Five Times Driving Beat the Odds
~or~
Why Dean’s Afraid to Fly

Act One:  July 19, 1989

Regardless of the fact that it was the third week of July, it surely didn’t feel like it outside.  It had been rather chilly for the last few days, and it was only supposed to get up to fifty-three degrees the next day.  It was almost a relief when Pastor Jim called, saying that Dean and Sam were supposed to take the next flight out to Chicago to meet up with their dad.  Jim’s cousin, Louisa, would pick the boys up from the Mile-High Motel and take them to the Denver airport and make sure they got on the right plane.

Sam was ecstatic at the thought that he’d finally get to do something he’d always wanted.  Dean just felt queasy – but he was pretty sure that it was more to do with the head-cold he was trying desperately to ignore than for any other reason.  Traffic was a nightmare, however, and by the time Louisa showed up in her battered pickup truck, provided Dean the codeword through the deceptively sturdy motel room door, and convinced the ten year-old that the airline would most definitely not allow him to keep the shotgun with him while on the plane, they were already running very late.  She handed the boys their boarding passes, both bearing the United logo and printed lines indicating the flight number – 232 – and their seat assignments – thankfully next to one another.  Louisa pulled into the Denver airport parking lot just as the plane the boys were supposed to be on took off.  Acknowledging the fact that it was mostly her fault the boys missed their flight, Louisa volunteered to drive the boys to Chicago.

When they stopped that night, just outside of Omaha, Dean realized two things while coloring with Sammy on the second bed in the motel room.  The first was that his cold was apparently gone.  The second was that the report that Louisa was watching on the small television regarding the crash of a DC 10 just outside of Sioux City, Iowa was a report about the airplane he and Sammy were supposed to have taken from Denver.

Act Two:  September 8, 1994

Dean was beginning to worry.  Their dad had left for a small town outside Pittsburg, Pennsylvania nearly a month earlier.  This wasn’t what was bothering him – John had said that this hunt might take a while – what bothered Dean was that it was going on a full four days since he’d gotten a call from their father letting them know that all was well.

When the phone rang just before he and Sam were supposed to leave for school, Dean nearly jumped out of his skin.  It rang once then stopped.  Nearly a full minute later, it rang again.  Dean let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding and yanked the receiver off the cradle.  “Dad, where’ve you been the last few days?  Sammy was startin’ to get worried.”

“Dean?”  It wasn’t his dad’s voice.

“Joshua?  I didn’t know you were with Dad.”

“Yeah… about that…  Um, you and Sam need to get here as soon as you can.”

Dean’s heart jumped up and lodged itself somewhere behind his tongue, “Why?  What happened?”

“Your pop…  He ain’t doing too good.  He’s in the hospital here in Pittsburg.  Docs say he’ll be okay, but it’s gonna take a while,” Joshua replied.  “D’ya need cash?”

Dean shook his head, “No.  Dad always leaves a credit card, just in case.  What happened?”

“The poltergeist threw him down three flights of stairs,” there was the sound of a lighter in the background.  “Busted the hell outta both his legs and his right arm.  Docs were surprised he woke up, to be honest.”

Dean let out a few choice phrases that had Joshua chuckling.  “We’ll be there soon as we can,” he told the hunter.  “Dunno how soon, but I’ll call when we’re on our way.  You still carry the same cell?”

“You betcha,” without any preamble, Joshua hung up.

Dean returned the receiver to the cradle and turned to Sam.  “Pack up, Sammy.  We’re leaving.”

The argument with which Sam met that statement had nothing on future versions of the same fight, but it was still enough of one to give Dean a headache.  Using the credit card with ‘Robert Seger’ on it that John had left in a drawer near the kitchen sink of the dumpy little apartment in southern Chicago that the Winchesters had called home for the past two months, Dean soon had two seats reserved on USAir flight 427.  By the time he was done on the phone, Sam – still grumbling under his breath about leaving a mere three weeks into the school year – had their things packed into two duffels and a single suitcase.

Stopping at an ATM to pull some cash for a cab ride to the airport, Dean lugged the duffel of his clothes and the suitcase that housed his sawed-off shotgun, hunting knife, and the few other odds and ends that wouldn’t make it through the scan for carry-ons.  Dean’s headache worsened the closer they got to the airport.  Sam’s unending mumbled chatter wasn’t helping any, either.  “I still don’t know why we couldn’t just wait at the apartment for Dad to come back,” Sam grumbled as the cab drove away.

“Dude!  Enough!” Dean snapped.  “I don’t care that you’re missing your precious school – Dad needs us, Sammy.  Joshua said he was banged up real bad.  You’re just gonna hafta realize we ain’t stayin’ in Chicago for the year!”

Sam looked up at his brother and grimaced, “You know your nose is bleeding?”

Dean wiped a hand across his nose and verified that Sam was right.  He groaned and tossed his duffel of clothes onto the sidewalk next to a bench.  Sam dug a paper napkin out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Dean.  This wasn’t the first time Dean had suffered a bloody nose.  It had worried their dad a little, but the Winchesters had been informed that it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in kids – basically, it was caused by their sinus bones growing too fast and tearing open minor blood vessels, nothing to be concerned about unless the bleeding didn’t stop on its own, or if they started making him dizzy.  By the time the bleeding had stopped, their flight had already gone.  Dean knew the card wouldn’t have enough money left on it to get another two tickets, and getting the airline to refund the ticket prices would just take too long.  Dad needs us.  Tossing the bloody tissue paper into a nearby trashcan, Dean sighed and reevaluated their options.

He eventually settled on the ten year-old blue compact in the long-term parking lot.  It took only five minutes to jimmy the lock open and hotwire it.  Though Dean was fifteen, he did look a year or two older, especially with his chubby little brother in the passenger seat, and so no one questioned seeing him behind the wheel.

Whoever owned the little blue car took reasonably good care of it – it ran better than it should have for being a turquoise piece of Japanese crap – and it had nearly a full tank of gas when they pulled onto I-80 headed east.

They were stopped at a rest stop halfway through Ohio when the news reported that flight 427 had crash-landed and they weren’t expecting any survivors.  It took Dean nearly half an hour to get his heartbeat back under control.

Act Three:  May 11, 1996

For the first time ever, John Winchester admitted that maybe, just maybe, they were in need of a vacation.  Working nonstop over a full month, overlapping and back-to-back cases in the Miami area had left him with close to three dozen stitches, a dislocated knee, and a broken thumb.  Dean hadn’t fared much better, what with fourteen stitches, two cracked ribs, and a mild concussion.  The only Winchester not currently sporting hunting-related injuries was Sam, and even he hadn’t escaped the last month unscathed.  He’d had to have his tonsils out on the thirtieth of April and had he not been obsessive about his homework, he would likely have ended up needing to repeat the seventh grade.  Three bouts of strep-throat in a four-month period had managed to keep Sam home for a grand total of thirty school days.  But, Sam being Sam, the just-turned thirteen year-old had managed to keep up with his homework.

As a belated birthday present for Sammy, and as something to do that had absolutely nothing to do with hunting, John secured three tickets to see the Atlanta Braves play on their home field.  Lately, baseball was just about the only thing all three Winchesters could agree on, and the fact that the baseball tickets had been given to him as a thank you for ridding an upper-middle-class suburbanite of a ghost who’d not been too happy with the remodeling of said ghost’s childhood home merely cinched the deal. 

John also got three tickets on a commuter DC 9 through a relatively new airline called Valujet.  Despite the airline’s name, he still maxed out one of his bogus credit cards on the tickets, but it was all for a good cause.  Flight 592 would drop them off a day early for the game, but John figured he and his boys could grab a motel and he’d take Sammy to see the Fernbank museums.  Dean, he knew, could fend for himself – museums weren’t really Dean’s thing.  Normally, John would drive, but…  He didn’t really feel like it, not until his knee healed.  He wasn’t going to let Dean drive, either, not until the boy’s cracked ribs stopped making him wince every time he moved.  And Sam flat-out refused to drive unless it was an emergency, saying something about needing a learner’s permit or some such nonsense.

“Boys!  Front and center!” John yelled up the stairs of the tiny, two-story bungalow they’d managed to stay in since shortly before Christmas.

Dean appeared in short order, a half-eaten twinkie in one hand.  It took several more minutes for Sam to come down the stairs.  Predictably, his nose was buried in a book.  John could tell this one was either simply a ‘for fun’ read or an assignment for English class.  He didn’t really know for sure as Sam had been on an outdoorsy kick with the novels he read lately, and Jack London’s books were definitely in that category.  John was pretty sure the theme in Sam’s choice of reading material was purely because of the sheer volume of time the boy’d spent being sick and house-bound lately.

“Pack an overnight bag – we’re heading to Atlanta.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed and he used a finger to mark his place in his book before glancing over at Dean.  Dean gave his brother a small half-shrug and addressed his father.  “What are we hunting, sir?”

John smirked, “I’ll tell you when we get there.  Now, go get your things.  We’re leaving in an hour.”

Sam’s throat wasn’t quite healed from the surgery a little less than two weeks earlier and so he wasn’t quite up to voicing his thoughts out loud, but his long-suffering sigh and unwilling shuffle back up the stairs said quite clearly, ‘I don’t wanna go.’

John’s smirk broadened into a genuine grin when both Dean and Sam were out of sight.  He’s in for one helluva surprise.

Dean followed Sam upstairs to their bedroom.  “Cheer up, Sammy.  It can’t be that bad if we’re just packing an overnight bag – probably just a simple salt’n’burn, ya know?”  Sam shrugged and placed a scrap of notebook paper in his copy of White Fang, and retrieved his and Dean’s duffels from the closet.  Dean shook his head, “We shouldn’t need both of ’em.  Dad promised you’d be back to school on Monday – you know he doesn’t break his promises.”  That statement earned Dean a glare.  Dean sighed and leaned against his and Sam’s bunk bed.  “C’m on, Sammy…  Don’t be like this.”

“Like what?” Sam croaked, his voice sounding simultaneously hollow and full of gravel.

“Look, I know you don’t like moving around all the time – but even you hafta admit this year’s been a good one.  We only went to two different schools this time around, and Dad even waited until Christmas break before we moved.  The only school you’ve missed was ’cause you were sick.  And the summer’s gonna be here soon.”

“Not that,” Sam replied, turning to the dresser and pulling out a pair of worn-out jeans with patches on the knees.

“Then how come you’re pissed off?”

Sam rammed the jeans into one of the duffels and retrieved a couple of t-shirts.  “Just…  Too soon.”

“Huh?  Whacha mean?  Your throat doesn’t still hurt, does it?  It shouldn’t.  Dr. Chen said that you’d be good to go on that when the penicillin ran out, and that was yesterday,” Dean stepped forward and peered at his brother.

Sam gave Dean a half-smile and shook his head.  “Not me,” he rasped.  “You.  Dad.”  Dean chuckled and immediately winced as his cracked ribs were forced to do something they really didn’t want to.  “See.”  Even through the still-healing sandpaper currently masquerading as his voice, Sam’s comment was pointed more than a stiletto.

Dean sighed.  Sammy’s got a point, he thought, but merely shook his head, smile still in place, and set to gathering together his own clothes.

An hour later, John was driving through Miami traffic, Sam sprawled in the back seat, his nose back in his book, and Dean was staring out the window, humming along with the quiet tones of the radio.  The freeway was relatively clear for a change; the only traffic was a big rig, towing a trailer of speedboats, followed closely by a new, small, red sports car was about three hundred yards ahead of them.

Halfway through Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, John was only two miles from the exit for the airport.  A strap snapped on the trailer of speed boats and the metal buckle went flying, crashing through the windshield of the convertible. 

“Son of a –” John said, as the driver of the sports car lost control and began skidding sideways down the freeway.  He managed to hit the brakes, thankful that his most recent hunting injury – the dislocated knee – was his left, otherwise the action would have hurt far more than necessary. 

Dean’s attention snapped from the side window to his father and then immediately to the road in front of them.  “Bitch!” he concluded his father’s exclamation, watching as the little red car flipped once, twice, three times before skidding to a halt. 

The Impala skreeched to a stop in the break-down lane less than ten yards from it.

“Dad?” Sam’s grotty voice piped up from the back seat, his book momentarily forgotten in his hands.

“Car wreck,” Dean explained.

John handed Dean the cell phone and told his son to call 911 before barreling out of the car and limping over to the wrecked sports car.

The paramedics showed up after a mere twenty minute wait, but in dealing with the driver of the little red sports car – an attractive blonde woman, likely only a year or two older than Dean – and making a statement for the police, the Winchesters were forced to miss their flight.  John was glad he’d not mentioned the flight to his boys – Sam would be crushed that they’d missed it.  Instead, he downed a couple of extra-strength Tylenol and resigned himself to driving.  There was no way he was going to miss the ball game; no way he was letting Sammy miss the game.

That night, after locating a cheap motel in Atlanta, John flicked on the television to catch the news.  Sam was finishing up his novel on the roll-away cot and Dean was flipping through a newspaper disinterestedly when the reporters described the top story of the day.  As the reporter described how Valujet Flight 592 had crashed in the Florida everglades, Dean glanced up.  He caught his dad’s somewhat shocked expression out of the corner of his eye and turned his head for a better look.  What he saw had him worried – there wasn’t much that could put a look like that on his dad’s face.  Pulling out a couple of dollar bills, he tapped Sam on the back of his head.  “Hey, Sammy.  Why doncha run over to the vending machine and get us all something to drink?”

Sam, who had just finished the last chapter of his book, snapped it shut and nodded.  He snagged the money from Dean and left his dad and brother in the motel room.  Dean stood up and strolled over to the window, keeping an eye on Sam as the boy crossed the parking lot to the bank of vending machines near the office.  “What’s up, Dad?  How come you look spooked?”

John nodded towards the television, “That plane?  The one that crashed in Florida?”

“What about it?”

“We were supposed to be on it.  I didn’t want to drive, but that wreck kept us from making the flight,” John explained.

Dean blanched, swallowed, and cleared his throat.  Without a word, he grabbed the remote and changed the channel to a rerun of M*A*S*H*.  By the time Sammy’d returned with the sodas, both he and his father were back to their usual selves.  Handing a Coke to both Dean and John, Sam cracked open his orange soda.  “Um, Dad?” the question retained the harsh quality of a not-quite-healed throat.  When John looked up at his youngest, Sam continued, “How come we’re here?”

John grinned and fished his journal out of his jacket pocket.  He retrieved three slips of paper and handed them to Sam, all thoughts of their near-miss with the airplane gone from his mind at the sight of Sam’s disbelieving grin.  “Happy late birthday, Sammy.”

Act Four:  June 1, 1999

Dean groaned and stretched, something popped between his shoulder blades.  He rolled out of his bed and glanced over at Sam’s.  The neatly-made twin told Dean he’d slept through his little brother getting ready for school.  The alarm clock on the much-abused night stand verified that it was just past eight in the morning.  Yawning, Dean set to pulling himself out of bed and into the shower.  He was finishing up a bowl of Honeycomb and his fourth mug of coffee when his cell phone rang.  “Yeah?”

“Dean?”

“Hey Bobby.  Whacha need?”

“Your dad and I are heading up to Tulsa.  John wants you to head over to Little Rock and bring the truck back to your place – I’ll be bringing him home when we’re done in Oklahoma.”

“He all right?”

Bobby chuckled, “Yeah, just a little preoccupied at the moment.  Buried in research for the Okie thing.  You know how he can get.”

“Ain’t that the truth.  What’re you after?  Maybe I can help.”

“We’re not sure.  Signs point to a possible succubus.  John was pretty adamant about you boys not comin’ on this one, though.  Just told me to tell you to go get the pickup.”

Dean sighed, “Whatever.  Yeah, I’ll go after the damn truck.  Hell, maybe it’s just the thing Sam needs to relax a little.  He’s been stressing about finals.”

“I’ll give you a call when we get to Tulsa, and I’ll make John call when we’re finished up.  I know he ain’t real good about keepin’ you boys informed.”

Dean snickered, “Thanks, Bobby.  See ya when ya get here?”

“You betcha.”

Dean ended the call and tucked his phone back into his pocket.  Over the next half an hour, he hammered out the details of how to get his dad’s GMC 4x4 from the parking lot of the Little Rock airport to the driveway of their run-down rental in Fort Worth.  Ain’t no way Sammy’s gonna drive either the truck or my car.  Not after that stunt he pulled last month.  What the hell was he thinking, hitchhiking all the way to Corpus Christi?!  He’s lucky Dad was the one who found him and not me.

As much as Dean didn’t want to, they were going to have to take a plane to Little Rock.  I’d just go by myself, but I’m sure if I did, Sam’d be halfway to LA before I got back.  Dean sighed and ran a hand through his short hair.  I wish I knew what was up with that kid lately.  Ever since we got here, he’s been bound and determined to fight with Dad at every opportunity.  I think for next year, we should just sign him up for home schooling.  Maybe chain his leg to the wall.  Dean snickered at the mental image that thought triggered before taking a breath and retrieving his cell once more.  He scrolled down the contacts listing until he reached the entry for Sam’s school and hit ‘send’.

The call was answered after three rings.  “Boswell High School, how may I help you?”

Dean cleared his throat, “Yeah, this is John Garret, Samuel Garret’s father.  There’s been a family emergency crop up and Sammy’s gonna need to come home for the day.  His brother, Dean, will pick him up in about half an hour.”

“I’m sorry to hear about the problem,” the secretary on the other end of the line actually sounded more bored than sympathetic.  “Do you know what class your son is in?”

Dean thought for a moment after glancing at the clock, “Um… Chemistry, I think.  He’s a sophomore, if that helps.”

“That it does, sir.  We’ll have Samuel wait in the office for his brother.  Just a reminder, when Samuel returns to class, we will need you to come in and sign a permission slip regarding his absence.  If this isn’t a possibility, let me know now, and I’ll send the form home with Samuel.”

“Go ahead and send it with Sammy.  I don’t know if I’ll have the chance to come in or not – my work’s been kinda erratic the last few weeks.”

“Certainly, Mr. Garret.”

“Thanks,” Dean replied and hung up.  He grabbed his jacket and keys and called information as he slid into the driver’s seat of his car.  Twenty minutes later, he and Sam had seats on the next flight to Little Rock – American Airlines, flight 1420 – but they were going to have to shag ass to catch the damn plane.  Ten minutes after that, he was double-parked in the employee lot for Boswell High School and halfway to the office.

Sam was sitting on a bench outside the office, glaring at a glass display case full of trophies and plaques, chewing haphazardly on a pen cap.  Dean sighed to himself before plastering on a big grin.  “Heya, Sammy.  You got what you’ll need for the day?”

Sam slowly turned his glare on his older brother.  “Yeah,” was his terse reply.  “Where are we going now?”

The defeated, sullenness of Sam’s voice made Dean realize that his kid brother assumed that they were moving on to the next town.  Dean mentally rolled his eyes, Like we’d do that to him when there’s only a week left in the school year.  Dean stooped and grabbed Sammy’s backpack, “Dad’s doing a gig with Bobby.  Bobby’s gonna drop him off when they’re done, but Dad wants us to go bring his truck back from Little Rock.”

Some of the tension in Sam’s stance bled out, “Oh.  I thought…”  He trailed off and shrugged.  “Never mind.”

Dean knew precisely what Sam had been thinking – and, honestly, it wasn’t too far outside the realm of possibility, were it not for the fact that Dean would have kidnapped Sammy himself if their father had gotten it into his head to move with only one damn week remaining of the school year.  “You ain’t missing anything too important today, are you?”

Sam shook his head, his messy brown hair falling in his eyes.  Ever since the incident with the Nair when he was in the fifth grade, Sam had refused to let his brother anywhere near his hair or shampoo.  When he felt it was too long – meaning, long enough to pull into a ponytail – he simply pulled it back and hacked it off before evening out the ends.  “Just reviews.  We’ll be back for tomorrow, right?  ’Cause the chem final’s tomorrow morning, and I have a history project due after lunch.”

Leading the way to the Impala, Dean clasped a hand to Sam’s shoulder.  “Shouldn’t be a problem, Sammy.  Just a quick run there and back.”

Sam ducked out from under his brother’s grasp and slid into the passenger seat.  Dean handed him his backpack and hurried over to the driver’s side, checking his watch as he did so.  Damnit, it’s a forty-minute trip to the freaking airport and the plane leaves in forty-five minutes.  This is gonna be close.  Before the Impala had left the parking lot, Sam had his chemistry text out and was studying it with the same single-mindedness he showed when researching the details of whatever hunt Dean was helping their dad out with.  Huh.  Never really noticed it before, but Sammy doesn’t volunteer to do the research when Dad runs a solo gig – only the ones I help out on, or the ones we both do.

Dismissing the irrelevant thought, Dean turned his attention to fighting the lunch rush-hour traffic that had sprung up seemingly instantaneously.  The Impala was making good time until Dean made to turn off of North Saginaw Boulevard onto the on-ramp for I-820.  A produce truck had apparently clipped a light pole, which had then toppled onto some power lines.  “What the…?  I mean, seriously,” Dean muttered, pulling to a stop.  Unfortunately, traffic was heavy enough that he was unable to merely turn the car around and search out a different on-ramp.  By the time traffic had cleared enough to allow such a maneuver, the clean-up crew for the downed power lines was just finishing up, and the flight he and Sammy should have been on had definitely left without them – they’d been boxed in at the on-ramp for the better part of four hours.  Sighing in frustration, Dean ejected the Black Sabbath tape he’d had in the player just in time to hear a radio announcer.

“In breaking news, American Airlines flight 1420 crash-landed on arrival in Little Rock, Arkansas less than fifteen minutes ago.  There is no word yet on a cause for this accident, but it has been confirmed that the pilot was killed when a steel walkway landed on the cockpit of the McDonnell Douglas MD-82,” Dean switched the radio off as suddenly as he’d ejected the tape.

Sam glanced up from his textbook, “What’s wrong?”

Dean mentally shook himself.  “Nothing, Sammy.  Let’s get a bite to eat before we head out.  I dunno ’bout you, but all this sitting and waiting’s made me hungry.  When we get on the road, you might wanna see if you can sleep on the way there.  It’s probably going to be about a ten-hour round trip, and you said you got that test tomorrow.”  And, like it or not, you’ll be driving the truck back.  Wonder if I should stop and get us a pair of those two-way radios, just so you can’t skip town on me?  Naw…  I’ll just make sure you take point on the way back.  Dean grinned a little and put the thought of the downed aircraft he and Sam should have been on out of his mind.

Act Five:  September 11, 2001

It was one day into the third week of a Sammy-less existence, and Dean was practically crawling out of his skin.  Strike that, Dean thought, checking his watch as he lay staring up at the ceiling, it’s now a full two days into the third week.  Sam was in California.  Dad was…  Well, he wasn’t here.  He’d mumbled something about a rawhead in Alabama and told Dean he’d call if he needed help.  That had been about an hour after Dean had returned to the last house John had rented, after he’d taken Sammy to the bus station.  Three hours after his dad had said the worst thing he possibly could have.  ‘If you go, don’t bother coming back.  Go on, have your normal life; turn your back on your family, your responsibilities.  Just don’t expect me to take you in again when you realize it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.’  Dean hadn’t said more than three words to his dad since that argument had ended.  The back door had slammed so hard the glass had cracked.  Dean knew what Sammy had been trying to do, and the real hell of it was that he had wanted his brother to get what he wanted.  He’d told their dad he had a full ride to Stanford.  He’d wanted to be told ‘good job’, not that he was turning traitor to the family.  Dean also knew what their dad had been trying to say with his angry words – ‘don’t leave, don’t go, we need you here, we need you safe’.  Dean didn’t know anymore who was right.

Sure, he’d helped Sammy with all the paperwork to get him into college, forging John’s signature when needed, thinking – much like his brother – that it would be a pleasant surprise for their dad.  They’d both remembered how choked-up the man had been when Dean got his high-school diploma; John hadn’t – he’d enlisted in the marines on his eighteenth birthday, forgoing the remainder of his education in favor of boot camp and the conflict in Vietnam.  They had both assumed that John would be proud of Sammy, proud that he’d gotten into college, that he’d gotten a full scholarship, that he’d have the chance for a life outside the hunt.  But, John being John, all he could see was that Sammy was leaving them to go it alone.  Unprotected.

Ever since leaving Sam at the Greyhound depot, Dean hadn’t slept well.  First, the bedroom of that last house was too echoingly empty.  The only things Sammy had left behind had been the weapons – with the exception of the sickle-like hand blade Dean had given him for his eighteenth birthday.  All his clothes, his small collection of paperbacks, his walkman…  They weren’t in their normal places.  After leaving the tiny, two bedroom house in South Carolina, John had departed presumably to Alabama, and Dean…  Dean had just got in the car and drove.

He’d packed himself into the Impala and rode until his eyes burned and he could hardly see the road.  He’d been parked in this nothing motel in Newark, New Jersey for a full week now and still he couldn’t get any meaningful rest.  The room was too quiet, just like the bedroom back in South Carolina had been.

Dean rolled over and stared at the bedside clock.  It was four in the morning.  He watched as the glowing numerals slowly blinked a full hour’s worth of time.  Another hour without Sam, without Dad.  He wondered if he should try calling Sam, but realized that it was probably still the middle of the night in California, and even if Sammy had been on the east coast, six o’clock in the morning wasn’t precisely a civilized hour in which to place a phone call.  Giving up on sleep, Dean got to his feet and slunk to the bathroom.  A hot shower helped soothe the tension in his shoulders, but not enough.

By the time he was done with his morning routine – and he was still listening for Sam to beat on the door, telling him to hurry up and not use all the hot water, wasn’t he? – he felt a little more human, though still missing Sam and still angry at their dad.  Going back into the room proper, he heard the distinctive beep-pause-beep from his cell that told him he had a voicemail waiting.  He pulled up the missed call list and noticed that it was a San Francisco area number.  Cracking a grin, Sammy must be indulging in a little of that college-partying they show on all the movies, he dialed his mailbox and waded through the automated system to get to the message.

He nearly dropped the phone at what he heard.

“This is Dr. Emrys at San Francisco General.  A Samuel Winchester had this number on a card in his wallet as an emergency contact number.  Please call back as soon as you can, my extension is 4839.  Thank you.”

Dean had the number dialed and the extension typed in within three heartbeats, his mind latching onto the past-tense of the doctor’s singularly uninformative message, had.  The phone rang three times before the same cultured voice that had left the message on Dean’s voice mail answered, “Dr. Emrys.”

Dean swallowed hard past the iron lump in his throat, “This is Dean Winchester – you left a message on my phone a little while ago about my brother?”

“Yes, I did.  Thank you for returning my call so promptly, Mr. Winchester,” the doctor replied.

“Can the small talk, doc.  What happened to my brother?”  Dean’s voice belied the fear and worry chasing each other through his brain.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Winchester, it was nothing too serious.  Samuel –”

“Sam,” Dean corrected absently, his imagination still conjuring up one gruesome scenario after another.

“Yes, of course.  Sam was involved in a car accident at roughly midnight.  The taxi he was riding in was broad-sided by a drunk-driver.”

“How is he?” Dean interrupted again.

“He suffered a moderate concussion, some bruised ribs, and a hairline fracture in his right wrist.  We’re keeping him in for observation until we can be sure there won’t be any complications from the head injury, but this is merely a precaution on our part.”

With that, Dean could breathe again.  “Thanks, doc.  I’ll be out that direction soon…  Um, could you not tell Sammy you called me?”

“Whyever not?”  The doctor was obviously a little confused by that particular request.

“It’s kinda a long story,” Dean replied.  “Besides, I don’t know how quick I can make it that direction – I’m in New Jersey right now.  I’d hate to let the kid down.”

The doctor let out a light chuckle, “Ah, now it becomes clear.  Don’t worry, son.  I’ve got three little sisters – I know where you’re coming from.”

“Thanks again, doc.”  Dean ended the call and spent a full minute staring at it, willing his pulse to return to something resembling normal.

Once he could no longer count his heartbeat behind his eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly before reaching for the battered phone book on the bedside table.  By six o’clock, he had the information he needed.  The next flight to the San Francisco area from the Newark airport was scheduled for eight o’clock.  He was on his way to the airport with every intention of being on that plane when he missed the turn.  He had been preoccupied switching out the cassette in the player and just didn’t notice it fly past in the hazy gloom of predawn.

Fuck, he thought when he realized his mistake.  He caught sight of his own reflection in the corner of the rear-view mirror and shrugged a little.  “Screw it.  Don’t know how long Sammy’ll need me out there anyway, and I don’t wanna leave you in the parking lot,” he addressed his comments to the Impala.  Cranking the volume on the stereo, he settled in for a long drive.

At a quarter to ten, the Impala’s gas-gauge was hovering just above ‘E’.  Dean pulled off the two-lane blacktop and into a small service-station in a nowhere town in southern Pennsylvania.  While waiting for the tank to fill, he meandered into the store and located something that vaguely resembled food – namely, a bottle of soda and a package of jerky.  The crowd of half a dozen locals crowded at the counter didn’t really register until he walked up and joined them, hoping that this wouldn’t take long – he needed to get back on the road; Sammy needed him, even if the kid didn’t know it yet.

He stopped short when he noticed what had captured the locals’ attention.  A thirteen-inch television with tinfoil on the antenna was broadcasting footage of breaking news in New York and Washington D.C.  The image cut to a somewhat shaky view of the Twin Towers in Manhattan, smoke pouring from both.  While watching, one of the towers – the one without the radio antenna – collapsed entirely.  Even the newscasters were speechless.

“What the hell?” Dean’s low voice sounded loud in the silence.

“Some whackos hijacked a coupla planes an’ crashed ’em inta the towers,” an old man in grease-stained coveralls replied.  “Where you been all morning, sonny?”

Dean shook his head a little, “On the road, just trying to get to California.” 

Once again, silence reigned in the gas station.  A pretty brunette standing just in front of Dean had tears flowing freely down her face, though she didn’t seem to notice them.  This is nuts.  More nuts than ghosts, than creatures that shouldn’t exist outside of nightmares.  And it’s worse than all of that, just because it’s just people.  Just psycho crazy lunatics, sure, but just people all the same.  A low sound interrupted Dean’s train of thought.  “What is that?” he asked, drawing the small crowd’s attention to him.

“What?” the pretty brunette in the brown jacket asked. 

“Listen,” Dean replied, cocking his head to the side.  “It’s outside,” he sat his jerky and soda on the counter and headed over to the door.  The humming noise grew louder and louder and within moments it was shaking bottles on the racks and rattling the windows in their frames and couldn’t actually be described as a ‘hum’ any longer – it had to be upgraded to ‘roar’.  Suddenly, the sound clicked in Dean’s brain.  “It’s a fucking plane!” he shouted over the roar moments before it appeared in the limited viewing area of the window.

The airplane looked massive when viewed through the windows.  It was close, maybe only five hundred feet up when it passed over the gas station.  Dean, followed closely by the old man, the pretty brunette, and the other four people who had been watching the television, stumbled out into the parking lot.  They watched as the plane appeared to somersault across a field about a mile away before disappearing into a ball of fire.  Moments later, a strong wind, the concussion blast of hot air caused by the explosion, swept across the little gas’n’go, rattling the windows in the store once again. 

“What the hell is going on?” Dean muttered to himself as the wind died down.

“I don’t know,” the pretty brunette replied.  “I wish I did.”

 The brunette just looked so… lost, Dean did what felt natural.  He put an arm around her shoulders.  “It’ll be okay,” he said.  “I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“I hope so,” she said, looking up at Dean through her tears. 

“I’m Dean.”

“Carmelita, though most people just call me Cammy.” 

Dean escorted Cammy back into the store.  “Come on, Cammy, let’s go sit at that table by the coffee machine before you fall down.”

Just before ducking back into the store, Dean cast one last glance at the smoke in the field where the plane had exploded.  I’m never even gonna think about getting on an airplane again for the rest of my life.  Five near-misses in one life is more than enough.  Half an hour later, he reaffirmed that thought and promised himself a date with a tequila bottle that evening.  The plane he saw go down was the same plane he had intended to take to see Sammy before missing the turn and deciding that maybe he should take the car instead.  Nope, no more airplanes for this kid.  You can bank on that.