The Thin Ice 1/3
Title: The Thin Ice 1/3
Author: buffyaddict13
Rating: R
Characters/Pairing: Sam, Dean, OFC, OMC / gen, no pairing
Summary: An average hunt turns deadly when a mysterious hunter kidnaps Sam and Dean, determined to exorcise a demon from Sam in order to "save" him. Sam and Dean insist Sam's not possessed but Libby doesn't believe them, and with good reason. Libby has proof Sam Winchester's a killer and she's not going to let him go. Written for Supernatural/JSquared Big Bang.
A/N: This is for
girlfan1979 because she told me we're connected by a red thread and I believe her. Also, copious amounts of thank yous to
estei and
kroki_refur . This fic would be piteous indeed if it weren't for the two of you. You guys rock!
A/N2: A huge thank to
buffyspazz for her absolutely fantastic artwork. Please go right here and tell
buffyspazz how brilliant and talented she is.
If you should go skating
on the thin ice of modern life
dragging behind you the silent reproach
of a million tear-stained eyes
don't be surprised when a crack in the ice
appears under your feet.
You slip out of your depth and out of your mind
with your fear flowing out behind you
as you claw the thin ice.
~Pink Floyd
Now.
When Libby goes down the stairs, they're right behind her, right there, the sound of their feet against the wood (thunder) makes her palms sweat. She doesn’t want to keep her back to them, but she’s playing a role (scared, nervous, doubtful) and for once in her life she doesn’t have to act very hard to be believable. She’s fucking terrified. She keeps expecting them to question her, to feel the hard finger of Dean’s shotgun against her back, to hear Sam (the demon’s) voice in her ear.
Her heart’s beating so hard she half expects them (him) to hear, to ask what are you so nervous about? And then she’ll be fucked. She pushes the fear away because she can do this, dammit. She and Jay have planned this for months and she's not about to let fear stand in her way. Fear and her have been duking it out for years now, and she can totally take that bitch. Libby takes a deep breath and gestures for the Winchester brothers to enter the room.
The basement is large, well-lit and clean. Truth be told, it’s the whole reason she bought the house. Three rooms lead off from the larger one: a laundry room with a broken-down washer and dryer, a narrow cement-floored room with a toilet and a cot that resembles something out of Alcatraz, and what used to be some kind of canning room. The room is empty now, save for a sturdy wooden chair, a single light bulb, and a variety of tools. Jay's waiting for her and she's not going to let him down. More importantly, she's not going to let her dad down. Because this, all of this, is for him.
Dean Winchester’s got an EMF meter that looks like he got it as a lame-ass prize from a box of Fruit Loops. She works hard not to roll her eyes (seriously, it looks like monkeys made it, what the fuck?) and plants the requisite look of impressed-yet-concerned on her face. He ambles over to the furnace and waves the thing around, as if it’s a magnet and he can simply pull ghosts out of the air.
Libby crosses her arms and turns to Sam. He’s at the far wall, staring at a light fixture. Her heart stutters and she thinks he knows, he knows, but if he does, he’s a better actor than she is, and she’s pretty fucking good.
"The lights haven't flickered and it doesn’t feel like the temperature’s dropping," he says thoughtfully and Libby feels sick. She doesn’t want to listen to his (its) voice but she grits her teeth into a passable smile. She can do this. The hard part is almost done.
"It’s always down here that I see it." She injects a quiver into her voice. "It’s always been noises in the past, you know? Doors shutting, books falling off the shelf, whispers. But for the past two nights, I saw him standing near the furnace." She focuses on Dean because he’s closer, not because she’s afraid to look at Sam.
"How do you know it was a ghost?" Sam asks. "Are you sure someone didn’t break in?"
His voice is sincere and gentle and Libby wonders if that’s the voice he used on her father. In that moment, Libby hates Sam Winchester with a pure, blinding rage. She wants to pull the gun from beneath her sweater and shoot him in his smiling face, in his lying eyes. Instead, she wrings her hands in what she considers an especially pathetic manner and nods toward the furnace. "One minute a man was standing there, the next minute he wasn’t. I didn’t imagine it. Someone was in my house." She looks down, counts to five, then back up at Dean. "Bobby said you could help me. If you can’t, or you don’t believe me, then--"
Her words light a fire under Dean’s ass and he backpedals so fast Libby’s surprised he doesn’t fall over. She doesn‘t really listen to his blather; she's watching the movement of the EMF meter.
The EMF meter warbles when Dean gets to the other side of the furnace. Libby's heart thumps double-time as the meter passes the thin layer of ectoplasm she painted on the back of the furnace and blares louder. Sam walks over to join Dean and this is it. Now or never. "Dean?" She says his name, and as he looks up she sprays the Mace right into his eyes. He screams, clawing instantly at his face. He drops to the floor, gasping, wheezing and crying all at once. The meter clatters against the cement, his shotgun slides halfway beneath the furnace.
She's got the taser against Sam's throat before he can even react, which is easier said than done because he's a fucking giant. But giant or no, when she drive-stuns him he screams. Desperate to get away he slams into the cement wall, his temple connecting with a meaty thud.
"We can still back out." Libby turns to see Jay at her side. "I'll do whatever you want," he says, a loop of rope in his hand.
Libby nods and reaches for the rope, wraps it around Dean's feet.
ooooo
Then
The winter Libby turns ten her dad asks her to take a walk and even though it's cold and Libby wants to watch High Noonon TV, she goes. Dad's been sad and quiet ever since Uncle Tommy died and she feels sorry for him. She misses Uncle Tommy too, but she hasn't cried the way dad has. She heard him once, when she woke up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water.
They walk in silence but he holds her hand and their breath puffs around them like little clouds. No, like ghosts. Libby smiles to herself and blows harder, watches her ghost evaporate. Dad takes her across the street to the church parking lot. There's a lot of ice and they have to be careful. It's Saturday afternoon and the parking lot is empty. Dad points to a large circle of ice with his boot. "You see that, Libby?"
She nods, wondering where this is going, wondering if she'll get to see most of the movie after all.
"Do you know how Tom died?" he asks.
Libby nods again, but her dad isn't looking at her, he's looking at the ice, so she says "Um. Yeah. A…wild animal when you were camping."
Dad doesn't say anything, he's still looking at the ice and now Libby feels a sudden stab of doubt. Is that how Uncle Tommy died? She tries to sort through the past month of hushed arguments between her parents. "That's how he died, right Dad?"
"That's what your mom wants me to tell you. That's what she wants me to tell everyone." He sighs, runs a hand through his hair and Libby wishes he'd worn a hat. His ears look pink with cold and she grips his hand harder, as if she can pass some of her own heat into him. He rubs his nose and points to the ice again. "Most people see the world like this piece of ice. We walk around, we walk over this ice and we think it's going to hold our weight." He steps on the ice, then lifts his foot. The circle looks up at them like a pale eye, undamaged. "Nobody thinks about what's under the ice. But let me tell you something, Libby, the world's more than that. There are things we can't see, things beneath the ice that…that most people don't understand."
He releases her hand and paces back and forth, and Libby listens hard, tries to understand so her dad'll be proud. She loves making her dad proud. More than school, more than reading, even.
"I wish I didn't have to tell you this, Lib. I don’t want to. But I feel like you deserve to know. You're a smart kid and I love you more than anything. So I have to tell you the truth." He looks at her then, and his eyes are bright and she thinks he might be close to crying which makes her own eyes sting. She doesn't know what to say, so she just nods.
"There are things in the dark, under the ice, like ghosts and monsters and I never believed, I never knew, Libby. Not until I saw what killed Tom. Your Mom wants me to tell you it was a bear, but it wasn't. I've never seen anything like it." His voice gets wobbly and Libby throws herself into his arms, hugs him tight.
"What did you see?" she asks into the front of his jacket.
"I don’t know," he tells her, his arms going around her. "But it wasn't a man and it wasn't an animal. It was…something else. And I can't stop thinking about it. I need to know, Lib. I need to know. Because every time I close my eyes, that’s all I see." And he stomps on the ice and it breaks, revealing a hole of black water.
Libby's not sure what he means about the ice and monsters, but she believes him. Her Dad doesn't lie. Libby forgets all about the movie and thinks of the library with its rows and rows of books and thinks there must be a way to find out more, a way to figure out what really killed Tom. She looks up at her father and smiles, lets him know she isn't afraid. "Maybe I can help," she says but what she means is I want to help.
ooooo
Now.
Dean doesn't make it easy. He writhes and yells and kicks. He sends Jay sprawling on more than one occasion, but Libby holds tight. "I'm not going to hurt you," she shouts over his ranting.
"You already did!" His voice is thin and nasal from the pain. "Holy fuck this hurts. Jesus Christ."
They wrestle him into the room and deposit him on the bed. Libby promptly handcuffs his right wrist to the iron headboard. She has a bucket of clean water and a wash cloth ready for him and forces him back onto the narrow bed. "Lie still. Here." She drapes the wash cloth over his face.
Dean brings his free hand up, pulls it off, growling. "Where's Sam?"
"He's safe," Libby says and shuts the door. She can hear the sound of Dean's fist on the wall, the rattle of handcuffs, but she ignores it.
"Don't you hurt him!" Dean yells hoarsely.
Libby grabs Sam beneath his armpits and starts dragging. Her lips compress and she tunes out the sound of Dean's voice. This is the hard part. Getting Sam ready before he wakes up.
ooooo
Then.
Dad's waiting for her after school. He waves when he sees her looking. "Where's Mom?" Libby asks. Her stomach feels funny because Dad never picks her up from school, so if he's here, that means something's wrong.
"Your mom wants…wants to spend some time apart." He catches the look on Libby's face and hurries on. "From me, not you."
"Because of the research," Libby says. "The Research" is what they refer to as finding stuff out about monsters. About werewolves and revenants and everything that hides just out of view. Under the surface. Under the ice.
"Because of the research," he confirms. "And I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Lib. I never meant for this to happen. But your mom…she has a hard time with this."
The truth is, Libby's mom has a hard time with everything. She's always yelling, always angry. All she cares about are how things look. "I want to go with you," Libby says, and tosses her backpack into the back seat.
Her father looks at her, eyebrows lifted, mouth open like a door. Libby might have laughed if she didn't feel like throwing up.
"Lib," he says gently, "I don't think that's a good idea."
"Why not?" she demands. "I don't want to stay with Mom. I want to help you. I want to help people. Tell them about the ice, right Dad?" She looks at him hopefully, fingers crossed on both hands and thinks please please please. She doesn't know if she's afraid of monsters. But she is afraid of her mother.
He looks sad and turns away, eyes on the school. Libby watches Michelle Nealy and Carrie Jensen giggle on the front steps. She rests her head against the window. "You need a sidekick," she whispers.
"What?" She can feel her father's eyes on her now, but she doesn't look at him. She has to keep looking out the window because if he says no, if he makes her stay with Mom she's going to cry. And she doesn't want him to see. He doesn't get to see that.
"A helper," she explains. "Like the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Han Solo and Luke. Batman and Robin. You can't catch monsters by yourself. It isn't…it isn't safe."
"And that's exactly why you shouldn’t help me." She can hear the smile in his voice but he also sounds sad and Libby squeezes her eyes shut. She can feel the tears waiting, her throat aches. He's going to say no.
She won't let him. "You can't stop me," Libby says. "I’m coming with you. Please Dad. Please. Let me help."
The truck idles for a long time, neither of them speaking. Finally her father reaches out and grips the steering wheel. He doesn't look at her. "I think I know what killed Tom." His voice sounds wobbly, like he's trying not to cry. Maybe he is.
She wipes her eyes and looks at him, surprised. Excited. Scared. "What?"
"Something called a wendigo."
ooooo
Now.
Libby is soaked through with sweat by the time they get Sam in the chair. His jacket is a brown lump on the floor. His gun and what looks like some kind of ritualistic knife are safely out of reach. Sam's hands are tied behind him. He's secured to the chair with thick rope, his feet bound to the chair legs. Libby watches him, but he doesn't move. His head hangs down, hair the color of coffee in his face. He looks younger than she expected. He looks kind. At least that's what the demon shows her. She has no idea what Sam Winchester is really like, because Sam Winchester is gone. Imprisoned in his own body.
"I didn't think it would be this easy," Jay says. "Something's wrong."
Libby chews at a fingernail, eyes still on (not) Sam. His chest rises and falls. She crosses behind him, checks his head for blood, worried he hurt himself when he fell against the wall. There is none. His hair is softer than she expects and she jerks her hand away, rubs it along the sleeve of her shirt.
"I'm scared." The words are hard to admit. She's never said them to anyone except her father. But she trusts Jay. He's here with her, isn't he? There's not much more he can do to prove he cares about her, to prove he believes.
The chair sits in the middle of the protective circle Jay helped her draw. She's got the holy water, Dad's notebooks, a bag of rock salt, and the Latin text on exorcism. Her right hand checks repeatedly for the gun and taser. The former's in her waist band, the latter's in her pocket. Her left hand strays to the silver necklace around her neck. She takes comfort in the familiar feel of its intricate pattern. Jay touches her shoulder, studies her face. "It's going to be okay," he tells her. "We're doing the right thing. You know that."
She nods. Of course they are. This is what Dad would have wanted. So she lifts the bag of salt and pours a thin line around the edge of the protective circle. She goes to Dean's room and pours a thin white column along the outside of heavy door. She's not sure it's even necessary, but it makes her feel better. Jay watches, arms folded, approval on his face.
"What are you doing?" Dean demands, his voice muffled by the door. "You maced my eyes bitch, not my ears. Who are you? What do you want?"
Libby leans against the wall, hugs the bag to her chest. "Actually, it's Sam we want."
"We? Who the fuck is we?" She can hear the anger in his voice. She can also hear what it's covering: fear. Not for himself, but for his brother. Libby gives Dean a point for that. For the worry. It's what a good brother would do. Her eyes narrow. But Dean's not a good brother, is he? A good brother doesn't cover up the truth, doesn't…doesn't what? Let his brother stay possessed? There was a time she thought Dean was possessed as well, but Jay says he isn't. So did Jo Harvelle.
Dean pounds on the wall hard enough to make the door rattle. Libby doesn't even jump. Dean doesn't scare her. Most humans don't. Her minds whispers what about Mom? but Libby doesn't listen.
"What do you want with Sam?" His words are hard, they feel like pebbles against her skin.
Libby hesitates, unsure if she should tell the truth. She looks at Jay. He offers a faint nod. Libby speaks to the door, not to Dean. "I want to help him."
ooooo
Then.
They learn by trial and error. They make rules. The first rule is: she can't call him dad. Libby's mom is looking for them, that means the police are looking for a father and daughter. So he hugs her, kisses the top of Libby's head and says "Come on kiddo. It's not so bad. You can call me Dell." He winks. "It's pretty close to Dad, right?"
Libby shrugs. They're sitting in the front seat of the old van outside a crappy looking bar. A sign out front says The Roadhouse. It looks run down but Libby doesn't care. It reminds her of something out of an old western. "Okay." And really, it doesn't matter. She'd call him anything in order to stay with him.
Dad sticks out a hand and grins. "Okay then. I'm Dell. Nice to meet you."
Libby smiles and a laugh bubbles out of her. She shakes his hand. "I'm Libby."
Her father's grin dims slightly. "I need you to stay in the van for a little while, Libby. I just have to run inside for a minute." He nods toward the building. "I'm meeting someone inside."
Libby's lips purse. She doesn't mind the Dell thing. But being ditched is something else altogether. "How come?"
He hands her an atlas. "I need to do some recon first. Make sure it's safe for little girls." He lifts an eyebrow at her expression. "And sidekicks."
Somewhat appeased, Libby looks at the map. "You need me to find something?" Libby loves maps. She likes to trace the thin black lines, the tangle of highways and rivers and roads with her fingers, the red boundary lines that exist on paper but are invisible to the eye. She imagines people are connected by these same lines, filmy black strands trailing from person to person. Sometimes she can see the thread tying her to her father. It’s fine, nearly invisible, like a spider web. She can’t always see the threads, and even when she can, she knows they can’t be real. Libby runs her hand over the map and thinks of her mother. That thread is broken now, and she’s glad. The connection is lost, but her voice remains, it echoes in her head when she’s trying to sleep. How can you be so stupid? and What’s wrong with you? and are you actually trying to be just like your father? Libby doesn’t know the answer to the first two questions, but the answer to the last one is a definite yes.
Dell nods. "Yup. Look for a little dot called Rockfall. It shouldn't be too far from here."
Her father gets out of the van, shuts the door. He taps on the window to get her attention. "Lib?" She looks up, one finger on Omaha to mark her place. "Lock the door."
She does.
ooooo
Now.
Libby waits, her back to the wall. Sam Winchester jerks in the chair, his leg shifts. He lifts his head and coughs. The cough becomes a moan, his face tight with pain. If he's concerned that he's tied to a chair he doesn't show it.
When Sam turns to look at her, he squints at the bulb's halo of light, but Libby's seen more than enough. His eyes are black. She wraps her fingers around her necklace and stares at him, unflinching. She might be scared shitless, but she's not going to let him see. Her Dad taught her well.
She takes the small bottle of holy water from the tray, her gaze fixed on Sam.
He coughs again, tries to move his arm. "Where's…where's Dean?"
This isn't the question she was expecting. She was expecting rage. Or vitriol. Or maybe pleading. At the very least, a who the hell are you? like the one Dean threw at her. But all he gives her is one calm question. His voice is softer than she expected. Dean is all loud bravado whereas Sam is quiet urgency. That's just the persona the demon presents she reminds herself. And that makes her furious, because she's seen Sam Winchester before, she knows him, they're connected. And that makes what the demon did to her, to her father that much worse.
Libby's lip curls and she glares past Sam's exterior to the lie within. She unscrews the cap from the bottle. "He's fine."
Sam's head swivels to search the room, revealing the bruise spreading across his temple like a sunburn. "Where is he?"
"He's close by. He's not hurt." Anger flares in her gut and she wonders why she's even answering. She didn't go through months of endless planning to answer his questions. She went through it so he could answer hers.
She taps the bottle against her thigh, eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
Sam returns her gaze and it unnerves her. She doesn't want to look into his (its) eyes. But there's no way in hell she's going to blink first. Confusion creases his forehead, one eyebrow lifts. "You already know who I am."
"No," she says, "I know who you say you are. There's a difference." She grinds ice into each syllable. The thing that sits there wearing Sam Winchester's face, that tries to hide behind his guileless expression and the little mole on his cheek and the bruise seeping into his hairline is a liar.
Again the confused look. He blinks. "I'm Sam Winchester."
Libby rolls her eyes, grits her teeth. "If that's how you want to play it, fine." She snaps the final word at him and moves toward the circle. His bound hands don't move, his face doesn't contort with fury. He doesn’t mock her, doesn't shout. He doesn't do anything but sit there and look infuriatingly normal. She grabs a handful of his hair and pulls, wrenches his head back and forces the tiny bottle to his lips. "Drink it. Then I'll see who you really are."
He struggles, but she's got a fistful of hair and she yanks. He has nowhere to go. She tips the bottle, glass clinks against his teeth. He coughs, liquid spilling down his chin, onto his shirt. He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing and then he's choking, spitting the water out. "What are you doing?" he sputters. "Why are you-"
"Shut up." She wants to run, but she doesn't. She walks slow, shows him she's in control. She's scared (there's a fucking demon in her basement) but she uses the fear, shapes it into something useful. Something like resolve. She picks up the book, flips to the exorcism ritual, and begins to read.
ooooo
Then.
Libby's a fast learner. She always has been. School isn’t much of a challenge. Dell has her enrolled in a rinky-dink public school. She gets her work done in class, reads during recess, sits by herself at lunch. She practices being invisible. She'd started practicing back when she was still living with Mom. Not being noticed had spared her now and then from her mother's barbed words. Now it spares her from having to raise her hand in class. Most teachers don’t call on her. But when one does, like Mr. Rogen in Social Studies, she's ready. She always knows the answer. Lincoln is the capitol of Nebraska, not Omaha. A prime number is a number that can only be divided by itself and one. The earth's core consists of the crust, upper mantle, mantle, outer core, inner core. But sometimes, because the other kids are watching, because the teachers look at her with a little too much interest, she says Omaha instead.
The best part of her day is after school. Dell drives her to a little strip of hunting land in the middle of nowhere and teachers her how to shoot a gun. It feels heavier than she expects, not like her old toy guns at all. Dad looks at her funny, like he's sad, or sorry for something, but when she asks what's wrong he says nothing. She holds the gun exactly how he shows her.
"This isn't a game, Lib. This-" he touches the gun gently, "isn't fun. It's not cool. It's something that can take your life just as easily as the things we're hunting if you're not careful. Understand?"
She nods and she holds the gun with both hands, points it at the can in the Y of the tree trunk. She pulls the trigger and the gun jerks in her hands and her palms tingle, her arms ache. But she doesn't drop it. Even better, when Dell picks the can up off the ground there's a dime-sized hole in the center of the can.
Libby doesn't just learn to shoot along the empty back roads of Minnesota. She learns to drive. Dell sits in the passenger seat, patiently telling her to slow down or check the rear view. The windows are down and the air smells like rain. The sky is the color of old quarters and she sticks one hand out the window, feels the wind on her fingers. Dad laughs and she does the same.
ooooo
Now.
Sam sits silently through the whole thing, head bowed. Like he's praying. Or bored. She thinks back to the last (only) exorcism she's been to and darts a look at Jay. He shrugs and motions to Sam's coat. Want me to go through his pockets? She give her head a minute shake and tries not to stumble over the Latin pronunciation. Reading is so much easier than speaking the unfamiliar syllables.
Apparently Sam agrees. "Your pronunciation's not quite right," he tells her, "but it's not the worst I've ever heard."
Libby stares at him. This isn't what's supposed to happen. There's supposed to be flickering lights and static electricity that turns the hair on her arms to wire. There's supposed to be screaming and a column of black smoke-the demon-leaving Sam Winchester's body. Not once in the long weeks of planning did she count on the demon critiquing her Latin. She doesn't mean to pull the gun out, doesn't plan to hold it in her hand like it's a rope and she's falling. But it's there just the same and she points it at Sam's head. "Why isn't it working?" She slides the safety off and Jay goes pale, hisses Libby but she can't help it, she can't help it. Her face feels like stone, her fingers are numb, but the gun doesn't tremble. "Get out of him."
Sam blinks and he opens his mouth, closes it. He tries again, but nothing comes out but a low moan, a kind of keen, and that makes the hair on Libby's arms stand up just fine. "I'm not possessed," Sam mutters. And then, "My head." He closes his eyes, his long lashes like half moons against his skin. "My head hurts." He moves his arms now, shoulders straining against the rope, struggling for the first time. The chair hitches half an inch across the floor, but remains firmly inside the circle.
"Not possessed," Sam repeats, and stops struggling. His eyes flicker open and he blinks at a spot above Libby's head and stares.
"Demons lie," Libby says. She might not have much experience around demons, but she knows plenty of hunters who have.
"Everybody lies," Sam counters. "Demons. People. But Libby, listen to me, please. I don't know why you think I'm possessed, but I'm not. I'm not." His eyes crawl down the wall to her face and he licks his lips. "Ask Dean. He'll tell you the truth."
Libby doesn't lower the gun, but she puts the safety back on. "I think he'd do anything to protect you. And lying's the least of it." She casts a scornful look toward the hallway. "I don't need to ask Dean, I've already talked to a hunter. Somebody you know, in fact." Libby's mouth twists into a razor smile. "Jo Harvelle. She told me what you did to her." Libby swallows, tries not to dwell on what happened before Sam went into that bar.
Sam stares at her, stunned, and Libby's glad, glad to take away his words. He shakes his head, slow at first, then faster. "No. She didn't." He shifts and the chair moves again.
Libby smiles, triumphant. "She told me you raped her you fucking asshole, that you killed her father and her boyfriend. You ruined her life." The smile drops away and Libby takes a take breath, sets the gun the table, slowly. Carefully. She thinks of shooting a red and white Diet Coke can out of a tree and her father's smile. "Just like you ruined mine."
Sam's face goes gray and he looks ill. He makes a noise in the back of his throat and Jay works his way closer to the back of Sam's chair. Sam shakes his head again, like the movement can erase her words. "No," he says. "That's not what happened." Emotions flicker across his face like shadows. Guilt. Regret. Shame. "I didn't. I didn't…I didn't-" he seems unable to say the word, his knee bounces up and down, like it's motorized and the chair creaks. "I didn't do that" he insists. "I didn't mean to hurt her. I didn't kill Bill Harvelle." His voice stretches, grows thin, threatens to break. "My Dad had. Had something to do with that. And Jo doesn't-didn't-" he's stumbling over the words now, "have a-she didn't have a. Boyfriend."
"I saw you with that gun," Libby says, her voice rising. "You killed her boyfriend the same way you killed Lori Thompson."
Sam's chair moves again, creeping closer to the edge of the circle. Jay puts a hand on the back of it, but Sam's strong and he's got momentum and adrenaline on his side. Sam's eyes are wide--and there's no color, none, just that perfect black circle, and stupidly, amid the tangle of thoughts in her head, in the midst of the rage and bitterness, she thinks, tunnel.
"Who's Lori Thompson?" Sam asks and now his voice is well past broken, it splinters into different octaves.
Her eyebrows lift, curious (smug). "You're not denying it this time?"
Sam's left knee takes a turn at bouncing and he croaks "Who is she?"
Libby flips to the back of the book and pulls out a newspaper clipping. A grainy color photo shows a young smiling woman with black hair and dimples. "Ring any bells?" she demands, and throws the picture at him. It flutters to the ground just outside the circle, face up. Sam stares down at it. "You shot her, Sam. In cold blood. You shot her between the eyes. She was twenty-two years old."
When he looks up, all pretense of denial--to himself and to her--is gone. "She was…she was possessed," he whispers miserably.
Libby points the gun. "You're possessed. Should I shoot you?"
Sam looks at her. "I. I didn't meant to kill her. She just." His lifts his head, looks up at the ceiling. "She couldn't tell me how to save Dean. I needed-" he stops abruptly, inhales a shaky breath through his nose. "I need to save Dean."
Libby stares at him. "From what?" Then she rolls her eyes. She doesn't give a shit about Dean or what he needs saving from. It's just another lie. Demon's don't save. They take. They kill. "Was she going to tell Dean you're a demon, is that it? What, were you working together?"
"If you're so concerned why didn't you stop me," Sam challenges, chest heaving. "I was there alone. She wouldn't have come if I wasn't. It doesn't make any sense." Sam mutters to himself, jerks against the ropes. "This doesn't make any sense. None of it. Not what Jo said, not that you saw me, and it sure as hell doesn't make sense that you think I'm demon." Faint color returns to Sam's face and he jaw clenches. "What's going on here?" he demands and Libby wants to tell him he doesn't get to ask, doesn't deserve to know; she’s done sitting through his little performance. Enough is fucking enough.
And then the back leg of Sam's chair crosses the chalk line. Jay reaches out to grab the chair, one hand on the chair back, the other on Sam's arm. Sam struggles harder and Jay's face dissolves into panic. Jay's tall but he's thin, he probably weighs as much as Sam's arm. "Libby!"
Libby surges forward, she's not letting the demon out of the circle, no way, no how, just no, and her hand touches Jay's and then
She's standing in a cramped room that smells like sweat and salt and chicken. Sam Winchester lies on a stained mattress, eyes closed and unmoving. Libby looks around, realizes Jay must have been touching something of Sam's. She recalls seeing a thin black band around Sam's wrist. If Jay was touching the band and Libby touched Jay, that can only mean one thing: she's seeing one of Jay's visions.
The last vision they shared was when Jay brushed against Lori Thompson's front door. That vision had felt like wading through static, the voices murky, faces dark. Sam and the possessed girl had flickered like candles. But what she's seeing now is clear, the colors bright. This is in HDTV with surround sound.
Libby glances down at Sam, puts out a hand to touch him. She can't of course, she's not really here, she's only looking through a window that's already been closed. Sam looks terrible, worse than he looks now. The room feels claustrophobic and wrong, and her stomach clenches. She moves toward the door but she doesn't get far because Dean's right there, standing in the doorway.
This Dean is miles away, five time zones away from the man down the hall. This Dean is defeated. Spent. Crushed. His eyes are red and his voice cracks. "You know when we were little," he says, eyes on Sam, throat working, "you couldn't have been more than five. You just started asking questions." Dean's lips twitch into a faint smile. He swallows. "How come we didn't have a mom, why do we always have to move around, where'd Dad go when he'd take off for days at a time. Remember I begged you quit asking Sammy, man you don't want to know." Dean laughs softly, but there's no humor. "I just wanted you to be a kid, just for a little while longer."
Dean's face radiates grief, his voice is etched with loss. Libby looks at Sam again, (still, so still, unmoving) and she realizes then he's not sleeping, not unconscious, he's not anything but dead. Sam Winchester is dead.
Libby's stomach lurches, she feels like vomiting because this is wrong, this is crazy, this. Is. Crazy. Sam's not dead because he's back in her basement, he's tied to her chair, he's possessed. She licks her lips, tries to think. Was this before what happened with Jo Harvelle? Is Sam actually dead, is he dead right now and the demon can somehow walk around wearing Sam Winchester's body like he's a favorite shirt?
"I always tried to protect you," Dean says softly. "Keep you safe. Dad didn't even have to tell me, it was just always my responsibility, you know?" Dean closes his eyes, smiles at some found memory. He shuts his eyes and his face starts to collapse. "It's like I had one job. One job. And I screwed it up." Dean's voice wavers, his chin trembles and Libby wants to leave, she wants to go back, get away, because she knows what this feels like. She knows what it's like to be the one left behind , the one breathing but just as dead as the person you lost. She doesn't want to see Dean's pain because it feels too much like her own. But Libby can't leave because it's a vision and it ends when it ends.
"I blew it." Dean tries to hold it together but he's breaking, just like his voice. A tear slides down his face, first one, then another. "And for that I'm sorry." He wipes at his eyes and Libby presses her hands to her head, struggles to understand. "I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I love. I let Dad down." Dean rubs his mouth. "And now I guess I’m just supposed to let you down too." He shakes his head. "How can I? How am I supposed to live with that? Sammy." Dean says his brother's name like a prayer, like a plea. The sounds makes Libby want to cry and she hates herself for it.
"What am I supposed to do?" Dean repeats, rage leaking into loss, and he reaches for Sam's hand, his fingers brushing against Sam's bracelet and
they shove the chair back into the circle. Libby swallows, her mouth dry, her head pounding, and she shrieks at the back of Sam's head "Are you still dead? What the fuck, Winchester? What the fuck? I saw you, I saw you on that shitty mattress and you were dead. So can you explain to me exactly how you're sitting here?" She doesn't give him time to answer. "Because I can. You're possessed. That's the only answer. So quit lying to me you fucker-" she spits at Sam, droplets of saliva land in his hair, she yanks at the back of the chair and it creaks again. "Get out of him! Get out!"
"Try it again," Jay tells her and points to the old catechism.
"I can't believe it," Libby mutters, runs a hand through her hair. She looks at Jay, eyes wide. "Did you see that? Did you see?" And it's stupid to ask because it was his fucking vision, of course he saw, but she can't help it because her plan is breaking down, unraveling. This isn't how it's supposed to go.
Sam just sits there and she wants to shove the chair against the wall, she wants to beat the demon out of him. Libby bares her teeth but Jay stops her with three words. "Think about Gordon."
The words are like ice water against the heat of her rage and she stops, puts a hand to her face. She thinks of the cabin and the man tied to the chair and Gordon's knife and Libby slams her eyes-and mind--closed, desperate to block out the memories. When she opens her eyes Jay is watching her. He looks worried, his long brown hair lank in his face, thin fingers plucking at his sleeves. "Lib? Are you okay?"
She's not, but it's not Jay's fault. "Keep an eye on him," she tells him and her voice is harder than she intends, but Jay doesn't flinch, doesn't question her. He just nods, and in that moment Libby loves Jay more than she's ever loved anyone. Libby's not demonstrative, she doesn't hug, doesn't share her feelings, but she tries to smile and Jay smiles back. It's enough.
Libby jogs down the hallway, scuffs the salt line away with her shoe and unlocks Dean's door. She shoves it open to find Dean sitting on the bed watching her. His face is still blotchy, the skin red and irritated. His eyes are bloodshot, the skin around them swollen. Despite looking miserable he still manages to convey a decent amount of defiance.
She stares at him, nostrils flaring. "How long has he been dead?"
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Author: buffyaddict13
Rating: R
Characters/Pairing: Sam, Dean, OFC, OMC / gen, no pairing
Summary: An average hunt turns deadly when a mysterious hunter kidnaps Sam and Dean, determined to exorcise a demon from Sam in order to "save" him. Sam and Dean insist Sam's not possessed but Libby doesn't believe them, and with good reason. Libby has proof Sam Winchester's a killer and she's not going to let him go. Written for Supernatural/JSquared Big Bang.
A/N: This is for
girlfan1979 because she told me we're connected by a red thread and I believe her. Also, copious amounts of thank yous to
estei and
kroki_refur . This fic would be piteous indeed if it weren't for the two of you. You guys rock!
A/N2: A huge thank to
buffyspazz for her absolutely fantastic artwork. Please go right here and tell
buffyspazz how brilliant and talented she is.
If you should go skating
on the thin ice of modern life
dragging behind you the silent reproach
of a million tear-stained eyes
don't be surprised when a crack in the ice
appears under your feet.
You slip out of your depth and out of your mind
with your fear flowing out behind you
as you claw the thin ice.
~Pink Floyd
Now.
When Libby goes down the stairs, they're right behind her, right there, the sound of their feet against the wood (thunder) makes her palms sweat. She doesn’t want to keep her back to them, but she’s playing a role (scared, nervous, doubtful) and for once in her life she doesn’t have to act very hard to be believable. She’s fucking terrified. She keeps expecting them to question her, to feel the hard finger of Dean’s shotgun against her back, to hear Sam (the demon’s) voice in her ear.
Her heart’s beating so hard she half expects them (him) to hear, to ask what are you so nervous about? And then she’ll be fucked. She pushes the fear away because she can do this, dammit. She and Jay have planned this for months and she's not about to let fear stand in her way. Fear and her have been duking it out for years now, and she can totally take that bitch. Libby takes a deep breath and gestures for the Winchester brothers to enter the room.
The basement is large, well-lit and clean. Truth be told, it’s the whole reason she bought the house. Three rooms lead off from the larger one: a laundry room with a broken-down washer and dryer, a narrow cement-floored room with a toilet and a cot that resembles something out of Alcatraz, and what used to be some kind of canning room. The room is empty now, save for a sturdy wooden chair, a single light bulb, and a variety of tools. Jay's waiting for her and she's not going to let him down. More importantly, she's not going to let her dad down. Because this, all of this, is for him.
Dean Winchester’s got an EMF meter that looks like he got it as a lame-ass prize from a box of Fruit Loops. She works hard not to roll her eyes (seriously, it looks like monkeys made it, what the fuck?) and plants the requisite look of impressed-yet-concerned on her face. He ambles over to the furnace and waves the thing around, as if it’s a magnet and he can simply pull ghosts out of the air.
Libby crosses her arms and turns to Sam. He’s at the far wall, staring at a light fixture. Her heart stutters and she thinks he knows, he knows, but if he does, he’s a better actor than she is, and she’s pretty fucking good.
"The lights haven't flickered and it doesn’t feel like the temperature’s dropping," he says thoughtfully and Libby feels sick. She doesn’t want to listen to his (its) voice but she grits her teeth into a passable smile. She can do this. The hard part is almost done.
"It’s always down here that I see it." She injects a quiver into her voice. "It’s always been noises in the past, you know? Doors shutting, books falling off the shelf, whispers. But for the past two nights, I saw him standing near the furnace." She focuses on Dean because he’s closer, not because she’s afraid to look at Sam.
"How do you know it was a ghost?" Sam asks. "Are you sure someone didn’t break in?"
His voice is sincere and gentle and Libby wonders if that’s the voice he used on her father. In that moment, Libby hates Sam Winchester with a pure, blinding rage. She wants to pull the gun from beneath her sweater and shoot him in his smiling face, in his lying eyes. Instead, she wrings her hands in what she considers an especially pathetic manner and nods toward the furnace. "One minute a man was standing there, the next minute he wasn’t. I didn’t imagine it. Someone was in my house." She looks down, counts to five, then back up at Dean. "Bobby said you could help me. If you can’t, or you don’t believe me, then--"
Her words light a fire under Dean’s ass and he backpedals so fast Libby’s surprised he doesn’t fall over. She doesn‘t really listen to his blather; she's watching the movement of the EMF meter.
The EMF meter warbles when Dean gets to the other side of the furnace. Libby's heart thumps double-time as the meter passes the thin layer of ectoplasm she painted on the back of the furnace and blares louder. Sam walks over to join Dean and this is it. Now or never. "Dean?" She says his name, and as he looks up she sprays the Mace right into his eyes. He screams, clawing instantly at his face. He drops to the floor, gasping, wheezing and crying all at once. The meter clatters against the cement, his shotgun slides halfway beneath the furnace.
She's got the taser against Sam's throat before he can even react, which is easier said than done because he's a fucking giant. But giant or no, when she drive-stuns him he screams. Desperate to get away he slams into the cement wall, his temple connecting with a meaty thud.
"We can still back out." Libby turns to see Jay at her side. "I'll do whatever you want," he says, a loop of rope in his hand.
Libby nods and reaches for the rope, wraps it around Dean's feet.
ooooo
Then
The winter Libby turns ten her dad asks her to take a walk and even though it's cold and Libby wants to watch High Noonon TV, she goes. Dad's been sad and quiet ever since Uncle Tommy died and she feels sorry for him. She misses Uncle Tommy too, but she hasn't cried the way dad has. She heard him once, when she woke up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water.
They walk in silence but he holds her hand and their breath puffs around them like little clouds. No, like ghosts. Libby smiles to herself and blows harder, watches her ghost evaporate. Dad takes her across the street to the church parking lot. There's a lot of ice and they have to be careful. It's Saturday afternoon and the parking lot is empty. Dad points to a large circle of ice with his boot. "You see that, Libby?"
She nods, wondering where this is going, wondering if she'll get to see most of the movie after all.
"Do you know how Tom died?" he asks.
Libby nods again, but her dad isn't looking at her, he's looking at the ice, so she says "Um. Yeah. A…wild animal when you were camping."
Dad doesn't say anything, he's still looking at the ice and now Libby feels a sudden stab of doubt. Is that how Uncle Tommy died? She tries to sort through the past month of hushed arguments between her parents. "That's how he died, right Dad?"
"That's what your mom wants me to tell you. That's what she wants me to tell everyone." He sighs, runs a hand through his hair and Libby wishes he'd worn a hat. His ears look pink with cold and she grips his hand harder, as if she can pass some of her own heat into him. He rubs his nose and points to the ice again. "Most people see the world like this piece of ice. We walk around, we walk over this ice and we think it's going to hold our weight." He steps on the ice, then lifts his foot. The circle looks up at them like a pale eye, undamaged. "Nobody thinks about what's under the ice. But let me tell you something, Libby, the world's more than that. There are things we can't see, things beneath the ice that…that most people don't understand."
He releases her hand and paces back and forth, and Libby listens hard, tries to understand so her dad'll be proud. She loves making her dad proud. More than school, more than reading, even.
"I wish I didn't have to tell you this, Lib. I don’t want to. But I feel like you deserve to know. You're a smart kid and I love you more than anything. So I have to tell you the truth." He looks at her then, and his eyes are bright and she thinks he might be close to crying which makes her own eyes sting. She doesn't know what to say, so she just nods.
"There are things in the dark, under the ice, like ghosts and monsters and I never believed, I never knew, Libby. Not until I saw what killed Tom. Your Mom wants me to tell you it was a bear, but it wasn't. I've never seen anything like it." His voice gets wobbly and Libby throws herself into his arms, hugs him tight.
"What did you see?" she asks into the front of his jacket.
"I don’t know," he tells her, his arms going around her. "But it wasn't a man and it wasn't an animal. It was…something else. And I can't stop thinking about it. I need to know, Lib. I need to know. Because every time I close my eyes, that’s all I see." And he stomps on the ice and it breaks, revealing a hole of black water.
Libby's not sure what he means about the ice and monsters, but she believes him. Her Dad doesn't lie. Libby forgets all about the movie and thinks of the library with its rows and rows of books and thinks there must be a way to find out more, a way to figure out what really killed Tom. She looks up at her father and smiles, lets him know she isn't afraid. "Maybe I can help," she says but what she means is I want to help.
ooooo
Now.
Dean doesn't make it easy. He writhes and yells and kicks. He sends Jay sprawling on more than one occasion, but Libby holds tight. "I'm not going to hurt you," she shouts over his ranting.
"You already did!" His voice is thin and nasal from the pain. "Holy fuck this hurts. Jesus Christ."
They wrestle him into the room and deposit him on the bed. Libby promptly handcuffs his right wrist to the iron headboard. She has a bucket of clean water and a wash cloth ready for him and forces him back onto the narrow bed. "Lie still. Here." She drapes the wash cloth over his face.
Dean brings his free hand up, pulls it off, growling. "Where's Sam?"
"He's safe," Libby says and shuts the door. She can hear the sound of Dean's fist on the wall, the rattle of handcuffs, but she ignores it.
"Don't you hurt him!" Dean yells hoarsely.
Libby grabs Sam beneath his armpits and starts dragging. Her lips compress and she tunes out the sound of Dean's voice. This is the hard part. Getting Sam ready before he wakes up.
ooooo
Then.
Dad's waiting for her after school. He waves when he sees her looking. "Where's Mom?" Libby asks. Her stomach feels funny because Dad never picks her up from school, so if he's here, that means something's wrong.
"Your mom wants…wants to spend some time apart." He catches the look on Libby's face and hurries on. "From me, not you."
"Because of the research," Libby says. "The Research" is what they refer to as finding stuff out about monsters. About werewolves and revenants and everything that hides just out of view. Under the surface. Under the ice.
"Because of the research," he confirms. "And I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Lib. I never meant for this to happen. But your mom…she has a hard time with this."
The truth is, Libby's mom has a hard time with everything. She's always yelling, always angry. All she cares about are how things look. "I want to go with you," Libby says, and tosses her backpack into the back seat.
Her father looks at her, eyebrows lifted, mouth open like a door. Libby might have laughed if she didn't feel like throwing up.
"Lib," he says gently, "I don't think that's a good idea."
"Why not?" she demands. "I don't want to stay with Mom. I want to help you. I want to help people. Tell them about the ice, right Dad?" She looks at him hopefully, fingers crossed on both hands and thinks please please please. She doesn't know if she's afraid of monsters. But she is afraid of her mother.
He looks sad and turns away, eyes on the school. Libby watches Michelle Nealy and Carrie Jensen giggle on the front steps. She rests her head against the window. "You need a sidekick," she whispers.
"What?" She can feel her father's eyes on her now, but she doesn't look at him. She has to keep looking out the window because if he says no, if he makes her stay with Mom she's going to cry. And she doesn't want him to see. He doesn't get to see that.
"A helper," she explains. "Like the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Han Solo and Luke. Batman and Robin. You can't catch monsters by yourself. It isn't…it isn't safe."
"And that's exactly why you shouldn’t help me." She can hear the smile in his voice but he also sounds sad and Libby squeezes her eyes shut. She can feel the tears waiting, her throat aches. He's going to say no.
She won't let him. "You can't stop me," Libby says. "I’m coming with you. Please Dad. Please. Let me help."
The truck idles for a long time, neither of them speaking. Finally her father reaches out and grips the steering wheel. He doesn't look at her. "I think I know what killed Tom." His voice sounds wobbly, like he's trying not to cry. Maybe he is.
She wipes her eyes and looks at him, surprised. Excited. Scared. "What?"
"Something called a wendigo."
ooooo
Now.
Libby is soaked through with sweat by the time they get Sam in the chair. His jacket is a brown lump on the floor. His gun and what looks like some kind of ritualistic knife are safely out of reach. Sam's hands are tied behind him. He's secured to the chair with thick rope, his feet bound to the chair legs. Libby watches him, but he doesn't move. His head hangs down, hair the color of coffee in his face. He looks younger than she expected. He looks kind. At least that's what the demon shows her. She has no idea what Sam Winchester is really like, because Sam Winchester is gone. Imprisoned in his own body.
"I didn't think it would be this easy," Jay says. "Something's wrong."
Libby chews at a fingernail, eyes still on (not) Sam. His chest rises and falls. She crosses behind him, checks his head for blood, worried he hurt himself when he fell against the wall. There is none. His hair is softer than she expects and she jerks her hand away, rubs it along the sleeve of her shirt.
"I'm scared." The words are hard to admit. She's never said them to anyone except her father. But she trusts Jay. He's here with her, isn't he? There's not much more he can do to prove he cares about her, to prove he believes.
The chair sits in the middle of the protective circle Jay helped her draw. She's got the holy water, Dad's notebooks, a bag of rock salt, and the Latin text on exorcism. Her right hand checks repeatedly for the gun and taser. The former's in her waist band, the latter's in her pocket. Her left hand strays to the silver necklace around her neck. She takes comfort in the familiar feel of its intricate pattern. Jay touches her shoulder, studies her face. "It's going to be okay," he tells her. "We're doing the right thing. You know that."
She nods. Of course they are. This is what Dad would have wanted. So she lifts the bag of salt and pours a thin line around the edge of the protective circle. She goes to Dean's room and pours a thin white column along the outside of heavy door. She's not sure it's even necessary, but it makes her feel better. Jay watches, arms folded, approval on his face.
"What are you doing?" Dean demands, his voice muffled by the door. "You maced my eyes bitch, not my ears. Who are you? What do you want?"
Libby leans against the wall, hugs the bag to her chest. "Actually, it's Sam we want."
"We? Who the fuck is we?" She can hear the anger in his voice. She can also hear what it's covering: fear. Not for himself, but for his brother. Libby gives Dean a point for that. For the worry. It's what a good brother would do. Her eyes narrow. But Dean's not a good brother, is he? A good brother doesn't cover up the truth, doesn't…doesn't what? Let his brother stay possessed? There was a time she thought Dean was possessed as well, but Jay says he isn't. So did Jo Harvelle.
Dean pounds on the wall hard enough to make the door rattle. Libby doesn't even jump. Dean doesn't scare her. Most humans don't. Her minds whispers what about Mom? but Libby doesn't listen.
"What do you want with Sam?" His words are hard, they feel like pebbles against her skin.
Libby hesitates, unsure if she should tell the truth. She looks at Jay. He offers a faint nod. Libby speaks to the door, not to Dean. "I want to help him."
ooooo
Then.
They learn by trial and error. They make rules. The first rule is: she can't call him dad. Libby's mom is looking for them, that means the police are looking for a father and daughter. So he hugs her, kisses the top of Libby's head and says "Come on kiddo. It's not so bad. You can call me Dell." He winks. "It's pretty close to Dad, right?"
Libby shrugs. They're sitting in the front seat of the old van outside a crappy looking bar. A sign out front says The Roadhouse. It looks run down but Libby doesn't care. It reminds her of something out of an old western. "Okay." And really, it doesn't matter. She'd call him anything in order to stay with him.
Dad sticks out a hand and grins. "Okay then. I'm Dell. Nice to meet you."
Libby smiles and a laugh bubbles out of her. She shakes his hand. "I'm Libby."
Her father's grin dims slightly. "I need you to stay in the van for a little while, Libby. I just have to run inside for a minute." He nods toward the building. "I'm meeting someone inside."
Libby's lips purse. She doesn't mind the Dell thing. But being ditched is something else altogether. "How come?"
He hands her an atlas. "I need to do some recon first. Make sure it's safe for little girls." He lifts an eyebrow at her expression. "And sidekicks."
Somewhat appeased, Libby looks at the map. "You need me to find something?" Libby loves maps. She likes to trace the thin black lines, the tangle of highways and rivers and roads with her fingers, the red boundary lines that exist on paper but are invisible to the eye. She imagines people are connected by these same lines, filmy black strands trailing from person to person. Sometimes she can see the thread tying her to her father. It’s fine, nearly invisible, like a spider web. She can’t always see the threads, and even when she can, she knows they can’t be real. Libby runs her hand over the map and thinks of her mother. That thread is broken now, and she’s glad. The connection is lost, but her voice remains, it echoes in her head when she’s trying to sleep. How can you be so stupid? and What’s wrong with you? and are you actually trying to be just like your father? Libby doesn’t know the answer to the first two questions, but the answer to the last one is a definite yes.
Dell nods. "Yup. Look for a little dot called Rockfall. It shouldn't be too far from here."
Her father gets out of the van, shuts the door. He taps on the window to get her attention. "Lib?" She looks up, one finger on Omaha to mark her place. "Lock the door."
She does.
ooooo
Now.
Libby waits, her back to the wall. Sam Winchester jerks in the chair, his leg shifts. He lifts his head and coughs. The cough becomes a moan, his face tight with pain. If he's concerned that he's tied to a chair he doesn't show it.
When Sam turns to look at her, he squints at the bulb's halo of light, but Libby's seen more than enough. His eyes are black. She wraps her fingers around her necklace and stares at him, unflinching. She might be scared shitless, but she's not going to let him see. Her Dad taught her well.
She takes the small bottle of holy water from the tray, her gaze fixed on Sam.
He coughs again, tries to move his arm. "Where's…where's Dean?"
This isn't the question she was expecting. She was expecting rage. Or vitriol. Or maybe pleading. At the very least, a who the hell are you? like the one Dean threw at her. But all he gives her is one calm question. His voice is softer than she expected. Dean is all loud bravado whereas Sam is quiet urgency. That's just the persona the demon presents she reminds herself. And that makes her furious, because she's seen Sam Winchester before, she knows him, they're connected. And that makes what the demon did to her, to her father that much worse.
Libby's lip curls and she glares past Sam's exterior to the lie within. She unscrews the cap from the bottle. "He's fine."
Sam's head swivels to search the room, revealing the bruise spreading across his temple like a sunburn. "Where is he?"
"He's close by. He's not hurt." Anger flares in her gut and she wonders why she's even answering. She didn't go through months of endless planning to answer his questions. She went through it so he could answer hers.
She taps the bottle against her thigh, eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
Sam returns her gaze and it unnerves her. She doesn't want to look into his (its) eyes. But there's no way in hell she's going to blink first. Confusion creases his forehead, one eyebrow lifts. "You already know who I am."
"No," she says, "I know who you say you are. There's a difference." She grinds ice into each syllable. The thing that sits there wearing Sam Winchester's face, that tries to hide behind his guileless expression and the little mole on his cheek and the bruise seeping into his hairline is a liar.
Again the confused look. He blinks. "I'm Sam Winchester."
Libby rolls her eyes, grits her teeth. "If that's how you want to play it, fine." She snaps the final word at him and moves toward the circle. His bound hands don't move, his face doesn't contort with fury. He doesn’t mock her, doesn't shout. He doesn't do anything but sit there and look infuriatingly normal. She grabs a handful of his hair and pulls, wrenches his head back and forces the tiny bottle to his lips. "Drink it. Then I'll see who you really are."
He struggles, but she's got a fistful of hair and she yanks. He has nowhere to go. She tips the bottle, glass clinks against his teeth. He coughs, liquid spilling down his chin, onto his shirt. He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing and then he's choking, spitting the water out. "What are you doing?" he sputters. "Why are you-"
"Shut up." She wants to run, but she doesn't. She walks slow, shows him she's in control. She's scared (there's a fucking demon in her basement) but she uses the fear, shapes it into something useful. Something like resolve. She picks up the book, flips to the exorcism ritual, and begins to read.
ooooo
Then.
Libby's a fast learner. She always has been. School isn’t much of a challenge. Dell has her enrolled in a rinky-dink public school. She gets her work done in class, reads during recess, sits by herself at lunch. She practices being invisible. She'd started practicing back when she was still living with Mom. Not being noticed had spared her now and then from her mother's barbed words. Now it spares her from having to raise her hand in class. Most teachers don’t call on her. But when one does, like Mr. Rogen in Social Studies, she's ready. She always knows the answer. Lincoln is the capitol of Nebraska, not Omaha. A prime number is a number that can only be divided by itself and one. The earth's core consists of the crust, upper mantle, mantle, outer core, inner core. But sometimes, because the other kids are watching, because the teachers look at her with a little too much interest, she says Omaha instead.
The best part of her day is after school. Dell drives her to a little strip of hunting land in the middle of nowhere and teachers her how to shoot a gun. It feels heavier than she expects, not like her old toy guns at all. Dad looks at her funny, like he's sad, or sorry for something, but when she asks what's wrong he says nothing. She holds the gun exactly how he shows her.
"This isn't a game, Lib. This-" he touches the gun gently, "isn't fun. It's not cool. It's something that can take your life just as easily as the things we're hunting if you're not careful. Understand?"
She nods and she holds the gun with both hands, points it at the can in the Y of the tree trunk. She pulls the trigger and the gun jerks in her hands and her palms tingle, her arms ache. But she doesn't drop it. Even better, when Dell picks the can up off the ground there's a dime-sized hole in the center of the can.
Libby doesn't just learn to shoot along the empty back roads of Minnesota. She learns to drive. Dell sits in the passenger seat, patiently telling her to slow down or check the rear view. The windows are down and the air smells like rain. The sky is the color of old quarters and she sticks one hand out the window, feels the wind on her fingers. Dad laughs and she does the same.
ooooo
Now.
Sam sits silently through the whole thing, head bowed. Like he's praying. Or bored. She thinks back to the last (only) exorcism she's been to and darts a look at Jay. He shrugs and motions to Sam's coat. Want me to go through his pockets? She give her head a minute shake and tries not to stumble over the Latin pronunciation. Reading is so much easier than speaking the unfamiliar syllables.
Apparently Sam agrees. "Your pronunciation's not quite right," he tells her, "but it's not the worst I've ever heard."
Libby stares at him. This isn't what's supposed to happen. There's supposed to be flickering lights and static electricity that turns the hair on her arms to wire. There's supposed to be screaming and a column of black smoke-the demon-leaving Sam Winchester's body. Not once in the long weeks of planning did she count on the demon critiquing her Latin. She doesn't mean to pull the gun out, doesn't plan to hold it in her hand like it's a rope and she's falling. But it's there just the same and she points it at Sam's head. "Why isn't it working?" She slides the safety off and Jay goes pale, hisses Libby but she can't help it, she can't help it. Her face feels like stone, her fingers are numb, but the gun doesn't tremble. "Get out of him."
Sam blinks and he opens his mouth, closes it. He tries again, but nothing comes out but a low moan, a kind of keen, and that makes the hair on Libby's arms stand up just fine. "I'm not possessed," Sam mutters. And then, "My head." He closes his eyes, his long lashes like half moons against his skin. "My head hurts." He moves his arms now, shoulders straining against the rope, struggling for the first time. The chair hitches half an inch across the floor, but remains firmly inside the circle.
"Not possessed," Sam repeats, and stops struggling. His eyes flicker open and he blinks at a spot above Libby's head and stares.
"Demons lie," Libby says. She might not have much experience around demons, but she knows plenty of hunters who have.
"Everybody lies," Sam counters. "Demons. People. But Libby, listen to me, please. I don't know why you think I'm possessed, but I'm not. I'm not." His eyes crawl down the wall to her face and he licks his lips. "Ask Dean. He'll tell you the truth."
Libby doesn't lower the gun, but she puts the safety back on. "I think he'd do anything to protect you. And lying's the least of it." She casts a scornful look toward the hallway. "I don't need to ask Dean, I've already talked to a hunter. Somebody you know, in fact." Libby's mouth twists into a razor smile. "Jo Harvelle. She told me what you did to her." Libby swallows, tries not to dwell on what happened before Sam went into that bar.
Sam stares at her, stunned, and Libby's glad, glad to take away his words. He shakes his head, slow at first, then faster. "No. She didn't." He shifts and the chair moves again.
Libby smiles, triumphant. "She told me you raped her you fucking asshole, that you killed her father and her boyfriend. You ruined her life." The smile drops away and Libby takes a take breath, sets the gun the table, slowly. Carefully. She thinks of shooting a red and white Diet Coke can out of a tree and her father's smile. "Just like you ruined mine."
Sam's face goes gray and he looks ill. He makes a noise in the back of his throat and Jay works his way closer to the back of Sam's chair. Sam shakes his head again, like the movement can erase her words. "No," he says. "That's not what happened." Emotions flicker across his face like shadows. Guilt. Regret. Shame. "I didn't. I didn't…I didn't-" he seems unable to say the word, his knee bounces up and down, like it's motorized and the chair creaks. "I didn't do that" he insists. "I didn't mean to hurt her. I didn't kill Bill Harvelle." His voice stretches, grows thin, threatens to break. "My Dad had. Had something to do with that. And Jo doesn't-didn't-" he's stumbling over the words now, "have a-she didn't have a. Boyfriend."
"I saw you with that gun," Libby says, her voice rising. "You killed her boyfriend the same way you killed Lori Thompson."
Sam's chair moves again, creeping closer to the edge of the circle. Jay puts a hand on the back of it, but Sam's strong and he's got momentum and adrenaline on his side. Sam's eyes are wide--and there's no color, none, just that perfect black circle, and stupidly, amid the tangle of thoughts in her head, in the midst of the rage and bitterness, she thinks, tunnel.
"Who's Lori Thompson?" Sam asks and now his voice is well past broken, it splinters into different octaves.
Her eyebrows lift, curious (smug). "You're not denying it this time?"
Sam's left knee takes a turn at bouncing and he croaks "Who is she?"
Libby flips to the back of the book and pulls out a newspaper clipping. A grainy color photo shows a young smiling woman with black hair and dimples. "Ring any bells?" she demands, and throws the picture at him. It flutters to the ground just outside the circle, face up. Sam stares down at it. "You shot her, Sam. In cold blood. You shot her between the eyes. She was twenty-two years old."
When he looks up, all pretense of denial--to himself and to her--is gone. "She was…she was possessed," he whispers miserably.
Libby points the gun. "You're possessed. Should I shoot you?"
Sam looks at her. "I. I didn't meant to kill her. She just." His lifts his head, looks up at the ceiling. "She couldn't tell me how to save Dean. I needed-" he stops abruptly, inhales a shaky breath through his nose. "I need to save Dean."
Libby stares at him. "From what?" Then she rolls her eyes. She doesn't give a shit about Dean or what he needs saving from. It's just another lie. Demon's don't save. They take. They kill. "Was she going to tell Dean you're a demon, is that it? What, were you working together?"
"If you're so concerned why didn't you stop me," Sam challenges, chest heaving. "I was there alone. She wouldn't have come if I wasn't. It doesn't make any sense." Sam mutters to himself, jerks against the ropes. "This doesn't make any sense. None of it. Not what Jo said, not that you saw me, and it sure as hell doesn't make sense that you think I'm demon." Faint color returns to Sam's face and he jaw clenches. "What's going on here?" he demands and Libby wants to tell him he doesn't get to ask, doesn't deserve to know; she’s done sitting through his little performance. Enough is fucking enough.
And then the back leg of Sam's chair crosses the chalk line. Jay reaches out to grab the chair, one hand on the chair back, the other on Sam's arm. Sam struggles harder and Jay's face dissolves into panic. Jay's tall but he's thin, he probably weighs as much as Sam's arm. "Libby!"
Libby surges forward, she's not letting the demon out of the circle, no way, no how, just no, and her hand touches Jay's and then
She's standing in a cramped room that smells like sweat and salt and chicken. Sam Winchester lies on a stained mattress, eyes closed and unmoving. Libby looks around, realizes Jay must have been touching something of Sam's. She recalls seeing a thin black band around Sam's wrist. If Jay was touching the band and Libby touched Jay, that can only mean one thing: she's seeing one of Jay's visions.
The last vision they shared was when Jay brushed against Lori Thompson's front door. That vision had felt like wading through static, the voices murky, faces dark. Sam and the possessed girl had flickered like candles. But what she's seeing now is clear, the colors bright. This is in HDTV with surround sound.
Libby glances down at Sam, puts out a hand to touch him. She can't of course, she's not really here, she's only looking through a window that's already been closed. Sam looks terrible, worse than he looks now. The room feels claustrophobic and wrong, and her stomach clenches. She moves toward the door but she doesn't get far because Dean's right there, standing in the doorway.
This Dean is miles away, five time zones away from the man down the hall. This Dean is defeated. Spent. Crushed. His eyes are red and his voice cracks. "You know when we were little," he says, eyes on Sam, throat working, "you couldn't have been more than five. You just started asking questions." Dean's lips twitch into a faint smile. He swallows. "How come we didn't have a mom, why do we always have to move around, where'd Dad go when he'd take off for days at a time. Remember I begged you quit asking Sammy, man you don't want to know." Dean laughs softly, but there's no humor. "I just wanted you to be a kid, just for a little while longer."
Dean's face radiates grief, his voice is etched with loss. Libby looks at Sam again, (still, so still, unmoving) and she realizes then he's not sleeping, not unconscious, he's not anything but dead. Sam Winchester is dead.
Libby's stomach lurches, she feels like vomiting because this is wrong, this is crazy, this. Is. Crazy. Sam's not dead because he's back in her basement, he's tied to her chair, he's possessed. She licks her lips, tries to think. Was this before what happened with Jo Harvelle? Is Sam actually dead, is he dead right now and the demon can somehow walk around wearing Sam Winchester's body like he's a favorite shirt?
"I always tried to protect you," Dean says softly. "Keep you safe. Dad didn't even have to tell me, it was just always my responsibility, you know?" Dean closes his eyes, smiles at some found memory. He shuts his eyes and his face starts to collapse. "It's like I had one job. One job. And I screwed it up." Dean's voice wavers, his chin trembles and Libby wants to leave, she wants to go back, get away, because she knows what this feels like. She knows what it's like to be the one left behind , the one breathing but just as dead as the person you lost. She doesn't want to see Dean's pain because it feels too much like her own. But Libby can't leave because it's a vision and it ends when it ends.
"I blew it." Dean tries to hold it together but he's breaking, just like his voice. A tear slides down his face, first one, then another. "And for that I'm sorry." He wipes at his eyes and Libby presses her hands to her head, struggles to understand. "I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I love. I let Dad down." Dean rubs his mouth. "And now I guess I’m just supposed to let you down too." He shakes his head. "How can I? How am I supposed to live with that? Sammy." Dean says his brother's name like a prayer, like a plea. The sounds makes Libby want to cry and she hates herself for it.
"What am I supposed to do?" Dean repeats, rage leaking into loss, and he reaches for Sam's hand, his fingers brushing against Sam's bracelet and
they shove the chair back into the circle. Libby swallows, her mouth dry, her head pounding, and she shrieks at the back of Sam's head "Are you still dead? What the fuck, Winchester? What the fuck? I saw you, I saw you on that shitty mattress and you were dead. So can you explain to me exactly how you're sitting here?" She doesn't give him time to answer. "Because I can. You're possessed. That's the only answer. So quit lying to me you fucker-" she spits at Sam, droplets of saliva land in his hair, she yanks at the back of the chair and it creaks again. "Get out of him! Get out!"
"Try it again," Jay tells her and points to the old catechism.
"I can't believe it," Libby mutters, runs a hand through her hair. She looks at Jay, eyes wide. "Did you see that? Did you see?" And it's stupid to ask because it was his fucking vision, of course he saw, but she can't help it because her plan is breaking down, unraveling. This isn't how it's supposed to go.
Sam just sits there and she wants to shove the chair against the wall, she wants to beat the demon out of him. Libby bares her teeth but Jay stops her with three words. "Think about Gordon."
The words are like ice water against the heat of her rage and she stops, puts a hand to her face. She thinks of the cabin and the man tied to the chair and Gordon's knife and Libby slams her eyes-and mind--closed, desperate to block out the memories. When she opens her eyes Jay is watching her. He looks worried, his long brown hair lank in his face, thin fingers plucking at his sleeves. "Lib? Are you okay?"
She's not, but it's not Jay's fault. "Keep an eye on him," she tells him and her voice is harder than she intends, but Jay doesn't flinch, doesn't question her. He just nods, and in that moment Libby loves Jay more than she's ever loved anyone. Libby's not demonstrative, she doesn't hug, doesn't share her feelings, but she tries to smile and Jay smiles back. It's enough.
Libby jogs down the hallway, scuffs the salt line away with her shoe and unlocks Dean's door. She shoves it open to find Dean sitting on the bed watching her. His face is still blotchy, the skin red and irritated. His eyes are bloodshot, the skin around them swollen. Despite looking miserable he still manages to convey a decent amount of defiance.
She stares at him, nostrils flaring. "How long has he been dead?"
Chapter 2
Chapter 3