Total Eclipse of the Heart

Chapter 12: One Year (Part 1)

"...What do we do, now?" Leah asked, forcing herself to keep her cool. She couldn't break. She couldn't let herself fall apart. Not when Sam's life potentially hung in the balance.

The two of them had been searching the area around the diner all night for any sign of where Sam might've gone, but despite them having stayed up all night to look, they'd found nothing. Sunrise was about 10 minutes away when they finally admitted that there wasn't anything else they could do, here. At least not on their own.

"Bobby." Dean said, whipping out his phone. "We call Bobby."

The silence that filled the air seemed to be louder than the ringing of Dean's phone on speaker. Not wasting any time, Dean continued looking around for any clues he could find. Any at all. After what seemed like forever, the phone clicked, and Bobby's voice was heard on the other side.

"Hello?"

"Bobby," Dean said, hastily, "Bobby, they got him."

"Wait, hold on; slow down. Who's they? And got who?" Bobby asked.

"Sam!" He said. "The demons have Sam."

"What?" Bobby asked. "How do demons have Sam? I thought you three were on vacation?"

"What?" Dean looked down at his phone. "What kind of question is that? You were the one who pulled us out of our vacation."

"I did no such thing." Bobby defended himself. "I haven't spoken to any of you since you left for Kansas."

Dean and Leah stopped in their tracks and looked down at the phone. Leah bit her lip and closed her eyes, for a moment.

"So I take it that wasn't you on the other end of the line, earlier?" She asked.

"'Fraid not." He said.

"Damn it." Dean cursed under his breath.

"Where are you two, right now?" Bobby asked.

"Uh," Dean said, gathering his thoughts, "Just outside of Nebraska City."

"Okay, that's, what, a three-and-a-half hour drive? Let's meet somewhere in the middle, let's say... Onawa, Iowa?" Bobby suggested.

"Yeah, okay, sounds good." Dean said. "Thanks, Bobby. See you soon."

Dean hung up the phone, and he and Leah walked back to the Impala. Dean got in the driver's seat, and Leah slid into the passenger seat, neither of them saying a word. They both knew what was on the line, here, and they knew if they started talking about it, they wouldn't be able to keep the panic at bay, any longer.

~~~

"This is it." Bobby said, referring to the map he'd just laid out of the hood of the Impala. "All of the demonic signs and omens over the past month."

"Are you joking?" Dean asked. "There's nothing here."

"Exactly." Bobby said.

"Come on," Dean said, "There's got to be something. What about the normal, low-level stuff? You know, exorcisms- that kind of thing."

"There's nothing." Bobby insisted. "It's completely quiet."

"How are we supposed to find Sam, close our eyes and point?" Dean asked.

Leah rubbed her forehead and tried to calm herself. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she tried for about the hundredth time that day to bring on some sort of psychic vision; anything that could give them some inclination as to where Sam might be. Try as she might, nothing happened. Growling in frustration, Leah gripped her hair in her hands and pulled, slightly.