Big Bang '10 - One Hundred Percent Reason to Remember [v. 13% fear]
Masterlist
Previous
Flights into a war-torn country aren't easy. Sam doesn't actually know this until they're flying over one in a helicopter that looks like it's a strong gust of wind away from being scrap metal, avoiding being shot at. Despite the fact that he's bagged the interview with the government officials that no one else was gutsy enough to even ask for, the news apparently hasn't filtered down to the field soldiers.
Sam would use the helicopter's announcement system to tell them this, but that didn't work the first five times they were almost shot down. He has a feeling it isn't going to work now, either.
The pilot's pretty well pissed off at this point. He keeps shouting in the native language - which, to Sam, sounds like some sort of estranged mixture of French and tribal Urdu - and Sam can't do anything more than wince and pass him more money.
He's starting to get a pretty good idea why there’s a civil war here in the first place. Sam's just a freelance reporter, trying to help their plight be publicized (at least, that's his angle, anyway; he's really just going to sell it to the highest-bidding political magazine when he's back in the US). The government wouldn't even send someone. The pilot, whose name Sam can't pronounce, was just the nearest local with knowledge on how to fly a helicopter.
But this story is going to make his career, regardless of the lengths he has to take to get it. He and his team of half-crazy photographers are going to be millionaires when this is all over with.
Okay, maybe not millionaires. But they'd be able to live comfortably, and that's really all Sam wants.
Two days into the flight, they finally land at a small, rooftop helipad. The landscape is forested; after flying over so many forests, Sam can't help but think it's a bit too... normal, for a government building. Maybe that's the genius of it.
As soon as the blades stop cutting the air, there are troops on the rooftop; big bronze-skinned men with automatic machines guns strapped to them and enough ammunition for a full-frontal assault. The more he becomes familiar with the country, the more he realizes why no one else had the story. Sam and his photographers step down from the helicopter with their hands in the air, equipment still stuck below the 'copter's seats.
The pilot and the guards (he can't think of anything else to call them) start what amounts to a conversation in a faster, cruder dialect than the one the pilot had been using earlier. Their dialogue is lightning-fast, and in the space of five minutes they are being moved into the building.
Well, 'moved' is a relative term. All of their equipment stays behind and they're encouraged to keep up by the guards' machine guns periodically prodding them. It isn't a very large base by US standards, and Sam has to keep reminding himself to remember the way. Magazines eat up narrative interviews, don't they?
They find themselves being led down into the earth, into a room lined with crude cells with wooden bars and clay walls.
What light there is down here comes from behind them, filters down and dissolves into near-pitch at the back of the room. There's no way to the surface but the long, sloping corridor that led here. No guards are stationed to watch the various prisoners in the cells; Sam can't help but find this odd, until he realizes that there's no need. There's no chance of a prisoner escaping because they'd have to pass the guards at the mouth of the corridor to get out.
It's clever in a primitive way.
The team is herded into a cell near the back of the room, all four of them in one tiny, cramped space. Sam is momentarily grateful that they weren't allowed to bring their equipment; if there was anything else in the cell, there'd be no room to breathe.
The biggest of the guards steps forward and shuts the panel of wooden bars serving as a door. There's a rusted padlock at one of the edges; he loops it through the clay wall and the bar and snicks it into place.
At the sound, scores of hands reach out from between the wooden bars on either side, groping for anything to reach; thin, emaciated arms with skeletal fingers. Voices scrape over syllables that are gibberish to Sam. He's glad it's dark. He doesn't want to see the faces of the prisoners that've been down here for days, weeks. A few of the cells remain quiet and black.
Hopefully, they're empty.
When the guard is out of sight, the hands retreat back into their cells and the yammering stops. Everything falls eerily silent.
“Nice welcome committee,” Ash comments as he lowers himself to the gritty, sandy floor. No one replies, not right away; they're all preoccupied with the same question, though no one wants to vocalize it. Sam keeps himself from worrying by mentally logging every detail, hoping he can remember it all.
When they get out of here - when, not the if it's threatening to become - his hand will cramp with how fast he'll want to get it on paper.
It's impossible to tell what time of day it is, so it's impossible to tell how long they've been there. It could have been hours, minutes, days. They wouldn't know.
There's the snick-slide of something behind him, and when he turns Sam is momentarily blinded by the fire illuminating Ellen's face. “Wish I had a lighter,” she says, shaking the match out as it gets too close to her fingers and lighting another. That one goes out just as quickly, and she stops trying. There's nothing to see down here anyway, though it wouldn't have made them as crazy if they could at least see something.
“You know what I wanna know,” the senior member of their team and lead photographer, Bobby, speaks up from the very back of the cell. “If they treat us this badly, how do those poor rebel bastards get it?”
From some place out in the dark (and maybe to the left, but it's hard to tell), someone laughs. It's a low, wretched sound, and wouldn't be noticeable if it weren't so quiet. Sam strains his eyes, trying to figure the source of the sound. “Much worse,” a voice croaks from the same direction, and it's so unexpected all of them jump in unison.
“You speak English?” Sam asks. It's not a very reporter-like question to start off with, but he's relatively surprised that somebody here can understand them.
“Native.”
Sam guesses that the guy's in the next cell over, though he isn't sure. “Are you a reporter?” If he is, that explains why no one's got the story. The government doesn't allow anyone to get the story.
The feeling of dread is already rising when the guy says, “No. But if that's what you guys are, I don't envy you.” He sounds like he hasn't had water in days. Sam's sympathy is quickly swallowed by the fear that sparks his overactive imagination. He has a sick feeling they're going to be down here until they're dead, starved and dehydrated, as emaciated and skeletal as the others.
“What do you mean?”
The prisoner laughs, and it quickly degenerates into a dry cough. Sam waits, anxious, hands curled around the wood of the bars like he can see who he's talking to if he cranes his head enough. He can feel the splinters digging into his palms, but it's a minor annoyance compared to everything else.
“I mean,” the guy continues when he can breathe again, albeit unsteadily. “They're going to give you the story. And then they're going to kill you, one way or another.”
“You're a rebel prisoner, aren't you?” Sam asks, realization dawning.
The guy snorts derisively. “Guess that's all I am now, yeah.”
“What--” he starts, but Ellen shushes him. Footsteps echo down the corridor, resounding in the room like gunshots, and a group of guards appears at the entrance. One of them starts toward their cell, ring of keys rattling as he steps, and the sea of hands reaches out again, brushing his uniform and groping for freedom. The guard issues a singular, nonsensical command and they slink back into their cells and fall silent again.
He unlocks the padlock holding their cell shut and opens the door, ushers them out. The rest of the guards swarm them as soon as they get past the corridor, and into the bright light of dusk filtering through windows in the main building.
More twisting corridors and they're led into a room that's considerably more decorated than what they've seen of the rest of the place and so much larger than the cell they'd been in.
They're left alone in this room, and immediately spread out.
“The next time you have a crazy-ass plan, remind me to stay home,” Ash says.
Minutes later, the door bursts open and an important-looking man steps into what Sam assumes is the parlor, or some sort of office. He's flanked by guards toting more heavy artillery. It does what it's supposed to, serves as a reminder to any of them if they feel like stepping out of line.
“You requested an interview,” the man says. His English is fairly good but his accent is thick enough that it takes a few seconds to work out what he's saying. There's a moment when Sam isn't sure if he's the one that needs to answer, and then he realizes that everyone's looking at him. He clears his throat.
“Yeah, I.” He's struck with sudden inspiration, and wonders if it's too much to ask, decides to ask anyway. “But I was wondering if I could get one with the rebel prisoner you've captured as well. Just to get the full scope, you know.”
The man's laugh isn't kind. “You Americans like to press your luck.” He spits out 'Americans' like the word personally offends him. “I shouldn't let you.”
Sam's stupid, stupid pride rises to the challenge. “I'll pay you well for your help. I don't know what you did with my pilot, but you can ask him; I'll even make the government out to be the good guy. I just want a good story out of it.” There's something liberating in the knowledge that once he gets out of the country, he can write it however he wants and they won't be able to do a damn thing about it.
Another yammering conversation takes place between the man and his guard, and the guard disappears back into the hallway. The man surveys the four of them, measuring just how much of a threat they could be.
“I'll give you your interview, but you must leave immediately afterwards.”
“Definitely not going to be a problem,” Bobby says under his breath, from somewhere behind Sam. He resists the urge to laugh. Not only would it be insulting, there's absolutely nothing about this situation that's funny in anything but a hysterical way.
“Can we have our equipment?” Ellen asks.
The man waves his hand and makes a frustrated sound. “Of course. This man will take one of you to get what you need.” One of the other guards steps forward, and Sam doesn't turn, but he can almost feel the way the rest of the team is deciding who's going to go. Ash ends up going, and the way he eyes the guard's gun makes Sam wish his ambitions were more benign.
Minutes later, the door creaks open. Sam expects it to be Ash returning with the equipment, but it isn't; the guards are leading the prisoner in.
They don't have to drag him - he's barely struggling. It might have something to do with the way his skin is pale, almost waxy from spending so long down in that cell. The sun is still setting through the large window behind Sam; the light's spilling in, bright, and the prisoner has his eyes shut tight when he enters, eyebrows knitted together like he's in pain.
Ellen shuts the window when she realizes, which is just a second quicker than Sam; she's pulling the stubborn, foreign blinds over it before Sam has a chance to stand and do the same. They put the prisoner in the chair opposite the couch where Sam is sitting.
He takes a minute to prepare his questions, trying to make them sound innocent enough if any of the guards know English or if their boss is listening from another room. The guards step back; the prisoner's wrists are still bound behind him, and they obviously don't consider him much of a threat.
Sam wants to wait for Ash to get back with the equipment, really he does, but there's no telling how long it's going to be and they might be giving him only a small amount of time with the prisoner. He's pretty sure he can remember the interview without any help, doesn't know if he'll ever be able to forget it, any of it.
He looks up, opens his mouth to introduce himself and ask the first question, but he stops and ends up sitting there with his mouth hanging open. It's not a good first-impression, he realizes dimly, but he can't help it.
Darkness has fallen in the room, dark enough that the prisoner can open his eyes. And even through the dark, he has to have the most beautiful eyes Sam's ever seen. They're huge, made more so by the way the guy's face is wan, unhealthy-looking. Now that he sees the whole picture he can imagine what that face might look like when it's healthy, and it makes him forget every question he'd had lined up to ask.
Sam stares for a solid minute, and the prisoner meets his gaze, unwavering. Now he can see something the guards have neglected: they might think they've crushed the man's spirit but there's still fire in there somewhere, waiting for just enough gunpowder or lighter fluid to blaze, consume.
Bobby says, “Boy...” behind him, warning him, and when Sam looks away from the prisoner he can see the guards glaring. He's wasting time.
So he clears his throat, doesn't know where to rest his eyes as he asks the first question. “What's your name, and what was your position in this conflict before you were captured?”
The prisoner makes a move like he's going to lean forward, like it's second-nature, but without the use of his hands the movement is awkward, aborted. He rests against the back of the chair again, and clears his throat.
“Name's Dean. Came here a couple years ago on vacation. You know, when it was actually a nice place to visit? Never left. I figured I could help the cause. Turned out I was pretty good at it, so they made me their leader.” Dean's voice is raspy, dry. Sam doesn't know if calling for water would be pressing his luck further, so he casts his eyes downward and pretends not to notice.
“How did you get to be the leader of the rebel force?”
“They didn't trust me at first, thought I might be some kinda of spy; after the first few runs they took me on, they started looking at me different.” Dean clears his throat again, and Sam wonders how long he's been down in there, how long it's been since he spoke to another human being, another American.
He continues after a brief silence, and his voice is weaker. “There was this... I don't know, skirmish, where the government found our base, opened fire. I took a bullet for their leader and it put me down for a few weeks.
“That helped, I guess. Next thing I know, the leader gets himself killed on a raid and I can hardly walk, but everyone's looking for me to tell them what to do.”
Sam knows he'll remember this. There's no need to have a camera except that he'll want to have pictures of it later, something to remember Dean by other than his story. Even if it is pretty poignant. “Wow,” he says, when Dean falls silent. There are so many things he wants to ask that he abandons the premise of an interview and goes for a conversation, because he can always polish it up later. “I guess you're familiar with what's going on, then. When did... when did it start, and why is it happening?”
Dean snorts, makes the same move to lean forward as before, and Sam would call for him to be unbound if he didn't already feel the eyes of the guards on him, waiting with their guns ready for him to step out of line. “Same as any civil war gets started. The government oppresses a group of people that they don't agree with, and the people rebel. I'm surprised at you.”
The last bit catches Sam off-guard. “Huh?”
“I remember watching 60 Minutes back home. I know the type you're trying to be, all professional and poignant without really caring. Selling articles and ratings are what it's about, right? But you're not like them. You're different.”
This isn't the place Sam hoped to find introspection. He doesn't want to be judged or measured, he wants to get his job done. Only now it's become more than that, because Dean is right. Everyone he's ever watched, every journalist or reporter he's ever worked with or observed, is detached from their work.
And he isn't. He's known it for a while, but Dean saying it out loud almost makes him realize.
Almost.
This isn't about the story anymore. It's not just that there's a personal challenge to make it something more, issued from the man sitting across from him with his crystal, tragic green eyes - it's something he has to do, now.
What he can do about it, though, is still pretty vague.
“What's going to happen to you?” Sam asks, quiet, and around them the air is static.
Dean shrugs with one shoulder. “There's an old-fashioned guillotine down in the courtyard that's got my name on it. This time tomorrow, it really won't matter what I told some reporter. I won't be around to see the consequences.”
Nothing Dean's told him so far has made Sam physically ache, but that does. It's wrong. Not just war in general, because he's known that for a long time, but... the people that get caught up in war, the victims of it, should never have to go through the hardships they do. The people of this country should be living in peace, and Dean should be working a regular job back home, watching games on Sundays and grilling steaks in the backyard.
Sam's never had that life, but he doesn't really want it anymore. It's unfair for him to have it when there are people like Dean, caught up in something that they had nothing to do with and dying, slow from dehydration or quickly from the downward cut of a shining guillotine blade.
When he goes back to write his story, this is when he'll decide that he knows what he has to do.
It's not a big step, nothing that's really going to help anyone but Dean, but it's something. And it's the least Sam can do for a fellow American.
Dean watches him oddly, waiting for a reaction, and Sam wonders if everything he thinks is written all over his face.
“Do you think your rebels will come and rescue you?”
It's a cautious question, and by the look in Dean's eyes, he's caught on.
“I don't think so,” he says. “Last place they had camp, far as I know, was a ways up the river. They could always appoint another leader. There's this woman, Pamela. Another American; I'm not quite sure how she got here, but she's sort of second in command, you know? They'll probably just look to her.”
“Ah, I see. They're going to execute you at sundown?”
“Yeah. Pretty classic.”
Sam nods, looks over his shoulder at Ellen and Bobby. They don't have to help, not if they don't want to risk their lives. Sam would understand. He just needs to do this; it feels like it could be the most important thing he's ever done.
“How--” But he's cut off by the guards' yammering, yelling at him, and he reflexively leans as far away as he can. They each grab one of Dean's arms and haul him up, and again Dean doesn't struggle, resigns himself to it. He watches Sam the whole way out, though, and the haunted look in his eyes is as close as Sam thinks he'll get to hopeful.
It isn't long after that they're being rushed back out to their helicopter. Their pilot is there, looking pale and shaken, and Sam really can't blame him. When they climb up into the 'copter, they expect to find Ash, or at least to find the equipment gone, but it hasn't been touched and the fourth member of their team is nowhere to be found.
“Ash?” Sam calls, like he expects him to jump out from behind the helicopter or something. The pilot makes a quick, jerky movement with his head, back and forth. Sam calls louder, and the pilot lets out a little squeak and shakes his head more, gripping the controls with white knuckles.
Sam rounds on the guards, angry and afraid, but they've apparently gone past being friendly. Every single one of their machine guns is pointed at what remains of his crew and the pilot, backing them up with slow, measured steps against the 'copter.
“Let it be a warning to you,” the tallest guard says, and sick dread rushes through Sam. He didn't know they spoke English, wasn't aware that everything he said to Dean could easily have been reported back to their boss. “Now get in and go away.”
By the time he's finished saying this, the machine gun is pressed right against his chest, and Sam knows that if the guard were to open fire now there'd be nothing left of him to send home.
He takes a deep, steadying breath and tries to push his anger away, make himself less likely to resort to violence, because there's no way he's going to take on a guy with a machine gun and live, no matter how much he wants it.
“Shit,” he says, less of an expletive and more like a sigh. He turns, slow, and climbs into the 'copter, nods at Ellen and Bobby to do the same. The guards continue to look menacing, continue to wave their guns at them, and Sam knows they aren't getting Ash back.
Damnit, this was his idea. This was all his idea and Ash hadn't wanted any part of it, and now he was going to die because of it. If he wasn't already dead. As they take flight, he aims a kick at the shoddy metal of the inside of the door, hears the less-than-satisfying clinging reverberate over the metal body.
This certainly puts a dent in his plans. He wasn't expecting to lose anybody, not here, not now. He wasn't aware if Ash had any family, but when he got back to the States, he was going to find them. He was going to find them and go to their doors, tell them his name and that he'd gotten Ash killed.
Because he had to. And if he can't execute his first plan, well, Sam thinks that's the next best thing.
“Hell,” Ellen says, when they start off in the direction they came. He can hear the tears in her voice, knows that she doesn't want anybody to know. Sam takes a deep breath, rests his head back against the seat and takes a deep breath that comes out shaky.
Fuck.
Night comes swiftly; the 'copter is following the river, and Sam can tell the pilot wants to land for a break, but he doesn't trust it. The country here is too wild, and if the wildlife didn't kill you, he's more than sure the natives will. He's running Ash's lanyard through his fingers, pulling the cord taught and then dropping it to start over, trying not to look at the photo on the front of the plastic card hanging from it.
Nobody's said more than a handful of words since they left the headquarters, and when Sam turns to look at his two remaining photographers, they avert their eyes. He takes to watching the landscape falling away under the helicopter.
The river is inky-black with just the stars reflecting off it. It's so black that when light starts to grow some ways ahead, Sam sits up in his seat and fixes his eyes on it, waiting. When they get closer, he notices it's a large, sprawling camp; there are small fires lit between tents, camouflaged vehicles waiting around at random and a large, hulking helicopter behind the tents.
It isn't exactly subtle. But he wonders, thinks about Dean locked away in his cell, awaiting tomorrow's sunset because at least he has something to look forward to when they kill him, about the difference he could make right here, right now.
“Land over there,” Sam instructs, pointing to a point far enough way that they won't be seen as a threat (unless he's wrong, in which case they're all pretty much fucked; why doesn't he just stop having ideas, already? It's not like they ever work, and then people get hurt). The pilot eyes him, wary, before he does as instructed.
“Not good,” he says, and Sam would have to agree, but he wasn't going to voice it.
As soon as they touch down, there are people surrounding the 'copter. They aren't uniformed like the guards at the HQ; they're each dressed differently, still toting guns but at least they aren't aiming them at Sam and his crew. That's always a plus.
“I'll get out,” he says, unnecessarily.
As soon as his feet hit the dirt, he's surrounded. “Wait,” he says, hopes they listen. “I, uh. I met with your leader. At the government headquarters? I'm a reporter,” he says by way of explanation. The people surrounding him exchange looks, seem to have an entire conversation with their eyes, and Sam makes a resolution: when and if he gets out of this, he's going to stop having guns pointed at him.
The second in command, Pamela, speaks both the native language and English. She's anxious to meet him, a little cold at first (because she has to be, Sam understands; he's just had a very long day and stopped caring a while ago). But she's entirely too trusting. Maybe it's because he's a Yank as well, maybe it's the look in his eyes. Either way, she listens to him speak, listens to the story of his brief time in the government headquarters and his meeting with Dean.
When he gets to the part about Ash, he has to take a deep breath to continue.
Another, less elaborate plan is forming in the back of his mind. And he's going to go through with it as long as he can.
He tells her his plans eventually, and she outright refuses.
“Sam, we can't do that. We can't raid the government base. Now, Dean's a good leader, and I understand why you'd want to rescue him, but it's... it's too risky. He wouldn't want us to do that for him.”
“Really? He told me where you guys were when I mentioned it, when I asked if he thought anyone would come save him.” Sam watches for her reaction, gauges it and wonders how far he can get with it. “We have to do this, Pamela. I have to do this. So you can either lend me a machine gun and let me do it myself, or you can help me and maybe we'll have a chance.”
She looks out over the camp, at the people wandering between camps, and sighs. “It's a suicide mission. You know that, right?”
“No,” Sam says, trying to sound as convinced as he should. “No, I don't know that.”
“Fine,” Pamela sighs, bowing her head. “But for one man? If we make it out of this, Dean is probably going to kill us himself.”
In the end, they're able to assemble forty men willing to come with them. Pamela gives them no illusions about what their mission is, or what might happen. She's brash and honest with them, and Sam finds himself thinking about what kind of leader she'd make. He feels Ash's ID in his pocket, thinks back to where his passport and other relevant papers are stashed.
He'll need them.
Pamela sends Ellen and Bobby away in the nice helicopter and they spend the rest of the night taking small loads of soldiers as close to the government base as they can without being seen. They'll trek the rest of the way in the morning, make their way through the ring of sentinels that's no doubt set up in the woods around where they need to be, and hopefully make it to the actual base around the same time as Dean is being brought to the guillotine.
It's a risky plan; too much could go wrong, too much is resting on this, and Sam doesn't think for one minute that it won't be worth it. He's been outfitted with a gun of his own, even if he barely knows how to use it. It'll help him look intimidating if nothing else.
The forty men take ten-man shifts watching and sleeping in turn. By the time the sun comes up, Sam's buzzing with a different kind of nervous energy, something he's never felt before. Of course, he's never led a heroic, suicidal mission, either. It's kind of intoxicating.
Not that he's ever trying it again after today, that is.
Midday sees them inching silently toward the base. They've come across a few sentinels already, and taken all of them down; hopefully, no one will know they're coming.
The sun sinking towards the western horizon keeps the time, and each time he looks at it Sam panics a little more. But there's no need to actually worry; by the time the sky starts changing color, they're close enough to the walls that they can see the soft, sandstone color through the trees.
And this is where it gets interesting.
Sam isn't exactly sure where the Courtyard is. He doesn't even have a vague idea. If he were to make an educated guess, he'd say it was in the middle of the complex, which means they're going to have to fight their way in. And by the time they get there, fresh troops are going to be coming from everywhere.
And there are only forty of them, forty-two if he counts Pamela and himself.
He's starting to believe her about the whole suicide mission thing.
“When should we--” he starts to ask, but before he's halfway done with the sentence, Pamela whispers, “Now!” and they're moving, as one, toward the nearest entrance.
A few of them take a window out and go into the first floor that way. The rest search for other windows, or other entrances, because putting all of them through one window would take too long, raise alarm. There's a guard walking the rooftop, and Pamela shoots him down without so much as a second thought. The only sound he makes as his body hits the ground is a sickening thud, and then they're moving on.
Things continue in a similar fashion until they finally find the courtyard, and for half a second Sam worries that they're too late. They've been silent, stealthy, and their entire force is stationed at different points along the outer wall of the courtyard. There's a mass of guards in the middle, the important-looking man that Sam assumes is the boss, and Dean in the direct center, already locked into the guillotine.
It isn't a comforting sight. Sam's already had to stop himself from throwing up several times as they made their way to this point, stepping over mutilated bodies with fresh, gushing blood. It's not something he usually sees.
But Dean looks up like he knows they're there, bends his neck back as far as the thick wooden casing will allow. He looks directly at Sam, green eyes reflecting the bright light in the courtyard until they sparkle with it, and the fire Sam remembers seeing there has returned, full-force.
Sam smiles despite himself. It's a really messed-up thing to do.
Pamela leans over, suddenly, whispering in his ear, “You get him out of that, okay? We'll distract them. Just don't get shot,” she says, like a command, and Sam kind of wishes that not getting shot in a field of crossfire was as easy as just willing it not to happen. He knows that isn't the case.
She gives the signal, and the silent courtyard explodes in a hail of machine gun fire.
The guards aren't surprised at all. They react with a detached coldness, shooting at every available hiding place; a bullet whizzes past Sam's ear, and he flinches away from it. It's about to get worse.
“Now they know we're here,” Pamela shouts over the sound of fire, “We'll move forward, you get in there.”
And then she's gone, springing up from her hiding place, and all of the men she's brought with her follow suit. Sam waits a moment, waits until they're midfield, almost close enough to engage the guards in hand-to-hand, before he rushes out around them.
One of the guards shoots at him; he can feel the bullets whizzing past him. Something impacts his shoulder, hard, but he disregards it and keeps moving, ceaseless, to the center of the Courtyard where Dean awaits. He doesn't know how he's going to get the thing open, doesn't know anything except the pinging of bullets hitting metal, hitting dirt, the thud when they embed themselves into a nearby person.
The adrenaline rushes in his ears, and he doesn't have time to think about how horrible this idea was.
Because he's suddenly there, suddenly looming next to the guillotine and he doesn't know what to do with the large, heavy lock.
“You came for me,” Dean shouts over the noise, but it doesn't look like he's grateful. It looks like he's in pain, like every bullet that flies around them is hitting him instead, and Sam takes the lock in his hands, frantically turning it over and over and ducking to avoid shrapnel and flying bullets and god, what has he gotten himself into.
“Yeah, yeah, Dean. I did. God, how do you get this thing...” And then he remembers that he has a machine gun strapped to him, and a smaller gun tucked away, hidden. He goes for the smaller one, tests the weight of it in his hand. He's never shot one before, never even aimed and he's so, so scared he's going to hit Dean that it's making his hands shake.
“Both eyes open, watch for the kick,” Dean tells him, and Sam nods, keeps both eyes open as he points at the heavy lock, hopes the gun works on it, hopes he isn't too late and that no one's dead and that they can all get away.
When he squeezes the trigger, it goes wide, ricochets back somewhere into the crowd, and Sam curses. Dean winces, “Come on, Geraldo. Steady.”
Sam feels something clip the side of his leg, and he drops the gun, reaches down to cradle the wound automatically. In doing so, he misses another, more fatal shot, and for a second he can't breathe. His heart is pounding too hard, there's too much adrenaline and he can't handle it. He knows he's not good in crisis situations but he tries, he fucking tries as hard as he can, and when his fingers close around the gun's handle he's shaking, can't stop himself.
“Hey,” Dean shouts at him, and Sam glances up at him and then over to the lock. He's going to do this. If this is the last thing he does, he's going to get them both out of this alive.
He curses as he squeezes the trigger this time, and he doesn't expect it to work, but when he limps his way over to the guillotine he sees there's a gaping hole where the mechanism used to be. He pulls at it and it separates.
Scarcely believing his luck, he pushes the heavy wood up out of the way. Dean crumples to the ground and Sam rushes to help him; they stand in the field of crossfire, daring fate for a single moment before they start running.
Pamela shouts at them to go, but she doesn't have to tell either of them twice. Dean is weak from starvation and dehydration, and he's worryingly light and thin under his rebel clothes. Sam's leg hurts like crazy, bleeding every time he puts weight on it, but he doesn't think it's the femoral artery. He hopes it isn't, because that would be kind of melodramatic.
They reach the edge of the courtyard and Sam pushes Dean up and over the wall, hopes he can catch himself on the other side. It's a chore climbing up with his leg hurting like it is, but he manages, and barely misses landing on Dean when he reaches the other side.
“Damnit,” Dean says, momentarily removed from the gunfire cacophony behind him. “Why the fuck would you--”
“No time,” Sam cuts him off, wincing as he stands. “We've got to get away before someone realizes you're gone.” He helps Dean to his feet and they set off through the corridors, and Sam takes the nearest window out with a bullet. When it shatters he removes all the glass from the frame and pushes Dean over before himself.
They're halfway to the treeline, halfway to freedom so potent Sam can taste it, when there's a single gunshot, loud even after the Courtyard. Sam feels Dean stiffen next to him, feels him go limp, and Sam casts one single, terrified glance over his shoulder.
It's the man he thinks is the boss. He's standing in the window they've just crawled out of, still aiming a handgun at them. The look in his eyes is manic, blazing hatred, but that's all Sam can register before he has to drag Dean farther away, out of range.
When he looks over, blood is bubbling up between Dean's lips and his face is paler than before. His eyes are glassy, looking beyond the trees to something else, something that Sam can't see. Panic hits him, swift and painful as another gunshot and he doesn't stop, doesn't slow down until they're behind a tree and he can prop Dean up against it to look.
The round hit him straight through the chest; there's an exit wound in the exact center of his body, blood gushing from it in weak, strangled pulses.
“No,” Sam says when he sees it. “No, you can't. Damnit, we were almost...” Something seizes around his lungs, constricts his breathing and he knows he should go, move before they come after him, but the feeling gripping him, around him, through him, is almost like dying. He wouldn't care so much just then if an entire group of those guards took turns shooting him, wouldn't care if he himself was dying because this? This isn't fair. This isn't the way life's supposed to be, damnit.
But Dean's breathing, even if it's shallow and not at all convincing. “Hey,” he says, and there's blood thick in his voice, quiet and pained. “Hey, it's... you've got to go.”
Sam shakes his head. “No. No, I'm not going to leave you. We can--”
“We can't. I'm... it'll be okay, but I'm not going to be able to run. You've-” Dean takes a shaky breath. “Pamela will find me. But you, you've got to run. Please.”
“I was supposed to save you,” Sam answers, like that explains everything, and maybe it does. Dean smiles at him, as widely as he can manage.
“You did.”
In the end, Sam runs. He doesn't want to, but Dean says that this isn't his fight and that he's done fine, but he has to go before he ends up in the same position.
It's something he'll regret until he dies.
Three Months Later
Sam clutches the letter in his hand. It's the fifth he's received from TIME magazine, offering him more money than he's even seen for the manuscript sitting on his desk. He's torn, because Dean's story, Ash's story, needs to be told. They deserve it.
But he doesn't want to sell it. It's too intimate; it seems like something he and Dean should share, between the two of them, forever. It seems cheap to sell it, even when he needs the money in a bad way.
He's gone around and around with this debate for weeks, but the manuscript remains on his desk, and there's something that's still missing inside of Sam. He needs to know if Dean made it, if Pamela made it. Hell, he hasn't even heard from Ellen or Bobby since he got back to the States.
Sam is completely alone, and he probably deserves it. He climbs the stairs to his crappy apartment, puts his key in the lock and jiggles it around until it pops open. One day, he's going to afford new locks. One day, he's going to find another primary source of income, one that isn't his most precious secret revealed to the world.
He shuts the door behind him, throws his bag into the kitchen chair just inside the door and sits in the other, resting his head in his hands and staring down at the new envelope.
Shit.
There's a knock on the door, sudden. Sam frowns, because he doesn't know anybody, doesn't have any friends and doesn't think anyone actually knows where he lives. Maybe it's the landlady. He heaves himself up and limps the few feet to the door; his leg still gives him pains on rainy days like today.
There isn't a peephole on his door, so he has to go on instinct. It's not like there's anyone in Los Angeles that could actually scare him, not after what he'd seen when he was overseas. But it was the principle of the thing.
He cracked the door open, and was met with an unfamiliar face. Pretty eyes, though.
It hits him like a punch to the gut, but he's pretty sure he's hallucinating, so he waits for the guy on the other side of the threshold to speak.
“Um. Geraldo?” He offers, and it's like someone's taken the rug from under Sam's feet. He grips the door with both hands just to stay upright.
“Dean,” he breathes.
“Never caught your name, though. Kind of makes it hard to find you.”
And then they're laughing. They're laughing until it's physically impossible for them to laugh anymore, until Sam doesn't know what to say because he feels lighter than he has in a long time, feels healthy for the first time in three months.
“Sam,” he says when he can breathe again. “I'm... you look...”
Healthy, he wants to say. Mentally stable.
“Not a complete recovery yet, but I've got more of a chance here than there. Can I come in...?”
“Yeah, uh. Yeah.” Sam steps back from the door, lets Dean in.
When he sleeps after that, he doesn't dream about it. He doesn't worry about it, and everything falls into place. Dean doesn't leave him, and Sam wakes up one morning to find himself saved.
Uriel glares over at his superior. “I don't understand how you keep influencing these!”
“Again, I have absolutely nothing to do with it.” Despite Uriel's accusations, Castiel is pleased. It isn't pride that he feels every time one of their scenarios plays out for the better, because that would be sinful. It's closer to happiness. His Father's plan is coming together, and everything is set as it should be.
“It's improbable.”
“It was your creation. Perhaps you should have made it more plausible.”
Uriel seethes, and Castiel sets yet another stage.
Next
Previous
Flights into a war-torn country aren't easy. Sam doesn't actually know this until they're flying over one in a helicopter that looks like it's a strong gust of wind away from being scrap metal, avoiding being shot at. Despite the fact that he's bagged the interview with the government officials that no one else was gutsy enough to even ask for, the news apparently hasn't filtered down to the field soldiers.
Sam would use the helicopter's announcement system to tell them this, but that didn't work the first five times they were almost shot down. He has a feeling it isn't going to work now, either.
The pilot's pretty well pissed off at this point. He keeps shouting in the native language - which, to Sam, sounds like some sort of estranged mixture of French and tribal Urdu - and Sam can't do anything more than wince and pass him more money.
He's starting to get a pretty good idea why there’s a civil war here in the first place. Sam's just a freelance reporter, trying to help their plight be publicized (at least, that's his angle, anyway; he's really just going to sell it to the highest-bidding political magazine when he's back in the US). The government wouldn't even send someone. The pilot, whose name Sam can't pronounce, was just the nearest local with knowledge on how to fly a helicopter.
But this story is going to make his career, regardless of the lengths he has to take to get it. He and his team of half-crazy photographers are going to be millionaires when this is all over with.
Okay, maybe not millionaires. But they'd be able to live comfortably, and that's really all Sam wants.
Two days into the flight, they finally land at a small, rooftop helipad. The landscape is forested; after flying over so many forests, Sam can't help but think it's a bit too... normal, for a government building. Maybe that's the genius of it.
As soon as the blades stop cutting the air, there are troops on the rooftop; big bronze-skinned men with automatic machines guns strapped to them and enough ammunition for a full-frontal assault. The more he becomes familiar with the country, the more he realizes why no one else had the story. Sam and his photographers step down from the helicopter with their hands in the air, equipment still stuck below the 'copter's seats.
The pilot and the guards (he can't think of anything else to call them) start what amounts to a conversation in a faster, cruder dialect than the one the pilot had been using earlier. Their dialogue is lightning-fast, and in the space of five minutes they are being moved into the building.
Well, 'moved' is a relative term. All of their equipment stays behind and they're encouraged to keep up by the guards' machine guns periodically prodding them. It isn't a very large base by US standards, and Sam has to keep reminding himself to remember the way. Magazines eat up narrative interviews, don't they?
They find themselves being led down into the earth, into a room lined with crude cells with wooden bars and clay walls.
What light there is down here comes from behind them, filters down and dissolves into near-pitch at the back of the room. There's no way to the surface but the long, sloping corridor that led here. No guards are stationed to watch the various prisoners in the cells; Sam can't help but find this odd, until he realizes that there's no need. There's no chance of a prisoner escaping because they'd have to pass the guards at the mouth of the corridor to get out.
It's clever in a primitive way.
The team is herded into a cell near the back of the room, all four of them in one tiny, cramped space. Sam is momentarily grateful that they weren't allowed to bring their equipment; if there was anything else in the cell, there'd be no room to breathe.
The biggest of the guards steps forward and shuts the panel of wooden bars serving as a door. There's a rusted padlock at one of the edges; he loops it through the clay wall and the bar and snicks it into place.
At the sound, scores of hands reach out from between the wooden bars on either side, groping for anything to reach; thin, emaciated arms with skeletal fingers. Voices scrape over syllables that are gibberish to Sam. He's glad it's dark. He doesn't want to see the faces of the prisoners that've been down here for days, weeks. A few of the cells remain quiet and black.
Hopefully, they're empty.
When the guard is out of sight, the hands retreat back into their cells and the yammering stops. Everything falls eerily silent.
“Nice welcome committee,” Ash comments as he lowers himself to the gritty, sandy floor. No one replies, not right away; they're all preoccupied with the same question, though no one wants to vocalize it. Sam keeps himself from worrying by mentally logging every detail, hoping he can remember it all.
When they get out of here - when, not the if it's threatening to become - his hand will cramp with how fast he'll want to get it on paper.
It's impossible to tell what time of day it is, so it's impossible to tell how long they've been there. It could have been hours, minutes, days. They wouldn't know.
There's the snick-slide of something behind him, and when he turns Sam is momentarily blinded by the fire illuminating Ellen's face. “Wish I had a lighter,” she says, shaking the match out as it gets too close to her fingers and lighting another. That one goes out just as quickly, and she stops trying. There's nothing to see down here anyway, though it wouldn't have made them as crazy if they could at least see something.
“You know what I wanna know,” the senior member of their team and lead photographer, Bobby, speaks up from the very back of the cell. “If they treat us this badly, how do those poor rebel bastards get it?”
From some place out in the dark (and maybe to the left, but it's hard to tell), someone laughs. It's a low, wretched sound, and wouldn't be noticeable if it weren't so quiet. Sam strains his eyes, trying to figure the source of the sound. “Much worse,” a voice croaks from the same direction, and it's so unexpected all of them jump in unison.
“You speak English?” Sam asks. It's not a very reporter-like question to start off with, but he's relatively surprised that somebody here can understand them.
“Native.”
Sam guesses that the guy's in the next cell over, though he isn't sure. “Are you a reporter?” If he is, that explains why no one's got the story. The government doesn't allow anyone to get the story.
The feeling of dread is already rising when the guy says, “No. But if that's what you guys are, I don't envy you.” He sounds like he hasn't had water in days. Sam's sympathy is quickly swallowed by the fear that sparks his overactive imagination. He has a sick feeling they're going to be down here until they're dead, starved and dehydrated, as emaciated and skeletal as the others.
“What do you mean?”
The prisoner laughs, and it quickly degenerates into a dry cough. Sam waits, anxious, hands curled around the wood of the bars like he can see who he's talking to if he cranes his head enough. He can feel the splinters digging into his palms, but it's a minor annoyance compared to everything else.
“I mean,” the guy continues when he can breathe again, albeit unsteadily. “They're going to give you the story. And then they're going to kill you, one way or another.”
“You're a rebel prisoner, aren't you?” Sam asks, realization dawning.
The guy snorts derisively. “Guess that's all I am now, yeah.”
“What--” he starts, but Ellen shushes him. Footsteps echo down the corridor, resounding in the room like gunshots, and a group of guards appears at the entrance. One of them starts toward their cell, ring of keys rattling as he steps, and the sea of hands reaches out again, brushing his uniform and groping for freedom. The guard issues a singular, nonsensical command and they slink back into their cells and fall silent again.
He unlocks the padlock holding their cell shut and opens the door, ushers them out. The rest of the guards swarm them as soon as they get past the corridor, and into the bright light of dusk filtering through windows in the main building.
More twisting corridors and they're led into a room that's considerably more decorated than what they've seen of the rest of the place and so much larger than the cell they'd been in.
They're left alone in this room, and immediately spread out.
“The next time you have a crazy-ass plan, remind me to stay home,” Ash says.
Minutes later, the door bursts open and an important-looking man steps into what Sam assumes is the parlor, or some sort of office. He's flanked by guards toting more heavy artillery. It does what it's supposed to, serves as a reminder to any of them if they feel like stepping out of line.
“You requested an interview,” the man says. His English is fairly good but his accent is thick enough that it takes a few seconds to work out what he's saying. There's a moment when Sam isn't sure if he's the one that needs to answer, and then he realizes that everyone's looking at him. He clears his throat.
“Yeah, I.” He's struck with sudden inspiration, and wonders if it's too much to ask, decides to ask anyway. “But I was wondering if I could get one with the rebel prisoner you've captured as well. Just to get the full scope, you know.”
The man's laugh isn't kind. “You Americans like to press your luck.” He spits out 'Americans' like the word personally offends him. “I shouldn't let you.”
Sam's stupid, stupid pride rises to the challenge. “I'll pay you well for your help. I don't know what you did with my pilot, but you can ask him; I'll even make the government out to be the good guy. I just want a good story out of it.” There's something liberating in the knowledge that once he gets out of the country, he can write it however he wants and they won't be able to do a damn thing about it.
Another yammering conversation takes place between the man and his guard, and the guard disappears back into the hallway. The man surveys the four of them, measuring just how much of a threat they could be.
“I'll give you your interview, but you must leave immediately afterwards.”
“Definitely not going to be a problem,” Bobby says under his breath, from somewhere behind Sam. He resists the urge to laugh. Not only would it be insulting, there's absolutely nothing about this situation that's funny in anything but a hysterical way.
“Can we have our equipment?” Ellen asks.
The man waves his hand and makes a frustrated sound. “Of course. This man will take one of you to get what you need.” One of the other guards steps forward, and Sam doesn't turn, but he can almost feel the way the rest of the team is deciding who's going to go. Ash ends up going, and the way he eyes the guard's gun makes Sam wish his ambitions were more benign.
Minutes later, the door creaks open. Sam expects it to be Ash returning with the equipment, but it isn't; the guards are leading the prisoner in.
They don't have to drag him - he's barely struggling. It might have something to do with the way his skin is pale, almost waxy from spending so long down in that cell. The sun is still setting through the large window behind Sam; the light's spilling in, bright, and the prisoner has his eyes shut tight when he enters, eyebrows knitted together like he's in pain.
Ellen shuts the window when she realizes, which is just a second quicker than Sam; she's pulling the stubborn, foreign blinds over it before Sam has a chance to stand and do the same. They put the prisoner in the chair opposite the couch where Sam is sitting.
He takes a minute to prepare his questions, trying to make them sound innocent enough if any of the guards know English or if their boss is listening from another room. The guards step back; the prisoner's wrists are still bound behind him, and they obviously don't consider him much of a threat.
Sam wants to wait for Ash to get back with the equipment, really he does, but there's no telling how long it's going to be and they might be giving him only a small amount of time with the prisoner. He's pretty sure he can remember the interview without any help, doesn't know if he'll ever be able to forget it, any of it.
He looks up, opens his mouth to introduce himself and ask the first question, but he stops and ends up sitting there with his mouth hanging open. It's not a good first-impression, he realizes dimly, but he can't help it.
Darkness has fallen in the room, dark enough that the prisoner can open his eyes. And even through the dark, he has to have the most beautiful eyes Sam's ever seen. They're huge, made more so by the way the guy's face is wan, unhealthy-looking. Now that he sees the whole picture he can imagine what that face might look like when it's healthy, and it makes him forget every question he'd had lined up to ask.
Sam stares for a solid minute, and the prisoner meets his gaze, unwavering. Now he can see something the guards have neglected: they might think they've crushed the man's spirit but there's still fire in there somewhere, waiting for just enough gunpowder or lighter fluid to blaze, consume.
Bobby says, “Boy...” behind him, warning him, and when Sam looks away from the prisoner he can see the guards glaring. He's wasting time.
So he clears his throat, doesn't know where to rest his eyes as he asks the first question. “What's your name, and what was your position in this conflict before you were captured?”
The prisoner makes a move like he's going to lean forward, like it's second-nature, but without the use of his hands the movement is awkward, aborted. He rests against the back of the chair again, and clears his throat.
“Name's Dean. Came here a couple years ago on vacation. You know, when it was actually a nice place to visit? Never left. I figured I could help the cause. Turned out I was pretty good at it, so they made me their leader.” Dean's voice is raspy, dry. Sam doesn't know if calling for water would be pressing his luck further, so he casts his eyes downward and pretends not to notice.
“How did you get to be the leader of the rebel force?”
“They didn't trust me at first, thought I might be some kinda of spy; after the first few runs they took me on, they started looking at me different.” Dean clears his throat again, and Sam wonders how long he's been down in there, how long it's been since he spoke to another human being, another American.
He continues after a brief silence, and his voice is weaker. “There was this... I don't know, skirmish, where the government found our base, opened fire. I took a bullet for their leader and it put me down for a few weeks.
“That helped, I guess. Next thing I know, the leader gets himself killed on a raid and I can hardly walk, but everyone's looking for me to tell them what to do.”
Sam knows he'll remember this. There's no need to have a camera except that he'll want to have pictures of it later, something to remember Dean by other than his story. Even if it is pretty poignant. “Wow,” he says, when Dean falls silent. There are so many things he wants to ask that he abandons the premise of an interview and goes for a conversation, because he can always polish it up later. “I guess you're familiar with what's going on, then. When did... when did it start, and why is it happening?”
Dean snorts, makes the same move to lean forward as before, and Sam would call for him to be unbound if he didn't already feel the eyes of the guards on him, waiting with their guns ready for him to step out of line. “Same as any civil war gets started. The government oppresses a group of people that they don't agree with, and the people rebel. I'm surprised at you.”
The last bit catches Sam off-guard. “Huh?”
“I remember watching 60 Minutes back home. I know the type you're trying to be, all professional and poignant without really caring. Selling articles and ratings are what it's about, right? But you're not like them. You're different.”
This isn't the place Sam hoped to find introspection. He doesn't want to be judged or measured, he wants to get his job done. Only now it's become more than that, because Dean is right. Everyone he's ever watched, every journalist or reporter he's ever worked with or observed, is detached from their work.
And he isn't. He's known it for a while, but Dean saying it out loud almost makes him realize.
Almost.
This isn't about the story anymore. It's not just that there's a personal challenge to make it something more, issued from the man sitting across from him with his crystal, tragic green eyes - it's something he has to do, now.
What he can do about it, though, is still pretty vague.
“What's going to happen to you?” Sam asks, quiet, and around them the air is static.
Dean shrugs with one shoulder. “There's an old-fashioned guillotine down in the courtyard that's got my name on it. This time tomorrow, it really won't matter what I told some reporter. I won't be around to see the consequences.”
Nothing Dean's told him so far has made Sam physically ache, but that does. It's wrong. Not just war in general, because he's known that for a long time, but... the people that get caught up in war, the victims of it, should never have to go through the hardships they do. The people of this country should be living in peace, and Dean should be working a regular job back home, watching games on Sundays and grilling steaks in the backyard.
Sam's never had that life, but he doesn't really want it anymore. It's unfair for him to have it when there are people like Dean, caught up in something that they had nothing to do with and dying, slow from dehydration or quickly from the downward cut of a shining guillotine blade.
When he goes back to write his story, this is when he'll decide that he knows what he has to do.
It's not a big step, nothing that's really going to help anyone but Dean, but it's something. And it's the least Sam can do for a fellow American.
Dean watches him oddly, waiting for a reaction, and Sam wonders if everything he thinks is written all over his face.
“Do you think your rebels will come and rescue you?”
It's a cautious question, and by the look in Dean's eyes, he's caught on.
“I don't think so,” he says. “Last place they had camp, far as I know, was a ways up the river. They could always appoint another leader. There's this woman, Pamela. Another American; I'm not quite sure how she got here, but she's sort of second in command, you know? They'll probably just look to her.”
“Ah, I see. They're going to execute you at sundown?”
“Yeah. Pretty classic.”
Sam nods, looks over his shoulder at Ellen and Bobby. They don't have to help, not if they don't want to risk their lives. Sam would understand. He just needs to do this; it feels like it could be the most important thing he's ever done.
“How--” But he's cut off by the guards' yammering, yelling at him, and he reflexively leans as far away as he can. They each grab one of Dean's arms and haul him up, and again Dean doesn't struggle, resigns himself to it. He watches Sam the whole way out, though, and the haunted look in his eyes is as close as Sam thinks he'll get to hopeful.
It isn't long after that they're being rushed back out to their helicopter. Their pilot is there, looking pale and shaken, and Sam really can't blame him. When they climb up into the 'copter, they expect to find Ash, or at least to find the equipment gone, but it hasn't been touched and the fourth member of their team is nowhere to be found.
“Ash?” Sam calls, like he expects him to jump out from behind the helicopter or something. The pilot makes a quick, jerky movement with his head, back and forth. Sam calls louder, and the pilot lets out a little squeak and shakes his head more, gripping the controls with white knuckles.
Sam rounds on the guards, angry and afraid, but they've apparently gone past being friendly. Every single one of their machine guns is pointed at what remains of his crew and the pilot, backing them up with slow, measured steps against the 'copter.
“Let it be a warning to you,” the tallest guard says, and sick dread rushes through Sam. He didn't know they spoke English, wasn't aware that everything he said to Dean could easily have been reported back to their boss. “Now get in and go away.”
By the time he's finished saying this, the machine gun is pressed right against his chest, and Sam knows that if the guard were to open fire now there'd be nothing left of him to send home.
He takes a deep, steadying breath and tries to push his anger away, make himself less likely to resort to violence, because there's no way he's going to take on a guy with a machine gun and live, no matter how much he wants it.
“Shit,” he says, less of an expletive and more like a sigh. He turns, slow, and climbs into the 'copter, nods at Ellen and Bobby to do the same. The guards continue to look menacing, continue to wave their guns at them, and Sam knows they aren't getting Ash back.
Damnit, this was his idea. This was all his idea and Ash hadn't wanted any part of it, and now he was going to die because of it. If he wasn't already dead. As they take flight, he aims a kick at the shoddy metal of the inside of the door, hears the less-than-satisfying clinging reverberate over the metal body.
This certainly puts a dent in his plans. He wasn't expecting to lose anybody, not here, not now. He wasn't aware if Ash had any family, but when he got back to the States, he was going to find them. He was going to find them and go to their doors, tell them his name and that he'd gotten Ash killed.
Because he had to. And if he can't execute his first plan, well, Sam thinks that's the next best thing.
“Hell,” Ellen says, when they start off in the direction they came. He can hear the tears in her voice, knows that she doesn't want anybody to know. Sam takes a deep breath, rests his head back against the seat and takes a deep breath that comes out shaky.
Fuck.
Night comes swiftly; the 'copter is following the river, and Sam can tell the pilot wants to land for a break, but he doesn't trust it. The country here is too wild, and if the wildlife didn't kill you, he's more than sure the natives will. He's running Ash's lanyard through his fingers, pulling the cord taught and then dropping it to start over, trying not to look at the photo on the front of the plastic card hanging from it.
Nobody's said more than a handful of words since they left the headquarters, and when Sam turns to look at his two remaining photographers, they avert their eyes. He takes to watching the landscape falling away under the helicopter.
The river is inky-black with just the stars reflecting off it. It's so black that when light starts to grow some ways ahead, Sam sits up in his seat and fixes his eyes on it, waiting. When they get closer, he notices it's a large, sprawling camp; there are small fires lit between tents, camouflaged vehicles waiting around at random and a large, hulking helicopter behind the tents.
It isn't exactly subtle. But he wonders, thinks about Dean locked away in his cell, awaiting tomorrow's sunset because at least he has something to look forward to when they kill him, about the difference he could make right here, right now.
“Land over there,” Sam instructs, pointing to a point far enough way that they won't be seen as a threat (unless he's wrong, in which case they're all pretty much fucked; why doesn't he just stop having ideas, already? It's not like they ever work, and then people get hurt). The pilot eyes him, wary, before he does as instructed.
“Not good,” he says, and Sam would have to agree, but he wasn't going to voice it.
As soon as they touch down, there are people surrounding the 'copter. They aren't uniformed like the guards at the HQ; they're each dressed differently, still toting guns but at least they aren't aiming them at Sam and his crew. That's always a plus.
“I'll get out,” he says, unnecessarily.
As soon as his feet hit the dirt, he's surrounded. “Wait,” he says, hopes they listen. “I, uh. I met with your leader. At the government headquarters? I'm a reporter,” he says by way of explanation. The people surrounding him exchange looks, seem to have an entire conversation with their eyes, and Sam makes a resolution: when and if he gets out of this, he's going to stop having guns pointed at him.
The second in command, Pamela, speaks both the native language and English. She's anxious to meet him, a little cold at first (because she has to be, Sam understands; he's just had a very long day and stopped caring a while ago). But she's entirely too trusting. Maybe it's because he's a Yank as well, maybe it's the look in his eyes. Either way, she listens to him speak, listens to the story of his brief time in the government headquarters and his meeting with Dean.
When he gets to the part about Ash, he has to take a deep breath to continue.
Another, less elaborate plan is forming in the back of his mind. And he's going to go through with it as long as he can.
He tells her his plans eventually, and she outright refuses.
“Sam, we can't do that. We can't raid the government base. Now, Dean's a good leader, and I understand why you'd want to rescue him, but it's... it's too risky. He wouldn't want us to do that for him.”
“Really? He told me where you guys were when I mentioned it, when I asked if he thought anyone would come save him.” Sam watches for her reaction, gauges it and wonders how far he can get with it. “We have to do this, Pamela. I have to do this. So you can either lend me a machine gun and let me do it myself, or you can help me and maybe we'll have a chance.”
She looks out over the camp, at the people wandering between camps, and sighs. “It's a suicide mission. You know that, right?”
“No,” Sam says, trying to sound as convinced as he should. “No, I don't know that.”
“Fine,” Pamela sighs, bowing her head. “But for one man? If we make it out of this, Dean is probably going to kill us himself.”
In the end, they're able to assemble forty men willing to come with them. Pamela gives them no illusions about what their mission is, or what might happen. She's brash and honest with them, and Sam finds himself thinking about what kind of leader she'd make. He feels Ash's ID in his pocket, thinks back to where his passport and other relevant papers are stashed.
He'll need them.
Pamela sends Ellen and Bobby away in the nice helicopter and they spend the rest of the night taking small loads of soldiers as close to the government base as they can without being seen. They'll trek the rest of the way in the morning, make their way through the ring of sentinels that's no doubt set up in the woods around where they need to be, and hopefully make it to the actual base around the same time as Dean is being brought to the guillotine.
It's a risky plan; too much could go wrong, too much is resting on this, and Sam doesn't think for one minute that it won't be worth it. He's been outfitted with a gun of his own, even if he barely knows how to use it. It'll help him look intimidating if nothing else.
The forty men take ten-man shifts watching and sleeping in turn. By the time the sun comes up, Sam's buzzing with a different kind of nervous energy, something he's never felt before. Of course, he's never led a heroic, suicidal mission, either. It's kind of intoxicating.
Not that he's ever trying it again after today, that is.
Midday sees them inching silently toward the base. They've come across a few sentinels already, and taken all of them down; hopefully, no one will know they're coming.
The sun sinking towards the western horizon keeps the time, and each time he looks at it Sam panics a little more. But there's no need to actually worry; by the time the sky starts changing color, they're close enough to the walls that they can see the soft, sandstone color through the trees.
And this is where it gets interesting.
Sam isn't exactly sure where the Courtyard is. He doesn't even have a vague idea. If he were to make an educated guess, he'd say it was in the middle of the complex, which means they're going to have to fight their way in. And by the time they get there, fresh troops are going to be coming from everywhere.
And there are only forty of them, forty-two if he counts Pamela and himself.
He's starting to believe her about the whole suicide mission thing.
“When should we--” he starts to ask, but before he's halfway done with the sentence, Pamela whispers, “Now!” and they're moving, as one, toward the nearest entrance.
A few of them take a window out and go into the first floor that way. The rest search for other windows, or other entrances, because putting all of them through one window would take too long, raise alarm. There's a guard walking the rooftop, and Pamela shoots him down without so much as a second thought. The only sound he makes as his body hits the ground is a sickening thud, and then they're moving on.
Things continue in a similar fashion until they finally find the courtyard, and for half a second Sam worries that they're too late. They've been silent, stealthy, and their entire force is stationed at different points along the outer wall of the courtyard. There's a mass of guards in the middle, the important-looking man that Sam assumes is the boss, and Dean in the direct center, already locked into the guillotine.
It isn't a comforting sight. Sam's already had to stop himself from throwing up several times as they made their way to this point, stepping over mutilated bodies with fresh, gushing blood. It's not something he usually sees.
But Dean looks up like he knows they're there, bends his neck back as far as the thick wooden casing will allow. He looks directly at Sam, green eyes reflecting the bright light in the courtyard until they sparkle with it, and the fire Sam remembers seeing there has returned, full-force.
Sam smiles despite himself. It's a really messed-up thing to do.
Pamela leans over, suddenly, whispering in his ear, “You get him out of that, okay? We'll distract them. Just don't get shot,” she says, like a command, and Sam kind of wishes that not getting shot in a field of crossfire was as easy as just willing it not to happen. He knows that isn't the case.
She gives the signal, and the silent courtyard explodes in a hail of machine gun fire.
The guards aren't surprised at all. They react with a detached coldness, shooting at every available hiding place; a bullet whizzes past Sam's ear, and he flinches away from it. It's about to get worse.
“Now they know we're here,” Pamela shouts over the sound of fire, “We'll move forward, you get in there.”
And then she's gone, springing up from her hiding place, and all of the men she's brought with her follow suit. Sam waits a moment, waits until they're midfield, almost close enough to engage the guards in hand-to-hand, before he rushes out around them.
One of the guards shoots at him; he can feel the bullets whizzing past him. Something impacts his shoulder, hard, but he disregards it and keeps moving, ceaseless, to the center of the Courtyard where Dean awaits. He doesn't know how he's going to get the thing open, doesn't know anything except the pinging of bullets hitting metal, hitting dirt, the thud when they embed themselves into a nearby person.
The adrenaline rushes in his ears, and he doesn't have time to think about how horrible this idea was.
Because he's suddenly there, suddenly looming next to the guillotine and he doesn't know what to do with the large, heavy lock.
“You came for me,” Dean shouts over the noise, but it doesn't look like he's grateful. It looks like he's in pain, like every bullet that flies around them is hitting him instead, and Sam takes the lock in his hands, frantically turning it over and over and ducking to avoid shrapnel and flying bullets and god, what has he gotten himself into.
“Yeah, yeah, Dean. I did. God, how do you get this thing...” And then he remembers that he has a machine gun strapped to him, and a smaller gun tucked away, hidden. He goes for the smaller one, tests the weight of it in his hand. He's never shot one before, never even aimed and he's so, so scared he's going to hit Dean that it's making his hands shake.
“Both eyes open, watch for the kick,” Dean tells him, and Sam nods, keeps both eyes open as he points at the heavy lock, hopes the gun works on it, hopes he isn't too late and that no one's dead and that they can all get away.
When he squeezes the trigger, it goes wide, ricochets back somewhere into the crowd, and Sam curses. Dean winces, “Come on, Geraldo. Steady.”
Sam feels something clip the side of his leg, and he drops the gun, reaches down to cradle the wound automatically. In doing so, he misses another, more fatal shot, and for a second he can't breathe. His heart is pounding too hard, there's too much adrenaline and he can't handle it. He knows he's not good in crisis situations but he tries, he fucking tries as hard as he can, and when his fingers close around the gun's handle he's shaking, can't stop himself.
“Hey,” Dean shouts at him, and Sam glances up at him and then over to the lock. He's going to do this. If this is the last thing he does, he's going to get them both out of this alive.
He curses as he squeezes the trigger this time, and he doesn't expect it to work, but when he limps his way over to the guillotine he sees there's a gaping hole where the mechanism used to be. He pulls at it and it separates.
Scarcely believing his luck, he pushes the heavy wood up out of the way. Dean crumples to the ground and Sam rushes to help him; they stand in the field of crossfire, daring fate for a single moment before they start running.
Pamela shouts at them to go, but she doesn't have to tell either of them twice. Dean is weak from starvation and dehydration, and he's worryingly light and thin under his rebel clothes. Sam's leg hurts like crazy, bleeding every time he puts weight on it, but he doesn't think it's the femoral artery. He hopes it isn't, because that would be kind of melodramatic.
They reach the edge of the courtyard and Sam pushes Dean up and over the wall, hopes he can catch himself on the other side. It's a chore climbing up with his leg hurting like it is, but he manages, and barely misses landing on Dean when he reaches the other side.
“Damnit,” Dean says, momentarily removed from the gunfire cacophony behind him. “Why the fuck would you--”
“No time,” Sam cuts him off, wincing as he stands. “We've got to get away before someone realizes you're gone.” He helps Dean to his feet and they set off through the corridors, and Sam takes the nearest window out with a bullet. When it shatters he removes all the glass from the frame and pushes Dean over before himself.
They're halfway to the treeline, halfway to freedom so potent Sam can taste it, when there's a single gunshot, loud even after the Courtyard. Sam feels Dean stiffen next to him, feels him go limp, and Sam casts one single, terrified glance over his shoulder.
It's the man he thinks is the boss. He's standing in the window they've just crawled out of, still aiming a handgun at them. The look in his eyes is manic, blazing hatred, but that's all Sam can register before he has to drag Dean farther away, out of range.
When he looks over, blood is bubbling up between Dean's lips and his face is paler than before. His eyes are glassy, looking beyond the trees to something else, something that Sam can't see. Panic hits him, swift and painful as another gunshot and he doesn't stop, doesn't slow down until they're behind a tree and he can prop Dean up against it to look.
The round hit him straight through the chest; there's an exit wound in the exact center of his body, blood gushing from it in weak, strangled pulses.
“No,” Sam says when he sees it. “No, you can't. Damnit, we were almost...” Something seizes around his lungs, constricts his breathing and he knows he should go, move before they come after him, but the feeling gripping him, around him, through him, is almost like dying. He wouldn't care so much just then if an entire group of those guards took turns shooting him, wouldn't care if he himself was dying because this? This isn't fair. This isn't the way life's supposed to be, damnit.
But Dean's breathing, even if it's shallow and not at all convincing. “Hey,” he says, and there's blood thick in his voice, quiet and pained. “Hey, it's... you've got to go.”
Sam shakes his head. “No. No, I'm not going to leave you. We can--”
“We can't. I'm... it'll be okay, but I'm not going to be able to run. You've-” Dean takes a shaky breath. “Pamela will find me. But you, you've got to run. Please.”
“I was supposed to save you,” Sam answers, like that explains everything, and maybe it does. Dean smiles at him, as widely as he can manage.
“You did.”
In the end, Sam runs. He doesn't want to, but Dean says that this isn't his fight and that he's done fine, but he has to go before he ends up in the same position.
It's something he'll regret until he dies.
Three Months Later
Sam clutches the letter in his hand. It's the fifth he's received from TIME magazine, offering him more money than he's even seen for the manuscript sitting on his desk. He's torn, because Dean's story, Ash's story, needs to be told. They deserve it.
But he doesn't want to sell it. It's too intimate; it seems like something he and Dean should share, between the two of them, forever. It seems cheap to sell it, even when he needs the money in a bad way.
He's gone around and around with this debate for weeks, but the manuscript remains on his desk, and there's something that's still missing inside of Sam. He needs to know if Dean made it, if Pamela made it. Hell, he hasn't even heard from Ellen or Bobby since he got back to the States.
Sam is completely alone, and he probably deserves it. He climbs the stairs to his crappy apartment, puts his key in the lock and jiggles it around until it pops open. One day, he's going to afford new locks. One day, he's going to find another primary source of income, one that isn't his most precious secret revealed to the world.
He shuts the door behind him, throws his bag into the kitchen chair just inside the door and sits in the other, resting his head in his hands and staring down at the new envelope.
Shit.
There's a knock on the door, sudden. Sam frowns, because he doesn't know anybody, doesn't have any friends and doesn't think anyone actually knows where he lives. Maybe it's the landlady. He heaves himself up and limps the few feet to the door; his leg still gives him pains on rainy days like today.
There isn't a peephole on his door, so he has to go on instinct. It's not like there's anyone in Los Angeles that could actually scare him, not after what he'd seen when he was overseas. But it was the principle of the thing.
He cracked the door open, and was met with an unfamiliar face. Pretty eyes, though.
It hits him like a punch to the gut, but he's pretty sure he's hallucinating, so he waits for the guy on the other side of the threshold to speak.
“Um. Geraldo?” He offers, and it's like someone's taken the rug from under Sam's feet. He grips the door with both hands just to stay upright.
“Dean,” he breathes.
“Never caught your name, though. Kind of makes it hard to find you.”
And then they're laughing. They're laughing until it's physically impossible for them to laugh anymore, until Sam doesn't know what to say because he feels lighter than he has in a long time, feels healthy for the first time in three months.
“Sam,” he says when he can breathe again. “I'm... you look...”
Healthy, he wants to say. Mentally stable.
“Not a complete recovery yet, but I've got more of a chance here than there. Can I come in...?”
“Yeah, uh. Yeah.” Sam steps back from the door, lets Dean in.
When he sleeps after that, he doesn't dream about it. He doesn't worry about it, and everything falls into place. Dean doesn't leave him, and Sam wakes up one morning to find himself saved.
Uriel glares over at his superior. “I don't understand how you keep influencing these!”
“Again, I have absolutely nothing to do with it.” Despite Uriel's accusations, Castiel is pleased. It isn't pride that he feels every time one of their scenarios plays out for the better, because that would be sinful. It's closer to happiness. His Father's plan is coming together, and everything is set as it should be.
“It's improbable.”
“It was your creation. Perhaps you should have made it more plausible.”
Uriel seethes, and Castiel sets yet another stage.
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