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Anna sank onto the couch beside Sam, reaching out to pull one of his hands away from his face so she could hold it, lacing their fingers together. Her other arm went around Sam’s back, pulling him in close. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
Sam didn’t answer right away. Anna just held him, gently rubbing her thumb on the back of his hand. Finally, he said, “You know that arson case I was working?” Anna nodded. Sam had been working a case where a fire started in a baby’s nursery. In saving the baby, the mother ended up trapped, and the firefighters didn’t get to her in time to save her. She’d inhaled too much smoke. The initial reports said it was probably an electrical problem, but Sam had been able to prove that the suggested cause couldn’t have caused the fire. Then, when they looked closer, they found the signs that it was arson.
Which certainly didn’t explain why Sam was sitting here on the couch looking like someone ran over his dog. “I thought it was going great. What happened?”
“Captain Singer yanked me off the case. Dean, too.” Anna winced and leaned in closer against Sam. She could see Bobby’s point, sort of. This case had a lot in common with how their mother died. Even though the official cause of the fire had been determined to be sparks from a frayed wire, John had never accepted that, insisting it was arson. The part Anna didn’t get was why Bobby would pull them off now. If he was going to do it, it should have been right away. Then again, nobody in the entire state of Kansas was better at picking apart arson scenes than Sam, so maybe Bobby was just willing to trust Sam to do his job and figure out the cause of the fire for sure.
Of course, there was an obvious question. “If the captain yanked you both, where…?”
“Dean’s still there fighting with Bobby.” It got a grim smile out of Sam, at least. “It’s not that we don’t trust Garth and Lee to handle it, it’s just… this is our case. Bobby wouldn’t even say why he was yanking me, just that I was off the case, and he sent me home when I tried to argue.”
Anna was just about to point out the similarities between this case and Mary Winchester’s when the door banged open and Dean stomped in. Sam looked up, hope in his eyes, but Dean crushed it immediately. “We’re still off the case, but Bobby at least gave me a good goddamn explanation for why he won’t let us work it.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Oh, good, we’re still not allowed to do our damn jobs, but at least there’s a reason for it!” Dean glared at him, but Sam didn’t back down. “What’s the explanation that’s so good you gave up the fight for solving an arson case? Because if it’s Mom, I’m not listening, I’m going back down there and giving Bobby either a piece of my mind or my resignation.”
“Not Mom.” Dean crossed his arms. “Jess.”
Anna could feel Sam’s muscles getting even tenser, which she hadn’t thought possible. Sam tried a couple times to start a comeback, but eventually gave up and settled back against the couch. Anna looked between them. Jess had died in a fire, Anna knew. It’s why Sam had come to live with her and Dean, how the three of them ended up together. Sam hadn’t given details, and Anna had never pushed, just given him the space to grieve. Still, it didn’t exactly seem relevant. “What’s Jess got to do with anything?”
“Sammy here didn’t tell us the whole story about how she died,” Dean snapped. “If I’d known, I’d have yanked us off the case as soon as you proved arson! We wouldn’t have had to wait for Bobby!”
“The hell are you talking about, Dean? What details did you want, exactly? You were there, you were the one talking to the cops, you know as much about it as I do! Yeah, it was arson, and if they ever made any progress beyond that they never told me anything.”
Jess’s death is why Sam became a detective instead of going to law school like he’d planned. Given the circumstances, he’d been allowed to take incompletes for the quarter and finish up his degree, but once he had that he was applying to the police. It had frustrated him so badly that even proving it was arson, Jess’s case never got solved. There wasn’t anyone to blame for it.
Dean looked equally confused. “Really? Huh. That… they didn’t tell you?”
“No!” Sam sat forward, staring at Dean. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“Charlie read your explanation of why this was arson and thought it sounded familiar. She went back looking for the case, and found it. The MO of this arson matched up really well with the MO of the one that killed Jess. There’ve been a few others, too. And get this: two days ago, he tried to strike again. Another fire in a baby’s nursery, except this time, the dad was able to take him down and hold him until the cops showed up.”
Sam’s eyes gleamed, and he and Anna both leaned forward eagerly. “They have someone in custody? A suspect in our arson, too?”
“MO’s the same, but he’s not talking, so Garth and Lee still have work to do to tie him to this one. Here’s the interesting part, the part why Bobby pulled you off the case – the suspect was at Stanford with you and Jess. Puts him there to commit that arson.” Dean grinned. “And the best part – while it’s obvious he wasn’t responsible for Mom’s death, he was just a baby, one of the few things he has said is that he has a partner who’s gonna finish the job for him. Older guy.”
“Okay, so… Stanford’s a big campus, I’m not working Jess’s case, I’m working this one, why am I not?”
“Well, there’s the obvious of you being too close to it because it’s tied to Jess, but…” Dean trailed off. “Sammy, it’s Tyson Brady.”
Anna jumped. “Sam’s freshman and sophomore roommate Tyson Brady?”
“The guy who fucking introduced me to Jess?!” Sam jerked away from Anna, jumping up to pace. “Why would he do this?”
Dean shrugged. “That’s for Garth and Lee to work out, or the guys who’re working the other case.”
“Sam,” Anna said. She reached out for his hands, and Sam sullenly stopped and let her take them. “Sam, you cannot go rushing in there and attack him. He needs to pay, and I know you wanna kill him, but let the justice system work, huh? Your mom, Jess, they wouldn’t want you to throw away your career and your life to get revenge. Not when there’s a better way.”
“And if the bastard gets off?”
“Then we worry about it,” Anna promised. “Give the law a chance, huh?”
Sam took a few long, deep breaths. “Fine. But I wanna be there for the trial. I want to see that bastard pay.”
“We’ll be there, Sammy,” Dean promised, coming over to hug him tight from behind. “In the meantime, Bobby’s given us the rest of the day off to get our heads on straight, so unless an emergency comes up, let’s relax, huh? Good day to start Voltron.”
Anna blinked. “Wait, what? You keep refusing to watch that! You say it’ll ruin your childhood!”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m wrong about how bad it’ll be, and I know Sam wants to watch it. Get it loaded up, I’ll make some popcorn, let’s enjoy this.”