47. Woke Up New

Sam wakes to bright sunlight slanting straight into his face. From downstairs, he can hear the sounds of muffled cursing and bacon sizzling. 

With a groan, he rolls upright and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. He’s got an awful crick in his neck and his mouth kinda feels like a sock, and if he’s honest with himself he only faintly remembers coming up to bed last night. He and Bobby had stayed up far too late, and had drunk far too much whiskey. At least, he thinks it was whiskey.

Coming up to Bobby’s to celebrate hadn’t been his idea, but now that he’s here, he’s glad he agreed. Even if it feels like his head is about to fall off of his shoulders. Bobby had picked him up from the airport late in the afternoon yesterday. He grumbled about the traffic the whole way home – even though he’d been the one to dismiss Sam’s attempts to arrange a ride or rent a car with a gruff, loving sort of exasperation. 

Sam smiles to himself, remembering their phone call from a few days back, where Bobby’s head shaking was almost audible over the phone. “Son, if you think I’m gonna let you suffer through Joe Ross Field for more than an hour while you wait for a ride,” he’d chastised, “you don’t know shit.” 

Something warms in Sam’s chest at the memory. He’s missed his uncle a lot, these last few years. It’s not like he doesn’t come home every chance he gets – every Christmas and summer and essentially any break he’s had, he’s spent right here at Singer Salvage, no matter how much he had to scrimp and save for the plane tickets to and from Cali. And now that he’s finally gotten word that he had, in fact, passed the Bar, he’s officially free to go wherever he wants. 

The shower groans and complains before spitting out the hot water he needs to wash away the grimy feeling of getting too drunk too fast. He’d enjoyed the night, shooting the shit with Bobby and Ellen and Jo, smiling and laughing his way through their pats on the back and more than one attempt at birthday spankings. They’d all been thrilled for him. Beyond excited that he was done with school and on his way towards an honest living. They’d even pooled together some cash and bought him a snazzy new bag for his computer and documents. When he dries off and fishes through his old dresser for some comfortable clothes, he catches sight of it in the corner of his room and his chest feels lighter. 

He loves his family, small and odd and fractured as it is. 

Last night, Jo had joked more than once about how it was good he was finally able to practice and that she’d have him on speed dial for the next protest she attended – Ellen had swatted at her good naturedly, a proud smile not quite hidden on her face. She hadn’t exactly discouraged her daughter from joining the abolitionist student groups at USF – though she hadn’t been thrilled the first, second, or third time Jo had been arrested. Sam knows she’s had to suffer through more than one night of stomach turning worry that her omega kid would be taken advantage of while she waited out the night in a jail cell. 

It’s not as though Jo’s ever done something that’s actually illegal, or ever even been charged. It didn’t matter, though. Unfortunately, most of the cops here in Sioux Falls tended to treat any protests that didn’t line up with their beliefs as riots. Jo never cared – in her words, barkeeps didn’t have to worry about criminal records. 

He’s proud of her. Hell, he’s more than proud of her – he’s actually kind of jealous. 

He, unfortunately, does have to worry about a criminal record impacting his career. Sam knows that he’s doing his part – knows that firms like the one he plans to start, ones that center around omega and slave rights, are desperately needed. But he still sort of wishes he could be as free with his anger and his protests against the system as his cousin is. She’s never shown any fear about making her voice heard, even though she’s got a lot more to lose than Sam has. 

He can’t help but think that his brother would be proud of her. 

He can’t help but wonder if his brother would be proud of him, too. 

Sam pauses for a moment, sitting on the edge of his bed with his socks still balled up in his hands. He feels the familiar wave of loss, an aching in his chest that hasn’t dulled even a little with time. Feels something in his eyes prickle. He’d done a good job, he thinks, of keeping this at bay last night. But now, alone in his room, he allows himself a few minutes to grieve. 

It’s been eleven years since he’s seen Dean. Half as long since he's seen John. And while he’s grateful for the home he’s found here, grateful for Bobby and Ellen and all they’ve done for him, he can’t help but wish things had happened differently. 

Heels pressed into his eyes, he takes a deep breath. His therapist has told him that he probably won’t ever stop feeling like this – that it might ease over time, but would always be there. He kinda wishes that Missouri had lied to him, honestly, because the fact that he’s gonna miss Dean like this forever kinda makes him want to pick up a whiskey bottle from last night and drain whatever’s left in it. 

He’s not about to become his father, though. So, instead, he picks himself up off the bed, wipes at his eyes, and traipses downstairs to join his uncle for breakfast. 

Bobby is poking at something that looks an awful lot like half burned bacon when Sam plops himself down at the kitchen table. He grins when the older man looks up at him, laughing a little at the irritated huff he lets out. He points the spatula at Sam when he opens his mouth. “Not a word, boy. Or no bacon for you.” 

Sam makes a show of snapping his mouth shut, and laughs again when Bobby grumbles. “Ingrate. Here I am, toilin' away…” 

“You’ve barely been up an hour.”

“Sweatin' over breakfast for you, my ungrateful excuse for a child –” 

“Maybe you should fix the damn AC, if you’re sweating so bad.” 

“And this is the thanks, I get,” he continues, as if Sam hadn’t spoken. “Complaints upon complaints. Well, I’m not havin' it.”

Sam snorts as he gets up to make the coffee. Clearly, his uncle needs a cup or three to put him in a better mood. He wrinkles his nose when he passes him. “God, Bobby. Did you even shower? You smell like you crawled out of a bottle.”

His uncle snorts. “Shut the hell up, son.” 

“Seriously. I can smell you from all the way over here.” 

Bobby rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t contradict him. He’s bright eyed and sober now, and unlike John, Bobby always knows when to put the drink down. Sam isn’t worried about him – not with years of proof that Bobby values his adopted kid over his own vices. Last night had been an exception for them both, in terms of how plastered they’d been. 

It’s hard for the both of them, celebrating without Dean. 

They’d both known he should have been there, last night. And if they’d downed one too many shots because of it, Ellen and Jo hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact, they’d likely been the ones to usher them to bed and dump the rest of the liquor down the sink – he can still see the glass bottle tipped into the drain. Probably a good call. 

He sends his uncle off to clean himself up and takes over breakfast, shaking his head at the mess he’d made. Bobby’s skills as a father figure are undeniable, but the one skill he’d never managed to pick up was cooking. 

Sam smiles, somewhat bittersweet. Before Dean had disappeared, he’d patiently taught Sam a lot in the kitchen. The memories of his laugh, of Dean’s hand on his own, showing him how to gently crack an egg or whip up pancake batter… they make his heart ache in his chest. 

Sam takes a breath, ushering the lingering traces of grief back into their designated corners in his mind. He cracks an egg into the hot pan and watches it sizzle. 

By the time his uncle returns, Sam’s got a full spread ready to go. He grins into his coffee as Bobby loads up his plate and plops down, a sigh escaping him. 

“Remind me to never drink again,” he grumbles, massaging his nose as he snaps a piece of bacon in half. 

“Can I get that in writing?”

“Shut yer’ trap.” 

They eat in a relatively comfortable silence, the thoughts of Sam’s future mingling with their past. 

“Thinking about setting up shop here,” Sam drops, before he can chicken out. 

Bobby doesn’t reply for a moment, focusing instead on spreading jam onto his toast. “You found a firm that’ll take you on, then?”

Sam winces. “Well…” 

His uncle gives him an unimpressed look. “You’re tellin' me,” he says, deadpan, “That you’re havin' trouble findin' a place that wants an omega rights lawyer in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere?”

Sam sighs, leaning back in his chair. “I… haven’t gotten any interviews yet, no. But that doesn’t mean I can just give up,” he adds, cocking his jaw. “The fact that no one will hire me is kinda an indication that I’m needed here, Bobby.”

His uncle is quiet for a while. He sips his coffee. Drums his fingers on the table. “There’s nothin’ wrong with getting some experience under your belt before you jump into that, son,” he finally says. Sam resists the urge to groan – it’s a conversation they’ve had more than once. “I’m just sayin’. You’re young as hell, and I think you should take whatever jobs come your way for a while.”

Sam huffs. “And here I thought graduating early would be a benefit.” 

Bobby has nothing to say to that – instead, he peers at Sam over his glasses, a slightly drawn look to his face. Sam is pretty sure he knows what his uncle is thinking; namely, that Sam probably would have spiraled right off the deep end if he hadn’t thrown himself into school. 

He’d graduated high school two years early, had managed to get a full ride to Berkeley and Stanford based on essays and applications and pure determination. Passing the Bar at 23 had been no mean feat, and he knows it. Bobby does too. Still, Sam can’t help but feel like he’s been running a marathon with no finish line. 

“You could also just stay in Berkeley,” his uncle muses. “Must be plenty'a firms that would hire you there. Young alpha lawyer, bright eyed and bushy-tailed for omega rights? You’ve gotta be their wet dream.” 

Sam grimaces. “I… don’t want to stay in California.”

His uncle arches an eyebrow. “Since when?”

Sam chews on his words for a minute. “I just… I want to make a difference,” he says, hands twisting around his mug. He stares down at his coffee with a frown, grief creeping back into his mind despite his best efforts. “I can’t sit around and pretend, you know? Cali is great. I love it there. But it’s this… bubble, sometimes. Where people just pretend that the whole country has it figured out. It’s usually progressive there, and that’s awesome. They’ve more laws in favor of slaves and omegas than pretty much any other state. But that’s not the case here, and not the case in most other places.” 

He swallows. “I just… I want to do something. Something real. Because if I don’t, I feel like I’m…” 

Sam blinks harshly, his nose stinging. When he doesn’t go on, Bobby reaches across the table and lays a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “You’ve done a lot already, you know. Don’t discount the folks you’ve already helped.”

He can’t help but laugh at that. “All I did was call the cops.”

His uncle’s voice sharpens. “You know that ain’t true, son.”

Shrugging, Sam plays with his fork. They don’t often talk about what happened last year. Sam prefers it that way – he doesn’t want to rehash stuff that’s already happened. He’s had enough of the interviews and the looky-loos to last a lifetime. 

Neither of them have said it, but Sam’s got a feeling that what he’d done at Berkeley has followed him all the way here. It’s probably part of the reason that he’s not gotten any call-backs.  

Bobby nudges him. “It took courage to stand up for people like you did. You could've stayed silent, could've let it go on like everyone else was happy as shit to do. But you didn’t. You used your power for good and helped those kids instead.” 

His chest tightens. “Bobby… I couldn’t have turned a blind eye to that. You’re acting like I had a choice –” 

“You did,” his uncle says solemnly. “You could've been a knot-headed frat boy like the rest of ‘em. You could've taken advantage of those girls just the same."

“No, I couldn’t have,” Sam insists, his stomach turning at the thought. 

He’d gotten plenty of invites to those types of parties – almost all of which he’d turned down. It hadn’t been his scene, and the idea of mingling with rich kids and rich kid problems had never appealed to him. 

The one time he had caved and had gone out to one of the frat houses, it hadn’t taken him long to figure out what had been going on. “God. They were barely of age. And signing a contract under duress or while in an intoxicated state is illegal.” 

His uncle holds up a hand. “You don’t have to read me the riot act, kid. I know you did the right thing. But you gotta understand that there ain't many alphas out there who would've.”

“That makes me fucking sick,” he spits. Flinging his coffee across the room is starting to seem real appealing, because some of the same anger he’d felt that night is returning full force. Sam can feel himself tense, can feel his body flood with an echo of adrenaline. 

He’d nearly landed himself with an assault charge when he’d realized what was going on. He’d seen red so fast that he’d attacked one of those boys without even making a conscious decision to. The sight of them – rich, cocky alphas, leading those girls into the basement after slipping things in their drinks in campus bars, holding their hands around theirs and guiding the pen as they’d pushed them into signing their fucking lives away just for some extra cash for the fraternity… 

Needless to say, Sam had gone ballistic. He’d been lucky, in hindsight, that the cops he’d called had been pro-omega. Otherwise he might have ended up in jail instead of the students he’d gone after. He’s probably also lucky that the networks in Berkeley had been determined to paint him as a heroic figure instead of a radical – as much as he hadn’t wanted the attention, it at least hadn’t been the kind that would have gotten him kicked out of his school and blacklisted from others. 

“I know it makes you sick,” Bobby says, bringing him back to the present. “I’m glad you ain’t that kind of person. You weren’t raised to be,” he adds, and Sam knows he’s not just talking about his own parenting skills. As usual, the memory of Dean hovers around them like a ghost. 

He reaches up and squeezes Bobby’s hand, blinking harshly down at the table. He’s trying his damndest to keep it together.

His uncle’s voice is gentle, when he speaks again. “I miss him too, Sam.”

Sam knows his face crumples by the way his uncle draws him into a hug, warm and solid against him. He’s been taller than Bobby for a long time, but it never seems to discourage him from making Sam feel small and protected when he wants to. 

He hugs him back fiercely. “He should’a been here to see this,” he mumbles into Bobby’s shoulder. 

His uncle just hugs him a little tighter. He doesn’t bring up false hopes, doesn’t tell Sam that one day Dean will be here again. He doesn’t lie to Sam about those kinds of things – never has. 

They break apart after a while, Bobby kindly pretending like he doesn’t see the wetness in Sam’s eyes and Sam kindly pretending like he doesn’t see the same thing in Bobby’s. He wipes at his face. Clears his throat. Finishes his breakfast. 

It’s not that they hadn’t tried to find Dean. They’d searched for years – and Sam knows for certain that Bobby still keeps an ear out for anything that might lead them his way. But finding a slave in the system was next to impossible. Their identities were erased and they were intentionally shipped far away from where they were located when they signed on, precisely to keep family members like Bobby and Sam from trying to steal them back.

By the time Sam had returned from that stupid camping trip and pried what had happened out of John, Dean had already been gone for a week. And by the time he made it to Bobby’s, it had been nearly two. Dean could have been anywhere in the country by that point. 

When they finish eating, Bobby gathers up their dishes and does them silently, waving at Sam dismissively. “Go and find yourself a project, kid,” he says, his voice kind, despite the clear order. “Get yourself busy and get out of your head.”

Sam snorts, fondness filling him. “Sir, yes sir,” he says with a mock salute. Bobby flips him the bird as he wanders out into the yard.

The sun is beating down bright and hard, and Sam feels some of his sadness begin to slink back into the shadows – at least for now. It’s a beautiful day, and he’s determined to enjoy it as best as he can. 

Bobby’s yard is as disorganized as it always is, half finished projects in haphazard piles strewn about here and there. He still does repairs to keep the lights on, but he knows for certain that his uncle had cut way back when Sam had moved out. Most of his money, these days, comes from his hunting network. 

Unlike John, Bobby manages to keep his bridges intact. And, also unlike John, Bobby has stuck firmly to hunting people that deserve to be hunted. People that hurt other people. 

Sam would very much like to stop thinking about John. It doesn't help when he passes the tarp-covered Chevy on the way to the garage. He hasn’t uncovered it in years, and he certainly doesn’t plan on doing so today. Not with how badly his heart already hurts. 

He nudges open the garage door with his boot, knowing already that it will be unlocked. Bobby doesn’t seem to think there’s anything in his place worth stealing – not that many people would want to wander onto his property in the first place. Sam’s well aware that his uncle has a reputation as a crazy old coot with a pump-action. 

Inside, dust motes float around, bars of sunlight cutting through the grimy windows. He flips on the lights and smiles a little to himself as they flicker on. He’s got an old F100 up on blocks – his latest project. Sam has already heard all about it and all the fuss it’s given him… so much so that his uncle had nearly forgotten to pick him up yesterday. He’d gotten caught up trying to fix her before Monday. Obviously, though, he’s given that up as a lost cause. 

Sam inhales and feels himself relax a little as the familiar scents wash over him. Even before he was staying with Bobby permanently, this had been a safe space for him. A place where he could relax, far away from John’s bullshit. 

The office is as chaotic as ever, piles of paper and invoices scattered all over the place. Predictably, the answering machine on the shop phone is blinking – he can’t believe that Bobby even still has that thing. He bought a cellphone a long time ago, but when Sam had tried to convince the man he didn’t need to pay for the extra line, his uncle had shut him down without giving an inch. 

Like he always has, Sam throws himself down into his uncle’s rickety office chair and starts playing messages, a pad of paper and a pen successfully fished from a drawer. It’s always been Sam’s job to check the thing, ever since he was a kid – he’d felt important, back then, getting to be the one to carefully copy down people’s names and numbers and words. Bobby had always joked that he didn’t need to be a lawyer, since he already made a damn good secretary.

Rufus, as usual, has refused to break down and use Bobby’s new mobile number. He’s left two messages, back to back, hashing through his latest fishing trip in excruciating detail. Sam chuckles and saves them both, knowing his uncle will grumble his way through all ten minutes of them and pretend he isn’t enjoying every second. 

There are a few calls from potential customers, a few more from people looking to source parts. He jots those down in neat little lines, name and number and query all in a row. Here and there, he gets a message from a hunter who Bobby intentionally “forgot” to give his cell number to – those he deletes without mercy, knowing his uncle won’t be interested in helping them out. He grins when he hears a message from Jo toward the end that consists mainly of a complaint that Bobby wasn’t out at the Roadhouse a few nights ago. 

The last message sounds like nothing more than static, at first. Sam goes to delete it, his finger hovering over the button – but something stops him. The recording is long – several minutes long, in fact. He can hear what sounds like faint breathing on one end, if he strains.  

Frowning, he clicks the volume button a few times and restarts it. Sure enough, he can hear breathing, along with the sound of water and maybe even some birds. And the longer the message goes on, the more strained it sounds, until it seems like whoever is on the other end is having trouble breathing at all. 

Then there’s a click, and nothing but silence.  

It’s an odd message to send to a repair shop, Sam thinks. It’s possible, of course, that it’s just a prank call, some stupid kid trying to freak someone out. But something about it niggles at the back of his mind, makes him restart the message and listen again, and then again. 

Drumming his fingers on the table, Sam finally breaks and gives in to his curiosity. He flips the notepad to a blank page, writes down the number attached. It’s something with an unfamiliar area code. Whoever it is, they aren’t from around here. 

Bobby seems unimpressed with how quickly he goes back inside, and even more unimpressed when Sam drops the little pad of messages in front of his newspaper and pulls out his laptop to do some googling. “This ain't what I meant when I told you to find a project, Sam.” 

Ignoring him, Sam types in the area code. It’s from Washington state. He frowns, wondering why someone from so far away had decided to leave that message on the answering machine of a South Dakota salvage yard on a Sunday morning. 

“What are you doing back on that thing already? Didn’t you pass your damn test?”

Sam frowns at the screen. “You had a weird message on your phone. The last one.” 

His uncle snorts. “I get all kinds on that line. Old hunters like to play jokes. What was it?”

Sam clicks through the little towns with that area code. None of them sound familiar. “It was just someone breathing on the other end. Lasted quite a while.”

“Huh,” Bobby says, not looking up from his paper. “They must’a called twice, then. I answered the second time. They did the same thing to me.”

Sam frowns harder at that. “They didn’t say anything else?”

“Not a word. I hung up after a while – I was still workin’ on that F100. Didn’t have time to fool around.”

Tapping his foot, Sam feels that strange feeling inside of him grow a little insistent. “They haven’t tried calling back since?”

“Nope.”

“And you didn’t call them back, either?”

Slightly exasperated, Bobby finally puts his paper down and gives Sam his full attention. “Why the hell would I?”

“It doesn’t seem… weird to you?”

Bobby gives him a strange look. “Well, sure. But no weirder than half the crank calls Jo sends out.”

Sam feels that odd nudging feeling again, a little stronger this time. “I wanna know who it was,” he says firmly, feeling only a little crazy. 

Bobby blows a long breath of air out of his mouth. He rustles his paper, returning to his place. “Alright, Nancy Drew. Go wild.” 

Sam is barely listening at this point, halfway up the stairs so he can focus in his room. He’s already jabbing the number into a couple of different databases, is already mentally scrolling through the lists of people they know who live in Washington. He knows that Bobby has a couple of hunting buddies that work that area frequently, but no one who’d leave him a message like that… 

A few hours in, and he’s come up with jack squat. All he knows is the carrier the line is connected to and that it was a pretty recent connection. Sam also knows, logically, that he’s pretty much found out all he legally can. 

Lucky for him, he knows a gal. 

Charlie picks up on the second ring. “‘Yello, you’ve reached the queen.”

“Good morning, your majesty.”

“Greetings, peasant,” she says regally, then drops the accent altogether. “How was your flight? You promised to text me, you friggin’ scrub.”

Sam rubs the back of his neck, a little guilty. “Yeah, sorry. I forgot. Had some stuff on my mind, to be honest.”

Charlie makes a grumbling noise, but she doesn’t push – she knows him better than that. Sometimes Sam wonders if it’s a little strange that his best friend in the world is someone he hadn’t met till college, but he wouldn’t trade Charlie for anything. She knows more about him than just about anyone, save for maybe Bobby.

“I’ve got a favor to ask.”

He can see Charlie grinning. “You know me, Sam. I’m all about favors. Is this the semi- legal kind of favor?”

“I’m thinking it’s gonna be leaning more toward the semi than the legal.”

“My favorite kind,” she jokes, though Sam knows enough to understand she’s being more genuine than not. “What is the quest, oh brave knight?”

“I just want you to dig up everything you can on whoever this number belongs to,” he says, rattling it off for her to copy down. 

“Do I get to know why, or is it a fun surprise?”

Sam considers his words. “I… they left a weird message on my uncle’s answering machine.” He describes it, feeling more and more insane with every word that comes out of his mouth – he’s making a huge deal out of something that is almost certainly going to turn out to be nothing at all. 

There is a ringing silence on the other end of the line. “Sam…” 

He winces. “I… know how this sounds.” 

“Buddy,” Charlie starts, her voice more gentle. “I just don’t… want you to get your hopes up, yah know? It’s, like. Listen. I’m not trying to rain on your parade. But it’s…”

“Probably just a prank call, Charlie. I know,” Sam says. “I’m not getting my hopes up.”

His friend sighs ever so slightly over the line. “Alright.” There’s a pause, and then she adds, “You wanna maybe… stay on the line? For no reason in particular. Definitely not worried about you or anything.”

Sam chuckles. “Yeah, you are. For the record, I’m not hanging up because I know how incredibly fast you are. Not because I’m having a crisis.”

“Right, right,” Charlie agrees, not a hint of belief in her voice. “Of course.”

Sam plops himself down on his bed, his computer still open on his lap. He can fill out job applications while he waits, now is as good a time as any. 

“Here’s something,” Charlie says a few minutes later, breaking the silence – and interrupting Sam from typing his email address incorrectly into an online application for the fourth time in a row. He’s slightly distracted.  

“Hit me.”

“Line is registered under Castiel Novak. He opened it a month or two ago, looks like.” 

“Weird name. Bet he wouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“Way ahead of ya,” Charlie says. Sam can picture the intense concentration on her face as her fingers fly over the keyboard. “Resident of Washington state, according to his last drivers license. He’s also 5’ll, has dreamy blue eyes, and is an organ donor.” 

Sam laughs. “Next you’ll tell me his horoscope.” 

“He’s a virgo,” Charlie deadpans. There’s a few more seconds of silence, and then, “Looks like he owns two properties in the state. One’s residential and one’s a…” 

She hesitates. “Looks like a… non-profit. NRR is the listed name. That’s not too vague or creepy, or anything...” She types some more, her frown audible in her voice. “That’s… odd.” 

Sam perks up. “What is?”

“Well,” Charlie starts, speaking slowly. “Normally, not-for-profits are all over social media. They kind of have to be in order to source donations. But I’m not seeing hide nor hair of NRR.” 

“Nothing?” 

“Nada. Zip. Zilch. It’s almost like… someone is coming alone behind them and cleaning up.” 

Sam can feel his excitement growing – he stands up from his bed and starts to pace. “I knew something was up.”

“Hold your horses there, cowboy,” Charlie says. “We don’t know if it’s anything yet. Could just be a boring case of tax evasion.” 

Impatient, Sam strides back and forth in his room. It’s a few more minutes before Charlie's typing abruptly stops. 

“What? Sam asks, more excited than he probably should be. “What did you find?”

Charlie’s voice is hesitant. “Well. Whoever is scrubbing up behind them missed something.” She pauses, and then says, carefully neutral, “NRR stands for Novak Rehabilitation and Reintegration.” 

Sam comes to a sharp halt in the middle of his room. “Is that…” He clears his throat. “Is that what it sounds like?”

Charlie takes a breath. “Um. Well, it seems like it might be. It’s just some reddit update from a kid who’s volunteering there, or something. He’s a beta asking about working with…” 

She trails off. “Oh.”

Sam could scream. “Oh? Oh? What does that mean, Charlie?” 

Her voice is shaking when she speaks again. “He’s… asking about how best to work with omegas. Um. That have been… enslaved.”

The silence in the room is so complete that Sam could have heard a pin drop to the floor. He knows his breath just caught in his chest and knows that Charlie must have heard it, because she’s already trying to backtrack. 

“Sam, you know that it could just be a coincidence. We’ve got no idea what the circumstances of a call like that might be. Could be a total fluke.”

Sam would very much like to agree. Or speak at all. But right now, he feels like his room is getting increasingly smaller around him. “But… what if…” 

“Sam.” Her voice is firm. “Please take a breath. Are you breathing? It doesn’t sound like you’re breathing.”

He drags in a breath, and then another. “Charlie. What if…” 

“You can’t do that to yourself,” she cuts him off. “Please, don’t. Just… wait until I do some more research, okay? We don’t even know if it’s the same NRR. I don’t want to jump to conclusions and have you…” 

Sam closes his eyes. It wouldn’t be the first false hope that Charlie had helped him get through. She knows, better than just about anyone, how quickly he can latch onto any sort of clue or hint, how quickly he can build something up in his mind. 

She takes a breath. “Are you gonna tell Bobby?”

Sam opens his mouth to say yes, of course. But, after a moment, he swallows the words back down. 

He’s done this to Bobby too many times to count. And Sam can’t handle dumping another heartbreak on the man. Can’t handle dragging him into this black hole again. He can’t even count how many times he did this to Bobby as a kid, can’t count how many times he called him up and excitedly told him some little clue or hint or tip that would, ultimately, lead to nothing at all. His uncle had always leapt into action. Had always rode out the trail until it was drier than sun bleached bones. Had consistently been there for him in the heartbreak that had always followed. 

But Sam can’t do that to him again.  

“No,” he says finally, balling his hand up into a fist. “No. Not unless we… actually find something.” 

Charlie lets out a relieved breath. “Okay. Alright, that’s… yeah. Good idea.” 

Sam bites his lip. “Charlie, if it’s him…” 

“Then we’ll figure it out,” she replies, something fierce in her voice. “We will. And if it’s not, we’ll keep looking, like we always have.”

There’s something tight in Sam’s throat that he has to swallow around before he can speak again. “Thank you,” he whispers, totally inadequate words to describe the depth of how he feels. How grateful he is that Charlie did not run screaming for the hills the first time Sam came up to her in the first place; a too-tall, hung-over alpha man unpacking his fucking life story on an unsuspecting victim in the library in the odd hours of the morning. 

She shouldn’t have stuck around – any reasonable omega woman wouldn’t have. Not alone, not when it was dark out. But Charlie had. She’d sat down and stayed with him and talked with him for hours. And she’s had the same sort of love and loyalty ever since. 

“You know you’re my best friend, right?” he adds, wiping at his eyes. 

“And you’re mine,” she replies easily. “I’ll talk to you soon, Sam.”

And with that, she hangs up, and Sam sits down in the middle of his floor, trying desperately to claw back at that growing tendril of hope.