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Dean is apparently living at Jo's. Leah is working and while she usually has time for a drink, Sam doesn't want to interrupt her, or hang around too much. No jobs to do, that he knows of. No real desire to go out by himself to do them, either. There's nothing wrong with his car and he's not Dean - meaningless tune-ups don't interest him. His guns and knives have been cleaned and polished, he's stocked up on bullets, salt, holy water. Ransacked more than a few bookstores and churches. Sat around the apartment he usually shares with his brother and stared at blank walls.

Sam is bored. Very, very bored.

And in Kansas.

Metropolis is a few hours from Lawrence. What's in Lawrence is... complicated. But maybe it's time he finally checked it out. Looked it in the eye and addressed it's existence.

(the "it" in question is debatable)

For now, Sam Winchester is sitting on the front step of the apartment building he sleeps in, frowning to the north.

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She's not Dean. And the list of things she's done that others wanted to get her for isn't exactly short. But her tone is calm and as faintly curious as it is simply remarking.

"You don't seem so sure."

"I'm not."

Said simply, unashamed. This isn't hunting, it's a release from boredom. Maybe even an innocent one.

Brown eyes are tracking north again.

"...how long's it been since you were in Lawrence?"

Her eyebrows lifted only just barely. It went from quiet recognition straight into thinking about the questing in under a second.

"Few months." Before -- Before those few months. Before that Horror World. She frowned absently. "Maybe longer."

Quiet again. Considering. Not so much what to tell her but why, exactly, does he want to go.

It's not completely out of boredom.

"Do you think they're still there?"

Jess. Deana. Mary.

Another Sam.

It's not exactly a grimace, or a shrug, when she shifts her shoulders. "Maybe. It's been a while since anyone checked in there."

Sam nods.

That's more of a reason to go, really. If he takes the Porsche and there are people there, they won't recognize the car and he won't get out to greet them. And if they're not there then...

Well.

It's almost awkward without quite being so.

Dean's in her house and Sam on their stairs and she knows where he's going and she's not inclined to lie to at least two of the people who've done what can't be thanked in words....and at the same time, she's not thinking about that.

She's watching Sam nod, watching Sam watching the northern sky; hating that the multiverse is ripping into someone new in front of her.

"When are you thinking about going?"

"I don't know. Today, maybe."

He should tell Dean. Actually, no, he shouldn't, because Dean will get that look on his face from when anybody mentions the "other" Sam and this Sam doesn't want to see it. Or hear about what a bad idea it is, or how what's in the past should stay in the past, or how it won't help...

Or anything else Dean ever says to keep Sammy from delving too deep.

Sam looks up at her again, as if suddenly reminded that Jo is there and watching him. "It's no secret," he points out, smiling a little, maybe at the look on her face, maybe about the look on his. "What's Dean doing today anyway?"

"He's on a quest for the holy grail snack food," Jo said, a little tighter than blase. But her face said, really what could you do, Dean was a pig where it came to food and Sam knew that already.

Which explains his smirk-and-snort reaction, shaking his head a little. Fond amusement.

There's no one more important in Sam's life than his brother. But that doesn't mean, and has never meant, that they should share everything.

He pushes up from the porch, hands slipping into the pockets of his jacket, where keys jingle. "I should get going before it gets dark," he says, as if it explains everything.

Her shoulders settle, watching him stand, watching him become the tower that bores over her in the still present light. She wonders if she'll ever not stop a second in her head to notice it, even if it doesn't cross her face.

Which thinking that, makes it even odder.

"You don't have to go alone."

And maybe somewhere she's thinking Dean left her with Rachel in tow to go with Jack to her trashed home, and he left her in a bar in a home she can't reach, and in a bar at the end of the universe.....and that he's stayed, he's stayed now....but that doesn't mean she has to leave Sam just this second.

She gets that some things are bigger than your past and your debts.

Edited 2009-09-22 13:51 (UTC)

He looks at her again and there's something-- else in his gaze. Open, like the shades have been drawn and for a brief moment, there's an intense vulnerability there. Like the first time he ever looked at her, young and still hurting from the loss of his father.

Sam almost turns her down by rote, habit. If it's not Dean, they shouldn't be in the car. But it's the Porsche that's waiting and a town filled with mirrors and Dean shouldn't have to go back to a place that makes him look like that.

A shrug, a nod toward the car painted midnight blue.

Jo stood there--

For a second, a second here and then gone, lost in the autumn wind that ruffles her blonde curls against her cheeks, because like she had she meant to offer herself? and she wasn't about to leave them yet before it was all only the chill on her skin.

--and then she walked to the car.

The locks have be handled manually. The Porsche is even older than the Impala. But the interior is well taken care of and there are tapes in the glove box - though nothing in the stereo.

Sam slides into the driver's side and fires up the engine, smooth and natural the way he never was when driving the Impala. That was always on loan, an inheritance he shouldn't have had. This car is nothing special, aside from being his.

This time, when he turns his gaze north, it's to focus on the highway. But Lawrence never leaves his mind.

Getting out of the city is easy, even if being in a car is strange. The last car she was in, she can vividly remember. She spent the entire ride trying to both convince herself to and not to kill an incredibly broken, battered child.

She doesn't even know what happened to the girl.

It's nothing like that, really. And it's nothing like driving in the Impala. There's no music blaring through the speakers, and the silence isn't uncomfortable. It's just there, sitting between them like concrete steps in the setting sun.

Sam doesn't drive slow but he isn't reckless either. Careful, controlled and at the same time, utterly casual.

He's done a lot of driving on his own lately and a lot of driving with women he barely knows in the passenger seat. But this is more comfortable than Ruby, for obvious reasons. And more comfortable than Leah, for less obvious reasons he really doesn't want to examine.

There are definitely worse silences.

They both know that intimately.

And still, Jo, picked that second to drum her fingers on her jeans, and break it with her voice. "Do you have a plan for once you get there?"

It's almost startling to have it broken, though Sam's reaction is minor. A tiny lift of his eyebrows, as if suddenly reminded of her presence.

He shrugs, lips turned down and eyes on the road. "Not really? Just... figured I should check it out."

And why not now?

It says something that he might be able to forget she's there. Even quite, even between cars and memories, she hasn't quite forgotten who she's in a very small, enclosed space with.

"You mind a stop by my old place?"

She's quieter than anyone else he's ever had in the car.

Now he glances at her, almost curious, but his eyes are back on the road soon enough. "Is it far?"

She's quieter than anyone would believe Jo Harvelle could be, too. At least those who haven't dealt with the treatment of it for so many weeks the shock is gone.

"Halfway down the same street. Being underfoot blew."

Even if Mary had been kind about the tea and invitation.

He doesn't ask.

But he does nod.

"Sure."

He rarely did.

And never of her, really.

She made a quiet, affirmative noise, and studied the debris of a billboard sign, broken and burned up, as they passed it.

The hours to Lawrence pass slower than the miles.

Sam's only driven this road once before. When they'd first gone, he'd had his eyes on the map constantly, figuring out the route. He never reaches for the glove box this time. His eyes on the road and hands on the wheel, he remembers where to go.

And the street that holds the house he was born in is even lonelier, dustier than it was four years ago.

Jo's eyes narrowed, eying the lack of an impala on the street. "Deana's not here."

She says, with the same even tone. The same way she would if she walked out and Dean's impala wasn't anywhere near her house. The two are tied.