Silent Enemies
AN: Hello all, I hope everyone is healthy and happy and wish you all much joy. My apologies for the delay in getting this up. RL has been kicking my ass lately. (Likewise, for those of you awaiting the next instalment in Now and Then, I promise I am working hard on it and hope to start getting it up soon x).
Relevant Backstory (from BroAU Canon): Takes place about a month after the 1987 events in Rites of Passage by Tidia and several references are made in relation to the events in that story. I also make reference to Brotherhood canon regarding the events that led to Caleb being adopted by Mac (Stranded by Will Scott) and the time Mac taught Dean to suture, mentioned in Spirited Beings (Tidia).
You don't have to have read all of them to read this one but if you haven't already, I'd advise you to read these anyway. Mostly because they are great stories.(Small summary of key parts not explained within at the end of this chapter.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, or any of the related characters. The Supernatural series is created by Eric Kripke and owned by The CW Network. The Brotherhood AU is a fanfiction series created by Ridley C. James, Tidia, and Williamson M. Scott. This work of fanfiction is for entertainment only. I am not making a profit of any kind from this story.
SPNBROAU
To speak or not to speak that is the question. Whether it is nobler to suffer in silence the slings and arrows of hostile adversaries,
or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and will speaking up end them?
Chapter 1: In Trouble with Dad
September 1987 - Wyoming
Sometimes a man needed to say his piece. Of course, other times he'd be better off just keeping his damn mouth shut if he didn't want to end up with trench-foot. Slugging through the rain, wind, and mud had Bobby using the kind of language that made Jim frown. Which made it especially bad that on this occasion the language was aimed at the generally genial pastor.
Robert Singer respected the hell out of Pastor Jim Murphy. He was the Guardian of the Brotherhood and Bobby had a better understanding than most, even other Brotherhood members, of what that entailed. Not that the cunning old silver-haired fox didn't have plenty of secrets, but Bobby had worked closely with both the current and previous Triads. He knew about the machinations and machiavellianisms required – as much for dealing with those within the organisation as with the authorities.
But, if he hadn't been the Guardian, Bobby still would've respected Jim as a hunter and as a man, even when wading his way through a virtual swamp to retrieve a hidden artefact in the middle of a tempest. More cusses against Jim slipped from his lips as he slipped in the slick mud and his funny bone banged against a tree.
Of course, he wasn't the only one that had a few bad words for the Guardian at the moment. Several of the Guardian's decisions had been controversial among the ranks. The choice of Mackland Ames as Scholar had raised many an eyebrow, especially among those legacy members of the Brotherhood who felt their family connections somehow gave them a right to a position in the organisation. Jim picking a practical stranger who until relatively recently had no knowledge of the supernatural, let alone hunting, had felt like a shit-pie to the face to some. The unpopularity of Jim's choice was exasperated by the fact that Mac had taken in young Caleb Reaves.
The teenager was the descendant of a rather nasty demon and the human wife of the man the demon had been possessing. Each generation before Caleb, including his parents, had ended bloodily. And, for some, the child was guilty of the parents' crimes, or in this case, the great grandparent. Despite this, the Guardian had made his decision; the boy was an innocent, to be protected not attacked.
So when the Knight at the time, Daniel Elkins, tried to enforce his own brand of anti-demon justice on the kid, the shit had hit the fan all around. If Bobby was honest, Elkins had been going downhill even before his attack on the boy. Under other circumstances, his decision to go directly against the orders of the Guardian would have caused outrage in the ranks. But with some corners of the Brotherhood already disgruntled about first Jim, then Mac, being inaugurated, Caleb's alleged bloodline was becoming a rallying point for the malcontents.
The kid hadn't done anything harmful, as far as any of them could find. Unless you counted a little petty crime, but that marked him more as human than demon, demons wouldn't bother with that sort of thing. But that didn't stop some from wanting to follow in Elkins' footsteps. And what happened last month when Caleb went on that hunt with the three stooges had opened all their eyes.
Bobby wasn't sure if it was fear or some perverted sense of honour keeping the boy quiet, but he suspected the latter. Either way, they all knew what had really happened, or they had enough of an idea at least. So Bobby had to speak up, since the kid wouldn't. He could not understand Jim's lack of action against those dickwads.
Which was what had prompted Bobby to speak to Jim, voicing his opinion on what happened to Caleb and what they should do about it. He'd also suggested – validly in his opinion - that they would be better off accepting what was probably in Caleb's blood and dealing with it head on. Better than being caught with their pants down again.
It wasn't like he agreed with Elkins, or the Dick Sawyer types. Bobby had nothing against the Reaves boy and certainly didn't want anything bad to happen to him. Mouthy little shit that he was, Bobby might even go so far as to say he liked the kid. The biggest 'risk' was that Caleb might become fanatical about the cause. He was so damn idealistic, and even an ass kicking hadn't changed that. But Mackland was a measured man, he'd see the boy right.
Bobby squinted through the wall of rain. It was falling so thick that he could barely see a foot ahead. Hunting might seem noble to the kid but in Bobby's experience it was one crap-pile after another with little reward and no thanks. But then that was life in general as far as the salvager could make out and at least this way you got to play with guns and blow things up occasionally.
He wiped rainwater from his face only for it to be instantly replaced by more of the same. Finally he spotted a dark looming shadow that he thought was his goal. This had to be the right cave, the shape of the jagged outcrop looked right anyway. Not that he could check the ancient pencil drawing he'd been given as reference in this downpour. He hitched his bag more securely on his shoulder and pushed on. The forced foot march, or 'hump', reminded him of his time in the military and that made him think of the newest member of the Triad.
Just last month, Jim had chosen a new Knight, further upsetting the malcontents. Once again he had picked, not a man from a long line of hunters indoctrinated into the hidden world of the supernatural from childhood but, a relative newcomer and one not inclined to pander to the 'entitled' members of the organisation. The Veteran Marine might have the honour, courage and commitment shared by the Corp and the Brotherhood but John Winchester was a man built to ruffle even the smoothest of feathers.
Had the announcement come a few days later, Bobby might have thought Jim's choice of Knight was revenge on the Pastor's part for the despicable attack on the Reaves boy. But John had already been named before that happened. Still, though he might not be overt about it, Jim had ways of making his displeasure known. Bobby's current, drenched to his underwear, trek being a prime example.
He finally made it to shelter but the algae-slimed cave was hardly more pleasant than the tempest outside. He was out of the downpour but the stench was stomach churning. While fishing out his flashlight, he turned his thoughts once more from his unpleasant surroundings. Some believed Jim was unaware of how much upset his choice of Triad was causing, others felt he just didn't care. Bobby disagreed with both views. He figured Jim's choices were quite deliberate. The man both knew and cared very much that he was upsetting people. He just felt they needed to be upset. Too much nepotism led to complacency, something you could not afford when it came to fighting back against the supernatural scum they tackled. Some boats needed rocking and some pigeons needed a cat amongst them.
This was not a Mason-like old boys' club, despite what some of the more 'entitled' members may wish. Bobby had Brotherhood members in his ancestry (as it turned out), but he had no delusions of grandeur because of it. Jim, a stray picked up off the streets, was the right man for the job of Guardian. He was leading an army of warriors, living on a battlefield. They did a dirty job and their business involved more eye gouging than back scratching. It was Bobby's opinion that this was exactly what the Guardian sought to remind them all with his choices.
Of course, that wasn't all there was to it. Triads had a bond, usually fostered from childhood. It was the bond that really made the Triad and, though Bobby didn't know the finer points, he knew there was something deeper than a shared mission, something intangible and undefinable, that connected the three Triad members. Jim, Mackland and John understood each other on the level of true brothers. They could get angry, yell, and (in Winchester's case) cuss up a storm of vitriol that would make the devil himself blush, then pass over a beer, slip out a jibe about someone's hair or clothes, and do whatever it was they were railing against, because that's what you do for your brothers, blood or no blood.
Locating a space at the back of the damp and dripping cave that was protected by some sort of enchantment, Bobby got out his kit to break it. While setting up, he had to accept, maybe he shouldn't have raised his concerns to Jim quite so vehemently. But it wasn't like he'd demanded an explanation! He was just giving him the benefit of his insight and experience. Jim had not only disagreed but made it clear Bobby was to keep silent on the topic. Bobby was sure silence was their enemy in this case.
SPNBROAU
Baxter, Iowa
John Winchester let himself into the motel room slamming the door behind him. The wall rattling bang made eight-year-old Dean look up from the couch with a combination of surprise and apprehension. He had been told not to expect his father home tonight. John yanked off his wet jacket, dripping water on the stained carpet, and blinked, glancing around the rest of the room. As his eyes adjusted, by the dim flickering light of the TV he could see Dean also had his headphones covering his ears. There was no sign of John's younger son.
Marching to the couch, he snatched the headphones from Dean's head.
"Where's your brother?" He demanded.
"Bathroom." The large frank cow-eyes didn't completely hide the fact that Dean's voice had that slight edge that it got sometimes, sort of defensive and stubborn, that John found goading.
John looked towards the bathroom door. A chair had been wedged under the handle, trapping the occupant inside.
"Damnit, Dean!"
"He was being a brat!" Dean mumbled sulkily.
John gave no indication he'd heard his firstborn as he marched over to remove the chair.
He remembered the last time he had returned to find Sam shut in somewhere. That time it had been a large double-doored built-in-wardrobe. Although Sam had been furnished with a picture book and a flashlight, there had also been a crowbar keeping the doors shut. Through the closed door, John had heard the four-year-old's soliloquy to his one-eyed bear - no doubt parroted from some TV show or other - about how a timeout was a more effective disciplinary tool than hitting. It had saved Dean's butt - literally - on that occasion. If Sam felt he needed a time out, neither Dean, nor even John, was going to convince him otherwise. Still, John couldn't allow this to become the SOP.
Gently, he opened the door. "Sammy?" he said quietly.
Inside, the four-year-old had made himself a nest of towels and was fast asleep in a ball on the floor, with Woobee acting as pillow. "Oh, Sammy," John said sadly. He bent down and scooped the boy and his bear up. Sam blinked sleepily. "Hey, kiddo."
"Daddy?"
"Let's put you to bed."
Sam just yawned in response. John rested his cheek against the soft hair and carried the little boy across the room, tucking him safely into one of the beds. He was envious of his son's sleep. Three straight days on the hunt had left him exhausted and he had been looking forward to some rest himself. Unfortunately, he had something he needed to deal with first. He turned to address his other son.
"You have some explaining to do."
Even though John was keeping his voice quiet, so as not to disturb Sam, Dean flinched.
At the look in his dad's eye, the boy swallowed hard but he forced himself to his feet, shoulders back and chin up, to report.
"He wouldn't shut up so I said; if I had to hear him, I didn't want to see him."
John knew what the flash of sass was about. A couple of weeks ago, after a little too much Reaves started coming out of Dean's mouth, John had suggested Dean should be seen and not heard for the rest of the day. He held his gaze steady on his son and Dean backed down, speaking more defensively. "I told him I'd let him out as soon as he asked nicely and promised to behave. But he refused, so I left him in there."
John loomed over his son, his voice becoming louder. "I only ask two things of you Dean, just two!" John glared. "Look after your brother and stay out of trouble. But apparently you can't manage to do either."
Dean's hurt and crestfallen eyes stayed on him, though it was obvious he desperately wanted to look away. On a better day, John would know the accusation was unfair. It was pointed out to him regularly how much Dean did. He also knew how difficult his youngest could be, and who Sam had inherited his unaccommodating tendencies from. But right now John had bigger problems.
He cuffed Dean upside the head. "If I catch you imprisoning him again, you'll do double the time in much less comfortable confinement, you hear me?"
Dean frowned and rubbed at the sore spot as he nodded. There was caution in his eyes as he realised he was getting off far too lightly for locking Sammy in the bathroom, which meant there was something worse coming.
John went on. "Do you know where I'm supposed to be right now?" he demanded, looming over his son.
Dean nodded. He did know. It was why he hadn't expected his father back that night. John was supposed to be on a hunt.
"But instead of working, instead of helping people, saving lives," the Knight said pointedly. "I had to come back here. I had a call from your school." He paused, letting the full implications sink in and saw the impact cut into his boy. "Apparently, I am required to attend some sort of meeting tomorrow morning."
The slight widening of Dean's eyes told John he hadn't known about the meeting, but he sure as hell knew what it was about.
Dean was unable to keep his eyes up any longer. He swallowed hard and blinked furiously.
"Get to bed, I don't want to hear a peep out of you until after this meeting, understand?"
Dean nodded and slipped quickly into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. There was no point trying to explain, even if he thought the explanation might be accepted. And no matter what Dad might say, he knew he was unlikely to be asked for his account even after the meeting.
SPNBROAU
At school the next morning, Dean was left sitting in the hallway, where curious kids could goggle at him like some sort of freak show, while his father and his teacher talked at length inside the room. Occasionally their voices would rise enough for the sound to carry out to the corridor but never clearly enough for him to know what they were saying. He kept his focus on his feet and found his mind drifting back to over a year before.
Heber City, Utah, March 1986
"Beeean," Sam whined, rocking his big brother again when he hadn't stirred the first two times.
"Sammy," Dean groaned. "It's night … sleep …" The seven-year-old had already had a rough evening.
"Open dis," Sammy demanded, continuing to push back and forth on the older boy's arm.
"Open wha'?" Dean mumbled, he had refused to open his eyes yet, but there was the foreshadowing of defeat in the sighing tone. "Ugh."
The podgy little fist caught Dean in the lip as Sam thrust forward the object of his current demand. Dean rubbed at his eyes and lifted his head to squint in the darkness at what his brother was trying to show him.
"Open!" Sam demanded again, looking delighted that his brother was now awake.
Sleepily, Dean took the offered item and looked at it. It was a large safety pin, one of the ones Dean had used on Sammy's diapers. He groaned.
When possible, he'd used disposables but one of their babysitters had once lectured him about how much better it was for the environment to use cloth diapers which you washed and reused. Dean figured the world was screwed, with or without disposable diapers, but had already learnt that sometimes there was either no money or no means by which to get them. The small stash of the cloth ones she'd given them, had seen him through when needs-must. He'd got Sammy potty trained as quickly as possible. Though not yet three-years-old, Sam almost never had accidents anymore.
"What are you doing with this?" If Sam had found the old safety pin, he'd been digging through the bags and that would mean a whole lot of mess at the least and potentially a whole lot of trouble. Dad was in a foul mood already.
"Open!" Sam demanded more loudly.
"Sammy shhh," Dean glanced over to his father who was fast asleep on the other bed. He was unlikely to wake, given the pain pills he'd taken, but better safe than sorry. Sam followed his brother's gaze and then pressed his lips together tight but pushed against his brother's hand, which was still holding the pin, making his demand again.
"Sammy, I can't open it, it's sharp, owie, remember?" Dean whispered. He saw the lip come out, the brightness growing in the eyes and felt the alarm bells go off in his head. "Why do you want it open?" He tried. Arguing with Sammy rarely worked, he simply refused to give in or back down. But Dean had found he could usually distract him away from whatever-it-was with a little effort.
There was a pause, while Sam was clearly deciding whether to continue into tantrum land or answer his brother, but in the end it was the proud smile that won out.
"I fix it," he said in a loud whisper.
"Fix what?"
Sam looked over at the sleeping figure again then back to his brother, clearly delighted with his plan in a way that made Dean very nervous.
"Daddy," Sam explained. Dean looked from the pin in his hand, to their father, to Sam. He was baffled.
"How is the pin going to fix Dad?" Dean asked, suspecting he was not going to like the answer.
"Daddy shouty," Sam frowned.
Dean's heart fell as he realised Sammy had not been sleeping earlier, like Dean had hoped. That his father's grumbled complaints about Dean's clumsiness had woken the child (though Sam had been smart enough to play possum at the time). Pain, and the whiskey taken for it, had not encouraged patience in the already cantankerous Marine, but Dean was long familiar that pain and anger were brothers in arms.
"I pin him, like you Bean," Sam explained, poking Dean in the lips to show exactly where he planned to apply the pin to their father.
The two-year-old was completely earnest. Dean might have laughed if his brother had been less so.
It meant that Sammy had seen at least some of the operation while Dean used needle and thread to try and pull the flesh of their father's arm back together. All of his father's earlier recriminations rang in his ears, he was a blundering idiot. He was useless if he could not even keep his brother safe from the blood and gore of their father's work.
Dean sat there, mouth open, not sure what to say to the solemn toddler who was still waiting for him to open the safety-pin.
The chuckle made them both jump.
Dean quickly palmed the pin as he looked over to see his father looking right back at them. John's eyes were twinkling with mirth. In a smooth movement, he rolled towards them and scooped Sammy from Dean, pulling the little boy over to the other bed.
"Trying to keep me quiet, huh, Sammy?" he teased, tickling him. Sam wriggled and shrieked with giggles but had no chance of escape. "Or did you think it would prevent …" John grinned, pulling up the top of Sam's pyjamas to expose his small round belly.
"No Daddy, don't." Sam giggled, squirming. But John just laughed and then pressed his lips to his son's tummy, blowing loud raspberries that caused another round of hysterical giggles.
Baxter, Iowa, September 1987
Dean remembered his dad had taken a moment to look up from playing with Sammy to wink at him, letting him know he was forgiven for the poor job he'd done on the stitches. Afterwards, Dad had even pulled him into the tickling. And Dean had learnt. He'd learnt to be more careful to keep it from Sammy. And he'd learnt to get better at home-style sutures. The next time he'd seen Mac, he'd asked the doctor to teach him. Mac had bought chicken breasts and oranges and they'd spent most of the day practising. By the end of it, Mac said Dean had learnt as well as a surgeon. The trouble was, Dean hadn't learnt what his little brother had apparently known before the age of three. Silence is golden.
If he'd just stayed silent, he wouldn't be in this mess now. There was a bang from inside the room containing his teacher and his father. Probably Dad's fist thumping the table, he thought miserably, watching his shoes. Although he hadn't ruled out that Miss Sullivan was some sort of hell-beast disguised as a simpering teacher. After all, he'd already decided that Roosevelt Elementary was Hell.
SPNBROAU
New York City
Shaking off a few drips of rain that had made it to the ends of his hair during the elevator ride, Dr Mackland Ames let himself into his Upper East Side apartment. Carefully he hung up his jacket and slipped off his shoes, placing them (and the scattered pair belonging to his son) neatly on the shoe rack. He considered himself a man of reasonable insight and life experience but sometimes the actions of others left him completely baffled to the point of infuriation. Of late that had been mostly associated with Caleb.
In the living room, he found his sixteen-year-old son sitting on the couch with his feet on the coffee table. There was still a slight shadow of bruising on the teen's face from the disastrous hunt last month. It wasn't obvious unless you knew what it was. It just looked like part of the boy's sparse and wispy attempt at designer stubble - something John's insidious influence had inspired of late. But Mac was sure he'd still be able to see the damage long after it had actually gone.
He had seriously considered resigning his position as Scholar and stepping back from the Brotherhood entirely in the aftermath of the attack on Caleb. Both Jim and John had made strong arguments for him staying, John had seemed particularly disturbed that Mac might leave. But it had been Caleb's devotion to the cause, his desperate plea that he wouldn't be made to stop hunting because of what had happened, that had finally swayed Mac's decision.
Looking away to dispel the unpleasant memory of Caleb's battered body in that hospital bed, Mac spotted the school bag. It had been dumped at the end of the couch and clearly not opened in the at-least-four hours Caleb would have been home from school. Even though Mac knew for a fact it contained homework that should have been done.
There was a mostly empty chip packet, lots of crumbs, and two empty soda cans scattered around Caleb's socked feet. One big toe was poking through a hole.
Mac sighed.
Caleb glanced his way and picked up enough of his father's mood to take his feet off the table and attempt to brush the crumbs onto an empty plate that he retrieved from the floor.
"Hey Dad, you're back late." Mac's silence spoke volumes. Caleb continued his attempt at deflection. "How was work? Was it the sick or the sickos today?" He meant; had Mac been working at the hospital (with the sick) or with the FBI (searching for the victims of sickos).
Mac frowned at him. He'd already told him it was not an appropriate way to refer to his work. "You have some explaining to do," he said, reaching down to snag up the remote and turn off the TV.
Caleb winced. He supposed it had been too much to hope that the school hadn't been able to reach his very busy and ultra important father. Mac turned those eyes, that managed to be angry AND disappointed, on him.
Unlike his friend Dean - who accepted even the most unjust tirade with an obedient 'yes, Sir' (and a Caleb-broiling tendency to consider it deserved) - Caleb liked to fight his corner. Especially when he considered said tirade to be an extreme overreaction to what was really only a minor infraction.
Forty-five minutes later, he was still sitting miserably on the couch as his father paced before him. Caleb agreed firmly with his mentor John Winchester, all this talking was seriously overrated. Silence was definitely preferable. John could say just as much with no more than a raise of his eyebrow or the slight downturn of his mouth as Mac had spent the last half an hour expounding. But Mac always wanted to go over everything.
He'd already demanded Caleb explain what he was thinking, his reasoning, at every step of what he'd done. Caleb wasn't sure if this was a genuine attempt to allow him to explain himself or just a way of ensuring every possible excuse could be refuted by the doctor's implacable arguments. On good days he suspected the former but at moments like now, when he wasn't feeling so generous towards his dad, he bitterly decided it was the latter.
As Mac started on his regularly scheduled programme of responsibility and maturity, Caleb found his mind wandering. Really, as start-of-term pranks went, it hadn't even been that bad. During their summer training camp, the cheerleaders had made life size cardboard cutouts of themselves in various cheer poses. They had arranged them in a display at the school, encouraging school spirit.
Caleb had become aware of this while on a 'study date' that Mac had arranged with the school Mathlete champion so he could catch up before term started. Matthew the Mathlete wasn't terrible, as nerds went, and he did have a hot sister, older and a cheerleader, which is how they learned about the cheer project. Matt had taught Caleb about Newton's Second Law of Motion, and Caleb had taught Matt about Reaves' First Law of School.
"It wasn't anything destructive or dangerous," Caleb tried to defend himself but the cold look of fury he got in return told him Mac was not in the mood to be interrupted. All they'd done was photocopy pictures of the faces of some male faculty members, such as The Principal, apply them to the cheerleader cutouts and rearrange the way they were positioned.
Given the sort of poses this inspired the other students to make with them, Caleb figured he'd done the cheerleaders a favour. But his argument, that it was a strike for feminism, had fallen on deaf ears with the Principal. In fact, Mr Stick-up-his-butt wasn't interested in hearing anything from Caleb except the name of his accomplice. When Caleb wouldn't give it, he'd been given detentions for every day after school until he did. No way he was giving up Matthew though. The kid was a douche but Caleb wasn't a nark.
Since no good deed goes unpunished, now he was also grounded. 'Until I'm satisfied that you have learned the lesson I am trying to impart,' Mac had said in response to Caleb's outraged 'how long?'. According to Mac, staying silent on who was responsible was enabling bad behaviour or some crap. Something Mac was not prepared to do. He had spent at least ten minutes of the lecture on this point;
"'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,'" Mac quoted.
"Well I wouldn't say I did nothing –" Caleb started, but an incensed Mac interrupted him.
"You are letting them get away with …" Mac paused, took a breath and calmed himself. "Do you really think it right that you should be punished and they should not?" He challenged more reasonably.
Caleb had returned to his broody silence and tuned the lecture out. Instead he wondered, if he managed to look appropriately ashamed and upset from the telling off, if he could convince Mac to order pizza for dinner.
"– and I will be expecting you to repeat this back to me so I know you've been listening," Mac was saying as Caleb tuned back in to see how far he'd got. Something must have shown in his face as there was a knowing, almost triumphant gleam in his father's eye. "So, do I need to start again from the beginning?"
Caleb flopped back with a huff. He wouldn't be getting pizza. At this rate he wouldn't even be getting one of Mac's 'recovery rich' meals of fresh fish and vegetables.
SPNBROAU
AN: So apologies, the first part of this story didn't divide easily into good sized chapters. So chapter one was a bit of a mammoth of scene setting and chapter 2 is a short one with the intro to the case. I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Would love to hear from you either way. Thank you for reading, much love to you all.
Thanks: Big thanks to all readers, and extra hugs to reviewers (especially you frequent flyers, love you guys so much xx) As always, *big 'not worthy' bow* to both the wonderful Meilean and Churchlady63 who patiently put up with me and always give me such thoughtful feedback.
Backstory: For those who just need a reminder of the parts from canon that are key to this story. Right around the time John Winchester is named the new Knight, a teenaged Caleb goes on a hunt with Ian Hastings, Fisher, and Joshua. Ian and Fisher beat Caleb badly enough to land him in hospital but threaten him to keep him quiet about what really happened. The senior hunters suspect the truth but with none of those who were present speaking up, Jim is unable to act on it. This story takes place about a month later. - So much more in these great stories - always worth a re-read even if you've read them before :)
