Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/8745055.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Character:
      Sam_Winchester, Dean_Winchester, Original_Male_Character(s), Original
      Female_Character(s), John_Winchester, Bobby_Singer
  Additional Tags:
      Angst, Established_Relationship, Alternate_Universe
  Collections:
      Sinful_Desire
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-12-20 Completed: 2014-03-19 Chapters: 36/36 Words: 89624
****** Field Trip II ******
by phantom4j
Summary
     Strange things are happening at Genesee Country Museum. Again. An old
     friend asked Bobby Singer to check them out, and Bobby calls in the
     Winchesters as back up. Halloween story, all tricks and few treats.
     Alternate Universe. Harb Tanzer appears courtesy Diane Duane, The
     Wounded Sky. Newford, the Crow Girls, Lucius, Nancy Creek appear
     courtesy Charles deLint. The rest is from my odd little mind.
Notes
     Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally
     archived at Sinful-Desire.org. To preserve the archive, we began
     importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in
     November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted
     announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or
     know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on
     Sinful_Desire_collection_profile.
     Author's notes: This is the reposting for Field Trip that I talked
     about when I pulled the story a few weeks ago. It will still have
     pictures, of course. But, because it is a prequel to True Met, and
     because the Hunters don't exist in a vacuum, more of the story around
     them comes to light.
***** <b>Before the Forward</b> *****
Before the Forward
 
He hadn't wanted a brother. He'd wanted a puppy. A puppy with brown fur and a
green collar. But, instead, Dean Winchester got a brother.
 
All brother did was cry and poo-poo and drink milk that Mommy called 'formla'
and that tasted nasty: he'd tried it. Oh and play with his toes. He wasn't any
fun. Dean refused to have anything to do with baby brother after once when he'd
just been holding him, he spitted up all over Dean's favorite shirt.
 
Stupid brother anyway. Spitting up and poo-pooing and crying. Puppies didn't
cry and they pooped outside and ate without spitting up. And they could play.
 
But then, one night – very late – he knew it was more than nine because he
could read the numbers on his clock-, Dean heard baby brother crying in his
stupid crib in his stupid room. But it wasn't the "I'm hungry" cry. And it
wasn't the "I'm poopy" cry. Dean knew those.
 
The cry was- Dean cocked his head to one side and listened. And was on his feet
and across the room to the door before he stopped to think.
 
On tip toes, he went off down the carpeted hall toward brother's – toward
Sammy's – room. Outside the door, he stopped and listened again. Then, using
both hands, he turned the door knob and slipped inside the nursery. Quietly, he
crossed the floor to the crib where Sammy lay crying sadly.
 
Sadly.
 
"Sammy baby brother," Dean called softly. "Are you okay?"
 
Baby brother stopped crying and looked toward the sound of Dean's voice. One
tear rolled down his chubby baby cheek and he hiccupped around his next breath.
But he didn't start to cry again.
 
Carefully, because Mommy had said that babies got hurt real easily, Dean
reached through the slats in the crib and touched one finger tip to Sammy's
right hand. "Are you scared?" Dean looked around the nursery and thought out
loud, "It's pretty big in here. Is that why you were cryin'?"
 
Baby shivered, and Dean went into motion again. "Be quiet, Baby Sammy. I'll be
right" and up the side of the crib he scrambled." there. Someday I'll teach you
how to get in and out of the baby bed," he promised. "You shouldn't kick off
your banket cos you'll get cold even with that 'jama on." Baby Sammy watched
him solemnly, while Dean pulled both crib blankets up to cover Sam and him.
 
When he'd arranged the blankets so they cocooned both of them, Dean scooted
down onto his side and wrapped one arm over his brother's body to keep him
still. "Now – you just lie there an' I'll keep you warm. Ssshhh…go to sleep,
good Sammybrother."
Sammy wriggled a little and Dean pulled him closer. He remembered what Daddy
said sometimes when Dean was scared or felt sick and not like a big boy at all.
"I gotcha."
 
***************
"Hmm? What?"
"Wake up."
"I am awake. Now."
"Listen."
"To what? I don't hear anything but –"
"NOW do you hear it?"
"Indeed."
***** <b>Before the Forward</b> *****
(Forward by Bobby Singer with absolutely no help from Norbert Cornell, a/k/
a Sparks who better sit there and drink my exceptionally good coffee without
one more word. Idjit.)
 
If I had my way, which I don't, I'd stack these danged pages into a pile, wrap
a damn frilly ribbon around the whole thing and stuff it into a safe box. In
Antarctica.
 
Instead, I have to untangle this pile of crap, figure out what the hell
happened to everyone, and make some sense of it all. One thing: the next time a
certain damn fool says the words "Field Trip" I'm gonna stuff some of this
paper straight down her throat.
 
Christabel could do it, but nooo, she's too busy. John and the boys're already
off to Montana huntin' down the ghost of some dang fool that got himself killed
a hundred years ago and don't know he's dead. Nothin' new there, but they took
off like it was the most important damn case they'd ever seen. Might have been
me wonderin' out loud who was gonna help me make head or tail of this pile of
c-paper.
 
On the plus side, before they got away, I locked 'em all of them in a room
until they typed what they remembered or saw or freakin' smelled down on their
laptops and sent me the info. Except for that Luddite – Sarah. Pen and paper or
nothing. Oh happy day!
 
John? I think he pounded out freakin' War and Peace. Using four fingers.
Anything but share his journal with someone else; that' John all over. Sam 'n'
Dean wrote plenty; well the detail is Dean and the writing's Sam. Christabel'll
share when I have a minute. I'm quoting. That leaves me and Will Carver and
Nathan Drake. Readin' their stuff is like figuring out Anglo-Saxon using an Old
Norse dictionary. Wait – I can do that. This?
 
Me? What the hell? Who d'you think taught Winchester how to do a freakin'
journal?
 
"Okay, so I gave Norb a call and asked for – uhm – asked for- oh hell, Singer,
just write the word. It won't kill you! I asked for help. Because there's all
that stuff everyone left with me, plus the seven ledgers of the Records of
Unusual Events, plus little bits of information that don't fit anywhere else,
plus a bunch of other stuff that, I might add, was left on the driver's seat of
my locked truck one night.
 
"I need an extra set of eyes and hands for this cut and paste party, 'cause I
was right in it, which ain't the place to be if you're lookin' for the whole
picture. But the worst? Other than having to put up with Norb Cornell
complaining about my coffee?
 
"Sarah I-don't-want-to-do-this MacAllister dots every 'I' with little fluffy
clouds. Shaded so they look three-dimensional.
 
"I have a headache."
***** <b> The Forward Continued or the Writer is an idjit!</b> *****

Author's notes: In case anyone is wondering? I am a class grade a idjit at
times, and this is one of them. I got this chapter ready to post back between
the Forward and Chapter 1, probably as Forward Part 2. And I didn't post it. My
thanks to the wonderful Jolieblon, who realized something wasn't where it
should be. And here it is.
===============================================================================
b>Chapter 2 Gatherings
 
One - Permission Slip
Jonah Reardon glanced at the wrinkled piece of brown paper that fell from one
of the partly open folders on his desk. The school day had long since ended,
and he'd lost track of the time while he finished going through the outline
he'd prepared for his AP History students.
While virtually every fourth grader within a hundred miles had visited the
Museum and village as part of their history program, Jonah's five AP students
had another goal, one that was in keeping with the Halloween weekend.
He'd put it to them simply. Is current fascination with horror stories ghost
tales a new one? After discussing the period lore and literature with anyone
available at Genesee Country Museum and Village, make a group determination
that answers this question. Then use quotes and interviews to support the
position you take. Write a report and be prepared to teach it to the eleventh
grade class the Monday before Thanksgiving.
The AP History class from the previous year had completed a similar assignment,
and it had been a success, so Jonah decided to repeat the exercise. Half
distracted, he read the brown, paper in his hand. It was a permission slip.
'Nancy Ann Daniels- Bonnie Daniels…'. I didn't know that Bonnie and Lee had
children. Nancy Ann –" He decided that someone had filled out the slip as a
prank, thought better of it, and had perhaps stuffed it into the folder with
last year's team report. Strange thing to do. He flipped the paper over to see
if there was anything written on the back – nothing. With a shrug, he dropped
the permission slip in the waste basket.
 
Two– Westward Ho!
"You do know that traveling that late in October means we're going to risk
running into weather, right, Will?"
"Uhm, there's weather every day, Nathan. Look at it this way – the worst that
can happen is that we get stuck somewhere along the way for a few hours. I
think this is as good a chance as we're going to have to get a look at some of
that old construction without a bunch of tourists bothering us. The Village is
supposed to be locked down except for guided tours for some sort of event.
We'll head over, get specifications and drawings of the buildings we need to
pull together estimates for the Bentick quote and head back again. Besides, you
don't have to go! I'm fine heading out by myself."
"I'm going. The iron work's my field – you wouldn't know what to look for if it
came up and bit you in the ass."
"I- What? Now wait a minute, Nathan!"
"Admit it. So I'm going. End of discussion."
"Finally," Will Carver grumbled. "Just remember, you need to bring your winter
jacket, just in case a blizzard blows in from Siberia and lands all over us."
"Yeah, yeah…look, I have a client pacing here. I'll talk to you later."
"He can wait a few seconds, can't he?"
"Who said it's a he?" Nathan asked, snickering…
"Good bye, Nathan."
"Later, Will."
Will Carver cut his connection and slipped his smart phone back into his
pocket. Somehow, he had a feeling that the drive to Mumford, New York was going
to be a long one, very long.
 
Three – Cauldron Stirring 101
-Two girls sat on the roof of Nancy Creek's trailer on the Kickaha Reservation.
At first glance, they looked like twins. Both of them had equally spiked,
equally blue black hair, although the glitter that sparkled among the black
spikes was blue in one case and gold in the other. Each wore a red sweater-
"My sweater wasn't red."
"No, Zia's sweater was Nearly Red. Mine was Just About Magenta. Actually, they
still are Nearly Red and Just About Magenta. But we decided to wear something
else today. Mine is the Nearly Red with a scalloped hem and Zia's is Just About
Magenta with One Long and One Short sleeve."
"Maida's right."
-All right. They each wore a sweater – and although someone might think that
both were red, Maida's was Just About Magenta, and Zia's was Nearly Red.
"Much better,chwedl caniedydd.
-Each sweater had raglan sleeves that extended past each girl's fingertips. Am
I still doing all right?
"I didn't know that my sleeves were raglan. What's raglan?"
"Zia, let 'n hen lew tell the story. We can find out raglan later."
"Maida, don't forget for us. Raglan – I wonder if it means raveled."
-May I continue?
"Of course!"
"We will be veryvery quiet and listen."
- with raglan sleeves that extended past their fingers and veryshortveryblack
and white striped skirts-
"I don't want to interrupt-"
"Yes you do, Zia – or you wouldn't have." Zia thought with her eyes squinted
shut, then decided she agreed with Maida and nodded.
"Our skirts are different, too. Mine is black with white and Maida's is white
with black. Just so you know."
"Thank you for explaining, Zia."
"You're welcome, Maida. We do that – the black and white and white and black so
people know who we are."
-That's thoughtful of you. Is it safe to say that you ware wearing black tights
and no shoes? And that you looked a little surprised? You wrote that, right
here. Do you still want it in the story? Two somber faces looked at each other
then back to the storyteller. Two heads nodded.
"Please continue, o liew. Wait! Should I have said, 'Please continue' plus your
name?"
Not here. This is the part withyour names in it.
"Oh! That's nice! I hope they come home after they've visited the story. It's
hard to be without names."
-I agree. I'll send them home as soon as I can. Now, back to the story?
Two identical rapid nods answered the question.
-Where was I? Oh yes, tights. It might have been logical to think that they
were sisters.
However, they weren't.
"No, we aren't and weren't. Maida, do you think we could be in the not yet?"
"I'm not sure, Zia. It might be fun?"
We have fun right now – oh dear. Chwedl caniedydd –why are you crying, o liew?"
-I'm not crying.
"You aren't? Your face looks veryvery sad. And wet."
"You might be leaking," Maida prompted hopefully.
-It's a very small leak; I've had it before, so I'll fix it when I get back
home. Now, I really have to finish this part of the story. Are you ready to
hear more?
Two nods were the answer. Two pairs of bright black eyes watched the story
begin again.
 
"How far?"
"Did we fly? Or were we thrown?"
"I'm not sure, Zia, about the throwing part, but we're all the way at Nancy
Creek's and a few minutes ago we were playing Watch the Sidewalk Map Walkers.
"I think they'll like the new game better, if they practice it."
"D'you think they can play? They're always so busy Walking their Sidewalk Maps;
they don't look up at all."
 
"True. And they don't always like even the best games, you know. And this one
would be out of order."
Two identical voices broke into harmonizing laughter simultaneously. After
three measures and one rest in measure four of "My Darling Clementine", they
continued their conversation.
 
"Maybe we could decorate? They might like that game better with spots and
stripes and a little confetti? If they saw the decorations, they might look up
and see what fun the out-of-order game will be!"
"Maybe. I wish Mr. Tanzer was here to tell us. I know he likes spotted games
more than the striped ones. But he's special, 'cause he knows the game he's
playing. A lot of them don't."
"Really? When Harb talks about the game, he sounds like everyone knows it."
"Actually, hardly anyone does. Just some people. I think it's silly. They
should know the game. That way they'd have more fun."
"I didn't know they played with blindfolds. It's no Pin the Tail on the Tiger,
after all. Hmm…perhaps…let's ask Lucius what he thinks."
Just the name 'Lucius' was enough to quiet their giggles to thought-full
silence.
"I think you might be right, Zia. That cracking noise is still making my ears
hurt. And they shouldn't. Be hurting, I mean. And we were thrown all the way
here. And we shouldn't have been."
"Then we go to find Lucius."
-Without another word, they nodded at each other; twenty six seconds later, two
crows lifted from the branch, swirled in circles up into the air and flew
toward Newford
***** <b>Chapter 1 </b> *****

Author's notes: ---
===============================================================================
Chapter 1 – Sam and Dean, Austin, TX
 
Hitting the side of a house with your entire body isn't a good idea, Sam
Winchester thought as he crashed back first into the building in question and
caromed off to the ground. Dazed, he lay still for a few seconds before he
attempted to roll over and sit up. His right arm buckled and the pain was
enough to make him see stars. Broken? Dislocated! Damn!
 
"Son of a bitch! Sammy, down!" Dean Winchester bellowed from twenty feet away.
 
Sam flattened immediately so that Dean could blast more salt and cold iron
through the manic ghost of one utterly insane Peter Dellege. Snarling
viciously, but no match for the combination ammunition Dean had used, the
spirit disintegrated for the third time since Dean had lit the contents of
Dellege's casket on fire. Taking advantage of the moment, Dean jumped the fire
and raced to Sam's side.
 
"Sam? Are you all right? Oh crap – no, just stay where you are." Brow furrowed
with worry, he patted down Sam's obviously dislocated arm, looking for breaks
or more than one dislocation. A quick glance up and a Sam-distracting "What
the…" preceded an equally rapid relocation. Sam let out a yelp and glared at
Dean. "Sorry, Sam."
 
"'m all right, Dean," Sam panted; like all relocations, the worst pain subsided
once the joint slid home. He still hurt like a bitch, but that didn't matter;
they had to finish Dellege off. "Dean, we gotta burn everything again. Unless
you have any other ideas. "
 
Sam squinted at Dean, hoping, actually, that Dean would snort and give him ten
much better options. All Dean did was grumble under his breath. "Sam, there's
nothing left to burn!" he protested out loud. But what hadn't happened when
Dellege's bones and casket had burst into flames left him with no real
alternatives. Lips tight with annoyance, he rose to his feet and took a slow
look around. Then, resigned to burning something that had already been
incinerated, he reached out for Sam's good arm.
 
"All right, Sammy. C'mon; I'm not leavin' you here." Light-headed, Sam let Dean
drag him to his feet and then teetered behind his big brother around the embers
of Dellege's first salt and burn. "Keep an eye out for that bastard, okay?"
 
"Yeah." Sam widened his stance and cradled his injured arm against his abs,
adrenaline keeping him on his feet.
 
"Damn second fire – what the hell? You son of a bitch," Dean snarled as he
soaked the still- smoldering embers with lighter fluid. Then, determined to get
rid of Dellege once and for all, he sprinkled the sparse weeds and the stark,
bare ground that lay beyond the weeds for several yards: the ghost had poisoned
the very earth in which it had been buried.
 
Dean dropped the two shovels he and Sam had used and a half book of matches
into the lighter fluid in the grave and the rest onto the weeds just beside it.
Burning the shovels was extreme, but he wanted to be sure as possible about
getting every last shred of the ghost gone; as mean as Dellege's spirit was, a
little dirt from the grave on one of the shovel blades might be enough to let
him linger. Dean wasn't willing to take that chance.
 
For a second or two, all the Winchesters could hear was the crackle of flames.
Then, muffled but audible, a scream announced the final departure of Peter
Dellege, 19th century serial murderer. Sam staggered a little and started
toward the ground, stopped only at the last second when Dean grabbed him and
hauled him upright. Groggily, Sam squinted and asked, "Dean?"
 
"Right here. Just lean on me. Let's blow this place and get back to the motel."
 
"Dean –" Sam thought he caught a sign of movement on the Dellege's porch and
looked over Dean's shoulder. "The Delleges're on the front porch. The kids,
too. Watching! They could have been killed!"
 
Dean glanced in the direction Sam was staring. The children wore coats and
hats, protection against the record setting cold snap that had engulfed Austin
a day earlier; they'd been outside long enough to need the heavy gear, then.
"Of all the stupid ass things to do-" he growled. Something about the way the
two children stared back at him and Sam bothered him as well: their expressions
in the illumination of the porch lights were a little too Children of the Corn
for his liking.
 
"Forget 'em. They aren't worth the hassle. C'mon, little bro. Oh, we're gonna
have to replace the shovels. I burned 'em, just in case." Dean had waited until
Sam wasn't looking right at him to incinerate the shovels. Then, the ever-
thoughtful brother that he was, he'd kept what he'd done as an attention
grabber, just in case he'd needed it.
 
"What?" Sam stared, owl-eyed at Dean. "The shovels?"
 
"I didn't want to take chances, Sammy. This whole damn job has been hinky since
day one. And it just keeps on weirder and weirder." Gentle, Dean wrapped an arm
around Sam's waist and helped him toward the Impala. "Just slide in and sit,
okay? I'm going to stow the gear. I'll get some pain pills into you as soon as
we eat."
 
Sam nodded heavily and rested his head against the back of his seat. He heard
the trunk opening and, after a few seconds, their gear being dropped in any
which way. Dean really did want to get away fast. He must have zoned out for a
bit, because the next thing he knew, Mr. Dellege had squatted by him and tapped
top of his thigh. "Mr. Winchester, I broke my arm last year and had to wear a
sling for six weeks. I don't know if it'll fit you, but please take it."
 
"Thanks. I bet it'll be fine. I appreciate it, Mr. Chambers-Dellege."
 
Startled, Robert Chambers-Dellege flinched and glanced away from Sam's gaze. In
spite of his own pain, Sam's uneasiness about the Delleges ratcheted up a
notch. Dean had rounded the front of the car and overheard the conversation.
Before he could say anything, two sharp words slashed through the soft light of
early day.
"Robert! Here!"
 
"What the-" Dean squinted and glared through the very early morning light
toward Mrs. Dellege. She stood straight as a ramrod, and pointed to the ground
a step behind her, telling her wayward spouse precisely where she expected him
to stand. After staring at both of the brothers, willing them to silence,
Chambers-Dellege stood and scuttled back away from Sam, before turning and
walking back across the lawn. Without a word, he stopped where his wife had
told him to stand.
June Dellege had been born into Dellege family traditions and expectations, and
she firmly believed that those traditions and expectations were both desirable
and attainable to a person with good moral fiber and the willingness to work.
As a consequence, she lived her life moderately, fulfilled her social
obligations scrupulously, and controlled and grew the family business with
competence that ensured her children would never want for anything. Control
suited her: it always had.
 
However, during the preceding weeks, she had found herself forced to deal with
a situation so outrageously alien that she had initially refused to admit it
existed. Oh, everyone in the family knew about Peter Dellege. But no one ever
spoke of him or what he had done, much less what he'd threatened to do when he
"came back". Dead was dead and the dead didn't come back.
Until he had.
June Dellege, for her part, had never spared a thought for the murderer who had
been hanged seventy years before her birth. Until one morning, four weeks
earlier when her gardener, Lewis Tripper, charged up the front steps of the
Dellege home and pounded on the door. Alison, the maid, answered and was
knocked over when he charged through the doorway and into the dining room.
Without waiting for permission to speak, he'd babbled, "You need to come and
see this. That boulder has been moved. But I'll be damned if I know how,"
before he ran out of breath and waited for Mrs. Dellege to say something.
Unperturbed, she had finished her breakfast and walked to the back of the
garden, certain that there had been a mistake of some sort.
But there had been no mistake. The boulder had crushed several bushes when it
landed some twenty feet from the grave it had been guarding. Worse, there was
no sign of anything capable of relocating a ton of gneiss. No footprints, no
tread marks, nothing. The boulder might have floated over under its own steam
for all she could say.
Then the murders had started. Three people had been slaughtered in exactly the
same way Peter Dellege had eviscerated seventeen people in his lifetime: their
entrails had literally been pulled out of their throats. The precise method of
evisceration her ancestor had used had never been made public; the records
about Dellege had been sealed after his trial and had burned down when the
warehouse holding archived records had burned in the 1920s. Despite her best
efforts at ignoring the whole unsavory mess, June Dellege realized that she had
to deal with it.
A cautious, third- hand query through a friend of Lewis Tripper had given her a
name. That person had given her another name. And the short tempered man who
answered her third call listened for two minutes, interrupted her and snapped,
"Someone'll contact you." Five days later, someone named John had called her,
discussed the matter and told her to be on the lookout for the two men who'd
arrived three days after the phone call.
By that time, Mrs. Dellege's mind had constructed a scenario that she was able
to live with as far as her ancestor's ghost and the necessity of calling in
strangers to help rid her family of Peter Dellege's spirit.
 
Destroying a marauding, vengeful spirit fell under the category of home
maintenance. The Winchesters were nothing more than two tradesmen cleaning up a
sordid mess like a flooded basement or trees downed by a twister. She'd also
insisted that they work at night so the neighbors wouldn't see them. And she
completely ignored the older one's terse, "Stay in the house." He was being
paid; she was going to watch every minute of their work to ensure that they
earned their money.
The children had clamored to be allowed to see as well, and, after some
consideration, she had agreed.
 
It had been unnerving to watch, she admitted to herself. However, the
Winchesters were overcautious. Dangerous? Bah! All too soon, the ruckus had
subsided and only the first sounds of day made themselves heard as light slowly
began to filter over the horizon.
 
Staring at a point slightly over the older Hunter's shoulder, she waited for
him to come to her to accept the five thousand dollars she'd decided was what
one paid to lay a serial killer to final rest. Sixty seconds ticked by, then
seventy. At ninety seconds, she shot a glance at the Hunter and froze.
 
Dean rested comfortably against the Impala. "Robert, here"? Dean didn't think
so. Not one damn bit. He was tired and sweaty, his baby brother was hurt, and
he'd had to burn two perfectly good shovels just to be sure that Peter Dellege
didn't come back to rip anyone else's guts out. As far as he was concerned,
Mrs. Dellege needed to hustle her ass to him and pay him the money, since she'd
made such a point about payment in the first place.
 
For what might have been the first time in her life, June Dellege experienced a
moment of uncertainty. That became two and then three moments. The cold eyed
man facing her didn't twitch a muscle, just waited for her to come to him. Mrs.
Dellege knew what was happening, knew it clearly. But step by reluctant step,
she crossed the lawn, finally ending up in front of the Hunter. "There was
damage done –" she started, attempting to assume control.
 
"To Sam. Thanks for your concern." He waited, stone still, for her to move.
 
Hating every motion, she counted out the five thousand dollars – cash only and
she didn't want a receipt -she'd demanded the hunters take. Not a penny more,
not a penny less. And, in spite of the fact that she wanted to look through the
Hunter, as if he had never been in her presence, she couldn't shift her gaze.
Dean didn't count the money back: he simply pocketed it and nodded.
 
Dismissing her.
 
Head high, already in the process of forgetting everything that had happened,
Mrs. Dellege strode back to the house, up the front porch stairs and inside,
shooing her children ahead of her. She never noticed her husband standing
quietly in the shadows beside the house.
"Mr. Winchester –" he called, stopping Dean in his tracks. When Dean turned,
Mr. Dellege shoved another two thousand dollars onto his palm. "She –" Robert
Chambers-Dellege wasn't a small man: lean and well muscled (the result of
rigorous training he did five days a week), he seemed at first glance to be
anything but a henpecked husband. But the fear in his eyes and his hesitation
around the woman he'd married said otherwise.
 
"Mr. Chambers, I don't need the money. But you do. Yeah, you do. That's the
reason –" Dean's voice trailed off and he thought through what his subconscious
was telling him about Chambers-Dellege.
 
"What? How did you -" Confused, Robert Chambers-Dellege waited for Dean to
explain. He himself barely remembered giving up his own name and taking his
wife's. It had been so long ago.
 
"Research. We're thorough." The faint smile on Dean's lips faded and he
regarded the homeowner quietly. "Take the money for yourself. Get out of this
house and away from her and those kids. You need to take your own name back and
go. Tonight. Right now. It's your best chance. (It may be his only chance, his
instincts warned.) Do you have your own car?"
 
"Yes – but –"
 
"Your keys?"
 
"I – yes." Robert never left his keys lying about. He would have denied it
vehemently if someone ever asked, but inside he knew that he wanted something
that was his own, something no one else could use, so he kept both his keys and
wallet close.
 
"Get in your car and go." Chambers-Dellege gaped silently at him. Dean noticed
that the man had pocketed the money he'd tried to hand over.. Extracting an
emotionally abused husband from a marriage wasn't something Dean had ever
planned to do. But, suddenly, getting Robert Chambers safely away had become
almost as important as destroying ol' Peter's spirit.
 
Sam had heard the urgency in Dean's voice and understood what his brother had
sensed. Avenging, insane ghosts can be a family legacy. So can other things. He
shivered and whispered, "Dean."
 
"Right here, Sam." One last warning look at the stunned homeowner, and Dean
headed back around the Impala. Dellege was still staring after them as they
drove quietly away, but he patted his pockets as well, double checking for his
wallet and keys. At the corner, Dean turned and looked back, smiled a bit when
he heard a car's engine kick over. Chambers- Dellege backed his sedan out into
the street, turned away from them and headed off in the opposite direction.
"Now, let's get out of this burg," Dean muttered to himself. Sam nodded
silently, eyes shut, arm held tight against himself. Half out of it, he mumbled
"It's warmer. Dean, d'you feel it?" but Dean didn't hear him. Or see his eyes
opened to slits – pain or no pain, Sam didn't miss a step when something
intrigued him. He'd felt the rapid increase in temperature as soon as Dellege's
spirit had been sent on its way. Then the motion of the Impala lulled him
toward sleep, and shelved the idea until he woke up again.
 
They'd holed up in a nicer than usual hotel about fifteen miles away from the
Austin city limits. Because he knew how sick Sam would get if he took pain
medication on an empty stomach, Dean stopped at the nearest Gas'n'Go and bought
cereal and milk for breakfast for both of them. As soon as Dean was certain his
little brother could handle the pain meds, he fed Sam one. He figured he had
about ten minutes before it really hit Sam's system, and they both needed to
clean the stench of Peter Dellege's pyre off themselves.
 
"Let's get a shower, Sammy. C'mon – you can stay awake for a little while
longer. Right?" he urged hopefully.
 
"Hmmm? Oh – yeah, sure…shower…uh huh." Sam giggled a little and wobbled to his
feet. Somehow they crossed the five feet that separated them from the bathroom
with only two stops to let Sam get his balance. Inside the bathroom, removing
clothes became an exercise in avoiding Sam's embrace and sloppy kissing. At
least, Dean sighed, Sammy hadn't started crying.
 
"Wanna blow ya, Dean…c'n I? Huh?"
 
"Uh…how 'bout I blow you instead," Dean suggested, knowing that his dick risked
amputation if Sam got a serious case of the giggles in the middle of things.
"After we get cleaned up. And get into bed…"
 
"Ohh, I know whacha think – thin…k I'm gonna dosomething shtupit..hell, sound
like'm drunk." Eyes crossing as he attempted to focus on Dean, Sam frowned and
stared down at his brother. "'M not high. I wanna…" and he crashed to his knees
with enough force to split the skin. "blow you. So there!" He nodded sharply,
just for emphasis and lost his balance. The pain from two smacked up knees
finally made its way to his brain, possibly via Chicago. "Owww! De- I hurt
m'self! Jus for you! Wanna –"
 
"Sammy, you can blow me, I promise."
 
"Yeah? Good. Now!" Crossed eyes or not, Sam knew exactly where Dean's cock was
and had it sucked between his lips two seconds later. Hating the necessity, but
really hating the idea of having to sit to pee for the rest of his life, Dean
carefully pulled himself free and knelt in front of Sam. "Not now?" Bewildered,
Sam pouted and asked, "D'n you love me anymore? I-"
 
Dean kissed Sam quiet, knowing exactly when Sam had returned from his initial
ride on the pain-pill local. Sam's tongue lunged for the roof of Dean's mouth,
and his breathing went deep and steady. Thank the gods. Which was not what his
half- hard dick was saying. Steady breathing or no, Sam was in no shape to do
anything but sleep.
 
"Sammy, sit still. I'm gonna wash you and then me and then we're going to bed."
 
"An' blowing each other?'Cause I reallyreally want to-Are my knees bleedin'. I
think I felldownDean…"
 
"I think you might have. Whatever you want, I promise." Sure enough, once Sam
was clean and dry and wrapped in blankets, he fell asleep. I don't always want
to be right about you, baby brother…but when we wake up…
 
Five minutes later, Dean leaned back against all six pillows the room came with
and supported Sam against his chest in order to be right there for him while
they slept. Then, more than ready for some shuteye, he dozed off for a few
hours. Somewhere around mid-morning, Sam muttered something in his sleep and
tried to move. Which hurt. Eyes bleary, Dean stirred and whispered "'S'all
right, Sammy. Go back to sleep. I gotcha." Then, smiling, he fell back to sleep
himself.
***** Chapter 2 Safe *****
Dean turned onto his side and watched Sam sleep. One of the advantages to a
more expensive motel room was the presence of blackout curtains. And, although
they did a fair job, the high powered parking lot lights still managed to send
some illumination into the room. Enough so Dean could see. Sam's expression was
calm, relaxed, which meant that he felt better. Careful to avoid the damaged
shoulder, Dean, reached up and gently stroked his baby brother's hair,
smoothing stray strands back from his forehead. Slow and quiet, he traced the
line of Sam's jaw and ear, each stroke feather light. Still asleep, Sam mumbled
something and snuggled against Dean. He moved his right arm just a fraction the
wrong way and grunted in pain, but never woke up. Dean smiled and pressed a
gentle kiss to Sam's brow and an even lighter one to the tip of his nose.
Even after a tame hunt, Sam and Dean wasted no time claiming each other,
reassuring themselves that they were all right, that they'd made it through
another job and were together. Safe.
The Dellege hunt had been anything but tame. Sam had been hurt, yes, but both
of them had been hurt before. Neither of them liked it, but it happened. They'd
heal up and keep on hunting. Burning the remains twice had been a first for
both of them. and the maniacal look on the ruin that was the specter's face
seemed more human than supernatural. And the expressions on the faces of the
Dellege children had been more supernatural than human, Dean thought to
himself, and not for the first time.
 
"You're thinkin' too hard, Dean." Sam's eyes remained closed, but a quick smile
curved his lips. He opened his eyes and yawned, fully awake. "I'm fine. Don't
give me that look – see? Moving the arm and everything." He demonstrated his
dexterity and nudged Dean with his hip, glancing down at his sheet covered
morning wood as he did. "I could probably do handstands –"
 
"You dislocated the other shoulder," Dean commented drily.
 
In answer, Sam took a breath, glowered at Dean, and rolled until he had his
older brother pinned under him. There were times when height and sheer muscle
mass counted more than having two working arms. And Sam was on a mission. He'd
been patient – well, he'd been asleep and under the influence of a second pain
pill the first day. And he'd given in to Dean's "s-mothering" the previous
night. But enough was enough.
 
"Sam – my, can't…breathe…here," Dean choked. "Killin' the moment-"
 
Ever a thoughtful little brother, Sam eased back just enough to give Dean the
room he needed to haul in some air. "Is there a moment? I mean, that 'm
killing?" he asked, wide eyed. "You didn't tell me there…"
 
Dean grabbed Sam's good shoulder, stabilized his bad shoulder and flipped their
positions. About to lecture Sam on the ways he'd almost wrecked what could
obviously have been a moment, he stalled. The tip of Sam's morning wood had led
the rest of his dick between Dean's thighs and toward Dean's traitorous hole
which had started to spasm in anticipation. Dean groaned, outmaneuvered. Eyes
closed, Sam rocked back a bit and then thrust forward and up experimentally.
Dean whined when his balls and Sam's cock rubbed together.
 
"You all right, Sam-Oh damn, you are," Dean groaned when Sam rocked and slid
again, pressing up so they stayed in contact for much longer. The tip of Sam's
cock pressed flat against his hole and Dean could feel the wetness of Sam's
pre-cum.
 
"Ride me, Dean?" Sam whispered, voice deep resonating through himself and into
Dean. "Let me fill you up? You want that?"
 
In answer, Dean moaned and wriggled across the stiffness of Sam's dick caught
under him as he sat up and stared down at his baby brother. Sam reached up and
gently drew first one and then the other of Dean's nipples between the thumb
and forefinger of his good hand. No twisting – Dean needed nothing more than
Sam's touch to feel a sensation like live electricity racing from his chest to
his groin.
 
Dean's cock, hot and heavy, spurted pre-cum as his body reacted to Sam's gentle
teasing. Dazed, already far into the moment, he poked a finger across the slit
of his own cock and smiled lopsidedly. "You gonna make me cum without…touching
me?"
 
Sam nodded, his eyes half open, and his hips beginning to undulate under Dean.
"C'mon, baby. Wanna be inside you…"
 
"Uhmmmm…." Dean leaned down and kissed Sam, tongue fucking his mouth as he
shifted so he rode one of Sam's thighs, the short leg hair driving him half out
of his mind when he rubbed against it as he rocked.
 
Sam had had lube under the pillow for two days, waiting for the right time. He
snaked it out with his good hand. "Show me – open yourself up for me…" he tried
to demand, although the words came out more as a whimper. But Dean had already
grabbed the lube and drenched one hand in it. Eyes glinting dangerously, he
didn't waste a second, slathering Sam's cock and straddling his lover. And
then, smiling hazily, he opened himself one finger at a time, holding his
brother's erection against his abs as he fucked himself on his fingers, drawing
Sam higher and higher until Sam humped, begging, beneath him.
 
One swift motion and Dean lifted, slid up over Sam's cock and then down its
length, taking Sam to the hilt. "Dean! For gods' sakes!" Sam managed to gasp.
Dean shook his head and curled in on himself for a few seconds, while sweat
burst out on his forehead and down his back. "Sammy…Sammy…" he moaned. "Fuck
me…gods please fuck me…need you. Said you would- fuck!"
 
The bed beneath them creaked and complained, but they ignored it. Steadying
Dean's hips, his own body thrusting up and into Dean as hard as he knew how,
Sam stared as Dean's cock stiffened and darkened even more, pre-cum dripping
from it. He knew he couldn't last, not watching Dean twisting as he rose and
fell, his gasps and little cries of pleasure spilling from his parted lips.
Eyes squeezed shut, Dean keened and groaned, Sam's name the only clear word.
Over and over again, driving himself more rapidly down and up and circling and
then down, feeling his own orgasm tearing through him.
 
"Dean! Oh my fuckinggodDean!" he shouted when Dean froze in place and came, the
echoes of his climax hammering around Sam, stiff and throbbing inside him until
he half rose off the mattress and came deep inside his older brother. Silence
broken only by the softest of murmurs filled the room as they rode out the
aftershocks and clung to each other. Still whispering to Sam, keeping his
brother inside him as long as he could, Dean rolled them both over toward Sam's
good side. Sleep washed over them and tugged them under in a matter of seconds.
 
Safe.
 
"Dean?"
 
"Hmmm?"
"Dean?"
 
"'mrighthereSammy."
 
"D'you hear…bird?"
 
"Nope."
 
"Oh..'kay. Dreamminnn"
 
 
Flat on his face next to Sam, who lay sprawled on his back, Dean tried to
ignore the sound the next time it started. But he couldn't. Darn raven's croak-
phone-where?" Sam was croaking like a raven? "Samm… moveover…phone's…"
 
"Huh? OW!"
 
Immediately wide awake, Dean looked contritely into his brother's eyes. "I'm
sorry, baby. But the phone's under you."
 
"'Kay…it's stopped." Sam let his eyes shut.
 
"I know. But…there it is, again. No, let me help you, you idjit." Grumbling
fondly, Dean carefully maneuvered Sam away from his cell and eased it free
without doing any more damage to his brother. "Oh crap – he's left - uhm – five
messages. What the hell time is it?"
 
"Time for round two, huh?"
 
"Uh huh – sure you can't move your freakin' eyelashes without hurting. Oh hell,
it's night out there!"
 
"Uhm – that would be early morning, big brother," Sam grumbled after he
squinted at the face of the clock bolted to one of the end tables in their
room. "Ugh! Very early morning. You gotta answer the phone. "
 
"I know. Okay…no, no kissing my neck when I'm…or kissing me…Sammy! Stop with
the stroking...or maybe…" The croak of the raven started again and Dean
answered, fending Sammy off, quarter heartedly at the most.
 
"Hey Dad. Huh? Yeah – sleepin'. Yeah, what? Bobby? What about Bobby?"
 
Sam went on the alert so fast he felt light headed. "Dean?" he mouthed, not
risking a whisper because his father would, without a doubt, hear it and want a
complete report on the 'bruise' he'd suffered during the salt and burn. Dean
had been able to run interference for the previous two days, but Sam knew that
his Dad would want to talk to him if he suspected he was awake. And figure out
a way to lecture him about carelessness…
 
"Is Bobby okay? Yeah –"
 
John's next question gave Dean some pause, and he glanced quickly at his little
brother. "About seventy percent. He got hit harder than I thought. Yessir.
Nosir. He'll be fine. He's still sleepin'."
 
Sam glowered at Dean, who just shook his head sharply and held up a warning
finger. Quiet! "Right. No sir – I'm sure he's fine. Just bruised. Right, we'll
meet you in Joplin. Tonight. Okay, got it. Mumford. Mail." John said a couple
of other things before Dean closed the conversation. "Yes, Dad." His voice
softened a little. "We do, too."
 
"Dean, what's going on with Bobby? Is he okay? What did Dad say? We do too,
what?"
 
"Bobby's fine – has a job that he needs us on. And we do love Dad, too." Dean
stared at the phone for a second and then at Sam. "I think he's going through
one of those things again."
 
Sam's eyes went wide and he shook his head. "Ohhell no. Remember the last time?
It's been four years, and I still can't forget - Owww!" Sam grabbed at his arm,
before he fell back onto the mattress, cursing up a storm. "Dammit, this is all
Dad's fault!"
 
"Settle down, princess. He'll be his usual sunny self by the time we meet up
with him. I think half the time that he does things just to freakin' make us
crazy." A smile brightened the gold sparks in Dean's eyes and he cocked his
head to one side, just looking his brother up and down, enjoying the view.
"Shower time. You? Me? A lot of hot water?"
 
Sam nodded and smiled right back. "You. Me. A lot of hot water." Abruptly, he
frowned. "Wait. Joplin. Joplin? What's in Joplin?"
 
"I wondered if you'd been listening. You know as much as I do, baby brother.
Dad said meet him in Joplin. We will do that. Tonight. Sam, watch -"
 
Still grumbling, Sam rolled toward the side of the bed – and onto his injury.
Again. "the arm. Sammy, for the –"
 
Dean really didn't want to look. He really did not want to look. Sam whimpered,
"De?" and Dean looked. One of the saddest renditions of "My Eyes Are More
Woebegone than a Bassett Hound Puppy's" greeted his quick glance. Firmly
destroying the "awww" that threatened to escape his lips, he cleared his throat
and used five of his favorite words. "C'mon, baby brother. I gotcha."
 
 
Forty five minutes later, squeaky clean and sleepy after a thoroughly relaxing
blow job each under the warm, endless supply of pounding water they used to
wash each other, the brothers Winchester fell back into bed for three more
hours. By the time they woke up, got dressed and ambled away from their motel
room and toward the small local diner across the street, they could actually
figure out what to order for breakfast. Four cups of coffee and a mammoth
breakfast each later, they returned to the motel to pack up and load their gear
into the Impala.
 
"Time to hit the road, baby."
 
Sam blushed just a bit at the word 'baby' and Dean grinned wickedly. "C'mon –
he'll be pacing if we aren't there by whenever tonight is in his mind." Five
minutes later, as soon as he had Sam as comfortable as six miles of legs in a
five mile long car could be, Dean fired up the Impala and turned her nose
toward Joplin.
***** <b>Chapter 3 - Then</b> *****

Author's notes: This chapter wasn't in the first version - it should have been.
I am an idjit.
===============================================================================
"But Dad, I at least sat in the car while you hunted when I was thirteen!
Besides, the longest Sam's ever been away from home is four days for that
leadership camp! Now you want him to stay with Grandma and Grandpa W. for
amonth?"
 
"Dean, this isn't negotiable. Sam's not the same as you. He's not ready to go
on more than easy hunts. He's growing fast, and it's making him more awkward
than you were at that age. He needs another year before he goes with us. And we
need time in the field, without Sam there to distract us. He'll be fine at
Grandpa and Grandma Winchester's place! They love seeing both of you boys, and
they're really excited about Sam staying with them. He'll have a great time –
stop worrying!"
 
John watched the frown on Dean's face grow darker. His seventeen year old son
acted like someone twice his age when it came to Sam. Always had. But enough
was enough. John's Mom and Dad had been pleased as punch to have Sam visit for
a month while Dean did some hunting with John.
 
So Sammy was going to his parents' small farm outside of Pocatello, Idaho. And
he and Dean would hunt in the area between the Pacific and Bobby Singer's
place.
 
"Dean, go finish packing. And make sure Sammy has everything."
 
"Yessir." Part of him knew that his Dad was right: Sam wasn't really ready to
take on the jobs that he and John were likely to find. But that didn't mean he
liked it one damn bit.
 
At the door of their bedroom, which occupied most of the attic, Dean paused and
watched Sam packing. At thirteen, his little brother was in the process of
growing to be about the size of a giraffe, in Dean's opinion. Long arms, bony
elbows, long legs with even bonier knees, no ass to mention, and feet that
seemed as long as skis, Sam might not have looked like much initially. But
there was something about the way he laughed after he'd tried to sing in the
shower and nearly drowned because he forgot to turn away from the water or when
his hazel eyes lit with delight when he managed to take most of Dean's French
fries at MacDonald's…or the seriousness when he studied…there was just
something about Sammy.
 
However, Sam was in no mood to be cheerful. He shoved another shirt into his
duffle and zipped it shut. Dean passed him silently on the way to their
bathroom, picked up Sam's toothbrush and their tube of toothpaste and handed
both silently to his little brother. "Dean?"
 
"Sammy, it's going to be all right."
 
"I don't want to go."
 
"I know, little bro. But you have to. Look at it this way – Dad promised that
we'd be hunting up north. Uncle Bobby's told Dad there're some cases he hasn't
been able to get to. I'll bet we stop by and see you at least one time –"
 
"I don't want you to." Sam snapped the words and spun away from Dean. "Don't
come to see me!" Dean recoiled as if he'd been punched in the midsection.
 
"Sammy, what d'you mean 'don't come to see you?" Sam only shook his head and
hugged himself tight, pulling away from Dean even more. Astonished by his
brother's reaction to something that Dean had thought would make him happy, he
tried to calm Sam down. "Sammy, it's only for four weeks. Then we'll…"
 
"Only four weeks? That's twenty eight days, Dean! What if you get hurt? What if
something happens to Dad?" And Dean realized without being told in so many
words what had hit home in Sam's imagination.
 
"Sam, turn around. C'mon, man. I'm not gonna talk to your back."
 
Slowly, Sam looked around and over his shoulder at Dean. "What if you die?"
 
The fear and pain in Sam's voice wrenched Dean's heart. Hunting was deadly
dangerous. Even simple hunts could turn disastrous in a heartbeat. Fear kept
Hunters sharp, cautious and aware so they never walked into a situation without
backup, without more than one plan, without the awareness that they might not
walk out if they didn't stay focused. Hunters who walked in overconfidently or
relied on booze or drugs to give them courage generally died within a few
weeks, months at most.
 
The last thing Dean wanted was Sam hurt. And, suddenly, he realized that Sam
felt the same way about him. There those four words were, out in the open. Dean
dying: the one thing that terrified Sam. 'What if you die?' The words echoed
between them and Dean had no idea what to say that would take their threat
away. He knew he couldn't promise anything.
 
"Sammy, I will do everything I know how to stay alive. I'm a good hunter and
Dad's the best. Don't ever forget he has our backs."
 
Sam's jaw started to quiver and he reached for Dean. In a heartbeat, he found
himself wrapped in Dean's embrace. "It's going to be all right."
 
"Come back to me," he whispered.
 
"You sound like a princess watching a knight going off to war." Dean joked
lightly. Then, seriously, he added, "I will, Sammy. Don't worry- please?"
 
A year earlier, Sam would have pouted and whined to get his way. But he was
more mature, he tried telling himself, and he knew that being a baby about
things wasn't helping Dean. "I'll try not to."
 
"Good…" Dean did his best to sound enthusiastic, and Sam managed a watery
smile. They hugged for a few more seconds until John hollered up the stairs to
them.
"We have to go."
 
Which is exactly what John said twenty-nine hours later after Dean and Sam had
hauled all of Sam's belongings into the bright, airy room that their
Grandparents had cleaned and made ready for Sam. Dean called back "Coming,
dad!" and turned back to Sam, who stared forlornly at him.
 
"I'll call you tonight: Dad already said I could. Sammy, it's okay to have fun
while you're here, y'know. Right?"
 
Sam nodded, just once.
 
"Grandma and Grandpa love you, dope. I bet they even get Aunt Marge to come out
and teach you how to shoot! You won't even miss me!"
 
Sam threw himself into Dean's arms and clung to him like a limpet. "Just come
back, okay? And I already know how to shoot! Smartass!"
 
Dean laughed a little and kissed Sam's forehead. "Sammy?"
 
"Yeah?"
 
"Remember, I'm gonna call you tonight."
 
Sam nodded and reluctantly let Dean go. At the last second, however, Dean kept
a grip on Sam's fingers, as unhappy about leaving his little brother as Sam was
about being left. He didn't let go until halfway down the stairs from the
second floor.
 
Five minutes later, everyone had meandered out to the Impala to say goodbyes.
John cleared his throat and gave Sam a quick, hearty hug. "You be good, Sammy.
And listen to your grandparents, you hear?"
 
"John, stop worrying about the boy. You're worse than Dean! We'll be fine here,
won't we, Sam?"
 
"Fine – yeah – fine grandpa…" Sam echoed dutifully. He managed a lopsided smile
aimed somewhere near John, who ruffled his hair and slid into the driver's seat
of the Impala.
 
Dean hugged Sam a little harder than usual and whispered, "Be good for grandma
and grandpa, Sammy. Talk to you tonight, okay?" Eyes full of tears, Sam nodded
and mumbled "I'll be here."
 
"Check under your pillow when you go to bed."
 
"I don't believe in the tooth fairy any more, Dean," Sam replied, snatching on
to the lifeline of humor that Dean had tossed him.
 
"That's not what he told me!"
 
For another few seconds they smiled at each other and, before Sam's smile could
fade, Dean settled into the passenger's seat. In spite of his best intentions,
he turned to look back at Sammy one more time. Sam did a little half-wave of
one hand before John turned the key in the ignition and the Impala came to
life.
 
Sam closed his eyes when the Impala kicked over and kept his eyes squeezed shut
until the sound of the engine faded in the distance. Every muscle in his body
wanted to run after the car and call Dean back, but Sam stood stock still and
listened until all he could hear was insects droning on about their business in
the yard and garden. Beside him, Jake Winchester glanced over at his wife,
Marcy, and shook his head.
 
"Sam," he said casually, "I have a new horse. 'Name's Sunny, and he needs more
exercise than I can give him. I was hoping that you could take care of Sunny
for me while you're here."
 
A horse? In spite of himself, Sam felt his spirits rising. "Really, grandpa?"
 
"Really. We'd better go out and take a look at him. I just hope we can drop the
fender down far enough to fit your legs! Your Dad says you've grown a couple of
inches since Christmas. I'd say it's more like a foot! Grandma, we'll be a
while. Maybe you could make us a sandwich in a bit?"
 
"Of course I can. And Sam? Aunt Marge is coming down to visit. Something about
you working on a sawed off shotgun?"
 
Sam's smile lit his face; and he turned to brag to Dean about finally having a
sawed-off of his own.
 
But Dean wasn't there. Immediately, Sam's spirits plunged. Although he covered
pretty well for a thirteen year old, his grandmother wasn't fooled for a
second. "You'll have a lot to tell Dean when he calls tonight, won't you, Sam?"
 
"Yes'm…grandma…" And Sam's spirits started a slow coast back up again.
 
Much later that night, after Dean had called and told him where he and John
were, and exclaimed over the coolness of having a horse to ride, Sam headed for
bed. The first thing he did was look under the pillow: a picture of Dean looked
back at him. On the back his brother had written: I talked Dad into letting me
call every night even if it's just for a couple of minutes or I have to leave a
voice mail. Talk to you tomorrow, Sammy!"
 
Smiling so wide that his dimples looked like parentheses, Sam pressed his hand
over the picture and dropped off to sleep. Twenty seven days to go.
 
Sam had a really good time. He liked working with his grandfather and
exercising Sunny, who definitely needed the extra hours under saddle that Sam
gave him by working him every day. And Grandma cooked really well, even if she
looked more like a secretary than a grandmother. Aunt Marge, who looked more
like a grandmother than a metal worker, arrived a week after Sam and helped him
make his first sawed-off shotgun; she also showed him the basics of welding,
since he seemed to like watching things melt under extreme heat.
 
"He misses Dean and John, Jake."
 
"He's happier than he was at first, Marcy. Right?"
 
"Absolutely. I don't know what you're going to do without him, frail old man
that you are…"
 
"Yup, that's me…frail, stooped…just like last night when I was stooped…"
 
"Jake Winchester, enough!"
 
The thunder of footsteps preceded Sam's arrival in the kitchen. Still sleepy,
he nonetheless had brushed and combed himself into a semblance of order.
 
"G'morning, Granma. G'morning, Grandad."
 
"Are you hungry, Sam?"
 
"Yup…"
 
Abruptly, Sam's attention shifted and he listened intently to the sounds
outside the house. Another few seconds and he cocked his head to one side and
listened some more. Curious, Jake asked, "Sam, what're you doing?"
Sam's only response was to stand up straighter and open the kitchen door. Then
the elder Winchesters heard the unmistakable rumble of the Impala's powerful
engine. A second later, the sound stopped and two car doors opened one after
the other, and were slammed shut just a half beat off simultaneously. Sam did a
one-eighty and headed for the front door and the driveway.
 
John Winchester stretched his travel tight muscles and grinned when he heard
"Dad! Dad, you're back! "
Before he could get to the front porch, Sam caught him in a rib-crushing hug.
"You're back!"
"Good gods, Sammy! Did you grow a foot?" John laughed when he got a good look
at Sam, who had grown a little bit, admittedly.
 
"Nope. Still have two – Dad, where's Dean?"
 
"Uhm…in Alabama? Sam, look at the car. The trunk lid? Up, right? Where do you
think he is?" John asked, still laughing. "Go on and help him pull our dirty
clothes out of the trunk."
 
John ruffled Sam's hair and watched his youngest gallop off to the Impala. "Ma,
did he behave himself?"
 
"He had a good time, John. And he was a big help here. But he missed you and
Dean, a lot."
 
"I know. So does my phone bill!"
 
"Dean?" Sam shouted as he barreled across the yard. "Dean?"
 
"Sammy!" Dean stepped out from behind the Impala's raised trunk lid and met his
brother straight on. "Holy crap, Sammy! You've grown! Lookin' good, baby
brother!" Sam flushed and cleared his throat. "So, what've you been up to while
I've been out savin' Dad from getting killed?"
 
"Yup, that's you! Savin' Dad – sure. You look good, too, Dean."
 
They started telling each other, simultaneously, about the month they'd had. A
short phone call each night hadn't been enough time to go into details by a
long shot. Still talking, they headed back to the car to unload it. Dean could
feel Sammy shaking, vibrating almost, with relief that he was back. "Sammy?"
 
Sam's smile fractured and he whispered, "Dean, I can't do this. Can't be here
when you're somewhere else. Can't!"
 
Dean nodded and whispered back, "Me neither. Couldn't eat. You weren't there to
steal my food." He took a long look at Sam and added, "Besides, I'm gonna have
to either hang around you or take you with us just to keep the girls off you.
You got – better looking or something."
 
Wide eyed, Sam asked, "I did?"
 
"Yeah. You're growing up, Sammy. Not that you'll ever give me a run for the
money in the handsome department, of course, but – dayum you tan up nice."
 
Sam shook his head. "You're just – uhm – jealous because I'm gonna be handsomer
than you are."
 
"In your dreams…Here – I'll take the bigger duffle, being older and more
muscular and handsome."
 
"Handsome helps with carrying things?"
 
"Huh? Oh cut it out! You know what I meant. Sammy, I er…well, uhm…so you going
to show me that horse you keep talking about?"
 
"He's granddad's, but I've been riding him and keeping him exercised and
cleaned up. And of course I'm going to show him to you. You can stand behind me
if he's too scary for someone as short as you-"
 
"Hey! Enough crap about my size, sasquatch junior!"
 
"Yeah, yeah, you're just pissy because I'm right. Did you really take the head
off that vampire by yourself?"
 
"Yeah – it was messy, but I did it." Dean grinned and grabbed the bigger
duffle. More seriously, he added, "I didn't care. I didn't have you to brag to.
So I killed it and that was that." He reached out and took Sam's hand in his.
"I want you with us."
 
Sam whispered, "Me too."
 
"Boys! C'mon! We're in time for breakfast! You can catch up later!" John
shouted from the porch.
A sigh escaped Sam and his picked up the smaller duffle. "Dean?"
 
"We have to get into the house, Sam, or there won't be any breakfast left."
 
Sam nodded and started to turn away, but Dean's hand clasping his free one
stopped him in mid-step. "Sammy, is this…okay?" Dean asked uncertainly. In
answer, Sam threaded his fingers between Dean's and nodded, smiling, and then
looking wonderingly at their hands clasped together.
 
((Wake up! Something's happening!
(( Huh? What? You're dreaming again! Wait! What was that?
((I can't tell for certain. But something's happening! Stay awake!))
 
Later that morning, while John and his parents talked and John made a phone
call to his sister, thanking her for helping Sam with his sawed-off, Sam
shepherded Dean to the barn where Sunny stood waiting for his daily apple.
 
"This's Sunny – He's an Arab Quarter Horse mix. D'you want to feed him?"
 
"Uh, no, Sam. Slobber isn't my favorite thing-" Dean explained hurriedly.
 
"Uh huh – you're afraid of his teeth," Sam
decided. "Some hunter you are!!!"
 
"Hey! I'll have you know that I did real well this month! And not just with
that vampire! You can ask Dad if you don't believe me!!"
 
"Gotcha!" Sam crowed. Far more quietly, he told Dean again, "I'm glad you're
back, Dean."
 
"I'm glad I'm back, too. Grandma and Grandpa have been too soft on you.
Probably didn't make you train once. You need someone to pick on you. You know,
to help develop your personality."
 
"Yeah, uh huh, sure. Develop my personality" Dean had taken Sam's hand the
minute they were out of sight of anyone other than Sunny and three steers, and
they watched Sunny placidly grinding up the apple Sam fed him. "Keep your hand
flat so he doesn't think it's part of the apple. Evenyoucan do that, Dean."
Dean stared down at their entwined fingers and smiled to himself.
 
Just one more hurdle, one more thing to admit. All he could do was hope that
Sam would hear him out. His smile faded and he took a deep breath. "Sammy?"
 
"Uh hmmm"
 
"I need to tell you something…that happened while we were hunting. Well, not
exactly while we were hunting, but in between…Uhm…" Dean cleared his throat and
flushed.
 
Sam motioned toward a couple of bales of hay in the empty stall next to
Sunny's, and squeaked, "Is it bad?" His eyes narrowed as he tried to decipher
what Dean meant.
"Depends on how you look at it. And I meanyou, Sammy."
 
Dean sat and, his expression serious, turned to face Sam. "Dad has a friend
named Ted Randolph. Ol' Ted has a daughter. She's named Michela and she thinks
she might want to be a hunter in a few years. Right now, she's a senior in high
school…" Dean watched Sam's expression go from curious to confused and knew he
was stretching the story out too much. "Dad asked me to take … er…to…we went on
two dates the weekend before last. And she really likes me, she said. We kissed
and stuff…"
 
"Oh." Sam pulled his hand clear of Dean's grasp and wrapped his arms around
himself. "So…uhm, are you …" He stared down at the floor of the barn and tried
to quiet the crashing of his heart against his ribs. "I mean, you're really
handsome and smart and strong and any girl would want to date you. Did you give
her your phone number…" Tears threatened to embarrass him by spilling down his
cheeks, but he blinked rapidly, driving them back.
 
"Sammy, please, will you let me finish?"
 
"Because, I mean, if you really like her and…you should probably date her…"
 
"Sammy?" Dean knew what Sam was doing: building a wall of words to defend
himself against hurt. Even though all they had done was hold hands twice and
hug more than usual, Dean knew that Sam and he belonged together. Now all he
could see was Sam's bowed head; Sammy's sadness hurt his heart.
 
Dean had thought hard on the ride back to Idaho. He had to be ready, had to
read his little brother better than he ever had in his life."Sammy, the only
person I could think about…was you. Not her. Not anyone else. You."
 
Suddenly Dean understood the idea of time standing still. Barely breathing, he
waited for his words get through to Sam. Sunny whickered somewhere close by,
but he never moved, never shifted his gaze from Sam's face.
 
"You – thought about me?" Blue-hazel eyes wide behind the ever present bangs he
wore to curtain away the world, Sam slowly looked up into Dean's face. "Me?"
 
"You." Dean hauled in a breath and added, "There's never been anyone else for
me but you. From the first…from the beginning…never…I just…if you hate that I…"
 
Sam launched himself at Dean and clung to him for dear life. Breath staggering,
heartbeat following it, he buried his face in the side of Dean's neck and held
on.
"Dean –" was all he said, the word a murmur between them.
Sam felt the tips of Dean's fingers gently nudging his chin up so they could
look at each other. But his eyes wouldn't stay open. Neither would Dean's. Sam
leaned up blindly, seeking his brother's lips.
 
Finding them. Feeling the softness when Dean kissed him. Kissing Dean back.
 
They jolted an inch apart, flushed bright red and stared at each other, Dean
watching Sam and waiting for his baby brother to make a decision. Dean's lips
still tingled where they'd touched Sam's. And Sam seemed to have lost the
ability to think. Except for one name. Dean.
 
"Sammy?"
 
"Dean?"
 
"Can I – uh, you know…can I –" Sam nodded, safe and secure in Dean's arms.
 
Dean gently kissed Sam's eyelids and forehead and the tip of his nose. The
caress he pressed to Sam's lips was soft and tender; Dean realized dimly that
he probably could have starred in a chick flick movie, and he just plain didn't
care.
 
A rumble of thunder shook the air above the barn. But the single, abrupt shake
of the ground beneath the building was what caused Sam to open his eyes."Dean,
let's get inside the house, okay?" Bemused, Dean decided not to tease Sammy and
stood to go. Sam plastered the side of his body against Dean's and let Dean
lead. Just in case there was cause for Sam's fear, Dean peered up at the sky
from the safety of the barn's doorway.
 
"Sam, I don't see a cloud up there. Does this kind of thing happen a lot?" Dean
asked, surprised, because the thunder had sounded as if it had come from right
overhead. When he looked back, he saw the fear in Sam's eyes. "What's wrong,
Sammy?"
 
"It's happened before. Thunder and then nothing. And the ground shaking. Dean,
I want to go home. Right now."
 
"We can't. We leave tomorrow after breakfast, but Dad and I both need to get
some rest. Okay? I'm right here."
Reluctantly, Sam agreed. But the look he cast at the sky was openly uneasy.
Before they left the shelter of the barn, Dean pulled Sam close and kissed him
again. "Baby? We have to –" He watched Sam blush and grinned just a little
teasingly. "Can I call you that?"
"If I can call you stud muffin," Sam replied, his expression carefully schooled
to be nonchalant. Dean rolled his eyes. "Just kidding, Dean…I…like baby. But
only-"
 
"Yeah. For now. Only when we're like this. Are you gonna be able to – uh – you
know."
 
"I know. As long as you're here, I can do it."
 
"Not going anywhere, not without you. Ever again. I promise."
 
((The youngling is afraid.
((Well, you are a bit loud.
((I'll whisper, then. Stop laughing!
((Stop grumbling. You're shaking things enough as it is!))
***** <b>Chapter Four The Records Kept and the Kept Records Hidden</b> *****
Four years ago
 
 
Sarah McAllister sighed as she pulled her bright red, quilted jacket more
tightly around her slender form. Unlike many people who are described as
'birdlike', she fit the image of one of the quick, quiet avians, a white
breasted nuthatch, or, perhaps, a downy woodpecker. Silver haired, as she had
been since her twenty ninth year, brown eyed, she had a slender, fine boned
face and body. And a mind as sharp and strong as the bill of either of her
favorite birds.
 
April wasn't Sarah's favorite month of the Museum's pre-season; the weather was
still too damp and, occasionally, snowy during the first half, and in danger of
pouring rain during the last half. But April also meant bringing stored
furnishings out into the light of day again. April meant dressing the houses
and businesses of the village in their seasonal clothes. And that part of April
Sarah enjoyed a great deal.
 
She'd had some warming coffee during her lunch hour at the Jones Farm and hoped
that it would hold her over while she unpacked linens and carried them up the
narrow, curving staircase to the second floor of the Hamilton House (circa
1870, Campbell New York).
 
[Photobucket]
 
"Where – there it is. How did you get all the way over there?" she asked the
carton of bed clothes she had left just inside the front door before her break.
"I thought I left you over there-"
[Photobucket]
 
 
Sarah stood still, listening for sounds of movement in the Victorian mansion.
Perhaps another volunteer had decided to help her? However, no one answered her
"Is there someone else here in the house?" A quick look both through the rooms
on both the first and second floors confirmed that she was alone. "That's
strange," she said to herself.
 
Finally deciding that the carton had walked over and plopped down facing Mr.
Hamilton's work desk (or that someone had started to help and been called
away), she made sure both the kitchen and the front doors were locked and
returned to her bed making.
 
Later in the afternoon, she made another entry into her Record of Events.
 
One Year Ago
 
 
"Look at this mess! I thought putting a new roof on the Tavern would fix the
ice creep, Bill. It's like we never touched it!" Jake Peters shouted up through
the ceiling. "What d'ya see up there?"
 
 
"Jake, the roof's sound." Bill Daniels hollered from the top of the ladder he'd
used to access the new shingling. "I'm coming down."
 
Two minutes later, Bill clomped up the dark, steep stairs to the second floor
of the Thomson Tavern
 [Photobucket]
 
(1808, Riga, New York) and joined Jake in front of the long wall across from
the room's sole window. A swath of dark wet plastering soaked down the freshly
finished whitewash on the wall.
 
"This has me stumped. This isn't an outside wall, and there's no sign of water
creep across the ceiling, but something wrecked this plaster. I'll be damned if
I can figure out how it got there. Vandalism?"
 
"Could be. But they were smart about it, and vandals usually just ruin
everything they run across. Whoever did this knew how to make a mess with the
least amount of effort. We'd better check doors and windows. They would have
had to break in – something should show up. What the hell was security doing, I
ask you? Sleeping all winter?"
 
Bill might look like a man who spent most of his days working outside in
construction, but he'd spent twenty years in forensics with the State Police.
His training took over whenever a puzzle showed up and this one was a fifteen
hundred piece jigsaw of a white horse in blizzard.
 
There was absolutely no sign of forced entry, and the men double checked every
possible way in, including the fireplace. Baffled, they decided to notify the
Board after they'd estimated how much time and money restoring the damaged
plaster and, possibly, lath underneath would cost. Not that they'd charge for
more than the materials, and those only if they couldn't afford to fix the wall
pro bono.
 
"We'd better tell Sarah, too. She'll want to enter it into that record of hers,
no matter what we find out about who did it."
 
"Probably some drifter or other-yeah, yeah, I know. We'll tell her. Let me get
a picture of it on my phone while I'm at it. Hey, maybe it was ghosts!" Both
men chuckled as they walked back toward the administration building.
 
 
Four Years Ago – May
 
 
Sarah McAllister rarely worked at the Pioneer Homestead.
 
The dark log cabin's only illumination was provided by the open back door and
the fire that burned on the wide, open hearth. Knowing that two families had
lived in the single room home made it seem even smaller and more confining.
However, an early spring epidemic of chest complaints had laid a number of the
docents low. So, on the third Saturday in May, she wound her way down the hill
past the Quaker Meeting House and turned right at the one room schoolhouse,
heading toward the Hetchler homestead
 
 [Photobucket]
 
 
(1809,Scottsville, New York.)
 
 
For a second, Sarah paused and looked over at the Campbell House. "Poor house,"
she murmured.
 
[Photobucket]
 
One of the questions that visitors asked the most was "What does a house look
like when it comes here?" And, after two decades, the board had decided that
the Campbell house (circa 1809, Caledonia, New York), with its multiple layers
of floor and several remodels over the time it had been lived in, would provide
a perfect example of a restoration in progress. Placards explained the various
stages of restoration, and, whenever possible, one of the volunteers was
present to explain in detail the history of the building and of the
restoration.
 
Sarah had volunteered there a number of times, but the drab sadness of the
place was as oppressive as the gloomy half light of the Pioneer Cabin. Cabin
and House, two darklings from the past, she thought and then chided herself for
sappy Romanticism.
 
A movement in the left hand window on the second floor caught her eye and she
glanced up. The window was vacant, although its curtain drifted a little as if
someone had passed. "You're getting old, Sarah," she thought to herself and
laughed a little. Someone walked by her and asked where the Pioneer Barn was.
"Come along; I'm heading there myself."
 
At 11:30 that evening, Sarah McAllister sat bolt upright in bed.
 
There were no curtains on the windows of the Campbell House. Never had been.
But that was the least of it. Only a few planks had been laid to give visitors
the idea of what a second floor might look like; and the forever incomplete
stairwell leading up to the second floor stopped at a firmly latched half door
well below that floor's meager planking.
 
 
Two Years Ago - July
 
 
The pivotal event of the summer at Genesee Country Village was the Reenactment
of the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. For two days, the usually placid village
rocked with the sounds of rifled musket fire and light artillery shot, the
shouts of re-enactors and the strident music of fife and drum morning to late
afternoon. Additionally, reenactors and docents portrayed life as it had been
in a small Northern town of the period. Harvey and Lenore Burnell had attended
every three years, over the previous twenty one, right from the event's modest
beginnings. They dressed in period clothing and spent the day among others who
were as interested in the period as they were.
 
William Burnell, age seventeen, had been dragged to the reenactment for the
fifth time by his mother and father. William wanted nothing to do with all the
stink and noise and fuss. He liked his armies quiet and motorized, and,
preferably, on an X-box. The blistering July heat only made the experience more
lifelike (if someone were to ask the adults) and miserable (no one needed to
ask; William was more than willing to share his opinion with all and sundry).
 
Sometime after lunch, but before the 2:00 cavalry charge across the South
Field, William finally managed to convince his parents that he was old enough
to wander around the museum on his own. More because they were tired of his
whining than anything, Harvey and Lenore had bid him "god speed" (to which he
rolled his eyes) and then promptly forgot about him.
 
 
By the time he'd walked past the Hyde Octagon House (circa 1870, Friendship,
New York),
 
[Photobucket]
 
the majority of the fighters behind him had turned and headed toward the
afternoon's battle. Relative quiet descended around William. Suddenly, the sun
darted behind clouds that he hadn't noticed building off to the east. The first
splatters of a summer thunderstorm – no, wait, that was the artillery off in
the Field; the sounds were too abrupt to be thunder- pocked the ground in front
of him. "Just what I need. Rain." he muttered. Annoyed and feeling extremely
put upon, he plodded through the sudden downpour toward the wide front porch of
the Victorian Mansion.
 
From behind him, he heard the sound of hoof beats, a horse walking slowly, its
heavy breathing gusting from tired lungs.
 
"You? Boy!" someone called. "You! Fetch a bucket of water for my horse!"
 
"What the hell?" William snapped as he turned around. "I'm not one of you - oh
Jesus!" William stared up at the faceless figure on its skeletal mount. Rooted
to the spot, he watched helplessly as the creature that had once been a horse
plodded toward him, head down, hooves dragging in the mud. "Fetch a bucket of
water for my horse!" the faceless being repeated. Rain splashed its hat and
trickled down its neck under the collar of its faded navy blue jacket. Rain
turned red trickled from the cuff of both sleeves and hit the ground.
 
William Burnell fainted dead away along the side of the graveled road that led
to the Hamilton house and the Davis Opera House (South Butler, NY 1884) across
the street.
 
The skeletal horse and its ghastly rider passed him with only inches to spare
and drew the rain along with them into until they were obscured by the downpour
and then gone, along with the rain.
 
When he roused sluggishly a few minutes later, William shook his head and
squinted, hoping that what he'd seen had been a dream. At least no one had seen
his mortally embarrassing collapse in the dust…wait…dust.
 
The sky arched blue over him and the ground was as dry as dirt that hadn't seen
rain for six days could be.
 
Everything had been a dream. He'd had heat stroke or something was all. As he
pushed himself up, his left hand touched something wet. Eyes wide with horror,
he realized that he was looking at two hoof prints. In the mud. And, next to
the foremost one, two rapidly drying splashes of something sticky and rusted
red. Hands shaking, he dug his cell phone out of his pocket and made a short
call to his parents. After a second's hesitation, he also took two pictures of
the tracks. Then, dizzy and disoriented, he wobbled toward the front steps of
the Hamilton House to wait for rescue.
 
The paramedics on site to treat any real casualties of battle, soldier or
civilian, examined William and found nothing amiss other than mild dehydration.
But his story of a "creepy dude with a skinny horse" and the somewhat blurry
pictures of two muddy hoof prints made their way to the Record of Events. The
frown on Sarah's face didn't fade for a long time after she finished writing.
 
 
Current Year
 
"I like your dress. Did your mother make it?" Jeanette timidly asked the poke-
bonneted, brown haired girl who sat on the sun-dried grass watching two spotted
oxen grazing in the field next to Mr. Rugg's Blacksmith Shop
 
 [Photobucket]
 
(circa 1830, Elba, New York). Earlier, Jeanette had noticed the girl playing
with a very expensive looking doll dressed in fine clothes that only a clever
seamstress could have created. After a few false starts, she had overcome her
shyness and walked across the narrow lane to speak to the pretty doll's owner.
 
"Uh huh – did your Mom make yours?" Lizabeth Samuels answered and asked in the
same breath. "I love yellow!"
 
"Yes. We can't afford a dressmaker. What's that?"
 
"Oh – this is Charity. She's a My Land doll. Grandmom got her for my birthday."
 
"You must have a very wealthy Grandmother," Jeanette observed. "She's really
pretty."
 
"Here. Do you want to see her?"
 
"I do see her…oh, you mean hold her?"
 
"Sure!"
 
"Where's your mother? Oh look at her underthings! What beautiful stitching!"
 
"She's up in the town square I think. I needed to get away for a little bit. It
was pretty noisy, and the little kids were running around like hyperactive jack
rabbits. I told Mom where I was going – she'll come and get me when it's time
to go home. Do you have a doll?"
 
"Yes, at the cabin. But she's not nearly as nice as yours." Jeanette frowned a
little and glanced back over her shoulder. "She's just a corn husk doll. What's
a jack rabbit?"
 
Lizabeth Samuels had been raised more by her grandmother than her mother, in
part because her mother and dad worked so hard to provide her and her three
siblings. And because her grandmother had always emphasized the need for
Kindness ("with a capital K, Lizabeth") and care when talking with people who
might not have as much as Lizabeth herself did, she replied, "I'll bet she's
beautiful. Does she have dresses? A jackrabbit is a kind of rabbit. Mom said
they're bigger than bunnies."
 
"Oh! Yes – two. Mother helped me stitch one and she made one. My doll's name is
Jerusha."
 
"That's a really nice name – I've never heard it before…" Lizabeth thought for
a second and then exclaimed "I have an idea! Why don't you bring Jerusha here
and we can play visiting the country!"
 
"Or you could come to my house?"
 
"Mom will be looking for me here, so I have to stay. But it wouldn't take two
minutes to go and get Jerusha, right? I'll still be here when you get back. I
like looking at the cows."
 
"Oxen. They don't give milk like cows do. You're from the city, aren't you?
I'll be right back!"
 
The two ten year olds smiled at each other and Grace scampered back to fetch
the doll that her father had put together for her and her mother and she had
dressed. Disliking the dark, smoky interior of her home, especially when the
weather was clear and warm outside, Jeanette hurriedly climbed the back ladder
beside the hearth and crawled across Mercy's pallet to her own. Beside her
pillow lay Jerusha and under Jeanette's pillow was Jerusha's second best dress.
 
She scooped both doll and dress up and returned to the floor of the cabin in
two shakes of a lamb's tail.
 
"Little girl? You shouldn't be upstairs – it's not…"
 
"I just had to get Jerusha, momma. I'm going to play with Liz'Beth over there!"
 
Sara McAllister shot a glance at the little girl who had raced by her, doll in
one hand and an extra doll dress in the other and frowned. Over a thousand
girls of all ages had descended on Genesee Country for Laura Ingalls Wilder
days, the second most popular of the summer events. And the children popped up
everywhere, including places they shouldn't have been.
 
The loft in the Hetchler cabin was no exception; children seemed to be drawn to
the wooden ladder at the side of the stone hearth. Sarah had already pulled one
six year old and two eight year old twins off the ladder before they could fall
and hurt themselves on the stones of the hearth.
 
But the little girl who had run past her with her doll and who had called her
Momma – Sarah walked quickly to the front door of the cabin and stepped out on
the broad slab of limestone that served as a stoop. When a slow scan from one
side of the horizon to the other didn't result in her finding the strange
little person, Sarah almost convinced herself that what she'd seen had been a
day dream and that she had fallen asleep in the dark of the cabin.
 
Until, not five yards away from her, the little girl stepped out of thin air,
doll and dress firmly clasped in her hands, running toward a second little
girl, Lizabeth, no doubt, who waved and scooted over on the grass to give
Sarah's visitor a place to sit.
 
Sarah sank back against the door frame and squeezed her eyes shut. Opened them
again and there were the two girls playing with their dolls like little girls
have played with dolls since the beginning of there being little girls and
dolls. White as a sun bleached sheet, Sarah pushed herself to her feet and
retreated inside the cabin. For perhaps five minutes, she avoided looking at
the ladder leading to the loft, which, she knew, held only dust, several boxes
of stored period dishes and two pitchforks.
 
However, even though she didn't want to and resisted with every ounce of will
power in her, she knew she had to climb the ladder and take a look. Two steps
up, then three, and she peered reluctantly through the hole in the floor of the
loft.
 
A small freshly stuffed pallet with a battered pillow met her gaze immediately.
She could smell the new grass someone had used as the filler. And a few feet
away a child's dress hung from a nail in the loft's wall. "No no…this isn't
happening. I'm having a hallucination. Isn't happening. I had too much caffeine
this morning. It can't be happening –" the docent whispered to herself.
 
Feet clumsy on the ladder rungs, she backed down to the floor and tottered over
to the worn wooden bench that stood in front of the all-purposes table. "No.
That was a prop. Or someone slept up there last night. This isn't happening. It
can't be happening…" Her voice steadied and she repeated, quite firmly, "It
isn't happening. I'm just dehydrated. That's all it is. It's too warm in here
and I'm not awake."
 
Except that she was, and she knew it. A quick glance from the back step
confirmed that the two little girls were still playing. Setting her chin
firmly, Sarah marched back to the ladder and climbed it again. The smell of
grass still lingered, but the pallet, pillow and dress had disappeared. Sarah
should have felt relieved, but she didn't for a moment. Everything else that
had been upstairs, boxes, pitchforks and all, had also vanished without a
trace.
 
She didn't want to think, didn't want to do what she knew she should do next.
Call Edith. That's what she should do. Call Edith immediately. Calmly walk up
to the main offices and use a phone to call Edith Cartwell because Sarah knew
exactly what she'd seen. And Edith wouldn't question her word. Hopefully.
 
Talk to the little girl? Should she? Follow her for a while just to see if she
disappeared again? Talk to the other little girl? Sarah didn't know how to
begin to explain about a little girl appearing out of thin air. People would
think she was deranged. They might very well be right.
 
Finally, Sarah decided to walk past the little girls if they were still playing
together. Just to say a pleasant good day. Then she'd go to the offices and
call Edith.
 
However, another adult had already joined the youngsters, a woman in her late
thirties by the look of her. She laughed at something the girls said and knelt
down to hug them both. And then Sarah saw the difference. The little girl who'd
called her Momma was still dressed like a child of the 1800s frontier in New
York. But her doll had changed. Instead of the corn husk doll Sarah had
originally seen, the little girl carried a doll similar to but slightly smaller
than the doll that the other little girl had in her arms. And – Sarah squinted
a bit to see more clearly. The little girl wore sneakers.
 
Frozen in place, Sarah almost missed the cheery "Good afternoon!" someone
walking by called her way. Hurriedly, she recovered and smiled pleasantly back
to the speaker, a rotund man wearing brown pants, a red weskit and a bright
blue jacket. He cocked his head to one side and laughed a bit before he added,
"Call Edith. She'll need to know."
 
"What? What did you say?" Sarah asked the eastern bluebird that hopped down the
dirt road toward the blacksmith's.
 
For precisely sixty four seconds, Sarah McAllister stood stock still in the
middle of dusty Schoolhouse Road. She watched the bluebird take flight over the
roof of the smithy and then turned her attention back to the little girls and
the older person who must have been the brown haired little girl's mother.
They'd almost reached the front step of the Village Mercantile (circa 1830,
Rush, New York). For just a second, Sarah caught herself thinking what a nice
family unit they made, the two well behaved little girls and their mother. A
confused frown wrinkled her expression, and she corrected her thoughts
immediately. Something other than anger insinuated itself into her mind when
she understood that she'd misremembered what had really happened. Whatever she
felt was enough to lend speed to her step.
 
"Dammit! I am not going to be involved in this! I AM NOT!" Face a study in
irritation and annoyance, she turned on her heel and, back ramrod straight and
fists clenched at her sides, marched through the Trolley route entry to the
village and straight across the Great Meadow.
 
She took particular pleasure in slamming the Main Offices door shut behind her.
 
 
&*&*&*&*&*&
 
Sarah's diatribe still echoing in her ears, Edith Cartwell stared at the now-
silent phone and clicked it shut. For a very long time, the former Records
Keeper of Genesee Country Village stared blindly ahead. As Sarah had promised,
she forwarded a concise summary of that afternoon's incident via e-mail and
appended a large document covering events that Edith had had no knowledge of.
They had occurred during the five years Sarah had been Record Keeper; and Sarah
rarely shared information with anyone.
 
An hour later, after reading what Sarah had sent her, then reading everything
again, Edith took a walk. Her crocheted brown-black shawl over her shoulders
and her sturdiest shoes on her feet, she stepped a half right and headed for
her favorite thinking spot in the Un.
 
It wasn't there.
 
Startled, Edith stared around herself, wondering when the place shift had
happened. Such things weren't all that unusual in the Un – the terrain had a
tendency to shift if there was nothing to expect it to stay. However, she had
visited that particular small glade in a forest of blue leaved trees with
chestnut colored bark hundreds of times over her life. When she listened out
and down, looking for some memory of "her" place, no echo or voice came back to
her. Her startlement rapidly changed to concern – not for herself because she'd
been deeply lost more than a half step to the right any number of times and had
been able to find herself home safely – but for anyone less experienced being
caught in an unexpected change.
Even more worried than she had been, Edith established precisely where and when
she was and stepped right.
 
Into her own front hall. In her little house. In Mumford, New York. In mid-
autumn.
 
"Damn!" she snapped. The time flux in itself didn't bother her. Things like
that happened in the Un, although she usually avoided the occurrences by
travelling around them. But this particular shift had sneaked up on her
unaware, which wasn't at all like either a shift or her.
 
Within five minutes, Edith had started a pot of coffee, pulled one of her horde
of frozen TV dinners from her freezer and set the thermostat at 70 degrees.
While the house and her dinner warmed, she strode to her small study and sat
down at the desk. From the lower left of three file drawers, two to her left
and one to her right, she retrieved a slender book the size of a photo album.
The smell of coffee and mashed potatoes and chicken told her that her dinner
had cooked itself. Album under her arm, she returned to the kitchen and
retrieved the TV dinner from her microwave. Coffee came next. A quick glance at
the fridge told her that someone, probably Sarah, had cleaned out the
perishables so there was no milk for her coffee.
 
"I don't need it anyway," she muttered to the air. TV dinner plunked onto a
dessert plate, coffee in a crazily lopsided ceramic mug, she walked to the
postage stamp deluding itself into thinking it was a table and sat down.
 
Eating was a necessity: she'd only been gone a few hours the way the Un was
capable of measuring time, but she'd done a great deal of walking and thinking
and needed to refuel.
 
The whole time she ate her dinner, she stared at the deep purple roan leather
covered book. She wasn't curious about it; she'd studied the information that
filled its pages almost to overflowing. However, the material Sarah had sent
her plus the story on those pages complemented each other, in a manner of
speaking. The precise events weren't the same. But they didn't need to be.
Still pondering the matter, she set aside her plate and pulled the album
closer.
 
"All right. Page thirty-seven for me, if you please."
Obediently, the book flipped its pages to number thirty-seven.
 
"The year of our Lord and Lady, 1715. I, Stevin Sharpe doe record this.
"Twelve have gone missing; none have returned save one. Charitie Dinwiddie will
say noe word of where she went or what she did whilst she was away. Butte her
demeanor is fearful onde she severally speaks of "them". Who they be, I doe
nott know. Charitie Smythe cannot or will not say.
 
"I have this nyte spoken to her yet again and did plead for her to relate to me
what happened to her and whether she knew tidings of the other eleven who have
gonne missing. She did stare at me as if she had not heard me before she slowly
shook her head. Thenne did she sitte silent in a chair while I asked questions
of her. She seemed moste able to respond to questions, so I pursued that
tactic.
 
"She has notte seen ten of the othere eleven persons who disappeared. The
eleventh she told me is in a grave marked by a large oak tree. In fact, the
body, wondrously preserved, hadde been laid to reste in a rude grave nigh on
the Majester Oak on the propertie of William Brewster. It was discovered by Mr.
Brewster's eldest daughter this morning as she brought the noon meal to her
father; he is clearing the lande surrounding the tree but had notte been
directed thence by his labors today. I know notte the reason that the body did
not disintegrate. Nor do I ken the reason the eleventh person did die; but I am
notte a physician. Perhaps Amity Torrence had been in ill health before she was
taken.
 
Charitie Smythe did deny stoutly that she had done any wrong or caused the
woman's death in any way. Soe grayte was her distress that I am even more firm
in my belief thatt she had naught to do with the strange occurrences of this
fortnight.
 
"I add these knowledges to the details about each person who has gone missin
gfor the benefit of alle who myte read my words in future.
 
"The twelve that were taken or who did wander away from their homes made noe
sounde, nor was there any signe of struggle. The tally is six women and six
men, although two of the men were, in fact, youths just barely onne the edge of
adulthood, and one of the men had entered his dotage. The women were of like
ages – all within their twentieth and their thirtieth birthdays.
 
"They were taken at night, and in the morning and after the midday meal: there
is no agreement between age and time or gender and time.
 
The families from which the twelve were most cruelly separated hope against
hope that their loved ones will be returned to them safe and sound.
It is my great feere that more bodies will be discovered.
"Who did take these individuals? Onde why?"
 
Then two days later, another entry.
 
"My graytest dread has been realized. Four more bodies have beene discovered.
One lay on the open ground just to the South of Mumford Clearinge. Japeth
Brown's face was beaten until grayte bruises purpled his every feature. The
othere three had beene buried in shallowe graves. Yette there existed on their
countenances notte a sign of pain or feere.
 
"There is no reason for disappearances and these several deaths. Itt is
possible that an mad man is loose among the settlers of this area, but I have
beene unable toe discover him.
 
"I am recording thys in hopes that an answer to this puzzel may at some time be
discerned."
 
Finally, Edith read the last page of the album. In a smooth, flowing hand,
Stevin Sharpe added a final paragraph. "I am returning toe my home upon the
Rapidan River tomorrow. This collection of informacion I entrust to Lucius
Porter, who will protect it. He has given his word and I have no reason to
doubt him.
 
"Toe any who do reade these pages in future, be assured that I have written
what has happened as clearly as possible. I doe not have an explanacion for the
events of the past six weeks. Nor do I know who or what first lured away and
then either maimed or killed all of those taken butte one.
 
I doe hope that someone, some time will be able to resolve this mystery. I
remain, your servant, Stevin Sharpe."
 
Edith didn't hesitate any longer. She opened her cell phone and pushed "2" on
speed dial.
***** <b>Chapter 5 Dark and Stormy Night!</b>or not *****

Author's notes: There are some very small changes here, but they have
repercussions farther along. Same with the small additions in the previous
chapter
===============================================================================
It was a dark and stormy night –
 
Hell, it wasn't a dark and stormy night. I just always wanted to write that
somewhere.
 
It was a dark night, and late October in Dakota can be stormy, but that night
wasn't. It was just a plain old night. Rumsfeld and Rum Jr.'d just chased off
two mule deer and a coyote, no hunters had called to ask me for bail money or
the name of a doctor or for me to come and get 'em so I could patch 'em up. I'd
decided to take a couple of hours off and watch some TV, so I grabbed a beer
and put the phones on Silent.
 
I had just got my boots off and myself situated on my couch when my cell phone
began to vibrate.
 
Not my personal cell phone. Mypersonalpersonal cell phone. Exactly eight people
know that number. Yeah, Sparks, you're one of the lucky few. Anyway, it rang
and there it was, that shiver – the premonition thing. Darn it all! I wasn't
too damn happy, let me tell you.
 
"Yeah?"
 
"Bobby, we may have a problem."
 
"Chris, we have ta work on your phone etiquette." Yeah, I do know words longer
than four letters.
 
"Later. Right now, we may –"
 
"I was listenin' the first time you said it." I couldn't help growling a
little. A perfectly good night of Nothing Happening was sliding down the drain
like mercury on a mission.
 
"I had a phone call from a friend today –" Christabel's voice stopped, and I
could tell she was thinkin'. Oh crap (that's me thinkin' about Chris pausing to
think - ever). "Her name is Edith Cartwell. She's a docent at Genesee Country
Village and Museum. For years, she was also the Records Keeper there." Edith
Cartwell could just as easily have been Mary Smith for all I knew. But Genesee
Country Village? I knew that name; my stomach started a slow knot heading
toward a world class double half hitch. "Edith, of course, keeps in contact
with the current Records Keeper, Sarah McAllister."
 
"That's nice for both of 'em –" I started to say.
 
"Bobby, let me talk. I don't want to be on too long." I sat up straight when
she said that. "Look, this the story. The short version."
 
"Things are happening that have Edith concerned. Sarah doesn't share Edith's
opinion about all of them, just to be clear. I listened to some of the events
that Edith described, and several of them – well, they're not something I would
expect to see, even in a place like you say Genesee Country Village is. Edith
sent me the written reports scanned from Sarah's record book and I'm forwarding
five of them to you. Take a look at them. I'll hold on."
 
In two minutes I had the laptop powered up and the files open. All five records
gave me the creeps, but the last couple kicked the creeps out the door and let
the dread step in. The knot in my stomach tightened and headed toward my
throat.
 
"This Sarah is certain about what happened? Especially this last one?"
 
"As sure as we ever can be about anything. The last report bothered her enough
to have her call Edith. Sarah saw what happened – and what didn't happen."
 
I scanned the report again and then did a double take. "Chris, did you look at
the date? For gods' sakes, this happened almost two months ago! Why the hell
didn't this Edith person get hold of you before now?"
 
Like I just said, Christabel Lux isn't uncertain. Which is why she ended up in
quicksand a few years ago –but that's another story. Point is, she doesn't
mince words. And she doesn't wait around when something's important. Which
meant that this Edith Cartwell had waited around.
 
"Bobby, Edith didn't sound like herself; she wasn't telling me everything; that
much I know. And, no, she's never ever been paranoid. She wouldn't say much
more other beyond asking me to come and check out the Village."
 
"And, of course, you jumped right up and said you would." Sometimes I can be
pretty damn sarcastic. Watch it, Norbie, or this coffee mug's headin' your way.
Airborne.
 
I figured that Chris would say what she'd said a dozen times over the years
I've known her: "Bobby, you're worrying about nothing. Those buildings are a
museum and that's all they are." Then we'd wrangle a little and she'd send me
out to find out what was happening.
 
"I know we don't see eye to eye on the village, but this time, I think you
might be right. We need to pay a visit. Yesterday." Right after I picked my
lower jaw up off the couch cushion, I grabbed for some of my famous wit. Mostly
I was trying to buy myself some time because she had caught me off guard.
 
"Chris, if I didn't know better, I'd think that you were worried."
 
"Me? No, I'm just trying to rile you. Of course I'm worried! And you should be,
too, you old goat!" Well that told me a lot. "Damnit, you said that on purpose.
Bobby, we can talk when we get there."
 
"Agreed. Do you want to make the trip –"
 
"By car, of course." I sighed because Dakota weather can be fickle at the end
of October. But I trusted Chris' judgment. If she wanted to stay 'here' bound,
that was enough for me, although I'd never admit that out loud.
 
"One other thing, Bobby. I do not sleep in my car, abandoned barns or
farmhouses. Is there someplace a real traveler can go to spend the night?" I
was already in the middle of a text to her from my personal cell phone, the one
that eleven people have the number to. Yeah, Sparks, you too. So sue me: you're
special. Like a poison oak rash.
 
"Just sent you the address. Reservation's 'll be in my name. See you in two
days."
 
"Thanks, Bobby."
 
"Don't thank me yet. I ain't done anything."
 
Once she'd cut the connection, I reread the info Christabel had sent. Three
times. And it looked worse and worse every time. There was one hell of a lot of
research I needed to review, and a couple of calls to make. I needed to make
reservations, but not until I'd called Rufus to cover the phones while I was
off checkin' out the village, and then talked to John.
 
Winchester.
 
I just hoped to hell he was somewhere where he could pick up his damn phone.
***** <b>Chapter 6 Part A Does a Flat Screen need an Antimacassar?</b> *****

Author's notes: The jury's out on the Antimacassar and the Flat Screen - but
this chapter needed to be cut into A and B parts so I kept my sanity. Rolla,
Missouri is a beautiful little college town in our Universe. Just wanted to let
you know that.
===============================================================================
John closed his cell phone and stuffed it back into the inside pocket of his
heavy black leather jacket. He didn't really blame Dean for being pissed: but
even passing through Joplin had made him uneasy for some reason. So he'd kept
on heading east until the uneasiness faded. "Probably didn't feel tired enough
to stop," he muttered to himself. "It wasn't safe," his subconscious corrected
sharply.
 
Dean hadn't been understanding. "Dad, what the hell? Why Rolla?"
 
"Why not Rolla? Dean, we can talk about this when you get here."
 
"Sam's hurt, Dad. He needs more rest –"
 
"I do not!" John smiled when he heard Sam's voice in the background. "Don't
listen to him, Dad!"
 
"Sam, cut it out!"
 
"We'll be there, Dad!"
 
A delay followed Sam's last words.
 
("Dean, if we don't show up on time, he's going to come and find us! You said
it yourself! He's going through one of those 'things'!"
("Sam, did that gigantic brain of yours suddenly catch on fire? I'd like to
spend another night without him snoring in the next bed! "
("I'd like to spend a lot more nights than that without him snoring…so the
sooner we get to him and do whatever we're supposed to be doing, the sooner we
can hunt by ourselves again! Dean, get back on the freakin' phone!"
Glaring at Sam, who smiled smugly, Dean uncovered the phone and growled,
"We'll-")
 
"-l be there. Whereis there?"
 
"A Little Mom and Pop just to the east of Rolla."
 
"Uh huh – what's the name of the motel, dad?"
 
"I just told you. A Little Mom and Pop."
 
John heard Dean's sigh and smiled to himself, knowing exactly what his son was
thinking. "See you in a couple of hours."
 
"You know he just assumes we're all going to be in the same room, right?"
 
"Dean, we have almost all of that five grand in the trunk. We can afford a room
of our own. And we'll just tell Dad we decided to give him more space of his
own." Sam grinned and cocked his head to one side, waiting for Dean's reaction.
 
"Uh huh – and that's going to work-" Dean groused, still angry at the prospect
of driving a couple more hours when Sam was already worn out. "C'mon. Let's get
out and stretch before we hit the road again."
 
Sam, however, had other ideas. He shook his head and smiled at Dean, who rolled
his eyes and did his best impression of looking put upon. "Now what?"
 
"I think we should relax in the car. Maybe in the back seat…" Sam waggled his
eyebrows and looked hopeful.
 
"Oh, you do, do you?" Dean unbuckled his seat belt as he spoke.
 
"Yup. Nobody's around. This rest stop's the perfect place to – uh – rest."
Without a word, Dean opened the car door and stepped outside into the chilly
air. Reaching straight up, he stretched lazily and took a deep breath before he
glanced over at Sam. "Well?"
 
"Well what? OH! Duh!" Sam snorted at his own log headedness. He also forgot for
a moment –again- that his shoulder had been injured and tried to open the car
door. "OW!!!"
 
"Sammy! For the love of Pete-"
 
"Who's Pete?" Sam grunted around the ache that throbbed in his shoulder and
down his arm. "Somebody I don't know about?" He shot a look at Dean – who
wasn't where he had been. "De-"
 
"Right here. Okay, old man, let me help you, willya?"
Without waiting for an answer, Dean helped Sam out of the car. His lips soothed
across Sam's and he whispered, "Baby, you have to take the lead. I don't want
to hurt you."
 
"Back seat. Now!" Ever since he'd spent three minutes at the motel in Tulsa
preparing himself for Dean, Sam had been half hard. Then really hard. Then half
hard. And then, after they'd pulled into the rest stop to call their dad,
leaking. He'd had enough waiting.
 
"Just the lead I thought you'd – humph!" Dean ducked to avoid the roof of the
car when Sam hauled him inside, more than strong enough to do the job with one
arm, especially because Dean was cooperating.
 
Getting their jeans and boxers out of the way inside the car had always
involved contortions, but trying to do that with Sam injured and Dean being
hyper cautious about hurting him even more involved contortions and hysterical
laughter on both their parts. However, finally, Sam was settled across the
seat, one leg still partially in his jeans, the other leg propped against the
back of the seat. Dean knelt with one leg on the floor and the other between
Sam's. "Well, sexy, it's a good thing I love you is all I have to say," Dean
rumbled. "My knee's gonna have Impala-burn…and my…" Sam's fingers tightened a
bit around Dean's cock. "Oh! Okay…but, still, only for you…"
 
Their laughter quieted when Dean leaned over Sam and kissed him, gently. "Sammy
–" Sam managed to grasp Dean's left hand so he could guide his older brother's
fingers on an exploration of Sam's torso…swift slide across his pecs and down
the valley of his breastbone, slower movement down his abs and a detour around
his belly button. A slight hesitation and then -
"Sammy? What the…did you shave? Dean's voice went husky immediately. Eyes wide,
he snapped a look at Sam's groin. "Oh, damn, baby!" Heat flashed through him at
the sight and he kissed Sam, light, little caresses to Sam's brow and chin and
the side of his neck.
 
"You like it when I do." Sam whispered around Dean's kisses.
 
"But when did you – I"
 
"Dean, how long do you really think it takes for me to pee?" Sam chided gently.
"Now just …yeah…just…"
 
Almost as if he'd been hypnotized, Dean drew closer and closer to the bare skin
around Sam's rigid cock. "Sammy – so beautiful –" he murmured just as he kissed
the soft white triangle that outlined Sam's sex. A kiss to each hollow next to
the jut of Sam's hipbones, and a tentative lick of his tongue to the spots he'd
just kissed. Sam whimpered and clenched his abs, loving the light touches to
his sensitive skin.
 
Dean lost track for a bit, imagining Sam shaving himself hurriedly just to
surprise his older brother, then watching as Sam looked in the mirror to make
certain that every hair had been removed. Cock already hard and full, Dean
started to rut against – Sam's fingers holding him. Sammy stroking him and
bringing him closer to orgasm. He'd been so intent on the taste and feel of
Sam's skin and the throb of his little brother's cock when he leaned his cheek
against it that Sam's ministrations had dropped into the background. Until his
body began to coil around the energy ready to break loose.
 
" De…." Sam whispered, erratic panting taking all the breath from him. He
squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered when Dean took the tip of his cock in his
mouth and suckled. The touch of Dean's tongue to his slit wrenched a pleasure-
drenched moan from Sam's entire being. Under his finger tips, he felt Dean's
cock stiffen even more and whispered, "Come for me, Dean. Please…" because his
own orgasm had powered up into the warm, willing mouth of his brother. Dean
swallowed Sam completely and came himself when Sam's seed coated the back of
his throat. He waited, mouthing Sam's cock gently not putting any pressure on
it, until he felt himself soften.
 
Dean released Sam very carefully and squinted at his him. "Sammy, you all
right?" A vague "Ummmm" was Sam's only response. "I think that means yes."
 
Sated, Sam pulled Dean up and over him like a blanket and nestled against
Dean's neck. He kept an arm around his brother's shoulders and mumbled
something vague and untranslatable as he swan-dived into sleep. Dean knew it
was Sam-speak for "Rest now." He smiled and followed orders.
 
Another ninety minutes passed before the Impala rolled out of the rest area.
 
 
John turned back to his laptop and reading the mountainous printout of the data
that Bobby had sent him. And, just as it had when he'd first dug into the pile,
his temper slipped a notch when he realized how little about the Village and
Museum Bobby had shared over the years.
 
"What the hell was going through your head, you stubborn bastard?" John
muttered for the fifteenth time since he'd started reading the previous day.
 
Although he professed scant patience for being described as a natural born
anything, John Winchester had to admit, grudgingly, that he did read Patterns
fairly well.
 
(Me again: That idjit is a natural born Patterner, no matter what he says.")
 
Other hunters were decent at finding short term patterns of behavior, from
simple things like linking kill dates to the cycles of the moon and then
searching for the Were that was doing the killing. And some could tie events
over a longer period of time: the terror dreams of Sun Drakes and their
relation to sunspot cycles was a case that one of John's friends, Garth, had
solved because he knew of the Drakes and their reliance on the sun. John
Winchester could connect events linked over centuries once he had just even
minimal research available on a possible hunt.
 
What he read as he skimmed through both Sarah McAllister's and earlier journals
left him both concerned and even more pissed off.
 
He'd called Bobby just one time, with only one question. "Were you ever going
to tell anyone about this place, Bobby?" The fact that he shouted the words
loudly enough to deafen anyone for twenty miles up and down the interstate
might have been the reason Bobby waited a moment to reply.
 
"John, you know the drill. This information is need-to-know, and, until right
now, you didn't need to know. Period. Now, read. I'll send you more before we
meet up."
 
"Need to know? Need to know! Of all the bullshit –"
 
"Johnny, get back to readin'." And Bobby had hung up, just like that.
 
Only after an hour of data wading mixed with expletive spitting did John settle
down enough to actually look at things more calmly. Gods knew, he'd used the
"need to know" reason enough times on his sons as well as with the occasional
other hunter he worked with. His face scrunched when he realized just how much
like a green beginner he'd sounded on the phone. "Well, that's just plain
embarrassing," he grumbled to the air.
 
Sounded – that was it. Bobby hadn't sounded like himself from the first phone
call. Most of the time, John could pick up on Bobby's mood without any trouble.
There'd be something in his voice or in the words he used. Abruptly, John
realized that, until the phone call the day before, he'd never heard Bobby
Singer at his most serious. The grizzled older hunter only let it slip through
for a minute, but he'd lost his drawl and misuse of the English language and
let the brilliant, perceptive man he actually was show himself. It was one
thing to know that Bobby could speak five languages fluently and that he had
four degrees that he never mentioned. It was another thing to hear the
intellect behind those achievements. John's eyebrows arched and he shook his
head, knowing better than to speculate about any other Hunter's background. If
Bobby wanted him to know anything, he'd tell him. Until then? Read, Winchester.
For another two hours, he read and took notes.
 
 
The unmistakable sound of the Impala rumbling to a stop, probably at the Office
door, snapped John out of his studies. Two minutes later, the sound of rapid
footsteps followed by hammering on his door brought John to his feet Gun in
hand, he strode across the room and opened the door a crack, took one look and
opened the door wide enough to let his two sons into the room. Dean looked
ready to chew hot nails he was so mad; Sam just looked worn out. And smelled
like Ben-Gay. Trying to head off his older son's explosion, John took the
offense. "Sam? What the- I thought you said he had a bruise! Dean, I told you
he wasn't ready for a job! He –"
 
"Dad, his shoulder got dislocated. That spirit threw him against the Dellege
house. Those things happen, and you know it. Sam's been training right along,
and we upped everything the day after he got his Associates." Dean replied.
"Dad, don't you think we're a little old to be sleeping in the same room as
you?"
 
"There's a biker – "
 
"convention in Rolla and the motel is full up. Yeah, yeah, so they told me. And
you got the last room, right? Dad, we're not kids. We've been hunting for oh,
maybe two or three minutes, anyway! I'm half tempted to…oh hell, never the
freak mind…Sammy? You take first shower, dude. That Ben-Gay stinks."
 
"Yeah – okay," Sam scuffed his good palm across John's shoulder and offered him
a half smile; even after his post-orgasmic nap, he was tired and achy. And
really in no mood, to share a motel room with their father. His father who was
shaking like a leaf for some reason. "Dad?" he started to ask.
 
He could see tears in the corners of John's eyes when his dad turned to look at
him. "You okay?"
 
"Huh? Sure. Just been reading stuff Bobby sent. My eyes're tired." John cleared
his throat, shook off the strange sadness that had gripped him, and stepped
back into hunter mode again. "Dean, can the crap. This isn't a vacation.
Bobby's latched on to something serious…now what, Sammy?"
 
"Uh, dad…have you looked at this room? Really looked at it?" Sam looked and
sounded aghast.
 
"It's a room. We're here…what?"John had inspected the room like any decent
hunter would. So if the curtains were drapes and went to the floor? They'd
block out more light that way. And salt lines were less apt to be disturbed.
The ruffles on the bedspreads – which matched the cabbage rose pattern on the
drapes – weren't that bad. They'd be sleeping and it'd be dark, so who cared?
Admittedly, the doily on top of the flat screen bolted to the antiqued dresser
was a bit much.
 
Sam knew when to pick his battles so, duffle in hand, he limped off to the
bathroom, and shut the door. "Tulips? Dad – come ON! Wasn't there someplace
else you could have picked to stay?"
 
John restrained his laughter, well, he choked on his laughter, which was almost
the same. "Just get your shower, Sam," he called back and thanked his lucky
stars that he'd hidden the tulip shaped guests soaps, mostly because they'd
creeped him out. "Daaaad!" Damn, he'd left the hand-embroidered washcloths in
the piles of linens.
 
"Shower, Sam!" he called back. The thump of Sam's duffle hitting the bathroom
door was the only response he got. John glared at the door and snapped
something under his breath.
 
Sensing a pissing session in the making, Dean decided to head it off at the
pass. Innocently, he asked, "Dad, did you ever have to burn remains twice to
get rid of a spirit?" Yahtzee – one father distracted.
 
"Nope. But I do things right the first time."
 
Dean shot his father cold glare. "We did do things right, Dad. That spirit
wasn't going anywhere until we burned everything. Including our shovels. And
even then I wasn't sure until I heard the son of a bitch scream."
 
John nodded, and pulled his journal from under the sheaf of papers he'd printed
out before he'd left Lawrence to meet up with his sons. "Twice? Wait, there's
something in that-"
 
"What the " Startled, Dean stared at the pile of paper John busily looked
through as he searched for something he'd read the previous evening."You know
you can enlarge the size of the print on the screen so you don't need to
endanger a forest getting everything on paper, right? Dad? Earth to Dad-"
 
Oblivious to Dean's comments, John kept looking until he spotted the notation
in question. At the same instant, a crash from the bathroom followed by a
growled "Dammit all!" and a "Dean? I need help!" shunted Dean's attention from
his father to his brother's possible injury. Other than the possibility that
he'd suffer severe paper cuts, John wasn't in any imminent danger. Sam,
however, was a different matter. Five seconds after Sam shouted, Dean careened
into the bathroom.
 
"What? Are you all right?" Dean shut the bathroom door and scanned Sam from
hair to toenails, pausing a bit longer than strictly necessary over some parts
of his brother's body. "Did you fall?"
 
"No. I was doing ballet and my partner jumped out the window." Disgruntled, Sam
turned to face Dean straight on. A lovely purple bruise had already started to
form on his right cheek. "'m I bleeding?"
 
"No. But you're going to have one hell of a shiner. Ballet, huh?"
 
"Kinda." Sam uncovered his soft cock and frowned. "We were just thinking about
having some fun." Sadly, he stroked little Sam and stuck out his lower lip.
"He's in shock."
 
"I'll give you someone in shock. Sam, you could have hurt yourself – bad. How's
your arm?" Sam shrugged – and winced hard. "Did you try to fall on it?" Dean
moved Sam's arm a little just to see how bad the damage was. " You're in the
sling for another couple of days there, Sparky."
 
"Maybe you could check me out and make sure I didn't hurt any important parts?"
Sam caught the nearest of Dean's hands and pressed it to his smooth, shaven
skin. Dean did his best to swallow the groan the feeling that warm softness and
Sam's stiffening cock brought on.
 
"Dad's in the other room, you idjit! Sammy was there something in your
breakfast this morning? Or are you aiming for a record? The most orgasms in a
day or something?"
 
"Dean…" Sam whispered into his brother's ear. "He's going to be a mother t-rex.
I can feel it. I'm getting all I can while I can. I wasn't made to be
celibate." He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Dean's shoulder.
 
"Dean? Is Sam okay?" John's voice sounded distant: he was buried in research,
then. But he hadn't let a little conundrum distract him completely.
 
"He's got a black eye starting, and his arm's gonna be in a sling an extra day,
Dad, but he'll be all right. Won't you, Sam?" Dean arched an eyebrow and stared
at Sam.
 
"Yup. All right. "Sighing as he did so, Sam gave up pursuing a hand job and
clambered into clean clothes."Dean, I need to sleep."
 
"And eat."
 
"That too. And also have supper."
 
"Oh gods, kill me now! Go on – toss my duffle over against the door, will ya?"
 
"Yeah. Sure – make the injured person haul heavy stuff around…"
 
Dean leaned up and kissed Sam into silence. "Later you and I're gonna talk
about all this injured guy stuff. Got it?"
 
"Yessir." Sam murmured, the tone of his voice set just a degree below scalding.
"Injured guy stuff. Talk. We."
 
"Dean, Sam – we need to get some chow and talk about what Bobby called us for.
Ten minutes, Dean!"
 
"Twenty, Dad." Dean countered firmly. One last kiss and he sent Sam out of the
bathroom. Then, brave as any Hunter on the planet, he grabbed one of the
washcloths –more freakin' tulips?– and headed into the shower.
 
John had only made a token protest. The business in Tulsa and some older
records from Genesee Country Village had caught his attention; even when Sam
limped over to the table where John was set up, he barely glanced at his son.
While Dean showered, he asked Sam to write down everything he could remember
about the Dellege hunt. "Good thing you dislocated your other arm, Sam. Or
Dean'd have to write it. And you'd have to translate it for me." He glanced up
at Sam and smirked just a little. "Nice shiner!"
 
"Thanks, Dad. Glad I'm being comedy relief here."
 
John handed Sam the one of the pages he'd printed from the mountain of data
Bobby had e-mailed him. "Does this look famil…" Suddenly he went white and
stopped in mid-breath.
 
"Dad? Dad? Are you all right? Talk to me, dad!" Sam grabbed across the small
motel room table and caught John's left hand. "Dad? C'mon man, tell me what's
wrong?"
 
John couldn't breathe for a second. Some years before, he'd been nearly killed
by a rogue dreamwalker he'd been hunting. The injury hadn't healed well, and
every once in a while, the nerves near the long scar spasmed. Every time, the
pain stopped him where he was. "I'm all – right. Stupid scar…"
 
"Okay. Your chest?" John nodded. "Dean?" Sam shouted and heard Dean turn off
the shower. Wrapped only in a towel, sopping wet, he headed across the room,
and knelt between Sam and John.
 
"Dad?" Dean peered anxiously into his father's grey face.
 
"Dad, Bobby knows a neurologist. No more arguing. You're going as soon as this
hunt's done." Sam growled the words, tired of watching helplessly when his
father's injury reached out and reminded John what the dreamwalker had done to
him.
 
John just shook his head and straightened up as the spasm released. "No way.
Nothing they can do. Nerves…on the intercostals…They hurt like …bitch but it
doesn't last long…" He glared at both his sons and then changed the subject.
"Take a look at what Sam's reading, Dean. Does any of it look familiar?"
 
"Dad, I'm finishing my shower. Sam can do that comparison stuff. I'll be right
back out." Dean let his towel fall open a little as he walked away, knowing
that Sam needed something to make him smile. Sure enough, he heard his brother
sigh and knew he had a goofy look on his face, at least if John wasn't looking
up. He grabbed the towel and wiped the corner over his ass cheeks and left Sam
- diverted.
 
"Well, Sam? Does any of this look like the Dellege job?"
 
"Crap! Did this happen in Tulsa, too?"
 
"Nope. It happened twenty-three years ago in Mumford, New York near the Genesee
Country Village. Here's the worst of what's happened there over the past ten
years. Bobby's already on his way, if he's not there yet."
 
"He's going on a hunt alone?"
 
"Right now he's calling it a Field Trip. Said an old friend of his thinks it
needs looking into. And he needs us to back him up."
 
Sam thought for a second, then nodded. "If what he's going into is anything
like what we just got out of, he's right. Chow then sleep. We need to make
tracks tomorrow." Sam glanced at the computer's calendar and said, "It's
Hallowe'en this weekend."
 
"That I know." As if any of them or any hunter would forget. Halloween and the
days immediately after it were times when Hunters with families kept close to
home and those without hunted cautiously, if at all. The boundaries between the
living and the dead, between myth and old wives' tales became blurry and
strange things were likely to walk abroad. Those were the nights when rumors of
Things hunters might not have weapons to destroy arose.
 
Dean joined them two minutes later. "Food. Now."
 
"There's a diner down the road. We'll talk while we eat and then we're all
sleeping. I want to be on the road at 0400 latest. We have to get past the St.
Louis death trap…I mean beltway before the worst of the rush hour hits."
 
"You planning on taking highways all the way in?" Curious, Dean glanced at John
and saw open worry in his father's deep brown eyes.
 
"I want to make good time. That old goat'll go charging off into trouble by
himself if we don't get there fast enough to suit him. Sam, jacket."
 
"It's only – "
 
Dean held up Sam's jacket and waited."Oh for gods' sakes! I'm not three! The
car's…"
 
"We're walkin'. Jacket."
 
"I don't need – "
 
"Yeah, you do." Dean helped Sam get the jacket over his injured arm in its
sling, and turned to lead the way, only to find John already off the front step
and walking fast toward the little diner he'd spotted across the road and half
a mile down. Never one to miss a moment, Dean tugged Sam closer and kissed him
quickly. "C'mon baby. I can hear your stomach snarling from here."
 
"Holy – would you look at this parking lot? I wouldn't have thought bikers'd
stay at a place like this!"
 
"If you'd met Mom and Pop, you wouldn't be all that surprised." Dean grinned
and pulled the door shut behind him. "Dad! Wait the hell up!"
 
Without a word, his sons hot footed after him, arms brushing as they strode
side by side, fingers entwining when no one could see.
 
(Above and away from them on a ledge overlooking the small motel, a silent
figure watched the three Hunters as they made their way to the diner. Then,
after they returned some time later, the same person settled in for the night,
watching until they left in the early dark hours of the morning. Two minutes
later, the cough and whine of a motorcycle being eased down a steep slope was
followed by the steady rumbling of the motor.
 
The motorcycle and its rider headed west; within a few minutes, no hint
remained that anyone had spent the night camped on the overlook.
 
And far above the motorcyclist and the hunters, a massive raven, its wingspan
easily 60 inches, floated effortlessly. It had circled lazily for almost an
hour, first one bright eye and then the other focusing on the ground below.
Near full daylight, it glided almost to the ground before spiraling upward and
flying swiftly off to the north.)
***** <b>Chapter 6 Part B Too Many Pieces of Old</b> *****

Author's notes: This is the second half of the chapter .... John and the boys
finally meet up with Bobby and Christabel Lux.
===============================================================================
Me Again
I shoulda known something was wrong – more wrong than I already thought, that
is – when I got out of my truck at the Blanket, took a look around and saw
Christabel waiting for me in the entryway. But her being there wasn't what
caught my attention.
 
She wasn't wearin' a glamour. Just in case there are folks reading this who've
forgotten what a glamour is, it ain't an old time movie star wearing a sarong
and a hibiscus behind her ear. A glamour (and keep that 'u' where it is; that's
the way the word is spelled) is a projection, a spell with a single purpose: to
show people lookin' at you what you don't look like. There are all sorts of
reasons for usin' one. In Chris' case, it's anonymity.
 
In all the years I've known her, Christabel Lux has never left her land home to
travel among strangers without casting a glamour. Never. Yet there she stood,
plain as day. Five foot and maybe four inches, solid, not fat or skinny. She
has short brown hair, grey/purple/blue eyes, a gold hoop earring in her left
ear, dark eyebrows I woulda sworn she'd inherited from someone on Vulcan. Most
people would have figured she was some middle aged housewife on a weekend away
with the girls: all she needed was a strand of pearls to go with the grey pants
and the blue whachamacallit –, sweater thing. True, she was armed: I've been
hit upside the head by one of her purses, and the bright purplish one she
carried looked dangerous. But a housewife nonetheless.
 
I grabbed my duffle and locked the truck. Didn't hurry because, damnit, I
couldn't. Sittin' in that truck for most of two days just about tore my back
up. And my back hurtin' made the rest of me just a little short tempered.
 
"Bobby, get in here!"
 
What the- she sounded nervous. I haven't seen Christabel Lux nervous more than
five times in all the years I've known her. Before I could say anything, she
snapped, "Now!"
 
Okay, said I to myself. Whatever had made her jittery had done a good job. And
whatever it was had come out of the sky, if the way she kept glancing up was
any indication. I signaled her to wait a minute. "Bobby-"
"I'm comin'. But I'm getting something first. Now go back in."
 
She didn't. She waited by the damn door until I'd pulled the weaponry I thought
I'd need out of the real compartment under the fake real compartment in the bed
of my truck. Looked like I was carryin' another duffle bag, but it had more
than underwear in it.
 
Then I caught a glimpse of a small flicker of light hovering just over the palm
of her left hand and realized she'd called a little power to herself. Basically
enough to stop a charging rogue elephant, not enough to be noticeable. Thing
was, I couldn't feel anything off in the air or the earth around the Blanket.
I'd almost rather have had a werewolf chasing me; at least then Chris bein'
that edgy'd make sense.
 
I might have moved a little faster than a walk up to the Inn's front door. But
not faster enough so Chris'd think I was doing what she told me. She waited
until I'd passed her before she walked inside.
 
"Chris," I started. "You'd better tell me what the –"
She just stared, like I had suddenly figured out how to read minds and was
sending me a message via brain and eyeball. I counted to twenty four before I
opened my mouth to try again. She shook her head, just once and glanced over my
shoulder, tilted her head in the same direction. Before I could say a word, she
narrowed her eyes and glared. I shut up.
 
"…don't understand. I made reservations at the bed and breakfast in town! And I
put the freakin' reservation number into my phone! What the hell happened to
it?"
"Will, it's just a mix-up. That's all. We can stay here – I've had enough for
today. 'Ten percent possibility of snow' my ass… Aaaah-" The second guy's
sneeze should have exploded his ear drums. "C'mon. They have two rooms. I need
sleep!" If the sneeze hadn't destroyed the guy's hearing, the coughing could
have. Still talking, the two voices and their owners walked past us, and
stopped at the front desk so I actually got a chance to look at 'em. Nothing
special or unusual there. Just a couple of men who'd been drivin' all day, in
snow they weren't expecting, from the sound of …
And I stopped right there. Chris is good – she saw my expression change and
figured out why. "Bobby – how was the drive?"
 
Okay – from here, I'm going back into third person. I know I'm a stellar
example of wit and charm and all. But I need some space to think, and that's
what bein' in third person gives me. Norb, just ONEword to go with that smirk
and you're gonna need a whole new set of smirking tools.
 
 
"Bobby, how was the drive?"
 
"Which part? The part through the blizzard that literally fell out of a clear
blue sky? Or the part where the snow turned to rain and then to ice ten seconds
before I was driving through a pretty fall evening that hadn't seen anything
more than cold air? Let me check in. I'll be right back."
 
Bobby hadn't sounded surprised about the weather that hit him during his drive
from Dakota: but Bobby wasn't one for showing his emotions to all and sundry.
She watched, a faint smile twitching her lips, as he signed in and took his
room card, dropped it accidentally and retrieved it after bumping into the
shorter of the two travelers. The split second glance he had at their faces
evidently told him something, because he frowned thoughtfully as he strode back
to her.
 
"How was your drive in, Chris? Oh crap, are you goin' by Chris this time?"
 
"Chris Power at your service."
 
"Bobby Singer at yours. Where's your glamour?"
 
"None of your business?"
 
He just looked at her, waiting. Grumbling, she spelled the glamour about
herself and snapped, "Well?"
 
"Not bad. But like I said the last time you were Mrs. Miniver, you need a
better dye job. Greer Garson'd be embarrassed."
 
"I am not going to ask how you know that."
 
"Just sayin'…" he replied innocently, before one very, very quiet snicker
escaped him.
 
Christabel's glamour was one of her favorites; she had used it so often it fit
her and moved with her like a second skin. No one not specifically looking for
her would have questioned it. She could have been any suburban housewife,
conservatively dressed in grey slacks and a two piece blue sweater set, her
pale blue eyed gaze guileless and warm.
 
However, to Bobby, she looked about as much like Christabel normally looked as
a water buffalo does a dragonfly. Christabel's face had a little more of the
topography of experience (she had explained to Bobby that crow's feet and age
lines were misnomers, something he remembered because he valued the undamaged
shape of his head; and Chris could do one mean overhead purse strike.). And,
although clear, the glamour's stare lacked the laser sharp intensity that was
one of Chris' most important attributes.
 
"Before you tell me what had your knickers in a knot when I pulled up, I'm
checkin' out my room and cleaning up. How's your room?"
 
"Fine – second floor two down from the stairwell. Not that I'm going to be
needing a stairwell, but –"
 
I meant does your room check out all right?"
 
"Yes."
 
"Chris –"
 
As far as Bobby was concerned, field trip or not, the rules for a hunt applied,
and checking out a room was a basic.
 
"It does. Bed, bureau and bathroom all present and accounted for. Bobby, no one
knows we're here. And it wouldn't matter if someone did know." Part of Chris'
mind knew that Bobby was running in automatic Hunt mode, but the rest of it
viewed some of the things Hunters did as a little over the top – of Mt. Shasta.
(Altitude 14,179 feet).
 
"You're the one who called me and said we needed to take a Field Trip. No
comments about common sense security, Chris."
 
"Sir, yes sir!"
 
"A blasted Comedienne. Just what I need." Bobby muttered. Silently, he led the
way to his first floor, front room. "Wait here." Chris occupied the next few
minutes by improving the color of the glamour's hair a few strands at a time.
"Hmm…I wonder if stripes'd be nice…" and she laughed to herself. "This'll teach
you, you old coot!"
 
"C'mon…oh for the love of Pete – stripes?!" Bobby waved her in and stomped into
the bathroom for exactly twelve minutes. When he walked back into the bedroom,
he was clean, dry and dressed.
 
"Bobby, you clean up pretty well for an old goat!"
 
"Idjit." He glanced around the room one more time, then retrieved his journal
and some pages of printout from his duffle, before stuffing it into the top
drawer of the bureau. "You're buying."
 
"I wouldn't have it any other way. Where did your other duffle go?"
 
In answer, Bobby opened the bottom drawer of the bureau and pulled the back of
the drawer forward. "I've stayed here before. Don't ever leave anything here
between times, but this is a good enough stash for a couple of days." His
second duffle rested between the back of the drawer and the back of the bureau,
completely hidden.
"Not bad at all," she admitted grudgingly. Bobby grinned and ushered Chris out
the door. By the time they'd been seated at a table in the dining room, they
were deep in conversation.
 
"How was your drive down? And I'm not going to ask again. Something's got you
wound up, and it ain't the cost of the food. Talk to me."
 
"Pretty much the same as yours – not really all that surprising for this time
of year, I know. But the snow came out of nowhere. It wasn't predicted and it
left the same way it showed up. Just like the rain turning to ice and then just
…stopping all of a sudden when you were traveling. And those two men – what
were you looking for when you 'accidentally' bumped into the short one?"
 
Bobby smiled, but his eyes remained serious. "Just wanted to be sure they were
alive and three dimensional"
 
"What?" Chris shot a glare Bobby's way. "What the blazes are you talking
about?"
 
"This is a strange neck of the woods, Chris. I wanted to make sure we're not
dealin' with folk who just haven't figured they're dead's all." He didn't add
what they both were thinking: especially so close to Samhein.
 
"I wish you didn't look so disappointed that they're still breathing." Chris'
smile faded and she spent a few seconds poking at her tilapia al forno. "Edith
Cartwell wasn't telling me everything when we talked."
 
"You think?" Bobby snorted.
 
"Bobby, you don't know her. I have for decades. She should have been in contact
with me the same day she finally got the information out of Sarah McAllister.
Something else happened, and I think I might know what it was." For a minute,
Chris trained her thoughts inward. Bobby could almost hear the argument she was
having with herself. When she looked back up at him, her expression was bleak.
 
"I think she got lost in the Un. I don't want to –"
 
"What? That's what the big revelation is? Everyone knows the Un is treacherous.
People should know the dangers before they go wandering –"
 
"Can it, Bobby." Chris' curtness sliced Bobby's sarcasm off at the ankles.
"Edith is one of the original Mappers of the part of the Un- to the half and
full steps right and left of Now. Some of the paths that we've used the most
were worn into its fabric by her. She was the first being I know of who
described what signs to look for in order to avoid a random shift in time or
location – or both. She is also the being who identified places that are
relatively unchanging and described how others could help maintain them. She's
purposely become lost so she can find her way home so others…"
 
"Okay, okay – I get it. She's one of the Explorers. So why would you think she
got lost? I mean really lost?"
 
"I don't think she was."
 
"Hold on – you just said you thought she was lost."
Chris nodded her head. "I think she was lost for two months or more in our time
stream. In hers, I'm willing to bet that she was away no more than half a day.
The Un eddied time and she was in it while it happened."
 
"And people think quantum physics is hard!"
 
"Bobby, you understand quantum physics. Stop overreacting." Chris paused when
the server approached and asked if they wanted coffee and dessert. Five minutes
later, over coffee and mile- high lemon meringue pie, Chris kept going as if
there hadn't been a delay.
 
"The first person she contacted when she got back was me. And she was rattled
enough that she said a few things that hinted about why she hadn't sent the
information sooner. I had the paperwork to you half an hour after she gave it
to me, but by then she and I already talked things through. Well, except for
anything to do with the Un-. I just had to go with what I figured might have
happened."
 
"Crap." Suddenly Bobby wanted to be back home in his living room reading a nice
cheerful ancient text describing blood rituals. With color illustrations.
 
"Indeed."
 
Chris pinched the bridge of her nose in an attempt to ease the headache that
was building. "The facts are that we don't know if the Un is doing one of its
changings – I call them resets, although Edith thinks that's wide of the mark –
or whether something else is happening."
"If you're right about her being lost."
 
"There's that."
 
"All right. As I see it, we have one walloping 'maybe' out there. And we have
another situation in the Genesee Country Village. I'm thinkin' that we'd better
take care of the village first."
 
"I agree, although I need to speak with Edith and that idiot of a Records
Keeper, Sarah. Right now, all I know for sure is that I don't know anything for
sure. Which makes me even crankier than you are."
 
About to argue the point, Bobby went silent and just listened. To the air
around him, and the sound of the wind outside. "Something isn't sittin' right."
"Can you tell what it is, Bobby?"
 
"No. But there's something off its mark in the Now. Chris, that's where we have
to focus. That much, I know. The business with the Un-? There just ain't enough
for us to go on. We have more than enough here to work with."
 
"Bobby, what time do you want to get going in the morning?" No answer. Chris
waited until Bobby's gaze panned in her direction before she tried again. "What
time do you want to get going in the morning?"
 
"Hmmm? The earlier the better. Damn, John and the boys need to get here…"
 
"Are you afraid to go into the museum on your own, Bobby?" Chris couldn't stop
the surprise that filled her voice.
 
"During the day? No. Not usually. Oh balls, just ignore me. All this business
has me as off balance as whatever it is that I'm feelin'. I'm heading off to
bed. See you in the morning – say 7:30."
 
Chris rolled her eyes and glared at Bobby. "Nine a.m. and not one second
sooner. The museum isn't even open to us until 11:00. Two hours should be
enough time for us to eat and get ready. Maybe we'll hear from John and his
sons by then."
 
"Yeah – okay. So, thanks for the meal. D'you need me to walk…"
 
Another glare was accompanied by a distinct snort of derision. "I'm perfectly
capable of protecting myself, Robert Singer. See you in the morning." In the
middle of pushing her chair away from the table, she looked up and smiled
evilly, "that is, unless you'd like me to walk you toyour room."
 
"Verrry funny, Christabel Lux."
 
They went their separate ways at the elevator. Once the sliding door closed and
Chris was on her way, Bobby let the sort-of smile slide off his face and headed
off to his room.
 
Me Again
So much for sleepin'.
 
The Un- ? Much as I'm curious about what might have happened to this Edith
person, it's the 'might have' that made my decision for me. We need to take
care of the village, because there're solid 'did happen's there, and because
those 'did happens' are happenin' more and more. Somethin' tells me that we've
been damn lucky that no one's been hurt or killed over there yet.
 
"I can't put my finger on what's wrong, other than the kinda obvious fact that
sixty or more buildings built anywhere from a century to two centuries ago have
been uprooted and moved to a relatively small area. The list of don't knows is
as long as my arm, and there's probably stuff we don'tknowwe don't know.
 
The folks who moved the buildings to Mumford are specialists, but I know for
certain that they didn't even think about some ghost trailing along with the
boards and nails. Or, if they did, they figure they might be bringing a
harmless little Casper to the museum. Never mind the fact that there ain't any
harmless little Caspers.
 
I'm not even going to bring up the whole little girl disappearing and
reappearing right in front of someone. Not to mention the whole going from no
shoes to sneakers and a home made doll to a "Wonderdoll" or whatever they're
called.
 
Or the fact that a manitou manifested so far from its home territory.
 
"Stir in a little Samhein in a couple of days and, well all I can say is I
should probably be more skittish than I am right now. I've tried to call John
another couple of times. Nothin', not a damn – Balls, would you look at this
mess of words? I'm goin' to bed before I start playing tic-tac-toe with
myself."
 
My personal personal phone rang, right on cue, I swear.
 
"Yeah?"
 
"Bobby?"
 
"John, that you? Where are you?"
 
"Where are you?" For a second I thought he was being a smartass.
 
"Hey, Winchester, what the –"
 
"Bobby, where are you?"
John sounded about played out. On the edge. And shivering.
 
"I'm at the Blanket Inn outside of Mumford. John, you ain't answered your phone
all day. Are you and the boys all right?"
 
And then I heard the one sound I'd know anywhere, including in the middle of a
New York City traffic jam. Dean Winchester was revving the engine of the
Impala. And the sound wasn't coming through the phone.
 
Before I stopped to think, I grabbed my jacket and my room key, yanked the
bottom bureau drawer out and pulled my sawed-off out of hiding. "John, where
the fuck are you?"
 
"Parked next to you, Bobby." And all I could hear in his voice was exhaustion.
And fear.
***** Chapter after 6 *****
 [2012-08-26053910-1 photo 2012-08-26053910-1.jpg]
 
" What was – "
"A door opening; that's what it sounded like."
"That was no door."
 
 
"My grandson, what did you see?"
 
"Only three alone. Heading East. Two in one car, the one in a truck."
 
"Alone, you say? There were no others?"
 
"They are who you sent me to follow: the elder and the one's sons. There was no
other with, behind or in front of them. They went beyond our lands and I
returned with empty hands."
 
"Think carefully, my daughter's son. Were there no others at all?"
 
"No – wait! A raven circling far above. It had to have been huge to seem so
large from such a distance. Grandmother, I didn't remember – I may have left
the three in danger! I beg your forgiveness!"
 
"My grandson, you have done nothing that requires forgiveness. But keep a watch
on the borders, you and your ride. I will send word out east. The one,
especially, stands under our protection."
 
"Yes, grandmother. May this one know why?"
 
"If ever the time is right."
 
"You grieve."
 
"I am filled with regret. But, no more of this! Tell me of the journey back to
us!"
 
***** <b>Chapter 7 Follow the Grey, Snowy Brick Road</b> *****

Author's notes: Well, I'm taking liberties calling the road brick...
===============================================================================
John had finally been able to spot the Impala running slightly ahead and to the
right of his truck on the Interstate. Ever since they'd left Kirkwood, Mo
behind, they'd been enveloped in snow and then some sleet followed by more
snow.
 
At first, John hadn't thought much of it. As a rule, they drove out of storms.
And, if the weather threatened to hang on, he and Sam and Dean would just pull
off and wait it out in a motel. If they could find one. At the speed they were
going, they had to be somewhere on the east side of the St. Louis, and heading
toward Illinois: John felt like they'd been on the road all day, rather than
four hours.
 
"Dean?"
 
"Yeah, Dad?"
 
"How about pulling off for a couple of hours, just until this lets up a
little."
 
Dean's terse "Where exactly do you want to pull in, Dad? I can't see a damn
thing out there other than snow. And that includes cars or highway lights,"
brought John up short. Tunnel vision – the worst enemy of a storm-caught
driver- had meant that John had stared pretty much straight ahead or a little
to one side or the other long enough to locate the Imoala for far too long.
 
"What?"
 
"Dad, if this is an interstate, my name is Hilda. Take a look around. And don't
drive off the road doin' it."
 
Nothing. Other than snow and wind and the faint hint of a road trailing ahead
through the weather, John couldn't see a thing. Abruptly, he realized
consciously what his sub-conscious had been trying to tell him. "Dean, stay in
sight. Don't get too far ahead."
 
"No sir."
 
"All right. We're going to look for the first off ramp we see. I don't care if
it's the middle of a field, we're getting off this road until the weather gets
better."
 
"Yessir." Dean snapped his phone shut and stared at Sam, who took one hand off
the steering wheel and reached for him. "Dean, we're gonna be all right. Dad
can't see anything. Get over here. Don't make me try to haul you in with my
weak, feeble arm."
 
Dean snorted derisively and might have muttered something that sounded like
"Princess…" He also scooted over next to Sam. "Sam, is this –I mean, are we,
uhm…" His brow furrowed and he frowned uncomfortably.
 
"I don't know, Dean. It shouldn't be, right? I mean, nothing but what someone's
wearing or carrying can go into the Un- And it doesn't look the same as when I
went- Dean?"
 
Dean just shook his head and stared out through the snow, obviously not wanting
to talk any more. "Dean, that was a couple of years ago."
 
"Don't you think I know that? Sorry, Sammy. Uhm – I'm gonna keep a lookout for
some place to pull off."
 
"Okay. Me? I'm going to keep a look out for the freakin' road. And before you
say anything, I don't need two hands on the steering wheel. I should need two
hands there, but I don't. The car hasn't slid once." Sam didn't add that the
car had been in contact with the road the entire time they'd been crawling
ahead. Dean was spooked out enough already.
 
After another hour of cautious progress through a steadily weakening wind and
whirling snow, John saw lights off to his right. He hit the horn and flashed
his turn signal to alert Sam. At ten miles an hour, they rolled down the next
off ramp.
 
And into the parking lot of the Blanket Inn.
 
Overhead, the sliver moon glowed in an unclouded sky, and a quiet breeze played
havoc with the few leaves not yet fallen from the trees nearby.
 
There wasn't a speck of snow anywhere but in John's truck bed and caked in the
Impala's wheel wells.
 
Bobby's truck, Dakota plates and all, was parked next to John's. Hands shaking,
John clutched his cell phone and called Sam. Stay calm, Winchester. Stay calm-
Aloud he managed to speak with a steady voice.
 
"Sam, you and your brother stay in the car. Keep the windows up."
 
"Yessir." Sam replied. He didn't let Dean move away from him. If Dad had any
questions about them, he'd say that he was remembering and needed to have Dean
near to keep him from freaking.
 
John was focused on a lot more than the inside of the Impala.
 
"I'm calling Bobby. If he's actually here, wherever the hell here is, maybe we
can get some answers. But until then, we stay put. Got it?"
 
"Yeah, dad."
 
Hoping against hope, knowing that there was no way they could be in Mumford,
New York where Bobby was, John punched number three on his speed dial.
 
"Yeah?" John heard his old friend's voice and swallowed convulsively.
 
"Bobby?"
 
"John, that you? Where are you?"
 
"Where are you?" John couldn't concentrate.
 
"Hey, Winchester, what the –" Bobby sounded both suspicious and pissed off.
 
"Bobby, where are you?" John couldn't stop shuddering. He almost dropped his
cell, and fumbled for it, shaking so hard even Sam and Dean could see it. His
stomach was tied in knots and his brain wouldn't put a sentence together. Bobby
must have heard something in John's voice because he sounded less hostile when
he answered.
"I'm at the Blanket Inn outside of Mumford. John, you ain't answered your phone
all day. Are you and the boys all right?"
 
Sam had watched long enough. His dad was ready to keel over. Bobby probably
didn't believe John was John: Sam wouldn't have either if he was in Bobby's
boots. No hunter who knew where the Winchesters should have been, versus where
they actually were would have believed them. But there was one sound the grumpy
old hunter would know anywhere because he'd worked on the car enough with Dean
over the years.
Two seconds passed before the Impala rumbled to life and, when Sam hit the
accelerator, revved up to a coughing growl loud enough to bring the night
manager of the Blanket to the front door.
 
John could hear the sounds of Bobby moving around and opening something before
the older man snapped, "John, where the fuck are you?"
 
"Parked next to you." And John let the phone drop.
 
Bobby stomped out of the front door of the Blanket, cap on his head, boots
shoved onto his feet, coat hauled over the top of his long johns, his jeans
over the bottoms, and sawed off shotgun in his right hand. Fortunately, he had
had enough presence of mind not to show the weapon to anyone in the lobby. He
looked madder than a cornered yellow jacket.
 
Dean heard an "Oh crap" when Bobby realized that John hadn't been joking about
them all being in the parking lot. Immediately, he raised the shotgun and
pointed it directly at John's face.
 
From the truck, John called Bobby again and waited for him to pick up. "Bobby,
it's us. Put the damn shotgun down and use your eyes, willya?"
 
"Uhm, that would be a no." As much as Bobby's instincts told him that he was
speaking to John Winchester, he couldn't get past the unavoidable fact that
John, Sam and Dean couldn't bewhere they plainly were. The only possibility he
knew of that might explain their presence was impossible. Then he saw the snow.
And, out of nowhere, wanted to call Norb Cornell. Wanted to so much his head
ached.
 
Dean had already decided to get out of the car. He had also already decided
that Sam needed to stay in the car. Which had nothing to do with what Sam had
decided. "Dammit, Sam! You're still hurt!"
 
"Dean, who just drove all day? Oh, that would be me!! I'm getting out of the
damned car!"
 
"Bitch! Bobby, it's us. Put the shotgun down before you blow a foot off with
it."
 
"Jerk. Bobby, we are us."
 
Bobby lowered his shotgun, convinced by the bickering between the two brothers
that they were who they claimed to be. "John, git outa the damn truck and
inside before I freeze my ass off. How're you two boys doin'?"
 
"Good, Bobby. I think. Sammy?"
 
"I'm not too sure at this point."
 
Definitely Dean and Sam. Definitely.
 
John's legs threatened to give out when he touched solid ground. Rather than
embarrass the other hunter, Bobby let himself be satisfied with keeping a watch
on him out of the corner of his eye. Sure enough, by his second step away from
the black behemoth, John had pulled himself together enough that his hand
didn't waver when Bobby shook it. But the haunted expression in those brown
eyes didn't fade. "Damn, it's cold here! Guys, get your gear and lock up. I'll
go and register."
 
"Dad, about the room –"
 
"John, I reserved a separate room for Sam and Dean. Just so you know."
 
"A-" Bobby had done something that hit John's Frugal button dead on; normally,
he would have raised the roof, but one look at Bobby's steady gaze and another
glance at his sons plus everything that had happened that day was enough to
make him pause. "All right, all right. If you're old enough to get yourselves
almost killed in Tulsa, I suppose you're old enough to have a separate room.
I'll register myself, then. Bobby, debrief…"
 
"Nope. Not until everyone's had some sleep. I'm guessing that a snowstorm hit
you out of nowhere. Am I right?"
 
"Yeah. But it hit us west of St. Louis. I could have sworn that we'd been going
about twenty miles an hour! There's…oh shit no!"
 
"I don't know any other way it could have happened. But it don't make a damn
bit of sense."
 
"You're telling me?"
 
Sam shook his head when Dean made a move to join the conversation. "Dean, let's
get our stuff and register. What time in the morning…?"
 
"9:00 in the dining room. You two get some rest. John, your room's right next
to mine. Boys, you're on the second floor. The stairs're faster than that idjit
elevator."
 
"Thanks, Bobby. Make sure Dad doesn't fall asleep in the corridor…"
 
"Dean, I think I can hold out until I see a bed." John yawned and forced his
eyes to stay open.
 
Dean nodded once and grabbed the duffle that Sam tossed to him one handed.
Shoulder to shoulder, no space between them, they walked into the Blanket.
"Sam's remembering, Bobby."
 
"They both are, John. And you're sleeping in my room for the rest of the night.
Don't give me any bullshit. You need people around, no matter what you think.
Idjit."
 
Dean clutched Sam's hand the minute they were out of everyone's sight.
Immediately, Sam stopped on the stairs and hauled his brother in close. "We're
here. It's all right. 'Member?" Dean nodded, just once before he hugged Sam
back and looked up at him. Gently, Sam kissed Dean's forehead and whispered, "I
love you, y'know." Felt Dean's shaky nod. "So, the Un?"
 
"I think so, baby. But there's no way the car or the truck should have been
there. No way on Earth. That's what spooked Bobby. Well that and the fact that
we should be a couple hundred miles east of St. Louis if we had been going as
slow as we felt like we were going."
 
Sam hauled in a deep breath and nodded. "That's what I figured." They didn't
say any more, just climbed the remaining two stairs to the door to the second
floor corridor.
 
"Here it is – room 286, our own, as in no Dad, home away from home for the next
couple of days. I'll salt. You check. We can meet right over there…on that
single king sized bed – Sammy? D'you think Bobby-" Owl eyed, Dean stared at the
huge bed with its eight pillows and super warm looking pile of blankets and
partially folded down cream and green duvet.
 
"No way. Not a chance…d'you think?" Sam's scoff faltered a little at the end
when he remembered that they were talking about Bobby Singer, after all.
 
They stared at each other, wide-eyed and red-faced. Dean cleared his throat and
grabbed at some calm before it could flutter off and escape.
 
"No way – and remember, Bobby does have a sick sense of humor," he grumbled as
he pulled some rock salt out of his duffle and began lining the windowsills and
the doorway. Sam just grunted and checked every square inch of the room for any
signs of trouble. And hidden cameras, since Bobby made the reservation, after
all. Dean finished first and launched himself at the bed, landed spread eagled,
face down on it. Two seconds later, Sam joined him, landing about half over
Dean.
 
 
"Sammy, watch the -"
 
"Damnit! I was fine all day!"
 
"Means you're getting better…"
 
"Or senile. I keep forgetting that I'm hurt."
 
"There's always that, since you're so ancient, Sammy," Dean agreed. Before Sam
could say anything else, Dean wiggled out from under him and turned onto his
side. "Sammy, we got here. Remember that."
 
"I know, Dean. But – it wasn't the same as when I – as before."
 
"Sam, you know that the Un- changes all the time. That's why it's –"
 
"Not safe to go in unless you have to. And don't go in alone. I know, Dean. But
after today, I don't –" Sam swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. "Can we go
and hunt something nice and easy, like a wendigo?"
 
"Nope. That'd mean we'd have to give up this gigantic bed. Right now, I want to
just enjoy bein' here." Dean eased his palm up Sam's neck and around to the
side of his head and gently turned Sam to face him. "With you," he added as his
voice trailed off. Sam nodded, even as he leaned over toward Dean and let his
eyes fall shut.
 
Their first kisses were soft, almost tentative. Sam unbuttoned Dean's shirt
while they re-memorized each other's lips for the millionth time, and gentled
Dean's tension away with long, easy strokes of his palms across Dean's broad
shoulders and down his back. Calming Dean took awhile, but eventually his
muscles unwound a little, and he slid one hand under Sam's shirts , mirroring
the smooth caresses that had worked so well on him.
 
They built toward passion slowly, still mostly dressed, their shirts rucked up
and their jeans and boxers down to their knees so they pressed tight against
each other skin tingling and the touch raising goosebumps on each of them.
 
Dean reached for Sam's cock, only to have Sam push his hand away, capture
Dean's cock himself and wrap his fingers around both his own and his older
brother's throbbing erection. Dean felt the soft skin that covered Sam's cock
sliding against his own hardness and watched, concentrating totally on the
feeling of Sam fisting both of them and the sight of him carefully rubbing
their precum across the heads of both of their cocks.
 
"Dean, " Sam whispered. He kissed Dean long and deep, tongue fucking him while
he brought Dean higher and higher. Safe in Sam's arms, Dean rode the feelings,
and forgot everything but the man beside him, everything but the fiery knot in
his groin, everything but the thud of his heart as Sam increased the speed of
his hand. Dean felt like he lay in Sam's broad palm cradled by Sam's long,
strong fingers, his cock full and stone hard, as hard as Sam's. Sam broke the
silence with a whispered, "Touch yourself, Dean. Touch yourself and me."
 
Dean's fingertips smoothed across the swollen tension of his cock's head and
Sam's. The sensation startled him and he humped against Sam, still covering the
heads of their cocks with his fingers.
 
"Sammy!" he moaned. Sam kept Dean's hand wrapped around their cocks and spend
up the motion of his own hips He felt that instant when they both fell over the
edge, and crushed Dean close, coming all over his belly and groin while Dean
writhed and came, his cum mixing with Sam's, his only words "Love you, love
you," echoing Sam's.
 
Panting, locked together, they slowly came down from their orgasms. Dean smiled
sleepily and rolled out of bed to go and get two washcloths to clean them up
while Sam watched him., After Dean had washed him and tucked him into bed, he
let his eyes close slowly and sleep come to call. Five minutes later, Dean slid
into bed curling up beside his little brother and following Sam's lead.
 
 
Me Again
 
John fell asleep the minute he sat down. I can understand why.
Whether I want to deal with it or not, it looks pretty damn clear that John and
the boys came through the Un. With their vehicles.
 
How is that even possible?
 
"You really wanted to call me?"
"Shuddup. I might have, maybe, wanted to. What the- Norb, cut that out!
Maybe…okay…cut that out pretty soon."
***** <b>Chapter Eight - Museums Ain't for the Faint of Heart</b> *****
"Sammy, c'mon. Dad'll be up here banging on the door if we're late."
 
Dean yawned and scribbled his fingers through his short hair, trying to wake
himself up. Behind him, Sam yawned even wider and nearly inhaled his
toothbrush. Even a shower hadn't brought them fully awake: it might have been a
good idea, Dean reflected, smiling, if they'd just taken a shower together
instead of – and his smile grew broader. On second thought – and he pressed
back against Sam's chest. Immediately, Sam's nipples tightened and Dean pressed
more closely. Sam's cock twitched hopefully, but both men knew there wasn't
enough time before John thundered up the stairs, kicked their door off its
hinges and dragged them kicking and screaming back down the stairs.
 
"Uh huh – when has Dad ever dragged us anywhere?" Sam asked.
 
"Huh? What?"
 
"You were thinking out loud, older brother. I mean really older…" Sam
snickered. Dean's face went a nice shade of sunburn, which made Sam laugh out
loud.
 
For another pair of minutes, they stood like that, just enjoying each other's
presence. Sam smelled of toothpaste and that girly deodorant he used – some
dorky thing like Rain Shower. Dean smelled of toothpaste and Degree, which, for
some reason known only to Sam, his little brother demanded that Dean use. Dean
didn't mind the stuff, although he would rather have worn Drakkar Noir any
time.
 
Sam's swat across his ass jolted Dean out of a perfectly good daydream
involving a lot more presence-enjoying.
 
"Let's go, Dean. Day's a wasting –" Something about the cheeriness of Sam's
tone warned Dean.
 
"You looked at the Genesee Country Museum website, didn't you?"
 
"I don't know why I've never looked at it before! We could have stopped here a
long time ago! We've been close enough to it at least three times!"
 
"C'mon, Sam." Dean tossed Sam his jacket and herded him out the door of their
room. "Try not to geek out when we're being serious, okay?"
 
"But, Dean, did you see?"
 
"I did. Try not to geek out. That's all I'm saying."
 
Down the stairs they clattered. At the stairwell door leading out to the
elevators in the lobby, Dean hauled Sam over to one side and kissed him. "I
…well, you know…"
 
"Yup, that I do. I love you, too."
 
Dean snorted and rolled his eyes before he pulled open the door and stepped –
 
Right into the path of a two legged tornado. Before he could react, Sam had
grabbed him and yanked him back out of harm's way. "That woman's on a mission!"
he muttered. "But...Dean, she's…" he fished for a word to describe what he'd
seen and could only come up with, "fuzzy. She's fuzzy."
 
"Huh?"
 
"Maybe it's a glamour?" Dean didn't see things like glamours, although Sam was
able to spot them occasionally. "Dean, look where she's headed."
 
Dean looked in the direction that Sam nodded and watched Tornado Woman sit down
next to Bobby in the corner booth he'd commandeered. Next to him on the other
side, their father leaned in toward the center of the table, speaking in a low
voice and rubbing one finger around the rim of his coffee mug. The nervous
habit was an old one, and one Dean never wanted to see. If his dad was nervous,
then there was a good possibility that trouble was headed their way.
 
"Let's go sit in on that little gabfest."
 
Chris had caught sight of Bobby immediately; he'd picked a corner booth on the
far side of the dining room. He wasn't alone. Although the man he was speaking
with had his back to her, she would have known the set of those shoulders and
that head of dark, wavy hair anywhere. John Winchester ? How he'd managed to
reach the Blanket over a day early puzzled her for a couple of seconds. When
one of her mental light bulbs switched on, she switched it right back off,
certain that she was wrong. Traveling the Un- was the last thing John
Winchester would ever do. Especially because every step or half step left or
right proved to be too much for his stomach. Not that queasiness was unusual
when people Stepped, but John hated feeling vulnerable.
 
Bobby saw Chris heading toward them and sighed to himself. Chris didn't sail in
guns blazing or look like she planned on murder without fair warning. For that
he was grateful. " 'Morning, Chris."
 
"Bobby. Good morning, John."
 
"Chris." John hitched around toward Bobby so Chris could sit. Before Chris
asked a thing, Bobby jumped in and took charge.
 
"Chris, before you start in, go look out the front door and tell me what you
see. Go on." Bobby didn't smile and his stare was bleak.
 
Foreboding in her heart, Chris slipped out of the booth and strode quickly to
the front door of the Inn. Gleaming in the light of morning, the Impala and
John's black beast of a truck sat next to Bobby's much older pickup.
 
For a few seconds, Chris didn't understand what Bobby had wanted her to see.
Until the facts walloped her on the head and left her gaping at the two
vehicles. "But- that's not-"
 
She could hear her mind thinking a mile a nanosecond. "They're sitting right
there. Cut out the outraged 'that's not possible' and find out what happened."
 
Back she had sped to the booth, intent on quizzing John until he begged for
mercy. She noticed the two young men she'd almost crashed in to and figured
they were John's sons, since they followed right after her across the dining
room.
 
"Sam and Dean, this is Christabel Lux. She's the reason we're here, right
Chris?" Bobby asked. "Oh, wait a minute – I'm making it sound like this is all
her fault…which, strictly speaking, it –" He ducked back away from John in
order to avoid the overhead purse strike Chris was readying. "Keep an eye on
her. That purse is a lethal weapon." In a swift move designs to shift attention
away from him, he added,"Good idea, Sam. You gonna use that chair?"
 
Sam nodded, plunked down the chair he'd grabbed from a nearby table and planted
himself only a foot or so away from Dean's place on the left side of the booth.
Instinctively, Dean sighted the distance between the stranger and Sam, his
warning subtle but clear to anyone with questionable intentions.
 
"Hi, Dean. Hi, Sam." Both nodded at her, and Sam shifted in his chair so he was
a little closer to Dean. The two brothers didn't look at each other, but Chris
could see that they'd communicated as loudly as if they'd shouted. Everyone had
turned his stare on her and she returned to the matter at hand.
 
"I suppose this isn't a good time to bring up a couple of questions."
 
"Depends on the questions, Chris. We might want to wait until after we order
breakfast." Bobby spoke pleasantly, his voice only slightly louder than normal.
Their waitress was homing in on them, then. Two minutes later, everyone's
coffee and Sam's juice ordered, Chris came right to the point. "John, when did
you get in?"
 
"About – uh, Bobby?"
 
"About 11:30 last night, give or take."
 
"Where were you yesterday morning?"
 
"Rolla, Missouri."
 
"Oh, crap."
 
"That seems to be the general opinion." Bobby agreed. Chris rubbed the side of
her neck and shook her head. "Which way did you step?"
 
"We didn't." Dean replied when John sat silently, lost in thought, sipping his
coffee. "We headed toward St. Louis. In the car and the truck."
 
Another pause to order breakfast, and Chris went right back at it. "And you had
no intention of stepping into the Un."
 
"Not unless we were dragged there, ma'am…Chris."
 
"What did it look like? I mean, to each of you."
 
Puzzled, Dean glanced at his Dad. "We would have seen the same thing. We were
right together the whole time," John explained.
 
"Not necessarily – I mean you might not necessarily have seen the same thing.
The UN- is a subjective place."
 
"Snow. A lot of snow. And a strip of road. But nothing else," Sam volunteered.
"No headlights, no tail lights, some road signs, but there was too much snow to
read 'em and we only had the headlights from the car and the truck to help us."
 
"That's what I saw," Dean echoed. John nodded agreement.
 
"So you didn't stop the whole time? Didn't run out of gas? Didn't need to take
a break?"
 
"No. Dad, that's plain weird."
 
"Yeah, it is…we should have had to –"
 
"You each have half a tank of gas. I looked through the windows before I headed
in here. You'll need to check your odometers for yourselves."
 
"We filled up about ten miles before the storm hit us. And I don't remember
drinking anything or needing to go to the head…I got pretty drowsy. I must have
fallen asleep because all I remember from there is the snow and the wind and
talking to Dad a couple of times. Then we saw lights at the side of the road
and we hit the off ramp. It – Dad, am I right? We rolled right into the parking
lot? Off an interstate that's how many miles away from here? No, wait. I don't
want to know."
 
Flummoxed, the five of them sat staring at each other. Even the arrival of
breakfast didn't break the silence. No matter what they thought or said, the
undeniable fact of the matter was that the Impala and the truck should not have
been parked at the Blanket Inn. And the Winchesters shouldn't have been parked
in a corner booth of an Inn near Mumford, NY.
 
But the vehicles were and so were the Winchesters.
 
Finally, John decided to break the silence. "I think we should focus on the
reason we all came here in the first place. Chris, you and Bobby are more the
people to figure out why the Un- turned itself inside out yesterday and broke
every rule that we thought there was about it."
 
"I don't know that I'm on board with everything you said, John. But I agree
that the village and what's been happening there are what we came to figure
out. We're going to need more help that just Chris and me to untangle what
might have happened to you and the boys. And the car and the truck. Figure out
if it's a one-time event, for one thing."
 
Chris sat for a minute, thinking. "I say 'Yes' to going with the original plan.
That doesn't mean that part of me isn't itching to figure out the Un-. I want
the answers, but Bobby's right. We need to ask more people who might have a
clue, who might have read or seen something like what happened yesterday to you
three. I've never, and I mean NEVER, heard or read about something not directly
held or worn by a traveler through the Un- making the transition, and
definitely not two hunks of rubber and steel. No offense meant to the Impala
and the truck."
 
"If we were in the Un-"
 
"I think you were, although what you saw doesn't look like anything I've ever
seen. I'm going to check this out with Edith Cartwell, just to see if she's
ever heard of anything like it." Chris didn't really want to bring up her next
notion.
 
"About the village – we need to keep open minds about whatever we find there. I
know I'm talking to hunters and that you want to clear this up and then leave.
I'd like to, too. However, there may be things we can't stop. And we may have
to do everything we can to make sure that we contain what we can't eliminate."
 
"Like a curse," Sam said thoughtfully. "There's no undoing one. You just have
to get out of its way."
"Exactly."
 
"Right now I say we aim to stop as much as we can," Bobby stated. "We'll deal
with not being able to stop everything if we get there. C'mon. Let's finish
eatin' so we can get out of here."
 
For the first time in the years he'd owned the Impala, Dean approached his girl
cautiously. He still couldn't forget all those hours the day before, the slip
of time and the miles that had disappeared as if they'd never been. He felt
like a superstitious hick. Finally, after taking a deep breath, he unlocked the
car and slid into the driver's seat.
 
"She's fine," he decided a few seconds later. The familiar feel and smell of
the car flooded his senses, and he knew without a doubt that she wouldn't be
taking any weird side trips a second time. "C'mon, Sammy. Let's get on the
road."
 
Sam settled into the passenger's seat and relaxed immediately. He complained a
lot about feeling like a pretzel after a few hours in the car, but he really
loved it almost as much as Dean did. The Impala had been their private bedroom
any number of times over the years, and he would have been almost as lost as
Dean if they'd had to use another vehicle. "Dad, we'll see you there."
 
"You'll stay with us. I'm taking Bobby and Chris in the truck. No smart ass
tricks, Dean." John really, really didn't like what they were doing. Too close
to All Hallows and Samhein by far, all of it. And he hadn't even begun to put
distance between the strange doings of the previous day and the prospect of
equally strange doings today.
 
"Nosir." Dean read the worry in John's expression and tried not to sigh. So
much for Dad being back to his usual self. Sam's exasperation stayed unspoken
as well, but Dean picked up on it and shot a quelling glance at his brother.
"Ma'am, you're more than welcome in the back seat of the Impala if you want
some breathing space."
 
"I'll be fine with Sweetness and Light here and with your Dad. It's only a
quick trip anyway." Mind already occupied with the concerns that had brought
her to Mumford, Chris smiled vaguely and waited for John to unlock the truck.
 
Sam didn't say a word for the fifteen minute drive. He also didn't let go of
Dean's right hand. The geek in him looked forward to the first view of Genesee
Country Village. But the Hunter in him shared everyone's reservations about the
place. Before Dean could remind him, Sam agreed aloud. "I'm on you like glue,"
he said, reciting the rhyme Dean had taught him when he was three and Sam had
wanted to walk beside his stroller when Dean and his Dad needed to go to the
mall. Dean nodded and kept looking straight ahead, but a smile tilted one side
of his lips up and he relaxed just a bit.
 [ photo a732062f-d2a8-4c06-92d9-0bcbf01cfdd6_zps8e33ba3b.jpg]
 
They pulled into the empty Visitor parking lot at the Museum and Village and
stared around. "Uhm, this is a pretty good sized lot." There were times when
stating the obvious was necessary. "Just how big is this place, again?"
 
"Over 600 acres," Sam replied, eyes wide. "And even if the parking lot's part
of that-" His voice trailed off because he was busy recalibrating everything
he'd read about the museum and village. Dean stopped his eyes from rolling at
the very last second: Sam had gone from 'interested' through very interested
and straight to 'why aren't we already in there?' in two heartbeats. Dean felt
the seat jounce when Sam literally bounced where he sat.
 
"They're parking. Why don't we head for the main-"
 
"We wait for Dad and Bobby and Chris. Here." Dean crossed his arms on his chest
and glared at his little brother. "What are you going to do?"
 
"I'm on you like glue. I already promised, Dean," Sam replied soberly. Just
before he smiled like a kid taking a Ferris- wheel ride. Dean smiled back
reluctantly and squeezed Sam's hand.
 
"C'mon."
 
Bobby unfolded the map Chris had given him of the museum and village. "Just
remember, all of you. This whole place is pretty much unusual. Think of it like
a jigsaw puzzle plus time as the fourth dimension. Don't assume anything. The
buildings may look like they've been here forever, but they haven't. And we
know squat about their early history beyond the towns they came from or were
near.
 
"Make sure you run whatever you see past the WD-40 and Duct Tape test." He
caught Chris' puzzled expression and explained. "If it moves and it shouldn't,
duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, WD-40. If the tape or the WD-40
would work, then whatever it is probably isn't supernatural. All I'm saying is
make sure of what you're seeing. And hearing, although you're gonna have to
test that yourselves."
 
Chris added, "There won't be any other visitors this morning: the staff and
volunteers for the event tonight won't show up until mid-afternoon. Keep your
EMF on visual. Security knows we're coming – I wonder why no one ever tumbles
to the 'we're doing a documentary' thing, but that's what they've been told. As
far as breaking up into teams, Bobby – I know you're thinking about that – I
don't know if that's such a good idea…we'll have to wait until we make a
sweep."
 
"All right. Let's go and do this," John ordered. They strode up the flank of
the low hill in front of admissions. At the top of the rise, all of them pulled
up short.
 
The presence of a group seven other people who were obviously waiting for
someone to let them into the museum was a surprise neither he nor Bobby had
expected. When they glanced at Chris, the frown on her face told them
everything. She hadn't been told about other visitors either. Bobby took
another look and muttered, "Chris – those two. They're the ones who registered
at the Blanket last night – the ones that had a screwed up reservation down in
town."
 
"You're right. Normally, I'd say we could ask them why they're here, just to be
neighborly, but I don't want 'em remembering us."
 
"Agreed. That means – what the-? What's that racket?"
 
And then the calls and laughter of a pack of hyenas rang through the air from
the far edge of the parking lot. When the animals' decibels climbed into the
stratosphere, John shook his head in disgust and defeat. "School kids," he
grunted. "They'll get into everything."
 
"Nope. High school kids." Bobby amended, looking grimly over his shoulder. "I
count five."
 
"Is that all? They're making enough noise – never mind. Five is more than
enough. Chris, what do you want to do about this?"
 
"Improvise," she replied tartly. "I'll find out why they're here and who the
others are." Between one blink of his eyes and the next, John found himself
staring at empty air.
 
"Why am I not surprised that she's a walker? No wonder she wanted to know about
what we saw and how we got here. Dean?" Sam glanced over at his lover and
caught the same look John had had in his eyes earlier. "Dean, don't."
 
"Don't what?"
 
"Don't think what you're thinkin'. Stop. OYLG. And I'm not going to say it
again."
 
"On you like glue, too," Dean replied, fiercely certain that the best epoxy on
the planet was going to run a distant second to the way he stuck to Sam.
"Sammy-"
 
"Dean – please, stop the worrying. I'm not going to hare off-"
 
"Hare off? I thought I burned that CD dictionary you keep reading for the fun
of it! Who says something like 'hare off'" Dean exclaimed.
 
"The brother of someone who knows what 'hare off' actually means. Like I was
trying to say, I'm not going to hare off and do something idiotic. However,"
and Sam paused for dramatic effect, "that means you have to go everywhere I go.
Look in every window, hope that every door is open so I- I mean, we, explore.
You never know what's hiding in a stove or something."
 
"Or something. How many buildings are there?"
 
"Over sixty," Sam replied, his eyes glinting wickedly. "Plus a couple of
workshops and an entire set of nature trails. And the carriage museum in the
modern part of the museum."
 
Starkly terrifying visions of walking through the museum for forever, following
Sam as he examined every nook and cranny swamped Dean's mind. He frowned and
shuddered while his brain sought feverishly for an out. "Wait. On second
thought, maybe you should stay in the car. You're injured – too much dust and
excitement aren't good for you."
 
"Dust and excitement? Desperate, Dean. Really desperate."
 
"You owe me," Dean grunted. "Oh do you owe me!"
 
"Have I ever not repaid a debt?" Sam looked earnestly into Dean's eyes- and
winked. "Be careful – you roll your eyes any farther back in your head, they're
gonna get stuck that way," he added soothingly a few seconds later.
 
Chris returned from wherever she'd been, once more between one blink and the
next. "The young people are doing a report for an AP high school history class.
The other people are a group of restoration specialists who were invited here
six months ago. "
 
Glumly, John stared over at the high school students again and then at the
restorers."Is there any way we can keep 'em out?"
 
"Nope. The only thing we can do is stay clear of 'em."
 
"Uh hmm…the map? Thanks, Bobby." John took one look at the map and sighed.
"There's a lot of ground to cover here." He glanced up, eyes narrowed, weighing
the options.
 
"Yeah." Bobby agreed. "D'you still want to do a full sweep?"
 
"Even more now that I've seen the layout. I know we should probably focus on
where whatever has been recorded happened, but it doesn't feel right. A full
sweep, then we split up. Unless something else comes to light."
 
 [ photo mapofthevillage-1.png]
 
John shook his head and unfolded the map for a complete view.He'd already begun
to place patterns and put names with the buildings: previous owners, anything
either Edith or Sarah had written about the buildings, the structures near
where supernatural activities had taken place. Knowing what their Dad was
doing, Dean and Sam spent a few minutes making sure that each other's guns were
loaded and out of sight. Salt and Iron were no- brainers: they kept those in
their jackets at all times.
 
The other people clustered into their two groups and talked quietly among
themselves. Bobby and Chris counted each group again. Twelve people plus
security to keep in mind and, hopefully, in sight. While they were sweeping
looking for trouble so they could come back later and stop it.
 
One of the security guards employed by the museum walked up behind the three
groups of visitors and called, "I'll be handing out your admission badges.
Please wear them at all times. A couple of points. There's no one else on the
grounds right now, but employees and interpreters will begin to arrive around
2:00 p.m. Remember – most of the buildings are locked for the season. However,
I do have a list of buildings that are opened for the restoration experts. Once
you have your badges and have signed the attendance log, I'll let you through
the gate. Please feel free to explore. Enjoy your day."
 
To five high school students and seven restoration specialists, walking into
the Museum meant stepping back in time and away from their daily world. To the
Hunters and one acutely observant witch, walking into the Museum meant stepping
onto a battlefield, where the enemy was legion and invisible most of the time.
They barely noticed the modern area of the Museum, walking as a tightly knit
group toward the village.
 [ photo 5078e503-28b9-44d8-aa26-6e6c670d8cb9_zpsb5b52165.jpg]
 
"The toll house is the first historic building," Bobby explained. "Sam, Dean,
you picking up anything?"
 
 [ photo 6942b607-9f80-49f4-b958-e28075a0b6ac_zps2ae760f8.jpg]
 
"Yeah. I'm getting a little EMF, but it could just be electricity. "Dean panned
slowly left to right, keeping the EMF meter near his hip and using the light-
only readout. "It's stronger over toward the village."
 
"Shouldn't be," Bobby interrupted. There's no electricity in the village,
except in the bookstore, the pavilion and the first aid house, and that's
probably off for the season."
 
"That makes things a little easier, then," John added.
 
Sam thought he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye, but
all he saw when he turned his head was a little boy wearing shorts and a t-
shirt flying a kite. He tapped Dean's arm and nodded toward the child, who
seemed oblivious to the people walking into the museum. Dean stared for a few
seconds and watched the boy disappear from his feet upward.
 
"OYLG, Sammy," was all Dean said.
***** <b>Chapter 8 Did I Mention that Museums Ain't for the Faint of Heart?</b>
*****

Author's notes: And the threads begin to gather...
===============================================================================
Me Again – Kind of
 
Norbert Cornell here – and no mocking my name, Singer. I know how to delete
entire data bases with the flick of a finger.
 
Now, there's a good reason I've taken the laptop. Bobby would go on for at
least fifteen pages telling you, oh lucky reader, about the stupidity of going
to the museum in daylight with other people around to nose into things. Okay,
maybe ten pages. Be grateful that I'm a person of forceful character – and a
slight death wish- and was able to wrest the laptop from Mr. Singer's gnarled
and crabby prose. I promise to be less gnarled. No guarantees about the
crabbiness, however.
 
No, I wasn't there. Yes, I know you were, Bobby. Dammit, I've talked and
analyzed with you until I'm ready to find Christabel and give her some lethal
paper cuts myself! Now, let me write, or I swear I'm heading straight back home
where it doesn't snow!
 
If I heard you correctly (all thirteen times), you, John, Sam, Dean and Chris
left the other two groups as soon as you could and made a sweep of the village,
once you got across the Great Meadow (which sounds like something out of
Tolkien. I think I should be heading for the Long Expected Party). Then you
split up, you, John and Chris heading one way and Sam and Dean going the other.
Have I pretty much nailed that down?
 
You'd figured out where the most active places were but you were still
reconnoitering, hoping to suss out –now you have me saying that! – anything
else that you could find, any kind of clue about what you were facing. Also
right? No, I've had enough coffee to fossilize my innards, thanks. Sit down and
stop fidgeting! Yes, you're fidgeting!
 
Where was I?
 
What you picked up on the EMF was strongest in the area where that kid had seen
the faceless spirit and its horse. Which seems odd to me: that whole business
took place over two years ago. Oh, wait – I see! Whatever it was has been back
there since then. The area around the Jones Farm was active, as was the
MacArthur house. It seems to me that there's a lot of energy concentrated in
one small area, Bobby. Too much. Hmmm? Yes, I'm thinking out loud. Sue me.
 [ photo P5220140.jpg]
 
 [P8180165640x480 photo P8180165640x480.jpg]
 
There were other little pulses on the baseball field, near the Hamilton
House,and behind the Shaker Trustee's Building. And the EMFs registered a
constant, almost imperceptible level of activity all over the village.
 [ photo P5220159.jpg]
 
 [ photo 015171ac-c8fb-4136-b189-be7345a3259b_zps0c3b803e.jpg]
 
"Does that about cover it? Seems like it took you a long time to figure all
that out. Is this the map of the places where you found traces? Hmm…no, I'm not
trying to sound like a teacher. But look at this-
 
"Reader, I'm giving the lap top back to Bobby. I do actually want to live
another day."
 
Sparks hesitated for a couple of seconds before he glanced at Bobby, who sat
next to him and stared back at him, expression grim. "And I don't understand …
Bobby needs to take over." Their fingers brushed when Sparks handed the laptop
back, and Bobby pressed his a little more tightly against Norbert's. "Put the
damn laptop down, Bobby." For a few seconds they just leaned into each other,
foreheads touching. Then both of them cleared their throats gruffly and settled
back to the matter at hand.
 
Really Me Again
 
Sparks ain't a bad editor. No gloatin', Sparky. I do one compliment a century,
and you just got it. Be honored.
 
 
 [P8180207640x480testa photo P8180207640x480testa.jpg]
 
 
Dean and Sam walked quietly down Meetinghouse Road toward the Campbell House.
From the far side of the village square came the sound of laughter: the five
high school students, without doubt.
 
"Sam, we're going to scan before we look under every shingle and piece of hay,
all right?" Dean jumped a little at the sound of his own voice and went on full
alert. Without a word, Sam captured the back loop of Dean's jeans, securing
himself to his brother. They both sensed the out-of-kilter feeling; it faded
when they focused attention on it, but it didn't disappear. Dean rolled his
shoulders a bit when the feeling skittered down his spine.
 
Tuned as they were to the behavior of the things that really do go bump in the
night, they slowed down and watched, waiting.
 
"Sam?"
 
" Dean. I just–the air feels different." Sam chuckled a little and added, "Or
we're imagining things. But I didn't feel this way when all of us swept here.
Something's happening."
 
"Yeah. Maybe."
 
"I don't see anything, no distortion, no unusual shadows."
 
"Neither do I. Stay tight."
 
"Not too close to that Pioneer Cabin, Dean. I don't like the way I'm feeling."
 
"Got it."
 
They prowled slowly toward the spot where Sarah McAllister had said one little
girl had stepped out of empty space, her doll and its dress safe in her grip.
Four steps nearer, Dean muttered, "No farther, Sam. This is all wrong."
 
Sam didn't answer. And, Dean realized, the tug of Sam's finger at his belt loop
had stopped. "Sammy, we – Sammy?" Breath hitched, he spun and stared stupidly
at the ground where he could still see the tracks of Sam's boots. The tracks of
them walking toward the Pioneer Cabin and the tracks where Sam had stood. No
tracks leading away. No Sam.
 
He stood alone in the middle of the road.
***** <b>Chapter 8 - Final Segment, I Promise!</b> *****
THEN
 
John had collapsed into a chair in the small ER cubicle to wait for a resident
to take a look at the nasty gash on Dean's right thigh.
 
Granted, his twenty year old son was a stubborn as a Missouri jackass and had
taken off on a hunt without backup. John remembered doing that himself once or
twice early on. And granted Dean had destroyed the woman in white pretty
handily. But she'd managed to do some fairly heavy duty damage before she'd
given up the ghost. Literally. In spite of his worry, John winced at his own
pun.
 
Somehow, Dean had made it home without bleeding himself dry. And John knew the
minute he looked at the injury that no major veins or arteries had been
slashed. And the muscles he saw in the cut seemed okay. But he still refused to
do home stitch up and had demanded that Dean go to the ER. The last thing he
wanted was for Dean to carry a nasty scar and, possibly, limp for the rest of
his life after a sloppy job of stitchery on John's part.
 
"Dad, 'm fine. I wanta get outa here…gotta call Sammy…" Dean mumbled, woozy
from blood loss. "Wha' time is it?"
 
"'Bout three o'clock." John didn't glance at his watch. He knew the hour just
fine without a timepiece, even though there wasn't the faintest trace of a
window looking to the outside of the ER. They couldn't have been waiting that
long.
 
"I'gda call Sammy 'fore supper, Dad…so's he's not scared…" Dean tried to say.
Jake Winchester had broken his arm two weeks earlier and, after talking with
Dean about it, Sam had volunteered to go to Idaho to help out around the farm
until school started again.
 
"Sam's a big boy, Dean. He'll make it through one night without a phone call
from you," John rumbled. Honestly, he didn't see what the big deal was. At
most, his two sons stayed on the line for three minutes every night. Sam wasn't
a little kid any more. He'd call him later and explain what had happened. At
that moment, getting Dean some help was the most important thing.
 
Somewhere around midnight, after spending hours in the ER and then more time
waiting for Dean's leg to be sutured and Dean to have a transfusion, John half-
carried his elder son out to the Impala and settled him into the passenger's
seat for the fifteen minute drive back home.
 
Dean's head lolled and he snored a little, which struck John as funny,
especially given the amount of ragging he got from both his sons about his own
snoring. Even funnier was the sight of Dean in scrubs; his jeans had been cut
off him by an over-zealous (in Dean's opinion) but sensible (in John's opinion)
ER nurse. Which left Dean in those same ever-so-stylish scrubs for the ride
home. John's lips twitched when he chuckled quietly.
 
His cell vibrated against his chest, and he fished it out of his shirt pocket.
He'd turned off the phone until he and Dean had finally left the hospital.
Glancing at the Recent Calls, he realized that his Mom and Dad had left him
seven messages over the previous few hours, and every one had Urgent as the
subject. "Mom?" They'd alternated phones: this one came from his Mom's phone.
 
"Where the heck have you been, John! We've been trying to call you for hours!"
 
"Mom, what's wrong? Is Dad…"
 
"I'm fine, son. Have you seen Sam?"
 
"What?"
"Have you seen Sam?" John's father spoke with the careful slowness that someone
uses with the very young or the severely scatterbrained.
 
"He's with you!"
 
"Son, he said Dean was hurt and that he had to go to him. I tried to calm him
down, and he seemed to be all right…that was sometime around lunch here. But
when I went up to knock on his door to make sure he was okay, the room was
empty. There was a note on his pillow. 'I have to get to Dean. He needs me.'"
 
"But…he doesn't have any way – did he steal your car or truck or something? He
doesn't have any way of getting here!"
 
Dead silence greeted John's statement and he felt his world start spinning so
badly that he had to pull the car over to the side of the road. "No! No! He's
only been in the Un- twice! He –"
 
"John, slow down. Get off the road before you kill yourself."
 
"I'm off the damn road! Dad, how…I don't …what…how?"
 
Dean heard something, Dad shouting at someone. His eyes didn't want to open,
and he would much rather have gone on sleeping, because his leg hurt like a
bitch. And, to be honest, he wasn't sure what had happened and why his leg
hurt. And why his dad was shouting. With a sigh, he sank back toward sleep,
only to force himself back awake when Dad mentioned the Un-
 
"Dad? 's wrong?"
 
"Huh? Dean, just go back to sleep. I'm talking to your grandmother and
grandfather." Dean's brain added phone, shouting and grandma and grandpa. And
knew something had happened. Something had happened to Sam. To his Sammy.
 
"Sammy? What's wrong with Sammy?" and every vestige of weariness disappeared
from Dean's voice. He had to fight to keep from passing out, but Sammy –
"What's happened?"
 
"Nothing as far as we know. Just settle back and don't move that leg. Dad?"
 
"Yes, son?"Jake Winchester knew the next question and dreaded it; John could
hear it in his dad's voice.
 
"What do we…oh gods…what do we do if he's lost himself…?"
 
"I don't know, John. All we can do is hope that he hasn't."
 
John almost vomited, but swallowed it back. Eyes wide and face white with fear,
Dean tried to ask a question, but could only choke, "Sammy?"
 
"Son, we're almost home. Sam'll be there. He'll have figured out how to get
back out of the Un- alone." Inside his mind, John screamed and began to fall
apart, but for Dean, to keep his son from trying to go and look for Sam, John
stayed as calm and collected as he could.
 
When he could trust himself to stay on the road, he started the Impala and
drove straight home. Beside him, Dean scratched his blunt fingernails down his
cheek to keep himself awake. All he could think was Sam's name, over and over.
And "Please be there. Please…"
 
The house stood dark and silent. Deserted. "Sammy?" Dean asked quietly. Looked
through the shadows for his brother's familiar profile, and didn't argue when
John picked him up and carried him toward the house. "Sammy?"
 
Nothing. Just the quiet noises of the night. "Sammy?"Oh please, for the love of
the gods, answer! "Sam?"
 
John swung Dean down and steadied him while he pulled out his house key. He
wasn't a praying man; few hunters outside of Pastor Jim were. But for a few
seconds, while he eased Dean down onto the couch and removed his jacket, he
also begged The Lady for her help.
 
Dean couldn't talk. He lay rigid, fists at his sides, repressing his terror and
anguish. To himself, he thought, "Sammy, please come home. Please-"
 
After a quick search of the first floor, John returned to check on Dean and
found him trying to stand. "No, Dean. You're drugged out of your mind. Sit
down."
 
"Dad-Sammy . Can't- we can't – he's alone!"
 
"Dean, we –" John spoke quietly, although he wanted to scream. "We have to –"
 
"Dad, Sammy's alone out there!" Dean shouted. He wobbled on his feet and
repeated himself, sounding eerily final. "Sammy's alone out there. I'm going to
find him –"
 
"Dad? Dean?" Sam's voice preceded Sam clattering down the stairs. "Dean? Dean!"
 
"Oh my gods!" John choked. There Sam stood, solid and whole, although a lot
more like a frightened child than a young man. John didn't know whether to give
him a dressing down or hug him and never let go. Jaw working, but no sounds
coming out, he still had the presence of mind help Dean back down onto the
couch.
 
Sam slipped between his Dad and his brother and knelt down next to Dean. "You
were hurt. I knew it."
 
"Samuel Winchester, what were you thinking? You traveled the Un-! Alone!"
 
"I…"
 
"Sammy, we could have lost you," Dean protested. Meaning, 'I could have lost
you!' "You have to promise me that you willNEVER, and I mean NEVER do that
again! Not unless I'm there, too, dammit!"
 
"Young man, you are grounded for the rest of the summer! What were you
thinking? You just stepped into the Un- and decided – I don't know what was
going through your mind. I…you're grounded!" John finally was able to draw
enough breath to roar, and roar he did.
 
After a few seconds, Sam stood up and took a breath of his own. "Dad, I knew he
was hurt. And I knew I had to come home. I was careful. I took short hops and
stopped to see where I was. "
 
"Sam, you know how I feel about stepping anywhere in that place. You canNOT do
that again. Not without someone to have your back. End of story." John hugged
Sam tightly enough to fracture ribs before falling into his lumpy old easy
chair. His world still tottered on the edge of collapse, so he counted to five
hundred by elevens to refocus his mind and regain his equilibrium.
 
Dean reached for Sam's nearest hand and sighed in relief when Sam squeezed his
fingers. Sam turned and smiled at his brother, and winked that slow, warm,
dick-stiffening smile of his. When he looked back over at John, however, his
smile faded a little.
 
"Dad –"
 
"I don't want to argue about it, Sam. Not now." John's eyes were shut, and he
was paler than Dean. Sam hadn't a single idea of how close to disaster he'd
come. Although the idea of taking short hops had been a good one. Maybe one day
in ten or twelve years, John thought, he'd compliment Sam for thinking that
way. But not just that minute. Exhaustion prowled close and readied itself to
overwhelm the hunter.
 
"I don't want to either. But there's something you need to know about today. So
please listen, okay?
 
"I was baling when I knew that Dean was in trouble. Dad, it was like a punch in
the gut and I lost my balance. It was blind luck that I fell off the tractor
and away from it instead of under the wheels. Or back toward the baler.
"I'm not going to risk that again. Ever. If you and Dean hunt, I hunt. You're
taking me along."
 
John's eyes snapped open and his stare would have augured a hole straight
through concrete, without help from a laser. "Are you telling me what to do?"
 
"No, dad. I'm telling you what I'm going to do. The next time, I might not be
so lucky."
 
"Sammy, you're exaggerating. We all have hunches-"
 
"This was not a hunch. And it's the third time I've had something like this
happen. Last fall, when Dean got thrown by that spirit over in Gladston. I knew
before you called to tell me you were on your way home and that he'd been
busted up. And when he almost fell down the escalator at Ridgefield Mall? I
knew then, too, before you guys got home and told me. Dad, I know it sounds
weird, but we're hunters. All three of us. And weird is part of the drill. When
you hunt, I hunt."
 
"Sammy?" Dean sounded half out of it, and Sam wheeled around to face him.
 
"Please…promise…" Dean battled going to sleep. Damn drugs! "Promise…no going
alone…no going without me."
 
"I promise, Dean." Sam knelt by Dean again and gently patted his chest. Dean's
eyes opened a slit and Sam nodded his head for emphasis. With a sigh, Dean let
his eyes fall shut again.
 
"Sam, we're all wound up. We'll talk about this after we get some sleep. Dean?
Buddy, are you awake?"
 
"Uhmmm…" Dean couldn't open his eyes. Once he knew that Sam was safe – and his
gangly brother's right hand planted on his chest proved that he was – he let
sleep drag him under.
 
"I'll get his blankets and a pillow. He's out cold," Sam whispered. "Dad,
please, just let me go with you. I can do homework in the car if you think the
case is too dangerous. Please."
 
John knew Sam wasn't exaggerating what had happened; he'd known from the first
glance into his son's eyes. "You'll do what you're told."
 
"Yes."
 
"All right. You aren't ten any more. But if your grades drop, you're right back
to being grounded, which you still are until school starts again. Not a word!
Go get Dean's blankets. And get some sleep yourself."
 
Shoulders rounded with weariness, John stretched and walked toward his bedroom.
At the end of the hall, he turned and said "Get some rest, Sammy. Dean's all
right." Ten minutes later, the light that glowed under his bedroom door blinked
off.
 
Dean's eyes drifted open after John left the living room. Sam had taken the
stairs three at a time and returned before Dean's mind registered he was gone.
"Here you go, big brother," Sam murmured. He pulled Dean's boots and socks off
but left the hospital scrub bottoms on. Carefully, Sam covered Dean with
blankets and eased his pillow under his head.
 
"Sammy, here…"
 
Sam dropped to his knees again and leaned over Dean to hear him more clearly.
And to touch a gentle kiss to his lips. And another to his forehead and several
more to his lips, proving to both of them that he had come through the Un-
safely. "Promise me. Promise me. Do not go away like that. Don't leave me alone
here. Can't make it without you."
 
"I can't make it without you either. I won't leave you alone. I promise." He
kissed Dean again and settled himself against the couch, his left hand holding
Dean's right. "I won't leave you alone."
 
NOW
 
 
 [ photo 71cb29f8-3255-4af0-82d1-0284f94ba503_zps4681eb07.jpg]
 
 [ photo 33b59ecf-ef37-4267-b6e2-6bfd9415fd02_zps053c67e2.jpg]
 
 
"ALL WE CAN HOPE IS THAT THEY HEAR US."
"THEN WE SHOULD BE STILL."
"INDEED. AS LOUDLY AS YOU CAN."
***** <b>Chapter 9 - The Light they Cast</b> *****
 [ photo 2013-02-23135434400x277_zps593f63ed.jpg]
 
 
"Sammy?" Dean couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. Sammy? Oh gods, what
happened? Where is he? "Sammy? SAM?" He turned slowly in place, automatically
scanning 360 degrees – no Sam. Couldn't be. Sam not being there just damn well
couldn't be. Listen harder, like he does for you. Listen harder. Harder.
Farther out. Listen .
 
Sam could see Dean. And he could hear him. He also could hear other voices
behind himself. The voices sounded familiar. People going about their business
on a nice late autumn day. Average, exactly like -
 
Sam choked off his curiosity. Everything he wanted stood right in front of him,
unable to see him. And he knew straight through him that he couldn't walk over
to Dean. Dean! Don't go: I'm right here! In spite of his spiraling panic, he
stood still, took a breath and bellowed, "Dean!"
 
Dean heard Sam's voice; however, it came from Dean's left, more than ten feet
away from where Dean and Sam had stood before Sam had – no, no time for that.
"Sam, I hear you! Call again!"
 
"Dean!" Wide eyed, Sam watched Dean turn his head away. "I'm here! No! Don't
move! Stay where you are!"
 
"Sammy, your voice is coming from over by that bush!"
 
"I don't care what it sounds like, I haven't moved! Dean, get me back to you!"
Sam tried to take a step – nothing happened. But everything above his ankles
seemed to be working. "I can't move my feet! Like they're in concrete!"
 
Dean fought the urge to break down. Pulling up every bit of focus he possessed,
he schooled himself back into Hunter mode. "Sam?" No answer. "SAM!"
 
"Dean, you're getting fainter! Get me back, man!" Sam shook so hard his teeth
chattered."No! No, stay here with me! Don't…"
"Sam, I'm not leavin'!" Sam. Get Sam back. Get. Sam. Back.
 
He had no idea whether what he was doing would end up in him and Sam being lost
wherever Sam was. However, he knew without question that he'd rather be lost
with Sammy than be anywhere without him. "Sam, grab my hands!"
 
Dean stretched his arms straight out in front of him. "Can you see them?" His
fingers and the rest of his hands up to the middle of his forearms faded from
view. Shuddering inside, he resisted the instinct that demanded he free himself
from whatever had hidden them. "Sammy?" Inside, all he could think was "Hang
on!"
 
There – there - pressure on the end of his left thumb and the second finger of
his right hand.
 
 [ photo e9b7bd2e-0f27-4572-84c1-640e9a11f01b_zps9d5df078.jpg]
 
"Just the tips of your fingers! Got 'em!" Sam shouted. The tentative contact
was enough to calm them both down. "Dean-!" He began one heavy step forward
toward Dean. Couldn't move his foot to lift it, shoved it through the – glue?
No. Just Dean. Keep Dean's fingers in his. "A tiny space to move and he grabbed
another finger, curled his own around it. "Dean!"
 
"I c'n feel it! Stay with me! Sammy, stay the fuck with me!"
 
Dean tugged lightly and heaved a breath of relief when Sam's fingers tightened
around his. A third finger to a third finger. No time to think. No time.
Pulling steadily because yanking might cause Sam to lose his grip, Dean
Winchester began to bring Sam back to him.
 
Fourth finger. Then the other thumb. Almost enough to pull Sam up the side of a
cliff. Another finger. In a driving rainstorm. Then another finger and both
ring fingers connected them. Stay with me, Sam. Sam was shaking hard and-
 
Something pressed Sam away from him. Immediately, Dean's fury boiled over.
Blood thundered in his ears and he dug into the ground under his feet. "No, you
son of a bitch! He's mine! Get the hell away from Sam!" he snarled, mind
racing. "NO!" roaring the word as loudly as he could. The pressure of Sam's
hold on him increased infinitesimally, and he made the decision to pull after
he'd already begun to.
 [ photo 2013-02-23135824400x151_zpsde2e3c56.jpg]
 
 
He spidered his fingers forward, one hard fought inch at a time; his grip on
Sam's fingers became a crushing grasp of Sam's whole left hand, then the right.
They grabbed each other's wrists and Dean hauled with his entire body. No
thought, just pull Sam back to him. Eyes shut, unaware of anything else, he
pulled and felt Sam lean forward toward him. Pulled even harder, his muscles
screaming with pain. Kept on. Another bit of slack, another half step backward.
Left heel in the dirt, then right, pegging him to the ground. More slack…and -
 
Without a sound, Sam crashed into Dean and knocked him over. Dean hit the
ground and kept rolling, Sam with him. Back. Away from…away…then up to his
feet, dragging Sam. Only when they'd half fallen, half scrambled back twenty
yards, only then did Dean stop to look Sam over, to see if he was all right.
 
"Dean!" Sam collapsed against Dean and clung to him for all he was worth.
"Dean, you got me back. You did it." He kissed Dean, who was busy kissing every
part of Sam's face and neck that he could reach, clutching him to his chest
with the strength of a python on steroids. Their lips crashed together and
their tongues slid against each other, claiming. When Sam could speak, all he
could babble was "Dean – oh gods – Dean…I…didn't I would have…I knew it. I love
you so much…"
 
Dean wanted nothing more than to sink to the ground and hold Sam tight forever.
But he also knew that he needed to get Sam away from whatever it was that had
trapped him. Still pressing soft kisses to Sam's face, he forced himself to be
calm and to speak quietly.
 
"Sammy, we have to get out of here. C'mon now. Don't look back. Look at me,
baby. C'mon. Don't talk. That's it. Just lean on me." Sam nodded, and tilted
heavily against Dean as they wobbled slowly up the gentle slope past the Quaker
Meeting House and on toward the Town Square.
 
Once they reached the green house at the corner of the square, Sam stopped sank
down to sit on the ground. He mumbled, "Tell dad – warn him…them…'M all right,
Dean. Warn them. C'n sit by myself – no! Don't go away!"
 
 [ photo fostertuftshouse_zpsb742f05b.jpg]
 
 
"On you like glue," Dean whispered into Sam's ear, blinking his eyes rapidly to
keep tears at bay. Pressing light kisses to Sam's face all the while, he
fumbled for his phone and pushed the speed dial for John's number. He didn't
fall apart until he heard John's voice. He tried to speak and ended up choking,
"D-Dad. Need you- we – hurry." The sobs had begun to shove out of his mouth and
he swallowed them fiercely. "Don' go near Pioneer Cabin…we're at the corner of
the town square…hurry…"
 
John answered on the first ring, listened to what Dean said and went ashy gray.
"Stay where you are. We're just coming up across from you." He pulled ahead of
Chris and Bobby, clutching his phone so hard his knuckles had gone white. "I
can see you. Yeah, I'll stay on the phone. Dean, look up and you'll see us.
Don't worry."
 
John glanced over his shoulder at Bobby and Chris and tried to explain.
Instead, he pointed toward his two sons and broke into an open run.
 
Dean held Sam close against himself, stroking Sam's hair back from his forehead
and talking softly to him. Not realizing what had happened, John kept on
running toward the two of them.
 
And was greeted with a sharp, "Stop! No closer!" from Dean. For a few seconds,
Dean didn't recognize John: he was having a hard time seeing. His eyes ached
when he tried to focus, and he couldn't figure out why.
 
"Dean, it's just me. It's all right." John knelt in front of Dean and Sam and
did an Oscar worthy impression of parental calm and control. Until he caught a
glimpse of Dean's face.
 
"Dean -? What the hell-" John just stared at Dean's eyes. They looked as if his
oldest had had a run in with a hockey puck. Both eyes were blood shot, and the
skin beneath them had been badly bruised by whatever Dean had slammed into.
"Your face– Dean what happened?"
 
He tried to move closer again and froze when Sam recoiled and curled in toward
Dean and safety. "Boys, it's just me, Dad."
 
"John, back off a little. Give 'em some space." Bobby advised quietly.
 
Sam and Dean didn't hear him or John; they'd lost themselves in staring at each
other again, motionless and intent on some conversation no one else could hear.
Abruptly, Dean shivered head to toe and peered across at his dad.
 
 
"Dad – I, uh, I – Sam," and he fell silent again, the enormity of what had
happened finally flooding through him. "Sammy?" The need to be alone with Sam,
to make love to him, to hold him until both of them stopped shaking, nearly
overset Dean. Only pure stubbornness kept him from taking Sam back to the car
and returning to the Inn.
 
"I'm here, De," Sam whispered back. "Dad's worried. Talk to him?"
 
"Yeah. Talk to him-Sammy?"
 
"Don't let me go."
 
"No, not letting you go."
 
Dean watched Sam all the while he talked to John. "Dad, need to make sure no
one goes near that pioneer place."
 
"What happened, Dean?" John asked quietly. We've been looking for you for an
hour. We went down to the Pioneer Homestead – but you weren't there."
 
"I never left. I never left you, Sammy, I promise…"
"I know, Dean. You were right there. You brought me back." Sam leaned up and
rested his cheek against Dean's, oblivious to anything beyond his brother.
 
"John, we need to get all of us back to the Inn."
 
"But – we- that can't be right! Can it? Dean?" All of a sudden, Sam didn't have
enough air to breathe. He shut his eyes and tried to calm himself down, but the
memory of what had happened was too much for him. He pressed his faced against
Dean's neck and said, "An hour?"
 
"I know. Didn't seem that long." Dean rubbed easy circles over Sam's shoulders
and nuzzled his forehead. "Not letting you go." Sam smiled fleetingly and
rested back against him.
 
"Uh, is there something we should –" John started to say. He meant the question
only to lighten the mood.
 
Dean glared at him and snapped, "He was gone. I could hear him but I couldn't
see him. And he couldn't get back. He was gone. I'm not letting him get lost
like that again, Dad. Ever!"
 
"Son, I'm sorry. I didn't realize - I don't understand." Dean glared at him
again before he looked back at Sam and blocked everything out but being sure
that Sam was all right.He wanted to be alone with Sam, to count his fingers and
toes, to make sure that he wasn't hurt.
 
Completely bewildered, John glanced up at Bobby and Christabel, both of whom
had walked farther away to give the Winchesters some privacy. "Bobby?"
 
"I got nothing, John. We're gonna need to debrief…"
 
 
"Need to warn everyone here not to go near that place." Dean wouldn't even say
the words Pioneer Cabin. Couldn't. Maybe they were a charm that called whatever
it was that had almost taken his Sammy from him. Instead, he pointed in the
general direction of the old building.
 
"Dean, everyone but security and whoever is doing the entertainment tonight is
gone. And the interpreters and the security guys are all in the big conference
room next to Admissions."
 
" The restorers and the students? Did you see 'em leave?"
 
"Yup," Bobby confirmed. "I wasn't going to take a chance on some civilian
deciding to stay inside over night without us knowing it. Seven restoration
specialists and four students came in. Seven restoration specialists and four
students left."
"What happened to the other one?" Sam asked. As wiped out as he was, he still
was a Hunter.
 
"Other one what?"
 
"The other student. There were five. You'n I counted 'em. Dad and Chris, you
saw 'em. Five, right?" Dean replied for Sam.
 
"Are you sayin' I can't count, Dean?" Bobby asked sharply.
 
"No, Bobby. I'm sayin' there were five." Dean replied.
 
"Oh crap," Bobby grumbled, his annoyance covering something else altogether.
"Oh freakin' crap. Chris??"
 
"We need to pull back and regroup. Now," she replied briskly.
 
"Dean? Sam? We're going back to the Blanket. I'm driving the Impala."
 
"We can't leave that place unguarded!"
 
"Dean, remember when we did the sweep earlier? We all walked right down the
street you and Sammy were on. Nothing happened to anyone. Nothing happened a
few minutes ago when we were looking for you and Sam. I wonder if whatever
happened to Sam stumbled on him rather than Sam stumbling on whatever it was. I
don't know, son. But I do know that you and Sam need to get away from here."
 
"'M fine, Dad. Just a couple of bruises –" Dean started to explain, being
strong for Sam.
 
Sam wasn't buying Dean's crap for a minute. He knew Dean was likely to call him
an emo bitch later, but he also knew he had to buy Dean some space. Buy them
both some space. "Dean, I need to get out of here. Just for a couple of hours.
Okay?" I need you. Please, don't argue, Dean. Please."
 
"Can you stand up?" Dean rose creakily to his feet and held out a hand to Sam.
 
"I think – yeah." Sam stilted to his feet and took a breath. Grabbed for Dean
immediately when the earth tilted a little. "Dean, let's go back to the hotel."
 
Everyone thought that Sam used Puppy Eyes to manipulate Dean: they were wrong
by a mile. Puppy Eyes was fun and both men liked playing that game; but when
Sam looked straight at Dean and asked, Dean agreed immediately.
 
"Okay, Sammy."
 
"Keys, Dean," John ordered gruffly. The fact that Dean handed him the car's
keys without argument told John and Bobby just how exhausted he was. Quietly,
they left the village, headed across the Great Meadow and out to their
vehicles.
 
Chris shook her head when she admitted to herself that they had a Situation on
their hands. A glance at Bobby and John showed her the same expressions on
their faces.
 
Worse, they all knew that the Situation had gone critical.
 
 
Now, if they could just figure out what was happening and how to stop it.
 
Dean helped Sam out of the back seat of the car and turned to John. "We need to
be alone for awhile. Start without us." Carefully, he wrapped his arm around
Sam's waist and helped his little brother toward the motel lobby.
 
John swallowed back his immediate parental response, the ever popular, 'Watch
that smart mouth, son,' and, instead, called, "We'll be in Bobby's room."
Dean nodded but didn't turn around.
 
"Well, if that don't beat all," John muttered to himself.
 
"Elevator, Sammy." Dean punched the button and, obediently, the elevator door
opened. He remembered to push the number two, before he pulled Sam into his
arms and held him close. "You were so damn brave, baby. So brave…"
 
Sam finally let go of the tears that had threatened to drown him since the
instant he'd found himself separated from Dean. "I was so…fucking…scared," he
hiccupped. "And you were – I could see you and I couldn't get to you. What
would have happened if…"
 
"Sammy, Sammy? Listen to me…" Dean knew tears tracked down his face, too. What
they'd survived and what might have happened had blown all of his defensive
walls down flat. "Sam…you're right. You're right to be scared about what
happened. We're both right about that. But, baby, if we think about what might
have happened, we're gonna go crazy."
 
Sam nodded once, throwing himself off balance in the process. "Dean, I need
you."
 
"I need you, too. Baby, we made it. We're here and together…right?" Dean smiled
encouragingly at Sam.
 
"Yeah." Sam knew what Dean was doing and let him take charge.
 
"So you don't have to feel guilty-"
 
"Guilty?" Sam pulled back, surprised. "Guilty about what?"
"Don't you remember? I remember, and I was pretty much out of it at the time."
Dean led Sam down the hall to their room and unlocked the door.
 
"Remember what, Dean?"
 
"You promised me you wouldn't leave me alone."
 
"Dude! I didn't have much choice here!"
 
'Doesn't matter," Dean countered, a wicked gleam in his eye. "I would've just
had to follow you wherever you went to get even with you for breakin' your
promise."
 
Sam burst out laughing and grabbed Dean the second he heard the door's lock
click into place. When he looked into Dean's eyes, however, and saw the love
and the too-fresh memory of what had happened, his laughter faded and his smile
softened into gentle kisses to Dean's lips. "I love you so much," he murmured
around his caresses. "So much."
 
Dean wrapped his arms around Sam's neck and backed him toward their king sized
bed. He tried to answer Sam, but the memory of what had happened was still too
raw, so he kissed him instead. Silence fell around them and the world stepped
away, giving them space.
 
"Clothes – " Sam grunted. "Off – now!"
 
Dean nodded and obeyed orders, naked in a few seconds. Sam fumbled with his
shirt and realized that his wrists were bruised and sore. Pouting, he showed
Dean his injuries and waited.
 
"Really? You can't take off your own shirt?" (Ten fingers, okay, that's good.)
 
"It's your fault!" Another brick in the wall that separated both of them from
what had happened earlier.
 
"Well, come here, you fragile little thing," Dean sighed, pretending to be much
put-upon. He couldn't hide a wince when he saw the reddish purple bruises on
Sam's skin. Careful not to hurt Sam even more, he eased Sam's shirt and both
undershirts off before he unbuttoned and unzipped his baby brother's jeans. A
mournful look from Sam followed.
 
"What? Your boots? You can't – oh, all right…but you owe me!" Grumbling, Dean
loosed the laces on Sam's boots and, to save time, he convinced himself, pulled
them off. And the socks . Yup, ten toes. Good.
 
When Sam was finally naked, Dean pulled him close and fell to the bed with him.
They had survived something far deadlier than a hunt: they both knew it.
Their kisses deepened and Sam's body ached for Dean to be inside him. His moans
softened and became "Please…Dean please need you please." He didn't realize he
had begun to cry until Dean wiped away his tears with kisses to his cheeks.
 
Dean reached down between their bodies and slid one palm over the head of Sam's
cock, already stiff and wet with pre-cum. Sam nodded and sighed when Dean
kissed the line of his jaw and nipped gently at his left earlobe.
 
Sam would have been happy to have Dean inside him dry, but there was no way
that his older brother would allow that. Dean had left their lube in the
nightstand after their shower that morning. Sam, eyes shut, listening to Dean
breathe, heard the click of the lube's top and the faint sounds of Dean
slicking himself up. Felt his brother's index finger circle his opening and
then, gently, slide in and begin to stretch him. "Dean-" he moaned, almost
silently. "Dean, please…'m ready…please…"
 
"Right here, baby brother. Love you …" Dean whispered back into his ear,
licking along its delicate shell. "Love you so much. Never leaving you. Ever."
 
Sam groaned when the tip of Dean's cock pressed against his entrance.
Completely relaxed, he tilted his pelvis toward it, just as Dean entered him.
He loved the sensation of Dean filling him, the awareness of every inch of
Dean's hard cock driving as deeply as possible into his ass. He could feel it
pulsing as Dean struggled to hold back, near orgasm already. His own cock wept
pre-cum on his belly and his balls drew up against him.
 
"Not gonna last…need you…love you so much!" the words sighs as Dean thrust into
him and he rocked himself closer, tucked tight against Dean, his long legs
clasping Dean close.. Dean sped up and pushed himself deeper, silent except for
one name whispered over and over. "Sammy…" Sam clung to him and pulled Dean's
body as tight to himself as he could so Dean could come deep inside him.
 
They both froze at the same time, and came together, each whispering the
other's name, hands clutching each other, bodies joined, hearts alive again,
fear driven back , no match for the light they cast against its darkness.
 
 [smallvillage2 photo smallvillage2.jpg]
***** <B>Forward Part 2 - or The Writer is an Idjit - PLACEHOLDER</B> *****
Let's try this again (I just wiped out what I had written.) I just posted a new
chapter that really needs to move to its proper location, so I'm putting this
as a place holder.
 
I had it ready to post, I had it all set to post and, of course, I DIDN'T post
it, for some unremembered reason.
 
There are enough key elements in it that I felt I should post it now and let
you know I'm moving it to its proper place in the story.
 
Initially, it was called Gatherings...because there are more pieces to any
story than the major things we see.
***** <b>Chapter 10 - It's not a Relief to Debrief</b> *****
"NO! Let … go…NO!"
 
Sam jolted awake and grabbed for Dean simultaneously. They hadn't been asleep
that long, couldn't have been, Sam thought, groggy. Dean had turned over and
lost contact with him. And a nightmare had snared him. Still deeply asleep, he
tugged at their blankets, pulling as if they weighed a ton.
 
"Sammy…back…Sam…NO!"
 
"Dean- Dean- wake up, Dean. You're having a nightmare. C'mon…I'm right here."
Sam wrapped his arms around Dean's upper body and repeated the words until
Dean's frantic tugging quieted. "I'm right here. It's a bad dream. That's all."
 
Confused, still half asleep, Dean finally realized who was talking to him,
gently kneading his back and kissing his forehead. "Sam?" He did a repeat of
the python on steroids stranglehold around Sam's shoulders and forced himself
to wake up.
 
"Yup. I sent Genghis Khan out for coffee."
 
"Good- uh- who?" Dean's eyes snapped open and he craned his neck back to stare
up at Sam. "You sent –"
 
"Genghis Khan –"
 
"You're nuts."
 
"Got your attention, didn't it?" Sam grinned when Dean couldn't figure out a
decent comeback. Far more soberly, he added, "Dean, I'm right here. It was a
nightmare, just a nightmare."
 
Dean nodded quickly and, realizing he was leaving bruises from clutching Sam so
hard, attempted to relax. "I'm a little disappointed, though," Sam continued.
Not allowing Dean the chance to ask a question, he explained, "I'm the frail
baby brother. You're supposed to take care ofme, remember?"
 
"Sammy … Then Dean saw the glint in Sam's eyes and the start of another smile
on his lips. "Frail – you're about as frail as the front line of the Seahawks,
little brother…" he grumbled. "What time is it? Sam, we've been asleep for an
hour!"
 
"Uhm, yup, you're right!" Sam praised, openly chuckling at Dean's annoyance.
Mentally, he congratulated himself for being able to distract his brother.
 
"Dad shoulda been knocking down the doors by now! Shower – both of us.
Together." Sam smiled at Dean and waggled his eyebrows. Dean shook his head
reluctantly. "Baby, we have to get down there before they come up here." Sad
Sam frown. "But I'll make it up to you later. I promise. Go on and get the
shower warmed up. I'm right behind you."
 
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Sam shuddered and went white. "Dean?" Just like that,
the hotel room dissolved and he was back on the wrong side of whatever it was
that had trapped him. He'd been dreaming. Dean hadn't been able to get to him.
The whole nightmare…He couldn't get back! Hands pulled him away from Dean. He
couldn't break clear. "Dean?" Dean couldn't hear him. They were too far apart.
And he couldn't move his damn feet! "Dean? DEAN?"
 
Son of a bitch, Sammy. I'm sorry! Dean thought as he clambered out of bed and
grabbed Sam close. "Sammy, stop fighting me, Sammy. It's me. It's Dean. You're
here with me. Sam, open your eyes, baby boy…c'mon. Open your eyes. I'm right
here."
 
He grabbed one of Sam's hands and pressed it to his face. "That's my handsome
face you're trying to claw tracks in. Sammy, open your eyes." He kissed Sam's
palm and pressed it back to his cheek.
 
Sam opened one eye a sliver, saw Dean and instantly quieted. A breath later and
he'd molded himself to Dean's body, holding on silently. The room swung back
into focus then, and Sam was standing on carpet, safe in Dean's arms, and 'that
other place' sank a little farther into the background. "Sammy, we're here.
Dad's downstairs probably stewing up a storm. You're safe…"
 
"You don't know that, Dean. Maybe it's …"Help me out here, big brother. Please!
Shivering, he clung to Dean for all he was worth, while Dean calmed him, gentle
kisses and the quiet "I love you, Sammy," the only remedy he had. When he
pulled back a little to examine Sam's expression, he saw the uncertainty and
the memory of terror in his brother's wide eyes.
 
Thathe knew how to deal with. He framed Sam's face between his hands, holding
Sam steady and speaking quietly, with absolute certainty.
 
"Sam, we're going to have to face this head on. One step at a time. Whatever
happens, happens to both of us, got it?"
 
"Dean, what if I can't…"
 
"One step at a time. Right now? You'n' I need that shower." Sam smiled in spite
of himself and Dean ruffled his baby brother's hair. "You more than me, of
course."
 
'Because I'm taller and better looking."
 
"Uh huh – sure, thatworks…Taller and better looking…more like..hey! No slapping
the head!"
 
Twenty minutes later, clean, brushed and dressed, they headed out the door of
their room – but not until Sam had tested the floor, hanging on to both sides
of the door frame and stepping out onto the carpet only after he'd pressed it
down under one foot. "Dean, I feel like an asshole!"
 
"Cut it out, Sammy, one …"
 
"- step at a time. I know, I know-" Tentatively, he stepped into the corridor
and, after a breath or two, let go of the door frame. Dean took his left hand
and squeezed it reassuringly.
 
"I'm closing the door, Dean." Saying the words was important, they locked him
into doing what he'd said he'd do. Still holding on tight, he turned and pulled
the door closed. He glanced quickly toward Dean and, when his brother showed no
signs of disappearing, let out the breath he'd been holding.
 
"You good to go? Now, elevator or stairs? Baby, you tell me what you want to
use."
 
"Elevator." Sam swallowed and took another step. Knees shaking, he nonetheless
walked all the way to the elevator without bolting back to the room. Dean
talked to him as the elevator made its slow way from the second floor to the
first. Another pause after the door opened. Dean stepped into the lobby and
waited patiently while Sam tested the floor. Sam let go of Dean's hand to walk
down the corridor to Bobby's room. "I'm knocking on the door," Sam stated
determinedly.
 
"Works for me," Dean replied. Sam was as resilient as any hunter alive, and
every step he took brought him farther from what had happened. However, Dean
wasn't taking any chances. His right side pressed against Sam's left, he waited
as Sam knocked once.
 
Me Again
 
Chris didn't talk while I was drivin' to the Inn. But in the parking lot, she
told me to wait, and she refused to get outa the cab until she'd had her say.
 
"Bobby, Sam should still be wherever he was. I can't prove that, but as sure as
I'm sitting here, I know that there's no way Dean should have been able to
bring him back."
 
"You just said it yourself: you can't prove anything, Chris! Balls, we don't
know what happened there! John and I walked right over where Dean says he was
standin' and we never saw him! But he's here and so's Sam. Who's to say what
really was supposed to happen?"
 
"Until you forgot the fifth student – until you and John and I forgot the fifth
student- I was pretty much inclined to think everything was a fluke. Now? We
need to find out what Sam and Dean saw or heard or felt, whatever we can find
to go on. And we're going to need help."
 
Me? I couldn't argue with Chris' logic. I agreed with her. I don't think I'll
ever forget the look on Dean's face when we came running up to them there in
the Town Square. Or the look on Sam's.
 
I've seen expressions like theirs before, too many times. Hunters who've seen
too much, lost too much, who can't forget what they know about what lives in
the dark. I've worn that look a couple o' times myself. Yeah, don't get all
mushy, Sparks. I made it through to the other side. We made it through to the
other side. I'm all right, stop lookin' like I died or something, willya?
 
The only difference between what those other hunters and Sam and Dean was that
those boys knew right through themselves that Dean had brought Sam back to him
against every odd there could be. And they were terrified that the same thing
might happen again and one or both of them wouldn't be able to get back.
 
"This is beyond me. But maybe…" Chris opened the door and slid to the ground.
"Bobby, I'm going to make a phone call. Meet up with John and the boys: I'll be
right there."
 
The next thing I saw was her back as she headed toward the lobby. "What the
hell's happenin' here?" I remember thinking. I also remember thinkin', "Singer,
you don't want to know."
 
John waited by my door. Alone. He didn't hear me coming up toward him, and all
the warning bells went off in my head again. There was no way we could handle
what we'd uncovered if he and the boys were at all distracted. He looked like
death warmed over, pale, shoulders all hunched over, hands shaking.
 
"John, where are the boys?"
 
He was stunned; I'm writin' that in because I can count on one hand the number
of times I've ever seen John Winchester stunned. "Dean told me that they needed
some time. He also told us to start without them."
 
"Told?" I knew I was risking damage to vital organs when I asked that. John
just shook his head and muttered, "Told."
 
Then he got the strangest look on his face – more than anything, I'm gonna say
he was scared. Not as scared as Sam and Dean, maybe. But scared. I took another
risk and asked him "D'you want to go and check on 'em?"
 
"Huh? Oh…no, they're fine, Bobby."
 
John Winchester can lie like few other people I know: in order to be a Hunter,
we have to be able to tell a good story to keep suspicious cops and civilians
off our backs. But when it came to Sam and Dean, he could no more lie that he
could swim the English Channel one armed and wearing Spandex. I knew he had
figured out the same thing Chris and I had and was doing the best he could to
convince himself that there was nothing to worry about.
 
Chris ended up takin' a bit of time on her phone call. John and I did our best
to put things in order, but we were both off our game. We ordered some lunch
in, enough for all of us and talked about the whole sweep while we waited for
the boys to come back downstairs and join us.
 
If they were still in their room, if- I shook my head like a dog shakes water
off and ate a little more sandwich.
 
John couldn't sit still. And there wasn't really a lot of room to pace. He
wanted to go and check on his sons, but he didn't want to at the same time. So
he ended up leaning against the wall beside the bathroom door, waiting. Wasn't
anything I could say to help, so I parked myself on the end of the bed nearest
the door, drank coffee and ate my roast beef sandwich. And waited with him.
 
John jumped when Sam knocked on the door: Sam knocks on doors about a foot
higher up than Dean, and, yeah, hunters notice that kind of thing. Sue me.
Before a second knock could have landed, he'd opened the door.
 
Sam and Dean stood there, just outside the door frame, not a breath of air
separating them. John wanted to hug 'em both: that much I could tell, even from
beside and a little behind him. But the look on both their faces stopped John
and me where we were. "C'mon in, you two. Sam –"
 
"Just a second, Dad," Dean interrupted quietly. "Sammy?"
 
I couldn't really hear what Sam said, but it might have been "On it." John
reached one hand forward to help, but Sam shook his head. "I'm okay, Dad."
Never stopped lookin' at John or reaching behind himself for Dean. He didn't
move a muscle, just stood in the doorway.
 
That's when I saw how bad things were. Sam had a look on his face that I don't
remember ever seeing on him before. The kid had left 'scared' behind in the
dust and was pulling fast away from 'terrified'. I couldn't see much of Dean:
he'd stepped back a little to give Sam some room if he wanted to back off. John
stayed right where he was, and I could see enough of his face to know he was
just as shook up as I was. I watched Sam checking out the carpet, just a toe
tap down to be sure it was there before he stepped into the room. Came to a
dead stop even after Dean caught up with him.
 
I will say this for John; scared as he was for his boys, he still kept as calm
as he could. Clapped Sam on the shoulder and told him he did good. Chris showed
up about then, I think. I was too busy not looking at the boys and John to
notice much else. All I could think was "What the hell are we going to do now?"
 
 
Dean settled Sam against the headboard of the bed nearest the door and
collected two sandwiches for Sam plus one for himself. Coffee for both of them.
Then he parked himself right next to Sam on the bed. John finally cleared his
throat and dove in.
 
"We don't have a lot of time, everyone. Let's get going. Sam, how about you and
Dean start off?"
 
"Sammy? Do you want to talk?" Dean asked, encouraging Sam with a smile. Sam
shook his head, eyes widening again. Dean figured out what had gone through his
little brother's mind and nodded. "Is it all right if I do?"
 
Just the faintest hint of a nod. Sam slid down a little on the bed and snugged
up against Dean. Be here. Don't disappear. were the only words he could think.
Beside him, Dean shifted closer, the warmth of his body dispelling some of
Sam's fear.
 
"I didn't see anything. Not before or after. I'm glad we did that first walk-
through, though, before we split up. The closer we got to that cabin the second
time, the more off everything felt. Sam and I both –something was there, but
not 'really' there. Like the tension wandered in and out of focus? I can't
really even explain it. We both generally know when something's got an eye on
us, but that wasn't it. Sam? Is that how it came across to you?"
 
"Yeah."
 
Dean felt Sam shiver and hurried on. "One second Sam was there. The next
second, he was gone. I saw our prints coming to the spot in the road where we
stopped. But that was all. He was –" Dean hesitated; saying the word meant
reliving that moment. "Gone. And I couldn't- I didn't have a clue where he
could have gone to.
 
"Don't –" Sam interrupted.
 
"Don't? Don't what?"
 
"Tell 'em I screamed like a girl. And you know you were going to." Startled,
Dean sat a little away from Sam so he could focus on his face and stared at
him. Three seconds later, when he read the look in his little brother's eyes,
he could have kissed him, well, if that wouldn't have caused another sort of
scene.
 
Kissing? Later. Doing something like a normal debriefing session? Now.
 
"Okay, okay – so you bellowed. This one time I'm gonna let have your delusions,
"Dean replied."I could hear him say my name. It wasn't loud, but I heard it
pretty well. His voice seemed to come from my left, over next to that bush
across from the blacksmith shop."
 
Chris glanced up at that and watched the two men talking to each other. She
understood what they were doing almost at once and sighed inside, not wanting
to break the very fragile normalcy they were attempting to create.
 
"And I hadn't moved. I told Dean to stay where he was."
 
"Which was a good thing. I was heading over to that bush thing to get closer to
you."
 
"And that would have ended up making me farther from you." Sam nodded and sat
up so he could look directly at his brother. "Dean, did you get any feeling
that something sentient had grabbed me? Something that was hunting?"
 
Dean pondered for a minute and finally shook his head. "No. Whatever it is or
was, it didn't do anything. Except try to keep you where you were. Like a trap
door."
 
"That's how felt to me, too. Like I'd stepped backward, even though I don't
think I did, and fallen into someplace else."
 
"You didn't step backward. There were two boot prints where you'd been and
then-" Dean cleared his throat and added, "there weren't any prints moving
away. You didn't step into it, Sam. Whatever it was stepped under you." The
implications of what he'd just said hit Dean hard. He lost his train of thought
for a few seconds, re-railed when Sam asked another question.
 
"Dean? I was wondering -" he hesitated for a heartbeat, long enough for Dean to
ask, "Wondering what, Sammy?"
 
"When did you learn what 'sentient' means?" he asked innocently. Dean started
to answer and did a double take when he realized exactly what Sam had said.
 
"Hey, you smartass!" Dean exclaimed, just before he swatted (lightly) the side
of Sam's head. "I know words longer than one syllable!"
 
"Just surprised me is all." And a smile tugged at Sam's lips.
 
"Feeble, Sammy. Feeble!"
 
The atmosphere in the room lightened slightly in the wake of the bantering Sam
and Dean had set into motion. Even when they returned to what had happened, the
shadows of the memories seemed to rest lighter on their shoulders. Or so John
wanted to believe.
 
"How did you know to reach out to Sam?" Bobby asked quietly.
 
"I didn't. I only knew that we were close enough to hear each other, so we
might be close enough that I could grab his hands and pull him back. Man, does
that sound stupid now."
 
"It worked, Dean. It wasn't stupid," Sam countered and Dean felt his brother's
body shivering again, pulled him closer and tried to broadcast calm and warmth
to him. He didn't have a clue why he was doing it, but at least Sam stayed
tight against his side soaking up body heat.
 
"So I reached straight ahead, right over the boot steps he'd left. It was kind
of freaky when my hands disappeared, but it didn't hurt, and it wasn't cold so
I pushed until I couldn't…yeah, until I couldn't go any farther. Bobby, I just
remembered that. All I could think to do to get to Sam." Dean's tissue thin
veneer of calm rumpled when he said the last four words, and he swallowed hard
again. "Uh – Sammy, you could only see two fingers?"
 
"Yeah. Your left thumb tip and your right index finger tip…" Sam felt his own
distress rising in concert with Dean's and pressed his forehead to Dean's,
bringing his older brother back to the moment. "Stay with me, bro. 'Kay?"
 
Dean nodded shakily and blew out a breath. "It was weird – your hands were
offset from the rest of you – I think it was because whatever kept us apart was
starting to bend. It looked more like a fisheye image of you. I didn't even
realize it then. I was too busy trying to keep hold of your finger tips. I
pretended they were Velcro and that I wouldn't lose my grip because of that."
 
"Sammy? Do you remember what happened when I pulled you through? I'm a little
blank there."
 
"I was watching you; but I think when you yanked me back through I shut my
eyes. Whatever it was wasn't supposed to let me come back the other way." Sam's
voice wavered and broke.
 
"Was there an 'it' that did the wanting and the letting?" Chris asked. She
thanked the gods-that-are that a Hunter had strayed into whatever had
inadvertently landed under Sam. Any other human being would have been a
babbling hysteric.
 
Sam frowned and considered the question. "It felt like I was pushing through
plexiglass – does that make sense? I don't remember anything about showing up
on that side, but going back? Like pushing through plexiglass. Everything in
front of me was out of focus and distorted. But nothing visible was holding me
or dragging me backward, if that's what you mean." Sam stared down at his hands
and reran what he'd seen and heard and felt during what he'd been sure was only
a few seconds.
 
"It is. Dean?"
 
"Huh? "Dean responded, voice tight."Like walking through plexiglass – not a bad
way to put it. By the time we'd connected with everything but our little
fingers, I had enough of a grip to haul Sam toward me. For a couple of seconds,
I thought I was going to lose him. No…that's not right…something was trying to
drag him back and I lost it. All I remember is digging my boots in and pulling
back as hard as I could. I never let go, I never let – and then there was a
word? A word…that sounds dumb. A word I don't remember but it made me mad? No,
not mad. I just set my feet and pulled. And then – he popped through and landed
on top of me. Everything was quiet, even when he landed on me. He was back and
…and I got him the hell out of there."
 
"Dean – it wasn't quiet on my side. When Dean was pulling me through, there
were people running toward me. I know that; I could hear their footsteps and a
couple of voices. Then there was a sound like wind or something. And the ground
was shaking, just enough so I could feel it. I kept my eyes shut. If I'd looked
back to see the people or what had made the sound, I'd still be there. Dean, I
don't know why I know that, but I do. Then there was quiet and a roar and then
a door slammed and I landed on top of Dean."
 
"And, as far as you knew, only a few minutes had passed since Sam disappeared,
right?"
 
"Yeah, Dad. But you know as well as I do, time's malleable." Dean smirked at
Sam's surprised reaction to 'malleable'. "Not a word, Sammy. Not one word."
 
"Is there a chance you could have lost consciousness?" Chris asked, although
she knew the answer before she opened her mouth. Dean shook his head and
replied calmly. "No. I knew where I was and how much time had passed." A
thoughtful smile touched his lips and he added, "Or at least I thought I did.
Dad, you're sure you and Bobby walked right where I was standing?"
 
"Yes. And we didn't see you. Which, I'm beginning to realize, doesn't mean you
weren't there. And we haven't talked about –" John's voice faded as he put
things together in his mind. "My vote is to get hold of – Edith, right,
Christabel? And have her contact the board of directors to cancel those tour
things that're scheduled this weekend."
 
"Yup – good idea."
 
"I'm going to call Edith right now." Chris walked over to the window and spoke
quietly into the phone. Then spoke a great deal less quietly into the phone.
Then shouted into the phone. Then slammed the phone closed. When she turned on
her heel, the look on her face would have turned Medusa to modern sculpture.
Bobby shrank back a bit, ready for the explosion when it burst forth.
 
"Evidently, Edith neglected to tell me that she'd contacted me as a personal
friend asking a favor, rather than as a representative of the Board of
Directors. She tried to tell me I'd misunderstood. I didn't misunderstand.
 
"Worse? My, how quickly things get worse when we're dealing with this Museum,
the board won't cancel because we 'think' there's something wrong. It's already
turned down four or five offers from paranormal researchers who want to canvas
the village for resident spirits. The good members are not going to be happy
that we're here digging up things that might prove to the world that there are
spirits wandering through the streets and homes of this village."
 
"Those blasted tours are staying on schedule and we have about no time to
figure out what we're going to do tonight to protect a herd of innocents."
***** <b>Chapter 11 No Relief, Part Two (but at least I did it in a new chapter
number!)</b> *****
 [ photo spiritsofthepastlightfence400x363_zps16c475b7.jpg]
 
"Before we go chargin' in like knights in shinin' armor," Bobby continued, "we
have to deal with one more little detail: that high school student. The one
that I would have sworn didn't exist, until Dean reminded me. I was positive
I'd counted four kids laughing like idjits when they walked past us into the
museum. When Dean told me that I'd said there were five, I didn't believe him
at first. But he was so sure I had to think back, and there she was. Funny
thing, though -" and Bobby's expression changed to outright puzzled. "Dean,
when you remember her, is there anything strange?"
 
Dean closed his eyes and focused. Strange – His eyes popped open and he frowned
– "She's flickering – I mean the memory is flickering, and it's dimmer."
 
"Yeah. Same here. Did that happen earlier when you reminded me?"
 
"Yeah, I think. But I wasn't focusing then. I had – other things on my …I
wasn't focusing then. C'mere, Sammy." Dean's voice went soft and reassuring.
 
John glanced at Dean and Sam and his brows knit.
 
Sam had decided that no separation was much better than even a tiny space
between Dean and himself and had crawled onto as much of Dean's lap as he
could. Without hesitation, Dean wrapped his arms around Sam and sheltered him
against himself. Not even the probability of John ragging on him for acting
like a girl stopped him. He'd almost lost his brother, he'd almost lost his
love, and nothing was as important as having him back again.
 
For his part, John wondered if his sons would ever feel safe out of each
other's sight. Wonder later, disappearing people and, from the sound of things,
disappearing memories of those people, now.
 
"Remember what Sara wrote in the Journal? The little girl who lived in that
Pioneer House went across the lane barefoot, holding a corn husk doll. But the
last time that Sarah saw her, she was wearing sneakers and carrying a modern
doll.
 
"I'm not askin' you to tell us anything you don't want to, Chris, but is Sarah
–"
 
"She's a single practitioner after a fashion. That would explain her
remembering the little girl even after she'd run out the cabin door and across
what looks to be about two centuries. It's the same with all of you. You live
so close to the supernatural world that you can spot and remember things that
other people don't. Bobby, what're you thinking about?"
 
"This: I'm willin' to wager we'll never be able to prove that there was a fifth
student. We could go to that high school on Monday and talk to the four kids
who left here, and I'm pretty much certain they'd think we're nuts. Worse? If
we had that student's name, I'm also willin' to bet her parents won't remember
her either.
 
"Before you all start shouting,listen to what Sarah person wrote: 'I decided to
speak casually to the two little girls, to find out their names, the name of
the barefoot little girl especially."
 
John only half heard Bobby's words. He knew the paragraphs well enough already.
The entry from Sarah McAllister's journal had struck him the most because he'd
never heard of or seen anything like it, except in the occasional half-way
decent Sci-Fi or fantasy movie.
 
Bobby continued to read the entry aloud and John found himself imagining what
Sarah had seen. The student who had and then had not been with four others that
afternoon slotted into the same category.
 
'However, an adult woman had arrived by the time I had made my decision. She
spoke to both girls. As far as I am able to tell, the woman accepted both of
them equally. I stopped where I was, because something about the little
barefoot girl had changed. She still had on her yellow dress and her bonnet.
But she was wearing sneakers. And her doll, which was made of wood and corn
husks when she climbed down the ladder to the loft and went past me, had become
a smaller modern doll of the same type that the first little girl had. I
believe they're called My Land dolls.
 
'Indeed, if the little barefoot girl had not run past me out into nothing and
then back into our something, I would have dismissed everything as a daydream.
 
'But it wasn't. With great reluctance, I must stress that this was no day
dream.
 
'Action: Contact Edith at once.
 
'Post Scriptum: I believe I had some conversation with a manitou, although I
may be incorrect. Its animal form was a Sialia sialis or Eastern Bluebird.'"
 
Bobby stared up at the other four. "If Dean hadn't corrected me on the number
of kids today, I would have never remembered the fifth. And, if I was anyone
but who I am, I'd have dismissed Sarah's entry at bullshit. It ain't bullshit."
 
At the same instant, the basic pattern dropped into place and solidified in
John's mind's eye.
 
"No, no, no!" he whispered to himself. He'd considered the possibility from the
beginning, right after he'd heard Dean's halting explanation of what he
happened. But viewing something as a "might have happened" andknowing something
as an "almost happened" or, worse, "should have happened"?
 
To think that it might be possible for him to forget his sons, to forget that
they had ever existed – John felt sick. His stomach coiled into a knot and he
wrapped his arms around his waist, eyes shut, trying not to throw up. And
battling the need to scream like a maniac.
 
Sam heard his Dad and glanced over at John who sat shivering on the other bed.
"Dean, something's wrong with Dad!" he whispered, fear tightening his chest and
choking down his breathing. His head was spinning and he couldn't get enough
air, couldn't keep back terror that had swum out of nowhere and invaded him.
Dean nodded, reacting to Sam in turn. He forced himself to look over at his Dad
and his reactions doubled until he had as much trouble as Sam breathing.
 
 
"Bobby, stop - talking," Dean interrupted. "Dad? Dad!." John didn't hear him,
just rocked in place and muttered, "No. Not. Couldn't happen," over and again.
Finally, Dean pulled Sammy across the mattress of their bed and got close
enough to John that he could squat on the floor in front of his father. Sam's
hand landed on Dean's shoulder. Huddled over his knees, haggard and shivering,
John had retreated inside himself. "Dad? It's me. Dean. Can you hear me? Dad,
it's me. Dean. Dad, you have to stop what you're doin'. C'mon, man!"
 
John heard someone say his name. Dean. Was something wrong? Confused, he
squinted his eyes open and looked blankly at his two boys. Sam? What the heck
had happened? Was Sam sick? Was he sick? "I'm all right, son," he rasped. "All
right. Sam, I'm okay. Dean, take care of your brother. I'm okay."
 
"Does your chest hurt?" Dean asked point blank. "The old scar, does it hurt?"
 
"Chest?" John couldn't think why Dean asked the question. "No, no. It's fine. I
was thinking. Musta got lost in thought."
 
"I'm getting you un-lost right now." Dean's tone brooked no nonsense. In two
minutes, John found himself sitting next to Sam and having the pillows behind
him fluffed by a very business-like Dean. "Dad, we all need you on your game.
Got it? No staring off into the distance unless there's something there worth
watching."
 
"Yeah. Oh crap, no! Chris, I don't like ginger tea! And I don't need it!" John
whined like a two year old the minute he smelled the tea that Chris had set to
steep in the small coffee maker provided by the Blanket. His stomach protested
John's declaration and he winced.
 
"It's medicine. You're not supposed to like it. Now stop complaining and drink
the nice, nasty tasting herbal infusion. Clear?" John glanced at Chris, whose
left eyebrow climbed a bit higher as she trained the Glare of Incoming Doom at
him. Grimacing the entire time, he swallowed the tea and felt his stomach
unknot and relax. Darned know-it-all woman!
 
"One of those students didn't leave with the others, and those four didn't act
like they noticed. Unless laughing like hyenas and sashaying off past us up to
the gate means they were worried. So something happened somewhere in the
village, but who knows where?"
 
Chris' frown deepened. "I've never run into anything like this. If we're right
about what almost trapped Sam and what happened to the little girl, this could
have been going on for years without anyone noticing."
 
"If it is the same thing, we'll never know about it unless we see it and write
it down to remind us. There must be…I wonder…" Bobby yanked his cap down and
thought for a few minutes. Although he didn't speak aloud, the expression on
his face was eloquent enough. Finally, he looked up. "This is insane. We can't
control a situation with a bunch of civilians around. What happens if one – or,
for gods' sakes, more than one- gets pulled through to wherever Sam almost
ended up?"
 
Bleakly, John shook his head. "Nothing. We write it down to remember it. No one
in his right mind'll believe us. And even if they did, what good would it do?
Try to pull someone back? How? Where? We don't have a clue what we're dealing
with. Or whether we should be dealing with it at all."
 
Bobby nodded agreement and, after a hesitation, so did Chris. Sam just buried
his face in Dean's neck, shattered all over again by the narrowness of his
escape.
 
"All right, you idjits," Bobby snapped a few seconds later. "We need to talk
about the rest of the village. Chris, I know you want to get over to Edith
Cartwell's, so you lead off."
 
The change in topic and Bobby's energy shook everyone out of the dazed slump
they'd been sitting in. All except Sam. John wanted to say something, but one
look at Dean squelched his words.
 
 
For a moment, Chris contemplated. "There's something in or under the MacArthur
home. I couldn't really see it, but it isn't Little Mary Sunshine.
 
 [P8180165640x480 photo P8180165640x480.jpg]
 
 
" Also, I think Bobby's right about the Jones Farm. Again, something's there,
but I can't tell whether it's angry or lost. I’m going with lost at this point,
which would make it angry.
 
 [ photo P5220140.jpg]
 
 
"Something under the brewery as well, very old and dangerous, which is strange
because the brewery isn't an original building any more. The fire they had
there took the old building down to the ground. There are little bits and
pieces of what-has-been everywhere, but most of it's so quiet that it's really
hard to identify. We were moving quickly; we'll need to be more careful tonight
and more thorough tomorrow.
 
"There's another thing which interests me professionally, you could say. I did
see what I thought might be old, long abandoned warding out behind the Shaker
Trustee's Building.The puzzling thing is that it appears to be older than the
museum itself, at least from a distance. If I can have a closer look, I might
be able to see how old it really is. Right now, with the exception of couple of
stray earth runes, it's dead.
 
 [Shaker Trustee Bldg. GCV photo 015171ac-c8fb-4136-b189-
be7345a3259b_zps0c3b803e.jpg]
 
 
"Warding is supposed to be returned to its Elements when it's no longer needed
or has been replaced by newer warding. Whoever threw that ward away didn't know
even the basic rules. Bobby, what about you and John?"
 
"We were looking for EMF and we found it, but it's strange as all get out.
John?"
 
"Bobby and I walked from the brewery to the Hamilton House and then back toward
the Tinsmith. The meters looked like they were having a breakdown. Readings all
over the scale – nothing right next to a little bit of something, and then a
lot of something else that went dead two feet later and wobbled around mid-
range before it split into two, or at least what looked like two. It's the
craziest I've ever seen them behave. I wanted to believe that mine was broken,
but Bobby's was ' broken' the same way."
 
"The only thing I c'n think to do is see where the worst of the blasted ups and
downs and all-overs happened and see if they point to anything. Except the sky,
that is. And we need to go back tomorrow and do a better job of walking that
space."
 
"If you don't need me for this, I'm going to see Edith. Bobby, can I borrow the
truck?" Chris asked crisply.
 
"You ain't – all right, sure."
 
"And, you four, no stepping left or right. We don't have any idea what's really
out there."
 
With that, she left the room. Bobby shook his head and unfolded the map of the
village. "Let's get this done. Then maybe this'll make sense."
 
"Never figured you for a cock-eyed optimist," John grumbled. Still, he, Dean,
Sam and Bobby spent another hour marking points on the map and double checking
their notes, trying to use hastily scratched words to make things clearer. All
the while, they kept an eye on the clock- their tour of the village was the
last one on the schedule at 9:15 p.m.; and they would be going in with nothing
more than a couple of hunches unless Chris found out something helpful from
Edith Cartwell.
 
A thunderclap startled the hell out of all of them, and they grabbed their
weapons. "Put those ridiculous guns down." Esme Weatherwax stalked through the
Inn's outside wall and stood her broom up against the dresser. As usual when
she traveled, she wore a dark blue duster to protect her dress and a darker
blue muffler to keep the night air away from her throat. The trip from the
Discworld to Genesee Country hadn't ruffled one strand of her neatly coiled
hair or tilted the precisely level brim of her hat. In two steps, she'd removed
her white elbow-length gloves and tucked them into the duster's pockets, one to
a side. "Robert, Jonathan. Come here."
 
"Yes ma'am," Bobby replied. "C'mon, John."
 
(Me Again. Yeah, yeah, Sparky, I hear ya. But I don' believe that there's
anyone who doesn't know 'em.
 
(For the record: Anyone who has ever met Esme, especially, doesn't forget the
collision, I mean experience . If she says 'Come here', she means 'Why aren't
you already doin' what I'm about to tell you to do?'. I'd sooner argue with
four pissed off spirits swinging machetes than with her. Same goes for John.
Which is why we hopped to it when she told us to get over to her.
 
(The woman is several forces of nature all in one package.)
 
"Hi, Granny," Sam called, smiling a little.
 
"Hello, Samuel," she replied kindly. To Dean she added, "You did well, Dean.
Very well indeed." In a sterner voice, she added, "Don't let it go to your
head."
 
"No, Granny. I won't," he answered dutifully. She winked at him, and he smiled
back.
 
"All right, you two," she said to Bobby and John. "Hold out your right hands.
This is going to hurt." With those reassuring words, she extracted a small,
very sharp knife from her reticule and slashed both of their palms. John didn't
even have time to wince before she grabbed his and Bobby's hands and crushed
the palms together: Granny Weatherwax had a grip strong enough to break the
spine on a bear trap.
 
"Bound together. Bound to this time. Bound against all separation." Two more
repetitions and the spell was cast. The old spells were the best, in her
opinion and the Parvis was as old as old could be, which meant, simply, that it
predated the creation of her world and the world John and the boys, Bobby and
Christabel called home.
 
Watching Bobby and John's hair stand on end when the spell zipped through them
was pretty interesting as well.
 
"Now, Sam and Dean." She signaled for them to stay where they were. Dean saw
her eyes narrow, like she was looking beyond them for a second before she sat
down next to him. "Your right palms, Dean and Sam." She repeated what she had
done and said, although the cuts on Dean's and Sam's palms were much smaller.
"Bound together. Bound to this time. Bound against all separation."
 
The snap of discharging energy jolted Esme Weatherwax right to the roots of her
impeccably coifed grey hair. Sam and Dean didn't feel much, and they wondered
if the spell hadn't worked for them. "It worked. But it's more of a
reinforcement than a spell in your cases," Granny thought toward them. Aloud
she added, "Residual energy from that ridiculous Displacement this afternoon. I
should have remembered."
 
"Are you going to stay for awhile, Granny?" Sam asked hopefully. Esme patted
his left cheek and spoke warmly, for her.
 
"Samuel, I can't stay. I came for two purposes. The bindings were one. Now I'm
going to see to the other. Perhaps I'll be able to visit for a bit another
time."
 
"Yes ma'am. Say hello to Nanny Ogg for Dean and me?"
 
"I shall indeed. Jonathan, Robert, I don't understand precisely what's
happening here. At Christabel Lux's request, I have bound you to this time
stream and to each other to protect you.
 
"You don't have much time to do research tonight. Have a care for the idiotic
innocents who like being scared out of their wits. And remember, neither
tonight nor tomorrow night is the most dangerous. Samhein, on the other hand?
You need to figure this out before then." She glowered as darkly as she felt
necessary to add emphasis to her unspoken warning. All four men nodded
obediently in reply. "That will have to do."
 
With that, Esme Weatherwax grabbed her broom, walked through the outside wall
of the Inn and, two seconds later, did a vertical take-off a Harrier jet would
have envied, hovered long enough to orient herself and accelerated from a dead
stop to full speed immediately afterward. The startled air she displaced had to
scramble to catch up enough to make a sonic 'pop'.
 
"She's one determined woman," Bobby sighed.
 
"Sammy? How are you with going back to the museum?" Dean spoke quietly and
waited for Sam to sort out his feelings.
 
"If I said I don't want to?"
 
"Then we won't."
 
"Dean, we're going to need you and…"
 
"Dad, you don't make the call, not for this. And I don't make it, either. This
is Sam's."
 
Sam knew what his father's argument was going to be: if you're thrown, get
right back on the horse. What Sam wanted was to go to bed with Dean and have
his brother fuck him until he forgot about the – what was it that Granny had
called it? Displacement. Sam's mind snagged the word, probably exactly as Esme
Weatherwax had hoped he would. In spite of the seriousness of the moment, Sam
smiled a little. Know-it-all that she was –
 
"I don't want to go back inside the village. Not tonight. Dean, how about
perimeter duty?"
 
"You need to tell me. You okay with that? I've got your back no matter what.
You know that, right?" Sam nodded.
 
Bobby shook his head, silencing John before he could open his mouth. John
Winchester could be a dratted idjit at times, the older hunter thought to
himself.
 
"Perimeter duty it is."
 
All four of them jumped when another thunderous clap split the silence.
Evidently the air had learned from its mistake and rallied enough to do a
proper Sonic Boom, with Shaking Windows. Dean swore he heard the faint trumpet
of a startled elephant before silence fell again. "Uhm, I think Esme's gone
back home."
 
"Sounds like she scared the crap out of one of the elephants. Probably
literally," Bobby said, his expression unfathomable, although his eyes widened
at the image of one of the four elephants supporting Discworld having anything
scared out of it, let alone-"It might not have been a good idea to introduce
her to broomstick riding."
 
"Ya think? I warned you, Bobby!"
 
"Yeah, yeah. Suck it up, Buttercup. You're just jealous because she liked my
broomstick idea better than you givin' her the Impala ta get around."
 
"The Impala?" Dean's face went bright red and he glared at John, who shook his
head, his expression pleading innocence. "You were going to give my car to
Granny 'What wall? There's no wall there – now – cackle cackle' Weatherwax?"
 
"Dean, you were ten, and she didn't want it anyway."
 
'Uh huh…sure…hey, Chris. You're back."
 
"Thank you for the intro, Private Observant," Chris retorted briskly. "I take
it Esme's been here."
 
"Sure has," Dean grumbled. "Fortunately, she still didn't want the Impala, or
Sam and I'd be riding broomsticks. Right, Dad?"
 
"What did you find out from Edith?" John asked, elegantly avoiding a potential
poke in the eye from his older son.
 
"Enough to keep us talking all night." She glanced at Sam, who swallowed and
straightened his shoulders, attempting to look as strong as possible. "Sam,
Dean?"
 
"We're running the perimeter."
 
"Good. But be careful. Evidently there are 'some small artifacts left from
three or four restorations. Extra planks, some wooden nails, that sort of
thing'. I quote."
 
Chris seethed, still furious even after she'd taken time to calm down after her
brief discussion with Edith. However, her anger had shifted to the proper
focus: Sarah McAllister. "There's no way of knowing whether something got
thrown out when they were tossed. But right now? We need to grab some supper
and get to the museum. "
 
"You do like your food, Chris," Bobby noted shortly.
 
"I like not having my stomach growl when I need it to be quiet, Bobby. And I
like my food."
 
"Sam and I'll be right back." Dean felt Sam's trembling and knew his baby
brother needed a breather.
 
"Hurry it up, Dean. We don't have all night. And, believe it or not, both of
you should eat. Especially after today." His expression unreadable, John stared
straight at Dean.
 
"Yessir. Ten minutes."
 
"Make it five."
 
"We'll make it fifteen." Dean was in no mood for negotiation.
 
"Ten." And John knew it.
 
Once the two youngest hunters had stomped off, this time toward the stairwell,
Bobby glared at John. "Don't push his buttons, John. You may get more than you
bargained for."
 
"I'm not pushing his buttons," John replied. "I…I just don't want them too far
away. They're all I have." He flushed bright red and lunged to his feet, intent
on escaping before he did anything else to embarrass himself.
 
"John, they're safe now. The Parvis is like superglue and duct tape combined.
That's why it isn't used often. Just wait until you try to get away from Bobby
so you can chase some cute young thing around the museum-" Despite the
seriousness of the situation, Chris smiled.
 
"There is a reversal spell, right?" Bobby asked, suddenly realizing that being
bound to John Winchester might be a real problem once they'd made it through
the weekend. He steadfastly refused to think about anything other than walking
away from the weekend intact.
 
"Yup."
 
With that, Chris sailed out the door and made for the dining room, well ahead
of Bobby's, "Can you break the spell?" and his frantic look at an equally
uneasy John. "Dratted woman!" were John's only words.
 
 
Upstairs, Sam and Dean lay on their bed, arms tight around each other, tongues
involved in the regional playoffs of the tonsil hockey tournament that had been
going on between them for years.
 
"Dean –"
 
"Sammy, I know. I know…I want to, too. Baby boy, you have no idea how much…"
 
"Please, Dean…I almost …I almost lost you!"
 
The enormity of what he'd said overwhelmed Sam. And swamped Dean so quickly
that he couldn't say a word to make the moment easier. For just a second, he
saw himself and Sam, two very small people, as they must have looked that
afternoon. And the image scared the hell out of him. He wanted to get into the
Impala and go somewhere where he'd never heard of the Genesee Country Village
and Museum, where he and Sam could live out the rest of their lives far from
the hunting world.
 
Sam's feverish kisses and broken sobbing yanked him back to the present.
"Sammy? Sammy, I'm here. Baby, I love you so much! You're with me and I'm
always going to be here. I promise it!"
 
"You can't promise! Look what happened this afternoon! You were there and I
could see you and you were moving away and I would have been alone! And I
wouldn't have remembered you! Dean, I wouldn't have remembered you! And you
wouldn't have remembered me! We…"
 
"Sammy? Listen to me. No, listen to me." He stopped talking and waited until
Sam had calmed enough to hear him. "Remember what we promised each other,
Sammy? That night?"
 
Sam nodded and blinked his eyes against the tears. "'Course I do. How could I
ever forget?"
 
"We're not meant to be apart. I knew it then and I'm goin' to take what
happened today as proof of that."
 
Dean kissed Sam's lips softly. "I love you, Samuel Winchester. I have loved you
from the night I said "I gotcha" for the first time. I love you now. Everything
I have is yours. Everything I am is yours. I will never abandon you or leave
you behind. You have my heart beyond forever." Eyes shining with tears which he
resolutely ignored, Dean watched Sam take a deep, shuddering breath.
 
"I love you, Dean Winchester. I have loved you from the night you climbed into
my crib and told me not to kick off my 'banket'd. I love you now. Everything I
have is yours. Everything I am is yours. I will never abandon you or leave you
behind. You have my heart beyond forever. "Sam echoed.
 
Dean's kiss was so gentle Sam barely felt it. But it filled him with calm and
helped him step away from fear one more time.
 
The phone by their bed chirred roughly and Dean sighed. "Dad." The phone rang
two more times and then went quiet. Three rings and hang up meant "I'm waiting
for you. Move your butts!"
 
"If he gets tired of hunting, he could hire himself out as a professional nag."
Sam heard what he'd just said and shook his head ruefully. "That was weak, even
for me."
 
"No argument from me about that," Dean said. "Hey! What happened to lovin' me?"
 
"I do! If I didn't love you, I woulda broken your brain instead of just
swatting your head. You know that!"
 
They stopped laughing for a second and kissed again. "C'mon. Let's go do this.
I have a date with this extremely hot hunter after we're done babysittin' the
innocents tonight."
 
"I am pretty steamy," Sam admitted modestly.
 
"Get your heavy shirts on, steam boy. It's already freezing out there."
 
Sam didn't hesitate walking through the doorway, but he still held on to Dean's
hand, just in case. At the stairwell door, he froze for a few seconds. Then
through the doorway, down the stairs and toward the dining room they loped,
hunting out food.
 
 [ photo spiritsofthepastlightfenceverydark400x329_zps5b64d271.jpg]
 
 
Chapter End Notes:
 
For anyone who isn't familiar with the names Esme (Granny) Weatherwax and
Guitha (Nanny) Ogg, read Wyrd_Sisters, Witches_Abroad, and Lords_and_Ladies, to
cite three major texts by their biographer, Terry Pratchett, the formal Records
Keeper of the Discworld.
***** <b>Chapter 12: Volunteering to be Terrified and other Novelties</b> *****
 [ photo 2012-10-19174441250x244_zps31092ccd.jpg]
 
Inside the Freight House Restaurant, one of the buildings in the 'modern' part
of the museum, lights glowed and people waited for their tour to begin by
warming themselves with coffee or tea and soup, or, for those who wanted it,
wine. The atmosphere was full of laughter and conversation, even more so
because there had been such a turn-out at the last minute that an extra tour
had been added to accommodate everyone who wanted to attend.
 
The interpreter leading the 9:15 tour was a tall, elderly man wearing a long,
shapeless grey wool coat made to a 19th century pattern and a dark blue muffler
wrapped around his head and neck at least five times. He glanced at everyone in
the restaurant, obviously counting heads. Someone pointed to John, Bobby, and
Chris standing just outside, just a few steps from the door, and he nodded as
he added them to his total.
 
"I don't like this," Bobby groused. "Too damn many people, John." The three of
them had slipped out to wait on the porch until everyone joined them. After the
heat and light of the restaurant, the cold and deepening night had cleared
their heads. John fidgeted a bit, and blew on his hands to warm them. "Put your
gloves on, you idjit," Bobby grumbled.
 
"Thanks, Bobby. I might forget if you don't remin… " A bright flare of light
was followed immediately by a sizzling sound and then darkness. "Power outage?"
John wondered aloud.
 
As far as Chris was concerned, a bulb in one of the large security lights that
marked the perimeter of Museum property had failed. However, one look at John
and Bobby told her that they weren't of the same opinion. John headed over to
the corner of the restaurant to take a look. About to say something sarcastic,
she kept her peace when the light nearest them flickered and died. Immediately,
Bobby headed toward John and pulled him back toward the light that cascaded
from inside the restaurant.
 
"Singer, what the…?" John snapped.
 
"John, I don't…just don't go trying to get yourself killed, willya?" Bobby
asked. He realized he hadn't let John go and that John wasn't pulling clear.
Stunned, he stared at John, who gaped right back at him. Both of them caught a
clue simultaneously.
 
"That spell!"
 
"Of all the…now this is gonna be fun. Bobby, let go of me!"
 
"I am! I did!"
 
"Uh huh." John glared pointedly at Bobby's right hand, which had, apparently
independently, wrapped itself firmly around John's left hand. Flustered, Bobby
freed John. "Singer, think of something!"
 
"I'm thinkin', John!"
 
In spite of an overwhelming urge to laugh out loud, Chris had looked away while
Bobby and John disentangled themselves. Her humor vanished, however, when a
tall, silver haired newcomer wearing a long, black drover's coat and a flat
crowned western hat slipped past them and entered the building. His glamour
wasn't as complete as hers, but it was good enough to fool the folks he stared
at. And stare he did, thin lips set straight under a salt and pepper mustache,
dark eyes squinted and appraising.
 
Then Mr. New Arrival's gaze landed on her, Bobby, and John. The two hunters
were distracted and sputtering under their breath about spells that made people
act like fools. Chris was not the least bit distracted. When the stranger
glanced her way, she stared back, lips tight, hands fisted at her sides.
 
"Bobby? John? You two! Quit griping!"
 
"Huh? What?"
 
She didn't answer, just looked at the guy in the western hat and duster. Bobby
caught on first and followed the direction of her stare. "John. We have
company."
 
"Where?"
 
"There."
 
John turned his head just in time to see the spirit's glamour fade slightly
before it refocused. "It's out early."
 
"And we can't do a damn thing in this crowd. It's just casing the place. It'll
make a move when someone gets separated from the rest," Bobby whispered. Sure
enough, the spirit glanced back at Bobby, Chris and John and disappeared in a
flick of light.
 
"Where the hell did that little light flash come from?" Bobby asked, lips
barely moving.
 
"I dunno. You ever see that happen?"
 
"Nope."
"Just what we need. A spirit with a sense of the dramatic. Son of a bitch!"
 
"Folks, are you part of the 9:15 tour?" the interpreter asked, bringing them
back to the moment.
 
Chris nodded and attempted to smile, although she was in no mood for it.
 
'I think everyone is here, then. Please follow me down into the village. "He
held up a lantern in which a candle flickered. "If you will keep together and
have an eye for the road. We've had rains, and it's muddy and slippery. The
Rochester and Hemlock Lake Road Company is working as fast as it can, but it
hasn't seen to this section of planking yet."
 [ photo a9c439b1-ca5b-42d9-803f-b980e5a31543_zps95abd393.jpg]
 
With that, the interpreter brought the imaginations of his tour group to life.
Off they went for an evening of historic scariness.
 
"Well, come on – we better keep up or one of 'em'll go missing before we get to
the tavern," Bobby sighed.
 
Grimly, they headed after their group.
 [crosspathforstory photo crosspathforstory.jpg]
 
 
Dean had eased the Impala as quietly as possible along the outer access road
that led off the main parking lot. Although nothing could muffle the sound of a
big car rolling across gravel, he hoped that Security had been pulled in close
enough to the village that their arrival would go unnoticed.
 
Two security lights going down within perhaps five minutes of each other put
him even more on edge than he already was. "Sammy -we can call Dad –" and tell
him we're outa here.
 
He swore he could hear Sam's pissy expression settling across his features. "Or
maybe we can't" he amended. For the fifth time in as many minutes, he clenched
his fists around the steering wheel, using its contours as scratching posts to
relieve the strange prickling sensation in his palms. He felt like he'd come
down with poison ivy.
 
"Dean?" Sam sounded strange; his voice faded out and then came in loud and
clear. And scared. "Dean, please.."
 
And just like that, Dean remembered. Knew what was happening. He reached out to
Sam and clasped his hand, felt the itching and the uneasiness fade away.
"Sammy, you better?"
 
"Better. Don't let go, not yet," Sam muttered. " It doesn't exactly hurt, but
it twinges hard. We have freakin' great timing…" He'd already unzipped his
jacket. "I thought I was imagining it. You know – before, when you got me…" and
his outer shirt fell open "back. But I don't think I was, was I?"
 
 
"Not a problem – I mean the not letting you go," Dean replied quietly.
"Remember the first time? Those were some – intense days." Sam didn't need full
light to know that Dean had a moony look all over his face. "Not to mention the
nights. Hey!" he yelped a second later when Sam determinedly pulled him from
behind the steering wheel and into his lap. "Geesh, Sam. Go all bossy on me,
willya?"
 
Deftly, Sam pulled Dean's jacket open and rucked up his shirts at the same time
he moved his own undershirts out of the way. A few seconds later, Sam relaxed
once Dean's bare skin and his made contact. Pressed against his little
brother's broad chest, Sam's heartbeat in his ears, Dean closed his eyes and
just listened to the sounds of Sam breathing, of Sam being alive and with him
and not somewhere else, not gone.
 
 
Both of them felt the ache of separation fading. Sam tipped Dean's chin up and
kissed his lips, and the discomfort disappeared. He pulled away enough to
breathe and to warn his older brother, "Just don't start humming 'Amazed', all
right? That's the last thing we need."
 
"Amazed after we get done here tonight." Dean promised. They forgot about
everything but themselves and the press of each other's bodies together
bringing calm and warmth. Their foreheads touched and they almost forgot the
hunt. Not until the ache and the driving need to make contact physically had
been met did they come slowly back to the moment. Out of the deep peace that
had filled him, Sam heard –
 
"Dean?"
 
"Hmm, baby?" Dean kissed the tip of Sam's nose and opened his eyes. Wide eyed
and listening intently, Sam peered into the darkness. Reluctantly, Dean sat up
and took Sam's hand, unwilling to let go of his brother for even a moment.
 
"Dean!" Sam's hold on Dean's hand tightened to limb threatening. "What the
blazes…"
 
The nearest security light cast enough illumination to show them the lay of the
land. In front of them, maybe ten yards away, was a cross path that led from
the village on their left to a large field on their right. A narrow strip of
bushes and trees gapped where the path entered the field.
 
 [Peekupthehill photo Peekupthehill.jpg]
 
 
Several of the bushes farthest from them shook and lurched wildly in the dark.
And garbled sounds that Dean could have sworn were angry shouts broadcast the
presence of something making hash out of perfectly good understory. As suddenly
as it had started, the shaking in the bushes stopped. Silence tried to fill the
air, but another set of sounds destroyed it. Sounds like – kindling crackling
in a hot fire, Sam thought. And an angry snarl mixed with perhaps a foreign
language? Then, out of nowhere, the sound of a – train tearing by on tracks?
Dean shook his head sharply and looked at Sam.
 
"We better see what's up," Sam murmured. When Dean didn't agree with him
immediately, he added, "That thing today didn't make noise and have the plants
dancing. This's just one of ours."
 
"All right – I suppose we should go and look. "
"The faster we do that, the sooner Amazed happens," Sam reminded him. "C'mon –
out this side." So neither one of us starts hurting again.
 
Side by side, the two men walked silently toward the source of the noise. Sam
nodded when Dean signaled him to ease up the sharp little rise of the path
until he could see what there was to see. Dean waited for an eternally long
count of two before he the distance between them became too great and he
followed his brother. Sam stood still as a stone, staring. Dean's arrival broke
Sam's concentration, but only for a half second.
 
"They're fighting…they're trying to kill each other! How can they kill each
other?" Sam's quiet words carried the five inches they needed to reach Dean's
ear, but, for all the attention that the two spirits near the edge of the field
gave the two hunters, he could have shouted at the top of his lungs.
 
Two spirits were locked in combat. One had evidently found or broken off a
piece of the split rail fence to use as a club. The second had no weapon and
spent its time dodging the clumsy swipes of the first, while attempting to get
close enough to do damage. Correction, Dean thought to himself. To do more
damage. Permanent damage. The spirits were at each other's throats in the here
and now, not repeating an old memory.
 
Both beings had been injured, and, when the unarmed spirit dodged inside the
defenses of the one with the branch, the Winchesters saw how the injuries
happened. The attacking ghost simply grabbed a chunk out of the branch wielding
ghost's arm and dropped it. Before it could strike again, the first ghost's
weapon slammed home and took out part of the second ghost's head. Dean heard
the faint digital click of cell's camera button being depressed and frowned
over his shoulder. "Tell me you are not taking pictures of this, Sam!"
 
Suddenly, the half-headed ghost sniffed the air and pointed straight at Sam and
Dean. Their battle forgotten for the moment, the spirits turned on their two
observers, shouting incomprehensibly at both of them. "Sammy, head for the
car!"
 
"Not without you, you asshole!" Sam grabbed Dean's left arm and hauled him down
the little slope. "Damn fool!"
 
"I'm packing salt!"
 
"I don't care if you're packing a Get Out of Jail Free card! No freakin'
heroics!"
 
The whiplash- sharp reports of two somethings hitting an invisible barrier at
full ghost speed interrupted their argument. "Place locked," Dean heard Sam
mutter. "Good, the bastards…"Both spirits continued to jabber at the two living
beings, but Dean couldn't make out a word. "Sammy, are they makin' sense?"
 
"Dean, we're talking about spirits here. How do I know? Uh oh-"
 
"They don't even know we're here anymore, Sam." Disbelieving, Dean watched the
two spirits wade back into their fight, their momentary truce forgotten. Half-
head went, literally, for the spot where Branch-boy's jugular would have been
and ripped off the head of the other spirit; headless, the remains of the
spirit collapsed to the ground immediately. But that wasn't what caught Dean's
attention. Slowly, and methodically, Half-Head shredded the remains of Branch
Boy's ghostly cranium until the pieces that were left evaporated. "He just
murdered that ghost. Ghosts don't murder ghosts – do they? Would that even be
murder? Sam?"
 
"I have no idea. Maybe we should wait and see if Branch Boy reassembles? Do you
smell that?" Sam's nose wrinkled in disgust.
 
"Ectoplasm burning – Now what?" The screeching of his EMF detector distracted
him from the nauseating smell of evaporating spirit guts. He flipped open his
detector and watched the numbers climb right past the troposphere and well into
the stratosphere.
 
"Sammy? Check yours –"
 
"Dean, look at these!!!! 126? "
 
"Same as mine. Maybe because that one died? How can something that's already
dead die again? "Dean grumbled. When Sam didn't answer, he reached out quickly,
just to be sure his little brother was there. Immediately, Sam's fingers
wrapped around his. He noticed the fine tremor of Sam's hand and turned to ask
Sam what was wrong.
 
"Dean?" Sam sensed something, although he couldn't nail down what it was.
Something…dark…just dark. "Dean?" His voice strained to get past his teeth and
lips.
 
"Sammy, what? Hey!" Dean caught Sam and made sure he stayed on his feet.
 
"Dean, we need to go. Now." Sam spoke softly, but his voice shook. "Right now."
 
"C'mon, Sammy." He guided Sam through the one eighty turn to head back to the
car, let go and grabbed right back on again when Sam's knees knocked together
and then buckled. "Sam, stay with me. See? We're right here. The car's five
steps away. Sam, c'mon. Stop scarin' me like this!" Sam shook from head to
feet; his teeth chattered hard enough to fracture enamel. "Dean, we need to
go."
 
"You got it, little bro. Buckle in." Dean slid across the Impala's hood and
scrambled to get into the car. Eight seconds later, he had eased the car toward
the parking lot, moving slowly and staying out of the security lights. Half of
which, he realized grimly, looked burned out. Sam huddled beside him in the
seat, staring straight ahead and clinging to the sleeve of Dean's jacket.
 
"You used to do that when you were little, Sammy. Do you remember?" Dean spoke
quietly, hoping for some sort of response. Sam's "uh huh" was enough. "You'd be
scared of something because you were littler than me, and you wouldn't let go
of me for hours. I just let you hang on, no matter what." Musing to himself,
Dean added, "Even when you ripped my best shirt that one time – did I complain?
Nope." He started counting to three and made it almost to two before Sam
reacted.
 
"You socked me in the nose!"
 
"Did I break it? No I did not. That was just a …you know…a big brother thing."
Sam laughed to himself, but his grip on Dean's jacket didn't relax. After
another quick glance at his brother, Dean asked, "Sammy, what goin' on?"
"I don't know. There was something…I don't know where it came from. One minute
it wasn't there: the next minute it was." Sam winced when he realized what he
must have sounded like to Dean.
 
"Sammy, stop. You've always sensed things just a little faster than Dad and,
surprisingly, me, if something doesn't feel right. 'S why I listen to you.
Sometimes…Baby, d'you want to go and find Dad and Bobby and Chris?" Dean
realized what he'd said and mentally called himself seven kinds of an idiot for
suggesting that they go into the village.
 
"In there? No. They'll call if they need us. "Sam swallowed and coughed to
clear his throat. "Dean, we're going to have to go in there eventually; you and
I both know it."
"Not yet we don't." And not ever, if there's any way to keep you away from it.
Dean parked the car and killed the ignition before he turned to Sam and slid
over in the seat toward him. "We have to – you know – write down what we saw.
So Dad and Bobby and Chris have good notes. Right?"
 
Sam pouted.
"But there's no rule that says we can't decompress first."
"There isn't?" Hopeful smile replaced the pout.
"Nope. I checked," Dean responded, his wisest expression on his face.
 
"Decompression's important." Sam whispered. He kissed the side of his brother's
neck. Y'know, this aching if we aren't in contact is going to make things kinda
a bitch for awhile. I mean, we might have to leave a debriefing session. Or
maybe stay out on a perimeter – kiss – walk a little longer than usual – swipe
of his tongue along the line of Dean's ear and gentle nibble on his earlobe.
You know, just to make sure we're in contact eno- umph!" Dean pulled both of
Sam's under shirts and his over shirt off, effectively drowning out his little
brother's words.
The Impala's windows steamed within five minutes.
 
Lights from a vehicle pulling out of the parking lot reminded Dean that they
weren't exactly hidden away inside the car, fogged though the windows might be.
Someone walked right by them, and Sam heard the snickers, although he was
fairly sure no one tried to look in at him and Dean.
 
"Dean, people are coming out…"
 
"Wet blanket much? Let 'em come out. Sammy –" Dean trailed light kisses down
the midline of Sam's naked chest before he looked as persuasively as he could
at Sam. "I know you don't want to stop."
 
"Don't want to – no –" Sam agreed.
 
Then someone did more than snicker or tap on a window. Someone kicked the
Impala's door.
And then snickered and tapped on the window. Approximately one point four
seconds later, the guy found himself several inches taller than he had been
before he'd tried to commit suicide by Outraged Dean Winchester. Of course,
neither of his feet touched the ground, but he didn't seem to notice. Dean's
infuriated glare had sucked up all his ability to think.
 
"Hey, man! I was – "
 
"You were just kickin' my car, man!" Dean growled. "Get out of here. And don't
come back." He tossed the guy back away and turned to look at the spot the
asshat had kicked. "You okay, baby? If that bastard dented you –" He glowered
over his shoulder at the hapless moron who'd dared to touch his best girl. Said
hapless moron scrambled to his feet and headed rapidly toward his vehicle.
 
"Dean – get back in the car. It's all right." Sam peered up at Dean and added
helpfully, "I heard the dent pop out."
 
"There was a dent? Baby, are you all right? I'm gonna dent that -!"
 
"Dude! The car's all right! I, on the other hand, am freezing my perky nipples
off!"
 
Dean examined the car quickly, saw nothing and slid back inside. Gently, he
stroked his fingertips down Sam's chest and licked over his nipples to warm
them up. "Baby boy…"
"Yeah, I know. Way to kill a mood or what…" Sam grumbled, pulling on his
shirts. "Flashlights?"
"Flashlights." Dean finished buttoning his own shirt and jacket before he
zipped Sam's hoodie and jacket up.
 
Ten minutes later, after the initial flood of thoughts had settled down to a
'put detail under the idea' pace, Dean looked up. "Sam, just out of curiosity?
What kind of picture did you end up with?"
 
"Pictures" Sam corrected smugly. "You weren't listening."
 
"So sue me. How many did you get?"
 
"Four. Not that – oh freakin'….Dean?" The smug look drained off his face and he
shoved his cell toward his brother.
 
"Oh shit –" Dean stared at the first of four pictures Sam had taken. And at the
second. And at the third, where Branch Boy had taken off Half-head's – head.
And finally at the fourth, where Branch Boy had almost finished the destruction
of the other ghost's ectoplasmic skull. "There's no way – we shouldn't have
been able to take these pictures!"
 
"But here they are. And those spirits were the real deal, not fakes or
projections." For a few seconds they retreated into memory, both reaching the
same decision simultaneously. Using each picture as a reference, they scribbled
down anything it brought to mind about the run-in with the spirits. Sam inched
closer and closer to Dean. Dean didn't say a word, just held Sam tight and kept
on scratching out words, silently thanking his Dad for insisting they learn to
shoot and write ambidextrously.
 
"Dean, there are so damn many reasons why what we both saw shouldn't have
happened."
 
"Make a list of 'em and we'll put 'em together once the old folks get back from
their exciting tour," Dean snorted. "I'm betting Dad and Bobby're already out
looking for something real. I can hear 'em now, complaining about everything."
 
"At least Chris won't have to listen to that. She's probably already over
behind the Shaker House reading that ward she saw. If she's able to wake 'em up
enough to tell her anything."
 
"She'll probably threaten 'em into lighting up. She thinks Granny's strong? I
got news for her – she's no slouch herself!"
 
They laughed at the mental image of Chris arching an eyebrow and spelling
something along the lines of "I've asked you once. I won't again. Tell me who
you are – or else," and went back to their note taking, focusing on the four
pictures Sam had snapped.
 
"Sammy?"
 
"Yeah, Dean?"
 
"Look over there at that SUV. Does it look familiar? "
 
"Hmmm- you're right. I just don't – one suburban assault vehicle -"
 
"Suburban assault vehicle? When did Bobby adopt you, anyways?"
 
"Like I was saying before you interrupted, one suburban assault vehicle looks
pretty much like any other suburban assault vehicle…It could be the van those
high school students got here in." Sam thought for a second before he
continued. " They could be taking the tour as part of that assignment Chris
said they were doing. "
 
"Sammy I'm calling Dad and Bobby and have 'em check those kids out."
 
 [ photo e6df8078-04c3-4e0c-be71-c4ffe9ba77ed_zps5f4e2c85.jpg]
 
 
After her second visit to the discarded warding Chris returned slowly to Oxbow
Lane in front of the Shaker Trustees Building. Thoughtful, she glanced back
over her shoulder. The ward had been cast long, long ago; the language the
builder had used had told her that much right away. However, the internal
cadences and the individual portions of the wards had been first developed long
before that. She had created reproductions of similar forms for the benefit of
the apprentices she had accepted over the decades. Understanding the meaning of
a ward whose maker had long since died constituted a safeguard for any Builder
who came later and who might be required to alter something in a ward. Better
to be prepared than destroyed because of mishandling a phrase.
 
She had needed more time, first to wake the ward and then to study it
carefully. However, something had rolled out silently from the village while
she was bent over examining the warding's deceptively delicate filigree.
Whatever the thing was, it swept ice cold out ahead of itself, cold that crept
along the ground like a hunting cat, making waves in the autumn dry grass as it
passed. Not bothering to stand or to turn her head, she spoke conversationally
to the entity.
 
"I hear you coming. You don't belong here. Go. " With that, she dropped into
the cadences of a waking spell, speaking quietly, cajoling long inactive
elements and marks. Clattering and hissing once they'd recognized the presence
of a Summoner, the pieces of warding that were still capable of responding
flickered to life.
 
Chris smiled to herself and waited. When the patchwork of inactive and active
wards had pulled itself together as much as possible and the first fragile glow
had solidified to a muted silver and cream gleam, she stood, turned and folded
her arms across her chest. "Implacably, she repeated "You do not belong here.
Go, before you are no more." Behind her, the cobbled together warding glowed a
bit brighter. Chris wasn't certain that the cold darkness was sentient; and
that didn't matter. She was Herself and a Builder and Summoner and she had just
rendered Magick. The Intent of the cold thing was no match for her.
 
Far more quickly and openly than it had approached, whatever the presence was
turned and retreated directly toward the heart of the village. After a gentle
command to the ward, asking that it fall back asleep until she could study it
more closely, Chris turned on her heel and followed the cold silence toward the
innocents and their tours.
 
Only after assuring herself that no one had been harmed did Chris return to the
warding and sketch a small picture of it. "I don't know if it's wise to return
you to the elements yet," she murmured. "Forgive me. I will return when I
understand better." The ward slipped back into dormancy, but not so deep that
Chris couldn't awaken it easily. As satisfied as she could be with the shaky
situation, she set out in search of John and Bobby.
***** <b>Chapter 13 Who's on First?</b> *****
Part of my mind was kinda relieved that nothing wilder'n a lost tour
participant seemed to have shown up by the time almost all the civilians had
pulled out of the parkin' lot and headed toward home. Dodging the rent-a-cops
was easy. They were too busy tryin' to get the perimeter lights back on and
buttoning up the museum for the night to give a couple of shadows in shadows a
second glance. And we knew where Sam and Dean were and where Chris was heading.
But that was damn near all we knew for a fact.
 
Hunters like to do their homework, find out as much as they can about whatever
it is they're hunting. Over the years, because this place has always bothered
me, I've done a lot of research, true, but by the time we did our last sweep of
the later 19th century area and headed back toward the main gate to meet up
with Chris, I knew that we needed everything that the Records Keepers knew, and
then some.
 
There's a kinda …I dunno how to explain it. But sometimes, for whatever reason,
things start happening, little things – a shadow in the wrong place, or a bird
song that don't belong, or even just a change in the way the wind hits your
skin. They're all signals. Most people pick up some of 'em subconsciously. A
lot of hunters train themselves to be alert for 'em. Natural Hunters? The signs
are like old allies by the time they can walk. Once they're trained, those
shifts of the wind or sounds that don't belong are the things that keep 'em
alive when other hunters fall.
 
I'm not sayin' I'm a natural – shut up Norb, that'snotwhat I was talkin' about.
I'm good and I've learned to be better. John's natural. Sam and Dean are
naturals.
 
Where was I – we'd been walkin' quiet on the edge of things, watching and
listening, trying to figure out the wheres and whens. I saw John's shoulders
tense about the same second that the wind slued off in a different direction.
 
And the entire night started unraveling from both ends at the same time.
I hope you've been keepin' score of who's where and what's happened. Just keep
on jottin' notes or you might end up lost.
 
***** <b>Chapter 14 When You go out in the Woods Today</b> *****

Author's notes: The title of the chapter is taken from the children's song
Teddy Bears' Picnic.
===============================================================================
Bobby tapped John on the shoulder and crooked one finger, pointing toward the
Kieffer House, and shrugging. For a second, John didn't hear anything. Then the
wind shifted again and brought the unmistakable sounds of people talking. And
giggling. Brows drawn together, John jerked his chin toward the center of the
village: One of the tours?
 
Bobby shrugged I don't know and started cautiously down the dirt lane that ran
by the brewery. If there were people lost, they needed to get found and fast.
Bobby's EMF had almost burned out ten minutes earlier when two different
somethings had made their presences known. Civilian energy for lunch. No wonder
the EMF tried to melt. Whoever they are, they're drawin' everything right
straight toward 'em. Dammit!
 
Bobby realized that John wasn't beside or behind him about the same time that
John discovered the upper limits of Granny Weatherwax's spell. At five feet,
John's reaction to being away from Bobby was bearable. At six feet, painful. At
six feet, one inch, impossible. So, about six feet was all the play they had.
John signaled as much and Bobby shook his head. Much as he didn't like the
restriction, he understood Granny W's logic; they'd just have to put up with
it. But the minute they were done in the Village …
 
 [ photo johnhearsjeff_zpsc1252f1f.jpg]
 
 
"…phone, John? You gonna let it vibrate all night?"
John looked stupidly down at the cell in his hand. Dean. Firmly deciding to
think later about what had just happened, he answered. Before he could get a
word out, Dean's voice filled his ear.
 
"Dad, there's a chance that those high school kids are in the village. There's
an SUV parked across from us that might be theirs. Have you seen anything?"
 
" We haven't seen 'em; but we've heard 'em." John pointed toward the source of
the voices and nodded. Bobby let out a short huff of annoyance.
 
"Do you need backup?"
 
"Not now. If we do, I'll call you. Until then, sit tight."
 
John cut the connection and looked at Bobby. "Those high school kids – I'm
willing to lay money that they're wandering through the woods looking for a
ghost. "
 
"Balls!"
 
Grimly, because they were all too aware of how most amateur ghost hunts ended,
the two hunters looked at each other and then back toward the small patch of
trees and rocks that surrounded the Kieffer House. "Let's go pull 'em out. Of
the woods. In the dark. With spirits hunting them," John growled.
 
"They're probably using the recreation of a Pioneer Road between the Kieffer
place and the log cabin. I've been on it. If we don't want to kill ourselves,
we're going to have to use light." Bobby squinted when he thought he saw a
flash of illumination. "Well, at least they have some sense. They'll still be
sitting ducks if one of 'em gets hurt."
 
Even in daylight, the 'road' was treacherous. It bucked and canted for a few
yards before wending its way down a short slope littered with exposed tree
roots and small stones, any of which could cause a fall or a sprained ankle or
worse.
 [roadsign photo roadsign.jpg]
 
 
 [rockyroad photo rockyroad.jpg]
 
 
 [firstpartofroad photo firstpartofroad.jpg]
 
At night?
 [nightrock1 photo nightrock1.jpg]
 
 
John snapped on his Maglite, which provided enough illumination for them to
walk without falling on their faces, but not enough light to draw unwanted
company He could hear the sound of youthful voices, although the noise had
become fainter. The students were moving, too fast for the conditions under
their feet. Light or no light, they were begging for someone to get hurt.
 
"Let's go get 'em," Bobby muttered. "Stick close. As if we have a choice …"
 
And then someone screamed. The sound was odd, choked and short. Fear or pain?
Even though they didn't want to waste time, they waited for a few seconds hear
any more noise, another scream, the sound of footsteps…anything. In unison,
they slid their sawed off shotguns from the inner pockets of their cold weather
coats and headed toward the sound.
 
 
Christabel paused in mid-stride and stood stock still. She'd heard a faint
scream, and that was a worry. But the scream wasn't what had caught her
attention. Something…she couldn't put her finger on what bothered her. A tiny
nimbus of light danced at the end of the fingers of her left hand and provided
all the illumination she needed. Where-
 
There. Not near, but not far. And dangerous. "Damn!" A look ahead and then over
her shoulder. "I am bound on errantry and the need is urgent. May the Goddess
see fit to keep me safe," she murmured as she wrapped her coat around herself
and stepped into the Un-.
 
 
"That's a real skeleton! Look at it! It's not a prop!" Terrified, Brandy
Mannitt stared up at the skeleton whose dangling feet she'd literally walked
into three minutes earlier. "That's a real, live skeleton!"
 
"Sure it is, Brandy," Billy Daniels agreed sarcastically. "Looks like it's
going climb down here and attack us." He strode over to the skeleton dangling
from a short noose tied to a sturdy tree branch and grabbed its foot. "Yeah –
this bag of bones is really dangerous – can't you tell?" He shook the foot
experimentally and grimaced. "It reeks! Where did whoever put this up here
steal it from? A morgue?" Something wet and sticky flowed between his fingers.
Startled, he shoved the skeleton away from himself and backed off. "Gross!
That's slime! "
 
Brandy aimed the flashlight where she thought Bill's hands were. A faint trail
of greenish goo glistened across the palm of his left hand.
 
"Steve, Billy, I have a bad feeling about this place. We need to get out of
here."
 
"I've told you, Brandy! This whole haunting business is just bull. Somebody has
a sick sense of humor and stole a corpse from a morgue- It's all a-" Bill
Hamilton's voice faded.
 
So did the hanging skeleton.
 
Twenty seconds later, only the empty rope hung limply from its branch. Bethany
Curtis tried to scream, but her terror had rendered her mute. Tears well up in
her eyes and ran down her cheeks, but she didn't make a move to wipe them away,
just stared at Brandy and tried talking.
 
"It had to have been a fake. A hologram…something like that…" Steve announced.
"Someone's playing games with us. It was a set up."
 
"One that I ran into and Bill shook," Brandy snapped. "And don't try to tell me
I was imagining things. Bethany, come over here." She wrapped one arm around
Bethany's shaking shoulders and glared at Steve and Bill. "We need to get out
of here. Quietly. Now."
 
Steve shook his head. "This is bull. Plain every day bull. We're just - uh,
suggestible. You know – we're reacting to the whole Spirits of the Past thing."
Although Steve's IQ registered in the low 130s, there were times when he lacked
common sense. Brandy had never realized that fact any more clearly than when he
pronounced his opinion.
 
"Really?" Brandy's expression only emphasized her sarcasm. "That's us. AP
students , science majors, and suggestible. Uh huh. C'mon , Bethany. We're
leaving."
 
" Brandy! Do you honestly believe that a skeleton "
 
"With wet, slimy stuff oozing from it. Stuff that Bill got on his freakin'
hands, by the way."
 
Bill nodded shakily and wiped his hands on the trunk of a tree rather than get
any of the goo on his clothes. He cast a fearful glance into the dark woods and
shuddered. "Do you guys know how far away from the Pioneer Cabin we are? If we
can get there, it's just quick jog to the admissions gate." Scientist or no,
Bill's imagination had kicked in, and the distances that seemed so minor in
broad daylight stretched unimaginably in the night.
 
"Oh, for the love of - We're getting spooked by a projection! That's – what the
-?"
 
The 'projection' had reappeared, leaning casually against the trunk of the tree
it had been hung from "It's nothing but a mirage! Look –" Steve swatted the
skeleton in the head. And recoiled when his hand contacted bone. The skeleton
remained motionless. "This can't be happening!" Eyes wide, he backed farther
away, stopping only when he slammed into Bill. "It's real!"
 
"And you're sitting ducks," John snapped as he strode into the small clearing.
"Bobby? What d'you have on the meter?"
 
John could feel spirits lurking nearby Where? Damnit - where? Is that bone
collection a third one? Did one of those spirits animate its own skeleton?
Where are you, you bastards?"
"John, we need to get movin'. I'm picking up at least two off to the right."
 
"Okay. Come on, you four. Get between Bobby…"
 
"Who the fuck are you?" Brandy hissed. "The sick assholes who set this up?"
John resisted the urge to haul Bobby closer. So stress made the bond stronger,
part of his mind noted. Oh the joy.
 
"John? We have company." Bobby heard a rustling in the undergrowth behind them
and snapped his shotgun up, locked immediately on his target.
 
There wasn't time to explain anything. Without a word, John used the stock of
his shotgun to break apart as much of the skeleton as he could. He didn't have
what he needed to salt and burn the sucker, but spreading the bones might give
them a couple of minutes' leeway.
 
"You are one sick fuck, you know that?" Steve snarled. John grabbed the senior
by his jacket and hauled him up on his tip toes.
 
"If that skeleton belongs to one of the spirits Bobby's EMF shows hunting you
four, and if by some chance, that spirit's animating the skeleton, us breaking
it apart is giving us a few extra seconds to save your butts. Got it?"
 
Steve nodded so fast he risked disjointing his neck. Older this guy was, but he
was also as strong as Steve himself. "Good. Now get into a group and stay
together. Bobby? "
 
"I'm not going anywhere with you two!" Brandy snapped. "You drop out of nowhere
and tell us we're in danger and you're going to rescue us…wait, is this some
sort of set up? Like Candid Camera back in the old days? It isn't funny, you
creeps! I'm calling the police!"
 
"Be my guest, but make it quick," John replied testily. He kept up a steady
watch on the woods to his left, while Bobby did the same in the opposite
direction.
 
"There's no signal! How did you do that?"
 
"There was a signal ten minutes ago," John muttered to Bobby. "EMF?"
 
"Probably. John, we have to get moving." Bobby glanced over at the high school
students and then back at John. "And if these kids want to get out of here by
themselves, let 'em." He was disgusted with the whole need to convince yet
another bunch of innocents that they were in danger, and made no bones about
his feelings. "We have enough to untangle as it is."
 
"I know," John sighed.
 
"Hey!" Bethany exclaimed. "You're just walking away?"
"Yeah. It's been a long day. I'm tired. Bobby, c'mon."
"But – aren't you – "
 
"They're faking. They've been faking the whole time. There's nothing out there
but a deer or something." Bill didn't sound convinced even to himself.
 
"Yup, that's us. Faking," John called over his shoulder.
 
Bethany had turned to look back at the remains of the skeleton. And screamed.
Loudly. "Brandy! Brandy, look at it! Mister, come back! Please!"
 
"Do we want ta look?" Bobby asked. John shook his head. "No, but we're gonna
anyway." John nodded his head.
 
The skeleton, rank bits of fleshy bone and all, had begun to reassemble itself.
And in the skull its eye sockets glowed with greenish yellow fire: eldritch.
"Let's get 'em out of here. You four, this isn't a joke. This isn't a set up
and you're in danger. Follow Bobby. And be quiet. Go!"
 
John took up the rear guard, balancing the need to see where he was going with
the need to be sure nothing sneaked up on them. He hated walking backward.
 
Because distances only seem longer at night, they cleared the small woodland in
only two or three minutes. Four seconds later, Chaos in the form of a vaguely
human-shaped creature with a strong liking for the translucent and sparkly
stopped in for a late evening snack. Silent as everything around it, but
spreading cold ahead of it, the spirit swept toward its prey from behind them,
driving itself straight at Steve, who suddenly went airborne. He landed five
feet away, with the air punched out of him by the fall. John doubted that the
spirit heard him cock his shotgun, but it must have sensed something because it
wheeled clumsily around and grew eyes so it could glare at the Hunter. John's
sawed-off coughed twice and the spirit dis-integrated and faded from sight, for
at least a few seconds.
 
"Bobby-"
 
"On it, John." Bobby pulled Bill to the front of the line. "You, smart mouth.
Get him on his feet . You two-" to the girls- "no fake hysterics. No running.
Just walk straight to the parking lot. Don't look at anything. Don't stop. Take
the fastest way back to your car. We're right behind you."
"Get 'em moving, Bobby. We have company."
 
"Oh crap," Bobby muttered when the reassembled skeleton, now wearing most of
the diaphanous and sparkly spirit, lurched onto the trail. It honed in on its
targets without hesitation. Fortunately, it wasn't able to move too quickly,
leaving the hunters time to form a rear guard and reload.
 
A double blast of both salt and cold iron served to dispel for a brief time
what John could only describe as the spirit of the thing. Screaming its pain, a
mist rose toward the sky and disintegrated. However, the skeleton remained
standing, and the eldritch fire in its eye sockets glowed deep red. Startled,
John glanced at Bobby, who gaped back, equally stunned. "Bobby, what isthat?"
 
"I don't know, John. Let's scramble," the older hunter snapped. John stepped in
beside Bobby and kept pace with him, relying on his ears to tell him where the
students were. At least they hadn't started running – yet. And the skeleton
stayed motionless where it was.
 
" John caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, pivoted and fired just
as a long, claw fingered arm caught him around the neck and pulled him toward a
spirit. The manifestation to his right immediately disintegrated and stayed
that way. Which shouldn't have happened. John poured his remaining holy water
in the laceration the thing had left on his neck: only a few sizzling sounds
resulted. He'd been lucky, just plain lucky. "Bobby, what're we dealing with?"
 
"You do know that we're walking backward, in the dark, keeping an eye out for
the Misty and Murderous just in case it or they decide to re-form at the same
time we're chatting over tea, don't you?"
 
"Uh – yeah."
 
"Oh, okay, as long as you know what you're doing. Burn down the Kieffer Place?
The Hoechler cabin?"
 
"We don’t know that the spirits and the houses are connected. For all we know,
skeleton guy here was someone passing through who died. His spirit was snagged
when the house was dismantled and moved. If we burn the building, it may free
up whatever this thing is so it can really get nasty. Over there! "
 
"John! Behind you!"
 
John swung his shotgun up and fired. The manifestation disintegrated for a few
seconds. However, it didn't remain gone. Instead, it pulled itself together and
rapidly slued around to make another pass. "Bobby! Extra iron?" Bobby just
rolled his eyes and slammed two shells into his shotgun before he tossed two to
John. "Where the hell is Chris? If nothing else, we can use a ward to hold them
back-"
 
"Dunno. But we can't wait. You! Get back away! You kids get moving!"
 
Its features distorted and toothless mouth dropped open to scream, the spirit
bore down on Bill who froze, unable to run or drop or do anything other than
gape. Four shots barked out and the spirit howled in agony as enough cold iron
to scatter its molecules for miles blasted through it.
 
"Bobby, are you any good with the wards?"
 
"I can help, but I'm no creator." Bobby loaded his shotgun again, but broke it
so he didn't accidentally kill the babbling nerve case standing in front of
him: the others had seen enough. They huddled together and looked up at Bobby
for more orders.
 
"Get moving. But stay where John and I can cover you. Go!"
 
No one moved. Anything.
 
Oh great. Frozen with fear. My favorite charade phrase Bobby thought. He shook
Bill by the shoulder until the young man focused on him.
 
"Kid, you okay?" Bobby asked.
 
"Real. It's real…"
 
"Of course it's real. What the hell did ya think it was?"
 
"Bobby! Watch out! Ten high, closing fast!"
 
The two headed manifestation had three round sleepy lidded eyes and the pudgy
limbs of a child. It was also the size of a small shed. It lumbered to within
five feet of Bobby before it seemed to become aware of both his and everyone
else's presence. However, the thing was bent on its own business and, without
stopping to examine the livingbeings, rolled over the roof and down the other
side of the Mercantile shedding EMF as it went.
 
The size of the spirit and its casual slide over a building was enough to
reduce the four students to deafening screams. Bobby shook his head and
shrugged John's way. "Okay, everyone, stay with us. And stop that
caterwauling!" To John, he called, "What're you picking up on your meter?"
 
Saying that he didn't like what the EMF was bleeping at him was a colossal
understatement. "Bobby, we need to get these fools out of here. Hell, we need
to get out of here! There are at least three more. You four, keep quiet. If you
see somethin' let Bobby and me deal with it."
 
"John! Behind you! Over toward the Kieffer Place! I don't get it! These things
are ..no matter. What d'you want to use if we have ta - Rock salt? Holy water?"
 
"Both. There's no way I'm takin' chances here. How many does that make?"
 
"Countin' the last one? Probably 3 and a half: it isn't comin' back any time
soon. I hate to say this, John, but we need back up."
 
In the utter silence that followed, John heard himself breathing. One
inhalation, one exhalation: repeat. Then, "On it." He flipped the phone open
and pushed speed dial number one.
***** Chapter 15 -Bound on Errantry *****
"Dad?" Dean snapped open his cell on the first ring. "Where are you?" In his
arms, Sam tensed, knowing what was coming. Dean held Sam closer and tilted the
phone so both of them could hear. And so he could press a kiss to Sam's
forehead.
 
"Heading toward the main gate. We have company. Two with us, another two out
here in the woods or the damn back forty, and gods know what else hanging
around." John cleared his throat, and Dean knew what he was getting ready to
ask. "Dean –"
 
Before Dean could answer, Sam sat up and nodded. "Dad? We're on our way." He
sounded like he was strangling around the words, but the glare he shot at his
brother was unmistakable. Don't say a word! We're going!
 
"Be careful. Oh, just in case you were wondering? That Parvis spell? Works.
"John cut the connection.
 
"Sammy, neither one of us is a hundred percent –"
 
"Thank you for reminding me, there, bro." Sam shook his head. "Dad and Bobby
are in trouble. We're going." He winced and stared at his hands. "Just stay as
close as you can. I already hurt just this far away from you."
 
"Okay. But we get in, grab them and get right back out. I know this sounds
weird, but even I know something is way off base in there."
 
"Well, it'd sound a lot smarter coming from me, but you're right."
 
With considerable pride, Dean watched his baby brother pull himself together,
exhale sharply and even manage a faint smile, "Dad said the spell works. I can
handle anything as long as…uhm…you know"
 
"I know, Sammy. Me too." Dean cleared his throat and shifted into Hunter mode.
"Check your gear…"
 
"I know, Dean. We've done this before," Sam grumbled as he triple checked his
gear. "And I know my arm's still hurt. And that I need to zip my jacket. Stop
worryin' about me, mom!"
 
"Okaay, then. I won't tell you to zip your fly." Dean didn't flicker an eyelash
when Sam immediately double checked his jeans.
 
"Verry funny, Dean! Ha ha!" Dean couldn't swallow his laughter, which just
delighted Sam all the more.
 
"You'll be singing Amazedfor another reason if you aren't really careful, big
brother! It'll be Amazing if you ever get any again."
 
"Uh huh, sure…as if you could deal with – what, Sammy?" Silently, Sam pointed.
 
Two child-sized manifestations wavered in and out of visibility along the top
of the rise in front of Admissions. A little farther to the left, a taller
spirit, far easier to see, did the ghostly equivalent of pacing back and forth.
Dean rolled his car window down two inches and listened intently.
 
"Dean, do you see that big one?"
 
"Yeah. Do you hear anything?"
 
"Yeah. Moaning." They named the creature at the same instant. "Bean sidhe."
 
"Like that one in Pennsylvania last year."
 
"Yeah. I wonder…" Dean waited, intent, his only movement being to catch Sam's
hand in his and twine their fingers together.
 
Abruptly, the bean sidhe turned and swept down over one of the smaller spirits.
Not a sound, no sign of struggle, but the smaller spirit disappeared. "It's
hunting. So it is like that one in Pennsylvania," Sam murmured. "Which means we
can kill it."
 
"Sam, we aren't hunting it, hell, we aren't hunting any of them until we know
Dad and Bobby 're safe. Got it? Head right once we're out of the car." Sam
nodded and schooled himself to stay calm and alert. Dean slid over and left the
car right behind Sam.
 
Silently as the creatures they were avoiding, the two young hunters eased off
to the northeast side of the low hill with its empty flagpoles, aiming for the
gap between the main entrance and the meeting center. Five minutes of careful
approach later, they stood at the edge of the Great Meadow, staring out into
the dark, looking for signs of movement.
 
"Where the hell is security? Strike that – that's all we'd need. More civilians
to keep track of," Sam muttered. He stared around himself and cocked his head
to one side, listening. Nothing – too quiet and no sign that John, Bobby and
the innocents had reached the other side of the meadow…Sam shut his eyes and
listened again. Heard…something. Maybe voices? But that wasn't what had caught
his attention.
 
"Something's way off," he said. "Dean – " About to elaborate, he forgot what
he'd intended to say when he caught sight of very definite, very human movement
just to the front of the Carriage Museum.
 
"Dean – there! Dad and Bobby and those idiot kids. C'mon – they have company
coming up behind them!"
 
"Sam, stay with me!" Dean ordered softly. "And carry the shotgun in your left
hand, dope!" In spite of the seriousness of the situation, he smiled when Sam
grumbled but did as his big brother had told him.
 
The last whole security light facing the Great Meadow blew out just as John,
Bobby and their charges passed it. But, in the final flicker of light, Dean saw
one thing clearly.
 
"Sam! Dad just went down! Crap! Where are they?"
 
Dean heard Sam start mumbling "Nonononononononoo-" and swallowed his own
terror. Not again, not twice in a day. Dad? Bobby?
 
John and Bobby and company had vanished.
***** <b>Chapter 16 - Raveling Rules</b> *****
Dean grabbed Sam's forearm so hard it hurt, and jolted Sam back to himself.
""Dean?" he asked, voice shaky. No answer. Just that bone crushing grip and
pain that was caused by more than his muscles being crushed.
 
The agitated expression on Dean's face told Sam everything else. Without
hesitation, he pulled Dean toward him and wrapped his free arm around his older
brother's shoulders. Dean's body was as rigid as a steel beam, and Sam could
hear the rasp of his breathing, forced into and out of lungs that had been left
no space to work.
 
"Dean, it's Sam. I know you're there. Now, you have to listen to me…can you
hear me all right?" he asked conversationally, although he was on the verge of
panic. "I'm gonna unzip your jacket, okay? And mine – I don't have enough hands
for this, but we'll figure it out. There." Dean didn't like being cold, that
much was certain. His grip on Sam's arm tightened sharply. "Now, I'm just gonna
get us skin to skin – you're not helping, big brother. Let me – ugh – get that
t-shirt pulled up." Still talking calmly, Sam slid both of his t-shirts up and
did the same thing for Dean. Keeping their outer coats as close as possible to
trap air between them, Sam gently loosened Dean's death grip on his arm and
clasped Dean's hand, pressing it against his chest and covering Dean's hand
with his own.
 
"I'm here." A slight movement behind Dean caught his attention, and he looked
up. Without a pause, he turned all of his attention back to his brother, "I'm
here. Dean. C'mon, big brother. C'mon back to me. I gotcha." Sam spoke quietly,
holding Dean close against himself, sighing in relief when Dean pulled his
right hand clear and half fumbled, half slid that arm around Sam's waist.
 
Behind Dean, a coyote sat, watching both of them, before it glanced up and
beyond them, clearly looking for danger. Sam nodded and thought his thanks to
it. It cocked its head to one side and lay down, still watching.
 
Dean had begun to shiver, as he realized where he was; at least Sam hoped that
was the case. "Dean –"
"Sorry, Sammy. I mean," Dean tried to clear his throat, but that required far
too much energy. "You know – I just wanted to…"
 
" Hey! I wanted a turn!" Sam protested. "You rescued me last time!"
 
"Huh?" Dean wanted to shake his head to clear it, but all of him felt too gluey
to move. "Wha?"
 
"We'll talk about your martyr complex later, big brother. Right now? I've been
thinking –"
 
"Kill me now!" Dean managed to say before in something close to his normal
voice.
 
"Smartass. I think Christabel might have built a ward around them. You know –
to protect them."
He watched Dean grab on to the idea and nod slowly. Until he remembered
something. "But doesn't building a ward take more than one person?"
"After what's been happening the past twenty four hours? I don't have a clue
about the rules any more." Sam tilted Dean's chin up a little and examined his
face. "What is it, Dean?"
 
" Sam, do you remember Dad? Bobby?"
 
"Yeah, I do. That's what makes me think that it's a ward. That and the fact
that Granny Weatherwax's spells don't fail. "
"I almost forgot the spell. Parvis? Is that a name for anything? Much less a
spell? Oh great! I'm freakin' babbling!"
Sam's "Yup, you are," just upped Dean's embarrassment. Which Dean covered by
pulling on his tough guy persona one more time.
 
"We need to find out. For sure." Just like that, Sam thought as he bit his lip
to hold back a smile, Dean was back. "Remember something, Sammy. If it – well,
if it isn't a ward, then we'll deal with whatever it is. Together. Got it?"
 
"Sir, yes sir," Sam murmured, pressing his forehead against Dean's. For a few
seconds they stood there quietly, getting their feet back under themselves.
Then, reluctantly, Dean hauled in a deep breath.
"Okay, Sam, let's –"
 
Two things happened right on top of each other. Coyote chuffed sharply and a
faint moan that started behind them made its way to their ears. Dean spun
toward the coyote, which had come to all fours, snarling and bristling. "Sammy
– what –" Dreading what he knew he was likely to see, he turned back, following
the direction of the coyote's stare, and blanched. The little boy who'd been
flying his kite outside the museum the day before had worked up an appetite and
was tearing right for them.
"Later, Dean! Run!" Sam snapped.
 
They raced across the twenty yards that separated them from the point where
everyone had disappeared. "A ward. It's a ward," Sam muttered as he sprinted
ahead. "It has to be a ward." Beside him, Dean grunted, "What you said, little
brother. I wonder how wide – Damn!"
 
They slammed so hard into the protection Christabel had set that they saw stars
and ended up on their asses. Ward Rule Number 2: The greater the energy used to
attempt to break a ward, the greater the power of the ward to repel that energy
.
 
Flat out on the ground, Dean could have possibly, if it wouldn't have been so
chick-flicky, let a tear of relief slip down one cheek. "Sammy, it's a ward."
 
Sam groaned and rubbed his nose before he said, "You think?"
 
Suddenly, Bobby's head, shoulders and one arm leaned through the barrier. "Get
movin', you two! We don't have all day!" He backed up two steps and left a
space for Sam and Dean to walk through.
 
"Sammy, c'mon. You know I can't move your gigantor self unless you help." Dean
hauled Sam to his feet nodded toward Bobby. "Quick, before –" Dean peered back
toward the spot he'd last seen Coyote. It sat on its haunches, watching him and
Sam. There was no sign of the spirit. "C'mon, Sammy." Willy-nilly, they stepped
through the portal Bobby had left, and, equally smoothly, found themselves
making a half step up and right immediately afterward.
 
Although going into the Un- brought back the memory of that first solo trip Sam
had taken to get to Dean, both of them traveled it pretty well when they needed
to use it. But when a step happened unlooked -for, keeping equilibrium was
tough for even the most seasoned traveler. Dean stood still for a few seconds
until all of his innards settled into their proper locations. He opened his
eyes slowly. The first thing he saw was John's sprawled form where it lay on
the grass. The second thing he saw was the pinched expression on Sam's face
when he caught sight of his dad.
 
"Your daddy's okay," Bobby reassured them. "He just don't do all that great
with stepping out of the Now. John, tell the boys you're in there?"
 
A slow nod was John's only response. Somehow or other, he'd managed to keep his
stomach and its contents from pole vaulting out of his mouth, but talking
wasn't something he wanted to try. Damn side stepping anyway!
When he heard Sam's shaky, "Dad?" he rallied as fast as he could. Moving with
the grace of a bear on hockey skates, he managed to turn his head so he could
see Sam. "Hey, Sam." His faint smile stayed fainted, but that didn't matter to
his younger son. "C'mon here. Not bleeding this time. See?" He studiously
ignored the dried blood on the right side of his jacket's collar, hoping that
Sam wouldn't notice or would think it belonged to something else.
 
Dean could have punched himself: he'd forgot in the rush of the moment that Sam
had found John bleeding out after a dream walker had tried to filet him several
years before. Between the Displacement and that particular memory, Sam had been
hit pretty hard, Dean knew. And him falling apart like he had hadn't help..
 
"Dean, cut it out!"
 
"What?"
 
"I know what you're thinkin', big brother. And you're wrong. So stop."
 
"Sir, yes, sir! Stopping right now, sir!"
 
"You okay, son?" John attempted a normal sounding voice and saw Sam nod. "You
think you can help me sit up?"
 
"Are you sure you're not bleeding anywhere?"
 
"I'm sure, son. But I could use the help." And that'll convince you I'm really
all right.'
 
"Yessir."
 
"Bobby? What about those kids?"
 
"Out cold, the lot of 'em. Save us from havin' to gag 'em."
 
"Good. Thanks, Sam." John stayed on the ground for a little bit, taking a look
around and letting Sam lean against him for some reassurance. "Anything hanging
around out there?"
 
"Nope - A couple of 'em circled around for a few seconds right after the
warding dropped in, but that -" Bobby glanced over his shoulder and watched
Coyote watching him.
 
"What? Bobby?" Coyote came to all fours and shook himself into man-skin smiled
a Coyote's grin at Bobby and stepped out of the Now into his own Somewhen.
 
"Huh? Oh, uhm, Coyote's all." Bobby replied. "Looks like the boys have friends
they ain't told us about."
 
"You know as well as I do, Bobby Singer, that Coyote's business is his own,"
Christabel's disembodied voice interrupted. A second later she stepped out of
the Otherwhen and into the safety of the ward. "Those kids - we're going to
have to wake them up."
 
"Balls," Bobby grumbled. "Can't we leave 'em the way they are now?"
 
Chris opened her mouth to reply, but the appearance of a mitten-covered hand
from the Un- diverted her attention. "Sorry, Edith." John's brow wrinkled in
confusion when the hedge witch stepped aside to allow another woman to enter
the half step down and left of her and Chris' location.
 
Normally, a half-step occupied no space or time, and people were able to come
and go wherewhen ever they wanted to. To all intents, Edith (Cartwell, he
assumed) had stepped directly into the tracks Chris had made, not deviating an
inch. Not sure what to make of it, John decided to think about it later. When
thinking didn't upset his stomach.
 
A petite, silver- haired woman wearing an ankle length grey wool coat and a
white felt cloche large enough to cover her ears walked smartly out of the full
step right and smiled at Chris. "Not a problem." In spite of her slender
daintiness, Edith possessed a deep, melodic voice that startled people when
they first heard it. Dean took a step toward Sam, who had taken a step toward
him, both of them instinctively protecting the other from someone whose voice
and appearance were at such odds. John jumped when Bobby's hand landed on his
shoulder, keeping him on the ground – and close. "Bobby, I'm not an invalid - "
 
"Just sit still, John." Bobby was mortified by his over-protective reaction. He
could almost hear Granny laughing, and visions of making sawdust of her broom
filled his mind. Retaliation indeed…but not until she broke the spell. Dratted
woman…
 
"Keep your voices down. Bean sidhejust outside the main entrance. It can't use
the steps, but it can wait for us to re-enter our Now," Dean warned.
 
"Where's Sarah? If that stiff necked –" Edith clearly didn't want to speak
loudly, but Sarah hadn't appeared yet. "Sarah, get here this minute!"
 
Less quietly than either Edith or Chris, Sarah marched out of the Un- and
glared at everyone by way of greeting. "You didn't need me! I could have done
the Tours tonight instead of telling Louise I wasn't feeling well!" she hissed
at Edith, who regarded her as if she was a three year old having a tantrum.
"How many times do I have to tell you two," she added, glaring at Christabel,
"I don't want to be involved in whatever this is? I'm going home!" The
expression in her eyes was as wild as her hair, which looked like bed head on
speed. Edith's calm demeanor just made things worse.
 
"And you're planning to do that how exactly? Sarah, you can't get ten feet in
the Un- without help. And there's a bean sidhe waiting for a little light snack
just outside the main gate. On second thought, go home on your own! At least we
won't have to bury or burn your bones," Chris said through grated teeth..
 
"Enough!" Edith turned on Sarah and informed her, "You're leaving with us and
not one second sooner. I don't have time to chase you down in the Un-. Before
you waste air talking, the bean sidheis too strong for you to handle any time,
much less after helping us create a ward –"
 
"I don't w-"
 
Chris stalked to Sarah and spoke softly and directly. "I don't give a rat's ass
what you don't want to do. You're here. If you want to get home safely, suck it
up and pretend you're an adult! I know Magrat's an idiot, but I will be cursed
if I can understand why she suggested you as a Records Keeper!"
 
Sarah took a step backward and opened her mouth to say something, then thought
the better of it. Chris nodded sharply and turned to scan the group. "John? Are
you with us?" She waited patiently as John checked himself outside and in.
 
"Yeah. Just hate that side stepping – doesn't matter which direction. Makes me
sicker'n' a dog. Ginger tea and I'll be fine." Dean's eyebrows shot up when he
heard John as good as ask for the detested ginger tea. If he'd wanted to risk
dying a slow, painful death, he might have said something stupid to his dad.
However, being fond of his existence, Dean didn't say a thing.
 
"We need to get out of here. Get the kids up on their feet. They can help each
other. Bobby, you take the rear. John, come over here and lean on me."
 
Bobby helped John to his feet and hurriedly stepped back away from him. For a
second, they glowered at each other, but the pull of the spell increased in
direct proportion to the danger. Rather than fighting a losing battle, John
took a couple of steps toward Bobby, grumbling as much as Bobby at the whole
idea of a Parvis anything.
Dean decided to take over, since neither of the older men was exactly paying
attention. He wanted Sam next to him and safe and the night over with.
 
"Dad, you and Bobby with Chris. Sam, you and me on the rear guard. Sarah , keep
an eye on them," Dean decided, pointing to the four students. "And don't give
me any trouble while you're doing it." That last statement was directed
straight at the rebellious Records Keeper. "You do not want me pissed off at
you." Sarah glared at him silently. Dean was not impressed.
 
Satisfied that Sarah wasn't likely to be a pain, Dean walked over to the four
students, who still looked both sick and confused. Ignoring their condition,
Dean rubbed his hands together and, as brightly as the average psychotic summer
camp counselor, said, "All right. You four ready to get out of here? "
 
Only Bill was able to think enough to speak. "Are we – gonna die?"
 
"Not if we can help it. Now, listen up. You two guys– stick together. Ladies,
you have each other's backs effective now.
 
"Remember something. This isn't a game. And we aren't Candid Camera or some
crap like that. Do what we tell you, and keep quiet and we all might get out of
this. The ghosts and that bean sidhe can't see you here. They can smell you
here. They can hear you. But they can't get through. Two feet from the ward?
You wouldn't last a minute.
"Sarah, here, is gonna keep you in line. Sarah, and I mean this, they give you
one damn bit of trouble, let me know. You four? If I hear Sarah, just once,
you're on your own. I'm done with this crap. Innocents are more trouble than
they're fuckin' worth!" Dean stomped away to Sam and stood with his back to the
teen agers.
 
"Nice work, there, Dean," Sam said while both of them checked their weapons.
 
"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?" Dean agreed smoothly.
 
"Yup." Sam smirked, but the expression was grim. The kids didn't have a clue
about the amount of danger they were in. "Just a few hundred feet more, Dean.
We can do this."
 
"Uh huh, sure we can, little Mary Sunshine."
 
Nothing barred their quiet progress across the rest of the Great Meadow. The
night wind swept, chill and damp, in the world one half step down from their
path, but they felt only still air around them as they went. Just to the museum
side of the main gate, they stopped and gathered into a tight huddle.
 
"We need to take a look for the bean sidhe," Dean murmured to Bobby.
The older hunter shook his head. "Too risky. It can hear and smell us even
here. We don't need our brains turned to chowder on the off chance that it's
not still waiting out there. Chris?"
 
Steve just stared, trying to absorb what the older man was saying. Bean sidhe?
What the – banshee? He almost laughed out loud, especially when he realized how
seriously everyone was taking the existence of a myth-
 
Then the bean sidhe keened. The high, nearly inaudible cry built and broadened,
still at the top of human hearing, turning like a sword in the light, sharp
edge then broader blade, then sharp edge and suddenly a spine wrenching yowl
that terrified even seasoned hunters. The creature had scented them. And all of
them had heard its haunted sobbing. John wondered, however, if the sound alone
was what kept other spirits from manifesting. Worried, he cast a glance down
the length of the ward.
 
The bean sidhe one- half stepped up into the Un-. Which it should not have been
able to do. It entered a few yards away from the small group of humans and,
after a hesitation, tried to launch itself at them. That didn't work. The
spirit's confusion gave Chris and Edith enough time to act.
 
Instantly, the group found itself in the Now and Chris slammed the Door to the
step up. The sound of disjointed murmurings reached her ears. They'd been
smelled. The ward held secure in the Now, but in the crazy unreality of that
night, the witches couldn't rely on it to stay whole.
 
They had to get out of the area and fast.
 
Edith glanced at Chris, read her expression and nodded agreement to whatever
plan she and Chris had agreed upon earlier.
 
"Dean, Sam, did you park near your father?"
 
"Yes'm. Dad's two cars to our right and the SUV is two down from us to the
left." Sam answered quietly. Curious, he watched Chris' face and glanced at
Dean to see if his big brother had a clue what she was thinking. Dean shook his
head just a fraction of an inch and nodded back toward Chris.
 
"John, show me where you parked the truck." Bobby snarled when the hedge which
reached toward John. Startled, John stared back: the power of Granny
Weatherwax's spell had increased again to meet the threat to the two men.
"Bobby, I mean him no harm." In spite of the need to get away from the Village,
Chris knew better than to push too hard. "I'm just 'seeing' where the truck is
parked."
Bobby's face flushed with embarrassment again. Esme Weatherwax was going to get
an ear full –
"Bobby, for gods' sakes, she just wants – "
"I know what she wants, John. I'm not an idjit. "Bobby stepped just behind
John's right shoulder and added, "Go ahead, Chris. Sorry…"
"Nothing to be sorry about. John –"
 
Chris placed the palm of her hand against John's forehead and shut her eyes,
pulling complete silence around them all as she did. Seven seconds later, she
pulled her hand away and nodded in Edith's direction. "Now, all of you listen
to me. That goes for you, Sarah. Edith and I are going to collapse the ward
inward to re-form it as a wall behind us.. All of you, think straight ahead and
imagine the ward as a tunnel. Stay inside it until you get to John's truck.
Once you're there, head for your vehicles. You" she added to the four students,
"understand. Your vehicle is plastic and steel, but the iron ore used to make
the steel is as close as we have to be a deterrent. Get in your SUV when you
reach it. And leave. Don't look back and don't slow down."
 
"Chris?"
 
"Bobby, don't get all quivery. Neither one of us is going to be in much danger.
We have each other's backs. But I wanted you to know what we're going to do.
Sam, Dean, I'm hoping you're willing to take all three of us back to the
Blanket."
"Huh? Oh, yeah. No problem. I was just wondering what Bobby'd look like 'all
quivery' is all," Dean explained innocently.
"And I'm wonderin' what you'd look like with the Impala's tail pipe stuff –"
"All ready, everyone? Remember – RUN!"
 
Dean led the way, returning to the parking lot via the same route they'd used
to enter the Museum. Sam ran tight at his side. Behind them came the students,
terrified and silent except for the sounds of their footsteps and their
panting. Bobby and John held back, making sure that Chris and Edith had help if
they needed it. They only turned when Christabel threatened them with eldritch
fire. "We have this! Get out of here!"
The only thing that told Dean where the ward was a very, very faint sparkle of
light in the night. Beside him, Sam panted, "I wish we never came here."
"You'n me both, baby. Oh shit! What –"
One of the spirits who'd been chasing them attempted to push through the
warding. It fried before it evaporated. "Crap did that stink! Almost there!
Keep on movin', you four!" Dean shouted over his shoulder. As the ward thinned,
John's truck became clearer. "You four? Head for your SUV and get out of here!
Go, go, GO!"
Silently, the Bill nodded and snatched the keys away from Steve, who'd seen
much too much and had taken a mental vacation, staring vacantly ahead and
seeing someplace far away from the Museum and everything that had happened.
Forty seconds later, Bill drove the SUV off down Flint Hill Road as fast as he
dared in the dark. Nothing seemed to be following them, Bobby noted absently as
he buckled an indignant John into the passenger side of the truck. He had the
chance to look at the injury to John's neck and, without a word, loosened the
shoulder harness so John's neck wouldn't be abraded all the way home.
 
Dean made sure Sam was inside and safe before he skidded toward the back of the
car, opened the trunk and grabbed more ammunition. By the time he'd rounded the
car and reached the driver's side door, Sarah had plopped herself in the back
seat and Chris and Edith were just finishing destroying the ward. Two spirits
screamed in outrage when it collapsed into them. A word from Chris and the
pieces of the ward were returned to the elements, scattering in a cloud of
firefly-sized bits of energy.
Then, suddenly, quiet flooded over everything. Into the silence, Bobby called,
"Boys, get the ladies out of here! We'll meet at the Inn!" He slid into the
driver's seat, slammed the key into the truck's ignition, threw John's black
truck into gear and tore off down Flint Hill Road as fast as the SUV had.
"Sammy, get over here in the middle. Chris, you okay on the door?"
"Yes. Edith?"
"Let's blow this popcorn stand!" Edith's comment caught Sam off guard and he
started to laugh. "What? I don't like hot dogs!"
 
"Yes'm…I mean, no'm," Sam replied, still chuckling. He'd pressed himself close
to Dean and felt a little giddy when the ever- present ache of separation faded
into the background. Only a little longer and he and Dean could be alone. But
right that instant, having Dean's leg pressed tight to his and feeling the
warmth of Dean's body through the layers of clothing that separated them were
enough to settle them both down.
 
"Does anyone hear the bean sidhe?"
No one answered Dean's question, and he gave a sigh of relief, hoping that the
creature had been place bound. In the back seat, Edith leaned against the
window on her side of the car, thinking as the Impala made its way through the
night. Sarah shifted restlessly in her seat but the older Records Keeper
ignored her.
"I'm going home, with or without your help," Sarah announced. "I refuse to be a
part of this!"
 
"Tell me where you live then. Chris? You and …Edith…"
 
"We're spending the night in my room just for safety's sake. And because we
have some research to do. We'll get Sarah to her house through the Un-. I hope.
If not, we'll take her later in our Now. Just head for the Inn."
 
"Your wish is my command," Dean announced. Beside him, Sam sat quietly,
thinking. Suddenly, he jolted straight in his seat. "Those kids! What the hell?
We just let 'em go! They're going to tell what they've seen to anybody who'll
listen! We have to stop them! There'll be cops all over this place tomorrow!
Today – whatever time it is!"
 
Dean slowed the car again and reached for his phone. "No, Dean, don't. I know
what Bobby and John were thinking. And I believe they're right." Chris weighed
her words before she spoke again.
 
"Those young people aren't going to tell anyone. Or, if they do, they won't be
believed. Not for a second. They went to the Museum while the Spirits of the
Past Tours were being staged. Of course they saw things that looked unusual,
but they were all holograms and special effects. That's pretty much what I
think the adults they might talk to would tell them."
 
"But you don't know." Sam argued. He stopped in mid-sentence and thought for a
few seconds. "No, wait. I guess I can see what you mean, ma'am. I just hope you
and Dad and Bobby're right about this. Because, if you aren't, we're going to
be s.o.l. as far as cleaning up this place is concerned." He was staring
straight ahead and missed the troubled look that passed between Edith and Chris
when Chris turned around, casually checking Edith and Sarah.
 
"We have to take the risk, Sam. Edith and I are going to read back as far as
the records go and try to figure out why that old warding was up in the first
place and what it was supposed to keep out – or in. We were lucky tonight, just
plain lucky." Chris replied gravely.
 
Sam nodded and yawned cavernously. "We all need to figure out what we saw
tonight. Those two fighting – have you ever known a spirit to murder another
spirit, ma'am?"
 
"No, but that's not my area of expertise. It was, however, one of the things
that Mr. Abraham DeClerk, a merchant who traveled these parts and eventually
settled in Rochesterville, might have written about in his Personal personal
journal. Sounds a lot like Bobby, if you ask me. I only had a second to glance
over the pages he supplied to the first Book of Records, and I'm going to need
help deciphering what he calls English. But he may be where we need to start.
Unless there's someone earlier. Edith?"
 
"He's as early as I know as far as written records are concerned. There might
have been oral records, but I'm afraid that they have long since been
forgotten. Come on, we'd better get inside."
 
Startled, everyone realized that they'd reached the Blanket while they were
talking. Dean shook his head and stared blankly around him. He didn't remember
turning in to the driveway or parking. 'Tired' was an understatement for what
he must be.
 
"Dean, you're getting soft," Sam teased. He yawned again. "Gonna have to tune
you up and leave the car alone this time." Despite his sleepiness, Sam came
fully awake and alert the instant he put a foot down to get out of the car.
"Ladies, please get inside." Without further ado, the three witches headed
toward the Inn's front door.
 
"Verry funny, little brother." Dean grumbled. He still looked grumpy when he
walked in front of Sam and pounded on the hood of John's truck. "Dad? Bobby?
You awake in there?" Dean shouted through the truck's closed windows. "Let's
get inside!" Both of the older men scowled, and John snapped, "We were just
waiting for you. Decide to take the scenic route, Dean?"
 
"Yeah, that's me. Scenic route Winchester." Dean shot John a look.
 
Stumbling wearily, they locked up the vehicles and clattered into the Inn. None
of them wanted to sleep, and all of them were dropping in their tracks. Dean
nodded good night toward John and dragged Sammy off to their room. The minute
the elevator door closed, John's right hand went to the side of his neck and he
hunched his shoulder to relieve the stress on his injury.
Bobby pointed down the corridor to their room – no way was John sleeping in a
separate room, no way. Snarling to himself, Bobby threw caution to the winds
and wrapped his left arm around John's waist to help keep the idjit on his
feet.
 
 
Sam and Dean stepped into each other's embrace the minute they'd closed the
door and double locked it. Dean unbuttoned Sam's shirt and pulled off his own,
desperate to touch his lover skin to skin. In the silence of their room, he
reached up and wrapped his arms around Sam's shoulders, pressed him close and
took all of Sam's weight that he could, drawing strength from their contact.
 
Sam sighed long and deep and nuzzled Dean's neck, re-memorizing Dean's torso
with long, smooth strokes of his hands. They touched foreheads, breaking the
contact only to kiss each other deeply. Silent in the silent room.
 
Still unspeaking, unwilling to break the peacefulness that enfolded them, they
worked together to lay salt and secure the room. The bathroom was small, but
they'd been in smaller and took care of washing, peeing and brushing without
ever being out of contact, but never in each other's way.
Sam had left the curtain open so they could take one last look at the lay of
the land. However, the geology of the sky was what drew his attention.
 
"The Aurora," he whispered. Dean walked over and stood behind him, arms wrapped
around Sam's waist, chin resting very lightly on Sam's uninjured shoulder.
"I've never seen anything like this." Dean thought the same thing, but he was
looking at his brother and marveling all over again that Sam and he were
together. Sam smiled a little and nodded upward, "The Northern Lights, Dean…"
 
High overhead, Northern Lights hung in flowing curtains across the night sky;
they were different than the usual yellow green or pale blue. Green and gold
and silver blue swept from the middle of the sky out to the horizon in one
direction, and oddly speckled yellows and russets shimmered faintly in the
other.
 
He and Dean watched until the ephemeral, slowly entwining and dissolving sheets
of color disappeared. Then, hand in hand, they crossed the room to their bed
and crawled between the sheets, pulling the blanket, the bedspread and the
extra comforter up to keep them warm.
 
Dean propped himself up in the bed as he had every night since Sam had been
hurt and pulled Sammy against himself. They said good night for ten or fifteen
minutes, every kiss light and tender, every touch of their fingertips to each
other's faces soothing and speaking in a language only they could understand.
 
For a while after his brother fell asleep, Dean watched over him to be sure
that he didn't startle himself awake. Then he too drifted off into dreamless
rest.
***** <b>Chapter 16 and a Halfwell, more like 1/16th or something</b> *****
Dean sighed a little when something warm and wet licked across his chest and
settled around his left nipple. And sucked gently, teasing it erect. Tongue tip
just touching then retreating. Sam's head settled into the crook of Dean's arm
and he cradled his brother, slowly coming out of sleep to do it.
 
"This better not be a dream," he warned around a yawn.
 
Sam's deep laugh was his only answer. Well, other than the grab and roll over
that Sam managed to do without landing them both on the floor. "Nope, not a
dream," Dean decided. Cautiously, just in case he was wrong, he opened one eye
and looked down. Then opened the other eye and looked down.
 
G'mornin'," he purred, purposely rumbling the sound deep in his chest. Sam's
eyelids dropped shut and he rumbled back. "'Mornin' " and nipped a little line
of kisses along Dean's jaw.
 
Just before he hitched both of them closer to the middle of the bed. "Uhm?" Sam
barely glanced up from lifting Dean up a bit and lowering him so their cocks
lay snug between them against their abs. Dean's breath punched out of him and
he began to slide his cock slowly along Sam's.
 
"Are you…oh, yeah…are you tryin' to tell me something?"
 
"Uhmmm"
 
Sam slid his left hand down the hypersensitive skin of Dean's ass and lazily
navigated to his crack, leaving goose bumps behind it. Dean frowned when those
long, strong fingers by-passed his hole and went at the same slow pace to his
balls. He wriggled and yelped when those same two fingers played touchy feely
with his sac, gently rubbing his balls together and then firmly nudging the
base of his cock, which hardened immediately.
 
"Sammy?" Dean hated squeaking. He was going to deny squeaking, in just a
minute. Maybe. "Have you…uhhhh… yeah…licking now." Dean drowned the two fingers
Sam eased into his mouth and lost his focus for a couple of minutes.
 
He didn't know whether he wanted to suck fingers or be finger-fucked. But he
did know he didn't want an empty- blindly, he chased Sam's fingers when his
brother pulled them out of his mouth. Sam's index finger slid inside him
followed rapidly by the second and he clenched tight and drove himself down
onto them.
 
Sam's erection throbbed against Dean's as they ground against each other. Every
press of Sam's fingers to Dean's prostate made Dean see stars and caused him to
fuck himself down harder onto Sam's fingers. He groaned with pleasure and
kissed Sam as deeply as he was being fucked.
 
"Sammy…gonna…" His balls tightened and he felt Sam's cock oozing pre-cum
between them. "Sammy!"
 
Sam pulled his knees up to get Dean closer and fucked his fingers into him as
deeply as he could. "Baby, come for me. Come all over me." Sam's whisper was as
hoarse as Dean's. Their lips met and fused as they kissed deeply, shuddering as
their orgasms pulsed through them. Dean trapped Sam's fingers inside of him,
keeping him where he was. Sam wrapped his legs around Dean and held on
fiercely.
 
"I love you, Sammy," Dean whispered once his brain had begun to function again.
 
"Same back acha, Dean. Oh gods, do we have to move?"
 
"I vote no."
 
"Sounds good, but we –"
 
 
"I think we shouldn't be here."
 
"I think you might be very very right, Zia. It does look like fun, though-"
 
Dean screamed. Sam screamed. They each glared at the other, making a silent
commitment not to mention them screaming out loud. Ever.
 
"Is screaming part of their game, do you think, Maida?" They had decided to
wear Llew's favorite outfit, the one with the black and white (and white and
black) skirts so they looked to Sam and Dean a bit like slightly off mirror
images of each other.
 
"We can talk about that later, Zia…SamandDean Winchester, we have a message for
you."
 
"They look upset. Why is Dean looking under his pillow? Wouldn't that knife
make a lump under the pillow so he couldn't sleep?"
 
"I don't know – I mean, I can imagine that a knife would make a lump. But
there's no time to ask it now." Soberly they stared at each other before Maida
remembered why they'd come.
Veryvery politely, she waited while Sam and Dean pulled the comforter over
themselves and Dean had put his knife down.
 
"Maida? Zia? Why are you here?" Sam asked once his brain had figured out what
direction up was.
 
"We have an important message," announced Zia.
 
"A very important message," Maida seconded.
 
"From all of them."
 
"From all of them, who?"
 
"From Lucius. And from Coyote. And from Tuesday and Nancy and Grandmother-"
 
Both girls waited for the names of the senders made an Impression on Sam and
Dean's minds. They weren't sure how long it might take for the Winchesters to
be Impressioned, so they waited until a count of bazillion, which was one of
Maida's favorite numbers. One-bazillion, two-bazillion, all the way up to
bazillion bazillion. Between thirty-bazillion and thirty one-bazillion, she
decided that thirty one without the bazillion was as good a number as thirty
one with the bazillion. "Thirty one." And stopped.
 
At the same instant, Dean finally barked "What's the message?" startling Sam,
but not surprising Zia at all and Maida only a teentiny bit.
 
"The message is about names."
 
"Names are important. Mis-naming is not a good thing. Now, mis-naming is
especially not a good thing."
 
Dean cocked his head to one side and waited for Maida to finish the message.
Beside him, Sam reached for his fingers under the comforter and squeezed them
lightly. "Maida, is that the whole message?"
 
"What? Ohnono…there's more. I was waiting until you understood what I'd said.
Lucius said it might be hard for you and that I should wait until you shouted."
The last she directed to Dean, whose eyes narrowed.
"Oh he did, did he?"
 
"Dean, Lucius is Lucius," Sam murmured. "Can't change him. Maida, we understand
what you've said so far. Could you please tell us the rest of the message?"
 
"The realname is the Otherwhen. What you call it confuses it. Makes it more
dangerous. It's best to use its name. Otherwhen, not Un-"
"We've always called it the Un-," Dean protested. "Always. "Always. Everyone
does."
 
"Not everyone," Maida replied. Very directly, for her, she added, "We don't.
The Elders don't. The clans don't. Coyote and grandmother most certainly don't.
And it itself doesn't."
 
"That's the most important." Zia's black eyes widened and her voice went quiet.
Which surprised Sam and Dean very much, but Maida not at all. "It is the
Otherwhen. It deserves to be called by its name."
 
As quickly as she'd gone serious, Zia smiled and added, "That's the message!
Did you understand it, without shouting?"
 
"Not entirely," Sam replied honestly.
 
"Good. That's a start! IS screaming part of your game?"
Dean fielded that question. "Only when two someones sit down on the end of our
bed. Without permission. And most definitely without telling us they want to
come in before they do come in."
 
Both Crow Girls features saddened. "We are veryvery sorry. You're right. Very
right indeed. So next time we'll make a great deal of noise before we come in."
 
Sam saw the flush rising in Dean's cheeks and decided to be diplomatic before
Dean could reply. "That would be a good idea. And it might be a good idea to
ask if you can come in at all."
 
"But –" Zia started to say.
 
"Zia, Sam Winchester is right. We should ask before we come in," Maida said.
"So –" She smiled at the two brothers. "We'll be veryvery sure to ask the door
to let us in. Zia, I heard something just now. We should go and make sure
Something isn't lost. It sounds veryvery young."
 
Zia explained to Sam and Dean. "Somethings are very easily confused when they
are small. We help them to find their way home."
 
Sam nodded and cleared his throat. "All right, then. Take good care of the
Something!"
 
"We will! Good-bye, Sam and Dean Winchester!"
 
Maida opened the Room's window and stepped out, followed immediately by Zia.
Neither Winchester needed to look to know that the rush of wings they heard
next belonged to two crows bent on finding the young Something. Unless they
were distracted by another Something along the way.
 
"Well, that was fun," Dean muttered.
 
"Nowhere near as much fun as this," Sam informed him just before he rolled out
of bed, grabbed Dean and tossed him over his shoulder and strode toward the
bathroom and a shower, his laughter drowning out Dean's indignant objections.
***** <b>Chapter 17- In which the Loose Threads Fray</b> *****
Me Again
 
Sometimes I forget how long I've been hunting. Then a day like yesterday and
last night reminds me that I'm not as young as I like to think I am. I hurt
like a son of a bitch when I rolled out of bed and staggered in to take a
shower. Didn't feel one bit better after I'd stood scalding myself for ten
minutes. However, the idea of getting some coffee was enough incentive to get
me dressed and out of the room.
 
Even if it meant leaving John asleep. Not that I didn't almost wake him so he
could get cleaned up and head to the dining room with me. But he was out cold
and didn't even twitch when I shook his shoulder.
 
I know John cleaned out that claw mark on his neck with holy water and all, but
it was still deep and real nasty by the time I finally saw it in the light.
Shoulda had professional stitches in my opinion, but what do I know? I've only
been a hunter longer than John Winchester…oh hell – bottom line? He gave me
puppy eyes and told me he knew I could clean it up. That he trusted me. Damn! I
shoulda told him he was going to the hospital, but that idiot spell got in the
way and the next thing I knew, I'd cleaned the cut with more holy water,
antiseptic and salt followed by more holy water before I butterflied it shut.
Made him start antibiotics whether he wanted to or not.
 
And then I freakin' apologized for hurtin' him!!!! And told him he was sleeping
in my room so I didn't have to worry 'bout him the rest of the night! And he
didn't punch me.
 
I need to thank Esme Weatherwax so damn much for that spell she slapped on me
and John. Remind me to do that, willya, Sparky? Preferably when I'm not armed.
 
Made him take the bed farther from the door, tucked him in (ONE snicker, Norb –
just ONE – go ahead and try it!) and then I sat beside him on the bed until he
fell asleep.
 
Kill me now!
 
Hell, Sparky, this isn't going to work. Give me that – no, the black leather
one. What? No, you can't hijack my laptop again! Idjit. Use your own! I don't
care if you like my keyboard or not! Stop whinin'.
 
[_photo_secondfromchapter16707x281_zps7bfc3fe1.jpg]
 
Here's what "Team Mighty Hunters" looked like at the beginning of the day:
 
Sam and Dean're so freaked out about that whatever it was that happened
yesterday that they aren't gonna be able to stand more than an inch apart for
gods-know how long.
 
I sure as hell don't blame 'em. And the two of them at 50 percent are better'n'
five other hunters at 100; I should make that clear. Still-
 
The whole binding spell with John was screwing with both our heads. The only
good thing about that was that both of us knew what was causing the "let me
hold the door open for you, honey" scenario and we could snarl our way through
it.
 
By the end of the morning, all I could figure out about Chris and Edith was
that Chris wasn't telling us everything she and Edith are guessing about.
 
I don't know Edith; maybe her face always looks like she sucked a lemon dunked
in dill pickle juice. Me? I'm going to go with she's plain worried.
 
And, if I thought prepositions were gonna be problems? Verb tenses are enough
to give Strunk and White fits. Just read with that in mind.
 
So all of us are less than one hundred percent. And none of us have a freakin'
clue about what we're really dealing with. Oh the joys!
 
The first rule of hunting is 'do your freakin' homework!' Research, research,
and then, when you figure you've researched enough, go back and research. And
that's for a hunt after one or two monstersdu jour.
Yeah, I'd done information collecting: I'd have had to be an idiot not to worry
about a place like Genesee Country Village. And I'd shared some with John
before a couple of days ago. But last night? Last night was like nothing I've
ever seen. EVER.
 
Red Eldritch fire? Spirits killing each other, literally? Banshees that don't
just haunt, but spend their time hunting? Banshees in the Un-? Vehicles moving
through the Un-? Not to mention (again) the fact that people have likely
disappeared and have been forgotten about by everyone who knew or had heard of
them? Broken pieces of warding tossed like so much scrap? And how long has this
crap been going on?
 
And what more do Chris and Edith think about what's happening?
 
"Bobby." I damn near jumped out of my skin when John said my name. 'Course, he
sounded like his vocal cords had been attacked by 100 grit sandpaper, and I'd
been occupied scribbling notes in margins and all.
 
I waited to see if Esme's binding spell was going to kick in; it was there,
simmering below the surface, but it didn't set off alarms, so I just replied,
"John". He nodded, sat down and slid over to make room for Sam, Dean, Chris,
and maybe Edith, when they showed up; and we both went to work.
 
Before John could look for a server, Lily brought him a mug of coffee and put
an extra carafe-full on the table. John smiled gratefully at her and hefted the
mug toward his mouth. Although the coffee was hot enough to burn, he swallowed
it steadily, and began to wake up as it hit his system. He felt Bobby's leg
press against his and smiled crookedly. "I'm okay, Bobby."
 
"Yeah " Bobby snorted. "And who said anything about worrying about you? Shut up
and get writin' before you forget everything."
 
But he didn't move his leg and John didn't slide away. And when John's body
began to tremble, Bobby wrapped his left arm around John's shoulders and kept
on writing.
 
(Me again. He'd had one hell of a nightmare an hour after he went to sleep. I
couldn't figure out what he was doin in his sleep, but he was thrashing around
and sounding like he was choking or something. Then he went real quiet and so
muscle locked a quarter would have bounced off his ass. Then he went limp…and
started cryin. Didn't make a sound, not a peep, but he cried. It hurt to see
him that way.
 
So when he started to shake at the table, damn straight I slung an arm around
him. Just to let him know someone was there. You know? Crap, that sounds like a
sappy teenage romance movie or something. Forget I said it.
 
Dean tugged Sam into his arms before he opened the door of their room. Green
eyes glinting with concern, settled his hand over his little brother's heart.
"Sam, just say the word and I'll get you out of here. I don't give a damn about
what Bobby and Dad think-"
 
Sam shook his head and shut Dean up by smothering his next words with a
lingering kiss. "Not happenin', big brother. I don't run away, and neither do
you."
 
"Sammy, I-" Dean tried again.
 
"Dean, we aren't leaving Dad and Bobby and Christabel to deal with this monster
stew on their own. You know that." Sam earned a scowl from Dean when he kissed
his big brother's forehead. More seriously, he added, "But the minute we're
done? I don't care where we end up, we're out of here."
 
"All right. Just remember what you're saying, 'cause I'm holding you to it."
 
Sam nodded and grabbed his laptop off the top of the dresser. "You bringing
your encyclopedia?" he asked innocently. Dean's journal had been accumulating
for years and weighed in at several pounds. His older brother's glare gave Sam
all the answer he needed. "All right, then. My lap top it is."
 
Sam still hesitated at the doorway: without a word, Dean slipped by him and
waited for him to take his hand. When Sam felt safe enough, he grabbed Dean's
fingers and took that first step, the one that he dreaded as even more than he
had the day before. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat and said, "Let's do
this." Dean nodded and pulled him close. "Elevator, Dean?"
 
"Sure, Sam. " Dean's kiss and his firm hold on Sam's ass distracted Sam from
the slow glide of the elevator from the second to the first floor.
 
They made plenty of noise on their approach to the booth where John and Bobby
were buried in writing and comparing notes. Dean's eyebrows arched when he
realized that Bobby was holding John's right hand while they talked. Bobby
nodded to both of them and went back to some line drawing he'd made of the
village.
 
John glanced up and smiled at his sons briefly before he turned to answer a
question Bobby had asked. Dean spotted what looked like the edge of a bandage
on John's neck, but decided not to say anything that might upset Sam. Two
minutes later, Sam had booted his laptop and all four men lost themselves in
their work.
 
Lily appeared with two mugs and another carafe of coffee. "You've saved my
brother's life," Sam announced over the sound of Dean sighing into the mug and
making happy sounds as he sipped.
 
"He'd tell you, but he's busy with his girlfriend, the mug." Dean was too far
gone to comment, but, under the table, his booted foot made sharp contact with
Sam's calf. Sam just snickered.
 
On her way back to the kitchen, the server almost ran over Christabel.
"G'morning, everyone," Chris yawned before she took her place facing the wall
of windows opposite her. Her glamour was as rumpled as she sounded.
 
Each man grunted his version good morning but kept on working, while she
returned to reading and making notes about the second of the Records, cross
referencing to the first Record when a question stole her attention. Ten
minutes passed and Bobby signaled for more coffee all around.
 
Silence cocooned them while they scribbled and drew diagrams. Finally, Chris
put her pen down and looked around the table. The stillness had been so
complete that she jumped when she heard her own voice.
 
"Before we do anything else, you should hear some of what Edith and I found in
the Record we researched last night."
 
"Uh oh – John, she's lookin' serious." Bobby grumbled. He waved at Lily and
called out, "Lily? We need to order breakfast."
 
Everyone dug in to their food as soon as it appeared. For a few minutes, eating
was the only thing that happened in the booth. Finally, however, Bobby knew
they couldn't delay any longer. He glanced over at Chris, but before he could
get a word out, Dean put down his coffee mug and announced, "The Crow Girls
visited us earlier this morning."
 
"What?" Chris asked blankly. "But what are they doing here?"
 
"Sammy, do you want to field this one?"
 
"Sure. Wouldn't want to interrupt your cholesterol feast – hey!"
 
John glanced up from his coffee and cleared his throat, "No pounding each other
at the table, you two."
 
"They had a message from Lucius, the Grandmother, the Creek sisters, and, very
possibly, the Federation of Planets, knowing them," Sam continued soberly. Dean
just about choked on his scrambled eggs. "Everyone's worried that we're mis-
naming things. Which is never smart, but which is really dangerous right now."
 
"It's always dangerous to mis-name things, Sam. You know that."
 
"Yeah, Bobby, I do. But this one caught me by surprise.
We need to use the right name when we talk about the Un-
 
"Its true name is the Otherwhen. And itKNOWS it's the Otherwhen. Calling it the
"Un-" has it, uhm, cranky, I guess you could say. At least that's what I think
Maida and Zia were trying to tell us. Then they told us about a 'young
Something' that they had to find."
 
"They told you that?"
 
"Yessir," Dean replied. The grim expressions on Bobby and John's faces
surprised him. "Weren't they supposed to?"
"It doesn't sound like them. You're sure they said it exactly that way?"
 
"Yeah." Puzzled, Sam turned to Dean, who was just as surprised as he was.
"What's going on?"
 
"With Zia and Maida in the mix? Who knows? All right, we'll need to get the
word out about the mis-name. I'll give Rufus a call before we head out to the
Village. Him spreading the word is better than e-mail."
 
Dean leaned over and whispered in Sam's ear, "That was a brush off, Sammy. Dad
and Bobby're both shook up. And they're holdin' hands!"
 
"Dean, it's the spell. Stop being melodramatic…"
 
"Spell – oh yeah, the spell. Forgot…does that mean we can hold hands, too?"
 
"All right, you two. If you're done gossiping, we need to listen to what Chris
has to say."
 
"First things first- Alber deKlerk wrote most of the oldest Record. That being
said, neither the following Records nor that other 'vast storehouse of
knowledge', Google, have much to say about him. One of the later Recorders
referenced Mr. deKlerk, according to Edith. Said he had moved to this area in
the late eighteen teens after some years as a wandering merchant plying his
trade on the East Coast. And that's about all the biography we could find for
him.
 
"With one exception. Given his frequent references to the names Wilhem and
Jacob and one notation about receiving a letter from Wilhelm in answer to a
question, both Edith and I believe that he was either a relative or a close
friend of the Grimm brothers."
 
"He liked Fairy Tales?"
 
"Enough, Bobby." Sternly, Chris glared at Bobby before she continued. "You know
as well as I do that the Grimm brothers were pioneers in folklore studies,
among other things. The original tales had enough blood and guts to make Vlad
the Impaler happy, I know, but they were serious about their work.
 
They had an international reputation, it seems. Because, if Edith and I are
correct, they exchanged letters with Alber at least one time, and, from the
informal language, I think more than once.
 
"deKlerk wasn't out to write fairy tales any more than the Grimms: he was after
folklore and its sources; from the looks of it, he found a lot, even though
settlers had been colonizing here for only thirty or forty years.
 
"Which is a very good thing for us, especially now." She carefully turned
several of the brittle, aged pages in the Record before she located the one she
wanted. For a moment, she read to herself the words Alber deKlerk, had written.
Still reading, she started to explain.
 
"As far back as there have been settlers in this area, there have been reports
of odd happenings on or near the land where the museum sits. The Native
Americans may have had their own stories long before settlers arrived, but no
one thought to ask them until too late.
 
"Some of what I read is nothing more than vivid imagination. Ghost light,
spirits in the ether, that sort of thing.
 
"This was a remote area even in the eighteen teens. So the settlers could only
rely on stories that they or their families had brought with them into the New
World.
'There are mentions of poltergeists – which makes sense, since families like
the Hoechlers had come in from what's now Germany, and the Kieffers had come
from Pennsylvania's Dutch area.
 
"Oddly, given the period, there is also a mention of something that looks like
it may have been a bean sidhe, although I'm leaning more toward a woman in
white."
 
"Our bean sidhe?" Bobby asked. Chris glanced at him and snorted.
 
"Give me six months to do some research and I might actually be able to answer
that one. You know as well as I do that whatever the settlers may have heard
could have been an owl or a stranger whistling in the dark. Edith's fairly
certain Mr. deKlerk's notation isn't about a bean sidhe, although nothing's
cast in concrete when it comes to this area."
 
The thoughtful look on Chris' face darkened as she turned a page.
 
"This, however, sounds too familiar. Mr. DeKlerk writes:
'I hav this nite sene a most unearthly event." She paused, turned back to an
earlier page and held the journal up facing the hunters. Paragraphs written in
a steady square hand filled both pages."This is an entry from a week before the
one I'm reading." She turned back to the page she'd read from and held up the
book again. Letters that looked like a drunken spider's footprints wavered
across the page and blots of ink smudged and splattered randomly.
 
After a second, she returned to deKlerk's narrative. 'For, as I waukt from the
farmhouse to my waggin and horse, I did see an most unusual site. From the
darkness of the wood att the eje of a field, a man dressed in odd clothing
appeared, although I swear that, one minute before, nothing stirred there.
 
'The man seemed not to see me, but stumbled as if asleep or ill past me. He did
wear a short cot and long breeches such as I have never seen. Pockets of some
unusual construction did they hav above the knee. And another upon the rear of
the breeches. His short jacket was made of some strange material of black or
dark blue, I think, although my lantern cast only poor illumination and I am
not certain. His feet were clad in shoes, black and white of some strange
design.
 
'I blinked in surprise at such a poorly clad person about on a cold night. He
did not hear me call to him, asking if he needed help.
 
'Then, between one step and the next, he disappeared.
 
'I swear before God Almighty that I had partaken of only one mug of ale, and
was in my sober mind. I do not know what this means, but feel I must record it
in the event that someone else may understand the meaning. My memory of the
moment fades quickly, but I have drawn a picture of what I saw.' Chris held the
book up again."Here's what he drew."
 
Dean just gaped. Beside him, Sam shivered and huddled closer. "Cargo pants.
Cargo pants? The dude was wearing cargo pants?" The figure Mr. DeKlerk had
created was barely more than a stick drawing. But he had been exceptionally
thorough when he'd sketched the stranger's clothing.
 
"And sneakers. And, if someone was to bet, I'd take it. That's a jean jacket."
 
In the dead silence that followed, Chris set the Record back on the table and
carefully turned the page. "There's more."
 
"More?" Sam shuddered. Dean straightened a bit and pressed his leg tightly
against his baby brother's. Solid, real, protecting:there.
 
John only wanted to help his younger son; he didn't think to modulate his voice
to cover its raspiness.
 
"Sam, do you need to get out of here for a couple of minutes?"
 
Sam's reaction startled all of them. Wide-eyed and somewhere between panic and
anger, he snapped, "Dad? You said you were all right! Dammit! What happened to
you?"
 
"Sam, aren't you the guy who reminded me when I got upset about your shoulder
that things happen during hunts? I'm fine. Bobby took care of the cut. He put
enough holy water and salt in it to pickle me. Son, I didn't want you
worrying…."
 
"You told me you were okay. You said…" Sam lost his train of thought and shook
his head. "You lied to me. Are you –are you even you?"
 
Abruptly, he was back in the moment, facing his worst nightmares come true:
Dean and himself separated, permanently, torn apart by something that had no
means of returning him. All the terror that he'd crushed the day before in his
determination to get back to Dean came roaring in and attacked him viciously.
 
Dean would be gone – he WAS gone, and Sam was just dreaming that he'd come
back. No Dean and a stranger pretending to be his Dad, strangers that looked
like Bobby and Christabel acting out their roles to make him comfortable in a
new world. And he'd forget Dean had ever existed and that the strangers weren't
who they said they were.
 
No! No! It couldn't be happening! But it was and he was alone and Dean hadn't
been able to get him back and he was going to die alone in a place he would
never believe was home. Never!
 
Nothing he thought or said stopped the onslaught.
 
('Brother, what can we do? We have to help!"
 
(There are none there that speak our language…"
 
("We must try. Now!")
 
Dean had already wrapped his arms around Sam and pulled him tight against
himself. Sam couldn't breathe…couldn't breathe. He struggled against Dean's
grip, and then fought to get closer. Frantic for help. Help me! Help me! I
can't breathe…help me!
 
Sammy, tell me what you need! Come on, little bro! I'm here…tell… And just like
that, out of nowhere, he found the answer. Settled deep inside himself and
reached out consciously to calm his brother's fear. Soothing him, crooning
quietly in his ear, talking about anything but the terror that held Sam in its
crushing grip.
 
"Hey, Sammy, remember when we were just kinda hanging out at Bobby's that one
time, I think it was five years ago? Hotter'n' hell and sweatin' bullets before
we got out of bed in the morning? Remember, Sammy?" he whispered, voice calm,
breath even. "And you and I spent that one Saturday just flopped out under a
tree down at Carlson Creek? Too stuffy to do anything but lie there and sorta
watch the trees and dunk our feet in the creek when we got too hot? Nothing
movin', not a shred of wind. Just us talkin' and workin' on our sunburns.
Remember? I thought I was gonna fall asleep it got so warm. Just a couple of
birds singing and a car going over that ol' rickety bridge…" he whispered
against Sam's ear, breathing steadily, exultant when Sam's breathing started to
fall into sync with his.
 
"Fell…in the water…bridge…" Sam choked, grabbing less convulsively for air.
"'Member?"
 
"I do. I kinda liked that bridge, Sam, y'know? Just the right size to let the
Impala roll over it. You asleep in the front seat – I even turned the radio
down so you'd stay asleep. .."
 
Sam's breaths slowed and deepened while Dean talked to him, while Dean willed
every ounce of calm and love he felt for Sam toward him and enveloped him in
it. A few more minutes of quiet, and Sam stopped shivering and went silent,
almost asleep.
"Dean?" Sam looked up and nuzzled against Dean's chin, not caring who saw him,
needing to know Dean was real. For his part, Dean didn't give a damn who
thought what. Gentle, he pressed his forehead to Sam's and spoke quietly.
 
"Yeah, baby brother?"
 
"Better…"
 
"Okay. Just take your time."
 
John stared, thunderstruck at the damage he'd inadvertently caused. Finally,
Sam opened his eyes and looked at John. "Dad, just tell me the truth, no matter
what it is…if you don't, even…when you tell me the truth, then I know it's…it's
you." His face went bright red and he added, "Forget I said that."
 
"Not likely. It's PTSD, Sam. You're not surprised, are you?" Chris asked
quietly. Bobby shot her a look, but she shook her head and persevered. "Sam?"
 
"No," he sighed finally. "I suppose I'm not."
 
"Good. Now that you've agreed that you're human, not a cartoon superhero, we'll
keep an ear on what we say. And you'll let us know if we're making things
worse. Does that sound fair?"
 
"Yes, ma'am," he muttered. Dean shifted beside him and pressed closer. Sam's
breathing immediately relaxed and deepened, and he sagged a little against
Dean's shoulder. Gradually, the tension in the air loosened and Chris changed
the subject.
 
("Too close. But there was –"
("Yes. Something – You're right. Do we send a message?
("We do.")
 
"There's a break in Alber's entries after that one. He didn't continue the
Record until about five weeks later. And neither of us could make heads or
tails of what he wrote then. But it's important for us." In a quiet, carrying
voice, she continued to read.
 
"I had pondered some days about the strange events of that night. At first I
thought myself mad, despite what I wrote of that evening. At last, I determined
that I should seek private counsel with an acquaintance from my traveling days.
I will say nothing more of ______, lest others use my words against me as proof
that I am mad indeed. Or that _____ is.
 
"I travelled some distance and reintroduced myself after long absence and in a
local tavern we spoke well into the nite about what I had seen. After some
hours of close discussion, _____ assured me that I am quite sane and that I had
seen what I had seen. _____'s second statement has left me more puzzled than
ever. 'Look around the ejes. Un focus your eyes.'
 
"I do not know what the words mean, and my acquaintance refused to say more.
Not, I think, to mislead me or to sound mysterious, but because something about
what I had said was so troubling that _____ did not wish to think about it
overmuch.
 
"I returned to my home, more confused than when I had left it. However, a
portion of my doubt has been erased by the acceptance of my tale by ________. I
only wish that I understood ___________'s advice."
 
Chris looked up and asked, "Well, do any of you have a clue about what I just
read?"
 
"The 'unfocus your eyes' ? Every hunter worth his salt knows that one. It helps
a person see the unexpected. Look along the edges might be part of that.
But…maybe not."
 
"Chris, do you have any idea who the mysterious friend was?"
 
"Not one. But Alber seems to have thought the advice was important enough to
include it in the Record, even if he didn't understand it. I just wish we had
more time!"
 
"Well, we don't," Bobby said, his voice soft because Sam had closed his eyes
and seemed to be asleep. "We need to run through every damn thing that happened
last night before we head back out there. There's one thing, by the way, that
should have happened but didn't. And I'll be damned if I know why. Where was
the security patrol? I didn't see 'em all night! It doesn't make sense – we
weren't quiet…"
 
 
Then someone screamed.
***** <b>Chapter 18- Have you ever seen an Edge Watching?</b> *****

Author's notes: The veils between the worlds are thinning, for this is All
Hallows (almost) and Samhein (almost). And beginnings start anew all the time,
anyway.
The chapter title is sung to the tune of "Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking?"
which is an ancient song from the 20th century.
===============================================================================
The two of them stared at each other, unmoving. Christabel Lux, her glamour
cast aside for the moment, watched both newcomers cautiously. The tall, broad
shouldered, black haired, grey eyed youth ignored her, but his companion – no,
Chris realized, his mother, met her gaze steadily, unruffled. Chris couldn't
tell if the other's serene expression was the result of a glamour, Botox or
whether her usual expression was one of glacial calm. The red tinge to the iris
of her eye hinted at another emotion altogether.
 
The most cautious of mental brushes from her was met with an equally tentative
touch from the other woman. After testing each other's language and finding out
that speaking wasn't a choice, they agreed silently to exchange images.
 
"You cannot stay here," Chris thought simply.
 
"I mean you no harm," Terryn glanha yn gwisgo berlau a 'n dal sodlau responded.
"I have come to retrieve my idiot son, who wanders where he wants, heedless."
Her mental tone was identical to every annoyed mother Christabel had ever
heard. And Terryn's image of her slapping her son upside the back of his head
brought a smile to both of their faces.
 
"If he has done no harm, he and you should go."
 
Chris felt the edges of their conversation flutter a bit under the pressure of
the curiosity each of them had about the other. Sternly, she pulled her
attention back to the matter at hand.
 
"…as done none, at least as far as I know. Marcus?"
 
"I haven't done anything," Marcus snapped. He spoke loudly and the few folk
watching them stirred, pulling farther away, although no one understood his
words. Terryn knew her son well: none of the beings watching them had inherited
red eyes, and Marcus was a past master at controlling the hue in his.
 
If Marcus Pastor had had a cliff handy, he would have booted his mother over
the edge. For just a breath, he considered the possibilities; regretfully, he
shook his head. As rewarding as making a cliff and pushing his mother over it
might be, she would only levitate back up to him and then ground him for a
month.
 
He glowered at Terryn, annoyed by everything about her, from her perfectly
coifed bronze-blonde hair down past the expensive double rope of matching
pearls around her slender, elegant neck and on to the disarmingly simple, yet
sophisticated hand-spun cotton pale lilac dress with coordinated apron. He
assumed her shoes were coordinated as well. But he wasn't about to lower his
gaze to double check.
 
Terryn had caught something, just the faintest hesitation in her son's voice,
and she stooped after whatever Marcus was hiding like a goshawk on its prey.
"Marcus," she warned "I had best not find out that –"
 
"Mother, all I did was walk past the second curve in the tunnel-" Oh damn! he
thought as soon as the words left his mouth.
 
Terryn knew immediately what Marcus was talking about. She snapped, "Tunnel?
Tunnel? You'd better not be talking about the Caher Tunnel! Your father had
that closed years ago! You didn't figure out a way to access it – or did you?"
 
When on the defensive against a superior force, rattle swords to cause
confusion. Marcus' condescension dripped from his tone "It's the one I found
when I was six. The one you said was dangerous. It's only a tunnel. And
it…er…tunnels. Anyway, I turned the second curve and there I was…or here I was,
and here they were. Here they are I mean." Marcus Pastor stared at the people
gaping back at him. He let his eyes turn a deeper red, embarrassed by his
mother's attitude and suddenly scared witless when he realized that he would
have been stranded among strangers if his mother hadn't followed and rescued
him. Which made him even angrier.
 
"Me and the guys –"
 
"The guys and I," Terryn corrected automatically. She attempted to calm the
creatures by smiling at them and looking as non-threatening as possible.
However, their eyes went even wider and they looked more frightened than they
had before.
 
"The guys and I dug it out again – Dad only had the first twenty yards blocked,
anyway. Look at 'em, Mom! They're not going to hurt us!" Marcus challenged.
"Stop acting like I've blown a continuum apart!"
 
"You don't know anything about these creatures! For all I know, they plan to
kill us or imprison us to learn about us! You did walk out of no-space, didn't
you?"
 
Marcus averted his gaze, unwilling to admit that he had, indeed, materialized
in front of beings who, from the expressions on their faces, didn't believe any
normal entity could do such a thing.
 
"All right, young man! You're going home, NOW! Not another word! This time I'm
going to close the tunnel. Of all the nonsense." Terryn had no idea if the
beings, other than the female who had ferreted out a means of communicating
with her, possessed intelligence enough to understand what was happening. And
she had no intention of waiting around to find out.
 
Two of the small cluster of perhaps ten stepped forward a pace or two, and she
felt a shiver race across her shoulders.
 
Neither of them said a word, and they didn't appear to be armed, but she knew
as clearly as she knew her name that they were dangerous, and that they thought
the same thing of herself and Marcus. Quickly, she shot a look and a question
at the female who'd communicated with her.
 
"They won't hurt you, but they won't let you harm anyone else, either." Chris
explained quietly. Her word-images were aimed directly at Marcus. For just a
heartbeat he wavered and looked at his mother. The hedge witch stared toward
the front door and imaged that it was a safe way out.
 
Eyes flashing red in alarm, Terryn shepherded Marcus ahead of her and walked
out of the building, careful to use the proper exitway. Something moved off to
the far right, and she flashed a look in that direction, but saw nothing that
looked either like her and Marcus or like the beings she'd just left.
 
Stubborn son marching dejectedly in front of her, she walked purposefully from
the area, although she really wanted nothing so much as to run. By the time
they reached the back of the parking lot, she'd found her position and stepped
between one Now and the other.
 
"John, if those were spirits, I'm a Doberman. Hurry up and write down what you
saw. Boys, do you remember what's been happening?" Bobby wasted no time in
shilly shallying.
 
"Yeah, Bobby. This isn't the same thing that happened to me," Sam replied.
"Whatever they were, they were here with us, not the other way around, us with
them, I mean. And the kid's mother was pissed off."
 
"You don't know that," John interrupted. "The older one could have been saying
anything. "
 
" I saw the way the kid reacted," Dean countered. "I've done that myself a few
times. He was getting his ass handed to him on a plate. With barbecue sauce."
 
"But about what? Where the heck did Chris go?"
 
"Probably about the fact that he shouldn't have been here in the first place,
You know the drill. 'Sam, you know how I feel about stepping anywhere in that
place. And you know why. You canNOTdo that again. Not without someone to have
your back. End of story. And you are still grounded.’
 
John frowned and mumbled something under his breath, but had the good grace not
to say it more clearly. He stared out the nearest window and came to a dead
stop. "Bobby."
 
"Yeah, John? What – "and Bobby stopped cold as well. "I'll be- He's out of his
territory…"
 
"But, why?" Unperturbed by their stares, the visitor strode quietly toward the
same spot from which Marcus and his mother had stepped into…into wherever they
stepped. For a few minutes, he walked around the area, not speaking, just
watching the place and doing whatever he needed to do to mark it in his mind.
"Maybe he's on his own business. We shouldn't be…"
 
Just then, the tall, slender chestnut haired man stared straight at Bobby and
John and, so quickly they almost missed it, nodded to them before he turned on
his heel and strode toward the field across the road from the Inn. Then,
between one step and the next, he broke into a long, easy lope and headed
toward a stand of trees a few hundred yards away.
 
"What in the name of the gods is going onhere?" Bobby snapped.
 
John shook his head, silent.
 
 
Terryn -brave, fair one
Glanha yn gwisgo berlau a 'n dal sodlau. – She cleans wearing pearls and high
heels.
***** <b>Chapter 19 Pictures and Dean makes a decision for him and Sam</b>
*****
Author's Note:I've been meaning to show some pictures that will give you an
idea of the distances I'm writing about when I have the guys moving across the
Big Meadow and such. So here are four. The sequence starts on the near side of
the Toll House, the little building to the right in the picture. The village
proper starts when a visitor walks past the toll gate. As you know from the
map, the village is extensive.
 
[ photo 219a680f-681f-40d5-bc03-5674de5cef4e_zps08bfaf9e.jpg]
 
 
From there, the camera pans left past the Carriage Museum and the Exhibition
barn. The bandstand in the center of the field is a good frame of reference. It
stands about twelve feet off the ground and is large enough to hold a small
high school band.
 
 [ photo 8df9ad25-a6bb-4665-968a-d5cc2583df52_zps7cf413d4.jpg]
 
 
Then it's on to the Wehle Gallery of Sporting Art and the collection of 19th
century clothing for which the Gallery was completely remodeled over two years.
 
 [ photo 2013-06-041127551024x768_zpsbba93410.jpg]
 
The final image shows the place where Sam and Dean entered the Museum when they
were on the way to help John, Bobby and the High School kids. The gates of the
Museum are in a breezeway in between two buildings outside the picture and to
the left.
 
 [ photo 2013-06-041128021024x768_zps47511b4a.jpg]
 
 
As aerobic exercise, power walking around the Village and Museum is great.
However, if ghosts and bean sidhe are chasing you, it's a whole lot of
territory to cover in the dark.
 
Now, Back to the story:
 
Sam pointed to the stairwell and didn't wait for Dean to nod or shake his head.
Determinedly, he grabbed Dean's wrist and hauled him away from everyone in the
lobby. Once the door had closed behind them, he came to a halt.
 
"Remember when you said we should get out of here? Dean, I want to go. Now."
His fists were tight and he looked ready to punch the nearest wall, concrete or
not.
 
"All right," Dean replied without hesitation. "It'll-"
 
"It's like we're in the middle of a jigsaw puzzle – we can't get anything DONE!
I'm not a coward –"
 
"And no one said you were," Dean interjected, still calm.
 
"You don't think I'm a coward, do you Dean?"
 
"You're one of the bravest people I know."
 
'But all of this…this STUFF is making me crazy! That guy with the red eyes?
What is he? And don't try to tell me that's makeup for Halloween."
 
"I didn't." Dean waited while Sam digested his words. And talked at the same
time, spilling his thoughts as quickly as they made themselves coherent in his
mind.
 
"It's like this place has holes in it! People fall through, things fall through
- We shouldn't be here. Someone else can come and figure it out.
 
If I didn't know better, I'd think there's a curse on this place, but that
would mean cursing each building independently, because the houses are from all
over. So anything cursing them would have to - hell, this is too complicated!"
 
"Like I'm trying to say, let's get packed. It'll take two minutes and then
we're gone." Slowly the tension in the air settled and Sam took a deep breath
before he leaned in and kissed Dean deeply.
 
"Love you big brother."
 
"Love you, too, baby." For a few seconds, they rested their foreheads together
before Sam let out a sigh of relief and said,
 
"That's better."
 
"You ready to get back out there now?" Dean let a slow grin turn up the corners
of his mouth in a smile.
 
"Yup."
 
"Well, then…" After an exaggerated bow, Dean opened the stairwell door and
ushered Sam back into the lobby.
 
To himself, Dean thought "We are out of here tonight. End of story."
***** <b>Chapter 20 Two Sides</b> *****
"Tuesday, look at that boy's face. I knew there was something wrong the minute
I heard Christabel Lux's voice." Nancy Creek squinted in an effort to see Sam
more clearly through the glass of the Blanket's main lobby door. He and Dean
were on the far side of the lobby, but Sam's expression came through well
enough that Nancy was concerned.
 
"Christabel Lux only calls when something's wrong; you know that."
 
Nancy and Tuesday Creek had come to Mumford on errantry; and the matter was
grave.
 
Even as they had stepped down from their ancient 1954 Chevy truck and
straightened travel-rumpled skirts and jackets, they felt the uneasiness in the
air, and the memory of things that had happened recently. Nancy found herself
walking backward for a couple of yards as she tried to isolate the source of
the disquiet; before she and Tuesday entered the building, she took a look
around at the lobby and spotted Sam and Dean, saw Sam's hesitation before he
waved to her. "Remember, he'll tell us when he wants to", she reminded her more
take-charge sister."I wonder where Christabel is."
 
"If we go indoors, we might actually find out," Tuesday observed.
 
"Verrry funny," Nancy replied starchily. "Things have happened here, and not
long ago. Can't you feel it?"
 
After a second's thought, Tuesday nodded soberly.
They asked the Inn's resident spirits to allow them peaceful entry.
Christabel's advice on that point had been extremely clear. By their second
step inside the Inn, Sam had made his way to them, but slowly and with frequent
looks back to Dean.
 
"Sam Winchester, it's good to see you!" Nancy wrapped her arms around Sam's
waist and hugged him tight, feeling the tension ebb slowly out of him as she
did so.
 
"It's good to see you, too," Sam replied in Kickaha. Nancy noted that Sam
reached behind himself; his hand met Dean's reaching toward him. A faint jolt
of energy raised goose bumps on her arms; again, not a surprise. The scent of a
spell was there, but it wasn't the source of the energy. The men were. Not for
the first time, Nancy wondered at the power she felt in them, just under the
surface. "Dean –"
 
"Hi, Nancy! Hi, Tuesday! What brings you here?" Dean cocked his head to one
side, curious.
 
"Christabel Lux. Do you know where she is?"
 
"No. But Bobby or Dad might. They're over there making notes about – " Dean
stopped in mid-sentence and cleared his throat.
 
"About?"
 
"What do you know about beings with red eyes?"
 
Nancy glanced at Tuesday and turned back to Dean. "Red eyes? Dean, have you
been watching a Twilight Zone marathon again? Wait, that was in black and
white. Have you been watching a marathon after too much beer again?"
 
"I watched that comedy overload exactly one time, when I was eleven. Without
beer. Dad and Bobby ' fill you in. Sammy, I'm just watching –"
 
"I'll stay here with you."
 
"All righty then. We'll be right back to the table. I just want to check –"
Dean made a vague gesture toward the few people in the lobby. Sam nodded and
followed him quietly, leaving Nancy and Tuesday to startle Bobby and John with
their presence.
 
Everyone was too quiet. Dean figured that it'd be a while before someone either
laughed off the illusion of strangers with red eyes popping in from nowhere or
lost their temper for the same reason. The employee at registration kept her
gaze locked on the paperwork in her hands and refused to look up even when a
guest asked if there had been any messages for him. She checked and spoke
politely while handing over the messages, but Dean could see she hadn't made
eye contact.She doesn't want to believe what she saw. But she knows she did see
it he thought. "Damn."
 
People needed time to think the whole encounter through. Dean hoped the
witnesses' minds would retain only enough impressions to tag the moments as an
elaborate prank for Halloween, sort of a preparation for the Village tours.The
Village Dean snatched a look at his watch and swore to himself.
 
They'd started the morning needing as much time as possible to figure out their
next move and having only a couple of hours. And now they didn't have that.
What they did have was a rummage sale of too much activity in too many places
at the same time. As much as he knew his dad and Bobby needed to record in
detail what had happened, Dean also felt the press of time forcing him to
interrupt their debriefing.
 
Neither John nor Bobby had looked up from their work, asking each other
questions and answering in quiet tones, keeping the memory fresh. However, John
glanced up when he heard Tuesday's and Nancy's voices.
 
"Bobby, we have company," he announced, surprised.
 
"Don't tell me it's a purple-eyed visitor – Nancy? Tuesday? What the blazes is
happening?" On his feet before he'd finished his question, Bobby strode across
the dining room to say hello to the two sisters.
 
"John, get your bones over here. C'mon," the older hunter chuffed. He reached
for John's hand as soon as he was near enough and reeled him in close, the
spell still stronger than his determination not to act like an over-protective
lover.
 
"One of Esme Weatherwax's handy home remedy spells, I take it," Tuesday
observed. "That woman does know how to brew one up."
 
"It's the Parvis," Bobby corrected. "She put it on John and me and Sam and
Dean." Tuesday's eyebrows arched and she nodded thoughtfully. "Wasn't that just
a little bit of overkill?"
 
"No," both men responded somberly.
 
"Where's Christabel Lux?" Nancy asked quietly. "She sent for us."
 
"Good question." John replied, looking around as if he expected Chris to rise
out of the carpet. Bobby called Chris, but her cell went straight to voice
mail.
 
"Blasted idjit!" he groused, irked as all get out at the hedge witch. He stared
out the front door of the Inn and added "Looks like it's going to rain this
afternoon. Perfect weather for Halloween. Rain and, if we're really lucky? ICE!
Be still my heart!"
 
His cell phone rang and he flipped it open without looking. "What? "he snapped
extra-courteously. Then, "Chris, where the dickens are you?" He listened
silently for a few seconds, and John realized from his focus that Chris was
providing him with a mental image. She then said something aloud. And whatever
it was, it wasn't good news. The scowl on Bobby's face morphed into a look so
incredulous and angry that everyone shied away, just to be safe.
 
Tone clipped, Bobby snapped, "She what?" then waited. "Where is she? What
shape's she in? Yeah, yeah, they're here; just got in a few minutes ago. Nancy,
Christabel needs to talk with you as soon as we're done." He returned to the
conversation at hand.
 
"Who? Is something wrong with Chris?" Sam asked.
 
"No, it's that idjit Sarah. Nancy, here's Chris. They're at Edith's place. And
yes, we're using the Otherwhen. All of us." Nancy Creek held up one finger,
asking for another minute on the phone with Christabel. "You know the drill.
Don't get all cuddly – just grab on to someone."
 
"I hate this," John complained under his breath. He started when Sam and Dean
made contact with Tuesday, who had grabbed on to Bobby's forearm; the shock had
gone through all of them was strong enough to be a little uncomfortable.
Probably the spell, he figured when Nancy's touch to Tuesday's arm didn't cause
any reaction.
 
"John, Chris already has –" and they stepped first left and then right again
and out of the Otherwhen in front of a small, homey bungalow sitting
comfortably in a garden recessed from the road. "…the ginger tea steeping."
 
Chris heard voices coming from the front garden and nodded to Edith, who took
her place by Sarah's bedside, not hovering, waiting, arms akimbo, while Sarah
pretended to sleep. When Chris opened the front door, there everyone stood,
Bobby instinctively edging himself between John and the unknown, and John, even
though he was green around the gills, doing the same thing for Bobby. Chris
smiled to herself and looked across at Sam and Dean.
 
As usual, the two younger hunters melded perfectly together although they were
standing a little apart. Chris couldn't feel anything of Esme's spell on the
two young hunters, although the same spell smelled of water and whiskey when
she focused on John and Bobby. Nancy and Tuesday immediately walked up the step
and into Edith's home, removing their winter jackets as they went. Each one
stopped to pat Chris on the shoulder; the hedge witch nodded her thanks and
turned her attention back to the hunters, who lingered on the walk, not sure
what was going on.
 
"Come in, you four. It's colder than Antarctica out here," Chris urged,
ushering them into the house. Her brisk, no-nonsense tone scattered brooding
thoughts and set everyone in motion. Dean guided Sam in ahead of him and turned
to reconnoiter visually before he too stepped into the warmth of the home.
 
"Robert Singer, I would speak with you for a moment. Alone."
 
The cantankerous hunter replied, "If it cannot wait, Christabel Lux, but be
certain of the need before you answer me."
 
"I'm sure, Robert."
 
"Make this quick, then." Bobby's formal tone faded, and he was plain everyday
Bobby Singer again. He patted John on the shoulder and told him, "I'll be back.
Boys, keep an eye on your dad, okay? And Chris, where's the ginger tea?"
 
"Kitchen in a mug on the counter. Bobby, the sooner we talk…"
 
As soon as the two had left the living room, Dean turned to John and asked,
"What the hell was that?"
 
"I don't have a clue," John replied, dazed. Sam ventured as far as the tiny
kitchen and rescued the mug of ginger tea from its spot on the spotless, white
ceramic counter. He handed it to John, who swallowed the dreaded
medicinegreedily, although he made one horrendous face while he did so.
"Better, Dad?"
 
"It doesn't work instantly, son." John replied testily. However, within two
minutes he'd unwound enough to set the mug back on the counter in the kitchen
and leave it there. Like Sam, he glanced down the hall off the living room and
saw the Creek sisters waiting quietly outside the only bedroom door that was
open.
 
Sam felt Dean touch the back of his hand and pressed closer to his brother.
 
The minute he had stepped into Edith's house, Sam was better able to focus on
what his memory was trying to bring to the forefront of his conscious. The
sense of urgency, of warning, the same one he'd felt once or twice before, the
"Take your family and go. Far from here." So preoccupied with that thought was
he that Dean wrapping one arm around his waist caused him to shy away a little.
"Little brother, are you all right?"
 
"Nope."
 
"All right, then – as long as we're both clear on that point."
 
Sam didn't have any more time to think: face white and pinched, Bobby returned
to the living room and stepped in close to John, who reached for him and leaned
against him providing comfort. For a minute, perhaps two, he stared outside,
before he cleared his throat and told the Winchesters, "You need to be there
when we try to get some answers from Sarah."
 
"What happened to her?" John asked.
 
"That's one of the answers we're after. Come on, John, boys. Oh, and let Edith
and Chris do the talkin'. "
 
For some reason, Dean expected they'd be entering a sick room. But Edith's
bristling watchfulness was more suited to a principal's office than a hospital.
Sarah sat up, propped against several pillows, glaring defiantly at everyone in
the room. Edith glowered right back, and Chris looked about ready to remove
Sarah's limbs one at a time with a blunt knife and without anaesthesia. Anger
definitely wilted Chris' glamour, Sam thought to himself. He tried again to see
Chris through the spell, but it repaired itself almost as quickly as her temper
frayed it.
 
"Sarah, what have you done?" Edith's already deep voice dropped even deeper;
John realized she was using it as a tool to keep Sarah off balance.
 
"I've already told you! I've replaced the broken warding, that's what. Magrit
helped with the research, but I did the actual work." Sarah didn't sound smug
or complacent, but she also didn't sound overawed by the situation. "You've
been so busy making Mons Olympus out of a chipmunk tunnel that I decided to
just go ahead and do the job myself."
 
Floored, Chris turned to Edith and managed to say "I'm getting a cup of coffee.
If I don't, I willkill her. Edith, she's all yours-"
 
"What are you talking about?" Sarah snapped. "I did what you obviously couldn't
do: is that it? And you're jealous…"
 
"Jealous? JEALOUS?" Chris thundered, her eyes glinting almost literal sparks as
her anger exploded. Are you a complete fool? That does it. Where's that coffee,
Edith?" Chris' question was really "May I twist her into a pretzel now, or do I
have to wait?" Muttering to herself, the Master Warder stomped off toward the
kitchen.
 
Edith found her reactions divided between wanting to strangle Sarah or
suffocate her with a pillow. Since neither option kept her out of jail, she
settled for gritting her teeth and finding out as much detail as she could
before she, too, had to find a coffee or do murder. For her part, Sarah set her
jaw more firmly and glared in outright defiance at Edith. That defiance didn't
lessen an iota when two complete strangers walked into the bedroom and looked
curiously at her and then at Edith.
 
"You must be Nancy and Tuesday Creek; we haven't met, but Christabel Lux has
said a great deal about you. Well come."
 
"And well met," Nancy replied, perfectly calmly. She trained her stare on
Sarah, who opted for the easy route and included the newcomers in her dour
grimace back.
 
"If you think for one second that you can intimidate me," the surly Records
Keeper announced, "you'd better think again."
 
"The thought never crossed my mind," Tuesday replied honestly. Sam remembered
her saying that to him and Dean as children when, during one of their summer
visits, they'd been caught red-handed trying to drive Tuesday's truck and
ending up hung up over a log. He knew that the rest of her comment would have
been something to the effect of "You'd need to have brains to be intimidated."
 
"This is going to be a party," Dean muttered to his lover. Sam sighed and
shifted his shoulders, already restless and worried, like Dean, that too much
time had slipped away. The silent stare-off continued and threatened to become
a world record holder.
 
"I'm tired and I want to get some more rest, so all of you should leave now. "
Sarah's aplomb was formidable, but she had broken the silence first.
 
That was what Sam had been waiting for, Dean knew.
 
Sam grabbed the one chair in the guest room as he approached Sarah. Then, in
one smooth move he pivoted the chair 180 degrees and sat down backward on the
seat. Dean firmly withheld the grin that threatened to escape and ruin his
stone-faced expression.
 
Sam had just spiked his first serve in the verbal volleyball match Sarah had,
unwittingly, started.
 
"What do you think you're doing, hunter? I don't have to explain myself to a
child like you or to anyone else. I told you before, Edith: I don't want to be
involved in this mess, whatever it is. So I did everyone a favor and figured
out how to stop it."
 
The hunter's eyebrows lifted and he cocked his head a little to the left. "You
did?"
 
"I wasn't speaking to you, Winchester. So don't interrupt. Edith, I've said it
fourteen times! New warding is in place and it's active. Magrit and I made sure
of that. We checked everything against Alwen Ithel's receipt book."
 
Sam heard a soft intake of breath: Tuesday. "You mean like a store receipt?" he
asked, to cover the sound. And to force Sarah to include him in the
conversation. Score one to him when she snapped,
 
"Do I look like a moron? It was a receipt, which is what recipes were called in
the old days. And don't interrupt again, Winny." No score: Sam had been called
much worse, and by his own brother, to boot.
 
"So it was a spell recipe?"
 
"Spells are just cooking anyway. Magrit showed me what to mix and what to say.
The warding is in place and we took care of the 'big, bad, problem' without any
of you helping. All we needed was the receipt that Alwen used the last time
things started to happen around the crack in the earth-"
 
"A fault line?" Nancy asked, apparently without thinking. "That sort of crack?"
 
"Was I speaking to you?" Sarah responded witheringly. "Whoever you are."
 
Dean started to say something, only to have Nancy shake her head. "I'm Nancy
Creek."
 
"And I'm terribly impressed, I'm sure. I have no idea what the 'crack in the
earth' is; there wasn't anything I could see there…"
 
"There where?"
 
"Where I re-did the warding, of course."
 
"When was that? The last time things started happening, I mean." Sam seemed
relaxed almost to the point of boredom, but his gaze never strayed from
Sarah's.
 
"I don't know. When Alwen was alive, I assume, since she wrote the recipe down
into her cook book." Edith stepped back out of the room and marched silently to
the kitchen to speak to Chris about someone named Alwen Ithel and a recipe
ledger. And to pour herself a cup of coffee.
 
"Do you have the recipe here with you?"
 
"Of course not! I don't drag around things I'm not in need of. It's back
in…where it belongs –"
 
"Where in your house does it belong," Sam asked. Dean caught the slight shift
in Sarah's position against the pillows.
 
"It's in my kitchen," she replied, shoulders stiffening a little. "And it's
staying there."
 
"So, when you made the spell – you and Magrit – what did you tell the warding
out behind the Shaker Trustee's House to do?"
 
"What do you mean what did I tell it to do? I broke it up before I started the
warding that's in place over the crack now."
 
"And you didn't have any trouble doing that?"
 
"It didn't want to dis-integrate, if that's what you mean. But I held my ground
and it finally went dark. I broke off all four corners so the energy could
dissipate. Then Magrit and I did the new ward."
 
"When did you finish the re-warding?"
 
"A month ago. I wanted everything locked down by this weekend."
 
For a bit, Sam sat still, smiling absently at Sarah, who grew edgier by the
second. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I heard you say. 'Without
any training, and with the help of a 'witch' who's so bad at being a witch that
she's now being a queen, where she can't do damage, you decided to 'fix', and
by that you mean 'replace' a piece of warding so old and complex that a Master
warder like Christabel Lux had trouble reading it. Am I right?"
Sarah nodded shortly.
 
Sam didn't give her time to say word One, however. "You broke the corners of a
ward that you knew nothing about so you'd have a clean slate to start with when
you made a ward meant to – to do what, exactly?"
 
"To protect us against whatever the original ward had been meant to defeat. And
to make the warding less visible. Don't be dense!"
 
"Did you know that some wards are made to go dark and look as if they're dead
so that predators that start to damage them'll get discouraged and leave 'em
alone? And did you know that lopping corners off a ward doesn't return it to
the elements? " Sarah's stare answered the questions, even if she didn't.
 
"That's beside the point – I put that old ward behind the Shaker House, and
nothing happened when I moved it there."
 
"And you weren't burned or worse because -."
 
"Because it was dead."
 
"Injured, not dead. And you're lucky that it was designed to protect humans, or
we wouldn't be talking right now. You were lucky. Before you say anything,
Christabel activated what she could of it. Now, where was that warding
originally?"
 
"It doesn't matter. It's scattered –"
 
"Where was it originally?"
 
"It's scattered! I put new warding in place of it and that ward's holding!"
 
"Where was it originally?" Sam didn't raise his voice, but he also didn't shift
an iota from his question. Only Dean knew that Sarah's stubborn refusal to
answer had set off warnings in Sam's mind.
 
"In the private cemetery across and down Flint Hill Road from the Museum! For
Pete's sake, stop asking that question like I can't hear you!" Royally pissed
off, Sarah crossed her arms across her chest and grumbled furiously. She never
noticed Chris returning from the kitchen with Edith in her wake.
 
But Sam wasn't finished. "You're sure it was in the cemetery."
 
"No, I just imagined walking by one day and seeing something glinting in the
sunlight. Then I imagined going back that night and finding that ward where
anyone could see it, hanging between two trees like a clothesline –"
 
Chris knew that if she stopped drinking her coffee, she'd throw the mug
straight at Sarah. Given the distance between the door of the guest bedroom and
Sarah on the bed, the chances of the coffee mug braining Sarah were one hundred
percent. So Chris continued to sip her coffee rather than waste it. The fragile
tea cup that Edith held cracked and broke in the senior Record Keeper's grip,
although she dropped the shards to the carpeted hall floor before they could do
any damage.
[ photo 2012-09-05133139800x600_zpscafc9843.jpg]
 
Bobby watched John redrawing everything he'd patterned in the previous forty-
eight hours. And watched his lips tighten to a thin, white line. Quietly, he
wrapped his left hand around John's right and began tracing calming circles on
the skin between John's index finger and thumb.
 
"Are you quite finished with interrogating – "
 
"I'm wondering," Sam interrupted, voice clear and certain. "something. Chris?
Edith? Do you know when that cemetery opened?"
 
"In 1881," Sarah replied promptly. "I do know my regional history."
 
"And before that?"
 
"I'm assuming that there wasn't a single cemetery. People were buried on family
property. Or they might have been buried in Garbutt. Things were different back
then, you know, Winny…"
 
"But the warding dates back long before then."
"What of it?"
 
Chris caught the drift of what Sam was saying and did some rapid thinking of
her own. Before she could speak, Nancy added, "Long before that, if Alwen Ithel
was involved. She was a warder in her own right in the 1700s."
 
"How do you know that?" Sarah snapped.
 
"I'm not guessing, if that's what you mean."
 
"This is what I think happened," Sam finally offered, his voice so soft it
barely carried. "I think that Alwen Ithel warded the area originally in
response to a threat. I don't know what kind or where it came from.
 
"By the late 1800s, the warding had begun to show strain and to weaken. The
good fathers of the community knew, in some fashion, what the warding was. And
they built the cemetery in order to reinforce the wards."
 
"This is ridiculous! That would mean that the town board knew about the wards
and that they were – no! That doesn't make sense!"
 
"The land the cemetery sits on is consecrated. I have a feeling that it was put
where it is to help the ward do its job."
 
"Christians don't believe in witchcraft!"
 
"But they do believe in keeping their families safe. Which they wouldn't be if
the ward was taken down. Which you did. And the consecration wasn't strong
enough on its own. And now we have to put everything back together than you
took apart. If we can. While we're handling the Village. If we can."
 
Sam stood up and stared down at Sarah. Then, silently, he turned away and left
the room, followed by everyone except Sarah herself.
 
Sam didn't lose at Verbal Volleyball. Ever.
 
 [ photo 2012-09-05133105800x600_zps6ec4850b.jpg]
***** Chapter 21 - Spaces Between I *****
Dean felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin. He wanted to get Sam and
Dad and Bobby – no, that wasn't it; he wanted all of them out of the way of
whatever might be happening at the Museum.
 
But most especially, he wanted Sam and himself and Dad away. And the reason he
was crawling out of his skin was that he didn't know why it was so important:
he just knew that it was.
 
And he knew he'd have to tell Sam that he couldn't keep a promise to him that
Sammy didn't even know Dean had made: to get him out of Mumford before
midnight. But there was –
 
"…no way, Dean. Just no way we can – "Sam was in the middle of explaining when
Dean stepped a bit away from his thoughts. "We're stuck here for the night…"
 
"How did – "you get me into Edith's kitchen? Know that I'd made that promise?
Know what I was thinking? All questions Dean wanted to ask, all questions he
knew he wouldn't ask.
 
Because Sam knew – just like he knew a lot of what Sam was thinking most of the
time. Sam frowned and glanced toward the living room, where everyone else was
talking in quiet voices. "I know you," he answered softly. "Dean, when we get
back to the Blanket, will you follow my lead? I need you, big brother. I need
you so much I hurt. And I'm …can't forget – I can't forget what almost
happened. "
 
Dean nodded without hesitation. "You lead, and I'm there, Sammy."
 
He glanced toward the kitchen's doorway and added, "We're just talkin', Dad."
 
"I know, son. I – you know."
 
And, abruptly, Dean did know. "We're here, Dad."
 
Silently, the three Winchesters returned to the rest of their merry band of the
unusual.
 
"Is there going to be a problem leaving Sarah here alone?"
 
"No. I'm closing the portals to the Otherwhen so she can't use them to go and
do any more fixing. She doesn't want to be anywhere around the 'mess', so I'm
figuring she'll stay right here. At least I hope so."
 
Silently, they all reached out to connect to each other, and five minutes later
arrived in the Blanket's parking lot. Sam and Dean walked out of the Otherwhen
and kept on walking past John and Bobby, past Christabel and the Creek sisters,
past Edith, straight into the Inn.
 
"Dean? Sam? Where're you going?" John's irritated question didn't slow his
sons' steady strides. They walked right up to the elevator and waited for the
door to inch its way open. "Boys, we don't have time –" and you're going out of
my sight again. What's the matter with me?
 
"Make the time!" Sam growled over his shoulder. The elevator door slid open and
then shut behind them.
 
"John – they need the space. Remember, it's only –"
 
"I know that, Bobby. You don't need to explain like I'm two," John grunted. He
immediately felt like an idiot. "Bobby, I'm sorry…" he muttered. His old friend
trained a startled stare at him "I mean, I'm…I shouldn't've talked like that."
 
"Who are you? And what have you done with John Winchester?" was Bobby's reply.
"C'mon, John. We have a hunt to plan. Let's get back to it."
 
Sam tugged Dean along, too damn tired to talk. They had to stay in this
freakin' town over night – again. He'd never been as much of an open road
person as Dean, probably because the car, big as it was, wasn't big enough for
him. But he wanted to get the hell out of Mumford and away from Genesee Country
Museum and Village and everything that was going on there. The 'want' had
become a screaming demand, and the thought of another day in Mumford had driven
its presence into his skull like a blunt knife.
 
They were in mortal danger from what they could see, certainly. But this was
something different, something he didn't understand. All he knew was he wanted
them to be gone, away from the bean sidheand the ghosts that didn't act like
ghosts, and Sarah and her laughable – and dangerous – attempts at warding. Away
– some nice safe hunt with only two or three monsters du jour to deal with,
sounded perfect.
 
"Sammy –"
 
Sam slammed the motel room door shut and snagged Dean by the waist. "In me.
You. Now," he growled. Just before he leaned in, nuzzled Dean's shirt out of
the way and bit down on his big brother's neck, drawing blood. Not where anyone
could see, but where Dean could feel the bite for days. Could remember, could
make him remember. Dean swore softly and let go of the restraints he had been
keeping on his need to possess Sam, to warn off the whatever-it -was that was
slowly sweeping toward - not them – but toward where they were.
 
He didn't understand his own thoughts and almost lost track of things. But the
warmth of Sam's bare ass rubbing shamelessly against his still -zipped jeans
snagged him back to the moment, even as all of his blood headed south and
brought him erect so quickly he hurt.
 
"NOW!" Sam demanded; only the shaking in his voice told Dean that his brother
was desperate, not angry. Dazedly, he looked down and watched his own hands as
if they belonged to someone else fumbling with his jeans and boxers, shoving
them down to his thighs and freeing his rigid, aching cock. Lube…he needed
lube.
 
"Dean! Now! No! Don't go…now- "
 
"Sammy, I'm not gonna hurt you. Lube, I want to get the lube" Dean said, voice
calm, body aching to be buried inside Sam, to make love to him, never hurt
him…to…"SAM!!! NO!" He tried to pull back, but Sam wasn't having it. He'd
reached around and, with a spit soaked hand, wetted down the head of Dean's
cock, taken a breath, and slid himself over its first inch.
 
"STOP IT! Stop, Sammy…" Dean heard the fear in his voice. "Baby…"
 
"In Me! Now!" Sam choked. "Dean….please…"
 
Head spinning, Dean tried to focus. He slathered his own saliva on his dick and
obeyed Sam's demand. In spite of the pain, Sam accepted him steadily, writhing
down on him, joining them, pushing himself as close to Dean as was mortally
possible. Knees shaking, Dean steadied Sam's greater weight and height with his
own, tugged them back toward the first bed and ended sitting under Sam,
thrusting up into his baby brother's heat.
 
Something around them shifted, something sparked wild lights behind their eyes.
Their cries of need and passion built and coiled and echoed beyond their Now,
out and beyond. The heart of one answered the heart of the other. Dean flooded
Sam with his cum at the same instant Sam came, without touching himself,
without Dean touching him.
 
They collapsed to the bed, Dean slipping out of Sam on the tide of his own cum,
Sam sobbing silently. Relieved. Still there. Dean still there and him still
there. Strong arms wrapping him close and safe - Dean…his eyes closed and he
plummeted to sleep for a few precious, stolen minutes, Dean right with him.
***** <b>Before Chapter 21 Part B</b> *****
II
Two pairs of bright black eyes trained two earnest stares at Lucius Portsmouth.
 
"We-" Zia started.
 
"-should be watching, " Maida finished.
 
"Just watching. Not interfering. It's important," they finished together.
 
Seriously. Abruptly, Coyote, who had been playing 4-D chess with Lucius, sat up
and took notice. Lucius' expression didn't give anything away, but Coyote knew
that he'd heard the same thing. Or, rather, hadn't heard the same thing.
 
Then he realized that neither Zia nor Maida wore a sparkly anything between
them. Oh, there were red swirls and gold stars on their dark green skirts. And
their long sleeved paler green sweaters had both seen better days, as had all
of their clothes (the days being 'better' because the girls had been wearing
the clothes and had had very better days while wearing them, Zia had once
explained to Lucius).
 
But their expressions were serious and they did their best to sound formal.
Only very very good eyes would have caught the littlest hint of
purplepinkbluesparkle waiting behind Zia's ear or the opal iridescence of the
glitter peeking through a rent in Maida's sweater near the neck. Lucius and
Coyote both possessed very good sight, but they didn't comment.
 
"Important?"
 
"Yes, very."
 
"Then, go. But remember your promise: no interfering." Lucius expected
something other than the sober , "We promise" he received. "By the way, where
are you going?"
 
"Where we were before." Just like that, the serious moment had fled. Bright
smiles lit their faces, and both sets of colored glitter set about adding
sparkle where it was needed – skirt, sweater or ragged holed tights. Or all
three, in Zia's case. But she'd packed more glitter than Maida, since it hadn't
had an outing in so long.
 
And then they were gone, two large crows winging their way West South West,
casting only a bit of extra sparkle at they went. Because the sky needed
decorating, too.
 
For just a moment, Coyote hesitated: he hadn't been called into adventure, but
part of him wanted to go to keep an eye on the two. As well as watch what they
were planning to watch. "I'll keep the boards in position. It will be your
move." Lucius stated.
 
Coyote trotted straight into the Otherwhen from Lucius' parlor. For a very long
time, Lucius stared into the fire where it flickered and wafted in the
fireplace.
 
III
 
"Did you hear it?"
 
"I think the planet heard it."
 
"It's not complete, not yet."
 
"It may never be complete. It wasn't the three time before this. Patience,
brother. There's time-"
 
"Is there?"
 
IV
 
"Stay here. Not there."
 
"They are safe. There."
 
"Not safe, not anywhere."
 
Silence met the certainty in those four words and conceded.
 
V
"Hey, Rob! Look! That door's open! Let's go inside and see what's there."
 
"Chase, we have to find the kids – I can't see 'em anywhere. Linda's gonna
shoot me if anything happens to one of them."
 
"What's going to happen? They're collecting Halloween Candy in broad daylight!
Just a quick in and out – c'mon. It'll take two seconds."
 
"Chase, you're gonna get us in trouble – and you know it! Oh, all right…But two
seconds – that's all."
 
The two young fathers made their way – very quietly – to the front door of the
MacArthur house.
 
"You're gonna think I'm crazy, but I really, REALLY don't want to go inside.
You go on and look around." Rob endured Chase's sarcastic look and refused to
let it intimidate him.
 
Finally, Chase nodded. "All right, you pussy. I'll be right back."
 
After a brief hesitation, he pulled the latch on the door and stepped into the
house. The air smelled dusty, and a layer of that same dust coated
everything…abandoned table, small pot of dried herbs, the bundles of dried
herbs that hung from a piece of clothesline overhead, everything. A faint set
of footprints showed up in the scrub of dust on the floor. But, other than
that, the old salt-box was that and nothing more.
 
"Rob! It's just an old house – no scary monsters! I'll be right out," Chase
called.
 
Rob shouted something back, but the sound of splintering wood and groaning
timbers drowned out the words. Too late, Chase shot a look straight up and saw
a beam hurtling toward him from its place in the ceiling. The massive cross
member hit him dead on across the chest, hurling him to the floor under its
weight.
 
"Chase? What the – I'm NOT coming in there! Get out here! It's almost time to
meet the kids back at the gazebo!" Rob had heard a thump and then nothing;
figuring Chase lay in wait to scare him out of his skin if he ventured inside
the house, he stayed on the front step and shouted again. "Chase? Get out
here!"
 
"Sir-" The owner of the deep voice startled Rob nearly out of his sneaks. "Sir,
there's no one in the building: it's been locked for years." Rob turned his
head and stared straight into the eyes of one of the security team.
 
"The door was open. My neighbor went inside to look around. We figured the
repairs had been done-" Rob explained lamely.
 
"The – holy Hannah – the door's open! Stay here, sir." Rob nodded and stepped
aside; Security called for back-up and then asked Rob to repeat his story.
 
Increasingly concerned, Rob asked if they should go inside and locate Chase.
"No. We stay put until my back up gets here. See if you can get him to answer
you, in the meantime."
 
"What? Why can't I go in there and look for him? It's not that big a house!"
 
"No one should be in there. Not you, not your neighbor, no one. The major load
bearing beams are damaged. That's why the house has been closed! Now, stay
here. See if you can get your neighbor to answer. Jim?" the security guard
called to a second Security person hurrying toward them as fast as possible.
 
Something told Rob that Chase wouldn't answer, no matter how loudly he called
his name.
***** <b>Chapter 21 - A Hunting We Will Go...</b> *****

Author's notes: Yup - because, after all, that's what this story is really
about. Sort of.
===============================================================================
"What in blazes were the two of you doing? Painting each other's toenails?
"Bobby exclaimed when he spotted Sam and Dean walking across the dining room.
The two younger men looked rested, which, the old Hunter thought grumpily, was
all well and good. But he could have used a nap himself.
Hell, they all could have used naps.
 
"Planning" had turned into staring dazedly at a map of the village and a rough
sketch of the area between the Village and Mumford's cemetery. Oh, and drinking
coffee in an attempt to stir minds long since worn beyond caffeine's reach. A
quick glance at his watch told Bobby that the stare-fest had been going on for
a little under a – under a freakin' hour?
 
"Yeah – painting our toenails," Sam agreed agreed amiably. He looked over at
Dean and a smile flashed across his lips. "I think Dean looks great in
raspberry."
 
"I'll raspberry you, Sammy," Dean replied through a yawn. "So, what's the
plan?"
 
"It'd help if we had one." John muttered. "But now that you've finished your
beautifying, maybe you can inspire us." He glared at his sons and snorted at
Bobby's furious glower. "Admit it, Singer. We're not swimming in ideas here."
 
"What makes you think we would be?" Dean asked. "Where are Aunt Nancy and Aunt
Tuesday?"
 
"They said they needed to walk for a little," Chris answered before John or
Bobby could pipe up with a sarcastic comment.
 
"So they're reconnoitering in the village," Sam concluded. The looks he
received were equal parts startlement and realization; a little bewildered at
that, he cocked his head to one side and looked at Dean.
 
Equally uncertain, Dean shrugged and turned back to John, Edith, Bobby and
Christabel.
 
"Damn! They probably are!"
 
"Uh huh – we need fresh coffee. Now," Chris announced. "Something's been
spelling us to sleep."
 
"Or we're just already tired." Chris didn't dignify Bobby's comment with an
answer. Within two minutes, Lily had fetched fresh coffee and sweet rolls. And
Chris had looped the area with a basic ward, just enough to warn them of
unwanted intrusions. The pained squawk of a minor spell being rebuffed
confirmed her suspicions. Uneasily, everyone sat up a little straighter and
looked around, trying to spot a spell caster, coming up blank.
 
Then, back from wherever they'd walked, the two Creek sisters stepped into the
Now, their expressions thunderous.
 
"What happened in the village?" Chris asked, stare intent.
 
"Something lured a man into the MacArthur house and killed him. The EMTs don't
have any idea what happened. The dust was disturbed in the area around the
person's body, but there wasn't any sign of something that could do the damage
he'd suffered. I heard one of the medics tell the other that he didn't have a
clue as to how the guy's ribs and face were crushed almost flat. Nothing else
was disturbed, well, except for a bunch of herbs that had fallen from the
clothesline they were drying on."
 
" I hope he didn't know what hit him. Sounds like a ton of weight – like a
cross beam in the ceiling," John hazarded. "You're sure there weren't any signs
of something human or a very large bear in the room."
 
"A bear, dad? Really?" Dean couldn't help the sarcasm that laced his question.
 
"We have to consider everything, even if it sounds stupid." John already pretty
much knew what had happened. But he needed to remind himself that things might
not be exactly the way they looked.
 
"The authorities have closed Genesee Country Museum for the rest of the day
today and until noon tomorrow," Tuesday interjected. "If we're going to do
anything in there, we're going to have to do it tonight. There'll be guards
everywhere and, if I don't miss my guess, police, especially around the
MacArthur house."
 
"Chris, you thinkin' it might have something to do with that Lee van Cleef
spirit?"
 
"It makes sense. That bastard – oh, stuff the surprised look, Singer – has one
sick sense of humor and a bad case of the "I left too soon and you're going to
suffer because of it"s. Or it could be the bean sidhe – none of the others had
as much purpose."
 
Dean opened his mouth to mention the battling ghosts, but Chris anticipated
him. "I'd put your two ghosts in with it, Dean. But they pretty much
obliterated themselves during the fight. And they were focused on each other,
not the rest of the Now or the Otherwhen."
 
With a sigh, she picked up her mug and swallowed the tepid coffee in it made a
face and grabbed the carafe with the fresh coffee in it.
 
"If we can get those two out of the running…"
 
"There'll still be spirits left that can do damage or, at the very least, scare
the hell out of people."
"Yeah." Grimly, Bobby looked at John. "What do you say, Patterner?"
 
"That there isn't a pattern here. And that's making him crazy," Sam finally
answered when John remained quiet, gaze far away, trying to figure out what was
happening. "Dad, we don't know enough, maybe. Or this might just be the start
of a pattern." Humorlessly, he added, "We're in on the ground floor of a new
pattern. Crap."
 
"It doesn't feel like that," John finally replied. He sighed and squinted as he
pulled his concentration back to the moment. "I feel like I'm a crossing guard
in front of an elementary school. Whatever's doing what's been happening's old
and mean. But that's all I can think right now. I just don't know enough, even
after going through the records."
 
"What about the red-eyed guy and woman?"
 
" Remember the eyes that skeleton had? He's been here before – or someone just
like him has been here before. I'm willing to bet on that." Again, silence
shrouded John, but only for a few seconds. "We have to stop the bean sidhe and
that spirit in the MacArthur house on this side of the road. And, somehow, we
have to stop red eyes and anything like him from getting into the Now from
wherever Sarah put up her warding." Chris snorted derisively. "I know, I know,
Chris. But at least we may be right on top of the entry point if we find her
warding and reinforce it."
 
"Remove it and build another one, you mean," was Chris's terse response. "John,
you know as well as I do that her warding is going to be the weakest link in
anything we try to patch it with. It's release that warding and build another
one or nothing."
 
Dean watched as the lethargy that had blanketed everyone dissipated. At least
they'd agreed on targets for the hunt. Now for the fun part: how the heck to
get rid of spirits they knew nothing about, behaving like they'd never seen
spirits behave? And, just for grins, take on the two oldest and meanest in the
Village. And then, while they were busy doing that, they needed to quick build
a ward solid enough to hold against incursions – all before sun-up.
 
"I don't know much about bean sidhe, other than what I've read. And, from what
Christabel has said, the bean sidhe in the village is something other than what
the myths say. And it can access at least one level of the Otherwhen, unwelcome
though it is there," Nancy said.
 
"That's right. Just slammed itself into the Otherwhen and started after us,"
Bobby agreed.
 
"No…that's not quite what happened," Chris countered. "It got in, but it lost
its bearings for a few seconds, as if it didn't know what it had done. It had
just started after us when I slammed the door on it. Which, I might add, didn't
hold it for long."
 
"Did you go out and check without backup?" Edith's irritation came through her
words, loud and clear. "We talked about heroics, remember?"
 
"I reconnoitered for exactly two minutes and from two steps left. Its energy
signature was almost gone. It didn't stay there for long."
 
"And the Otherwhen would have rejected it sooner or later. We travel through
under sufferance only, when we go. There's always a feeling of watchfulness,
and, though I haven't tested it, l suspect the Otherwhen would reject any being
overstaying its welcome." Edith spoke quietly, but, as a Far Traveler and Path
Maker, her opinion weighed heavily.
 
"What's out beyond the Otherwhen?" Sam asked. Only Dean felt Sam's body
tensing, whether with excitement or fear, Dean wasn't certain. "Is there just
Otherwhen until the end of the Universe?"
 
John turned to stare at his son. "What d'you mean, Son?"
"I mean is there something else beyond the Otherwhen? I different…I don't
know…Space maybe?"
 
"The Bean Sidhe lost its bearings for a few seconds just a half step out of the
Now. Is there some way to get beyond the Otherwhen? Maybe to Deep Space?
Or…Deep Time? Trap the Bean Sidhe there? Tear its molecules apart?"
 
"Theoretical physics, Sam?"
 
"It's a hobby," Sam replied soberly, just before he smiled. "Could something
like that be possible?"
 
"Sammy, I don't like where this is going. You're not going to…no freakin' way
are we going out there to find out. It's overkill!" Dean's voice shook a
little, and he grabbed Sam's forearm.
 
Sam stopped talking and looked across at Dean. "I know, Dean. I was just
asking." Sam relaxed against the back of his seat, never taking his stare off
of Dean until his lover nodded shakily. Thanking Esme Weatherwax again for
using the Parvis – and giving him the excuse for displays of affection -, Dean
pulled Sam tight against his side just to emphasize his point. And to feel
Sam's frame fitting alongside his.
 
"It's too dangerous to test, even if we had the time. But…" and John's sons
could almost hear a pattern falling into place, "there is that 'crack' that the
Records talk about. If we could somehow herd theBean Sidhe toward that and
close the warding behind it, it might not be able to get back through."
 
"So you'd send that creature off to hunt other beings? Without…what?"
 
"Here. Second Record…I made a note. The record keeper glued in a much older
page – I wish we had the record that page came from – on Page 8." John shuffled
through the pages of the Second Record "The olde woman doth singe yett again
this night. Its songe grows louder eache nitte, and I know not what to think.
It shoulde be heard by only one, yet the farms all rounde do complane of the
noise. No one hath been taken, thank the goode God, but the old woman singeth."
 
Chris grabbed the record and scanned the page, glanced at the date on the
letter and nodded briskly. "The first warding could have been erected soon
after. The language the ward master used would fit this time period. Remember,
the later spell only reinforced the existing ward. I wonder…"
 
"We're taking on responsibility for what happens in the place those two beings
with the red eyes come from. You know that."
 
"Do you have a way of destroying it here? Anything? Old magicks? Myth?
Something we can use, because we have nothing else to fight it with except salt
and holy water and, just maybe, silver," John replied sharply; Edith
reluctantly conceded that she didn't, but the thought of trundling a threat off
for someone else to deal with didn't sit well with any of them.
 
'We promised not to interfere. No, Zia- we can't. We gave our word."
 
"Maida, they have the answer. We could just nod at the right time. We would be
veryvery quiet and no one would know because we wouldn't say a thing. We
wouldn't even say 'thi'…"
 
"We gave our word to Lucius and we can't take the words back."
 
"We could try?"
 
"No. We can't. Zia, they have to do what they do on their own." Maida hated
saying what she did. Hated it so much her sparkles hid back behind the neck of
her sweater again. But they had sworn to Lucius, and an oath was unbreakable.
Zia knew that as well and shook her head sadly.
***** Chapter 22 or 23 - I'm Not Sure - *****

Author's notes: Sorry for the delay, but this chapter was and is a dilly to
deal with..but not in a bad way!!
===============================================================================
Into the silence that lapped up after the Crow Girls' words came the sound of a
distinctly non-human sneeze. When Coyote opened his eyes again, two upside-down
Crow Girls stared back at him. They dangled by their bony knees from a branch
over his head and swayed back and forth watching him watching them.
 
In all the millennia he had been himself, Coyote, and before he'd known his
name, he had not seen or heard or smelled anything like what hung just at the
far, far boundaries of his horizon of sight and scent and sound. He had earned
his name as a Trickster long since; humans had offered too much temptation for
him to resist.
 
However, Trickster was only a portion of his name, just as Coyote was a part,
rather than the whole. The stirrings, faint as they were, at the far, far
reaches of his senses were enough to force him to decide a great deal in a
hurry.
 
None of his thoughts showed in his expression, and he cocked his head to one
side, smiling a coyote's grin at Maida and Zia swinging back and forth from
their tree branch. The Crow Girls looked at each other, nodded at the same time
and did matching somersaults, touching to earth lightly and curtsying to each
other in congratulation for a flawless dismount from their perch.
 
Coyote hoped they'd be satisfied with one. Dismount and curtsy. Each.
 
Not that doing just one of anything ever rated high in the girls' opinion.
 
Then they turned to him, faces quiet and eyes glowing a little ("from the
exertion," Zia explained later to Lucius. "You know." Lucius knew when to nod
so as not to invite three hours of explanation and did so gravely, although his
eyes sparkled with humor.)
 
"Did you give Lucius your word?" Zia asked, for once speaking directly. She
exchanged quick glances with Maida and waited for Coyote's response.
 
"Only to keep an eye on you." He stared threateningly at both girls. "There.
That's done." They both burst into laughter. "Now, off you go."
 
"Coyote, be careful." Zia's voice had, if anything, become more serious, and
her eyes bore deepblue swirls along the edges of the black irises.
 
"About what?" he asked, curious.
 
"About everything," Maida replied, adding two words to Zia's warning to give
the sentence more impact. Both Girls cocked their heads to the left and waited;
he nodded his understanding and chuffed encouragingly at them in an effort to
send them on their way.
 
They stepped back far enough that their wings wouldn't flap in his face and
lifted into the air, spiraling up and up, leaving him there, four steps to the
right, where only the Otherwhen and beings like himself were his companions.
 
Fates take it! He could have fallen back on all the Trickster lore and trotted
off cheerily into the Otherwhen on his way to a game of poker with three others
of his kind. He could have, and no one would have been the wiser. Maybe…
 
He took one step and froze in his tracks. Ears down turned in defeat, he sighed
and shook his head. "No can do," he muttered aloud.
[ photo 52b69b4f-e27b-44ef-b56e-ed03a92fc06f_zps8f4f1cc4.jpg]
 
In a trice, he shook on his man- skin and straightened his clothes. To all
intents and purposes, he looked like a blue-black haired, grey eyed male model,
all lean lines and square jaw, too handsome in his model's perfectly tailored
jeans and midnight green long sleeved sweater to take seriously.
 
He wondered briefly if Bobby Singer would remember the manskin he wore. And
winced, knowing that Bobby had a memory like a steel trap. "Well, here goes –"
he muttered, his man voice smoky and deep. Unerring, he turned and stepped
three paces left, loped along for a few seconds and entered the Now just
outside the Blanket Inn. A quick glance at his reflection in the glass inner
door: he made a handsome human, he thought, smiling a bit smugly. Then,
following Bobby Singer's scent, he made his way to the dining room.
 
Bobby looked up when he heard someone approaching. Instantly, his eyes narrowed
and he slid enough to the left that John's body was completely protected by
his.
 
So he remembers. Oh the joy.
 
"Where did you come from?" the Hunter snapped.
 
"Hi, Bobby."
 
"Don't you 'hi, Bobby' me. What d'you want?"
 
"To help –"
 
"And what's in it for you?"
 
Coyote regarded Bobby for a moment, puzzled at first, and then, in a heartbeat,
understanding. "Bobby, I had nothing to do with the decision that one made. And
he is happy where he is now."
 
"Happy? Happy? Halfway across – "
 
"Bobby, he's in Ohio. Not halfway across anywhere. He's a librarian, just as he
was before everything in his world slid sideways; and he asked to not remember
what happened. You didn't get him killed, no matter what you thought you saw.
And I didn't have anything to do with his decision."
 
"But you magically know he's 'happy'?"
 
"I do. I check on – people, all sorts of people – and on him at the request of
one of my kin. He is happy."
 
The moment stretched taut and began to unravel as Bobby's anger softened. "I
don't trust you, Trickster. No coyote ever was anything else but one. And
you're older and sneakier than most."
 
"And I could say I don't trust you, Hunter. But I do. You've never been truly
dishonest with anyone but yourself." A faint smile touched the perfect line of
the young man's lips. Abruptly, he added, "We need to work on that – you being
dishonest with yourself – by the way."
 
He looked at the little group that watched him warily. There wasn't any time to
attempt to build trust. Too much was at stake, in a great many more ways than
he wanted to think about. "l'll be as plain as I can. That's no bean sidhe
you're dealing with. If it has a name, I don't know it. If I did, this would be
easier."
 
For a minute, he weighed his words. "Before you say anything, you're right.
It's not part of our continuum. Yes, Sam Winchester, I do know words like
'continuum'. And it's been here before."
 
"At least one other time," Chris added.
 
"Four other times as far as I am aware."
 
"Where did it come from, then? We need to send it back."
 
"I'm not sure where it comes from." Coyote spoke simply. "But I do know where
I've caught it before, and the place is the same every time."
 
"Oh let me guess…" Chris muttered.
 
"Where Sarah put up the new ward," Edith added. She hadn't met Coyote before,
and the alert set of coyote ears that appeared through the young man's black
hair startled her, although she didn't show it.
 
"Exactly."
 
"That red eyed guy and woman," Sam wondered aloud. "Does the creature belong in
their world?"
 
"Not necessarily. I've never followed it back down the 'crack in the earth', so
I have no certainty that it does. For that matter, it might belong there and
the beings that you've seen might have nothing to do with it. Or they could be
hunting it just like you hunt spirits."
 
"But you don't think so." John peered around Bobby's shoulder and, when the
other Hunter didn't move, nudged him sharply. "C'mon, Bobby. Move over and let
me breathe."
 
 
"Huh? Yeah…sure…"
At that, coyote did laugh. "Esme Weatherwax. Must be the Parvis, right?"
 
"How did you know?" Dean asked, before Sam could steal his thunder and ask
first. "Does Granny know everyone?"
 
"Pretty much. She used it on you two, didn't she?" But it didn't work – because
– uh oh – he sniffed the air and listened again for something he couldn't hear.
Yet. Something close and part of the two in front of him.
 
"Yeah. What of it?" Dean knew a lot of Coyote lore, and had run across one.
Just one time. He remembered that, watching this Coyote staring through him.
 
"Hmmm? Oh, nothing."
 
"Can we get back to doing whatever it is we can to get that whatever it is back
where it came from?" Bobby snapped.
 
"The only way I've been able to do it is by luring it to the tunnel. Which is
what that crack in the earth really is. It's strange that it doesn't remember
being caught once it's close to the opening. But it is some sort of spirit, and
it could be acting by rote. The second it gets to within ten feet of the
entrance, it can't get back away and disappears down the tunnel."
 
"That doesn't explain the hunting. Or the fact that it made a half step left
into the Otherwhen."
 
"You're right about that, Christabel Lux." Coyote kept his thoughts to himself,
but even Sarah would have been able to see that Chris's news had caught him off
guard. "The sooner it goes back where it belongs the better."
 
The serious expression on Coyote's face appeared rarely, but was more
noticeable because of that. He straightened up and glanced at everyone. Seeing
all of them the way he saw everything – mostly scent, some sound, and more
sight. His brain accepted all the information and began arranging it so it made
sense: humans could be trickier than any trickster he'd ever met, although he
didn't say that aloud. Thank the fates again that they didn't know how much a
Coyote could learn from scent alone.
 
"Getting ready to go?" Bobby asked sarcastically.
 
"Yes. After it. And I think," Coyote hesitated for a moment, weighing his
words, "It isn't a bean sidhe. It's not wise to continue to call it by the
wrong name. Are we agreed?"
 
He knew the Hunters, Nancy and Tuesday understood the power of names, but
Christabel and Edith were relative unknowns. To his relief, they nodded right
along with everyone else. Turning back to Bobby, he asked, "Are you ready or do
you need some rest first?"
 
Eyes narrowed to slits, face red with annoyance, Bobby started out of his seat,
only to have John pull him back sharply.
 
"We need to go in armed with whatever we have, but we can't just drive up to
the museum and walk through a gap between buildings," the eldest Winchester
stated calmly. "Half an hour to arm up. We meet back here and walk. Dean, I
know what you're going to say already, and we can't risk it. We have no idea
how the vehicles ended up in the Otherwhen, and this is no time to try to use
something we didn't start the last time. I don't like it any more than you do,
but this has to be a silent attack, or we won't make it through the police and
security guards. Not to mention the fact that I don't want our targets to be
aware of us until the last second."
 
Dean started to argue, but he knew John was right, and let the matter drop.
Only the curtness of his nod and his "Yes, sir," revealed how he felt about
leaving the Impala behind. "Sam and I are getting' our gear. We'll be back here
in twenty minutes."
 
"Bring everything you think will work on the spirit in the MacArthur House. It
may work for the howler, too, but we need to focus on getting that thing back
to the tunnel, which we know will trap it. Even holy water might help." John
couldn't shake the feeling that something else was playing out behind the hunt.
Maybe Bobby's suspicions were right, maybe not. John didn't know.
 
He hated surprises on hunts; and so far, this whole thing had been a surprise.
Bobby sat tense as a set bear trap, ready to lunge at Coyote if he so much as
breathed wrong. "Bobby, can it, willya?"
 
"Tricksters never just help. There's always something in it for them. Always.
What about it, Coyote? You setting us up? What's in this for you? A damn good
laugh? Some dead hunters?"
 
The model's face stopped in mid-manskin change so what glanced back at Bobby
was a curious mixture of manskin and coyote. "There's something in this for all
of us."
 
He stared quietly until, with great reluctance, Bobby nodded in agreement.
"Master Warder, I have little skill, but I'm at your service if you need me,"
Coyote added, turning his stare toward the hedge witch.
 
"My thanks, Coyote. I dislike building what must be a complex ward so quickly.
Edith and I would be hard pressed to finish it, even with Nancy and Tuesday
Creek's help. "Chris spoke distractedly; she had already begun amassing the
spell that she would need to build a multi-dimensional shield ward. Beside her,
Edith murmured something in a language Bobby didn't recognize, received a nod
and stepped over to Nancy and Tuesday Creek to advise them.
 
"Well, this is going to be fun," John muttered. He leaned against Bobby and
shut his eyes, didn't see the flicker of pain that lit in the older hunter's
expression.
 
Coyote caught it and frowned, then, suddenly, heard the echo of something
responding to John Winchester's – he didn't know the human word – John
Winchester's Being John Winchester. Then a tearing sound, very, very faint and
the almost non-existent sound of… He couldn't isolate it and shook his head.
Esme, what in the name of Orion's belt did you do?"
 
(Me Again: Norb, enough! Either git mad or git over it! I wanted YOU, you dag
nabbed idjit! Stop tryin' to read my mind!"
 
"Oh."
 
"Yeah, Oh. Now let me keep on tellin' this. And git over here. You're too damn
far away."
 
"I can do that."
 
"Yeah, ya think?"
 
It doesn't feel lonely when he's there leanin' against me. When he's there and
neither one of us is alone.)
 
 
"We need to keep this fast and simple. Get in, snag the monster's attention and
get back out again before anyone – "
 
"Or anything," Sam interjected. John nodded.
 
"Anything notices us and goes for us. Chris, do you have any idea where Sarah
actually set her ward?"
 
"I'm guessing because someone won't let me go and look," Chris started, her
eyes flashing. Edith squinted and remained silent. "We have to know, Edith.
There's going to be no time for wandering around in a graveyard looking for the
ward's signature. If Sarah even had the brains to put a signature to it."
 
At that thought, everyone went silent again. An unsigned warding was findable,
certainly. But the search would be longer and they didn't have a lot of time.
Even if they managed to snare thebean sidhe, they still needed to deal with the
malicious spirit that dwelled in the MacArthur house. And all before sunrise
when people would descend on the Village to finish police work and to get ready
to open the museum for the last day before the Christmas nights in December.
 
 
Dean shut the door of their room and reached out to Sam, who stepped
immediately into his embrace and held on, shivering. "Baby…are you all right?"
 
"No. Not yet. Once this is over and we're outa here…"
 
"You scared the hell outa me, man. Talking about the other side of the
Otherwhen – We have enough to deal with on this side of everything."
 
"Dean, all I was doing was wondering if there was some sorta…I don't know…deep
space or deep time dump for something like those two spirits. Let 'em
disintegrate…you know?"
 
"You and your danged 'hobbies' – why didn't you decide to collect baseball
cards like the rest of the guys your age?"
 
"Baseball cards? Dean, you sound as old as Dad! Damn! I was just asking. I
don't want to go and see for myself! "Sam realized, when Dean's frown relaxed,
that that was exactly what his brother had been worrying about. "No, Dean. I
don't want to be out of your sight again. What happened…that was enough. Never
again…" He rested his body against Dean's and sighed hard enough to shake them
both.
 
"Sammy – c'mon. Let's get armed and get back downstairs. Or I'm gonna ravish
you right here and to blazes with the hunt. "
 
The one inviolable rule they both had agreed on was that there couldn't be
distractions during a hunt. Sam's safety was enough of a concern, although the
younger Winchester more than held his own in a fight. So, after a few minutes
spent exploring each other's mouths and murmuring quiet words of love, they
armed up. And spent a few more minutes in each other's arms before they cleared
their throats, adjusted their jeans and headed back downstairs.
 
Dean noticed that Sam still hesitated at the doorway, and took his hand gently
tugging him along.
 
Coyote glanced up, looked down and then, abruptly, glanced up again when the
brothers emerged from the stairwell next to the elevator. When he turned away,
the gravity in his expression was clear.
 
He shifted his gaze to John and Bobby and cocked his head to one side, looked
intently again and scented the air around all of them. Listened as far as he
could amid the sounds of the surrounding worlds.
 
"…you, Trickster?" Bobby was asking him something. "Are you deaf or what?"
 
"Thinking."
 
"How long are you going to need to lure that thing toward the place you got rid
of it the last time?"
 
"Not long once we get it out and tracking us. The most important thing is the
ward right now. I can lend power, but Christabel and the others are going to
have to build it."
 
"We can do that in two stages once we've returned Sarah's ward to the elements.
First stage will trap the thing inside wherever it came from. Second stage will
net the area so tightly an atom would have trouble sliding through. That's what
we've been talking about. The drawback is that the second part will take time,
more time than we may have."
 
"Let's get the howler back into that crack or tunnel or whatever it is," John
decided after everyone had spent some time staring at everyone else. "Then
we'll worry about the MacArthur house and its spirit…which doesn't belong
there, as far as I can figure out. There are no references to it beyond the
current record, and even they are pretty faint. A cold feeling, feelings of
danger…"
 
"We're dancing on razor blades with all of this," Bobby grumbled. "And I didn't
bring my chain mail socks."
 
"I'll loan you a pair," John replied.
 
"Chain mail socks?" Tuesday stared at Christabel, who just shrugged and rolled
her eyes.
***** Chapter 24 <b> A Hunting We Will Go?</b> *****
Sam stepped closer to Dean and leaned against him behind the shelter of the
Impala's trunk. "Dean, I don't think I can go through with this. There's
something way, way off…"
 
"Everything about this is off, Sammy. But that's beside the point. Say the word
and we're out of here. Dad and Bobby can handle things. Gods know they have
enough back-up, for once." He wrapped his arms around Sam's shoulders and took
his little brother's weight when Sam relaxed against him.
 
Dean rushed to add "I'll go find Dad" before Sam could change his mind.
However, he missed his chance. Sam exhaled slowly and shook his head. "You're
right: everything is way off. But that's no excuse for us to walk."
 
"Sam, when was the last time we walked out on a hunt?"
 
Dean stared intently into Sam's eyes.
 
"Never."
 
"I will walk out on this one if you want to leave. Because," and he smiled
grimly, "this time I agree with you. Something's not right in a whole 'nother
way of being not right than usual." A chill crossed his shoulders and he
shuddered to warm up.
 
"Dean? Sam? What the blazes are you two doing? Polishing your nails again?
Let's go!" John called from the front door of the Blanket.
 
"He has a very unhealthy fixation on polishing nails. You know that, right?"
Sam asked.
 
Dean sighed and nodded before he added, "And you have a pretty unhealthy
fixation on his fixation, you know? C'mere, Sammy."
 
The one ritual that they never, ever missed was the kiss before the start of a
hunt. As Dean explored the familiar depths of Sam's mouth, he slid his arms
under Sam's jacket and pulled him tight against himself. But no tighter than
Sam clung to him. Parting only a little, they rested their foreheads together
and murmured the words they had said so often before.
 
"Sammy, stay close, okay? Closer'n' usual."
"Yeah. Same thing for you, Dean. No freakin' heroics. Got it?"
 
"Got it. Baby, I love you."
 
"I love you more," Sam whispered.
 
Any other time Dean would have made a smartass comeback. Instead, he kissed the
tip of Sam's nose and, more deeply, his lips one more time.
 
"Hunt?" he asked. Really asked this time.
 
"Yeah."Sam nodded firmly and led the way back to the inn. At the door, however,
he paused and looked up at the sky, frowning at something he thought he heard.
 
"What is it, Sam?"
 
Far above them, a northwest wind swept across the sky and then down toward the
earth below. In its wake it dragged tatters of clouds and shreds of leaves
hauled from trees beyond the horizon. In front of it, bare trees and bushes
bent away from its icy fingers, and small whirlwinds of fallen leaves spiraled
against tree trunks and car tires.
 
Although the wind couldn't get past the brothers' stout hunting clothing, it
rattled against the front door of the inn, and sought out partially sealed
window panes that might give way against it.
 
"Sam, it's just the wind."
 
"Hmmm? I know." But Sam still reached out for Dean's hand and held on tight
until his sense of uneasiness passed.
 
"Sam, just say the word – I swear I won't give you a hard time. Ever."
 
"I'm okay, Dean. Just got cold. Hey, Dad."
 
"If you two are ready, we're leaving from Bobby's room." John shook his head to
clear it, and Dean realized that his dad's eyes were crossing.
 
"Dad, what the hell?"
 
"Bobby gave me Dramamine along with my coffee. Parvis or not, he found out I
don' like being…whatever he was doin'." John made a fist to underscore what
he'd done to Bobby; the whole threatening gesture got lost when he yawned and
squinted his eyes back into focus a minute later.
 
Which was when the Trickster walked through the corridor wall and came to a
stop, waiting for them.
 
"Where've you been?" Dean demanded. "I thought you were…"
 
"Not here," Coyote interrupted sharply. Sam shot a quick glance at the
Trickster, surprised, since the Trickster's usual attitude was more like
someone planning chaos and enjoying the heck out of it. The look he received in
return was exasperated; cooperating with humans went against every fiber of the
trickster's being. Or – Sam's eyebrows arched at the thought – or it should
have grated on Coyote's nerves like sawdust in an open wound. And maybe the
fact that it didn't was the problem.
 
"You're thinkin' louder than usual, Sam," Dean grunted.
 
"Sorry, Dean. I'll tone it down," Sam responded automatically. "Just for you."
 
"Stop that crap. Focus on the hunt." The trickster's voice was tight with real
anger. Humans! Of all the cosmic jokes, sticking him with humans was the most
idiotic.
 
"Yes sir, Sir!" Dean mocked a salute and snorted, more annoyed with the whole
business by the second. Stepping into Bobby's overcrowded room didn't help
matters.
 
"All right, you idjits. We need to move fast and get this done. Edith, how
about that path to the village?"
 
"I'm hoping it's still there. Coyote, if you would walk with me?"
 
"Yes, ma'am," the Trickster replied quietly. He shook off his man-skin and
stood still with his back to the door, sniffing the air intently and watching
everyone. Head tilted just a bit toward the right, he scented everything again,
abruptly locating what had raised his interest. Ears pricked forward, he didn't
move a muscle while Edith made ready to depart.
 
"Don't go into the Otherwhen until I give you the all clear."
 
"How are we going to know you've done that? You're going to be …" John let his
question trail off. Damn Dramamine! He knew the answer, shouldn't have asked
the question in the first damn place!
 
"You'll see us. We won't see you. You know that, John! Are you sure Bobby just
gave you Dramamine?" John's glare in Bobby's direction was reply enough.
 
"I hate going in there," Dean muttered.
 
"Don't hate too loudly. Remember, it's the Otherwhen."
 
With those cheery words, Edith stepped half right and down one, coyote on her
heels, although he turned back once and stared at John.
 
The wall of the inn remained in place, but the Otherwhen overtook it enough
that everyone could see Edith and the Trickster making their way slowly and
circuitously through something that must have been tangled and twisted.
Christabel and the two Creek sisters stood off a little way, quietly reviewing
the ward they were going to build.
 
"Bobby?"
 
"Yeah, Dean?"
 
"If anything happens to Dad because you fed him freakin' Dramamine, the same
thing's gonna happen to you." Dean's green eyes darkened when he spoke; he
meant business.
 
For a second, Bobby paused, then, quietly, he nodded. "Agreed." Then he added,
"But I ain't gonna let anything happen to him." He worked his bruised Jaw a
little to keep it from stiffening up, and glanced over at John, who seemed half
asleep. "John, wake up."
 
"I'm awake. And if anything happens to me? I'm gonna come back and haunt your
ass. So keep me alive." John wavered a little on his feet, growled in annoyance
and forced himself to stand up straight. 'Didn't you ever hear of Dramamine 2?
The non-drowsy one?"
 
Bobby only grinned in reply and ducked when John launched a second punch at
him.
 
"If you're through with the horsing around?" Chris asked stonily. "Edith's
waving us on through."
 
"No, Dean. We can't drive the Impala," Sam muttered, knowing exactly what his
big brother was thinking. "We already went through this, remember? Too much
noise, strange car in the parking lot.."
 
"Yeah, yeah I know…okay, Sammy. Let's go."
They brought up the rear, keeping a wary eye out for strangeness beyond the
usual unusualness of the Otherwhen. The sound of footsteps, or paw steps, Dean
considered, came clearly to him and he warned, "Sam…"
"Got it."
 
A louder rustling announced the arrival of what Sam could only call a squirrel-
faced cocker spaniel. On steroids. The critter stopped the instant it saw them
and stayed stock still, only its whiskers twitching frantically. Dean made a
move just to spook it and saw the color of the animal's eyes change from brown
to deep red. Completely unafraid, squirrel-dog bared its long, sharp incisors
and snarled before it turned its back on them and trotted unhurriedly into the
underbrush.
 
"What the blazes?" Sam asked.
 
"I have no freakin' idea but I saw the way it looked at us. Good thing we're
just passing through. I wouldn't want to kill grandma's lapdog, even if it does
have teeth half the size of my head." About to say something else, Dean stopped
and stared out into the woods when a loud screeching sound split the air. "What
the crap was THAT?"
 
Sam reached out and put one hand on Dean's left shoulder to keep him next to
him. Alert, both men listened intently, in case the sound repeated itself. Dean
had just about laid the moment to his imagination when the noise stabbed the
air again.
 
"What the…Is that some kind of bird?"
 
"What else would it be?" Sam replied. "I don't think I want to meet whatever
made all that noise. Might be a vulture with laryngitis?"
 
"A bird with laryngitis. Oookay, Sammy. Let's get out of here." Dean actually
wanted to believe that the 'birdsong' had come from a vulture with or without
laryngitis. Vultures didn't bother the living. And they generally didn't come
in giant economy sized models.
But he knew right to his bones that he'd heard something making a sound like a
car laying rubber during a fast get away.
 
Bobby had heard the squawk of whatever it was, too, and tapped the back of
Chris' shoulder. She simply nodded I heard it and shook her head. But I have no
clue what it is. About to ask the Creek Sisters the same question, Bobby halted
when Edith raised her hand and brought it down sharply.
 
"Stop" Bobby muttered loudly enough for everyone to hear.
 
Edith signaled again, drawing a flat circle in the air above her head. "Stay
here. She's coming back to us."
John had struggled to stay awake and had finally pushed down most of the
effects of the Dramamine, only to feel nausea welling up in its place. "Bobby…"
 
Before Bobby could move, Coyote appeared between them. The Trickster's yellow
eyes narrowed, and the older hunter kept his place, although he raised his
shotgun in warning.
 
Coyote stepped forward cautiously, watching John's expression. "Leave me alone,
Trickster…" he grunted around the twisting knot of rising sickness in his gut.
How to make you stand still. By the gods I'm talking to myself! He opened his
jaws as wide as he could and gingerly closed them around John's forearm. The
man immediately went motionless. Hmmm, better than grabbing a cub by the back
of his neck.
 
"John!"
 
"…All right…Bobby…all right…" John managed to say, head down and eyes shut. He
stood still as stone, afraid to move and have his arm torn up for his trouble.
 
No one saw anything happening. Minutes passed and Coyote never changed his
grip. John still stood hunch-shouldered in the increasingly thick and heavy
silence.
 
As carefully as he had gripped the hunter's arm, Coyote released his hold when
he was done doing whatever it was he had done. That had better work, and I'm
talking to myself again! The Trickster sat on his haunches, head cocked to the
side and watched. Slowly, John straightened up, waited for a few seconds and
then took a deep breath and exhaled. When nothing happened to his interior, he
took another breath and exhaled again, a disbelieving smile curving his lips
when all her felt as – nothing.
 
"Thank you."
 
The Trickster nodded his head once and rose back to his feet, turned and
trotted quickly past everyone, including Edith, heading toward the village. For
her part, Edith didn't stop, just kept coming toward them, her expression grim.
 
"The path has almost disappeared." Sam started to ask a question, but a motion
of her hand stopped him. "I think the Otherwhen is protecting itself, and us,
either purposely or accidentally."
 
"From what? I mean, sure, there are all sorts of spirits loose tonight, but the
Otherwhen…until that Howler shoved through, that is…nothing's ever even known
it was here…or there?" John said.
 
"There's no time for speculation. We can do that later, if we make it through
tonight," Christabel interjected. "Nancy? Tuesday? "
 
"Change of plan." Tuesday said calmly.
 
Edith stared around her, frowned and nodded. "We need to be able to get back
out once we've done what we've planned to do. We can't assume that the
Otherwhen will let us in if it's busy defending itself. The sooner we've
finished the warding and trapped the Howler, the better…"
 
"Don't forget the MacArthur house …" Sam interrupted.
 
"And whatever else is loose in the village," Bobby added.
 
"I'm not. I'm saying that we may have to split up to cut the time."
 
"That's not smart, Edith," Christabel warned.
 
"I know that. But we may not have much choice. The longer we take, the less
chance we have of using the Otherwhen as a return route." Edith stared at all
of them in turn before she added, "And that means that we may not have time to
take care of the other spirits. Before you say anything, John," she continued,
shaking her head before John could open his mouth, "We have to concentrate on
the most dangerous threats tonight. And we have almost no time to do it."
 
"We're hunters!" Dean snapped, completely disregarding the fact that he'd
offered to walk away from the job to keep Sam safe. He did, however, see Sam's
smirk and glowered at him. "It's our job …"
 
'We know that. Now everything knows that. Keep your voice down, Dean!" Bobby
ordered.
 
"Or what? You gonna turn that squirrel faced dog thing's loose on me?" Bobby's
eyebrows shot up and he mouthed "Squirrel faced dog thing?" looking like he
thought Dean had lost his marbles.
 
"What squirrel faced dog thing?" Both Christabel and Edith's attention slewed
sharply toward Dean.
 
"The one that was spying on us a few minutes ago…why?"
 
Christabel muttered something to herself; from the look on her face, whatever
it was wasn't Happy Birthday. However, she said nothing more about what she
knew, focusing instead on the immediate situation.
 
"All right – we split up. We're need as much time as we can have to create the
ward."
 
"How long do you need?" came Coyote's voice from another half step right. He'd
asked in spite of himself. Of that Bobby was dead sure. The Trickster sounded
as if the words were being yanked out of him.
 
"At least four hours." Christabel replied.
 
"You'll have them. Don't ask. Don't pay attention to anything but the ward.
And, no, there's no extra time for the rest of you."
 
After those happy words, Coyote went back to whatever he had decided was
important to do.
 
Sam had been watching everyone as they talked, interpreting body language and
the words behind the words as quickly as he could. Bobby looked haggard, eyes
deeply shadowed in the flickering, moving half light of the Otherwhen's early
day. The elder hunter knew, or at least suspected, more than anyone else was
saying. Nancy and Tuesday had been listening intently to everything said
and,were adding two and two from their own perspective. Sam reached out for
Dean's hand instinctively, exhaled a long breath once his fingers were clasped
tight in Dean's grip.
 
"Sammy, d'you have any idea what they're grumbling about?"
 
"No. But Bobby does." Sam frowned and added, "We'll talk to him later." The
frown on Sam's face deepened.
 
"Another one of your feelings, Sammy?"
 
"Nope. Same one. Just stronger." Sam stretched his shoulders and took a 360
degree look around. "Dean? Look at that deer."
 
A whitetail grazed on the lower branches of a tree in Now- time while the rest
of the world slept. By rights, Sam should have been able to walk over and pat
the creature without its sensing his presence. However, when Sam stepped on a
fallen branch in the Otherwhen, the whitetail stopped eating, peered directly
at Sam, and decided to retreat to someplace else to fuel up.
 
"That shouldn't have happened," Dean murmured. "Sammy, that shouldn't have
happened!"
 
"I know. Christabel? We may have a problem."
 
"A problem? Where have you been for the past few days?"
 
Quickly, Sam related what had happened with the deer. Just as quickly, Chris
countered with "It might have heard something in the Now that spooked it. We
have enough to worry about without borrowing trouble. But just to be safe,
whoever goes into the village is going to have to be dead quiet."
 
"We're out of time," Nancy offered firmly. "We four are on the ward, with the
Trickster to lend energy and lure the Howler into the trap. John, Bobby, you
and the boys get that spirit out of the MacArthur place and finish it." With
that, she and the other three women stepped once right, walked a few feet and
left the Otherwhen.
 
"Dean, Sam, stay behind and watch our backs. Keep an eye out so that spirit
doesn't sneak away and cause trouble where we aren't. Like, maybe, meeting up
with the Howler."
 
John hadn't meant the 'meeting up with the Howler' but the minute he said it,
it became a real possibility that they might otherwise have overlooked.
 
"Yessir," Dean grumbled. "If you run into trouble –"
"I have my cell." John clapped each of his sons on the shoulder and nodded the
silent, patented Winchester, "it's gonna be fine" nod. Unwilling to stress the
fabric of the Otherwhen any further, he and Bobby stepped out of it and
disappeared into the shadows behind the Depot Restaurant.
 
For a few minutes, Dean and Sam waited followed orders, alert and, in Sam's
case, increasingly agitated. "Dean, we have to get out of here."
 
"As soon as this is over…"
 
"No – out of the Otherwhen. Now." Dean knew that tone of voice: Sam had sensed
something that scared the crap out of him. He reached for Sam just as Sam was
reaching for him. "Dean! Look!"
 
 
 
The Otherwhen started to unravel almost under their feet. Sam watched, numb, as
millimeter after millimeter unspooled. Something slammed into it from the Now,
hitting its margins like a freight train. Neither Winchester heard a sound
other than Otherwhen noises, but they saw clearly five spirits rallying for a
second assault.
 
"They don't know what they're doing, Sammy. Look at 'em!"
 
"Dean, spirits NEVER know what they're doing! They aren't the problem! Look at
the ground! C'mon! OUT!"
 
Dean nodded and headed left and up one, Sam tight against him. Everything was
shifting enough that he and Sam ended up dropping four feet to the ground
below. Dean landed on top of Sam and pushed his brother's shoulders down when
Sam tried to get up.
 
"Stay down, Sammy!" he hissed and braced himself on his forearms, protecting
Sam by keeping his head and neck between his little brother's face and whatever
was happening around them.
 
Sam didn't argue. He heard the spirits slam into the Otherwhen again.
 
And he heard the Otherwhen slam back.
 
 [ photo 496c856b-064a-4ba6-8514-abc62ac61b9c_zpsd80d3771.jpg]
***** Chapter 25 - Amid the Storm - Calm *****
"Sam! Don't!" Dean grabbed at Sam to keep him flat on his back.
 
"Dean, dammit, we have to get out of here!"
 
"Sam! We fell maybe four feet; you're freakin' 6-4! Do the math!"
 
"Well, at least let me see!" Sam glared at Dean, who, reluctantly, moved
himself so Sam could lift his head and look over Dean's shoulder at whatever
was happening.
 
Four of the five spirits that had attacked the Otherwhen were gone, the only
evidence that they'd ever been there four smears of rapidly evaporating
ectoplasm floating in mid-air. But the final spirit was another matter. Tangled
half in and half out of the rapidly healing gap in the Otherwhen, the fifth
spirit did everything in its power to break free. It flickered wildly in and
out as it pulled and stretched against the trap into which it had thrown
itself. The more it struggled, the faster the Otherwhen closed in around it.
Until, silently, the fabric of the Otherwhen stitched itself completely
together.
 
One part of the spirit slid down the face of the Otherwhen. As for the rest? In
the long list of things that shouldn't have just happened, the final resting
place of the other part of a spirit that shouldn't have been caught in
anything, much less sliced into pieces didn't even register.
 
They had to find Bobby and Dad and tell them …
(Dean, you're getting fainter! Get me back - No, stay here with me! Don't…)
 
Tell them…
 
(Sam, I'm not leavin'!)
 
Before anything –
 
("Dean…They aren't the problem! Look at the ground! C'mon! OUT!")
 
All he could think was "No,no,no!!!" To escape, he squeezed his eyes shut and
grabbed on to Dean's shoulders, pulling him down to cover him like a human
blanket. If he hadn't known that Dean would never let him hear the end (No, no
ends! No ends!) of it, he would have whimpered, "De-"
 
"Sammy, what did you see?" Dean's voice sounded odd, strained and tight.
 
"Nothing. Now let's…"
 
"You don't break my shoulders for 'nothing', Sam. What did you see?" Sam's
eyelids snapped open and he stared up into Dean's eyes. One of Dean's patented
wry smiles and a glance toward one shoulder told Sam everything – there'd be
bruises there in a couple of hours, if they lived…no, we're going to live. End
of story.
 
Sam didn't know whether he'd said the words or thought the words or Dean had
said them. He couldn't catch his breath, couldn't move, couldn't do anything
but hang on.
 
Then he felt the touch of Dean's forehead against his and heard, "Sammy; we're
here, We're safe in the Now." Dean spoke quietly, pressing his lips to each of
Sam's eyelids in turn, lingering, tender, the gentleness of his touch quieting
both Sam and himself. "You figured out we had to get clear before anything
could happen. We're not there." The quick kiss to the end of Sam's nose and the
whisper of his name calmed Sam's heartbeat. When Dean traced the line of Sam's
jaw with his lips and said, "We're safe in the Now. I gotcha," Sam turned his
face up to meet the next kiss. He wanted to say he was okay, but he knew
better, and so did Dean.
 
Murmuring the words again and again, Dean maneuvered Sam and himself until they
were lying face to face. He kept his right arm around Sam's shoulders. His left
hand he laid firmly against Sam's chest, over his heart. "Here. I'm here and
you're safe. We're safe." He showered more feather-light kisses across Sam's
neck, breathing slowly and speaking to match his breaths until Sam's ragged
breathing began to synch with his, and he mirrored Dean, placing his hand over
his older brother's heart.
 
Hopefully, Dean smiled at Sam and patted his side. "Better…?" but Sam shook his
head and, his touch as sure as Dean's, wrapped Dean in his embrace.
 
Soft as sunlight, he kissed Dean amid his own words of love and reassurance.
Dean was as freaked out as he was, although his big brother would never admit
it. He needed what Sam offered him as much as Sam had needed Dean's words and
presence. Sam slotted one leg between Deans and slid his hands under Dean's
jacket and shirts, pulling him close and smiling when Dean mirrored him.
 
Ultimately, their words faded to quiet kisses in the deep stillness around
them. Dean felt his eyelids slipping shut when he heard Sam's breathing even
out-
 
 
Dean's phone croaked; and Sam's phone screamed…
***** <b>Chapter 26 Of Croaking and Screaming and Beds</b> *****
"Dad," Dean muttered, glaring at his phone.
 
"Bobby," Sam added. "Something's really wrong if we have both of 'em."
 
Bobby's shout almost beat Sam making the connection. "Bobby! What…Bobby, stop
shouting! Damn!"
 
"Git your bony butts over here, you two! We need help!"
 
From the look on Dean's face, John was 'talking' at about the same volume as
Bobby. "Bobby, where's HERE? Don't hang…Dean, he hung up."
 
Dean looked up from his stunned stare at his phone. "I think it's busted."
 
"What'd Dad say?"
 
"The MacArthur house. Side yard. That's all I picked up. C'mon, Sam."
 
Dean cocked his head to one side, glanced toward the spot the Otherwhen had
just closed and arched an eyebrow, asking the question. Sam shook his head and
pointed his handgun in the direction of the MacArthur house.
 
("They are there. They weren't. ("They are there. ("They were there but not.
That matters.)
Dean nodded and took point, gun in hand. Behind him, Sam pulled out his G-37
and followed his brother along the path that led from the Depot Restaurant back
through a small patch of bushes and trees and from there into the village. For
a second, they paused in front of the Altay General Store and scoped out the
village square.
 
The deserted village square.
 
Sam muttered. "What in blazes?"
 
Other than Sam and Dean and two ghosts currently drifting through the front
wall of the Insurance Office, nothing stirred. Or made a noise. Although the
cold nights of late autumn had set in, there should still have been some sound
of wind movement or the passing-by of some animal – squirrel or mouse, owl- but
neither hunter heard a thing.
 
Dean tapped Sam's arm and thumbed in the direction of the shadows. As silently
as spirits themselves, they faded into the darkness at the side of the store
and waited, sussing out what had happened and wherewhen they were. Dean could
feel Sam tensing more and more, fighting the urge to bolt.
 
Damn! Hold on, Sammy! He reached back with his free hand, grabbed Sam's hand,
pulled it toward his back belt loop and nodded sharply. Instantly his little
brother hooked a finger through the loop and took an open mouthed, relieved
breath.
 
Something…something…Dean cocked his head to one side and listened intently. At
the same instant, Sam felt a…he couldn't describe it, even to himself.
Listening as closely as Dean, he flinched at the sound of his own eardrums
cracking. The need to see what he sensed resulted in him focusing hard enough
that his muscles tingled under the strain. There – right there. Something…
 
They barely heard the sound. But they both felt the tremor, the dip and rise of
the ground beneath them followed by nothing at all.
 
("Carl – you see those guys on the pier? What're they doing? It's midnight!"
 
("Them? I've been on this beat for three years and they've been there since
forever. Show up about 11:00 and fish for a couple of hours, maybe catch
something. But mostly they hang a line in the water and stand there. I've
talked to 'em once or twice. They're no problem."
 
(Huh. And you like this craziness?"
 
("I wouldn't trade Venice Beach for anything…well, except a promotion. If it
was a good one."
 
("It's too insane for me."
 
("Butt head, you've only been here for 3 nights. Give it a chance…" Still
lecturing, the veteran police officer and his new partner continued their walk
down the beach past the fishing pier.
 
(One of the three tall, lanky men in question reeled in his line and leaned his
rod against the pier railing. A silhouette in the dark, he stretched his arms
as high over his head as possible and yawned widely. A quick shake of his head
and shoulders followed. When he looked up, the man to his left was grinning at
him. "Old man."
 
("Humph. Look at what's talking…"
 
("The two of you, shut up. Listen." The third man was as rangy as the other
two, although not as tall. He turned away from them and followed his own
orders, staring off toward the ocean, taking one side of the triangle formed
seconds later by the other two. Standing back to back to back, eyes shut, they
listened.
 
(When it slammed into the piling nearest them under the pier, the wave didn't
sway them. From the northwest a growling wind pushed more water ahead of
itself, pummeling the pier again, again with little effect.
 
(And the ground moved. Sinking an inch and rebounding.
 
(Once.
 
(The wind's tone tightened and rose until it screamed along the caps of the
waves it created. It slammed into the pier again, hurling spray over its deck.
Unmoved, the three fishermen ignored the drenching. One last shove of wet air
and the wind died away to a little breeze playing with the sand on the beach.
 
(Without a word, the three picked up their gear and walked back to the parking
lot, neither hurrying nor dallying. At the edge of the parking lot, one
disappeared. A moment later, the second handed his gear to the third and
followed. Grumbling, the third rounded the back end of the Cherokee and opened
the driver's side door. He deposited two fishing rods and a tackle box on the
seat next to him and pulled the door shut. Just before he kicked the engine
over, out of nowhere, a hand appeared clutching a fishing rod. "Well, give it
over. And you're welcome." The only answer was a disembodied chuckle. "I'll
meet you there," he called over the noise of the motor.)
 
"What the hell?" Dean stopped stock still when a scream shredded the silence.
The first scream was followed by a second and a third. "Someone's screaming,"
he added.
 
I did notjust say that he thought to himself two seconds later. "Which side
yard, Dad?" he muttered aloud. Before he and Sam had a chance to check, a
shotgun coughed, someone shouted, something slammed against the far side of the
house and the place lit up like it'd been hit with a spotlight. For maybe
thirty seconds.
 
Muffled, the screaming started again – once, twice and then nothing. Sam
wondered briefly if the screamer was dead.
 
Then unmuffled shouting led them straight to Bobby and John. "John, where're
those sons of yours?" Bobby was pissed. "Stay right there. Stay DOWN. You're
bleedin' into your eyes, you idjit!"
 
"I think we found 'em, Dean," Sam chuckled.
 
"Dad's hurt – that isn't exactly –"
 
"I. Am .Fine." John rarely raised his voice, but when he did, the effect was
memorable, in a terrifying way, Dean thought absently. "Call the boys and find
out why they aren't here! And let me UP!"
 
Dean slowed down and signaled Sam to stay back; he was grinning when he glanced
over his shoulder at his brother. "Okay, not  hurt.
 
His brows knit suddenly when he stepped a foot closer to the MacArthur place.
"Shit, this house's cold…d'you feel that?" He knew better than to touch
anything out of the ordinary, but the cold rolled off the building in waves he
could feel a foot away.
 
"Yeah. Stay clear of it. Remember what Chris said about this place."
 
Sam leaned around Dean to take a look at their Dad and swallowed his laughter.
Until he glanced up and studied the side yard. "Dean? Over…do you see what I
see?"
 
"Crap! What the…? Sam, that's a bed "Dean didn't know whether to laugh or
swear. "A bed. A freakin' king sized bed! Is that what's screaming?"
"It's a bed, Dean. Maybe whatever's under those blankets is screaming. Again."
Sam shook his head. "Look – Dean," he added, pointing at John and Bobby.
 
Just on the near side of the back door steps, Bobby had John wrapped tight in
his embrace, easily overcoming John's attempts to free himself. As for John, no
matter how he pushed at his old friend, he couldn't gain enough leverage to
wrench free. "Dammit, Bobby, let me up!"
 
"That bastard threw you into a wall, you hardheaded s.o.b.! You're staying down
until I see how damn bad it is! Sit still!"
 
"Dean, are your feet cold?" Sam asked, wiggling his own toes to get circulation
going again. Dean opened his mouth to make a smart comment about little
brothers who couldn't take a few minutes out of doors on a nice autumn night,
when he realized his feet were freezing . And the freezing was hiking its way
up his legs as if the iciness was alive, malevolent.
 
Sam and John saw light coalescing on the ground next to the house's foundation
at the same time. "Dean…Look…"
"Crap…!" John stared over Bobby's shoulder. "Bobby, it's back."
 
Bobby growled. "Stay down. I got this."
 
He scrambled to his feet, shotgun ready, and staggered when his frozen muscles
locked. John used both hands to push himself up from the ground and grunted in
pain when his fingers started turning blue.
 
"Bobby! Dad! Get away from the house!" Sam shouted. "Dean! Move it! "
 
Dean took a step and realized that he couldn't feel his feet, but before he
could say a thing, Sam lifted him bodily and half threw him away from the
building.
 
"Dean! Bobby! It's pulling power from the ground! Cut it off – get it from the
ground up! Shoot its legs and feet first!" All three men lit into the rapidly
manifesting spirit at the same time. "Salt rounds into the dirt!"
 
"Sam, are you sure?" Bobby called while he half dragged, half pushed John away
from the house.
 
"No! Do it anyway! Dad, stay the blazes out of the way!"
 
Methodically, the three hunters demolished the spirit from the ground up. Once
its feet and legs were shot to the elements, Bobby started from the top down,
taking particular pleasure in blasting the creature's head to atom-sized
fragments. Dean and Sam continued their way up the thing. "Sam?"
 
"Dean?"
 
"You know this shouldn't've worked. Right?"
 
"Yeah. And that isn't a spirit…" Sam stated grimly. "At least, it's not one
like I've ever seen. Dean, I'm thinking –"
 
"No, really?"
 
"Can it, big brother…"
 
"Just adding some a little humor –"
 
"Can I tell you how little?" Dean glowered darkly.
 
"Dean, I think we'd better salt and use holy water around the whole
foundation…don't say anything. Look, we don't know for sure if the salt rounds
even worked on it; I know that. But they might have."
 
"Sam, doesn't this remind you of Austin? The Delleges?"
 
"Yeah." Soberly, they checked the supplies they carried in their jackets. "Not
enough for the whole foundation. Dad had his duffle, didn't he?"
 
"Yup. Let's…uh oh. Dean, I think we have a situation." Dean had been checking
out the area just in case blasting the whatever-the-blazes- it-was to atoms
hadn't worked.
 
"Sammy, you…okay? Oh give me a freakin' break!" Dean's concern was replaced by
resignation the minute he followed the direction of Sam's stare.
 
John and Bobby stood virtually nose to nose, arguing. Loudly.
 
"I don't care if Esme Weatherwax laid a spell twelve feet thick! If you ever,
and I mean EVER do that again, I will break your ass! Am I clear?"
 
"John, you were hurt – hell, you're still hurt! What was I supposed to do? Let
you get into a fight when you couldn't see an inch in front of your danged
face? Well, sure, that's what I shoulda done – Of all the idjit ideas, that one
takes the cake!"
 
"I could see all right! You were treating me like I was…" John searched for a
comparison…"like I was made of freakin' china or something! You KNOW I hate
chick flick crap!"
 
"I KNOW you were hurt and too damn stubborn to face facts. That's what I know,
Winchester! And I didn't need a spell to see that…"
 
"Oh no? So you're just naturally are the oldest mother hen outside the chicken
coop? "
 
"Mother hen?" Outraged, Bobby shook his finger in John's face and snapped, "I
wouldn't have to take care of you if you weren't so danged stupid in the first
place! And don't give me that look! If we weren't bonded…damn Parvis
anyway…I'd…you're bleeding again, moron! Stop wiping at that cut!"
 
"I'll wipe wherever I want, you old coot!"
 
"Is that so?"
 
"Yeah, it is!" Out of breath, both men settled for glaring at each other, eyes
squinted almost shut, each just itching for the other to say just that one
little thing that would end up causing a fist fight.
 
"I'd like to see you try," Bobby snarled. He took a step forward into John's
space and grabbed the man's shoulders to shake some sense into him. Idjit! And
don't you freakin' dare give me sad eyes! I'm pissed at you! And you know it!
Moronic jackass that you are! No! Don't use the eyes.
 
Bobby was sure he'd planned to shake John into some common sense. Instead, he
curled one hand around the back of John's neck and the other around his waist,
intent on reassuring himself that John was all right. Too startled to pull
away, John reared back a fraction before he went still in Bobby's arms, closed
his eyes and tilted his head, leaning into Bobby's gentle kiss and deepening
it.
 
"Damn fool…" Bobby whispered when they took a breath. "Coulda been killed."
 
"Not…" John's voice wavered and he leaned into the palm of Bobby's left hand
when the gruff older hunter cradled his cheek,"…you babysitting me…"
 
"Hmm…" Bobby kissed John again, even more softly than the first time. Felt the
other hunter shiver and murmured, "I know, Johnny boy. I know." He kissed
John's forehead and stood there listening to John breathe, his own eyes filled
with worry.
 
"Dean, uh…do we…"Sam whispered, clearly way out of his depth.
 
"Are you crazy?" Dean hissed. "Let the spell settle down. Bobby'd rip your head
off right now." He smiled faintly and added, "They're kinda cute, actually."
 
"Cute? They're about as cute as crabgrass!" Sam snorted.
 
A rushing sound caught his attention and he peered up into the night sky to see
what had caused it. "Dean, we have company."
 
(-I can't come any closer, Lucius. You know that-
(-Have you tried?-
 
(-Yes, of course I have! –
 
(-How did this happen?-
 
(-I don't have a clue. The others are checking on it now. But we haven't found
anything so far. That's why I contacted you. Just to see if you were fooling
around with something that backfired-
 
(-I do not 'fool around'. -
 
(-Raven, you need to 'fool around' this time. And don't tell me you don't
remember; I know you do.-)
 
Lucius heard the staccato tap-tap of stiletto heels with Crow Girls in them.
They'd taken to wearing the shoes sometimes, when they wanted him to know they
were coming. Most of the time, Zia had explained seriously, they were afraid he
might have an attack of something, like 'ner voush eart be ats' if they were to
startle him when he was thinking. Which, Maida had added, he seemed to be doing
a lot recently.
 
He opened his eyes and stared straight into Zia's. It must have been her turn
to interrupt him, he realized. Which meant Maida was going to do the talking.
 
"Raven, we have to do something before the Hunters touch anything. Then we
won't be able to un-do what's happened. Maida spoke directly to Lucius, her
expression more serious than it had been in- "a longlonglong time," Maida
finished for him.
 
Zia stepped back to Maida's side and added, "That hasn'tdoesn'twon't belong."
 
Lucius knew what their next sentences – spoken in unison to 'emphasize' – would
be. Moreover, he did remember, had always remembered. The time had come - "Go,"
he stated. Reluctantly, he dropped his manskin and let his wings take the place
of his arms. "Quickly." A nod of his head and a door in the air slipped open in
front of the Crow Girls. Instantly, between one running step and the next, they
arrowed out the door and straight down.
 
They borrowed extra wingspan from the When only when the need was enormous;
Maida added more length and mass in order to gain speed. Zia followed suit; for
once, she didn't play one-up with Maida and try to go larger. Great black
shapes, they plummeted at full speed toward the ground below, slowing only when
the Hunters shot looks in their direction and froze in place.
 
Two pairs of massive black-feathered wings buffeted the air around the men when
the crows made the drop to solid ground; a split second later, two very
average- sized Crow Girls walked quickly across the yard toward them. Before
anyone could speak, both Zia and Maida shook their heads and each pressed a
finger to her lips. "Be veryvery quiet, SamAndDean," Maida ordered, her words
barely reaching the insides of their eardrums. From inside their heads. "And
you BobbyandJohn. Veryvery quiet."
 
Silently as mice themselves, the Crow Girls walked toward the lump of blankets
on the bed and examined it carefully. A delicate tug on the nearest ripple of
material only resulted in it being pulled more closely around whoever was
hiding and muttering under the heap.
 
Dean squinted to see what was happening and took a tentative step toward the
bed. "Dean, stay back. Zia will make light enough to see." The voice inside
their heads was Maida's; even in such an urgent situation, she sounded as if
what was happening was the most ordinary thing in the universe.
 
The faintest trickle of light spun from the fingers of Zia's left hand. From
the fingers of her right hand, she created a rectangle in the air.
 
Maida sat lightly on the edge of the mattress, her left hand never lifting from
the heap of blankets; whatever she'd done had quieted the being under them. A
quick nod to Zia, who shook the pale grey rectangle as if it was a blanket. It
hovered at her fingertips, obediently expanding over the bed.
 
Still silent, the Crow Girls sat on the mattress, Zia tugged at the rectangle
and, in a flash of dark, the rectangle settled over the bed, opened itself like
a door and they were gone.
 
Dean gaped at the space where they'd been, then at Sam. "Did you just…was
that…"
 
"Yeah." Sam shivered and felt his knees giving way."Dean, let's get out of
here." He staggered through his first step and heaved a sigh of relief when
Dean caught him around the waist.
 
"Okay, Sammy. Dad? Bobby?"
 
"We'd better…er…go and find everyone else. Just to be sure they don't need any
help." Sam and Dean stared blankly at their Dad. The others. They'd forgotten
about Christabel and getting the Screamer out of the village.
 
"We can't go through the Otherwhen," Sam warned.
Just as Chris, Edith, Nancy, Tuesday and the Coyote walked or hobbled or limped
out of the Otherwhen ten feet away from them.
 
"Why can't we go through the Otherwhen?" Chris asked, her voice as tired as the
expression on the glamour's face. Dean realized that, if they were actually in
the Now, daylight was heading their way. Uneasy, he scanned the street and the
village square. "This place is still deserted – did you run into any security?"
 
"No. Didn't see any in the Now when we walked through the edge of the village."
Chris pointed back over her shoulder. "You look like you got hit by a truck,
Singer."
 
Chris didn't look much better; a long scratch snaked down her right arm and she
couldn't stop yawning between words. All of them looked the worse for wear, and
there was something else in Christabel's expression, something that almost
forced the glamour away from her.
 
"Thanks, Christabel," Bobby snapped. "You all don't look all that great
yourself."
 
"Coyote? Did you do it?"
 
"Do what?" The coyote had taken on manskin and hobbled slowly along, favoring
his left leg.
 
"Buy us the time we needed."
 
"No." Instantly, the Trickster's expression hardened and he sniffed the air. "I
didn't. Someone did," his eyebrows drew together and he added, "but it's not
another of my kind."
 
Injury forgotten, he took a step away from them and stood still, listening in
every direction. "Whatever did this…"
 
"Whatever did this…what?" Sam prompted.
 
"Huh? Oh, nothing…" The coyote shook his head and shrugged. "We need to leave.
Now."
 
The instant he finished the word 'Now', everything shifted very, very slightly.
Sam heard the brush of wind against the Tinsmith's shop, which, he suddenly
realized, hadn't been there a moment before.
 
"One half step left," Chris ordered all of them. And they straggled into the
Otherwhen two seconds later.
 
An Otherwhen that seemed as normal as the Otherwhen usually did. No raveled
edges, no strange creatures – at least, that they could see. Just a straight,
flat, short path back to the Blanket and walls between them and the night that
had just passed.
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