SPN FIC - Always On My Mind
An unexpectedly quiet afternoon -- and the chance to grab hold of a bunny I've been tinkering with for a while now. A nearly-empty road late at night, a speeding Impala, and a sheriff's deputy on her way to ... who knows where.
She's got no jurisdiction here, a long way south of Hibbing, no legitimate reason for stopping that car, no matter how fast it's going.
CHARACTERS: Dean and Kathleen Hudak (from The Benders)
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: Follows 99 Problems, but not specifically spoilery
LENGTH: 1167 words
ALWAYS ON MY MIND
By Carol Davis
She's got no jurisdiction here, a long way south of Hibbing, no legitimate reason for stopping that car, no matter how fast it's going.
But it's -
Yes, it's him. She got a glimpse when the Impala went rocketing past her, and she's always been good not only with faces but with body language. She got a couple of seconds' worth of a look at the driver and that was more than enough to make an ID, so she flips on the bubble and the siren (no jurisdiction; she's only in an official vehicle because there's been so much interdepartmental cooperation these last few months, so much movement from one place to another, but what the hell) and leans into the gas.
She didn't expect him to slow down, and he doesn't. It could well be that he hasn't registered the light and the noise from behind him. She saw the set of his jaw and the tension in his shoulders when he soared past, and figures it's a wonder if he notices anything at all.
She's got no right to stop him.
No official right, at least.
Her daddy and her brother - both of them long gone - taught her to drive fast and unafraid when the need calls for it. She thinks as she closes the gap between her whooping car and that old Impala that it's just an indulgence to do this, to interrupt his flight just so she can say a few words to someone who helped her (and she him) years ago. But her gut says to do it, says she needs to stop him, even if just for a minute, and she's put a lot of stock in gut feelings since that business with the Benders.
With Sam and Dean Winchester.
He slows down, finally, brings the car to a gradual halt on the shoulder, and she pulls up behind him, her car flinging splashes of light across a dark countryside. When she turned the siren off things turned quiet, that middle-of-nowhere kind of stillness that makes her nervous sometimes because it brings back memories of an old barn and a lot of blood.
His window's rolled down most of the way. As she walks up to the driver's door she can see his shoulders hunch a little, hear him mutter something, a few words. He's got something in his hand: his driver's license, the car registration. He knows the drill. That man, that car - he's probably been pulled over a hundred times, and she imagines he's sweet-talked himself out of a ticket almost all of them.
She's armed, as she approaches the car, and she knows better than to think he isn't.
If she says, "Could you step out of the car, please, sir?" he'll probably bolt.
So she says, simply, "Dean."
That wasn't the name he gave her, back when she helped him find his brother. Back then, Dean Winchester was dead, shot and killed in a fancy house just outside St. Louis. He's been killed twice more since then, in a helicopter explosion in Monument, Colorado, and in a cul-de-sac in New Harmony, Indiana. He's got more lives than a cat, she thinks, and if he's honestly dead, his ghost has been spotted more times than the specter of Elvis Presley. There's a whole website devoted to Dean Winchester sightings, complete with pictures, most of them grainy and unconvincing.
He flinches at the sound of his name (it's not Greg, the name he gave her in Hibbing) and flicks a glance her way.
"It's been a long time," she says.
He's not looking at her. Deliberately not looking at her. "Kinda got somewhere to be."
"I gathered that."
"It's -"
"Not important enough to get yourself killed."
He makes a small sound, almost not audible above the noise of the Impala's engine. "You'd be surprised."
No - she really wouldn't. Not with all that's been going on these past few months. Law enforcement's taken a terrible hit; her own department has lost two men, and around the state the number's up in the dozens. The news media's been blaming the Administration, global warming, frustration with the economy, even ancient Mayan prophecies, but wherever the blame honestly lies, things have gone to hell and then some. It's the Apocalypse, the fringe-dwellers keep saying (there've even been a couple of shows on History Channel to that effect), and she's tried to laugh that off over the rim of a glass, over what started as one drink after her shift to three or four, but four houses have burned down in Hibbing in the last two weeks.
And Blue Earth? Dear God, Blue Earth. They've been talking about it on the radio since yesterday.
That's where he's come from, she realizes. From Blue Earth.
She shudders once, hard, and has to breathe slow and deep to tamp down a nervous twitch. She's had nothing to eat since early afternoon and lightheadedness hits her all of a sudden. Need to eat, she thinks, knowing that she could sit down to a steak dinner and it wouldn't change anything. Without quite realizing she's doing it she rests a hand on the window ledge of that old car. The metal's cold, a little damp.
"You oughta go somewhere," he says quietly. "Someplace safe."
"And where's that?" she asks.
He huffs a small noise that hasn't got a shred of humor behind it. "Damned if I know."
They're silent then, because there really isn't anything to say. He won't slow down, and he won't be careful. He's got someplace to be and something to do, and even back then, back when she helped him find his brother and he helped her lay hers to rest, if there was someone who could convince him to follow orders, she knew it wasn't her.
The car's idling furiously, like the animal whose name it bears, anxious to run, to be away from here.
She can't think of anything to say, anything that would make a difference. She's been reading websites for months, most of it nonsense but some of it bearing the leaden weight of truth. Things are bad, they're going to get worse, and somehow, the man whose shoulder is a few inches from her fingers is in the thick of it all - whether he wants to be, or not.
"Go with God, Dean," she tells him.
He turns to look at her, finally, his face empty at first, then rueful. Go with God: it's something her grandmother used to say.
Apparently it means something different to Dean than it did to her grandmother.
"I'm kinda on my own," he says.
"Then -"
"Take care of yourself."
"You -"
You too, she meant to say, but he cuts her off with a look and a brush of his fingers against hers.
She'll never see him again, she thinks as she watches the old Impala fly toward the horizon. But there are websites.
And he has more lives than a cat.
* * * * *
She's got no jurisdiction here, a long way south of Hibbing, no legitimate reason for stopping that car, no matter how fast it's going.
CHARACTERS: Dean and Kathleen Hudak (from The Benders)
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: Follows 99 Problems, but not specifically spoilery
LENGTH: 1167 words
ALWAYS ON MY MIND
By Carol Davis
She's got no jurisdiction here, a long way south of Hibbing, no legitimate reason for stopping that car, no matter how fast it's going.
But it's -
Yes, it's him. She got a glimpse when the Impala went rocketing past her, and she's always been good not only with faces but with body language. She got a couple of seconds' worth of a look at the driver and that was more than enough to make an ID, so she flips on the bubble and the siren (no jurisdiction; she's only in an official vehicle because there's been so much interdepartmental cooperation these last few months, so much movement from one place to another, but what the hell) and leans into the gas.
She didn't expect him to slow down, and he doesn't. It could well be that he hasn't registered the light and the noise from behind him. She saw the set of his jaw and the tension in his shoulders when he soared past, and figures it's a wonder if he notices anything at all.
She's got no right to stop him.
No official right, at least.
Her daddy and her brother - both of them long gone - taught her to drive fast and unafraid when the need calls for it. She thinks as she closes the gap between her whooping car and that old Impala that it's just an indulgence to do this, to interrupt his flight just so she can say a few words to someone who helped her (and she him) years ago. But her gut says to do it, says she needs to stop him, even if just for a minute, and she's put a lot of stock in gut feelings since that business with the Benders.
With Sam and Dean Winchester.
He slows down, finally, brings the car to a gradual halt on the shoulder, and she pulls up behind him, her car flinging splashes of light across a dark countryside. When she turned the siren off things turned quiet, that middle-of-nowhere kind of stillness that makes her nervous sometimes because it brings back memories of an old barn and a lot of blood.
His window's rolled down most of the way. As she walks up to the driver's door she can see his shoulders hunch a little, hear him mutter something, a few words. He's got something in his hand: his driver's license, the car registration. He knows the drill. That man, that car - he's probably been pulled over a hundred times, and she imagines he's sweet-talked himself out of a ticket almost all of them.
She's armed, as she approaches the car, and she knows better than to think he isn't.
If she says, "Could you step out of the car, please, sir?" he'll probably bolt.
So she says, simply, "Dean."
That wasn't the name he gave her, back when she helped him find his brother. Back then, Dean Winchester was dead, shot and killed in a fancy house just outside St. Louis. He's been killed twice more since then, in a helicopter explosion in Monument, Colorado, and in a cul-de-sac in New Harmony, Indiana. He's got more lives than a cat, she thinks, and if he's honestly dead, his ghost has been spotted more times than the specter of Elvis Presley. There's a whole website devoted to Dean Winchester sightings, complete with pictures, most of them grainy and unconvincing.
He flinches at the sound of his name (it's not Greg, the name he gave her in Hibbing) and flicks a glance her way.
"It's been a long time," she says.
He's not looking at her. Deliberately not looking at her. "Kinda got somewhere to be."
"I gathered that."
"It's -"
"Not important enough to get yourself killed."
He makes a small sound, almost not audible above the noise of the Impala's engine. "You'd be surprised."
No - she really wouldn't. Not with all that's been going on these past few months. Law enforcement's taken a terrible hit; her own department has lost two men, and around the state the number's up in the dozens. The news media's been blaming the Administration, global warming, frustration with the economy, even ancient Mayan prophecies, but wherever the blame honestly lies, things have gone to hell and then some. It's the Apocalypse, the fringe-dwellers keep saying (there've even been a couple of shows on History Channel to that effect), and she's tried to laugh that off over the rim of a glass, over what started as one drink after her shift to three or four, but four houses have burned down in Hibbing in the last two weeks.
And Blue Earth? Dear God, Blue Earth. They've been talking about it on the radio since yesterday.
That's where he's come from, she realizes. From Blue Earth.
She shudders once, hard, and has to breathe slow and deep to tamp down a nervous twitch. She's had nothing to eat since early afternoon and lightheadedness hits her all of a sudden. Need to eat, she thinks, knowing that she could sit down to a steak dinner and it wouldn't change anything. Without quite realizing she's doing it she rests a hand on the window ledge of that old car. The metal's cold, a little damp.
"You oughta go somewhere," he says quietly. "Someplace safe."
"And where's that?" she asks.
He huffs a small noise that hasn't got a shred of humor behind it. "Damned if I know."
They're silent then, because there really isn't anything to say. He won't slow down, and he won't be careful. He's got someplace to be and something to do, and even back then, back when she helped him find his brother and he helped her lay hers to rest, if there was someone who could convince him to follow orders, she knew it wasn't her.
The car's idling furiously, like the animal whose name it bears, anxious to run, to be away from here.
She can't think of anything to say, anything that would make a difference. She's been reading websites for months, most of it nonsense but some of it bearing the leaden weight of truth. Things are bad, they're going to get worse, and somehow, the man whose shoulder is a few inches from her fingers is in the thick of it all - whether he wants to be, or not.
"Go with God, Dean," she tells him.
He turns to look at her, finally, his face empty at first, then rueful. Go with God: it's something her grandmother used to say.
Apparently it means something different to Dean than it did to her grandmother.
"I'm kinda on my own," he says.
"Then -"
"Take care of yourself."
"You -"
You too, she meant to say, but he cuts her off with a look and a brush of his fingers against hers.
She'll never see him again, she thinks as she watches the old Impala fly toward the horizon. But there are websites.
And he has more lives than a cat.
* * * * *