Title: Nothing and Everything

Chapter 15

~~~~~~~~~~

When Gwen emerged from the bathroom, showered and dressed in clean clothes, she found only Jo waiting. “Where’d the guys go?”

“There’s a restaurant down the street that has a small dining room, so they went to grab us a table. It fills up fast and there can be a wait for a table.” Jo remained sitting on one bed, watching her. “The Trickster….. Did he hurt you,” she asked in a cautious tone, her eyes narrowed.

“How did you know it was him?” Gwen sat on the other bed and reached for her boots.

“Sam figured it out pretty quickly. The circumstances surrounding your disappearance and all that.” She shifted position, leaning towards Gwen. “Gwen. Answer the question. Did he hurt you?”

One boot on, she sat up and turned her head, looking at Jo. There’d been an emphasis on the word ‘hurt’, like she meant hurt in more than the usual sort of way. With a chill, it dawned on her what Jo was trying to ask in a delicate way. She was asking if Gwen had been raped during those days. “Jo…. You mean rape. That’s what you’re asking isn’t it? You want to know if he raped me.”

Slowly Jo nodded. “He seemed to…like you a lot.”

An understatement and more delicate wording. “No. He didn’t rape me, though he did try to seduce me a couple times.” She put on her other boot. “I’ll tell you guys everything, but I don’t really want to tell it more than once, so can we go?”

“Yeah. Sure.” She put on her coat and with an apologetic voice added, “I’m sorry, Gwen. I told Sam I’d ask. He was trying to figure out why you looked at him funny back at the building and got it into his head that the creature raped you. We couldn’t get him talked out of the idea, so I told him I’d ask, but he had to go with Dean to get a table and let me ask in private. He made me promise to ask as gently as possible.”

She didn’t miss the quick shake of Jo’s head when they joined Sam, Dean, and Jack at the table, nor did she miss the relief that played across Sam’s features.

Once they’d ordered, Dean crossed his arms on the table, fixed an inquiring gaze on her, and asked, “Was it definitely the Trickster took you?”

“Yes. He followed us here, followed me.”

“Now, I thought Abigael took care of him,” Jo said, trying to entice Jack to quit crying by tapping his mouth with the pacifier. He wasn’t taking the bait like usual, raising his hands and waving them around, refusing to take it. “She said she erased his memories.”

“It didn’t work for long, something about his mind being too different to be altered by angelic interference. I don’t know how long he’s been hanging around. He didn’t say. Avoided saying, rather. For all I know, he was back almost as fast as she’d dropped him back in Vegas.” The idea that he’d been hanging around watching her with Sam made her feel uneasy and Gwen resolved to get blinds for their two bedroom windows when they got back.

Sam’s expression darkened. “What did he want?”

She began talking, explaining what he’d said about Aaron and the box that contained a piece of his power. Gwen paused only once in her narrative, when their server brought their salads. As she spoke, she saw interest deepen in both Sam and Dean’s eyes. “He gave me an ultimatum. Six months.”

“Ultimatum?” Sam stopped eating and stared at her. “What’s that mean?” His voice was tight with tension, the words almost clipped.

“Then what? What’s he want after six months?” Dean pushed his half touched salad plate away. She’d noticed he wasn’t a big fan of salad and would eat only a little if he had one. “He plan to kill you?”

This was the part she didn’t want to talk about, the part that made her uncomfortable. She was already imagining what it would be like to give birth to a child she and Sam had made together only to discover it hadn’t been Sam with her the entire time. It was a terrible thing to contemplate that began to make her sick to her stomach. Gwen took a hasty drink from her water glass, then crossed her arms and sat back. The nausea remained, a slow roll in her belly. “Worse. He’ll kidnap me, pretend to be Sam….” She looked down at the table rather than see how Sam was reacting. Gwen could feel the tension rising at their table and spoke quickly. “He plans to get me pregnant, steal the child when it’s born, then leave me to feel that loss.” Silence greeted her announcement of the Trickster’s plans and she looked up.

Three pairs of eyes stared at her, each with differing levels of emotion. Jo’s held mild disgust, Dean’s had disgust and anger, and Sam’s…. Sam’s held pure rage that simmered slowly. His rage was different from the anger in Dean’s eyes, harder, hotter, and indicated there was going to be a dead Alpha Trickster sometime in the future. He’d signed his own death warrant and Sam planned to show no mercy.

“He says it’s fitting.” Gwen could barely get the words out.

“In what warped world,” Jo drawled, finally just taking Jack from his carrier and holding him against her shoulder, which was apparently what he wanted, eyes wide as he looked around behind Jo, his head bobbing just a little.

“His. The sin of the father visited on the daughter -- in a way. Taking a piece of me can be considered taking a piece of Aaron to replace the piece taken from him.”

Sam stacked Dean’s plate on top of his own empty one and set them by the edge of the table. “So that’s what all that was earlier about babies.”

“Yeah. He’d been pretending to be you already.” Gwen met his gaze with her own, trying to convey what had happened without saying it.

His lips pressed tight together, the ire returning. “He didn’t.”

She nodded. “He pretended to be you most of the time.”

“That was why you looked at me like you didn’t trust me.”

Definitely a dead Alpha in the future, she thought. “He tried to seduce me, talked about how we should have a baby, had this elaborate lie, but I knew it wasn’t you. You get this look in your eyes when we talk kids….” She lowered her gaze to the table top. “It was one way I knew.”

“What were the others?” Dean’s voice sounded oddly gentle and when she looked at him, she saw that he was watching her the way he did when he was looking for lies.

“Tone of voice, word choice. Some of the differences were so small I thought a couple times I was being stupid, but he couldn’t quite get Sam’s eyes right. He didn’t look at me how Sam does.” It was hard to explain and frightening to realize that the Trickster had, for a few minutes at least, been able to look at her the way Sam did. If he practiced, she’d never know the difference. She hugged herself now, cold despite the heat in the restaurant.

After a long moment, Dean’s expression shifted and he relaxed. He took a long drink from his glass.

Their food came, Jo settling Jack back into his carrier much to his loud disappointment. He was fussy, twisting and crying in the carrier, refusing to take the pacifier. Jo’s lips tightened and a flush began to grow on her cheeks, though Gwen doubted it was from embarrassment. More likely it was annoyance. Jack was usually good in public so when he wasn’t it annoyed Jo.

When they’d begun eating, Dean cleared his throat. “Go on.”

She took a deep breath and focused on cutting her chicken while she spoke. “He said my laughing at one of his jokes while knowing what he was attracted him like a mating call. Bobby pegged that right. Anyway, the Trickster had planned on wooing me eventually, try to take me away from Sam. He said he’d taken women away from human men before and he could do it again.”

“A little not-so-friendly competition,” Dean remarked, cutting a couple more bites of his Salisbury steak.

Sam slammed his knife and fork down so hard that Jack let out a startled scream. “So he gives you an impossible task, with the end result in his favor either way. If you win, he gets his piece of magic back and if you lose, he gets months of your life and a new generation of himself.” His nostrils flared, that ire that had been in his eyes bleeding back into them, though she realized she’d been wrong. Sam’s anger wasn’t hot, it was cold. Icy even and frightening. “Not to mention a way to keep you from hunting his kind.”

Gwen set her knife and fork down. The anger wasn’t directed at her, but it was still frightening to see the depths of it. She’d seen Sam angry before, but not like this. She’d seen him at his worst when he was soulless, but that was all calculation and logic. It hadn’t frightened her. This…. It was the first moment she’d seen something in him that flat-out scared her. He had the abilities of his soulless self inside him, yet under normal circumstances they were reigned in. Hurt someone he loved however…. She almost pitied the Trickster when Sam got hold of him. “Pretty much.” She found her appetite had decreased while discussing the matter and wasn’t sure she could eat much at all.

“Dick!”

Jack let out another screech and the level of sound in the restaurant diminished, people looking over at their table. Jo shot Sam a dirty look, once more trying to soothe the infant. “Sam. Could you dial it back a notch or ten? Please? I’d like to get him calmed down sometime soon.”

“Sorry, Jo.” He looked contrite, expression smoothing out.

Sympathy played on Dean’s features. “You know, Sam, he is a monster. He’s just doing what monsters do.” After two more quick bites, he stood and came around the table, removing Jack from the carrier and lifting him against his shoulder like Jo had done. “Come here, buddy. Daddy’s got you.” He patted Jack’s back and returned to his seat. Jack now watched things behind Dean. He’d gotten what he wanted and stopped crying. “Settle down.”

Gwen wondered if the comment was directed to Jack or to Sam. He could mean either.

Sam picked up his fork again.

“So how do I get him off my ass if I don’t make the timeline?” Gwen shoved her plate aside, food half eaten. She wasn’t hungry anymore. The possibility, no the probability that she wouldn’t find the box, sent another wave of nausea through her. She tasted bile at the back of her throat and reached for her water glass.

I won’t throw up, she thought. Not now. Later. In private.

“Not exactly your ass he’s wanting,” Jo pointed out, digging into her baked potato and shooting a glance her way.

Dean studied Gwen a minute. “He talked about babies and wanting one.”

“That’s what she said,” Sam snapped, setting his silverware back down and sitting back in his chair. He turned his head, studying the restaurant with quick flicks of his gaze.

The Trickster wanted his piece of power back and he wanted her. He wanted both. She didn’t think he’d leave her, or them, alone as promised. He’d said that to make her think there was a light at the end of the tunnel. He’d said it as a trick. He wasn’t going to let her go. Maybe in the six months he’d given her or maybe in a year or more, he’d come after her and take her away.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dean grinned and clapped his free hand to Sam’s shoulder. “Sammy, you’ve got some work to do. Now remember, don’t take the fun out of the fun while getting the job done.” Now he released Sam’s shoulder and pointed a finger at Gwen. “All you have to do is lie back and let Sam do all the work. He’ll have you preggers in no time.”

Jo coughed and laughed, then coughed some more, her napkin held over her mouth. “Damn, Dean.”

Sam shoved his plate away, abandoning his food. “Not funny. Not in the least bit funny. Are you trying to be offensive?”

Gwen didn’t find it particularly funny either. “That’s your idea? Sam knocks me up first? What, is it a contest?”

Dean adjusted Jack in his arms and nodded. “Yeah, actually it is a contest. Trickster can’t very well take you to impregnate you if you’re already pregnant.”

“Nice. That’s a drastic course of action.”

“You don’t like that idea? Okay.” His glance went to Sam, Jo, and back to Gwen. “Here’s a serious one. We finish going through this building, then get back and hunt down that box and Aaron’s notes. No getting distracted by Campbell this or possibly Harvelle that. We search for anything in Aaron’s handwriting and if it’s not his, set it aside for later. We put this on high priority. Six months may look like a lot of time, but it isn’t. Believe me, it’ll fly.”

After a final cough and drink of water, Jo shook her head. “What makes you think the Campbells had his notes?”

“They seemed to have everything else.”

Gwen noticed a gleam in Dean’s eyes, like he knew something more than he was telling. “You seem certain.”

“You should be too. He trusted them, they trusted him. It’s not out of the question that Neal and Patricia grabbed some of his things on their way out of town with you. If there was something important there and they knew it? I think they’d risk it. If he was able to do what the Trickster said, what else did he maybe figure out about him? Might be something there on how to hide you from him or something to repel him.”

“That’s a whole lot of maybe,” she said. “Here, why don’t I take Jack so you can finish eating?” Dean relinquished him readily.

The baby felt good in her arms, something of a comfort, and she rested her cheek against his head.

“We’ve worked on less,” Jo pointed out, reaching for the dessert menu. “We’ve worked on a suggestion before and no proof of anything. Anyone want to split a piece of something with me?”

“You have to ask,” Dean replied.

Sam crossed his arms and once their dinner dishes were gone and Jo and Dean had a piece of pie à la mode to split, he leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “I want to know more about the spell Aaron used. He said it incapacitated him?”

“Yeah. Like anesthetic and temporarily paralyzed him.”

“Could be useful. Especially if it can be adapted to work on other creatures. How on earth did he figure out how to do that?”

“Maybe he was a genius,” Dean suggested.

Gwen returned her attention to him. The way he said that…. He knew something, but what? “Dean? What --”

“Maybe he had obscure reference books that’d put Bobby’s collection to shame.”

“And maybe he just had a knack for it.” Jo took a final bite and left the rest for Dean. “Some do.”

“Hmm.” Sam watched Jack, though it didn’t look like he was seeing him. It looked like his eyes were losing focus, his thoughts turning inward. “If their powers can be drained and contained…. I mean not just his, but other creatures….” His eyes narrowed and Gwen thought he was working out a plan in his head for dealing with the Trickster if they found the information. “It can work. It will work.”

“Some bad things will get a lot easier to kill once we get Aaron’s spell.” Dean finished with the pie and ice cream. “If it does work on other creatures. If it’s just him it works on, we can still add it to our arsenal, keep it ready to go.” He picked up the check and looked at it. “Who’s going back out to the building with me?”

“Not me.” Jo handed Jack’s coat to Gwen. “Gwen, would you put that on him? I want to get back and look up a few things.”

“Sure.” She worked the garment onto the infant, then got up and took him to his carrier, putting him in it, a task that got easier the more she did it. “I’ll go with Jo.”

Sam didn’t answer, letting Dean get the check, taking Gwen’s hand in his as they stepped outside onto the sidewalk. “I’ll stay back if you want. Stay with you.”

She threaded her fingers through his, feeling the warmth of them about hers, enjoying the way he grasped her hand, with firmness and certainty, and the way his thumb slid across her skin in a slow, tickling caress. A detail the Trickster didn’t have and a thing that reassured her. “No, you go. I’ll be okay. You do an inventory, decide what can go and what can stay and if we can use the property. Work with Dean.”

“You’re sure?”

She turned to face him and looked up at him, disentangling her hand from his and placing her palms flat on his chest. Gwen splayed her fingers, sliding them under the front edge of his coat. “No, but we have a job to finish here and I just want to go home and start looking for that box, so let’s get it done and go home.”

He was reluctant to leave her, studying the area around them before nodding and releasing her. “Okay. Stop in and pick up a new phone before you go back to the room, then text me when you have it.”

Upon reaching the room and sending a text to Sam, Gwen put the phone away and laid down on her stomach the end of one bed. “What are you looking up?”

Jo laid Jack in the crib. “Nothing. I just couldn’t go back there. Not today. Sam and I went over that place so many times, Gwen. We were so focused on the building…. Dean did the sensible thing. He got the power on and had a plan to let light in. I still feel exhausted from searching for you.”

Gwen understood that and grunted, resting her chin on her hands.

“You’re sure he didn’t hurt you?”

“I’m sure. Update me. What else has been going on while I was missing?”

Jo sat down and filled her in.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dean returned from the clerks office triumphant. He had the account information. It hadn’t even been that difficult to get. Sitting at the table, he and Jo went through the information, Jo taking notes with questions they needed to delve further into. The tax bill was paid. Who was paying it? They had the name of a bank in Virginia. Where was the money coming from?

Surely there weren’t still more Campbell relatives running around out there? Or was this the last of what had been set up back in Samuel’s day? Were they going to find accounts running out of money or a scam system set up by a recent Campbell that had yet to be found out -- credit card fraud to pay bills? Dean wondered if any of the money paying the taxes and rents and such was legit.

It was frustrating to realize that for every question they had answered about the Campbell family, three more popped up. He thought it might be easier to just forget all of it, but then the idea that they could sell one of the properties owned outright rose in his mind again. Selling one would fund their own operation for awhile and they hardly needed properties all over the country.

Or did they? It would be handy to have toxic waste dumps in centralized locations. Still, whatever fund was paying the taxes and fees on these places was going to run out eventually, right? They couldn’t assume the places would always be paid for. This plan to check out each one and close them one by one if they weren’t needed was a good one. There was plenty of room at the Harvelle building. Ellen and Gwen had confirmed that. They could reorganize, add to it like Dean thought the Campbells had been doing.

That begged the question as to why they’d added to it like it was their own unit? Just because Bill Harvelle had given them the key didn’t mean they had free reign with it. Or did it? What relationship had Bill had with Neal? That note Ellen and Gwen had found hadn’t indicated that he’d signed it over, just that he’d wanted them to keep an eye on it for him. Had they begun adding their own things to it after Bill had died?

Questions, questions, and more questions.

Dean wished Samuel had been more forthcoming about the organization of the family branches, about the genealogy, about…. Hell, about everything. He’d been close-mouthed and that apparently was a Campbell trait because Gwen had been talking about how she now knew Neal and Patricia had kept secrets. Gwen hadn’t even known about the buildings or where dangerous objects were stored. She’d known about Samuel’s compound and about Samuel’s little Alpha torture building, but she hadn’t known a ton of other things.

Ellen had warned them months ago that the Campbell family loved their secrets. Dean was determined that that ended with them. All of this information was going to be organized and Jack (and whatever other children he and Jo or Sam and Gwen might have) would know the sort of people he came from. None of this mysterious crap that drove a man nuts. Information laid out plain and simple.

“You look thoughtful,” Jo commented, tapping her pen on the pad of paper.

“You realize how much simpler all this would be if Samuel or Neal hadn’t been so damned paranoid about their own kin?”

“We’re all paranoid, Dean. It’s just a trait hunters have for our own survival.”

“But they took it to extremes. Journals in code dating back over a hundred years? Circular paths that make it almost impossible for their children and grandchildren to trace their own money and property? Not telling their children essential things, like the truth about Gwen’s parents and the location of waste dumps?” He shook his head. “We’re honest with Jack and nothing less. I bet they thought they were protecting family, protecting information, but all they were doing was leaving a headache for future generations.”

“You really think we won’t leave a headache one way or the other?”

He considered those words and had to admit the truth of it. “No. We’ll leave Jack something mysterious that’ll annoy the hell out of him. It’s a parent’s job, I guess, confounding their kids. Geez, the things Sam and I found out about dad after he was gone? Man. He took a page from the Campbell book with his secrets.”

“He was trying to protect you and others. Dean, all we can do is our best and what we think is the right thing to do. Doesn’t mean it is in the end.”

“Yeah, but this….” He indicated the papers. “Someone had a frickin’ screw loose. I keep thinking if mom knew half this stuff we’re trying to figure out? No wonder she wanted out so badly.”

Jo’s hand stretched out and clasped his. She squeezed it, then let go and picked up her pen again. “So, what was the name on that again?”

He was grateful she changed the subject and soon they were busy making calls.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sitting in the Impala beside Dean, Sam could see Gwen’s car slide a little on the snowy, icy road. Being in the Impala and not with Gwen was driving him nuts, but Dean had claimed he’d wanted to talk to Sam about something. That something hadn’t actually come around, or if it had, Sam hadn’t been listening, too intent on watching the car ahead of them.

‘Slow down’ Sam texted to Jo. She and Gwen were probably both getting more irritated with him with each text, but he couldn’t help it. He was worried, jumpy, and edgy since the Trickster’s plan had been revealed and the weather wasn’t helping. The snow was getting heavier and they were going to have to stop rather than push on for Sioux Falls. The conditions were swiftly becoming blizzard-like, snow swirling across the road with the gusts of wind and obliterating visibility.

Dean kept telling him to relax, like it was even a remote possibility for him.

He saw the brake lights flash.

“She grew up mostly in the north Midwest, you know. I think Gwen knows how to drive on snow.” Dean reached out and turned the heat down.

“Maybe.”

“Will you relax?”

“Could you relax if it had been Jo?”

He glanced at Sam and shrugged his brows. “Good point.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “I can’t see a damn thing. Text them again. Tell them to pull over at the first motel they see.”

Twenty minutes later they were pulling into a motel parking lot. Sam immediately got out of the Impala and headed to Gwen’s car before Dean had even turned the car off. He couldn’t shake the fear that the second he turned his back she’d be gone again.

She wasn’t though. She was safe, sitting there in the car with Jo. Of course she’d been safe. She’d been the one driving and he’d kept a watch the entire time, either turned around in his seat or craning his neck to watch out the windshield depending on where they’d been.

He stood by her door, waiting for her to open it and get out.

Six months.

Geez. Who did the Trickster think he was?

He couldn’t let that happen, wouldn’t let it happen.

Gwen and Jo got out of the car. They were laughing and talking and looked like they’d been having a far better time than Sam, Dean, and Jack. Sam had been too concerned with Gwen’s safety to pay much attention to Dean’s conversation and Dean wouldn’t turn on the music for fear it’d wake Jack who’d finally gone to sleep after screaming for an hour.

Sam thought a screaming baby was one of the best forms of birth control on the planet.

Dean brought the carrier over and held it out to Jo. “Take him.”

She took it and looked down, peeking through the blanket Dean had draped over it. “He’s asleep. What’s the problem?”

“Screaming baby. Car acoustics. I’m going to check us in.” He turned and began to walk towards the motel office.

“Two rooms, Dean,” Sam yelled as a reminder. He wasn’t sure if Dean heard him or not, as he didn’t acknowledge the words with a wave or anything.

“Girls and guys,” Jo asked with an innocent grin.

He was in no mood for her teasing. “Me and Gwen in one, you, Dean, and Jack in the other and I don’t care about the extra money. I’ll pay it if Dean won’t. I want quality time with my girlfriend after she’s been missing for the better part of a week. Is that too much to ask?”

Jo held up a hand. “Geez. Back down boy. I knew what you meant and it’s not too much to ask. I was expecting it.” She looked at Gwen and jerked her thumb at Sam. “Calm him down, will you?” She turned. “I’m going in the office where it’s warm.”

“I can drive on snow, you know,” Gwen said, taking his hand and tugging him towards the office. “And speaking of snow, lets get out of it while we wait.”

“I know you can.”

“Then stop with the ‘slow down’ texts. I understand you’re worried and still upset, I do, but I can get us back to base just fine and if we do slide off the road? You and Dean are right behind us. Relax.”

“I can’t.” He stopped her at the glass doors, ignoring the gust of wind that nearly knocked them over. “He took you like it was nothing. Aren’t you still upset by that?”

Her expression changed, grew serious. “I’m sick to my stomach over it is how I am. Ask Jo. I’ve been eating antacid tablets since we left.” She shook her head. “But I can’t change it, Sam. It happened. We have to get back and begin dealing with it.”

They had a relaxed evening, watching tv with Dean and Jo, then retreated to their own room.

Sam laid beside Gwen and watched her sleep. She was exhausted, splayed out on her back beside him, and dead to the world like Jack when he slept.

Reaching out, he used one finger to raise the necklace he’d given her, looking at the rings there. With the Trickster’s ultimatum still ringing in his mind, he found his thoughts treading to one of the subjects the necklace signified and turning in circles over and over. Engagement, marriage, and children. He was hardly ready for children, that was sure, but the others?

He laid the necklace back down and trailed his fingers down to her waist before moving closer. Sam didn’t wake her. She needed her rest but he needed to be physically closer to her, to feel the warmth of her body against him and the rise and fall of her chest with breath. He rested his arm around her waist and his head beside hers on the pillow, close enough that he could smell the faint scent of her perfume.

What if he lost her?

Sam knew she loved him; that she didn’t plan on leaving. It wasn’t that sort of loss he thought about now. It was the sort that came without warning, like how quickly she’d disappeared and how fast she could be taken from him.

Like Jess.

He’d thought he had plenty of time with Jess and he hadn’t, so why was he even dragging his feet now?

If Gwen was gone forever this very night, would he regret the future he hadn’t asked her to have with him?

The answer to the first question was complicated. He dragged his feet because opening himself even more was to leave himself naked to the possibility of pain.

The answer to the second was a loud resounding ‘yes’ in his mind. He’d regret never taking that step and after losing two women he’d loved, he knew he’d never recover.

Sam held onto her like a lifeline as sleep pulled him under.