strangetrip | [EP] What a nice surprise

"Eugene Thompson," repeated the Innkeeper, when Sam finally broke down and stopped searching for the wheelchair guy to ask. "One moment, please. Do you need any--"

"No. I have plenty of towels." What the heck was it with the towels, anyway? Sam shifted his weight to his other foot and tried not to screw up his face too much. The guy was just doing his job. Even if that was literally all he could do. "Um, but thanks."

"You're welcome." The Innkeeper did something that was probably smile, but Sam couldn't have described it, or his face for the life of him. "Ah, yes." He tapped a finger against the rounded black monitor screen that was as almost as old as Sam. "Mr. Thompson has checked out."

"Huh?" Sam's felt the surprise overtake his face and he had to work hard to plant his hands at the edge of the counter instead of reaching across to grab the guy by the collar. "I thought you said we couldn't leave."

"That is correct."

"But Flash--"

"Flash Thompson has checked out."

"How does that even make--" Never mind. The lyrics of Hotel California came to him. "So, you're saying he's dead and I should look for his ghost?"

"I have no record of His Ghost."

Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Okay, yeah. Thanks."

After he'd stalked away from the front desk, Sam dropped into one of the round red leather booths in the Copper Cafe and pulled out his cell...which was absolutely fucking useless and he still forgot half the time. "Great. The Innkeeper's useless. Flash has 'checked out'. And I can't text anyone to tell them about it."

Oh yeah. Life in the days before instantaneous communication sucked. And blew.

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"Yeah, I know. It's just that their jobs have very firm borders. Like they can't define what 'check out' means, even though they can say someone checked out," Sam replied, somewhat irritably. Time was ticking on Dean's deal and he wanted to get out of here.

It wasn't Caroline's fault, though. So Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair, trying to find a smile for her or at least not a straight up frown. "We're just usually better at this."

"Look...my mom's a cop. And...investigating takes time. You can't just solve every mystery in a single week and move on to the next. Life isn't Law & Order. Maybe we don't have all the pieces yet." Elena said that one of Caroline's worst traits was her delusional positivity but in Caroline's time on the planet, she'd seen that nothing, not even death could really stop you if you just kept trying.

"I doubt your mom would be any more patient than I am if she knew you were stuck here." Sam was doing his best to be reasonable, but since he felt like digging in his heels and dragging the conversation to a halt, it wasn't really working. His tongue rolled behind his teeth while he fought off the urge to throw something.

"Sorry," he finally managed and meant it. "I don't mean to take it out on you. I was in the middle of something at home when I got pulled here, and the clock is ticking on it." If time was moving the same way at home, or moving at all.

He didn't even know if the demons could get to Dean here. Maybe he learned something from Henry when he was time traveling and then used it to pull all three of them here so he had time. It had crossed his mind more than a few times, but if he had, he'd lost his memory of it, which made figure the place that much more important.

So far, he hadn't actually tried to summon a demon, but he might have to, soon.

Caroline didn't grind her teeth. She wanted to, but it was a bad habit to pick up and she didn't feel like a hundred years of trying to break it. Instead she took a deep cleansing breath. "My mom... You're not the only person who was in the middle of something when they ended up here. There's really bad stuff going on in town and it's been months at this point without a solution. So..." So what, Caroline? What exactly did she think she was going to say? "Whatever. Nevermind. I get is, is all I'm saying."

"Yeah," Sam replied because what else was he going to say? Although he had picked up the reference to her mother, and it took a minute to penetrate his irritation, but once it did, he frowned and his expression softened. "I'm really sorry about your mom...is she...did something happen to her?"

Caroline shrugged. "She's fine." Well, mostly fine. She looked tired when she came to Caroline's door. Tired and tense. But that was because Travelers had taken over the whole town and were terrorizing the locals and killing anyone they pleased and pretending they were the good guys. "The mayor died last year, there's not really anyone leading the city, so it's all on mom. She's tired and I..." Can't go home. "I'm at school most of the time, so I don't get to see her as often as I want."

"That's rough. I'm sorry." Better than dead, or dying, but still rough. They didn't know each other well enough for him to say much more about it. "I figure we've all got people at home worrying about us. I think about that a lot, what they must think. Or if they even know, when people come from the same place but different times."

[EP] What a nice surprise

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