Author's Notes:
I want to think everyone for the kind reviews for the last chapter. I'll be responding to them as soon as I can. I've been fighting a nasty case of the flu.
I would also like to thank Ridley C. James for allowing me to borrow "Evil Winchester Bookends" and all the questions she's uncomplainingly answered. I'm also referencing her stories "Valuables" and "Friendly Fire" here.
Counting your steps so you know how many miles you've marched. Not something I made up. The Military teaches you to do it in Basic Training.
Crossroads of Megiddo: It's an actual place and not a product of my imagination. If you know your theology it's the cross roads where the armies of light and darkness are supposed to gather for the final battle.
Warnings: I'm putting a language warning up for this chapter. Caleb really can be a potty mouth when he's not happy.
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Caleb Reaves always had a sense of time.
He was never sure if it was an inborn thing like Dean's compass-like sense of direction or if it was the by-product of his years of training. Knowledge of when the sun rose or fell to the exact second was a skill of survival for a hunter. Similar to learning how to automatically count your steps to know how many miles you've covered. He really never had reflected on his particular talent until he watched Dean and John Winchester set their watches for dawn before a hunt.
It was his in-born internal warning system that pulled him back to full awareness. His time sense and its screaming vigilance that clock hands were quickly reaching towards the Witching Hour, the most dangerous time of the night. The hours where evil marched the world unchallenged by the light.
Entering the hours where no hunter was safe.
His eyes snapped open.
It took a moment for his brain to process where he was before the familiar layout of the room he and Deuce shared registered in his sluggish brain. Caleb felt fuzzy. Crap. Even his hair hurt. He had a headache worthy of spending a full night curled up with his old friend Jose Cuervo.
Jim better damned well have salted and burned that S.O.B.
"Caleb can you hear me?" A voice called softly.
Recognizing it was Mujib's voice. Caleb groaned and buried his face in his pillow. "Give me five more minutes, Doc."
The doctor chuckled, "I'd love to but you've been sleeping quite a while. You really should get up and drink something."
Right...
Dry desert climate equals dehydration.
Dehydration equaled an even shittier day at the office.
With a sigh Caleb tossed his covers off and swung himself to a sitting position. Caleb had to fight the wave of lightheadedness that washed over him as he sat up. He muttered, "Damn it", when Mujib reached out to steady him.
"Deep breaths," Mujib encouraged gently.
A glare was Caleb's only response. It must not have had any of its usual bad-guy-pissing-themselves punch because Mujib simply looked amused.
"Don't even bother," The doctor stated letting him go when the room stopped spinning. "I've faced down much meaner and nastier than you." Mujib nodded his head in the direction of Jim's sleeping form.
Looking over in the direction Mujib gestured Caleb could see pastor was sleeping in the chair next to Dean's bed. The lamp by the bed was still on and the book "To Kill a Mocking Bird" was open on the pastor's lap. He saw the book and grimaced. Caleb didn't want to think about the last time he'd seen it opened at someone's bedside. He didn't want to remember how sick Jim had been either or the long hours Dean had sat at Jim's bedside reading that same book out loud.
The whole mess had started with a fall at the church. A simple slip on the ice resulted in Jim tearing his ACL and needing surgery to stabilize his knee joint. Same day outpatient surgery and four weeks of a cranky Merlin on crutches was how it was suppose to go down.
It didn't.
Jim had developed a nasty postoperative antibiotic-resistant infection from the surgery. Two days before Thanksgiving Caleb had received a call telling him Dean was rushing Jim to the hospital and not even bother heading to the farm for the holiday. Caleb had met up with his father in New York and they both had taken a red eye straight to Louisville. The next few days had been nothing but a mind numbing blur of medical jargon and terror as Jim's fever continued to spike.
To put it mildly, Thanksgiving sucked.
Christmas hadn't been much better due to the pneumonia that followed.
While Mac made all the necessary medical calls. Dean had done what he always did, organized and took charge of everything else. Deuce really had stepped up to the plate after Jim got out of the hospital too. Making sure the farm chores got done, helping Mac take care of Jim, and handling all the hunts and any Brotherhood business his father and Jim threw his way too.
Caleb had felt more than a little surge of pride at how well Dean had handled all the responsibly. He had also felt more than a little guilty about it too. Caleb had been so busy with Tri-Corp at the time. The only help he could offer Dean was nightly telephone calls and the occasional weekend trip home to the farm.
Caleb worried Dean pushed himself way too hard trying to juggle it all. Despite the fact Jim was now recovered and walking only with a slight limp as a reminder of his winter ordeal. Dean had still sounded hoarse and exhausted last time Caleb had called to check in. Deuce just couldn't seem to shake a slight case of the flu that kept creeping back up on him.
Well, that hadn't eased Caleb's concern either.
Then Mujib had called.
And when the Watcher of the Crossroads of Megiddo calls requesting assistance, the Brotherhood answers.
"Caleb? Are you with me?"
Caleb took a deep breath, "Yeah, Doc. How's Deuce?"
"Sleeping."
Silently cheering the world didn't teeter when he moved. Caleb asked his next question, "What happened?"
Mujib sighed, "The Muninn."
He glared and replied, "That tells me exactly squat, Doc."
Mujib offered him a hand up, "Think of the Muninn as an ancient Brotherhood answering machine, Caleb. We walked in to that chamber and somehow hit the play button."
Caleb narrowed his eyes as he accepted the offered hand, "You mean Dean somehow hit the play button."
"It would appear that way," Mujib responded truthfully.
It was the ringing of Dean's cell phone on the bed side table that interrupted them. Shooting the offending device a look usually reserved for spiders and supernatural bad guys he reached over to the nightstand. If the ringing woke Dean or Jim up he was going to cheerfully kill whoever was on the other side at his earliest convenience.
"Reaves."
"What the fuck did you two assholes do?" Sam Winchester's voice snarled from the other end of the phone.
"Nice to hear from you too, Samantha," Caleb replied snidely. "I love how you make it a point to return calls so promptly. Should I consider this the call from Christmas you still owe us or are you getting a jump on this year's holiday shopping season?"
"Don't push me, Caleb," Sam growled. "I've spent the last twenty-four hours puking my guts up with the migraine from hell thanks to whatever stunt you two just pulled. I am in no mood for your shit right now. Where's Dean?"
"Sleeping," Caleb answered sweetly. "In fact Deuce is sleeping next to a tall, classy red-head as we speak. I'm not waking them."
He looked over at Jim and Deuce's sleeping forms, and scowled when he caught the colorful array of bruises littering Dean's face.
What the hell?
He thought he had caught Dean in time to keep him from hitting the stone floor too hard.
"Caleb."
Sam's voice snapped him back. Caleb ran his hands over his face tiredly. "What do you want, Sammy? Because I'm sure you have better things to do than worry about us."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam demanded.
"It means Dean, Bobby and I left at least a dozen messages for you to call us over Thanksgiving and you never bothered to return any of them."
As far as he was concerned both Sam and John Winchester could both go fuck themselves. Caleb was getting tired of the two evil Winchester bookends. He really was. The casualness of the collateral damage John and Sam inflicted on each other and every innocent bystander caught up in their fallout zone was more than pissing him off. Strike one had been when Sammy hadn't wanted to acknowledge Mac at Stanford. Strike two was not returning their calls at Thanksgiving.
"I was busy," Sam stated. Like that explained everything.
"Don't you mean that Jess was home with you during the holidays and returning phone calls to your family might cause her to ask some messy questions," Caleb demanded. His next words were cold. He knew it. Caleb didn't care. Sammy needed to wake up and smell the blood that was going to be painting the walls. "I hope that piece of blonde ass is worth it, Runt."
Worth everyone you're so thoughtlessly throwing away.
"You do not want to go there," Sam replied, dark warning edging into his voice. "Don't even push that button."
"You want a normal life, Samantha? Fine. I don't have problem with that. Never did. My problem is with you lying to Jess about us. You continuing to fool yourself that your world is this shiny, blissful place where unicorns shoot sunbeams out their asses and where the boogie man doesn't sneak in at midnight to gut mommy." Caleb was starting to see Bobby's point about the mistake they made by sheltering the youngest Winchester like they had. "The longer you keep pretending. The longer you put Jess at risk."
"I'm not your father, Caleb."
Caleb took a deep breath.
Sammy always did know how to hit below the belt.
Another charming trait he and John shared.
"You're right, Sam. You're not." He looked over at Jim's and Dean's sleeping forms again. Reminding himself this was not the time or place for a screaming match. Oh, the time was coming. No doubt about that. Sammy didn't even know he'd just earned strike three. "As for what happened, Samantha, it appears we somehow triggered some ancient Brotherhood Hoodoo shit. Mac and Jim had to yank you in to save our sorry asses."
"Is Dean alright?"
Caleb sighed, "I honestly don't know. Dean got zapped by the worst of it."
That's when Caleb heard a voice calling "Sam" in the background. Sam whispered, "I've got to go, Man. Jess is home."
"Yeah," Caleb replied bitterly, "You better go see what Jess wants. Oh, and by the way, Sammy, Thanksgiving. We were trying to reach you because Jim was in the hospital. The doctors were saying it was most likely Jim wasn't going to make it and we thought you'd want to be there." Then he abruptly snapped Dean's phone shut, ending the call.
Deuce was right.
There were days you should take simple satisfaction in embracing your inner bastard.
His gaze settled on Mujib.
Speaking of embracing one's inner bastard...
Caleb wanted answers.