Fic: Three's Company Too 6/7
The next morning, Jess work early, thanks to her finicky internal clock still being used to getting up in time make her morning shift at the coffee shop. She ducked into the shower, completing the job quickly and pulling her hair into a braid, not wanting to deal with the curly mess today.
When she stepped out, Dean was already up and walking around, wearing an old leather jacket that she didn’t recognize from yesterday.
“I’m starving,” Dean announced. “I’m gonna grab something to eat at that diner down the street. You two want anything?”
Sam grunted. He was slumped over the edge of the bed and had barely woken up. Jess knew from experience that he wouldn’t be overly responsive until he had had a shower, or at least a sip of coffee.
“I’ll come with you,” Jess decided, shoving her feet into shoes and tightening the laces quickly. She planted a kiss on Sam’s cheek as she grabbed her jacket. “I’ll pick up some coffee and scrambled eggs,” she promised.
They had stepped out of the room, and Jess was just starting to look forward to sitting in the front seat of the car, when Dean pivoted abruptly and whipped out his phone.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“What?” Jess whispered.
“Recognize those guys from the bridge?” He nodded to his left and Jess risked a small glance over to where she saw the two officers they had talked to yesterday morning. They were currently interviewing the motel clerk who was gesturing at the room Dean had rented for the night.
“Dude,” Dean spoke curtly into his phone. “5-0. Take off.” He paused while Sam replied. “They kind of already spotted us.”
Jess realized it was true. The two officers were heading their way, looking grim.
“Jess will be fine .You’ll be a lot more useful out in the open than with us. Go find Dad.” Dean snapped the phone closed, and turned to face the two men, plastering a pleasant smile across his face. “Problem, officers?”
“Where’s your partner?” the man asked, scanning the faces of Dean and Jess.
Jess tried to arrange her face into the most innocent configuration possible, although she was certain that her inner panic was bleeding through. In all of her hunts with her dad, they had never got caught by the police.
“Partner?” Dean asked. “What partner?”
Jess rolled her eyes. Seriously? Was he trying to lead them right in the direction of Sam?
“He went back to the bridge,” Jess blurted out. “Early this morning. Oh, god, please don’t arrest us. Please!”
Dean shot a glance in her direction, and she could tell that he was impressed with her lie, although he hid it well from the authorities in front of them.
“Easy,” the deputy soothed. “We’ll sort this out, sweetheart.”
Jess gritted her teeth against the nickname, but refrained from saying anything. If she had to play the part of ditzy blonde to get them out of this, then she would.
“So,” the deputy continued, speaking to Dean alone now. “Fake US Marshal. Fake credit cards. You got anything that’s real?”
“My boobs.”
Jess had seen it flash across his face before it came out, and she would have given anything to stick it right up his nose the moment it did.
“You idiot,” she groaned. “You couldn’t have held onto that particularly clever comment for now and shared it later? You’re always-”
She stopped, realizing that her cover as innocent ditz had been blown.
After that, neither of them stood a chance.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I can’t believe you got us arrested,” Jess complained, kicking the table leg from her seat. They had been led into a conference room of sorts, and although neither of them had been officially processed yet, the door locked from the outside, and the staff at the station had all been very careful to keep it locked.
“What do you mean, ‘us’?” Dean complained. “You were doing very well for yourself with the dumb blonde act before you had to ruin it by yelling at me.”
“Who in their right mind antagonizes a police officer like that?” Jess shot back. “What are you, twelve?”
“He was going to take me in anyway,” Dean shrugged.
“But maybe not lock you up! And now we’re both stuck in here until I call my mom to give us bail, and trust me, that conversation will not go over well. Meanwhile my boyfriend’s out there on his own tracking down this woman who has a history of targeting men and there’s nothing I can do to help him!”
“Jessica,” Dean stopped her calmly. “It’ll be okay. This isn’t the first time we’ve been on the wrong end of an investigation. I know I didn’t really help matters when I was talking to that cop. But I know what I’m doing, and more importantly, Sam knows what he’s doing.”
“He’ll be okay?” Jess didn’t like how weak that question made her sound, but she couldn’t help voicing it regardless.
“More than okay,” Dean reassured her. “He’ll be the one to bust us out, you just watch. And for the record, I’m poking these guys for a reason, not just for the fun of getting slammed into a police cruiser.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, just like you said, only idiots antagonize police officers. I’d rather they think I’m an idiot than the brilliant strategist I actually am.”
Jess snorted, her temporary crisis of nerves resolved. Although what he said made some sense, Jess also suspected that Dean really enjoyed prodding at the swelled egos of the men in this station.
“Although, I got to hand it to you,” Dean added. “It was a good idea to send them to the bridge to look for Sammy.”
The door to the office swung inwards, and the sheriff sauntered in, a large cardboard box balanced on his arm.
“So you want to give us your real name?” he asked dryly.
“I told you,” Dean smirked. “It’s Nugent. Ted Nugent.”
“Uh huh. And you, sweetheart?”
Jess rolled her eyes. But if Dean was determined to be stupid, then she might as well come along for the ride.
“Debbie Harry,” she replied.
Dean shot her a surprised look.
“What?” she shrugged.
The sheriff was less than impressed. “I’m not sure you realize just how much trouble you’re in here.”
“You talking, like, misdemeanour trouble, or, uh, squeal like a pig trouble.” Another smart comment escaped from Dean’s mouth, and this time Jess caught the grin he sent in her direction.
And she started to understand it more, now. Because it was way easier to face this with a cocky attitude than with a straight face. They were already screwed as far as fraud charges went. She might as well have some fun before Dean pulled out the master plan he claimed to have in his back pocket.
“You’ve got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall,” the sheriff continued. “Along with a whole lot of satanic mumbo-jumbo. You two are officially suspects.”
“That makes sense,” Dean drawled. “Cause when the first one went missing in ’82, I was three. Unless you think Debbie here was old enough to pull it off?”
“A lady never reveals her age, Ted,” Jess tossed back to him.
“I know you got partners,” their interrogator continued. “One of them’s an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing.”
The sheriff started digging through the box, and Jess fought to maintain her levity. Who was the older guy the sheriff was talking about? Was it John Winchester? Was he in custody, too?
“So tell me, Dean, is this his?” A heavy leather book landed on the table with a loud thunk.
It was all Jess could do to keep from punching the smug look off the man’s face. How did he know Dean’s real name?
Dean was looking at the book as if the sheriff had presented him with a severed limb.
“I thought that might be your name,” the cop continued, walking close to Dean and sitting on the edge of the table. He flipped open the cover of the book, and Jess saw it was like a small binder, packed full of newspaper clippings, photographs, scribbled notes, and various small tokens. “See, I Ieafed through this. What little I could make out, I mean it’s… nine kinds of crazy.”
Jess saw flashes of pages as the sheriff continued to flip through the book. There were drawings of monsters, carefully documented notes, pictures of Sam and Dean as children, paragraphs written in Latin, and who knows what else. Dean sat stiffly in his chair, not making eye contact with the sheriff, but Jess could tell that he wasn’t happy with the idea of a stranger sifting through this precious book. Jess could practically taste the importance of this book, its own little black hole in the room, sucking in the attention of everyone there.
“And I found this, too.” The sheriff finally stopped flipping. The book lay open to a page that was otherwise blank except for writing in block letters that spelled out: DEAN 35-111.
It didn’t mean anything to Jess, but Dean looked like his father had stepped out of the book itself and shouted the message in his son’s ear.
“Now, you’re staying right here until you tell me exactly what the hell that means.”
The cocky, you’ve-got-nothing-on-me look had disappeared from Dean’s face, leaving a stony glare that unsettled Jess. The sheriff also noticed the change in Dean.
The man grinned darkly. “I’ll just let you two ponder on that for a while. Dean. Maybe next time we chat, you’ll be a little more accommodating.” He turned to exit, nearly reaching the door before doubling back and picking up the book from underneath Dean’s reaching fingertips. “If you think I’m going to leave this here for the two of you to flip through…” He trailed off, exiting the room with the book tucked under his arm.
Jess waited until he was long gone before she leaned forward in her seat to whisper to Dean.
“What was that book?”
“Dad’s journal,” Dean replied. “He never went anywhere without it.”
Jess hesitated. “Do you think that means he’s… here? At the station?”
“No, I don’t think so. That page Jerkwad showed us? It was a message to me.”
“Telling you what?”
Dean shook his head, tight-lipped. “Not here.”
“Yeah, okay.” They probably didn’t even own surveillance cameras here, but telling Jess the meaning behind the mysterious numbers while they were inside the police station would be inviting risks they didn’t need.
“So the journal…” Jess began, not able to withhold her curiosity.
“Yeah?”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t the ‘Dear Diary’ type of journal.”
“No,” Dean chuckled. “It was more of the ‘Monster of the Week’ variety. Dad used it to catalogue all the creatures he had come across. What they look like, their MO, that kind of thing.” He paused. “It also has a bunch of information he’s dug up trying to track down the thing that killed our mom. S’why he never goes anywhere without it.”
The thing that killed their mom when Sam was six months old.
Six months exactly? Suddenly, the question was burning too hot for her to ignore.
“Dean?” Her tongue felt heavy, uncooperative in this important venture.
“Yeah?”
“When your mom died… Sam was six months old, right?”
“Yeah.”
Her throat was dry, choking her as she tried to ask her next question. “Was it six months exactly?”
Dean straightened in his seat, and fixed her with a piercing gaze. “Yes,” he replied cautiously.
Jess nodded, knowing the answer to her next question, but having to ask it anyway.
“Was… was it a fire? In his nursery?”
A sharp intake of breath. Then, “How did you know?” Dean demanded.
Jess felt her chest tighten, and she struggled to get enough air into her lungs.
“I’ve heard my dad tell the story to me,” she choked. “I had just turned six months old. Dad was working a late shift. He came home, and went into my nursery to check on me.” She had heard the story from him precious few times, and had never stopped to think much about it beyond sadness and muted, distant horror. But now the story meant so much more. Imagining herself in that position had always been so distant, so hypothetical. But now, all she saw was Sam. Her Sam, in the same position. Losing his mother at so young…
“That’s where he s-saw my mom… pinned to the ceiling… He had barely managed to lift me out before… the whole room went up in f-flames.”
She bent down, head between her legs and forcing herself to take deep breaths.
A hesitant hand landed on her shoulders, and she nearly burst into tears as Dean began to clumsily rub her back.
His hand followed the exact same path that Sam’s always did.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, pulling herself upright. “I’ll be okay now, I promise.”
Dean nodded wordlessly, giving her the time she needed.
“It’s just… I never realized that the thing that killed my mom did the exact same thing to other moms. Dean, your dad’s been hunting this thing for years now, right? Does he know what it is? Why it’s killing mothers with babies six months old?”
“Dad-” Dean’s voice broke, and he shook his head, trying a second time. “Dad never shared a lot about his research into it. Said it was safest that way. But his journal will have all the information we need. If we can get that, we can see what Dad’s written.”
Jess nodded, all her years at Stanford trying to move past hunting temporarily forgotten.
“Both Sam and I were six months old exactly when our moms were killed,” Jess wondered out loud. “The connection’s with the babies, not necessarily the mothers. Dean, do you think there’s something about me and Sam? Something that the monster noticed? Or that he wanted from us?”
Dean shook his head. “I know that you and Sam are good people. Evil things do evil shit. There’s no reason for you to blame yourself for your mom dying.”
Jess didn’t respond, so Dean pressed again.
“Jess? Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” she replied. But she remained far from convinced.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I don’t know how many times I got to tell you,” Dean told the sheriff. “It’s my high school locker combo.”
It was the worst lie that Jess had ever heard. What kind of locker combination was 35-111? The sheriff seemed less than impressed as well. Any hope of rattling Dean with the reveal of the journal had faded when Dean was given time to regain his cocky attitude. Dean had been going strong against all the repetitive questions and long stretches with nothing to do for hours now.
“We got to do this all night?” the sheriff asked dryly, and Jess bit back a comment.
Anyone could see that Dean was far from breaking.
Thankfully, they were interrupted by one of the sheriff’s deputies sticking his head into the room.
“We just got a 911. Shots fired over on Whiteborough Road.”
“Do you have to go to the bathroom?” the sheriff asked blandly.
“No,” Dean replied.
Jess shook her head.
“Good.”
They were quickly cuffed to the table and left alone as the officers left to respond to the call.
“C’mon,” Dean prompted as soon as the door was closed. “That’s our cue.” He reached over to the journal which had been left, thankfully, and pulled out a paperclip. “You know how to pick a set of cuffs?”
“I’ll race you,” Jess challenged, grabbing the clip from Dean. “What do you mean, our cue?”
“Sam made the call,” Dean explained, already unbending his own clip and sticking it in the keyhole for his cuffs.
“A fake 911 call? Sam would do something like that?”
“For you, I think he’d do anything. I’m just glad he’s still got his wits about him and didn’t try to come storming in here himself to rescue you.” He opened his cuffs with a flourish of triumph.
“How are you finished already?” Jess complained. “I’ve barely even started.”
“Practice. But don’t be too hard on yourself; I’m guessing you and Sammy don’t have any use for these at your apartment.” Dean knocked her hands out of the way, and made short work of her own cuffs.
“C’mon, Dean. You think I’m gonna walk into a set-up that big?”
“Worth a try,” Dean grinned. He grabbed the journal off the table and shoved it into his inside jacket pocket.
Dean stopped only long enough to lift a holster and gun from a desk drawer.
“Got to love small-town police stations,” he smirked.
“How come you get the gun?” Jess demanded.
“Finders keepers,” Dean replied childishly. “You want a gun, you find your own. No more of this freeloading weapons off other people crap.”
A bit rich coming from the guy who just stole a police gun, but a quick search didn’t turn up another weapon, and they didn’t have time for a more thorough one. They used the fire escape to get out of the building, and other than a scraped knee of Jess’, they were completely unharmed.
“Got any change?” Jess asked.
“What?”
“Payphone up ahead. We can give Sam a call and see where he is.”
Dean nodded tersely and dug through his pocket for a few coins. He plugged them into the phone and dialled Sam’s number with lightning speed.
Jess watched Dean, barely daring to breathe until a grin broke out on his face.
“Fake 911 phone call, Sammy, I don’t know, that’s pretty illegal.”
“He’s okay?” Jess demanded, needing to hear it spelled out for her.
Dean gave her a nod, while speaking to Sam at the same time. “Yeah, she’s here with me. We’re both fine. Listen, we gotta talk.”
Jess squished as close to the phone as she could in the small booth, trying to hear what Sam was saying. All she caught was the phrase “Woman in White.”
“Told you,” Jess crowed.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean brushed her off. “Now be quiet so I can listen to Sam.” He angled the phone a little so Jess could hear Sam better.
“And she’s buried behind her old house,” Sam was saying, “so that should have been Dad’s next stop.”
“Sammy, would you shut up for a second?”
“I just can’t figure out why he hasn’t destroyed the corpse yet,” Sam continued.
“Well, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. He’s gone. Dad left Jericho.”
“What? How do you know?”
Dean looked down at the leather book in his hand. “I’ve got his journal.”
Sam picked up on its significance just as quickly as Dean did. “He doesn’t go anywhere without that thing.”
“Yeah, well, he did this time.”
“What’s it say?” Sam demanded.
Apparently, Sam knew that his father would not leave the journal without some sort of message to his sons. The Winchesters appeared to have contingency plans for their contingency plans.
“Same old ex-marine cap when he wants to let us know where he’s going.”
“Coordinates?” Sam guessed. “Where to?
That made a lot more sense than a locker combination.
“Not sure yet,” Dean replied.
“I don’t understand,” Sam wondered. “I mean, what can be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Dean, what the hell-”
The next thing Jess knew, she was treated to an earful of shrieking static.
“Sam?” Dean shouted into the mouthpiece. “Sam!”
The sound cut out entirely.
“Dean, what happened?” Jess demanded. She fought to keep the panic that was crawling in her stomach quiet. Sam was gone; missing at night on Centennial Highway, just like so many others…
“I don’t know,” Dean shook his head.
“Did you hear the-”
“EVP?” Dean completed, a frown building on his forehead. “Yeah. C’mon, we’ve got to find a car.”
“What?” Jess followed him dumbly out of the phone booth. The decision-making part of her brain had been temporarily short-circuited, and she stumbled after Dean, following him blindly.
“Preferably an older model. They’re easier to hotwire.”
They flanked the street, trying car doors until Jess found one that was open.
“This do?”
“Perfect. Hop in.”
“How will we know where Sam is?” She asked fearfully as she settled into the passenger seat.
“He said Constance was buried behind her old house,” Dean replied shortly, not looking up from the wires he had exposed. “I’m betting you anything that’s where she’s taking them.”
“You’re betting Sam’s life,” Jess reminded him.
“Yeesh! Thanks for the vote of confidence. Jessica, I’ve been rescuing Sam since he was six months old, okay? I’ve got pretty good at it.”
“Okay,” she agreed, cowed by Dean’s reminder. Yes, she was worried sick about Sam, but Dean had every reason to be just as worried. And if he was confident in finding Sam, then she could be too. “Let’s go rescue your little brother.”
“Okay.” The car roared to life and Dean sat up straight, pulling the car into gear. “And don’t worry; I won’t forget to pick up your boyfriend while we’re at it.”
Chapter Seven