Chapter Text
Dean stood on the main road. A slight breeze picked up the corner of his shirt collar, making him aware of the summer warmth. Taking in the view of the town center, he fished his phone from his pocket pleasantly surprised to see he had cell service. Dzara Road was the town’s main street. A handful of Soviet-era buildings dotted the thoroughfare. He made note of the location of the city hall and several stores. A small tree-lined park off set the main square, birds chirping over the sounds of light traffic. From practically anywhere on the square, a visitor could easily see the Caucasus mountains looming large and majestic.
Dean watched a van pull up a few feet away, stopping near enough for him to see a woman step out and deposit a small child on the narrow sidewalk. The little boy was absorbed with a neon orange toy gun he was holding and allowed the woman to lead him up the walkway. She was a pretty brunette though Dean thought that she was a little too thin.She had striking dark eyes standing out against pale skin, and she eyed him tentatively. Her lips hinted at a smile as she gently grabbed the little boy's hand, carefully maneuvering him past a bench. Dean tracked them for a moment, as the boy waved his pistol, making shooting noises at trees, passers-by and imagined baddies. He saw Dean and lifted the gun, squeezing off a shot, the snap of the plastic hammer cracking in the distance. Dean grabbed his chest, pretending the shooter hit his mark, and the boy’s face split into a satisfied grin. The woman glanced back once more, seeing the interaction. This time her smile showed very white, perfect teeth. Dean waved as they both disappeared through a shop entrance.
Dean arrived in-country on a Wednesday. He had wanted out of Beijing during the Olympics, so when his old friend and cameraman Andy called to tell him that he had found a story he couldn’t blow town fast enough. There were no stories to cover there. No stories that any one of the hundred and fifty-odd reporters, journalists and photographers weren’t already crawling all over. He’d obtained editorial clearance and squared away his travel documents so fast, he beat Andy into Georgia by a full day. He looked down at his phone, scrolling through his recent calls. His friend picked up on the first ring.
“Where are you, man?” Andy said without preamble.
“Tskhinvali. I got a driver to drop me off to meet with Lee.”
“Buddy system, Dean. That means we probably should both be in Tskhinvali. Together.”
“Well then get your ass up here, and be careful. This place is a freaking tinderbox.”
“When is it not a tinderbox? Pam has been here for months. The woman has stories that’ll scare you shitless. Call her,” Andy yelled into the phone, background noise rising and falling with the cadence of a dozen barroom conversations. “Listen, when you meet up with Lee, hang tight. We’ll rendezvous at the hotel and head to Java. There are reports of local militia conscripting young boys. I’m hearing about threats, coercion, general bad behavior. It’s definitely our kind of thing.”
“Sounds like.” Dean heard the crack of what sounded like the report of a rifle in the distance. He switched his phone to his other ear. “When can I expect you? You’ll barely have time for prep work before we start interviewing.”
“I’m heading north from Gori now. Give me an hour and a half, two hours tops.”
Dean grunted into the phone and disconnected the call. Across the street, three older women sat, chatting amiably under a covered produce stand, their tables loaded with baskets of fresh oranges, grapes and pomegranates. They were dressed modestly, covered and scarved in the rising heat of the midday sun. Dean crossed the square, feeling their eyes on him. He sensed that he was the topic of their conversation.
“Ladies,” Dean smiled. “I’m looking for Telman Street.”
The women exchanged curious glances with each other. Foolishly realizing that they didn’t speak English, he tried again.
“Telman?”
The woman seated in the center rocked back and laughed, arms crossed over her chest. She seemed to be the oldest, and she spoke for the others. She regarded Dean, sharp ebony eyes peeking out through a timeworn face. “Telman.” She pointed with a gnarled finger across the table, gesturing southeast of the main road, giving what Dean assumed were directions in rapid-fire Georgian.
“Right,” Dean responded. “Thank you, ma’am.”
She made a beckoning gesture at him, so tiny Dean wasn’t sure he had really seen it. He leaned closer to the old woman and she held out her hand; he placed his in hers with barely a thought, her bony grip warm and firm and strangely reassuring. Turning his hand over, she dropped a green apple into his calloused palm. He held onto the fruit, feeling the cool solidity permeate his skin.
“Have a care, young man. Do not leave our town empty-handed.” Her words rasped but each was sounded out in perfect, unaccented American english. Her wizened face broke into a grin chuckling quietly. She released his hand, rocking back in her chair. Dean made to reach into his pocket for money but she waved him away with her refusal spoken once again in Georgian. He turned and headed up Dzara to the echoing chatter and laughter of the group of women. When got to the end of the block turning towards Telman, he’d all but forgotten the conversation, enjoying the cool crisp sweetness of the apple.
“Shit.”
Dean held the crumpled bit of newsprint up to the sunlight. He smoothed the scrap against the wall of the apartment building, hoping that the paper would reveal a hidden number, a letter. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was beginning to think he’d gotten himself lost. The tree-lined street was residential, rows and rows of unattractive gray apartment buildings. The residents had made valiant attempts at brightening their little corner of the world with a flowered curtain here, a potted plant there, but if you were looking for beauty it would be best to turn your back on the residences and take in the mountains, the pines, perhaps the river that ran alongside the city. His eyes caught the motion of a Five Cross flag on an upper balcony, its red crosses rising and falling like a challenge.
“Come on, Winchester,” he muttered to himself, “You can find an apartment anywhere, for Christ sake. There’s no way you could get lost in Georgia.”
He gave up on the scrap of paper, shoving it into the pocket of his jeans. Looking up and down the narrow road, he picked a direction and just started walking. A half block into his search a young girl jay walking ahead of him caught his eye. She was a tiny thing, hands jammed in her pockets and dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. Her spring loaded stride made him reluctant to stop her, but there was something in her face that made him take his chances.
“Excuse me,” Dean waved at her. “English? Do you speak English?”
The girl kept walking, solemn eyes on him, a combination of curiosity and hostility darkening her brow.
“My Georgian is not that good,” he laughed. “Can you help me?”
She slowed grudgingly, measuring him. Dean saw her considering whether to ignore him, her attention divided between him and some point over his right shoulder. Her eyes slid back to Dean.
“Yes, I know English.”
Dean relaxed, relief washing over him. “I’m a little lost. Do you live around here? I’m looking for someone.” He shifted his backpack out of the way and fished the scrap of paper from his pocket. Holding it out to her, she glanced skeptically at the paper without reading it, then back at him.
She eyed him narrowly. “Who are you?”
He suppressed the urge to ask her to just point him in the right direction. It occurred to him that he was a stranger approaching a young girl in a town that had little tolerance for foreigners and even less for foreigners with press passes.
“I’m a journalist,” his smiled politely, carefully. “My name is Dean. Dean Winchester. And you are?”
“In a hurry.” She stepped around him and continued toward the apartment block. Dean stood frozen for a moment, paper fluttering uselessly between his fingers before he turned to follow her, if for no other reason than to give her a piece of his mind. He caught up to her and matched her pace.
“Look. I don’t need you to take me anywhere, just point me in the right direction. I’m looking for a guy named Levan Cholokashvili. Some people call him ‘Lee’ for short.”
The girl stopped at the entrance to one of the apartments. Aromatic cooking smells wafted from it, spilling into the street. She stared at the door, her jaw working, clenching and unclenching. Dean could see emotions battling for control in her face. He saw waves of vulnerability, panic and fear finally negotiate themselves into general exasperation.
She kept her eyes on the door, but spoke at him. “Why are you looking for Lee?”
“So then, you do know him?” Dean replied.
“Yes,” she paused. “But he’s not here.”
“No?” Dean said, confused. “Well, he should have been expecting me. Where does he live? I’ll wait until he comes back.”
“I don’t know when he’ll be back, Dean Winchester. Again, why are you looking for him?”
“Right. Look, I’ve had a long, long week and I’m not in the mood for twenty questions. I’m going now. You have a nice life, kiddo.”
Dean turned on his heel, stalking away. He was getting a bad vibe from the young girl, and the idea of finding Lee on his own was looking better and better.
“Wait!” she shouted after him. “I’m his daughter. I’m Lee’s daughter.”
They’d found refuge from the sweltering heat at a tiny kiosk near the town center. Dean bought them each sandwiches and soft drinks. Krissy did most of the eating, Dean most of the talking. They were squared off across from each other in plastic chairs around a rickety umbrella-sheltered table. Slaking his thirst on soda, he wished desperately for Russian Standard. In the time that they had been sitting there, he had seen no more than a dozen people who had actually ventured from their homes to do any shopping or conduct any business. Among the shuttered, seemingly abandoned buildings, Georgian troops outnumbered civilians.
“I didn’t know Lee had a kid.” Dean pushed his half eaten sandwich over to the girl’s side of the table.
Krissy spoke around a mouthful of turkey on wheat. “Yeah, well my dad doesn’t share a lot.”
“You think telling a colleague that he has a teenaged daughter living in a hot zone is sharing a lot?”
“It’s not relevant. Besides, what’s it to you? I’m okay.”
“You’re okay,” his brows drew together. “When was the last time you ate? I saw the way you polished off that sandwich, and the one before that--not to mention the rest of mine. I know what it is to be hungry, Krissy. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”
She glared at him, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. “He left me money. He always calls to check in with me. He’ll call.”
“Uh-huh,” He took a drink from his can. The coke had gone warm. “So when was the last time you heard anything?”
“Almost a week. He’ll call," she repeated. “Things are weird right now, is all.”
“Jesus.” He muttered, pulling his Blackberry from his pocket. He did it more out of reflex than with a plan in mind. He’d already tried Lee’s number a few times, each going straight to voicemail.
“I went through his things,” Krissy offered. “I looked for phone numbers, contact people. I couldn’t find anything. I need to know more about his last job. I can find him on my own.”
“Your dad is a facilitator. He helps people like me get in and out of places that are closed off to others and he’s good at what he does. He wouldn’t leave a trail of breadcrumbs for you to follow.”
“What were you meeting him for?” Her eyes narrowed. “Specifically?”
It made him nervous to think that she thought that it was a good idea to strike out on her own to find him. Ignoring her question, he said “Look. I get it, Krissy. You’re a tough kid, but I’m not going to let you just head out of the city, to have god-knows-what happen.”
“I can take care of myself,” she sniffed. “My dad believes in me, otherwise he would never have left.”
Dean didn’t respond, believing that she’d said it more to convince herself. He remembered being sixteen and feeling abandoned. He had been scared shitless but hid it under by being a smart ass. Looking at the pissed off teenager across the table, he was finding it hard to be on the defensive with her. She just wanted her dad back.
A soldier had been dispatched to begin directing traffic. Dean noticed that the traffic lights had stopped working, flashing a red like a beacon. They had been working before. He recalled jaywalking earlier and seeing an adjacent light turn red. He had to jog across to avoid being hit by a car. He pulled his gaze back to an annoyed Krissy.
“Would you like another drink?”
“No. I’m good,” she was eyeing him suspiciously, but tried to be gracious. “Thanks.”
“Your dad have any friends?” He asked.
“He has a friend in Tbilisi. He’s a photographer. If something’s happening, he’ll know about it.”
“Awesome. Give me his name.”
She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “That’s not how this is going to work. We go together.”
“Oh, Hell no,” he objected. “Not gonna happen. You stay here, and I’ll bring him back to you.”
“Are you kidding? I hear shelling every night. Half the town’s been evacuated. I’m no less safe going with you to Tbilisi.”
“Krissy, listen to me. I can’t just take you along without your dad’s okay. You’re a minor..what are you twelve? Thirteen?”
“I’ll be seventeen in October.” she said archly.
“Yeah, well I’m sure as hell not dragging a sixteen year old around the countryside with me. You’ll only slow me down.”
“What is it about me being able to take care of myself that you don’t understand? You want to find the photographer, you want to find my dad? We go together.”
“All right. We’ll do it your way.” Dean swiped his face with his hand. He was at the end of his rope with this kid.
“We go together?”
“I’m arranging a transport to Gori first thing in the morning. We’ll have a car to get us to Tbilisi from there. They’re gonna want details. How about a gesture of good faith? Maybe a street name? Neighborhood?”
Krissy narrowed her eyes, circumspect. “If we’re leaving in the morning, you’ll need somewhere to crash. You can take dad’s place on the fold-out.”
“Shit.” He grumbled.
Dean and Krissy walked back to her flat, stopping along the way to pick up a few things to eat. At her place, Dean helped put the items away while Krissy made them the tea he bought. The tiny apartment was clean, but sparsely decorated with only a couple of pieces of furniture. There was no TV, no pictures hanging on the walls, there weren’t even any curtains on the window. The single clapboard cabinet in the kitchenette held mismatched dinnerware for two. Dean couldn’t even see any small appliances. Everything about the place said temporary.
“I guess you and your dad have lived all over.” Dean said, looking out of the kitchen’s window. It was getting dark outside. The streets were empty save for a cat nosing at the door of an apartment across the street. The door opened a crack and the cat squeezed through.
“Pretty much,” She pulled a variety of boxes out of a cupboard and chose a tea for herself. She turned, “Is Earl Grey okay?”
“Whatever’s good.”
Dean listened to her working busily. She moved comfortably around the kitchen area. It made him think that she probably cooked for herself whether Lee was around or not. He pictured all the times he stood at a stove, opening cans of soup for Sam until he could master sandwiches. Trial and error eventually made him into a decent cook.
“I was born in Georgia, but I wouldn’t exactly call it home.” She had been staring at him as if she knew what he’d been thinking about.
“You have relatives here?”
Krissy joined him at the window, handing him one of the mugs of tea. She glanced wistfully out at the setting sun and then she sat down at the table. “An aunt in Batumi.”
“What’s she do there?”
Krissy looked up from her mug and fixed Dean with suspicious eyes. “She works as a housekeeper at the Radisson," she shifted in her seat, thinking. "No, actually I think it’s a gift shop in Kutaisi," Snapping her fingers as if the answer just came to her. "Oh yeah, I remember now. She works as a librarian in Gori--”
“You’re funny.” Dean replied sourly.
“And you’re obvious.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Buying all that food,” Krissy gestured toward the pantry. “Sizing up our flat. All these questions about my family. I’m not stupid, and I’m not staying.”
Dean regarded her over his steaming mug. “No, I don’t think you’re stupid.”
Looking over the buildings, Dean could see the first flicker of starlight. It blinked, then blinked again in too much of a pattern to be celestial. He noticed that it was moving. Aircraft. He frowned, stepped away from the window and set his cup down on the table across the young girl. “So. What do you party animals do around here for fun? Clubbing? X Games?”
“These days?” Krissy snorted. “We mostly fill our time trying not to get arrested. The rest of the time we spend trying not to die.”
“And that’s fun?”
“More fun than the alternative.”
“Touché.”
Dean walked through the little flat looking for any clue that might give him an idea of who might know Lee, or anything about him. He even excused himself to the bathroom to relieve himself and rummaged through the medicine cabinet. Nothing. Distant gun fire cracked a staccato outside of the bathroom window. Remembering light discipline, he snapped the light switch of next to the door, washing his hands by illumination coming in off the street. He dried his hands on jeans and felt blindly for the doorknob until he opened the door to the soft light of the living room. Walking out, he spied a backpack sitting underneath a table by the entrance to the flat. “This yours?”
“That’s right. It’s my bug-out bag.”
Dean nodded appreciatively. At least her dad had taught her to be prepared.
“You speak english like a pro. Where did you learn?”
“We lived in the States for a couple of years. I’m a product of the Sumner County, Kansas school system. At least two years worth.”
“Do you go to school here?”
“Nope. I pick up my education on the road when I can.”
Krissy laughed at Dean knowingly, then gestured toward her room. “If you’re bored, there are books in my room. I know you’re dying to check it out in there anyway. Knock yourself out.”
Krissy busied herself washing out the coffee mugs as Dean went to his backpack and pulled his PDA and charger out. “My battery is running low, but I need to make a call,” he held the plug out to her. “you mind?”
“There’s an outlet on the countertop.” She replied, taking the charger and plugging it in.
He didn’t bother with the light switch. More jaundiced light poured through the bedroom window, throwing everything into sickly brown and black shadows. He could still see the thin outline of books. Piles of them. Two of the room’s four walls held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Her bed jut out from one wall, presumably to make more room for more books. There was no desk or chair. No closet. Just her bed, and dozens of books. Two open suitcases full of clothing sat on the floor near the bed, the suggestion of clothing spilling over one of them. It looked like she lived out of them.
Dean scrolled through his contacts and opened a line on his Blackberry.
“Hey, Sammy. It’s me.”
“Where are you, man? I’ve been leaving messages all over Beijing.”
Dean negotiated the suitcases, making his way to the window. Street lights glowed orange on the cinderblock wall separating the adjacent apartment buildings. Of all the flats, only two or three showed signs of life in them. “Yeah, I know. I’m tracking down a story, and things are really heating up around here.”
“It’s the summer Olympics,” Sam said. “How heated can it be?”
“What? No, Sam. I’m in Georgia.”
“Georgia?” Dean could hear the muffled voice in Sam’s background. Dean guessed that it was his girlfriend, Jess. “When’d you get back to the States?”
“Not that Georgia. South Ossetia.”
Sam’s end of the line went silent for a long, tense moment. Dean braced himself. Sam kept his voice even, which Dean knew was a giveaway to how angry he really was.
“You couldn't pick up a phone to call me. You're that busy, huh?”
“I called a week ago.” Dean protested.
“A month. You called me a month ago, Dean.”
“You sure?” he whistled between his teeth. “Sorry about that. You know how it gets when I'm working.”
“No, not really. For me to know how it gets, you'd have to actually communicate with me, Dean. A call. An email. A frigging smoke signal.”
Dean thought he heard a faraway whistle. He pulled the phone away from his ear, concentrating. He felt the tiny thrum of a vibration beneath his feet. Miles away, but hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. Was it getting closer? Sam made annoyed sounds into the phone. Dean spoke over him.
“Listen. I need you to look something up for me. I’m trying to hunt down family for a Levan Cholokashvili,” Dean spelled it for him. “He also goes by Lee Chambers. He’s ethnically Georgian but americanized his name when he settled in the U.S. Search records in Kansas. Sumner County.”
Another long pause. In the silence, he knew that Sam was struggling to not hang up, or at the very least not to start lecturing. Finally, he said, “And I’m doing this why?”
“There’s a girl here. Her dad is my contact and he’s missing. I’m going to try to find him. Looks like
he’s been gone a week and--”
“A girl?” Sam snapped. “You’re running around in that tinderbox for a girl?
“I told you, this is about my contact,” he didn’t want Sam to get the wrong impression. Once he found Lee, Krissy would no longer be an issue. He just didn’t feel right leaving her alone.
“She’s a kid, Sam.”
“I know that you’re all about going where the story takes you, but South Ossetia is becoming more dangerous by the day. Whatever you’re doing over there, drop it and get the next plane out of there.”
“I know what I’m doing Sammy. Now focus. I need that intel.”
“What intel?” Krissy stood nervously in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. He didn’t need to ask how long she had been standing there.
“I’ll catch up with you later.” Sam was still talking when he killed the line.
“You always sneak up on people like that?”
“It’s not sneaking if it’s your own bedroom.”
"Whatever." Dean gestured at the makeshift bookstore that was her room. "What gives?”
She glowered, not buying his attempt to change the subject. She seemed to calculate, relaxing her features. He recognized the look. It was the same look Sam shot him when he was deciding whether or not to get into it with him. He had always been good at picking his battles. Krissy pulled him away from his memories as she stepped into the room.
"I sell most of them online for extra money. My personal collection is right over there." She pointed to a relatively small stack near the head of her bed.
Dean picked through the stack, looking at authors. Hemingway, Kerouac, Bukowski. A bit heavy for his tastes. He flipped through titles. There was a bit of everything. The Stone Diaries, A Thousand Years of Solitude, The Great Gatsby.
He straightened up, tossing one of the books back onto the pile. "What, no Vonnegut?”
They sat on the sofa, manning opposite ends. Krissy placed hurricane lamps on the single coffee table in front of the sofa to keep the light low. She set bottles of water for each of them and Dean relaxed, drinking and reading from a dog-eared Louis L’amour novel while Krissy distracted herself with braiding strands of leather into an intricate design. Her weaving and twisting caught his attention.
"What are you making?"
“I make bracelets. Wrap, leather, friendship bracelets, like that. I sell them for extra money.”
“Another side business?”
“Keeps the lights on.”
“Except the lights are --”
“Figure of speech, Dean.”
“That’s a lot of work for a sixteen year old.”
“Like I said--”
“--Right. You can handle it.”
“He can be taught!” she declared.
They sat that way for a time, half listening to the sounds of artillery outside the walls of the little apartment. Each time they heard the high pitched scream of a missile they lifted their heads, instinctively gauging the distance. He didn’t think that she was even aware that she was doing it. The thought made him sad. How much gunfire does a kid need to be exposed to in order to have that reaction. Too much.
“You ever thought about what your life would be like with your aunt? Or maybe back in the U.S.?”
“Sometimes, but my dad needs me. We make a good team.”
“You could go to school. Use that big brain of yours for good.”
“Like you?”
“Well, not exactly. I’m a screw up. But you? You can do just about anything you want.”
Krissy smirked as if unimpressed, but going back to his book, he could tell that she was considering his words. They sat like that for the next couple of hours, switching between listening to the sounds of conflict outside, small comfortable banter and absorbing themselves in their separate pastimes. At half past eleven, Krissy stood up from the sofa and stretched languidly.
“You hungry? Want something more to drink?”
“Nah. I’m good.”
“Then I’m gonna try to sleep. I’ll need at least a couple of hours sleep before we head out.”
“Me, too.”
The young girl was turning to go, but hesitated. She looked back at Dean, considering him for a moment. She took a few steps back into the room, walking up to him and handing him the bracelet.
“What’s this?”
“What do you think, genius? It’s one of my soon-to-be world famous bracelets.” Dean stared at it dumbly. “Take it.” She urged, rattling it at him.
He gently took it from her hand. It was beautiful. Three tightly braided leather thongs joined side by side by a flat silver clasp. Dean saw then that the real beauty lay in the work and care she put into making the braid perfect. It was simple, yet exquisite. He dismissed thoughts of Krissy being the little sister he never had. Keeping his tone as casual as possible, “This is real nice, Krissy. Thanks.”
She took the bracelet and worked it around his wrist, clasping it closed and examining her work.
“It is, isn’t it? I’m thinking that maybe with a little schooling--say, graphic design, maybe business-- I could make a real living out of it.”
Dean smiled, admiring her work. Modeling his wrists for her, he extended his arm, pulling his hand into a fist. She looked at him, equal parts humor and second hand embarrassment. “Come on, give it up. You know you want to.” He waggled his fist at her.
“What century is this?.” Annoyingly persistent he arched his brows, face splitting into a grin. She laughed, bumping his fist with hers. “We're so lame.”
“You’re all right, kiddo.”
Dean waited five minutes after Krissy retired to her room for the night, then picked up his phone and stepped quietly out of the flat. He leaned against the wall just outside the door and listened to the thunderstorm sounds of artillery. He stood alone in the darkened corridor staring at the window at the end, light barely making its way through the filmy glass panes. He ignored the anxious tightening in his chest and speed dialed Sam’s number. Sam picked up after two rings. Dean didn’t wait for the normal exchange of pleasantries.
“What you got?”
“Not much,” Sam appeared to be reading. “Apparently he’s Georgian with a Russian passport. Widowed. Wife died in a car accident, drunk driver plowed into her. One kid, Kristina, aged fourteen. He was educated here in America, but has been working as an interpreter for journalists and various peacekeeping forces since 2003. Before that, he served in the military. Georgian.”
“What about family?”
“That’s it, Dean. That’s everything. No family to speak of. No friends to reference.”
“She says that she has an aunt somewhere here.”
“If she does, it’s news to me.
“Thanks. I was going to leave the kid here and hope that her dad showed, but now I’m thinking I need to at least get her to Tbilisi.”
“So the girl, is she Kristina?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s just the two of them, then family-wise’” he said. “Could there be a friend, maybe a neighbor that they’re close with?”
“Maybe,” Dean said, thinking. “To tell you the truth, Krissy doesn’t seem to be the making friends and influencing people type.”
“So, she’s a lot like you, then.” Sam groused.
Dean laughed. “Actually, she reminds me of--”
He was standing near the stairwell when he heard the commotion downstairs. There was muffled shouting one floor down. Dean jogged down the stairs, rounding the second landing in time to see a half dozen people running towards the exit. It was then that he noticed that the sounds outside were noticeably louder. The shelling. It was getting closer.
“Sam, I gotta go. I need to make another call."
“Pam?” Dean said. “It’s been a while.”
“Dean fucking Winchester,” the woman replied. “Gallagher tells me that you’re running down a story in Tskhinvali. I told him that he was full of shit because not even you could be that fucking stupid.”
“So. Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder after all.”
“Absence don’t do shit, Winchester.”
“But you haven’t hung up. That’s a good sign.”
“I hate your guts, but I don’t want to see you dead,” she said. “What the fuck Dean? You’re up shit creek without a paddle. You know that, right?”
“I’m getting that, Pam, and without my contact I’m kind of flying by the seat of my pants here.”
“Who’s your guy?”
“Chambers, but it looks like he’s disappeared.”
“I know him. He’s pretty reliable. If he stood you up, he’s in trouble.”
“Crap,” Dean said. “What about the president’s ceasefire?”
“You really believe that there’s gonna be a ceasefire? Look out the window, babe. The Russian’s are lighting up that little berg tonight, and you are at ground zero.”
“Fuck.”
“Finally, something we can agree on,” Pam smirked. “Okay, here’s the deal. Travel is a bitch. Nobody’s getting in or out of the city tonight. Zip. Nada. Tonight, what you’re gonna do is find yourself the deepest, darkest basement in the neighborhood and hunker your pretty ass down there till daybreak. Me and Andy will be working our contacts and--”
“Working?”
“Yeah, working,” she shot back. “We have to find somebody, hell, three or four somebody’s who are willing to travel through or circle around a half dozen roadblocks. That means calling in a lot of favors. Military favors.”
“All right,” Dean said, thinking. “We’ll shelter in place till morning.”
“We?” she shouted. “Who the fuck is we? I thought you said you couldn’t find--”
“I have Lee’s teenaged daughter here. She’ll have to come with.”
“No strays, Winchester,” she balked. “It’ll be all I can do to get you out of there. You can dick around playing nanny some other time.”
“Pam, I’m not leaving without her. She’s just a kid.”
“How easy do you think chaperoning a fucking girl scout through a warzone is gonna be?”
“I don’t care. Krissy’s coming.”
Pam was quiet. A cynical understanding filling the silence. Then, “Interesting.”
Dean's temper flared, “I swear to God, Barnes…”
“What happened to the New & Improved Winchester? The one who doesn't get involved with the locals?”
Dean could practically hear the air quotes through the phone.
“I'm not involved. I'm practical. She's a child. Leaving her to fend for herself with what's about to go down would be nothing less than criminal.”
“Uh-huh.”
“God dammit, Pamela, are you going to help us or not?”
Pam sighed heavily into the phone. “You know, I was trying to remember why we were never able to make a go of it, and it hit me. It was because of that fucking hard head of yours.”
“I love you too, Pam.”
“Fuck you, Winchester.”
Mortar explosion cut their conversation short, his phone clattering to the ground as the percussion tossed Dean against a wall.