The Bodyguard (is the Omega)

27.

Dean slumped with relief when he saw Benny's earnest face. Castiel's eyes slid over Dean questioningly but he made no comment. Ketch made the backdoor secure again while Gabriel worked on Benny's wound in the den. It was a nasty graze from a bullet, Benny had been banged up real good.

"I thought I would stay out there till the morning and help you guys get out on foot, he's cut the phone and power by now right?" Benny sighed when he saw Charlie's nod. "So I was making my way back from the post office when I saw a guy lying on the side of the road. I thought it was Dean but it wasn't. He got the jump on me and I punched him till he got off me. He was vicious but not that great a fighter. He shot me when I was getting back into the car but I thought I could still make it back here in one piece. Then he caught up with my car somehow, shot my tyres and I flipped the whole thing into a ditch. By the time I came to, he was long gone. I saw the explosion from miles away, took me this long to get back here on foot. I know I'm supposed to lie low in the woods in case the stalker showed up and ambushed you guys, but I figured dying out there wasn't worth any pay cheque or my pride."

Castiel shook his head. "You know the protocol Lafitte, you can't protect anybody in that state, I'm glad you came in."

"Figured you also needed the fax I got at the post office," Benny pulled an envelope out of his jacket.

Castiel read the document quickly, cursing as he flipped through the pages. "Take a look, Sam."

Sam's eyebrows raised up as he scanned the information. "A coroner's report from Donna Hanscum? Why is she sending this to you, I don't know this victim at all and it has nothing to do with Dean's stalker. I mean, this report is about a death at Angel Beach. That's miles from Dean's house."

"Look at the occupation," Castiel watched Gabriel wrap Benny's shoulders up tightly. Gabriel had cleaned and disinfected the wound. It had already stopped bleeding, Benny sat drinking soup hungrily as Gabriel strapped the last of the bandage up.

"Emergency worker, bled out," Sam cursed. "She's fucking clever."

"All ambulances have a serial number, they found one crashed on the interstate and Donna must have suspected that Michael faked his own death. So she tracked the serial number on the ambulance, just in case anything turns up."

"Nasty way to go, attacked by the walking dead," Ketch commented.

It was Jack who got everyone's attention when he wrinkled up his nose and said: "It was old."

He was breathing loudly and fast, a look of disquiet on his face as he strained to remember.

Dean sat Jack down, patting him on the back. "Hey, it's alright, don't think about it too hard."

"It was smokey like old blood," Jack managed to say when he felt calmer. "When I smelled the man on the gate from far away, it had smelt like he was dead. Long dead."

"But Hannah said he was still breathing, she's very detailed, how did he fool her?" Benny asked aloud.

"She would have gone back inside to use the phone to contact the police, she also had to lock down the compound and keep an eye on Jack. She would not have had much of a chance to examine him, she said he was still alive so he must have been," Castiel said.

Dean looked at Castiel astounded. It was Sam who articulated what everyone was thinking. "The ambulance officer, it was his blood on Micky D. Why bother with film makeup when you can Carrie yourself in the real thing?"