Laurel Lance (i_crylikeabird) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2013-03-26 18:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | dean winchester, dinah lance, winifred burkle, zz:status complete |
Unhappy News (Dean, Fred, TBC in comments)
While Fred showered, Dinah made two calls. The first was for food delivery. She knew that Fred was hungry and thought that they’d all be better off if there was some sort of food available. Though she was pretty sure that Dean might not want to eat when she said what she had to say.
She just hoped that Dean wasn’t with Sam right now. The important thing was that Sam wasn’t tipped off that they might be onto... whatever it was that was going. While Fred was washing up, she picked up the phone and dialed, pacing the apartment and trying not to worry too much about his safety while she waited for him to pick up.
After all, if Sam wasn’t Sam, there was a chance that he would try to hurt Dean next. Then again, she knew full well that Dean was going to be hurt by this in one way or another. Even if that hurt might not be physical.
----
“Hey, babe.” Dean sounded happy. Tired but happy. He’d been busy looking for the asshat who had hurt Fred. That and working out a hunt that had come his way while Fred was out of service. It was strange that he was getting some of the calls that usually went to the brainy woman, but Dinah had told him about the rerouted Tower calls. He supposed it made sense.
The hunt was sort of simple. It just required strange hours. A death echo that wasn’t acting exactly like a death echo. He’d worked it out quickly with Sam, and they’d gotten the whole thing cleared out once they had figured out the pattern. He was still surprised that the burning had worked.
“Just dropped off Sam. Thought I’d get something to eat on the way back. Then after a shower and nap, we could have some fun.” Yes, the way he sounded a nap was probably very high on his list of things to do.
----
Dinah bit back a sigh of relief that Sam wasn’t with Dean. She could hear the exhaustion in his voice and she wished that she could put this off. But if something else had taken Sam’s place, they needed to try to find Sam. If he was still alive, every second counted. And if that actually was Sam, but something was wrong... then they needed to find a way to put him right as quickly as they could. She knew that Dean would hold himself responsible for anyone who died at Sam’s hands while he was in this state.
“A nap might have to wait,” she told him. She wanted to prepare him at least a little bit. She didn’t want to have this conversation over the phone though. “There’s something I need to talk to you about. I already ordered food so just come home as quickly as you can, okay?”
She cradled the phone with her shoulder and touched the ring on her right hand. She didn’t press the button to activate it, but right now she needed a tangible connection to Dean until he was home safe. Even if she knew that Sam might not be a danger to Dean right this second, she couldn’t shake the fear all the same.
----
“Babe? Dinah?” Any exhaustion was gone as Dean spoke. Something was wrong; she wouldn’t deny him a nap if it were otherwise. Perhaps in the background she could hear the Impala’s engine working as he sped up.
“I’ll be home soon. Love you.” With that, he hung up and raced through the changing streets of the City until he pulled into the garage. He ignored the Joker statue outside. Though, one day he was going to dress the dick in women’s clothes or just cover it all under a tablecloth. He hated seeing it.
Moving as quickly as possible, weapon pulled out just in case, he made his way from the garage up to the apartment. He gave a quick knock on the door, a particular pattern that would tell Dinah who was there before she opened it. Now to find out what exactly had happened. He hoped it wasn’t something in their home; he really wasn’t up to fighting in his own home at the moment.
----
Food had arrived just a few minutes before Dean did, even though Dinah was sure that he’d been speeding on his way home. She’d wanted to reassure him over the phone that everything was alright but she couldn’t. Not when everything wasn’t okay. Fred was still in the shower when Dean got home. Dinah thought that might be best.
She had just finished setting the food on the table in the kitchen when she heard the door open. She didn’t hesitate and hurried back to the door to greet the hunter on his way in. Her lips were stretched thin, her forehead wrinkled with worry. He’d seen her stressed out and even if he didn’t know that she needed to talk, she knew that he would have figured out something was wrong.
There was a part of Dinah that really just wanted to find a way to take care of this without telling him. She wanted very badly to spare Dean the pain of knowing that something was wrong with Sam. She just wanted it fixed. But that wasn’t how this worked. They had to be honest with each other, and they figured out how to do things together. Keeping something like this from him wasn’t okay, no matter how much she wanted to prevent him from the hurt that it would cause.
----
“What’s wrong?” Dean didn’t put away his Colt, not immediately. Instead, he pulled her close, setting her behind him and the rest of the apartment. He knew the space behind him was safe. “Who’s in the shower?” He recognized the way the water ran in the plumbing. It wasn’t loud, but it was obvious.
“Is Oliver here? Zatanna? The wizard?” He glanced at her. Not angry, but there weren’t many reasons for Dinah to look upset and have food out. “Jake?” He didn’t think she’d look this upset if the kid had returned. A little nervous, anxious, but not..this. She had to know by now that he wasn’t going to just disappear if he could help it just because her kid had come back. Dean would be just fine with a kid in the picture.
----
Dinah shook her head at all of the options. She was surprised that Dean would think she’d have Oliver or Harry in their shower, and she’d told him when Oliver and Zatanna disappeared from the City. The mention of Jake was a painful reminder, but she didn’t focus on that. She still grieved for her lost son, but she was managing it better these days. Partially because she had the man in front of her to lean on. Partially because she’d just had more time to work through her emotions.
Right now, that wasn’t the point.
“Fred’s here. She’s had a lot of memories return.”
She was still trying to find the best way to tell him, but this was at least a good opening.
----
“Why she showering here?” Dean finally holstered the Colt, pulling Dinah round to wrap her up in a hug. He didn’t exactly let go. It wasn’t a reward for saying the others weren’t here. He simply wanted her close. “The look on your face...you don’t want to tell me something. Thought either the asshats had returned; Zatanna came back and needed a place to crash for a bit, or you were afraid Jake would put a crimp in things. If it’s Fred..” He glanced in the direction of the bathroom.
“If it’s Fred, then she’s remembered something that I’m not going to like.” He didn’t know what it could be. Sam didn’t even come to mind, even with everything Dean knew about the taller Winchester. He squeezed Dinah.
“So, tell me. Or do I need to sit down with a stiff drink first?” Dean was joking. He knew that if Fred remembered something, he was finally going to have the opportunity in righting a major wrong. At the moment, the only thing he thought he may not want to hear in relation to Fred was that the poor woman had received more than a shot to the head.
-----
Dinah returned the hug, squeezing tightly as she buried her face into Dean’s shoulder for just a moment. She wanted to hang on longer, wanted to keep putting it off. But delaying the conversation wouldn’t make things any easier. Dinah sighed and lifted her head off Dean’s shoulder, reaching up to run her thumb down the side of his face.
“She remembered who shot her.” Dinah bit her lip. “It was Sam.” Those words were nearly impossible to get out, but she managed. The words after that came out quickly, as if she wanted to somehow right what she’d just said.
“It could be a shapeshifter, right? You said that there were some who just kidnapped people and took on their image? We would just need to hunt it down and find Sam.”
There was a quiet desperation there. She needed to be right about that theory because right now, it was the best case scenario.
----
Dean’s jaw tightened, his whole body stiffened.
“Maybe she got it wrong. Why does she think it was him?” He didn’t pull away, but he wasn’t as soft and snuggly as he had been. He was angry. There wasn’t any one target for him to aim his anger. It was simply anger.
“Why does she think...you know what? I’ll ask her when she gets out.” He let Dinah go and moved to the fridge to get the bottle of beer he needed.
----
The reaction was about like she’d expected. Dinah’s first instinct had been to doubt Fred’s memory as well, but when she thought about it-really thought about it-Sam hadn’t seemed like Sam for quite some time. She still really hoped that she was wrong about that, but her instincts were telling her that Fred was right in what she’d remembered.
She didn’t follow Dean to the kitchen. Instead, she paced the living room as she waited for Fred to get out of the shower. She wanted to give him the time to himself to process this.
She’d been expecting anger and she was going to be here to try to keep that anger from being directed at Fred. She didn’t think Dean would do something like that on purpose, but it was easy to shoot the messenger sometimes.
----
Dean took a good pull from the bottle of beer he’d grabbed from the fridge. He needed more, but he wasn’t going to get drunk. Deadly drunk. No, instead, he moved back into the living room to sit on the couch and wait. He could wait the brainy woman.
He looked up at Dinah, watching her walk back and forth. Sometimes that could be very fun, watching her move. At the moment it only echoed his feelings of anxiety. Dinah knew about Sam, and she knew what had happened. Or at least some of it. Enough to know that what was coming was not at all good.
“Babe, sit down.” He patted the couch beside him.
----
Dinah was currently trying not to think about the potential that Sam could be soulless. She knew exactly what had happened with that, and she knew what it had done to Dean. She also knew just how much it had torn him up to lose Sam and she knew how much Dean held himself responsible for Sam. So if he was in trouble or hurting people, she knew what that would do to Dean.
She just didn’t have a way to shield him from this. If Fred was right, they needed to investigate and find out what was going on. Then they had to do whatever they could to fix it.
Dinah looked over as Dean sat down and she did as requested. She rested her hand on his knee, giving it a light squeeze.
“It can’t hurt to hear her out and check things out,” she said, even though she knew full well that if Fred was right, it could and would hurt. The hand that lingered on his knee sent the message that whatever the outcome, she was here for him.
----
“It can’t hurt to hear who out?” Fred came down the hall wearing something Dinah had let her borrow. The outfit wasn’t too tight or too loose; it simply fit her differently. She moved into the living room, her arms wrapping loosely about her middle.
“Me? You’re talking about me?” She winced. “Of course, you are. There’s no one else waiting to tell you something you probabaly don’t want to ear. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to think it, remember it, or say it, so of course, you don’t want to hear it. I’m pretty certain you don’t. You love him. Sam. Him. He’s the one. Or I think he is. I saw him with a gun, and then I got scared. Then I remembered, sort of remembered. It’s foggy, but it’s there, he’s there. I can’t avoid it, and can’t run from it. I wanna run, but I can’t. I couldn’t. I did, but he shot me. Right to the head. Though he missed. He wasn’t on his best, or maybe he really didn’t want to kill me. But I don’t think y’all are the kind to shoot to scare. You shoot to kill.”
She wasn’t crying, but her fingers had managed to get the shirt twisted so that it was lifting a little. She was nervous, and she wasn’t happy.
----
Dean didn’t say anything. He didn’t interrupt her. He just sat there, watching and listening. He didn’t point out just how unclear Fred was; her words weren’t sure, but he didn’t see why she’d focus on Sam like that. He wanted to jump to the conclusion that she’d just gotten confused, only...
“Fred.” He lightly touched Dinah’s knee before getting up. “Sit down. You’re going to walk me through what you think happened. It’s okay if you can’t remember all of it; I want to know what you do know.” He motioned for Fred to take a seat. He’d wasn’t going to push the brainy female too hard, but he’d have to push her a little. He’d have to know, and he trusted Dinah to let him do what he needed as well as to stop him when he really did go a step too far.
“Let’s begin with when did you see Sam with a gun...” He would start with the known, the definitely known and ease her back. The story she gave wouldn’t be very clear, but it would be Sam. It wasn’t until she said something about reading a book that he finally caught onto something.
He pushed her harder, trying to get her to remember. Fred was sure that whatever she was reading had upset Sam, but she didn’t know why. The problem was she couldn’t remember the book was, only that what she read hadn’t made sense and it had upset Sam when she asked him about it. Or maybe it was that he’d gotten tired of explaining, maybe that was why Sam got upset, but that didnt’ seem at all like Sam - not to Fred nor to Dean.
“You’ve got to try to remember what you asked. Just see the book. See what it was about. Did he see the book?”
----
Dinah did her best to shoot Fred a few sympathetic looks as she tried to recount her memories for Dean. There were a few moments where Dinah had to look away so she could try to get back to a neutral expression. It was a difficult story to listen to, hard to picture Sam doing those things and even harder to deal with the fact that she believed Fred.
For his part, the flash of anger from before stayed under the surface for Dean. Dinah appreciated that, especially because she knew just how hard this was for him.
When the conversation turned to the book, Dinah decided that it was perhaps time for all of them to get something to eat. Without a word, she stood and crossed the living room the island counter that separated the living room from the kitchen. She grabbed the styrofoam containers from the Mexican restaurant that she’d discovered a few weeks ago-tacos for Fred, a chimichanga for Dean, fajitas for herself. She returned with the food and a handful of silverware and set it all on the coffee table. The other two could decide for themselves if it was time to take a break to eat or not, or if they could manage to eat while talking. There wasn’t much else she could do to show her support for both of them right now, so making sure that they had the chance to eat seemed like the best thing to do at the moment.
----
Fred was on the verge of tears. She didn’t know if she could do what Dean asked, and she really wasn’t sure she wanted to. She was tired and wanted very much to go back to Jack’s. Or go home, only she didn’t have a home anymore. The City hadn’t brought Angel’s back, and she wasn’t sure it ever would just for her. She had been squatting in it more than anything for a while now.
“I don’t..it was..you hunted something. It didn’t fit with what the book said. It was wrong. I just asked him, and he got angry? Sad, he shot me.” For all the questions in her voice, as Dean asked over and over, grilling her, she was becoming more and more confident that Sam or someone with Sam’s face had shot her. That he was not her Sam - not that she had a Sam but she knew one and he wasn’t it.
The brainy female gave Dinah a weak smile. She wasn’t hungry, but she did pull her tacos close. Tacos were her comfort food and then some.
----
Dean had the sense to not yell at Dinah for interrupting. She didn’t interrupt, but Fred’s lack of definite answers was more than a little frustrating. Dinah simply distracted him; she had that effect on him. When the superheroine returned with food, he relaxed a little and gave her a tired yet appreciative smile.
“Okay, okay.” He settled in the chair he’d pulled close, so that he could sit facing his subject. Not touching the food, Dean opted for thinking. “Something he and I hunted.” He waited for the nod and nodded himself.
“The only thing we’ve hunted lately was...” He slouched a little; he’d not been doing as much hunting with his brother as he’d liked, and it might have had something to do with the way their last hunt had gone down. Then again, they were still getting back in the swing of the hunt, right? That swing never took long, not when they were both on the same page, yet they hadn’t even been reading from the same book it seemed.
“Fred, you’re doing good.” He gave the brainy chick a slight smile before looking at Dinah. “Thanks. Good choice.” He motioned to the food, meaning more Fred’s than his. Both Fred and Dean were eaters, but he had learned quickly about Fred’s love of almost all things taco.
-----
Dinah had watched Fred for any signs that Dean was being too hard on her. He was certainly asking a lot of questions, though the questions seemed to be jarring something loose. Dinah just wasn’t sure that any of them were happy with the memories that seemed to have become clearer over the course of the conversation.
She did give Dean a small smile.
“You’re welcome.”
She was thinking over that last hunt too, thinking about what the outcome had been and the fact that Dean had mentioned looking into something in regards to it.
“The demigod,” she said softly, as she glanced at Fred to see if that rang any bells. “Alastor.”
She didn’t mention the fact that one of the people they’d been trying to save had been killed in that hunt. She knew that it was something that weighed heavily on Dean. He didn’t like losing people he was trying to save. Neither did she, when it came down to it. She knew that last hunt with Sam had been difficult for him, but she couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with all of this.
----
Fred didn’t pick up one of her tacos just yet. She let them sit while she thought. Her hands rested on her lap, and she watched the happy couple eat. There was a small appreciative smile for the food, even if she wasn’t really partaking of the good things.
She looked around the apartment as if that would tell her something new, something useful, and it didn’t. It just reminded her that she was nowhere again. It was a silly feeling, seeing as there were people here who wanted to make sure she was okay. They wouldn’t let her go without a food to eat or a place to sleep, but that wasn’t the same. She’d been doing rather well for herself before it all fell down.
“Something wasn’t right in how it happened.” She sighed. “It was out of order. I can see the words on the page, but I can’t understand them.” She shook her head. “They don’t make any sense.”
----
“The words are out of order or something else?” Dean seemed more interested in his chimichanga. He’d recognized that look of loss in Fred’s eyes, so he thought he’d take another tactic, one that Dinah had provided by bringing food over. Just let it come naturally. Let it be more a conversation than an interrogation. There was a time for all of that.
He glanced at Dinah, giving her yet another appreciative smile. She really was a great person to have in his corner. He was glad that they had each other here.
“That there was a death at all was …” He didn’t know what to call it. It didn’t seem right at all.
---
Dinah gave Dean a small smile as he backed off and took on a more conversational tone. She thought that that method would work better, especially since Fred seemed to be getting a little flustered with how much he was pushing her.
“Something wasn’t right in how the hunt of the Alastor happened?” Dinah asked, trying to clarify as well.
Her tone was light and lacking urgency. Fred had to remember on her own timetable.
Dinah took a few bites of her fajita and then her hand lingered on Dean’s knee for a brief comforting squeeze. Whatever they discovered, she was here to help. They would find some way to help Sam. She had to believe that.
---
"What happened. It wasn't right." Fred shook her head, knowing that this was not enough, not exactly. "Or it was. It was done right, but it wasn't." Her nose wrinkled as she nudged one of the tacos; she leaned back in the couch and looked at the couple. They were very nice, and she understood why they were being so very...whatever it was they were being.
"Sam wouldn't let someone die, but someone had to die. Someone had to die first." Her lips thinned, shifting a little on the couch. "Sam wouldn't let someone die, but they had to."
----
Dean sat up, food forgotten. He wasn't expecting that one. Fred had found something that would explain what happened. He still wasn't sure he understood, but he did see some glimmer that there was something more. He leaned back against his seat as well. His hand dropped to rest on Dinah's, just a soft squeeze.
"Mind explaining that? Why'd they have to die?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He couldn't believe Sam would let anyone die, but he knew of a Sam who'd let his own brother become a vampire. Dean hoped that they weren't dealing with that sort of Sam.
----
Dean asked the question that had been on Dinah's lips. She watched Fred, silently working through the information that had been given in bits and pieces. If Sam had been the one to originally translate the book and if the book had said that someone needed to die, then that spoke volumes to how things had ended with that hunt. The fact that Sam wouldn't have looked for another solution worried her. The fact that he'd lied to Dean showed that he recognized that his brother wouldn't have been okay with it.
There was a little flash of anger as she thought about the choice Sam had made to endanger innocent people, including Dean. For just a moment, it didn't matter whether or not Sam was responsible for his actions. All that mattered was that Dinah wanted him to hurt for them.
Just as quickly, that moment passed and Dinah realized that they needed to do something to put Sam right again. Assuming there was something they could do. She looked over at Dean, trying to gauge his reaction and wondering what he might have in mind to try to fix this. She also wondered whether or not she was going to have to talk him out of doing something stupid in an attempt to help his brother.