Fifty Percent: Part Three-a
Jun. 26th, 2008 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwendolyngraceFic title: Fifty Percent
Author name:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gwendolyngrace
Artist name:sazzlette
Genre: (rps, wincest, het, gen) Gen / Het
Pairing: John/OFC
Rating: R
Word Count: 46,450, Posted in 5 1/2 parts
Warnings/Spoilers: (if applicable) Told in two eras: 2007 and 1989. The 2007 storyline is set between “Bad Day at Black Rock” and “Sin City”; the flashback sequence references “Something Wicked.”
Summary: While cleaning out John’s storage locker, Sam finds an envelope from his father addressed to someone from their past. Dean objects to delivering it, but Sam happens upon a hunt that takes them practically to her doorstep. Could they be demons released when the Gate opened? In 1989, shortly after the shtriga hunt, the Winchesters settle in small-town Ohio while John figures out whether or not he can keep hunting. Beverly Kirkland, the children’s librarian, meets the boys and their father. After a chance encounter with John, she reluctantly grows closer to him, all the while wondering what it is about the family that doesn’t quite add up….
Author’s Notes: So many things about this, but I don’t want to give stuff away. Right. Well, first off, I had this in my head long before “Supernatural: Rising Son” came out, and before I found out that Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Mary-Louise Parker were a couple (and then they broke up before I finished drafting this). The idea came up while I was writing Trost und Freude for a holiday exchange - but takes place *before* that in the Wee!chester timeline. I’m very grateful tosazzlette for her art of awesome (10 sketches, count'em OMG! - AND a music mix!), etakyma for her unfailing willingness to read what I’ve written and tell me how to fix it, july_july_july for her incredibly insightful beta-reading, and Wikipedia for lots of helpful information, ranging from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collectibles to the names of Kansas Governors to facts (and missing information) about our MOTW.
Link to fic: Part One, Part Two, Part Three-A, Part Three-B, Part Four, Part Five
Back to Part Two
~*~NOW~*~
“Jesus, Sam,” Dean complained as they packed, “of all the stupid ideas you’ve ever—”
“It’s not that dumb,” Sam countered. “It keeps us from using up the credit cards, drops us off the trail for a bit. It’s not like we’ve never done this before. Besides, aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
“Curious?” Dean parroted, his lip curling and nose scrunching up as if he smelled something bad. “Curious about what?”
“About…Dad. And Mrs. Kirkland.”
Dean smirked. “Oh, Sammy,” he said, circling the bed to swat playfully at Sam’s arm. “I thought you already knew how that stuff worked. See, when a man and a woman feel uncontrollable lust, they—”
“Shut up, you jerk,” Sam said, making no attempt to mask his irritation. “I mean important stuff.”
“There was no important stuff, okay? It was just sex. He didn’t—” Dean broke off abruptly, backed away between the beds. He crossed back to the other side and resumed shoving jeans and shirts into his duffel.
“Didn’t…what, Dean?”
“Nothin’,” Dean bit out forcefully. It was the tone he used to shut down any uncomfortable outburst, any point at which he might admit to a feeling. “Whatever, man. You want to walk down memory lane, fine. We’ll go, make the old b…broad happy.” He stumbled over “broad,” as if deciding, out of respect, to choose the less derogatory, if old-fashioned, term. “But just remember—she’s already pretty close to the truth.”
“Because she thinks Dad was fascinated by haunted houses?” Sam squinted to match the “what the hell” of his voice. “Dean, how is that different from cover stories we’ve given dozens of people over the years?”
Dean sniffed. “It just is. She’s nosy. And she’s a librarian, okay? So just…we gotta be careful, is all I’m sayin’.”
“Okay,” Sam agreed, “we’ll be careful.”
“And hope she doesn’t watch America’s Most Wanted.”
Sam snorted. “Dude. You are so not on Walsh’s hit list.”
“Hey, you never know,” Dean said, grinning with forced levity. “Dream big, Sammy!” He pulled a few button-down flannel work shirts out of the closet. “I been thinkin’, though—tomorrow, we should go up to Cleveland. If the pattern’s right, Barker will be showing up soon.”
They had left Mrs. Kirkland to use the reference section according to Sam’s original plan. He had reasoned that a public computer would be less conspicuous when he hacked the state police database in search of Barker’s car, any hints of where he might be on the way to Cleveland. He successfully penetrated the database, but he hadn’t found any evidence that Barker was anywhere on the planet, much less Interstate 71.
Sam nodded, scratching his chin. “Okay, yeah.” The joking and the return to shop talk were Dean’s way of burying the argument, making peace, making it about the job instead of them, their issues. Sam let him drop the debate in favor of the case. “It’s only a couple hours. We can go, see what we can find. Maybe someone’s reported his car or something. It’s a long shot, though.”
Dean shook his head. “I was thinking we’d hit the campus. Y’know, where Lauren disappeared? You said he’s picking up his next victim in the same area each time.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Sam allowed, tottering his head in assessment. He was careful not to dismiss any contribution Dean made at this point, to maintain the balanced footing they’d just regained. “But by the same logic, we should check into the neighborhood where David Owen set those fires.”
Dean moved into the bathroom for a last recon. “Okay, so campus, fire scenes, DMV—hat trick,” he said, his voice echoing a little on the tile. He came back out with the soaps and shampoo bottles to throw them in the dop kit. “What?” he said to Sam’s hands coming off his hips, fingers spreading. “Dude,” Dean justified himself, “she’s probably got some girlie shampoo.”
Sam held up his hand, then released it in a forward wave. “Whatever.”
“Hey, you’re gonna have to make sure we got a secure place to work with the files and all,” Dean pointed out. In typical form, once he’d committed to their course of action, Dean was growing steadily more at ease with it. “Ooh, Sam—d’you think she’ll make that chicken stuff? What was it….”
“Tetrazini?”
“Yeah. That stuff was good. You know what else she made that was good? Her mac and cheese, man.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Gimme a break,” he begged no one in particular.
~*~THEN~*~
Beverly was washing dishes when her phone rang. Hardly anyone called her after 10, except her sister in California, who could never seem to remember that Beverly was three hours ahead, not two. She picked up the phone, expecting to hear Celia’s voice.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s John,” he said in that dusky rumble.
“John,” Beverly repeated, aware that she sounded as surprised as she actually was, instead of cool and aloof like she’d have preferred. “I wasn’t sure you actually would call.”
She heard him exhale a half-laugh, half “hum” that registered her shot. “Not really a phone kind of guy,” he admitted sheepishly. “Listen, the, uh, the boys are asleep. Would it be all right if I…come over? Just to talk.”
Beverly smiled. He was both transparent and endearing. The smoke in his voice was already practically undressing her, but he didn’t want to seem disrespectful. “Sure,” she said nonchalantly, taking his request at face value for the moment. Then she remembered the state of her bed and bathroom. “Give me fifteen, twenty minutes?”
John said, “Okay. See you soon,” and hung up.
Beverly left the rest of her dishes and flew upstairs to straighten up. She didn’t think John would care if her bed hadn’t been made, but it seemed unfair and unsportsmanlike to leave her delicates hanging in the bathtub or her facial mask sitting on the counter. She ran a brush through her hair, too, laughing at herself for the vanity of it.
By the time she came back downstairs, she heard the rumble of John’s car in the driveway. The engine cut off. A few seconds later, she heard the door creak and shut, sounding comparatively loud on her quiet street. She opened the door before he could ring the doorbell.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” he said awkwardly, leaning on the doorjamb.
Beverly remembered the legends. “Are you a vampire? You need to be invited inside?”
John blinked at her. She got the impression that he was suppressing his response. After a moment, he evidently decided to laugh off whatever he was going to say. “No, I’m not a vampire,” he purred, crossing the threshold. “But I’ll bite if you want me to.”
Beverly backed out of the way to let him come inside, chuckling low in her throat. “How about a drink first?” she asked, leading him to the living room.
“Oh, God, yes,” he said gratefully.
She poured and handed him a tumbler. They sat. John sipped his whiskey like he was rationing it, but said nothing.
“How was your weekend?” she prompted.
John sucked his teeth. “A lesson in futility,” he grimaced. “Dean…kid thinks he needs to get it right first try or he’s gonna disgrace me. And Sammy…Sammy thinks he knows everything already.”
“But…how long have they been shooting? They’re new to it, right?”
John merely shrugged. “Not the firearms so much as everything. How to light a fire, how to mark a trail, how to boil water—” He stopped himself. “You…don’t want to hear about that.”
It was Beverly’s turn to shrug. “If that’s what you want to talk about,” she offered.
John shook his head. “I, uh, should have called.”
“I said no strings, John.”
“They just…take a lot of time, y’know?” he muttered. “And energy.”
“So I hear from parents all over the county,” Beverly assured him. “Six and ten—those are difficult ages.”
“They’re all difficult ages,” John grumbled.
“When did…. I mean, how long have you been on your own with them?” she asked gently.
“Five years, ten months, three weeks, six days,” he said flatly, looking at his watch, “and about sixteen hours.” He sipped his scotch, and through the burn of swallowing, he asked, “How about you? Your husband?”
“Tom?” she supplied. “Two years, three months, and about ten days,” she recited. “It doesn’t get easier; just more routine.”
“That’s for damn sure,” he agreed with a growl.
“But I don’t have the challenge of parenting, either. I expect that puts me at an advantage.”
“Did you want children?” he asked softly.
Beverly pursed her lips. “We’d talked about it,” she confessed, taking a drink. “But we weren’t…. We were still working on getting where we wanted to be. We’d bought the house about a year before, so…we were saving for a while, first.”
“And now?” John’s eyes slid in her direction. He had loaded the question, but Beverly wasn’t sure what answer would save her from the bullet.
“Now…I have the kids at the library. Maybe I’ll follow my mother’s advice and get a cat. I don’t know. But…no, I don’t think I want children anymore. Not if they can’t be Tom’s.”
John hummed in what Beverly took for approval. “Sometimes, I swear, that’s the only reason I haven’t left them to the wolves,” he said: “because they’re Mary’s.” He swallowed more whiskey. “No, that’s not true.”
“Of course not,” Beverly told him. “They idolize you.” And that was true—she’d seen the look on Sam’s face when John picked them up, heard Dean brag to other kids occasionally about his father, the hero.
John snorted. “Whatever it takes, I guess,” he said. He drained his tumbler.
“Refill?” she offered.
John shook his head. “Nah, I should…get back. Anyway. I just….” He trailed off, staring at something underneath her floorboards. “I’d like to call you again. Come over again. Sometime. If that’s okay.”
The corners of Beverly’s mouth twitched, but she kept her face mostly under control. So formal, yet so boyishly earnest. “Call whenever you like, John.”
He nodded his thanks and rose, so she walked with him to the door. Before she opened it, though, he turned swiftly and kissed her. Her mouth opened instantly and she leaned in to him. Strong arms wrapped around her back. He growled into her throat and she shuddered. “You don’t have to leave,” she invited.
“I do. God, I do,” John said, breaking away. “I wish I didn’t but I do.” He fumbled for the doorknob and backed onto the porch, where he tugged his jacket back into order. “Goodnight.”
~*~NOW~*~
Sam used the GPS in his phone to find Mrs. Kirkland’s house, since Dean didn’t remember how to get there. Her ancient car, which Sam did remember, was long gone, replaced by a shiny blue Corolla in the driveway.
“I’ve made up the guest beds,” Mrs. Kirkland told them after they brought their bags inside. “They’re still up the stairs, third door on the right, and the other one at the end of the hall.”
“I”ll go,” Dean volunteered immediately. Sam suspected he just didn’t want to be left alone with Mrs. Kirkland. Then again, knowing Dean, it was also all about picking out the better of the two rooms.
“Thanks again,” Sam said to cover Dean’s hasty exit.
“Please, you’re helping me to feel useful,” she said in response. “Come on in.” She turned and led the way to the kitchen, in the rear of the house. “I’m afraid I haven’t been to the grocery store too recently—I get used to not cooking when it’s just for me.” She opened the freezer. “Let’s see…I’ve got ground beef, some chicken…. Would you young men by offended by simple mac and cheese?”
Sam grinned. “I think Dean would love mac and cheese,” he assured her.
“Okay, then,” she said. Before pulling out the ingredients, she reached into the fridge and brought out a bottle of wine. “Or would you rather beer?” she asked, going to the drawer for the corkscrew.
“Uh….” Sam struggled with a polite answer.
Mrs. Kirkland wrinkled her nose at him. “Beer, huh? Like your dad.” She dug in the back of the fridge for some. “Don’t worry, I have a six-pack. I hope it’s not skunky.”
Sam twisted the top of the bottle she handed him and tipped it up for an experimental taste. It was darker than he was used to, but it went down cool and crisp. “Nope, s’good,” he said with approval.
Mrs. Kirkland looked relieved. She grabbed a pot to start the water for the pasta and filled it at the sink. “So, Sam…what have you and Dean been up to all this time? Where did you go to college?
“Uh…I got a scholarship to Stanford,” Sam said.
“That’s great!” She beamed at him, turning on the burner under the pot. “And your major?
Sam swigged the beer. “Well, I was going to go into law school. But….” She looked up. “Uh, my girlfriend was…killed.” It had been a long time since he’d said it. And now it felt like a lifetime ago. When was the last time he’d thought of Jess, even? Sam could barely remember. Realizing it felt like a kick in the chest.
“Oh my God, Sam. That’s awful.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed morosely. “So Dean and me, we’ve been on a road trip. And somewhere along the way we decided to start working on a book. Y’know, a kind of Travels With Charlie meets Time Life’s Unexplained America, or something.”
Mrs. Kirkland nodded, going back to the fridge for the butter and cheese. “So…how long have you been on the road?”
Sam thought about it. “A little more than two years.”
“All that time?” she asked, surprised.
“Well, I had just been planning to go back to school when…Dad passed away. I guess it’s just—not important anymore. Plus, Dean—” he stopped himself and put down the beer bottle heavily. “Do you…need any help with that?” he asked, to change the subject. Talking to her was dangerous. Dean was right. It was too familiar, too…comfortable, in her kitchen. He’d have to watch himself.
Luckily, Dean came in the room at that moment. “There you are,” he said, as if the house had grown an extra wing and he’d been looking through a neighborhood’s worth of rooms. “Catching up, are we?” He flashed a warning to Sam with his eyes.
“Little bit,” Sam replied, an answering plea to Dean to play it cool in his expression. “I was just telling Mrs. Kirkland about our roadtrip that never seems to end.”
“Beverly, please,” Mrs. Kirkland said.
“Uh-huh,” Dean observed coolly over her invitation to use her first name. He pointed to Sam’s longneck. “Hey, is there another one of those, or am I gonna have to claim the privilege of the older brother?”
“There’s more,” Mrs. Kirkland assured him. “Sam, would you?” Sam was closer to the fridge, sitting as he was on the island bar between the sink and the stove.
“Hey, your kitchen wasn’t like this back then, was it?” Dean asked more cordially as Sam slid off his stool and dove into the stainless steel appliance.
“No. I redid it about…two years ago?” Mrs. Kirkland mused. “Hard to believe it’s been that long.”
Sam banged his head on the fridge door in his surprise. Hadn’t he just been thinking the same thing about Jess? He rubbed the top of his head and handed Dean the beer over his brother’s chuckle.
The water started boiling, so she dumped in the macaroni and stirred it, turning down the heat. “So, Sam tells me he’s been taking time off from school. What about you, Dean?”
Dean looked sidelong at Sam. He popped the lid off his beer with his ring and took a healthy pull before answering. “Well, if you recall, I was never really the school type,” he said with a sniff. “Mostly I’ve been working freelance, here and there, kinda following in Dad’s footsteps.”
“As a mechanic, or an author?” she asked. “Or both?”
“Both,” Dean said with a nod. “Hey, Sammy, we should let Mrs. Kirkland work—”
“Beverly, and not at all, I like the company,” she said cheerfully. She turned back to the stove with a pan to melt the butter and cheese for the sauce.
“So…you didn’t ever remarry?” Sam asked politely.
“No,” she said smiling, shaking her head. “Never got a cat, either.” She stirred the macaroni again. Sam got the impression the cat comment was a private joke. “So tell me, fellas, what kind of true crime leads you to this neck of the woods?”
“Well…we’re doing…sort of an investigative piece right now,” Sam said, “on a case outside Columbus.”
“Investigation?” Mrs. Kirkland said. “So…you’re freelance reporters? This is an article? Or is it still for a book?”
“Book,” said Dean, right at the same time Sam said, “Article.” He and Dean locked eyes.
“Well, we were hoping to sell the story first, but...it’ll be in the book, too,” Sam promised. “Speaking of which, we’re planning to drive up to Cleveland tomorrow.”
Mrs. Kirkland nodded. “Okay. Tell you what—I’ll give you guys a spare key. That way you can come and go as you please.”
Dean swallowed. “No, really, that’s—”
“It’s no trouble, Dean. I put you two up for what, about a month?” She poured a little wine into the sauce. “I think I can stand to have my house invaded for a few days.”
About an hour later, Dean was polishing off his third helping of mac and cheese, and Sam wondered if his brother remembered any of his own warnings about being careful around Mrs. Kirkland. Dean’s charm was dialed up to eleven. Luckily, he was so practiced at deflecting topics through half-truths and outright lies that Sam didn’t think Mrs. Kirkland even realized Dean was double-talking her. Still, a couple times Dean skirted too close to the ridiculous, and Sam had to pull him back from the edge.
After dinner, she said, “I have some work to do in the office, but you two help yourselves to the TV and all if you like.”
Sam said, “We’ll clean up,” with a look at Dean. If they weren’t paying for the room, or the food, it was the least they could do.
“Sure,” Dean agreed with the amiable brightness that meant he’d rather tongue an alligator.
“Nope—the new kitchen has a dishwasher,” Mrs. Kirkland said. “So if you’d like to rinse and stack, that’d be great. But don’t worry—I remember how much Dean liked housework.”
“Okay,” Sam shared her laugh at Dean’s expense. “Uh…do you have a wireless connection, by chance?”
She grimaced. “No. But my next door neighbor does. If you’ve got a card, his net isn’t encrypted.”
Sam looked at her like she’d just corrected Dean on the lyrics to Quadrephenia.
“What?” she said, grinning impishly. “Did you think because I’m an old widow-lady librarian, I’m not above piggy-backing a wireless bubble?” She laughed and went to her office.
~*~THEN~*~
John called Beverly three days after he’d left her on her own doorstep, but he didn’t come over that night, either. They talked for about half an hour. The next night, he called again, and did come over. Then she didn’t see him for a week.
At the library, Sam and Dean came in after school nearly every day. She treated them like all the other kids—according to their natures, needs, and her standards. She tried to keep questions about their father balanced: not so many that they thought she was stalking him, not so few that their absence was itself conspicuous.
One Saturday, John brought the boys in and, as in their first visit, left them in the children’s section while he wandered off to Reference.
“So, Dean, what’s your Dad doing over there, d’you know?” she asked casually.
Dean shrugged, but Sam said “Research,” as if it were the equivalent of crimefighting or surgery or some other profession.
“Oh?” she said, making sure to sound suitably impressed. “What kind of research?”
Sam bit his lip. Dean sighed. “Local history and stuff. He’s working on a book.”
“About what?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “About local history. Duh.”
“Yes, I got that part, thank you,” Beverly told him. “No need to be rude.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. He actually opened a book, as if to apologize.
“I meant, is there something particular he’s writing about? The Mennonite communities? Local legends? The Civil War or something more recent?”
“Oh.” Dean thought about it. “Nah. Just stuff.”
John came back two hours later. “Mount up, boys,” he said briskly. He handed Dean the keys. “Take your brother to the car, unless either of you need the head first.”
Dean beamed down at the keys in his hand. He grabbed Sam’s arm and began to drag him away, looking more at them than where he was going. “Do not start the car, Dean,” John said at his son’s back.
The effect was instantaneous. Dean turned around. “Yes, sir,” he said crisply. The look on his face made Beverly remember what John had said about how Dean thought he had to get everything perfect on his first try. She saw it now, in his eyes: He was terrified his father would tell him he’d messed up.
John saw her watching the boy and dismissed him with another nod. Dean nodded back, and it looked to Beverly like he could have saluted military-style if not for her standing there observing. Dean turned and, with one hand on Sam’s shoulder, headed for the exit. John turned back to her and shrugged as if to acknowledge that Dean was a little irrational. But she detected a hint of exasperation in John, too, that went beyond simple bewilderment. There was a tension in him that he didn’t have with Sam, even when Sam was whining or questioning his father’s directive.
She let it go, though, in favor of other, more intriguing, information she wanted to know. “Dean says you’re writing about the local history?” she asked quizzically, casually. “It’s not a history of Wendy’s, is it?”
John huffed. “They would love that,” he said, eyes crinkling with laughter as he nodded toward his children, “but no.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Uh, yeah,” John said, one shoe tapping the table leg idly. “Architecture, mostly,” he rumbled. “I’m interested in the history of older buildings. Like the Johnson House.”
“The Johnson House out on Route 736?” she said. “Isn’t that supposedly haunted?”
John smiled teasingly. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” he asked, like they were both twelve and he was about to dare her to go ring the doorbell and run.
“Only when they look like Rex Harrison. Or James Caan,” she replied. “Think you’ll be free tonight?” she asked more quietly.
“Not tonight, no,” he said with regret. “But…maybe tomorrow?”
Beverly nodded an okay, and he winked at her before following his boys out to the parking lot.
Judith came running over the second he departed. “Bev! You never told me you and that guy—what’s his name?”
“Winchester,” Bevery supplied blandly.
Judith cocked her head with curiosity. “Is that what you call him in the throes of passion?”
“Judes!” Beverly hissed at her. “Honestly,” she continued nonchalantly, going to her chair, “it’s not what you think.”
“Oh, pshaw. He’s obviously interested in you. Do you expect me to believe you’re not going to take advantage of that opportunity?” Judith perched on the edge of Beverly’s desk. “Especially an opportunity in a package like that?” Judith fanned herself with a nearby catalog card. “I mean, if I weren’t married, I’d—”
“But he is, remember, Judith?” Beverly lied for no other reason than to keep Judith quiet and out of her hair. “Married, with kids. So sorry to disappoint you, but there will be no riding off into the sunset for me and John Winchester.” She snatched the catalog card out of Judith’s hand and filed it officiously.
“Okay, Beverly, okay,” Judith told her, standing up with her hands out, instantly contrite. “I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot.”
“Nothing’s bruised, Judith,” Beverly said, eyes cast heavenward.
“No, but…you like him, too. Don’t you?”
Beverly sighed. The last thing she needed was any of the other staff to send him signals that she was being indiscreet—or worse, for Sam and Dean to pick up on the flirtation between her and their father. They were great kids…but they weren’t her kids. “Look, Judith. Whether I like him or not isn’t the issue, and forgive me, but it’s not any of your business, either. He’s a customer, and I’m his sons’ librarian. And that’s all.”
Judith nodded, clucking sympathetically. “Of course, Bev. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just…you know we all just want the best for you.”
Beverly gritted her teeth and blinked at Judith. Her coworker had always been presumptuous, but the blatant patronizing, the “poor Beverly” act, and the way every conversation somehow came back to how incomplete she must feel without Tom, had reached new depths. “I’m going to lunch,” she announced, because it seemed a better thing to say to Judith than, Fuck off, bitch. She stood up, took a couple steps away, and stopped. “Hey, Judes?” she said, feigning forgiveness.
“Yes, dear?” Judith smiled at her as if expecting an apology. Like Beverly was the one who should be apologizing.
“Do you have any idea what he was researching all morning?”
Judith’s head rocked back a little on her neck when she parsed Beverly’s question. “Well, let me think…. He definitely wanted to know about the Johnson House—everything I could dig up on it, when it was built, everything about the Johnsons, like when and how Isaiah Johnson died….”
“What else? Anything about the architecture, or any other local historical sites?”
Judith narrowed her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m curious about whether he’s doing his older son’s homework for him,” Beverly bit out quickly. “Was it just the Johnson House or anything else?”
Judith’s eyebrows flicked upward, but she shrugged and drew back the corners of her mouth in an apologetic smirk. “This morning, it was all about the Johnsons. But he was in last night—you were off—and he checked out a book about Amish and Mennonite hex signs.”
Beverly frowned. It didn’t add up, but then, she knew how researching one thing could lead to a tangent, which led to another, until what started as an article on Ohio Valley settlers could turn into a treatise on Mayan burial customs or Sumerian gods. Not that it had ever happened to her.
“Beverly?” Judith said solicitously. “Is something wrong?”
She must have looked lost, standing there trying to figure out why John would be so secretive. She shook her head. “No. No, nothing’s wrong.” She checked her watch, held up her wrist to wriggle it at Judith. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
~*~NOW~*~
In next to no time, Sam had the computer connected and was surfing for any other information on the case. Dean poked around the room, idly repositioning a small piece of statuary on her shelf. “She has books everywhere,” he commented.
“She’s a librarian, Dean,” Sam pointed out.
“Yeah, but…how many versions of The Epic of Gilgamesh does one person need?”
Sam stared at him. “Jess had about fifteen different versions of Arthurian myths. For her senior thesis.”
Dean grimaced, as if guilty to have reminded Sam of anything he associated with Jess. Cowed, he clicked on the TV, more to cover any conversation they might have than to actually pay attention. It didn’t stop him flipping through the channels.
“Man, I don’t feel right, ordering pay-per-view on her TV,” he grumbled.
Sam chortled. “You do have a conscience, then,” he observed.
“Oh, shut up.”
“She’s cool, though,” Sam commented cautiously. “I guess as kids, we didn’t really get to see that.”
“No,” Dean allowed. “She was just the librarian. And the chick Dad was banging.”
Sam grunted. He tapped at the keyboard, trying a password to get into the Ohio Registry for information about Barker’s car. He’d managed to download a file, but it was encrypted. “I don’t even remember her and Dad—as a couple, I mean,” he said.
Dean waved his head back and forth, eyes closed, his version of a shrug combined with remembering. “Yeah, you were pretty little. And they didn’t…parade it, or anything,” he mused. “Actually, they were pretty careful. There were a couple tipoffs, though.”
“Such as?” Sam pushed. He wanted to know, while Dean was in a talkative mood. He had always been this way: Sam had to coax information out of Dean, wait for him to feel like giving up his memories or reactions, catch him at the right time or in the right frame of mind to share, instead of shut down. It was an old dance, one he was used to doing with Dean, leading by letting Dean lead.
Dean leaned back on the couch, put his feet up on the coffee table. “Well, Dad would go out, after we were in bed. I know ‘cause he’d come back really late, and I’d wake up, but he’d just…duck his head in, really quiet, y’know? Tryin’ to check on us without waking us. I kinda figured…he didn’t want us to know.”
“How’d you know it was Mrs. Kirkland, though?” Sam wondered. “Or…when, I guess. When did you put it together?”
Dean thought about it, shrugged. “Probably…about Halloween? You prob’ly don’t remember, but he went on this job. Dad usually dug up a hunt around that time of year—I guess to get his mind off Mom. Used to be he’d drop us with Bobby or Pastor Jim, so he could spend the days around the anniversary of the fire alone. I’m pretty sure he got drunk a couple of those times.” He sighed. “Anyway, he’d been going on shorter trips at that point, not even really overnight, but this was gonna be a few days. And he told me…he told me to call Pastor Jim if he wasn’t back at the end of the week. But then he said…” he cleared his throat, “he said that if you wanted to, I could take you to the library. And he told me that if we went, we should wait around and then tell Mrs. Kirkland that he’d probably been held up at work and to ask for a ride home.”
“Whoa. Dead giveaway—that’s not like Dad.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean agreed. He lolled his head left and right along the back of the couch. “Like I never knew about Tina, either.”
“Who?” Sam squinted at him.
Dean blew out his cheeks with a sigh. “Yeah, you were about two, there’s no way you’d remember. First time I remember Dad getting any. We were in Modesto and she had the room next to ours. Took me a while to figure out that the noises from her room weren’t from the TV. She and Dad got kinda…friendly.” Dean waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Are you…seriously saying Dad paid for sex?”
Dean shrugged. “Sam, I was six. How would I know? But I know he went next door more than once and I know it wasn’t just to borrow sugar.”
“Fuck,” Sam said, drawing the word out to three syllables.
“Exactly. Anyway, Dad didn’t want me to know, because when I asked he just said he was being a good neighbor and they were having some ‘grownup fun.’ But it was obvious something was up. Same with Mrs. Kirkland. Dad wasn’t really as clever as he thought. I mean, there was Christmas. And all of January.”
“So…can I ask you something?” Sam asked.
Dean slid his eyes sideways. “If you have to ask that, probably not.”
Sam smiled; Dean’s tone was gruff, but the corners of his mouth had twitched. “Okay. But, you knew Dad hooked up occasionally.”
“Sure. He was male, Sam. Hell, even you hook up occasionally.”
“Ha-ha. My point is, if you knew he and Mrs. Kirkland had a thing…why does it matter now? Why so negative about seeing her?”
Dean turned up the volume. He swallowed. Sam waited. “Like I said, I didn’t think she’d want to see us. I mean, we probably don’t represent very good memories.” He fell silent.
Sam concentrated on his computer screen, but stole glances at Dean for a clue as to what he was thinking. It could have been anything from a simple pause to digest his dinner to regret that he didn’t have a Mrs. Kirkland in his life. Embarrassed, he stared at the downloaded file on his screen again, and the decryption hit him like a sudden jolt. He typed in the decryption code and the program bloomed into activity. He made a wordless sound of triumph.
Dean glanced over and Sam pointed at the screen to indicate his success. “Not long, now.”
After a minute, Dean launched himself off the couch swiftly. “Well, I’m getting another beer. You want one?”
Sam stared. Dean being solicitous was a clear sign of the apocalypse, or something. “Sure,” he said, trying not to sound suspicious, choosing not to comment on Dean’s unusual generosity.
His computer beeped; the file had decrypted. He launched and browsed through it, looking for anything notable that could help pin down this case. The demon had to have a reason for abandoning its hosts after only five days, but Sam couldn’t figure out what. It nagged at him, as did the travel and the senseless crimes. It was like they were luring him and Dean onto their trail. Unbidden, the voice of the demonic Pride ran through his head, calling him “Boy King” and crowing that many of the demons now on earth had no intention of following him. In fact, they had opposite plans. What if this case were an elaborate trap, a ruse to draw them into the area? There was no telling what they had planned if they caught him—whoever “they” were.
Dean came back, beer in tow, and settled on the couch again. “Getting anywhere?”
Sam hummed negatively. He pulled up the Google map and stared at 271 as if it would give him a clue. Then he toggled to the open tab with Case Western’s site again. “Well, I figured out what dorm Lauren Kennedy lived in, researched it for strange occurrences, deaths, etc.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And there was a suicide there, five years ago.” He paused for Dean’s reaction.
“Okay, so?”
“I dunno,” Sam admitted wearily, giving up the pretense that the suicide record was significant by itself. “But the bar where David Owen disappeared and Lauren showed up? Lowell’s Tavern? There was an incident with two patrons. Playing Russian Roulette.”
“Oh, man,” Dean said, somewhere between disgust and admiration at the sheer stupidity of human beings. “And let me guess, one of them got blown away? Ew, very Deer Hunter, man—that’s sick.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed, “and the other one felt so guilty, he ate his gun about two weeks later.”
“Weird. What the heck do suicides have to do with demonic possession?”
Sam’s eyebrows twitched. “Well, a lot of religions believe that suicides automatically go to Hell. Catholicism in particular.” He ignored the look Dean gave him whenever he was forced into lecture mode. “Maybe this demon has an affinity for suicides, so it gravitated to places where a suicide was committed?”
Dean grunted. “Hm. Maybe.” He flicked the channel button on the remote. “Dude, there’s nothing on.”
“Go back to the Food Network,” Sam muttered.
Dean grinned like a gremlin that had just found an unobstructed airline engine. “Why, Sammy. You got a secret man-crush on Bobby Flay?”
Sam shook his head at his brother. “I don’t even know who that is, and yet I’m the gay one?” he commented. “Food network is…benign.”
“So’s HGTV, but you actually get power tools once in a while.”
“Yeah, in between techniques like crackle and upholstering, and talk about color and window treatments. Seriously? You’re honestly saying home decorating is less girly than food? Jerk.”
Dean smirked. “Whatever, bitch.” But he found the Food Network, just as Iron Chef America was coming on. They bet each other over which chef would win after Alton Brown announced “tomatoes” as the secret ingredient.
~*~THEN~*~
The change of season caught Beverly off guard. One day it was still summer, it seemed, with mild days and sunshine, and overnight, there was frost on the grass and the leaves had dropped from the trees, and the students at the library lugged heavy coats in addition to their backpacks.
She saw John once or perhaps twice a week, with no regularity, but he called in between visits without asking to come over. He barely came in to the library; she wasn’t sure whether that was reluctance to see her or worry that he’d make their relationship plain to everyone—including Dean and Sam. By phone, he’d talked tentatively about how important the boys were to him, how fragile he thought their family was in the wake of Mary’s death. “I just—keeping us together, keeping them where I can watch over them—that’s all I can think of,” he admitted. But if Beverly wondered why he felt so protective of his children, he changed the subject subtly.
He did indicate, by action if not in so many words, that Dean in particular was incredibly sensitive to—and belligerent toward—any woman who dared fill the role of a mother toward him. “I can’t quite explain to him,” John said one night in her room. “He’s not old enough yet to understand that there’s a difference between love and—” He broke off, stroked her arm contritely. “Sorry—that was pretty crass,” he apologized.
“Not at all, John,” Beverly told him, pinching his side. “Lucky for you, you’re just a piece of tail to me, too.”
“That’s not what I—”
“I know what you meant, John,” Beverly said wearily. “Don’t try to fix it; you’ll only bury yourself deeper.” She sat up, patting his chest maternally. “Besides, I thought we were both clear on the limits, here. You’re a damn attractive man, John, but as I’ve told you before, you’re no Tom.”
John nodded and reached up to stroke her neck. He cupped his hand around the back of her head. “Does that mean you’re kicking me out, or…are you up for another round?”
She smiled coquettishly, bending under the slight pressure of his hand. He pulled her toward him. She pressed her lips against his mouth, and as their kiss deepened, she wrapped her leg over his hip, leaning her hands on his chest. No, he wasn’t Tom, but damn, he was a lot of fun.
The next day Sam and Dean arrived at the library, both in high dudgeon. It was unusual for both of them to be out of sorts at the same time, so Beverly paid particular attention to them during the two hours it usually took for John to get them. Dean made no move to wait at the door with Sam, but let his brother keep reading long after the other kids filtered out. Beverly could only describe Dean’s behavior as sulking. Sam, for all that he had quickly buried himself in his book, seemed depressed as well. She checked the time: five-thirty, and no sign of John. Finally, Sam looked up at his brother.
“Dean, m’hungry.”
Dean scowled. “You’re always hungry, runt.”
“M’really hungry, though,” Sam insisted. But he didn’t ask Dean about where their father was, or why he was late. He looked at Dean and then as if prompting the older boy, he inclined his head and pointed his eyes in her direction. Dean’s jaw jutted out, as if being asked to do something distasteful. He pushed out from the table and approached her with caution bordering on prejudice.
“Mrs.—Mrs. Kirkland?”
“Yes, Dean?”
He looked back at Sam, as if for moral support. Beverly’s heart suddenly beat very fast. Could it be that after all this time, she’d been dead wrong about John? He really was an alcoholic, he really did beat the boys bloody—and she’d done nothing.
But Dean swallowed and dispelled her irrational fear with his next sentence. “Our dad said…he said he might get held up at work tonight. And that if he was, we should ask if you could give us a ride home.”
Beverly felt an unimaginable relief wash over her. Followed by guilt. Considering the late night phone calls and their somewhat frequent hookups, her sudden jump back to “child abuse” was unjustified. Still, it made her realize that after nearly two months, the nagging sense that something was wrong with the Winchesters had never entirely dissipated. She’d thought it had just been Mary’s death, but there was more than that. She felt like she barely knew John. They’d talked about their childhoods—and in John’s case, a bit about how that related to raising his sons—and school, and sometimes John talked about his experiences as a soldier (mostly the more amusing or benign anecdotes), and on even rarer occasions, he’d talked about Mary. Guardedly, as if to speak too much of her would break the fragile memories into shards. She tried to draw him out about his research, his writing, but he waved that off as a harmless pastime—a quaint obsession with which he said he didn’t wish to bore her.
“I’m a librarian,” she’d tell him when he did that. “Research is my drug of choice.” But he’d only shake his head, smile that damn irresistible smile of his, and change the subject.
Dean was smiling his father’s smile now—the hopeful, charming one that asked for a specific favor without offering any explanation.
“Well,” she said, looking around the library. Maria was working Circulation and Judith held down the fort in both Reference and their small media section. It was a slow night. There were no young kids left in Children’s except Dean and Sam. “Yes, I’m sure I could do that. Can you wait just a few more minutes while I tell the others?”
Dean nodded seriously. “Sure.” He sat down with Sam again.
Judith was going to have a field day with this, but it couldn’t be helped. As expected, she grew disproportionately excited when Beverly explained she was closing her section early.
“They say the way to a man’s heart is through his children,” Judith declared.
Beverly sighed. “For the last time, Judes, he’s—”
“Married?” Judith scoffed. “Then where’s the wife to pick them up when he’s late, hm?” Judith held up her hands. “Okay, Beverly, I’m not interfering—you know best, of course. But if he trusts you with his children, how do you know he has no feelings for you?”
“Because I know, Judes,” Beverly said too quickly to stop herself. “Because we’ve talked about it, okay?” She clamped down on her anger—it wasn’t Judith’s fault. She’d set the rules of their relationship as firmly as he had. In her more logical moments, she knew that she was right. He’d never give himself completely—and neither would she—and moreover, he would always put his boys before himself. Between Mary’s ghost and Tom’s shadow, she would be lucky to earn even fifty percent of his attention. Forcing herself to speak calmly, she continued, “Look. We’ve become a little acquainted, but I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. Right now, I’m going to make sure those two kids get home safe. And that’s all.”
Judith must have been shocked into silence, because she just nodded dumbly and finally stammered, “O-okay, Beverly. See you tomorrow.”
Beverly pivoted and went back to her section, where the boys were waiting too patiently. “What?” she asked, suspicion on high alert.
“Is it okay?” Sam asked. “For you to take us home?”
“Of course it is,” she said, smiling. The boys relaxed visibly and grabbed their stuff. She unlocked her desk drawer and took out her purse. “Will your dad be home in time to make you dinner or should we stop and get something for you on the way?”
“Oh, we’ll—” Dean started to say, but Sam interrupted him.
“C’n we stop at Wendy’s?”
Beverly should have known that if presented with waiting for a cooked meal or fast food, they would want the fast food. “Uh…sure. I suppose,” she agreed. “Come on, I’m in the back.”
“Cool, I’ve never seen the guts of a library before,” Sam said. He was happy to chatter all the way to the back where her coat was and even as far as the car.
“Wow. Is that your car?” Dean asked when he saw the Ford LTD in the lot.
“That’s right, you like old cars, don’t you?” she commented.
“Yeah. Too bad it’s a Ford,” he declared. Beverly bit back a snort of amusement.
She got them settled in the car, Sammy in the back and Dean in the bucket seat next to her, and they hit the drive-through at the Wendy’s. Faced with making conversation that wasn’t about reading, Beverly cast about for a topic. “So, what are you two going to be for Halloween?” she asked.
Given how loquacious Sam had been earlier, she fully expected the question would prompt a storm of possibilities. She was surprised and disappointed when Sam didn’t have much to say about it. “We haven’t figured it out yet,” Dean said. “I mean, Sam can usually rake in the candy, but…neither of us has enough allowance for a real costume. Not like Neil Phillips—he’s got a Spiderman costume with the hood and everything.”
“Some of the best costumes are homemade,” Beverly assured him. “It’s creativity that counts, right? I bet you’ll come up with something. What does your dad think?”
Dean scrunched up his lips and twitched them side-to-side. “Dad…doesn’t really like Halloween.”
“Oh, really, why’s that?” she asked lightly.
“He thinks it’s dumb,” Sam said from the back seat.
“Huh,” Beverly said, careful to modulate her reaction. John never struck her as the type of guy who would see any harm in Trick-or-Treating. He certainly had no religious objections, she knew that. But she also knew they’d moved a few times, so maybe that had included a few places where the neighborhoods had scares, like the old wives’ tale about razor blades in the candied apples.
She pulled up to the window and repeated their requests into the microphone. Two kids’ meals and two Frosties later, they drove away and Dean gave her directions to Mrs. Ryan’s four-unit apartment house. Lights were on in every apartment but the second-floor unit on the left. The Impala was nowhere in sight.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right until your dad gets home?” Beverly asked.
“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Dean assured her brusquely. “Thanks for the ride, and for dinner.”
“Thanks,” Sam echoed.
Dean opened his door and got out, then lifted the release to pull the seat forward for Sam. Sam slid over, handed his backpack and his Frosty to Dean, and scrambled out of the car. Beverly waited while Dean handed off backpack, Frosty, and paper sack to Sam, fished for his key in his jacket pocket, and unlocked the front door. He waved to signal her it was okay to leave.
Beverly drove past Garry’s on the way home, but the Impala wasn’t there, either.
~*~NOW~*~
Sam woke up earlier than Dean, but by the time he’d showered and made it downstairs, Beverly had left. There was a note in the kitchen, reminding them to help themselves to anything. The house key sat on the counter next to it.
Sam opened her fridge idly. At the sight of eggs, bacon, and OJ, Sam decided it had been way too long since they’d had breakfast outside a diner. He set to work.
He was scrambling the eggs in the bacon grease when Dean came downstairs. “It’s not my birthday,” Dean mused. “What’s the occasion?”
“Just felt like making a real meal,” Sam told him. “Especially if we’re heading up to Cleveland.”
Dean duckbilled his lips to agree to the plan and busied himself making toast.
“She’s got like three different kinds of jam in the fridge,” Sam told him. “Looks like they’re all Amish.”
“Dude. Score.”
Over breakfast, Sam pulled up the Case Western site again. He used the interactive map to zero in on the North Residential Village. “Okay, so Lauren lived in Cutler House, which is on the north end of the campus.”
“Right.”
“And David Owen was picked up in Shaker Heights, which is about five miles away from Lauren’s dorm.”
“Five again,” Dean said. “What’s with this demon and the number five?”
“I dunno, man, but if it really is on a five-day pattern, then Gareth Barker should get caught tomorrow.”
“Okay. Well, shouldn’t be hard to canvass both areas this afternoon. Let’s head up there.”
Sam grabbed the key and slipped it into his pocket. He turned over the note and wrote back to Beverly that they might not get back tonight; if Barker really didn’t show up again until the next day, it wouldn’t make sense to come back right away. The drive took Dean less than two hours. They wandered across the campus to Cutler House, where they charmed a coed into letting them past the security doors.
“Did Lauren live in suicide girl’s dorm room?” Dean asked.
“Uh…no. She is in room 302; the girl who killed herself lived in room 419.”
Dean led them to the 4th floor first. They picked the lock on the suite and let themselves in. Dean swept for EMF, but wasn’t surprised when they didn’t find any. “It would be the middle of the day,” he grumbled. “There’s nothin’ here, Sam.”
They snuck back out of the suite and took the stairs down one flight to find Lauren’s room. Unlike their first target, however, music inside proclaimed that someone was home. Sam knocked.
“Do you…live here?” asked the coed who answered the door. She looked like she could stand to lose about forty pounds, but had a pleasant face and pretty eyes, behind her dark-rimmed glasses.
“Ms. Saunders? Liz Saunders?” Dean said, slipping immediately into his “voice of authority,” the mild version. Sam often thought Dean would have made a great cop, for real. He did a bang-up job impersonating one, most of the time.
“Yes,” she said cautiously.
Dean smiled in a restrained way. “I’m Detective Haskell, this is Detective Mondello. We’d like to ask you a few questions about your roommate, if we could.” As he spieled out the line, he reached into his pocket and flashed his badge casually.
“Lauren?” her roommate said, paling. “I’ve already talked to two detectives from Columbus…uh, I have their cards—”
“We understand,” Sam said earnestly. “We’re just following up on a few things for the department. Could we come in?”
“Uh…” she looked uncomfortable, but more concerned than anything else. “Well, I have a class in about twenty minutes, but—”
“This shouldn’t take long,” Dean assured her, sounding very official. He pushed his way past her and into the suite. Sam followed with a reassuring smile as he passed her. They both cased the room out of habit.
After a couple basic questions, Sam asked to see their room and Liz complied. She leaned on the doorjamb at first, but Dean distracted her with the questions so Sam got a chance to scope Lauren’s room for sulfur. The whole place was clean. Sam read the titles on her bookshelves: Anthropology, Comparative Religion, and Ancient Cultures textbooks stood next to copies of several different translations of Mesopotamian texts. He pulled out one book idly; the cover was decorated with Cuneiform symbols in the form of pentagons, triangles, and squiggly lines. When he came out, Liz was answering Dean’s inquiry.
“Yeah, she was acting a little weird, talking about getting out of town when we’d just started the summer session, y’know?”
Dean nodded, but he was looking past her at Sam. Sam shook his head slightly. “Did she tell you before she left that she was going away?”
Liz shook her head. “Not a word. I just can’t understand why she’d go to Columbus in the first place, let alone that bar.”
“Did you have any idea she could take out four truckers like that?”
She narrowed her eyes, assessing whether Dean was being sarcastic or not. Sam sympathized: as well as he knew Dean, it was sometimes hard to tell if his occasional buffoon act was genuine or calculated. “No,” she said slowly. “She was…. I don’t think she’d ever hit anyone before in her life.”
Dean raised his eyebrows at Sam imperceptibly, as if taking pride that he’d uncovered a clue. Sam did his best to acknowledge without making Dean think he’d solved the whole darn case.
“One last question, Ms. Saunders,” Sam said, joining them in the common area. He pulled out the pictures of David Owen and Gareth Barker. “Have you seen either of these men before?”
“Uh…not him,” she said, pointing to Barker. “But…isn’t that the arsonist they caught last week down in Shaker Heights?”
“Have you seen him anywhere else?” Sam pressed.
“No,” she said regretfully.
“That’s okay,” Sam told her. He tore a page out of his little police-issue notebook. “If you happen to see this other guy, maybe around campus, in the next day or two, give us a call, please.”
“Okay.” She stood up and grabbed her backpack. “Look, I really need to go if I’m going to make it to class.”
“That’s all right,” Dean said, rising. “We’re done here. Thank you for your time.”
It wasn’t hard to find the site of the fire on Fernway Road. The house was a charred pile of clapboards, twisted aluminum siding, and ashes. Though the fire had blazed four days ago, Sam could swear he could smell the smoke in the air around the lot. There was nothing to see at the site, but canvassing the neighborhood revealed that David Owen had been seen that afternoon at a playground in Horseshoe Lake Park, then later at the country club, and finally at a bar off of Chagrin Blvd., before he set the fire a little after midnight.
“This is weird, man, even for us,” Sam muttered on their way back to the car after interviewing everyone on the block. Everyone who was home, anyway—it was still a little early for the commuters to be back from work.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean said. “Okay, I say we go to the bar this guy mentioned…what was it, the Ashmont Arms?”
“Ashtabula Arms,” Sam corrected. He knew Dean had a head for case details, but somehow when he had Sam along, he never bothered to listen closely.
“Okay, let’s go there, grab some grub, keep an eye out. If the two victims showed up at the same bar in Columbus, maybe Barker will come to the same place Owen did.”
“Good idea.” Even though he suspected Dean just wanted to fuel up and kick back, it was as good a place to stake out as any.
Continued....
Author name:
gwendolyngraceArtist name:
sazzletteGenre: (rps, wincest, het, gen) Gen / Het
Pairing: John/OFC
Rating: R
Word Count: 46,450, Posted in 5 1/2 parts
Warnings/Spoilers: (if applicable) Told in two eras: 2007 and 1989. The 2007 storyline is set between “Bad Day at Black Rock” and “Sin City”; the flashback sequence references “Something Wicked.”
Summary: While cleaning out John’s storage locker, Sam finds an envelope from his father addressed to someone from their past. Dean objects to delivering it, but Sam happens upon a hunt that takes them practically to her doorstep. Could they be demons released when the Gate opened? In 1989, shortly after the shtriga hunt, the Winchesters settle in small-town Ohio while John figures out whether or not he can keep hunting. Beverly Kirkland, the children’s librarian, meets the boys and their father. After a chance encounter with John, she reluctantly grows closer to him, all the while wondering what it is about the family that doesn’t quite add up….
Author’s Notes: So many things about this, but I don’t want to give stuff away. Right. Well, first off, I had this in my head long before “Supernatural: Rising Son” came out, and before I found out that Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Mary-Louise Parker were a couple (and then they broke up before I finished drafting this). The idea came up while I was writing Trost und Freude for a holiday exchange - but takes place *before* that in the Wee!chester timeline. I’m very grateful to
sazzlette for her art of awesome (10 sketches, count'em OMG! - AND a music mix!), etakyma for her unfailing willingness to read what I’ve written and tell me how to fix it, july_july_july for her incredibly insightful beta-reading, and Wikipedia for lots of helpful information, ranging from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collectibles to the names of Kansas Governors to facts (and missing information) about our MOTW. Link to fic: Part One, Part Two, Part Three-A, Part Three-B, Part Four, Part Five
Back to Part Two
~*~NOW~*~
“Jesus, Sam,” Dean complained as they packed, “of all the stupid ideas you’ve ever—”
“It’s not that dumb,” Sam countered. “It keeps us from using up the credit cards, drops us off the trail for a bit. It’s not like we’ve never done this before. Besides, aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
“Curious?” Dean parroted, his lip curling and nose scrunching up as if he smelled something bad. “Curious about what?”
“About…Dad. And Mrs. Kirkland.”
Dean smirked. “Oh, Sammy,” he said, circling the bed to swat playfully at Sam’s arm. “I thought you already knew how that stuff worked. See, when a man and a woman feel uncontrollable lust, they—”
“Shut up, you jerk,” Sam said, making no attempt to mask his irritation. “I mean important stuff.”
“There was no important stuff, okay? It was just sex. He didn’t—” Dean broke off abruptly, backed away between the beds. He crossed back to the other side and resumed shoving jeans and shirts into his duffel.
“Didn’t…what, Dean?”
“Nothin’,” Dean bit out forcefully. It was the tone he used to shut down any uncomfortable outburst, any point at which he might admit to a feeling. “Whatever, man. You want to walk down memory lane, fine. We’ll go, make the old b…broad happy.” He stumbled over “broad,” as if deciding, out of respect, to choose the less derogatory, if old-fashioned, term. “But just remember—she’s already pretty close to the truth.”
“Because she thinks Dad was fascinated by haunted houses?” Sam squinted to match the “what the hell” of his voice. “Dean, how is that different from cover stories we’ve given dozens of people over the years?”
Dean sniffed. “It just is. She’s nosy. And she’s a librarian, okay? So just…we gotta be careful, is all I’m sayin’.”
“Okay,” Sam agreed, “we’ll be careful.”
“And hope she doesn’t watch America’s Most Wanted.”
Sam snorted. “Dude. You are so not on Walsh’s hit list.”
“Hey, you never know,” Dean said, grinning with forced levity. “Dream big, Sammy!” He pulled a few button-down flannel work shirts out of the closet. “I been thinkin’, though—tomorrow, we should go up to Cleveland. If the pattern’s right, Barker will be showing up soon.”
They had left Mrs. Kirkland to use the reference section according to Sam’s original plan. He had reasoned that a public computer would be less conspicuous when he hacked the state police database in search of Barker’s car, any hints of where he might be on the way to Cleveland. He successfully penetrated the database, but he hadn’t found any evidence that Barker was anywhere on the planet, much less Interstate 71.
Sam nodded, scratching his chin. “Okay, yeah.” The joking and the return to shop talk were Dean’s way of burying the argument, making peace, making it about the job instead of them, their issues. Sam let him drop the debate in favor of the case. “It’s only a couple hours. We can go, see what we can find. Maybe someone’s reported his car or something. It’s a long shot, though.”
Dean shook his head. “I was thinking we’d hit the campus. Y’know, where Lauren disappeared? You said he’s picking up his next victim in the same area each time.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Sam allowed, tottering his head in assessment. He was careful not to dismiss any contribution Dean made at this point, to maintain the balanced footing they’d just regained. “But by the same logic, we should check into the neighborhood where David Owen set those fires.”
Dean moved into the bathroom for a last recon. “Okay, so campus, fire scenes, DMV—hat trick,” he said, his voice echoing a little on the tile. He came back out with the soaps and shampoo bottles to throw them in the dop kit. “What?” he said to Sam’s hands coming off his hips, fingers spreading. “Dude,” Dean justified himself, “she’s probably got some girlie shampoo.”
Sam held up his hand, then released it in a forward wave. “Whatever.”
“Hey, you’re gonna have to make sure we got a secure place to work with the files and all,” Dean pointed out. In typical form, once he’d committed to their course of action, Dean was growing steadily more at ease with it. “Ooh, Sam—d’you think she’ll make that chicken stuff? What was it….”
“Tetrazini?”
“Yeah. That stuff was good. You know what else she made that was good? Her mac and cheese, man.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Gimme a break,” he begged no one in particular.
~*~THEN~*~
Beverly was washing dishes when her phone rang. Hardly anyone called her after 10, except her sister in California, who could never seem to remember that Beverly was three hours ahead, not two. She picked up the phone, expecting to hear Celia’s voice.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s John,” he said in that dusky rumble.
“John,” Beverly repeated, aware that she sounded as surprised as she actually was, instead of cool and aloof like she’d have preferred. “I wasn’t sure you actually would call.”
She heard him exhale a half-laugh, half “hum” that registered her shot. “Not really a phone kind of guy,” he admitted sheepishly. “Listen, the, uh, the boys are asleep. Would it be all right if I…come over? Just to talk.”
Beverly smiled. He was both transparent and endearing. The smoke in his voice was already practically undressing her, but he didn’t want to seem disrespectful. “Sure,” she said nonchalantly, taking his request at face value for the moment. Then she remembered the state of her bed and bathroom. “Give me fifteen, twenty minutes?”
John said, “Okay. See you soon,” and hung up.
Beverly left the rest of her dishes and flew upstairs to straighten up. She didn’t think John would care if her bed hadn’t been made, but it seemed unfair and unsportsmanlike to leave her delicates hanging in the bathtub or her facial mask sitting on the counter. She ran a brush through her hair, too, laughing at herself for the vanity of it.
By the time she came back downstairs, she heard the rumble of John’s car in the driveway. The engine cut off. A few seconds later, she heard the door creak and shut, sounding comparatively loud on her quiet street. She opened the door before he could ring the doorbell.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” he said awkwardly, leaning on the doorjamb.
Beverly remembered the legends. “Are you a vampire? You need to be invited inside?”
John blinked at her. She got the impression that he was suppressing his response. After a moment, he evidently decided to laugh off whatever he was going to say. “No, I’m not a vampire,” he purred, crossing the threshold. “But I’ll bite if you want me to.”
Beverly backed out of the way to let him come inside, chuckling low in her throat. “How about a drink first?” she asked, leading him to the living room.
“Oh, God, yes,” he said gratefully.
She poured and handed him a tumbler. They sat. John sipped his whiskey like he was rationing it, but said nothing.
“How was your weekend?” she prompted.
John sucked his teeth. “A lesson in futility,” he grimaced. “Dean…kid thinks he needs to get it right first try or he’s gonna disgrace me. And Sammy…Sammy thinks he knows everything already.”
“But…how long have they been shooting? They’re new to it, right?”
John merely shrugged. “Not the firearms so much as everything. How to light a fire, how to mark a trail, how to boil water—” He stopped himself. “You…don’t want to hear about that.”
It was Beverly’s turn to shrug. “If that’s what you want to talk about,” she offered.
John shook his head. “I, uh, should have called.”
“I said no strings, John.”
“They just…take a lot of time, y’know?” he muttered. “And energy.”
“So I hear from parents all over the county,” Beverly assured him. “Six and ten—those are difficult ages.”
“They’re all difficult ages,” John grumbled.
“When did…. I mean, how long have you been on your own with them?” she asked gently.
“Five years, ten months, three weeks, six days,” he said flatly, looking at his watch, “and about sixteen hours.” He sipped his scotch, and through the burn of swallowing, he asked, “How about you? Your husband?”
“Tom?” she supplied. “Two years, three months, and about ten days,” she recited. “It doesn’t get easier; just more routine.”
“That’s for damn sure,” he agreed with a growl.
“But I don’t have the challenge of parenting, either. I expect that puts me at an advantage.”
“Did you want children?” he asked softly.
Beverly pursed her lips. “We’d talked about it,” she confessed, taking a drink. “But we weren’t…. We were still working on getting where we wanted to be. We’d bought the house about a year before, so…we were saving for a while, first.”
“And now?” John’s eyes slid in her direction. He had loaded the question, but Beverly wasn’t sure what answer would save her from the bullet.
“Now…I have the kids at the library. Maybe I’ll follow my mother’s advice and get a cat. I don’t know. But…no, I don’t think I want children anymore. Not if they can’t be Tom’s.”
John hummed in what Beverly took for approval. “Sometimes, I swear, that’s the only reason I haven’t left them to the wolves,” he said: “because they’re Mary’s.” He swallowed more whiskey. “No, that’s not true.”
“Of course not,” Beverly told him. “They idolize you.” And that was true—she’d seen the look on Sam’s face when John picked them up, heard Dean brag to other kids occasionally about his father, the hero.
John snorted. “Whatever it takes, I guess,” he said. He drained his tumbler.
“Refill?” she offered.
John shook his head. “Nah, I should…get back. Anyway. I just….” He trailed off, staring at something underneath her floorboards. “I’d like to call you again. Come over again. Sometime. If that’s okay.”
The corners of Beverly’s mouth twitched, but she kept her face mostly under control. So formal, yet so boyishly earnest. “Call whenever you like, John.”
He nodded his thanks and rose, so she walked with him to the door. Before she opened it, though, he turned swiftly and kissed her. Her mouth opened instantly and she leaned in to him. Strong arms wrapped around her back. He growled into her throat and she shuddered. “You don’t have to leave,” she invited.
“I do. God, I do,” John said, breaking away. “I wish I didn’t but I do.” He fumbled for the doorknob and backed onto the porch, where he tugged his jacket back into order. “Goodnight.”
~*~NOW~*~
Sam used the GPS in his phone to find Mrs. Kirkland’s house, since Dean didn’t remember how to get there. Her ancient car, which Sam did remember, was long gone, replaced by a shiny blue Corolla in the driveway.
“I’ve made up the guest beds,” Mrs. Kirkland told them after they brought their bags inside. “They’re still up the stairs, third door on the right, and the other one at the end of the hall.”
“I”ll go,” Dean volunteered immediately. Sam suspected he just didn’t want to be left alone with Mrs. Kirkland. Then again, knowing Dean, it was also all about picking out the better of the two rooms.
“Thanks again,” Sam said to cover Dean’s hasty exit.
“Please, you’re helping me to feel useful,” she said in response. “Come on in.” She turned and led the way to the kitchen, in the rear of the house. “I’m afraid I haven’t been to the grocery store too recently—I get used to not cooking when it’s just for me.” She opened the freezer. “Let’s see…I’ve got ground beef, some chicken…. Would you young men by offended by simple mac and cheese?”
Sam grinned. “I think Dean would love mac and cheese,” he assured her.
“Okay, then,” she said. Before pulling out the ingredients, she reached into the fridge and brought out a bottle of wine. “Or would you rather beer?” she asked, going to the drawer for the corkscrew.
“Uh….” Sam struggled with a polite answer.
Mrs. Kirkland wrinkled her nose at him. “Beer, huh? Like your dad.” She dug in the back of the fridge for some. “Don’t worry, I have a six-pack. I hope it’s not skunky.”
Sam twisted the top of the bottle she handed him and tipped it up for an experimental taste. It was darker than he was used to, but it went down cool and crisp. “Nope, s’good,” he said with approval.
Mrs. Kirkland looked relieved. She grabbed a pot to start the water for the pasta and filled it at the sink. “So, Sam…what have you and Dean been up to all this time? Where did you go to college?
“Uh…I got a scholarship to Stanford,” Sam said.
“That’s great!” She beamed at him, turning on the burner under the pot. “And your major?
Sam swigged the beer. “Well, I was going to go into law school. But….” She looked up. “Uh, my girlfriend was…killed.” It had been a long time since he’d said it. And now it felt like a lifetime ago. When was the last time he’d thought of Jess, even? Sam could barely remember. Realizing it felt like a kick in the chest.
“Oh my God, Sam. That’s awful.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed morosely. “So Dean and me, we’ve been on a road trip. And somewhere along the way we decided to start working on a book. Y’know, a kind of Travels With Charlie meets Time Life’s Unexplained America, or something.”
Mrs. Kirkland nodded, going back to the fridge for the butter and cheese. “So…how long have you been on the road?”
Sam thought about it. “A little more than two years.”
“All that time?” she asked, surprised.
“Well, I had just been planning to go back to school when…Dad passed away. I guess it’s just—not important anymore. Plus, Dean—” he stopped himself and put down the beer bottle heavily. “Do you…need any help with that?” he asked, to change the subject. Talking to her was dangerous. Dean was right. It was too familiar, too…comfortable, in her kitchen. He’d have to watch himself.
Luckily, Dean came in the room at that moment. “There you are,” he said, as if the house had grown an extra wing and he’d been looking through a neighborhood’s worth of rooms. “Catching up, are we?” He flashed a warning to Sam with his eyes.
“Little bit,” Sam replied, an answering plea to Dean to play it cool in his expression. “I was just telling Mrs. Kirkland about our roadtrip that never seems to end.”
“Beverly, please,” Mrs. Kirkland said.
“Uh-huh,” Dean observed coolly over her invitation to use her first name. He pointed to Sam’s longneck. “Hey, is there another one of those, or am I gonna have to claim the privilege of the older brother?”
“There’s more,” Mrs. Kirkland assured him. “Sam, would you?” Sam was closer to the fridge, sitting as he was on the island bar between the sink and the stove.
“Hey, your kitchen wasn’t like this back then, was it?” Dean asked more cordially as Sam slid off his stool and dove into the stainless steel appliance.
“No. I redid it about…two years ago?” Mrs. Kirkland mused. “Hard to believe it’s been that long.”
Sam banged his head on the fridge door in his surprise. Hadn’t he just been thinking the same thing about Jess? He rubbed the top of his head and handed Dean the beer over his brother’s chuckle.
The water started boiling, so she dumped in the macaroni and stirred it, turning down the heat. “So, Sam tells me he’s been taking time off from school. What about you, Dean?”
Dean looked sidelong at Sam. He popped the lid off his beer with his ring and took a healthy pull before answering. “Well, if you recall, I was never really the school type,” he said with a sniff. “Mostly I’ve been working freelance, here and there, kinda following in Dad’s footsteps.”
“As a mechanic, or an author?” she asked. “Or both?”
“Both,” Dean said with a nod. “Hey, Sammy, we should let Mrs. Kirkland work—”
“Beverly, and not at all, I like the company,” she said cheerfully. She turned back to the stove with a pan to melt the butter and cheese for the sauce.
“So…you didn’t ever remarry?” Sam asked politely.
“No,” she said smiling, shaking her head. “Never got a cat, either.” She stirred the macaroni again. Sam got the impression the cat comment was a private joke. “So tell me, fellas, what kind of true crime leads you to this neck of the woods?”
“Well…we’re doing…sort of an investigative piece right now,” Sam said, “on a case outside Columbus.”
“Investigation?” Mrs. Kirkland said. “So…you’re freelance reporters? This is an article? Or is it still for a book?”
“Book,” said Dean, right at the same time Sam said, “Article.” He and Dean locked eyes.
“Well, we were hoping to sell the story first, but...it’ll be in the book, too,” Sam promised. “Speaking of which, we’re planning to drive up to Cleveland tomorrow.”
Mrs. Kirkland nodded. “Okay. Tell you what—I’ll give you guys a spare key. That way you can come and go as you please.”
Dean swallowed. “No, really, that’s—”
“It’s no trouble, Dean. I put you two up for what, about a month?” She poured a little wine into the sauce. “I think I can stand to have my house invaded for a few days.”
About an hour later, Dean was polishing off his third helping of mac and cheese, and Sam wondered if his brother remembered any of his own warnings about being careful around Mrs. Kirkland. Dean’s charm was dialed up to eleven. Luckily, he was so practiced at deflecting topics through half-truths and outright lies that Sam didn’t think Mrs. Kirkland even realized Dean was double-talking her. Still, a couple times Dean skirted too close to the ridiculous, and Sam had to pull him back from the edge.
After dinner, she said, “I have some work to do in the office, but you two help yourselves to the TV and all if you like.”
Sam said, “We’ll clean up,” with a look at Dean. If they weren’t paying for the room, or the food, it was the least they could do.
“Sure,” Dean agreed with the amiable brightness that meant he’d rather tongue an alligator.
“Nope—the new kitchen has a dishwasher,” Mrs. Kirkland said. “So if you’d like to rinse and stack, that’d be great. But don’t worry—I remember how much Dean liked housework.”
“Okay,” Sam shared her laugh at Dean’s expense. “Uh…do you have a wireless connection, by chance?”
She grimaced. “No. But my next door neighbor does. If you’ve got a card, his net isn’t encrypted.”
Sam looked at her like she’d just corrected Dean on the lyrics to Quadrephenia.
“What?” she said, grinning impishly. “Did you think because I’m an old widow-lady librarian, I’m not above piggy-backing a wireless bubble?” She laughed and went to her office.
~*~THEN~*~
John called Beverly three days after he’d left her on her own doorstep, but he didn’t come over that night, either. They talked for about half an hour. The next night, he called again, and did come over. Then she didn’t see him for a week.
At the library, Sam and Dean came in after school nearly every day. She treated them like all the other kids—according to their natures, needs, and her standards. She tried to keep questions about their father balanced: not so many that they thought she was stalking him, not so few that their absence was itself conspicuous.
One Saturday, John brought the boys in and, as in their first visit, left them in the children’s section while he wandered off to Reference.
“So, Dean, what’s your Dad doing over there, d’you know?” she asked casually.
Dean shrugged, but Sam said “Research,” as if it were the equivalent of crimefighting or surgery or some other profession.
“Oh?” she said, making sure to sound suitably impressed. “What kind of research?”
Sam bit his lip. Dean sighed. “Local history and stuff. He’s working on a book.”
“About what?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “About local history. Duh.”
“Yes, I got that part, thank you,” Beverly told him. “No need to be rude.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. He actually opened a book, as if to apologize.
“I meant, is there something particular he’s writing about? The Mennonite communities? Local legends? The Civil War or something more recent?”
“Oh.” Dean thought about it. “Nah. Just stuff.”
John came back two hours later. “Mount up, boys,” he said briskly. He handed Dean the keys. “Take your brother to the car, unless either of you need the head first.”
Dean beamed down at the keys in his hand. He grabbed Sam’s arm and began to drag him away, looking more at them than where he was going. “Do not start the car, Dean,” John said at his son’s back.
The effect was instantaneous. Dean turned around. “Yes, sir,” he said crisply. The look on his face made Beverly remember what John had said about how Dean thought he had to get everything perfect on his first try. She saw it now, in his eyes: He was terrified his father would tell him he’d messed up.
John saw her watching the boy and dismissed him with another nod. Dean nodded back, and it looked to Beverly like he could have saluted military-style if not for her standing there observing. Dean turned and, with one hand on Sam’s shoulder, headed for the exit. John turned back to her and shrugged as if to acknowledge that Dean was a little irrational. But she detected a hint of exasperation in John, too, that went beyond simple bewilderment. There was a tension in him that he didn’t have with Sam, even when Sam was whining or questioning his father’s directive.
She let it go, though, in favor of other, more intriguing, information she wanted to know. “Dean says you’re writing about the local history?” she asked quizzically, casually. “It’s not a history of Wendy’s, is it?”
John huffed. “They would love that,” he said, eyes crinkling with laughter as he nodded toward his children, “but no.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Uh, yeah,” John said, one shoe tapping the table leg idly. “Architecture, mostly,” he rumbled. “I’m interested in the history of older buildings. Like the Johnson House.”
“The Johnson House out on Route 736?” she said. “Isn’t that supposedly haunted?”
John smiled teasingly. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” he asked, like they were both twelve and he was about to dare her to go ring the doorbell and run.
“Only when they look like Rex Harrison. Or James Caan,” she replied. “Think you’ll be free tonight?” she asked more quietly.
“Not tonight, no,” he said with regret. “But…maybe tomorrow?”
Beverly nodded an okay, and he winked at her before following his boys out to the parking lot.
Judith came running over the second he departed. “Bev! You never told me you and that guy—what’s his name?”
“Winchester,” Bevery supplied blandly.
Judith cocked her head with curiosity. “Is that what you call him in the throes of passion?”
“Judes!” Beverly hissed at her. “Honestly,” she continued nonchalantly, going to her chair, “it’s not what you think.”
“Oh, pshaw. He’s obviously interested in you. Do you expect me to believe you’re not going to take advantage of that opportunity?” Judith perched on the edge of Beverly’s desk. “Especially an opportunity in a package like that?” Judith fanned herself with a nearby catalog card. “I mean, if I weren’t married, I’d—”
“But he is, remember, Judith?” Beverly lied for no other reason than to keep Judith quiet and out of her hair. “Married, with kids. So sorry to disappoint you, but there will be no riding off into the sunset for me and John Winchester.” She snatched the catalog card out of Judith’s hand and filed it officiously.
“Okay, Beverly, okay,” Judith told her, standing up with her hands out, instantly contrite. “I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot.”
“Nothing’s bruised, Judith,” Beverly said, eyes cast heavenward.
“No, but…you like him, too. Don’t you?”
Beverly sighed. The last thing she needed was any of the other staff to send him signals that she was being indiscreet—or worse, for Sam and Dean to pick up on the flirtation between her and their father. They were great kids…but they weren’t her kids. “Look, Judith. Whether I like him or not isn’t the issue, and forgive me, but it’s not any of your business, either. He’s a customer, and I’m his sons’ librarian. And that’s all.”
Judith nodded, clucking sympathetically. “Of course, Bev. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just…you know we all just want the best for you.”
Beverly gritted her teeth and blinked at Judith. Her coworker had always been presumptuous, but the blatant patronizing, the “poor Beverly” act, and the way every conversation somehow came back to how incomplete she must feel without Tom, had reached new depths. “I’m going to lunch,” she announced, because it seemed a better thing to say to Judith than, Fuck off, bitch. She stood up, took a couple steps away, and stopped. “Hey, Judes?” she said, feigning forgiveness.
“Yes, dear?” Judith smiled at her as if expecting an apology. Like Beverly was the one who should be apologizing.
“Do you have any idea what he was researching all morning?”
Judith’s head rocked back a little on her neck when she parsed Beverly’s question. “Well, let me think…. He definitely wanted to know about the Johnson House—everything I could dig up on it, when it was built, everything about the Johnsons, like when and how Isaiah Johnson died….”
“What else? Anything about the architecture, or any other local historical sites?”
Judith narrowed her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m curious about whether he’s doing his older son’s homework for him,” Beverly bit out quickly. “Was it just the Johnson House or anything else?”
Judith’s eyebrows flicked upward, but she shrugged and drew back the corners of her mouth in an apologetic smirk. “This morning, it was all about the Johnsons. But he was in last night—you were off—and he checked out a book about Amish and Mennonite hex signs.”
Beverly frowned. It didn’t add up, but then, she knew how researching one thing could lead to a tangent, which led to another, until what started as an article on Ohio Valley settlers could turn into a treatise on Mayan burial customs or Sumerian gods. Not that it had ever happened to her.
“Beverly?” Judith said solicitously. “Is something wrong?”
She must have looked lost, standing there trying to figure out why John would be so secretive. She shook her head. “No. No, nothing’s wrong.” She checked her watch, held up her wrist to wriggle it at Judith. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
~*~NOW~*~
In next to no time, Sam had the computer connected and was surfing for any other information on the case. Dean poked around the room, idly repositioning a small piece of statuary on her shelf. “She has books everywhere,” he commented.
“She’s a librarian, Dean,” Sam pointed out.
“Yeah, but…how many versions of The Epic of Gilgamesh does one person need?”
Sam stared at him. “Jess had about fifteen different versions of Arthurian myths. For her senior thesis.”
Dean grimaced, as if guilty to have reminded Sam of anything he associated with Jess. Cowed, he clicked on the TV, more to cover any conversation they might have than to actually pay attention. It didn’t stop him flipping through the channels.
“Man, I don’t feel right, ordering pay-per-view on her TV,” he grumbled.
Sam chortled. “You do have a conscience, then,” he observed.
“Oh, shut up.”
“She’s cool, though,” Sam commented cautiously. “I guess as kids, we didn’t really get to see that.”
“No,” Dean allowed. “She was just the librarian. And the chick Dad was banging.”
Sam grunted. He tapped at the keyboard, trying a password to get into the Ohio Registry for information about Barker’s car. He’d managed to download a file, but it was encrypted. “I don’t even remember her and Dad—as a couple, I mean,” he said.
Dean waved his head back and forth, eyes closed, his version of a shrug combined with remembering. “Yeah, you were pretty little. And they didn’t…parade it, or anything,” he mused. “Actually, they were pretty careful. There were a couple tipoffs, though.”
“Such as?” Sam pushed. He wanted to know, while Dean was in a talkative mood. He had always been this way: Sam had to coax information out of Dean, wait for him to feel like giving up his memories or reactions, catch him at the right time or in the right frame of mind to share, instead of shut down. It was an old dance, one he was used to doing with Dean, leading by letting Dean lead.
Dean leaned back on the couch, put his feet up on the coffee table. “Well, Dad would go out, after we were in bed. I know ‘cause he’d come back really late, and I’d wake up, but he’d just…duck his head in, really quiet, y’know? Tryin’ to check on us without waking us. I kinda figured…he didn’t want us to know.”
“How’d you know it was Mrs. Kirkland, though?” Sam wondered. “Or…when, I guess. When did you put it together?”
Dean thought about it, shrugged. “Probably…about Halloween? You prob’ly don’t remember, but he went on this job. Dad usually dug up a hunt around that time of year—I guess to get his mind off Mom. Used to be he’d drop us with Bobby or Pastor Jim, so he could spend the days around the anniversary of the fire alone. I’m pretty sure he got drunk a couple of those times.” He sighed. “Anyway, he’d been going on shorter trips at that point, not even really overnight, but this was gonna be a few days. And he told me…he told me to call Pastor Jim if he wasn’t back at the end of the week. But then he said…” he cleared his throat, “he said that if you wanted to, I could take you to the library. And he told me that if we went, we should wait around and then tell Mrs. Kirkland that he’d probably been held up at work and to ask for a ride home.”
“Whoa. Dead giveaway—that’s not like Dad.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean agreed. He lolled his head left and right along the back of the couch. “Like I never knew about Tina, either.”
“Who?” Sam squinted at him.
Dean blew out his cheeks with a sigh. “Yeah, you were about two, there’s no way you’d remember. First time I remember Dad getting any. We were in Modesto and she had the room next to ours. Took me a while to figure out that the noises from her room weren’t from the TV. She and Dad got kinda…friendly.” Dean waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Are you…seriously saying Dad paid for sex?”
Dean shrugged. “Sam, I was six. How would I know? But I know he went next door more than once and I know it wasn’t just to borrow sugar.”
“Fuck,” Sam said, drawing the word out to three syllables.
“Exactly. Anyway, Dad didn’t want me to know, because when I asked he just said he was being a good neighbor and they were having some ‘grownup fun.’ But it was obvious something was up. Same with Mrs. Kirkland. Dad wasn’t really as clever as he thought. I mean, there was Christmas. And all of January.”
“So…can I ask you something?” Sam asked.
Dean slid his eyes sideways. “If you have to ask that, probably not.”
Sam smiled; Dean’s tone was gruff, but the corners of his mouth had twitched. “Okay. But, you knew Dad hooked up occasionally.”
“Sure. He was male, Sam. Hell, even you hook up occasionally.”
“Ha-ha. My point is, if you knew he and Mrs. Kirkland had a thing…why does it matter now? Why so negative about seeing her?”
Dean turned up the volume. He swallowed. Sam waited. “Like I said, I didn’t think she’d want to see us. I mean, we probably don’t represent very good memories.” He fell silent.
Sam concentrated on his computer screen, but stole glances at Dean for a clue as to what he was thinking. It could have been anything from a simple pause to digest his dinner to regret that he didn’t have a Mrs. Kirkland in his life. Embarrassed, he stared at the downloaded file on his screen again, and the decryption hit him like a sudden jolt. He typed in the decryption code and the program bloomed into activity. He made a wordless sound of triumph.
Dean glanced over and Sam pointed at the screen to indicate his success. “Not long, now.”
After a minute, Dean launched himself off the couch swiftly. “Well, I’m getting another beer. You want one?”
Sam stared. Dean being solicitous was a clear sign of the apocalypse, or something. “Sure,” he said, trying not to sound suspicious, choosing not to comment on Dean’s unusual generosity.
His computer beeped; the file had decrypted. He launched and browsed through it, looking for anything notable that could help pin down this case. The demon had to have a reason for abandoning its hosts after only five days, but Sam couldn’t figure out what. It nagged at him, as did the travel and the senseless crimes. It was like they were luring him and Dean onto their trail. Unbidden, the voice of the demonic Pride ran through his head, calling him “Boy King” and crowing that many of the demons now on earth had no intention of following him. In fact, they had opposite plans. What if this case were an elaborate trap, a ruse to draw them into the area? There was no telling what they had planned if they caught him—whoever “they” were.
Dean came back, beer in tow, and settled on the couch again. “Getting anywhere?”
Sam hummed negatively. He pulled up the Google map and stared at 271 as if it would give him a clue. Then he toggled to the open tab with Case Western’s site again. “Well, I figured out what dorm Lauren Kennedy lived in, researched it for strange occurrences, deaths, etc.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And there was a suicide there, five years ago.” He paused for Dean’s reaction.
“Okay, so?”
“I dunno,” Sam admitted wearily, giving up the pretense that the suicide record was significant by itself. “But the bar where David Owen disappeared and Lauren showed up? Lowell’s Tavern? There was an incident with two patrons. Playing Russian Roulette.”
“Oh, man,” Dean said, somewhere between disgust and admiration at the sheer stupidity of human beings. “And let me guess, one of them got blown away? Ew, very Deer Hunter, man—that’s sick.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed, “and the other one felt so guilty, he ate his gun about two weeks later.”
“Weird. What the heck do suicides have to do with demonic possession?”
Sam’s eyebrows twitched. “Well, a lot of religions believe that suicides automatically go to Hell. Catholicism in particular.” He ignored the look Dean gave him whenever he was forced into lecture mode. “Maybe this demon has an affinity for suicides, so it gravitated to places where a suicide was committed?”
Dean grunted. “Hm. Maybe.” He flicked the channel button on the remote. “Dude, there’s nothing on.”
“Go back to the Food Network,” Sam muttered.
Dean grinned like a gremlin that had just found an unobstructed airline engine. “Why, Sammy. You got a secret man-crush on Bobby Flay?”
Sam shook his head at his brother. “I don’t even know who that is, and yet I’m the gay one?” he commented. “Food network is…benign.”
“So’s HGTV, but you actually get power tools once in a while.”
“Yeah, in between techniques like crackle and upholstering, and talk about color and window treatments. Seriously? You’re honestly saying home decorating is less girly than food? Jerk.”
Dean smirked. “Whatever, bitch.” But he found the Food Network, just as Iron Chef America was coming on. They bet each other over which chef would win after Alton Brown announced “tomatoes” as the secret ingredient.
~*~THEN~*~
The change of season caught Beverly off guard. One day it was still summer, it seemed, with mild days and sunshine, and overnight, there was frost on the grass and the leaves had dropped from the trees, and the students at the library lugged heavy coats in addition to their backpacks.
She saw John once or perhaps twice a week, with no regularity, but he called in between visits without asking to come over. He barely came in to the library; she wasn’t sure whether that was reluctance to see her or worry that he’d make their relationship plain to everyone—including Dean and Sam. By phone, he’d talked tentatively about how important the boys were to him, how fragile he thought their family was in the wake of Mary’s death. “I just—keeping us together, keeping them where I can watch over them—that’s all I can think of,” he admitted. But if Beverly wondered why he felt so protective of his children, he changed the subject subtly.
He did indicate, by action if not in so many words, that Dean in particular was incredibly sensitive to—and belligerent toward—any woman who dared fill the role of a mother toward him. “I can’t quite explain to him,” John said one night in her room. “He’s not old enough yet to understand that there’s a difference between love and—” He broke off, stroked her arm contritely. “Sorry—that was pretty crass,” he apologized.
“Not at all, John,” Beverly told him, pinching his side. “Lucky for you, you’re just a piece of tail to me, too.”
“That’s not what I—”
“I know what you meant, John,” Beverly said wearily. “Don’t try to fix it; you’ll only bury yourself deeper.” She sat up, patting his chest maternally. “Besides, I thought we were both clear on the limits, here. You’re a damn attractive man, John, but as I’ve told you before, you’re no Tom.”
John nodded and reached up to stroke her neck. He cupped his hand around the back of her head. “Does that mean you’re kicking me out, or…are you up for another round?”
She smiled coquettishly, bending under the slight pressure of his hand. He pulled her toward him. She pressed her lips against his mouth, and as their kiss deepened, she wrapped her leg over his hip, leaning her hands on his chest. No, he wasn’t Tom, but damn, he was a lot of fun.
The next day Sam and Dean arrived at the library, both in high dudgeon. It was unusual for both of them to be out of sorts at the same time, so Beverly paid particular attention to them during the two hours it usually took for John to get them. Dean made no move to wait at the door with Sam, but let his brother keep reading long after the other kids filtered out. Beverly could only describe Dean’s behavior as sulking. Sam, for all that he had quickly buried himself in his book, seemed depressed as well. She checked the time: five-thirty, and no sign of John. Finally, Sam looked up at his brother.
“Dean, m’hungry.”
Dean scowled. “You’re always hungry, runt.”
“M’really hungry, though,” Sam insisted. But he didn’t ask Dean about where their father was, or why he was late. He looked at Dean and then as if prompting the older boy, he inclined his head and pointed his eyes in her direction. Dean’s jaw jutted out, as if being asked to do something distasteful. He pushed out from the table and approached her with caution bordering on prejudice.
“Mrs.—Mrs. Kirkland?”
“Yes, Dean?”
He looked back at Sam, as if for moral support. Beverly’s heart suddenly beat very fast. Could it be that after all this time, she’d been dead wrong about John? He really was an alcoholic, he really did beat the boys bloody—and she’d done nothing.
But Dean swallowed and dispelled her irrational fear with his next sentence. “Our dad said…he said he might get held up at work tonight. And that if he was, we should ask if you could give us a ride home.”
Beverly felt an unimaginable relief wash over her. Followed by guilt. Considering the late night phone calls and their somewhat frequent hookups, her sudden jump back to “child abuse” was unjustified. Still, it made her realize that after nearly two months, the nagging sense that something was wrong with the Winchesters had never entirely dissipated. She’d thought it had just been Mary’s death, but there was more than that. She felt like she barely knew John. They’d talked about their childhoods—and in John’s case, a bit about how that related to raising his sons—and school, and sometimes John talked about his experiences as a soldier (mostly the more amusing or benign anecdotes), and on even rarer occasions, he’d talked about Mary. Guardedly, as if to speak too much of her would break the fragile memories into shards. She tried to draw him out about his research, his writing, but he waved that off as a harmless pastime—a quaint obsession with which he said he didn’t wish to bore her.
“I’m a librarian,” she’d tell him when he did that. “Research is my drug of choice.” But he’d only shake his head, smile that damn irresistible smile of his, and change the subject.
Dean was smiling his father’s smile now—the hopeful, charming one that asked for a specific favor without offering any explanation.
“Well,” she said, looking around the library. Maria was working Circulation and Judith held down the fort in both Reference and their small media section. It was a slow night. There were no young kids left in Children’s except Dean and Sam. “Yes, I’m sure I could do that. Can you wait just a few more minutes while I tell the others?”
Dean nodded seriously. “Sure.” He sat down with Sam again.
Judith was going to have a field day with this, but it couldn’t be helped. As expected, she grew disproportionately excited when Beverly explained she was closing her section early.
“They say the way to a man’s heart is through his children,” Judith declared.
Beverly sighed. “For the last time, Judes, he’s—”
“Married?” Judith scoffed. “Then where’s the wife to pick them up when he’s late, hm?” Judith held up her hands. “Okay, Beverly, I’m not interfering—you know best, of course. But if he trusts you with his children, how do you know he has no feelings for you?”
“Because I know, Judes,” Beverly said too quickly to stop herself. “Because we’ve talked about it, okay?” She clamped down on her anger—it wasn’t Judith’s fault. She’d set the rules of their relationship as firmly as he had. In her more logical moments, she knew that she was right. He’d never give himself completely—and neither would she—and moreover, he would always put his boys before himself. Between Mary’s ghost and Tom’s shadow, she would be lucky to earn even fifty percent of his attention. Forcing herself to speak calmly, she continued, “Look. We’ve become a little acquainted, but I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. Right now, I’m going to make sure those two kids get home safe. And that’s all.”
Judith must have been shocked into silence, because she just nodded dumbly and finally stammered, “O-okay, Beverly. See you tomorrow.”
Beverly pivoted and went back to her section, where the boys were waiting too patiently. “What?” she asked, suspicion on high alert.
“Is it okay?” Sam asked. “For you to take us home?”
“Of course it is,” she said, smiling. The boys relaxed visibly and grabbed their stuff. She unlocked her desk drawer and took out her purse. “Will your dad be home in time to make you dinner or should we stop and get something for you on the way?”
“Oh, we’ll—” Dean started to say, but Sam interrupted him.
“C’n we stop at Wendy’s?”
Beverly should have known that if presented with waiting for a cooked meal or fast food, they would want the fast food. “Uh…sure. I suppose,” she agreed. “Come on, I’m in the back.”
“Cool, I’ve never seen the guts of a library before,” Sam said. He was happy to chatter all the way to the back where her coat was and even as far as the car.
“Wow. Is that your car?” Dean asked when he saw the Ford LTD in the lot.
“That’s right, you like old cars, don’t you?” she commented.
“Yeah. Too bad it’s a Ford,” he declared. Beverly bit back a snort of amusement.
She got them settled in the car, Sammy in the back and Dean in the bucket seat next to her, and they hit the drive-through at the Wendy’s. Faced with making conversation that wasn’t about reading, Beverly cast about for a topic. “So, what are you two going to be for Halloween?” she asked.
Given how loquacious Sam had been earlier, she fully expected the question would prompt a storm of possibilities. She was surprised and disappointed when Sam didn’t have much to say about it. “We haven’t figured it out yet,” Dean said. “I mean, Sam can usually rake in the candy, but…neither of us has enough allowance for a real costume. Not like Neil Phillips—he’s got a Spiderman costume with the hood and everything.”
“Some of the best costumes are homemade,” Beverly assured him. “It’s creativity that counts, right? I bet you’ll come up with something. What does your dad think?”
Dean scrunched up his lips and twitched them side-to-side. “Dad…doesn’t really like Halloween.”
“Oh, really, why’s that?” she asked lightly.
“He thinks it’s dumb,” Sam said from the back seat.
“Huh,” Beverly said, careful to modulate her reaction. John never struck her as the type of guy who would see any harm in Trick-or-Treating. He certainly had no religious objections, she knew that. But she also knew they’d moved a few times, so maybe that had included a few places where the neighborhoods had scares, like the old wives’ tale about razor blades in the candied apples.
She pulled up to the window and repeated their requests into the microphone. Two kids’ meals and two Frosties later, they drove away and Dean gave her directions to Mrs. Ryan’s four-unit apartment house. Lights were on in every apartment but the second-floor unit on the left. The Impala was nowhere in sight.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right until your dad gets home?” Beverly asked.
“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Dean assured her brusquely. “Thanks for the ride, and for dinner.”
“Thanks,” Sam echoed.
Dean opened his door and got out, then lifted the release to pull the seat forward for Sam. Sam slid over, handed his backpack and his Frosty to Dean, and scrambled out of the car. Beverly waited while Dean handed off backpack, Frosty, and paper sack to Sam, fished for his key in his jacket pocket, and unlocked the front door. He waved to signal her it was okay to leave.
Beverly drove past Garry’s on the way home, but the Impala wasn’t there, either.
~*~NOW~*~
Sam woke up earlier than Dean, but by the time he’d showered and made it downstairs, Beverly had left. There was a note in the kitchen, reminding them to help themselves to anything. The house key sat on the counter next to it.
Sam opened her fridge idly. At the sight of eggs, bacon, and OJ, Sam decided it had been way too long since they’d had breakfast outside a diner. He set to work.
He was scrambling the eggs in the bacon grease when Dean came downstairs. “It’s not my birthday,” Dean mused. “What’s the occasion?”
“Just felt like making a real meal,” Sam told him. “Especially if we’re heading up to Cleveland.”
Dean duckbilled his lips to agree to the plan and busied himself making toast.
“She’s got like three different kinds of jam in the fridge,” Sam told him. “Looks like they’re all Amish.”
“Dude. Score.”
Over breakfast, Sam pulled up the Case Western site again. He used the interactive map to zero in on the North Residential Village. “Okay, so Lauren lived in Cutler House, which is on the north end of the campus.”
“Right.”
“And David Owen was picked up in Shaker Heights, which is about five miles away from Lauren’s dorm.”
“Five again,” Dean said. “What’s with this demon and the number five?”
“I dunno, man, but if it really is on a five-day pattern, then Gareth Barker should get caught tomorrow.”
“Okay. Well, shouldn’t be hard to canvass both areas this afternoon. Let’s head up there.”
Sam grabbed the key and slipped it into his pocket. He turned over the note and wrote back to Beverly that they might not get back tonight; if Barker really didn’t show up again until the next day, it wouldn’t make sense to come back right away. The drive took Dean less than two hours. They wandered across the campus to Cutler House, where they charmed a coed into letting them past the security doors.
“Did Lauren live in suicide girl’s dorm room?” Dean asked.
“Uh…no. She is in room 302; the girl who killed herself lived in room 419.”
Dean led them to the 4th floor first. They picked the lock on the suite and let themselves in. Dean swept for EMF, but wasn’t surprised when they didn’t find any. “It would be the middle of the day,” he grumbled. “There’s nothin’ here, Sam.”
They snuck back out of the suite and took the stairs down one flight to find Lauren’s room. Unlike their first target, however, music inside proclaimed that someone was home. Sam knocked.
“Do you…live here?” asked the coed who answered the door. She looked like she could stand to lose about forty pounds, but had a pleasant face and pretty eyes, behind her dark-rimmed glasses.
“Ms. Saunders? Liz Saunders?” Dean said, slipping immediately into his “voice of authority,” the mild version. Sam often thought Dean would have made a great cop, for real. He did a bang-up job impersonating one, most of the time.
“Yes,” she said cautiously.
Dean smiled in a restrained way. “I’m Detective Haskell, this is Detective Mondello. We’d like to ask you a few questions about your roommate, if we could.” As he spieled out the line, he reached into his pocket and flashed his badge casually.
“Lauren?” her roommate said, paling. “I’ve already talked to two detectives from Columbus…uh, I have their cards—”
“We understand,” Sam said earnestly. “We’re just following up on a few things for the department. Could we come in?”
“Uh…” she looked uncomfortable, but more concerned than anything else. “Well, I have a class in about twenty minutes, but—”
“This shouldn’t take long,” Dean assured her, sounding very official. He pushed his way past her and into the suite. Sam followed with a reassuring smile as he passed her. They both cased the room out of habit.
After a couple basic questions, Sam asked to see their room and Liz complied. She leaned on the doorjamb at first, but Dean distracted her with the questions so Sam got a chance to scope Lauren’s room for sulfur. The whole place was clean. Sam read the titles on her bookshelves: Anthropology, Comparative Religion, and Ancient Cultures textbooks stood next to copies of several different translations of Mesopotamian texts. He pulled out one book idly; the cover was decorated with Cuneiform symbols in the form of pentagons, triangles, and squiggly lines. When he came out, Liz was answering Dean’s inquiry.
“Yeah, she was acting a little weird, talking about getting out of town when we’d just started the summer session, y’know?”
Dean nodded, but he was looking past her at Sam. Sam shook his head slightly. “Did she tell you before she left that she was going away?”
Liz shook her head. “Not a word. I just can’t understand why she’d go to Columbus in the first place, let alone that bar.”
“Did you have any idea she could take out four truckers like that?”
She narrowed her eyes, assessing whether Dean was being sarcastic or not. Sam sympathized: as well as he knew Dean, it was sometimes hard to tell if his occasional buffoon act was genuine or calculated. “No,” she said slowly. “She was…. I don’t think she’d ever hit anyone before in her life.”
Dean raised his eyebrows at Sam imperceptibly, as if taking pride that he’d uncovered a clue. Sam did his best to acknowledge without making Dean think he’d solved the whole darn case.
“One last question, Ms. Saunders,” Sam said, joining them in the common area. He pulled out the pictures of David Owen and Gareth Barker. “Have you seen either of these men before?”
“Uh…not him,” she said, pointing to Barker. “But…isn’t that the arsonist they caught last week down in Shaker Heights?”
“Have you seen him anywhere else?” Sam pressed.
“No,” she said regretfully.
“That’s okay,” Sam told her. He tore a page out of his little police-issue notebook. “If you happen to see this other guy, maybe around campus, in the next day or two, give us a call, please.”
“Okay.” She stood up and grabbed her backpack. “Look, I really need to go if I’m going to make it to class.”
“That’s all right,” Dean said, rising. “We’re done here. Thank you for your time.”
It wasn’t hard to find the site of the fire on Fernway Road. The house was a charred pile of clapboards, twisted aluminum siding, and ashes. Though the fire had blazed four days ago, Sam could swear he could smell the smoke in the air around the lot. There was nothing to see at the site, but canvassing the neighborhood revealed that David Owen had been seen that afternoon at a playground in Horseshoe Lake Park, then later at the country club, and finally at a bar off of Chagrin Blvd., before he set the fire a little after midnight.
“This is weird, man, even for us,” Sam muttered on their way back to the car after interviewing everyone on the block. Everyone who was home, anyway—it was still a little early for the commuters to be back from work.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean said. “Okay, I say we go to the bar this guy mentioned…what was it, the Ashmont Arms?”
“Ashtabula Arms,” Sam corrected. He knew Dean had a head for case details, but somehow when he had Sam along, he never bothered to listen closely.
“Okay, let’s go there, grab some grub, keep an eye out. If the two victims showed up at the same bar in Columbus, maybe Barker will come to the same place Owen did.”
“Good idea.” Even though he suspected Dean just wanted to fuel up and kick back, it was as good a place to stake out as any.
Continued....
