#thinking about joseph growing older and still sometimes getting recognized by the kids he used to raise

[softmangoes]

after all these years | sunny day jack

one day, joseph looks in the mirror and finds out that he's grown old. there are smile lines around his mouth, crow's feet crinkling the edges of his eyes from all the days he's spent doubled over laughing over some dumb joke he doesn't remember. his skin has become soft and leathery after all these years, the remnants of old scars now faded after so much time. he still keeps his hair long, the waves are just now streaked with silver like the stars arcing across the desert sky.

but after all these years, his eyes are still the same. they're the same eyes that protected him on those cold nights, shifting from side to side to detect any threats. the same eyes that folks still recognize at the grocery store, decades after the show ended, because those eyes had watched them grow and learn and become themselves. the same eyes that found you, staring right back.

you find him in the bathroom, his fingertips grazing his cheeks as he examines his face in the mirror.

"you okay there, handsome?" when joseph turns to meet you, his eyes are glistening.

"we're old," he says, as if he can't believe it. as if he can't be more grateful.

you pause. your joints have been creaking more lately and there are new freckles under your knuckles. the both of you were young once and by the grace of fate, you were given all this time.

"yeah," you answer, taking his face in your hands, stubble brushing against your palm as he leans into your touch. after all these years, he still looks at you in the same way he always has. "it's nice, isn't it?"

[indigosandviolets]

Flashes of Pain

Pairing: Joseph Liebgott x OC x George Luz

Summary: The Battle at Nuenen takes place, and memories come back to haunt Andrew. Andrew and Luz are interrupted by a promotion, and Babe needs to get something out.

Word Count: 2,287

TW: Flashbacks, gore, f-slur is used

Part Nine of We Happy Few

Nuenen, Holland

Andrew was still reeling from what happened at Eindhoven as they all sat on the tanks, riding into Nuenen. Andrew wasn’t sure when they had arrived in Eindhoven, maybe it was during...yeah. It was probably during that.

He had stayed particularly close to Luz, resisting the urge to lean his head on the older man’s shoulder. It was so tempting, the need to be comforted, but he instead sat beside him, staring out into the fields as the tanks seemed to crawl across the countryside road.

“Vincent van Gogh was born in Nuenen,” Andrew hears Luz say.

“Where’d you learn that?” Andrew asks in response.

“Webster.”

“Ah, Harvard.”

Andrew and Luz share a small laugh. “What did he even study, anyway?”

Andrew shrugs. “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem like a lawyer, but that’s the only thing that can come to my mind when I think about --”

Andrew cuts himself off as they pass a woman on the side of the road. She’s barely dressed, her hair shaved off, cradling a baby in her arms. The lump is back, but Luz grabs onto Andrew’s arm, grounding him. Andrew looks over to him, and Luz mouths out, “Breathe, you’re okay.”

Andrew nods and does as he’s told, and before he knows it they’ve passed the woman. He’s calm again, and almost back to his normal self. The tanks slow to a halt as this happens, and Andrew turns to look out at the road, past the tank in front of him. He can’t see too much, but he does see someone walking out, looking through binoculars into Nuenen.

“What’s going on?” Luz aks quietly. Andrew shakes his head in response.

“I don’t know, something happened.”

As Andrew lets out the words, he hears Bull call out, “Lieutenant!” He turns to look at Bull, dropping his binoculars so they hang down, but as he does so, he’s hit in the neck just as Andrew recognizes him as Lieutenant Brewer.

“Shit!” Andrew says, looking out into the field and away from Brewer. He can’t see anything.

“What?” Luz asks. “What happened?”

“Lieutenant Brewer got hit!” Andrew answered, moving his gun down, getting ready to fire. “Sniper.”

“Shit!” Luz repeats, and soon enough they’re off the tank and in the ditches, ready to fight. “How did Brewer get hit? How the hell could a sniper get him?”

“I have no idea!” Andrew tells him. “I just saw him go down!”

“Then where the hell is the sniper?”

“I don’t know!”

Andrew, for one, hated ditch fighting. It wasn’t that it was messy, he could care less about that, but it was that he felt like a sitting duck. At any point, a kraut could run up and mow down a platoon before anyone had a chance to react. Or, maybe, a mortar could hit the ditch and they’d lose at least fifteen guys, on the spot.

Then again, it did provide them cover from an enemy they couldn’t see, so what could he do?

Andrew moved out with Buck, pulling around the town as they clearly couldn’t enter the way they all had planned unless you were inside one of the tanks. The mission was to take Nuenen, and dammit, they were going to do it.

Buck had them behind a brick wall, firing at the Germans they could at least see. They were held up everywhere in the town -- barns, houses, sheds, bushes, everything. Andrew fired with his M-1, standing by Buck as he shouted out orders to the men he was in command of.

“Marin, grenade, eleven o’clock!” Buck shouted, and Andrew complied, unhooking the grenade from himself and taking out the pin before throwing it. The blast wasn’t that big, but it was enough to take back the kraut whose feet it landed at.

And while it did take back one kraut, more kept coming. For every German they took out in this town, two more seemed to replace it. Andrew never thought that he would admit it, but for the first time, he actually felt like there might be too many to take on.

Mainly children and old men my ass, Andrew thought to himself as he fired. Better than ditch fighting.

Andrew felt the air of a bullet that whizzed past him and into the ground just behind him. He looked back to the front of him, to a building that he thought they had already taken out. Andrew moved his aim to a window, looking through to see two krauts inside. It was like he was making eye contact with them.

He’s just a kid! He’s just a kid and I fucking killed him, Luz!

Andrew lowered the M-1, the memories of D-Day suddenly flooding through his mind. He shook his head, trying to clear it as he again focuses on the two Germans.

He wasn’t even going to shoot us! He’s just a kid!

“Marin, fire!” He heard Buck shout.

Andrew knew these two were armed, though. They were going to kill him and Buck and Guarnere and everyone they could hit. He fired, despite the protest in his mind. One German, two Germans down and he was back at the attacking Germans.

To put it simply, there were too many of them. Far too many. So, that meant that Easy had to pull out. As they were doing so, though, Andrew realized that his Lieutenant wasn’t anywhere that he could see.

“Buck?” Andrew called out. “Buck!”

“Just go, Marin!” Someone said, but he couldn’t quite identify who. Something was wrong, and he couldn’t see Buck. “Marin, move!”

Reluctantly, Andrew turned away from the town, pulling back. He could feel the pit of uncertainty grow in his stomach as he continued to search. Maybe Buck had moved quickly and was already with the others, but as Andrew looked and couldn’t see the tall blonde man, that pit only grew bigger as he began to panic.

“Andrew!” A familiar voice said, and he turned to see Luz in full radio-op mode. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find Buck,” Andrew says. “He was right there with me when we were pulling out, and he’s gone. I don’t know where the hell he is.”

“It’s okay, they’re gonna get him, don’t worry about it,” Luz tells him as they begin to climb up into the trucks. “What about you, were you hit?”

Andrew shook his head. “No, no I’m okay, it’s just Buck that’s worrying the hell out of me.” The helmet. Glassy eyes. The blood, spilling from his mouth. But it’s not the young soldier anymore, it’s Buck and Andrew can’t move, he’s killed him. Buck is dead and it’s his fault. “What about you?”

“Just fine.”

-

The reason as to why Andrew couldn’t find Bull was because he had gotten shot in the ass, the bullet going through and out his skin twice, meaning he had four total wounds. Another contributor to Andrew feeling like something was wrong was that they had lost Bull, but Andrew refused to believe he was dead. No one believed that he was dead, they couldn’t. Bull was a mentor, one of the wisest figures that Easy Company had ever seen.

And, being Bull, he wasn’t dead. He had been injured and survived a night in Nuenen in a barn surrounded by krauts. Even killed one of them, all with shrapnel in his back.

Officially retreating from Nuenen, though, meant that Market Garden had been a failure, simply put. There was no way around not addressing it like it was. They had lost men, more men they would’ve liked, and lost hold of a line they had been trying hard to start, to try and push back the Germans into their own land.

Andrew came to terms with this as he sat beside Luz, a cup of coffee in hand.

“We’re not gonna be home by Christmas,” Andrew says out loud. “I was getting excited, too.”

Luz shrugs. “Not so bad, it’s not a guarantee that we’re gonna be fighting on Christmas.”

“I know, I know, but it would’ve been nice to spend it back home,” Andrew says, drinking from his cup. “Would’ve been nice to turn twenty-three without being shot at.”

“What makes you so lucky?” Luz says, nudging Andrew’s shoulder. “If I had to suffer, so do you.”

Andrew chuckles. “You know I didn’t mean anything like that,” Andrew tells him. “Plus, I got you a good birthday.”

“It wasn’t that good,” Luz says. “You were injured.”

“You didn’t worry over me too much, at least I didn’t let you.”

“You were still injured.”

“And I’m still missing a piece of my ear, but here we are.”

Luz pauses, thinks, and then laughs. He’s laughing and laughing, harder and harder, enough for Andrew to ask him what it was about.

“Your ear is in the middle of France, and someone’s gotta find it sometime,” Luz barely gets out. “I just--the poor kid who finds a chunk of the ear is going to be scared shitless when he finds that shit.”

Andrew didn’t understand what was so funny about it, it was only an ear. Not even a whole one.

“Luz, you amaze me sometimes.”

Luz immediately stopped laughing. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Andrew replies. “Nothing bad, at least.”

“How very reassuring. The man I love won’t tell me what makes me so damn amazing after he doesn’t laugh.”

Andrew chuckles, and pauses. Oh, oh shit. “Luz?”

“Yeah?”

“You love me?”

Luz hesitates. “Uh, shit, I did say love, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, yeah you did.”

“Oh, fuck,” Luz says, leaning over and crossing his body to kiss Andrew, who doesn’t protest in the slightest. “I meant it.”

Andrew nods. “I, uh-“

“You don’t have to say anything, Andrew. It’s okay.”

“No, Luz-“

“Marin!”

Andrew sighs and stands up, looking back to Luz and mouthing, “Sorry,” before heading in the direction he was called. It was Winters who wanted him.

“Yes, sir?” Andrew asks, moving to stand at attention, but Winters motions for him to cut it out.

“It’s okay, Marin, you don’t have to.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sink has, well, upper command has been impressed with you recently.”

“Sir?”

“You’re being promoted to technician corporal.”

Andrew nodded, slightly shocked. “What did I do to get that?”

Winters pauses. “Marin, you’re one of the best shots we have. I’m surprised you’re not a sniper yet, but I can’t change that, now can I?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve just been doing my job,” Andrew says.

“And you’ve been doing a good job at it,” Winters says, handing over the new chevrons. “You know, Marin, I never took you to be so humble.”

“Can I ask why, sir?”

“Not a lot of men are, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“It is hard to be humble, sir.”

Winters chuckles a little bit. “That’ll be all, Marin.”

Andrew nods, stands at attention, and they salute each other before Andrew leaves, rubbing the new patch over with his fingers.

-

“Andrew?”

Andrew looked up from his stitching. He was halfway through putting on his patch when he saw that it was Babe who was standing at the end of his bed, a stark contrast from the usual Liebgott or Luz.

“Hey, Babe, what’s going on?”

“I, uh, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Andrew sighed, immediately knowing what it was. He motioned for Babe to sit down, and he did, as Andrew stuck his needle through the patch to hold it in place.

“Uh, before the drop, when I went to the bathroom,” Babe starts. “Did you...what I saw, were you and Liebgott…?”

“Yes, we were, uh, making out.”

Babe nods. “Are you and Liebgott together?”

Andrew had to think for a moment. “I, uh, I’m not sure, to be honest with you. We haven’t really talked about it.” We haven’t even gotten close to talking about it.

Babe nods again. “Have you two, y’ know-”

“No, Babe, we haven’t. We haven’t gotten that far.”

“But how long have you and Liebgott been doin’ that?”

“D-Day, before we dropped.”

Babe’s eyes go wide. “Who else knows?”

“No one, and we’re gonna keep it like that, alright?” Andrew hadn’t realized he had started pointing to Babe, almost aggressively. “The only people who need to know are me and Lieb. You just happened to walk in at the right time.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just I never seen anything like that before, alright?” Babe says. “I mean, I’ve heard of people like you but I haven’t exactly heard good things about them.”

“You’re from Philly, Babe, you don’t exactly hear good things about anybody.”

Babe rolls his eyes. “Andrew, I’m just, I don’t know how to process it all, is what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Why’s that?”

Babe sticks his tongue into his cheek, thinking for a moment before speaking. “I haven’t really seen, uh, what’s the word?”

“Fairies?”

“Yeah. Well, I’ve seen them, but I haven’t seen them in the army. Never even thought about it.”

“Let me know if you find a few more.”

“Andrew.”

“Sorry.”

“The last time I saw someone like you and Liebgott, it wasn’t pretty.” Andrew nodded slowly. “I just, uh...I’m worried is all, I guess.”

“You don’t have to worry about me and Lieb, Babe. I think we’ll be just fine.”

Babe nods and stands up, turning to leave, but he stops and looks back at Andrew. “We’re not gonna tell anyone about this, yeah?”

Andrew nods, picking up his needle again. “About what?” He replies. Babe smiles at him and leaves.

Lord, give me the strength to deal with whatever the hell I’ve gotten myself into.

-

tag list: @alienoresimagines @fromcrossroadstoking @easyroses

[halothenthehorns]

The Supernatural Gospel

Chapter 10- Interrogation 35-111

Neither of them have acknowledged the bed behind them, even to take turns. Not in this room, with dad's absence staring at them from all sides.

Sam's pacing, holding his phone, and sits down on the bed. He can't decide if he's relieved or worried she didn't answer. It's just a nightmare. as her voicemail message plays. "Hey, it's me, it's about ten-twenty Saturday night—"

Dean, clean again, his short light brown hair back to its careful style and a change of clothes, comes out of the bathroom and grabs his jacket and pulls it over his jean jacket and gray shirt. Sam had taken the liberty to run it through the wash for him while he'd been in the shower, along with the towels, and was rewarded with a warm glow when he saw Dean had even taken the time to pick the mud out of the edges of the medallion Sam had given him years ago that was still strung proudly around his neck. He shrugs it on one shoulder as he crosses the room, Sam trying to ignore him with the phone still pressed to his ear.

"Hey, man. I'm starving, I'm gonna grab a little something to eat in that diner down the street. You want anything?"

"No." Sam watches him at the door without moving.

"Aframian's buying." Dean reminds, as if that's supposed to make it better.

Sam shakes his head, pressing the phone tighter to his ear.

Dean walked into the bright morning sun, ignoring the fact the 'do not disturb sign' got caught in the door as he closed it, and finished shrugging on his jacket as he crossed the lot, keeping the collar popped to help it air out a bit more.

He looks over and sees a police car, where the motel clerk is talking to Deputy Jaffe and Deputy Hein. The clerk points at Dean, who turns away and pulls out his cell phone.

"-So come home soon, okay? I love you." The phone beeps. Sam looks at it and presses to delete it, still unsure whether to call her back or not, then puts it back to his ear when he sees Dean calling him.

"What?" He'd literally just stepped outside, the doofus.

Outside, the deputies are approaching Dean.

"Dude, five-oh, take off." Dean's voice is low and firm.

Sam stands up at once. "What about you?" He wasn't just going to leave him now. Were they going to meet around back, or another motel?

"Uh, they kinda spotted me." He wasn't worried about that part. "Go find Dad."

Dean hangs up the phone as the deputies approach. He turns and grins at them. "Problem, officers?"

"Where's your partner?" Jaffe demands, completely faking casualness now as he crossed his arms.

"Partner? What, what partner?" Dean pretends the same.

Jaffe glances over his shoulder and jerks his thumb towards the motel room. Hein heads over there. Dean can't stop his eyes following him and licks his lips, but he's had enough practice to not really give his face away.

Sam sees Hein approaching and darts away from the window.

Jaffe's still interrogating Dean with a less friendly demeanor by the charge. "So. Fake US Marshal. Fake credit cards. You got anything that's real?"

Dean thinks for a moment before grinning. "My boobs."

Sam had just managed to get himself behind the hotel door when it burst open from the sheriff's kick, holding in a grunt of pain as it flew into his gut but managed to catch the handle before it ricocheted back off of him. The small town sheriff did his duty in checking the bathroom and even glancing under the bed, but Sam blended too well behind the door to be spotted, and he released the door as the Sheriff reached for it to slam it behind him.

Hein slams Dean over the hood of the cop car.

"You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law-" Jaffe begins his Miranda Rights while Dean's still grinning in triumph for the other returning empty handed, Sammy had gotten away.

…

SHERIFF'S OFFICE

Sheriff Pierce enters the room, carrying a box. He sets it on the table at which Dean sits, uncuffed, and goes around the table to face Dean across it. "So you want to give us your real name?

"I told you, it's Nugent. Ted Nugent." Dean even considered spelling it out.

"I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in here." The Sheriff looks almost pitiable at Dean's grin.

"We talkin', like, misdemeanor kind of trouble or, uh, squeal like a pig trouble?" Dean plays along.

Sheriff Pierce isn't letting any runaround. "You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall." Dean looks away, easily hiding his discomfort and worry that was his dad's stuff, he should be out there looking for him. This was a waste of time! "Along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo-jumbo. Boy, you are officially a suspect." The sheriff answers Dean's question of just how much trouble he's in.

"That makes sense," Dean's impatience at all of this is growing by the second, "because when the first one went missing in '82 I was three."

The sheriff had put together more than Dean realized though. "I know you've got partners. One of 'em's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing." The cops had been busy, putting together Dad in the same motel they'd found them in, maybe they weren't as idiotic as Dean had thought. "So tell me. Dean." He tosses a brown leather-covered journal on the table. "This his?"

The man has Dean's full attention now as he stares at Dad's journal. Sheriff Pierce sits on the edge of the table. He flips through the well worn pages: it's filled with newspaper clippings, notes, and pictures, just like what's on the walls of John's motel room.

"I thought that might be your name. See, I leafed through this. What little I could make out—I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy," Dean leans forward for a closer look, what exactly had Dad put in there to blow his cover? "But I found this, too."

He opens the journal near the very back to a notebook page that reads 'Dean 35-111', circled, with nothing else on that page.

"Now. You're stayin' right here till you tell me exactly what the hell that means."

Dean stares down at the page, then looks up. He had to get out of here and find Sam, now.

Chapter 11 - The Other Side

WELCH HOUSE

Sam, seen through the chain-link covering a grimy glass window, knocks on the door the window is in. An old man opens it: Joseph Welch.

"Hi. Are you Joseph Welch?" It was the polite way to start even if Sam was sure.

"Yeah," he does not seem happy to be agreeing.

"Would you uh, mind if I talk to you?" Sam put up that endearing little smile he'd learned as a kid. Dad said people always went easier on him when he brought Sam along and he smiled like that, so hopefully it would come in handy now.

To his surprise, it seemed to, as the man stepped onto his porch and shoved his hands in his pocket as answer.

"Um, thank you," Sam dug around in his pockets and pulled the photo he'd taken from the motel. Good thing too, as not moments after he'd gotten the car started and drove away, another police car had showed up and tapped the whole place off as a crime scene.

When Joseph sees the photo, he gives an exhausted sigh and starts walking, Sam hurrying to keep up and realizing at once he was on a time limit, all but shoves the photo into his hands. "Do you recognize this man," he jabs at his Dad.

"Yeah, he was older, but that's him," their shoes are now crunching up a gravel driveway. Joseph hands the photo back to Sam. "He came by three or four days ago. Said he was a reporter."

Sam was both thrilled, and instantly a bit more worried. If Dad were still in town, how had they missed him, unless- "That's right. We're working on a story together." He forced himself to focus now. Just keep working the case, like Dean would do.

"Well, I don't know what the hell kinda story you're working on. The questions he asked me?" Joseph glares off into the distance, his hat dipping even lower to shade his eyes, voice going even more gruff. Sam's timespan was quickly shortening.

He kept pushing. "About your wife Constance?"

"He asked me where she was buried." Joseph still sounded disbelieving over this fact.

"And where is that again?" Sam wished he'd brought along a notebook or something now to make this more credible.

"What, I gotta go through this twice?" He demands on the petulant youth.

"It's fact-checking," Sam quickly fibs. "If you don't mind," he adds on, though what he would do if Mr. Welch did mind would be a problem.

"In a plot. Behind my old place over on Breckenridge." He sounds exhausted just thinking about it.

"And why did you move?" Sam's imagining the poor man tortured by his wife and finds it even more of a miracle he's still alive.

"I'm not gonna live in the house where my children died." He sounds very tired now, and Sam believes him.

Sam stops walking. Joseph stops too.

Sam's gotten all the information that he needs, he should politely thank the man and be on his way. It's what Dad would have done. "Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?"

The split second decision to not echo his dad doesn't give him time to decide where this is going.

"No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known."

Sam hesitates, teetering on the edge of asking about his infidelity, but softening the blow instead. "So you had a happy marriage?"

He hesitates. "Definitely."

"Well, that should do it. Thanks for your time." Sam really did begin to walk away then, let this man pretend and have his remembered happy normal life.

He stopped though in front of the impala, playing with his spare key he'd had for all these years on the same chain as his apartment key. As Dean's words echoed back to him on the bridge, as his unanswered voicemail to Jess still sat in his pocket. There was no normal in this life, and he was tired of being the only one to know and feel that. "Mr. Welch, did you ever hear of a woman in white?"

Mr. Welch turns around.

"A what?" The confusion is genuine. It would not last.

"A woman in white, La Llorona, or sometimes Weeping Woman? It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really."

Sam starts back toward Mr. Welch. The edge to his words are purely scholarly, at first. "Um, they're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places, in Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women." Sam stops in front of him once more. "You understand, but all share the same story."

Mr. Welch is a head shorter than Sam, but his tone still holds aged dismissiveness. "Boy, I don't care much for nonsense." Mr. Welch walks away. Sam follows, his conviction moving his feet and mouth. He was not going to be the only one unable to escape his past today.

"See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them." Mr. Welch stops walking, and Sam finishes the blow, "and these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children."

Mr. Welch is watching him now, his face stoned.

Sam carries on, almost vindictively, still with that forced polite edge. "Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. And that man is never seen again."

Mr. Welch can barely speak his outrage. "You think...you think that has something to do with...Constance? You smartass!"

"You tell me." Sam's knowing smile is triumphant he'd made his point. Mr. Welch would bury his head in the sand again when Sam left, but for this one moment, Sam had gotten through to someone what was out there, he could see it in his eyes.

It was that look, why he'd never share any of this with Jess.

"I mean, maybe...maybe I made some mistakes." Mr. Welch copped to that, his breath still trembling. "But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children. Now, you get the hell out of here! And you don't come back!" His face shakes, whether from anger or grief it's impossible to tell. After a long moment, he turns away. Sam sighs for what he'd done, but he doesn't regret it.

Chapter 12

…

November 2nd

"I don't know how many times I gotta tell you. It's my high school locker combo." Dean had denied a lawyer, he hadn't slept in days, and he'd now repeated that no less than a thousand times today. His attempts to charm the man into believing him had vanished in the early hundreds. He needed to get to Sam, now.

"We gonna do this all night long?" Sheriff Pierce seems more than prepared to do such a thing, to Dean's dismay. He hadn't even been offered a donut. Maybe he should ask for a lawyer, it would add more problems later, but the point was he didn't intend to be around for later. He just needed five minutes alone with that-

A deputy leans into the room. "We just got a 911, shots fired over at Whiteford Road."

"You have to go to the bathroom?" The Sheriff offers.

"No," that wasn't true either.

"Good."

The sheriff handcuffs Dean to the table and leaves. Dean nabs the paper clip poking out of the journal he'd been staring at since noon, and smiles at it. He was the one to teach Sam how to pick locks after all, and that kid had it easy with the kit.

Dean waited patiently for the commotion on the other side of the door to die down before waltzing into the row of desks and digging through them. His phone wasn't present, probably in another room somewhere being looked over, but his gun was in a baggy for holding and evidence and he didn't have the time, nor inclination to risk staying longer when he knew the number Sam was using, slipping to the nearest window and climbing down the fire escape, dad's journal safely in his arms.

Sam is driving the impala up to Breckinridge road It had taken him the rest of the day to go online and match county records with abandoned lots and try to match them against the year Constance had died to figure out which was the right house on the long ass stretch of road with far too many acres on it. By the time he'd sussed out a good pick, he'd realized how late it was and sent the police for the opposite side of town, realizing if Dean wasn't here by now he must not have gotten his chance yet to bail in his own way. They'd waited long enough, maybe Dad was there. He set the impala off now instead of waiting for his brother. when his phone rings. He pulls it out, spots the unknown number, but answers it quickly.

Dean is in a phone booth; not having taken the time to steal his back.

"Fake 911 phone call? Sammy, I don't know, that's pretty illegal." He can hear Dean's grin through the phone.

"You're welcome." Sam smiles back.

Thanks out of the way, Dean tries to get to the message Dad left. "Listen, we gotta talk-"

"Tell me about it," Sam misses the message hint. "So the husband was unfaithful. We are dealing with a woman in white. And she's buried behind her old house, so that should have been Dad's next stop."

"Sammy, would you shut up for a second?" Dean tries again, man that kid had a motor mouth when he got going.

"I just can't figure out why Dad hasn't destroyed the corpse yet," the timing of it all is still bothering Sam greatly.

"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. He's gone. Dad left Jericho." Dean finally got in.

"What? How do you know?" Sam's foot eases off the gas instinctively to turn in this new direction.

"I've got his journal." Dean grips it tighter, the worry for his dad increasing with every clenched finger.

"He doesn't go anywhere without that thing." Sam needlessly points out.

"Yeah, well, he did this time." Dean sighed, the reasons why rolling through his head, each worse than the last.

"What's it say?" Sam wants verbatim, like Dean had misread the message.

"Ah, the same old ex-Marine crap, when he wants to let us know where he's going." Dean glares around the glass to assure no one was listening in, if Dad had been worried about that maybe he should be to.

"Coordinates. Where to?"

"I'm not sure yet," did he look like a satellite phone?

"I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Dean, what the hell is going on?" None of this was adding up in Sam's head. He follows a bend in the road, and slams the brake, dropping the phone: Constance right in front of him. The car goes right through her as Sam brings it to a halt.

Dean heard the squealing breaks like a flatline. "Sam? Sam!"

Sam is breathing too hard to even realize he'd dropped the phone yet, the car idling masking his brother's voice, but not Constance's echoing words from the back seat. "Take me home."