37. Route 34, Colorado

"Here." I drape the blanket over Sam. I'd walked in earlier to find him shivering.

"Thanks." He pulls the blanket tight around him.

"Back to reading?" I notice the documents all sprawled on the table.

"There's so much that hasn't been looked at yet."

I move to the opposite side of the table and sit down across from him. I know Sam's been worsening, but I've never seen it this bad. He looks like he's catching something, and he hasn't eaten in days. Dean and I have tried to bait him with food, but he doesn't take to anything. He'll maybe drink something, but we have to practically force his mouth open and pour the liquid down his throat.

My head turns at approaching feet. I give Dean a tired smile as he walks in with a tray of food. I'd told Dean what I had seen this morning when I went to go fetch the blanket. But he'd already beaten me to it by being in the kitchen, making up some stew.

"Alright, here we go," says Dean. "John Winchester's famous cure-all kitchen sink stew. There you go." He sets the tray down near his brother. "Enough cayenne pepper in there to burn your lips off, just like Dad used to make."

I sigh as Sam pushes the tray away.

"Yeah, we do the whole airplane thing with the spoon? When was the last time you ate?"

"I-I don't..."

"Days, Sam," I take my turn to be the bad guy. "It's been three days."

Dean pulls out a thermometer.

"When'd you get that?" asks Sam.

"When you started throwing off heat waves," Dean says. "Here."

I rise as Sam does, throwing off the blanket. He stumbles a bit. "Enough, both of you. Please," he begs.

"The bloody handkerchiefs, the fever, the shaky legs...this isn't good."

"Well, I'm not good. And I'm not going to be good until we can start moving again. Until I can start the third trial."

I blink, wide-eyed, at the younger Winchester. "Trial?" I gasp. "I don't think we'd let you start a moped."

"We're on the rails with this thing, okay," says Dean, "and the only way out of it is through it, believe me, we know. And you know how bad we wanna slam the door on all those sons of bitches. But you gotta let us take care of you, man. You gotta let us help you get your strength back."

"This isn't a cold," Sam insists. "Or a fever, or whatever it is you're supposed to feed. This is part of it all. Those first two trials...they're not just things I did. They're doing something to me. They're changing me, you guys."

Which nobody thinks is good. I hope even he thinks that. I shake my head. I don't care what Sam says, Dean and I consider this a sickness. I haven't seen someone look so ill since...

But her condition and Sam's are total opposites. Hers didn't come with closing Hell's gates. Hers didn't come from supernatural causes. I want Sam's condition just to be a natural thing, but I'd only be kidding myself.

Someone's phone buzzes, and Dean pulls his out. "It's Kevin," he says.

"Finally," I breathe.

I move around to the other side of the table as Dean pulls up the message on the laptop on the table. It's a video message. I hold my breath as Dean starts it up.

"Sam, Dean, Max," says Kevin. "I've set up this message with some software on a remote server so it'd send itself to you if I didn't reset it with a command once a week. Which means I didn't reset it this week. And there's only one reason I wouldn't. Which means if you're watching this, then I...then I-I'm dead. I'm dead, you bastards! So screw you, screw God and everybody in between!"

I rub my temple. Damn it. We're too late.

"Crowley must've gotten to me. And the one thing I know is that I won't break this time. Not sure how I know, but-but I do. I've been uploading all my notes, the translations, I'm sending you the links so you can get all of it. You guys are gonna have to try to figure out the rest. I'm sorry." Kevin's eyes are tearing up. "I know it was my job, but I-I couldn't...I'm sorry."

I shake my head and move away. Poor Kevin. He was only helping us, and look where it got him. There's no other explanation for this. Kevin wouldn't have forgotten, he didn't seem like that kind of kid. He's gone. We lost the prophet, the only translator to help us figure out the final trial.

"Damn it!" Dean shouts. I cringe, spinning around to see books shoot off the table. I lick my lips nervously. Crowley got Kevin, and he'll get me next. Shit.

An uncomfortable silence falls in the bunker. My eyes fall back to Kevin's image on the screen. How disappointed he looks. How afraid and frustrated.

I swallow a big lump down my throat. "We better get all his notes printed out. Time to do this the old-fashioned way."

"I'll get on it," Sam says, clicking away on the laptop. My eyes fall to Dean next, who's stalking off towards one of the halls. I trail after him.

"Not now, Max," Dean says gruffly.

"Hey." I grab his arm, and he turns. I can see the grief, the outrage in his green eyes. It makes my heart ache. I almost see my reflection in him, with how I lost Emmett and Sophie. I was in his position once. I mourned for those children, and I also loathed myself for a while, blaming myself for their deaths. I take a step back, startled.

"What?"

"I know where this is coming from." I drop my hand from his arms. "I know, I've been here before."

"How?"

"The kids." I sniff. "I lost Emmett to a car. The driver sped off and left him to die in the road." I hug myself. "And Sophie...I lost her to bad health. So if you think I don't know what it feels like, then you don't know me as well as you think you do, Dean Winchester. But you have to get past this. It hurts, I get it."

"We should have just kept him here with us."

"Some things are out of our control."

"But this was in our control, Max!"

"Maybe, and maybe not," I say neutrally. "But you shouldn't let this get in the way. We still have work to do. You think you can get past this? Sam and I can't do this on our own. We need you on this."

Dean gives me a haunting smile. "How did I deserve you, Max?"

"Maybe we'll find out someday." I smile somberly. I take his hand and squeeze it firmly. "Come on, back to work."

Unfortunately, my definition of work and Dean's don't mix. The minute we get back into the bunker's library, we see Sam printing out Kevin's notes. Dean breaks off from me to make a call. I collect the printed pages and try to organize them.

"Yeah, I know you haven't see him, Keel, nobody has," says Dean. "Alright, well, if you talk to Garth, well, just have him call in. Yeah."

"Garth still MIA?" asks Sam.

"Yeah."

"How about the other prophets in line? I mean if Kevin is, uh...is dead, then won't one of them be activated?"

"Nothing, no, not a peep." There's a beat of silence. "Here we are. No lead, no tablet, squat."

"Well, we got all of this," I say, holding the notes.

"We should've moved him in here."

"Is this all of them, Sam?"

"Yup."

"Alright." I divide the stack into three sections. "Take your pick, and let's start reading."

I sit beside Sam, Dean is on the other side of the table. Just glancing at the extensive amount of notes makes my head spin. Those meds had to have kept the kid going. This is ridiculous. My eyes skim to pick out important things. Only trouble is I have no idea what's considered important out of this jumble of words. I scratch my head as I try to remain focused on note searching.

"Hmm," say Sam. "There is again, every time."

"Hmm?" Dean says.

"This symbol? I know it. Now, Kevin has it down as, as sort of like a signature, for the Scribe of God. It appears every time Metatron makes one of his, uh, like, editor's notes."

"Okay...?"

"But I think I've seen it before. I mean, it was a long time ago, it was one of my, uh, humanities courses at Stanford."

"They taught Word of God at Stanford?"

"No, uh, it was an overview of Native American art-I think it's a petroglyph."

I cock my head. "A pretro-what-now?"

Dean and I exchange befuddled looks as Sam goes to one of the shelves, book-hunting. It doesn't take him long, because he comes back, flipping through the pages, until he slams the book on the table, pointing towards the symbol.

"This one belonged to a tiny tribe in Colorado, more of a-a clan, really. It says here they hold on to their scrap of mountains when all the other tribes fell to the white men. So this glyph was a territorial marker-closest translation: 'messenger of God'. Messenger of God. Messenger of God-Dean, Max, we have to go there!"

"On that hunch?" I ask warily. "You can barely function."

"I'm only gonna get worse. I mean, until we get back to the real job, until we find the third trial-we're out of prophets! We're not gonna figure out what Kevin couldn't! I'd say we go to this messenger of God who wrote it in the first place!"

"And you think this Metatron is hiding out in the mountains with a bunch of Indians."

"Yeah! Yeah, I do. You're not-you're not really supposed to say Indians, it's...We should go." Sam walks off.

"He's delirious," Dean mutters.

* * *

Our drive takes us to Two Rivers Hotel, on Route 34 in Colorado. We all climb out after the Impala is parked and head inside.

"Nice place," I comment, letting my eyes roam. We're up at the desk, and Dean rings the bell that's there. The hotel manager comes almost immediately.

"Morning," says Dean. "Hi. Uh, we'd like a room? Here, please."

I keep an eye as Sam begins to wander a little bit while Dean signs us in.

"Did you hear that?" he whispers to Dean and me.

"Hear what?" I ask. I smile apologetically to the manager. "He has the flu."

The manager doesn't look too happy about my lie. I don't blame him, I wouldn't want someone ill being in my hotel either.

The manager hands us the key, and we begin the hunt for our room.

"Here, get him in," Dean tells me, handing me the key. "I'm gonna take a tour. If anything happens, take his phone and call me."

"Okay."

Dean pecks me on the cheek before I pull his ill brother along with me. Sam shakes his head from time-to-time, like he's got something in his ear. Or he's hearing something that Dean and I don't. Is it a side effect of the trials? But why is it happening now? He's never complained about hearing a noise before.

I nudge Sam over to one of the beds once I get the door open, as he's looking worse than ever now. I make sure to get him drinking too. I look down at Sam's large form spread on the bed. I feel the maternal instinct set in. I want to do everything possible to make him feel better. I sit on the other bed, making sure nothing happens.

Sam turns his head to me, and something comes over him. He's got a faraway look in his eyes. He blinks to make sure he's not dreaming it. I tilt my head, eyeing him strangely.

"Sam?" I murmur. "What's wrong?"

"You're here," he says.

My brows crinkle together.

"When'd you get here, Kota?"

I run my tongue over my teeth. Great, now he's hallucinating. As long as he doesn't get violent, I can manage him. I don't want to be mean and fuel his imagination, because he'll come out of this state.

"Sam, it's Max," I say carefully. "I'm not her, Sam."

"Sure you're not. And I'm not me."

I snort. "Sam, you're hallucinating. Dakota isn't here." I get off the bed and touch his forehead. "Jesus, you're worse." I debate taking Sam's phone and calling Dean. "Come on, Sam, you gotta see through this. I'm Max."

I stand up straight at the door opening. I breathe, relieved, as Dean enters. He gives me a strange look.

"Your brother's a little loopy," I report. "He thinks she's here. Dakota," I say after Dean doesn't understand. "I'm hoping it's just a quick phase and nothing more."

"But that's it?"

"He's still hot, but aside from those things, that's it. So, what'd you find out?"

"Regular tourist mecca we got here. We're the only guests in this whole place. Last entry in the registry was in oh-six."

"Hey, you remember when uh...when Dad took us to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, on that pack-mule ride?" Sam cuts us off.

"The what?"

"And you're, uh...your mule kept farting, just-l-letting go, like, gale force?"

"Dude, you were like, four years old. I barely remember that."

Sam laughs. "Your rode a farty donkey."

"Okay. Uh, I'm gonna go check out the Two Rivers Tribal Museum and Trading Post."

"Yeah. Yeah!" Sam sits up. "I'm gonna-I'm gonna, uh. I'm gonna follow the hotel manager, D-Doctor Scowley-Scowl. He's like a villain from Scooby-Doo."

"No, hey, uh, little big man? You should get some rest."

"Yeah, I can do that too." Sam plops back onto the bed.

Dean looks to me.

"I'll babysit," I sigh.

"I won't be long." He pecks me on the mouth this time before leaving the room.

I look down at Sam's form on the bed and sigh heavily. Dean, don't take too long.

**Poor Sammy baby. Just makes me wanna wrap him up in a thousand blankets.

Oh, yeah, and if anyone doesn't know who "Kota" is, well...read You Found Me to find out.**