Few Stronger Bonds
As far as salt-and-burns went, this was one of the more unexciting jobs she and Toby had worked. The ghost ended up being their first suspect, and the closest they came to danger was when they nearly got caught digging up the corpse by a groundskeeper at the cemetery.
Bones salted and burned to a crisp, Toby and Faith trudged the few short blocks back to the motel, covered in grave dirt and soot from the fire. They didn't talk much – a long night of grave digging really took it out of them – mostly communicating through grunts and vague gestures. The sun was just peeking up over the distant horizon when Faith's back pocket began to buzz.
She glanced at the caller ID with raised brows.
"It's five a.m.," she answered the phone, utterly dry. Despite their last (strange) conversation, nothing had changed between she and Dean. It would feel wrong to greet him with anything except her usual annoyance. "What could you possibly need from me this early in the morning?"
"Where are you?" he demanded gruffly over the line.
She blinked at his rough tone. This clearly wasn't going to go anything like last time. "Alabama, if you must know," she replied tartly. "Who pissed in your Lucky Charms this morning?"
Dean didn't bother quipping back, which was the first red flag. "Have you heard from Sam?"
"Not since last week, when I needed research help on a job," she said honestly, dropping the attitude because she could sense it was the last thing Dean needed. "Why? Is he okay?"
"No. Yes. I don't know." Dean sighed, sounding more frustrated than she'd ever heard him – which was saying something, considering she held the monopoly on pushing Dean Winchester's buttons. "I woke up this morning and he was just – he's gone."
Faith stopped walking; the shovel thrown over her shoulder wobbling as she nearly lost her grip on it. Toby stopped walking too, turning back to frown at her. "You think he was taken?"
"I don't think so," Dean muttered. "We had – it wasn't a fight, but I told him something… Anyway, that doesn't matter. I think he took off, but he didn't leave so much as a damn note, and-"
"Dean, calm down," Faith said soothingly. He sounded like he was inches from a panic attack and although Faith didn't have much experience, she knew enough to know the best thing to do was to avoid them at all costs. "It's gonna be okay. He probably just went to cool off, or something."
"All his shit's gone," said Dean, hoarse with distress. "Everything's been packed, and he's gone. I need to find him – before he does something stupid."
"Why would he do something stupid?"
"It isn't-" Dean made another frustrated noise. "Look, will you just call me if you hear from him?"
"Of course," she promised, because for all she and Dean bickered, she cared about him and his brother. And if there was any way she could help him – pay him back for everything done for her – then she was going to do it. "Have you tried the Roadhouse?"
"Of course I tried the fuckin' Roadhouse," Dean growled. "You think that wasn't my first call?"
Anger flared like fire in her veins, and she opened her mouth to snap back, only for him to sigh tiredly before she had the chance. The sound was so thoroughly exhausted, so threaded with defeat, that it had her snapping her mouth shut again. Clearly, Dean was beating himself up enough – he didn't need her help to feel like shit.
"Sorry," Dean muttered, reluctant but not insincere. "I'm just-"
"Worried. I get it." There was a beat, then she said, "Toby and I just finished a job. Do you need us to check anywhere for you? We'll cover more ground if there's three of us looking."
Dean was quiet a moment, and she could practically feel his surprise echoing down the line. "Uh, no. Thanks, but it's fine," he eventually managed. "But hey, if Tobias could call up some of his old hunting pals, see if they've heard anything…"
"Of course," she said again. "I'll call you if we hear anything. And Dean? Can you let me know once you've got him? I'll be worried if I don't, y'know, hear…"
Dean seemed to weigh her words carefully, chewing on them like a rare steak. "Sure," he finally agreed. "And, uh, thanks," he added, awkward as could be.
They ended the call and Faith tucked the phone back into her pocket. Glancing over at Toby, they started walking again, picking up the pace before anybody left their houses for work to find two dirty strangers roaming suburbia, carrying shovels and looking generally guilty. She filled Toby in quickly and he agreed to call some old hunting friends after they'd gotten back to the room and cleaned themselves up.
Faith knew what Dean had said, but still she mentally planned to ring Bobby and ask if he had any idea where she could go to look for Sam. He'd helped her in her time of need – the very least she could do was return the favour.
However, as they neared their motel on the edge of town, all thoughts of finding Sam flew from her head – and Toby's.
Their door was ajar. Without a word spoken between them, Faith and Toby silently set down their shovels and withdrew their guns. Toby nodded at the door, and Faith tiptoed around to the left to cover all their exits. On the silent count of three, they burst into the room and all hell broke loose.
There were two figures in the room, rooting through their things. "Hey!" shouted Toby, louder and more commanding than she'd ever heard, and the two figures – which Faith had already pinned as petty thugs – spun around to reveal blank faces and eyes that shone black as the space between stars.
They didn't have guns – maybe they were cocky enough to think they didn't need them – but the demons were dangerous all the same. In the space of a heartbeat, the one on the right had grabbed a nearby lamp and lobbed it at Toby. It hit her partner on the head, but Faith couldn't worry about him; the one on the left was rushing for her.
It was fast – faster than a human, at any rate – and before she could fire a shot the demon had the barrel of her gun in its hand and wrenched the weapon from her grip. It clattered to the floor, but she barely had time to register it before the demon was upon her, fists flying.
She took several blows to the face and torso before her mind and body reconnected and she was able to switch into attack mode. Acting on instinct drummed into her over weeks and weeks of training, Faith ducked and dodged, fighting street-style with the demon, who seemed like less of a possessed human than a wild dog, snarling and hissing with every move it made.
As they fought, Faith seemed to fall into a sort of trance. It happened sometimes, when she sparred with Toby. Like the whole world melted away, leaving her with just the battle. Her mind and her body were one, and all she lived for was the fight.
Faith took the legs out from underneath the demon and it fell with a wet crack, the human arm breaking under its own weight. The demon barely reacted to the pain, already trying to climb back to its feet, but Faith was on top of it before it had a chance. One leg either side of its stolen torso, Faith threw her whole weight behind her punches, clobbering the thing until it finally went still.
Across the room there came a loud cry followed by a sound like a dripping fountain, and Faith glanced over to find the other demon laid still on the floor, a knife hilt jutting from its jugular, pool of blood collecting beneath it.
"This one's out, for now," Faith panted, climbing up off the demon and pressing a hand to her jaw, which ached like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. "Lock the door and use the blood to draw a devil's trap," she added instinctively.
The look Toby shot her was a mixture of tired and bemused. "Look at you, barking orders," he said even as he did as ordered.
Faith ignored him, yanking the TV cable from the wall and using it to fasten the unconscious demon's hands together. Toby drew a perfect, bloody devil's trap on the stretch of floor between the room's two single beds.
"What the hell were they looking for?" Faith wondered, dragging the surviving demon into the devil's trap once Toby was done, dropping him onto the floor.
Their things littered the space, clothes strewn carelessly about the room, their rare, powerful weaponry tossed to the floor like garbage. Faith grabbed her bag – almost entirely emptied of its contents – and rifled through it, mentally cataloguing everything that had been inside.
Was she carrying around something valuable that she'd overlooked? She doubted the demons had been after the old copy of Narnia she had on her bedside table, or the box of super-plus tampons at the bottom of her bag. The most valuable thing she owned was her knife collection, and even then, it was only because they were antique – and she kept most of them on her person, anyway.
She racked and racked her brain, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what the demons had been searching for.
"We'll find out, one way or another," said Toby ominously, dragging the dead body into the corner. Faith tried not to think about who the meat-suit had been – tried not to think about the fact that he'd had a name, and a family, and a job. Tried not to think that he'd once been a person, but now he was nothing but slow-rotting meat.
Still massaging her jaw, Faith stuck her head out the front door, looking up and down the parking lot of the motel. Nobody was around or had come running at the sound of the fight. But given the seediness of the motel itself, it wasn't surprising that the other occupants had heard fighting and deliberately looked the other way.
Shutting and re-locking the door behind her, Faith grabbed a flask of holy water from her bag, then pulled her iron knife from its sheath and took a seat on her bed to wait for the demon to wake up. Toby took up an identical position opposite her. They weren't waiting long.
The demon came to with a gasp, shooting upright in the bloody devil's trap, a snarl ready on its lips. It took one look at the cord Faith had wrapped around its wrists and snapped it with a jerk. The cord fell to the floor, useless, but that didn't matter – it was still trapped.
"Rise and shine, asshole," sang Faith. She lifted the rifle leant up against her bed – loaded with salt rounds. They wouldn't kill the vessel, but they sure as shit would sting the thing using his body as a tea cosy. She cocked the gun and aimed it at the demon's chest. "Didn't papa Satan ever teach you it was rude to go through other people's things?"
Eyes black as night, it sneered as Faith climbed to her feet and held the gun level with its heart. Toby stood too, flask of holy water held ready.
"You weren't supposed to catch us," hissed the demon, crouched like an animal in the blood of his friend. "We won't make the same mistake twice."
"Oh, you won't be doing anything ever again," Faith assured him, inching closer, letting the barrel of her shotgun pass into the trap and press against the demon's sternum. "But before you go, why don't you tell us what you were looking for in our things?"
The demon wasn't cowed by her threats. Instead, it just narrowed its eyes, a sneer curling its stolen lips. "You haven't the faintest clue what you're a part of, do you?" it asked, coal eyes glinting with wicked intent. "You've no idea what terrible purpose your dear Mommy passed onto you."
Faith lifted her rifle, cocking it once, the sound echoing throughout the tacky motel room like a gunshot in itself, before she pressed the barrel to its sternum once again, this time with a harder pressure – a wordless threat. She smiled sweetly. "Why don't you fill me in?"
"You'd kill this innocent vessel just to waste little old me?" the demon purred. "You really are a product of your roots. Daddy will be so proud."
The words caused a swoop in her gut, and Faith's grip on the rifle wavered. She couldn't help the way her brow furrowed in confusion. "My father's dead," she ground out, trying to ignore the way her pulse had quickened, and her lungs felt tight.
The demon's smile was mocking. "Poor little girl lost, doesn't even know who her real daddy is."
Faith's finger itched to pull on the trigger just for its attitude along, but she kept herself from moving, knowing information was more valuable than the fleeting satisfaction of sending a demon back to Hell.
Faith forced her expression to remain vacant, but it wasn't without difficulty. "You seem to know more about me than I do," she said, keeping her voice pleasant, like it wasn't a creature from Hell, and she didn't have the barrel of a shotgun pressed to its heart. "Should I be worried you demons are stalking me, now? I suppose that is a nice change from you all just trying to kill me. I love a bit of mystery."
The demon gave hacking laugh. "Stupid girl," it spat, gnashing its teeth together like it was imagining tearing the jugular from her throat. "Nobody's trying to kill you. That would defeat the point."
"The point of what?"
It laughed again. "You really don't know anything do you?" the demon sounded amused, and Faith was stunned by the force of the indignation that reared its head in her gut. It physically pained her to let the thing keep breathing, even for just another minute. "How do you even survive?"
"By killing every single demon that crosses my path."
It tutted. "And killing all those poor, innocent humans in the process? You're even more like daddy than they said."
"Stop saying that!" Faith exploded, moving forwards without thought – every part of her shaking with confusion and loathing – very nearly stepping into the Devil's trap in the process. She was only saved by Toby grasping the back of her denim jacket, yanking her to safety.
The demon grinned like it had won some game she hadn't known they'd been playing. She felt her lip curl back and tightened her hold on her rifle until her knuckles turned white and she lost feeling in her fingertips.
"Faith," said Toby, keeping his hold on her jacket and pulling her gently across the room. She let him lead, the sound of her grinding teeth loud in her ears. At the other end of the room Toby let her go and she turned to look at him properly. "Faith, it's just trying to get under your skin," he said, leaning into her space, speaking quietly enough that the demon wouldn't hear. "Don't let it win."
Faith was barely listening. "Why would it say that, about my father?"
"It's lying," Toby replied without hesitation. "It's a demon – all they do is lie."
Faith wasn't so sure. "But why would it use my father?" she demanded. "That's – it's left-field."
"So? They know it's a sore spot for you-"
"But it isn't," she hissed. "I mean, he died before I was born. I never gave him much thought. I've looked him up, sure – there's nothing there, he was just some douche from the air force. Died in combat. But it isn't a sore spot. I haven't thought about him for years. I don't care. I really don't."
"Hell doesn't know that."
Faith's racing heart told her something was amiss, something her body could sense but her mind couldn't yet understand.
"There's something to this, Toby," she insisted. "What if my dad-" the word tasted sour on her tongue, "what if he's important? Or he has something to do with the Hades' Cult? And if there's even a chance that he's alive, like black-eyed-McGee over there seems to think he is, maybe he has answers!"
Toby shook his head, a look dangerously close to pity in his eyes. "It's all bullshit, Faith. It's just playing mind games in the hope that will keep it alive a little longer."
She lifted her rifle, stringing it over her shoulder and grinning at him like a wolf baring its teeth. "One way to find out," she said, and Toby didn't even have time to speak before Faith whirled around, cocked the gun, and fired a round of rock salt directly into the demon's chest.
The demon stumbled backwards in shock only to meet the barrier of its prison and collapse in an undignified heap. Toby was glaring, but Faith ignored him, strolling back towards the groaning demon, wearing a smile like a knight wore armour into battle.
Crouching down to the demon's level, she fluttered her lashes prettily. "I'm not going to kill this vessel," she said, slow and saccharine. "But I will torture it – and you – to get the information I need. How do you feel about holy water cocktails?"
The demon bared its teeth like an animal. "You're bluffing."
"Am I?" she asked, hopping back up to her feet and strolling across the room. Toby had taken a seat, shaking his head in exasperated disapproval, but she ignored him, fetching the canteen of holy water she kept in her bag, then traipsing back to the demon, whose snarl was larger than ever. "Now, be a good demon and open wide," she said casually, enthusiastically unscrewing the top of her canteen.
The demon did no such thing, so she threw the water at it with a smooth flick of her wrist. It cried out in agony, skin a steaming red.
But its cry quickly turned into laughter, eyes flickering black from corner to corner as it peered up at her, triumph on its evil face. "You might as well just kill me," it snarled. "Because the only place I'll talk to you is in Hell."
Her smile turned hard as she realised it was telling the truth; and that she really was bluffing. Maybe she was capable of torture – or would be, someday – but she wasn't now. Not even when it came to a demon. She resigned herself to the knowledge that she wouldn't be getting answers today. But that was okay – there was more than one source of information in this world.
"Okay," she said, interjecting false cheer into her voice. She turned back to Toby with a clap and a smile. "Feeling up to a good, old-fashioned exorcism?"
Toby looked exasperated, walking towards the demon as he pulled a rosary from his pocket, holding it up and beginning to speak in lilting, flawless Latin. The demon jerked and twisted, as if its very atoms wanted to escape the words, this sentencing back to Hell. But even as it struggled, it laughed.
"You can exile me back to Hell," it sang as it twisted and arched off the floor, body contorting like something straight out of The Exorcist. "But that won't change your fate! You're already dead, Child of War! You're Hell-bound!"
Toby's exorcism finished with a guttural noise, and Faith watched as the poor vessel tipped his head back, mouth open in a silent scream as a cloud of coal-black smoke poured from his lips. The smoke flew with startling speed to the floor, disappearing through the veil between worlds, back down into the deepest pits of Hell. It left nothing but a ring of singed carpet and a prone body in its wake.
Once she was sure it was gone, Faith stepped over the line of the Devil's trap and crouched down to the innocent man's side. His chest wasn't rising and falling, but still she held onto stupid hope and pressed her fingertips to the man's throat.
Nothing.
She looked up at Toby and grimly shook her head, suddenly exhausted. Every ounce of bravado she'd been able to conjure for the demon's benefit was now gone, sucked from her like blood by a leech. What was left felt like more of a husk of herself than an actual person.
Toby's expression was just as grim as he nodded once. He padded over to the room's linen closet, digging in there for a moment before producing a towel and throwing it in her direction. "Wipe down the whole room, everything you think there's so much as a chance you touched," he ordered briskly. "I'll pack our things."
Faith did just that, wiping down every trace of their fingerprints in both the main room and the connected bathroom. Neither she nor Toby spoke as they prepared to disappear, each doing a brilliant job of ignoring the cooling corpses in the room.
It was daylight, now, and on the off chance someone felt brave enough to call the police about a domestic disturbance, they had to get the hell outta dodge. Faith would have liked to be able to take the time to bury the victims personally, but there was no way they could hang around that long. Every moment they remained was a moment closer to arrest. They might have been hunters, but neither had the skills to break themselves out of a maximum-security prison – where they would surely be sent after getting convicted for murder.
It was barely a full five minutes before Faith was done with her task. She met Toby by the door, taking her duffel bag without a word. "What do we do? Do we just check out like normal?" she wondered, because all cards on the table, this was her first motel-body-dump.
Toby shook his head. "Better to just cut and run."
She could see the wisdom in that, too. He didn't need to tell her to paste an innocent look on her face as she strolled from the room looking, to the untrained eye, utterly carefree. She smiled at him as she took a seat in the passenger seat of his car, then turned on the music and sang along while pretending to check her hair in the mirror.
She doubted they were being watched, but if this life had taught her anything, it was that you could never be too careful or too paranoid.
Toby drove them calmly out of the motel parking lot, meandering innocently towards the interstate. By the time they hit the highway he'd gunned the engine, settling into their usual rhythm and finally beginning to relax. Faith would have been content to just listen to the radio and let herself drift, but Toby seemed to think they needed to talk.
"Where to?" he asked, reaching out the turn down the music until it was nothing but a gentle background hum.
Faith looked over at him drowsily. "I dunno – I'll grab a national paper whenever we stop for gas. There's gotta be something out there worth our time."
For a moment he said nothing, and Faith let her eyes slide shut, dropping her head back against the seat and letting the gentle rocking of the car carry her off to sleep-
"Faith, we can't just ignore everything that happened today," said Toby sternly. She opened her eyes, suddenly not so sleepy. "Now, if what the demon said was true – and I'm not saying it was – but on the very small chance that it wasn't just a complete load of horse-shit, then we need to switch our focus to finding outeverything we can about your father."
Faith stared at him, her eyes hooded against the glare of the sun through the windshield. He looked away from the road long enough to shoot her an equally-narrowed stare.
"What?"
Faith cleared her throat. "I know," she said, a frown pinching her brow. "I just assumed – well, I figured you wouldn't want to traipse across the country on a wild goose chase just for me."
Now Toby was the one frowning. "Why wouldn't I?"
She didn't have an answer – or at least, not one that had the strength to pass her lips. Faith stared at him some more, feeling rather like a student in a class she hadn't signed up for, trying desperately to solve an equation she didn't understand. Toby glanced at her, and an exasperated smile quirked at his pale lips.
"Faith, we're hunting partners," he reminded her. "There are few stronger bonds in this world."
"You sound like a walking after-school special," she mumbled.
"And besides that," he continued as if she hadn't interrupted, "is it so hard to believe that I've come to actually give a damn about you, these last few months?" Faith knew he wouldn't like her truthful answer, so she said nothing. Toby's smile turned sad, as if he knew what she was thinking. "Fay, I think that somewhere in amongst all the bickering and training and moral dilemmas, you might have become my best friend. So yes, I'm more than happy to traipse across the country on a wild goose chase for you. Besides, this isn't just your fight. The Hades' Cult is a threat to everyone, which makes it a hunter's jurisdiction."
Faith licked her lips, wringing her hands together in her lap, unsure what to say.
"You're not alone, Faith," he finished decisively. "Not anymore."
They didn't speak for a while after that, but they didn't have to. Every piece of Faith searched wildly to find the lie in his words. People like him weren't real – nobody was this kind to someone like her. It just didn't happen. She stared hard out the windshield, a furrow in her brow. Despite her desperate search for the falsehood in Toby's claim, Faith found nothing.
He wasn't kidding, and he wasn't lying. He wasn't just trying to placate her or get something from her. There was nothing for her to give, nothing he needed or wanted that she had. Nate had been a big Sherlock Holmes nerd, and he'd always been blathering on about it. One quote always stood out in her brain.
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
The remaining truth was that Toby's offer of friendship was genuine, and he truly did just want to do right by her and help in any way he could. Besides, he had a point. The Hades' Cult was certainly real, and she wasn't the only person they threatened. If they once again rose to power, the whole world would be at risk.
It was just them – her and Toby – stood between the Cult and painful, torturous deaths for tens of thousands of innocent people. They might not know what or who the Cult were exactly, but they knew they wanted chaos and destruction to reign down on this world like brimstone at the end of days. She couldn't face them alone, and truthfully, she didn't want to.
With that knowledge sitting like a stone in her chest, Faith turned to Toby and answered his question from before. "The Roadhouse. That's where we'll go. If anyone knows the truth about my father, it'll be Ellen."
Toby's lips twitched up into a smile. "Good plan," he said, a rare softness to his voice. He almost sounded proud.
Ignoring the pleasantly-painful twist in her gut at his approval, Faith pulled her phone from her back pocket, scrolling through her contacts until she reached Jo. "I'm gonna give Jo a call, make sure they'll be around when we arrive."
Toby said nothing as she waited for the call to connect, and Faith sank down in her chair, watching the world pass them by. When Jo answered the phone, it was in a dry, unimpressed tone of voice. "Faith Bueller, you'd better not be on business from my mother."
Blinking in surprise, Faith said honestly, "I haven't spoken to Ellen in days. Why? What'd you do this time?"
Jo let out a bitter laugh. "Depends on who you're asking."
"Toby and I are a day or so out from the Roadhouse," said Faith slowly, confusion coating the words. "We're just leaving upstate New York now."
"Well, you won't find me when you get there."
"Where are you?"
"Duluth."
It took Faith a moment to place the name. "Minnesota?"
"That's the one."
"What're you doing out there?"
"It's a long story."
"Then tell it quickly."
Jo sighed. "After the whole thing with the Winchester boys over in Philadelphia, my mom and I had a fight."
"So, naturally, you moved to Minnesota." Jo was silent and Faith tried not to wilt. "What happened?"
"She didn't want me huntin', and I didn't wanna stop. It was either bow down to her rule or leave and have the freedom to do what I like," said Jo proudly. Faith said nothing, trying to imagine the Roadhouse without Jo – trying to imagine Ellen without her daughter in the background, a constant, calming presence. "I got a job bussing tables up here at a dive. It ain't so bad. Pay's shit, but the hours are good, and it's a great place to keep an ear to the ground. You wouldn't believe the sorta jobs that just waltz on in like they wanna be hunted."
"Duluth, you said?" asked Faith, already considering the change of route. But then it occurred to her that just because Jo was Ellen's daughter, that didn't mean she automatically knew all of Ellen's secrets. "Hey, you don't by any chance happen to know anything about my father, do you?"
"Your father?" she asked, sounding confused.
"I got a lead on something," Faith said vaguely. "It involves my father. He died before I was born, and I've looked him up, but something tells me that what I'm looking for won't be found in any official record."
"Sorry, I don't know anything that'll help," said Jo, only to pause, then add, "but after we met you, that day in the Roadhouse, I asked about him."
"You did? Why?"
"I'm not sure. I guess I wondered why he hadn't taken you in, after Emily died. It wasn't until then that my mom told me he'd kicked the bucket before you were born. She sounded kind of relieved about it, too – called him a bastard."
Faith felt her stomach swoop, as if someone had ripped the seat out from underneath her. "And?"
"And that was it, wouldn't say another word about it," Jo said, a shrug in her voice. "Look, I know my mom, and when she makes a decision, she sticks to it like gum to a shoe. She seemed awfully determined not to talk about your daddy, not even to me, so I doubt you're gonna get much out of her."
Faith reached up to grip the bridge of her nose. "Well, I gotta try. She's the only person I know who might actually have the answers I need."
"Have at it," said Jo. "But when that don't work, go to Ash. There's not a server in the world that boy can't hack. If there's dirt to be found on your daddy, he'll know where to look."
It was sound advice, and Faith felt a pulse of hope. "Thanks, Jo."
"Anytime," she replied. "And hey, if you're anywhere near Duluth any time soon, give me a yell."
"You bet."
Faith slipped her phone back into her pocket, turning her attention to Toby to relay what Jo had told her. "You're sure you don't want to head up to Minnesota, see her in person?" he asked when she was done.
"Nah, the sooner we talk to Ellen, the better."
"Do you think she's right?" he wondered. "That Ellen won't tell us anything important?"
"That depends on whether she knows anything important," sighed Faith. "Not to mention whether there's even anything important to know. Maybe you were right, and this was all just some giant demonic wind-up."
"I don't believe those were my exact words-"
"I mean, honestly, what are the odds that there's anything even remotely important about who my father was?" she asked, glaring out the window as if the universe might feel the force of her fury and cower. "My mom was a hunter who got rid of the meanest cult in history. There's no way my sperm donor could have a secret large enough to top that. Right?"
Toby hesitated, hands flexing briefly on the wheel. "Faith, what the demon said…about your father being alive…"
Her whole body went tense. "You were right about that back at the motel. It's obviously bullshit."
But Toby seemed to have changed his mind on the matter. "But, if there's a chance that he's out there…"
"What? You think I've got a father out there somewhere?" she scoffed. "Even if I do, he's an asshole and no family of mine."
"How do you figure?"
"He clearly wants nothing to do with me, Toby," she said flatly. "Don't you think that, at some point in the last 25 years he'd have popped in to say hi? Let me know I'm not…I dunno…a fuckin' orphan?"
"I don't…" Toby trailed off, a frown on his face. "25? I thought you were only 24."
Faith shrugged. "My birthday was in September."
Toby turned away from the road to stare at her in horror. "September?!" he echoed incredulously. "Why the bloody hell didn't you tell me?!"
"Why? So we could sing an annoying song around a dry sponge cake while I make a useless wish and blow out a shitty candle?" His look was bewildered, and she flapped a hand dismissively. "I've never been a fan of birthdays, Toby. It doesn't matter."
"Just because you've never had anyone interested in celebrating with you before, that doesn't mean things remain that way now."
Faith only turned to stare out the window, watching the trees whizz by and pretending her heart wasn't squeezing into a peach pit. Toby sighed and gave up before he'd even properly begun.
"Look, my point is – if your father's alive, we need to find him," he told her, and Faith did nothing to pretend she wasn't relieved by the shift in topic. "He has to have answers – actual, concrete answers – about the Cult and the curse."
"Maybe," she sighed, not so convinced.
She couldn't deny her exhaustion – two days of non-stop working a job, plus a whole night of digging in the graveyard, added on top of the fight in the motel room and the revelations made by that smug, desperate demon… Faith felt like she could pass out there and sleep for a week. Toby, of course, read her like a book.
"Why don't you try and get some sleep?" he suggested. "It's nearly a twenty-hour drive to Nebraska, and if you get some sleep now, you can take over for me later."
She hesitated. "Maybe we should just get a motel room."
"We need answers, and I'm okay to drive," he insisted even as he pulled off the main road and began to head into a nearby town just off the freeway. "Or, I will be," he continued as they pulled into a McDonald's drive-thru, "once I pump myself full of caffeine."
"McDonald's coffee?" she mumbled as her eyes drooped. "You might as well snort a line of cocaine."
"Exactly," he replied. "Want anything?"
Faith stayed awake long enough to throw back a bottle of water and a breakfast burger, but then she was out for the count, sleeping heavy as the dead as they hurtled across the country to the Roadhouse, where one way or another, they would get answers of some kind.
It was around lunch the next day that they arrived at the Roadhouse. Faith pulled up outside, gravel crunching under the wheels as she switched off the engine. Toby was awake, sipping tea from a Starbucks they'd passed a few miles back.
"You'd better leave that in the car," said Faith numbly, feeling rather like an imposter in her own skin, like this whole exercise was an out-of-body experience. "Something tells me Ellen's not a Starbucks fan."
"You've been quiet," said Toby, falling into step beside her as they made their way across the gravel parking lot, towards the building.
"Lots on my mind," she replied, stuffing her hands in her pockets and keeping her eyes resolutely ahead.
"I don't doubt it," he nodded. She said nothing and he abruptly stopping walking, thrusting out an arm to force her to a stop. "Look, I just wanna make sure you're okay."
She scowled. "I'm starting to miss the asshole I met at Bobby's all those months ago."
He rolled his eyes. "No, you aren't."
He was right, of course, but he didn't need to know that. It would only go to his head.
"I know you're close to this one-"
"Understatement of the century," she muttered, and was ignored.
"-but you've got to focus on the job. We need information, so try to keep a clear head. If you get your emotions tied up in this, you won't be of any help."
Was it weird that she preferred when he acted like an asshole? The status quo could be a beautiful thing.
"Got it," Faith nodded once, trying to look confident in her ability to do just that. Toby didn't seem convinced, but he just turned and pushed the door to the Roadhouse open, waving her impatiently through.
Ellen glanced up from where she was wiping down a nearby table, eyebrows shooting high at the sight of them padding into her bar. She abandoned her task, walking towards them with an inscrutable expression set like stone onto the lines of her face.
"Well, aren't you two a sight for sore eyes?" Ellen asked the moment they were close enough to hear. "Would a call every now and again be too much to ask?"
"Sorry, Ellen," said Toby, stepping forwards to kiss the older woman chastely on the cheek.
Ellen batted him away but didn't look entirely displeased. She looked at Faith, who smiled and nodded in greeting. "Heard you've spoken to Dean," Faith said as they followed Ellen across the room, towards the nearly-empty bar. "No word on Sam?"
"Something's going on with those two," muttered Ellen, sounding just a little bitter about it. "Whatever it is, I don't intend to get in the middle of it. John was trouble enough on his own, but both his boys at once?" She shook her head and looked a hair's breadth from crossing herself for protection.
Faith was able to read between the lines well enough – Ellen had heard from Sam. "Is he okay?" she asked quietly. "Sam?"
Ellen walked behind the bar and threw a dishtowel over her left shoulder in one smooth, practiced move. "Some things in life we gotta do alone," was all she said.
Something about the words made Faith feel sad. "Do we?"
Ellen opened her mouth to argue, only to just as suddenly frown.
"All I'm saying is, Dean's really worried," she told Ellen, feeling strangely defensive on Dean's behalf. She didn't have any siblings, didn't know what it really meant to have a family, but she knew Dean had Sam's best interests at heart. "And maybe some things do have to be done alone – but not always. Not if there's another option."
Nothing was said for a moment, long enough for Faith to begin convincing herself she'd overstepped. But then Ellen sighed. "I'll think about it," she said, and Faith knew she'd done as much as she could. "Now, what's wrong with you two?"
"Does something have to be wrong for us to visit?" Toby asked smoothly.
Ellen was unamused. "Faith, you look like you're on path to the gallows," she said as if it was all the evidence she needed. "Now, what's the matter and do I need to load a shotgun?"
Toby glanced at Faith, so baffled it was like his brain had stopped working altogether. Faith sighed and took the reins. "We need to talk to you."
"Well," drawled Ellen, "sounds pleasant." She turned to where a bearded man in a beanie and overalls was sat at the bar, nursing a beer and doing a terrible job of pretending not to eavesdrop. "Earl, get lost."
'Earl' was instantly on his feet, scurrying away like his ass was on fire. Toby took his abandoned stool and Faith hopped onto the one on his left. Without a word, Ellen set about fetching them both a beer. Faith had to admit, alcohol would certainly make this day a little easier to handle – but she wanted a perfectly clear head for the information she was hoping (but was sceptical) would come.
"Actually, can I just grab a lemonade, Ellen?"
Ellen sent her a suspicious look but did as she asked, even going so far as to put a slice of lemon over the rim of the glass before she pushed it across the counter. Faith thanked her quietly and sipped the drink, its tangy flavour helping ground her in the moment.
"Now talk," demanded Ellen sternly, "before I start throwing darts."
Faith glanced to Toby, who nodded once but said nothing. She held in another sigh; clearly this was one of his 'teachable moments'. She would get no help from him in this task. She was on her own.
Pulling her spine up straight, Faith met Ellen's eyes and tried to look confident. "Ellen, I need you to tell me everything you know about my father," she said bluntly, because Ellen wasn't the sort who appreciated beating around the bush. The more direct she was, the better.
But Ellen's expression fell into a carefully controlled mask and Faith felt a pulse of foreboding. Answers weren't going to come easily. She'd known that, but looking at Ellen now, it felt like a mountain to climb, an impossible summit to reach. Faith almost wanted to give up before she even started, but she had to try. She'd regret it forever if she didn't.
"Ellen," she said quietly, beseechingly.
Ellen sighed. "What brought this on?"
"We caught a demon going through our things," Faith began. "Managed to trap it and force it to talk. Seemed pretty certain my father was someone important – and more than that, that he was out there, alive somewhere."
"Demons lie," said Ellen without hesitation.
Faith wasn't stopped by her frosty blockade. "What do you know about him?" she asked Ellen plainly. "You said you were my mom's best friend. You must have met him at least once."
Ellen turned away, picking up a glass and towel, beginning to polish the cloudy glass just for something to do with her hands. Faith thought she might try to get out of answering – change the subject or give some other excuse why she couldn't talk about him. But to her surprise – and relief – Ellen began to talk.
"I met him a couple times," she confessed, scrubbing at the already-clean glass. "Not much to tell, really. He was a normal guy. Bit of a temper on him, intimidating, but those military-types usually are."
"Military-types?" Faith asked. She'd known he was in the military, but figured she could squeeze more out of Ellen the less she pretended to know.
Ellen bent down below the bar, reappearing with a beer of her own in hand, popping off the cap with stunning dexterity and downing a mouthful before answering. "He was a colonel – or maybe it was a general – in the Airforce," she said, tapping a finger against the glass of her bottle. "It was a long time ago – twenty-five years, right?"
Faith nodded once.
"Well," Ellen continued stiltedly, "your mom was working a job at a hangar in Southern California. Haunted aircraft, I think. Anyway, they met, fell in lust, and a few weeks later she was here bemoaning having to give up whiskey and cigarettes for nine months."
Hearing about her parents – her own history – did strange things to Faith. She took a sip of lemonade, suddenly wishing she wasn't trying to be responsible and had asked for a bourbon instead. "And what did he think about it?"
"Seemed pretty uninterested in the whole thing, to be honest," said Ellen bluntly. There was no pity in her eyes, and she wasn't treating Faith with kid-gloves. Under different circumstances, this may have been a difficult thing for Faith to hear – but Faith wasn't your typical orphan. She was beginning to suspect she never had been.
"Uninterested how?"
Ellen shrugged. "Didn't seem to react much at all, according to Emily. When she decided she was gonna keep you, she offered to keep him a part of your life. Apparently, he offered to give her some money towards medical bills, but other than that wanted no part in it – I mean, in you."
Faith frowned down into the hazy depths of her lemonade. "You said you met him?" she asked, seeming to surprise Ellen with how unaffected she was by this news.
As far as Faith was concerned, her father wasn't a real person. Not in any solid, tangible way, at least. He was just a story from her past, a smudge in the book of her history. And so how could the distant rejection of a long-dead ghost possibly break her heart?
"Yeah," said Ellen, a frown pulling at her brow.
"What was he like?"
Ellen lowered the beer bottle, setting it down on the bar and assessing Faith with careful eyes that flicked once towards Toby before darting back to Faith. She seemed to come to some sort of decision, a steely glint appearing in those no-nonsense eyes.
"Faith, honey," she began compassionately, and Faith knew whatever followed was going to be unpleasant, "your father was… I don't think he was a very good man."
Muscles tense, like some part of her wanted to bolt, Faith forced herself to calmly ask, "What makes you say that?"
"Just a feeling I got… Call it an intuition." When Faith said nothing, Ellen sighed. "He seemed to think himself – I don't know – somehow above everybody else. Including your mom. He seemed powerful in a bad way – I dunno, maybe that was just the military man in him. He gave all of us a … well, a bad vibe. My husband, Bill, especially. To be frank, he couldn't stand the guy."
Faith tried to put the pieces of this puzzle together into something that vaguely resembled a picture. Her father was an angry, prideful man, who seemed to have been indifferent to her existence. She wasn't sure why that was important, or if it even was at all.
"Anyway," said Ellen in a deliberate attempt to lighten the tense air that had befallen the bar, "your mom was only five months pregnant when he was killed – shot down in enemy airspace, Emily said. Apparently, they gave him a medal for his service, but since they weren't married, the Airforce wouldn't let Emily hold onto it. Not that she particularly wanted to."
Faith said nothing, mostly because she didn't know what there was to say. She took another sip of lemonade and tapped an uneven rhythm against the glass with the tip of a broken nail. When Faith said nothing, Ellen grimaced as if regretting speaking at all.
"I know it must be difficult for you, hearing these things about your father," she said gently.
"Not really," said Faith, thinking that maybe it was even true. "We'd all like to think our parents were wonderful people, but I'm under no illusions. It doesn't surprise me to learn that my father was an asshole. Certainly explains a few things about my own shortcomings."
Ellen sent her a disapproving look but didn't bother to scold her for the comment.
Faith took another sip of her lemonade and tried not to picture her father in her head. She didn't know whether he had dark hair or light, whether they looked at all alike. Was he where she got her tenacity? Her anger issues, and hot temper? Did she get her sticky fingers from him, too? Or her athleticism?
So many questions she doubted she'd ever get real answers to.
"What else can you tell me?" she asked Ellen, still tapping out a beat against her glass.
"Not much," said Ellen with a drawn look on her face. "If you want more than that, you're gonna have to go to Ash."
"Yeah, Jo said as much," muttered Toby, only to freeze with his beer bottle halfway up to his mouth when he realised what he'd said.
Everything about Ellen went still. "You spoke to Jo?"
Faith cast Toby a dirty look before returning her attention to Ellen. "I didn't know she was off on her own," she explained. "She mentioned we might have more luck with Ash than with you."
Ellen snorted and threw back a mouthful of beer. "She would say that, wouldn't she?" she said bitterly, looking suddenly much older than she was.
Things abruptly seemed tense in a way they hadn't before, and Faith uncomfortably stood to her feet. "Why don't I go see what Ash can dig up?" she suggested, casting a look at Toby, who waved her away.
"You go, I'll stay here and catch up on all the local gossip," he said – his way of giving her space as well as taking time to check in with one of his oldest friends. Faith nodded once and left the two of them be, wandering through the door into the back of the bar, hands stuffed in the back pockets of her jeans.
It wasn't until Faith was stood in a dank, nondescript hallway that she realised she had no idea which door led to Ash's on-site hovel. However, it only took a quick glance at the doors to figure it out.
Dr. Badass Is In, read a sign nailed hastily to the door. As Faith drew closer, she heard muffled music playing from behind the door, along with a distinct moaning noise that she couldn't imagine as anything other than amateur porn. With a deep grimace and plenty of regrets, Faith lifted her hand to knock at the door.
The sounds of the amateur porn cut off abruptly, but the music continued, something with a thudding bass line that made some long-dead part of Faith want to tap her foot to the beat. The door was pulled open unexpectedly, revealing Ash in all his pale, mullet-styled glory. Upon seeing it was her, Ash's annoyed expression evened out into something that was only charming by a very loose definition of the word, leaning casually in his doorway and giving a smirk that made him look vaguely as though he was in the early stages of a stroke.
"Well, well, well," he sang, crossing bare, stick-thin arms across his chest and looking far too confident for her liking, "look who it is. The hot ones always come crawling back to papa."
"I think I just threw up in my mouth a little."
"I've got some mouthwash, if you want," he said, as if this were a regular occurrence for him. "It's good stuff – homemade."
"It's moonshine, isn't it?"
Ash grinned and wagged a finger in her face. "You're a quick one."
Faith didn't bother acknowledging that one. "Is it safe to come in, or will it scar me for life?"
"Depends what you want," he said, still blocking her entry, suddenly suspicious.
"Sex," she deadpanned.
Ash blinked at her, a slow smile spreading across his face. "You're yanking my chain, aren't you?" he asked, wagging a finger in her face.
"A hundred percent," she confirmed and then, because she was fairly confident the porn was over with and the place wasn't booby-trapped, pushed past him into his room. The place looked like a bomb had gone off inside of it. "Jesus, Ash," she muttered, kicking gingerly at a small sea of empty beer cans on the floor beside an open mini-fridge, "I'm gonna get sepsis just from breathing inside this room."
"Nah, you'll be fine," said Ash, kicking the door shut again, sealing her into the room that smelt like beer, vomit, and Cheeto dust. "Oh, but you have had a tetanus shot within the last ten years though, right?"
"Fuck my life," Faith mumbled under her breath, standing in the dead centre of the room in an effort to keep from touching anything.
There was a camping cot pressed against the wall, covered in musty old, checkered blankets and stained pillows. Along the opposite side of the room ran a long desk with no less than eight monitors spread out across its surface. All of them had computer code written across them, the letters and numbers a vibrant green colour while the background was a colourless void. In the space between the two was a sea of beer cans, food scraps, and other useless garbage that was thick enough to cover the floor like a carpet.
Faith watched as Ash picked his way carefully through the trash to reach his desk, where a large chair was sat waiting. Garbage King, Faith thought, wrinkling her nose at the stench.
"Aren't you supposed to be a genius?" she asked, tentatively wading through the ocean of food scraps and beer cans to reach his side.
"Cleanliness don't equal brains, hot stuff," drawled Ash. Faith figured it was about as close to a comprehensible answer as she was likely to get. "What can I actually do you for, sweet-cheeks?" Ash asked, leaning backwards in his desk chair, his hands folded over his stomach and a lazy look in his eye.
"I need some information. Absolutely everything you can find on a man who died a little over twenty-five years ago. I heard you were the guy to come to."
Ash made a motion as if to brush her away. "Everyone's always askin' for somethin'," he muttered, turning in his chair to face his computers as he noisily cracked his knuckles. "It's never 'hi Ash, how are ya?'"
Faith genuinely wasn't sure how she was supposed to respond to that.
Thankfully, Ash spared them both the embarrassment and just muttered, "Name?"
"Aaron Bueller." She managed to say his name without so much as a waver in her voice. It was strange to say it aloud – she wasn't sure she ever had before. Until now, he'd been nothing but a name typed onto a page. She was woman enough to be able to admit she was afraid of what would happen when he inevitably became more.
"Bueller?" Ash snorted even as he typed. "This guy skip out on a class or something?"
"Hilarious," she muttered. Ash just chuckled to himself and continued to search. "How long will this take?" Faith asked after a long few minutes of silence, other than the clacking of the keyboard and Ash's occasional sniff.
"What, you bored already?"
"Just impatient," she told him mildly. Then, "Also, I think something might have died in here, and the smell's starting to make me wanna hurl."
Ash finished his frantic typing with a flourish, and a machine beneath the desk that she hadn't yet noticed beeped to life. She ducked low enough to watch as it began to spit out pages of information.
"This is it," said Ash with great importance. "Everything about Aaron Bueller that I could find."
He reached to the printer, snatching up the thin pile of papers, scanning them with a lazy eye before handing them over to Faith with a wink. Leafing through the pile, she counted only five sheets of paper. "Are you sure you have the right one?" she asked warily.
"Colonel in the United States Airforce; known lover of one Emily Cordelia Jett; died three months, two weeks and four days before you were born; and absolutely gave you that killer jawline."
Ash leant back in his chair once again, looking far too satisfied for Faith's comfort.
"Yeah," he said smugly, "I'm pretty sure I've got the right one."
"I asked for everything."
"That, my beautiful little sugar muffin, is absolutely everything that exists on the man."
Faith ignored the corny pet names and frowned down at the thin pile of papers she was leafing through. "There's not even a birth certificate here."
Ash shrugged. "Doesn't exist."
"How could it not exist?"
"By not existing."
She scowled. "Maybe you just didn't look hard enough."
But Ash didn't look insulted; he just leant back in his chair like he had all the time and patience in the world. "Why don't you go read through what I've printed out? Might put things into perspective," he said casually. "When you're done, Dr. Badass will still be in to answer any questions you have left."
Faith tried not to grimace and failed spectacularly. She didn't say anything as she turned to leave, only for Ash to stop her.
"Wait," he said, jabbing at a button on the printer. It spat out another printout, this one glossy instead of matte, and he handed it to Faith with a winning smile. "Just for you to compare jawlines."
It was a photo of a man stood in an Airforce jumpsuit. Faith allowed herself to take in no other details than that before she slipped the photograph underneath the rest of the papers and left Ash's hovel of a room.
Toby was still talking quietly to Ellen over the bar, so Faith moved to one of the empty booths up the back of the room, taking a seat and staring down at the top page to her pile without taking in any of the words on said page.
She wasn't sure how long she sat there, head empty of thoughts and her eyes taking in nothing. But eventually she was pulled from her funk by Toby, who slid into the booth opposite her and set a bottle of her favourite beer – Stella Artois – down on the closest coaster.
"I don't want a drink, Toby."
"No, but you need one," he replied. Toby waited until she picked up the bottle, then clinked his neck with hers and threw back a mouthful, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Faith copied him and had to admit, the crisp taste helped ground her more than anything else. "So, what've we got?"
"Suspiciously little."
He made a hurry-up motion with the hand still holding his beer. "Let's have it, then."
She glared at him, but secretly admitted that him being an asshole might have been even more grounding than the bitter tang of Stella on her tongue. It gave her an unexpected strength, and Faith didn't even feel nervous as she lifted the papers in front of her and began to read aloud the relevant parts of Ash's research.
They were mostly just hastily-written mission reports that were half redacted by the government anyway, but that Faith sincerely doubted held anything useful to her. She wanted dirt on the man himself, not whatever the government had him bomb in Syria, or wherever.
One page was a medical exam performed by a nurse at an unnamed Airforce base. It gave them no information, other than that Aaron Bueller had been completely and entirely healthy – maybe even to a suspicious degree.
Last and absolutely least was the death certificate. It seemed normal enough, signed by his CO at the time and a witness of his demise. It listed his parents' names – Hannah and Zachery Bueller – plus the place where his memorial would be made.
(Being that he died in a violent plane explosion, there was no body to bury or ashes to spread. He got his name on a plaque and little else to prove he existed at all. Something about that made Faith sad, but she didn't want to give too much thought as to why.)
It all seemed stock-standard, until Faith came across a small piece of information on the page, easy enough to overlook, but somehow it stuck out in her mind.
Religion: Hellenism
Faith looked up from the page to frown at Toby. "What's Hellenism? It isn't satanic, is it?"
"It's not satanic," he assured her, though that didn't stop him from looking troubled.
"Is it worse?" she asked, then just as quickly wondered what could possibly be worse than that.
"Hellenic polytheists…well, it's not exactly a commonly practised religion. At least, not by modern standards."
"Toby."
Toby sighed. "It's Zeus."
Of all the things Faith had been expecting him to say, that had to be the lowest on the list. "Zeus," she echoed tonelessly.
"Well, and Apollo and Poseidon and Athena and Aphrodite and … well, you get the idea," he said. Faith stared at him, eyes wide but her brow furrowed as she struggled to absorb the nonsense coming from his mouth. Toby sighed again and said, in no uncertain terms, "It's the Hellenic pantheon. Faith – according to this, your father worshipped the Greek Gods."
She stared at him, half expecting him to be kidding. When he didn't burst into uncontrollable laughter, Faith scowled. "Great. So, he was crazy."
Toby sighed and reached for the papers, beginning to sift through them with a critical eye. "It could just be nonsense," he said quietly. "I guess there isn't really a way to know for sure. You said this was everything Ash could come up with?"
"Literally all that ever existed on the guy."
Toby looked unimpressed. "There isn't even a birth certificate."
"I know."
"That's … suspicious."
"To say the least," she muttered, leaning back in the booth and tossing back a mouthful of beer. "So," she began, watching Toby stare hard at the papers as though he might find some sort of hidden code if he just looked closely enough, "do we think he was real?"
Toby looked up in bemusement. "Real?"
"Well, I'm no expert, but this whole thing doesn't exactly scream 'my father actually existed' to me," she said, as though that were a perfectly normal sentence for someone to say.
"So, you're thinking, what, immaculate conception?"
The look she shot him could have boiled water. "Obviously I have a biological father," she said, making sure he knew she knew that was very clear. "The man himself was real – but Aaron Bueller? He's a story that someone made up. A convincing one, I'll admit, if it managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the entire US Airforce."
"Not to mention your mother," added Toby as he put down the pages and picked up his beer.
Faith bit into the flesh of her lower lip. "Or maybe she knew all along."
"Knew what?" he asked, frowning in confusion.
"The truth about him."
"Which is?"
Her scathing look sharpened into something dangerous, and Toby lifted his hands as if in surrender. "I don't know," she said through gritted teeth.
Toby smiled and shook his head. "I'm winding you up, Faith."
She scowled. "A terrible idea, really."
"Yeah, I never learn."
Faith turned her attention to the final record on the table – the photograph of her father, turned upside-down so she couldn't see it. Her fingers tapped restlessly against its underside, drawing Toby's attention.
"That a picture of him?" he asked, reaching for it.
Reacting without thinking, Faith grabbed the photo and pulled it out of his reach, its face still pointed down against the table. Toby froze with his hand hung uselessly in the air, and Faith blinked, stunned by her own actions. Slowly, Toby lowered his hand, the teasing gone from his eyes.
"I've never seen a photo of him before," she blurted, because the urge to explain herself was suddenly all-encompassing.
Toby seemed surprised. "Never?"
"There wasn't one in my file, and since he was dead, I never looked any deeper…" Faith cleared her throat and stared hard at the underside of the photograph. "I guess Ash turned up an image from the Airforce's database."
A beat. "Do you want me to look at it first?"
Her eyes snapped to his. "I know I'm being ridiculous," she snapped, terribly aware of how defensive she sounded. She wished she could grab the words and shove them back down her throat. But words didn't work that way, no matter how much she wished they did.
But, as always, Toby didn't judge her for it. She should have known he never would. "I don't think it's ridiculous," he said patiently.
Frowning to herself, Faith looked back down at the photo. After a long moment of simply staring, her head empty of thoughts, she reached out with a flush of confidence and flipped the photo right side up.
There was a chance this could be fake, too. A chance that the photo was doctored, making a person where there was none. Or that it was a different man altogether, a placeholder where her father should have been. Just another lie.
But when Faith laid eyes on the man in the photograph, she knew the possibilities didn't matter. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, this man was her father.
He was handsome in an unassuming way. While Faith had always assumed she'd gotten her hair from her mother, she knew now she was wrong. The man in the picture had hair the same shade of brown as hers, just as thick and curly – although Faith's was longer – and Ash had certainly been right about the jawline – it was sort of like looking into a mirror and seeing herself as she'd be as a man.
Her eyes, however, remained her mother's. Something about that fact relieved Faith, and she knew she'd have felt like he'd stolen her eyes from her, had hers looked anything like his – cold and calculated. Staring down into those eyes, she could see exactly what Ellen had been talking about.
He seemed powerful, she'd said, like he thought he was above everyone else.
Faith could see it in him – that streak of pride, that edge of violence. He looked ready to march into war. He looked ready to strike at his enemies. He looked dangerous. He looked like someone Faith didn't want to know.
"Huh," said Toby, looking at the photograph upside-down. "You don't look very alike."
"No?" asked Faith, hope like a young flame in her chest; vulnerable and so very delicate. One strong gust and it would be snuffed out of existence.
"Nah," he shrugged. "I don't see it."
Maybe he knew what that meant to her, or maybe he didn't. Either way, it was enough to coax that flickering flame into a proper fire, and Faith breathed a sigh of relief as it warmed her from the inside out.
In the doorway across the room, Ash was wandering out from the back. He was wearing a new shirt – although 'new' might not have been the word Faith was truly looking for, considering it looked like it belonged on the floor with the rest of his hoard of trash – and seemed to have combed his hair.
"Ash!" she called, ignoring Toby's alarmed look.
Ash turned and when he caught her eye she waved him over. He wasted no time in crossing the room towards her, slipping into the booth on her right and looking entirely too pleased to be there. "What can I do for you, m'lady?"
"For starters, never call me that again," she said. Ash saluted but she ignored it, holding up the image of her father. "I need another favour."
"So much take and so little give," tutted Ash.
Faith rolled her eyes, ready to dismiss it until she realised that might actually be true. "I'll buy you a beer?"
"I get 'em free anyway," he sniffed, plucking the photo from her hand and looking at it closely in the low lighting of the roadhouse. "And if you were gonna ask me to run facial recognition on your old man here, I'm already way ahead of you."
Faith blinked. "You are?"
"I've got programs going for a few other hunters at the moment, so my kit's running a little slow. Give me a week or two and I'll be able to tell you if your pop's face shows up under any other names in the database."
"Which database?" asked Toby.
Ash frowned like he didn't understand the question. "All of them."
He winked at Faith, saluted to Toby, then left them sitting alone, bemused and a tiny bit hopeful that answers – real, honest-to-god answers – were on the horizon.
A/N: Thoughts? We're starting to finally get somewhere!
Next time – Christmas with the Winchesters, and the beginning of the end of Season 2.