Call Me If You Need Me
K Hanna Korossy

It was a hard decision, a lot riding on it.

"Cocoa Crunch or Cookie Crunch?" Dean's eyes flitted between the two boxes as he considered. He had to—

"Dean?"

It was weird hearing a female voice in the bunker. And Eileen's voice, at that, dead as she was. But that wasn't what grabbed Dean's attention.

"Dean!"

It was the panic in her voice. And no Sam echoing her.

Dean skidded out of the kitchen…and almost ran right through Eileen's incorporeal—a Sam word—form. Which would have been all kinds of awkward if Dean had time to think about that, which he didn't. Not with the way her eyes were huge with worry.

"Where's Sam?" he barked.

She'd started speaking at the same time. "Sam needs your help. Witches—"

He didn't need to hear more, not for the moment. "Meet me in the garage," he turned his head to yell over his shoulder, already heading to the armory.

Five minutes later, his mind spinning through options, all of them bad, he barreled into the garage. No time for a shower, but he'd ditched his bathrobe and thrown on some clothes and had his go-bag in hand. And some hastily gathered special equipment.

But…there was no Impala.

Dean screeched to a halt, cursing under his breath. Of course, Sam had taken it on his "milk run." Dean hadn't planned to go anywhere, so why not?

The garage had been full when they'd first found it. None of the vehicles worked, of course, not after sitting unused all those years, but Dean had eventually gotten them all up and running. Then the Apocalypse-world hunters arrived, and Sam had given away most of the cars and trucks with Dean's reluctant blessing. They'd kept Dorothy's motorcycle, of course, and the Cougar Sam drove when he and Dean had to go separate ways, and a pick-up truck because sometimes you just needed a pick-up truck, especially in their line of work. Oh! And…

Dean, despite himself, smiled, just a little.

Tucked in at the end, half-hidden by the truck, was a sweet little Mercedes. Dean had found Lady Toni Bevell's car down the road a few days after that mess, and, well, she'd never need it again. Just last week, Dean had tuned her up and driven her in a loop around the bunker to make sure she was running smooth. She could do 100 mph without breaking a sweat. Just what he needed.

"Dean?" Eileen either materialized next to him or he just hadn't noticed her, which would have been creepy in other circumstances. Right now, Dean was just grateful she was there.

"Come on," he said, and turned to the Mercedes.

She appeared in the passenger seat next to him as he climbed in on the driver's side.

"Rowena's apartment?" he asked tersely, not waiting for confirmation before he started the car and peeled out of the garage.

"Yes."

Dean waited until they were on the road north and he'd set her—the car, not Sam's ghost girlfriend—loose, then he spared Eileen a glance so she could see his mouth clearly.

"Start at the beginning."

00000

It was a crazy story, because of course it was when the two of them were concerned. Rowena's tossed apartment and the dead witch. Finding the hidden room, and the incomplete resurrection spell. Sam starting to spit up blood as soon as they got back to the car, and finding the hex bag by the tire. And him sending her to get Dean as two more witches bore down on him.

Dean's jaw was so tight, it creaked, but he nodded. Thank God Sam had been able to ask her to get Dean. By the time he would've realized his little brother was in trouble, it could've been way too late, because Dean had been busy guzzling kids' food and shows.

They'd blown past one cop already, who hadn't even bothered to give chase on the sparse back road, and Dean slowed way down as they approached another common speed trap. They still had more than an hour to go; who knew he'd miss the days when angels could zap him across the country in an instant, even if his stomach wasn't the same for a week after. The one angel he still knew wasn't one he particularly wanted to talk to right now, but he would've called Cas and begged if it would've helped Sam. Dean considered calling the guy anyway to update him, then ditched the idea. Wasn't like Cas was answering Sam's texts. And Dean had enough to worry about right now.

Speaking of. "Hey, Eileen." He tried to look at her, even though he was back up to 110 now and had to pay attention to the road more than usual. A swerve or a blowout at this speed could easily be lethal. "You think you can go check on Sam?"

She nodded and disappeared.

Dean wrung the soft leather steering wheel. He longed for one of his cassette tapes to distract his worst-scenario thoughts, but this car looked like it didn't even play CDs. Probably had a satellite radio like the one Sam had gotten Dean one year that he secretly kinda loved—the classic rock channels alone!—but only secretly; it didn't do to give Sam ideas about Dean's music collection. Dean still hadn't completely forgiven him for the time Sam had digitized the whole lot and tried to get Dean to reinstall the freakin' iPod in his car that Dean had tossed as soon as he'd returned from the grave. Er, the first time.

But he didn't have the time or bandwidth—ironically—to figure out the sound system now. So Dean just pressed the gas a little harder and kept going. Less than an hour to go…

He was so used to beings popping into the car—how bizarre was that?—that he barely flinched when Eileen reappeared.

"He's alive," she started with, because she knew them well enough. Even as Dean took a breath, she went on. "He's still unconscious, but I think he'll wake up soon. The witches have him, I think a mother and daughter? It looks like the daughter's making a fetish doll."

Dean's eyebrows arched.

"Not that kind of fetish," Eileen said with amusement. Yeah, she knew them. "An effigy of Sam."

Right, to control him, and probably hurt him. Dean's lips thinned. "Freaking witches," he muttered.

He hadn't made the effort to say it so Eileen could see it, but he heard her quiet, "Yeah."

He swerved smoothly around a car, leaving it quickly behind. "Where are they?"

"In a truck outside Rowena's house. Like one of those fake surveillance trucks in movies."

Okay, Dean thought grudgingly, that was a little bit cool. But going after Sam meant they were dead. He chewed his lip a moment, staring at the scenery flying by without seeing it.

"Do you…have a way to stop them?" Eileen's voice cut into his thoughts.

He glanced at her again, seeing anew the lines in her face. She was dead, and she was still scared for Sam. Dean summoned a reassuring smile for her. "Sure do." He hitched a thumb toward the trunk where he'd stashed his stuff. "Witch-killing bullets. Works every time, no matter how juiced-up the witch is."

"Huh. I could've used that once," she mused.

They shared a look, a moment of perfect understanding of the hunting life and all the ways it had screwed them.

Dean licked his lips and nodded. "Okay, then. This is what we're gonna do."

00000

Fifty-six minutes later he was walking into Rowena's apartment building, gun trained on Mommy Witch Dearest. And there was Sam, on the floor and bloody but alive, awake, and whole.

Dean started breathing again.

00000

When Eileen was alive once more, Dean gave her the Mercedes, a box of witch-killing bullets, and the most big-ass bouquet of flowers the Lebanon florist had.

The End