Love Never Dies (SPN Fanfic)

Pilot [3]

"You have a responsibility to..."

"To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back,"

Dean grabbed Sam by the collar and shoved him up against the railing of the bridge. "Don't talk about her like that." He released Sam and walked away. Dean saw Constance standing at the edge of the bridge. "Sam,"

Sam came to stand next to Dean.

Constance looked over at them, then stepped forward off the edge.

Sam and Dean ran to the railing and looked over.

"Where'd she go?" Dean asked.

"I don't know," Sam replied.

Behind them, the Impala's engine started and its headlights came on.

Dean and Sam turned to look

"What the..." Dean started.

"Who's driving your car?" Sam questioned.

Dean pulled the keys out of his pocket and jingled them.

Sam glanced at them.

The car jerked into motion, heading straight for them.

They turned and ran.

"Dean? Go! Go!" Sam exclaimed.

The car was moving faster than they were; when it got too close, Sam and Dean dove over the railing. The car came to a halt.

Sam had caught himself on the edge of the bridge and was hanging on. He pulled himself up onto the bridge and looked around. "Dean? Dean!"

Below, a filthy and annoyed Dean crawled out of the water and onto the mud, panting "What?"

"Hey! Are you all right?"

Dean held up one hand in an A-OK sign "I'm super,"

Sam laughed, relieved, and scooted away from the edge.

***

Dean shut the hood of his car and leaned on it.

"Your car all right?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems all right now. That Constance chick, what a bitch!" Dean exclaimed.

"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure. So where's the job go from here, genius?" Sam settled on the hood next to Dean.

Dean threw up his arms in frustration, then flicked mud off his hands.

***

A VersaBank MasterCard in the name of Hector Aframian landed on a handwritten guest ledger.

"One room, please," Dean said as he stood at the motel check-in desk, still filthy, with Sam right behind him.

The clerk picked up the card and looked at it. "You guys having a reunion or something?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" Sam questioned.

"I had another guy, Burt Aframian. He came and bought out a room for the whole month,"

Dean looked back at Sam "You wouldn't happen to know the room number would you?"

***

The motel door swung open.

Sam was on the other side, having just picked the lock. He hid the picks and stood up.

Dean was just outside, playing lookout until Sam reached out of the room to grab his shoulder and yanked him inside.

Sam closed the door behind them.

They looked around-every vertical surface that had papers pinned to it: maps, newspaper clippings, pictures, notes.

There were books on the desk and assorted junk on the floor and bed, including something with a hazardous materials symbol.

"Whoa," Sam muttered.

Dean turned on a light by the bed and picked up a half-eaten hamburger sitting there.

Sam stepped over a line of salt on the floor.

Dean sniffed the burger and recoiled. "I don't think he's been here for a couple of days at least,"

Sam fingered the salt on the floor and looked up "Salt, cats-eye shells...he was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in."

Dean looked at the papers covering one wall.

"What have you got here?" Sam wondered.

"Centennial Highway victims," Dean told him.

Sam nodded.

The victims seen on the wall included Mark, William Durrell, Scott Nifong who disappeared at age 25, and Parks. Mark, Durrell, and Nifong were all white males, judging by the photos.

"I don't get it." Dean muttered "I mean, different men, different jobs..."

Sam crossed the room.

"...ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?"

While Dean talked, Sam looked at the papers taped to the other walls.

There was something about the Bell Witch, two people being burned alive, a skeletal person blowing a horn at several scared people with the note Mortis Danse, a column about Devils+Demons, another about Sirens, Witches, the possessed a wooden pentacle, and a note that said Woman in White above a printout of the Jericho Herald article on Constance's suicide.

Sam turned on another lamp. "Dad figured it out,"

Dean turned to look "What do you mean?"

"He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white,"

Dean looked at the photos of Constance's victims "You sly dogs." He turned back to Sam "All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it,"

"She might have another weakness,"

"Well, Dad would want to make sure,"

Dean crossed to Sam "He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?"

"No, not that I can tell. If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband." Sam tapped the picture of Joseph Welch.

The caption said Joseph Welsh was thirty; the article dated to 1981, so he must be sixty-four.

"If he's still alive," Sam went to look at something else.

Dean looked at the picture below the Herald article, of a woman in a white dress. "All right." He said "Why don't you, uh see if you can find an address. I'm gonna get cleaned up," Dean started to walk away.

Sam turned. "Hey, Dean?"

Dean stopped and turned back.

"What I said, earlier, about Mom and Dad, I'm sorry,"

Dean held up a hand. "No chick-flick moments,"

Sam laughed and nodded "All right. Jerk,"

"Bitch,"

Sam laughed again. Dean disappeared into the bathroom.

Sam noticed something, his smile disappearing, and crossed over for a closer look.

A rosary hung in front of a large mirror, and stuck into the mirror frame was a photo of John sitting on the hood of the Impala, next to Dean who was wearing a baseball cap with Sam on John's lap.

Sam took the photo off the mirror and held it, smiling sadly.