A/N: Hey guys! I am so sorry for the late update! School and my other fic were occupying my time and honestly that's about as good as my excuse can get. So thank you if you do read/review/follow or favorite this and sorry again for lateness!
A few moments in absolute silence, waiting for the door to open and for Cas to lay down the details of just what exactly was happening. Sam and Dean sat, near paralyzed, by their new revelation. It had already been a good twenty minutes and Cas still hadn't returned. Neither of the Winchester brothers had said a word yet until finally Sam cleared his throat.
"Dean, what if Cas tells them we're here?" Sam asked nervously, looking every so often towards the door and the windows. Dean sighed, shrugging.
"I think we've had a good run," Dean said, half joking and half serious. Sam did not seem pleased with this answer.
"I mean it Dean. What if he accidentally lets it slip about us?"
"He doesn't know anything about us and neither will the police officer," Dean said surely, shrugging again for an extra measure, "and besides, Cas doesn't seem to be much of a chatty Cathy anyway."
A few moments later and the door swung open, both Sam and Dean sitting up immediately to hear what he had to say. Cas looked somewhat frazzled, confused, and nearly emotional by the whole event, but still not quite. He didn't speak for a few moments, and Dean got up from his sitting position to stand closer to Cas, as if to coax the information out of him.
"Well, what happened?" Dean watched Cas carefully as his blue eyes sparkled under the bright living room lights, contradicting the darkness outside. Contradicting the eerie feeling connected with the whole house. Cas looked towards Dean first, the smallest sliver of true- what was it, fear? Confusion? What was it, damnit!- emotion, then it soon glazed over as he looked towards something across the room.
"Female. Age around eighteen years," Cas swallowed something down, squinting, "Gina."
Dean let this settle in, then his eyes widened in fear. As soon as Sam registered the name, he began to shake his head.
"Gina?" Dean said, complete horror traveling through him from his toes to his head. How had this happened? How was this happening?
"Yes," Cas said blankly. And in that moment, the funniest thing happened. Tears slipped down his cheek in silence. Not a sniffle or a sob to be heard. Dean let his wind wander to how someone could be unemotional yet somehow... so affected by everything. So vulnerable.
Dean didn't think for a few moments. He just took Cas's shoulder- the shoulder to a guy he'd only know for a couple days- and hugged him as tightly as he could. He closed his eyes and allowed those tears to slip onto his jacket. He could feel Cas so nearly crumple into Dean's grip, to almost ease himself into the hug. But before Dean could accept it, Cas pulled himself stiff again and gently pushed Dean away, wiping a quick hand across his eyes and clearing his throat.
"The house had similar features to that of our other researched houses. Police officers say there was no forced entry, no signs of lock picking... and no sign of where she disappeared to. A neighbor... said that he heard a yell for help and a gunshot and when he went to see what the occurrence was he was met with nothing. Oddly enough, these events were all within a minute of each other," Cas paused, as if to take a breath, but another tear trickled down his cheek and he sat down, wiping at his eye again.
"Cas are... are you alright?" Dean asked after a few seconds of exchanging a glance with Sam. Sam shrugged his shoulders, sitting across from Cas and looking at him with concern.
"I'm fine, Dean," Cas said, giving a smile that did not meet his eyes nor meet his words. He kept wiping away tears but it seemed near robotic, as if he had no feeling yet some part of him knew that he was supposed to feel sad.
"Hey look buddy, I believe you... I do," Dean said, sitting down besides Cas and placing a hand on his shoulder, "but I just think maybe you should take a moment to digest this, alright? It can't be healthy to just numb your way through it."
Cas did not look at Dean, but he looked at the hand on his shoulder. He seemed suspicious of the hand almost, then his dewy eyes met Dean's. He grabbed Dean's arm and pulled him next to him. His face displayed no intentions, but something about his gestures begged to explain a reason for these movements.
No one spoke, but Sam typed furiously away on his laptop as Cas's head dropped onto Dean's shoulder. The moment this happened everything stopped. Dean's heart stopped, Cas's tears stopped, everyone's movement stopped except for Sam's steady typing on his computer. Dean could feel his fingertips tingle with some sort of excitement... something felt different about this. He didn't want to think about why this felt different, and he sure as hell wasn't ready to get into such a difficult subject when the person who was struggling right now was Cas.
Cas lie motionless with his head on Dean's shoulder. He sniffed after a few moments, and then the tears returned. Dean patted his back soothingly, completely unaware of what he was doing.
"Look, hey," he said after a few moments, turning Cas towards him as Cas turned his head away, not wanting Dean's attention, "we're going to find Gina. I promise."
Cas nodded feebly, and Dean sprung right into action, grabbing Cas's laptop and typing alongside Sam.
"What have we got so far?" he asked. Sam shook his head, his eyes staying on the screen.
"What I don't understand is why these two specific people disappeared... not to mention that I thought there was only one victim a year," Sam said, shaking his head and muttering something under his breath.
"There might possibly be one explanation," Cas said from across the room, looking out the window at something, "there was one year where two victims disappeared."
Sam and Dean were silent.
"The video tape I showed you... was of two people," Cas said, his eyebrows crinkled together. The same expression was dawned by Sam, until he finally seemed to realize just what exactly he had missed.
"Damn," he said after a second, shaking his head to himself. He then began to type and moved to a small coffee table so both Dean and Cas could see what he was searching. He opened up his bookmarks and opened up a pair of articles.
"I can't believe I missed this," he said to himself.
"What?" Dean and Cas said simultaneously, exchanging glances. Sam opened the articles, his eyes skimming the pages, then pointing towards something. Dean and Cas squinted to read the tiny print.
"A man disappeared this week... his daughter not long after..." Dean read out loud to himself, then his eyes widened. Sam clicked on the other article, pointing at another pair of words. Another article and another article until finally the point was emphasized enough.
"So get this..." Sam said, closing his laptop and putting his hands out, "two victims."
"How did we miss this, though?" Dean asked, "I mean, it's one hell of a deal breaker."
"Because these victims disappeared after the first victim, and it was either written off or unimportant or... the second victims were "linked" to the first victims. And when we ruled one victim, we had only read these articles and not their follow ups."
"So you're saying... that these people disappeared after but it's still a yearly thing? Two people annually? Isn't that kind of a huge deal... why hasn't the police station recognized this pattern?" Dean asked in outrage, unsure of what to compute of the situation.
"The police station is aware," Cas responded, "they just don't mention it in public. It is a unrecognized subject in our town."
"Why?" Dean asked, still angry.
"Because no one has ever caught this person. This person has been gathering victims over twelve years and the police have no leads, no possible breaks in the case... and no way of knowing the exact date the crime will be committed."
Dean, Sam, and Cas both shared a glance at the computer, then at each other.
"Well then," Dean said, softly, "I guess we've got work to do."