Fade Away (SPN,ADULT) 10/10 (COMPLETED)

[DMartinez]

Winner Round 14



Author: DMartinez
Email: dmarttx@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Kripke and the WB, CW. No infringement intended.
Rating: ADULT (Sexual Situations, Vulgar Language, and Violence)
Category: Supernatural
Summary: Follows One Night and Weep No More. Alice and Sam are looking for Dean but nothing seems to lead the way.

Fade Away


Alice curled in around her stomach, pain radiating throughout her back. She hoped that Uncle Sam came to and soon so he could save the day. She just wanted to stop. Wanted it all to go away. She was so tired. Broken by months of monsters taunting her with tidbits about Dean roasting in hell, tormenting her with mental images of him being flayed alive forever. That’s what made her take a deep breath and force herself to her feet.

Her name was Alice Winchester. Daughter of Dean Winchester. Granddaughter of John Winchester. She had the biggest hunting bad asses of all time in her blood. Cradling one arm against her stomach, she griped the crow bar in the other, swinging it through the bastards and making her way to the damned remains in that glass case.

And just like that, case on fire, and Uncle Sammy stumbling through the door, it was over. Another hunt over and not a lick closer to getting her father out of hell. She managed to make her way to the car, head lung low but back straight. She’d get some sleep and start over in the morning.

--

Sam sparred with her every morning. They napped and researched and waited for nightfall for the hunts. Then they drove. On to the next clue. On to the next hunt. Searching for some way to get Dean out of hell and onto the next world.

He hated to admit it but the girl was a natural. Her form needed some work but she was getting the hang of it. He knew she kept crib sheets in her pants so that she always had Latin when she needed it but he never let her use it. Dean would kill him if he let anything happen to her. They had to follow every lead. Try everything.

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 2

Marty Beechem. Oldest hunter that Sam knew anymore and he wasn't that old. Only 57 years old. Still, Sam had to use what was at his disposal. Sam made the introductions and the man had seized up.

"Winchester, huh?" The old man looked her up and down. "I didn't think there were any women in the Winchester clan. Heard that's why ol' John got started."

"This is Alice. She's Dean's daughter." Sam explained, clearing his throat against a lump.

"Well, our women are dying off. We need new blood. The wars have taken so many of us. I mean… whole families got killed off."

"How do you mean?" Alice pressed.

"Just some story that some hunter told me once. Elkins was his name. Said he went to pick up a gun from a family of hunters in Kansas once. Campbell or something. He found the gun but the family wasn't there. Murdered. Some yokels were saying that the father murdered the mother and the daughter which was a shame cause I heard that the ladies could hold their own."

"Really," Alice cut in. "So like… they kicked ass and everything?"

"Yeah."

"What were their names?"

"Campbell… Trying to remember. I had to look it up after Elkins told me. Got my curiosity."

"Alice, we really have to get going soon." Sam interrupted. He hated it when hunters got going telling tales cause then they never shut up. They wasted enough time following dead leads anyway.

"Aw, come on, Uncle Sam. I want to hear about 'em. I never get to hear stories about other hunters." She begged. Damn her and Dean's genes. Sam didn't think he could say no to that face.

"Samuel." He blurted out. "Samuel Campbell back in 1973, I think it was."

"Wait what?" Sam's faced drained of all color. "Did you say Samuel Campbell?"

"Yeah, why?"

"My grandfather died in 1973… His name was Campbell."

"Well, these guys were out of Kansas. Lawrence if I'm not mistaken. Had a wife by the name of Deana and a daughter Mary."

Sam sank into a chair and breathed slowly in and out of his mouth. "No, it's not possible."

"Uncle Sam?" Alice blinked at him.

All the pieces were there but it was just too much of a coincidence. "It can't be the same family because you said the daughter died, too."

"Well, I don't know… I didn't know these guys and Elkins is dead, you know that."

"Yeah, I know that but…. It's a strange coincidence."

"Uncle Sam?" Alice started to put together the pieces of the puzzle and swallowed hard and turned to the hunter. "Do you have pictures?"

"No, but… go ask Ellen Harvelle."

"Dude, Ellen's been dead for five years." Sam snorted but didn't get to his feet.

"Then ask her daughter."

"Jo is too young to know about the Campbells."

"Hell… she seems to know of every hunter ever to walk the earth and you know she carried a torch for your brother forever. Seemed like she was the only blonde in the world that he ever said no to."

"Maybe."

Alice waited a couple of hunts before bringing it up again. She didn't even have to be that specific about it because she knew it had been on his mind lately. "Can we go ask her?"

"No."

"Uncle Sam!"

"NO, I said No, dammit!" Sam beat his fist on the steering wheel.

"I'm calling Aunt Sarah!" She pulled out her cell phone. Sam grabbed it from her and almost chucked it out the window but he just held onto it and took a deep breath. "Don't you want to know if your mother was a hunter?"

"I'm afraid to know."

"Why?"

"It means there really is no escape from this life, Alice. It means that… no matter what, it's always going to come down to a Winchester and the hunt and… I don't know if I want that knowledge. I've got two kids and I don't want them hunting, Alice. I don't want you hunting…"

"Sometimes a person has to make a choice, Sam." She sniffed into her jacket arm but cleared her throat. "You either run your life or you let your life run you. Pick one."

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 3

The bar was in Northern Michigan. It wasn't Nebraska. It wasn't Harvelle's. Belonged to a man by the name of Dufresne, it was run by his widow. Sam had never heard of him but he'd bet even money that Dufresne was some kind of small time hunter who got his ass handed to him by monsters in the field and by his widow at home. Sam knew from experience that his widow had learned to hold her own… she had learned the hard way.

There she was, behind the bar. Some scrawny kid sitting at the end, head bent over homework. Probably Dufresne's kid by the way his widow watched him with a sad smile on her face. Then she spotted them. Her expression iced over. She grabbed a rag and some glasses and got to work. Jo stared at Sam, nodded to him but didn't really greet him one way or another. Alice sensed some history there. Alice held out her hand. "Alice Winchester."

"Jo Harvelle." Jo was a tough looking woman. Maybe she had been pretty once but it was obvious that she'd had a hard life. "What can I do for you two?"

"Just some questions about hunters from a long time ago. Marty Beechem seems to think you have an encyclopedia of hunters in your head." Alice prompted when it seemed like her uncle had lost his tongue.

"Maybe. I keep up. Someone has to remember these assholes who go and get themselves killed." Jo's voice softened. "I write about Dean's hunts these days… fills the time and he always had interesting things going on... I really was sorry to hear about him passing, Sam."

"You knew my dad?" Alice blinked at her.

"Once upon a time, yeah. I knew Dean…so… you're his daughter?" Jo filed that away, put the pieces of the puzzle together. She made a face and Sam tossed her a look. "What? Say it, Sam."

"Don't blame her, Dean made his choice and… though I'm pissed off about it, she's still here and we're gonna make it right cause… well… he got more chances than anyone I've ever heard of..."

"I have a theory about that." She smiled bitterly. "Dean had an angel looking out for him."

"Shut up, Jo."

Jo shrugged and nodded to them. "So, what hunters you want to hear about?"

Alice took a breath and did what he knew her uncle could not. "Campbell. Died in 1973.'

"Well, there's not a lot about them. They kept to themselves. Mom told me some about them. Dad, too. He hunted near to Campbell once." Jo cleared her throat and wracked her memory. "Samuel Campbell was a bit of a badass. Had a wife who hunted part time. They had a daughter named but I never found out her name. She vanished after they died. The police reports say that Samuel lost it one night, snapped his wife's neck. They think he went after the daughter and she stabbed him in self-defense..."

"What do the hunters say?" Sam prompted her, his face contorted in what Alice had come to recognize as his "I hate my family but I love my family" face.

"Dad thought they got on the bad side of a beastie… there were a lot of tragedies that summer in the Midwest… unnatural number of every day tractor accidents and family squabbles and people surviving shit they shouldn't have…. I've found that some of those good people had kids later… kids like you, Sam… not all of them… but we know there were pieces missing to that puzzle."

"Yeah, I know."

"My theory is that she didn't like what mom and dad did and when they died, she ran off. The police report states that the father made no secret of the fact that he hated his daughter's boyfriend but his name wasn't given. It's possible that she got married, never hunted again and no one thought to look for her."

"And this was in Lawrence, Kansas?" Sam asked faintly.

"Yeah, it was." Jo bit her lip against what she was going to say next. It was a bit of a coincidence that she never really thought too hard about.

"Shit. Mom." Sam cursed under his breath.

"So… Uncle Sam… your mom's name was Mary Campbell… and… so… that makes me the granddaughter of Mary Campbell and John Winchester… I guess I got some big shoes to fill."

"You're not filling them." Sam protested. "This ends when we get him out of hell, then you go back to school and you never hunt again. Alice."

Jo shrugged and looked the girl over. "It could be worse. Least you have a legacy... and you look like your Dad." She tilted her head away. "So kid, what's your mom?"

"She's... not even close to a dream of a hunter. She doesn't know about any of this… She… I was…" Alice stammered. Sometimes it was just hard saying it out loud.

Sam cut in. "Alice is Winchester only cause her mom filed for child support because she couldn't get a hold of Dean because... well... Dean did what he did."

Jo nodded. "Sorry… No nice way to put it, huh."

"Guess not. I'm a bastard... but my dad loved me. Proved it and I have to prove it right back." Alice stared at her with her sad brown eyes and long blonde hair and a frown stuck on her face. Alice didn't want to end up that way. Bitter and researching hunters because she was useless in the field. "Know where we can get a room?"

"I got a couple of beds in the back." Jo tilted her head at Sam. "Hunter special."

"Thanks."

"Yeah, well. All our history doesn't suck." Jo wandered away to drop a kiss on the bowed head at the bar. "Show 'em the rooms, sweetie."

--

Alice waited until they were on the road again before she asked him about Jo. "Dad and Jo?"

"No." Sam shook his head. "She wanted him and… I still don't know why he didn't want her."

"Why was she so pissed at you?"

"Old news."

"Uncle Sam."

"Shit happens, Alice. I don't like to think about it."

So, she sat and stared at him. The grey streaking through his floppy hair. Stubble on his face. He hadn't called home in months. The leads were so few and far apart. So few. She was about to ask him about it again when the car started shaking.

--

Sam hung his head and waited for the tow truck. Oil. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Oil. He glared at Alice. She flipped him off. Long stringy hair in her face, shades on, flipping off her uncle. "I'm a girl. I know jack about cars. I drove a friggin' hybrid."

"I'm not the brother who knows about cars."

"That's not my fault."

Sam shut his eyes and waited for the tow truck. Listened to her hum some pop hit from the radio. Then leaned his head on the glass while she flirted with tow-truck guy and they rode to the nearest town. It would be an overnight fix because it was an ancient car… and the guy who fixed those was at a funeral for his other buddy who fixed ancient cars.

Alice wrote in her journal. She had no clue how to get it started so she did what she had done before. Wrote a letter to Dean. They were all letters to Dean. And once in a while, she wrote a letter to Jo Dufresne, detailing her latest adventure. She never got a response but she figured a couple of firsthand accounts would make things go smoother.

She read the journals. Grandpa's, Dean's… Sam's… but only when he'd gone out to get drunk. That didn't happen very often. More often, she was the one to get drunk and head off with some guy she didn't know to do things that made her forget what she did on the nights when she wasn't screwing a stranger.

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 4

Sam drank his coffee sweet and light. Alice drank hers with arsenic, he supposed. He missed his kids. He missed his wife. He thought about her and her long dark hair and those killer blue eyes. But then the thought of Dean in hell never did sit well. He'd been in contact with everyone on his list. No one knew anything. He had started going through Dean's phone but it was hard to say who was a contact and who was a lay.

Hellmouths all over the country were becoming useless scars. Demons were few and far between. Ghosts and poltergeists took up most everyone's time. No one wanted to waste time looking to get someone out of hell. No one else thought there was a point in it. They just wanted to close up the portals for good.

Alice took over the driving and aimed them where she wanted. They landed back at Dufresne's. She wasn't done there. Uncle Sam kept to himself. She rifled through papers for anything that could help. A hunt, a possibility. Anything. After a week, Jo pitched in.

They started with a handful of papers and then worked their way back through a stack that Jo hadn't had time to go through at the time. A pattern emerged but Alice didn't share it with anyone. She was interested in other things.

"Hey Jo… can you tell me about my dad?"

"Only a handful really knew him, sweetie. I was far from the expert." Jo should her head and grabbed a glass to clean. "Dean didn't really give me the time of day. I was the annoying little girl who tagged behind him… Forget we were in our 20s when we met."

"Why did you stop hunting?" The question was out before Alice could stop it.

"A demon came after me." Jo set the glass down, her face screwed up in the pain of a memory. "I was going to leave the hunting world forever… I was lost without it. I met my husband and decided to sit at home and do the waiting."

"So that's it?"

"My parents never wanted me to hunt. Dean didn't want me to hunt. His excuse was precious. I didn't have the experience… but you only get experience by doing… but he was right…"

"How so?"

"My father didn't train me to have the right reflexes because he never wanted me to hunt." Jo shrugged. "Mom and I could handle guns, no problem. I was never really strong in a way that I could take down an attacker without a knife in my hand."

"You knew my granddad?"

"Yeah… barely, from when I was a kid. He had stopped coming around after my dad died." Jo took her seat once more. "Hunting isn't a real life. You need to know that. Sam and Dean… paid heavy prices for the life their father gave them… and so did everyone they touched."

Alice held her pen for a long time. "I was never a cheerleader. I was never a track star. I didn't even play volleyball. I've learned… I am learning to defend myself."

"How many close calls will it take?"

"What do you mean?"

"How close do they have to get before you wizen up?"

--

Alice read over her journals. The close calls were frequent. The close calls were getting closer and closer. That's when the pattern jumped out at her. All of her close calls were within 15 miles of the sightings.

She'd clipped dozens on the road and had found dozens more at Jo's. The sightings of an angel. A man with wings who appeared in churches and other holy places. She didn't dare talk to Sam about it. Sam hated the very thought of angels. Every sighting, Alice survived a close call not far away.

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 5

Sam sank into his armchair. A welcome furlough from the road after three years. His wife was not happy but he didn't know how to fix it. He wouldn't be staying long or else he'd never leave. Alice was on the phone in the backyard.

Eventually, one child and then the other came to sit in his lap. He smelled their hair. They hugged him tight and begged him not to go. He didn't want to. He didn't want to leave his brother in hell either.

--

Alice stood over the fax machine in Sarah's office for the third time in an hour and watched the paper reveal a drawing rendered by the local paper's artist in some speck of nowhere. The pattern had become clearer. These sightings were in churches and not any churches… old churches with architecture long passed over for the efficiency of now.

Three drawings so far. A man kneeling in the aisle near the pulpit, wings sprung from his back, fully expanded. A man standing in the light from a window, arms and wings unfolded. A man sitting, wings tucked in but visible, sitting and appearing to listen to the sermon… no one else in the pews. No one saw the face. They all agreed, he dressed like a young man grown up hard. Torn blue jeans, flannel shirts and a leather jacket. They all said he was…. Beautiful.

--

Sam woke up early, he folded his sheets and put them away before the kids got up. He kissed Marta's cheek and helped with breakfast before Sarah got up. He kept an eye on Alice's door. She never came out. He chalked it up to a late night in Sarah's office. By dinner, he knew. The Chevy was gone. There were no notes and the log from the fax had been wiped. She had packed her clothes and gone out the window… like she was never there.

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 6

Alice stood in front of the church. She stood where the angel had stood and tried to figure out what it was looking at. All she saw was stained glass and a giant cross. She stood all day. Light shifted and changed… nothing spectacular.

"When the angel came, it was night." Someone spoke from behind her. "The moonlight fell on his face and he looked as if God had given him a great gift."

Alice turned to find a young priest rolling a manual carpet cleaner around a mess of popcorn. "Moonlight?"

"Full moon I think it was. The night after, the killings two towns over stopped."

"There was a werewolf. It attacked a young woman and her uncle. They survived and it did not."

"No such thing as werewolves."

"And there is such thing as angels?"

He grinned. "Werewolves, I would rather believe than angels, trust me." She tilted her head at him. "The angel thing has me shaken. I was the one who walked in on it. My director thinks I dreamed it. I told him how much it freaked me out and he told me it was jitters. I've got two years before I take my vows."

"And now?"

"And now, I'm reconsidering."

"What freaked you so much?"

He finished with the roller and took a seat in a pew not far from her. "I was cleaning up. CYA had just finished and the heathens left me to clean the mess… just like tonight. The doors opened. I thought someone had forgotten a coat or, God forbid, had come to help with the mess."

"It wasn't."

"No. I looked, I didn't see anyone. I called out. No one answered. I turned back and there he was." He pointed to where she was standing. She sat next to him. His voice lowered considerably. "I asked him what he was doing. He didn't answer. I got closer to him. He was… We've all done it, you know. Stood in the sunlight and just… basked… He did that but it was moonlight. And then when I reached to touch him, his wings just appeared. Whoosh!" He motioned with his arms. "I fell to my knees in prayer. I cried. Then he turned to me and he was a man. A dirty man with dirty clothes. He smelled like gunpowder."

"Did he disappear?"

"No. He stood there, staring at me. He had… green eyes. He was… beautiful and terrible and… human." The man wiped his hands across his face. "His wings, they opened again and I smelled roses and the dirt… fell away. I never felt further from God in my life." Tears slipped down his face. "The wings went away, then he walked toward me. Jeans, flannel, boots. He flipped the collar on his leather jacket and he walked through me. How is that God?"

"How did the newspaper get the story?"

"I told my director. He told the Bishop. They came to investigate the miracle but there was no evidence. Still, my director thinks I've been blessed and I really only want to go. I want to be a lawyer or a doctor… I don't want to be here."

"Why don't you leave?"

"Because I heard there have been other sightings and I don't want to see it again."

Alice drove from church to church and they all said the same. Those priests were more willing to hang out with an angel than the first one. Alice read and researched and could not think of a single entity other than an angel that it could be. There was really only one place to go from here. There was only one person who had been so close as to see its eyes.

The soup kitchen was closing. The young noviate was easy to spot. It seemed he was the only noviate the area had seen in a long time. Alice fell into stride with him when he left the kitchen and he took her to an all night diner for some coffee. "Still chasing angels?"

"Still hiding from them?" She sipped her coffee. "My name is Alice by the way."

"Jeff." He dug into a slice of apple pie. "How's the hunting going?"

"Well, I have a theory but I'm not sure enough to test it."

"A lack of faith?"

"Healthy sense of self-preservation." She grinned at him. "What makes a healthy young man chose God over women?"

He laughed and stared at his plate. "It's a calling. I was very young when the idea first came to me. I was normal. I just believed a lot in the miracles of Christ. I dated in high school but chose seminary over a regular college. I was so certain I was put on this earth to do God's work. I've been working on my masters in theology… I have since dropped several courses."

"Because of the angel?"

"Because of the angel." He finished his pie and got a refill on his coffee. "What is a beautiful young lady like you doing chasing angels instead of men?"

"I haven't chased men in a long while. I… have a calling myself." She met his eyes. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"I see angels. You said something about a werewolf the last time we spoke."

"Would you believe I come from a long line of demon-hunters?"

He laughed.

"I've never hunted a demon myself but my dad did, his dad did… I think his mom and her dad did too."

"You're serious." He blinked at her.

"Quite."

"You were raised to fight demons?"

"Raised? No. My dad didn't really settle well. I'm a by-product of his wandering. He sold his soul to save my life."

"You believe that?"

"Yes."

He looked down to his cup, took a deep breath, let it out, looked at her and held his breath, let it out again. "Why?"

"You saw an angel and it shook your faith. I saw a ghost, a poltergeist actually murder my friends and it gave me faith… especially after I watched my father dispatch with it."

"Your father was a pious man?"

"No. Far from it. He was a good man. Righteous."

"Righteous but not pious?"

"Exactly."

"And you are?"

"Neither."

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 7

Sam caught up to Alice on the trail of a wayward werewolf. Might have been the last. Though, he'd heard that claim far too many times. She just grinned and tossed him a crossbow. It was eerie how like her father she could be. She didn't tell him what she'd been working on. He didn't ask.

It didn't take long. Alice was… gifted. He asked her about the change in her fighting style. She laughed. "I didn't change it… I just believed in it."

Sam watched her carefully. No real change. No possession. Just… something that was a little off. They rotated driving. Alice seemed to have gotten some lessons in basic car maintenance. She just shrugged when he asked. Six months with no word and still, really, no word.

Alice called her brother on his birthday. Ignored her mother when she grabbed the phone. She thought about it but hung up.

She thought Sam was headed in the wrong direction but didn't have proof. Providing proof could be dangerous. She wasn't sure enough in her theory… which made her surer in the evil she fought every day.

Everything was going great until Uncle Sam broke one of his brittle old bones. Then they were stuck for a while, unless she went on a hunt alone and he didn't let her.

Sam propped his foot up on a stool at Dufresne's. Jo was not happy at all about the frequent (once or twice a year) visits but stopped avoiding him. It was day four on this stint. Alice was busy with something. He never saw her. Jo plopped down across from him. "You're an idiot."

"Sometimes." He shook his head at her.

"Alice did something."

"Like what?"

"I wish I knew but it was something. She's different." Jo leaned back. "You broke your foot and she brought you here instead of going home. What's that about?"

"She knows that the next time I go home… it's for good."

"What's that about?"

"Wife and kids. I've slept on the couch the last few trips home." He took the beer when it was handed to him. "I'm too old for this."

"Why don't you stop while you still have something to live for?"

"Dean's in hell, Jo…"

"He made his bed, Sam. You don't have to lie in it."

"She's hellbent."

"You're the one that got her started, genius. You should have left her at school." Jo scoffed and tossed back a shot.

"You don't think I regret that?"

"Regret what?" Alice appeared beside the table, face scrubbed but pale-looking.

"Nothing." Sam pulled on his beer and shooed her away.

"Is it just me or is she becoming more and more like Dean?"

"You noticed that, too?"

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 8

Alice pushed open the door to the crypt. Zombies sucked. She had the silver stake in hand. Sam waited in the car. The zombie, in theory, was inside its tomb. That's where it was sleeping. Why did she go into the crypt? Because she said she could handle it.

So, while she was lying on the ground, writhing in pain beneath the zombie, it occurred to her that maybe the zombie of a gymnast would be a little harder to deal with than a regular zombie. The oxygen was wearing thin in her lungs and she couldn't draw another breath. Her vision started to go black and red.

The pressure alleviated and for a second she saw a pair of wings. Alice got to her feet and shoved the stake into the still zombie where it had landed in its gravebed. Nothing was there with her, of course. She stumbled out to the car where Sam was frowning. "I'm fine."

"I hadn't asked yet."

"Well, I'm fine." She grabbed the map. "Where's the nearest church?"

Sam watched her run inside. It was the oldest church within 20 miles. He had a harder time following with his aircast. When he did, he felt something cold rush through him. Alice was crying. "Did you see it? Did you feel it?"

"Feel what, exactly?"

"The angel."

--

Alice sat under her uncle's scrutiny for hours. "I only got a glimpse. I was guessing. No one else was there."

"So, what exactly did you see?"

"I ran into the church and he was kneeling in the moonlight. I called out to it and it rushed me. Moved faster than anything I've ever seen. He passed right through me and I felt like… light had just passed through me." Alice tempered down the smile that crept out across her face when she saw the disbelief on his face. "I think it's Dean."

"How would Dean be out of hell?"

"I don't know. I want to catch him so I can ask him. We just weren't quick enough this time."

"Do you know how crazy you sound?"

"Yeah, and?"

--

Sam had all the old traps ready and nearby, just in case. He put the hex box in the center of the crossroads and waited. And waited. No one came. He waited all night. He checked the box's previous users. They were local, they were recent. He had dumped Alice off somewhere nice with decent sheets. She'd sleep all day. He asked the first three people on the list he'd made. Nothing happened with them either.

--

Alice was quieter than usual. Sam steered them to his house. She drew further and further into herself and he didn't know how to help. He didn't believe that Dean was an angel. That was ridiculous. It didn't explain why no demons were showing up to make deals. It didn't explain why Dean would suddenly become an angel; all lore indicated that God created a finite number of angels and they were separate from man.

Sarah welcomed him home coldly. She had long tired of his life; hadn't the strength to fight it after Dean died and he continued to hunt. The kids welcomed him warmly. Sarah had looked Alice over, frowned and motioned Sam into the next room. "Something's wrong with her."

"How do you mean?"

"She doesn't look right."

Sam never did figure out what that was supposed to mean. Alice pushed food around her plate. She slept a lot. She didn't run off again. Then after about a month, he started to see it. She was puffy. He didn't have another word for it. A couple of days of close surveillance revealed a morning vomiting habit, a late night eating habit and a refusal to wear anything that didn't have elastic in it.

--

Sarah took point on this one. She frosted cupcakes for her daughter's bake sale and watched Alice pick at the one she'd stolen. "How far along are you?"

"What?" Alice blinked at her.

"You're pregnant."

"What are you talking about?" Alice feigned ignorance but gave up when the nausea crept back up her throat. "Five months."

"The father?"

She laughed. "You mean… Father Jeff?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sarah only paused a second in frosting her cupcakes.

"I met a noviate and popped his cherry, so to speak. I don't actually know that he was a virgin before me but he was celibate. He's supposed to take vows and all that." Alice drew her knees up to her chest. "I wasn't going to keep it. I kept telling myself that I'd stop at the next clinic and before I knew it… it was too late."

"So, I presume that you haven't told him."

"No. He was already having doubts." Alice giggled to herself. "His director actually recommended sowing some oats as a sort of release before actually taking his vows… the doubts didn't have anything to do with women."

"So, you knew this… noviate, well?"

"Not really. I listened to him. He listened to me." She shrugged. She looked up at her aunt. "If I go home like this… my mom will freak."

"You stopped talking about freeing your dad from hell."

"I don't actually believe he's in hell."

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 9

Sam paced the foyer. He'd seen seven old priests so far. No one knew the young man he was talking about. Then a very old priest walked in. He smiled and led the way to the main church. "May I ask why you're looking for Jeff?"

"It's a…private matter."

"Are you looking for the angel, too?" The priest laughed. "Some of our brothers think he really did see the angel but I'll tell you what turned me off, the green eyes and the leather jacket."

Sam stared dumbfounded at the priest. "An angel with green eyes and a leather jacket?"

"Exactly. Jeff swears to it. It's shaken him. He's not sure he's cut out for the cloth and the longer this doubt lingers, the more I'm inclined to agree. Jeff hasn't left the altar in months."

Sam entered to find a youngish man kneeling at the altar in prayer. The old priest wandered away and left Sam to approach. When Sam cleared his throat, the young man shut a book abruptly. "Can I help you?"

"Are you… Father Jeff?" Sam winced. This was the most awkward thing he'd ever had to ask a priest.

"I'm not a priest, yet." The young man got to his feet and turned to face Sam, book tucked under his arm. "May never be. Don't know yet."

"Did you happen to meet a blond girl, yay high?" Sam motioned with his hand. "Green eyes, kind of pretty?"

Jeff blinked at him. "Twice. She was looking for angels. I told her my story. She bought it. I'm not sure I buy it anymore but… that's doubt for you."

"If… you're so much in doubt, why do you spend so much time praying?"

Jeff smirked and very slowly took the book from under his arm. "I'm… not… praying."

Sam recognized it as an encyclopedia of the supernatural. "Are you a hunter?"

"Um, no. Blonde girl, green eyes, yay high…" Jeff motioned with his hands. "She was after a werewolf. Piqued my interest." He tucked the book back under his arm when another priest entered the chapel. "It's better than wasting time on my prayers."

Sam followed him when he started walking. "Why don't you leave if you don't want to be here?"

"Because my director has used the angel sightings as proof that I'm touched by God. The bishop wants me to stay and encourage the flock. It's increased by 4 times since the first sighting."

"There have been multiple sightings?"

"There have been three." Jeff cleared his throat. "The first one, I could have chalked up to delirium. The second one was… before I saw the blonde girl the second time…"

"And the third?"

"Scared the daylights out of me." He tapped the book under his arm. "I think it might actually be a ghost but no one has ever died here." He shook his head. "I can't quite explain the wings."

Sam took a deep breath. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"You're listening." Jeff grinned and took a seat on a bench outside the church. "I took great comfort in telling the young lady you're talking about. I assume you know her. Alice and I talked for hours about the angel. She didn't think I was crazy… or blessed. I still don't know which one is worse."

"Alice, yes… the reason I came to talk to you is about Alice."

"Is she okay?"

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "She's pregnant." Sam had never seen a man go so white so fast in his entire life. "She's only got one candidate for the father."

"She didn't come herself?" Jeff's eyes ran over the parking lot.

"No. She thinks you'd really quit being a priest if you knew. I think you've got a right to know. She didn't tell me that I couldn't tell you." Sam watched his companion carefully. "Are you okay? You look like you're going to be sick."

"It's been months since she's been here. She must be due in…" He slumped against the wall.

"Six weeks, give or take a week."

"How do you know Alice?"

"I'm her uncle. Sam Winchester." Sam held out his hand.

"Jeffrey Becket. Former noviate." Jeff shook the hand. "I have to… confess, have a discussion with my director and have a chat with God and then… I'll need a phone number and an address."

--

Sarah let the investigator into the house. Gave her the grand tour. She stopped to look at the pictures on the walls. "So, the lord of the manor hasn't been home in how long?"

"Years." Sarah lied.

"And the brother-in-law?"

"He's dead."

"No record of that."

"Well, I'm told that he's dead."

"By whom?"

"My husband, several years ago." Sarah cringed when she heard the front door open.

"Who is that?"

"My niece." Sarah cleared her throat. "Alice?"

Alice followed Sarah's voice to the back hallway where Sarah and the investigator stood. "Yeah?"

"Detective Landers is looking for your uncle AND your dad."

Alice's face screwed up and the waterworks started. "You people are sick, just sick. Dad's been dead for years and you're still trying to pin shit on him. Why won't you people just stop?" She pushed past them and slammed the door shut to her room.

Sarah thought it was a bit over the top but the detective looked shamed. "Hormones. She's due any minute."

"I couldn't help but notice the impala out front."

"She inherited it when Dean died. She's rather attached to it. She didn't know him very well."

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 10

Sam sat in the church. It had stained glass windows. The moon was full and the light was pretty enough. Alice was in labor. There was no way the angel wasn't showing up tonight. Sam got the text that Alice was okay and the baby was fine but that Jeff needed a stiff drink. A minute later, he heard the doors bang open. A man walked to the front of the church and stood for an hour, basking in the light through the stained glass windows. If Sam turned his head just right, he could see the shadow of the massive wings.

He turned and Sam saw his brother's face when he was 30 or so. Sam cleared his throat. "Who are you?"

"You're the first to ask." The Angel spread his wings. "I take it you know this face."

"My big brother… looking a decade or two younger than when I last saw him… you know, a few days before he died."

"Your brother made a deal with a demon for the life of his daughter. I killed that demon before the deal was made… final. I inherited the rewards of that debt. His soul."

"And who are you?"

"One of God's sons."

"Why do you look like him?"

"He was a righteous man. Men cannot see an angel without their eyes bleeding out. When his body was burned, I took his image and his spirit and I carry it with me. He teaches me what I could not learn in millennia."

"What's that?"

"How to love man."

"Why do you come to the churches?"

"Men need hope." The Angel jumped and landed perched on the pew in front of Sam. "The oddest things give men hope. Seeing an angel. Hearing that someone has seen an angel. If only they all knew how much angels hated men."

"Why give them hope?"

"It's my penance." The angel frowned with Dean's face. "I was ready to smite. I was ready to cleanse the Earth. My Father's Son told me to look again. I refused. I have been denied the full light of God's glory."

"Like Lucifer."

"Not like Lucifer. He was denied any of God's light."

"Michael."

"I have sinned against my Father with the pride of my brother. Your brother lets me repent."

"Why do you save her?"

"He's become part of me. He's strong enough to save her whether I let him or not. He gave his eternal soul so that she would have a life. His eternal soul rests inside me. Vulgar little thing that it is. The effects last a while. I always did like churches with stained glass windows. They let me feel the reflection of His love. I take what I can get."

"How long?"

"Millenia."

"Well, tell Dean that he has a grandson. I can't imagine that she'll name him anything other than Dean."

"She's strong. Fearless. Full of Hope."

"You appeared to the priest more than once."

"He was looking." The angel shrugged and the wings shifted with a sound like thunder. "He'd make a better hunter anyway."

Sam sat and watched the Angel fade away. The effects of Dean hovering over his daughter with so much love had dissipated and the angel would have to wait until the next time to have his few minutes in the moonlight.

The END