Sam finally coaxes me back into the motel room. I had stood there, with Sam's arm around me, watching long after the Impala's tail lights were no longer visible. My head hurt from how hard I have been crying and my body was becoming weak.
As soon as Sam placed me on the bed, I curled up with the pillow Dean had slept on. His cologne and just the Dean smell permeated through the cushion, causing the tears to fall more. How am I supposed to go on without him. Dean Winchester had unknowingly crept into my very soul. I was so in love with him. And now he was gone. If it turned out Ben was his son, I knew he would willingly stay in north central Indiana to keep his offspring safe. If the demons and monsters were privy to another in the Winchester bloodline, that would definitely put Ben on the target. I couldn't really fault Dean for that, but to just leave me, not to mention his brother, like this? Yea I took issue with that.
Sam ordered food and when it was delivered I forced myself to join him at the cheap table provided. I pushed my food around in the styrofoam container, my appetite non-existent. "Nic, you gotta eat," Sam advises. "I know you're hurting but you have to keep your strength up."
"I know Sam," I say quietly as I stab my fork into the pasta and twirl.
After dinner, I go to take a shower and when I get out I hear Sam talking. I hope he is talking to Dean, asking him to come back but as soon as I open the door, I can tell it wasn't Dean. Sam has his bag on the bed, his clothes stuffed inside, his gun on top.
"Bobby called," Sam informs me. "He caught a case and needs some help. We leave first thing in the morning."
"H-how?" I ask curious to how we are supposed to leave when the only vehicle we had was probably parked in the driveway of 1422 Morning Hill.
"Bus. I checked. There is a bus terminal about a mile up the road and the first one heading the way we need to go leaves at 10 am."
Well then, I think to myself. Guess we are leaving Dean behind to play house with Lisa and Ben. I crawl into the bed I had shared with Dean while on this case. It feels too big and too empty and not warm enough. Dean always threw off heat, making it about 15 degrees warmer. Now it's just cold and lonely. I toss and turn, trying to find a comfortable spot but I had become use to a heavy arm over my waist and his breath fanning across my shoulders.
Sam pays cash for our bus tickets and as we sit waiting for the call to board, goes over what information he has about Bobby's case. "Cooperstown, North Dakota. Five people have been murdered. No visible marks, other than a gaping hole in their chests."
"Let me guess, the heart is missing in each one?" I ask lowly, making sure no one could hear our conversation.
"Right. And with the cycle it lines right up with werewolf."
"So what's Bobby need our help for? Why doesn't he just shoot it with a silver bullet?"
"He seems to think there is more than one. Two of the murder happened almost simultaneously at opposite ends of the town."
"Oh. Well, let's get on the road and gank the hairy bastards!" At that the intercom buzzed and our mode of transportation was ready to be loaded. Thank goodness for less than stellar security checks with this busline seeing as Sam and I were both packing at least two weapons apiece and enough ammo to scare most civilians.
The trip from Cicero to Cooperstown takes almost 14 hours. 14 hours to sit and try to keep my mind off the fact that we left Dean without a word. No goodbye, no see ya later, nothing. Did he even care? Would he notice? Or would he be so wrapped up in being Daddy that he would forget about me? That thought was the hardest to bear. Did he not know how I felt? Did he not realize that everytime we were together, to me it wasn't just fucking, it wasn't just a stress relief. To me, we had made love. Was I just someone he was passing the time with, messing around until something, someone better came along?
We pulled up to the bus station in Cooperstown and waited our turn to disembark. Walking through the station to get to the front, I tried to keep my mind on the case ahead of us and not on what we had ultimately left behind. Bobby met us in the parking lot, a battered Ford Maverick. I climbed in the back seat, shucking my bag in the floor at my feet. Sam and Bobby clabbered in the front seats and after sputtering a couple of times, the engine caught and we took off.
"So Dean has a kid? Hmm, figures." Bobby breaks the silence in the car.
"Possible kid," Sam reiterates. "He's not sure. Hell, even the mom isn't sure it's his."
I huff out a laugh from the backseat, causing Bobby to look at me through the rearview. He knows how I feel about Dean and I can see the concern and pity in his eyes. "How you doing kid?"
"I'm okay, old man," I say with a small smile. Bobby is like a uncle to me. He took me in after my dad was killed by monsters and helped me learn the ropes to hunting. If it hadn't been for Bobby, I'd probably been demon fodder a long time ago. I looked up to Bobby and knew he was looking out for me so I felt comfortable enough telling him what I couldn't bring myself to admit to Sam last night. "It just hurt. I mean, I get where he's coming from. If the kid is his, precautions needs to be taken. But did he have to go live with them until he found out? Just leave me, leave Sam? I would be backed him up but he never give me a chance."
"Boy's a fuckin' idjit!" Bobby exclaimed. "Sorry Sam, but your brother needs his head checked."
"I agree with you Bobby," Sam admitted. "He coulda handled it a lot better."
Bobby drives to the edge of town, turning onto a gravel road. After about 10 minutes we pull in front of a lot cabin with a huge front porch, complete with fancy lawn furniture.
"Bobby, what is this place?" Sam asks, staring out the windshield.
"Hunters hideaway," Bobby explains. "When hunters are injured and need recuperating, they usually come here. Mark and Rissa are retired hunters. They take 'em in, treat them and when the injuries are healed, send them on their way."
I follow Bobby and Sam up the steps and the door opens. A petite woman opens the door with a smile. "Bobby Singer," she says with a smile. "Good to see you again." She waves us in and the three of us enter. The front room of the cabin is huge, with a wall of stone separating it and the kitchen. The back wall was made up of floor to ceiling windows. Windows that allowed the sunlight in, bypassing the need for artificial light. Through the windows the view was serene, trees and foliage as far as the eyes could see. But your thoughts went directly to safety. How was this cabin with the huge windows leading to the outside world safe? Couldn't the glass just be broken and the monsters invade the sanctity of the cabin?
I glanced up at Sam and saw that he was having the same thoughts. As if she could read our minds Rissa spoke up, explaining. "Bullet proof glass, 5 inches thick, resists impacts of physical assault from blunt and sharp objects. The glass is constructed with 5 layers. Each pane of glass is separated with a thick plastic sheeting. The glass, which is much harder than the plastic, flattens the bullet and the plastic deforms it, with the aim of absorbing the rest of the energy and preventing penetration. The outside layer is aluminum oxynitride , which guards against most modern day ammunition."
Sam nodded ad if he understood the words she had just spewed. But to me, she might as well have been speaking a foreign language for as much as I understood. I just smile in agreement at her as the door behind us opened. We all turned to see a man with long, shaggy blonde hair walk in. He was studying something in his hand as he entered and as he looked up to see he was no longer alone. His blue eyes, although partly hidden by his hair falling into his face, was mesmerizing. They were the color of the ocean in the tropics I'd only seen in magazines and on postcards. "Singer!" he screeched, approaching us holding out his right hand. Bobby firmly shook his outstretched hand, laughing. "Mark, good to see you."
"You here about those attacks?"
"Yea, caught wind of them and thought I'd come check it out."
Mark's eyes cut toward Sam and I, who were awkwardly standing off the the side watching the interaction.
"Mark, this is Sam and Nicole," Bobby spoke. "They're hunters too." At that, I saw then tension leave Mark's shoulders and he smiled.
"The more the merrier!"
Mark and Rissa walked us through what they had gathered up on the victims and each assault; from the coroner's reports to the numerous newspaper clippings describing in minimal detail of the attacks. Some were mostly speculation, saying a rabid dog had preyed upon and clawed its way through the the chest and yanked the heart right out of the cavity. Both Sam and I smiled at one another at that one. Rabid dog was close but not cigar for that journalist.
We decided to get a good night's sleep before Sam and Bobby traipsed into towns in as Feds to see if they could narrow down what exactly had happened.. I would stay back with Rissa and research, doing my part to help find the location of the werewolf den. Rissa showed me to my room, which just happened to be right beside Sam's and I was very thankful for that. Tonight would only be the second night away from Dean and I knew if I needed him, I wouldn't have to go looking far. I placed my bag on the bed and walked into the ensuite bathroom.
The next morning, they guys, all spiffed up, leave after breakfast. I watch as Rissa cleans up the kitchen, putting utensils in their places. I can't help but wonder how she and Mark got out of the life, alive. I put the notebook aside and lean my elbows onto the counter in front of me.
"How? How did you get out of the life?" I genuinely ask. "Most hunters I know die. Bloody."
She turns and smiles at me. "It wasn't easy, let me tell you. But I knew what I wanted. After my husband was killed, I no longer had the desire to save the world from monsters. Henry's death left me drained and empty. I watch as his life slowly left him. I held him as he took his last breath. I knew then that I was done. I was going to find a place and hide away, never to venture out to fight the dangers.
"I wandered about for I don't even know how long. Mark found me. I was weak and dehydrated and living in an old car in the rundown part of the neighborhood. He saved me. He got me food and water and cleaned me up. We talked and realized we were looking for the same thing. Some place to hide," she quits talking, smiling at the memory. "We found this place by accident. We were running from the cops. Breaking into a supermarket to get supplies wasn't the best of plans but we did it. Unfortunately, the market had a silent alarm and alerted the cops."
"Whoa! I thought you and Mark were husband and wife," I tell her, surprised.
"Unofficially, I guess you could say we are. There is no proof, no paper claiming us as husband and wife but we have been together almost 15 years now. He makes me happy and I make him happy."
"Well, that's good."
"Yea, so we took up residence here. Lived here going on 4 years before the life found us, so to speak. A mangled hunter crawled up to our doorstep, barely alive. We took him in, nursed him back to health and with a promise not to tell anyone of our location he left. It was quiet for a while, probably about a year, when he showed up again; this time with company. His partner had been attacked and Lou brought him here in hopes we could patch Brett up like we did him.
"That's when Mark and I decided while we both refused to fight, we could still help by helping injured hunters to heal and get back out there. There's nowhere I'd rather be and nothing I'd rather be doing."
Hearing her talking about the life and being in it but also not was a breath of fresh air. Hunters usually didn't get happy endings, hunters got dead. But listening to Rissa talk about her life helping hunters, her life with Mark made me think of Dean. I had at one time, imagined a life outside of hunting; an apple pie life with Dean but my dream had been shattered when he chose to go off and act the part of dad to a kid who might not even be his.
That was the thing about Dean Winchester, though. He was protective. He protects those he cares about, and if Ben turned out to be his you can bet your ass Dean would go out of his way to protect him. But in doing so, would that mean he would give up hunting? Get my apple pie life dream but with Lisa Braeden instead. The mere thought of that made me sick in the pit of my stomach.
"So, show me what you have on these attacks?" I asked Rissa, taking my mind off Dean and getting down to the business at hand.
By the time Sam and Bobby returned, Rissa and I had narrowed it down to two abandoned farms that the werewolves could be holed up in. I explained our thoughts and ideas to the guys and we sit about getting our weapons prepared to take down the den tonight before anyone else was murdered.
The first farm house is only about a mile out of town and just so happened to be on the same side that most of the attacks had happened. The windows of the first floor of the dilapidated building at the end of the driveway are all busted out and boarded up; the front door barely hanging on by its hinges. But the obvious signs of recent foot traffic through the dirt and dust on the steps and the matted down grass tells us we had found their hideout. We huddle behind the broken down tractor in the field beside the house; Bobby watching through the opening between the engine and the footwell. Movement inside the house causes us to whisper low and plan a quick and efficient course of attack.
Bobby going in the front and taking out as many of the beasts as he could while Sam comes in from the back and does the same. I am to stay here and shoot any that try to escape. We all have several clips loaded with silver bullets and each of us has a blade made of pure silver in case one got too close to us and we have to fight it off.
I watch Bobby head to the front door and Sam stooping low, jogging around the structure. I count to three in my head and listen as the commotion inside the house takes place. I keep an eye on all the exits that a wolf would try to escape and see a small hairy body crawl through one of the windows that the boards had apparently been loosened. I take aim and wait until the small lycanthrope is off the porch and headed toward the tree line opposite my position. I can tell by the way it is limping that it was injured. As soon as it stands up to howl at the brightly lit moon, I take my shot and the beast falls to the ground, limp.
Sam and Bobby join me after making a full sweep through both stories of the farmhouse. Sam's shirt is coated with blood and shredded over his shoulder. Instinctively I begin probing and examining his shoulder for wounds; that much blood he has to have pretty big gashes in his body. "Nic, nic! It's not all mine," Sam calmly tells me. "I'm okay. Just a couple scratches. Probably won't even need stitches."
"Yea, them son of a bitches never knew what hit them," Bobby chuckles. "But one got away out the window in the den. Did you get it?"
I point to the dead, immobile body lying in the dirt near the house. "Of course!"
We help each other up and make our way back to the car. "So, you think that did it?" I ask, climbing into the backseat.
"Yep," Bobby confirms. "Idjit up and spilled it all right before I popped him. New den just trying to make a name for themselves."
We get back to Mark and Rissa's and clean up. Rissa cleans and dresses Sam's wounds and then we are on our way. We head back to Sioux Falls with Bobby until the next case comes in.