TWENTY-TWO

Hearts v Heads (Away Game)

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Grass, turf, everything was ripped aside, hands reaching up through the earth. They struggled and second hands appeared, then arms and elbows. The graves fell in on themselves, grimy cadavers in various states of decomposition pushing themselves up and out of their foetid prisons.

Inside Amy Perry’s grave, Sam dropped the shovel. His hands scrabbled at the edge of the coffin. He found the lip and yanked but the lid wouldn’t open.

Dean pulled a rod from his duffle, tossing it at Frost. She caught it awkwardly, passing it to her left hand to study it. She looked up as Dean pulled out another rod, getting to his feet and grasping her arm.

“You stay that side,” he ordered. “Anything that ain’t Sam or me, stake it. And remember: they’re faster than they look.”

She simply nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She watched him take up a position on the other side of the open grave, hefting the silver bar in his right hand.

“Sam?” Dean demanded.

“I’m trying!” Sam protested, yanking harder at the lid. “It’s not moving!”

“Why are we surrounded by extras from Shaun of the Dead?” Dean called back. “I thought it was just Perrys and their victims that came back!”

“I - don’t - know,” Sam grunted, shifting his grip and trying again with the lid.

“Maybe we tripped some kind of security alarm,” Frost blinked.

Dean turned and looked at her - just looked. She realised he was staring at her as if she had two heads and shrugged lamely. She looked down into the grave.

“It’s locked!” she observed.

“It’s what?” Dean demanded. “Who the hell--”

“Dad?” Sam spluttered. “Why would--”

“Cut it open!” Frost cried in frustration.

Sam’s hands appeared out of the grave as Dean turned and pushed the duffle at him with his boot. It fell in and Sam began to rummage inside.

“Looks like a quarter-inch padlock,” Frost said helpfully. “You’ll need a--” She turned quickly as she heard movement. “Bloody hell!” she exploded.

A tall, almost grey man was standing right in front of her. The flesh was falling from him as he moved. She stared for a long moment. His hands shot up toward her neck.

She didn’t think. She hammered the stake into him desperately, kicking his feet out from under him. He fell and she landed her weight on the stake. He rattled and lay still.

She heard grunting and struggling. She looked up to see Dean similarly despatching a member of the walking dead. She spied shoes next to her hand on the grass and got up quickly. She backed up one to give herself room to strike at the woman watching her.

Sam wrenched the bolt cutters from the duffle. He turned and attacked the padlock hoop, exerting the entire pressure of a desperate Winchester. The bolt cutters rolled up their sleeves and took a deep breath, determined to get the job done. They flexed and bit, squeezing harder than they had ever done before.

The blades slipped off and the bolt cutters leapt from Sam’s hand, lying in the disturbed dirt by his feet, whimpering in shame at their ineptitude. He picked them up and flung the soil from them, trying again with the lock.

Dean yanked the silver rod free of a teenage boy’s chest, wincing on the inside. He pushed him with a grunt and the dead undead toppled over. A man was right behind him. Dean stepped over the boy and attacked the taller assailant. He heard a female cry but slammed the rod home. He twisted to look behind him quickly. He saw Frost pinned under a hefty man who was shedding skin and lumps of flesh as she struggled to get purchase on him.

Dean twisted the silver rod into his own attacker. His elbow went into the dead man’s chest and he freed the rod with an angry grunt that Sam heard all the way from the belligerent coffin. Dean turned and began to scramble round the grave to Frost’s side.

But her boot came up and squelched directly into the man’s stomach. It was sucked in until it connected with his spine. She heaved and he flew up and off her. The second his back hit the ground she leapt on him and drove the stake right through his chest area.

Dean put his left palm out and she grabbed it with her empty right, hauling herself to her feet.

“And that’s why,” she panted, checking the end of the dripping stake, “I never bother getting new shoes.”

Dean pulled on her palm still using his as support. She jerked to one side and heard the squelch of rod and flesh. She felt his grip stronger on her hand as she turned and drove her stake up. It hit a ribcage and kept on going up. It came out the front of the breastplate and she pulled it back down and out.

She held tight to the hand of the real human, determined she would need the leverage. He moved and stood with his back against hers, obviously of the same opinion. They looked around, realising they were being converged upon and the ranks were getting deeper than just two on each side. She let Dean’s hand go and instead her arm snaked through his, keeping them stronger together. Her stake flew up and into the front of a decidedly used looking female cadaver. Dean’s free arm was already shoving forwards.

“Sam?” Dean called. “Come on, man!”

“It won’t open!” Sam shouted back, his voice thick with anger and frustration.

“Is it protected?” Frost managed, ducking a swipe from a dead hand.

“Check for magic seals or something!” Dean added.

Frost was pulled forwards sharply. Dean was hauled backwards. He refused to let go. She fell to her knees in the damp grass. His arm was wrenched free from hers but his hand managed to clamp onto her sleeve to stop her pitching over onto her face. Two grey male hands clamped round her neck.

Dean turned and plunged the rod into the man’s neck. The corpse tried to reach for it. Dean let go of Frost to grasp the man’s front. He turned his grip on the rod and hauled it out. The neck was sliced right through. The head fell clear. The hands flailed. Dean impaled the chest before the cadaver fell backwards.

Frost caught at Dean’s arm to get back to her feet, brandishing her rod.

“It’s a good job I know another side of you,” she breathed fearfully. “Otherwise I might mistake you for a bloodthirsty rod-wielding maniac.”

Dean didn’t turn to look at her. “Duffle. Another rod. Get it!”

She turned and landed by the grave mouth. She slid down inside and snatched up the duffle from the top of the coffin.

“Any luck?” she hurled at Sam.

He was bending down by the side, shining a Maglite at something with great concentration.

“No… I don’t know these…”

“Shit. Well make something up then,” she snapped. She hauled a fresh rod from the duffle, then paused before pulling out another one. “Is this it?”

“Normally that’s enough,” Sam muttered, pre-occupied.

Frost huffed, grasping the two rods in one hand and climbing back out of the grave.

She looked up, finding close to twenty cadavers still surrounding them - two more on Dean.

She jumped in fright, taking a stake in each hand and ploughing right in. Dean drove his arm into one man and he fell. Frost’s stake ripped through another chest and the female cadaver of indeterminate age also plunged to the grass.

Dean turned to Frost, wiping his forehead. “Thanks.”

“Help Sam. He can’t get the lid open,” she nodded. Her eyes over his shoulder widened. He turned quickly, slamming his silver bar into the man about to grab him. He twisted it free as he heard movement and more squelching behind him.

“You really think--” Dean paused to haul a girl straight in front of him, ramming the stake into her hurriedly, “-- that I’d know how to read a protection spell Sam doesn’t?”

Frost’s reply was lost in angry staking for a second. Then she regrouped, panting at him. “I didn’t say you’d know how to read it,” she gasped, “but you’ll figure something out.”

Dean’s eyebrows scrambled up the incline of his brow, apparently just as surprised as he was at her level of trust. He grabbed one more zombie, hacking the silver bar now covered in all manner of unmentionable matter into the chest cavity.

“I’ll be quick,” he managed. His hand brushed her arm as he passed her, skidding to the edge of the grave and dropping in. “Sam!” he barked.

“I can’t read it,” Sam protested, looking up over the coffin edge quickly. “I can’t get it open!”

“Get out, help Nara,” he demanded, throwing the silver stake at him.

“You’re going to read it?” Sam gasped, already turning for the side of the grave.

Dean’s eyes fell on the duffle. “Nope,” he said decisively, fishing around inside the bag quickly to come up with a large jerry can of salt and a bottle of lighter fluid. “I don’t have to.”

“You can’t--”

“If the coffin’s burnt, the seal goes up too, right?” Dean demanded, already shaking the salt out in large swathes over the lid. He flicked the cap clean off the bottle with this thumb, squeezing the fluid all over the wooden coffin and its new salt-frosted coating.

“But--”

“Just go! She’s up there by herself!”

Sam scrambled up and out of the hole. He covered the few feet to Frost instantly, yanking a tall man off her and plunging the stake into him. She didn’t even stop. She simply got a better hold on the other zombie clawing at her and rammed her stake into him. It came free of her hand as he dropped.

Sam stepped in front of her, flipping the rod round deftly and pushing it into the woman reaching for them. Frost stepped back, trying to find a rod. She spied a shovel and snatched it up.

“That’s not going to--” Sam began, as she stepped round his side, hefting the spade in her hands.

“You’re right.”

She looked down at the shovel before grasping its wooden handle firmly. She slammed it down over her knee, managing to almost snap it evenly. The iron head swung loose and she let it to the ground, putting her scuffed boot on it and yanking at the wooden handle. It came away and she bent to pick up the head.

“What about iron?” she asked innocently of a gaping Sam. He shut his mouth and nodded quickly. “Sam!”

He turned and swiped his bar at a teenage girl reaching for him. Frost got up quickly, turning to ram her spade head into the chest of a grasping cadaver so decomposed it was impossible to tell the gender.

A bright light brought their attention. Sam and Frost looked over to see Dean crawling up out of the grave, now alight. He scrambled clear, turning to watch the grave suddenly whoomf into a fierce blaze.

“Hope you didn’t leave anything valuable in there,” he observed.

They three of them looked around the graveyard hastily. Corpses began to drop where they stood, slamming into the ground, once more lifeless. The sudden quiet and stillness was unnerving as the three living people got their breath back, watching the fire and eyeing the cadavers in case they spied the tiniest of movements from them.

Sam dropped his silver rod, Frost letting go of her spade head. Dean got to his feet slowly, dusting himself off and checking the other two were still standing.

“And that,” he said clearly, “is the end of that.”

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Sam and Dean walked up the long path to the house, appreciating the peaceful air to the cool Thursday morning. The front door opened and Dean smiled slightly as he stepped over the circle scored into the stone step.

“How long are you off work?” Sam asked with a smile, as Frost beckoned them through to the kitchen.

“I have a few days of leave left over and as my office is being redecorated I thought it would make sense to take them now,” she beamed. “Couldn’t have come at a better time - I am officially shocked and appalled that, according to a report on my desk when I put my second in charge this morning, some bunch of random hooligans desecrated the entire cemetery last night. I could not believe the statement describing the mess the caretaker found at the graveyard this morning,” she grinned.

Dean chuckled slightly. “So it’s cool?”

“Everything’s taken care of,” she allowed, backing away and leaning on the kitchen counter. “The police are making house calls, trying to find out who would have done such a thing to so many graves last night. I have assigned my two dullest, most unimaginative men to head the case, and pretty soon it will all be stamped as ‘crazy but harmless’ and filed under ‘who cares in the grand scheme of things anyway’.”

“You are something else,” Sam snorted with amusement, shaking his head. “You know… if you ever get tired of police work, being a hunter isn’t so bad,” he teased. Dean looked at him in surprise. Sam shrugged at him with complete and utter innocence.

“Oh please,” Frost sighed. “One night of bloody corpses and mayhem is enough. I think I’ve used up all the adrenaline I could produce for the next few years in one night. If I had to do it again, I’d stay out of it and just call you two,” she said firmly.

“Sam’s right,” Dean said quietly. “You did pretty good.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Doing that every weekend would seriously age me.” She paused to let her face soften slightly. “And it’s not my life.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“So anyways… thanks for, ah, staking dead people. And all your help here,” Sam said cheerfully.

“This is my town, Sam,” she allowed. “I know these people - or at least, I thought I did.” She paused, regarding her feet before she looked up and realised the boys were watching her with almost matching apologetic faces. She cleared her throat. “So… this is goodbye then?”

“Ah… yeah,” Sam allowed, before taking the coward’s way out and backing up to the door slightly.

Frost looked at Dean. “So it’s all finally over? Everyone’s dead - for good this time - and it’s all taken care of?”

“Looks that way,” he allowed.

“No unfinished business?” she asked gamely.

“None,” Dean nodded seriously.

“No worries about what we might have missed?”

“Nope.”

“I see.”

“I don’t think you do.” Dean paused, then pushed a hand at his nose. He sniffed to himself, watching his feet suddenly.

“Well then,” Frost allowed with a cheerful smile. “I shan’t hold you two up. You obviously have big things to be getting on with.”

Sam straightened as she advanced on him.

“Bye then, Sammy-Sam-Samuel,” she grinned, putting her arms out. Sam smiled, enveloping her in his long arms and hugging her tightly. “Look after you and your idiot brother,” she teased.

“I’ll try. It’s a full time job these days,” he agreed.

She pulled him back, patting at his chest with a charming tease of a chuckle. She turned on Dean. “So,” she said politely.

“So,” Dean nodded, his face impassive.

“Bye then,” she nodded.

“Yup. Bye,” he shrugged.

She swung her arms slowly, banging her closed fists together expectantly.

Dean started toward the door. She drifted forwards and met him halfway, her hands on his arms. Their lips found each other’s with a softness that sent raging embarrassment up Sam’s spine.

He cleared his throat politely, watching his feet rather studiously as he backed up to the doorjamb. Half a minute later Dean managed to tear his head from Frost’s. They looked at each other in silence. Finally Dean pulled in a slight breath, nodding slightly.

“Uh, Sam?” he breathed. Then he cleared his throat, strengthening his voice. “Give me a minute.”

“One minute?” he challenged maliciously.

Dean did not look away from the police chief. She was watching him with her lip in her teeth.

“Yeah.”

“Ok,” Sam shrugged. “I’ll be in the car. If you’re not out in five I’ll start pulling tape from cassettes to amuse myself.”

He turned and walked from the room, closing it quietly but nevertheless hastily behind him. Dean didn’t hesitate. His hand went into Frost’s hair and he bit at her urgently. She grinned against his mouth, grasping his jacket and pushing it off his shoulders.

He yanked it off, dropping it to the floor behind him as her hands went into his hair. His own hand went into his jeans pocket and he pulled out his phone. His thumb pressed at buttons as his other hand found her jaw. He pulled her away gently, watching her eyes and slapping the phone to his ear.

“Sam?” he growled down the phone. Frost grinned slyly, leaning in and sliding her lips down his free ear.

“Yeah?” came Sam’s response.

Dean squeezed his eyes shut as her teeth found his jaw. “Ah - ah - look, go and do something - get in some research or uh, something,” he managed, opening his eyes.

“You sure?” Sam asked critically.

“Oh yeah,” Dean breathed. Frost pulled her head back, her nose brushing his slightly. He raised his chin clear of the temptation. “Go,” he urged down the phone.

“Ok,” Sam sighed. “I’m taking the car,” he added maliciously.

“Great,” Dean rumbled, her hands on his chest, sliding his heavy plaid shirt open to his shoulders.

“Great?” Sam wondered.

“Go. Do some research, then eat or - or - somethin’,” Dean advised, his free hand in Frost’s side pulling her closer. “And then watch a movie.”

“What?” Sam spluttered.

“A long one,” Dean added quickly, lifting the phone slightly to crush his mouth against hers eagerly.

“You expect me to go fill my afternoon so you can get--”

“Then call me!” Dean commanded. He snapped the phone shut and simply tossed it over his shoulder.

It landed on his jacket comfortably. Frost grabbed his shirt and ripped it down his arms. It fell free and he pulled her t-shirt off over head briskly. She chuckled, tugging his off and flinging it somewhere she did not care to think about.

The phone, lying on his jacket, began to ring.

No-one answered it.

Not for four hours.

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FIN

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And that’s a wrap! Took me 22 chapters and a lot of RSI, but I did it. :) I promise the next one will be shorter - in fact, I know it will, as it’s pretty much finished and I just have to polish the damn thing. Thanks for all the reviews, comments, support, (and for tolerating/liking Chief Frost!) and I’ll see you all again really soon. THANK YOU.