You got any flour?"
He looked at her curiously. "Yeah."
"I was just thinking I could make some biscuits or pancakes to go along with the eggs."
He dropped the whisk in the bowl and sprinted towards her. Taking her face in his hands he kissed her solidly for at least thirty seconds. Breaking the kiss he stared into her eyes. "I have to ask you a serious question," he said softly. "Will you marry me and cook me biscuits for the rest of my life?"
Her kiss induced haze broke away at that statement and she snapped to attention. "If only you were serious Dean. Think about how pretty our babies would be."
"You don't have to be married to make a baby," he said backing away from her with a grin.
"I do," she said. "Now where's the flour. Maybe once you taste the biscuits you'll realize the ball and chain is worth it."
He pointed to a cabinet and she set to work. "Where's Sam?" he asked.
"Researching my father. He used the little information that Viktor gave me and he's running a search for hunters who might have been involved in that particular hunt."
"He'll find something. Sam always finds something."
"So what he's the brains and you're the muscle in this little circus of yours."
Dean nodded while he poured the egg and cheese mixture into a hot frying pan. He stirred the contents while he spoke. "Sam has always been the brains. Me, I was trained from a child to take care of this family business. To hunt evil and keep people from being hurt. Sam got out of it for a while but tragedy pulled him back in and now together we save the world."
"Kind of full of yourself aren't you?"
He laughed. "The world has almost come to an end so many times in the last decade and you know nothing about it. Sam and I have worked with angels, demons, vampires, scribes of heaven, the king of hell, witches, republicans, democrats, and God himself to save this damn world and nobody knows anything about our job. So yeah, I am a little bit full of myself but I think I have earned that right."
"I'm sorry…"
"And furthermore," he said turning to her and waving a spatula covered with egg in her face, "we saved your scrawny ass from being tortured by a group of revenge seeking vampires! A thank you would be nice!"
"Thank you," she said quietly before pushing the biscuits together into a greased pan. "Is the oven turned on?"
"Yeah," he said turning his back to her again.
She pushed the biscuits into the oven and washed her hands in the sink. She watched him for a moment and made a decision she hoped she wouldn't regret. She stepped closer to him and placed a hand gently on his shoulder. When he turned to look at her she put her hands on either side of his face and pulled him to her. She kissed him deeply and felt him lean into her the spatula and eggs forgotten. When she broke the kiss she leaned her forehead onto his and sighed. "What was that for?" he asked his eyes closed.
"My way of giving thanks for everything you have done."
"You gonna kiss Sam like that too?"
She laughed and pulled back to look at him. "No, I can't say I will. Unless you think I should?"
"Hell no," he said and kissed her again.
XXXXXXXXXX
Carrie Beth set the table for the three of them while Dean finished up in the kitchen. He was bringing out plates of eggs and biscuits when Sam walked in with his laptop. "So get this," he said plopping down at the table, "there was a nest of vampires in that area that Viktor mentioned that a set of hunters destroyed. The men of letter's records indicate it was one of the last full nests to be eradicated."
"Does it list the hunters?" Dean asked before taking a forkful of eggs and shoving it in his mouth.
"Yeah but it's a bunch of them. Some we know and some we don't."
"Run the list," Dean said slathering strawberry jelly on his biscuit.
"Connor and Judith Mayer, Rocky Bridger, Dana and Paul Bryant, Jimmy West, Richard West…"
"Brothers?" Dean asked.
"Yeah... Gordon Walker…"
"Shit," Dean said with his mouth full, "we should have known that crazy bastard was part of a vamp hunt."
"Rufus Turner, Bill Harvelle, and…."
"And?" Dean asked.
"Bobby Singer," Sam said quietly.
Dean stopped with his biscuit halfway to his mouth. "Bobby? Really?"
"Yeah. That was quite a team. I wonder how big the nest was to require so many hunters."
"Which one is Carrie Beth's father? I mean I think we can rule out Rufus and Gordon because she's a very white girl…"
Carrie Beth glared at him. "You got a problem with my porcelain skin?"
Dean smirked. "No ma'am, but I'm doubting that a black man was your father."
"Oh, I didn't realize they were black. Continue please."
"I don't know these couples or the West brothers. I can track them down and see if any of them are still alive. Maybe one of them has the answer."
"Are any of the names familiar Carrie Beth?"
"Harvelle…" she said, turning the computer towards her. "I don't know why though. I really don't recognize any of those names."
"Let's finish eating and then we can start tracking down the names we don't know and maybe we can find a lead."
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"I got it! I got it!" Sam yelled while sprinting from the back of the bunker to the table that Dean and Carrie Beth were now occupying. "Judith Mayer is still alive and she remembers the hunt! She lives in Toledo, Ohio but I can make it there in probably eight hours give or take a little bit."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean you can make it? I'm going with you," Dean said waving his hands in front of Sam's face in a time out signal.
"One of us has to stay here with… her," he said quietly nodding towards Carrie Beth.
"And you think it should be me?" Dean asked crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"I don't need a babysitter boys," Carrie Beth said still flipping pages in the book she was looking through. "Both of you can go and I'll be fine by myself. You said that the bunker was warded against everything right?"
Dean flipped around to stare at her. "Yes it's warded, but you can't stay by yourself. We never know when something is going to go haywire around here."
She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. "Like what Dean? What could possibly go wrong around here?"
Dean shoved his hands into his pockets. "I mean… all kinds of… things can happen. A ghost, a witch, an angel. You never know what kind of crazy creatures will show up here that can get through the wards."
She stared at him. "Well I guess you boys can do your rock, paper, scissors thing to decide who stays. Or you could take me with you?"
"No!" Dean yelled. "We… won't be taking that piece of advice. You have to stay here where you will be safe."
"So rock, paper, scissors?" Sam asked with a grin.