sams1ra

Title: Picking Up Where We Left Off
Disclaimer: This is Kripke's sandbox, I just like playing with his toys ;)
Rating: R, for language and violence.
Category: Gen.
Pairings: None.
Characters: Dean, Sam, Bobby, OCs, other canon characters.
Spoilers: For all episodes aired in the US. This story is mostly AU for season 3, but some characters and events will be mentioned.

Comments: Are what feeds my muse ;)

A/N: Much love to the awesomeness that is my beta tru_faith_lost . All remaining mistakes are mine.

Summary: Twenty five years ago, a demon killed Mary Winchester and tainted her son. Six years ago, someone drugged and abducted Dean Winchester. Nine months ago, one of a yellow eyed demon's tainted kids killed Sam Winchester. A few days later, the gates to hell opened, and all hell broke loose. And now, everything's picking up where it left off....

Chapter Seven

Sam checked his voicemail for messages again, not that he really expected any. His phone was on him at all times now, and he waited anxiously for Bobby to call and let him know he was less than an hour away. Sam had called him so often in the past day that Bobby had yelled at him and started screening his calls.

It was getting late, though, and with all the coffee he'd had in the past couple of days, Sam felt wired. He figured a quick shower, a bite to eat, and he'd be back on the streets, doing the exact same thing he'd been doing for the last two days. There were no new clues, no leads to follow. Dean seemed to have just… disappeared.

Sam unlocked the motel room, got inside and turned the light on. For a fraction of a millisecond, he thought Dean was back. He frowned, clenched his jaw, and closed the door behind him. The other person in the room didn’t even bother to turn around and face him.

"Ruby," Sam growled. Ruby glanced at him over her shoulder.

"About time you showed up. This place doesn’t even have cable," she said.

"Where is he?" Sam demanded gruffly.

"Who?" Ruby asked. Sam closed the distance between then in a couple of quick strides and loomed over the demon.

"Where's my brother?" He yelled.

"Uh, last time I checked, not your brother's keeper." Ruby said. Sam narrowed his eyes.

"Tell me!" He demanded. Ruby raised a brow.

"Drama queen much?" She asked, a little amused grin painting her lips.

"You think I'm joking with you?" Sam demanded, his anger rising. Not waiting for a reply, he reached for his duffle and took out the bottle of holy water. He turned back to Ruby, and splashed the water at her. She ducked.

"Hey! Watch where you spray that thing!" Ruby snapped indignantly.

"Where's my brother?" Sam demanded yet again.

"I have no idea."

"You're lying," Sam growled and narrowed his eyes.

"Sure. All the time. But not to you. Never to you," Ruby said softly. Sam shook his head.

"I should have listened to Dean. I should never have called a demon," he said.

Ruby stared at him for a moment, letting out a little breath of surprise. "You know, this is really rich, Sam. You call me, demand that I 'show my face'," she spat, "And then you pull this? Who the hell do you think you are?" Ruby demanded.

"I have the Colt," Sam said threateningly.

"Well, good for you. Goodbye, Sam."

"Wait!" Sam stopped her as she walked past him. "I think something took him. I need to find him," Sam said, trying to keep calm.

"Good luck with that," Ruby said and headed for the door. "If it were me, I wouldn’t bother," she turned to look at Sam over her shoulder, "He's just weighing you down. You'd do a lot better without him."

"Shut up."

Ruby shrugged. "I'm just saying, you're a big boy now; time to start getting used to doing things without your big brother there to hold your hand and wipe your nose for…" She didn’t manage to end the sentence, though, as Sam slammed her hard against the wall, the words of the exorcism already spilling from his lips.

"Hey, now wait a minute!" Ruby protested. Sam narrowed his eyes, but kept his pronunciation perfect, kept his firm hold of her. "Okay, okay!" Ruby breathed.

"Where is he?" Sam demanded.

"I already told you, Sam. I. Don’t. Know!" She snapped, sounding more than a little irritated.

"I don’t believe you!" Sam yelled at her. Ruby narrowed her eyes.

"Fine," she said, "He's in Hell. Happy?" She clipped. Sam blanched. He backed away, eyes wide with horror, and swallowed hard. He shook his head.

"No. No no no no, no way," he said, his voice a little unsteady. "It can't be. He… we still have three months left…"

"Oh, I don’t think he's dead. Not yet, at least," Ruby said. The next moment she was slammed back against the wall, hard.

"What did you do to him?" Sam demanded.

"Okay, first of all, ow!" Ruby said and pushed Sam away, hard enough for him to fall on his ass. She rubbed her head, glaring at him. "And second, I didn’t do anything. This was bound to happen sooner or later."

"Where is he!"

"Seriously, Sam, I'm getting kinda worried here," Ruby said, "Do you not get what I've been telling you? I don’t know where he is!" She said, raising her voice at the end.

"But you do know what took him?" Sam demanded. Ruby shrugged.

"Sort of. I'm not sure," she said.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Ruby rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "Look, if what I think happened really did happen, there's nothing you can do about it. If I'm right, what took your brother… You think Azazel was bad? This thing? This is older than Azazel, older than… anything I know. Stronger, too. It's practically a mythical thing among demons. If he wants your brother…" she shook her head, "If it's marked your brother, like it or not, Sam, Dean's gone, and you're never gonna see him again," she finished, and Sam turned a whiter shade of pale.

"You're lying!" He said hauntingly.

"Oh, suck it up already, would you? Dean was going to die in a few months anyway. There's only one way I know of getting him out of his deal, you know that!"

"I'm not going to do that. Dean would rather die," Sam said in a small voice. Ruby threw her hands up.

"Fine. Whatever," she said, "You only have two options, Sam. You can either accept who you are, accept your destiny, and save your brother," Ruby looked at him expectantly, but Sam just lowered his eyes. Ruby rolled hers. "Or, you could accept that your brother's gone, and he's not coming back," she finished. Sam lowered his head, fighting the tears that started brimming in his eyes.

"Awww, are you going to cry?" Ruby didn’t even try to hide her smirk, "Want me to hold your hand?" She mocked him.

Sam glared at her and shook his head. "Shut up! Just shut the hell up!"

"Really? That's your comeback?" Ruby pushed, "Did you forget what's out there, Sam? Did you forget about Lillith gunning for you? Did you forget about the army of demons running around, getting stronger by the…"

"I said shut up!" Sam yelled at her. Ruby's brows nearly disappeared into her hairline.

"You know, that's kinda rude," she said. Sam glared daggers at her, his nostrils flaring.

"You know what took my brother," he said, "Tell me."

"So, what time do we get some chow in this place?" Dean asked. Mike and Ben stared at him as if he'd just sprouted another head. Dean looked from one to the other. "What?"

"You've only been up for like, five hours," Mike said.

"Dude, last time I remember eating was Saturday night," Dean said, "And that was two days ago." Ben shrugged. Mike looked at his watch.

"Last couple of days they got here around six. We still have a couple hours," he said, and Dean grunted, his stomach growling.

"I'm guessing they want us to fill up on water, huh?" Dean asked, his eyes roaming around the room, lingering on the bottles of water.

"You guys wanna try the door again?" Ben suggested. Mike let out a small sigh.

"Doesn’t your leg hurt?" He asked. Ben shrugged.

"Don’t really want to wait around till they get to me, you know what I mean?" He said. "Hey, Dean, what do you say? Wanna try again?"

But Dean wasn’t really listening. He was already making his way to one of the women on the other side of the huge room. There were four of them, he noticed, along with four other men, now that he'd had enough time to look around. All seemed to be roughly the same age, give or take a couple of years. He couldn’t discern anything in common on first glance. Well, other than all of then having experienced this before, for some reason.

Two of the women, as well as one of the men, were badly hurt. All three had empty bottles next to them, with more water coming their way whenever possible. Dean figured being stoned out of your mind beat being scared and in pain every day, but still, that wasn’t a very good sign in Dean's book. They had no food and the water was drugged to keep them sedated and compliant, or worse, to help ease the pain of what was going to be done to them… It didn’t look good.

Dean sat down next to a young woman, making sure to keep some distance. The woman ignored him and kept on sobbing, fidgeting with prayer beads. Dean made sure to look as unthreatening as he could before he started talking.

"So, I take it this is not the first time we've met," he said with a friendly smile. The woman spared him a glance, flinching when Ben and Mike tried kicking the door open once again. Dean decided to try again. "See, I don’t remember much from uh… you know, the last time, so… uh… I'm Dean."

The woman looked his way again, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "I don’t remember anything from… I don’t remember any of this!" She cried.

"Oh, hey, hey," Dean said soothingly, "It's okay, it's gonna be okay," he promised.

"You don’t know that!" The woman cried.

"Well, we got outta here the last time, right?" Dean asked. "And we'll get out of this, too. I know we will. M'brother is out there now, turning every stone to find me. I'm sure your family's looking for you, too. They'll find us. Everything will be okay, you'll see," Dean said, and the woman started sobbing again. Dean looked around awkwardly. Women in tears were definitely not his area of expertise.

"So… care to tell me your name?" He asked a moment later.

"Naomi," she sobbed, and Dean's eyes caught on the prayer beads in her hand.

"Okay. Naomi, listen to me. Everything is going to be okay, okay? We're gonna get out of here, and, you know, everything will be back to normal," Dean tried. He ran his hand down his face and glanced back at the water bottles on the table.

"How long have you been here?" Dean asked. Naomi sniffed.

"Four days," she replied. Dean nodded a little.

"Good," he said, "That's good. Means they're out there right now, looking for us." Naomi looked up at him.

"You really think so?" She asked. Dean made a face.

"'Course I do," he said. "Hey, you mind doing me a favor?" He asked a moment later. Naomi looked at him questioningly. "How attached are you to those prayer beads?" Dean asked.

It was after dark by the time Bobby showed up at the motel, and then he and Sam went over everything again. They went back to the bar, looking for any clues, and found nothing. Again.

"What are we going to do now?" Sam asked tiredly.

"Well," Bobby took his hat off, scratched his head and then put it back on. "I'm thinking now's a good time to eat," he said, "Then you're gonna tell me everything that Ruby thing told you. And then we're going to find her and make her tell us more," Bobby finished. Sam nodded a little, not even looking up.

"Hey, kiddo," Bobby said, and Sam finally lifted his eyes to meet Bobby's, "We're going to find that brother of yours. You know that, right?" Sam tried for a smile, failed miserably.

"Yeah, I know."

"Dude… what the? Why'd you do that?" Ben asked when Dean returned to the doorway.

"Did what?"

"Put that thing in the water," Ben explained. "You don’t know where it's been. I mean, is it even clean?" Dean made a face.

"You say there's drugs in the water, and the hygiene is what's bothering you?" He asked. Ben stared at him for a moment, and then shrugged. "So I've been talking to Naomi," Dean changed the subject, thrusting his thumb back over his shoulder. "Seriously, what the hell's going on? They pick us off one by one last time, too?"

"Already told you what I remember, man," Mike said, "Worst week of my life, but it's mostly a blur," he went on, and Ben nodded in agreement. "Still got the scars though," Mike added, and Dean frowned.

"Scars?" Mike nodded.

"You don’t have 'em?" He asked, raising a brow. Ben shook his head while Dean ducked his.

"Yeah, well, uh… It's just… I do a lot of extreme sports, you know, I uh… Scars aren’t something new for me, you know?" Dean stuttered. Mike bobbed his head and scratched his arm. "So um, can I see 'em?" Dean asked. Mike frowned.

"What, my scars?"

"Unless they'res someplace private, in which case, spare me." Ben grinned at that. Mike gave him a face, then turned back to Dean.

"Naw, man," he said and started unbuttoning his cuffs, rolling his sleeve up his arms to expose the intricate designs on both of them. Dean got closer, examining the markings. "There's more, on my back," Mike added, and Dean cursed under his breath. The design didn’t seem familiar, but it did seem ritualistic. Add to that the way he'd been taken, and by whom, and that equaled to them being knee deep in crap.

All three of them startled when they heard some rustling and nearing footsteps from outside the door. They stood quietly for a few moments, straining to hear, but nothing happened. Dean instinctively reached for the small of his back, where he usually kept his gun, but there was nothing there. They took everything from him. He felt far too naked for his liking.

"They took it all," Ben said, and Dean stared at him. "I kept reaching for my gun, too, the first couple of days," he explained. "I'm a cop," he added a second later. Dean gave a slight nod.

"Either of you remember what those sick bastards look like?" He asked. Mike shrugged and exchange glances with Ben.

"I dunno. Don’t really remember," he said. "Most of them were white, I remember that much. And there were a few women, too, but…"

"And you're sure this isn’t the same place from before?" Dean pushed.

"Not unless they rebuilt it," Ben supplied. "It burned down," he explained at Dean's confused look. For some reason, that sounded familiar to Dean, but on the other hand, his life had been full of fires. He'd long ago stopped trying to remember them all.

Sam answered his cell after the first ring. "Dean?" His voice was far more desperate than he'd hoped, but he couldn’t care less.

"This Dean Winchester's family?" Someone asked on the other end of the line.

"Who is this?" Sam demanded, holding the phone so tightly his fingers went white. Bobby straightened in his chair and looked questioningly at Sam.

"You the famous John Winchester?" The man on the other side asked instead.

"Where's m'brother?" Sam demanded, "If you'd done anything to him, I swear to God…" Bobby got up from his seat and made his way to Sam. He started to ask something, but Sam shook his head and Bobby gave a slight nod.

"Not John, then," the man sighed, "But there is a relation between them?" He pushed, "John there? I really need to talk to him."

"My father's dead. And you will be too if you've so much as touched my brother," Sam threatened.

"Dead, huh?" The man on the other end sighed. "You wouldn’t happen to be a hunter too, would you?"

"Who the hell are you? Where's my brother?" Sam yelled. The man hesitated a moment before answering.

"Name's Jake," he said, "Look, this might sound completely nuts, but hear me out, okay?" Sam glanced at Bobby and clenched his jaw. "My Dad, he was a hunter. Died six years ago, in a fire." Jake went on, and Sam felt himself start to shake.

"What's this got to do with..."

"Just listen, okay?" Jake cut him off. "My Dad, he kept this journal. He wrote stuff, about… about the stuff he hunted." Sam exchanged another glance with Bobby. "Anyway, after he died, I… I needed to know, ya know? I mean, he was states away from home, said he was goin' fishing and somehow died in a fire, you get my drift?"

"No," Sam said through clenched teeth. "I really don’t give a shit about your family history. You tell me where my brother is, or I swear…"

"I'm gettin' there. Jeez." Sam could practically hear Jake rolling his eyes. "Anyway, few months after my Dad died, I found his journals," he went on. "Last few entries are from his last… hunt. You with me so far?"

Sam nodded, forgetting Jake couldn’t see him. "You got a point?" He clipped.

"This is going to sound crazy, but I figured, if you are John Winchester's kid, it might not. Anyway, the last few entries, they're… I dunno. Scary shit. End of the world scary," Jake said, "He and his buddies, they were hunting something big. Don’t think they knew your Dad though, or they woulda called him."

"What were they hunting?" Sam asked, doing his best to stay calm.

"Don’t really know. They just… All my Dad wrote was demons. Old ones, the kind that don’t even have names."

"What's that got to do with my brother?" Sam demanded.

"Uh…" There was the sound of page flipping. "My Dad, he died six years ago, in Illinois. He died trying to stop those demons from killing a whole bunch o' people. He died saving the world." Sam ignored the hitch in Jake's voice. "Anyway, um… I think… I think your brother was one of the people he saved," Jake went on. "He wrote all sort of stuff in his journal, and after I heard about the Devil's Gate being opened, I went back and read everything, and I think… I think those demons are back. I think someone has to stop them or…" Jake paused for a moment before he went on. "I really think someone should stop them before it's too late."

"And you think they have my brother again?" Sam asked.

"Not sure they had him the first time," Jake said, "Warehouse fire in Greeneville, Illinois, six years ago. I'd check it out if I were you," he finished, and then hung up.

"What was that about?" Bobby asked. Sam stared at the phone in his hand.

"I think we need to get to Illinois," Sam said and looked up at Bobby. Bobby gave a slight nod.

"I'll drive."

"So now what?" Mike asked. "This door ain't gonna open all by…"

He startled when the door opened, and the three of them took a few steps back. Ben gasped holy shit under his breath, and then promptly asked for a million bucks. Dean couldn’t help but grin at that.

A frightened looking woman dressed in a McDonald's uniform entered the room, accompanied by a short guy in a suit, wearing thick glasses and a horrible comb-over. The woman was carrying armloads of burgers and fries, while the guy just readjusted his glasses, looking rather bored. They were greeted with looks of suspicion and disdain, until the smell of food began to waft over the room. Slowly, one by one at first, people started for the food.

"Finally," Dean muttered as he, Mike and Ben made their way towards the wonderful smelling food.

The woman looked around with huge eyes, like a deer caught in headlights. She took a few steps back, looking pleadingly at the guy she came with.

"Can I go now?" She asked, her voice barely a whisper. "I've done what you asked. Can I please go?" The man smiled at her.

"You've been very good, Annie, but we're not done yet," he said. The woman shook her head, her eyes welling up. She shrieked when someone reached for the bags in her hands and tossed them away.

"Please, let me go," she begged, "I have a little boy…"

"And we won't hurt him," the man assured her, "Not as long as you cooperate."

Dean grimaced as he swallowed the huge bite of burger he'd taken just a second before. He was turned away from the woman so he couldn’t see her, but he sure did hear her. Glancing at the bottle of Holy water, Dean quickly calculated how long it'd take him to get it.

"No! Let go! Get the hell away from me!" Dean tossed his burger aside at Mike's cries. He cursed. He should have heard them come in; they never should have snuck up on him. But it was already too late. Mike fought them, but the two men, possibly demons, dragged him out of the room.

"Play nice with the other kids, Annie," the short guy grinned, and then he too left, closing and locking the door behind him. Dean looked around at the scared faces all around him. The women were quick to get away from the door. They huddled in a corner, some crying, some too shocked or hurt to cry. Ben seemed stunned. He looked mutely at Dean.

Dean's head was racing. He needed a weapon, and he needed one quick. And also? He was totally screwed.

TBC

Previously: Where it all started >> 2 >> 3 >> 4 >> 5 >> 6 >> 7 >> 8 >> 9a >> 9b >> 10 >> 11 >> 12 >> 13