FIC: Beyond the Speed of Light (Dean & Sam, gen, PG-13) 1/2
Written for spn_reversebang, for this amazing art prompt by blondebitz. Her artwork is entitled "Fate and the Paradox Beyond," with the description, "Sam is a fugitive wanted by the state. Dean is a disillusioned Starship captain who transports supplies off world between outposts/cities. Sam evades capture by stowing away on board the starship." I absolutely loved the piece, and I'm super grateful to morganoconner who proxy-claimed it for me. Unfortunately, I cannot sufficiently apologize to blondebitz for being a terrible collaborator, but she was extremely forbearing, and even made a second gorgeous piece! Be sure to give her lots of love. I also need to apologize to her for the story emerging as Dean&Sam rather than Dean/Sam.
The story is also significantly inspired by Firefly, although it is not a crossover. There were just so many good correlations: Sam/River, Dean/Mal, and of course Crowley/Badger...
The viewscreen darkens, atmosphere thinning and fading to black, as Baby soars upwards. Dean guides her with the tiniest of adjustments, her controls so familiar that his hands could fly her in his sleep. It's as much for his benefit as hers - more, really, truth be told. She doesn't need him for a routine launch like this, but he never puts her on auto-pilot if he can help it. Flying her grounds him, always has. He takes a deep breath, tries to shrug off the unease riding his shoulders.
Another dead end.
At least the job had worked out. More or less. He hadn't been shot. Might even make some money off this run. The local beer had been decent, and he'd gotten laid by a pro. For free. Without having his pants stolen.
But nobody had admitted to knowing a John Winchester.
He's running out of leads and ideas. If he keeps hunting, all Dean's likely to get is trouble.
He might have gotten some already. There's something odd about the feel of the ship.
He scans the dials and gauges. Nothing reads out of the ordinary. He listens to the pitch of Baby's engine, as familiar as his own pulse: normal. Yet he's still got a sense of unease. Maybe he just needs to get some sleep.
Maybe it's time to give up.
Keep flying.
He stares out into the black and knows he won't stop.
Sam jolts wide awake from a dead sleep, sitting bolt upright and slamming his head into the roof of the cramped underdeck cargo compartment.
He bites back the expletives that want to escape. The noise his head made will hopefully be lost in the general noise of the ship, but cargo doesn't generally swear. Unless maybe you were smuggling androids. But they probably wouldn't be programmed with that kind of language. And without pain, or emotions, what would they have to swear about?
Thinking nonsense like this helps. His breathing slows, his heart stops hammering in his chest. Sweat is still trickling down the back of his neck, but it's cooling now. He tugs at the neck of his jacket; it feels uncomfortably tight. He doesn't hear any footsteps or any sounds of alarm on the ship. There must not have been anyone near, thank goodness.
The dreams have gotten worse. More vivid, more frequent, and more violent. This one, though - this one was different. Usually they're variations on the same nightmare: he's alone, abandoned, waiting for the screams and the smell of burning and a headache that steadily builds until he blacks out.
The rest of the rebels are probably dead. Thinking about it makes his stomach twist. He should have been there. Would have been there, if it weren't for -
If it weren't for the hallucination. The one in which he'd seen her push back a hanging tarpaulin and walk down that side alley he'd never realized existed. And so, when he'd encountered that turn in the winding streets of New Heraklion, when he recognized the buildings and the tarpaulin and pushed it aside to see the alley behind, he followed it. Looking for someone he's never met and couldn't possibly expect to find.
Didn't find. But he spent half an hour wandering, looking, asking. And so got back to the warehouse district half an hour later than he'd planned, by which time the hideout was a pile of rubble, the perimeter was barricaded, and the Feds were dragging bodies out of the smoke.
Ice settles into him then, his stomach, his bones, because this is the bit he hadn't truly allowed himself to think about until now.
He'd dreamed that.
He'd seen them die. The scene replayed over and over, in nightmares. What he'd seen, what he'd imagined - it had been real.
It can't have been real.
It's a coincidence. They were all stressed, sleep-deprived, and hunted by the Feds. Of course failure and capture would have been in their nightmares. And sure, the scene had been identical to his dream, but he often came at the hideout from that direction. It made sense that he'd imagine it from that angle.
And the vision that delayed him, the vision of the woman in the alley - he must have seen the opening to the tiny side street before, without consciously registering it, and his malfunctioning brain grabbed it at random and stuck it into his hallucination. Brains are funny things, even in normal people, and his is most definitely not normal. Normal people have a life, friends, connections. A childhood they can remember.
He can almost make himself believe his explanation, but - where does she come from? He's sure he's never seen her before. Except in dreams.
Dreams that start in peace, and end in fire.
Seeing her today had saved his life.
He focuses on his breathing, steadies it. The noise of the ship's engines has settled into a steady hum. They're on their way. He just has to keep his head down, stay hidden until the ship lands. Wherever it lands. He'd taken a gamble, stowing away on an ancient model like this, but it wasn't like he had a lot of options, and he's willing to bet that her owner knows a thing or two about staying out of the way of the Feds. These old Impalas, with their maneuverability and extensive cargo space, were said to be popular with smugglers - although they're becoming less common these days, it's getting harder to find parts.
The hum is surprisingly soothing. He means to tally up his supplies, make a plan for rationing his protein bars, but he's asleep before he knows it and if he dreams, he doesn't remember.
If this had been a normal ship, Sam probably wouldn't have gotten caught.
Then again, if this had been a normal ship, he wouldn't have picked it to stow away on. He'd been expecting it to be one with a relaxed attitude about the line between legal and illegal trading, and a healthy dislike of the Feds. It's taken an odd flight pattern, which seems to confirm his suspicions: it's unusual to jump several times without landing, unless you're trying to lose pursuers, or meet up with other ships to transfer goods while unobserved in the vastness of space.
As far as he can tell, the ship is crewed by just one guy. He hadn't expected that, but it should have made things easier. Only one person to avoid when sneaking around in the ship's artificial night-time hours.
Unfortunately, the one guy apparently sometimes decides to sleep rolled up in a quilt in the darkened engine room. Sam trips over him on the way back from the toilet.
The guy also apparently sleeps with a gun. And has very quick reflexes. Sam's flat on his back with the muzzle of the gun to his temple before he's even fully registered the disaster that's occurred.
“I'm sorry!” he blurts out. “Please don't shoot. I'm unarmed. I just needed a ride. I was going to get off at the next stop, I swear!”
“This is my ship,” the man says. Sam's eyes are well adjusted to the dark, but from where he's lying, the man's face is shadowed. He can't make out any features beyond short, spiky hair and muscled arms, backlit by the faint glow of the exit light above the door. “Not a fucking transport. You're trespassing.”
“I know.”
“I'd be within my rights to put you out the airlock right now.”
“I know.” Sam takes shallow breaths, trying to keep as still as possible.
“Were you planning to take her?”
“What?”
“My Baby.” Sam can hear the capital B. “Were you going to steal her?”
“No!” Sam starts to shake his head instinctively, feels the cold pressure at his temple increase, and freezes. “I wouldn't even know how to fly her! I needed to hitch a lift is all. I had to get off-planet in a hurry.” He can hear the desperate intensity in his voice, tries to soften and tone it down, not sound crazy or scary. “I'm sorry. I didn't have anywhere left to go, anyone to turn to. I had to get out of there, and your ship looked...”
He hesitates. Probably not a great idea to accuse the smuggler holding a gun on him of being, well, a smuggler.
“Looked like it gets around,” he finishes. “I figured I'd slip out the next place you landed, hop another ship, get some distance. I don't mean to cause you any trouble.”
“Why'd you have to get out so fast?”
The man leans back slightly, angling and shifting position to better pin Sam's legs, although the gun remains steady against his skull. The dim light from the door falls on his face and front now, and Sam can make out more details. The man is around his own age, maybe a little older, with light brown hair and a strong jaw darkened by a couple of days worth of stubble. Sam drops his eyes quickly away from the man's face, not wanting to seem challenging, and his gaze is caught by a slight flicker against the man's chest. A small, odd-shaped metal amulet.
Against all reason, an unexpected, preternatural calm washes over him. He is suddenly certain that this man isn't going to kill him.
He risks the truth. “The Feds want me. They've been chasing me for weeks.”
A hissed intake of breath. The gun remains steady. “And you decided to bring them down on me.”
He closes his eyes briefly and nods an apology. “I took that risk. Sorry.” His throat tightens as he thinks of the rebels who'd taken him in and paid the price for sheltering him. He can't let that happen here. “I just...I was out of options.”
There's a long pause.
“You and me both,” the guy mutters.
Sam's not sure what to say to that. He figures continued silence and stillness is the best option; it's worked so far, inasmuch as he's not dead.
The pressure against his temple is suddenly gone. He starts to breathe a sigh of relief, then lets out an undignified 'oomph' as the man climbs off him by levering a knee into his stomach. He gasps for breath as footsteps move away, and the overhead light comes on.
“Stand up,” the guy orders. “Hands on the wall.”
Sam complies. Hands pat him down, checking for weapons.
“Where's your stuff?”
“Forward cargo bay,” Sam admits.
“Turn around.” The man gestures towards the door with the gun. “You first.”
Sam stands face to the wall as the man retrieves and rifles through Sam's extremely meager stash: a few more days worth of food, a water purifier, and a couple of pairs of clean socks.
“This it?”
“Yeah.”
“No weapon? No ID?”
“Don't have any.”
“And no money.” He sighs. “You know, I do take paying passengers. They get an actual bunk.”
“People pay to ride in this thing?” Sam says, before his brain can catch up to his mouth.
He closes his eyes and flinches, expecting to be shot any minute. Instead, he hears laughter.
“You've got balls, I'll give you that.”
“I'm sorry,” he says again hurriedly. “Oh my god, I'm so sorry. It's a great ship and I'm very happy you're not shooting me and I'm really sorry.”
“I'm not gonna shoot you.” The guy sighs. “You can turn around, and quit with the hands up.”
Sam does. He slouches his shoulders, trying to look inoffensive.
“But I want to know why the Feds are chasing you.”
Yeah, he'd figured that little detail might come up. He just wishes he had a good answer.
“I escaped.”
“Escaped.” The guy frowns. “What, from jail?”
Sam bites his lip. “I think so. Maybe.”
The guy's expression darkens further. “I don't have time for games. Answer me honestly or get the fuck off my ship.”
“I - ” Sam closes his eyes. He might get shot here after all, and he'd rather not see it coming. “I'm sorry, I don't know exactly. My memory's not good.” That's an understatement. “I don't remember doing anything wrong, but I was locked up somewhere. I think I'd been there a pretty long time. There was a large white room.” There had been blood on its tiles. “And small ones, with steel doors, and bars. Lots of them. I could hear screams.” Only some had been his.
“There were others. I have - some memories. Not good ones. Needles, and pain. I saw - one time that I was taken to the white room, there was already someone there. A woman, just a girl really. They put a probe in her skull and she was screaming.”
His voice rises in frustration. “But I can't be sure. Of anything. I can't remember.”
He realizes he's running the fingers of one hand through his hair, searching out the indentations. “They did something to me. There are scars on my head, and I don't have any reliable memories from more than a few months back.” Even the recent ones might be unreliable; how could he tell? “I know I escaped, but I can't even tell you how. I remember unlocking doors, but I can't remember how I got the codes. There were alarms that didn't go off, and I don't remember how I managed that. If someone helped me, I don't remember them. Nobody was with me when I cut through the outer perimeter fence and ran. I remember running. I hid on a ship - like yours, but I managed not to get caught - and I've been on a few ships since then. I thought I'd found a safe place to hide on Thaetis, and then...” He gulps. “It wasn't safe anymore.”
He drops his hand to his side. “I'm sorry. I know it's a crazy story.”
Silence. Eventually, he opens his eyes. Bright green ones are staring at him. Assessing.
“Yeah,” the guys says finally. “It is. But Baby's no stranger to crazy. And she likes you.”
The weird thing is, Sam thinks he can feel that too. Baby doesn't object to him being on board.
“Grab your stuff,” the guy says. “If you can't pay, I expect you to help out around the place. And I figure you'll be more useful if you get some decent sleep.”
Sam stammers thanks, hastily repacking his stuff and slinging it over his shoulder. He follows the guy into the living quarters past the small kitchen.
“Spare bunk there. I'll wake you for breakfast duty. I like my coffee strong.” The guy frowns. “Actually, hold on. Do you even know how to cook?”
Sam manages a weak grin. “Yeah. I've done that recently. I won't set anything on fire.”
“Awesome. Good night.”
“Wait!” Sam says, as the guy moves off down the corridor towards, presumably, his own bunk. “I - thank you! I don't even know your name.”
“I'm Dean.” The guy - Dean - frowns. “Do I want to know yours?”
“Sam.”
“Sam what?”
“I don't know,” Sam says apologetically. “That's all I've got. Just Sam.”
“Convenient,” Dean mutters.
Dean hadn't thought he'd actually sleep, despite going out again after brushing his teeth to jam Sam's door from the outside, as well as locking his own. He's surprised to wake up eight hours later, feeling more rested than he has in months.
It's weird. Even Baby feels calm.
Sam's already awake when Dean bangs on the door. He doesn't mention Dean locking him in.
Dean only briefly considers turning Sam in for a reward. But it turns out he's actually a good cook. Besides, when he checks, there isn't one. There's no mention of a Sam Wesson, or any fugitives of any name that match Sam's description.
“This is weird.” Dean scans the broadwaves, frowning. “How come there's no alert? Nothing on the news. Zip on the bounty lists. If the Feds are chasing you, they're doing it quietly.”
“They were definitely chasing me.” Sam refills Dean's coffee. “Maybe they want it kept secret?”
“Why?”
Sam shrugs. “I don't know. Maybe they don't want to admit they've had a prison break? But they'd have got me for sure on Thaetis if they'd circulated my picture. Trader ships like yours don't land in remote areas. I had to stick around the spaceport.”
His mouth twists wryly. “And I'm kind of easy to spot in a crowd.”
Dean acknowledges this with a nod.
“By the way.” Sam ducks his head. “I'm sorry for stepping on you last night.”
Dean snorts. “I bet you are.”
“No, I mean - ” Sam reddens. “Well, yeah. But I mean, are you okay?”
“I'll live.”
“Why were you sleeping down there, anyway?”
“Because I was tired. It takes a fair bit of time to keep the engines tuned the way I like 'em. Sometimes I nap in there. Didn't expect to be stepped on in the middle of the night.” He mock glares at Sam. “Since there wasn't supposed to be anyone else on board.”
“You never fly with anyone?”
Dean's jaw clenches ever so slightly, belying the light tone of his reply. “Nah. Like it solo.”
“What if something goes wrong? You get sick, or hurt?”
Dean shrugs. “I get better. Baby can look after herself for a few days.”
Sam smiles. “I bet you wouldn't trust anyone else to fly her.”
“Don't trust anyone, period,” Dean says. It's true, but he hadn't actually meant to say it. It begs the question of why he hasn't kicked Sam off the ship, and since he's not sure he knows the answer, he ignores it and moves on.
“So,” he says. “Where do you want to go?”
Sam stares blankly at him. “I - wherever you're going?”
“Don't have a fixed destination in mind,” Dean says. “Though, probably outer planets. Further away from the Feds, which I figure should suit you just fine.”
“What about the cargo?”
“That you were sleeping on?” Dean arches an eyebrow. “Most of the crates are empty. I've got some basic stuff I could trade on nearly any world. Don't have a bigger job right now. I didn't manage to land one on Thaetis.”
Sam frowns. “So...where have we been? With all the jumps?”
“None of your business.” Chasing a ghost.
Sam ducks his head. “Sorry.”
There's a ping. Incoming hail.
“Shit,” Dean says, standing. He races to the bridge, Sam right behind him. The comm is flashing and the ship in their viewscreen is...a Fed cruiser.
Which he might have noticed if he'd been up here as usual, instead of lingering over coffee and muffins and a remarkably good facsimile of scrambled eggs.
“Go,” he snaps, and Sam's gone.
He takes a deep breath and schools his features, then flicks the answer button. “Hello, officer.”
“Identification.” To the point.
He puts his palm on the scanner and transmits his credentials.
“Dean Winchester. Courier and cargo shipping.” The officer raises an eyebrow. “Three counts of failing to declare goods at customs, I see.”
Dean keeps a politely neutral expression. Those had been several years ago, before he smartened up. He hasn't been caught in ages.
“Your flight path is unusual. What are you carrying?”
Dean's stomach sinks. They've been tracking him? They must really be deep-searching this sector. Fuck it, the last thing he'd wanted was to draw attention to himself.
“Nothing,” he admits. “Just a few medkits and ration packs. Stuff the outer worlds'll pay for. I don't have any real cargo on board.”
It's a bit suspicious for him to be making a run - any run - without a payload, but they might buy a story of bad luck. He can't afford to lie about cargo. They might want to come on board and inspect things.
“I've been having some trouble with the ship.” His mind races, remembering his course changes, and calculating believable destinations. He keeps his tone polite, but lets a little bit of worry leak through. Too much bravado is a mistake; the Feds expect people to be at least a little nervous when they're stopped. By their logic, if you're trying too hard, you've got something to hide. Plus, out here, your ship's all you've got: if she goes down, you're likely dead.
“Was headed for Cesnora to try and get a shipping job, but the port engine's acting up. I figured I had a better chance of making it to Achilles before she crapped out completely, so I changed course. Been taking smaller jumps to baby her along.”
Sad thing is, it might as well be the truth. The port compression coil's needed replacing for months, but either he hasn't had the credits, or the parts shops on the backwater planets he's been frequenting haven't had one in stock. The one on Meobos had been woefully underequipped, and the guy running it was either incompetent or a swindler. He'd tried to sell Dean a coil that belonged in a Capissen, for god's sake.
The truth makes the best lie, though. They're scanning him for sure, and the energy fluctuations in Baby's output will be visible. She can hold out another few months with the modifications Dean's made, could probably even outrun this cruiser, but they won't know that.
The officer glances over his subordinate's shoulder at the scanner and curls his lip in a sneer. “I see. Better take it slow. There's enough space junk out here without you adding to it.”
Dean grits his teeth and forces a smile. “Yes sir.”
“You should be able to make it there in three days, though.” Dean swallows. Maybe he's just being paranoid, but it feels like a threat: we'll be expecting you. If you don't show up - well, that's mighty suspicious.
“By the way,” the man says, offhandedly. Too casual: Dean's hackles go up. “Are you carrying any passengers? I'd hate to see them stranded.”
“No, sir.” Dean shakes his head regretfully. “Not too many people willing to take a chance on this old ship.”
“I trust you're being honest with me?” The officer narrows his eyes. “We're looking for a man last seen on Thaetis. I imagine he would have been willing to pay handsomely for passage, and for your silence. Should you have taken such a deal, I can assure you, it is not worth your while. He is an escaped criminal, and a very dangerous one.”
“Can't fault you for asking,” Dean says. “I could have used that kind of money. Nobody offered me any, though.”
He holds the officer's gaze through the link. The other man is the first to blink and turn away.
“Good luck with your engine.”
“Very dangerous,” Dean says, eyeing Sam, who's punching down bread dough.
Sam punches less hard.
“They must be doing an all-out search. The odds of running into a cruiser in this patch of nothing are pretty slim. It's not even a typical smuggling route.”
“I told you they were looking for me.”
Dean sighs. “Yeah, but they are really looking. Also, they said you'd probably offer to pay me a lot of money.”
“That proves they don't know what they're talking about,” Sam says. He tears off a chunk of dough and starts shaping it into a loaf. “I'd pay you if I could. I don't have any money. And I'm not dangerous.”
“How do you know?” Dean counters. “You don't know what you did to get put in there.”
Sam hasn't got a good answer to that.
“Okay,” Dean says. “I don't like flying blind here. New plan. I'm calling Bobby.”
“What?” Sam says, panicked. “You said it yourself, don't trust anyone! Who's Bobby?”
“Bobby's not anyone.” Dean steals a small piece of dough. “He's got eyes and ears all over the net. Trades in information. If there's anyone outside the Feds who can tell you what's going on, it's him.”
“How do you know he won't sell us out?” Sam counters.
“He won't,” Dean replies curtly. “Used to work with my dad.”
“Your dad,” Sam says, and his voice echoes weirdly in his ears.
Oh no, he thinks. He sinks his fingers into the dough, trying to anchor himself in the sensation, in the here and now. For a moment, he thinks it's working, but then Dean turns and gestures angrily at the man in the doorway who wasn't there a moment ago, and Sam can't close his eyes and ears against their fierce argument.
He comes back to himself with Dean gripping both his shoulders and shaking him. He's sitting on the kitchen floor, a mangled lump of bread dough in his lap.
“Sam!”
“He left,” Sam says weakly. “You had a fight, and he left.”
Dean lets go. He pulls back and stares at Sam. Sam flinches. He's seen that expression on other faces before, and it usually ends badly.
“That's the other way my brain's fucked up. I get visions. See things. I can't explain it.” He's shivering, although the kitchen is warm from the heat of the oven.
“Visions?”
He nods. “Mostly of the past.”
“Memories,” Dean says. “Bits and pieces of the stuff you say you don't remember. Your brain's screwed up and misfiring.” He's pale. Freckles stand out sharply on the bridge of his nose.
“I used to think so. But lately, I see stuff about people I never met. Like your dad.” Sam swallows. “And I think, maybe, some of them are things in the future. I dreamed what happened on Thaetis for a week before it happened.”
“That's impossible.”
“I know.”
“But you - ” Dean is evidently at a loss for words. “How? How did you know? About my dad?”
“I saw it.” It's an impossible answer, but it's the truth. “You were arguing about his crazy conspiracy theories. He left, and you - ” He doesn't want to say it.
“I told him that if he went missing, I wouldn't come after him,” Dean says heavily. He sits back against the cupboard. There's a smear of flour on his cheek.
“Yeah,” Sam whispers. “But you're looking for him now.” He hadn't known that until it came out of his mouth.
“I didn't,” Dean says. “Not for a long time.” There's an agony of self-loathing in his voice.
Sam doesn't know what to say. Usually, at this point, the loathing is directed at him.
“I don't know what happened to him. A year or so later, the Feds came looking for him. They said he was a criminal, and they wanted me to lead them to him, but I could honestly say I hadn't had any contact. They kept a close eye on me for a couple of years, and I used to get extra questioning at checkpoints, but eventually they pretty much accepted I was never going to hear from him again. So did I.”
Sam picks up the dough again and starts smoothing it back into shape.
“And I didn't. Not a thing. I thought maybe he was dead. Until a couple of months ago. I got a scrambled broadwave, direct to Baby's system. A long string of numbers that didn't make any sense, until I figured out how to parse it. There were dates - my birthday, my dad's, my mom's - and Baby's ID number. Stuff he would have known. And in between them, there were coordinates.”
“Coordinates?” Sam's head is starting to pound.
“For a planet. I went there. Thought maybe I'd find him. Nothing happened. It's a backwater suburb. Hardly even a military presence, just a few guys patrolling the spaceport.”
“What - ” His vision is blurring again. He tenses, waiting to fall into another vision, but it doesn't come. “What planet?”
“Why does it matter?”
“I don't know.” Sam drops the dough again and clutches his head. “What planet?”
“Kethora.” Dean frowns. “Are you okay?”
“That's where I escaped,” Sam says, and blacks out.
Dean skips some of the details in his call to Bobby.
It's not that he doesn't trust Bobby. He'd trust him with his life - has, more than once. He knows Bobby disapproves of how things ended with John, but Bobby's always had his back regardless.
To be honest, he doesn't want to deal with Bobby repeatedly calling him an idiot. He's aware he's being stupid; he doesn't need it reinforced.
“Got some trouble.”
“I figured, or you wouldn't be calling,” Bobby says dryly. “What's up?”
“Picked up a guy on Thaetis. He was hiding out with a rebel group there. The rest of them got destroyed, and the Feds are hunting him.”
Bobby frowns. “I heard about that. Rumor is, he's got information on something the Feds don't want made public.”
“Dunno about that. He's a few cards short of a deck. Not the most reliable source.”
“Do the Feds know you have him?”
“Pretty sure they don't,” Dean says, “or I'd be locked up with him, failing to call you.”
“So what do you need?”
“Do you know another group I could hand him off to? Somewhere he can hide.”
Bobby considers. “Maybe. There's a bunch of guerilla type freedom fighters on Bocarro. I've got a contact with them. Not too far from you, and they sound pretty well organized. You might want to scope them out first, though. If he really does have info to justify the resources the Feds are putting into looking for him, he'd be a valuable prize. Someone might be tempted.”
Dean nods. “Sounds good. Can you set up a meeting?”
“Yeah. Might take me a day or so.”
“A rush job would be good,” Dean says. “The Feds are expecting me on Achilles in a couple of days.”
He chews his lip. “Bobby, do you know anything about Kethora?”
“Nothing special. Why?”
“I think - ” Dean hesitates. “I think Dad might have been there. And apparently, it's where this guy escaped from in the first place.”
Bobby blinks in surprise. “You heard from John?”
“I think so. And either it's a weird coincidence...”
“Or he was onto something.” Bobby's already turning away from the call, looking at another screen and typing. “I'll see what I can dig up. And I'll try and get you a meeting for this afternoon.”
“You're a miracle worker.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Dean brings the Impala down in a butterfly-light landing a couple of miles outside town.
“You ready?” he calls down. “We'll take the shuttle.”
“We?” Sam says, appearing. He looks better after his nap, though still a littel pale.
“I'm not gonna make you walk.”
“No, I mean, you're taking me?” Sam looks surprised that Dean's even willing to be in the same room with him.
To be fair, Dean is more than a little freaked out still, but he's not about to leave Sam here. “Of course.”
“What if there's a Fed? Maybe it'd be better for me to stay here.”
Dean snorts. “I'm not leaving my stowaway alone with my ship.”
Sam has the good grace to look abashed. “Uh, yeah. Makes sense. Um. Sorry.”
“Besides,” Dean says, “figured you might want a beer. If we're lucky, there might even be a pool table.”
The bar doesn't have a pool table.
They settle in at a corner table and order the local beer. It's only moderately terrible.
An hour later, they've polished off a bowl of surprisingly unterrible pretzels, and there's no sign of anyone taking any interest in them. Most of the patrons gave them the once-over when they walked in and have completely ignored them since, attention fixed on the screen over the bar that's showing women's zero-gee volleyball.
“Gotta take a leak,” Dean says, standing up. “Don't start any shit without me.”
He's zipping up when the shouting and crashing starts.
He bursts back into the bar and stops dead. Sam is in the middle of a group of attackers and he's -
He's moving like it's a dance, like it's effortless to take out three at once: right elbow to one guy's throat, left arm in a swinging arc that folds another one in half and flips him to the floor, a leg sweep that drops another on his back.
Punches, a chair, a broken bottle come at him all at once and he's somehow - not there, and his attackers are on the floor or staggering away. One of them comes spinning towards Dean and Dean reflexively knocks him out with an uppercut.
“Told you not to start without me!” he calls to Sam, wading into the fight, or what's left of it. Only a couple of tougher or dumber guys still coming, and the bartender's made himself scarce. They'd best finish up and clear out, he'll have called someone.
The last two guys hit the floor and Dean turns to Sam. “You can tell me what that was about later. Right now we - ”
Sam punches him.
“Fuck!” Dean gasps, staggering back, jaw throbbing. “The fuck was...”
He ducks sideways as the next punch brushes his ear. “Sam! What the hell, man?”
Sam closes the distance, swinging. Dean leaps behind a table, holds his hands up. “Hey! It's over! Calm down! Sam!”
Sam's eyes are flat, unrecognizing. It's like there's nobody home. He vaults the table effortlessly, and almost as an afterthought kicks a chair into the path Dean's taking to escape. Dean stumbles as it collides with his shins, and Sam is on him. He barely gets an arm up to block a spinning punch coming for his jaw, and gasps as another connects with his gut. He kicks out, but somehow misses Sam's freakishly long legs.
The back of his head knocks painfully against the wall as Sam crowds up against him, closing the distance and preventing Dean from getting a good swing. He tries anyway, jabbing for Sam's throat; Sam blocks, grabs his wrist and twists his arm up, locking it against the wall. Sam's other arm jams against Dean's neck, forcing Dean to struggle for air.
“Sam!” Dean shoves as hard as he can, tries to get a knee up. It's useless, Sam's got a better stance, legs braced and locked against Dean's. “It's me! Your ride out of here. Snap out of it!”
Sam's arm is pressing harder and harder against his throat. Sparkles start dancing in front of his vision as he struggles to suck in air.
“Sammy...”
The pressure abruptly lets up. Sam's eyes meet Dean's, shocked and confused, and his hands fall to his sides. Dean shoves Sam off him, gasping, rubbing his throat with one hand, the other balled up and ready. Sam's mouth is opening and closing, no sound coming out. He looks stunned.
Sammy... where the fuck had that come from?
“Sammy?” he says again, tentatively.
Sam's eyes roll back in his head and he falls to the floor.
Dean nudges him tentatively with his foot, then kneels and checks for a pulse, pulls back an eyelid. Sam's still breathing and his heart rate is slow and steady, but he's out cold.
He gets an arm under Sam, slings him over his back, and hauls him out of the bar and to the shuttle.
At least when the shuttle takes off, the blast of wind obliterates all the marks on the dusty ground. Anyone looking won't know for sure there were two sets of prints - or rather, one set of footprints, and the trails of Sam's heels dragging along the ground. Fucker was heavy, Dean wasn't about to carry him all that way.
Part Two
The story is also significantly inspired by Firefly, although it is not a crossover. There were just so many good correlations: Sam/River, Dean/Mal, and of course Crowley/Badger...
The viewscreen darkens, atmosphere thinning and fading to black, as Baby soars upwards. Dean guides her with the tiniest of adjustments, her controls so familiar that his hands could fly her in his sleep. It's as much for his benefit as hers - more, really, truth be told. She doesn't need him for a routine launch like this, but he never puts her on auto-pilot if he can help it. Flying her grounds him, always has. He takes a deep breath, tries to shrug off the unease riding his shoulders.
Another dead end.
At least the job had worked out. More or less. He hadn't been shot. Might even make some money off this run. The local beer had been decent, and he'd gotten laid by a pro. For free. Without having his pants stolen.
But nobody had admitted to knowing a John Winchester.
He's running out of leads and ideas. If he keeps hunting, all Dean's likely to get is trouble.
He might have gotten some already. There's something odd about the feel of the ship.
He scans the dials and gauges. Nothing reads out of the ordinary. He listens to the pitch of Baby's engine, as familiar as his own pulse: normal. Yet he's still got a sense of unease. Maybe he just needs to get some sleep.
Maybe it's time to give up.
Keep flying.
He stares out into the black and knows he won't stop.
Sam jolts wide awake from a dead sleep, sitting bolt upright and slamming his head into the roof of the cramped underdeck cargo compartment.
He bites back the expletives that want to escape. The noise his head made will hopefully be lost in the general noise of the ship, but cargo doesn't generally swear. Unless maybe you were smuggling androids. But they probably wouldn't be programmed with that kind of language. And without pain, or emotions, what would they have to swear about?
Thinking nonsense like this helps. His breathing slows, his heart stops hammering in his chest. Sweat is still trickling down the back of his neck, but it's cooling now. He tugs at the neck of his jacket; it feels uncomfortably tight. He doesn't hear any footsteps or any sounds of alarm on the ship. There must not have been anyone near, thank goodness.
The dreams have gotten worse. More vivid, more frequent, and more violent. This one, though - this one was different. Usually they're variations on the same nightmare: he's alone, abandoned, waiting for the screams and the smell of burning and a headache that steadily builds until he blacks out.
The rest of the rebels are probably dead. Thinking about it makes his stomach twist. He should have been there. Would have been there, if it weren't for -
If it weren't for the hallucination. The one in which he'd seen her push back a hanging tarpaulin and walk down that side alley he'd never realized existed. And so, when he'd encountered that turn in the winding streets of New Heraklion, when he recognized the buildings and the tarpaulin and pushed it aside to see the alley behind, he followed it. Looking for someone he's never met and couldn't possibly expect to find.
Didn't find. But he spent half an hour wandering, looking, asking. And so got back to the warehouse district half an hour later than he'd planned, by which time the hideout was a pile of rubble, the perimeter was barricaded, and the Feds were dragging bodies out of the smoke.
Ice settles into him then, his stomach, his bones, because this is the bit he hadn't truly allowed himself to think about until now.
He'd dreamed that.
He'd seen them die. The scene replayed over and over, in nightmares. What he'd seen, what he'd imagined - it had been real.
It can't have been real.
It's a coincidence. They were all stressed, sleep-deprived, and hunted by the Feds. Of course failure and capture would have been in their nightmares. And sure, the scene had been identical to his dream, but he often came at the hideout from that direction. It made sense that he'd imagine it from that angle.
And the vision that delayed him, the vision of the woman in the alley - he must have seen the opening to the tiny side street before, without consciously registering it, and his malfunctioning brain grabbed it at random and stuck it into his hallucination. Brains are funny things, even in normal people, and his is most definitely not normal. Normal people have a life, friends, connections. A childhood they can remember.
He can almost make himself believe his explanation, but - where does she come from? He's sure he's never seen her before. Except in dreams.
Dreams that start in peace, and end in fire.
Seeing her today had saved his life.
He focuses on his breathing, steadies it. The noise of the ship's engines has settled into a steady hum. They're on their way. He just has to keep his head down, stay hidden until the ship lands. Wherever it lands. He'd taken a gamble, stowing away on an ancient model like this, but it wasn't like he had a lot of options, and he's willing to bet that her owner knows a thing or two about staying out of the way of the Feds. These old Impalas, with their maneuverability and extensive cargo space, were said to be popular with smugglers - although they're becoming less common these days, it's getting harder to find parts.
The hum is surprisingly soothing. He means to tally up his supplies, make a plan for rationing his protein bars, but he's asleep before he knows it and if he dreams, he doesn't remember.
If this had been a normal ship, Sam probably wouldn't have gotten caught.
Then again, if this had been a normal ship, he wouldn't have picked it to stow away on. He'd been expecting it to be one with a relaxed attitude about the line between legal and illegal trading, and a healthy dislike of the Feds. It's taken an odd flight pattern, which seems to confirm his suspicions: it's unusual to jump several times without landing, unless you're trying to lose pursuers, or meet up with other ships to transfer goods while unobserved in the vastness of space.
As far as he can tell, the ship is crewed by just one guy. He hadn't expected that, but it should have made things easier. Only one person to avoid when sneaking around in the ship's artificial night-time hours.
Unfortunately, the one guy apparently sometimes decides to sleep rolled up in a quilt in the darkened engine room. Sam trips over him on the way back from the toilet.
The guy also apparently sleeps with a gun. And has very quick reflexes. Sam's flat on his back with the muzzle of the gun to his temple before he's even fully registered the disaster that's occurred.
“I'm sorry!” he blurts out. “Please don't shoot. I'm unarmed. I just needed a ride. I was going to get off at the next stop, I swear!”
“This is my ship,” the man says. Sam's eyes are well adjusted to the dark, but from where he's lying, the man's face is shadowed. He can't make out any features beyond short, spiky hair and muscled arms, backlit by the faint glow of the exit light above the door. “Not a fucking transport. You're trespassing.”
“I know.”
“I'd be within my rights to put you out the airlock right now.”
“I know.” Sam takes shallow breaths, trying to keep as still as possible.
“Were you planning to take her?”
“What?”
“My Baby.” Sam can hear the capital B. “Were you going to steal her?”
“No!” Sam starts to shake his head instinctively, feels the cold pressure at his temple increase, and freezes. “I wouldn't even know how to fly her! I needed to hitch a lift is all. I had to get off-planet in a hurry.” He can hear the desperate intensity in his voice, tries to soften and tone it down, not sound crazy or scary. “I'm sorry. I didn't have anywhere left to go, anyone to turn to. I had to get out of there, and your ship looked...”
He hesitates. Probably not a great idea to accuse the smuggler holding a gun on him of being, well, a smuggler.
“Looked like it gets around,” he finishes. “I figured I'd slip out the next place you landed, hop another ship, get some distance. I don't mean to cause you any trouble.”
“Why'd you have to get out so fast?”
The man leans back slightly, angling and shifting position to better pin Sam's legs, although the gun remains steady against his skull. The dim light from the door falls on his face and front now, and Sam can make out more details. The man is around his own age, maybe a little older, with light brown hair and a strong jaw darkened by a couple of days worth of stubble. Sam drops his eyes quickly away from the man's face, not wanting to seem challenging, and his gaze is caught by a slight flicker against the man's chest. A small, odd-shaped metal amulet.
Against all reason, an unexpected, preternatural calm washes over him. He is suddenly certain that this man isn't going to kill him.
He risks the truth. “The Feds want me. They've been chasing me for weeks.”
A hissed intake of breath. The gun remains steady. “And you decided to bring them down on me.”
He closes his eyes briefly and nods an apology. “I took that risk. Sorry.” His throat tightens as he thinks of the rebels who'd taken him in and paid the price for sheltering him. He can't let that happen here. “I just...I was out of options.”
There's a long pause.
“You and me both,” the guy mutters.
Sam's not sure what to say to that. He figures continued silence and stillness is the best option; it's worked so far, inasmuch as he's not dead.
The pressure against his temple is suddenly gone. He starts to breathe a sigh of relief, then lets out an undignified 'oomph' as the man climbs off him by levering a knee into his stomach. He gasps for breath as footsteps move away, and the overhead light comes on.
“Stand up,” the guy orders. “Hands on the wall.”
Sam complies. Hands pat him down, checking for weapons.
“Where's your stuff?”
“Forward cargo bay,” Sam admits.
“Turn around.” The man gestures towards the door with the gun. “You first.”
Sam stands face to the wall as the man retrieves and rifles through Sam's extremely meager stash: a few more days worth of food, a water purifier, and a couple of pairs of clean socks.
“This it?”
“Yeah.”
“No weapon? No ID?”
“Don't have any.”
“And no money.” He sighs. “You know, I do take paying passengers. They get an actual bunk.”
“People pay to ride in this thing?” Sam says, before his brain can catch up to his mouth.
He closes his eyes and flinches, expecting to be shot any minute. Instead, he hears laughter.
“You've got balls, I'll give you that.”
“I'm sorry,” he says again hurriedly. “Oh my god, I'm so sorry. It's a great ship and I'm very happy you're not shooting me and I'm really sorry.”
“I'm not gonna shoot you.” The guy sighs. “You can turn around, and quit with the hands up.”
Sam does. He slouches his shoulders, trying to look inoffensive.
“But I want to know why the Feds are chasing you.”
Yeah, he'd figured that little detail might come up. He just wishes he had a good answer.
“I escaped.”
“Escaped.” The guy frowns. “What, from jail?”
Sam bites his lip. “I think so. Maybe.”
The guy's expression darkens further. “I don't have time for games. Answer me honestly or get the fuck off my ship.”
“I - ” Sam closes his eyes. He might get shot here after all, and he'd rather not see it coming. “I'm sorry, I don't know exactly. My memory's not good.” That's an understatement. “I don't remember doing anything wrong, but I was locked up somewhere. I think I'd been there a pretty long time. There was a large white room.” There had been blood on its tiles. “And small ones, with steel doors, and bars. Lots of them. I could hear screams.” Only some had been his.
“There were others. I have - some memories. Not good ones. Needles, and pain. I saw - one time that I was taken to the white room, there was already someone there. A woman, just a girl really. They put a probe in her skull and she was screaming.”
His voice rises in frustration. “But I can't be sure. Of anything. I can't remember.”
He realizes he's running the fingers of one hand through his hair, searching out the indentations. “They did something to me. There are scars on my head, and I don't have any reliable memories from more than a few months back.” Even the recent ones might be unreliable; how could he tell? “I know I escaped, but I can't even tell you how. I remember unlocking doors, but I can't remember how I got the codes. There were alarms that didn't go off, and I don't remember how I managed that. If someone helped me, I don't remember them. Nobody was with me when I cut through the outer perimeter fence and ran. I remember running. I hid on a ship - like yours, but I managed not to get caught - and I've been on a few ships since then. I thought I'd found a safe place to hide on Thaetis, and then...” He gulps. “It wasn't safe anymore.”
He drops his hand to his side. “I'm sorry. I know it's a crazy story.”
Silence. Eventually, he opens his eyes. Bright green ones are staring at him. Assessing.
“Yeah,” the guys says finally. “It is. But Baby's no stranger to crazy. And she likes you.”
The weird thing is, Sam thinks he can feel that too. Baby doesn't object to him being on board.
“Grab your stuff,” the guy says. “If you can't pay, I expect you to help out around the place. And I figure you'll be more useful if you get some decent sleep.”
Sam stammers thanks, hastily repacking his stuff and slinging it over his shoulder. He follows the guy into the living quarters past the small kitchen.
“Spare bunk there. I'll wake you for breakfast duty. I like my coffee strong.” The guy frowns. “Actually, hold on. Do you even know how to cook?”
Sam manages a weak grin. “Yeah. I've done that recently. I won't set anything on fire.”
“Awesome. Good night.”
“Wait!” Sam says, as the guy moves off down the corridor towards, presumably, his own bunk. “I - thank you! I don't even know your name.”
“I'm Dean.” The guy - Dean - frowns. “Do I want to know yours?”
“Sam.”
“Sam what?”
“I don't know,” Sam says apologetically. “That's all I've got. Just Sam.”
“Convenient,” Dean mutters.
Dean hadn't thought he'd actually sleep, despite going out again after brushing his teeth to jam Sam's door from the outside, as well as locking his own. He's surprised to wake up eight hours later, feeling more rested than he has in months.
It's weird. Even Baby feels calm.
Sam's already awake when Dean bangs on the door. He doesn't mention Dean locking him in.
Dean only briefly considers turning Sam in for a reward. But it turns out he's actually a good cook. Besides, when he checks, there isn't one. There's no mention of a Sam Wesson, or any fugitives of any name that match Sam's description.
“This is weird.” Dean scans the broadwaves, frowning. “How come there's no alert? Nothing on the news. Zip on the bounty lists. If the Feds are chasing you, they're doing it quietly.”
“They were definitely chasing me.” Sam refills Dean's coffee. “Maybe they want it kept secret?”
“Why?”
Sam shrugs. “I don't know. Maybe they don't want to admit they've had a prison break? But they'd have got me for sure on Thaetis if they'd circulated my picture. Trader ships like yours don't land in remote areas. I had to stick around the spaceport.”
His mouth twists wryly. “And I'm kind of easy to spot in a crowd.”
Dean acknowledges this with a nod.
“By the way.” Sam ducks his head. “I'm sorry for stepping on you last night.”
Dean snorts. “I bet you are.”
“No, I mean - ” Sam reddens. “Well, yeah. But I mean, are you okay?”
“I'll live.”
“Why were you sleeping down there, anyway?”
“Because I was tired. It takes a fair bit of time to keep the engines tuned the way I like 'em. Sometimes I nap in there. Didn't expect to be stepped on in the middle of the night.” He mock glares at Sam. “Since there wasn't supposed to be anyone else on board.”
“You never fly with anyone?”
Dean's jaw clenches ever so slightly, belying the light tone of his reply. “Nah. Like it solo.”
“What if something goes wrong? You get sick, or hurt?”
Dean shrugs. “I get better. Baby can look after herself for a few days.”
Sam smiles. “I bet you wouldn't trust anyone else to fly her.”
“Don't trust anyone, period,” Dean says. It's true, but he hadn't actually meant to say it. It begs the question of why he hasn't kicked Sam off the ship, and since he's not sure he knows the answer, he ignores it and moves on.
“So,” he says. “Where do you want to go?”
Sam stares blankly at him. “I - wherever you're going?”
“Don't have a fixed destination in mind,” Dean says. “Though, probably outer planets. Further away from the Feds, which I figure should suit you just fine.”
“What about the cargo?”
“That you were sleeping on?” Dean arches an eyebrow. “Most of the crates are empty. I've got some basic stuff I could trade on nearly any world. Don't have a bigger job right now. I didn't manage to land one on Thaetis.”
Sam frowns. “So...where have we been? With all the jumps?”
“None of your business.” Chasing a ghost.
Sam ducks his head. “Sorry.”
There's a ping. Incoming hail.
“Shit,” Dean says, standing. He races to the bridge, Sam right behind him. The comm is flashing and the ship in their viewscreen is...a Fed cruiser.
Which he might have noticed if he'd been up here as usual, instead of lingering over coffee and muffins and a remarkably good facsimile of scrambled eggs.
“Go,” he snaps, and Sam's gone.
He takes a deep breath and schools his features, then flicks the answer button. “Hello, officer.”
“Identification.” To the point.
He puts his palm on the scanner and transmits his credentials.
“Dean Winchester. Courier and cargo shipping.” The officer raises an eyebrow. “Three counts of failing to declare goods at customs, I see.”
Dean keeps a politely neutral expression. Those had been several years ago, before he smartened up. He hasn't been caught in ages.
“Your flight path is unusual. What are you carrying?”
Dean's stomach sinks. They've been tracking him? They must really be deep-searching this sector. Fuck it, the last thing he'd wanted was to draw attention to himself.
“Nothing,” he admits. “Just a few medkits and ration packs. Stuff the outer worlds'll pay for. I don't have any real cargo on board.”
It's a bit suspicious for him to be making a run - any run - without a payload, but they might buy a story of bad luck. He can't afford to lie about cargo. They might want to come on board and inspect things.
“I've been having some trouble with the ship.” His mind races, remembering his course changes, and calculating believable destinations. He keeps his tone polite, but lets a little bit of worry leak through. Too much bravado is a mistake; the Feds expect people to be at least a little nervous when they're stopped. By their logic, if you're trying too hard, you've got something to hide. Plus, out here, your ship's all you've got: if she goes down, you're likely dead.
“Was headed for Cesnora to try and get a shipping job, but the port engine's acting up. I figured I had a better chance of making it to Achilles before she crapped out completely, so I changed course. Been taking smaller jumps to baby her along.”
Sad thing is, it might as well be the truth. The port compression coil's needed replacing for months, but either he hasn't had the credits, or the parts shops on the backwater planets he's been frequenting haven't had one in stock. The one on Meobos had been woefully underequipped, and the guy running it was either incompetent or a swindler. He'd tried to sell Dean a coil that belonged in a Capissen, for god's sake.
The truth makes the best lie, though. They're scanning him for sure, and the energy fluctuations in Baby's output will be visible. She can hold out another few months with the modifications Dean's made, could probably even outrun this cruiser, but they won't know that.
The officer glances over his subordinate's shoulder at the scanner and curls his lip in a sneer. “I see. Better take it slow. There's enough space junk out here without you adding to it.”
Dean grits his teeth and forces a smile. “Yes sir.”
“You should be able to make it there in three days, though.” Dean swallows. Maybe he's just being paranoid, but it feels like a threat: we'll be expecting you. If you don't show up - well, that's mighty suspicious.
“By the way,” the man says, offhandedly. Too casual: Dean's hackles go up. “Are you carrying any passengers? I'd hate to see them stranded.”
“No, sir.” Dean shakes his head regretfully. “Not too many people willing to take a chance on this old ship.”
“I trust you're being honest with me?” The officer narrows his eyes. “We're looking for a man last seen on Thaetis. I imagine he would have been willing to pay handsomely for passage, and for your silence. Should you have taken such a deal, I can assure you, it is not worth your while. He is an escaped criminal, and a very dangerous one.”
“Can't fault you for asking,” Dean says. “I could have used that kind of money. Nobody offered me any, though.”
He holds the officer's gaze through the link. The other man is the first to blink and turn away.
“Good luck with your engine.”
“Very dangerous,” Dean says, eyeing Sam, who's punching down bread dough.
Sam punches less hard.
“They must be doing an all-out search. The odds of running into a cruiser in this patch of nothing are pretty slim. It's not even a typical smuggling route.”
“I told you they were looking for me.”
Dean sighs. “Yeah, but they are really looking. Also, they said you'd probably offer to pay me a lot of money.”
“That proves they don't know what they're talking about,” Sam says. He tears off a chunk of dough and starts shaping it into a loaf. “I'd pay you if I could. I don't have any money. And I'm not dangerous.”
“How do you know?” Dean counters. “You don't know what you did to get put in there.”
Sam hasn't got a good answer to that.
“Okay,” Dean says. “I don't like flying blind here. New plan. I'm calling Bobby.”
“What?” Sam says, panicked. “You said it yourself, don't trust anyone! Who's Bobby?”
“Bobby's not anyone.” Dean steals a small piece of dough. “He's got eyes and ears all over the net. Trades in information. If there's anyone outside the Feds who can tell you what's going on, it's him.”
“How do you know he won't sell us out?” Sam counters.
“He won't,” Dean replies curtly. “Used to work with my dad.”
“Your dad,” Sam says, and his voice echoes weirdly in his ears.
Oh no, he thinks. He sinks his fingers into the dough, trying to anchor himself in the sensation, in the here and now. For a moment, he thinks it's working, but then Dean turns and gestures angrily at the man in the doorway who wasn't there a moment ago, and Sam can't close his eyes and ears against their fierce argument.
He comes back to himself with Dean gripping both his shoulders and shaking him. He's sitting on the kitchen floor, a mangled lump of bread dough in his lap.
“Sam!”
“He left,” Sam says weakly. “You had a fight, and he left.”
Dean lets go. He pulls back and stares at Sam. Sam flinches. He's seen that expression on other faces before, and it usually ends badly.
“That's the other way my brain's fucked up. I get visions. See things. I can't explain it.” He's shivering, although the kitchen is warm from the heat of the oven.
“Visions?”
He nods. “Mostly of the past.”
“Memories,” Dean says. “Bits and pieces of the stuff you say you don't remember. Your brain's screwed up and misfiring.” He's pale. Freckles stand out sharply on the bridge of his nose.
“I used to think so. But lately, I see stuff about people I never met. Like your dad.” Sam swallows. “And I think, maybe, some of them are things in the future. I dreamed what happened on Thaetis for a week before it happened.”
“That's impossible.”
“I know.”
“But you - ” Dean is evidently at a loss for words. “How? How did you know? About my dad?”
“I saw it.” It's an impossible answer, but it's the truth. “You were arguing about his crazy conspiracy theories. He left, and you - ” He doesn't want to say it.
“I told him that if he went missing, I wouldn't come after him,” Dean says heavily. He sits back against the cupboard. There's a smear of flour on his cheek.
“Yeah,” Sam whispers. “But you're looking for him now.” He hadn't known that until it came out of his mouth.
“I didn't,” Dean says. “Not for a long time.” There's an agony of self-loathing in his voice.
Sam doesn't know what to say. Usually, at this point, the loathing is directed at him.
“I don't know what happened to him. A year or so later, the Feds came looking for him. They said he was a criminal, and they wanted me to lead them to him, but I could honestly say I hadn't had any contact. They kept a close eye on me for a couple of years, and I used to get extra questioning at checkpoints, but eventually they pretty much accepted I was never going to hear from him again. So did I.”
Sam picks up the dough again and starts smoothing it back into shape.
“And I didn't. Not a thing. I thought maybe he was dead. Until a couple of months ago. I got a scrambled broadwave, direct to Baby's system. A long string of numbers that didn't make any sense, until I figured out how to parse it. There were dates - my birthday, my dad's, my mom's - and Baby's ID number. Stuff he would have known. And in between them, there were coordinates.”
“Coordinates?” Sam's head is starting to pound.
“For a planet. I went there. Thought maybe I'd find him. Nothing happened. It's a backwater suburb. Hardly even a military presence, just a few guys patrolling the spaceport.”
“What - ” His vision is blurring again. He tenses, waiting to fall into another vision, but it doesn't come. “What planet?”
“Why does it matter?”
“I don't know.” Sam drops the dough again and clutches his head. “What planet?”
“Kethora.” Dean frowns. “Are you okay?”
“That's where I escaped,” Sam says, and blacks out.
Dean skips some of the details in his call to Bobby.
It's not that he doesn't trust Bobby. He'd trust him with his life - has, more than once. He knows Bobby disapproves of how things ended with John, but Bobby's always had his back regardless.
To be honest, he doesn't want to deal with Bobby repeatedly calling him an idiot. He's aware he's being stupid; he doesn't need it reinforced.
“Got some trouble.”
“I figured, or you wouldn't be calling,” Bobby says dryly. “What's up?”
“Picked up a guy on Thaetis. He was hiding out with a rebel group there. The rest of them got destroyed, and the Feds are hunting him.”
Bobby frowns. “I heard about that. Rumor is, he's got information on something the Feds don't want made public.”
“Dunno about that. He's a few cards short of a deck. Not the most reliable source.”
“Do the Feds know you have him?”
“Pretty sure they don't,” Dean says, “or I'd be locked up with him, failing to call you.”
“So what do you need?”
“Do you know another group I could hand him off to? Somewhere he can hide.”
Bobby considers. “Maybe. There's a bunch of guerilla type freedom fighters on Bocarro. I've got a contact with them. Not too far from you, and they sound pretty well organized. You might want to scope them out first, though. If he really does have info to justify the resources the Feds are putting into looking for him, he'd be a valuable prize. Someone might be tempted.”
Dean nods. “Sounds good. Can you set up a meeting?”
“Yeah. Might take me a day or so.”
“A rush job would be good,” Dean says. “The Feds are expecting me on Achilles in a couple of days.”
He chews his lip. “Bobby, do you know anything about Kethora?”
“Nothing special. Why?”
“I think - ” Dean hesitates. “I think Dad might have been there. And apparently, it's where this guy escaped from in the first place.”
Bobby blinks in surprise. “You heard from John?”
“I think so. And either it's a weird coincidence...”
“Or he was onto something.” Bobby's already turning away from the call, looking at another screen and typing. “I'll see what I can dig up. And I'll try and get you a meeting for this afternoon.”
“You're a miracle worker.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Dean brings the Impala down in a butterfly-light landing a couple of miles outside town.
“You ready?” he calls down. “We'll take the shuttle.”
“We?” Sam says, appearing. He looks better after his nap, though still a littel pale.
“I'm not gonna make you walk.”
“No, I mean, you're taking me?” Sam looks surprised that Dean's even willing to be in the same room with him.
To be fair, Dean is more than a little freaked out still, but he's not about to leave Sam here. “Of course.”
“What if there's a Fed? Maybe it'd be better for me to stay here.”
Dean snorts. “I'm not leaving my stowaway alone with my ship.”
Sam has the good grace to look abashed. “Uh, yeah. Makes sense. Um. Sorry.”
“Besides,” Dean says, “figured you might want a beer. If we're lucky, there might even be a pool table.”
The bar doesn't have a pool table.
They settle in at a corner table and order the local beer. It's only moderately terrible.
An hour later, they've polished off a bowl of surprisingly unterrible pretzels, and there's no sign of anyone taking any interest in them. Most of the patrons gave them the once-over when they walked in and have completely ignored them since, attention fixed on the screen over the bar that's showing women's zero-gee volleyball.
“Gotta take a leak,” Dean says, standing up. “Don't start any shit without me.”
He's zipping up when the shouting and crashing starts.
He bursts back into the bar and stops dead. Sam is in the middle of a group of attackers and he's -
He's moving like it's a dance, like it's effortless to take out three at once: right elbow to one guy's throat, left arm in a swinging arc that folds another one in half and flips him to the floor, a leg sweep that drops another on his back.
Punches, a chair, a broken bottle come at him all at once and he's somehow - not there, and his attackers are on the floor or staggering away. One of them comes spinning towards Dean and Dean reflexively knocks him out with an uppercut.
“Told you not to start without me!” he calls to Sam, wading into the fight, or what's left of it. Only a couple of tougher or dumber guys still coming, and the bartender's made himself scarce. They'd best finish up and clear out, he'll have called someone.
The last two guys hit the floor and Dean turns to Sam. “You can tell me what that was about later. Right now we - ”
Sam punches him.
“Fuck!” Dean gasps, staggering back, jaw throbbing. “The fuck was...”
He ducks sideways as the next punch brushes his ear. “Sam! What the hell, man?”
Sam closes the distance, swinging. Dean leaps behind a table, holds his hands up. “Hey! It's over! Calm down! Sam!”
Sam's eyes are flat, unrecognizing. It's like there's nobody home. He vaults the table effortlessly, and almost as an afterthought kicks a chair into the path Dean's taking to escape. Dean stumbles as it collides with his shins, and Sam is on him. He barely gets an arm up to block a spinning punch coming for his jaw, and gasps as another connects with his gut. He kicks out, but somehow misses Sam's freakishly long legs.
The back of his head knocks painfully against the wall as Sam crowds up against him, closing the distance and preventing Dean from getting a good swing. He tries anyway, jabbing for Sam's throat; Sam blocks, grabs his wrist and twists his arm up, locking it against the wall. Sam's other arm jams against Dean's neck, forcing Dean to struggle for air.
“Sam!” Dean shoves as hard as he can, tries to get a knee up. It's useless, Sam's got a better stance, legs braced and locked against Dean's. “It's me! Your ride out of here. Snap out of it!”
Sam's arm is pressing harder and harder against his throat. Sparkles start dancing in front of his vision as he struggles to suck in air.
“Sammy...”
The pressure abruptly lets up. Sam's eyes meet Dean's, shocked and confused, and his hands fall to his sides. Dean shoves Sam off him, gasping, rubbing his throat with one hand, the other balled up and ready. Sam's mouth is opening and closing, no sound coming out. He looks stunned.
Sammy... where the fuck had that come from?
“Sammy?” he says again, tentatively.
Sam's eyes roll back in his head and he falls to the floor.
Dean nudges him tentatively with his foot, then kneels and checks for a pulse, pulls back an eyelid. Sam's still breathing and his heart rate is slow and steady, but he's out cold.
He gets an arm under Sam, slings him over his back, and hauls him out of the bar and to the shuttle.
At least when the shuttle takes off, the blast of wind obliterates all the marks on the dusty ground. Anyone looking won't know for sure there were two sets of prints - or rather, one set of footprints, and the trails of Sam's heels dragging along the ground. Fucker was heavy, Dean wasn't about to carry him all that way.
Part Two