Distress Call

Distress Call

A Supernatural story by Jennie @DeanIsntFine

This is the conclusion to my #Saileen story "Safe Harbor."
It is a #Saileen, Sam-centered retelling of 12.21 "There's Something About Mary."

PROLOGUE

Gun in hand, Eileen fled through the silent woods.

She could feel the vibrations of the hellhound's heavy footfalls closing in.

She turned and fired, but her shots had no effect.

As she felt the beast's jaws clamp down, smelled its fetid breath, she cried out.

Her last thoughts were of Sam.

CHAPTER 1

Sam kept watch while Dean jimmied the lock on their mom’s motel room. Dean opened the door, then strode quickly in, calling out for her.

Sam stayed by the entrance, studying the room’s contents -- or lack thereof. He didn’t see any sign that their mom was still using the room.

Dean came out of the bathroom after checking the tub. “Well, looks like she hasn't been here for a while.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “All her stuff is gone. Did she say she was moving on or –”

“No, I told you what she said. She said, ‘Dean, call me. We have a problem.’ And then that was it. She didn't sound happy.”

Sam sighed. “OK, well, when she's not here, she's been bunking with the Brits. So maybe –”

Dean, agitated, cut him off again. “Well, dude, I've called Mick, like, six times. He's been radio silent since they sent him to London.”

Sam listened in while Dean called Ketch. None of this was making any sense. His misgivings about the British Men of Letters and the way they operated had deepened into distrust -- and something that felt like dread.

As Dean disconnected the call with Ketch, he said, “Such a dick.”

Sam said, “And?”

“He says he hasn't seen Mom in over a week,” Dean said.

It just wasn’t adding up, Sam thought. “But Mom called two days ago, said she was working a case with him.”

“Which means he's lying,” Dean said. Sam could tell his brother was just as tired as he was of spinning their wheels and getting nowhere.

“But why would he –” Sam began, when the ringing of his phone interrupted him. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw Jody’s name on the caller ID.

“Jody, hey.”

On the other end of the line, the sheriff’s voice was strained. “Sam, have you heard?”

“No, what?” he asked.

“A hunter, Eileen Leahy, was found dead in South Carolina.”

Sam’s breath caught in his throat, and his stomach clenched. Pain began blooming in his chest.

“No. Uh, no, we hadn't heard.”

Dean, reading Sam’s reaction, wanted to know if the call was about their mom. Distracted, devastated, Sam shook his head.

“Um, when?” he asked Jody. “What the hell happened?”

“Two nights ago. Mauled. They’re saying animal attack, but… nothing that big in those woods.”

“Oh, no. No, I-- I …”

Flashes of Eileen’s face, her smile, her laugh, stabbed through Sam’s thoughts. He felt dizzy, shaky on his feet.

“Everything OK, Sam?” Jody asked.

“Yeah, thanks for letting me know. Bye.”

Dean eyed his brother carefully. “Who?” he asked.

Sam managed to choke out the word. “Eileen.”

Dean dipped his head and bit back a curse. “How?”

Sam scrubbed at his jaw, tears welling in his eyes. “She was, uh, mauled by a wild animal in a wooded area that doesn't have animals that do that. In South Carolina.”

Dean, puzzled, said, “But I thought she was in Ireland.”

Sam shrugged, threw one hand up and spun away, taking a moment to collect himself. But the pain in his chest wouldn’t let up. Eileen…

“Sam…” Dean said.

Gotta bury it, Sam thought, taking a deep breath. Gotta keep it together, keep moving. Right now, there was Mom to worry about.

Sam turned back to his brother. “Dean, that's the second hunter death we've heard about in two weeks.”

“I know. But two doesn't mean a pattern.”

“Three would.”

“Meaning?”

“Mom's a hunter, and no one knows where she is.”

CHAPTER 2

Sam looked down at Eileen, laid out on the cold, hard morgue table. Leaves and twigs were caught in her tangled hair. He fought an impulse to reach out, to pluck them away, to smooth the dark waves surrounding her battered face. 

Sam’s jaw worked as he studied her, his emotions swirling, grief threatening to drown him. She looked small, pale, vulnerable. There was no trace left of the strong, smart, sassy hunter -- like him, a legacy -- who he’d been falling in love with.

Sam didn’t notice Dean watching him, nor the depth of the concern playing across his older brother’s face.

On the long drive to South Carolina, Dean had repeatedly asked Sam how he was doing. 

Sam, for his part, had answered in monosyllables, staring at the miles unspooling out the window.

Dean had known about Sam’s kindling relationship with Eileen, about the night the two of them had shared in the bunker, when she was still distraught over accidentally shooting Renny while gunning for Dagon. 

The brothers had talked a lot about Sam wanting something more, and Dean had agreed that Eileen -- capable, quick and sharp -- fit the bill nicely for his brother. It was good. 

Now this. 

Sam struggled to keep his composure, but tears brimmed in his eyes. 

“People who do what we do, you know there are gonna be deaths,” Sam said. “But this…” 

Feels different, he thought but didn’t say. Like it had being in her arms. Being her friend. Daring to hope for more. 

“These wounds,” Dean said. “I mean, we've only seen something this bad a few times.”

“Hellhound?” Sam rasped. His stomach lurched as images came flooding -- unbidden -- into his mind, memories of watching years ago as his brother was ripped apart by one of the formidable invisible beasts, sent by Lilith to drag Dean’s soul to hell. 

“Yeah,” Dean said, perplexed. “But it doesn't make any sense. Why would a demon sic a hellhound on her? Why did she leave Ireland?”

“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam said, frustration simmering in his voice. His brother wanted answers that Sam didn’t have. But he should, he thought. He should know what she was doing there. He should know why she’d come back to the States. 

But Sam didn’t know. He hadn’t heard from Eileen in weeks. And he hadn’t pushed. 

He thought she needed time, space. And not just because of what had happened with Renny. Because of what had happened with Sam. 

He thought back to that night in the bunker. He and Eileen had both let their defenses slip, had spent a few precious hours entwined in his bed, drinking in the scents, the sensations -- away from the horrors of their work, the world. For a while, they’d made a safe harbor for themselves, for each other. 

It had felt somehow different for Sam. No urgency. No shame. No secrets. 

Eileen was tough, he’d thought then, and had felt a burden lift. She didn’t need him to save her.

And just look what had happened, he thought now, grimacing, her broken body before him on the slab. 

He’d given Eileen her space. Just like they’d given Mom. And now she was gone, too. 

Dean spoke, breaking Sam out of his reverie. “All right,” he said. “Well, counting Eileen, that makes seven hunters in three weeks.”

“Yeah, and those are the ones we know about,” Sam said.

“Seven monster-related deaths,” Dean said. “I mean, what, did all the things out there suddenly start working together?”

“Dean, monsters and demons don't team up,” Sam said, his anger rising. “Seven hunters are gone. We can't grab a signal from Mom's phone. Cas has Kelly Kline who knows where. Mick has slipped off the grid. Ketch is lying to us. I-- I wanna punch something in the face.”

That wasn’t the whole truth. Sam wanted to scream, cry, howl. But he couldn’t fall apart in front of his brother. He had to find answers. He had to find Mom. 

“Good. Hold on to that,” Dean said. “‘Cause it looks like we got a hellhound to deal with.”

CHAPTER 3

Back in Lebanon at last, after days on the road. Sam was mentally and physically exhausted, but he kept working the phone, checking on other hunters, seeing if everyone was OK. 

Crowley, predictably, had been no help when they’d asked him about the hellhound. As for the deaths of a bunch of hunters, well -- the king of hell wasn’t shedding any tears.

Dean trotted down the steps of the post office just as Sam was wrapping up another call. 

“Yeah,” Sam said into the phone. “Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Thanks.” He hung up. To Dean, he said, “So I've been calling around about all of the hunters that died. Um, every one of them had years of experience.”

The troubled, tense look on Dean’s face stopped Sam in mid-thought.

“We got a letter from Eileen,” Dean said.

Sam felt his stomach plunge again. Every time he thought he had a grip on his feelings, there was another blow to the gut. “Eileen?” he said. 

“She sent it four days ago,” Dean said. “It went snail mail 'cause she thought that her phone and her computer were both hacked. She left Ireland because she was scared.”

Sam couldn’t get his mind wrapped around any of this. “Scared of what?” 

“Well, after she accidentally killed that  Brit douche Renny, she thought that the British Men of Letters were on her,” Dean said, handing the letter over to Sam.

Sam felt his composure crack as he held what amounted to Eileen’s last words in his hand. He read: "I know they're following me, watching me. They tapped my phone. I found a microphone in my room.”

His voice broke as he continued: “I hate to be all girly, but I could bunk with you guys for a few days until I sort this out?" 

An ugly mix of emotions swirled in Sam as he tried to keep control. The Brits. Again. 

He felt ... angry, guilty, helpless, cheated. What he’d had. What he’d lost. What had never been. 

And the darkest thought of all came before he could swat it away: that Eileen had been doomed the second she’d let Sam into her life.

“You think the Brits were watching her?” Dean said. 

Sam stifled the storm in his head and forced himself to focus on the situation at hand. “If Eileen says they were –” 

“Then maybe they're the ones that killed her,” Dean said.

Starting to put the pieces together, Sam thought: Maybe it's open season on American hunters. His dread deepened, as did his fear for his mother.

CHAPTER 4

Back at the bunker, Sam stewed as he and Dean swept their home for bugs.

Sam ran his hands over a high shelf in the library, coming away with only dust. He felt angry. Worse, he felt stupid. 

I can’t believe I helped them, he thought. He’d fallen for the Brits’ sales pitch. Hook, line and sinker. He’d thought they were changing the world. 

Dean had been distrustful from the jump, had tried to warn him, but he hadn’t listened. 

Sam sighed as he moved on to the telescope at the far end of the room. And it’s even worse than that, he admitted to himself. I thought if I went along with what they were doing, what Mom was doing, it’d bring her and me closer.

Anyone could see that Mary had been distant from Sam and Dean since she’d been back. Dean had been desperate to pick up with her where he’d left off as a boy, and he was hurt badly when Mom hadn’t immediately returned his affection.

But Sam didn’t have any memories, any link at all to even long for. He'd felt an urgent need to build something with his mother, to forge the bond that he’d never gotten the chance to experience. 

When she fell in with the Brits, she’d seen a way to make a difference, to rid the world of monsters. And Sam had wanted in -- as much to be by her side as anything else. 

Sam finished searching the library. No joy. As he walked down the steps into the war room, Dean waved and pointed under the map table. Next to the holster where Dean always kept a revolver handy, there it was: a small microphone with a transmitter attached.

He and Dean stayed silent, but the look they traded said it all. 

Their home. It’d been violated.

CHAPTER 5

Sam and Dean drove out to the old iron works to put their plan into motion. They’d whipped up a quick script and play-acted into the microphone, to draw the Brits out to the desolated site. Now they had to see what their trap would snag. 

No matter who showed up, Sam thought, he and his brother were going to get some answers.

And maybe some justice. For Eileen.

Right at 9, the brothers climbed out of the Impala, making a show of looking around, and went inside the abandoned warehouse. They quickly went out the back, circled around in the woods, and waited. 

Sure enough, two guys who looked like Brit commandos came around the corner, armed to the teeth, and slipped inside. Sam and Dean ran up, quietly, and barricaded them in, then headed off toward the car the two had emerged from.

Sam came around the passenger side, then winced when he saw who was behind the wheel. Toni Bevell.

As Dean took up his position on the driver’s side, Sam smashed the butt of his gun into the passenger window. He ducked out of the way as Toni turned toward the sound and fired. 

Sam rushed around the back of the car as Dean grabbed the gun from Toni and pulled her out of the car. As the two of them struggled, she landed a solid kick to Dean’s groin.

She reached for her gun, but Sam was there, grinding the weapon into the ground under his boot. 

As he stared down the barrel of his gun at Toni, she slowly rose, hands in the air.

“You keep that up,” Dean managed over the pain, “we’re gonna have to start dating.” 

But Sam didn’t hear the quip. He kept his sights on Toni, the gun trembling just slightly in his hands as his mind raged. 

It's her, he thought. The person who had torn into his mind, had nearly broken him -- not with pain, but with pleasure. 

When torture hadn’t worked, she’d stolen his will to make that connection, to open a channel, to get the information flowing.

She’d trapped him inside a fantasy, he thought. A cage lit with candles and lined with satin sheets. 

He shuddered with fury and shame. All an illusion. And, he realized now, an ugly perversion of the very real connection he’d later made with Eileen. 

To think that this piece of human garbage had used him, and probably was responsible for what had happened to Eileen? To the other hunters?

Oh, how he itched to put a bullet between Bevell’s blue eyes.

But they needed her, Sam thought as he and Dean frisked her and loaded her into the back of the Impala. Now she would be the one giving up the information.

Whatever it took, Sam thought. She was going to tell them what had happened to their mother.

CHAPTER 6

The inside of the car flared with light, then faded to black, as they raced under the streetlights. 

Dean, knuckles white on the wheel, arrowed the Impala back toward the bunker, while Sam kept his gun on Toni where she perched, primly, in the center of the back seat. 

Despite her circumstances, she still looked so haughty, so poised, so regal… He ached to smash the barrel of his gun into her smug face.

“Why are you spying on us?” Sam demanded. “And what do you know about Eileen Leahy?”

“Who?”  

“Did you – did your people -- did they kill her?” Dean asked.

“Probably,” Toni answered breezily. “Rule of thumb – if you think we killed someone, then we probably did.”

Sam’s vision blurred, and he struggled again to keep his rage under wraps.

“Speaking of,” Toni continued, “you do realize that by attacking me, you invite the retribution of the entire British Men of Letters? No investigation, no trial. Just punishment and ruin. Possibly at the hands of Mary Winchester.”

Sam and Dean exchanged troubled glances. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dean asked. 

“Your mother?” Toni said. “She's our permanent guest.”

Sam’s anger rose as he waved his gun. “She's your prisoner? Why?”

“Prisoner?” Toni answered, a self-satisfied smile spreading on her face. “No, Mary's joined the team. Even has her own super-secret decoder ring.”

“You're lying!” Sam barked.

“You're right. There is no ring,” Toni said. She arranged her face into a wistful mien. “Oh, boys and their mums. You see her as Mummy. We see her as one of our best killers.”

Sam eyed his brother. He knew that by soiling Dean’s image of their mother, Toni was venturing into dangerous territory. She obviously knew it too. She was baiting him.  

“You know, just 'cause she works with Ketch doesn't mean she likes him. Or you,” Dean insisted.

“Oh, that Oedipal myopia again,” Toni laughed. “And did you really think she was just ‘working’ with Ketch? All of those days and nights?” 

Sam could see where this was going. “That's enough,” he snapped.

Toni drove the dagger home: “He said it was some of the best sex he’d ever had.”

Dean slammed on the brakes, and the Impala skittered to a stop. He turned on Toni, enraged: “You wanna rethink that?” 

“Fine,” Toni said. “He said it was the best sex he’d ever had.” She was enjoying pushing their buttons far too much, Sam thought. The manipulative bitch. 

As his brother wheeled around to throttle Toni, Sam reached out to stop him. Dean relented, and got the car moving again. 

Sam steered back to the business at hand. “What about Mick? Where is he in all of this?” 

“Oh, Mick's dead.”

Confusion again crashed down on Sam. “He's dead?” They’d been in nearly constant contact for a while there. Who was feeding them cases if it wasn’t Mick?

Toni continued: “Quite. It was determined he was too sentimental for the job. Turns out, he was too much like you two and all the other U.S. hunters. Ergo, soon each and every hunter in this country will join him.”

Sam’s thoughts spun out of control as the scope of what she was saying sunk in. 

Arrogant, amoral, Toni chirped on: “Jody Mills, Claire Novak, all of your other flannel-wearing, whiskey-swilling friends? They're dead.”

CHAPTER 7

As they walked down the bunker stairs with Toni in tow, Sam was already thinking about all the phone calls he needed to make, all the friends he needed to check on. 

“So, we’re clear?” Dean said to Toni as they reached the bottom. “You call Ketch, tell him if he wants to see you alive, he gets his prissy ass over here.”

Sam and Dean snapped into battle mode when they heard the smarmy voice say: “Interestingly, his prissy ass is already here.” Ketch appeared, with several of his goons alongside. And they had the brothers surrounded. 

Sam immediately pointed his gun at Ketch. 

Ketch sneered and said, “Lady Bevell, would you mind disarming them?”

Sam and Dean exchanged a wordless glance, and Sam gave an imperceptible nod. 

As Toni reached to take his gun, Sam grabbed her hand and fired at the Brit goon to his right. A clean headshot. 

Within a heartbeat, Dean had pulled his pistol from his waistband and had fired -- behind his back -- drilling another of Ketch’s cronies in the forehead.   

Sam wasted no time -- and had no compunction using Toni as a human shield. He started firing in Ketch’s direction as he pulled her along, taking shelter in the doorway. 

Dean was huddled on the opposite side of the war room. Sam kept firing, signaling Dean to go around and try to get behind Ketch. 

Sam heard a shot in the hall where Dean had gone. He flinched but kept a firm hold on Toni, firing all the while. Then, Sam saw a blur come in low behind Ketch as Dean slid up and disarmed the Brit. 

Dean pointed his pistol at Ketch’s head. “Get up,” he ordered.

“All right, Ketch,” Sam called, maintaining his death grip on Toni. “How many more guys are in here?” 

“Our mom – Where is she?!” Dean demanded. 

Just then, Sam heard a voice behind him. Mom.

“Don’t move,” Mary said.  

“Ah, speak of the devil,” Ketch sneered.

Such arrogance, still, Sam thought. “Perfect timing, Mom,” he said.

“Just stay where you are,” Mary said, more firmly. 

Smiling, Ketch bent to reach for his gun. 

Dean cut him off. “Hey! You heard her!”

“I was talking to you,” Mary said, aiming her gun at Dean.

Sam watched as a look of pain and puzzlement darkened Dean’s face. “Mom? Hey!”

Sam flinched again as Mary fired a warning shot into the pillar, just inches from Dean. As Dean ducked, Ketch recovered both his gun and Dean's.  

Stunned, Sam shouted: “Ketch, stop!”

Ketch pointed one weapon at Sam, keeping the other trained on Dean. “I really wouldn't move,” Ketch advised. “She will shoot you.”

Sam’s shock was mirrored in the desperation, the disappointment on Dean’s face as their mother walked up to Sam and took his gun.

As Toni broke away from Sam, she said, “Mummy always was a talented hunter. Just somewhat confused about obeying orders.”

Steaming, Sam said, “What did you do to her?” But deep down, he knew. Toni had clawed inside his mother’s mind, wrenched away her will, just as she had his. 

Something Mom and I share. Of course. The dark irony twisted his lips into a rueful grin. 

Ketch headed for the stairs, Mary in tow. Sam could see as she climbed that her eyes were somewhat glazed, her movements robotic. “Lady Bevell cleared up that confusion,” Ketch said. “And I suspect she told you that the American hunters are a dying breed. Hmm?”

Toni headed for the stairs to join them.

Ketch trained a gun on her. “Oh, for heaven's sake, where do you think you're going?”

Toni sputtered in disbelief. “Ketch!” 

“Remember at Kendricks, how they taught us that we were all expendable? That wasn't idle chat,” Ketch said, forcing her farther back into the war room.

Dean was oblivious to this new drama playing out between the Brits. “Mom?” he bellowed. “Look at me!”

Mary looked dispassionately over the railing, pointing guns at both her boys. 

Dean, his voice hoarse, cried, “It's us. Please! What's wrong with you? Mom!” 

Sam moved next to his brother for support as Ketch prattled on about the bunker’s fitness as both fortress and tomb. 

He’s leaving. With Mom, Sam thought, trying to wrap his mind around the sudden turn of events. He’s leaving us to die. 

“Come along, Mary,” Ketch said at last. Sam looked for some spark of recognition from their mother, but there was nothing. She was already gone. 

Sam shook his head sadly as Dean bellowed “No!” and bounded up the bunker steps, reaching the top just as the door slammed shut. 

Sam turned his attention at last to Toni, taking no small measure of delight in the fact that her smug shell had finally cracked.

He eyed her carefully. For the first time since she’d chained him up in that basement, she didn’t seem sure of how things would turn out. 

Good, Sam thought bitterly, a deep rage simmering. 

The British Men of Letters had robbed him of Eileen, then robbed him of his mother -- just as he was beginning to love them both. 

He and Dean were going to get out of here, Sam thought. There had to be a way. There always was.  

And when they did, there’d be hell to pay.