Authors' Notes: Happy Friday, gang! Just a reminder that Impala's Run was co-written by the fabulous monicawoe; look her up here on the site for further amazing SPN fics, almost all gen. Lotsa BoyKing!Sam and awesome Dean. You'll thank me. :D As usual, please leave a review with ANY comment: good, bad or otherwise. I love hearing what works, what didn't. Cheers!
"Well this is weird," Jo said over the intercomm. Her voice was faint behind the auto-breathing of the oxygenated helmet.
"What is it sweetie?" Ellen's maternal instincts latched onto the undercurrent of dread in Jo's voice. "Trouble?"
"Not sure yet, but I can tell you that something on this ship took out all of the urchins. And by 'took out,' I don't mean deactivated." She paused for a minute as her heavy boots attached to a new surface. It sounded like a walkway to Ellen's ears.
Cursing under her breath that she hadn't invested in a video feed for the exo-suit helmets, Ellen raised the volume on the audio again, as though hearing Jo more loudly would somehow give her a better clue as to what she was seeing.
"These things, they were eating through the hull and now they're fried. Like, melted in places, totally shot circuits," Jo said.
"Leviathan technology doesn't fail. I mean these things are their urchin-probes right? Spiky balls, made of—"
"Yeah, spiky balls, definitely heavy enough to be ultratanium orbs and the spikes are retractable, just like you said. Nasty-looking. But these are all…dead."
"What the hell could've short-circuit Leviathan-built tech? That's just…"
"Mom?" Jo sounded uneasy. "You gotta see this…"
"Jo? What's wrong?" Ellen was already standing, pulling her own exo-suit out of its compartment and unfurling it.
"Those bounty targets you showed me? They're here. I think they might be dead too."
oOo
By the time Ellen stepped onto the Impala, Jo had made a quick physical search of it. Apart from the urchins, nothing else looked out of place. Except, of course, that the passengers were unconscious and the ship was drifting. And the two young men Jo had found weren't wearing clothing suited for space travel, nor did it appear they were properly packed for a trip of any length. And the ship was practically an antique. Okay, there were a lot of things out of place.
No doubt this is them, though, Ellen thought, as she walked between the two pilot seats of the Impala. They were pretty, the Singer brothers, all sleep-slacked innocence and tousled hair, wheezing shallowly in the compromised environment. They looked like they were still in their early to mid-twenties, which put them squarely on the 'keep your hormones away from my daughter' list. It was becoming a very long list, considering how infrequently they met new people.
"No obvious injuries." Jo poked the shorter-haired one with her gloved finger.
"We need to get them back to Styx to be sure," Ellen said. Wasn't going to be easy; the men were raw-muscled, dense like folk accustomed to hard physical labor. It would take all of their combined Harvelle tenacity to get the job done.
"Something else, Ma." Jo looked over at Ellen and her eyes were bright, even through the face shield. "They're Nephilim."
"Both?"
"Yep."
"I'll be damned." That explained the 750 bounty right there. She moved closer to the spiky-haired one Jo was poking. The other man was taller, lankier. Tough to judge which one would be easier to carry, but they had to start somewhere. "Alright, bend at the knees," she said as she slipped her arm under the shorter man's shoulder, nodding for Jo to do the same on the other side.
Jo was leaning over him, trying to get a good angle, when he sprang to awareness. Just like that, zero to hypersonic in a blink. He lunged out of the seat and whirled behind Jo faster than Ellen could've predicted. His arm coiled around her neck and he had her pinned against him before she could so much as squeak. He'd pulled some sort of crude knife from somewhere and it was gritting against the metal band of Jo's helmet.
"Easy there, tiger," Ellen said, as her heart pounded in her chest.
"Who are you?" he growled, wild-eyed. "Why are you on my ship?"
"My name's Ellen. You've got your knife on my daughter Jo. You feel like hurting someone, I'm all yours." She swallowed, displaying empty hands. "She's the only family I got left."
He blinked at her, his chest heaving. The air wasn't exactly breathing-grade quality and though it would hamper him, he had a knife, Jo, and a head's worth of height on them. His gaze darted to the man in the other seat. "What'd you do to him?"
"Nothing. Not a thing. We found you two drifting. If we'd wanted to take your ship, we'd have shot you both and done it by now, don't ya think?" Ellen risked a smile, hoped it came off as sincere and was apparent to him past her helmet.
He wavered on his feet and Ellen saw that he was growing pale and starting to shiver. The knife drifted down.
"Look. The air in here ain't fit for a sandflea, let alone a human—" even though she knew damned well he wasn't human "—so you gotta trust me here. You and your brother are going to die if we—"
"How'd you know he was my brother?" he snapped and pointed the knife at Ellen.
Quick as a cat, Jo rocketed her elbow into his solar plexus and he fell back with a grunt, the knife spinning from his hand.
The console panel lit up abruptly and a squeal of feedback shot through the ship that sounded suspiciously like the word "bitch."
Ellen grabbed the knife from the floor and Jo scrambled out of his reach.
"Don't you hurt him or so help me I'll electrify the floor under your feet and stew you in your own bloody juices!" The clipped British voice came from every speaker in the vessel at once, but it was crackling with static and the lights flickered. The hum of the ship pulsed and then everything went suddenly dim and quiet.
Jo looked at Ellen, wide-eyed.
"Oh, bollocks," the voice of the ship said, with considerably less venom.
"S'okay, Baby." The man coughed and dragged himself to his feet, an arm wrapped protectively around his middle. He wavered and grabbed a seat with his free hand, knuckles going white.
Ellen mentally kicked herself for the slip, but figured now that the cat was out of the bag, cutting it as close to the truth as possible was the safest way to go. Fewer lies to remember. "We know who you two are. The Singer brothers. But we don't want you dead so please. Our ship is airlocked to yours. We can tow it to the closest dock, get 'er fixed. But if we don't get you and your baby brother some real air to breathe, and quick, you ain't gonna be worth your weight in salt. So." It was a dirty trick, playing the 'protective big brother' card, but Ellen knew it would push his buttons.
The man—Dean, if the infosheets were right—looked from Ellen and the knife to his brother, still motionless and pale in the co-pilot seat. He seemed to deflate. "Alright. Ain't got much choice, do I?"
oOo
Dean paced the bunk room, listening to the engine hum. The Charon was a decent enough ship, though he would never admit that out loud; the Impala was so in-tune with him, she just might hear him. She was close by, Baby was; Dean could feel her. Probably irked at being towed by the Charon, but she sat quiet. Licking her wounds.
It felt like mild treason to even consider, but the ship was clean, neat and serviceable. It didn't have the personality and classic lines of Baby, though, that was for damned sure. Certainly not Leviathan or Firmament-made, but that didn't mean the folks flying it weren't playing for either side. He didn't think so, though. Two women, a mother-daughter team. Ellen and Jo, respectively. Not sure what they did for a living, exactly, but it didn't seem to be serial killing. They'd left the door unsecured, though he wasn't going to leave the bunk room until Sam woke up.
There were conspicuous holes in Dean's memory that he hoped Sam could fill, but Sam hadn't so much as twitched since Dean and the women had dragged him to their vessel, hooking them both up to oxygen-rich breathable air for a while. Sam was stretched out on the other cot, feet hanging off the end, his mouth slack and his skin pulled tight to his muscle, a sure sign he'd been doing massive healing on someone. Probably Dean, which made Dean feel even more spectacular.
A soft knock sounded on the door right before it shushed open. Ellen entered with a tray of food and a firm tug to her lips. No nonsense. But her eyes softened when she noted Dean pausing by Sam's bunk. He knew his brows were pinching in worry because he was giving himself a thankless headache on top of it all.
The food smelled far better than it should've, faux grilled smokiness coming from what was probably insta-steak, and some kind of green vegetable medley, and a hunk of bread to sop up the juices. Dean's belly gurgled and Sam finally shifted, eyelids fluttering. Almost awake.
"How's he doing?" Ellen said, setting the tray on a nearby ledge.
"Comin' around. You're gonna need to bring us a lot more dinner when he wakes up." Ellen arched her brows, and Dean smiled and shrugged. "Big eater."
"You're welcome."
"Sorry, thanks."
He started in on the food without much ceremony, humming approval even though the stuff tasted like salted rubber. He was hungry enough not to care.
Ellen folded her arms and watched. "So, why were there two Serpents on your ass?"
"Unrequited love?" Dean mumbled with his mouth full.
"Mmhmm. Something tells me you're not their type—"
Sam, with timing born of serendipity, moaned and cracked open his eyes. He curled a hand to his belly and sat up before Dean could stop him, promptly bouncing his skull off the underside of the top bunk and using a word unbecoming in mixed company.
Dean set down his plate and stepped to the bedside. "It lives," he said, easing Sam beyond the limits of the low bunk, tipping him forward. And though Sam gave him the stink-eye, Dean was never so relieved to see it as he was just then.
"I'm starving," Sam grumbled, squinting.
"I'll bet you are. We have company: Ellen and her daughter, Jo." Dean lowered his voice. "Who we will most certainly not leer at."
Sam nodded solemnly and got to his feet, this time mindful of the ceiling. He couldn't quite stand to his full height; Dean himself only had an inch or two to spare, another perk to the Impala. She had a nice, high, firm ceiling.
"Man, you sure are a tall one," Ellen said as she stepped closer and held out her hand. "Ellen. Pleased to meet you."
"Sam." His hand dwarfed Ellen's. "Where are we?"
"Our ship. We call her Styx. We've got your vessel hitched on behind."
Jo came around the doorway just then, bearing another tray of vittles. "Your ship yelled at us," she announced, passing the tray off to Sam who fell on it like a six-and-a-half foot tall piranha. She snatched her hand back as though afraid for her own digits.
Dean smirked. "Yeah, she does that. Very protective."
"Your ship have a personality-emulator or somethin'?" Ellen asked.
"She has a personality; don't need an emulator."
Jo scoffed. "Machines can't feel."
Sam looked up from his feeding frenzy and stared at Jo. Studied her.
Dean cleared his throat and moved, pointedly putting himself between them. "Actually, they feel plenty. It just takes massive amounts of talent to pick up on it. For instance—" he paused, listening "— your ship's got a damaged fuel injector. Corrosion in cylinder six."
Jo's eyebrows shot straight up.
"How the hell do you know that?" Ellen narrowed her eyes.
"Like I said, massive talent. Go check." When both women continued to glare, Dean stepped forward. "I'll show you—"
"No, we got this. Come on, Jo."
They left, trailing annoyance in their shared wake, and Sam was on Dean immediately. "Did you see the girl? Jo?"
"What did I tell you about the leering, Sammy?"
"DEAN."
Dean huffed. "Yeah, I saw her. Nephilim. But weak. Was weird."
Sam was bouncing the fork in his fingers, forehead full of worry lines. "That probably means she knows what we are, too."
"Doesn't mean shit, Sam. She might've figured out we're Nephilim but not, you know …" Dean gestured vaguely around his chest area, which wasn't really an accurate representation of what had been done to them, but nothing else would suffice. The word was apotheosized and he hated using it; it was big and ugly and sounded far more hoity-toity than it deserved to be. It was actually a brutal thing that had killed so many Nephilim. How he and Sam had managed to live through it was no end of wonder. It'd changed them in ways they had yet to fully understand.
"So what do we do?"
"We fly casual. Don't tip our hand and get off at the next repair station with Baby, get 'er fixed up, then we vanish. Make like a tree and leave."
Sam poked at his food and Dean could hear the gears grinding together in his brother's brain. "Should we try to find Grigori somewhere? Let Dad know—"
"NO."
Sam pressed his lips tight and looked, for just a moment, like he'd been kicked. "But Dean …"
"Sam, he told us to stay hidden, and that's what we do. If we come anywhere close to an Awakening skirmish, we'll be spotted in a red second and that puts us and Dad in deep shit. As if he isn't in enough already."
Sam ground his jaw. "But what if he's—"
"He's fine," Dean snapped. "Ain't no discussion to be had. Eat your … reconstituted food product." He poked a finger at the brown and green mess on Sam's plate, missing Kansas already. He'd never take a tomato for granted again. But Sam had gone and rung that bell and now Dean couldn't unring it: Where was Dad? Was he safe? Why hadn't he contacted them since February, dammit?
Sam ate because he had to, but he was clearly not enjoying it. He stabbed at the not-really-steak ruthlessly. Good, he could pout all he wanted; Dean was still in the right. "So what happened on the Impala after I passed out, hmm?" Dean prodded.
"After you fainted?"
Dean responded with a 'yeah, so?' gesture and wide eyes.
"Alright, fine." Sam glared at him sidelong. "You know those grenades the Leviathans shot at us? They were cybernetic and since there was a biological component, I could leach the life out of them. Killed them. But they ate through the Impala and screwed up her life support. She hung in there, though."
"Good thing. You look like crap; you pumped all that healing juju into me, didn't you?"
"So?"
"SO? You could've gotten yourself killed!"
"Oh, don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing. Don't give me that shit—"
"I'll give you all the shit I want because you do not have to answer to John Winchester if your little brother gets dead on your watch!"
Someone cleared their throat from the doorway and both of them shut up fast.
Sam studied his food as Ellen stepped into the room, arms folded across her chest. "Say that again," she said evenly, staring at Dean with a laser focus.
Dean had a thousand dodges on the tip of his tongue, stories he and Sam had fabricated and used throughout years on the run and living their big fat Kansas lie. And not a one of them saw fit to leave his mouth. Something in the way Ellen looked at him said she would never buy his ruse; she'd see right through it and then any hope of gaining her trust or assistance would fly out the airlock. He responded instead with a clever, "Say what?"
"You said your father was John Winchester." It wasn't a question.
"Is John Winchester. He's not dead."
"We don't know that," Sam mumbled and Dean shot back, "Shut up, Sammy."
"So your name's not Singer?"
"No, ma'am." Maybe that was it; maybe she had never heard of John Winchester and was simply questioning their use of an alias. Like fate would ever be that generous.
"Anything else I should know while I'm carting your sorry asses around?"
Dean shook his head.
Several discomfited seconds hung between them before she finally spoke. "If you think of anything that might get me and my daughter in trouble, you'd best let me know."
"Yes, ma'am," both Singers, née Winchester, said in unison. Dean felt the knot of tension in his chest uncurl when she finally turned to leave.
"Oh, and by the way—"
And the knot coiled again. Dean looked up and forced a smile.
"You were right about the corrosion in cylinder six. Thanks." This time, she left for real.
oOo
Well, this complicated things. It wasn't that Ellen couldn't deal with complications—bounty hunting wasn't exactly a well-defined altruistic path to earning a living, no fooling herself there—it was Bill.
Ellen glared at the multi-sonar readout so hard she thought it might short-circuit. Hell, if she'd been born Nephilim like nearly everybody else on the ship, she just might have. But as it was, all her anger did was make her gut curdle and her cheeks feel flush. Those boys were the Winchesters—the goddamned Winchesters. John Winchester's sons. She'd spent many years since Bill's death trying her best to not think about John Winchester, and now she had his sons on her ship. She was tempted to send them both tumbling out of the airlock, yet something about this felt like more than just dumb luck. It glittered like justice.
"Ma, you okay?" Jo asked, walking up next to her. She must've been standing in the doorway, watching Ellen visibly clench like one big angry fist.
"I'm fine," Ellen said, terser than she would've liked, but it was the best she could do.
"Sam and Dean want to know how they can make themselves useful."
"That a fact? They're plenty useful. Seven hundred fifty thousand credits useful."
"Mom," Jo said, her voice careful. "You still want to cash them in? I mean, they just don't look like brutal criminals to me. And you know the only reason the Firm wants them is because they're Nephilim. Doesn't that seem a little hinky to you?"
"Gotta take care of ourselves first, Jo. They're not family. We don't owe them a damn thing."
"There something you're not telling me?" Jo arched an eyebrow.
Jo looked more and more like Bill every damn year. That right there was the look he used to give her. She even had the same eye shape.
"Nothing you need to worry about."
"They're on our ship. You're damn right I have to worry about it."
Ellen pursed her lips, mad at her own inability to keep her emotions in check. "Your dad, before he died, he joined the resistance movement—"
"The Grigori, I know."
"Yeah, well, John Winchester was the one who talked him into it. He's also the man who was in charge of the raid that got your dad killed."
"What does that have to do with—"
"Sam and Dean, their last name isn't Singer. It's Winchester. They're John's sons."
Jo paled visibly and she swallowed before saying. "Oh," very, very quietly.
There was a moment or two when Ellen wasn't sure what to feel. Regret, sorrow, fury, resignation. She couldn't read Jo either, which didn't help the situation. That vacant moment sat there until Jo spun on her heel and strode purposefully down the corridor, away from Ellen. Then the moment filled up fast with a whole lot of worry.
"Jo! Where—don't do anything stupid."
But Jo didn't reply, even if she might've been within earshot. Ellen raked her fingers through her hair and sighed out a curse. Part of her wanted to give Jo the breathing room she obviously needed, but the other part—the part that housed her raging maternal instincts—was straining at the bit to chase after. She flipped a switch and the security camera monitor crackled on. Sliding a lever with her thumb, the camera cruised down its track, following the figure with the flying blond hair.
Jo stopped in front of the door to the spare bunkroom, and it looked as though she took two deep breaths before she waved a hand and triggered the door to open. The track didn't extend into the bunkroom so when Jo went inside, she was gone.
oOo
Sam looked up in surprise as their door opened and Jo Harvelle walked in. He was just finishing up the remains of Dean's dinner after powering through his own, and still his belly was demanding more.
"Hi," Dean said, throwing her a smile.
"Your dad is John Winchester?" Jo had her fists planted on her hips and her mouth pulled taut. Just like that, the tenor of the room dropped ten degrees.
"Yeah," Sam said, wary. "He's … he's kind of in the middle of something, or we'd have contacted him already."
"He's with the Grigori—part of the Awakening movement, right?" Jo's voice was working towards a good boil.
Sam shot a glance at Dean, whose smile was no longer breezy. All the good nature was gone from his expression.
"My father, Bill Harvelle, you ever hear of him?"
"No," Sam said. "Dad didn't—"
"Dad told me about Bill," Dean cut in. He pulled his eyes away from Sam. "It was a long time ago. Back during the Retaking of Orion."
Sam felt his eyebrows shoot up. The Retaking of Orion had been a massive conflict—the first time the Grigori had taken down an entire Firmament base. Up to that point, the Grigori had favored guerilla tactics, picking off Angels in small numbers, but Orion had changed all that. The Firmament had never truly considered the movement a threat until then, until the Grigori stormed the Orion Apotheosis Center and tore it apart, torched every Angel they found, blew their machines into Kingdom Come. It put John Winchester at the top of the Firmament's Most Wanted list, and by association, his sons.
Many Grigori had lost their lives that day. Sam might have been only thirteen at the time, but he remembered that part far too well; there was only so much healing he could do to the wounded but he tried his hardest through all the blood and the moans, and he never remembered a Bill Harvelle. Apparently, Dad had seen fit to enlighten Dean, but not him.
"Bill and Dad had been part of the same Apotheosis group," Dean went on, his hands shoved in his pockets. "Their group had twenty-eight test subjects; come to find out, only six survived. When the fatality numbers finally hit the fan, your dad and ours, they were some of the first Nephilim to fight back."
Jo shifted her weight from one hip to the other. "And?"
"And war sucks, you know? Bill didn't make it off Orion. Something ass-backward happened." Dean shrugged. "I didn't see it first-hand. I was flying a medi-crawler over the compound, and we'd just taken off with casualties."
"So John left my dad on Orion?"
"Jo, the Apotheosis Center exploded. This huge ball of energy just swallowed it up. Satellite footage showed what looked like a fuckin' miniature sun coming out of it!"
Something in Jo's demeanor turned, softened, like a leaf wilting. "When I was a kid, Dad would make little balls of flame dance around like fireflies."
"Huh. Then if I had to guess, I'd say that the victory on Orion was thanks to Bill Harvelle."
Jo sat down heavily on the edge of a built-in table, her eyes glassy.
"We're so sorry," Sam said, his empty plate—well, Dean's empty plate—balanced awkwardly on his knees. He couldn't help but be a little annoyed, knowing there were things Dad had told Dean but not him, yet that was small potatoes compared to what Jo was obviously feeling. Of all the stupid luck, they'd bounced into the Harvelles. Small universe. "We do know what it's like to lose a parent. Our mom died when we were little."
"Leviathan killed her," Dean said. "Back before the Firm set up shop on Earth. She died, and Dad swore he'd get vengeance, so when the Firm came recruiting, offering Apotheosis to anyone who wanted to put the hurt on the Big Mouths…"
"They're both evil," Jo muttered. "Mom says they're just two sides of the same coin. One a little uglier, one's a little shinier." She rubbed her nose absently with her knuckles and exhaled a shaky breath. "So where's your dad now?"
"Dunno. The Firm started getting too close, so he hid us. On Earth."
"We haven't seen him in almost three years," Sam told her, around a lump in his throat.
"Well. I hope you find him." Jo's voice had dropped to nearly nothing, and she stood up, made for the door.