Fic: Endgame (4/11)
Fic: Endgame (4/11)
Series: Special Projects
Summary: The end.
Author: pen37
Beta: Strangevisitor7 and Clarksmuse
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean, everyone else.
Pairing:Chloe/Dean Sam/Sarah
Rating: pg
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8, Ch. 9, Ch. 10, Ch. 11& Epilogue
Sarah paced nervously at the window of her rented office. The plan was to meet with a possessed senator and lure him into a trap. Considering how fast Dean had come up with that idea, she assumed it was an old favorite of his.
With that scathing thought, she turned a sideways glance on the eldest Winchester as he carefully drew out the design for a trap in chalk on the bare floorboards.
“Here,” he said to her. “You should walk around this. Familiarize yourself with the boundaries. That way you'll remember them when we have a rug on top of it and you're alone with that thing.”
She inhaled, set her jaw and nodded.
“Hey!” He smiled at her and touched her shoulder gently. “It's going to be okay. Sam and I'll be in the next room. You run into any trouble: just yell and we'll come running.”
Sarah returned his look with her own faint smile. “You're being very kind, Dean.”
“Well, Sam thinks you're pretty special,” Dean said. “I figure - you make him happy.”
“I hope so,” Sarah looked down.
“Well, that's enough chick-flick time for now.” Dean cleared his throat and went back to drawing the design.
Sarah smiled at that. Despite his tough-guy exterior, Dean was a big softie underneath.
Just then Sam stuck his head through the doorway. “Someone just pulled up.”
Sarah walked to the window to look out. “It's him.”
Dean finished the trap, and hurriedly covered it with a rug. Then he and Sam moved a heavy antique desk over one corner of the rug. With a nod of satisfaction, Dean dusted off his hands, and exited through a side door.
Sam walked over to look out the window.
“Okay,” he turned Sarah to him, gazed into her face and lifted his eyebrows. “You know what to do?”
She nodded.
“It's going to be okay.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than her.
“Sam!” Dean called from his hiding place in the next room. “Quit messin' around with your girl and get in here!”
Sam nodded to Sarah and then backed through the side door, holding her gaze as he left.
Sarah breathed deeply, wrapped her arms around herself, and pasted a smile on her face. When the doorbell rang, she stood straighter and crossed the room to it. When she opened the door, she beamed at the creature on the other side. “Senator.”
“Miss Blake.” It breezed past her. She noticed that its eyes traveled up to the ceiling suspiciously.
Sarah cleared her throat and mentally steeled herself for the performance. “You requested that I call you if I ever located an antique campaign desk.” She waved at the desk that Sam and Dean had moved into the trap. “I believe it may have been owned by George Washington Parke Custus.”
“And you've authenticated the piece?” he asked.
“Complete with provenances. It wasn't in Arlington. It was kept in his White House property. But you're welcome to look at it yourself.”
He stopped short of the carpet and looked down at it with a raised eyebrow. “I think I can see it well enough from here.”
Sarah felt her heart sink. He knows. She feigned a quizzical expression. “Senator?”
He looked at her and his eyes narrowed.
Something in her expression must have given her away, because suddenly the demon sneered at her. It hooked its toe under the rug and yanked it back, revealing the trap.
Before Sarah could cry out in dismay, the demon moved with preternatural speed. It knocked her down, pinned her, and clamped its hand over her mouth.
“You little bitch,” it hissed in her ear. Then it reached out and, with a gesture, pulverized the wooden planking that ran through a portion of Dean's work.
The sound of the door crashing open drew their attention.
“Hey!” Sam yelled out. “Get off of her!”
It snarled at him. “Wouldn't you rather see what color her brains are?”
Sam dove for them, knocking the creature off Sarah and holding it as he rolled away. The two of them scrabbled for purchase on the wooden floor, each trying to gain mastery of the other. At length, the demon rolled to the top of the pile. It smirked down at him.
“You're supposed to be Azazel's big bad boy?” It sneered at him.
“Nope,” Sam said. “I'm just bait.”
The demon looked up to see that Sarah had crossed to the window and closed the blinds. Across the room, Dean stood by the light switch. He winked at them just as he flipped the lightswitch.
The room plunged into darkness - and instantly a second trap was revealed - painted in glowing phosphorus paint on the ceiling .
Sam kicked the slack-jawed demon off of him and rolled free of the circle.
“Now,” Dean pulled a chair over to the circle, straddled it, and grinned at the creature. “Let's talk.”
* * *
Chloe had pinpointed several other possible locations for the creation of the hell gate.Still, the more she researchedthe possibilities, the more she was convinced that the Devil's Den was going to be the site for the creation of the dimensional rift.
As she worked, Bruce and Ollie came into the room to observe.
“Why do I have a feeling that I'm not going to like what the two of you have to say?” Chloe looked up with an arched eyebrow.
Oliver feigned nonchalance. “No idea what you're talking about, Sidekick.”
“Right,” Chloe shook her head. “You've got that same look on your face that you had in Elizabethtown. Spill.”
Oliver hesitated, then looked to Bruce with an expression of expectation.
“We've been talking to Mrs. Harvelle about the last time a hellgate was opened. Based on what she told us - I'm not entirely convinced that we'll prevent this one from opening.”
Chloe frowned at him.
“You know I'm right, Tower,” he said. “Even with all the allies you've managed to bring us.”
She looked from Bruce to Oliver and back. The Batman's face remained as inscrutable as ever. Yet in Oliver she could see the shadows of resignation. Then her eyes cut back to Bruce. She knew that they wouldn't be having this conversation unless he had a plan to mitigate things. That was what Bruce brought to the table: super-strength pessimism.
“Can we close it?”
“I'm certain that the hunters and the folks from Tir Na Og will be able to,” he nodded. “Lilith doesn't want to leave the gate open. She just wants to let her allies out. So her focus won't be on the gate itself. It'll be on the clones.”
An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of Chloe's stomach. She'd never really trusted Bruce. In his own way, he seemed as calculating as Lex. Even if he was a white hat, she always wondered if he would consider sacrificing one of them for a greater good. Now she wondered if this was the situation where she got her answer to that question.
“What did you need to know?” Chloe asked.
“Can you tell us about how you killed the demons in Houston?”
She looked from one to the other. “It won't work.”
“How do we know unless we try?” Oliver asked.
She sighed. “Daniel MacKenzie replicated my powers in every single demon's host. It healed the demon right out of the host - but it took the host with them.”
“Not a problem with cloned bodies,” Bruce observed.
“Yeah? But it damn near killed me,” Chloe said. “There were maybe five demons in the room when Mac did his thing. It pushed me to exhaustion.”
“What if your powers were amplified?” Bruce asked. “Isn't that what Isaac's abilities do? Wouldn't that be enough?”
Chloe glared at him. “Assuming I said yes to this harebrained scheme, how would we even get close enough to the clones to pull it off? Lillith has to be guarding them with everything Lex had.”
“Luthor agreed to guide your strike team into the complex,” Oliver said.
“And you think we can trust him?” Chloe scoffed.
“Not any further than I could throw him,” Oliver said. “But he does have a vested interest in seeing this through. Lex wants to reclaim Luthorcorp and he doesn't want to be responsible for the end of the world.”
“And what is Mac getting out of this?”
“Full pardon,” Ollie said. “And he gets custody of his brother.”
Chloe shut her eyes and shook her head. “You guys have got to be kidding me. You're asking me to leave my family behind and sign up for a strike team that consists of two enemies and a green kid.”
“Hey.” Oliver took her hand, and knelt so that he could look up into her face. “You know we wouldn't be asking if we thought there was any other way.”
She opened her eyes and fixed Oliver with a stern expression. “Not without Dean and Sam.”
“We're going to need every able-bodied hunter positioned either in the capital or at the site of the hellgate,” Bruce argued.
“Tough!” She crossed her arms. “You guys have a lot of nerve asking this of me without including them. My days as a solo act ended when I took the name Winchester. If you don't like it? Find another healing mutant.”
Oliver and Bruce traded concerned looks. “I think I liked her better when she was crushing on Clark,” the blonde billionaire said.
Bruce shrugged. “It's not like we have a choice in the matter.” He turned to fix Chloe with an unhappy glare. “Fine. Looks like we're sending the special projects team in.”
“I wouldn't have it any other way,” Chloe said.
“What the hell are you two trying to talk my wife into now?” A new voice came from the entrance. All three of the room's occupants turned to see Dean standing there - Lips pursed and eyes narrowed in a look of supreme anger.
.